Oh, the Thieves Guild missions. I'll try and do this without spoilers, but just in case:

The first half is alright, though I got confused when they make a thing about not killing people, and then send me to a house that's full of armed guards and I have to hack my way through them. The second half, though, is such a disappointment. What feels like endless crappy little generic missions, leading up to slightly bigger scripted missions that aren't exactly difficult. And nowhere does it tell you that you need to start doing those little missions once you've finished the first half of the storyline.

I've only done that first mission too. The 'don't kill anyone' confused me. Do the guards count? But they also said 'don't kill anyone' and then said 'if the elf gives you any trouble, kill him'. Which all left me rather confused. So I did it entirely sneakily without killing any guards, just in case. This was not recognised in any way during the mission debriefing, which was sad.

That's as far as I've got so far. I'm not sure I like the thieves in Skyrim. In previous games there was always something a bit cartoony about them. They were kinda cutely bumbling and pretty harmless. More of a romantic robin hood played for comedy kinda thing. In Skyrim they're more of a mafia-like criminal organisation who are actually quite nasty. I may just stop working for them and get on with destroying the Dark Brotherhood. We'll see

That mission was nice though. Felt very Deus Exy actually.

Cliff Racers OMG almost as irritating as Cliff Richard.

Solitude's in Haafingar, not Natch. I think Natch is in Morrowind (nod)

Also, I got some steel plate armour to replace my dwarven one and now my lovely dwarven helmet and boots look silly. They don't match at all :(

I've not let any dragons start appearing yet.

When I was level 9 or so I decided I was going to join the Imperial Legion, mostly just in the hope there'd be some nice heavy armour as rewards or something. I'm level 18 now and I only just got to Solitude. I got sidetracked :$

Has anyone done the Red Eagle questline?

The last boss (Red Eagle himself) is pretty tough - I had to drink numerous potions and stick on my Berserker Rage to be able to kill him without dying in 2 hits

This is what happens when you let people see you. Lol @ u, visible-boy.

I do quite like my greatsword that sets people on fire when I hit them. And how there's a 25% chance I'll decapitate someone when I do a power move on them.

No doubt a mod will come out soon for that. I had a dragon yesterday which attacked me for short while, then decided to attack two nearby mammoths - which totally owned it! That was quite cool.

My daggers have a 100% chance of stabbing someone. And when I do so, they have 100% chance of dying :Y

They get slightly less nasty further on, but they're still a bit Mafia, which kind of makes sense.

I really must get on with the Dark Brotherhood quests, though they also seem even more of a bunch of psychos than in Oblivion and I'm not sure I like hanging around with them. I'm trying to get through some of the other missions I've picked up first, though. My journal's quest list is ridiculously long. Some people have probably been standing in a temple waiting for me to come and meet them for months now.

Hahaha aye. The quest list is both massively long and completely disorganised. And shit.

I have things in there which say stuff like "speak to darlos about bryna".

I have /no idea/ what the fuck that is about. And no clue is given.

I finished one quest, that I vaguely remember picking up, which ended up with me meeting a chatty Daedra who was just after a laugh. I have no idea what it was about. I wouldn't have minded, but it involved unexpectedly teleporting me out of a dungeon somewhere and then putting me back somewhere completely different. I can't remember where the dungeon was, which is a bit irritating as I'd only got halfway through it.

:'D

I can't wait until someone mods the UI into usability.

I did the quest in the abandoned house in Markarth, which ended up with me having to beat a defenceless priest to death with a scary-looking spiked mace. I felt awful doing it :( And I'm not even trained in one-handed weapons, so the reward wasn't even useful.

You Monster :'S

(I sent a dude I really liked to prison to get into the thieves :( )

Actually quite a major complaint.

Big spoilers for anyone who's not done the Dark Brotherhood yet.

Okay, so i've murdered the Emperor. Awesome. Something this big must have ramifications for the world. There's a civil war going on, with Skyrim tyring to free itself from the clutches of the empire, so having the emperor be murdered should have some impact on that storyline. It should at least be mentioned next time i vist Jarl Stormcloak to ask which bunch of imperials he wants me to kill next. Failing that, it should at least be mentioned in conversation around town.

No. Absolutely nobody gives the slightest fuck that the fucking emperor has just been fucking murdered by the fucking dark brotherhood. Nobody.

It almost seems like a waste of time doing it.

Maybe you missed.

(But yeah, I've noticed this a lot. There seems to be way less in world 'feedback' about what you do and how you do it)

Fair enough, I'd read some articles about it being really buggy, Jim Rosignol on Rock Paper Shotgun absolutely slated the UI too, still can't wait to play it!

The GUI is annoying, especially trying to find out what poisons etc. are affecting you, but the majority of your time in the game is spent doing stuff in the world, not the menus, so it doesn't really affect the enjoyment a whole lot. The best way to cope, I found, is to not bother with the mouse - stick to WASD to navigate the menu.

I agree. They could be better (they couldn't be a great deal worse). But one interacts with them so little it's of little importance.

The favouriting things needs sorting though. There's no way to consistently get unmatched paired weapons out with keys. That is annoying.