A long ways back, like in April 2011, on that infamous day where everyone gets hiiiiigh, I talked about diving back into The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and giving some it another go, this time trying to play a little differently, as well as finishing up all the major guild quests. Well, that plan quickly fizzled out as that was actually the last time I played the game until this very weekend. I think my gaming ADD hit me hard, and I was off on some other adventure, one that was probably immediately followed by another adventure. And so and so on. Such is the life of a gamer…
But then, as the world outside went snow crazy, I started Oblivion all over again, giving Hodor the heave-ho and creating a creepy looking Night Elf woman witchhunter with bleach blonde hair named…Molly. She focuses on a little bit of magic and a little bit of bow and arrow action. Not bad, truly, and I was able to rush through the majority of the opening quests for the Fighters Guild, finally breaking into new territory, advancing not once, but many, many times. Oh, just look:
Swordsman, Fighters Guild (10G): Reached Swordsman rank in the Fighters Guild
Protector, Fighters Guild (10G): Reached Protector rank in the Fighters Guild
Defender, Fighters Guild (10G): Reached Defender rank in the Fighters Guild
Good job, Molly. You’ll be Master of the Fighters Guild soon enough. Four more ranks to go. That is if the power comes back on and I don’t yet have The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to eat up. See, on Saturday, as an October snow unseen of before descended over New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the power kept flickering on and off. And yeah, I continued to game, or tried to at least. The last straw was the power shutting down as I was exploring a cave for the quest Azani Blackheart; I hadn’t saved since I entered the cave and did not feel like doing it all over again, at least not just then. So, we’ll continue to advance in rank some other time. I promise, Molly.
What is helping this playthrough versus the one I started with Hodor is that I’m no longer worrying about all the little things, such as picking up every bit of gear to sell, collecting a thousand and seven ingredients for alchemy purposes, and always trying to level up this skill or that in hopes of reaching the next level. All that matters is the quest at hand, and as long as Molly has some potions and plenty of arrows, we’re good to go. The quests themselves are not terribly difficult; the difficulty lies with–and this is inherent in all open-world games, I guess–the player’s determination and not getting distracted by Everything Else. With blinders on, one can get through the guilds pretty fast, I’m assuming. After Fighters, I think we’ll tackle the Mages Guild since Molly does have a knack for summoning skeletons.
This spurt of Oblivion playing is also a great reminder of what worked in that game from 2005 and what’s going to be ten times more fantastic in like twelve days. Every time I speak to someone and the camera zooms in on their fugly faces, Tara makes a noise. A mixture of a gasp and utter disgust. Especially for khajiit women. It’s the best.
Grinding Down 