LadyCrimson

That nerve destroying op for hubby's lower spine is now on the horizon. Just waiting for a booking opening to open up. Doc says there's 3 vertebrae that are the "worst" but 5 total are problematic so they're going to do all 5. And if THAT doesn't help him, it's down to the spinal-fusion thing, which is a lot more dubious re: could get better, could not, could actually be worse (and just like with the nerves, can't reverse it). Don't know if we'll stay over night in the area or not, depends on time of day (3-4 hr drive). Maybe just rent a room for a few hours of rest/traffic avoidance first.

Tiffany? Who's Tiffany? Also: I miss American Bandstand, silly dancing and lip syncing and all. I remember seeing this on the old tubeTV back then and I'm pretty sure I have it recorded on VHS tape in a closet somewhere. Famous film composer Danny Elfman used to dance funny, hehe. It's how we saw our fave bands outside of in-person live concerts, back then. Now YT over-saturates us all. But at least it also lets us nostalgia.

This is how I picture my husband being at this age. So cute.

Enshrouded: I'm (current) max level, all biomes visited (but not fully explored), most "crafting" things acquired etc. But based on empty workbench squares, I'm missing some building blocks. So this is when I start wiki-ing more. So yesterday I start one of the areas/things for a couple of them. Took me near 2 hrs to get to the end (1st time, exploring, puzzle/traversal-deaths etc). Near the bottom, got one new block. Then I encountered my first major game bug. The boss at the end - which I need its head - I saw its health bar appear on the UI, there was music, but no boss. I killed a few mobs, looked around, saw a treasure box - grabbed it - then saw a teleporter pad. I thought, ok, maybe I have to take this to the real boss-room. So I used it. Which took me to .... the start/entrance of the dungeon. And teleport is one way, ofc. And everything's respawned by now, so even if it took me half the time doing it, I'd have to redo all the puzzles/open doors. Granted, I guess there was a glitch, but I temp-rage-quit again. EDIT: my god I talk too much when I'm frustrated. shortened: I've had about enough of the MMO-like resource/other grind. also, the bug seemed to be I was able to pass thru/unlock a gated door I shouldn't have been able to, before beating the boss. I'm still stupidly stubborn enough to try to get at least all the "building blocks" unlocked (I'm close-ish) but after that I'm out, until a creative mode, or they rebalance things extensively.

Enshrouded: After a bunch of unrelated exploration/resource collecting/dungeon crawling etc I finally got around to making some "cold biome" wear. So between base-comfort rating, clothes, and new hand-warmer I can now stay in super-cold for about an hour. But - I could live with the top, but the hat and pants, no, just no. Thank goodness for transmog. I went back to my original "look". But at least I can live in the high snow for more than 40 seconds. Also learned that if one is relying on base-comfort frost bonuses, teleporting to a TP-only flame altar removes it because it takes on the TP-altar's zero frost bonus, when you get there. >.> so one has to make any base near winter/snow the same frost-comfort level.

Exploring. Wonder what happened to them? Hmm, death by frozen pond. Poor lost souls. But they don't need that anymore - I'll take it, thanks. Stopping for the night.

On your Easy, did you slide every slider full to left? Because one setting controls the numbers. Less/Normal/More, something like that. I left it on Normal because I don't care how many there are in most cases, as long as they die easy/don't kill me in one hit or whatever (bosses mostly, mobs are nothing). The enemy I had to farm is a flying one and it simply doesn't spawn many in the few shroud areas it can spawn. I only found one larger area where maybe 3 spawned, other spots just had one. I have now found coal, which means I can craft a hand-warmer, but I also need a certain kind of leather, which I do not have. Hehehe

It's winter and I have nothing better to do. Plus I'm pretty sure I have both more free time and more "ocd" factors. At the moment I'd give the game in its current form maybe a B or B+. I like aspects but there are still those super annoying things that get your goat, a little too often. So I try to focus on the things I like, until the game "forces" me to do otherwise. I've somehow finished 70ish "quests" (I use that term loosely) but there's oodles of them all over the map I've ignored and every new thing procs more. I'm sure I'm missing a lot of NPC-crafts by not doing some of them. I do like that there's no money/buying/selling. Just resource grind. Speaking of which, I spent a few hours trying to get the 40 of the one item I need to upgrade the altar again. After that time I have --- 37. And that's with the setting that I think increases amounts you loot a bit. >.> The "grind" is that you have to wait for enemies to respawn and ofc it's not a thing that spawns in numbers. It gets MMO old. EDIT: if game didn't have all those easy settings I can turn on/off at whim, I'd probably have irritation-quit.

Enshrouded: I found the snow biome. Or rather, I found some edges of it. I guess I didn't notice before because I've been using double-jump, gliding, and a lot of pickaxing to reach places before the game wants you to, I think. So I'm often in tunnels, or it's night, or --- Anyway - I glided and then made a tunnel upwards in this one spot. I hit patches of snow and new granite/blocks (I can now build snowmen). At one flat cliff ledge some way up, I plopped a base-altar. Good thing, since about 60 more seconds of tunneling upwards through rock, I wtf dropped dead, apparently from cold. Tried again, paid more attention, saw the tiny "frost death imminent" timer bar this time. So I went sideways. Found another snowy ledge, but this one had a nice, empty, pre-built fancy stone house. So I put a base altar in there as a foothold. there was a path upwards. So I tried again, just walking. Worked for a while, then that bar showed up again and I had to rush back down. I think it's "altitude" based, not the actual snow. Guess I need frost protection. I have zero idea how to get it. My altar stage is still only lvl 5, that's probably some of it. Each altar level (for me so far) has at least one (shroud) material required that is so annoying to get, even with 25+minute shroud-time. Either because of grind or getting lost finding a POI area or a spawn area etc. Dangit, guess I gotta grind.

Enshrouded: --I see an entrance room like this in this game and I nope outta there. Don't get me wrong, most of such aren't that terrible or anything - outside of a couple platforming things, because I suck at platforming things - but some have taken a bit of time/effort or reloads. I ran out of patience already. As always, it's hard to get a picture of one's base. I haven't gone very extravagant, mostly functional. I also keep building upwards for workstations because I don't want to increase the "build area" of the base-altar, since it stops trees/plants/terrain/anything from respawning. --This is the front, at night. Notice all the NPC's in a line. Was tired of them wandering all over when I have to find/craft from them, so I made all their walking-distances to 0. They don't even go sleep in their beds anymore. There are too many craft-station-NPC's. >.> --The glowing blocks for lighting are the only things that don't go out when it rains so I use them a lot. --The back, night. It's a steep dropoff in back, roadside in front. --Similar backview, day. The porch floor below my chr is where the small farm-area is. Since apparently no sun is required.

I've had the 32gb ddr4 since I built this thing. Only one game ever wanted it all, and that was only for rendering a map, not actual playing. I have had no care to "rush" to higher speed ddr5 and get that extra 6-10fps or whatever. Nor for current gen/faster nvme's or even sata ssd's. After a point those things start to feel like "window-treatments" for house windows. It's nice, but not really necessary/gaming. It's not a rush thing, those. Although the way AAA dev's are going, in a few years gonna need mega-nvme drive just to prevent read/transfer poor frame pacing/stutters. Haha.

With the way melee animations work, I haven't had alt-itis like I do in some games. I've tried melee a few times and once I melee-thrust myself off a cliff. Technically I think using the staff to cast spells does the same forward/stuck in an elongated animation movement but since you cast it from afar it doesn't bother me. I might try the bows later. Of course, I'm still using mostly the easy settings, because after the first 20 or so hours, I'm just trying to rush to unlock stuff. Having to find/loot block varieties in "random" places is so annoying. Loot a chest, bang, "true sandstone fancy block discovered." Pffft.

It's already in the game. I've seen ppl on forums talk about it. It's mountains I guess. I've been focusing on exploring and seeing what one can do with building blocks (no gravity/structural integrity considerations, can "float" bases, like in NMS). I still haven't even tamed a cat/animal. Just like in real life these days, I don't really want to take care of one. Edit: I went without the larger backpacks for ages because that swamp FT spire annoyed me - I kept falling with those bouncy pads. Later I finally tried chopping a stairway into a tree and got to the top that way. I hated that swamp area.

Enshrouded: Well, I'll be dipped in .... I was making new chrs/saves/testing and realized that each save, even offline/SP, is still like creating a separate world "instance" of the game - which you can then enter/visit with any other character you create. Meaning you could take chr. #2 and enter chr #1's save/world and grab anything out of chests. leave and go back into chr #2's world/save. High level tools, gear, big storage boxes, working workstations, whatever. Keeping that join-server-like feature as part of offline/SP is nuts. Talk about sandbox-replay shortcuts. So that gives Enshrouded a few extra bonus points until a possible full creative mode. I think I'm lacking the snow biome. I'm not sure I care. I'm almost current max-clvl already, and the progression of shroud and dungeons are becoming more aggravating (platforming jumps, maze-likes, getting constantly lost/turned around, ugh). Plus I don't need snow-themed furniture, haha. My fave biome so far is the 2nd one (kind of a redwood/forest rainy biome) and it's probably the only one I'd want to base in, anyway.

Enshrouded: ---I'm 70% enjoying the game, I guess, but it feels similar to No Man's Sky, where as I unlock stuff and try things, I slowly realize 80% of the unlocks I have zero interest in/would never use. But NMS has the advantage of zillions of planets for random fresh starts vs. Enshrouded's static map and questing (even if it's pretty large). I think most (solo) people who get more than 100-200 hrs out of enshrouded are going to be the mega-builders, who want to make 5+ massive, 30hr+ to make each one, bases needing 1000's and 1000's of materials for both walls and deco (I swear 78% of crafting is deco, like spoons, plates, chairs, plants, lighting, etc). ---all I care about is block varieties (metal, wood, colors, styles), altar-placement-limit upgrades, backpack upgrades and storage upgrades. ---the farming is a cozy or mass production effort thing for those who like such. You don't have to do it if you don't want, you'll loot the minimums for main upgrades. ---the cooking/foods, far as I'm concerned, are too many and aren't that useful. Just like NMS. Maybe a few, or on hardest difficulties, but I mean, mostly it's a time-waster. ---weapons are mostly found/loot, armor is occasionally looted but is mostly crafted (but as a mage, don't really need a lot of that) ---the fishing mechanic reminds me a bit of FFXV. Although you can also put it on Easy where you auto reel fish in. >.> ---I could see myself replaying the game a couple times, "rushing" more to certain points and then just building, but that's probably about it (at its current EA stage anyway) Early on I found a pair of boots with 6% faster run. Since there are no mounts, I've kept those on forever. I have yet to see any more upgraded boots - crafted or loot - with that attribute. I'm at around 60-70 hrs probably, still haven't seen all biomes. I do get task-distracted a lot tho.

Yes. I assume it does some behind-scenes autosaving but you cannot manually save, outside of exiting/reloading. Flame altars are your base markers. They also function as FT waypoints, and when you exit game, it will load you into the last/closest flame altar you were at. Thus people make sure to always have one flame altar available they can still build, so they can temp-use for those purposes. You can't place them inside some dungeons or in "the shroud" (I think), but you can place them at/near POI's/mines etc you want to revisit. How many total flame altars you can place in the world depends on upgrading the altar - I'm up to 7, I think the max is 10. With general POI's, you can place altars so base area covers the POi and turn it into your base. Redesign a broken down castle or farmhouse, stuff like that. Or just anywhere you want. The base stops things from respawning within its area.

7 Days to Die - well I like the re-added smell system, although it's overtuned so I had to alter it a bit. The rest is kinda - well, it's still what it is. I've heard they're considering a semi-return to LBD - not fully but a combo + books. I didn't like their LBD back when. Not sure if I like the sound of that. Oh well, I can just play 1.0-b333 forever if I want. Enshrouded - I did cure myself of that curse, and then promptly disabled Curses in the options. I noticed that option when I started the game, but I just thought it would dictate whether enemy casters would do normal debuff spells all the time or rarely. Turning it off after being cursed only half worked - the visuals of it and mana regen not working remained (could be a bug). Anyway -- some other comments: ----I've come to the conclusion this is the kind of game where you cannot unlock all crafting/building options etc until you've basically .... finished the game. The questing/biome discoveries aspect anyway. So if one is looking for sandboxy in that sense, you'll be playing for 60-80-100+ hours before that truly kicks in. Unless there's rush method guides, which I don't "do" on first-runs. ----quite often a quest marker (NPC wants something, to unlock something etc) had me going in circles for an hour or more around that marker, trying to find the "way in." Blocked my castles, blocked by cliffs/valleys, blocked by "deadly shroud" I'm not of a level to travel through yet. I'm sure there's some lone ez path in but I apparently could never find it. Frustrating. ----turned off weapon/mining gear durability because the decay rate is ridiculous - at least early-middle - re: mining or longer dungeons etc. even with repair stations scattered around. Apparently there are eventually repair kits, but guess what, I don't have that ability yet. Shocker. I did loot one in what seems to be a "plains/grass" biome. ----I hear they may plan for a Creative Mode for full release. Maybe I should wait until then. I'm an odd duck sometimes tho, where the more frustrated a game makes me, the more stubborn I become. I mean, there ARE things I like a lot about Enshrouded. I think. Heh.

"What's in the Box" (Netflix, game show) - I saw Neil Patrick Harris' face and clicked. Silly game show with too much contestant drama and prizes of the new car, trip, expensive luggage variety. Oh yeah, and one year of free DoorDash orders. >.> Even Neil as host couldn't save it/make it watchable. I did skip to the last episode/end to find out the ultimate giant "surprise box" end-prize, so you don't have to:

Enshrouded: Ok, I've been cursed with something called Hemotoxin for hours (RT) that never wears off. Drains health and blocks mana regen. There was no apparent way to get rid of it once I realized it wasn't going away. So I just dealt with it, because EZ settings made it a little annoying but not major. Then I got around to getting more NPC's into my base and one could craft a remedy, but it requires a resource found in another slightly higher level biome of which I had zero notion of where to travel to get there. I finally googled it. What poor design for a new player (allowing that curse to take place so early, in "starter biome", before one may have found/gotten that NPC or multiple biomes). Made my way there, just got into it, then died exploring a POI, and game put me half way across my known map because the only "load if you die" becaon I'd seen/encountered was ages ago in a different POI. I have two tower-FT locations found, neither anywhere near where I was. You can use base-altars as FT (place, delete later) but it's a hinky travel workaround with limits. On one hand, rationally it really isn't that bad. On the other hand, between that and all the curse stuff, I semi-rage quit. Also, not liking the storage options or crafting station/options stuff too much (No Man's Sky is better on both fronts imo). And the combat is still terrible. I'd guess once I have everything unlocked I'd enjoy it more in the sandbox fashion but getting there - maybe later. I get why it's popular, mind. Just a little too MMO or whatever for me perhaps. Time to try 7 Days 2.5.

Well, Enshrouded for me seems to be one of those games where you're never quite sure how much you truly like the game, but every day you sit down and keep playing it. It's neither rpg systems enough, nor free-sandboxy enough to fully enjoy it in either fashion. Pros: ---Exploration really is the best aspect far as I'm concerned. Although like any larger open world type map, there are empty areas, mostly around map edges. Still, points of interest at least aren't super spread out, so density is decent. And one time I dropped down a barren ledge (ledge hopping to get down a cliff), saw a gravestone in the middle of nowhere. Wondered if I could break it with my pickaxe. I could - and there was a loot chest revealed. ---in the first area/biome, dungeons have been small but kinda fun. Nothing difficult but the climbing, jumping, traps occasionally make it feel like brief, simplified tombraider-ing. Kinda. The design/similarities might get repetitive tho. ---loot/chests enemies, areas etc seem to respawn, but takes an hour or two of real time spent in game (exiting game doesn't work with chests tho/patched out, I hear). So far areas don't seem level-scaled. eg, respawns feels like a cross between MMO and ARPG's but a slower pace perhaps. ---Since it's voxel, if I can't jump high enough, I can just pickaxe myself a few dips into a rockface and go up, if I want. Stuff like that. ---the Glider feature is nice. I keep forgetting I can use it to, say, shortcut-leap down a chasm, but it's a great traversal feature. Cons: ---Why do I have to literally kiss a tree or flower to chop it down/pick it up? Or nearly stand on top of dropped loot to pick it up? Does my character have three inch long arms? ---a strange sense of minor latency (even Offline) between actions and it actually applying or game doing its notification things, or sometimes re: comabt actions, like switching weapons. ---am still not fond of the progression systems (crafting, upgrading), which I've mentioned already. It's nice in theory/I'm sure it clicks with many, but I constantly feel like I'm going to waste my time doing anything until I have everything discovered/unlocked that might make early thoughts/work obsolete. ---combat is terrible. I don't mean difficulty, I mean auto-targeting is terrible, especially with the wands/staves. No way to turn it off completely that I can find and it means if I want to target something behind an enemy, I can't. Apparently this seems to be a common complaint. I tried melee and my chr. scoots forward 2 feet with every swing animation, which I hate. Luckily with the easy settings you can mostly just ignore how bad it is. Still, it's terrible.

I spent $60 on a pair (smaller, larger) of "titanium" food cutting boards, because they were on "sale" (Amazon). And popular. They're metal on one side, some solid "wheat grass" material on the other. Probably a fool parting with their money, but I've been meaning to get something besides the plastics I've always bought/used for years - because these days every time I use a plastic one, I'm thinking about how I'm probably scraping plastic bits into my food. Probably too late for me in that regard, my generation tended to love plastic/non-stick everything haha, but eh. Maybe at least non-plastic ones will make the daily thought go away. Or I'll start wondering if I'm scraping metal into my food. And no, I don't like wood cutting boards.

Yeah, I'm an idiot. It occurred to me after I wrote that post. >.> First time I tried to use it, it kept telling me I was missing stuff to use it, so I assumed I needed something special like another item or whatever. Guess you just need the mini blocks in hotbar. But looking at the shapes available, it's pretty lacking/limited where in some cases I could be more creative with the tiny blocks - 7days has like 100's of shapes (and doesn't need a "crafting hammer" wielded). But 7days type of voxel is "anything in a voxel square fills the whole voxel", so two things can't occupy the same square/space, so it's limiting in that fashion. Not a big deal, I usually don't go too crazy/fancy with building. Seems like Enshrouded I may just make basic bases and then leave it alone. I am becoming mildly annoyed with the building UI interface and other minor things tho. It feels awkward and clunky for some stuff. That said, the exploration has been great so far. I'll probably focus on that until I've done the whole map, which seems pretty large.

I see no such option available (pic), and Alt just switches hotbars. If it's an option later, I'd guess one has to acquire the ability from something first. Either npc/quest and/or building something which opens up another option. That part is confusing because you build a cheap sleep pad and suddenly game/menu lets you build an actual bed with the resulting mattress as material requirement. Kinda makes one feel forced to craft everything to see if anything auto-opens up. Anyway, started over. Which led me to discover that if you don't create a new character, the game actually starts a new game with previous/last selected character with all backpack/hotbars retained for a head start. A handy feature for later to avoid early grind I guess, but not what I wanted so I made a new avatar. And built another tiny-stone wall. lol

My main quibble is the early building, where you only have these really tiny "blocks" you can make. Takes 100's just to make a small house for the rested stuff, and too much time, placing one at a time. Too used to 7 Days and the bigger blocks/fast speed of making a large home box, so to speak. I get there's crafting larger (prefab?) wall/other pieces to use with crafting hammer but I barely started on that (just got the blacksmith - who keeps getting in my way with his wandering). The starter base spot, I kept being pestered by wolves, who would enter the base zone even tho game seemed to indicate you're "safe" in there. Finally got smart and built a short-height perimeter wall around the whole base-zone. Took forever with those tiny stones, but it worked. I like that there's climbing and grappling hook for traversal. Little pathways/caves to find. Still have to get the glider/flying thingie. EDIT: I have a feeling this is the type of game where I might start over after a few days of learning.