The Traveler and The Darkness

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Last night I spent my evening with so many other players, hanging out in a new social space in Destiny 2 and watching a pulsating orb in the sky. My timeline was filled with pictures of the Traveler and various subtle changes as we counted down towards an undetermined event. When the almighty was shot down, something similar happened as folks watched it blow up and crash in very slow motion. Similarly I think we all sort of expected the traveler to subtly change as it began to heal itself. That however was not exactly the case, and what happened was considerably more interesting.

The first challenge however was trying to get through the login queue. I started this nonsense considerably later than most folks, and as a result I had to push through a queue of other 10,000 players. I had been watching Aztecross, because I did not really plan on joining in the reindeer games yesterday. I was not there for the explosion of the Almighty, and instead watched one of the many recordings that had been posted around and sped up so you could see the whole event that took place over a number of hours in a few minutes. I am not exactly sure what it was about last night however that made me want to log in and experience it for myself.

When you logged in there was a new mission called The Last City in the Tower where the Halloween events previously showed up. When you queued for the mission you were dropped down to a copy of The Last City that you’ve experienced in a few other events and you slowly make your way to a door leading to a brand new social area. There were a bunch of rumors scattered around about needing to do something while you were in that area, but it seemed like it was mostly just a vantage point to watch the world burn… or in our case the Traveler attempt to heal itself.

At various points during the night there were a number of subtle changings taking place. The random debris started to order itself into rings. There were lightning flashes taking place between the main body of the traveler and the larger chunks that had been floating around. Just ahead of 9 pm CST something started to happen and both Eris Morn and our own Ghost started talking to us. The surface of the Traveler began to pulse and shimmer as though suddenly liquid and waves of light started to cause a shimmering heat island effect in the area from which we were watching. You can somewhat see this happening if you look at the building on the right side of the above screenshot.

My good friend Jaz Squirrel recorded the event on their widescreen set up so you can experience the final moments of Destiny 2 before things changed. For those who don’t wish to watch it in video form… as we watched the traveler continue to pulsate brighter and brighter this is what played out between Eris Morn and your Ghost.

Eris Morn: Something is coming, I can feel it…
Eris Morn: It is drawing power. Could it be enough to drive the Darkness away from us?
Your Ghost: Every fireteam has returned to the City. Even the Hunters. They’re wit the people, keeping them safe.
Your Ghost: Well, the last time this happened… the world ended.
Your Ghost: I’m not worried. I’m not.
Eris Morn: It is reforming. Healing its wounds.
Eris Morn: This will not be the end. It will be an escalation.

When the sequence completed, the Traveler grew so bright that our visuals went completely white, upon which we were left with a cinematic. The Traveler fully healed radiating light to push back against the Darkness that now swallows the entire left side of the director map. In one swoop Io, Mars, Mercury and Titan are gone from us.

For those with particularly long memories with this Franchise, this visual might seem similar. In fact during the very intro video of Destiny 1, we saw a similar representation of how the Darkness came and engulfed the solar system. It seems that not only has the Darkness arrived, but we are once again being thrust into a new apocalypses of a sort. This time however the Darkness has reached out to us and has been courting all of the races that were once the chosen of the Traveler. The events of the last several seasons have lead us to question as to whether or not the Traveler is actually the benevolent force that we think it. It has also lead us to question if the Darkness is in fact evil, or has just been wielded to ill intent by our enemies such as the Vex and the Hive.

When the cinematic finished we were left with a very ominous server offline message. “The Light cannot save you. Seek us out on Europa.” So that is precisely what we will do when the servers come back online today. We will seek our fortune on Europa and begin the next chapter of Destiny.

BFA is Faster than Timewalking

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When I am in deeply stressful situations, I find myself leaning on the old and familiar. In this case it is in the form of World of Warcraft and leveling characters. I didn’t get a massive amount of time this weekend to play, but when I did I spent it methodically leveling my Alliance characters that have long been neglected since the early beginning of Legion. Legion was the expansion when I more or less switched sides and as a result I only had a handful of characters at the level cap. Since I finished off my Hordelings last week, that cleared the way for me to really focus on my oldest characters.

Prior to this weekend the only character I had at max level was Exeter my Paladin. Over the course of the weekend I pushed my Warrior, Death Knight, Demon Hunter and Hunter all to the level cap and am now working on my Warlock. Prior to the launch of Legion I abused that launch event and the invasions that came with it to push everything Alliance side up to level 100, which translates across to 40 in the level squish. So this means that most of my characters need ten levels in order to finish them off… which is shockingly easy to do especially in the Battle for Azeroth content.

That is one takeaway from the weekend, that the BFA content goes so much faster than trying to do the Timewalking content through Chromie. My Demon Hunter went that route and I chose to level in Outland, and it took considerably longer than any of my characters I opted for the modern zones. I am not sure if the quests are just more spread out or if it is that each individual quests rewards more experience. Whatever the case for the sake of speed I am probably going to stick to Kul Tiras for the moment. Why exactly am I doing this nonsense you might ask? I have no clue other than it gives me a good excuse not to think about other things.

As far as my Mom and Dad, I think things are going fairly well or at least as “well” as could be expected. I was up yesterday afternoon after editing the two podcasts, and attached some things to my dad’s walker in an attempt to help him navigate things a bit more easily. What he really wanted was the ability to make a cup of coffee on his own and the cup holder should in theory allow for that. he also needed some way to carry things back and forth across the house so I added a wire basket… with zip ties of course. It is surprisingly sturdy however and I think it will function in the manner he needs it to.

Thankfully in both the case of my Mom and Dad they have some more local support lined up. It would take me about an hour to get there were I not speeding, and instead they have a network of contacts that are local that they can reach out to for assistance. A friend of the family is going to be by every day this week, they are signed up for meals on wheels and home health will be there daily to work with dad. For now I think we are good… which eases my mind a little bit as I have to go back to work this week and can’t be there every day. I honestly think as good as dad is moving around, that he will probably switch over to a cane before the end of the week.

AggroChat #321 – Bring Back Lumpy

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Featuring:  Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

Huge apologies for last week, but we realized entirely too late that our show recording would in fact fall on Halloween and we would be down to like two people.  As a result we took the week off and now return with one of those shows that just has a random assemblage of topics.  We talk a little bit about N7 Day actually having announcements and the impending re-release of the Mass Effect Trilogy that is likely to disappoint.  We talk about the Star Wars Christmas special and the plans to make a brand new version which will as a result immediately become the best version.  We talk a very brief bit about the Mandalorian in a relatively spoiler free manner.  Bel talks a bit about the new guidance from Blizzard making key broadcasting software a bannable offense and putting an end to a specific kind of multi-boxing.  Tam talks about Knights and Bikes as it is this mashup of Night in the Woods and Castle Crashers.  We talk about the early days of the internet and Hypnospace Outlaw that attempts to revisit a twisted version of that.  From there we end up on this side topic about GameFaqs and the early days of printing off long form Ascii guides.  We wrap up with some talk about Disco Elysium and playing Mario Kart when there are skill gaps.

Topics Discussed

  • Happy N7 Day
    • Mass Effect Trilogy re-release
  • Star Wars Christmas Special
  • The Mandalorian Season Two
  • Blizzard Bans Key Broadcasting Software
    • Partial End of Multi-Boxing
  • Knights and Bikes
  • Hypnospace Outlaw
  • Early Internet and GameFaqs
  • Disco Elysium
  • Mario Kart Multiplayer with Skill Gaps

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Dad Settled and Horde Done

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Well friends, my Dad is officially out of the hospital and is now settled into the “spare house”. I realize that is a bit of a weird concept but my parents have two houses, the one I grew up in and the one that passed down to my mom when my aunt died several years ago. This extra house has effectively served as a hotel for any family that happen to need a place to crash in the tiny town. This has also been extremely beneficial for moments like when my dad had thyroid surgery and needed to recuperate someplace while he was still radioactive. The benefit of the house is equipped with all manner of upgrades for those struggling with mobility since my Aunt struggled with that in the last years of her life.

The other huge benefit is that it isn’t filled with junk that makes it hard to traverse. My folks are more or less hoarders and taking anyone who was recovering from hip surgery to that house would have been a death trap. I think I finally have my mother convinced that it is time to just start throwing away or donating at least half of everything in the house, but that is a story for another day. Right now we are just trying to keep both Mom and Dad going. We have someone hired to come work with Mom and do whatever is needed to be done, so that hopefully I can return to work next week. We also have home health scheduled to come work with Dad in a location that should be conducive to the sorts of physical therapy he needs to do.

I cleaned the spare house and got it set up for him, and then ferried him from the hospital yesterday afternoon. I spent some time lasts night bouncing between the two houses, and during one of my absences he managed to get up, go to the restroom and make it back to his chair successfully so I am hoping we are good there. The fridge is stocked with some of his favorite things and if you look at the picture of the chair I have arranged most of the things that he would want to deal with on a regular basis around his chair. He has been waiting to read the latest Dresden novel and it is sitting there on the table for him. Today… unless things change… is going to be me staying home and dealing with the dead television and hopefully picking up a bit.

Yesterday I spent the morning waiting for a shipment from Amazon of things I needed for dad, and as a result I spent time puttering around on my final horde character. I managed to get him to 50 which completes a full set of characters on my horde server The Scryers. The above is a mildly photoshopped image so that I could actually fit all of the characters on one screen. I should probably devote some time to getting reasonable gear for my Shadow Priest and my Rogue, but for now I feel like I am in a great place for the start of the expansion.

Since I find leveling to be a relaxing experience, and that I need comfort gaming right now… I have turned my attention to my stable of Alliance characters. I had started leveling a number of these to at least 45 during my Horseman grind just so I could have additional chances each day. So I will be spending the next bit of time pushing up these characters the rest of the way to 50. There is no way that I actually finish leveling them all before the expansion, but I did get one of every class to 100 prior to the launch of Legion, which means the bulk of these now are sitting in the 40ish range. I do have some duplicate characters on this account because of allied races, but those are super low priority for me currently.

I am still out here and I am still largely functional… but there is a weariness in me that I am not sure I have ever felt. Right now I am mostly just trying to do what needs to get done and not thinking a terribly large amount about it. You can only function on instinct and adrenaline for so long however before a crash comes… and I think as we enter the weekend that I am starting to crash hard.