Thoughts on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Its Critical Reception, After Playing it 130 Hours

This will probably be the last time I write about Skyrim here. Probably because I should really move on to something else, considering my play time, even though I'm not even actually "done" with either the main quest or the war quests of the game. My To Do List is finally shrinking to something manageable (in the game, that is; in real life I still have grades to post and holiday gifts to buy). It's at least shrunk to the point that I'm not sure which of the remaining quests I really care about, and sometimes I avoid doing one at all and just wander off in to the wilderness looking for a thing to kill whose stuff I want to take.

I hit level fifty last night. My build isn't the most optimized: I used some perks in Smithing to reach Dragon Armor only to realize I don't wear it very much, and some early Destruction magic perks are wasted in late game, when I find myself using only the runes and the bow. Forum-dwellers insist that spending any Lockpick perks at all is a waste, but I wanted to pick locks. Overall I am having fun with the game, and it really isn't necessary to spend all your perks "correctly" or pre-plan an entire build, which is how I feel it should be. There is room to make an error or two. At level fifty, very little in the game gives me trouble at this point, especially since I have been constantly improving my gear and have a 100 in Sneak.

That isn't really what I want to talk about.

What I want to talk about is how I love this game, even though it's terrible.

Christmas Cleaning

Trying out a new template. I also installed a mobile template if you are reading my blog on the go. If you are having any problems with it let me know.

I made Critical Distance this week with my article on Tap! I know I'm just drawing a big circle by pointing this out. But all the stuff there is worth reading if you don't already.

Last note: I enabled ads for the sidebar for the blog. I don't really anticipate this being obtrusive, but you'll start seeing them there. If you click on them, that's good for me; if you don't, no big! It is just an experiment. Mostly I am glad if you are stopping by.

On Failure

Today, I wrote a little about failure. You can read it on Tap-Repeatedly.

http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/12/08/the-incredible-threat-of-failure/

When I was finishing up my graduate degree, my interest in video game narrative started to take over my life, and is what I wrote about in my thesis. In particular, I was interested on how what is done by a "DM" translates in to what is done by a game AI.

I think that we have seen a lot of movement toward more "gamemastery" kinds of game design, where a game is creating a narrative for a player to enjoy, while putting up challenge as a sort of obstacle to make that narrative more exciting. I know that lots of game designers also play tabletop games, and I find the cross-pollination between design philosophies interesting.

With that in mind, I'm kind of shocked that the only time I see the phrase "credible threat of failure" used on the web, it is in regard to banks and finances. It's an intriguing game design philosophy too.