So, Skyrim's out 11/11/11

[Roland]

How do you do a power attack? I see in the perks that it exists, but I'm not sure how to actually pull it off. My melee combat so far has consisted of wildly flailing around until either the bad guy or myself falls over.

Power attacks are done by moving in a direction while holding the attack button. That is what's meant by a forwards / backwards / sideways power attack.

Well, apparently what I sold back to him wasn't what I stole from him in the first place because he's not buying my stolen goods now. Bugger.

Edit: Even the stuff I pickpocketed from folks in the inn he won't take. Guess I'll just have to find the thieves guild. *shakes her fist at Bethesda*

There's two Perks in the Speech tree that allow you to sell stolen items to almost anyone. The first is Investor, which allows you to invest gold in shops in order to increase the available funds they have. The other is Fence, which allows you to sell stolen goods to any Merchant you've invested in. Both are pretty high in the Speech tree (70 and 90 respectively), so unless you really plan on making a fortune thieving you may want to hold off until the late game (post level 50), or bypass such Perks entirely.

Edit2: After finally sitting down and actually PLAYING instead of just messing around with five million new characters, crafting, thievery stuffs, and general learning, this game really does beat Oblivion hands down. Not actually choosing anything beyond race at the beginning was a little odd for me and some other minor control things made it feel like it wasn't a TES game, but the playstyle is still there. The flexibility is still there. And I don't have to play as a silly mage just to feel like I can be effective. I like the melee combat in this one better because, while you still can move to get different power strikes in, that's not the sole purpose of the movement. Plus, I LOVE that whole bash deal to knock 'em off balance enough to really land a good, hard power strike. You bash by holding the block key and tapping the attack key. It just feels like better melee. Although I still prefer to open with a bowshot from stealth. =D

Bethesda, much MUCH improvement on Oblivion, especially with not having the retarded mob leveling system. This means I definitely have a game that will tide me over until D3 and I don't have to keep paying for RIFT to get crafting done either. =) Oh! And on the plus side, you can actually get upgrades from the dungeon loot instead of being stuck with the same crap for level after level after level so I get a little "Oooh! What dropped?" bit too. Although I still haven't found an enchanter's altar/table thingy yet, but I also haven't looked too closely for one either. =)

All in all, definitely worth it. It will be even more worth it when they release the Creation Kit (previously known as the construction set) and I can fiddle around again. =D

*does a happy dance around the room before leaving to beat the ever living crap out of nasty undead things*

By the way, going through all the damned spider webs in the dungeons literally made me do one of those all over body shakes to get rid of the creepy crawly feeling. HATE spiders.

I am loving this game so far. BTW - have you tried out Cooking yet? In addition to Smithing and Alchemy (be sure to catch the fish in the rivers / lakes, and the dragonflies above the water, and the butterflies on the land - they're all ingredients! Oh, and bees in beehives), there's also Cooking, Woodcutting (mostly used to sell Firewood to certain NPCs for about 5 gold a pop), Mining (for ores and gems), and there's grindstones to use for milling, but I have yet to figure out how they work.

Also, there's an Enchanter's Table in a cave nearby the starting area - I forget if it's closer to Riverdell or Whiterun, but it's not far off. There's also one in a secret room in the Riverdell tavern, but you'll find that soon enough. Raising your Smithing level allows you to improve the quality of your arms and armor (if you hit a new tier, you can improve them to the next tier, as well) - but you probably knew that. Also of note is that certain ingredients react better together than others when making potions, so be sure to look at the output values before combining! Oh, and experimentation is good! You can unlock other known affects of items simply by combining two together that share properties - even if they aren't known! Combining Wheat & Blue Mountain Flower, for example, leads to a potion that not only restores Health, but also Fortifies it! And there's a Resist Frost combination that also fortifies Heavy Armor.

As to Skyrim itself, I find some things really confusing such as assigning perks. Every time I level up I get some message about the number of perks which are now unlocked but have no clue in how to choose one. I can scroll through the various perks, some of which my character does not have the levels required to select but even for those he does (eg "barbarian") there seems to be no way to select it. I push on the mouse key and it just scrolls to the next perk. I definitely do not like the inability to assign various weapons to hotkeys. To switch you have to hit "Q" and scroll down your list of "favorites" with your somewhat unresponsive mouse. I suppose the controls are an example of the game being "consolized" (yet another new word I have just come across).

I don't know why you're having that problem. I have had no issues selecting skill perks. Just scroll over to the one you want (i.e. have it highlighted), and then click on it to add a point. The game will prompt you to make sure you want to invest in that perk, and that's it.

Personally, I'm saving several of my Perk points for later use, and also because I haven't finalized my character plan. Actually playing the game has made me rethink a couple Perks I had in mind to take, so for now I'm just cruising along, investing only when I feel a need (i.e. more Bow damage, better Sneaking, or better Light Armor rating).