Skyrim Dragonborn Now Available for Xbox

Skyrim “Dragonborn” is Bethesda’s newest add-on for the popular open world role-playing game. The highly anticipated DLC hit the Xbox Live marketplace on December 4th. The events of “Dragonborn” take place on Solstheim, an island northeast of Skyrim and a part of the province of Morrowind, making “Dragonborn” the first Skyrim expansion set outside of the titular province. “Dragonborn” introduces new groups of NPCs, new enemies, new items, and new powers.

The central plot of “Dragonborn” revolves around Miraak, a Dragon Priest and the first Dragonborn. Miraak once ruled over Solstheim in the service of the Dragons before rebelling against them after receiving from the Daedric prince Hermaeus Mora the power to bend the will of animals, men, and dragons. Miraak attempted to enslave all of Tamriel, but was killed in his temple by Dragons who sought to punish him for his disobedience. But Miraak lived on in Apocrypha--Hermaeus Mora’s plane of Oblivion--and plotted his return.

The “Dragonborn” DLC initiates when the player has a random encounter with a group of cultists who work for Miraak. A note found on one of the cultists will lead you to Raven Rock, a mining colony on Solstheim. If you touch one of the five glowing pillars located in different parts of the island or go to sleep, you will suddenly awake to find yourself mindlessly working alongside other townspeople with Miraak’s voice in your head. It is your job to break Miraak’s control over the people and stop him from returning to conquer Tamriel.

New Additions to Skyrim
Aside from a huge new area of land to explore, “Dragonborn” introduces several new types of NPCs to Skyrim. Variations on already known groups, such as the Skaal (a tribe of Nords that practice a monotheistic, nature-focused religion) and the Reavers (groups that behave like the bandits of Skyrim, but are made up exclusively of Dunmer) are common. But there are also the goblin-like Rieklings and more new types of enemies including Serpentine Dragons, Lurkers (think creature from the black lagoon but taller), various types of exploding Spiders, and Ash Creatures.

“Dragonborn” also introduces quite a few new items such as a new weapon type--the spear--and four new types of Smithing: Bonemold and Chitin, which are only provide patterns for armor, and Nordic Carved and Stahlrim (ice enchanted to be extremely hard), which allow you to create both weapons and armor. New unique items such as the enchanted scimitars Soulrender and Bloodscythe or the Deathbrand armor set are very powerful. Plus, if you like playing as a Werewolf, the four purchasable Werewolf upgrade rings will make your beast form even more potent.

Some new spells bolster the Conjuration (Bound Dagger, Conjure Ash Guardian, etc) and Restoration (Ash, Frenzy, and Poison Runes) magic trees. Also, the new shouts introduced by the “Dragonborn” expansion are very promising. For a short time, the Dragon Aspect shout increases weapon and shout damage significantly and envelopes the player in a set of dragon armor. And the power that seemed to capture the attention of most gamers from the moment it was demonstrated at the 2012 Dice Summit in February is made available through the Bend Will shout. Using the Bend Will shout after one learns all three words of power allows the player to tame and ride a dragon.

This list only scratches the surface of the new Skyrim add-on. There is so much more to discover. “Dragonborn” can be purchased on Xbox marketplace for $19.99 or 1600 Microsoft points.

Skyrim fans may also have more DLC to look forward to in 2013. Bethesda promises, “... we also have some more stuff planned for everyone next year as well. We do everything we can to return the support you have given us, whether it’s The Creation Kit, Steam Workshop, game updates, or DLC.”

Update on “Dragonborn” for PC and PS3
Although neither “Dawnguard” nor “Hearthfire” have been ported for PS3, Bethesda has announced that “Dragonborn” will be made available for PC and Playstation 3 sometime in early 2013. In a blog post following the release of “Dragonborn,” Bethesda states, “On PS3 in particular, we turned our attention to Dragonborn, as we thought it was the best content to release first, and we didn’t want folks to wait longer.”

For the past few months, Bethesda has struggled to get “Dawnguard” and “Heartfire” ready for Playstation gamers. The decision to focus their energies on putting out “Dragonborn” first, may indicate that Bethesda made more of a conscious decision to program the newest expansion with the Playstation in mind.

If you still haven't played Skyrim, I can't recommend it more highly. Click on the image below to buy it today.

Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I only recommend products or services based on their merit. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Minecraft Update for Xbox Available October 16

Finally, after two weeks of Microsoft certification testing, the 1.8.2 update for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition will be available for download starting October 16 at 5 am ET. And even though yet another skin pack was announced before the 1.8.2 update, this news is still super exciting for fans of the game. Check out this official trailer for the update:

   

Three weeks ago, I reported on the features that the 1.8.2 update will bring to the Xbox port of the extremely popular open-world, sandbox builder created by the independent Mojang Studios. I also criticized 4J Studios--the studio responsible for the Xbox version of the game--for taking so long to get the update released. But I’m not so sure that 4J Studios is entirely to blame. Sure, Microsoft certification does take one to two weeks, but is there a reason that the certification team took thirteen days to give the thumbs up to an update?

True, the update is large and that could be the main reason that held up Microsoft. Still, when Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson sent out the following tweets on September 27, Microsoft may have taken offense. Notch tweeted:

Notch has been vocal about his distrust of large corporations, although he had previously indicated that working with Microsoft was a positive experience.

Although the 1.8.2 update will be free, Microsoft stands to gain a lot from those who decide to download the game now that it is so much closer to the PC version. Delaying the update’s certification may be a power play by Microsoft, but it is one that is unlikely to phase Notch. Unless Microsoft is willing to allow developers to bypass the new certification process for Windows 8, it is likely that the company will see a large backlash from video game developers.

Until that conflict comes to a head, we will have the 1.8.2 update to keep us busy. Here is the official list of features that the 1.8.2 update will add, quoted from Examiner.com:

Additions: 

Added Creative Mode. 

Disabled Achievements and Leaderboard updates if the player is in Creative Mode, or if the world has been previously saved in Creative Mode. 

Added a simple tutorial for Creative Mode. 

Added sprinting to Survival Mode. 

Added flying and sprint-flying to Creative Mode. 

Added new items to the game – Melon, Melon Slice, Melon Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Raw/Cooked Beef, Raw/Cooked Chicken, Rotten Flesh, Pumpkin Seeds, Iron Bars, Fence Gate, Stone Bricks, Stone Brick Slabs, Stone Brick Stairs, Brick Slabs, Brick Stairs, Ender Pearl, Web,Vines, 10 more Music Discs, and Chain Armor. 

Added new items to the crafting menu – Melon, Melon Seeds, Glass Pane, Fence Gate, Iron Bars, Stone Bricks, Stone Brick Slabs, Stone Brick Stairs, Brick Slabs, Brick Stairs. 

Added terrain generation features – Strongholds, Villages, Abandoned Mineshafts and Ravines. 

Biome code additions, including rivers and oceans. 

Changed the bow to have drawing and firing action. 

Added a quick move to the dispenser. 

Added a quick equip for armor to the inventory interface. 

Added a quick move for ingredients and fuel in the furnace interface. 

Brought forward the mining speed changes from 1.2.3 

Brought forward apples dropping from leaf blocks from 1.1 

Brought forward change from 1.2.3 to make pumpkins and melons grow from stems much faster, and not require farmland around the stem to grow on. 

Fix to vines brought forward from 1.2.3 to stop them spreading too much. 

Added the Food Bar to the HUD. 

Added stacking for food items. 

Added the eating animation. 

Enabled crafting mushroom stew without a crafting table. 

Added the blocking move with swords. 

Changed all the text descriptions for food to show how much they refill the food bar. 

Passive mobs will now flee when hit. 

The snout on pigs now protrude from their head. 

Skeletons now hold full size bows. 

Animals no longer despawn which makes it possible to capture them. 

Zombies now drop Rotten Flesh instead of Feathers. 

Updated some mob sounds. 

Shears can now collect Tall Grass and the new Vine. 

Improved sunrise and sunset. 

Improved the rain edges (when looking up in rain). 

User-placed leaf blocks no longer decay. 

Cloud height raised to the top of the map, so clouds can no longer phase through blocks. 

Cloud movement syncs with the game’s time. 

Both Wooden and Stone pressure plates can now be placed on fences. 

Improved chest model with a 3D lock, and opening and closing animation. 

Added a countdown timer to the autosave to stop it being such a surprise. 

Added the ability to rename an existing saved world. 

Added map icons to the in-game player list to match their color in the map. 

Added a confirmation dialog on the player choosing to exit without saving. 

Added a character display when sprinting or flying. 

Updated the How To Play HUD with the Food Bar information. 

Added descriptions for Creative Mode and Sprinting to the How To Play menus. 

Updated the Download Content menu with pictures of the DLC available. 

Removed Herobrine.

Options Changes and Additions: 

Changed the Gamertags Display option to mean display/hide gamertags in-game and on maps. 

Added an option to select Creative Mode or Survival Mode on creating or loading a world. 

Added an option to disable clouds. 

Added additional options to the world creation – Superflat land (creates a flat world near bedrock in both the Overworld and the Nether), enable/disable Structures and Bonus Chest. 

Added Host options – toggles for Player Versus Player, Trust Players to stop players being able to mine without permission from the Host, Fire Spread, TNT Explodes, and Host Privileges. 

Added in-game player options for the host – Can Build and Mine, Moderator, Kick Player, Can Fly, Disable Exhaustion, Invisible. 

Store the Online, Invite Only, and Friends of Friends options in the player’s profile.

Tutorial World Changes: 

Changed the Tutorial world to enable the new terrain features in it. 

Added mini tutorial for sprinting in the Tutorial world. 

Added mini tutorial for eating in the Tutorial world. 

Added Music Disc Quests in the Tutorial world – players can search the world for the 12 chests, each containing one of the Music Discs that can be played in a Jukebox.

Fixes: 

Fix for duplication glitch. 

Fix for aspect ratio of things in hand when in splitscreen mode. 

Fix for issue with player data not saving (player starting world with no items they had when they saved). 

Fix for redstone tiles burning out when they shouldn’t. 

Fixed issue with Minecart with Furnace not being able to move another Minecart. 

Fixed particle code for flipped 3rd person view.

Also, look out for Skin Pack 3 on Friday, October 19. The newest Skin Pack contains skins from Portal, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, and Awesomenauts. Official Minecraft 1.8.2 Xbox Trailer

A Vision of 1.8.2 Minecraft for Xbox

Tomorrow on Xbox Live, new items for your Xbox Live avatar inspired by Minecraft will be made available for purchase. Thanks a lot! That’s the very thing we’ve all been clamoring for: clothes for an avatar I never see. 4J Studios! You know what we want, baby! We want Minecraft update 1.8.2 for the Xbox 360 edition to finally introduce many of the most interesting aspects of the PC-version to the console-ported sandbox-builder. As of 6:00 pm, September 24, 4J Studios is still working out some bugs in the 1.8.2 update. When they’ve finished, the update will be sent to the Microsoft Certification Test team. Certification for the update should take a week or so, after which the Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition 1.8.2 update should become available sometime in the first two weeks of October.

But what exactly can we expect? Based on the videos (see below) and photos released by 4J Studios, and a knowledge of the PC-version’s 1.8 Beta (The Adventure Update), the following likely describes the 1.8.2 update pretty accurately.

A Vision of 1.8.2 Minecraft
 One of the major changes for survival in the post-update Minecraft is the new food system. When playing on survival mode, you not only have to worry about your health, but there is now a food meter. You will have to feed yourself regularly in order to stay alive. Also, food will no longer restore your health directly. To continually regenerate health, you will need to keep your food meter above 90% which will replenish half a heart every five seconds or so. If the food meter reaches 0%, you will lose half a heart every five seconds. Eating raw chicken or rotten flesh--dropped by zombies; feathers now come from chickens--may give you food poisoning. When you have food poisoning, your food meter will lower at three times its normal rate. On top of the update’s emphasis on consistently eating, eating is now a process and not an immediate action. Eating is now an animated action that takes close to 2 seconds to complete.

The additional challenge posed by the need to eat is counterbalanced by other aspects of the update. The most helpful improvement to food items is that they are now all stackable. No more single Pork Chop taking up a full inventory slot. Further, the update introduces various new food items including melon slices, chicken, steak, and red apples. Farming has also been enhanced. Animals can now be fenced in and they will not despawn. We will still have to wait for a later update to make breeding a possibility, but simply being able to contain a herd of cattle provides a regular source for milk and a finite source for raw beef. Further, it is now possible to harvest melons and pumpkins ... one of which is edible.

Three new mobs are introduced in this update: Silverfish, Cave Spiders, and Endermen. Silverfish probably won’t cause you many problems, but cave spiders and endermen are a different story. A cave spider’s venom takes away half a heart every 1.5 seconds for 7 to 15 seconds. Endermen have forty health points and they can teleport. Endermen can also pick up almost any block within its reach, which could be very destructive. The simplest way to avoid endermen is to not look at them directly. They only attack when you look directly at them. If you do decide to fight an enderman, it may drop an ender pearl. Ender pearls can be used to teleport a short distance but at the cost of two and a half hearts.

With these new threats come some new tricks for your combat arsenal. The update adds sprinting as an option. Be mindful of your food bar though. Sprinting causes your food bar to deplete faster, and you can’t sprint if your food bar reaches below 30%. Beyond sprinting, which provides a great chance to run away from your problems, bow combat has been bolstered as increasing the string’s tension increases the likelihood that your arrow will cause additional damage. Fighting enemies up close with a sword has also been improved. The sword may now be used to block incoming attacks. Plus, the update introduces the possibility of landing critical hits.

If you are less of a survivalist more of a builder, update 1.8.2 will certainly make you happy. The new update opens up creative mode. In creative mode, you don’t have to worry about your health as you are immune to damage. You also don’t have to worry about gathering building supplies. An item selection screen replaces the regular inventory screen and provides you with infinite materials. But infinite material isn’t all. You can also fly simply by pressing jump twice. That’s right. That 128-block high tower you’ve been wanting to build should be a whole lot easier to build when you aren’t burdened by gravity. In addition, the update makes a few new block types available: stone brick, stone brick slabs, stone brick stairs, brick slabs, brick stairs, glass panes, iron bars, and fence gates. But one major negative is that you can’t enter creative mode in a world created before the update. So, if you’ve been building in some world the old-fashioned way, you’ll just have to continue to build there the old-fashioned way.

Flowing rivers are now a part of the Minecraft landscape. There are also new structures that generate in various corners of each world. These include ravines, abandoned mine shafts, villages, and strongholds. 4J Studios has updated the tutorial mode to show off these new terrain features. But, do not expect to find NPCs in the villages just yet. Also, even if the strongholds contain End Portals, this update does not introduce all of the necessary elements to craft an Eye of Ender. We aren’t yet getting the full Minecraft Adventure Update. But this update is the precursor to experience orbs, enchanting, and the Ender Dragon.


Update Videos:

Avatar Items:

Hearthfire and Future Skyrim Add-Ons

Hearthfire went up on the Xbox Live marketplace on September 4th.  In Hearthfire, players can purchase up to three parcels of land (one in The Pale, another in Falkreath, and another in Hjaalmarch), then design, build, and maintain one to three homes. Utilizing a crafting table and carpenter’s bench, you can create rooms, exterior adornments, and various other additions to your homestead. Various elements of what will become your home, include: kitchens, bedrooms, storage rooms, libraries, greenhouses, enchanter’s towers, alchemy labs, mannequin displays, cellars, trophy rooms, gardens, fish hatcheries, bee hives, and stables. You can also hire a steward and charge him/her with buying materials for the home, hire your own personal carriage and driver, and even hire a bard for your home. 

For Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda released four DLC player homes, which became a bit excessive. Though each home introduced interesting new elements to the gameplay, it became unlikely that a gamer would spend a large amount of time exploring or utilizing the new acquisition. Hearthfire tries to eliminate this problem by allowing the player to design the home. Bethesda is banking on the popularity of games like Minecraft to draw gamers to Hearthfire. Personally, I find the home creation limited and the process of furnishing that home extremely tedious. For me, my love of building in Minecraft does not mask the fact that building homes in Skyrim is little more than a deconstruction of purchasable upgrades for previous homes. With the home creation feature, Bethesda has given gamers a very narrow set of choices to design a home instead of releasing the homes already designed with upgrade options purchasable through some merchant. A large amount of my time working with the add-on has been spent mining and finding merchants who sell glass, straw, goat’s horns, and iron ore or ingots.

Hearthfire's best redeeming quality is the adoption feature. You can adopt one or two kids and move them into your home in Windhelm after paying the steward to convert your alchemy lab into a children's bedroom or into any of the homes you create provided you furnish them with children's beds. You will receive a letter by courier encouraging you to adopt from the orphanage in Riften, but there are also orphans in other locations that you can take in. Depending on the personality of the child and the location of the home in which you place him or her, the child will act differently and relay different stories. You can give your children new clothes, toys, and even a dagger for use in home defense. You can play tag or hide and seek, tell them to do their chores, or send them to bed. Still, Hearthfire's charm is fleeting. 

Skyrim’s newest add-on Hearthfire went up on the Xbox Live marketplace on September 4th. Hearthfire is the realization of two Game Jam ideas: building your own home and adopting children. In February at DICE 2012, Todd Howard showed a video (watch below) of new features and ideas for Skyrim that Bethesda employees had dreamt up. Many of the concepts introduced in that video have made it into the game. These include: kill cams for ranged and magic kills, a flaming epic mount, mounted combat, Kinect-enabled shouts, lycanthropy skill tree, the ability to transform into a flying vampire lord, and now, home design and adoption.

Hearthfire succeeds primarily in reminding me that Bethesda has a really great property which they could continue to expand for quite some time, if the gaming market will allow it. If Bethesda were to expand the home creation options and minimize the repetitive furnishing process, future Hearthfire-like add-ons could be worthwhile. While PC gamers have been exploiting Skyrim's full potential since Bethesda released the creation kit, console gamers remain limited to official DLC. Hearthfire may be the beginning of further add-ons that will provide console gamers with a tiny fraction of the creative freedom that Skyrim modding gives PC gamers. Perhaps Bethesda could release an expansion of Hearthfire that allows gamers to rebuild Helgen or build an entirely new settlement. Maybe an add-on for console Skyrim could introduce an interactive writing desk where players could write there own quests or create new NPCs. The Hearthfire add-on indicates Bethesda is thinking toward something like publisher-approved console modding software, and for that reason Hearthfire excites me for future Skyrim add-ons.

Build Your Home in Skyrim Add-On Hearthfire

Bethesda has announced the next DLC for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Bethesda Blog states:

With Skyrim’s newest game add-on, Hearthfire, you can purchase land and build your own home from the ground up – from a simple one-room cottage to a sprawling compound complete with an armory, alchemy laboratory, stable, garden, and more. Use all-new tools like the drafting table and carpenter’s workbench to transform quarried stone, clay, and sawn logs into structures and furnishings. Even transform your house into a home by adopting children. Hearthfire releases on Xbox LIVE next week (September 4th) for 400 Microsoft Points.

The upcoming DLC will not introduce a new storyline, but will bring a whole new wrinkle to the Elder Scrolls series. Players will scout out a plot of land, purchase the deed, and then begin building a home as large or as small as each player desires. Heartfire also introduces a new adoption system, allowing the Dovakhiin to bring children into the home. Watch the official trailer for more
information:

 

Hearthfire will not delight every Skyrim fan, especially those who want more quests and those playing on PS3 who have yet to get the Dawnguard DLC. Still, I'm excited to see the Elder Scrolls series incorporate these elements that have been present in the Fable games for a while now. Hopefully, Bethesda will include a Hearthfire element in the next Fallout installment.

Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I only recommend products or services based on their merit. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”