Being Twinless
Feb. 1st, 2005 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lathanyWell, after a week of illness, both are finally back out of the house and at playgroup. Which means that, for once, I've got the place to myself in peace and quiet.
Things I have been doing:
Watching 24: I really enjoyed the two episodes (shown on Sunday, watched last night) and look forward to the rest of the season. Sadly I couldn't deny![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bateleur's criticism that they're moving away from clever plots and continuity (of the "no plot holes" variety) and over to "nice cinematic set pieces". That said, I like the new cast and I'm already more of a Chloe fan than I was last season.
Playing (and swearing at) Baldur's Gate: Now completed. I'm going to move the character over to BGII (with expansion set) so that I complete the game with the same character. I've never done this before because, though I've played through BGI before, last time around I lost my character's save so couldn't take it across. My character is a druid.
Playing (and puzzling over missing voices in) Star Ocean : Till the End of Time: I've only reached the first save point (roughly two hours in). I can't say that the game has been particularly enthralling (battle tests and whatnot rarely are), but it looks set to improve. The Final Fantasy XII footage that came with it looks great.
Reading Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes: I don't know much about Sylvia Plath, but I liked the few poems of hers that I've seen (of which I find Daddy and Blackberrying the most striking). I know slightly less about Hughes and, to me, he's the author of The Iron Man more than anything else. However, I found this collection striking and deeply personal - I felt almost as though I was intruding on their private lives. My favourites include Fulbright Scholars, A Pink Wool Knitted Dress, The 59th Bear, The Table and Red.
Reading (and laughing at) Winnie The Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner: Yes, I'm ashamed to admit that I've never read these before. I hadn't realised that Eeyore lived in the house at Pooh Corner (I thought it was Pooh). Also, I really like Piglet now. Plus the best line is "What do Jagulars do?" asked Piglet, hoping that they wouldn't. (shamelessly nicked frombateleur - it was his favourite).
Working on ideas for Book Four:This is going slowly.
Setting up my new game: This is going well (fingers crossed). I'm hoping to sort out characters in February and then kick off sometime in March.
Now for some coffee and cake. Cake without Beatrice standing there going "I like cake! And muffin!"
Things I have been doing:
Watching 24: I really enjoyed the two episodes (shown on Sunday, watched last night) and look forward to the rest of the season. Sadly I couldn't deny
bateleur's criticism that they're moving away from clever plots and continuity (of the "no plot holes" variety) and over to "nice cinematic set pieces". That said, I like the new cast and I'm already more of a Chloe fan than I was last season.Playing (and swearing at) Baldur's Gate: Now completed. I'm going to move the character over to BGII (with expansion set) so that I complete the game with the same character. I've never done this before because, though I've played through BGI before, last time around I lost my character's save so couldn't take it across. My character is a druid.
Playing (and puzzling over missing voices in) Star Ocean : Till the End of Time: I've only reached the first save point (roughly two hours in). I can't say that the game has been particularly enthralling (battle tests and whatnot rarely are), but it looks set to improve. The Final Fantasy XII footage that came with it looks great.
Reading Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes: I don't know much about Sylvia Plath, but I liked the few poems of hers that I've seen (of which I find Daddy and Blackberrying the most striking). I know slightly less about Hughes and, to me, he's the author of The Iron Man more than anything else. However, I found this collection striking and deeply personal - I felt almost as though I was intruding on their private lives. My favourites include Fulbright Scholars, A Pink Wool Knitted Dress, The 59th Bear, The Table and Red.
Reading (and laughing at) Winnie The Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner: Yes, I'm ashamed to admit that I've never read these before. I hadn't realised that Eeyore lived in the house at Pooh Corner (I thought it was Pooh). Also, I really like Piglet now. Plus the best line is "What do Jagulars do?" asked Piglet, hoping that they wouldn't. (shamelessly nicked from
bateleur - it was his favourite).Working on ideas for Book Four:This is going slowly.
Setting up my new game: This is going well (fingers crossed). I'm hoping to sort out characters in February and then kick off sometime in March.
Now for some coffee and cake. Cake without Beatrice standing there going "I like cake! And muffin!"
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Baldur's Gate
Date: 2005-02-01 11:23 am (UTC)This started getting silly when I finally cleared the Anheg (sp?) tunnels out, and collect all the shells. I took them to the friendly armourer, who told me I could have a lovely suit of extra tough armour in only 30 days. But it had only taken me 25 days to get that far. I s'pose I could have used the time going back to the side quests.
Because the upshot was that I was only 7th level whe I got to the final battle. I've yet to defeat it. This isn't helped by my ability to sidestep what appear to be the usual tactics for most of the game, so I'm not really up on using massed spells! I'm far happier decoying the monsters, and then picking them off piecemeal (prefereably with ranged attacks). This doesn't work at the end.
So I've never completed it. :(
Re: Baldur's Gate
Date: 2005-02-01 11:33 am (UTC)Not only does it work, it's actually recommended for that battle by the main FAQ writers!
First of all, go back and heal/sleep/etc, after you've completed all the battles outside that room. You can go back to the maze (just inside the door) and rest there without interruption.
Then, back at the room (which you can't leave once you see Saverok, but can ow), save before you move forward and also look for traps (most are on the skull face, but there's one or more on the left). You want to creep up the left-hand side (with haste or boots of speed) until you catch Tazok's attention then run back (I think he's invisible, so you might want to run forward and back a few times). Fight Tazok, then go back out, rest, heal and save.
Back in again, you can either pelt the dais with fireballs/explody potions/etc with Saverok out of range until Semaj and Angelo are dead (they never come see who's attacking them) and go back and rest or (this is something I discovered) Saverok will occasionally see you first. Bring Saverok down to meet the whole party and take him down. Magic missile works on him, even though little else of magical stuff does.
Good luck.
Re: Baldur's Gate
Date: 2005-02-01 11:53 am (UTC)I've probably had the saved game disintegrate, so now I'll have to go back and do it over!
I'd certainly gone into the room fully rested, but I hadn't managed to pull Tazok out from the rest, so I ended up fighting all four baddies at once.
Classic fight/AI bug: there's a drow encampment to assault at some point? Nearby, there's a convenient cave to rest in. Well, it's convenient once you clean out the nest of hobgoblins (or orcs, or similar) in there, which is easy, if your healthy. Running in there to hide, and then realising you've got a fight you're to damaged to win is a bad thing.
The solution? Have the cleric charge forward into the middle of the monsters, who will all start following him. The cleric runs to one end of the cave, and, when he gets there, does a smart U-turn, and runs back to the other end of the cave. Doing this takes the mass of monsters straight through the line of fire for the rest of the party, who stand in the cave mouth with massed ranged weapons. And they all target the same hogboblin at the back of the pack. The poor victim turns and runs towards the archers, but falls over during the second hail of arrows. Meanwhile, the rest of the pack don't notice the arrows from about 20 (game) feet away, and keep chasing the cleric.
The poor cleric (who doesn't have a ranged weapon, which is why he gets to be the sacrificial goat), after a few passes breathes a sigh of relief as the party steadily pick of the mosnters.
Re: Baldur's Gate
Date: 2005-02-01 12:05 pm (UTC)It's SAH - REH - VOCK ! (Spelled 'Sarevok')
Amusing, Google informs me over 300 people managed the same misspelling !
Re: Baldur's Gate
Date: 2005-02-01 12:29 pm (UTC)<grumps>
Re: Baldur's Gate
Date: 2005-02-01 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 12:30 pm (UTC)I've never had that problem. The twins mean that my social life is merely a molehill to be stumbled over.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 11:52 am (UTC)Hmm? Isn't that how the first episode of the first series started, abandoning sense for cinematic effect? The single best thing about the show as I recall was in the 'debriefing' programme they showed after it where some TV critic said he wished he series had ended up with the camera pulling back to reveal that the entire story had taken place in the mind of a goose.
Star Ocean : Till the End of Time...
... is the reason I've taken up juggling. I've played a chunk of it, and got to the stage where I wanted to be doing something while the latest 15 minute cut-scene was playing. The problem is that if there's a quest summary, I've not found it so you can't just leave the room. So now when the cut scene's are playing I can drop balls while listening out for the key quest points.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 12:33 pm (UTC)Sort of. The difference there was that it wasn't apparent until much later in the series that sense had been abandoned (ie. I was still thinking there was a need for the plane being blown up, etc). With this series the flaws are more obvious from the outset.
is the reason I've taken up juggling
That bodes, that does. Being only the first save point in, there've been remarkably few of those cut scenes to date.