Month: April 2015

Bad Brain

This morning I am struggling a bit to get started with my normal blogging process.  Right now I am going through what I generally term as a “low spot” in my mental health.  I have been feeling depressed and generally disconnected from the world lately.  It is like I am staring out a window and watching the world go by in fast motion.  Additionally I seem to be focused on only the bad things.  Like I could have a dozen normal conversations, but my brain is heat seeking in on the moments that don’t go perfectly.  Analyzing them, breaking them apart, wallowing in my imagined failure.  What frustrates me the most is that I have a pretty awesome life, but when my brain is on a down cycle it certainly doesn’t seem like it, and my internal critic has been working overtime.

The thing is, it wouldn’t be quite so bad if my brain would just stop with statements like pointing out that I have gained weight, or that I am failing to live up to this or  that goal.  It always has to be the bully and take things one step too far.  My brain is telling me constantly that I am an imposter and that no one actually likes me, and that at best everyone simply tolerates my actions.  My brain is kicking things up another notch over the last few days, and incessant about telling me that the world would simply be a better place if I no longer existed.  The thing is… I know deep down inside my core that my brain is a liar, but man…  is it relentless.  I am not expecting anything from this, but I figured I would open up a bit more into my own personal struggles.  No one likes hanging around with someone that bums them out, but maybe me talking about it helps someone else who is struggling with the same demons.  I know my brain is wrong, and that this will pass in time… but right now, it is pretty hellacious to live with 24/7.

Flower Power

Last night was yet another running of the second static in our Final Fantasy Free Company.  We are still struggling a bit to gather up the eight people needed to raid, but hopefully as people continue leveling and gearing that will change a bit.  Ultimately I would love it were I able to be an optional in this group, since I have my group that meets seriously on Monday already, and our secondary night on Saturday before the podcast.  That said at raid time we managed to gather up seven people and attempted to pug an eighth.  That didn’t go terribly well, because while we were talking about the fights he ran off and pulled some golems.  I mean on one level I get it, because we had not said much in the game chat, and were sorting things out on voice chat…  but taking it upon yourself  to pull is rarely the right answer.  After a few wipes he refused to resurrect and we kicked him, abandoning duty and bringing in Ashgar.  From that point on the night seemed to improve.

Things were far more tense than they should have been, and there was a bit of an outburst on Teamspeak but other than that things fell in place fairly well.  I would be bummed that this team managed to get turn six in a single night of tries, whereas it took our team two nights…  but this group is leaning heavily on past experience.  When we tried to do each turn we tried really hard to go in as a blank slate and figure things out as they happened.  It was cool though to get another raid boss killed with this group and we moved on to Turn Seven.  There are a lot of moving parts in that fight, and largely the group still needs to figure out how best to control the Renaud freezing action.  It is a really fun fight and even more than turn six, it came back to me quickly as we started going through the motions.  I am starting to wonder though if I should be running Paladin on these fights since Damai is a Warrior main.  Not sure what additional benefit having a Paladin would give the group since it has a slightly different skillset.  Would at least give me practical experience doing stuff as my “other” tank class.

Another Outpost

The other game that I played a significant amount of yesterday was State of Decay Year One Survivor Edition.  I am back to playing Marcus after going on some crazy misadventures as Maya.  When I last played I got the radio announcement that a military presence had been spotted on the outskirts of town.  Having done this song and dance before I knew that it was best to take Maya over there to check it out.  Additionally at that point Marcus was doing the whole “not sure how long I can go on” thing, meaning he was exhausted and needed to be rested.  Around this same time I got reports that two hordes of zombies were getting close to town.  I’ve found the best way to take out a horde is vehicular zombiecide.  So I laughably grabbed the Pizza Delivery car and took the the roads running them down.  This ends up stirring up quite a few additional zombies in the process, but far less in my experience than trying to put down a horde with gun fire.

After quelling the two hordes I moved on to the Military encampment and it went just as well as it had in the past.  The military wants everyone to stay inside and shelter in place… which is fine and good until the zombies try breaking down your door.  The military house was next to one of the survivor houses I was working on gaining trust with.  Unfortunately the person that normally gives me quests to complete to gain their trust was not available, so not sure exactly where they wandered off to.  About this time I got a frantic radio message from Lucy telling me that her brother was trapped and needed my help.  He had managed to get himself pinned down in a barn, and I had to ride in and save the day.  This actually was tougher than I thought it would be and ended up having to clear about nine zombies to get to him and save him.  By this time Maya was going through her whole “too exhausted to continue” routine, but I managed to finish things off and get back home with Jacob.  So there we are, back home and ready for another jaunt out with Marcus.  Hopefully I will get in and play some more tonight.

Source: Tales of the Aggronaut
Flower Power

State of Decay

Back in June of 2013 I was completely amped with the release of State of Decay on the Xbox Live Arcade.  While I am not traditionally a console gamer I spent a good deal of my time out in the loft playing this game at launch.  When it came out that September of the PC I was even more excited because it meant that I would be spending more time playing it.  Since then I have picked up the two expansions…  that I have woefully not spent much time playing.  This has been one of those titles that when it goes on sale I sent copies to friends, considering it is as close to the perfect zombie survival game as I have ever played.  The only flaw however is the fact that this game desperately wants to be multiplayer.  In fact when I told my friends last night what I was playing before the raid…  the immediate response was an excited question asking if they added in multiplayer.

While I did not take the best reference shots, because I was too busy playing the game…  I did dig up one of the screenshots I took playing the original steam release in the above section, and now directly above this paragraph is a screenshot from the Year One Survivor Edition… which is essentially an HD Remaster more than anything.  I definitely find screenshot two more appealing.  The first screenshot uses a lot of deep shadow to mask the extremely muddy textures, whereas the second shot is more willing to let you see things more naturally.  Another thing that I really dig is that the game has some nice Depth of Field going on in the YOSE edition.  You can see this in the second character on screen but even more so below in the shot of my character climbing the tower in town to scout for a view.  The world feels more “real” which makes it all the more creepy as you are wandering the wastes looking for resources.

Year One Survivor Edition

The biggest thing I have noticed while playing is that the controls seem much more responsive.  I am playing the game using the exact same black wired xbox 360 controller I did the first time, but this time around everything feels more fluid.  If this were just shooting I would think potentially it was me, since between the times playing this game…  I played a lot of Destiny with a controller, which has greatly improved my aiming.  I am noticing it especially when I am driving a car however, that things feel more controllable and less all over the place.  Additionally the melee combat feels more responsive.  This is aided by the fact that our character has now learned how to use a knife, instead of simply kicking zombies when your melee weapon breaks.  Stupid as this sounds, it feels even more “walking dead” thanks to this little motion.  This works unbelievably well when your companion holds the zombie and you finish them off with the knife.  I did a lot of this in the lake area before moving into the town for example.

I did not make it terribly far last night, because I was playing for about an hour before and after my World of Warcraft raid, but I did manage to get far enough in to remember why I liked this game so much.  Since it had been so long since I had last played, I opted to just restart the original campaign, as it tends to be the best way to ease into the game.  Additionally while running around yesterday at lunch I picked up a Xbox One copy for my boss, so I am figuring he will want to discuss what is going on in the game.  He is not much of a gamer but picked up the  Xbox One because his grand kids also have one…  and is a huge Walking Dead fan so I figured State of Decay was just about the perfect game for him.  I am one of those people that can do something, but struggle to talk someone through it… unless I am doing it myself.  I figured the only way I could be of any help to him was to actually be playing the content myself.

Making Progress

Like I said earlier I did not make a ton of progress, but after having played this multiple times I feel like maybe my play is a bit more focused than it was the first time.  As a result I have already rescued one group of survivors, cleaned out the veterinary clinic, built an outpost, built a sleeping area, built a workshop… and am working on building trust with a second group of survivors.  Not too shabby for about two hours of play if I do say so myself.  The whole “knowing what you are doing” aspect definitely speeds things up, as well as having a basic understanding of the lay of the land.  The first time I played this game I was having to constantly check the map, whereas this time around I can navigate at least somewhat based on landmarks.  I remember on my first play I overshot the church by a huge margin, crashed my car… had to get a new one… and finally made it back to the church at night.  This time I went straight there, knowing there was no real sense in exploring until I had done the introductory stuff at the church.

This is still a really great game, and like I said at the start of all of this… the only weakness is it would be so much more enjoyable were I exploring with my friends.  The bane of my existence is just how fast melee weapons break.  I feel like this is a game about me searching for my next weapon, more than anything else.  I rarely use guns, and prefer to take on the zombies in close range… in part  because it doesn’t summon more zombies to the gun shots.  Additionally I really do not want to summon a zombie horde down upon me.  That said I did at one point clear out a couple of hordes with a random car, which was extremely gratifying.  The other strange thing I have noticed is that I no longer fear the zombies.  The first time I played this game I was scared to death of interaction with them.  Every time I would search a location I would take the time to carefully board it up before proceeding.  Now I just deal with the zombies as they come… so in a way it feels like the transition someone would have to make in this world.  I understand it better, and therefore I am less concerned by it.  Still having a blast after all of the time I have played the game in the past, which is quite the compliment to the developers.

#StateOfDecay #YOSE #UndeadLabs

Source: Tales of the Aggronaut
Year One Survivor Edition

What is Sport

Yesterday I managed to get into a conversation that I never really intended to, but I thought it might make for interesting blog fodder.  Over the weekend ESPN 2 hosted the Heroes of the Storm “Heroes of the Dorm” collegiate competition, with college teams competing for scholarship money.  Now this is not the first time ESPN 2 has shown “eSports” because the 2014 International DOTA 2 Championships were shown on the channel as well.  Both times now there has been a backlash from traditional sports fans calling the showing of video games on their precious sports channel all manner of expletives.  That said in both cases ESPN 2 got seemingly plenty of viewers because in both cases they brought in an audience that would not have normally watched that channel.  I personally have had trouble getting into either traditional sports or eSports, so as a result I am somewhat of a neutral observer to this phenomena.  However after both events twitter has been set ablaze with back and forth between sports fans and gamers.

I made a few sideways comments yesterday and one of the spin off threads was about the definition of what exactly a sport was.  One definition suggestion was presented as “I always took sport to feature/focus on physical exertion/athleticism”.  The actual dictionary definition looks similar “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”  The problem is I feel like the competitive gaming scene also fits this definition.  “Physical exertion” is such a generic term and the reflexes and fine motor skills required to play competitively in League of Legends, StarCraft 2 or DOTA 2 surely would qualify as such I would think.  “Sport” to me really has no meaning attached to it, because I do not hold it up to some higher standard than what the dictionary defines it as.  There is no nostalgia towards sports, and they don’t serve any greater purpose in my mind other than to entertain people.

eSports Needs Name Change

One of the problems brought up yesterday was the fact that “eSports” in itself is a name that you can’t quite take seriously.  To tack the “e” onto Sport immediately tells you it is something that is trying to be but not quite achieving the same quality as the “real” Sports.  This to me sets up a false dichotomy between the two that really doesn’t exist.  For me at least they are both just “sports” because as a neutral observer, I see absolutely no difference between the two.  In both cases people are paid to play a game for the entertainment of others.  In both cases they are spectator driven events, and in both cases they draw huge crowds of people.  While they have not quite reached the level of the Super Bowl (114 million) or the World Cup (188 milion) as far as viewership, they are definitely juggernauts in their own right.

Last year the League of Legends World Championship had 32 million viewers, and “The International”DOTA 2 championship over 20 million viewers.   This tells me this is a phenomena that is not going to go away, and will only continue to get bigger.  I feel like the name somehow cheapens the experience by showing that it is trying to be something else.  Sports itself is rife with all manner of problems and embedded social issues.  Over the last several years we have been seeing these same issues playing out in the “eSports” arena as leagues attempt to emulate their traditional sports counter parts.  I question if it is time to just sever the ties with the “Sports” concept entirely and go off and create something new.  As it was pointed out yesterday, “eSports” shares some serious ties to the professional Poker or Pool circuits, so maybe all of these should just resurrect under the banner of “High Stakes Gaming” or something similar.

ESPN Needs eSports

I feel like at this point these two attempts for ESPN 2 to show competitive gaming are more a bid for continued relevance more than anything.  ESPN is the juggernaut of traditional sports but I feel like there is an entire generation of people not being served by it.  The network of channels does a great job at covering their core demographic, but I would guess that demographic is slipping in total viewership.  If they did not see the need to branch out, they would keep doing the same thing they are doing.  32 Million and 20 Million are not small numbers, and the ESPN management understands this.  I would be surprised if ANY game they show currently gets those kind of numbers, because we are living in this era when television viewership as a whole is on the decline.  I think the calculus in the executives head is that there is a need to try and hook the  generation that is simply not watching their programming, and when they look to what it is being replaced by… they see Youtube.com and Twitch.tv.

The problem is I think this is ultimately going to work backwards.  I don’t see “eSports” hooking new viewers on traditional sports like ESPN might be hoping.  What I do see is that for all of the bluster and banter… that more than likely some people stayed and watched the Heroes of the Storm tournament instead of flipping the channel.  Those people are going to look into that game, and when it launches probably play it.  I think the net positive is in the favor of gaming, and not necessarily sports.  ESPN is very much the kingpin of the outdated cable television model, and I don’t really see “eSports” somehow changing that.  I personally get frustrated every time I look at my cable bill and realize that I am essentially paying an “ESPN Tax” to help subsidize a channel I will never actually watch.  Maybe just maybe if they do end up playing more competitive gaming coverage, especially something along the lines of EVO…  I might actually watch it.  In the mean time I will continued to be confounded as two side argue over doing essentially the exact same thing in my eyes.

Source: Tales of the Aggronaut
eSports Needs Name Change