Blarg-a-rant!
Let's not mince words: I love games that have crafting systems. Going out and finding stuff, then bringing it back to base to make your own special shinies just doesn't get old. It has also sparked something of a real life interest in how stuff like swords and armor are made, what ores and techniques are involved, and how to alloy, temper and otherwise alter things.
In light of all this, I've done a bit of IRL research into stuff, and compared my finding to how various "craft-heavy" games I've played relate to it. Some of it is actually pretty close along, some of it not so much. In any case, I'd to talk about a few things I've found and/or inferred along the way.
TES V: Skyrim
Let's bring a big name right out of the gate. This open-world masterpiece manages to benefit from a whole ton of both RL research and both in-house and in-universe traditions. Put very simply, what you can smith, brew, or magically enhance is directly related to how good your character is at these respective tasks. While somewhat inefficient compared to getting paid instruction, the act of crafting improves your abilities, with the improvement directly related to the value of the final product i.e. make costlier products to get more experience. Some of the more interesting things here is that we have iron and steel as separate things in game (with steel as an alloy of corundum and iron), where I've notices plenty of games that treat them as identical or near-identical in properties and strength. We also have analogues to several "traditional" materials as well: Corundum for copper, quicksilver for mithril, and Dwarven metal for orichalcum. While there is an orichalcum named as such in the game, Dwarven metal actually fits much closer to the classical definition, being a brazen or golden colored metal with special properties and associated with an advanced, long-extinct civilization al a Atlantis.
Of interest is that, in-game, alchemy and metallurgy are treated as very separate disciplines, with few connections beyond skill enhancement potions. The closest in-game connection is a minor "radiant" quest involving bringing an unusual ore sample to a nearby alchemist. Amusingly enough, your character identifies the mystery sample immediately, but there's no way to just tell the guy instead of ferrying the thing to the shop. Interestingly, this is the same town (Riften) where fetching alchemical agents for specific purposes is a commonplace thing. Maybe the local "expert" is the lazy idiot he seems, since people actually know a thing or two themselves here.
Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song
I'm deliberately contrasting here. This game is very much an opposite to Skyrim. It's a tragically flawed JRPG for the PS2. I won't go into details about the game as a whole (I plan on doing a Wreckonomics article at some point), but one of the more interesting points is the smithing system it has. The gist is that you 'temper' equipment with various materials ranging from ores to monster parts to special patented alloys available at certain guild-affiated shops. While in most RPGs you just get straight stat boosts (and the odd penalty) right off the bat, you actually have some immediate changes (usually in durability), while the full effect of the alteration only coming into play after using the weapon, with the change coming faster the harder you are on it. It's quite possible to break a weapon and then re-temper it before the full effect appears. To add a bit of depth, most weapons have 'harmonious' materials that when used and broken in result in stronger versions (+X) that end with a final, 'named' weapon at the end of the chain. This is usually worth doing, by the way.
The very interesting part, is that the ores in this game are, to date, the closest to real life i have encountered in a video game. There's plenty of fantastic ores, monster parts, and such-like, but real life ores and terms are present. Notable ones include marcasite (iron ore, related to pyrite), meteoric iron (besides the traditional mystical significance, the best way to get nickel-iron alloy in pre-industrial times), native silver (native as in found in a mostly pure, not compounded state), electrum (despite the traditional disdain among some older D&D fans, this stuff was very real), and finally, mullocks (a term for waste ores.) You are quite welcome to run a search on this stuff, in fact. Also of note is vermillion (a red pigment, containing mercury); I believe that this was a mistranslation of the mercury ore cinnabar, but I have no real proof.
One final note is that, as mentioned above, this game has two 'patent' alloys, Vernie and Garal. Two separate guilds hold the patents on these and jealously guard it, to the point that while the player can have these alloys tempered to equipment, they will never find any out in the field. Both have very separate properties (Vernie for light gear, Garal for heavy stuff), and are the trademark specialty of the patent holders, much like how various alloy blends are patented and guarded by real life organizations.
Quite a level of depth for a game that expects to race your way through it.
Well, I have plenty more to say, and a few more games to talk about, which I'll be covering in a future article. Stay tuned, and keep smacking them monsters!
Showing posts with label Skyrim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Skyrim. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Beware, I Live!
Gwahaha! You spambots thought you were rid of me! >:D
Been busy with the holiday drama at work. The customers have been decidedly more pleasant this time around, even accounting for the fact that I don't get to play with a chainsaw and slaughter trees in public. There are a few idiots in the bunch. Note to our customers: We are not Amazon, we are not Overstock dot com. There are things on the website that we do not have in physical stores. Spew your petulance at management; that's what they're paid for.
Been avoiding the XBox, mostly since I don't feel like being all social right now between shifts. No offence to my online buddies. You don't deserve work-induced vitriol, and all I really want to do is smash evil and set fire to their fortress. This phase will pass. The clarion call of trundling death has finally breached the miasma of meh I have going right now.
It got me thinking. I've done a good deal more smashing this year, and I want to share my thoughts. I believe that I've played more hours overall in the past two years than most of my post-teen life, as well as the most varied overall games.
Borderlands 2. Get off my plane and everybody gets a bullet. Honestly, shooters have never really enticed me until this came along. My brother loves the first two Medal of Honor games, and I have good memories of Battlefront 2 and Goldeneye from back in the day. But this monster lured me into something I never expected: pouring ridiculous amount of time and energy into lobbing almost enough dakka against advancing hordes of random sociopaths. The loot and leveling systems actually made me look forward to mashing right trigger and pwning bastitches like a boss. WE LOVE YOU MARCUS!
Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Dammit, Square Enix actually did it to me again. I think I an in the tiny minority that actually likes this damn game. The protagonist is the biggest whiny bitch this side of Advent Children Cloud for a good part of the game. The battles are badly unbalanced in one way or another. The soundtrack su-huh-ucks! But it's just plain fun somehow. Welcome to a JRPG where a paladin archetype doesn't suck mechanically. Welcome to a place where you can hang out with the anime cliche/fetish of your choice, and it works. Welcome to Bacchus D-79, a space elf Robocop that can summon killsats, mecha, and frickin BLACK HOLES. No Welcome to Sarah, though. You deserve to be left in ignominy forever, the only escape from which involves a vore furry dressed up like Bubsy.
Skyrim. Holy shit is this awesome. Tearing about being Nordic on my undead horse that is surprisingly nice and well-behaved. Killing random moronsand stripping their corpses bare as a warning to other tards. Going through dank dungeons toight undead viking wizards with Jedi powers! The only fit music for those fights is produced by Manowar, Setting the undead viking ninja wizards on fire with a sun-powered sword of +1138 Undead Ignition known as Dawnbreaker. Punching angry grizzly bears to death like a boss. Smashing dragons is fun, but somebody else did it better. I put this game down for the next two, but I will come back eventually, to snag the the +9001 Bow of Summoning Anti-Undead Killsats and kill a Dracula Wannabe.
World of Tanks. Wow, a freemium game I like and want to play. Tearing about in a WWII tank, making other tanks miserable, and building a stable of vehicles that would make the Top Gear guys go crazy (well, crazier). Showing people that Hetzers gonna Hetz, and that ramming stuff with a Stuart makes for hilarity. I've thrown way too much money at this thing, plus it;s a online game that makes me actually want to play with strangers. CoD can join Sarah.
Diablo 3. I. Don't. CARE. What other people say. This shit's awesomesauce. Another genre entry-drug for me. I've now discovered hack-and-slash RPG goodness, and it is beautiful. Whether it's smashing faces with a barbarian, going ninja crazytown with a monk, or bringing the dakka with a demon hunter, it just doesn't get old in Vanilla. Then frickin Reaper of Souls came, with more mooks to smash, an angel with a frickin Holy Avenger Rocket Launcher with a altfire Keen Vorpal Flamethower, and the Crusader. Holy crap. My build for this guy involves hammers. Lots of hammers. Enough hammers to run a thousand hardware stores. Oh, and the Crusader/Templar bromance is funny as hell and strangely endearing. Let's Smite Something Together.
Well, I need to go, I'm getting incoherent.
Been busy with the holiday drama at work. The customers have been decidedly more pleasant this time around, even accounting for the fact that I don't get to play with a chainsaw and slaughter trees in public. There are a few idiots in the bunch. Note to our customers: We are not Amazon, we are not Overstock dot com. There are things on the website that we do not have in physical stores. Spew your petulance at management; that's what they're paid for.
Been avoiding the XBox, mostly since I don't feel like being all social right now between shifts. No offence to my online buddies. You don't deserve work-induced vitriol, and all I really want to do is smash evil and set fire to their fortress. This phase will pass. The clarion call of trundling death has finally breached the miasma of meh I have going right now.
It got me thinking. I've done a good deal more smashing this year, and I want to share my thoughts. I believe that I've played more hours overall in the past two years than most of my post-teen life, as well as the most varied overall games.
Borderlands 2. Get off my plane and everybody gets a bullet. Honestly, shooters have never really enticed me until this came along. My brother loves the first two Medal of Honor games, and I have good memories of Battlefront 2 and Goldeneye from back in the day. But this monster lured me into something I never expected: pouring ridiculous amount of time and energy into lobbing almost enough dakka against advancing hordes of random sociopaths. The loot and leveling systems actually made me look forward to mashing right trigger and pwning bastitches like a boss. WE LOVE YOU MARCUS!
Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Dammit, Square Enix actually did it to me again. I think I an in the tiny minority that actually likes this damn game. The protagonist is the biggest whiny bitch this side of Advent Children Cloud for a good part of the game. The battles are badly unbalanced in one way or another. The soundtrack su-huh-ucks! But it's just plain fun somehow. Welcome to a JRPG where a paladin archetype doesn't suck mechanically. Welcome to a place where you can hang out with the anime cliche/fetish of your choice, and it works. Welcome to Bacchus D-79, a space elf Robocop that can summon killsats, mecha, and frickin BLACK HOLES. No Welcome to Sarah, though. You deserve to be left in ignominy forever, the only escape from which involves a vore furry dressed up like Bubsy.
Skyrim. Holy shit is this awesome. Tearing about being Nordic on my undead horse that is surprisingly nice and well-behaved. Killing random moronsand stripping their corpses bare as a warning to other tards. Going through dank dungeons toight undead viking wizards with Jedi powers! The only fit music for those fights is produced by Manowar, Setting the undead viking ninja wizards on fire with a sun-powered sword of +1138 Undead Ignition known as Dawnbreaker. Punching angry grizzly bears to death like a boss. Smashing dragons is fun, but somebody else did it better. I put this game down for the next two, but I will come back eventually, to snag the the +9001 Bow of Summoning Anti-Undead Killsats and kill a Dracula Wannabe.
World of Tanks. Wow, a freemium game I like and want to play. Tearing about in a WWII tank, making other tanks miserable, and building a stable of vehicles that would make the Top Gear guys go crazy (well, crazier). Showing people that Hetzers gonna Hetz, and that ramming stuff with a Stuart makes for hilarity. I've thrown way too much money at this thing, plus it;s a online game that makes me actually want to play with strangers. CoD can join Sarah.
Diablo 3. I. Don't. CARE. What other people say. This shit's awesomesauce. Another genre entry-drug for me. I've now discovered hack-and-slash RPG goodness, and it is beautiful. Whether it's smashing faces with a barbarian, going ninja crazytown with a monk, or bringing the dakka with a demon hunter, it just doesn't get old in Vanilla. Then frickin Reaper of Souls came, with more mooks to smash, an angel with a frickin Holy Avenger Rocket Launcher with a altfire Keen Vorpal Flamethower, and the Crusader. Holy crap. My build for this guy involves hammers. Lots of hammers. Enough hammers to run a thousand hardware stores. Oh, and the Crusader/Templar bromance is funny as hell and strangely endearing. Let's Smite Something Together.
Well, I need to go, I'm getting incoherent.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Brain Barf: RPG = WTF
Grargalarg to the spambots.
Been tearing about in various games, mostly that Rim Sky thing.
Starting thinking about things and came up with something I doubt is original, but wanted to say anyway: RPG backgrounds are frickin' weird.
Do not get me wrong; I'm pretty hardcore in my addiction to the vidya game monster mashing and looting. It's just that, well, I've also been doing this for-frickin'-ever.
Take the Elder Scrolls games. The least bizarre thing is that the local furries are all crack heads. Its so pervasive I'm amazed "WillYiff4Skooma" isn't a meme. Maybe I should fix that.
Those moons? The corpse of a god. By the way, from what I gather about the lore, there's a third black moon out there. Totally not a Dragonlance reference. Also when the three are aligned properly, its extremely significant to the cat-folk. That's the plot of a whole damn Dragonlance book, damn it.
And these are tame compared to some of the other crap in there. Celtic Zulu with plant hearts. A god whose background reads like what would happen if the Kama Sutra became a religious text. Artificial gods made from mech-sized golems that break time over their knees.
Like, damn man.
It got me thinking. Other RPGs are usually no slouches in the bizarre department either.
Take Chrono Cross. We start with the primary (but largely ignored and all but unexplained) antagonist being a fusion of a giant space termite thing and a princess. It manages to manipulate all of space and time within the game world, creating two primary antagonist factions. The first is a supercomputer and it minions from the future, set adrift in the past and watching over the descendants of their creators, using what amounts to hypnotherapy and eugenics to get its way. The second, somewhat nastier bunch, is a city of dinosaur-descended reptile folk ripped from an alternate universe by the planet itself as a counter. Highlights include these elemental golem...doll...things, and a biocomputer that is an embodiment of all the local magical elements and happens to be a dragon with some sort of jewel laser mouth cannon. Oh, and after an apocalyptic battle with the first bunch, the biocomputer was fractured into seven dragon gods; three in one universe, three in another, and the seventh set adrift to screw around with main characters.
All this nuttiness is compounded by nobody bothering to explain this crap until the two final dungeons of the game! This was right when Square was in the middle of there hipster-esque "minimal explanation means maximum profundity" phase.
This is only two examples out of the many, many RPGs out there.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not some dullard that only goes for smash-and-grab, screw-the-plot antics. I love having complex stories and interesting backgrounds. There's a reason I own stuff like Tactics Ogre, Atelier Iris 1-3 (not at straightforward as they seem, trust me), multiple SaGa games, and so on and so on. But sometimes, I really don't get why game writers seem to come up with stuff that requires enough hits to buzz a Grateful Dead concert to actually figure out.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find something uncomplicated to do for a while.
Been tearing about in various games, mostly that Rim Sky thing.
Starting thinking about things and came up with something I doubt is original, but wanted to say anyway: RPG backgrounds are frickin' weird.
Do not get me wrong; I'm pretty hardcore in my addiction to the vidya game monster mashing and looting. It's just that, well, I've also been doing this for-frickin'-ever.
Take the Elder Scrolls games. The least bizarre thing is that the local furries are all crack heads. Its so pervasive I'm amazed "WillYiff4Skooma" isn't a meme. Maybe I should fix that.
Those moons? The corpse of a god. By the way, from what I gather about the lore, there's a third black moon out there. Totally not a Dragonlance reference. Also when the three are aligned properly, its extremely significant to the cat-folk. That's the plot of a whole damn Dragonlance book, damn it.
And these are tame compared to some of the other crap in there. Celtic Zulu with plant hearts. A god whose background reads like what would happen if the Kama Sutra became a religious text. Artificial gods made from mech-sized golems that break time over their knees.
Like, damn man.
It got me thinking. Other RPGs are usually no slouches in the bizarre department either.
Take Chrono Cross. We start with the primary (but largely ignored and all but unexplained) antagonist being a fusion of a giant space termite thing and a princess. It manages to manipulate all of space and time within the game world, creating two primary antagonist factions. The first is a supercomputer and it minions from the future, set adrift in the past and watching over the descendants of their creators, using what amounts to hypnotherapy and eugenics to get its way. The second, somewhat nastier bunch, is a city of dinosaur-descended reptile folk ripped from an alternate universe by the planet itself as a counter. Highlights include these elemental golem...doll...things, and a biocomputer that is an embodiment of all the local magical elements and happens to be a dragon with some sort of jewel laser mouth cannon. Oh, and after an apocalyptic battle with the first bunch, the biocomputer was fractured into seven dragon gods; three in one universe, three in another, and the seventh set adrift to screw around with main characters.
All this nuttiness is compounded by nobody bothering to explain this crap until the two final dungeons of the game! This was right when Square was in the middle of there hipster-esque "minimal explanation means maximum profundity" phase.
This is only two examples out of the many, many RPGs out there.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not some dullard that only goes for smash-and-grab, screw-the-plot antics. I love having complex stories and interesting backgrounds. There's a reason I own stuff like Tactics Ogre, Atelier Iris 1-3 (not at straightforward as they seem, trust me), multiple SaGa games, and so on and so on. But sometimes, I really don't get why game writers seem to come up with stuff that requires enough hits to buzz a Grateful Dead concert to actually figure out.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find something uncomplicated to do for a while.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Live Oaks is Bad, And WG Should Feel Bad
I hate that damn map. Dying with a face full of soggy wood does not make my day.
Been quietly considering getting back into 40k. Some of those models look damn sweet, and to hell with the damn rules anyway. The Dark Blood Templar Wolf-Smurfs will probably be back in action soon. Deathwing Knights FTW!
Skyrim is going very well. I no longer live in fear of bandit chiefs, while most everything else stopped being a threat long ago. Looting dwarven ruins is still an absolute hoot, though. Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is happily making those damn Gollum wannabes snarl for their mama and turning robots into shiny shiny bitz for the bitz can. Windstad Manor AKA The Swag Shack, is finally fully operational, with materials kindly donated by idiotic bandits and the dumbest giants this side of New York. The process had been accelerated greatly thanks to that guy in Morthal and the respawning vampire menace nearby. Now if I could just get some damn general merchants or fences to move closer.
Oh, and they handed me explosive crossbow bolts. Run my shiny chunks of XP, RUN!
Been quietly considering getting back into 40k. Some of those models look damn sweet, and to hell with the damn rules anyway. The Dark Blood Templar Wolf-Smurfs will probably be back in action soon. Deathwing Knights FTW!
Skyrim is going very well. I no longer live in fear of bandit chiefs, while most everything else stopped being a threat long ago. Looting dwarven ruins is still an absolute hoot, though. Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is happily making those damn Gollum wannabes snarl for their mama and turning robots into shiny shiny bitz for the bitz can. Windstad Manor AKA The Swag Shack, is finally fully operational, with materials kindly donated by idiotic bandits and the dumbest giants this side of New York. The process had been accelerated greatly thanks to that guy in Morthal and the respawning vampire menace nearby. Now if I could just get some damn general merchants or fences to move closer.
Oh, and they handed me explosive crossbow bolts. Run my shiny chunks of XP, RUN!
Original Thinking
It doesn't happen much anymore.
Another tale of Legate Wulfe The Unhinged came today. Did the Malacath daedric quest more or less for the hell of it. Wound up at this stronghold of Klingons--wait, Orcs getting ganked by a giant. Apparently the chieftain,Gowron Yamarz managed to displease Kahless Malacath. He was summoned by the Monks of Boreth Atub and told the guy to man up. After some oddly manly whining, he got squished by a different giant and I wound up with the Sword of Kahless Volendrung, which looked kinda Khorne-ey.
I also digged up some info on the Dark Brotherhood quests. You get to wear a chef's hat. Behold as the Dragonborn tears about with the fearsome shout BOY AR DEE, that smothers his foes in canned ravioli and BORK BORK BORK which summons deadly ethereal chocolate mooses. And finally CHEF RAM ZEY, that doesn't do much but intimidate anybody within 50 meters of a cooking pot.
Also, burninating trolls never gets old.
Another tale of Legate Wulfe The Unhinged came today. Did the Malacath daedric quest more or less for the hell of it. Wound up at this stronghold of Klingons--wait, Orcs getting ganked by a giant. Apparently the chieftain,
I also digged up some info on the Dark Brotherhood quests. You get to wear a chef's hat. Behold as the Dragonborn tears about with the fearsome shout BOY AR DEE, that smothers his foes in canned ravioli and BORK BORK BORK which summons deadly ethereal chocolate mooses. And finally CHEF RAM ZEY, that doesn't do much but intimidate anybody within 50 meters of a cooking pot.
Also, burninating trolls never gets old.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Invisible TOGs Rule The Base
Today I learned that you can ram people in World of Tanks and go undetected. Pretty sure it was a glitch, but either way I know that someone out there on the webernets wound up with a severe case of OMGWTFBBQ syndrome. Oh, and the 10.5mm German death cannon is still really great at making enemy tanks disappear in a puff of awesome.
In more Skyrim news, Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is still tearing about, making the forces of badness wish for their mamas. Many Falmer have had close encounters with Tard Basher, my new custom Dwarven Mace of Energizing. I've also acquired Nightingale equipment, and those weapons are really great at trolling things that annoy me. The bow in particular is really great at killing dragons and allowing me to be all Shang Tsung of the Vikings.
I'm currently planning to finally getting back to Dawnguard, smacking vampires and quoting Castlevania. I'm really looking forward to the Divine Orbital Strike known as Auriel's Bow, combining that with Dawnbreaker to mow through the most undead seen this side of Plants Vs. Zombies. Oh, and battle trolls. I really need to see that in action. "Bleh I'm all bloodsucky and emo!" KRUMP! "Blarg I'm a battle yeti, U Mad Bro?"
In more Skyrim news, Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is still tearing about, making the forces of badness wish for their mamas. Many Falmer have had close encounters with Tard Basher, my new custom Dwarven Mace of Energizing. I've also acquired Nightingale equipment, and those weapons are really great at trolling things that annoy me. The bow in particular is really great at killing dragons and allowing me to be all Shang Tsung of the Vikings.
I'm currently planning to finally getting back to Dawnguard, smacking vampires and quoting Castlevania. I'm really looking forward to the Divine Orbital Strike known as Auriel's Bow, combining that with Dawnbreaker to mow through the most undead seen this side of Plants Vs. Zombies. Oh, and battle trolls. I really need to see that in action. "Bleh I'm all bloodsucky and emo!" KRUMP! "Blarg I'm a battle yeti, U Mad Bro?"
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
The DW 2
After extensive research and much exploding, I have come up with an appropriate appellation for the tank in WoT officially known as the Durchbruchswagen 2. It shall be henceforth known as the Pizza Box.
The reasons for this are quite simple. Its armor is made out of high-quality cardboard, and it is well suited for keeping the tankman sausage bits inside nice and toasty when somebody gives it an angry look.
So let it be written.
In other nerdy news, Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is still happily tearing about the countryside. I'm now expecting a Google search for Draugr to come up with some damn bands; you can't tell me that fighting undead Vikings that can shout Force Push and shoot lightning isn't totally fucking metal. This is pretty much Manowar the Video Game.
The whole civil war baloney is total crap, however. Maybe if some RTS looney made a hack for Total War with the Elder Scrolls it would be done justice. Lobbing random mooks and redshirts in platoon-sized units (at most) with starter-level gear and no real 'boss' dudes up against a PC that usually combines CQC prowess, magical shenanigans, and frickin' Force Powers does not an epic war make. The politics and background are interesting, the whole semi-Risk capture the hold thing is nice, but the damn nitty-gritty can be mechanically replicated by a lawnmower simulation. Go here, mow some bermudagrass. Go there, tell the boss the bermudagrass is looking kinda shaggy, mow that. Go there, chase some gophers off, mow more bermudagrass. Go way over there, mow some more damn bermudagrass and shank the dumbass peddling bags of bermudagrass seed. Now the fescue empire shall rule over all!
Watching a dragon be all "I'm all scaly and immortal! Suck it bitches!" at the College of Winterhold was frickin' funny, though. It was like watching...hell, a random dumbass of your own choosing run up to a pack of Sith Lords and dropping their pants. Hilarious, but lightning bolts are not comfortable there.
The reasons for this are quite simple. Its armor is made out of high-quality cardboard, and it is well suited for keeping the tankman sausage bits inside nice and toasty when somebody gives it an angry look.
So let it be written.
In other nerdy news, Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is still happily tearing about the countryside. I'm now expecting a Google search for Draugr to come up with some damn bands; you can't tell me that fighting undead Vikings that can shout Force Push and shoot lightning isn't totally fucking metal. This is pretty much Manowar the Video Game.
The whole civil war baloney is total crap, however. Maybe if some RTS looney made a hack for Total War with the Elder Scrolls it would be done justice. Lobbing random mooks and redshirts in platoon-sized units (at most) with starter-level gear and no real 'boss' dudes up against a PC that usually combines CQC prowess, magical shenanigans, and frickin' Force Powers does not an epic war make. The politics and background are interesting, the whole semi-Risk capture the hold thing is nice, but the damn nitty-gritty can be mechanically replicated by a lawnmower simulation. Go here, mow some bermudagrass. Go there, tell the boss the bermudagrass is looking kinda shaggy, mow that. Go there, chase some gophers off, mow more bermudagrass. Go way over there, mow some more damn bermudagrass and shank the dumbass peddling bags of bermudagrass seed. Now the fescue empire shall rule over all!
Watching a dragon be all "I'm all scaly and immortal! Suck it bitches!" at the College of Winterhold was frickin' funny, though. It was like watching...hell, a random dumbass of your own choosing run up to a pack of Sith Lords and dropping their pants. Hilarious, but lightning bolts are not comfortable there.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Chihuahua Pit Fights
They are bad, and you should feel bad for laughing at them. Unless the losers wind up at the Chinese place down the road; then they're economically useful.
Been tearing about on World of Tanks some more. Things took a turn for the zany with the August Tank-contest thingy. Everybody got a free light tank. It goes zip-zip-boom, no real surprise there. Since we all got it, we all took it for a spin and wound up in matches with 20-odd of these things, which quickly devolved into some sort of hardcore bumper car deathmatch of terror, not unlike Star Wars Demolition from back in the day. Much screaming of random obscenities and "AH'M INSAAANE!" ensued.
In other news, Skyrim is going on rather well. Halls now resonate with tales of Legate Wulfe the Unhinged, Stabber of Trolls and Violent Advocate of Literacy and Shiny Things. The Stormcloak heretics quake in fear that this terror will find them and introduce them to spontaneous combustion while screaming about spine tinglers and how Rarity is best (canon) pony.
In slightly more serious news, I came up with a concept that I'll likely babble about shortly. Before then, everybody out there think happy thoughts like how some dumbass parked his tank on a ferryboat and wound up with a Luchs to the face. That is still hilarious.
Been tearing about on World of Tanks some more. Things took a turn for the zany with the August Tank-contest thingy. Everybody got a free light tank. It goes zip-zip-boom, no real surprise there. Since we all got it, we all took it for a spin and wound up in matches with 20-odd of these things, which quickly devolved into some sort of hardcore bumper car deathmatch of terror, not unlike Star Wars Demolition from back in the day. Much screaming of random obscenities and "AH'M INSAAANE!" ensued.
In other news, Skyrim is going on rather well. Halls now resonate with tales of Legate Wulfe the Unhinged, Stabber of Trolls and Violent Advocate of Literacy and Shiny Things. The Stormcloak heretics quake in fear that this terror will find them and introduce them to spontaneous combustion while screaming about spine tinglers and how Rarity is best (canon) pony.
In slightly more serious news, I came up with a concept that I'll likely babble about shortly. Before then, everybody out there think happy thoughts like how some dumbass parked his tank on a ferryboat and wound up with a Luchs to the face. That is still hilarious.
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