Skyrim

[Avatar]

Haha, the AC games are generally quite fun, although I would skip AC III if I were you, one of the worst.

--A

[peter]

Back on Skyrim for a while now and have reached level 79. My aim as previously stated is level 82 - the level at which you are apparently approached by the last and ultimate adversary the game has to offer - the Ebony Warrior!

In the meantime I'll tell you the story of the Stones of Baranziah. These stones, encountered first as 'unusual gems', are the jewels prized from the crown of a long dead ruler and may be found spread over Skyrim in twenty four different locations. I started picking them up randomly as I came across them, initiated the quest pertaining to them with Vex, a character from the Thieves Guild - and then promptly forgot all about it in pursuit of the more high profile quests of the game. Belatedly, I realized that I had no record of where I had found the stones I had collected, and without game markers to find the remaining stones it was going to be impossible to collect the remaining dozen or so without recourse to a list of their locations. Happily, such lists were available in plenty online - but the problem was that while the lists all had the same locations, said locations were complex in the extreme and the locations of the stones within the general locations were by no means consistent from list to list. Coupled with this, I still had to search all locations, since I had no idea as to which ones I had already collected the stones from. This meant, when I visited a location and found a stone all was well and good - I could record it as found - but when I visited a location and didn't find a stone, did this mean I had previously found the stone or that I had simply missed it due to inconsistencies in the lists. The problem became more acute as I progressed - because I stupidly didn't keep good records and simply forgot which stones I had actually found on my latter more serious hunt and in the end it became a monumental task to visit, revisit and visit yet again site after site. But........

Yesterday I completed it! I finally found the last two stones and in the simplest of locations that I had always assumed (damnit, I could remember) I had collected earlier. (The stones in Markarth in case you are interested.) I reckon it's taken me the best part of a month of ferreting about in old cleared sites (often which needed re-clearing) to achieve this and I'm feeling a bit proud of the achievement. I've been doing other stuff - essentially dotting the i's and crossing the t's - while doing it......but it's been a big demand and not one I'd do again lightly.

I've still got aways to go in the game, and when I eventually replay it I'll be much better informed as to what I need to do. I've made significant mistakes that it's now too late to rectify. I sold masks that, if you have a complete set you can place in a specially available display room in Labarynthium. I haven't reached the full leadership of the Thieves Guild that is only gained by completing all of the radiant quests, filling the shelves in the Guild headquarters and placing hundreds of flawless gems in the Guild chest. I think I've sold many of the items needed to achieve this and when the vendors 'respawn' they do so without the items you have sold them and hence they are irretrevably lost and you are screwed. Cest la vie! Next time. Not for nothing is Skyrim reckoned by many to be the best game ever made - don't know about this but damn, I've had some fun there!

[peter]

Ok. So tomorrow's the big day!

Today, after delivering the Crown of Baranziah back to Vex, I was heading back to Honeyside, my house in Riften (well it was late and I'd had a long day!) when from across the market he hailed me. Yes, it was the man himself, the ultimate warrior in Skyrim, the Ebony Warrior and he wanted to talk turkey.

He had, he explained, done everything that there was to do in Skyrim - and only one thing remained left......to kick my ass or go off to Sovenguard a defeated but happy man. He said I should prepare myself and then seek him out at his designated place for the showdown.

Well it would be rude not to wouldn't it?

Now here's the deal. I'm going to go face this dude.....but I am going to prepare for the bunfight first. I need to get my light armour rating up (I can do this easily by provoking a few giants into fights) and ditto my blocking skills. When these are up near one hundred, I'm going to get my best gear (I'm thinking my heavy ebony shield, my double handed ebony war hammer, a good quality one-handed blade, or maybe even a couple of duel weilding one handers) and armour (has to be the stahlrim deathbrand armour - when you want to fight at this level accept no substitute) and then I'm going to go and whup the mother. But here's the rub; honour demands that the fight is won or lost without recourse to healing spells or potions. Armour with magic attachments is permissible - but no spells or potions. Soul gems are ok and in fight breathers - also evasive tactics to let health and stamina regenerate.

This guy is the acme of Skyrim opponents and at the end of the day there can only be one!

Tomorrow night you will get a blow by blow, win or lose account of the contest.

Wish me luck!

[peter]

As Tuco from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly was so fond of saying "There are two kinds of people in the world". There are those who have beaten the Ebony Warrior in Skyrim - and there are those who haven't. To these however, I'd like to add a third category; those who have tried and had their asses kicked....... again...... and again...... and again ad (almost) infinitum!

You see the Ebony Warrior is hard. Really fucking hard - like about level 500 hard and all of my fine words above were as chaff in the wind from about- oh - half a second after I met him. Well they say pride comes before a fall and boy did I fall! I approached him on his mountain fastness as instructed to find him slaying a frost troll in about two swings of his sword - pretty good going for even the toughest of characters - but despite this I wasn't fazed. To give you a clue where my confidence was coming from, I said yesterday that I was going to do a bit of pre-match training to get in shape. This involved walking into a largish giant camp and taking on three mammoths and two giants - simultaneously - without drawing a weapon. Seriously, just standing there and allowing them to plough into me and only using the occasional bout of restoration to keep my health up while my stats just rolled up and up. I'm not kidding, my character is pretty fucking tough. Before long I hit level 83 and 100 in block, light armour, restoration, heavy armour and one and two handed weapons. Man, I was so hard I could shit six inch nails - so I had to be ready to take this freak!

I walked up to him and cool as a cucumber he said "Yes?" like he'd never seen me before. I tried to talk to him, but zilch, he wasn't having none of it. A quick check online and I learned that he never spoke after that first approach; that you had to instigate the scrap by taking a poke at him first, which would elicit a response. Some commentators said that they thought he was an NPC that Bethesda had intended to run a quest with, but had pulled him out, just leaving in the bare bones of a sketch behind - almost as a wrap up for the game with no explanation or info to go on. So I went back, all the more determined to nail this mutha, and walking up to him with my two handed war hammer gave him a blow that normally knocks a mammoth down in one hit.

And died.

I re-loaded and this time put on some magical attachments (rings and gloves etc), upped my armour to heavy and went straight in with a diminish strength shout and followed up with a crushing blow between the eyes. He barely blinked - his health bar didn't even register the blow. He shouted "fus-do-rah!"

And I died.

This was repeated for half a dozen times and then, breakthrough - in the split second he was blinking I turned tail and took to my heels like a jack-rabbit. This time his shout only blew me ninety percent of the way to dead and I used the remaining ten percent to fuck off down the mountain and recoup my health (yes - I was breaking my fucking rules of above but who said I was going to fight clean! There are two kinds of people at the end of fights like this, those who break the rules and those who are dead!) Creeping back up behind the ebony bastard I went into sneak and before he'd cottoned on to me gave him a poisoned two-hander between the shoulder blades. Now that fucking hurt him (x3 stealth attack) and before he could whip round and take me out I dissapeared like a louse in a Russian's beard, down the track and round the corner. From this point on it was a foregone conclusion; adopting the age old Cossack tradition of hit and run, hit and run, I chipped his health away until suddenly he seemed to give up the ghost. Falling to one knee as if in genuflection to his master I felt a sudden pang of remorse that a proud and noble warrior had been brought low by such ignominious hyenna like tactics. I lowered my hammer and reached out a hand - and thought "no - fuck it" and nailed the bastard stone dead! (Hey, c'mon! I'm the leader of the Assassin's Guild fer friks sake! I've murdered my way from one end of this land to the other - and most of the people I've offed have been much less deserving of death than this schmuck!)

So yes - there are two kinds of people in this world, those who've defeated the Ebony Warrior and those who haven't - and yours truly is amongst the first! Life lesson number one coming up; when the chips are down, battles aren't won on the playing fields of Eton - they're won on the terraces of Millwall!

[peter]

There is a rather poignant afterword to this story.

After my some might say, less than glorious defeat of the Ebony Warrior I stripped him of his pretty damn fine ebony armour, donned it, and looking cooler than I had since beginning the game those ages ago in the prisoner wagon with Ulfric Stormcloak, headed for home. I have a wife and family in Solitude - Proudspire Manor - whom my constant wandering (which my wife seems not to mind in the slightest, never failing to greet my return with "Back from some adventure I suppose" before handing me her earnings made while I was away) has made me somewhat neglect. We used to live in Whiterun, but often when I returned I'd find a soldier (and on one occasion that weedy pimp who serves "in Belethor's shop") in the house. If I was a less trusting man I'd think - but no.... Caesar's wife is above suspicion! But this aside, the house in Solitude has more space and is much better for the children.

Heading home however, there was one fly in the ointment. For much of my game the Assassin's Guild horse Shadowmere had been my constant companion. Initially he'd been as strong as a - well - horse, but, perhaps because I accidentally tagged him with the same shout I used above on the Ebony Warrior, he'd become weak and prone to dying. He'd respawned a couple of times - but despite repeated visits back to the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary he'd finally dissapeared for good a month or so ago.

As I traveled homeward (I gave up fast travel long ago; I needed to randomly search sites I'd previously neglected in order to level up) I began to muse about times past and decided to take one last trip to see if the old boy was there. To my amazement and disbelief, after perhaps fifty abortive visits who should spring out of the bushes to my aid when shot at by a Pentius Occulus agent - none other than the old red-eyed bugger himself (I even let the agent live in gratitude for drawing him out!). So in the end, I took him to Katrina's Stables, bedded him down with a few mares for company and headed up the hill to my house. Entering the property my wife greeted me (and handed over her earnings); upstairs the children were playing, one with a wooden sword (a gift from me) and a practice dummy, the other on a flute of mine. My attentive housecarl greeted me on the stairs going back down and together with my wife sat at the table before the fire to a meal of salmon, bread and cheese. Home Sweet Home.

And so closes the book on my second playthrough of the greatest game ever made.

[Avatar]

Haha, great story. Nice to hear Shadowmere made it back too.

I had exactly the same problem with the stones btw. By the time I made a "quest" of it, I had forgotten where I'd gotten the ones I had, and had to visit every location in case it was a missed one.

In later games, I made use of a mod which puts markers on their locations.

(And I don't recall any requirement for unique (sold) items for the Thieves Guild?)

Selling the masks though, that's gotta hurt. Have you checked back with who you sold them to? Might still have them. (I'm a bit of a hoarder myself...)

--A

[peter]

Thanks for reading the posts Av. I'm (for some silly reason) really proud of those last few posts and was really hoping someone would actually take the time to read them! (It was almost certainly it was going to be you if it happened )

Yeah, the mask situation sucks - but like I say, I've got a feeling that when shop-keepers respawn they do so without previously purchased items. The Thieves Guild situation is interesting; it doesn't seem to be common knowledge, but those little clips of dialogue with the second in command of the Guild (name begins with B - I forget it at present) give you a clue as to what can be done. Whenever you pass him he always says "Sorry lad - can't talk now; got too much to do." Also the other guild members tend to treat you like shit even though you've become Guild masters. To win their respect and get the afore mentioned fellow to truly accept you, you have to complete the radiant quests, fill up the shelves in the cisterns (next to the ledger and Crown of Baranziah plinth) with the required items, and place lots of booty into one of the Guild chests (not sure which one). Only then will the Guild members treat you like the boss and Brynyoff (that's his name I think) talk to you. This is real obsessive fanboy stuff I know - but there's a bit of me that would like to see it through. And I wonder as well how much other stuff is tucked away in there for true hardcore fans to ferret out as well. I know you can play the game where instead of accepting Astrid's invitation to join the Dark Brotherhood you decline to kill one of the hostages she has tied up in the shed and instead kill her. This initiates a quest line where you have to destroy the Brotherhood instead of joining it. I've not played that line, which might be interesting in a future playthrough, but at present I'm ready to put the game to bed for a while. I've saved the game at the point I described above and might return to try to mop up a few last bits and pieces - but for the present I'm out of it.

On this front you might be interested to hear, I've secured a hard copy of Kingdom Come Deliverance: Royal Edition (complete with the five dlc's currently available) and have made my early foray into the game. (Needed the hard copy because my internet is probably too slow for accessing the downloadable versions, albeit their even being free as you kindly informed me a short while ago. And for some reason - call me old fashioned - I just like having the disk in my hand. I got my copy for a good price as well so grabbed the chance while I could.) So far so good; I'm taking it slow - not rushing anything - and am slowly getting the hang of things. Watch (as they say) this space - I've got a feeling that you might be hearing quite a bit more about how I get on in the days ahead!

[Avatar]

Well, I'm with you in believing Skyrim to be one of the best games ever made. It redefined the RPG genre for me, and even 9 years later remains "the one to beat" as it were.

(I do recommend Fallout New Vegas though (again). )

Thieves Guild:

Yes, you have to keep doing the radiant quests until you have done a certain number in each city, whereupon you get a city-specific quest (IIRC) and once all those are done and you have the crown, you "win" the Guild storyline (although like the Brotherhood, you can keep doing them forever if you want).

However: You don't need to put booty into a Guild Chest...once you are the Guildmaster, you can take booty out of the guild chest as your share of other jobs. (The long one at the foot of your bed behind the screen in the Guild hideout.)

And sadly, Brnyjollf never again says anything to you except that he's busy, no matter how much you rob and steal. There are mods that rectify that IIRC.

The shelves are automatically filled as you sell Devan the "unique" items from some thieves quests, (like the golden bee statue etc.) but filling them is not a requirement for "winning" as far as I know, pretty sure I have done so without them.

As for KCD, great news. Start a thread and let me know how it goes. My only complaint about that game is the lack of 3rd-person view.

(You will find combat extremely different to Skyrim though. )

--A

[peter]

Absolutely Av! Got one in the planning as we speak! Fallout New Vegas is one I'd so much like to play - but they haven't remastered it for PS4. I've got an old 360 somewhere that would take it - but wires and cables and moving stuff and grumble grumble grumble........

You get the gist.......