there is a guild for my dungeon woes i've found... good...good. i'll force myself to engage with other people at some point

this specific alchemy table is a trick table. there is a locked safebox behind it that i can for some reason accidentally target through the table, and suddenly i have a price on my head in an area surrounded by guards. you meant to "craft some potions", uh huh likely story buddy

the game is down for maintenance today and it's an affront to me specifically. i've been without access to medication for long enough that i'm saying screw it and finally taking the opportunity to get off it entirely, which i've been wanting to do for a long time but have essentially been trapped. i can't wean myself off it safely because of the release mechanism, and getting in contact with my ADHD clinic is actually headache-inducing. anyway i just bring up medication because in getting off it i am going through big withdrawals, and this game is truly the only thing that's stimulating me enough to only be asleep for 14 hours a day instead of 20. i want to start another RPG soon but i don't feel capable enough mentally to break in a new game and write about it as much as i'd like, as well as other preparations i wanted to make beforehand

i tried playing FFXI again during downtime and now i am evermore grateful for the rigidity of this game's rails. please don't make me think right now it won't work

in slowly making my way through the Grahtwood story and sidequests, i have finally become found-enough-lorebooks-ened enough to be able to do the final Mages Guild quest that lets me see the books i've collected. this was a fun questline i like Sheogorath he is silly. but what surprised me for an MMO, is the actual choice it presented me with at the end? so far every "choice" in this game has mostly amounted to un-interact-with-able NPCs having different dialogue when i walk past them (i.e. "you are stupid for killing her!! i hate you!!!"), but this was one had actual, albeit small, permanent effect on gameplay. i could give up a brainwashed girl to spend eternity in Oblivion in exchange for a cool two skill points - skill points that i can't get anywhere else

this was pretty cool to see in a game very heavy on the minmaxing and the everything-on-one-character-ing - that is, surprising for an MMO. i could only imagine most people chose the skill points (i didn't) whereas if it were a singleplayer game more people would've cared for the roleplaying aspect and not banished the girl to foreverhell. two skill points isn't a lot, a quick search says there are around 500 you can get, but also that that isn't enough to unlock absolutely everything. so with the nature of the game you could be a thousand hours or two into your character, then finally be met with the consequences of your actions when you are doomed to be [thundering sounds] suboptimal [Todd Howard laughing maniacally] [i don't think Todd has much if anything to do with this game but i'm not going to learn another name]. if it were Skyrim it's whatever, you can make new characters and it not be a big thing because you never devote nearly that much time to one

in lieu of being able to physically collect the books and build my own little library like in other games, i am taught a super-powerful-video-game-protagonist spell that lets me simply pull up the memory of any book i've read. i specifically scoped out a cozy area to sit and read and my character doesn't even pull out a book because it's all stored in her fat cat brain. i can still build a physical library in my home. the books cost real money and i can't read them. gotta sprinkle in those moments where i question why i or anyone is playing this

everything being collected in a big menu sure makes it tempting to say Whatever and download an add-on that lets me read anything, because it's less satisfying to just pick them out from a list. i can read everything online anyway but collecting books is one of my weird favorite things to do in these games, and only a fraction of the books actually give me something for collecting them. but it's also less daunting to only be limited to what i've collected for now, same reason i still buy physical books in real life when Library Genesis exists. they should sell print compilations of Elder Scrolls books

never mind they shouldn't write books at all, what the hell is this

Zenimax has been reading my journal and they have put in another monkeyquest to try to make things right. this is Nuttall (has a name - good sign) and he disarms spike traps for me. now the thing is, the spike traps do very little damage, so i don't really need Nuttall. you could argue this diminishes the monkeynecessity of the quest, but i see it more like throwing in a monkey just because, which is a decision i will always be for. you know what i always say about a monkey - "A banana a day, you well as may". and that's the end of that....

the public dungeons (the ones that are actually just delves and not dungeon dungeons) have a surprising amount of bosses that can be difficult to find. one in particular put up a real challenge; a crocodile champion by the name of Rootbiter. i searched forever for this man, looking for clues on his whereabouts, until it hit me. "root" looks like "roof" - i must simply turn my gaze upward to find him! behold!

a web search tells me this has been an issue for at least a year. or maybe it was a limited-time thing, like MMOs do, i've just missed my chance to fight him and now he is perma-shy

also we have become equipped with videos here. i looked into replay software as soon as i was sat in awe at a tree with jiggle physics. i met up with her again later so here she is

so far i've maxed out my light armor and bow skills (and provisioning) and i realized i should've been leveling the individual abilities as well, instead of sticking with the same setup of the first few that looked interesting when initially glazing over them. i've started dual wielding now and leveling up those abilities instead, and respec'd my skill points over to that and medium armor, which i knew i could do whenever but it's surprisingly cheap. i've been hurting for skill points on a few occasions but i assumed respec-ing was more of an endgame necessity, so it'd have some big cost that was too much for me where i'm currently at

i can lie. i can say untrue things, such as "i want to max out every combat skill and ability so that i have every choice equally available to me". or i can be cut down from my hubris, i can speak true words, such as "i like to make all of the numbers bigger". i might have been less eager to switch over to dual wielding if i'd actually taken the time to experiment with and level different bow abilities, to see what i liked best, or to not be doing probably stupid baby damage. if any ESO-heads look at my website and see the abilities i have slotted in my screenshots please do not make fun of me. because i will make fun of you for being a loser and then use my abilities on you in real life

i've completed all the marked quests in Grahtwood. i enjoyed it more than Auridon, the sidequests have been seeming progressively less same-y. i keep finding myself surprised at how high-quality a lot of them are compared to the main zone story but i guess that's Elder Scrolls. there aren't "main quests" and "sidequests", there are "quests" and some of them are just required. i liked this one where i ate a frog then started tripping and talked to a big tree about becoming a snake

i caved and looked up locations of remaining lorebooks. the world is very big and books are very small. it's only the map screen showing full completion except for the books that was bothering me, if it just didn't track it (which it shouldn't) i wouldn't care!!

behold, the Mages Guild. it's the exact same building model as in every other city. the paste is still fresh

going through Greenshade quests and i'm now learning i have to be even more careful with how i go about the story. i somehow, in the main zone story chain, skipped over a quest, propelling the story noticeably further ahead. then when i went back to do it, obviously at first i and other characters were talking like i hadn't done that next quest yet, but then at one point there's a dialogue option that acknowledges i did do it?? i couldn't find any mention of the dialogue online either. this is frustrating! because i'm super absorbed in the story currently but the game is going hmm i think i will tell it in the most calculatedly disjointed way possible!! the "ESO Timeline" browser bookmark i have is not enough

is it because i didn't ask nicely that it's being told like this

i have unlocked a catwife quest? the wifemeter goes up extremely slow so this had me very excited

yoo..

Yooooo