Whatever Wednesday: Skyrim WTF Moments

I have Skyrim. I put off buying the game as long as possible and actually put off playing it for nearly a week after I bought it. I even managed to limit how much I played the game at first. Eventually, the will to play the game overtook me. I can put it down and will do so if there is something else going on. However, wanting to put it down... not as easy.

As anyone who has played Skyrim can tell you, there are glitches. Oh, how there are glitches in this game! However, they can be typically overlooked. And so I'm going to do just that. Instead, I'm going to talk about three things in Skyrim that drive me absolutely crazy and are part of the reason I feel this game is highly overrated.

Blacksmith Dialog

In Skyrim you have skills that can rise up to level 100. Skills are raised by performing the skill. As the skill gets higher in level, you can learn perks that allow you to do more with the skill. The Smithing skill has a perk available at level 100 that allows you to make Dragon Armor. Dragon Armor is the best armor in the game that I'm aware of and can only be crafted. In order to raise the crafting skill, it requires a lot of Smithing. After reading online, the best choice for leveling the skill is by making Iron Daggers. Iron Daggers use 1 Iron Ingot and 1 Leather Strap. It takes a lot of Iron Daggers to match the skill.

You can get iron two ways. You can find iron mines and mine them (slow process) or you can hop from city to the city and buy iron from the various blacksmiths (fast process). I picked the latter, more expensive process for maxing my skills. In doing so, I quickly learned something about the game that makes me want to fire bomb Bethesda. All of the blacksmiths recorded the same dialog for their shop script. There are about four or five lines in total when you speak to the blacksmith, but they are identical. The only thing that changes is the voice speaking.

And these are some of those precious lines:

Blades, helmets, pretty much anything to suit your needs

Looking to protect yourself or deal some damage?

So Bethesda pulled multiple voice actors into a sound studio and had them read the exact same script. What the fuck?

Sneak Attack AI

I'm going to tell you a story of three bandits. For this story, we shall call them Larry, Curly, and Moe. Larry, Curly and Moe were sitting around talking one day when an arrow suddenly appeared in the forehead of Curly. This act greatly upset Larry and Moe. They responded to this by running around the immediate area looking for the source of the arrow. After about thirty seconds, they decided the arrow's source could not be found.

“I thought I heard something,” Larry said.

“Must have been my imagination,” Moe said.

The two returned to the table, walking over the body of Curly. Moe, was at least kind enough to look at Curly and say, “I'll get kill whoever did this!” Then, Moe and Larry returned to their coversation.

At which point, Moe suddenly became a unicorn. This alarmed Larry who ran around for thirty seconds looking for the source of the arrow. Not feeling too original, he returned to his spot at the table saying, “It must have been my imagination.”

He stood there for a few seconds before he, too, became victim to the imaginary arrows.

The Quest Dump

In Skyrim, you can do these things called quests. You wouldn't know that from the look of my game. I only currently have 22 main quests, 24 miscellaneous quests, and 20 completed quests. Many of these quests, according to the NPC, must be completed IMMEDIATELY before great peril befalls the lands. Me, I prefer to ignore the quests over those that are less time sensitive such as the “Hide and Seek” quest and the quests to find 10 Fire Salts.

I'm also particularly fond of the quests that launch automatically.  They work even better if you are talking to someone else first when the NPC just walks up to you and starts talking. There is nothing like two people giving you quests at the same time to simulate the frustrations of real life.

I also love how I'll walk into a town, run into somebody who will declare that I'm the perfect person to complete this quest. Maybe my reputation for gathering lost [item of family heritage] from the [local cave] that has been stolen by bandits is starting to spread. Or maybe he just noticed I'm carrying 200 iron daggers on me and decided I needed a break from Smithing.