Hey Folks! It is a very story morning and I am listening to the rain pouring down around me right now as I sit down to write a post that likely no one is interested in. About a week ago I had an interaction with someone on twitter that was asking a pretty simple question. However my answer veered off in a different direction than I think they were expecting and I have been thinking about my comments for the last week. I guess let’s start with what exactly I said.
No and honestly I am personally tiring of the machinery of streaming. I find it so much more likely that I stick around and watch a stream if it is just a person playing a game with or without a camera, but I might be the exception rather than the rule. Overlays and Alerts and subscription widgets and all of that stuff was really cool when it was brand new, but now that it feels like everyone is obligated to have all of these things going on… it is sorta distorting the experience of hanging out with someone while they play
I realize that I am probably in the minority with this statement, but I have very much found myself tiring of the machinery of streaming. I know that is a strange phrase but I am not sure how else to describe it. Streams as a whole are now these large productions that end up feeling an awful lot like the barker at a carnival sideshow. Logging into a stream these days involves all of these widgets going off competing for your attention. Not only is there the flow of chat that is often incomprehensible but also tickers scrolling indicating who is leading in the donation count and alerts popping up each time some sort of interaction goal is met or follow is achieved. Everything competing for your attention but none of it really garnering it.
Once again I realize I probably use Twitch in a different manner than the most diehard of users. I tune in when I see that one of my friends is streaming and more or less it is for the purpose of hanging out while they play a game. All of the accoutrements feels like it gets in the way of that singular purpose. Twitch has sorta become this nesting doll of mini-games over the years and as a result it feels like the general experience of hanging out with someone while they play a game gets lost in the process. I realize that for some that might not be the core reason why they tune into Twitch or YouTube Gaming, but for me it is very much the case that I am there for that simple core interaction with a streamer while they are playing a game.
I remember dabbling in bots and alerts and running StreamLabs OBS because it sort of took care of everything for me. It was all new and exciting and fun to configure the first time, but after having seen it play out countless times on stream it all wears a little thin. I am significantly more engaged when I just see someone streaming a game and occasionally interacting with chat than I am when someone has a streamer theme package and a whole lot of doodads consuming screen real estate. I get in some ways many of these streams are trying to create a self perpetuating feedback cycle that keeps folks engaged in a constant loop, but for me… I find myself wanting off of that ride quickly.
Weirdly I used to stream quite a bit. In my head that seems like it was only a little bit ago that I did this thing but looking back… my prolific period was roughly seven years ago. Also looking back, the very last time that I went live with any game was roughly two years ago. I am not sure WHY I stopped streaming. I think on some level I just ended up stuck in a very turtle mode rut of not interacting with other human beings while gaming. That has more or less been the case for a few years now of me avoiding multiplayer content and absolutely avoiding anything resembling public exhibition while gaming. I do sorta miss the concept of sharing what I was doing with a very small group of people who tuned in to watch it. I’m a Twitch Affiliate, but then again so is everyone else given that those requirements are pretty low.
There are times that I flirt with the concept of going live again but always stop myself before actually doing it. More recently I have recorded a number of videos of me playing various games starting with Minecraft but more recently Valheim. Those have felt pretty good when I have recorded them, but it is also a very one-sided interaction. It feels safe to treat those much in the same way as I do this blog in that on some level I pretend that I am largely talking to myself and ignoring the fact that someone at some point is going to consume the thing I created. With streaming you don’t really have that luxury because you are effectively on air and live to the world, but then it feels bad if no one shows up to that broadcast to keep you company.
The funny thing about my prolific streaming period… is I guess I did not realize just how much I streamed. Essentially there are videos that were replicated over to YouTube of pretty much my entire play through of Elder Scrolls Online and the main story at launch. I think I added it up and just ESO alone it was some fifty hours of streaming. Included in these are a few gems that I have recently revisited of some of us experiencing dungeons for the very first time. This for example is Banished Cells with general group commentary streaming along with me. Watching these again is almost like seeing a version of me that I barely recognize. I was always grouped and always running group content and now I seem to avoid that like the freaking plague. I am not even certain how I used to put myself out there constantly like that.
While I have wildly veered off topic, it seems like my personal jam is just enough stuff on screen to explain what game you are playing and also maybe hide chat. Like ultimately that is why I started putting shit on the screen as an overlay in the first place. It wasn’t necessarily that I was trying to hide anything, but more that I was trying to protect the privacy of any folks that might be interacting with me over chat. Like there was once a time when I would log in to a bunch of messages from friends and I didn’t want any of those inadvertently broadcast. However my personal preference would always land on the side of just straight broadcasting my screen with some random voice over commentary.
I feel like I have lost a lot of the “Me” that existed a decade ago. Like I said before I barely recognize the person who was so prolifically streaming seven years ago. Truth be told I barely recognize the me that was hanging out and streaming World of Warcraft in lieu of recording AggroChat in the above video. I have become so filled with self doubt and anxiety that just talking to another human being in game is a chore that burns through all of my utensils for the day. The problem being that I am not sure how to get back to the person that I used to be. Things change and you don’t realize they are changing until you have gone so far down a path that you can barely see where you started. Today’s post is proof that I do not stage these topics ahead of time, because I started talking about one thing and then have veered wildly into another.
There is a part of me that sorta wants to go live again. Maybe in doing so it would force me to start dipping my toes into group play again. I doubt I would have anyone watch my nonsense, but just the act of sorta putting myself out there might start to batter down this barrier I have built up around me. I miss the person that I used to be and I am not sure yet how to get back there.
The post Machinery of Streaming appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Hey Folks! It is a very story morning and I am listening to the rain pouring down around me right now as I sit down to write a post that likely no one is interested in. About a week ago I had an interaction with someone on twitter that was asking a pretty simple question. However my answer veered off in a different direction than I think they were expecting and I have been thinking about my comments for the last week. I guess let’s start with what exactly I said.
No and honestly I am personally tiring of the machinery of streaming. I find it so much more likely that I stick around and watch a stream if it is just a person playing a game with or without a camera, but I might be the exception rather than the rule. Overlays and Alerts and subscription widgets and all of that stuff was really cool when it was brand new, but now that it feels like everyone is obligated to have all of these things going on… it is sorta distorting the experience of hanging out with someone while they play
I realize that I am probably in the minority with this statement, but I have very much found myself tiring of the machinery of streaming. I know that is a strange phrase but I am not sure how else to describe it. Streams as a whole are now these large productions that end up feeling an awful lot like the barker at a carnival sideshow. Logging into a stream these days involves all of these widgets going off competing for your attention. Not only is there the flow of chat that is often incomprehensible but also tickers scrolling indicating who is leading in the donation count and alerts popping up each time some sort of interaction goal is met or follow is achieved. Everything competing for your attention but none of it really garnering it.
Once again I realize I probably use Twitch in a different manner than the most diehard of users. I tune in when I see that one of my friends is streaming and more or less it is for the purpose of hanging out while they play a game. All of the accoutrements feels like it gets in the way of that singular purpose. Twitch has sorta become this nesting doll of mini-games over the years and as a result it feels like the general experience of hanging out with someone while they play a game gets lost in the process. I realize that for some that might not be the core reason why they tune into Twitch or YouTube Gaming, but for me it is very much the case that I am there for that simple core interaction with a streamer while they are playing a game.
I remember dabbling in bots and alerts and running StreamLabs OBS because it sort of took care of everything for me. It was all new and exciting and fun to configure the first time, but after having seen it play out countless times on stream it all wears a little thin. I am significantly more engaged when I just see someone streaming a game and occasionally interacting with chat than I am when someone has a streamer theme package and a whole lot of doodads consuming screen real estate. I get in some ways many of these streams are trying to create a self perpetuating feedback cycle that keeps folks engaged in a constant loop, but for me… I find myself wanting off of that ride quickly.
Weirdly I used to stream quite a bit. In my head that seems like it was only a little bit ago that I did this thing but looking back… my prolific period was roughly seven years ago. Also looking back, the very last time that I went live with any game was roughly two years ago. I am not sure WHY I stopped streaming. I think on some level I just ended up stuck in a very turtle mode rut of not interacting with other human beings while gaming. That has more or less been the case for a few years now of me avoiding multiplayer content and absolutely avoiding anything resembling public exhibition while gaming. I do sorta miss the concept of sharing what I was doing with a very small group of people who tuned in to watch it. I’m a Twitch Affiliate, but then again so is everyone else given that those requirements are pretty low.
There are times that I flirt with the concept of going live again but always stop myself before actually doing it. More recently I have recorded a number of videos of me playing various games starting with Minecraft but more recently Valheim. Those have felt pretty good when I have recorded them, but it is also a very one-sided interaction. It feels safe to treat those much in the same way as I do this blog in that on some level I pretend that I am largely talking to myself and ignoring the fact that someone at some point is going to consume the thing I created. With streaming you don’t really have that luxury because you are effectively on air and live to the world, but then it feels bad if no one shows up to that broadcast to keep you company.
The funny thing about my prolific streaming period… is I guess I did not realize just how much I streamed. Essentially there are videos that were replicated over to YouTube of pretty much my entire play through of Elder Scrolls Online and the main story at launch. I think I added it up and just ESO alone it was some fifty hours of streaming. Included in these are a few gems that I have recently revisited of some of us experiencing dungeons for the very first time. This for example is Banished Cells with general group commentary streaming along with me. Watching these again is almost like seeing a version of me that I barely recognize. I was always grouped and always running group content and now I seem to avoid that like the freaking plague. I am not even certain how I used to put myself out there constantly like that.
While I have wildly veered off topic, it seems like my personal jam is just enough stuff on screen to explain what game you are playing and also maybe hide chat. Like ultimately that is why I started putting shit on the screen as an overlay in the first place. It wasn’t necessarily that I was trying to hide anything, but more that I was trying to protect the privacy of any folks that might be interacting with me over chat. Like there was once a time when I would log in to a bunch of messages from friends and I didn’t want any of those inadvertently broadcast. However my personal preference would always land on the side of just straight broadcasting my screen with some random voice over commentary.
I feel like I have lost a lot of the “Me” that existed a decade ago. Like I said before I barely recognize the person who was so prolifically streaming seven years ago. Truth be told I barely recognize the me that was hanging out and streaming World of Warcraft in lieu of recording AggroChat in the above video. I have become so filled with self doubt and anxiety that just talking to another human being in game is a chore that burns through all of my utensils for the day. The problem being that I am not sure how to get back to the person that I used to be. Things change and you don’t realize they are changing until you have gone so far down a path that you can barely see where you started. Today’s post is proof that I do not stage these topics ahead of time, because I started talking about one thing and then have veered wildly into another.
There is a part of me that sorta wants to go live again. Maybe in doing so it would force me to start dipping my toes into group play again. I doubt I would have anyone watch my nonsense, but just the act of sorta putting myself out there might start to batter down this barrier I have built up around me. I miss the person that I used to be and I am not sure yet how to get back there.
The post Machinery of Streaming appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Friends! I have been playing an excessive amount of Elder Scrolls Online and it appears that others have as well. This is pretty much a familiar site that goes away quickly, but it is still very much there almost every time I log into the game. To me that is the sign of a healthy interest in what is going on, which makes sense given that we just had a dungeon content drop and have a major expansion story drop in June. On top of that a number of my friends have been poking their head back into the game and House Stalwart ESO edition is once again relatively hopping with a blend of old timers and brand new folks as well. I am very pleased to see it once again turning into a melting pot of friends and friends of friends.
Over the weekend I finished up The Clockwork City and it was extremely enjoyable. Like from the moment I saw this content I knew that it would be my jam given how much I love the steampunk elements of the Elder Scrolls setting. What I was not expecting however is for there to be a longer term story being told through these expansions. Orsinium, Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood were largely independent story vignettes dealing with certain regions or factions of the world. Starting with Morrowind/Vvardenfell something different has started happening. Through the course of Vvardenfell, The Clockwork city and so far in Summerset we seem to be moving a larger narrative forward and I am very interested to see where it is going. Each expansion or story drop seems to be laying the groundwork for the next and we as the player know more about this conflict each time as we move the tale towards an eventual conclusion.
This makes me all the more happy about my dogged insistence on following the content release order. That is not to say that I am certain the game will weave together a narrative that makes sense if you start in another place in the broader tale, but I like to see the ground work spread out in front of me in the manner originally intended. For example I wish I had played Witcher 2 and read the novels before finally getting into Witcher 3 because the final experience would have been all the richer were I to better understand the source material. Similarly the best experiences with Mass Effect have been when I started over with the first game and played all the way through the series to completion. Each game works fine as a standalone but the experience is just more beneficial if you know all of the content that set up the ground rules.
One of the things that continues to impress me about The Elder Scrolls Online is just how well written their characters are. A number of them are effectively throw aways that you are likely only ever going to encounter in a specific region. However each of them is written in a way as they have an entire character arc, often times with rich development… over what is actually only a couple of paragraphs worth of dialog. It is an exercise in expressing the most emotional impact with the absolute minimal amount of words. It is just enough to make you as the player care about these sometimes companions that you have along with you in your journey. It is because of this ability that I am really looking forward to the companion system coming with Blackwood in June.
Summerset is lovely but it is having to grow on me quite a bit because it combines two things that I do not really love: Mages and Altmer. High Elves are my least favorite race in Tamriel and this is an expansion completely chock full of haughty elven nonsense. Combine that with a cloister of super secret mages that are also similarly full of themselves and you have a recipe for a sad Bel. That said now that I have gotten into it… there are definitely some interesting stories being told and I am far enough in to start watching the events playing out that are echoing what happened in Vvardenfell and Clockwork City. Once again… expert storytelling because they are making me care about things that I generally “nope the hell out” of on a regular basis.
With all of the beautiful and pastoral scenes there are also more than a few that are twisted and brutal. Like for example I got stuck in what I can only describe as a “meat dungeon” the other night and I had to snap a picture of it. I could almost smell the place. For now however I am wandering around Summerset and being the liberator of the Bosmer which are an elven people I can get behind. There are also returning characters like one of the best written in Elder Scrolls Online, Razum-dar. So in spite of my hesitations, this expansion is shaping up to be a damned good time as well. I sincerely doubt I will be close to caught up by the time June rolls around but I am going to keep plugging forward because if nothing else the champion levels are a nice addition.
The post A Cog in the Machine appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
This weekend I spent a significant chunk of time working on my bases in Valheim single player. On my original save game of Beltopia, I had been slowly migrating everything over to a new area where I had set up two buildings. One served as a sleeping quarters and portal room and the other a big crafting pavilion and storage. The above is a screenshot from this phase of development but ultimately this doesn’t really jive with my current sensibilities in game. As such I set forth to expand this into more of a vision of the type of base that I want to keep for the long run.
This is now what my base looks like while approaching from the ocean. From the outside it is a pretty nondescript wall with roofing along it and a portico that leads inside across a custom draw bridge. Essentially I have landed upon a style for my bases where I build a stone wall around the perimeter and then erect an inner sheltered area that contains all of the important bits of the base. Essentially my first step in this process was to dig a moat as far down as the game would let me and this ultimately would inform what the perimeter of my base would look like. The moat thing seems to be an ingenious way of protecting your base from raids and random monster encounters. While working on my plains farm for example I got raided by trolls and they could not figure out how to get into the base and eventually de-spawned without actually causing any damage.
So for reference this is a picture of the inner courtyard of my base. The building in the foreground is the same building in that very first picture. I’ve made some significant changes to the roofline, but structurally it is effectively the same. Instead of serving as a sort of inn with multiple beds, the top floor is now basically just my master bedroom. The ground floor is entirely dominated by portals to lots of different far off places that I found with my boat. One of which is the area where I set up my farm in the plains biome. What I did some time ago was craft a number of portals and named them after various norse gods, and then I keep a spreadsheet of what each connects to. That way when I go travelling I take portal materials with me and can craft my way back to the main spawn no matter how far I might stray.
The other building that still stands from my original structures is now the mead hall. There isn’t a whole lot of that original crafting pavilion left, but it did sort of inform the overall shape and structure of the building. While I don’t necessarily use this as a multiplayer map I did build additional beds into the attic of this building. I’ve recently started trying to switch everything over to using coal based braziers instead of torches because I personally find it way easier to renew the fuel source than to farm a copious number of Grey Dwarves for resin. What I want to do at some point is set up a Surtling farm in a swamp in the hopes of getting enough trophies to start adding those in as well for a permanent light source. There are few things more disheartening than logging in to a completely dark base and then trying to haphazardly fuel all of the light sources in the dark.
The base of course has a fully kitted out crafting area with a lot of specific dedicated storage. I wish had gone with this sort of scheme when I built my giant wall of chests in “Fort Belghast” on the multiplayer server. Honestly the hardest part was trying to come up with some generic taxonomy for the items that makes a reasonable amount of sense for storage purposes and easily finding whatever you might need. What I eventually landed on was this… which is by no means flawless but works for now.
Gear – storage for any spare armor or tools, most specifically things I have outgrown
Treasure – things that sell for gold at the vendor or things that are just more rare than others
Forage – tree saplings, feathers or other things largely picked up off the ground
Trophies – so many grey dwarf and deer heads
Metals – mostly finished ingots because I have another batch of chests by the smelters where I keep raw ore
Wood – some of each of the types of wood, but I have bulk wood storage elsewhere in the base for just mass amounts of plain wood
Flint and Stone – this is where I keep my flint, obsidian and stone but I have bulk stone storage as well elsewhere in the base
Cloth – I have a feeling that this category will expand over time but right now it is just my linen refined from my flax
Eyes – Yes I dedicated an area just to Grey Dwarf eyes because I end up with so freaking many
Bones – Skeleton bone fragments and wolf bones mostly but I end up with a lot of the former because of skeleton attacks
Leather – catch all for the various kinds of leather including troll hide and lox hide.
There are a few categories missing but those are actually located elsewhere in the base. For example in the Mead Hall I have two separate sets of dedicated storage with one representing anything I need to craft mead and the other any raw food for cooking. I also have storage there for finished potions/mead and cooked food. As I mentioned above I have separate storage over by the smelters for Coal and then some catch all boxes for ore that is waiting to be smelted up. Given how much time smelting takes I try my best to batch this up and then shorten the total time of smelting by sleeping.
Another tweak that I have learned over time is that I am now keeping my hives up on my roofline because it allows for them to have plenty of open space around them. You can access my roofline by the tower in the corner of my property which is cool but largely useless to actually use as a perch to fight much of anything from. For most fighting I do better just hanging out on my roofs and plinking things below with arrows.
The only things that are really missing from the main base, can be found in my outpost in the plains biome. One of the tricks of this game is that the two most valuable crops you can grow can only be grown in the Plains biome… aka Barley and Flax. As a result I have set up ALL of my farming efforts over in the Plains. I dug a similar moat around an area in a pretty safe region, not near any goblin camps and not really likely to get a lot of goblin roamers. It is right up against a mountain biome but not close enough to that to really get random wyverns or wolves either. Essentially this area exists solely for me to have a safe space to grow lots of crops. In the main courtyard I have smaller beds for each of the four crops: Flax, Barley, Carrots and Turnips.
Then beside that courtyard I have a larger farming area with just bulk crops or a place to also grow back seeds for carrots and turnips when my reserves are running a little low. I have crafting machines at this outpost, but really I am not expecting to do much here other than pop over and fiddle with crops and as such the overall footprint is much smaller. Largely I wanted to get my house in order given that I have so many bases in multiplayer but had started to lag behind in functionality of my solo bases. This way regardless of what might happen in the future with the server I plan on, I still have a stable base that I could keep playing if I want to.
Over the weekend I did a base walk through video, but at that point I was still actively working on the outpost in the plains and did not actually go there to show it off. It does however walk through all of the areas of the base that I showed off pictures above.
The post Fixing Up Beltopia appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
