Endgame Viable

Today’s post is an experiment in a different writing position. Due to various aches and pains that I mentioned before, I’m constantly looking for new physical positions to write in. Here are the writing positions that I know cause pain over time: Sitting at desktop PC like I’ve done all my life “Standing desk” in front of living room television Sitting in living room chair with laptop in lap Sitting in living room chair with laptop on a mobile laptop stand shelf thingy Lying in bed with laptop on lap Lying in bed with laptop on a stand thingy I recently bought This time, I’m trying to sit in the living room chair, looking at the television, using a wireless keyboard in my lap that is attached to the media PC. This will keep my head in an elevated position, not hunched over, while keeping my arms relaxed at my sides for typing. (1506 words.)

One of my long-term projects is to “compress” the mountains of videos I have put on my network drive over the last couple of years into smaller bitrates to save space. I thought a 16TB NAS was basically the same as “infinity” space, but it turns out when you record a whole lot of game videos at 14Mbps, it actually isn’t. Now, I render my videos to smaller bitrates before putting them on the NAS. (1182 words.)

Here is the official list of games I will play for Blaugust, randomized with random.org using atmospheric noise or some such nonsense: TimeShift The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Antichamber Majesty Gold HD Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 Dead Space 2 World in Conflict Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit NEO Scavenger Vortex: The Gateway KHOLAT Crysis Warhead Game of Thrones Apotheon Penumbra: Requiem The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Alan Wake’s American Nightmare A Story About My Uncle Darksiders II The Bureau: XCOM Declassified Crysis Wars The Age of Decadence Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition Crysis 2 Maximum Edition Max Payne 3 Tree of Savior (English Ver.) Titan Souls Enclave Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™ Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) Darksiders Warmastered Edition Mount & Blade: Warband Total War: EMPIRE - Definitive Edition Serious Sam Fusion 2017 (beta) S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Brütal Legend CivCity: Rome Hitman: Absolution Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved Remember Me BioShock 2 Remastered Now you may have noticed there are 42 games there but only 31 days in August. I don’t exactly know how that’s going to work. I’m building in some wiggle room in case I have to throw some games out because of technical problems or just not feeling like playing them on any given day. (382 words.)

I think I’m sufficiently setup for streaming now. I just have to push some buttons and I’ll be live on Twitch. I did a test this afternoon and everything seemed to work satisfactorily. I mean except for the part where the final frame of the video was me rubbing my nose in an awkward way, so that when the video ends my hand is frozen there on my nose and it looks weird. Don’t forget to wait a few seconds after hitting the “stop streaming” button! Anyway I think Twitch deletes everything after a couple weeks if you don’t make an effort to save the streams. (611 words.)

I’ve just been reliably informed that next month is August. In fact, it will be August in just over two weeks from the time of this writing. (Which was yesterday, as of the time of this posting.) That means Blaugust is back. Head over there to Tales from the Aggronaut for all the details. Thanks to Belghast for making these awesome images available! I have to be honest. The idea of writing a blog post every day for a month elicits a heavy sigh from me. It’s like signing up for a marathon. Literally, for me, since I doubt I could even walk a mile right now, let alone run 26 of them. It’s like signing up for something that I know is going to be a slog for me, in other words, and it’s hard to find a lot of motivation for that. (1719 words.)

I’ve heard about a thing in Final Fantasy XIV called the “Trust System.” I didn’t pay any attention to it. Why would I? It’s called a “trust system.” Typical of most things in Final Fantasy, there is nothing within the words of that name that even remotely implies what it actually *is*. If they had called it what it is, which is apparently “AI Party Members For Completing Main Scenario Quest Dungeons Solo,” then boy would my ears have pricked up fast. I might have even bought the Shadowbringers expansion and played it. Alas, it’s too late now, as the launch wave of hype and the FOMO danger zone is pretty much over. Everyone has already finished the story and maxed out their mains and stopped talking about it. But I might pick it up later, when it goes on sale. (897 words.)

Another super easy month to figure out. It was Bloodborne on the PS4. I basically only play one game at a time anymore, and have little interest in anything else until I finish with it. Bloodborne (PS4), ~50-60 hours. Time estimated by looking at how long I ran OBS Studio on my PC, which was 50 hours. However when I finished the game and entered New Game+ last night, the total save game time was 68 hours, but that extends a little bit into May as well. Silly consoles. Hard to measure game time accurately. Lords of the Fallen (PC), 3 hours. Ah yes. I got this game in a Steam sale many, many years ago. There were days where I had to skip playing Bloodborne to rest my thumb, and on those days, I ventured into Lords of the Fallen again with mouse and keyboard. It’s the game that the Internet mercilessly mocks for daring to try to copy the Souls formula. It fell a bit short, but it’s not nearly as bad as the Internet would lead you to believe. Of all the games out there labelled “Souls-like,” it’s the only one I’ve seen that actually *is* Souls-like. Someday I might even finish it. Final Fantasy XIV (PC), 2 hours. I played a whopping 2 hours of my one week of free time given to returning players. I definitely know how to take advantage of free stuff. (239 words.)

Bloodborne: It’s fantastic. I’m not even finished yet and it clearly deserves to go into my entirely fictional All-Time Hall of Fame Game Library. That’s it. That’s my impressions. If you like this kind of game, it’s a must-play. (If you don’t, then you probably won’t like it, because it is the quintessential version of this kind of game, the template from which all others of this kind of game are poorly copied.) (1767 words.)

I probably won’t play Final Fantasy XIV’s Shadowbringers expansion. I’ve had a lot of fun in Final Fantasy XIV but it occurred to me that the game isn’t made for me anymore. Bye bye spunky porcelain-faced Miqo'te in the Bain mask. That became really clear when I watched the Square Enix event for E3. At the end of the event, Twitter exploded with excitement over a bombshell surprise reveal. I watched the entire E3 event. I didn’t have the slightest idea what the reveal was. Apparently there was one sentence spoken at the end of the trailer that caused an eruption of excitement and it went right over my head. (880 words.)

Someone on Twitter asked a question that gave me an extremely rare idea for a blog post that I haven’t already covered before: Gaming Chairs. So, my PC chair is on it's way out, and starting to get uncomfortablke. Anyone have any decent recommendations? I was thinking on looking at all those "gaming" chairs that are all the rage since I'd like a higher armrest and some comfort but…y'know, need suggestions (859 words.)