Preview from pc.ign.com [translation]
Three Hours in 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim'
Off on an Epic Adventure… Oh, a Butterfly!
Charles Onyett, October 17, 2011.
Having spent three hours in 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim', I spoke to no characters. I took no quests, engaged in no conversations, and learned nothing about the state of the world. Yes, I missed out on a lot of presumably interesting things: guild quests, the main storyline, rewards for completing townsfolk quests. I didn't care. I find it intriguing enough to explore the world on my own.
While I enjoy the narrative crafted by the writers, the ability to choose my own path is equally appealing. In the 'Elder Scrolls' series, it’s much easier to do that compared to RPGs like 'Dragon Age II', which shove players into narrow corridors between choice points. Skyrim is open for you. You can take the road to the nearest city or wander off into the wilderness, like I did.
Chasing a deer along the riverbank, I noticed dragonflies buzzing above my head, tried to catch one but failed, and eventually realized the deer had vanished from sight. Fish jumped at the edges, and standing on a rock in the rapid, I managed to catch one. Allowing the current to carry me down to the waterfall, I fell, came across the deer again, killed it, and watched as its body floated downstream, slapping against the rocks.
You might consider all this a waste of time, but such pastimes perfectly illustrate my love for 'The Elder Scrolls'. Skyrim, with its snow on rocky cliffs and drizzling rain pattering on the surface of ponds, feels real. There are many quests embedded in the game, but even more reasons to simply explore the world.
Take the alchemy system, for example. The fish caught from the river provides salmon, bone meal drops from defeated skeletons, and the mountain passes, fields, and stony hills are filled with collectible plants. Each ingredient gathered has certain properties. Some cause damage when consumed, while others enhance attributes. The best way to discover the properties of a specific ingredient? Well, consuming unknown herbs and strange substances will reveal their purpose, but the player will suffer harmful effects if any are found.
I discovered an alchemy table deep within a necromancer's lair, which I happened upon after swimming through the dark waters of a solitary lake. After passing a sunken wooden ship and a curious standing stone on a small island in the lake, I headed to the stone ruins on the shore. Inside the ruins was a hatch, and behind it—a flooded abode of extremely unfriendly mages.
With no quest-related reason to push further into the ruins, I felt no need to proceed. A skeleton tied to a post clearly hinted that I was not in for a pleasant time. But I braved past the ghastly scarecrow and delved into the sunken lair. It didn’t look like a dreary cave or a randomly generated dungeon; it appeared to be the result of designers and artists crafting a believable, lived-in, and unique location. My presence startled two necromancers who were seated at a long table in a half-ruined hall. Rolling down the staircase during the battle into their bedroom, I finally managed to defeat them, even despite their active use of ice magic.
Thus, I gained free access to their alchemy and enchanting workshops. At the alchemy table, you can select an ingredient from your inventory. Mixing items with similar properties will yield potions. A potion formula then appears in the alchemy window so that you can quickly brew potions when you have the required ingredients. Even if the properties of the ingredients are unknown, you can still attempt to mix them. If they are incompatible, they will simply vanish. If they are suitable for each other, surprise surprise, you get a potion.
Enchanting, which also requires a special table, is a bit more predictable. To enchant a new item, you first have to break an existing one. I stripped magical robes from necromancers, enhancing my destruction magic skill, and tore them at the table, obtaining enchanting essence. With a soul gem, the required item, and enchanting essence, you can enchant an item, which helped me significantly, as I focused on the destruction school in that game.
Though I could use a sword and shield, a mace, an axe, or a summoned magic sword, I primarily utilized the 'Flame' spell. In one hand, it appears as a stream of fire, igniting the ground and enemies at short distances, dealing decent damage. In both hands, it doubles the streams. And if you’ve acquired talents from the 'Destruction' tree, you can combine the streams, increasing the damage.
Talent trees exist for every skill category, including various schools of magic, one-handed weapons, types of armor, and so forth. Since I was focusing on 'Destruction' without paying attention to other branches, I got a few nice improvements by level five. Many actions in 'Skyrim' increase some skill. If you pick a few locks, you’ll improve your lockpicking skill. If you take hits frequently, your armor skill will increase. When enough skills level up, your overall character level increases, allowing the player to raise one of three stats: mana, health, and stamina. Stamina affects running duration and the amount of energy for particularly powerful strikes, while mana is spent on spells. If you plan to play as a mage, it’s best to increase your mana, which I did at every level.
Leveling up your character also grants the player a point that can be invested in one of the talent branches. Points cannot just be spent on anything; the character must meet the talent's requirements. For instance, I managed to unlock a talent that increases fire magic damage by a quarter only by raising the destruction magic skill to the required level through constant use. If I had played a warrior, slashing everything alive with a two-handed weapon and disregarding the 'Flame' spell and the destruction school entirely, the skill value in this category would have been too low to unlock any talent.
Thus, it makes sense to focus on one thing. I invested in the destruction tree, gaining bonuses to spell effectiveness and damage, as well as unlocking a ability that increased the effect of dual-wielding the spell, not only in gameplay; this change was reflected in the visual part of the spell—my character made a gesture like Ryu from 'Street Fighter' and merged the streams into one. I am already eager to see how this improvement will change the appearance of other spells in the destruction school, of which there are plenty, both fire and ice, and electric.
Around this time, I got lost. I didn’t even want to pull up the immensely detailed and useful world map to figure out where I was and chart a path back to civilization. It was enjoyable just wandering around and dealing with problems as they arose. In the middle of a field, I found rotating stones etched with glyphs, along with a switch at the center. Of course, there was some combination that would open a nearby grate, but after a couple of minutes, I still hadn't solved the puzzle. The sun set, and I saw a bright campfire in the distance. Near the fire, I was greeted by two mammoths and a giant, so I had to make a quick exit.
I also discovered: a dungeon populated by draugr with some cool gear; an alchemist's hut that I rummaged through for soul gems and other magical knickknacks; a mysterious tree guarded by a fierce spriggan, who nearly killed me in an instant. Finally, I climbed a high snowy mountain nearby; among the eerie black stone ruins at the pass, there was a Word Wall inscribed with dragon scripts. Too bad it was guarded by three frost trolls, each capable of squashing me with a single slap.
I had clearly ventured further than I should have, but the captivating feeling that at any moment you could stumble upon a fairytale treasure, a mysterious puzzle, or a deadly creature made every step away from the city with its quests all the more valuable. Someday I will get to the main storyline, but while immersing myself in the fantastical world of Skyrim to escape reality, sometimes I just want to create my own adventure instead of following the path laid out by others.
Translation by the author.
Thanks for the provided material — mchammer.
Thanks for proofreading — Kavem.
Thanks for the offline post editor — Midest.
Thanks for the support — Sinmara.