It has been 5 months since the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , and over those 5 months I have put in 300 hours across 3 characters. Am I done? Not even close. I haven't touched the story. I haven't done any guilds. There is so much content I might never get around to the main quest. Well, that's not likely as that is what I am most excited about doing next. So what have I been doing? Exploring. I play on Master difficulty which made things challenging at first but now that I am at level 77 most of the combat is trivial. 

• Blog #051 - Two Weeks, 140 Hours in Skyrim
• Blog #054 - Skyrim: Best Pre-Creation Kit Mods
  
  

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Conclusion

It has been 5 months since the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , and over those 5 months I have put in 300 hours across 3 characters. Am I done? Not even close. I haven't touched the story. I haven't done any guilds. There is so much content I might never get around to the main quest. Well, that's not likely as that is what I am most excited about doing next. So what have I been doing? Exploring. I play on Master difficulty which made things challenging at first but now that I am at level 77 most of the combat is trivial. 

• Blog #051 - Two Weeks, 140 Hours in Skyrim
• Blog #054 - Skyrim: Best Pre-Creation Kit Mods
  
  

Images

Conclusion

o.O 300 hours? The hell dude.

I've logged 200 hours on the 360 version of the game. I must say, I encountered very few glitches, so it didn't suck to play on a console (at least for me).
I'd love to see this on the PC though, just for the graphical improvements I know exist! But man, 300 hours and no main quest? That's bonkers! I can't imagine willfully staying away from the main story that long, I couldn't have that much stamina, I'd want to get to the story eventually!

It would really suck to play this on a console without mods or access to the developer console. It offers so much flexibility.

It's a lesser experience, sure, but it doesn't suck. I would indeed prefer to play it on PC but money. Damn money.

@Phatmac said:

o.O 300 hours? The hell dude.

My brother put 25 hours in the weekend that he got it. That's 25 of 48. 48-25= 23, meaning he spent a little over half of his weekend in the game. I'm no mathematician, but if you chucked that into a ratio or something you'd find that 300 hours over 5 months is pitifully small compared. It's not unfathomable, especially when you're unemployed.

On a final note, now that finals are coming and I'm super-stressed and tired about everything, when I do decide to take a break from studying I put in Skyrim. That game seems to be pulling me through, letting me see a tiny sliver of light at the end of my long days, allowing me an escape into a nice, relaxing, peaceful walk through the game's environments. Really, when I play it now I'm not actually doing anything, just walking around. That helps relieve so much tension and stress.

Honestly, I've probably put in over 300 hours for Fallotu 3 and New Vegas seperately, and I'v only beaten Fallout 3's main quest once and I have yet to beat new Vegas' main quest. Its fun to just run around and do whatever, purposefully going the opposite direction of where I normally go or doing certain tasks in the most perfect way and not falling into the same errors of previous playthroughs. This coming from someone who worked 40 hours a week, is married, and has gaming ADHD (I can't play a single game for too long before wanting to play something else)

I've also only had one evil character so far (purposefully choosing every asshole option there is) and even then the story can still change and faction relations with you. That is unless you just slaughter EVERYONE that comes up to you.

I wouldn't be able to sink all that time into Skyrim though. I love the setting, I've put in a lot of time into Viking: Battle for Asgard and that was pretty much a button masher, but something about Skyrim can't grab me. I think its like what Jeff has said before; seeing Skyrim is cool, but it excites me more to know that the next Fallout will have all the updates Skyrim introduced and then some.

And yes, unemployment sucks. I had a job right out of high school, and recently quit because another job was lined up for me. But I foolishly quit way too early, since the place I'm going to work at now still doesn't open for another month. Atleast I'm making a little bit of cash through training and orientation and my taxes coming back. =/

@believer258: Sorry, didn't mean to make you defend your playtime. I've spent around 100 hours with Skyrim so I'm certainly guilty of spending an abnormal amount of time on a game. It was just an immediate reaction.

@Phatmac said:

@believer258: Sorry, didn't mean to make you defend your playtime. I've spent around 100 hours with Skyrim so I'm certainly guilty of spending an abnormal amount of time on a game. It was just an immediate reaction.

No need for apologies; I didn't mean that I was offended in any way, shape, or form. I was just pointing out that, while 300 hours is a lot of time, it's nowhere near an unfathomable amount, especially in 5 months, and I was giving an example of that.

@Phatmac said:

o.O 300 hours? The hell dude.

Yeah, it's a lot. I don't play efficiently. I take everything I find and take a trip to town so I can sell everything after each dungeon. Sometimes I just wander and hunt dragons. My game also crashes regularly enough.

@believer258 said:

It would really suck to play this on a console without mods or access to the developer console. It offers so much flexibility.

It's a lesser experience, sure, but it doesn't suck. I would indeed prefer to play it on PC but money. Damn money.

Yeah I guess so, but quest breaking bugs can be horrible. On PC I can always find a way around it.

@SomeDeliCook said:

I think its like what Jeff has said before; seeing Skyrim is cool, but it excites me more to know that the next Fallout will have all the updates Skyrim introduced and then some.

I don't agree, but I can see why you would think that. I find it hard to get excited about a game that is probably 4 years away.

@AlisterCat said:

@Phatmac said:

o.O 300 hours? The hell dude.

Yeah, it's a lot. I don't play efficiently. I take everything I find and take a trip to town so I can sell everything after each dungeon. Sometimes I just wander and hunt dragons. My game also crashes regularly enough.

i know what you mean.

Great post Alister. I stopped playing Skyrim on Xbox at around 120 hours. Posts like these are what make me want to build a PC or bootcamp my Mac and get into Skyrim again. Love your custome headers in this post!

I've got around 150 hours on my first character. I keep meaning to make a new character and tackle a lot quests I haven't even touched, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves, Champions to name a few. But alas, other games keep calling me, but I'll get there eventually. Cool blog.

I put in around 30 hours just staying in Whiterun doing town quests, levelling up some snd starting the Mages guilds quests But then I stopped when the game was getting a but buggy and waited for patches.... and never continued since then.

My summer will be spent picking up my mages staff and dagger and returning to my Dunmer who seeks knowledge and his homeland of Vvardenfell...

You're still crazy, but it's nice that someone can delve so much time into one game. Makes me want to boot up Skyrim and get past my lazy 100 hours.

I played like 80 hours and pretty much did everything worth doing with one character. I didn't explore every single location (pretty damn close!) but I did all the quests and got all the achievements and even got all the Dragon Priest Masks. I put a lot more hours into Oblivion but I don't have the patience to keep playing on it like I use to, so I'm just waiting for the DLC to go back and play some more.

I don't see how it takes so long for people to do everything in this game. I figure I played so much Oblivion I was just so efficient in playing this game.

@alexisg said:

Great post Alister. I stopped playing Skyrim on Xbox at around 120 hours. Posts like these are what make me want to build a PC or bootcamp my Mac and get into Skyrim again. Love your custome headers in this post!

Thanks. Yeah, I like the way the headers turned out too. I think it's amazing that people like you and Coonce can play so much of Skyrim given that you might not have played this kind of game normally. I'm glad it isn't so hardcore.

I'm at 200 plus hours, reached the level cap, got the best armor (Daedric), finished the main and 4 guild quests and still I'm finding new quests and new things to do. Truly the most epic game in my collection in terms of scale, and few games can beat out Fallout 3 on that front. Bethesda outdid themselves; the 5 or so years of waiting were worth it.

As for you my friend I recommend doing those guilds once you're done with the awesome blogs.

@AlisterCat: Just 300 hours? psshsa. Then again, I did have the habit of leaving Skyrim on while I was up and about in the apartment. But seriously, great read. I'm in the same boat of having invested a metric ton of time on Oblivion, and then having that pattern of self-abuse follow me into Skyrim.

@Claude said:

I've got around 150 hours on my first character. I keep meaning to make a new character and tackle a lot quests I haven't even touched, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves, Champions to name a few. But alas, other games keep calling me, but I'll get there eventually. Cool blog.

At 150 hours I would say dont bother with another character unless you feel like you made some wrong choices, but there aren't many in Skyrim. I made that mistake and had to slog through like a hundred quests I had done before. Made me not want to play it.

@FourWude said:

I put in around 30 hours just staying in Whiterun doing town quests, levelling up some snd starting the Mages guilds quests But then I stopped when the game was getting a but buggy and waited for patches.... and never continued since then.

My summer will be spent picking up my mages staff and dagger and returning to my Dunmer who seeks knowledge and his homeland of Vvardenfell...

Yeah it is easy to spend 30 hours in Whiterun. I went round every building and every person.

im 120 hours in and still love it every time i play it. going to take a break with TW2 for a while though... but i will return

Godammit the dawnbreaker sword makes me want to high five myself every time it sets off that explosion. Friggin' hilarious.

@CaptainCody said:

You're still crazy, but it's nice that someone can delve so much time into one game. Makes me want to boot up Skyrim and get past my lazy 100 hours.

Few people need to play Skyrim as much as I have. 100 hours sounds like enough. Move on to other games.

@dudeglove said:

Godammit the dawnbreaker sword makes me want to high five myself every time it sets off that explosion. Friggin' hilarious.

It catches me by surprise every time. Kind of annoying when a room full of undead run away. But I have 4 followers waiting to mop them up.

Took you long enough to get to 300 hours.....

I got to 300 hours in the first month..............................

Oh dear god that's a bad thing isn't?

@AlisterCat said:

@dudeglove said:

Godammit the dawnbreaker sword makes me want to high five myself every time it sets off that explosion. Friggin' hilarious.

It catches me by surprise every time. Kind of annoying when a room full of undead run away. But I have 4 followers waiting to mop them up.

It's a teensy bit annoying when the room it goes off in is filled with certain stuff you want to pick up. I've not had it mess up any quest items...yet.

@dudeglove said:

@AlisterCat said:

@dudeglove said:

Godammit the dawnbreaker sword makes me want to high five myself every time it sets off that explosion. Friggin' hilarious.

It catches me by surprise every time. Kind of annoying when a room full of undead run away. But I have 4 followers waiting to mop them up.

It's a teensy bit annoying when the room it goes off in is filled with certain stuff you want to pick up. I've not had it mess up any quest items...yet.

I had it happen once when I had to collect a bunch of books and a couple of them flew around the room. One of them clipped through the floor. Luckily on PC I have noclip so I could get it but it is annoying. I wish you could tune that to only affect hostile NPCs.

@Bell_End said:

im 120 hours in and still love it every time i play it. going to take a break with TW2 for a while though... but i will return

I took a break for Kingdoms of Amalur. Really wish I hadn't.

@ReyGitano said:

@AlisterCat: Just 300 hours? psshsa. Then again, I did have the habit of leaving Skyrim on while I was up and about in the apartment. But seriously, great read. I'm in the same boat of having invested a metric ton of time on Oblivion, and then having that pattern of self-abuse follow me into Skyrim.

My game is a little unstable, so I've lost a lot of progress when added up (just 5 minutes max each time). I wonder if it counts time spent in the launcher as well. I'm up to 312 now. Installed a bunch more mods. At this point I have to have at least 100 mods on Oblivion to play it though. No longer satisfied with the vanilla experience but still one of my favourite games of all time.

@AlisterCat said:

@ReyGitano said:

@AlisterCat: Just 300 hours? psshsa. Then again, I did have the habit of leaving Skyrim on while I was up and about in the apartment. But seriously, great read. I'm in the same boat of having invested a metric ton of time on Oblivion, and then having that pattern of self-abuse follow me into Skyrim.

My game is a little unstable, so I've lost a lot of progress when added up (just 5 minutes max each time). I wonder if it counts time spent in the launcher as well. I'm up to 312 now. Installed a bunch more mods. At this point I have to have at least 100 mods on Oblivion to play it though. No longer satisfied with the vanilla experience but still one of my favourite games of all time.

Same issue here, but these open world Bethesda games always have issues; I've just come to accept it as part of life. Rain will fall, the earth will quake, and Bethesda games will freeze.

90 Hours on 2 characters so far. 300 hours, wow. I'm on 360 though, so no mods.

Fuck, I want to get to 300 hours. I have the PC version on Steam, but for some reason I've wanted to pick up the 360 version instead.

I don't really use mods, I feel it kind of breaks the balance of the in-game weapons/armour, etc. I can't really concentrate on the PC version because I have a feeling I'd enjoy the 360 version more... I don't know why.

300 hours...that's crazy. I can't even remember the last time I connected with a game like that. I'm jealous of you </3

@ElNeebre said:

Fuck, I want to get to 300 hours. I have the PC version on Steam, but for some reason I've wanted to pick up the 360 version instead.

I don't really use mods, I feel it kind of breaks the balance of the in-game weapons/armour, etc. I can't really concentrate on the PC version because I have a feeling I'd enjoy the 360 version more... I don't know why.

I know that feeling, but really the PC version is the best. My gaming set up isn't like a regular person's though. My Xbox and PC use exactly the same TV but the Xbox isn't nearly as powerful. I would have no advantage to playing the Xbox version, but you might.

There are mods you can get that are balanced for the game, but mainly I use mods to fix things about the game I don't like. Graphical improvements don't affect balance. Just search and you'll find something you like.

@Tru3_Blu3: That is great.

@Claude said:

@AlisterCat: The biggest reason I want to start a new character for a lot of the quests I haven done is because I'm so powerful. I thought tackling those quests with a lower level character would make for more of a challenge. It gets old being a bad ass.

That's how I felt with my first character. Max level, and I steamrolled through everything. Now I'm just playing as a content tourist. I want to see everything.

I probably logged 200 - 300 hours on 3 characters on the 360 version alone. Now I've made 2 more on PC.

my characters were:

• Dual Swords minor stealth (my first playthrough)
• Mage (conjuration and destruction)
• Thief (Backstab with knife for 30x damage)*
• Orc with a hammer (crushin skullz)*
• Ranger (just archery)

*My favourites

Every character build just gave me an excuse to continue exploring. Love that goddamn game.

@BigChickenDinner said:

Took you long enough to get to 300 hours.....

I got to 300 hours in the first month..............................

Oh dear god that's a bad thing isn't?

That is pretty incredible. I got to 140 hours in 2 weeks, which was when I was marathoning it. You would have had to play even more than that in 2 weeks.

@AlisterCat: No job, no problem XD

@AlisterCat: boob broom, enough said, i spent about 200 hours in the game just walking around and i would say 50 doing quests and guilds, some of the story fights are a little boring but overall the game is incredible and as a sword and shield guy i really like the combat, its fun in its own simplistic way

@buft said:

@AlisterCat: boob broom, enough said, i spent about 200 hours in the game just walking around and i would say 50 doing quests and guilds, some of the story fights are a little boring but overall the game is incredible and as a sword and shield guy i really like the combat, its fun in its own simplistic way

Never tried the sword and shield combat, not sure why. I suppose it's all about that shield parry ability that slows down time. One chop from my dawnbreaker and everything goes down so I haven't had chance to block. It does almost 500 damage a strike plus 110 fire damage.

I hit about 75 hours and stopped, but I could easily return and play a ton more

Do you have some crazy Depth of Field mod, or are the shots in the main article edited?

I'm at 106 hours on PC, but I originally played they game on ps3 where I put in over 200 hours, so I share your love for the game. I've recently started playing it again, and with a bunch of mods to make the game more challenging, plus fast-travel restrictions and minimal potion use, the game has again gotten interesting.

I really don't understand how you can play Skyrim for 300 hours. I've played for 70 hours and finished the main quest, the civil war, and every faction questline, as well as reached level 81. Are there other interesting quest lines that I've missed?

@Asurastrike said:

I really don't understand how you can play Skyrim for 300 hours. I've played for 70 hours and finished the main quest, the civil war, and every faction questline, as well as reached level 81. Are there other interesting quest lines that I've missed?

What about all the Daedra stuff and side quests?

I really don't understand how you can play Skyrim for 300 hours. I've played for 70 hours and finished the main quest, the civil war, and every faction questline, as well as reached level 81. Are there other interesting quest lines that I've missed?

@Flawed_System said:

@Asurastrike said:

I really don't understand how you can play Skyrim for 300 hours. I've played for 70 hours and finished the main quest, the civil war, and every faction questline, as well as reached level 81. Are there other interesting quest lines that I've missed?

What about all the Daedra stuff and side quests?

I've only come across two of the Daedric quests.

@Chavtheworld said:

Do you have some crazy Depth of Field mod, or are the shots in the main article edited?

Most ENB series mods can incorporate depth of field. It is a very frame heavy style of mod though.

Good read. I have mainly two things to say: 
1. I'm fascinated by your fascination by things that get pretty old 50 hours in. You're 300 hours in and still find it charming how dragon skin burns and leaves a skeleton behind. I envy you for maintaining that sense of novelty and fascination, better than being insta jaded like I am. 
 
2. I've clocked 97 hours in the game, still have many quests to finish, much more quests to stumble upon, a lot of perks to unlock and items to find, but I simply can't play this game anymore, and I attribute that to two main reasons: 
A) The game is WAY too dependent on Nordic ruins. It saddens me that Bethesda created this 'album filler' where you have to explore a Nordic crypt and either farm kills on weak skeletons or get raped by powerful ones. I am sick to my stomach of the moldy looking walls and wooden staircases of those crypts, and looting those skeletons to find 5 gold and a Nordic sword every time. How do you deal with that bullshit? 
B) The loot is so goddamn underwhelming. It's always 5 or 10 gold, a potion or two, and a gem. Is there a loot mod somewhere?

@Asurastrike said:

@Flawed_System said:

@Asurastrike said:

I really don't understand how you can play Skyrim for 300 hours. I've played for 70 hours and finished the main quest, the civil war, and every faction questline, as well as reached level 81. Are there other interesting quest lines that I've missed?

What about all the Daedra stuff and side quests?

I've only come across two of the Daedric quests.

Oh, I found that a lot of them are at the Daedric shrines (Have to find them on the map). The side quests are usually pretty fun and involved too.

@AlisterCat: Sweet.

@Asurastrike said:

I really don't understand how you can play Skyrim for 300 hours. I've played for 70 hours and finished the main quest, the civil war, and every faction questline, as well as reached level 81. Are there other interesting quest lines that I've missed?

I try and go to every location on the map, even unmarked places. All the daedric quest lines are worth doing, and there a lot of quests you stumble upon entering ruins. I don't play efficiently either. I pick up everything in every room I go to in dungeons. At the start of the game I made a living stealing from every home in every city just to get enough money before really starting my travels.