Not playing as much as I thought I would

MiracleManS

Does anyone else have an aversion to playing this game in small increments?

Lately I've noticed that I cannot get myself to play Skyrim unless I have a large block of time to dedicate to playing uninterrupted (multiple hours, at least). I spend quite a bit of time getting up and down from my PC during the week and generally see myself only being able to dedicate 30min chunks. Kind of hard to get immersed in the game with such a small play window.

Anyone else having this same experience?

Gate28

MiracleManS wrote:

Anyone else having this same experience?

I am exactly. I don't want to continue playing because when it crashes it kills the immersion and I don't want to play anymore after that.

Ilriyas

Same here, course I prefer online games that I can play with friends so even when I have time to do so if my friends are online I'll play with them instead.

I haven't touched my copy of Skyrim for the better part of a week as a result.

Tushon

I have not had that experience (i.e. I've gotten on when had 15-30 mins before needing to leave), but the crashes are really fucking annoying. I wish it was just the mods I installed for eye-candy, but I know that isn't the truth. Sad that it got shipped in this state and still hasn't been patched up enough. I've tried to do the 4th fort takeover mission of the civil war questline probably 10 times now, and it has crashed out between 27 and 12 % left each time, with no ability to save during.

kryyst

Nope not having that issue. I frequently will play for 15-30 minutes before having to leave.

As for crashes on x360 it's only crashed once in 40+hrs.

Ilriyas

Yeah xbox might not be as aesthetically pleasing (Or mod-able which makes me very sad) but at least I haven't had to deal with crashes so far.

Course I'm also incapable of showing how awesome my Nord looks so that's another downside.

fatcat

Skyrim hasn't crashed for me since I used the "use more than 2GB of RAM" mod

and I have about a dozen mods installed

Tushon

I have the use more than 2GBs mod, among others, but it was crashing prior to installing any of them. idk ... I've done the verify files several times thinking maybe it was corruption, latest drivers, not running either CPU or SMP folding. The worst part is that it is silent to desktop, so I don't have any idea of why (though I didn't look to see if there was a log file in the folder)

primesuspect

I run pure vanilla and it does that to me all the time. The game is just buggy as hell.

TiberiusLazarus

Oblivion, Morrowind, and Fallout 3 have all had crashing problems for me. I've just come to accept this from Bethesda. It sucks, but I enjoy the games.

MiracleManS

Gate28 wrote:

I am exactly. I don't want to continue playing because when it crashes it kills the immersion and I don't want to play anymore after that.

I haven't crashed much at all. My problem is trying to cram in a 15-20min play through on something THIS engrossing. I can start up WoW or League of Legends, play one game and move on. This requires my full, undivided attention.

CB

I haven't played as much as I might play abnother game, simply because I don't want to be multi-tasking through it. Often when I play single-player games, I'm also watching TV and chatting with Betsy or whatever, but when I play Skyrim, I need for that to be the only thing I'm doing, which means I can mostly play when I'm alone in the house or when Betsy's already asleep.

I-need-a-better-name

I play nightly and during lunch if I'm working at home. I play some evenings with the toddler sitting on my lap or in a chair next to mine. I play whenever I can.

When I only have a short while, I clear out my misc quests. When I'm in for a longer haul, I progress through the faction or main quest lines. It doesn't take much time to fast travel to a place on the map near your map marker, run over to where that marker is pointing and clear out the bandits/trolls/necromancers/draugr that are there, take the fast exit and fast travel back to the quest giver. However, if it's a Dwemer ruin, yeah, you're screwed.

MiracleManS

I need a better name wrote:

I play nightly and during lunch if I'm working at home. I play some evenings with the toddler sitting on my lap or in a chair next to mine. I play whenever I can.

When I only have a short while, I clear out my misc quests. When I'm in for a longer haul, I progress through the faction or main quest lines. It doesn't take much time to fast travel to a place on the map near your map marker, run over to where that marker is pointing and clear out the bandits/trolls/necromancers/draugr that are there, take the fast exit and fast travel back to the quest giver. However, if it's a Dwemer ruin, yeah, you're screwed.

While I know the option is there, fast travel tends to kill my immersion. I very rarely use the function.

primesuspect

Well damn. Not using fast travel would change everything. The game would probably get pretty boring. What's better, "Ruining your immersion"? or ruining the whole game....?

CB

When I played Morrowind, and had dozens of hours each week free to play, I never used fast travel, but when I only have an hour or so per day, it's a nice feature, especially when all I want to do is go back to town, sell stuff, then return to where I was, like a Diablo town-portal

I-need-a-better-name

primesuspect wrote:

Well damn. Not using fast travel would change everything. The game would probably get pretty boring. What's better, "Ruining your immersion"? or ruining the whole game....?

I already have XBox thumb from all the left stick running. I have to fast travel for my own good.

Tushon

primesuspect wrote:

Well damn. Not using fast travel would change everything. The game would probably get pretty boring. What's better, "Ruining your immersion"? or ruining the whole game....?

I think this is a "how you like to play it" thing. My immersion isn't killed by fast travel, because I don't care about travel times. I get plenty of gatherables (which is an oft quoted reason for not fast traveling) while on quests, so I don't see a reason to spend hours going back and forth around the map. If MiracleManS likes to do that, good for him. As for me (and you), meh. The first Dark Brotherhood quest makes you go from near Falkreath, up to Markath, then past Whiterun and back to Falkreath. Fuck running all of that.

Snarkasm

I need a better name wrote:

However, if it's a Dwemer ruin, yeah, you're screwed.

Jesus Christ, this. They're god-damned massive.

I have a different problem - I start out saying "let's just play for a half hour or so and then hop to bed" and then it's 5 hours later at 2am and oh god I have to get on a train in 4 hours

Tushon

Snarkasm wrote:

Jesus Christ, this. They're god-damned massive.

I have a different problem - I start out saying "let's just play for a half hour or so and then hop to bed" and then it's 5 hours later at 2am and oh god I have to get on a train in 4 hours

My problem as well. I start out the night thinking "ok just a couple hours of skyrim then I'll go to sleep at 1130 and suddenly it is 15 till 2". The first night I was up till 5 and got 2.5 hours of sleep. Worth it.

MiracleManS

primesuspect wrote:

Well damn. Not using fast travel would change everything. The game would probably get pretty boring. What's better, "Ruining your immersion"? or ruining the whole game....?

I use exactly one fast travel method: The coaches outside of cities. Everything else is off limits. If I walk out to somewhere you can be damn sure I'm walking back.

CB wrote:

When I played Morrowind, and had dozens of hours each week free to play, I never used fast travel, but when I only have an hour or so per day, it's a nice feature, especially when all I want to do is go back to town, sell stuff, then return to where I was, like a Diablo town-portal

Morrowind (unmodded and original) had Silt Striders. They were perfect, which is why I use the carts in the same manner.

Edit for more information about my immersion issues:

I also dislike the quest markers that are there now on the map (and that damned navigation piece). I miss the (occasionally vague) descriptions you got in Morrowind where you had to piece together where you were going by travel clues. The quest to find the local Dunmer who worshiped Nerevar was awesome.

EMT

Yeah, quest arrows are an immersion breaker for me too. At least you can turn them off in the journal (unless I'm talking about a different quest arrow).

I also avoid fast travel when I have a long time to play.

CB

Quest Arrows. I love them.

Sometimes I decide to play an old RPG, and there are not quest arrows, so I ragequit because now I am spoiled on HUD waypoint markers. I don't enjoy hunting for things in games. If it makes sense that my character would know where it was, then I'm fine with the pointer.

If I want to hunt for things, I'll play a seek-and-find game. Or better yet, spend some time searching for one of the million things I have somehow lost track of insidemy own IRL house.