Friday, April 28, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Warning Signs
Natalie sent me this picture. Whether it is a genuine advert or a bit of fun, I thought it was worth sharing!
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Blog Flop
Hmmm, blogger died yesterday....
Managed to save articles to draft, but publishing wasn't possible.
Anyway all up to date again!
Managed to save articles to draft, but publishing wasn't possible.
Anyway all up to date again!
Monday, April 24, 2006
Oblivioned Out
Well I am having a break from Oblivion. Its turned from a great game into a frustration to me so I need a break.
I've been playing X3 again and the new patch (1.402) has really sorted out 99% of the issues I had with the game.
Having restarted after the 1.4 patch my empire is slowly growing and I have two factory complexing producing Alcohol and Crystals for much profit. The former is illegal but in high demand... the latter is just in high demand!
Dr Who on Saturday was great, although I almost wanted it to be delayed by the football going to extra time - I think I am becoming a closet Chelsea FC fan! At least they are my local Premiership Club (and will remain so until QPR get back in the top flight!).
We now know the origins of the Torchwood Institute... Clearly there is going to be serious plugging of the new Torchwood series due to start in the Autumn.
I've been playing X3 again and the new patch (1.402) has really sorted out 99% of the issues I had with the game.
Having restarted after the 1.4 patch my empire is slowly growing and I have two factory complexing producing Alcohol and Crystals for much profit. The former is illegal but in high demand... the latter is just in high demand!
Dr Who on Saturday was great, although I almost wanted it to be delayed by the football going to extra time - I think I am becoming a closet Chelsea FC fan! At least they are my local Premiership Club (and will remain so until QPR get back in the top flight!).
We now know the origins of the Torchwood Institute... Clearly there is going to be serious plugging of the new Torchwood series due to start in the Autumn.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Dr Who and EBay Numpties
This morning I finally watched Saturday’s season opener for Season 2 of the new Dr Who. I really enjoyed it, although the papers this morning gave the story a bit of a panning. Who cares – I reckon the base story was a bit weak, but then it launched a few hooks for the future (always a bonus – Babylon 5 was the master of this) and involved a few familiar faces for those of us who watched Season 1.
I really like David Tennant as the Doctor and I think Billy Piper is becoming a great sidekick. It certainly looks like the scriptwriters have decided to give her equal billing with DT and it looks like she is capable of acting. If you haven’t watched it yet – Sorry – but I loved one of the ironic bits of dialogue. When Rose is first possessed by Cassandra she looks in the mirror and exclaims “Oh my God I am a Chav!” I had to laugh! I await more episodes with baited breath (and at least you can’t download them in advance off the net, unlike most of the US series we get)!
I am still staggered by the numpties who bid on items on EBay. I have been hunting for a few nick-nacks for a while and I know exactly how much they cost online. People consistently pay 10-20% more than the normal regular online purchase price when buying off EBay. Its as if they don’t notice that the vendor has added extra postage onto the item to bolster his profits… These people should be slapped!
Finally - do we believe Gareth when he says that he is going to try blogging again? If he does then I suppose we should relink to his website......
I really like David Tennant as the Doctor and I think Billy Piper is becoming a great sidekick. It certainly looks like the scriptwriters have decided to give her equal billing with DT and it looks like she is capable of acting. If you haven’t watched it yet – Sorry – but I loved one of the ironic bits of dialogue. When Rose is first possessed by Cassandra she looks in the mirror and exclaims “Oh my God I am a Chav!” I had to laugh! I await more episodes with baited breath (and at least you can’t download them in advance off the net, unlike most of the US series we get)!
I am still staggered by the numpties who bid on items on EBay. I have been hunting for a few nick-nacks for a while and I know exactly how much they cost online. People consistently pay 10-20% more than the normal regular online purchase price when buying off EBay. Its as if they don’t notice that the vendor has added extra postage onto the item to bolster his profits… These people should be slapped!
Finally - do we believe Gareth when he says that he is going to try blogging again? If he does then I suppose we should relink to his website......
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Quick links
Quick post to say we all found the Dark UI mod to be useful for Oblivion. Makes those pesky menus a darn sight easier to read!
This and loads of other goodies (see Jase's previous post re. portable hole and saddlebags) were found at Planet Elder Scrolls below:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.List
Let us know if you discover anything else funky on the web.
This and loads of other goodies (see Jase's previous post re. portable hole and saddlebags) were found at Planet Elder Scrolls below:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.List
Let us know if you discover anything else funky on the web.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Levelling Frustration and Mods
Hmmm....
This game is frustrating at times.
James and I have both experienced over active levelling. You wander into a dungeon and before you know it your skills have ploughed upwards and you have levelled twice before you can sleep. This is bad as all skill-ups from the 2nd level don't seem to generate any statistic multipliers so you may get a few x5's on the first level but the second will always be resticted to 1s.
This almost forces you to leave a dungeon part complete and find somewhere to sleep. Not always practical.
Pradeep has helped us optimise both our desktop and laptop PCs for Oblivion and the game is running really well on both. I'll post a link to the optimisation site when I get home (as I don't have access to it from work).
We have also been playing around with Mods, such as the Portable Hole and Saddlebags, both of which are really fun (although the prtable hole costs about 20K to buy - it gives you a small portable room in which you can store stuff).
I see that Bethesda have released the first official Mod for the game, which is a pay to download file (only $2) containing Horse Armour (aka Barding to those of us who are anal about these things)!
This doesn't interest me, but it seems to have create an uproar on the official boards. I don't know why though? Bethesda advertised that they would be launching both free and pay for add-ons for the game when they started talking seriously about it a year ago. The pay for add-ons are no different from buying an expansion pack and are not essential to play the game. I think the majority of complainers are coming from the XBox community - console gamers aren't use to having to buy extra content!
Bethesda have already stated that patches will be free (charging for those would be a bit of a cheek) but it will be interesting to see if the pay for Mods will be included in any subsequent expansion packs - that would cause a real uproar in those people who already bought them!
I remember something similar with Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies. Sony included one of their earlier expansion packs for free in a later expansion and people were annoyed that they were paying for the same thing twice. I think this is just stupid (from the gamer's perspective). If Sony had annouced that they would be giving away their latest add-on free in six months time when the launched a subsequent add-on I still think that the majority of players would shell out the cash for the add-on now rather than waiting six months.
Over the last few years I have watched the expansion of official gaming "boards" with interest and it frustrates me the number of people who complain about how bad a game is. The fact that the software developer has created a forum for you to discuss their product and is interested in finding out what you believe could be improved upon or needs fixing is a very good thing in my eyes. Just typing criticisms with no constructive feedback is a waste of space.
I will use Egosoft as my example. Since its launch in October 2005 X3 Reunion has had four patches, all of which improved upon the game drastically. The Egosoft forums are a lively place and the amount of flaming has drastically reduced with each subsequent patch. It looks like the message is getting through to the gamers that Egosoft do care and do listen and that if you have a bit of patience and give them useful feedback then things can be changed.
However if you compare that to Sony and the debacle of Star Wars Galaxies. Increasingly the boards became more and more hostile as it was clear that Sony were not listening to its client base. The board administrators did a remarkable job, but in the end they all quit in turn as they got frustrated with not being able to deliver good news. The end result.... SWG is now dead (pretty much).
OK enough ranting for one post!
This game is frustrating at times.
James and I have both experienced over active levelling. You wander into a dungeon and before you know it your skills have ploughed upwards and you have levelled twice before you can sleep. This is bad as all skill-ups from the 2nd level don't seem to generate any statistic multipliers so you may get a few x5's on the first level but the second will always be resticted to 1s.
This almost forces you to leave a dungeon part complete and find somewhere to sleep. Not always practical.
Pradeep has helped us optimise both our desktop and laptop PCs for Oblivion and the game is running really well on both. I'll post a link to the optimisation site when I get home (as I don't have access to it from work).
We have also been playing around with Mods, such as the Portable Hole and Saddlebags, both of which are really fun (although the prtable hole costs about 20K to buy - it gives you a small portable room in which you can store stuff).
I see that Bethesda have released the first official Mod for the game, which is a pay to download file (only $2) containing Horse Armour (aka Barding to those of us who are anal about these things)!
This doesn't interest me, but it seems to have create an uproar on the official boards. I don't know why though? Bethesda advertised that they would be launching both free and pay for add-ons for the game when they started talking seriously about it a year ago. The pay for add-ons are no different from buying an expansion pack and are not essential to play the game. I think the majority of complainers are coming from the XBox community - console gamers aren't use to having to buy extra content!
Bethesda have already stated that patches will be free (charging for those would be a bit of a cheek) but it will be interesting to see if the pay for Mods will be included in any subsequent expansion packs - that would cause a real uproar in those people who already bought them!
I remember something similar with Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies. Sony included one of their earlier expansion packs for free in a later expansion and people were annoyed that they were paying for the same thing twice. I think this is just stupid (from the gamer's perspective). If Sony had annouced that they would be giving away their latest add-on free in six months time when the launched a subsequent add-on I still think that the majority of players would shell out the cash for the add-on now rather than waiting six months.
Over the last few years I have watched the expansion of official gaming "boards" with interest and it frustrates me the number of people who complain about how bad a game is. The fact that the software developer has created a forum for you to discuss their product and is interested in finding out what you believe could be improved upon or needs fixing is a very good thing in my eyes. Just typing criticisms with no constructive feedback is a waste of space.
I will use Egosoft as my example. Since its launch in October 2005 X3 Reunion has had four patches, all of which improved upon the game drastically. The Egosoft forums are a lively place and the amount of flaming has drastically reduced with each subsequent patch. It looks like the message is getting through to the gamers that Egosoft do care and do listen and that if you have a bit of patience and give them useful feedback then things can be changed.
However if you compare that to Sony and the debacle of Star Wars Galaxies. Increasingly the boards became more and more hostile as it was clear that Sony were not listening to its client base. The board administrators did a remarkable job, but in the end they all quit in turn as they got frustrated with not being able to deliver good news. The end result.... SWG is now dead (pretty much).
OK enough ranting for one post!
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Lock Picking 101
Using an old gamesave (as Eriador is currently in Oblivion - Hell - at the moment), I had a play with the Security Minigame (Lockpicking). Here is my guide to breaking the law!
First up - Quicksave. This gives you infinite retries!
OK, so you are looking at a side view of a lock with 5 tumblers.
Depending on the lock's difficult 1-5 of these will be closed and the rest open.
For Very Easy locks only 1 will be closed, so it is trivial to knock it upwards (move mouse up) and open the lock (left click).
For Easy upwards you need to open 2 or more tumblers which means you need to take one tumbler at a time and jam them open.
Each tim eyou knock a tumbler upwards the returning spring varies in its strength, so sometimes the tumbler pings back down quickly and othertimes more slowly.
To jam the tumbler you need to left click when the tumbler is at its highest point (there is an audible click in game when it gets there). If you time it right then the tumbler jams open. If you time it wrong then it springs back down and breaks your lockpick. Failure can also result in some of the other open tumblers falling back closed. As your skill improves the penalties for failure reduce with less open tumblers falling closed.
So what does this mean....
With patience, practice and copious reloading you can open any lock with only one lockpick.
This means you can always break out of prison (as you always get to keep one lockpick when you are arrested - assuming you have one).
As a brief aside I accidentally started the Assassin's guild quest during my trip to Oblivion this morning. When fighting some mini-demons my guard compatriate strayed into my line of fire and took a fireball in the back, dying. A message popped up "Your actions have been observed by unseen parties!" This means that next time I sleep I will be invited to try out for membership into the "Dark Brotherhood". I think I will save that quest for much later, when I have completed the Mage, Fighter and Thieves Guild quests, as murder generally goes down badly. (Plus the thought of me as Archmage of the Guild, and associate assassin has extreme comedy value! - Especially as one quest will involve stealing something from myself!)
First up - Quicksave. This gives you infinite retries!
OK, so you are looking at a side view of a lock with 5 tumblers.
Depending on the lock's difficult 1-5 of these will be closed and the rest open.
For Very Easy locks only 1 will be closed, so it is trivial to knock it upwards (move mouse up) and open the lock (left click).
For Easy upwards you need to open 2 or more tumblers which means you need to take one tumbler at a time and jam them open.
Each tim eyou knock a tumbler upwards the returning spring varies in its strength, so sometimes the tumbler pings back down quickly and othertimes more slowly.
To jam the tumbler you need to left click when the tumbler is at its highest point (there is an audible click in game when it gets there). If you time it right then the tumbler jams open. If you time it wrong then it springs back down and breaks your lockpick. Failure can also result in some of the other open tumblers falling back closed. As your skill improves the penalties for failure reduce with less open tumblers falling closed.
So what does this mean....
With patience, practice and copious reloading you can open any lock with only one lockpick.
This means you can always break out of prison (as you always get to keep one lockpick when you are arrested - assuming you have one).
As a brief aside I accidentally started the Assassin's guild quest during my trip to Oblivion this morning. When fighting some mini-demons my guard compatriate strayed into my line of fire and took a fireball in the back, dying. A message popped up "Your actions have been observed by unseen parties!" This means that next time I sleep I will be invited to try out for membership into the "Dark Brotherhood". I think I will save that quest for much later, when I have completed the Mage, Fighter and Thieves Guild quests, as murder generally goes down badly. (Plus the thought of me as Archmage of the Guild, and associate assassin has extreme comedy value! - Especially as one quest will involve stealing something from myself!)
Grabbing
The manual and options both refer to a "Grab" key (Z) and for the life of me I couldn't work out what it did.
It wouldn't activate things. It wouldn't perform wrestling moves in unarmed combat etc etc...
And then I hit it by mistake whilst looting the fallen body of an annoying bandit. Suddenly the corpse had moved. I had dragged it across the ground.
Playing about I found I could move things much more precisely using Grab, than the old pick up and drop routine, which scatters things around you.
This definitely has potential!
It wouldn't activate things. It wouldn't perform wrestling moves in unarmed combat etc etc...
And then I hit it by mistake whilst looting the fallen body of an annoying bandit. Suddenly the corpse had moved. I had dragged it across the ground.
Playing about I found I could move things much more precisely using Grab, than the old pick up and drop routine, which scatters things around you.
This definitely has potential!
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Advancing, Archery and more
So time for another Oblivion update.
PC Zone came yesterday morning and they have reviewed the game, giving it 95%. I predicted this score on the nose when talking with Serena at the weekend.
I’ve explored a small amount of the game now (which took hours) and can see definite disadvantages to advancing your character up the levels too fast! I deliberately travel to new locations either on foot or on a stolen horse just to explore the world a bit more.
Doing quests you do get steady skill advancement, with a couple of skill-ups in weapons, armour, sneak, athletics and acrobatics pretty much guaranteed. This is great unless you have a lot of these skills as major skills and suddenly you get the message telling you that you have levelled.
If you have read my earlier posts you will have picked up that it is best to be prepared for levelling up by practicing some minor skills to guarantee x4 and x5 multipliers on your key stats. If you get caught out by a level up it is almost worth dropping back a save game and interrupting what you are doing to practice (as soon as you get the level up message any skill ups, including minor skills are counted towards your following level up). This is annoying – but then it appears I am a bigger power gamer than I thought! I even started writing down my 21 skill scores so I can easily work out what multipliers I will get! SAD!
To test the theory out I have created a new Female Nord Paladin type character whose combat skills are all “minor” and her “major” skills are all easy to train, but hard to get skill-ups accidentally (if you play the game “correctly”). This should give me much greater control over when she levels up and I shouldn’t get random increments from playing the game “fighter” style.
I intend to boost her strength and endurance up quickly to give her a real edge in combat and slowly bring up her other stats in a strict rotation (although Personality may get an early boost whilst I grind out her Speechcraft).
Despite it being much easier than in Morrowind, the archery in game has been giving me some difficulty. It does appear that the game adjusts your accuracy (rather than just damage) based on your skill level, so I may not be as bad on the mouse as I thought.
James was telling me that he was very pleased to get a critical hit with an arrow to kill a nasty necromancer and when he approached to loot the corpse he found the arrow sticking out of the guy’s head. Well I duplicated that feat and when I approached found that the silly girl bandit had my arrow stuck in her wrist! I must have hit an artery!
I do love the fact that the game leaves the arrows both in your target and in you if you are hit! I just wish you could pull the arrows out of your own body and shoot them back! (You can recover most of the arrows that you shoot and those incoming ones that miss you, but those that hit you are lost!)
Now all I need to get the hang of is Blocking and the Security mini-game, which is apparently easier than I had thought – I was just doing it wrong! The Speechcraft minigame is now trivial to me! I will write that up another day.
OK enough for now… More to come!
PC Zone came yesterday morning and they have reviewed the game, giving it 95%. I predicted this score on the nose when talking with Serena at the weekend.
I’ve explored a small amount of the game now (which took hours) and can see definite disadvantages to advancing your character up the levels too fast! I deliberately travel to new locations either on foot or on a stolen horse just to explore the world a bit more.
Doing quests you do get steady skill advancement, with a couple of skill-ups in weapons, armour, sneak, athletics and acrobatics pretty much guaranteed. This is great unless you have a lot of these skills as major skills and suddenly you get the message telling you that you have levelled.
If you have read my earlier posts you will have picked up that it is best to be prepared for levelling up by practicing some minor skills to guarantee x4 and x5 multipliers on your key stats. If you get caught out by a level up it is almost worth dropping back a save game and interrupting what you are doing to practice (as soon as you get the level up message any skill ups, including minor skills are counted towards your following level up). This is annoying – but then it appears I am a bigger power gamer than I thought! I even started writing down my 21 skill scores so I can easily work out what multipliers I will get! SAD!
To test the theory out I have created a new Female Nord Paladin type character whose combat skills are all “minor” and her “major” skills are all easy to train, but hard to get skill-ups accidentally (if you play the game “correctly”). This should give me much greater control over when she levels up and I shouldn’t get random increments from playing the game “fighter” style.
I intend to boost her strength and endurance up quickly to give her a real edge in combat and slowly bring up her other stats in a strict rotation (although Personality may get an early boost whilst I grind out her Speechcraft).
Despite it being much easier than in Morrowind, the archery in game has been giving me some difficulty. It does appear that the game adjusts your accuracy (rather than just damage) based on your skill level, so I may not be as bad on the mouse as I thought.
James was telling me that he was very pleased to get a critical hit with an arrow to kill a nasty necromancer and when he approached to loot the corpse he found the arrow sticking out of the guy’s head. Well I duplicated that feat and when I approached found that the silly girl bandit had my arrow stuck in her wrist! I must have hit an artery!
I do love the fact that the game leaves the arrows both in your target and in you if you are hit! I just wish you could pull the arrows out of your own body and shoot them back! (You can recover most of the arrows that you shoot and those incoming ones that miss you, but those that hit you are lost!)
Now all I need to get the hang of is Blocking and the Security mini-game, which is apparently easier than I had thought – I was just doing it wrong! The Speechcraft minigame is now trivial to me! I will write that up another day.
OK enough for now… More to come!
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Voice Actors
Patrick Stewart - Emperor Uriel Septim VII
Sean Bean - Martin Septim
Terence Stamp - Mankar Camaron
Lynda Carter - Nord Females
Ralph Cosham - Breton Males
Wes Johnson - Imperial Males, Lucien Lachance, Demons
Michael Mack - Redguard Males
Craig Sechler - Dark Elf Males
Jonathan Bryce - Various
Catherine Flye - Various
Gayle Jessup - Various
Elisabeth Noone - Various
Sean Bean - Martin Septim
Terence Stamp - Mankar Camaron
Lynda Carter - Nord Females
Ralph Cosham - Breton Males
Wes Johnson - Imperial Males, Lucien Lachance, Demons
Michael Mack - Redguard Males
Craig Sechler - Dark Elf Males
Jonathan Bryce - Various
Catherine Flye - Various
Gayle Jessup - Various
Elisabeth Noone - Various
Hardware and Levels 1 to 4
James and I have been having a few issues with Oblivion. It looks like there is some issues with the NVidia drivers released specifically for the game.
In-game movies are unwatchable due to jerkiness, which is a shame, as when I loaded up on my Sony Laptop the intro video played pretty well (GeForce 6200 Go drivers haven’t been updated since last May!) although the game needs to be cranked right back to Low Detail settings to be playable.
Once there is a definitive fix for these issues I’ll post a link, but in the meantime a suggested fix can be found here.
On my main PC the game is beautiful and runs like a dream. My specs of Athlon 64 3200, GeForce 6800 XT (256 MB) and 2 GB RAM seem to be plenty for 1280x1024 and high detail (although AA is turned off).
Looking at other peoples' setups I reckon the RAM is a big saver on lag as it allows to the game to buffer better. I noticed this in X3 as well which is prone to combat lag even with 1 GB of RAM.
OK, so you have finished the tutorial and are staring at a lake, a dock and some hills with towers in the distance…. What now?
First time through I decided to explore, wandered into a dungeon and had a great time. This is probably a bad idea. Why? Phat Lewt! After the tutorial I was stuffed to the gills with stuff to sell, so that last thing I wanted was a dungeon crawl with even more treasure.
I suggest you head straight to the Imperial City. If it is daytime (8 am to 8 pm – look on your Map for the current time) then head to the Marketplace to sell up. If it is night time then visit each of the city sectors and run around to reveal the minimap so that all the doors are revealed for future use.
You can also try Speechcraft on the Guards as it is worth putting in a bit of practice on the minigame before you hit the shops. The minigame for Speechcraft is not rocket science and is all down to practice. I’ll let you learn the details yourself (read the manual!) but each round (after the 1st) is a question of recognising that you either have a good starting position or lousy one! Good starting positions will give you a massive boost in NPC Disposition if you play them right and Lousy ones just need to be sacrificed to make certain that the Disposition loss is minimal.
I mentioned “after the 1st” round just there… The 1st round is generally a write off as you need to spend a few seconds extra working out which of the 4 options are positives and which are negatives. This costs you about 5-10 points of wasted disposition (which ticks down every second that you think) and so damage limitation is your main exercise here.
Initially both Serena and I struggled with this minigame but after a few practice sessions on Guards it is pretty straightforward and should be used on all characters to maximise their Disposition to you before you take any other options. (A Quicksave before you start is also a good idea!)
OK, so you are ready to sell. Different merchants buy different stuff and some have more money than others. Their money determines the most expensive item or stack of items they will buy, so a merchant with 100 Gold will not buy a 200 gold sword or a stack of 15, 10 gold potions. In the latter case he will buy the potions 10 at a time though. A merchant’s gold does not decrease as you sell stuff to them, nor does it increase as you buy stuff.
The price you receive when selling or are charged when buying an item is dependant upon the level of haggling that you have set. If you leave it alone and never change it you will get poor deals and your Mercantile skill will go up slowly.
Clicking the Haggle button brings up a slider that shows the merchant’s disposition to you, the merchant’s Mercantile skill title and your skill level. Dragging the slider to the right (haggling harder) means you get a better deal, but are more likely to get refused on a deal. Every time you get refused on a deal the merchant’s disposition to you drops by a point.
Your success at haggling is dependant on the difference between your Mercantile skills and the merchant’s disposition to you. If you can find a merchant with an Apprentice skill level and 80+ disposition then you can push the haggling over half way and get really good deals! Generally you can expect to get fleeced early on! Just tweak the haggling up a point on each sale until you start to get refused. Then drop back down two points to get the best deal and the highest likelihood of skill-ups.
Whilst exploring and selling I gained enough skill-ups to level (I have Speechcraft as a Major Skill). If you sleep for an hour or longer you will level up. This raises your Health, Fatigue and Magicka scores and allows you to pick three attributes to raise by a point. Depending on what skill-ups you have done (Major and Minor skills) some of the attributes will have multipliers, so in my case Personality had a ×3 next to it, which means that spending a point there will raise that attribute by 3 rather than 1. By carefully planning your skill-ups you can usually get three attributes with ×3 or better next to them each time you level. I think ×5 is the maximum, but I haven’t managed that yet, (and possibly only ×3 bonus from Minor skill-ups) so I can’t get any deeper into the mechanics at this time.
So do we do the main mission delivery quest or not? I have chosen not to, have explored the City and done a quest for the Merchants to bring one of their wayward fold back into line. I have also visited both city spell shops and bought some low cost spells for training the spell skills. I visited the Mage’s Guild only to be sent to my “local recruiter”, but no-one can tell me who that is! I assume that I have to do the first part of the main quest to unlock that.
James and I have both explored outside the city as well and have picked up quests such as Kill the Necromancer and Investigate the Missing Villagers, although I haven’t started them yet. The world is teeming with wandering monsters and dungeons / ruins / caves for you to investigate further.
If you are a Morrowind veteran you will be glad to know that I haven’t found a Cliff Racer anywhere yet!
So what next?
Well I really want to join the Mage’s Guild to get access to the Altar of Spellmaking, so I think I am going to do my core quest delivery and see what happens then. After that I reckon there is a Necromancer who is waiting to be slain and Villagers to be rescued!
To be continued…
In-game movies are unwatchable due to jerkiness, which is a shame, as when I loaded up on my Sony Laptop the intro video played pretty well (GeForce 6200 Go drivers haven’t been updated since last May!) although the game needs to be cranked right back to Low Detail settings to be playable.
Once there is a definitive fix for these issues I’ll post a link, but in the meantime a suggested fix can be found here.
On my main PC the game is beautiful and runs like a dream. My specs of Athlon 64 3200, GeForce 6800 XT (256 MB) and 2 GB RAM seem to be plenty for 1280x1024 and high detail (although AA is turned off).
Looking at other peoples' setups I reckon the RAM is a big saver on lag as it allows to the game to buffer better. I noticed this in X3 as well which is prone to combat lag even with 1 GB of RAM.
OK, so you have finished the tutorial and are staring at a lake, a dock and some hills with towers in the distance…. What now?
First time through I decided to explore, wandered into a dungeon and had a great time. This is probably a bad idea. Why? Phat Lewt! After the tutorial I was stuffed to the gills with stuff to sell, so that last thing I wanted was a dungeon crawl with even more treasure.
I suggest you head straight to the Imperial City. If it is daytime (8 am to 8 pm – look on your Map for the current time) then head to the Marketplace to sell up. If it is night time then visit each of the city sectors and run around to reveal the minimap so that all the doors are revealed for future use.
You can also try Speechcraft on the Guards as it is worth putting in a bit of practice on the minigame before you hit the shops. The minigame for Speechcraft is not rocket science and is all down to practice. I’ll let you learn the details yourself (read the manual!) but each round (after the 1st) is a question of recognising that you either have a good starting position or lousy one! Good starting positions will give you a massive boost in NPC Disposition if you play them right and Lousy ones just need to be sacrificed to make certain that the Disposition loss is minimal.
I mentioned “after the 1st” round just there… The 1st round is generally a write off as you need to spend a few seconds extra working out which of the 4 options are positives and which are negatives. This costs you about 5-10 points of wasted disposition (which ticks down every second that you think) and so damage limitation is your main exercise here.
Initially both Serena and I struggled with this minigame but after a few practice sessions on Guards it is pretty straightforward and should be used on all characters to maximise their Disposition to you before you take any other options. (A Quicksave before you start is also a good idea!)
OK, so you are ready to sell. Different merchants buy different stuff and some have more money than others. Their money determines the most expensive item or stack of items they will buy, so a merchant with 100 Gold will not buy a 200 gold sword or a stack of 15, 10 gold potions. In the latter case he will buy the potions 10 at a time though. A merchant’s gold does not decrease as you sell stuff to them, nor does it increase as you buy stuff.
The price you receive when selling or are charged when buying an item is dependant upon the level of haggling that you have set. If you leave it alone and never change it you will get poor deals and your Mercantile skill will go up slowly.
Clicking the Haggle button brings up a slider that shows the merchant’s disposition to you, the merchant’s Mercantile skill title and your skill level. Dragging the slider to the right (haggling harder) means you get a better deal, but are more likely to get refused on a deal. Every time you get refused on a deal the merchant’s disposition to you drops by a point.
Your success at haggling is dependant on the difference between your Mercantile skills and the merchant’s disposition to you. If you can find a merchant with an Apprentice skill level and 80+ disposition then you can push the haggling over half way and get really good deals! Generally you can expect to get fleeced early on! Just tweak the haggling up a point on each sale until you start to get refused. Then drop back down two points to get the best deal and the highest likelihood of skill-ups.
Whilst exploring and selling I gained enough skill-ups to level (I have Speechcraft as a Major Skill). If you sleep for an hour or longer you will level up. This raises your Health, Fatigue and Magicka scores and allows you to pick three attributes to raise by a point. Depending on what skill-ups you have done (Major and Minor skills) some of the attributes will have multipliers, so in my case Personality had a ×3 next to it, which means that spending a point there will raise that attribute by 3 rather than 1. By carefully planning your skill-ups you can usually get three attributes with ×3 or better next to them each time you level. I think ×5 is the maximum, but I haven’t managed that yet, (and possibly only ×3 bonus from Minor skill-ups) so I can’t get any deeper into the mechanics at this time.
So do we do the main mission delivery quest or not? I have chosen not to, have explored the City and done a quest for the Merchants to bring one of their wayward fold back into line. I have also visited both city spell shops and bought some low cost spells for training the spell skills. I visited the Mage’s Guild only to be sent to my “local recruiter”, but no-one can tell me who that is! I assume that I have to do the first part of the main quest to unlock that.
James and I have both explored outside the city as well and have picked up quests such as Kill the Necromancer and Investigate the Missing Villagers, although I haven’t started them yet. The world is teeming with wandering monsters and dungeons / ruins / caves for you to investigate further.
If you are a Morrowind veteran you will be glad to know that I haven’t found a Cliff Racer anywhere yet!
So what next?
Well I really want to join the Mage’s Guild to get access to the Altar of Spellmaking, so I think I am going to do my core quest delivery and see what happens then. After that I reckon there is a Necromancer who is waiting to be slain and Villagers to be rescued!
To be continued…
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Tutorial and Character Creation
At the start of the game you just pick your race and appearance.
There is a huge amount of tweaking that can be done, but to be honest you will probably be playing the game in 1st person and will hardly ever look at your own face, so what is the point!
I created my elfin looking Breton and was promptly thrown in prison for reasons unknown (I seem to remember starting the first Elder Scrolls game in prison as well - must be a character flaw!).
Both your appearance and race can be changed at the end of the tutorial if you change your mind, so need to fret.
All you skills start out with a score of 5/100 for now.
Anyway, I don't want to spoil the plot but let’s just say you end up crawling around under the prison.
Up first are some handy rooms where you gather some basic equipment and get taught how to use it - bows, swords, lock picks, torches, armour and shields etc.
Then it is basic combat training against the old RPG faithful (rats).
Next comes magic training (also against rats).
Soon you hit the "You are encumbered" message and are unable to move - no crawling around at nanospeed here - you go from full speed to stop just by picking a mushroom! Time to go into your inventory and drop all the crap you picked up. My advice is that if you are not wielding a weapon or wearing some armour - ditch it. Too heavy! Keep the interesting and valuable stuff. That Two-handed warhammer may be worth 60 Gold (on average), but it takes up 20% of your carrying space and by the time you hit a merchant your mercantile skill is so low you will be lucky to get 20 gold for it! Keep stuff you can use along with Gems, Potions and high quality loot (Goblin Witch's Staff etc).
Whilst you are running through the tutorial you will start to get a feel for the controls, which aren't bad - I switched jump and activate round, as they didn't feel logical at their default settings. I'll probably remap Block and Cast round for my Mage as well, as shields don't form part of my fighting style. Expect to whack a few chests or boxes instead of opening them though... They are indestructible so don't fret. Just try not to do that when attempting to initiate chat with NPCs! Note to self - look up the Yield Key again!
Wading into combat for my Mage involved a puny fire based missile spell. Targeting is a bit tricky when you and your target are moving, but I reckon that you will get the hang of it pretty quickly. Defensive spells will be the order of the day as you progress though, as being backed into a corner was a regular occurrence for me. Casting heal spells during combat is hard - Pre-combat Regen spells and Instant Heal potions on a hot key are another essential for the future.
Lock Picking has its own mini-game. Feel free to indulge in this all you like, but apart from "Very Easy" locks, you will soon find yourself hitting the "Auto Attempt" button. Why? At low skill levels the mini-game is too hard for Average and upwards locks and so hitting the Auto button may burn a few lockpicks, but you will eventually succeed.
There is another mini-game for Speechcraft, but that is out with my tutorial ramblings and I will come to it another time.
Eventually you get a bit more of the plot and get asked to pick a star sign (again you can change it later if you want). The Thief and The Mage seem good choices for a starter, with the others being more specialised.
Again the plot moves on a bit further and I accidentally nuke one of the "good" guards in a royal rumble. After the fight he walks over and tells me that it is a good job he likes me, but don't do it again! Nice touch I thought, but it was his fault for running into my line of fire!
Soon, the plot gets serious and only one good guy remains standing (apart from you). He nicks the best sword you have found so far (bastard!) and then suggests what class your playing style indicates. This is when you completely ignore the recommendation and click "Custom". Select your 7 major skills, your bonus stats and your focus type (magic, combat or stealth). You name your combo (or pick "adventurer") and then off you go. More on this in a sec.
Soon you reach a grate to the outside world. Time to do a hard save before exiting the tutorial. Why? This is the point at which you can completely respec your character, so being able to reload after deciding that you don't like your character after all is a major bonus. Otherwise you have to play the tutorial all over again.
To round this off, here are some pointers on skills.
The "obvious" thing to do would be as follows. OK - I want to be a thief. I shall pick the 7 stealth skills as my major skills (+20 starting point bonus), pick a focus in stealth (+10 point bonus) and pick a race like Khajit (+45 in assorted stealth skill bonuses).
Congratulations - you now have a really skilled level 1 Thief, but have just put a level cap on yourself of Level 42 (Max level is 53) and all your other skills stink!
How does that work? Ignoring a few skill ups obtained during the tutorial your skills start as follows:
7 Major skills at 25 and 14 Minor skills at 5.
You then apply Focus bonuses of +10 to all of one type of skill (Magic, Stealth or Combat).
You then apply racial bonuses of +45 across various skills.
You start at level 1 and for every 10 skill points you gain in your major skills, then you gain a level.
Your skills are all capped at 100.
Assuming that your Focus and Racial Bonuses are all in your Major skills, then you Max level is calculated as follows:
Starting Major Skill Total = (25 x 7) + (10 x 7) + 45 = 290.
Maximum Major Skill Total = (100 x 7) = 700.
Difference = 700 - 290 = 410.
Max no of Levels you can gain = 410 / 10 = 41.
Therefore max level = 42 (You start at level 1).
However if you start with your focus and racial bonuses all in Minor skills then the calc is as follows:
Starting Major Skill Total = 25 x 7 = 175.
Difference = 700 - 175 = 525.
Max no of Levels you can gain = 525 / 10 = 52 (rounding down).
Therefore max level = 53.
So there is a balance to be struck between being well skilled at Level 1 and not reaching Level 50+.
Every time you level up you get a bonus to your Health, Magicka and Fatigue scores and can increase three of your stats (just like in Morrowind).
The monsters in dungeons and the loot you get from chests is based on your level, so it is only at the high end that a power gamer might see a drop off in their abilities. Your Average Joe gamer won't ever notice the subtle differences.
So what did I do?
I am playing a Breton Mage/Thief (Spellblade).
My Major skills are all Stealth related apart from Destruction swapped for Acrobatics.
My Focus Bonus is in Magic.
My Racial Bonuses are mainly Magical.
The combo gives me lots of starting skills (All Major and some Minor) with scores of 20 or 25 (Destruction being 30) and allows me to progress my level (or not) by using non-combat skills like Speechcraft and Sneak, rather than being forced up levels by being hit or hitting things in combat. My Max level is still 53 as my difference score is 520.
I can progress my magic skills using training spells without it forcing up my level and hence can increase my survivability.
This was not me powergaming but was a pure fluke as I wanted a more balanced character at level one. Just lucky!
Well I will let you digest that and write more about Levels 1 to 3 later.
PS The game is great!
PPS Typos and Apostrophes corrected (thanks Serena)
There is a huge amount of tweaking that can be done, but to be honest you will probably be playing the game in 1st person and will hardly ever look at your own face, so what is the point!
I created my elfin looking Breton and was promptly thrown in prison for reasons unknown (I seem to remember starting the first Elder Scrolls game in prison as well - must be a character flaw!).
Both your appearance and race can be changed at the end of the tutorial if you change your mind, so need to fret.
All you skills start out with a score of 5/100 for now.
Anyway, I don't want to spoil the plot but let’s just say you end up crawling around under the prison.
Up first are some handy rooms where you gather some basic equipment and get taught how to use it - bows, swords, lock picks, torches, armour and shields etc.
Then it is basic combat training against the old RPG faithful (rats).
Next comes magic training (also against rats).
Soon you hit the "You are encumbered" message and are unable to move - no crawling around at nanospeed here - you go from full speed to stop just by picking a mushroom! Time to go into your inventory and drop all the crap you picked up. My advice is that if you are not wielding a weapon or wearing some armour - ditch it. Too heavy! Keep the interesting and valuable stuff. That Two-handed warhammer may be worth 60 Gold (on average), but it takes up 20% of your carrying space and by the time you hit a merchant your mercantile skill is so low you will be lucky to get 20 gold for it! Keep stuff you can use along with Gems, Potions and high quality loot (Goblin Witch's Staff etc).
Whilst you are running through the tutorial you will start to get a feel for the controls, which aren't bad - I switched jump and activate round, as they didn't feel logical at their default settings. I'll probably remap Block and Cast round for my Mage as well, as shields don't form part of my fighting style. Expect to whack a few chests or boxes instead of opening them though... They are indestructible so don't fret. Just try not to do that when attempting to initiate chat with NPCs! Note to self - look up the Yield Key again!
Wading into combat for my Mage involved a puny fire based missile spell. Targeting is a bit tricky when you and your target are moving, but I reckon that you will get the hang of it pretty quickly. Defensive spells will be the order of the day as you progress though, as being backed into a corner was a regular occurrence for me. Casting heal spells during combat is hard - Pre-combat Regen spells and Instant Heal potions on a hot key are another essential for the future.
Lock Picking has its own mini-game. Feel free to indulge in this all you like, but apart from "Very Easy" locks, you will soon find yourself hitting the "Auto Attempt" button. Why? At low skill levels the mini-game is too hard for Average and upwards locks and so hitting the Auto button may burn a few lockpicks, but you will eventually succeed.
There is another mini-game for Speechcraft, but that is out with my tutorial ramblings and I will come to it another time.
Eventually you get a bit more of the plot and get asked to pick a star sign (again you can change it later if you want). The Thief and The Mage seem good choices for a starter, with the others being more specialised.
Again the plot moves on a bit further and I accidentally nuke one of the "good" guards in a royal rumble. After the fight he walks over and tells me that it is a good job he likes me, but don't do it again! Nice touch I thought, but it was his fault for running into my line of fire!
Soon, the plot gets serious and only one good guy remains standing (apart from you). He nicks the best sword you have found so far (bastard!) and then suggests what class your playing style indicates. This is when you completely ignore the recommendation and click "Custom". Select your 7 major skills, your bonus stats and your focus type (magic, combat or stealth). You name your combo (or pick "adventurer") and then off you go. More on this in a sec.
Soon you reach a grate to the outside world. Time to do a hard save before exiting the tutorial. Why? This is the point at which you can completely respec your character, so being able to reload after deciding that you don't like your character after all is a major bonus. Otherwise you have to play the tutorial all over again.
To round this off, here are some pointers on skills.
The "obvious" thing to do would be as follows. OK - I want to be a thief. I shall pick the 7 stealth skills as my major skills (+20 starting point bonus), pick a focus in stealth (+10 point bonus) and pick a race like Khajit (+45 in assorted stealth skill bonuses).
Congratulations - you now have a really skilled level 1 Thief, but have just put a level cap on yourself of Level 42 (Max level is 53) and all your other skills stink!
How does that work? Ignoring a few skill ups obtained during the tutorial your skills start as follows:
7 Major skills at 25 and 14 Minor skills at 5.
You then apply Focus bonuses of +10 to all of one type of skill (Magic, Stealth or Combat).
You then apply racial bonuses of +45 across various skills.
You start at level 1 and for every 10 skill points you gain in your major skills, then you gain a level.
Your skills are all capped at 100.
Assuming that your Focus and Racial Bonuses are all in your Major skills, then you Max level is calculated as follows:
Starting Major Skill Total = (25 x 7) + (10 x 7) + 45 = 290.
Maximum Major Skill Total = (100 x 7) = 700.
Difference = 700 - 290 = 410.
Max no of Levels you can gain = 410 / 10 = 41.
Therefore max level = 42 (You start at level 1).
However if you start with your focus and racial bonuses all in Minor skills then the calc is as follows:
Starting Major Skill Total = 25 x 7 = 175.
Difference = 700 - 175 = 525.
Max no of Levels you can gain = 525 / 10 = 52 (rounding down).
Therefore max level = 53.
So there is a balance to be struck between being well skilled at Level 1 and not reaching Level 50+.
Every time you level up you get a bonus to your Health, Magicka and Fatigue scores and can increase three of your stats (just like in Morrowind).
The monsters in dungeons and the loot you get from chests is based on your level, so it is only at the high end that a power gamer might see a drop off in their abilities. Your Average Joe gamer won't ever notice the subtle differences.
So what did I do?
I am playing a Breton Mage/Thief (Spellblade).
My Major skills are all Stealth related apart from Destruction swapped for Acrobatics.
My Focus Bonus is in Magic.
My Racial Bonuses are mainly Magical.
The combo gives me lots of starting skills (All Major and some Minor) with scores of 20 or 25 (Destruction being 30) and allows me to progress my level (or not) by using non-combat skills like Speechcraft and Sneak, rather than being forced up levels by being hit or hitting things in combat. My Max level is still 53 as my difference score is 520.
I can progress my magic skills using training spells without it forcing up my level and hence can increase my survivability.
This was not me powergaming but was a pure fluke as I wanted a more balanced character at level one. Just lucky!
Well I will let you digest that and write more about Levels 1 to 3 later.
PS The game is great!
PPS Typos and Apostrophes corrected (thanks Serena)
Back in Business
OK, time to put this blog to some practical use.
I will be tracking my progress through and thoughts on The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion for PC.
I will be tracking my progress through and thoughts on The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion for PC.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
For Alex
I resent the implication that I haven't updated my Blog for 3 months....
I blatantly posted some stuff in December!
Anyway, this is the start of a long silence - probably.
I blatantly posted some stuff in December!
Anyway, this is the start of a long silence - probably.
Monday, December 05, 2005
EBay
Forgot to say that Serena and I saved a small fortune on EBay yesterday.
We bought £300 worth of new electrical goods for under £200.
Makes a change, as I usually find stuff on EBay goes for more than I can buy it based on a pricerunner search!
We bought £300 worth of new electrical goods for under £200.
Makes a change, as I usually find stuff on EBay goes for more than I can buy it based on a pricerunner search!
You don't have to be mad to work here....
Well it has been a strange weekend for a couple of reasons….
1/ I got the car MoT’s on Sunday and rather than sitting around in Kwik Fit I took a stroll over the road into the local “leisure complex”. The only place that was open was the Megabowl, so I bought an awful cappuccino and sat down to read my magazine.
After about 20 minutes I started to have a bad headache and realised that the only other people present were a group of 7 year olds attending a birthday party, so the staff had pumped up the S-Club 7 to record volumes. I decided to go sit outside instead! You would have to be bonkers to work there, or have a strong tolerance for crap music (and coming from me that is a serious complaint!).
2/ Arriving at work this morning, I hit the kitchen and made myself a cappuccino with one of my Nestle instant sachets (I miss our London coffee machine!). Returning to my desk I reached for my chocolate sprinkles to find them absent. I looked around and found them behind my PC, looking mangled.
The little tube has been chewed beyond all recognition and the area is littered with mouse droppings! I have put in a complaint to the building services team! Surprisingly my advent calendar has survived untouched – although the chocolates from those usually get eaten by the cleaners!
Well we return to London this weekend, so this week could be mildly stressful and next week will be awful!
I just hope the house is liveable, as we have given the builders 3 more weeks than they originally asked for.
Ho Hum!
1/ I got the car MoT’s on Sunday and rather than sitting around in Kwik Fit I took a stroll over the road into the local “leisure complex”. The only place that was open was the Megabowl, so I bought an awful cappuccino and sat down to read my magazine.
After about 20 minutes I started to have a bad headache and realised that the only other people present were a group of 7 year olds attending a birthday party, so the staff had pumped up the S-Club 7 to record volumes. I decided to go sit outside instead! You would have to be bonkers to work there, or have a strong tolerance for crap music (and coming from me that is a serious complaint!).
2/ Arriving at work this morning, I hit the kitchen and made myself a cappuccino with one of my Nestle instant sachets (I miss our London coffee machine!). Returning to my desk I reached for my chocolate sprinkles to find them absent. I looked around and found them behind my PC, looking mangled.
The little tube has been chewed beyond all recognition and the area is littered with mouse droppings! I have put in a complaint to the building services team! Surprisingly my advent calendar has survived untouched – although the chocolates from those usually get eaten by the cleaners!
Well we return to London this weekend, so this week could be mildly stressful and next week will be awful!
I just hope the house is liveable, as we have given the builders 3 more weeks than they originally asked for.
Ho Hum!
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