adventuredog Ready to run the #terryfoxrun huh? #ohcanada

8r4d saturday evening at a comedy show, watching Rick Mercer Stand Up For #ohcanada tour. #datenight

8r4dsfeets eager sneakers. #parkrun starts. #running readying.

8r4d My 10th #parkrun was also day fifteen of my #running streak. Also, such a crazy big crowd today. I get faster but my place gets higher because more people are here! [read more...]

8r4dsfeets weather holding. autumn signals. waning seasons. [read more...]

8r4d #running everyday for exactly two weeks is exhausting. It’s not so much the distance, but the lack of proper rest and recovery between runs means that some days it feels like you haven’t stopped for much more than a nap, and to your body not leaving enough time between runs is as good as not resting at all. So it kinda starts to be like running one really long run broken into segments, rather than multiple runs.

Good news tho, my new #headphones arrived in the mail yesterday and I got to try them out on run number fourteen of my streak. They are bone conduction headphones so they don’t block the ole ear holes and are supposed to be safer for situational awareness like traffic and heavy machinery.

gamerdad I am glad I played Divinity Original Sin 2 before diving into the world of Baldur’s Gate. The heritage of the latter is evident in vibe of the game and having cut my proverbial teeth on DOS2, died a thousand pointless deaths trying to understand the mechanics of turn-based strategy, I have jumped into BG3 with a ton more confidence.

Having cleared what seems to be the prologue and jumped into the first act of the game, I have been partaking in a play style that has me feeling slightly as though I’m doing something wrong. See, my problem, and it really is a me-problem, is that I am not and have never been adverse to watching a video about a game here and there. I grew up in the era of sparse video gamer information, the trickle that there was coming from rare magazines or that one edge gamer show on cable tv. So, watching those ‘8 things I wish I knew…” clickbait videos to give myself a few nudges is not something I’ve ever shied away from. But all that said, many of those videos seem to subtly imply that there is a ‘right’ way to play BG3, a path I should be taking, a choice I should be making, and I’ve long since deviated and gone off on some other side quest that rarely jives with what those hinty videos are suggesting. So, while the truest metric of a good game is holding true for me (I’m having a good time) there is a little voice in my head going ‘that’s not what the video was doing’ and in a world like that of BG3 that leaves a lot of things on the table.

I’m only about six hours in, however, with about nine hours of play on my log. That right there should tell you how many times I’ve needed to reload and play a lost battle. Or, in what is probably my best head-slap story, I encountered the little goblin prisoner and immediately freed her and got attacked shortly thereafter. So I went and checked the wisdom of the internet and realized there was a back route out of the prison I was supposed to have taken. Duh. Retried that, and made it all the way through the maze of traps and battles to realize I didn’t have the prisoner. Did she die? Nope. In my hurry to follow what I’d read online, I’d skipped a step—actually talking to the prisoner after I freed her so that she would follow me. I went back to the prison and she was just standing there waiting to be led out through that same maze. Following a guide online might help you get ahead, but when you’re baking a chocolate chip cookie recipe from the internet, don’t forget to add the chocolate chips. [read more...]

8r4d The sun was setting and I ran into an old coworker sitting on the ground talking pics of the sunset and her dog. If you squint and zoom…

8r4d Lucky #running streak day thirteen and we logged nearly seven klicks in the lingering heat of the trails thru Mill Creek.

gamerdad I finally bought it. Heck, it’s been on my wish list since it released a couple years back, but what with not working much and knowing it would likely consume me, I held off and waited for a good sale.

A mediocre sale was the next best bet.

It took two hours to install, what it being 100GB or so, but then there it was and I loaded up the game for the first time and sat there wondering which of the many paths to take. Character? Difficulty? Just a couple of the more obvious choices before the game-proper even began.

I recalled from playing Divinity Original Sin 2 that Larian games have a lot of threaded narratives and the game you get can change a bit based on early choices. I guess that’s what makes it replayable, huh?

There was no sense in dawdling tho, so I just jumped in and started. I can’t even really tell you what I picked besides mostly sticking with the default options. When I get some in-game time on the clock maybe I’ll know better for a second play thru. But for now, vanilla it is.

To be sure, a couple hours into it I’m far from an expert able to write with any depth on what I see is obviously enormous depth in this game. I’ve kept my ear to the ground these last couple years, reading write ups and listening to podcasts, so I have a share of third hand info that not only helped me make the decision to buy it and play it, but helped avoid some of that first wave overwhelmingness that I suspect wild come to anyone just jumping in completely cold.

Stay tuned.