Ah, okay. Yeah, I had read about that. It is cool that Bethesda wrote an option to destroy the Brotherhood for those not interested in joining. I'll tip my hat to that, tho I was hoping for diverging ends in regards to the traditional vs. new DB.

I liked the split between the Brotherhood and the Outcasts in F3. It was an interesting ideological spat. Only problem was not delving a little further into the matter.

So, as you and SV have said, I've been mostly critical of Skyrim (tho to be fair, there's a lot with which to be disappointed). To switch pace, I'll talk about some things I've enjoyed, too. This first "enjoyment post" is mostly about being an utterly psychotic Dark Brotherhood assassin. ;-)

*** DB spoilers ***

Killed all three of Astrid's captives with 15x damage sneak attacks to the back of the head for overkill. Amused at her comment about me being an overachiever. Got scaled armor, boots, and gauntlets off the soldier's corpse.

Killed Hert, the wife of the vampire Hern, with a 30x damage sneak attack to the back of the head, despite her not being part of the contract, just to enrage Hern before I killed him. No witnesses left alive, no bounty.

Killed both Vittoria and her husband Asgeir as they addressed their wedding guests, despite him not being a part of the mission, with an Ebony Arrow to the forehead of each as a signature, despite having only a few Ebony Arrows and not needing more than an Iron Arrow to kill them.

Experienced an annoying bug here: Guards attacked me and then stopped me to initiate the arrest dialogue despite the invisibility potion I popped right after the shots. Okay tho because I escaped out of the side gate, scaled down the cliffs, transformed into a werewolf and got the hell out of there. Killed the bard Talsgar the Wanderer and ate his heart when he attacked me as I was running past him.

Killed Gaius Maro as he slept in The Bannered Mare in Whiterun. Walked out after buying a drink from Saadia. Slit Faida's throat in Four Shields Tavern, to further distress Commander Maro because Faida seemed to be Gaius' wife/sister/mother/whatever, despite it not being part of the mission. Left the body behind the bar and walked out.

Yes... I'm not quite right. :-P

Anyone got any memorable kills they want to share?

i agree...
and i just watch jessie cox play the game without actually playing it myself and i am also sick of the snow and rocks, and grey trees.

fear not, there are many zones outside of snow and lots of dungeons feels right, dwemer ruins, caves, theres pirate stuff, etc.

a good portion of imperial controlled cities are actually in grasslands

Yeah, I don't get the complaints about the world all being dark and boring looking. The area around Falkreath is bright green and woody, the area around around Riften is bright autumn colors. Then you have gloomy Scottish style moors to the far West, rocky woods around Solitude, and finally snowy mcsnow all along the top. Oh, and brown grassy plains in the middle of course.

It's remarkably diverse. I will grant you that overall it's "gloomier" than Oblivion, but holy shit is that a good thing in my opinion. Oblivion felt like super happy Disney world fantasy 90% of the time.

I like the snow. The whole winter theme is my favorite thing in the game's environment.

So I've got three characters now all around level 30. A destruction/swords Imperial, an archery/sneak argonian and a heavy armor/maces nord. Not sure which I want to head to the endgame with.

#firstworldproblems

Damn, dude. I've got one at Lv33, finished the DB questline, started and played a few others to various stages of completion, slowly progressing thru the main quest (doesn't seem all that urgent, partly cuz dragons go down like bitches). And I thought I was playing too much. :-P

I'm hoping to be Lv50 (the soft cap) when confronting Alduin, because if he's scaled, I want to fight his best form. Know whether/how he's scaled? I attacked him immediately after a cutscene, when you're supposed be watching events unfold, and he turned his head in my direction and blew me away with Unrelenting Force. Awesome stuff. Hoping for an epic end-game. Friend mentioned that it wasn't super, but he played the main quest more-or-less straight thru and was still fairly low-level at the end.

lol

I got the last two up to level 30 insanely quickly. Sneak and archery level up fast, as do smithing and one-handed. I've only got about 20 hours a piece on those dudes. In any case, I'm "off work" until January 13th, so I've got some free time ;)

Just found out the top destruction spells require both hands though, which really makes me not want to bother with my sword and spells girl anymore. Though I guess I could switch her to dual-blades and dual-spells alternating.

It's too bad it's still a month for the dev kit to be released. This means that any changes I want to see, will take at least a few months more so it will be April/May before I can start replaying properly.

It's not lying though... the game has indeed been announced.

With all the things that were broken and half-assed in Oblivion, I've gotta say I liked it more than Skyrim as well. Just seems like the quests are weaker, spells suck and towns are uninteresting. I wanted to be a mage specializing in destruction, the lack of spells is pretty astounding, especially not being able to make your own.

Solitude is probably my favorite and completely unique looking.

Solitude is nice, if a bit small for a capital.
I think Riften is quite special as well, especially the bit just outside the city walls.
Markarth just makes me wants to see a prequel during the time the Dwemer were still active.
Hopefully one where we find out what happened to them and perhaps the possibility to play a Dwemer Engineer or something that can build those constructs I've come to hate, kind of like a summoner.

Wouldn't hold your breath for that. The lost/forgotten technologies trope is a reliable one they can always return to if they need a MacGuffin. Also my personal opinion here but there should always be something that remains a mystery and is never expanded on just to maintain a little of that mystery. One of the biggest mistakes I think Stargate SG-1 made was bringing the Aincents back, they were more effective as myth and legend like Oma Desala and Merlin.