But first, here is an awesome picture of an Oblivion tower:
So, ok. I’m about level 20 or so at this point, and I’m running around this one dungeon in Lost Spires where there’s…actually I’m not quite sure, but let’s say it’s a LOT of bandits. And since it’s level 20, they’ve got some stuff. How much stuff? About this much stuff:
That’s (and yes I am crazy enough to calc all this) 2,194.1 lbs of gear, which ended up earning me 83,540 gold, 4 mercantile increases, and took 7 trips to haul in.
Among other things, there are 2 full suits of daedric in there, something like 7 mostly complete suits of glass, a mostly complete suit of orcish, and a bunch of partial suits of mithril and elven. To be very exact, and yes I WAS crazy enough to write all this down:
Daedric: 1 mace, 2 war axes, 3 bows, 4 daggers, 8 arrows, 2 of every armor piece except shield
Ebony: 1 dagger, 2 warhammers, 2 battle axes, 1 bow, 1 battle axe of feeding
Glass: 4 maces, 3 bows, 8 daggers, 2 battle axes, 3 warhammers, 1 war axe, 1 war axe of the dynamo, 33 arrows, 9 boots, 4 shields, 8 daggers, 7 cuirasses, 2 gauntlets
Elven: 1 arrow, 12 cuirasses, 3 shields, 11 boots, 2 gauntlets, 1 greaves
Mithril: 6 cuirasses, 4 gauntlets, 8 boots, 1 shield, 1 greaves
Orcish: 1 of all armor except helmet, shield
Silver: 3 arrows
Also a Greater Staff of Ice Storm, a Greater Staff of Severing, and some assorted random jewelry and such.
In conclusion, expect me to start an epic war to conquer Cyrodiil as soon as I can hire enough guys to wear all this stuff.
Because I was just talking to Samson about this and because I’d really rather not forget, let’s talk briefly about how I went about recoloring that cape. Basically I followed the tutorial here with some subtle differences.
Basically, the sequence was this:
First, I fired up GIMP and loaded up the pre-existing cape texture, which was one .dds file that covered both sides of the cape. I only wanted to recolor the outer part and not the gold border (which was part of the original image), so I cut that part out and pasted it as its own image and put the stock texture away for the moment.
Then, in the bit I cut out, I went and did layer/color/desaturate, which essentially turned it into a grayscale image.
Then, I created a new layer, shoved it over top of the old one, set the layer type to overlay, and bucket filled it with that teal color. I may have done a bit of color adjusting, but nothing too bad. So far so good.
The dragon was a bit harder. What I did there was load up one or another of the Imperial City banners, cut out the dragon, and paste it as its own new image. Then I feathered the selection so I had the whole thing, and bucket filled some color or another. Then I pasted it into the cape texture image as its own layer on top of the rest.
From there, I more or less played around with layer settings and colorizing until I got a color I was happy with. Lots of trial and error. There must be a better way than what I ended up with, and if I find it I will let you know.
In either case, once I worked it out how I wanted it, I right clicked on the layers and told it to merge all visible layers. Then I copied the whole image, and pasted it directly into the old cape texture, aligned it correctly, and anchored it. Did the same thing for the other side, and saved it as a .dds file. DXT3, I believe.
From there, a bit of work in nifskope and the CS, and I ended up with what you see there.
I’ve been meaning to do this since my new monitor got here, but you want to know about how awesome my new monitor is with Oblivion? Well, I’ll show you, but first, a note on characters:
This is Astarius. Male Imperial, currently about level 15. Heavy armor blades fighter with a bit of restoration and alteration as well as block, athletics, and mercantile. He’s ok. He got even better after I gave him a dai-katana with 20 frost damage on hit, but he’s ok.
He’s also sporting the effects of a plugin I made for myself to give out effective Blades eq at higher levels. Stock graphics and all, but it’s nice, since Blades gear is styling. However, do you see that cloak? The teal one with the dragon on it? The original mesh came out of this mod, but I did that retexture. All me. I know retexturing isn’t the biggest skill in the world, but I’m still pretty proud of it.
Anyway, shiny pictures. I’ll be giving you links instead of pics here, because I left them all at full resolution, and I wouldn’t want anybody’s monitor to shoot blue fire. Or their network card.
Sky Over Bridge – A neat ANW sky while traveling over one of the New Roads and Bridges bridges south of the IC. Thanks, Samson! ;)
Aqueduct Sunset – The aqueduct from Let the People Drink, taken from that same NR&B bridge. At sunset. Not that sunsets sucked before in Oblivion, but thanks, ANW.
Sunset Over IC Waterfront – Sunset over the IC Waterfront District, with the LTPD aqueduct in the foreground. If you look carefully, you can see Weye in the distance off to the right.
Bravil – A clear day when Bravil didn’t look crappy. For once in its life.
Skingrad Night – A shot of Skingrad at night, framed by the castle bridge. Because we all need artsy shots.
Mountain Fog – Mountains, trees, and fog, looking down around Cheydinhal from near Azura’s Shrine.
Mountain Sunrise – Ditto, only at sunrise.
In conclusion, thanks, graphics mods.
Not actually what you may think, although if you guessed that Sarah’s and my second anniversary was a short time ago, you would be correct.
As to the giant part and the rock part, it was decided that, in honor of the occasion and since we first met in person for the purpose of seeing U2 on tour in 2005, we ought to go see them on tour in 2009, because really why wouldn’t you do this. And by decided, I mean that it went about like this:
Her: U2 is totally playing at Giants Stadium! We are going!
Me: I guess I could fight you about this, but why, really?
So we hopped the train out there, which is shorthand for saying that we took Metro North to Grand Central, took the subway to Times Square, took another subway to Penn Station, took a train to Secaucus Junction, and then took another train to the Meadowlands complex where the stadium is. Call it about 4 hours worth of trains or so, punctuated by periods of sprinting and waiting in gigantic mobs of people. It is an experience in mass transit I hope to never to repeat, only I did in an even worse fashion on the way back. More on that later.
I am reliably informed by this helpful site that our setlist was:
- Muse as the opener, who played some random stuff I couldn’t make out because they suffered from OpeningBandsHaveCrappySounditis, which is the number one killer of interest in opening bands for me, and I’d be sorry about that Kings of Leon except your CD sucked too.
- Breathe
- Get On Your Boots
- Mysterious Ways, which we both really wanted them to play;
- Beautiful Day (of all things)
- No Line On the Horizon
- Magnificent
- Elevation
- I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For into Stand By Me
- Unknown Caller, whose lyrics do not magically make more sense when turned into a sing along;
- Until the End of the World, which has never sucked live in the entire history of mankind, and didn’t suck last night either, and seriously if you sent U2 back into the stone age and gave them gravel and told them to play this it would still sound awesome and yes I’m biased but it’s still true so shut up and woo run-on sentence;
- Stay (Faraway, So Close!), wherein Bono botched the lyrics but it still sounded great because it’s another song that will forever be awesome no matter what, and ask Billy Corgan if you think I’m wrong;
- The Unforgettable Fire, which prompted a conversation later in line along the lines of:
Me: What was that random 80s b-side they played that one time?
Sarah: You mean Unforgettable Fire? That’s not a b-side. That’s the TITLE TRACK TO AN ALBUM.
Me: …well, shit.
- City of Blinding Lights, about which I said in 2005 “This was cool, not so much because I LIKE City of Blinding Lights (though hearing songs I don’t like live seems to jack the Awesome-O-Meter way way up).” This appears to be true in its time much as it’s true today, and in fact for the most part I was enthusiastic about even songs I didn’t really love.
- Vertigo into It’s Only Rock and Roll
- I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight, which was apparently a remix I’d never heard.
- Sunday Bloody Sunday, about which I will say more in a moment;
- MLK, which I’d never really expected and was thrilled by because it’s a favorite;
- Walk On, which…eh, but it was good.
- One into Amazing Grace, prefaced by Desmond Tutu on the video screens talking about the One campaign. Flashing back to prior to the show:
Sarah: …and really, I think Bono tried to go too far in his political activism and failed in coopting religious Americans, and anyway when was the last time you heard about the One campaign? It’s like, dead and gone.
Me: We shall see.
- Where the Streets Have No Name, which was by this point utterly generic but tied in well with the whole curing AIDS in Africa message so hey, why not;
- Ultraviolet, and later I was slightly surprised Sarah was still with me, because I had been completely sure that at this very point during the show she had been transformed into a large puddle of flaming liquid squee, but I guess not.
- With Or Without You, which I finally got to hear live, so can I get a big hell yes to that;
- Moment of Surrender, which was ok but wasn’t even on the scale with the version of 40 that ended our Philly concert wherein, 10 minutes later in the parking lot people were STILL singing the end.
All in all, a wildly solid setlist, and filled with things I’d really like them to play, and things Sarah would really like them to play. I think the only thing I actually missed was 40, and I can handle that.
A few other general comments:
- In concertgoing days of yore, we had Fist-Pumping Man at the first U2 concert, and Hopping Girl at the Pumpkins show. The guest of honor tonight was Horns Guy, who was probably about 50, had a Madison Square Gardens shirt from the Vertigo tour, sung along to everything, got seriously jiggy with it more than once, and spent the first half of the show throwing the horns. Which, ok, two things here:
1. I had not been previously aware that U2 was quite that metal;
2. If the current trajectory continues, I’m pretty much on track to become that guy.
- As it was, my Vertigo ‘05 shirt made me way awesomer than the people in U2360 shirts and Vertigo ‘06 shirts, and put me on par with the sizable minority in Vertigo ‘05 shirts. However, I was comfortably outclassed by the two guys in Elevation tour shirts, the two guys in PopMart shirts from ‘97, and the guy we saw in a no shit ZooTV shirt from…(checks)…1992. I was also completely outclassed by the guy in the kilt and the guy wearing a Scottish flag as a cape.
- Speaking of shirts, I’m fairly comfortable with (and in) my tour shirt. Unlike the Vertigo shirts which were fairly lesser of evils choices, there were at least three U2360 shirts I felt ok with.
- As to the whole 360 degrees playing in the round thing…eh. U2 did it about as well as could be expected, which is to say a bunch of neat moments where somebody would run around back to play to us in the back specifically, but ultimately I’m not sure watching them on a giant video screen was as awesome as the experience we got during the Vertigo tour. That said, highlights of the thing included:
* Bono channeling Prefontaine and doing laps around the stage during the end of Until the End of the World
* Bono coming backstage pretty much period
* Larry coming on back with a hand drum of some sort and rocking the hell out of it during I’ll Go Crazy
- The effects were hit and miss. Lots of generic stuff. Desmond Tutu before One was actually quite good. They single-handedly rescued Sunday Bloody Sunday from sucking by showing a bunch of images of the unrest in Iran and tying the song to that. There were some pillars of light that they did that were cool, although there were a couple of moments of pillars of light versus jetliner landing at Newark a thousand feet away excitement if you were watching for them. Ultimately I liked the Vertigo spectacle better, but this wasn’t shabby.
- Also, at the end of the video for One, they had the buffalo from the video and the single run across the image superimposed briefly.
Apparently, if we are to believe U2 and Wikipedia, last night (and the show the night before) set a record at 84,467 people in a stadium meant for 78k and change. And since I tried to escape all of those people, I believe it. When we got out, there were two giant mobs of people, one going to the parking garage, the other going to the train station. Because we are dumb, we got in the one for the garage before a helpful guy pointed us to the other line. Where we spent like an hour. Which kind of sucked. Remember that sequence of trains? It was about as fun in reverse, alternating between epic mobs of people (Meadowlands-Secaucus, Secaucus-Penn), mad sprinting (pretty much everywhere), somebody’s gigantic fresh bloodstain (Times Square), and some epic feet hurtage (also everywhere). Ultimately we got back at about 4am and went to sleep.
Intermediaries inform me that my legs should be ready to begin speaking to me again in a couple of days, but until then they apparently have decided I should suffer.
Worth it, though.
So we just had this combat in 4e. Probably the biggest thing we ever ran.
On the one side:
5 PCs
1 Hobgoblin Captain
3 Hobgoblin Archers
6 Hobgoblin Grunts
1 Macetail Behemoth
——–
16 total
On the other:
1 Gnoll Captain
2 Gnoll Marauders
1 Cacklefiend Hyena
1 Gnoll Huntmaster
2 Gnoll Claw Fighters
11 Gnoll Hunters
11 Gnoll Raiders
7 Hyenas
————
36 total
For 52 total combatants. 4793 total XP and level 4. Took us about a session and a half to run, which they did with no rest at all. Probably that’s the most epic fight I’ve ever had, or run. Lots of good moments, from Caradoc’s duel with Sir Robert of Norgood to Ziiran’s criticaling the gnoll captain with a daily, then using an action point to critical with an encounter power.
Main point, though: 17 minions worth of guys aside, try running that sort of thing in 3e. Eee.
I may now confidently inform you that the Matrix looks REALLY GOOD on my new LG 24″ widescreen monitor. In case you were really worried, or something.
Dear Toshiba Laptop,
In case you were feeling put out about my leaving you in the corner for all that time, and in case you were put out about my using my desktop more than you, do not fear. I know who loves me, and that’s you. After all, who saved me after my hard drives went out last November? Why, you, Toshiba Laptop, you did. And who saved me when my whole desktop killed itself in January? Yes, Toshiba Laptop, that was you too. And who saved me for whole months at a time while I replaced defective part after defective part? You, my dependible Toshiba Laptop, you. So once again, Toshiba Laptop, here we are. Just the two of us. Again. I know who takes care of me. Sure, you’re a bit slow now, and you have no drive space, and using you gives me carpal tunnel, and I can’t use your DVD drive, but you’re solid. Dependable. Unlike my Samsung monitor. It doesn’t love me. I thought we had a good thing going, but then, yesterday, the white screen. Fickle creature. But I know I’m safe with you, Toshiba Laptop.
…yes, kids, my 3 year old Samsung LCD decided yesterday to shuffle off this mortal coil, and threw up a white screen that Samsung informs me is screen death. Maybe it was unhappy that I was considering replacing it with something newer and bigger. If so, its methods were counterproductive, since I at this very moment have a new LG 24″ widescreen on its way from Newegg. And until it gets here, I am safe in the arms of my trusty Toshiba, cold and metallic though they may be.
…Note that this is decidedly different than those OTHER laptops. Yes, Sarah’s POS Dell, I mean you.
…And hey, pretty soon Pensive Kitten can stop being pensive, because now? Now there is NOTHING LEFT TO BREAK. If it could break, it has already broken and been replaced. Eeeee.
Because I started up Oblivion again, and I need to get all those picture posts off the front page, we’re going to have an Oblivion post. In which there will be shiny pictures. Because I need to get all the pictures off the…yeah.
IT ALL MAKES SENSE. STOP LAUGHING.
…anyway. So I finally decided that I wanted to take shiny pictures like Samson does, and since I put a ginormous video card in this thing during the last upgrade, I can pretty much do that thing. After a sojurn reading the helpful advice at TOTO, I finally ended up with this assortment of things:
- Oblivion, SI, and all the DLCs;
- The Unofficial Oblivion Patch and its various SI and DLC spawn;
- That most excellent Oblivion mod, AFK_Weye;
- The Lost Spires, a most excellent quest mod;
- AFK_Blades_EQ, which is a little mod I whipped up to increase the selection of Blades armor and weapons so you can keep using them at higher levels;
- Faregyl and Vergayun, because I enjoy Samson’s village mods.
But the texture stuff, you ask. Well:
- BTMod, which I’ve had installed since roughly the time it came out, and which is still my preferred UI enhancer. Game is unplayable without it.
- QTP3 Redimized and Bomret’s Texture Pack for SI for my world textures. QTP has various things that annoy the crap out of me, but it’s still my favorite.
- Really Almost Everything Visible While Distant which does what it says on the box. It’s astonishing how great this makes the world look just by itself.
- Weather – All Natural, which overhauls the weather in new and appealing ways. I didn’t really think I needed a weather overhaul until I put this in, then I realized I was a huge fool.
- Animated Window Lighting System, which gives me lighted windows and smoking chimneys.
- A host of lesser mods, including basically all of the mods listed here, such as the book jackets mods, improved fruits and vegetables, Kafei’s amulets and rings, Kalikut’s glass, and rusty and fine items, I’d use MEAT, too, if it wasn’t an omod. In particular, it’s amazing what a difference the book jacket mods make. Likely I will end up throwing a few more of these in as I get bored, because they make much more of a difference than I expected them to.
Anyway, you came for pictures, so let there be pictures!
Taken off the IC-Weye bridge looking north. That’s Frostcrag Spire in the top right. Note the new sky texture. Yes, walking over that bridge is now awesome, all the time.
As I say. That’s looking back towards the bridge at sunset. You can see Weye visible in the distance, too.
Sunset from a random spot on the road between the IC and Chorrol.
There’s this hill going towards the IC from Chorrol where you can peek up and get a really stunning view of the IC. It looks good at any hour, but especially so at sunset, as you can see.
And, since giving you only a 495×371 version of that shot would be a crime against Argoniankind, humankind, and rabbits, you may find a full-sized version here.
There. Enjoy the shiny. I sure am.
