Huzzah!, PS3 finally gets the lot!! Options

[McBadgere]

News!!!...

Finally...

Sooo, that puts the writing on hold...Again... ...

[Elisabeth Hollow]

You need to get yourself that for Valentine's day XD

[Lady Saga]

Very cool, I am glad you are getting this, PS3 gamers. You're gonna love it (hopefully). It's also cool that the DLc is being offered at half price for making you guys "wait" for many months.

[Darkness Eternal]

Damn it . . .the best DLC is saved for last? Ah! The wait! I can't wait any longer! DAWNGUARD! DAWNGUARD!

[SubRosa]

I would not get your hopes up people. It does not say February of this year after all...

[Elisabeth Hollow]

I would not get your hopes up people. It does not say February of this year after all...

Ew. Fine print.

[Lady Saga]

Damn it . . .the best DLC is saved for last? Ah! The wait! I can't wait any longer! DAWNGUARD! DAWNGUARD!

I can't wait till you get it. Do you know about Serana yet? ... In my opinion she is the best NPC ever made in any videogame I've ever seen in my life. And DG gets interesting, too. I'm actually holding off on Lord Haaf-Mersey for a few days because he's just got to a part of DG that blew my mind, it'll take a LOT of typing to cover! hee hee hee

I'm looking forward to your impressions of DG, DE, particularly 'cause of your vampire story.



This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Feb 5 2013, 11:02 PM

[King Coin]

I can't wait till you get it. Do you know about Serana yet?

I'm pretty sure he knows more about her than I do, and I actually have the DLC!

[Darkness Eternal]

Damn it . . .the best DLC is saved for last? Ah! The wait! I can't wait any longer! DAWNGUARD! DAWNGUARD!

I can't wait till you get it. Do you know about Serana yet? ... In my opinion she is the best NPC ever made in any videogame I've ever seen in my life. And DG gets interesting, too. I'm actually holding off on Lord Haaf-Mersey for a few days because he's just got to a part of DG that blew my mind, it'll take a LOT of typing to cover! hee hee hee

I'm looking forward to your impressions of DG, DE, particularly 'cause of your vampire story.

Hehe, oh yes. A fellow friend leaked everything before the release. The story, the NPC, everything.

I actually thought Serana was an amazing NPC. She's easily my favorite. Because she relates to my female vampire, Raven(which I love dearly ). In my story, ever since Oblivion, Raven is a pureblooded vampire and worshiper of Molag Bal. Black hair, yellow eyes and shades of black, purple and red clothing. And then Dawnguard comes out for Skyrim a few years later. And my jaw falls. I was like "Woah. Raven has a twin! With shorter hair!"

Also, her voice is by Laura Bailey, who played Rayne (a half vampire) in the BloodRayne video-game series.

Of course, they have similar personalities but one has a darker side than the other. I was simply amazed. They both had parental issues. One had issues with her father(Serana) and the other had problems with her mother(Raven). Both are pureblooded, or "Daughters of Coldharbour". Both worships Molag Bal(Serana does mention she did at one point, and she may still). Hell, even their stories somewhat seem similar. Serana has a desire to save her people from an extremist vampire lord(Harkon), who's very idea of vampiric peace can bring war. He plans to subjugate mortals and enslave them. Serana and Valerica knows it could bring war to vampires not only in Skyrim, but all of Tamriel. It would be a civil war between vampires, mortals and of course, other dwellers in foreign continants that would be pissed at having the sun taken away from them. Nirn might as well be Coldharbour if that happened.

Raven, as she grows up, finds out the leaders of in her clan have tainted the name of Vampyre, and plan to use the Elder Scrolls in the Imperial Palace, as well as their political power, for domination. Raven knows the importance of survival and how her people can live on through deception and manipulation rather than brute force. She does what it takes to kill off her enemies and friends to stop a threat that would put her people and bloodline at risk of exposure. Even if she sacrifices thousands of people in war through political maneuvering, she still believes she has to save her people from certain doom. So, she is a noble woman . .in her own dark little manner.

I like Serana also because she likes her condition. When confronted about it, she says she doesn't have a good reason why she would throw away her gift, especially after what experienced to get it. Despite what it did to her family, the dialogue she says shows she is reluctant to get rid of it. It is all Serana knows, having been a vampire for over two-thousand years(She's a walking fossil). She's one of the oldest beings in Skyrim and she's been given a great degree of power and abilties not even regular vampires would comprehend. Vampirism makes up Serana's identity. 4000 years of blood is all she knows, and she only turns to being human if the player persists enough.

The only problem I did have with her of course(I never played the game, but I am sure it will be a bit of a problem) is that we don't see her feeding. She is obviously proud of her gift and even jokes about feeding on Isran's people but we don't ever see her turn into a Vampire Lord or taking a bite out of the thralls at the castle. This is gameplay elements, I know, but it would still be cool to see. It is not shown, and people think she is a cursed character who wants to get rid of her gift. It's not the case.

Like Janus Hassildor, for example. He wants his wife to be cured because of all the suffering she went through, but he even said he embraced the changes within himself and we all know he has Mina(The Pale Lady) working in his basement to harvest blood for his wife. He is like Sybille Stentor, feeding on prisoners and taking blood from them so he can sustain himself and his wife. It's a clever trick. And the fact that he still helped his wife even though she rejected her condition makes him a likeable character, like Serana. Even though she's a vampire, the purest form of vampire, she still fights for her people and would rather see her father dead than her world destroyed.

I can't wait till you get it. Do you know about Serana yet?

I'm pretty sure he knows more about her than I do, and I actually have the DLC!

Hehehe. It's easily my favorite Elder Scrolls DLC. And I don't even have it.

This post has been edited by Darkness Eternal: Feb 6 2013, 04:37 AM

[McBadgere]

Yeah, says you...But I get to build a house... ...

[Elisabeth Hollow]

Yeah, says you...But I get to build a house... ...

That's all you want, dude, lol

[Grits]

Very exciting indeed, especially if they mean February 2013.

I still have big concerns, though. I’ll be waiting a bit before I risk my long-term characters. Assuming they survive another patch that is.

[Lady Saga]

I still have big concerns, though. I’ll be waiting a bit before I risk my long-term characters. Assuming they survive another patch that is.

I believe this is why it's taken so long to get the DLC out to you guys, they wanted to bug test things thoroughly, rather than rush them to the public and have more fiascos.

[Lady Saga]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Bailey_(voice_actress)

I just learned that Laura Bailey is the voice of Serana. I've never heard of her before. For those of you who haven't, check out the list of things she's done, especially in other vid games. She's like a superstar for voiceovers.

[Grits]

I believe this is why it's taken so long to get the DLC out to you guys, they wanted to bug test things thoroughly, rather than rush them to the public and have more fiascos.

I hope you're right. I’ve been poking around on the official forum, and that’s being said there too. Still I’ll sacrifice try out my least beloved characters first, and keep all of my pre-disaster Dragonborn saves!!

Seriously though, I am really looking forward to this. Dragonborn for my oldest dragonborn characters, and kids and houses all around. We have Dawnguard on the Xbox, and while it’s a very enjoyable addition I like being able to play characters without the changes it makes to the regular game. So no PS3 Dawnguard for me.

[SubRosa]

I believe this is why it's taken so long to get the DLC out to you guys, they wanted to bug test things thoroughly, rather than rush them to the public and have more fiascos.

You mean to make sure that it is filled with game-breaking bugs? This is Bethesda we are talking about. They do not have a QA department. These are the same folks whose idea of a patch is something that makes dragons fly backwards!

I think the mountains of bad press that Bethesda has been getting - not just from disgruntled fans - but from game reviewers and publications, is what finally prompted them to get off their rears and release this stuff for the PS3. They could have done it a long time ago. They have just chosen not to.

Their previous claims of having issues porting it to the PS3 is just hogwash. Yes, the PS3 was purposely made to be difficult to program for. Yet every other game company in the world can release their products on it, and in a much more timely manner than this. Just look at all the games there are for the PS3! All it takes is the willingness to hire a couple of PS3 programmers for a month or two to port it over. Or subcontract the entire thing to another company that specializes in working on the PS3. In terms of project management, it is nothing insurmountable. In terms of technology, there is nothing new in any of the DLCs. Everything there is already in the vanilla game. Perk trees, a third person monster form, flying creatures, scripted events, it is all in the base game. The only things that are honestly new in the DLCs are some meshes, textures, and vocal tracks.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Feb 6 2013, 07:56 PM

[Darkness Eternal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Bailey_(voice_actress)

I just learned that Laura Bailey is the voice of Serana. I've never heard of her before. For those of you who haven't, check out the list of things she's done, especially in other vid games. She's like a superstar for voiceovers.

I just said that on my post above . . .



Bloodrayne baby!

[Elisabeth Hollow]

Omg, she was in xxxHolic?!

[Destri Melarg]

Seriously though, I am really looking forward to this. Dragonborn for my oldest dragonborn characters, and kids and houses all around. We have Dawnguard on the Xbox, and while it’s a very enjoyable addition I like being able to play characters without the changes it makes to the regular game. So no PS3 Dawnguard for me.

Dawnguard makes changes to the regular game?! Oh no!! I guess I'll have to make a guinea pig character on someone else's PS3 before I commit to it on my own.

You mean to make sure that it is filled with game-breaking bugs? This is Bethesda we are talking about. They do not have a QA department. These are the same folks whose idea of a patch is something that makes dragons fly backwards!

I think the mountains of bad press that Bethesda has been getting - not just from disgruntled fans - but from game reviewers and publications, is what finally prompted them to get off their rears and release this stuff for the PS3. They could have done it a long time ago. They have just chosen not to.

Their previous claims of having issues porting it to the PS3 is just hogwash. Yes, the PS3 was purposely made to be difficult to program for. Yet every other game company in the world can release their products on it, and in a much more timely manner than this. Just look at all the games there are for the PS3! All it takes is the willingness to hire a couple of PS3 programmers for a month or two to port it over. Or subcontract the entire thing to another company that specializes in working on the PS3. In terms of project management, it is nothing insurmountable. In terms of technology, there is nothing new in any of the DLCs. Everything there is already in the vanilla game. Perk trees, a third person monster form, flying creatures, scripted events, it is all in the base game. The only things that are honestly new in the DLCs are some meshes, textures, and vocal tracks.

This. Bethesda displayed this same laziness toward the PS3 with Oblivion (vampirism anyone?). The thing that ticked me off then (and now) is that, even knowing that the bug exists, they have never made any attempt to fix it.

[SubRosa]

Dawnguard makes changes to the regular game?! Oh no!! I guess I'll have to make a guinea pig character on someone else's PS3 before I commit to it on my own.

It does make changes to the vanilla game. The biggest ones are to the vampires. All of the existing vampires get a face lift, in the form of glowing eyes and sunken cheeks. There are certain npcs out there who are vampires, but are masquerading as normal (I am not going to use names, so I do not spoil anything for anyone). Before they looked just like anyone else, and it was really hard to tell. Now it is very blatantly obvious they are vamps.

Another are that vampire dungeons get things added. There are new critters that get put in them, and the vamps themselves all get new outfits to wear (some rather nifty vampire armor). So if you have mods that edit the vanilla vamp lairs, they might conflict with DG.

Then you get some new places added. The biggest impact IMHO is Castle Volkihar. It sits out in the Sea of Ghosts north-west of Solitude, right across from the fort with the Thalmor in it (not the embassy, but the place where they torture the Greymane son). You cannot look out at the sea without seeing it rising up. It is an eyesore if you are on the PC and use the high res texture pack, as the two conflict, resulting in the game using a low res LOD for the castle which really looks ugly. Thankfully that can be fixed with mods though. If you are on a console, I suppose it just looks like everything else (yes, I am spoiled by PC graphics).

DG also adds a boatman to several of the port cities (Solitude, Windhelm, and Dawnstar I think?), who you can hire to transport you to any of the other cities.

Hearthfire also makes some changes as well. Most notably to the three places where you can build your house. Any mod using those spots is going to conflict. It also changes the carriage system. You can now hire a carriage to take you to any of the hold capitals, no matter where you are. The downside is that also conflicts with every mod that tweaks the carriage system, causing CTDs as soon as you walk into a cell with a carriage (this burned me, and had me stumped for days trying to figure out what was causing it).

Honestly though, IMHO most of the changes are good ones. The vampires you fight are much tougher now. Not for the low level character at all. It really feels like a challenge facing them. So now they feel like Big Bads. While I mourn the loss of the Scenic Carriages mod, I do appreciate what they did to improve the carriage system overall. Plus the face-changer that DG adds was long overdue. That should have been in the vanilla game. I personally think the good things outweigh the bad ones.

Edited to Add: Oh, yeah, and as DE notes, no one hostile to vamps at stage 4 anymore with DG. People only become hostile if you turn into a vampire lord.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Feb 7 2013, 01:40 AM