JVT Workshop

Final Fun Run

2012-02-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

We were next tasked to escort the bastard chief Ope to someone who was infected but not yet zombified and he led us on a merry trek through the zombie infested jungle, often putting himself in harm's way just so we could fail the mission. We still managed to keep the bastard alive through to his ancestral tomb where finally he is ended via cutscene in a method I wanted to do when I first met him. Oh well, now we have some jungle girl who fits the bill. After the long run BACK through the zombie forest we leave her with Umbrella Corp for tests (yeeeeah that's a good idea) while we go off to gather some stuff to upgrade the barge. It's a nice trip through memory lane passing through all the previous areas again.

Once ready we return to Umbrella Corp to get the vaccine (that's why we left the chick there), alas the doctors are pretty stupid as they pressed the wrong button and unleashed upon themselves a whole slew of zombies. With all of them turned into undead turds we take the jungle chick, the naive chick, and the lying bastard of a guide (whose lies led us to a whole area we didn't ever need to get to) all the way to the "final stage" prison. There's a surprising amount of survivors here, all hardened crooks "ruled" by a tattoo covered dude. A few more quests to go around in here, going from cell block to cell block and it is great fun as the baddies, both living and dead, are wearing body armor. Still not threatening at all apart from the respawning rams, but more fun to whack around.

The game needed more of this, which doesn't even happen. Ever.
Events lead to almost everyone getting eaten (due to their own stupidity) so we high tail it to the roof to meet "the voice". Its a trap! He gassed us and stole the antidote. Erm, next time kill your victims moron. So our little party fights our way to the roof, making sure to clear EVERY zombie in the way just for the heck of it. Even the ones faaaaar off the quest path. Voice man has some decent shooters, but not as good as me. Even here in the final battle two pistol headshots kills em. A sudden zombie rush pushes us back momentarily before we break through to the helipad where Voice man, surrounded by SEVEN people in the cutscene, still manages to kill the naive girl before transforming into final boss. Obviously he was surrounded by seven STUPID people.

We laughed in the face of this final opponent as all he could do was run a little, fall over, then beg for mercy as DL raged his knives into him, Jim blasted him with his guns, and I smashed his face with my sledgehammer. In under 15 seconds this moron was dead. We then took his chopper and escaped the infected island, leaving everyone there to their fate. Way to go heroes! Still - for all the bugs, easiness, too many workbenches, and lack of logic on some characters parts, this pretty game let my brothers and I spend more time together which is always a big plus in my book.

And so our adventures here have come to a close, who knows where our travels will take us next? :)

The Evil Tribe

2012-02-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

As I thought, we respawned in the middle of the guerrila camp but the enemies were too stupid to take advantage of the situation. It wasn't long before we wiped them all out including Afran himself. Once we got his boat we found ourselves a guide to take us closer to the prison. He didn't know a direct route so instead brought us to a laboratory that supposedly connects to it somehow. Inside we found another group of survivors and a doctor who seemed interested in finding out answers to the zombie plague, while still pretending that the whole facility is only dedicated to pharmaceutical/cosmetic research. Yeah right doc. What's this place called anyway?

That would be my guess!
The few side quests here are actually fun as the number of zombies is quite high. Interestingly enough it looks like the exploder type phased themselves out (possibly exploded their strain into oblivion?) as we haven't encountered one since the city. After being told that there are natives in the region who may have the answer to this whole mess we went to their village and were greeted with arena style combat against their "best warriors". Their best warriors who are zombies? Okey dokey...

After killing what I'd assume to be most of their tribe one of them had the gall to ask for some plant that will keep them from mutating. I told him to piss off. If you wanted our help, you shouldn't have tried to kill us yeah? Seriously they are lucky that the game has them as invincible, because I did try whack each of them on our way out. Morons like them don't deserve to exist.

Jungle Party

2012-02-16T16:04:00.000-08:00

Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Back in the Jungle (again) we start off with a long and annoying escort mission deep into the woods, and just like all the previous ones the person we are protecting is an idiot - running ahead all the time regardless of the enemies on the path. This area is huge and there are side quests aplenty for us to chase which involves many, many crashes. From experience I believe the best way to avoid this is to stay together (within 25m), never sprint too far, avoid using cars and avoid spinning fast. Its kinda restrictive, but it gives a bit of insight on how the Ram zombies came to be.

They are obviously infected multiplayer characters.
There are less zombies here than in the city, though they throw in another type - some butcher thing that's supposed to be scary but is really just another stupid waste of space, so it is quite safe. Seriously, I just punch them to death - that's how useless they are. The jungle itself with it's winding paths and invisible walls proves to be a more devious foe, especially when combined with network drop outs. There are also a lot of non-zombie hostiles, all of whom do not know how to take cover properly or shoot straight which makes them easy pickings for a team of experienced fps players.

Of note is a heavily infested ghost town (the only place so far where there are enough running zombies to be semi-threatening) which we kept going through on a quest to get a russian satellite phone due to bad quest pathing. This took us the longest to complete having to explore quite a bit before locating an alternate route to the bunker. Also we found Friday the 13th's Jason who was a fun easter egg to take down (twice), especially now that I have his chainsaw (x2). Still doesn't beat my magic wand modded Gabriel's Hammer from Mother Hen - it sends the bad guys flying! Jim and I have finally begun to run low on cash too. About frigging time, but I suspect a raid into the city will fix that up really quick.

Anyway our next task is to get a boat from Afran, the leader of the local thugs. We were deep in his camp when he unleashed his secret weapon: Overheating DL's machine. Due to the late hour we had to call it quits there, and given the last checkpoint was in his camp I expect all his dudes will be respawned and surrounding us when we log in again. Maybe they'll actually manage to hit us this time?

Over, Under and Out

2012-02-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Our next task was to get all the speakers in the city working to broadcast the message of Mother Hen at the church to try get all the scattered survivors together. A very worthwhile venture in my opinion, so the three of us headed up to the rooftops to repair all the busted systems. The zombies certainly began coming out en masse at this point, especially in the "containment zone" (it obviously didn't do its job too well huh?). Rams galore have begun to turn up as well, and seem to be the only thing so far that is a threat to the party. Endless waves of sprinting infected come a close second.

Just like that "other" zombie game.
After a few other menial tasks we were sent to go get supplies from the rich district which was only accessible through the sewers. Ironically, the sewers are cleaner than the streets above. Not too far in we were introduced to Dead Island's version of the Boomer. The slow tubby isn't very dangerous though.

We emerged at the town hall smelling kinda foul, but nowhere near as putrid as the scum taking refuge there who plainly refused to help us. At least one fella sent us through a secret way (sewers) to a supermarket held by some gangsters though, and we were more than happy to break in there and kill all of them. I lost sync somewhere here and had to redo a whole bunch of things solo, but it seems the number of enemies and their HP is adjusted to supposedly balance it. I would have prefered the numbers we fought through the first time though as my individual run lent on the boring side.

Anyway, with plenty of supplies now as well as a good amount of ammo we returned to the city proper back through the overrun town hall (they had it coming) where we discover our naive helper friend decided to try supply the goons in the police station and were promptly tasked with saving her using a secret passage (aka sewers).

Jim was overjoyed as we got in and murdered the whole bloody lot of them and took their stuff for ourselves, then it was back to the greatly reduced group of Cinnamon who decided to help us get in contact with the mysterious radio man we heard at the beginning of the game. I believe it was also a good ploy to get the heroes out of his hair so he could continue his murderous rampage. It would be great if he is actually the main bad guy.

Scumbag City

2012-02-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Having finished with the resort it was a comfortable drive straight into the city for the usual task of looking for supplies. Right at the get go we find ourselves near a church whose door is being rammed by a big dude in a straight jacket. Finally a decent opponent, but alone he is still no match for the 3 of us. There are lots of survivors inside the hall but generally they begin to all blend into some faceless form that just gives silly quests and we end up not caring about them. Especially the bastard who wants us to put posters for him all over town. Who exactly would see these anyway?

"Noww we know where to finnnnd yoouuuu!"
The town itself was pretty much a big rubbish pile, and DL was beginning to have difficulty to keep track of all his thrown weapons. Fortunately it seemed there were more than a few "bad" guys who were immune to the outbreak (I suspect Cinnamon is one of them), and majority of them are equipped with firearms. Guns are nice! They work well on people, not so good on the living dead though. Ofwhich there are pleeeennnnty. Oh yeah there's an exploding version too but they're so lame I almost forgot to mention them. The rammers when combined with a good number of other things did start putting up a decent fight though.

Quests and groups of survivors (both good and scum) are also big in number here - it's like this outbreak is a quasi-fail. If 3 of us can clear the streets just imagine what all of the survivors working together could do? Cowardly idiots. Taking control of the pump station from a group of non-zombie thugs is definitely a highlight in this section, and the most WTF moment came when we restarted once and were all kidnapped (glitched) to some military outpost in the jungle (next area?) which we had to fight our way out of and walk back to the dirty city.

Apparently some punks have taken over the police station too and keep broadcasting about it on the radio. Jim reeeeally wants to get in there and shut them up but we haven't found a way in yet. Also on the radio Cinnamon tells us to hurry up and mentions that he wants to kill a little girl in passing. So glad we're taking orders from him.

Act I: Completed

2012-02-07T04:51:00.000-08:00

Dead Island journal - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

After helping a few more "sole" survivors who decided to hold out on their own (a.k.a.idiots), we moved on to the next task of getting a strong enough ride to break through the firey tunnel to the city. Cinnamon happened to know there was one parked in the hotel carpark and it turns out to be an armored bank van. How does a life-guard know these things? I suspect he's not one at all, and more a murderous thief.

The hotel interior is nice and pretty one way, though having to restart due to network drop outs did make it more challenging that it should have been. On one occasion it decided to start all of us out at the farthest house on diamond beach! Also it turns out, the minute someone rejoins the game every single zombie you had killed respawns out of thin air. Good to know! :P

Ofcourse we did run into some b.s. sidequests in the form of a hotel guard wanting to know the fate of his gay guard buddy. We found the fool and he made us go get drugs to kill him. Erm. I could have just head stomped him y'know?

So the remaining guard dude let us through and opted to stay in the zombie infested hotel (dedication!) and we finally got the armored van. Cinnamon seemed disappointed there was no money inside, then sent us to get it upgraded at a nearby mechanic. The helpful dude knew his time was running but upgraded it for the mere quest of defending his shop till he was done. Oh and taking his daughter with us before he turned, which is quite beneficial as apparently she has a gazillion pockets to hold our stuff.

Speaking of stuff, I do really like the weapon upgrade ideas we are coming across. Can't wait till I get the blueprints for this:

Game of Homes

2012-02-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

My fiancee and I recently purchased a nice little house and over the past week have begun what I shall call "the game of homes" (so unique, I know). The neighbours all seem nice, most have cute doggies too, and the water and power in the house was all running a-ok. Alas, I think during the previous owners move they introduced House Bugdaryen to this territory and now there is a minor infestation of the germanic creepers. I've gotten pest-control group "Fumapest" to try handle it but so far their spray and my traps / supporting poisons have had little effect I think. My cousin recommended a gel option as that was how they defeated the Bugdaryen's they encountered previously but on Fumapest's return visit they still opted to spray again anyway. Hopefully the guy knows what he's doing, otherwise I am going to make good use of his 6 month warranty.

In the meantime I've gone and upgraded the locks and kitchen flooring but am still missing a few utilities. I'm slightly annoyed at IKEA as they apparently sell incomplete bed frames which is going to result in me trekking all the way out there to find the missing pieces again. I do like their shop though. The whole walk-through part is neat and the warehouse section (where you pray to God you have written down the correct location of your item, lest you be lost searching for it forever) is quite impressive.

Welcome to IKEA.
Lastly it seems there was an electrical anomaly drifting in the area last night as a number of power points have suddenly failed, and even devices not connected to wall sockets (completely remote infact) were playing up. We'll need to get an electrician in to sort that out. With any luck he may also be able to fix the non-working TV.

They ain't scary at all

2012-01-25T01:15:00.000-08:00

After trying to drive the car without losing sync (unsuccessfully), we decided to go on foot to get the tank of gas required by what's his face, the pyromaniac back at base camp. Our plan of avoiding driving was thwarted though when we found yet another survivor who would only come with us if we DROVE her to where she wanted. Grrr! Why aren't these zombies more efficient!? Oh yeah, it's because they can be beaten up with paddles and broom handles. Alas that makes them all the less scary.

One successful burnination of bodies later, we drive princess "I don't want to walk" to the lighthouse where we find another set of survivors, all of whom again need stuff to be done. Their leader, James, wants us to power up the beacon which is easy enough once we find the generators to activate. Lots of setup for "ooooh, this is going to be bad" moments but currently the zombies just can't deliver. In fact, they're more a nuisance now like little yappy dogs that chase the mailman (the players). I suppose they'll get stronger eventually. Humorously, we are given the schematics of how to make a "deo-bomb". I'd like to see what the heck you can actually do with 2 deodorants and some sticky tape that would result in such a big explosion. Myth busters anyone?

If these guys are on the island, the zombies are screwed.
Back at the the life guard base we are sent to forage for food stuffs as the people who have been idling this whole time were getting hungry. Luckily we had collected a whole bunch of canned food prior but apparently it wasn't enough! They need juice as well? Uhhh. Ok. Also my eldest bro's char got a severe tan at this point as he switched from playing the asian chick to the abo one. I still feel that having the survivors in separate groups is stupid. Why can't we just bring everyone to one point? Oh well, off we went with a slight detour to find another "missing" person who seemed to be doing ok having blocked off his on-the-water bungalow with a few boxes on the docks. The zombies are too stupid to climb and/or push them out of the way. Again, way to be less scary, zombies. Mister Hedonist was fine with his little group consisting mainly of chicks who were tripping and/or drunk and finding the whole zombie apocalypse thing a minor inconvenience to their partying.

We continued to the gas station where I was proven right that those left alive shouldn't be divided. The two survivors who decided to try hold out there had been overrun and killed when we returned. At least we got their handy juice pack bundle! Also decided to assist in finishing a "HELP" sign for the lighthouse crew which was crawling with infected scum. It may have been dangerous if only we weren't so skilled, and I wasn't insta-killing zombies by headstomping.

Mark Wahlberg's solution to 9/11

2012-01-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post something about non-gaming news for a change. There was an article I saw recently involving Mark Wahlberg and his solution to the terror attacks on 9/11. He has since apologized for them, but I think there is some truth to what he initially said.

While I'm not sure if Mark himself was the solution (hard for him to be on multiple flights simultaneously), I do think that more people with his attitude and the balls, talent and luck to back it up certainly could have at least saved the towers and the people in them. Flying/landing a plane with no experience would likely still result in all the planes being lost, but that would have cut down the death count tremendously.

I can only hope that the people on those planes despite not knowing their destination were proactive in the end and were not meek little sheep that allowed themselves to be herded quietly and obediently to their doom. Maybe they did put up an epic fight and those terrorist guys were just uber close combat specialists who defeated everyone on the way to the cockpit, including folks with as much or more experience than Mark. We'll never know. Gotta say if that's how it went down then those terrorist guys certainly earned the win, but I think they simply didn't meet much/enough resistance. And when good men do nothing, well ... you know the rest.

It's a bit of a change in the way most people think these days though. For example, in every single self-defence course I've been to and heard of they always advise in the event of a robbery to give the robber what he wants and hope he backs off. To avoid conflict. To keep yourself safe and basically let someone else deal with the problem. Gas station attendants when held up (here anyway where they aren't packing shotguns under the counter) just give the money and report the incident. It almost sounds like an every day transaction. "Oh, are you here for your weekly robbery mr. robber? That's excellent as I had already prefilled the forms". This sort of attitude is basically saying, yup. If you are going to get screwed, just bend over and take it then complain to someone later.

I suppose it comes down to how much you value what you are losing, and if you have enough conviction to fight for it. I know there are crazies who would probably fight to the death for $10 dollars, while others would just sit idly by and lose things (material and otherwise) of much greater value (in my mind anyway). In the case of the gas station I can clearly see they don't want to be sued by dying employees. The amounts in one register would be miniscule compared to a successful legal action involving a serious injury/fatality. The whole legal thing comes into play too - just how far do you go to "win" against an opponent? Injure? Maim? Kill? Kill then mutilate and put on a display? All little things that hold people back from what they ought to do.

My examples of robbery really seem out of place since life generally outweighs "other stuff", but when it is your life being robbed that's when things become interesting. Everyone only gets one life (apart from those of you who get reincarnated apparently). How many does yours outweigh? If you have been on one of the planes and you somehow figured out the plan to ram it into the tower (unlikely), would you have killed those terrorists knowing they were the only pilots left on the plane (which was quite likely)? If it was in your power would you have put the plane's passengers to certain death by killing the pilots but saving the people in the towers (one of them anyway)? Or if given the chance would you have simply used the only available parachute on yourself / a loved one because you felt that life was worth more than everyone else's combined?

That's a pretty broad what-if scenario. Maybe I should cut it down to this: If the terrorists told you that you were just hostages for a few hours would you believe them and let them control the plane unchallenged, regardless if they held hostages?

We all know what Jack Bauer would do.

The Dumb and the Dead

2012-01-19T23:28:00.000-08:00

Dead Island diary - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Now that we've established a better base camp the rest of the lucky survivors are a bit more talkative in the way they want us to do stuff for them since they're all useless. The tasks here range from the pretty strategic, like fixing a car or getting medical supplies to stupidity such as finding a necklace someone left behind. Really? You want me to risk my life to get your stupid necklace? It gets worse as we find other survivors on the outskirts too - a robber who wants to steal stuff from his zombiefied pal and a pair of high as a kite girls; one who can't seem to have enough water and the other one wants us to rescue her teddy bear.

As we go about doing these it seems that the zombies are getting more plentiful, and some what more dangerous - managing to KO my two bros at various points. Still, they are no where near as annoying as the random crashes that happens during gameplay. Not so bad if we can rejoin, but when the server crashes - it's not pretty. Let's just say rescuing mr. teddy involved a lot of deja vu. He was also guarded by a non-zombie crazy person, but a knife to the head courtesy of DL put him down instantly. Also got that car fixed, found medical supplies, revisited the drunk guy and possibly killed him with alcohol poisoning (finally) as well as helped out that robber guy who rewarded us each with a revolver. All with one bullet each. Thanks man. Nice suggestive usage for those there.

Also interesting to note, most normal zombies survive being hit by a speeding car so our old Battlefield strategy which we term "Panzer Jeep", is not so effective here. An upgraded weapon seems to do more damage. Not having been hit by a speeding car or an upgraded weapon myself I can't really claim to know which one would hurt more, and I hope I never find out! :P

Because this apparently hurts more than getting hit by a car.

Zombies in Paradise

2012-01-18T23:59:00.000-08:00

Dead Island diary - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

After an interesting episode of sleeping through the start of a zombie apocalypse while on Banoi island, I found myself cautiously creeping through the resort hotel and pilfering as much random stuff as I could. A voice on the radio was giving me instructions on how to get to safety and it wasn't long before I came across a batch of angry zombified people. My first instinct was to "Fus roh dah" them off a balcony, but since that's a different game and this character can only do rap songs I high tail it to the "safe" room where I get knocked out. Thanks voice on the radio.

When I awake I am in some sort of holding room with a bunch of other people including my brothers. DL had just gotten back from rescuing some tattooed guy who I'll call Cinnamon. He wastes no time in ordering us out to get a key card from his bungalow. This place is cramped anyway so the three of us exit to the beach, and wow is it a fantastic sight. If not for the decaying and mutilated bodies lying around it sure does look like a nice place for a vacation. It isn't long before we run into small numbers of "walkers", and they are easy enough to put back to the dead state. At least temporarily. I say that because as we went off the beaten track (a lot, to go looting) the ones we previously defeated got back up. Fortunately they were kind enough to put more stuff in the lootable containers while they were at it.

Came across some interesting people on our exploration too, the first being a tied up kinky lady who I think was turning into a zombie but since she was quite immobile and being filmed and such we left her alone. FOR SCIENCE! :P Next up was some dude who was totally breaking down in a literal pool of his family's blood after he killed them all. We tried to tell him to go join the other survivors but he wouldn't listen so we just left him there and found the next idiot, some dude who locked himself in a bar. And he requests alcohol. The hell man - way to be useless. I didn't feel so bad about leaving that one out there to die. He probably wouldn't have even realized it.

Anyway, one key card later and cinnamon gets us to go clear the surf club and the whole path to it of scum so that he can relocate the survivors to a bigger space. During this fun task we meet more nimble zombies who like to run, and they seem to come in bigger numbers! Not that it matters because there's so much stuff lying around to use to kill them with. A big slow brutish zombie acts as the boss at the club proper but against three of us he is eventually brought down. Having cleared the area we signal the all clear and the rest of the gang arrives (thanks for the help guys). Cinnamon rewards us each with special cleavers, this is ontop of a blueprint to make a nasty weapon. I suspect Cinnamon is actually a murderer.

Next thing you know, we'll be getting quests from this guy.

Dead Island Diary

2012-01-18T23:48:00.003-08:00

I had quite a bit of fun doing one for my adventures in Skyrim, so I thought I'd continue the trend now that I've started Dead Island. :) It probably won't be updated as frequently though as I'm trying to play it coop with my brothers. Nevertheless, I hope it becomes an interesting read.

A Holiday with Zombies - spoilers ahead!
1. Zombies in Paradise
2. The Dumb and the Dead
3. They ain't scary at all
4. Act I: Completed
5. Scumbag City
6. Over, Under and Out
7. Jungle Party
8. The Evil Tribe
9. Final Fun Run

We have escaped from Dead Island! Thank you for reading!

Gotta Catch them All

2012-01-16T23:00:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

With the major crisis(es) averted, my vacation was cut short when I learned that the lich guys (dragon priests) are actually finite. Should have guessed with them all having names and all. Seems I missed something when I was last at Labyrinthian, and with Iona in tow we revisited the cold ruins and I found the wooden mask that when worn transports me to some sort of chapel for these -eight- dudes. I know I've killed a few of them already so it was a small adventure in itself returning to all my houses and storage areas to try find where I left them lying around. This involved thwarting an attack by an ancient dragon on the mage school and killing a pirate dremora (arr?) in its basement. Yeah that was strange. Anyway after much searching I already had five of the masks.

I recalled that I encountered one of these freaks beside a dragon roost previously so I decided to take up the Blades' offer on a wyrm hunt. One gutsy frost dragon decided to attack right at Sky Haven Temple's courtyard while I was there and after dispatching him met the Blade recruits, Mjoll, Vilkas and Athis to take down an elder dragon roosting at the top of some mountain. Alas, no lich guy here. Next stage of the plan was to take a game designer's view on the matter and if I was them I'd scatter them to the four winds (the edges of the map). Keeping an eye out for ancient nordic temples preferably high up in mountains I finally came across Forelhost where a dude pretending to be a Stormcloak officer (I knew he was shifty after pickpocketing his orders) tasked me to get the staff of the resident lich within. Turns out the old temple is home to a veritable army of Deathlords and Deathoverlords. Around midway Iona dies to their onslaught on one of those reverse spike trap pillar things.

Didn't matter as I backstabbed the rest of them and the lich face too. Couldn't kill him outright though, but Meridia's gift was sure handy in taking him out. Outside I find the traitor trying to get an imperial guy to scout the ruins out too and he rightly deduces that mr quest giver is a thalmor scum. After killing them both I picked up Brelyna the apprentice mage as my new escort as she owed me for that time she turned me green, and into a few animals. Turns out she's a very capable wizard, blasting things to hell and atronarch summoning left and right. After a few days of searching for the next target I get quite frustrated and run into Mister Wiki in a tavern who gives me directions on when to find the remaining two priest guys.

The next one we visit is royally screwed as another wizard named Anska joins the team to clear out his lair. I didn't have to do much at all in there, and the last lich didn't fare much better as he had a longer dungeon thus I was more annoyed when I reached him. :P Finally with all eight masks in hand I returned to their temple of masks and put all of theirs up on display... Seems there is a ninth mask as a reward. Slightly disappointed there was no super powerful foe wearing it though. No matter. After reclaiming all of those Brelyna and I headed back to Solitude to chillax for a bit with Jordis and Njada.

Mission complete.
I know that I'm only level 45 and I haven't cleared -all- the areas (haven't even found some either) but these adventures, despite being highly entertaining, have been causing some real life fatigue. With all the major quest lines out of the way I think its time for a break, especially with some big real life adventures coming up for me. Thanks for reading up to this point! Maybe this will be continued with a future DLC? Only time will tell. :)

The War that Waited for Me

2012-01-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

At last, we get to the "great" war that has been the backdrop of this epic setting from the very first scene. It's kind of disappointing to report that the enemy troops barely scratch me at this stage (a level 45 thief), but it puts a good conclusion to the tale.

Jarl Bossman of Whiterun decided to side with the legion and is the first to fall to the Stormcloak army. Stupid man. The game also prevents me from executing him and his housecarl after defeating him as is what should have happened. Anyway, this is followed by the Stormcloaks attacking many forts scattered throughout the map. The last one even had a pseudo-hero in a high level bounty hunter who was there to hunt me down, but none were a match for the army that had a dragon providing air support. Hell, they had trouble fighting my horse!

After being promoted a few times I reached a rank that let me purchase property in Windhelm which I did, and had another fun battle on my way to the rallying point for the final siege where I was beset by a dragon and an Ancient Dragon at the same time! That was great! Though I think I should really rebuild those Blades to put these critters down before they get out of control.

The final domino of this one sided war was Solitude where General Tullius soiled himself just before Ulfric chopped his head off. I made sure to strip and pose the corpse of the traitorous whore Rikke on the table too as a message to anyone who joins the empire. They get f... killed. At last, the war was over (and all my bounties expunged... muahahaha).

With the empire now mostly driven out of Skyrim and the world eater disintegrated in heaven (lol what?) I decided to rebuild the Blades to handle the dragon slaying for awhile. First I took Mjoll the lioness who was accompanied by her puppy dog follower guy. I was going to take Lob the last orc next, but he was killed by a giant upon my arrival so I decided to look in Whiterun instead. To my surprise now Vilkas had come back to life (after I killed him at Boethiah's pillar?)! Well if the Blades need anything it certainly is people who don't know how to die so I brought both him and Athis to sign up at which point spy girl said they had enough people to start handling the dragons on their own.

This is excellent news as it means I can enjoy some well earned R&R for a while, so I decide to empty out the hall at Jovaskar by marrying Njada who has really grown on me. I tell her to go live in my house at Solitude with Jordis, then get Iona to follow me and meet up with them there for some fun times... maybe playing Dungeon Defenders or something. :P

Because going to the beach was not an option.

Alduin is a Punk

2012-01-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

After a quick trip to a frozen island to open a giant metal box, Jordis and I finally signed up to aid Ulfric's rebellion. I was hoping that this would progress on it's own as I did forged my own path but it seems nothing gets done without my intervention. The first major strike was a seemingly pointless objective of retrieving an old crown which saw both stormcloaks and imperial scouts lose men for no good reason. After that Ulfric wanted me to deliver a message to Jarl Bossman of Whiterun to see which side of the fence he really was on, but Jarl Bossman would not accept the letter until I got rid of the dragon trapped in his castle. Damnit.

Forced to accept Odahviing's bargain, he flew me to Alduin's hideout where I backstabbed all his minions, including perhaps the easiest lich to defeat in one hit. Also defeated two guard dragons that challenged me on the way up. There were two more at the very top but they were too sleepy to fight so I jumped into Alduin's magic portal into the afterlife. Wait, did I just kill myself? Couldn't I have gotten here by jumping onto a bed of spikes? What's going on man.

I found a shortcut to Alduin's hiding place!
Sovngarde is a pretty boring place. There's a mead hall where you can sing and fight which is great. And ofcourse drink. But I don't drink. Ever. At least the sky is reeeeeally pretty here. There's supposedly mist too, created by Alduin himself as he chomps through spirits to be all spooky like, but my graphics card doesn't support the mist so I see everything clear as day and watch as the big dragon humorously chomps down on spawning spirits at random. It's especially funny when he does it just as they are mid sentence talking to me. :D

Anyway, after showing the dead champions who is boss, a trio of them come with me for the final showdown with Alduin and in Juris' words - "he's a punk". No challenge whatsoever, disappointing. After getting him out of the way and literally being yelled back to life, I find a bunch of dragons waiting for me at the top of the world. Finally a good fight! But I'm wrong. They're just there to worship me and fly off. Odahviing stays to offer his services whenever I need, and boy is that going to come in handy. *evil grin*

Once a Traitor, always a Traitor

2012-01-12T23:05:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Right after the truce meeting I headed up to Paarthumax with Ogol and we put and end to the traitorous worm, and while that upset the Greybeards a fair bit (well at least one of them, the others don't really talk much), my two blades friends were overjoyed. They also asked that I help rebuild their order so they can begin to hunt down the flying lizards once more. However I had other things to take care of when I returned to the Dark Brotherhood HQ to find that Cicero has gone beserk. I was tasked to find the fool and given the nightmare Shadowmere (very awesome horse) to catch him with. We tracked him back to another sanctuary inhabited by murderous spirits, and a named troll. Ogol met his end there and with a sorrowful heart also killed the happy jester. I was starting to like that guy.

Next orc from the village to join me was Ugor, and she quickly proved her skill by surviving an elder dragon and blood dragon simultaneous attack. That was a fun battle! After killing off another imperial fool I was tasked with eliminating a reknowned chef who would be cooking for the emperor. Up near where he was hiding we also helped Salma and Beemja with a cairn they wanted to clear before a quick trip back to Whiterun to trap the dragon Odahviing. After a relatively easy fight he was caught and spills the beans on his master's hideout. He also holds the bargaining chip of me needing him to fly there as it is inaccessible by foot. That's a shame, I remember wandering up the red mountain past all those cliff racers and tossing Dagoth Ur into the lava before even doing the main quest in Morrowind (didn't kill him, but I think that was a technical victory :P) however I guess Alduin has more smarts.

While I contemplated this offer it was back up to Solitude again to cook for the emperor. How the heck does anyone NOT suspect me of being an assassin while wearing complete nightingale armor, bristling with weapons, travelling with an orc body guard escapes me. Instead they accept I am a chef. Just more proof that the empire is filled with morons. The poison dish is served, the emperor is killed and I make my escape - or so I thought! Looks like I've been sold out, and the guy that just died was a body double (you think the emperor would have lots of that with there being magic in this world). After fighting my way to freedom I quickly returned to the Brotherhood sanctuary which was being successfully assaulted by imperial forces. Most of them were already horribly dead by the time I arrived which was awesome. I would have liked to do that myself but apparently missed my opportunity to do so (as Juris informed me later on). Anyway I "save" two of them and the corpse who tells me to continue to hunt the real emperor down.

I think he's a chef, or possibly a monk.
First I deal with the guard commander at Solitude docks, a short and sharp skirmish that resulted in their deaths and Ugor's. Afterwards I quickly snuck into Solitude (I'm a wanted man) to get Jordis from my house before we swam out to board the real Emperor's boat. There we hack, stab and shoot our way through all of it, leaving the ship devoid of life and the empire devoid of a leader. I also decide to take out the turncoat who ordered the hit, since he sits on the imperial council. The payment of 20,000 gold is nice, and the remaining Dark Brotherhood people request I use it to rebuild their guild and recognize me as leader. What idiots. How about I turn them in instead? Again not an option, so I leave them to rot with the corpse of their Night Mother and ignore her whispers in my head. They and the thieves guild can and should fade into oblivion for all I care.

One a side note, one guild that I felt was very under utilised was the Bard's College so it's good to see that the true bards like Malufenix didn't let that get in the way of them sharing their talents with the rest of us plebs. :D

Skyrim covers by Malufenix:
Dragonborn Comes
Age of Aggression

Preparing for the End

2012-01-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Back at the Dark Brotherhood HQ (sounds like a racist group huh), the little jester guy I helped previously is here with the coffin of his mother. The Night Mother. I find it quite funny that this bunch of killers have the most personality among the dozens of other NPCs in the world. Distubingly, the dead lady in the coffin decides to talk to me. The Jester Cicero claims I am the new "listener". The current leader is unsure and instead sends me to off a couple of vampires and the orc coward in Morthal, both of which I have no problems with. While I'm out, I decide to have another try at getting the Elder Scroll at Blackreach as well as another collection quest down in its depths. While my expedition this time is successful, Borgath is slain by the falmer "king" at Silent City and his servants. I decide to bring her kinsman Ogol with me next (seems most of that village is willing to follow me after their chief was killed).

Turns out the contract for the Brotherhood is the Emperor himself! This is excellent news, because he's the one who bent the entire empire over to the Thalmor's whims in the first place. There will be things to setup first though, and step one is the bait. Murdering his cousin on her wedding day. I did feel guilty for this one as she was trying to unite the Empire and Stormcloaks, but when it comes down to it - why would I want to ally with a nation full of losers? Caused quite a commotion when I crushed her with that statue, and now the guards in Solitude are after my hide too. Fortunately both Ogol and I got out in one piece and decided to lay low at the top of the world.

It's a pretty good hiding place actually.
While up there I decided to read that Elder Scroll and after a nifty blinding flashback, Alduin himself appears for battle! Optimus Pri... I mean Paarthumax and Ogol the orc help me out too and we defeat him! But in traditional main bad guy fashion, he laughs at us as he runs away. Ermmm ok. Apparently he powers up by eating people in the world, then going to the afterlife and eating them again. Did that make sense? Yeah it sounded a bit wierd to me too. To chase him I needed to catch another dragon first, and needed the already built facilities at Whiterun to do so. Jarl Bossman there wasn't stupid enough to let a dragon in while he was playing the neutral card between two armies though so with the Grey Beards help I called a truce meeting between Ulfric Stormcloak and general stupid skirt, the representative leader of the empire.

How much fun I had when they decided I could call the terms of the treaty. Naturally I sided with Ulfric with everything, and most importantly gave Markarth from the imperials to the stormcloaks in exchange for the measly small port of Dawnstar, already weakening their hold in my land. I mean... this land. *Cough cough*. Also, this switches all the guards in the city of stone to Stormcloak soldiers who don't attack me everytime I visit! Woohoo! :)

Master Thief

2012-01-10T23:17:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Decided to try go after the Elder Scroll I needed to defeat the main bad dragon today. Hired the merc Stenvar to provide support and while he did help kill a Frost Dragon on the way to the dwemer ruins and a bunch of falmer bastards inside he didn't last very long to a group led by a falmer shadowmaster, who turned his insides into ice. I just backstab those and kill them in one hit. Proceeded down, down, down to goblin town until I came upon... Blackreach. WHAT THE HELL. This place is HUGE, and crawling with nasties. It also connects to other large dwemer dungeons. I tried to map the alien landscape as much as I could until the damn glowy shrooms started to give me a headache so I took the nearest grand elevator out of there to do something else first. Picked up the orc warrioress Borgath too, since I was running out of followers to choose from elsewhere. :P

The Dark Brotherhood had tasked me with three kills, two of which were eliminating people who non-productive to society so I had no problem with that. The last one, a hardworking miner gal in Dawnstar, I had moral issues killing. Turns out the problem solved itself as we arrived because the city was under attack from an Elder Dragon and he happened to turn my target into crispy pata before I could save her. Also visited Solitude to shadow a contact of an enemy to the thieves guild. Borgath didn't do much shadowing though, she just tried to fight her way through guard after guard to no avail. Stupid orc. Saved her life a bajillion times in that warehouse. We also cleared out a dwemer ruin and encountered a named dragon when we exited... sounded like... Vin Diesel?

Anyway, Mercer - the leader of the Thieves guild has finally tracked this nemesis of theirs and wants me to help him take them down. Sure thing. Borgath is too afraid to come with us so she stays behind. For good reason too. Mercer is an absolute kickass when it comes to dustman dusting. Better still, at the end of that it turns out HE is the bad guy and manages to "kill" me. Fortunately Athis showed me his trick of coming back to life and it seems Borgath and the nemesis person who is actually good (to an extent) help me regain my health. We head back to Riften to clear the she-nemesis' name with the guild and slay a dragon attacking the town while doing so. After all things are settled (and after she gives me a really cool set of armor) the obvious quest to hunt down Mercer begins and I am more than happy to do so. Borgath again chooses to stay out of it knowing she'd just get in the way. For the record, the final fight against Mercer is perhaps the best one I've had in the game so far (for my build anyway, Juris who did this as a mage just let his dremora do all the work :P).

What a battle between real master thieves looks like:

Can't see anything? That's the point.
After defeating him I have been elected as guild master for the thieves guild. Really? Well that's just great. They request I help them rebuild their group by doing criminal acts across the land. I have a better idea. I turn them all in. Alas that option doesn't exist, so instead I let them rot in their squallor living in the sewers like the turds they are.

The Bastardly Guards of Markarth

2012-01-10T00:23:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

After closing a magical rupture and a short visit to Markarth which involved the usual guards attacking me throughout the city, Esbern, Athis, spy chick and I all decide to go locate Sky Haven Temple. What an awesome name. Doing so involves fighting through a large Forsworn camp and just for added fun a blood dragon attacks at the same time too. Somehow we all survive despite me clearly seeing spy girl and Athis being "killed". No matter. The two blades decide to chillax there while Athis and I return to Whiterun. Since he survived this rotation I let him take a break and continue adventuring with Ria the not so rookie now.

Up at the Throat of the World we meet the Grey Beard's leader Paarthumax who sounds a bit like Optimus Prime. His appearance also startles me and I accidentally shoot him a bit before he introduces himself. Fortunately he ignores my earlier attacks. After a nice chat involving plotting the downfall of the main bad dragon, I return to Riften with all my collection tasks complete and immediately become Thane there. My new housecarl Iona is stuck with guard duty for now since the place is crawling with theives. Ria and I also go to help an orc chief slay a giant leader in the name of Malacath. On the way we find a stray dog fighting a dragon, and after slaying the winged serpent the mutt decides to tag along. Turns out that it was a very bad decision on it's part as it, the orc chief and Ria were all smashed to pieces in the giant's lair.

Back in Riften I hire the spellsword Marcurio who thinks he is the bomb. He has some talents to back up this claim as he single handedly defeated a skeever army and crazy skeever man, survived an attack from THREE dragons simultaneously (we could only kill the frost dragon before the other two fled), helped defeat the funny named lich "Otar the Mad", and helped save the city of Markarth from an elder dragon that attacked it while we were there. Our reward for doing so? The guards attacked us again, and they killed Marcurio via arrow pincushion method.

Poor Marcurio, we hardly knew thee.
I hoofed it up to my house in the stone city when I could shake them off me. I wonder if the idiots ever thought of looking for me in here? Anyway I figured my odds of escaping would be better during nightfall (can't fast travel out of the city) so I took a nap to wait for dusk. Seems someone had other ideas though, because when I woke up I was no longer in the city but in a shack with three hostages and one representative from the Dark Brotherhood. She wants me to kill one of them. I wasn't going to, but the Khajit turned out to be a prick and in my mind had it coming anyway. Looks like I've made a new friend and she invited me into her little murderous clan. Once I got into their HQ I proved I really belong by trying to murder every single one of them. Alas they were ALL protected by threads of fate. Damn cheaters.

Last City on the Right

2012-01-08T23:27:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

It was Njada's turn for evaluation and I must admit, I do not really like this scarred chick. She talks back and is quite angry all the time. However I could not deny her talents after seeing her in action, seemingly pulling off finishing move after finishing move, including brutally murdering a champion of Boethiah. She also assisted in slaying an Elder Dragon and eliminating some (skilled) bandits disguised as soldiers. After a long walk filled with bears we finally reached Riften, the city of thieves. As usual there's a lot to do since it's my first visit, one of which is finding Esbern, a Blade in hiding. I locate the old guy just as he is located by Thalmor scum and find it fitting that I leave these "high elves" dead in the sewers where they belong. Lotsa crazy people down here too.

During all this I manage to infiltrate the so called thieves guild by doing some menial tasks and low level strong-arming. As I suspected they're just a bunch of bastards who deserve nothing more than beheading. When they allow me into their secret club quarters Njada, Esbern and I begin eliminating as many of the idiots as possible. Turns out I can only kill 7 of them, the remaining 4, their fence and their barkeep are all protected by what I call "threads of fate" (god mode). Being the losers that they are, they negotiate a truce and will forget that I killed over half their number for a mere 1000 gold. And they wonder why their guild is doing poorly.

I also learn that they are being backed by the Black-Briar family so at every opportunity I can I bungle their missions, stealing the family's prized horse, burning too many beehives, and generally trying to destroy them indirectly. My team also wipes out a druggie den, a spider filled mine, another deep dwemer dungeon with a centurion master, as well as help an orc village being attacked by a giant. At the end of all that we find ourselves back at Whiterun to unload loot. I have grown to like Njada quite a bit during our travels. Since she survived this rotation I let her take a breather and pick up Athis (the somehow still alive again) for the next trip out which I like to call the great collection expedition. For some reason Riften's quests have a hell of a lot of collecting various herbs and semi-rare reagents which takes me more than a few hours. Urgh.

It's a bit like that.

The Cleansing

2012-01-08T03:28:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

J'zargo didn't turn out to be as good as he thought he was, as he was slain by in battle with common bandits. With a delivery task back to Whiterun I discovered all the companions could now follow me. Not wanting to have a freaking werewolf I decided to take Athis the asshat, to evaluate his skills. I watched as he was knocked down and begging for mercy by four unarmed pirates. And again by one Khajit assassin. I don't know how he ever joined the supposedly best fighters guild in the region. We also went to assist an Imperial fleet take out a Pirate hold (pirates are more scum than the empire so it was ok for this short truce). Ofcourse, they sent me and Athis in alone to kill the leader - a task in which Athis was axed to death by a single pirate minion. I cleared out the pirate keep only to discover the imperial ships began bombardment... while I was still inside. TRAITOROUS SCUM! I should have known!

Not a face you can trust.

I made it out under all the explosions and had a stern word with the imperial lady in charge afterwards, Adelisa. She wanted to join my adventures? Sure. Let's see how you like being betrayed. A prime opportunity arose when we found the Cult of Boethia, who wanted me to sacrifice her on a magic pillar. I had other ideas though, we killed all of them instead. Adelisa also helped me get half way through a dwemer ruin looking for a powerful staff before she had her insides ripped out by Falmer bastards. Those guys are really ruthless. Also found and assisted an empire aligned mage there, but due to his obligation to report the goings on here to his superiors I had no choice but to slit his throat.

Decided to head back to Whiterun to handle a problem that's been nagging me for awhile. As guild leader of the companions, I wanted all werewolves OUT. To my surprise when I get to the hall I see Athis there - alive and well. Little bastard somehow made it off that island! No matter, next up for evaluation was Ria the rookie. We did minor tasks for the three circle wolves and she handled herself amiably, even managing to slay a dragon (normal type - haven't seen them in awhile). I had hoped the lycans would reconsider their condition especially since they knew there was a cure for it now, but alas they seemed to all be happy with their condition. I had no choice then, as guild master it was my responsibility to deal with this potential problem. With all three in tow I took them to the pillar of Boethia where the threads of fate (game immortality) could not protect them and I grinned as I ended their miserable lives. There would be no more werewolves coming from you three infected bastards. That felt so much better!

Next up for evaluation was Torvar the drunk, and I took him to assist in the problems up at Winterhold where he performed waaaay better than I thought he would. He survived defending the broken town against magical anomalies, against a skeletal dragon, a wisp mother AND a lich. He also got to fight the thalmor prick Ancano and his associate. Alas, in the final battle he had his jugular ripped out by a crazed magical anomaly. After avenging his death and fixing the main problem at the mage school I was named arch-mage, which is ironic since my level of magic ability is rather low. Guess these mages aren't so smart after all.

A whole lot of killing

2012-01-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Thanks to being interrupted by a Jester with a broken down carraige, I was left to catch up with the three fools at the dungeon itself where really only one of them was of any use. The first twin was too sad and the second was afraid of spiders (what? lol) so it was up to Aela and I to reach the deep crypt past all the warriors of old. Once there the ritual for the cure simply involved tossing a severed head into a flame. Easy enough. Since I brought extra, I decided to cure myself too. By strange coincidence I find myself now the leader of this Companions guild that has a few too many members that I dislike. The three amigos stay for awhile to worship the dead while I head on back to Solitude to infiltrate a Thalmor party at their embassy. I like this mission already.

After slipping away from the guests I make sure to assassinate every single Thalmor guard, assistant, official, or general supporter I find. Backstabbing and throat slitting has never felt so rewarding. Those I could not reach I had to kill using arrows through a fence, but I made sure none remained alive. With the information I needed in hand I was assisted by my housecarl Jordis to escape using a one-way underground tunnel (which leads me to question as to how she got in there in the first place). She also is a good fighter assisting me in defeating another Forsworn stronghold, a blood dragon, two elder dragons, and vasals of Mehrunes Dagon. Phew! That's a lot of killing.

Back in Winterhold the Mages College has tasked me with gathering more intel on this giant floaty orb thing as well, so I decide that it would probably be prudent to bring a mage on this task and with the novice Onmund offering to help after I retrieved his family necklace I told Jordis to take a break and meet me back at the house in Solitude. She was happy to do so, but first she pulled out her axe and began an uprovoked chopping on the Thalmor agent Ancano. Before I can do anything, Onmund is shooting lightning at her, defending the Thalmor scum! What the hell man. ANY SUPPORTER OF THE THALMOR MUST DIE. With daggers in hand I tore Onmund into tiny little pieces, leaving what was left of his corpse lying on display at the center of the hall. Ancano unfortunately is immortal (I did try killing him on our first meeting, stupid game), so eventually I managed to calm Jordis down enough to get her outside and on her way home. By luck and skill, no one actually saw me killing my fellow student, so I waltzed onto choice number two - the khajit J'zargo who had in a very sly way tried to kill me earlier I think.

This one thinks that it is you who is the fool.
Then it was off to Windhelm, a city of snow, racism and murder. By sheer first impression I already had an idea of who was the murderer anyway but no one was asking me to help solve the crime so I did the usual "talk to everyone and punch a few people in the face" routine. Finally also "properly" met Ulfric Stormcloak, leader of the rebellion. He has spirit and I am inclined to join his cause, but not yet - there still be the dragon mystery to solve. Apparently he's also quite racist (so am I, I hate all races that don't bow down to me) so it is a minor flaw compared to the many that plague the defunct empire.

Ashes to Ashes

2012-01-01T15:33:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

On the road to Markarth we came across a Thalmor unit with a prisoner. After getting into a theological argument with them, they attacked (as planned) and I tested Erandur's will to kill his own kind (elves), which he passed with flying colours. He is quite a violent priest. After freeing the captive we continued to the City of Stone for what was meant to be a simple pickup job for the mages college and a bounty retrieval from the Jarl's steward. This was not to be. One of the guardsmen at the main hall wanted to arrest me: on charges of treason for "aiding" the forsworn. I aided them by killing their leader? I knew quickly that the local Thalmor bastard (who was standing there at the time with his usual smug grin) had organized this. I told the guard "fuck you", and began a long fight back out to the city gates, but not before I made sure the Thalmor asswipe and his two lackeys were lying lifeless in pools of their own blood. Between Erandur and I we must have slaughtered half the guardsmen at Markarth before reaching the gates. Alas in the final melee, the priest was cut down and his body lay in a pile of other soldiers he killed.

Decided to steal a horse and make my way to a nearby orc camp which I was turned away from earlier. The blacksmith lady (orc) in town had told me I would be welcome now after helping her which I was. Upon arrival I did what is customary I assume. I challenged their chief to a fist fight and publicly humiliated him by knocking his lights out. Then I got his brother Ghorbash to join me on my next tasks which involved killing hagravens and as luck would have it, a great number of orc bandits. The stalwart warrior was not in my company long though when he met his end to a master necromancer who then raised his body to fight against me. Upon killing the wizard with my arrows the once mighty Ghorbash disintegrated into a pile of ash.

How many people end up when Necromancy or Fire is involved.
Back at Whiterun I found that the Silverhand had been busy and managed to actually kill the old leader guy. YES! One less werewolf. Vilkas, one of the twins, wants vengeance and demands to come with me. Ofcourse his vengeance can wait. First we go back up to High Hrothgar where I finish my training and can finally use the shout that all these dead men have been using against me (Fus ro dah!), then we go kill a troublesome giant, fight an elder dragon and the lich Krosis at the same time (that was tough), and find Azura's star. Also became Thane of both Winterhold and Dawnstar, and retrieved missing books and rescued the stupid student Orthorn for the mages college from a sorceress who calls herself "The Caller". When she saw me she instantly panicked and let me take whatever I wanted. Silly for her at that point I wanted her life for making me go through all her minions. Dagger to the back resulted in her instant death and prevented any stupid boss fight that may have happened.

Finally we get to Vilkas' revenge. The Silverhand stronghold is expansive, but generally they are no match for us. Also decided to free a captive werewolf who turned out to be wild (as I predicted). I let Vilkas deal with it to see if he had the cahones to murder his own kind. He did. I grinned and laughed. That should be the fate of all stupid werewolves (I'm a werecorgi, I'm not included in that generalization :P). I was tempted to backstab Vilkas right now but I knew from the fight with Krosis earlier that he was immune to death (damn game). Back at Whiterun we attended the funeral of the old leader guy where Aela burned his corpse on the pyre. I also learn that there's a cure for this lycanthropy, so with the twins Farkas and Vilkas and Aela we begin our run North to find it.

Triple Dragon

2012-01-01T15:12:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Dawnstar seems to truly be a "cursed" village. Apart from having the really strong vampire earlier and being plagued by nightmares it was also attacked by a frost dragon who was eventually slain by yours truly. I helped the priest Erandur deal with that nightmare problem, and it's worth noting the coward Benor stayed outside the shrine that was causing it. He really is a chicken. After helping the Dawnstar residents my cowardly companion and I continued East through the icy mountains to visit the hard to miss shrine of Azura and the city of Winterhold. After killing three random frost trolls we were attacked by yet another frost dragon. It had caught us on an open cliff and though it too died just as its sibing did earlier, it did manage to end Benor's miserable existence before doing so. I watched amused as his lifeless corpse slid down the mountain slope till I had to return to finishing off that dragon.

Finally reached Winterhold and discovered that it probably be renamed to Winterhole as most of the city collapsed due to erosion. My bet is Solitude will suffer a similar fate. Anyway while there I decided to visit the Mages College and by some misunderstanding actually enrolled as a student even if I'm not a mage. The first class concluded with a field trip to some dangerous ruins where we separated up and the teacher guy let me go on ahead to fight death lords solo. While this was ok with me, I'm wondering what happens to other novices who find themselves in such spots. :P

"What the hell, teach!?"
With many tasks calling my attention back West, I headed back that way picking up the elf priest Erandur on the way (he owed me for helping him fixing his problem earlier), and proved his combat ability by NOT dying to yet ANOTHER frost dragon on our travels. Also continued the usual clearing of tombs and bandits that were in the way, and at one point I was concerned the talkative priest broke his leg as he no longer wanted to follow me but a bit further down the road he caught up, seemingly fully healed. I was pleased that this frail priest guy was more badass than my previous companion. Also, wow three dragons in one post. They're getting more frequent!

The Long and Winding Road

2011-12-30T15:33:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Belrand and I made a stop at Riverwood to find the owner of a mysterious note. Upon finding this secret agent, she insisted I prove my dragon soul consuming ability by going to where she thinks a dragon is going to appear. This happens to be a -very- long way away but I decide to jog along with her the whole way there, marking out new land marks as we pass them. Finally we reach the site and the big black dragon who I saw at the start is here. Not missing a beat I engage it in combat and seem to irritate it. Without missing a beat it summons another dragon (who I know as "Sucker") from the ground before flying off. I call it that because as soon as it came out we just beat it back down to death and I ate its soul. Big black draggy has flown off, possibly because it saw how poor Sucker fared.

Secret agent girl is impressed and leaves to do some planning, so Belrand and I do the nearby tasks I have in the area, as well as for the people in a small settlement nearby. One of them is to find out what the hell I did when Lydia and I had that drinking contest awhile back. I've been slowly tracking down where I needed to go and it's led me to a fortress filled with magic users, including one psychotic pyromancer. Anyway, after dealing with him we find a portal to misty realm where I find the guy who issued the drinking challenge in the first place. He turns out to be the daedra Sanguine playing a prank.

I don't like pranks OR pranksters and immediately go on the offensive. Fighting an actual Daedra is quite tough though, as all my attacks seem to go right through him as if he wasn't there at all. The fight goes on for at least a day, and Belrand meets his fate at the hands of the bastard daedra. Finally Sanguine tires of all of this and teleports me back to Whiterun. Damn it. At least I got some good block and light armor training from that. Since I had a few more tasks to hand in back at Solitude I headed back that way, picking up Benor the coward as my pack mule from Morthal. I also was proclaimed thane in both Morthal (by idiot Jarl) and Solitude (by widow Jarl) and was assigned a new housecarl in the latter. I left her to watch the new house I bought in Solitude while Benor and I continued on to Dawnstar.

On the way we came across an Imperial encampment where I killed the lone lookouts, then came across a volkihar vampire which led to an epic battle that lasted all the way to the port city. True to form Benor spent most of his time cowering or running away. It took a bunch of brave travelling khajit and a number of town guards to help take down this foe but finally it was dead and I was at my destination.

Beware Benor's wrath! :P

King and Queen

2011-12-29T14:08:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Found a Thalmor patrol in the mountains today and after killing them located their embassy high in the mountains. Unfortunately we could not break in. Continued onto the Imperial Stronghold of Solitude since it was nearby, and it must be a contender for the worst place to put a city. After overhearing general Tullius I knew for certain that the Empire and all who supported them were a bunch of sissies that loved bending over for the elves. At least the Widow Jarl there seems to be on the fence still. Helped out the people in town including my old buddy Sheogorath and a sneaksie Argonian Egyptian (Jaree-Ra?) which resulted in the death of some imperial fools, followed by a very obvious betrayal and the death of Mr. Ra and his marauder buddies. That actually worked out quite nicely for me as I left no witnesses alive.

Argis and I proceeded to clear out tombs of the dead men, including one King Olaf (a task which the bard's college threw a festival in my honor - very awesome) and for a change also some disease carrying Peryite worshippers (which, ironically was a task set by Peryite itself). Back outside we encountered a courier delivering a letter for me asking me to return to the Blue Palace where Widow Jarl is (good to see I'm not the only one delivering stuff). Once there we learn that old queen Potato who dabbled in necromancy was rising from the dead. We couldn't have that, so we charged into her quite deep burial chamber slaying all her minions until we reached her council chamber. There a large amount of dead men supported by the spirit of Queen Potato shooting lightning all over the place made for a good battle. All her minions were slain, but so was the Champion of Molag Bal. With only Potato left on her throne I decided not to use my 100 stealth or archery (which I reached sometime in this post) and instead challenged her head on with a glass dagger and Meridia's Dawnbreaker (very useful against the undead). It was a short battle because really, the Queen was no better than a Potato and my sword cooked her to non-existence.

The end of Queen Potato.
Back in Solitude I hired the crazy drunk spellsword Belrand to help carry my gear and we proceeded to the small town of Morthal which is run by a soothsaying, imperial supporting Jarl. My suspicions of her actually just being an idiot were confirmed when she said she assembled some fighting men to help me eliminate a nearby vampire nest. Instead of having well armed guards, she sends torch bearing townsfolk - most of whom lose their nerve once we reach the lair. Even Benor, the braggart who thought he was the "best fighter" in town until I punched his face in shat his pants and ran home. Whatever, this town seems to just be full of losers. After dealing with their problems I decided to head back to Whiterun to stow gear.

The Legend and the Champion

2011-12-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Found ourselves out at Rorikstead today where I recruited Erik "the Slayer" (after convincing his father that he should be allowed to go adventuring). The lad showed promise despite lack of experience, helping me retrieve a goat I sold to a giant (ehhh?), and a whole bunch of retrieval tasks involving more killing of forsworn. While helping the cannibal Eola clear a nearby cave of living dead (who she says tastes terrible) he stood up to another death overlord and survived. The kid, still travelling with me, seems to like him too and her ears perked up each time he told us stories of his favourite hero Red Eagle. It so happens I was investigating that partirular legend and we found his burial cairn atop a tall mountain. He also wasn't quite so dead. It was a drawn out battle, with the kid pitching in by throwing rocks and distracing the legendary dead man every now and then. By the end of it I finally struck down the ancient warrior, ending his unlife. We found Erik crumpled beside the sarcophagus, still and unmoving. He had been slain by his hero.

Overburdened with gear and a crying child I returned to Markarth to lighten the load. Decided to purchase property there as well and for my recent actions was proclaimed Thane of this region. Met my new housecarl Argis in my new home too and he agreed to join me on my travels. We also hired the priest -whatshisname- since Eola asked for one for some ceremony at the cave we cleared earlier. Wasn't quite paying attention again. Decided to first revisit the not so abandoned house to find the stupid Boethian I rescued earlier trapped by the altar I explicitly told him was going to trap him. -.-

The altar then proclaimed that it would win their duel of wills this time as it had a champion. Hah I think not stupid altar. Except it wasn't talking about me. Argis, influenced by the daedra, killed the idiot. The altar proclaimed him champion of Molag Bal and granted him an evil looking mace. Between myself, the kid and -whatshisname- we dragged him out of there before he was turned any further into a daedra's bitch. After dropping the kid off at her temple and a quick goodbye we went to Eola's cave and found a whole bunch of people waiting here, some I recognize from the city. Turns out they're all people eaters and -whatshisname- is for lunch. He's already mesmerized by Eola's voice. I have nothing against cannibals, but murdering some innocent dude whose name I don't even know for your happy meal is just not on. As she sashayed towards the altar I snuck behind her and in one awesome finishing move, slit her throat and tossed her body down the stairs. Her guests met equally bloody and violent ends and -whatshisname- returned to the city alive.

Argis and I then beat up some giants, delivered some items, and reunited a dog with its master before returning an artifact to the shrine of Meridia. She wanted us to clean out her temple from some defiling evil which turned out to be quite easy as the shades were no match against the champion of Molag Bal and his shadow. Indeed the most challenging part was talking to her statue which had a bad habit of bringing me high into the sky then dropping me to my death. With enough retries, I finally got through those sections without breaking every single bone in my body. :P

Joe to the Rescue

2011-12-21T18:45:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

With most of my tasks now lying on the outskirts of Markarth, I hired the mercenary Vorstag and bought the war dog Vigilance to tag along finding them useful against the pockets of forsworn we kept running into. The first major task was to pickup a "marked" child for the temple of Dibella, but it turned out she had been captured by a large band of those forsworn scum. Joined by her father we assaulted the ruined tower they were holed up in but alas during the opening assault he was stabbed to death and Vigilance was roasted alive. Vorstag and I massacred the remaining defenders and secured the girl whose name I cannot pronounce. I just call her 'the kid'.

It seems the kid didn't want to just trade one prison for another straight away and pleaded to come with me. After getting her old man killed how could I refuse? On the road we'd play hide and seek, and she looked like she was able to take care of herself; making herself scarce during combat and pointing out dead bodies for me to loot afterwards. Apart from that one time where Vorstag and I had to rescue her from a rampaging ice bear.

Speaking of Vorstag he was really beginning to show his powers, using all sorts of weapon combinations and being a general kickass, even summoning flame atronarchs every now and then. He even stood toe to toe against a zombie death overlord as well as a lich living at the top of Volkswagen tomb (or something similar).

It's a scary place!

Also came across a captured priest of Boetheia and freed him too, warning him that an altar of Molag Bal back in the city intended to do nasty things to him. The first thing the idiot does is head straight there. Well, he has it coming. Pushed on to the next major rescue for folks from Whiterun. The three of them had been camping out in the snowy mountains for weeks waiting for me to show up. Whoops. The hostage is being kept prisoner by a large group of well armed Thalmer (elf) bastards. I try to convince the barbarians that a sneaky approach is best, but before I can even finish sniping the first guard with my bow they all charge head on. It is a bloody skirmish, and while all the elves were killed we lost two of the three plainsmen as well as the mighty Vorstag (again in the opening assault). The remaining survivor and his brother (the prisoner we released) head off into hiding and it's now just me and the kid on the road.

After backstabbing a sleeping blood dragon that was full from eating imperial soldiers at a nearby outpost (quickest dragon kill thus far - under 10 seconds!), I helped a captured hagraven reclaim her tower from another witch allied with more forsworn. These guys seem to be everywhere in these parts. Well, the hagraven proved to be very helpful, had a good sense of humor and since she didn't try to kill me I left her in peace. If only more monsters were like that. :)

As an aside: Photo above is courtesy of AndreaS, who has more pics of abandoned and ruined places which is also an interest of mine. :)

Digging too Deep

2011-12-20T16:40:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Woke up in a Temple of Dibella, with a very irate priestess telling us to get out. Lydia is here too, passed out beside me. We get our things and find ourselves in... Markarth? What the hell happened? Seems there are many things afoot in this city built into the mountain. I also find it funny that their Jarl lives in a hole. Seems fitting for someone being bossed around by snooty elves. Our first major task lead us to the depths of a halted excavation. After dealing with the delay-causing giant spider we proceeded further into the expansive dwemer city infested by goblin-like creatures. They are individually weak but in numbers are fatal as Lydia found out when she was overrun by a group of them wielding their wicked blades. Continued through alone and finally reach the "Control Room" where I activated all the automated security. As I made my way out I wondered what sort of technology these dwarves (who haven't been seen in years) possessed to make such things. I also have a theory as to where they went...

Afterwards I began investigating a conspiracy involving the forsworn (who really sound like fancy bandits), and it seemed the more I found out, the more I was warned to back off. Recruited the brawler Cosnach at the tavern after defeating him in unarmed combat to add some muscle to my side and discovered that the forsworn leader is running the show from within the city prison itself. I know the guards there told me to go away but I might just have to break in now. During the search I also came across a not so abandoned house where I was forced to kill a fellow investigator in self defense after he was possessed by the daedric presence within. For all his might the dark lord still had to ask for outside help to get things done, because his power is limited to the house? What a tool. If he wasn't hiding inside that altar I'd stab his face right now.

Discovered quite a bit about how Markarth was being run and when I returned to the small shrine of Talos to report my findings, I found my contact dead with a trio of guards waiting to arrest me. To hell with that I said and drew my weapons. Fighting in such tight quarters was disadvantageous to me and more and more guards seemed to keep pouring in, but not fast enough to replace the ones I killed. Even my newest "ally" Cosnach turned out to be on their payroll as he attacked me with the sword of Falkreath I had given him earlier, but much like our previous duel it was I that remained standing in the end. The Shrine was littered with bodies when I was done, and after healing up I headed towards the prison mine only to be attacked by even more guardsmen. I lost track of how many I managed to kill but eventually they just managed to swarm me, knocking me into one of the waterways running through the city. Surrounded, low on resources and almost dead I finally surrendered. [Hero fail. :(]

Found myself tossed into the prison mine with no gear. Saves me from having to break in at least. Seems the majority of the forced labour here are forsworn, each with sappy stories and a pure hatred for the Nords (which I am). Protip: If you want me to feel sorry for you, don't insult / express a desire to kill me or my people right after. The mine was smaller than I thought and I found the forsworn king guy easy enough. He wanted me to help him escape. So I did, by cutting his throat from ear to ear. Used his escape plan to sneak out through some conveniently connected ruins and found the Silver-Hand responsible for the whole mess waiting for me. Having sorted out his problems he paid off my debts, cleared my name and returned my gear. With an aboutface I marched right back where I came, slaughtering my way through the tunnel to kill all the forsworn scum imprisoned in the mine. Unfortunately the guards were way ahead of me, and all the prisoners were all dead by the time I got there. Satisfied by this turn of events I made my way back to the surface.

Unhealthy Drinking

2011-12-19T19:04:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Upon returning to Whiterun to stow more gear in my house, Lydia, my housecarl, was complaining about being bored so I took her with me to try retrieve the sap of some holy tree. A pilgrim called Maurice also wanted to tag along, promising he wouldn't get in the way. Well, Maurice was a liar. The very first encounter out of town and he gets himself killed by an old orc. We found the magical sap anyway and upon exiting the sanctuary the night sky had a beautiful and mesmerizing aurora. It was then that I heard the roar. A blood dragon peered down at us from the night sky. I was careless.

Caught in the open I bolted to the nearest cover I could find with Lydia right behind me. Or at least I thought she was. When I reached a more defendable position she was nowhere to be seen, and the dragon was seemingly busy attacking everything else in the area. Unfortunately for it, that included a giant encampment where it decided to land. While I did get a few arrows into it this one was definitely killed by the mammoth it decided to try fight. After the battle (and stealing it's soul) I scoured the area for my companion and finally at around midday I found her severely injured in a shallow pool. She could do nothing but crawl. Picked her up and took her right back to Whiterun where I ordered her to get some rest in the house.

While there I remembered that Skjor, one of the inner circle and probably a werewolf, wanted to see me... at night. Found him alone and secluded and thought this would be the perfect time to off one more werewolf bastard. Knives in hand I snuck up behind him and stabbed hard. He went down on his knees but wasn't dead, so I did it again... and again. What the heck. He doesn't DIE. As disturbing as that is, it is more disturbing that he doesn't seem to care either, despite limping slowly now. Ok whatever. I follow him to his secret cave where he and Aela want me to drink infected blood. Ew. It's my decision he says, though he implies I have no choice. Well, whatever. Bottoms up! Maybe my demonic blood can counter th... Nope! I awaken in beast form. I test out these new found abilities and quickly find I'm not a werewolf. I'm a were-corgi. That's just great.

Beware my wrath!

Aela finds me sometime later to hit a Silverhand stronghold. Seems these guys have been busy! I was wondering where all the "wild" werewolves were. If only they talked first instead of attacking me outright (like those Redguards before) I would gladly help them out. Also it seems they managed to kill Skjor. I'd like to think it's because I weakened him earlier instead of a plot device. Aela is pissed and wants me to go recon another of their hideouts. I take the fully recovered Lydia with me and eliminate a bunch of other bandits as well, becoming a thane at Falkreath while I'm at it. No special bonuses or bodyguards there though. As an aside, I think the Jarl there is an ass. With the Silverhand plans in hand Aela then sends me to go hit what sounds like a main base. Since we are still carrying stuff to sell and all the shops closed for the night, Lydia and I decide to wait in the local tavern. After checking the local rumors we are challenged to a drinking contest by some random dude. I think it's a bad idea. Lydia thinks it will be fun. Peer pressure. Not being a drinker myself I got maybe two gulps down before totally passing out.

Skyrim's Adventure Journal

2011-12-18T23:15:00.000-08:00

Hi all! Awhile back I decided to keep a log of my thoughts and adventures while playing through the Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, and as I logged more and more it occured to me that I wanted a cleaner way of keeping track of everything. So here is my Journal post, which will contain links to each short "chapter" I write, and will be updated each time I write. :)

Obviously lots of potential spoilers ahead. Without further ado...

The Adventures of Joseph Skyrim in Skyrim!
1. Another Noob in Riverwood
2. Dragons and Death
3. 7000 steps? It was over 9000!
4. Full Moon Tango
5. Unhealthy Drinking
6. Digging too Deep
7. Joe to the Rescue
8. The Legend and the Champion
9. King and Queen
10. The Long and Winding Road
11. Triple Dragon
12. Ashes to Ashes
13. A whole lot of killing
14. The Cleansing
15. Last City on the Right
16. The Bastardly Guards of Markarth
17. Master Thief
18. Preparing for the End
19. Once a Traitor, always a Traitor
20. Alduin is a Punk
21. The War that Waited for Me
22. Gotta Catch them All

Adventures in Skyrim have concluded for now. Thank you for reading!

Full Moon Tango

2011-12-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Having completed my shout training I found myself back in Riverwood and found my old buddy Faendal who made it back from the Barrow place on his own. He seemed keen on returning to the adventuring life so off we went defeating a witch circle led by a hagraven, hunting down a troublesome giant, clearing a skeleton-filled bastian out along with their (quite tough) vampire master, helping a hunter against some spriggans, and near Falkreath even had a run in with a talking dog who followed us around for a time untill he decided to go run off somewhere.

We also tracked down a werewolf who had killed a little girl in town. He claimed to be under the influence of magic at the time, which to me is no excuse at all. The beast was tough, and had killed many other hunters prior to our arrival. It tore Faendal into pieces with its teeth and claws but was far too slow to even be a threat to me. I laughed as I fired the last arrow right into the beast's face then as it lay near death, I skinned it alive (well, it was alive when I started). It will make a nice addition to my trophy room.

The next task on the list was to eliminate another vampire high up yet another mountain in a place called the Bloodlet Throne. Ran into Golldir who I had helped previously and he decided to come with me on this task. The trek up the mountain was again a long one, going through other caves to reach higher ground. Little did I realize that guarding the place was a large blood dragon. We engaged the beast in combat and early in the piece the monster grabbed the hapless Golldir in its maw, chomped down hard, then tossed him off the mountain cliff to certain death.

I avenged him, eating the dragon's soul then continued alone to the vampire's lair. Fortunately, despite the numerous blood suckers present none of them even saw me coming. My primary target had it worst as I plunged both my daggers into his back, breaking his spine into three with one hit. After looting the place dry I headed back down to warmer climates. Never did find where Golldir landed though.

Was disappointed this wasn't at the Bloodlet Throne. :P

7000 steps? It was over 9000!

2011-12-18T14:42:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Met two Redguards who asked for help hunting a fugitive in Whiterun today. After locating her I was still unsure whose side I would help as everyone involved was being vague. Decided to find those Redguards again and ask for more information but was side tracked by a bandit cave. My new housecarl Lydia proved her sword prowess as we cleared them out easily. To our surprise we encountered a small Redguard group hiding out at the very back and their leader knowing instantly he was in deep poo when I walked in called for a truce. Apparently the fugitive is a traitor and reading between the lines, cost more than a few lives. I've had experiences with traitorous scum before, and when we got back to the city I was more than happy to help them arrest that manipulative bitch.

At this point I found I was carrying too much stuff that people didn't have gold to buy, and that I didn't particularly want to just discard so I bought a cozy little house in Whiterun for around 8000 gold for storage. Given my healthy distrust of the Whiterun guards (not to mention a bunch of werewolves living there) I left Lydia to keep an eye on things while I hired Jenassa the bandit turned adventurer to accompany me to see the old dudes who summoned me to the top of a mountain. Her talents were tested right away when we came across another dragon attacking one of the outlying farms, and she proved her worth when she landed the killing strike.

The journey was long though, and one bandit camp (whose leader was smashed away by a giant) and a troll later we reached the entrance to a tomb where a cowardly warrior named Golldir asked for assistance dealing with a necromancer who was doing all sorts of things with his dead relatives. We accepted ofcourse and the undead had no chance between the three of us, however the necromancer managed to slay Jenassa in the final chamber firing an ice bolt through her chest, and with Golldir staying to fix up the mess I caused I was left to continue the pilgrimage up to High Hrothgar on my own.

The hike up the mountain was ardous, and one knife duel with a bandit on a log later I reached Ivarstead in pouring and oppresive rain. This was the "start" of the 7000 step pilgrimage up the mountain, but there were people in town needing aid so after sorting out their problems I continued the hike up, encountering a hilarous suicidal wolf before finally reaching the monastery near the snowy peak. Once inside, the old dudes began my training which, while really cool, only lasted around 10 minutes and pretty much consisted of yelling. Ironic that most of them have a vow of silence.

I asked what the best shout for a dragon was.

Dragons and Death

2011-12-14T15:59:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Before heading out with the Whiterun troops to examine this dragon sighting I decided to do a bit of preparation by cooking a whole bunch of food from freely available ingredients and mixing random potions. Also met Uthgerd the Unbroken, a hard woman who was pushing for some fisticuffs so I obliged. She certainly was tougher than the lady blacksmith but maybe that's because she was wearing full plate armor. Regardless, I put her in her place and she offered to join me in my travels, an offer I accepted thinking that she would be a good addition for dragon fighting. How wrong I was.

We had only reached the outer gate of the city where I was chatting to some travelling Khajiit when a bunch of three thugs attacked. She maybe swung her sword twice before they had her bent over begging for mercy. Unbroken my foot. So it was up to me and my trusty bow and knives to handle them. The fight led us back towards the Whiterun guards who seemed to be enjoying the whole spectacle and refused to take part. Uthgerd would occasionally try to hit them in the back when she wasn't pissing her leggings in fear and pleading for her life but they'd just knock her down with a dismissive swipe, much like one swatting a mosquito. Not being able to stand the patheticness of this so called proud and unbroken woman, I made sure she died in the battle. After searching the thugs I also discovered who hired them... the Whiterun guards themselves! No wonder they stood idly by, those bastards...

With a new found distrust of these people I stripped all the dead and lugged their gear back to the shop for selling. Also picked up the warrior Farkas to take Uthgerd's place. Seems he wants us to go somewhere to collect an artifact. I wonder if that will involve punching women too? Seems to be a trend in this place. No matter, we took a slight detour to meet up with the detachment of Whiterun troops to check out this dragon. And by detachment I mean six people. The tower is in ruins and before long the dragon MewMew returns! Ok, that wasn't it's name but I'll be damned if I can remember it. A very awesome battle commences, with fire and arrows everywhere. Farkas seems to be able to take the flame to the face quite well. Soon enough the dragon is slain. 50% surival rate. Not bad. Apparently I ate it's soul too. Now those traitorous guards think I'm something special. Hopefully that'll stop them sending hitmen after me.

Artist's rendition of the battle at West Tower against MewMew! :P

While the rest of them returned to base I continued on to the lair of the Dustmen with Farkas which was where he wanted to go in the first place. Figured I owed him for taking dragonfire to his face. Seems that four undead things are too much for him though and just in the opening room he is being knocked around like a pansy. Up to ye olde Skyrim (me, not the region) to save the day. At least Farkas doesn't beg, but I am concerned that I can't get him to carry stuff. Something's not quite right with him...

He's a werewolf!? That explains taking dragonfire to the face, but a werewolf? I am torn. Werewolves are scum and they ALL need to be put down.Worse, a bunch of his group back in Whiterun are monsters too. I'm collecting the silver swords off these dead wolf hunters because I think I'm going to need them. I really should backstab him now to stop him spreading his disease, but he hasn't done anything blatantly evil yet. Goddamnit. Fine we'll see how this pans out. A whole bunch of killing later we're out with whatever artifact in hand. I'm not really paying attention since I'm keeping an eye on this wolf bastard, just waiting for him to turn on me but he doesn't. Back at Whiterun his group welcome me as a fledging member and Farkas leaves my company. Good, now I know which ones I need to take out. The old dude confirms it. Somehow they've kept it secret too. We'll see about that.

Went up to the Jarl bossman who congratulates me for killing the dragon. He then tells me I'm being summoned somewhere and gives me a title and a new female bodyguard. That's great. Hey Jarl bossman did you know you have a werewolf infestation in your city? Unfortunately that line of conversation does not exist. Seems I'll have to take care of them myself. As usual.

Another Noob in Riverwood

2011-12-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

Hi all! Decided to record my thoughts and experiences while playing Skyrim, so while not being proper updates, I thought they could be an entertaining read for anyone that actually stumbles in here. ;p Possible spoilers ahead! You can also follow the whole story here!

Woke up and was about to be executed. Bad start to any day. Got away thanks to some winged intervention and extra pleased I got to stab the female empire officer who had me lined up to die (for no good reason other than my name being the same as this region I might add) during the escape. Fellow escapee Ralof led me to Riverwood and after a day of talking to the townsfolk I decided to hike up to the scary Barrow place to kill some bandits with Faendal the elf. He owed me for helping him score and showed me a thing or two about marksmanship on the way. Apparently he also likes dressing up. None of the dungeon denizens proved to be challenging (even on master level), and both of us made it out just fine. Well, at least I did. Faendal didn't want to exit with me so we split up to find our own ways back. Didn't see him back in Riverwood, either I beat him there or he has run off with half the loot from the expedition. Either way people seem to want me to head to Whiterun next.

Encountered my first giants and mammoths after journeying North past the mountain. Managed to swipe some of their stuff too while they weren't looking. They seem docile enough though... why would anyone want to fight them? Seems my answer was at a nearby farm. Three hooligans were trying to take one down, and were successful too. They're mercs apparently. Famed in these parts? Followed them back to Whiterun which really IS quite hard to miss. Lots of people and things to see. Found the merc's base and they seem friendly enough for the kill for money type. They are accepting recruits so I signed up to see what makes em tick. If they're evil scum it's always easier to stab them in the back anyway. Afterall, in my perfect world the only -evil- thing that should exist is me.

First assignment is to beat up the nice female blacksmith. They're paid to hit women? I'm disliking them even more now. Snuck into her house in the dead of night to try sort things out. Seems she wants to fist fight. Her husband/partner just stands by and cheers. Too bad for her I'm simply more skilled in the dance. She's learned her lesson and my non-respect for her "friend", the one that stood by and cheered as I smacked her around, has turned to disgust instead.

Anyway, went and talked to the Jarl bossman who wanted me to get some sort of stone from that Barrow place. You mean this stone? He and his wizard are impressed. Speaking of Dragons, one's been sighted nearby and he has asked me to go assist his troops recon the site. Should be an interesting expedition I think.

Skyrim now has Skyrim

2011-12-11T04:19:00.000-08:00

Big thanks to my big brother and sister in law for getting me the latest Elder Scrolls game that happens to have my name on it! :P Still in the download stage of this early Christmas present and potential Mabinogi killer (for a few months anyway). I'll need to get some time scheduling organized so I can continue work on DRM:EOTE (altered from FOTE) which I've begun drawing. It's gonna take awhile, even if I dedicated all my time to it, and with Christmas coming up that will be unlikely.

Put up two more links on the top right too, one for my other brother who is leading up his student team in making their final project: Omega Guardian, and a commercial I made for an event in Mabi awhile back. Figured I put in the effort so why not show it (and my poor russian accent) off? ;)

Also had a random encounter jogging through the fire trail today as I encountered three monitor lizards (that I could see, lots of brush noises that could have been more). Big thingies (length wise), kinda cute too. Didn't want to get too close to those tree climbing claws though.

Project Status:
Christmas Shopping - 70% (most need wrapping yet)
Mom's magic book - 5%
DRM:EoTE - 5.5%
DRM:O - 2% (onto ye backburner)
COTE (book) - 0%

Crysis before Christmas

2011-12-04T04:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Juris who got me the Crysis pack awhile back, I just played through the original Crysis in 4 days. Very awesome game, but I'm slightly disappointed it was so easy even on the hardest mode. I find that's what usually happens in shooters that have auto regeneration / shields. Are the gamers of today so unskilled that they need such a feature? Sure it keeps the action going, but it also makes the game shorter.

I much prefer the SWAT mechanic where you get shot, tough luck. You're shot. No healing. If your arm is hit, your aim is dodgy while a bullet in your leg makes you much slower and there's NOTHING you can do about it. Really wish more shooters would do that. Anywho, Crysis: Warhead is up next. Maybe that will have something that will actually be challenging for me. Guess shooting all those zombies and playing the ultra real war shooters such as Dragon Rising increased my skill somewhat.

In other news, I checked out the google sites area to see how user friendly making a web page would be. Looks ok but I think I'm better off here. Less hassle for updates means more chance of me updating. :P Also worked more on CKT2KM, the experimental flash thing and could not get the -why-. It was heading towards a mundane archaic finish which would not have been satisfying for anyone involved so in my typical fashion I've abandoned that project. I am thinking of scouting out this GameMaker 8 program too, I have one of the much earlier versions of it and remember it was cool but not so sure yet till I see into it's core.

What to work on next? Probably Christmas shopping tops the list, followed by Mom's magic book. Ironically Mabi has recently been having lag issues and not been so fun to play so I may actually get some stuff done.

Lastly I watched Undisputed II tonight. Good action film! Not quite on par with the third installment but I'm definitely a Scott Adkins fan now. He even kicks butt in Assassination Games, though not as much since he has to go halves with Van Damme. :P And if action is not your thing, how about some piano music - or failing that... some crazy funny cats and dictators? :)

Project Status:
Christmas Shopping - 1% (big list :P)
Mom's magic book - 5%
DRM:FoTE - 5% (planned)
DRM:O - 2% (planning, switched from BP idea to be DRM related)
FR - 1% (backburner for now)
COTE (book) - 0%
CKT2KM - (canned)

Poor Nervous Sloth

2011-11-21T01:51:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that's me. Getting totally caned by Sloth in the form of high level stress. :( So much so that I've not even gotten the game with my namesake yet. So, what's causing all of it? Well, I just bought a house! Woohoo! :D *PANIC! STRESS!*

Paperwork, deadlines and large amounts of money are not a good combination. We'll only be getting the keys early next year if all goes according to plan. *crosses fingers* In the meantime, I think I'm going to go lie down. x.x

Old and New

2011-11-03T01:34:00.000-07:00

Seems my productivity levels have dropped off entirely as of late, I just cannot seem to find the "groove" that seems so easy for others to find. Still managed to pull off a few Mabi contest related things, but I'm beginning to wonder if it is worth my time doing them.

Yes, for the second one I was trying to make her look 10 years old. Didn't seem to turn out correctly. x_x

Also I recently visited one of my old Ultima haunting grounds: Shadowcove, where I was saddened to learn about the death of one of my friends there. I never met Tony Barnett in real, but his passing still upset me - someone who lives on the opposite end of the globe. Who says you can't make worthwhile connections through online gaming. Anyway, while I was there I grabbed some of my old stuff as a keepsake.

Speaking of MMORPGs, my brother is keeping an eye out for one that our guild can all get back into and his latest one is Fallen Earth. In its post apocalyptic future setting, you can run around, build guns and motorbikes and do the usual quest stuffs. Oh an every player is a "clone". That's how they explain getting revived in the game, as the last part of the tutorial mission requires your death. Its an interesting concept with heavily borrowed themes from Fallout but once you make it out into the massive world, it seems very lackluster, and lacking in people. Also it has the annoying feature that a few other games share, and that is putting all the text you *hear* into a chat log at the bottom left hand side. For me that's very amateur. Heck, UO and Mabi can put speech bubbles above the character who is speaking, why the hell can't all these ones do it? Its pretty much for the same reason I ditched D&D Online.

I guess that means we need something that fits 3 criteria now: Available world wide, free, and has speech bubbles. Ah well the search goes on. I've put a relevant and cool song on that last link, you really should have a listen (I bought the track). :)

I've added links (on the top right) to things I mentioned in earlier postings so that they can easily be found again and changed my mind about not listing the projects I'm not working on as that would just lead me to forget them at this rate. I've gotten rid of the generic name and replaced it with the initialized name that I plan to call them. You may even be able to guess what some of them are now. :P

Hmm I seem to be running out of webspace as well, probably need to sort that out shortly. Lastly, an old friend of mine has released a new game: Zombie Life! You should go check it out and his other stuff at the Playforge. :)

Lastly I watched "Undisputed 3: Redemption" recently and it is AWESOME. Solid fighting, plenty of feats of human ability, and a pretty decent plot to boot. I highly recommend it to any martial arts or action movie fans.

Project Status:
CKT2KM (flash) - 14%
COTE (book) - 0%
Mom's magic book - 5%
DRM:FoTE (flash) - 5% (planned)
FR (flash) - 1% (base idea is there)
BP (flash) - 0% (rough idea only)
Mabinogi: Labu Art comp: 100% (done)
Mabinogi: CyberEvent make your own race: 100% (done)

Piano Zombie

2011-10-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

Mabinogi sure has me in its clutches again as the next storyline arc (G15) is set to release in the next week or so, so I'm busy preparing gear for that in game. Also been hitting L4D2 with my guildies a fair bit trying to get through the campaign on expert mode (again) for one of my brother's lost achievements. It's great fun even if we only have managed to clear Dead Center so far. Infact my only gripe with it is the constant updates. It's great they keep updating the game. Not so great that I cannot play it if I don't update to their dictated patch. It's like they assume everyone has unlimited downloads or something. :(

Anyways I did manage to finish my sig entry, and just for kicks I'm putting a piece I did a few months back during the reneissance comp up here too. Other than that I've been busy learning piano pieces but not much else in the productivity track. Mr. Jobs' ghost would probably be upset with me. :(

Speaking of piano stuff, here is one of my favourite pianists - Arcadi Volodos.

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 14% (Coloured in some BGs)
Mysterious book - 0% (oh yeah, I was meant to be restarting? :P)
Mabinogi: Forum Signature comp: 100%
Mabinogi: Labu Art comp: 75% (just need to fix some shading and add a BG)
Mom's magic book - 0% (just data-entry, but I'm putting it here to remind myself to do it)

All over the place

2011-09-27T01:24:00.000-07:00

Whoa, I totally missed the update last week in more ways than one. Moving office is tiring... Ofcourse this means I am again behind in where I had hoped to be which is annoying but I've no one to blame but myself. This week I finished colouring the bad guys for flash game #1, next up is backgrounds then AI/gameplay I think. Still managed to pull off two more Mabinogi drawings too, and I am planning to participate in another Mabi-related comp in the next week or so:

As a reward for the second one I received the cutest version of my character ever (drawn by Emeris)! :P

Seems everyone on Mabinogi NA is getting premium service for the next month or so as well so hopefully this means my guild can finally setup a stone in-game somewhere. I don't think I've spoken much about my guild here have I? Well, we are a small group called Dragonarm and we traverse many games. You can find out a bit more in an old interactive movie I did here - Dragonarm: Chapter 1. :)

Also, if you enjoy Neverwinter Nights my brother made this campaign for our guild but it's free for anyone to download and play. Be warned it is designed to be played in a (large) group and uses the hardcore ruleset. Porting in a high level character to solo is possible but could be frustrating if you use a mage as it isn't geared for that.

As for the mysterious book I'm considering trashing what little work I've put into it and starting again (changing first POV character). Sigh.

Lastly, Junior Masterchef has started up showcasing another load of talented kids in the kitchen! It's really good stuff. For those who feel this isn't mature enough for their tastes may enjoy this hilarious Nigella Lawson mix instead (warning: not for kiddies :P).

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 13% (enemies all coloured)
Mysterious book - 0% (restarting)
Mabinogi: Forum Signature comp -due Oct 8th: 1% (have an idea, need to study reference)
Mabinogi: Keenejl art comp -due Oct 20th: 100%
Mabinogi: Emeris silly sprite -100%

Artistic Deviation

2011-09-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

Managed to pull off two Mabinogi related works this week, unfortunately the Mighty Mugg one is not one of them. Simply didn't have enough time nor motivation to win the chance to "build" a mighty mugg. Especially as I'm trying to concentrate on flash-based art where as that one specifically was looking for real world works.

Both pieces were for player-run things and I used them as exercises in changing the cutesy anime style of Mabinogi into "altered" versions.

Really happy with how the second one turned out, especially as it was a last minute thing I decided to do. Also worked on Flash Game #1 briefly, but still no word from Mike at Newgrounds about API's for flash 5 which is a bummer. Must follow that up this week. I intend to hammer out game #1 to at least half way by next week because it's really getting in the way of the second one I have in mind. :P

The mysterious book laughs at me again, as instead of having any progress I've been playing Left 4 Dead 2 with my brothers. Incredibly fun game. I wonder how Dead Island compares to it? I'm sure Juris (one of my guildies) is finding out right now.

Speaking of artistic deviations, what about Scarlett Johansson ey? The incredibly stunning actress has been in the news recently as she has supposedly set the FBI to track down whoever it was that hacked her phone as she doesn't want you to see her "comprimising" pictures. Ironically, the majority of people now looking for said photos would not be doing so had that article not been published in the news. Also, I would be more concerned with what other data could have been pulled from the phone. Pictures are a good distraction, but birthdays, addresses, private messages and the like are more useful to creative minds.

Were you looking for a link to those leaked Scarlett Johansson photos? Try google. :P

Tribute to Equilibrium

2011-09-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

Alright! Using a trial version of a later flash I've managed to upload my "Tribute to Equilibrium" movie up on Newgrounds where it is doing around about as well as I suspected it would. I've PM'ed Mike over there who is working on a mini-ad thing that should hopefully work on Flash 5 but we'll have to wait and see how that turns out.

Why Equilibrium? Well, because I liked it! It's certainly my type of movie - a solid story with a good amount of action and a high body count. It helps that Batman (Christian Bale) and Ned Stark (Sean Bean) are in it too. There's also a really adorable puppy. If you haven't seen it yet then I highly recommend it. ^_^

Also in other fan-based things, there are two on youtube that I found very well done - Portal: No Escape, and Fallout: Nuka Break.

I'm continuing to work with Flash 5 while looking out for anything that remotely supports AS2 - seems Flash MX 2004 is the closest but it's not longer available from Adobe. I did see they have a semi affordable "subscription" version of the latest flash, but that means I should really have all my stuff (or a bunch of stuff) done ahead of time since I only want it for the AS2+ component. I'm just hoping porting AS1 stuff to AS2+ is not time consuming. Also was researching Bandcamp a bit, as it may be a good place to put up some of my music later on. :)

Lastly, the mysterious book now has one page. At this rate, its going to take forever!

I guess it doesn't help that I've been concentrating on Mabinogi this week, training up my brother's dragon. :P Which reminds me, there are two art comps over there that I should really participate in too. Really need to get back into creative mode in the next few days!

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 9% (no change, was lazy this week :P)
Mysterious book - 1% (going slowly, now I have one page)
Salvage mission 2: "Equilibrium" - 100% (Done and up on NewGrounds)
Mabinogi: Mighty Mugg Contest -due 13th Sep: 0%
Mabinogi: Fan Contest -due 18th Sep: 2% (have an idea of what I'm gonna do)

Bumps in the Road

2011-09-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

Focused on the salvage missions this week; unfortunately I could not find the source fla for my "Hellsing: The Anderson Alternative" clip that I did ages ago for my old Hellsing Crucifix site, so for now I am cancelling it back into the void. I did have better luck with Equilibrium though as I still had the source for that. I figured it would be a good test of the Newgrounds CPMstar API as that is the only one I have found that you can put with movies but was severely disappointed when I found that it is not compatible with Flash 5 (more specifically, AS1). Due to this I've held off on uploading it until I get my hands on a later version where I can plug it in. I think there are later trial versions I can download but that's going to be a once off thing. :(

The mysterious book now has a 3 paragraph prologue as it continues to laugh at me. :P

Lastly I did a mini-project to make a sig for one of my guildmates, Niamh!
Turned out quite nicely I think... :)

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 9% (few backgrounds props drawn)
Mysterious book - 1% (woo, 3 paragraphs? Lol)
Salvage mission 1: "Hellsing" - cancelled (fla lost)
Salvage mission 2: "Equilibrium" - 95% (all set, but need to upgrade base flash to test API stuff)

Weak One

2011-08-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

One week has gone by and I think I've only spent 2-3 hrs on flash game #1 which is a very weak performance on my part, largely thanks to learning more piano pieces and taking advantage of the recent events in Mabinogi. 5x EXP = 5 days of playing condensed into 1! I suspect I'll be a thrall to it's whims while it lasts... :P

Most of my focus will be on "flash game #1" which should end up to be a pretty small and wierd game. To that end I'll ditch the other two from the status list for now since they're not going to be changing till #1 is out of the way. I'm also tossing up the idea of salvaging some of my old flash movies and trying to monetise them somehow, if that's even possible. Would be great if I can as all the work is already in there, or possibly a compilation work of the best bits or something but I'll have to see how that goes. Unfortunately most monetising stuff I've looked at is aimed specifically at games. Also, I would need to add new sounds to the ones I have in mind either way.

Lastly, the mysterious book laughs at my futile attempts at starting a prologue. -_-

Apologies to anyone who stumbled across this page looking for flash stuff as I have none yet to offer, but I'd like so recommend Astromiau, or the mainsite of Vinnie Veritas (aka Kite-Ride). He makes a lot of Frame by Frame movies which are great to watch in any language. :)

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 8% (most main chars animations done)
Mysterious book - 1% (no change)
Salvage mission: Hellsing - 0% (need to find fla, add sounds and music, possibly fix some stuff)
Salvage mission: Equilibrium - 25% (found fla, just need to find free music for it and alter credits a bit)

Repurposing - Not so Random anymore

2011-08-18T03:48:00.000-07:00

Rather than continue with the "review" type site as my previous posts were leaning towards, I think I'm better off time-wise (both mine and yours :P) in using this as more like a creative journal. Hopefully it will also encourage me to be more productive!

So, just what thingies have I got in mind? At the moment a book and a few flash games, all of which are just distant goals in the horizon at the moment. The main difference to the other stuff I've made before is I'm actually going to try earn money from these, and I'm going to track how well or how poorly each attempt goes. Why these mediums? Generally my flash stuff always gets positive feedback and my forays into writing have won me little prizes here and there on the various MMO's I've been on, so I'm interested to see how well it does in the "real" world.

They're mostly planned out and really just need me to get on and doing them! At least I've got a logo for the flash stuff.

Yeah, well - it's better than nothing. :P

I'll be with-holding the actual titles until they are closer to completion, simply because I may decide to change them later on... and I like secrets! ^_^

Project Status:
Mysterious book - 1% (planned)
Flash game #1 - non DRM related. Small - 2% (planned - and now I have a logo. Ho ho ho. :P)
Flash game #2 - DRM related. Largish? - 2% (planned)
Flash game #3 - mysterious, even to me :P - 0% (rough idea only)

Wandering a Nuclear Wasteland

2011-08-10T02:51:00.000-07:00

Fallout in Vegas? What a stupid idea! That was my initial reaction when I first heard about it, despite me truly adoring Fallout 3 and all of its DLCs. However after receiving it after my birthday I soon found myself well and truly sucked in, so much so that my Mabinogi adventures went on the backburner for awhile - with a pet thunder dragon card waiting to be used! After one month of the wastes, I'm glad to say I've come out alive, though towards the end there I was going a bit nuts with the to and fro quests.

While the main quest line can probably be finished in a few nights, the abundance of side quests and locations to discover really got me hiking all over the Mojave, which was the part I loved. In general the surroundings seemed less hostile that Fallout 3 (even in the most difficult setting with hardcode mode turned on), which was a bit disappointing - save for some deathclaw infested areas and hidden boss caves. Everything else was pretty much ok and entertaining enough, but I wasn't as invested in the protagonist is this one (who is a courier that finds him or herself taking a central role in a large scale upcoming war) as opposed to the Vault dweller from Fallout 3 who leaves the vault to find his or her dad. One of my friends described it perfectly - New Vegas is like a big expansion to Fallout 3. It doesn't really build on anything gameplay wise.

The Honest Hearts DLC is even more of the same, centered in Zion valley where no nukes hit it becomes very cowboys and indians and that whole sense of post-apocalypse is almost removed entirely. When I went through it, it was also bloody easy with only one yao guai boss causing me any problems. It also features a pretty big opportunity to stuff the whole thing up right at the start, when I accidentally started shooting someone who is mandatory to the storyline. At least there are nice scenic views, and a mini collectible story in some some of the caves which is very interesting but all in all it's a pretty weak DLC.

Dead Money however, for me is -right- on the money. This story driven adventure has the best written characters, scary opponents and a real sense of dread and foreboding throughout. There are instakill devices and traps a plenty, and with the very air you breathe slowly killing you - you cannot afford to be too cautious. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I loved it, so much more than the base Fallout New Vegas game and is actually the highlight of the entire experience for me.

Not Hot enough being a Yahoo

2011-08-10T02:48:00.001-07:00

Having an email account in both Hotmail and Yahoo for awhile now it has become abundantly clear over my years of continued usage that one is simply much superior to the other. Your opinions may vary but since I exclusively use them for one thing only (being EMAILS), the winner is...

Hotmail!

Why? Well, lets look at my judging criteria.

-Ease of use (tie) - They're both good at this. Though they both released new layouts recently which kinda threw me for a bit.

-Security (tie) - again, both pretty good. The weakness of passwords is always the users themselves.

-Adding attachments (hotmail wins) - Yahoo failed to attach a 4MB file after 30 minutes of trying to do so. Hotmail did it in under 5 minutes. Sure, yahoo may be trying to scan it as it uploads to the message but at the expense of -MY- time? I don't think so.

-Viewing attachments (hotmail wins) - Again, yahoo likes scanning stuff before displaying it to you. This is nice in theory, but can get really aggravating when you have a number you want to view. Nowhere near as bad as uploading them though.

-Login Page (hotmail wins) - Go to hotmail and you get a simple login page come up quick. Login, and you are taken to your email. Log out and you are taken to a sponsor page. Go to yahoo, and you get a full news page, search engine and have to follow a little link in the top right to actually login. Once you login, you are put BACK on that busy page and have to click again to actually get into your email. Those features are really good, UNLESS YOU USE IT PURELY FOR EMAIL.

In closing, if you are looking for pure email functionality and are choosing between these two, pick hotmail and save yourself some headaches and some time.

Jumping into Haystacks

2011-07-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

More commonly known as the game series "Assassin's Creed", the player is put into the shoes of said assassins Altair, Ezio and Desmond - who is actually the main hero of the story but who you spend the least time playing (so far anyway). In the games I've played (the original AC, AC2, and AC Brotherhood) there is a lot of killing, a lot of violence, and a fair number of cleverly positioned haystacks.

Each game features an "open world" which lets the character run, climb and jump around pretty much wherever he feels like - and the scenery is absolutely gorgeous! This combined with a pretty engaging story line ensures that you will probably stop playing each session at least 30 minutes to 1 hour later than intended! :P Ubisoft really milk the open world mechanic too by having side missions galore, some of which tie in strongly to the story while others are more non-sensical, like collecting flags and feathers or beating up evil jesters... but hey, this is a world where you can cut people's throats with brooms, buy various murdering tools from Da Vinci, and survive a drop of any height as long as there is a haystack to catch you where you fall.

While this cuts into the realism a little bit (which is funny since most of it is essentially a Virtual Reality simulator), it doesn't make it any less fun. Combat is fast and wonderfully animated, and there are enough various guards to keep you "slightly" on your toes. This is perhaps my only gripe about the game. Your character, even at his weakest, is way too damn strong. There is not one fight or opponent who really poses any challenge and while there is an "incognito" mechanic in place, its really not necessary as you can walk about with your sword drawn and openly asking for the guards to come die at your hands. This also makes the missions where you must "sneak and not be detected" somewhat more frustrating than they should be as while logically the objective seems sound, in your head you are wondering why you need to sneak past 10 guys when you just killed 500 effortlessly while strolling up here?

In the Thief series, Garrett had the potential to be very deadly if you played him that way - but the tension was there because you knew that if it came down to sword play, you would often lose. In Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bats is a very dangerous close quarters/sneak attack specialist but when you come across the crazies with the guns you knew you had to be careful or meet a sudden loud and lead-filled end. That sort of tension doesn't exist in Assassin's Creed which is a shame, but it more than makes up for it with the sheer fun it offers.

Multiplayer on the otherhand, is extremely tense and fun! Though I think I only killed one guy once and got murdered 10 times in my last round, the idea that you can only kill one target of whom you have a -vague- idea of their location while trying to elude an unknown amount of pursuers is awesome. Hiding in plain sight has never been executed so well in a pvp environment I think, and given that I don't really like PvP but I like this should speak volumes. :)

---

As an aside, no silly pictures for this posting as I'm planning to get another flash thing up and running and am saving all my skills for that. I'll let you know how that turns out. :P

It's all about the cooking!

2011-06-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

There are very few "reality" shows I get into, and Masterchef Australia is one of them. This is really strange since I don't cook at all, but am slowly being encouraged to try. Prior to watching it, I didn't know who Heston Bummenthal was, nor Nigella Lawson, Tetsuya, Adriano Zumbo, Matt Moran, Gary Mehigan, George Calmobaris and certainly not Matt Preston among a host of other names. I didn't know that there are people who can hold hot pieces of iron and meat straight from the oven with their bare hands, or that something called a croquembouche was a desert. I didn't know what the terms molecular gastronomy, shucking, and caramelisation meant. I didn't know there were an almost infinite amount of ways to prepare food, and that there were crazy chefs who worked out things that needed to be cooked then baked then frozen then cooked again then fried - what the hell man, was that just trial and error? O_O

And then came Masterchef Australia. A spin-off of the original Masterchef UK (some of which I also watch now), the Australian version focuses quite a bit more on the amateur cooks themselves rather than the cooking. This makes it somewhat less impressive for foodies sure, but I think grabs quite a few more of the non-cooking demographic like myself. The format is ye olde contestants facing a variety of challenges which sees them depart one at a time and the last one standing wins. It's a formula that seems to be working too, as it is now in the 3rd season of the show, with a very awesome Junior Masterchef season thrown somewhere in the mix as well. It also airs 6 nights a week during primetime which gives you an idea of how much pull this "little cooking show" has.

While there certainly is a lot of cooking - there's quite a bit of this too:

If you haven't seen any of it yet, you can find all their episodes online on the main MasterChef Australia site.

Just as amusing as the show itself are the forums that recap it daily, giving their own (usually hilarious) spin on the transpiring events. The two I visit most often are Reality Ravings and Shuckittome. Definitely something to have a little taste of if you haven't already! ;)

MMORPG Korean Anime Heroes in Celtic Shakespearean Fantasy!

2011-06-17T03:28:00.000-07:00

If that title elicited a "wtf" response from you, then you probably have never played Mabinogi. Developed by DevCat (Korea), this games sees players as cute, simple anime-styled characters which is very different to the crips character rendering of a game like Rappelz or even World of Warcraft. However if this doesn't bother you, this little gem offers loads of content and a dazzling amount of things to do with ever expanding content. While the main story arcs dealt with a very loose transtlation of celtic mythology, recent adventures have found players reliving parts of Shakespearean plays! If that sounds too wierd for you, don't worry - there's lots of other things to do! :P

Perhaps my biggest gripe about Mabinogi is that servers are separated by world regions. So while there are servers for Korea, Japan, China (I think), North America (where I play) and most recently Europe - you are restricted on where you can play which means my guildmates in London and Switzerland cannot join me on Mabinogi NA nor can I join them on Mabinogi EU - at least not without the use and hassle of 3rd party products.

Like a number of other MMORPG's while majority of the content is free, there is a "cash shop" where you can spend real money on some exclusive items, additional character cards, and uberly cute pets. All the storylines and quests ARE freely available though so if you can get by without a mount, a house in a city (you can have a house on your private estate though), and little gems that can summon a well endowed magic girl to ressurect you (these become handy later on), you can play through all of the content for free.

If you decide to try it out (on Mabinogi NA at least) I strongly suggest making a human character as your base, as you can get one free elf and one free giant when you reach their cities later on. You will want to visit and research skills on Mabinogi Wiki too, as there are interesting quirks to ranking them up. Also the skills need to be practiced enough times before you are qualified to gain rank in them. Sword mastery for example may dictate you need to kill one hundred awful creatures and one boss monster before you can rank it up, and what determines what exactly are awful and boss monsters is your own level. In the example I just gave, a brand new player may only have to kill 100 wolves and 1 bear to complete that, whereas a level 1000 player would be looking at 100 demons and 1 dragon to achieve the same requirement.

"Level 1000!?" I hear you exclaim. Yup, and those are the mid-level players like me. The true vets are around level 4000 in my server cluster. I'm sure there are those in Korea who are OVER 9000! What then can pose you a threat when you have all those zeroes in your level count? Everything, and at the same time - nothing. That's because of the combat system present in game which I absolutely love. It's a rock paper scissors affair where using the wrong skill or mis-timing your strike often leads to a lot of ouchies heading your way.

As an example Your normal attack can be deflected with defense, but if you know that's what your foe is doing you can use a heavy hit and smash through instead. However if you used the heavy hit and your enemy goes for a standard attack, you will be the one taking damage as the standard hit swings faster. Throw in around fifty more battle related skills and you get the idea. Much more fun than the "use special 1", then "use special 2" while special 1 cools down employed in many other MMORPGs.

This means that having skilled characters just means they can dish out and take more damage, but a low level character in the hands of a skilled player with enough potions to keep his stamina (and/or mana) up can beat the same level of opponents, just at a slower pace. Ofcourse this means lag favours the monsters and you will have to read your foes and time your actions well. :P

There are almost as many non-combat skills available too, such as fishing, cooking, tailoring, blacksmithing, refining, alchemy, handicraft, carpentry, etc. Some have their own fun mini-games to complete and special events (on Mabi NA at least) seem to run every fortnight, making sure that people don't run out of things to do. Some people even ignore all of this and just use it as a glorified chat server or just collect pets!

If you want to give it a try, Mabinogi is free to play. Just google it up for your region. If you happen to join Mabinogi NA and pick the Ruairi server, you may run into Josephsky - thats me! ^_^

Lost in the company of zombies

2011-06-09T04:58:00.000-07:00

Usually when you play a first person shooter, you envision your character to be some sort of youthful to middle-aged, fit soldier or explorer type. Not so in Necrovision: Lost Company. This game puts you in the shoes of Jonas Zimmerman, a somewhat psychotic aged german scientist during WWI. This doesn't stop him from kicking ass though - not in the least! Being old doesn't mean you can't run around with 2 pistols, 3 rifles, 1 shotgun, 1 SMG, 1 BAR, 3 HMGs, 5 grenades, 5 bayonetts, a gasmask, and a club or shovel for starters. He can also literally "kick" on top of all that!

Yes. Apparently there was some wierd sh!t going on in WWI.

Also, not Jonas Zimmerman.

Partially due to a plague he created, zombies and possessed men now wander around and pose the bulk of your main opponents in the game, with more horrors further in. Their AI is not that great (they ARE zombies afterall) but they come at you in large waves. Despite being a "horror-shooter", there are few "BOO!" scares and most of the horror simply comes from being surrounded by scum most of the time. And that's what makes it fun!

The combat is fastpaced and enemies numerous, giving you ample opportunity to use all of the gear the good doctor can carry with him. There's also a fun dual wield system where you can mix and match which two one-handed items you will use simultaneously. You also have an adrenaline meter which fills as you kill foes and can be used to slow time (for a very brief period) and performing specific enemy-killing combos refills this meter faster.

On top of the main story you will be unlocking extra challenge maps as you progress, and they really all are quite difficult timed tasks with some very worthwhile rewards if you can beat them. Unfortunately multiplayer wise only has the standard set of PvP options with no coop at all. I also highly recommend a three button mouse (or one with a rollerbutton) if you don't have one as you will want the middle "melee" attack on the last stages of the game.

I went through single-player on the hardest difficulty which does not let you save the game (there are checkpoints though), and got through it in four nights. Players with experience from other shooters will probably want to do the same as I found it just challenging enough without being despairingly impossible in the tough parts.

While the graphics are not as crisp as they can be (compared to other shooters), they are detailed enough and I thought the sound and voice overs are well done. Control wise, the doc moves pretty smoothly around the large and well-designed maps. You get to drive around in a tank and pilot a plane too, though the plane handles very arcade-ly. All in all, despite being a far cry from Halo or Call of Duty it's a fun and decent game if you like the genre.

That Happy Cat

2011-06-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

It's not often that I browse through a manga shelf, pick up a book I've never heard of, at random, then finding myself stuck reading before finally admitting that I need to buy it right then and there. Yet that's exactly what happened when I stumbled upon "Chi's Sweet Home" (volume 1).

Chi's Sweet Home is the story of a stray kitten who winds up being taken in by a small family living in an apartment where no pets are allowed. From what I've seen that's all there is to it, and the artwork is pretty simple compared to the more popular series of Bleach or Naruto. I think even Dragonball was better illustrated, but Chi herself is fantastically cute (way moreso than my crappy fan-art attempt) and very very endearing.

The series seems to geared towards kids and cat lovers as I don't think it would even reach a PG rating. The most violence present that I've seen is Chi scratching stuff! It also and has an animated version you can find on youtube, with each "chapter" running around 5 minutes.

If you have a soft spot for cutesy things or just want to see what this is all about, I recommend watching the first two episodes on Youtube. Then you can see if Chi makes you smile too. :)

The good old days of yore: Ultima Online

2011-06-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

UO was the first MMORPG I got into and for eight years it provided the platform for many fantastic adventures and meeting both frustrating and friendly players alike from all across the globe.

Released in 1997 its eagle-eye perspective on the world and graphics are considered subpar against its more modern competitors these days, but in terms of content it had everything. Want to build a house? Ride a horse? Sail a boat and explore the seas? Tame a dragon? Be a humble farmer content at planting crop and shearing sheep? A brigand hiding on the outskirts of civilization? A carpenter who enjoys building tables while in the deepest pits of the earth surrounded by large and dangerous monsters? Sure! You can do all of that and much more!

The interface is also quite easy to use, and combat is not much more difficult. Text appears above the character who spoke it which makes it easy to stay in the action and not have to look down at a chat log that just holds all the conversations happening around you (though that function is available too). As an example, my grandfather who is over 90 years of age still plays it and enjoys his hunting trips into Destard to keep the dragon population in check. Origin was also pretty good at removing various bugs throughout the years, like the silly one below:

Furthermore, the rise of thousands of unofficial "free" shards made the game accessible to even the most peniless of school kids (like me at that time). Some of them added their own twists to the world while others tried to emulate the already numerous official servers. Being a bit of a internet cheapskate scallywag urchin I stayed on the free shards with my brothers and our guild "Dragonarm".

We ventured through lands teeming with people, some mostly filled with scum bags, others filled mostly with noble folk. Other worlds seemed to have been overrun by monsters with rarely another player to be seen. Some worlds used the many large standard maps that come with the game, others restrict it to just one or two sections, while others still do away with it all together and have their own unique landscapes. I found that generally the worlds that enforce RP (roleplaying) have less player scumbags than those that don't, and pretty much across the board death in game is a hassle as you could potentially lose all your stuff (either to looters, monsters, or decay) and ressurection is only available in select places if you don't have team mates with the appropriate skills nearby to aid you.

On one shard with strict RP, death also had the chance of being final. The more you died the more that chance increased where you would never again be among the living and would need to start a new character. That one was a bit too hard core even for my guild! :P

My grandpa, perhaps the oldest UO player at over 90 years of age!

With the client available online for those who look hard enough, there is something in it for everyone and many new friends and maybe some new foes to be met online as well. If you think this is something you'd like to try, here are the free shards that I've visited that are still standing and are good places to start:

Shadowcove - custom map, friendly folk, no PvP, no custom housing but you can buy houses in towns.

Age of Avatars - standard maps (large), lots of custom baddies, rare to run into people though so you need to know what you're doing.

DarkAge 2 - strict RP, custom map, potential for Final Death. Hardcore roleplayers only! :P

Winter is Coming

2011-06-03T05:14:00.000-07:00

Game of Thrones is a fantastic fantasy series based on "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels written by George R. R. Martin. I haven't read any of the books but I can tell you now that the series is bloody amazing. A strong cast, high production values and an intriguing story hook you in right from the first episode. For me, the first 5 minutes of the first episode. I like my spooky forests! :P

As an incredibly broad overview, seems to me there are two main plot points. The first one at the foreground is the current King seems to be completely incompetent at Kingly duties (in more ways than one) as those around him (and some further abroad) secretly (and not so secretly) maneouver for the crown. The second one being foreshadowed is somewhere in the far north supposedly some horrible beasties are waking up as winter approaches, and winter in this world can last for many many years.

While everyone, even the child actors, do a great job at their roles it is Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister "the imp" that is a great standout for me as he totally steals the show whenever he's on screen with some of the best dialogue. Also a big plus for me is that there are cute doggies.. erm, I mean dire wolves... that make an early appearance. I think my brother has one of these in his house!

Still its definitely not for everyone and is aimed strictly at an adult audience. They do not shy away from gore, adult themes, strong profanity, and in some cases soft porn. Nudity, including the full frontal kind for both male and female is present so make sure the kiddies are away or asleep before watching. Keeping track of all the characters can get a bit tough at times but if you like it that much (as I do), all the episodes are worth a rewatch or three anyway. ;)

Bargain at the Borders

2011-06-01T03:45:00.000-07:00

With my local Borders store closing down recently I managed to snag some pretty good discounts on a number of books, then went and wasted $20 during a minor unrelated accident while opening a brand new USB cable... I sort of cut through the wire while opening the packaging? *sigh* Finesse really isn't my thing. Anyway I thought I'd share my thoughts on a few of the items I got...

VAN VON HUNTER
Created by Mike Schwark & Ron Kaulfersh this comedy manga is set mostly in the fantasy style kingdom of Dikay which follows the adventures of the titular character Van Von Hunter on his quests to defeat evil stuff. I must admit I am a bit of a VVH fan having followed their online comic while it was still being updated. Sadly while their site is still there, it looks like it hasn't been updated in years.

The art is well drawn, has quite likable characters, and pretty funny jokes when they stick to their original content (a number of parodies make appearances and not all of them do so well). Story wise what I've seen runs pretty shallow but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Definitely works for light and entertaining reading aimed at the PG anime watching or manga reading audience. If you are not sure if this is for you, just browse through the pages they do have online and you will quickly find out as the books are in mostly the same vein (though I think some characters are missing between the web and manga version).

FIGHTING FANTASY BOOKS (overall)
An inbetween from the old choose your own adventure stories and D&D, these books let the reader (and the luck of the dice) decide how the story unfolds. From what I've seen they are well written and have nice illustrations every now and then. The player character has three simplified stats: "Skill" which is your character's fighting and physical prowess, "Stamina" which is your HP or life, and "Luck" which is tested often and is always running out! Other than that you have a backpack of equipment and a very good chance of having many, many unhappy endings! :P

You will really need a paper and pencil, eraser (or pen and lots of papers) and a few hours to sit through some of these. Though the 2 six sided dice aren't required I would strongly recommend them.

These are the books I have tried...

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
A good introduction to the series I thought. The monsters weren't too tough, common sense usually prevailed, and you got ample opportunity to heal up in various "rest" rooms. My main gripe with it was that the deeper part of the dungeon is a pretty complex maze that takes you around in circles, and by the time I found the exit most of the initial enjoyment I had was well and truly sapped away making what were supposed to be epic boss fights afterwards feel more like annoying "ahhh get it over with already" moments. My end result was I killed the warlock but was short one key of opening his treasure box which I felt was a just reward for an idiot whose sole purpose in entering the dungeon in the first place was greed. Its not like the warlock or any of the denizens in there were bothering anyone which kinda makes the player character the antagonist in the whole thing.

Deathtrap Dungeon
The player character being an idiot continues in this book, the premise being that some psycho decided to build this horrible place and hold a tournament to see who could be the first one to solve it and ofcourse because NO-ONE has ever escaped alive, you decide it would be an awesome idea to give it a try. :P

The dungeon itself is aptly named and a lot harder than Firetop Mountain with many sudden death areas which you can only guess your way past. As if that wasn't bad enough, the enemies in here are quite more challenging to beat and I didn't actually manage to find ANY rest points which lead to the occasional combat death too (bring the healing potion, you'll need it). The dungeon also features a very annoying dwarf who I greatly enjoyed killing and a more annoying gnome wizard boss whom you cannot even fight. My end results either resulted in my varied gruesome deaths to insta-kill sections, a few combat deaths, but more often than not being trapped in the dungeon forever since I failed to find a required item.

There was a bit of this going on too:

StormSlayer
My current favourite. This sees the player character as a seasoned hero and actually starts with the main bad guy stirring up trouble and threatening all of the nearby lands, causing you to go into action. This book has a few more rules than the others and is about twice the thickness as you are not "stuck" in one large maze but instead can travel around quite a fair bit which leads to a longer playing time. It also gets rid of the "rest areas" rule which works well with its "open" travel. Insta-death sections are few and far between, often giving you the chance to save yourself before hitting a game over. It also adds some timed sections which I felt was a good addition. Lastly the final boss fight is quite epic and fun too and thanks to good luck I finished this one properly, saving the day and all that.

If you'd like to try your hand at any of these or one of the many I don't have, visit www.fightingfantasy.com and have a look. :)

A brand new blog

2011-05-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

Hi all and welcome to my adventuring journal wherein I'll write about fantastic tales about epic events, gruesome battles, heartwarming love stories, horrific creatures and more that I've encountered and or heard of during my years wandering the wastes and everchanging landscapes of the internet and life in general. In otherwords I'll probably be blogging about any damn thing I feel like. :P

I suppose being my first post and all I'll have a bit about me: I like most movies, music, anime/manga, pc games, drawing, and fluffy cute animals. I'm also slightly insane but these days, who isn't? This is my first foray into blogging and in truth I'm not sure if anyone other than myself will ever read any of this stuff but I won't know till I try.

You can call me Joseph Skyrim, a name I've had since around 1989 - 5 years prior to the first Elder Scrolls game (Arena) being released. However as one of my friends has pointed out with the upcoming release of the Elder Scrolls latest offering entitled "Skyrim" - no one is ever going to believe that. No matter, the Elder scroll series is generally awesome anyway (just insanely huge in the case of Arena and Daggerfall), and I eagerly anticipate the game of my namesake. :)