Six times brown

It's the sixth, so it's time to delve into the screenie archive and delve up to brown ones! Many of the games I enjoy take place in a realistic, natural setting with lots of shades of brown, so this one didn't take very long. Enjoy!

Six times black

It's time for another 6 on 6, or errr.... 10. Oops, I better not make a habit of this! The past weeks have been crazy, resulting in a long blogging silence of a month. Having already missed out on the white edition of 6 on 6 last month, I decided to post this anyway. I will write more about my analogue adventures later this week.

ABC6: Picture of the day

Not all the things about Skyrim are that bad. Apart from using overpowered Burning Embers, you can also become invisible. Pretty handy if you want to move about unseen. Which in its turn is handy because not everyone is as friendly to me as I deserve. I'm merely trying to save the world from a dragon invasion, but sometimes it seems as if everyone in this world is set out to kill me!

The first time I was a bit surprised when I became invisible. I could still see myself, but I soon found out that others could not. It's not like Elven stealth, which is more like camouflage: you are literally look-through. It's more like a certain ring I've once heard of, but let's not speak of that here. Either way, it was an interesting experience.

In June, 'the other Ravanel' takes over Ravalation to ponder about her life as an avatar in the light of the Avatar Blogger Challenge (ABC).

Skyrim: A mage's retirement

Here I am, disguising myself as a creepy witch (posing with dead bodies of which you nicked the hat is okay if you're supposed to be a creepy witch). I look scary as hell. What I don't know yet is that the fun after the masquerade isn't going to last very long.

I had been zapping around very happily, falling in love with the amazingly strong lightning skill that jumps from target to target. If stuff would really get too hard, I'd place ice runes and sneak around while the enemies would look for me and step in them. I also played around a bit with fire walls and let them walk through that. I'm not sure how stupid you have to be to allow yourself to be kited through a wall of fire, but it worked.

I socialized with fellow mages of the guild and ended up being their guild master. After a lot of magic adventures, I bought a plot in Riften and settled down. No more adventures for me. Just quiet work in my own lovely vegetable garden (it came with me very own grain shovel!) and endless conversations with Lydia at the kitchen table ("I will follow you to the very end, my thane.").

If only it had been like this.

In (virtual) reality, Ravanel was happy with her house, but didn't have any plans of settling down. She dumped all her stuff in it and went on to the next adventure: the main quest that runs through the whole game. Only, there was no next adventure. During my time at the mage's guild, the NPCs leading it had miraculously disappeared. They were not at Riften. They were not in Riverwood. They were not at the Foresworn place in the west where I had to go. In fact, each time I neared the Forsworn place (it didn't matter from which side), my game instantly crashed.

After a long search on the internet, I found I had encountered a known bug with the main story. There was no way to fix it. The only option was to load an older save game and play everything over. Even that was no option for Ravanel: I did not have any save game from before the bug. I could still do whatever I want in game, apart from continuing the main quest. Sadly enough, continuing the main quest was the only thing I had planned for Ravanel after having completed everything at the mage's guild.

I know it's just a game, and I know that I still have huntress Ravereth to play (although she is nowhere near as far with the main quest), but I'm feeling pretty sad right now. So far I've encountered some bugs, but I was always able to find a workaround. I think it's pretty bad that they release a game with such major bugs in the first place, and it's even worse that they don't try to fix it or offer any solutions. I will probably play a bit with Ravereth in the future, but don't feel very motivated right now by not being able to play my favourite character.

Above: endless conversations with Lydia ("I will follow you to the very end, my thane!"). Sigh.

Skyrim: I used to be an adventurer like you...

... then I took an arrow to the knee.

* Or well, almost to the knee, but I'm not planning to go and try to reproduce this!

Skyrim: Kill it off

I have met a new challenge in Skyrim: if you one-shot an enemy, or fire up a particularly powerful killing blow, you get this slow motion short movie, one of the few moments that you can actually get a nice shot of your character doing something different than just standing around! Only problem is, I find it hard to take a screenshot of this moment, because even though it's in slow motion, it goes pretty fast if you're not expecting it and your hands are at the wrong side of the keyboard, still in "fighting", not "take screenshots" mode. 

This is what I managed so far:

Warning: electrifying dwemer guardians may damage cultural heritage.

Ever since I invested in the sneak tree, my mage has become incredibly OP. It was fun to see this fireball on its way to one-shotting this living skeleton, though. 

This used to be a frost troll. Gosh, I'm such a hooligan when I look back at all these pictures.

There's also a nice slow motion movie of yourself aiming at the enemy if you're using bow and arrows. However, I keep failing to capture this moment and always end up with a shot of what happens next. Charming.

Meanwhile, the search for the perfect one-shot screenie continues. What is your best shot?

Skyrim: Mods

I've really been enjoying the Skyrim posts that emerge on the blogs around me. Eldaeriel, Rakuno and Ocho and I have been forming this small group that loves to write and read about each others adventures in Skyrim - at least, in my silly mind! They also all have written about their favorite mods for this game and I obviously can't stay behind!

There's an amazing amount of mods available for Skyrim, and many of them will greatly improve the game. Tiger and I use over 50 mods (seriously, I don't know how the game survives it) and use the Nexus mod manager to keep them in line, which works well so far. Here are the ones I enjoy the most, sorted by type.

1) Game mechanics

Skyrim is an amazing game, but some things could've been done better. The Convenient horses mod shows this: with it, you can allow you to interact with your environment while riding a horse (talking to NPC's, picking flowers). It's pretty ridiculous that you normally can't, if you think of it! The mod also allows your companion to ride a horse, so they don't have to run after you all the time, and you can summon your horse with a horn. Plus it introduces more intelligent modes for your horse, so it won't break you out of sneak. A great mod if you like to ride. Another mod I like is Auto Unequip Ammo, which means that you don't keep the arrows on your back all the time when you swap between weapons. Finally, I really recommend SkyTEST - Realistic Animals. It makes animals hunt and generally act smarter. It's crazy if you see what this mod does.

2) Utility

Some mods give better utilities, such as Better sorting, which renames potions and other items in a logical way so they sort better and allows you to decrease the weight for potions. I know weight decrease is kind of a cheat, but I spent so much time getting rid of junk that I wasn't enjoying playing anymore. Couldn't live without this one! Another nice utility mod is Categorized Favorites Menu, which sorts your favorite weapons, spells, potions, shouts, armour etc into categories. I can't even imagine what the game would play like without these. The categories really make it easy to find your important stuff fast in mid-fight. I also have a Quality world map installed, which shows the roads more clearly. Lastly, I use Unread books glow, just to make it a bit easier to keep track.

3) Visual improvements

We use Countervibe ENB, and I simply love it. It's a complete overhaul of the game graphics that makes it look fantastic, while still looking authentic. I'm not exaggerating if I say I can't play the game without it anymore. In addition, I have small extras installed that makes the environment look more realistic, such as Birds and flocks, Better Dynamic Snow, Skyrim Flora Overhaul and Lush Grass. I found W.A.T.E.R. - Water and Terrain enhancement reduce better looking than Pure Waters (tried them both).

4) Character looks

To have some extra options with the character creation, I installed Apachii Sky Hair, which adds about 80 new hair models. I also use Better females to improve female faces. They don't look like barbie dolls, but just have a bit more detail.

5) Fun things

Some things aren't very useful, but just a lot of fun. Footprints falls into this category. Both you and NPC's will leave footprints while walking in the snow, which is how it should be. More morbid mods are Enhanced blood textures and Realistic Ragdolls and Force, which makes NPC's and - if you're unlucky - you, die in a more realistic way.

More mods to try

After all this mod fun, I finally took the time to carefully read the mod posts of my fellow bloggers:
Casual Aggro: The Modification of Skyrim: Top 10 Skyrim Mods
Shards of Imagination: [Skyrim] Adventures with Mods! 
StarShadow: Skyrim: Mods and Build
I recommend to read them if you're into Skyrim mods. They're all excellent posts.

I selected the following mods from them and installed them. I want to try these the coming days:

• Amazing Follower Tweaks & Better Followers: Is supposed to fix followers so they won't trigger traps and won't equip heavy armour if they're mages etc. Seems useful for Ravereth.
• Build your own home: Ravereth is a wood elf, so she doesn't want to live in the city. A house in the wilderness sounds just about right! Am also just curious how this works, so want to try it out.
• Lanterns of Skyrim: The roads can do with some lighting, in my opinion.
• Wearable lanterns: Allows you to wear lanterns on your belt, so you can still equip weapons. Seems handy.
• Skyrim HD (2k textures): Skyrim should look even better with this.

Let me know if there's a vital mod I missed!

Skyrim: Small adventures

When I had just gotten Skyrim, I asked advice on which type to play in Skyrim, and of course I got mixed answers, most favouring either the hunter or the mage type. I've played until level 20 on Ravereth the hunter since, but today I've been a bad girl, felt the itch and succumbed to mage. Now I play Ravanel, I notice how much I've missed roasting things (as demonstrated on the picture above)! I also like learning new spells, and discovering new tricks. The mage feels a bit more versatile than hunter, as I keep mixing different spells, while as a hunter you... well... just keep shooting arrows at things. I also was getting a bit tired of having Lyria running after me all the time. I've build Ravanel with a bit more health than Ravereth and she should be able to survive on her own. Theoretically.

Eventually I'll want to try out other playstyles, such as that of my two-handed warrior, as well. I'm not sure yet which character I will stick to in the end. Perhaps I will hopelessly keep switching between them all the time!

Adventures

One of my favorite things about Skyrim is the random factor. Of course there are quests with set scripts, but there's also a chance that something unexpected happens. If I'm wandering around, there are always these little adventures I run into, and sometimes I won't be able to repeat them on another character. Here are some:

Freshhh fish

Ravereth discovered a cave called Darkwater Pass and took a peek inside. It was very dark, but there was a lot of water, and I could hear the splashing of fish. All of a sudden, she was found by a strange goblin-like creature (of which I later learned it was called a Falmer) that attacked her. It was relatively though to fight, but she managed in the end. When she looked on his body, she found a freshly caught fish. He had been sitting at the edge of the water in that cave, catching fish. A Gollum reference? Either way, the cave freaked her out, so she quickly returned to the outside world and continued her travels.

Orcish delight

Ravanel had to pass a certain region in the mountains, wherein she got harassed by two sabre-toothed tigers. They're such a pain! There was no way she could get past them while sneaking. She also couldn't kite them, as they leapt from the shadows right on top of her, and run very fast. On top of that, it was night and she couldn't see them well at all. I nearly got a heart attack each time they killed poor Ravanel. So she gave up and spent the night at a bedroll in some nearby camp, and dreaded the next day to come.

However, she found them both dead the next day by the hand of an old orc. She didn't tell him, but you can imagine her relief! The orc asked me if she please could kill him in a duel (for some weird orcish reason he wanted to die), but considering his recent victorious involvement with the sabres, I passed.

Very protective

Ravanel usually runs around in her gothic necromancer's robes, but carries some light armour with her as well, for the rare cases when she's not allowed to use magic (for instance in bar brawls - oh yeah, I'm totally into those!). Today she looted some new light armour that had a much higher armour rating than her previous. I was a bit baffled when she put it on, though. How exactly does this protect me? If I encounter an enemy, will it be... 'distracted' by my looks or something?!

I hope you enjoyed these stories. Have you had similar adventures as well? Or am I the only one who experiences Skyrim like this?

Skyrim: Slaying dragons

Dragons! They are my favorite mythical creatures (together with griffons). Dragons are clever, sly and manipulative. Stories with dragons are often both epic and tragic. They're good stories. So of course I was excited when I found out that dragons were going to be an important part of Skyrim's story.

The only bad part is that you have to slay them.

So much better!

But ah well, lets return to the Skyrim reality: slaying dragons. Instead of closing some sort of hell gates (Oblivion) as a repetitive feature, you now keep on killing large winged animals. Which is much more exciting, I must say. Not only because they're, well, dragons, but also because you have no idea where they are and might stumble into one by accident.

Dragon in the dark

During one of my assignments, I had to meet a member of a dragon slayer support group (yeah, you have those in Skyrim - make it up and it exists). I couldn't find her, as it was night and a heavy snow storm just burst out. It became apparent that we had a second problem...

...right under our noses, a dragon was reborn! We learned that dragon babies are not friendly, are not actually babies but already fully grown up and can hurt you a lot. An insane fight against flying shadows followed, wherein we luckily had the giveaway of the clearly visible fire it was spitting towards my companion Lydia. It was an exiting fight against a nearly invisible enemy and huge was my relief when we finally made it.

I waited next to the corpse for the morning to dawn and it was only then that I could finally see where I was. A large hole marked the place where the dragon was awakened. I also finally managed to find my dragon slayer groupie and could continue my quest.

I did replay this part later on and waited until dawn before I went to this place, to be able to see what was going on and, of course, to do a dragon photoshoot. I'm not really happy with the result. Somehow, dragons are really exiting and scary when you encounter them in-game, but if you look back at the pictures afterwards, they don't look that impressive after all. It's like when I draw dragons: I'm hardly ever satisfied with the result. I don't think I've found 'the perfect dragon' yet.

Unfair

There's one thing that embarrasses me a bit, and that's the actual act of dragon slaying itself. It occurs to me that my companion Lydia stands in the fire all the time (which would kill me in one hit) and I just shoot a bit at the beast from a distance. When 'we' kill it, I get to be a famous Dragon Slayer, and all she gets is a a pat on the back for being a good servant. While she did all the dangerous stuff!

Above: Lydia once again getting roasted.

Doing it right?

There's another thing that puzzles me. Sometimes I run into a dragon while traveling to a quest location, and get attacked. I'm forced to kill the beast. Now I've found several dragon shouts that I'm not able to use, so I thought I might need to kill a dragon in order to be able to do so. Indeed, once when I killed a dragon, it said "Dragon Soul absorbed", but the shouts I had collected were still greyed out and there was no way of finding any "dragon souls" back. I just hope I'm not missing something or even messing things up by killing dragons now that are meant to be killed later. 

Any advice (please no huge spoilers) is welcome!

Skyrim: Crafting potions and sneaking around

My previous Skyrim post ended up with amazing walls of text from comments, full with tips and advice. I haven't had enough time to answer everything (I will, I promise), but thanks all for sharing your game experience! The tips were very helpful. As to which character to stick to, most people favoured either Ravereth or Ravanel (with a slight head start for Ravereth), so I started playing on Ravereth, and I quite like it!

Sneaking
This is the first time I play a hunter-like class in an Elder Scrolls game, but the combination of sneaking around and hitting hard from stealth works like a charm. It's funny how squishy I am, though. My boyfriend laughed at me when I was trying not to one-shot a mudcrab to catch its soul, and then got killed by one hit. One hit! I mean, it's a crab, right...

Crafting potions
A weak spot of mine has always been Alchemy. I just love to explore and gather all flowers and then brew weird stuff from it. It's also a nice way to get some money without walking around with heavy stuff. There's something about me and games (I have the same in Lord of the Rings Online), but I'm always overencumbered.

Something seems to have changed since the other Elder Scrolls games: while you could use food (venison, cabbage, apples etc) for alchemy before, now you can only use it to cook it. Cooked food only regenerates a little bit of health/stamina/magicka, so it's a lot less efficient than potions. Still, I suppose it's still useful at the start of the game, when you don't have many resources and recipes to make potions.

 Just a list for me to remember what ingredients are useful:


Potions

Restore health

• Mountain flower (blue)
• Butterfly wing (monarch)
• Egg (rock warbler)
• Wheat
• Imp stool

Restore stamina

• Honeycomb
• Mountain flower (purple)
• Claw (bear)

Restore magicka

• Creep Cluster
• Mora Tapinella
• Mountain Flower (red)
• White Cap

Food

Restore health + stamina

Stew - apple cabbage: immediate effect

• Saltpile
• Apple (red) 
• Cabbage

Soup - vegetable: over-time effect

• Potato
• Leek - raw
• Tomato
• Cabbage

Perhaps I should give up on collecting food, though, as it's starting to become very inefficient. I think it's in fact all the food I carry around that makes me overencumbered. It's sort of a shame that you can't use food anymore for potions (as you were able to do in earlier Elder Scrolls games). If I shoot a deer, what should I do with it? Just take the hide and leave the meat? Such a shame. I must admit some potion combinations were a bit ridiculous. Like, onions, for breathing under water? I guess the current mechanic is a bit more realistic, but in the end it's still a fantasy game.

Skyrim: Rav goes Skyrim

The Steam summersale is over, and one thing I can conclude is that it's bad for your purse. I'm specifically talking about my boyfriend's purse, as he can hardly resist to buy everything. The positive side of this all is that I can 'steal' his games as well, so I now got many games on my menu! One of these games is the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim...

...wherein I immediately got stuck in the all too familiar trap of all such games: the character creation. I've already spoken before about my talent to take hours to pick a character, so please help me a bit. I created three characters I like, but I really can't choose which of the three I should continue with. As usual, I tried to give each their own characteristics and story. I've completed the introduction with each, but like them all in their own way. Which of the following characters should I stick to?

Who of the three?

1. Ravereth

Elf (Wood Elf)

Favorite weapon: Longbow and daggers (for the occasional sneaking)

Character: The hunter-type that has great knowledge of nature and wildlife around her. I hope I can fight with animals on my side.

The hunter playstyle usually doesn't appeal to me, but what I've seen so far in Skyrim actually looks like much fun. I started this character because I'd like to play something else than a human, and I can't set myself to play a cat or lizard (they just look so weird!). A wood elf of the hunter-type made sense to me.

2. Tessel

Human (Imperial)

Favorite weapon: Two-handed Sword

Character: This probably is the most 'normal' character of the three. Even though she herself is an Imperial, she fled with the rebellion after she was caught and almost beheaded for seemingly no reason by Imperial guards. She doesn't know which side to pick and is probably a lonely survivor type.

Funnily enough, this character looks the most like I do in real life (both in fighting style as in looks), but feels the hardest for me to play. Even though I have a lot of experience with medieval sword fighting as a sport, I usually don't play melee classes in games. That has a reason: I generally suck more at it.

3. Ravanel

Human (Nord)

Favorite weapon: Magic

Character: Ravanel is a fiery, talented girl, who loves to put things on fire and brawl potions. Eager to learn new scrolls and zapping left and right, you don't want to be on the wrong side of her.

I usually play mage-like classes in games and generally love them. In fact, I play them so often that I wouldn't mind playing something else now. Still, I enjoyed my mage elf in Oblivion (magic was great in that game) and think I will in Skyrim as well.

First impression

I love what I'm seeing in Skyrim. So far, it looks like Oblivion, but... better. The landscape is well done and the light is nice... somehow it all looks very realistic and medieval. The start of the story was also very exciting, with nearly being beheaded and having to run through a very realistic burning village from a dragon and all. In Oblivion, I got a bit bored by the repeating storyline (close this hell gate, close that hell gate, close this hell gate... etc), but there doesn't seem to be anything like that in Skyrim, as far as I've seen. I can't wait to get starting, at least, as soon as I know which character I should continue with.

So have you also played Skyrim? And do you know any tricks / do you have a a favorite of the three characters above? Let me know!