Overwatch 2 and other notes

Tonight we were joined by both PandaSweet and McCowboy for a trio squad for the majorty of the night, and we got off to a hot start winning about 5 matches in a row. Picked up a few plays of the game as Junker Queen, Orissa and Bastion this evening as well..

We did have the misfortune to run into hackers and people choosing not to play their assigned roles. I mean why throw a match when you're playing as support when you queue up for all queues? I will never understand.

Overwatch 2 will return next Sunday

Tomorrow night we're back to Persona 4 Golden as we hope to knock out all the days to get us to December 20 in order to set up going after quest items, getting the funds to do fusions and set up going after Adachi.

For the raid we dropped in on samaell_alwahm who was playing Wuthering Waves and Genshin Impact 

The yard work project kicked my ass but thanks to my brother we did everything possible so unless the city is wanting me to deal with my neighbors shit I have no clue what more can be done.

Didn't do any writhing today because of hte yard work and too tired to even think about doing some before bed

Persona 4 Golden and other notes

We got a lot done tonight in Persona 4 Golden as we started early (at around 8 PM) due to Memorial Day holiday, as the Investigation team has met Rise, Adachi still isn't a suspect yet, but Dojima is starting to get suspicious about our heroes.

We're about level 50, so we're certainly over leveling, this is thanks in large parts to how I explore everything, and we were grinding for specific items to fulfill side quests. The Compendium is already over 40% complete

So when we play Persona 4 Golden tomorrow, we'll be working our way through the 3rd Dungeon to rescue Rise, which probably opens up Teddy to be included in the party since he will no longer be the navigator. 

Thank you to samaell_alwahm for the raid following their stream of Genshin Impact

For the raid we dropped in on PradoxGamerAU who was playing Persona 4 Golden

No work today because of the Memorial day holiday

Finished the WWE story at about 2 AM last night, and the next story on the docket is Teen Titans related, which I already started writing.

This week's episode of the Daria reactions is recorded and will premier on Wednesday morning

Persona 4 Golden Achievements

• The Nose Doesn't Always Know: Experience a fusion accident

Persona 4 Golden and other notes

Our stream of Persona 4 Golden tonight saw us cover from around late May to June 21st, so a lot of progression of Social Links (nearly have Yosuke's completed) and seeing the first instance of Yukiko and Chie nearly killing people with their cooking. Adachi surprisingly comes across as way more charming than I would have assumed as well.

That said, I'm loving Kanji's character and seeing him early on, a lot of his quirks provide some great moments, but at the same time he exposes the flaws in Yosuke's character. In fact some things that happen are because of Yosuke provking Kanji.

That said, the 'campout' scene with Yukiko and Chie rooming with Yu and Yosuke is certainly fic worthy, right up there with basically the entire premise of Persona 5 Strikers and the camper-van.

Anyway Persona 4 Golden will return on Monday as we officially begin the Rise arc!

For the raid we visited samaell_alwahm who was doing an Art stream and also featuring Genshin Impact

Loaded up Just Dance 2020, and I certainly felt my weight when doing some dancing... also, trying to do those dances proves I have no rhythm.

Finished the WWE related story commission and the next one... is also WWE related and is already in progress

Fell down the well of the Pedro Racoon and RPG dance shorts on YouTube

Saw Becky Lynch's attire for the WWE PLE today, and damn that was incredible looking!

Borderlands 2 and other notes

Tonight's stream of Borderlands 2 was a mix of getting things done and over leveling myself for the original story content... as well as seeing the problem with playing with others in it. The big issue is a lot of people want to speed through things while I want to take my time... which was certainly the case in regards to some buried  treasure.

We did finish the Captain Scarlet and her Pirate's Booty story, so we can now either focus on the next DLC content or go back to the main story of Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 returns on Monday

Our next stream on Friday night will feature Ghost of Tsushima

For the raid we dropped in samaell_alwahm who was playing Genshin Impact

Work was bleh... felt barely productive and incredibly long

Finished the WWE story commission so next on my agenda is a My Hero Academia related one.  

I really hate it when people leave my gate open when they come to my front door trying to get me to go their church.

The Xbox 360 store is shutting down soon... a shame many developers never bothered to make many of their games backwards compatible

Borderlands 2 Achievements

• Cute Loot: Killed a Chubby
• Treasure Hunter: Completed the mission "X Marks the Spot"

Ghost of Tsushima and other notes

Tonight's stream of Ghost of Tsushima saw more side adventures with a bit of story advancement. Fell off a cliff a few times, but ended up getting on armor that required liberating six farms. Still have to learn one more technique to complete a series of side objectives. Also learned the locations of two duels that will lead lead to a major combat move.

I figure next week I'll work on covering the west side of the map, making sure we don't miss anything along the way.

Tomorrow night we're playing Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League with the goal of teaming with randoms.

For the raid we dropped in on samaell_alwahm who was playing Genshin Impact.

We had work this evening, it was not quite as super hot as the last two nights, but we hit the target I was looking for at least

There was apparently an Earthequake today at 10:30 AM here in New Jersey... I didn't feel it, but my cousin who lives in Philadelphia says they felt it.

Finished the WWE commission fic and now have started work on my first commission that involves My Hero Academia

Grabbed a steak sandwich from Donkey's Place today... it was quite delicious!

Ghost of Tsushima (PS4) Trophies

• Monochrome Masters: Purchase an item from the Black and White Dye Merchants.
• Know Your Enemy: Collect 20 Mongol artifacts.
• Good Riddance: Liberate 8 occupied areas in Toyotama.

Ghost of Tsushima and other notes

Tonight's stream of Ghost of Tsushuma saw a huge focus on exploration and trying to find areas I've been, only for things to become available after I finished the first act. Still we advanced the story, rescued Jin's uncle, fell off some high spots and had a good time overall.

Ghost of Tsushima will return on next Friday's stream with the focus on liberating the final six spots in the first area of the map

Tomorrow's stream with feature Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League, with probably as huge focus on level grinding, as we do have to get every character to level 30.

For the raid we dropped in on samaell_alwahm who was playing Genshin Impact

Work was surprisingly good, even if our system was rather Jekyll and Hyde which drove me nuts

Managed to get my hands on a complete set of the 1992 Impel/Skyboy DC Cosmic Cards, I had a bunch of the cards as a kid, so managing to get the whole set was pretty cool. Also realize and learned DC couldn't include Batman in the set because of the license agreement they had with Topps for the cards based on the Batman '89 and Batman Returns

Finished the NFL related s tory commission today, though it did take longer than expected to write

Next story on my commission docket is also NFL related but with a loose wrestling connection because people want to torture me

Ghost of Tsushima (PS4) Trophies

• Family Reunion: Free Lord Shimura from the Khan's clutches.

Sea of Thieves, Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed and other notes

Tonight's stream opened with my not realizing that I didn't start the stream, so some of the early stuff with me and Iceman was cut out. But we got a fair amount of loot found, and picked up a few achievements.

Also played Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed and I elected to move up a rank after hitting level 100, so now I get to do the grind all over again, just without n

Thursday night's stream will feature Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

For the raid we dropped in on smoresdafloof who was playing Genshin Impact

Work was solid today, not as much of a slog as yesterday.

Picked up a big steak sandwich and a pot luck shirt from Donkey's Place, so now I have three of those.  

Finished the Star Wars commission, and am now waiting for payment for that story.

Next commission is NFL related, and I get to mock the Detroit Lions a little, heh.

Tracked down the Game Guide for Dragon Age Origins, so almost guaranteed we'll play that on stream again at some point.

Sea of Thieves Achievements

• Colourful Sails: You purchased a new ship customisation from the Shipwright.
• A Wild Excursion: You paid a visit to the imposing Dagger Tooth Outpost.
• Be In-Spired: You paid a visit to the unforgettable Ancient Spire Outpost.

 

Abzu is the 60th we finished this year

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream opened with Abzu, a game that is more of an experience because of how gorgeous it is and how incredible the musical score is. I did try to find everything for a 'possible' 100% completion run, but some areas are just too difficult to see where some things are  Still, it does give me an excuse to play it again on stream to try and get the other achievements.

I hope to have the highlight reel featuring all 60 games we finished for this years tour ready by New Years Eve

We did play Smite, and there were two quests that tied into one another, play as a Warrior and play as a Chinese God... so with that I ended up playing as Mulan for the first time, picking up one of her two achievements and coming painfully close in picking up the other, which involved leveling up her weapons. She kind of feels like a less dive heavy version of Nike.

We loaded up Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 to try and get an S-Rank achievement... never got hire than an A-Rank. There has to be a trick to it.

Lastly we closed out with SoulCalibur II HD Online, and I totally forgot that earlier in the year I was messing around with it to try and get several achievements done. Was surprised to pick up one achievement for defeating 50 male warriors. Did do an arcade run as Heihachi, and I have to giggle at his ending basically coming across as it was all a dream.

ABZÛ Achievements

• Breach: Leap from the water.
• Jetstream: Burst 15 fish schools in the jetstream.
• Food Chain: Witness predation while meditating.
• Ballet: Perform a flip while riding a creature.
• Connection: Ride the Great White Shark.
• Leviathan: Breach the water on the back of a blue whale.
• Reflection: Complete the adventure.

SMITE Achievements

• Two For One: Unlock the SMITE Award "Two For One."

SoulCalibur II HD Online Achievements

• Exemplary Fortitude: Defeated 50 Male Characters

Stream Clips

• Achievement: Leviathan
• Achievement: Two For One 
• WakkaWakkaWakka 
• Is that all you got
  

By the way, here is the full list of every game we finished this year.

01/07 - Pokemon Shining Pearl
01/17 - Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise
01/20 - Life of Fly
01/24 - Battletoads
01/25 - Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
01/26 - Gears 5
01/29 - Disney-Pixar Brave
02/08 - Life is Strange: Remastered
02/13 - Life is Strange - Before the Storm: Remastered
02/15 - Kingdom Hearts III
02/19 - Life of Fly 2
02/22 - Tell Me Why
02/26 - Mortal Kombat IX
02/28 - Light Fairytale Episode 1
03/01 - Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold
03/01 - Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper
03/01 - Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix
03/07 - What Remains Of Edith Finch
03/09 - WWF SmackDown 2: Know Your Role
03/12 - Teen Titans
03/14 - Sonic Generations
03/15 - P.O.W. Prisoners of War
03/15 - Beast Busters
03/16 - Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon
03/21 - Contrast
03/23 - Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
04/02 - Apocalypse
04/19 - Mass Effect 2
04/23 - Dragon Ball Z: Budokai
05/17 - Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition
05/22 - Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes EX Edition
05/30 - Lego Batman: The Video Game
06/02 - Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Xbox 360 Version)
06/11- Capcom Fighting Evolution
06/18 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge
06/21 - Persona 5 Royal
07/11 - Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins
07/18 - Persona 4: Arena
07/23 - Tekken Tag Tournament 2
07/25 - Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
07/30 - Persona 5: Strikers
08/06 - Stray
08/12 - My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure
08/22 - Mass Effect 3
09/02 - Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r]
09/05 - LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
09/12 - Murdered: Soul Suspect
09/16 - The Quarry
09/20 - Tekken 7
10/03 - Overwatch
10/10 - The Last of Us Remastered
10/14 - Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight
10/28 - Until Dawn
11/18 - Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight
11/21- Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova
11/22 - Dragon Ball FighterZ
11/23 - Fallout 76
12/09 - Persona 4: Dancing All Night
12/13 - Games of Thrones: A Telltale Series
12/20 - Abzu

For the raid we dropped in on FelKimchi as they were playing Genshin Impact over on twitch.tv/felkimchi! 

Found out that mom will probably start getting radiation treatments on my birthday, and the major areas of concern are in her hip and right shoulder. If anyone wants to help with my mom's medical expenses, you can donate to her gofundme at https://gofund.me/6adf8354

The streak of Mass Effect shorty commissions request is now up to four, and I should have guessed that there was a possibility of including Matriarch Benezia. Will have to ponder how to make that work.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Sway Back Combo, Hip Shape Focus Combo and Intermediate Combo #2

What's the best way to carve wood? Whittle by whittle.

Song of the Day: Rocket Man (I think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time) by Elton John

For tonight's stream, the plan is to play Fall Guys and Fallout 76, so silliness and action is expected. 

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

I Swear The Stream Was 90% Cut Scenes!

Good morning everyone,

One thing I 'love' about my job is when parameters change for a project and I'm not told until after I see the changes for myself and then question it. That said I did get the USB headset that will be needed at the end of the month... and for those wondering why don't I just use my streaming headset and microphone for work... it's because last time I did, it fucked up a lot of settings.

Anyway last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV certainly was cut scene heavy as we did every single quest in the 5.4 content that is titled Futures Rewritten. Now I fully understand that a good part of it was to see the Scions getting back into the swing of things, but damn it, there was so many cut scenes, both voice and text only it wasn't even funny. This does raise a question when it comes to new players to FFXIV, remember I only started playing it in October of last year, but let me point out that there are some very large stretches where there are very large stretches at times where it's just cut scenes of some variation. 

Believe me I understand as to why, that the creative team behind FFXIV puts a lot of thought and care into every little thing they do, however because the NPC dialog boxes tend to be on the small side, it does make reading it a pain the in the ass as I end up looking at the bottom 1/5 of the screen and thus end up missing some animation that is happening with the character models.

Still we did see some closure as it relates the Ga Bu being brought back to his senses thanks to things Alisaie learned in the World of the First, which leads to major progression overall for the nation of Limsa Lominsa. Then there was even more set up for Endwalker with towers appearing every where, and the threat that the latest Ascian wants to die and take the entire world down with him.

Beyond that, I did unlock the Sage and Dancer classes during the stream, and stumbled across a level 60 dungeon that some how I missed, so nice progress in that regard. Because of what's next with the the 5.5 and 5.6 content for FFXIV being on the shorter side, I might knock those out off-stream, or at the very least one of them,s so we're nearly caught up story wise to every one else!

Big thanks to the Hawleigh for the raid! Last night they were playing Horizon Zero Dawn over at twitch.tv/hawleigh! 

For the raid, we dropped in on ChunTaiLi who was playing Genshin Impact over at twitch.tv/chuntaili! 

Twitch Clip Links

1. A Moment With The Bunny 
2. Put The Piggy Down... NOW! 
3. He was once a man... then he took a bullet to the knee 
4. Successful defense of Alisaie 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Beginner Combo #1, Front-Back Step Combo and Hook Combo #2 for a duration of 28 minutes with a calorie burn of about 439 kcal

As you may have noticed, I switched using the bullet points and the numbered list, I think it looks better by having the numbers with the clips, just to give an indication they are listed in the order they happened.

Messed around with the Capcom Arcade Stadium last night... forgot how boring Warriors of Fate gets in its later stages with the over use of some enemy types.

Picked up a Ghostbusters logo t-shirt, because come on, as a Ghosthead it's just weird not having one! 

Am happy to say between the last two commissioned stories I wrote and the timely nature of my birthday being in late December and earning enough through subs and bits to break the threshold, I'm able to stay ahead of some obligations. Thanks everyone

For tonight's stream we'll be resuming Kingdom Hearts III, and it'll be a mostly casual playthrough!

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

Reflections on Crystal Reflections

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV certainly was Main Story heavy...and that wasn't my intention, it actually was to handle the Eden side-story... but it turns out that would have been among the first stuff in the game I've seen that was effect by COVID, as its clear some stuff was cut and shuffled around.

So my attention turned to doing the Main Story Quest on stream, which meant a lot of cut scenes with voiced and non-voiced dialog, general running around from place to place. The good news is that outside of the abrupt '...and then the Scions went home' line of dialog in the epilogue of Hope's Confluence, everything was pretty smooth.

Granted, the action was rather light, but the pay off was epic in terms of Elidibus committing his last acts of a desperation, even when the truth was right in front of him that he had no fight left to fight, that he lost a long time ago. The trial, titled Seat of Sacrifice, was certainly epic, and had a nice pay off with Emet-Selch helping out certainly had me asking questions (and thankfully Kalenal was able to answer them.)

So now my attention if Final Fantasy XIV turns towards finishing the 5.3 content off-stream as well as getting back to the Eden side-story, as clearly there is a lot more to happen with that than meets the eye.

For the raid, we sent the fun over to Wolfeey_ who we found on Hover, they were playing Genshin Impact. Their twitch channel is over at twitch.tv/wolfeey_!

Twitch Clip Links

• Well we got him!
• Timely Resurrection To Get The Last Hits In 
• When the Limit Break doesn't finish the boss...
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout had me doing Intermediate Combo #2, Weaving Combo #1 and Advanced Combo #1 for 31 minutes resulting in an estimated calorie burn of 486 kcal.

Knocked out two what I deemed 'do-able' achievements for Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, the remaining achievements involve dealing with the tutorial, and character combo and combat commands, both 'cliffhanger' achievements, and playing 100 online matches. The last one would be 'do-able', but people have a habit of not accepting matches when one becomes available to them. This also continued my current streak of having 34 days with at least one X-Box achievement unlocked with a total of 236

Dead or Alive 5 Last Round Achievements

1. The Power of Two: Do 10 different character-specific tag throws.
2. Training Hard: Play Free Training mode for 1 hour.
   

Also, knocked out two more achievements Microsoft Solitaire Collection, and if I was smart I would have held off on doing these to help extend the daily streak... oh well.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection (UWP) Achievements

1. Expedition Leader: Took 14 cards off the board in a row without using the stock in TriPeaks
2. Dig, Dig, Dig!: Won a three-board game of Pyramid on Hard difficulty or higher 
   

For tonight's stream, we are focused on level grinding in Pokemon Shining Pearl, to build up my squad to deal with the Elite Four and the Champion Cynthia. Way I figure, I need to get the entire team up into the upper 70s to low 80s to deal with that gauntlet, which is a hell of a lot higher than what I needed to finish off Pokemon Shield and Pokemon Let's Go Eevee!

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

For Mario Golf Is A Full Contact Sport

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream feature Mario Golf Super Rush for the Nintendo Switch, making it both the first Mario Golf franchise related game as well as the first golf game in general I have ever played. So this was a learning experience in terms of learning how to play the game and figuring out what is the best approach to smacking a small white ball hundreds of yards into a small hole.

Thankfully, Mario Golf Super Rush is a pick up and play game, it keeps everything simple, so even if you have no clue what you're doing, it's possible to have fun. That said, the limited number of course available for general play is disappointing as you have to go through the 'Adventure Mode' to unlock the other course. Yes, this game has an 'adventure mode' which seems like its an extended tutorial from what I saw, but hell, there was enough people playing online to where I could see some other course.

Yes, Mario Golf Super Rush has an online mode, and boy is it a lot fun, you don't have to take turns, as it can be set for everyone to take their shots at once in a regular game, so no waiting, and the connectivity is pretty solid in my opinion. Playing the Battle Golf mode online with other people is certainly chaotic fun as you have to try to figure out what would be the best way to win and being able to adapt on the fly to different factors like ice and bombs coming your way.

I did enjoy the look of all the character models , and those who have some actual voice lines certainly sound clear (Daisy, Pauline). I am a little disappointed at the size of the roster of characters, because one has to figure that some characters that were in Mario Kart would be in this, say for example Link from the Legend of Zelda, but I guess keeping it only focused on the Mario characters makes sense to some degree.

All that said, if I knew folks who had Mario Golf Super Rush I believe it would make for a great community game night feature, since up to four players could play at once. Maybe some day that may happen, who knows.

After the stream we sent my audience over to TheLadyPhoenix (Twitch.tv/TheLadyPhoenix) who was playing Genshin Impact. Now there is a game a lot of folks said I should play 

Twitch Clip Links

• Chip In For The Eagle!
• It was a Long Bomb For A Birdie 
• A Birdie For Daisy!
• Winning at Battle Golf!
  

Going to be more selective (if possible) with the Twitch Clip Links list, but trying to narrow things down to a short list is often impossible when I feel I had a lot of great moments!

Since working is picking up a little bit, the assignment I was working on today concerned a Major League Baseball team and their quest to figure out where they are going to play in a few years, would they remain where they have always been, or will they start having to look for a new home elsewhere. It's going to be an real interesting to see if this results in the major leagues having another realignment to balance things out.

You may have noticed the list of 'tags' for this blog has decreased some, that's because I went through many posts to combine various subjects into one, such as all Saints Row related posts are filed under Saints Row instead for each individual game, It's a way to help me keep my sanity. 

Overwatch Competitive Season 30

1. D.va - Blizzard World - 16:04 - Loss - 2-3
2. D.va - Hollywood - 15:33 - Win - 3-1
3. D.va - Volskaya Industries - Win - 13:02 - 2-1
4. D.va - Busan - 7:28 - Win - 2-0
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 448 kcal. The exercise line up for today featured Waist Shape Focus Combo, Hook Combo #1 and Black Combo. Achievement Progress update, we're up to 19 out of 30 hours for the Hiro's Contender achievement, day 273 out o 300 for Ten Month's Hard Work and Transcendent Stamper,

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Life is Strange: True Colors! We'll get started around 6:30 PM Eastern since I will be working this afternoon!

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