Skyrim: Exiting Whiterun without actually exiting Whiterun

Someone once said that a part of the fun while playing Skyrim is because of the massive amount of bugs and glitches. Sounds funny but actually I can relate. Sometimes things happen that are just so stupid and all these random unintentional situations make me laugh all the time. You could say that this stuff actually makes the gameplay experience somewhat better – as long as it doesn't get too annoying or f***s up some quests for you on your saved game... which it sometimes did for me.

I actually had to reload more than ten times while doing the Dark Brotherhood questline (which I loved) when you are in the Nightmothers coffin because the game always crashed. Fortunately I read that this bug is fixed now. I could not find out if the Miraak bossfight bug is fixed by now but do I really care anymore?

Yes I f***ing do... But I don't want to try anymore before I know because I don't want to end up sitting there for 5 hours again trying to get it right... I still really want to do the manbearpig quests even though I don't really play Skyrim anymore.

Yeah... f*ck you Miraak!

Okay so now I wrote a lot but nothing that really fits the headline. So let me get to my point.

Me and my fellow Stormcloaks (yes, go f*** it stupid Imperials) just conquered Whiterun, everything was burning but all was good. So I had to go back to Windhelm and talk to Ulfric or something. In order to do that I first had to exit Whiterun. But somehow the wall around the big gate in front was not there anymore. So I thought to myself: Yeah I can just go outside without having that annoying loading screen! Awesome!

Because you see, I play on Xbox360 and the longer you play the longer the loading screens get. That is one thing why I chose to not play anymore – at least my main character. Sometimes a loading screen can be up to 3 minutes long...

Shit! I forgot something inside the f-ing house -.-"

So I exited Whiterun by going around the gate and before me there was nothing. Well, actually there was an endless Grassland without trees or anything really. In the distance there were a few trees. But it did not look anything like the grassland that actually is outside of Whiterun.

I walked around trying to reach the end but I think it was endless. Sometimes I was hovering above the ground and sometimes I was just swimming in it. 
I guess this was the area around that you might see when you are in Whiterun in a high place or something. So I exited Whiterun without actually exiting Whiterun. Using the gate did work but who would use a door when you can just go around it?

Actually this all makes sense that there is an area around that you can see but are not supposed to go to. I get that because I am not stupid. But I thought it was fun to go there anyway.

Yes shame on me but I actually enjoy stuff like this. Boohoo...

Skyrim: Fighting the bug

This post contains spoilers of the Dragonborn DLC for The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim – please do not read if you did not play this content yet and may want to play it sometime.

I already mentioned that I had my fair share of problems with the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim. I know that I'm not the only one that experienced this sh*t. Actually I don't know if this is already patched by now because I'm not playing Skyrim at the moment. And I was really that mad about all this that I did not want to hear anything about this stuff ever again.

First of all: I really loved the Dragonborn DLC because you get so many new locations and for me as a passionate alchemist very important – new ingredients :). The first thing I did on this island was collecting all of the new ingredients I could find – only to find out that most of them are completely useless. Oh well...

I was really interested in the main quest of the new content – so I skipped some of the still very interesting sounding quests, like the man-bear-pig-quest and stuff.

So I collected all these books and read them and did all this stupid library stuff. Actually this was quite awesome because the library looks epic and the enemies called Seekers also look really f-ing cool. And there are these Lurkers that kind of look like giant Falmer with whole fish-bodies as heads.

Actually I met Hermaeus Mora before because I did this one quest were you open this ancient dwarven door and then have to kill this old strange lunatic dude that helped you on the main quest. So I actually already swore allegiance to Hermaeus Mora. But he did not seem to recognize me.

People and other … erm entities seem to really have problems in remembering you the right way. Except this one argonian guy in the Bee and Barb that always tells me to f*ck off because I offended his bartender girlfriend in one of the thieves guild quests before.

One day I started the last part of the main DLC quest and I saved over my other save file because I did not think anything bad would happen. Some time later I had to face Miraak in an epic battle.

I shouted at the dragon with the massive jaw so he would let me mount him. This actually looks really stupid because the textures on the dragon are really badly done and not as detailed as on every other dragon or yourself. You can see that really well on the loading screen where you see the model of Miraak sitting on Mr. Bigjaw Dragon.

Also flying on a dragon ist not that epic as I thought it would be because you can't really tell your dragon where to fly and when you tell it that you want to land or stuff it does not really know where and just finds its own place to land which is really stupid if there are just two islands in this green sea in the library and there is a 50:50 chance of landing on the wrong island. They could have done this whole dragon flying thing much better I think... but I digress...

So then I finally managed to get my poorly texturized big jawed dragon to land on the right island where Miraak was waiting for me. Then a fight started and this ass is f-ing weak. Actually he is that weak that I could have killed him with just 5 to 7 strikes. But he did not let me do it.

As I understand it this fight should work the way that he consumes the souls of his three dragons one by one and heals himself with them. So everytime when I got him low enough to heal himself he would turn etheral and could not be wounded anymore. He then would always proceed to kill off his one dragon and then he would just stand there – a long long time. I could not wound him anymore and he would not come out of his etheral state. So I loaded my save-file from before.

And I tried again and again and again. I tried all of the many ways the internet told me to try and more. Nothing would help – it would just be all the same again.

I first tried killing of all dragons before wounding Miraak himself – but he would just turn etheral and call his dragon and then just wait because the dragon was already dead.

I tried doing just a small amount of damage with one strike by fighting with my bare hands but it did not work.

I tried hiding from Miraak so he would come out of his etheral state which he did but that also did not work.

I think I fought against this bug for 4 or 5 hours straight. And then I just did not want to try anymore and left all of the Dragonborn DLC content behind.

Remember that I could not load a save file from before starting the quest because i saved over it before... big mistake by me and I know that. The one that I had was really far away in the past so I choose to just play on the mainland and sh*t on the DLC content. Well... at least I have my very own Riekling army... "Belifakathoooookawa."

I was actually really pissed off because I could not even do the man-bear-pig-quest. The guy that I should talk to about it just told me to revenge his clan leader... which I can't f-ing do. WTF

Manbearpig saaaaad :(

Bye bye Dragonborn DLC – you seemed fun but in the end you pissed me off until I wanted to bash something fragile with a baseball bat.

Thanks Bethesda...

Maybe it is patched by now but maybe this would still not help me and my save-file where the quest is already started. Meh.

Skyrim: Thoughts on followers

Actually my experience with my followers in Skyrim was kind of unfortunate until lately. My first follower was Sven, the kind of really strange guy from Riverwood that seems to think his mother is insane. I pissed an elf off to befriend Sven so he would follow me on my adventures. You know, this was really long ago so I don't really have too much memory of my times with him. Well, there was this one time when I was in Whiterun training my smithing skill when I suddenly noticed that Sven was missing. I had to wait for quite a while till he ran to me from the distance – supposedly from the direction of the tavern.

But as you might know, from the smithing place in Whiterun there are not really any more directions to choose without exiting Whiterun. Turns out you can exit Whiterun without actually exiting Whiterun, but I will write about this incident in a later post.
So Sven runs happily up to me after being gone for quite a while and I suggested to him to trade some things because I wanted to get all my loot back from him to sell to Adrianne Arvenicci. So I looked into his inventory and there's an ale! I swear he did not have that before. I laughed so hard I probably spilled my tea if I was drinking tea. I don't know if I was because it was a long time ago. But let's pretend that I did. So Sven left me there for hours waiting for him so he could booze... Yay

Minor spoilers from here:

So there was this one quest where you kill this white stag and then you have to kill the werewolf in one of the most beautiful dungeon type of things in the whole land of Skyrim. I was so excited to skin this guy and then getting all that stuff and what the hell I don't even remember what exactly was going on. I think this was a daedra quest though...

Spoilers end here.

I was really excited and then I traveled back to Falkreath and sold a lot of stuff. After a while I noticed that Sven was gone. I tried waiting for a long long time. He did not come. I even went back to that cave thingy where the quest was going on. His body wasn't there either. Well, he never even came home to his mother's house in Riverwood. So I had to find me a new follower. That was not too difficult for me because I actually hated Sven. But I felt guilty. Whatever. His mother didn't even seem to notice.

And then there was Marcurio. I just needed a follower as a packmule real quick because I was about to do some serious questing. So I gave him some money and then he followed me. It was kind of a twisted relationship because I actually really don't like anything that has anything to do with magic. But because I was always tanking with my heavy armor sword and shield and he was standing in the distance throwing fireballs, we kind of complemented each other. And he was such a stupid a-hole always complaining about not wanting to be my packmule but actually I really liked this guy.

He was constantly nagging and complaining like a little child but I thought this was funny as hell. There was one time at Goldenglow Estate that I actually at least wanted to try to sneak. So I told him to wait for me at a certain spot. Well I kind of cleared everything on my own but then a dragon was attacking – in the middle of the night. And I don't even know if we finally killed it but the attack led Marcurio to fight and change his position. So the time I wanted to leave I could not find him anymore. I think I might have searched for him for 1 hour straight. And I'm not talking about an ingame hour.

So by the time that I actually had given up my search and left to go to the toilet (not ingame) and then coming back and taking the controller again I think I just took a few ingame steps. And then I turned my character to the left and there he was standing. Just two steps away from me between a tree and a big dark bushy bush. And he was staring at me with the most stupid face ever. I jumped when I saw him because it was so sudden and also so stupid.

After this Marcurio and I went on many adventures and he accompanied me on many many quests until we started the Dawnguard questline. There is this one point when you can't take your follower because you kind of have to take Serana with you. I gladly took her because I like her but Marcurio had to leave.
But I knew that I could find him at the Bee and Barb anytime. And in fact there was kind of a break in my questing for the Dawnguard where I sent Serana home and actually paid Marcurio again to come with me. And then there was some more questing and somehow you are then required to take Serana somewhere again and I supposed your follower just leaves then.

Maybe that was not the case in retrospect but actually I was so excited about having my own armored frost troll (that died not long after...) that I did not spend a lot of time paying attention to if all my followers were there. So when I noticed that Marcurio was not there anymore I actually was kind of confused and at first went straight to the Bee and Barb. But he was not there. And I could not find any saved game where he still was there except ones that were waaaaaaay too far in the past.

I still go to the Bee and Barb every time when I'm in Riften because he might just sit there on his bench staring at me with his stupid expression that he always had.

I mean this. I am still looking for this a-hole. But he is not there anymore. And that makes me very very sad every time. I would have really loved him to be my steward. I even once considered him as a possible spouse for my character although I was actually sure as hell from the start that my character would marry a woman. He was not there when I married my wife, he was not there when I was desperately looking for a steward to take care of all my things while I would be gone on adventures. I would have gladly left him with all of my belongings in my huge-ass house and my beautiful wife for his well earned retirement. But he never returned.

So I stayed with Serana and grew to really like her. I felt so bad for all the things she had to go through when we did the Dawnguard questline. And there were times when I was just furious because she was and is still ALWAYS standing in doorways that I want to go through. I call her “Schinken” all the time, which is the German word for ham because her name sounds like that serrano ham.

And I really like my Schinken. It's kind of a pity that I can't get her to wear the super skanky Forsworn armor but sometimes she is so sweet when she sees some beautiful scenery and tells me that she's glad to be there with me. That makes up for it. Actually it does not but that's just a minor flaw. And then one time there was the dialogue option to send her off to cure her vampirism. It really seemed to me that she wanted to go through with this so I sent her away. I actually thought that she might be a useless follower then because she would lose her powers.

Turns out I was wrong. She did not change at all. She still hates caves and the sun and sits on every bench or chair she finds because she is lazy. She just got prettier – I actually did not even think that was possible. It's a pity you can't marry her. But that's not so bad because I can have her with me all the time and my wife is home attending to the kids. And two b***hes is always better than one.

We had a lot of adventures together and we still have. And we will continue to go on adventures together. But I can't help thinking about Marcurio all the time when I'm in Riften or somebody says “Divines smile on you, friend” because he always told me that.

I hope you smile on me too now :-(

Skyrim: The day I killed the parents of my son's pet

One day when I came home from one of my adventures my son came up to me and told me that he had made friends with a little skeever. He then asked me if he could keep it as a pet. Of course I agreed – this little bastard is really cute. I mean the skeever. And why the hell should my son not own a pet? His sister keeps Bran, the husky from Fort Dawnguard, that helped me a lot on the vampire quests. He's retired now and lives with my daughter. Maybe he can defend her against all the bandits and dragons that roam around my house. There once even was a giant standing in my backyard... Luckily my cow and my three chicken proceeded to kill him.

There are so many corpses lying around my house all the time and my wife and children don't even seem to care. But I digress...

So my son has his own little skeever buddy that always follows him and stands on his bedside when he sleeps. Kind of creepy... but cute creepy.

So I came home from an adventure once and my daughter ran to me and seemed kind of unsettled. She told me that there were monsters in the basement and that she was afraid to go down there. So I calmed her down and went inside the house to check the situation. Down in the basement were a lot of skeever roaming around and it seemed like my son was trying to fend them off with his wooden sword. So I unsheathed my daedric sword and killed all of the skeevers – some of them were not even aggressive. I took care to not accidentally kill my son's cute pet. Then when everything was dead my son went back up to his room. His pet however stayed there staring at the bloody corpses of his skeever brethren. Maybe there was a look of terror on his little skeever face. But I could not tell because I don't know what a terrified skeever looks like. He just kept standing there for a long long time.

A few days later I noticed that he went back to accompany my son again. Turns out all of the bodys in the basement were gone – just like corpses in Skyrim seem to vanish after a time (except the ones around my house -.-"). Or maybe my wife simply cleaned the basement.

I kind of felt really bad and guilty about this. So I placed some flowers in the basement and went on to find new adventures.

My personal Summary of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

A summary will kind of contain spoilers... duh

I think Skyrim is the game that I spent most time on since I spent a fair share of my teen years trading cowhides in the desert place on Runescape. Well that might actually not be quite true but it's a neat introduction sentence.

"I'd like to have half a litre of beer" - derpface

Turns out I kind of finished Skyrim a few days ago. Well the fact is I still didn't really finish this game because it's so... massive – I just finished most of the quests that were of my interest and of course the main quest. There were times when I just mounted one of my countless horses and rode towards the horizon – and there always was something new and exciting to find. Like this one time when I rode past a cave entrance and there was this wounded guy that asked me for help. So I spared one of my countless healing potions and then we went into the cave together to revenge his fallen comrades and we just straightforward killed every living thing that was left in there.

pictured: the bloodbath

I've played more than 150 hours now – did all the DLC-quests (well at least as much as I was allowed to -.-” you may read something on here about that sometime) – and I still didn't do many of the interesting quests that there are. I still didn't do the College of Winterhold questline (mostly because I hate mages) or the Companion questline and there are a lot of Daedra quests still waiting.

As a matter of fact I decided that I would skip most minor quests like clearing out random dungeons because I just have no space for more loot. I got a full set of Daedric Armor and Weapons, my follower (currently Serana, the vampire lady from the Dawnguard DLC...) is fully suited up for a major battle and what the hell man I just built a whole house with all kinds of furniture in it and I give my children 1000 gold as allowance. I've got so many horses that I started to lose track of the total number. And you know what? I don't even need them anymore because I can ride on dragons now. “But you would have to find a dragon first” you might say. Well no problem because they are f***ing everywhere.

This is one of the for me few flaws in Skyrim. You just get overpowered really fast. In some dungeons I just stand there in masses of draugr death overlords and don't even have to block... just press the attack button casually – everything will be fine. And even if the enemy is kind of strong, I as an alchemist have my countless healing potions to win the fight for me. Now with my greenhouse I even have constant supply of ingredients for my potions. And because I don't have to loot anymore (which is kind of difficult because I usually just can't leave anything of value in a dungeon -.-”) I can just pack myself full of potions. Oh and you never get limited on dragon souls either. You encounter a dragon almost every five minutes and after a while of playing they get insanely easy to kill.

beware of my insanely good drawing skills

Well my point is – it really gets way too easy way too fast. But actually I did not even care that much because it's just really fun to explore the world and going on adventures. I had so many fun moments and there were so many times when I stood there and just looked around and the scenery was great and awwww... There is so much to find even in places that are not really important. You should really go watch THIS video. And there are so many more interesting places and things to find. You can spend hours just riding along and picking flowers and catching butterflies. Well I can... because usually I find the most interesting adventures on my way.

But Bethesda – I really really used to curse you a lot. Some parts of the game are really buggy – and the worst part for me was of course that I could not finish the Dragonborn DLC. I will write something on that soon. That really pissed me off. Usually bugs don't really get to me like this but this one f***ed the whole DLC up for me. Thanks for that. Go patch this sh*t and go patch it so I can still finish it without having to start the whole f***ing quest again because I actually don't have a save before starting it. Big mistake, I know, but it was not intentional and I'm seriously pissed of at myself, too. But I will write something about that later.

Hermaeus mora my ass

Conclusion: I kind of played a fair share of time and I did not see most of the things I know from watching videos on youtube. I kind of missed out on the headless horseman and the bugs in jars and so many other things. I still want to see and do so many things in Skyrim – and I will spend much more hours going on adventures. Bugs and rage aside I really loved and do still love the sh*t out of this game and I will keep playing it in the future. But right now Assassins Creed is desperately waiting for me. And so is the new computer that I will be buying... and Minecraft... and umm... yeah still so many games to play :) But I'll play Skyrim again!!! And again and again and again. At least until The Elder Scrolls Online is released. Then I might have to drop out of university.