Recent gaming activities

Seems like my blog became sort of dormant 10 days ago. Reason? I got caught up in Elder Scrolls Online. On Tuesday evening I started playing again and continued all day on Wednesday. On Wednesday I got to talking to another user there and since then we've been playing together practically every day. I took a break of two days yesterday and the day before that.

My main is now veteran rank 11 (the cap is on VT14). I've been through all of Aldmeri Dominion where I started, all of Ebonheart Pact, all of Daggerfall Covenant and a big part of the PvE elements in Cyrodiil. I just started going to Craglorn. I really enjoyed the Ebonheart Pact - it was so nostalgic going through Morrowind and Skyrim. Although Mournhold didn't look anything like it did in Tribunal DLC, and neither Riften nor Windhelm looked anything like they do in Skyrim. But the general landscape was the same. I'm so glad they didn't have any cliff racers in the Morrowind zones though xD I hate those things!

It's also been nostalgic running around and questing in Cyrodiil. I feel kind of sorry for Bruma. In Oblivion that city is the site for the largest Oblivion gate of the Oblivion crisis; in ESO the city is the site for its own private Anchor. I remember that Cheydinhal was my favourite town in Oblivion, and I was so disappointed to find out in ESO that it looked nothing like in Oblivion. They really should make the towns more similar :( High Rock was easily the most boring region to run around in, but for some reason I really liked Hammerfell. Alik'r Desert was amazing. Lots of sand and sad stories. I didn't like Shadowfen as much as I thought I would, but I've adored every single region of Aldmeri Dominion. Both Summerset Isles and Valenwood are absolutely breath-taking and the little we get to see of Elsweyr is amazing. Elsweyr is also the place for the most depressing quest line in the entire game. I felt like crying when I finished it.

 1). Summerset Isles: Auridon. 2). Valenwood: Greenshade. 3). Elsweyr: Reaper's March. 4). Hammerfell: Alik'r Desert.

What I don't like about the endgame content is that it's largely group based. There's barely anything I can do alone nowadays. Everything in Craglorn is group based and you can't very well manage alone in Cyrodiil either. I wish for more solo content in a coming patch or DLC. Because the trouble of finding a complete group was the reason why I postponed all the group dungeons in the solo regions until I could basically solo all of them. (Although I did get some help form my new friend.) That is no longer an option. I can't postpone group moments, because that's all I have left. And that was the reason why I decided to take a short break.

During this short break I caught up on my studying. (I'm doing a single part-time evening course in contemporary Swedish at the university of Stockholm), and caught up a bit on my backlog of games. I started out with Banished. I played that before and when I quit that last time it was going really well for my settlement. I continued with the same town and it kept going really well. Until I passed the 300 mark. By then I had about 250 adults, 60 students, and 40 children. The food levels that had previously stayed at a comfortable 29,000, suddenly dropped to 8,000, I built two more Gatherer's, two more Hunter's, one more Fishing, and three more crop fields. Still the food levels dropped to 500 and then the people started dying like flies. In just a few minutes my town had gone from well over 300 to 98 adults, 20 students and 20 children. By then, while I had frantically tried to save the situation by re-allocating workers and making sure every resource and occupation stayed covered and still tried to build more food sources, I had run out of iron, coal, and firewood. People started complaining of being cold as well as still hungry and then I started running out of tools because I had no iron. I watched my town die and then decided I was done with Banished.

Afterwards I started up Neil Gaiman's computer game Wayward Manor. It's a point-and-click, which I tend to like, and the art of the game felt like a cartoonish Tim Burton style. It was made even better when I started it up and realised that it was Gaiman himself who narrated every cutscene. The game consisted of 6 chapters and every chapter of 5 parts. The novelty of the game quickly wore off after completing the second chapter and from then on it got mostly boring until chapter 6 came around and the whole motive of the game suddenly changed. The last chapter was a bit more exciting and fun, but overall I felt disappointed once I had completed the game. The story was fun and simple yet deep, like all Gaiman's stories. I loved the art, the style, the narrative, and yet the gameplay didn't deliver.

So instead of going through the game again, trying to win all the achievements like I usually do with point-and-click I closed it down and turned to Shadowrun Returns instead. I had almost finished this game when I played it before, but I couldn't manage the final boss. I still couldn't. So instead I started looking at fanmade stories from the Steam workshop. I found a few and had some fun with them. I really enjoy the style and gameplay of Shadowrun Returns, I just wish there was more than one in-game campaign. I might replay the whole thing at some point, because I really don't feel done with it.

That's basically all I've been up to since the last post. I have been doing boring stuff like applying for jobs as well (and hoping for the best), and some other fun stuff like new episodes of Doctor Who, America's Next Top Model, Downton Abbey, and Big Bang Theory.