Game completed: Avowed (twice!)

I was very excited for this game. Partly because it was Obsidian, partly because I really enjoyed The Outer Worlds, partly because it reminded me of Dragon Age, and partly because it looked hella cool!

I've seen so many people saying Avowed is just The Outer Worlds but fantasy, but as I played it I got more Dragon Age vibes than Outer Worlds vibes. Outer Worlds is absurd and humoristic with a dark undertone. Avowed isn't like that. The darkness isn't an undertone, it's prevalent and everywhere, any humor is just to defuse serious situations. Threats of famine and invasion with subsequent subjugation are imminent and very real, on top of that there's a plague decimating the population. 

Playing through Avowed I could definitely see that it had the same devs as Outer Worlds, but Avowed is in no way a carbon copy of Outer Worlds in a new skin. 

So, the story. You're a Godlike from the Aedyran Empire sent to the Living Lands to investigate a plague called the Dreamscourge. You're sent as an Imperial Envoy by the Emperor personally, to see whether this plague he's hearing of will hinder the plans to incorporate the Living Lands into the Empire. The people living in the Living Lands are not fans of the upcoming Imperial annexation and there are a lot of rebels and opposing forces going around. As you follow in the wake of the plague you become entwined with the locals and the politics of the Living Lands, and the Dreamscourge has a deeply personal revelation in store for you too.

For my very first playthrough I got as far as the end of the second zone. The big thing that happens there shocked me so much I had to look up whether it was possible to have it end differently. And it was. That's also when I discovered that I had missed a whole heap of stuff. So I decided to restart the entire thing. 

The next playthrough I played all the way to the end and once I got there I immediately started another playthrough to make different choices and get some achis I didn't get the first time around. I think I prefer how this last playthrough turned out. 

The major choices have major repercussions. As it should be.

For my first complete playthrough I played Wizard class. I spent the majority of my time running around with a wand in one hand and a shield in the other :3 All the wand waving made me think of Hogwarts Legacy tbh. 

For my second playthrough I was a Rogue. The game allows for two weapon load-outs and I had bow in one and sword and shield in the other. There was an achi for parrying with a shield, hence all the shields, also I suck at timing things, do the math. 

I absolutely loved all of the companions. Marius took some getting used to and a lot of work to break through his walls, but my heart ached for him once I discovered why he had those walls at all. Giatta and Yatzli are my girls. I loved running around with an all girl team with those two. 

To nobody's surprise, though, Kai *cough* Garrus *cough* is my favourite. Avowed doesn't have much in the way of romance, and that's fine, but there's one instance where you can tell Kai that you like him and then the end slide shows them together afterwards. Warm, fuzzy feeling :3

I fell to my death misjudging a jump more than I died in combat xD Climbing is dangerous.

After having played through Avowed two and a half times I still didn't feel done with the world. So I went and got Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, both of which take place in the same world as Avowed. 

So we played Raft...

After Evil West we decided to play another survival base builder game and landed on Raft. The first world we started we didn't realize the raft would leave us behind if we jumped off it, so we jumped to the first island we found, ran around, realized the raft was gone and then came to the realization that it wasn't possible to build another raft from scratch. (Why not? You can add as many raft pieces as you want to the existing raft, but somehow you can't tie two raft pieces together to make a new raft). So we were stranded on a tiny little island and had to restart another world. 

We soon realized this game came with a lot of annoyances, the most glaring one was durability and how fast things broke, and when things break you can't repair them, they just vanish completely, disintegrated. The second was how extremely fast hunger and thirst needed to be satisfied. The third was planks. The first few sessions all we did was stand on the raft and fish for materials and food. We stopped at every little island we found to strip it from resources and then continue on our way, floating aimlessly. 

Planks were needed for everything. You want to cook the fish you've caught - planks. You want to build more raft - planks. You want to repair your raft after the goddamn shark's been at it again - planks. You want to make clean water - planks. You want to smelt ores into ingots, or make sand into glass, or seaweed into vine goo (basically glue) - planks. You want to make tools - planks. You want to keep your engines running before you get the blueprint to make biofuel - planks. You want to build anything at all on your raft - planks. So many planks. We'd deforest every single island we went to, fish up every single plank, barrel and crate from the water and yet somehow we were always short on planks. It saved us some planks once we got a metal frame around the entire raft so the shark couldn't attack and got biofuel set up for the engines and a proper electric water tank. Batteries were a major resource drain until we finally got the battery charger and didn't have to make a new battery every time one ran out. The timing discrepancy between needing a battery for the receiver and being able to craft batteries, and actually being able to recharge batteries is too vast (blueprint for battery charger is at Caravan Island, the fourth story location after you've set up the receiver). At which point you likely need batteries not only for the receiver, but also for the recycler, and the juice machine, and the sprinkler. 

Hunger and thirst diminished at such a fast speed that whenever we went to explore a story location we'd make sure we were full on hunger and thirst, brought food and drink with us, and yet were forced to return to the raft to eat and drink at least twice before completing the location. We'd also have to return to just dump stuff in storage because inventory is extremely limited and story locations offer a shitload of loot. Even after we got the backpack and got slightly more inventory space it still became a whole lot of back and forth to the raft to dump into storage and "might as well eat and drink while I'm here".

Eventually we managed to get the receiver and antennas up and running and started going through the story. The radio tower and the Vasagatan yacht were simple enough. Balboa Island was when the annoyances started to tip over into actual problems. Caravan Island was when we realized that the availability of resources was extremely skewed. Tangaroa was pretty nice compared to Caravan and Balboa, although it still had its annoyances. Varuna Point was when we quit the game to never return. 

Balboa Island was when we realized we needed armor due to the bears, but we hadn't yet managed to catch any animals, so we didn't have any wool or leather to make armor from. We could build the net gun and the pens well enough. But we couldn't get any ammo to the net gun because to craft it we needed explosive goo, which we could get from puffer fish, which were so rare we barely ever encountered them and when we did they were liable to just explode into poison clouds rendering them unlootable. It wasn't until after Tangaroa that we finally managed to catch any animals. And only because Caravan Island had puffer fish in abundance. 

Balboa Island was also where we discovered that unlike other survival games we've played together you don't drop your gear in the place you died for you to go and collect once you respawn. No, in this game everything is counted in durability, so when you die everything in your inventory loses durability which means that depending on how much durability the item had when you died you either lose the item entirely or its durability is halved from where it was before you died. We almost quit the game right then and there, because we had to remake pretty much every single tool from scratch. And of course we were low on planks, because when the fuck weren't we.

Caravan Island was so confusing we had to look up a guide on how to get through it and find everything needed to progress. Same deal with Tangaroa and Varuna Point. Varuna Point was a major hassle since it was mostly under water. The guide said diving gear was recommended, but not required. We tried without but that made things go so slowly so we went back to the raft to fix some diving gear. Two sets each due to durability and after that we were basically out of planks, seaweed and vine goo. It was still slow going so we had to return to the raft a few times for food despite finding it in containers and bringing it with us. The boss of Varuna Point is the Rhino Shark and unlike the Mama Bear at Balboa Island, it's unskippable. The strategy is to make the shark swim into the concrete pillars and once the pillars are broken up place explosives in them and make the shark swim into them again, creating a hole to the next level and injuring the shark. This would have to be done on three levels, each level had less pillar. We had to take turns to do this so that one of us could be off to the side to heal and/or eat/drink. We had only just started to be able to catch animals and had yet to find chickens since being able to catch them and so we had no eggs, so we couldn't make any healing salves... So our only healing option was to chill in the water and let the health replenish over time. On the last level of the boss we ran out of food/drink and durability on all our diving gear. We chose to return to the raft to replenish, but when we were set to return to the boss arena we were both attacked by the rhino shark which was now suddenly outside?! Also the regular shark decided to join in. First I died, so bf decided to try to go get me and return me to the raft (because you gotta be on a bed to rez). On the way back to the raft he was attacked by both sharks and he also died. We respawned on the raft with all of our gear either lost or with most of their durability gone. We had no resources to make new equipment because we had used up all our planks to make vine goo to make diving equipment that couldn't even withstand the time the area required. 

Softlocked due to shitty durability and bosses roaming free we dumped this game and moved on. 

Intro to the Lore of the Elder Scrolls Universe

This is probably the nerdiest post I will ever make, and one that has been a long time in the making. At the end of July 2023 I decided to start studying the lore of one of my favourite video game franchises; The Elder Scrolls. It has one of the most expansive, complicated and detailed worlds ever, and it relies heavily on the "unreliable narrator" meaning that every event has at least two perspectives and both are true even when contradicting each other, because both characters are retelling what happened from their individual perspectives. Each account is their truth, even if it might not be the overarching truth or the whole truth. 

Unless you go around reading every single book you find, the general gameplay experience will offer you a very limited view on lore. It's when you start drawing connections between events described in books and described by NPCs and even from Out of Game texts that you start to glimpse how fucking huge this universe is and how much attention to detail has gone into it. And once you start studying the lore you simultaneously find yourself studying philosophy, psychology and comparative religion. 

So how do I even start trying to make the lore make sense for the uninitiated? Let's start with Skyrim, the most recent main game in the franchise. 

The first thing that happens after the initial cutscene is that you get to create your character. You have ten choices for race. Altmer, Argonian, Bosmer, Breton, Dunmer, Imperial, Khajiit, Nord, Orc, and Redguard. 

The Altmer, or High Elves, are a race of elves who view themselves as closest to the original race of elves which all other elvish races sprung from: the Aldmer. Their culture is obsessed with preserving this purity and because of this purity they view themselves as superior to all others. According to legend the Aldmer were descended from the gods and the Altmer view it as their biological right to attempt to re-ascend to godhood. Some of their cultural heroes, like Phynaster and Syrabane, have allegedly done this. Their most revered god is Auriel, the God of Time. They hail from the island province of Summerset.

The Argonians are the lizard people, who are on the outside of the man/elf schism. They hail from the swamps of the southeast, Black Marsh, and they live in a tribal society where they worship the Hist, a sentient race of trees. Every tribe has their own Hist tree and the Argonians consume its sap on their name day to receive their name and connection to their Hist. It's said that the Hist saw the other mortal races and found that those forms were useful so the Hist created its own version of that form: the Argonians. The Hist can influence the Argonians and even change their form or gender. Aside from the Hist they also worship Sithis, the primordial cosmic force of change. They experience life from the aurbic now, meaning the past isn't important and the future is unknown so they live in the present. Argonians see change as good and accepts that nothing ever lasts. 

The Bosmer, or Wood Elves, are a race of elves who live in the deep forests of migrating trees in the southwest, Valenwood. They worship Y'ffre and view existence as a story told by him. To honour him they follow the Green Pact, which says that the forest can't be harmed. So they can't chop down trees or farm or pick vegetables. They eat meat. Even the meat of fallen people as it's against the Green Pact to allow the dead to sink into the ground. Their weapons and armour are made of bone and carapace and sinew. The Green Pact states that if they care for the forest, the forest will provide for them and this gives them the ability to shape the trees to their liking, into dwellings. Unlike the Altmer, they don't view themselves as superior and like the Argonians they also prefer to live in the aurbic now. The Wild Hunt is a ritual the Bosmer can perform in times of great danger which allows them to transform into eldritch monsters that will devour everything in their path. Once transformed, they can't turn back.

Bretons are a mix of man and mer. In ancient times a House of Altmer, the Direnni, arrived on the shores to the northwest, High Rock, and settled there. They eventually encountered human tribes which they took as their concubines. The eventual offspring would result in the Bretons, a race that looks like men but with the magical affinity of elves. Eventually the Bretons revolted against the Direnni and took the region for their own. The region consists of very many small kingdoms and dukedoms and they have a culture centered around knighthood and questing. They follow the Imperial pantheon with Akatosh, the God of Time, as their main deity. 

Dunmer, or Dark Elves, are a race of elves of live in the volcanic ashlands to the east, Morrowind. Originally called Chimer they broke off from the Aldmer in ancient times and travelled across the continent to their new homeland. The reason they broke off was due to religious differences from the Aldmer, the Chimer instead chose to venerate the Three Good Daedra: Azura, Mephala and Boethiah. Quite some time later these three gods would be exchanged for the living gods of the Tribunal: Almalexia, Sotha Sil and Vivec, who were three mortals that ascended to godhood. Due to circumstances of their ascension Azura cursed the entire Chimer people into Dunmer. Their skin turned ash-grey instead of golden and their eyes burned red. Their region is goverend by the Great Houses and each Great House has a part of the region that they call their own. The House in the southermost regions are known for slavery of the Argonians and Khajiit. At the time of Skyrim, they have suffered an immense volcanic eruption that destroyed a big part of their land, and their living gods are dead.

Imperials are the human race from the heartland of the continent, Cyrodiil. They were originally diverse tribes of humans that were enslaved by the Ayleids, a race of elves that once dominated the heartland. In ancient times the slaves rebelled against their elven overlords and drove them out or into extinction, after which the heartland became a human controlled region and has since been the seat of several empires. The Imperials of today are divided between hardy Colovians and noble Nibenese. The Imperial pantheon was invented by Alessia the Slave Queen and was meant to incorporate both the elven aspects they had worshipped as slaves and the Nordic pantheon of their Nord compatriots who had helped them throw off the elves. The result was the eight divines, with Akatosh the Time God as the prime deity. 

Khajiit are the cat people and according to myths created from Aldmeri stock, meaning they were originally elves. They hail from a region to the south called Elsweyr. There are sixteen different types of Khajiit, although we only ever see one specific type in each of the main games. They worship the moons whose phases determine what type of Khajiit will be born, but they also worship Azurah who created the Khajiit in the first place. Khajiit are looked down upon by many of the other races as thieves and druggies, and the Dunmer use them as slaves. 

Nords are the people of Skyrim. They came from Atmora, a frozen continent to the north, and made Skyrim their new home. At first they got along with the elves of the region, the Falmer, but then war broke out with culminated in the genocide of the elves as the Nords took Skyrim for themselves. They have since been involved with every single human empire on Tamriel. 

Orcs may be cursed elves, or they may be part of the goblin-ken, stories diverge. The most prominently accepted account among fans is that the orcs were elves who were transformed into orcs when their god Trinimac turned into Malacath. In the older games orcs weren't accepted as an intelligent race, and they were viewed like little more than goblins by the other races. The ending of Daggerfall changed that. Traditionally they live in strongholds where the chief is the only male who's allowed to father offspring. He has multiple wives and the son who bests him in combat and kills him will one day take over as the chief. The wise woman is usually the chief's mother. They are strong warriors and many serve as mercenaries in the Imperial legions. 

Finally, Redguards are the youngest race on Tamriel. They arrived in the First Era (Skyrim takes place in the Fourth) after their continent of Yokuda, to the West, sank into the ocean after a devastating civil war. Their strongest warriors of history are called Ansei and they were known to have the ability to summon a Shehai, or a spirit sword, which was basically them summoning forth a part of their own souls and fashioning it into the shape of a sword which could then be wielded. This ability was rare even in ancient times, and has been pretty much unheard of since the Second Era. 

This is all very basic and there's a lot more to be said for each race, but this post is already long enough. 

I replayed all of Starfield for Shattered Space DLC

When Shattered Space released I was deep inside Dragon Age The Veilguard, so it wasn't until very late last year that I finally picked up Starfield again. And then played nothing but for over two months. At the point of writing this it's been almost a month since I stopped playing, but I've been distracted from blogging. 

So I wasn't all that happy with my original character which brought me to the decision to simply replay the entire game from the beginning with a new character to eventually play the DLC, rather than do it on my old character. For this playthrough I also added a bunch of mods, and if you know me it's mostly UI changes and added questlines, nothing that changes the game too much. Same deal when I mod Skyrim. 

So I made a new character and started my journey, went through the entire main quest until the point of no return, all side quests, companion quests, mod quests etc, before I jumped into the DLC. Doing this was probably a really great choice because going through Shattered Space as a worshipper of the Great Serpent was eye-opening and there were so many dialogue options related to that single trait which wouldn't have been available if I wasn't devoted to the Great Serpent. And of course I had Andreja with me the whole time I was playing this DLC.

The Oracle starstation was hell. Not because it was bad but because I really really hate the no grav environments. I hate navigating them and I hate dealing with weapon recoil in them during battle. But aside from that what happened at the Oracle starstation was pretty cool and definitely invited more questions and, to me, incentive to find out more. So off we go to the Va'ruun homeworld.

Va'ruun'kai is crazy beautiful, though. With it's pink/purple sky and ebony-like creatures. I was in awe throughout most of time there. That promo picture of a citadel? It's really real. It really looks like that and it's so pretty *w* The new grenades you can make with the remains of the new Vortex enemies are really cool, and generally I enjoyed the new enemies and the reasons for how they came to be. The Promised were nice little mini bosses (or just really tough enemies) scattered throughout the world.

The main quest of the DLC then has you complete a pilgrimage followed by being accepted by each of the Houses. So, so, so many parallells to the Morrowind main quest omg. Once all of that was out of the way most of the main quest would be completed, but it should have given you incentive to explore the area and pick up a bunch of sidequests which give you more on the people and culture of the Va'ruun'kai, which in turn gives you background for how did we get to this point?! There are some real choice and consequence sprinkled in there. You can flood an entire farm as the end result of one quest or choose to save the farm, but then you'll have to stick to the status quo in the place you're at, which uuuuh... probably isn't good in the long run. Which is the lesser evil? Up to you.

The DLC has multiple endings, the impacts of which aren't readily noticeable in true Bethesda fashion. Which ending you get is up to you and the implication of each of them are some pretty great changes for the Va'ruun as a whole. 

Throughout the main story you'll get to interact with the Speaker, and each and every one of those interactions gave me strong Dagoth Ur vibes. There's really so much Morrowind in this DLC. Generally, the Va'ruun is just how they inserted Elder Scrolls into the Starfield universe. They worship the Great Serpent (that's just Satakal) and their society is run by Houses (that's just Resdayn). Not to mention that the name of the Va'ruun Ambassador in New Atlantis is Bal'Mor. Balmora. All Elder Scrolls clues. There's a lot more, but you get the idea. I really wanted to post a Va'ruun prayer or chant to the Great Serpent to pick it apart with Elder Scrolls lore, but I can't find a written version and I don't fancy watching a bunch of Youtube videos in the hopes of finding one so we'll have to make do without it. Why doesn't every game have a UESP?

After I finished the DLC I decided to play enough that I unlocked the last few achievements I was still missing. One of them was to get to level 100. I was around level 85 at the time and figured I could just do mission board things until I got to 100, but that became really repetitive really fast. So I went through the Unity and started all over again in NG+. And then I continued playing way past level 100 while waiting for Avowed to drop. 

Unfortunately, my Steam installation corrupted halfway through this playthrough, when I was mostly done with Va'ruun'kai, and I lost almost all of my screenshots. 

Ghosts S01-03

We stumbled upon this show on Netflix and thought it looked fun. It was so much fun! Netflix only had the first two seasons, but we found the third season on a different streaming platform so all good.

So the show is about a young married couple. The wife inherits an old mansion from a relative and the couple decides to move in there and make it a B&B. Only issue is that the mansion is very haunted, which the couple are blissfully unaware of until the wife has a near-death experience and comes out of it able to see and talk to ghosts. Chaos ensues.

I adore Isaac and Sasappis.