After thinking it over, I decided to spoiler all of this, because, while it is pure speculation for the most part, it does contain some lore and plot spoilers.

The short answer: No.

The long answer: Holy shit yes, in the long run. This is some Hero of Kvatch shit.

Spoiler

In the short-term, and in the language of game mechanics? No. In fact, it's nothing but a benefit. Lurkers always drop enchanted jewelry either at or above your loot tier, and in addition to a great many valuable and rare books (many of which are new to this DLC and can only be found in Apocrypha, as befitting Apocrypha itself), the enemies frequently drop random high-level spell tomes and spell scrolls, which is great for mages, and a lot of the valuable books that aren't new that can be found are skill books, which is great for everybody.

Does just reading the books have a downside? No, and to a point, that makes some sense. The Dovakiin can, after all, look at a freaking Elder Scroll and remain unharmed, in spite of being an Unguarded Intellect, a feat which is, literally, flat-out impossible, and outside the scope of everything that we understand about how Elder Scrolls work. That the Dovakiin would not risk madness or eternal stupor from plumbing the knowledge of the Black Books makes some degree of sense. We clearly are not dealing with normal, or even superhuman, willpower and spiritual fortitude. "Godlike" would be more appropriate, or perhaps even "outside the realm of which can be understood at all."

That being said? I wasn't kidding about the Lovecraftian vibe of literally everything in this DLC. And Hermaeus Mora makes it clear that while there is no direct price for visiting his realm, ultimately, by using his resources to gain power, you owe him.

And that may perhaps be the most terrible consequence of all. That, in the end, you owe Hermaeus Mora.

And look no further than the Hero of Kvatch and Durnehviir, to see how well that can turn out.

So are there direct, immediate consequences? No, there are not.

But you get to see Mora in this DLC. Do you know what he looks like?

Eyes. Eyes the size of mountains, boiling umbral shadows, and writhing, weaving tentacles. His form, his mass, blots out the sky. ALL of it. In fact, from the perspective you're shown, I'm not entirely sure that the sky isn't Hermaeus Mora.

When an Elder Thing of incomprehensible shape and horrifying form the size of a titan tells you in a burbling, grinding, squamous voice that you owe it now, that it foresaw this, that it told you this would happen (and he only says that line if you acquired the Oghma Infinium, so he's completely right about it), and that you belong to him?

Yeah. There's going to be consequences for this. Possibly Hero of Kvatch consequences. They're just not going to happen at any point while we're playing the game.

Because, and this isn't really spoilers, as the lore tells you this, Miirak wasn't originally a bad guy. In fact, he sided with humanity against the dragons. He was a Dragon-Priest turned traitor. He should be a hero, an ally, someone who helps the Dovakiin.

But he's not. Miirak is a monster. A fiend. An immortal beast of unfathomable destructive power, that is bent only on conquest and dominion. Why? What happened to cause this?

The dragons hunted him down. They chased him into a temple of Hermaeus Mora. He fled to Apocrypha to escape them. And he's been there ever since.

That's why he is the way he is, now. Because of Hermaeus Mora. The Skaal have him in their legends. "Old Herma-Mora," they call him, "the Demon of Knowledge." Don't trust him, the Skaal say. He's a liar and a trickster. He'll cut deals with you that you can't resist, befriend you and help you, give you whatever you want. And by the time you realize it's all shadows and lies, it's too late. He's got you. You belong to him, now, and there is no escape. Don't ever make a deal with him, the Skaal say. The best outcome is death and madness. And the Skaal are right. Any deal with Mora is a deal with the devil. It's only a matter of time. Miirak simply wanted safe passage and haven, and look what resulted from that.

This entire DLC is what.

Oh, there are going to be consequences for this. I can feel it.

---------- Post automerged Dec 7th, 2012 at 12:53 AM ---------- Previous post was Dec 6th, 2012 at 11:56 PM ----------

The Deathbrand Armor is a unique legendary armor set. You can find the scattered pieces of it in a misc quest. I'll go ahead and list what the parts do, for your convenience.

The Deathbrand Armor is a complete set of Light Stalhrim.

Deathbrand Armor: Increases your Stamina by 15 for each Deathbrand item you wear.

Deathbrand Boots: Increases your carrying capacity by 10 for each Deathbrand item you wear.

Deathbrand Gauntlets: While dual-wielding, your one-handed attacks do 10% more damage for each Deathbrand item you wear.

Deathbrand Helm: Waterbreathing. +100 Armor while wearing a complete set of Deathbrand Armor.

So, when wearing the full set, you gain the following bonuses (in addition to the protection the armor itself grants): Stamina +60, Carrying Capacity +40, +40% One-Handed damage while dual-wielding, Waterbreathing, +100 armor.

There was a key to a specific barrow in the final chest. I'm going to go there now, and see what's up with that. What I find may or may not be spoiler-tagged.


Also, some fun misc-stuff:

- Additional named Dragon Priests and their associated masks have been added to this DLC. And said masks have a decidedly Lovecraftian bent in regards to their appearance.

- While there are no tides, the water on all beaches that are exposed to the windward-side of the island feature waves.

- I don't believe this was mentioned before, merely implied, but most of the southern 'green' part of the island is a blasted wasteland due to the eruption of Red Mountain. Very little green is left, and the majority of what does exist is, as logic would dictate, on the Skyrim-facing side of the island, where the ash does not drift. This is not the island we know from Bloodmoon; we're in post-apocalyptic Solstheim.

- The Rikling spears are indeed arrows. Sadly, they do not deal as much damage as even Orkish-quality arrows do, but they are much, much larger than normal arrows. Their lack of utility is partially made up for how impossibly badass it looks when you draw and fire them. Plus, instead of a quiver, you just carry a bundle of them on your back. You look like a gladiator.

---------- Post automerged at 03:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:53 AM ----------

Just thought I'd throw out a bit of flavor, so you understand the mood of the DLC. These are four books, and their contents, that can be found in Apocrypha.

On Apocrypha: Boneless Limbs

Spoiler

A writhing mass of heaped appendage
Slipping grasp the squirming slick
Extend the reach to touch the face
Burn the mind, reveal the quick

On Apocrypha: Delving Pincers

Spoiler

Crushing razors, hollow shells
That snap, that twitch, that cinch and rend
To hold the subject, bodily
'Til mind blows soft and life meets end

On Apocrypha: Gnashing Blades

Spoiler

Bone extrusions gash and grind
In moistened depths of smacking heat
While tearing flesh from averse bone
The body whole prepares to eat

On Apocrypha: Prying Orbs

Spoiler

What takes the world in lightened sense
Can also seek the outward gleam
They rob the all of essence to
Report the nothing they have seen

What is Hermaeus Mora? How is he depicted, in those few statues that try?

Tentacles, claws, teeth, and eyes.

---------- Post automerged at 04:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:16 AM ----------

Miirak's equipment is decent, but not amazing.

The real reward, in my opinion, is the permanent introduction of a new service in Apocrypha that allows you to reset and refund the perks you've spent on any skill of your choice by spending a dragon soul. So if you want to get the perks you put into Alchemy and Two-Handed back, you can spend two dragon souls to do that, and get those perks back to reallocate somewhere else.

Also, Dragon riding is insanely, impossibly pimp, and you need to be doing it right fucking now. The dragons autotarget and autoattack, all you have to do is steer them into interactable objects like things they can perch on, and switch the lock-on between targets to tell them who to go after. And you can cast magic while riding them, which, praise the sun, also auto-target whatever it is that you highlighted for your dragon. There's no aiming involved when dragon-riding. Just steering. The game aims everything for you.

I'm not going to pretend that it's not a tad clunky, and I've taken a lot of shots that I probably shouldn't have, but a huge amount of the problems I would have with it are mitigated by the fact that, in many ways, the dragon flies itself. If you actually had to control every movement, it would be incredibly difficult and extremely frustrating (as evidenced by that one dragon riding game for the Xbox 360 that nobody remembers because it had terrible controls).

I have not tried using the Shout in Skyrim itself to see if it works there, but we're going to find out, just as soon as I can sort out all the loot I snagged from the endgame.


And, I'm not going to lie: the horse armor pack was stupid, but I would throw money at my computer if Bethesda released a pack with dragon armor. Dragon armor that you can craft at a forge, so endgame players have something to spend their metric shit-ton of resources on.

Don't lie. You'd fucking buy it. You'd buy it just to give an Ancient Dragon full Daedric plate.

No. No, fuck that. Carved Nordic Dragon Barding.

This needs to exist. I NEED THIS TO EXIST.

 

Lord Raine is trippin' balls, man.

Never did get past the Civil War quests in Skyrim...perhaps I should dust it off once more.

 

I blame sleep deprivation and caffeine. That being said, at least part of it is because the ending of the DLC was amazing, and so was the final fight with Miirak.

Some fight spoilers and lore, for the interested:

Fight:

Spoiler

Miirak is an amazing boss because, unlike every other enemy in the game, even Death Overlords and Dragon Priests, he can fully utilize shouts just like you can. If he takes enough damage, he will use Become Etheral and flee. He will use Dragon Aspect almost as soon as the fight starts to buff himself. He will use varying levels of Unrelenting Force (from Fus to the full Fus Ro Dah) to attempt to stagger you and gain the upper hand. And he will use Bend Will to call down some of the dragons that are watching the fight, and force them to fight for him by sending them after you.

Furthermore, every time a dragon dies in this fight, Miirak absorbs their soul, and recovers all of his health in the process. So you either need to keep fighting him until every dragon present is dead, or you need to take the risk of trying to knock him out of the fight while being chased by three Ancient Dragons and hoping they don't kill you first.

It was a very challenging and entertaining fight that I throughly enjoyed, and I think most of you will as well. I'm more paranoid than most about my potions. I had fifteen each of the Ultimates, and by the end of it, I only had five health, seven stamina, and twelve magicka left in my stock. I had also consumed literally all of the 'lesser' potions of healing, stamina, and magicka restoration as well. If I had not had as many potions on me as I did, I would have almost certainly died.

And lore:

Spoiler

There will only be repercussions if the Dovakiin continues to work for Mora. Mora claims that he owns the Dovakiin now, and that nothing can change that, but the Skaal say that Herma-Mora is a liar, and always has been, and that his word is completely worthless. Between the two of them, I'm inclined to believe the Skaal over Mora. Basically, in the very end, you are told that you are lucky to have gotten away with relatively minor costs, and that, for your own safety, you should resist the urge to delve further into the Black Books, or have any further contact with Hermaeus Mora.

Or in other words, he may not own the Dovakiin yet, but the events of the DLC have put your feet firmly on that path, and it is now up to you as to whether you choose to turn away, or pursue that dark power further.

Also, good news bad news time again.

Good news:

You can totally fly dragons in Skyrim. What's more, they ALL have spoken dialogue about it.

Bad news:

In Solstheim, the dragons steer like a truck stuck in the mud. In Skyrim, they don't steer at all; they just orbit the area that you tamed them in, waiting for you to order them to land or attack things. You can fast travel while riding them, and thus take them to different areas to orbit, but you cannot actually fly a dragon across Skyrim. The current theory for what this is a thing is that the game was not designed with open flight in mind, and it would hose up the cells horribly if you could actually control where the dragons went. So instead of free-flying, they just auto-pilot in a big circle within the cell that you tamed them (or fast traveled with them to), and never actually go anywhere on the wing.

As it stands, dragon riding is only really useful if you go out, tame a dragon, and then deliberately bring that dragon into an area with a lot of enemies that are hostile and out in the open, like a bandit-run fortress or a Foresworn camp. Or, I suppose, if you are lucky enough to be in such an area, only for a dragon to show up at random.

To PC users, I doubt this will be much of a problem. There are already mods in place that make all cities open cell, and I'm sure that once the DLC hits, it will only be a matter of time before legitimate dragon riding is modded in by fixing the cells and unchaining the auto-pilot. However, for console players, this may not, and indeed likely will not, ever progress further beyond this point.

 

Still at a loss as to why anyone plays games on console when there's the option.

They look better, play better, sound better, mod better, support better, and are overall genuinely better. So why console?

 

Patches. If I buy a game for PC, I know that 9 times out of 10 I'll have to nuke my monthly usage if I want to be able to play it.

 

Because I'm poor, and my desktop is a 2001 Mac.

[EDIT]

And because I wouldn't be playing Dragonborn right now if I was playing Skyrim on the PC, though I won't pretend that was a calculated move, as opposed to dumb luck and Microsoftian avarice.

---------- Post automerged Dec 8th, 2012 at 01:21 AM ---------- Previous post was Dec 7th, 2012 at 10:55 PM ----------

And since I'm sure at least one of you is wondering, no, it doesn't work on Paarthurnax. I just tried it. The Shout noclips right through him.

---------- Post automerged at 02:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:21 AM ----------

Is anyone else who is playing this on console getting a higher frequency of hangups and freezes than usual? I used to get one maybe once a week while playing my roster of games. Now it seems to happen every other time I load Skyrim. Is this a Dragonborn thing? Because it kind of seems to be.

 

Actually ever since the PC update in preparation for dragonborn I've been getting more glitches, and I'm playing vanilla so I don't get distracted while leveling up for this DLC.

 

Because at least I can be sure that, if a game I want to play is released, I can play it. It might not be as pretty or as technically advanced, but I don't have to worry about having a good enough [component of choice].

Besides, I barely have enough time to play the games I do have; if I was modding the hell out of everything, I would literally never finish a game.

 

Skyrim has always seemed to tax my xbox elite, compared to most games. I've only frozen once since Dragonborn and it was after about 9 hours of use. I have noticed a lot of stalled loading screens, like it had to really struggle through the autosaving and loading.

 

Yeah. Skyrim is almost unplayable right now. There were almost no glitches while I was actually doing the main quest, certainly none worth mentioning, and now that it's done with and I'm trying to just wander around and explore, I'm hanging up every twenty minutes.

Microsoft demands early content, Bethesda makes console users the betatesters. Naturally.

This thing needs some kind of patch. It really, really does.

---------- Post automerged at 11:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:15 PM ----------

And I'm still trying to find the Cyclone Words. I haven't even found the first, so the game definitely doesn't throw them into your path. At least, not during the main quest of the DLC. I'll post their locations under spoilers when I do, but it's not exactly easy, when the game has apparently developed a pathological hatred of me.

 

Yeah, I just hate playing video games on my computer. I've tried to get into several times, and I'm just not a fan of using a mouse and keyboard.

 

If you haven't played what I assume is Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door yet, since you're talking about the GameCube, then you need to do so at once. No excuses. Shelve Skyrim, log off TOR and WoW, get some snacks and drinks, and enjoy it.

A fair amount of criticism was leveled at Super Paper Mario, and some of it was legitimate. But Thousand Year Door isn't just the best Paper Mario game to date, it's arguably one of the best games that was ever released for the GameCube. If you've had it all this time and haven't played it, then you have no excuses whatsoever. You owe it to yourself to pop it in. You won't regret it.

There are attachments you can get that will let you plug console controllers directly into your computer to control the game. I don't know how much they cost, because again, my desktop is from the Palaeolithic Era, but I intend to get one when I finally have enough extra spending money to buy a decent, current desktop PC.

Hell, half the reason I invested in a Turtle Beach headset is because it can plug into an Xbox 360 and a computer. I've used it on my laptop to watch movies before. So when I finally do get my computer, I won't need to invest in a gaming headset for it. I've already got one.

The Mouse-Keyboard setup is superior for games that require large amounts of hotkeying like MMOs and intensive, old-school RPGs like Diablo, and for games that require precision aiming like first person shooters (it has been proven definitively that even with aimbots and bullet magnetism, controllers are inferior to the mouse and keyboard for games like Quake and Unreal Tournament).

However, that being said, a keyboard is not ergonomic, and neither is a mouse. Not really. The controller, on the other hand, is designed for your hands. So for games that don't require hotkeys and don't need laser precision and whiplash speed, controllers tend to win out over the traditional keyboard and mouse setup. And even there, some people prefer controllers simply because they are more comfortable.

 

See, I can see both sides of the argument. On the one hand, I like having a controller in my hand. I really do. But on the other hand, for some games, I find myself wishing there were more buttons, and that I could make those buttons do specific things.

Just to throw out some console examples:

Mass Effect 3 has the A button do roughly six different things. This is especially bad in multiplayer, where you will frequently have people bleed out right next to you because the game keeps assuming you want to go into cover, and not revive them. Having a generic "interact" button is fine, but there is a limit to that sort of thing, and you definately know when you cross it.

Skyrim, and indeed most Elder Scrolls games in general, have a similar issue, where, when I'm playing them on console, I want to have a lot of different things at my fingertips, but in order to do that, I need to navigate menus and pause the game. For a warrior or a rogue, it's not that bad, but I enjoy playing mages above everything else, and I play them more frequently than anything else. I need a variety of spells at my fingertips to be effective, but it's a pain in the ass to constantly switch around. I don't lust for an entire keyboard's worth of buttons, no, but it would be nice to have a qwerty of buttons for spells, instead of having to actively switch back and forth between lightning bolts, conjured creatures, healing magic, and whatever swords or staffs I've chosen to wield.

Grant you, there are ways to do this right. Dragon's Dogma had the amazing idea of including a functional Shift key on the controller scheme for the Xbox 360 controller, which effectively turns four buttons into eight. This is wondrous for mages, and equally useful for complex warrior and rogue builds that use lots of special abilities and teamwork powers.

But while I never think to myself "this controller is terrible," I do sometimes wish, especially for games like Skyrim, that I had a few extra to play with.

Don't ask me where I'd put the extra buttons. I just wish they were there, somehow.


As to the GameCube: Yes, Thousand Year Door is totally amazing, and you're really missing out on one of the best Mario games ever made by not playing it. And Crystal Chronicles is interesting and can be fun, but it was blatantly built to be multiplayer, and it's an incredible pain in the ass to try and do a solo campaign. The game does attempt to oblige the solo player, but you still get the distinct impression of being a single adventurer in a world meant for a party of heroes.

And the final boss is a complete pain in the ass, and their primary attack deals damage to your Memories, a semi-invisible stat that has literally never mattered at any point up until the very end, where it suddenly becomes supreme, because if you run out of memories, you not only automatically lose, but are kicked out of the endgame to go back and redo instances and dungeons until you build back up enough memories to face the final boss again. This takes years in-game, and weeks of IRL time.

Which, naturally, is exponentially harder when you're alone, because you're trying to solo the final boss in the first place, you can't do the good combo magics or attacks because you're alone, and if you do lose (and you will), you have to go and solo potentially hundreds of hours of game all over again, just to get back to the point you were at and have another go of it.

I wanted that bastard to choke on a drill made of rust and AIDs, you don't even know.

 

To be fair on this, the PC version does the exact same thing with the spacebar, though possibly to a slightly lesser degree. I haven't played it in a while, but iirc, at least sprint, cover, and revive are all bound to the same key, and can't be broken up. I can't remember if they made it the general interact key as well.

 

Yeah the controls for Mass Effect 3 were fucked, the only thing the PC had over the console (control wise at least) was being able to look around while running. That is mysteriously removed from the console version.

 

You can mod the coalesc.ini on the PC version of ME3 to re arrange buttons and give yourself a larger POV. No one seems to of gotten banned for it yet.

 

Kaarstag is in the game as an entirely optional, secret boss.

Spoiler

To fight him, you need to find his skull, and reunite it with the rest of his remains in the ruins of his castle, because whatever ultimately killed him was smart enough to take the skull far, far away.

Warning: Kaarstag is not a normal boss, or even a highly leveled boss. He is a goddamn Raid Encounter. He can ONESHOT a capped-out player with his melee attacks, can triple-summon ice creatures to his aid, has significantly more health than Alduin, has a health regen that is roughly five times more potent than that of a Frost Troll, and he can cast Frost magic that makes the very best an Archmage can muster look like a goddamn joke.

When you kill him, he drops a bunch of soul gems and ectoplasm. There is no boss tier loot, and no artifacts. Instead, your reward for defeating him is a new spell.

Summon. Karstaag.

Not a power. A spell. Master level. And his power is in NO WAY diminished from when you fought him.

But, naturally, there is a catch. Karstaag works on genie rules. You can summon him three times, and three times only. Ever. There are no exceptions, and there is no way to get more uses. You can summon him three times, and then never again.

 

Raine. For fuck's sake. Spoiler tags exist for a reason.