Back to Square One, Bethesda-Style

So I just spent 75 hours racking up 37 levels and about two dozen dragon kills in Skyrim.  I maxed out Smithing, forged and enchanted some badass armor, and turned into a werewolf.

Then I ran into a game-halting bug that's forcing me to roll a new character.

Basically, the last dungeon of the main quest line has a door puzzle that bugs out for some people.  You can halfway fix it, but it's almost a guaranteed game-killer because the area can't be fast-traveled out of and you can't get past the door to complete the quest.  The best solution online so far:  "Wait for a patch."

To be honest, I knew this was a possibility going into the game.  With something this big it's practically impossible to do all the QA needed to fix things like this.  It's kinda disappointing that a significant bug late in the main quest line made it through that process, but it's a reality when dealing with A) Bethesda, and B) a game of this immense scope.

So, here's a few tips should you decide to go adventuring into Skyrim that may help you avoid my fate:

I am Skyrim

I have fought dragons and emerged victorious, their souls filling me with knowledge and fury.

I have earned the respect of jarls and Nords, and been named a thane of their people.

I have forged weapons of skysteel and filled them with enchantments of fire and lightning, bringing forth the twin fangs Ember and Skywrath.

I have ascended the Seven Thousand Steps to the Throat of the World and communed with the ancient, mysterious Graybeards at High Hrothgar to learn the secrets of the Voice, and thus taken the first steps toward my destiny as Dovakhiin, which means Dragonborn in the ancient tongue.

I have plucked butterflies from the air and learned the alchemical secrets that can be teased from their diaphanous wings.

I have delivered traitors to justice and honor to my brethren, the Companions, who will fill their meadhall with songs of my glory, and add my name to their legendary rolls.

I have known fear and conquered it, drinking in the fearsome blood of the beast to become a werewolf, and thus strike fear into those who would hunt me and my packmates.

I have seen an ancient warrior heave a sigh filled with regret and longing, staring into the fires of his hall as he considers how he will be judged for the things he has done in this life.

I have seen a great dragon in flight, only to pause in wonder as the sky around it is filled with the shimmering curtains of the northern lights, and stood mute as the leather-winged beast swam amongst it like a salmon in a stream.

I have seen a giant tending his mammoth herd kick a starving bandit so hard the man flew into the side of a nearby mountain.

I have learned to stay away from the giants.

The End of an Era

Last weekend I sold my Wii back to Gamestop.  It felt like a big decision, like a sacrifice I was making in the face of an austere personal budget colliding with a a fall release schedule overflowing with awesome games.

This week, I hardly noticed it was gone.  Turns out I'd already made the sacrifice a long time ago.

The Open Range Rides Again

This weekend I kicked off my newest 4E D&D campaign, set in the Wild West-y world my friend Jeramy and I have been designing for some time (tidbits can be found over at our D&D blog, LevelAndClass.com).  I had previously written about the world and ran a couple of gaming sessions in it, but I haven't been able to run a full-fledged campaign in the world to really put it through its paces, so I'm excited.

The players are PhD students from my wife's program, some of whom have never picked up a D20 in their lives:  a scandalous situation for any college student, let alone those who liked school so much they want to make their careers out of it.  One of the players is a very experienced D&D player (and a freelance designer like me), so he and my wife are helping the other new players learn the ropes while I have my hands full wrestling down the campaign setting so their players can hog-tie it.

Pushing the Envelope of Stupidity

The video gaming world is full of bullies, idiots, misanthropes and mouth-breathers.  The Gentleman Gamer knows this, because they all wound up in my Zul'Gurub dungeon run last night.

Even though the GG has preached the mantra of patience and subscribes to Wheaton's Law, I fully recognize that sometimes you just can't fix stupid.

So how does the Gentleman Gamer handle himself when surrounded by jerks and jackanapes?

Turning A Corner

An epic congratulations goes out to the Progression raiding team in my WoW guild, The Risen on US-Thorium Brotherhood.  Not only did they get their first Ragnaros kill this past week, they scored the server-first kill for the Horde.  It's the first time in the guild's history we've accomplished something like that on the raiding scene; for years players like us have been living in the shadow of guilds like Bloodrite and never actually considering that we could get a kill like that without being uber-hardcore.  Last week, we liberated ourself from that kind of limited thinking.

Of course it couldn't have happened without Blizzard's changes to their design philosophy, the efforts to make content more accessible to guilds like ours.  We have teachers, professors, students, lawyers, and other professionals that all have full-time jobs and full-time social lives, but still manage to put in one or two nights a week to join nine other online friends and slay some digital dragons.  And I couldn't be happier for them.

My own team, the Core raid group, also turned a corner Tuesday night by killing three of the Firelands bosses in one night.  We one-shot Shannox, two-shot Rhyolith after taking a wrong turn and ditching into the magma, and then four-shot Beth'tilac to get our first kill on her.  Before we'd been struggling to just kill one boss a night, so going in and kicking down the door that quickly on three bosses means big things, and hopefully a Rag kill of our own sooner rather than later.

RISE UP, SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE HORDE!

My Wife, the Slayer

In D&D, there are a number of different players personality types that show themselves over and over again.  The folks at Wizards of the Coast have put labels to most of these, such as Spotlight Gamer, Power Gamer and Explorer, to help DMs and players understand these tendencies and motivations better so that they can run better games and keep their players involved and committed.

When my wife first joined my D&D games, she gravitated toward an Observer role.  She was a new player with several experienced gamers, and was more comfortable providing quiet support while enjoying the clash of the other personalities at the table.

After we moved down to Louisiana, however, I noticed her tendencies had shifted in a direction I hadn't expected.  And it led to me letting her down as a DM on several occasions.