Full On Vampire Weekend
Aug. 11th, 2019 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYup, I ended up playing Bloodlines again after finishing off the first part of "Thursday By Night" -- hey, I figured, I was so close to completing the "main quest" portion of the Santa Monica stuff, I might as well! Visited the Thin-Bloods and completed that questline (as well as gave Lily her stuff back); hit the pier to advance the "Carnival of Death" questline; then went over to Bertram's and did the warehouse. Which proved to be a bit tricky, even WITH Obfuscate -- I bumped it up to level 3 before heading over, since it's supposed to be Alice's primary discipline anyway, but -- well, even level 3 reveals you if you interact with the environment. Or bump people. I eventually managed to mostly stealth my way through things (I ate one guard for blood, and, annoyingly, lost an XP bonus for it -- meh) and got out with time to spare. And then met Beckett, to my joy. :D Seriously, best vampire forever. Alice loves him and his snarky attitudes. :p She then grilled Bertram on clan stuff, then I sent her back to her haven to "complete the day." I'll start the Downtown stuff next weekend.
So, if any of you are interested in some stats:
-->Alice is turned the night of October 21st/22nd, and completes the warehouse hit on the night of October 25th/26th, meaning the first part of the game takes about five days. (Possibly six if I decide to bump meeting Bertram to the day after Alice finishes up the Voerman sister stuff, but so far that's how it's working out.)
-->Alice meets Victor and turns him into a ghoul on the night of October 23rd/24th. I'm thinking they should meet again the night of October 27th/28th, as that's when Alice should get back from the Elizabeth Dane mission (if you saved Heather, she shows up outside Venture Tower before you report to LaCroix -- I intend for Victor to show up after Alice has earned Haven #2).
-->In terms of leveling, Alice has increased only one Attribute -- her Dexterity, which is now 2. Her Abilities, however -- Firearms is now 1; Brawl, Dodge, and Computers are all now 2; Melee, Security, and Scholarship are now 3. And, as mentioned, she now has Obfuscate 3, which lets her go invisible for longer and sneak kill people. I need to remember that I need to leave at least one dot free in both Computers and Scholarship, since I know Bertram and Beckett will both give you a dot in each respectively if you do the right things. And there should be another Dodge book coming up later in the game -- since my Dodge is capped at 3 thanks to the history I took, I should wait and take advantage of that instead of wasting experience. Thinking I might as well throw a point or two into Intimidate -- Alice may not be very intimidating now, but she will get to be so later. Probably up Investigation too, since she solves a lot of mysteries. Will probably level up Dementation too -- Alice may not LIKE using it, but it is a handy tool to have -- and I occasionally have to think about what's good for PLAYING the game, not just getting my AU notes. :p
As for "Thursday By Night" -- well, everything is still weird, but things definitely took a turn for the creepily amusing in the latter part of the episode. Sam found out he has the power of Celerity, aka super-speed, and later super-speed sucked an unfortunate staff member DRY (after basically going into frenzy due to hunger). Liam basically charmed each other member of the gang into thinking that, above all else, he needed to live (Travis is starting to see through it, thanks to aura vision, but he's not entirely clear-headed). The foursome just BARELY escaped two werewolves roaming the building. And the mastermind behind all this weirdness (or, at least, turning the group into vampires)?
Vampire Gary Gygax. Who, if you don't know, is one of the original creators of D&D, the game Critical Role USUALLY plays. Turns out he's a fan of theirs and wanted to make sure they could keep doing their thing forever. . .and was not happy when they had to tell him that Matt, their DM, had died thanks to peeking at some sunlight. (Marisha died too, thanks to mushroom blood tea turning her into a pile of mushrooms, but the loss of Matt was the thing Gary was most upset about.) The gang managed to escape down a tunnel as he blew up the building, which will lead into Part 2! Which I'm saving for NEXT weekend, just because I do have other things I want to watch, and I'd like to keep watching it over one weekend instead of splitting it weirdly over the extra days off I have. Looking forward to seeing what's what, though!
Other things of note:
-->Helloween's back with Secret of Mana 2! He was away two weeks ago, then lost his voice last week, so it's been a while. But we're back with our heroes, and slowly reaching the endgame! Namely because the game really struggles with reconciling spells and status effects and thus was bumping up some casting times to dangerous levels. Helloween managed to plow on through without eating his controller, and was rewarded with a boss fight with Koren, where he got to wail on someone to his heart's content and turn the "I can't get a moment to cast because all the enemies are faster than me!" on the AI for once. XD So Angela's mother has now been saved from mind control, but the Dragon Emperor has been powered up by the sword of Mana and is on his way to cut down the Mana Tree and kill the Goddess. Seems like the next episode may be the last, with our final climatic boss fight!
-->Watched some OXBox and OXtra vids:
A) A list of most irresponsible uses of time travel/time portals -- including the ability to age enemies to dust, flip back and forth between past and present to sneak up on enemies and shoot them without any fear, humiliating high school bullies, and filching intellectual property decades before it's written (looking at you, Albert Fink)!
B) A list of the most extra uses of magical powers -- including magically dissolving clothes for kinky sex, drawing on a guy's face with lipstick (hello Bayonetta), and causing general mayhem by turning people into zombies (a thing that could actually happen in Sims 3)! Sort of the fantasy "twin" to the above's sci-fi. :p
C) A new Hitman 2 map! This one was a sniper challenge set in Siberia, where 47 is charged with killing from afar an important prisoner, the corrupt warden, as many of the warden's red-hatted lackies as possible, and then causing a riot somehow to make the whole thing just seem like an accident. Jane and Andy handled the sniping, which was trickier than it looked! It was very easy to mess up and have everyone start panicking and evacuating if a body was found. And the red-hatted minions turned out to be VERY GOOD at getting away. Jane and Andy persevered, though, and got a few good kills off, including one kill by icicle; one kill by falling giant metal star; a double kill via electrocution (some careful shooting of a hose and a battery one of the targets used to beat another guy practically to death with), and one emetic-poisoning-leading-to-a-bathroom-kill (via shooting a pipe full of green gas over the important prisoner's dinner). Good stuff, even if Mike wasn't there to cause some real chaos. :p
-->Also checked out a RabbidLuigi video about surprisingly dead franchises, including Dead Space (killed by EA when it went "everything must be online multiplayer!"), Castlevania (killed by Konami when it went "everything must be pachinko machines!"), and, of course, Half-Life (killed by Valve when it went "fuck video games, we're making tons of money with Steam!"). Kind of depressing. . .but I think the announcement of a Bloodlines sequel fifteen years after the original game might give some people some hope about these. :p
-->Took another walk outside -- another lovely day, weather-wise. I wish it could just stay like THIS all the time, seriously. Perfect mix of comfortable temperatures and daylight.
-->Made another DW RP post, featuring poor exhausted Victor trying to figure out what's wrong with his crying baby. The eternal struggle of the new parent. . .
Aaand -- that's about it, really. Gotta answer some comments and make sure my Valice Multiverse queue is good to go, but then -- well, probably I'm gonna go to bed. I'm tired. At least I don't have to get up early tomorrow. . . Plans include catching up on some riddle videos from Jay and Gloom, a Hitman 2 OXBox livestream, and a bunch of Sims 4 videos, plus playing Sims 4 itself. And getting back to "Secundus 2," as I spent all my writing time today on "Londerland Bloodlines" notes. (Look, I'm thorough!) We'll see how much I get done! Night all!
So, if any of you are interested in some stats:
-->Alice is turned the night of October 21st/22nd, and completes the warehouse hit on the night of October 25th/26th, meaning the first part of the game takes about five days. (Possibly six if I decide to bump meeting Bertram to the day after Alice finishes up the Voerman sister stuff, but so far that's how it's working out.)
-->Alice meets Victor and turns him into a ghoul on the night of October 23rd/24th. I'm thinking they should meet again the night of October 27th/28th, as that's when Alice should get back from the Elizabeth Dane mission (if you saved Heather, she shows up outside Venture Tower before you report to LaCroix -- I intend for Victor to show up after Alice has earned Haven #2).
-->In terms of leveling, Alice has increased only one Attribute -- her Dexterity, which is now 2. Her Abilities, however -- Firearms is now 1; Brawl, Dodge, and Computers are all now 2; Melee, Security, and Scholarship are now 3. And, as mentioned, she now has Obfuscate 3, which lets her go invisible for longer and sneak kill people. I need to remember that I need to leave at least one dot free in both Computers and Scholarship, since I know Bertram and Beckett will both give you a dot in each respectively if you do the right things. And there should be another Dodge book coming up later in the game -- since my Dodge is capped at 3 thanks to the history I took, I should wait and take advantage of that instead of wasting experience. Thinking I might as well throw a point or two into Intimidate -- Alice may not be very intimidating now, but she will get to be so later. Probably up Investigation too, since she solves a lot of mysteries. Will probably level up Dementation too -- Alice may not LIKE using it, but it is a handy tool to have -- and I occasionally have to think about what's good for PLAYING the game, not just getting my AU notes. :p
As for "Thursday By Night" -- well, everything is still weird, but things definitely took a turn for the creepily amusing in the latter part of the episode. Sam found out he has the power of Celerity, aka super-speed, and later super-speed sucked an unfortunate staff member DRY (after basically going into frenzy due to hunger). Liam basically charmed each other member of the gang into thinking that, above all else, he needed to live (Travis is starting to see through it, thanks to aura vision, but he's not entirely clear-headed). The foursome just BARELY escaped two werewolves roaming the building. And the mastermind behind all this weirdness (or, at least, turning the group into vampires)?
Vampire Gary Gygax. Who, if you don't know, is one of the original creators of D&D, the game Critical Role USUALLY plays. Turns out he's a fan of theirs and wanted to make sure they could keep doing their thing forever. . .and was not happy when they had to tell him that Matt, their DM, had died thanks to peeking at some sunlight. (Marisha died too, thanks to mushroom blood tea turning her into a pile of mushrooms, but the loss of Matt was the thing Gary was most upset about.) The gang managed to escape down a tunnel as he blew up the building, which will lead into Part 2! Which I'm saving for NEXT weekend, just because I do have other things I want to watch, and I'd like to keep watching it over one weekend instead of splitting it weirdly over the extra days off I have. Looking forward to seeing what's what, though!
Other things of note:
-->Helloween's back with Secret of Mana 2! He was away two weeks ago, then lost his voice last week, so it's been a while. But we're back with our heroes, and slowly reaching the endgame! Namely because the game really struggles with reconciling spells and status effects and thus was bumping up some casting times to dangerous levels. Helloween managed to plow on through without eating his controller, and was rewarded with a boss fight with Koren, where he got to wail on someone to his heart's content and turn the "I can't get a moment to cast because all the enemies are faster than me!" on the AI for once. XD So Angela's mother has now been saved from mind control, but the Dragon Emperor has been powered up by the sword of Mana and is on his way to cut down the Mana Tree and kill the Goddess. Seems like the next episode may be the last, with our final climatic boss fight!
-->Watched some OXBox and OXtra vids:
A) A list of most irresponsible uses of time travel/time portals -- including the ability to age enemies to dust, flip back and forth between past and present to sneak up on enemies and shoot them without any fear, humiliating high school bullies, and filching intellectual property decades before it's written (looking at you, Albert Fink)!
B) A list of the most extra uses of magical powers -- including magically dissolving clothes for kinky sex, drawing on a guy's face with lipstick (hello Bayonetta), and causing general mayhem by turning people into zombies (a thing that could actually happen in Sims 3)! Sort of the fantasy "twin" to the above's sci-fi. :p
C) A new Hitman 2 map! This one was a sniper challenge set in Siberia, where 47 is charged with killing from afar an important prisoner, the corrupt warden, as many of the warden's red-hatted lackies as possible, and then causing a riot somehow to make the whole thing just seem like an accident. Jane and Andy handled the sniping, which was trickier than it looked! It was very easy to mess up and have everyone start panicking and evacuating if a body was found. And the red-hatted minions turned out to be VERY GOOD at getting away. Jane and Andy persevered, though, and got a few good kills off, including one kill by icicle; one kill by falling giant metal star; a double kill via electrocution (some careful shooting of a hose and a battery one of the targets used to beat another guy practically to death with), and one emetic-poisoning-leading-to-a-bathroom-kill (via shooting a pipe full of green gas over the important prisoner's dinner). Good stuff, even if Mike wasn't there to cause some real chaos. :p
-->Also checked out a RabbidLuigi video about surprisingly dead franchises, including Dead Space (killed by EA when it went "everything must be online multiplayer!"), Castlevania (killed by Konami when it went "everything must be pachinko machines!"), and, of course, Half-Life (killed by Valve when it went "fuck video games, we're making tons of money with Steam!"). Kind of depressing. . .but I think the announcement of a Bloodlines sequel fifteen years after the original game might give some people some hope about these. :p
-->Took another walk outside -- another lovely day, weather-wise. I wish it could just stay like THIS all the time, seriously. Perfect mix of comfortable temperatures and daylight.
-->Made another DW RP post, featuring poor exhausted Victor trying to figure out what's wrong with his crying baby. The eternal struggle of the new parent. . .
Aaand -- that's about it, really. Gotta answer some comments and make sure my Valice Multiverse queue is good to go, but then -- well, probably I'm gonna go to bed. I'm tired. At least I don't have to get up early tomorrow. . . Plans include catching up on some riddle videos from Jay and Gloom, a Hitman 2 OXBox livestream, and a bunch of Sims 4 videos, plus playing Sims 4 itself. And getting back to "Secundus 2," as I spent all my writing time today on "Londerland Bloodlines" notes. (Look, I'm thorough!) We'll see how much I get done! Night all!
