2000 AD
Prog 2442
Tuesday, 11 November 2025
Video Games
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
Obviously.
That said, I did intend to be brief with it today (well, don't I always) — I want to crack on with Foolish Mortals (though achievements are coming to GOG "soon", so maybe I should wait and start over once they're there?), and I also have an episode of Critical Role to watch (which takes a significant chunk of time, always). What scuppered my plans was... loot.
I set out to complete a specific dungeon to complete a quest. On the way, I wasted time hunting for treasure, which was tricky to find even with a map. Then, on the way to the dungeon, I got distracted by multiple other landmarks — the disadvantages of fast travel are it's immersion-breaking and you miss random encounters, but an advantage is fewer distractions of the latter kind. I made it in the end, completed the dungeon quite quickly... but then had way more loot than I could carry. And I like loot because I can sell it for gold, and having gold feels useful.
That was when I broke another rule. When I started playing, I swore never to use fast travel — as I just said, you miss stuff and it breaks immersion. I'm not a full-on "pretend this is a living world" kinda guy, but teleporting around the place was a step too far. Time does advance when you fast travel, as if you had run there, but that doesn't really do anything (except possibly change whether shops are open, etc). Anyway: I realised I could stash loot in chests by the dungeon until I was light enough to fast travel, teleport to the nearest shops, sell what I had on me, teleport back, repeat. Turned out I had so much stuff I had to do this three or four times, which also meant waiting overnight at one point so the shop was open again.
Yes, in "game time", I spent about 36 hours running back and forth between an empty bandit campsite and the nearest town. And this is why I used fast travel, because I'd be damned if I was actually going to spend my time jogging all the way! And it took long enough in real-world time even with fast travel: I played for 3¾ hours today. Sure, some of that was actually playing the game, but the most tedious part by far was all the... well, not cheating, but it does kind of feel like cheating. I think fans call it "exploiting" — using the game's systems in ways they weren't intended to gain an advantage.
Of course, I don't have to do any of that — I could abandon loot and just get on with, y'know, playing the game. Maybe I will. Maybe I don't need so much gold. (Also, I've got a tonne of stuff that weighs a tiny amount on me. Individually, insignificant, but I do wonder if the sheer volume of it is prohibiting the good stuff. Even when I'd dumped most of my armour and weapons, my carry capacity was somehow about two-thirds full. Hmm.)
Obviously.
That said, I did intend to be brief with it today (well, don't I always) — I want to crack on with Foolish Mortals (though achievements are coming to GOG "soon", so maybe I should wait and start over once they're there?), and I also have an episode of Critical Role to watch (which takes a significant chunk of time, always). What scuppered my plans was... loot.
I set out to complete a specific dungeon to complete a quest. On the way, I wasted time hunting for treasure, which was tricky to find even with a map. Then, on the way to the dungeon, I got distracted by multiple other landmarks — the disadvantages of fast travel are it's immersion-breaking and you miss random encounters, but an advantage is fewer distractions of the latter kind. I made it in the end, completed the dungeon quite quickly... but then had way more loot than I could carry. And I like loot because I can sell it for gold, and having gold feels useful.
That was when I broke another rule. When I started playing, I swore never to use fast travel — as I just said, you miss stuff and it breaks immersion. I'm not a full-on "pretend this is a living world" kinda guy, but teleporting around the place was a step too far. Time does advance when you fast travel, as if you had run there, but that doesn't really do anything (except possibly change whether shops are open, etc). Anyway: I realised I could stash loot in chests by the dungeon until I was light enough to fast travel, teleport to the nearest shops, sell what I had on me, teleport back, repeat. Turned out I had so much stuff I had to do this three or four times, which also meant waiting overnight at one point so the shop was open again.
Yes, in "game time", I spent about 36 hours running back and forth between an empty bandit campsite and the nearest town. And this is why I used fast travel, because I'd be damned if I was actually going to spend my time jogging all the way! And it took long enough in real-world time even with fast travel: I played for 3¾ hours today. Sure, some of that was actually playing the game, but the most tedious part by far was all the... well, not cheating, but it does kind of feel like cheating. I think fans call it "exploiting" — using the game's systems in ways they weren't intended to gain an advantage.
Of course, I don't have to do any of that — I could abandon loot and just get on with, y'know, playing the game. Maybe I will. Maybe I don't need so much gold. (Also, I've got a tonne of stuff that weighs a tiny amount on me. Individually, insignificant, but I do wonder if the sheer volume of it is prohibiting the good stuff. Even when I'd dumped most of my armour and weapons, my carry capacity was somehow about two-thirds full. Hmm.)
Monday, 10 November 2025
Video Games
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
Today, booted it up with a couple of specific goals in mind, and told myself I'd quit after I'd done them. And I did! Of course, I did all the goals I was thinking about, and I did some other menial things along the way, and so I still played for just over 2 hours. And then I thought of something else I should do, which ended up being another hour. Oops. And that's not even mentioning how much of my day I spent thinking about it and reading up on stuff online...
Today, booted it up with a couple of specific goals in mind, and told myself I'd quit after I'd done them. And I did! Of course, I did all the goals I was thinking about, and I did some other menial things along the way, and so I still played for just over 2 hours. And then I thought of something else I should do, which ended up being another hour. Oops. And that's not even mentioning how much of my day I spent thinking about it and reading up on stuff online...
Tabletop Games
Daggerheart: Dragon Heist in the City of Splendors
Still playing every day but logging once a week, as mooted. Currently toying with joining a second campaign, too. You'd think I wouldn't have time (especially with all those hours in Skyrim), but my experience so far with PBP is it only takes a few minutes here and there — plus thinking time in between, of course — so it's actually quite a lot effort way to play 'a lot' (some days hardly anything happens, so your mileage may vary on what counts as "a lot").
Still playing every day but logging once a week, as mooted. Currently toying with joining a second campaign, too. You'd think I wouldn't have time (especially with all those hours in Skyrim), but my experience so far with PBP is it only takes a few minutes here and there — plus thinking time in between, of course — so it's actually quite a lot effort way to play 'a lot' (some days hardly anything happens, so your mileage may vary on what counts as "a lot").
Sunday, 9 November 2025
Video Games
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
I was desperate to keep playing, but also didn't want to sink quite so much time into this today, so managed to limit myself to just two hours. Hilarious how, just a few weeks ago, I was still considering that a "long session" on other games.
...oh, but then I loaded it up in the evening to "just do something quickly" and ended up playing for another three hours. Oops. That was partly stupidity: I messed some stuff up, tried to forge ahead, it got worse, so I had to load a save game and repeat a bunch of stuff. And then I messed up differently and had to reload again. I started saving more often at that point — I hadn't needed to before because there was enough autosaving going on, and I'd never really ballsed anything up badly enough to want to reload. Always good to learn.
Funny: I thought I would've been playing Foolish Mortals a tonne this week, possibly even finishing it today (if not sooner), and instead I've barely started it and sunk more time into Skyrim than it likely would've taken to finish FM. You never can tell which way you're gonna go, huh?
I was desperate to keep playing, but also didn't want to sink quite so much time into this today, so managed to limit myself to just two hours. Hilarious how, just a few weeks ago, I was still considering that a "long session" on other games.
...oh, but then I loaded it up in the evening to "just do something quickly" and ended up playing for another three hours. Oops. That was partly stupidity: I messed some stuff up, tried to forge ahead, it got worse, so I had to load a save game and repeat a bunch of stuff. And then I messed up differently and had to reload again. I started saving more often at that point — I hadn't needed to before because there was enough autosaving going on, and I'd never really ballsed anything up badly enough to want to reload. Always good to learn.
Funny: I thought I would've been playing Foolish Mortals a tonne this week, possibly even finishing it today (if not sooner), and instead I've barely started it and sunk more time into Skyrim than it likely would've taken to finish FM. You never can tell which way you're gonna go, huh?
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
A slightly late update this week, because (a) I spent so much of yesterday playing Skyrim, (b) it's time for the monthly running time update, but I hadn't collected the running times for most of this month's ~28 additions, and (b) no one but me cares.
Number of titles in collection: 3,629 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 981 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,648 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 478 [up 4]
Number of discs in collection: 8,722 [up 12]
Number of films: 4,633 [up 4]
Number of additional cuts: 473 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,188 [up 13]
Number of short films: 1,271 [no change]
Also, it's time for the latest monthly running time update...
Total running time of collection (approx.):
610 days, 15 hours, and 50 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 10 hours, and 40 minutes from last month.)
See you next week, faithful reader.
A slightly late update this week, because (a) I spent so much of yesterday playing Skyrim, (b) it's time for the monthly running time update, but I hadn't collected the running times for most of this month's ~28 additions, and (b) no one but me cares.
Number of titles in collection: 3,629 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 981 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,648 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 478 [up 4]
Number of discs in collection: 8,722 [up 12]
Number of films: 4,633 [up 4]
Number of additional cuts: 473 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,188 [up 13]
Number of short films: 1,271 [no change]
Also, it's time for the latest monthly running time update...
Total running time of collection (approx.):
610 days, 15 hours, and 50 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 10 hours, and 40 minutes from last month.)
See you next week, faithful reader.
Saturday, 8 November 2025
Fiction / Non-Fiction / Games
Daggerheart: Core Rulebook
Skipping ahead to a different section today: in my game, we're levelling up for the first time, so I decided I ought to read all about that.
Skipping ahead to a different section today: in my game, we're levelling up for the first time, so I decided I ought to read all about that.
Video Games
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
Decided to play a little bit before bed last night (after midnight, hence logging it today) — ended up staying up 'til the small hours. Then, this afternoon, I popped in just to make a small change... then decided to play a bit... and, suddenly, most of the afternoon was gone and I had to force myself to stop.
Anyway, that added up to over 6 hours of play. And I still feel like I'm only just getting started. I guess the main story takes 26 hours if you actually follow the main story, which I'm not really — but I think that's most of the the game is so beloved: there's so much else to do. Indeed, a lot of advice specfically advises dodging the main story for various reasons, so that's kinda what I'm doing.
Decided to play a little bit before bed last night (after midnight, hence logging it today) — ended up staying up 'til the small hours. Then, this afternoon, I popped in just to make a small change... then decided to play a bit... and, suddenly, most of the afternoon was gone and I had to force myself to stop.
Anyway, that added up to over 6 hours of play. And I still feel like I'm only just getting started. I guess the main story takes 26 hours if you actually follow the main story, which I'm not really — but I think that's most of the the game is so beloved: there's so much else to do. Indeed, a lot of advice specfically advises dodging the main story for various reasons, so that's kinda what I'm doing.
Friday, 7 November 2025
Audio Drama
Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures
1.2 The Return of the Doctor
That title... was this meant to be the first release and for some reason had to be bumped? And if not, why would you give that title to your second story? Sure, it doesn't matter, but it feels silly to me. Especially as I thought this was an all-round stronger story than the actual first release and therefore might've made a better choice to kick off the range.
1.2 The Return of the Doctor
That title... was this meant to be the first release and for some reason had to be bumped? And if not, why would you give that title to your second story? Sure, it doesn't matter, but it feels silly to me. Especially as I thought this was an all-round stronger story than the actual first release and therefore might've made a better choice to kick off the range.
Video Games
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
Despite everything I said the other day, and only really playing Leaving Lyndow as a precursor to starting Evershade, and also starting Foolish Mortals since then, I once again felt Skyrim calling to me (I have a feeling it might be something to do with reading more of Lankhmar — I'd be gleefully installing a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser game if there was one!) As I already had it installed from when I nearly started it before, I thought, well, why not boot it up? (I mean, other than all the other games I've already started and should be playing).
But also, I thought that maybe I'll just end up noodling around for a little bit, get this urge out of my system, and then come back to it properly another time (because I do want to play it sometime). However, after playing for an hour-and-a-half without even pushing myself (and not being forced to: unlike so many other games I've played recently, this one lets you save whenever you want — hurrah!), it feels like I've barely started, and there's so much already waiting for me (as in, specific things to do, not just the general promise of the whole game) that I kinda want to go back and play more already. Maybe I'm about to follow in the footsteps of people who've sunk 500… 600… 700… 1000+ hours into this game over the last decade-and-a-half.
Despite everything I said the other day, and only really playing Leaving Lyndow as a precursor to starting Evershade, and also starting Foolish Mortals since then, I once again felt Skyrim calling to me (I have a feeling it might be something to do with reading more of Lankhmar — I'd be gleefully installing a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser game if there was one!) As I already had it installed from when I nearly started it before, I thought, well, why not boot it up? (I mean, other than all the other games I've already started and should be playing).
But also, I thought that maybe I'll just end up noodling around for a little bit, get this urge out of my system, and then come back to it properly another time (because I do want to play it sometime). However, after playing for an hour-and-a-half without even pushing myself (and not being forced to: unlike so many other games I've played recently, this one lets you save whenever you want — hurrah!), it feels like I've barely started, and there's so much already waiting for me (as in, specific things to do, not just the general promise of the whole game) that I kinda want to go back and play more already. Maybe I'm about to follow in the footsteps of people who've sunk 500… 600… 700… 1000+ hours into this game over the last decade-and-a-half.
Thursday, 6 November 2025
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