A Clueless Bard Saves The Realm

Good morning everybody,

Well what we did last night certainly caught me by surprised as the entire stream was indeed dedicated To Final Fantasy XIV.

Since I've been play FF14 off-stream most days, I've certainly covered a lot of ground, and thus last night it was almost like a straight line to the end of the original campaign... I said almost because there we were starting from Reclamation and we finished with The Ultimate Weapon, these were basically level 44 to level 50 quests in the Main Story, and I was level 55, so I was basically above what I needed to be for it.

I have to admit I did enjoy everything involved with the rescue of Minfilia and the other Scions, which had a real nice build up of scouting the area, getting the disguises and other items necessary to mount a rescue, but once that was done things certainly picked up quick in terms of a rapid escalation of the villains plot bringing things to a rather satisfying conclusion of the original story.

I will also admit I had trouble keeping up during Castrum Meridanium and Praetorium, for a new player to it, not having a clue of where to go and trying to follow the other players was rather tough, resulting in me getting lost and killed a couple of times, That said I did enjoy the boss battles, and the cut scenes were rather epic. In fact if it wasn't for the cut scenes I would have probably not been able to be apart of any the fun!

Have to again give credit to Kalenal (twitch.tv/Kalenal) for suggesting I go Archer / Bard since for the most part, I do stay out of trouble when I have to group with others in FF14 and can hold my own by running and shooting arrows!

I will of course continue to play Final Fantasy XIV mostly off-stream, but whenever there is a gap in the line up I'll work it in for a night of campaign stuff. Who knows how far along I'll be by the next time FF14 finds itself being featured!

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

Twitch Clip Links

• Just another FATE completed
• Wedge is Sus 
  
• Okay... who brought the death star.... Oh.... Ohhhh....
• Yeah we're here... what of it? 
  
• He went down easy enough
• We haven't meddled enough at all!
  

I know there are achievements for Final Fantasy XIV, but I don't know where there is an easy way outside of the game to see the list of what I've managed to complete like with other games

Started progress for the Zarya skin which is the reward for week two of Overwatch's Halloween Terror 2021, mostly using Mystery Heroes because those matches end up being really quick. 

Work was kind of blah yesterday as it was mostly a case of waiting for connects, goes to show how dry the job can be when most people work the mornings to early afternoons. I could make that switch myself... but that means working out after lunch.... who knows maybe we'll give that a shot someday.

Speaking of which, today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with the following exercises Advance Combo #2, Left-Right Step Combo & Double Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of  As you can tell by the screen shot my timing was a bit off with the number of OK actions performed.

For tonight's stream Iceman will be joining the fun around 9 PM as we'll be starting up Gears of War Judgement! But since the stream starts before then, I'll mess around with a few other things... probably try getting an achievement in Super Puzzle Fighter II HD Remix by beating it on Hard difficulty? It's possible.

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

A One Night Run Of A New Frontier

 Good morning everybody

Last night's stream turned out to be a bit surprising because of how long it went and what was accomplished.

So the plan was to play only the first three episodes of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, but because of how short the episodes were we did all five episodes in one night. Looking back, it was kind of obvious TellTale was having some problems because  A New Frontier had some really weird textures. The story writing and game play execution were still up to par, but the graphics looked a little weird at times.

One big strength A New Frontier has is if you have Clementine with Kenny at the end of season two, it's quite clear of how much she learns from him in addition to what she learned from both him and Lee. It also serves as great continuity as it relates to Clem's mindset and how she is basically a parent to AJ. The is the lead protagonist, Javier who certainly is put in the Lee situation was, of having to step up to take care of business when the world went to shit, and it's real easy and obvious to have him pursue a relationship with Kate considering the time gap. Another big strength is the character of Jesus... who is voiced by the same person who voiced Garrus in the Mass Effect games, so I made a few jokes about that because I'm a Mass Effect fan. While there are some serious plot holes regarding a lot of his actions, Tripp is also likeable dude.

Some of the weak point of A New Frontier come down to Gabe's personality which lead to the running joke of 'Shut Up Gabe' throughout the night, he comes across as what a slightly older Duck would be, someone who always seem a step or two away from getting everyone killed. Then their is David (Javier's brother) and the entire Richmond leadership drama which, there is no real justification to even try to get along with them. Also doesn't help that once it's established who The New Frontier is it's like one wants to get the hell out of town as soon as possible.The other issue is that there is nothing remotely likeable about David to even want to take his side as his jealousy and resentment (plus the fact he didn't bother to even go look for his family) just makes it all the easier to just ignore him.

Anyway since we tackled New Frontier in one night, we'll do The Final Season in one shot on Saturday since it's only four episodes. 

Thank you to memeiscool and they_call_me-delgado for the follows during the stream!

Also big thanks to redneckerthenyou for re-subscribing to the channel using Twitch Prime!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to MommyBee who was playing Final Fantasy IV over at twitch.tv/mommybee!  

The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series Achievements

1. Family Road Trip: Completed A New Frontier Episode 1
2. Bloody Business: Completed A New Frontier Episode 2
3. Southern Hospitality: Completed A New Frontier Episode 3
4. Faces in the Crowd: Completed A New Frontier Episode 4
5. Sole Survivors: Completed A New Frontier Episode 5
   

Twitch Clip Links

• Hello Garrus... We Found Jesus!
• That's A Black & Decker Flashlight For Ya! 
• B for Bash It's Head In!
•  I Got Myself Distracted and Myself Eaten
•  Clem Has Out Back Like A...
  

The use of HD Capture to get the video and sound from the Elgato HD60S by using window capture in OBS worked perfectly, it will take be a bit to balance the audio, but hey it's one less headache to deal with in OBS and that's a good thing!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with the following exercises: Uppercut Combo #2, Body Uppercut Combo and Body Hook Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 429 kcal.

For tonight's stream I'm not completely sure what we'll be doing, maybe it'll be Final Fantasy XIV or we'll do some random console stuff. We'll see!

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

Junkenstein's Revenge Leads To The Ultima Weapon

 Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of course featured Overwatch, as we split the stream between doing Quick Play matches as well as various runs of Junkenstein's Revenge in the Halloween Terror event. Basically went back and forth between the two modes, with a few of the Junkenstein variants (Three There Were, Mystery Switch and Endless). Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on a bunch of these, as it was a completely chilled night. I did manage to grab a bunch of Plays of the Game in the event mode, two as McCree and one each for Tracer, Brigitte, Solider 76, Ashe and Torbjörn.

One thing Panda and I realized is that if you combined McCree's Ultimate with that of Baptiste's in this mode the outcome is very pleasing. Doesn't quite work as well with 76, but it was really it does a fair amount of damage.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Flint_Locke over at twitch.tv/flint_locke as they were doing another episode of their read aloud series of streams featuring Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Meakashi!

Twitch Clip Links

• Come on! Come on!
• One got through 
• Got Two Of Them With That 
• Happy Halloween... SQUISH! 
• An Empowered High Noon! 

Yesterday afternoon I made a quick trip to CVS for my refill of the chlorhexidine gluconate oral rinse, and pointed out the head of the pharmacy that the amount in the bottle does not equal 30 days considering the instructions are for to use it twice a day! He said that would be fixed for the next and final time.

Following the stream and getting the Facebook video done, I loaded up Final Fantasy XIV, and made some progress on the Carpentry job quests before turning my focus back to the Main Story Quest... and everything was leading to my first tates of 'The Howling Wing' and a battle against the third primal, Garuda... which surprisingly was much more straight forward than the battle against Titan was. The thing is... it's what I saw in the cut scene afterward that has me concerned, as I saw the Ultima Weapon... and if things hold true to almost every other Final Fantasy game I've played, that thing is going to be a nightmare to defeat. Sure by the time I get to it, I'll probably be close to level 60 since it appears to be a Level 50 boss based on the MSQ, the gear I'm getting is mostly mid to high 40s, which means as high as my stats are going to be... the gear may not be up to par. Hell if things go right this week, we might stream this thing... depending on how I lay out doing the lead up quests in the mean time.

Experimented with a different way of getting the video and audio from the Elgato HD60S last night using the HD Capture software that downloads with capture card. Using it and listening to the audio through certainly seemed to work wonders and it also appears I can use the same software to play anything from the consoles without switching displays. This test was done using Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and everything seemed to work out. The tricky part would be if I should mute the desktop audio... further experimenting may be required. 

On the plus side, I finally earned another achievement in SPF2T... so yay!

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Achievements

1. Alternative Lifestyles: You completed Y or Z Arcade Mode on Hard or Expert Difficulty.
   

Paul McCarntey had the gall to call the Rolling Stones a blues cover bad when the Beatles were exactly the same thing. The only difference between the two is that the Stones didn't stray too far from the origins and were able to carve out a huge piece of music history, while the Beatles imploded because John Lennon had his head up his own ass.  

We have two new additions to my physlcal game collection: Alan Wake: Remastered for the PlayStation 4, and The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series for the Xbox One, which will remained seal.

Got confirmation that my Mail In Ballot was received by the Camden Count Board of Election back of September 28th for this year's General Election.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with the following exercises Front-Back Step Combo, Hook Combo #2 and Beginner Combo #1 for an estimated calorie burn of 447 kcal. I needed to make a run to the post office, so no need for extra exercises today.Here's the update on the EX Achievement progress: 311/365 consecutive days for One Year's Hard Work, 22/30 hours for  Janice's Contender, 311/350 stamps for Unparalleled Stamper and 433,147/450,000 HITs for Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 4.

For tonight's stream we'll be starting up The Walking Dead: New Frontier, with the plan being to tackle episodes 1, 2 and 3 tonight, then wrap it up with episode 4 & 5 tomorrow! 

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

Michonne: The Side Story That Means Nothing

Good Morning everyone,

Couldn't fully get to sleep so I was up early, this is the result of me sleeping in yesterday till 2:30 PM in the afternoon... anyway last night's stream we did a one night play through of all three episodes of The Walking Dead: Michonne, which was released after The Walking Dead Season 2.

Now in case you can't tell by the title, The Walking Dead: Michonne is basically a side-story that has not connection to the adventures of Clementine that we see in seasons 1 & 2 and what we'll see in New Frontier & The Final Season. The reason is because this takes place within the context of The Walking Dead comics between issues #126 & #139, when the character of Michonne left her group, so it picks up with her on her own and willing to end it all because she has nothing left to live or fight for. She suffers from a form of PTSD because she doesn't know the fate of her kids from a failed marriage and that at times interferes with how she sees the world around her. It certainly makes for a unique experience, but at the same time, it does give off an impossible way to justify how one should have Michonne act.

Unlike with Lee, Clementine (and with Gabe in New Frontier), Michonne is a character that has a back story, so you don't want to have her be too much of an uncaring monster, but your don't want her to be open and jokey either, it's more about making her fit the role she had in the comics. Even if one has not read the comics, one can't shake the feeling that Michonne needs to be portrayed a certain way... and it's down to how the game is written.

And on top of that, the events of Michonne's adventures don't matter because we don't see Paige, Sam, Alex or James in New Frontier or the Final Season. Hell just about everyone is pretty expendable because even if you choose for Michonne to stay with her hallucination of her kids at the end, she'll end up living, so it's pretty meaningless in the long run.

Still with this done, we'll move on to The Walking Dead: New Frontier, with the plan doing episodes 1-3 on Monday and episode 4 & 5 on Tuesday.

Big thanks to Fn_dante_savage for resubscribing to my channel to earn the 12-month sub-badge! Also thank you to redneckerthanyou for kicking in 25 bits during the stream! The support means a lot!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! 

The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series Achievements

1. Landfall: Completed Michonne Episode 1
2. Quiet Time: Completed Michonne Episode 2
3. Farewell: Completed Michonne Episode 3

Twitch Clip Links

• It advertises peaches... where the hell are the beans?!
• We're not sorry! BASH! BASH! SMASH... his face in
• Somethings Are Not Rendering 
• We have to disarm her!
  

It's Sunday which means we have this week's collection of my favorite moments of the week for you to check out over on YouTube. This week we featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, The Walking Dead Season Two, Final Fantasy XIV, Gears of War 3, Star Trek Online, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, The Simpsons Game and The Walking Dead Michonne!

Did some Final Fantasy XIV stuff off stream last night as well, and not so much on the main story quest, as we cleared out the Level 31 to 40 stuff, and then found the Enterprise in the Mission In Pursuit of the Past, when someone asked where my Soul Crystral was. So I had no clue, and thus I asked Kalenal who told me about the job quests, and thus I knocked those out in fairly short order for the Archer and the Bard ones that are available, then learned I could not proceed any further until I complete the Main Story Quest Before The Dawn which is a long ways away. Still progress was made!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily work out lasted 28 minutes with the following exercises: Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of 448 kcal. We kept it light today, also this was a perfect work out, no misses or OKs.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Overwatch and we'll do a mix of Quick Play matches and doing the Halloween Terror event stuff. So it'll be pretty chilled!

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

We Rocked Springfield Like A Hurricane

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night we had the goal of finishing The Simpsons Game which we started last Saturday night, and safe to say we managed to do that, even if it took me a while to finish the various stages and the fact I had to look up the solution to beat up Ben Franklin.

Anyway, we picked up at the half way point with the Alien Invasion of Springfield and having to save Cletus from being anal probed which probably took longer than it should, but we did get a great cameo of Kelsey Grammer's Sideshow Bob. From the there the second half of the game began as The Simpsons end up in the Game Engine and need to make their way through four 'games' that are parodies of EverQuest (Marge calling herself a MILF Queen repeatedly was just awesome), Medal of Honor, Grand Theft Auto,... and whatever stereotype of Japanese games EA was trying to pull off, before going after Matt Gorening who brings in Bender and Dr Zoidberg from Futurama for help.... and then finally going to Heaven to get some answers from God.

Now it took me five and half hours to get through all that, a few deaths along the way, but it was a lot of fun. I did have a real mixed feeling about going after the collectables, and if if just ignored them I probably would have finished the entire game in one night, but it was what it was.I do admit I love the Dance Dance Revolution style battle against God with the 'wrath of God' mix of Rock You Like A Hurricane playing, it's such a silly way to take down the almighty. And of course Ralph at the end breaking the fourth wall was just classic.

Big thanks to LumiLexy for the huge raid during the stream! They were playing Luigi's Mansion over at twitch.tv/lumilexy!

Also thanks you to Largepen420 for the follow during the stream as well!

Following the stream, we sent the fun over to SheepFuzz who was playing Jackbox Party Pack 8 over at twitch.tv/sheepfuzz! 

Twitch Clip Links

• First Person Maggie View
• Lies! 
• They are Both Right... Marge is an Elf and A M...
• Burns Down On One Hit 
• Damn it! DamnitDamnitDamnit DAMN!
• Wonderful Magical Animal!
• Say What Marge?!
• Walk Away Now
• Sending Shakespeare to Gat Out Of Hell
• Ralph Knocks On The Monitor

Already earned the Week One rewards for this years Overwatch's Halloween Terror Event, and picked up a couple of Plays of the Game, one as McCree and one as Tracer. We'll feature Junkenstein's Revenge alternating with Quick Play matches on Sunday night!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout Session lasted 31 minutes with the following exercises: Triple Combo #2, Intemediate Combo #1 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 521 kcal. Since I work up very late today, I did not do any extra exercises.

For tonight's stream we are doing a one night play though of all three episodes of The Walking Dead: Michonne, which should easily cover the entire evening. Originally released between Season 2 and New Frontier, Michonne has no noticeable connection to the adventures of Clementine, which is probably why most people ignore it!

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

A Night Of Final Fantasy XIV

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream fully featured Final Fantasy XIV, making it the first time we dedicated an entire stream to it.

We started with the 'Wreath of the Titan' story arc, which saw a lot of going back and forth from place to place, doing literal fetch quests... all in the name of 'proving ourselves' worthy of fighting the second of the games Primal gods, Titan, which is often the Earth based summon in most Final Fantasy games. Now things were going pretty well, outside of one bad encounter in a FATE where I got overwhelmed, but things were going smoothly. Then when I finally reached Titan (and after waiting in a queue for 10 minutes), I get squashed, revived and the knocked off the ledge! The other three people in the party had no issues with Titan... and I got credit for the quest being finished, but I did nothing during that fight! I'm quite mad about that while laughing at the same time at the shock. 

That kicked off the next major part of the story where the Scions are attacked, Minifilia is kidnapped and we find Cid as a monk with amnesia in a church which kicked off the search for his airship, the Enterprise. You know it's not a Final Fantasy game until Cid shows up, with the next goal finding his airship, The Enterprise. I remember back when I played Final Fantasy IV, that the name of the airship in that was also the Enterprise.... it's a good name for a shit, can't dispute that. 

So doing a full stream based around Final Fantasy XIV certainly proved to be more robust than a Star Trek Online stream because of the amount of content, keeping in mind I'm not doing the side quests at the moment, instead focusing on the main story quest line. The biggest draw backs are waiting in queues for dungeons, which can be anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes based on what I've experienced.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Oldish22 who also was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/oldish22! 

Twitch Clip Links

• Well he fell down 
• God god what is that?!
• And it's a dead turtle 
• We got him!
• Finishing The FATE in Time
• It's Huge! 
• First Time Facing Titan...
• I'm sorry but that was funny as hell! 
• Taking Out The Watcher

Now I did continue my trend of doing more Final Fantasy XIV off-stream, knocking out several quests leading up The Best Inventions is one of the final quests in the level 31-40 range of the story.I have noticed that some enemies are starting to be a little tougher out in the field despite the level advantage I have... then again, gear seems to be my biggest handicap.

Is there a more delusional D-list celebrity than George Takei? I mean the guy loves to blame William Shatner for the short gains in his career, but when you actually research Takei's history, you realize he basically justified the hiring of Walter Koenig for Star Trek's second season because Takei signed on to be in 'The Green Berets' starring John Wayne, which cut down on his own screen time, not to mention the fact that Takei only became an 'icon' as a result of becoming a self-parody with a starving need for attention which lead to him being a regular fixture on Howard Stern's program in the 1990s and 2000s.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 34 minutes and featured Difficult Challenge Combo #1, Difficult Challenge Combo #3 and Difficult Challenge #2 (in that order) for an estimated calorie burn of 645 kcal. For the Free Training we did Defensive Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2 for an additional 11 minutes with the estimate calorie burn being 172 kcal. So the totals for today were 45 minutes workout time with an total estimated calorie burn of 807 kcal.

For tonight's stream we are continuing The Simpsons Game, we played about 50% of it this past Saturday, so with a bit of luck we'll finish it tonight!

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

 

Black Cats in Star Trek And Hordes In Gears Of War

Good morning everybody,

Yesterday certainly was weird, as someone hacked my PlayStation account, thankfully since I work from home I was able to act quickly when I saw the email saying something changed! Took an hour to resolved, but hey nothing was charged to my account.

Anyway last night's stream lead off with Star Trek Online as we played the new 'Fall of the Old Ones' task force operation which is apart of STO's first Halloween Event. Based on the Original Series episode 'Catspaw' the Old Ones returne to study humanity, but their plans are disrupted by the Devidians. A Group of five players team up to run through a castle, fighting skeletons and hags while finding black cats and lighting candles to save the day. 

For a special mission based around Halloween, it certainly is really cool, the castle is fairly dark, you can't defeat the skeletons unless they are standing in candlelight, there are 13 black cats that are optional to find, and it's a great excuse to break out the Synchronic Proton Distortion Prototype Assault Rifle if you have it, since it's basically Star Trek Online's version of a proton pack complete with the special effect of how the beam looks.

We then played some Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, doing a successful run on Normal as Sakura before trying it on Hard as Ken... and I think I was actually getting better in keeping up with the A.I. on the harder difficulty even if it takes multiple tries to figure things out on how to approach each opponent. 

Finally Iceman and I returned to Gears of War 3 to mess around with the Horde mode. We tried it with just us at first, before grouping up with randoms, as we experienced some weird lags jumps, but got to the 20th wave before things went totally wrong. This was a lot of fun, it would be awesome if we could mess around with it in a group of 5.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Twitch Clip Links

• Welcome to Halloween... Star Trek Style!
• I'm a CAT!
• I'm a cat! I'm a cat!
• A Three Chain Combo! 
• This was incredibly lucky
• Big Hit!
• Iceman admits he was having a Thumbz moment 
• When Gears of War 3 Has Lag!
• I'm burning up!

Off-Stream Final Fantasy XIV stuff for me saw more Main Story Quest stuff done as we get through a bunch of missions, with everything leading to the Skeletons in Her Closet Mission which allowed us to access the Haukke Manor dungeon, which was a little confusing to get around and to keep up with the one person who clearly did it before. We progressed further to to the Wrath of the Titan quest which I believe sets up the final six quests for levels 21-30. With lucky maybe I can knock in short order.

Overwatch's Halloween Terror doesn't seem to be tracking each instances of Junkenstein's revenge, so have to do more random matches in other game modes to get the play time to unlock the first weekly skin for the event.... damn! Still I already have the first two rewards for the week done so at the very least I need to play 9 more matches to get the skin.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily work out lasted about 31 minutes with the following exercises Straight Combo #2, Hip Shape Focus Combo and Sway Back Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 459 kcal. We did an extra eleven minutes with Beginner Combo #1 and Beginner Combo #2 for added estimated calorie burn of 174 kcal. Full total for today was a 43 minute work out with a calorie burn estimate of 634 kcal.  

Some asked why don't I just do a longer daily work out, it's because with how I have Fitness Boxing 2 set up, it's because I like to control anything beyond the 30 minute mark.

For tonight's stream I'm not 100% sure what we'll do, we could do a full stream of Final Fantasy XIV or we do something completely random for the evening, as I want to save the Simpsons Video Game for Friday and The Walking Dead for Saturday. I'll make up my mind by this evening, you can count on that!

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