Just your weekly night of Final Fantasy XIV

Good morning everyone, 

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV saw the new raid being featured... and boy doing it on stream was a hell of experience of whatever could go wrong did go wrong. I'm still not fan of the first two boss fights of it, granted I only have done it once before. Now we did do some focus on the PVP side of it, as the Crystalline Conflict is a lot of fun, and I've managed to be apart of a couple of win. Best part about it is that the matches are fast paced and last only a few minutes.

Now of course we did dedicate some time to Fishing and Botany as well, gaining a couple of levels in both, as well as knocking out a job quest for both. I might not do the next job quest for Fishing on stream as it apparently involves spear fishing which might take awhile to accomplish from what I understand. We also did the World of Darkness Alliance Raid as well. So I've been seeing that one a lot lately which is fine.

Twitch Clip Links

• That's my plan try and follow the other people.... 
• Well that is perfect timing! That is just perfect!
• That's two for me none for you! 
  

For the raid last night, we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x  as he was playing Gears of War 2 with FnDanteSavage!  

Work has been surprisingly consistent this week, which is always nice... even if the assignment is for a less than quality client.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2. We might go back to ramping it up a little more next week with the exercises.

When I get around to playing the Assassin's Creed games, I can safely say that I won't have to worry about any online multiplayer achievements as UbiSoft shut down the servers that supported the mode in several games from the Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 era.

Saw the latest excuse Sony is using for no proper emulation of games from the PlayStation to PlayStation 3 era on modern systems, and it all goes back to the shitty way the PlayStation 3 was designed. They basically over thought that system, and every game on it needs a full remaster to convert it to more modern systems. This is why when I got back into Console gaming in 2020, I went with the Xbox One S and Nintendo Switch. Hell if it wasn't for the fact there were some exclusives tied to the PlayStation 4 like God of War and Persona 5 Royal, I would have held of on tracking that system down.

By the way, the Amazon and Xsplit ads you see are authorize by me to be on this blog, as I'm an affiliate with both  So 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! But 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 Royal and the aftermath of Futaba's Palace after the epic stream we did last week. Looking forward to seeing what happens next in the story!

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

Today's Notes 4/20/21

 Good morning everyone,

I am still surprised that I did not write yesterday's entry until after last night's stream, which just boggles my mind, because normally I would write it right after my daily Fitness Boxing 2 sessions and before I have lunch. It's just weird.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 30 minutes, pretty direct and to the point in terms of objectives. We're at 85 points of the 100 needed to complete Sophie's Best Friend achievement, and if things hold to form, I should have that done by Saturday or Sunday's session.

Anyway, as I mentioned in last night's post, Sony has announced they are reversing their decision on closing the online stores for the PS3 and Vita, and let's be honest here, Sony was entering a world of shit with how suddenly they announced they were closing those store fronts down last month, because it proved one thing was true, that Sony, in particular an idiot named Jim Ryan, who is the President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment, is anti-consumer and would rather forget and erase history. One of the stupidest things they have said was 'Why would anyone want to play old games?'. 

Here's a reason: not everyone had the opportunity to play some classic and legendary games when they were new! And if people didn't want to play old games, why would publishers go out of their way to make remastereds of the original games. Hell Sony just announced they are going to do a remaster / remake of the Last of Us and that game isn't even ten years old! So the stupidity of their mindset just amazes me. Hell what is one of the big selling points for a PlayStation 5, to play Spider-Man and Final Fantasy VII Remake, 2 games that were released on the PS4, with 'new content'. Aka those are OLDER games that Sony is using to promote their newest console!

This is part of why I acquired  PS3 recently, just to piss Sony off, because tonight I'm going to playing a game I've never played before, which is I'll be playing the PS3 version of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Sure the PS4 version looks better, but just to stick it to Sony, going with the older version just makes so much more sense to me.

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

Todays Notes 4/19/21

 Good evening everybody,

You know for whatever reason I totally spaced on writing today's blog post.

Anyway, Sunday Night's stream was awesome as I tackled the challenge variations of the Overwatch Archive missions, getting the three I needed to get done... and the one that I never want to do ever again is Bulletproof Barriers, because getting a team that would make smart selections was getting frustrating. Granted I was using Dva but I discovered that Dva can eat a lot of damage. Also we helped PandaSweet get the 2nd week skin for Zenyatta, so all in all it was a good night last night.

This morning we did do a Fitness Boxing 2 stream, it went about an hour (when factoring in the small breaks between sets), and involved a lot of stepping, the portion of the workout that counted for the daily lasted 47 minutes, but with the extra bit we did, it ended up keeping on pace with the big three days of the week.

Tonight's stream we played and finished Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, and I was reminded of two bugs, one being when the Harvesters invaded Voyager, sometimes the lift to escape the cargo hold does not activate, and also when using God Mode in the Forge, when Biesman dies, it will deactivate. Still it was a good to have that game finished. As people saw with how the enemies swarm you, there is no way to keep up with the action on normal difficulty.

Because we finished that at about 9 PM, we did some bonus gaming, and I thought about doing some Star Trek Online, but instead we played NHL Face-Off for the PlayStation. And It was my first time playing it, it took me a few minutes to get use to using the D-Pad and to figure out what controls did what. We played three games, winning only one of them.

Did some MLB The Show 21 off-stream to advance the Road to the Show stuff, where I basically had to force my player to become a starting pitcher. A few other tweaks has resulted in him becoming a AA All-Star, throwing a perfect game and pitching like Fernando Valenzuela.

Sony announced they are going to keep the PS3 / Vita stores online because a) they like money and b) they know they will have a major lawsuit on their hands regarding denying people access to what they purchased/ The stupidity Sony has when it comes to refusing to accept that there are some people who enjoy playing older games in addition to newer ones just confounds me.!

Tomorrow night, more than likely we'll be starting up Uncharted on the PlayStation 3, giving the Xbox One a rest since it saw heavy duty with Dragon Age Inquisition. 

Which means tomorrow morning's blog post will be rather short, unless something inspires me.

And on that note we'll see you tomorrow over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

How Sony Killed My Interest In Console Gaming For 6 Years

For many, their first video game console was a Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1980s, for me, however the first time I ever played a video game was on an IMB Tandy 1000 from Radio Shack and I didn't get my first console until 1994, when my father got me and my younger bother a Sega Genesis. We had a few games, things like Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Ghostbusters, Mortal Kombat 3, Alien 3, Street Fighter II (the one with Cammy, Fei Long, T-Hawk and DeeJay). Now I was always more of a Computer gamer, as I had the mentioned Tandy 1000, and then was given a Compaq in 1992/3 so I could play Star Trek 25th Anniversary and a lot of the Lucas Film Games... but there was something cool about console gaming that I liked, where I didn't have to be sitting at my desk to play games, I could be in front of the TV which had a bigger screen than my computer at the time.

So fast forward a few years, my PC gaming was upgraded to an IBM PC with Windows 95 and there were plenty of Sega ports of games for it that I could play, so it wasn't until 1998/9 when I was given PlayStation to replace my Sega Genesis which developed a bad fault. The PlayStation was awesome, I didn't have to worry about my PC being able to run games and there were a lot of stuff on the original PlayStation that appealed to me, like Grandia, Chrono Cross, WWF Attitude, Rival Schools and others. When the PlayStation 2 was announced, I was like whoa, a whole new system that could also play my old games. I didn't waste time, hell I was in the middle of my failed military career and got a PlayStation in the Fall of 2001, making it the first time I bought a console on my own. Again the great appeal was being able to get the new games while still being able to use my old ones. This was really damn cool to me.

And I stood with the PS2 all the way up until 2008, two years after the initial release of the PS3 which I in the summer of that year, primarily because I was really into the WWE at the time, and the PS2 version of SmackDown vs RAW 2008 was a little... underwhelming. A big reason why I was so hesitant of getting a PS3 at the time was because I could use my PS2 games with it... unless I basically bought them again from the PlayStation Network Store (such was the case with Beyond Good and Evil), this was really a kick in the crotch for me. The only saving grace was that the PS3 could still run the PS1 era games that I had so there was that... but man, My PS3 lasted until October of 2013, one month before the release of the PlayStation 4...

Which was when I basically said fuck console gaming. You see I saw the news that the PS4 would not be backwards compatible with any games from the previous three eras of the system. We went from having the best way to do things with the PS2... to the disappointment of the PS3... and now the PS4 wouldn't have any way to play the games I purchased. No what Sony basically did was selling HD remasters of PS2 games.. which people bought and that carried over into how the planned to do things with the PS4. You want to play your favorite games from the previous three generations... well now you'll have to purchase them AGAIN. Now I have no problem buying multiple versions, but what I am against is being exploited as a consumer... and Sony basically was giving the big fuck you to loyal customers.

Obviously Microsoft responded to this by selling games digitally from its catalog to have them be backwards compatible, so folks could play Original Xbox on their Xbox 360, and of course games from both systems on on their Xbox One's.. or if they still had the disc they could (what a shock) insert the disc into their system and a re-license of the game was assigned so someone didn't have to buy the game again. But since I was not an Xbox gamer, this didn't appeal to me at the time... because well Sony pissed me off that much.

So what brought me back to console gaming... well I have to credit the likes of Iceman7667 and Lunar_Princess for that. Iceman who has been apart of the my Wednesday night streams over the past several months, wanted me to join in playing The Division 2 was a big reason why I went with the Xbox One. And Lunar_Princess has teased me about just playing PC games and missing out on all the stuff that was on console only. Microsoft's backward compatible library also was a huge factor for me as well, Now will I give Sony another chance with the PS5... well only if it can match what Microsoft does with allowing for players to use their existing PS1/2/3 disc to get the latest version of the older games other than that I'm just not seeing that in my future....

But what about Nintendo... well... as a Streamer I'm always looking for ways to Switch things up and added to my lineup. The biggest drawback with Nintendo is that all the games I would want to play are basically the first party in house developed games. But maybe we'll address that at some point in the future.