As Usual We Cure The Genophage!

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 3 saw a couple of issues with Xfinity, and a few old fashion frame drops, but it was mostly stable.

We did cover a lot of major stuff, and not so major stuff with the game in terms of side quests. The big thing was we cured the Genophage, because there is no way in hell I would ever pick the Salarians over the Krogan, mostly because for every one cool Salarian there are bunch of assholes. We also took care of the secondary missions involving helping Samara and Jacob, and I did try to make party selections make sense to get extra dialog. I did take Javik with Liara for the Samara mission, just to have them snipping at each other.

Of course, anyone who has seen my play the Mass Effect trilogy before knows how important I view Thane's death scene when it comes to Shepard's character, because Thane is the only love interest in the trilogy that can die in a major moment that is not a decision. Plus, when we get to the Citadel DLC, Thane's memorial service is a lot more impactful because Shepard cries during it.

In terms of the side-side quests, the ones that involve exploring, we covered a good portion of all things that are associated with every system that opens up after Priority: Tuchanka, and that meant a lot of running around the Citadel to get some deliveries made. In terms of these, I just have the stuff that open up after Priorty: Geth Dreadnought, Priorty: Rannoch and Priority: THessia to deal with.

But before we even do that, the DLC quests called Omega and Leviathan will be my next priority and will be featured on tonight's stream. We'll probably open with Leviathan because that is long as hell to deal with, and when that is done, if there is time we'll tackle Omega.

Mass Effect 3 Achievements

• Eye of the Hurricane: Kill a brute while it's charging you.
• Bruiser: Kill 100 enemies with melee attacks.
• Pathfinder: Explore a lost city.
• Master and Commander: Deliver most of the Galaxy at War assets to the final conflict.
• Arbiter: Win a political stand-off.
• Paramour: Establish or rekindle a romantic relationship.
• Problem Solver: Evacuate a scientific facility.
• Fact Finder: Discover an enemy's monstrous origin.

Twitch Clips

• Achievement: Eye of the Hurricane
• I'm trapped! 
• Shepard is always interested 
  

For the raid we dropped in on YrGamerBunni who was playing Crusader Kings III over at twitch.tv/yrgamerbunni!  

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

Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago resident got raided by the FBI...too bad he wasn't there because the footage of him kicking and screaming would have been hilarious!

Asked the supervisor at my job what are the chances that I won't get stuck on the current big assignment every day, because it just handcuffs the hell out of how productive I can be. I'm someone who like to hit certain marks, and more often than not I do feel some assignments are meant to just make sure I don't reach my own goals.

We're expecting a big thunderstorm or at least a lot of rain on Wednesday afternoon and evening, hopefully work and streaming will not be effected. 

What do you call a canine magician? A labracadabrador.

The rotation of the earth really makes my day.

Song of the Day: Misery Business by Paramore

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.   

So as we established earlier, tonight we'll be playing Mass Effect 3, so on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Overwatch... The Way To Star The Week

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch started a little earlier than normal, and we ended up doing a lot more than one would expected. Sure we played standard Quick Play Role Queue, but we also messed around with Mystery Heroes, Capture the Flag and Quick Play Classic Big shout out to PandaSweet who was apart of a lot of the matches,

In terms of who I used, D.va, Wrecking Ball, Moira, Ana, Lucio, Sigma, Widowmaker Doomfist, & Tracer were among the various characters I used. Also picked up two plays of the Game as D.va, so that was cool.

Now of course the next Overwatch Remix event will be starting this week, so we're looking forward to seeing the new attires. Of course Reaper is almost guaranteed to get one. Of course I'm looking forward to probably being able to get into even brawls like Junkenstein's Revenge, or things like the lore missions.

Twitch Clips

• Got Two!
• Got a Double Kill Off of That! 
• Double Kill and Taking Down The Turrent
  

For the raid we dropped in on TracyDoll who was playing Friday the 13th: The Game over at twitch.tv/tracydoll!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Triple Combo #1, Weaving Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1 for 28 minutes.

I was expecting an Xfinity tech yesterday afternoon, but they never showed. So did they try to skirt the scheduled with the unexpected Saturday morning visit which I was barely awake for? Now I did get a call from the Executive Customer Relations team this morning to tell me they don't know why the tech visit was push to a day earlier.

For the record we had two upstream issues last night that effect the streaming but I was not quick enough to get into the Gateway to document what the Upstream Power level was.But i have seen the Upstream Power Levels have been pushing 48 / 49, so that means it may have briefly exceeded 51.

Managed to finished the one commission fic request for a WWE/Fox Sports cross over... and then got another one for a WWE fic set in the year 2016 post brand split draft.

I'd tell you the joke about perforated paper, but it's tear-able.

What do you call someone else's cheese? Nacho cheese!

Song of the Ride: Riptide by Vance Joy

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 shall resume Mass Effect 3, and we'll try to keep things balance in terms of doing side quests and main story stuff! That said I did knock off a lot of achievements via the online multiplayer mode last night, managing to get in on some super hard missions, which allowed me to level up quickly. Plus doing that allowed me to get the maximum readiness which was I was gunning for via the N7HQ 'Galaxy at War' site. IT did take about 2 hours and 45 minutes to that, but hell, it was worth it.

Mass Effect 3 Achievements

• Almost There: Reach level 15 in multiplayer or level 50 in single-player.
• Combined Arms: Perform any combination of 50 biotic combos or tech bursts.
• Peak Condition: Reach level 20 in multiplayer or level 60 in single-player.
• Defender: Attain the highest level of readiness in each theater of war.
• Battle Scarred: Promote a multiplayer character to the Galaxy at War or import an ME3 character.

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

Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks Is Actually... Good?!

 Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream had some minor instances of frame drops and a couple of brief interruptions, but with Xfinity doing repairs to the lines and stuff, it makes it harder to access the gateway to see what the upstream power levels were. 

Anyway, we started the stream with Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks for the PlayStation 2... and outside of some questionable cut scenes where Liu Kang had different hair styles, and some really bad voice acting... it's actually a good game. I was impressed with how responsive the controls were and how as a brawler things just worked. We actually advanced fairly deep, going all the way up through the Kitana/Jade/Mileena boss fight. 

Now I did have some trouble mostly with puzzles and figuring out what to do and where to go, so some sort of map indicator, way pointer or a decent in-game map would really made things progress a lot further than things did. There are of course some continuity issues as well, such as when Jade is killed in the original Mortal Kombat timeline, but these are just nitpicks.

We did switch over to MultiVersus, and I think I figured out Arya Stark and Jake the Dog in terms of how to play them. I do struggle with trying to time using abilities to save my self from getting knocked off the sides, but hey happy to say there are things I'm figuring out.!

Twitch Clips

• That's a Big Dude...
• Mulitality doesn't work on the Sorcerers? 
• 1 versus 2
• Haha! 
• Ho! Ho! Ho!
• Victory! 
  

For the raid, we dropped in on Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/Kalenal last night! 

As of last night I got the Galaxy at War up to over 80% in all five areas so hopefully I will continue to make progress with that to get it's related achievement in Mass Effect 3 sooner rather than later.

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

Have not finished writing the latest Commission request yet, in fact I basically scrapped what I originally had for the intro yesterday afternoon.

What kind of music do windmills like? They're metal fans.

What do you call a fish with two knees? A tunee fish.

Song of the Day: Somebody That I used to Know by Gotye (Featuring Kimbra) 

Star of a new week means we get to take a look back at all the games we featured over the previous seven days which included: Overwatch, Mass Effect 3, Smite, Fall Guys, Final Fantasy XIV, Stray, Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks & MultiVersus!

 

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, Overwatch is on deck and we're going to hope it'll be incident free with little to no issues with my Xfinity service.

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

Stray was awesome... Yes I cried a little

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night we played Stray... and unfortunately, the stream got split into two parts, but we did play the entire game in one night. And I'll admit right at the start, I cried at the end because I was reading every line of dialog out loud, so the last few lines broke me. I do have a clip where you can hear my voice wavering.

In terms of the actual game, I loved it... our nameless cat certainly had one hell of a bad day... and not because of the 9+ times I got killed. I did enjoy a lot of the early puzzles and exploration that was involved. I know for sure I missed a lot of stuff, and made some choices that made some achievements unobtainable. I did find some of the later enemies (The Sentinels ) tough to deal in terms of getting past them, because I was kind of powering through when I should've been looking for patterns

The funny thing is about the plot with it basically being trapped in a walled city or vault is that one could consider this is what Fallout would be if there were no humans and mostly robots who evolved into having human qualities to some degree. I'm probably reaching with that statement, but oh well. Does give me a reason to go back and play it again as part of next year's line up.

Would I recommend Stray for folks to play, yes, wholeheartedly yes!

Big thanks to the viewers for kicking in 300 Bits during the stream, ya'll are awesome! And also thanks to the new followers as well in the form of EvacArts_Guila and Pipermarch99!

Stray (PS4) Trophies

• Missed Jump: Fall inside the city.
• A Little Chatty: Meow 100 times.
• Not Alone: Meet B-12.
• Cat Got Your Tongue?: Have B-12 translate a robot.
• Curiosity Killed the Cat: Wear the paper bag.
• Cat-a-Pult: Jump 500 times.
• Meowlody: Bring all the music sheets to Morusque.
• Boom Chat Kalaka: Dunk the basketball.
• Cat-a-strophe: Try to play mahjong with the robots.
• Cat's best friend: Nuzzle up against 5 robots.
• Catwalk: Reach Midtown.
• Scratch: Scratch the vinyl in the club.
• Al-Cat-Raz: Go to jail.
• No More Lives: Die 9 times.
• Eye Opener: Complete the game and open the city.

Twitch Clips

• Aww.... tip-tap-tip-tap.... 
• Panda! Boom-Chat-Kalaka!
• Sup Dude! 
• You Can Tell Stray Broke Me...
  

For the raid we dropped in on MommyBee who was playing Persona 5 over at twitch.tv/mommybee!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Beginner Combo #1, Hook Combo #2 and Left-Right Step Combo for 28 minutes.

Fitness Boxing 2 Stats For 7/31-8/6/22

• Punches Thrown: 8539
  
• Estimate Calories Burned:3491.37 kcal
  
• Laura's Champion Progress: 66% (33 out of 50 Hours)
  
• King EX Fight Progress: 95%
  

So an update Xfinity, I was called yesterday saying they did quite a bit of work in the area on Thursday, so they want to come out tomorrow to check the lines to see if things are where they are supposed to be. Now there was someone out this morning checking on upstream signals, and they saw the history that the power levels were at 50 or above going back to July 17. I was also told RF lines (?) were being replaced in the area to help resolve a lot of issues.

What's even better than Ted Danson? Ted singing and Danson.

Why did the invisible man turn down a job offer? He couldn't see himself doing it.

In regards to Mass Effect 3, I have been putting in time over on the N7 HQ site to build up the Galactic Readiness. With luck I'll be able to get the in-game achievement for that by mid-week. We'll see. if I'm right with that prediction.

Song of the Day: Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones

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 hooking up the PlayStation 2 to check out Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, and more than likely we'll mess around with other thing. I did consider numerous other things, but I figure this would be a game most people wouldn't even consider checking out in 2022.

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

More Side Progress In Final Fantasy XIV

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV featured a few issues with Xfinity, with a few instances of Upstream Power Levels shooting well over 51, causing stream stalls and frame drops. I made sure to take screenshots when I was able to get into the gateway to see what was going on.

In terms of what we did in game, I knocked out various little side quests, did some fishing and finally wrapped up the Botany job quests at level 70... which was a bit of a pain in the ass than it needed to be because the final items needed to be harvested were at a location that only spawns like every hour or so. Big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of the fun on a few raids and trials in the daily roulette, as it is always fun to have Panda watching out back!

Also thank you to viewers in the chat for kicking in a few bits, thank you for the continued support!

Twitch Clips

• Just Some Fishing
• Forgot to Put the shield up! 
• We're going to die!
  

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

Sometimes I like to tuck my knees into my chest and lean forward. That’s just how I roll.

The failure of HBO Max just goes to show that major media studios trying to gate keep their content isn't going to work, and unfortunately it has lead to the halt of a lot of stuff that apparently was practically done and ready for airing. Of course anyone who has followed the history of anything associated with Warner Brothers / AOL-Time Warner / Discovery, would know they have botched the hell out of many things by overestimating what the consumer base wants.

I Make Horrible Science Puns... But Only Periodically.

I have the world's worst thesaurus. Not only is it terrible, it's also terrible.

What do hillbillies drink from? Hiccups.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Advanced Combo #2, Body Uppercut Combo and Body Straight Combo for 31 minutes.

Apparently DNF Duel is having issues with population when it comes to online match making, but the issue is more with fighting games having a very short shelf-life with online play. Why? Because there is always a new game coming along. Hell it takes a lot for me to stick with a fighting game, but if I have a goal or objective you know I'll put the time in with it. Hell, if I was to look at the top 10 fighting games I've put time into using say Exophase to track hours they would be.

1. Jump Force - 73 Hours (Xbox)
2. BlazBlue Centralfiction - 72 Hours (Steam)
3. Mortal Kombat 11 - 65 Hours (Xbox)
4. Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid - 51 Hours - (28 Hours (Xbox)  + 23 Hours (Steam))
5. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend - 49 Hours (Steam)
6. BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend - 42 Hours (Steam)
7. Persona 4 Arena - 36 Hours (Xbox)
8. Mortal Kombat X - 32 Hours (Steam)
9. Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection - 31 Hours - (16 Hours (Xbox) + 15 Hours (Steam))
9. Injustice 2 - 27 Hours (Steam)
10. Ultra Street Fighter IV - 26 Hours (Steam)

Obviously some odd ones are Power Rangers and Street Fighter 30th, because i played two different versions, so I just added their time up. Now a lot of these games have a story mode, hell that basically makes up the majority of Persona 4 Arena, but it has no online community to support it because it's a near decade old game. WIth the BlazBlue games, I know a ton of time was dedicated to their story mode with some limited online play here and there. I know I played online a lot with MKX , while MK11 was more of grinding towards achievements in off-line modes, same with Jump Force.

But from what I understand, DNF Duel is just relying on online game play... so yeah, it's no wonder people aren't sticking to it,

Work continued to drag, as the assignment I'm stuck with is just a real moral killer because of when folks prefer to be interviewed... oh well, at least I can pass them along to others.

Song of the Day: Escape (The Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes 

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, the plan is to play Stray, and I'm looking forward to it.So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Xfinity Update and Other Stuff

Good morning everyone,

Well yesterday, I lost two hours of work due to internet issues but it certainly appeared to be related to an actual outage that should've been repaired by 12:50 Eastern... and my service was down till about 2 PM... but there was still intermittent issues that plagued when I was working, not to mention the stream itself. Considering Xfinity sent a text at 6:50 PM saying things were fixed, I was not expecting to have major breaks in the stream... things got so bad I actually got kicked from matches of Fall Guys, which we lead off with.

Now I did contact Xfinity during the stream, using the ticket number I was given from Executive Customer Relations to hopefully be able to get my issues addressed, I ended up speaking to generic people in the Philippines!  So what I ended up doing was emailing the FCC back with another screenshot of the upstream power levels, along with the email I got from Xfinity and my reply to them asking for a callback at a specific time. And considering calling the person at the Executive Customer Relations division directly only gets me an voice mail... I'm not expecting much.

Of course what I should have expected was for my internet service to have yet another outage again this morning which was not ideal. In fact as I'm writing this, the connection just came back up. I also finally got a call back from Executive Customer Relations team to explain everything to them directly. All they said was they were going to speak to their technical team regarding this to try and see what's going on.

So with that said, the stream opened with Fall Guys and we were so close to actually winning a solo show... but I made a mistake by diving when I should have walked. After the noted calls with Xfinity, I played some Smite an we were joined by SF Bumblebee for several matches. I stuck with playing Athena and Kukulkan since I had quests associated with playing as  Greek and Mayan gods

Big thanks to LvStrkr for renewing their sub to the channel for the 40th month in a row! Always awesome to note the major milestones.

Fall Guys Achievements

• Low Baller: Qualify from a team game with a score of 1

Twitch Clips

•  That got me where I needed to be
•  My mistake...
•  Not Often I Get To Drop In
•  https://clips.twitch.tv/TransparentNastyGoblinSeemsGood-1nJ5udHM02Vd7SFB
  

For the raid, we dropped in on Cammi_316 who was playing Conan Exiles over at twitch.tv/cammi_316! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Defensive Combo #1, Uppercut Combo #2 and Double Combo #1 for 28 minutes.

What did the socks say to the pants? "'Sup britches?!"

What shivers at the bottom of the ocean? A nervous wreck.

Song of the Day: Blue (Da Ba Dee) – Gabry Ponte Ice Pop Radio! by Eiffel 65 & Gabry Ponte  

Started work on the next commission fic request based around WWE... think I have a good idea of how to make it work.

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 the plan is Final Fantasy XIV and we're going to hope things will be settled with tonight's stream as it relates to the problems I've been having with Xfinity.

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

More Mass Effect 3

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 3 was a lot of fun, as we took our time and tried to tackle many things from different parts of the game, such as N7 Missions, Exploration and the main story, plus just roaming around on the Citadel and other stuff that leads to me just having play through last longer than needed. The big thing we did do was to knock out the Turian missions on Tuchanka so that we don't have the 'bomb' mission to worry about as I go take care of other things. This will help in a big way when it comes to just making sure everything possible gets done without being rushed. 

Of course, we did have a number of chuckles with some favorite moments (Wrex's air drop, Grunt being reunited with his 'mama', and getting Liara to meet her father), and we've banged out several achievements... including one that involved getting armor that was DLC for Mass Effect 2. Also noticed on a lof the screenshots, that the 360 version of Mass Effect 3 has darker lighting than the PC (Origin) and Legendary Edition versions. 

I will try and put some time into the Mass Effect Galaxy at War gimmick to see if I can knock out its associate achievement, but that may prove to be a bit problematic considering how EA's N7HQ website was never all that reliable.

Big thank you to the those in the chat that kicked in 300 bits during the stream. The continued support is always appreciated!

Mass Effect 3 Achievements

• Liberator: Stop a Cerberus kidnapping.
• Always Prepared: Obtain two non-customizable suits of armor.
• Pyromaniac: Set 100 enemies on fire with powers.
• World Shaker: Destroy an Atlas dropped from orbit.
• Tunnel Rat: Survive the swarm.
• Giant Killer: Defeat a harvester.
• Sky High: Lift 100 enemies off the ground with powers.
• Tourist: Complete one multiplayer match or two N7 missions.

Twitch Clips

• Shepard Doing A Full Linda Blair!
• You Big Stupid Jellyfish... Great Line 
• Achievement: Giant Killer
  

For the raid, we sent the fun over to Joliet4 who was doing a music stream over at twitch.tv/joliet4! 

Got an email from Xfinity's Executive Customer Relations Department asking me to reach out to them regarding the issues I was having... goes to show, to make them do anything, just contact the FCC. Speaking of which, last night's stream saw three interruptions, and this morning was plagued with several issues... I attempted to call the persona assigned to this case but got their voice mail 1/2 a dozen times as well.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 featured Front-Back Step Combo, Triple Combo #2 and Defensive Combo #2 for 28 minutes. Today marked 600 days in a row of Fitness Boxing 2, 758 when also including the original Fitness Boxing

Kudos to voters in the state of Kansas to up hold abortion rights.

Work really dragged yesterday, as one of my least favorite assignments rolled in... and let me state, I'm not the biggest fan of Business to Business research because of how unprofessional people are. 

Vin Scully the long time voice of the Dodgers has passed away, I believe there are no more classic era announcers left with any of the major league teams at this point. 

Got another commission story request, looking for a cross over between WWE and Fox Sports which shall prove a challenge to make work. Hopefully I can come up with something solid. 

Cosmetic surgery used to be taboo, but now when you talk about Botox no one raises an eyebrow.

Did you hear the one about the three watering holes in the ground? Well, well, well.

Song of the Day: Do I Wanna Know by the Arctic Monkeys 

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.   

Iceman informed me he will not be able to take part in this week's mid-week shenanigans, so I think I might take a break from Fallout 76, and do something random. Not sure what that will be at this point and time.

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