Doing All the Things: Skyrim Edition - Getting Started

When it comes to big, open world, sandbox-like games, I have a tendency to wander around, poke some stuff with a stick, maybe drive around town for a while if possible, then merrily be on my way. Imagine my surprise to find out that games like Skyrim, GTA V, and the like have actual endings, never mind the scores of optional content. It's gotten me thinking of late, and I reckon I may actually want to give it a go at doing everything in Skyrim. This is going to be a mammoth undertaking (no puns intended), given the sheer size of the game, and made all the more daunting a task since I also have Hearth Fire and Dragonborn. Nonetheless, I want to give it a go. I will do it on a single playthrough, so a few sacrifices will need to be made, such as choosing between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks during the civil war, but other than that I plan to explore every nook and cranny of the game, find every goody, and I may even read every book too.

In order to do all of this, I'm not exactly taking a scientific approach. So far, the story has only been advanced far enough that I've been able to become a thane in Whiterun and buy the house. This was done in part because it's just nice to have a cozy little cottage to operate out of, but much more so that I have a chest to toss all of the crap that my inner hoarder will inevitably accumulate with each dungeon cleared.

Yay, more dragon bones!

Other than that, it's been a matter of picking a direction to run in and checking out whatever caves, castles, ruins, or whatever that I happen upon. So much the better if my Housecarl's pathfinding AI is actually able to keep up with me while traversing Skyrim's fields, mountains, and forests.

While some people complain that a lot of the dungeons and what not look quite similar, this doesn't really bother me. After playing countless theme park MMOs over the years, the uniformality of Skyrim's various landmarks is downright welcome. Moreover, it makes more sense. Cultures tend to have recurring themes in their design, so tombs, cities, and the like having a similar look and feel strikes me as a lot more logical. Look at most architecture from the Middle Ages and Antiquity, and you'll see that structures are far more uniform. Whether it was Roman settlements, Norman, or something else, they had a distinct style to them and they happily built them in new lands as they expanded. From this perspective, it makes a lot more sense to me that the Nord tombs, Dwemer ruins, and many of the cities look very similar to one another, as it reflects similar approaches to architecture as we've seen in our own history. The level of diversity we see in urban architecture today is a much more recent phenomenon.

Pretty lights, evil people.

The whole time I've been wandering around as a dark elf (a little nod to Morrowind, my favorite of the Elder Scrolls games), and going for a stealthy ranger kind of build. As much as some champion mages in this game, I do so love slinking in the shadows. Pegging off baddies with a bow from afar and catching someone off guard is great, and the more perks that get unlocked, the better life gets as a sneaky archer.

Nope, nope, nope!

Another reason I went this route is because I absolutely hate the spiders in this game. Holy crap they're icky. The last thing I want is to have to fight one of those things up close, so taking them out from afar with a bow and arrows makes a lot more sense to me. That being said, I get the feeling that the game somehow found out about my arachnophobia. On one occasion, when taking a shot at one of those creepy crawlies, it switched to that more stylish zoom-in, slow motion thing that the game does on a killing blow from time to time, treating me to an up close and personal view of the thing as it died. Another time, not to long ago, I was loading up the game to continue playing, but I guess I've been getting some save file bloat, as it was taking a long time to load. Of course, this whole time there's an image of a spider on the load screen as random game facts cycled through, all the while the spider kept getting bigger, and bigger. Seriously, up yours, game!

Encounters that will in all likelihood require years of therapy to get over not withstanding, this whole experience of exploring every inch of Skyrim has been quite nice. Popping into tombs, reading books, finding loot, listening to Lydia say, "Hey look, a cave! I wonder what's in it..." only after we've just finished clearing it. Good times. At some point I'll get around to actually opening my quest log and doing whatever I've promised folks I would help them with as I've wandered around chatting. There may even come a point where the main quest line may be advanced a little further, but for now I will continue zig zagging across the countryside, exploring whatever I come across, quietly hoping there are no spiders inside.

Where to next...

Other Installments of Doing All the Things: Skyrim Edition

- Part One: Getting Started
- Part Two: Picking Sides
- Part Three: Of Werewolves and Vampires
- Part Four: The F Words
- Part Five: Parenthood
- Part Six: Doing all the Things was a Terrible Idea