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When I play PC games, particularly open world rpg's or other games that have secret areas or hidden content I can't help but be a little obsessive and have to find every one of them. It's not for points or achievements or whatever, but since the developers went to the trouble of adding the extra stuff to add interest I try my hardest to find it.
Maybe it is a kind of achievement thing. Who knows, but when I wander the wilderness and find a spot unmarked on the map and guarded by more than one massive troll, I know I've found something good. Or when I comb the landscape and find that ultra rare herb I needed for a particular potion. Woohoo!
I've even gone as far as making sure I cover every piece of the map and clear the Fog of War so I don't miss anything.....yes I am an ultra completionist.
Taking it to extremes maybe, but I'm playing Two Worlds as I mentioned elsewhere, and it's a huge game. I'm 80 hours in and level 76 with a long way to go. I'm finding items I can't use until I hit level 102 but I doubt I'll get to that level. The higher you go the longer it takes to level up as XP for common mods lessens and the best rewards are quest related.
The Grove - quest related which led me to having a village to myself with lots of storage since every container in the game is safe to use and doesn't recycle your hard won goods. Note my two dual wielding Exotic Axes.
Anyway, in this game corpses don't disappear unless they have been fully looted and I read that leaving dead bodies everywhere can have an impact on game performance because it has to keep track of everything, including the dead, which is to be expected. Although it doesn't seem to be a problem for me. I'm doing clean up now though, but for a different reason.
So, a couple of nights ago every time I came across dead bandits and wolves, boars etc, etc, I made sure to loot them which I do anyway, but inventory space is sometimes at a premium and I have to leave stuff behind for another visit. Plus, I don't need 500 pieces of wolf meat, a pile of boar tusks, a ton of Reaper meat, a haystack of herbs and many other things as I don't bother too much with alchemy except for Permanent Effect potions. I started taking items from the corpses and dropping them on the ground, so when I leave the cell the game does the cleaning.
BUT, I forgot something... I'm at the highest level in all schools of magic and one of the great spells is the Resurrection spell. It's supposed to be used to resurrect the dead, obviously, so they will fight for you, but this is virtually useless as they don't follow you from their original location. However, mobs don't respawn in Two Worlds and there's really no need as there are more than enough to level up on, although if there are spawn points close to uncovered parts of the map some creatures will respawn....I think.
Last night I spent a few hours dragging my loot back to the cities to sell, and thank goodness I have a horse parked at the most used teleports, plus my personal teleport stones as running huge distances gets tiring. Then I thought, why not resurrect the dead... so every time I came across a dead bandit, wolf or even skeletons in a cave that I hadn't totally looted, I resurrected them after taking anything I wanted from their bodies. The resurrected don't remain hostile so I can repopulate the land with friendly wildlife, passive bandits and friendly monsters like Ogres and Cyclops, or at least the ones that still remain after looting.
Resurrected Orcs at the camp fire enjoying a drink.
Besides that, without too many spoilers if anyone cares, there's a large city that due to a quest becomes victim to the wrath of the god who they believe protects them and everyone dies by the hands of the Orcs. There's nothing you can do to stop it and it's to do with the main quest. Besides the inhabitants aren't the most welcoming I've ever met even before the destruction, and they really hate me now for taking their totem. Their threats and insults wash over me now like water off a duck's back as they are powerless to carry them out. I guess their souls came back passive and unable to act...that's resurrection for you...lol.
Anyway, I then go and kill the Orcs, loot everyone, liberate houses of their treasures, make a fortune (which doesn't last long) and then resurrect Orcs and citizens alike. They all go about their business in peace thereafter and the city stays populated instead of empty. AND, I get another massive storage area and my own city surrounded by attractive bamboo forests, but I don't really need it as such.
One thing to note...after resurrecting animals and humans keep their AI and script packages so you can still use vendors and talk to people normally. In one case where I stuffed up a quest, I resurrected an NPC and he spawned an item in his inventory that I needed and couldn't get because I chose a different path and killed him too early. Because of that he didn't have what I needed on his corpse. I could complete the quest including dialogue this way.
Also, once killed and resurrected animals or NPC's can't be killed again, so it's no use for power leveling which is boring anyway. They are like ghosts if you try to "re-kill" them and weapons have no effect. This is aside from the real ghosts of beasts that appear at night which can be sent on to their reward...after having previously given me my reward.
My summoned scorpions. The most useful summons in the game.
Another thing in the game are shoots of Taint, a corrupted substance or fungus that grows in graveyards. The corruption of the Taint overshadows most of the theme of the game as far as the main quest goes. There's also a minor quest related to them, but by the time I found them all, I already had the rewards from an alternate source. The XP and gold was worth it though.
I have five Taint shoots left over at present after the quest. There may be more to find, I don't know yet. If one goes back to a graveyard and drops a shoot, around midnight undead will spawn and can be killed (again) for items and XP. Ghoul brains are a good and very useful commodity.
I read that you can use the Taint in towns and start mini wars, but I've tried it several times without result. Maybe it's a random thing in towns or I didn't wait long enough. I made the mistake of leaving one area with a Taint shoot on the ground. Needless to say it was gone when I came back. The shoots are reusable so it's worth a try.
The Taint raises the dead! Midnight in the graveyard!
This is why I love games like this. All the extra hidden stuff and entertaining things one can do to take a break from quests and the serious stuff.
I wish Oblivion had a fraction of this kind of thing. The most I've found hidden in random areas are a few chests with a couple of gold coins and a rusty dagger and I've covered the map from one end to the other. The same useless leveled loot as the rest of the game. It would have been nice if some of the notes and letters actually led somewhere and well as the size of the world and potential was there but underused.
Anyway, back to it and another all night session. I have a city of undead to conquer!
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