I have started playing Fallout 4 in my spare time. And I have quite enjoyed it thus far. Some early impressions:

1) Not sure how I feel about the removal of skill levels. I do and I don't like it at the same time, although I can't really articulate why for either.
2) Unpopular opinion: I have liked the voiced protagonist thus far. But this is not an endorsement of a voiced protagonist for The Elder Scrolls. I still expressly don't want it for TES for various reasons. But I have liked the actual voice acting so far from my character, and I think it works fairly well with the cinematic camera and talking to various NPCs. It actually makes me more invested in the story and interactions with NPCs more dynamic and interesting.
3) Speaking of the cinematic camera, I have not minded it. Again, I'm not saying I want it for The Elder Scrolls, and I'd probably prefer not to have it for that series.
4) I wouldn't say I was adamantly against Fallout 3's degradation mechanic, but I have not missed it thus far.
5) Piper is the bomb.
6) The dialogue wheel, in concept, isn't an issue. It's really just a stylistic thing and operates basically the same as the old lists. But it is a problem that you cannot see what exactly you are going to say before you actually say it. Sure, most of the time it is going to be something that you would think is going to be said, but that isn't always the case.

For points 2 and 3 specifically, I think part of why I don't mind it in Fallout is because I am not as invested in the series like I am with The Elder Scrolls. I'd argue that player freedom is more integral to TES than any other series, and as such I want as much control over my character and their personality as possible. Voiced protagonists, in particular, I think would be too problematic for TES. This isn't just from a player freedom standpoint. You would have to have, at a minimum, 20 different voice actors: one male and one female for each race. And while it was inevitable that the voiced protagonist in Fallout 4 would cause issues for some people (fortunately for me, I have actually enjoyed the voice acting for my character and I think it suits her well), the outcry would be far worse if it was implemented in TESVI. You can't possibly please everybody with the voice acting in terms of roleplaying.

I had the same thoughts about F4 (plus a bunch more that were not so charitable). I enjoyed the voiced protagonist because they hired good voice actors. More voices to choose from would be nice though. Like you said, with ES games that would probably not work since they would have to hire more voice actors. Then again, if they give up on hiring big name stars like Patrick Stewart and Christopher Plummer, they would probably have plenty of money left over to hire five times as many quality people like Jennifer Hale and Laura Bailey.

If you are on the PC, the issue of not knowing what you are saying has been fixed by several mods, like Full Dialog Interface. It is out for X-Box and PS as well. I highly recommend it.

I can't understand it. At many Foundries, I used the iron-ore-to-coal ratio in conjunction with how many of each resource rail cars hold to determine the exact balance of coal/ore to be delivered per train load to efficiently produce iron bars. As needed, I "bled" excess of whichever of the resources was too strongly present, so that those foundries held a roughly correct proportion of one to the other. Problem solved....or so I thought. I now receive message after message informing me that a "warehouse" is full of either coal or iron ore. These almost invariably prove to be out of balance foundries. How in the wold did that happen? Good news, it doesn't harm bar production. Still, it makes for inefficient train runs from mine to foundry, carrying a load of one resource that can't be offloaded since the foundry is full. I'm sure there's a solution, but dang if I can figure it out. I'm not giving up, btw.

Khajiit is thinking it may be to time to play a Total War game again, but which one? Khajiit has Atilla and Rome. Rome is simpler and easier to get into, but Khajiit has experienced many annoying crashes. This one really likes the additions in Atilla and it seems much more stable, but some of the systems seem a little wonky. Decisions, decisions.

I'm still trucking along with Dark Souls 2, but I think I might have messed up my character's development based on how I'm doing in the game so far. Starting with Huntsman's Copse, I've been having trouble staying alive when before I would only really die to mobs of enemies. (If the original's sin is tacking on platforming segments, then this game's is throwing big mobs of difficult enemies at you) Thankfully, you can get a Ring of Life Protection from Goth Laurentius Felkin the Outcast provided you have at least 10 in both Intelligence and Faith, which is the game's infamously cheap way to avoid consequences from death if you're willing to sacrifice a ring slot for it.

Anyways, I think the reason I'm having trouble is because I'm playing a Cleric focused entirely on Miracles and not enough on physical attributes, in spite of Miracles being largely supportive in nature until late in the game. I thought that picking up Hexes would make up for that, but most Faith-based Hexes are fueled by souls (as in, the things that are both currency AND experience points). Not to mention that Hexes are scaled based on your lowest attribute between Intelligence and Faith, and since I only have the bare minimum intelligence the one Hex I can cast without fear of going broke isn't all that powerful either.

For magic like Sorcery, it's easy to know where to dump your level ups since it relies entirely on Attunement and Intelligence and is offensive from the get-go. For Pyromancy you only really need to worry about Attunement, since in the first and second games Pyromancy's power is directly influenced by the catalyst's quality instead of both that and your Intelligence AND Faith like in the final installment. That means Pyromancers end up being Battlemages or Spellswords and it's the entire reason I took to them lol.

So unless I find some really good offensive Miracles or grind a bit to either beef up Intelligence or Strength/Vitality, I'm going to be brutally murdered by the rat boss in the Doors of Pharros. :v

I remember hearing about it. I am on PC, so I might give it a look later.

It seems like there was also better direction given to voice actors in general, which helped make the voice acting better overall.

Just like in 2014 when I had my temporary job, I have since awhile back begun to play Bubble Bobble on the NES when coming home. I always go to level 57 where I stop because it's a donkey kind of level anyway

I've had Mashinky right at a month now. I'm still on my original map, though there are almost no usable industries remaining to connect to other stations. There's still a lot of fine tuning to do, and creating what I call "peripheral" train lines...not really needed for but fun to construct. (They do no harm so long as maintenance costs don't put me in the black.) My NorthEast Metropolis has become so congested it tends to crash the game if I stay there any length of time.

I enjoy both the building aspect of the game (done on a decidedly old-school screen) and riding the rail along my more interesting routes in first-person engine cab mode (which occurs in "realistic view").

I'm not an efficiency fanatic. My map's train routes don't look like a well designed circuit board, as I've seen from some YouTube LPers. I consider my routing style "semi controlled chaotic" and frequently lay rail as much for potential scenic value as anything else. (This doesn't always pan out, but that's another story.) It's not that I ignore efficiency. It's just not the be all and end all for me, assuming the route in question turns a profit, or at worst breaks even.

By now most routes that run two trains are double tracked in their entirety, except for occasional short sections of single track at bridges (which I rarely create in pairs) and sometimes stations. These past few days I've reverted somewhat on newly created routes, making them single track with sections of passing track peppered throughout their length. Adds a little spice when in first-person engine cab view mode, in my opinion. Well, except for a long Iron Mine to Holding Station route set up yesterday. Boy is that a boring run. I don't think anything could make it interesting. Well, maybe if I hired strippers to entertain me in the cab...but no, the game's not sophisticated enough for that.

Another route created yesterday, a shortish run between Coal Mine and Foundry to help alleviate an imbalance between Coal and Iron Ore, is one of my favorite trains to ride. It comes in reasonably close contact with one or more other lines most of the way, allowing lots of train spotting opportunities. There's even short tunnel near the end. Ya gotta love tunnels. There are so few of 'em on my map. Next time round I'll surely pick a more hilly map? At any rate, I killed a good 30min before breakfast this morning in Mashinky doing nothing but riding that route in cab view mode.

When complete, the game is suppose to to allow mods. My hope is that there'll be era specific add-on packs, both functional and cosmetic. As it stands now, new industries and town functions generate with each new era. That's all well and good. But I'm one of those rail fans whose heart belongs with steam. I'm not much interested in advancing the game beyond the steam era, though early diesel is okay too. Therefore, era based add-on packs would come in right handy.

I also hope add-ons allow more realistic train operation. Right now, for instance, trains simply "flip" themselves when at the end of a line. I can live with that, but realistic it ain't. I'd like the ability to uncouple an engine, have it maneuver through switching track, and eventually be able to back up, recouple, and head out with the engine facing the right direction. I'd also like a functional turntable, though the game's limitations on track angles might make this super hard to implement...and they take up lots of space to boot. Watering tanks along longer routes would be nice too, even if cosmetic.

Ye gods, Decrepit, you’re bringing back many fond memories of playing Railroad Tycoon 3 in sandbox mode! Stahp it please!

Holy crap, holy crap!!! There’s a new Total War “saga” game coming out that focuses on Britannia!! It’s set during the Viking age and it looks like you can play as Danes, Anglo Saxons, or the Gaelic Clans!! So excited to see how the reviews are!

Hmm...so if I could pick the absolute worst parts of Dark Souls 2, it would be Brightstone Cove Tseldora, The Shrine of Amana, and the Undead Crypt.
(Minor mention to The Gutter and the foggy section of the Shaded Woods, more because they're just plain annoying to navigate) The Shrine and the Crypt especially, seeing as they're back to back and they're both the absolute WORST Dark Souls 2 has to offer: being ganged up by a lot of difficult enemies, a lot of which will spam spells at you from a distance, at least 2 at a time with more enemies wanting to break you open like a Soul Piñata.

That aside, things got easier when I finally found more (well-hidden) Lightning miracles. AFTER clearing these areas. For a time I was using Hexes for more viable ways to weaponize Faith, but they didn't really measure up, so I made my character dumber but stronger and maxed out Faith. No more Hexes until I build up Intelligence again, but at least I'm not having trouble anymore. Then again, most Hexes take up 2 attunement slots as opposed to only 1 for most Miracles, and I had forgotten that Dark Souls 2 has Attunement increase spell uses, so in the end I might just stick to Miracles. Gonna miss Dark Storm/Scraps of Life's ability to knock back enemies though. Those were actually useful. And without Xbox Live I'm never getting the Wrath of the Gods miracle

Wow, I thought their next game was going to be part 2 of the Warhammer game.

Are you sure, this says Three Kingdoms China. Ok, I see Britannia on their site, coming out in April! Wow, that is soon.

It is part of a new line of Total War games called Saga games. From what little their website says these game will focus on a smaller area, at some major point in history. It looks like the campaign map will be just about as big as a normal TW game, just focused on a smaller area. Britannia is just the UK. But there are a lot more territories in it than in say Atilla.

They're going to compete against Dynasty Warriors 9? Good luck, lol.

Khajiit has never played Dynasty Warriors. Are they any good?

I've not played them all, but man did I put in a ton of hours to DS5, back on the PS2. I still break it out now and again - they are fun hack 'n slash games! The ninth installment is due out this month I believe, and will feature an open world for the first time in the series.

Really looking forward to it.

What’s the subject matter? Is it historical or fantasy (Khajiit believes they have an Ancient Chinese theme, yes?)?

Same as that total war game - it's all based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

All the characters and stories are inspired by it, and it takes place after the fall of the Han Empire, when three kingdoms are all warring for control.

Nice! It’s kind of strange that this one has never played these games, considering that he is somewhat interested in ancient Chinese history.

It's a ton of fun if you like wading into huge crowds of peons and obliterating them. Dueling other officers is fun, too.

I'm not sure how the story mode works in the later games, but in 5, there were 48 characters that all had a story mode between 4-8 battles.

- 4 for factions unaligned with the three kingdoms (with one exception)
- 5 for most of the three kingdom stories
- 6 for key figures in the three kingdoms
- 8 for the kingdom leaders

And since then, I believe they added many more characters, and even an new kingdom. Zhao Yun is the character featured on most of the box art, and is kind of the flagship guy for the series.

My favorite is Jiang Wei, though. Who wouldn't want to fight with a trident?!

A trident?! Lol, not exactly a weapon this one thinks of when thinking about Ancient China

Not a lot to report Mashinky wise. A number of Foundries are still out of balanced, but in all but in instance that's going to be rather hard to do and might not be worth the effort. I can of course simply reduce the amount of the overabundant resource per train. But I'd have to remember where and when I did so and keep a constant eye on things to know when to restore those loads to normal. Besides, I've done so yet the imbalance somehow reappears. I suspect that stated resource ratios aren't 100% reliable. They only need to be off by one resource unit a train load to eventually throw things out of whack. In any case those foundries continue to earn tokens, so it's not a big deal.

I've an odd occasional train routing issue at one of the few foundries not imbalanced. Once every so often one of two trains sharing a two track line gets confused and ends up on another line altogether, causing all sorts of mischief. I know where pretty much where things have to be going wrong but can't for the life of my figure out why. I suspect it has to be a signalling issue, but all relevant signals look fine to me. I deleted and reset both train's orders (waypoint markers) for that area. Those looked good too, but better save than sorry.

At the very end of yesterday's Mashinky play session it came into my head to spice up a rather mundane passenger run between two self-established towns situated along what I term the "western" edge of my map. This led to me wonder if rivers and streams can be satisfactorily created via bulldozer. (At this stage my map is awash in green tokens so funding an extensive dig is no issue.) Here's an image of the results of one of two short, narrow streams I made, meandering in from map edge. I think it looks darn nice!

Self Created stream extending into "no man's land" off the map.

What's more, to my surprise and delight I found that if we dig down into the blocks abutting map edge the game will on its own extend our work into "no mans land" for an even more realistic looking river/stream! (Map Edge on my image is where the tree line cuts off on screen left.)

I'm going to see if I can temporarily disable terrain editing costs while creating more waterways throughout my large map. (I don't see disabling it for this purely cosmetic purpose as a "cheat.") If not, no big deal. I'll just need to go slow rather than create a lot of waterways all at once.)

A limitation of this approach is that it obviously work only when we dig down into the "water level" layer, so no mountain streams, waterfalls and so on. Still, I think it a nice cosmetic addition.


Friday late morning ADDENDUM:
I created a more extensive waterway this morning. It begins somewhat north of the map's "southwest" corner and meanders its way to not terribly far east from that same corner, flowing around the town Excremento. I call this capture, unsurprisingly...

"The Bridge at Excremento Creek"

"A Baldwin pulled passenger train on the return leg of a short run from Belfast to the town from whence the waterway draws its name, seen as it crosses Excremento Creek. Both town and creek are self created. A 2018-02-09 image, the date the creek first held water." (Excremento and a few other self-created town names, Dungsly to the north comes to mind, are coined in honor of Wolfgang Mozart. I'll let those interested look up the connection on their own.)

"A Baldwin pulled passenger train on the return leg of a short run from Belfast to the town from whence the waterway draws its name, seen as it crosses Excremento Creek. Both town and creek are self created. A 2018-02-09 image, the date the creek first held water."

(Excremento and a few other self-created town names, Dungsly to the north comes to mind, are coined in honor of Wolfgang Mozart. I'll let those interested look up the connection on their own.)

Those railroad pics look amazing!

'Nother thought on Dark Souls 2 as I reach the end of the game: I think it's probably the most content-packed of the three because of the Lost Crowns Trilogy DLC as well as the Scholar of the First Sin update and it's definitely the most...experimental?

I mean, it didn't have the original director that they got back for the finale and it ended up losing the first director hired for it for an undisclosed reason, so I guess it stands to reason that they'd try a lot of things with the series that deviated from the original's. Apparently they even tried to go with a more open-world feel which was ultimately abandoned in favor of the original's world structure. (Which explains the impossible connections between some the areas: the areas that would connect them more logically were cut.) I mean, it even has unique sound effects for spells and the like that were inexplicably replaced with the original game's for 3.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that it goes a long way to explain why it was my most-played Souls game in spite of the third game being better, mechanically. It's definitely unique, in retrospect. Too bad its place in the series' lore and story is practically pointless. :v Honestly if there's one thing I hate about 3 drawing heavily from the 1st's lore is that it ruined the implications that Lordran was gone and mostly forgotten, along with the other lands from the time. The revelation that most of the kingdoms from the original were somehow still around countless millennia after the first linking of the fire is frankly absurd and goes against the overall theme of cycles and decay. But I GUESS it fits 3's "Just Let the Past Go" thing it was going for. idk I'm rambling and incoherent

The Crown of the Sunken King DLC is neat but geeze the content is hard for a Cleric that was having a hard enough time in the base game. You get to fight alits and the last boss of the DLC is even Peryite :U (Well, it's close enough anyways) It also turns out I never did explore the DLC areas as thoroughly as I thought and I ended up finding new things. Like some weird tree that repairs your equipment with a flash of light if you whip it.

Yeah, the game looks very nice in "realistic" mode. If you get real close to something you notice that textures are adequate but not super high resolution. Thing is, by the game's nature you rarely get the opportunity get super close to things, so mid res textures are sufficient.

Couple more Maskinky images centered on trains at self-created streams:

A Baldwin pulled passenger train crosses one of my streams while traveling between to of my self-created towns along the maps "west" edge.

Two Pacific pulled coal trains cross paths at a stream. I can't recall why I assigned Pacifics to pull so small a load. (Two rail cars each.) Gonna need to investigate that.

Friday afternoon addendum:
My eyes played tricks on my. Those two Pacifics pull four rail cars each, not two. Four's still no burden for a Pacific, but in this case I found out that the Toolworks these locomotives deliver their loads to is awash in coal and can't handle more than it does now. Which means the two pictured trains don't need more than four rail cars each.

Welp, my Dark Souls 2 save file corrupted. :v

Luckily I have a backup so my old characters are fine but since this sets me back considerably on my current save I think I'm gonna call it quits. Playing a Miracle-based Cleric sucks. I'm done with this series for a couple of years now.

Not yet playing but a few mins after 0400 began downloading/installing Kingdom Come: Deliverance off Steam. It's a huge DL so gonna take a while over my not so speedy internet connection. No YouTube for poor decrepit me for the duration, unless I want to make KCD download that much longer.

Figured out how to record game footage with OBS last night. Gonna use it to "film" some of my more interesting Mashinky train routes. More interesting to me at any rate. Anyone else will likely find these rail rides a sure cure for insomnia. Don't know that I'll ever post any footage on YouTube. It's pretty mundane stuff. Then again, I'd have the non existent "ride the rails in first-person engine cab view mode" market pretty much to myself...for good reason. Heh

Speaking of Mashinky, I've been devoting myself almost exclusively to establishing and growing towns along the maps "south" and "west" borders. Am also using the in-game terrain editor to create a bit of scenic pizazz along those border town routes. Using the editor costs Green Tokens, but at this stage I'm awash in those so don't fear running low on "cash." Besides being fun to do, these town routes will eventually net me a profit in increased passenger traffic.

ADDENDUM: Was in the midst of a long Mashinky session when I noticed that KCD's download was stalled. Turns out I can't run Mashinky and DL KCD at the same time? Seems odd to me, especially since Mashinky at this stage of development does not have a multiplayer component to interfere with downloads. Oh well, so much for how I was going to spend my time awaiting KCD. (Right now KCD is at the 20% mark, but does that include any day-one patches? We shall see I suppose.

Having a lot of fun with Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. Only just got back into the game, so I've had to restart and am going through all the kind of tedious beginner stuff, but it's still enjoyable

I've gotta say, for a 3DS game it has amazing cutscenes. It's one of the few games I've played where I actually like watching them.

Didn't make sense to me that Steam didn't allow game play during downloads. I dug a little deeper into SETTINGS and found what I needed to change to allow me to play Mashinky while DL'ing KCD, which I did pretty much all afternoon. (I stopped while ago due to game crash.) KCD is at the 95% mark...assuming day-one patches are not needed or are included in the 95%. Looks like it's gonna be ready to go right at supper time. And no, I'm not skipping or postponing supper.

Fun Mashinky session. Created three new towns along the map's "southern" border. None has spawned enough houses to pay for themselves in passenger fare. At least one of the three will be a very slow grower. Maybe all three will be.

Still hooked on Mashinky. Created a new small town yesterday, which spawned its first few houses today. Also finalized my second Mashinky video. Not as pleased with this one as I was with the first. Ought to redo a number of voice-over clips with sound issues, but to heck with that. (I redid a few, but those contained misstatements I felt I shouldn't let stand.)

Haven't really been much in the mood to game in my free time lately. But when I have played, it's been Rocket League and a continuation of my autosave-only playthrough of Half-Life. On my way to Lambda Complex now.

I have the demo of Half-Life. Fun, and it brings back lots of memories

Still playing Mashinky. Created a number of new towns and passenger routes to other town. Spent the afternoon alternating trackage on a few routes, from dual track lines to to single track with wait siding near the midway point. These projects might make for interesting videos, but I get so engrossed in my work I never think to record what I'm doing.

Just as well I haven't torn in to KCD. I've seen reports of a number of glitches. So long as Mashinky keeps me happily occupied I just might wait out the first major KCD fix patch.

I have read that there are not only bugs with Kingdom Come, but there is no normal save. Apparently you have to drink some kind of special alcoholic beverage that naturally costs a lot of ingame money.

In other news, I just saw that Battletech is now listed on Gog.com. This is the new turn-based strategy Battletech game. I am looking forward to hearing more about it in the future.

Pillars of Eternity 2 is also going to drop soon, April 3rd is the date so far.

Hellz yeah! Khajiit has been watching this one for a while now!

One of my favorite things to do in that game was kill every good guy I came across .

Samesis

Battletech: Basics trailer
April is going to rock!

Very cool seeing Jordan Weisman. I remember him from when he was a writer for FASA's pen and paper RPGs.

It’s awesome that they’ve got folks working on the new games that have been with the franchise for a while. Definitely gives me hope for a lasting resurgence of this awesome franchise.

Jordan Weisman invented Battletech, way back when it was a strategy boardgame. He also was a major developer of the Shadowrun and Earthdawn pen and paper RPGs (I played - and loved - both).

Oh, wow, Khajiit just showed his ignorance there, lol. Gotta admit, didn’t learn the franchise’s early history when this one was playing MechWarrior in the late 90’s/early 00’s. Khajiit just liked stomping around, blowing stuff up, and tinkering with weapons loadouts!

Grand Turismo for the PS4. So far its my favorite racing game and it doesn't seem to have that annoying rubber band physic that plagues a lot of racing games.

You mean the one where walls seem to tractorbeam the car into it?


-Yeah, I'm looking at you, early Need4Speed games!

I uploaded my second Mashinky first-person engine cab perspective railway excursion video overnight. It can be found here:

Mashinky Scenic Excursions Ep 02 - Southern Border Railway three town journey

As stated, I'm not quite as happy with it as I was with Ep 01. Too, the YouTube posting seems a tad "soft focused" compared to its source. Don't remember that being the case with Ep 01. Not sure what's up with that.

I've a third excursion "filmed" and partially voiced. Don't intend to upload it, assuming its completion, until sometime next week.

I'm tempted to go back to Dark Souls 3 and finish the achievements (read: collect every spell and ring I haven't gotten yet) which unfortunately means I either have to participate in the PvP portion of the game of farm 10-30 rare drops, 3 times. :v

I've also been thinking of playing Enderal soon. The last patch before the Forgotten Stories update was released a few days ago, which means I risk having the update drop in the middle of a game. I've been putting off a second playthrough for over a year (two???) because of that, lol

Also if it matters, I've also been watching a friend play Kingdom Come: Deliverance and snarking at it the entire time. She got it for free, but based on her experience I'd wait on buying the game until they finish it (buggy beta state aside, the main story is only 2/3 complete) or wait until it's on sale..which IMO works for any title. It's basically Oblivion, but trying so hard to be realistic and "historically accurate" that it's ends up being tedious. Also wasn't there supposed to be an elaborate crafting system? The one thing that interested me about the game isn't there. So not worth the 60 USD price tag.

Tractorbeam walls also plagues F-Zero and Wipeout series SPECIALLY WIPEOUT!

As for the rubber band physics basically how that works is if you're doing poorly the racing AI will ease off on you till you hit the front of the pack then the AI's difficulty ramps right up. Its used to always have something there racing you so you don't end up basically racing all alone.

Started up Skyrim SE once more. I always come back to Skyrim, and it is definitely home.

I SOOOO want to get Skyrim VR and now I have a PS4 Pro...Mmmmm---Skyrim VR.

Hey, so I DID achieve something, but it doesn't actually have a Steam achievement: I beat Darkeater Midir. I skipped the fight on NG because I just plain didn't want to bother but for some reason I was driven to beat him now. On NG+. Where even the damn Demon boss earlier in the DLC gave me trouble. I can't wait to see how hard Grandpa Red Riding Hood is on NG+

Also, yes, I tried cheesing the fight with Pestilent Mist but he moves around too much for it to be very effective. Sunlight Spear saved the day when he was at 50% HP.