RPG Tourist

 I made a rather silly post on Twitter because I discovered the POVRay bot. POVRay is a 3D raytracing engine I have been struggling to use ever since the last DOS version. I uploaded this GIF which is a sine wave plotted by tiny spheres. I have posted the POVRay code on a separate page just in case some one would actually like to see it. Some of it is commented out because I rather obviously poached a scene file from the examples. 

  Sometimes games I wouldn't normally purchase just appear on the PS4. That's the fun thing about a shared console. And I have to at least try them just because they are there. I enjoyed this one enough to finish it and even upload a couple of videos. Everything about this game is clever from the artwork to the game play, story, characters and dialogue. At it's core it is live action gwent or whatever similiar card game you fancy. The story revolves around a socially stratified realm called Random made up of six separated regions. Random is ruled by a mad queen who determines everyone's fate with the roll of a dice. It's like central planning was just Stalin sitting at a craps table. A robotic army keeps the enslaved citizenry in their place. Our protagonist, a little girl named Even, travels through the six districts seeking her sister Odd who has been taken by the evil queen. Even's companion is a vocal albeit incomprehensible animated die she calls Dicey. And...

 I wrote this for a family member a couple of years ago and forgot completely about it. I just forwarded it to another new Inquistor so might as well post it as well.   I thought I would send you some tips for playing Dragon Age. Some of these aren’t relevant until later in the game but helpful to know. Levelling: Your companions are never more than one level behind you. As I mentioned killings enemies 4 levels or more below you no longer grants XP. The game automatically raises base health rating and any attributes relevant to character class as you level. If you look at the attributes tab in the character menu you’ll see that there is a ton of them. These stats can only be directly affected through passive abilities and equipment attributes. I will get to the stupidly complicated crafting system later. The inquisition levels too through power and influence. Influence is harder to raise than power. Requisition quests help but they consume resources so it’s a trade ...

 I bought some new games on Steam to try out on the new 'puter one of which is Crusader Kings 3. Before I begin this cry baby tale, I want to say that I've never played a Crusader Kings title before and I am very impressed with this one. I am also impressed with the nvme ssd that I installed. It's not necessary but definitely a benefit for this challenging game. I left CK3 still trying to master the tutorial. I tip my hat to this title's brutal learning curve. It should be called "The Curse of Unanticipated Consequences" or in my specific case, "Medieval Wedding Planner". I wasted a lot of time making my very first player character become soul mates with his wife. What does a girl do when her liege is her soul mate? She does an incest with the primary heir that's what. I tried to cover it up because the other options seemed kind of bad and who needs piety anyway? Well yeah I eventually learned that in Christian kingdoms piety counts for a lot. Wh...

 Quite some time ago I mentioned WDL's Bloodline DLC. I have been too embarrassed to admit that I was stuck on Wrench's second last side mission. It's like one of those Spyro the Dragon challenges except with jackasses. You know like the ones where Spyro has to fly through rings. Wrench has to pilot three different vehicles through arches and it's timed. I kept failing on the last one with a drone. I wouldn't mind doing it over and over were it not for those slow PS4 loading screens. The drone is piloted differently so you can't learn anything from the first two courses other than the characters' snarky dialogue. I got fed up rather quickly and went back RDR2.  WDL just released some new content. While checking that out I went back and finally finished off Bloodline. To celebrate I recorded another dopey video. I have enjoyed the new content. It was nice to get some back story on Aiden. Wrench injected some missing WD2 goofiness. Ubisoft made a couple of odd...

 So to update, the motherboard for the new PC was diagnosed and sent back to me. It's not clear that there was ever anything wrong with it and I don't even feel like getting into what was troubling me in the first place. I just wanted confirmation that the on board sensors were working correctly and for whatever reason the repair department wanted it back maybe just to confirm that.  If the sensors are correct then my hot, hot Ryzen 5 processor has never reached unsafe temps. So fine. It's been reassembled. Reapplying thermal paste and mounting the stock cooler for a third time hasn't changed anything but the system is stable. The 3000 RPM exhaust fan I thought was a great idea still sends me into alarm but maybe a good after market CPU cooler could alleviate that. I'm just happy I've got it up and running because this has all been a bit disruptive. My partner advised to just use the computer and stop talking about it. Lol.

The path I took as a villain does have an impact on the game world. Dutch didn't enslave the entire Commonwealth. I ran out of patience for that. Once the raider outposts were self sufficient I didn't need to bother with them much. They send a steady stream of caps to Nuka World and defend themselves for the most part. I'm missing out on some legendary gear but it's not like there's a scarcity. Occasionally Dutch gets support from friendly raiders out in the Commonwealth which is a welcome change. There is a handful of free, under developed settlements that call for help but it's not too disruptive. Dutch has yet to meet Preston Garvey and the Minute Men don't exist. He never stepped foot on the Prydwen so didn't join the Brotherhood either. The Railroad didn't care at all about his raider connections. They were happy he is as tough as his reputation. Siding with the Institute prevents yet another giant radioactive crater being created on the map whi...

I named this fellow Dutch after another morally complex video game villain. He's average in everything but combat and infiltration skills. He relies on persuasion when the situation warrants. He prefers lethal  sniping to in person combat.  Ex military, he had been managing PTSD with medication and a solid family relationship. He woke up in a hellscape and was tormented by memories of his wife's murder and his son's kidnapping. He soon developed a chem addiction. He desperately wanted to find his son but this was complicated by distrust and increasing paranoia. His best friend is a dog he found at a service station and he maintains his true Commonwealth base there. He did do some odd jobs around Diamond City but some of those went bad and he decided to strike out and look for information on his own. The Commonwealth is a very dangerous place and he partnered with Cait until she got too close. He is much more comfortable with robots and synths. Jackass comments cover his dis...

 This character was meant to avoid faction and main quest lines until Nuka World had been taken over and two Raider factions had established at least a presence in the Commonwealth. Then the player character would meet and ally with the Institute. This wasn't at all difficult to achieve but there was one thing I didn't consider. When Nuka World came out it was assumed that players already had many developed settlements available to support raider outposts and would just continue playing whether it made any kind of role playing sense or not. By the time we installed Nuka World I had invested too many hours for a restart. I did explore Nuka World and did some quests but my aspirational, diplomatic female lone survivor could not abide slavery and she took the quest path that killed them all. Other than create new antagonistic faction NPCs, this action had no real impact on the game world. I didn't think I was missing any compelling content either. I really didn't know that...

I have gone from rarely taking screenshots to seeing photo ops everywhere. This was taken during Chapter 4 right after we learn how torn Arthur is between loyalty to the gang and a yearning for a life of his own. I hadn't noticed the sit prompt there before but the photo really seemed to fit the moment.