Lurker's Lair

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smells like a new forum lurk

My country's in lockdown again for four weeks, just like a year ago, so aside from visiting my parents who live nearby, and getting my booster shot sometime within that period, and the occasional trip to the supermarket or drugstore, I'm not going anywhere. Whohoo!   

omicron lurk

I'm getting pretty tired of the pandemic and the repeated cycle we seem to be stuck in. Do X, no wait, do Y instead. Wait, no, go back to X. Hang on, wait, yeah, it was Y, etc. and all the whole we're accomplishing absolutely nothing.

I feel bad for the kids in school because of how it seems every other week, everything keeps changing. All that chaos and confusion certainly isn't doing them any favors, and to make it worse, they're being used as pawns thanks to politics butting into the whole mess.

I really wish this crap would just end already, but from some things I've seen, it looks like it's not going to.

* lurk *

Nope, and the virus is still winning, humanity is just too slow and probably too stupid to speed things up. I have two weeks off now, so instead of sitting at the computer doing work for eight hours a day, I can sit at the computer doing my own stuff instead. Good thing I also have stuff to do afk, that makes all the difference. And maybe some Guild Wars 2 again? The prospect of walking around in Cantha in two months is starting to inspire me.

vacation lurk

Yeah, once I get the Wintersday meta stuff done, I'm gonna get back to farming HPs in the PoF maps so my chars will all be able to get the new elite specs. I'm particularly looking forward to the virtuoso and mechanist ones.

I'm seeing more and more conflicting news stories about everything related to the pandemic. At this point, I think it's all a crapshoot, and we're looking at a new super flu that's just here to stay. Given time, we should be able to reduce it to a much less severe one, but the problem is, as you already said, people are too stupid, so the question is how long it'll take to reach that point.

On the plus side, I'm getting back into Skyrim to screw around with things when I can. Do a little RP style storyline here and there, have a bit of fun with that, get to see parts of the game I normally wouldn't bother with, etc.

* lurk *

Ah yes, Skyrim. I still have a char running around in the Dragonborn expansion, the last time I was on Solstheim was over a year ago so I should probably get going on it again, find some books and finish the expansion. I was eventually going to do the vampire stuff with him, but that won't be anytime soon I'm afraid. The Guild Wars 2 expansion is just around the corner and that comes first.

exploration lurk

Talking of Skyrim, I should get back to it as well. Should continue Rigmor's story but I just keep running into crashes constantly with the mod.

* When, oh when lurk *

Right now, I've got 3 saves going.

Save 1 is just starting out. I have a lot of key points mapped, I initiated, but didn't progress dialogue in Whiterun so I wouldn't be stopped everytime I got anywhere near the throne, have my stats all maxed, spells I like learned, consoled the assassin in Markarth disabled and the mage guild's door unlocked, and stuff like that. The idea is to have everything ready to go while the game itself is mostly untouched, to serve as a base save so I don't have to do any of that stuff again.

Save 2 goes from that, to having the homestead in the Pale with the setup I like. Jordis and Lydia are enabled through the console, with Jordis as my steward. Both of them, my bard, and my horse were forceav'd to be unkillable. Jordis has a steel sword with a console enchantment that gives it 100 armor-ignoring damage, which I really like because it means I can have any weapon based on looks alone with that and it makes the difference between say, an iron dagger and a dragonbone claymore virtually non-existent in terms of damage per hit. Lydia, however, is given the thunderbolt spell with no magicka cost. I kept trying to get her to use the one-handed lightning storm spell that you can only get from the console, but she doesn't seem to like using it. I keep this one because I like the setup I have with the homestead and I don't wanna have to get everything again.

Save 3, which I'm currently working on, is gonna be where I have most, if not all, of the factions completed. I'm currently doing the thieve's guild, and I'm making sure to get the larceny targets while I'm at it. I might not do the base game story, if only because not having dragons in the world helps avoid BS, and I won't touch the civil war at all. I'll likely do Dawnguard though, and I can always force a console trigger to get Dragonborn going if I decide I wanna do that. I'm doing this one separate from save 2, so I can be more flexible with followers and stuff depending on how I wanna screw around once I get the factions done with.

Between those 3 saves, once I get the 3rd one done with so it's good to go, I'll have the game in a sandbox state so I can pretty much do whatever I want at any point, with only a few things gated by story progress but that can likely be worked around easily enough.

* lurk *

Merry Saint Valenween's Eve.

I mean Happy Hallow Patrick's Year.

... Thanks 4th of Easter?

* shrugs *

* lurk *

Cheers all! Happy tree days etc.

jingling lurk

I couldn't sleep at all, so I'm already screwed up for Christmas.

On the place side, I'll still be awake by the time the fat bastard in red makes his rounds. This is the perfect chance to test out my new defense system. To Hell with everybody. That jolly, sleigh-riding toymaker is going down.

* lurk *

I was fiddling about with my Conan mods, trying to get the new modded Savage Wilds map to become playable in single player/coop mode. In the process, I once again, managed to delete my prevous progress on the Isle of Siptah.

Well, you get to meet Froki, my new character and she even has a background story I wrote for her. Lemme know how you like it.

* Another new beginning lurk *

I got the theives guild stuff done, with the entire trophy case completed. I didn't do all the jobs needed, I just did enough to get the guild master quest done, and did console commands to enable the rest because I'm not doing that madness 175 times. I did get the Stones of Barenziah though and the crown.

With that done, I'm starting on the Dark Brotherhood stuff. Interestingly, helping Cicero on the road counts as a DB quest even though you can do it entirely outside the DB questline.

* lurk *

It's funny but I never finished the Dark Brotherhood questline, and I did the Thieves Guild quests maybe once? I always roleplay the good guy.   Anyway that still leaves me something new to do. I did do them in Oblivion though. The DB quests there are just too good to miss out on.

year's end lurk

I do the factions for the benefits you get from them. Oblivion's DB questline was great, particularly the Whodunit? quest. That was my favorite. It's like a reality show, only there's a psycho killer in the house, and it's you.

It's all so I can have that 3rd save where all factions are done so I can more easily access particular things without having to go through crap over and over. That makes it a lot easier for storyline bits if I feel like doing certain things.

* lurk *

Ah right, that makes sense. I never made a save like that, I liked starting new chars too much.

Anyway all timezones have had it now, so happy new year! Hopefully 2022 will be better, which shouldn't be hard but you never know.

year's beginning lurk

It's off to a terrible start, since it marks the start of the post-Betty White era. I've seen so many posts about her lately everywhere.

In lighter news though, I learned more about the LOTR with the rings of power and what they actually did, as opposed to simply The One Ring by itself. That was an interesting bit of trivia I didn't know. There were originally 16, the ones eventually divided between men and dwarves, but then there's 3 made that go to the elves, totalling 19, while Sauron makes The One Ring, the 20th, and so long as Sauron has The One Ring, the 3 elven rings don't work, and they also don't work once The One Ring is destroyed, but by nature of itself, it controls all the others.

* lurk *

Darkened Angel wrote:so long as Sauron has The One Ring, the 3 elven rings don't work, and they also don't work once The One Ring is destroyed, but by nature of itself, it controls all the others.

So if logic rules this:

The One Ring destroyed -> 3 elven rings don't work
Sauron has The One Ring -> 3 elven rings don't work
both are the same
so Sauron neutralizes The One Ring -> that's his job

Ring destroyed = Sauron jobless -> Sauron self-destructs out of despair at not having anything to do anymore

It all makes sense now!

ringeling lurk

Rings of Power at least made a bit more sense. The rings were really fragments of the Rod of Creation, and having all of the rings meant the rod would be reforged, which Nexus needs to beat back Void, world is saved, yay.

Except for the fact that the game was hard as Hell and very unforgiving with random encounters. You pretty much have to cheat just to be able to play it without being bogged down with insane micromanagement of your resources.

* lurk *

I hate having to cheat so that kind of game is a fail as far as I'm concerned. They should have balanced it better.

back to work lurk

It's an old SEGA game and wasn't one of the big name ones, and if you played it, you'd easily see why. Battles were mostly automatic. All you did was pick each unit's stance, which was like, would they advance on the enemy, retreat, hold position, or just go berserk with abandon, and then the skill they'd use during their attack. Each unit would make a certain number of attacks and move to their stance's designated position.

You could attack and kill virtually anyone but it's really frowned upon because everyone will hate you, and of course, killing important NPCs would screw things up, such as merchants because you'd be able to shop once they were taken down. So, to avoid that, you had to rely on random encounter battles, which had no gating whatsoever really beyond a bare minimal depending on the type of terrain you're on.

On top of that, you then have food and water which depletes with every move. The rougher the terrain, the quicker it depletes with each move. You have to shop at the merchants to get more. If you're empty, you slowly take damage every few moves. You can sorta cheat the system by camping, because while you'll take another hit for not having resources, it's only after you camp and restore to full HP, so you can avoid a totally BS death that way.

But then, there's the tax collectors. A high-level trio of guards that demand a good chunk of gold and if you don't pay, you're locked in a battle that will likely get you killed.

This is all just circumstance stuff, however. The 1st thing you do in the game once you go to your teacher at magic school is to go deal with some crazy hermit. Normally, this will be the very 1st battle you fight if you're lucky to avoid any encounters and go straight to his house. He's one of the weakest enemies in the games, and by sheer dumb luck, can still kill you in the battle, with there being nothing you can do about it.

So, yeah. It's a pretty BS setup for what otherwise is an alright game if you're cheating so nothing can bog you down and you can just focus on progressing without grinding. Considering it's a very early SEGA RPG, it kinda makes sense that it would be a bit unbalanced, but you gotta wonder if they bothered to run it through QA before releasing it.

On the plus side, the error messages are a nice touch. Instead of a simple game-breaking glitch, it gives you a message that, by a cruel twist of fate, Void finds your party and exterminates you in a mere X seconds, and there's nothing you could do. Where X is, that's the error code.

Also, slight bit that spoils the plot. You already know who the bad guy is after your successful return from that battle against the hermit. You can even confront him nearly any time, but can't fight him due to him being magically protected in the area you find him. You have to go to the final dungeon once you get all the rings to finally face him in battle.

* lurk *

Wotan wrote:I was fiddling about with my Conan mods, trying to get the new modded Savage Wilds map to become playable in single player/coop mode. In the process, I once again, managed to delete my prevous progress on the Isle of Siptah.

Well, you get to meet Froki, my new character and she even has a background story I wrote for her. Lemme know how you like it.

* Another new beginning lurk *

Hey Wotan, I'm getting Conan for Xbox One X!!  We got one a couple of days ago and I'm back in F4.  No sex mods but it does have a few mods that make it nice, like the cheat terminal!! lololol  I think you can mod Conan also.  I heard we need to run it on the UK/Europe setting for nudity though.  Fine by me!!

Happy Birthday DA!!!  I hope it was fabulous!

And I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years Eve!  Best of luck for the year ahead you all!!

Cool. I don't actually know if the Savage Wilds map is available anywhere but on Steam.

I'll list the mods we use below so you can try and test it out:

Pippi - User and Server Management
Unlock Plus (with pickup)
RA Character custimisation
Charedidit Lite Recompiled
Aquilonia females
Aquilonia Server Mod (This mod allows for level 120)
Grims Wonderbody Reupload
Fashionist
Better Thralls            (This mod allows you to have 3 extra thrall following you)
Savage Wilds             (This is the map mod)

Our server is: Cruewell's Savage Wilds
I will PM you the server password

* Have fun lurk *

It wasn't. I woke up sick. I blame the terrible storm we had for 2 days that also knocked out power for a while the 1st day, then all night the next. It probably blew in some crap to mess with me on top of everything. I'm doing better now, but only gradually.

I did get some more Skyrim time in though. I'm at the gourmet quest for the dark brotherhood.

* lurk *

Congrats anyway DA. Another achievement reached, whether you want it or not.

the years fly by lurk