Thank you both very much for your replies! I'll do some more reading and researching for a few days, but I'm leaning towards giving it a try! Your responses have been a big help.

LadyCav, here are a some links that may help you run Skyrim on Windows 10:

Posting from Bethesda Support: What do I do if The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is crashing on my Windows 10 machine?

A Steam User assembled Guide: Windows 10 Settings for Skyrim

Then of course the running post on our own Glitches, Bugs & Patches forum: Windows 10 and Games


Don't worry about mods from the onset. Later, when you have more experience in the game and have played through most of the quests you can explore that aspect to add more content to the game.

Skyrim is a huge sandbox style game, meaning that it is an open environment allowing you to go where ever and do pretty much anything you want. In the beginning, your best bet is to explore around where your game begins. Foes will generally become more difficult the further out you go. Also, don't get too caught up in the main quest. It's almost better to run little quests here and there first to build your character up. There are several major quests that lead you through different story lines outside of the main quest that you can run as well. Most are tailored to a specific style of character such as the Thieve's Guild is suited for a rogue or well, thief. There is also a quest to develop a very strong mage (wizard) and another that's geared towards a warrior type. Again though, because of the open environment, just because these are directed towards a specific character type doesn't mean that a warrior can't do mage quests or a thief run warrior quests. It's all up to you and what challenges you'd like to try.

Also, because the game is non-linear, just because a quest points you towards a certain task, doesn't mean you have to do it right away. Take your time, it's just a game. Having your character die is part of playing RPG's, you learn from the experience, load your saved game and keep moving on. If you hit an enemy that you can't take down, then run away or load the save game prior to the fight and avoid the area. I've got nearly 5000 hours logged in Skyrim and have lost count how many times my character was downed in battle at the last moment, that's actually part of fun. You just have to laugh and either try again or work to improve your character for later encounters.

On the subject of save games. Everyone does things differently, this is just my general way of doing it. I prefer to save one game at character creation in case I find I'm not happy with the direction I'm moving. Then, through the game, I keep 3-4 rotating saves that allow me to go back to a point of my preference if something isn't working out. There is also a setting in the game that allows you to have Auto-saves kept every 5, 10 or 15 minutes. It will only keep 2-3 autosaves available, so it's best to do your own when entering "iffy" situations or trying something that you aren't sure about. Once you start playing we can introduce you to the console which is a Developer access to the game. It allows you to enter some handy-dandy codes in case you run into trouble.

Why, thank you Trail_Mystic! I'm sure those links will be very helpful when I read them tomorrow. And thanks for the info about the quests - I haven't read much about the beginning or any walkthroughs yet. One friend suggested to just dive in, play for a while and if you think you've made too many errors or regret your decisions, just start a new game with a new or different character.

Thanks also for the info on saves and what to do when you die. That is helpful as that is what I am apprehensive about. I'm not quite sure what you mean about several rotating saves as it seems opening a previous save would cancel out your progress, but I'm sure I'll figure it out once I get my feet wet. I'll leave the mods alone for now since I don't know what I'm doing. That's very helpful info on the side quests - thank you. Gosh, you have a LOT of hours in the game! I'll do some more research, look at the wiki or a few vids, but I think y'all's kind encouragement have just about got me sold on the game. Thanks very much for taking the time to answer with such an informative reply.

Hagatha and Trail_Mystic -- those numbers are mind-boggling to me. Is this one game or several re-plays?

Aside from my obsessive/compulsive disorder related to Elder Scrolls games, mine is due to an uncounted number of replays.

So, first off the game has a ton of small and medium sized quests that take you through a sizable landscape worthy of exploration. Secondly, I'm an old Pen and Paper gamer (Dungeons & Dragons) and am fairly obsessed with trying every permutation of every character build I can to see how they will perform and also if there are differences in the dialogue or how the quests will play out. It's not uncommon for me to play a character to a fairly high-level and then abandon it to try a different variation just because I can. Then there are mods, lots and lots of mods. Some add new dialogue, quests and characters and some introduce new weapons, armor or stat variations, which mean, you guessed it. I have to try all those character variations all over again *twitch, twitch, random noise, drool*

Truthfully, a really big contributor was my past job. I had to be available outside of my usual working hours through many evening and weekend system changes. A large part of that was watching and waiting. So, since I'm at home sitting on my computer, well you get the drift.

Well, that makes sense. I can imagine that I might make a lot of mistakes and who knows what and end up starting over again several times till I get the hang of things. And if you have the time and you enjoy the game, what better way to pass the time. Thanks very much for the explanation. I'll probably be ready to buy the game this weekend. Wish me luck.

You're in for a treat.

A whole new world awaits you. Have fun. And there are certainly folks here who can answer any questions you might have, as you know.

Hm. Now I want to fire up Skyrim. Maybe once I'm done with Bioshock 2 I'll start it up.

Bioshock 2 is not as intricate as the first one, but it's still pretty good. Ijust can't help wondering, though, why my Big Daddy Delta gets his butt kicked so thoroughly all the time. Aren't Big Daddies supposed to be near invulnerable? Or do I just ?

Well "Big Daddy" sure sounds like he should be invulnerable, but maybe they are just trying to lull you into a false sense of complacency

The one thing about ioshock 2 is that enemies mob you, and I find the controls to be a bit awkward. Changing abilities (spells) in mid-fight is almost impossible, and it's very easy to end up shooting people with the wrong ammo if you run out of something mid-battle; I often find that the reason the enemies aren't dying is my mistaken switching to trap rivets instead of anti-personnel rivets (this is the equivalent of the lock-pick stab in the original 2 Thief games) or I end up trying to switch to my machine gun and instead end up killing myself by launching a grenade at a close-range enemy.

So...Skyrim it is, next time.

...."or I end up trying to switch to my machine gun and instead end up killing myself by launching a grenade at a close-range enemy."

Without doubt something I would do !!!!

Hagatha, I used to try to play Halo with my son and spent a lot of time shooting my feet

If there was an achievement in Halo for getting stuck by your own sticky grenades I would have the gold-filled platinum one.

I have to say, though, those little Bioshock girls I'm protecting are waaaaaaay creepier than the creepy nutjobs running around Rapture.

Upon seeing an enemy burning, "Ooooh, marshmallows."

Upon seeing an enemy being attacked (by Big Daddy), "Unzip him, Daddy."

But all in all, a wonderfully twisted world with excellent visuals and addictive gameplay.

Is Skyrim available for PC that does not require Steam?

No, it requires files that are loaded through the Steam client.

Well, finished Shadowrun: Dragonfall and it was a good turn-based, dialogue driven game. As mentioned previously the Shadowrun games provide around 20 hours or so of game play each. So, picking up the group of them when they are on special is suggested to get the best bang for your buck. I have to agree with other reviewers on the Interwebs, it feels like they expanded the dialogue in order to lengthen game play one this one. I am all for a good depthy backstory and have absolutely no issues with story-driven games, but there was some fairly apparent filler that could have been dropped in favor of a couple additional quests. Still a good game for those who enjoy the cyberpunk atmosphere and turn-based/strategy game play.

Other than my running Skyrim obsession, I'm Picking up "Darksiders" again - For those who haven't looked into it, the game is set in the "End Times." Your character is War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which is about as OP as you can get There is something else going on in ethereal politics that reduces your power and requires you to determine what has happened to bring about these events, while working to regain your former strength. The voicing and dialogue is great, Mark Hamill even lends his skills to one of the characters. Gameplay is hack & slash and shows it's console origins by promoting button mashing, special moves at some point. Admittedly, I needed dial down the difficulty level a couple times to make it through some timed sequences. The graphics are great and some of the characters are nearly artworks. Character and skill development is less than intuitive though and had me searching the web for pointers quite a bit. Other than that it's a decent romp.

Right. Well, I'm almost finished with Bioshock 2, and Skyrim and its newly-purchased DLC are downloaded and ready to go.

My original game saves are all still there, but it seems silly to begin there, snce I can only remember a few things -- actually, quite a few things but nothing regarding the main story line, which I barely started -- so I'll start a new game.

Maybe I'll check out some mods, too.


EDIT: Question for TrailMystic: My existing game of Skyrim contains one or two mods from 4 years ago. These mods worked perfectly and my game ran beautifully. I didn't have to download a mod manager at that time, I'm fairly certain.

I would like to add the mods you suggested above. Do I just download the Nexus manager and then install the mods? Am I going to have problems given that my game already has a few small mods installed?

If a clean install is preferred, how do I go about it? Steam of course, just downloaded my game as it was 4 years ago.

I'd like to use some of the larger mods, but frankly a problem-free game is more important.

Apologies for the size of this reply Hagatha, I started thinking about the fact that there maybe a number of other players who don't have experience with mods and decided to hit several caveats in this post. I'm typing this a bit fast because I'm at work, so hopefully it's not too confusing. I'm thinking that I should maybe revise and expand this into a kind of "Trail's Skyrim Mod Guide" and make it a sticky for later use. You really shouldn't hit issues if you're only running a few mods, have all the pre-req's and start with a clean game (by clean game I don't mean re-installing Skyrim, I mean just starting a new game) - So, don't be put off by the amount of info I'm relating. Some of the stuff I cover are kind of "preemptive strikes" against potential issues when running really big mods or a larger volume of them.

I'm guessing you used mods from the Steam workshop? If you are still subscribed to those mods and they are still active on the Workshop then they should still be in your Data files. Personally, when loading larger mods like the Interesting NPC's I would go with a new game, but you don't need to reinstall Skyrim unless you hit some major issues. For mods from the Nexus, I would recommend using the newest stable version of Nexus Mod Manager . While it does occasionally have it's idiosyncrasies, I find it the easiest to use. Also, the majority of mod makers on the Nexus use the Best Practice Standards adopted for the Nexus Mod Manager, which makes for more consistent downloads and file usage. NMM also has a feature that you run manually, which indicates if the mod has been updated. In some cases though, it may just be that the mod author has loaded an optional file as a patch for another mod. I usually don't update mods during a single play through. My philosophy has been, if I can find the mod on the Nexus I'll use that rather than the Steam Workshop because the authors seem to update their mods more regularly there.

If you're planning on running mods from both the Workshop and Nexus I would also suggest downloading and running LOOT to manage the load order.

Personally, I have a number of mods through both the Steam Workshop (because they are not available on the Nexus) and about a hundred through the Nexus Mod Manager. I do have CTD's about once every three playing sessions if they are over 2-3 hours in length each, but it's usually attributed to Skyrim's less than optimized use of memory. That same inherent "feature" of Skyrim is also the cause of the "infinite loading screen" which can occasionally occur when running larger mods through the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE) I know a couple of workarounds for that, so if you ever hit it let me know (or I can put them in the aforementioned guide if I ever get around to writing it )


Always check the mods prerequisites - Something I'm assuming (and maybe I shouldn't do that) is that most mod users have loaded the Unofficial Patches. Those are usually a pre-req for the larger mods and are required for Arthmoors "Cutting Room Floor mod."

Just recently, as of July of this year, Arthmoor revamped the patches into the Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Patch This is a combined patch that hits Skyrim and all the DLC. The caveat of course is that you must have all the DLC loaded in order for it to work right. If not you'll have to go with the older, individual patches which he is no longer supporting. That shouldn't be a big deal though because they were quite stable and actually several of his mods can be run with the older versions including Cutting Room Floor.

At any rate, many of the larger more popular mods have modified their files to accommodate the legendary patch. So, if you aren't running that patch and it's required by the mod then you'll need to uninstall the older patches, install the legendary and then download/install your mods.

If you want to get into the really big mods that require the installation of SKSE, I would highly recommend using Gopher's method to loading SKSE with NMM His instructions are a few years old, but are still the best out there and apply to the current structures.

Another good utility to use is when you plan on running the really big or complex mods is the TES5Edit to Clean Your Master Files(another instructional vid by Gopher.) This is because Bethesda's developers didn't take into account potential file conflicts with mods when building Skyrim and left in a bunch of garbage files. Gopher's process is good to do even if you just plan on running average sized mods just as a precaution.

Also, when running larger mods, I suggest that you tweak the Auto-Save function to every 5 minutes. That way if you do have a crash it's not as much of an impact (pun intended )

Thanks, Trail, that's great info

Sooo. I have no patches installed, or at least certainly no unofficial patches. I just bought and (I think) installed all of the available DLC (I'll check after this).

It sounds to me as though I should: Install the Unofficial Legendary Patch, and then the Nexus Mod Manager. I'd just not use any more mods from the Steam workshop.

And then as an added precuation, the tessEDIT.

Are these autoinstall, or do I need to futz around with stuff? It's going to be raining tomorrow, so I'll some time.

And yes, I'd start a new game.

You'll want to install Nexus Mod Manager first, because you can use that to install the Unofficial Patch. There is some futzing with TES5Edit and NMM, but it's fairly simple. Now, I might have these steps mixed up a bit, but it won't matter because the NMM install wizard will walk you through the proces. With NMM it will search your system for games for which it can manage mods. It will detect all the Elder Scrolls games, the Bethesda versions of Fallout and the Dragon Age games as well as several others. Just click the check marks after it does it's search if the locations it displays for the game files looks right. Then it will ask you where it should store mods and the extracted files. I would go with the default locations unless you have a specific disk you want them located on. Once that's all done, it will also detect any files you're using through the Steam Workshop. Those will be located in the Plugins tab.

Next install TES5Edit and run the Master File cleaning process that Gopher walks you through at the link I posted in my previous comment.

Here's an installation vid on TES5Edit.. You can stop watching at the 2:05 mark because he goes into installing the utility into Mod Organizer, which is different from NMM. TES5Edit is downloaded in a zipped file that you can extract using something like 7zip or WinRAR Once you've installed TES5Edit, you can either make a shortcut of the .exe file and drop it in your start menu or task bar, or you can go through the steps to have it listed in the NMM utilities drop-down. I just run it from a shortcut in my start menu because I don't always need to have NMM open when cleaning the master files. Also, you only need to clean the master files after installing or reinstalling the game. It doesn't need to be done prior to every mod activation.

After that, then you can download and install the Legendary patch and any others you would like. I would still install LOOT, a good load order, even with a few mods won't hurt.

Okay, I think I'll be ready to try this later tomorrow.

Thanks for the great info. The rainy season is coming. Last year it was Fallout 4; this year it'll be Skyrim.


EDIT: So I'm guessing I should get the premium NMM membership? Seems like it would be worth it.


EDIt again: And oh, shoot, the TESSedit stuff seems beyond me. For a start, I don't have a file extractor since this laptop is strictly for games.