The State of my Space

So it’s been a while…

Hey there, I’m Matt. This is my blog. It’s generally about the games I play. The focus is space games, but it’s not totally exclusive to them. I’ve started and stopped doing this blog probably 4-5 times since the first post back in 2015. You can tell because you’d think a 5 year old blog would have more content on it.

With everything going on in the world, I feel like I need an outlet. I’m not sure if this is it, but I have it, it’s here, it has a history, and I mean… I still love games. I still love Elite Dangerous. So why not this? I’m trying to decide if I want to spring for hosting. I’d love more control over how it looks and, more importantly, I’d love to have the adds removed. I’m noodling on it as I’m incredibly cheap. The easiest solution would be to just upgrade my WordPress plan to something other than free…but that’s not the cheapest. The cheapest, however, means I’d have to deal with exporting and importing the blog to the new host. I don’t know. My hesitance is directly tied to my lack of commitment. I’m doing this right now with no real content plan or any idea of the future I want for this space. And that’s not necessarily a requirement or a bad thing… but if I’m going to seriously jump into this enough to shell out money, I feel like there should be some preliminary planning done. Of course, I could just leave it all like it is. The ads (as far as I can tell aren’t super intrusive) and the blog is functional. It doesn’t look terrible (not a designer). I’m just not sure. I just know I feel like doing something again. I’m in a pickle.

Continue reading “The State of my Space”

Playlist 2/5/2018 and mini update

Totally spaced on getting the playlist up yesterday!

The last week has been pretty light since I’ve gotten the printer up and running. Most of all my free time has been learning everything I can about 3D printing. But I did manage to squeeze in a little gaming. Here’s what I played:

  • Elite Dangerous (PC)
  • Overwatch (PC)
  • Golf Clash (iOS)
  • Star Trek Adventures (Table Top RPG)

I’m not sure what the rest of the week looks like for me yet. I’ve been looking at learning Blender and started poking around in there last night. The past weekend we moved a bunch of furniture around and I redid my battle station. It’s alot bigger.

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That basically a dining room table that we now have that can’t fit anywhere in the house. When we eventually move and get a bigger place that can house a table (which will be amazing for running D&D on) I’ll need to figure something else out. But until then, I’ll be gaming with some class.

The printer table is directly behind me. So it’s easy to just spin and roll when I need to mess with it.

I’ve finally emailed Twitch to ask to be removed from the affiliate program. I’m looking forward to streaming again. Maybe even streaming some printing in creative. My thing is, I want to be affiliated. I like that badge, I like having an emote…if there was a way to turn off monetization, it’d be awesome.

What are you guys playing? Also, tell me about your hobbies!

I have to do better – The state of things

So it’s a new year (almost) and there are some things I want to restart. Chief among them, this blog.


I kind of got out of updating here in favor of streaming. And then I got affiliated on twitch. Which is amazing! And I’m super proud of how fast we were able to pull it off. But I got to thinking. And, true or not, I’m worried about any income from twitch screwing up my tax return.

That might be stupid…it probably is. For one, I’m assuming that I’d even make income from twitch…but the possibility of it being a headache around tax time is enough to turn me off of it.

If I’d given it more time, I probably wouldn’t have signed up for the affiliate program. I was just so excited to get it, I dived right in.

I haven’t streamed since then. The whole tax thing was a big factor in me not streaming, but also I just stopped being able to play a lot over the past few months for family reasons. And I don’t mean that I’m upset about that or anything…I only mean that I needed to spend time where I was needed. And I was happy to be there for the people that needed me. Long story, short: we had an unexpected loss.

After the first of the year, I might contact twitch and ask them to take me out of the affiliate program. Because when I think about it, I’d never get streaming revenue to a point that would supplement my income to the level we’re used to now. And that’s okay. I like my day job. Also, streaming full time is hard. The few weeks where I did it all day were exhausting. I don’t know how full time streamers do it. Regardless, it really only started out as a hobby. I think I should have kept it that way all along.

So that’s the state of things. Now let’s talk about what I need to do better.

For starters, I need to update this blog more. I also need to update on more than just Elite Dangerous. I will always love this game and I’ll always come back to it. I think this last break was probably one of the longest. I managed to not get hooked during the last big update like I normally do. At this point, there’s nothing with the Thargoids that interests me. That might change some day. But at this point, moving back into a arc where I feel like I’ll be playing Elite a bit more regularly, I’m content with continuing the grind for money and rank. I hit Lieutenant today. And I’ve got my bank roll up over 270 million. More than enough to buy the stock Corvette and give it some teeth. I also have a couple of friends that picked up the game over the steam winter sale. So that’s a strong motivator to get back into regular play too. I love helping new players figure the game out for themselves. A lot of this game is stuff you’d have a hard time figuring out on your own. And sometimes they figure out it’s not for them and that’s okay.

Something else that I’ve started doing this year since my last update is I’ve taken up Star Trek Adventures. It’s a bit of a curve for me coming from traditional d20 systems but we have an amazing GM and an amazing group of players, all of which are from the Hammer Gaming guild. As an aside, getting involved with that guild is probably one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. They are all just the best.

On the 31st, my local group is getting together to roll up Starfinder characters. To say I’m excited about that is an understatement. I’m really hoping we’re able to get the group together on the regular. I loved/love Pathfinder. It was one of the first systems I started playing tabletop RPGs on.

So that’s where I am and what’s been going on.

I hope you had an amazing Holiday and it was full of joy! I wish you all the prosperity in the coming new year and hope that you’ll join me in another year of fun space shit.

What you get for Christmas? Let me know in the comments!

Doge in Space

A few  weeks ago I was playing Elite and, as I’m oft to to when I’m not streaming, I was watching some other Twitch streamers. As weird as it sounds, I like watching people play Elite, while I’m playing Elite. I like hanging out in the chat and helping answer questions. So I’m sitting there playing and looking for someone to watch…and I come across a dog…playing Elite…and streaming it. And like…entertainingly streaming it. This dog can stream.

And that’s when I started following www.twitch.tv/wgrates.

This dog is everything I want to be in a streamer. Engaging, entertaining, and just plain fun. He’s built a supportive community and fosters an environment of acceptance.

He’s one of those dogs you just want to hang out with and pet. And watch play Elite.

That’s really the only point for this post. I want to promote this doge. He is a good doge.

The internet needs more people like him. So go check him out! He plays more than Elite and there’s a bunch of clips on his Twitch page that you can check out.

Fly safe, CMDRs.

No Man’s Patch

I’ve been loving No Man’s Sky over the past week. It’s like it was built for me.

If you look at the subreddit or other various community places, though, you get a very different reaction. It seems a love or hate thing. Some people feel lied to about what kind of game they were getting. I think that’s kind of silly. Unless you didn’t pay attention to anything the developers showed or spoke about, I don’t understand where some of those preconceived notions came from.

In any regard, I don’t feel lied to. I think it’s an amazing game that’s well worth the $60. I’ve already gotten more play time out of this game that some others with the same price point. Everything from here out is just gravy. Sweet, sweet gravy. And biscuits.

That said, of course there’s some stuff I’d like to see fixed/tweaked. Apparently there’s already a patch in test for frame rate drops. PC users can already try it out through Steam.

I’m not sure what all will be in that new build, but here are some things I’d like to see fixed or done differently.

Bugs

  • Launching sends you into space
    • 0 to 60 in .5 seconds
  • Bigger hit box or fix hit box on plants
    • There have been a bunch of times where I’ve had to back away and reorient myself so the icon to mine something like Zinc appears
  • Frame rate drops
    • Obvi
  • PS4 application crash frequency
    • This doesn’t happen a ton but it’s more than most any other game on the PS4 I’ve played. I can’t recreate it but it seems like it’s more apt to happen when warping to a new system
  • Online Services Not Available
    • not 100% sure if I’m missing something by this rarely being connected…but it’s red and I don’t like that.

I haven’t run into a bunch of legit bugs.

Improvements

  • Translate and rotate on all axes in ship
    • I want a response more like Elite for the ship. I want to be able to precision land and hover around something
  • Mine pillars from the ship
    • Big ole blob of Heridium sticking out of the ground that I can shoot from the ship.
  • More variety in blueprints
    • This would basically be new content…I’ve think I’ve already unlocked all the potential upgrades and components available.
  • Automatic recharge
    • I’d love to see the boltcaster (and anything that requires power) go ahead and recharge itself when it runs out. Especially when I have 4 sentinels on me.
  • Sentinels don’t attack when you’re in interactions
    • So if I’m considering swapping ships with a crashed on I’ve found or I’m pondering the correct answer at a monolith, don’t hassle me bro. Messing around in my inventory? Sure. Come at me.
  • Dismiss way-points
    • After a couple of hours on a planet you accumulate a good number of way-points. Only way to get rid of them is to visit. I’d like to be able to deactivate some and then switch them back on when I’m ready to do new stuff. This is especially beneficial if you decide to hit up a new planet.
  • Large cargo ships need to be a little more forgiving
    • I’m all about increasing my standing and taking out pirates. But if I’m coming up on one that’s between me and the cargo ship, just one bolt gone awry makes me a pirate.

What are some things you’d like to see change?

Wowza

So it’s been a while. Work is no longer totally insane! So now it’s just me being lazy. But I’m going to make a point to post more. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to write some stuff up on a weekly basis. Other people, more busy than I, are able to produce and dammit so am I!

Here’s what’s been up with me lately

Overwatch. That’s basically it. I’ve pretty much just been playing Overwatch. I’ve started using the Plays TV app that’s part of Raptr to record game sessions and I’ve started uploading clips to YouTube. You can check out some of my Overwatch games here! I can’t stream Overwatch. It’s either that my connection speed or my CPU isn’t strong enough to run the game and OBS at the same time. It’s probably both. I may look at building a cheapish PC just to capture video and stream from that. I’ve noticed a lot of folks run with that set up. But that would be some time down the road.

Oh yeah, Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens too. Finished the story and now I’m working to 100% It’s a lot of fun. I love how Tt learns from previous games to make the next one better.

Here’s what’s coming

No Man’s Sky. This is VERY HIGHLY ANTICIPATED BY ME.

I’m taking a week off work for it, guys. Amazon delivers it Tuesday and I’m off till the following Monday. I got it on PS4 and Comcrap recently increased the data cap from 300G to 1tb. So I’m going to stream it! It probably won’t be delivered until mid-day Tuesday so streaming will probably start the following morning.

I’m super hyped for this game, guys.

Elite

I still love it. But I haven’t flown in a little under a month. Which I planned to change this week…but then Blizzard release a new Overwatch character on the PTR. Guys. How am I supposed to deal with this? I messed around a little after the engineers release. I’ve heard a lot of bad blood with it. But I think there have been a couple of patches since then to alleviate concerns. I will say I think the NPCs were ridiculously overpowered. They basically never not had you in their sites…I dunno. I definitely want to get back into the game. I need to reconfigure Voice Attack. I haven’t used it since I got the HOTAS.

 

What are you guys playing? What’s coming out that your excited about? Picking up No Man’s Sky?

Playlist 5/8/16

Greetings weary travelers!

There’s a handful of people that’ll appreciate that opening…

I got to stop with this month long silence guys. This blog was supposed to be casual and stuff but not that casual!

Here’s what I played last week:

  • Elite Dangerous: Horizons (PC)
  • Overwatch Beta (PC)

Over the past seven days I think I got into maybe…and hour of Elite. Work has been nuts. But I did get a reprieve over this past weekend and as luck would have it, the Overwatch beta was this weekend! Valthonis clued me into it so I downloaded it and I got the chance to meet a bunch of other Hammer gamers that I normally wouldn’t cross paths with since not everyone in the community plays Elite. Overall, I dug Overwatch pretty good. There’s a lot of things it’s doing right. I’m not a huge FPS fan in my old(er) age, but I went ahead and pre-ordered it. There are classes that operate at my speed. There’s a good number of Hammers that’re getting it and it serves as a great “Hey, let’s play something” at random moments type of game. I’m excited for the future of it.

What are you playing?! Did you check out the beta? What did you think?

Playlist 03/21/2016

Hello! It’s been a while! Last week was spent trying to fight off a jerk head cold that’s still hanging around in the form of a cough. But I’m feeling better. Between that and work, I didn’t much feel like writing up posts. I still played a teensy bit, though. So here’s what I’ve played over the past 2 weeks:

  • Elite Dangerous: Horizons (PC)
  • Space Engineers (PC)

I ran into an issue with my PC last week and lost a lot of stuff on my storage drive. I was a super weird thing…I was removing apps that I haven’t used in a while and noticed a strange cmd window pop up and a bunch of open applications stopped responding. After a reboot, most of the stuff in my Program Files folder where most of my none OS related things are installed was just…empty.

That includes game saves. I soon then learned that Norton’s Backup and Recovery tool is completely worthless.

So my entire Steam library was wiped out. I went ahead and re-downloaded Elite and Space Engineers. Obvi.

Everything I had built in Space Engineers was lost. Luckily all the Elite stuff (including your joystick mappings THANK GOD) are saved on their servers.

So that’s me. Oh…and Daredevil season 2 is really wanting to eat up a lot of my free time.

What are you playing?

Playlist 03/07/2016

Here’s what I played last week:

  • Elite Dangerous: Horizons (PC)
  • Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition (Tabletop)

Short list this week…and even shorter play times! But that’s okay because building computers is fun!

Most of my free time over the last week as been building a media server to run Plex. When that was done, the rest of my free time and 99% of my CPU power was spent ripping seasons of Parks and Rec that we have on DVD.

The reason for the server is two fold:

  1. Most of what we’re putting on there is available through Netflix or Hulu which eats up our data cap but we have it on DVD too…which leads to reason 2
  2. We’re too lazy to swap discs out so we would stream and eat up our data cap

Now that there’s a good bit on content on the server, I won’t shotgun ripping like I did this weekend. I think The West Wing is a good “next choice” for ripping. But it’ll probably be the Simpsons seasons we have.

Have you built something like this? Share your build and what you did with it!

Never thought about it and want to know more? ASK!

No Man’s Sky

Just a quick post that No Man’s Sky has a release date and pre-orders are available!

What’s No Man’s Sky? Well…here’s a list of Polygon articles that will tell you. Click that link and you’ll see why it’s in my wheelhouse pretty quick…

IT’S SPACE STUFF PEOPLE!!!

I pre-ordered my copy through Amazon for PS4 (they have a discount on most pre-order stuff). If PC is more your jam, Steam’s store has it up for pre-order too.

Nerdist has a pretty slick video on some things I hadn’t heard before. I was disappointed to hear that multiplayer isn’t really a thing (part of the reason I’m going the console route). But I’m still super excited about flying through space and discovering new planets and species. I’m going to name them all after my friends.

Are you getting this game? ARE YOU AS EXCITED AS I AM?!