4

A Problem With Authority

I'm not referring to just disobeying the orders of in-game authority figures (though to be clear, I absolutely do that all the time, and have, on occasion, opted to resist arrest rather than pay a bounty of $11 dollars). I'm talking about rebelling against the vague, nebulous authority of the game itself.

Skyrim wants me to go the city and talk to the mayor about dragons.

OK.

That's kind of the point of the game: Let's get to the bottom of this dragon business.

And yet, the very second I'm told to go somewhere, it becomes direly important that I go literally everywhere else in the world first. But like all young punks with authority problems, I'm mostly just doing it to see where the limits are. Are you going to let me walk all the way to that mountain in the distance,

3

Rampant OCD (That Is Totally Eclipsed by My Laziness)

Skyrim as a virtual world is beautifully, meticulously, painfully complete in its detail. Bethesda has really upped the bar here, to the extent that I'm actually kind of worried they may have broken gaming for good. Every time I walk by an in-game bookcase now and discover that the developers haven't written out every word of every chapter of every book therein, I will feel a small, unreasonable twinge of disappointment. Skyrim did it; they've proved it was possible. What's your excuse, other developers?

That it's irrelevant? That it doesn't affect the gameplay?

So what?

Skyrim's designers not only forged an extensive world with thousands of quests and characters, but they then sat down and authored what must be tens of thousands of pages of text just to complete the atmosphere. This is a world with its own stories, folklore, science and history. And you can read about it all in-game.

YOU can.

Because I'm sure as hell not going to.

"f**k these books." -- Me, I guess?

Oh, I picked up the first book. And, in fact, was so awed at their artful thoroughness that I read it cover to cover.

"That was cool," I thought to myself, "and it really added to the story. I feel like I understand this world a little better."

For the second book, I did the same: "Wow. Even their economy is detailed here. This is completion on a whole other level."

The third book, I skimmed: "I don't really need to know about seed counts in a rival kingdom," I justified.

By the 10th book, I had stopped reading altogether. I've always suspected that I was mildly OCD, and video games -- with their menus, customization and puzzles -- brought it all out into the open.

"I spent an hour organizing my fictional inventory by the number of characters in the names of each item! I've got a disease!" I would cry.

And that's bullshit, of course. OCD isn't tidying up your menus. OCD is thinking you have to twist every knob on the stove eight times because you cracked your knuckles out of order, otherwise your heart will explode. Me? I'm just a bit of a control freak. And

2

A Fickle, Entitled Nature

Skyrim, like all massive sandbox games, has its fair share of glitches. When you're programming a virtual world, where thousands of individual elements interact under a potentially infinite variety of scenarios, it's practically inevitable that hiccups will arise. We're asking our game designers to take on the roles of demi-gods, and give birth to a complex, beautiful system of life, so that we gamers can murder and humiliate it when we get bored on the weekends. And for the most part, they do a fine job. So when something goes awry, breaks the fourth wall and pulls me out of the immersion, I forgive them, because I'm such a well-rounded and mature human being ...

"That's fine. You worked hard, guys. I forgive you." -- Me, totally.

That is, so long as that hiccup doesn't have the faintest negative impact on me as a player.

If the glitch does inconvenience me slightly, though, every ounce of that goodwill instantly dies, screaming and fear-peeing on itself. I may not have liked the poet/warrior that talked like The Swedish Chef, but goddammit,

1

The Worst Timing

I have yet to do a single thing in

Skyrim in the proper order. I'm constantly showing up to some dude's castle that I've never seen before, only to hand over a mystical item that I'd mentally scratched off as garbage hours ago, and then sit and listen to the story be retroactively explained to me:

King: Wanderer! Thank the gods you've come! The prophecy told us that a mighty warrior would arise, worthy of wielding Fjalnir, the God-axe, and slaying the evil Demon Prince Synraith. We believe you to be that warrior. What say you, traveler? Will you accept this task?

Me: Yea, verily I shall accept thine task and vanq- wait, Synraith? Fiery dude in a floating city? Cape made out of screeching souls? Ahhh, s**t. I already killed that guy.

King: You ... already slew the Demon Prince, the Knife in the Dark, the Void at the Heart of All Men, whose identity you did not learn until just now?

Me: Yup. I saw that castle floating up in the sky, and I wanted to know if I could jump up the rocks to get in the back way. It took a lot of reloads, but I finally managed to hop on up in there.

King: You "hopped on up" into the Abyssal Palace?

Me: Yeeeep, yep yep yep. Just squat-jumped on in there and looted the place. Then I killed that Sydney guy-

King: Synraith, Demon Prince of the Abyss.

Me: -yeah him. I ganked that guy. Mostly just to see if I could. Plus he looked like kind of a dick.

King: Indeed, the Foulest of the Foul was "kind of a dick." But you vanquished him without the aid of sacred Fjalnir, the God-axe?

Me: Totally. It wasn't even a thing. I just hid on top of a bookshelf where he couldn't reach me and shot him with arrows. Then I waited until he forgot I was shooting him, and did it all again to get the sneak damage bonus. Took a while, but he died all the same.

King: Forsooth! Thine heroic deeds are ... well, that sounds kind of fucked up, actually. Never thought I'd feel bad for He Who Devours. So you have no need of our sacred totem weapon?

Me: What, the gold dealy, with the shiny bits? Nah, I already stole that out of the display case four hours ago, before I knew who you were. I gave it to Sven, but he Quantum Leaped out of the game with that s**t.

King: Huh. So. I guess ... the bards will ... sing of your tale now?

Me: Oh yeah? Sweet, let's hear it.

Bard:

The hero came with eyes aflame / his tasks already done / the land was rescued all the same / but 'tis kind of a s****y song.

Me: Word.

You can buy Robert's book, Everything is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead, or follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Or you could do none of those things, because you're currently playing Skyrim until your eyes bleed, stopping only to read more about Skyrim before returning to Skyrim.

For more of Brockway's video game escapades, check out When Video Games Get Stuck In Your Head and 5 Ways 'Arkham City' Proves I'm Under Qualified to be Batman.

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