Elder Scrolls Cookery

How often have you been in a delve, and checking that barrel between fights you find Saltrice?   Though it can’t be found in the real world, you can find a recipe for Saltrice that you can make for yourself in the Official Elder Scrolls Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel.

 

Saltrice Porridge looks and sounds really good, doesn’t it?   I love the art of the page and the bit of culinary history for each recipe.

 

I think I will add this to my list of books to acquire.

In game, there are a huge number of recipes, many of them using unusual ingredients, and things like game that I would never eat.  Yet, the rabbit recipes always sound so good, and I never bypass a little encampment and possible poultry, fish or game hanging about.

 

Food and drink really are helpful, and anytime I’m facing a boss or something that might be a challenge I dig through my pack for goodies.

 

All of my characters have cooking, but my main crafter gets first dibs on any new recipes.

 

 

Randomly I took this picture of a giant khajiit with my girl’s pattern and coloring.  Hubba.

 

 

Atheren’s Adventures The Year In Review 2018

World of Warcraft

The bulk of this year was spent playing World of Warcraft. Right after Blizzcon 2017, I started leveling characters so that they’d be at max level when Battle for Azeroth arrived. I found as I was doing this that I enjoyed the Class quests more than I would have guessed.

I stuck in my toe in some LFR’s, and they weren’t bad at all. I didn’t feel like there was much of a reward for participating in them, which I suppose is the point. You’re supposed to be in a Raid Guild that only let’s you go along if they’re desperate, and they sure aren’t going to let you have any gear drops, because those are for the real raiders. Pretty icky, in my opinion. At least if something is available as LFR you can just leap in there, and experience the content, since many story lines conclude in Raids, apparently. If that’s actually the case, you might want to tweak that so everyone can complete quest story lines start to finish on their own.

Only seven characters were ready when the expansion arrived, and I sent them through each area in kind of a little conga line. It was good, and then it became grindy, particularly in Stormsong Valley (which I’m still not over).

After taking a break in November/December I’ve gone back in with a new plan, an even better plan (Start the Revolution Without Me). I’m going to run characters to 120 one at a time, leading this time around with my Demon Hunter.

I didn’t realize how much I missed bouncing around on my characters on other servers, and creating new characters on new servers. Sometimes I like to drop back to simpler times in the game world. I killed off four characters I never play (still very hard to do). Whoo hoo! I now have six open character slots for creating new characters on realms unknown.

Once again I have to comment on the awful new character models. It would be more palatable if there were barbershop options to change eye size and color, and many more hairstyles and colors available.

Everquest 2

I was really enjoying Everquest 2 earlier this year, and subscribed for a time. Somehow I got caught up in trying to work on crafting for each character, and while it was interesting, it felt onerous after a bit, so I drifted away. I’m certain to return to this game in 2019 as I have some really enjoyable characters there, I like the world, I love the quests.

Blaugust

I participated for the first time. I was really pleased to reach my goal of posting every day, and I liked my content. What started off as a pretty convivial atmosphere among bloggers soon seemed rather clique-y to me. It also seemed to me that there was some unneeded competitiveness and bloggers taking shots at others. No need for that.

On the plus side, I looked at some games in my Steam Library, and really liked them, but need to go back and finish them.

As part of Blaugust, I dipped back into some games I hadn’t played in awhile, Lord of The Rings Online, Wildstar, and Rift and Secret World. I enjoyed my time in all of them, and was sad to see the announcement that Wildstar would close. I will try to make time for the remaining games again in 2019.

Elder Scrolls Online

I started playing this more regularly in September, logging in each day for the Reward. By October, I was playing longer sessions, had truly fallen for the game, and I subscribed. I hope to write about it more, it is so deep and rich.

Star Wars Galaxies (Emu) The other game I’ve played at almost Live Game Levels this year is Star Wars Galaxies, the Pre-Combat Upgrade version. The game remains the most absorbing, live your life in an alternate world experience ever. I’ve always hoped someone would make a game with all of it’s features, but there is still nothing like it.

Return of the The Last Chapter Blog as my Game Blog

It has been a good thing, moving back to my earlier blog. The blog was originally created to share World of Warcraft tips as I was learning them with my guild mates/family. They’re a rowdy bunch, though, and only my spouse always read it. I do like the Pages option at the top for linking to my favorite games and the sites that give guides for playing. That will need quite a bit of work.

I’ve found a bunch of new podcasts to try out, and will work on getting a updated list on the sidebar.

I miss my nice pictures to break up headings on the sidebar, so I’m going to get around that by sticking any picture I want to use on the sidebar in some selected post. Once you do that, it seems to become part of some nice picture archive you can always draw from. Work around solutions ftw.

PlayNotes Issue 4: Elder Scrolls Online

Another download/update tonight, ack!

Long load screens at login, I suppose this means everyone’s playing.

Tonight, my level 5 Warden who is doing quests from Vivec.

Going to the closest npc/quest location, I am offered a boat ride to a place I’ve never heard of, and the map marker for it is way across the land mass.  I’d rather wait till I have the quests nearby before I go off somewhere new.

Next closest is a simple one, find a stone, take some rubbings, help find the location of a lost library.

Rubbing stone

The cool thing is, this gives me a piece of a map in an Indiana Jones like display.  I get to find all the pieces. Then what happens?

It’s night time and very very dark…

Next the charming family saga quest Like Blood From Stone.  I’m to investigate a brother who may be doing something shady in a mine.  Nobody ever does anything good in a mine, particularly in this game.

You can’t get into the mine unless you lockpick the bad brother’s front door and steal the key in his house, or find the mine foreman in Balmora and pick his pocket.

I can pick locks in the Elder Scrolls games, but not here.  I snap all the lockpicks or get a couple and freak at the timer going kablooie.  I wasn’t meant to be a thief, truly. 

I had to look up how to pick a pocket in the game.  It worked fine but I felt like a real scum.  Again, not joining the thieves guild any time soon.  With a 75% chance of success, I plucked the key.

Another Night, Another Game, Another Mine 

 

Then I’m asked to murder someone.

This is all just going against my grain.  Hello. Good guy.  Heroine!  See me be a low, scummy killer thief instead.   I tried telling myself this was no different than any set of fetch, then kill the named npc quests in any other game.  There shouldn’t be this desire to back away and not do what is so wrong.   It shouldn’t even seem wrong.   Nice writing, if it can have that effect on me.

Notes:

I should should buy a million lockpicks and pick pick pick till I am not freaked.

H calls your horse.  I found this out with quite a bit of searching.  Not intuitive.  No, not even thinking “H” for Horse.

Haven’t been able to summon my Warden Bear.   I finally find it looks like I have to slot him on my toolbar.   My toolbar with what, five slots to start with?   Other games might give you a few too many skills and toolbar slots, but this is bad, just the few given, and to use one to summon the bear, that’s pretty low.