AxcaliBlog

According to Steam's recently played list on my profile you can get an idea about what my apparently favorite games are... perhaps the wrong idea in some cases. I present here my top 20 but not necessarily... with caveats. Also note, this is just what Steam has tracked. Fallout 3 No joke, and this doesn't even include all the hours I logged prior to owning it on Steam, which was probably another 200 hours to estimate conservatively. Also does not account for my children's play time. Plants vs. Zombies This one is a shared effort. At one time, the whole family was obsessed with this game. However, we haven't touched it in perhaps years. It'll take a long while before it's eclipsed. Garry's Mod Another family effort, I play it with the kids, and the kids play it on my account. Bethesda's Action/RPG Hits More Fallout and Elder Scrolls... I must like those. True. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance It was my obsession at the beginning of the yea...

It should go without saying this is my subjective opinion based on what I have played in 2015 (not necessarily released in 2015), so don't go saying "you're wrong!", because I can't be wrong about what entertained me. Take that mythical reader! Oh, and since I'm coming up with these on the spot, they are in no particular order. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain I can say hands down that this is my game of the year. It just did everything right in terms of gameplay and story (despite the missing mission 51). The number of hours I've poured into it eclipses even minecraft at this point (at least for this year). It is a testament to Kojima's masterful storytelling that he was able to evoke real emotional responses to characters in this game. You form a bond with your soldiers on Mother Base and with your support buddies. I'd say how, but that'd be spoilers, you really must see for yourself... and experience the guilt (mission 43) and grief ...

I've made some decent progress in Botania... having created the Terrasteel Agglomeration plate, I believe that surpasses what I've done before. It set up a wheat farm on my hill for the seeds required, automated by MF Reloaded Planter and Harvester. To make things more interesting and to pursue a few mods I was acquainted with, I decided to add in Ars Magica 2, Dragon Mounts, and Mo' Creatures. Ars Magica is a magic system I dabbled in before but did not make much progress in. It seemed more interesting than Thaumcraft and more intuitive as well. I have the basics set up on my second floor. Dragon mounts allows you to create eggs that the titular flying lizards bring into being. There are several types possible, IIRC based on the environment the egg is hatched in. Mo' Creatures is a mod that adds a bunch more things that want to kill you, but from what I've seen it's not unbalanced. The hp on the monsters are reasonable at least. As a result, the lan...

I have tested what I'm calling AxPack 4 for about a week now. A major snag with getting the mods to play nice was biomes o plenty having a tiff with Erebus over biome IDs, so I had to muck about in the config files. Something was borked, so I had to erase the configs folder, then uninstall both and add back Biomes O Plenty.  I don't know if Erebus will play nice now, but I don't feel like letting it back into the fold yet. Turns out Railcraft operates independently of Buildcraft now, so that's tidy. Actually, I didn't strictly need RC for the stated reason, Steel, because Mekanism's method works just fine. I've gotten into Botania but am dismayed that passive generation flowers decay and it can no longer be disabled in the config. The creator says it's to motivate upgrading to better flowers... fair enough. I am currently holed up in an Artifacts tower that I cleared. Troublesome clay golems in the basement. I actually ended up throwi...

I've created several modpacks at this point. It's always a process of creating a base pack of my essentials and then progressively adding more as I think of them. They tend to be all over the place by the time I get finished with them, and by finished I mean I tire of my progression through it and quit playing. So, this time I plan to... plan out the modpack in an orderly manner with goals in place for each mod added. I want a relatively compact pack with not too many resources and perhaps some consistency with theme. Essentials See this post World Biomes O Plenty - I appreciate the variety on the overworld, Hot Springs especially. Railcraft - I do love marble... I mean quarried stone. Natura - An interesting nether is needed. Resources Just a note that I need to edit configs to eliminate any overlap. I don't want the same ore from different mods if I can avoid it. Tinkers Construct - Adds those Oreberry bushes. Might disable those. Adds Ardite and...

Below I have detailed some mods that I like, are good, but not required, followed by ones I can happily ignore, and then the ones I actively avoid. Always Nice to Have Chisel - I love variety. This adds many varieties of common and special materials, just for aesthetics. Bibliocraft - Furniture. Really brings a room together. Includes shelves for out in the open storage. Ender Storage - A chest and bag thats let you access the contents from anywhere. Iron Chest - Upgradable, progressively bigger storage chests. Twilight Forest - The new progression system is crap (don't tell me where I can't go!) but the interest this adds in great. Ore hills are wonderful resources balanced with danger, and the bosses are always fun to battle. Roguelike Dungeons/Ruins - I do like exploring. These provide the opportunity. Hardcore Ender Expansion - Makes the End interesting, adding incentive to explore. Mariculture - Makes underwater interesting. Natura - Makes the nether intere...

There was a time I despised modded Minecraft. The problem was that I was introduced to a modpack and expected to understand all parts of it immediately. There was no established starting point and perceivable progression. It was a massive chore to learn that involved many windows of the modpack's wiki pages open simultaneously. Later came questbook driven "tutorial" type modpacks, and those worked better. So after years of playing modded, I can't go back to vanilla without getting bored very quickly, Is this all there is? I could be using a quarry, but no... an efficient pickaxe'll have to do. The nether could be interesting for longer than 15 minutes... but isn't. So, having quite a bit of experience under my belt with mods, modpacks, and creating my own packs... I'll record some of my thoughts on how various mods measure up. The Essentials Damage Indicators - Perceivable consequence! I like to know how effective my hits are besides the vague feeli...

Last week I was approached by a homeless person. He asked for help... you know... like they do. We recently received our tax refund, so I was feeling pretty blessed and wanted to pass some along. I decided I would help him out to the tune of $20. I drove him to the local thrift shop and let him pick a few articles, then drove him back to the parking lot of my workplace (where I knew I was visible to cameras). The experience changed the way I think about helping homeless people. This person was initially friendly, but as our association dragged on, he quickly grated on my nerves. He was clearly of the pushy victim persuasion. I tried to be cordial as I bid him farewell, but my compassion was spent... I feel certain that my irritation was evident. I have a tendency to leak my true feelings through my facial expressions. He had the nerve to ask for a cigarette. Then he asked me to give him some of my snacks "for his kids". That's when I halted all conversation. When he g...

Just noticed a poll on Facebook in the Pathfinder group. "can an evil character work in a good party doing a good quest?" Yes/No The response was overwhelmingly Yes. Of course, on Facebook I've noticed that people are overwhelmingly moronic. I will now explain why this is bullcrap. The OP is asking if an evil aligned character can cooperate with a group of good aligned characters to accomplish a quest that is beneficial to others. I would say that situation is highly unlikely unless everyone in the party is roleplaying poorly. The evil character would be uninterested in doing something that benefits others, unless they saw some benefit for themself.... proverbially "doing it for the money". However, why would a "good party" suffer the presence of this selfish degenerate in their ranks? They can't realistically count on him to help the party. They know he's in it for his self interest. However, let's face it... it's not the PC that...

Metal Gear Rising... I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin on the mountain side. That was the most satisfying game victory of recent years, and it was hard won. I started the prior battle against Metal Gear Excelsius with 9 health kits and the Armstrong fight with 7. By the end I was at 30% health, having used all of them. Looking forward to the sequel! Making adventure maps for Minecraft has been somewhat harrowing. Perhaps I shouldn't obsess over it so much, but the community of this game is supremely frustrating to say the least. I cannot discern what MC players are looking for. I can say that if it requires paying attention to detail... forget it! I suspect that most MC players go into adventure maps looking for a distraction (or self-promotion, delusions of grandeur "Youtube fame" nonsense). The apparent problem is that MC players expect no depth , so they don't recognize it when it's there. What they expect is an experience from which they derive ...

So, It's been a while... how ya doing? Good... good. Well see ya. Ok, seriously... I am now part of a gaming group with real people! The game is Pathfinder, and we are playing through Rise of the Runelords. Well, perhaps not for much longer... we ran into a quasit that turned one PC to stone, downed two others, and left me the last one standing when we decided to call it a night. I have exactly on last card to play... a mutagen, We'll see how that turns out... but we may be starting a different adventure path. I've been playing Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance lately. Got to the end boss... with no healing items. Thing is, it's one of those games that lets you grind through earlier levels for upgrade points... so I played through most of the levels again. It was cake with the upgrades I had, and the trip gve me enough upgrade points to fully upgrade my weapon, energy, and health. I saved just prior to the final battle and intend to go for it once I'm in the proper...