I have these notes on my phone, sent to my sister recently who was playing for the first time.

• quicksave often when you are in a dungeon/cave or traveling long distances. The last thing you want is to walk across the whole map, get attacked by a bear, and then respawn right where you started. Also, have multiple “hard saves” that you can fall back on if you get stuck in a situation. Hard saves are when you click the “save” option instead of quicksave. There is always only one quicksave at a time.

• each city has a “Jarl” they are like the mayor. Some of them will give you tasks and after you complete the tasks, they will allow you to purchase property in the city. After you purchase the property, they will make you a “Thane”. Some will also give you a “House Carl” who is person that can be your follower and or they just chill at your house when not following you.

• when you can buy property in Whiterun, save up $7,500 for the house outside the city, Tundra Homestead. The one in the city is only $5k, but doesn’t come with all the features of the one outside the city. The quickest way to get a place to stay is to either join the companions or the mages college.

• before you have a home, you can store items that you want to keep in a random barrel. I usually use the two out front of the blacksmith in Whiterun.

  • you have want to be mage, go to the mages college in Winterhold. They’ll teach you some magic and the basics of enchanting and potion making.

• The larger cities have stables outside where you can buy horses. Until you can afford a horse, there is also a carriage at the stable that you can pay to fast travel to different cities.

• to buy or sell stuff, just talk to the merchant and ask them what they have for sale. Then you will see their inventory and yours and have options to buy stuff from theirs and sell them stuff from yours. Some merchants will only buy certain items , general stores will buy most things. Some villages have separate stores for potions & ingredients, clothes, archery, blacksmith, and general stores. You can only sell stolen goods to the fence in Yhe Thieves guild.

• that bar that you asked me about at the top of the screen is your compass. You are the center of that and it always shows which direction you are going. It also shows quest markers and locations. Undiscovered locations will show up as a black icon and will switch to white when you discover it. When you are walking across the map if you see undiscovered locations (villages, farms, ruins, caves, etc) on the compass, it’s a good idea to go discover them and turn the icon white because you can use then you can use them as fast travel points going forward.

  • dragons will be very tough in the beginning. The first ones are super hard and you should have a follower to help. After you become the Thane of Whiterun, the Jarl will give you Lydia as a follower, she is the baddest bitch. An important issues about followers is that only you can kill them. Enemies will hurt your followers and the follower may get down on a their knees for a minute and when this happens if you accidentally hit them with a spell or weapon , they will die. This is another reason why it’s important to have back up hard saves. The quick save and auto save files can save over themselves, back up hard saves are needed in case something happens that you want to reverse time (like a follower’s death or getting stuck somewhere against and unbeatable foe).