Dragons and Death

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)