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[Ken]

We've had our hands on Skyrim for a couple weeks now and I'm sure everyone's gotten their bearings and seen at least a little bit of the tundra.  Some of you have seen a great deal of it.  I know I've been enjoying the game immensely (even if it's still hard to resist the habitual restarter in me and generate a new daily Dovahkiin).  To keep the thrill going, however, I too often find that I need additional challenges on top of what a great game like Skyrim already provides.  I thrive on high difficulty and hardcore settings in such games and ::raeg:: when the only "difficulty" those add is a cheating computer.  With this being a forum of EVE players (current or former), I know you probably savor such challenges too.  Well, here's one for your testing.

This particular sort of thing has been done before many times and in many ways, so I'll not pretend like it's an original concept.  Nevertheless, I give you the...

Challenge Rules
or Eight Simple Rules for Dating my Dovahkiin

1. No rescue reloads.
If you're in imminent danger, don't resolve the situation with a time warp.  Find a way out or make your peace with the gods.  Saves are there in case the game crashes and for continuity between play sessions, not to retcon mistakes.  Caution is your watch-word.  Keep it honest.

2. Death is final.
If you die, you've completed the challenge.  Tabulate your score and post it.  By all means, keep on playing the character and sharing, but the challenge is over.  The moral of this story is: don't go into danger unprepared.

3. No mods.
Audio-visual tweaks and changes are fine, but don't use any mods or plugins that change the gameplay from "vanilla".  If you want to disable finishing moves (which can sometimes make you the target of a dramatic instant death), that is alright.

4. Don't adjust the difficulty setting.
Pick your level of challenge between Apprentice, Adept, and Expert (the middle three difficulty settings) and adjust your final score accordingly.

5. No fast travel (via the map).
Walk, run, ride, or swim.  Carriage travel is okay.

6. Live your adventure.
Aim for an immersive roleplaying experience.  Think and act according to how your character would in any given situation.  Try to understand why your character makes the choices he or she does.

7. Tell your story.
Share your character's history, thoughts, motivations, and experiences in Skyrim with the rest of us in this thread (or another created just for you).  Take screenshots.  Write.  Compose AARs.  Entertain and enlighten.  Express yourself through the creative process of roleplaying.  Skyrim may be a single player game, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to watch.

8. Keep it honest.
There's no way to validate accounts or final scores.  The goal here is to have fun and add value to the gaming experience, not to "win".  Just play it through and see how far your character can get on one life.

Final Score
Your final score is a sum of following factors, most of which can be found in the "General Stats" section of the in-game menu.

Level
Multiply this value by 50

Locations Discovered
Multiply this value by 10

Dungeons Cleared
Multiply this value by 20

Chests Looted
Multiply this value by 5

Quests Completed
Multiply this value by 30

Misc Objectives Completed
Multiply this value by 10

Questlines Completed
Multiply this value by 1000 (to a maximum of 3000)

Hours Slept (divided by) Days Passed
Subtract 25 per day if this value is less than 5

Food Eaten (divided by) Days Passed
Subtract 25 per day if this value is less than 3

Multiply the final score according to the difficulty level you selected.
Apprentice
Multiply the final score by 0.5

Adept
Multiply the final score by 1

Expert
Multiply the final score by 1.5

Good luck and good hunting.

[Misan]

May try this after I finish my big first playthrough. Trying to hit level 50 first.

[Victoria Stecker]

Sounds like it could be a lot of fun. When I get tired of my uber-powered glass cannon mage, I'll give it a shot. It'll give me a good reason to put points into health and stamina.

[kalaratiri]

As soon as I actually manage to get Skyrim, I will be doing this. Christmas, here I come!

[Wanoah]

I like your thinking: your rules are fairly close to how I normally play, except I do usually reload and try again if I die, and I do tend to use fast travel early on when I'm purely focused on the major quests. It tends to be the later playthroughs where I focus on living in the world as much as possible.

Will have a crack at this after the patch I think.

[Wanoah]

LOL! I didn't last long! I blundered into a Spriggan in a cave at level 2 and was dispatched by her pet cat before the words "Run away" could leave my lips.

Meet the late Casimir, a Redguard who was making his way to Skyrim in the hopes of finding some steady mercenary work.

Item	#	Score
Level	2	100
Locations Discovered	22	220
Dungeons Cleared	1	20
Chests Looted	20	100
Quests Completed	2	60
Misc Objectives Compl.	11	110
Questlines completed	0	0
Hours Slept/Days	20/3	6.6
Food Eaten/Days	3/3	-75

Difficulty       =   Adept   

Final score      =   541.6


      

[Silver Night]

That does sound sort of awesome.

[Bacchanalian]

Growarg the Orc.

[spoiler]


[/spoiler]

Formerly loyal to the Legion, he had hoped to travel to Skyrim to join the fight against the rebel Stormcloaks.  On his way across the border he was picked up by a Legion patrol, and a racist Legion commander arrested him and send him off to Helgen for execution with several Stormcloaks and a hapless horse thief.  He vowed then and there to massacre as many Legion soldiers as he could and to join the Stormcloaks in their fight against them despite being politically apathetic.

He has a rather harsh distrust of elves and redguard and will happily dispatch them if he thinks he can get away with it.  He's also distrustful of using magic, but was taught some basics in restoration magic by a member of his family when younger, and won't hesitate to use a healing spell in a pinch if it is unavoidable.  No problem with magically enchanted inanimate objects such as weapons, but dislikes casters. 

Most comfortable in heavy armor, he opts for a sword and board style, though he tends towards axes when possible. 

Thus far, score:

Level:  14*50=700
Locations:  42*10=420
Dungeons:  10*20=200
Chests:  162*5=690
Quests:  8*30=210
Misc Objs:  8*10=80
Questlines:  0
Hours Slept:  100/8day=0
Food:  40/8day=0 (I had run out of potions and had to scarf down a few dozen apples and potatoes to stay alive, okay?)

Difficulty:  Adept

Elves slaughtered in cold blood:  35

Total score to date:  2300

Will update the post as I progress.


Helped the Gray-Manes save one of theirs from a fortress of elves.  Gleefully massacred the elves.  On the way back to Solitude, Growarg came across a hut where an unfortunate Nord had passed away and his loyal four-legged companion was lonely and decided to tag along with me, so Growarg now begrudingly has a dog.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Introducing my sword to my first dragon's brain just before discovering I am Dragonborn.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Hrm.  Growarg decided to save a Stormcloak soldier that was being dragged down the road by three Legion soldiers.  He massacred the Legion soldiers and freed the prisoner only to find that a 2040 gold bounty was placed on his head.  He chased down what he thought was the only witness, the Stormcloak soldier and dispatched him as well, but the bounty was not removed.  Some other witness must have been around.  Unfortunately, Growarg is now an outlaw in The Pale.

Wandering around helping some Windhelm locals, Growarg stumbled across several interesting places.  A cave full of Falmer quickly turned into a very frightening experience that forced Growarg into a very expeditious tactical retreat which also happened to completely deplete his stock of healing potions, any alchemy ingredients that healed, all of his magicka and magicka potions as he spammed a healing spell while running for his life, and resulted in his staggering outside with the slimmest slivers of health and utterly lucky that fate had smiled on him and his restoration spell use had done enough to make him a more confident warrior mid-fight and completely rejuvenate him (nothing like leveling up as you're running for your life out of potions and being able to choose to increase your health, thereby refilling all of your bars).  He made a decision to leave the Falmer alone for a long time to come. 

He then stumbled onto a Dwemer ruin, but having heard that the Falmer inhabit such places, he gave it a wide berth and opted instead to explore the remnants of a fort that had been taken over by rogue mages.  Oddly, the prison inside of it was completely empty, but the mages were kind enough to leave healthy stashes of loot for Growarg to haul back and pawn off in town.

[Ghost Hunter]

So I rolled a character to do this challenge.

After completing the Helgen tutorial, I saw the 3 guardian stones and was like 'aw ye, gonna do warrior stone'. I jump off the cliff to the stones, oblivious to the perils of being a level 1 again.

Needless to say my challenge character died gloriously splattered across the beginner guardian stones, thus completing this challenge in an astounding 30 minutes.

gg

[Graelyn]

Ghost is winning!

[Ken]

It was a strange week for Njall Hard-Heart.  Having abandoned his post with the Legion in Cyrodiil, he returned home to Skyrim in the hopes of joining up with the Stormcloak rebels.  Destiny (and a few dragons) had other plans for him, however, and the summons of the Greybeards took him to the Throat of the World.  Could he possibly be Dragonborn, just as was Talos himself?  An Ice Troll on the path to High Hrothgar made sure Njall would never find out.



Njall Hard-Heart

Item	#	Score
Level	8	800
Locations Discovered	16	160
Dungeons Cleared	5	100
Chests Looted	61	305
Quests Completed	7	210
Misc Objectives Compl.	15	150
Questlines completed	0	0
Hours Slept/Days	57/7	0
Food Eaten/Days	25/7	0

Difficulty       =   Adept   

Final score      =   1725

[Bacchanalian]

Updated.   

[Bacchanalian]

Updated again.  Am I the only one doing this? 

[orange]

Updated again.  Am I the only one doing this?

I think you are the only one surviving.

[Misan]

Updated again.  Am I the only one doing this?

Haven't had much time to play lately. Planning on starting it once I hit 100k gold on my first character (achievement whore D:).