Meh. I have done the following and would like advice for what I’m missing out on, though:
Mage’s Guild - finished
Dark Brotherhood - finished
Thieves Guild - half-way now, will finish.
I have done various side-quests as they come to me, just to mix it up. I’ve wandered into dungeons and so forth, just for fun.
Excluding the Fighters’ Guild and the main quest, are there any storyline paths I am missing? After the Thieves guild, I was going to do the main quest and then…well, what else is there? Aside from wandering around.
Nitpick: They are The Companions, not the Fighter’s Guild; a separate organization.
There’s the Civil War questline, where you pick a side in the war and help it win. If you have the Dawnguard DLC there’s the Dawnguard & Volkihar Vampire questlines. And if you have the Dragonborn DLC there’s a bunch of stuff I haven’t had the chance to check out yet.
And wandering around and doing side quests is a big thing in Skyrim.
There are 3 expansions, although Hearthfire is more of a sidequest for nesters. If you install the other two, be warned: like Tribunal, it will start to spawn assassins.
I’ve only had the Dragonborn ones show up once per character. And fortunately, the city guards help with them.
The Dawnguard attacks of course are more relentless, at least until you complete the questline. While I can handle them I got tired of having random characters get eaten by vampires, so I subscribed to the mod When Vampires Attack that makes most* named characters run indoors when there are vampires incoming.
I have found this not to be the case and am prone to the occasional dragon attack in Whiterun, Windhelm and Solitude. The ones in Solitude have the irritating habit of landing on top of buildings with inaccessible roofs, so I can’t get to them or shoot them, and I just have to leave them.
I have also seen a trio of Whiterun guards kill a dragon in the time it took me to switch to my combat gear, get my buffs up and start throwing fire at it. I figure, that’s why they only send 3 guards to defend Riverwatch: That’s all it takes.
Morrowind DB assassins were the worst. Especially since NPCs were more passive, so you could wake up in an inn from an hour long nap, and they townsfolk would just watch you get hacked to death. The vampires show up more often then not. One time, I had one of the “kill random citizen who is secretly a vampire” quests. I went to Whiterun to take care of it, and a pack of wild vampires did it for me!
That mod seems cool, even if it makes the Companions seem like a bunch of pussies!
Oops, you might be right. But I cannot remember Riften or Markarth being attacked, and I don’t think I remember one in Windhelm. I don’t remember them ever landing in Solitude. I wouldn’t be surprised if mods changed some things.
I love Hearthfire for giving me a home worthy of my fat loots. I can organize stuff by category so for example the chest by the door holds stuff that I want to take to merchants and sell, the safes downstairs have jewels in them (sorted by type), the barrel next to the potion maker has ingredients, etc. Plus, since I had Lydia volunteer to be Steward, I got an extra house carl when I finally impressed the Jarl enough. So now I’ve got (as the kids might say) one big room full of bad bitches.
I married Ysolda (only because I can’t marry Elisif, whom I adore) and she moved to Lakeview Manor. She’ll cook food for me, runs a very profitable business and informs me when we’ve got skeevers in the basement. The odd giant shows up at my house too which is silly of them because my sword maidens eat them for lunch.
The cultists from Dragonborn are annoying but the vampires are worse. They killed my favorite merchant (Adrienne Avenicci) and they just keep showing up everywhere I go but especially in Whiterun. Fortunately, I also have two confounded Redguards (the ones who were looking for the bar maid in Whiterun) who have been standing there forever, serving as extra door guards.