Seriously, there are two folders that I want deleted from Lappy after I'm dead. One is all the porn, the other is my writing. You wanna know how embarrassed I am about writing? IT'S BURIED UNDER THE PORN!
My favourite game of all time is definitely, without a doubt, Skyrim. I was just a boring mortal cunt faffing about my weird life thinking that Baldur's Gate was the pinnacle of video games until 2011 when Skyrim happened.
Skyrim, in case you didn't know, is an open world roleplaying game from the geniuses who made the Elder Scrolls series. In it, you play a person who is saved from his or her unjust execution by a dragon. From there, you have to stumble ass-first into a world full of things trying to kill you in the vain hope of trying to make sense of anything. To this end, you are armed with Shouts AKA yelling words at people in the hopes that they'll do stuff (which is pretty much how I make my living HELP ME: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matt-Holland/e/B009A7BH60?tag=geolinker-21) and whatever skills you acquire along the way.
Those skills can be as diverse as you wearing metal real good, being an expert at twatting your opponents with one or two handed objects, setting things on fire with your thoughts, getting people you hate to set eachother on fire with your thoughts, and smithing. As you can imagine there is a huge range of character types you can make and it's all done through an organic interface. If you want to get real good at fucking things up with a battleaxe the only way to do that is to fuck up a lot of things with a battleaxe.
As you non-gamers can imagine, this means you can make any character you like. From anywhere. For all you gamers smugly raising your eyebrows right now, I'm gonna finish your thought for you: "Yeah, if you can play through the opening!"
But seriously, the opening of Skyrim is torture. It's an hour. Literally an hour of unskippable stumbling before you can get into the fun parts of the game. Here are the parts I can remember.
- Legends don't burn down villages.
- Jump through the roof and keep going.
- Stay close to the wall.
- I hope that dragon takes you all to Sovngarde.
- Take Gujnar's gear, he won't need it anymore.
- Put that armour on and give that axe a couple swings.
- Look! It' s a bear! See her?
- I said no! No adventures! No theatrics! No thief chasing!
- There is something you can do for me, for all of us here.
- No sign of any dragon right now, but it sure looks like he's been here.
- I made the pilgramige once, did you know that?
If you found that list tedious, imagine playing through it with all the fuckery and giant spider fights in between. I wasn't exagerating when I said that it takes an hour.
Now I'm going to do the thing that gets me the most criticism and switch perspective right when you were reading one point of view.
I hate work. I've talked about this fact #multiple# #times#. I resent every job I've ever had and will likely continue to do so until I either stop having to work for a living or I die. Or both.
But my job at the moment isn't actually all that bad. I work for good people. They gave me Monday off. I managed to, with the benefit of chicanery, get a Monday off. Like, I've been drinking beer all day (it's Sunday) I'm mostly drunk, I just ate a fucking pot noodle, and while all those chumps are going to work tomorrow morning I'm going to be rolling over in bed and masturbating to something produced by the star(s).
Also, those chumps are my friends and I like them and I'm really sorry I called them chumps.
Now, to switch perspectives a third time (starting to see those sales numbers are flagging and that one person threatened to kill me), I'm a writer. This isn't a role you can just fall into; like being a parent or commiting yourself to only using ethical porn. This is a lifelong responsibility. A responsibility that is interrupted on a daily basis by having a day job. I have a book that I've been working on for years that I think is almost ready for mainstream publication.
Stay with me, I'm going to smash all three of these storylines together in that one way my fans seem to like (and that one fan threatened to kill me over, seriously, who does that)
All week I've been looking forward to my long weekend off. It's been the one thing that's been getting me out of bed in the morning aside from the smell. I've thought about how sweet it will be to have some time off to actually do some things that will benefit my writing career instead of just paying the rent. It's kept me going.
However, last weekend I started a new Skyrim game. Because I needed the stress relief and also I wanted to try out a new character type. I wanted to play a person who's good with heavy armour, heavy weapons, and magic. Because I am, if nothing else, an insane person.
Because, y'see, all mage robes in Skyrim give you a boost to how often you can cast spells, but regular armour doesn't. That means if you want to be good at spellcasting and wearing heavy armour, you need to master the enchanting skill tree eventually. This is a skill tree that is insanely difficult to master. It would take multiple entries (which I wrote before deleting) to explain why this isn't conducive to a casual playthrough. But I, for some ridiculous reason, thought I could to it.
[SKYRIM JARGON!] I got out of Helgen, did all the Whiterun bounties, got myself into the College of Winterhold, got five points in #Enchanting skill#, gave my steel plate armour the basic enchantments that you need to play a mage, laughed at how good I was with my two-handed sword now, started the main quest.
[NON-SKYRIM JARGON ABOUT THE SAME STUFF] I did a bunch of things in-game that required effort and at least half a day of play to achieve.
I was so proud of how awesome my character was. I was slashing things I couldn't burn down. Burning things I couldn't slash open with my sword. I was the Dragonborn! Dovahkiin! Master of the Voice!
Bored of this character...
That's one thing that's dangerous about Skyrim, there's an infinite amount of character types you can play. Every one of them seems really interesting, but then you have to earn that character concept inch by inch, then you actually achieve it. Then, almost to the moment, that character becomes boring and you want to start a new one.
Shout out to the boys at Fudgemuppet. They're a Youtube channel and making new, awesome characters is what they do. Check them out.
In the past I've made almost every D&D character I've ever had. Randolph the Bastard became Listener of the Dark Brotherhood and stood there overlooking Dawnstar like a twat, Darson Moran got into the Dawnguard storyline for the crossbow and there he stays, and Nelagord Nightslayer did everything because he's an overachieving half-dragon cunt.
I've also made characters from my books too; Layla's save file got corrupted half way through the main quest, I got bored of Dominic during his time with the Companions, and Brent got boring right when you're meant to find the potions in the second room you find in the game.
Y'know, that might actually summarise their characters too. Brent is overpowered, Layla fucks up in ways she didn't intend, and Dominic is trying so hard to be a hero that he overreaches. I'm actually quite proud of how they fucked up in Skyrim.
[Buy my books]
But I got bored of Sebastian Crowser right at the moment when he was almost a heavily armoured, spell-flinging badass. I thought I'd quite like to be a Nord woman tossing out Illusion spells between whacks from her enormous battleaxe.
This has never not been a good idea.
So that's what I've just made. I put in the hours. I did my time in the opening, I heard about how Jarl Baalgruf has been up the thousand steps, I worked for the Companions because they give you the best first third starting weapon. I dominated by dominating the minds of my opponents and if the didn't kill eachother? My enormous battleaxe would kill them.
I twatted. I hacked and slashed. I turned brother against brother with a wave of my hand. I was beautiful. I was glorious. I was...
...bored of this character.
The more astute of you might be realising why I have such a problem with Skyrim. Because once you understand the rules you're gonna want to make a character that conforms to them. Then when you get there, and you're kicking the shit out of the game, you start getting bored of it all and you want to start again. Like, maybe if you picked up a shield this time instead of another weapon or spell then you'll be happy, and if not? Maybe try a two-handed weapon next time. Or two weapons at once. Or fuck objects, you can be a master of mistress of Destruction magic, and may god have mercy upon those you deign to harm. You are in charge.
You're powerful.
You matter.
You exist.
Nobody hates you.
People want to sleep with you.
Your friends don't keep dying way too young.
I spent all of my precious holiday running my Nord sorceress character. Time I could've spent working on my books or doing something meaningful. Instead I've given up two days of my life fighting dragons and draugr that no one will ever meet.
It's insane, and it's depressing.
But this time I'm going to get it right. Y'see, I used to box a little bit. I'm not strong, I'm not fast, I'm not fit. But I used to piss so many people off because I'm ambidextrous and I used to switch hands without warning. This one trait of mine gave me an underserved sense of confidence throughout a time in my life when I really needed it.
I figured that this was a good trait for the Dragonborn to have. I was going to make a character who wielded a war axe in one hand, and a sword in the other. I was gonna perplex my many enemies with quick, nightmarish switch-em-ups.
This time. This time I'd get it right. I'd play right through. I'd make it.
Next up, the renegade from Cyrodil...