I was stacking books on
a shelf in my house in
Whiterun,
one
of
Skyrim's major cities,
when I noticed a weapon
rack right beside it. I set
a sacrificial dagger in
one slot, an Orcish mace
in the other. They were
on display for nobody but
me and my computercontrolled
housecarl,
Lydia, who sat at a table
patiently waiting for me
to ask her to go questing.
The chest upstairs was
reserved
for
excess
weapons and armor, the
bedside table for smithing ingots and ores, the
one next to the Alchemy
table for ingredients. I'd
meticulously organized
my owned virtual property not because I had to,
but because tending to
the minutia of domestic
life is a comforting break
from dealing with screaming frost trolls, dragons, a
civil war, and job assignments that never seem to
go as planned. It's even a
sensible thing to do; a
seemingly natural component of every day existence in Skyrim, one of the
most fully-realized, easily
enjoyable, and utterly engrossing
role-playing
games ever made.
Part of what makes it so
enjoyable has to do with
how legacy Elder Scrolls
clutter has been condensed and in some cases eliminated. In Skyrim,
there's no more moonhopping between hilltops
with a maxed out Acrobatics skill. That's gone, so is
Athletics.
The
Elder
Scrolls V pares down the
amount of skills and cuts
out attributes like Endurance and Intelligence altogether. There's no time
wasted on the character
creation screen agonizing
over which skills to assign
as major. You don't assign major and minor
skills at all, but instead
pick one of ten races,
each with a specific bonus. High Elves can
once a day regenerate
magicka quickly, Orcs
can enter a berserk
rage for more effective
close-range
combat.
These abilities are best
paired with certain character builds – the High
Elf regeneration is useful for a magic user –
but don't represent a
rigid class choice. Major
decisions don't need to
be made until you're already out in the world
and can try out magic,
sneaking and weapon
combat,
emphasizing
first-hand
experience
over instruction manual
study, letting you specialize only when you're
ready.