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Mondays, amirite?

Today, I have been struggling with a spreadsheet AND Twitter support (they suspended my work account, for some reason).

The only cure is to murder orcs horribly. Yes, that’s right. I’m playing Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, a seven year old game this guy called ‘morally repulsive.’

I thought it would be too repetitive, since you basically wander around an ugly gray landscape murdering ugly green orcs, but it’s clear the character designers has way fun designing the ugly green orcs.

You get closeup portraits of guys named Grubrok the Meat Hoarder and Ratbag the Cowardly who taunt you when they find you. Plus you learn a neat move for making an orc’s head explode in a shower of black goo.

I’ll give you morally repulsive.

It does, however, force me out of my comfort zone. I like to run up the side of the building, hide somewhere high and snipe. Queen of the headshot, me. And you can do that plenty, but you also have to get on the ground and swing a sword around to advance the story.

It will not surprise you to learn that I have the reflexes of a woman in her sixties, not a 14-year-old boy. That shit is hard.

Not the least surprised to learn that the developer was accused of pinching code from Assassin’s Creed. Nothing came of it, but can confirm there are serious ‘look and feel’ issues that don’t seem accidental.

Comments


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: March 8, 2021, 10:24 pm

Ah, and I suppose there are techniques you have to learn to block and duck and such.

Durnedson #3 is playing some Viking game where you sail the briny deep, colonize and build and he ends up battling stone golems because it seems his teammates/coplayers can’t quite get the mechanics down for blocking.

Meaning I could be his team mate, but ain’t. I am comforted by the knowledge young people are as crappy at playing as I am.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: March 9, 2021, 12:19 am

Check out VALHEIM


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 9, 2021, 3:55 am

Durned Yankee: LEROY JENKINS!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 9, 2021, 7:38 pm

Oh, Valheim looks really lovely. I’d only do the single player, though. Team play is too much PERFORMANCE ANXIETY.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: March 9, 2021, 7:57 pm

I gather it packs a fairly good graphic package in a small footprint.
And I think you can set up your own server so you can select your companions and isolate your universe from harmful 12 year old finger poking morons.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 9, 2021, 8:30 pm

Yes, I saw the pre-release included Linux. That usually means making it easy to set up your own server.

Get thee behind me, Durned!


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: March 10, 2021, 11:50 am

Peer to peer!

Ruler of your own universe.

All these things, I can make all these things happen for you!

Just, uh, sign here where the pitchfork indicates and initial in the marked areas.


Comment from Fritzworth
Time: March 11, 2021, 1:19 am

Just now, I brought up Shadow of Mordor on my Steam app; there was some discussion of it on Quora, and I thought, ‘I haven’t played that in ages’ (2014, to be precise). And who should I see is ‘playing right now’ but a certain Weasel. 🙂 Reminded me I hadn’t been here on your blog for some time (been browsing less during the Black Death). So now it’s downloading and re-installing. Only 42 GB.

I was a game designer once upon a time. Was chief architect and principle coder for Sundog: Frozen Legacy on the Apple II. The entire game fit on both sides of a 140KB floppy (so 280KB in all, though there was some duplicate code/data on both sides). The game itself ran on a 64KB Apple II. Simpler times, simpler times.

Also, I also eschew multi-player games. Last one I spent any time with was Lord of the Rings Online a decade or so ago. It was actually fun, and I helped start up a clan, but after a while trying to coordinate my playtime with other people just got too intrusive. ..fritz..


Comment from Fritzworth
Time: March 11, 2021, 1:23 am

Oh, and, yes, I’m a big headshot-from-a-distance fan as well. I replay Tomb Raider (2014) every year or two just to spend time skulking around and shooting the baddies in the head with arrows. I used similar distance tactics with Horizon Zero Dawn and Borderlands 2/Pre-Sequel.

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