Anubisath and Whiterun

Anubisath and Whiterun

In all honesty, my world lately has been a sequence of fairly shit days.  Yesterday was no difference, so by the time I got home I just wanted to chill out quietly for the evening.  I started off over in World of Warcraft, completing the daily emmisary quest, capturing a new falcosaur orphan… and then on a strange whim I decided to poke my head into AQ40.  The original goal was simple, for me to attempt getting an Anubisath Idol for the purpose of doing some actual pet battles.  I had both Sol and Grace suggest Xu-Fu’s pet battle strategy guides, because at some point I would actually like to learn how to do pet battles in World of Warcraft.  Unfortunately this is like the advanced guide… because I need something far more dumbed down to ease me into the process.  Of note while I play Pokemon games… I never really “play them” properly because for me it becomes entirely about capturing new and interesting critters.  In Warcraft battle pets are largely the same thing for me… I simply want to catch one of every pet.  However to get very far at all…  it feels like the game is expecting me to properly do the content as expected.  As a result I really should spend some time to figure out exactly what the hell I am doing.  I watched a few videos yesterday on pet battles, but most of them were very centered around “exploit this weakness to power level”, which is all well and good but I still feel like I am flailing helplessly.  I like knowing WHY I am doing something, rather than simply knowing a gimmick that works.  This is a big part of why I have never been a fan of exploiting glitches in boss fights… because once said gimmick gets fixed you are back at square one.

Anubisath and Whiterun

So while I set foot in AQ40 with a very clear purpose… I went a little nuts while inside collecting scarab coffer keys and by the time I finished a single run I was able to purchase all but one piece of gear from the raid.  So I can look like the unmade bed that everyone looked like during AQ40, wearing some really bizarre looking bug themed gear.  From there while I was nearby I also stomped AQ20, but didn’t get much of anything to right home about.  After a bunch of false starts in Division and Destiny… I finally settled into playing some more Skyrim Enhanced Edition.  This is the point where I left the path once more and am officially in “ineligible for achievement” territory because I installed a slew of mods through the official interface.  I am not a big achievement hunter, but it does frustrate me a bit when doing the thing that a game is well known for… shuts off achievement tracking entirely.  The achievements that I am running are largely quality of life changes, like the unofficial bug patch and the additional of lamps and sign posts to trails making it easier to navigate the world without having to constantly pop your map up.  Last night I finally made my way to Whiterun to start the game in its proper, defeating my first dragon and getting the summon to High Hrothgar to hang with the Greybeards.

Anubisath and Whiterun

The interesting thing about this game is that while I have beaten various elements of it countless times… it feels no less fresh than the day I first played it…  especially with this fresh coat of paint.  The only problem with playing Skyrim and starting it relatively late in the evening… is that you pretty much lose the entire night.  The next thing I realized is that it was after midnight and I really should be going to bed.  I am honestly probably going to be playing quite a bit more of Skyrim, largely because it feels like right now I need an offline game without other people in it.  Right now my job is filling my threshold of human interaction, and while I want to be doing stuff…  I also need to distance myself from people to try and empty out my buffers.  I mean I am looking forward to Karazhan on Sunday, and hopefully getting a Xavius kill tonight in Emerald Nightmare…  but I also need some quiet time and few games handle that better than Skyrim.

 

Anubisath and Whiterun

Anubisath and Whiterun

In all honesty, my world lately has been a sequence of fairly shit days.  Yesterday was no difference, so by the time I got home I just wanted to chill out quietly for the evening.  I started off over in World of Warcraft, completing the daily emmisary quest, capturing a new falcosaur orphan… and then on a strange whim I decided to poke my head into AQ40.  The original goal was simple, for me to attempt getting an Anubisath Idol for the purpose of doing some actual pet battles.  I had both Sol and Grace suggest Xu-Fu’s pet battle strategy guides, because at some point I would actually like to learn how to do pet battles in World of Warcraft.  Unfortunately this is like the advanced guide… because I need something far more dumbed down to ease me into the process.  Of note while I play Pokemon games… I never really “play them” properly because for me it becomes entirely about capturing new and interesting critters.  In Warcraft battle pets are largely the same thing for me… I simply want to catch one of every pet.  However to get very far at all…  it feels like the game is expecting me to properly do the content as expected.  As a result I really should spend some time to figure out exactly what the hell I am doing.  I watched a few videos yesterday on pet battles, but most of them were very centered around “exploit this weakness to power level”, which is all well and good but I still feel like I am flailing helplessly.  I like knowing WHY I am doing something, rather than simply knowing a gimmick that works.  This is a big part of why I have never been a fan of exploiting glitches in boss fights… because once said gimmick gets fixed you are back at square one.

Anubisath and Whiterun

So while I set foot in AQ40 with a very clear purpose… I went a little nuts while inside collecting scarab coffer keys and by the time I finished a single run I was able to purchase all but one piece of gear from the raid.  So I can look like the unmade bed that everyone looked like during AQ40, wearing some really bizarre looking bug themed gear.  From there while I was nearby I also stomped AQ20, but didn’t get much of anything to right home about.  After a bunch of false starts in Division and Destiny… I finally settled into playing some more Skyrim Enhanced Edition.  This is the point where I left the path once more and am officially in “ineligible for achievement” territory because I installed a slew of mods through the official interface.  I am not a big achievement hunter, but it does frustrate me a bit when doing the thing that a game is well known for… shuts off achievement tracking entirely.  The achievements that I am running are largely quality of life changes, like the unofficial bug patch and the additional of lamps and sign posts to trails making it easier to navigate the world without having to constantly pop your map up.  Last night I finally made my way to Whiterun to start the game in its proper, defeating my first dragon and getting the summon to High Hrothgar to hang with the Greybeards.

Anubisath and Whiterun

The interesting thing about this game is that while I have beaten various elements of it countless times… it feels no less fresh than the day I first played it…  especially with this fresh coat of paint.  The only problem with playing Skyrim and starting it relatively late in the evening… is that you pretty much lose the entire night.  The next thing I realized is that it was after midnight and I really should be going to bed.  I am honestly probably going to be playing quite a bit more of Skyrim, largely because it feels like right now I need an offline game without other people in it.  Right now my job is filling my threshold of human interaction, and while I want to be doing stuff…  I also need to distance myself from people to try and empty out my buffers.  I mean I am looking forward to Karazhan on Sunday, and hopefully getting a Xavius kill tonight in Emerald Nightmare…  but I also need some quiet time and few games handle that better than Skyrim.

 

Wandering Skyrim

Wandering Skyrim

Last night was a bit of a strange night for me.  Originally I had plans to get together with some of my friends and work on Karazhan attunements…  of which I have not even started running the dungeons.  However I had apparently forgotten that last night was the RiffTrax live show.  By “live” I mean streamed to theaters around the country as the original show is going on in Nashville.  This time around we got to see two shorts and the really bizarre feature film “Carnival of Souls”(which is apparently up on youtube in its entirety).  The film is apparently by the same guy that did another RiffTrax classic… the “Shake Hands with Danger” PSA from Caterpillar.  This literally is probably one of the more bizarre movies I have watched because really from the entire moment it started… it felt like this strange meandering film about nothing.  The RiffTrax send-up however was great, the movie itself just ended with what was supposed to be a shocking reveal…  but largely felt like maybe the director was the only one not in on the secret?  In any case by the time I got out of there, and drove home I was a little out of it.  I existed in that state of too tired to do anything serious, but not tired enough to actually head on to bed.

Wandering Skyrim

Instead I decided to install the Skyrim Special Edition and check it out.  I have to give Bethesda a lot of credit for giving it out for free to anyone who already owned the original game and all of the expansions.  The install was roughly 9 gig so I am guessing that the improvements were more or on the processing side of the equation rather than just pushing a lot of upgraded textures.  Whatever the case the game looks gorgeous, if I had been thinking I would have installed the base game on this newer machine and done some side by side comparisons.  It is enough of an upgrade to make me happy, and I am always willing to have a new excuse to roam around Skyrim being a murder hobo.  Once again however I am torn between sword and shield and bow… ending up mixing between the two quite a bit based on the fight.  As is always the case I had trouble staying to the actual missing and instead have already cleared out the first barrow while retrieving the golden claw.  In theory I think I probably should have gone to Whiterun, but whatever the case I am wandering down my own path once again.  The game doesn’t really feel that changed, more like you installed a graphical upgrade mod.  Whatever the case it looks pretty, and runs well so that pretty much ticks off the boxes I needed.  At some point I might check out the mods available, but for the time being I am largely running vanilla.

Wandering Skyrim