LadyCrimson

Hello, how are you today, I hope you are well. I am wide awake but it's that periodic and persistent moment where nothing engages, so I sits. The sun is out and I could roam the neighborhood for sights and smells but it would probably just be car exhaust and dog peed lawns, so I sits and stares instead. Maybe in a bit I will get some yummies for dinner and watch a movie, so many movies to choose from, not sure I can decide, so maybe I will just sits some more. Tomorrow I have a lot of errands/things to do, so perhaps sitting while I can is best. Have a nice weekend.

^ I'm kind of interested in both of those movies. I did like Moon quite a lot, and that trailer does remind me of it a bit conceptually, just x17+more action/conflict or whatever you call what it's showing. Plus I like Shovel-Face a fair lot as an actor. One of those teen/YA movie actors (Potter/Twilight) who made it out of a potentially limiting typecast hole. The other one ... well, it's late 80's/Oakland setting, so there will be lots of references I'll probably get. I'll be interested in cinematography for this reason (supposedly filmed entirely in Oakland) and it looks at least partially in my adventure/slice of life wheelhouse. Mr. Leather Jacket, Scar-Face Pedro has nothing to do with it. Oh who am I kidding, I'm in.

I guess this counts as a gameplay trailer these days. ---I don't like the song that much (subjective) so trailer doesn't pump me up at all ---some of the scenes look like arenas vs. campaign play. ---I'm not sure if a chr is shown swimming or is shoulder-high water gliding. If swimming becomes an actual true traversal mechanic - vs. cutscene falling into water and then jesus-gliding out - that could be interesting. ---it looks like more Borderlands 3 style. eg, "eh."

No Man's Sky - Worlds 2 is pretty fun/improved exploration pretty, etc, but it's also the most glitches/small bugs I've had in the game since I originally played a year ago. Most of it's nothing major and an exit/reload may solve things in some cases (like building placement issues or invisible/clipped ships) but they're enough and often enough to be a bit annoying. But I'm glad I waited for W2 before diving into it again. The graphical changes are worth it alone, if you like to explore/admire stuff. The graphics are a lot better in certain ways. More immersive. I could do without the localized tornado storms that lift you a few miles into the sky, tho. I mean, it's kind of fun, but all such storms really like to "follow" you around for a while. And that one you have to time your jetpack just right or you're gonna crash to ground and die.

Just pretty. Apparently it's a lot of reelin' effort to reel in a ... singing snail? Is that a monster peeking at me, wondering if I'd be tasty? No, just my latest "can I tame it" pet. Which was so large that when riding/dismounting it, the game couldn't land me on the ground and I ended up standing in the air on its back. It was also one of the attached/devoted types so it would follow me very closely, but its size = consistently on top of me while following, so I was often "under" it and often it would bump me to the side. Quite the impediment to view/movement/exploration. Thus I abandoned it.

I don't have the game but I heard about this. I understand more unique enemies/story bosses or maybe if there are quest bandit camps that you clear out, why those would not respawn. But do general world creatures or more random population enemies not respawn either? Anyway, perhaps one could make an option that's only available after having beaten the story once. So a 2nd playthrough you could toggle a respawn on/off if you wished.

I guess No Man's Sky added a new "Abandoned" mode/difficulty for experienced players. So I tried that. It basically removes all NPC's from the game. This includes all space station or ship encounter shops, no npc given missions, etc. Animals on planets are still around, and the robot sentinel enemies. Can't call/use the special station to shortcut quests re: upgrades. No npc fleets filling the skies above planets and no player freigher to be had. I think it also means the new purple systems are impossible to get to since it requires NPC quests to get there...you can change most of the difficulty settings on the fly still if you wish, but the Abandoned part sticks to the save, no going back. This forces one to wander and be at mercy of RNG re: having that 3% chance of getting a good suit-mod out of something, Or bumbling randomly into a crashed ship that has more storage slots, that you can struggle for the resources to repair, if you want something besides the clunky starter ship. They do give you a way to research most tech from your base, eventually, but some things are missing. And it'll take one forever to find high grade upgrade modules in the wild. I remember playing sort of this way on my own - self-rules. No Anomaly station, or even "how far can you get never leaving the starting planet, ever". The zero NPC's thing is kind of interesting tho. I feel truly alone. It's great.

Re: color/lighting - of course it's all very subjective. And I don't mean just Avowed. Dragon Age Veilguard, Outer Worlds, even some aspects of Baldur's Gate 3, a lot of farm/other sims. something just bothers my eyes. It's not as bad in wide view isometric, and ofc I'm sure all of them have places it's more mellow. It's not only palette but lighting on top they do for "bold and colorful" emphasis or something - everything is so god rays bright/glare-y, or glossy/shiny. and in day scenes I get literal eyestrain if I stare at it too long. I mean Torchlight didn't bother me back when. I guess the more "realistic/hi-def" they try to make chrs and environments, the less I like such (imo) OTP colors. But I'll give any game extra credits if you can make chrs. like these. When I saw WAB's video, I burst out laughing when he showed his chr. Fantastic.

I have no clue on gameplay, which is arguably the most important thing, but in terms of art aesthetics, I would much prefer romping around in KCD2 then Avowed, from what I've seen. I mean, I like fantasy, and sci-fi, but lately there is too much over-garrish color palettes and over-bright color tones/lighting conditions in some games. It hurts my eyes. Not saying everything has to look like a dank dungeon or be dark and stormy all the time, but eh. And before anyone says anything - yes, No Man's Sky does this too. But at least in NMS I don't have to stare at the crayola colored space station NPC's for more than 2 seconds, and if I don't like the aesthetics of some planet, and I can just leave and find another one. Also, re: fantasy/sci-fi rpg/games, I also long for non-humanoid companions to be regular thing. I feel like we're still getting the simple Star Trek method of stick some funky prosthetics/tattoos on the face of a humanoid figure type of thing. At this point I would rather have an actual space hamster (who wears a tiny space helmet!) who sits on my shoulder during gameplay and is, say, a psychic-mage who chitters to me inside my head and demands cheese. Or a party companion (not a deco pet) made of geometric triangles and circles, or is a walking pillar. Anything.

Heh, that's adorable. Reminds me of that one (single) time it snowed in California/Bay Area (at basically sea level, not hills/mts) when I was ... uh ... 8? A houseguest of my parents made three very tiny snowmen and stuck them in front of the planter boxes on the back deck. So i woke up and saw those. I've been waiting for it briefly snow around here like that one more time, in my lifetime. Hey, it could happen.

I was able to log in and load posts etc just fine today, so that's a good sign re: forum performance capabilities. Although the game hasn't wide released yet. The reviewers and those who paid for early access, I think. = In other news, while generally speaking I keep to a decent food regimen, day to day, and have kept my weight low and level etc, excess sugar snacks is still a constant "addiction" I fight against all the time - and sometimes lose. 1st couple years I did really well. (edit: still off/don't need insulin tho) The past couple years I've done "all right." Death by Costco's Kirkland macadamia-nut, chocolate/caramel clusters has more appeal all the time.

More reason to wait for next generation (any gpu brand). Or never play any new games, forever. I don't think all of this re: gpu/performance value/cost/AI-upscaling reliance stuff (not just nvidia related) is going to get any better any time soon. Oh well. I'm just an ossified old fart, what do I know.

Only if you want there to be. Note I never story-finished the game but I did explore/move around the last big "open" section so I did get pretty far. It's more of a stealth game in many cases and you can avoid or sneak-deal with enemies most of the time (not always but often). Or if you really want to, you can charge in or do something non-stealthy and attract a lot of enemies for chaos. It's up to you. Generally speaking trying to take on lots of enemies at once is often not a great idea, partly because of certain mechanics but also just spatial jank sometimes. There's some "boss" fights of course.

And that's why I never like to be the one to stand in line to get first-day new gen cards. There are apparently always enough willing to be "beta testers" that I don't need to be one. Wait a year works for me. If only that worked for the prices these days, too. Ha.

NMS - My cute new hermit crab pet is apparently the victim of a bug/glitch. After initially taming it, it takes up a pet slot but there is no info/stats for it in the list and it is not summonable. Seems to be a known thing - hopefully they fix it. It was so cute, I want it back. I have now seen tons of "purple" systems, several water worlds (still don't care about exploring their depths much), lots of gas giants, tried building my own Fighter ship (very limited feature, nothing interesting) etc. Which was fun, but now I'm back to have nothing to do besides admire vistas and maybe hunt for the perfect Sentinel ship (can't craft those). There's two restrictions to gameplay that keep ppl like me from playing a lot longer, per return. The base-part building restriction per save and player-terrain changes limit (there's a limit to number of terrain edits then it starts erasing older changes for newer ones). I know the premise is to keep moving/discovering new systems forever, but eventually all the planets/biomes are the same, so motivation to planet hop 100000000 times forever dwindles. I think these restrictions are because NMS has Steam cloud saves, which is a hard save-size limit. 7 Days doesn't have/allow cloud saves for this reason. eg, Steam cloud saves for sandbox+building+mega exploring/mega-data etc. games sucks.

Re: save systems - That potion-saving is a weird "manual" save option, too. It's kind of interesting as a restriction, although I'm sure eventually one could buy/find enough to manage or something. Although, just to say, someone's already make an unlimited saving mod for KCD2 - of course, it's user-risk to 100% trust it. Or I bet there's trainers to give yourself 1000 save-potions already, or 10 every play session, whatever you want haha. My issue with rpg's is if you can't have a lot of separated save slots. I like having a whole set of saves at certain junctions in games, so I can go back and try different things or solutions re: non-repeatable fun stuff, without having to replay an entire game again. Or in case one hits a game-breaking bug that a save from 4 hours ago might be needed. Certain types of games having 1 manual and one autosave is fine but giant rpgs, no thanks, I need 10 minimum. 20 preferable. Edit: not saying KCD 2 is like that, I have no idea. Just saying I don't like it when games do the 1-manual/1auto save thing is all.

^ I don't know about gamers vs. non-gamers, or whether I'd even be one or the other - I suspect I'm in the middle somewhere, and mostly I'm just task/order/efficiency-obsessive - but my issue with story or "realistic" RPG (vs. fast arpg's/looters) is if I realize a NPC is trying to give me a quest, I will run far away. Hence I never get anywhere in them in the long run so what's the point. It's not just combat - although that is a large factor re: whether I might even idly/briefly check something out at all - nor does it matter to me how well anything is written, I simply do not care to listen to/quest for NPC's, go away. There is generally little within most stat/gear based RPG loops - even sandboxy ones - that give me motivation anymore, outside of simple exploration/saw all the map perhaps. I wish I could still get into them but it's not where my brain travels. Death Stranding wasn't an RPG, but its gameplay loop was so different from the norm that I've experienced (well, most of it), and in some weird way it was so meditative, that I put up with a lot of stuff I wouldn't normally - like the few weird combat sequences and those mega-cutscenes, blargh - here and there. Outside of explore/build sandboxes, I need more oddball and different like that, stuff that doesn't feel like the same thing with a different skin, yet again. Man I hope DS2 doesn't suck.

It was ten years ago, I found the film rather ponderous/not very "entertaining" and I never rewatched it, so pfft. That walking wall apparently did nothing my brain found interesting enough to spare permanent brain cell storage room for. I knew this guy way back when - before YouTube/streaming and even video rentals weren't for months after - he could see a movie in theater once and repeat whole scenes almost verbatim (long multi-dialogues) weeks/months later. One of those types. It was always amazing.

^ I do remember the water/time dilation planet (somewhat) but I still don't remember it/robot specifically. I remember the farm start, the daughters "ghost", scattered planet moments, Matt Damon, the wtf weird ending, Matthew's chr. going off to try to find the other main chr in the final. I think on-ship/flying interactions/exposition or whatever I wouldn't recall at all, without cheating via looking stuff up on YT. Not much of that film stuck in my brain, I guess. Maybe I fell asleep in parts.

I don't even remember Interstellar having a robot, probably zoned it out.

What is that? Is that the feed/tame icon when I hover? Can I tame it? *CHASE CHASE/SMASH BUTTON 50x* (it kept not working/it would move away super fast and I swim slow) Yessssss! Success, another adorable creature for me! ... which I will put away and never look at again. It's so unique/different vs. everything else so far tho, cuteness overload.

I don't think Interstellar was terrible or anything, but I did personally find it kind of a snoozefest. The best thing about Interstellar was desperate/crazed Matt Damon. Which was funny at the time because then The Martian came out and one was half-expecting Damon to be similar-roled, at first. Ha. I know it's a different type of film but The Martian was 100x better, imo. I didn't like Contact either, even on the big-screen. I even bought/tried reading the book wondering if it would make me appreciate it more. I didn't like the book much either. Thus I've come to the conclusion I don't enjoy overly metaphysical/transcendent sci-fi (or whatever the words for such might be) - 2001 and Arrival (2016) bored me to tears too. Which is fine - just doesn't "speak" to me is all.

No Man's Sky picture spam: Some of the new fauna (can be pets) I've encountered. Still not much point to having a pet - but it's fun to explore/encounter them. This guy has good planet-camo. I just like the "I am giant monster, kneel before me" vibe. Some planets are still gonna be sorta "boring" to look at, but when you find interesting ones, they are so pretty. New terrain/features make wandering a planet longer better because terrain/fauna feels more varied, less empty, in some cases. Waterworlds. Only tiny bits of land like this occasionally, that you may or may not be able to ship-land on. Deep underwater. There's an underwater sub but I don't like using them. You can summon your flight ship to land on the water now (water land gear module), so at least you don't have to swim forever to find a bit of land when you're bored of one spot.

Different subject: No Man's Sky/Worlds 2 I did the required post-game quests on my one save over three days. It's probably only a few hours in theory but I'm easily distracted + I was trapped by a bug - that leads the game into sending you on a never-ending galaxy warping journey chasing after a non-existing quest marker path - so I had to reload an earlier backed up save and repeat stuff. Anyway, the gas giant planets are just like any other toxic feeling planet, but bigger, with never ending storms that might lift you into the sky, etc. Visually interesting but not much reason to stay outside of mining a couple new resources. The 99.9% all water/deep ocean planets are more interesting. Never tried a water/ocean floor base before and probably won't - but you can fly around and eventually find some tiny tip of protruding land here and there to make a tiny landing pad base on and just explore the water in bursts. Normal planets may only go to depth 200-250 or so. The all-water planets go to 1500 or so. The lifeforms in deep dark water have become pretty cool to look at. Terrain generation changes are quite nice in purple systems, a lot more dense and a lot more height traversal vs. flatter. Like most of NMS updates tho, the changes are mostly visual that make random system/planet hopping more engaging for longer. People wanting mega gameplay changes or "something more to do" probably won't find it. Underwater basing/exploring is probably the main thing. And hunting for new animals or ships, as always (lots more animals).

Some people have actual trouble with visual cues/spatial awareness (in certain graphic circumstances/games), or have trouble with firmly creating too many "brain to muscle (finger?) memory" pathways for reaction timings. Or in terms of learning, they are simply like me: can't be bothered and don't get any emotive satisfaction re: "I git gud" at games that want to kill you in 1-3 hits. KCD2 looks like a nice open world wander, but at this point in my life I enjoy watching someone like Cohh play/discover it for a while, then playing it myself. I know you can avoid a lot/most combat (and probably yappy npc quests etc) if you really want to, but that wouldn't lead one to "git gud" so then the few times you might HAVE to deal with it are the times when ppl like me would turn it off and never turn it on again. From watching Cohh however, it definitely looks like a nice game for those that like the rpg gameplay style.