First Post!

couple thoughts for those of you who are having problems making characters, and figuring out just what to do in the game ;)

first off, and perhaps most importantly - there is NO experience. none. you don't gain phat xps for murdering random wildlife, or for 'completing quests'. your skills go up with use, all of them. your stats go up when you gain a level - and what stats increase is based on what you used the most during the previous level. So if you spend a lot of time talking and using persuasion and mercantile, expect to get good personality boosts. If you use a lot of magic, willpower and intelligence, etc.

this is tied into the second point - you don't need to load your character up to fight armies. if you want to do a combat focused character, go for it, but remember, there is a LOT more to the game than just whacking beasties. you gain levels from raising your major and minor skills - no matter what those skills are. which means you can gain levels just by talking to people.

and last, for those who are having a really hard time focusing on just what the hell to do, join a guild. pick one, any one. join the thieves, the fighters, the mages, the assassins, or one of the great houses. oh, and there is that whole main plot thing to do if you want...

for dealing with the world, alchemy, enchantment, spellmaking, and deciding exactly wtf you should carry around with you, don't overwhelm your brain with the possibilities.

for towns and people, get the general skinny from a random commoner to get a handle on the layouts, use the services you need, and get your jobs mostly from guilds. if you happen to run into some other random quests, great, if not, don't sweat it - there's plenty to do.

as for alchemy, enchantment, and spellmaking make what you need, don't worry about anything else. otherwise you're going to wind up with an inventory or a spell list filled with garbage that you never use and just weighs you down.

similarly, with items, take what you need, ignore the rest. there are 34893420989023490 items in the world, you don't need to be King Packrat

it is very easy to get overwhelmed with the game. don't. pick something you want to do, and do it. you'll discover other things as you explore. there's a LOT out there. I mean it. I'm constantly discovering new stuff that is just totally amazing, and I STILL haven't gone all over the island - much less fully explored every town, every dungeon, every cave, every tomb, all of the wilderness, or the full possibilities of the character, item, and spell system.