Gaming

Your post has been restored. And it's saying pretty much what the wallk through said. But here's what I saw:

Three paths - one to the left, one to the right and one straight ahead. To the left there seemed to be two towers. I didn't notice the "tell tale glow" on either of them. Path to the left was blocked by debris and a gate I couldn't even reach because of the height it was placed at. Straight ahead was the gate that said it was opened elsewhere. And to the right there was pretty much just some rocks and rubble. It all seemed like dead ends to me.

Oh and when I played again, some item icons seemed broken too. I'm wondering if I'm going to have to reinstall the thing a third time. But would I bother?

(And actually I was looking at oblivion mods just now...)

Oh and uh, I'm not sure how I could overhear anything - it was dead quiet in there?

Oh, and about the interface...
When you press tab there are four things to click on at the bottom: the status bars, weapon, magic spell and compass. Each of these will then give you more options to click above them. And obviously the status bar opens up the skills, stats and active effects.

I don't think I ever even thought of clicking on the status bars

I also got annoyed with nexus mods or rather the mod info and closed all that down. I'm probably having a bad day.

It even tells you how many jokes you've told.

That's another thing I don't understand. I started talking to someone and tried that face button that doesn't have any info on what it's for and suddenly I got a tutorial about how to make the guy happy (or not) but no reason WHY. What did I want with him? Did he have a shop??? How do I access his inventory, if that's the case?

Why? To make him like you. Sometimes people will only reveal stuff if they like you.
If you hover the mouse over each segment the guy will change his facial expression. One will be a smile, one a frown and the other two will be more subtle. You need to click on the happy segments when the slice is big and on the frowny ones when it's small. The slices rotate after each choice but the expressions stay the same. You also get a free rotation later after levelling your speech.

It's weird and complicated at first but becomes trivially easy when you get the hang of it.

I think the buying/selling icon is two arrows making a circle (maybe?) and will appear between the face and the X. Other icons will appear for training, repairing etc.

Well, at least your explanation is easier to understand than the in game tutorial...

*checks*

Yes, it is the double arrow circle.
Started to doubt my memory there. Here's the awkward, hard-to-haggle smith-lady and the icons after the face are barter, repair and training...

 

And I have told 313 jokes.

Right, so face, recycle, smith and meditate.

And if you're in the mages guild then there's a completely different icon for "Buy Spells" but I've never been able to buy a single usable spell yet.
"Not enough magicka."