Legend_in_blue

Having been suitably impressed by the quality of the photos on offer in this thread, I am beginning to feel the need to upgrade my current camera. The compact has done well (I have a Canon IXUS75) and is generally very convenient and easy to carry about but it's starting to show it's limitations. I have been looking into a decent SLR, something not too complicated, something easy to get into. I found the Canon EOS 550D which is currently about £450 on amazon. What is people's take on this? Is there a better alternative at that price and/or will it take something £1000+ to notice much of a difference from this one? Any help would be appreciated. Cheers.

While we're on the subject of trailers... Out December 14 2012. It'll soon come round...

Looks a hell of a lot better than the Batman trailer.

There were a few of the thieves guild quests that I liked. The one at the house out on the lake outside Riften was decent. As was the final main thieves quest taking out Mercer. The more I play this game the more I think it relies on its hugeness to impress. But just because it is a big game with lots to do, no matter how mundane some of that is, that's irrelevant in the eyes of most reviewers/gamers alike. It's still game of the year regardless of the content. Take smithing for example. I haven't smithed a thing, not even a tin plate, because I already have the full ebony armour set from looting chests. So for me, that's an irrelevant part of the game. As is making potions. Or even buying them. I haven't bought a thing in this game. I just go round and collect them and now I have the longest inventory list of items I've ever seen and am not likely to use any of it to any great extent. I constantly pick items up, almost exceed my item limit every playthrough, and then dump them in my chest in the house I own in Whiterun. Then what? I don't ever go back to use any of it. There's so much to choose from, it would take 15 minutes to read through the list of what I've collected. Then the dragons. I got the 20G achievement the other day for collecting 20 dragon souls. If I'd collected all the dragon bones and scales from all of those I'd have 60 of each. And the point is? There's one quest I did the other day starting from Dawnstar. At the museum. Silus is the guy you have to speak to, he asks you to collect parts of a dagger which gives you a decent one handed weapon. When you have the dagger at the end, do him in.

This to watch. Any good?

Which sword is this called? I put everything I don't use in the chest in the house I got but I must have over 100 objects in it by now. I'm over 50 hours into this game and I still haven't visited the town of Falkreath.

I was looking forward to this but it took over a minute to get going and it didn't float my boat.

I have now finished all main faction quests. Lvl 30. Main quest to do. Preferred the thieves guild quests out of all of them. Imperial Legion was boring.

Watched it. Enjoyed it. Class film. Everyone should watch it.

I've only got the thieves, mage and daedric quests to complete along with a few main quests. Apart from fetch and carry that's it. Surprised to have spent 50 hours on this now. But once these quests are complete, what next? Where does the 200+hours gameplay figure come from? Load of nonsense.

It crashed on me tonight while I was completing the siege of Windhelm - the final quest on the Imperial Legion storyline. There was lots going on - probably a memory issue. That's the only in-game crash I've had. The other crashes were on load screens - nothing happened and eventually the screen went black. I haven't had any framerate issues at all either and I still haven't downloaded the patch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to0i_xbzIN0&feature=related

What a surprise. Never saw it coming. No, Dark Souls is a better game because it forces you to play at a high difficulty. There is no margin for error, no quick fix. Eventually Skyrim becomes nothing more than a game where you constantly strive to keep the quest log down to a minimum. There are so many quests that after a few hours worth of play, it's quite easy to forget how you got half of the quests in the first place and what you're meant to do with them. Fast tracking from one area to the next becomes commonplace. When completing a quest one enemy is quite often more difficult than the rest and the game constantly reminds you that the difficulty can be adjusted in combat situations. As a result, in order to tick off another quest, the temptation to water down the difficulty becomes too hard to resist. Ok so it may be my fault that I am adjusting the game to make it easier, but the fact that it's possible is it's major flaw. The challenge isn't there. It's a pretty game, it's decent, I like it, but it's too open and too big. It's Oblivion with all the trimings added. Finding the right balance is difficult. The major flaw in FFXIII, for example, was that it was too damn linear. The flaw with this is that it's too open. The right balance isn't there imo. Found this. Although biased, some good points are made... http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-12-07-telling-tales-skyrim-and-dark-souls-article

It does get easier as you progress. If you die it's obvious what you did wrong and changing the approach second time round makes it all the more rewarding once you crack it. With Skyrim it's a case of knocking down the difficulty level when taking on that bandit chief or blood dragon or crazed alchemist. It don't have the same high stakes when it comes to staying alive.

I am not a fanboy Yojoe! Both games are decent enough but it is annoying at how much publicity Skyrim is getting when Dark Souls got hardly any in comparison. All this half price malarky on the TV with some warrior dude walking into Gamestation. What's that all about? Stil if it's half price, Dark Souls cannot be far behind. I say get both.

It depends on whether or not you think £22 is good value for money when you have about 200 hours of game time with this. One of the criticisms I would put forward is that the game is just too big. There is too much to do and because of that it lacks a focus, a direction to take you forward and it feels like you're fast travelling from place to place just to cut the number of quests down in your log. Problem with that is once you've completed say about 10 quests, your log is filled with 15 more. If Dark Souls is £22 I would get that instead.

This to watch tomorrow! Any good?

Have you downloaded the update? Apparently it deals with the freezing/crashing issues. I haven't downloaded it yet though. The only time it crashed on me was a load-up screen. Oblivion did the same a few times. I thought it had crashed during one of the Dark Brotherhood missions, but that was part of the storyline... I am ploughing through the Thieves Guild quests now, just to the point where I am knocked out by a poison arrow. Also attempting to join the Imperial Legion. Also meeting blood dragons now rather than the easier set of dragons from before.

None of the dragons I have faced have caused a problem at all. Way too easy. Lvl 23.

I completed a couple of missions off the back of reading a set of books. From this I now have the ebony helmet and ebony armour. The armour stat on the helmet is 40 and on the armour the stat is 85. No need to smith anything. Anyone know of a really powerful bow and/or one handed weapon? I have a mace at 38 attack power thanks to a mission I completed in an abandoned house in Markarth involving some demon.

I have just finished the Dark Brotherhood questline and the achievement for this. It gives me a further two quests to complete off the back of it though. I thought the 360 had crashed, twice, during the final mission of this. The first time when you're in the coffin, the screen goes black and nothing happens at all. Thought it had crashed so restarted it. Did it again and exactly the same thing happened. This time I left it for around 3 minutes and it came back. Odd. I think it's part of the quest as you're left in the coffin for a day or so. Still, not great staring at a black screen with nothing happening. Btw, I have a total of 9 main quests currently open and a further 21 in the miscellaneous section...

This to watch at the weekend. Any good?

As has already been mentioned, good read. Struggling to put it down. Have just started it since finishing the 1st while on holiday in August. Picked it up for 7 quid along with A Storm of Swords from Sainsburys. Bargain!

Afraid not. Read it yesterday!

1) Yes 2) Not sure. You can become a werewolf though by joining the companions.