Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Such book timing to go through a book juuust before the sequel is released. But so torturous to have the second one end in a major cliffhanger. Aieee! Skyward had been on my radar for a while simply by virtue of being written by Brandon Sanderson, but I hadn't quite gotten around to it. It sets up a tale of fugitive humans surviving on a debris-shrouded world under constant threat of aliens above. There are a lot of very clear mysteries laid out in that. Archives and knowledge have been lost, but there was obviously a time of greater technology. And the aliens who sortie against the humans are readily shown to be operating by some rules that aren't understood. When an advanced stealth craft is introduce, that raises even more questions. And by the end of the first book, we do get some of the answers. Along the way, the story follows Spensa and friends in working through flight school, naturally against difficult odds. She's a bit angry and impulsive, which colors the

I sort of have to talk about the two together, I think. So, Kit started gearing up to run a little plot in the future of FurryFaire via Discord. Frankly, I'm not so enamored with Discord as a venue for roleplaying, but I see it's got ups and downs so... meh to that part. While Godbound is based on playing growing divine characters, it does have rules for mortals/heroic mortals, and the pitch involved making characters as the latter. As usual, I was fairly slow to really sit down and take a look, though as the game design has a high degree of overlap with d20 D&D the shock wasn't too great. There are a few inherent "problems" in applying it to Faire, though. Now, in fairness, that would be true of virtually any RPG system. The MUCK's reality has been shaped by the systems used before, and any new one introduces things that suddenly can or cannot be done or simply function differently. The Gifts appear to fit in Godbound as a major component of what divine

So, yeah... it's not been a good... hmm... week? Give or take. Not quite the spiraling down into utter lethargy and heavy chest I've experienced before at my worst, but a truly pervasive dull grayness. Work has been less than engaging or satisfying lately, which makes for several hours a day of just existing. That doesn't help. It hasn't all sucked, but even good entertainment feels fleeting and leaves me hollow. I was able to catch up on the first couple episodes of The Mandalorian . I'm generally enjoying it so far, though not without a few issues. A little like diving into an RPG with a character created in a vacuum, there's not a lot of engagement between the lead character and... well... anyone else. That makes for a lack of dialog in general. He's tough, cool, and a man of few words, but that's usually not as entertaining as good banter. I'd also say there's already perhaps an overuse of montages between childhood flashbacks, learning t

While The Outer Worlds drew me to (XBox) Game Pass for PC, I found another game I'd put off due to Epic "exclusivity" available there and gave it a play. Metro Exodus continues a series of story-heavy linear shooters. This one has some more open zones with some flexible exploration in them, though there's still a good number of heavily-scripted sections. That works fine for telling a story, and I found the story to be entertaining. The series is based on a post-nuclear-apocalypse Russian where a number of people survived in the subway tunnels under Moscow and built up a society. The first two games largely stayed there and dealt with fighting mutant monsters and extremist factions. There are also some supernatural themes of visions and the psychic "dark ones," but a majority of that is dropped for this third outing. Exodus breaks out from that mold by revealing first that there are survivors elsewhere and then that the claim the war was still going on wa

Another Gold Box blast from the past. This follow-up to Curse of the Azure Bonds was, from what I've read, developed more by SSI and less by TSR. That seems plausible, at least, given a few little details such as how the entire story seems less grounded in Forgotten Realms lore and how the big bad is a lich who... I guess is corrupted by his lichdom - you free his soul at the end rather than destroy it. Also, I'd argue that someone closer to the D&D source material might have sought out a different name for the legendary heroes as the "Silver Blades" evokes thoughts of githyanki and their silver swords, which have nothing to do with anything in the game. Rather, there's a cult trying to free a lich known as the Dreadlord from his glacially-frozen castle and the party is summoned via a magical well by a mining town to stop it all. The game has all the painful quirks of D&D at the time, with tons and tons of save-or-die situations, making casters and thing

I had largely written off The Outer Worlds for anytime remotely close to its launch day due to my avoidance of the Epic Store. Then I found it was available on Game Pass. A monthly service to play games might actually be cost effective for me long-term, depending on what's there, but even if I just cancel before the first month is done, it's a cheap way to play a major game like this. I actually feel a little guilty, as I'd like to be more supportive of generally good game and wouldn't have had an issue paying full price if it could have gone directly to the developer. But yeah, the game's pretty good overall. It's a very "Bethesda-style" (without the negative connotations these days) first-person RPG. You awake in a distant star system that's steeped in satirical levels of corporate consumerism and... well, you're offered a chance to do a bunch of stuff. The main story involves finding out how deeply troubled the system's colony as a who

So, let's see... quick stuff first... I am not happy with Blizzard of late, though WoW: Shadowlands looks... maybe good? I like the underlying concept of going to the Shadowlands as something reasonably new, considering many expansions have been dealing with returning threats. I probably would have looked forward to it more if it had come after Legion, but right now it really makes me think "what was the point of BfA?" The Diablo 4 reveal looks slick, sure, but that sort of gameplay has been less interesting to me since D2. Overwatch 2 looks pretty and has some great animation to go with it, but I don't expect enough single-player content to really appeal to me. It also feels a bit soon, though they seem to be making an effort to move Overwatch over to 2, making it sound like more expansion than sequel (though many details remain fuzzy). I played through Episode 3 of T he Long Dark , which was recently released. I like that it felt like there was more to do tha