Skyrim – Diplomatic Immunity completed

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dragonpaper

Link: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I found a more convenient way to upload gameplay videos to YouTube.  I first installed the free Xvid video codec.  I then downloaded the free VirtualDub video editing software.  Then I simply batch-encoded all the uncompressed AVI files that Fraps spits out while recording gameplay.  The re-encoded AVI videos look beautiful and take up far less disk space (4 GB to 200 MB). Re-encoding and uploading to YouTube still takes plenty of time, but very little attention.  I can set those jobs to work, and walk away.

So I recorded something like an hour and a half of gameplay yesterday, playing through the “Diplomatic Immunity” quest in Skyrim.  There’s a lot of wondering around the Thalmor estates, as I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for or what exactly I needed to do.  Turns out I needed to talk to a character to finish the quest, which was annoying.  And I forgot to bring my lockpicks into the Thalmor estates, so I couldn’t unlock any doors without their keys.  At the very end, I accidentally killed my accomplice as I tried to defend him against Thalmor soldiers.  Oops.  Sorry.

Of Monsters and Men: Your Bones

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I’m usually listening to orchestral music, but this song has been stuck in my head a lot lately. The melody is almost pentatonic (think Fiona’s theme from Shrek), but then it dips down to the subdominant, adding an additional note for a hexatonic melody, a basic major scale that just avoids the subtonic. But I think what makes it catchy is that it sounds like it shifts between two pentatonic scales, one based on the tonic, the other on the subdominant. And the chords emphasize these shifts; they sound like just vi-I-IV progressions (submediant, tonic, subdominant). Very simple. (I’m not sure how accurate all that music theory is; I haven’t closely analyzed it, and I’m not a brilliant music theorist anyway. But that’s what it sounds like.)

The band’s song “Little Talks” subconsciously dug it’s way into my head after hearing it repeatedly on the radio. So I explored more of their songs on Spotify, and found most of them to be just as catchy. The lyrics are also more imaginative. They seem to have a spirit of Scandinavian mythology about them, what with bones and mountains and forests and animals with spiritual connotations.

Maybe I’ll pick up the album on which the song appears, My Head Is an Animal, when I buy the deluxe edition of the Les Miserables soundtrack when it comes out later this month.

Skyrim – A Blade in the Dark completed

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dragon

Link: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I wanted to experiment with videoing my boring PC gaming. Recording while playing slowed the frame rate, but not as much as I expected; it was still very playable. Uploading to YouTube was the real hassle. First I had to compress the video, which took my computer half an hour. Then I had to split the video into two files, because my YouTube account will only allow me to surpass my 15-minute limit if I “verify” my account by giving YouTube my mobile phone number. Sorry, YouTube, that ain’t happenin’. And then, of course, uploading takes plenty of time. Anyway, in the end, I captured my half hour of PC gaming today. In the future, I’ll probably only do screenshots. But recording video every now and then may be fun, now that I’m familiar with what I have to do to get it to YouTube.

So, I’ve spent about 55 hours playing Skyrim so far since I started playing last summer. But I’m only now starting the game’s main quest line. I spent a long time with various side quests, leveling up and collecting stuff. (And, yeah, I’m cheating with my carry limit, because carry limits are dumb. I want to carry everything.)

So in these videos I’m finishing the quest “A Blade in the Dark” and starting “Diplomatic Immunity” which I will continue next time I play.

The blood dragon in Riverwood was a fun surprise.