Not Related In Any Way To Hogwarts

[Silver Sorrow]

Kingdoms of Amalur: The Re-Re...ah, hell. Don't make me type that stupid title.

Anyway, KOA has been updated to include some sort of content -- not DLC -- centered around whatsername...the naked-adjacent Dark Elf. You know who I mean.

Anyway, I'll quote the news:

Many fantastic tales have been spun about the secretive Dokkalfar agent named Alyn Shir. ... now it is up to you to unravel one of them. Follow a series of clues and travel to a number of hidden locations across Amalur to procure a very delicate item left behind by the infamous assassin herself.But be warned: You are not the only one who wants to get their hands on this important and very personal piece.

• Revisit pivotal locations all across Amalur and explore secret hideouts
• Uncover lore of your former self and your special relation with Alyn Shir
• Embark on a scavenger hunt that pits you against the lowest of the low

And then there's a couple of screenshots. One is kind of bizarre, showing her head on a male body? I don't know. I don't WANT to know.

I'm not exactly compelled to reinstall the thing and re-re-experience it all over again, so...meh. Whatever. I will say though that the word "Dokkalfar" puts me in mind of two things, and always has:

1. Dan Aykroyd's "dickfer" joke in Spies Like Us.

2. The Wookalar monster that Tim Conway was obsessed with in The Private Eyes.

And, like Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

In other news, I have not had the best experience getting mods running in DAI. I would go on a wall-of-text rant about every aspect of the experience, but I won't. You're welcome. However, I must point out that the EA desktop launcher thingy is a goddamn cancer. Here's to the day when the DA games are freed from DRM once and for all.

[Starfox]

I'm not exactly compelled to reinstall the thing and re-re-experience it all over again, so...meh. Whatever.

Well, it's still installed on mine. So someday when I'm not too busy doing... something else -- meaning certainly not next week -- I'll give it a try. What is the worst that could happen? My head exploding? Well, that would be a contextual release.

Ooh, look, I'm turning into you

[Silver Sorrow]

I always ask what's the worst that could happen, and I'm usually not disappointed by how bad it turns out...but it's never the worst that I could imagine. So it kind of evens out, in a way.

I hope that makes sense. I'm existing on very little sleep right now.

Anyway, on my non-Hogwarts gaming experience of late: DA Inquisition. Finally, after weeks of effort, I finally have a game-friendly mod lineup that doesn't crash the game or make it soft-lock. That EA game launcher is still a pulsating cancer, though.

So I got to messing about with facegen sliders in the ECC (Expanded Character Creation)and found that, while most of them aren't all that vital to creating a good-looking character, some do make things easier. For example, the reset sliders for some sections, as well as blah blah blah whatever. You're just curious to see if I actually made a pretty elf, aren't you? Well, I did.

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I had fought with the Qunari and Human appearances for so long that I was damned sick of looking at them by the time I was finally happy with 'em. So I started an Elf, just to cleanse the palate, so to speak. That's not like licking the plate clean, is it? No...wait.

Again: sleep deprivation.

On a side note, I'm not really fond of the rogue class. I prefer mage, but...enh. Maybe I'll restart later with her as a mage. Or I might just sit in front of the TV and finally start drawing up the rules for a new drinking game based on cooking competitions. For example:

If the contestant says they're:

a. A Force To Be Reckoned With
b. In It To Win It

Then you must take a sip. Of DRAIN CLEANER. God DAMN these shows piss me off. Why do I watch them? Why? Why?

Anyway. Lunch, and then a five-hour nap. YaaaAaAAAaaaay...

[Starfox]

So for those who are dying to know what the actual reward is for completing Alyn Shir little quest, I revisited KoARR and tada:

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Isn't that nice? Who would have thought?

You have to be pretty advanced to be able to get the goods, and when I mean pretty advanced, you have to have finished the main game, basically (but you can do it before starting the Fatesworn DLC, at which point those daggers are no good anyway, although you can still use the armor for a bit. So what's the point? Don't know, you tell me...).

Anyway, I hope no one is too disappointed 

[Silver Sorrow]

I completely missed this. I have no idea what's wrong with me...but I have suspicions, as well as a list of possibilities.

Anyway, you gotta be pretty advanced to get the goods to show off your goods? Seems...dumb. I really hate the "let's wait to give the little bastards cool armor until the very end -- or after!" mentality. After toiling through the entire game in so-so crap, you get something worthwhile...for about fifteen minutes. Then that's it. It's over. We all go back to our respective--

--okay, never mind. I'm raving. Anyway, they should take a cue from the Dragon Age series: crappy-looking armor that gets increasingly crappier throughout the entire game until the ultimate armor is found: and it's not just crappy, it's seriously shitty. (DA2 may be the exception here.)

(And even then...the armor sucks stat-wise, given what's being thrown at you. Really: why does Bioware hate its target audience so much? I mean, I get it...I remember the Bioware forums. But they're downright spiteful in their hate.)

And I'm raving again. Again: never mind. Point is: that's awesome armor. Thanks for letting us know.

[Starfox]

I have no idea what's wrong with me...but I have suspicions, as well as a list of possibilities.

I have suspicions as well, but no list of possibilities. Seriously, you made a lit of possibilities for what's wrong with you? You really need therapy, probably a dozen years then you'll need a good accountant because after ten years of that your wallet will be dry 

Anyway, to be frank in addition to the armor, there's also a series of lovely letters that would let you think, by how there are written, that Alyn Shir and you were more than friends in the past, even maybe very best friends with a lot of additional benefits (but let's face it, we already had our suspicions, even 10 years ago).

Make of that what you will 

[Silver Sorrow]

I believe in self-help psychotherapy. It's far cheaper and I never have to leave the house. (Read: buying tons of useless collectibles is a lot cheaper than dealing with the American health care system.) The downside, of course, is that it's totally ineffective. Oh, well. At least I never have to go outside.

[Side note: a couple years back my dad's brother asked me how it was going; since I'm a recluse and hate people, the extroverts in the family view me as different and strange. So every so often I would get one of those "how's it going...hermit? hyuk hyuk!" So I told him that the disappointing part about living alone and having cabin fever is that when I do snap, I'll only have myself to axe-murder. As a result, I don't get many questions about my life anymore. Which is how I like it, so win-win.]

Anyway, it's kind of odd how they set up this mysterious background for the player, but never bothered to do very much with it besides hints and allegations. (Right? Or am I forgetting something?)

I get the impression that there won't be any sort of continuation of the Amalur story, which is a shame...

I'm reinstalling at the moment. I might as well play something besides DA Inquisition. (I tend to do that lately: play one game exclusively for weeks on end. I don't know why.)