Enoch

I've been mucking about in Riften, and I renew my comment that the in-town quests, etc., are consistently less fun than the wilderness exploration and dungeon delving elements of the game. The direction they've taken the Thieves' Guild in is ... interesting. It doesn't seem to be a "guild" at all-- I don't see any element of promotion of thievery as a trade or attempts to keep all thievery-type-stuff within the population of licensed members. Instead, it's a strong-arm protection racket and political influence dealer. (And it's the least subtle one imaginable. The minute Riften comes up in conversation at any point in the game, the next words out of an NPC's mouth are "Thieves' Guild!") Normally, the role of the Thieves' Guild in ES games is to support players who want to play out some variation of a classic RPG "thief" archetype. They provide a fence for goods; give tips on where to find nice scores; bring the player in on a few entertainingly complicated heists; etc. In Skyrim, it lets me ... work as muscle for their loansharking operation?? I just want someone who will buy my stolen crap!

Did you manage to find the super secret space fish? That almost makes me wish that I had cared enough to buy the fish for sale in ME2. I eventually gave in on the ship models-- the couple that I had found looked lonely, so I bought some more. But I saw no reason to take more living beings than I needed along on what was hyped up as a suicide mission.

Thanks. I haven't been going out of my way to level Smithing yet. I raise my equipment to "Fine," and I craft the raw gold or silver I find into jewelry to increase resale value, but I haven't gone down the "make a pile of useless stuff and sell it" road. A bit tedious for my taste. By contrast, I've always found the Alchemy skill to be fun in Elder Scrolls games. I guess there's more of an "exploring the unknown" aspect to it, in finding new components and figuring out their effects by trial-and-error or leveling up. I've sunk 2 perks into it already, and I kinda want to get enough to clear out more of those "UNKNOWN" effects.

Given the propensity of bears and sabrecats to take naps right on the damned road, it's probably a good thing that NPCs don't travel much. I'm beginning to think that I should be investing more perks in the basic weapons and armor trees. I had passed over getting more than one rank of the "X is 20% better" perks, thinking that it was a good idea to save perks for more powerful higher-tier stuff. But as I've examined the perk trees more, apart from the stealth-critical multipliers (which I've already earned), I'm not seeing a whole lot in that looks all that essential. And the difficulties I've had with combat thus far can probably be traced, at least in part, to the fact that the game is spawning enemies based on my character level, but I'm generally running around with 5 or 6 uninvested perks that, for example, could be increasing my bow or 1-handed damage by 80%.

Much the same as with Oblivion, I haven't yet seen any appeal in getting a horse. Most of the NPC conversations I've seen seem to be scripted. I.e., the first time you enter a particular area, you'll be in a position to overhear some characters discussing whatever quest the developers want to draw your attention to. Only mods I have installed right now are SkyUI and the one that puts the main roads on the Map. I imagine that were a good ways away from seeing a decent wholesale rebalancing mod.

OK, I've cleared some Bandits out of a couple forts along the road. My combat effectiveness hinges on either knifing people in the back, or chugging healing potions, but it works pretty well for bandits. (Also, so far, enemies don't actually follow me when I go through a loadscreen-door. Is this consistent in the game? Because it's a pretty huge and unfortunate avenue for AI-exploitation, if true.) Anyhow, the problem right now is that I keep encountering a dragon on the open road as I progress to the South. And I sneaking up on dragons to slit their throats simply doesn't work. Without the conveniend distraction targets that were around the first two times I faced one, I get roasted right quick. The "fast-travel back to Whiterun" option is getting more tempting.

Yeah, I was able to take out 3 of them by creeping forward and hitting them with an arrow from stealth, followed by immediate retreat to recover my "Hidden" status. Three shots like that (i.e., with the 3x stealth bonus) would take them down. But the next occupied room was positioned such that I could take out a gremlin dude from the shadows, but not without drawing the attention of a full-health Chaurus to mop the floor with me.

So, from Windhelm, after watching a dragon attack as I was leaving town, I went North, along the coast. Looped around (and eventually into) Winterhold. Got attacked by some Hired Thugs there, and the guards just stood and watched. Had to cheese the encounter on reload, picking a vantage point and putting a few arrows into them before they declared their intentions to "teach me a lesson." Apparently some character whose name I didn't recognize somehow found out that I had stolen something that I had forgotten about. These kind of miniquests would work a lot better if any of the characters or loot were at all memorable. Anyhow, there wasn't much going on in Winterhold, so I headed West, towards the pass that would take me back to the Whiterun area. I get the sense that I'm a little bit out of my depth up here-- anything tougher than an Ice Wolf wrecks my ****, and I can't really get anywhere in the wilderness without having to sneak around a Sabrecat every once in a while. Found a lighthouse with everybody dead, and some things in the basement that were definitely tougher than Ice Wolves. I managed to pick off a few with stealth-arrow cycling, but as it expanded into what looks like a full-on dungeon, I figured that further progression was going to be pretty hopeless against that kind of opposition and ran away. Found the town (whose name I forget) where everybody has nightmares. I saw leads for some in-town quests, but my impression from Windhelm is that those are pretty boring, so I just sold some loot and left town. I'm level 13, Sneak is by far my strongest skill, and I've got 5 or so Perks saved up to use once I qualify for the better-than-entry-level offerings in some of the skill trees. Now heading south, towards what looks like a pass on the pretty-but-fairly-useless map.

Disappointing: My patented "jump into the river to get away from an enemy who is kicking my ass" is not particularly effective against dragons. Apparently, that breath is so hot, it hurts me even when I'm sitting at the bottom of an icy harbor.

Well, I'm still rather early in the game, and the novelty of wandering around in-character hasn't worn off yet. I made an Argonian named Climbs-Tall-Rocks. Did the early main plot quests until after the first dragon encounter. Then I decided that these Nords were crazy-- clearly the dragon communed with me because I was his cousin, not because of some silly ancient legend. They've just never seen any dragons and Argonians together before. I remembered the folks trying to execute me saying something about there being other Argonians in Windhelm, so I ditched the chick they tried to saddle me with, and headed in that direction to see what the Argonians knew. Had to jump into the river to run away from a bear on the way there, but I made it. Unfortunately, the Argonians here don't seem to know anything about their winged relatives. Actually, they're kinda pathetic. But I do see a tall rock over there to climb, so maybe I'll do that next.

I've often said that, to the degree that there is genius in Star Wars, it's in the art/sound/costume/set design. From what I see of the man's CV, he did impressive work that is worthy of rememberance.

Working in the Mexican hinterlands in the telecom industry? So what's Se

Hey, at least you made it past level 1!

Hm, pretty much the truth for a lot of games. That's pretty much what I thought when I first played Mass Effect 1, which is being held up as a beacon of satisfying plot development by a lot of people right now. ("Could it be more boring-conventional-action-movie??!")

Well, I managed to spot Lord Dredmor. But I decided to chug an invisibility potion and run away to explore the rest of the level before facing him. Never made it back. I really should've used another invis to get away from that pack of Arch Diggles. Poor Ja the Adventurer-- didn't even get the achievement for dying at Dredmor's hands. Ka, you're up next!

I presume that Lord Dredmor is waiting for me somewhere around here. I'm keeping count of my characters by naming them alphabetically.

Unexpected success! I've been playing the same Dungeons of Dredmor character all weekend (Default difficulty; Permadeath On), and I just cleared the Monster Zoo on level 10. (I don't have the add-on, so this is the last level.) I was really still in the "figure out what all these skills do" phase of discovering a roguelike-- this is only the 10th character I've made, and the best my previous bunch had done is level 3. This guy is a pretty straight Warrior. Has maxed Maces, Dual-Wielding, Thrown Weapons, Berserker Rage, and Smithing, with a few points in Master of Arms, and 1 in Viking Wizardry. If I were starting over, I'd probably change those last two. I guessed that "Viking Wizardry" would pair well with a melee character, but I hadn't quite understood the degree to which heavy armor undermines spellcasting. And the "Master of Arms" skill (basically a "you're good at wearing heavy armor" concept) has some useful bonuses, but I suspect that something like Assassination (for more critical-hit chance) would be more useful.

Wholly unrelated to any of the other stuff in that mod, I'm almost sad to see the change that increased .308 drop-rate in Old World Blues. It probably addresses some needed balance issues, and I certainly could've used that when I first played it, but struggling through that difficulty is half the reason why I enjoyed that DLC. I went there with This Machine as my bread-and-butter rifle (along with the Sniper Rifle, a riot shotgun, and Graham's pistol for low-threat targets). I packed a decent supply of .308, but with how bullet-spongy all the enemies there were, I got into "OMG Conserve Ammo!" mode for 3 of my 4 weapons pretty quickly, and never really left. I had a lot of casings, and powder wasn't hard to get, but all I kept finding was .44 and .357. Besides the occasional Lobotomite carrying a hunting rifle and 5 cartriges, there was almost no source of the primer necessary to make .308 ammo after I blew through those few primer packs that the butler in the Sink would sell me. It stressed me out at the time, but the added drama to running away from a pack of Nightstalkers, plunking away at them with an unmodded .44 magnum and wondering whether I could afford to blow a few 12 ga. shells did make the experience more memorable.

Dungeons of Dredmore. Charming little roguelike. I'm only 4 characters in, so I'm still figuring out which skills are useful, and haven't managed to clear level 1 yet. (My last character, a wizard-type who mostly used Pyromancy and Psionics, found the stairs down, but kept exploring the first level and was promptly killed by some sea monster creature that wasn't particularly flammable.)

I haven't been in a long time, but of the typical corny-touristy things to do in NYC, the Circle Line cruise is worthwhile. You get a more historical appreciation of the city than you do with most of the main attractions. (Liberty and Ellis Islands less so, unless you have a family connection to Ellis. IMO, there's nothing all that special about the Statue of Liberty that you can't appreciate from afar.) Times Square is great if you love billboards. Otherwise, it can be skipped. I recommend picking a favorite movie or two that are set there and going to check out those locations. Otherwise, the Met, MoMA, Natural History, the Guggenheim, etc., can easily fill a couple days.

That's odd, because the Sentinel is best played kind of like a Vanguard-without-Charge. At range, use your Warp/Overload. But when you get a chance, rush in close, let them shoot your shields down to get the AOE damage/knockdown effect, and give 'em a good punch/bullet in the mouth. The cautious player's choice is the Infiltrator. Snipe 'em, and if they get too close, cloak and run away.

Bad: Had to package my video card up for RMA today. The fan bearing was going bad, and making a lot of noise. Good: The new keyboard arrived. Ooh... Clicky! (It was $20 off the listed price when I ordered, so I decided to splurge.) It's an extravagance, but even my wife said "Oh, that is satisfying" when I had her try it out. Also: I had to take some work IT training on Office-related stuff while they updated some other stuff my computer. On the otherwise-generic computers in the training lab, the one I sat at had, of all things, a circa-1990 Guns n' Roses publicity photo sitting on the desktop. I spent most of the training session inserting it into all the practice files they had us messing with and trying not to giggle at the result.

I am fundamentally uninterested in playing ME-type combat wherein I cannot spend 40% of my time looking around while the 'Pause' key is depressed.

Autoplay with music? Dude...

I like it a lot too, unfortunately Samara's recruitment is one of my least favourite ones (I'm not sure why, I think I always do it at the stage where the core recruitment/loyalty treadmill starts getting a bit stale), which tends to ruin the whole thing for me. The resolution of that one was satisfying, for reasons Maria mentioned, but I disliked the gameplay. I love the idea of a dialogue-focused mission to break up the series of shoot-from-behind-boxes missions, but I just didn't think it was executed well. The ME dialogue system might just be too rudimentary to support this kind of thing. Either that, or they felt that presenting a dialogue-based mission that was at all challenging would alienate too much of their audience. The end result was way too much hand-holding, IMO. The player gets told almost exactly what to say, picks those options, and picks the red/blue options as they come up (and hopes that they've been consistent to-date on whether Shep is a jerk or a sap). Boring. Anyhow, I may be joining those playing through some of ME2. The video card in my new machine started making rather a lot of fan noise last night, so I've emailed EVGA to see about getting a replacement. That leaves me with the older PC in the basement, which probably can't handle Portal 2 or Skyrim. And I do have 2 ME2 games that I've abandoned about 3/4ths of the way through, both of which I'd like to have ready for the sequel when I play it. (I'm not planning on buying ME3 at release, but if it doesn't totally bomb, I'll almost certainly pick it up at some point over the next 6 months.) Actually, a question: Does Bioware DLC ever get discounted? I have the Kasumi and Shadow Broker ones, but I never bought Overlord or Arrival. Alternately, I might jump back into New Vegas and finally do that last DLC. Or Civ V. Hell, I have a BG2 save that's halfway through ToB that I wouldn't mind finishing at some point.