Tag Archives: PC

The Tale of Garn Chapter 19

Warning: potential side quest spoilers ahead!

From Garn’s recollections:

Layover in Leyawiin

I’ve been majorly slacking on my updates lately. Sorry readers! I’ll be trying to force myself to play more and more Oblivion this month so expect several more updates before May.

After the successful completion of my last quest I was preparing to continue on my journey, heading back up north to the Imperial City. I spent one more night sleeping in a semi-civilized manner, in an inn, before stopping by the city market in the morning to purchase some fruits and vegetables. While walking around the market I overheard several different people discussing a citizen called Rosentia Gallenus. Apparently she hadn’t come out of her house for days and there was a horrible stench and strange noises emanating from within as well. I decided to postpone my departure slightly and investigate.

Knocking on her front door I wasn’t sure what I’d find. Had she committed some kind of grizzly murder? Was she some sort of powerful necromancer, or had she possibly become undead herself? When she finally opened the door she looked worried and exhausted. Recognizing me as an adventurer a weight seemed to instantly lift from her shoulders and she invited me in.

We wouldn't want the neighbors to think you're the wrong religion, now would we?
“We wouldn’t want the neighbors to think you’re the wrong religion, now would we?”

Immediately upon entering her house I was surprised to find the room flanked by several scamps. Rosentia explained. After the death of her husband left her with a fair amount of free septims she began collecting rare, magical artifacts. Her most recent purchase was a staff of Daedric origin. While attempting to translate the runes on it she accidentally activated it, summoning the scamps. Apparently the scamps didn’t cause much in the way of mischief but they followed her everywhere, and even killing them wouldn’t cause them to go away – a new one just appeared in its place. Rosentia had tried getting rid of the scamps, and indeed the staff itself, but nothing worked. She needed help figuring out how to get rid of it. Unable to go herself without raising all kinds of questions about her new, little friends she asked me to talk to one of her friends at the Mage’s Guild.

Awww, aren't they precious?
“Awww, aren’t they precious?”

Alves Uvenim had already suspected what might be going on and conducted some of her own investigating. She believed that the staff was a creation of Sheogorath, the Daedric prince of madness, and that we might be able to get rid of it by leaving it at a shine to him. Fortunately Alves discovered that Rosentia could give me the staff as long as I would willingly accept it. Not only that, but there was a little known shrine to Sheogorath in a cave not far from the city. Problem solved! I visited Rosentia one last time to retrieve the staff and began my journey.

I soon left the city, legion of scamps in tow. Thankfully I wasn’t concerned about rumors of my own dabblings with the Daedra as I was routinely spotted traveling with much worse than mere scamps. The scamps were indeed annoying, however. Unlike summoned creatures they wouldn’t fight for me. In fact, if anything they preferred to stand in the way and hamper my efforts, cackling and snarling as if they were well aware of the twisted joke their Daedric master was playing.

Leave my Daedroth alone, you Xivilai fuck!
“Leave my Daedroth alone, you Xivilai fuck!”

When I finally pushed open the long disused wooden door barring the dark pathway leading down into Darkfathom Cave I immediately heard the scurrying of more Daedric creatures. My attempts to quietly sneak into the cave were of course nullified by my own beastly entourage. Inside the cave I faced a large variety of exotic Daedric creatures, many of which I hadn’t laid my eyes on before. Thankfully few of them posed much of a threat and I soon found myself standing at an ancient, long disused shrine to Lord Sheogorath.

Nice shrine. Further proof that the Daedric Princes have tiny wangs.
“Nice shrine. Further proof that the Daedric Princes have tiny wangs”

The shrine was impressive – probably once a central place of worship in Tamriel long ago. I approached it cautiously and laid down the staff upon an empty alter in front of a large statue of Sheogorath. The scamps scattered and the curse appeared to be lifted. Upon returning to Leyawiin Rosentia was relieved to hear of the news and for my trouble she offered me an less annoying artifact from her collection – a magic ring that seemed as if it would be useful indeed. Another job well done and thankfully another reward worth my trouble. I was hopeful that this might become a trend and I might be able to make my living as an adventurer.

March?!

Damn, it seems like it has been an eternity since my last update. I guess it has been almost a month already. I guess time flies when you’re not having much fun too.

First and foremost after finishing up with The Ballad of Gay Tony I started playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on my 360. I wanted to go ahead and start playing it right away to capitalize on the massive buzz surrounding its much lauded online multiplayer.

There goes the neighborhood...
“There goes the neighborhood…”

I played my share of Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer and liked it a lot. Modern Warfare 2 is more of the same, only now cranked up to 11. Of course adding more rewards, perks, unlocks, challenges, etc. does tend to change the game quite a bit despite the similarities and I’ve talked to a fair amount of players who prefer COD4’s less insane (and possibly more balanced) multiplayer to that of MW2. Still, MW2’s increased focus on rewards succeeds in achieving an almost MMO level of addictiveness that is hard not to appreciate. In fact I had a hard time convincing myself to play the single player while the multiplayer was there, calling out my name. It isn’t usually the most tactical or cooperative of online military shooter experiences but it is definitely a hell of a lot of fun and has become my go to “kill a few minutes” online game on console.

I did eventually finish up the single player campaign on “hardened” difficulty and unfortunately enjoyed it about as much as I enjoyed Call of Duty 4’s. Most of the observations I made in my write up of COD4 a few months back remain true in its sequel. It’s a highly polished experience but I’m just not a big fan of the whole “get funneled around the map while running and gunning through hordes of enemies” thing and would rather be granted the freedom to use some actual tactics to complete my objectives. I suppose the checkpoints are a little better this time around. There have also been claims that there are now always a finite number of enemies so you can never run into nigh impossible situations facing seemingly infinitely spawning enemies that you often could in previous COD games. While this may be true it is honestly hard to tell as the unpleasant, often controller-smashingly frustrating “meat grinder” sections of old are still alive and well here. If you don’t care about the additional achievement and this frustration doesn’t sound like your idea of fun then do yourself a favor and play it on one of the easier modes and for god’s sake stay the hell away from “veteran” difficulty.

Boom! One of the first of MW2's innumerable huge explosions.
“Boom! One of the first of MW2’s innumerable huge explosions.”

While I’m bitching the plot of this one makes the COD4’s story look like a classic war documentary or something. It’s completely over the top and full of weird plot holes. Games Rader has a pretty funny article about it. I really wonder what happened over at Infinity Ward to make them go from writing stories more or less based on real life WWII events to the bizarre shit they’ve given us in the last two COD games. It doesn’t bother me that much – it’s more amusing than anything. These stories at least give us plenty of opportunity to shoot stuff which I suppose is their primary purpose.

As a complete aside I’ve always liked the way Infinity Ward handles first person cinematics and the perspective in general. The spacewalk scene and the flare popping scene on Whiskey Hotel’s roof both come to mind from MW2. There are others as well. They might not always look accurate but they always look cool and feel fairly immersive. It’s too bad they never actually do anything with it by venturing outside of the usual FPS gameplay conventions.

This mission makes it disturbingly clear that someone at Infinity Ward hates waiting in line at the airport.
“This mission makes it disturbingly clear that someone at Infinity Ward hates waiting in line at the airport.”

Oh, before I move on let me reiterate a piece of advice that has been passed around a lot since it was first announced that Party Chat wouldn’t be supported in some of MW2’s game types. Its usefulness goes far beyond replacing Party chat though and finding it isn’t nearly as intuitive as it might sound.

How to mute everybody, all the time on Xbox Live: Hit your guide button. Scroll to the right to the “Settings” section. Select “Profile”, “Edit Profile”, and then select “Privacy Settings”. Select “Voice and Text” from the menu and change it to “Friends Only”.

This will make it so that you can ONLY hear people on your friends list in chat (and vice versa so you won’t be spamming public chat with weird half conversations.) It’ll also block that ever so pleasant after match hate mail you might get from time to time. It can allegedly have some odd effects in some games but for the most part muting all of the insufferable shitheads that plague Xbox Live is easily worth any negatives I can think up. I just wish it were a tad more accessible so that one could simply toggle it on and off for those moments when you might actually want to work together with your teammates and the like but I guess that might go against the spirit of everyone having voice on Xbox Live. *shrug*

Molgrun the Wary at level 7.
“Molgrun the Wary at level 7.”

On the PC front I really haven’t been playing much lately. I grabbed a copy of the collector’s edition of Lord of the Rings Online for dirt cheap and decided to check it out after not setting foot into (onto?) Middle Earth since beta. Other than the utterly ridiculous patching system I had to endure I had fun. I still contend that it is an excellent game but it definitely feels “slower” and a little bit less exciting than some of the other post-World of Warcraft MMOs out there. Actually, it very clearly feels to me like a good pre-WoW theme park style MMORPG that they’ve bolted on lots of WoW influenced features to, which I suppose is probably pretty accurate. That said like Turbine’s other current MMORPG offering, Dungeons & Dragons Online, I could easily see myself playing LOTRO if I had a regular, small group who I liked to run instances and the like with. I played my Dwarf Guardian for just 15 or so levels before I felt WoW itself calling me back.

It has been quite a while since I’ve really played WoW besides occasional romps with some low level characters some friends and I play but as I mentioned before I finally purchased the Wrath of the Lich King expansion recently and have now finally decided to start working my main character up to level 80. I’ve only been playing it very sporadically when the urge and/or boredom strikes and it has been working quite well for me so far. The new content is, for the time being, pretty fun (if not more of the same) and no matter how sick I get of it I always find it hard not to appreciate what Blizzard has done with WoW over the years. It still feels like the most complete, most polished, and best bang for your buck MMORPG out there.

Borderlands: not your kid's cartoon violence.
“Borderlands: not your kid’s cartoon violence.”

Speaking of MMORPGs Star Trek Online was a game that I was pretty hyped up for around this time last month but unfortunately due to waiting on some features and fixes I wanted patched in and the horrible stability of the game servers during the first few weeks after launch I really haven’t played much STO since it officially launched last month. I’m sure I’ll get back into it sooner or later but for the time being Cryptic kind of missed the boat on hooking me in.

Finally, back to the Xbox 360 I started playing Borderlands. I’d had my eye on Borderlands since first hearing about it but when it finally came out it just didn’t seem to equal the sum of its parts. Of course, next thing I knew peer reviews started rolling in and people loved it. When I heard how good co-op was in particular I knew I had to grab it to play through.

It is very much a traditional FPS combined with the quest, skill, and loot systems of an MMO. Actually, I’d probably equate the loot system with more loot centric games such as Diablo and its ilk. It sounds kind of disjointed and odd but it actually works well enough. The game definitely has some issues (which I’ll probably expand upon more in a later entry) but the combination of the random loot-a-thon treadmill and the furious combat is fun and very addictive. In fact I think I may need to cut this short and continue the hunt for more purples…

As usual my Xbox 360 screenshots were shamelessly swiped from elsewhere. The LOTRO one is mine though! 😉

The Tale of Garn Chapter 18

Warning: potential side quest spoilers ahead!

From Garn’s recollections:

The Petty and The Pious

As soon as I arrived at Leyawiin’s city gates I was hailed by a guardsman. He welcomed me to the city and, after quickly scanning my attire, inquired about my availability to help the city guard with a small task. He told me of a local Skooma dealer who had setup shop in a house in Greyland to the south that the city authorities wanted dealt with.

Welcome to Leyawiin. Now go kill some people!
“Welcome to Leyawiin. Now go kill some people!”

When I arrived at the house I could see the shadows of two men cast against the ground from the torchlight within. I was able to creek the front door open without either of them noticing thanks in large part to the noise of the heavy rain fall outside. I crept into the house and took a quick look at my adversaries. Both men were well armed and seemed to be somewhat tense, in mid discussion about business no doubt.

Fore!!!
“Fore!!!”

I summoned a frost atronach in the middle of the room, immediately catching the attention of both men who quickly drew their swords in panic. I then drew my own blade and rushed at them from behind as they attempted to stand with the atronach. After finishing off the first gang member I focused my attention on the second. Alas, the frost elemental was too much for the drug trafficker to handle and as I turned to face him the atronach sent the poor bastard flying through the air, narrowly missing me.

I searched the bodies and the rest of the building and gathered a few identifying objects to bring to the Leyawiin Guard. I was greeted with a fair bounty in gold for my services. My visit to the city of Leyawiin was starting off quite favorably.

Later that day I wandered around Leyawiin learning the lay of the city and doing a bit of shopping. While looking through the spell library at the Mage’s Guild I was approached by a Khajiit mage named S’drassa who wanted to talk to me discretely about some personal side work.

These Mages Guild guys sure seem to have cushy jobs.
“These Mages Guild guys sure seem to have cushy jobs.”

It seemed that S’drassa was a bit of a collector of rare and precious crystals and stones and wanted my help in tracking down an extremely rare, magical crystal known as Garridan’s Tears. He suggested I ask around at other Mage’s Guild locations and, in particular, the Arcane University in the capital city. Normally I don’t agree to such lengthy quests that involve so much travel but S’drassa’s story sounded interesting and I was sure from his dress that he had the money to pay me handsomely.

After traveling north to the Imperial City I spoke to a few of the staff of the Arcane University and was quickly directly to Julienne Fanis. Julienne spoke a little about the legend of Garridan’s Tears but soon directed me to a book that told the tale. I purchased a room in an inn on that side of the city and read the book by candle light well into the night.

The story of Garridan’s Tears was a fascinating one indeed. The book told of a good Knight who lorded over a small farming community. When a vicious drought struck his lands his people sought his aid. Helpless to aid them himself he paid the best sages in the land to seek a solution. Eventually, as the situation seemed the most bleak and desperate he was approached by a sage who told him of the legend of the Everflow Ewer – a magical vessel which never ran out of water. Garridan believed that this was the answer to his people’s problems and set out on a noble quest to retrieve the artifact.

Following the sage’s advice Garridan breached an ancient cave and then a magically sealed door that lead to a small glade. Finally, inside the glade he discovered an altar on which sat the Ewer, just as the story told. All was not well, however, as when Garridan grasped the artifact the ground rumbled and an immensely powerful ice golem or elemental of some sort appeared and began attacking the knight. Garridan defended himself bravely but the guardian of the glade was too much for him.

The tale goes that as it was about to land it’s final blow Garridan blocked it with the Ewer itself, splitting it and causing a massive explosion of ice, freezing the surrounding areas and incasing both Garridan and the golem in a block of solid crystal. Tears erupted from Garridan’s eyes as he realized that he had failed his people. The few small crystals that were ejected from the grasp of the icy tomb are what are known as Garridan’s Tears today.

I traveled back to S’drassa to tell him of what I had learned as well as to see if he could prepare me to enter the frigid area where this epic story had come to a close. The narrator of the story claimed to be there when these events transpired and, according to his description, the entire area around the altar was now cursed by a deadly frost. Luckily S’drassa had just the perfect solution in some powerful potions and I set out on my journey to the cavern rumored to be the one in the tale: Frostfire Cave.

At the entrance of Frostfire Cave.
“At the entrance of Frostfire Cave.”

As I entered Frostfire Cave I found it to be strangely abandoned. Most of the caverns, ruins, and other interesting sites throughout the Empire had some obvious signs of visits from treasure hunters, bandits, or monsters, even if they were remotely located and well hidden as with this location. When I entered the cavern, however, I was greeted with an almost choking eruption of silt from the rocky floor. I navigated the rocky passages slowly and deliberately through dust clouded torchlight.

Down boy, down!
“Down boy, down!”

The only creatures that inhabited the cave were a large pack of artic wolves. Oddly enough many of the wolves in the cave seemed to be either extremely agitated or slightly distracted. I suspected that this was a side effect from the powerful magical seal that protected the entrance to the glade, which I soon discovered in a large room at the end of the cave system. I opened the door in the manner described in the book with little difficulty.

Hermetically sealed.
“Hermetically sealed.”

The strange glade was, at first, beautiful and lush. A peaceful place that I could easily have imagined once served as a resting place for a powerful magician or even a great ruler in times long past. Still, one had to travel only a few paces over a small foothill to see the frost scorched area where my objective waited.

I crept slowly towards the frost and ice covered area attempting not to alert whatever might still occupy the area. The narrator of the tale in the book didn’t lie – the closer I got the colder I became until it became completely unbearable, practically burning my skin. I took one of the potions S’drassa provided me with and continued on.

Target acquired.
“Target acquired.”

Luckily the only guardian I saw protecting the area was a single frost atronach or golem of some sort. It definitely wasn’t the intimidating one from the tale, as I could see his towering silhouette against the translucent edges of the large block of ice set dead center of the frozen area. Still yet undetected I positioned myself behind a large boulder and soon let lose with a barrage of fireballs into the creature. It was mighty indeed, and I quickly found myself locked in melee with it. Still, between my sword and my mastery of fire based magic it posed little real threat to me.

Damn, that's cold! *rimshot*
“Damn, that’s cold! *rimshot*”

Once the sole protector the glade fell I began exploring the frozen patch of earth. Just as the legend described there stood Garridan and the great ice creature, locked in battle and entombed for all eternity in icy crystal. Garridan clearly held the remains of the Ewer and soon I found my first crystal of Garridan’s Tears nearby. I quickly realized that my supply of frost protection potions was running dangerously low and began more purposefully searching for crystals. Moments later I was sure I had gathered that I could gather without myself becoming part of the usual scenery of Frostfire Glade and made my way through the doorway back into the caves.

If the cat dudes are happy I'm happy.
“If the cat dudes are happy I’m happy.”

S’drassa could barely contain himself when I arrived with not one, but five of the legendary crystals in hand. The mage pulled out a small satin sack of coin and threw it on his workbench and then reached around him and pulled out a second. It was a handsome reward of several thousand gold pieces – the most I had yet earned from a single payment and it was all earned relatively easily.