Overwatch, Tweaking And Other Things

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch got off to a rough start with a couple of upstream signal issues that to completely disrupted everything. Still we had a fun time with some mixed results on the win and loss front. Big shout outs to PandaSweet, OWSpeed and TokiDoki for being apart of several matches over the course of the night. In terms of Plays of the Game, my weekly streak continued, picking up two as D.va. Other characters used included Reinhardt, Tracer, Ashe, Mei, Echo, Moira, & Symmetra.

On a side note I do feel I should've had a third play of the game when I was using Echo because I certainly had a very good moment using her. Oh well, at least in that match PandaSweet picked up the POTG!

As some saw, I was making changes to how my stream looks again, as the green screen settings are starting to drive me batty again. So we flipped back to the blue screen and I'm figuring out a few different things using Image Blend Masks to make things a little different.

Twitch Clips

• That's three!
• System On Fire! 
• What is that?! 
  

We didin't do a raid last night, instead we hosted Starofsyzygy who was starting just as I was about to hit 'End Stream', they were doing a chill stream over at twitch.tv/starofsyzygy!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Difficult Challenge COmbo #1, Intermediate Combo #1 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo for 34 minutes.

Finished the Spider-Man commission fic request yesterday afternoon, which turned out rather well, and I ended up getting another commission request, which takes me back to the WWE to feature something starring Xia Li. Managed to piece together an intro following the stream, so with luck I'll have it done in a couple of days

Watched another episode of Stargate SG-1 last night as well, titled 'The First Commandment' (Season 1, Episode 5). This episode sees the team going after a missing squad whose leader declared themself to be a 'god' for a planet of primitive beings. There is a cute explanation about why every planet has trees (that every planet was tera-formed), but this also is a work around regarding where a lot of exterior scenes were filmed (in and around Vancouver, British Columbia). This was another episode that had a plot that saw a factor in regard to Captain Carter, in that she was engaged to the episode's antagonist at one point in time.

I did try Climpchamp as an alternate way of making videos, and while it has some great features the fact it does not have a standard save to disk format makes it a pain in the ass to deal with.

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj. 

 For tonight's stream I'm not sure exactly what we'll be doing at the time I'm writing this but I shall be up to something.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

A Saturday Of Variety

Good afternoon everyone,

Well last night's stream opened up with Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball 2001 on the PlayStation, which ironically was released in 2000. Unlike Triple Play 98, released in 1997, SSHHBB01 has not aged well in terms of its presentation which was a shame considering how many awards and how highly regarded it was when it released. Thankfully it has a lot of options that allow for a casual experience, but its certainly not a sports game I would want to revisit unless I want to do a full season run of the 2000 MLB Season.

We also took at look at 007 Racing, also on the PlayStation, which was a game I was moderately okay at playing 20 years ago, but trying to relearn it while playing it with a 16:9 ratio instead of 4:3 which made things harder to see. We did managed to clear the prologue and saw that the cheats still work, so that's a positive. Forgot how bad the voice acting was when it came to folks doing a bad Pierce Bronson impression for many of the Bond games of the late 90s and early 00s. On a side note, the audio mix for 007 racing is fucking horrific when playing with headphones.

Next we hooked up the PlayStation 2 to mess around a bit with WWE SmackDown Shut Your Mouth. Released in late 20002, this game had a decent roster from the early part of that year. Funny enough, since I still had my memory cards and save files, that meant my created wrestlers were still there. Played several manages highlighting Hulk Hogan, Trish Stratus, William Regal and Stone Cold.

Lastly we jumped to the Xbox One to play some Fall Guys, and managed to win a few rounds in the limited run Sweet Thieves mode, which meant we were able to get a couple of achievements which was pretty cool and surprising.

Side note: We did have a couple minute issue with the upstream, but my internet connection did not go down fully.

During the stream viewers kicked in a few bits, and also RedFoxCovUK renewed their subscription for the channel! As always Thanks for the support you guys rock!

Fall Guys Achievements

• Top Tier: Win 7 Episodes
• One giant leap: Qualify from 100 rounds

Twitch Clips

• That doesn't look a thing like Sammy!
• Relax! 
• That should be a good spot for it 
• Back to Back!
  

For the raid we dropped in on Daemonsw0lf who was playing AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative over at twitch.tv/Daemonsw0lf!Dae did ask when I would play it, and my answer is simple, either when I'm gifted it or catch on sale for a reasonable price. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo #2, Difficult Challenge Combo #2 and Block Combo for 34 minutes. 

You know with how much I've been playing Dr. Mario as of late I really should do a stream based around the NES games that are available through the Nintendo Switch.

A new week is starting, so let's look back at all the things we played last week which included Overwatch, Star Trek Online, Capcom Fighting Collection, SMite, Persona 4 Arena, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Strikers, Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball 2001, 007 Racing, WWE SmackDown Shut Your Mouth and Fall Guys!  

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj. 

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Overwatch, so you know that's going to be screwy on all fronts.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Thoughts on The Sapporo Arc Of Persona 5 Strikers

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Persona 5 strikers had a few rough instances, and it really does seem like slight issues with network encoding, but the stream didn't go down fully, it just hanged for a bit. 

As for the game play, well we tackled a large chunk of the Master Arts stuff, getting Makoto, Sophie and Haru's completed, and have 3/4s of Morgana's progress done, so that will leave just Ryuji and Zenkichi to tackle. Good news is that we have plenty of jails / palaces left to make that more than doable.

Now as far as the Sapporo Jail itself goes, I rather liked the Snow Palace design for it, as it did result in some grad moments in terms of the dialog, and with it being a Haru focused part of the story that meann't a lot of enemies weak to psychic attacks (as well as Wind, Curse and Bless attacks). In many regards this was the equivilant of Futaba's story from Persona 5 Royal, giving Haru some much needed character growth because she was introduced so late in the prior game. I did find the big reveal of the Monarch's design to be one hell of surprise in terms of how it looked, as they really went all out for the 'Gluttony' aspect. 

I also enjoyed the big reveal of Zenkichi's daughter, who I already know is going to play a major part in the story, not just because of spoilers I've seen but based on the fact she's a huge fan of the Phantom Thieves and huge part of the time skip from Sapporo to Okinawa involves the gang hanging out with her.

On a side note: For the Ferris Wheel part, we took Makoto, which serves as a great follow up to the romance story featured during my Persona 5 Royal play through.

Persona 5 Strikers Trophies

• Fist of Justice: Obtained all Master Arts for Queen.
• Item Sweeper: Obtained a total 200 items from the Jails.
• Technological Marvel: Obtained all Master Arts for Sophie.
• Sophisticated Lady: Obtained all Master Arts for Noir.
• Cage of Gluttony Torched: Completed the Sapporo Jail.
• Best Friend: Maxed out a BOND skill level.

Twitch Clips

• Futaba Found Secret Medicine
• Morgana's Show Time! 
• Taking Down The Monarch of Sapporo
  

During the stream we got a huge raid from Hawleigh who was playing Afterparty over at twitch.tv/hawleigh!

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing Fortnite over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x!   

Work was surprisingly light yesterday, as bad programming down the assignment everyone was supposed to be on.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hip Shape Focus Combo, Straight Combo #2 and Intermediate Combo #2 for 28 minutes.

Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise Stats For July 3 to 9, 2022

• Punches Thrown: 8156
  
• Estimated Calories Burned: 3337.93 kcal
  
• Bernardo's Champion Progress: 76% (38/50 Hours)
  
• King EX Fighter Progress: 94%
  

My fantasy baseball team is actually having a good week considering how it looked like it would've been lucky to break even.  

I continue to mess around with Dr. Mario... I can normally get three stages in before things get too complex for me.

Got the intro portion done for the Commissioned Fic based on Miles Morales as Spider-Man I mentioned yesterday. Did require having to get a digital copy of a comic during a key moment in that character's history to try and get some proper context on a few things. Now I just need to write the meat of the story.

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj.

For tonight's stream I'm thinking of hooking up one of my older consoles to do some retro gaming. We'll see if I actually stick to that idea...

Anyway we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Final Fantasy DC Travel & Coils Of Bahamut

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV saw a couple of issues but I believe they were mostly on Twitch's end near as I can tell.

Beyond that it was a lot of fun as we were joined by both PandaSweet and Kalenal for some party team up fun, as Panda used the Data Center travel to visit. So you can expect that to be an almost regularly thing to see Panda not only on Sundays with Overwatch but also on FFXIV nights.

In terms of what was accomplished, well I mostly stuck to playing Bard with one brief moment of playing Blue Mage. We did a number of raids, trials and dungeons... and finally got the Coils of Bahamut story arc done, which not only gives Alisae all the character development she would have as it relates to the A Realm Reborn arc of the story, since she was mostly absent. The cut scenes were rather long, but we were running them de-synced to get through them quick.

Also started the new Hildebrand content, which actually sees us finding the Gentleman Inspector in the world of the first, so I'm really glad that isn't being skipped,. Love that there is some great choices on how things could play out.

Twitch Clips

•  How did that happen?
•  Perform the Manderville Mambo... Okay!!!
•  Slaying The Big Cheese
  

For the raid we dropped in on Oldish22 who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/oldish22!  

Got another commission story request this time based around Marvel's Spider-Man, in particular the character of Miles Morales. Going have to do some research to see how I want to portray him.

Work was rather interesting, and I can safely say that anyone in the stage of Michigan who is supporting John Gibbs to become a congressman is fucking idiot and a danger to the United States of America.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Advanced Combo #1, Sway Back Combo and Beginner Combo #2 for 34 minutes.

Took advantage of an Xbox games sale to add Catherine, Asura's Wrath and the Contra Anniversary Collection. Catherine is published by Atlus, the same folks behind the Persona games, so that could be interesting. Asura's Wrath was published by Capcom and was notorious for having some key story elements as DLC, and I made sure to pick those up as well. The Contra Anniversary collection is of course a celebration of the Contra series that was big in Arcades and the NES back in the 80s. 

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj.

For tonight's stream we're back to Persona 5 Strikers, as we'll be starting the 3rd story arc investigation. We might take out time to try and do some level grinding and knock out combat achievements for the remaining Phantom Thieves.

So on that not we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Actual Plot Advancement In Fallout 76

Good morning everyone 

Last night's stream of Fallout 76 had one instance of a degraded signal, but things worked out overall.

As for the game play of Fallout 76, I got a good amount of stuff done in terms of advancing a few stories, in particular I got the initial meeting with the Raiders quest line done, which involved making some Nuka-Cola.I'm slowly chipping away at all the quests I've found over the past several months of playing this game on Wednesdays.

Big thanks to Iceman for being apart of the fun, we actually tackled the the Mothman Equinox event which was pretty interesting in terms of how it was laid out. Granted we had an easy time with that because we did it in Iceman's custom world, so unlimited ammo and near invincibility help a lot.!

Also, we had 300 bits from the chat and for the resub from Mech3003 for the resub. The continued support is always appreciated.

I did get a question in my Twitch DMs about 'verified chats', for those wondering, yes my Twitch chat requires everyone to have their accounts verified either by email or phone. This is to protect the chat and to prevent trouble makers from causing problems. Full details on that can be found over at: https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/chat-verification-settings?language=en_US

Twitch Clips

• Dude....
• It's A Big Glowy One! 
• The Horde Come To The Elevator!
  

For the raid we dropped in on a recommendation from Iceman, as we visited sannafierce who was playing Mass Effect: Legendary Edition over at twitch.tv/sannafierce! 

Finished the commissioned fic based on characters from Halo: Reach, since yesterday ended up being a non-work day because the person running the shift had their flight cancelled. I'm not kidding. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 workout featured Uppercut Combo #1, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Hook Combo #1 for 31 minutes. 

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj.  

Following the stream PandaSweet and I tested out the Data Center Travel, and boy finding the menu for it was not as obvious as one would think. We did a number of raids and stuff to see how everything would go and it was a pretty awesome experience.

Which of course leads to tonight's stream, the plan is Final Fantasy XIV with probably a focus on questing and maybe some raids and trials if the Date Center visits work.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

In P4A: Kanji has the better story, Chie is the better fighter

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Persona 4 Arena was without incident, not a single instance of dropped frames, so we're on a nice streak of no problems caused by Xfinity.

Anyway as for the game play of Persona 4 Arena, we covered two full story arcs with Kanji and Chie, and first off both had joke endings that were cute in their own way, but the the tone of things Kanji and Chie could not have been more different. With Kanji, here was a character who clearly was going through issues in figuring himself out, and who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I did appreciate how subtle... and then not so subtle... the subtext was as it pertains to how he tries not to cause issues, but people just expect some sort of trouble from him. Since I've not played Persona 4, I kind of feel like we got a lot of character building for Kanji that may not have been in the original game.

Now with Chie... they just go all in on her loving to eat meat, with her joke ending being her basically getting to a fight over a steak bowl, and the fallout related to that. It made for a nice running gag whenever it was brought up, but at the same time it result in some questionable dialog. That said, I don't feel I got to have much of an idea of who Chie is as a character based on her story arc, sure she wants to be a cop and she dives head first into things, but she came across a little flat.

That said, I did enjoy playing as Chie more than Kanji, as Chie has some natural combos that build meter quickly, while Kanji just seems like your standard big slow moving brute in comparison.

Speaking of which, lets talk about Aigis, we tackled her arcade tower, and one of the things I was going for was her instant-death move... which involved having to jump into the air, tap down down down then press Y+B. I've always hated mid-air supers as the timing for them just never feels natural for me to input the commands quickly enough. We did manage to perform it four times, but it only connected once because it can be easily avoided..

Staying on the subject of Persona, we've added the digital versions of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax and the Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection which includes Persona 3: Dancing in the Moonlight, Persona 4: Dancing All Night and Persona 5: Dancing in the Starlight. Safe to say the Persona franchise is going to remain a constant on my channel for a good long while. At some point, I'll see about adding physical copies of these titles to my collection. Now why would I add P4AU to the list? Because the story of Persona 4 Arena is clearly the first half of the story, so the Ultimax half will be needed to see how things turn out.

Persona 4: Arena Achievements

• The Emperor: Kanji's Story chapter has been told.
• The Carnivore: Chie's Story chapter has been told.
• All-Out Attack to the MAX!: You finished an All-Out Attack with a Fatal Counter in Arcade Mode or online.

Twitch Clips

• Kanji's Instant Death Move
• Chie Instant Kill For THe Win 
• Aigis Open Fire! Instant Death Move! 
  

We did not do a raid last night, instead we just hosted Maximilian_Dood who was featuring DNF Duel over on twitch.tv/maximilian_dood! 

Final Fantasy XIV has finally enabled Data Center Travel which means we'll be able to play with friends on other Data Centers. PandaSweet said she's already planning to come visit during Thursday's stream!. I did play a little FF14 last night, going into the recently added Alpha & Omega quests that sees Omega having a crisis which was kind of cute.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Triple Combo #1, Weaving Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1 for 28 minutes. Today marked 730 days /2 years of consecutive daily workouts counting the original Fitness Boxing.

Fitness Boxing & Fitness Boxing 2 Combined Stats From July 7 2020 to July 6, 2022

• Consecutive Days: 730 (572 For Fitness Boxing 2)
• Total Punches Thrown: 1,013,597 (810,656 for Fitness Boxing 2)
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 441,008.50 Kcal (340,233.50 for Fitness Boxing 2)
• Total Exercise Time: 475 Hours 59 Minutes (358 Hours 07 Minutes for Fitness Boxing 2)
• Current Weight: 250 lbs
  

Messed around a little with Dr. Mario for the NES... for no real reason just to check it out.

Picked up another fan fic commission request for something based in the Halo universe involve the entire Noble squad. Not a fan of involving a half dozen characters, but I have my ways of trying to keep things with reason. 

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj.  

For tonight's stream, Fallout 76 will be featured, as I'll work on trying to advance some of the various stories we've started by our random roaming. We'll more than likely also be joined by Iceman as well.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Trek, Fights and Smite

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream did not have one instances of a complete break in the action, which was good considering all three games we played involved online play!

First up was Star Trek Online, which we featured mostly for the Risa Summer event, so that meant we got to put on the swimsuit attire and do things like hover boarding, sand castle building, dance-off, and other activities. Since it is a limited-time event, it seemed like a good excuse to show-case it on a night where I didn't want to start up anything or continue things that are already in progress.

Second up, we did in deed play ranked matches using the Capcom Fighting Collection. I was pleasantly pleased with how there was little latency, as the roll-back netcode certainly worked. Now I did lose a lot more than I won, but I did manage to stay fairly competitive with only a few instances of being blown out. Some of the came played against other players were Super Puzzle Fighter II, Gem Fighter, Hyper Street Fighter II and Darkstalkers.

Lastly, we loaded up Smite to close out the night, playing five arena matches using Athena, Ganesha, Nu Wa, Cupid to knock out a lot of the weekly quests. I played as Nu Wa twice as I finally got her second character related achievement called Clay Explosion, which involved some good timing and luck to execute. We were joined by LvStkr for several matches, which was awesome.

SMITE Achievements

• Clay Explosion: As Nu Wa deliver the killing blow by exploding Clay soldiers with Shining Metal.

Twitch Clips

• Dance-Off on Risa
• We messed up again at the exact same part! 
  
• We got crowd control!
• Dropped him on his head! 
• Winning out right!
• Caught him! 
• Finish them off that's two for me and none for you!
• Perfect Ending! 
• Achievement: Clay Explosion!
  

Big thanks to Kalenal for the huge raid as they were playing Tunic over at twitch.tv/kalenal! Kalenal mentioned they reached the final boss, but it has multiple forms that they were not expecting, so keep an eye out for when they next play Tunic, because they might be finishing it!

Following my stream, we dropped in on Lunar_Princess who was playing Grandia HD Remaster over at twitch.tv/lunar_princess! It's been a while since I've seen them streaming, so it was real awesome to see them being all bananas about things.

Watched the Stargate SG-1 Episode 'The Broaca Divide' (Season 1, Episode 4) last night after the stream, where the team brings back a virus that starts to de-evolve everyone because of low levels of histamine. I could draw some parallels between this episode and the Star Trek Episode 'The Deadly Years', which kind of has a similar set up with the whole a virus causes a drastic transformation, but it's a pretty common trope to see through out a lot of Science-Fiction shows. Couple of things that stand out about the episode is how hot as hell Amanda Tapping is when an infected Carter goes after O'Neil, plus this was also an episode that introduced Janet Frasier as the lead medical doctor on the show in a reoccurring role for the remainder of the series.Also enjoyed how Teal'c got some stuff to do on his own, and his 'I am not Lucy' exchange with O'Neil is cute bite of comedy.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Hook Combo, Double Combo #2 and Weaving Combo #1 for 31 minutes

According a notice on my job's announcement feet, my holiday weekend is extended through today, well I knew about this on Friday. Still I want to at least make sure my schedule for next week is locked in.

Yes, I am disgusted that there was yet another Mass Shooting yesterday, this time during a parade. I really want to punch Ted Cruz in the mouth because it's because of people like him that allow these things to happen by not restricting the sale of weapons that should not be sold to the general public. To add to this point, at exactly 12:30 AM last night I heard gun fire... and I know it was gun fire because fire crackers and similar type items sound different

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj.  

For tonight's stream, we're getting back to Persona 4 Arena, as the plan is to knock out two more story mode arcs, and clear another arcade run.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!