January 2022: You will be Okay

Now that I'm done with Deadfire I've been finishing off Neverwinter Online's Dragonbone Vale campaign and hammering away at Pathfinder: Kingmaker which is a really long game . Certainly feels like it anyway. I'm still going through the steam freebies and have a few more suggestions to post but that feels like it's running out of worthwhile content too. I mean I'm only searching for free, Non VR, English single player games that interest me.

I do question the stupid discovery queue though. Despite explicitly selecting to never see "coming soon" titles, they are still being displayed - possibly because I've just "killed" so many games already (put on the ignore/never show me again list - around 9500+ titles). The result of showing me something not available or "coming soon" is... I kill/ignore that title too - which means when it does become available I won't see it anymore. Good way to shoot yourself in the foot there Steam/developers. Oh well.

I'll finish up this post with some musics for you all, starting with Peter Hollens doing a Disney and Anime medley, Phoebe Bridger's version of "Friday, I'm in Love" and "You will be Okay" from Helluva Boss which is a really great song.

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days:
GTFO: R6C2 - Blind (Main)
Interactive Stories
GTFO: R6B1 - Hexahedrons (Main)

Proving once again that maps and walkthroughs seem to be the best types of posts. :P

October 2020 Review: Level 14

Been awhile since I talked about my guild / alliance in Neverwinter Online, and despite DL's best recruiting efforts the going is still pretty slow. Fortunately our guild (now  on level 14) has advanced to taking a sword position in the alliance, which means more discounts in building construction and if talks of us taking the helm spot hold through, the discounts would even be larger! We're lucky that our alliance is happy to keep shuffling around to give everyone a turn at stuff. :)

Our castle isn't quite as fancy as Strahd's though...

Meanwhile because Epic is such a shit launcher that only has free games going for it, I'm struggling to balance when to download the bigger games. A slow download speed plus losing any progress should your PC shut down midway really blows. This really makes me appreciate Steam even more. As such I'm going to stop putting a backlog list with these month end posts as it's really not important anyway as I'll eventually write about whatever game I finish (or am done with).

Just to push that point, it's almost like any game over 20GB is not worth it due to the amount in increased electricity I would pay to keep the computer on to download for such an extended period. Instead if I really like a game that big, I'll just ask someone to gift it to me on steam. Much simpler.

I'll finish off with some random tips like always also use a secondary search engine when looking for stuff on the internet as your primary is likely hiding and/or shuffling results (for example google + bing) and if you want to save stories from instagram you can use storysaver.net. Oh and for those who enjoyed Civilization VI, here's an epic cover of the theme song by Peter Hollens and the OSU Chamber Choir.

   End 2020 with less weight (dropping this for the more specific goal below)
   +Lose 1kg this month (last month result: success!)
   Web comic (even more world building... too much world building?)

BLOG STATS

One Year Ago

Wow, has it already been a year since Blizzard stepped in the China vs Hong Kong poop? Let's go check how things are going with that... ah, I see Hong Kong is still f*cked and Blizzard hasn't really taken any increased damage, just the usual self-inflicted version from their own releases. Status quo restored?

Five Years Ago

I was running about in A Tale in the Desert, tale six - an interesting MMORPG that features zero combat and a whole lot of player interaction. It seems this game is still going and is now in tale nine! Good on them!

Most Viewed Posts last Month

Waterdeep: The Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Eschalon: Gramuk!?
R3B1 - Theshold (Part II)

That's a nice grouping - a review of a board game with a popular name, a story post that uses name dropping, and a GTFO tutorial that includes a minor bug exploit. :P

Today I Smiled: Power Up!

The grind through the River District and Chult continues in Neverwinter Online, so much so that I've not been typing blog posts! Oops! It's great to see my characters improving again though, using Baphomet as a measuring stick.

Once I put some thought into what enchantments I actually used in my gear, my mounts and my npcs companions (who I previously didn't equip at all), I'm now easily beating the demon prince.

Speaking of training, here is the real-life weapons training of Keanu Reeves for John Wick 2, which is pretty awesome. Thank you to the poster who told me about it. Also cool is this site about military strength by country which is an eye opener. Some are higher than I thought!

If that is too violent for you, I've also just learned that Japan has a cat island and a rabbit island which is cute-overload at first, but when carefully thinking about it are islands full of a) rabbit poop or b) critters that actively seek to overthrow the human race. :P

As usual I'm going to end with some musical links - the first one being the Coconut song on an airplane and the last one is Peter Hollen's version of Hands of Gold from Game of Thrones! Have a great weekend everyone! :)

Today I Smiled: Competition

One thing Tiamat has brought is a small re-kindling of my NWO foundry building and I'm glad to report that the Scribes' Enclave still stands! To try show my appreciation I've joined this months mini-contest which involves making the Best Winter Home. I've made these two for people to enjoy - temporarily anyway. I will be taking them down once the contest is done to give way to actual quests.

Please note: There are no quests, monsters or reward in either of these. Just a house! :P

A Humble Abode - (NW-DTCJS6NS2) 

A Winter Home - (NW-DCBNR2ABC)

Speaking of foundry stuff, this review by Tipa (aka Brenda Holloway) of Arroway Manor also made me smile! No, I didn't win. Far from it, but still got the green level companion reward. That hasn't stopped me from joining another foundry contest, one involving the North Docks District. That one isn't finished yet but I'll be sure to post up my work here when it is!

On to non-Neverwinter stuff... I'm sure most of you have seen the "This is EVE" video by now. I don't play that game but boy that almost, almost made me jump the fence to try it. Another one that I'm on the fence for is Black Desert. Just from the first picture on Steparu's Final Beta test. I first thought it was a shot of tabletop models. Then I have to remind myself its open-pvp so... probably not. :P

Also something that probably no one (in my usual blogging circle) has seen before... female Streetstyle Freestyle final battle: Two chicks showing fantastic control with a soccer ball. Yeah, stuff like that interests me. :P

I guess I should finish off with something more Christmas-sy since it -is- the season, so here's Peter Hollens with a jazzy acapella version of Holy Night. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Showdown at Sky Haven Temple

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! In this entry I am following my custom scenario "A Curse of Iron". You can follow the rest of the story here!

Since he had done such a good job I offered Kharjo to join the Blades but he refused as I thought he might. I set him free of his debt, hoping he had a safe trip back to Elsweyr. Mjoll then called me over and asked how I was doing, taking me outside to the training area for a little chat. It was there that she revealed she too was working for the Thalmor, explaining her sudden disappearance from Riften before. Mainly it was to get back at me for letting Aerin die. Well that's too bad. I drew my iron sword and readied my hide shield while she pulled out my high level magical ebony blade. The hell? Seems she has all my old stuff too!

Our duel lasted for a long while, but she certainly had the upper hand with that magic blade. Furthermore each time I would get her to half HP she would fully heal! It was then I realized that she's using my potions! Things took a turn for the worse when Esbern appeared as well and began thowing magical fire at me. Great, he too is now the thalmor's bitch. No use continuing the fight out here so I pushed past into the temple proper where my large group of friends waited... and did nothing. It's like they didn't know if they should obey me or obey the leaders of the blades! Fortunately one of them decided to help out - Kharjo, who hadn't yet left took on Mjoll while I delt with Esbern, hacking him down as quickly as I could and then returning to the fight against Mjoll for perhaps the longest / best boss fight ever.

Kharjo and I would alternate as each of us would get knocked back, while she just kept healing. Eventually though she ran out of potions and in one furious backhand I sent her head flying from her shoulders. With their leader(s) dead, the remaining people stood even more gobsmacked as before... until they eventually took a knee and accepted me as their new leader. I thanked Kharjo again and the khajiit gave his farewells as he exited the temple. All that was left now was to get this curse off me which meant another trip to Winterhold, so I asked for a volunteer to come with and the knight Rayna jumped at the opportunity. We made our way out and the forsworn were nowhere to be found - they probably fled after their "leader" was killed, so we continued on the road where we passed Kharjo again, as well as Maiq, and upon reaching a pretty high bridge came across a patrol of imperial soldiers with a prisoner. I grinned to Rayna who knew what I was thinking and after slitting the throat of the guard at the very rear, charged the remaining two with sword held high.

Skyrim is for the Nords!

Taking a break from Skyrim again here, so I thought I'd leave you with a few extra goodies. :)

Skyrim Cosplay with Jessica Nigri
Skyrim Cosplay with Manzi de Young
Skyrim Cosplay & Music Video with Lindsey Stirling and Peter Hollens
Elder Scrolls Online