I wanna play my own game.

I often use Evernote to just write random stuff down, thoughts, opinions, comments or whatever, some long, some just a few words, with the intention of writing a blogpost about it.
However more often than not these notes don't turn into blogposts and stay just notes on Evernote.. For some reason i get stuck on just a few notes and hit a wall..

However this time i thought to try something new (to me) and just post a few of these notes "Bullet Points" style.

Most of these notes were about why i love the open world RPG games so much lately (been playing a lot of Skyrim) and especially games like Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Oblivion and Skyrim that feature mod options.
I even prefer to play them over MMO's lately, which hasn't happend in a long time.

• I especially love these games because pretty much anything can be modded.
• It gives me an almost unique game, i mean what are the chances of someone having all the same mods installed as i have.
• I really like being able to customize a  game to my liking, being graphical, gameplay or even complete overhauls going as far as almost giving you a complete new game.
• I'm never really done playing the game as i enjoy trying out new mods just as much as playing the game.
• I am often amazed at  some of these mods, especially those that improve on graphics,  gameplay or overall experience. When you see what some of these mods can do to the game you start thinking the original developers where lazy or didn't care, there are mods out there that are way better than what the developers themself made in these games, making me really think that some of these modders should be hired to work on these games, i mean these modders are making this stuff in their spare time, just for fun and it looks way better than the vanilla stuff the designers made.
• Despite being (often) negative about the devs/designers i still think they deserve a lot of credit for designing and creating such a great open world (playground) to play in and for releasing the creation tools they used to make the game so the community gets a chance to improve and expand an allready awesome game. (Note to this note: i actually intended to write a "Developer Appreciation Week" post about this but unfortianatly never got around to write this post. But who says we can only thank the devs for one week.. So there you go!)
• I am getting more and more into the mindset of wanting to play games the way i want to play them and not how developers decide i have to play them.
• When the game does get boring there are always new mods to try out that will sometimes even give you whole new lands to explore, new quests to do, adding a whole lot more gameplay.

Now i know this is pretty much imposible to do in MMO's/multiplayer games, however take a look at WoW and their addons. A great way to being able to customize your game close to what you'd like it to be.
And i would even go as far and say that i probably would not be playing WoW today if it wasn't for the addons.
When i started playing WoW i did not know about addons, took a 10 day trial and played for maybe 2 days and then didn't touch it for a long time, when i learned about addons  i tried it again installing some addons that installed some stuff i wanted to see in the game and i have been playing since.

See now i actually managed to turn a couple of these notes into a blogpost, maybe i should do this more often, whether or not this post makes sense.. well i'll leave that up to you :)

Bethesda games: It's all about community

I have been playing a lot of Fallout New Vegas lately, and as usual i developed a love/hate relation with the game.
Some time ago i stopped playing because i got tired of the crashes, however, the urge to play FNV always comes up again..

It bothers me that a game can be so "crash happy", and to say it's the mods i use that's causing it, is a bit too much.
I won't deny that mods can cause crashes and i am sure some of my crashes were probably caused by them.
This does however not change the fact that when i started playing FNV for the first time, without any mods whatsoever, it crashed within the first 15 mins of the game (talking about a warm welcome), so this was definatly not caused by any mods.

Doing a Google search on Fallout gives a ton of results on crashes/freezes etc.
I find it pretty wierd that this gets through QA, either they don't care or they don't do QA testing.
It's almost as if they are counting on the community to fix their problems, and the community does exactly that and more.

It's the awesome community behind the games (Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Oblivion, Skyrim) that make these games as great as they are, without the community behind them the games would be forgotten pretty quick.

Imagine Blizzard or BioWare releasing a game as buggy as Oblivion, Fallout etc, there would be riots, yet the communty seems to forgive Bethesda for it.
Sure these games are awesome sandbox games and with the community made mods and improvements there's unlimited gameplay.
I have seen so many mods and game improvements out there that are way better than what the game devs put in the games themself, sometimes i really wonder if the game is just rushed to get it out and make money, they know it's going to sell because there's a huge community behind their games.

I have to admit, so far for me Skyrim does appear to be more stable and i have had only a few crashes/bugs, but i can't wait until the dev kit is released and we can see some real improvements to the game.

Sure Bethesda i forgive you, although i often feel like pulling my hairs out when i encounter yet another bug/crash, i'll keep playing until i am tired of the crashes, then i'll ragequit.... and be back for more later.

Why do we put up with it?

That is a question i asked myself several times.
Today was no exception, after playing Fallout New Vegas for about 10 minutes the game froze/crashed on me and i had to use the windows task manager to shut down the game.

After buying the latest DLC for Fallout NV, Old World Blues, that so far i have not been able to play cause the game doesn't want to coorporate for more than 10 minutes before crashing, i am really asking myself that question again.

To me that crashing is not unfamiliar and to those playing Fallout 3 or Oblivion, probably not that unfamiliar either.
Those games are very "crash happy", the first Bethesda game i ever played and fell in love with was Oblivion, and eventhough i really enjoy playing it, it is not without problems.
Some might say it's because you're using mods or player made addons, but in my experience even without those mods there are plenty of problems with the game.

One of the first (major) problems i encountered in Oblivion was the "famous" corrupted savegame, that basicly forced me to completely start over from scratch, all progress lost, and then i am talking about 20-30 hours worth of gameplay and that was even before i discovered mods.
I had that same problem with Fallout 3.

Fallout New Vegas, when i first launched it, it crashed after just 15 mins of playing, again without mods, what a (familiar) welcome to the game..

Why do i even put up with these problems?
Well because despite these problems, the games are freaking awesome. They are absolutely the top games when it comes to open world RPG's.
The customization of these games really extend the lifetime of these games, just look at what´s still going on for Oblivion.

For me Bethesda has been an absolute favourite when it came to RPG's/games, but also my major bane.
The times i have cursed them for making such unstable games are countless, yet i am willing to put up with it is because the games are so much fun.

However now with Skyrim coming i have my hopes up, that for once they go on a new road and bring us a stable, working game.
For me Skyrim is going to be the treshold, it will decide my future decisions on wether to buy Bethesda games, cause frankly i am fed up with problems with the games i love so much.
Why can´t they make a game that works and keeps working, so that i can enjoy these games without forcing myself to save every 5 minutes, without the constant worry of the game crashing (cause i know that´s going to happen sooner or later).

So far i have put up with it, because i love Oblivion, because i love Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, but enough is enough.

I have allready pre-purchased Skyrim on steam and i can´t wait to play it, but if they are using the same engine as they have been using for Oblivion/Fallout than i fear the worst and it will start all over again.

But i have made my decision, Skyrim or bust. If Skyrim is just as "crash happy" as Oblivion and Fallout it will be my last purchase of an Bethesda game, no matter how much i love them. I am just sick of the constant crashing and the constant fear of losing my game progress.

I mean it's not impossible, look at other great games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, i have yet to encounter a single problem, so it is quite possible to make stable games.

So Bethesda: Skyrim or bust!
This game is going to decide whether or not you will be getting any of my money in the future, because i am done playing games that should not have left the beta stage like that, because they are not finished when they are glitchy or crash/lock up without a clear reason.

Wasteland Justice

Just a look at how my character currently looks in Fallout 3, with the help of some cool mods :)

Fallout of surround gaming

Lots of gaming done in the last couple of weeks.
Finally got my "project" done and got the Matrox Triplehead2Go installed and i am now gaming in "surround gaming" at a resolution of 3840x1024 on 3 monitors.
Needles to say that it looks awesome, no matter what game you play with it.

Been doing lots of gaming, but most recently i have been enjoying Fallout 3 again, hadn't played it in quite sometime but now i am absolutely loving it again.
Especially since i started using some mods, like Enclave Commander and RR Companions Vault.
There's so much stuff out there that will make this game even more fun.

Can't wait to check out the upcoming Fallout 3 DLC, Mothership Zeta, looks like that is going to be a lot of fun.

Also started a new "project", a new videocard. Just ordered a GeForce GTX 295.
Just feel my current card, the 8800GTX, can't just quite manage my new screen resolution while gaming. It's good but i am just not happy with the framerates.
Hopefully this new card will be handling it a lot better (it should).

Operation Games for Windows Life - Failed

Eventhough i bought Operation Anchorage for Fallout 3, it was apperantly not installed...
For some reason Games for Windows Live wouldn't update because my system had a different language than the automatic update Games for Windows Live was recieving, i was redirected to a Windows site with a possible solution, that of course didn't work either...

Even downloading and re-installing the latest version of GfWL didn't solve thas issue, what a piece of crap.
Going through and installing all available updates for Windows itself... you guessed it, didn't work either.
But eventually Google came to the rescue, i searched for the error message i was getting when trying to install Operation Anchorage and i found a forumpost having that same problem and by clicking on a possible solution from a poster i was finaly able to find a post that had a link to the the Dutch language update for WinXP/GfWL.
Apperantly it is to difficult for Microsoft to support different language systems with their software....

Anyway.. on to Operation Anchorage, i definatly enjoyed it, it felt a bit (too) short as i went through it in a few hours and i don't think you can do it again, eventhough i think it would be awesome, afterall it is a simulation program, so why not give you the option to run it again??

The gameplay (and scenery) felt different enough to give a little change of action and i had a lot of fun running through it.
I think i got most of the content done, i only missed one intelligence briefcase (only got 9/10), but since there is no going back i won't be able to search for the last one :(

If you like Fallout 3, Operation Anchorage is deffinatly worth getting.

Roaming the wastelands

The last few days i've been really getting into the Fallout universe, been playing a lot of Fallout 3 (still haven't finished it and still looking to get Operation Anchorage after i purchased it, but i am no rush whatsoever). Really looking forward to the upcoming DLC.

Also thanks to Good Old Games i am playing Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics and eventhough they look familiar i can't say i remember playing them back then, so i am sure i'll have a lot of fun playing them.

Allready started playing the original Fallout and so far i am having a lot of fun.

Fallout 3

The last couple of days i have been addicted to Fallout 3, what an awesome game!
I decided to download it from D2D and give it a go after the major dissapointment of Dead Space.
I am really enjoying this, lots of fun.