I'm one of the few people who like the menu as it is. Admittedly it took a bit of getting used to, and a something as basic as a menu shouldn't really need getting used to. But once i was used to it i found it really handy as it means i can select anything just by twiddling the fingers on my left hand and don't need to faff about with the mouse.

I use SkyUI as well, and often only use my left hand on the keyboard to do everything. The main difference between the default and the modded menu for me is that you can see so much more on screen. By default you get something like 9 or 11 items visible at once with the ones to the top and bottom faded out slightly, but with SkyUI you can see at least twice as many plus basic info at the same time. Stuff like sorting, favouriting and switching categories is much neater too.

I'm beginning to think i've bitten off more than i can chew with this game. I'm vaguely aware what +1 means when it comes to swords, but have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. I found a chair on top of a little tower. The game give me the option to sit down. So i did. That wasted 5 minutes. People keep asking me to do things for them, and as I've not yet found the journal i keep forgetting the side quests :C

Minor point and i guess I'm looking at the freeform nature the wrong way, but damn - it's overwhelmingly huge.

You're meant to put shoes on roofs.

There's a lot of strange things up in the mountains. :/

Best thing I found was a subjugated ghost. He kept saying "I don't want to do this" as he beat down on me.

Also, seeing the two moons amongst a display of (presumably) northern lights was a highlight.

Picture didn't attach to that post, so here it is.

There's a ghost horseman somewhere in there, too. I never did work out what that was all about.

I did have a quick read through the rest of this thread - was he the headless one?

I guess everyone will have been thoroughly bored by Skyrim now, anyone still playing it?

I'm playing through it as a hack and slash and have realised that's not very effective against magical peoples.

How does one protect oneself against wibbly wobbly magic things coming 'atcha?

Archery. It's the only way to fight.

Good advice. I need some better arrows. I'm using some i looted off a draugr in a dungeon and they're probably past their best.

I'm only level 5 so far and everything except weaker bandits is kicking my arse.

I have put 487 hours into it.  10 working weeks!  I feel shame.

I've been playing it a bit recently after forgetting about it for many months. Watching this series definitely rekindled my interest, though installed a variety of interesting mods helped too.

Whichever kind of person I play as I still have some ranged ability. On fighty warrior types it's always good to get some archery for when you need it.

But what you do isn't really work, is it? And you don't appear to feel shame for that! :{)

I labour long into the night, hewing art from the coal-face of life, so that you don't have to, you ungrateful bastard.

I'm rather taken with the somewhat Elder Scrolls-inspired open gameplay and gorgeously rendered landscape of Far Cry 3 at the moment.

The coalface-hewn book arrived yesterday. Thanks!

Brill.  I hope you derive some enjoyment from it.  It's more fool's gold than a literary diamond, but I wanted to write something that was fun to read.

Skyrim could do with some hang gliders.

And special mushrooms.

Only recently stopped playing it. I usually play games like these for 130 hours or so, get bored, then come back to them a couple of years later. Slap all the DLC on, plus a pile of mods, then it becomes a fresh experience again.

Personally, I was always a combination of archery and swords. Note that even at higher levels, the really good arrows aren't exactly hugely abundant. Ignore iron arrows as even the old ones from ruins are as good as steel arrows. Oh, and work hard at your blacksmith skill and use it to improve all your armour and weaponry. Makes a HUGE difference!

Yeah, defense is something I've ignored until now. Smithing is something I'm gonna concentrate on. It's going to take me a while to ramp up that amount of game time!

The only thing I've ever played that much is Street Fighter 2, kinda wish that had an time counter now.