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patentdragonITEM! Games news - in Skyrim, what I'd thought would be a short, simple quest turned out to be a proper - and quite literal - pain in the ass.
I went out in search of a missing dog, a quest I'd left unfinished from my earlier adventures, and the dog turns out to be a far greater quest character than I expected. I was supposed to follow this talking animal to his "master", one of the local demon-lord types, and reconcile them, but the furry bastard got in a fight with a bear, then upped and vanished. Seeing no sign of the beast, I started thinking along the lines of what happens when your "follower" gets separated from you - go to a cave or such, and go in, and BINGO your follower appears at your side. I had the end location for the quest (or so I thought), so off I went...
Finding a locked-up fort along the way, I picked the lock and went in - and who did I find picking a fight with some bandits, but The Barky-Thing! Reunited, we reached our destination, fought some vampires, reached the statue of the Daedra we were seeking, aaaaand...
...the damn quest isn't done yet. Oh no, there's something else to do before master and hound are reunited - and this is where the trouble starts.
The damned dog kept sticking its nose up my arse after that, pushing me around and interrupting my attempts to loot the corpses of the vampires we'd killed along the way. Outside, the beast keeps nudging me, so that I'm afraid I'll fall off a cliff or something while looking for the way to our new destination. All the time, I'm putting my life on the line to protect the animal, 'cause I WANT my reward after all this hassle, and it's getting late - tomorrow is a work-day, damn it...!
The quest item FINALLY recovered, we return - via "fast travel" - to our original destination, and the statue. The Daedra offers to let me keep the axe we recovered... IF I kill the dog - and I was so very tempted. Unfortunately, the dog talked me out of it, and got to keep his life, and be reunited with his master forever.
Good for him, the lucky ****er. I got a crappy piece of armour out of the deal.
Someone find me a bandit camp, and an unassailable vantage point. I got me a pretty sweet archery set, and a brand new Fireball spell. Someone has to PAY... or maybe I'll load up a previous save, take Barky-Thing to a lonely mountain-top, and Fireball and FUS RO DAH the miserable beast into the afterlife.
ITEM! Talking of archery, there was a piece on today's "breakfast news" about the rise in popularity of the sport leading up to the Olympics, and how it's been inspired by archers in the movies. "Here goes some face-time for Hawkeye in AVENGERS", I'm thinking, but noooooo - it's all about the heroine in Hunger Games, and the lead character in upcoming Pixar movie Brave - also a girl. Not even the slightest acknowledgement of Hawkeye.
That's bloody sexism.
And finally...
ITEM! My last time-sheet was a major pain. It had to be "done online", or so I was informed, and THAT was an unbounded joy - NOT. Once I got the damn thing to work, I was told, at the end that...
*...takes a deep breath...*
...I had to print it out. Twice. They still, at the end of it all, want a piece of friggin' paper.
Madness. Not a "game-breaker", but still... so much for the "paperless office".
I went out in search of a missing dog, a quest I'd left unfinished from my earlier adventures, and the dog turns out to be a far greater quest character than I expected. I was supposed to follow this talking animal to his "master", one of the local demon-lord types, and reconcile them, but the furry bastard got in a fight with a bear, then upped and vanished. Seeing no sign of the beast, I started thinking along the lines of what happens when your "follower" gets separated from you - go to a cave or such, and go in, and BINGO your follower appears at your side. I had the end location for the quest (or so I thought), so off I went...
Finding a locked-up fort along the way, I picked the lock and went in - and who did I find picking a fight with some bandits, but The Barky-Thing! Reunited, we reached our destination, fought some vampires, reached the statue of the Daedra we were seeking, aaaaand...
...the damn quest isn't done yet. Oh no, there's something else to do before master and hound are reunited - and this is where the trouble starts.
The damned dog kept sticking its nose up my arse after that, pushing me around and interrupting my attempts to loot the corpses of the vampires we'd killed along the way. Outside, the beast keeps nudging me, so that I'm afraid I'll fall off a cliff or something while looking for the way to our new destination. All the time, I'm putting my life on the line to protect the animal, 'cause I WANT my reward after all this hassle, and it's getting late - tomorrow is a work-day, damn it...!
The quest item FINALLY recovered, we return - via "fast travel" - to our original destination, and the statue. The Daedra offers to let me keep the axe we recovered... IF I kill the dog - and I was so very tempted. Unfortunately, the dog talked me out of it, and got to keep his life, and be reunited with his master forever.
Good for him, the lucky ****er. I got a crappy piece of armour out of the deal.
Someone find me a bandit camp, and an unassailable vantage point. I got me a pretty sweet archery set, and a brand new Fireball spell. Someone has to PAY... or maybe I'll load up a previous save, take Barky-Thing to a lonely mountain-top, and Fireball and FUS RO DAH the miserable beast into the afterlife.
ITEM! Talking of archery, there was a piece on today's "breakfast news" about the rise in popularity of the sport leading up to the Olympics, and how it's been inspired by archers in the movies. "Here goes some face-time for Hawkeye in AVENGERS", I'm thinking, but noooooo - it's all about the heroine in Hunger Games, and the lead character in upcoming Pixar movie Brave - also a girl. Not even the slightest acknowledgement of Hawkeye.
That's bloody sexism.
And finally...
ITEM! My last time-sheet was a major pain. It had to be "done online", or so I was informed, and THAT was an unbounded joy - NOT. Once I got the damn thing to work, I was told, at the end that...
*...takes a deep breath...*
...I had to print it out. Twice. They still, at the end of it all, want a piece of friggin' paper.
Madness. Not a "game-breaker", but still... so much for the "paperless office".
