The Gamer's Quarter

sawtooth · . Joined: 02 Nov 2005 Posts: 419

MRs dhex, i don't think that you're getting a very warm reception for that post. Even though it's the funniest message-board-related thing I've read in a long time. I think "Caidana" thinks you're playing a hoax of some sort.

it's certainly a nice "you should be ashamed of yourselves" type of post.

watch out for the obscure references (too many chefs what?)
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dhex · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:11 pm Post subject:

oh, it's not about shame. it's about "how fucking fascinating is this craziness?"

or just i mean c'mon. ic folks get really personal, for example, but it generally doesn't cross over into that "OH YEAH ILL KICK YER ASS BUDDY" territory within 15 seconds of posting. (yes, population size and density differences, etc etc so forth)
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Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

Heh, it's great. I think people get really invested in the Elderscroll series just because of how involved it is. I hypothesize that because of the character creation and open ended gameplay, people who really get into the games tend to feel some amount of posession over them.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

dhex · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:31 pm Post subject:

i cried a little bit when some kid thought i was using the postmodernism generator. so far i'm having quite a bit of fun, though.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

I joined in. For a larf! The post right after mine is the best though, unless the guy cleaned it up. Nothing like posting the same quote 3 times and providing 2 different answers with the second duplicated.

Ell oh ell internet.

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

This is glorious.

Edit: Question, Dhex. People drop $50 on a game because they think it'll be good. Maybe the frothing hatred arises from a desire for criticism that won't mislead in the future? Not that bitching on internet discussion boards is going to do anything about that, but it probably fulfils some need to not be drowned out by reviewers who disagree.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
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sawtooth · . Joined: 02 Nov 2005 Posts: 419

I tried to check the thread but it gave me business about sql.

This sounds like such fun, I at least want to be able to read it.

dhex · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:57 pm Post subject:

keep trying.

this may very well be the world's first case of internet trolling via correct grammar.
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sawtooth · . Joined: 02 Nov 2005 Posts: 419

LordDaedra can't be more than 13. If I is, I weep for the future of this world (as I have done countless times before) What the hell is he even trying to spell?

Looking at it, it's almost mean-spirited, going into an internet forum and attempting serious dialogue. Although you have gotten a few interesting responses.
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Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

I sort of expected there to be more angry/dismissive responses than there have been, but on the other hand there's very little in your post to really be incited by. I guess the most telling responses are the "NOT THE PLACE FOR THIS" ones. But you know, great for people who care.

Also, aren't LordDaedra's comments a little invalidated anyway after the "if you don't love this you're stupid and quite possibly a teenager" line? I doubt he read your post.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

dhex · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:34 pm Post subject:

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:24 am Post subject:

the posessiveness.

the insane posessiveness.

it kinda creeps me out.

BUT BACK TO THE ACTION:

so i come along a maiden
a fair sleeping maiden
except she's in a bunkroll
in the middle of a bandit cave

and i actually felt kinda bad for shooting her. like, "is this sporting?"

fuck yeah, bethesda. you guys suck sometimes, but fuck yeah.

NERDPENIS BATTLE GO!!!!

some of these people may have bred already.

also: the internet is better when read aloud.
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dessgeega · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:28 am Post subject:

DonMarco · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 349 Location: 33903

I went 24 hours without Oblivioning!

Yay me!
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Collector of over 1,538 strategy guides. That's weird, right?

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Dhex, I want you to get your dick into how they got Invisible War into your Oblivion and the result is not tasty candy.

Unless you're saving it for a TGQ article, of course.

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 10:38 am Post subject:

i am actually saving it - the IW thing - for an article. shaper requested an elder scrolls bonanza of sorts, and i aim to deliver. it'll probably be a lot about how quaint bugs and glitches of the past seemed, even when they were game killers (daggerfall, um, pretty much until a year later)

i'll check back on the TES forums every few days, just to keep an eye on driver/patch information.

i am gratified to see my dictum regarding na/jpn devs made flesh through the forums, however. that's totally a crowd of 15 year olds just itching to get their hands on a fake id and some molson.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Well piss. I was looking forward to seeing what you had to say.

Not that I won't see it eventually; I'm just an impatient bastard.

I haven't played Oblivion in 2 days. I keep prioritizing things above videogames for some reason.

Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

I'm only playing in half hour sessions between work. Not sure if this is the best way to play, but it seems alright. I'm not over-exposing myself to it, and it's actually just about the right amount of time to clear a small dungeon or finish one of the shorter quests.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

dhex · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:39 pm Post subject:

one or two hours at night is all i need. i stop when i keep dying.

also: fucking trolls!
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dhex · Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:40 pm Post subject:

dunno if i posted this before, but this thread is a good read. spoiler free as these forums can be.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

I'm sick today, which is a good excuse as any to play loads of Oblivion. I went up to Bruma today as part of the main quest. The falling snow looks pretty neat, as do the insides of the Chapels.

Getting out of the first Oblivion Gate involved abusing the difficulty slider, mainly because being an archer is kind of rough, at least at low levels and especially when dealing with Daedra.

I'm totally in agreement with dhex in regards to the voice acting. The quality is all over the place and if anything, it breaks more immersion than it creates. Plus it takes longer, as I imagine most people read far faster than it takes for the characters to talk out their lines. It also eliminates the rambling and convoluted conversations that you could have in Morrowind. One of the main reasons why Morrowind was so attractive to me is that it got close to having actual politics.

dhex · Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:30 pm Post subject:

would it be possible to mod the voice acting? does it play in a proprietary format?

i'd like to play around with that.
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I enjoyed the character creation system in Morrowind more than the game itself, especially the cupcake question. I have to say, whenever a NPC in an inn, and later a guard, told that story as their own (even leaving off at the spot where you, in Morrowind, would give your answer) I let out a little yelp of glee.

I'm also the third highest rank in the Arena. Seeing the Arena (now free, by the by) poster got me excited, finding out I could watch a match made it better, but being able to participate in a match myself? Gold. I'm a monster with the blade now, and am generally a badass for a swordmage thanks to the healthy levelling I get in the 5 or so skills required for the fights. If could find some spells for Average and Hard locks I would be just right.

What I do, I do for Patrick Stewart.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Is it possible for some of the random gates that pop up here and there to not be closed?

I ask because I found one just outside of Skingrad and after running around inside of it for a couple hours, I'm reasonably convinced that there's just no way to get to the "main" tower and shut down the gate. It's on top of a huge hill with all kinds of crags and lava surrounding it. There was a cave at the base of the hill, it didn't lead up into the tower, though.

I'm contemplating starting a new character just so I can run around without having to deal with the gates and the associated guilt when I don't help out.

dhex · Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2006 5:05 pm Post subject:

that's why i'm not touchin' the main quest yet. i'm having a hard enough time finding lockpics.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

It turns out that I was just missing a way to get up the tower in the caves.

Of course, it then followed that I closed the gate, went to the nearest town started another quest and then the game crashed. Without really thinking about it, I then decided to make a new character as a way to relieve the frustration of the crash and promptly wiped out the previous Autosave, meaning that I lost about 2 hours of adventuring.

Playing TES late at night while drinking can be hazardous to your mental health.

Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

I lost most of a character thanks to an accidental autosave overwrite as well. Be cautious if more than one person plays on your computer!
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

dhex · Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 11:36 am Post subject:

playing oblivion 7 hours in a row is hazardous to your carpal tunnel.

i'm pretty much hooked.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Welp, I found a crash. 10 out of 10, as we say in the business. It involves following one of the people out of town towards a vineyard during the Glathir quest in Skingrad. Doesn't seem to be anything in particular that causes it to crash, either, as it crashes at different points in the same general timeline (for example, it's crashed during an NPC conversation, shortly after the NPC leaves the games and when the NPC starts working in the vineyard).

Time to cruise the TES board and see if this is a known issue and then see if there's a way to actually get in contact with the dev team and see if they need/want my save file as a test case. Speaking as someone who is basically in the same position, I would expect contacting them to be very difficult and mostly useless; still, it's worth a try.

I just hope that it only kills my Quicksave/Autosave, not my actual main game save.

ETA: Yup, just cruised the Technical Issue Forum on the main TES forums and there are at least 5 users including myself who have had the same problem. I sent a quick note to Customer Service as well, so hopefully they're aware of this issue and will see about fixing it (if they can find the topic in a forum that's full of threads about "Help me get my computer to run Oblivion better").

dhex · Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 4:06 pm Post subject:

yarr, that sucks.

so why is that process so impossible? innit that something they could stick an intern or two on?

shit man, that's market research gold!

sorry.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Well, the problem is that if you allow easy access to that sort of thing (like a link that says "Contact the Dev Team!"), you'll be completely overwhelmed with responses, so even if you have an intern whose sole job is to go through these responses, he probably won't be able to do anything simply because of the signal-to-noise ratio (and plus it's unlikely that any intern wouldn't have 80 thousand other things to do).

The problem being, how do you filter out the people who are going to be complaining about stuff that isn't actually a problem/trying to contact you for other reasons? The general solution to this seems to be making the contact process as convoluted/obscure/useless as possible.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

If I don't take that quest, the game doesn't crash. Which is good. Of course, I promptly found another quest that causes the game to crash. Lovely. Can't wait for the patches, which will probably start coming in a couple months and won't stop for about 3 years.

I did have an entertaining moment when I was heading into a tomb to take out a powerful vampire. Sneaking through the catacombs, carefully sniping the vamps and their skeleton minions, I received a message that I had killed the main vampire and that I should head back to town for the next portion of the quest.

I double checked the corpse of the vampire that I had most recently killed and verified that it was not the head vampire. After further exploration, I did manage to find the head vampire's room, where he lay dead on the floor. The only explanation that I can come up with is that there was some sort of disagreement between him and the two skeletons that he had as guards and that the skeletons had somehow emerged victorious.

dhex · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:42 am Post subject:

i would think you'd go the very specific bug submission form route? this way you weed out the tweeners and tweakers, to some degree.

or an automatic crash log mailer thingy? like, upon shutdown, it prompts the user to mail in this crash form. this way you only get as much traffic as you have shutdown events?

man, i played oblivion for like, 10 hours on sunday. and i'm only up to level eight. i wanna finish the fighter's guild before i start the main storyline. the arena's been fun so far. same thing with the dark brotherhood.

i remember the glathir quest (i fucked up and he attacked me, though i get the feeling that his joint doesn't end good unless you just ignore him) and thankfully had no incidents. i feel kinda bad for the q/a folks for bethesda, if only because trying to isolate what causes what must be a superduper headache.

i consider it a miracle that i've only had two ctd events and a very weird sound bug* over the course of about 25 hours of play - with a first generation, unpatched bethesda title. that's really a goddamn miracle.

*let's say i cast minor heal 5 times - because i fucked up in character creation and don't have enough magicka for a better healing spell - the first will sound, and the next four will be silent. everything else casts as is, and as soon as i enter another area, the magic sounds come back on. it doesn't affect any other sound fx, at least that i can hear)
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Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

I have the same thing with minor heal, and a few other low level spells (I'm a mage). Light and Shield seem to do it too.

Also, I contracted Polyphoric Hemophilia, despite my Argonian 75% diesease resistance. I suppose I was bound to get unlucky some time. I was fighting a single vampire for about half an hour because he just kept healing himself. Now I can't fast travel during the day because I take constant damage from the sun and it's all seeringly bright with heavy amounts of the bloom effect. Also, it's kind of fun to be a wizard living in an abandoned manor and sneaking around town at night to bite sleeping people's necks. Also a lizard man.

At this point the mountain lion is the most fearsome creature in the game. They're too fast to run from, and they can kill my character in maybe 3 or 4 swats (I'm level 15!) The only way I've been able to defeat them so far is running them into crowds of bandits or worshippers at Daedric shrines to get them to fight eachother. It's absolutely terrifying to hear that low growl and realize I haven't saved it in half an hour.

This also worked well to free a bunch of ogre slaves. I managed to get the guards to accidentally attack the manor lord and then ran past them during the confusion.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

dhex · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 1:35 pm Post subject:

it gets personal!!!

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=336276

these forums are becoming more entertaining as they ripen. much like the game itself.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Wow.

[underworld] Internet, I love you [/underworld]

Every time somebody uses the *bows* emote, I want to reply with "Huzzah!" and an emoticon for a greasy turkey drumstick, if such a thing exists.

ETA: I also like that in one of the console-hate threads, it takes 7 posts for people to start ragging on Halo and GTA.

EATA: And the next page after that, they rip into sports games because those are the games that get played by people who can't read books. Aaaaah, so good.

Mr. Apol · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:59 pm Post subject:

I haven't played Oblivion yet.
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dhex · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject:

well, you need to git offa that geetar and get a haircut and then get yerself a copy there, son.

dessgeega · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:49 pm Post subject:

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

So, anybody playing with mods thus far?

I've seen a bunch that I've liked the idea of, such as tweaking the NPC generation, tweaking the phat l3wt generation, making wild animals less homicidal, etc.

I don't really want to install them because I kind of want to experience the game as it was "originally intended" and plus if I decide to review the game, it should probably be done based on the non-tweaked version, at least at first.

If anybody's found a particular good one or set of ones, please post about it. Inquiring bipeds wish to know.

P.S. - I laugh whenever an NPC says "Be seeing you."

dark steve · . Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110

dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 8:00 am Post subject:

yeah, what's up with that prisoner thing? be seeing you? that creeped me the fuck out.

haven't installed any mods yet. but i will keep my eyes open. i feel stuck between wanting to feverishly complete the game and wanting to make it last until summer.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:37 am Post subject:

this kinda makes me feel stupid, but every time i feel like arguing against the "dumbing down" (the IW-ification, in my terms) of oblivion due to console gamers, i start by saying "well, that's a broad overgeneraliza-" and then think about every time i've ever been in a gamestop or whatever and actually listened to console gamers.

now i'm not sure what to think.

edit: spending more than 10 minutes a week reading the elder scrolls forum is bad for your health. i mean, fuck them. bethesda's entire fanbase is made up of idiots. whether they like the game or not, or want to pay for mods or not. holy fucking shit. and i can't help myself. i keep poking into the mods thread saying "no, it's not like buying a car with no seatbelts."
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:32 pm Post subject:

you people need to quote more from these forums, because i'm scared to look at them for fear that while i do they will be looking back at me.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:48 pm Post subject:

you asked for it!

posted by: refragmental

title: |MUST READ| Xbox360 screwed the PC community!, A small essay on how the Xbox360 is responsible for all bad things goi

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Wow...

EDIT: From that photo the boy is about to be consumed by the sun!

Also, I guess he can't have his cake and eat it too, huh?
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