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Post by acathala on Nov 15, 2016 23:37:14 GMT -5
If I'm honest, I pretty much abandoned the masks when I was able to enchant two effects into my items. For me I again had misgivings about the Companions quest line. Particularly the part where you HAVE to become a werewolf to continue. The underforge is poorly designed in that it's easy to miss the alternate exit and end up in Whiterun's streets. I don't know if you've forged Draugr weaponry at the skyforgen but by the time I've gotten to that point I've usually been able to forge better stuff than that.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 15, 2016 23:44:25 GMT -5
I don't remember the Companions questline very well. I was pushing through it so quickly at the time. I barely registered what was going on.
Funny how often ES games introduce features that pale in comparison to late game stuff, like the moon forge. It's like the guys at Bethesda don't realize most players don't do every quest in their immediate vicinity before moving on, but like to wander the world and/or go after the most interesting stuff first.
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Post by acathala on Nov 16, 2016 17:53:57 GMT -5
Oh that's the forge at Silent Moons Camp, right? Not sure if that is a dev problem. A large part of the game is exploration, and if people use guides to find stuff early, there's not a lot they can do. Otherwise we have to go back to days where we can't access areas due to a bridge being out.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 16, 2016 18:27:36 GMT -5
Funny note: the earliest JRPGs, like FF1 and FF2, actually allowed you to access later areas regardless of your level, even to the point of finding powerful items. The hurdle was the higher level monsters.
Oh, I'm not blaming them for creating an open world, but not making more of an effort to properly balance the value of those things that take more effort to acquire over those things you merely have to find. For example, the Atronach Forge. Acquiring the right recipes, or just researching them, is quite the task in itself. The result of your efforts? Nothing really. A few useful items that could save you the trouble of looking for them. That's it. Oh, and the chance for it to backfire.
I know Skyrim's method is usually to make higher level items more PRACTICAL over just more powerful, but that often results in said items being more situational. This is yet another reason why Morrowind's item creation system was so great. Sure you could find one of the best armours in the game a stone's throw away from Seyda Neen, but every now and again, the game throws an item at you that's so heavily enchanted you could never afford to make it anyway, at least not until well after you did the quest to get that item in the first place. Such quests were usually of the epic type anyway, like the main quest. In other words, the hardest, longest quests usually awarded the best items. The items you could fine were good to very good, but not always the best.
By Fallout 3, Bethesda seemed to change gears to award exploration over questing. There are scant few top tier items found by way of questing in F3, and they're only top tier in their category, not necessarily better than everything else. I would say Oblivion, but the item scaling in that game completely throws off how and when you should acquire an item, so neither exploration OR questing is particularly rewarding because the item scales to your level, and becomes useless in just about 5 levels, no matter how you play the game.
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Post by acathala on Nov 27, 2016 17:53:46 GMT -5
Sadly one of my favourite voice actors from the game died last year. George Coe. He played Calcemo, Tolfdir, and others.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 27, 2016 19:25:04 GMT -5
Huh. Turns out he was primarily a comedy actor, even being one of the original cast of Saturday Night Live.
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Post by acathala on Nov 27, 2016 21:09:22 GMT -5
Yeah, he's even been in a couple of other things I've seen. Wonderful voice and a great shame he won't be in future instalments. The increase in quality of voice cast is quite noticeable when compared to Oblivion. Guess this time they didn't blow the budget on Patrick Stewart this time round. Something I noticed in the mission where you learn Dragonrend, Lynda Carter(the female Nord hero) goes from doing a reasonable job, to sounding like she's trying to get a poo out. I know she's meant to be protraying her hero struggling against Alduin, but it's coming across to me as bad acting. I'm not sure if she was having an off day, or was given the worst direction.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 27, 2016 21:13:07 GMT -5
Honestly, I didn't pay that much attention to the voices in Skyrim like I did in Oblivion.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 8, 2016 1:56:52 GMT -5
Did I ever mention I tried to recreate the sweetrolls from the ES series? They always looked so plump and squishy and tasty...
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Post by acathala on Dec 9, 2016 16:59:55 GMT -5
How did it turn out? I might actually try to make something from Canada. A Canadian contestant on one of our cookery shows made Beaver Tails. It looks like something my mum would like.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 11, 2016 0:59:08 GMT -5
Blech. Beaver Trails. Essentially a hard flatbread covered in off-the-shelf candy.
Turns out there are many takes on what exactly "sweet rolls" are, so the issue was less coming up with something and more trying to decide exactly what it was. I ended up going with a German puff cake recipe. It's pretty good.
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 16, 2017 13:47:27 GMT -5
I know you're not a PC guy but that Skyrim: Bruma mod is awfully tempting.
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 21, 2017 0:02:04 GMT -5
There's a new game called Elex. Not a ES game, but it aims to be the same with a more third person combat system. So far the reviews have been bad, but they all agree the game does a good job rewarding exploration and making your choices feel significant. Seems like a game worth keeping an eye on as they fix the technical issues.
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 4, 2018 14:38:32 GMT -5
DAMN. Some of these PC story mods for Skyrim are really impressive. I expected the usual reconfigurations of existing Skyrim assets with amateurish writing and voice acting, but there are a few mods that are actually done at a professional level. There is one that introduces the province of Elsweyr with new NPCs and monsters, and one that introduces an entirely new CONTINENT with brand new cultures, creatures, architecture, items, spells, and a professional voice cast. It's also an entirely new game in a way with 100+ hours of content.
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 11, 2018 21:28:45 GMT -5
Not sure if you've ever followed Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but I gotta say, it's a very competent Elder Scrolls-like. It's non-fantastical and you don't get to create the character, but otherwise it plays just like an Elder Scrolls game.
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Post by acathala on Oct 13, 2018 20:00:21 GMT -5
Yes I have heard of it. Going to wait until it's a more reasonable price though.
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 13, 2018 20:22:48 GMT -5
Er...I might revise that. It plays a lot like Oblivion specifically, if Oblivion required you to carefully manage your character's health, appearance, and pretty much every tiny little thing in the name of realism. Gets really tedious after a while.
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Post by TG Barighm on Apr 29, 2019 21:36:58 GMT -5
Game of Thrones kind of recreated one of the dragon executions last night.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jun 28, 2019 23:16:03 GMT -5
Beyond Skyrim project has updated its new footage of Cyrodiil. Three Kingdoms also looks promising. At the end of the trailer, you get a shot of a building that reminds me of the Stargazer's lair:
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 21, 2020 12:17:17 GMT -5
So it looks like many of the people who made The Elder Scrolls series what it is have departed Bethesda, so even if we were to get a new ES game...it's probably gonna suck.
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Post by acathala on Mar 21, 2020 17:40:22 GMT -5
Yeah, they haven't even updated the game engine which is just lazy.
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Post by TG Barighm on Mar 25, 2020 15:52:39 GMT -5
In another example of how much Bethesda sucks, I just found out there is a bug in Rage 2 that prevents you from starting the game's final mission. As of January of this year, the bug STILL hasn't been fixed; however, updates to their GaaS style service for the game are still regularly updated.
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Post by TG Barighm on May 17, 2020 11:21:22 GMT -5
Bethesda continues to bomb. They just announced a "pay to avoid grinding" type system in Fallout 76, all the while still doing nothing to address the game's myriad of bugs. And in a recent update for Doom Eternal, which I just bought, they added a root kit (ie. "anti cheat software"). Finally, when questioned about details for Elder Scrolls 6, a dev blew up and told fans to "enjoy your disappointment".
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Post by acathala on May 17, 2020 20:05:17 GMT -5
It's sad. They used to be one of my favourite game companies because they put the product and fans first, which made them money. Now it's solely about the money, which leads to inferior product. On top of that going to the comic book school of customer service is not a good look. Elder Scrolls will still make millions. I don't know anyone who played/still plays Fallout 76. The cardinal lesson to take from that shit show, is to never ever, pre-order.
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Post by TG Barighm on May 17, 2020 22:51:43 GMT -5
Not sure why you'd believe they have always put the fans first. It's always been a running gag that Bethesda's quality control department must be run by a monkey or something because of how buggy the games are. Granted, we always just assumed the games were very complicated, but then Todd Howard only just recently revealed they really don't care about polish.
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Post by TG Barighm on Sept 21, 2020 13:26:37 GMT -5
MS just bought Zenimax, which means Bethesda and all of their IPs. They then immediately announced Starfield, ES6 for Game Pass.
I fully expect Bethesda to become the next 343 Studios and The Coalition and become a factory that just churns out more Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.
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Post by acathala on Sept 21, 2020 16:47:15 GMT -5
Yep, it's a bad day for gaming alright.
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Post by TG Barighm on Sept 21, 2020 18:11:23 GMT -5
Eh, not really. An MS owned studio might actually produce BETTER games and I doubt they will be exclusive. I know a lot of morons are assuming they will, but there is no way MS will turn down the billion dollars worth of revenue they get from Playstation releases.
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Post by TG Barighm on Sept 21, 2020 21:52:12 GMT -5
MS is now saying they're not going to interfere with Bethesda's operations at all.
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Post by acathala on Sept 22, 2020 5:44:54 GMT -5
I don't like the idea of giving Microsoft money.
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