Gwardinen

Had a sudden craving for the chocolate pretzels I ate while I was in America, but nowhere really seems to sell them here. You can get them specially from places that specifically sell US products, or Amazon, but it's like £5 a bag.

Your armour makes me want to take up Smithing, JonCole. That's dragonbone, right? Or dragonscale? Is that the light/heavy armour difference? I've been focussing on Enchanting on the basis that I find decent armour anyway and as a pure mage robes tend to be better than armour in any case. Once I'm full Enchanting I figure I can find some decent armour and make it almost as good as robes in terms of extra magicka, magicka regen and spell discounts. But maybe I actually should start levelling Smithing properly and actually create that armour. Plus I suppose the economic value of finding ore and pelts for free, turning those into armour and then enchanting that armour with found soul gems is undeniable. You could be making hundreds of gold per item when selling them after 0 gold investment, and it levels your Smithing, Enchanting and Speech too. I may have just talked myself into becoming a merchant.

You... just... what? How the...? What? HOW LONG HAVE YOU PLAYED?!

Yeah, that's what I meant by "portrayal of Andy Kaufman". I just couldn't bear to put another name in that sentence. At one point in the film you actually get Paul Giamatti playing Bob Zmuda playing Jim Carrey's version of Andy Kaufman playing Tony Clifton, if I remember correctly.

That's amusingly accurate given the character of Riften as corrupt and crime-ridden.

Game usually isn't terrible for prices, and of course as a big retail chain you can always go into a store if stuff goes wrong.

Good lord. I'm a thief and I can't make that much money.

I never considered that the zombie voice would exist in cutscenes and everyone would just go along with it. That's hilarious. Also, your character's face looks almost creepily like the portrayal of Andy Kaufman playing Tony Clifton from Man on the Moon.

Yeah, that can be an issue. If you really want to make some money in that situation you'll actually have to become a genuine travelling trader and move between holds selling to people. Additionally, there is a perk in the Speech tree that gives all merchants more money. I think it's pretty high up though.

I'm fairly sure that the item gains greater value with greater soul gems too, but yes the different enchantments do have different values. Currently I think my most valuable one has been enchanting random jewellery with Fortify Sneak. If you're levelling enchanting it's a great way to do that and get money at the same time. Also, if you find someone that wants firewood, for example, can't you just go chop logs for as long as you like? I've never actually tried letting it go beyond about three, but is there a cap? Since that's a continuous action you could just set it to chop logs for a while while you go afk. That said if you're doing something as stupid and gamey as that it's probably just as sensible to use the console to give yourself the money (if you're playing on PC, obviously).

Yeah, more or less the same thoughts as you. It is definitely an even more polished Assassin's Creed experience, and I actually quite like old Ezio. That said, it is just an evolution on the Brotherhood formula. Sadly, the AC franchise is taking shorter steps forward with each game it seems. AC->AC2 was a pretty big shift in what the game was about and how it was presented, and to Brotherhood it added a whole multiplayer component and several other key features while refining some others. Now to Revelations, though... I don't see it adding much. You mentioned the bomb making, and the hook changes traversal a fair amount, but other than that it appears to be the same game. Perhaps there'll be more interesting stuff further in, but currently I suspect this is going to be a game I just have on a slow burn throughout the year. I will probably also be a lot less completionist this time around. It's become clear to me that there are only certain parts of an Assassin's Creed game that are really worth the time I put into them, and I need to retain the focus to strive only for them and not every bloody landmark and collectible and race activity.

Many things, but they mostly fall into the realm of national stereotypes. I think I have decided on the two hat avatar, though, because it makes me think the hanzi are having a party. Also, Armchair General's avatar is subtly horrifying.

Actually, which do we prefer? or

Not totally sure this works... P.S. Nappi's is awesome.

I often wonder whether digital prices have extra pressures on them to remain somewhat high around release. By which I mean that I'm curious whether the brick and mortar retailers often push publishers into making sure that the digital versions don't undercut the physical versions.

Oh, I should have mentioned. Don't use the DirectX 11 functionality of the game. It's straight up broken at the moment, and a patch is "on the way".

Yeah, the PhysX works, I suppose. Also I shouldn't have said it doesn't work for nVidia cards, I just checked the forums again. It doesn't work for anyone. So that's cool I guess.

I finally got it working last night after a bunch of Steam and Games for Windows Live shenanigans, only to discover that the DX11 features basically don't work on nVidia cards at the moment. They cause huge framerate drops whenever the camera is moved quickly, despite the game running with total stability the rest of the time. Boy do I feel good for waiting for the technically superior PC version for a month.

Cool, that's good to know. At least from now on (starting after Arkham City as I'm too scared to screw with it now that I have the download going strong) I can preload without a VPN and just use the VPN for actually getting it to decrypt and allow me to play the game. Then it's likely offline mode for me once my free trial of this VPN runs out. Edit: My connection speed was actually being quite strange with the VPN so I decided to try it your way. It's actually quite bizarre, not only does it not show it in the library, in the downloads page it refuses to acknowledge its download speed or add to the total downloaded at the top of the page. Yet, the actual downloaded amount on the Batman: Arkham City item itself is going up so I know it's doing something. Edit Edit: By the way, I forgot to mention, this game is large! I'm pretty sure the 360 version fits on one dual layer DVD, but the Steam download is 16.8GB!

The PC version is unlocked on Steam for the US, and preloadable for everywhere else. Except if you have a free copy from nVidia and you're outside of the US, it seems, in which case you still can't download it. Guess which camp I fall into. So, I'm using a VPN to fake myself as an American to download the game, and then I'll either have to take Steam into offline mode for the next three days or keep using the VPN so it will let me play the game. The irony? If I wanted to get a pirated version I could have downloaded it without a VPN slowing me down yesterday.

I tried to convince myself continuously throughout that that was not a real trailer. So I'm going to go with that and not look into it further. Does anyone know which film the cinema scene is from?

I've avoided buying a horse because I have a companion with me most of the time. Is there any way to get them mounted too? I already often lose mine for minutes at a time on tricky terrain so I don't want to make it even more likely that they'll wander off and get eaten by a grue.

You have the taste for it now. There is no cure. Soon you'll be streaking through book shops shouting (incredibly well known Harry Potter spoiler) ! I wasn't going to use spoiler tags there but you never know, SOMEONE might not have heard.

I uh... wow. I've generally defended IGN a little as they're usually just doing whatever brings in the fans... but yeah. I don't know. How did anyone think that was worthwhile content? It's not even funny in a stupid way.

Literally one of the first things I did outside of Helgen was shoot a bunny with a bow and arrow. Haven't killed one since, though. I even saved a deer from a wolf... then killed another deer a bit later. I'm apparently a capricious hunter.