Google Fiber Installed!

Posted on by Nimgimli

When we moved into our current apartment about 9 years go Google Fiber was “coming soon.” We signed up to get notified and got a free t-shirt. While we waited we signed up for Time Warner Cable, which was the only viable option.

Yesterday, at long last, Google Fiber finally arrived. I wanted to quickly recap the process.

First there was a lot of prep. We live in an apartment complex so they had to run the underground conduits and fiber (the image at the top of the posts is one of the sunken Google Fiber boxes; it’s maybe 2’x3′ and there seems to be one for ever 2-3 buildings), then they placed small-ish boxes on each building and ran a thin cable to the front door of each apartment. Two long cables, one per floor. Above each front door they place a narrow box. They did this for all apartments before they ‘turned on’ fiber. It took a couple of months to do all this, then a month or two before the service was ‘lit up.’

I drew a box (on the pic, not on the actual wall!) around the fiber cable since it blends in so well.

Once we signed up, they came and drilled a hole through the wall, again over the door. They threaded a cable through and installed a box above the door on the inside. From there they ran a very thin gauge cable across the ceiling to where they’d install the box that the router connects to. This cable was small enough that they just used some kind of caulking to ‘glue’ it down. Once they got to where they wanted this box, they punched a hole in the wall, cut out some drywall near the floor, and dropped the cable down. Fished it out and installed the box down near the floor.

Pardon the grime. This is the box mounted on the wall, down near the floor and that’s an A/C vent right next to it. Hope that won’t be an issue

This box in turn connects to a Google Wifi router. You can also use your own router for their 1GB service. The 2GB service requires that you use their hardware (there are I guess work-arounds but officially only their hardware is supported). At this point fiber becomes no different than broadband from your cable provider. I decided to use the Google router since my own router is getting a little old at this point. I just plugged into my existing spiderweb of Ethernet cables I have snaking around the apartment and I was done.

And really that’s the story. It was pretty simple. The last time I had fiber it was Verizon Fios when that system was quite new and THAT installation was major compared to how things are now (I’m sure Fios installs are much simpler now, too. It’s been 15+ years or so since I first got Fios).

Time will tell how reliable it is. You can do a speed test on the router itself and it is reporting high 900s for both up and download. At my PC I’m getting less, but still way faster than I was getting with Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable):

Speedtest from this morning on Spectrum
Speedtest on Google Fiber this afternoon

I’m guessing I’m losing some speed from having crappy old Ethernet cables or due to the crowded hub. I’ll debug it eventually but for now I’m happy with what I have. I opted for the 1 GB service which lists for $70. Their 2 GB service is $100 but with just the two of us living here I doubt we can saturate that 1 GB plan.

For comparison, we’re paying $90 for the Spectrum service, but that is after taxes and fees and what not. We’ll see how much Google Fiber actually is once I get our first bill.

So why’d we switch? Money and speed. When we first moved in (before Time Warner Cable became Spectrum) it was crap, but honestly for the past few years Spectrum has been pretty reliable for us, and when there IS an outage they do a good job of sending out text messages with estimated repair time.

That said, this is the cable junction box on our building:

Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it? Also the installer who had been working when I took that picture had left it like that; he hadn’t even replaced the cover. I had to do that. I’ve tried to get this situation addressed but Spectrum says it is the responsibility of the apartment complex, and the complex says it is Spectrum’s responsibility. Any time an installer is out there working in that box I start streaming YouTube so I know as soon as I get knocked offline. Often while connecting apt A, they disconnect Apt B by mistake!

The Google Fiber installer, by the way, was friendly, courteous and the last thing he did was ask to borrow a broom so he could sweep up the dust from the drywall where he had drilled/cut. The site was immaculate when he left.

The one concern I have with Google Fiber is the physical security of the fiber. Like I said there’s 1 line that runs the length of the building for each floor with a drop point over each door. And it’s a very thin line. I think could could probably snip it with a pair of scissors and knock the entire building off line with 2 quick snips, one per floor. I can totally see some kids in the complex doing this as a prank. @partpurple says I’m being paranoid, which may be true. But I always expect the worst of people.

YouTube Channels I Support

Posted on by Nimgimli

I watch a lot of YouTube. Since we “cut the cord” I surf YouTube the way I used to flip through channels watching TV. We pay for YouTube Premium so we’re not constantly watching ads (@partpurple watches a lot of YouTube as well).

Just to change things up for today, I thought I’d share some of my favorite YouTube channels. Maybe I’ll do a few of these posts but to get started I’ll cover the cream of the crop. Or at least, the three channels I support monetarily through Patreon or through YouTube itself.

NoClip

Probably of most interest to readers of this blog is NoClip, a channel that focuses on documentaries about video games. With Final Fantasy XIV being so hot right now, maybe a good first watch would be their series on that game. The 3-part documentary is 4 years old at this point, but if you want to see how FFXIV came about and was then reborn as FFXIV A Realm Reborn, get comfortable and give it a watch:

Here’s links to Part 2 & Part 3.

Townsends

Next up is Townsends. Townsends is a store that sells items for historical reenactment, specifically the 18th and early 19th century. The channel started as a way to promote the store’s products but took on a life of its own. Lots of the videos are about 18th century cooking, like this 300 year-old fried chicken recipe cooked outdoors over an open flame:

I just kind of randomly grabbed that video; I don’t really have particular favorites, I just find this a very relaxing channel and I’ve learned a bit about our history from watching it. Host John Townsend refers to himself as a history enthusiast rather than a historian. The store was started by his father and John just enjoys research and reenactment and shares that with us.

Food Wishes

Last up is a more traditional cooking channel, Food Wishes. Chef John covers all kinds of recipes, from the fairly complex to topics as simple as his recent tips for reheating French fries. He makes everything seem really easy and has a genial nature that I find very enjoyable. He also isn’t afraid to share his failures, like this one. I mean, the title (“Baked Cauliflower Fries – How to Waste a Day Making Crappy Cauliflower Sticks”) pretty much says it all.

Just to be clear, MOST of his recipes come out great, but I appreciate his honesty when they don’t.

Actually I feel bad just sharing one of Chef John’s failures, so here’s a recipe that is decidedly more mouth-watering (to me at least, vegans probably won’t be nearly as impressed)

I’m always on the lookout for new YouTube channels to watch, so please share your favorites in the comments!

Weekend Recap for August 16th, 2021

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I don’t normally do this kind of post but I figured I’d give it a try. Some folks do a post about what their plans are for the weekend (or even for the month) while others do them after the fact. I’m a terrible planner so I’m going with the latter.

So with another weekend in the rear-view. and the happy fact that we’ve made it half-way through August (I hate summer since moving to the south), let’s recap!

Movie Night — Saturday night is our movie night and for the past few months we’ve been re-watching the Marvel superhero movies in the chronological order they take place. This weekend we finished that with Spiderman: Far From Home. Technically we still have Black Widow but I can’t really justify $30 to watch a movie so that one will have to wait.

It’s been a pretty fun ride since I have a terrible memory and watching the movies one per week meant I did a better job connecting the dots. We both really love Tom Holland as Spiderman, and after watching Endgame the week before it was nice to see something a little more upbeat.

Family TV — @partpurple and I finished up Season 1 of The Bad Batch on Friday, which we really enjoyed. And Star Trek: The Lower Decks is back so we watched that. I remember before we watched Season 1 of that show I was SURE I would hate it because I’m pretty serious about Star Trek, but turned out I love it. I most be getting soft in my old age.

Then last night we watched the first episode of What If…? on Disney+. This is like an ‘alternate reality’ series. The first episode posited that Peggy Carter, not Steve Rogers, got the super serum and she become Captain Carter. It was really good and had us both smiling ear-to-ear. Now I want an entire Captain Carter series, though. Oh, and they got Hayley Atwell to voice Peggy Carter, thank goodness!

Now we’re in search of another series to watch. We’ve been ‘filling in’ days when we have nothing new with a re-watch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which has been fun, though there are some really dated aspects to that show at this point.

Reading — I’m still reading the Saxon Stories books by Bernard Cornwell, and will be for quite some time. I’m on book 6, Death of Kings. I’m a terrible book reviewer so I’ll just say that I really enjoy Cornwell’s books and this series is no exception. If you’re not familiar with the books you might be familiar with the TV series, The Last Kingdom. There are 13 books in the series, though, so I’m not sure that I won’t need a break from 10th century England at some point.

Gaming — Friday evening and Saturday were devoted to finishing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: The Siege of Paris. I think I’m ready for a break from Valhalla now although there’re still plenty of things to do in the game.

With that put to bed I finally got around to trying Hades, which hit the Xbox and Playstation last week. I’m playing on the Xbox Series X thanks to it being in Game Pass. So far it’s been fun though I’ve kind of hit a wall. I think it’ll be a game I play in short spurts now and then because I know myself enough to know that just trying to power through will lead to frustration, which in turn leads to playing worse, which leads to more frustration, etc etc.

Lastly, Bugsnax. I mostly knew Bugsnax from the trailer that was making the rounds last summer, and in particular the catchy jingle:

Bugsnax was a Playstation Plus game late last year; I think it may have been the first PS5 game on PS+. I figured it was about time to try it out and either play it or delete it from the (small-ish) storage on the PS5. I had no clue what kind of game it was. Turns out it’s a first person puzzle-adventure. It is both super-cute and super-weird. You are basically tasked with catching these little creatures (the titular Bugsnax) that are all animated food, then feeding them to these weird furry townsfolk. Alive of course. When someone eats a Bugsnax a part of their body morphs into that kind of food. So if they eat a Bugsnax based on a French fry their arm will turn into a French fry. It is not clear what impact this has; it seems to be just a visual gag. I like the weirdness of Bugsnax, but I am not a fan of the cute aesthetic and I’m not a big fan of puzzle-adventures either. I’m not knocking the game; it actually got decent reviews. I just pretty quickly decided that it wasn’t for me. To be very clear, I spent less than an hour with it so PLEASE if you’re interested in the game, don’t take this as a knock on it, and do seek out actual reviews from someone who put some time into it.

And that was pretty much the weekend, aside from some random TV. The English Premiere League season has started, so I watched a replay of a game on Peacock TV (which I subscribed to just for these games because generally that service is pretty terrible). I’ve been kicking around (pun intended) the idea of re-subscribing to YouTube TV or Fubo TV for EPL and other sports, just for a month or two. My interest in sports rears its head now and then but never lasts more than a few weeks. I’m a terrible multi-tasker so when I’m watching a game I am JUST watching the game while thinking about all the other things I could be doing with that time. NFL games are the worst for this: three hours out of my short weekend just to watch a game? That’s hard to justify.

Anyway I hope everyone had a great weekend. Back we go to the salt mines!

Final Impression: AC Valhalla: The Siege of Paris

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Well that didn’t take long. Not sure I’ve ever written a First Impressions one day and finished the content the next.

So nothing has really changed. The rat swarms continued to bug me. I guess the Francia countryside grew on me a little more as I got farther from Paris. Paris itself was a place I didn’t want to spend my time in. I still haven’t done another Rebel Mission (there is a quest to rank up to level 3 in them which maybe I’ll do).

I’m not really too much of a fan of the new abilities. There’s one that summons a swarm of rats to a spot, and another that creates a poison that causes enemies to start vomiting all over the place. I haven’t used either of them…they just seem dishonorable and don’t feel like something my Eivor would use. There’s a head-butt ability I do use, though. It’s kind of fun. And while also not super honorable, an ability that places a sticky bomb on your enemy is pretty useful.

Narratively, the story felt rough. There are individuals who are urging for peace and for sparing the lives of women and children in one scene, then cheering maniacally at their leader’s urging to burn an entire city and to ‘leave none alive’ in the next.

Eivor’s actions seemed chaotic as well. She goes to Francia at the urging of another Norse clan, but then tries to broker peace just to convince the Francia king not to invade England, and even after being double crossed she continues to try to make deals with her double crosser. Basically she felt like she’d say “Yes” to anything anyone suggested.

I guess Eivor is now a diplomat rather than a warrior. In some sense that’s OK and while it wasn’t really satisfying, the ending felt kind of authentic in that no one really got what they wanted. Isn’t that what diplomacy is all about? Everyone compromises. No one really wins but everyone is grudgingly accepting of the final situation.

Also worth noting that the game did do what Assassin’s Creed games often do: they make me interested in the historical characters they depict. I had never even heard of Richardis (or Charles the Fat) before playing the game and now I want to learn more about what actually happened with these characters.

So bottom line, I didn’t enjoy The Siege of Paris as much as I did Wrath of the Druids, but I’m still happy that I played it. I have the Season Pass for Valhalla, though. It seems like Ubisoft is selling this DLC for $25 as a stand-alone, and that price seems quite steep. I started playing it Thursday evening and finished Saturday evening, and I wasn’t playing for marathon sessions. I’d estimate it took me 8 hours to rip through the storyline. So if you’re interesting in playing, at least wait for it to go on sale. You can play through it in a couple of evenings.

First Impressions: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Siege of Paris

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The other day I talked about how much I’ve been enjoying Ubisoft’s post launch content for Valhalla and Watch Dogs Legion. Now DLC #2, Siege of Paris, has dropped for Valhalla. So is it as good as these other DLC packages?

This post is 100% First Impressions. I’ve only had time to put a few hours in and my opinion may well change, but sadly so far I’m not as impressed as I am with Wrath of the Druids.

Most of my issues are very personal and things that bother me may not bother you.

First let’s talk about Francia. It appears to be a smaller region than Ireland is, which is a little disappointing. But the bigger issue is that it just kind of feels like England. Ireland felt like a different region in some way that I find hard to quantify. It felt faintly magical. Francia’s countryside is fine, it just doesn’t feel very unique.

Paris, on the other hand, is just squalor. There’s a plague ravaging the city and it is wall-to-wall corpses and decay. It is quite convincing but just not something I relish spending time in and around.

Welcome to Paris. Quite glamorous, isn’t it?

Then there’re the rats. In various sewers and dungeons you’ll encounter swarms of rats that are basically a living DOT. You can attack them but at best that shoos them away; you can’t kill them. The idea is you’re suppose to herd them into a drainage grate or something and then they’ll vanish, but the process is super cumbersome, particularly if you’re using a big slow weapon. My first death in the expansion (and the first death I’ve had in Valhalla for a long time) came from a swarm of rats. I was trying to open a chest to get some loot and the rats kept coming back and attacking me.

Again, personal preference. While having an enemy you cannot kill is an interesting mechanic, it is not a mechanic that I personally find fun.

There’s a new game mode called Rebel Missions which is in some ways similar to the River Raid system in England. I kind of ignore River Raids and will probably ignore Rebel Missions too. In both cases these feel like content for content’s sake. You play through them to get rewards that make you better at playing through more of them. If Valhalla is the only game you want to play these modes are probably welcome but I am more driven by narrative and exploration. I’m not really interested in this kind of ‘endless mode’ content. That said, so far I’ve only done a single Rebel Mission and maybe they do unlock some narrative content so I guess I should give them a chance.

So those are some of my issues, but there are aspects I like.

They’ve introduced more assassination content, which given the name of the game is probably a good thing. Missions where you have to uncover clues and figure out a way to get to your target and then take them out seem very on-brand and like a move in the right direction. Unfortunately the one mission like this I did had kind of a non-gameplay finish where the actual assassination was literally a menu choice.

You’ll now encounter enemies on horseback and which tend to remain on horseback. In the base game there were baddies riding horses but at the first whiff of damage they’d fall off. In Siege we have soldiers who’re much better at remaining on their steeds (though oddly their horses seem immune to damage). It’s nice to have a new enemy type to fight.

They’ve added a new weapon type: scythes. I haven’t played around with these too much yet, but new weapons are always fun. There are new skills as well but again, I haven’t used them enough to comment.

In summary while I’m happy to have more Valhalla content, I’m just not quite as excited about Siege of Paris as I was about Wrath of the Druids, which I absolutely adored. Maybe Siege still has some secrets to reveal, though. I’ll post again when I’ve played it more.

My Gaming History

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This week in Blaugust is supposed to be about introducing ourselves. I am old and telling you all about myself would bore you to tears, so here is my ‘gaming story.’

I was raised in the 1960s-1970s. There were no video games when I was a kid, but I really liked boardgames, even if I had to play them solo since there were no other kids in my neighborhood. I have a brother 10 years older than I, and he and my father would play a game called Yacht Race. That was my introduction to more ‘adult’ games (y’know, moving past Chutes and Ladders). I still have that copy of Yacht Race around here somewhere.

Somewhere in my teenaged years I discovered wargames; the ones with the paper maps and cardboard counters. I LOVED those things. I subscribed to a magazine called Strategy & Tactics that came with a game bound inside it (and articles about the conflict covered by the game). At the back of the mag they always had a survey to judge interest in future projects and I remember when they started asking their audience if they owned a personal computer and would they be interested in using the computer to play games. I was still playing solo and the idea of a computer being an opponent was thrilling!

My first computer was an Atari 400 that I bought just to play Star Raiders, though of course I quickly branched out from there. I also bought a 300 bps modem and learned about online services (back then the nascent Internet was only available through colleges or the government). I got involved with Compuserve and particularly GEnie, where I wound up working as an (un-paid) assistant to Scorpia. I guess in today’s terms you’d say I was one of her mods, though my title then was “Assistant Sysop.”

Through my verbosity on the Games RT on GEnie (I assume) I was approached by a fellow named Clayton Walnum who asked if I’d be interested in reviewing computer games. Well duh, of course I would. I wrote some stuff for ST Log, a magazine dedicated to the Atari ST computers. I also ghost-wrote a chapter of one of his books called something like “Secrets of the Video Game Masters” where I did a walk-through of Bionic Commando.

Eventually I moved on to PC gaming, and though I can’t remember exactly when or why, I started doing reviews for Strategy Plus Magazine. From there I got the offer to come onboard as an Associate Editor, which of course I did. My beat was strategy and wargames.

Proof I was there!

Fun fact: Strategy Plus started as a magazine in the UK, but the owner of Chips & Bits, a mail-order game store, bought it and moved it to the US. The reason the publisher bought the magazine was because advertising was so expensive in other mags. By owning the magazine, he got to advertise for free. It’s weird how the magazine business works. When you pay for a subscription, that basically covers the cost of getting the magazine to you. All the real revenue comes from the ads inside.

End digression.

So that was the best job I’ve ever had to this day. I traveled all over the country to do previews on upcoming games. Went to the first couple of E3 shows (and a few CES shows before that). Geoff Keighley, who now does The Game Awards, was one of my freelancers (I had no idea he was like 16 at the time!). At the first E3 I was forced to meet with a bunch of kids who were walking around with a laptop showing off their new game. They didn’t have a booth or anything but had approached the publisher who sent them to me. I was annoyed since I had a packed schedule. Turns out the game was Unreal and in this crowd of kids was a scrawny geek named Cliff Bleszinski plus this mouthy guy name Mark Rein. Man, I should’ve asked them to hire me.

Eventually I was promoted from Associate Editor of Strategy Plus (by this time called Computer Games Magaine, if I recall correctly) to Executive Editor of a sister publication called Interactive Entertainment, or IE. IE came on a CD and was way ahead of its time. Instead of reading reviews, you could watch video of gameplay with a voice over. The CD also had demos of the games. Trust me that this was a BIG DEAL at the time. There was no YouTube, no Twitch. You could download some demos from GEnie or Compuserve or Delphi but it took forever and it was costing you $6/hour to do it.

The only problem was, IE was bleeding money. It just cost too much to send it out. We tried various methods but, particularly in winter when it was cold, many copies arrived damaged (the CDs would get brittle in the cold and then they’d get bent and would break) but in the end we never made it work and IE shut down.

By then “demo disks” packed in with magazines were on the up and up and I was put in charge of the one that came in Strategy Plus. My title was “Demo Wrangler” which remains my favorite title to date. Ironically sliding the CD into a bag with a magazine was the perfect way to protect it. Plus since it was a ‘freebie’ if it did get damaged it wasn’t quite as big a deal.

Then I met a woman who lived in another city and I bid farewell to gaming journalism and moved to be closer to her. I am no longer with that person and while we had some nice times together, I often wonder what would’ve happened if I’d stayed in gaming; so many of the editors from those days when into game design/development. Thus ended my gaming career.

Sort of. I did run a gaming forum, call The Jaded Gamer’s Pub, for many years. Remember when forums were a thing? Before reddit? That wasn’t a paying gig but it did make me feel connected to the community.

These days, and for the past 25 years or so, I’m just a schlub who enjoys playing games. I haven’t done anything interesting in the gaming world since the 1990s, and I am LONG forgotten by the industry. So sad!! LOL I coulda been a contender! (Though probably not.)

Let me finish by leaving us all with a good solid cringe. Look at this ad I found when searching for copies of Strategy Plus online (since dumb-ass me never kept copies)

I mean, really?

Ah Derek Smart. I spent a day with him once, working on a preview of Battlecruiser. He was living in Miami Beach at the time. He was a very nice guy. Super smart, very geeky but so not the abrasive personality he presents online. Or presented…I haven’t seen him mentioned in ages.

Wrath of the Druids and Bloodlines: Ubisoft Post-Launch Content

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Last year Ubisoft was in a strange situation (weren’t we all?) where they had a bunch of delayed games hitting the market more or less at the same time. Fenyx Rising, Watch Dogs Legion and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla all launched in something like a two month span. That’s a LOT of open world to cover.

I’ve so far bounced off Fenyx, but I played Legion & Valhalla to completion of their storylines. They were both OK. I mean, I enjoyed them enough to finish them.

Time passed, and both games got DLC expansions. Bloodlines for Watch Dogs and Wrath of the Druids for Valhalla. I played through both of those too, and in both cases I liked the DLC much more than I liked the base game.

Bloodlines brings back familiar characters from the first two games in the series. Aiden Pearce was the protagonist in Watch Dogs 1, and Wrench was a main NPC in Watch Dogs 2. Instead of the ‘recruit anyone’ gimmick of the main game, you play the DLC as Pearce and Wrench. This makes for a more compelling narrative (presumably it’s a lot easier to write a story when you know which characters are going to be in it) and WAY better voice acting. Bloodlines kind of redeems the main game in a lot of ways.

Wrath of the Druids keeps you playing Eivor, your character from the main game, and instead gives you a new area to explore. You’re in Ireland helping High King Flann try to unite the realm. He’s being thwarted by a sect of druids, who take on the role of the shadowy cabal usually occupied by Templars or Order of the Ancients in AC games. The DLC also adds some new game systems, including some very light strategy/economic game aspects, and one very charming new NPC in the form of Ciara, a poetess voiced (and sung) by Julie Fowlis, who is a Scottish singer.

Have a listen:

Damn I loved Wrath of the Druids, though every time Ciara started to sing I’d stop playing just to listen.

So to finally get to the point, I wonder why in both these cases the DLC are so much stronger than the main game, at least narratively speaking. Was it that the teams had more time to devote to the storylines, or was it just because they weren’t trying to fill 100 hours of content?

Today the second DLC for Valhalla, The Siege of Paris, launches, and I’m really interested to see if it is as good as these other two DLCs have been. (There’s more Watch Dogs Legion DLC coming too, I think.) Maybe Ubisoft would be better served to just release anthology titles with lots of shorter storylines rather than trying to make one story that struggles to hold the player’s attention for 100+ hours?

I Beat the Cleric Beast

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My first “Souls-like” game was the first Souls game: Demon Souls for the Playstation 3. It launched in 2009. I bought it and played it for a couple of hours, got frustrated and put it somewhere that I didn’t have to look at it. There it still sits, forgotten in some box in the back of a closet. I think.

Then came Bloodborne for the PS4. It launched in 2015 and, demonstrating that I don’t learn from my mistakes, I bought it, played it for a couple of hours, got frustrated and set it aside. (The one downside of digital games is you can’t fling the disk into a dark abyss when you get frustrated.)

Since then I’ve felt vaguely salty about “Souls-like” games and their popularity since I always feel like I’m missing out. Envy I guess. Damn the FOMO!

The other week I was sorting through the external hard drive that hangs off the PS5. It has my library of PS4 titles on it and I was going through removing games I know I’ll never play. There was Bloodborne. I felt like the icon was looking pretty smug so I hovered over DELETE and then for some reason clicked PLAY instead.

And died, died, and died some more. But for some reason I didn’t get so frustrated. Maybe age has mellowed me, I dunno. But I kept playing. Not for hours at a time. I’d do a run or two then set it aside. Maybe THAT is why I didn’t get frustrated. I got a little better. I got to where the villager ‘trash mobs’ in the first area were of no real concern to me. I explored, found my first shortcut. Found a boss: The Cleric Beast. I got smooshed.

I actually remember the Cleric Beast from 2015 and that it was why I quit. This time instead of quitting I just ignored it and kept farming to get my character stronger, at the same time getting myself a little better at the game. We’re not talking a straight line improvement. Some days I did well, other days I just had to accept that this wasn’t a day for Bloodborne. On average I was getting better though. Every so often I’d have a go at the Cleric Beast. Failed. Sometimes spectacularly, other times I’d do well enough that I could visualize the day I would succeed.

Monday, on the last day of my vacation, I finally beat the damned thing and it felt pretty good. Now I absolutely KNOW that for skilled Bloodborne players, the Cleric Beast is hardly a speed bump on the path to whatever waits further into the game. But for 60+ year old, slow-reflexed, arthritic-fingered, poor-eyesighted, failing-hearinged me, it felt pretty good.

Find someone who looks at you the way The Doll looks at your Hunter once he becomes a bad-ass boss slayer.

And it also felt like I was done. At least for now. I wanted to leave Bloodborne while I was feeling good about it, and I had some other things I wanted to play.

Now I have the itch to try another Souls-like. Bloodborne is, frankly, a gross game. The environment is oppressive and the gore-factor is very high. Also the game runs at 30 FPS. None of these aspects thrill me so I’m thinking of trying a different one; there are plenty out there. It’d be really nifty to be able to add “Souls-likes” to my quiver of gaming genres I enjoy.

One of the drags about getting old, for me at least, is that your world keeps shrinking. There are fewer and fewer things you can do. Adding something, even something as trivial as a game genre, really feels like a win. I’m pretty happy I gave Bloodborne one more try.

Checking In On Blaugust

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We’ve made it to Day 10 of Blaugust. One-third (roughly) of the way through! Although I originally said I wasn’t going to try to blog every day thus far I have, and as expected it is starting to sour me on the experience. As predicted I’m starting to see writing a blog post as a chore I have to get out of the way before I can get to the enjoyable part of my day. At least I know myself and knew this would happen!

What I didn’t expect was the social fatigue that has gone along with this. I’m an introvert. I’ve been trying to stay current on the Blaugust Discord and have been trying to read (and share/re-tweet) as many Blaugust posts as I can and I’ve gotten to where I’d like nothing more than to go to an island somewhere and not talk to another human being for a month. People exhaust me! I need some quiet days now.

Also I’ve been on a mini-vacation which means finding a couple hours to blog, read & share has been pretty easy to do. Trying to shoe-horn that into a regular work day (those start today) seems daunting.

So expect fewer, or shorter, or fewer & shorter, posts for the rest of the month.

All that bummer stuff done, I’m really glad I joined. I’ve discovered a handful of bloggers I really enjoy reading, and it has felt good to write something other than code, emails and tweets for a change.

I will continue to do what I can to support the other Blaugustians out there! Y’all are young and strong and I know you can do it!

Next Gen Consoles, 9 Months Later

Posted on by Nimgimli

I was fortunate enough to get both an Xbox Series X and a Playstation 5 at launch, and as I’ve mentioned I’m primarily a console gamer. I thought I’d recap my feelings on the two machines. I’ve been meaning to do this since I hit the 6-month point with them but, y’know, procrastination.

I’m coming at this from the point of view of the average user. I haven’t counted pixels or connected meters and flux capacitors to the machines to measure anything. This is all my opinion and based on ‘natural’ observation.

Speed – I believe on paper the Xbox Series X is supposed to be capable of generating more speed, but in practical terms both machines feel similar to me. If a game comes out on both platforms I might wait to see what the pixel-counters at Digital Foundry have to say and then get the game on the machine that runs it best. That or wait for it to be on sale somewhere. Neither seems to dominate here so I’m calling it a wash.

Reliability – Most new hardware as complex as a game console comes with some minor issues. The Xbox Series X has been extremely reliable. Once or twice some sub-system would start to feel a little wonky, but a reboot has always cleared it up. I’ve had more issues with the Playstation 5, particularly right around launch. Most of these involved issues with external storage and for a long while I stopped using “Rest Mode” because when I woke the machine I’d be met with stern warnings about not shutting down properly and I’d need to rebuild databases and repair drives. This was happening when I was using an external SSD powered via USB port. I switched to an old HDD with its own power supply and the issue cleared up. I haven’t tested the SSD lately but overall, the Xbox wins in reliability. All that said, it’s not a huge win because both systems have been generally reliable and we haven’t seen reports of widespread issues with either platform.

Noise – I REALLY hate fan noise, and both these machines are essentially silent. This one is a toss up but both are FAR superior to the PS4, PS4 Pro, and Xbox One. (I did have an Xbox One X which was also very quiet.) I love how quiet these machines are.

Innovation – Giving this one to Playstation 5 because of the cool haptics they’ve added to the controller. Those can really change how a game feels, though I’m sure some gamers disable them because in many cases they make the game more immersive but more difficult. Both systems of course have fast SSDs and the difference in load times compared to the older consoles is astounding. Xbox has “Quick Resume” which is pretty handy; it allows you to basically ‘sleep’ a game without saving or shutting it down, and you can switch between slept games quickly. That’s a cool feature but not, in my opinion, as cool as the Dual Sense haptics on the PS5. PS5 controller also has a speaker and microphone in the controller, which is kind of neat.

Storage – Xbox wins. The Xbox Series X launched with a port for a ‘next gen’ 1 TB memory card. The PS5 has a slot for a 2nd SSD but they’ve just now rolled out a beta of the operating system that supports it; those of us not in the beta continue to wait to put this slot to use. You have to open up the PS5 to install this, which isn’t a huge deal but it’s a lot more work then inserting a ‘card’ into a slot on the back of the Series X. If you’re wealthy enough (right now a 1 TB expansion for either system is going to cost in the $200-$220 range since they use cutting edge SSD technology) you could even have a few expansion cards for the Xbox and switch between them.

Both consoles support external storage for ‘last gen’ games but again the Xbox wins. It supports multiple external storage devices. I have a 1 TB SSD for Xbox One games I’m playing, and a jumbo 8 TB HDD for long term storage. The PS5 only supports one external drive at a time.

Game Library – This is a tough one. The Playstation ecosystem has more flashy exclusives, though honesty not too many for PS5 yet. The Xbox has great backwards compatibility so you can play games from the Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S libraries all on this hardware and in many cases older generation games run better than they ever have due to framerate boosts and features like “Auto HDR” which adds HDR to games that never supported it.

The big thing is most Xbox games are also available on PC, so if you’re a PC gamer looking for a console to expand your gaming collection, Playstation makes the most sense for its exclusives. If you don’t have a gaming PC and want access to a large variety of games go with the Xbox because of the huge libary and because….

Game Pass – There’s no real comparison here. Only Xbox has Game Pass. Game Pass is a great value. For $10/month you can download and play 200+ games (including all first party Xbox games, which now includes upcoming Bethesda titles like Starfield), with new titles being added every week (though titles do leave eventually too). If you go up to $15/month for Game Pass Ultimate you can also play the games streaming on mobile devices and on computers via Xcloud, and you then get access to Game Pass for PC & get some PC titles as well. The prices I list are full retail prices and if you shop around or wait a bit, there are frequently sales and special offers. I usually pad out my subscription during Black Friday sales.

Sony does have PS Now, which is $10 month and is technically similar to Game Pass, but it features mostly back catalog titles. I have to admit I’m watching from the outside, but I do think PS Now is getting better. However at the time of this writing it can’t really compare to Game Pass.

Summary – OK that feels like a lot of words and I could keep on going, but I won’t try your patience. So if I had to choose one which would I go with? Probably the Xbox just because Game Pass is such a great value. There’s always something new to play. I’d really miss the PS5 though; it feels more ‘next gen’ than the Xbox Series X does (looks it too, for better or for worse…the thing makes a statement in your living room. It is HUGE.). Put it this way, if either of these consoles was stolen or destroyed somehow, I’d replace it. I really like having both. I do think for folks who are primarily PC gamers, Playstation 5 makes the most sense since you’ll get those exclusives that aren’t available on PC.