RPG Tourist

  The Inside Story of Mass Effect 3's Endings, Finally Told - YouTube Bioware Writer Reveals the Truth for the Most Unsubtle Line in Mass Effect (fanbyte.com) Bioware creators shared some much appreciated insights in these interviews. I spouted off about Mass Effect 3's ending myself. It was purely subjective and relayed as I experienced it but I don't think the ending detracted that much from the overall quality of the series. I should have made that more clear. Most of my complaints about Bioware games are technical. I'm unhappy with the user interface or how obscure systems can be to the player. Stuff like that. I've always liked the writing and the effort creators go to engage players. I respect developers like Bioware for doing hard things and taking the flak for it. And I'll never turn down a new Dragon Age or Mass Effect.

  Obsessed with this eye patch for some peculiar reason. At long last I have played through Red Dead Redemption's main story. Inept me gave up too quickly on my first effort but I always intended to try again. If I worried that RDR would be a disappointing step down from RDR2, I shouldn't have. This game holds up. I even managed to become utterly confused for a minute during one session start. "Why am I in New Austin?" "What is John wearing?" "Why is everything so crisp and detailed?" "Ohhhh I have started the wrong game."  Playing RDR2 first probably made it easier for me. I enjoyed a little simpler control scheme and game systems. Fear of never leaving McFarlane ranch caused me to set the mode to casual. To compensate I played with the mini map off most of the time. I never, ever knew what was going on and the results were usually hiliarious. I bought a lot of property in the hopes John would respawn somewhere remotely close to where he...

 It's kind of clear by now I am not going to get around to playing any of the DLC. I'm not sure the reasons for this make any sense but I just can't get into it. I started out enthusiastically in the main game but that wore off in England at some point. I was a little disappointed that the raiding crew was just a side activity. I wanted them as offshore companions whether that was reasonable or not. Most likely I really want to play Dragon Age 4.  I was going to make a post called "Saxon collaborator kills all the fun and exciting Vikings" but that would have been really unfair considering that was exactly the nuanced aspect of Viking history Ubisoft developers were trying to portray. Plus that isn't exactly true either. For example, I still have Rollo in my crew and the latest DLC is all about Paris. I just skimmed a walkthrough for Siege of Paris and apparently Rollo doesn't appear at all in it. So I would have been disappointed about that. Ubisoft has b...

 I made a rather silly post on Twitter because I discovered the POVRay bot. POVRay is a 3D raytracing engine I have been struggling to use ever since the last DOS version. I uploaded this GIF which is a sine wave plotted by tiny spheres. I have posted the POVRay code on a separate page just in case some one would actually like to see it. Some of it is commented out because I rather obviously poached a scene file from the examples. 

  Sometimes games I wouldn't normally purchase just appear on the PS4. That's the fun thing about a shared console. And I have to at least try them just because they are there. I enjoyed this one enough to finish it and even upload a couple of videos. Everything about this game is clever from the artwork to the game play, story, characters and dialogue. At it's core it is live action gwent or whatever similiar card game you fancy. The story revolves around a socially stratified realm called Random made up of six separated regions. Random is ruled by a mad queen who determines everyone's fate with the roll of a dice. It's like central planning was just Stalin sitting at a craps table. A robotic army keeps the enslaved citizenry in their place. Our protagonist, a little girl named Even, travels through the six districts seeking her sister Odd who has been taken by the evil queen. Even's companion is a vocal albeit incomprehensible animated die she calls Dicey. And...

 I wrote this for a family member a couple of years ago and forgot completely about it. I just forwarded it to another new Inquistor so might as well post it as well.   I thought I would send you some tips for playing Dragon Age. Some of these aren’t relevant until later in the game but helpful to know. Levelling: Your companions are never more than one level behind you. As I mentioned killings enemies 4 levels or more below you no longer grants XP. The game automatically raises base health rating and any attributes relevant to character class as you level. If you look at the attributes tab in the character menu you’ll see that there is a ton of them. These stats can only be directly affected through passive abilities and equipment attributes. I will get to the stupidly complicated crafting system later. The inquisition levels too through power and influence. Influence is harder to raise than power. Requisition quests help but they consume resources so it’s a trade ...

 I bought some new games on Steam to try out on the new 'puter one of which is Crusader Kings 3. Before I begin this cry baby tale, I want to say that I've never played a Crusader Kings title before and I am very impressed with this one. I am also impressed with the nvme ssd that I installed. It's not necessary but definitely a benefit for this challenging game. I left CK3 still trying to master the tutorial. I tip my hat to this title's brutal learning curve. It should be called "The Curse of Unanticipated Consequences" or in my specific case, "Medieval Wedding Planner". I wasted a lot of time making my very first player character become soul mates with his wife. What does a girl do when her liege is her soul mate? She does an incest with the primary heir that's what. I tried to cover it up because the other options seemed kind of bad and who needs piety anyway? Well yeah I eventually learned that in Christian kingdoms piety counts for a lot. Wh...

 Quite some time ago I mentioned WDL's Bloodline DLC. I have been too embarrassed to admit that I was stuck on Wrench's second last side mission. It's like one of those Spyro the Dragon challenges except with jackasses. You know like the ones where Spyro has to fly through rings. Wrench has to pilot three different vehicles through arches and it's timed. I kept failing on the last one with a drone. I wouldn't mind doing it over and over were it not for those slow PS4 loading screens. The drone is piloted differently so you can't learn anything from the first two courses other than the characters' snarky dialogue. I got fed up rather quickly and went back RDR2.  WDL just released some new content. While checking that out I went back and finally finished off Bloodline. To celebrate I recorded another dopey video. I have enjoyed the new content. It was nice to get some back story on Aiden. Wrench injected some missing WD2 goofiness. Ubisoft made a couple of odd...

 So to update, the motherboard for the new PC was diagnosed and sent back to me. It's not clear that there was ever anything wrong with it and I don't even feel like getting into what was troubling me in the first place. I just wanted confirmation that the on board sensors were working correctly and for whatever reason the repair department wanted it back maybe just to confirm that.  If the sensors are correct then my hot, hot Ryzen 5 processor has never reached unsafe temps. So fine. It's been reassembled. Reapplying thermal paste and mounting the stock cooler for a third time hasn't changed anything but the system is stable. The 3000 RPM exhaust fan I thought was a great idea still sends me into alarm but maybe a good after market CPU cooler could alleviate that. I'm just happy I've got it up and running because this has all been a bit disruptive. My partner advised to just use the computer and stop talking about it. Lol.

The path I took as a villain does have an impact on the game world. Dutch didn't enslave the entire Commonwealth. I ran out of patience for that. Once the raider outposts were self sufficient I didn't need to bother with them much. They send a steady stream of caps to Nuka World and defend themselves for the most part. I'm missing out on some legendary gear but it's not like there's a scarcity. Occasionally Dutch gets support from friendly raiders out in the Commonwealth which is a welcome change. There is a handful of free, under developed settlements that call for help but it's not too disruptive. Dutch has yet to meet Preston Garvey and the Minute Men don't exist. He never stepped foot on the Prydwen so didn't join the Brotherhood either. The Railroad didn't care at all about his raider connections. They were happy he is as tough as his reputation. Siding with the Institute prevents yet another giant radioactive crater being created on the map whi...