Today I reinvigorate my blog, revive my writing, transfer the mess swirling in my head to words on the internet. After much gentle, persistent, prodding from a good friend, I could do no less. I also figured that aside from the fabulous Tinkerbell stocking filled with Black Library novels I gave him, the best gift I can give is to post here again. I’m going to add something new to the blog to simply be called at this time – “What freaking game are they talking about?”. At times I come across juicy sayings that people use to refer to one of the many awesome games out there without mentioning the title of the game. Through much innuendo you can discern what they are talking about. Today is a great one from my cousin. It is at the end of the post, guess what game the quote is referring to and you will = awesome. So, without too much ado, here is a Skyrim post I worked on in the past and wanted to finally get out there. These were my earliest experiences with the beautifully constructed game.To put it mildly, Skyrim is beyond all of my expectations, and putting it mildly does this game an injustice. I have invested five hours into the game and think I barely scrapped the surface of the main plot line. If you so choose to follow the main plot, Bethesda brilliantly leads you by making it seem like you are not being led at all. As you explore and engage individuals in towns and villages, or along the road, anywhere, and ask questions, it may lead you to a quest. They don’t blatantly have an obnoxious exclamation point over their head, or plastered on the map. It subtly refers you to your quest log if you happen across one such conversation. You can look at the quest log where you need to go trudge off towards that direction.
The mine was beautiful. The walls, rocks, miners tools, everything seemed to belong and was richly detailed. Out of habit I crouched and crept along till I heard two individuals speaking. One was refusing to sleep due to his security concerns, the other assured him the guard outside, and rock trap (that I accidentally tripped but was moving so slow I avoided damage by not moving under it), would keep out any nosey individuals. He relented and went to sleep, only to have it be disrupted when I launched an arrow from hiding at the one walking away. I crept through the rest of the mine and was impressed at every turn by the detail. This was not like a cave from Dragon Age 2 that seemed generically thrown together and reconstituted for a different task. I’d like to think all dungeons will be this original and have such a feeling of wonder.
After the mine I continued my walk and was fascinated again when I found you could harvest things found along the way. A bush that blended perfectly in with the mountain foliage was harvestable. I figured these flowers might be used in performing alchemical experiments to create potions. Just about anything in the environment, short of equipment, can be grinding into some tasty sort of potion. It took me a lot of random trying, but once you figure out a few properties of items you can glean others properties. Also, feel free to eat anything you come across, you might determine some properties by whatever happens to your character. I made the mistake of trying to store all my ingredients in a chest, and spammed the wrong button. Instead of storing the items, I ate them all. I should have noticed something was wrong.
These were early explorations and discoveries of mine into the world of Skyrim. I have much more to discuss since its been over 30 hours of playtime since writing this.
Time for today’s "What freaking game are they talking about?”! Good luck... No the answer is not World of Warcraft…
“The amount of human hours that game has feasted on is incalculable. It is the Great Maw that the Ogres worship. The insanity of spending years amassing a fortune to buy a spaceship that is then subsequently destroyed by some saboteur who has let an enemy corporation through your galactic defenses is too much for me.I'll stick to corpse runs in WoW, or alt-tabbing while the gankers jump and dance on my body.”
Feel free to comment with guesses. I’ll give the answer in the next post, which will force me to write on a schedule!
