Elven and glass stuff is starting to appear. I bought an incomplete set of Elven stuff, and applied an enchantment or two to it, and scavenged a glass war-axe from somewhere.
I don't stealth. Well I do, but it's not in any way a major part of my M.O. I'm about as subtle as a kick to the groin.
And I made it out of aforementioned trap much more easily by using the outer fort's layout to better advantage.
Ah, very good then!
So you move around a lot, I take it, if you aren't doing much with stealth.
Otherwise, I can't think the light armor does much for you. I use either no armor, or light armor, but between stealth and spells, I manage to avoid dying too quickly.
It's actually pretty paradoxical, but I found with Oblivion that if you really dedicate yourself to light armor and max the skills out, it ends up being essentially as good as heavy armor. By the endgame you're able to max your character's armor rating no matter which you use. And you get all the advantages of mobility, spell casting, and better archery. I do tend to stay mobile, run around, dart in and out of fights.
Not liking the lack of the archery zoom-in in Skyrim, but archery was always just a secondary thing for me anyway. Take a few shots until the opponent charges, and then switch to swords.
I suspect the zoom-in for archery is a perk, but I haven't explored it enough to know yet. So far, I've maxed stealth, conjoration, and alteration.
in Oblivion, it used to be the right mouse button, right? That's now your off-hand.
I'm really digging Star Wars: The Old Republic. I played in one of the beta weekends, not even intending to buy the
game, and ended up pre-ordering, and now I have early access. The game officially opens on the 20th, but they are
ramping it up with the pre-orders and gradually adding servers and balancing loads and whatnot so that there's a
smooth experience all around.
It's a lot like playing the various Bioware games (e.g. Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age), if not
quite as graphically fancy, but you also have the option to play with other people. Single-player experience is key
for me because I'm rarely able to predict when I'm going to be able to play, so it's very difficult to coordinate
with friends for big missions. Plus, frankly, I don't like the idea that I should have to put video game events on
the calendar and plan around them. It's a game. It
should stay that way.
My wife has been fairly tolerant so far. It helps that she feels guilty for sideswiping my car in the driveway.
game, and ended up pre-ordering, and now I have early access. The game officially opens on the 20th, but they are
ramping it up with the pre-orders and gradually adding servers and balancing loads and whatnot so that there's a
smooth experience all around.
It's a lot like playing the various Bioware games (e.g. Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age), if not
quite as graphically fancy, but you also have the option to play with other people. Single-player experience is key
for me because I'm rarely able to predict when I'm going to be able to play, so it's very difficult to coordinate
with friends for big missions. Plus, frankly, I don't like the idea that I should have to put video game events on
the calendar and plan around them. It's a game. It
should stay that way.
My wife has been fairly tolerant so far. It helps that she feels guilty for sideswiping my car in the driveway.
<laughs> I'm a Lord of the Rings Online fan. (Long term Tolkien geek) but
I've been hearing good things about SWOTR. Won't have time for it. But may
look over someone's shoulder to see what it's like.
I recently read IGN's (not affiliated to our IG) list of weirdest games in 2011 and stumbled upon this gem:
http://www.youtube.com/v/vuDYhczbqEQ?fs=1&hl=en&hd=1&fs=1&rel=0&autoplay=1
Their homepage is http://www.glitch.com and it looks..... odd.
Forget the gigapolygons-per-second scene. I'm completely addicted to "Tiny
Tower" on my phone. The IGlet started playing on his iThing because it has
an elevator in it, and I started playing it on my Android, now the two of
us are checking in on our towers half a dozen times a day.
Last night, while playing an online game, I saw several people advertising their guild as 'family friendly', which usually means the guild doesn't tolerate blue humor (everything is supposed to be sanitized for kids).
That moved me to say, in my guild's voice-chat interface: "I'm as family-friendly as a Catholic priest."
Going back a ways here, but lest there's still any doubt, there are Archery perks to zoom and slow time, and they're awesome.
I've pretty much finished the game, finished all major quest lines except for Companions (haven't bothered with it yet) and got my character fairly close to maxed out... I'm ready for some DLC expansions!
I'm as good as finished, and started another character (something more grunt-oriented).
But, I've been progressing much more slowly this time, since I don't have the gobs of time I had in December.
Beautiful game.
Lately the IGlet and I have both been playing Tiny Tower, a mobile game (iOS version, Android version) that's very cute and very addicting. As I understand it, this game won Apple's "game of the year" award for 2011.
It's developed by NimbleBit, a 3-person team who built the game using a pixellated style of art direction inspired by 1980's video games.
Zynga, the crap factory that foisted games like Farmville upon us, apparently tried to buy them out. When NimbleBit wouldn't sell, they instead cloned the game, feature for feature. It's completely shameless how much of a clone it is. Zynga are scumbags and will never see a penny of my money. Ever.
[ If you can't see the image go to https://s3.amazonaws.com/nbpromo/dearzynga.jpg ]
I'm totally unimpressed by everything I've seen from Zynga so far.
Yeah, honestly, Zynga's games do not really engage me. I tried their ever-popular 'Farmville' game for a while, mostly to research a game I had considered creating.
It sucks.
No, really, it sucks.
Ignoring their blatant commercialism (when, say, a huge McDonald's balloon, complete with golden crotches appears on your farm for a few days), the gameplay itself was vapid. I found it excrutiating to play, and finally gave up (in thanks) after I decided I just didn't care about working out details on my own game anymore.
I do not understand their popularity at all.
They're popular because they know how to get their users to consent to constantly
spamming each other. That's about it.
"Vapid" is an excellent description of their gameplay.
NimbleBit may seem primitive when you compare Tiny Tower's screen shots to those of Dream Heights, but when you play the game you realize that there's an inherent sort of charm to it. Their "bitizens" are *cute*. The pixellated graphics make the game addictively engaging in a way that is difficult to explain.
Zynga is giving them the Wal-Mart treatment, and they will probably succeed.
NimbleBit will probably now have to sell itself to some other big game studio who has the resources to carry out a successful lawsuit against Zynga.
"Vapid" is an excellent description of their gameplay.
NimbleBit may seem primitive when you compare Tiny Tower's screen shots to those of Dream Heights, but when you play the game you realize that there's an inherent sort of charm to it. Their "bitizens" are *cute*. The pixellated graphics make the game addictively engaging in a way that is difficult to explain.
Zynga is giving them the Wal-Mart treatment, and they will probably succeed.
NimbleBit will probably now have to sell itself to some other big game studio who has the resources to carry out a successful lawsuit against Zynga.
I tried to play Dragons of Atlantis. The UI was sooo disasterously bad. Hated
it.