0 words.
141 entries. 152,888 words.
2019-01
-
Games Played – 2018.
2019-01-01.
Every screenshot of RimWorld kind of looks the same unfortunately.
First, just the month of December, though I hardly need ManicTime to tell me this:
RimWorld, 142 hours. The final tally changed right up to the end of the final day. Incidentally, as I look at the blah screenshot of RimWorld up there, I should say that I never found the game the slightest bit interesting from looking at other people’s screenshots or descriptions. It was only when I watched someone *actually playing* the game that it became fascinating. No other games have been played on my PC or Playstation 4 in December.
- Roundup
- Single-Player
-
RimWorld Anecdotes.
2019-01-02.
Raiders tunneling into Ancient Danger. Again, the screenshot looks dumb and meaningless. Just trust me when I say this was a super dramatic, white knuckle, holy crap moment.
People on Twitter are probably sick of hearing about RimWorld by now, but blog readers can enjoy these quips for the first time! Unless you follow me on Twitter, then you’ve probably seen them before. But now you can read more about what I meant with the power of more words!
- Musings
- Single-Player
- Steam
-
On The Radar For 2019.
2019-01-02.
Here’s my annual summary of PC MMORPGs that are on my radar for the new year 2019. (Here is 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014). I’ll warn you up front it’s bleak.
I am only considering “traditional” style MMORPGs in this list, not things like MOBAs or brawlers or Diablo-clones or whatever else people call MMOs these days. Actually, since I find out about these from MMO sites, and most MMO sites now cover things that aren’t traditional MMORPGs, some of these might in fact not be traditional MMORPGs. Actually, even MMORPGs these days aren’t much like old school traditional MMORPGs anymore, but that’s another topic. The point is I try to weed out things that are obviously not traditional MMORPGs, like, say, Anthem or Fallout 76 or Rend or Cyberpunk 2077.
- MMORPG
- Pre-Release
-
My Top Ten Watched Videos of 2018.
2019-01-03.
It’s time for another performance review of my YouTube channel.
Thanks to YouTube’s change in monetization strategy at the beginning of the year, I basically stopped putting any effort into video production in 2018. The only videos I upload now are completely unedited-basically mini-streams without a chat room. (Occasionally I do some edits, but it’s minor and rare.)
In fact, toward the end of the year as I’m writing this, I would say that I only upload about 1 video for every 10 that I actually record. Most of them just sit on my hard drive now. I recorded my entire playthrough of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but only uploaded an edited summary of the first couple of hours of it. I’ve recorded probably close to a hundred hours of RimWorld videos, but I’ve only uploaded seven. I actually click the “record” button on OBS pretty much every time I play a PC game now. Hard drive space is a bit of a problem.
- Videos
-
A Train Wreck.
2019-01-05.
If you don't instantly recognize this, we can't be friends.
While seemingly every where I turn at the start of 2019 I see people talking about how it’s a great time to start blogging because blogging is super hot and rewarding and it’s all fine and nothing is on fire and burning right to the ground around us, *I* am sitting here wondering what the heck is even the point of this blog anymore.
- Musings
-
Cynicism vs. Observation.
2019-01-07.
I’m going to try a new thing this year on the ol’ blog. Last year, I would start writing a post, thinking it was the greatest thing ever, words flowing all over the place, but then I’d hit a wall and couldn’t really think of a conclusion, and I would wander away to something else. Then I would read the post the next day or the next, and realize it wasn’t that good, despite having a kernel of a good idea. So I’d edit it again and put it away. Then the next day I’d realize it’s even worse, and edit it again and again and again, adding paragraphs, removing paragraphs, changing it entirely from what it once was on the first day. Eventually I’d decide it was utterly pointless garbage that didn’t have a conclusion for a reason-because it was garbage-and it would remain forever buried in the Drafts folder. This is one of those posts. But this year, I’m going to post it anyway! Maybe that’s kind of cynical. It feels kind of cynical. But after writing this post, I don’t really know anymore.
- Musings
-
Audio Talk Is The Coolest.
2019-01-08.
Here’s another one of those posts I started one day and then decided the next day that it doesn’t really say anything, and doesn’t contain any valuable content except the one link to Scopique’s post. But per the new 2019 blogging rules, I’m posting it anyway.
I saw Scopique’s post on audio settings for streaming, which gives me an excuse to write about one of my favorite things: Audio engineering! I could write thousands and thousands and thousands of words on the inside baseball minutia of all the work I put into the audio tracks on my YouTube videos. (“See how different it sounds when you move the microphone two inches *that* way?? See how much different it sounds with a 4.25:1 compression ratio instead of a 4.5:1 ratio??? Isn’t that the coolest thing ever???”)
- Musings
- Streaming
- Videos
-
My Brief Dwarf Fortress Time.
2019-01-11.
I saw @Stargrace and some other folks talking about Dwarf Fortress in the blogosphere and on Twitter. It’s that game that has that reputation for being the greatest game ever, and also the most impossible to actually play, that I’ve been hearing about for the last ten years. I think I first heard about it on the Gamers With Jobs podcast years and years ago.
It dawned on me that I’ve always heard it’s a game that sounds similar to RimWorld, and I love RimWorld, so therefore by the transitive property I should also love Dwarf Fortress. A bunch of people on the Reddits actually recommend Dwarf Fortress if you like RimWorld. Those people are insane, as we’ll soon see. (But insanity is a requirement for using Reddit, zing bang boom, hey-oh, har har.) Anyway, I’ve always wanted to see it for myself.
- Reviews
- RPG
- Single-Player
-
Return to Subnautica.
2019-01-14.
Well we’re starting off the week by deciding *not* to post the post I was going to post about why blogging is such work for me right now, because of the reasons I explain in that post, because I just don’t want anyone to know how much work it is, which quickly kills off the era of “2019 is when I post my half-finished drafts even when they’re not done instead of letting them accumulate in Drafts for years on end.” Let’s just assume there isn’t a terrified artist child hiding behind these posts at all, cringing and holding his breath every time he hits that publish button, and I am just another confident egomaniacal writer who revels in forcing my thoughts and opinions on everyone out there!
- Musings
- Single-Player
- Steam
-
Building vs. Simulation – Dwarf Fortress.
2019-01-15.
So a weird thing happened. I played more Dwarf Fortress. And then a little more. And I kind of started liking it. “It’s really not that hard once you learn it.”
This is Bekarlogem, my third fortress. Bekarlogem apparently means "Dippedpainted" which makes me giggle every time for some reason.
Ha! Just kidding. It’s still super hard. Every screen has a different method of navigating the menus. Sometimes it’s arrow keys. Sometimes it’s tab. Sometimes it’s the + and - keys. Sometimes it’s the * and / keys. I’m not kidding about any of that. Every single thing on the screen leads to the question, “What does *that* mean?” As in, “What does it mean when that dwarf is blinking like that? What does it mean when those letters pop up in the corner of the screen there? What does it mean when this guy’s name is blinking in this list?”
- Musings
- RPG
- Single-Player
-
The Fall of Bekarlogem – Dwarf Fortress.
2019-01-20.
I imagine if you draw a Venn diagram of “people who play Dwarf Fortress” and “people who are programmers,” the two circles would overlap quite a bit. Unfortunately for me, I’m a programmer, so I think I’m more vulnerable to this DF sickness than most people. Playing the game is quite a bit like using a text editor, considering how much you use the arrow keys to select things in rhythmic patterns. Anyway…
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Stories
-
GW2 – All or Nothing Completed.
2019-01-21.
I’m pretty weary of writing about Guild Wars 2 so this is going to be a short post. Mostly it’s just to note that I did finish the new Episode 5, All or Nothing last night. I don’t say what happens here, but there is one big hint below (from ArenaNet) which is plenty to work out what happens, so beware.
I hadn’t logged into Guild Wars 2 a single time since I finished episode 4. I started this one on January 9th. Sometimes I didn’t play more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time.
- MMORPG
-
The Fall of Guzilingiz – Dwarf Fortress.
2019-01-23.
There’s supposed to be a diacritic or something on one of those vowels in Guzilingiz, but who can be bothered with such things.
I started another fortress in Dwarf Fortress. Guess what? If you guessed “werelizards destroyed the whole fortress again” you’d be exactly right.
Yeah it's another scene of unspeakable carnage and horror. So much gore splashed on the walls here it couldn't even get an R-rating if it were a movie.
- RPG
- Single-Player
-
Gusilingiz: The Videos.
2019-01-24.
This post is about the boring inside baseball minutia of audios and videos and scripting, so beware.
I uploaded the four videos comprising the entire brief lifespan of my Gusilingiz fortress to my YouTube channel. Since I did some experimental stuff in those videos, I thought I would document it all here, because I love this stuff and you can’t stop me.
By the way, I spelled Gusilingiz wrong in my last post, in case you’re an expert on the dwarven language and noticed that glaring error. And I know, I know, the diacritic is still missing.
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Videos
-
Mini Studio Development.
2019-01-30.
I’m doing that thing again where my posts start piling up in Drafts because I write them on my MacBook Air in the living room, but I only add images on my gaming PC in the computer room, and I spend all of my time with my gaming PC actually gaming instead of adding images to blog posts, so the posts just sit here in Drafts until I force myself to add an image some days or weeks later. I know, I know, blog posts don’t *need* images to post, but I’ve been entirely convinced by years of “expert” advice and examples that nobody will ever click on any Internet content unless there is a colorful, compelling thumbnail picture associated with it.
- Music
2019-02
-
Games Played – January 2019.
2019-02-01.
January has been a PC simulation game month, continuing from December.
The big oval room is a bustling tavern in my most-recent fortress, Amostitdun.
Dwarf Fortress, 69 hours. Yeah, I kinda still play Dwarf Fortress. It’s really not that bad once you learn it. No, really! I mean, if you’re a programmer, that is, who’s spent decades using programming text editors, moving cursors around and learning keyboard shortcuts. And also someone who’s played a month and a half of RimWorld beforehand to get the hang of this specific kind of game. If nothing else, it’s a very intellectually stimulating game, and there is no shortage of new things to experience and learn. It’s a giant brain teaser puzzle. RimWorld, 41 hours. I have to sheepishly admit I haven’t played any RimWorld since I started playing Dwarf Fortress. Subnautica, 11 hours. I started out playing a half hour a day in January, but one day I forgot to play and I haven’t been back since. I reached a point where I didn’t know where to go or what to do next, and the whole routine of “wander around until you find the next thing to do” gets old pretty quick for me. Guild Wars 2, 3 hours. This was the brief time I played Living World Season 4, Episode 5, All or Nothing. No PlayStation 4 games were played. I didn’t pick up a controller all month.
- Roundup
-
Anthem Open Demo Notes.
2019-02-04.
First! Wait, what? Other people have written about Anthem too? Oh. Oh well. I guess here’s another.
Roger basically wrote the exact same post that I did. In fact, I dare say most every reaction to Anthem I’ve seen from newcomers to the free demo weekend is basically the same: “It’s okay if you like that sort of thing, but it’s not for me.” That’s what this post is, so buckle up.
- MMO
-
Amostitdun – Dwarf Fortress.
2019-02-06.
Amostitdun turned out to be kind of a boring fortress. Everything just kind of worked fine and the dwarves went about their lives. They had plenty of food and drink and housing and most everyone seemed happy, except a few pesky killjoys. I got tired of managing them when they reached the population cap of 200. Just like RimWorld, it’s just not fun for me to play this kind of game unless I’m reacting to some kind of threat or obstacle. When everything is going fine and there’s nothing to do but build stuff, it’s less fun for me.
- RPG
-
Avuzestel – Dwarf Fortress.
2019-02-09.
I created a new world called Emeecamo, “The Eternal Universes.” I used all the default settings except I set the mineral occurrence to “Frequent” because I’m a filthy casual and I don’t like looking all over creation for metals.
Unlike my last world, which was dominated by humans, Emeecamo has a fairly balanced population between all the races, and almost all of them are at war with the goblins. All but the dwarves, oddly enough.
- RPG
-
Cultural Perspective On The Activision/Blizzard News.
2019-02-14.
I’ve been trying to think about how to approach this particular story, and whether I should address it at all. It doesn’t really affect me personally, and it’s dangerously close to Expressing A Political Opinion On The Internet. Which is basically an invitation for the world to come over here and yell angrily because there is only one correct opinion on everything and conformity must be enforced at all costs. Because yelling at people is historically proven to be the best way to change their views. And thus Reddit was born. Ahem. Anyway.
- Opinion
-
Dastotdeg – Dwarf Fortress.
2019-02-18.
One of the interesting things about Dwarf Fortress is that your “save game file” (which is actually a huge directory of tiny files) contains not just your fortress, but the entire world around your fortress, including all of the other AI-controlled fortresses and civilizations on the map.
In RimWorld, if you get an itch to try something different, you simply save your game and start a new game with a new colony. If you don’t like it, you load up the old game and resume the old colony where you left off.
- RPG
-
ArenaNet Layoffs.
2019-02-23.
ArenaNet is laying off an undetermined number of employees on the orders of NCSoft.
Random Guild Wars 2 screenshot because thumbnail.
I actually don’t have much to say about this, but I felt like it was big enough news to warrant a blog post to mark the occasion. To be perfectly blunt, I’m so numb to the game industry right now that this barely elicited a mild shrug. It’s a weekday, so of course another major MMO studio is suffering losses. Reminder to all the kids out there: Don’t work in the game industry, unless maybe you’re the one running the company.
- MMORPG
-
An Influencer Was Born.
2019-02-25.
I can’t stop chuckling about this so I have to mention it.
I got an email. Someone saw my Dwarf Fortress videos on YouTube and sent me a Steam code to try their game.
I’m an INFLUENCER now.
Live image of a YouTuber becoming an influencer.
This is hilarious to me.
After 4 years of putting videos on youtube, someone thinks I'm an influencer and sent me a code to try their game… all it takes is 4 long years of punishing work, a thousand hours of video editing, and you get a free game! THE DREAM IS REAL
- Musings
- Videos
-
Two Kinds Of Gamers.
2019-02-26.
Bhagpuss’s recent post and also one of his older posts that I can’t remember-because for some reason I never, ever bookmark things I want to refer to later-remind me of a theory I’ve had for a while now but I haven’t quite been able to articulate, so I’ll give it a shot now. This also touches a little bit on “Gevlon’s final post,” which I haven’t read yet, but Bhagpuss quoted some of it.
- Musings
2019-03
-
Gatiztun – Dwarf Fortress.
2019-03-01.
I think I’m getting a little weary of Dwarf Fortress. I’m starting to detect some repetition in how each game plays out. The outcomes aren’t exactly the same, but the events that happen along the way are starting to feel a bit routine. There’s always artifacts, there’s always a cavern system, there’s always goblin invasions, there’s always forgotten beasts and titans and ettins, there’s always unhappy dwarves, etc.
It feels a little like if I build the same fortress plan every time, I’ll get the same outcome every time. If I prepare for goblins using *this* method, I’ll always be able to handle them. If I put *these* things in my fortress, I’ll always be able to make my dwarves happy. If I approach the caverns *this* way, I’ll never have a problem with them.
- RPG
-
The Division 2 Open Beta.
2019-03-04.
I tried the open beta this past weekend, because it was free.
First, in marketing terms, it was a far better game demo than The Division 1 Open Beta, because you got into the action much faster, and didn’t spend your first 30 minutes just wandering around trying to find where to start. So in that sense, it’s much better.
Other than that, there’s nothing much to report. It’s basically identical to the first game, except it takes more CPU and GPU power to run. I’m sure there is some minutia in there that is different and/or improved, but it’s not apparent to me, whose only experience with the game is playing The Division 1 Open Beta.
- MMO
- Reviews
-
Games Played – February 2019.
2019-03-08.
Oops it’s over a week into March and this post is still sitting here waiting for me to attach a picture to it.
Hey guess what? I played Dwarf Fortress.
Dwarf Fortress, 118 hours. ANTHEM Open Demo, 1 hour. I don’t think I turned on my PS4 at any point either. Why did I buy that contraption again? Well, there was a sale. And it’s the only way to play Bloodborne. And oh yeah, because I didn’t realize the PS4 controller was a thumb-destroying device that I’m now actively frightened to touch.
- Roundup
-
Critical Role and D&D.
2019-03-13.
Last week there was a sudden burst of attention for that media juggernaut known as “Critical Role,” the Friends of the RPG community. They launched a Kickstarter to fund an animated show, and smashed through their goals and stretch goals and super stretch goals somehow within a negative amount of spacetime (or so it seemed, without actually paying that much attention), and the tabletop RPG corners of the Internet rejoiced.
- Musings
-
My First ChromeBook.
2019-03-16.
My 2013 MacBook Air died recently. Don’t ask how, because it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever done with an expensive piece of electronic equipment. Okay, I dropped it in some water. It wasn’t in the water for more than a second, and only the keyboard part was submerged, but that was enough. It continued to work while wet, surprisingly enough, but I immediately turned it off to let it dry out, and it hasn’t powered back up since. (Probably because laptops are never entirely “off.”)
- Musings
- Reviews
-
Google Stadia Announcement.
2019-03-20.
Google announced a new gaming “platform” curiously named Stadia. It’s a lot of things, but in simple terms I’d call it a cloud gaming service, similar to that OnLive service that died a horrible death some time ago. But it’s more than that.
On first glance, I’d say it has about as much chance of long-term success as OnLive did. It sounds like a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. But it does have a few things going for it.
- Consoles
- Development
- Musings
-
Sekiro Initial Thoughts.
2019-03-25.
Just some quick spoiler-free bullet points about the first five-ish hours of Sekiro, the latest game from From Software.
It looks like a slightly-improved version of the Dark Souls 3 game engine. It has basically the same bleached-film aesthetic. I’m playing with mouse-and-keyboard to save my thumbs. The implementation is slightly better than Dark Souls 3, which was better than Dark Souls, but it’s still probably going to be “best” with controllers. I’m regularly cursing how inefficient it feels to find the right keys and buttons, and this is after spending a good 10 hours practicing with mouse and keyboard in Dark Souls 3 The Ringed City. There’s no character creation and very few stats. There’s only one weapon and combat style (so far). The combat is very different from Dark Souls. There’s a focus on “deflection” which seems to be a hybrid of blocking and parrying. I’m terrible at parrying in Souls so this is not good for me. There’s no stamina management, but “posture” management. Timing is everything, and there’s very little room for error. I don’t quite have a handle on it yet. Experience with Souls is not necessarily helpful here. There are no player messages or multiplayer components (yet?). I get the sense they simplified the UI from the Souls series in a deliberate attempt to make it more accessible. There’s only one equipment “slot” to manage, as opposed to the four (item, spell, left and right hand) in Souls. There’s more “environmental storytelling” (in the form of overhearing conversations and such) than any Souls game. There’s a very prominent stealth component that isn’t in any Souls game. It’s skating around the edges of being a full-on stealth game, if you want to play it that way. You can also charge headlong into every fight if you want to (and frankly I have more success that way). The grappling hook is a bit more limited in its use than I expected. It works like what I remember of Far Cry Primal, where you can only grapple to pre-determined points around the environment. Sometimes you’ll see places you *should* be able to reach, but can’t because the game didn’t put grapple points there. The death penalty seems more forgiving than Souls, because there’s a limited-use resurrection-in-place. You don’t necessarily have to go all the way back to the last checkpoint. (But there’s still a cost.) I don’t quite have a handle on this system yet either. In general, it seems like they made a conscious effort to pick and choose some but not all of the elements from the Dark Souls gameplay formula, then sprinkle in some elements from games like Assassin’s Creed, to make a new game that would have a more “mainstream” appeal. The default voiceovers are Japanese, and the Japanese voice actors sound more professional and interesting than the English ones. The combat is pretty frustrating for me so far with mouse and keyboard. I’ve hit a pretty hard roadblock merely 5 hours in. I get killed over and over and over again, I’m early or late on every deflection, I dodge right into every attack, and I feel like my Wolf is hitting with the strength of a wet noodle. I think my Souls experience is getting in the way of doing well in Sekiro.
- RPG
2019-04
-
Games Played – March 2019.
2019-04-01.
March was a veritable explosion of gaming variety for me. I dropped Dwarf Fortress like a hot potato (just when people were starting to like my videos, oops) and picked up Souls again in anticipation of Sekiro. Not that there’s anything wrong with Dwarf Fortress, but nothing compete when the From Software fever hits.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, 16 hours. The new game from From Software. I just love writing “from From Software” and do it every chance I can. I’m not sure what I think of it yet. Dark Souls III, 12 hours. This time was spent re-playing the The Ringed City DLC to get back to where I left off when my SSD crashed in 2017. Then Sekiro arrived and I stopped. (I also love writing “the The Ringed City DLC.”) The Division 2 Open Beta, 2 hours. It was kind of fun, but not worth a full price purchase for me. Dark Souls Remastered, 2 hours. Finishing up the Dark Souls Remastered Casual Nostalgia Tour video series. Maybe I’ll get to Manus and Kalameet in New Game+. Lord of the Rings Online, 2 hours. A somewhat generous rounding-up. I finished Volume II, Book 7, Chapter 8 “The Secret Road” and I’m back outside again! Still haven’t gained a level though, holding steady at 62. ANTHEM Open Demo, 1 hour. A generous rounding-up of time played. It just didn’t appeal to me. Considering that even the superfans are giving up on it already, it’s probably just as well. The rest of the month’s time was taken up watching or listening to Critical Role hehe. Which was, in fact, more entertaining than playing most games.
- Roundup
-
Albion Online Impressions.
2019-04-16.
I’ve had nothing at all to write about for the last month except Critical Role and Sekiro. I can’t write about Critical Role because a) most people don’t care and b) any discussion of it would basically be 100% spoilers and c) D&D isn’t really my thing anyway.
I can’t write about Sekiro because there’s nothing much to say except “I’m playing Sekiro.” It’s not the kind of game that lends itself to a lot of discussion. It’s a bit like Pac-Man-you either play it or you don’t, there’s not much to say during the process. (Unless you want to start a Big Internet Fight about whether games should be hard or not. That was just one of a billion different links provided for context.)
- MMORPG
- Reviews
-
City of Heroes Drama.
2019-04-19.
Literally the only superhero-related screenshot from a game I have. This is Colossus from Marvel Heroes.
The big story in MMORPG news lately is about City of Heroes, the second-most talked about dead game after Star Wars Galaxies. Apparently, somebody has been working on (yet another) City of Heroes emulator in secret. There’s a lot of drama around it, because of course there is. I don’t know all the details and it’s tiresome to read through the articles about it.
- MMORPG
-
Complicated Character Creation.
2019-04-30.
MassivelyOP asks: “How obsessively do you plan your characters?”
At first I thought they meant the *appearance* of your character. So I tweeted my usual I-can-say-everything-that-needs-to-be-said-about-MMOs-in-one-sentence-and-hoo-boy-does-that-make-blogging-hard response to most discussion topics:
Honestly these days I just click randomize a bunch of times and then "Enter Game" … I've been burned so, so many times spending an hour in character creation only to find that everyone looks exactly the same from the back.
- MMORPG
2019-05
-
Games Played – April 2019.
2019-05-01.
It’s been another odd gaming month. I thought I would be playing a lot of Sekiro, but it turns out I’m just not in the mood for it, or any games really. I’ve gotten much more enjoyment from consuming plain old non-interactive video content in my free time (ie. mostly Critical Role).
Sekiro, 28 hours. I am currently on the “Guardian Ape” boss and not terribly interested in putting in the repetitive practice needed to get past it. I’m also recording my playthrough so I not only have to be in the mood to play the game, but also in the mood to record and talk about it, so it’s doubly difficult. Honestly I’m not enjoying it as much as the previous Souls games. 7 Days To Die, 16 hours. I’m pretty surprised I played for this long actually-I feel like some of this might be AFK time. Anyway, this is the game I’ve turned to when I want to do something with my hands while listening to Critical Role. The newest version (17.2 I think) seems to have a lot more difficult survival mechanics than previous versions. Albion Online, 3 hours. I tried out the free-to-play release. I found it was surprisingly interesting in the first hour but it became apparent in the second two hours that the gameplay would probably never change, so I felt like I’d seen everything the game had to offer. Conan Exiles, 2 hours. I tried it again for the first time since the Early Access launch. I thought more would be different, but it’s still pretty similar. The new combat didn’t seem like much of an improvement to me. Anyway, since the map was the same, I didn’t really want to repeat what I’d already played before. Elder Scrolls Online, 2 hours. Continuing the search for the elusive hook to get back into that game. Just can’t find it. No PS4 games. I didn’t even turn it on in April.
- Roundup
-
Game of Thrones Notes: Season 8, Episodes 1-3.
2019-05-04.
The following is a slightly edited but mostly unedited copy of the notes I take while watching Game of Thrones. I watch with a laptop and bash out thoughts as they occur to me, then I go back after the show and fill in extra details in brackets. I had ideas of turning these notes into real posts but since I never did it for season 7, and there’s over 4,000 words of stream-of-consciousness commentary down below, at this point you just get what you get.
- Media
-
Game of Thrones Notes, Season 8, Episode 4.
2019-05-12.
I’m still playing Sekiro, so not much to write about until I’m finished with it. Until then, more notes on Game of Thrones! Thought I should post them before the new episode airs to lock in my predictions for the Internet office pool.
Episode 4
Seeing from Twitter that there are spoilers for the episode and not even 5 pm yet. Was there another leaked episode? Probably. Undoubtedly. I had to find the leaked episodes last season so I could watch them before people posted spoilers from them. Was a pain.
- Media
-
Game of Thrones Notes, Season 8, Episode 5.
2019-05-17.
Yes, I’m still playing Sekiro, so nothing else to talk about. I will publish a massive, massive post when I’m done (I’m on what I think might be the final boss as I’m typing this, then I have some backtracking to do).
I’m aware that there’s a new episode of GW2 but I couldn’t care less. I’m aware that WoW Classic is in beta but I couldn’t care less. I’m aware that there’s a new thing coming for ESO but I couldn’t care less. I’m aware that City of Heroes is ironically the most exciting and popular new MMORPG out now but I couldn’t care less.
- Media
-
Sekiro Completed.
2019-05-25.
I finished my first blind playthrough of Sekiro* this past week, so I can finally post my thoughts about it. It took me two months and two days, or 76 game hours by the game’s accounting. I recorded 95 roughly 25 minute videos documenting the journey.
There might be some minor spoilers below, but nothing about the story.
I'm part of the 22.7% club!
Now I enter the second phase of playing every From Software game: Learning about all of the things I missed or did wrong the first time, as I finally go around reading about the game (a little bit, at least-there is still a lot I can discover about the story and different endings on my own).
- RPG
- Single-Player
-
Sekiro Blind Playthrough Index.
2019-05-26.
The following is a list of Sekiro video episodes I recorded in my first blind playthrough, with descriptions for each. This is the document from which I will be cutting and pasting all my YouTube video descriptions. You can use this as a searchable index to see the odd path of progression I made through the game.
One interesting thing about From Software games is that everyone plays it differently, and it’s fun to see how others may have taken different paths. For example, I seem to have gone through a lot of the early to middle part of the game backwards from what was intended, since I put off the Genichiro fight for a long time.
- RPG
- Videos
2019-06
-
Games Played – May 2019.
2019-06-03.
This should be a pretty short list.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, 53 hours. I finished my first playthrough and started NG+. I got bored about halfway through NG+ though. 7 Days To Die, 2 hours. I don’t remember why I played this. I think I might have been playing it while listening to Critical Role early in the month. I have thoughts about the newest version but I can’t remember what they are at the moment. I got bored in Sekiro NG+ because the only thing that’s different the second time around is the new satisfaction of roflstomping all the bosses now that you know what you’re doing. Even carrying the Bell Demon around, NG+ is laughably easy thanks to the previous 75 hours of training.
- Consoles
- Roundup
-
E3 Non-Reaction.
2019-06-10.
I wrote this tweet this morning:
Man, when I hear people talking about E3, I realize I must not be a gamer AT ALL anymore, if I ever was. This must be what it feels like to leave Scientology. — Endgame Viable (@endgameviable) <a href="https://twitter.com/endgameviable/status/1138085833490276352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2019</a> It’s a tweet that deserves to be a full blog post. But I have this terrible habit of saying everything I want to say in two pithy sentences, with little room for expansion. Twitter is a great blogging platform.
- Musings
-
Amazon Gaming Chair.
2019-06-18.
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
- Musings
- Reviews
-
Passing on Shadowbringers.
2019-06-20.
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.
- MMORPG
-
Bloodborne Impressions (PS4).
2019-06-28.
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.)
- Consoles
- Reviews
- RPG
2019-07
-
Games Played – June 2019.
2019-07-01.
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.
- MMORPG
- Roundup
- RPG
-
Can I Trust The Trust System?.
2019-07-11.
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.
- MMORPG
-
Blaugust Is Next Month.
2019-07-16.
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.
- Musings
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Setting Up A Stream.
2019-07-17.
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.
- Musings
- Streaming
-
Blaugust Game Schedule.
2019-07-18.
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.
- Musings
- Steam
- Streaming
-
Of Apple, AAC, And ABZU.
2019-07-19.
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.
- Musings
- Videos
-
Salvaging Old Music Projects.
2019-07-20.
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.
- Music
- Musings
-
Staying Private In Public.
2019-07-21.
I forgot that I was trying to write something every day to get into shape for Blaugust. Writing calisthenics, if you will. (I just now learned that I have no idea how to spell the word “calisthenics.” My first attempt was “calusthetics.” It’s entirely possible I have never written that word in a document before in my lifetime.)
Writing is a habit that needs to be exercised, by the way. You can’t just sit down and write out of the blue, just like you can’t just run a marathon out of the blue. Well, you *can* (and should-start writing, that is, not run a marathon) but those first words you write won’t be as good as the ones you write after writing every day for a while. It’s just how it is. It’s why *starting* to write is the most important part-and by far the hardest part-of writing.
- Musings
-
Newsflow RSS Reader for Windows 10.
2019-07-22.
I’m trying a new RSS feed reader for this Blaugust. It’s a Windows-based reader called NewsFlow.
The grid layout. I don't read posts like this but it was more colorful for the screenshot than just a list of text.
It’s not that I particularly wanted to try a new reader, but InoReader, my web-based reader of choice, has implemented a limitation of 150 feeds in the free version. At the time they implemented the limitation, some time earlier this year, I had over 300 feeds in my list. I went through and cut the list down to under 150 after removing a bunch of feeds that haven’t updated in years or have vanished from the web entirely.
- Musings
- Reviews
-
Finished Bloodborne, Resumed Demon’s Souls.
2019-07-23.
It’s raining this morning, which is always a bummer of a way to start the day. Even my dog and cat don’t want to do anything on rainy mornings.
I thought I would mention something about games on this gaming blog for a change.
I don’t know if I ever mentioned that I finished playing Bloodborne on the PS4. I’m uploading the video series now. (I did a much better job with thumbnails and metadata than I did with Sekiro.) I was pleased to find that my thumb performed much better than I anticipated by the end. I could maintain playing on a controller for an hour or so every day without any significant loss in hand functionality for the rest of my non-gaming activities throughout the day.
- Consoles
- Musings
- RPG
-
Blaugust 2019 OPML File.
2019-07-24.
Theoretically you can click the following link to download the latest version of an OPML file of Blaugustians:
Blaugust 2019 OPML File
I tend to model my software development life around the Perl mantra: “The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris.” Thus did I find myself hemming and hawing over the prospect of manually adding a whole bunch of blogs to my RSS feed reader for this Blaugust.
- Development
-
Snap Judgment – Life is Feudal: MMO.
2019-07-27.
Life Is Feudal, the MMO, as opposed to the other two games with the same name that are different, recently became free to download and play on Steam. This is a game I’ve wanted to check out almost since the day I heard about it, which seems like five or ten or a hundred years ago now. It’s been an Early Access game all this time (and still is), but it’s always been more than the amount I’m willing to pay for an Early Access game, which is $10. Finally they decided to do what is essentially a free trial.
- MMO
-
ESO – Two Good Quests in Rivenspire.
2019-07-28.
I grouse about Elder Scrolls Online a lot, so I thought it would be fair to point out that I actually had an enjoyable play session yesterday for a couple of hours.
My “main” from the game’s launch in 2014 is a Nord Templar who is now somewhere around level 48 I think. This is the character I keep trying to play, and keep running into frustrations because the game consistently refuses to let me play the way I want to play this character. I wanted to make this guy a heavy armor, two-handed grunt who smashes everything over the head with a huge heavy swing of the two-handed sword. That is apparently “wrong” for a Templar, and the game punishes me all the time for it. It’s very aggravating. I don’t play him very much anymore.
- MMORPG
-
Steam Backlog Bonanza – TimeShift.
2019-07-29.
It doesn’t seem like a game from 2007 would be that “old,” but it sure is. I tried out a shooter called TimeShift from my Steam backlog. I bought it in 2016 for $1.80.
Installing TimeShift was painless. In fact, since it’s so old, it took almost no time at all to install. The size of the game was measured in Megabytes-3000 of them, roughly.
The mechanics of the game are pretty standard for a shooter: You point at things and shoot them, with various weapons, which generally fall into the standard categories: Pistol, Assault Rifle, Shotgun, and variations thereof.
- Shooters
- Snap Judgment
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Stream Schedule – July 28, 2019.
2019-07-29.
The Steam Backlog Bonanza Week One. Streams will be at roughly 4 PM EDT (GMT-4 I think) on my YouTube channel for about an hour and/or until I get bored. Currently I don’t enable chat so lurkers are extremely welcome. If you miss it, I believe the streams are available to watch if not immediately afterward then shortly after. I know… you can subscribe to my channel and find out! AND SMASH THAT BELL!!!! Hehe.
- Streaming
-
Steam Backlog Bonanza – Lord of the Rings: War in the North.
2019-07-30.
Is Lord of the Rings still Lord of the Rings even when it’s not Lord of the Rings? That is the question I set out to answer when looking at Lord of the Rings: War in the North, from 2011. Actually, it was just the next game on my Steam backlog list. I paid $5 for it in a Steam sale some time back, and yesterday I looked at it for the first time.
- Reviews
- RPG
- Steam
- Streaming
-
Steam Backlog Bonanza – Antichamber.
2019-07-31.
Yesterday I tried a game called Antichamber from my Steam backlog. I played for an hour and a half, an almost unprecedented marathon for me in a first look at a game. It’s an indie game that I (apparently, because of course I have no memory of this) got for $5 in 2013, and it took me six years to actually play it.
It's really, really hard to find a representative screenshot for this game.
- Snap Judgment
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
2019-08
-
Steam Backlog Bonanza – Majesty Gold HD [Blaugust 1].
2019-08-01.
It’s possible that I’ve played Majesty before, according to Steam, but I don’t remember it at all. From the description it sounded like it would be in the same vein as Dwarf Fortress or RimWorld, both games I’ve enjoyed, but it was a little bit different. Yesterday was this game’s (possibly second?) chance to impress me, according to the schedule.
The map where you select the "quest" to embark upon.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Games Played – July 2019.
2019-08-01.
Ran out of steam on Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls and went back to PC games in July.
PC Games Elder Scrolls Online, 7 hours. Wow, whodathunkkit. I found myself intrigued by the Zone Story in Rivenspire enough to keep logging in to go through it. Still haven’t finished it yet though. Now I’m distracted by the Steam backlog. Lords of the Fallen, 2 hours. This was my alternate game when my hands hurt from using the controller too much. Sort of lost interest after I stopped with the Souls-like games though. Still want to finish it someday. Antichamber, TimeShift, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Majesty Gold HD, Life is Feudal: MMO. Games for the Steam Backlog Bonanza. I normally don’t mention games that are less than 1 or 2 hours, but I mention these here for completeness. August is probably going to be a long list of one hour or less games like this. Console Games Demon’s Souls (PS3), ~14 hours. Bloodborne (PS4), ~6 hours.
- Roundup
-
Steam Backlog Bonanza – Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 [Blaugust 2].
2019-08-02.
I was looking forward to seeing this real-time strategy game from 2008 for the first time, and now that I have, I’m not even sure what to say about it. This might be the exact point in time when the games industry stopped and said, “Wait, I think we might have gone a little too far here.” Or should have said that, at least.
First, let’s talk about the game part of the game. It’s a real-time strategy game. There was a time when I enjoyed these kinds of games, but now I find that all the clicking and scrolling and micromanagement of units just gets on my nerves. This game has all of that.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Steam Backlog Bonanza – Dead Space 2 [Blaugust 3].
2019-08-03.
I bought both Dead Space 1 and 2 in a Steam winter sale in 2011 for $5 each (that was back in the halcyon days when Steam sales were always 85%-off sales, not the trolly 10%-off sales they are today). I played seven hours of Dead Space 1 according to Steam. I didn’t hate it, but I obviously never finished it.
Yesterday on the Backlog Bonanza, it was finally time to take a look at the sequel, Dead Space 2.
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Hitman: Absolution – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 4].
2019-08-04.
Inside-Baseball Note Of Possible Worth To New Bloggers during Blaugust: I forgot you’re supposed to put the more important and unique search keywords at the beginning of a blog post’s title, and thus have I changed the format for my titles and introduced an inconsistency into my Blaugust posts. (At least, that was the last SEO advice I remember reading. It changes at least once a year.)
Yesterday, Hitman: Absolution came up on the Big Board for the last day of the first week of my Blaugust Steam Backlog Bonanza. I got it as part of a “Hitman Collection” in a Steam sale for $11 in 2013, and it is the first Hitman game I have ever played.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Brütal Legend – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 5].
2019-08-05.
For undoubtedly many of the same reasons as the rest of the United States, I wasn’t in a very good mood yesterday, so I called an audible and substituted Brütal Legend instead of the game I *planned* to play. I remember enjoying a demo of Brütal Legend on the PS3 years ago, so when I saw a PC version in a Steam sale for $5 in 2013 I had to get it.
- Music
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 6].
2019-08-06.
I bought 2010’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for $8 in a Winter sale in 2014, and yesterday I installed and played it for the first time. I believe this was the ninth game in the Backlog Bonanza so far, with a depressingly huge list of games left to get through.
Every frame of every race looks exactly like this.
I’ve always liked racing games. They’re simpler games from a simpler time. I remember playing a Need For Speed game somewhere around the late 90s or early 2000s. I even bought a steering wheel and pedals for it (now long gone).
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
NEO Scavenger – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 7].
2019-08-07.
Yesterday I played NEO Scavenger for the 10th day of the Steam Backlog Death March I mean Bonanza. It was released in 2014, and I bought it in 2016 for $5. (Coincidentally it’s actually on sale today for less than that.)
Waking up from cryosleep.
I goofed with this one. I have, in fact, played it before. But for some reason, Steam didn’t think I had. I know I played it because I found a video I recorded of it in 2016. Of course I didn’t remember a single second of it, but the game looked vaguely familiar when I played it, and that explains why.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Survival
- Videos
-
Blog Post Formatting.
2019-08-07.
Lurking over in the Blaugust Discord today, I noticed a conversation about the details of precise formatting in blog posts. Someone was having some trouble trying to get the WordPress editor to format their post exactly the way they wanted it to be seen. It inspired me to throw out a bit of unsolicited blogging advice related to this topic.
First of all, I think we can all agree that the newest WordPress editor is terrible. Okay, well I don’t like it. I routinely have difficulties with it, that basically boil down to “it’s just weird and you just have to learn how it’s weird and work around it.” My biggest problem is that it routinely deletes an entire paragraph whenever I try to delete the last sentence in a paragraph.
- Musings
- Writing
-
Vortex: The Gateway – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 8].
2019-08-08.
Yesterday on the Steam Backlog Bonanza, I tried out a survival game from 2016 called Vortex: The Gateway which I got for $9 in a sale. (I think it’s probably a universal constant that all of the games in everyone’s backlog are games from a sale.)
Surviving on an alien planet that looks like a nice camping trip.
I only played for about 40 minutes because of a looming thunderstorm, but I tried the two different game modes. The first one is called the “story mode” where it plops you down on an alien planet and asks you to survive. It’s got all the standard survival mechanics; eating, drinking, chopping, gathering, building, and wandering monsters. The building mechanics are styled after The Forest, where you plop down a blueprint and then feed the materials into the blueprint one at a time to make a finished product. (That is my favorite method of building in survival games so far.)
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Kholat – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 9].
2019-08-09.
Yesterday I played a game called Kholat for the 12th day of the Steam Backlog Bonanza, which I got in 2016 for about $9. For some reason, most of the literature puts it in all caps so it’s KHOLAT! Not just Kholat. KHOLAT!!! One of the main attractions is Sean Bean voicing some of the narration.
It’s a really interesting game, in a certain kind of way. It’s basically a walking simulator at its heart, but it’s a very intense walking simulator. The game does a very good job of simulating a winter landscape with howling wind in your ears and blinding snow storms. It’s a game that doesn’t really do much, but what it does is very well-made.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 10].
2019-08-10.
Back in 2013 I bought Shadow Warrior for $10, and it came with a free “mini-game” called Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior. That’s what came up on the schedule for yesterday’s stream, so I finally tried it out.
I had heard about Viscera Cleanup Detail before but I don’t own it. It’s a physics game where you take on the role of a janitor who “cleans up” after the heroic gamer has gone through and slaughtered all the bad guys, exploding them into gibs or whatever.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Quest For The One Blog, Part 1.
2019-08-11.
Blaugust has inspired me to write a lot more, and to think about my blog, so I thought I would start writing an open-ended series of posts about a very long-term, often-neglected project of mine: Migrating to a new blogging platform. The generic "this is a post about blogging" image.
Over the years, I’ve made a bunch of web sites. I’ve been with a bunch of different web hosts. I currently have four different web sites that I “maintain” (with varying degrees of updates, from none to frequent): A real-name site, a writing site, a music site, and a gaming site. They all have different domain names. Only one of those actually gets any traffic, and that’s the gaming site (ie. this one). My real-name site used to get some traffic when I wrote about politics and stuff, but I haven’t written anything there in years. I’m quite sure my family thinks I’m dead.
- Development
-
Game Of Thrones – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 11].
2019-08-11.
Game Of Thrones, the game from 2012, not to be confused with all of the other Game Of Thrones games, was next on my Steam Backlog Bonanza. I bought it in 2013 in a $10 bundle with … I don’t even know what else. I played it for the first time yesterday.
This is not a Nazgul, but in fact the character that you play at the beginning.
It’s actually surprising that this game has been sitting here for almost six years. 2013 seems like a lifetime ago. Never occurred to me to try playing this game until I forced myself to.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Quest for The One Blog, Part 2.
2019-08-11.
Previously, I mentioned that I planned to investigate the Pico and Grav blogging platforms first, since they are both PHP-based, database-less platforms that operate on Markdown flat files, which sounds like the perfect place to start for my mission goals.
Incidentally this is exactly the kind of post I wouldn't normally put on this blog.
First I’d like to mention that it’s really hard to find alternate blogging platforms. Any sort of Googling will get you information on: WordPress, Blogger, possibly SquareSpace, and maybe a mention about Medium. Anything other than those platforms requires a great deal of digging. If you tailor your search to .NET solutions, you’ll invariably end up at DotNetNuke (gag), BlogEngine.NET, or Orchard (Microsoft’s thing).
- Development
-
Apotheon – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 12].
2019-08-12.
Yesterday for the 15th day of the Steam Backlog Bonanza I played a game called Apotheon, which I got in 2016 for $3.74. Hard to believe I’m into a third week of this. Anyway, I had been looking forward to this one because I knew it was a visually unusual game.
I don’t normally like side-scrollers. The last one I remember enjoying was Pitfall on an Atari 2600. Actually I can’t think of any other side-scrollers I’ve played on any platform since then. Wait, wasn’t Wolfenstein on the Apple IIe a side-scroller? And I think I remember an Oddworld game sometime in the 90s? Oh and I played a little bit of Terraria, but I didn’t like it.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Quest for The One Blog, Part 3.
2019-08-12.
Last time, I setup Pico and Grav on a Linux server. Now that I have a working installation of both Pico and Grav, it occurs to me: Now what?
I haven’t tested their capabilities extensively, but of the two platforms, I would say that Grav probably has more features and more support. It’s closer to what a WordPress user might expect to see in a blog. It has plugins and themes and an administration panel. It would probably be safer to go with that one. On the other hand, it looks bigger.
- Development
-
Penumba: Requiem – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 13].
2019-08-13.
The Steam Backlog Bonanza marches on with a look at Penumbra: Requiem (and Black Plague). Penumbra came out in 2009 but I couldn’t find any records of when I bought it, so it must have been a long time ago. I had played Black Plague for about a half hour before, but yesterday was the first time I looked at Requiem.
An obelisk puzzle in Penumbra: Requiem.
Penumbra: Requiem is actually an “expansion” for Black Plague. It was billed as a puzzle game.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Quest for The One Blog, Part 4.
2019-08-13.
Last time, I brainstormed about content archives without accomplishing much. This time, however, I am diving straight into the deep end and trying to create content in Pico and Grav.
Okay, that’s overselling it a little bit.
But I have now tinkered a little bit with Pico and Grav to see what it can do straight out of the box.
I imagine my writing workflow is going to look something like this (as it has, more-or-less, for the past month): Write a blog post in a plain text editor on some other computer, possibly my iPad with an Apple wireless keyboard, which is my favorite keyboard to write on. Going forward, let’s say the plain text files will end up on DropBox. Then I would copy the plain text file containing the blog post into the CMS directory structure either through PuTTY or some other upload method.
- Development
-
Geometry Wars 3 – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 14].
2019-08-14.
Yesterday’s new game for the Steam Backlog Bonanza was Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved. I think it’s an extended edition of the “Dimensions” release. It’s a pure arcade action game, of the kind you might find in an old-fashioned upright arcade cabinet.
It's very difficult to get any sense of what the game is like from a still image.
I don’t know why I bought this game, but it was only $1.35 in the 2016 Winter Sale. I feel like that was the last time I “went crazy” and just bought a lot of stuff because it was cheap. I also bought a huge list of old, 2D RPGs for about $1 each in that sale that I have yet to play.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Quest for The One Blog, Part 5.
2019-08-14.
Last time I looked at Pico and Grav. I was going to look at Kirby CMS this time, but I encountered two things that stopped me before I even downloaded it.
Kirby No-Go First, upon perusing the cookbooks, you have to setup the same kind of one-directory-per-blog-post structure in Kirby that I didn’t like in Grav. Just for the record, contrary to Kirby’s tagline, that is not “adapting to your content,” it is, in fact, “forcing a strict ruleset upon your content.”
- Development
-
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 15].
2019-08-15.
For the halfway point of Blaugust, more-or-less, I played Alan Wake’s American Nightmare from my Steam backlog. I got it, along with Alan Wake, for $4 right before it was removed from Steam.
Is it live or is it Memorex?
The first game, Alan Wake, did not qualify for my Steam Backlog Bonanza because, according to Steam, I’ve played it for precisely one minute. I do not remember that minute. I’ve read numerous reports that Alan Wake was a great game, a must-buy game, particularly when it was about to be removed, but I haven’t played it, and apparently something about it made me recoil away from it.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Quest for The One Blog, Part 6.
2019-08-15.
This is a list of Blogging/CMS solutions I’ve looked into so far, which I gleaned from this site. These are just some of the different ways that people (by which I mean programmers) have desperately tried to break free of the WordPress Industrial Complex.
Automad. I didn’t care for the documentation, or lack thereof.
Baun. Installed, see below. Very promising directory structure of content similar to what I had envisioned. Baun is apparently a newer iteration of Pico. (As if this all wasn’t confusing enough.)
- Development
-
A Story About My Uncle – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 16].
2019-08-16.
The big wheel of life turned and landed on a game from my Steam backlog called A Story About My Uncle*. I got it in a 2016 sale for $2 and tried it for the first time yesterday. (It turns out that 2016 was the final year that I indiscriminately bought games on Steam.)
It’s getting really hard to think of a different opening sentence and paragraph for each one of these things. I had high hopes for this game, because I had vague memories of hearing that it was one of those really fantastic story games along the lines of Gone Home. It turned out that my memory must be flawed, because it wasn’t anything like that.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
WoW Classic Fever Heating Up.
2019-08-16.
Most of the blogging and Twittering MMO world is talking about World of Warcraft Classic, with all the recent hubbub about name reservations. My advanced Googling skills tell me that it launches on August 27th.
Not WoW Classic, but probably a quest that will be in WoW Classic.
I personally have never been interested in WoW Classic, have never yearned for the “good old days” of World of Warcraft, and have no idea why anyone would want such a thing. The Vanilla game engine was clearly inferior to the modern engine, which leaves nostalgia as the only reason to play. But I never played in a WoW guild, never did any raiding or dungeons, never formed any lifelong Internet friendships or married anyone in-game. WoW came along well *after* my “nostalgia days” of Internet gaming. I’ve been ignoring the whole thing.
- MMORPG
-
Darksiders II – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 17].
2019-08-17.
Death knocked at the door yesterday, and I answered with a game called Darksiders II. Get it? Because Death is the protagonist in Darksiders II? Anyway, it was the 20th day in a row of the Steam Backlog Bonanza, and one of the most expensive games in the list so far. I got Darksiders II for $10 in 2013, and it’s taken six years to install and play the game.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
On Deciding Not To Post.
2019-08-17.
I’m writing this on the morning of August 9th, so it’s the ninth day of Blaugust. I’ve streamed and posted a first impressions piece about a game from my Steam backlog every day for 12 days in a row now. It’s been grueling work, but I’ve whittled it down to a fairly streamlined process, so it “only” takes about 2 cumulative hours out of every day, or merely half the time of a part-time job.
- Musings
-
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 18].
2019-08-18.
I was minding my own business when aliens descended from the sky, firing lasers from their circular flying saucers. Everything around me exploded. Otherworldly creatures crept out of the smoke and fire, approaching me like simians on all fours. Anyway the next game on the Steam Backlog Bonanza is The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. I bought it in a 2013 Steam sale for $4.
Just an average green glowing energy field in a federal building.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 19].
2019-08-19.
I found myself wandering a wasteland of wrecked tanker ships when a radiation storm blocked out the sun. In other words, I played S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat yesterday for the 22nd day of the Steam Backlog Bonanza. It’s one of those Eastern European shooters from 2010. I couldn’t find any record of when or how much I paid for it, which suggests I probably bought it soon after 2010 and it’s been sitting in my Steam backlog unplayed for nearly nine years.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
The Age of Decadence – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 20].
2019-08-20.
For the 23rd day of the Steam Backlog Bonanza, I played an indie game called The Age of Decadence, which I got in the 2016 Winter sale for $7.50. I think I mentioned this before, but the Winter sale of 2016 was the last time that I splurged on Steam games just because they were on sale.
The outdoor isometric view, which is actually not seen very much.
I don’t remember why I bought this game. But it’s interesting to me now because the game’s Steam store page spends a lot of time and effort trying to warn players not to buy and play the game. It’s filled with gems like this:
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods (Enhanced Edition) – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 21].
2019-08-21.
I was in a funk yesterday so it would have been a great day to discover a fun new game. Unfortunately, Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods (Enhanced Edition) was up next on the Steam Backlog Bonanza. I got it as part of a “Gothic Complete Pack” for $7.50.
Now I didn’t realize this until afterward, but Forsaken Gods is actually an expansion or addon to the base game of Gothic 3. Steam tells me I’ve played the base game of Gothic 3 for 12 minutes, so technically I can’t say that I haven’t played it. But, you know, I don’t remember it.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Crysis 2 Maximum Edition – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 22].
2019-08-22.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing up my sleeve, there are no wires or electronic devices of any kind. That’s because I played Crysis 2 Maximum Edition yesterday for the 25th day of the Steam Backlog Bonanza. And I’ve been watching episodes of Penn & Teller’s Fool Us as well.
The mean streets of New York, sometime in the near-future.
I bought Crysis 2 for $10 back in 2013. I already had Crysis 1, but I only played it for about 4 hours. I don’t remember much of anything about it except that I think it took place in a jungle and I didn’t care for it very much. I felt like it was just too dern complicated for a shooter. Too many fiddly bits to manage on your “Cryosuit” or whatever, which gives you magical superpowers like jumping and cloaking and shields.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
On ArcheAge Unchained.
2019-08-22.
I used to play ArcheAge. There was a time when I got a ridiculous amount of blog traffic on my ArcheAge posts, which to this day, I still can’t explain. (This post on PvE content after level 30 was a top performer for some reason.) I remember being very excited about ArcheAge. It was actually a great game.
Then I stopped playing. I was never particularly angry about it, I just didn’t agree with their decision to force people to subscribe to maintain a house and property. And once you lose your house and property, there is no compelling reason to play ArcheAge.
- MMORPG
-
Max Payne 3 – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 23].
2019-08-23.
It was a dark and stormy night, and noir was in the air when I played Max Payne 3 for the 26th day of the Steam Backlog Bonanza. I got it in 2013, just a year after it’s release, for $4. In those days, the sales were sales. Now you’re lucky to get $4 off in a sale.
Anyway, I was looking forward to playing this particular game. I don’t precisely remember why I bought it-probably because it was a AAA title for $4, which was reason enough in 2013. I may have heard good things about Max Payne 3 at some point in my life. I don’t know. I just know I expected good things from this game.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Tree of Savior – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 24].
2019-08-24.
Yesterday for the Steam Backlog Bonanza I tried out an MMORPG called Tree of Savior. It launched in 2016, but I’m not entirely sure how it got onto my list. It’s free-to-play on Steam, so I never actually “bought” it, so it’s technically not in my backlog. I might have placed it in there manually because I wanted to try it, but I don’t remember. I made the game list weeks ago. Who can remember that far back?
- MMORPG
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Is Remnant: From The Ashes a Souls-Like?.
2019-08-24.
I started hearing some buzz about this new game called Remnant: From The Ashes.
Most of what I’m hearing is that it’s “too hard” and that it’s a “Souls-like.” This of course triggers the usual “games have to make everyone feel like a winner” backlash, which is mostly what drew my attention. I’m sure the PR folks behind Remnant will be ecstatic to hear that, because I probably never would have heard of this game otherwise.
- Musings
-
Titan Souls – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 25].
2019-08-25.
Speaking of Souls-like games, yesterday on the Steam Backlog Bonanza, I played a game that is frequently described as Souls-like: Titan Souls, from 2015. I got it in that infamous Winter 2016 sale, what turned out to be the last hurrah of Steam sales, for a whopping $3.74. I don’t remember why, except that I probably had a vague memory of seeing it described as a game that fans of Dark Souls would like. And it was super cheap.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Enclave – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 26].
2019-08-26.
Yesterday an odd game called Enclave appeared on the Steam Backlog Bonanza. I had never heard of it before. It’s an action-ish RPG which I bought in 2016 for $1.24.
This screenshot looks much better than the game does.
According to Steam, it was released in 2013. I quickly discovered, through simple observations, that the game did not look particularly advanced for a 2013 game. I’ve since learned that it was actually released in 2002, and re-released on Steam in 2013. That explains the unexpectedly primitive graphics.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 27].
2019-08-27.
Yesterday I played the second Tolkien property game in my Steam Backlog Bonanza: Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor. It came out in 2014, I bought it in 2016 for $7.50, one of the more expensive titles on this list.
First the good news: The story of this game starts out fantastic, one of the best I’ve seen. It began with yet another “this is the epic story of the entire history of Middle-earth” prologue and I started to roll my eyes. But before I could even complete my ocular gymnastics, the prologue stopped and we saw the main guy.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
WoW Classic Obligatory Post.
2019-08-27.
Okay I’m going to try to be brief here because nobody likes a buzzkill.
World of Warcraft Classic launched Monday night here in the U.S. It was extremely smooth and free of major technical issues, as far as I’m concerned, which is an amazing accomplishment. Blizzard has gotten really good at launches. The “narrative” will be that it was a catastrophe, because that’s the only narrative that can be spun to draw a crowd, but it wasn’t. Queues were inevitable.
- MMORPG
-
Quest for The One Blog, Part 7.
2019-08-27.
I stopped writing about my Quest for The One Blog for a very good reason: I gave up on it. What I want to do is essentially impossible unless I develop the blogging platform from scratch myself (or fork one of the open source projects). It’s within my skillset to do that, but I just don’t have the time or motivation or funds for it. (But hey, if anyone is interested in Kickstarting it, let me know!)
- Development
-
Never Alone – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 28].
2019-08-28.
Yesterday for the Steam Backlog Bonanza, I played a game called Never Alone. It was released in 2014, but I couldn’t find any record of when I bought it or for how much. This is the most interesting game in the list so far.
I had been looking forward to this one, and dreading it at the same time. I knew it was a game that involved a story with an animal companion (a fox, in this case). I usually can’t watch stories with animal companions, because I get way too emotional about them. I played that game with the mama lynx and her babies [Shelter 2, a lovely game] exactly one time and didn’t dare to play it again. I was afraid I was going to blubber all over my live stream with this one.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
WoW Classic and Random Group Invites.
2019-08-28.
I took a screenshot last night in World of Warcraft Classic that really captures my nostalgic feelings for the old days.
I never ran down this particular road in Vanilla, but many like it.
I’m by myself, running down a long, empty road. That’s pretty much how I played World of Warcraft back in the day, and how I usually play MMORPGs today. I play on my own schedule, I never play the same time two days in a row, I start and stop on a whim, I log out suddenly when I get bored or think of something else I want to do in real life, often right in the middle of a field of mobs. In 2019, I’m very rarely in-game more than an hour at a time, and usually closer to a half hour.
- MMORPG
-
Archiving YouTube Livestreams.
2019-08-29.
I mentioned this briefly before, but I thought I’d break it out into a separate post. I’ve been livestreaming a bunch of videos to YouTube this month as part of the Steam Backlog Bonanza. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible that someday, YouTube will shut down and everything on their site will disappear, so I also download a copy of each video to a local hard drive.
Originally I had planned to record a local copy of the video while streaming at the same time. It turned out that didn’t work so well. CPU usage spiked all over the place, the stream stuttered and lagged, and it was a disaster. It also annoyed me that OBS won’t record at 60 fps while streaming at 30 fps, and certain encoders won’t allow recording and streaming at different resolutions.
- Videos
-
Remember Me – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 29].
2019-08-29.
Two great games in a row! Yesterday I played a cyberpunk action game called Remember Me for the Steam Backlog Bonanza. I got it in the 2015 Winter sale for $6.
I really enjoyed it. I liked it so much I lost track of time, and played for nearly two hours. It’s an “action movie” kind of a game, by which I mean it has a whole lot of cut scenes and voice acting and storytelling in between the gameplay. A good half of the game is watching story cut scenes. The music is big and sweeping, the characters are larger than life.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Mount & Blade: Warband – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 30].
2019-08-30.
The game of the day was Mount & Blade: Warband for the Steam Backlog Bonanza. I got it in 2010 Winter sale, but I can’t find any record of how much I paid for it. I probably got it in a bundle with both Mount & Blade and Warband.
Fighting bandits from horseback.
Warband is an “old” game. You can always tell an “old” game because they are stretched out horizontally. They were made in the days of square monitors, before 16:9 aspect ratio became the standard. The graphics are definitely primitive by today’s standards. Honestly they looked primitive by 2010’s standards, too.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
BioShock 2 Remastered – Steam Backlog Bonanza [Blaugust 31].
2019-08-31.
Since my production pipeline is offset by a day, this should be my 31st and last “official” Blaugust post. However I’m still going to play at least one last game today on the 31st as well, which will get a blog post tomorrow.
Yesterday for the 34th day of the Steam Backlog Bonanza, I returned to Rapture with BioShock 2 Remastered. This is a game I’ve owned since 2010, but never played until now. The Remastered edition came out in 2016 I believe, which I got for free since I owned the original.
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
2019-09
-
Serious Sam Fusion 2017 (Beta) – Steam Backlog Bonanza.
2019-09-01.
For what will probably be the last game in the Steam Backlog Bonanza, the 35th one on the list, I played a shooter called Serious Sam Fusion 2017 (beta). I have no idea how I got this game. I have a bunch of Serious Sam games, but I don’t remember buying any of them, and since Blaugust is over now I don’t particularly feel like doing the work to look it up. School’s out! For. EVAH!
- Reviews
- Steam
- Streaming
- Videos
-
Blaugust 2019 Wrapup, Part 1.
2019-09-02.
Congratulations everyone on the completion of another Blaugust! Belghast put together another fantastic event, and I do not envy him now having to compile the results. :)
This is the first of my posts where I evaluate my Blaugust performance as part of the Lessons Learned week. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote last year but I recall I wrote a lot, so this year I’m going to try to avoid that.
- Musings
-
Blaugust 2019 Wrapup, Part 2 – Streaming.
2019-09-03.
Writing a blog post every day is not new for me, although the exact process I used this year was new. But livestreaming every day for a month is definitely new to me.
I have livestreamed before, but most of my experiments were back in 2015 before Twitch Culture became, ahem, that thing it is now. I also never made any attempt to impose any discipline on myself.
I was curious how I would find the process of streaming every day. Honestly it was my main experimental focus of the month. The blogging thing was just a side effect. Here’s what I learned.
- Musings
-
Blaugust 2019 Wrapup, Part 3 – Statistics.
2019-09-04.
The Blog Here I present the reason you should never pay attention to statistics when blogging. My views actually went down during Blaugust 2018, and went down even more during Blaugust 2019.
Views and Visitors
I also offer this chart as evidence that the “you have to blog every day to build an audience” advice is completely obsolete. Blogging every day is strictly for fun and/or personal growth. Building an audience is accomplished by networking, and is largely unrelated to the content you produce. As always in life, it’s never what you know, it’s who you know.
- Musings
- Streaming
- Videos
-
How I Rediscovered Internet Radio.
2019-09-07.
Welp it’s happened. Now that Blaugust is over, there’s nothing to write about anymore. :)
I stumbled upon an episode of Spotify - Landmark on YouTube and sat down to watch the whole thing. It reminded me of two things: Tears For Fears is one of my favorite 80s bands, and a band from which I’ve never bought any of their music. Songs From The Big Chair is peak “huge 80s sound” which I miss from an audio engineering perspective, and I have a great appreciation for the simplicity and precision of the production in that album. There’s very little more than 4 instruments playing at any given time yet it still somehow sounds like a massive production.
- Music
-
Quest for The One Blog, Part 8.
2019-09-08.
My current thinking is that I should be looking into two distinct blogging platforms. One for the “live” blog, the most recent stuff, where people can theoretically interact and leave comments on a daily basis, and consume an RSS feed.
The second platform would be for the “archives:” Mainly static pages of older posts for reference, without much of any interactivity.
Regardless of how I proceed with the “live” blog, the idea of a “static site generator” for the older archives appeals to me, or one of the Markdown-based platforms I’ve previously mentioned. I keep reading that Hugo is excellent for this. But before I can even think of going down that or any other road, I need to know how much work is involved in exporting some sixteen years worth of blog posts to Markdown format.
- Development
-
Hugo – Quest for The One Blog, Part 9.
2019-09-10.
This one’s about Hugo, the static site generator. I’ve seen references to it all over the place during this ongoing research project. (Also Jekyll.) It seems to be popular among programmers, for reasons that should become obvious as I describe it below.
A static site generator is a tool that takes a series of input files, usually plain text files, and turns them into a big directory of HTML, CSS, and Javascript files. Those files can be uploaded directly to a web server which of course becomes a web site. It works a lot like a compiler, which turns source code into binaries. Thus the appeal to programmers.
- Development
-
REAPER Mania.
2019-09-11.
The inevitable side effect of rediscovering an easy way to listen to new music is the rediscovery of my love to create new music.
I’ve been largely stagnant as a musician since around 2000, for various reasons. It’s an extremely time-consuming hobby, at least the way I approach it. Which reminds me, Bhagpuss made me chuckle recently when he wrote:
Hobbies settle people. They make life not just bearable but worth looking forward to. It matters that they don't matter - that's the point. If you don't get that then you may (or may not) count yourself lucky. Many, many people don't have a genuine hobby. They don't want one. They don't need one. They feel fulfilled and satisified by doing the practical, purposeful things they need to do.
- Music
-
Half-Hearted September Update.
2019-09-17.
I’m back in a “I don’t really have anything to say” blogging mood. I’ve played maybe, possibly, two hours of games in the last week. I played a little bit more of Max Payne 3, and I logged into World of Warcraft for about 20 minutes to check something.
I logged in to check that a wonderful discovery someone made in Classic is, in fact, right there in Retail as well. The main thing I don’t understand about the Classic Phenomenon is why people can’t find the same chill, relaxing fun with friends in WoW Retail, creating memories and tales of adventure just like they’re doing in WoW Classic. It’s essentially the same game, it’s just that the time sinks are mandatory in Classic instead of voluntary.
- Development
- MMORPG
- Music
-
GW2 LW4 Episode 6, War Eternal.
2019-09-24.
Even though ArenaNet is dead to me and I almost never actually enjoy playing Guild Wars 2, I decided to log in again. I’ve been hearing some good things about the new Icebrood Saga thingy, so I wanted to try it out. It’s free, after all. That’s the best thing about new content in Guild Wars 2 by far. Also it’s kind of a tradition at this point that I record my gameplay of these Living World episodes.
- MMORPG
-
GW2 LW5 Prologue – Bound by Blood.
2019-09-26.
I don’t know what we’re calling this Icebrood Saga thing. Is it Living World Season 5? Or is it something else entirely? I don’t know. I’ve seen people calling it Season 5 so that’s probably the label that will stick in the community. It’s a lot easier than “Icebrood Saga.” (I’m certainly not going to be abbreviating it “IS” because I don’t particularly want a bunch of Middle Eastern terrorists showing up on my web site.)
- MMORPG
-
LotRO Quest Font Size – This Changes Everything.
2019-09-27.
I learned something yesterday that isn’t getting the attention that it deserves, so I thought I’d write a blog post about it. Are you sitting down? This is really amazing, so make sure you’re sitting down.
You can now change the quest text font size in Lord of the Rings Online.
I searched my MMO News feeds to find the all-caps headlines shouting this from the rooftops, but I didn’t find any. I didn’t see any mention of it whatsoever. I was stunned.
- MMORPG
2019-10
-
Astellia Online First Impressions.
2019-10-01.
Yesterday I decided to roll the dice and bought the $30 standard buy-to-play edition of Astellia Online. I’ve heard that it’s “okay.” But I like the idea of paying a modest fee and having essentially lifetime access to the game. (Its lifetime, not mine, probably.)
It's a nice-looking game if nothing else.
I paid $30 for Black Desert Online back when it came out, and I haven’t regretted that choice. I only played for a month or so, and haven’t really touched it since, but I appreciate that I can still log in whenever I want to look at it. So I’m applying the same logic here.
- MMORPG
-
Astellia’s Price Point.
2019-10-03.
I can tell from the whopping two comments on my Astellia Online impressions post that interest in this new MMORPG is simply through the roof. (Actually most people probably still haven’t even heard of it, and I wouldn’t have either if it weren’t for a random MassivelyOP article here or there.) The theme of those two comments was something like, “They’ve got to be crazy if they think anyone is going to pay $30 for an unknown Eastern game.” So I thought I’d write a few thoughts on the price point.
- MMORPG
-
Destiny 2: A Picture Book In Two Parts.
2019-10-06.
Sorry folks, this page will probably take a year to load.
Up front I should say that I’m well aware that I could have turned to Google to clear up any confusion described below. I’m simply relaying how I interpreted the game screens presented to me in the absence of any other context, from the perspective of a person who has never seen or played Destiny 1 or Destiny 2 or even any Halo games before. To a Destiny fan, this is probably going to come across as negative and offensive, but I’m here to assure everyone that it is nothing more than a comedy bit and I have nothing against Destiny 2 or the players thereof.
- MMO
-
Four News Stories.
2019-10-09.
For SEO purposes, I should probably break these into separate posts, but I just don’t feel like it. But I’ve identified four big gaming news stories of late that I figured I should at least make a note of for posterity.
Raph Koster’s New Company. Don’t really care. It’s vaporware until proven otherwise. Mainly it makes me wonder about the future of Crowfall. Perhaps he’s only left because Crowfall is fully set on its course and there’s no more creative work to do. Personally I’ve been wondering lately if Crowfall will be the first MMO to start its servers, run for a while with weekly press releases and publicity and patches, and then sunset, all without ever launching.
- MMORPG
-
ESO Glenumbra and Stormhaven.
2019-10-13.
Last time I mentioned Elder Scrolls Online, I was working my way through Rivenspire, which is the third zone of the Daggerfall Covenent. During the mad scramble of Blaugust and the Steam Backlog Bonanza, I wandered away from that. But I finally got back in there and finished up the Rivenspire zone story. It was less enjoyable toward the end, but I didn’t hate it.
I recorded the whole experience and I was thinking of uploading it, much like my playthrough of the Morrowind zone story. Then I realized that it wouldn’t make much sense to upload the Rivenspire zone story without the two previous zones that preceded it, so I decided to go through and record the Glenumbra and Stormhaven zone stories. I made a brand new character and started back at the beginning again.
- MMORPG
-
Max Payne 3 Completed.
2019-10-16.
Back during my Steam Backlog Bonanza, which now seems so long ago that I can barely even remember it, I identified only a few games that I definitely wanted to return to later. For the record, those games were, in the order I encountered them: Life is Feudal, Kholat, Age of Decadence, and Max Payne 3.
Max Payne 3 wins the award for most character costume changes in one game.
- RPG
- Steam
-
Opting Out of the Fashion Wars.
2019-10-18.
MassivelyOP did a Daily Grind post that led me to an unexpected insight into my current view of MMOs.
I think I’m vaguely on the record as saying MMORPGs aren’t in a very good place right now. I have a bunch of reasons for that which I won’t get into here. The relevant information for this post is that most of the reaction I see to my offhand remarks is, “What are you talking about? MMOs are better than ever! Stop being so negative!” I understand why sites with a vested monetary interest in the MMO genre would say things like that, but I’ve never really understood how Joe Average MMORPG Player could be excited about the giant void of perpetual beta and blandness ahead of us in the genre right now.
- MMORPG
-
The Division 2 Free Weekend Worked.
2019-10-22.
Over the weekend I learned about the The Division 2 free weekend. I remembered generally liking the The Division 2 open beta, so I decided to download it and take advantage of the gift. (I wish I’d known that the free “weekend” had actually begun last Thursday.)
I proceeded to play for about seven hours on Saturday and Sunday, making my way to level 8. I enjoyed it so much I considered buying it, since it also happens to be on sale right now. (The standard PC version is $21 for the rest of the month.)
- MMO
-
The Last Of Us Remastered Completed (PS4).
2019-10-28.
The last time I wrote about The Last Of Us, I said, “I think I’m about 3/4 finished. I’ll probably get through the rest of it this weekend.” That was over a year ago.
Red Dead Infected
I wasn’t planning to play it again. I mentioned that I just bought The Division 2 on the PS4 because it runs better on console than it does on my PC. I’ve been playing that now and then, trying to catch back up to where I left off in the PC free weekend.
- Consoles
- Single-Player
-
Scary Game Experiment.
2019-10-28.
I don’t get into Halloween much at all, but this year I thought I would break with tradition and try to find a scary game to play. You know, one of those kinds of games that makes the streamers whimper and cry and scream and jump, for the lulz and the clicks. I’m not especially prone to being scared by a game, and I’ve played a number of horror games before that I didn’t find particularly scary, but I wondered if I could find one out there.
- Reviews
- Steam
-
Only Five Games In A Year.
2019-10-31.
Naithin poked some of us on the Blaugust Discord to chime in on this: If you could only play five games in a year, what would they be?
It turns out this would not be a terribly big sacrifice for me. I don’t play a lot of games in a year to start with. I’ve already done some research for my 2019 year-end post, and the number of new games that I’ve purchased and started in 2019 is extremely small. (Three-Sekiro, The Division 2, Astellia Online.) The number of new games I’ve actually completed is even less. (One-Sekiro.)
- Musings
- Responses
2019-11
-
Generation Zero.
2019-11-04.
Over the weekend, I noticed Steam was giving away a free trial of this game called Generation Zero, which I’d never heard of before. So I thought I’d try it. I kind of miss those Halcyon days of the Steam Backlog Bonanza, when I got to play a brand new game every day.
I didn’t even know what this game was, to be honest. It sounded like a shooter. But it said it was “set in Sweden,” which is something I’ve certainly never seen before in a game.
- Snap Judgment
- Steam
-
Death Stranding Impressions (PS4).
2019-11-10.
I’ve heard about Death Stranding for years, but I’ve never had any idea what kind of game it is.
Shortly after the game begins.
I tried to read some reviews, but I simply couldn’t stand to visit any of the major games journalism web sites to read them. Every game web site is completely obscured by ads that cover almost 75% of the screen, blinking at you, playing videos at you, whatever. The text is buried beneath an avalanche of constantly-shifting “reactive” crap. My laptop fan starts blowing full speed whenever I try to load these pages. It’s just godawful.
- Consoles
-
XIM APEX Mouse and Keyboard Adapter for the PS4.
2019-11-15.
I don’t exactly write “reviews” here on the ol’ blog, but these are my thoughts about the XIM APEX Adapter. It’s a USB gadget that plugs into a Playstation 4 (or an Xbox One, allegedly) and allows you to use a mouse and keyboard to play games that otherwise could only be played with a controller.
You may or may not have noticed a recurring theme here in the past year, which is that I constantly mention how much the PS4 controller hurts my hands. Specifically my left hand, and even more specifically my left thumb. If I use the controller too much, I lose a great deal of gripping strength in my left hand for days, so things like holding plates or opening jars become quite a bit more difficult. Normally I have to limit my PS4 playing time to maybe an hour a day, and ideally every other day. It’s not ideal when there’s a game that I’m dying to play. I don’t have the same trouble with mouse and keyboard, so I thought I’d try out this adapter.
- Hardware
- Reviews
2019-12
-
Outward.
2019-12-02.
I picked up a game called Outward on sale for $20 a while back. It looked like a fun single-player third-person RPG, and the emphasis on starting weak and earning your rewards appealed to me.
My jaunty adventurer with a big permanent smile on his face.
I almost immediately regretted my purchase. The voice acting isn’t very good, and they do that thing I really hate where they only speak the first line, leaving you to read the rest of it. (It’s particularly annoying if you’re making videos.)
- Reviews
- RPG
- Steam
-
Game Awards Unrolled.
2019-12-13.
I try to avoid “tweet storms” that go beyond two or three threaded tweets but I couldn’t resist the temptation to live tweet the Game Awards last night, as I was just sitting in front of the television and a laptop. My assumption is that people can mute tweet threads if they find them annoying (and let’s be honest, every tweet thread is always annoying to someone). It’s the first time I’ve watched them, and probably the last time as well. Today I found a tool to “unroll” my thread into text that I could paste into a blog post for posterity. (I only wish there was an option to include timestamps.)
- Musings
-
Revisiting Ongoing Games.
2019-12-18.
I briefly mentioned the category “Ongoing Games” in my last post (or “post”) as a potential replacement for the terms “MMORPG” and/or “MMO.” Even before I saw Jeromai’s post, which I agree with, I started to doubt my own judgment about it.
The more I thought about it, the more “Ongoing Game” meant nothing whatsoever. It might as well be “Game.” Almost any game could fit into this category in 2019.
Final Fantasy XIV? Sure. Fortnite? Sure. Sekiro? Probably. The Division 2? Definitely. Death Stranding? Absolutely. Outward? Well, maybe not that one.
- MMO
- MMORPG
- Musings
-
Games Of My Decade.
2019-12-27.
Here’s a quick rundown of memorable games that I played throughout the decade. These are games that I played more-or-less continuously for a month or more (that I remember, at least). In between these games were plenty of others, but these are the ones that made the biggest impact on me.
Age of Conan.
2010. I can’t find many records of what I played in 2010. Age of Conan, WoW. (ref)
- MMORPG
- Musings
- RPG
-
The Death Stranding Experience – Prologue.
2019-12-30.
I finished the story of Death Stranding over the weekend. It took almost 80 hours over the course of two months. I left a large number of optional tasks unfinished, but I’m hoping to get back and do them at some point. It’s definitely the game of the year for me.
These 80 hours have been quite an experience. I’m very thankful that I’ve been able to play a AAA game with so much originality, because frankly I didn’t think I would ever see one again in my lifetime. Major titles have become such homogenized reskins of previous successful games that I feel like I’ve been playing the same game over and over again throughout the 2010s. But that’s definitely not the case with Death Stranding. Love it or hate it (and there are good reasons for both), it’s impossible to deny it’s different. There have been ups and downs, good parts and bad parts, but it’s been a very unique ride. I’ve never played a game like it in my entire life, that I can remember.
- Consoles
- Musings