I’ve started up another Skyrim playthrough, which for me is usually one of the biggest red flags that burnout is raising its ugly head, as this game, while a thing I enjoy, is something I tend to delve into when I need a thing to fill time while not having my brain go brr. (So look forward to that “Conversations with an Adult part 2: Burnout Boogaloo” episode in two months) but. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to soft pitch the thesis that “No Stone Unturned” is an ok quest actually. For those of you that don’t know, there’s a Skyrim quest where you stumble across an “unusual gem” (what’s unusual about it is that it is hot pink in the gray/brown/green ass game) and then, upon getting it appraised, finding out that your gem is part of a set of 24 and you gotta go find ‘em. And unlike most quests, there’s no quest marker telling you where they are, so this is no easy feat. Once you collect these 24 gems, you’re sent to go collect the crown they’re from, at which point, the quest ends and your reward is this passive ability to find more gems (and gems more often) while you’re out exploring. “Burgs, this sounds horribly tedious,” you might say. “Eh,” is my impassioned response. The thing with quests like these is that (shocker) the people that built the game from the ground up want you to play it. They spent time and effort and all that jazz building all of these areas, especially in an open world game like Skyrim, and they want you to explore it. Therefore, games like these are going to have quests that incentivize you to explore: think the shards in DA: Inquisition, the metals/gasses/literature/mummies or whatever in ME1, audio diaries, bobbleheads, souls, orbs, power moons, friggin….Korok seeds, the examples are endless. The game wants you to play it, and if you don’t want to, then…idk, touch grass, I guess. The quest is optional, just don’t interface with the hot pink gems if you don’t want to. If you want quest markers, there’s a mod. Or countless lists on websites you can use to track stuff. It’s ok, you’ll get through it, or you won’t. No biggie. What does this have to do with the music of 2005? Almost nothing, other than music itself also working in a very similar way. If you’re willing to explore, your new favorite band could be in the dark corner over there. The next song that will “change your life, I swear” says Natalie Portman in 2003 might be opening for a band you already know but you skipped the opener to arrive late like a Cool Person. If you don’t want to look for hot pink gems, it’s all optional, mainstream radio’s got you. But you’ll never know what a Korok seed does unless you find one. (also don’t tell me, I haven’t played that Zelda game yet.)
