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Episode 5: The roaming Gn...Err..Halfling In today's adventure, we...go off wandering, see the sights, and get into a little danger. The video is now in 1080p-60FPS, and is (at least while im posting this before bed), being processed to even out the colors, so you all should be seeing what i see on my end.
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Feb 19, 2017 06:19
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| # ? May 2, 2024 17:10 |
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All mead is made with honey. The alcohol in mead is made by fermenting the sugars in the honey. Also, honning means honey in Norwegian and Danish. Also, you got pretty lucky finding a soul trapping bow so early on.
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Feb 19, 2017 09:34
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Some nice bandit shooting there. There are a few interesting sights to see if you circle Whiterun towards the south before entering (or after). A random gatehouse along the road, a farm a little further south and something slightly hidden near the outside wall.
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Feb 19, 2017 13:15
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Commander Keene posted:All mead is made with honey. The alcohol in mead is made by fermenting the sugars in the honey. Also, honning means honey in Norwegian and Danish. The more you know 
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Feb 19, 2017 15:30
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Episode 6: Visiting whiterun New mods! Quiet unsheathing of enchanted weapons No more stupid "Fwoooom" sound when you draw your weapon each time. Instant Mining Mine out an ore vein just as fast as you pick flowers. Be careful on the clay deposits, or you'll suddenly find yourself with 4000 lbs of clay in your pockets. Not that i'd know from any personal experience or anything 
Aishlinn fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Feb 20, 2017 |
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Feb 20, 2017 20:19
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Perhaps, since news of the dragon attack on Helgen preceded you to Whiterun (and in fact seems to have gotten to Whiterun faster than to Riverwood), the Jarl of Falkreath was referring to that in the letter. Surviving an attack by a technically immortal monster so magical that speaking its language is enough to cause magic to happen seems like it might be notable enough. Personally, though, I've never gotten that letter before becoming Thane of Whiterun, and I honestly thought that was the trigger for it, like going to High Hrothgar was the trigger for starting the Dragonborn DLC. I always use the Persuade option to get into Whiterun. I've literally never seen it fail, and it's easy Speechcraft Exp. Usually gives me a Speechcraft level. I had the same thing happen with Amren in my current file, where I get the option to talk to him about recovering the sword before hearing the argument between him and his wife. Did they not bother to script that, or did you manage to just catch the very tail end of the scene somehow, and the bit was still set even though you didn't actually hear any of it, I wonder? The Blessing of Talos is useless before getting your first Shout, because it reduces Shout cooldowns. I usually go to the temple of Kynareth to get her blessing before then, because it increases Stamina, which affects sprinting, power attacks, and carrying capacity. I find the shift in tone between Heimskr's fire-and-brimstone rant about the Thalmor and the Empire and his greeting when you speak to him rather hilarious. He goes from literally screaming at the top of his lungs about the injustice of the Thalmor, to a rather calm and friendly greeting, and even if you ask him about why Talos worship is banned, he never gets even close to how animated he was during his sermon. Also, his pose while you were talking to him is great; imagine standing with your arms like that for like ten minutes while you calmly talk to a complete stranger sometime. Giving to beggars, including Lucia and Brenuin in Whiterun, is best saved for right before you do your shopping/selling, because The Gift of Charity increases Speechcraft, getting you better prices, but is pretty short-lived.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:12
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If anyone is wondering why Aishlinn keeps getting the last line of conversation twice, it's because he moves the mouse cursor to click on the "Tab: Exit" text in the lower right during conversations. But Skyrim's UI isn't programmed for that; instead, when you click the mouse, it treats it as if you'd pressed the X button (or whatever) on a gamepad controller. Which means that no matter where the mouse cursor is, even if it's over the "Tab: Exit" text in the lower right, it treats it as if you'd clicked on the currently-selected line of dialog. And so when Aishlinn is trying to exit the conversation, he ends up triggering the line of dialog that he just heard a moment ago, because he forgot that he needs to hit Tab instead of clicking on that text. Basically, Skyrim's UI was designed for the PS3/4 or the Xbox, not for mouse+keyboard, and it shows. And the UI-replacement mod doesn't fix the mouse/keyboard interaction in the dialog.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:54
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A lot of the things i do in the game, while other things would make more sense from a Game perspective, are more done from a character perspective. Giving a coin to a beggar right before a shopping spree is a great idea, but giving them a coin for the sake of being nice is also somewhat in character. Clicking on the (right now useless) shrine of talos just after hearing a rousing speech about how great he is, vs going off to seek one that is mechanically better, is again, more just playing a character. This isn't totally meant to be a "Let's dissect every last aspect of the game, and boil it all down to optimization" let's play, its more meant to be a story. A story about a hobbit going on an adventure, meeting strange people, exploring their dark side, going down many different paths and generally getting into trouble. Case in point, the encounter with Mikael, to tell him to lay off carlotta. Every other time, i always choose the option to get into a fistfight with him, because it would be funnier, but its a bit less in character now. Joining the companions for one, is going to be interesting, since she's definitely the sneak around and solve your problems quietly, rather than a rush in warrior type, but we'll see it through regardless. As for the stupid conversation glitches, going to try and figure a way around that. might just have to be better about actually tabbing out. its gotta become a better habit for the sake of the videos.
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Feb 21, 2017 05:27
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Episode 7: Dragon me Down Well, a bit more action in this episode, and a realization that i'll need to figure out some way to make people not constantly talking over each other. I'd really like to listen to as many conversations as i can, but they all happen at once! And when plot happens, it's the perfect time for every passer by to shout their comments in my ear.
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Feb 23, 2017 01:09
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A suggestion: you might want to edit out the travel back to where you were after a death. This one wasn't bad, because the guard tower is literally a minute away from Whiterun, but if you end up practically crossing the map and dying to a dragon or giant or something, that's a lot of ground to cover. It should be possible to tone down the comments from passersby, but I doubt you'll find anything that will prevent event scene clusterfucks like the ones you had near the temple and at the Whiterun gates. Also, I've never had that event with that orc NPC actually all but inviting you to join the Dawnguard. Some guards and other NPCs have mentioned it in passerby chats, but I've never had the "recruiter" NPC show up before. Can you adopt children in Breezehome? I thought you needed one of the Hearthfire homes to adopt a child. Will Tabatha be showing off any of the game's magic system aside from the Shouts? Illusion might help with her sneaking, at the very least.
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Feb 23, 2017 02:42
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Commander Keene posted:A suggestion: you might want to edit out the travel back to where you were after a death. This one wasn't bad, because the guard tower is literally a minute away from Whiterun, but if you end up practically crossing the map and dying to a dragon or giant or something, that's a lot of ground to cover. In the future, i'll do my best to edit out death runbacks. Just wait till we get a crash. that's going to be fun. This game so far has been an exercise in "I've never seen that happen before!" Such as that orc, and the courier giving me the letter from falkreath that early on. You definitely can adopt children to breezehome. Honestly, adopting lucia is something i do in almost every game. You can adopt almost any child npc in the game too...though sometimes in order to do so, you need to Murder their parents  I won't be doing that, but it is kind of funny.Magic wise, i will dabble a little in all the magic, possibly grind it all up off-screen just to do the required questlines, just for the sake of completeness. If this lp doesn't drive me over the brink of insanity, i'll be amazed.
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Feb 23, 2017 03:23
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Episode 8: Exploring Dragonsreach Today, we do a good deed, do a little exploration, and steal the court wizard's hat. We also read a book, i made an attempt at doing a dramatic reading of it. If it was enjoyable, i'd like to do a storytime episode every so often, just to read a few selected books.
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Mar 1, 2017 05:08
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I feel kinda like adopting a child just to leave her alone in the house while you go adventuring isn't that much better than her being an orphan beggar. That's why I like the idea of waiting for the Hearthfire houses and making Lydia steward of one before you adopt. Maybe that's why I got the idea that you couldn't adopt to Breezehome, despite you being able to furnish the house with a child's room. Your exp bar looked weird when you were entering Dragonsreach. It might be because of the editing to make the rest of the video watchable, though, because it looks fine later at the enchanting table. Hrongar must be talking about Tabatha being the first Dragonborn in Skyrim since Talos, because the Emperors of Tamriel (of which Talos was the first) were Dragonborn right up until Emperor Patrick Stewart and his illegitimate son died in Oblivion, which Farengar actually mentions when you're talking to him. Also, I have no idea about what kind of time frame we're talking about here; it's been at least a few centuries, because Skyrim takes place something like 200 years after the rest of the games (which are all within a century of each other, at most, IIRC) and the Empire had already been well established by the first ES game. But it could have been centuries, or even millennia, because fantasy games tend to have ridiculously long timelines in comparison to the real world. Also, the fact that apparently Talos had Dragonborn heirs makes you wonder if being Dragonborn is genetic. Tabatha's model interacts oddly with the Enchanter's Table. Obviously the animation wasn't designed to account for a character's height, because each race has its own set height. In fact, I wonder what race the Hobbits count as for the purposes of animations and similar engine mechanics? Also, what are the Hobbit racial abilities? Farengar has an oddly bipolar opinion of the Dragonborn. He careens between arrogance and respect, sometimes within the same conversation tree. Nonetheless, I do like delivering the Frost Salts, due to Arcadia then allowing you to raid her shop, providing a good early-game source of cheap potions and some alchemy ingredients that are fairly rare around Whiterun. I think that picking locks is like picking pockets; not considered illegal unless you actually take something you're not allowed to. Also, the mental image of somebody finding all of the display cases unlocked with their contents intact after Tabatha's been through there is pretty funny. "So, wait, somebody broke into the Jarl's quarters, unlocked everything there, and just left?" I've heard that "arrow to the knee" is ancient Viking slang for "got married". If that's true, it puts a different spin on that tired old meme. That "c." in the book you were reading stands for "circa", a word derived from Latin which means "around". And there are four "eras" in the history of the Tamrielic Empire, all of which coincide with the rise and fall of a "dynasty" of the Empire, IIRC. Talos (also known as Tiber Septim) started the Third Era, and the death of Martin Septim, the last Dragonborn Emperor, started the Fourth, IIRC. A story chronicling something that happened in the First Era is from just after the founding of the Empire. Commander Keene fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 22:44
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Episode 9: Joining the companionsCommander Keene posted:I feel kinda like adopting a child just to leave her alone in the house while you go adventuring isn't that much better than her being an orphan beggar. That's why I like the idea of waiting for the Hearthfire houses and making Lydia steward of one before you adopt. Maybe that's why I got the idea that you couldn't adopt to Breezehome, despite you being able to furnish the house with a child's room. Well, a roof over your head is better than sleeping on a bench in the rain. The enchanting table and other things that animate Tabitha to move around may look a little weird. As for what race they are, they're modified khajits. She can use night-eye and has the "claws" buff. i'm pretty much just ignoring those. funny you should mention the frost-salts quest, because yeah, we're going to rob Arcadia blind. Several times. Over the course of the whole game. I'm not sure about the picking pockets thing, even if you don't take anything, that angers npcs, same as if a guard watches you fiddling with a lock. New mods being added after this ep: Shut up shouty priest man! Stop telling me your life story, random npc! Yes, i know i've got a bow, and daggers, dont tell me about it, guards! Aishlinn fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 05:22
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I'm pretty sure Lucia sleeps in the Bannered Mare, because she spends all night there, IIRC. I dunno whether Hulda makes her pay for it or not, but at least she has a roof over her head and someone looking after her for part of the day. Broken Fang Cave is within Whiterun Hold, not Whiterun City. All of the territory Jarl Balgruuf controls is called Whiterun. Also, Farkas usually tries to get me to strongarm a shopkeeper first; I've never seen him give an extermination mission right off the bat.
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Mar 2, 2017 10:16
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Was there something different with the volume this time? I felt like the NPCs were speaking quite a bit softer than I remembered, but maybe that's just because they're speaking quite a bit softer than you. (That is, your voice comes through at a higher volume -- I'm not saying you're shouting, your voice is fine, but the NPCs seem soft by comparison.)
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Mar 2, 2017 12:58
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Commander Keene posted:Also, Farkas usually tries to get me to strongarm a shopkeeper first; I've never seen him give an extermination mission right off the bat. Things i've never had happen before in this playthrough: 3
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Mar 2, 2017 15:32
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Episode 10: The proposition Today, we track down the gang of "Assassins...?" that is after Saadia. Do we kill them? Do we side with them? Do we side with them, and THEN kill them? Let me know! Sorry for the delay in episodes, life has been super busy once again. getting good recording time in has been harder.
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Mar 8, 2017 23:14
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And we see in this episode why I don't like to use Soul Trap weapons as my primary. First of all, I prefer to pick and choose what I trap; soul trapping everything I come across usually results in using good gems to trap crappy souls. And while crappy souls have their use - mostly for recharging weapons and staves and grinding Enchanting - I prefer not to use the more expensive gems on them. Second, you throw a lot of charges down the drain using Soul Trap weapons all the time; they only need to be used for the finishing blow, and if you're using them on a target that can't be soul trapped (like, say, dragons or humans without a Black gem on hand), you're pissing the charges down the drain, because the weapon has no other effect. Of course, that Orcish(?) bow is probably the strongest bow you have on hand, and will continue to be that even after all of its charges are depleted, so using it as your primary makes sense in this situation. You could probably improve an Ancient Nord or Imperial bow to deal better damage if you did some Smithing grinding, though (and if you feel that's not Tabitha's style, you could always make Lydia do it) and keep the Soul Trap bow as a backup for when you want to fill a soul gem. Just a note, SPERG does allow you to break down weapons and armor into leather or ingots, which makes grinding crafting skills far easier. Also, I vote for siding with Saadia; the fact that an urn with her possessions turns up in the Whiterun Catacombs if you turn her in kind of makes you wonder if the Alik'r are really on the level... Commander Keene fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 00:06
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i've not been sweating burning up all the soul trap charges, all i have are piddly soul gems at this point, i tend to stash all of the decent to good ones i find until im ready to use them. all the wimpy soul gems just get used to grind up enchanting. Eventually i will do a bunch of smithing grinding, its mostly just finding time to sit down and do all of it offscreen. Though i probably should record a video of all of the changes that sperg made to crafting, since there's a lot of new stuff too. Honestly theres a lot for me to learn about it too!
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Mar 9, 2017 04:14
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Saadia's clearly desperate, but is she desperate to avoid political persecution, or is she desperate to avoid justice? It's impossible to find out, so you have to make a blind choice. If you trust Saadia and you're wrong, you've killed a bunch of cops. (Well, okay, a bunch of mercenaries that the authorities hired, so maybe they're more like deputies.) If you trust Kematu and you're wrong, you've as good as killed an innocent woman. Personally, after reading a bunch of people debating it, I feel like it's probably more likely that Saadia is lying and Kematu is telling the truth about why they're after her. BUT... I also feel like Tabitha, given her recent experience of unjust imprisonment and almost-execution, would be more likely to side with the lone woman facing capture and death than with the bunch of well-armed guards chasing her. Plus, Tabitha seems like the kind of woman who sympathizes with the underdog: she gives money to beggars, adopts an orphan child, and so on. So I think it makes the most sense to side with Saadia in this playthrough. Sorry about voting for a difficult fight for you, Aishlinn. Hope you've got plenty of health potions, and that you remember to use them! (Or was your not using a health potion during the dragon fight when you died, and the mudcrab fight when I thought you were going to die, a deliberate choice on your part?)
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Mar 9, 2017 06:20
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I prefer siding with Kematu, personally. His angle of the story seems more likely to me, and it doesn't seem to me that he would have a reason to lie.
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Mar 9, 2017 12:30
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I do really like the fact that they make the notion of who is in the right very ambiguous, it's pretty much a blind choice, at least for the first time player. As for the health potion thing, i have quite a large stock, i just tend to avoid trying to use them unless i really feel like i can't win otherwise. If pressed into a fight with kematu, you better believe i'm going to be slugging them down like nobody's business.
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Mar 9, 2017 17:06
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I've no idea who of them is right. If you can't kill both, side with Kematu I guess. It's more interesting than just slaughtering more morons. Hoarding potions, and other consumables, but never using them is a time honored tradition for rpg's. 
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Mar 9, 2017 22:33
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I apologize for the long silence, the last couple weeks have been a bit of a mess, went from dental surgery and sounding very silly on the mic, to nearly losing a pet, to said pet having surgery, i know,  I'll get back to recording and posting videos soon, once things get a little less hectic!
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Mar 25, 2017 21:07
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Wow, glad your pet is okay. As far as I can tell, the vote is at 2-2 for siding with Saadia vs. siding with Kematu. I'd rather not make you wait until someone else votes to do your recordings, so please feel free to pick whichever one you think would be most interesting; although I'd prefer to see Tabitha siding with Saadia given the in-character reasons I listed, I'd be fine with seeing either resolution to the quest. If siding with Saadia means a fight that you just aren't managing to win, I'd be fine with you doing it the other way instead.
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Mar 26, 2017 02:29
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Glad to hear, was enjoying things so far. Hope your pet's doing better. As for the Kematu/Saadia thing, I'll throw in for option three, the double agent route. That is, side with Kematu at first, then ultimately Saadia. It's a bit more interesting, doesn't require the massive battle, and fits with the morally-ambiguous-no-matter-what quest.
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Mar 26, 2017 03:00
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Episode 11: The Big Double Cross Whew, finally had some time to get some recording done!
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Mar 31, 2017 16:13
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I thought those witches and hagraven were gonna turn you inside out. Good fighting though, lucky you had several pounds of cheese to make up the damage. edit: Daedra monologues cannot be skipped or shortened. This makes them the worst aspect of the game.
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Apr 1, 2017 06:32
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Ben Carsons Ghost posted:I thought those witches and hagraven were gonna turn you inside out. Good fighting though, lucky you had several pounds of cheese to make up the damage. Well, they're Actual Gods. Of course they'd be the worst aspects of the game (and have unskippable monologue)!
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Apr 1, 2017 14:56
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Another reason why I like converting the room on the first floor of Breezehome into an alchemy lab instead of a child's bedroom is to have a place to store the gazillion+ pounds of alchemy reagents you pick up in the game, one conveniently located right next to an alchemy table. I'd like to find a mod that allows you to craft directly from storage, though, instead of requiring you to tote around 1,000 pounds of reagents and ingots, especially if you're using workstations you own. Rather than selling "unique" weapons like the Axe of Whiterun (and actual uniques too), I like to put them in weapon displays. I also display weapons I use for extended periods of time. I feel like the Dragonborn would keep trophies of his adventures. I rarely use food for healing; potions are so much more effective in most cases. I only really keep food around when I feel the need to inflict a "realism" mod that enforces eating, drinking, and sleeping on myself. I do like Venison Stew's regeneration, though. It's much easier to make than potions of regeneration, and has a fairly noticeable effect. OAquinas posted:Well, they're Actual Gods. Of course they'd be the worst aspects of the game (and have unskippable monologue)! Commander Keene fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Apr 2, 2017 |
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Apr 2, 2017 06:42
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OAquinas posted:Well, they're Actual Gods. Of course they'd be the worst aspects of the game (and have unskippable monologue)! As much as I complain, it does help set them up as A Big Deal
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Apr 3, 2017 16:27
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Fun battle at the end, there. Nothing like getting a free level up heal at just the right time. Curious to see how the rest of the Gildergreen quest goes down.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:21
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Wow, am I late catching up with this thread. Yeah, I thought you were done for a couple times as well. But second breakfast (and seventeenth breakfast, apparently) pulled you through in the end. And now that I've seen the results of the double-cross approach to the Saadia quest, I agree that that seems the most interesting approach, since you get to hear both sides of the story (as much as you ever get to hear both sides in that quest). And having it still not be clear who was telling the truth... that's a very interesting concept. Hope things are going well for you. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next, but real life comes first: if you're busy, take as long as you need to to record the next video. Making videos for the entertainment of strangers on the Internet comes a distant second to paying bills, after all. But I wanted to let you know that I've been quite enjoying these so far.
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May 5, 2017 14:49
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