Welcome back, old friend addiction
When I play games, I tend to play single-mindedly. I play one to the exclusion of others. If the game has an end, I try to reach it.
I have possibly restarted my old addiction to Oblivion. Oblivion was supplanted by time constraints, a computer that was barely up to the job and most of all, that usurper World of Warcraft.
Well, I kicked the WoW habit some months ago, and aside from a few twinges of happy memories or comparisons, I don’t really regret leaving WoW. My interest had waned, and I’d reached a plateau of frustration.
Technically, instead of playing Oblivion, I should be writing yet another cover letter. Never fear, I can work on that on weekday, so that the unpleasantness doesn’t interfere with my stress-free weekend.
I won’t admit to how much time I’ve played Oblivion in the last couple of days, but let’s just say it’s a long time. A really long time. An embarrassingly long time.
So much so that as I sit here typing this blog entry, I can swear I can hear the background music to OB. Even though the game isn’t running. My brain is imagining, because my ass is planted in this same chair that it has occupied for many hours this weekend, that it is still in Oblivion.
Well, it is not. I’m getting out of the house for a bit. I recruited real, live human company to get me out of the house, so I can’t decide that instead of doing anything else, I’d like to be sitting here again, playing Oblivion.
Even addictions need breaks.
Well, try not to let it affect your health (says he who also suffers from an excessive love of sedentary video games). I’ve heard that taking breaks during cut scenes (or while in flight in WoW) is a good way to keep from physically suffering. Some people that play WoW deliberately take Flight Paths so that they can get up and do a quick work out while their character is in transit. Me, I use that opportunity to get more snacks!
well, luckily for you, I can indeed confirm that Oblivion has an end. even if you add the expansions to it.
it may take around 250 hours (or more), but there is an end (as in, completing every single quest). much better than WoW in that respect.
Unfortunately, there are no cutscenes in Oblivion. And there’s this evil little thing called fast travel … so the only breaks I get are the ones I remember to take. After the incidents this weekend, I’m instituting a cell phone alarm rule, because otherwise, I have no way to keep track of time. They don’t include an in-game clock, unlike WoW.
And as for you AZB, I bet you didn’t do a lot of the freeform stuff, either. I do a lot of meandering, or at least, I used to. I think this time, I have done a lot of stuff up to a certain point and really don’t feel like walking around every bit of land and exploring every single dungeon. I’m fast traveling a lot more than I used to. And I’ve finally hit the stage in my spellsword’s career where she’s finally making lots of money off the loot she picks up. I just bought my Skingrad house (that’s the one complete with maid) and I also had previously bought the Imperial hovel.
Of course, now I don’t have money to furnish the Skingrad house, but I will soon. I am trying, this go-round, to not buy every house there is. I eventually found it distracting to have everything all over the place and not know where I put it.
I’m looking forward to blowing off some steam tonight by playing. I didn’t want to start Shivering Isles until I was much more progressed with the main quest, but there’s new armor in there, right? That might be worth it to me. That, and new beasts. I’m tired of the old ones.
I want an Imperial hovel, too! Does it come with a groveling valet? Large, growling mastiffs I can release upon my impudent serfs?
No, it does not. It really is a hovel. In the slums on the waterfront. The only thing that is in your house, until you buy some grotty furniture, is a grotty bed, which doesn’t really improve much once you furnish the house.
I like to live there because it was my first house, and it keeps me humble.
Now, the manor house in Skingrad does come with a servant. Well, you have to furnish the house first, and furnish the servants quarters, and a maid tells you she will come and work for you, whether you like it or not.
Apparently there’s a big jokey underground thing where people like to imagine that the maid really serves you in more than one way. Some people mod her so that she wears revealing clothing while cleaning the house. She’s not really all that attractive by default, but I’m sure people have changed that too.
I am trying to limit myself to the number of houses — some of the lesser ones are only slightly more attractive than my beloved hovel — but I am still tempted by the haunted house in Anvil. You get it for a steal and have to do some quests to get it cleaned up for occupation. It’s certainly cheaper than the Skingrad house, but I wanted to go big.
Matthew, it’s too bad you can’t play this game, because I’ve told you many times how detailed and beautiful it is. There’s also a healthy modding community (though it seems to have died back to essentials because the game is probably three years old) which means that you’re not really limited to the original game. People have created pets. People create new houses and armor. And then there’s of course, the fabled better bodies mods, which really are just an excuse to have naked characters.
What might appeal to you, Matthew, is the play style. You can be good or evil or even a vampire, if that is your goal. AZB played everything pretty thoroughly, but I like to keep my conscience fairly clean.
I don’t steal, I don’t murder. I think really hard about doing things I find repugnant. So I don’t belong to the Thieves Guild or the Dark Brotherhood. Even though I could technically belong to all the guilds and complete many of the quests without conflict … I don’t want to. So that part of the game will remain unplayable for me.
This is the house.
This is Eyja.
It definitely sounds like the kind of game I would enjoy. I’m limited in the games I can play by my intransigence on the issue of installing Windows on my Mac. I do not want to partition my hard drive, buy and install Windows, then buy and install PC games.
I’ll tell you, though, lately my stubbornness has been severely tested as I’ve read about Warhammer online. I was looking at some screenshots and reading about the game yesterday, and I found myself mentally trying to add up how much it would cost to be able to try that game for 30 days. It would be nice to get in on the ground level, so to speak, of the next big MMO. If they ever release a Mac client of Warhammer, it will be a year or more down the road after Windows players have already established a foothold in the game.
I think you should try Oblivion. It’s going to be cheaper than another MMPORPG.
Our old buddy Chibs was just telling me about playing Warhammer. Sounds like he likes it.
Me: I still don’t need another pay addiction. And I probably will not return to WoW for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
What I have been remotely tempted by is the thought of a laptop. I liked Heather’s shiny new laptop, and at this point the specs aren’t that bad on laptops. I’d love to be able to take my games anywhere. But then one could argue that’s what my DS is for. Except I don’t really play my DS much anymore. Kinda sad, really. But all these games go through phases with me. I was playing The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess pretty heavily for a while, but I stopped. I need to go back to it. I love Zelda.
you know what I just remembered while reading all of this?
I can never buy the Skingrad house. Damn orc-whatever-the-hell-his-name-is fell of a bridge and glitched me out of it. there was some quest that he was preventing me from doing (preventing me because he’s dead and I needed to speak to him), but I used a macgyver-like exploit to get around it. unfortunately I can’t get around speaking to him to inquire about the skingrad house so i’m screwed.
oh well, the shit was overpriced anyway.
LOL. That’s what you get for … wait for it … playing on the console instead of the PC.
that would be funny, if, the same glitch didn’t happen on the PC version.
Ah yes, but there are bug fixes and mods for the PC version that would keep such a problem from happening. I also know that there is a console command that will resurrect a dead character.