How Do You Recap A Near 12 Hour Long Stream?!

Good morning everybody,

Yesterday we did an epic marathon stream r long stream of Life is Strange: Before The Storm, which started at 12:30 PM Eastern and ended at 12:20 AM Eastern... so nearly 12 hours. We covered all three episodes with 100% completion and the bonus episode entitled Farewell, which had no achievements, but we covered it pretty thoroughly. Clearly we got a lot of ground to cover, so I'm going to present a breakdown of each episode in the form of a Summary and then general thoughts. So this will be an incoherent mess!

Episode 1: Awake: We play As Chloe as she is heading off to a concert at a seedy old mill, and it's established that Chloe's power is her big mouth as she will confront and bully her way past people to get what she wants, and this is where she meets Rachel Amber who rescues her from an ugly situation. The next day, Rachel grabs Chloe to ditch school where Rachel's mood swings start being noticeable when they spot her father kissing a woman who is not her mother and where she starts a massive forest fire.

In terms of how it relates to how Chloe is established in Life is Strange, Episode 1 certainly shows Chloe being rebellious not just towards David, but also to folks at Blackwell as the episode basically documents her last day at the school. The chance meeting with Rachel certainly makes Chloe as someone easily infatuated as she's more than willing to hang with Chloe, but considering Chloe feels she has something missing in her life it certainly makes her an easy pawn for Rachel, who kind of exploits that to get what she wants. There is also the question of if Rachel has any powers considering how fast the fire she starts spreads considering how it ties to her screams of rage. Perhaps the most memorably thing about this episode is Chloe's optional involvement with Steph and Mikey in a Dungeons & Dragons type game.

Episode 2: Brave New Worlds: Taking place the very next day, Rachel and Chloe are in Principal Wells office with their parents, where Chloe faces suspension or expulsion (depending on choices made)  and David makes it know he is moving in, making Chloe rather upset. Chloe gets roped in by Frank Bowers into retrieving some owed money from Mikey's brother's Drew which leads to a major choice regarding what Chloe does with the money before getting roped in by Rachel to being involved in a Blackwell production of The Tempest. Episode ends with Chloe having dinner with Rachel's Family and Rachel's father revealing that the woman they saw him with was actually her mother. 

Episode 2 crams a fuck ton into it, with it basically showing how Rachel gets thrown out of Blackwell, how she gets her pick-up truck, her association with Frank Bowers as well as expanding on how liked or disliked she is when it comes to other students. The choice of either staying in Drew North's dorm room when he's confronted by Damon Merrick or stepping out to give him the money does play a major impact on the North family, since Drew has a full-ride scholarship based on his skills as a football player. If you don't give the money to Damon, Drew's knees are destroyed and it basically makes life impossible for his brother Mikey and their struggling father, so the best choice is to give Damon the money and have Mikey suffer a broken arm. (I'll explain more on this for Episode 3). The big thing most people remember about this episode is Chloe being apart of the Tempest as Ariel, and how it could lead to Chloe asking for a kiss from Rachel, which basically feeds into Chloe's desperation to find Rachel in the original Life is Strange game. The ending twist of Rachel learning that her mother is someone she never met was impactful on the episodes original release.

Episode 3: Hell is Empty: Rachel is determined to meet her mother, and because of it she and Chloe end up in a very dangerous situation with Damon Merrick who nearly kills Rachel. Chloe learns Rachel's father hired Merrick to keep her real mother away from her and goes to save her, with surprised help from Frank Bowers. Chloe has a choice of either to tell Rachel the truth about her father or to hide it to let her have a happy life.

Episode 3 comes across as rushed because of how it focuses a lot on dealing with Sera (Rachel's Mother), and quite frankly it's not all that interesting, especially if you can get Chloe into good graces with Rachel's father when it comes to looking out for her. The best part about this episode is if you played the DnD game with Steph and Mikey in episode 1 and gave the money to Merrick in episode 2, you get to continue the DnD game in episode 3 that sees Drew wanting to get involved in playing it and thus making his bond with his younger brother stronger plus making them along with Steph a pretty cool trio. The choice of either to tell Rachel the truth or to hide it is basically inconsequential because Rachel does end up in the Dark Room. You do get a montage of Chloe and Rachel hanging out doing stuff like getting tattoos and so forth, but no real explanation as to how Mark Jefferson lured her into the Dark Room in the first place.

Bonus Episode: Farewell: Max struggles to tell Chloe she is moving away to Seattle on a day that ends up being  the worse in Chloe's life.

This mini-episode takes place on the same day Chloe's father is killed, making it the earliest point in the Life is Strange timeline, and it does establish something that is very clear if you pay attention to Chloe's SMS messages in Before the Storm and Max's test message in Life is Strange... and that's Max stopped maxing an effort to stay in contact with Chloe. This episode basically cements the fact Chloe basically had her world ripped apart and just how bad it actually was.

Twitch Clip Links

• It's Totally Not A....
• Genius Is...
• Had to think about that one
• Ain't nothing like the real thing baby....
• So it's a thing that makes things do things!
• Don't Worry You'll Be The Love Interest In True Colors
• Under the street light
• I don't think he's going to be okay after that one 
• Sure Steph...
• And this is where it ties to the first game 
  

Believe me when I said, I had probably 50 clips from last night that I filtered down to just these select few which I thought were the best moments of the night, and I deleted the ones I didn't like as much. 

Big thanks to MarvelMaven (twitch.tv/marvelmaven) who raided the stream after playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Marvel often streams mid-days and she is awesome!

Following the stream we raided Phoenix_face (twitch.tv/phoenix_face) who was playing A Plague Tale: Innocence, which looks like it would be a really great game! Phoenix tends to stream in the late evenings! 

Life is Strange: Before The Storm Achievements

1. Recreational Vandalism: Complete the optional graffiti #1 in Episode 1: Awake
2. I See U Saw: Complete the optional graffiti #2 in Episode 1: Awake
3. The Last Unicorn: Complete the optional graffiti #3 in Episode 1: Awake
4. Home Unimprovement: Complete the optional graffiti #4 in Episode 1: Awake
5. Rock Idol: Complete the optional graffiti #5 in Episode 1: Awake
6. Dramatis Personae: Complete the optional graffiti #6 in Episode 1: Awake
7. Mulligan Stew: Complete the optional graffiti #7 in Episode 1: Awake
8. Pioneer Spirit: Complete the optional graffiti #8 in Episode 1: Awake
9. Face Your Anger: Complete the optional graffiti #9 in Episode 1: Awake
10. Lucid Writing: Complete the optional graffiti #10 in Episode 1: Awake
11. Awake, Dear Heart: Complete Episode 1: Awake
12. Stagehandwriting: Complete the optional graffiti #1 in Episode 2: Brave New World
13. Radical Piratical: Complete the optional graffiti #2 in Episode 2: Brave New World
14. Feels on Wheels: Complete the optional graffiti #3 in Episode 2: Brave New World
15. Canon Wall: Complete the optional graffiti #4 in Episode 2: Brave New World
16. Wishlist: Complete the optional graffiti #5 in Episode 2: Brave New World
17. Tread Harshly: Complete the optional graffiti #7 in Episode 2: Brave New World
18. Friendly Forest Friends: Complete the optional graffiti #6 in Episode 2: Brave New World
19. Permanent Record: Complete the optional graffiti #8 in Episode 2: Brave New World
20. Vanity Fare: Complete the optional graffiti #9 in Episode 2: Brave New World
21. Creature Feature: Complete the optional graffiti #10 in Episode 2: Brave New World
22. O, Wonder!: Complete Episode 2: Brave New World
23. Extra Credit: Complete the optional graffiti #2 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
24. American Graffiti: Complete the optional graffiti #1 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
25. Peer Review: Complete the optional graffiti #3 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
26. Monthly Masterpiece: Complete the optional graffiti #4 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
27. Spit Take: Complete the optional graffiti #5 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
28. Hello Nurse: Complete the optional graffiti #7 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
29. Venting Machine: Complete the optional graffiti #6 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
30. A Penned Appendage: Complete the optional graffiti #8 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
31. Drunk Drawer: Complete the optional graffiti #9 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
32. Messed Up: Complete the optional graffiti #10 in Episode 3: Hell Is Empty
33. Before the Storm: Complete Episode 1, Episode 2 and Episode 3 of Life is Strange: Before the Storm
34. All the Devils are Here: Complete Episode 3: Hell Is Empty

Whew... that was a lot of ground to cover, I can't remember the last time I did a stream that long, I think maybe I had a few Twitch Sings streams come close to the 10 hour mark... but nothing close to breaking the 12 hour barrier in like maybe two years.

Didn't do any Season 30 ranked matches for Overwatch yesterday because of the marathon nature of the stream.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn 419 kcal. The exercises for today was Body Straight Combo, Triple Combo #1 and Uppercut Combo #1.

Because of work tonight's stream will not start at 6:30 PM Eastern time, it's looking like possibly an 8 PM or 9 PM Eastern start time, depending on work. We'll more than likely are going to mess around with Street Fighter V to doing some character story stuff (the mini-arcade modes) that the game has.  I'll also have to check to see if I'm going to have to adjust my schedule if there is more work in the early evenings going forward than my normal after noon shifts, since some side stuff I was doing has also dried up.

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

 

Up So Early I Woke The Roosters

Good morning everybody,

Yeah it's not even 7 AM when I'm posting this...

Last night's stream of Overwatch featured Total Mayhem and Quick Play matches, and was a lot of fun, earned three Plays of the Game last night, two as D.va and one as Moira... and big thanks as always to PandaSweet for being apart of the fun!

I've become increasingly aware of the fact I'm not going to get the help I need from the damage role players or the other tank. Yes I'm mostly playing as D.va but I do need her boosters to get out of trouble or to get some cheap eliminations in a pinch.Also, since I've been playing a lot of D.va as of late, making use of her boosters to get out of trouble, there's also an increasing reliance of her Defensive Matrix. Now yes, the likes of Genji, Hanzo, Anna and Zenyatta can kind of pick me apart at a great distance unless I'm diving on to them with only Hanzo being dangerous up close, but at the same time this does mean I can provide some time for a Reinhardt or Sigma to recharge their shields or for a Orissa on Winston's cool down for their shield barrier to complete.

Overwatch Total Mayhem Results

1. Mercy& Reinhardt   Loss
2. D.va: Loss 
3. D.va - Win 
4. D.va - Win
5. D.va - Win

Overwatch Quick Play Results

1. Reinhardt  - Win
2. Moira - Win
3. D.va - Win
4. D.va - Win
5. D.va - Win
6. D.va - Win
7. D.va - Loss
8. D.va - Win
9. Brigitte - Loss
10. D.va - Loss
11. D.va - Loss
12. Tracer - Win
13. Moria - Loss
14. D.va - Win
15. Moira - Loss
16. D.va -  Loss
17. D.va - Loss
18. Moira - Loss
19. Moira - Win

Twitch Clip Links

• Triple Kill! 
• The most epic or luckiest 30 seconds as D.va ever 
• And now we leave
• Gotcha! That was funny
• Tracer Pulse Bomb! There we Go!
• I'm Very Much Aware I'm On My Own 
• Panda's Epic Flight As Mercy
• Surrender to my will! A Pair of Double Kills!
  

Following the stream we raided Sw33ts_gaming (twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming) who was playing Naraka: Bladepoint, and near as I can tell it's a 3 on 3 battle royal type game. Anyways Sweets is really cool and over streams in the late nights to early mornings. 

There might be a change in the streams start times for Mondays to Fridays coming in the near future, I'll have to double check with somethings at work, but we could end up back at 9:30 PM Eastern Start Times starting next week once again. I'll find out for sure by the end of this week..

I have considered going through a YouTube compilation of Top Gear's 'Some Say...' Intros for The Stig to create another sound button to the Stream Deck. The biggest problem is that a lot of things Jeremy Clarkson and to a lesser extent Richard Hammond said were a bit to topical to be used in the modern day without context.

There is false hope in the National League East for the Phillies to maybe get hot and take the division which is up for grabs, because at the time of this post, they are only two games behind the Atlanta Braves, but since they just dropped 2 of 3 to the lowly Miami Marlins, I'm just not buying into the team, particularly since they don't play well on the road and most of the remaining games see the team going into enemy territory!.

I took one look at the results for AEW All Out which aired last night, and I can once again safely say that they are running the TNA Wrestling playbook of having ex-WWE stars going over people they should be pushing to a higher level. Out of 9 matches that aired on the main-show, 6 were won by ex-WWE Talent, and the biggest surprises of the night were that AEW debuted two more ex-WWE stars. As a long time wrestling fan who has been burned out on hot shot booking and who has seen this shit of relying on ex-WWE talent being brought in at the expense of an existing roster, I can safely say I've seen this moving before, I know how it ends. 

Now truth be told I couldn't quite get to sleep so around 5:30 AM I figured why not do some boxing. Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 568 kcal. The exercises for today were Double Combo #2, Left Right Step Combo and Advance Combo #2.

Overwatch Competitive Season 30 Results (Tank) 

1. D.va - Eichenwalde - 18:04 - Win - 3-2
   

For today's stream we'll be starting as soon as possible for a special Labor Day stream, just to see what the audience is like if I were to do a mid-day afternoon stream. Don't know what's on tap as of yet, but we'll see what I come up with... granted I teased playing Life is Strange: Before the Storm on Saturday but I'm not sure if I want to tackle all three episodes in one day.

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

Bae Before Bay

 Good afternoon everybody,

Last night we wrapped up Life is Strange and went for 100% completion with Episode 5, and needless to say there were two things about that I didn't care for which was the two achievements tied to the stealth game play aspect in the Nightmare section. I'm sorry, but if there is one reason why I never could give Life is Strange a perfect 5-star rating it's because of that... and the fact that in episode 5 there are moments where Max is talking and her lips aren't moving

That said, episode 5 has always severed as a satisfying conclusion to the story of Max Caufiled, in that she either chooses to save Chloe Price or save Arcadia Bay, and while 52% choose to save Arcadia Bay, the ending to save Chloe is considered to be the true ending because a) Max and Chloe are such a ship-able couple and b) the comic book series follows the save Chloe ending. 

But because Life is Strange has a collectable mode with the option to jump to the final decision without it over writing the choice, we were able to look at the ending of sacrificing Chloe to save Arcadia Bay,, which does see the fall of Nathan Prescott, the arrest of Mr. Jefferson and Chloe's funeral... but the more up beat tempo of the song used for it always bothered me.

Perhaps the thing about saving Arcadia Bay that makes it most realistic choice for most people is that prior to when Max has a conversation with herself at the Two Whales Diner during the Nightmare sequence, you have a bunch of people begging for Max not to kill them as a prelude to the final choice... but at the same time you have others thanking her for saving them during the events of when she is heading to the Two Whales Diner (such as Truck Driver and Fisherman)... and a lot of folks go for the 'needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few). Trust me on a first time play through it can be gut wrenching, but this was my third play through (the first two were using the Steam version).

I do understand that the remastered collection has been delayed till early next year, and there is one thing I hope it fixes and that is how plastic the hair looks, particularly for those with more elaborate hair styles (Chloe, Max, Alyssa all immediate come to mind.) 

Life Is Strange Achievements

1. Incandescent: Take optional photo #1 in Episode 5: Polarized
2. Night Vision: Take optional photo #2 in Episode 5: Polarized
3. Framed: Take optional photo #3 in Episode 5: Polarized
4. Camera Obscura: Take optional photo #4 in Episode 5: Polarized
5. Blowup: Take optional photo #5 in Episode 5: Polarized
6. Iris: Take optional photo #6 in Episode 5: Polarized
7. Sensor: Take optional photo #7 in Episode 5: Polarized
8. On Display: Take optional photo #8 in Episode 5: Polarized
9. Light Meter: Take optional photo #9 in Episode 5: Polarized
10. Selfie Awareness: Take all optional photos in Episode 5: Polarized
11. Silhouettes: Take optional photo #10 in Episode 5: Polarized
12. Polarized: Finish Episode 5: Polarized
    

Now something funny, Episode 4 took me 4 hours to tackle on Friday night, and Episode 5 took me a bit over 3 hours... so to extend the stream out, we played some Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, playing in the world wide open races... and at best I finished 6th a couple of times, and for a brief moment in one race I was as high as 2nd... but things went horribly wrong, because I cannot for whatever reason figure out how to drift consistently, which makes cornering a real problem.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to DaWorstGamerEver25 (twitch.tv/DaWorstGamerEver25) who was celebrating their birthday and playing Police Simulator: Patrol Officers! 

Twitch Clip Links

• Funny but you sound like a 30 year old Actress!
• RUDE! 
• That is not the weather in San Francisco!
• Knocked his (BLEEP) Out
• And if you believe that I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you
• Max you're talking without moving your lips!
• Perfect Moment For a Dab 
• I love you but I Killed you!
• We like big squirrels and I cannot lie
• Warren has issues 
• The Bottles Were Out To Get Her
• Finding the code... boo-yah!
• That's kind of the whole point 
• It is the canon choice! 
• Bae...
• It would have helped if I didn't run into the building
• Well we finished in 7th 
• Aw come on really come on Dudes!

Something weird, yesterday I received a delivery from BioWare of three Mass Effect t-shirts... which I already received. Back at the end of August... in fact the tracking number and everything is exactly the same. Someone must have screwed up somewhere and it certainly wasn't me.

People are getting on their high horse regarding the 'sexualization' of fictional characters, to which which I say 'Welcome to Earth, you must be new here. It's not really worth crying about because sex appeal sells, it always had, and it always will. Hell 99% of casting for television shows and movies is based around how someone looks, the actual acting is clearly a 'bonus', how else does one explain the careers of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart

In terms of how I'm feeling following the 2nd Covid shot on Friday, just some stiffness here and there nothing major.

Since it's Sunday, that means a new highlight reel, and this week we actually stayed focus on things, so this week's highlights include clips from Overwatch, Chrono Cross, Life is Strange, X-Men vs Street Fighter EX Edition and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe!  

Overwatch Competitive Season 30 Match Results 

1. D.va - Eichenwalde - 14:02 - Win - 3-0
2. D.va - Lijiang Tower - 8:59 - Win - 2-0
3. D.va - Temple of Anubis - 8:59 - Win - 2-0

 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 413 kcal. Today's exercises involved Body Hook Combo, Body Uppercut Combo and Uppercut Combo #2. In terms of chasing the EX Achievements, if I stick with Hiro for the next 32 days I should knock out his challenger combo as well as the next achievements for 300 consecutive days and 300 stamps.

For tonight's stream, we'll be playing Overwatch, mostly standard Quick Play matches, as I'm focusing on Ranked Matches off stream.

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

 

Time-Lapsed And Vaccinated

Good afternoon everybody 

Last night's stream featured Life is Strange Episode 4, and we 100% completed it, finding all the optional photos along the way with the help of the list of achievements. Considering how many were diamond achievements, I doubt I would have come across them... but then again I have played Life is Strange before, and maybe I should have checked my Steam achievements list before writing this. Ah well.

Anyway, Episode 4 certainly goes out of it's way to label Nathan Prescott as the big bad of the game, with how everything revolves around him, from the conversation with Frank Bowers, to how the Prescott family e just something everyone wants to go away going back 100 years, to the 'dark room' pretty much being in a barn in the middle of nowhere. But the twist of Mr. Jefferson being the true villain both works and at the same time doesn't work.

And here's why it never worked for me: it's because Jefferson as a character always comes across as a creep, and this goes back to episode 1 when he is always pestering Max about submitting a photo for the everyday heroes contest to just happening to be talking to Kate before she attempts to jump off the dorm building in episode 2 to being all to chilled with what was happening at the Vortex Party at the end of episode 4. It just comes across as being way out of place to me.

I will admit I do like the fact that if you save Kate in episode 2 you get to visit her in the hospital in episode 4, which also having the benefit of her helping out when Max and Chloe sneak into the boys dorm. Actually if you play things 'right', you can end up giving Max one hell of a large social circle. 

After the stream we sent everyone over to Kalenal (twitch.tv/kalenal) who was doing a bonus stream this week featuring Final Fantasy XIV! Kal also announced that she won't be streaming tonight or this upcoming Monday, but will be back on Wendesday (September 8th)

Twitch Clip Links

• I believe It Max....
• Bacon Pancakes
• It's What You Get At Starbucks... 
• Bird Don't Make Me Flip You
• Nathan Is The Devil... CONFIRMED! 
• Totally Trespassing 
• Good Evening Doctor Hoo
• We found Rachel Amber
• Save Alyssa... Again!
• Double Achievement In Episode 4!
• Max's Name Is On The List!
• Warning Victoria About The Dark Room
  

 Life is Strange Achievements

1. Ambient: Take optional photo #1 in Episode 4: Dark Room
2. Time-Lapsed: Take optional photo #2 in Episode 4: Dark Room
3. Balance: Take optional photo #3 in Episode 4: Dark Room
4. Rangefinder: Take optional photo #4 in Episode 4: Dark Room
5. Gamma Value: Take optional photo #5 in Episode 4: Dark Room
6. Dioptric Power: Take optional photo #6 in Episode 4: Dark Room
7. Fisheye: Take optional photo #7 in Episode 4: Dark Room
8. Manually Exposed: Take optional photo #8 in Episode 4: Dark Room
9. Tripod: Take optional photo #10 in Episode 4: Dark Room
10. Shutterbug: Take all optional photos in Episode 4: Dark Room
11. Slideshow: Take optional photo #9 in Episode 4: Dark Room
12. Dark Room: Finish Episode 4: Dark Room
    

Went and got COVID-19 vaccination shot number two at the closest CVS Pharmacy yesterday, granted, making sure they had vaccination shots on hand was frustrating, considering on Thursday I walked over there and they said they had none. Once I had confirmation they had shots, I rushed over to get mine done. Now opposed to the first shot, they gave me a little 'stop watch' like item to track the 15 minutes they wanted folks to wait for observation after getting the shot... but if they were observing those they have vaccinated, shouldn't a member of the staff actually been... observing? Because they weren't.

Was able to add ,hack//Outbreak to the collection yesterday, which means the quest to find and add .hack//Quarantine begins. That is easily one of the rarest games to find for the PlayStation 2 because the the original .hack series of games didn't really do to well because of the episodic nature of them. In short they were ahead of their time in a big way.

Also added an alternate PlayStation 2 (Slim version) that has a MODBO Chip within it to make it region free. While obviously most of my PS2 library consists of North American released games, there are still some things that were exclusive to Japan and Europe that I would like to track down, and having the hardware on hand to play them is a step in the right direction. However a test run of this PS2 didn't exactly present promising results as I think the laser to read the discs may have gotten misaligned by how the United States Postal Service treated the package. So that would be possibly 2 PS2s broken in transit by the USPS...

Overwatch Competitive Season 30 (Tank)

1. D.va - Busan - Downtown - 14:02 - Loss - 2-1
2. D.va - Oasis - 18:04 - Win - 2-1
3. D.va - Blizzard World - 19:03 - Win - 3-2

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 423 kcal. The exercises for this sessions was Hook Combo #2, Front Back Step Combo and Beginner Combo #1. Progress for Hiro's Contender is that we're at 15 hours out of 30. Weighted in yesterday at about 248 lb from what I could tell, it was clearly below the 250 lb mark

We've added Extreme Ghostbustes: The Ultimate Invasion to the collection, this was released on the original PlayStation but it was a PAL/Europe Exlcusive, and is a game that can make use of the PSOne's light-gun... which is something I don't have.

For tonight's stream we'll be will wrap up Life is Strange, with Episode 5: Polarized, and I'm really debating wanting to go for all the photo opportunities on stream or note because of how episode 5 relies a lot on a half-ass stealth game play. Since I know I can just go after the collectables after the fact, it's no pressure to 100% complete it.

Anyway, that's what we're doing and if it doesn't take me 4 hours to get through the final episode, we may do something else!

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

The Theory Of Chaos Could Be The Apocalypse

Good morning everyone,

Last night we were back in Twitch playing Life is Strange, with episode 3: Chaos Theory. This episode further expands on Max's powers with its big climax of her being able to go back to a moment in time via a photograph to change history, which leads to a lot of things changing... namely Chloe being paralyzed. It's certainly a reminder as to why one does not change history in time travel stories because just because one thing could be avoid, the changes could have far greater consequences that cannot be predicted.

That said, episode 3 does give many reasons to not like Chloe, particularly in regards to how bitchy she can be on a number of subjects, such as the situation regarding Rachel and Frank, plus her own hang ups over how her father died, not to mention complaining about Max letter her down. Believe me as much as the game gives options for reasons to chose Chloe over Arcadia Bay, it certainly gives a lot of reasons to choose the town over her.

In terms of optional photos, we managed to find several of them,

 Life Is Strange Achievements (earned on stream)

1. The Reflex: Take optional photo #3 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
2. Histogrammar: Take optional photo #4 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
3. Pinholed: Take optional photo #6 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
4. RAW Strength: Take optional photo #7 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
5. Optican: Take optional photo #9 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
6. Flash!: Take optional photo #10 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
7. Chaos Theory: Finish Episode 3: Chaos Theory

Now when we finished episode three, I hooked up the PSOne so that we coul d play X-Men vs Street Fighter: EX Edition for the first time on stream. We went through the standard arcade mode twice, once as Ryu (with Cyclops as the back up), and the other mostly as Wolverine (with Ken as the back up) before realizing I did not know how to do any of Wolverine's supers in the air, so switched it to Cyclops (with Ryu) to finish the second run. Did get some great clips of some match endings involving Supers, including a couple of Ultra Super Finishes! 

I do think like a lot of fighting games, the novelty of X-Men vs Street Fighter: EX Edition is to pair it with stuff that ends early, since it serves as a great way to make sure a stream fills out to my preferred time length.

Following the stream we raided SmoresDaFloof who was playing a unique RPG / Platformer called Blue Fire, which seems to have a lot of Legend of Zelda vibes to it! Smores is awesome and I hope you check them out at twitch.tv/SmoresDaFloof

Twitch Clips Links

• Max The Ninja Strikes Again
• God Damn It Chloe! 
• Time Travel: Never Leave Home Without It
• Hey there's Fan Fiction About That
• Give me the Eggs and Bacon NOW!!!! 
  
• Max Earns A Truck Ride
  
• Warning The Homeless
  
• Saving Alyssa... Yet Again
• X-Men Vs Street Fighter EX Edition Intro!
• Catching Rouge with both Ryu & Cyclops' Super!
• The Chip Damage! 
• Might as well hit it again in mid-air!
• Caught Cyclops In Mid-air! 
• Would I Make Something Up Because I don't Read Japanese? 
• Wolverine and Ken: Ultra Combo Finish! 
• Cyclops Finishis Apocalypse
• Defeating Ryu as a we get a new follower! 

Sad to hear that Daffney Unger (real name: Shannon Spruill) who I first saw on WCW Programming in late 1999, passed away. She made headlines on Wednesday night regarding a live video she was doing on Instagram which made people extremely concerned. It's always upsetting when you hear about someone going that far because of the circumstances they are in... so I encourage folks to seek help if you ever need it. 1-800-273-8255 is the number for the Suicide Prevention Hotline

That said, what I remember of Daffney was she made her debut during a skit for a 'WCW Nitro Party' where she was basically worshiping David Flair, and then showed up like a week or two later. I thought the pairing of her Flair, was great and then when Crowbar was added to the mix, it made them real entertaining. Daffney was so over the top with her screams and antics around ring side, it made her stand out in a big way. 

Let's circle back to Life is Strange and the fact features a collectable mode which I totally forgot about, which means going back to get the optional photos missed in episodes already played is fairly easy, depending on the circumstances needed to get to the photo opportunities. So a few hours after the stream, I went back to episodes 1, 2 & 3 to go collectable hunting to 100% complete each episode without effecting the story we already have in progress. 

Life is Strange Achievements (Earned off-stream)

1. Visionary: Take all optional photos in Episode 1: Chrysalis
2. Focused: Take optional photo #6 in Episode 1: Chrysalis
3. Processor: Take optional photo #3 in Episode 2: Out of Time
4. Lab Master: Take all optional photos in Episode 2: Out of Time
5. Pixelated: Take optional photo #6 in Episode 2: Out of Time
6. Parallax View: Take optional photo #1 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
7. Lenscrafted: Take optional photo #2 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
8. Bokeh: Take optional photo #5 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
9. Viewfinder: Take optional photo #8 in Episode 3: Chaos Theory
10. Camera Eye: Take all optional photos in Episode 3: Chaos Theory 

Overwatch's 29 Competitive Season ended yesterday with my final SR as a Tank being 1641, with my season high being 1681. 22 matches were played, and 11 matches were one, so I easily batted .500. So with the season ended I went a head and did the qualifiers for season 30, off to a good start of 3 wins and 2 losses

Overwatch Season 30 Competitive Matches

1. D.va - Kings Rows - 11:31 - Win - 3-0
2. D.va - Hollywood - 11:00 - Loss - 0-3
3. D.va - Oasis - - 15:32 - Loss - 2-1
4. D.va - Junkertown - 11-:00 - Win 2-1 - Play of the Game
5. D.va - Ilios - 8:59 - Win - 2-0 - Play of the Game

Yesterday I went to CVS to get the second Covid-19 vaccine shot... and they didn't have any available, so I have to step out again today, this time I going to call before hand. I was told they were expecting a fresh batch in the early evening yesterday, so hopefully that is true.

I know right now Tuesday night's stream will have a late start of 7:30 PM / 8 PM Eastern because of work. Got to take what I can get these days.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 431 kcal. The exercises for today were Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2. Since turning off the vibration function on the joy cons, there has not been the random de-syncing of the left joy con. Still a couple of odd misses, but that might be on my own timing (or lack there of).

For tonight's stream we will play Life Is Strange Episode 4: Dark Room, and we'll pair it with something else once we finish the episode

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

 

#ADayOffTwitch, Discord Streams And Other High-Jinks

Good morning everybody,

So we did not do a stream on Twitch last night because of the #ADayOffTwitch campaign, and I figured why not go through the tool that Twitch provides to make folks aware of how they can secure their channel chat rooms. I learned about these tools last year when I had a few runs ins with knuckleheads back during a weekend that involved Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Twitch Sings. 

So first here's what you do to find these tools: Go to your Dashboard, then settings and then moderation. From there you can see a number of tools to help secure your chat. 

First is AutoMod Rulesets, which Automatically hold risky messages for Moderators to review.  You can set this up to provide a variety strength of filters from Less to Some to More to Maximum on a variety of different things such as.

• Hostility
  
  • Aggression (Threatening, inciting or promoting violence or harm) 
  • Bullying (Name-calling, insults and antagonization),

• Discrimination & Slurs
  
  • Disability: Demonstrating hatred and prejudice based on perceived or actual mental or physical abilities
  • Sexuality, sex or gender: Demonstrating hatred and prejudice based on sexual identity, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression
  • Misogyny: Demonstrating hatred and prejudice against women, including sexual objectification
  • Race, ethnicity or religion: Demonstrating hatred and prejudice based on race, ethnicity or religion

• Sexual Content
  
  • Sex-based terms (sexual acts, anatomy)

• Profanity
  
  • Swearing (Swear words)
    

Personality, I have the maximum filtering setting set on everything related to to Hostility, Discrimination & Slurs and Sexual Content, and only some filtering when it comes to Swearing, because I don't really have an issue with people swearing in my chat since it rarely if ever happens. So basically I have a chance to review anything and everything that comes through that gets caught by the filters, thus giving me an opportunity to deny something from being posted or to allow it.

Next, we have Blocked Terms and phrases, which are is a list of terms anyone can set so that messages containing those terms or phrases will be blocked from the chat. The list is automatically added when a mod denies a caught message in the filters, but you can manually add terms to it if, thus if you notice something being spammed as part of a hate raid, you can added those terms and phrase to the Blocked Terms and Phrases list to protect your chat in advance

Now, there is also Permitted terms and phrases, which if messages contain these terms, and no other blocked terms, will not be caught by AutoMod . So say you have the Profanity filter set to 'More Filtering', but you're cool with the term fuck being said in the chat, you can added that word to the Permitted terms and phrases list and as long as it's not used in combination with anything else that could be flagged, it will appear in the chat.

Next we'll look at Chat Options, and the first is Block Hyperlinks which automatically deletes posted URLS except those posted by the streamer, moderators, admins and VIPs, then their is Non-Mod Chat Delay, which can be set up to six-seconds, which adds a short delay before any non-mods sees messages, so again a preventive strike can be made to time out or ban someone who breaks your channel's rules.

Moving on, to Channel Privileges, and and Email Verification. If this is turned on, anyone that would like to send a message to your chat room must first verify their email address. This cuts down on bots spamming the chat, and thus you know that anyone who causes trouble in your chat has had their account verified.

Chat Rules is where you can set your own rules for your channel and first time viewers of your channel must agree to those rules before saying anything. Here is what mine say, .

 Welcome, all are welcome here however, I do have my rules, they are simple and basic

- English only
- 18+ ONLY STREAM
- Respect the moderators, the other viewers and the streamer
- No links in chat unless approved by myself
- No harassing the mods, the other viewers or the streamer
- No trolling the mods, the other viewers or the streamer
- Be aware there is a time and place for discussion of social and political issues, my channel / chat is does not fit either of those criteria.
- No Follow For Follow Requests

If you prove yourself to be a problem, you will be banned.

It's straight to the point on the conduct that is not allowed on my channel. Most people get the message straight away.

Followers-Only Mode, if  enabled, viewers must follow you for a specific amount of time from  10 minutes to 3 months before they can say anything. You can only set it to allow any follower to chant instantly. Also there is the even more strict Subscriber-only Chat only allows those who are subscribers and moderators to chat

So hopefully this break down makes it easier for folks to get use to what tools they have to make use of to secure their chats.

And Now The Usual Stuff

Found a copy of Chaos Legion for the PlayStation 2 hidden with some DVDs, which does make me wonder whatever happened to my copy of Legends of Wrestling... I may have traded it in, but I'm almost positive I didn't. Maybe it accidentally got junked!

Sat down and watched the 2-Part Top Gear Africa Special, where Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May took three estate cars on a journey to find the source of the Nile. This is why I don't mind The Grand Tour shifting towards doing big specials instead of doing a weekly car show. It's on the adventures when the trio really shine in my opinion.

Now just because there was no stream on Twitch, there was one in my Discord, first did six Overwatch Mayhem Matches... winning five and getting three plays of the game, all as D.va. Now Since I set OBS to have replay buffer that means I have one clip from the stream to be on the Highlight Reel for the week.

Overwatch Discord Mayhem Matches

1. D.va - Win - Play of The Game
   
2. D.va - Win - Play of The Game
3. D.va - Win
4. D.va - Win - Play of The Game
   
5. D.va - Loss
6. D.va - Win 
   

Unfortunately the same could not be said about some ranked matches I did last night, and both losses came at a result of no help from those who queue up to play Damage. If I'm playing D.va and I am consistently the last one standing while having gold on Eliminations Objective Kills and Objective Time while being often in Silver or Bronze for damage dealing, then something is wrong with how other people play ranked

Overwatch Ranked Matches (Tank)

1. D.va - 07:28 - Win - 2-0
2. D.va - 26:38 - Loss - 5-6
3. D.va - 16:33 - Loss - 2-3
   

  

But that's not all, I then switched things over for their to be a watch along in my Discord of the movie Willow starring Val Kilmer. I can't remember the last time I watched it, but it's been a long while. Was fun to sit down and watch it. Maybe I should consider doing some 'Reaction' videos over on YouTube again. It's a thought to be considered. Amyway, big thanks to Iceman and PandaSweet for being apart of the Watch-Along.

A topic that came up during it was the strong possibility that Val Kilmer probably can't reprise his role as Madmartigan on the Disney+ series. Now that I have a thought considering the ages of three of the known cast members, probably one is the daughter of Madmartigan and Sorscha... so maybe a guest appearance by Kilmer would be do-able if that is the case.

So how did I spend my day off of streaming, well for one I put a lot spare cables and parts into a trunk to stick in the bottom of a closet, so that took a good hour to do. I went back and forth on taking down the green screen, but since it blocks those from seeing what's behind me, I figured I'd leave it up.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 513 kcal. The exercises for today were Intermediate Combo #1, Triple Combo #2 and the Biceps Shape Focus Combo. As you can see with the wrap up of Lin's Champion achievement yesterday, we have switched back to Hiro.

For tonight's stream, we'll play Life is Strange Episode 3 and maybe, Episode 4, or we'll pair up Episode 3 with some other thing. But we will be streaming tonight!

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

If history is gonna be changed, then let it bloody well be changed!

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Chrono Cross was epic in many ways as we finished the game, capping the complete play-through at 40 hours. Not bad, and the only time we had any trouble was when we faced the Sky Dragon, which is the only part of the game that took multiple attempts. And considering how the final battle of the game requires some extra good luck, it's a small miracle things worked out!

We opened things up by heading to Divine Dragon falls to form the Chrono Cross then bouncing to Hermit's Hideaway to check on Kid, which triggered the spirits of the Mastermune to send Serge & Company (Nikki and Miki) into the past to rescue Kid from a burning house during the events that saw Lynx and Harle abduct Lucca. Made sure to get Kid's Level 7 Tech 'Hotshot Tech' as well. This entire area is optional, but it's a really cool side quest that shows that makes use of one of the location of Chrono Trigger. This also leads to a great moment where Luccia give Kid a letter from Lucca at Viper manor which explains concerns Lucca had about the actions she, Chrono, Marle and the rest did during the events of their adventure.

Once Kid was back in the party it was off to the El Nido Trinagle to find Starky's ship and get a component that will allow us to reach Terra Tower, we of course didn't go straight away into tackling the bosses, instead we went to get the level 7 abilities for Korcha and Starky , plus recruit Mel. With the exception of Janice, we recruited everyone possible on one play through using the Save Kid/Recruit Nikki path.

Now it was off to Terra Tower, and a max / gauntlet that leads to six boss battles: Terrator, Pyrotor, Anemotor, Gravitor, Luxator and Aquator.... that's a lot of Tors! Anyway, these bosses have different innate, but it s really easy to counter balance them since their innate are Yellow, Red, Green, Black, White and Blue respectively, so the counter attack is Green, Blue, Yellow, White, Black, Red, against each one. Now with the exception of Terrator, where I had Razzly on the team with Serger and Kid, the rest of the battles had Leena on the team, and I focused on swapping elements around to keep the counter balance up.

I should point out after defeating Pyrotor, you can find a spectral glove, which can be dismantled to give the materials needed to make the Rainbow Mail for Serge, which helps with the final two bosses of the game

The battle against The Time Devourer in it's Dragon God form is pretty straight forward, attack it hard with elements opposite of it's innate, but it switches areas and innate every so having elements of all colors is important as well as having weapons that do as much damage as possible. This was a very straight forward fight, which can be quite easy if the pressure is kept up. The best part about this fight, and other areas of Terra Tower, is that it does tell you what you need to do to get the good ending.

Which brings us to the battle against the Time Devourer's true former, a combination of Lavos and Schalla from Chrono Trigger. Now this can be defeated one of two ways, the first being a straight up fight which gives a 'bad' ending.... and the other is if elements are used in a specific order (Yellow, Red, Green, Blue, Black, White and then have Serge use the Chrono Cross), you gree Schalla and the world is saved. Now that's easier said than done, because the Time Devourer can cast elements to, which can break the chain. Best you can do is to have a nice bix of low level elements of every character on the team and hope that when you are getting things set up, that the boss casts the right element for the sequence. I got lucky as the Time Devourer casted a white element when the first five were already in play to get the good ending.

The hype was certainly real when it came to finishing Chrono Cross and getting its true ending, which does get a bit heavy handed in the philosophy of life and personal choice, but that's pretty standard for a lot of SquareEnix games. I am really glad I was able to stream this and that we knocked it out within August!

Following the stream we sent everyone over to Alraedris who was also playing Chrono Cross, seemed like a good dude. You can check them out over on twitch.tv/alraedris. 

Twitch Clip Links

• Rescue Kid
• Defeating The Royal Jelly 
• The flight to Terra Tower
• Defeating Terrator 
• Defeating Pyrotor
• Defeating Anemotor 
• Defeating Gravitor
• Defeating Luxator
• Defeating Aquator 
• Defeating The TimeDevourer in it's Dragon God Form
• Hang In There... We're Doing This!!!!! Let's F'N GOOOO!!!!
• Schalla 'Kid' Zeal 
  

Found three boxes of my dad's stuff yesterday that needs to be tossed out, nothing of real note, just a bunch of out-dated sports books from the 70s and a number of really bad novels.

Ran an APBA Baseball Simulated Game last night, you can check the results in a post from earlier today:Off-Stream: APBA Baseball - Chicago Cubs 2 New York Yankees 0

May have gotten a lead on a copy of .hack//Outbreak which is the third game in the original PlayStation 2 era series of games based on the .hack//sign Anime. If I can track down a copy of .hack//Quarantine as well that would complete the set in my collection. And for this I am going after the harder to find North American release, because as an RPG, I would need to be able to read everything in English.

Overwatch Competitive Matches (Tank)

1. D.va - 13:10 - Loss - 1-3
2. D.va - 18:03 - Loss - 2-3
3. D.va - 16:33 - Win - 2-1 
4. D.va - 19:35 - Win - 5-4
5. D.va - 06:28 - Win - 2-0
6. D.va - 24.38 - Loss - 4-5
   

Star Trek Online has announced yet another 'recruitment event', which is basically code for wanting to artificially inflate daily players totals... and that is I believe the 3rd or 4th one this year. Since Star Trek Online doesn't have enough content to justify keeping it in the weekly lineup, STO is being dropped from being featured every Thursday for even half a stream, instead it will be brought out when ever there happens to be new fresh content, aka episodes, to play.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 34 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 638 kcal. Today's exercisers were Difficult Challenge Combo #1, Difficult Challenge Combo #2 and Difficult Challenge Combo #3. I set a new personal best on Difficult Challenge Combo #3. We wrapped up the Lin's Champion achievement, and it appears it does not unlock anything extra for Lin, which is surprising. Anyway, we'll now switch trainers and focus on Hiro, his next related achievement is 'Hiro's Contender' which is to train with Hiro for over 30 hours, currently we have 14 hours on record with him already

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise Achievements

1. Lin's Champion: Train with Lin for Over 50 Hours
   

Now there are a lot of folks who will not be streaming tonight because of the #ADayOffTwitch to get Twitch to 'do better' when it comes to dealing with 'hate raids' and such, even though Twitch does provide a number of tools, a lot of which I use to protect my chat. Anyway I will not be streaming tonight. I'll be up to a few things otherwise though.

Which means the next stream will be Thursday night and we'll be playing Life is Strange Episode 3, combined with a few other things.

Anyway,on that note we'll see you tomorrow for the next entry of this little blog!