I has been a long while since I posted some content on this here blog about what has been on my gaming agenda. All personal life stuff aside, I've been hard at work on Minecraft amassing fame and fortune. Okay, so many not fame and fortune, but I do have a rather large protected region in my name on Exiled Gaming that I have been toying around with. On occasion, some friend have joined in. Still plenty of space to be occupied in the region though. I got this massive region for all of us, so get to it, chop chop!
I finally got around to making a clip of some of the construction:
The entire region was born from the badger idea. Though the badger still doesn't have some of the body I was hoping and planning to work on, at least the badger head is there. The interior lies behind the badger head.
The shark was my second idea for something to do with the large body of water that was part of my protected region. As it progressed, it turned into a large oval interior that I think will make a good arena for some good old fashion brawling. Now all I have to do is save enough money to purchase a stargate for the contestants waiting area.
When I'm not messing around in my region building death traps and animal heads, I have been running the server mall. Exiled Gaming has a functioning server mall that can hold up to approximately 250 player owned stores at max capacity. We're at about a third of that right now. Players rent their own shop space. And in my entire three months of running the place, I would say the biggest lesson I have learned is that people can't read. Not because they are illiterate, but because they are lazy and expect all the information to be handed to them.
No wonder so many people fall for fine print. If I made the rent at the mall increase by 10% every week, I wonder how many would notice?
Hmm....
PS: I may make a short clip of the server mall at some point. For now, enjoy the badger cave!
Mar 13, 2012
Jan 26, 2012
I have neglected you.
I want to apologize for being terrible at not posting on this blog. The truth is I have been engrossed in my own little private world lately, and have not given this blog the attention it deserves. I will make a proper post to it in the near future. Part of this will be to go over where I've been over the past month or so (coughminecraftcough), and the feeling that my return to Eve may very well be right around the corner.
I have had some great memories in Eve. Despite the drama and political bullshit that crept up on us, the truth is there are just some memories that I will remember very fondly for as long as my memory is in tact. There were some great players, many who have left since my joining Merciless., but they have all left me with some good memories.
Looking back on some videos and some killmails, I remember the joy and the adrenaline rush of a :good fight:. Not camping bullshit. Not bear raping. Proper, balls deep pvp. Regardless of who I am with or against, we all create these memories for ourselves and that is the beauty of it. I may not be FC material, but give me a good FC and I will follow them to death and beyond.
I know that, towards the end of our long spring to summer seasons last year, I was like fuel on the political fire. I was extremely devoted to the Merciless. vision to a point where I was even less resilient than the founder. Many who shared the vision had already left (correction: abandoned) and I was unwilling to put up with general bullshit. Behind the scenes, I was the bitching stone from all sides, trying to keep the morale of those most important to me high, failing often, and disappointed in my lack of impact on the same people who impacted me.
There was no way I would not burn out. The game itself did not burn me out. The people did. The disappointments, the leavers, the quitters, the backstabbers. The quitters cut into me the most, the people who shared visions with you who would turn and walk away. Listening to badmouthing and holding my tongue, knowing both sides of the story, knowing more than I should at times, I guess. It was a hard position to be in and my own value to the alliance disintegrated. I felt powerless to hold people together and felt that my presense or absence would have no difference.
So, when the only person I felt I could help was preparing to depart, I did as well. There was nothing left that I could do, my mind was melted and I felt a stranger to most of the alliance.
There is more to be said, but none of it worth saying now. The only thing that matters is it has been over four months since I said I was leaving. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same. The one thing that has stayed the same is how proud I feel every time I watch videos such as the one below (I did not make this one, credit to that goes to Daypitoum, thank you! 07).
This has been a rolling, ranting, dramatic post, but it only scratches the surface of how I felt most of the time.
tl;dr
Eve, I think I almost miss you. Merciless. I definitely miss you. Garst, get a working internets prz. Give me a good fight, I'll give you my laserz. Or projectiles. Or missiles...
I have had some great memories in Eve. Despite the drama and political bullshit that crept up on us, the truth is there are just some memories that I will remember very fondly for as long as my memory is in tact. There were some great players, many who have left since my joining Merciless., but they have all left me with some good memories.
Looking back on some videos and some killmails, I remember the joy and the adrenaline rush of a :good fight:. Not camping bullshit. Not bear raping. Proper, balls deep pvp. Regardless of who I am with or against, we all create these memories for ourselves and that is the beauty of it. I may not be FC material, but give me a good FC and I will follow them to death and beyond.
I know that, towards the end of our long spring to summer seasons last year, I was like fuel on the political fire. I was extremely devoted to the Merciless. vision to a point where I was even less resilient than the founder. Many who shared the vision had already left (correction: abandoned) and I was unwilling to put up with general bullshit. Behind the scenes, I was the bitching stone from all sides, trying to keep the morale of those most important to me high, failing often, and disappointed in my lack of impact on the same people who impacted me.
There was no way I would not burn out. The game itself did not burn me out. The people did. The disappointments, the leavers, the quitters, the backstabbers. The quitters cut into me the most, the people who shared visions with you who would turn and walk away. Listening to badmouthing and holding my tongue, knowing both sides of the story, knowing more than I should at times, I guess. It was a hard position to be in and my own value to the alliance disintegrated. I felt powerless to hold people together and felt that my presense or absence would have no difference.
So, when the only person I felt I could help was preparing to depart, I did as well. There was nothing left that I could do, my mind was melted and I felt a stranger to most of the alliance.
There is more to be said, but none of it worth saying now. The only thing that matters is it has been over four months since I said I was leaving. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same. The one thing that has stayed the same is how proud I feel every time I watch videos such as the one below (I did not make this one, credit to that goes to Daypitoum, thank you! 07).
This has been a rolling, ranting, dramatic post, but it only scratches the surface of how I felt most of the time.
tl;dr
Eve, I think I almost miss you. Merciless. I definitely miss you. Garst, get a working internets prz. Give me a good fight, I'll give you my laserz. Or projectiles. Or missiles...
Dec 6, 2011
I got banned!
For those who do not know, I have recently(ish) gotten pretty into Minecraft and have been spending a lot of time on it. I enjoy the sandboxyness(yes, that is a word okay...) of it. Over the past two weeks, I've been searching for a well run, buzzing multi-player server populated by (mostly) mature adults who are capable of displaying even a morsel of etiquette to strangers.
So I joined the server owned by Exiled Gaming. At first glance, I liked what I saw. They had some stable mods running and a buzzing community. The website was detailed and helpful. I spent a bit of time browsing over the rules to make sure there wasn't anything that would hinder what kind of game play I and my friends would like. Mostly assured, I logged into the server and began the polite but insistent procedure of injecting myself into an admin's attention.
Shortly, I was offered a plot and began to build. During this time, I watched the chat to get some idea of what the community was like and how the server economy and maturity was. Everything seemed on the level. Over the course of the next two days, I invited 5 friends to join me in the lovely town of Redstone, where we worked to "keep it western." We are the foundation of this town, as it was mostly uninhabited when I first started building there.
Other than a few incidents (getting my chicken farm /butchered every day, getting blown up by TNT randomly, being PvPed and then outsmarting those same pvper's and getting my diamonds back...), I have not been disappointed and have enjoyed my time.
Today, I checked the website again, as I have every day, to see if the donation page was still down. I wanted to contribute because I know running something like this takes time, work, money and blood and tears. The page was still down.
MasterKnives(MK for short) is one of three listed server owners. I jokingly said to MK, "The donation page is still down." The response I got? "No shit!"
Wow... isn't that pleasant.
Now let me back up a bit. I have had no trouble with any of the staff other than MK. Ever since I first heard MK speak, I disliked them for their abusive attitude towards everyone. Everything that came out of their mouth was insulting, down to lines such as, "Some of your parents should have had abortions." I disliked them with a passion, but was also smart enough to know they ran the show (in part) and so mostly kept my interactions limited and tried to ignore the onslaught of verbal abuse this player dealt out constantly to likely 15 year old kids.
Tonight, though, after being offended myself with this rude response to my subtle way of saying, "Hey, I like what you guys are doing and want to show my appreciation," I was less inclined to just bend over and let this stanger slap me around like I'm one to be bullied.
A short while after the initial lines the following dialogue summary occurred. I am now pasting what is my ban appeal ticket, all grammar issues included! It's authentic!
------------------------------------------------------------
MasterKnives and staff,
The following (not to the exact letter, but accurate nonetheless) conversation lines occurred tonight.
Me: the chat does suck (referring to the Mine craft base chat UI)
MK: (I can not remember the exact wording, but MK informed me there was a mod for that, and there was a website used to find mods, called Google)
Me: You're sarcasm and constant over reacting to everything is getting old.
MK: Your. You're is a contraction of you and are
Me: (apologized for typing fail)
MK: Spelling has nothing to do with typing skills.
Me: (and here's the ban line) It's called muscle reflex, if you don't know what it is, try google.com.
This server is a good one, and I have found potential enough with it that I have invited five other friends (with a few more on the way) to join. We are searching for a mature environment and would like to give this server a chance. I never join a server asking for a babysitter, nor do any of my friends. We are all old enough to think for ourselves and appreciate knowledge and sharing. However I do not appreciate the constant verbal abuse that is being spewed out. The concept of mutual respect was completely absent during this entire conversation. I started a neutral line of a discussion and was delivered a condescending response and an knee-jerk ban.
As the payer for the server and one to be looked up to, I did not expect these kinds of over reactions. With a simple retort and no direct violation of any rules, I skipped three levels of ban punishment for defending myself in an offensive and pointless little back and fourth over something so miniscule that I feel like the players on this server are there to be subject to verbal abuse for any small thing at any point MK is logged in.
I have not had any trouble with any other staff. I find, in general, everyone is very friendly, and they carry the weight for making me put in the time and effort for this appeal. I have 5 friends who look to me for the next move and I can not help them or give them ideas when I get banned for refusing to deal with being someone's punch bag on my hours off. I don't get paid for that either.
This entire line of conversation began when I jokingly mentioned that the donation page was still down. I asked about the donation page the first day I was here. I liked what I saw and wanted to contribute, but all this nonsense makes its impossible to tell if it's even valued.
------------------------------------------------------------
The server rules state that you are not promised any rights. When I read this, I understood that it could mean the staff may at any time do anything such as wipe the map, the assets, your money, your town, your city, etc. You play on the server to have fun and don't technically have "ownership." All this was understandable to me. However, running/paying for a server does not give you the right to transcend the golden rule.
Just sayin'.
Inb4 I never get a response, and if it's a 48 hour ban, I'll never get a response before the time is over.
---------------
Edit (Dec 14th, 2011) - For those I have not spoken with since this post, I was unbanned the following day after a half-hearted attempt to slap me on the wrist. Whatever, it got me back in but MK still wanted to get a few sly google.com jokes in on me which I was more than happy to play along with.
After some idle conversation, MK gave me a tour of some old structures he had worked on in the past. Admittedly, these structures were impressive. His projects seem in line with something I know some of you guys have heard me say maybe one too many times, "Go big, or go home!" I have to say, I have not considered building on such a large scale, but yes, they were some very ambitious and successful projects. He's still as ass. But I can respect someone who speaks with that kind of creative passion.
I still get to wear a :smugface: however, as I was given, much to my surprise, an apology for my ban. I'm almost ready to sweep this under the bridge, but I think several more google.com joke are still required. And he's still an ass.
So I joined the server owned by Exiled Gaming. At first glance, I liked what I saw. They had some stable mods running and a buzzing community. The website was detailed and helpful. I spent a bit of time browsing over the rules to make sure there wasn't anything that would hinder what kind of game play I and my friends would like. Mostly assured, I logged into the server and began the polite but insistent procedure of injecting myself into an admin's attention.
Shortly, I was offered a plot and began to build. During this time, I watched the chat to get some idea of what the community was like and how the server economy and maturity was. Everything seemed on the level. Over the course of the next two days, I invited 5 friends to join me in the lovely town of Redstone, where we worked to "keep it western." We are the foundation of this town, as it was mostly uninhabited when I first started building there.
Other than a few incidents (getting my chicken farm /butchered every day, getting blown up by TNT randomly, being PvPed and then outsmarting those same pvper's and getting my diamonds back...), I have not been disappointed and have enjoyed my time.
Today, I checked the website again, as I have every day, to see if the donation page was still down. I wanted to contribute because I know running something like this takes time, work, money and blood and tears. The page was still down.
MasterKnives(MK for short) is one of three listed server owners. I jokingly said to MK, "The donation page is still down." The response I got? "No shit!"
Wow... isn't that pleasant.
Now let me back up a bit. I have had no trouble with any of the staff other than MK. Ever since I first heard MK speak, I disliked them for their abusive attitude towards everyone. Everything that came out of their mouth was insulting, down to lines such as, "Some of your parents should have had abortions." I disliked them with a passion, but was also smart enough to know they ran the show (in part) and so mostly kept my interactions limited and tried to ignore the onslaught of verbal abuse this player dealt out constantly to likely 15 year old kids.
Tonight, though, after being offended myself with this rude response to my subtle way of saying, "Hey, I like what you guys are doing and want to show my appreciation," I was less inclined to just bend over and let this stanger slap me around like I'm one to be bullied.
A short while after the initial lines the following dialogue summary occurred. I am now pasting what is my ban appeal ticket, all grammar issues included! It's authentic!
------------------------------------------------------------
MasterKnives and staff,
The following (not to the exact letter, but accurate nonetheless) conversation lines occurred tonight.
Me: the chat does suck (referring to the Mine craft base chat UI)
MK: (I can not remember the exact wording, but MK informed me there was a mod for that, and there was a website used to find mods, called Google)
Me: You're sarcasm and constant over reacting to everything is getting old.
MK: Your. You're is a contraction of you and are
Me: (apologized for typing fail)
MK: Spelling has nothing to do with typing skills.
Me: (and here's the ban line) It's called muscle reflex, if you don't know what it is, try google.com.
This server is a good one, and I have found potential enough with it that I have invited five other friends (with a few more on the way) to join. We are searching for a mature environment and would like to give this server a chance. I never join a server asking for a babysitter, nor do any of my friends. We are all old enough to think for ourselves and appreciate knowledge and sharing. However I do not appreciate the constant verbal abuse that is being spewed out. The concept of mutual respect was completely absent during this entire conversation. I started a neutral line of a discussion and was delivered a condescending response and an knee-jerk ban.
As the payer for the server and one to be looked up to, I did not expect these kinds of over reactions. With a simple retort and no direct violation of any rules, I skipped three levels of ban punishment for defending myself in an offensive and pointless little back and fourth over something so miniscule that I feel like the players on this server are there to be subject to verbal abuse for any small thing at any point MK is logged in.
I have not had any trouble with any other staff. I find, in general, everyone is very friendly, and they carry the weight for making me put in the time and effort for this appeal. I have 5 friends who look to me for the next move and I can not help them or give them ideas when I get banned for refusing to deal with being someone's punch bag on my hours off. I don't get paid for that either.
This entire line of conversation began when I jokingly mentioned that the donation page was still down. I asked about the donation page the first day I was here. I liked what I saw and wanted to contribute, but all this nonsense makes its impossible to tell if it's even valued.
------------------------------------------------------------
The server rules state that you are not promised any rights. When I read this, I understood that it could mean the staff may at any time do anything such as wipe the map, the assets, your money, your town, your city, etc. You play on the server to have fun and don't technically have "ownership." All this was understandable to me. However, running/paying for a server does not give you the right to transcend the golden rule.
Just sayin'.
Inb4 I never get a response, and if it's a 48 hour ban, I'll never get a response before the time is over.
---------------
Edit (Dec 14th, 2011) - For those I have not spoken with since this post, I was unbanned the following day after a half-hearted attempt to slap me on the wrist. Whatever, it got me back in but MK still wanted to get a few sly google.com jokes in on me which I was more than happy to play along with.
After some idle conversation, MK gave me a tour of some old structures he had worked on in the past. Admittedly, these structures were impressive. His projects seem in line with something I know some of you guys have heard me say maybe one too many times, "Go big, or go home!" I have to say, I have not considered building on such a large scale, but yes, they were some very ambitious and successful projects. He's still as ass. But I can respect someone who speaks with that kind of creative passion.
I still get to wear a :smugface: however, as I was given, much to my surprise, an apology for my ban. I'm almost ready to sweep this under the bridge, but I think several more google.com joke are still required. And he's still an ass.
Nov 22, 2011
I'm... Dragonborn!
I know I have not been posting. It's been weeks! I'm sorry! It's just... but... I'm dragonborn! And the taste of dragon souls is just delicious. Even if a bear decides to charge me while I'm happily sucking up a dragon soul and mauls me in my low HP state.
Skyrim is the first of the Elder Scrolls series that I've had the pleasure to play. The game is fantastic. I'm level (EDIT!) 17 and have begun to avoid the main story line quest. There is so much to explore, so much to collect and create. It fulfills all the things I would like in a single player RPG: slaughtering things, constant ego stroking, making things, hoarding things, and shouting things to death. I always respected the power of voice, so how much cooler can it get? Not much!
I promise I will not put any spoilers in this post. My fellow Skyrim addicts know I've been pretty bitchy and whiny about spoilers. I made my own channel that I could hide in when folks would start talking about the game, even about the equipment they find. Technically, that is not a spoiler, but lalalalalaaaa I just don't wanna know alalalalalalalaaaa...
The game is (almost)endless. Just the perks section is this circle of possible main categories, and each category then has an entire tree of its own, unlocked by category level and also by getting the preceding perks of that tree. You can find perk details here on a wiki page, if you want to see the perks and haven't got the game yourself. While you're leveling up, there is a main mission tree, but also tons, absolute TONS, of side quests, misc missions, locations to explore on the map, respawning dungeons and things to kill and destroy. Everywhere you go, you can pick up respawning ingredients to brew pots, hunt for food and materials to craft gear. You can explore endlessly, and I'm sure that was the intent.
NPC interactions are generally a bit predictable, but I have had some VERY pleasant surprises. During one mission (not going to say which or what), you enter the rendezvous point and overhear your mission giver talking to some others about you. While the other are yakking on about how they predict you'll be complete crap and never make it to the rendezvous, he turns around and basically says, "Oh yeah? Well look what we have here!" I know its programmed for when you enter, but its a great touch and immersion points are deserved. Plus, see my previous mention of ego stroking. The game basically strokes your ego the entire time and we all need that from time to time! (Is it sad that it makes me happy to be awesome and envied and respected in a game? I mean... I'm dragonborn! I deserve it!)
On the PC, the game is just stunning. I am able to run it on ultra with the crossfire enabled, but I do still get frame freezes if I try to give myself whiplash. I have not seen it on console, but my prediction is it just is not going to look as good. If you have a console, feel free to send me some screenshot links to prove me wrong, but I really just can not see how it can be matched. Anyway, did I mention the game is stunning? Facial features are ridiculously smooth, the stuff that doesn't matter are gracefully lower quality so your eyes can focus on the stuff that you can actually interact with. I love that! Instead of making it extremely obvious 'outline-it-in-neon-and-make-it-glow', the game gives more focus to elements you can interact with. Immersion +1point. Salmon jump over the crests of waterfalls, which was a sweet thing I noticed that actually caught my attention. How detailed is that!? I spent a good minute just watching these salmon swimming and leaping against the current.
Finding missions isn't really difficult. You can expect to be able to pick up at least a couple of missions from any npc location you go to. I have a hefty stack of side quests already and I haven't really been actively trying to pick them all up. This is probably the most mechanical part of the game, you can walk up to the npc equivalents of every town and expect to get missions from them. Some people will walk past you and complain about this or that, and if you really want to, you can stop and talk to them. Though some just want more alcohol. Typical.
I haven't really gotten that far (I'm level (EDIT)17 still!) so I'm sure I will encounter plenty of new things to slap around, or get slapped about by, soon enough. So far, the combat has been generally challenging. I've died plenty of times and had to run from a good few fights in the beginning. The sneak mechanic is a very cool and lets you gauge how alerted the enemy is to your presence. You can expect to find the usual encounter mechanics, aka, enter a large open room, step forward, and trigger things that want to axe you. See a room of goodies, walk forward, and get slammed in the face by a grid of spikes. That sort of thing. A few bosses I have encountered have probably been above my level, skill level and player capabilities, but I've been able to cheat the game a bit and get myself into difficult/impossible to get to positions in order to poke them to death with arrows. To date, my record is 112 arrows for one boss. No, there really was no other way for me to kill him.
You get your own house(s). You can even get it decorated for you and there is so much storage space! The bookshelves don't store a ton of books, but of the books you can store, it arranges them on the shelf for you. But I've still dozens of books that sit in a chest somewhere. I collect them for when I'm bored and want to read the contents. Some of the books actually can be helpful (and long winded) tips for your in game encounters. My only complaint about the house is its pretty much impossible to decorate it yourself without the contents of your home flinging themselves in random directions every time you turn around. I can't count how many times I've put that jumpy bit of seared slaughterfish back on that kitchen plate. I'm not eating that.
Obligatory summary on my play style. I have not been planning my perks or really picking anything in particular to skill in. I assign points in whatever I enjoy using and choose perks from point to point. I might regret it in the end if I'm not powerful enough, but I'm not worried about that until it happens! My perks usually go into conjuration, restoration and destruction. My combat begins with conjuration and maybe a bit of destruction if the fight is particularly tough. Otherwise I run around macing everything. Generally on a boss/dragon fight, I will lay down an atronach, put a few poisoned arrows into my target if I have the chance to, charge up to it while it is (hopefully) distracted with my atronach and give it dual poisoned maces to the face. Stamina drained, I circle back to using destruction/restoration until I sink my mana, then frantically start sucking down potions/food so I can do it all over again. Typically the end of a dragon fight involves me macing it to death. Of course, this also often ends in the dragon getting a nifty cinematic kill move involving my lifeless body being thrown around in its jaws.
Tomorrow is my last day of work before the Thanksgiving weekend. If I don't manage to clock at least 40 hours on Skyrim during this holiday, I'm going to be sad. EDIT: Opps. Apparently I'm level 17 still. Not 19... Eh...
Skyrim is the first of the Elder Scrolls series that I've had the pleasure to play. The game is fantastic. I'm level (EDIT!) 17 and have begun to avoid the main story line quest. There is so much to explore, so much to collect and create. It fulfills all the things I would like in a single player RPG: slaughtering things, constant ego stroking, making things, hoarding things, and shouting things to death. I always respected the power of voice, so how much cooler can it get? Not much!
I promise I will not put any spoilers in this post. My fellow Skyrim addicts know I've been pretty bitchy and whiny about spoilers. I made my own channel that I could hide in when folks would start talking about the game, even about the equipment they find. Technically, that is not a spoiler, but lalalalalaaaa I just don't wanna know alalalalalalalaaaa...
The game is (almost)endless. Just the perks section is this circle of possible main categories, and each category then has an entire tree of its own, unlocked by category level and also by getting the preceding perks of that tree. You can find perk details here on a wiki page, if you want to see the perks and haven't got the game yourself. While you're leveling up, there is a main mission tree, but also tons, absolute TONS, of side quests, misc missions, locations to explore on the map, respawning dungeons and things to kill and destroy. Everywhere you go, you can pick up respawning ingredients to brew pots, hunt for food and materials to craft gear. You can explore endlessly, and I'm sure that was the intent.
NPC interactions are generally a bit predictable, but I have had some VERY pleasant surprises. During one mission (not going to say which or what), you enter the rendezvous point and overhear your mission giver talking to some others about you. While the other are yakking on about how they predict you'll be complete crap and never make it to the rendezvous, he turns around and basically says, "Oh yeah? Well look what we have here!" I know its programmed for when you enter, but its a great touch and immersion points are deserved. Plus, see my previous mention of ego stroking. The game basically strokes your ego the entire time and we all need that from time to time! (Is it sad that it makes me happy to be awesome and envied and respected in a game? I mean... I'm dragonborn! I deserve it!)
On the PC, the game is just stunning. I am able to run it on ultra with the crossfire enabled, but I do still get frame freezes if I try to give myself whiplash. I have not seen it on console, but my prediction is it just is not going to look as good. If you have a console, feel free to send me some screenshot links to prove me wrong, but I really just can not see how it can be matched. Anyway, did I mention the game is stunning? Facial features are ridiculously smooth, the stuff that doesn't matter are gracefully lower quality so your eyes can focus on the stuff that you can actually interact with. I love that! Instead of making it extremely obvious 'outline-it-in-neon-and-make-it-glow', the game gives more focus to elements you can interact with. Immersion +1point. Salmon jump over the crests of waterfalls, which was a sweet thing I noticed that actually caught my attention. How detailed is that!? I spent a good minute just watching these salmon swimming and leaping against the current.
Finding missions isn't really difficult. You can expect to be able to pick up at least a couple of missions from any npc location you go to. I have a hefty stack of side quests already and I haven't really been actively trying to pick them all up. This is probably the most mechanical part of the game, you can walk up to the npc equivalents of every town and expect to get missions from them. Some people will walk past you and complain about this or that, and if you really want to, you can stop and talk to them. Though some just want more alcohol. Typical.
I haven't really gotten that far (I'm level (EDIT)17 still!) so I'm sure I will encounter plenty of new things to slap around, or get slapped about by, soon enough. So far, the combat has been generally challenging. I've died plenty of times and had to run from a good few fights in the beginning. The sneak mechanic is a very cool and lets you gauge how alerted the enemy is to your presence. You can expect to find the usual encounter mechanics, aka, enter a large open room, step forward, and trigger things that want to axe you. See a room of goodies, walk forward, and get slammed in the face by a grid of spikes. That sort of thing. A few bosses I have encountered have probably been above my level, skill level and player capabilities, but I've been able to cheat the game a bit and get myself into difficult/impossible to get to positions in order to poke them to death with arrows. To date, my record is 112 arrows for one boss. No, there really was no other way for me to kill him.
You get your own house(s). You can even get it decorated for you and there is so much storage space! The bookshelves don't store a ton of books, but of the books you can store, it arranges them on the shelf for you. But I've still dozens of books that sit in a chest somewhere. I collect them for when I'm bored and want to read the contents. Some of the books actually can be helpful (and long winded) tips for your in game encounters. My only complaint about the house is its pretty much impossible to decorate it yourself without the contents of your home flinging themselves in random directions every time you turn around. I can't count how many times I've put that jumpy bit of seared slaughterfish back on that kitchen plate. I'm not eating that.
Obligatory summary on my play style. I have not been planning my perks or really picking anything in particular to skill in. I assign points in whatever I enjoy using and choose perks from point to point. I might regret it in the end if I'm not powerful enough, but I'm not worried about that until it happens! My perks usually go into conjuration, restoration and destruction. My combat begins with conjuration and maybe a bit of destruction if the fight is particularly tough. Otherwise I run around macing everything. Generally on a boss/dragon fight, I will lay down an atronach, put a few poisoned arrows into my target if I have the chance to, charge up to it while it is (hopefully) distracted with my atronach and give it dual poisoned maces to the face. Stamina drained, I circle back to using destruction/restoration until I sink my mana, then frantically start sucking down potions/food so I can do it all over again. Typically the end of a dragon fight involves me macing it to death. Of course, this also often ends in the dragon getting a nifty cinematic kill move involving my lifeless body being thrown around in its jaws.
Tomorrow is my last day of work before the Thanksgiving weekend. If I don't manage to clock at least 40 hours on Skyrim during this holiday, I'm going to be sad. EDIT: Opps. Apparently I'm level 17 still. Not 19... Eh...
Nov 6, 2011
The Minecraft, it spreads!
This is not a Battlefield 3 post. Sorry! I simply have not been playing that much to have a good amount to say. Unfortunately, not all in our group have been able to get copies of the game due to financial issues. When you're short on money, 60 bucks is a lot to just drop on a game. Hopefully, as the holiday season gets nearer, everyone will be able to get a copy.
This past week I was gifted a copy of Minecraft (yay! thanks!) and have been caught up exploring that. I find it quite fun and think the idea is a great one. My favorite part of the game is the initial survival. Sadly, as you progress in the game, it become less challenging since it is too easy to find food and resources to be able to survive, the creatures are not aggressive enough to pose a problem and even if you die you respawn with full health and food bar. So yes, I do think the game is too "easy." Usually the only ways I'm worried that I might die is getting stalked by a creeper and getting blown to bits before I realize it's there, or falling off a cliff. My biggest disappointment is the limited number of recipes available. For a game such as this, the things you can create are the most important, and looking at the wiki the list just isn't as long as I expect it to be. For all those copies sold, I certainly expect there to be more! Hey, Minecraft devs, make some more creatures and recipes, please!
That said, I absolutely love the idea of a giant sandbox of randomly generated landscape and being given the means to just meddle with it, altering it to fit my taste, building things and coming up with ways to entertain myself and personalize the world. I appreciate that it can go on pretty much forever, as far as your creativity can go. I understand the game isn't centered around being difficult as a survival game but I hope the developers realize that it shouldn't rely so much on the player creativity. The more complex your world becomes, the harder it should be to progress. And when you die you should not respawn with full health and food bar, you should not be able to retrieve all of y our gear and you should not explode into so many XP orbs that you can crash your friend's server. Sorry!
The game is more fun in multiplayer, so we are running a few private servers. It seems like an obvious fact. When you are building a world, it's just good to have some friends around to laugh with and talk about potential projects and things to do. Otherwise it's just you, the rain, and MOOO! and BAAA! and SSSSSSSSS BOOM!
Enough talk... here's a quick tour of my own single player world:
In the first night, I had dug my shelter into the ground and enclosed it. As I explored, I found a fantastic underground cave system and decided that, though it would mean the top level of my home would have to be pretty small, the cave would be great to live above. I reshaped the cave a bit to make the edges smoother and lit it so the archers wouldn't come at me out of the dark. I even have an underground pool! How cool is that? To make my location even sweeter, there was another pool just outside my door. I used that for a small, covered wheat field. I can survive in this sheltered zone indefinitely (too easy, Mojang!)
I also got the idea that I would like to have some farm animals. Though you can't build your own animal farm yet, I did it any way with much pushing and shoving. Now I can hear moo! and baaa! anytime, anyday.
On one of my first days, I got lost in the woods, died, and could not find my way back. I had built a stone pillar about 10 blocks high, but it simply was not enough to see over the trees. So I exchanged the stone pillar for something a bit more visible. I have a terrible sense of direction, everyone knows this. Hopefully, with this tower, I will be able to explore out a bit futher without losing all of my gear, as challenging as that would be. I built a perimeter around the tower that I can shoot out from. Somehow the creeper got in there. First time firing the bow - fail!
I'm more into the multiplayer worlds we have right now. I's sure I'd still run the singleplayer world when no one is around, but I'm actually pondering running a multiplayer world constantly on my old PC....
Anyway...thanks for visiting!
This past week I was gifted a copy of Minecraft (yay! thanks!) and have been caught up exploring that. I find it quite fun and think the idea is a great one. My favorite part of the game is the initial survival. Sadly, as you progress in the game, it become less challenging since it is too easy to find food and resources to be able to survive, the creatures are not aggressive enough to pose a problem and even if you die you respawn with full health and food bar. So yes, I do think the game is too "easy." Usually the only ways I'm worried that I might die is getting stalked by a creeper and getting blown to bits before I realize it's there, or falling off a cliff. My biggest disappointment is the limited number of recipes available. For a game such as this, the things you can create are the most important, and looking at the wiki the list just isn't as long as I expect it to be. For all those copies sold, I certainly expect there to be more! Hey, Minecraft devs, make some more creatures and recipes, please!
That said, I absolutely love the idea of a giant sandbox of randomly generated landscape and being given the means to just meddle with it, altering it to fit my taste, building things and coming up with ways to entertain myself and personalize the world. I appreciate that it can go on pretty much forever, as far as your creativity can go. I understand the game isn't centered around being difficult as a survival game but I hope the developers realize that it shouldn't rely so much on the player creativity. The more complex your world becomes, the harder it should be to progress. And when you die you should not respawn with full health and food bar, you should not be able to retrieve all of y our gear and you should not explode into so many XP orbs that you can crash your friend's server. Sorry!
The game is more fun in multiplayer, so we are running a few private servers. It seems like an obvious fact. When you are building a world, it's just good to have some friends around to laugh with and talk about potential projects and things to do. Otherwise it's just you, the rain, and MOOO! and BAAA! and SSSSSSSSS BOOM!
Enough talk... here's a quick tour of my own single player world:
In the first night, I had dug my shelter into the ground and enclosed it. As I explored, I found a fantastic underground cave system and decided that, though it would mean the top level of my home would have to be pretty small, the cave would be great to live above. I reshaped the cave a bit to make the edges smoother and lit it so the archers wouldn't come at me out of the dark. I even have an underground pool! How cool is that? To make my location even sweeter, there was another pool just outside my door. I used that for a small, covered wheat field. I can survive in this sheltered zone indefinitely (too easy, Mojang!)
I also got the idea that I would like to have some farm animals. Though you can't build your own animal farm yet, I did it any way with much pushing and shoving. Now I can hear moo! and baaa! anytime, anyday.
On one of my first days, I got lost in the woods, died, and could not find my way back. I had built a stone pillar about 10 blocks high, but it simply was not enough to see over the trees. So I exchanged the stone pillar for something a bit more visible. I have a terrible sense of direction, everyone knows this. Hopefully, with this tower, I will be able to explore out a bit futher without losing all of my gear, as challenging as that would be. I built a perimeter around the tower that I can shoot out from. Somehow the creeper got in there. First time firing the bow - fail!
I'm more into the multiplayer worlds we have right now. I's sure I'd still run the singleplayer world when no one is around, but I'm actually pondering running a multiplayer world constantly on my old PC....
Anyway...thanks for visiting!
Oct 24, 2011
Trick or Riot Point Cards?
Today I braved RL again to acquire myself a sweet Halloween treat: Riot Point cards! I have to admit I feel a bit guilty splashing out money like this, but lets be honest here, these make me so happy! Riot created some cute Halloween themed champion skins (I mentioned them in my previous post). Though none of the featured Halloween champions this year are characters that I regularly love to play, my gut tells me that if I pass up the chance to buy at least some of these skins, I will regret not having them later on. So I said !@%# it and grabbed me a few of these.
 |
| One for my super cool bro and two for me! |
It's hard to explain why I feel a bit bad about buying these. I don't often chuck out a good sum of cash like this (anymore) to feed my gaming, and I still have to sometimes remind myself that its not bad that I sometimes spend money on what I have fun with. But for some inexplicable reason, dropping 75 dollars on three cards still feels a bit weird. It's not the same feeling as if I were spending 60 dollars on an actual game title. The only similar comparison I can think of is if I were to go to the pool hall on a weekly basis. I can go to a public place and spend money weekly to play and enjoy the whole experience of being out and playing, or I can just buy a table. I may have the table to own, but both routes have their own cost and pros and cons. One route is just a bit more tangible than the other.
I'm not making any sense am I? Don't listen to me! Just look at the RP cards! I'm gonna get me some cool skins now! You jelly?
Oct 23, 2011
Taking a day off for Battlefield 3!
So I requested a day off next week Friday in anticipation of the Battlefield 3 launch. After playing Battlefield 2 for quite a long time and then being somewhat disappointed with Battlefield Bad Company, it seems EA has delivered a true successor to Battlefield 2. I am excited! I'm not sure if I'm more excited about the day off, or Battlefield 3. But I am definitely excited about tv guided missiles. I have landed some shots in Battlefield 2 that even I can't help but be a bit proud of (read: I'm so f$!%in awesome!!!!!!!!). I'm sure it will be more fast paced than Battlefield 2, so big hopes that I can keep up. I downloaded the Beta and played it briefly, but the buggy party system was a bit of a turn off. Here's hoping those issues are resolved when we all sit down to play this upcoming weekend. And here's hoping my 1K:12D ratio doesn't last very long. (Doing a lot of hoping over here.)
Still obsessed with LoL, I went to Best Buy yesterday planning to buy more riot cards to pick up a bunch of cute Halloween skins. I couldn't find the cards (why on earth do they split cards up by departments, and then put multiple stands in different parts of each department with different cards?! How is that in ANY way intuitive?!) but on my pass around the games section, I caught a trailer on the TV saying "Blizzard DOTA!" and did a double take. Apparently Blizzard is making a fun little version of DOTA as well. I walked out without continuing my RP card search, unsure of whether this would draw me away from LoL. But after reading up about Blizzards version, I feel it will not quite be in the same competitive ring as LoL or other dedicated MOBA titles. Maybe I should go and get those RP cards...
In the meantime, I made another video, this time without all the talking and the Teamspeak sound. Mostly because I was shouting and swearing a lot and it sounded terrible. Here is a game of Dominion I played with Soraka as my champion. Without any idea what to do about music, I did a search for "unicorn" (get it, Soraka, unicorn, eh? eh?) and "remix." It seemed to work out pretty well so maybe that will be what I will do from now on!
Still obsessed with LoL, I went to Best Buy yesterday planning to buy more riot cards to pick up a bunch of cute Halloween skins. I couldn't find the cards (why on earth do they split cards up by departments, and then put multiple stands in different parts of each department with different cards?! How is that in ANY way intuitive?!) but on my pass around the games section, I caught a trailer on the TV saying "Blizzard DOTA!" and did a double take. Apparently Blizzard is making a fun little version of DOTA as well. I walked out without continuing my RP card search, unsure of whether this would draw me away from LoL. But after reading up about Blizzards version, I feel it will not quite be in the same competitive ring as LoL or other dedicated MOBA titles. Maybe I should go and get those RP cards...
In the meantime, I made another video, this time without all the talking and the Teamspeak sound. Mostly because I was shouting and swearing a lot and it sounded terrible. Here is a game of Dominion I played with Soraka as my champion. Without any idea what to do about music, I did a search for "unicorn" (get it, Soraka, unicorn, eh? eh?) and "remix." It seemed to work out pretty well so maybe that will be what I will do from now on!
Dear Random Person that Pushed Dislike Within 5 Hours of Me Uploading, While I Was Asleep,
Why you no like mah video?! I'm ultra-sadface :((((
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)