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Gaming Update: Its All Skyrim and now STO

Placeholder post really to record my current games. I have spent an inordinate amount of time playing Skyrim. For some reason game isn't really conducive to blog posts but it is probably my favourite Elder Scrolls game to date. For some reason I seem to be progressing very slowly. More than 70 hours played and I am only level 18 and still not finished the main questline.

On a whim I downloaded and installed the newly free to played Star Trek Online. Actually it wasn't a whim it was a direct response to an unsolicited email invite from Perfect World Entertainment. It seems I have a Perfect World account as a result of one of the Steam Challenges I entertained myself with over Christmas. All well and good except that my Star Trek online account is now tied to a throw away Perfect World account with a silly name.

Anyway I have only played a couple of hours of the game so I still haven't got a clue about what is going on. I did manage to kill a few Borg and blow up some of their cubes though. A couple of random observtaions from clueless me:

- A couple of hours into the game and I haven't found the item shop yet. Where are all the flashing neon signs saying "Spend Money Now"?

- Did I really just read that you cannot get hurt at all on normal mode missions? Surely that can't be right?  I know the current trend is to cater towards casual players but if that means what I think it means it sounds a bit extreme.

One point worth noting is that I have been quite busy in the real world these last few weeks but that hasn't stopped me spending a lot of time gaming. When I am busy I tend to go into Zombie mode: work, game, sleep. Normal social interactions take a back seat because I really don't have the energy. This does influence the type of game I play however. Challenging strategy games are out because I am too tired for them. Multiplayer shooters are also out for the same reason. RPGs work well because I can play at my own pace and they provide an ideal dose of wind down escapism.




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Comments

Tesh said…
"Hurt" is a misnomer, perhaps. You cannot be "injured" in normal mode missions, which injuries have a persistent negative effect on your character until you use regenerators on them or go to a station Sick Bay for treatment. If it helps, think of them as debuffs, sort of like death penalties that you'd see in Guild Wars except they don't go away with time, they must be healed.

You can totally take damage and "die", but you will then be able to respawn a little ways back in the mission or call for help. That will bring one of your bridge officers over to revive you, which may not always be tactically sound, but it's an option.

So... you're not invulnerable in normal mode, you're just like the typical "immortal" MMO character with infinite lives, minus death debuffs.

It's a little soft, maybe, but it's not all that different from corpse runs or the like, just on a shorter timetable since respawn points tend to be far more frequent than graveyards in something like WoW.
8:54 pm
mbp said…
Thank you for explaining that Tesh. That makes far more sense. So you can still die in a mission and even fail a mission you just won't incur any lasting penalty for it in normal mode.
10:16 pm
Tesh said…
Yup.

I'm not all that sure about failing missions, though. I mean, you can run into bosses you just can't beat and have to drop the mission and come back when you're stronger, and maybe there's an escort quest somewhere where an NPC gets killed and you have to restart it, but for the most part, missions are much like DDO quests; you just plug away at the dungeon/mission until you finish it.
11:17 pm
Gankalicious said…
I'm the same though even Skyrim is too much for me when I'm in Zombie mode. To be fair, I'm not that busy, just lazy and very anti-social! I've had Skyrim in my drive for a while but not made it past my intitial escpape from the executioners block.

My game du jour (of the last year and a bit really) is World of Tanks as it's quick, fun, and you can get a couple battles in and go without a hassle.
2:17 pm
r4 sdhc cards said…
I only play this game one time. It is good role playing game to play. The Zombie mode of this game is amazing i really enjoy to play it.
10:00 am
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