Mostly Pokemon TCG right now - I really like how little of my time the game demands daily
Yeah, I wish I had of started it sooner. This is the perfect amount of time for me to have a bit of fun with it! I hate timer-based games with the rewards related stuff, but it also doesn't feel too bad. Though they've certainly done the Japanese mobile thing where there are way too many currencies just to overcomplicate things lol. Maybe that's not even a big unique to Japan thing anymore.
Mostly Pokemon TCG right now - I really like how little of my time the game demands daily, and I enjoy playing around with various deck builds (I made a deck I call Flips that runs Kangaskhan and Exeggutor EX). Nowhere near a full collection, but that doesn't seem to matter because there's no ranked mode.
I'm probably going to go back to Sea of Stars at some point this month to finish the main game and try out the DLC. I also need to finish Echoes of Wisdom - it's a decent game but I'm still terrible at boss fights.
In my case I will be finishing Assassins Creed Rogue (Been playing all of them in order, except Liberation Remake wich seems to crash and cause problems with my hard drive for some unknown reason, so I am not putting my SDD in risk for a game) and Definitelly start Hades as I have been sleeping on it for way too long and change it up with AC Unity during the month. This is the first AC Game from the series I still have not played so I guess my interest will peak with this ones and the next ones (I hope at least).
Also I finished all the content I wanted to play in Fire Emblem Warriors (I tend to get burned up with those games and return later) so I think I will return to Echoes of Wisdom in my Switch. I had paused it because when I have the itch to play a Musou game I try to do it inmediatelly as it can die down quickly and when in the right mood I really enjoy those games. (The same happens to me with RTS games. I love them but I need the right mood to play them).
Will probably update if I make a change of plans
Other than those I still play Pokemon TCG Pocket (Finally one card away from being able to craft everything I need to get Mew, wich was some kind of goal I established as I am not going for a full collection as a F2P player), Hearhstone and Pokemon Masters EX. My two usual F2P games + TCG Pockets wich seems to be on its way to becoming the third one
Thanks for your thoughts and observations, Flux! I'll do a deeper dive on reviews and stuff while I'm saving up for the thing.
December gaming will feature a big focus on Diablo 4 for me. It's my first Diablo ever and so far I love the atmosphere, the music and the world. I went with a Necromancer for my first run and it feels pretty powerful. Only level 11 yet but I think I can already say I like the game :-)
Other than that, I managed to secure 11x in Wild Hearthstone, so I can afford to climb with a fun deck this month. Looking at my class wins I should focus on Druid and Warrior but it's hard to find lists that are fun and halfway competitive for those. Maybe I'll invest some dust and give Ysiel Druid a try or finally craft the last missing cards for QL Fatigue Demon Hunter. In Standard I'm going to spam Asteroid Shaman until it gets nerfed. I forgot what format Twist will restart with, but I'd like to play Hunter there... only 6 wins away from the 2.000 wins mark which grants access to Sidisi's leaderboard. It would also be nice to claim I got legend with Hunter in every format and since Classic is no longer around and I only ever got legend there once with Hunter, I don't have any other options lol.
Wow, has it seriously been 6 years for Parkitect already? Time is flying by.
So this month i'm expecting to jump deeper into Stardew Valley, hit up a little bit of World of Warcraft, sink into Factorio harder to maybe play the expansion content for real with the biter problem coming to a close, and I've finally started Pokemon TCG Pocket so that'll get picked up a couple of times a day for quick Pokemon fun.
There's a lot more I want to play, but I'm setting the goals low because time is the bane of my existence.
So. Would you say the imac mini m4 in its cheapest version would be a good answer to these expectations? Do you have any experience in how easy and stable steam can be used on these? I've read a bit about that and while some people say it's super easy, other had lots of trouble. Any other thoughts or stuff I should be aware of?
So, I have an M2 Studio and I love it. Your gaming selection is definitely limited on MacOS, though there are plenty of games to choose from still and the only game I haven't been happy with the way it runs is Path of Exile, so I run that on my gaming PC still. (Path of Exile is much better with various third-party "addons" anyway for price checking items, which are Windows only)
I am hearing AMAZING things about the M4 performance. Compared to my studio, the little thing is looking like a beast! The M2 Max in my studio has more GPU cores, but also they're older GPU cores so its possible the M4 on the Mini could out-perform them with its 20 vs 30. You'd need to do some serious scouting online about the games you'd want to play on it to see how they run on the hardware. I imagine there are a ton of reviews up around the internet on them.
From my Steam Favourites, 21 are available on MacOS (I know games are missing on this list haha) vs the 42 I normally have in the list.
Also, WoW works on Mac as does Hearthstone and they run fantastic, so thank you Blizzard.
Personally, I love my Mac due to the efficiency, it's great to have a unix system for programming on, and there's a whole lot less bullshit going on when compared to Windows. Apple has the advantage of being able to rip ancient stuff out of the OS whereas Windows is stuck in this backward compatibility loop that is 30 years old. Apple having the tight integration of OS and Hardware is a huge positive.
Mac can't replace a gaming PC though entirely, that I'd be silly to argue. But, for me, I can play most of the games that I enjoy so I'm on my Mac 95% of the time.
Ooooh that sounds like you're just the guy to harass with a question that came up lately!
So I am loosely considering getting a gaming PC. I currently mostly play Hearthstone on my iPad and my smartphone. Other than that I use my PS5 for games like Witcher 3, hades, diablo, god of war, Jedi. What makes me consider getting a pc on top of that is
the idea of streaming hearthstone / doing a podcast
the ability to get back to some of my favorite games from the past like the portal series
maybe finding an emulator that allows me to also play old Nintendo favorites like ocarina of time
Now gaming PCs are expensive but I don't really need it to be top notch because I can always rely on the PlayStation to manage the high end stuff.
So. Would you say the imac mini m4 in its cheapest version would be a good answer to these expectations? Do you have any experience in how easy and stable steam can be used on these? I've read a bit about that and while some people say it's super easy, others had lots of trouble. Any other thoughts or stuff I should be aware of?
Parkitect recently celebrated its sixth anniversary, which added the ability for users to create their own custom campaigns, and Texel Raptor themselves recommended one to download, so it's basically like getting a new DLC... which they also said was coming soon.
I guess this makes up for Planet Coaster 2 having its disappointing launch.
I have to recommend the Mistborn Deck Building Game by Brotherwise games.
My aunt bought that - it was pretty fun. Do you find Vin wins all the games? That's been our experience so far lol.
In other news, I went to Millennium Games - the biggest board/card/tabletop game store in the US - on Black Friday and bought "ISS Vanguard". It's about a crew working together on humanity's first interstellar spaceship. As mentioned before, the game is 4 players only, and our game nights are regularly 5 people, but I figure I can be the "storyteller" and general helper person to the others playing the crew. So hopefully that'll be fun!
I don't know if I'd be worried by this. I think they just don't want to announce anything else that might be in development if it's not close to being ready. Don't want another tournament mode debacle! But the expansion themes are likely set and therefore safe to announce!
Even if they have some QoL stuff in the pipeline, they probably don't want to say much until it's almost ready to reveal. Would hate to announce something like, I don't know... a tournament mode, and then not be able to deliver!
The expansions, however, are pretty set at this point. They spend so much time developing them in advance that this may have been all they felt safe announcing at this time, and had to have something to present.
Quests returning with the Un'Goro sequel, when they were introduced in JtU is a pretty good bet. Hadn't really thought about it, but they don't seem to like to go too long without a quest or questline. Plus, Death Knight doesn't have one so they probably want to introduce something for them.
A deck with 2x Blaine, 2x Vulpix/Ninetales, 2x Ponyta/Rapidash, and 2x Giovanni is probably the fastest way to grind this event - and a friendly reminder that you don't use Event stamina in games that you lose (so you can complete the "Put a Pokemon to Sleep" quest with a different deck, concede, and pick up the reward without losing stamina). But the enemy decks aren't that scary, so you can probably play any deck you feel comfortable with and do just fine.
Speaking of which... has any of you taken advantage of Black Friday deals? I know PlayStation has some nice sales going on like AC Valhalla, Horizon: Forbidden West and Diablo IV. I'll probably dip my toes in Diablo for the first time this weekend... The one downside is that all those sales are only for the digital versions and I have a disc console with limited space for downloads but eh.
I've used the Steam sale to buy a game for a really good friend of mine because it was on her wishlist. I could've set the gift to be delivered to her on Christmas, but I decided to give it to her right then and there because I wanted to avoid the possibility of someone else buying the same gift in-between then and Christmas. She was absolutely ecstatic when saw the gift in her inventory.
Even still if I had some money to throw on the Nintendo Switch sale, I get physical everytime if there is the chance.
Physical all day every day for me too. The eShop won't be around forever, and it gives me the opportunity to sell the games in the future if I want to (I won't, lol) which is nice. It's also nice to be able to loan games out to friends or family. Companies were so hyped about the major switch to Digital, I'm gonna be pissed the day we can't buy Nintendo stuff physical anymore... if that ever actually happens. I feel like Nintendo is in a very unique position where they have huge physical sales still due to the major collector market for the systems, and they're afraid to touch that.
Speaking of which... has any of you taken advantage of Black Friday deals? I know PlayStation has some nice sales going on like AC Valhalla, Horizon: Forbidden West and Diablo IV. I'll probably dip my toes in Diablo for the first time this weekend... The one downside is that all those sales are only for the digital versions and I have a disc console with limited space for downloads but eh.
No real plans for any Black Friday deal shopping here. I don't need more games added to my backlog hahahaha. I also don't really feel like I need anything in general right now. I'm quite happy with the state of things and really the only major thing I'm looking to buying within the next year is the M4 Mac Studio for work. It's not that my M2 is bad, it's just I bought it with the intention I would upgrade to the M4 when it came out and go with the higher-end version of the Studio to last for multiple years. It's been great that more and more games are working on Mac now too, I very rarely have to boot into my Windows desktop to play games anymore. The only reason would be for simracing really. I reinstalled Windows this month and still need to get all my racing stuff setup again though before I can hop back in on that fun.
Black Friday has been kinda... lame? for the past few years though. It never feels like there are any really good deals anymore and it's just largely the same deals we'd see during other times of the year. On the plus side to that though, I do notice fewer people trying to sell Black Friday-specific SKU products which are bottom of the barrel with regards to how they are produced and with what components, so maybe that's a positive.
Stardew Valley confirmed to still be the main game right now. We hit year two and a couple of nights ago entered Summer. We kicked Fall 1 off with getting the Barn upgraded so that we could get a little bit of everything to get the community center finished up. Our cows produce the finest milk for the finest of cheeses because they love us so much, and the Witch gave us a Void Egg so now we have a great gift for Seb and, thankfully, we were able to make Void Mayo for the Witch Hut this year (which we found out about via the Library).
Fall was a ton of Pumpkins, the entire farm covered in crops, and occasionally having some Skull Cavern fun. Winter hit and with not much to do on the farm, we spent our time fishing, running together in the Skull Cavern to help farm Iridium for sprinklers for the upcoming year, and being very bad at upgrading our tools for the upcoming spring. Spring Year 2 hit and we weren't able to get all our crops planted in time on Day 1 which threw off the harvests a little which kinda sucked, but we did better Summer 1 with only missing a handful of crops due to spending too much time at the store buying the wrong seeds - I went with the intention to stock up on Red Cabbage, and spent too much time buying Melons instead. Which, speaking of Melons, we ended up with a Gigantic Melon last night, which was both of our first time getting our own Gigantic Crop. Hell yes!
We're just about halfway through Summer 2 now and we're refilling our bank account after getting a second barn. Our first year we almost made a million gold, and this summer we should be making around 1.5 if all goes to plan, it'll just take some time to chug through the crops that are being turned into Artisan Goods.
Oh god, thats a lot of Stardew talk.
We did play some more Medieval Dynasty but Stardew took over the gaming time. I also have played another 14 hours or so of Factorio this month, which has been not great because instead of spending it in expansion content I've been fixing problems with my primary base... stupid biter attacks from every side and poor defense. In my rush to get the 8 hour rocket launch, which I missed by an hour, I didn't really set myself up for defending against the biter attacks very well and so now I'm suffering due to the massive amount of pollution. I have started walling off the base though and lining it in laser turrets which are, finally, automated, so that's been helping quite a bit. I still have some big lines to do with that but soon it shall be done. Between attacks I've been expanding my raw materials production through the use of trains. I've also got a few thousand logistics bots now which has been amazing and they're all circuit network wired up to keep being produced until I hit 50k of them so I can't wait. I've got Kovarex Enrichment going too so I have unlimited amounts of Nuclear fuel, ready to power my base forever. I need to get my Nuclear setup tripled in size though because I've hit the limits of the current reactor setup with regards to my energy usage.
I've started playing Balatro again too. I was pretty pissed off when my save got nuked on iOS, so much so I bought it on Steam instead of using Apple Arcade (the save didn't correctly go forward to my iPad and the iPad overwrote the save file to be nothing on iCloud.. yay) and now I've started the painful process of unlocking everything again. It's so weird playing without having access to soooo many of the jokers. I've had to change my playstyle up but god do I love Balatro. It's good they're gonna win a handful of rewards this year without a doubt.
I haven't had a chance to play Pokemon TCG Pocket yet. The Venusaur Event though... I should play this weekend.
I've managed to do a little bit of WoW 20 birthday stuff, so I'll need to find time to finish that up next month.
Overall it's been a very, VERY busy November and I'm happy I've been able to get in some solid hours gaming late at night.
Congrats! That is quite some work put into the game. I still have to play it, sitting there on my backlog. Will try to try it next month :)
Thanks! That's the beauty of it... Most of the achievements come naturally if you just enjoy the game and play a lot. There were only two or three that took some effort or made me do stuff I usually wouldn't have without the incentive.
Thank you, too, @linkblade91! Unfortunately I still don't have a gaming PC, so I fear I'll have to wait a little longer until the sequel hits the PlayStation market.
Speaking of which... has any of you taken advantage of Black Friday deals? I know PlayStation has some nice sales going on like AC Valhalla, Horizon: Forbidden West and Diablo IV. I'll probably dip my toes in Diablo for the first time this weekend... The one downside is that all those sales are only for the digital versions and I have a disc console with limited space for downloads but eh.
Congrats on your Platinum, anchorm4n! Hades II should hopefully see full release sometime next year, so don't let your skills get too dull hehe :D
Echo repeatedly tells me "yeah dont buy new things finish ur older stuff", so...here I am, reinstalling Baldur's Gate III. Maybe the third time is the charm for actually seeing the game to completion? Time will tell lol. Mods could be a fun avenue for heightening the experience and maintaining my engagement. Not anything too drastic, but still worth a gander.
Frankly gotta chill with my purchases for a bit...but we'll see how long that lasts. If Marvel Rivals isn't Free to Play (a possibility with all current and future characters being apparently free/accessible), I might buy it anyway next week 'cause it was so much fun during the beta.
What Are You Playing? Decadent December 2024
Yeah, I wish I had of started it sooner. This is the perfect amount of time for me to have a bit of fun with it! I hate timer-based games with the rewards related stuff, but it also doesn't feel too bad. Though they've certainly done the Japanese mobile thing where there are way too many currencies just to overcomplicate things lol. Maybe that's not even a big unique to Japan thing anymore.
What Are You Playing? Decadent December 2024
Mostly Pokemon TCG right now - I really like how little of my time the game demands daily, and I enjoy playing around with various deck builds (I made a deck I call Flips that runs Kangaskhan and Exeggutor EX). Nowhere near a full collection, but that doesn't seem to matter because there's no ranked mode.
I'm probably going to go back to Sea of Stars at some point this month to finish the main game and try out the DLC. I also need to finish Echoes of Wisdom - it's a decent game but I'm still terrible at boss fights.
What Are You Playing? Decadent December 2024
In my case I will be finishing Assassins Creed Rogue (Been playing all of them in order, except Liberation Remake wich seems to crash and cause problems with my hard drive for some unknown reason, so I am not putting my SDD in risk for a game) and Definitelly start Hades as I have been sleeping on it for way too long and change it up with AC Unity during the month. This is the first AC Game from the series I still have not played so I guess my interest will peak with this ones and the next ones (I hope at least).
Also I finished all the content I wanted to play in Fire Emblem Warriors (I tend to get burned up with those games and return later) so I think I will return to Echoes of Wisdom in my Switch. I had paused it because when I have the itch to play a Musou game I try to do it inmediatelly as it can die down quickly and when in the right mood I really enjoy those games. (The same happens to me with RTS games. I love them but I need the right mood to play them).
Will probably update if I make a change of plans
Other than those I still play Pokemon TCG Pocket (Finally one card away from being able to craft everything I need to get Mew, wich was some kind of goal I established as I am not going for a full collection as a F2P player), Hearhstone and Pokemon Masters EX. My two usual F2P games + TCG Pockets wich seems to be on its way to becoming the third one
What Are You Playing? Decadent December 2024
Thanks for your thoughts and observations, Flux! I'll do a deeper dive on reviews and stuff while I'm saving up for the thing.
December gaming will feature a big focus on Diablo 4 for me. It's my first Diablo ever and so far I love the atmosphere, the music and the world. I went with a Necromancer for my first run and it feels pretty powerful. Only level 11 yet but I think I can already say I like the game :-)
Other than that, I managed to secure 11x in Wild Hearthstone, so I can afford to climb with a fun deck this month. Looking at my class wins I should focus on Druid and Warrior but it's hard to find lists that are fun and halfway competitive for those. Maybe I'll invest some dust and give Ysiel Druid a try or finally craft the last missing cards for QL Fatigue Demon Hunter. In Standard I'm going to spam Asteroid Shaman until it gets nerfed. I forgot what format Twist will restart with, but I'd like to play Hunter there... only 6 wins away from the 2.000 wins mark which grants access to Sidisi's leaderboard. It would also be nice to claim I got legend with Hunter in every format and since Classic is no longer around and I only ever got legend there once with Hunter, I don't have any other options lol.
What Are You Playing? Decadent December 2024
Wow, has it seriously been 6 years for Parkitect already? Time is flying by.
So this month i'm expecting to jump deeper into Stardew Valley, hit up a little bit of World of Warcraft, sink into Factorio harder to maybe play the expansion content for real with the biter problem coming to a close, and I've finally started Pokemon TCG Pocket so that'll get picked up a couple of times a day for quick Pokemon fun.
There's a lot more I want to play, but I'm setting the goals low because time is the bane of my existence.
To bring over a comment from November's Thread:
So, I have an M2 Studio and I love it. Your gaming selection is definitely limited on MacOS, though there are plenty of games to choose from still and the only game I haven't been happy with the way it runs is Path of Exile, so I run that on my gaming PC still. (Path of Exile is much better with various third-party "addons" anyway for price checking items, which are Windows only)
I am hearing AMAZING things about the M4 performance. Compared to my studio, the little thing is looking like a beast! The M2 Max in my studio has more GPU cores, but also they're older GPU cores so its possible the M4 on the Mini could out-perform them with its 20 vs 30. You'd need to do some serious scouting online about the games you'd want to play on it to see how they run on the hardware. I imagine there are a ton of reviews up around the internet on them.
From my Steam Favourites, 21 are available on MacOS (I know games are missing on this list haha) vs the 42 I normally have in the list.
Also, WoW works on Mac as does Hearthstone and they run fantastic, so thank you Blizzard.
Personally, I love my Mac due to the efficiency, it's great to have a unix system for programming on, and there's a whole lot less bullshit going on when compared to Windows. Apple has the advantage of being able to rip ancient stuff out of the OS whereas Windows is stuck in this backward compatibility loop that is 30 years old. Apple having the tight integration of OS and Hardware is a huge positive.
Mac can't replace a gaming PC though entirely, that I'd be silly to argue. But, for me, I can play most of the games that I enjoy so I'm on my Mac 95% of the time.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Ooooh that sounds like you're just the guy to harass with a question that came up lately!
So I am loosely considering getting a gaming PC. I currently mostly play Hearthstone on my iPad and my smartphone. Other than that I use my PS5 for games like Witcher 3, hades, diablo, god of war, Jedi. What makes me consider getting a pc on top of that is
Now gaming PCs are expensive but I don't really need it to be top notch because I can always rely on the PlayStation to manage the high end stuff.
So. Would you say the imac mini m4 in its cheapest version would be a good answer to these expectations? Do you have any experience in how easy and stable steam can be used on these? I've read a bit about that and while some people say it's super easy, others had lots of trouble. Any other thoughts or stuff I should be aware of?
What Are You Playing? Decadent December 2024
Parkitect recently celebrated its sixth anniversary, which added the ability for users to create their own custom campaigns, and Texel Raptor themselves recommended one to download, so it's basically like getting a new DLC... which they also said was coming soon.
I guess this makes up for Planet Coaster 2 having its disappointing launch.
Board Games/Tabletop Games
My aunt bought that - it was pretty fun. Do you find Vin wins all the games? That's been our experience so far lol.
In other news, I went to Millennium Games - the biggest board/card/tabletop game store in the US - on Black Friday and bought "ISS Vanguard". It's about a crew working together on humanity's first interstellar spaceship. As mentioned before, the game is 4 players only, and our game nights are regularly 5 people, but I figure I can be the "storyteller" and general helper person to the others playing the crew. So hopefully that'll be fun!
Hearthstone's Year of the Raptor in 2025 Revealed - New Set Names and Details
I don't know if I'd be worried by this. I think they just don't want to announce anything else that might be in development if it's not close to being ready. Don't want another tournament mode debacle! But the expansion themes are likely set and therefore safe to announce!
Hearthstone's Year of the Raptor in 2025 Revealed - New Set Names and Details
Even if they have some QoL stuff in the pipeline, they probably don't want to say much until it's almost ready to reveal. Would hate to announce something like, I don't know... a tournament mode, and then not be able to deliver!
The expansions, however, are pretty set at this point. They spend so much time developing them in advance that this may have been all they felt safe announcing at this time, and had to have something to present.
Hearthstone's Year of the Raptor in 2025 Revealed - New Set Names and Details
Quests returning with the Un'Goro sequel, when they were introduced in JtU is a pretty good bet. Hadn't really thought about it, but they don't seem to like to go too long without a quest or questline. Plus, Death Knight doesn't have one so they probably want to introduce something for them.
Board Games/Tabletop Games
I have to recommend the Mistborn Deck Building Game by Brotherwise games.
I played it quite a few times and I really like it. Has a good variety of gamemodes and replay value.
Pokemon TCG Pocket's Second Drop Event Features an Incredible Promo Venusaur Card
Got 4 venusaurs in 10 games. I am happy but would like to complete x2 of the rest of the promos before this keeps happening xD
The Epic Store Game for the Week Is Here - Get Brotato Until Next Week
Awesome game! Can recommend :)
Pokemon TCG Pocket's Second Drop Event Features an Incredible Promo Venusaur Card
A deck with 2x Blaine, 2x Vulpix/Ninetales, 2x Ponyta/Rapidash, and 2x Giovanni is probably the fastest way to grind this event - and a friendly reminder that you don't use Event stamina in games that you lose (so you can complete the "Put a Pokemon to Sleep" quest with a different deck, concede, and pick up the reward without losing stamina). But the enemy decks aren't that scary, so you can probably play any deck you feel comfortable with and do just fine.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Stalker 2 is awesome :)
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
I've used the Steam sale to buy a game for a really good friend of mine because it was on her wishlist. I could've set the gift to be delivered to her on Christmas, but I decided to give it to her right then and there because I wanted to avoid the possibility of someone else buying the same gift in-between then and Christmas. She was absolutely ecstatic when saw the gift in her inventory.
Christmas comes early for all of us sometimes.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Physical all day every day for me too. The eShop won't be around forever, and it gives me the opportunity to sell the games in the future if I want to (I won't, lol) which is nice. It's also nice to be able to loan games out to friends or family. Companies were so hyped about the major switch to Digital, I'm gonna be pissed the day we can't buy Nintendo stuff physical anymore... if that ever actually happens. I feel like Nintendo is in a very unique position where they have huge physical sales still due to the major collector market for the systems, and they're afraid to touch that.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
No real plans for any Black Friday deal shopping here. I don't need more games added to my backlog hahahaha. I also don't really feel like I need anything in general right now. I'm quite happy with the state of things and really the only major thing I'm looking to buying within the next year is the M4 Mac Studio for work. It's not that my M2 is bad, it's just I bought it with the intention I would upgrade to the M4 when it came out and go with the higher-end version of the Studio to last for multiple years. It's been great that more and more games are working on Mac now too, I very rarely have to boot into my Windows desktop to play games anymore. The only reason would be for simracing really. I reinstalled Windows this month and still need to get all my racing stuff setup again though before I can hop back in on that fun.
Black Friday has been kinda... lame? for the past few years though. It never feels like there are any really good deals anymore and it's just largely the same deals we'd see during other times of the year. On the plus side to that though, I do notice fewer people trying to sell Black Friday-specific SKU products which are bottom of the barrel with regards to how they are produced and with what components, so maybe that's a positive.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Well, November is almost over now so let's recap.
Stardew Valley confirmed to still be the main game right now. We hit year two and a couple of nights ago entered Summer. We kicked Fall 1 off with getting the Barn upgraded so that we could get a little bit of everything to get the community center finished up. Our cows produce the finest milk for the finest of cheeses because they love us so much, and the Witch gave us a Void Egg so now we have a great gift for Seb and, thankfully, we were able to make Void Mayo for the Witch Hut this year (which we found out about via the Library).
Fall was a ton of Pumpkins, the entire farm covered in crops, and occasionally having some Skull Cavern fun. Winter hit and with not much to do on the farm, we spent our time fishing, running together in the Skull Cavern to help farm Iridium for sprinklers for the upcoming year, and being very bad at upgrading our tools for the upcoming spring. Spring Year 2 hit and we weren't able to get all our crops planted in time on Day 1 which threw off the harvests a little which kinda sucked, but we did better Summer 1 with only missing a handful of crops due to spending too much time at the store buying the wrong seeds - I went with the intention to stock up on Red Cabbage, and spent too much time buying Melons instead. Which, speaking of Melons, we ended up with a Gigantic Melon last night, which was both of our first time getting our own Gigantic Crop. Hell yes!
We're just about halfway through Summer 2 now and we're refilling our bank account after getting a second barn. Our first year we almost made a million gold, and this summer we should be making around 1.5 if all goes to plan, it'll just take some time to chug through the crops that are being turned into Artisan Goods.
Oh god, thats a lot of Stardew talk.
We did play some more Medieval Dynasty but Stardew took over the gaming time. I also have played another 14 hours or so of Factorio this month, which has been not great because instead of spending it in expansion content I've been fixing problems with my primary base... stupid biter attacks from every side and poor defense. In my rush to get the 8 hour rocket launch, which I missed by an hour, I didn't really set myself up for defending against the biter attacks very well and so now I'm suffering due to the massive amount of pollution. I have started walling off the base though and lining it in laser turrets which are, finally, automated, so that's been helping quite a bit. I still have some big lines to do with that but soon it shall be done. Between attacks I've been expanding my raw materials production through the use of trains. I've also got a few thousand logistics bots now which has been amazing and they're all circuit network wired up to keep being produced until I hit 50k of them so I can't wait. I've got Kovarex Enrichment going too so I have unlimited amounts of Nuclear fuel, ready to power my base forever. I need to get my Nuclear setup tripled in size though because I've hit the limits of the current reactor setup with regards to my energy usage.
I've started playing Balatro again too. I was pretty pissed off when my save got nuked on iOS, so much so I bought it on Steam instead of using Apple Arcade (the save didn't correctly go forward to my iPad and the iPad overwrote the save file to be nothing on iCloud.. yay) and now I've started the painful process of unlocking everything again. It's so weird playing without having access to soooo many of the jokers. I've had to change my playstyle up but god do I love Balatro. It's good they're gonna win a handful of rewards this year without a doubt.
I haven't had a chance to play Pokemon TCG Pocket yet. The Venusaur Event though... I should play this weekend.
I've managed to do a little bit of WoW 20 birthday stuff, so I'll need to find time to finish that up next month.
Overall it's been a very, VERY busy November and I'm happy I've been able to get in some solid hours gaming late at night.
Seven Countries Have Passed the Threshold for the Stop Destroying Videogames Petition
We should *not* rest on our laurels! :D
Unfortunately, the gaming community is too little to gather the 1 million votes it seems...
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
I have the same problem (well and also currently unemployed so playing old stuff).
Even still if I had some money to throw on the Nintendo Switch sale, I get physical everytime if there is the chance.
Hope you enjoy Diablo, I played the second and third one and really liked them.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Thanks! That's the beauty of it... Most of the achievements come naturally if you just enjoy the game and play a lot. There were only two or three that took some effort or made me do stuff I usually wouldn't have without the incentive.
Thank you, too, @linkblade91! Unfortunately I still don't have a gaming PC, so I fear I'll have to wait a little longer until the sequel hits the PlayStation market.
Speaking of which... has any of you taken advantage of Black Friday deals? I know PlayStation has some nice sales going on like AC Valhalla, Horizon: Forbidden West and Diablo IV. I'll probably dip my toes in Diablo for the first time this weekend... The one downside is that all those sales are only for the digital versions and I have a disc console with limited space for downloads but eh.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Congrats on your Platinum, anchorm4n! Hades II should hopefully see full release sometime next year, so don't let your skills get too dull hehe :D
Echo repeatedly tells me "yeah dont buy new things finish ur older stuff", so...here I am, reinstalling Baldur's Gate III. Maybe the third time is the charm for actually seeing the game to completion? Time will tell lol. Mods could be a fun avenue for heightening the experience and maintaining my engagement. Not anything too drastic, but still worth a gander.
Frankly gotta chill with my purchases for a bit...but we'll see how long that lasts. If Marvel Rivals isn't Free to Play (a possibility with all current and future characters being apparently free/accessible), I might buy it anyway next week 'cause it was so much fun during the beta.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Congrats! That is quite some work put into the game. I still have to play it, sitting there on my backlog. Will try to try it next month :)