Realized Thoughts on Falling Out of Love with Blizzard

Categories Games, Musing

I spent countless hours playing Diablo 2 and its expansion, and it probably only barely edges out Starcraft for hours played. My introduction to role playing games was the first Diablo (On the Playstation!) and NoX (a Westwood game) and Diablo 2 thereafter. Both gave me a lot of good memories, but Westwood died after NoX and Blizzard also had Starcraft. I was passionate about Blizzard from this point. When World of Warcraft came out, I jumped from Star Wars Galaxies to WoW and never looked back. I was smitten once again. WoW felt like it took the ideas of what I wanted from role playing games and made everything bigger and more realized.

NoX
NoX by Westwood. “My introduction to role playing games was the first Diablo (On the Playstation!) and NoX (a Westwood game) and Diablo 2 thereafter.”

However, on reflection and while listening to Kyle Bosman and Jason Schreier talk about Blizzard and WoW, I realize the world of Azeroth was probably what ruined them for me. Despite years of love, and subsequent love-hate, I think the path Blizzard walked for World of Warcraft changed the company from one that made games regularly to one that only focuses on, and before the phrase really existed, live service games. I remember when Starcraft Ghost was canceled and then I just stopped hearing about Blizzard working on new games. I did jump into and play Overwatch thoroughly but even that eventually had its doors closed and got replaced with Overwatch 2, with extra emphasis on forever-money.

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The Morals of an Alley Cat

Categories Games, Musing

If you’re Millennial or Gen-Z, or a parent to someone who is, you may know of an aardvark with glasses named Arthur (and I only know how to spell aardvark because it was a part of the spelling bee in one of the episodes). The show addressed issues of sibling rivalry, night terrors, classism, feelings of regret, and a whole host of other things that people face every day. My friend and I discussed it a few years ago and we wondered if it would have been the same if the characters were human children instead of aardvarks, bulldogs, bunnies, and rats. We agreed the show wouldn’t be the same if the children were people.

Consider Stardew Valley vs Animal Crossing. Do the animals add to the charm of Animal Crossing? They seem to have very different audiences and the question remains: is it the species of the characters that makes a difference?

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My Better Firefox

Categories Software

The Firefox browser is my favorite. Its community driven and privacy minded. It may seem like a lot to adjust but its no different than what I have had to do in other browsers.

I will build this post up over time as I make new changes.

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Wellness Check by Andrea Gibson

Categories Poetry

In any moment,
on any given day,
I can measure
my wellness
by this question:

Is my attention on loving,
or is my attention on
who isn’t loving me?

Spiral Slides are for Suckers

Categories Games, Parkitect

I recently picked up Parkitect with my good friend, Realeo, what also has a couple of posts here. The game is everything you want from a park simulator with the thing you didn’t know you did: multiplayer. Building alongside a person-person who is just as clueless as you are about how things work is a joy. It also works well as a quiet group activity at times when your both sweating through figuring out how to finish a ride or why people are not buying your bubble tea. I recently got into diving into the numbers, clicking on each ride and looking at the statistics, and this has led me to a discovery. Spiral Slides are for suckers.

Spiral slides are these cool lighthouse looking rides, where a visitor queues up for the chance to climb to the top and slide down in a spiral to much pixelated joy. But this is no happy lighthouse as it appears. It is a sad lighthouse. It is Nickel Creeks’s Lighthouse. The only thing being dashed against the rocks here though are profits.

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Isn’t it Wonderful Now?

Categories Music

I remember my Grandma, trying to figure out what to do with a young boy, asking me if I wanted to get a music player. I came from a poor household, drugs all over, and nobody ever got me anything new. My fathers side was largely a mystery to me but my Grandma had started reaching out and so I got to spend time with one of the nicest people I have ever met. A bit bigger than my 10 year old bobble head, the box was light blue and had a CD player at the top.

The next question, which I had not considered, was “What do you want to get to listen to?” I get to pick my own music as well? I was over the moon. I had always just listened to music when other people were listening to music. When my Grandma asked me what I liked, I had no clue what that was so I did what most kids do in such situations, I guessed based off of which looked the coolest. Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile by Everclear. I could tell my Grandma was not sold that I knew exactly what I was getting, but she let me nonetheless.

I consumed every song, even Unemployed Boyfriend which I saw nothing wrong with at the time or Thrift Store Chair with the “real good sex”. It was also where I first heard Brown Eyed Girl, so much that when I first heard Morrison I thought it was a cover. For a kid who often felt alone though, Wonderful carried me through so much.

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My Favorite Tool

Categories Musing

This is my first post of the type, a little more personal, but it felt like a good way to reflect upon how far I have come. Not quite a journal and not really a guide, and probably better as a toot/tweet, but here it is.

The last handful of years have had a lot of growth for me. In my job I have felt like I have done a lot of good, and in my personal life I felt like I grew a great comfort with boundaries and comfort. That is not to say that things do not get topsy-turvy, but I feel a lot better equipped to frame things in a healthy way. I grew up with a lot of broken people and so what may seem practical to others was foreign to me, but I never really learned how to manage all the information other people spoke my way. I took a lot of what was said to me at face value and that led to a lot of problems.

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Slime Rancher: Final Thoughts

Categories Games

I won’t get into too heavy of specifics but there is spoileryness, even while I am as vague as I can be.

In the literal ruins of Hobson’s past, I learned that I can look to his advice but I cannot live in his footsteps. The lesson of the game was that of choice. Hobson imparted knowledge throughout my adventure but, ultimately, taught me that the choices my own through a carefully measured pace of notes that blended with the tasks I found myself choosing to do. There were a lot of decisions to be made as Beatrix, but for every door I chose, another closed. I think we are all choosing doors every single day; what is life if not a series of doors and a mixture of emotions about the ones we did and did not go through?

Slime Rancher let me break convention by allowing me to fly over locked doors, choosing how I approached the world around me. With freedom abound, it is beautiful that they did not take away the culminating final choice. So many games end in a this-or-that scenario masked as decision making that is supposed to be reflective of the person playing. Slime Rancher, while more constrained in overall scope, is so much more. Consequently, Instead, I am now sitting here in my chair, and I am exploring my mixed emotions.

I recommend you play Slime Rancher, or not. The choice is yours.

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Just a Reminder that Crown Crates are Garbage

Categories Elder Scrolls Online, Games

I usually do so well to avoid crates. The last time I bought big into crates was the in 2019 when Xanmeer Crates were available. Well, here I am again, a sucker once more for Xanmeer Crates. I cannot even believe you can get a Craglorn Welwa four times in a row. Meanwhile I have only gotten a single ouchie-plant out of the three available. So there is not much to this post, just a reminder that Crown Crates are a scam. If I could, I would just pay some stupid number annually to know I can get what I want. I am not adverse to paying to support the game, but it would be nice to not feel like I have been fleeced so often. As of now, I only stick my head out every handful of years to learn my lesson again.

Well played, ZoS.

Adding Steam Games to the Menu Editor in KDE Plasma

Categories Fedora KDE, Linux

I recently made the switch from Linux Mint to Fedora KDE. I loved Mint, but my gaming has gotten a lot better since the move. In my time with Mint, I figured out how to add Steam games to the menu but I forgot to store this information before making the move. After figuring it out all over again, I am saving that knowledge here for myself.

This feels almost too short to be a post but I had a very difficult time finding this information here it is.

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