The first day of going on remote protocol was interesting. For the most part the entire day was spent with triage of why various members of the team could not get connected remotely to specific resources. I did however manage to make it through the entire day without finding something I had to drive in for, so I guess that is working as intended? It very much is like raid leadership, but if your raid is acting independently of each other and that you are having to talk to them in tells. The two stand up meetings more or less worked as intended and I limited them just to critical issues. The first one unfortunately was pushed back due to a mandatory meeting, but we managed to get started just fine an hour later than originally planned.
The thing that I am noticing is that while working remotely I tend to put in more hours overall. I tagged in and did my first “work” about 6:30 in the morning and I tagged out for the night around 5 pm, and also ate lunch at the keyboard. So maybe I need to work on setting up a bit of time boxing and only making myself available during my normal 7:30 am to 4:30 pm window. Were it not rainy as hell I would have probably gone out into the backyard to eat lunch just to get a bit of a change of scenery. I have Shin Ramen for days and I wound up eating a cup of that for lunch much like I would have were I sitting in the office. In theory I might partake of Doordash and start ordering in lunch for my wife and I. Yesterday the Tulsa metro escalated its protocols and all restaurants and bars that do not have a delivery or carry out service are closed. As a result we are going to try and order take out from as many small establishments as possible over the next few days to try and keep them in business.
As far as gaming goes when I went downstairs and fixed dinner I eventually settled in and tried to play some more Diablo 3. Firstly I do not really love the Natalya’s set build, but it is functional and I can do Torment 1 pretty easily with only having my 4 piece and none of the other important items needed. My biggest problem still is the fact that I am gold locked in that I need roughly a million gold per attempt to keep trying to socket a weapon so that I can get my 6 piece set and finally start the season properly. The challenge there is that I am just not making that much gold per run and it feels like I am in a super grindy place. I need to catch up with Grace so we can use the Puzzle Ring and I can at least get my Boon of the Hoarder gem.
On a whim I opted to fire up my Playstation 4 remotely and start playing Last of Us. Yes I know I should be branded as a pariah for making it this far into my gaming career without having played this game. I have to admit part of this is spurred on by the fact that there is an HBO series in the work and another part by the fact that the second part should be releasing soon. So far I am really digging it, but I also don’t love aiming guns with a controller so we will see how long this lasts. I would have so much rather played this with a mouse and keyboard and on some level I kept hoping that like Horizon Zero Dawn it would also eventually release on the PC.
I didn’t make it terribly far into the game but I have to say that even on a baseline PS4 it looks gorgeous. I will likely play some more tonight as weirdly games and fiction about post apocalyptic settings calm me when the world is falling apart around my shoulders. I guess it is a way of showing me that “it could be worse”, and really for me it could be very worse. You know when you are wandering around in Silent Hill during the day time and everything feels wrong… but at the same time nothing is really dangerous? That is how living in pandemia feels right now because for the most part things are close to normal… but not quite. I am still hoping we all make it out safely on the other side of this mess. I am a prime candidate for having a bad time of it due to my health problems so I feel like I keep needing to tell everyone around them that I love them just in case things go badly at some point in the future.
Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra and Tam talk mostly about Final Fantasy XV
Belghast laments the feeling of not exactly knowing what day it is… as we return from our Thanksgiving break to start the show once more. This week there really is only one game we could be talking about that that is Final Fantasy XV which has all of us playing it… in completely different styles. We try our best to talk about non spoilery elements of the game, and mostly talk about the look and feel and play style. Additionally we talk a bit about The Game Awards and some of the announcements and games footage that was shown there. Similarly we talk a bit about the Playstation Experience and a few of the games that were shown there as well. Finally we wrap up with some discussion about Moebius Final Fantasy and how it has become Tam’s new sleepytime game.
