Tamriel with Friends

After a year of existence–and fair-to-middling reviews–in the realm of "personal" "computers", The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited has arrived on consoles. I consider myself to be a pretty big Elder Scrolls nerd (well, as big a nerd as one can be when one discovered the Elder Scrolls with Oblivion, anyway) and I was so excited I pre-ordered and pre-loaded that shit. Mind, when the game launched at midnight on June 9th, the servers were so flooded I couldn't play. In fact I couldn't play until sometime the next evening and that was super frustrating but it's fine now so let's not dredge up bad memories, hmm?

I've played a shit ton–nay, a metric fuck ton–of Oblivion and Skyrim. I am a total sucker for open world gaming, and there's not much that pleases me more than exploration. Wandering a world, discovering landmarks, descending into caves, solving mysteries...I cannot get enough. I cannot! The structure in Elder Scrolls games is loose; sure, there's a main quest line, but you don't have to actually do it. These are role-playing games in the truest sense, because you can basically do whatever the hell you want.

I made one of my characters a total "tomb raider". She lived to uncover the hidden places, to find untold treasure and learn about the past. I enforced plenty of restrictions in that playthrough:

• she couldn't join any guilds or follow the main story at all
• she couldn't fast travel (that is, she couldn't warp from one place to another...instead, she had to walk or hire a carriage)
• she had to adhere to a somewhat normal schedule–this meant finding an inn or campsite and sleeping at night, as well as eating regular meals
• for maximum nerdery, I only used the fold-out paper map that came with the game–no fancy in-game maps for this character so cool, I know
• no magic use allowed–bows and daggers or swords only

Another character could only use magic. She was an evil outcast full of nothing but rage, a lust for power, and murderous thoughts. She helped very few people on her journeys, and when she did, she bilked them for all they were worth. Her only goal was to rise to the top of both the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood (the assassins guild), and to incessantly harass a shopkeeper who sassed her. Every night, I would sneak into the bunkhouse where the shopkeeper slept. I'd pick her pockets clean, then go rob her shop. Every night. 

For all of my playthroughs, I turn off the game's music and turn up the sound effects. The crunch of my footfalls on dirt...the different crunch of my footfalls on snow...the patter of raindrops on leaves...wind howling through a bend in a long-forgotten crypt...the conversation between two bandits somewhere further on in a cave...all of it added to the immersion, the feeling that my characters were truly inhabiting a living, breathing world.

So along comes Elder Scrolls Online and it's time to dive back into Tamriel. As I said, I was wicked excited and my nerd senses were a-tinglin'. I thought long and hard about what kind of character I would make, which of the game's three Alliances I would join. I love sneaking, busting out my bow, and eliminating threats before those threats even know I'm there, so I created a wood elf and joined the Aldmeri Dominion, which unites Bosmer, Altmer, and Khajits. I was ready!

Or, I thought I was. Duh fucking DUH, Elder Scrolls Online is an MMO. It's online. It's right there in the title! I got that because, like, I know how to read. What I didn't get was how much it would change the Elder Scrolls as I know it. 

Basically there are a zillion other folks running around with you–other Bosmer, Altmer, and Khajits. And Orcs. And Nords, and Dunmer, and Bretons, and...you get the idea. So what does this do to your game?

Well, let's say you're tasked with entering a cave, collecting ten samples of Whatever, and killing the Head Necromancer in Charge. Cool! Standard RPG stuff. So you get in the cave, ready to sneak on through and–oh. Someone runs by you and engages the enemy you were going to quietly assassinate. Okay. That someone–you see their screen name emblazoned over their head, so let's call them MuffDiver69, because that's the kind of user name you'll see, which is great for immersion–kills the enemy, nabbing all the XP that comes with victory. Then they nab the Whatever that drops, so you need to wait for the enemy to respawn and hope that you get the goods this time.

You make your way to the boss's chamber, and five people–MuffDiver69, I_Teabagged_UR_Mom, whofarted, 420blazeit, and xxxDeAtHdEaLeR666xxx–have almost killed the Head Necromancer in Charge. You get a snippet of dialogue from the big bad so you kind of know what's going on. Now you have to wait for the Head Necromancer in Charge to respawn, and you notice that bodies don't fade. This means that there are three dead Head Necromancers in Charge on the ground as the one you need to kill reappears in front of you. 

And so on. That's the way it goes. It's an MMO.

While that makes the idea of immersion a joke and leads to a lot of oh my fucking god will you please get out of my way "I_Pooped" and let me do this thing I need to do, it also leads to stuff like this, the appeal of which cannot be denied.

I mean, you just don't get impromptu underwear dance parties with strangers in Skyrim, you know? Not to mention the background chaos: people riding horses through town, running around, shooting fireballs, being chased by their pet panthers. This encapsulates ESO pretty perfectly, which is to say your Elder Scrolls expectations need to be tempered. Your enjoyment of the game will likely be equivalent with how okay you are with this sort of thing.

So if you're totally okay with it, what of the gameplay itself? What is there to do? Holy shit, there is so much to do. The quests aren't always particularly deep–you'll frequently run into some variety of "Help me, adventurer! Will you gather ten plants/kill the bandits/find my brother?"–you know, fetch quests and the such. However, that doesn't mean they're not often interesting. For example, at the end of one minor quest, my partner and I agonized over a particular decision–whether to kill an NPC or let her go–for a good five minutes. We debated the repercussions of each option, weighed them...and ultimately the result had no bearing on anything beyond that quest. But the discussion it sparked between us made it memorable.

There's also a lot of humor, and most of the billions of NPCs have personalities. Even throwaway moments are well-written, and that can go a long, long way in a game like this.

Many of the standard Elder Scrolls hallmarks are here–crafting, cooking, enchanting, alchemy–and they're all as in-depth than you could hope for, if not more so. There are so many skills, abilities, and perks that it's quite intimidating at first–how can you possibly unlock them all? Then you remember that the game is essentially endless, that if you're in, you're in for the long haul. You can join guilds, team up with others, or play nearly all of the game solo. Or, as solo as you can be in a massively multiplayer experience. There's also the PvP realm that pits the various Alliances against one another. I haven't checked that out yet, and frankly I'm not in any rush to.

I've got too many necromancers to kill, unless of course Missed_Da_Toilet gets there first, or I get distracted by an underwear dance party. Tamriel. It's a living, breathing world!

Dragon's WHAT, now?

As you may or may not know (or CARE, to be sure), I am a ginormous fan of western RPGs. Oh yeah, the soap-opera-ness, the world-roamin', the build-your-own-protagonistin'...games like Dragon Age and Oblivion please me the mostest. I thought I'd have naught of this ilk to play until the Skyrim expansion Dawnguard hits later this month, but then lo! I started reading reviews of a game called Dragon's Dogma and it soon became apparent that YES. This game and I were meant to be.

You're going about your business in your wee fishing village one fine day when the bright blue sky darkens as the wings of a mighty dragon blot out the sun! As it turns out, this dragon is a total jerk- when you make a meager attempt at defending yourself, he plucks out your heart, swallows it whole, and takes off for parts unknown.

Despite no longer having a heart beating in your chest, you soon awaken for you are...The Arisen! And it's time to leave your wee fishing village to find that dragon and reclaim what's yours.

You know how it goes: assemble a crew, embark on quests as you build up enough power to face the big boss, talk to denizens of cities near and far...sounds like a pretty generic fantasy RPG, right? Well, it is and it isn't. Certainly there are familiar elements at play and sure, Gransys is definitely a Tolkien-lite kinda world. In their first attempt at a western RPG, however, Japanese developer Capcom changes up the formula in some truly refreshing ways.

The biggest of these ways is evident in the merrie bande of fighters you lead- rather than recruiting a gang of companions from all around the game map (à la Dragon Age) or asking/hiring a follower to accompany you for a while (à la Skyrim), the Arisen is, by rights, given control over the Pawn Guild. Pawns are soulless fighters who hail from the Rift, and they'll fight at your side throughout the game.

Early on, you create a Primary Pawn- modifying appearance, behavior, gender, class, etc- who tags along for the entire adventure. You can choose two more pre-crafted Secondary Pawns as well. Your Primary levels up with you, and you can outfit him or her as you acquire new gear; Secondary Pawns stay as-is, so you'll need to visit the Rift to swap 'em out as you outgrow them or you want to change the class makeup of your party.

Cool, right? Even cooler: if you're playing online, your Primary can be chosen as a Secondary to other online Dragon's Dogma players, and likewise you can choose your Secondaries from Pawns other players have created. He or she will return with gifts given by other players as well as quest knowledge.

Capcom has also changed up the rules about class and leveling up: sure, your character levels through experience gained, but you don't need to worry about stats...which I found to be a pleasant change from the norm, actually. Strength and the such can be modified through the use of gear, but when you hit a new level you simply...gain more health, power, stamina, etc. Though you choose a "vocation" at the outset- fighter, mage, or strider (rogue), of course- you can switch at any time if you're feeling bored. As each vocation progresses, you can choose more advanced forms or hybrids. I started as a strider and eventually became an assassin, a fighter/strider mix. Next time I'll go for a strider/mage mix, because wielding a magic bow sounds mighty appealing.

The one downside to the Pawns? They never, ever shut up. Ever. EVARRRR. As you travel, they talk incessantly- whether it's offering quest advice or simply blurting out things like "What a large tree!", there are three people behind you yapping all the time. It would be annoying if it weren't so hilarious...or maybe vice versa.

You'll be hearing them a lot because the world of Gransys is largely tread on foot- fast travel is a privilege, not a right, and it's earned far into the game. Even then, it's only achieved via special crystals that are incredibly rare- you plant them wherever you like and reach them via other special crystals. This really allows you to experience the world, but it can also be a bit tedious- sometimes you simply don't want to walk from one end of the map to the other, you know? But, leaving areas for good (or never exploring much) means you'll miss out on plenty of quests.

I missed out on some quests simply because of my biggest peeve with Dragon's Dogma: the save system. You can save anytime you like, but the game also auto-saves...and you only have one save file. There's no going back! I discovered this when walking through an innocuous door triggered the final quest and an auto-save- sure, I promptly turned myself around, but several other quests were immediately canceled because they could no longer be completed after that point. It makes my gamer OCD/completionist brain hurt.

Fighting is a blast in Dragon's Dogma. Yeah, there are RPG staples like spiders, rats, and goblins, sure...but Gransys is also populated by enormous creatures straight out of mythology: cyclopes, harpies, chimeras, griffins, and more all roam the land freely. For most of them, there's a Shadow of the Colossus-style angle that can be exploited- grab on to a writhing head of a hydra or climb up the back of a golem and hack away. It's fun, it's difficult (oh, I died so many times in this game, and some battles last upwards of 10-15 minutes), and it never gets old.

You'll find, too, that the world changes vastly from day to night, and Gransys under darkness is no joke. The monsters are tougher, and the only light comes courtesy of the small lantern tied at your waist. Is that shape ahead a rock, or a cyclops waiting in ambush? To what manner of beast do those glowing red eyes in the distance belong? And let me tell you, I thought I'd tired of zombies, but Dragon's Dogma features the absolute creepiest undead I've seen since...well, since Capcom's seminal Resident Evil series.

Though I truly loved the game- it's a really good time- it's not without some...quirks that detract from the play. I mean, no one seems to notice (or care) that the mighty Arisen is a total mute. This is not a voiceless protagonist where you get to choose a line of dialogue from time to time that might give your character some sense of...well, character. All you get to do is pick a yes or a no, an accept or a do not accept from time to time. The cutscenes are well-rendered and the Arisen has some emotive facial expressions, but no more than that. It's just kind of...weird. Particularly when people fall in love with you.

That's right, it's a western RPG so there must be some form of romance, right? It's there in Dragon's Dogma, but it's convoluted and broken beyond all reason. Doing quests make people fall in love with you...so while you give a shopkeeper a fancy idol in exchange for better gear, look out! He or she (gender don't matter none in DD) may prove to be your love interest. Yup, it's out of your control for the most part, and who you'll end up with is largely a mystery until it happens. After completing her quest, one broad decided she was in love with me and moved into my house- into my house!- without my permission. I had my eye on someone else, however, so I was left with no choice but to throw this poor lovestruck girl off of a cliff. I'd say don't judge me, but perhaps the game itself judged me: my "beloved", after all, changed from one ending to the next. Yes, Dragon's Dogma has more endings than Return of the King, though I'm not complaining about that. It was odd, though, to walk off into the sunset not with the person I'd already walked off into a sunset with, but with...a total surprise.

Despite its flaws, Dragon's Dogma fell right into place alongside other western RPGs I love. I hope there's meaty DLC in the works, or a sequel...and I certainly hope Capcom doesn't give up on this strange new world.

And ooh, I hope that "What a large tree!" becomes the new "arrow in the knee".

And here's a trailer that shows a bit o' gameplay:

Where do I begin?

The other night I fired up Mass Effect to begin my super canon totally complete epic do everything ME 1 - ME 2 run in anticipation of the March 6th release of Mass Effect 3. My FemShep needs to be ready to roll for galaxy savin', you know? (OH MUH GAH I CAN'T WAIT). In fact, this run is the only thing that got me to take Skyrim out of my Xbox 360...which I think is going to be Mass Effected for a long time to come.

But when grabbing the game off the shelf I noticed that for the first time in my life, I have a stockpile of games I haven't yet played. A stockpile. This is really not like me at all- I tend to be a very...mmm, orderly gamer, I guess. I buy a game, I play it to completion, I move on to the next. Though I own several platforms, I don't ever play more than one game at a time- my brain can't handle it! Okay, maybe I could handle playing Super Mario World alongside something else, but that's because SMW doesn't require questing and thinking. The idea of trying to go at Mass Effect and Skyrim at the same time gives me hives. Some people can do it, but I cannot.

So, as Dragon Age II and then Skyrim ate up my time, unplayed games have piled up. Games I was given (how nice!) or games that I've been wanting to play forever (hello, Batman) or games that were so cheap I couldn't resist (hi there, Enslaved brand new for $8) have been waiting for me to recover from my BioWare/Bethesda sickness.

Will that day ever come? I don't know, but here's what's waiting for me, should I pull through:












I don't even know where to start in all that. I just hope to play them all before I croak!

What about you? Do you play more than one game at a time? Anything sitting around neglected, waiting for you to play it?

FYI

Here is Roland Jenseric's shopping list:

• apples
• onions
• lard
• cheese
• milk

And here is Roland Jenseric:

I'm replaying Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion a little bit at a time because...umm...it's research for my webcomic RPG. Yes, that's it! Research! But also, I'm replaying it because why not? It's a pretty astonishing game in terms of scope; it's possible to clock countless hours simply exploring the world, finding towns and picking herbs or whatever. The game can truly be whatever you want it to be, and the main plot is almost an afterthought.

Story in Oblivion takes a backseat to the player simply existing- which was a hard concept to grasp the first time I played it. The end of the tutorial stage finds your character emerging from a sewer into bright sunshine, at which point the game basically says "take the next step in the plot, or don't- whatevs. We don't care!" and there you are, standing in the middle of a vast land with nothing and everything to do. It's rather jarring when you're accustomed to more linear games, be they RPGs or not.

Ultimately, it's that endless exploration that makes Oblivion so great. I tend to spend my time wandering the countryside searching for caves and ruins to explore. I clean out the monsters, discover whatever secrets the place may hold, and go sell the spoils for big bucks. The whole "save the world" idea in the main storyline? Yeah, I'll get to that later. Right now I've got chests full of gold to unlock!

"Welcome to my home."

I've approached one thing very differently in this playthrough than I did in my last: books. There are hundreds of books scattered around the country, available for reading (or stealing) in homes, available for purchase (or stealing) in shops, and just plain lying around waiting to be found. Some of them provide a skill boost when opened, while others are simply...books. History, instruction, fiction, poetry, you name it- there are literally thousands of pages to be read. The first time I played, I opened every book I found in the hope of getting that stat boost. This time, however, I'm reading the majority of them (sorry, some instruction manuals are just dry) and it's astonishing how much time and effort has been put in by the developers on what can obviously be completely ignored. Again, that's Oblivion. It's your world to make.

(By the way, right now I'm really into The Mystery of Talara, but I can't find volumes 3 & 4. If anyone knows, please help a nerd out.)

fuck yeah, gonna pick some herbs

Even the leveling system is strange in Oblivion. I'm used to the standard XP method, wherein you need a certain amount of experience points in order to gain a level. XP is acquired by completing tasks, punching people in the face, etc etc. Not so in the land of the Elder Scrolls! The game employs a sort of "practice makes perfect" approach, wherein you aptitude in skills grows as you use those skills- then when you've advanced all of your major skills enough, you gain a level. It's a more realistic approach, I guess. If you keep blocking with a shield, you'll...you know, get better at blocking. Still, it's a vague system and when you're a number-crunching RPGer, it's a scary new world. Change is frightening!

What's strange, though, is that no matter how much time I spend wandering the landscape and talking to people, I never get much of a grip on who my character is. Sure, it's "role-playing", I suppose, but my personality never shines through and whatever background she may have is completely in my head. The player character has no speaking voice- not that it matters, really; BioWare and Valve have proven that mute characters can still be fleshed out- and there are very few instances where I get to choose from multiple dialogue responses. Sure, I can be good or evil, a thief or a do-gooder, a vampire or a...not vampire, but in the end, I'm just a pair of hands wielding a sword and shield. It's weird to spend those countless hours in someone's skin- scaly skin for me this go-round, as I'm playing an Argonian lizard lady- and com out with no sense of who he or she is.

Maybe it doesn't matter.

If there's one area I hope to see improved for the forthcoming Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, it's characterization. Not only in the player character, obviously, but also in the NPCs. Oblivion is greatly hurt by the fact that though there are hundreds of minor characters, there are only a handful of voice actors and but a few more facial models. The result is that no one stands out- everyone blends in and names don't matter. No one is memorable, and conversation with everyone is a bit of a drag.

And they're all so ugly! Good lord, Cyrodiil is home to some truly, truly ugly people. I mentioned that this time I'm playing as a lizard- really, I chose that race because I didn't want my character to be hideous. Not only are the NPCs are heinous, it's also nigh impossible to create a character who isn't equally gross. Yes, in Oblivion, a walking lizard woman is more attractive than a human. (I know there are mods for the PC version that make folks easier to stomach visually, but I'm rocking a 360.)

the best picture I found

And goodness, they're a needy people!

"Oh, you tracked down my long-lost twin brother and reunited us, thank you! Umm, now we want to reclaim our long-lost childhood home, but we're not sure where it is. Could you go find it for us? Thank you."

"Oh, you're back, and you've found our home! Thank you. It's overrun with ogres, you say? Hmm. Could you go kill them and then come back here? Thank you."

"Oh, you've killed all the ogres? Thank you. Can you now please escort us to our home? And protect us! Despite this large warhammer on my back, I'm afraid I cannot defend myself. Thank you."

And so on.

spriggins creep me the hell out

In related news, there's really little I hate MORE in videogames than escort missions. I really, really hate them. Really. There's nothing worse than having to protect some jerk who can't defend themselves, who can't run, and who dies after, like, one hit. I hate escort missions. Hate. HATE. HAAAAAATE. I hate them.

Ahem. Anyway, yeah, Oblivion is cool. I think I'll become a vampire lizard. And I'll steal horses. And let the people I escort get eaten by bears or something. That'll show 'em!

get here already!

I'm already excited about Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The folks at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have played through an hour of the forthcoming game and have listed 20 reasons to be excited about it, so now I'm even excitedier. I mean...

7. The world is so much more alive. You’ll see packs of wolves hunting mammoths, you’ll see fearsome beasts such as giants wander by without bothering you because they’re off on other business rather than being mindless killers, you’ll see friendly passers-by running up to you with a sword you dropped earlier and offering to return it – or taking a pop at you with it if they have some reason to despise you.

8. Conversations with NPCs no longer involves an awkward zoom-in to their strange faces, a fixed perspective and an ugly text box. Now, it’s clean, sharp text floating directly onto the screen, and you’re free to look around as you please. Much of the incidental conversation, such as back stories, can be had while going for a stroll with a character as they chat away ambiently, rather than standing there clicking through text from a static position because you’re worried about missing something.

Oh November, why must you be so far away? There's no way Skyrim is going to be anything less than epic. I know that word is overplayed, but if there's ever a time it's appropriate, it's...well, when talking about Skyrim.

"He doesn't like you...I don't like you, either."

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim gameplay trailer!

Bethesda Softworks dropped the official chock full o' gameplay trailer for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim today. Umm, I know the word is totally overused nowadays, but...this shit is epic!



My introduction to the world of Elder Scrolls was Oblivion, and it's still the only game in the series I've played for (far, far) more than ten minutes. (I know people loooves 'em some Morrowind, but it's clunky and difficult and frustrating as all hell on the Xbox...especially if you experienced Oblivion first.) It took me a while to get into it, and for a while I was tempted to put it down completely. I'd never partaken in a game so open-world and sandbox-y before, and it took some getting used to. To be honest, I never felt completely attached to my character or the main plot, but damned if I didn't thoroughly enjoy the world (despite the flat NPCs)..."world" being the key word. There's just so much out there to see and do in Cyrodiil- with hundreds of hours logged, there's still more to be discovered. Kind of amazing, really.

Skyrim is definitely on my must-get list (it hits 11/11/11). I'm hoping that those beautiful graphics of the trailer are matched to some compelling characters this go-round; if so, well. I just don't know what I'll do, but I'm sure I'll tell you all about it. WOW.