Semi-Chill Sunday
Oct. 11th, 2020 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickBoth my mood and the weather -- the latter started out pretty decent, but the temperature was definitely dropping as the day went on. Supposed to be downright chilly and rainy tomorrow! Not that I particularly mind, I'm not going anywhere, obviously. . . And as for my mood -- well, that's best explained in the list below:
-->Parents went out for a ride this morning, just to drive around and get out of the house; I stayed at home, drank my smoothie and got caught up in reading TV Tropes, as I do XD
-->Once I finally got clothes on and ate lunch, moved onto the YouTube portion of my day, which I expected to go pretty quickly. . .but then I ran into some problems with LibreOffice Writer basically freezing up, coupled with generally slow performance and incomplete loading over on YouTube, and -- ugh. Got through one video, and it took me nearly an HOUR to watch the next one, including fighting to close the malfunctioning program and having to do a restart. I THINK in this case part of the problem was my antivirus running a scan, but -- still, what a pain in the ass! Did manage to watch the stuff I really wanted to watch in the end, though:
A) Started off with the OXBox and OXtra I spoke of yesterday:
1. "7 Bosses Who Came Back Harder, Stronger" – starting with everyone's favorite RE7 monster, Jack Baker! Yeah, you fight this guy multiple times over the course of the game, in various states of undress. XD And of course Bowser made the list – specifically his Super Mario Odyssey version, who comes at you with fire breath and a boxing-glove-enabled hat. Welp, if you have that sort of thing on your person for your wedding, might as well use it, right?
2. "7 Games Secretly Announced In Other Games" – when developers hide little hints as to upcoming projects in their current projects! Sometimes a little too well, in fact – Batman: Arkham City was teased in a secret room in Batman: Arkham Asylum, but the room was SO secret that the developer had to tell people about it AFTER City was formally announced. XD Ah, gotta love those goofy little fails. . .
3. "7 DLCs That Were Better Than The Main Game: Commenter Edition" – OXBox team told us which DLCs they liked better than the game they were attached to; now it's the fans' turn! And, to my non-surprise, Fallout 4: Far Harbor made the list. Even the people I've seen complain about FO4 and how it works on tumblr acknowledge that was a good DLC. I'm looking forward to playing it! :)
B) And then, tonight, it was time for the other half of Jon from Many a True Nerd's essay on Fallout 4 – "Better Than You Think?" This time with a question mark, because he was discussing the game's flaws. In his opinion, the biggest problems with FO4 are an uneven opening with more of an interest in providing spectacle instead of properly establishing the world (basically, you never get a chance to connect emotionally to the Pre-War world you lived in, and to the family you had, because the game wants to get you into power armor so you can fight a Deathclaw), and an attitude toward the dialogue and the narrative that decided that everything should be kept super-simple, instead of providing lore for curious fans to delve into or changing things around based on what you're good at (there's a lot more environmental storytelling over quests, and your various SPECIAL stats and perks don't really affect your dialogue or how you handle quests except in very limited situations (the three mentioned are going to Convenant and solving the mystery there; helping out the robotic crew of the USS Constitution; and Far Harbor)). Add in a very inconsistently written Institute, and the fact that your opening quests are from the Minutemen and thus are probably not particularly distinct radiant quests, and a world that looks gorgeous but doesn't have all that much to do, and – yeah. Jon can understand why people wouldn't think much of the game. He still thinks that what it does well, it does REALLY well, and he likes it a lot. He's just not one to gloss over the flaws. Me, I obviously solve these problems with mods/fanfic/making ranty posts in my head that occasionally end up on tumblr (a sister post on what would be in my ideal version of Sims?). XD
-->I did indeed play some Fallout 4 as well, though it was a bit choppier than normal (again, think that was my computer being an ass), and I ended the playsession with the game just freezing up on me, annoyingly. But I did successfully test the "Culinary Masterpieces" mod I picked up, and I quite like it! It adds a whole new category of food to the food crafting menu, and there's lots of fun stuff on there, like various juices and a Deathclaw sandwich. XD And they all have nice effects too, like +5% experience gain for two hours for the juices, and a whooping +400 carry weight for a while for the Deathclaw sandwich. :D I am only too happy to keep this in my game and have even more food choices for my Sole Survivor Victor!
Now, my other intent was to poke around with some of my other mods and see how they're going. I went to Diamond City first, to try and get the note for "Music Lessons," which is the quest that lets you get the plans to build the instruments from the instruments mod, but it wasn't on the bounty board that I could see. Meh. So I decided to try a "Tales of the Commonwealth" quest, and fast-traveled over to the fallen skybridge that was the closest location I'd discovered to the bookstore I needed to visit.
Promptly started getting shot at by Super Mutants! Had no idea the bastards were on the bridge! Managed to take them down with Curie's help, and explore a bit more of the area for loot -- but then, looking for a way off, we ran into some Gunners. So after dealing with THEM, I decided to try and go the OTHER way. I carefully dropped down a couple of sections onto some lower chunks of bridge, then found a rooftop that looked solid enough and jumped onto it --
And into a loading screen. I was completely confused for a couple of minutes -- and then the area loaded, and I got the little notification that I'd discovered Goodneighbor! So apparently, rather than arriving in the TRADITIONAL way through the gate, Victor JUMPED OUT OF THE SKY and landed in the former Scollay Square. XD I am SO TEMPTED to make some kind of variation on that "canon" if I ever do write anything from my FO4/VTMB/CB/AMA crossover "Tell Me Where To Find Shelter/Fallout of Darkness." XD Anyway, ended up wandering around there, exploring, and getting pulled into the "Big Dig" quest (and getting some glitchiness with my weapons while fighting Mirelurks, which wasn't -- great). This is where the game froze and I had to kill it via Task Manager, but hey! At least now I know roughly where Goodneighbor is! Been wondering for a while. XD
-->Played some more beanbag game -- Mom was the big winner today, winning three games and coming second twice. Dad won one game and came in second twice, and I won once and came in second once. Had a bunch of strong starts, but lousy finishes, unfortunately. But hey, as I have said before, as long as I manage one win, I'm happy.
-->Wrote some more on "Londerland Bloodlines" -- went between Helloween's two playthroughs (Tremere and Malkavian) and kind of combined the conversations they each got for Alice (basically Therese called to tell Alice that Jeannette had set up the hit, and then Jeannette interrupted to say Therese had -- you either get one or the other in-game, depending on how you've handled the sisters' affections). Alice is heading back to figure out how to deal with them -- and has just figured out the whole "split personality" thing (she was, naturally, assuming they were argumentative twins). I plan for her to talk the pair down and into working together once again, so I think I need to focus on the Tremere playthrough for that -- looking at the comments on the Malkavian one, it seems like he had to choose between them for that playthrough! Well, at least he has two that I can switch between as necessary. :p
-->And now I'm just watching my queue on Valice Multiverse (which is currently super quiet) and messing around online while listening to a mix of various Fallout OSTs, as one does. :p Gotta answer some comments in the old inbox, and then -- I dunno, probably just stay up later than I should doing random shit. XD
Plans for tomorrow: Wipe out what's in the Watch Later and catch up on Call Me Kevin and GrayStillPlays (both of whom I've finally subscribed to), write some more on "In A World Of His Own" -- and I'm gonna be honest, I'm probably gonna play more Fallout 4, simply because I really do want to test out the weather mod. I MAY attempt a double day with some Sims 4 as well, but Fallout 4 is the game I'm REALLY vibing with currently, so. . .
Okay, time to answer stuff in the inbox and finish catching up on tumblr tags and the like. Night all!
-->Parents went out for a ride this morning, just to drive around and get out of the house; I stayed at home, drank my smoothie and got caught up in reading TV Tropes, as I do XD
-->Once I finally got clothes on and ate lunch, moved onto the YouTube portion of my day, which I expected to go pretty quickly. . .but then I ran into some problems with LibreOffice Writer basically freezing up, coupled with generally slow performance and incomplete loading over on YouTube, and -- ugh. Got through one video, and it took me nearly an HOUR to watch the next one, including fighting to close the malfunctioning program and having to do a restart. I THINK in this case part of the problem was my antivirus running a scan, but -- still, what a pain in the ass! Did manage to watch the stuff I really wanted to watch in the end, though:
A) Started off with the OXBox and OXtra I spoke of yesterday:
1. "7 Bosses Who Came Back Harder, Stronger" – starting with everyone's favorite RE7 monster, Jack Baker! Yeah, you fight this guy multiple times over the course of the game, in various states of undress. XD And of course Bowser made the list – specifically his Super Mario Odyssey version, who comes at you with fire breath and a boxing-glove-enabled hat. Welp, if you have that sort of thing on your person for your wedding, might as well use it, right?
2. "7 Games Secretly Announced In Other Games" – when developers hide little hints as to upcoming projects in their current projects! Sometimes a little too well, in fact – Batman: Arkham City was teased in a secret room in Batman: Arkham Asylum, but the room was SO secret that the developer had to tell people about it AFTER City was formally announced. XD Ah, gotta love those goofy little fails. . .
3. "7 DLCs That Were Better Than The Main Game: Commenter Edition" – OXBox team told us which DLCs they liked better than the game they were attached to; now it's the fans' turn! And, to my non-surprise, Fallout 4: Far Harbor made the list. Even the people I've seen complain about FO4 and how it works on tumblr acknowledge that was a good DLC. I'm looking forward to playing it! :)
B) And then, tonight, it was time for the other half of Jon from Many a True Nerd's essay on Fallout 4 – "Better Than You Think?" This time with a question mark, because he was discussing the game's flaws. In his opinion, the biggest problems with FO4 are an uneven opening with more of an interest in providing spectacle instead of properly establishing the world (basically, you never get a chance to connect emotionally to the Pre-War world you lived in, and to the family you had, because the game wants to get you into power armor so you can fight a Deathclaw), and an attitude toward the dialogue and the narrative that decided that everything should be kept super-simple, instead of providing lore for curious fans to delve into or changing things around based on what you're good at (there's a lot more environmental storytelling over quests, and your various SPECIAL stats and perks don't really affect your dialogue or how you handle quests except in very limited situations (the three mentioned are going to Convenant and solving the mystery there; helping out the robotic crew of the USS Constitution; and Far Harbor)). Add in a very inconsistently written Institute, and the fact that your opening quests are from the Minutemen and thus are probably not particularly distinct radiant quests, and a world that looks gorgeous but doesn't have all that much to do, and – yeah. Jon can understand why people wouldn't think much of the game. He still thinks that what it does well, it does REALLY well, and he likes it a lot. He's just not one to gloss over the flaws. Me, I obviously solve these problems with mods/fanfic/making ranty posts in my head that occasionally end up on tumblr (a sister post on what would be in my ideal version of Sims?). XD
-->I did indeed play some Fallout 4 as well, though it was a bit choppier than normal (again, think that was my computer being an ass), and I ended the playsession with the game just freezing up on me, annoyingly. But I did successfully test the "Culinary Masterpieces" mod I picked up, and I quite like it! It adds a whole new category of food to the food crafting menu, and there's lots of fun stuff on there, like various juices and a Deathclaw sandwich. XD And they all have nice effects too, like +5% experience gain for two hours for the juices, and a whooping +400 carry weight for a while for the Deathclaw sandwich. :D I am only too happy to keep this in my game and have even more food choices for my Sole Survivor Victor!
Now, my other intent was to poke around with some of my other mods and see how they're going. I went to Diamond City first, to try and get the note for "Music Lessons," which is the quest that lets you get the plans to build the instruments from the instruments mod, but it wasn't on the bounty board that I could see. Meh. So I decided to try a "Tales of the Commonwealth" quest, and fast-traveled over to the fallen skybridge that was the closest location I'd discovered to the bookstore I needed to visit.
Promptly started getting shot at by Super Mutants! Had no idea the bastards were on the bridge! Managed to take them down with Curie's help, and explore a bit more of the area for loot -- but then, looking for a way off, we ran into some Gunners. So after dealing with THEM, I decided to try and go the OTHER way. I carefully dropped down a couple of sections onto some lower chunks of bridge, then found a rooftop that looked solid enough and jumped onto it --
And into a loading screen. I was completely confused for a couple of minutes -- and then the area loaded, and I got the little notification that I'd discovered Goodneighbor! So apparently, rather than arriving in the TRADITIONAL way through the gate, Victor JUMPED OUT OF THE SKY and landed in the former Scollay Square. XD I am SO TEMPTED to make some kind of variation on that "canon" if I ever do write anything from my FO4/VTMB/CB/AMA crossover "Tell Me Where To Find Shelter/Fallout of Darkness." XD Anyway, ended up wandering around there, exploring, and getting pulled into the "Big Dig" quest (and getting some glitchiness with my weapons while fighting Mirelurks, which wasn't -- great). This is where the game froze and I had to kill it via Task Manager, but hey! At least now I know roughly where Goodneighbor is! Been wondering for a while. XD
-->Played some more beanbag game -- Mom was the big winner today, winning three games and coming second twice. Dad won one game and came in second twice, and I won once and came in second once. Had a bunch of strong starts, but lousy finishes, unfortunately. But hey, as I have said before, as long as I manage one win, I'm happy.
-->Wrote some more on "Londerland Bloodlines" -- went between Helloween's two playthroughs (Tremere and Malkavian) and kind of combined the conversations they each got for Alice (basically Therese called to tell Alice that Jeannette had set up the hit, and then Jeannette interrupted to say Therese had -- you either get one or the other in-game, depending on how you've handled the sisters' affections). Alice is heading back to figure out how to deal with them -- and has just figured out the whole "split personality" thing (she was, naturally, assuming they were argumentative twins). I plan for her to talk the pair down and into working together once again, so I think I need to focus on the Tremere playthrough for that -- looking at the comments on the Malkavian one, it seems like he had to choose between them for that playthrough! Well, at least he has two that I can switch between as necessary. :p
-->And now I'm just watching my queue on Valice Multiverse (which is currently super quiet) and messing around online while listening to a mix of various Fallout OSTs, as one does. :p Gotta answer some comments in the old inbox, and then -- I dunno, probably just stay up later than I should doing random shit. XD
Plans for tomorrow: Wipe out what's in the Watch Later and catch up on Call Me Kevin and GrayStillPlays (both of whom I've finally subscribed to), write some more on "In A World Of His Own" -- and I'm gonna be honest, I'm probably gonna play more Fallout 4, simply because I really do want to test out the weather mod. I MAY attempt a double day with some Sims 4 as well, but Fallout 4 is the game I'm REALLY vibing with currently, so. . .
Okay, time to answer stuff in the inbox and finish catching up on tumblr tags and the like. Night all!
