By the way, regarding the minigame, I forgot to mention that their disposition starts dropping as soon as you hit start - giving you an incentive to act fast.
Are you near Aleswell? If so, go into the inn and talk to the innkeeper.
When I level up, but haven’t improved many secondary skills, should I hold off on sleeping until I do in order to get bigger attribute bonuses?
Ahhhh, thank you! I found Aleswell, and I’m gonna run back there now.
According to the Prima guide, they say that leveling quickly isn’t the objective. Specifically, it says
That is, you could start with all seven of your major skills very low. The good news is you’d have plenty of room to grow, but the bad news is your skills would be crap for quite a long time.
The Prima guide goes on to say that the seven major skills you get start at 25 (Apprentice level) and your minors at 5 (Novice level).
Add to that 25 the natural bonuses you get for being a Wood Elf. You’d get (in theory): marksman 35, security 25, sneak 35, illusion 25, alchemy 35, light armor 30, blade 25. Coupla your abilities are already halfway to Journeyman. When marksman gets to 50 you’d get zoom mode on your bow, and your alchemy would be up to recognizing the first 3 effects that a potion ingredient can yield.
Take the same custom kit, but give it to a race that’s wholly incompatible. Say, to an Orc (Armorer +10, Block +10, Blunt +10, Hand to Hand +5, Heavy Armor +10). All your major skills are Apprentice Level 25 and you’ve got a long haul to get those Journeyman perks!
Not knowing how long the game is, it’s hard to say whether or not being able to hit level 50 is good or bad. Can you finish the game and a sizable number of sidequests by level 25? If so, Fish is right. There’s probably little to challenge the min/maxers at the upper limits (same applies to most games).
Senor Beef, we have very similar tastes in characters. Wood Elf, Thief sign, Blade / Marksman / Light Armor / Sneak / Security / Restoration / Speechcraft. So far, I’ve done the tutorial dungeon, the dungeon right outside of the tutorial (relying heavily on Marksman and x3 damage from Sneak attacks) and made it back to town. I really need a good 3-4 hour gaming session to get the game down. One complaint…not enough ‘hot’ keys. Going to start another as some kind of fighter, just for fun.
I haven’t played an Elder Scrolls game since Daggerfall and Battlespire. I had no idea this was coming. I am actually feeling ill at work with a desire to get this game. Good grief, it is going to be a strain to make it through the day.
Some interface thing got to me last night (as I stayed up to 3:00 AM to play the game when I had to get up before 7 :scared: ). The lockpick mini-game. I can’t find a way to ‘Auto-Pick’ or, more frustratingly ‘Close’. If I get into one too hard, I have to break all my lockpicks to leave :mad:. The other annoyance is with dropping items. Frankly, you can’t, unless you have a chest where you can ‘store’ unneeded stuff. That is a pain when you are given something by a character that puts you over your limit. I had to drink a potion of feather, so I could move to reach a chest to dump my stuff in.
Btw, found the perfect use for fast travel: escort missions. 
They loose all the frustration of your ordinary escort missions, because of the fast travel 
.
Also unlike Morrowind, the main quest is REALLY compelling (at least so far). That’s why I stayed up until 3 in the morning. I wanted to finish that section of the (early) main quest.
May I add… the Planes of Oblivion are very nicely done. Some where scared that the screenshots indicated another Red Mountain. This far exceeds that.
On the PC inventory screen, if you hold shift and click an item, it will drop it. Can’t speak to escaping the lockpick screen, but I can do auto fairly easily, and have to click for each attempt.
Just move your mouse downwards and the cursor will appear in the bottom half of the screen.
Ah… thank you. Wish it were a bit more intuitive, but that works :D.
I’ll have to try that tonight.
As a PC player, I think that the interface suffers from making it compatible for use with a console controller. Still, if dual releases allow Bethesda to sell enough copies for a 5th installment, I’ll make do.
I keep getting an XBox logo at the top of my screen saying I’ve unlocked an “advantage” or something along those lines. I’ve looked in my manual and in the Big Cheaters Guide I bought, and neither seems to have anything about it?
What is this?
An achievement? Try here: http://xbox360achievements.com/content/view/39/83/
So, even during a single player game, XBox 360 is calling home. What happens if you pull the network plug while playing?
No clue. I have the PC version of the game and only a regular XBox. (Going for a PS3 this time around in the console wars.)
In order to drop things, I’ve just been clicking and dragging them out of the interface screen. That brings to back to 1st person view and you’re then “holding” the item (you know you can press ‘z’ to grab and item without adding it to your inventory?)
Didn’t know about the shift-click trick, though. That’ll save a lot of time when needing to get rid of a lot of stuff.
I don’t have mine plugged in to the internet. 
The day you do get connected to Live (if you do), your online Achievements will be updated. People on your Friends List will also be able to see how far you are and when you are playing. It’s kind of handy and makes the game somewhat competitive. But I also get invites to chat or play other games while I’m in the midst of Oblivion. I was chatting with a friend during the whole character creation and opening quest. It was kind of annoying considering that I wanted to hear the storyline.
Achievements get tallied up across games for a total Gamerscore, which is pretty much a pointless number considering I only own two games, and will probably only buy two more by next fall. My gamerscore is somewhere around 1500, and each game has approximately 100 points available (with other points from those Xbox Live Arcade games).
Live is definitely worth getting, if only for the downloadable game demos.
I spent a bunch of time last night writing down all the information I could about the various stock professions and their skills and qualifications, doing what I always do in every RPG: making one of each kind of character.
Yeah, it took a while.
First I made a Nord named Newman (born under the sign of the Warrior, +10 strength) and hauled as much gear as I could carry to the sewer exit. I saved the game right at that last set of iron bars where you can still make character changes.
Then I loaded up Newman a buncha times, revising the character each time into somebody new, and dropping whatever gear I knew I wouldn’t need. You can even change the name at the last minute too.
Okay, there’s no way I’m gonna play 20 characters, I admit. (There are 21 classes — I didn’t do Rogue — but 10 races and 2 genders, so that worked out). But I like seeing the characters as the game-maker intended them, and it’ll be a challenge playing them the right way with mostly those major skills. (I still don’t believe Pilgrim and Agent are valid combinations… but we’ll see.) Plus, certain people (like the prisoner opposite at the start) react differently to different race/gender combinations.
What took the longest was working out on paper which classes and birthsigns would be most beneficial to each race/gender combination. I’d post what I picked if I thought it would be of any interest at all.
Then I rolled a 20-sided die (I’m such a geek, and they were handy) and ran off to play the Khajit thief as indicated. (I never made either in Morrowind, so already I’m trying something new!)