Well, I can officially say I played Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred on opening day! My buddy, Dylan, and I made it to level 22 before he had to get his son from work and I had to get my son from Band Practice. Plus, to be honest, I was getting pretty sleepy at the end there.
Lafonda and Stingite . . . ready for Spiritborn awesomeness
We both decided to play the new class and go as bit purist with them. I'm playing a full poison-based Spiritborn and he went full fire-based Spiritborn. I don't know if we'll keep going that direction, but it's been pretty good so far for us. As it should be. We're only playing normal difficulty and just taking it easy and enjoying the story.
Poisoning everything around me
So far my favorite moments are those involving my giant poison centipede jumping out of the ground and spitting on everything. It's an epic-looking moment where minor enemies are executed on the spot, which feels super powerful . . . at least for now. Best of all, one of the abilities I use is named Stinger, which goes perfectly with my Stingite handle.
Speaking of this incarnation of "Stingite," I'm like half supermodel, half Aztecan warrior, and I'm here for the love affair.
So hawt
My only disappointment so far is that Dylan and I haven't established a role-playing accent to go along with our characters! The pure genius of our southern gentlemen, Montgomery and Leufroy, will probably never be topped.
I hope to talk a bit more about our adventures as we have them! So far, it's a thumbs up from me.
TLDR: My Blaugust wish has finally come true! As of this post, I've sold my house and bought a new one. WHEW. I can't tell you what a huge weight off of my shoulders it is to have this finished and over with. Seriously, what a crazy year it has been for me and my family!
If you're interested, sit back and let me just breakdown the timeline for you
~~
January 2024:
WIMO shuts down and all employees (including me) lose our jobs. They give us one month of severance pay. For the first time in 26 years, I had to start interviewing for jobs . . all the rules for resumes and interviews had changed. I began to lose weight and went through a pretty hard time resolving it all in my mind -- I did nothing wrong, it wasn't my fault, and I didn't know the future would hold this struggle.
I don't know if it was the stress or just bad timing, but I also ended up in the hospital from a kidney stone that resulted in an equally painful ER bill to pay.
Rocky sent me to the ER
~~
February 2024:
In a flurry of activity, I do everything I can to cut our expenses and get paperwork started so we can collect that $1000 a month in unemployment. Our family steps up, and a couple of personal angels step in with gifts of money for us so we can keep our family of five (and 2 cats) going.
I'm also attending a special class in the morning where we network for jobs, practice a 30-second introduction, and work on our resumes and cover letters. It's a free church-based opportunity, but actually it's really helpful and sets a good tone for my days.
I'm praying more than I've ever prayed and people are being very kind -- there are so many people I have already thanked in person for their kindness. I'm super humbled. My church is picking up the tab for our groceries. I'm in full survival mode.
gotta look the part with a fresh cut
~~
March 2024:
I've been submitting resumes like crazy with no response on anything. I apply for a Coursera scholarship through Rising Tides Ministry and start investigating Project Management. Lo and behold, a Project Management position becomes available at my old company back in Utah. I apply and get the job.
My father-in-law buys me a used car so I can drive to Utah and use it to get back and forth to work. I'm once again humbled and grateful to have such amazing family support.
My oldest gets married, and we plan an affordable but sweet wedding at our house.
the happy couple!
~~
April 2024:
My sister clears a pathway in my mom's house so I can stay there in Brigham City. I had always thought I could somehow stay there and work remote a couple weeks during the year, maybe I can clean the place up! I arrive in Utah by myself, get internet installed at my mom's, and I start work at my new job.
In Texas, we get our house on the market and . . . nothing . . . it's not selling and we're not even getting walkthroughs. We discover that it's a really bad time to sell a house in Pflugerville with an inundated market that has a 5+ month backlog of houses to sell.
Later in the month my good friend and real estate agent, Chrissy, walks through my mom's house in Utah. I've managed to make a small dent on cleaning and dejunking, but it's still bad in there and super overwhelming. She tells me that the mold in the house is dangerous and that I shouldn't be living there. She offers to let me move into her basement. I accept. Again, another miracle
Here's to driving 1000 miles away from my family!
~~
May 2024:
By some other miracle, my mom had never sold her house, even though she had been in a retirement community for 11 years. She had been dutifully paying someone to maintain her gardens and lawn, and my sister had been dealing with everything from leaks to other troubles that come from abandoning a house. It was full of junk that my mom didn't want anymore, save for a few precious things.
With Chrissy's help, we get an estimate for repairs on the house and my mom agrees to them. Meanwhile we start going through the house after hours and over the weekends trying to salvage those few precious things my mom wants.
The fixit crew comes in and cleans out all the junk and does a great bang-for-your buck renovation to her house.
We keep lowering the price on our house in Texas, but no luck
I started going to therapy during this month because it all had become a little too much for me to handle. I hadn't really had a solid night's sleep since January because of all the stress and being alone and separated from my family. I needed to get it all out. Of all the things my therapist helped me with, the most valuable was probably just the assurance that I was doing everything right for me and my family. I was doing my best given the situation.
A salvaged memory for myself lol
~~
June 2024:
School ends for my family and we pack up all our stuff and move the entire family out of the Texas house and to my mom's newly dejunked and renovated home . . . the same one I grew up in back in Brigham City.
My oldest heads to England to spend a month with their wife.
Back in Good ol' Brigham City
~~
July 2024:
My house just isn't selling in Texas. By this time we decide the best move is to take out a $20k loan and fix up the carpets, light fixtures, paint, and other small things around the house in Texas. We secure the loan and do just that.
Everything else is just working . . . we're staying in my mom's house in Brigham and making it work. All she's charging us is the cost of utilities to stay there. The commute to work is a killer though.
My oldest gets accepted to WSU and gets a job at Petco. Thankful for small victories!
Exploring the Brigham Mountains
~~
August 2024:
Even after renovations to our house in Texas, we just aren't getting anyone into our house to look at it so we do a big drop in price.
My wife gets a job teaching Head Start and we start getting that second source of income going, which is nice and needed, especially since I took a sizeable cut in pay.
We finally secure a contingency contract on a house, and between the contingency contract and my wife working in the right school district, it's enough to get my youngest playing in the high school marching band, which is exactly where we want him. Another miracle
Go Mellophone players!
~~
September 2024:
About halfway through the month, we get a surprise offer on our house . . . it's a cash offer that's a lowball below our already dropped price point along with asking us to pay off the $30k solar panels on the house. After six months of suffering, we take the deal. It's not great, but still doable, and so we make it happen.
Meanwhile we start to work out all the details on our house in Utah, and it turns out to be a match made in heaven. We sign on the house.
By the end of the month, I've sold our house in Texas and bought a home in Utah . . . the pains of it all have finally ended and now, it's time to move in.
Time to take the key to my new place!
~~
October 2024:
Here we are. I finally have a moment yesterday where I sit back in my office in my new home, that to be honest I'm unsure I'm going to be able to afford, and I have a zen moment where I feel "at home."
I don't know if the five people that read to the end of my long post here believe in miracles and blessings, destiny, or whatever, but I feel like I've been through the fire and came out on the other end a bit more humbled, a bit more empathetic, and definitely a lot more grateful to have so much support.
In the end, my story is just one from an epic list of stories of the effects from layoffs and studio closures that happened this year. Sadly, I have friends from WIMO that are still looking for jobs. It's been a rough year, and I've done what I can to make it all work. I couldn't have done it without all the support . . . or rather, I could have done it, but it would have been a lot worse on me and my family, financially and emotionally than it was.
All that's left is to get my middle son a job and build up some money so he can get back in college.
thanks for reading, and now in the words of New Order's song Regret, which turned into my theme song the past month:
I would like a place I could call my own Have a conversation on the telephone Wake up every day that would be a start I would not complain of my wounded heart
I was upset you see Almost all the time You used to be a stranger Now you are mine
This past week my mind started returning to the game that changed my life, Wizard101. Oh, man! I haven't logged on to Wizard101 for a long time . . . in fact the last time I played it was back in January. I'm going to be completely honest about some of the motivations last time for logging on: I was trying to get a job back at KingsIsle as a part of the Design team. It would have solved so many problems for me at the time. I wouldn't have had to move. I could have stayed in the industry. I could have been working with old friends. I could have been working on a game that I love! Unfortunately, I just wasn't what they were looking for in that particular role and thus . . . it wasn't meant to be.
Anyway, I logged on X and shot out a very simple message to see what I'd get for a response. "Tell me about what Wizard101 is like now here in 2024. I want to know your thoughts on reaching endgame. Also, how many hours a day are you playing and what are you mostly doing?" The response I got back was surprisingly awesome. I had no idea I still had reach like this with the fanbase. It got 10,000+ views and garnered a ton of responses.
While you can go read through that yourself, I thought I'd take a second to summarize what I got back:
Side Activities -- The endgame can be found in events and side activities, specifically Beastmoon, PvP, leveling pets, gardening, fishing, monstrology, and hunting for badges. There's tons of side activities now that I think about it.
The gear grind endgame remains -- You will spend a lot of time farming bosses to equip your character. It's just kind of what everyone does . . . or you buy hoard packs and skip all that nonsense.
Just being with people -- Helping friends quest and grouping up with randoms through the team-up kiosk continues to be popular at endgame.
Guilds -- Completing your Guild museum and participating in Guild Raids will give you hours of fun (and the guild raids are apparently extremely difficult and unforgiving)
Outside of these, I got a few outlying comments
The good -- As to be expected -- there are just people that continue happily playing the game no matter what they're doing, leveling a fifth character . . . hanging out . . . whatever. They're just happy to be playing.
The bad -- As to be expected -- some people are burnt out and unhappy with a variety of things. The direction of PvP, the pay-to-win monetization, the decrease in production value, being stuck in difficult content, etc. Those are all valid. I respect those honest responses. *hugs the downtrodden* I hope stuff gets better!
The pirate -- God bless 'em. I'm a Pirate101 fan too. The upcoming update can't come fast enough.
It made me log back into Wizard101, and I found myself exploring the side world that is the sewers under Wizard City, and unfortunately, where I left off was at a particularly difficult fight and one that was impossible to solo.
Not the best screenshot, but there's the Greggors . . . old and young.
This Sir Greggor fight took way too long to win, but after a couple attempts and not having friends to turn to, I realized that using blades and renting some crown shop companions were going to be my key to winning this. I realized that what makes this game really difficult is not its difficulty, but rather its time commitment because of its turn-based nature. Thankfully not all fights are as time-consuming as the Sir Greggor fight. (I'm bracing for someone to tell me . . . just wait until you fight X random boss)
Thankfully the writers of the story were pretty great about summing up why the heck I'm fighting old Dragonspyre ghosts in the sewers of Wizard City. As it turns out the sewers of Wizard City are actually old tombs and there are some Dragonspyre ghosts here thanks to a time when a power-hungry prince from Dragonspyre tried to wage war on Wizard City. Got it.
Looks like I'm back to playing some Wizard101 and hunting down old ghosts . . . sounds surprisingly apropos.
So it's been a hot minute since I had my super fascination with Asgard's Wrath 2. I was so in love with that game, and the Quest 3 I was playing it on. Just a great game and experience all around. Unfortunately, I had to give that Quest 3 back to Meta when WIMO folded because it was an engineering model and had to be returned (kicks dirt).
I love that some of my final moments in the game industry were spent playing that game. I finished it up just in time. I would have been incredibly distraught if I hadn't finished it before having to surrender the headset.
THAT SAID, Asgard's Wrath I and II came bundled with the Quest 3, and both of those games landed safely in my library regardless of the headset loss. I still have the Quest 2, and I had never even touched the original Asgard's Wrath, so I loaded it up and gave it a go! What a treat!
let's load this thing up!
In hindsight, I suppose I should have played the original first before playing the sequel, but it was new with a shiny 10/10 rating! Had I played it first, I would have realized so many features in AW2 are straight from the first game. (Now I'm wondering if I sounded dumb to people who already knew about the original? Ahh well. I sound dumb most of the time anyway, so no biggie.)
Act 1 -- Sea Serpent!
The game starts out with an epic battle against a Kraken to teach you the basics. Starting out with a boss fight like that is perfect. You are the unknown god and Loki is there to teach you how to realize your potential as a god of animals because you can take regular animals and turn them into furries . . . erm, Animorphs!
Egil the Sharkman for the win!
Whereas AW2 had 5 Animorphs, it looks like there may be upwards of 10, which is crazy. The first two you get are a shark and a turtle, which help you work your way through the first two dungeons. The shark gnaws on zombies in cages to raise platforms. The turtle uses its shell to block flame traps. I think AW2 perfected this. Each Animorph in AW2 had two or three different functions. It made them feel more impactful.
Hero in a half-shell! TURTLE POWER!
Of important note, giving a high five to your Animorph was not a new thing in AW2, and it's still awesome to do in AW1. *smacks a five with shark boy*
God puzzles are a thing, just like they were in AW2. Since I've only started, I haven't encountered any super complex puzzles yet. The first one was discovering your power as a god and the second one was constructing a simple totem and placing your shark companion on a platform . . . pretty basic. I'm hoping this gets just as fun and complex as it did in AW2.
Running into my now third God Puzzle.
Combat seems more about timing your strikes, which is good. It makes it so you can't just waggle your sword at something and have it die, unless it's a zombie . . . those are just intro enemy fodder. I'm playing the game on what I believe to be normal difficulty, and it's been a challenge in several moments, which I'm gladly taking in stride.
Crossing the Bifröst
So far it's every bit as beautiful a game as AW2 . . . I just wish I had the quest 3 headset to fully enjoy the graphics. That said, it's still pretty immersive, and I'm happily playing a new game that will be sure to hold my interest for a month or two.
Blaugust is officially over and I made my goal . . . I managed to post every day of the month, earning the Rainbow Diamond Award! That feels pretty great, and while it was tough, it also made me realize how if I really push, I could keep going and make a lot more posts here than I have been in the past 12 years or so. Maybe . . .
So let's take a look back at what I was thinking about this month.
Unfortunately, my secret Blaugust wish I put out to the Universe on August 1st didn't come true. Our house in Texas still hasn't sold. It's just a really hard time to sell a house.
Next, as predicted, I had a lot of fun in 7 Days to Die last month and made three posts in total about the good times that Dylan, his sons, and I had.
A shocking bathroom discovery!
Baulder's Gate 3 also provided a lot of post-fodder as predicted! Thanks to a lot of fun trying to remake an Everquest Beastlord in BG3, I was able to rack up around five posts.
and um yeah . . . that just happened . . .
Brawl Stars got three posts and Squad Busters got two. This all makes sense since sitting down at the computer to play was a bit difficult this month, but hanging out on my phone was super easy.
Only four posts this month were about VR games, which is surprising. I thought I'd post more about VR games, but it just didn't happen.
The real surprise of the month was how much talking about real life got. Nine posts were chatting up things going on in my real life. I guess it's a good thing that real life was so prominent this month -- it typically means I'm out having a lot of fun with my family (or I'm just too busy to game).
I find it interesting how much I still think about working in the Games industry. I would love to keep it going somehow even though I've checked out. This month had me thinking about my Dragon Jousting game pitch and the characters I made for Battle Bows. Maybe someday this blog will start to focus on me creating something new as a part-time indie dev. That'd be amazing!
I don't know what the future holds, but I'm keeping my house-selling wish alive! It's no longer a secret Blaugust wish, it's now an out-in-the-open-all-the-time wish. It certainly would let me and my family move on from feeling like we're in limbo. I honestly can't believe it hasn't sold yet. Kind of a weird burden that I wish wouldn't be a burden anymore.
Anyway . . . so . . . readers . . . while I have your ear, any requests for future content here on The Friendly Necromancer? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading!
I was talking to my friend over at Starstruck Games on Twittter a couple days ago, and they mentioned reading my blog post about Dragonride VR and how that reminded them of an old computer game called DragonStrike. I hadn't heard of it before, so I did a few searches, and lo and behold there it was on Steam for 3 bucks. DONE!
Guys, I'm playing the first-ever dragon combat simulator!
After playing it I was instantly transported back to the days in the early early 90's when I would play a turn-based D&D game on my old Commodore 64. (I can't even remember what the game was.) While this isn't turn-based, the graphics and music are spot on.
A recipe for awesomeness: dragon jousting, goo-covered battlefields, and my enemies dead before me!
To be honest, the best thing about this game is not the game . . . it's the manual!
Whoa . . . this is an AD&D Computer Product?
I mean, yes, you can fly around, home in on a dragon, and either joust its rider or blast it with a breath weapon in several different polygonal pixelated environments, but let's talk about this MANUAL! Look at this beautiful gem of information . . . a schematic on how a dragon lance is put together and attaches to a dragon saddle? What?!
So that's how it all works . . . huh . . . it's all right there . . . in the manual . . .
I mean, there's a 3-page story, the jousting schematic, controls, orders and ranks for dragon jousters, a description of each area of the map, stat sheets for each type of dragon, and a printable keyboard command layout. Could you imagine being the writer for this manual? That's a pretty sweet gig.
"Argent is small for his 723 years of age."
The game itself is a hard-to-play piece of ancient trash, BUT THIS MANUAL IS GOLD! I say it's 3 bucks well spent!
If you ever wondered how the progression of Dragon Jousters work, there you go.
That's more lore and goodness than you can shake a D20 at! The funny thing is, if you ever lost the manual to this game, you were screwed because to play the game, it actually asks you to type words from the manual to verify you bought the game. The manual and the game are tied together by a virtual serial cable that could never be severed! As the execs at Westwood surely once said, "Ain't no kid gonna just copy this game to a floppy and share it with his friends! He's gotta go through Kinkos as well!"
Closing in on my next dragon jousting target!
I was only ever able to get to the 4th mission in the game. I'm sure if I was 14 and had a full day to kill I could get a little higher in the ranks of The Knights of the Rose, but I hear BG3 calling to me.
DragonStrike is a great blast from the past, and if anyone wants to build me that dragon-jousting VR game of my dreams, there's a manual for that!
So, I've been thinking about pulling all my archives under one roof. This roof specifically being The Friendly Necromancer blog . . . But I'm not sure. What do you, my readers, think?
For context, I have several other blogs that are out there collecting dust that I'm not sure what I should do with them. Specially these:
... or maybe I do nothing at all. Which is what I've been choosing to do for the past decade.
The benefit of pulling these all over is that I can search them up on this blog at any time. If I ever made a book out of my top posts, they'd possibly be included. It would add weight to those early years of blogging to show just how much writing I did back then.
Some detriments include breaking up the flow of all those Wizard101 posts back in the day. There's also some maintenence of old posts that would need to be done. And, well, it's easier to just do nothing.
I don't know. I guess that's why I'm asking for advice.
I suppose I could also just link more directly to those old blogs on a sidebar? Or maybe I make a blogpost about each one of my old blogs and link list / summarize the greatest hits?
