Bay 12 Games Forum

Spoiler: "Lots of words" (click to show/hide)

The fact of the matter is, we have been told for 2-3 hundred years - we have had it drilled into our heads - that democracy and elections are what make us free, that voting saved us from the kings and tyrants of old, and that workers' rights (8 hour days, minimum wage, etc) ensure we are not slaves. Because we vote, we control the government. Because we have some rights, we are not slaves. Things are better then under the old empires and kingdoms.

This is complete and utter bullshit.

A modern elected industrialized democracy cares little to nothing for the voters, no matter who is running it, except near election-times and only then on certain key issues, that usually have little to no long term policy effect/change no matter who wins. Either way the fiscal policy of a nation will not greatly vary based on party, the military spending of a nation will not vary based on party, the vast system of laws and favoritism will not change based on voting, and the vast majority of people will spend their poor lives working in mundane, stupid, useless jobs for relatively little money to benefit those who own the vast majority of everything. We have the appearance of substantial progress without it being the substance of truth.

The fact of the matter is, a man in America or England is no more free today, and has no more control over the government, then he did under King George. Even freedom of speech does us no good, because we have become a society where speech has no power; you can talk and talk and you are never heard. The politicians and corporations can pretty much do what they want as long as they make a good show of it.

I'm not sure what the solution is (not rioting, certainly) - but I would argue that the human race is going to continue to suffer and suffer under burdens of its own making until we learn certain lessons. I don't think the lessons of the days of monarchy and empire have been completely learnt.

So you're saying people are only just realising that all societies need nothing more than the majority of it's members to be mindless drones whose deaths mean nothing to society as a whole, who do boring and repetitive jobs until they retire, are instantly replaced like they were never there, and then simply lie around waiting to die? Who matter not in any meaningful way but are still needed to keep everything functioning? Maybe I give people too much credit, because I realised that when I was like 12. Not everybody is special and unique, not everybody should be special or unique.

In any system with power to be had, real power is always in the hands of the few who can play whatever game that system has set up to take it.

Which is where DarNified UI becomes useful.

Going back to the plot, one thing I'm hoping for is the greyness of your nature like Morrowind had. See, in Morrowind you aren't the Nerevarine. You are one who may become the Nerevarine. That's a common theme in The Elder Scrolls, "Walk like them until they must walk like you". It's a nice revamp of the concept of The Chosen One.

Likewise, in Skyrim you play "Dragonborn" which is a term used in older games to refer to several figures in history, agents of massive change. So again, I hope they follow the "walk like them" idea where you aren't the Dragonborn from the start, but out the become the Dragonborn.

Also the Dragons in the game are basically Angels, servants of the god of time who it seems occasionally decides he wants to eat the world. So it'll be interesting to see how they handle all that.

But hey, it's plot that usually sells me on a game xD

Actually I think the dual-wielding was more a neat side-effect of trying to create a more flexible weapons system...and also is surprisingly realistic.

Long Sword + Shield = Kind of the point of having a shield and sword
Short Sword + Short Sword = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_swords
Long Sword + Dagger = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_gauche
Shield + Shield = Confused Turtle

Plus more features that interact = more complexity = more chance of bugs occurring in situations that don't crop-up during testing or being incredibly difficult to track-down and fix.

Hence why Dwarf Fortress has so much unintentional fun ^^

I was waiting for ages too. I think all RPG fans should know the pain of finding yourself in an encounter levels above you, builds character.

Right now Morrowind is pretty much finished and Bloodmoon too (I don't think the Raven Rock quests are patched in yet) so it's mostly just waiting on Tribunal and the odd glitch ^^ I've not noticed it crashing when running around with full LOD but my PC is notably better (and newer, and more expensive) than my older ones so it may just be a specs thing xD There's still the odd glitch, and I don't think expulsion from a guild works right but I always reloaded when I got expelled anyway. But all in all it's pretty darned sweet

So I'm planning on starting a video let's play of Morrowind in the Oblivion Engine using Morroblivion (and a craptonne of over mods like Stealth Overhaul, Persuasion Overhaul, Supreme Magicka, Deadly Reflex etc). Now, I would just go ahead and do this and post it afterwards but first I wanted some opinions on an idea I had.

Games like Morrowind and Oblivion are not 100% action all the way through. Games like Morrowind and Oblivion have a lot of walking around. Now, I could just cut this walking out via Benny-Hill-Fast-Forward or jump-cuts. Ooooor, I could do...well, let me explain my different idea.

After episode 0, Character Creation, each episode is based around either exploring a particular area or set of areas, or doing a quest. So, for example:
Episode 1 - The Murder of a Taxman, where I do that quest where you track down the taxman's murderer.
Episode 2 - Slaves of Addamasartus, where I fight through the cave near Seyda Neen
Episode 3 - Finding the Mentor's Ring

And so-on, framing it less like a non-stop narration and instead like a sequence of episodes (Think how the Pokemon anime was done). This means you don't have to see me grinding my Alchemy skill or walking from Balmora to Ald'Ruhn for the umptenth time, or even declaring "And now I am going to Balmora" *screen wipe* "And now I am in Balmora". Also it makes handling an on-screen crash easier, since I just need to redo the recording of one quests (or go back to an autosave and just edit it in, pretending it never happened) and not lose potentially lots of play-time due to being sent back to an earlier save.

So before I...well, start this LP I wanted to get people's opinions on my "Tales of..." idea first. I originally had it for Fallout: New Vegas actually, as a kind of "Freeman's Mind" esque LP, but since I want to get into Morroblivion and do an LP sometime, I figure this is a good way to kill two birds with one stone.

(Also suggestions for quests to do next, what class to be and what houses to join etc. will be took into consideration. And by took into consideration I mean I'll pick the ones I like most and if it's the one you suggested well good-de-yay).

And now they are even more terrifying *whimper*