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Adventures in Appalachia.

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A.K.A My first time playing Fallout76

This time last year (give or take a day or two) I was excitedly snuggled on my couch, with my popcorn watching the Bethesda E3 conference. We had all heard rumors a week beforehand about the new Fallout game with Bethesda’s bizarre live Twitch feed, and a little sneak peak in the Microsoft conference but we needed more. When it was announced that Fallout76 was to be an MMORPG my heart sank. I struggle with gun-play on single player games, there was no way I could play this online. Although it was stated it was playable in parties and solo alike, I had my doubts. I mean first off how would you stop a gang of players ganking a lone player? No NPCs? what the heck Bethesda? What are you playing at? No…just NO I refuse to partake in this game! Naturally my excitement at a new Fallout game died.

In the months that followed all I saw were complaints about the game, even YouTubers who make a living from recording Fallout footage were enraged. Bethesda apologized and I don’t know how much they spent/lost by trying to calm the raging storm of vault dwellers. One thing was for sure, I was glad I hadn’t jumped in and bought it, that I waited and saw my worse fears come true. I mean come on Fallout is a well known single player game making it multiplayer would just kill it. I just carried on with life playing Fallout4 quite happily in almost perfect bliss.

Then this year. Be3 2019 everything changed. As I watched the conference, (you can find my views on that here) Todd was saying how proud of the community he was, and how great they are. How the community and Bethesda worked together to improve the game for a more all round smoother experience. Curiously I listened intently as Todd listed the up coming updates and improvements. Then he announced the free trial of 76 and my cogs started to turn. I had always been against 76 from the start but what if? What if it wasn’t as bad as I had envisioned? What if they had corrected all of the mistakes? What if….I tried it? After all free is free and it couldn’t hurt right? So I downloaded it on my PS4. Well this is it, time to take the plunge. How many times would I be killed by a higher ranking player? who knows. I’m only playing it on the free trial so it’s not as if I have anything to loose right?

Challenge 1- Vault 76

So I arrive in vault 76, the character customization was pretty simple. Now I just needed to get out. As the curious person I am I HAD to look at everything. I picked up my pip-boy from the wall and left my room. I couldn’t pick anything up and the only thing I could really interact with was the terminal in my “room” OK I thought to myself as I navigated through the vault, either I can’t interact with things until i’m outside or my game is broke, lets pray it’s not the latter. I wandered downstairs and interacted with the Mr Handy there who told me about the vault boy cut outs. OK cool. Well this idiot obviously didn’t take that info in very well. I was trying to follow my quest marker which took me to a door I could not open. So I thought there was a key or something I needed to open the door. After going around the vault trying to open every door, which I couldn’t I was starting to give up. How hard is it to leave a damn vault? wandering around in circles for a good 10 minutes completely bamboozled. Then it clicked…. The vault boy cut outs were pointing in the direction I needed to go…. “I am such a dumbass” I whispered to myself. So I followed the directions and headed finally to the exit.

He’s mocking me isn’t he?

Challenge 2- What am I doing?

So I finally emerged from the vault and looked at my quest. OK I need to find the overseers camp. Cool. Uh one problem, I have NOTHING apart from a few bits from the vault. More importantly I have no weapons, I feel I maybe screwed. Oh look a conveniently placed corpse yup I’m looting that, Yes I now have a machete! So armed with a machete and no knowledge I went on my merry way. I came across a few small robot things and some wild animals, which I took down and reached the camp. The camp had all the things I needed to make things and even a gun and some ammo. I used the cooking station to cook my meat and made a couple of pieces of leather armor. After a quick nap to regain my health (I didn’t want to use all my aid right at the start) I went to the next place on my quest objective. Flatlands.

At least it has beautiful views

Challenge 3 – People

I arrived at the Flatlands and there were hardly any people. OK cool at least i’m not going to get killed in my first hour I suppose. I carried on going around looting things, went to the vendor in the church and did my quest objectives with no hassle. This is when I realized not only did I have to keep an eye on my health and rads, I needed to keep and eye on my new food and water meters. I killed some more animals such as braham and mole rats made a small C.A.M.P. with a cooking pot and just did some general exploring in the area. My quest objective took me to the agricultural facility and I went around there looting and what not. As I exited through a door an event triggered and the Mr Handy’s that were once docile attacked me on sight. Aw crap! So fighting for my small insignificant life I made my way through the building and bumped into another player. Together we took down the hostiles and completed the event. At this point I was only level 4 and the other player was level 7. At the end he gave me a “thumbs up” emote…. I stood there like the lemon I am, because how the heck do you use emotes? (If you are reading this Mr level 7 Thomas something thank you) I then decided I needed more armor and to do so I needed a armor station for my C.A.M.P. I went around looting for the materials I needed to make it and came across a building with ALL the crafting stations in it. OH. So I went to the armor station and created some more leather armor. As I exited the station I saw a level 60 something character at another station. I cautiously walked around the player to see what else was in the room. Then he spotted me. Ugh I hope i’m not going to die. He tried to get my attention (By this point I had googled how to use emotes) and to my surprise he gave me a full power armor chassis. I was in shock and this kind gesture from another player who was so much higher than myself actually brought a tear to my eye. I gave him a love heart emote and he replied with a thumbs up. I gave him a thumbs up back and went to store my new gift. (Again Mr level 60 odd who’s name I didn’t catch thank you so much ❤ ).

Flatlands, where it all begins

Challenge 4- low level

I had decided at this point I needed to level up as the place my quest marker had taken me, I was struggling to survive at my level. So I did some side quests. One of which was to get to a tower and request a government air drop. I made my way up the hill and reached the tower… I was not alone. 2 level 5 protectrons, a level 8 Mr handy and 4 turrets. (I was level 5). I felt for sure this was it. this was how I was going to die, so I went for it. I managed to take down the Mr handy 1st then ran and hid from the protectrons. when they had given up looking for me I threw a grenade at them them and in sneak mode made a few pot shots. Then I ran out of ammo. I had to resort to hacking at them with my faithful machete but I did it! I looted a bit of ammo form them and used that to take down the turrets. Success (very surprisingly for me) was mine. I activated the drop and went to wait for it. When It eventually landed an other player was trying to access it. I thought to myself “You best not mate I almost died getting that” I went to access the drop but I couldn’t as I had no bobby pins. Luckily for me there was a large tool box behind me that had bobby pins. I accessed my drop took the stuff and stored it in my C.A.M.P. At this point I realized I had been playing for about 3 and a half hours without knowing and decided it was time to log off and have some lunch.

I literally survive off Dogmeat in this game

So I actually had more fun then I thought I would. I am considering buying the full game when my trial runs out. The PS store has it on sale at the moment but I will not have the money for it until after the sale ends. At full price the cheapest one is around £60 and I am certainly NOT spending that much on a game that has been out for a year already and has had problems. I found a disc copy on amazon for around £13 so ner! I’m looking forward to playing it when the human NPC’s are introduced and there are full dialog trees. Well done Bethesda you made good on your promise. Thank you.

Thank you too for reading this. Don’t be afraid to leave a comment, and please share this (share buttons are below somewhere)

Happy gaming ❤

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Blog’s Journal Part 1

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*Note this journal is a blog to go along side the “Blog’s new adventure series” on YouTube which you can find here. Watch it live streamed here and get updates here. Its the journal of the character Blog, a khajiit and her perspective on her time in Skyrim*

17th Last Seed

I don’t know what happened. One minute I was walking down the path, the next I awoke in a cart with 3 others. The blonde Nord spoke first, I don’t know how long I was out for. Apparently I had been caught trying to cross the border. I didn’t know I had already reached the providence of Skyrim. I guess I must have been in my own world and not noticed the signs. Another man spoke, Apparently he was a thief. I don’t know about the third, he was gagged as well as bound. Apparently he was some dangerous power hungry lord or something I wasn’t really paying attention.

We arrived at our destination, A medium sized hamlet, they called it Helgen. We were ordered out of the cart, there were Imperial soldiers there with a list checking people off. I wasn’t on the list and was told to give my name. They called us out one by one. It seemed everyone here was some sort of criminal. I wasn’t supposed to be here I haven’t done anything wrong! The thief from the cart, Lokir tried to run but he was shot down by archers. There was no way I could escape. The first prisoner was called forward and they were swiftly beheaded. It was my turn, I didn’t expect my first (and only time) in Skyrim to be so short lived. There were strange sounds coming from the surrounding mountains, maybe it was the howling of the wind? I was ordered to lay my head on the chopping block and that’s when I saw it. A monstrous dragon!

Chaos ensued. People running everywhere, archers trying to shoot the gigantic beast down, prisoners and villagers alike running to any safe place, whilst the winged death caused destruction with its fire. The blonde Nord beckoned me to follow him, I learned his name was Ralof. We ran to a tower where the gagged man was. His name was Ulfric, apparently he was the Jarl of a hold here in skyrim. We ran up the tower stairs hoping to seek shelter, when the dragon burst through. After he left Ralof told me to use the gaping hole left behind from it to jump across to a burning building. I blindly ran through the flame ridden village, avoiding falling debris and of course that huge beast of death. I found Ralof again by another tower, this one looked more secure and we ran in. He released my binds, one of his comrades lay dead and he told me to take his gear. But we were trapped. the gate was locked and certain death lay in the direction from where we had come.

We heard some Imperial soldiers approaching, they opened the gate and we ambushed them. I took some things from their not yet cold bodies thinking if I ever escape I could get a few coins. I guess I will never be able to completely forget my past, after all don’t they say old habits die hard? We ran through the what I assume were barracks? storage? We had to fight a few imperials to get through (adding to my growing collection of weapons). We gathered what supplies we could before going through an exit. Instead of freedom we were in a cave.

We followed the path of the cave. Calmer knowing it would be impossible for that black beast of death to reach us now, yet still alert we continued. The path lead us to a small chamber full of frost bite spiders! Normal ones are bad enough, but there was a giant one too! I have never seen an arachnid that big! I guess adrenaline kicked in and we slew them with our sword and arrows. We weren’t out of the woods yet. In the next chamber lay a bear, a big brown bear. Using my bow and my stealth I took her out. I had come too far to become bear food! Exiting the chamber we followed a path around which led to the exit. Freedom at last! The crisp cold air on my face felt as good as the sands of home under my feet. We hid behind a huge rock near where we escaped until the beast had vacated the area.

Ralof told me it would be a good idea to head to the nearest village, Riverwood which is where he was from. He needed to warn his family and the rest of the village, but apparently we were late with this news. An old woman was outside her home screaming about a dragon, the others however didn’t seem to believe her story until we confirmed it. Ralof asked me to talk to his sister Gurdur, Gurdur offered me some items and asked me to go to Whiterun and talk to the Jarl there to request assistance. I couldn’t refuse after her kindness and the fact her brother helped me escape certain death.

I met a Bosmer named Faendal, that is too much of a mouthful for me so I just called him Fenny for short, he didn’t seem to mind. He was having trouble with a bard called Sven and asked me to deliver a fake later to this woman whom both he and this Sven liked. I did so and Camilla (That is her name) became angry at this Sven guy. I left her to it. Her brother Lucan is the Riverwood’s trader so I took the time to sell the items I had looted for some coin. I returned to Fenny and It seemed we needed to head to Whiterun and could make it before it got too dark.

On the way to Whiterun, we encountered some wolves which we easily dealt with. Then we happened upon three Stormcloak guards escorting a prisoner. After what had just happened to me I felt for the prisoner and tried to free him, the soldiers attacked us, we took them down without too much effort, but unfortunately the prisoner we tried to free died in the crossfire. We made it to Whiterun shortly after dark, I had to persuade the guard to let us in for we bore urgent news. I was so tired and hungry so we made our way to the tavern. I rented a room, had some wine and went to bed. I fear Vaermina will torment me tonight…

To keep up to date with Blog’s adventure be sure to follow at the links provided:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUPnO53kjgOtsk5a40e8d5g?view_as=subscriber

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/theelderblogsgaming

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlogsElder

Absence

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Hello everyone, sorry for my absence I have been doing various things the last month trying to prepare for the summer holidays and things. One thing I have gotten back into is my streaming so I have been busy doing that and editing it ready for YouTube but so not fear, I have a plan. I am going to be writing a blog to go along side my gaming. It’s going to be more of a diary from my characters perspective, I just need to prep it. Also I will be going quiet again in 2 weeks as I’m finally having a holiday! Anyway u hope you are all well. Take care and happy gaming xxx

New concept?

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Ok I know I’ve been quiet for a bit, the truth is I have been on a major Fallout 4 binge and as much as I wanna share the random stuff I keep finding I also don’t have the time to write huge monologues like my previous blogs. So I was thinking of a new concept. Now whenever I have been playing and my bf messages me about what I have been up to I just send him screenshots with small captions. I’m just wondering if this would be an ideal format for a blog post? I don’t know. How about you (my darling readers) comment below about your thoughts on it. Here is an example uh for example. Hope to hear from you all soon.

Happy gaming xx

BE3 My thoughts

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So its that magical week for gamers, E3! I was going to write about all the conferences but between working and the fact I pretty much fell asleep during EA’s conference I thought it would be best if I just focused on the one that means the most to me: Bethesda- Be3

This years emphasis for Be3 was community, because (and I quote) “We are all Bethesda.” That’s right all of us, even my pain in the butt cat! 🙂 So what happened, lets look.

So we started of with Pete Hines (HI PETE!) giving a quick run down on what has happened in the previous year and telling us gamers how absolutely awesome we are (Damn right!) before introducing us to, well who else? Todd Howard.

Todd carried on the flattery before running right into Fallout76. Lets face it that game got a lot of flack as did Bethesda. Todd again praised the Bethesda community “We made a post apocalyptic survival game where you can do whatever you want and everybody’s nice to each other? They don’t go on killing greifing sprees, they leave food and water for the newbies and wave to each other. I don’t know about you, this should give us all hope for humanity when the Apocalypse does come.”However before indulging more about the MMORPG, Todd went on to talk about the new updates and content which will be appearing in the mobile game;The elder scrolls Blades. (I previously did a review/ blog about that when it first launched for early access, and you can find it here )

What is coming to Blades? So here is a quick run down, I think I have already bored you enough with my slight fangirling of Todd as it is >.<)

  • New jobs and solo arena battles.
  • Custom jewelry system.
  • Dragon quest line.
  • PvP, player owned guilds and visiting your friends towns, to be coming in autumn (or fall whatever suits you better).
  • Being released on the Nintendo switch (like everything else lol) in autumn/fall including cross-play with mobile.

Don’t forget if you already have it, you can log in and claim your E3 rewards this week people! I also need to go back and revisit it to do a new review/blog for it.

Now it’s time for the Fallout76 news and what they have in store for us this year. This years Fallout goodies include:

  • Human NPCs!
  • New quest line
  • New rewards
  • Full dialog trees

The above Wastelander’s update again is coming in Fall. Also just for E3 week Fallout76 is free for everyone to try. (I am seriously considering this now, since 76 did not appeal to me at all). A new game mode is also being released which is a battle royale mode, for all you BR fans 🙂 The Nuclear Winter (battle royale mode) is also a part of the free F76 trail for E3 week for those wishing to try it.

A new game from Tango is also going to be released, not much was said about it but it did intrigue me. Its an action, adventure, paranormal game called Ghostwire Tokyo. A brief video was shown but it did not give much away.

Next we have The Elder Scrolls Online, server capacity has been increased to deal with the amount of new players. Personally I would love to get back into it and get the new Elsweyr dlc, However I feel I need a party to play with as playing solo all the time isn’t great for me. Oh well, maybe one day 🙂 So what additional goodies do Zenimax have in store for us this year?

  • Necromancer class (newly released)
  • Elsweyr is described as the perfect starting point for new players
  • The next part of the Season of the Dragon story line
  • New story dlc Dragonhold
  • Dungeon dlc Scalebreaker

Bethesda then went on to talk about their mobile games, new and upcoming Commander Keen which is based off a 90’s id game, which I have never heard of and elder scrolls legends. They showed a video of the newly released Rage2 and a brief description of the updates which consist of new vehicles and the Rise of the gods expansion,

Next up was Wolfenstein and it’s two new upcoming games. 1st up is a new VR game Cyberpilot. In Cyberpilot you are a hacker working for the French resistance taking control of Nazi war machines and turning them against their creators. It will be available this July.

The next new Wolfenstein game is Youngblood. Promising more weapons, weapon upgrades and ways to customize your play style. It is also going to be co-op. It is set in the 1980s, twin sisters Jess and Sofe are tasked with tracking down their father in Nazi occupied Paris. You can play single player mode or partner up with a friend. Youngblood releases on PS4 XBOX1 PC and Nintendo switch on the 26th of July.

Next up was Arkane Lyon who announced their new FPS Deathloop. Its kind of hard to explain what it is. Two rivals Colt and Julianne must fight in a seamlessly never ending loop of time. One trying to maintain the loop and the other trying to break it. You can check out a video of it here and see what you think for yourselves.

Bethesda touched upon the new streaming service Orion before announcing the game they were counting on the most this year. Doom Eternal.

Doom Eternal promises new areas to explore as the ultimate power fantasy. “Every enemy is different every weapon has a purpose, and every decision you make really counts. The only path to victory in Doom Eternal is to aggressively control the fight.” They showed a few game play videos which were obviously awesome and you should totally check out here. It will be released on November 22nd of this year. There is also going to be a collectors edition which comes with a real life ACTUAL Doomslayer helmet. Of course they did not provide a price. They are also releasing a new multiplayer mode; Battlemode. In Battlemode two player controlled demons take on one fully loaded slayer in a fight to the death. Demon strategy vs Human skill. More will be revealed about Doom Eternal at Quakecom in July.

That was it. No hidden bits or special surprises from Bethesda. Not even a title for ES6. I was disappointed needless to say. So with a big sigh, I turned off YouTube and loaded up a new game of Fallout4.

What did you think of the conference? Which bits did you enjoy the most or least? Let me know in the comments. Don’t forget to check out my other blog posts on here and please share the links on your social media.

Most of all, Happy gaming ❤

TES Blades a quick review

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So the other week I was so buzzed to finally be able to log into and try out TES Blades. I spent ALL day on it and had to charge my phone at least 3 times that day. First of all the beautiful Skyrim-esque graphics blew me away!

For a mobile game that is pretty damn pretty! So I played around for a while and did some quests. I reached my “hometown” that’s where I first got stuck. I sat there and spent about 30 minutes deciding on a name before finally deciding on “Cheesecake” (shut up I like cheese) But cheese cake needs a bit of a Revamp. I had to go and find some Carpenters to find some lumber to start repairs. That’s when I got to this beautiful place.

Of course there were spriggans! So I finished the quest and went back to town. I repaired the smithy, sold some things and tried to progress. I did several dungeons which all looked exactly the same. I was hoping for a quest that took me back to that beautiful forest but that never happened. I spent many times in dull boring dungeons over and over again. Just like this!

It was always the same. Go to this dungeon (via fast travel, due to it being on mobile I could understand why they couldn’t do the whole open world thing) kill 5 of these things, go back to town, rinse and repeat. Literally that’s all I did for hours. Because I needed one piece of flipping limestone to complete a repair on a building. The game play was ok considering again it is on mobile. Very skyrim-my in the presentation like health/stamina/magic bars. If you learn magic it will come up as a little symbol so you can just press it, nice and easy. The swiping for using weapons is tedious but I muddled through. Skill point allocation, almost same as usual. You level up put a point into a perk, ability or learn a new spell. This makes getting everything a lot harder.

Then there is the chests. You can collect chests to get items. Common ones take 5 seconds to open. The next stage up takes 3 hours so I was thinking I would get some decent loot…. Uh no, no I didn’t. Anyway I did breifly enjoy it but the fact I was still looking for limestone (I was looting everything everywhere) made me loose interest pretty fast. Also you can find food in the dungeons and yes it still regenerates health but you have to eat it there and then. A bit more variety in environment wouldn’t hurt at all, and that chest thing needs a looking at. Beautiful to look at tedious to play at times. But that is just my opinion. Maybe I will go back to it in a month or two and see if there are any changes, after all it is in early access. But for now I am back in Skyrim working on my RP alchemist. I hope this game improves without 1000s of microtransactions, and I will see you all soon, I hope. Please don’t be like this guy. Much loves xxx

Oh and skeletons take more than one hit. Xxx

Checking in

On By theelderblogs3 Comments

Hello everyone,

I am not dead just trying to organize things. I have a load of content I am currently drafting and hoping to publish in the next few weeks. Since it is the Easter break here in my little corner of the UK I will have more time and hopefully more content for you all. So these are the things I am planning on doing PLEASE comment and let me know which interests you the most.

*The Elder Scrolls 3- Morrowind- my reactions to it

*The Elder Scrolls Blades- review- when I get my access code (Hurry up Bethesda!)

*Stardew Valley Android Version- review

*Stardew Valley ps4 co-op review/thoughts (When CA FINALLY releases that update we have been waiting about a year for)

House Of Leaves- The horror adventure in a book and how it devoured my soul

And of course in a few months E3 2019!

Please like and share this blog on all of your media so everyone can have a say 🙂

Take care everyone, much love ❤ x