Deluxe Content

[WildCat]

Are the extra things in the Deluxe edition – i.e. Fighter's Stronghold Expansion, Spell Tome Treasures, Vile Lair, and Mehrune's Razor – mini-DLCs worth getting, or are they the kind of "jump start" addons you find all too often these days to allow lazy people to start playing with a higher advantage than playing non-deluxe vanilla from scratch? TIA.

[$n@ke Eye$]

Well technically they do provide you with a slight advantage, but it depends on how you look at it. You won't get much of an advantage other then having merchants with more available gold because you will have to wait until you can afford to buy upgrades or do the related quests.

The spell tombs spells are pretty rare unless you intentionallly seek them out in the dungeons with the highest chance of obtaining them. Sometimes I will rarely see any of the spells.

The Fighters Stronghold and Vile Lair require a significant investment in order to upgrade them so they won't be very useful to a new character until you earn enough money.

Both of them do however add what could be considered an advantage in that they each add an NPC that starts with 2000 Gold and have a maximum of 3000 Gold when you get mercantile to 100. Most other vanilla NPC's have a much lower maximum. You are able to earn a little more gold selling higher priced enchanted items to those NPCs.

Vile Lair also adds an easy way to cure vampirism compared to the cure quest.

Mehrunes Razor is the only expansion that gives you a somewhat overpowered advantage. The dagger can randomly kill anything you hit with it provided your luck stat is high enough.

The dagger has a pretty low process rate, but after you have upgraded Luck and create a custom spell to boost luck the dagger can kill in one hit more often. This dagger can make the game alot easier once your luck is high enough.

I myself only really use the dagger for the main quest during the defense of bruma because I hate when the NPCs on my side die and sometimes when I am in a hurry and something is pissing me off.

Morag Tong Armor is also included in the Mehrunes Razor dlc. It is a really nice light armor set. You also get Bladeturn Hood and Spellturn Cloak which are somewhat useful in certain builds.

One thing I really like about the Deluxe version is the Horse Armor you can get for Shadowmere. I really hate having to hunt her down all the time because she always returns to Fort Faragut. Adding Horse armor to her makes it so she stays put.

You also get Frostcrag Spire which adds a nifty transporter so you can get to Anvil and Leyawiin in less time than using a horse. Sometimes you will miss being able to talk to a quest npc because they went to bed because your fast travel makes to many game hours pass by. Using Frostcrag Spire will often get you there in time to talk to the npc.

I think the deluxe version is worth it just so Shadowmere will stop going to Fort Faragut, and everything else is a bonus, but I got the deluxe version for 75% off so it might not be as worth it to you if you're paying a higher price.

[WildCat]

Thanks for the detailed response. Sounds like the Deluxe extras give you early access to things you would normally have to hunt down and/or be rewarded with randomly. I don't paticularly like those type of addons. I recall Anno 2070 had many such addons available and I avoided them all.. not sure if I see the point in getting a challenging game if some of the challenge can be taken away through such addons. I think, when the time comes to purchase, I'll probably go with the standard GOTY non-Deluxe; 2 expansions but not the 8 plugins.

Price isn't a worry, loss of gameplay elements is.. I had never played any Elder Scrolls games until I saw Skyrim in the Summer Sale, I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I have, as I don't often play RPG, even 20 years ago I much preferred fantasy books to fantasy games because they lacked immersion (bearing in mind I saw no such thing as a Playstation console and CD-ROM-loaded gamed until I was about 16. PC gaming was relatively poor as there were no multi-core CPUs, no GPUs, no MMOs, no broadband and online modding – we had Atari STs, Nintendo NES and 64, etc, back then, and ZX Spectrum's with cassette-loaded 8-bit games before that in my pre-teen years!)

I love open world, but more in a FarCry sense, with less character management and everything is a means to an end, albeit a little linear at times. I bought it on a whim and was expecting something similar to FarCry games in design, though fantasy based, and with a standard 20–30 hour play-through.

Well...

Having now played 400+ hours of Skyrim and various mod quests I appreciate the non-linear manner in which one can pickup quests, or not be forced into doing the main storylines until you're ready. It has made me want to give Oblivion a try. Not sure if I'll go as far back as Morrowind, give that it is 11 years old, and probably feels a lot more dated than Oblivion, visually and engine-wise. Given that Oblivion can easily be perked up with HD/HiRes textures and mods from Nexus, it's easier to bring forward a couple of years, visually.

Anyway, thanks again.. once I wrap Skyrim up, in a week or two, I'll be ready to move on!

[WildCat]

Sorry, another question, if anyone knows. With the Deluxe version can the 8 plugins be selectively disabled on startup, in the same way you might disable mods Skyrim in BOSS, or are they integrated into the game in such a way that you're stuck with them all, no picking which you want running? I'd be more tempted to get the Deluxe version only if I could perhaps activate the plugins once I've played for a while and felt suitably levelled up so that any jump-start bonuses are less effective, but the bonus items such as new Spell Tomes and horse armour in the game world worth claiming.

[Clown Juice]

once you install the game, you can disable the plug ins individually by clicking play, then data files once the start menu pops up. it will list the DLC plug ins and most mods i believe.

[WildCat]

I expect you'll be able to disable Knights of the Nine and The Shivering Isles expansions, are you 100% certain you can disable Fighter's Stronghold Expansion, Spell Tome Treasures, Vile Lair, and Mehrune's Razor independently also? Thanks.

[Clown Juice]

I just double checked to be sure, but yes you can disable all of the smaller plug ins as well as the two big add ons

[WildCat]

Ah, that sounds good, thanks very much for checking!

[Clown Juice]

No problem

[DragonSamurai360]

deluxe edition is more worth it more interesting content and is only $5 more which isnt bad at all considering the content they put in it

[WildCat]

Yeah that was my impression.. the extra content seems worth the extra price, but I didn't want something that gave character bonuses right from the start. I don't like having an over-powered character in early to mid game, it just blows the game play by making it too easy and can even feel like cheating.. I got the Deluxe version, but I'm avoiding using the DLCs until I'm further into the game, that way I eventually benefit from any bonuses on more level ground.