Many Welps

A Bit of Filler

April 16, 2020April 20, 2020KluwesLeave a comment

I read Belghast’s post this morning about just writing and a topic might jump out at you. That’s an approach I should take more often. Even if it doesn’t lead to something riveting at least I’m sitting down and interacting with my blog.

Today is one of those days where I don’t feel like writing. Normally, I brush these days off and say I’ll have something to write tomorrow which sometimes work but most of the time leads to very long periods of inactivity for me.

The main reason I like events like Blaugust and Blapril is that it’s a little added pressure to sit down and write. I’ve mentioned it before but after I have a few days straight of writing I start feeling like a blogger instead of a guy who writes blog posts sometimes.

I’ve struggled with motivation and consistency since I started this thing. You would think I’d hang it up. The fact is, that I like it here and I like the fact that it’s here when I want to use it. It enhances my hobby and gives me a creative outlet I wouldn’t normally have. Even if that creative outlet is simply writing about what I did the following night. I’m going to test out this “filler” approach and see where it leads. If nothing else I think it will keep me interested in writing.

I’ve been making decent progress through Tales of Berseria. I’m past the point I put the game down last time so everything now is new to me. It’s very relaxing and engaging at the same time. When I sit down to play, I get the same feeling when bingeing a good show. The story isn’t ground-breaking but it’s got the familiar tropes I know and love. I don’t need a story to be wholely original to enjoy it. Tropes are tropes for a reason: because they work. The game is mostly cut scenes anyways. Many of which are filler themselves. Actually, a lot of the skits and cut-aways don’t advance the story but do focus on characterization. That’s what I liked about Zestiria too: by the end all of the characters had they’re own arcs and relationships to the group. It wasn’t just a story about the main character but the party members goals too.

The combat is as complex or as simple as you want it to be. I’ve opted for the simpler route playing on normal and not worrying about the intricacies of status effects and chaining effects. Just let me hit stuff and let me look cool while doing it and I’m happy. Just like Tales of Zestiria, I’m still getting tutorials for combat systems after 12 hours of playing. There’s a lot of systems to dig into here but for the most part as long as I use artes that match up to an enemies weakness I’m good to go!

Hellhounds and Devilfish

April 15, 2020April 20, 2020KluwesLeave a comment

Last night we played more of Hunt: Showdown. I’m not sure how many matches, they all kind of blend together, but we did manage to extract with the Bounty twice. Which let us recoup all of the money we lost dying all night.

I’m not sure what was up, whether it was my internet, my computer needing a restart, or the fact that Steam went down, but Hunt was having a hard time running. Sometimes I didn’t load into a match until a few minutes after it started. Not ideal. Then, when I finally loaded in the graphics had not. Very entertaining for screenshots but very difficult to play around. Especially when you can’t see things like bridges, fences, and sometimes walls. The enemies didn’t have any animations either which was hilarious. I totally ran into a pack of dogs thinking they were horses.

Eventually, I just rebooted my computer and things got a bit better. It must have been a me thing because Greg wasn’t having any issues besides long load screens. I’m hoping it was just a fluke, the first time I played I had zero issues.

Our first bounty extraction started out uneventful. We found the building the monster was in and stood outside the door and killed it. We learned quickly that the bounty bosses can’t leave the building they’re in. I thought for sure we were going to have to fight off some other Hunters. You tend to attract a lot of attention when firing guns over and over. There was another bounty being collected on the other side of the map so no one seemed to be around us.

Unfortunately, the closest extraction was on the other side of the map so we were going to have to make a run for it. That extraction also happened to be by the other bounty area so we chose an extraction even farther out of the way to avoid running into hunters camping the easy extraction points.

It was a perilous journey. At first, we thought someone was following us so we wound our way around the map and ended up running face-first into a pack of dogs. Dogs have to be the worst enemy type. They’re faster than you so you can’t outrun them, they hit like a truck, and they travel in packs of five. Running low on health and ammo is not an ideal time to run into them. They downed me but Greg was able to pick off the last of them and get me back up.

Then we got caught in the river. If I’ve learned one thing so far it’s that you spend as little time in the water as possible because there are things in there that will find you. I think I was running away from some other enemy and before I knew it I was in the water being mauled by a Devilfish.

Downed for the second time.

I thought we had lost right then and there. But due to some “interesting” pathing the monsters decided to leave us alone.

Revived for the second time.

After all of that, we made it to extraction without much else in our way netting us some great XP and money.

The second bounty of the night wasn’t as much of an adventure. There was only one bounty target on the map which means every hunter converges on one point Which leads to shootouts between everyone. After getting 3 clues and following the sweet sounds of gunfire we arrived on the scene. We took out 3 hunters around the building. After a quick scout of the perimeter, it looked like 3 other hunters were also downed. I’m not sure how many people spawn on each map but chances were good that we either on our own or had one other team to contend with. We killed the bounty, collected the coins, and ran to extraction without seeing anyone else. Success!

I’m still in the honeymoon phase with this game but I’m still enjoying it more than I thought I would. I think what I’m liking the most right now is that win or lose the matches have been interesting.

Hunt: Showdown First Impressions

April 14, 2020April 20, 2020KluwesLeave a comment

Next on the list of games that are outside my normal genre we have Hunt: Showdown. Or as I like to call it Bayou Zombie Simulator 2020. Greg has wanted this game for a while and its made for duos so I figured I’d try it out too.

First impressions: wow I suck at this but it’s fun! I can best describe this as a mini-battle royale with some PVE and mostly PVP. Each match has players hunting for clues to find the bounties. Which are very large creatures with tons of health. As you find clues, areas on the map are greyed out to show you where the bounties aren’t. The ultimate goal is to kill the bounty, grab the coins it drops and run to extraction before anyone can take you out.

This is not my typical cup of tea but it has a lot of things I like. First and foremost it’s a duos game. There’s an option to allow teams of 3 to join your match but you can leave that unchecked. Matches are a mix of two-man teams and solo players. Second, it’s set in the 1890s. When’s the last time you played a game set in that time period? Ok fine, Red Dead Redemption 2 was 1899 but still, it’s a unique setting. The time period also means that the gunplay is a lot slower. We’re talking some guns can fire 1 round and then have to reload. Which is a plus for me, I’m terrible at FPS games but the slower gunplay gives me a fighting chance. Third, there are a ton of unlocks not only at the character level but at the account level too. I’m getting new guns and perks left and right. Yay progression!

Hunt: Showdown has features I’ve never seen in games before. Like the fact that if your character dies in a match they’re dead for good. You lose all the equipment and guns on them too. Hunters and weapons are cheap so it’s not so bad but it’s always in the back of your mind if you want to stay and fight or extract and keep your stuff. Also, everything makes a unique noise. Run through the woods and twigs will snap under your feet. Run past some crows they’ll take off and make a really loud noise. Sound is almost more useful than what you can see when you’re trying to find other players.

I will admit, I’m surprised that I want to play more of this game. I thought for sure I would play it and return it before the two-hour mark. But I’m having so much fun with it. We managed to extract a bounty once which skyrocketed our account levels and I’ve been getting better at aiming and hitting targets. There’s a lot to learn and I hope it remains as fun as it is in these early stages.

GTFO or Trying to At least

April 13, 2020April 20, 2020Kluwes1 Comment

We’ve been experimenting with GTFO this weekend. And by experimenting I mean dying over and over and over again. But hey, losing with your friends is better than losing by yourself, you always have someone to blame!

With approximately 4 hours of gameplay under my belt here’s what I can tell you. GTFO is a tough as nails, early access, co-op, survival shooter. It’s a game scaled with 4 players in mind and doesn’t appear to scale down if you have a group of less than 4. The objective of the first “Rundown” at least is to get cargo and bring it to extraction. Along the way, you’ll run into a menagerie of nightmare creatures that make equally horrifying noises.

The first experience I had with the game was a 2 person Co-Op run with Greg. We were able to clear the rooms with enemies effectively after some time learning how everything works. We ran into enemies called sleepers that wake up and attack if they detect you. We quickly found that the easiest way to deal with these was to sneak up with a melee weapon and bash them in the head.

The big problem we faced as a duo was the alarm door. We were tasked with finding a key for this door first in the various rooms of the first area. Once found, inserting it into the door triggers a blaring alarm that starts spawning enemies to attack. While the horde is attacking there are circles on the floor you need to run and stand in to turn off the alarm. More often than not these were in the middle of the enemies which makes it challenging to stay in one place for the 10 or so seconds required. We were able to get to this point every run but couldn’t get past this stage. Now, I’ll admit that I do not have the best aim. Perhaps if I was better at shooters we would have done better as a two-man team but I just don’t have the skill.

On Saturday we did a few runs as a three-man team. The extra gun helps a lot and these runs went a lot better. We discovered that the C-Foam launcher is a must-have because it reinforces closed doors which makes it harder for enemies to get through. This paired with the sentry turret and mine launcher lead us closer to opening the door. I found that while I’m not the best shot I can run around to the circles while my teammates kept the enemies off me. With a little practice, I think this is absolutely doable with 3 people.

On our final run that night we managed to get the door open. We all rushed through it assuming it would close behind us. It didn’t which lead to us getting mauled by the remaining alarm enemies and waking up the enemies in the next room. Good times.

We roped one more friend into getting the game so we could play with a group of 4. Again the extra tools and guns help a lot with the alarm doors. Getting past the room enemies is a little harder since 4 people have to manage to not be detected by enemies while they take them out. Multiple times when we played as a group of 4 we got past the first alarm door and made it to the second area. The main issue we were running into was ammo and the lack of ammo refills. This is a game where every shot counts and if you’re out of ammo there’s not much you can do.

I’m looking forward to playing this more with our 4 man group and seeing what else the game has to offer. There’s no character progression or unlocks but the gameplay and atmosphere keep each run engaging and intense From the looks of it, there are multiple rundowns to complete and we’ve spent 4 hours in the first 2 areas of the first rundown. Something tells me we’re going to have a lot of game time here.

Bunny Day has Arrived

April 12, 2020April 20, 2020KluwesLeave a comment

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Over the past two weeks, I’ve been slowly working towards crafting all of the Bunny Day recipes for Animal Crossing. Lately, the main bottleneck has been water eggs. I felt like I was getting more eggs than fish during the first few days of the event but I’ve been hard-pressed to find them this week. My wife, on the other hand, has been catching 3 or 4 water eggs in a row. Go figure…

This morning, I went down to the plaza to see Zipper Right out the gate, he tells me that I can trade him three of the same type of egg for one egg that I need. Which means I finally had a use for the 60 or so Leaf Eggs I’ve accumulated and didn’t need to worry about the water eggs. Zipper also mentioned that I don’t need to craft any of the recipes I discovered myself. That would have been nice to know in the beginning so I didn’t throw all my eggs into the eggshell outfits. At least they sold for some bells so it’s not all bad.

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I only had 3 more recipes to make including the Bunny Day Arch from Zipper. Unfortunately, Zipper only trades one egg at a time so I spent a good 5 minutes running through the same dialog to get all of the eggs I needed. After crafting everything, Zipper threw in one more recipe, a Wobbling Zipper Toy. It looks just like Zipper, lifeless eyes and all.

After crafting the toy, Zipper gives me a DIY recipe for a Bunny Day wand. After some research, it turns out the Bunny Day wand isn’t any different from the other wands which store 8 outfits and let you quickly swap between them. I would have made one but they require the Wobbling Zipper Toy and I like the toy more than the wand. Could I make another toy after making the wand? Sure but then I’d have to spend even more time trading eggs which I don’t have a desire to.

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Earlier, I said that Bunny Day wasn’t a bad event and I still stand by that. I enjoyed tracking down eggs and crafting the recipes over the last two weeks. Most of the recipies were not worth keeping but they sold for a decent chunk of bells. I ended up keeping the Bunny Day Clock, The Bunny Day Rug, and the Bunny Day Backpack. I’m keeping the Wobbling Zipper Toy too. It’s just creepy enough that I think it’s funny to have at my house for a while. I’m a bit disappointed the final reward wasn’t a Bunny Ear hat, or even better, a Zipper hat but I’ll take the toy as a consolation prize.

Now we can get back to our regularly scheduled activities of paying off loans and accumulating a horde of furniture and clothes!

Breaking Resolutions

April 11, 2020April 20, 2020Kluwes1 Comment

It looks like my New Years Resolution lasted until April. That’s probably the longest I’ve ever kept one anyways. And, to be honest, technically I broke it but I don’t know if I broke it in the spirit of things. I set out a lofty goal to only by a select few games that I was looking forward to in 2020. The problem with that is there are things that I didn’t know about in 2019 or maybe my interests changed a bit. Or maybe I just wanted to lift a self-imposed restriction.

You’re probably wondering what this is all about. I ended up buying 3 games this week, two of which are out of the ordinary for me, all of which are multiplayer. Remember that last paragraph where I said I don’t think I broke the spirit of the resolution? When I made said resolution I had single-player games in mind. I’m making a real effort to go through my backlog. More of a conscious effort anyways. But multiplayer games tend to be on the uncomputable side of things so it’s hard to count them as adding to my backlog. There’s the whole social aspect too. I didn’t just buy the game to play on my own. I specifically bought them to play with my friend group some of which I rarely get to play with.

Yes, I know, I don’t have to justify anything to anyone. Except maybe myself. So without further ado, here are the games I picked up this week.

TemTem

Pokemon on PC? Yes, please. This is one of those games I didn’t even know existed until a month or two ago. Since then I’ve been hemming and hawing about whether I should get it or not. As a rule, I tend to avoid early access games but the reviews mentioned there were about 30-40 hours worth of gameplay here. What pushed me over the edge was one of my friends picked it up. The possibility of co-op Pokemon was just too good to pass up.

GTFO

Look, I know, I didn’t expect to buy am early access, survival, shooter that’s difficult just because either. But when two of your friends buy it and say it’s too hard with just two you have to be a good friend and help them out.

Hunt: Showdown

Because I didn’t learn my lesson from the last 3 battle royales I’ve played. But this one’s got some PVE mixed in with PVP. It also looks like it’s meant to be played in duos which is the biggest selling point for me. I actually don’t know that much about it but Greg does and wanted to try it out. Since I was buying games anyways I threw it in there.

Out of all of these, I have the highest hopes for TemTem as something I’ll be playing regularly. I think GTFO will be a great game to play with some people I rarely get to play games with. I’m curious about Hunt: Showdown. I have a feeling I’m either going to play it once and never touch it again or have a great game I can play with Greg regularly. We’re playing later today so we’ll see how it goes.

On a side note, I’m downloading Call of Duty Warzone as I write this. Just add that to a list of things I’d never thought I’d say.

Home Sweet Home

April 10, 2020April 20, 2020Kluwes1 Comment

Today I’m officially moving into my first house!

We started looking in January, found a house at the beginning of February, and have been going through the long process that is buying real estate. It’s a weird time to move, that’s for sure, but as long as I’m going to stuck at home I won’t mind being stuck inside with more space.

We’ve been living in apartments since we graduated from college 6 years ago. We’ve moved 4 times in those 6 years and I’m sure looking forward to staying in a place for longer than 2 years. We’ve been in our current apartment for about that long and when we were packing this week I kept thinking “Didn’t we just do this?”

It wasn’t until this week when we signed all the paperwork that it hit me that we actually bought a house. The process has taken so long that it didn’t seem real. Now, I’m super excited to get in there, decorate, and not have to worry about neighbors below us! I will admit, it’s a little scary though. Now when things break I’m going to have to fix them instead of calling maintenance. Good thing Youtube exists!

Alone Together in Animal Crossing

April 9, 2020April 20, 2020Kluwes1 Comment

For the last 2 weeks, we’ve been playing Animal Crossing every day. Between my wife and our little island is coming along nicely. We’ve just built the tailor shop and a campsite and are currently working on paying for another bridge.

Animal Crossing’s local multiplayer leaves a lot to be desired. For one, the first character created is the only one who can progress the island. It’s like Tom Nook is too good to talk to anyone but me which is frustrating because at this point my wife plays more than I do. I and she would love if we could both be the Resident Representative. We’ve been taking turns placing buildings and choosing infrastructure to work on but it would be nice if her account could initiate these things instead of waiting for me. What bothers me is the dialog for a lot of these options says all residents can chip in. But by all residents, they mean me because he refuses to talk about it with anyone else…

And then there’s the “two-player” option. It’s there, it’s an option, but it’s not a great option. All the second player can do is collect things that go to a recycling box. They can’t access their pocket, they can’t talk to anyone, they can’t interact with anyone. It’s like when you gave your younger sibling a controller and said: “Look you’re playing now too.” We were playing this way for a while but now we just play on our own because it’s not fun to be the follower. Thankfully, switching the leader is as easy as shaking the controller. We now use this feature to trade DIY recipes we don’t have or materials that Nook needs.

In other news, Leopold moved on to our island. There was no choice in this. Tom Nook demanded it! Neither my wife or I cared for Leopold’s attitude or Nook’s master plan to lure a celebrity to our island by filling it up with residents so we’ve placed Leopold’s house on a ladder accessible area without an incline. We’re hoping we’ve banished him from the town for the time being. Only time will tell if he’s able to get down from there.

Deja vu

April 8, 2020April 20, 2020KluwesLeave a comment

If there’s one constant in my gaming habits it’s this: if I start a game and leave it for a few months, the next time I want to play I will start over. I can’t get back into it from the point I left off. Reasons being I won’t remember what’s going on in the story, won’t remember how to play, or won’t know what half the stuff in my inventory is for. Starting from the beginning always seems like the best option when my last save says I was 9 hours into the game.

I’ve started playing Tales of Berseria again which is the last one on my shortlist of games I wanted to finish. The problem is I haven’t played it in over a year. I vaguely remember what was going on and there happens to be a nice synopsis menu tab but still, I felt the need to start over.

What intrigued me about Berseria is that the main character, Velvet, is an anti-hero. But the first hour and a half of the game you play as Velvet before she got turned into a demon. She’s just an ordinary woman trying to take care of her sick brother and provide for her family. If the story started with her being introduced as the woman who’s singular goal is revenge and she’s also a demon who eats other demons I would have rolled my eyes. But that first hour of gameplay makes her a very likable character and then she’s thrown into a prison for 3 years after witnessing her little brother being sacrificed by her father figure. It makes a whole lot more sense why her character is a little on edge.

I never feel like I’ve wasted time when I start over. I remember some story beats, some characters, but for the most part, it’s new to me all over again. I have this ability to be engrossed in a story be it in a game or a book while I’m playing/reading it but talk to me about it a month after I finish it and I probably can’t even tell you the main characters name. I can tell you how much I liked or disliked it and some of the reasons. I liked Tales of Zestiria for it’s cast of characters and it’s a focused story. Playing these first few hours of Berseria I get the same vibes. It feels familiar because I’ve played through this part but there’s still a ton that’s been new to me.

I Don’t Mind Time Gates

April 7, 2020April 20, 2020KluwesLeave a comment

As I wait for a raccoon to upgrade my home I have come to the realization that I play a lot of games that use time gates. Animal Crossing, Warframe, and Trove all feature this little “mechanic” and they all use real-world time as the gate. And these gates aren’t small.

The mere concept of time gates sounds like the most unfun thing you can imagine. So you’re playing this game and then it tells you you can’t do this thing anymore for a few hours, days, or the rest of the week even. I find it strange that these don’t end up bothering me.

Since Animal Crossing is the hot new thing I’ll start with that. The game is built around time gates. Literally, making buildings takes a day. Or the equivalent of a day I’m not sure exactly when it kicks over to the next day. But for all intents and purposes, there is a point in a play session where you can’t progress any further until something gets built. Or you can only buy so much from the shop in a single day. Even Nook Miles has a daily reset.

But that makes sense for Animal Crossing since it’s more or less a life sim. It’s a feature that the in-game time reflects the real-world time and there are cool things you can do with that. Like have insects and fish that appear in certain months, the map can change according to the seasons, and it makes the whole thing that much more immersive.

Warframe, on the other hand, has these arbitrary time gates because it’s free to play the game. It’s a fair free to play a game where you can see where the trade-off for time versus money is. Want to make a weapon? Cool, gather the materials and wait 12 hours OR you can pay some money and boom it’s done. Same with building Warframes (12 hours for each piece and 3 days to put the pieces together) and rooms for your clan dojo. Again, I don’t mind this because I’m getting a lot from this game while spending very little.

The one time gate gripe I did have was the Mastery tests. Mastery is basically an account level and the higher mastery the more weapons and features you have access to. You can take these once a day and if you fail you have to wait for 24 hours before you can attempt it again. I recently discovered that you can practice these as many times as you want before taking the official test so it’s not that bad.

Finally, we come to Trove. I’m not currently playing but this game is full of time gates. First up: daily bonuses. It’s only worth doing shadow towers on Mondays because you get the best rewards, it’s only worth farming gems on Wednesdays because you get 2 for every one box collected. It’s only worth gathering resources on Tuesday because you get a big bonus to materials collected. Then we cubits the “free” cash shop currency that’s obtained by filling up a bar doing dungeons that caps out once a day. And there are tomes that cap out rewards weekly. I think this is a perfect model for games like Trove though. It’s nice to be able to finish up a few things every week and log off and still make progress towards your goals.

I think for me they help reduce burn out. They artificially slow down progress. Otherwise, I’d end up eating through content pretty quick which isn’t always the best way to experience things.