What are you playing? Options

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

I've been playing a bit of Unreal 2: The Awakening the past few days. And after confirming my initial thoughts, your character is voiced by freaking Michael Mack! He who voiced the male Redguards in Morrowind/Oblivion and freaking Cyrus from TESA: Redguard! Man, I miss his voice in The Elder Scrolls. It made me much more excited to play.

The gameplay, however, not so much. It isn't bad but it is lacking, namely in character speed. You move soooooooooooo slowly. Accessing the console fortunately rectifies that, although you have to do it each time you access a new area or reload a save. One of the weapons at the beginning seems completely useless though. It's definitely disappointing coming from the original Unreal, but it doesn't seem like a bad game so far. I do plan to play more later.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Sep 23 2017, 03:37 AM

[monkeyemoness]

Aw man, did you ever play the racing game made by Rare, Diddy Kong Racing? Khajiit thought that game was so much fun (and a big improvement on the cart racing formula laid down by Mario Kart)! It had planes and hovercraft, man!

I didn't, but I do remember a passing interest. Part of me wants to go back and play those games I saw on gaming magazines I couldn't play. Last time I did that was years ago during school summer vacation. I really should have branched out more with the games I played. Not being able to afford them helped, I guess.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Aw man, did you ever play the racing game made by Rare, Diddy Kong Racing? Khajiit thought that game was so much fun (and a big improvement on the cart racing formula laid down by Mario Kart)! It had planes and hovercraft, man!

I didn't, but I do remember a passing interest. Part of me wants to go back and play those games I saw on gaming magazines I couldn't play. Last time I did that was years ago during school summer vacation. I really should have branched out more with the games I played. Not being able to afford them helped, I guess.

Bummer. If you got 3 of your buds around it was a blast to play. Khajiit remembers one particular time, we all played Goldeneye:007 until we were bleary eyed, then took a break and played Diddy Kong Racing, lol

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

I decided to play some Mount and Blade the past couple nights. I had been meaning to give it another go after only playing for about an hour so a year or two ago but hadn't gotten around to it. I finally did, and put much more effort into exploring its mechanics. And it sucked me in. It's a fun sandbox to mess around in. Even won a couple tournaments and a melee fight. Hoping to play some more later this week.

[Decrepit]

I decided to play some Mount and Blade the past couple nights. I had been meaning to give it another go after only playing for about an hour so a year or two ago but hadn't gotten around to it. I finally did, and put much more effort into exploring its mechanics. And it sucked me in. It's a fun sandbox to mess around in. Even won a couple tournaments and a melee fight. Hoping to play some more later this week.

Is this original M&B? I have that available as a free download off GoG. I've watched bits and pieces of a number of YouTube LPs of it and Warband and find them intriguing. Never bothered to DL M&B with my old DSL connection, and until your post forgot I have that option. With my now somewhat faster internet service it might be time to take the plunge.

[Dark Reaper]

Played some Dreadnought on the PC last night. What game will I play today? The world may never know .

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

I decided to play some Mount and Blade the past couple nights. I had been meaning to give it another go after only playing for about an hour so a year or two ago but hadn't gotten around to it. I finally did, and put much more effort into exploring its mechanics. And it sucked me in. It's a fun sandbox to mess around in. Even won a couple tournaments and a melee fight. Hoping to play some more later this week.

Is this original M&B? I have that available as a free download off GoG. I've watched bits and pieces of a number of YouTube LPs of it and Warband and find them intriguing. Never bothered to DL M&B with my old DSL connection, and until your post forgot I have that option. With my now somewhat faster internet service it might be time to take the plunge.

Yep. Actually have it, Warband, and With Fire and Sword on Steam because they were really cheap, but grabbed it on GOG when it was free too. Playing the GOG version.

It's quite fun so far, although a couple of my biggest criticisms would be:
1) There doesn't seem to be a whole lot that specifically distinguishes kingdoms (e.g. the differences between Vaegirs and Nords), at least from what I've seen. It's fine to not have detailed lore and in a way that lends itself to the sandbox feel, but still would be nice to have something.
2) Talking to regular townspeople seems to be largely pointless, as they almost always say the exact same, useless dialogue. There are some exceptions, but not a lot. Even the non-helpful dialogue could use some differences in what they say.

But I haven't really gotten to fully explore the game yet, so we'll see how it goes. But I enjoy it so far.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Sep 24 2017, 07:53 PM

[milanius]

As of last week, I'm an armed merchantman in this.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

As of last week, I'm an armed merchantman in this.

Is that free to play?

[ghastley]

As of last week, I'm an armed merchantman in this.

I played the original 8-bit game when it came out. It did things like changing screen resolution during each scan, so the top half was monochrome high-res, while the lower half was colour, low-res. All because you had only 16k of memory to work with, including the screen buffer.

Took weeks to work up to Elite status. Only played all the way through once. I still have the game, and the BBC model B to play it on! I may even have the joystick I built to make controlling the ship a bit easier.

Do you still dock your freighter with a rotating orbital station? (Match spin rate, then ease into the dock).

[milanius]

As of last week, I'm an armed merchantman in this.

Is that free to play?

Nope, it's not. I've bought the core game 3 years ago, pre-order, and then realized I can't play it on the rig I had at the time... lol.

Insult to injury, I did not get any damn discount on the add-on, "Horisons", which allows a person to land on lunar bodies and then drive a buggy around, explore for resources, etc.

p.s.: There is a docking computer which takes up one of the optional component slots, the stations still orbit and it can be hazardous to dock without shields on your ship, at high speeds, but it's loads of fun - especially when you're trying to make a shipment in crunchtime for bonus cash. Downside of not having a docking computer is no "Blue Danube" tune on docking. I have to hum it manually to myself.

This post has been edited by milanius: Sep 26 2017, 06:33 PM

[ghastley]

Only wimps use the docking computer. That was a feature of the original, too, but docking was the fun part of travel on many trips.

[monkeyemoness]

Welp, I finished Psychonauts and now I want the soundtrack.

I've since jumped into Nehrim instead of playing Oblivion like i said I was and I realized that SureAI total conversions are closer to Arena than Daggerfall in terms of gameplay. Maybe I'll play Oblivon instead, but for now I'm content with the low RP of Nehrim, even if that means no inns and no storage outside the safe chest.

(Honestly though, Enderal was even worse about this since waiting was disabled by default. Wtf am I supposed to do during downtime? Sit there and watch my character relax in real time?)

[Callidus Thorn]

I'm bouncing back and forth between Oblivion and Elder Scrolls Legends, so I'm pretty well set for Elder Scrolls at the moment.

My Oblivion character might only be level 3, but he seems pretty promising so far. Then again he is a Breton, so it's kind of hard to go wrong there.

Not doing as well in Legends, but I've not been playing long so it's to be expected. Still having fun with it though.

[Dark Reaper]

As soon as I get my PS4 out this Friday I'm getting Ys VIII, I might also get Ys Seven and Origins for Steam.

[monkeyemoness]

Tem!

So I think I'm going to give Nehrim a rest even though I was starting to get into it. I may like it now, but the endless cycle of Dungeon Crawl, Dungeon Crawl, Main Quest, Dungeon Crawl, Bounty, SIDE QUEST!, Dungeon Crawl will have me burn out by the end of the week. There's little freedom, since everything has set levels.

So instead I'm back in Oblivion. Woo!

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Played a bit more of Mount & Blade and Unreal 2 yesterday. M & B had a really annoying and practically impossible quest to go find and kill looters in the surrounding countryside, which I did for the past few play sessions. I was told I would be paid for each band of looters I killed, so I was under the impression that I didn't need to kill every single one of them in order to complete the quest. It was definitely impossible to find all of them without using a cheat that let you see all of the groups that run around on the map, yet even with that on I failed the quest. That was definitely a bit aggravating. Still, M & B is fairly fun.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Sep 29 2017, 01:27 PM

[Dark Reaper]

It's either going to be BOTW or Metroid Samus Returns. Today's the day I get a Switch again!!!

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

So since I have not played any TES games besides ESO for a long while (and TESA: Redguard at the beginning of the year), I decided to take a look at just how long it's been since I played Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim. And holy crap, it's been long. I haven't played Skyrim or Morrowind since December of last year, and Oblivion since this past New Year's Day. That was a little before I got the computer I have now.

Thus, I decided to play a bit of Skyrim. I had no clue where I would be. Turns out I was chilling at Breezehome with my wife Lydia and two kids Sissel and Sofie. Didn't play for very long, but had a neat little moment that I will detail later (even took some screenshots, which come to think of it I never actually did before for whatever reason).

I still really want to trigger the Taren Dreth encounter, but it just hasn't happened in my meanderings about. I don't have much desire to level up until I get to the Ebony Warrior and I don't want to cheaply level through the console, so I will probably forgo that. Otherwise, the only thing I want to do with this character is build the other manors (Lakeview is already made). My character is going to make to donate them to the needy, while he spends the rest of his time with his family in Breezehome.

And this is with my first ever Elder Scrolls character I ever made, my Dragonborn (well, technically not, but I'll save that story for the next post here). But since the last time I played this game was on my previous laptop, I could not run the game at its best. Seeing the gameplay so smooth and fluid with the graphics set ultra high was incredible.

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Reposting from what I just put in the Skyrim subforum, if that is alright.

Long post incoming:

So a couple nights ago I went to check out how long it has been since the TES games in my Steam catalogue had been played. And holy crap, with the exception of ESO it has been a long while. In Skyrim's case, I hadn't played it since last December. I had the urge to dust it off so I booted it up, although I had no clue where I would be.

This little story I am going to tell here is with my first ever character in Skyrim, and by extension my first ever character in a TES game (well, I had first played Skyrim on my friend's Xbox 360 in late 2013, but that doesn't count), my Dragonborn. Turns out I had been chilling at Breezehome with my lovely wife Lydia and my two adorable daughters Sissel and Sofie, and Serana had been hanging out with us.

My primary task (now complete as of yesterday) was to build the rest of Heljarchen Hall and Windstad Manor. Lakeview Manor was already finished quite a while ago. My Dragonborn wants to use them for housing to get people down on their luck back on their feet, as he is quite content with his family back in Whiterun. I am hoping to run into Taren Dreth soon, and I am likely not going to try to get to the Ebony Warrior. I might console command him in, although that would feel pretty cheap.

My character, whose name I am retconning to Cincinnatus (the name in-game that I actually have is a bit of a long story), has seen enough adventures for a score of mere mortals. And while he has amassed much wealth, renown, and had loads of fun he has grown weary of the life of adventuring. He's become highly proficient in a lot of skills (he decided to take up two-handed weaponry recently). But he also has a family to go home to. He is extremely close to finally calling it a career.

But Cincinnatus has decided to go on one last trek around the province on a personal farewell tour of sorts to adventuring. Part of it is, again, to try to get that Taren Dreth encounter to happen. But it is also to see just how far he has come since he almost got his head cut off by the Imperials.

The first destination of the tour was to revisit where this all began: Helgen. Serana and Cincinnatus dispatched some bandits there with ease, and had a look around. He had been back to Helgen several times, but this time in particular held deep meaning for him with his impending retirement. After killing the bandits, Tundra played in the background, a fitting tune.

Here's a few pictures of Cincinnatus checking the place out (It occurred to me that I never actually took screenshots before. What the hell is wrong with me? ):
Overlooking Helgen
Having flashback to the beginning of his escape from Helgen

And some other pictures:
Out for a stroll
Looking north across the Padomaic Ocean

After revisiting a couple smaller places on the map leaving Helgen, Cincinnatus made his way to Dawnstar. He is currently in Winterhold about to go to Windhelm.

Kind of bittersweet to be finally concluding the story of my first-ever TES character. It's cool looking back on how I first got into the series and after putting a huge portion of it under my belt, though.