Skyrim EP52: It’s All One Big Yoke

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Jul 23, 2014

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 107 comments


Link (YouTube)

Yeah, we’ve reached the part of the season where we’re all just phoning it in and recycling the stuff we’ve done before. (Although be sure to check out Rutskarn’s freestyle Skyrim Draugr fanfiction at the 15 minute mark.)

In fairness, Skyrim is just as out of ideas as we are. This is a parade of missed opportunities and disappointments. We capture a dragon, which sounds dangerous and audacious but ends up being awkward and stilted. We speak with it, but it just info-dumps on us with no character development, worldbuilding, or player agency. Then we “ride” the dragon, but it’s just a scripted fast-travel. It carries us to the ends of the earth, but it looks exactly like the places we’ve already visited. We arrive at the home of the big bad, but it’s just another mook maze filled with the most-overused monster in the game. We enter his lair, but it’s the same dungeon assets, sounds, and foes we’ve seen dozens of times already. There are puzzles, but they’re all recycled from earlier in the game.

Even if you’re criminally unambitious and lazy, you could still decorate the dungeon with red lights for zero cost, so the place feels somehow different from all the others.

The next episode will finish off Skyrim for good.

 


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107 thoughts on “Skyrim EP52: It’s All One Big Yoke

  1. Izicata says:

    You totally can get 100% shout cooldown reduction by abusing the Fortify Restoration glitch. You just drink a potion of Fortify Restoration 8097906% or whatever and put on an Amulet of Talos, just like using the glitch to boost your Alchemy gear to ridiculous heights. It’ll last for as long as you keep the amulet equipped, too.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I think that Josh mentioned that the amulet is not part of the vanilla skyrim.I cant confirm this though,because it has been long since Ive played it.

      1. Raygereio says:

        The amulet is in the vanilla game.
        It can’t be disenchanted however, so you can’t learn the Fortify Shout effect.

        1. Heron says:

          I ended up with 6 or 7 Amulets of Talos stuck in my inventory, because the game marked them all as essential and wouldn’t let me drop any of them, even if I was wearing one of them, and even after I had completed the main storyline…

          1. Raygereio says:

            You looted the corpse of the guy that was executed the first time you enter Solitude, didn’t you?
            If you pick up that particular amulet of talos, all those amulets become quest items until you complete the related quest.

      2. Wide And Nerdy says:

        All the Amulets of the Divines are in the vanilla game in fact.

  2. nstll says:

    “You went to a great deal of trouble to put me in this… humiliating position.” – Odahviing

    Sums up this season.

  3. RTBones says:

    Skyrim fatigue is setting in with the SW crew – which means its probably a good thing Josh has his 8000 percent Gloves of Death that one-shot almost everything. The slog is almost done.

    Having said that, watching Josh go through this as fast as he did reminded me of my first playthrough. I was under-powered for this part of the end game, so these ruins were a slog. The silly part? The upcoming fight with Alduin was almost a non-event for me. Not quite sure how or why, but the final battle went really quickly.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Skyrim fatigue is setting in with the SW crew ““ which means its probably a good thing Josh has his 8000 percent Gloves of Death that one-shot almost everything. The slog is almost done.”

      If only he had infinite health as well,so that we dont have to watch him pause every 30 seconds to hide and suck his restoration thumb.But I guess fortify magicka will pay off in some major way by the end.Why else would the rest of the crew ask him to pick that over health,right?

      1. Josh says:

        I was planning on maxing armor by breaking smithing too, but decided against it because at the time I think the rest of the cast would have lynched me for wasting more time.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          So what you are saying is that we see a reined in Josh?That is a frightening notion.

          1. Humanoid says:

            It just means that looting urns is a corollary to sniping dogs with the Holo-rifle, a means of petty revenge. :P

            1. James says:

              does that mean that shamus right before the end game is going to say “ok josh go ahead and do 4 episodes on breaking smithing”?

              1. MichaelGC says:

                I think that would probably mean Josh doing four episodes entirely by himself.

                Which I would totally watch. :D

  4. Without meaning to, I think Rutskarn produced not only freestyle fanfic, he created a metacommentary on RPG lore: No matter how deep or awesome it is, it all culminates in some jerk bunny-hopping up to it and punching it in the face, the end.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Its especially jarring when you think about it in games where you fight a plethora of enemies,especially if that plethora is composed of a bunch of practically immortal demons and ancient mummies and liches.

    2. Grudgeal says:

      Well we’ve all seen the alternative, and I think we can agree that removing any player agency over the fate of the world is even worse.

  5. I whip my camera back and forth
    I whip my camera back and forth (just whip it)
    I whip my camera back and forth…

    1. Grudgeal says:

      When a problem comes along – you must whip it!
      When the crew stands still too long – you must whip it!
      When something’s going on – you must whip it!
      Now whip it – into shake!
      Shake it up – get straight!
      Go forward – move ahead!
      Try to detect it – it’s all too late!
      To whip it – whip it good!

      1. Adding a whip to the game would’ve been interesting. Enchant that sucker and we’d have Indiana Catbert.

  6. Klay F. says:

    Sovngard is even worse than the draugr IMO. Its just like every other place in Skyrim, just with a different skybox. Add in all these supposedly legendary figures, and they’re just…regular dudes. They couldn’t even be bothered with making them taller than normal or texturing them differently, or giving them special armor. So damned lazy.

    1. Tizzy says:

      The first time I played, it really felt like they simply ran out of time and that most ofthe end material was placeholder for something that had been planned more awesome. Like the dragon riding. Sure, it makes tons of sense to want to save it fornthe DLC, but doesn’t it sound likely that they still intended something more spectacular for this particular scene? In order to whet the player’s appetite? You could do that and still save the best of the dragon riding for a DLC…

      1. I vaguely recall there it contained the largest banquet table to Fus Ro Dah into chaos in the game, so there’s that…

  7. lucky7 says:

    “it is wise to recognize when you only have one choice.”

    Is it the dragon or Bethesda saying that?

    1. Cybron says:

      I assume all dialogue that makes me angry is just Bethesda taunting me directly.

      Even in non-Bethesda games.

      1. MichaelGC says:

        ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL of the camera.

        1. Not MichaelGC But Someone With a Similar Avatar says:

          I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS Thieves Guild tool to shove his oar in.

          1. MichaelGOCD says:

            ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US draugr.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      What is the point of making it a choice then?Why not just use the old “Are you ready to depart now?” instead?The same effect,only less stupid in presentation.

    3. Arven says:

      No, Bethesda, I do in fact have another choice. There’s no way Alduin can build Skuldafin in the short time he got back. He must’ve found an old temple and remake his portal there.
      You know what that means? That means old-party-dragon can drove me there. And I bet he will send me directly to the portal instead of a draugr infested ruin below it like this jerk.

    4. Grudgeal says:

      I think what the game means is “only one option“. ‘Choice’ indicates there was something else we *could* have done as an alternative in order to finish the story.

      Or not, since “screw you guys and the story you rode in on, I’m going to go do guild quests and dick around in some tombs” is a perfectly valid alternative on how to play Skyrim.

  8. Rick says:

    So a while ago I posted here about how Spoiler Warning convinced me to try Morrowind. Some people showed interest in my response to it as a first time player, and I realized I left them hanging. The reason I did so is because I didn't have much to say, but seeing as Skyrim is wrapping up, I'll give my opinion:

    There are huge amounts of screen tearing, and when I used a mod for v-sync, it replaced the screen tearing with equal amounts of stuttering.

    That is literally as far as I could analyze before giving up and lying down. See, remember how Shamus talked about stuttering on VR causing huge issues like headaches for the players? Well, I'm like that all the time.

    This is a shame as I'd like to look closer at it’s mechanics, like how asking “tell me more about X” is done through clicking on the subject when someone brings it up, or by using a growing list of options in the side bar (which I have seen done in other games, but never to this extent). Another being how starting character creation seemed to actively discourage roleplaying, in favor of stats. But I can't really comment on any of that because I can't play long enough to get past the first hour.

    I feel awful asking here (and posting elsewhere is a recipe for frustration), but is there any way to get rid of screen tearing and stuttering, is that an issue everyone has and just has to put up with, or am I just lucky? Thanks.

    1. Bubble181 says:

      I personally never had either issue, sorry. I know that’s about the least useful answer you can get, but it’s all I can say. I did play it fairly close to release, on then-modern hardware and software. Are you playing it on vastly more modern stuff (Win8 or such)? Could be a compatibility issue….

      Good luck!

    2. Eric says:

      As far as I am aware, Skyrim automatically uses v-sync. The only reason it might not is if you changed the iPresentInterval setting to 0 in skyrim.ini.

      You could also try forcing v-sync on the executable in your video card driver control panel.

      I have no idea why you’d need to use a mod to enable v-sync.

      1. Humanoid says:

        Maybe it’s that Morrowind is so old you need to play it on a CRT for compatibility. :P

      2. Rick says:

        The screen tearing problem I’m referring to is for Morrowind, not Skyrim, but I can see how my wording could cause confusion.

        1. MichaelGC says:

          Seems to be a fairly common problem – here are several suggestions (this link chosen somewhat at random from a quick search):

          http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1301-morrowind-general-tweak-guide/

    3. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Yeah,thats one of the big problems of playing old games.Thats why I had to make huge breaks when I was replaying some of the old fps games I liked.

      What we need is some neat emulation software for old games(if only the “compatible with windows [version]” button worked),or have more companies like gog.In another 10 years maybe.I can only hope.

      1. MichaelGC says:

        Ah, yes, “compatibility mode.” We have dismissed this claim.

        Honestly, it’s like “Windows is checking online for a solution to the problem.” C’mon, Windows, you & I both know you’re doing no such thing.

    4. Ed Lu says:

      It’s interesting, I always told my brother I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about when he told me I had massive amounts of screen tearing. It barely bothers me at all, but it seems that it affects people differently.

      In any case, you may want to give Morrowind Graphics Extender a try (unless it’s the mod you are referring to as not working). I recall there being a vsync option there, but I can’t remember if I ever tried it.

  9. Thomas says:

    “I know palette swapping is frowned upon, but I don’t think it was the ‘look how many varieties of colour our enemies have’ part that people wanted to stop”

    1. Rick says:

      I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. I've always believed people dislike of palette swapping because it shows laziness. The developers reused and old enemy with almost zero effort, rather than create a new interesting one. However that would still be preferable to Skyrim's “reuse an old enemy exactly, with no effort.”

      Are you implying a different reason for the dislike of palette swapping? If so I'd love to hear it.

      1. Thomas says:

        Shamus made the comment about wishing for some palette swapping, and it made me smile because people hate palette swapping because it’s lazy but just copying the same enemy again and again _without_ palette swapping is kind of missing the point :P So I was mocking that with my comment. ‘Hey Bethesda, I don’t think people were complaining about having too many colours’ [They were complaining about lazyness]

        Of course now I have Explained The Joke, which you must never ever do. In my defence, the joke wasn’t funny.

        1. Rick says:

          I apologize for forcing you into this most grave comedic sin.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      People hate palette swapping because it usually means having just 3 or 4 types of enemies that are repeated ad nauseam with different colors.But if you have dozens of enemies in your game,theres nothing wrong with populating a single dungeon with multiple versions of just a single type.

      Of course,this wouldnt help skyrim because they populate EVERY dungeon with just one type of enemy.

      1. Corpital says:

        Now that isn’t fair! You often have one or two spiders or skeevers between the endless hordes of the undead.

  10. Dirigible says:

    Rutskarn totally left that joke in over at chocolatehammer, by the way.

    1. Cybron says:

      he didn’t call out Todd Howard by name, though. Which I think is probably the correct choice.

  11. AJax says:

    Dragon Shouts have such long cooldowns in vanilla Skyrim, they may as well be useless. Like I sometimes forget that I can actually shout dudes off a cliff and instead just mash the attack key endlessly to solve my problems. Downloading a mod that dramatically reduces the majority of the shouts to 5-10 seconds made the combat so much more fun and opened a lot more options it’s not even funny. I mean you can argue that having Fus-Ro-Dah on a short is kinda OP but I rather have that than constantly engaging with Skyrim’s medicore weak, combat system.

    Also, it blows my mind having played Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in the same time period Skyrim released and thinking how the former did dungeons soooo much better than the latter despite being a 2006 Wii/Gamecube game. People excuse Skyrim’s bad dungeons because “There is so much content in this open world! They can’t possibly design all of them properly”, I have to ask, why bother creating so much medicore to bad content to pad out your game?

    I would seriously rather have fewer quests and dungeons and an overall smaller open-world so they can dedicate their resources properly to polishing them. I mean you already spend so much time in dungeons in this game, make it interesting. Not boring and plodding, Bethesda.

    1. Eric says:

      I am not sure it’s fair or wise to directly compare the dungeons in a Zelda game – a puzzle-solving action-adventure – to Skyrim’s, which is primarily a combat-heavy action-RPG focused on breadth of content rather than detail.

      1. AJax says:

        You’re right. It’s just that on a regular Skyrim playthrough, the player already spends so much time involved in both combat and dungeon crawling, that at least those elements should be stronger than they already are. Personally speaking I wouldn’t mind if Bethesda focused on a smaller open world with fewer dungeons so that designers can have more time polishing and designing more interesting content within those dungeons instead of creating more but less interesting ones.

        But one of the biggest selling points of Elder Scrolls games is that they have “Lots of stuff to do!” so I can’t see Bethesda taking that route in the future.

      2. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Actually,it is fair.If you compare the variety of puzzles in a zelda game to the variety of enemies in skyrim.If zeldas puzzles mostly feel well placed,well paced,fun and unique enough,then it is made better than skyrim.

        I cant say if they do,however,because Ive never played a zelda game.

        1. Wide And Nerdy says:

          I’d take a look at the latest Sequelitis. Egoraptor has a lot to say about Ocarina’s puzzles (loved that game but Ego’s complaints were generally spot on). A lot of them were just “look around this room and shoot a thing” though there were certainly other types of puzzles.

          Now what Zelda consistently did right was making a satisfying number of items that had truly meaningful mechanical variety. Most rpgs are “oh boy, this sword does 3% more damage than my old sword and deals cold damage instead of fire damage”. Zelda had upgrades but they were fewer and much bigger. Finding the next best sword in a Zelda game generally meant enemies went down in half the time. Getting better armor meant enemies did half as much damage. And this also kept the dungeons fun.

          The items are really what made the dungeon puzzles feel like they had variety but the puzzle element was mostly just “find the right thing and use the right item on it.” They require no more brain power than Skyrim’s three pillars puzzles.

          1. Trix2000 says:

            Depends on the item and the puzzle – some of them had some very interesting and tricky combinations.

            That said, a lot of them weren’t that difficult.

    2. Humanoid says:

      The only Skyrim save which I played long enough to even learn shouts was with a one-shotting thief character, so I never actually had a single occasion to legitimately use any shouts in combat (and as far as I can remember, I never did). Watching this season with Josh impatiently waiting for the cooldown, I’m glad I went the way I did.

      Besides, knocking people *away* from you makes it take longer to kill them in general.

      1. AJax says:

        Yeah, but it’s also an effective crowd control technique. I like blowing enemies away then continually wail on them while they’re trying to get up. Also really effective against damage soaking Bandit Chiefs.

      2. modus0 says:

        Well, unless you shout them off a cliff, which is a guaranteed death.

      3. Tizzy says:

        But… You have tonuse shouts every so often. All the other waysbof disposing of your foes in Skyrim are so generic and boring!

        1. Trix2000 says:

          I always forget they exist. :/

  12. Kana says:

    So, is that actually what Draugr are supposed to be in Skyrim, or was Rutskarn just adding for a cooler story? I always figured the tombs had money in them for a sort of Rivers Styx thing so I never touched it. Unless someone got up to yell at me.

    Like, all right buddy, you just lost the right to your retirement pay. I’m takin’ the gold and the sword, you go sit in the corner.

    1. In the lore, drauger are, I believe, adherents to the Dragon Cultists (the lich-dudes) and give them their life-force-soul-whatever to keep them going over the centuries. They also act as guards in addition to being lich-batteries, though the benefit of this soul-giving seems limited to letting the lich-people have shouts or other powers, because they all look just as decomposed as their guardians do.

      As for the gold, I want to say there’s a bit of a horned-helmet tip towards that idea, as many stationary drauger will have two gold coins on them (supposedly one coin for each eye), but given that its also in the urns, chests, etc. it’s probably mostly there because tombs have gold in them or it’s not a fantasy adventure game. :)

      1. Grudgeal says:

        Members of the Norse upper class (chieftains and kings) tended to get buried with their favourite possessions and some small portion of their wealth. Most of it went to their next-of-kin, of course, but some small token of their wealth — some rings and coins and personal items — would be buried/burnt with the body so they would have some bling to show off to their buddies in the afterlife.

        Also, being buried with sword in hand was seen as a sort of loophole: Valhalla/Folkvangr (the ‘good’ Norse afterlives) were technically only open to those who died as warriors. Being taken by regular old age or sickness or non-battle-related death meant your spirit went to Hel, which wasn’t nearly as cool an afterlife (not that bad, just not as cool). Dying gripping a sword was a way to gain entry to the former. In either case the Norse believed heavily in preparing the spirit for the journey to whatever afterlife you were bound for, which meant burial with whatever could be spared (which for the poor was not much at all, and for the rich could be quite a bit).

        Christianity put a stop to much of that, of course. Unlike in Norse mythology, you weren’t allowed to bring anything with you to Heaven and having grave-robbers dig up graves (which the pagans suffered enough of) on sacred soil just didn’t sit well.

        This, of course, doesn’t necessarily explain anything about why evil-dragon-worshipping mass-buried draugr in Skyrim get that treatment.

        1. Humanoid says:

          Sucks for those Vikings who put their skill points into axes then.

        2. Kana says:

          Nice, always fun to learn about cultural traditions from the past. Thanks for sharing that!

      2. Kana says:

        Okay, I feel less bad about taking their stuff now. Still going to leave the napping ones alone, but anyone who comes to tango is free game.

  13. Tizzy says:

    Scripting in Skyrim terrified me. As soon as any quest required more than the most barebones of scripting, I would tremble waiting to see how my innocent actions would break the script and forever ruin the quest.

    I can’t think of any recent game where I this impression was so strong, even though, to be fair, I played buggier games. But it really felt like the Skyrim scripting could not handle unusual events very gracefully.

    1. Microwaviblerabbit says:

      I agree that Skyrim’s scripting is terrible, especially in scripted boss fights. Even without using the fortify restoration glitch you can easily build a character who can one shot bosses, except half the time this glitches the game and makes them unkillable. The DLCs were really bad with this.

      It is worse in Skyrim than in Fallout 3 or Oblivion because scripting is used so heavily. Fallout 3’s climax – big stomping robot walks in straight line, you shoot dudes, make dialogue choices. Skyrim’s climax – first trap a dragon in a scripted sequence, then fight through a long dungeon, then go through several cut-scenes, then fight a massively scripted multi-part final battle. It is so much more complex, and doesn’t deliver on the game’s promise of awesome dragon fights. At least Fallout 3 showed you a giant robot, then used it. Skyrim gives you a new dragon friend, then relegates him to a taxi. If you are going to remove player agency, at least make the spectacle decent.

      1. Wide And Nerdy says:

        The only part of any of that in the main quest you mentioned that I ever had problems with was the dragon trap and even then it didn’t ever actually get stuck (there was a problem with your character not lining up with the dragon as you flew out but it didn’t actually stop anything and they’ve fixed that.)

        As for the DLCs, the only place where one shotting is a problem is Miraak. The solution is simple, equip lesser equipment. I only found it a problem when getting into the enchantment alchemy cheese loop. If I just maxed smithing, weapon skill, and used normal enchantments I don’t one shot Miraak.

        What I will say is while I’m the first person to roll out the ‘big game means inevitable bugs’ argument, I will agree that they could stand to pay more attention to their big scripted events, like the dragon trap and the Miraak battle.

  14. Sorites says:

    I would watch the hell out of Josh’s Embarrassing Mod Showcase.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “And with this mod,every NPC will be bunny hopping all the time.Now if we couple that with this nude mod for both females and males,and this realistic jiggling and flapping mod,we get…”

      Are you still sure you would want to watch that?

      1. Wide And Nerdy says:

        They wouldn’t do the second part. They’ve said that they think nude mods are creepy.

  15. Bryan says:

    At 1:12 or 1:13 — “I can see my house from here!”

  16. This makes Fallout 3 look so much better by comparison, both in Spoiler Warning and on my computer.

    I wonder if the mechanics like karma, while flawed, forced the devs to at least put a few more choices in F3 than in Skyrim. Having only the “stolen” flag as a means of making NPCs react to you in any way but what would be considered “normal” just didn’t cut it.

  17. Rob says:

    There’s an excellent mod out there for Oblivion that adds true dragon riding (IIRC, it’s called Akatosh Mount). Considering just how many of the minor improvements in Skyrim’s gameplay and presentation are cribbed from Oblivion mods, it’s astonishing that they didn’t pick the one that’s actually relevant to Skyrim’s story.

    Hopefully with the new console generation’s improved memory we can have unified wilderness and city map cells, and flight will become a thing again in the next Elder Scrolls.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Wait,you actually can have real dragon riding with a skyrim engine?Does…does that mean that we will finally get actual vehicle driving in fallout 4?Please say yes.Please!

      1. Corpital says:

        Do you want it because your car would have cart-physics or do you want it despite cart-physics?

        Colliding with a minor bump in the road and suddenly accelerating into space with the speed of sound will probably lose it’s charm after the first twenty times.

        1. Wide And Nerdy says:

          They could ramp up the inertia on the vehicle.

      2. Ciennas says:

        Honestly, i’m surprised they didn’t include horses or some form of mount in Fallout 3. It was in Oblivion, it’s not like it would be impossible to include.

        What’s sufficiently horse-like in Fallout lore?

        1. Humanoid says:

          I think New Vegas planned to add a usable car, but ultimately it was too difficult to do with the engine (predictably).

          1. Ciennas says:

            I remember reading about exactly that. That’s why I suggested horse coding.

            That already existed and was proven to work (Oblivion) so I wonder if there’s something mountable in Fallout lore without being that Buttercup thing.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Because horses cant explode when you shoot them.Duh.

              1. Cinemas says:

                Or can they? I mean, they could have a scaled up mecha horse for some factions, and those could explode satisfyingly enough when sufficiently damaged. (I imagine that the Enclave would look impressive sweeping a hillside on those, while Vertibirds provided air support.)

                Or you could introduce some rider friendly variant of enemy, like the geckos from New Vegas.

                Or go for broke and make those mind controlled deathclaws from F3 ridable.

        2. Nidokoenig says:

          Yao Guai Cavalry.

          1. Ciennas says:

            YES. That would have been damn impressive for any faction, and it would have made the most sense with the tribes in Honest Hearts.

            And it would solve the ‘my horse is engaging in combat with a DRAGON’ problem that the elder scrolls games have. The Yao Guai already tank pretty well as it stands.

  18. MichaelGC says:

    This has been a great season. Thanks!

    PS Was Mumbles off smoking cigarettes for most of this episode?

    PPS I believe the dragons only do the full crash-landing animation at certain areas of the map – I think there’s like 8 or 10 of them. Not entirely sure why, as it’s not as if they don’t glitch into solid rock anyway when crashing at the special earmarked landing strips…

    1. I think it also has to do with area available. If you’re near a bunch of “stuff,” the dragon will find the nearest “legal” landing zone. I know you can ground them in the magic college courtyard (I used that place as my base, so they were having to shovel dragon bones out of the way of the main entrance every other day).

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “PS Was Mumbles off smoking cigarettes for most of this episode?”

      No,she was…um,tenderizing some meat for dinner.By repeatedly punching it in the face.

      1. Humanoid says:

        For a good rump steak, she’d need to be punching its butt.

  19. His nose looks like the Skeksis from Dark Crystal.

    1. Humanoid says:

      It’d make for a pretty decent ancient Mayan Mask of DEATH as well.

  20. Dragomok says:

    Typo: Dragur instead of Draugr. (Though maybe Rutskarn intentionally misspelled that in the episode. I don’t know yet, I’ll be watching it in a minute.)

  21. Daemian Lucifer says:

    What is it with skyrim and talking into dragons nostrils?The same happened with the last one you encountered.One would expect that such a huge creature would actually turn a side of its head (where i has its ears) towards you so that it could hear you as well with your tiny squeaky voice.Unless…are they saying that dragons are listening with their noses?

  22. Grudgeal says:

    Let’s give it up for Jenassa indeed. I was expecting her to go the same way as Lydia but it looks like she got lucky enough to avoid friendly fire. Of course, mostly that’s because of Skyrim’s generous protection of its NPCs. Imagine what Skyrim would play like without that protection: We’d get dead hirelings littering the landscape and tombs in the Dragonborn’s wake, the player acting like an adventurer in Munchkin, or Nodwick. Well, even more so.

    “Ah, darn it, hireling whats-her-name is dead *again*. Now I have to leave all that useless junk I foisted on her here while I go to Whiterun and hire a new one. Wait, maybe I’ve still got some duct tape around here somewhere…”

    If anything the NPC immortality is only piling on the abuse since we know leaving Jenassa to fight that dwarven death-bot on her own won’t kill her.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Actually,having them vulnerable might have made the players more careful.Remember the original fallout*drink* and the pains player went through just so they could keep the companions alive.Despite the original intent of the developers being for them to be nothing more than disposble equipment for you to use and throw away.

      EDIT:What?No moderation!For shame filter,for shame.

      1. Grudgeal says:

        True, but that was mainly because a) they were a limited resource and therefore valuable by their rarity, b) an actually flavourful and interesting part of the game-world as opposed to a generic ‘cannon fodder R’ us’ option the game foists at you repeatedly, and c) you were actively trying to keep them alive out of spite despite the game’s constant attempts to kill them off.

        1. Humanoid says:

          Also despite the attempts of those selfsame NPCs to kill *you* off.

  23. Steve C says:

    “Steady! Steady, now! Keep und” [gwah!]

  24. silver Harloe says:

    I may only have one choice, but the yokes on you, Odahviing.
    Now quit dragon on this conversation, I have some unbridled fury to unleash on Alduin.

    1. silver Harloe says:

      I’m just surprised these weren’t used in the video, guess Rutskarn decided to reign in the puns

      1. ObsidianNebula says:

        Yeah, I’m impressed that he was able to restrain himself.

  25. Groboclown says:

    I’m guessing that the end of the game isn’t so much that Bethesda “ran out of time.” Rather, I think this is a general trend in video games now, especially with long games like this one. There’s various statistics floating around out on the Internet that report that only a really small portion of the players actually finish a game of this size, and you can bet that the early reviewers don’t have the time to get to the end-game content.

    So I can see an executive decision to push all the big money towards the beginning game content. Anyone who actually makes it to the end game content at least is given *something*, and they’re probably already invested so much into the game that their whining won’t be heard to the all important initial week sales.

    And for anyone who looks at the end game and thinks, “hey, I want to really ride a dragon, and not this cut-scene stuff,” Bethesda will tell you, “you can buy more of the game after you bought the game to get the stuff you wanted.”

    1. Dromer says:

      Bethesda actually had a game-jam type thing where the released all of their subteams to do independent projects on Skyrim shortly after it was released. A lot of what would later come in DLCs (crossbows, hitting stuff on horseback) came from that. I have a hard time seeing this as a cash-grab, because most game developers, while adherent to corporate profit margins, don’t want to alienate their fanbase. Don’t attribute to malice what can be attributed to lack of communication.

      1. Groboclown says:

        Your explanation sounds more reasonable than my off-handed snark. However, I’m not the first (by far) to point out that modern games put big money into early content, which seems to starve later content.

        On this point, though, that seems to be the way of some video games throughout their history. There’s plenty of examples of old games that have really bad end-game material. Zero Wing being the first one that pops into mind.

        [Edit] This is actually a trope, “Dummied Out” without a link to save those who don’t want TV tropes to ruin another day.

        1. Ciennas says:

          I think Bethesda deserves far more credit for customer service than what is being given. They really do genuinely try to please their fans and customers, listening to feedback, and having it at least acknowledged by the next iteration of that IP.

          Compare to EA or Ubisoft, who have this weird hate-hate relationship with their customers, and keep blundering through the clearly labeled field of landmines and thorn bushes because they refuse to hear anybody.

          Aside from that one time with the Horse Armor, Bethesda have proven themselves remarkably adept at giving their players what they want, and placing themselves into a position to profit from those wants in an organic wholesome way.

          Fallout 3’s ending being one of the best examples of a happy ending for all parties.

  26. Joey245 says:

    When I played this part for the first time, I was (role)playing as a Redguard lady who was really good with swords and stuff. So the endless draugr fight was actually pretty fun for me – it’s actually one of my fondest memories of that playthrough. I was constantly switching up what weapons I was using, swapping between shouts, double swords, two-handers, sword and shield, bound weapons, and simple (yet effective) Destruction spells as I (as my character) slaughtered my way through unending hordes of draugr.

    I remember actually yelling out something along the lines of “I am Taryn the Restless! I am the Dovahkiin – the Dragonborn, the One They Fear, the Bane of Alduin himself! And YOU! WILL NOT! Stand in my way!”

    The rest of my family gave me strange looks, but I’m used to that by now. :)

  27. Lord ZYRK says:

    Does anyone know what the screaming is in the background around 9:30 in?

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