We are still in the process of re-releasing the original episodes of Bel FolksStuff. This episode in question was originally released on March 2nd of 2015 and features my friend Qelric. She was probably the first YouTuber that I ever watched with any consistency and while I am sadden that she has since moved on from her extremely excellent update videos, I am excited for all of the changes in her life including becoming a parent. These days she has returned to her art roots and has an active Patreon to support her adventures in digital painting. It was a great evening sitting down to talk with her and on some level I would love to revisit these chats with a few guests at some point down the line to see how things have changed for them in the time between.
Since this is a week that brought us pretty fraught other “states of the”, I figure I would present some alternatives and talk about the cats. At this point we have had Josie the Pussycat since January 21st and in those 18 days she has adapted swimmingly to our home. Prior to my wife’s trip I was not exactly her favorite person. We got along fine because I was the person who feeds in the morning and evening, but we weren’t exactly on cuddling terms. This was fine because in reality I needed to be spending as much time as possible with Kenzie and Mollie to make sure they knew that nothing was going to change in how much attention they were getting. If fact as I am typing this I am reaching over and petting Kenzie who has appeared beside me wanting attention.
This week of being the sole “parent” however has reached a place where Josie is fully bonded. This means that pretty much all of the time I have both Kenzie and Mollie with me, and at certain points I have had all three girls trying to snuggle at the same time which while precarious has worked fine. The thing with Josie is she moves really fast and shifts positions pretty often. The above photo is a case of “suddenly cat” as she came bounding in from out of nowhere and hopped up on my chest to snuggle into my beard. She tends to prefer sitting on my chest, draped over my mouse arm or snuggled in beside me on the right side. Some of these work better than others… like last night I was playing some destiny and she was bound and determined to half sit/half stand on my chest and make me crane my neck to look around her while playing. She for whatever reason likes watching the screen while I play games.
Kenzie and Josie get along pretty well which is good, because I was concerned they absolutely would not. Kenzie and Mollie do not at all get along, nor did Kenzie and Luna. However in both cases I am starting to wonder if it was more of a Luna and Mollie thing than a Kenzie thing. Luna would absolutely attack first with Kenzie which is ultimately why we ended up finding her a new loving home. Mollie is skittish as hell and we blamed that on Kenzie wanting to be up in her business, but again Mollie always makes the aggressive noises first and then Kenzie turns around and bops her. Whatever the case Kenz and Josie seem to be buds and I am super fine with this.
In fact at one point last night they were chasing each other and it was the sort of back and forth friendly chasing. Josie would chase Kenzie… then give up the chase and Kenzie would turn around and chase her back. This went on and on back and forth across the living room for a good ten minutes. They also regularly rub up against each other which I take to be a good sign, and last night I saw Kenzie grooming Josie a bit. I am hoping with time that they end up snuggling with each other, because that will make the logistics of me sitting on the couch with three cats a little easier. At all points however I seem to always have both of them. As I write this Kenzie is on the box laying beside me like she often does and Josie is sprawled out on the floor behind me.
Mollie unfortunately is still the odd duck of the group. She is bonded with me, but only just barely. Our working theory has been that she was in a shelter for too long and way too early in her life. More specifically she was in a shelter where she was the only cat filled in a room full of very loud dogs. She will snuggle with me but if I sneeze, cough, or even clear my throat she is gone like the wind only to return after a significant passage of time. She has been snuggling with me again this week so I am going to take that as her starting to settle in. Everything with Mollie takes way longer than it would with any other cat. You mark progress with her in millimeters not and not meters.
At first she was very much not into Josie and still to this day there are squabbles between them. However I have also caught her sniffing Josie and the other day little britches came running in and head butted Mollie who more or less was okay with it. Given enough passage of time I think things will reach a stable truce, or at least as well as there has been with Kenzie. Mollie loves that there is a hammock upstairs and she pretty much spends the vast majority of her time in it. The hammock downstairs is now populated by Josie, and Mollie seems to be okay with this swap. My wife’s office is pretty much always a warm room and that probably adds to the enjoyment for Mollie.
I wish I could somehow wave a wand and make them all be the best of friends. However for two weeks in we have made more progress than I was honestly expecting. Kenzie and Josie are now my partners in crime which is awesome. There is a reason why I had chosen Kenzie as my Palico in Monster Hunter World, and if I had the ability to create two… Josie would absolutely get added into that mix. Little britches certainly is making life interesting in a good way. I am anxious to see what happens when my wife gets home from Portugal on Saturday. I expect that Josie will be excited to see her since it has been shown that cats remember their humans for long periods of time. If nothing else it will be nice to have another human in the house because Josie pretty much wants constant attention.
I am super looking forward to having my wife back because I have missed her. I keep thinking I see her out of the corner of my eye while sitting downstairs. There have been a bunch of times I almost made a random comment only to realize that it is just me and the cats. I’ve not done anything terribly exciting during my bachelor mode time. Probably the most exciting thing was using Door Dash for the first time to try ordering from a restaurant I have never eat at… only to get what I am pretty sure was a minor case of food poisoning about 24 hours later. Needless to say I did not touch those leftovers. I am ready for life to start being back to whatever normal passes for in our household.
There is a thread floating around right now on twitter where you are asked to pick five games that you will play for the rest of your life, or some variant of that concept. I’ve watched it morph a few times as it burns its way through different circles. Yesterday I managed to get tagged twice in the same day within a few hours of each other, and because I am always looking for an excuse to turn something into a blog post you are getting my response here. First off thanks to Maryalee Scarlet and Dusty Monk for tagging me.
First up lets talk a little bit about theory behind this, because in theory I probably should have picked 5 living MMORPGs and called it good because the constant flow of content would ultimately keep me entertained. However instead I tried to pick five games that more or less represent my tastes in gaming and would cover the majority of my interests. Unfortunately even with that there are things that are going to get left off the list that I am sorta bummed about. However I am doing a few honorable mentions in addition to my official five.
Final Fantasy XIV
I am nowhere near as engaged in this game as I could be, and there are so many rocks that I have left uncovered. For example I have barely scratched the deep crafting system, and I could spend months delving into that along. There are of course a ton of the various artifact weapon quests that I could chase as well and I’ve not really touched raiding since Heavensward. If I so chose, I could be very happy chasing the objectives in Final Fantasy XIV and as a result I am throwing it on the list even though I am not actively playing it right now.
Mass Effect Trilogy
I am absolutely cheating my ass off right here with this pick. However it was in fact released as a single package and there are rumors about it getting a remaster at some point, so for the purpose of this challenge I am calling it a single pick. I love the Mass Effect trilogy and I could see myself playing through it at least once a year start to finish. The real question is whether or not I will keep making some of the same decisions each time because I have never been able to successfully complete a renegade run.
Minecraft
Minecraft is one of those titles that I can continue returning to over and over no matter how many times I have played it. I seem to go through these periods where I just need to do something creative for a bit and I build an entire civilization in Minecraft, and then wander off once finished never to visit again. I figure I have to come up with a way to feed that instinct when narrowing down my five games and as such I’m going for the original. There are other builders out there that are much better “games” but the truth is when I go through one of these phases all I care about is building and ultimately wind up playing the game on creative mode.
Destiny 2
I absolutely love this game and no matter what I am doing cannot seem to stay far away from it. Right now I am heavily into bingeing single player games, but I still spent the entire evening last night playing Destiny. I cannot see a future where I am not playing this game or something similar, and the one I keep returning to is Destiny. It managed to gain traction in a manner that none of the similar looter shooters ever managed to. There are so many secrets that I have yet to unlock and I have still not experienced most of the raid content. The moment to moment gameplay however is what keeps me coming back because it is just fun to fire space weapons at space enemies.
Diablo 3
Some of the most fun I have had over the last few years has been hanging out with my friend Grace while grinding Diablo. As such there is no way in hell it does not make the list… that was absolutely intended. While I am absolutely looking forward to Diablo 4, there is just something about the rhythm of Diablo 3 that makes me wonder if I will ever truly abandon it. There is just something it is doing that the other ARPGs are not and because of it I keep returning time and time again. Also there is something special about the launch of a brand new season that feels very much like starting and MMORPG for the first time every few months.
The Honorable Mentions
Now that I have my official five out of the way it is time for me to delve into some games that almost made the list for various reasons.
World of Warcraft
I have to admit that right now I have a really fraught relationship with this game. In part it is probably why FFXIV got the nod and WoW didn’t because at this very moment I think I would be way happier playing in Eorzea than Azeroth. That said I cannot deny that World of Warcraft would also be an exceptionally strong pick because of the decade and a half worth of content waiting on me to re-experience. That said… the level squishes and gear squishes end up making it feel like a vastly different experience than what I remember, so I am not entirely certain how enjoyable it would be. There is also a lot of repetition going on, and in truth… I find the concept of doing everything on a single character way more compelling than alts.
Elder Scrolls Online
Elder Scrolls Online also came super close to getting the nod because I absolutely love all of the story in this game. I could see myself returning to it over and over to experience different pieces of it and I have yet to actually play a second character to any significant level. That said what stopped me from promoting this title is that I am not in love with its combat. I get that it is doing its best to be Elder Scrolls in MMORPG form, but in truth… I never really loved combat in Elder Scrolls in the first place either. Those games have always been about the freedom of exploration and the rich story being told and not so much combat. Ultimately gets me to walk away from ESO is that I find the combat unsatisfying.
Witcher 3
This game was a real strong contender for maybe knocking Mass Effect off the chart, but ultimately didn’t get the nod because I really only feel strongly about the third game. I cannot under any circumstances get myself to play through the first game, and while the second game has a good story I would not consider it to be a wonderful gameplay experience. All of that said the strength of the third game damned near convinced me to give it a proper place in the list, and I am certain that I will replay my way through it in the near future.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
For years when someone has asked me what my favorite game is, I have often times said Symphony of the Night. There is just so much that I enjoy about this experience. That said I have also been replaying this game on a regular basis since its original release on the Playstation, and own it for pretty much every platform that it exists on. I am not sure if I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life. As it stands there are only so many more secrets for it to summon forth and only so much more joy that I can squeeze out of it. It is so filled with nostalgia and good memories… but maybe it is time for me to see other games.
Bloodstained Ritual of the Night
In a similar fashion Bloodstained damned near made the list because if I were going to choose between this and SOTN right now… I am more than likely going to be playing Bloodstained. It does everything I loved about Symphony of the Night but better and presents it in a much higher fidelity package. The only reason why I didn’t make the cut is that I have not spent anywhere near as much time with it as I have with some of the other titles. I know that I can keep returning to the ones that made the list, I am not sure how I will feel about this game on repeat playings.
So there are my five games. I am going to stop the chain however and not name any successors because I figure this viral thread will burn its way through the gaming community with or without my help. I could tag some of the AggroChat crew but honestly… we just did something similar and have our games of the decade show that we still plan on recording where we have asked everyone to chip in with topics.
This morning we are in the middle of a spot of winter weather and as a result all of the schools are closed down and there is madness on the roadways. As such I am going to shorten my normal morning post so that I can get out in said madness and contribute to it. Last night I wrapped up The Technomancer and across the board I considered it to be a really enjoyable game experience. My willingness and ultimate enjoyment of these games may be conditioned by having just finished Witcher 2 before starting down this descent into all things Spiders. If that is the case I am still very thankful for the shift in perspective because there is a lot of good happening in these titles.
They are all deeply flawed experiences, and I keep bringing up that point because it is important. If you can look past those flaws there is underneath it all a really enjoyable narrative with some really interesting ideas at work. The Technomancer is a sequel to Mars: War Logs in the same sort of way that Dragon Age 2 is a sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. It contains some of the same settings and central conflict but with a significantly different cast of characters and perspective on the ongoing “war” between the water merchants of Mars. Technomancer is effectively the heroes journey of one Zachariah Mancer an initiate into this order that plays a similar role in their society as the Jedi did in the Old Republic.
Your journey takes you across the face of Mars and two multiple city states in search of answers about the past and to uncover the secrets of your order. It also has a central theme about Mars being abandoned by Earth and the entire population striving to reconnect and ultimately waiting for a rescue mission that in multiple generations of estrangement never came. This central theme causes you to cross paths with so many interesting characters along the way that have moments of poor writing and moments of absolute genius dialog. The rough around the edges nature however seems to just be the hallmark of Spiders as I am now starting a third game and seeing the same sort of “almost but not quite” characteristics there as well.
Were I to give The Technomancer a numerical rating, I would give it a solid 7 out of 10. There is a good story and a lot of interesting characters if you can make it far enough into the game to feel a sense of investment in the setting and the political intrigue. The biggest negative that the game has going for it right now is the fact that you are locked into playing a Male character, and I am wondering if Greedfall was maybe the first game where Spiders experimented with having a main protagonist that did not have a fixed gender. I hope they keep that up going forward because you are playing Zachariah Mancer in Technomancer and as I am starting “Mars: War Logs” you are also playing a fixed character as well.
Speaking of which I did in fact start Mars: War Logs last night, lighting that wick off the waning light of the previous candle. Graphically the game is attractive and the motions all seem to be fine. Combat once again is vastly different from either Greedfall or Technomancer, so it is going to take some getting used to another interface. Like I have said before it seems like they are constantly searching but never quite finding the ideal interface for their games. This game came out in 2013, and as such it really belongs to the previous Xbox 360/PS3 era of games. That said I am enjoying myself so far and I think I will have no problem getting engaged with it much the same as I have the others. I’ve said it many times before… there is something about these games that makes them deeply interesting to me even though their ambition greatly outstrips their technical prowess.
