Nothing But Mayhem

Good afternoon everybody,

Well yesterday was interesting, I did a bit of fan fic writing based around Jump Force, and those who know where I post those things can find it in the usual space.

Anyway last night's  stream of Overwatch was mostly Mayhem matches, and I finished on a 2 wins and 8 losses stretch... so not a good week win wise. But I mostly stuck with playing Damage heroes, so it's not like I was trying to go all out as per normal if I was a Tank or Support. I also messed around with the Experimental stuff, where there was some wild changes to how characters play, like for D.va for example, having her boosters last for 4 seconds instead of 2, which meant she was traveling farther. Wonder how many of those things will stick long term? I did get one play of the game as Cassidy, so as usual I had my moments!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Flint_Locke over at twitch.tv/flint_locke as they were playing Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Tsumihoroboshi! 

Twitch Clip Links

• I show up and things happen!
• I got a couple out of that! 
• We did it! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured... Weaving Combo #2, Straight Combo #1 and Beginner Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 474 kcal. Stepped on the scale today and my weight looked to be about 242 lbs!

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements In Progress

• 360/365 Consecutive Days for One Year's Hard Work
• 32/50 Hours for Karen's Champion
• 360/400 Stamps for Honored Stamper
• 492,161/495,000 HITs for Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 5
• 82/100% for King EX Fighter
  

I will admit I have been doing a little extra each day as of lat, so the pacing for the Monster Weight Puncher is now ahead of the pace it's been on for the past month. Not sure exactly how the additional sessions are effecting the Karen's Champion achievement since I believe only the daily work out time increases it.

The long queues for Final Fantasy XIV certainly have a way of making one want to play it even more. The problem is Error 2002, which is caused by the smallest of interruptions in an internet connection that boots folks from their place in line! 

That said, I did put in several hours to put a large dent into the Main Story Quest, covering the entire Alphinaud Quest Chain up to An Unwelcome Guest. Also solo turns 1 to 3 of the Second Coil of Bahamut... the 4th coil has a few instant death mechanics that I will need help with.

On a side note: Eulmore is clearly a creepy place, Meol is basically Soylet Green because it is PEOPLE!

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, we'll see how far we get as I clearly got distracted with exploration once we got to the Hidden City last week. There are certainly a lot of things in the area to find... but I know for sure, we're not finishing the game tonight!

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

The Start Of Shadowbringers

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream certainly started off showing just how crazy the queues are for Final Fantasy XIV at the moments with all the excitement around Endwalker, and so many people wanting to experience the new content first. However, for me, I just reached the start of Shadowbringers... so the entire first half hour of the stream was waiting to get into the game... a process that started nearly two hours before hand.

So my stream was mostly focused on basically the initial 'tutorial' of the new major city and all the early cut scenes, plus finding Alisaie and Alphinaud to start getting the Scions put back together. There is some half-baked idea that the person who brings the player to the world of the first screwed up and ripped the souls of the Scions out of their bodies... and yet they have corporal forms. That said, their is the interesting aspect of timing moving differently in this new area than it does in the world I was in, so for the Scions, time has certainly past a great deal... but does this mean by the time we get back to the world of the Source, there will be a time skip? I am avoiding spoilers on that. 

I am glad that there was a cut down on the Aether currents, because it meant less frustration with the compass in regards to being lead to one that could not be reached because of story progression, a fact made really obvious in Stormblood when you have eight to find, but the closest one detected to you is in an area you are not allowed to reach yet!

Big thank you to Kalenal for the raid during last night's stream, they were streaming Final Fantasy XIV as well, but were going out of their way to avoid the Endwalker stuff to make sure they aren't giving spoilers to anyone not up to that point yet. Kal streams over at twitch.tv/kalenal! 

Following the stream, we hosted Maximilian_DOOD who was celebrating their 8th year Streamaversary over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD!

Twitch Clip Links

•  I love the changes they made to bard
• That was me not paying attention... 
• It Can Be! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Intermediate Combo #2, Advanced Combo #1 and Weaving Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 492 kcal.

So let me understand this CNN fires Chris Cuamo once they have properly investigated that he has done terrible things, but Fox News endorses Tucker Carlson even though he encourages domestic terrorism. And people wonder why Fox News is considered to be a joke.

Jumped into playing some Jump Force early this morning to knock off some achievements. Still can't get that one win in a Friendly Match, and I finally had a person accept a challenge... just need to do that 9 more times!

Jump Force Achievements

1. Did Something Nice Happen?: Obtained dropped items 10 or more times.
2. Apprenticeship Graduate: Got S rank 10 or more times on Easy Free Missions.
3. A Full-Fledged Knight: Cleared Free Mission on Normal one or more times.
4. Master of Titles: Earned more than 50 or more titles.
5. Seasoned Fighter: Cleared Free Mission on Hard one or more times.
   

It's Sunday which means we have a collection of my favorite clips featuring all the games we played this week, which included Overwatch, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Jump Force, Gears of War 4, Mario Golf Super Rush, Pokemon Shining Pearl and Final Fantasy XIV!  

For tonight's stream we will of course be playing Overwatch, just the usual mess of Quick Plays and hoping we get in games with viewers!

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

We're Past The Third Gym!

Good afternoon everyone,

Well I've never seen the a huge queue in an online multiplayer game until I saw a 3,000+ one to get into Final Fantasy XIV! But more on that later!

Last night's stream of Pokemon Shining Pearl saw a weird crash where I had to play a portion of it over again, but it was alright, as we did clear the third gym... and thankfully my routine of over leveling my Pokemon worked out for the best... even through one member of the squad is lagging behind because I finally found a fire type, Ponyta! So my team also features an Electric, Water, Grass, Psychi and Flying type, with them some behind able to use moves from other types to really balance things out. With the exception of Ponyta, my entire team is at level 30 or above, so I should be able to outpace the gym leaders.

Now I did discover I will have to play a bit during the day in order to evolve one Pokemon, namely Budew... apparently it will only evolve during the day, which is a concept I'm glad did not exist in Pokemon Shield or Let's Go Eevee. I do think the different evolution were over thought by the developers... they really assume folks would be playing at various times of days to get things done.

We'll continue Pokemon Shining Pearl next Friday, which seems like the best night of the week for it!

After the stream we sent the fun over to GlorifiedThief who was playing Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors over at twitch.tv/Glorifiedthief!  

Twitch Clip Links

• Well... that was... something
• Captured a Goldeen!
• You have been defeated! 
• Wreck their stuff!
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Uppercut Combo #1, Body Straight Combo and Triple Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 442 kcal

Now back to Final Fantasy XIV, the removal of the Aether Compass certainly had me confused, as there was a 'collection tab' under the duty section, where I then had to rebind it to my command bar. That said, I love the fact that one of the changes for Bards is that they could get buffs from their own music, which according to Kalenal was something that has been requested for years! Also did the 'boost' to get to level 80 and to get the maxed gear to make anything and everything I have to deal with in Shadow Bringers easier.

Now as far as the queues go, during last night's stream I logged into Final Fantasy XIV to see what it was at, and it was over 3,000  around 11:30 PM Eastern, so I figure I would start the log in process for tonight's stream early a,d then start the stream accordingly to avoid waiting to get into the game!.I finally reached the start of ShadowBringers, so we we may bounce between it's early MSQ stuff and doing dungeons, raids and other nonsense.

So yes we are playing Final Fantasy XIV tonight, but I think I'll be balancing MSQ stuff with Dungeons, raids and things.

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

A Night of Golf

Good morning everybody,

First, Happy Birthday to my mom!

Now I didn't make up my mind until very late in the day that I was going to play Mario Golf Super Rush, with the intent of unlocking the game's default courses to have them available to play on, which oddly enough required just having to play 18 holes on each one to unlock the next. Needless to say, playing the final three courses of the game was a challenge as I didn't quite have a good idea of what angles I should take to get from point A to point B.

Once that was done, we moved on to playing Ranked matches, 3 holes against 3 other players, and I did alright,with some very few exceptions I was around Par in every match, hell managed to win a few rounds. At one point, a match ended in a four way tie which was pretty cool Managed to climb my way up into the top 1000 players in the world for the month based on the points I accumulated and unlocked the feature to have Mario wear overalls instead of his golf outfit... thing is I like playing as Daisy!.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to GGVexy who was playing PowerWash Simulator over on twitch.tv/ggvexy!

Twitch Clip Links

• Damn it Wiggler! 
• We'll take the chip in! 
• This is where the pin is!

Was very weird not to play Final FantasyXIV after last night's stream, but hey at least I got the pre-download done! I was surprised by one of the changes for Bard, in that now the Bard will get a buff from their songs... I never noticed that I wasn't getting the benefits of the tunes! 

Put in some off-stream time playing Jump Force last night, and met another player who has seen my clips of the game over on Instagram. I'm no where near as good as they are but I managed to take a few rounds, but not a full victory! Still I learned that most of the Online Features of Jump Force are going away, but folks will still be able to do invites for friendly matches. Also unlocked 2 achievements to have 25 of the 50 unlocked.

Jump Force Achievements

1. Together We Fight: Fought other players online 30 or more times.
2. The Spirit of Kinship:  Used 50 or more One-Use Items.
   

True story, yesterday I get called by a guy from my day gig saying that my shift would have a start time of 11 AM and is expected to run until the normal end time of 5 PM... thing is, he realized that I started at 12 PM... and what he was conveying to me only applied to people who started earlier in the day to give them a chance to get their hours in. What a goofball

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Left-Right Step Combo, Double Combo #2 and Advanced Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes an a estimated calorie burn of 564 kcal.

My experiment with having the console audio monitored through the Yeti X on stream was mostly successful... but I saw something that looked like a better solution! 

For tonight's stream we're back to Pokemon Shining Pearl, as we'll be doing level grinding, grabbing any new creatures we see and making our way to the third gym! Hopefully I'll find a fire type to balance out my team!

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

Progress Made In A Dying Game

Good morning everybody,

It's so nice when my day gig has me on an assignment that actually matches what I say when 'we're doing research on current events and issues'... it makes things so much more fun!

Anyway, the first half of last night's stream featured Jump Force, with a big focus on Online matches, as we got our first ranked win. Plus we tackled a few other achievements as well, and I'm surprised still at how few people have managed to accomplish things that a very basic within the game. It is a testament to just how poorly received Jump Force was, despite it being a damn big seller in 2019.

In terms of my direct head to head, player vs player experience with Jump Force... well, there were no disconnects, and outside of a couple of matches where there were actual pauses in the action, every match ran pretty smoothly. I am surprised at how reluctant people are for rematches, particularly when they beat me! 

That said, I figure the two toughest online achievements for me to get are the one where I have to challenge 10 or more players, and have them accept the challenge, as well as win a 'Friendly' match... which seems to have fewer people playing that particular mode. The other two achievements that require direct head to head play just need to play 30 and 100 matches, so I can gradually knock that out.

Gears of War 4 returned, as I was joined by Iceman and we tackled all of Act III, which damn near took three hours. With it having six chapters, and having the most collectable within the game, its understandable as to why the Act which is directly in the middle of a five act story be the longest. Now if I remember correctly, Acts IV an V weren't all that long, but we'll see how that goes if there's a chance we can finish Gears of War 4 in the second half of next Wednesday's stream!

Following the stream we raided Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! Safe to say Kal is super excited about Endwalker!  

Jump Force Achievements

1. The Battle Begins: Won ranked match one or more times
2. Support Skill Master: Obtained 50 or more Support Skills
3. Bonds of Friendship: Reached over 500 SP for acquiring Support Skills
4. The Fruits of Friendship: Reached over 1000 SP for acquiring Support Skills
5. You Fight for your Friends: Used 10 or more One-Use Items

Gears of War 4 Achievements

1. Pounsus Interruptus: Killed a Pouncer mid-pounce with Shotgun or Chainsaw 
2. But You Can't Pick Your Family: Found 5 weapons in snot bubbles 

Twitch Clip Links

• First Online Ranked Win!
• Victory is Mine! 
• We Drop The Bomb!
• They are all over the place! 
• Flex Kait! FLEX!
• Pounsus Interruptus 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout session featured Uppercut Combo #2, Body Uppercut Combo and Body Hook Combo for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 438 kcal.

Figured out how to get audio to route from the Elgato HD60S  to the Yeti X, which hopefully will result in a stoppage of the audio desyncing.

Endwalker for Final Fantasy XIV is upon us... even though I'm not going to reach that content for probably at least a month, as I still have to get through Shadowbringers. If there is one thing about Final Fantasy XIV that surprises me is the lack of standard maintenance... I mean with Star Trek Online, down time for maintenance is basically expected once a week, and even then they don't fix everything. So I assume instead of doing patch up jobs here and there the folks behind Final Fantasy XIV actually do some quality testing of major fixes whenever they roll out a massive expansions. That said, my streak of playing Final Fantasy XIV will end today since the game is down for 24 hours due to the Endwalker Expansion and update, so hey I got in a lot of play time before 'down time' even became a factor! Which is pretty cool... and something the folks over at Star Trek Online should consider!  

That said I knocked out the majority of the 4.5 content tonight, granted it was mostly watching cut-scenes and such to set up basically one more dungeon before setting in the final pieces for Shadowbringers... in which all of the Scions are basically being put into a coma of some sort. Looking forward to when the game comes back up to resume the story and such. But of course I could have finished the Stormblood content if I didn't get distracted with every side story in the game!

For tonight's stream I'm not 100% sure exactly what I'm going to feature, we might do a variety night of different games, or actually go back and put forward some effort to towards the extra content of games we've already featured this year. We shall see...

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

Getting Lost In The Shadows Of A Raided Tomb

Good Morning Everyone,

If you're going to get lost might as well have fun doing it!

That was basically the theme of last night's stream of Shadows of the Tomb Raider, which again ran longer than I was planning to mostly because a) I kept getting lost even while checking the map and using the Survival Instinct and b) I kept distracting myself trying to find little collectables and goodies while realizing some of the stuff could have been disposed of to get better items! 

Still, we found a few side missions and progressed the main story to where Lara is now disguised as the villains to try and sneak into their temple to free an ally, but if I'm looking at a list of chapters correctly, I should be about half way through the game, which means things certainly slowed down a lot when compared to the first two games in the trilogy.

The funny thing is this, since reaching the Hidden City, the game really opened up for exploration, hence getting lost and distracted... and this is where Shadows of the Tomb Raider shines. Granted the exploration does distract for the sense of urgency to stop Trinity... hell it does raises a lot of questions about the in-game time line (as in over how many days). Way I figure, none of the adventures of the 'Survivor Trilogy' seem to be more than a handful of fays if cut scenes are anything to go by.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to LifeWithStan who was playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt over on twitch.tv/lifewithstan!  

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Untold Riches: Gather 40 gold ore
2. Better Equipped: Get 3 pieces of equipment
3. Makeshift Arsenal: Fully upgrade a weapon
4. Resting Places: Uncover 3 Crypts' secrets
5. Hearts and Minds: Retrieve Manko's Necklace
6. The Underworld: Get out of the Cenotes alive
7. New Heights: Complete a climb after finding the Overhang Climbing Gear
8. Como Te Llama: Pet 5 llamas

Twitch Clip Links

• That is one way to get up there!
• RUN!!!! 
• Como Te Llama Lamma Lamma...
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Hook Combo #2, Front-Back Step Combo and Beginner Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 449 kcal!

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

1. Karen's Contender: Train With Karen for over 30 Hours
   

Instead of switching trainers, I'm going to continue with Karen as the trainer to go after the Karen's Champion achievement which is train with her for over 50 hours, then we'll cycle back to Janice and Hiro to get their champion achievements before focusing on the other trainers.

Just going to saw it, you lose the right to say someone is misusing aspect of your culture the second you start misusing the culture of someone else. Let us all remember that somethings are meant for a particular audience and just because you happen to like it, it doesn't mean it should change just because your feelings are hurt.  

My Final Fantasy XIV adventures to wrap up Stormbringer brought forward a rather turn of the redemption of villains, as I got to play as Alphinaud when the airship was on was shot down, and he is rescued by someone who calls himself Shadowhunter... but it's obvious that he is Gaius van Baelsar, who was a heavily featured villain in the A Realm Reborn arc of the story. While clearly more of a bad-ass anti-hero, the fact that he's popped up means more teaming up with old foes in Shadowbringer when I get to it.

Also found a real interesting side quest called the Corpse Groom that ties in with some NPCs I saw real early in the game. Goes to show there are quests linking to just about every damn thing in this game and no characters are truly pointless!

Now I was hoping to finish the 4.4 content last night, but I had some trouble with the battle where we have to play as Y'shtola for story purposes... however unlike when it came to having to use Alphinaud, the stakes were higher and there was a dedicated enemy attacking me at all times. Still it was worth it to see Y'shtola saying the following to Magnai "I am... not interested, little sun. Try again when you have become a man."

For tonight's stream we'll be leading off with Jump Force, getting in the first wave of any online matches we can get to try and get the achievements associated with online play, then around nine we've got Gears of War 4 with Iceman!

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

A Shadow Falls Over A Raided Tomb

Good morning everybody,

Last day of November... wonder how many people actually completed the No Nut November nonsense?  My guess is no on!

Anyway, last night we started up Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and boy does it tease with the whole Lara is gonna start with all her gear prologue... only for her to have just her bow at the start of the main story. At the very least it is acknowledged with in the game that Lara doesn't pack all her gear together, so there is a justified, if not silly, reasons for her to have to re-acquire all her abilities from the first two games.

In terms of scope, it does feel like Shadow of the Tomb Raider is much smaller in scale than Rise of the Tomb Raider, despite the stakes being higher, since Lara accidentally started the apocalypse, as I seem to be almost shuffled along from major story point to major story point.. Even as I'm taking my time, nothing much is drawing my attention to find tombs and crypts to knock out bonus challenges.

That said, some of the returning gimmicks from Rise and the new stuff introduced in Shadow certainly has resulted in a number of my deaths. The grapple hook swing is a bit of a pain to get right, and swimming with enemies under the way (namely the piranhas) certainly weren't needed considering the panic inducing nature of wanting to get from point and to point b as quickly as possible due to Lara's limited air supply.

I do have to say, I enjoy some of the striking while unseen, as one would expect in the good Rambo movies, there are more logical ways to deal with enemies than in Rise. Some of the puzzles are creative, even if more trial and error is involved.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how much of the story we can knock out tonight. considering the pace the game seems to be set on to get the player moving in the right directions.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to DaemonsW0lf who was playing Hunt: Showdown over at twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf! 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Path of the Stars: Decipher the Path of the Stars
2. Día de Muertos: Remove the dagger from the Temple of the Moon
3. Recipe for Disaster: Survive the flood
4. First Steps: Purchase a Skill
5. Survival Instincts: Defeat the Empress Jaguar
6. Asking Price: Buy an item from a merchant
7. Point of Interest: Learn of 5 interesting locations from civilians
8. Unwelcome Guests: Get rid of the pillagers outside of Kuwaq Yaku
9. Help thy Neighbor: Complete a Side Mission
10. Treasures from the Past: Decipher a Monolith
11. Look, Over There!: Kill 3 enemies while they are distracted
12. First Blood: Perform a Stealth Takedown from a mud-covered wall
13. Tables Turned: Kill 5 enemies while they are searching for Lara
14. Fire of Life: Enter the Temple of Life's inner chamber
15. The Hidden City: Find Paititi 

 Twitch Clip Links

• Can We Go Down The Slide?!
• First Blood... Rambo Style! 
• The Slide and The Sudden Drop
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #2 and Defensive Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 439 kcal. Also turns out only the time spent 'Daily Exercises' count towards the trainers' challenger and champion achievements, as I've only trained with Karen 177 times to close in on her challenger achievement, but with Hiro I've trained 233 times and with Karen 243 times.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw surprising yet not surprising fight against Yotsuyu who regained her memory, at the behest of her step brother as part of a plot to get her to turn into the primal Tsukuyomi. A lot of these events are certainly set up for Shadowbringers, the next part of the story I'll be reaching either by the end of this week or early next. Now I will partially stand corrected in regards to Yotsuyu being redeemed, because in the trial against Tsukuyomi and in it's aftermath, it is quite clear her time with Gosetsu meant something to her.

I still have several main story quests to knock out before wrapping up everything associated with the main plot of Stormblood, and that's not counting any side quests I happen to find that will distract me

For tonight's stream as indicated earlier, we'll be resuming Shadow of the Tomb Raider! We'll try and start around 6:30 PM Eastern, but if I can start earlier I will!

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