Water cooler stories

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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Delta Jim » Sun Aug 23, 2015 12:51 am

I just remembered something that happened in my last playthrough of Oblivion.

So I was playing as a Khajiit thief, making my living by robbing people's houses of valuables. As usual, I looted the houses of Mythic Dawn agents who'd failed to kill me (they weren't using their stuff anymore).

After getting attacked by Ulen Athram I decided to loot his house in the Imperial City. I sneaked in and got to work taking stuff. As I was halfway done looting the main room something odd caught my eye.

Apparently Ulen Athram is married. And his wife had been sitting in a chair in the corner the entire time I was looting the place. I was wearing clothes with chameleon enchantments, so she didn't actually see me. But, it still felt weird having her staring in my general direction as I stole anything of value that wasn't nailed down, so I left.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Malfeasinator » Sun Aug 23, 2015 2:39 pm

Robbaz's videos made me play Skyrim in the first place.

I wanted a character who could be totally stripped naked and still be able to fight his way out of any situation, like the time you get thrown in jail. In Fallout 3, I could run around in my underwear and carry only keys and lockpicks and do just fine.

It doesn't work out so well in Skyrim.

With the new (to me) legendary system, I tend to go the other way with it, grinding easy to build up skills like Alteration using enchanted gear that makes it free, and going Legendary over and over again to just make things more convenient. "Boy, I sure do hate picking locks; it would be cool if I could just get all those perks in addition to what I've already got now. Oh wait! I can!"

What I would really like is just a way to build up organically, i.e., via just going out and adventuring, instead of standing at a table forever or doing the same thing over and over again in a safe zone. There's only so much of that (playing naturally and just leveling up as you go) you can do, and you will hit a wall where enemies will grow in leaps and bounds in power over you unless you do something drastic. You start seeing all the Draugr become Death Lords and most of the bandits becoming Marauders and Plunderers, and even the locks start going up in difficulty to Master almost everywhere, even for houses where really broke people live.

I don't know. There's a lot of things about Skyrim I would have liked but they'll probably never listen.

1. The ability to make/carry your own traps. I'd like to be able to actually throw down some bear traps of my own, or have my own bandit fort type complex.

2. The ability to climb. I hate having to go the long-long-long way around to get somewhere. Give me some rope and a grappling hook.

3. Customizable spells, like in Oblivion. That was the jam. Or just, you know, more spell effects would be nice.

4. Making spells stronger with the fortify effects, instead of making them free. Then magic would be able to compete (somewhat) with enchanted weaponry.

5. Making random people have those Fate Stone powers. Would be kind of cool to see a Bandit Chief bring his crew back via Ritual Stone.

6. Making other characters in the game actually have their racial abilities.

7. Making Illusion spells work on the main character; or even if they don't, having OTHER PEOPLE TRY THEM OUT, BECAUSE HOW DO THEY KNOW, ANYWAY?

8. Having more people out there like the Ebony Warrior.

9. Make Telekinesis actually useful - to hit switches from behind gates with openings in them, for example, or to magically pick locks for you, anything besides cost way too damn much to float a bucket around or maybe even a head of cabbage, for some reason.

I could go on and on.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Marcuse » Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:17 pm

Robbaz's videos made me play Skyrim in the first place.


Me too, unarmed badass FTW.

Dental appointment rargh!
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby BROWNRECLUSE » Sun Aug 23, 2015 9:10 pm

On a side note, I wish levitation would come back to Elder Scrolls games. It was awesome in Morrowind and sorely missed in Oblivion and Skyrim.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby TwoSheds » Sun Aug 23, 2015 9:19 pm

Malfeasinator wrote:suggestions


Some of those, particularly ones that were in previous games like spellcrafting, aren't in Skyrim because they would make breaking the game a bit too easy, I think. Spellcrafting, while fun, made it possible to have a set of armour that provided 100 per cent Chameleon, leaving you invisible to everyone and removing all challenge. And I don't know for sure, but I feel like giving you the ability to climb would be hard on the engine, as they would have to prevent you from just climbing over the walls of a city instead of entering through the door, which could a) make loading times a bitch and b) make certain event triggers more difficult.

On the other hand, I suspect a bandit-type fort complete with traps and things is actually a very real possibility for future games, considering they just added that to Fallout 4. If it's well-received - and the hype for it is already pretty huge - there's really nothing stopping them from adding to an Elder Scrolls game, as the idea is still the same.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Andropov4 » Mon Aug 24, 2015 6:10 am

BROWNRECLUSE wrote:On a side note, I wish levitation would come back to Elder Scrolls games. It was awesome in Morrowind and sorely missed in Oblivion and Skyrim.


Levitation was great, but then you would have to load the entire world all at once instead of having different cells for the cities and whatever else.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Malfeasinator » Tue Aug 25, 2015 7:56 pm

There are some decent mods that take care of what I think are pretty dumb things to begin with, like people casually milling about when there are dragon and vampire attacks (GO INDOORS, DUMMY!), but I guess the more I play, the more the little things drive me nuts.

I don't see why you can't bust locks, or break chests and boxes wide open. Especially in a game like Fallout 3. There's nobody left in the world to try to impress, and no reason to live like anything other than a Raider, so why be delicate? Why not smash things? Sure, it might alert everyone to my presence, but that's a risk I'm willing to take sometimes.

Or, I don't know, if it's a small enough chest or box, just take the darn thing with me. Oh but we can't violate the infinite storage container programming! Which is another thing. Containers should have size and weight limits. Seriously, games have been pulling that off since games have been a thing. Download "Castle of the Winds" if you don't believe me.

It doesn't make sense to fit a fully inflated basketball and non-retracting pair of crutches in someone's mailbox, but hey, there's nothing stopping you. Might as well put a missile launcher in there for good measure.

I also feel like if you have to follow the yellow brick road just to get anywhere, then that's just poor planning.

I hate dragons in Skyrim. They're just there to interfere while you're doing more important business. They don't even have much variation. They don't even do half the stuff promised in demos. They don't fling giants into the sky. They don't fling you into the sky! They could do a mean spinning tail whip on you but won't. Nope, they just keep going for the front bite. And another front bite. And another front bite. Another bite. More biting. Bite again. Maybe a finisher bite and shake if your health is low. The "climb on top of their head and give them a really close shave with my War Axe" thing you can do doesn't feel like it makes any sense. "I've got it almost dead, so I'd better show off and waste more of the magic charge on my enchanted weapon by doing unnecesary hits."

A lot of games are guilty of crimes like these. I mean you need a special key for some chest that has some really good stuff in it, conveniently forgetting that you have superhuman strength, giant weapons, and no love for anonymous and probably long-dead chest craftsmen.

The Fable series alone drove me so crazy. There's a bridge with a sign telling you the bridge is out in the first game. The bridge never gets fixed throughout the entire game. Oh, bandits can get to the other side somehow and shoot at you from all the way over there, though.

"Fable 2: Let's Add Guns and Take Away The Fable Part" had so many contrived, forced storyline elements that really grated on me because they made zero sense. The game acts like the only way you can beat some bad guy that shot your sister is to gather these other heroes and do some special magic thing, you make terrible sacrifices to keep an even worse guy alive when all you really want to do is let him die, and in the end all you have to do is shoot the bad guy like one time and he plummets to his death.

That's some bullshit.

I didn't even need the other heroes for that. I didn't need them at all. In the main battles at the end, I had enchantments that let me heal with the damage I was dealing to enemies (in MTG terms, I had lifelink), which effectively meant that I could fight forever. I was dealing out more damage than they could deal to me, so winning was just a waiting game. The other heroes had to bend a knee or recharge their Highlander powers every now and then or whatever, but my guy never stopped hacking away. They were totally useless. I kept trying to kill Reaver but the game wasn't about to let him just die.

That's the other thing I hate in games, especially the Elder Scrolls series. Stop protecting assholes. In fact, stop marking people as "essential." Let me wipe out the stupid Black Briar clan. All of them. Let me just burn down Riften for that matter. Let me cave in Little Lamplight in Fallout 3. Stupid kids with their unprotected sex and teen pregnancy. (Think about it - they kick everyone out at 16, but there have been kids there for 200 years.)
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Anglerphobe » Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:37 pm

Earlier today I cleaned up a guy from the Coalición Imperial on Shogun 2 Total War. He was using a Meiji Imperial army of mostly veteran wig infantry with armstrong guns and a mix of melee and carbine cavalry. I brought a Sengoku army with a giant horde of spear mob, some elite bow monks and some veteran swordsman with veteran melee cavalry to harass.

It was very close, but I managed to tie him up and stop him from getting successful attacks against my key assets. He did some nice manoeuvres against my rush and even got a successful counter going at one point, though I managed to crush it with my general and cavalry. I thought he played well, so I congratulated him for it in my GG message as my troops mopped up the last of his. This was his response:

"lol
fock uretard"

Then he ragequit.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby mancityfooty » Sun Sep 27, 2015 2:20 am

I've got Serana as a follower. She's no longer a vampire but she always necros something when there's a fight.

The other day, she necro'd a chicken.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Daggermeister » Sun Oct 25, 2015 4:45 pm

One of my best gaming stories involves Left 4 Dead.

This was about 5 years ago, and I was playing an addon campaign called Night Terror with 3 friends, on Expert difficulty. So anyway, we were on the second level, in the haunted mansion, when a Tank spawned. The Tank chased us through the corridors, and managed to incap my teammates. Being Expert mode, the Tank didn't just move on after downing a player, he killed them before chasing the rest.

Finally, I was the only one left, and in a haze of adrenaline and pants-pissing terror, I jumped off the railing in a corridor onto this floating walkway to the side, and hid in the room that it led to. For some reason that registered as me no longer being on the map, and the Tank died after half a minute.

So I continued with the game, hoping to find the next spawn room to respawn my teammates. Along the way, I shoved back a few Hunters and Boomers and shot a few Smokers. Then a horde came.

I camped in a corner like a little bitch while shotgunning and shoving them back, all the while my teammates were shouting about the Smoker behind the door or something. I think I did kill the Smoker while spamming shots everywhere, though, because I never did find it. Eventually, after about 20 agonizing minutes on solo-play while limping with 40 health, I made it to a spawn room, and just before I reached it, another horde spawned. I rushed to open the door with all my weight on the keyboard, and right as I opened the door, the horde beat me down while my teammates rushed out to shoot them.

And that was the one time I was MVP in an Expert campaign.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Delta Jim » Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:19 pm

The other day I started a new playthrough of Skyrim. I finally got enough money to buy (the future site of) Lakeside Manor and was walking up the road to my new plot of land. There's a bandit trap on the road and, try as I might, I couldn't avoid their sight (my current character isn't very sneaky).

I pulled out my axe and awaited the bandits, but all I heard was the sounds of a scuffle. I moved up and saw the bandits fighting someone, but I didn't know who. Whoever it was, they were winning. As the fighting ended I went to see who the brave warriors were that made my life easier.

It was a Thalmor patrol. In honor of their noble deed I chose not to murder them and steal their clothes.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Knicholas » Wed Nov 25, 2015 9:41 pm

Delta Jim wrote:It was a Thalmor patrol. In honor of their noble deed I chose not to murder them and steal their clothes.


That was a mistake, right there. It's always a good idea to kill the Thalmor and take their shit.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby BROWNRECLUSE » Thu Nov 26, 2015 3:46 am

Those filthy Thalmor and their sick looking hoods and cloaks.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby mancityfooty » Thu Nov 26, 2015 3:20 pm

I was playing GTA online the other day. Another player had stolen a bus and was just driving around picking people up. In first person mode you could look and see about 5-6 other people.
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Re: Water cooler stories

Postby Anglerphobe » Thu Nov 26, 2015 6:26 pm

Fallout 4

Spoiler: show
I was toddling along in central Boston, towards the southern edge of the city centre, with MacCready when I accidentally stumbled into a pack of feral ghouls(mindlessly violent irradiated people. Basically zombies). Mac blasted a few of them down and I hacked a couple to death with my battleaxe but the numbers were overwhelming and I was forced to take off down the adjacent alley at a chemically enhanced sprint.

I took some hits and rads as I ran but I was still capable of taking all of the enemies out provided that I didn't get surrounded and stunlocked. My running search for a suitable chokepoint brought me up a staircase and into a sort of square. As I turned to face my attackers, I got hit and staggered and was quickly beset by several of them. I managed to escape and beeline for another staircase.

I pelted up the stairs and straight into the midst of a gang of supermutants. For a moment we sort of stared at each other in amazement. When they began to attack, I wheeled around and fled back down the staircase, to be met by the pursuing ghouls. I horseshoed again, back amidst the supermutants, taking a hail of gunfire and ghoul slaps which broke my nose and blurred out my vision.

One sound caught my attention as I stumbled through the crowd of enemies with wild swings of my axe. Boop. Boop-Boop-Boop-Boop. It was the characteristic sound of the mini nuke trigger system used by Supermutant suicide bombers. They run at you, pull the pin, and a giant fireball engulfs everything in the vicinity.
Through my fuzzy screen I saw the flash of the bomb's red light and swung into the green shape attached to it. The blow staggered the bomber and I was able to slip out past his right arm.

I'm quite sure my footsteps turned the Earth that little bit faster, shortening the day by a few minutes as I ran like a man who is being pursued by over a dozen angry mutants and a nuclear suicide bomber. The enemies were close but I dared to pop a stimpak to clear my vision and recover some health.
I rounded the corner with the feral snarls and the bomb's klaxon in my ears and bolted through the open doorway of a corrugated steel and wood wall on my left.

The words of the raider guarding said door were perfectly chosen for a woman watching a bloodied man dressed as a long extinct comic book character sprinting past her with a huge crowd of giant and not giant mutants racing after him:
"What the?"
The next and final sound was the Earth shattering kaboom of the suicide bomber's payload as he reached the hapless raider. She managed to get one pipe pistol shot off before the mini nuke popped in her face. I was caught by the edge of the blast and lightly toasted, millimetres of health bar away from death and limping. When I turned around to face what came next, I saw only a massive scorch on the ground and dissociated bits of enemy scattered in every direction. Not one of them had survived the blast.

I collapsed into a fit of manic, relieved laughter at the absurd providence. A few moments of marveling were all I could get, however, as I was promptly shot in the back by another raider and the whole incident was erased from the games continuity.
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"Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,
Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe couldst never thrive.
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont
To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt."

Anyone who has any kind of opinion fucking disgusts me.
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