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Originally posted by EvoG on the Codex
I felt my most recent adventure today deserved its own thread, primarily for the life-altering experience I just had with my Thief/Marksman, and I think a lot of you would be interested in hearing this, though, what will be spoken of herein could be considered spoiler material for character creation.

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Now, as queer as it sounds, I did type "life altering". You know that moment in a game, where you're thoroughly enthralled, immersed in the world to such a degree, something clicks in your head, and you gain mastery over all that is before you. That moment where you know you'll move the analog/mouse and press a button/key with nothing more than instinct, with a commanding presence and existence in the game world. I don't mean a mastery that unbalances the game through unfair exploit or an overpowered weapon, but rather a oneness with your character and the instantaneous communication between your eyes and your hands. Any given situation you're in command of...you know the weapon to use, the spell to prepare or the potion to drink. You're careful, but confident.


The Ninja

Attaining Expert level in Stealth was my moment of mastery, and, it made me realise the secret behind the NPC's seemingly omniscient ability to detect you through walls. When you attain Expert (75 in Stealth) you now suffer ZERO penatly for moving. My running is now no different than if I were standing completely motionless with regard to NPC's detecting me. At this point I'm practically invisible.

As you may or may not know, what you wear affects your stealth. Motion, before becoming an Expert, affects your stealth. Light level and NPC facing affect your stealth. Many of you were confused, angered and even offended at NPC's that could see you through walls after your stealth attack. This as far as you were concerned was the stupidest thing you've ever witnessed and now you hate the game for it.

Let me ask you, if someone threw a rock at you, in your own neighborhood, wouldn't you be able to find the person who did it? First off you know who belongs in your neighborhood and who doesn't. You could start running in the direction the rock was thrown to see who you see. You have a general idea how far away the rock had to have been thrown, and the odds of the person being able to flee the scene quickly enough is pretty slim. If they started running away, your odds of detecting them increases. Not only are they running, which is pretty telling in and of itself, but perhaps they're clodding along loudly, or at least 'less quietly'. Now imagine this rock-throwing heathen was able to run and jump as fast as he was capable of, and you couldn't hear him at all. Now imagine its nighttime and there is little to no light. Pretty hairy stuff eh?

I'm 42 hours in, level 13 and have yet to do the first quest in the Main Story. I've almost now completely resigned myself to do nothing but the bidding of the thieves guild as the storyline is compelling enough(and seemingly endless) to ignore all of the plethora of side quests tossed at me, except one. The opportunity to hunt vampires. Nothing terribly involved nor resoundingly complete, but its vampires, and I only encounted one lone one early on and it was ancillary to my end goal.

Its not necessary though that I tell the tale of the vampires themselves, as that isn't whats important. What is important is how effective I was at hunting them as an Expert thief. My marksmanship is fair (52), so its not the damage I do with my elven bow with elven arrows, but rather the deft stalking of the nightbreed without a single one knowing I was there...period.

I am now an Expert thief. I'm completely invisible. I stand still, I'm invisible. I move, I'm equally as invisible. I shoot for my stealth attack, move quickly to a new position, the enemy is oblivious to my location. Before becoming an expert, as I moved out of range of my foe after a stealth attack, the eye would cycle between dark and light, as I was hidden around a corner, but was making just enough noise to a now very alert enemy. He knew where I was, he could hear me...he really wanted to hear me. Now I've made it clear in the review thread, that prior to being an Expert, I was able to successfully evade an enemy after that initial shot, though it was a lot of work. It required distance, many turns and perhaps a bit of magical invisibility and ultimately a nice spot to not move a budge. So its clear there are powers at work to reflect just how stealthy you are, not all of it black and white, which I think frustrated a great many of you. No you were not Garrett in the least.

But now, now that I've done what I sought to do, I'm convinced of my true path. I suffered with little melee capability. I have pathetic magic ability, and even then only enough to do a weak heal and a weak flame attack. I have 5 in every other magic ability. I had only my bow and the darkness to keep me alive. The strategy guide even went so far to say that people playing as straight stealth or straight fighters would not be as satisfied as playing a character with siginificant magical ability. I was determined to make this work and I have to say it has paid off to a great degree.

In my hunt, I was able to stay in the shadows, leaping over rocks and around stalagmites, at one point inches from a ghost, and it had no idea I was there. I killed every vampire in that cave without a single detection. The dogs didn't find me. The final vampire stood not a chance from a single shot so pure as to end his existence from 100 paces. I was in and out before the rats even knew to stir.

It was spectacular.

I am now 24 points from being a Master, when my stealth attacks will ignore all armor. Its terribly thrilling to think of myself as being that capable with mere non-magical weapons.


The Cartographer

This is little more than a quick mention of how absolutely stunning the world is, especially after my most recent outings. The screenshots we've all seen failed to show these areas. The ImpCity and the immediate surroundings are literally quite bland compared to the road to the Gold Coast...the entire road. Skingrad to Kvatch to Anvil.

Skingrad is simply the worst name to name anything, but my god is it the most beautiful game location I've ever seen. Words are obviously not going to cut it and being on a 360, I dont have a way to do direct-feed screengrabs, or believe me, I'd do a photojournal of where I've been. Skingrad is straight out of high fantasy. The clifftop castle with a long bridge lined with a dozen torches, the cobbled roads and dense, multi-colored flora everwhere. The streets are reminiscient of Thief. The rear of the city has huge vineyards for the two wine makers in the game. Its just amazing at sundown.

The Gold Coast is literally fields of golden grass. Its a tad more stormy than the rest of the world, but its amazing to see a real harbor city(Anvil) on a real ocean. I spent little time there but will be back to explore the lighthouse and surrounding valley.

Whats so amazing is that each area is so completely distinct while the transition is so subtle. The issue with the distant terrain quality simply melts away into inconsequence. The complete northeastern portion of the map is all mountains. Straight out of that early scene of the snowy moutains in the new Batman movie, I reached the summit of one that might well have been the tallest of them all. You CAN climb the mountains you see in the distance. Being able to see the ImpCity and Bruma all in one panorama was breathtaking. All the foliage is location specific, which futher enhances the feeling of 'being' in each location. You're not just seeing a new city in and amongst the same few trees and tall grass, you're getting whole brand new ecosystems. The scale is so immense it will forever make every other game feel empty and fake for me. I'm spoiled like I've never been spoiled. To think you can go anywhere in this entire world. Sure one day I'll tire of it, as it loses its novelty, but considering how much of the world there is and how little I've seen, that day won't be anytime soon. I don't need to find much of anything specific to still be completely impressed with the different vantage points I find. Anyone who says they aren't impressed are either being sensational, are lying or are playing it on a less than high-end PC. You DO need to pump the graphic effects all the way up to really appreciate just how incredible this all looks. I was trying to avoid gushing about this in earlier posts, but todays trip was over the top for me in pure exploration bliss. Sure I quick travel when I need to get things rolling or I've been to a location often enough, but when I'm bound for a brand new location, my excitment for the journey is palpable. Not only do I have the story to look forward to, but new quests, new events and brand new sights.

Its a shame a LOT of you are going to not even bother giving this game a chance, rather, completely satisfied at picking at the tiniest things ad nauseum. I mean this sincerely, and not to antagonize. It really is too bad.


Cheers

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Originally posted by Dhruin

Thanks for popping over and posting, EvoG.

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Originally posted by Dhruin

I take it overall you think the Stealth mechanics are fairly solid?

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Originally posted by Dhruin

I haven't actually experienced guards detecting me through walls

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Originally posted by Dhruin

...but somehow I've only logged 15 hours and you've logged 42 in the last 5 days or whatever...

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Originally posted by Dhruin

just joined the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood yesterday so I look forward to seeing how it evolves - I hear the storylines for those two are pretty good.

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