Blog Archives
Sleep Mode
I miss sleep.
That baby I alluded to is home, having arrived quite a bit early. I took two weeks off while he was still in the NICU, trying to get everything set up ahead of time. There should have been enough time for all the things, but there wasn’t. Now he’s here and my wife and I are trying to figure out the process by which each of us can get enough 1.5 hour increments of sleep to function as human beings.
- Change diaper (2 min)
- Warm milk (3 min)
- Feed baby (15-20 min)
- Burp baby (5 min)
- Pump (30 min)
- Wash pump parts (5 min)
The above has to occur every 3 hours, round the clock. And doesn’t include, you know, general touching of that baby or any of the ancillary chores such as washing clothes, self-grooming, eating, etc. We have kinda figured out that I can do everything but pump (it’s not super effective), and so we work in tandem to theoretically do everything in one ~40 min block of time (some things are sequential) rather than 1.5 hours. Still, come 2 AM, one of us is on baby watch and the other is trying to sleep, and then it’s back to solo attempting to do all the things across 1.5 hours, which isn’t really all that possible with a crying baby. And next week, I’m back to work because ‘Murica.
We’re kinda muddling through things currently, but I have reasonable confidence we’ll figure it out eventually. Perhaps by the time he graduates college.
Then it will be back to gaming!
Vanilla Challenge
With all the talk about private vanilla servers and the ease in which they are logged onto, I had an idea for some gonzo journalism. “I’ll join one and document my experiences!” Then I remembered something: a whole lot of the vanilla (and TBC) experience was utter garbage. Take paladins, for example. Just… the entire class.
SynCaine doesn’t see this as a possible problem:
I know you didn’t play WoW in vanilla, but do you honestly think some minor class issues (you are talking to someone who did the plaguelands rep grind using a raid spec tank) would have that big an impact on what is overall far superior content and design?
Uh… yes? The paladin experience was unremitting garbage on into TBC when I started, and by all accounts vanilla was worse. But, hey, that is clearly not going to impact the amazing 2004 design. Despite, you know, having to interact with everything through the prism of said garbage class design and moment-to-moment gameplay.
Amusingly, what we know from Nostalrius is that almost 25% of all characters on their two servers were Warriors. The Warrior/Rogue/Mage trifecta was nearly half. Three guesses as to which classes were on top back in the day.
Hmm.
But why speculate on these vanilla issues when we can pontificate? Put your money time where your mouth is, and roll a paladin on a private server now! Or a druid. Or a shaman. And don’t heal in dungeons or at the endgame. Nobody cares what sort of nonsense you put up with in 2004, what matters is the nonsense you are willing to put up with (and potentially pay $15/month for) today.
I’m thinking about doing so myself, despite my New Year’s resolution, and despite the fact that we all know what is going to happen. It will be awful because it is objectively awful if you are not zen meditating inbetween mob pulls. Vanilla was probably popular back in the day because it was the least painful entry into a nascent, virtual world filled with co-dependency mechanics to ensure you made internet friends. Which was great if you needed some, but I’m full up these days, thanks.
You know what, though? Fuck it. Let’s wreck this train.
Don’t say I never did anything for you.
GenCon: Day Zero Point Five
“I’d love to go to Pax South, but Monster Jam is that same weekend.”
Met the ex-Invictus crew. It’s always kinda comical and cliche, but it’s also comforting when you see these people and they almost exactly look like their WoW characters. Or at least act like them. Which I suppose isn’t all that impressive in the abstract, but whatever.
I can already tell that Gen Con is going to be a little painful though. While I enjoy my anime/Manga seasoned with a healthy dose of drama, angst, and weirdness, the awkwardness I have experienced thus far just from standing in line picking up tickets is physically painful. Like, holy Jesus, it’s sometimes difficult to tell if someone is cosplaying or if they dress like that all the time. And the random snippets of conversations! “My genes allow me to pick out child molesters.” Yeah, okay, buddy.
While I was surprised at the people I have seen thus far – they skew to the upper ranges of age, BMI, and neck hair ranges – I suppose I shouldn’t be. Who else has the money to spend ~$80 for gaming convention tickets, and then turn around and drop +$600 on hotel and other accomodations? A bunch of twentysomethings? …okay, so about half of this ex-Invictus group is around 25, but the point still stands.
Welp, all that’s left is to get some sleep, keep the hand sanitizer handy, and plow through this thing.
GenCon: Day Zero
As mentioned in previous episodes, I shall be attending Gen Con in approximately… a few dozen hours. Indianapolis is only a few hours drive away, so it’s mainly a question of which city’s rush-hour traffic I want to be sitting in. The ideal would be none of them, but I also would prefer getting to the hotel sometime before 8pm.
Although it is much too late at this point, I kinda wish I printed off some In An Age business cards. Because networking. Or something.
I have eight events I’m scheduled to see, and roughly $20 in generic tickets to spend around the show. If you have been to a Gen Con before and have some recommendations, I am all ears. Otherwise you can fully expect a meandering and completely irreverent (daily?) report about board and card games I am unlikely to ever purchase.
Housing Madness
For the most part, I attempt to resist the urge to indulge in housing systems in MMOs and other games. These are good features and I am very much glad that they are implemented. In fact, I have expounded on the benefits of Show & Tell mechanisms for years.
The problem is that my efficient and logical exterior is but a bulwark against the roiling pit of madness that lies just beneath.
Perfectly logical.
You see? Decor items are too valuable to a vendor or as an AH object for me to “waste” learning. There are a few items that slip through the cracks (in my psyche), sure, but I can solve that problem by scaling them up to the maximum. Everything is all good here, thanks.
Or at least it was until I checked a reputation vendor and noticed they sold some decor at 60 copper apiece. Then… then, They came inside.
This sort of thing amuses me. Amuses me greatly, indeed. I already have visions of a house plot completely enclosed in metal, like a Borg Cube. Or perhaps more accurately, the inside of the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser. I am near-cackling already, simply by imagining the look on the faces of visitors; they know not how far the jabbit-hole goes.
The answer is that it goes all the way.
Luckily for everyone involved, I am far too close to my goal of CREDD funding via in-game means to afford to bring my sinister plan to its dark fruition. I have Dyes to peddle, commodities to exchange, crafted items to vendor. The time for living room skull pits and such is not yet nigh.
166 Human skulls. All legitimately obtained, I might add.
Err… not yet again nigh.
Definition: Insanity
With great reluctance and a heavy sense of resignation, I took GreenManGaming up on their 22% off coupon for Wildstar. Day One purchases are for chumps, and that goes doubly so for MMO releases, but… well, if all your friends are jumping off bridges, you might as well join them. Attempting to apply that game code resulted in this:
And so it begins…
Repeated attempts eventually got through but we’ll see how it all goes down this weekend. Will my friends stick around in this game (not likely)? Will I find an agreeable method to fund my subscription entirely through in-game gold (possibly)? Will there be many, exhaustive posts detailing everything I find wrong with the game (indubitably)?
Still, this is what you guys pay me to do, so I will trooper on.
Also: Press™.
In An Age 
Like Souls
Feb 13
Posted by Azuriel
In the past two weeks, I played a few hours of Blasphemous and Salt & Sanctuary. Both of these games are in the increasingly crowded 2D Soulslike genre, made famous by Dark Souls (or Demon Souls if wish). As I was farming some currency to level up a bunch of times in Salt & Sanctuary – and before remembering I had previously played the game for 10 hours a few years ago – I had a thought. I have played a lot of Soulslike games over the years… and not actually Dark Souls. That’s weird, right?
So, it’s happening.
Not certain whether I’m going to chronical this shit, or just give the occasional summaries. Not much oxygen left in the room between Elden Ring and decades of Youtube videos of people beating the entire Dark Souls trilogy without taking a single point of damage while using a DDR dance pad as their controller. That might be two separate videos. Whatever.
If you want to see me “Git Gud” or otherwise maintain my adequate levels of Gud, buckle up.
Posted in Commentary
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Tags: Dark Souls, Git Gud, Soulslike, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?