Spoilerriffic! Seafall, game 8

A surprisingly short game this time (no extra winter), due to the fine exploration work on the third-place player's part.  All the "regular" islands are in play now, with a few explore spots hither and yon.  I did get my second colony (Envy, on the island Emerald), but couldn't stop the player who already had two from snagging a third, and the associated milestone.  Oh well, at least I got to raid his council chamber to get the guy who helped him get as far as he did... and then discarded him at game-end, because, even without the Bosun to back him up, the Grizzled Veteran and his luck token spawning is just too good to let go.

Now that we have enough colonies out there, we're ready for the Strange Chart to bring about the next unlock.  As far as standings go, the top three players are once again within a few points of each other (no rank switches this game).  Next game should be extra fun/interesting.

ISP pricing shenanigans

It's been not quite a year since I last whined about Comcast jacking my rates... so of course, they did it again, this time up four and a half bucks, and again with no prior notice.  It irked me enough that I was all set to switch over to CenturyLink, because I knew that they had enhanced the service in my area, and were offering faster service for a lower price.  Sure, there might be some trash fees on top of the list price, but, from what I recalled, they combined price should still be significantly lower.

So, off to the CenturyLink website... and sure enough, there was a glowing promise of monthly service for $29.95 a month at 40Mbps (compared to the $61.45 I'm now paying for 15Mbps through Comcast).  Requires a year's commitment to get, but that's no problem, and sure, I'd have to buy a new modem to avoid a monthly $10 rental fee, but, at that price, that pens out easily enough.  Righto, just give them my address and... now, if I want 40Mbps service, it's a "special" at $45/month, plus a $99 install fee on top of the modem.  No year-long commitment at least, and the price is supposedly "for life", but that just means they'll hide any increases they want in their fees... and that base price, combined with the unknown current fee and tax structure, no longer gives me the same certainty that I would be doing better going that route.  Sure, I would end up with a faster connection, but I haven't really run up against any serious limits with my current connection (benefits of being a bachelor and all).

So, once again, I'll be sticking with Comcast for the time being... not because they're offering superior product or service for the price, but because the gains I might make (if any) are outweighed by the hassle of switching providers.  Good job, CenturyLink!

No Man's Sky 1.3 - again with the galaxy regeneration?

Roughly a year post-initial-release, there's a new major update for No Man's Sky, so I had to check it out.  Note that I didn't bother posting about the 1.2 patch when it came out... yeah, bases and cars, woohoo, these don't support my space hobo-ing in any meaningful way.  This time though, they added some story and sidequest elements to the game... and apparently due to that, they had to regenerate the galaxy once again.

Mind you, last time they regenerated the galaxy, I wasn't exactly pleased or impressed either... but this time definitely showed why holding off until they're done mucking about with the game would be a good idea.  Finding myself booted to the current system's space station wasn't a terrible thing, but then I checked out my base (which I had to build in order to get the techs necessary to gather "advanced" materials needed to improve/repair my ship).  What once was a lush planet with little if any ill effects was now suffused with radiation... and, whether due to that or due to other factors tied to the latest patch, all the personnel I had brought on were gone.  Now, I could have deconstructed that base, found somewhere else to host it, gone through all the associated hassle... but I decided that a fresh start was in order, especially since I figured the new story bits probably tied in to the early game experience more than anything else.

So, a new start, and thereby a proper introduction to some of the systems that had been added to the game over all the patches (like Signal Boosters to help find things like mineral deposits you had to identify visually previously, and special slots on your ships dedicated to tech improvements), as well as more regrettable changes (like Mining Lasers not being standard kit on ships any longer, making survival in space combat decidedly more tricky).  I even got into some of the story bits, I think (likely leading up to the tech needed for one of the enhancements this go around, the possibility of limited co-exploration with friends).  Frankly, though, a lot of the changes I've seen seem aimed at padding out or slowing down playtime (why just let the player discover a tech from a damaged bit of gear found on the planet's surface, when we can have them do a repair (using minimal goods) to collect nanites to buy techs from traders on the space stations at different cost/faction rank limits?), so I wouldn't be too enthused about pursuing the game seriously at this point, especially if there are more major patches planned.

Except... whether it's due to engine improvements or my getting a beefier graphics card than I had at launch, I can now play this game over my Steam Link on my living room TV.  Grinding away at my PC for hours on end doesn't appeal much any longer, but an hour or three on the couch, as an alternative to other games I can do similarly with, that works for me with the pace of this game.  So, yeah, it's back on my radar for the time being.

So long, Raptr

Long-time readers might notice that something's missing from the right-hand side of the page... I had a play-time tracker there that tied to info collected by Raptr, which I found to be a fun and informative tool to show what really got my gaming attention.  Lately, however, their servers have been anything but stable, and, for all it was a free service, the annoyance factor just got to be too high.

For future reference then... while I did have multiple RPGs clocking in at over 100 hours each (including Skyrim, twice), the undisputed champion was Mabinogi, a free-to-play MMO with some interesting mechanics (enough so that I actually spent subscription-equivalent money with them while I was playing).  Someday, I'll be up for a proper MMO again... but there's simply too many new shinies out there in this Age of Entertainment to settle on one right now!

Spoilerriffic! Seafall, game 7

I'll keep it brief this time as well, since there weren't any "major" changes to speak of... but we're definitely getting closer to the next unlock.  Here's the rundown:

• One more island was discovered, so all that's left are the two 12-spots and the 30-spot... and, currently, one more island in stock, I believe.
• Of the leading trio, one of us had some terrible luck with the dice.  Otherwise, there might have been yet another island, and he might have stayed in close contention.
• As is, the guy who was two points behind me is now two points ahead of me, thanks to some aggressive exploration of existing, lower-difficulty sites.
• It could have been worse... the last round, I managed to complete my first colony (Gibraltar, king of the Kidney Stones), setting myself up for easier raids on the home territories and the mysterious Arch, if need be.  Unfortunately, the gent who got the first colony last game also managed to get a second built... so now there's three.  One more, and the path to the next unlock is open, and if he gets it, that'll likely trigger a milestone as well.
• Finally, in the end, I managed to meet the main goal I set out with on this game... acquiring luck tokens to beat back some of the enmity I had accumulated in earlier games.  Once you get to a multi-winter game, the combination of The Grizzled Veteran and The Bosun is a fine way to pump your luck, and the various "every winter" upgrades and buildings aren't too shabby, either.

Oh, and one parting story... I know the line from Ghostbusters is "If someone asks you if you're a god, say YES!", but that didn't work out so well for one of our players.  Remember kids, gold doesn't make you a god, no matter how much of it you may have, as one of our number found out when he discovered the Temple of Bone (I believe it's called).

Duolingo does Japanese now

Actually, Duolingo has been doing Japanese (on the phone app versions at least) for the past month or so... I decided to give it a go, see how it might fit in to my regular Japanese-learning regimen, that sort of thing.  My verdict:  it's... mostly OK, but I wouldn't recommend it as a primary source for learning the language.

The most obvious problem with this software is that it explains nothing.  At least from what I've seen so far, everything is taught through example, which is fine for most things, like basic nouns, verbs, and sentence structure, but doesn't necessarily serve well for "set phrases" that are roughly translated for the use they serve, without noting the actual translation that's just as valid... a good example would be いただきます, which I think gets translated as something like "let's eat" instead of "I (humbly) receive".  Of course, that may be the same sort of glossing over you see in introductory-level courses anyways, and at least this program actually teaches you the sound associated with individual characters (unlike some programs I've seen)... but then they introduce kanji into the mix early, without any warning that, oh by the way, these characters have multiple pronunciations depending, which isn't really helpful for students long-term, I wouldn't think.

The biggest problem I have with this program, however, is that sometimes it's Japanese is just wrong (from what I think I've learned so far).  I can understand why that might be, based on how I think they pursued their translation engine as a programmer, but that's doesn't excuse mis-teaching their users.  There are two main examples I can think of so far... first, instead of ではありません, I've seen them use じゃないです, which at least parses out alright, but strikes me as the sort of thing that might make a native speaker go "well, they're a foreigner, and they're trying, so it's OK".  A better example might be Duolingo's use of ほしい when you're saying someone else wants something (which you're basically not qualified to say with certainty, the correct version being ほしがる, which is more like they look like/seem like they want that something).

Those complaints aside, it is a good tool for drilling with and expanding your vocabulary, so at the price of free (with ads), it's worth using... but if you want to start learning Japanese, I would still suggest starting with Human Japanese, and maybe use Duolingo alongside... and listen to the dedicated Japanese program if you run into any conflicts between the two.

Spoilerriffic! Seafall, game 6

So, yeah, this was a game that stretched over two sessions, but maybe the less said about it the better... the leader after the first session missed the second session, and most of the remaining players had some terrible luck.  The relevant stats, then:

• No milestones claimed, and no new colonies established
• Thanks to that, this was the first game to see two winter rounds
• About an island's worth of exploration was performed on existing islands, leaving about another island's worth left (mostly on Overkill, since the native garrison there interferes with all endeavors, not just raids)
• Two more tombs were completed, resulting in another tablet and the first relic of the game
• There are still four open, attainable island slots... but I believe there are only two more islands available at the moment?

 End result:  one of the players tied for third pulled their own overkill maneuver, and I lost a little ground on the player in second... but not enough to actually drop out of first.  Currently, the three of us are all within 3 points of each other in overall score... but there are many games to go yet, and we won't be starting our next game until mid-July, courtesy of the 4th.  We'll see what fun unfolds then.