Skyrim Dawn Of Skyrim
I had planned to write at least one more post on Skyrim, possibly several, but enough is enough. Haven’t been in that world in a good while, so it has not been on my mind for some time. I feel no inspiration.So instead I’ll post a minor status update.Andromeda: Been on hold for a while, but I’ll get back to it soon.Started playing around with Civilization VI a bit, but only the free and rather restricted version, which, among other things allows for only 60 turns.
Thanks for watching our Skyrim Mod Spotlight! Support us on Like us on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter!. The focus is on the war between two factions, the ancient vampire lords of Skyrim and an elite group of vampire hunters dedicated to bringing them down. You are given the option to side with one faction or the other, even though the DLC begins by visiting the Dawnguard stronghold.
It’s on the iPad, but it’s the complete game and no flimsy downgraded tablet port, which is great, but also means it’s currently being sold at full price (it was released recently), so I think I’ll wait for a discount before making a purchase. (Edit: it’s now temporarily sold at half price, think I’ll go for it!) (Edit 2: I did.)In the last few days I’ve been playing a small tablet puzzle game that’s kind of amusing and engaging but not really that special. Much of the enjoyment and meaning lie in figuring out a methodic way to beat the challenges, how to think. Not quite all the down to the level of a step by step algorithm, though that’s certainly would be possible if required (e.g. For making a computer program do the work), but more like identifying a set of useful principles, questions and ideas, a system of sorts.For the most part, so far, this way of going about it is probably more time consuming than figuring out the solution by trying things by semi-random intuition, but it’s also a lot more meaningful and less amorphous and intractable. And later on, when I expect the puzzles to become significantly harder — too hard for semi-random method — it’ll probably pay off in terms of time and energy as well.
Either way, the more interesting and fun challenge is figuring out the approach.And that’s it for now. There are a number of different parts of a modern big game like Skyrim. You create and develop your character, you explore, you fight, you meet and befriend allies, collude with strangers, and bear witness to the strange behavior exhibited by the people who populate the world (see earlier posts), you enact the story and experience its unfolding events, you get lost among the myriad of side-quests, and generally just forge your own journey from humble beginnings to savior and hero.And then there’s item management, lots and lots of item management.Item micromanagement, even. Too much, one might argue. Except that items are fun and meaningful. Looting is delightful.
Actually, not as much or as often as one might assume, not when you’re well into the game. At that point much of it is more like a unnecessary chore you’re somehow still compelled to do, a fleeting reward at best. There’s just so much items and loot, and most of it isn’t particularly useful or valuable, though enough of it is to make it difficult to ignore.To make matters worse, there are obstacles in your path of dealing with items, most notably the weight limit and the cash limit at merchants, pushing the player to perform additional dreary actions, like having to put a quest on hold just to go sell some items, or having to visiting several merchants in a row because you have more items than a single merchant can afford. I’ve seen people hoarding piles of items in their in-game home. It‘s an understandable restriction, in order to prevent the player from growing rich and powerful too easy and fast, and maybe to add some realism, but as a side effect there is even more focus and time spent on item management.There is also the ever present option and incentive to switch back and forth between items for some minor advantage — e.g. Equipping the Volsung to get a better price at merchants, and then another item to get better at archery, and another to get better at magic, and so on. Seems ridiculous to pass up on that advantage, but that‘s the problem, that they’ve probably built too much incentive into the game to focus on and micromanage items, and too few constraints.
Skyrim Dawn Of Skyrim Guide
The balance is off.It should be noted that it‘s not just a matter of amount and frequency, but what kind of tools they implement to let you manage it all — a big deal. For example, the favorites list in Skyrim does make life easier, as does the “to sell” list in Dragon Age, or the ease or difficulty by which you compare items. The better the tools, the less the friction, the more you can throw items at the player without it becoming annoying.To combat excessive item management I have implemented a rather strict policy of only picking up the most useful or valuable loot, but even so, even leaving the vast majority of the loot, I still sometimes mysteriously end up with more loot than I care for. Heck, even just.checking. loot and not taking any, to make sure you’re not missing out on something good, is annoying. Or for that matter even feeling the.temptation. to check should you decide not to, or even having to consciously decide to create a policy of dealing with items.
It disrupts the flow and directs your attention undesirably.It’s a matter of economics with attention as the currency — you want to spend it where it matters, on the interesting elements, and so you don’t want the game to work against that by directing your attention elsewhere. Trying to shove less interesting elements down your throat.For comparison I think Mass Effect has better system for items, where it’s a meaninful and fun part of the game while being far less intrusive.All that said, Skyrim‘s item management isn’t terrible by any means, it’s more like part fun and part aggravating, a mixed bag. But that‘s bad enough, especially since the game is pretty great in certain other areas, though truth be told it also pretty bad in others.And how exactly does the Volsung help procure a more advantageous exchange anyway?Somewhere in Skyrim: Son, wear this mask and go to the nearest bank and politely ask for a withdrawal.
Been hard at work on a post that isn’t coming along very well, so I’m buying myself some time by bringing you this short update instead.Though I still have a few posts coming related to Skyrim, I‘m definitely done actually playing it. In fact, I got really tired of the game toward the end. Going for a platinum was probably a mistake, as it was far more time consuming than expected, but once you start going down that path the Daedric prince of sunk cost will make sure you see it through.Now I’m immersing myself in Mass Effect: Andromeda, hoping it isn’t a big letdown in the making. I mean, I‘m well aware the game wasn’t particularly well received, but it’s also a game by Bioware, and a Mass Effect game at that, the trilogy being one of my favorite games. So there has to be some kind of lower bound of quality below which Andromeda cannot fall, right. Until proven otherwise I refuse to believe it is a dud, but whatever the case may be I will know for sure soon enough. As for the critique, I won‘t even skim it, let alone carefully analyze or engage with it, until finishing at least the main quest, though I did hear there were some wonky facial animations (now patched, I believe.)I‘m not far into the game, and my only serious complaint so far is the ridiculously small text, and in searching for a fix (there is none) I learned of many others feeling the same way, some even refusing to continue the game because of it.
How curious to spend years and untold resources to develop a game, only to then noticeably undermine the playing experience and needlessly aggravating their own customers by neglecting to spend three seconds to add the option to change text size. All hail Skyrim, mighty generator of amusing and bizarre little episodes. This is probably the most absurd yet.I was doing a quest for the thieves guild, collecting a few old debts of theirs. One argonian female innkeeper wouldn’t listen to reason, and a fist fight broke out.Landed a few good punches, and maybe she fell badly on the floor or something, but she unexpectedly passed away. I took the money she owed — our business is hereby concluded, ma’am — and returned to the guild.They became rather mad, as I wasn’t supposed to kill the target. But you got the money, right? No no, not being cavalier at all, just trying, to yeah yeah, bad for business, and our sacrosanct code of whatever and all that, but it’s not easy being in the trenches, things go down and, well, you know how it is, and stop that yelling.To dramatize the exchange a bit.In any case, their faith in me remained intact, courtesy of Bethesda’s unwillingness to allow failure, since failure might hurt the feelings of kids who are in it for the power fantasy and being the supreme king of winning.
But I digress.Later I returned to the scene of the crime, and now an argonian man was running the inn in her place. Apparently he was her boyfriend, so naturally he wasn’t too happy about what had happened, or about me returning, which he made very clear.Hadn’t expected this situation. The game came alive for a moment, felt a pang of guilt. But I am the dragonborn, and I am on an important quest to get a shiny and useless platinum, the show must go on.Then came the quirky turn of events.His voice softens, eyes becoming dreamy. This was a man deeply and hopelessly in love. He informs me he’s going to marry that woman, and asks whether I would kindly get them some gems for the wedding.Why yes, that’s the least I can do for having killed the bride.Probably won’t though, but I like stacking up quests for a rainy day.A theater should act these scenes out and post it on YouTube.I‘m done with the game now, playing wise, but I still have a few more posts coming up.
In my first run I distributed my skill points in a rather diverse fashion. That usually doesn’t result in a particularly good build, although Skyrim is easy and safe enough that it’s nearly impossible to screw up completely. Gradually over the course of playing I converged toward a few chosen skills, in particular archery since that became my preferred way of fighting (ranged fighting with slow motion, I’m a sucker for that.)This run I’m drawing upon my experience of last time, and I‘ve right from the start focused my build somewhat more. For a long while I used archery — like last time — as my main way of fighting, with light armor, restoration and a bit of conjuring as supplementary skills. However, recently I started to develop other skills as well, including destruction, now that I’ve reached the end of the archery skill tree. Seems expedient, considering that archery no longer grants experience points toward levelling the character, impeding progress.Well, at least that’s the case until the skill is made legendary, but making it legendary also means making it crappy again, so you want to have raised the level in another battle oriented skill in preparation (as well as having made corresponding changes in attribute distribution), into which you then put those freed up skill points.
Hence the time spent developing destruction and conjuration, embarking on a new mid-game path as a mage.So I made archery legendary and put those points into destruction and elsewhere, and now during fights I alternate between destruction and archery, as well as conjure up a friendly atronach now and then. Don’t take me for a conjurer of cheap tricks though, I’ve slowly developed conjuring for a good while, and those atronaches are pretty good by now. Both destruction and archery are pretty easy to develop quickly, esp this late in the game with plenty of magicka and stamina, and plenty of health and protective gear.I enjoy switching between the two. Early in the game it’s probably best to specialize, but mid-game and onward it’s perfectly viable to go dual.
It’s still a pretty focused build, all the parts work well together, and I use them all.I optimize primarily for enjoyment and getting an appealing playing style, not power. For example, enchantment, once you‘ve become a truly deft enchanter, could very well have the best skill tree (having two carefully chosen powerful enchantments on each item is insane), but I don’t care for that style of playing, no matter how effective. I don’t want to collect enchantments, I don’t want to collect souls, I don’t want to recharge items frequently.
I don’t want to think about enchantments at all, except as a pleasant surprise when I find a good weapon or gear with a powerful enchantment to play around with for as long as the charge lasts.As for light armor and restoration, my thinking is along these lines:Light Armor adds some extra protection, and has a great perk which makes stamina regenerate twice as fast, which is really good when doing archery (though when I finally got that perk, archery was no longer my sole way of fighting — I do run a lot though, for which stamina is also useful). Restoration has healing, which is useful pretty much all the time, and it also has a few nice passive perks like having healing applied also to stamina, and magicka being replenished faster, and not to mention a perk that basically lets you survive a deadly attack once a day. Dying isn’t fatal for the player, or even much of a setback, but it’s annoying, and getting rid of it is an enjoyment boost. Dying just isn’t my style.In any case, I’m nearing the end of this run (not the end of Skyrim mind you, that’s practically unattainable.) It will likely be my last. I‘m done with the main quest, done with the Dragonborn DLC, done with the civil war, done with the Magnus staff quest, just to mention a few. I consider going for the platinum and then quit, would give me a final reasonably comprehensive objective and a solid note to quit on, while not involving too much work, given how far I’ve already come. More on the topic of odd and unearthly NPC behavior (see last post).So I was seeking the help of a venerable sorcerer to find some secret and hallowed tomes, to aid me in my quest to end the powerful Miraak and his cult of servitude.
Went to his house, entered without knocking, and found him standing around in silence, not even looking at me until I addressed him. He indeed knew of these books, and I was told there was a specific book I needed. He hadn’t been able to retrieve it by himself, but knew where it was located. Together we’d stand a good chance of retrieving it, he thought.Sure, why not, lead the way, sorcerer.And he did.
Dawn Of Skyrim Director's Cut
He told me to follow, and he left the house. You see, I had noticed that he had a lot of potions and other valuables. Venerable or not, with his prying eyes out of the way I robbed him blind, stuffed my bags to the brim with his stuff. For the Cause and the common good of course, Dragonborn’s privilege.Met up with him later, what were you doing staying at my place he didn’t ask.Imagine having a dinner with your friends at your place, and then when you’re all supposed to leave, they just stay. You ask what they’re doing, they stay silent, just standing there in your kitchen eyeballing your valuables. Your beloved childhood friends, a real kodac moment.Not that this is a particularly egregious example of weird behavior in a video game.
Skyrim Dawn Of Skyrim Cheats
Anecdotes like these abound and we hardly react to them, but it gets kind of funny when you take it seriously and think about it.I keep wondering how hard it would be to patch some these behaviors. Not by hardcoding each instance one by one, that’d be a fools game for a huge game like this, but more like adding flexible AI routines that make the NPCs more concerned with things like watching over their property, but also relating that concern to other concerns and values, so as to make the actual outcome depend on the circumstances, more unpredictable and interesting, emergent. That’s a journey and a frontier in game development that‘s barely begun, but it will be glorious.