Nothing is safe in a post-Mists of Pandaria announcement world. This month Tim, Tom, Rich and Graham get together to discuss the revelations at Blizzcon. It's not long before the conversation turns to Skyrim. Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3 and Steam sales also get turned over in episode 62 of the PC Gamer UK podcast.

Download the MP3, subscribe, or find our older podcasts here.

Skyrim patch 1.2 landed recently, fixing a few niggling problems, like dead people turning up to weddings and dragons holding onto their souls after death. In a new post on the Bethblog, Bethesda say that there are plenty more updates incoming, and they'll be arriving on PC first.

Bethesda say we'll be getting more regular updates because patching the PC version is "a process we control." With no third party certification procedures to deal with, Skyrim will get fixed faster on our machines. Which is nice, because there are still plenty of problems.

"After the holidays, we’ll continue to release regular updates for the game — through full title updates, as well as incremental “gameplay updates” to fix whatever issues come up along with rebalancing portions of the game for difficulty or exploits," say Bethesda. "We plan on having a lot of these, not just a few."

Bethesda say there will be another "incremental update" next week to fix some of the problems caused by patch 1.2, like broken damage resistance stats and dragons flying backwards. In the same blog post, Bethesda also announced that Steam will host Skyrim mods through the Steam Workshop, adding that the Creation Kit is set to arrive in January. Modders, on your marks.

Bethesda have just announced that the Skyrim mod tools, the Creation Kit, will let players upload their mods to Steam's Workshop service. That's a slick, Valve-hosted database of user-made content that's already being used for Team Fortress 2 models.

Players will be able to choose the mods they want on the Steam Workshops website, even via mobile devices, and they'll be downloaded and installed automatically the next time you play. More details and the release date below.

If it works as planned, this will be a huge leap forwards for the accessibility modding, and a strong gesture of support from both Bethesda and Valve. More to the point, it's just going to be really easy and slick to try out the vast selection of amazing stuff Elder Scrolls fans always create.

The normal methods of acquiring and installing mods, via places like TES Nexus, will still work.

The Creation Kit will be out in January, and will apparently be even more versatile than Oblivion's tools, letting players mess with Radiant Story.

You can read a bit more about what Bethesda are working on, Skyrim-wise, over on the Bethesda Blog.

Nothing punctures the wedding day atmosphere faster than having the groom's friends turn up dead. Bethesda have put a stop to that sort of thing and a few other impressive Skyrim glitches with patch 1.2.

For anyone concerned about the environmental concerns of leaving dead dragons all over the place "dragon corpses now clean up properly." Stubborn dragons who just wont let go of their soul after death will now do so and "rare" peaceful dragons who don't attack the player will now remorselessly attack the player.

Like a newly discovered dungeon mushroom, the patch that hit consoles yesterday had some unexpected side effects. Edge say that dragons have been spotted flying backwards, and the damage resistances system broke completely. Let us know if you encounter anything weird in the wake of 1.2. The patch notes, pickpocketed from Steam, are below.

UPDATE 1.2 NOTES

Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz
Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away
Fixed occasional issue where a guest would arrive to the player’s wedding dead
Dragon corpses now clean up properly
Fixed rare issue where dragons would not attack
Fixed rare NPC sleeping animation bug
Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely
Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory
Fixed rare issue with renaming enchanted weapons and armor
Fixed rare issue with dragons not properly giving souls after death
ESC button can now be used to exit menus
Fixed occasional mouse sensitivity issues
General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls

 
If there's something on the list that you really wish was fixed, you might just find what you're looking for in our pick of the best 20 Skyrim mods.

Skyrim is gaming's Disneyworld. It's positively colossal, bursting at the seams with magic, and full of giant rodents. Unfortunately, the two also share one less savory similarity: They're far from perfect. But while you can't patch out the miles-long line to ride Space Mountain, Skyrim's bugs are oh-so-squashable. Version 1.2, of course, will be doing the honors, and it's right around the corner with a Wednesday, November 30 drop date. Read on for the full patch notes, courtesy of Bethesda's blog.



Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz.
Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away.
Fixed occasional issue where a guest would arrive to the player’s wedding dead.
Dragon corpses now clean up properly.
Fixed rare issue where dragons would not attack.
Fixed rare NPC sleeping animation bug.
Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely.
Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory.
Fixed rare issue with renaming enchanted weapons and armor.
Fixed rare issue with dragons not properly giving souls after death.
ESC button can now be used to exit menus.
Fixed occasional mouse sensitivity issues.
General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls.

Desslock puts on his reading glasses and sinks into his Lazyboy for our monthly Alternate Lives column, letting us in on some impressive game based fiction. This month, Desslock flips through the pages of the newest novels based in the fantasy world of The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher.

In early RPGs, exchanges with NPCs generally consisted of being told where to go to dispatch the evil wizard mastermind. Thataway, Avatar. These days, however, NPCs have become downright loquacious, and you’re just as likely to hear characters spout deep philosophical musings or attempt to seduce you as you are to get quest directions. BioWare’s RPGs, in particular, have effectively evolved into interactive novels that feature some first-rate writing and storytelling.

But I’m still skeptical of the merits of actual books based upon gaming franchises. In fact, resolutely avoiding all books (or movies) based upon gaming franchises is a prudent rule to maintain, since they’re consistently awful. But the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski don’t really fall into that category, since the novels spawned the games. I really loved the first Witcher book, The Last Wish. Geralt is a fantastic protagonist and the book introduces several characters that are important to the game, including the cursed princess Adda, companion bard Dandelion, and the elves Chireadan and Toruviel. Prior knowledge of character history might actually influence your gaming decisions—you’d probably be less inclined to side with Toruviel, for instance, if you knew that she previously tried to bash your head.
Unfortunately, the rest of the Witcher books are hard to recommend unless you can read them in Polish, German, or Russian. The second book hasn’t been translated into English, and though the third book, Blood of Elves, has, it forms part of a larger story that may never be entirely translated.



In anticipation of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I decided to take a chance on the spinoff books written by Greg Keyes. I can happily report that the books don’t read like the schlocky fan-fiction I was dreading, but the writing is not of Sapkowki’s caliber, and the novels only vaguely describe notable events in Tamriel since Oblivion. They also only bridge the first 40 years of post-Oblivion events, while Skyrim is set 200 years after Oblivion. But a lot happened to Tamriel. The Empire collapsed and was partly reestablished by a new family line. Morrowind was devastated by a massive volcanic eruption and then conquered by the Argonians, who established their independence. The Kjajiit of Elsweyr seceded from the Empire, as did the Wood Elves and High Elves, who reestablished the Aldmeri Dominion. The old guild system collapsed, giving rise to cryptic bands like the College of Whispers and The Synod.

The books only teasingly refer to those events, and instead focus on the threat of Umbriel, a self-contained, floating city that feeds off souls and creates an army of undead from its victims. The tone of the books sometimes seems juvenile, and several of the characters are very young and naive, but Keyes also throws in some awkward sex scenes and surprising deaths. Much of the “action” in the books takes place in a kitchen—actually, several kitchens—yet the books manage to overcome that bizarre narrative choice and be reasonably entertaining, particularly when they feature iconic characters from the games, including several Daedric Lords. Alchemy receives considerable focus, which seems appropriate given the emphasis harvesting reagents has in the games, and each of Tamriel’s unique races gets at least a few moments to shine.

If you’re only tempted to read the books to learn what’s happened in Tamriel since Oblivion, they’re not worthwhile, and The Last Wish is better written and less padded if you’re just looking for a fantasy novel. But as someone who loves the lore of Tamriel, and actually reads the books within the games, the novels were a satisfying appetizer before Skyrim.

Here's a quick heads up for anyone running an Nvidia card. New GeForce 290.36 Beta drivers have been released that add ambient occlusion support for Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3. Screen flickering and triangular artifacts in Battlefield 3 should also be fixed by the new drivers, and Nvidia recommend the update to Batman: Arkham City players. The update streamlines PhysX support, so players experiencing performance problems in Arkham City might want to give this a download.

The Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3 ambient occlusion settings can be turned on via the Nvidia control panel. You'll find instructions on how to enable the advanced shadowing effect on the Nvidia site where the new beta are now available to download. You'll find the full release notes below.

NVIDIA Ambient Occlusion

Adds NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Adds NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

 
NVIDIA PhysX

Updates PhysX System Software to version 9.11.1107 for the best PhysX experience in Batman: Arkham City.

 
NVIDIA Surround

Enables NVIDIA Surround support for Intel X79 SLI-certified motherboards.

 
NVIDIA SLI

Added or updated SLI profiles for Crysis 2, Heroes and Generals, Inversion, Stronghold 3, and Syndicate.

 
3D Vision

Adds support for 3D Vision over native DisplayPort 1.1 connection - available on BenQ XL2420T and BenQ XL2420TX monitors.
Added or updated the following 3D Vision game profiles:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Rated Good
Cang Sheng – Rated Good
Diablo 3 – Rated Good
Fei fei – Rated Good
Final Combat – Rated Good
L.A. Noire – Updated Rating To 3D Vision Ready
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 – Rated Fair
Qian Nv You Hun Online – Rated Good
QQ Xi You – Rated Good
Sonic Generations – Rated Good
Xian Tu – Rated Good
Yong Bing Tian Xia Online – Rated Good

 

HD Audio

Updates HD Audio driver to version 1.3.9.0.

 
Bug Fixes

Fixes random flickering as Windows boot logo is loading or fading away.
Fixes corruption in Crysis 2 with SLI and lower quality shadow settings.
Fixes ability to set Surround resolutions to 5760x1080 using custom resolutions.
Fixes some random instances of triangular artifacts when playing Battlefield 3.
Fixes corruption and flickering of some objects in Battlefield 3 in the New York single-player level when anti-aliasing is enabled.
Fixes corruption seen in Settlers 7 with the NVIDIA 275.33 drivers.
Fixes playback of videos or live TV using Window Media Center resulting in a black screen.
Fixes the issue where 1920x1080 @60Hz PC resolution mode switched down to @59Hz.
Fixes mouse cursor flickering and shaking in Crysis 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Deus Ex and Civilization V when SLI is enabled when using 3DTV Play.

 

Skyrim mods incoming! It's now been two weeks since the game was released, and there's been and explosion of modding activity. Skyrim was already an amazing looking game, but with just a handful of these mods it can look even better. Not to mention a whole host of bug fixes, stability improvements, interface tweaks and gameplay enhancements.

Once again we've rounded up the best, prettiest, most useful and funniest mods to enhance your Skyrim experience. Check inside for the full list.

Remember, this list will be perpetually updated as more mods are released, so if you have any particular favourites you'd like to be included, mention them in the comments below and I'll test them out before the next update.

1. FXAA Post Process Injector

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDNo8aNoF34

There's a lot of post processing mods for Skyrim, but FXAA has emerged as the best. It layers on several handy effects like sharpening, technicolour, sepia and saturation, but the best part is that it's all totally customisable. Modifying the settings file will let you turn settings on and off or adjust them to your preferences, giving you full control over the look and feel of your Skyrim game.

2. Val's Crafting Meltdown



Playing Skyrim inevitably results in picking up a lot of items you don't necessarily need. Weapons or armour you aren't properly trained with, or just useless pots and pans, every Dovahkiin ends up with a lot of clutter in their inventory. Val's Crafting Meltdown, has an ingenious solution to that problem, giving players the ability to melt down weapons, armour and junk into raw materials like iron and steel. It also provides an invaluable service for archers, letting them use smithing to create arrows, an ability inexplicably missing from the original game. Val's Crafting Meltdown is built to be compatible with other crafting mods, so if want to expand your crafting options, be sure to check out The Lost Art of the Blacksmith and More Craftables, which let you craft faction specific items like Thieves Guild armour or Skyforge Steel weapons. Alternatively Craftable Staffs lets mages get in on the smithing action too.

3. QD Inventory



Frustrated with Skyrim's inventory interface? Annoyed at excessive scrolling? Wish you could see the stats of your items without selecting them? QD Inventory is the answer to your problems. The mod replaces the default interface with a very different one, categories are arranged at the top of the screen while the armour, damage, weight and value of your items is displayed along the side. Creator Roltak describes this as a 'quick and dirty' solution to the interface problems, better interfaces will likely come in future, but for now this is streets ahead of the original Bethesda UI.

4. Xenius Mods



Xenius has rapidly carved himself a niche as Skyrim's premier character enhancement modder, producing a whole series of texture improving mods at a tremendous rate. He started with No More Blocky Faces and Detailed Faces, but he's since expanded into (deep breath) Detailed Bodies, High Quality Eyes, Detailed Lips and Better Beast Races (breath out) all of which offer significant improvements on the default character models. The only gripe is that you have to download them all individually, hopefully Xenius plans to package all his components into a single install when he's finished.

5. Skyrim HD



Like Quarl's Texture mod for Oblivion or NeilMC's for Fallout 3, Skyrim HD is an ambitious project to replace the majority of in game textures with new, high resolution versions. It's still very much a work in progress, only Windhelm and Whiterun have both been updated, as well as several forest and cave texture, but Skyrim HD looks set to match it's illustrious predecessors.



6. Realistic Smoke and Embers



Another neat little improvement to Skyrim's effects, Realistic Smoke and Embers completely overhauls the appearance of fire in the game, improving it greatly. It's the mod that screenshotmancer Duncan 'Dead End Thrills' Harris used to create this stunning image (along with plenty of other mods and tweaks). If you're playing Skyrim as a fire throwing destruction mage, you must install this mod.

7. Realistic Water

http://youtu.be/ALVHYp9RLjY

The water in Skyrim already looks pretty lovely, but Realistic Water pushes it that little bit further. Based on high resolution photography, Realistic Water makes Skyrim's streams foam and bubble in a beautiful and convincing way.

8. Skyrim Sunglare

http://youtu.be/bxYV8N5ivQQ

If you like lovely sunlight effects Skyrim Sunglare is the mod for you. It makes the game's sun produce delicious rays of beamy goodness, including optional lens flare effects for those who favour the 'cinematic' look. There's something special about cresting a mountain and watching the sunbeams break through over the horizon, and this mod makes it even better.

9. Nicer Snowflakes



There's a lot of snow in Skyrim, so it's a shame it's mostly represented by vague white blobs floating past. Nicer Snowflakes fixes that problem completely, replacing the default snow with beautiful, high resolution flakes. There's several flavours to choose from, but I like the 'Whimsical' version best. It might not be what snow really looks like, but it's what we all wish it did.

10. Glowing Ore Veins



If you're like me, you probably played several hours of Skyrim before even realising mining was in the game. The problem is that ore veins don't actually look that different from the surrounding rock. Thankfully, Glowing Ore Veins solves that problem, tweaking minable rocks to make them stand out more from the background. As an added bonus it'll fade back to normal once you've extracted all the ore, once again blending harmlessly into the background.

11. Map in Full 3D

 
Not so much a mod as a set of tweaks, Map in full 3D shows you how to modify Skyrim's ini file to make it possible to zoom the in game map right down to the ground. The result is essentially a free camera mode that lets you roam anywhere in the world. It's like the google street view team was let loose in the frozen north.



12. ENBSeries patch

http://youtu.be/-L-HT2YmqUY

The ENBSeries mods are famous for adding improved post processing and lighting effects to make games like GTA4 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution look amazing. Sadly this patch doesn't do that, instead it's focused on fixing graphical errors and letting the game play better on a lower end PC. Don't worry though, ENB creator Boris Vorontsov is already working on a full graphical overhaul, and has included some test footage, which I've included above.

13. Skyrim 4GB

If you've been reading this list and installing all the graphical improvements, there's a possibility you've encountered some stability issues. But fear not! A solution is at hand. Like previous Bethesda games, Skyrim doesn't use more than 2gb of RAM, regardless of how much you actually have. Using a large address aware patch like Skyrim 4GB will fix that, allowing Skyrim to make full use of your system's abilities, reducing crashes and maintaining a stable FPS count.

14. Simple Borderless Window



Simple borderless window does what it says, it makes Skyrim run in a false fullscreen mode, allowing for the easy alt tabbing of windowed mode but while still keeping your screen full of wonderful landscapes.

15. Enhanced Night Sky


 
A nice little mod I've enjoyed in previous Bethesda games. Enhanced Night Sky replaces the Skyrim's stars with a high resolution texture taken from starfield photography. This version is so seamless it doesn't even effect the in game constellations, and looks simply beautiful.

16. No Spider Mod


 
Arachnophobes like PC Gamer contributor Richard Cobbett have a hard time with games like Skyrim. Which is why No Spiders patches, which remove the offending beasties from the game, are so useful. This first attempt at a spider free Skyrim is particularly hilarious, as it replaces the models of the spiders with completely out of place bears. We'll let you decide which is scarier.

17. Interface Hard Coded key tweaks

Skyrim's interface can be really awkward, Hard Coded key tweaks aims to improve that. Now you can (for instance) turn lockpicks with whatever direction keys you chose, not just WASD, or being able to close the favourites window by pressing Q and myriad other improvements.

18. TESV savegame manager

An update of the popular Fallout 3 savegame manager, TESV savegame manager mod helps save and organise your games far more efficiently than the game does by default.

19. Vurt's Skyrim Flora Overhaul



This is going to be one to keep an eye on. Vurt's Skyrim flora overhaul is dedicated to improving the quality of the vegetation in Skyrim, starting with trees. It even offers several different colour schemes to let you tailor your foliage to your own desires.

20. Enhanced Blood Textures



Enhanced Blood Textures does exactly what it says, it improves the resolution of the blood textures in the game, but does it so well that it's one of the most noticeably improved texture mods available.

Once again, we're going to keep updating this list with new and interesting mods, so if you know of any good ones we've missed please let us know in the comments.

A tiny patch to Skyrim has disabled many of file tweaks that players have been making to improve Skyrim's visuals. RPS noticed growing annoyance on the Skyrim forums as players discovered that the popular Large Address Aware tweak that lets Skyrim recognise more than 2GB of ram on 64 bit systems has stopped working since the update.

The patch tweaks the Skyrim .exe file to stop players from being able to launch it outside of Steam. This ensures that all copies of Skyrim fall under Steam's anti-piracy protection, and suggests that there may be even more people playing Skyrim than the huge Steam stats figures indicate.

The broken tweaks are likely an unintended side effect of the update. We've contacted Bethesda to find out, but no comment just yet. Meanwhile, workarounds are already appearing as modders warm up for the upcoming release of the Skyrim Creation Kit, which will give everyone access to Skyrim mod tools.

Even without the creation kit, some decent mods have already started appearing. Discover the best ones in our round up of the best Skyrim mods so far.

 
Remember back when we told you Skyrim had unlimited dragons? That was pretty cool, right? So it's a shame you usually only see one or two at a time during the game. The magic of console commands, however, will let you fight as many dragons as your PC can render without exploding.

As you can see in the video, I get about a dozen dragons in the air at once, all while maintaining a decent framerate (the stutters only appear on the video). Check inside for how I did it.

First up, BEWARE. Messing with the console can disable your Skyrim Steam achievements (though mine still work fine after trying this). If you like seeing those achievement messages pop up, don't try this.

If you don't care about achievements, the process is simple, activate the console by pressing the ` or ¬ key in the top left corner of your keyboard and type in:

player.placeatme 000FEA9B

Then hit enter, exit the console and a dragon should appear. If you want more than one you can simply hit the up key in the console to copy the last command, be sure to run around a bit when you're doing it though, summoning multiple dragons in exactly the same place tends to crash the game.

Don't forget to check out our other Skyrim console commands, I used god mode (tgm) here to make sure I survived long enough to get you this video. Thanks to Duncan Harris for letting me know the right commands.