Tuesday 25 October 2016

Elder Scrolls Online: New DLCs, Update 12, and the Halloween event

The new DLC for ESO was next on my list of games to play and originally I was supposed to just get in there and play the DLC, then get out again. Instead I played it for a month :P

When I started playing I did everything but the DLC. Did a bunch of dailies and some dungeons with people, but most of all I tried to complete the PvE elements in Cyrodiil (the PvP area). And I did basically everything there. I only have a couple of delves left, but I'll get them at some other time. Something else I did was that while I was in Cyro anyway I decided to check out the Imperial City DLC. Because my goal was to do the PvE, I had chosen a campaign with low population, it was also the middle of the night on a weekday, which helped. Imperial City is like a group based public dungeon with PvP elements. Mayhem. Two ordinary group dungeons also came along with the DLC and I haven't checked those out yet. I picked up the quest for the public dungeon part and went exploring. The mobs in there were no problem, but then came the first boss of the quest, and while I did manage to get the boss's health down a bit, it was way too hard to do alone (at least on my current build - maybe when I get my new one I can manage alone?) So I moved on from the Imperial City for a while.

While I was busy with Cyro, Update 12 came around. Major update, which changed the game from the base up. Where before you could only see people from your own alliance in the world (except in the PvP zone ofc), you can now interact with everybody from every alliance everywhere and anywhere in the world. Which suddenly made the world a lot livelier! Not that ESO was dying before, but the zones are so friggin big that you don't run across so many people randomly in the world, but then you come to a city and there are people everywhere. Absolutely everywhere, even before the Update - so you can imagine the chaos when the Update came around and the amount of people tripled! xD Another thing they did in Update 12 was to introduce duelling, which I watched a lot of, but didn't participate. I didn't join in on the action, mostly because I've been working on a new build and most of that "working on" is "waiting for my character to research enough traits so that I can craft the armour I want". Because I didn't have the build I wanted, I also didn't do as much damage as a lot of the others, and I don't want to duel at all until I think I have any chance of winning :P (I don't think I will, but I want the chance). They also made all the world bosses into actual group events, where you have very little chance to manage them alone. (I did all of them solo before and as I've said my build isn't the best).
Another major change with the Update was that they completely revamped the adventure zone Craglorn, and made the main quest line there solo-able. So as soon as I got online after the Update I started working on completing the main quest there, which I did - for the first time since Craglorn launched in 2014. With the Update, Craglorn came alive again and suddenly there was no trouble at all finding people for the daily quest lines there. For a while there I was busy completing the Craglorn zone.

Then came ESO's first ever event! The Witches' Festival came around while I was busy in Craglorn, and this event sent me farming for the first time ever in the two years I've played this game. Basically you did this little quest for the witch, which gave you the ability to summon her cauldron and drink from it. This turned your toon into a skeleton with some buffs. And then all you had to do was kill bosses; world bosses, anchor bosses, public dungeon bosses, group dungeon bosses, delve bosses... Any boss! When you killed bosses you had a chance of finding a Plunder Skull, which you could open in the hopes of getting parts of the new Hollowjack crafting motif, collectables or spooky recipes. This event would be around until November 1st, which meant there was a time limit to get all the stuff and all the new achievements. So I dedicated myself to this. After a few delves I spent most of my time going through all the anchors and then all the public dungeons, which meant I finally went through the public dungeons in Orsinium DLC that I didn't do before. The Dwemer one was really cool! I finished the event on Sunday, after having collected over 40 skulls on Saturday alone. All in all I think I collected 110 skulls.

After I finished the event I decided to focus on the new DLC; Dark Brotherhood. I had picked it up and started it before back when it was released in early June, but I didn't start playing it until now. If there is one thing I've learned from other ES games, it's that when you play the Dark Brotherhood quest line - get ready for betrayal. The DLC takes place on the Gold Coast, an area of Cyrodiil which was previously in Oblivion. I enjoyed coming back to Anvil and Kvatch. The story of the Dark Brotherhood mostly evolves around the fact that someone has been killing members of the family, and we know that this murderer (a murderer of murderers, lol) is somehow connected to the Order of the Hour; worshippers of Akatosh. The investigation takes me back and forth between Kvatch and Anvil and also on a trip to Black Marsh. The DLC ended with an awesome boss battle and with my character becoming a member of the Black Hand. This was honestly the best DLC yet. I loved Thieves Guild while I was playing it, but holy hell this was a lot better. The zone had a few quests as well, that weren't part of the Dark Brotherhood quest line. They were all a lot of fun and gave me the opportunity to re-encounter Crafty Lerisa from the Daggerfall Covenant zones, Raynor Vanos and his sister from the Ebonheart Pact zones, and Captain Jimila fromt he Aldmeri Dominion zones. But also, and they are my favourites, Naryu Virian from EP and Razum-dar from AD. When I ran into Raz I couldn't stop smiling. He's my favourite character in the whole game :3 Naryu is number two. Favourite side quest of this zone was no doubt the last one: The Sweetroll Killer, which included a lot of investigation, puzzles, and choice-and-consequence.

There was another DLC released: Shadows of the Hist. But this DLC only consisted of two new group dungeons and group dungeons are rarely on the top of my to-do list in ESO. Some other time.

Sunday 16 October 2016

Watching old, old movies part 4

This isn't gonna stop any time soon...

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

10. Pyscho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock retains his reputation even to this day so of course I had heard about this movie, although I had never seen it. It was kind of straight-forward all the way to the end, when the twist about the murderer was revealed. The only big surprise was when the girl who I thought was the main character was killed off halfway through the movie. And when the twist was revealed and one of the detectives casually called the murderer a transvestite I just said "He's not a transvestite! He's a cross-dressing man with multiple personality disorder. I don't need a degree to know that! You loon." to the screen. But from what I've gathered through Mad Men and old books and movies; psychology and the workings of the brain weren't such well-known facts for the most part of the 20th century. I wouldn't call this movie horror, though, there weren't many horror elements in it. Apart from the classical shower scene and the corpse reveal towards the end, this was a kind of straight-forward heist-mystery movie. I liked it, though.

11. The Black Cat (1934)
I had been looking forward to this movie - Bela Lugosi (Dracula) and Boris Karloff (Frankenstein/The Mummy) in the same movie! Based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe nonetheless! It was bound to be good. And it was. It really, really was. The only expected and obvious letdown (for me, anyway) was that the women in the movie had barely any lines at all and were basically there just to look pretty. But Lugosi and Karloff were so good together that most of the time I didn't even care. So Lugosi is vaguely creepy as a character and on his way to what he says is "an old friend" (Karloff's character). After a road accident he brings the honeymooning couple with him to this friend because the woman has been hurt and his friend's home is close to where the accident happened. Turns out this is not a friend at all, but a fellow ex-soldier who left him and the batallion for dead as he ran off. For 18 years Lugosi's character was a POW, while Karloff's character became renowned as an amazing architect and lived a good life - with Lugosi's wife and daughter nonetheless! Karloff's character is later revealed to be the leader of a cult who sacrifices women to the moon. Women who Karloff later preserves to be able to watch their eternal beauty (like som necrophiliac creep). Lugosi's character is revealed to actually be a good guy with a bad past, but when he finds out what Karloff's character did to his wife and daughter he goes ballistic (understandably). This whole movie was a joy to watch, and actually quite scary. It was disturbing even by today's standards.
I love this whole scene. Lugosi looks demented and Karloff looks properly scared shitless by the end.

12. Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960)
The first non-English movie I've seen on this trip through black-and-white. While Nosferatu is German, all the text cards were in English in the version I saw. This movie is French (why couldn't we watch this kind of movie in French class?!) and it's creepy as hell. The title means Eyes Without a Face. It's about the daughter of an amazing surgeon who loses her face in a car accident caused by her father. Her father goes on a personal quest to give his daughter a new face, experimenting with full facial transplants (a full 50 years before it was accomplised IRL). His secretary helps him by tricking young women into going with her. Their faces are then used for experimentation, and their dead bodies are later dumped. Christiane, the daughter, begins to lose hope and faith in her father's ability, but for a moment it looks like he may have succeeded. But (as expected from my side) the tissue grows necrotic after just a few days and has to be removed and Christiane is back to wearing her mask. Throughout the whole movie she has very few lines and she's almost always wearing her mask. She moves around quietly and gracefully, with nothing but her huge eyes visible of her face. The way her character moves and looks is the most creepy thing to me. It was worse than when they actually filmed and showed the doctor removing a face (why did they have to show that?! it hurt my face to watch!). Of course the surgeon and his secretary gets the police on their trail, but Christiane has had it and stabs the secretary with her father's scalpel and then sets the caged dogs on her father. When they're both dead she helps the latest girl escape and then she goes out into the world again - for the first time in months. This movie was so good. It didn't leave my head for days. The French should do more horror. The melancholy they love to have in their movies really works in horror.

Monday 3 October 2016

September favourites 2016

Books: In September I read three books and a comic, and I started on a fourth book. Favourite book of the month has to be Expedition to the Mountain of the Moon by Mark Hodder. Although that book made me mostly sad, I can't help but love his steampunk series ^^

Music: I haven't been listening to much music this month. For some reason I haven't felt the need to block out other people on the train and so no music. But when I have listened it's mostly been The Pretty Reckless and In This Moment, with a little Blutengel, Avatar and Cradle of Filth.
• The Pretty Reckless - "House on a Hill" & "Only You"

• In This Moment - "Blood" & "Dirty Pretty"

• Blutengel - "Lucifer" & "Reich Mir Die Hand"

• Avatar - "Bloody Angel" & Cradle of Filth - "Nocturnal Supremacy"

• Blutengel - "Soultaker" & In This Moment - "Daddy's Falling Angel"


Games: In September I've played Far Cry 3, Magicka, The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine, Oblivion, and ESO. My favourite game out of those have to be Blood & Wine. The Witcher 3 was one of those games that I didn't realise how much I had missed until I was playing it again. Now a part of me wants me to replay the whole series, while another part of me keeps screaming at that part that "No! It's too long!" So yeah...


Tv shows: So what have I been watching in September? The Tribe, Star Trek: TOS, The Strain, The Big Bang Theory, Fear the Walking Dead, Agents of Shield, Once Upon a Time, and Grey's Anatomy. I'm hard pressed to pick a favourite, because they all have their faults. But I guess I have to say Agents of Shield this month.

Other: Got my first tattoo, and went on my first cruise this month. I also met up with Tiffany for the first time in three years and that was great :)