Yeah, the week ain’t over yet, but since every day feels both like an eternity and a blip on the cosmic radar, now’s a good a time as any to collate these thoughts.

Oblivion Remastered

I had a whole post devoted to TES IV: Oblivion Remastered but lost my voice and couldn’t figure out the point, so I’ll just paraphrase here. I’ve been playing TES games almost since they became a thing, but Skyrim was the only one I “finished” by completing the main quest. Oblivion in particular annoyed me because I mostly remember bouncing in and out of the Oblivion gates, all of which lead to similar landscapes with similar objectives, and if there’s one thing I hate doing it’s repeating anything ad nauseum. However, I’m really enjoying the Remaster, and I figure it’s because I’m more in-tune with how to approach open world games. I have only just started following the main quest after having walked across much of Cyrodill. The game is gorgeous in its glow-up, and I haven’t had any issues with the game itself, except for having claimed the unicorn who now gets pissed at anyone and everyone — me included — whenever anyone in eyeshot starts a brawl.

V Rising

I’m not an ARPGer, mostly, but I appreciate the ability to just jump into these kinds of games, hack and slash a bunch of stuff, and still make it home in time for dinner. V Rising had been popular when it released for its actiony combat, I assume, but it also features Stardew Valley-esque home management which is completely unexpected considering you’re playing a vampire. There was a apparently a big update recently, and the game is/was on sale for 50% off so why not. I’m enjoying it, but have already died several times because this weird-ass forest I’m in doesn’t screw around.

Humble Choice Blues

Long about December 2024 I got a sweetheart deal from Humble telling me I could get 6 months of Choice for $8. I like bundles; sure, we all do, so I took them up on that offer. Since then, the selections have been hit or miss for me since I have a deep Steam library and a lot of the games that roll up in the Choice are ones I own. Others are ones I have absolutely zero interest in, even if my life depended on installing it and booting it up: this month is a good example of that. I own three of these, have a passing interest in two, and couldn’t give a rat’s hairy ass about the others. Unfortunately, I can’t pause my current membership because if I do I lose my $8 deal so guess I have to suck it up until the promotion runs out and I can cancel which, of course, means that the next month’s offerings will be filled with everything from my Steam wish list.

3D Modeling

Not much going on here. I started a project loosely based on another purloined reference image I found somewhere online, but it’s got a lot of buildings that I need to construct and despite the fact that the buildings are going to be either behind other structures or otherwise hidden, as the lighting for this is going to be rather dark, I’m still putting time into modeling parts that won’t be seen. I have caught myself a few times and slapped my own hand for it, but I’m not super invested in this project.

Checking the calendar, I’m on schedule for my usual “pump ‘n dump” project cycle, so everything is basically working as intended.

Wasted Space (Games)

I went hard with Elite Dangerous for a while there, after having finally grasped the what, why, and how of the opportunities that the game was offering. I decided to stick to my home system of HIP 33390, making relatively short hops to various systems around that area for missions, mining, and xeno-exploration, and things were going very well until they suddenly didn’t. I just…stopped logging in. There have been a lot of times in my life when I think something sounds good and maybe is good enough for me to get excited about it, but I know that as soon as my brain asks, “are we sure we want to be doing this right now?” when in situ that the writing is on the wall. It’s a warning that I’m getting bored, and that my time with that game, book, TV show, movie, or whatever else is getting ready to fall backwards off a cliff like an idiotic influencer trying to get an awesome selfie.

Sure as shit, though, I’ve been back in Star Citizen, which should surprise exactly zero people who are reading this. I’m not back back because the game is still a toxic waste dump that makes Chernobyl look like the top pick for destination weddings, and while I expect that to be the case for the foreseeable future, I will admit that CIG does seem to be slogging through the swamp of their own design and has been fixing issues. I’ve recently played on the test server for the upcoming 4.1.1 patch and things run surprisingly smooth; not well, just smooth. The patch notes are copious and flow like a raging river, but CIG has never been good at fixing one thing without breaking several more which I think has been a consequence of trying to do everything, everywhere, all at once. While they are still pumping out ships and in-game events, they are also spitting and polishing whatever pain-points they can get their hands on within a reasonable amount of time and effort, and the results are becoming more noticeable. Still, the mountain beneath which they have buried themselves is tall and wide and CIG is digging themselves out with a spoon, so it won’t be until we reach the end of this Year of the Patch that we can say whether or not they made meaningful progress or if they’ve screwed themselves hard enough to hurt.