Skyrim

I spent the bulk of this Monday slaughtering bandits, discovering new magic, and resurrecting my housecarl from the dead using eldritch commands against the universe.

Yeah, I got Skyrim because it was on sale and. Well you van do all that stuff. It is no longer Monday, so I shall do what I said I would. However, I did post a video of me apologizing as per parameters, but not on my blog. It's still just on YouTube as of yet. I plan to fix that, probably around the time I craft another silly couplet to sorry you with.

Skyrim as a game captures my attention primarily by the form of its progression. You go anywhere (within Skyrim) at a pace set by you, and you choose how to deal with the situations as they arise.

Shortly after the game was released (at nearly two years old, this game is practically a dinosaur) I watched a video of someone playing a pacifist khajiit. He used mostly illusion spells to dissuade things that wanted to kill him. I've discovered first hand that the calm spell is remarkably effective at convincing even raging spriggan that you're nothing to be bothered about. It is humorous to hear a calmed bandit complain gently about being magicked, too.

I hear often that the main story of Skyrim is rather lackluster. I can't defend or attack the stance, because the majority of my 70 odd hours of Skyrim have been repeatedly starting New characters on friends' copies of the game. Now that I am playing my own game, I find myself struggling to reach High Hrothgar between distracting forts full of bandits, flooded out prisons haunted by ghosts, and caves crawling with falmer and black spitting death beetles.

Not that Ragh, my high-elf who fights with orcish weapons and any spell whose tome he can flip through, feels very strongly compelled to heed the summons of a bunch of old nord guys on top of a mountain. Sure, there was the weird thing with the dragon, but I'm not sure he much cares.

That's another draw in the format of Elder Scrolls games. You always start as a prisoner, and there could be any number of reasons you decide for this. Or you could not care.

But that pacifist khajiit? Probably picked up for theft in a case of racial profiling. My high-elf? I think he was thrown in chains by the Thalmor because he killed a few too many people.

Then there's the lore. After what twenty years? There's enough of it there that the writers hardly have to try. I think they do though. The series is old enough they don't have to justify having elves in their games, which I think is either starting to be a thing or will be soon.

Speaking of elves, I would like to stop and note out elf tropes are subverted in these games. The Thalmor are imperialist pigs. Wood elves are cannibals. And honestly these guys aren't pretty. They're strange looking. The faces are stretched. The eyes are too big and too oddly shaped. And with the game advances that have been made I daresay it's not just bad graphics anymore. Elves are sort of subtly hideous by design, I think. I know few people play high elves. With their arrogance it's easier to develop racist thoughts against their golden skin, impossibly high foreheads, and magical prowess. No one wants to be that. They'd rather be social pariah oddballs like the cat-like khajiit.

Can wr also talk about how orcs and dwarves are, by their high names, implicitly forms of elf? Like the falmer are? That's a lot of elf variation.

That's not getting into the daedra and their realms, the vascillations in the pantheon, or any number of tiny things that fill in the lore. It's a rich world, and for the most part Bethesda just lets you run around wrecking it.

I don't think I need to tell you anything else to demonstrate why these games are so widely appealing despite their many flaws. For myself, I think the game is almost improved by failures on the part of the creators when they open the game to modifications that include virtually anything people can imagine.

Because it gets you thinking "this could have been better. I could have done this better.

"I will do this better.

"Once I finish this quest."

Gone North to Slay Dragons, BBS

I took care of my nearly two-year-old nephew today, and that was a ton-load of fun.  There isn't much else to say about the day, except that I did some Skyrim too, and it was fun continuing the game and slaying some dragons.

I think the best part of that experience was finishing off a boss undead with a slow-motion firebolt before my flame atronach could do it for me.  Or a similar experience shattering a skeleton up against a wall with the same means of destruction.

Oh, and my wife has a job.  Just waiting on a background check and the end of vacation stuff.  That's the most exciting thing, really.  It's good, and I'm happy.

That's it for the day.  Have a good week peeps, maybe we'll talk later.

How Farmville is a good idea.

Have you played a Free-to-Play game lately? Maybe some Spiral Knights or a Facebook app by Zynga? Or any Facebook game, really. You may have noticed the energy meter, which slowly drains as you play the game.

Now, I realize what this mechanic exists for. The hope is that you'll pay to play the game more than this meter allows. But there's a side effect that comes with it. You see, I like to balance my gaming with time spent doing more productive things. Like blogging. When I run out of energy in Spiral Knights, it helps me to realize I have better things to be doing than playing a game at that moment, and I can drag myself away. As opposed to, for example, Skyrim, which has claimed near a hundred hours of life despite the fact I don't even own the game.

This perspective may be the equivalent of looking at the faintest rosy glint from a pile of polished dung, but I'm not nearly as opinionated about this sort of thing as some people.