Instead Of Doing Something Useful: The Story Of My Life

[Silver Sorrow]

Not really. Just taking a break from hibernation to remark upon Hogwart's Legacy.

I figure I might as post something here. I'm tired of just muttering to myself about these things, and now you get get to suffer. Yes, you!

With my current system -- GeForce GTX 1060 6gb (going by what's written down, because I can't remember SHIT) -- it works...fine. When I checked the settings, everything was set to the lowest setting available. But of course. But it performed well enough, and it even looked pretty good.

(I'm about to close the deal on a 4070 with an i7, so it might look better on that computer. Probably. )

Character creation was good. I mean, this is a teenager we're talking about here (in the late 1800's, no less), so no attention whatsoever is paid to breast size, lipstick color, or muscle tone. But give the mod community a chance; they'll turn it into a paean to base urges in no time. Can't wait.

But I did manage to get a good-looking character from the adequate options available. Things like lip/nose/etc. options just aren't there, but I'm not gonna flip my desk over in a towering rage.

Hair options are legion, so hooray. The depth of the color "black" is, as always in these games, more of a dusty dark gray or something. I have no idea why. But you can have different colors, like blonde or purple or red or white or brown or you get the picture, I hope.

I'm not gonna get into the whole JK Rowling controversy thing. I have no interest in sexual politics. But I will say that I enjoy the *freedom* of options available for a character, giving the player a chance to roleplay what they want (short of anime girls or anthro snake-things). To this end, just like Cyberpunk, you can be a transgender character...whoops! Almost said "tranny." Wouldn't THAT have been embarrassing in this enlightened, albeit viciously uptight, day and age!

Anyway, you can create, say, a character that looks like a female, but has a male voice. And has, one assumes, a penis. But you don't get to choose that option.

Hallelujah.

So I created my character, getting to choose from a basic face preset, then face shape, scars and blemishes, skin shade and tone, hairstyle, hair color, eyebrow style, glasses or not, voice type and pitch, and...that's just about it. You don't get to choose gender (it's preset based, in looks at least), breast size and shape, penis girth, cut or non-cut, height, weight, nose tilt and yaw, cheekbone depth, chin orientation, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood¹, and all that nonsense that turns facegen into a nerve-rending hour-long ordeal at best.
[¹ He would chuck, he would, as much as he could and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.]

Gameplay -- on the easiest, Story Mode (I have nothing to prove to anyone) -- is...actually fun, so far. I've only played through the intro (I've been through the Sorting Hat thing), so who knows how much it'll piss me off eventually. The camera is third person (of course), and is easy to pick up with keyboard + mouse. A controller option exists, and that may be a lot easier to learn.

A plethora² of accessibility options exist, so hooray for that sort of thing.
[² Do you know what a plethora is, Jefe?]

But that intro, though...wow. That opening bit during travel to Hogwarts (no spoilers from me) is something else. As was the intro/tutorial that merged beautifully with the story.

I got to the Sorting Hat, which is actually a pretty simple process. If you know the Harry Potter series, it's obscenely easy to choose your House outright.

So my character is in Slytherin. Was there ever any doubt?

And that's where I took a break, as it's essentially morning now. 

Out of sheer curiosity, I took a look at the Nexus, and sure enough, there's already a few mods. Reshades, of course. Can't have mod scene without seventeen thousand reshades cluttering up the place. But again: just give the modders time. They'll have Pride flags and slooty robes and body mods (maybe the "HB Body": the Hogwarts Ba-donk-a-donk Mod) in no time.

My only real concern at this point is that my character's face (her smile) kind of reminded me of Andromeda...

[Silver Sorrow]

Note to self: there's no apostrophe in Hogwarts.

Amendment: turning the brightness down from roughly 80% to around the halfway mark makes black hair black. Whodathunkit?

I restarted with a new character after I figured out what was going on...this time, Ravenclaw. Yes, the irony of a disappointing little clod such as myself joining Ravenclaw is beyond absurd. But I like purple, so to hell with it.

And now...let's see if I can figure out how to attach a screenshot. Probably not, but here goes anyway.

Screenshots:

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This is ongoing, of course. For now, I leave you with this observation: how much would it suck to be a a Scottish witch/wizard and needing to go all the way to London to catch a train that will take you back to Scotland?

[Doc_Brown]

I'm curious, Silver--is the Sorting Hat process literally just a series of one-to-one questions like that?  I remember Vampire: The Masquerade--Bloodlines having more ambiguity to its own selection process, and I was pleased with the results (I figured I'd be Gangrel, and sure enough that was the end result of the quiz despite not being able to pick the obvious answers). 

[Silver Sorrow]

It's actually just two prompts: the first is where you get to say that either you're excited to begin learning or eager to begin exploring. Doesn't matter either way. The second is the actual question, seen in the second screenshot. And that's it. So if you say "loyalty," the Hat will say Hufflepuff and you'll be given the choice of either accepting the decision or choosing a House for yourself. (And why wouldn't you? No one wants to be in Hufflepuff.)

(Side note: I thought that would've been funnier in the books. Harry begging the Powers-That-Be to please not sort him into Hufflepuff. "I don't want to be a likeable little wanker!")

That was the disappointing part for me; I thought that it would be a more...hmmmm...robust set of questions, but no. I guess they want you to get in there ASAP. After joining Ravenclaw there was a brief bit where I was escorted to the Ravenclaw common room (by a professor Weasley, no less) and asked to solve a riddle as the password...but I didn't get to choose the answer myself. My character's so smart, she didn't need my input. (But it was probably a good call on the devs' part; I'm terrible at riddles.)

I had a notion that maybe the entrance quiz would be harder on higher difficulty settings, but I'm clearly delusional. The VTMB route would have been better, I think. Or maybe tougher? It would've been nice to be dragged through a gauntlet of questions with a not-completely-obvious outcome. But at least my eyebrows are on point.

I haven't had the time today to see about answering a question I had about my friends in the story (that is: are they the same people regardless of House?), so I'm about to do that. I also thought I'd make a character for each House...the reasons escape me. But I would've like to see a definite reaction from the other Houses upon being sorted.

Gryffindor: boos from Slytherin. [I smirk like a douchebag at them.]
Slytherin: boos from Gryffindor. [I flip them off.]
Ravenclaw: crickets. [I stare into space unconcerned, playing 3D chess in my head.]
Hufflepuff: derisive laughter from the other Houses. [I sit with my face buried in my hands, my cheeks burning in shame. I take my own life in the common room later.]

[Doc_Brown]

Well that's disappointing, considering the Pottermore site already has a quiz to determine your house. You'd think they would have just taken that one and put it in the game.

Note: If you'd like to take the quiz without having to register, sites such as this one have got you covered (I get Ravenclaw which, much like Gangrel, is what I would have chosen anyway).

[Silver Sorrow]

That would've been nice. The Pottermore site's a lot of fun, really. I made an account there years ago, but I don't recall or have any record of account info...but it's a lot more detailed than it was back then, I think. My portrait's a lot nicer, anyway.

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There's an opportunity to link your game to your Pottermore account with a WB account thrown in there...two different sites wanting logins...yow. But you do get a couple of nice rewards from WB (beaked mask and a robe), as well as a good wallpaper from Pottermore.

You can follow the steps on the Pottermore site to do all that, too. No guessing, which I like. (That's the panic-attack-while-making-a-sandwich thing again.)

An interesting link...quite detailed questions, too. Y'know, a Morrowind-style quiz would be fun as well.

You see a Hufflepuff with a sweetroll. Do you:
1. Turn him into a duck and take his sweet roll
2. Push him down and kick him in the face until it isn't fun anymore, then take his sweetroll
3. Avada Kedavra his entire family and take THEIR sweetrolls
4. Say to him that nothing really matters and watch him stand and cry...then take his sweetroll

It's not that I'm down on Hufflepuffs, Lord no. I love our cuddly cannon fodder. And they're always good to borrow a few bucks from...or even more at wand-point.

Where was I? Oh, right: nowhere.

Anyway, I found that my friends in Ravenclaw are in fact different than the ones in Slytherin, so congrats to the devs for not making it a cookie-cutter thing.

Also, I'd like to apologize to the HP fanatics when I said that one of Ravenclaw's colors was purple. I should have said blue. I'll have myself scourged immediately.

EDIT

I started a new game after linking, and in the Sorting after answering the initial question, I was immediately sorted into Slytherin. I was given the chance to change Houses, though...so it's not a hard lock.

I should point out that my Pottermore profile is in Slytherin.

[Doc_Brown]

An interesting link...quite detailed questions, too.

I appreciate the fact that it A) includes all of the questions (the Pottermore quiz just takes a sampling), and B) breaks down the percentages, so you can see which house was the next closest fit, which was the worst fit, etc.

I started a new game after linking, and in the Sorting after answering the initial question, I was immediately sorted into Slytherin. I was given the chance to change Houses, though...so it's not a hard lock.

Huh.  So it is in the game... if you have a Pottermore account.  Kinda seems like a way to make you sign up for one, considering how easy it would have been to just copy and paste the quiz into the game.

[Silver Sorrow]

I kind of like the idea of a worst-fit scenario character...like a real dumbo getting into Ravenclaw somehow ("mom said I was the smartest boy in the whole wide world!").

I find dichotomous characters fun; I had an idea for a Chaotic Good necromancer...yes, she has an undead army, but she really cares about her minions, you know?

Anyway.

It could've been fun if it was the other way around: your HWL character automatically transfers over to Pottermore.

And now for the most horrible evil awful display of salacious exploitation imaginable: my character without any clothes on!

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That's right, totally naked. Scoff at the deplorable values of a society too far gone down the path of moral depravity to be saved. Hell awaits, sinners!

But really, it's funny that she's actually wearing more clothes "undressed" than she would be if she were in her school uniform.

I wish someone would do this for Cyberpunk. It would be hilarious. Especially during the sex scenes.

Oh, and I like the Dark Arts set.

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Very...dark. Again, I'd like to see something of this *spirit* in Cyberpunk. It took me forever to track down the right mods (sifting through Discord threads was goddamn exhausting) in putting together clothing that didn't look like my V was supplementing her income by trolling for johns.

I wanted Lucy Liu in Ecks vs. Sever, but instead I'm barraged with Kardashians in duct tape bikinis. I know I'm the last person on earth who anyone would suspect of being unhappy with this, but come on...enough's enough, people.

[Silver Sorrow]

Addendum: Went to pick up my wand at Ollivander's (your character is using a secondhand wand up to this point), and it matched my Pottermore wand. (Alder, dragon heartstring, slightly springy.)

I wonder if my patronus will also be a lynx...

Furthermore, I wonder if I'll get a familiar.

Got to Hogsmeade, where I just kind of ran around, looking for stuff to complete the book...challenge...things. It's a book they give you to get you caught up to the other students, but it also has your map, challenges, quests, gear, and so on. Anyway, part of getting XP is discovering things. I managed to solve a minor puzzle on my own, which gave me the same kind of positive lift I haven't felt since I remembered how to do long division.

[Silver Sorrow]

Yet another update: there's a barber...cosmetician?...in Hogsmeade. Already this is WAY more detailed than Cyberpunk.

Anyway. You can change your hairstyle and color, scars (if you want them added or removed), and your eyebrows. So it's not all-encompassing, but I guess if you'd like to suddenly sport purple dreads, you'll be okay.

No, I did not get purple dreads.

[Doc_Brown]

In a similar vein to your house, how does the game handle things like your wand, pet, and Patronus?  I know I could look it up, but...

[Silver Sorrow]

Wand's the same: the wand that I received matched my Pottermore wand, but I believe there's an option to choose another one.

As for a pet...I don't know if I'll get one. There are a lot of cats to pet, though. A LOT of cats. I had thought that maybe the owl at the very beginning may have been mine, but...uh...never mind. I don't want to spoil that part. But you do get mail/messages via a communal Owl Post in your dorm room. So maybe a pet isn't really necessary.

I'm not sure if that's good or bad. If it was something along the lines of Torchlight 2, where I could send my pet to Hogsmeade to sell off some junk, then maybe I'd suffer through it. But I'm happy enough to be without something following me around at all times.

Patronus...huh. I didn't see that listed in any of the spells I would potentially have through the course of the game (you see a list when you're assigning the fifth selectable spell you pick up to a quick-cast slot). I was thinking that it's because the Patronus charm was something 5th years weren't really supposed to know...and I vaguely remembered something about the difficulty.

A bit of digging reminded me that Patronus wasn't taught at any level of the curriculum and Lupin taught HP that to protect against the Dementors...kind of like your driving instructor teaching you how to drift into a parallel parking spot.

Of course, HP was a typically lazy little bastard and just barely squeaked by even with all the help handed to him. (Like a lot of us in life, actually.)

Oh...wait. Just saw a gamerevolution article that says the devs have stated flatly that there will be no Patronus in the game. Oh, well.

Aside from all that, I'm not sure I like the complexity of the spell combat; an encounter with a large bad...uh...thing...as part of the MQ reminded me that QTE is alive and well in games. It wasn't all that bad though, as the spells I needed to cast were telegraphed early enough for me to remember where I left the "Q" key.

(I had a moment where I couldn't figure out why I kept casting Lumos, but then I realized that it was because I had just come off a week where I was revisiting Jedi Academy...Lumos is automatically assigned to "1" when you first learn it, and "1" is what my lightsaber was bound to. What I can't figure out is if I was hitting 1 to deactivate my wand, or I was just expecting my wand to turn into a lightsaber and make this game way too easy?)

There's a duelling club you can join (part of the MQ) that will teach you how to do combos and all that fun stuff. Hit them with Leviosa, zap 'em 3 times, hit 'em with Accio, zap 'em again...took me a few tries to get it right, but I'm a complete Fumblethumbs. Everyone else on the face of the earth should have no problem whatsoever.

(Learning the Accio spell in particular was one of those moments where I realized...yet again...that I'm terrible at following instructions.)

Too bad there's not just one key... That would be a great Accessibility feature: "If you suck, selecting this option will bind MB1 to 'everything' and we'll take care of you from there. By the way, YOU SUCK."

Btw, I think I just hit 10% completion. I'm just having fun running around the school and doing little sidequests and stuff.

Blathering on about Mods: the idiots are out in full force on the mod scene. Someone made the pants for one of the female outfits more form-fitting than it was (it does make a lot of sense), and the mods had to lock the comments due to the OMG UR SEXUALIZING GURLS assholes. Someone fixed the too-dark cast of the lightest skin tones (OMG U RACIST NAZI), even though they also fixed the darkest skin tones being too light.

(Side note: the skin tone mod was a bit too light for me, although I think it's because the lighting in this game is a little...eh...capricious when it comes to rendering. But I appreciate its extistence anyway. As someone pointed out, they're in the north of Britain and everyone looks like they just got back from a holiday on the beach.)

And of course, now someone's released a Trans Flag scarf, so...well. Good for them, I guess. I actually prefer that to MAGA hats, really.

I just wish they'd do something about Sirona's voice. (The Trans bartender/owner of the Three Broomsticks.) That shit'll make you jump, man. Even Claire in Cyberpunk *sounded* like a woman.

I know, I know...I'm a piece of cess-ridden filth. I admit that. But look. I deal regularly with a trans person at the pharmacy; you wouldn't know they were originally a dude if you aren't REALLY paying attention. They affect a high voice and are at least making the effort. So I guess the problem I have with Sirona is one of dedication, or the lack thereof, on her part. Keeping your deep hairy man voice is just LAZY.

I mean...okay. You take a dude home, right? You're gettin' hot and heavy, and then it's time for the big reveal...and nothing? He's not surprised at all?!? It's because your big manly voice tipped him off, you goof! You want that bastard screaming in shock when he realizes that the wincing little damsel he thought he was picking up actually has a dick bigger than his! That's the fun part!

(Note: this is one reason I'm never going to southeast Asia. Another reason is that they put peppers in all the food. I'm delicate.)

DISCLAIMER: I'm sorry.

[Silver Sorrow]

I thought navigation was kind of a pain in the ass, until I realized that I probably wasn't supposed to get to where I wanted to go because I hadn't unlocked a quest or something.

Whilst wandering about trying to find all of the Daedalic keys, I saw that there was supposed to be a floo flame access to the hospital (I'm trying to find all the floo points). So I set off to find the hospital. You can track locations by right clicking (default), so I followed the purple dots on my minimap until I got to the tower where it's supposed to be (this is also where the Gryffindor common room is, I believe). Halfway up a staircase, the dots reorient themselves and tell me to go back the way I came. So I did...and right when I walked outside the tower, the dots turned around and pointed me back to the tower.

I don't need this sort of thing at 4am.

So obviously I'm not supposed to get there yet. I'm also running across all of these hopping chests with a single eyeball on 'em, and I guess that's something I'll be able to figure out later. Also: locked doors. A shitload of locked doors. I suppose that's what Alcoholica...wait...no. Alohomora is for. And then there are the Arithmancy puzzles...

Audible sigh.

I'm never going to finish this game, am I?

[Silver Sorrow]

Another update. God knows I love updates.

You don't get a "pet"...that is, a familiar. You're trained how to rescue and...I guess nurture...wild beasts you find.

Personally speaking...I don't really see the point of that. Like horses in Oblivion or Skyrim: why?

Fan service. We want fantastic beasts and we want to know where to find them!

Gaaaaah. Ogre sums it up nicely.

[Silver Sorrow]

Postprandial musing.

The controversy tainting this game is a non-issue. It's a marketing ploy. One of the devs claimed that they wouldn't buy the game blah blah blah. But they're not so disgusted and offended that they immediately resigned and gave all the money back that they've earned over the course of their employment.

Bad press, good press...it's all good press. Look at the numbers. By whipping the easily-offended into a frothing frenzy, they inspire the other half of the issue to buy the game out of spite.

I bought it because I thought it would be a fun game. Or mildly interesting, at the very least. If it was more expensive, I would've waited for a sale.

Don't be fooled, and don't buy things out of spite.

I know, I know...next thing you know, I'll be wearing a foil hat. Ha. Shows what you know. I already have one, and it is quite jaunty.