Content Consumer

I love the cliché detective story bits! It is a brilliant way to spruce this incredibly flawed quest case up. I was never able to complete the "case" as one should, until I broke down and read up on it on UESP wiki.

Completing this quest, discovering the murderer, requires deep attention to detail and precise methodology.

Specifically, all of the steps have to be done in the right order. Skip a step, or make one out of place, and the quest breaks.

Like many quests in Skyrim, it's an incredibly intricate dance just to play the game.

Leading one to eventually create a new game, type "caqs" in the console, then exit the game secure in the knowledge that you've completed 100%.

It's usually something trivial.

You'll spend days trying to figure out how to do something, or trying to fix a bug... and when you finally figure it out, you'll slap your forehead in wonder at how dumb you've been for not noticing this tiny checkbox or single line of code.

At least, that's what generally happens to me...

I once made a spirograph-like program that was supposed to fill in a circle. But it never did... it would fill in most of the circle but not all of it, and I went crazy for days trying to figure out what was going wrong. I changed every variable I could find, messed with every function I made, and couldn't figure it out.

Eventually I discovered that I had included the line:

     int pi=3.1415927

Instead of the line:

     float pi=3.1415927

Right at the top of my source.

Facepalm.

After last week's stoned rambling, I've decided to post a comment after each entry from now on, finishing up and all that. Why not? I can promise that I am no longer under the influence of a magical blue liquid sold in little plastic bottles with childproof caps and covered in warnings.

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Formatting always kills these things. I type them up in MS Word several weeks in advance, then copy and paste... and when I do so, I'm just lazy enough to not want to re-check or re-do all the tabs, italics, and strikethroughs. MOST of the time, italics and strikethroughs copy over nicely, but for some reason indenting does not.

So, for example, this line:

hard on the designers murderer

Should look like this:

hard on the designers murderer

And this line:

one but two beggars

Should look like this:

one but two beggars

In some chapters it does, and in some it does not copy over nicely, and I have to go back in and add it manually. I have no idea why. And paragraph indenting doesn't copy at all, so you're just getting blocks of text. And there are undoubtedly a few italics or strikethroughs I've missed somewhere, so sometimes my wording might look a little odd, or emphasis may seem litotic rather than hyperbolic.

Things like long run-on sentences and bad capitalization, spelling, or grammar are all me, though. Everythnig iz delib}erate eksept 4 dab 'r inconcictint kapitelisashion (e.g. nord instead of Nord); witch 1s just i do be lAzy>

I like the judicious strategic comic use of strikethrough.  I wish Twitter would let me use that, it's a great way to get  a sarcastic facetious passive-aggressive point across.

I sometimes really hate the way this game operates, which is strange considering how much I love the game overall agree.

There's a bit in GTA:SA where all of three (count 'em) cops are enough for The Pathetic Sap CJ to put his hands up to go into cutscene.  Given the scale of police chase and battle you can have it's really jarring.

 

Ah, but these are Super Cops, they have famous voice actors.

That was weird... I had to approve my own comment before it would go up. Too many links or something? I dunno...

lol at "little Mace".

 

Plot Armour ruins so much TV and cinema too.  "Angel" needed a whole lot less Plot Armour and there are so many others.

Our Hero Must Lose This Fight To Advance The Plot Even Though It's Just A Mook They'd Normally Pound Into The Floor.  etc.

I particularly enjoy in games when the player loses fights in cutscenes that they'd definitely win if actually playing the game... just to advance the story.

Ah, downloaded and added to the list to go in sometime, along with Followers-that-change-into-horses.  Can't find the Doge coin one any more, although there is Troll coin.

 

It's now on the Steam Workshop.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=220695203

The mechanics for Morrowind are quite difficult, especially when coming from Oblivion or Skyrim. I mention a few of my problems in this thread:

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/36719-cant-play-morrowind-or-oblivion-any-more/

There are a few mods that help, though. Chiefly, the mod that makes your weapons hit more often... the game is quite easy in the late game, but in the early game it's often impossible to kill even the weakest creatures because your skill level is so low.

You won't see me saying that in print, though, because most of the time people come back at me with "you're not playing the game right" which is quite irritating.

And I cannot WAIT for Skywind! I'm not holding my breath, though... there have been attempts to port Morrowind into Oblivion's engine, and Oblivion into Skyrim's engine as well, and none of them ever actually panned out... but it does look like the Skywind team is actually making some progress.

I did consider trying to give coins weight, at the same time I considered installing the Doge Coin mod.  Brief Considerations, those.

Have you tried this mod?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48195/?

Nice bit of immersion, that one. Reminds me of Morrowind where you had a chance of finding Dwemer coins in Dwemer ruins.

Those flowers are heavy.  Fucking heavy, whether it's 0.1lbs or 100g.  Surely 100g of petals is the size of an armchair?  Made a little esp which reduced all flower ingredients to 0, it seemed only sensible.

My favorite weight in the game is gold. It weighs nothing. Which is totally reasonable! I mean, paper money weighs nothing, so why should golden money weigh anything? I'm not prejudiced. Stop money color discrimination now!

If you mean the Illusion playthrough link... that site is very good, his codified "Murder, She Wrote" plot is brilliant, as is his suggested alternate ending for Bioshock.

I love game analysis and game reviews. I can happily spend hours just reading and watching stuff like this. Especially when I'm supposed to be working.

http://www.errantsignal.com/blog/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/extra-punctuation

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/

http://www.chocolatehammer.org/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points

Why does reset() not work if stop() is called before it? That makes no damn sense...

It's like, instead of saying "stop what you're doing and try again" you say "try again, THEN stop what you're doing."

But I can solve all your problems... trust me, this next section of code will fix every issue you've ever experienced:

While 1 == 1

   debug.notification("I hate this goddamn engine")

EndWhile

Or at least if it doesn't solve the problem, it gives some much needed venting.

It's better than my other usual thing:

Event OnLoad()

   ;impressive code goes here!

EndEvent

And she's not the only one... the bosmer dude (still can't remember his name) speaks in a voice full of disbelief: "YOU'RE who she picked? I hope she knows what she's doing..." like a badass warrior in full armor and wielding a greataxe is somehow inferior.

Her attitude towards me is reflected by the attitude of the "superior officer" or "elder warrior" or what have you towards the protagonist in many games.

I mean... I've just spend days trudging around doing quests or missions, killing dozens of henchmen, solving intricate and diabolical puzzles, taking down the nefarious plans of supervillains, disassembling the atomic bomb with 2 seconds left on the timer... and when I'm taken to see the big boss, he immediately says something like "I'm not impressed with you so far, but you're all I've got" followed by a harder mission. What the fuck DOES it take to impress you, then? I spent half the game doing crap that nobody else is even capable of, and all you can do is tell me that I'm shit at it? Who are you, GOD? I could fuck you up mister, so don't insult me!

It's repeated so often it must be a trope. "You, Secret Agent #1, are the best agent we've ever had and are quite possibly the most impressive human being on the planet. But it's not good enough for me, I recoil from you with undisguised contempt."

And the embassy mission is coming... in chapter 16. Gotta go through Windhelm first. I'd post more per week, but I'm kind of stuck with writer's block right now in chapter 26, so... it'll come, but slowly.

p.p.s. I wasn't really angry, I don't know if that's clear or not. I honestly have no idea what I'm writing right now, so please nobody take offense. I'm pretty hazy right now. I can just imagine it... tomorrow morning, waking up with a pounding headache and a fuzzy tongue, wearing a yellow raincoat and one shoe, in a completely different city... next to me on the ground is a fifty-page academic summary of Skyrim that for some reason contains the words "eil a si ekac" somewhere on every page. I clutch my head and wonder if my computer has caught any viruses, and whether the hair of the dog, a glass of cold water, or a bullet to the brain would be best right now. My wallet is there, but all my money is gone and in its place is a note saying "We had a great time last night. Come visit us again soon!" and a business card from the local dog training school. I stand up, swaying slightly, vowing never again to try the blue liquid, but you just know I'll be back again the next night, chugging shots of the stuff and hitting on the hot chick and her biker boyfriend simultaneously.

Okay, now seriously, I'm signing off. For reals.

And it just struck me that after an outburst of inebriated hostility, the traditional next step is to start weeping and saying "I love you, man!" in a vaguely homoerotic way to nearby friends and family, but the only nearby friend right now is the dog, and she responds to the slightest word out of my mouth by jumping up and asking for treats, as if the instant I speak, milk bones come pouring out my mouth. Dumb dog. I'd be angry at her if she wasn't so damn cute. She sits there staring at me, wagging her tail, and it keeps knocking against the wall, a steady metronome of "thock thock thock" keeping time with my pulse.

Alcohol or other drugs aren't involved, but this blue medicine stuff is really quite strong. I should have kept the label, I want to get some more of that shit.

I'd always thought that those stories about people getting high on cough syrup were over exaggerated. I guess not, if a mere two doses is enough to make me wonky like this.

I'm rambling, aren't I? That's it, signing off now.

p.s. I really really hate being sick.

It might be fairly obvious, but I should point out that I'm writing things down as I see them, and that includes bugs. For example, dragons are supposed to emerge from the ground as skeletons and get fleshy when Alduin resurrects them... but in this case, what actually happened (and it happens to me a lot) is the dragon emerged from the ground fully formed, then instantly turned into a skeleton, then got his skin back.

Other bugs encountered may be less obvious, especially considering how much content I'm skipping and the structure of the narrative. For this playthrough, I am using the Unofficial Patches, but an older version, I think it was the second or third that they ever released, somewhere around there anyway. So there are bound to still be problems. You'll just have to deal with it... at least you don't have to play it.

As a matter of fact, now I'm angry at all you readers. Consuming my content like that! I work hard playing a goddamn buggy game for your entertainment! I deserve to be showered with riches! Bring me wine! Bring me slave girls to bathe my feet! I'll trade the soul of every last subject of mine for a little comfort!

Gah... sorry, I think Potema's ghost invaded me for a minute there.

Actually, it's probably the dextromethorphan... I have no idea what it does, but this little bottle full of blue liquid lists it as the major active ingredient. It says I shouldn't drive or operate heavy machinery, but it says nothing about writing, and it completely fails to mention staring at a wall for ten full minutes until the phone rings and snaps you out of wherever it is your mind went. To Potema, apparently.

This shit should be illegal. I haven't done any sort of drug for about a decade now, but it reminds me of happy brain death at the hands of illicit narcotics. They sell it over the counter! Sure, I took the maximum dose, but that's just to try to get some goddamn sleep.

I hate being sick.

Ah! So there it is. I couldn't find it... thanks!

Editing nitpick - up above, I said that "hurt a girl's feelings" when that should have been "guy's feelings." Oops.

Good point. Sorry about that.

I was going to post one per week, to spread it out more... and I originally only had 9 parts written before I had quit, and I didn't know how long it was going to take me to write more.

So anyway, just for you, I'll go ahead and post up to 9.

Thank you, and I enjoy writing it!

As of yesterday, I had 29 chapters written.

Today, I am somehow missing chapters 19, 20, and 25-29.

They're just... gone.

So I guess it's a good thing I enjoy writing it, or I'd be pretty angry at my computer right about now.

No I haven't seen it... where can I find it?

I typed these in Word, and all my formatting disappeared, so things don't look pretty and are sometimes hard to read. Sorry about that.