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Post by Sniffles on Oct 11, 2021 3:07:51 GMT
And FO 4 for that matter. Fired up my old Skyrim and played it for a couple of weeks. After foofing around in Breath of the Wild and Horizon Zero Dawn it was instant boredom. Without a gazillion and twelve mods Skyrim is this little tiny area with no surprises, the same old dozen easter eggs, and pretty much nothing new to do or places to go. I wandered from Riften, up past Winterhold and on over to the vampire castle. A little larger than the great plateau in BotW and took less time than just finding my way to the entrance of the frozen wilds in HZD. On the great plateau I had a solid 20 monster encounters, getting to the frozen wilds I got my butt kicked about 15 times. In that trip in Skyrim, four encounters of the exact same spawns as predictable as the dawn.
I stopped this AM and exited Skyrim. Load the newest version with a couple hundred CTD inviting mods for another few weeks of mild interest or hang it up? Bleah.
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Post by dogonporch on Oct 11, 2021 3:30:25 GMT
There are literally thousands of games on Steam that look awesome.
As for old...key word there...Skyrim: it's meant to be modded...can't imagine NOT modding it. How many wolves can one kill?
Meanwhile, at Nexus...new mods daily for the bleah...not too shabby.
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 12, 2021 5:49:38 GMT
Well here's a something that Bethseda could have easily incorporated in their games. Playing Breath of the Wild, ignoring how vast the grid is in comparison, I discovered by accident spawns are different from the day and night. Then I discovered different again when it's raining. So right there Bethseda could have tripled the interesting-ness or the grid. Skyrim requires mods for something new, now I've found out the small area of the grid I've managed to go over in BotW can be gone over multiple times and encounter something new each time. Then I just discovered with making food stuff and potions certain plants will only be found when it's raining. So I was stumbling around in an area similar to Eldergleam sanctuary. Eldergleam, 10 minutes and done. Boring after that. Clued I would find certain things there. I've spent about 8 playing hours there before finding what I was looking for. Unfortunately it was a blood moon and some of the monsters I've managed to kill come back under that moon looking for me!
So I asked one of the nut cases that speedruns BotW and asked how many spawning points are on the grid. Fixed and variables, around 20,000. Not counting those that appear just because the PC is there, which can happen anywhere.
I think, with a little luck, I'll have central Hyrule thoroughly explored in another 100 or so playing hours. Roughly the size of Skyrim and Morrowind together. And ignoring some of the PITAs like the 900 goddam koroks. I also discovered that you can ride some of the deer instead of eating them or them ruining your day.
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Post by dogonporch on Oct 14, 2021 17:05:53 GMT
Well here's a something that Bethseda could have easily incorporated in their games. Playing Breath of the Wild, ignoring how vast the grid is in comparison, I discovered by accident spawns are different from the day and night. Then I discovered different again when it's raining. So right there Bethseda could have tripled the interesting-ness or the grid. Skyrim requires mods for something new, now I've found out the small area of the grid I've managed to go over in BotW can be gone over multiple times and encounter something new each time. Then I just discovered with making food stuff and potions certain plants will only be found when it's raining. So I was stumbling around in an area similar to Eldergleam sanctuary. Eldergleam, 10 minutes and done. Boring after that. Clued I would find certain things there. I've spent about 8 playing hours there before finding what I was looking for. Unfortunately it was a blood moon and some of the monsters I've managed to kill come back under that moon looking for me! So I asked one of the nut cases that speedruns BotW and asked how many spawning points are on the grid. Fixed and variables, around 20,000. Not counting those that appear just because the PC is there, which can happen anywhere. I think, with a little luck, I'll have central Hyrule thoroughly explored in another 100 or so playing hours. Roughly the size of Skyrim and Morrowind together. And ignoring some of the PITAs like the 900 goddam koroks. I also discovered that you can ride some of the deer instead of eating them or them ruining your day. Skyrim...and Oblivion...to me are just big sandboxes with which to practice modding. Vilja borders on being an artificial life form with all the Simmy mods going. That's pretty cool. She's like a member of the family. For that alone, Skyrim has a home on my and the wife's rigs. But it's also nice to have a game where ALL of that extra stuff is taken care-of by someone else...be it thoughtful designers or an active community fixing things. With a game like UBoat that was crowdfunded and developed with lots of playtesting input, such a thing is hoped to be achieved. Das Boot outta the box...not after installing 1000 mods.
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 16, 2021 11:58:09 GMT
So why mod? 1. To have something new and different. 2. To add something spiffy. With 2, spiffy gets old. So you add more, and more and more. And each has the same problem, they are static. You get familiar with them then what? More mods. Alter mods. Expand mods. And they become same sames. Modding becomes the focal point. Or adding mods. And the map can be expanded a little, usually at the risk of crashes and holes in the reality. And the original grid remains, boring with lots of additional fluff. So okay. 450 deaths later, I traversed the Breath of the Wild map east to west and north to south. Have a look. www.zeldadungeon.net/breath-of-the-wild-interactive-map/Each of those regions is about the same size or larger than a region in Tamriel. Skyrim would easily fit in Hebra, you could fit two Oblivion maps in Central Hyrule. And you get the picture. There are huge mountains and you can climb anything. Except when it's raining and if you are half way up some cliff and it starts raining, you're screwed. Things get slippery. When it's raining, and the days and nights and weather is very realistic, things are different. Different people, monsters, encounters, dialogues. Each weather and the time throws different things at you. Traversing the map like I did I holed up at nights and tried to avoid traveling during the rain. Big fat dumb move was traveling at night - triple the monster spawns, and the blood moon came up, what you killed came back to life, and it started raining so I couldn't climb to escape. And I didn't have a recent saved game. I lost a solid 8 hours play time just because I didn't only travel during the day and waited out the rains. And you better learn how to cook or what raw foods to eat. Freezing to death or dying a thirst or drowning is a fact of life, along with running out of energy and falling off cliffs. And of course getting your butt kicked by wuss monsters because you didn't make a long enough lasting health potion. In just stupid ways to get killed that dang place is 100 to 1 against everything Bethseda has barfed up. Mods? If is was possible you would be too busy just trying to survive and figure out where that bleeping shrine is to want it even more complex. But if you wanted a mod that seriously made Skyrim much more interesting, just take a few pages from the BotW playbook. And add a few thousand more little caves, grottoes, swamps, and hidden features and creatures. And always always always mow lots of grass. If you aren't packing a few fairies to revive your dead carcass those game saves are a long distance between. Bottom line. Bethseda made all the Elder Scrolls series, really - all their games with $$$ running and ruling the show. Each progressive game the same same with improvements here and there and some fancy mat artwork. Left it open for modding to keep the sales going. Fallout 3 and FNV, Oblivion with a different settings and hundreds of 'You can't go that way' instead of development expanding the map. Just big sandboxes.Meanwhile I'm girding up to make another dash for Kakariko village. There I was, standing on the edge of the bridge enjoying the scenery and a few monster free moments and this idiot runs up and tells me not to jump. JUMP?? Dude, I've got about 150 bokoblins between me and where I'm trying to get to. Falling in the river is the least of my worries. And if you go to the stable back from where you came from, tell that moron shopkeeper the Dueling Peaks are east south east! I had to burn up about 20 fairies following his 'go north' direction. (Another little bonus of this game. People will give you directions even when they can't even find their arses with both hands.)
I know, I'm harping and griping. It's because I'm doing what I did in Skyrim. Using the map to find all the major points of interest. It took a week on and off of game play. Now I'm doing the same thing using that map I linked. It's been about a month off and on, and about 75 deaths, just to find the points of interest in their equivalent of Cyrodil, and I've missed A LOT.
And then there is those damned Koroks.Want to increase your carrying capacity?Just buy more room with Korok seeds. There's 900 of them, and every dang one of them is a puzzle hidden in some way. NINE HUNDRED? Psycho developers.
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 18, 2021 1:55:53 GMT
Unholy frack!! BotW. 50,000 ways to get killed. Then some hidden little joys. Here came 6 enemies waving weapons. Just found new bow and equipped a fire arrow. It fired FIVE arrows. Set the entire enemy camp ablaze. That game is wall to wall hidden secrets. Unfortunately, like all weapons in the game, they break after about 5 to 10 uses. Better save my nuclear monster masher for special occasions. And the wonderful ironies. Shortly after that encounter I died, butted off a cliff by a goat, then managing to scale a mountain the stamina started dropping like a rock. The revelation came to me just as I died again, high altitude and it turned night. I froze to death. Super quick way to die > go swimming without taking your environment into account. If that river is snow melt Thou Arte Dead!
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 26, 2021 4:24:29 GMT
Something Bethseda should really incorporate is the mapping of BotW. You get a huge map of the entire grid, initially all blacked out. A certain location has to be discovered for that section of the map to become visible. Then you only get terrain and structure features, no names or labels. The names or labels are added once you visit a place. The game offers a small cheat that you can scan your cursor over the entire map and if there is a significant person, place or thing the cursor gives you a chance to place a map pin. Then in the game play screen there is a little window that shows terrain in one corner. NO CARDINAL DIRECTIONS. Bit there is a blinking dot on the periphery of the map which indicates the nearest map pin. This window is otherwise useless as it shows nothing but the topography.
This affords you the opportunity to find every location in all sections of the map but involves a LOT of traveling to find them as each of the sixteen map sections is around the size of Skyrim. It gets worse in that there are a lot of terrain features that require the PC to develop certain capabilities to negotiate.
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Post by jgf on Oct 26, 2021 10:15:49 GMT
Skyrim...and Oblivion...to me are just big sandboxes with which to practice modding. ... But it's also nice to have a game where ALL of that extra stuff is taken care-of by someone else...be it thoughtful designers or an active community fixing things. .... Therein lies the basic difference between Morrowind and Oblivion. The former was a well thought out (mostly) world with a full backstory for characters, races, regions, and events; with many factions to join, each with extensive quest lines; and included a full construction set for people to add to that. But the latter was a bare bones story with a limited construction set, merely four factions with a handful of quests each, apparently relying on the community to flesh out the game ....and you got a game designed by committee, with no central focus, no cohesion. (I was reminded of MS FlightSim, where four people could design adjacent scenery and you would spend more time trying to get all these to work well together than you would actually flying around them.)
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Post by dogonporch on Oct 26, 2021 16:36:13 GMT
I think I spotted you at SubSim...Peabody? I used to make all sorts of mesh scenery .bgl files for FS/CFS2...CFS2 shipped with low res mesh for most of the planet except Eastern New Guinea and the Solomon Islands which were beautiful Res 7-8 meshes. So adding new stuff was much easier. Pave the planet... We used to take either B-24 Liberators or KC-97 Stratotankers (400 mph in a pinch) for grand tours of New Guinea...lots of great flying there. Back then, EVERYBODY had to have the same non-stock plane in the aircraft folder to see them properly. Logistics...sigh. Or, if we were flying swap missions, one group would start in Port Moresby (Allied) while the Japanese started in Buka (et al)...dogfights over the Owen Stanley Range...awesome.
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Post by jgf on Oct 26, 2021 19:32:29 GMT
I am on subsim; probably as jgf, originaljgf, or dpg; haven't logged in for ages so forgotten, lol. If their archives are still active you can see where i won a Russian watch in a drawing way back in '98, lol.
I missed CFS2 (wasn't interested in flying for hours over open seas), but played around with CFS1 for a while. The default game quickly became boring due to canned missions (flown from each side; so if Allied mission five was to attack a certain airfield, German mission five was to defend that airfield), thus little replay value since every pilot you created flew the same missions in the same order. I had more fun after learning to import FS98 aircraft into CFS1 and give them damage models and weapons - great fun flying camo Learjets armed with rockets and machine guns against 747 bombers.
Tried to like CFS3 but there was no immersion at all there; even with the vaunted Airpower mod it fell flat because the base game is so limited. All terrain is identical no matter where you fly; there are no place names, you are stationed at "airfield", transfer to anotehr "airfield", attack enemy "airfield" (if you're suicidal, lol); all targets - bridges, artillery emplacements, ammo dumps, etc. - are identical whether allied or axis (friendly has blue text description, enemy has red); bridges are only over small rivers, there are no suspension bridges or large truss bridges over large rivers, and no railroad bridges; there are no cities; and all warships are identical. The heart of this "sim" is the campaign mode, which is laughable; like some other games I've soon tired of, you quickly learn to play not realistically but the way the program wants you to play ...and win every time (eventually I could consistently win the war in 7 months, lol). If dogfighting is your forte ignore the campaign and stick to quick combat, aerial victories have no bearing on campaign success. But consider this idiocy - your mission is to attack a naval convoy consisting of a couple of large cruisers shelling shore installations, surrounded by several destroyers; your entire flight could possibly sink one cruiser (if the flak doesn't get you first) or ...circle outside flak range and note which destroyer is farthest from the main group, send one wave of wingmen to attack it; they will usually sink it - mission accomplished (you must only sink one ship, any ship, in a convoy for success); now ignore the convoy and continue across the channel and attack as many ground installations as you and your wingmen have ammo for, which quickly racks up campaign points. At this rate it is not surprising there was never a CFS4.
Apologies for hijacking the thread.
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Post by dogonporch on Oct 26, 2021 22:11:56 GMT
CFS2 was pretty much more action around New Guinea and the Solomon chain than endless hours flying over open ocean. The In Defence of Australia mod was a particularly good early add-on. By the end, all the AI planes were flyable with working 3D cockpits...Torpedo attacks were particularly well done for the time. There was also the A-Bomb add-on which was pretty darn awesome effects for 2002 or so. Not to mention all the 3rd party aircraft and FS imports...like my prized KC-97. I made a pretty popular add-on called Tokyo Fire Raid where you did fly over endless ocean in a B-29...but that was all about fuel management as much as bombing Tokyo. Tinian to Tokyo is a long flight...thank goodness for autopilot. CFS3 simply sucked and prompted everybody to move to IL-2...a far superior simulation. Flight simulators get the bleahs too...lol. KC-97...
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Post by Sniffles on Nov 9, 2022 11:15:48 GMT
And now for something completely different... I finally upgraded my computer. Tada.
States of the art CPU, circa 2013, and a GTX 1650 video card. This video card produces color renditions I didn't imagine my monitor can put out. Of course it being a budget video card it's memory clock is slower than snail snot in a snowstorm.
Anyways, I can now run Skyrim at speeds above 360 dpi. Potentially even toss out 1040 dpi screen grabs. Perhaps I might revisit. Load up Emma's forum with even more ridiculous endeavors? See Inigo wag his tail without frame drops??
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Post by Aatrnasyn on Nov 9, 2022 13:08:20 GMT
Congrats! My 2008 Dell studio XPS tower is still holding together with its Intel Core i7 CPU 880 @ 2.80GHz. Did upgrade the graphics card a while back to a Radeon RX 580. With 854 active mods, the game crashes about every hour or two, but that's a trade-off I'm willing to make. Get around 40-60 fps, depending.
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Post by Sniffles on Nov 9, 2022 13:16:15 GMT
Is you nom de plume Inigo by chance?
I'm recalling first playing Oblivion with my super delux GT 250 video card. In 800 x 600 I could get 10-15 fps. Great challenge! Many monsters moved faster than that.
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Post by Aatrnasyn on Nov 9, 2022 13:27:16 GMT
Nope, my nom de plume stands for Aminoacyl TransferRNA Synthetase. I use two 1920x1200 monitors, so 3840x1200 for this one.
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