Ghost Recon Breakpoint for PC .

I'm still replaying Oblivion, but several weeks ago, I had this strange hankering for replaying Fallout: New Vegas and I don't know why. Well, I sort of do. There have been a lot of absurd New Vegas memes that have cropped up on YouTube (and Morrowind for that matter, but I'm not sure when I will return to my 2nd playthrough of that game). The game itself already has plenty of funny moments, but the memes people have been making are the kind of s---posting that I enjoy. It's hard to explain. It's simply either your sense of humor or it isn't.

Some of my New Vegas urge was prompted by the, hmm, shall we say . . . poorly received mod for New Vegas that was 7 years in the making called Fallout: The Frontier. If you don't know about that, it's the textbook definition of a s---show. I've seen some reviews on it, and the basic idea is that the technological aspects are absolutely mind-blowing for the engine, but the writing is so hilariously atrocious I have absolutely no idea how it came to be. I'm not usually one to jump all over a game's writing--I don't consider myself to be particularly knowledgeable about writing and most times I think it's just gamers wanting to believe that they are experts at it when they're not. But this time, just about all the complaints are completely valid. The story makes no sense.

But anyway, I digress. Back to my actual playthrough of New Vegas, my new character is a lovely blue-haired, bandana-and-eyeglasses-wearing lady named Annabelle. I've already been trying out some new things that I did not do in my 1st playthrough. I took Wild Wasteland as my first perk and almost all the perks I have taken so far I did not use before. I've gone heavy on the light armor and sneaking. Cass has been my main (and so far only) companion. My courier became the first female King (*Elvis voice* baby). And I found out that you can take Benny on in a completely different way, killing him way earlier than normal. The only way my ignorant past self was aware of was simply walking right up to him on the bottom floor of the Tops. I was initially going to do that again with a silenced pistol to see if I could get away with it, but I found a completely different way to deal with him.

Spoiler? Spoiler just in case:



I'm not sure I want to do anybody's side, even the independent route, this time. I just want to do most of main game content, including stuff I have not done before, and the DLCs--in the proper order this time. And I really want to kill Ulysses instead of talking him down this time. The first time I played New Vegas, I didn't know the DLCs had a canonical order and I did Lonesome Road first because it sounded the most interesting. And that one is supposed to be last. Probably explains why I could barely damage Ulysses before he Stimpaked himself and swarmed me with robots...

In typical Bethesda fashion, they call you the boss, but you don't make any real day to day decisions on running the place, because that would take effort

At some point I figured out the route you took with Benny as well. It was really satisfying to do in that manner. I am pretty sure I ended up technically running the Tops in his place. (In typical Bethesda fashion, they call you the boss, but you don't make any real day to day decisions on running the place, because that would take effort, and just be a business administrator sim). But I might be misremembering.

Bethesda did seem to get a bit better about your status after completing a guild's questline. In Skyrim, at least you could ask someone else to take over the College of Winterhold. And Dawnguard was perfect in that you simply remained a working member of the guild instead if becoming its boss.

I was pleased to see that Zenimax listened to players and followed the later direction of BethSoft with ESO. After you complete the MG, FG, TG questlines, you simply remain a working member of the guild (not the boss) and there are daily quests forever as you like. There are a couple other professional/adventuring organizations as well that offer neverending things to do but you never have to deal with any leadership/administrative burdens to take away from being simply an adventuress.

Half the time in typical Bethesda fashion they don't even call you boss, arch-mage, headmaster, or whatever. You're just told to go fetch something.

I believe what you meant to write there was: "in typical Obsidian fashion".

Is that the one with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze?

Funny, I thought it was time to return to SimCity 3000


Which I did just now. Yes; the very game that many years back enraged me so much that I threw the disc on the floor and shattering it into a thousand pieces because I didn't understand why they fled my city. I have downloaded and started it up again. Hopefully I won't care now if my Sims abandon me even if everything is perfect

Yes it is


As the mayor Simsson, I welcome you to SimVille!

Yesterday, for the first time in years, my PC audio systems rear channels kicked in at start-up, and remained functional the entire day! TS2021 is ever so much more enjoyable when surrounded by well-placed train sounds! Ended up driving I decent number of scenarios to completion. The game credited only one of them as a success. I suspected that was likely to happen. My downfall is, more often than not, falling behind schedule. Some scenarios are stricter about keeping to timetables than others. Some jettison them altogether. Yesterday's scenarios were strict. Timetable failures don't bother me, for the most part, so long as I execute all individual components (minus timetable) satisfactorily, as was the case in all but one of yesterday's scenarios.

Have to admit I hoped yesterday's final scenario would be flagged as complete. It went very well. I was only a couple of minutes behind by its end. Nope, failure. What's more, I was credited with only four of the nine stations my train stopped at. Such is life along the rails, I reckon.

(I intended to return to that scenario this morning and film it, failure or no failure. Alas, I proceeded to make one stupid driving error after another. Called it quits at the third station stop. Yesterday's drive, discounting timetable, was well-nigh errorless. Errorless by rookie standards, that is.)

My SimVille now has a fusion reactor, a farm AND its own harbor! Most of the city has high, very high or even astronomical landvalues. I have zero water pollution and very little air pollution most of which is concentrated in the industrial area. The rest, coming from traffic, is miniscule. I plan to reduce pollution even more by getting rid of the garbage burning powerplants but that can prove difficult as I import garbage to get money. I may end up just relocating them further away from the city proper.



Earliest pic I have
Expanding
Current state
New harbor!

SimCity 3000


Today I decided to create an exclusive residential area in SimVille. I zoned an area as light residential instead of medium or dense as that will make sure I get nice villas, gardens and pools. The high land value is essential here.
I made it so a single road leads into the area and loops while also making avenues and dotting the place with playgrounds, ponds and lots of trees. All to make it as exclusive as possible! The white and pink buildings to the left I expect to soon shift into something fancier as the land value is high there too.


This neighbourhood is located in the new area I've been working on across the river, apart from the old section of the city.


The new area
The still developing neighbourhood
Close-up
Different angle


I also want to show you the old part of town again. Notice the highrises in the business district in the upper left caused by high land values. Here's also the road leading to the harbor.

I'm still replaying Oblivion, but several weeks ago, I had this strange hankering for replaying Fallout: New Vegas and I don't know why. Well, I sort of do. There have been a lot of absurd New Vegas memes that have cropped up on YouTube (and Morrowind for that matter, but I'm not sure when I will return to my 2nd playthrough of that game). The game itself already has plenty of funny moments, but the memes people have been making are the kind of s---posting that I enjoy. It's hard to explain. It's simply either your sense of humor or it isn't.

Some of my New Vegas urge was prompted by the, hmm, shall we say . . . poorly received mod for New Vegas that was 7 years in the making called Fallout: The Frontier. If you don't know about that, it's the textbook definition of a s---show. I've seen some reviews on it, and the basic idea is that the technological aspects are absolutely mind-blowing for the engine, but the writing is so hilariously atrocious I have absolutely no idea how it came to be. I'm not usually one to jump all over a game's writing--I don't consider myself to be particularly knowledgeable about writing and most times I think it's just gamers wanting to believe that they are experts at it when they're not. But this time, just about all the complaints are completely valid. The story makes no sense.

But anyway, I digress. Back to my actual playthrough of New Vegas, my new character is a lovely blue-haired, bandana-and-eyeglasses-wearing lady named Annabelle. I've already been trying out some new things that I did not do in my 1st playthrough. I took Wild Wasteland as my first perk and almost all the perks I have taken so far I did not use before. I've gone heavy on the light armor and sneaking. Cass has been my main (and so far only) companion. My courier became the first female King (*Elvis voice* baby). And I found out that you can take Benny on in a completely different way, killing him way earlier than normal. The only way my ignorant past self was aware of was simply walking right up to him on the bottom floor of the Tops. I was initially going to do that again with a silenced pistol to see if I could get away with it, but I found a completely different way to deal with him.

Spoiler? Spoiler just in case:



I'm not sure I want to do anybody's side, even the independent route, this time. I just want to do most of main game content, including stuff I have not done before, and the DLCs--in the proper order this time. And I really want to kill Ulysses instead of talking him down this time. The first time I played New Vegas, I didn't know the DLCs had a canonical order and I did Lonesome Road first because it sounded the most interesting. And that one is supposed to be last. Probably explains why I could barely damage Ulysses before he Stimpaked himself and swarmed me with robots...

Bethesda did seem to get a bit better about your status after completing a guild's questline. In Skyrim, at least you could ask someone else to take over the College of Winterhold. And Dawnguard was perfect in that you simply remained a working member of the guild instead if becoming its boss.

I was pleased to see that Zenimax listened to players and followed the later direction of BethSoft with ESO. After you complete the MG, FG, TG questlines, you simply remain a working member of the guild (not the boss) and there are daily quests forever as you like. There are a couple other professional/adventuring organizations as well that offer neverending things to do but you never have to deal with any leadership/administrative burdens to take away from being simply an adventuress.

To be honest, I don't think you should be able to become the head of any guilds. That's just too much. Daggerfall made it a real struggle to get up there, at least, but the quests are usually dull and there is no actual storyline to the guilds in that game. Second-in-command should be the highest obtainable rank, at best.

In Morrowind, Oblivion, and especially Skyrim, you could really blow through everything in a small amount of time and boom, you are somehow the head of the guild. Almost all of the NPCs in the guilds are so static, rarely having a real reaction to you climbing up the ranks when most of them should be trying to do the same. There should be more political machinations going on behind the scenes, which Morrowind had somewhat but even then they didn't truly have an impact on your ascension. ESO did better in this regard, though the Fighters and Mages Guild questlines are pathetically short.

I remember playing--- I think it was SimCity 2000--- and getting annoyed because the populace was unhappy, despite my giving them all the amenities I could think of.

mirocu's Simville adventures remind me of my (original) Sim City days, during my first year of two as a PC gamer. The first city I created was unkillable. Unkillable so long as I didn't monkey with it beyond a certain point. If I did so, disaster. No biggie. It's only real fault was a smallish slum-like area.

Its nuclear power plant(s) blew up periodically. The city always recovered from those setbacks.

For some years I used to occasionally launch that city and watch it go about its business for some time before exiting the game.

None of the other several cities I created turned out nearly so well.

I…..just watched……Decrepit on Train Simulator!

I was expecting a little side to side shuffling as it rolled, but there was none…but then I don’t stand on a footplate, perhaps it is a dynamic you only experience in carriages due to the bogey suspension?

I read somewhere that if you purchase all the add-ons for TS it comes to like eight Grand…is that so? Good grief!

Oh and to answer the titular question….after circa 23000 play hours, I am still playing Skyrim (but I did have a three-month sabbatical with CP2077). I hope TES6 will be as engrossing…if and when…hmmm
A.