2017

Casual EVE Online Streams (Maybe?)

I love playing EVE Online, but every time I return I tend to forget whatever it was I was working on or working towards – it’s just that sort of game. I’ve been flying around in a Tengu for some time now, working on faction missions in order to be able to work with higher level agents for R&D (research and development). It’s what I’ve been working on for what feels like years now, because I tend to wander to and from the game.

Now that I’ve got a schedule set for streaming (see previous post) I felt like I could add some sporadic streams in there too, ones that don’t follow a schedule and don’t have a whole lot of hands on required. EVE Online lends itself to this very well – at least the way I intended to stream it. I did a practice stream today (you can find it over on my twitch channel along with my YouTube channel) where I don’t have my microphone active and I just fly around space looking at interesting things. It’s a relaxing chill stream with absolutely no pressure, something where you can listen to the EVE Online music (which is just fantastic) and if anyone has a question or two I’m around to answer them but things are pretty quiet. These streams are very different from my scheduled ones in which I’m doing a lot of talking and my little guy is roaming around yelling into the microphone. I can’t promise they’ll happen every weekend, but I’m hoping they do.

I noticed my computer was having issues trying to keep up with the stream this time around. I’m wondering if it’s my video card (a gtx 760) which is quite dated. The rest of my computer shouldn’t be too bad as I did upgrade it not that long ago. Video cards are pretty expensive and I can’t afford to go all out right now for one. Life is full of expenses, especially once you bring kids into the picture, and we’ll be moving in January to some where we don’t even know yet, and we have to prepare for stuff like that. Who knows how long it will take for our stuff to arrive. So I’ll have to see if I can tweak some settings and get the stream running smoother. For low intensity games like RimWorld I don’t seem to have many (any) issues, but for graphic intense games (EVE Online is an amazing looking game) I get a message from xsplit mentioning my computer is a bit strained.

Anyway. We’ll see how it goes. It’s nice to be flying again, and I’m sure I can come up with some things to do now and again. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Crafting, and Legendaries..

There has been some discussion lately on twitter regarding legendaries and ascended bits and crafting – and it inspired me to maybe go after my own. I don’t own any of the legendaries, and the only ascended stuff I even know about is the vendor sold stuff at the laurel merchant along with the PVP merchant. I didn’t know there was crafted stuff (side note, the website gw2efficiency.com is amazing).

It’s inspiring to watch other people go after these huge items – but when I look at what’s involved, it’s also completely daunting. Still.. I could use a big in-game project, no?

Have you gone after any legendaries or ascended items before? Was it as daunting a task as it sounds? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Dreaming of a Gaming Laptop

Ever since my son was born, I have dreamed of a gaming laptop. Having a desktop is great, but the chances of me actually having a moment to sit there and use it have been pretty slim over the last year. I’m more likely to be found on the floor so I can be within easy reach of my crawling little one than sitting on any actual furniture. At night time I’m still watching over him, and the desktop doesn’t exactly lend itself to portability.

I’ve been trying to find a reasonably priced laptop for some time, but I also want to make sure it can handle a few specifics. What is it that I’m looking for?

Cost effective. I don’t want to make a big purchase when it’s just going to be completely outdated and unable to upgrade and won’t play the games I have in mind any longer. If I can’t upgrade parts of it I would like to be able to at least know it handles what’s out there today pretty well, and should last at least 5 years.

Temperature control / cooling system: I want a laptop that can actually handle games without setting my house on fire. I say this because I’ve had a laptop in the past that just got SO warm I felt like I needed to use it on a tray of ice in order for anything to work and be comfortable. The internal fans used to trigger on and it felt like an airplane was trying to take off. I wasn’t playing on high settings, either. They were pretty basic.

Where some people may care about the look and design – I don’t. I want functionality and I don’t mind paying for that functionality if I think it’s got real value to it.

Battery life is somewhat important but it’s something I can do with just an hour or two of. I don’t need something to run for 15+ hours before needing a charge.

For those of you who are gaming with a laptop, what did you find that works well for you? What are your requirements? Have suggestions / tips / hints for me (as I’m completely new to this sort of shopping)? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

A Tentative Stream Schedule

I’ve been testing out whether or not I can realistically stream on a schedule if my kid is around and underfoot. Lets face it, life happens. We’re busy people and there’s stuff going on. If I stream while he’s asleep I would have to run to and from the bedroom with many AFK breaks during the stream, not ideal. He’s not a great sleeper. Of course with him under foot and awake that presents itself with a whole new round of situations, like the fact that he typically wants to be up at my desk with me so he can see what’s going on and grab various things (microphone). I’m still currently trying to raise money for a computer chair because it’s not fun to game on a giant yoga ball and it’s awkward to hold my kid up on that, too. If you want to donate, you can do so from this link here. I appreciate it more than I can express. I’m trying to get an actual gaming chair rather than just a computer chair that falls apart after a few years. I want this one to last me.

Since my husband is still away for a few more months and it’s just me and the little guy it’s important to carve out some ‘me’ time, and that is increasingly hard to do. Streaming is something I enjoy, and I want to make time for it so this is my weak attempt. It hasn’t been going poorly, but it is an interesting situation that is pretty fluid and changes from day to day.

I’ve stuck to playing RimWorld because it’s a game I know and a game that’s easy to walk away from should I happen to need to go grab a snack for the little one or free him from some sort of trouble (he’s into everything these days). I tend to stream for anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour and I don’t typically go over the 1 hour mark since real life doesn’t exactly grant me blocks of time any larger. It’s a good balance really, not too long or too short – the problem is it doesn’t give people a lot of time to stumble into my stream randomly and start watching. If you want to watch, you’re better off having some sort of schedule. Turning on notifications from twitch helps, too.

For now my tentative schedule is as follows:

  • Mon-Tue: 2:30-3:30pm PDT
  • Thur-Fri: 2:30-3:30pm PDT

I may have to start a bit later on some days but I won’t typically start any earlier. This is a block of time that’s after the naps, after a snack, and seems to work well. This week is the first week that I’ve stuck to the schedule, and I’m enjoying my adventures in RimWorld. If you happen to miss a stream don’t forget you can watch the highlights on my twitch page, or you can catch them later on in the day on YouTube.

You’ll hear my son getting into things and being a butt on stream – but as a friend says, it gives the stream flavour. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Streaming Video Games? Sure, I do that!

Today I tried a little bit of an experiment. See, I love streaming but have held off for one reason or another. I was just going to start getting into it when I had my son, and I haven’t really been able to find my groove since then. I started by trying to stream when he was asleep – turns out he’s not the best of sleepers, and he frequently wakes up which means I’m frequently running to check in on him and put him back to sleep.

I thought about it a while and today decided why not try streaming when he’s awake. My computer is in his play area, he’s got a baby gate and can’t get anywhere and it’s pretty easy to watch over him while doing other things. He enjoys wandering around and doing his own thing and playing with his toys so technically speaking there should be no reason why I couldn’t stream an hour or so a few days a week with him wandering about.

I loaded up RimWorld and the Combat Wombat adventures began (episode 2) – and it went pretty well. I did have to run away from the computer and microphone a few times but nothing drastic. RimWorld is one of those games you can play and you don’t necessarily have to pay full attention to it plus you can pause it any time it’s needed. I called it a success and posted the video over to my YouTube channel, then spent a bit of time organizing my videos so they made more sense.

I’m pretty sure I’ll do more. The streams may not always be that long, but I’m going to try to devise some sort of schedule and as always if you miss any of the streams you can watch the VOD (video on demand) as a highlight on twitch, or give my YouTube channel a follow and catch it there. Either way, it feels great to be streaming again. There’s not very many things these days that I “do for me” but getting a little bit of game and stream time in is certainly one. I’m still trying to raise money for a chair, once I get that taken care of I’ll start using the cam while I stream but in the meantime it wouldn’t be much fun to watch me kneeling on the floor as I try to game, or gaming from an exercise ball, lol.

I’m thinking a Throwback Thursday stream may be fun, along with some visual novels, and of course the continued game of RimWorld. W’ell just have to see!

Nomadic Gamer