Cyberpunk 2077 and other notes

Hi everyone,

Today was just another weird day where I woke up at a reasonable time and then around noon I just crashed hard, not waking back up till about 4:30 PM Eastern.

Anyway,  tonight's stream of Cyberpunk 2077 got off to a rocking start because of that, since I didn't have dinner. Managed to order something from El Burger Bar (man their burgers are fucking huge!) which arrived about 30 minutes into the stream, which was perfect as we were doing the final quest associated with Kerry. We waited to see if any other quests popped up before doing the final mission, and we went with Johnny's plan of bringing Rogue along... and boy did the changes to how Quickhacks work make it more of a slog than it needed to be.

Now once we reached Alt, we went ahead and did one ending where Johnny crosses the bridge letting V keep her body and then reloaded and did the ending where Johnny keeps V's body. Neither ending is really satisfying, as V seems constantly on the edge taking any merc job that seems like the results will give her away to live, while Johnny seems to embrace having a second chance at life.

Of course we're not really done with Cyberpunk 2077 because there are still two more ending paths to take, one involves accepting the Arasaka proposal and the other is using the Nomads to raid the tower. There are alternate endings to both depending on final decisions. Plus there is also the Phantom Liberty content which we'll be diving into starting next Saturday.

Cyberpunk 2077 Achievements

• To Bad Decisions!: Complete Kerry Eurodyne's storyline.
• Daemon In The Shell: Kill or incapacitate 3 enemies with one "Detonate Grenade" quickhack.
• The World: Complete the main storyline.
• The Sun: Become a legend of the Afterlife.
• Temperance: Let Johnny Silverhand keep your body. 

Our next stream will be at 5 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden and will feature Overwatch 2, and the usual general nonsense of dealing with randoms teammates who constantly let me down.

For tonight's raid we went over to twitch.tv/reytac who was playing Warhammer 40,000: Darkside

Since we are returning to Cyberpunk 2077 on Saturday, that is going to free up the Monday, Tuesday and Thursday slot in week... and since it's been a running joke for so long since god mode can be used with it, I will start up The Evil Within 2 on Monday's stream. 

Did a fair bit of writing in the morning, finishing up the WWE commission request I meant to finish yesterday and getting started on another commission story based on Marvel's Spider-Man and to feature Screwball. Already that's at 3000 words, which is pretty fucking impressive by my standards.

Anyway, going to get back to work on that after I record my review of Cyberpunk 2077 for my YouTube channel

Have a good night folks!

Horizon Zero Dawn and other notes

Hi everyone,

We had another good night of work, as I reached the goal I was looking for which hopefully will mean a bit extra in next week's paycheck to set up for the next set of bills.

Tonight's stream of Horizon Zero Dawn started a bit late because I thought I hit the start stream button on OBS... but we covered a lot of ground, finding various first items for a series of collectables in addition to slowly covering every quest we come across. I'm pretty much resigned to not doing the Hunter Lodge Quest however. The Cauldrons certainly seem like they'll be fun to explore when I come across them.

Horizon Zero Dawn Trophies

• First Vantage found: Found and accessed a Vantage datapoint.
• First Corrupted Zone cleared: Killed all the corrupted machines in a Corrupted Zone.
• First Banuk Figure found: Found a wooden effigy left by a Banuk traveler.
• 10 Vulnerable machine kills: Killed 10 machines weak to Fire while burning, or weak to
• Freeze while frozen.
• First Core Overridden: Reached the Core of a Cauldron and accessed its information.
• All Recon machines killed: Killed at least one of every type of Reconnaissance machine.

Our next stream will feature Cyberpunk 2077 and  will feature the awful new gameplay mechanics. I already tested it out a bit to see what changed and I'm not liking all the changes to my quick hack set up, and the fact that I know have to scramble to get components I need to craft and upgrade what I already had equipped. Anyway the stream will start about 5 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden and for sure we should be able to finish the game outright.

For the raid we dropped in on twitch.tv/zonesama who was doing a stream of F-Zero 99

Didn't finish the second of back to back WWE commission requests due to... passing out around noon, which was weird. I'm going to finish that, after I post this and take the opportunity to work on my Persona story.

Also discovered that The Last of Us Fandom community is more insane than I first thought after yesterday. I'm really tempted to really get under their skin, I mean what could be worse than Ellie verbally tearing down Joel? Answer: Joel helping Abby.

Phillies won tonight, and at this point unless something horrific happens they are a shoe-in at the top Wild Card team in the National League.

On a side note, my weight has been fluctuating a lot late going anywhere from 250 to 260.

And on that note, have a good night!

The Expanse, Party Animals and Other Notes

 Hi everyone,

Work tonight was solid as we had a good pace of completing interviews, even if some folks were more 'mental' than others. Gives me hope that Friday is going to be a good day.

Tonight's stream opened with episode 5 of The Expanse: A TellTale Series, and I realized what this game was... it's a glorified tech demo, and I'm real curious if the fault lies with TellTale Games or Deck Nine Games, as both companies were involved. When compared to games that both companies have worked on and  released previously, The Expanse is a shallow experience. Sure it looks great, but there is nothing of substance there. I firmly believe this is the worst game I played here in 2023. Doesn't help that Episode 5 was less than a gig in size, making it the smallest of all 5 chapters, and boy did that really show as it was barely 40 minutes in length.

We loaded up Killer Instinct and saw that its story mode was basically the arcade mode. We did a quick run through as Orchid. Interesting a number of achievements popped from when I last played it back in August. I checked to see if anything popped in Resident Evil 6 and the answer was nope.

We also checked out Party Animals... and that game is basically a violent form of Fall Guys, it is down right hilarious and can be frustrating as the controls are pretty loose. There are a fair variety of game modes, and the fact you can choose your animal is pretty cool. If you liked Fall Guys, give Party Animals a whirl.

The Expanse: A Telltale Series Achievements

• Heal Thy Medic: Help Virgil overcome his panic attack
• Brother's Reaper: Rayen kills Arlen
• Oyedeng, Kopengs: Complete Episode 5 of The Expanse
• Miraculous Maya: Keep Maya alive
• Khan's Revenge: Keep Khan alive
• Bosmang: Complete all Episodes of The Expanse
• Data Archivist: Complete Episode 5 with all Data Logs

Killer Instinct Achievements

• Sadira's Web Trap: A web trap hit an opponent, while in Instinct Mode with Sadira
• Glacius' Armor: You absorbed a hit with Glacius' Ice armor while in Instinct Mode
• Orchid Novice: You have reached 30 Fight Challenges with Orchid!
• Competitive Hisako: You have won a ranked match as Hisako!
• Astral Assistance: You completed a Shadow Lords mission with a Guardian equipped!

Party Animals Achievements

• Welcome To The Party: Finish the Tutorial
• First Strike: Win 1 match in the Quick Match
• Sportsmanship: Knock out 1 player during the podium moment
• Immortal Kombat: In Into The Game, knock out opponent playing arcade 3 times in one game (Quick Match)

Our next stream is scheduled for 9:30 PM Eastern (assuming there is work) over on twitch.tv/fredcasden and will feature Horizon Zero Dawn, we'll bounce from quest to quest based on distance.

For the raid we went over to twitch.tv/misscammi316 who was playing Smite

So I posted an older short story based on The Last of Us over on Ao3 and boy, the Joel apologists were in full force, I'm really tempted to write a follow up just to piss them off even more.

Speaking of stories, knocked out one WWE commission request and started on another. It is funny considering an earlier commissioned story involved Emma's return to the promotion earlier this year... and she was let go today.

Those will be all of my notes for tonight, have a good one folks!

Cyberpunk 2077 and other notes

 Hi everyone,

Work tonight was another great night... even if some of the people I talked turn turned a simple 10 minute study into a 30 minute torture session. Now I'm good at trying to control the interview, but some people need to be smacked.

Tonight's stream featured Cyberpunk 2077 and we started as soon as we finished work, as we focused on more side quests, as every time one ended another popped up. The big thing was trying to knock out quested related to Kerry's questline, and there is only one left to do, but we couldn't get it to trigger. Ah well, now the big worry is going to be the Liberty Expansion which drops this week to see what happens to the save file on Saturday, which is the next time we'll be playing it. 

For the raid we went over to twitch.tv/Reese who was playing Overwatch, the raid was picked by LvStrkr as one of the channel rewards! 

Our next stream, scheduled for about 9:30 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden will feature episode five o the Expanse to wrap up that disappointing mess. Trust me, when I do my casual review of The Expanse, the negatives are going to be prominent. Since the final episode will only take maybe hour, we'll  be pairing it with Killer Instinct.

Knocked out another commission story request based on Resident Evil, which turned out alright, even if the paper thin plot relies on what contrived references I can make.

Also picked up two commission requests for (sigh ) WWE related stories... one featuring Rhea Ripley and the other featuring Triple H. I said before and I'll say it again, those nearly 15 years of being one half of the Dice and Kristi writing duo certainly branded what type of stories people want me to write.

Heard some good things about the Party Animals game, while the obvious mediocrity of Mortal Kombat 1 becomes more obvious with every review I see.

And on that note, I'm going to bed! 

Good night folks!

Cyberpunk 2077 and other notes

 Hi everyone,

Work today was really good despite being a bit late because I didn't see the notification over what assignment I was supposed to be on until the last minute. Also found out day shifts might be back soon so I'm going to have adjust my sleep and stream schedules again.

This would also make doing commission stories both easier and tougher at the same time, since writing will be done after the streams. Speaking of writing, finished one Resident Evil commission request and got another straight away. I probably should've  thought things more carefully about using characters from the Outbreak games. Also managed to do some work on the Persona side story as well.

Tonight's stream of Cyberpunk 2077 opened and closed with romance as we completed V's story arcs with V and Judy, which means we got their 'love' scenes, and seeing it from the first person perspective was certainly wild. Probably some context is lost because we had it 'censored', Also progressed mostly side stories, such as making sure Johnny got to go on his date with Rogue, as well as getting all of Johnny's gear. I could easily just go ahead and finish the game, but we'll risk the Liberty expansion screwing things up.

Our next stream will either being Journey to the Savage Planet, but I don't think Iceman will be available this week, if not we'll continue Cyberpunk 2077 and continue the side quests. The stream will be at around 9:30 PM eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Cyberpunk 2077 Achievements

• To Protect and Serve: Complete River Ward's storyline.
• Breathtaking: Collect all items that once belonged to Johnny Silverhand.
• Bushido and Chill: Watch Bushido X with Rogue.
• Judy vs Night City: Complete Judy Alvarez's storyline.

 For the raid we went over to twitch.tv/lilmoolah_ who was also playing Cyberpunk 2077

I need to make sure to get in touch with my Aunt Grace and Cousin Frances to return their tupperwear... after I give them a good scrubbing

Also should reach out to the FNDanteSavage too, see what he's up to.

Well, that's all for tonight, good night folks!

Cyberpunk 2077 and other note

Hi everyone,

Nearly didn't have work today because the supervisor who was filling in did not see my notes for alternate work hours, but thankfully I was able to pick up some of the hours for tonight. 

Tonight's stream was also pretty positive as we finished Act 2 of Cyberpunk 2077, getting several side quests done in addition to advancing the main plot. The side quest with River in finding his nephew certainly had all levels of disturbing written over it. Also made sure to liberate Clouds for Judy, and we actually saw a work around regarding crafting Legendary items. Turns out all you have to do is unlock a perk under Quickhacking and it gives you the formulas needed without having to unlock the standard skill by leveling up the crafting related skills.

Our next stream on Tuesday night (9:30 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden) will feature more Cyberpunk, and we're going to focus on the side quests as I know we have at least two, one for Johnny to let him try to convince Rogue to help in the final mission, but there are still some things that I suspect open up in Act 3, since we're at max level and have max street-cred. We could go ahead and finish the game, but I do want to see all the side stories.

Cyberpunk 2077 Achievements

• Master Crafter: Craft 3 Legendary items.
• The High Priestess: Talk with Hanako Arasaka.

For the  raid we went over to twitch.tv/misscammi316 who was playing Smite

Got two commission stories done during the day, one being the third of a set of stories based on George Lopez, and the other a simple celebrity / original character tale, which turned out rather nicely. Next commission request on the list is the series of Resident Evil stories.

There is the question of what will replace Cyberpunk 2077 once it's done and at the moment I'm learning to either Persona 4 Golden or Persona 5 Royal. One I played before and the other I haven't.

Of course with October being around the corner, I could just play The Evil Within 2, apparently one could access God Mode on the Xbox version.

Anyway, those are all of today's note, have a good night everyone!

Overwatch 2 and other notes

Hi everyone,

Tonight's stream of Overwatch was the definition of frustrating, when I had several great matches in terms of my own stats, only to be let down by random teammates who made some very questionable decisions in terms of not defending the objectives or payloads.

 We were joined by PandaSweet for a few matches, which made things more fun. I did pick up three Plays of the Game I did pick up a few plays of the game as Junker Queen and Moira, in addition to playing as Tracer, Kikiro, D.va, Ashe, Windowmaker and a few other characters.

For tonight's raid we went over to twitch.tv/kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV 

Out next stream is scheduled for 9:30 PM eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden and will featured Cyberpunk 2077. And I realized something, that there are a lot more side quest in the game that locked behind either 'in-game game' or tied various main quests being completed which we haven't done yet.

Finished writing the second of a trilogy of commission based on the 2002 George Lopez sitcom, granted I'm sorta half-assing it a bit by just having the 2nd and 3rd parts being direct continuations of the previous entries. Goal is to get the final one written by tomorrow afternoon.

The soreness from the charley horse I suffered on Friday is starting to fade, granted it involved me laying down most of the day with my left leg elevated.

Team Four Star released a compilation of shorts that covered the Buu Saga, which served as a nice taste to see what they would've done with that arc of Dragon Ball Z. It's really worth checking out.

Have a good night folks.