Bugs! Bugs! Everywhere! Bugs!

[angharad_gam]

The X-Box version of Skyrim is a little bit buggy. Some of the bugs are somewhat amusing. In one place horses randomly fall from the sky.  In one quest Andy walked into a bandit camp where the bandits completely ignored him and went about their business while he fireballed their leader. Others are slightly more annoying, such as the tendency of things to randomly become invisible, and the quest I got stuck on where the dialogue option that would have asked the NPC with the key to open the door that could not be opened any other way, disappeared.

Quite aside from this I haven't been playing Skyrim as much lately. Partly I'm not finding it as engaging as Oblivion. I think perhaps too many of the quests are of a 'Find the Foozle' nature, which is just a little bit old. But partly there is just less time to play now the ratings season has started and there are a few more interesting things on the telly. The new Sherlock episodes have been awesome, and not just because of Benedict Cumberbatch in a sheet....

Comments

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

It's an equal opportunity kind of a program :-)

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

If my many years of experience playing D&D has taught me many things, it's that horses, as grazers, have very inefficient digestive systems, and that one should therefore always take cover when a flock of pegasi are flying overhead.

Also, that one should never use a Wand of Paralysis on a Roc that is attacking you.

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

The first time it happened I thought it was ambience on account of my character climbing a mountain to kill a dragon at the time. But when it kept happening after the dragon was dead I began to realise that all was not as it should be...

I thought Lois McMaster Bujold dealt with that quite nicely in the last volume of the Sharing Knife series - the whole' why it is a bad idea to kill the flying thing that is carrying you off' thing.

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

Oh, the Roc wasn't carrying us off. This was the old style AD&D Roc who could carry off a small elephant, not the oversized eagle with a superiority complex of later editions. Mere humans were simply beneath it's consideration.

It was actually swooping down on the caravan we were with to grab a few banthar (guess where they came rom) pulling the wagon when the paralysis wand was successfully used. So instead of the loss of one wagon and team (although the people would have likely survived and the goods recoverable), it took out about six wagons and a few people when it failed to pull out of it's stoop.

After digging out the remains of the caravan (and the quite angry survivors) from under the carcass of the roc, we stineshaped a plinth with the inscribed warning "Danger: Falling Rocs" (because it was that sort of campaign).

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

This wasn't the same campaign as 'Beauty in the eye of the Beholder' by any chance was it?

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

Nope. That was a tournament game I wrote, and this was someone elses game (where I got to play for a change). Fun game. Especially when Arioch gave us an all expense paid vacation in the Lower Hells (having a vendetta with one of the major gods of the campaign [and the DM's favourite in point of fact] makes life interesting. Unfortunately the vacation was cut short as we were kicked out of Hell for Good behaviour.

Hmmm. That was the game where I finally got to use "Flesh to Stone; Rock to Mud; Destroy Water; Gust of Wind." Sure, I could have just use Disintegrate, but that wasn't the point, or rather it didn't make the point emphatically enough.

But, yes, I was the one that made the warning sign, so it does show my particular sense sense of humour. Also cf Am Bushes, the Emperor's Daughter running away to become Queen of the Orcs, Gobbledok the Troll's Vegetarian Restaurant ("We Serve Elves"), and all the other bits that make my players groan in pain.

PS: If you can get your hands on them, try reading Dan Crawford's NImestl series, especially the second book Sure Death of a Mouse (and the first one To Rouse A Sleeping Cat) to make sense of the world). It comes fairly close to my campaigns, especially the Chaos Magician and His Floozy. One of my favourite quote was when the protagonist announced she was to she him, "suddenly non-cjalanace went out of style.")

Season this with a bit of Simon R Green's The Forest Kingdom series (especially the first book). Add an awful lot of Paul Kidd's Justicar series for the correct approach in playing Old School Dungeon Modules. And one mustn't forget W Mark Simmons Dreamland Chronicles (get the omnibus edition, it has the most excellent forward). [The elite Amazon unit are the Green Barettes; there is a nightmare name Beuntoyou; Smug the Dragon, etc.]

Add more than a touch of Chris Stasheff's The Warlock In Spite Of Himself, not to mention any of John Moore's fractured story tales. Include the dark sword and sorcery of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane and the light sword and sorcery of Gardner F Fox. Avoid the seriousness of Tolkein at all costs. And of course, once you start, carry on in the finest traditions of PTerry and build on what you have dome to make it your own.

It'ssimply not enough to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.

You have to beat them with style.

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

And Mary Gentle's Grunts of course.

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

I can never hear that phrase any more and not think of Conan the Musical...

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

I've been playing lots of Skyrim lately, and oddly, finding it more engaging than Oblivion :)

I think there's more variety in the areas/dungeons/cities this time, and the various simplifications in the game system haven't hurt it too much. Also, for much of the game I've had to be careful entering caves/dungeons/etc, because I never know if it'll be too dangerous for me - something I thought was missing from Oblivion because of its levelling system. (It was present in Morrowind, though, so it's good to see a return to form).

... I suspect there's a rambly M/O/S comparison post bubbling up, I just have to get away from Skyrim long enough to write it :)

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

Yeah I went into one dungeon, discovered it was way out of my league, but there was no way back - I had to keep going deeper. And the only way I got out alive was by running away from the deeply scary boss at the end.

I was pretty hooked to start with, and it is functionally a much better game than Oblivion (except for the way 'miscellaneous' quests are recorded in the journal - there's too little info there and it bugs me). Maybe my character is just in a bit of a doldrums at the moment. I need to look for some better quests.