The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

 

    The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an immensely popular single-player action RPG from Bethesda Game Studios. As the name implies, it is the fifth in a series of games called The Elder Scrolls. Like its predecessors, it is set in the mythical world of Tamriel. The latest installment, much like its immediate predecessor, features a vast, beautiful, open world with lots of rich, interesting, immersive quest lines to pursue and lots of wilderness, towns, cities, caves, and dungeons to explore.

     The player is free to follow or ignore any of these long quest lines as she pleases and the game can  accommodate a broad variety of play styles. You can be a berserk warrior with a weapon in each hand, you can play sword-and-board, or you can be a mage, an archer, or a sneaky assassin. In fact, you can be any combination of these (or even all of them) if you choose.

A fight with a dragon early in the game.

     I will not spoil any of the stories for you. Suffice it to say that there is quite a lot going on in the eponymous corner of Tamriel in which the game is set, including the re-emergence of dragons into the world long after they were thought defeated.

The Game:
     One thing about the gameplay that makes Skyrim a lot of fun is the fact that, unlike in many other RPGs, it is not easy to ruin your character through casual or unorthodox allocation of skill points (called "perks" in Skyrim.)

     Some of you may remember, for example, the way things were in the early years of Diablo II. You could not re-spec, and you had no way of knowing whether you would be able to beat the game on Hell difficulty with your build until you had dumped scores or hundreds of hours into the character. If your build was bad, then no amount of skill, effort, wailing, or gnashing of teeth was going to get you through the game solo on Hell. Period. You had to start a new character from scratch and try something else. It was not until about 10 years after the game was launched that Blizzard released an update that allowed you to re-spec (Patch 1.13, released on 3/23/2010) and by then the internet had spread and gaming forums had developed sufficiently so that you could look up tried-and-tested viable builds online anyway.

     Games like that are frustrating, particularly for filthy casuals. Skyrim don't do you like that. Unless you randomly piss away skill points ("perks") with reckless abandon, then with skill, effort, and a little bit of luck, you will be fine. You can have fun exploring the skill trees and developing your play style without too much trepidation about the character's endgame viability.

The final chamber in of a dungeon involved in the early part of the main quest line.

     Of course there are also some things about Skyrim that are not so great. Foremost among these, in my opinion, is the voice acting. In fact, the voice acting is worse than not-so-great. It is horrible. The fake Nordic accents are awful. Worse still, you have to hear the same awful accents over and over: although there are thousands of humanoid NPCs in the game who can talk to you, there are perhaps 12 or 15 voice actors. Yes, the same actors each provide voices for hundreds of unique NPCs.

Mods & DLC:
     Although back in 2011 Skyrim was a beautiful game, it is beginning to show its age a bit. I highly recommend Bethesda's official HD Texture Pack DLC, which is available for free on Steam. I have not tried any of the other official DLC because I am a filthy casual and I (probably) will not spend another $45 for a couple of extra storylines and some extra features I could get for free with mods.

     Speaking of mods: Skyrim's modding community is particularly rich. One can find mods that do everything from making birds' nests look better to making all the NPCs naked to complete graphics, gameplay, and interface overhauls. Some of the available mods, like this little gem involving the Macho Man Randy Savage, are just plain ridiculous. The Nexus Mods Skyrim section is a great source of mods, and their Mod Manager is a handy tool.

     I am generally not a big fan of modding, mostly because mods tend to be poorly-written, seldom-updated hacks. However, I am currently using a few for Skyrim. Because Skyrim's stock graphical user interface is very clunky (it was clearly designed with console gamers in mind) I particularly like SkyUI. Because I have already beaten the game on Legendary difficulty, I have also installed Ultimate Combat to increase the difficulty further for my latest play-through. Like many complex Skyrim mods, Ultimate Combat requires a mod called Skyrim Script Extender to work.

Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online (STO) is a free-to-play sci-fi MMORPG from Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment. As the name implies, it is set a universe based on Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek films and television shows. In this game, Cryptic/Perfect World take an approach to free-to-play much like the one they take in Neverwinter, discussed in an earlier post: basically, it's not pay-to-win in the cheesiest sense. You can pay to win faster, but playing without paying is no more grindy than in any other MMORPG, and there's nothing non-cosmetic you can't get through good ol' fashioned grinding.

Many of the familiar (and more obscure) races and technological elements from the Star Trek universe are present: Vulcans, the Romulan Empire, the Borg, warp drive, phasers, and so on. If you like Star Trek and MMORPGs, I strongly encourage you to give this game a try. I find it really beautiful and a lot of fun to play. Here are a few screens.

I have to agree with other commentators who have said STO is really two games in one. Many missions include both space and away team (ground) elements. The space missions are unlike anything else I have played. Space combat takes some getting used to. Not only is it a unique combat system. It also takes place in three dimensions. As for defense, your shields are divided in to quadrants: fore, aft, port, and starboard. In general, defense means maneuvering so that the shield quadrant that has taken the most damage is facing away from your enemies (though some power can be transferred among quadrants on demand).

As for offense, all your weapons are mounted fore and aft; however, your phasers can fire in a much wider arc than your torpedoes. In general, I try to keep my target broadside-on most of the time because that allows me to engage it with both fore and aft phasers simultaneously. I only face directly toward or away from the target when my torpedoes are ready. Of course it is also best to maneuver to attack your target’s weakest shield quadrant, if possible.

The away team missions remind me of the Mass Effect series, minus the long dialogues. This part of the game is a shooter in which you have a team of AI-controlled officers who fight alongside you. As you gain experience and advance in rank, you can bring more numerous and higher-ranked officers with you on your away team. You can choose which officers will be tactical, engineering, or science officers and promote, demote, or dismiss them as you see fit. You get to equip each of them with weapons, shields, armor, and devices of your choice. Each one's combat abilities depend on what officer class she is. 

My current posse.

The challenging part of combat is managing the special abilities of the AI officers and dealing with enemies with similar special abilities. Also, as in the space missions, your geometrical relationship with your target matters: flanking your target allows you to do much more damage, and enemies flanking you will hit you harder.

            

     My current rank is Rear Admiral, Upper Half. I play Federation and my current ship is a Sovereign-class assault cruiser I named U.S.S. Hebe. (I have been playing for a while, though I took a break at the end of the summer.) 

As you can imagine, there is much more to the game, but I don’t want to ramble on. Go and try it out for yourself.

Dungeons & Dragons: the Gold Standard

Ah, Dungeons & Dragons. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's classic tabletop game is widely considered the granddaddy of the modern RPG. All you need to play is a set of those crazy polyhedral dice, a pencil and some paper, the rulebooks, and a little imagination. Before you know it, you'll be hacking, slashing, and magicking your way through medieval fantasy landscapes and dungeons filled with basilisks, djinn, necromancers, zombies, and, of course, dragons.

The Game:
D&D is a game that everybody has heard of, but few have actually played, so I'll endeavor to give a brief rundown of how the game is played. The basics for players are thus: a player begins by choosing his or her character's attributes, like race (human, elf, half orc, etc.), class (barbarian, cleric, sorcerer, etc.), and alignment (lawful good, chaotic neutral, etc.). Then the dice are allowed to determine the character's ability scores, i.e., the character's proficiencies in areas like strength,

dexterity, intelligence, and charisma. Then the character allocates points to special skills (disguise, heal, religious knowledge, etc.) and "feats" (combat reflexes,  exotic weapon proficiency, spell empowerment, etc.). Then, usually with the guidance of the dungeon master, the player chooses equipment (daggers, crossbows, scale mail, candles, backpacks, fishhooks, etc.). (For the lazy, there's a nice electronic character generator designed for the 3.5 rule set here.)

After that, players assume the roles of their respective characters. The characters get dropped into a world of the dungeon master's design and must to decide how to proceed on a quest the party is presented with. There are rules governing how they can move, how much rest they need, how far they can see, etc. Combat is turn-based and success or failure and outcome of the use of skills and feats is determined by the dice.

For the dungeon master, things are a bit more complicated. The DM must design the adventure from start to finish, including its people, monsters, environs, and storyline, and be prepared for whatever decisions the party might make along its way.

Strangers to the Heroic:
I don't do much justice to the game in my brief description above. I actually haven't played the game much, and I've never been a DM. However, for about 2 months now, I have been following the adventure of the Strangers to the Heroic. They play on Sundays from about 5pm to about 9pm EST. The DM is my good buddy Taroth. He is taking the party through a difficult multi-act adventure that began back in July.

The party is currently level 7 and consists of four characters: Lokas the bard, Leo the barbarian, Leera the mage, and Church the fighter. 5 characters have died throughout the campaign; Leo and Lokas are the only members of the original party still alive.

Here is a synopsis of Act III so far:

"The party then was summoned to Barovia by the town's burgomeister to defend his "love" Ireena. When they arrived in Barovia, Church the fighter (played by Churchrin) joined the party. The town was overrun by zombies! They spent several nights killing zombies. During a big attack at the town center, Listra the Cleric was killed by an Undead Entomber. They then ran into the burgomeister's son, who told them to speak with a gypsee named Madam Eva. He also confirmed that the letter the party received was from "that devil Strahd," the ruler of Castle Ravenloft. The party met with Madam Eva and were given clues through her foresight on how to kill Strahd, an undead Vampire of great power and quite possibly the first vampire to ever exist. 

They then traveled to the cemetery and discovered that the town cleric, Danovich, had used part of the Libre Blaspheme to resurrect his son, and this was what started the zombie plague. Danovich went mad and had to be put down, and once his son was killed the zombies all vanished.

The party then found the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, one of the relics needed to kill Strahd, in the church,  They ventured to the castle to activate the Holy Symbol, met Strahd, who welcomed them, and then explored the basement where they thought the Holy Symbol's ritual could be performed. Sadly, they entered the wing of the underground controlled by a sadistic necromancer. Leera met her death while the group fought zombies and wraiths, Now, they are in the necromancer's lair...."

You can watch the game at http://www.twitch.tv/taroth tonight at 5:00 EST. Taroth uses a program called Fantasy Grounds as a virtual tabletop. He draws the animated maps in Campaign Cartographer 3 and one of the players uses an ambient sound generator for background sounds and music. The mini figures representing players and monsters are scans of minis Taroth owns or were taken from the old D&D miniatures website.

Tune in and check it out! I plan to try to catch most of tonight's session. My handle on twitch.tv is Tropdawg.

Interlude: Mike's Bookshelf

I really like reading. I typically read for pleasure for at least an hour every evening before bed. What does that have to do with this blog, you ask? Well, most of the RPGs I like to play are in the same genres as the fiction I like to read -- typically fantasy and sci-fi. That's not so strange, right? So, I decided today that it might compliment this blog nicely if I added a widget linking to my fantasy bookshelf on Goodreads. You'll see it over to the lefthand side under the Blog Archive widget.

It currently contains a little over 90 books (though I'm sure I've missed some.) You'll find all 14 books of the Wheel of Time series, all the books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series published so far, The Coldfire Trilogy, and more. I just started the first book of Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive series. (Amazon gave it to me for free. After I downloaded it I noticed it is the first of a 20-book series. I think their idea was to rope me in. Clever bastards.)

If you're looking for your next good fantasy read, take a look. You don't need a Goodreads account to view the shelf if you click on the shelf's name at the top of the widget. Maybe I'll write reviews of them sometimes. I'll probably cycle the widget among my fantasy, sci-fi, and some other shelves as I get around to organizing them. Happy reading.

Neverwinter: a Fantasy MMORPG

Neverwinter is a free-to-play fantasy MMORPG from Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment. In terms of the lore, it's loosely based on the old tabletop classic: Dungeons & Dragons. There are kobolds and erinyes. There are fighters, clerics, and rogues. There are, of course, both dungeons and dragons. In terms of the gameplay, it is pretty typical of the contemporary fantasy action MMORPG genre.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Free-to-play usually means pay-to-win, or "freemium," and there are few things in this world that are crappier than pay-to-win games. (I enjoyed the recent South Park lampoon of the "freemium" model.) However, Neverwinter isn't pay-to-win in the lowest, dirtiest sense. You can pay to win faster, but playing without paying is no more grindy or grueling than in any other MMORPG, and so far I haven't seen anything (non-cosmetic) you couldn't get through good ol' fashioned grinding.

I am currently playing my first and only Neverwinter character, a level 38 guardian fighter (pictured left). I'm using a PVE build I found here.

Here are a few more general observations:

• The game seems to have a pretty decent population of players. There are typically plenty of people in the chat channels and in Neverwinter's WoW-style dungeon queue when I am online.
• Questing is going to gain you experience much more quickly than running dungeons or "skirmishes," which are short, dungeon-like encounters.
• You'll get better gear in the dungeons and more gold in the skirmishes, and daily dungeon  and skirmish quests earn you "astral diamonds," which are useful for lots of things (e.g., they are the player auction house currency.)
• Neverwinter is on the "foundry" bandwagon, allowing players to design encounters for others to play through. There are daily foundry quests with decent rewards, but the only two foundries I have tried were ridiculously hard and kind of boring.

If I think of anything more I'd like to say about the game, I'll update this post.

If you decide to try Neverwinter, feel free to /w or friend me at Thom Shieldheart@captainwesting. I and a couple buddies are considering founding a casual guild. If you're someone who knows about this blog, chances are you're also someone who I would be happy to invite to join us.