Tag Archives: PC

The Tale of Garn Chapter 24

Warning: potential side quest spoilers ahead!

From the journals of Garn:

Sleep Like The Dead

Though the Imperial City is within sight I have to continue my journey around to one of the entrances in the north. Night falls quickly and despite the frequent patrols of the roads this area is teaming with wildlife, Goblins, and other undesirables that I’d rather not let catch me off guard so I decide to make a stop at the Roxy Inn. When I inquire about a room the Nord lady behind the bar, no doubt noticing my garb, says she’ll make me a deal. She has a desperate look in her eye which draws my full attention – I hear her out. She tells me that a Necromancer named Raelynn the Gravefinder has moved into a cave nearby and has been causing a lot of trouble, sometimes scaring away potential customers. She says that if I can clear out the rogue mage she will give me a room for free whenever I desire. While I probably won’t need to stay this close to the Imperial City very often an adventure is an adventure.

“Hey look it’s… nah, just teasing.”

Since I’ll likely be in the dark the entire time anyway I decide to go ahead and visit the necromancer’s cave now. She almost certainly won’t be expecting unwelcome visitors of the adventurer variety at this hour and, if I’m lucky, she’ll even be asleep. I’ve heard and, to some extent, seen myself by now that rogue mages and other outlaws often prefer to live in groups so the possibly that Raelynn isn’t alone doesn’t escape me. I carefully creep up to the cave, putting my torch out 25 feet or so before the cave’s entrance as to not cast any light that might give my approach away, and slip into the entrance.

“Just point me at her…”

The cave is much larger and more open than I would have suspected – now I’m even more concerned that this might be some sort of a necromancer coven’s base of operations. Soon, despite my attempts to remain stealth, my presence is detected and I hear the telltale signs of a summon spell being cast. A reanimated corpse comes charging at me. As I hack at the decomposed body mindlessly swinging at me I catch a glimpse of the necromancer behind it – and it isn’t a woman. After defeating the animation I charge the necromancer and despite his attempts to flee I finish him off. Hmm.

“Sure, stand there smugly behind your burning skeleton… thingy..”

The next coordinator leads to a double door way. As I prepare to quietly open it the doors both swing open with great force. I only narrowly avoid being bashed in the face by one of them. Two summoned skeletons rush me and I prepare for a tough fight. Obviously two separate necromancers are behind this attack as each animation is quite powerful. After downing the skeletons I rush the first necromancer I see. She screams at me, something to the effect that she knew they’d come for her eventually she won’t go easily. Indeed she doesn’t – we trade spells until I am able to corner her and finish her with my blade. Raelynn the Gravefinder is dead yet I barely have time to take in the kill as the second necromancer attacks. Wounded from my battle with Raelynn this fight is quite a struggle. This necromancer seems to be much more powerful and I only narrowly survive his constant summons and lightning attacks.

“Raelynn the Gravefinder curses you!”

Although my job here is done I believe I’ll explore this cave system just a bit more, after all, if any necromancers remain then the Roxy Inn’s troubles will too. The next chamber I enter contains three necromancers, though thankfully not nearly as powerful as the last one. I summon a Daedroth who quickly dispatches one of the spell casters before he can even summon an animation. The Daedroth and I quickly dispatch the second as well, though the third proves more elusive and begins running down a far corridor away from me while at the same time hurling all manner of spells and curses at me. The necromancer and I trade magical blows evenly for what seems like minutes. While she did a good job of keeping me at bay I eventually gain enough ground to charge her and land a fatal blow, cleaving one of her arms cleanly from her body and sending her staff quietly rolling down the passage.

“Behind you!”

I loot the bodies of their possessions. There isn’t not much in the way of treasure but rare and valuable magic supplies are numerous. I move on to the final large room in the cave and am greeted by another necromancer and his summon and I can see another, more powerful necromancer further in the room who also begins to send his animations at me. I land a fireball squarely on the first necromancer and slide my blade through his side for good measure as his screams, burning to death, then kick him off of my sword and charge, shield raised high, to the necromancer lord. The lord summons additional animations and animates some of the nearby bodies. Soon a wraith joins the battle as well. Obviously this necromancer knows he is the end of the line and is giving it all he has. Unfortunately for him so am I.

“I skillfully block the attacks of my opponents by employing a meat shield.”

As I summon another Daedroth to distract some of his summons I pepper him with fireballs and advance on him. As I hear the wraith’s agonizing yelp of defeat beside me I charge further at the necromancer, this time bashing him with my shield and following through with a swift sideways strike. Despite my crushing advance he is able to block my blow with his staff though it is cut cleanly in half, its pieces flying to either side behind him. This time I lunge my sword towards his belly and it hits its mark. While the necromancer is obviously mortally wounded his finger tips still crackle with lightning as if he is going to strike at me a final time with his dying breath. Taking no chances I draw my sword from his belly and with one powerful strike cleave off his head. The cave seems vacant once again.

Now perhaps I can finally get that room at the inn I was after…

I know I suggested that I was finally going to be doing some Imperial City quests but this entry and the next will be me cleaning up a couple of other minor side quests I missed along the way…

Once More Unto the Breach

I was digging through my screenshots folder the other day when I came across a bevy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 screens. It then occurred to me that I’d somehow neglected to ever even mention BC2 on here. What can I say? I suck at this. 😉

Despite trying the Xbox 360 demo and not feeling immediately compelled to run out and buy it I ended up grabbing Battlefield Bad Company 2 for PC strictly so that I could play its well reviewed multiplayer with several old PC gaming friends. There were also a few guys at work playing it on console so I figured it’d be fun to be able to talk about it with them from time to time. I was not disappointed. I’ve been a fan of the Battlefield series since Battlefield 1942 and, despite some major design changes over the years, I still consider myself one. In fact I mentioned playing through Bad Company’s single player campaign on here not too long ago.

While I haven’t invested the countless hours that many of you have I’ve certainly enjoyed my time with the multiplayer despite how much more difficult it seemed for me to get good at it. It seems so much more chaotic… or maybe I’m just getting too old? I did eventually find a niche that I could fill nicely and have since improved quite a bit. I’m not sure if I’ve decided how much of a good thing it is yet but I’m definitely intrigued by how much environmental destruction changes the gameplay.

Anyway, since it has been quite a while since I’ve actively played it (though I do intend on going back to it) I won’t ramble on with my usual observations. I will, however, post some of those aforementioned screenshots:

“We both shoot but I close the deal.”

“Sure, lean back, take a load off.”

“Beautiful capture of an explosion.”

“Medic!”

“Feel good moment in 3… 2…”

“In my sights.”

I cannot wait for the proper Battlefield 3.

The Crafting of Mines

This seems like my first game log in quite a while – in fact it is. I’ve simply not been playing a lot lately, disappointingly, and the one game I’ve been playing the most I’ve been putting a lot of effort into “100 percenting” so it is taking what seems like a huge amount of time to complete. I’ll report back on that when I’m through with it but check this out in the meantime!

A little while ago a friend introduced me to this small, still in development indy game called Minecraft and I’ve quickly become addicted to it. It’s basically a game in which you can freely build things in an open world – from tunneling underground, to building massive structures. The main game-type has you doing so while building up resources, crafting, and dodging and/or fighting the occasional creature.

“My humble little hobbit hole.”

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about this game that is so charming: Is it the Doom meets Mario style of simple, low-res graphics? Is it the Lego like ability to build anything in a world which is essentially a big toy box? For me, I think the sense of immersion I get from exploring these strange, randomly generated, infinite worlds is the most appealing part. I’ve always considered myself to be at least a little bit of an “explorer” but Minecraft has really managed to reveal just how extreme that side of my gaming psychology can be.

I could spend a lot more time attempting to describe Minecraft and its many glories but as luck had it early into writing this post I read this fantastic article on Bitmob describing the game. Check it out for some thoughts on and a quick introduction to the game.

Anyway, here’s the meat and potatoes! A short chronicle of a few days (of mostly ~1 hour play sessions) in a newly generated world:

Day 1:

I started by building a house on an ocean front beach near to where I started. There were mountains close by with several caves in them as well as quite a few trees scattered about and of course an abundance of water for farming later on. My current preferred way to start out with a house in Minecraft is simply to dig a pit, whatever size I feel like, 2 blocks deep, and then use the dirt I gathered from the dig to build a 1 block high dirt wall and ceiling. This is advantageous because it can be done quickly before nightfall on your first day without any tools. You can then block up the door, or half block it if you prefer, to keep safe for the night.

“A view of my home from above as night sets in.”

I started the usual way – chopping down trees by hand to get some wood to construct a workbench with. Next I made some wooden tools, specifically pick axes, and set out to survey the hills. There were a number of caves in the nearest, largest mountain, but absolutely none of them seemed to contain any ore. After upgrading my tools to stone I set out for some coal. A little more searching, this time in a small, craggy rock face across the valley from the aforementioned mountain, yielded a pretty massive vein of coal. Now I could really get down to business! I started by making a mass of torches as well as some additional stone tools and a furnace.

Day 2:

I spent a night digging a stairwell in my house’s floor down to a long, straight hall which I lit with torches as needed. I came across some coal here and there but nothing spectacular. As day broke I went back outside and began gathering additional wood and cloth while searching local caves for signs of iron. Unfortunately iron and coal were rare finds and as night set in I took refuge in my home once more. I ended up crafting myself some glass to turn the top of my lowly, dirt house into a classy skylight. I tunneled a bit more below my house turning my long corridor to the right. I came up with vague plan to make a series of tunnels, forming a grid, and then cleaning out the entire space between them, harvesting any resources I might find along the way and making a massive room to serve as a foundation for further mining efforts. Just as I decided to start doing just that, turning another right corner with my original tunnel, I hit a natural cave.

“A massive natural tunnel leading deep into my mine.”

I had broken into the cave towards the top of it and carefully made my way to the bottom. The large main room broke off in several directions. I set an array of torches as I began to explore what turned out to be quite a massive cave system which included 2 underground rivers and what seemed to be a large amount of iron and coal. I was quite excited to start excavating and fully investigating this cave system but I needed to quit for the day. As I didn’t quite explore every last inch of the cave, meaning there were possible unknown, unlit tunnels where creatures could be hiding, I built a door onto the tunnel leading down to the cave. I also finally built myself a real front door to my house while I was at it.

Day 3:

I was pretty anxious to get to mining and immediately returned to my newly discovered basement cave system. I started by mining all of the ore out of one of the smaller tunnels close to the entrance and then signaling that I was done with it by building some dirt pillars around the entrance of it. I may do something a bit more interesting with closed off areas later on. I then went another direction and began exploring pathway up towards the ceiling that I had missed last time. Unfortunately it didn’t have anything of note in it and it ended up in a small, square room a lot higher up than the rest of the cave. I thought to myself “hmm, I wonder how close I am to the outside?” and mined a single rock from overhead. I saw some water above me and thought “cool, I’m under a river!” Barely enough time for that thought to have processed passed before the cave started flooding. I ran for my life. This being my first encounter with underground water accidents I thought my mine was done for but luckily the water produced a nice, clean waterfall and didn’t flood too much of the surrounding area.

“An underground river spilling into a lava flow.”

I continued to explore the cave system, constantly finding new areas further and further in. This thing was even more gigantic than I originally suspected, eventually leading down into some huge natural caverns. The first time I ran into a bow carrying monster I must have jumped 10 feet out of my chair in what was probably the most scary moment I’ve had in a video game since playing Doom 3. That *thwack!* sound just totally caught me by surprise. Exploring Minecraft doesn’t really put me in that sort of a tense mood like Doom 3, Dead Space, and other similar games do though – I’m usually much more curious about exploring then I am nervous about what will happen to me around the next corner which I suppose is why this surprise attack freaked me out so much. I ended up crafting a set of iron armor and an iron sword for such encounters in the future.

“Score! I found a second diamond vein while taking screenshots!”

Eventually I reached the bottom of the caves – a complex system of smaller caves teaming with iron and coal interconnected by giant underground rivers of lava. The lava let off a warm glow which was quite enjoyable after fumbling around in the dark for so long. This is also where I discovered my first diamond vein which yielded 3 of the precious stones. As I explored more of the depths of the cave system it became completely obvious that I wasn’t even close to having explored the entire thing yet so I came to a good stopping point and returned to my humble home to call it a night.

Day 4:

More exploration! I spent almost the entire session yet again exploring my newly discovered mines, though this time a bit more methodically than before. I was able to seal off a couple of sections, having mined out their coal and iron, with the dirt pillars I used yesterday though I also, for better or for worse, discovered some exceedingly large and often deep new sections. I marked the entrances to those sections with a series of new torches to point me in the right direction. Even after I explore all of the conventional cave, which may yet take quite a while at this rate, the entire bottom floor of the deepest section of the system seems to be riddled with a sprawling maze of lava filled tunnels, some of which I suspect lead to yet more caves and tunnels.

“It may be hard to see in the thumbnail but there are two skeletons, a creeper, and a spider on the other side of this waterfall.”

After I do finally explore it all and mine out all of the precious ore I’m toying with the idea of going through with my blocks and my pick and basically remodeling the entire cave system so that it looks man made – fixing craggy edges, rough floors, and strange turns. It might be too much work though, given the size of this thing, especially considering how massive some of the caverns are. After that I plan to look for a new place to build a better, much more complex house and new places to mine.