zydratevialsblog - Tumblr blog

zydratevialsblog · 14 days ago

Text

A Character Study: Dibbe

Some of my discord channels have "writing prompts" to help people drum up deeper thoughts about their characters and who they are on a baseline, day to day. So I googled some and found something... on Tumblr, no less. I removed some of the more milktoast "what would your character's favorite ice cream be". I frankly hate those kinds of questions because people read way too much into incredibly basic thoughts. Or no thoughts at all; "What kind of chair would you be?" Fuck off, we do deep thoughts here.

With that, let's begin.

The formatting is a bit fucky (the numbers aren't numbering) because I've copied both from a Doc and some Discord posts.

This photo: The first of Dib in Argo-form after I racechanged my old main. This costume was the first RPable outfit I had in my early days of ESO.

What is the primary source of inspiration of your character and what work have you put into changing things up and making it your own?

Dibbe is a culmination, a love letter to my favored gameplay style across my gaming life. I found that sneaking around gave me more time to absorb the world, and I usually end missions with more resources because I spent more time casing the nooks and crannies, not just going door by door and stealing everyone's pillows.

At the end of the day, when this topic is brought up my brain goes to Splinter Cell: Conviction, and how Sam Fisher was depicted throughout that game makes me think of Dibbe pretty often. In that game you can seamlessly switch between lethal and nonlethal depending on a second-by-second decision and pragmatism.

Beyond that she's a pretty original concept, and is really just my magnum opus for how I've operated in stealth games over the years. She represents the 'final lessons learned', while still being her own character with emotional outbursts. She's not infallible, but she's still a result of 20 years of rogue-ing gameplay experience.

What's a lie (or two) your character says most often?

Generally in public Dibbe will advertise herself as a scout. She doesn’t subscribe to the banner alliances, especially since Argonians are shacked up with Dunmer when the alliance comes along which she doesn’t agree with so her services are typically hired out to anyone. However she is rarely hired on in that regard as her albinism has really forced her to remain unseen to begin with. It’s very difficult to sneak around as an Albino, as when things go wrong people are quick to point to the one odd ‘creature’ skulking around the area, so she has trained herself to remain unseen in most circumstances.

She has to lie about other things as well, obviously she can’t just tell people outright she’s a thief. So obscuring that fact is probably the most common coverup.

How loosely or strictly does your character use the word 'friend'? How loose is your character’s use of the phrase ‘I love you’?

Friendship and love are interesting concepts for Dibbe. She shares a similar loneliness I do in real life, in that she sees a lot of her fellows as coworkers. I am not a thief in real life but I am a laborer who finds it difficult to find true friendship. Really, how many people at my grocery store would come help me move a couch? Who in my online circles would let me come roommate with them if I was to fall on hard times? Dibbe struggles with a similar issue, as very few people actually speak to her like a regular joe, but more of a kiosk for work and payment.

The matter of love works the very same way and is also a concept she struggles with. In her backstory she’s had exactly one true “lover” which ended badly. She’s currently dating someone via another player ICly, but she’s made it very clear that her experience with actual relationships is minimal compared to her other skill sets, social or otherwise. Even at her age, it’s still a ‘new’ thing to her.

How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just other players knowing?

Dibbe’s become more emotional in recent years regarding certain topics. A lot of her is actively true, she doesn’t lie terribly much to fellows in the underground as she usually feels that she’s among kindred spirits. So what she shows is typically fairly sincere, she only goes full mask up (personality-wise) when she’s out in public.

What is a dramatic change you’ve done to your character since you roleplayed them first? Minor retcons, personality shifts? Not in the way RP may have affected them over time, but what did you change because something didn’t quite ‘click’, and you felt the need to adjust?

Well for one, Dibbe was originally supposed to just be an Albino. When I started roleplaying her and attending some meet and greets, THREE separate characters meta’d her paleness and eyes and went with “I see that you’re afflicted”... I was still kind of on the fence about it but I was never contacted OOCly, people just kept assuming. I went with it, and frankly I don’t mind it overly much as it gave me more years/centuries to work with in terms of a wide open background. I’ve also been complimented at how well I hide it, but that’s baked in, because her vampirism was only ever a footnote to her complexity anyway.

Originally I had made her both a Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild member until I was rightfully informed that DB assassins don’t really go on “sabbaticals” or “vacations”, and in some fashion they will always be called upon to do some work. As Dib is my love letter to stealth gameplay over the years, I wanted to implement both of the franchises main stealth operations. Instead I split that concept off to the ex-lover she once had that turned her into a vampire to begin with, as well as a different alt, Sleeps-Under-Skies, my DB assassin character. Sleeps' name was also one of Dibbe's workshopped names before I went with "Honors-Silent-Steps".

Another thing that comes to mind is she’s a bit more emotional than I originally planned for her. In her earliest days of conception I wanted her to be a smooth, unflappable and suave Aragorn-type ranger (but a thief) but ultimately I think having her own occasional emotional outburst regarding some specific topics has given her more depth.

This photo: The beginning of a "vibe" I've maintained on her for years thereafter.

What’s an attribute of your character that is currently impossible to be presented with in-game resources? Be it looks, equipment, mannerisms. In other terms, what can’t you do ingame that has you resort to artist renditions, profile specifications, or verbose introductory emotes?

I try to keep my game visuals as close as possible so people don’t have to stretch their suspension of belief. I don’t typically RP any hefty use of scars or heavily variable body types. I once interacted with an Argonian player that was actually a behemoth, but that’s very difficult to keep in mind when they were emoting normally. Since it was an open event, I completely missed their original intro emote that had them duck and squeeze through the doorframe so for like an hour I thought I was interacting with a normal argonian. So I actively try to avoid that kind of problem.

So for Dibbe, what people don’t typically get to see very often is her tattoos. I like to think she has some nordic tribal body art across most of her body and tail. Sometimes you can catch it with the ingame overlays but the vamp skin “dulls” them much more than I’d like, and none of them really quite capture what I see in my own mind’s eye.

What's a hobby your character used to have that they miss?

For Dib this is heavily music related. I like to imagine she’s a decent throat-singer, and might have some experience with the lute. She just kind of fell off of it, is out of practice, but if I ever emote such a thing again I would make a note that she ‘recovers’ pretty quickly, implying that she once had some decent skill.

She’s also done poetry and songwriting in the past. A lot of her music hobbies have gone on the wayside as she’s delved deeper in the thieving lifestyle. She might still do some basic lute-plucking but it’s not a focus anymore.

Does your character give tough love and harsh truths or sugar-coat their advice? Which do they prefer to receive?

I imagine I might have the same answer as many other people here: It depends. I imagine Dibbe being able to read the room. Recently in her Guild, someone was wounded harshly -after- making some crucial mistake (not following the guildmaster’s orders). His wounds were not his fault, some magical item backfired on him. Instead of raking him over the coals right away she had the presence of mind to wait until he was lucid enough to actually hear her words.

So ultimately, she is a fan of tough love but will also try to gauge the situation so she can have a measured response.

What fact does your character excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity?

The “opportunity” is usually when asked about it directly. Dibbe introduces herself as Dibbe and also touts some alternatives like “Dib” or even “Debra” because it’s “not my real name anyway”. So right out of the gate people know it’s an alias. But what’s it from?

As a toddler, trying to take toys or things away from her fellow hatchlings, her first word was a combination of attempting to say “Dibs” and “gimme”, turning into a childish “dib-ee”. With little grabby hands and all. It’s a story she’s fond of, relayed to her by her mother when she was old enough to hear it.

If someone was impersonating your character, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

This question is very interesting to take on and took some contemplation. My first thought was her Nocturnal worship. In ESO’s timeline, she may not be the TG benefactor she would later become, but she’s still a very logical deity for career thieves to have so I’m sure an imposter could just hedge their bets and make an accurate assumption.

If any of her friends or loved ones caught any real oddities and decided to make inquiries, Dibbe is thinking ahead and has plans regarding her ‘fate’ in Coldharbour that only very, VERY few people know about at all. If asked about it, the imposter is sure to stumble and make up some bullshit that her mates will catch onto.

(As of this Tumblr post that plotline has been resolved but it's still something she keeps close to the chest in the event someone wishes to exploit it somehow. So it's still something an imposter would find trouble "knowing' outright.)

What's something that makes your character laugh every single time? Be specific!

Kids falling down. Dibbe could watch your kids fall over all goddamn day she doesn’t give a shit about your kids.

What’s the most obvious difference between your character’s behavior at home, at work, with friends, and when they're alone?

Dibbe lives and breathes the thief life so even her home life is dedicated to keeping up with said style. She doesn’t actually change all that much when she’s alone. She might draw up some schematics, maybe try her hand at songwriting again, or pluck at a lute. Nothing that nobody hasn’t seen her do, it’s just rare.

What does your character notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?

Most people note Dibbe’s albinism. Pale-scales are a thing, they’re just rare. A fellow Saxhleel once noted to her, “I didn’t realize our people came in stark white”.

I like to imagine she looks at her mouth. She maintains some wishful thinking that her face had more expression on it like humanoids do. In lore, Argonians have a stereotype for being “emotionless” because their face doesn’t move and contort as much as more human faces do. Dibbe likes being an Argonian just fine, she just kind of wishes her face was a little flatter, maybe.

Who or what does your character love truly, 100% unconditionally (if anyone or anything)?

Dibbe’s mother comes to mind. Succumbed to wounds during their owner’s house war, so she didn’t live long enough to end up disappointing Dibbe in any way, so all of her memories of her mother are wholesome and positive.

I like to imagine had she lived, she’d probably still remain a positive force in her life. Would probably even support Dibbe’s then-burgeoning lifestyle as a thief as a way to ‘get back’ at the elves. The woman was probably a stealth operative or scout before capture anyway so her daughter getting into crime would likely not have been a stretch.

On a less heavy note, Guar. But similar to her mother, she has no bad memories of Guar, and becomes annoyed when she learns that any meats or broth were derived from the adorable beasts.

What would your character do if stuck in a room with the person they've been avoiding?

Hoping the room is large enough, Dibbe would just prefer to seethe in the corner and not interact with them. Generally, she’d keep her distance as much as possible. Depending on the situation she’d prefer not to be noticed by said person. But if they were alone together then Dibbe would not be the one to speak first.

What common etiquette does your character disagree with? Do they still follow it?

(No answer yet, I need to put more thought into it)

What simple activity that most people do / can do that confounds, or scares your character?

(No answer yet, I need to put more thought into it)

What subject / topic does your character know a lot about that’s completely useless in most circumstances?

Dibbe’s lifestyle is very specific but she is semi-secretly a poet (not that she holds it as a secret, it’s just not a topic that ever comes up and thus doesn’t volunteer the information) and sometimes quotes fictional (self-created) in-universe poets, especially of the Bretonese kind. In my mind, Dibbe is well versed in a few race’s history with poetry and how their poems have evolved over the last few centuries… But this topic never comes up.

How would your character respond to being fired by a boss?

In her current situation, absolutely heartbroken. This comes from two angles. She has a benefactor, a mysterious background mastermind type. But they’ve been forged in plotlines that few people will ever hear about, and exist as an alt of mine. I don’t really see any kind of scenario where the two would ‘have’ to part ways.

The other… I mean, I can’t tell the future so maybe I’d OOCly fuck up in some way that would have the guildmaster ask me to remove myself from the Guild but being exiled from the Illiac Bay Thieves Guild would be very disheartening. And ICly, highly demoralizing.

How does your character respond when someone doesn’t believe them?

Depends on the situation. By Dibbe’s own lifestyle, she is a career thief. If she’s in persona-mode then she actively expects people to be at least one little level of suspicious. However in more protected environments, she’s actually a pretty truthful person overall. So if she gets argued with about something she knows she knows, her response is: Annoyance and slight aggression in her wording.

When your character makes a mistake and feels bad, does the guilt differ when it’s personal versus when it’s professional?

I’d say Dibbe would respond about equally. Nearly, anyway. Personal mistakes she’d take in stride, but she takes pride in her professional work so any mistakes she’d take more problems with because she should have ‘been better’.

When does your character feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it?

In some ways it comes down to vampires. There’s been plenty of lore precedence despite the origins of the curse, that vampires can be sane and moral. All your PC’s across the franchise can be vampires and you can be as helpful or harmful as you please, and there’s the whole Ravenwatch arc (which I know is under some debate).

So some of Dib’s guilt comes from how she knows, for a fact, that vampires can be good and moral and suffers some secondhand guilt when one after the other just let themselves succumb to the inherent madness of the curse. She was mentored through her own, and is currently assisting another player in dealing with being recently turned. She wishes everyone had someone, anyone, to walk them through the process in a sane and measured manner but knows that would require a complete societal shift and maybe even require murdering a god to do it. She sure can’t, so she also has a fair bit of realism that a grand majority of vampires will continue to be the world’s enemy.

If your character committed one petty crime / misdemeanor, what would it be? Why?

I’m almost voided out of this prompt as I play a career thief. If she were to ever do something literally petty, she’d knock over some market stalls. She’s not a petty person though, but it’s something of a daydream to give herself a giggle, not something she’d actually do.

How do they greet someone they dislike / hate? How do they greet someone they like / love?

Dibbe more or less just does the shun method. If she absolutely has to be in the same room as someone she actively dislikes, she elects not to speak to them when at all possible. But, she also can’t keep her mouth shut and will be compelled to correct anything she deems incorrect about the target’s thoughts, plans, and opinions. Just to make sure nearby compatriots aren’t tempted to engage in dumb ideas.

Obviously it’s basically the opposite on the other end. For acquaintances she’s fond of flicking her hood in greeting. She doesn’t make a show of greeting others so usually opts for a simple “Hey there”.

What is the smallest, morally questionable choice your character has made?

I had a hard time answering this one at all. The prompt that I ripped off google says “smallest” but I can’t think of anything THAT petty that Dibbe would have wasted her time doing. I can only think of the bigger stuff, like how Dibbe has certainly killed some people in cold blood. I imagine some Telvanni magister on his knees begging for his life and Dibbe just finished the job anyway.

I’ve said in a previous answer she likes seeing kids falling down but I don’t see her being so petty as to put her foot in front of them herself.

Who does your character keep in their life for professional gain? Is it for malicious intent?

First thought is any fellows in her Thieves Guild, but it’s not malicious. She likes surrounding herself with skilled operatives to further feed into her lifestyle as a career thief.

What’s a secret your character hasn't told serious romantic partners and doesn't plan to tell?

Nothing at all. She has about three major secrets that she’s fine with informing her partners about. Just not right away, naturally.

How does your character respond to a handshake or otherwise seemingly required cultural gesture of greeting? What goes through their head?

Dibbe doesn’t mind doing it unless it’s absolutely so alien to be offensive, which isn’t really a thing that she knows of. From handshakes, salutes, bowing… Dibbe will learn them all. Even having the knowledge of how to do various curtsy might help when she adopts under-cover personas when she attends noble gatherings.

What phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did your character pick up from someone / somewhere else?

Dibbe is effectively an immigrant to Skyrim and she’s perfectly proud of that. She doesn’t pretend to be a Nord outright (I have another palescale non-vamp who’s all-in with Nord culture vastly moreso than Dib is), but she has adopted their accent and learned their language to the point of even figuring out some Thu’um (just a couple, she’s had time). She’s pretty quick to defend against the “nord dumb book hard” stereotype. All of that ultimately stops there. She doesn’t attend Nord meetings or browse their mead halls, more or less keeps to herself in Skyrim while dealing with the criminal network that she hosts. She still has plenty of love for her adopted country.

If invited to a TED Talk, what topic could your character present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

I have actually considered doing criminal-related sermon RP for my guild. Dibbe could absolutely host a two hour speech about her life as a criminal and her philosophies around it. It would be titled “My life as a Master Thief” or something.

What does your character commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding?

Given Dibbe’s advanced age she’s mostly grown out of this. Early on she had a very specific image of Dunmer and their culture but the further away from Morrowind she moved, the more her assumptions were disproven (and sometimes maintained). She has been under the impression that pretty much every Dunmer falls into one of the several main Houses, when in reality they have houseless farmers and laborers like anyone else. Dibbe is generally pretty open to new information.

Recently in her guild, there was a bit of controversy regarding the smuggling job they performed. Illegal courier work and rooftop hopping was one of the first things she did as a fledgling criminal, long before she started working up the ranks. To her perception, you don’t dig into a client’s goods because that’s a quick way to get a bounty on your head from various crime lords.

However, through some errant magic detection, the crew discovered that the crates they were smuggling had a lot more in them than just tax-evading ore. Half of the crew was incensed that nobody thought to crack the boxes open to look. Some people did smuggling work in the past and got arrested because they ended up “accidentally” smuggling Skooma or some other hot-ticket item. Eventually Dibbe relented, and recognized that her experiences are not universal. Live and learn. Dibbe’s typically smart enough to absorb other information while still holding onto her own opinions (that opinion being people need to relax more).

What’s something unimportant / frivolous that your character hates passionately?

(No answer yet, I need to put more thought into it)

Is your character a listener or a talker? If they’re a listener, what makes them talk? If they’re a talker, what makes them listen?

I imagine I might have a similar answer as everyone else. Both, depending on the flow of the conversation. Dibbe has plenty to say, but knows when she doesn’t, so she doesn’t.

What gets her to talk? Things she disagrees with. She’s been a thief for a long time so when she hears some kind of bullrush plan, or if lethal force gets tossed in the air as an idea, she’ll typically spin a whole yarn and shut that shit down. If there’s something she knows a fair bit about, she will make that fact known in one way or another.

What gets her to shut up? Anything regarding scholarly pursuits. Dibbe is plenty intelligent regarding several topics, but one thing that boggles her mind is how mages can wax poetically with theories of magic and aether. It’s basically the “reverse the polarity!” science meme, that’s basically what she hears when some mage-affluent people start talking to each other. It becomes jargon to her, and Dibbe is quick to shut up and let the mages hash it out.

What belief / moral / personality trait does your character stand by that you (the player) personally don’t agree with?

I mean, I’m not a criminal in real life. Dibbe sort of represents my wishful thinking of the age-old days with gentleman rogues and highwaymen in fantasy. In real life, criminals are thugs and brutes and probably really never have been “romantic” beyond the occasional, old-timey anecdote. So generally as the player, I disagree with her all-in attitude with treading thief life like a sport. But that’s who she is, and I enjoy playing her very much.

What’s a phrase your character says a lot, and why? Is there a deeper meaning behind their consistent use of it?

“Shadows hide you” or its variants “Shadows guide your steps” has a few meanings for her. It’s not just literally saying “don’t get caught” as some may thing but it’s also her subtle way of wishing Nocturnal’s influence to assist in your endeavors. This is basically like saying “god bless you” to an atheist but she doesn’t care. It’s not just a thief’s calling card, it’s an actual religious dog whistle.

Does your character act on their immediate emotions, or do they wait for the facts before acting?

Another prompt where the answer is “both kinda”. Dibbe is very emotional, and shows that when situations end up directly affecting her somehow. But if she’s on the outside of a situation able to look in without any problems, she can generally absorb information before making her thoughts on the situation known. During an op, though, foolish actions will cause her to snap a bit and act against the perceived aggressor.

Who would your character believe and trust without question?

Right now this really amounts to nobody. Even if her lover came to her with problems or scenarios, Dibbe will absolutely ask some questions, but it’s more out of getting all the details rather than a matter of distrust. If her lover kicked down her door and went “We need to get out of town NOW”, Dibbe would certainly walk and talk with her, but there would be many, many questions.

What’s something your character is expected to enjoy based on their hobbies / profession that they actually dislike / hate? In another way of looking at this question, what kinds of stereotypes do they actively attempt to defy based on their hobbies and profession?

Oh this is a good one for Dibbe.

She tries to uphold the “honor among thieves” class of work. This is an interesting question because Dibbe is semi-secretly not all that concerned with lethality, but in order to maintain the “gentleman thief” reputation that she may have as well as other coworkers, she has to constantly butt against the more lethal members of her crew.

She does not like alleyway cutthroats and dumb, basic thuggery. She much more prefers the higher class of organized crime. Art theft, breaking into nobles castles and stealing their busts. Things that get the attention of the rich, so they know that they are not as untouchable as they think.

Unfortunately a lot of crime is more on the desperate side, and opportunistic. Some people just have personality types where crime is just the path of least resistance towards wealth. It’s a very common and typically very correct perception of criminals, and one that annoys Dibbe to no end. It’s why she pushes back so hard when her crew are too quick to draw blades on jobs.

It’s also why she dresses well and bathes. She put forth some effort to learn an Armory Golem spell so she could quickly ‘correct’ any blood or mud related activities, so that when people look at her they don’t see some dirty thug. Generally to the outer world she just wants to look like some kind of ‘scout’, dressing in browns to blend in with trees rather than something gray to blend in with the stonework of cities. When she’s in underground-friendly places, she wants to be looked at as a representative for a higher class of thief. In a weird way, she wants to be trusted in a lifestyle where trust is in short supply.

How many hobbies has your character attempted to have over their lifetime? Is there a common theme?

Dibbe is kind of like me in this. If she doesn’t have fun doing something, she won’t do it. In the spirit of that thought, I don’t think she has actively attempted much. In earlier prompts I’ve talked about how a lot of her hobbies are related to music, because she enjoys it. So she hasn’t really been given many opportunities to operate outside her comfort zone and I’m not really sure she’d enjoy basic walks in the park or kite-flying.

She might have tried some art, but again like me, probably only accomplishes abstract stuff. While very interesting and neat, it’s not something she really pushes forward with much.

#Elder Scrolls #Argonian #ESO #Elder Scrolls Online #The Elder Scrolls #TES #Bethesda #Gaming #PC Gaming #Zenimax #RP #Roleplay #Roleplaying

3 notes · View notes

zydratevialsblog · 14 days ago

Text

My Frames - Part 2

A bit of a Sequel Post to the original, which is something I whipped up upon my initial return to the game, after having played quite a bit more. The post before that on my blog was in 2016. Anyway, some things might be repeated but otherwise I am generally quite a bit more experienced than I even was two years ago.

This will be a heavily elongated post due to pictures.

As before, I'm going down my "Most Played" listing. After that we'll get into some subcategories.

Saryn continues to be my #1, locking down first spot at 26.4% most used frame on my profile. And she will continue to remain there or rise in general. While I've discovered new frames that are fun and useful in harder content, her spores still tend to lock down high damage percentages with my team and my Gloom tends to keep me alive. In certain specific hard-on-purpose content, sometimes an enemy's damage will 1shot me. The new Jade Eximus are rather famous for nuking me down if there's so much going on and I don't notice the big green beam, but that's only happened once.

I tend to take someone else if I need high mobility, Saryn having either the or among the lowest sprint speed in the game, even with parkour I feel her bullet jump is a few feet short of others. So certain missions like Spy, Capture, Rescue... I leave that for faster frames.

Wisp has my second place locked down at an admirable 9.9%. I won't mention %'s after this point because it drops off. Generally she's my go-to for solo content but that has shifted towards other frames that I've built into survival. With some updates adding shield-gating as an actual mod (Catalyzing Shields didn't exist on Part 1), and I've discovered a new respect for Rolling Guard which basically emulates "iframes", giving me invincibility for 1.3 seconds or something like that. Wisp has fallen off as a go-to secondary main in recent months but I simply make a sort of in-the-moment decision whether or not I want to survive or support. She still gets some attention, all the same.

Ember, my original main. Roughly around my first-job days when I wasn't really bothering to invest a lot of money. Ember was one of my first primes ever and was pretty much all I had until I eventually scraped through enough grinding to get Saryn's nonprime. As such she hasn't seen much attention in my gameplay since 2016 or so, once my stock of equipment started to grow properly. I actually recently put a forma into her (yeah I didn't forma her at all in the old days, due to aiming for prime weapons in relics rather than forma blueprints) and got her through a couple matches in Hydron. Honestly, her kit doesn't really speak to me. I think her 3 is now some kind of defensive but she no longer has a full-send firestorm, instead she just has some kind of pulse aoe of fire that goes away pretty quickly. I'm sure if I looked up some builds I could make her a real contender but I'm enjoying other frames too much.

Mesa hasn't seen much use from me lately despite being one of my coolest looking frames. Even a couple years ago I largely considered her my "fuck around with lowbies" frame. She has one survival ability that deflects bullets so my logic was, I could carry some friends by just hanging out, deflect bullets, and maybe pop her aimbot rapidfire if things got too hairy. And she has served that exact purpose in the past, and has since been dethroned by other "early game carry" types. Nyx, for example, has claimed the spot of "tacticool" gunner, and I'll elaborate more on her when we get there.

Titania's function remains the same as it was years ago. Titania is my “let me not waste my teammates time” frame. I bring her notably on Sorties, specifically stuff like Spy and Capture because there’s always some speedster Gauss or Volt just speedrunning the whole map because nobody wants to waste their time burning down bullet sponge enemies. What I didn't mention in Part 1 is that she's also the primary cheese for the various Mastery Tests with very rare exceptions. Ultimately she is a permanent fixture in my roster as my preferred speedster.

I actually haven't used Mirage in a while. Her explosive trap ability is fun and hilarious, but at the same time it's also quite boring. I rekitted her out of that and modded her more into using her copies. I think there's a mod that increases their damage. So, in theory, she's not as boring to play as she once was but with a roster as large as mine there's other frames I go to when I want to have fun. In some ways, Koumei has sorta replaced Mirage as a niche survivalist.

Speaking of Koumei. A new addition since the original post. I'm enjoying her more every time I play her. Normally I don't enjoy hefty amounts of micro (like Mirage having the ability whose effects go between light and dark spaces), but Koumei's random Duviri-Decree mechanics are still fun to play with. Stuff like making kills while sliding or wall latching, helps break up some of the monotony of how I traverse a map or engage in fights. Like any roguelite, some of the decrees are useless to my playstyle, but other times I get something like reload on reroll or more crit damage. Her 3 is some kind of hefty damage reduction and with other survival mods, Koumei has become an unexpected heavy hitter in survival maps and is often my go-to for longform Relic runs. I don't enjoy her as much on quicker maps, single-wave missions or even lower level stuff because I don't get the time to invest in her challenges. While not immortal like Nyx can be, she's become a very interesting survival Frame.

Nyx was... surprising. I've owned Nyx Prime for fucking ever but she was largely mastery fodder and I just let her exist in my roster. Then 1999 came out and with it this interesting proto-frame skin. I resisted buying it and then... didn't resist. To justify that heftier 275p asking price, I looked up a build and got to work forma'ing her a few times. Indeed, her 4 makes her completely invulnerable (at the cost of parkour, you can't even jump you have to dodge-roll to do anything evasive) and if you mod her up right with certain energy addons, your energy drains very SLOWLY, making it last an incredible amount of time. And she's not a heavy spender either, you get a minion that lasts a minute and a half and you pop a couple other abilities situationally but mostly you can be an immortal goddess for a while. Until a specific type of Eximus shows up and says "no." I mentioned earlier in Mesa's section... Nyx is not only a high level player for me but she's now my "fuck around with newbies" frame. I can mind control a minion (or not even bother), go immortal and just bring fun tacti-cool guns like the Vesper 77 (shown above), the Ambassador or AX-52 (it's literally an AK-47) and basically just kinda play Call of Duty while whatever newbie on my team figures out how to play the game and manage their powers. Sorry, Mesa, for the dust you now collect.

I had my fun with Dagath but with my growing roster I find myself preferring other frames to just mess around and have fun with. Her HONSE spam is fun and great to watch whole rooms of red get wiped out but it doesn't serve very well in higher levels. She has mid-tier survivability but maybe her build is just outdated now. Either way, other frames like Koumei and Nyx are just more interesting than she is, now.

Nova is built as a Speedva but sometimes I don't even bother as I've found other more efficient methods of leveling up my gear to where making those Grineer run faster is no longer a necessity. Still, she has some niche uses in some content in high level farms so if I ever join some pre-arranged groups that require a speedva, I have one available. I just prefer many other frames over her.

Octavia is one of the old primes I worked very hard to grind for. I don't know the dates in which I acquired them but Octavia is pretty old in my roster, which is why it's such a shame that she doesn't scale better. It is with great sadness I have recently discovered that she's mostly designed for support; to give your teammates some on-demand invisibility or speed (if they dance to the tune properly). I still have recently brought her to Hydron for leveling gear cos it's fun to spit out the Skyrim theme or some other techno dance tune but otherwise she doesn't get much use beyond that. It's a shame, I do like her kit. I just wish it was more offense over support.

With Hildryn we're starting to get into the "I find other frames more fun that do a similar job" category. Hildryn has some great utility alongside my brother's main as a Nidus, whom often laments a shortage of energy. She's somewhat fun to use but when I personally need to stay alive I just bring the likes of Wisp, Nyx, Koumei, and even a little bit of Dagath and indeed, Saryn's Helminth'd Gloom does the job just fine in higher level content. I also pretty much never see a Hildryn in public games, now that I think of it. I don't think her kit needs a rework necessarily but the little blaster gun she comes with is virtually useless and maybe her other stuff needs a little buff to bring her on-par with other frames. That's the end of the pictures because the rest aren't played enough for me to bother fluffing this post up. Brief mentions, going down the list. And just assume they're primed unless they don't have one out. Mag, a decent kit even reworked but it's too CC-heavy and other frames (Koumei's 4) do the job better.

Protea Prime will eventually be higher up in my roster as I do find her kit fun and was my original "tacticool" type frame but there isn't enough cosmetics to give her that look. Mesa and Nyx fulfill that job better, but Protea is fun to play and I hope to build her up some day. Ivara is too specific and three out of four of her abilities are near-pointless. Garuda used to be my go-to melee frame and still somewhat is. She gets an honorable mention for being a sort of turning point frame, being one of the first that really clicked for me. I understand what her kit does and I'm able to utilize it effectively, but other frames have become more interesting as a go-to. Voruna has too much micro for me to deal with. Multiple passives and a lot of ability juggling that involves either tapping or holding, and I can't really keep it all straight in the heat of battle. Maybe a fun frame to bring on low level, newbie-carrying content. Citrine, Gara, Zephyr, Xaku have kits I do not yet understand. Revenant, Inaros, Nekros, Valkyr, Chroma, Khora, Gyre, Loki, Caliban, Equinox, Harrow, Rhino, Excalibur/Umbra, Atlas, Hydroid, Cyte-09, Sevagoth, Wukong, Volt, and Grendel are all mastery fodder and just kind of exist. I want to work on getting normal Grendel for subsuming. Dante is currently cooking in my forge right now and he'll mostly be mastery fodder.

#Warframe #Digital Extremes #Gaming #PC Gaming #Looter Shooter

2 notes · View notes

zydratevialsblog · 14 days ago

Text

Livia Pamsdottir stat sheets

For fun.

#Cyberpunk 2077 #CP2077 #2077 #Cyberpunk #Gaming #PC Gaming

0 notes

zydratevialsblog · 15 days ago

Text

These were taken out of order but I do think there's a cohesive story to be told here.

First four: Fun dating phase. Next two: With the euphoria of post coitus they discuss introducing a third. So V calls Panam and maybe in this universe she elects to give it a try. Enjoys herself. I'm downloading more pose packs so hopefully I can get all 3 of them just having fun out in the city. Doing this takes a lot of time but I'm enjoying cute girls being cute together.

These are probably my favorite shots so far:

#NSFW #Cyberpunk #Cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #2077 #Gaming #PC Gaming

0 notes

zydratevialsblog · 15 days ago

Text

Part one of my return to this game. Part two tells a story but it's a saucy one.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk #cp2077 #2077 #Gaming #PC Gaming

8 notes · View notes

zydratevialsblog · 15 days ago

Text

I'm going to steal everything that is not nailed on the ground in this game.

#cp2077 #cyberpunk #cyberpunk 2077 #gaming #pc gaming

533 notes · View notes

zydratevialsblog · 17 days ago

Text

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH

#ESO #TEs #the elder scrolls #Elder Scrolls Online

264 notes · View notes

zydratevialsblog · 22 days ago

Text

Current Activities in Gaming #2

I've officially put my RP guild on ESO on hiatus with the asterisk that impromptu RP can still happen every now and then.

Over the last couple of months I was kind of in denial over how much the drama and split from my last main guild damaged my mental health. It's not every day you lose like two thirds of a community that, even if they weren't friends I had thought they were friendly. I won't break the whole thing down here (I have a google doc I sent to... some people I hope were friends and hope they still are) but the jist is I was in an RP guild for almost ten months and it turned out the Glead didn't really like me or how I did things so I just got hit with a bunch of drama at once. And then another RP guild removed me because they were under the impression I became a "problem player" due to their own zero tolerance policies. So the rift had AoE damage.

At first I was excited to dust off my old RP guild that I had. In ESO you can have five guild slots and for years I was letting my brother (who only plays ESO when he's in the mood for it) hold onto the tag before I claimed it. Through that last guild I had gained enough experience with leading events that I thought for once, I could handle it. And for a while there I did. Weekly events, etc. But the rift wasn't as sided towards me as I thought, as I expected two or three other very specific players to come join me and they didn't, one of them effectively cut off contact. Again, that hurt because I quite liked them and still do. Just another AoE shockwave of losing friends and community.

So for a bit I was just running weekly events with effectively the same 'core' of four people or so. Then I got a job, which pushed me into the evenings so I was coming home on event nights too brain-fogged to really concentrate. Events were getting delays after delays, recruitment yielded no results. So I just announced to my guild, with full honesty, that ESO has kind of driven me away to some degree. I don't want to quit the game entirely. I love TES, I love Argonians. I like playing one. Not a lot of MMOs grant you nonhuman status. Just that RP is gonna become a bit more intermittent than before. Not going anywhere, I just can't sustain the weekly requirement.

There's another aspect apart the general decline to my mental health. I have a cyclical gaming nature. While I can binge the same game for months at a time, I usually desire a change in scenery. An itch. Sometimes I just wanna play shoot-a-mans so I go to something like Warframe or Borderlands to fulfill that need. After going more than a year of almost nothing but ESO, the aforementioned Rift also just kinda sparked a new mood.

As mentioned in my last post I'm kind of on a Guild Wars kick at the moment. MMO thought it may be, 95% of the game can be solo'd through a series of well equipped heroes and mercenaries.

I've recovered pretty well. Golden Zaishen Coins (a tradeable daily currency) are a big moneymaker for me right now which mostly feeds into various alt's heroes so I can rune them up and buy 10k weapon sets (per hero). But my capability of doing more than one daily at a time is ramping up over time. Today I could only do the mission once as it's some near-Ascalon mission that only my main derv has access to. But I've gained some powerful alts since that last post including a Ranger that got a pretty strong anniversary skill that gives everyone near me a near-constant health regeneration and attack damage. Vanquishing entire zones takes a long time but it's a heck of a payday when I can find time to do more than one in a day.

My main strategy is rolling a character in Nightfall, getting them to ten, powerleveling through Kilroy's Boxing, then it splits between rushing Nightfall to the "Hunted!" quest that allows them to switch secondaries and getting various EoTn PvE skills. There's a few easy-to-get PvE skills that are very powerful out of the box, including a couple of on-demand knockdowns that can shut enemy healers down.

So I'm gonna outline a few things my alts are capable of.

Dervish: Main, Most missions/locations explored. Missing some side towns like Temple of Ages. Scythe/Daggers build. She has the most robust access to things and is generally my first stop for dailies. Can run a handful of variable builds but she still doesn't have all the skills. I just kinda buy-as-needed. Generally has my most well equipped Mesway of my roster but plenty of others perform just as well. So for her it's mostly just a matter of filling books and doing Hardmode.

Ritualist: Fairly accomplished. Beat Factions/EoTn, approaching Vabbi. Absolutely no access to anything of note in Tyria, but is well built. Runs SoS/ST and a fun dagger build. She's in a good spot with SoS/ST which a lot of teams desire during dailies, but I accidentally scrapped her Ghost Forge set for her dagger build so right now I'm working on getting enough funds to get an EotN armor set to reclaim the dagger build for solo play. Along with every other character other than the Dervish she lacks any towns deep in Prophecies or Nightfall.

Ranger: Accomplished. Got Together as One, fun dagger build. Scythe on the side but doesn't have all the skills necessary yet. Beat EoTn, but needs to push other campaigns. Together as One is a powerful elite that helps upkeep her hero team so she has the capability to really burn through some content and get all the missions explored for higher ZM capability. I just haven't pushed her through them yet.

Assassin: Beat Factions, most zones explored. PvP capable. Missing some EoTn stuff. No Tyria/Elona. She is fun to play but just kind of my Kurz faction generator at this point as other characters are more reliable for general dailies. Having Factions completed is useful in its own right as Imperial Sanctum and Raisu Pavilion are pretty quick dailies to run.

Warrior: Underplayed, beat factions. Working on pushing her through Eye of the North and then swinging back to completing Nightfall.

Necromancer: Rolled with a scythe build in mind but apparently need an anniversary scythe I can't get to be functional. Some basic Tyria explored but is otherwise collecting some dust. Some factions explored as I am trying to get Flesh Golem capped and just haven't been bothered because I don't enjoy casters. I do need to just power through it and get her to the Ring of Fire so she can get the anniversary elite.

Paragon: Powerleveled, has no access to anything of note. She's running baby's first imbagon, missing half the skills.

Mesmer: Same as above. Doesn't even have an elite, might delete later. Never liked mesmer gameplay.

Pre-Searing Ranger: Exists. Still level 7, need a Charr-killin' partner to help get me to 10 so I can start doing those dailies.

Monk: Still level 3. Need to work on that.

Elementalist: Just created, has some fun potential dagger build. Just need to get her to Hunted! so she can change her secondary.

#ESO #Elder Scrolls Online #RP #Roleplaying #Gaming #PC Gaming #Guild Wars

1 note · View note

zydratevialsblog · 1 month ago

Text

Guild Wars: A Retrospective Review

My brother and I played this roughly on release, pretty early adoption. We would go on to play the expansions as they released as well, so I'm quite a veteran to this game. Played it somewhat concurrently with Warcraft and I was still in high school at the time and continued to play it after graduation for quite a while before having moved on. I lost that old account recently due to some recovery issues so I can't say how many hours I had played, but it was most certainly comparable to my modern playtimes of WoW and ESO. Thousands of hours in that era, undoubtedly. I recently bought into a fresh account and recovery was a bit smoother than ever before, but it might have helped that I bought the various core skill packs which gave my AI hero team the power boost they needed to get me through it.

It's an old game at this point but I feel as though it has aged well and has settled on being a pretty solid RPG in its own right. The core game, Prophecies, is a bit of a slog but the rest of the campaigns are fairly well paced. Factions just throws experience at you, as it was sort of the "PvP" expansion with the shortest missions. They wanted you at cap, geared, and in the special PvP arenas as soon as you could get there. Nightfall still holds fast as my favorite expansion as it's more deliberately paced and has better designed encounters.

I don't delve too much in any given story because sometimes I feel that's not what people read reviews for. They want to know what the game is.

These days it can be more or less played solo. Nightfall and Eye of the North introduced the Hero mechanic which still more or less have the same AI as the henchmen you can add to your group but you have much more control, changing their gear and skills. Over the years the community has developed entire META (Most Effective Tactics Available) teams that can allow you to treat this almost entirely like a single player game, though for some players you may run into a wall. At that point you backtrack, clear other zones or campaigns, and continually earn money to equip your team with stronger weapons and runes to make them more effective.

For newer players I would not recommend rolling a prophecies character. Or maybe do so on an alt, because not only is it a slog, it also takes a while to get to anything useful or powerful. As the base game it was deliberately designed to be played extensively how it was, but the other expansions are a bit more generous with getting you to the cooler stuff at a better pace.

Gameplay does feel understandably antiquated but I still maintain that it's not really any worse than some modern independent games. You target and click or spacebar once and your character will being attacking and won't stop until the enemy is dead. You only have 8 buttons worth of skills (to be changed at your leisure in towns), as the game rewards strategic use of specific skills rather than spamming an entire kit of 20 skills at the enemy in some rotation. You're not waiting on procs, you're just doing what the skills tell you to do. "Unlockable if you are enchanted" means exactly that, you're not waiting for skills to have a blinking border to use them. I feel GW2 got lost in this sauce a bit as they tried to have a similar philosophy but I played my GW2 mesmer just a couple days ago and she effectively has 20 buttons and skills considering the extra weapon set.

GW1 does not bog you down with menus or much in the way of visual noise like its sequel does (which I still play and quite enjoy). The only time the game gets vaguely interface spammy is the sort of endgame staging area called "Embark Beach" where it offers a variety of daily refresh-able missions that give you tokens that lead to very useful and power rewards, but in order to do them you need to have access to large portions of every campaign. On my new account I've barely dabbled in the core prophecies so it's difficult to get anywhere there.

These refresh-able missions still funnel the community pretty well. I was progressing through Nightfall and entered a mission town suddenly filled to the brim with people looking to do the Hard Mode variant (something you unlock account-wide once you beat a campaign) for the extra rewards. The game feels pretty empty until you visit one of the main cities or this Embark Beach staging area. There's still a community here, it's just certainly not what it once was.

In terms of monetization, I feel as thought it can become a little pricey if you enjoy the game enough to give yourself some conveniences. The standard stuff like expanded storage, but there's also something called "Mercenaries" which act like heroes except it makes copies of your own characters for your entire roster to use (except on the character you've copied). This allows you to circumnavigate when you get certain classes. Mesmers, one of the game's strongest classes in AI hands who can make snap-decision interrupts, are somewhat difficult to get. Buying mercenary packs allows you to register some of the harder to get classes which only increases your personal solo power even further. I also think the skill packs are overpriced (10 dollars per expansion), but I don't regret this purchase since I'm a veteran player playing catchup anyway. Without them I'd run into a hefty stopgap of skill hunting on behalf of all my heroes, and it has the potential to become very expensive as skills eventually cost a full platinum. Originally the game expected you to just roll one of each class yourself and you could semi-freely activate skills over time as you play. But this is no longer the only game I play in my older, more employed lifestyle so it was worth it to me personally to get those packs.

I also bought most of the costumes because starting from scratch, getting really cool armor sets takes a lot of resources that I simply do not have. Most of my money is funneled into my main's heroes to make them powerful. I don't generally have access to anything people are actively buying to make some actual money.

It's a simple game but I still find it pleasurable and relaxing to play. It gives me some intense moments and I did need to recruit some help with a couple of Nightfall's last missions. I recommend trying it out if you have the temperament for oldschool gaming.

#Guild Wars #Gaming #PC Gaming #MMO

0 notes

zydratevialsblog · 1 month ago

Text

Current Activities in Gaming #1

New blog, new CA series reset because why not. New archive, etc. For the record this series reached around 230 posts, not counting various open world games that got their own series (Skyrim had around 65 posts). Been on this platform for like 13 years. Joined in 2013, that was still on the top end of Guild Wars' original lifespan. It's had a couple of updates since then but I think 2012 was roughly their last major update before moving most of their resources towards the second game. GW always meant a lot to me. It was in that era of post-school unemployment (my first job happened around 2014 and it still took time to get my own computer or even my own ROOM.) so as a result it was one of the only few games I had available. My brother was on and off some jobs so he was generally fueling a WoW subscription and I played that as well. He also funded the original GW1 account which has since been lost due to recovery issues. I can't begin to tell you the hours played on that but it was probably to the tune of two to three thousand, likely comparable to my current day MMO numbers on steam.

Well, I've recently bought a new account and have already put 50 hours into it. My main goal is to try and "catch up" with my old self in terms of progression. In that time I've already beaten the Nightfall and Factions campaigns (I beat Shiro literally 20 minutes ago), so that's Hard Mode for two campaigns so far.

I also went ahead and just paid for all the various core campaign skills just to save me some time and headaches. You see, when you unlock a skill generally it's account-wide so that your PvP characters or heroes can use them. On a fresh account? You are starting from scratch, even your heroes only get some baseline skills. The game just expects you to play every class and unlock various skills concurrently, a lot of what you do in gameplay, can feed into your others and help them out. But I just wasn't willing to run into walls and run off in circles to slowly gain enough platinum to buy one skill at a time. I needed my heroes functional and effective, so I bought all the skill packs. I don't get access to it all myself (though I can do so when I start acquiring skill tomes), it's mostly to benefit all the heroes I quickly acquire on every character so they're not running around with 6 baseline skills.

My next goal will either be going through the core game or maybe Eye of the North. EoTn has more benefits but I'll still need to map out Tyria eventually. It will be beneficial to have at least one "main" that has access to a majority of the map for when I start joining player groups for things. The community is small but it is present, and those Zaishen weekly quests do a good job of funneling players into places. I was just progressing through Nightfall and some late game mission zone had dozens of people in there looking for a hard mode group. (I just went through it myself for progression).

The name of the game here is recovery. Even my main Dervish's heroes aren't quite all there. Not every mesmer has the coveted 40/40 set (something that halves their recharge rates and cast times) which is an expensive 5plat for each item involved. They're also not runed up entirely and I can't afford the various expensive meta defensive runes. Been mostly just slapping Survivor (more health) or the one that gives +10 armor against physical damage which still helps, since I'm running a poor man's Mesway (which usually calls for mercenary heroes and I only have a couple at the moment) but even with four Mesmers they're pretty interrupt-heavy and spell damage isn't often as much of an issue until they start running out of energy.

But my team is pretty powerful, now. They nuked Kuunavang so hard I didn't have to chase her around the whirlpool. The Master bonus for her mission is like 15 minutes and I did it in two, it was pretty funny. Should try that one again in hard mode just for giggles.

Playing GW1 has also gotten me in the mood to play the second which is reinstalling as I type. GW2 didn't have many slots in my CA series so it may have had its own, which is typical of an open world or MMO game. I'm still raking through my 13 year old account to find some of the more unique posts and that generally won't involve a lot of the CA posts unless there's something particularly unique about them for whatever reason. I'm not about to read every post I ever made, but I am skimming some of them.

EDIT: I most certainly had a GW series, I found episode 42 of it so yeah, I blogged my GW ventures quite a bit. There was likely several more.

Anyway GW1 still has a pretty active and helpful community, if quite a bit smaller. I recommend googling the discord and joining if you're still bouncing around old Tyria.

#Guild Wars #Arenanet

0 notes

zydratevialsblog · 1 month ago

Text

I do not like FFXIV.

This is a pretty iconic old post of mine that I always end up referring to because FFXIV is still a very popular MMO but I need to refer to this post whenever I need to explain why I never got into it.

Welcome to my Blog Recovery Project! Original Post Date: Jul 23rd, 2015

Some recap.

A while back, after a brief break from WoW I logged in to find that my entire set of friends of the guild I was in decided to migrate to FFXIV. This was almost ten people that just gave up WoW. I didn’t join them immediately due to one particularly toxic member of our little clique, I felt like I ‘lost’ them a while back. But a couple weeks ago, the alpha of our group told me that the toxic person finally fucked off. He continued to sell FFXIV to me as a concept and kept saying how great it was, how robust the RP was, how professional the leadership in this one guild was. It was led by two former members of our WoW group, who dropped it due to a baby being born.

I did a First Impressions post of it which might have seemed positive, “It feels like an RPG”. But there’s just so many goddamn mountains to climb to get anything done.

I have about 80 hours played, only 30 minutes of which was spent actually roleplaying. That is an extremely skewed ratio for me. I was promised a brief plotline to get ‘inducted’ into this exclusive guild we’re now in, but it didn’t happen the night I was off. They claimed they would do it the next day. They didn’t. I have not heard a word about it since.

Meanwhile I’m leveling. I made it to 50 (Wherein a literal, single fuck was given by the guy who brought me here to the first place). Now, I came here wanting to unlock the Dark Knight class because their abilities suit my character (Even if their lore doesn’t). At first I was told that the only requirements were beating the Main Scenario Questline and having access to the expansion. Well, I dropped the coin and got to the grind. And then, every subsequent conversation I had about it, a new prerequisite would rear its goddamn head. Apparently I have to do a couple of dungeons and a raid, and chew through a couple of bosses. Well, I haven’t even gotten to those as the MSQ… For some reason… Just kept going. Not a single mention of Ishgard.

So, now dubbing my friend to be a bit useless on this matter, I decided to do some googling myself. I found the quest that ‘unlocks’ the ability to talk to the right NPC - Whom is inside the expansion town itself. So I looked up that quest and kept clicking the “Required quest” button to look down the line to see how far I was. After clicking about forty times I gave up and clicked the actual listing.

Turns out I have to go through four goddamn mini-expansions before I can get to the one I need.

Meanwhile that one toxic person I mentioned before is replaced with another - Someone who uses derogatory slurs and has an inability to learn from social constructs when people say “That is not okay”. So I have to deal with that on top of my usual frustrations with this game.

In comparison… WoW. You see a cool thing? Provided you’re at level cap, you can probably get that cool thing within a couple days. Legendary items are the only thing I can think of that takes literal months to acquire. It took me two months to get Shadowmourne. Might take a couple weeks to get achievement-based mounts, due to some of them being raid-bound. Otherwise. See cool thing? Get cool thing. That PvP-based armor set Kiur has on WoW?

Including the belt and boots that drop from a Wrath raid, all that took a few days to acquire. Could have been less if I PvP’d -constantly-.

FFXIV? See cool thing? Complete the entire game. Then do some paperwork. Then do some running and talking. And teleporting. Run. Talk. Teleport. Run. Talk. Teleport. Run. Talk. Teleport. Run. Talk. Teleport. Run. Talk. Teleport. Run. Talk. Teleport. Run. Talk. Teleport. Run. Talk. Teleport. That’s all this content quest-packs are. I’m skipping all the cutscenes now because the part of my brain that gives a shit has ejected itself from my body. I have to play music or podcasts or literally anything else that keeps half my brain distracted in order to play this goddamn game. Oh, and I still haven’t acquired a single thing I’ve wanted.

And the sync system. Fucking christ that ruins the flow of everything. In Guild Wars 2, in lower level zones it just automatically downscales you. You have access to all your level-80-acquired skills but their damage is more based around the area you’re in so you can’t one-shot everything and you can play with your lower level buddies without sacrificing the experience. In FFXIV, I play a Dragoon. It has combo skills and jumpy abilities that do decent damage and has a backjump to escape AoE or whatever. But inevitably, I am forced into a level 18 dungeon that blocks half my bar and I am forced to spam the only two abilities that do anything;

That’s all I ever have access to when I queue. I’m starting to lose my mind a little.

For the record? The time it’s taken to type all this ranting out (And shoddily editing those two images), I’ve had FFXIV on the background with my character parked in a spot because a quest to unlock a raid has a prerequisite of doing two FATEs (Like dynamic events, which a lot of recent MMO’s have these days). But you can’t force them to activate so I’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes, like a dungeon queue in of itself, waiting for the purple bauble to pop up. When speaking to my guildies about this, they said I had to wait. I simply said “Oh, Glorious” and was met with, by the leader, “Don’t bitch. We all had to go through it.”

…Gaming should not be a fucking chore. This is not a job. This is not school. I shouldn’t have to “pay my dues”. I see cool things and I want them but holy shit god fuck. I saw another cool thing. Something that requires tokens to get. I got a decent chunk from some of the endgame dungeons and the bonuses from players going through it for the first time. After that, the raid gives some more but I constantly have to jump through these hoops before the game lets me do cool shit.

That’s all this game is. A mountain to climb. Except once you get to the top, the game goes “Whatever, here’s another”. And does this three more times before you can get to what you wanted to get to to begin with.

That’s not to say this game doesn’t have it’s virtue. The endgame really felt like an endgame. After fighting an Empire that felt like a bit of weaksauce, the final trio of dungeons really showed me what the Imperials were capable of, especially since they required larger parties to complete, you saw a higher number of enemies and it finally felt like they were a proper army capable of invading the land. And the trials. I like the trials. They’re like, isolated boss fights that take around five minutes to do. They have fun mechanics that force me to actually be awake. Unlike the REST of the game.

But I can be awake for trials. It’s like raiding without taking two hours to do. The game is also very pretty. I enjoyed questing in Coelthas - Ishgard lite. I want to see more of Ishgard if snow is involved. Coelthas questing in my high 30′s to low 40′s was approaching fun once again. I joined a FATE party that got me almost two levels. Just running around in a sort of impromptu raid. Just chatting with all the people, cracking jokes. It was fun. But ultimately… I am exhausted. I am tired. Worst of all, I am bored. There’s so much I want but I don’t think I can stomach wasting any more money on this (It’s not even free to play! Holy shit!) I wanted to roleplay but I’m not finding any. My RP guild doesn’t roleplay. I’m bored. I’m done.

#ffxiv

0 notes

zydratevialsblog · 1 month ago

Text

dy’et hates all authority figures on principle but he will make an exception for martin because he seems very polite

#oblivion #tes4 #es4 #elder scrolls #bethesda

209 notes · View notes

zydratevialsblog · 1 month ago

Text

Would you trust him with the Amulet of Kings?

#oblivion #es4 #elder scrolls #tes4 #bethesda

6K notes · View notes

zydratevialsblog · 1 month ago

Text

General Summary

Alright. It's going to take me some time to really dig through some of my greatest hits. There's one post about getting drunk for the first time that Tumblr just kept spitting errors at me for so I gave up on trying. So to expedite this just a little bit I'm gonna give some highlights.

For some quick context and it's something I will continue to do here, but "CA" means Current Activities, where I just blog about... Well, my current activities. Sometimes games are open enough to get their own series but I generally had a "Current Activities in Gaming" that exceeded like 200 posts throughout the years. January/Februrary 2014: Guild Wars 2 era. There was some good stuff in there. My Norn is one of the hottest characters I've ever made in gaming.

All of my various "Current Activities" were pretty much just GW2.

March 2014: Some more GW2 but there's some Starcraft and posts about my time in employment and certain pet peeves I was developing.

April 2014: My first ESO and Warframe posts emerge, two games I'm still active in to this day. May 2014: Some posts on SWTOR emerge. June 2014: My general Currency Activities in Gaming is already numbered into the 60's at this point. Some scattered Ubisoft mentions, some Mass Effect gifs. July 2014: Saints Row 4 era. Getting into Rooster Teeth things. Minor LoL rumblings as I see a picture of ye olde pre-Arcane Jinx. August-September 2014: Seeing a few WoW posts, some first impressions and reviews. Octuber-November 2014: Various WoW rumblings. Played those LOTR Mordor games enough to give them their own CA series, only a few posts though. Some Minecraft posts, me CA-Gaming posts are in the 90's now. December 2014: Almost entirely Legend of Korra posts. Look at this.

There were several more with a scroll. My inner NB had a real thirst, lol. (I don't think I was 'out' yet around this time?) Anyway, full LoK obsession month. January 2015: My Korrasami obsession continues, but my gaming interests seem a bit more varied. CA series is up into the 100's. Mentions of Dragon Age Inquisition, Assassin's Creed. February-March-April-May 2015: Some scattered Korrasami art and gifts. Some Borderlands and ESO leveling posts. June 2015: Gaming interests expand a bit. First CA in Mass Effect post happens. Tales from the Borderlands comes out. July 2015: Almost entirely comprised of Korrasami gifs and art. The thirst was real. A couple CA posts. August-September-October 2015: General basic gaming. I start a GTAV series for some reason. That didn't last long. Several Oblivion posts. My CA series for Skyrim is up to 80 posts. I didn't mention it but that's kinda what my blog comprised mostly of in 2013.

November-December 2015: Some scattered Harley/Ivy posts, not as many as Korrasami though. Some Fallout 4 posts which I believe gets its own CA series later.

January-February-March 2016: Mostly Skyrim and Fallout stuff, I see several "retail problems" type posts as well. Only had a few posts in March. I see a reblog of an article: "Apply to Immigrate to Canada". Gee. Wonder what happened this year. April-May-June 2016: I discover Rainbow Six Siege and Overwatch. Still seeing WoW posts. Haven't quite quit it yet. July-August-September-October 2016: Only a handful of posts for some reason. Just some general continuations of Warcraft, Fallout 4, and other general gaming. November-December 2016: I see an election map. Hah. Several Skyrim posts including some character spotlights. January-Februrary-March 2017: I see a post about being a "fledgling youtuber" so this is probably about when I started. April 2017: ME: Andromeda is released so I have a few posts about that. My posts slow down for a bit, probably because of youtube. May-June-July 2017: Scattered gaming. CA series is approaching 200. More posts about working in retail. My computer dies in July. Ordered a new motherboard.

August-September-October-November-December 2017: Posts pick back up a little bit. I made a CA masterpost for some reason. I did this thing where I basically made notations about what the post involves.

Basically what I'm doing right now but much more work. Literally reading/skimming every single one of those goddamn posts. In December I make note of my new-ish job at Kroger, not exactly sure of the month I got that job but I'm already complimenting myself about how good a bagger I was which could not have happened in the first couple of months of ANY job where my esteem is at its lowest. So it had to have been a few months into that second job. Posts really slow down here. January-Februrary 2018: Literally six posts between these months.

March-April-May 2018: I actually attempted to have a gaming schedule for my youtube. Oh, such youthful folly. But this is probably why my posts slow down a bit. Youtubing effectively does the "Current Activities" post in a more live setting so blogging about it is redundant. This carries over even today.

June-July 2018: I discover Conan Exiles. I would later put in thousands of hours into it, largely on RP servers over the years. It's basically my second or third most played game on Steam.

August-September-October 2018: This was also the era of Tumblr's titty ban so I lose a couple Conan posts.

November-December 2018: The KDA Rock Stars video from the LoL people comes out so I obsess over Akali for a bit. Several gifsets and she was my avatar for a while (and still is on certain lesser used sites).

I'm also starting to really recognize some stuff here. This is kinda my solidified era of gaming, there's a bit here I still play to this day. So in 2019 my activity drops off severely. Not even worth going month by month. There's quite a bit of Conan Exiles stuff. There's some months I didn't post anything at all. This is very likely because of my youtube channel. I'm probably recording and posting pretty consistently at this point. I literally don't post in 2020 until April and once in July. A couple of game reviews. This was also the covid lockdown era but I was still an essential nearly fulltime produce clerk at this time so I was plenty distracted. August 2020: It picks back up a bit as I discover Horizon Zero Dawn and Sims 4. Sims gets its own CA series. I think I also discover Critical Role roughly in this timeframe cos I'm seeing a Laura Bailey gif for the first time. I'm not a big reblogger to begin with (except when I was obsessed with Korrasami) so I might have discovered CR earlier than this and just didn't talk about it.

November-December 2020: I install and play Cyberpunk 2077 which I dump a shitton of time into. Once again there's only a handful of posts in 2021. Unfortunately, including the post in which I lose my mother in November. On a less sad note, this is about the time I start getting back into Elder Scrolls Online and my CA series exceeds ~224 posts.

In 2022 I get a bit more consistent with posting, a few posts a month but they're minor. Arcane happens, Season 3 of Critical Role happens. I tested positive for Covid in January and was out of work for 3 weeks or so.

May 2022 I post a lot about Elden Ring.

2023 was the year of Baldur's Gate 3 and Warframe for me. I participate in Tennotober, my October of 2023 blows up with various Warframe screenshots with single-word prompts. Generally meant for artists but I did what I could. I didn't talk about it but I essentially quit my Kroger job in 2022, picked up a Food Lion job throughout 2023 and then quit that after about a year in Janurary of 2024. Right after losing that Food Lion job I spent a lot of money on computer upgrades so right there in January I'm seeing Starfield posts, which I couldn't play before. March of 2024, Rooster Teeth shutters its doors and I have opinions about that. Will probably repost that here. In April 2024 I'm entering a personal golden age in ESO which ends like ten months later. I later have some posts about Fallout 76 and Forbidden West. Posts generally just drop off because once again, my Youtube channel does the CA job for me. Last month in April 2025 was my current up to date CA post at 231 where I talk about Oblivion Remastered. Before that I dip my toes in SWTOR for a couple months but fell off of it again. Warframe enters my life again as I delve into the 1999 update.

#Gaming #PC Gaming #Life stuff #covid19

0 notes

zydratevialsblog · 1 month ago

Text

My First Comic-Con!

Welcome to my Blog Recovery Project! Original Post Date: Oct 21st, 2014

Pardon the weird tags, new experience for me and as a result I have no idea wtf to tag this as.

Anyway I had a somewhat local ComicCon (About an hour away) and most of my family got VIP’s to go. Despite our horrendous lack of cash, wandering around in casual costumes was still incredibly fun.

It was mostly a “make the circuit a couple times, look at people’s costumes, identify characters…” And we pretty much did mostly that.

I do have a couple of points of note.

I met two people; Joel Hodsgon of MST3k fame. And Sam Huntington, whom I know from Being Human.

Joel’s panel was first and while interesting, I didn’t hold as much interest in it because I have a passing interest in Mystery Science Theatre. Also it had a troupe of annoying non shit-giving kids whose parent stepped out before Joel came in. To their credit, they weren’t LOUD but they didn’t HAVE to be. It was a closed room, which is presumably designed so that speakers voices can bounce around throughout. Well, works both ways. Works for the audience too.

Anyway Joel steps out and begins his spiel on what he’s been a part of lately and before he’s capable of opening the floor to questions, he addresses the kids in a friendly manner. As friendly as he can, as he was clearly exhausted and he personally admitted that he wasn’t as “quick” as he usually is. He addresses them a couple times but eventually he says outright “Okay, I can’t talk with them talking.” The mother finally starts to gather her three children (and a baby carriage but to its credit, the baby made no sound) muttering “rude” (She was right in front of me).

I’d like to make a note that since these kids were chattering in front of me, I only heard half of what anyone was saying at any given time.

Another note to be made is that he was trying to ask which one was the MST3k fan was, and he kept not getting an answer.

Barely two minutes goes by with the floor opened up for questions and I hear the mother “YES EXCUSE ME. That was VERY RUDE.” She went on to explain that it was her son’s 7th birthday, and I could tell in her voice she was on the verge of tears. I understand it’s a bit humiliating but her kids were being disruptive. Another audience member backed Joel up saying “Ma'am, we’re trying to have a conversation” and even boasted his own 14 year old’s age. Which doesn’t give him much credit, since we’re talking half that.

The woman doesn’t have much to stand on since a young 7-10 year old on someone’s lap even asked Joel a question, perfectly behaved.

Joel kept trying to ask who was the fan but she never answered. Since she dropped her kids off to leave for a few minutes, my family suspected she was trying to have a “temporary babysitter” in the panel but it just wasn’t the right environment. Disruption is disruption.

Here’s the flip to that: Sam! I attended his panel immediately following Joel’s and he was a beacon of sunshine and personality as not only did he ‘suffer’ through a similar thing once, but THREE times kids began wailing. But his voice was so commanding that only once did he even HAVE to address them. In which event, the man took his kid (Sam goes “Awww they’re so cuuuuttte!”) and the man leaves with a smile on his face.

It was two problems with two different approaches, and Sam was utterly brilliant and incredibly friendly. I even followed a family friend to get an autograph and photo, where I got to shake Sam’s hand and have casual, short-lived banter. (There’s always a line at these things).

Sam Huntington was super friendly and hilarious, there was a big laugh every ten seconds just about. Converse to Joel’s, which was admittedly kind of boring because his answers were straightforward. But Sam, having 25~ years LESS experience than Joel, was able to play off every little interruption. All of it with a smile. Sam’s panel went off without a hitch and he spoke to us like he knew all of us our entire lives. 10/10. Would meet again.

Joel, while he couldn’t have handeled that mother that much better, his delivery was just that of an old curmudgeon. Granted I was absolutely on his side, the woman NEEDED to be called out, but with a bit more charisma that Joel was capable of displaying.

Ultimately it was a lot of fun for my first convention. Now I just need money.

0 notes

zydratevialsblog · 1 month ago

Text

Death of a Concept

Welcome to my Blog Recovery Project! Original Post Date: Jul 23rd, 2013

You’ll have to excuse if some of this comes across as a bit vague. I won’t be mentioning any names, guilds, servers and whatnot.

So. World of Warcraft and the Expansion “Burning Crusade” was released in January of 2007, at least in North America. That places me at around 17 years old, two months before my 18th birthday and is the year I graduate high school and proceed to fuck up my attempt at college a year after that.

The college bit isn’t relevant to this story, however my age is. Calculating my age during typing this reveals that I have one less excuse for my behavior. But that’s what this post is for. To reminisce, and analyze.

So it’s around 2007 or so and I discover WoW. I was hesitant at first because I didn’t like the concept of constantly paying for a game, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. (I later find out that WoW offers a whole hell of a lot). I had already had my eyes on roleplaying so I plopped on a roleplay server. Naturally. I didn’t immediately jump on that boat, I played the game for a while. Enter “Allein”, a Draenei. I originally rolled her as a hunter but didn’t enjoy the playstyle and rerolled her as a warrior. I had some knowledge at the time and warriors can wield frig'n -everything- except wands. My logic was that as an up-and-coming roleplayer, I wanted to be able to wear as much as I could. A sound strategy, one I benefited from in time. From dresses to robes to leathers to plate, my character had a reason to wear a variety of things for various situations.

So I step into the RPing fray and memories of my early days are not good. First, I remember designing Allein to be more towards shadow magic and worked it into her very being. This was mostly because the Draenei religion are very light-happy and I’ve never been the type to roll super-pious types. Still, I actually continue using this lore, though in the last few years I’ve edited it and refined it into a more acceptable concept. The problem was at the time, it was a tad overpowered. At least in the hands of such an inexperienced player such as I. One occassion I remember having Allein attempting to corrupt an alt of mine and a light-using gnome (Is that a thing?) tried purging her, using “Scarlet Crusade” tactics and all. I look back and think “Yea, that actually would have worked” because I worked in a severe weakness to Light Magic that makes my Trahl’s (see link) actually sick when in the presence of it. Alas, I was young(ish) and pretty much godmoded into having this gnome and a nearby male Draenei just give up and walk away.

Oops.

Secondly. Well, let me give a comparison. Do you know how it feels when you find something and think “Oh man, I found a new hobby?” Or when you find a drink you really like and want nothing more than that drink for the forseeable future? Or how about a really great song?

It was like that and ERP for me, at least for a while. For those who don’t know that’s “Erotic Roleplaying”, which is a classier version of cybering. Cybering is what 12 year olds do on AIM. ERP is when two characters actually share some romantic intrigue. And to be fair to myself, at 17/18 years old I wasn’t terribly immature about the whole thing.

I did however, make the mistake of making it a major part of Allein. Too large in fact.

That’s not to say she slept with -everyone-. She had standards just like anyone else, she was just a bit too flirtatious and I lacked subtlety in my writing. To outsiders looking in, my character was just prowling bars looking for girls to sleep with.

So let’s take a look. Inexperience. ERPer. Bad writing.

All of these is pretty much a recipe to get ostracized in most roleplaying communities short from pure ERP circles, which I wanted to avoid.

These mistakes continue for the next 6 years. Things didn’t get “worse”, it’s just that my problems were… consistent.

My next problem was I tried too many things on Allein. I could not maintain alts to do all the things I wanted to do, which is a weakness I still have. She worked as a kind of bodyguard for a Noble House that didn’t have a grand reputation to begin with. When WotLK came out, I tried making her a Death Knight which does NOT coincide with my personal sublore (They can’t become undead). Retconning that, I tried making her a Stormwind City Guard. Now that was a lot of fun and that guild had some great people in it, though it suffered from the usual problem of players not really wanting any consequences for character’s actions. (It’s a common misconception: The World of Warcraft is not a democracy.)

After that I set my eyes on making Allein a noble. By this time my reputation was more or less beyond repair. I’ve actually forgotten what my reputation exactly was. Mixed with the general taboo of being an ERPer, people took her ascent to nobility during the Cataclysm expansion as a transparent attempt at trying to get people to like her (or me) again.

There was a brief moment where her House was taken seriously. It was during the Cataclysm pre-release events. The RP was centered around defending various sectors of the city from the unstable elementals and Allein herself, was invited to the table and she was assigned the Park. This was an RP event that easily had around 70 people there, and I was the chosen few that was looked upon as actual leadership. It was a good feeling and thanks to the allies I had at the time, I was hoping to fix all the problems I caused from the previous years of mistakes I made.

Spoiler Alert: I don’t.

But I did have a kind of “Golden Age” before it all came crashing down on me.

Allein had allied with two guilds, one was her previous employer (Who I suspect probably gritted her teeth behind the screen everytime I showed up anyway) and another guy who I thought I got along with.

There was a problematic gang - whom I won’t name, as per my disclaimer - that the entire server was pretty much against. It was bad RP all around and despite my outlining all my mistakes here - I was not nearly as bad as these people. They godmoded, the metagamed, and any interaction with them just exploded into drama. It didn’t help that his guild Notoriously scraped the bottom of the barrel for their membership. Most of them couldn’t even really type and they didn’t take any advice given to improve their roleplay.

Yet the leader was incredibly well spoken and was very charismatic - only all of that was OOC. He did help me rebuild my guild, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway my guild was producing a drug called “Brainsaw”, which was a neat idea. I utilized a mod called “GHI”, Gryphonheart Items. You could make various items and even trade with others who had the mod. It was a wonderful thing. This caused a bit of an underbelly war between my guild and the aforementioned Gang which led to some hostilities. Not bad RP in itself, if it wasn’t for the Gang just being horrible in general. With better communication and a different guild altogether, it could have led to some great events. This almost led to a kind of guild war but I pulled in one of my allies to diffuse the situation. They did this by becoming a larger threat than my House, effectively taking the bullet. Now it was a great move on my part and probably the smartest thing Allein ever did, except it led to some OOC anger. I lost the friend and the alliance because he didn’t appreciate being put in front of that bullet, as it did turn a tad dramatic both ICly and OOCly. He wanted more gratitude than I gave. Thus ended my personal Golden Age because after that, my House wasn’t able to do much. I had several members but I could not keep up with their demands of content. The guild was at a standstill and one day several of my members brought forth their concerns - all without offering any solutions. It was pretty much “Hey, Allein. Nothing is happening, what gives?” But it was an attack, not a meeting. I got so frustrated that I pretty much cleared the guild. Shortly after (Next day or so?) Allein’s wife at the time divorced her. The player had some issues in real life they needed to deal with (I believe they admit to this) and while the abandonment hurt me at the time, I can understand the need to take a step back and reformat a few things. I ended up doing the same thing, myself. So my guild died for what was probably the second time within a few months. I later fell off the server’s radar, and I forgot what I was really doing at the time. I was still playing but I really decided to retire Allein. She was too broken. It got to the point where I attempted playing her on Champion’s Online. She even met another Draenei but apparently my description looked too “cyberbait” for them and effectively shut down the meeting. All I did was mention her flirtatious nature, so even that facet of her character was shot. Nothing about her worked anymore, not even on other games. That’s when I knew. If I couldn’t even play and enjoy her in other universes, the character is just done.

Some wonderful player paid for my race and namechange and “Allein” became something like “Kynav” (Because every other variant was taken). The guild was on its way to recovery. With help from the aforementioned Gang Leader, who originally promised to be paying for the racechange (He never did, I regailed the story to someone else and they did it instead). helped me cook up a story that Allein was a mere steward, a placeholder for the REAL nobility. Enter Kyna (Yes, that one), from Kul'Tiras she came to extend her operations.

The numbers were coming back, slowly but surely. However two of the people in this picture weren’t even in the guild. They just donned their purples and came to help give me a promotional image.

I focused on the weapons manufacturing instead of the nobility which an enemy of mine actually whispered to compliment me about. He said he was glad I was emphasizing what the guild -does- rather than trying to make Allein’s nobility respected with everyone. I attempted to reformat the guild, show everyone how I’ve truly evolved, set ERP aside (Kyna as a character has almost absurd standards) but financial issues cropped up to where I kind of fell off WoW. I haven’t been able to return since. A year or so has passed. For a while I blamed pretty much everyone else. But that list has shrunk and I only blame the server for a couple things. First, the day my guild attacked me because “nothing was happening”. No solutions were being offered, no help was being given. It wasn’t a discussion, it was a “this guild sucks, let’s let the leader know”. Secondly, the server is extremely clique-happy. Everyone has their inner circle and it’s pretty much impossible to get respected. Even after I abandoned the search for respect, my guild was no longer taken seriously because my reputation and character were too damaged. Even though I aged a whopping 6 years with largely the same people, nobody cared at the attempts of reparations. However even that last part could have been fixed if I was able to stay and devote more time to the community. Alas, money problems. I didn’t really retire Allein. Like I do with most of my characters, I put them on a shelf somewhere. An argonian character of mine just won’t be played. My Twi'lek on SWGEmu is currently being held by my new main under suspicion of being a rebel.

And Allein? Well, I wrote in a subplot where she killed a bunch of people, went insane, and was exiled to some depths. However that last link reveals that I am somewhat bringing her back. That, however, is a story for another time.

0 notes