So, I am really new to PC gaming. But for Christmas I decided to buy myself a computer. Or, shall I say, build myself a computer.

Did it. Got a great, powerful machine now.

Installed Skyrim, which I S-Ranked on the XBOX, which means, I played a whole lot of Skyrim., obviously. Gotta say, this is simpy incredible. I mean, just the load screens is a huge deal. But, I really went down the rabbt hole with mods. The game just looks amazing, the difference is quite something.

Anyway, getting to the nitty gritty of this post. I am in a weird conceptual funk. Maybe it is simply an issue of self-control, I dunno. BUT...hey, we are all into games here right? So let's talk about it.

The CONSOLE...I think it has ruined this game for me. It started as just as a "I need 5 iron ingots and an ebony ingot," But, man, I don't want to go find a mine, that shit be annoying. I mean, I can do it, go mountain climbing like a dingbat goat, waste a bunch of time, find the stupid mine, then you know, mine it, watch that silly animation...then FINALLY, go back to my stash area, and make my whatever at the smithing forge. But, all of that is silly! This is no big deal, just take a hit off the CONSOLE, no biggie...get my measely ignots in 3 seconds instead of 30 minutes. Then, you know, you just spiral out of control from there. At least, I did.

In a way, I feel like te CONSOLE is just a bad idea. Why is this available to us? Do achievements mean anything in the PC world? Again, I am very new to the PC gaming scene, so maybe I am just way behind here.

Or, maybe I just have no self control.

The console being open to the player has been available since... well, a fucking long time. It's not something that Skyrim invented. When you're using mods and need to change settings on the fly to see how they work or what is wrong with them, the console is a blessing.

The problem is not the console, but what the player does with it. Learn to control yourself and don't cheat if you'll feel bad about it.

Find a mine? I never mined shit. Just buy the ingots. Also I never use the console.

Edit, I have used the console when Shadowmere did not spawn, or once when he feel off a cliff.

The console commands ruined Morrowind for me back then. I killed Dagoth Ur with lvl 1 and then walked around being adressed as the Nerevarine by everyone :D

I was in pretty much the same exact situation as you. I put in hundreds of hours on Skyrim on the 360, and when I finally got the PC version, I went NUTS with the console. It kind of sucked the fun out of it. So I made a new character, and limited myself to just a few certain things that bugged me on the 360. Namely, carrying capacity and stamina. That combined with the mods seems like the sweet spot, and I'm having a lot of fun with the game again. 
 
As far as I can tell, not being a huge PC gamer, achievements don't really mean much. Probably due to the fact that not only is the console available in many games, but these games are easily modded as well. I think it's great to have stuff like this readily available, but just like cheat codes, game genies, and code sharks of the old days, restraint is needed in order to not completely destroy a game experience. 

Eventually you just figure out that it is, or isn't, enjoyable to cheat that much and use it with restraint.

The console is a handy tool, and in skyrim I mostly used it for changing minor things about my character appearance, I think. I can get unreasonably OCD about that stuff.

Make the console toggleable through an ini file. That's probably best practice right there.

But hey, welcome to Team PC. You've just discovered the first secret that is never to be discussed in public: modding and quicksaving make PC games piss-easy and a bunch of our "hardcore gamer" posturing is total bullshit. But shush... don't tell the console people or we'll never hear the end of it.

At least in Skyrim you can't open the console, type Addachievement followed by a number and 5 minutes later have all the achievements unlocked, like you can in Fallout 3.

Ah, just play the game and forget the console is even there. Then again, you´ve probably already played it "fo real" for a long time.

So, I guess go a head and go nuts with mods and console commands. I really like some of the post process injector / ENB mods for Skyrim. You can make this game look so goddamn weird.

Combine that with Macho-Man dragons and exploding chickens.. and maybe some uber force push mods- It´ll be a great experience :D

Oh and get the hunger mod, I forget what it´s called, but it adds something like a hardcore mode to the game. I loved that one.

@NoelVeiga said:

Make the console toggleable through an ini file. That's probably best practice right there.

But hey, welcome to Team PC. You've just discovered the first secret that is never to be discussed in public: modding and quicksaving make PC games piss-easy and a bunch of our "hardcore gamer" posturing is total bullshit. But shush... don't tell the console people or we'll never hear the end of it.

Shh!

To OP: Welcome onboard :)

Cheating is a dangerous task. It starts minor but before you know it your eyes are glued to a guide. I have ruined several gaming experiences for my self.

You'd probably be less tempted to do so if you hadn't already played it to death on 360. Just have some discipline and don't start ruining games for yourself on your first playthrough at least and you'll be fine. 'Achievements' don't mean anything anywhere, but especially not on PC - you'll grow out of that nonsense soon enough.

I thought it made the game more fun. For instance I decided I would reward myself with 3 perks per level instead of 1 which allowed my end game to be much more fun.

@Morrow said:

The console commands ruined Morrowind for me back then. I killed Dagoth Ur with lvl 1 and then walked around being adressed as the Nerevarine by everyone :D

Same thing. Did it with a friend, too. Fucking around with the console in Morrowind is really fun.

@FirePrince: Give yourself 1000 agility and then jump :D

I always bought ingots. Know yo shops, yo.

I've never had a CONSOLE problem on the first playthrough. On subsequent ones I've gone nuts, but while playing Elder Scrolls games I'll generally just change one thing. For example, I wanted to roll a magic focused character in Oblivion but found the constantly draining magic meter annoying, so I conjured up some bullshit role-play where I was a chosen one with untapped magical ability. I didn't give myself a bunch of spells or increase my total magic, but I did max out my Wisdom or something and had a constantly refilling meter. It was grand.

Did you ruin all your games with cheat codes back when consoles used to have them? The console is pretty much the same thing.

The console is not a bad idea it's available because you can use it to fix things like broken quests and test mods you make. Without the console it would be hell to create any major mods.

I used the console to fix a horrific henchman bug that occurred whilst playing co-op Neverwinter Nights, a couple of days back.

CONSOLE KIDDIES.

Well, the greater issue here is the "power fantasy" and the element of challenge built into the game. It's just too accessable and simple to use it. It is most certainly a self-control issue, but I'm really more interested in the philosophical envelope here. I have literally never played a game on the PC, so it's all sorta new.

And yeah, back in the day I used a game genie once...and it jacked my save. The console has no risks, whatsoever. Whatever you want, you can get instantly. Maybe I will do as someone suggested earlier, modify the ini file to disable it. It's just too much of an attraction, there is literally no challenge. But the game is gorgeous, and incredible.

This is also coming from a guy that S-Ranked Dark Souls on the 360 as well. And several other ridiculous S-ranks. I enjoy challenge. I think some achievements have meaning and significance. But as far as I can tell, at least in the PC version of this game, there is absolutely no meaning, no value at all to the achievements. This is definitely a different landscape for sure. It's an interesting conversation.

@INV2 said:

as far as I can tell, at least in the PC version of this game, there is absolutely no meaning, no value at all to the achievements. This is definitely a different landscape for sure. It's an interesting conversation.

Totally agree. In general PC achievements mean little. Not all games have them (still don't know why Fallout 3 is missing them) and not all games run through the same portal, Origin, Capsule, Uplay. I was excited to get achievements for Far Cry 3 only to realize that it has no Steam Achievements and the Uplay achievements are different than the console counterpart.

In a way I think its more pure. I've been trophy/achievement hunting for many years. On PC I just play the game and enjoy it. Games nowadays have more leaderboard stuff and its fun to compete that way. That being said I hope that Valve gets it together and has a standard achievement system for their Steam Box.

re: Skyrim. You should transfer your Xbox save to PC. Won't solve the achievement problem but you can play the game where you left off with the mods.

@JoeyRavn said:

The console being open to the player has been available since... well, a fucking long time. It's not something that Skyrim invented. When you're using mods and need to change settings on the fly to see how they work or what is wrong with them, the console is a blessing.

The problem is not the console, but what the player does with it. Learn to control yourself and don't cheat if you'll feel bad about it.

The first game I remember seeing a console in is Quake. Earlier games in the FPS genre at least tended to put debug features in as cheat codes you would just key in. Developers need these features somewhere to debug production code, and if they want to encourage modders it makes sense to expose them to users.

Ultimately in a single player sandbox game you should do whatever you think is fun. The tools are available to break or change the rules to suit your taste and you aren't hurting anyone else by doing so, so have at it.

The console is a great tool to have at your disposal - if you can control yourself.

I picked up one of those Unusual Gems by accident. I knew I wasn't going to do that quest and I didn't want to have it sitting around in my inventory so "player.removeitem 9dfbb 1" in the console and it was gone. While fighting some Falmer I ended up in one of their huts and couldn't get back out so "tcl" in the console, floated on out into the open, "tcl" again and I was back to normal.

I've also used it to cheat a little like if I find myself a couple of ingots short for smithing something or other. That can be a slippery slope for sure, but we've played this game an absolute ton and have mined our share of ore legit. I wouldn't be too worried about a couple of ingots here and there.