Other Games – bikesbabesbytes

BG3 – More to explore

Getting this magical lift to work (and then fighting the guardians at the top) was fun

The Underdark – another area of D&D that I know little about. Full of nasty things and very dangerous is the impression that I have. My party has been exploring into this area. There has been a couple of fascinating puzzles and I seem to aligned myself with some fungus people (Myconids). This has really highlighted the trouble when you have party members who don’t have dark vision. Tav’s party is split evenly (Tav is a wood elf, Shadowheart is a half elf, the githyanki and the human do not). This really affects their ability to hit.

Then I was investigating a puzzle that looked like it would end up with a new magic weapon. I had Shadowheart doing it on her own so that if she needed support the rest of the party could surprise them. But the puzzle ended up moving her away just before a very large construct attacked her. With a single hit taking more than 50% of her HP and it had multiple attacks it was over pretty quick.

Then I will admit I got a little distracted and watched some YouTube videos (the first time since I started playing). I found that there were two other party members you could recruit….

So I reloaded a very early save to play about with this and I think I will see what happens there. I’ve actually recruited them both already.

So even more to play through in this game.

Then, I figured, I’ve seen a lot, I’ll start poking through other people’s experiences. I hadn’t done this much at this stage, except prior to purchasing to get a feel if it was something I would be interested in.

I found out so many things that I…. started again…. well sort of. I took this party way back to just after the crash landing. It turns out there are at least two other party members you can add. So I had to go recruiting them.

Interesting things – these NPCs automatically level up to the party level when you add them. They also level up again if you leave them in your campsite for a bit and then add them back into your party. This is very handy, as you don’t need to keep swapping people out to earn experience… however you will need to do it if you are trying to get on the good sides of one or other of them.

I’ve had different cut scenes occur and there are even more stories piled on top of things. I stumbled across some mud mephits and wood woads… these wiped me out. I will have to figure a plan out for them.

So I understand now that full release is not until 2023. That’s probably okay for me to plug away at this part of the game (known as Act 1, but I don’t even know how many there will be … 3?) and clearly, there is still more to do.

Some people even go full evil…. siding with goblins, recruiting drow, all sorts of stuff. I might try that too.

And there are other classes. Maybe a wizard. Other races….

BG3 – More please

I’m really enjoying this game. Even in this (I assume) small chunk of the game, I’ve faced a range of enemies: hags, phase spiders, ogres, animated armour, and loads of goblins. There are puzzles, there are things to put together.

This second party is well kitted out at the moment.

There are magical items, and the fighter’s party is quite well equipped now. It helps, but its no cake walk. I think my original party is in a lot of trouble seeing as they didn’t find their fourth in the early part of the game. There isn’t another option (maybe there will be in the full game) so 3 instead of 4 and missing their a strong fighter is making a big difference.

There is a lot of D&D in the mechanics, which gives me a strong base to understand what could be a very tough game to walk into. Adding guidance to rolls, understanding proficiencies. There are even feats added (I let the mage learn light armour and he’s working in AC13 (Drow leather) now. Not sure it’s helped a huge amount, he still has low hit points. No DM to fudge rolls here….. (well sort of, there is a mediated dice option where it doesn’t tend to roll really low, but also won’t roll high, I’ve turned that off).

The main thing is that even with the level limit (4 not 3) and the limits to the game map at this stage, I’ve played 20 hours and I am still finding new areas or challenges.

I have just found a way into the Underdark….

Interestingly, there are some marked differences between my two play throughs so far, with things that have or haven’t happened. Not sure if these are random, or have been triggered by my actions (or non-actions).

School starts again next week, so I’ll be playing a bit less then… off to get my fill before then 😉

BG3 – More thoughts

Heck, first up, I’m enjoying this. I started a second character to experiment with different choices and builds and conversations.

So I started a fighter, and stumbled about. This time I found an extra party member, so I have 4 now. Climbing all over the place taking different routes, I ended up uncovering whole new areas. Even if this is a Early Access, and it is limited, there is a heck of a lot of game here. I’ve probably played about 15 hours across the two parties and I am still exploring.

Fighting has improved a lot. My party is now 2 fighters, a wizard and a cleric. The fighters have a few magic items and wield Greatswords. With 2d6 not 1d10/1d12, plus bonuses, they hit for at least 7 or 8, instead of 4 or 5. That makes a difference. Though one fighter seems to miss twice as much as the other.

Looks amazing, even at low graphics settings

But it has meant that together they have killed the gnolls that were a roadblock for the other party, they’ve cleared out the goblin camps and a bunch of other groups have fallen to their blades and spells. I’m keen to drop them into the underground and fight the spiders. I am certain there is a lot under the map too.

In the spider caverns. Still struggling in here.

The other group has also been exploring, finding a trapped crypt and fighting some undead. They also fought the hag, though the hag retreated somewhere that I can’t figure out yet.

My skill at fighting has improved, but I’ve not quite figured out how to set up an ambush when characters are not all initially involved in the battle. For example, I had set up most of the party in cover in a hallway, and then I planned to kite the enemy into the hallway with a longbow shot. Set everyone up, put the fighter with the longbow in range (but where she could pull back, encouraging the goblins to follow) and let loose.

No reaction from the target… not even damage. So I moved forward, was spotted and “Battle commenced”. But the rest of the party was not “in the battle” so it was a messy start. I will experiment with this.

Things I have discovered. FAST TRAVEL. I didn’t realise that you could click on a waypoint any time and it would transport you there. I thought you had to use waypoint to waypoint, like flight paths in WoW. This has been a massive revelation.

Some NPCs will change their next conversation with you depending upon how the last one went. So if you miss a chance at a quest or offend them, they won’t be interested next time. Other NPCs may not actually be in the same place – the biggest one is the second fighter. IF you don’t find her captured (right near the crashed ship where you start) then you won’t find her until the gathyanki patrol encounter. This is part of the intent of the 2 games I am playing, to experiment with the options.

There is some adult stuff too. I crashed open a barn to find a bugbear and an ogre…. ummm having a good time. Nothing was seen, but they were very unhappy at being disturbed! It also appears that my character has entered a relationship with the cleric. And perhaps pissed off the other fighter? Speaking of relationships, I am curious why the trader I keep selling my loot too doesn’t seem to like me….

So still lots to explore and figure out. And then at some point between now and later, the full game will be released… I suppose.

Baldur’s Gate 3 – first impressions

Background – I’ve not played any Baldur’s Gate games, the closest I’ve played is probably several years of WoW. This probably causes the most common mess up that I have been doing while playing.

After all the tribulations I was fascinated by the game. In my D&D so far, I’ve not come across Mind Flayers, so am not aware of any of their background history etc. So the whole opening event with tadpole, red dragons, flying seashells all new.

I was a little worried as there wasn’t a character creation at the start… they let you watch a little story first. When it comes up, there are lots of options, so I kicked off with a current character I’m playing. Sister Fredis is a War Cleric of Morradin. With BG3 in early release I only had a choice between Life, Light and Trickery. I went with Life.

I was even more confused when the next screen had me designing my “dream girl”. That was weird.

The main difference I have picked up is just because of that familiarity with WoW. I keep right-clicking to do things, but actually you can just left click most of the time.

The other thing that I really struggle with is range. I feel like the spells have really short range when compared to playing on something like Roll20. Now, it’s metres not feet, and 60′ range is about 18m, so Healing Word having a 18m range is right. I just feel like 18m is a lot shorter in this game. But it probably isn’t.

Being early access, the level is limited to 3. And there are physical restrictions about how far you can wander on the map. But it also appears that there are encounters that are placed there to support higher levels. And playing on the assumption that as they know the level limit, they have only put things that a level 3 party can deal with, then this game can be quite hard!

Several encounters seem way overmatched for my party. 3 come to mind – a group of phase spiders and their matriarch, about 5 gnolls of varying powers with a pair of hyenas, and 3 level 5 githyanki. All of these, when put into the encounter builder on D&D beyond are well into the fatal range.

I’m enjoying the dice rolling (and it’s way easier to remember to cast guidance on yourself in this game). It’s very D&D 5e, and that is the reason I picked it up.

Overall I am enjoying it and keen to play more. I will have to take a look at some other build, like paladin or fighter perhaps. Something with a bit more stopping (and tanking) power.

The Purge

Nope, not the series of movies/TV Show about a solution that only America could come up with…. No I’m talking about MacOS and the purging of deleted files.

Having finished Tomb Raider, I decided that with my current bent on D&D that I might try a D&D computer game. The most current (it’s still in pre-release) is Baldur’s Gate 3. I’ve not played any of the others but it’s based on 5th Edition, that I play regularly. So I handed over my money and as TR was finishing, I started a download.

INSERT SPONGEBOB “A FEW HOURS LATER”

I started it in the afternoon – 75GB. It took a long time, and having 3 people in the house streaming video probably didn’t help much. By morning it was downloaded, but Steam spent 90 minutes verifying the download.

It was a couple more days before I actually sat down to play. I had gone off on a couple of side missions in TR before I played through the last act and finished it off.

Clicked play.

(Oh I should add, that I had been playing TR on the PC and had downloaded BG3 onto the Mac).

And an hour later MacOS Security was still “verifying”. This is something it does for any newly installed program. But over an hour later it wasn’t working. I messed about with a few settings and in the end, decided to download it again.

But now there was no space on my HDD. Fair enough… it’s only 1TB, and you need 100GB. Sure there is only about 140GB spare. So I deleted the old copy of BG3, and while I was at it, took off WoW, Battletech and a few other bits and pieces that I wasn’t using. This freed up almost 300GB. (YIKES). In the end it was reporting over 500GB free – over half the drive was free. Awesome.

Nope, not enough space according to Steam. It was reporting about 25GB free. This was not making much sense and was obviously frustrating.

At this point I actually tried downloading it on the PC as well. Again, many hours of downloading and verifying it (twice) before I got the game to boot, but it crashed. Haven’t investigated further at this stage. I really want it on the Mac as the PC is often in use by the family.

MacOS runs things a little differently and basically keeps the stuff until someone needs it and then releases the purgeable space. So Free Space is reported as 535GB (515GB purgeable). Disk space used was 1.3TB (interesting, it’s only a 1.03TB drive).

Ok Mac, go and purge.

It turns out that there isn’t a way to easily do this. In fact I’m not even sure there is actually a way to manually do this at all. A bunch of research suggested several third party programs (ranging in levels of trust and price). Clearing out caches, running a Time Machine backup, and some reboots weren’t getting anywhere.

It was time for something drastic. Something that was probably overdue anyway. I mean it’s been three full OS upgrades and I’ve not done it.

I started backing things up. I always have Time Machine running, and it’s awesome, but I spent several hours ensuring that photos, pictures, documents etc were stashed on an additional disk.

And then into Recovery Mode – Erase the entire volume. Reinstall MacOS (Monterey in this case). Got that going and did some gardening for about 90 minutes as it installed.

And before too long, maybe 90 mins, I’m back to a fresh Mac.

I installed a few things first…. MS Office, Chrome, Edge (I have reasons), then I downloaded BG3 again.

A lot of time later and the download had finished. Then Steam did its verify thing for another hour.

Of course when I started it, MacOS security had to do its verify thing. For another hour.

Nothing. Reboot, tried starting again.

Verifying for another hour. I wandered off to feed dinner to the family and stuff.

Came back to this screen…

So SUCCESS.

I’ll put another post up with my initial thoughts of the game etc. I’ve played for about 6 hours so far.

Shadows of the Tomb Raider

So Tomb Raider moves up to clear second place (in my tally of games in a franchise that I’ve completed). About 23 hours to finish. Some side missions and a little (but not as much as in Rise) of going back to gather materials and equipment.

Really, Spiderman has NOTHING on the climbing abilities of Lara Croft. She goes all over the place, never gets tired, always manages to find a way and she doesn’t have webs or superpowers. And NO fear of heights either…

Seriously, no way am I swinging my way out there….

Shadows was a fun game. I have definitely enjoyed all 3 in this last set of TR games. The improved swimming was especially noticeable, it’s now more like the very first TR game ;P. Again, as I played on normal modes again, I found myself with plenty of resources and skill points. This time there are ways to pick up the “special” materials several times so this isn’t a limiting factor.

Not everyone or everything was friendlyOn

My favourite parts (alongside the sotry itself) were a couple of the challenge tombs and side quests. Specifically “Howling Caves” had me a bit stumped. It was the only time I used a walkthrough, and only for 1 step). The “Howl of the Monkey Gods” was a fun puzzle, and “The Pillar” was lengthy and impressive locations. In fact all over the locations were beautiful, or horrifying or expansive or amazing.

The main problem I did have was with the map and getting lost on side quests. I ended up taking up about 5 side quests in Paititi and trying to complete them all at once. Only problem was I kept getting mixed up and heading to the wrong places for each quest. Then I got lost trying to find my way back to the skull cave to hand them all in AND I forgot who was which….

The end story was fun and the last boss fight, even on normal, was hard without being frustrating.

Great game.

Rise Tomb Raider

Finished.

So that is now Tomb Raider (1996), Tomb Raider (2013) and Rise of the Tomb Raider finished. Now equal second beside Ghost Recon for most games in a series that I’ve finished. I know I’ve started Tomb Raider 2, Tomb Raider 3 and I think one other, but I can’t remember which. I never got very far that I recall. One of them I left it racing a boat around the canals in Venice. Trying to jump into a building I think?

I enjoyed this game – definitely prefer playing on keyboard and mouse to game controller. I find it a lot easier to aim. I will also admit, I kept the difficulty low. I’m there to explore and puzzle not shoot and kill.

Big tip for those playing, there is a limited number of bearskins in the game. Only 3 I think. Use them for crafting wisely. Otherwise, there is enough resources in the game to maximise your levels and gear, eventually.

Lots of interesting things going on. I wandered down the Baba Yaga side quest. That was pretty nicely done with hallucinations causing all sorts of changes.

Turns out it was a cable car! Stay off drugs kids.

Some pictures follow, and I’ve gotten started on Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Tomb Raider continues

Seems like this is a long game. Not that I’m minding. And I know that it is partly because I am often returning to areas that I have already completed to look for more loot and experience. And to finish tombs and challenges.

Slowly I have gathered the various tools. I now have rope, fire and grenade arrows. I still feel that these took longer than in the first game. I’ve picked up a wire reel (for leaping and climbing) and a rebreather (for long distance swimming).

No way I would be hanging off the side of a mountain like this!

I bought some sort of TR package from Steam, so I think I have many more weapons available than I should. I’ve had assault rifles for a while, and had shotgun now for a bit. I tend to use bow for stealth and utility, assault rifle in combat and shotgun when I’m surprised (or shooting bears/cats). I have picked up the suppressor for the pistol, but I don’t find myself using it much. I should really have a play with the pistol. I’ve done most of the first two levels of upgrades for each weapon but I need another tool to be able to do the last few upgrades.

Challenge tomb – This one was about smashing stuff with mine carts

This one was about using ropes to tie buckets down

I still find the skill tree a bit underwhelming. I remember the first game feeling torn between decisions over where to spend my points. This time I often have one or even up to three skill points unspent as I browse the skill tree trying to see where I feel like putting them.

The Beacons of Amon Din are lit…. oh no wait that’s LOTR

Again, in opposite, I feel like materials is my limiting factor this time. I have several weapon upgrades and a few items to cra ft that are waiting on supplies of various materials. This is where I ponder closely whether the bow a little more damage, smooth out the rifle recoil or create a larger ammo pouch.

Gameplay wise it’s a lot of fun. Yes, it’s on rails a lot of the time, without a lot of “I want to go this way, not that”. I find the puzzles, especially in the challenge tombs, are entertaining without being frustrating. Okay, postscript – I’ve come across one that is super annoying. I know what I need to do, I just can’t string it together in time.

The story is pretty good too. I have vague recollections that the original story was vaguely similar, but it’s Tomb Raider, so if we’re not digging through ancient ruins, possibly pursued by an evil organisation, why are we even here…

The two lead opponents. It will be interesting to see how the final act plays out.

I look forward to a few more hours of gameplay as I push through to the end.

Rise of a Tomb Raider

With my new PC up and running, I realised that I can work through some of my PC only games in Steam. Looking at the list, I’ve completed Tomb Raider (the new one) a couple of times, and I did try running the sequel on my Surface Pro (it played, but not well). And I am a fan of the series. Actually, counting that I’ve finished the very first one and the recent reboot, TR is third in my list of game series that I’ve actually finished (MechWarrior wins – MW, MW2, MW2 GB, MW3, MW4 and MechCommander1 & 2, oh and the new BattleTech as well)(second is Ghost Recon, GR Desert Siege, GR Island Storm).

A ship, frozen into a glacier inside the top of a mountain….. I’m not even going to guess how

Installed and away I go. I really find that I am more able to play shooters/action games on a PC than on a console. Playing TR on the PS4 was tough, much easier on the Mac. Same for this. I found the controls quite playable, especially in combat and when hunting. I expect it is a combination of age and experience (I grew up on PC games, not consoles).

Visually its a step up for me. At least on the PC (I finished TR on the PS3 and iMac, both had better graphics than the old PC). I find the controls are easy to remember and fairly intuitive, based around the keyboard WASD and mouse. I’m sure I have aiming support on, so I am finding aiming fairly good. And I’ll be honest, I don’t play TR for the combat. I enjoy the finding the path, and for combat, I’m someone who prefers a stealthy ranged bow kill to a close up fight in to the middle of several enemies. This was true in the previous game as well. It feeds my stealth ninja gaming as well (ala Tenchu: Stealth Assassins)

I’m progressing through it. The first contact with a bear caused some problems. I was pressing the wrong control and had no idea about the shrinking circle timing, but eventually I stumbled into it. The second time I fought the bear it went much better.

Changing water levels is a recurring theme for the puzzles

The side optional challenge tombs are fun again, just as in the previous game. Compared to the previous one, I feel like it takes longer to get rope arrows (and fire, but especially rope). But I can’t remember when this happened to be sure, just “feels”.

I hope to be able to build up Lara much earlier in the game, just as I did with my second play through of the earlier TR game. This helped a lot as the game progressed, so I think a bit of clearing zones and even fast travel back to explore will be in order. At least at this early stage I struggle to see the benefit of many of the skill points whereas the previous it was a balancing act. I do wish I had selected Avid Learner more early in the game.

Aesthetically, it is similar to the previous game.

I’m hooked. And looking through my library I already own the next game as well! TR might move up to outright second place (TR 1996, TR 2013, RotTR, and Shadow would make 4).

I did start playing TR Anniversary, but there’s a dinosaur that I don’t remember or remember being so tough to kill.

2021 – Another big year

Well 2021 turned out to be even more of a strange and significant year than 2020. Again, with my wife and I both in “essential services” we weathered the COVID lockdown storm better than a lot. We did have a couple of near misses, mostly me, with being close contacts and having to test or isolate. But so far we’ve dodged it. We are both fully vaxxed and so are our kids. Mrs and I both have had the booster too.

About Bikes

The Ninja didn’t see as much riding as expected. The lockdown had me at home about 3 days a week so it didn’t commute as often. Worse, the MotoGP, for which I had been planning and organising for most of the year, was cancelled at about 100 days out. Still, we did get in a ride to Canberra and to Newcastle, both of which went well. So it’s not all bad. It’s approaching 42,000km now with almost 40,000km of that being my own after 3 years of ownership. Possibly the lowest tally of any bike I’ve owned?

On the way back from Canberra via Kangaroo Valley

I am planning for the MotoGP this coming year. With Jack Miller and Remy Gardener both in the main game it will be exciting from an Australian perspective. Otherwise, the bike might see only a little riding as I don’t think I’ll be commuting as much on it.

I bought a tent and some other stuff that I will plan to use in 2022

As for the other two wheels, I’ve spent a little time in lockdown getting used to cycling again. I did plan a whole bunch of mountain bike rides as the lockdown finished and work wound down, but weather and life found a way to block it. I’m hoping January will be different.

Actual dust on my MTB for the first time in 6 years?

About Babes

Mrs and the eldest both carry on fine. The younger one starts high school in 2022. Not much else happening there. One plays Genshin Impact whenever she gets the chance. The other swaps between Switch games and Roblox. Again, with enough devices and steady internet, they completed their own schooling from home without any drama during our lockdown.

About Bytes

Of course, the biggest news there is the final gasping death of the PC. My 1st gen i7 has finally gone dark (and I mean this literally, no post screen even). I suspect the actual culprit is the 9800GT. Sorry, Mrs, looks like I’ll have to buy a whole new PC, this one is dead….

Yes, that’s a 11(?) year old video card. Probably 11 years of dust too.

So I did. I’ve ordered an 11th Gen i5. I did want to get a 12th gen, but my budget won’t stretch that far. It’s also going to be a mini-ITX case, so much smaller than the mid-tower it replaces. I’ll post a full description in a week or two when the parts have arrived and I’ve built it.

Not really a lot else in this category. I’ve saved up enough that even on top of the emergency PC purchase I am still intending to upgrade my 9.7 iPad Pro to a new one. I may hold off long enough to see if they do add the M2 chip or the mini-LED screen makes its way to the 11″ Pro before I do. The Surface has had much more use this year, so the iPad is less urgent.

Dungeons & Dragons continued well also. I’m running two groups at the moment and playing in two games. I think it will be a little much in 2021, so I plan to wind up one of the games I’m running (the Ghosts of Saltmarsh) and move the Wild beyond the Witchlight game to Friday (as a replacement). I also plan to leave one of the other games, probably the Sunday crawl. It’s more of a home-brew than a straight crawl, and a lot of fun, but I’m more interested in the story from CoS. Though perhaps if my character dies, I’ll pull the character from the home-brew as my Dwarven wild magic sorcerer is proving a bit of fun too. I also messed about a little with Battletech again, which I have enjoyed. I wonder what it would be like against a real person… (I imagine I will lose terribly).

About Me.

Well last, and by no means least is the decision to finally make the official career switch that has been building for about the last 5 years. Next year will see me as a full-time primary school teacher. While I won’t have my own class, I will have a set schedule so I will be able to work on finalising my proficiency, ready for my own class the following year (fingers crossed).

It is a big life change and certainly at the beginning when I am at the bottom of the salary pile, I think things will be a lot tighter at home than they have been for some time. Thankfully we have ourselves pretty nicely set up and things like upgrading the PC and the iPad are already budgeted.