Stardew Valley's 1.6 update finally hit Nintendo Switch so I've started a new farm with a friend and we've been playing that late at night this week so far. There's so much stuff over the past couple of updates, it's been pretty fun to uncover new things while we were still in Spring. We started on the Meadowlands Farm map which has been a nice change of pace from my usual desire to go with the basic farm. We haven't really touched animals yet, and neither of us has been remembering to love our Chickens everyday, but that should come now that Summer has just started and we ended up planting a few hundred crops on the first day.
Hilariously, we were unable to get low enough in the Mines (okay, it was me, I kept getting some horrible luck) during Spring so we started off Summer with no sprinklers. Luckily though, I only had to delve another 10 levels to start getting gold which a week into Summer, so we've now got half our fields covered in them which is so good for the energy bar and time.
I expect there to be a lot more Stardew fun in the coming weeks.
Going to also be jumping back into Medieval Dynasty which is getting a big update at the end of the month. It's been a nice, relaxing grind game and our town is about halfway done I'd say. I do wish the game had just a bit more depth to it, I feel as if we're going to get to a point where there's just no more point in continuing to play - lack of end game? TBD!
I started a Factorio run through last week due to the new expansion coming out and I need to jump back into it soon because I've just hit the expansion content. It was a bit jarring I will admit though because I finally encountered something in Factorio that I had no clue what to do with which made it confusing. I hadn't experienced that feeling in quite a long time!
Pokemon TCG Pocket will hopefully get some attention because I see our site staff having fun with it with all their Slack messages. The Warcraft 30th Anniversary stuff is going on in World of Warcraft which is something I want to jump back into; I was abandoned at the start of the expansion so I didn't get to do as much as I had hoped. On the flip side I had just met a cool new person and we've been knee-deep into the gaming train so I'm not really complaining hehe.
Ugh. I need more time in the day, my lack of sleep due to the late night gaming is definitely not good for me.
Don't know about general legendary drop rates because i got 3 from 40 packs but i feel like they increased signature card rates too because i got signature Gorm the Worldeater and almost all players i have encountered played a non-free signature card. Maybe it is just a coincidence but it felt like that.
Elemental mage definitely the standout for being the least expected top meta deck around, which I think is because no one expected Saruun interaction with Overflow Surger, and obviously because everyones testing out new decks so heavy aggro would be favoured.
I can confirm that asteroid shaman is fun and can win games, but I suspect theres alot of room for improvement. Packing too much redundant cards like murmur, which should be swiftly cut from deck list soon.
Hunter isnt as dominant as I first thought. As I suspected, Exarch Naielle isnt as impactful as would be expected because most decks that have her is simply too slow. Even the starship builds are too slow, too susceptible to the 'one card per turn' issue, and the late game with yodler can be dealt with by either having way more health (which DK can absolutely do) or just having a few deathrattles so you cant nuke the board with a zero mana expanse.
Quasar rogue is obviously making some rounds on the top end of legend, because its really just a card made for them. For everyone else, this deck is just as baffling as I first suspected. Maybe its a skill issue, but against any deck that crap out minions every turn this deck is perhaps way too slow to do whatever it is that it wants to be doing.
Libram pally is surprisingly too slow, but that may be because elemental mages are everywhere. Ive underestimated how hard it is to get the librams to zero cost, and against control decks Libram of Divinity just isnt cutting it.
The amount of health DK can reach nowadays. Team5 will likely push out some nerfs if control DK is anywhere near the top tier. Legitimately can reach around 60 health, and now that fatigue has more or less been invalidated, those control mirror matchups can get demoralizing enough that auto concedes might be more productive use of time. Fortunately hearthstone tournaments have largely been scaled down. Imagine watching a blood control DK mirror with kiljaden, more likely the game crashes than an actual winner be found.
Dhunter is looking like a right mess, and perhaps its unsurprising. But there might yet be some life in this class. Have seen some form of starship dhunter running around, but I doubt it can overvalue control decks or out pace elemental mage.
Theres a few more decks Ive not tried yet like nebula shaman, wheelock, etc. Got screwed by my packs, but expansion looks decent, though I still suspect the old archetypes would eventually overwhelm most of the new stuff. Starships have largely been a failure to me, though I havent actually played any form of rogue starships yet.
Had a good run so far. About 25ish packs (20 from gold, others from drops, brawl and reward track).
Dirdra, Rebel Captain - super fun card. Got it pre-brawl, only improved as I got more cards.
Farseer Nobundo - Haven't used this card much yet, looks neat. Gotta build out my collection a bit.
Archimonde - This is what I've spent most of my time on. Even without Kil'jaeden it's been a blast. With discover I've been able to play 2-3 copies of him a game. Focusing on taunt demons were I can made it really fun.
Rewards Track freebies:
The Gravitational Displacer - just as fun as I thought. Got like no neutral starships just running on pure steal and it's great.
The Exodar - Haven't gotten to use it yet. In my Rogue deck just didn't get a chance to send it. Gotta not be so greedy!
Edit: Launched Exodar, so worth it. Go for all the greed!
Edit2: Got Gorm the Worldeater a bit a go. Been fun trying to get him to work. Can get him out quite quick!
After getting into Civilization just a little bit ago, I've finally won my first game of Civ 6 on the normal difficulty just a couple of days ago:
Science Victory is always the way to go, in my opinion. Quietly relax in the corner building your Research, moving through the ages faster than others before you drop the W* on them. Don't engage anybody in conflicts if you can help it, but if they mess with you, your superior technology will end the problem.
* Fun fact: The W doesn't mean "Win"...it stands for "Warheads".
Unlocked all of the achievements for Victory Heat Rally. Such a fun game!
I'm not sure how I unlocked the achievement for winning 200 races before the one for all paints unlocked since there are 12 characters which each require 16 race wins to unlock all their paints, which would be 192 races (assuming you don't go over the threshold of 16 for any character). Maybe the challenge medals count as race wins for the achievements but not for unlocking paints?
Eh, but who do I care? I had an absolute blast unlocking everything.
The way the game grants you the full-art feels kind of manipulative, since its part of a Wonder Pick even though you're apparently guaranteed to get the full-art no matter which card you pick.
In my very amateur opinion:
Exeggutor EX is probably best if you're the type of player who wants to start dealing damage right away; the attack costs only 1 Energy and can do 80 damage if you flip Heads. It's a good early game bruiser that can buy you time to put Energy on a less cost-effective Pokemon.
Arcanine EX feels like a solid finisher: the Attack is strong but does cost 3 Energy to get online, so you'll need to find a way to buy yourself some time.
Marowak EX, in my opinion, is a bad pick for a new player because it has a potential to deal no damage even though that's just as likely as dealing 160 damage (which can wipe out most Pokemon). Probably don't want your first EX Pokemon to be something capable of whiffing.
I bought Dragon Age: The Veilguard today, mostly because I think it will be fun but also possibly out of spite against the "anti-woke" diatribes out there. Not making any promises regarding a review: I'm struggling to enjoy stuff once it becomes a "task" in my mind, so I will just...play the game, enjoy it as best I can, take pictures now and then, and go from there.
On a similar note, Pokemon TCG Pocket drops worldwide tomorrow, and I'll give it a gander.
haha, this is 4th week of Oct (at the time of replying) so let me share what I've played this month:
I started playing Hades and I really enjoyed it! The gameplay is fun, but sometimes I feel like the story gets a bit lost in all the action. Then I tried Assassin's Creed Mirage next.
I just finished a few rounds of Hollow Knight in the past weekend. The art is amazing, but man, the difficulty is no joke! Starfield is my all time favorite one so I play it when I don't want to play any game.
I also tried geometry dash lite & 2.2 version this week.
I'm thinking to try Cyberpunk 2077 again with the updates. Hoping it's less buggy now.
Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galuye starts like a crime solving mystery but quickly goes philosophical, questioning the nature of reality itself. Unfortunately the protagonist takes quite a bit to catch up with that twist. It was very interesting to see how the author imagined the future to look like though. 3/5 stars
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin is a slow paced, moving story that takes a close look at what sex and gender mean to us as individuals and as a society. I found lots of warmth on that frozen planet called Winter. 4/5 stars
Oh, whoops. I went by memory, since both series are crazy co-op games where you must deal with a small space. Also, if you click on the dev name on the web version of Steam, it will redirect you to a Steam search that also includes Overcooked, you have to press on "Homepage" to actually get to the dev page. Not sure if this is an issue with Steam or it's because I'm using the Augmented Steam extension. Will just cross out the Overcooked part.
Share your pack openings from The Great Dark Beyond!
Loving the sound effects on the pack openings for Great Dark Beyond.
I bought a few packs for fun to see what cool things I could get. First though, the golden pack that I purchased! Libram of Clarity ftw.
Mage Legendary Saruun is pretty hype though.
I am super digging this pack though that dropped three Paladin cards, all Libram related which is a favourite mechanic of mine. Divinity sooo good.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Stardew Valley's 1.6 update finally hit Nintendo Switch so I've started a new farm with a friend and we've been playing that late at night this week so far. There's so much stuff over the past couple of updates, it's been pretty fun to uncover new things while we were still in Spring. We started on the Meadowlands Farm map which has been a nice change of pace from my usual desire to go with the basic farm. We haven't really touched animals yet, and neither of us has been remembering to love our Chickens everyday, but that should come now that Summer has just started and we ended up planting a few hundred crops on the first day.
Hilariously, we were unable to get low enough in the Mines (okay, it was me, I kept getting some horrible luck) during Spring so we started off Summer with no sprinklers. Luckily though, I only had to delve another 10 levels to start getting gold which a week into Summer, so we've now got half our fields covered in them which is so good for the energy bar and time.
I expect there to be a lot more Stardew fun in the coming weeks.
Going to also be jumping back into Medieval Dynasty which is getting a big update at the end of the month. It's been a nice, relaxing grind game and our town is about halfway done I'd say. I do wish the game had just a bit more depth to it, I feel as if we're going to get to a point where there's just no more point in continuing to play - lack of end game? TBD!
I started a Factorio run through last week due to the new expansion coming out and I need to jump back into it soon because I've just hit the expansion content. It was a bit jarring I will admit though because I finally encountered something in Factorio that I had no clue what to do with which made it confusing. I hadn't experienced that feeling in quite a long time!
Pokemon TCG Pocket will hopefully get some attention because I see our site staff having fun with it with all their Slack messages. The Warcraft 30th Anniversary stuff is going on in World of Warcraft which is something I want to jump back into; I was abandoned at the start of the expansion so I didn't get to do as much as I had hoped. On the flip side I had just met a cool new person and we've been knee-deep into the gaming train so I'm not really complaining hehe.
Ugh. I need more time in the day, my lack of sleep due to the late night gaming is definitely not good for me.
And yes, Civ Science victories FTW!
Share your pack openings from The Great Dark Beyond!
Don't know about general legendary drop rates because i got 3 from 40 packs but i feel like they increased signature card rates too because i got signature Gorm the Worldeater and almost all players i have encountered played a non-free signature card. Maybe it is just a coincidence but it felt like that.
Share your pack openings from The Great Dark Beyond!
I feel the drop rates have significantly increased
My first legendary that I opened during the pre-release tavern brawl
Overall I opened 104 packs by expansion day, got 9 legendary cards which means 1 legendary in every 11.5 packs on average
Share your pack openings from The Great Dark Beyond!
Opened The 8 Hands From Beyond, Dirdra, Rebel Captain, K'ure, the Light Beyond, The Gravitational Displacer, and The Ceaseless Expanse. Been playing Renethal Starship Warlock in Wild (just got into silver), and it's a ton of fun. Feels like an inevitable force of nature just waiting to overwhelm your opponent.
It's Time to Blast Off to The Great Dark Beyond! - Expansion Now Live
Day one experience:
Theres a few more decks Ive not tried yet like nebula shaman, wheelock, etc. Got screwed by my packs, but expansion looks decent, though I still suspect the old archetypes would eventually overwhelm most of the new stuff. Starships have largely been a failure to me, though I havent actually played any form of rogue starships yet.
Share your pack openings from The Great Dark Beyond!
Had a good run so far. About 25ish packs (20 from gold, others from drops, brawl and reward track).
Dirdra, Rebel Captain - super fun card. Got it pre-brawl, only improved as I got more cards.
Farseer Nobundo - Haven't used this card much yet, looks neat. Gotta build out my collection a bit.
Archimonde - This is what I've spent most of my time on. Even without Kil'jaeden it's been a blast. With discover I've been able to play 2-3 copies of him a game. Focusing on taunt demons were I can made it really fun.
Rewards Track freebies:
The Gravitational Displacer - just as fun as I thought. Got like no neutral starships just running on pure steal and it's great.
The Exodar - Haven't gotten to use it yet. In my Rogue deck just didn't get a chance to send it. Gotta not be so greedy!
Edit: Launched Exodar, so worth it. Go for all the greed!
Edit2: Got Gorm the Worldeater a bit a go. Been fun trying to get him to work. Can get him out quite quick!
Share your pack openings from The Great Dark Beyond!
Opened 7 packs for the set so far.
Exarch Akama and Signature Farseer Nobundo.
It's Time to Blast Off to The Great Dark Beyond! - Expansion Now Live
Good luck with pack openings :)
OP Wheel of DEATH Control Warlock Deck Is Actually So OP! Perils in Paradise Mini-Set | Hearthstone
This deck appears to be incomplete and the deck code doesn't work.
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
Science Victory is always the way to go, in my opinion. Quietly relax in the corner building your Research, moving through the ages faster than others before you drop the W* on them. Don't engage anybody in conflicts if you can help it, but if they mess with you, your superior technology will end the problem.
* Fun fact: The W doesn't mean "Win"...it stands for "Warheads".
What Are You Playing? Neoteric November 2024
After getting into Civilization just a little bit ago, I've finally won my first game of Civ 6 on the normal difficulty just a couple of days ago:
What Are You Playing? Omega October 2024
Unlocked all of the achievements for Victory Heat Rally. Such a fun game!
I'm not sure how I unlocked the achievement for winning 200 races before the one for all paints unlocked since there are 12 characters which each require 16 race wins to unlock all their paints, which would be 192 races (assuming you don't go over the threshold of 16 for any character). Maybe the challenge medals count as race wins for the achievements but not for unlocking paints?
Eh, but who do I care? I had an absolute blast unlocking everything.
Which Pack To Open First in Pokémon TCG Pocket
The way the game grants you the full-art feels kind of manipulative, since its part of a Wonder Pick even though you're apparently guaranteed to get the full-art no matter which card you pick.
In my very amateur opinion:
Exeggutor EX is probably best if you're the type of player who wants to start dealing damage right away; the attack costs only 1 Energy and can do 80 damage if you flip Heads. It's a good early game bruiser that can buy you time to put Energy on a less cost-effective Pokemon.
Arcanine EX feels like a solid finisher: the Attack is strong but does cost 3 Energy to get online, so you'll need to find a way to buy yourself some time.
Marowak EX, in my opinion, is a bad pick for a new player because it has a potential to deal no damage even though that's just as likely as dealing 160 damage (which can wipe out most Pokemon). Probably don't want your first EX Pokemon to be something capable of whiffing.
Hearthstone Twitch Drops Start Today and Last Until November 2nd
I thought it was just 24hs! Thanks for the title, I would've hated if I didn't get the 6 hours!
What Are You Playing? Omega October 2024
I bought Dragon Age: The Veilguard today, mostly because I think it will be fun but also possibly out of spite against the "anti-woke" diatribes out there. Not making any promises regarding a review: I'm struggling to enjoy stuff once it becomes a "task" in my mind, so I will just...play the game, enjoy it as best I can, take pictures now and then, and go from there.
On a similar note, Pokemon TCG Pocket drops worldwide tomorrow, and I'll give it a gander.
What Are You Playing? Omega October 2024
haha, this is 4th week of Oct (at the time of replying) so let me share what I've played this month:
I started playing Hades and I really enjoyed it! The gameplay is fun, but sometimes I feel like the story gets a bit lost in all the action. Then I tried Assassin's Creed Mirage next.
I just finished a few rounds of Hollow Knight in the past weekend. The art is amazing, but man, the difficulty is no joke! Starfield is my all time favorite one so I play it when I don't want to play any game.
I also tried geometry dash lite & 2.2 version this week.
I'm thinking to try Cyberpunk 2077 again with the updates. Hoping it's less buggy now.
So this is my october journey so far...
Patch 31.0 Arrives Tomorrow: The Pre-Release Brawl for The Great Dark Beyond, Warcraft Anniversary Event, and More!
Do we know what cards will retroactively get the Draenei tribe? Vaguely remember seeing Trinket Artist had it in a card reveal video
Patch 31.0 Arrives Tomorrow: The Pre-Release Brawl for The Great Dark Beyond, Warcraft Anniversary Event, and More!
I love seeing that MarkMcKz is now building decks for Hearthstone players. I wonder if these decks will include Boulderfist Ogre? :>
Books
Quick update:
The Epic Store Game for the Week Is Here - Get Moving Out Until Next Week
Oh, whoops. I went by memory, since both series are crazy co-op games where you must deal with a small space. Also, if you click on the dev name on the web version of Steam, it will redirect you to a Steam search that also includes Overcooked, you have to press on "Homepage" to actually get to the dev page. Not sure if this is an issue with Steam or it's because I'm using the Augmented Steam extension. Will just cross out the Overcooked part.
World of Warcraft's 30th Anniversary Direct Scheduled for November 13, Includes WoW, Hearthstone, & Rumble
Ok this franchise is starting to make me feel old now...still remember the first time I played Warcraft III ...all those years ago...
The Epic Store Game for the Week Is Here - Get Moving Out Until Next Week
Hate to be that guy but this is developed by DevM Games and SMG Studio, while Ghost Town Games developed Overcooked. Team17 published both.
World of Warcraft's 30th Anniversary Direct Scheduled for November 13, Includes WoW, Hearthstone, & Rumble
I'm a fan of Warcraft the full fledged Real Time Strategy game.
Any news on that?
World of Warcraft's 30th Anniversary Direct Scheduled for November 13, Includes WoW, Hearthstone, & Rumble
RIP
lol