February has kicked off with a vibrant set of titles. First up is Apex: Legends, a brilliant Battle Royale title in direct competition with Fortnite and its millions+ player base. At the same time HitMan (2016) The entire 1st season is up for free for PS Plus subscribers and I just received my key for the Division 2 Private Beta.
I quickly retired from Apex: Legends after 5 hours gameplay with friends, great game but Battle Royale is still not my thing. I last played HitMan a year ago so it was refreshing to re-start my training and experimentation.
Naturally, it’s just something to keep me busy while I’m in the Division 2 waiting room.
My first few hours of gameplay in the FallOut 76 environment were pure immersion as much of the mechanics are simply a follow on from the 2015 FallOut 4. This is brilliant for fans of the series, but I can see why some gamers won’t be playing long term especially being an online game where you seldom bump into other players. This evident with the 36% within three months of release.
My playlist schedule is packed with juicy titles.
The Division 2 (pre-ordered) 12-March
Gone Days 26 April
FarCry The New Dawn 15-Feb
Life Is Strange: Before the Storm
Naturally, the Division 2 hype train is unstoppable with millions of gamers on standby for the beta and full game. A new ecosystem will spring up around the game and support services like Discord will be on fire.
Anyhow, I started on a new 2-year MSc journey teaching and learning.
iPods are brilliant standalone music devices that are no longer available, why?
You can no longer manage your Apps from iTunes, why?
We use our mobiles for everything and fundamentally lose the ability and interest in using desktops and laptops.
Been teaming up with newbies often recently on Tom Clancy’s The Division and the clear relationship is refreshing. It’s useful to meet me. Carrying folk or power levelling up is great when everyone is honest about their role. If you’re squishy, stay back and snipe while I mow down all NPCs in sight.
People are seldom that frank in real life and come with fakery when they really just want me to carry them.
So are all games going to be survival, PvP and Battle Royal? FallOut 76 goes online for the first time, FarCry 5 co-op was excellent but PvP was terrible. Size, however, is everything as we will see in The Divison 2 with its 1:1 scale map of D.C.
We know some much but so little
FallOut 76 is tagged to be 4 times the size of FallOut 4 (took me a year to complete the main campaign). The move to online gaming surely signals the end of single-player campaigns with offline physical media and puts even more critical pressure on the gamer to have a stable and fast dedicated Internet connection.
It’s time to adjust my budget opting to get the PS4 Plus in 2019 instead. Thankfully, this keeps my annual budget way under $1000.
My love for single player games continues; this skillset is particularly fruitful in a real-life Person versus Environment (PvE) situation. This morning I arrive at Gatwick Airport knowing I had just one hour to get to the terminal gate.
Navigating major airport terminals during summer holidays is challenging if you don’t anticipate the delays and have a countermeasure in mind. Also, any Network specialist will tell you that the last ‘hop’ is often the most problematic.
Airport terminal log – target Gate arrival time 11:20
10:30 arrive at Gatwick by train
10:40 arrive at terminal monorail shuttle
transfer (Primary service)
Delay 1 - (Service failure)Terminal train
out of service transferred to slow buses.10:45 arrive at terminal
10:50 Checked-in luggage (I don’t normally do this)
10:55 Arrive at security check
Delay 2 - (Slow Service) Carry-on luggage
selected for ‘random’ check11:05 Cleared to proceed to gateway
Delay 3 - Gate allocated at 15 mins walk11:10 Arrive at Gate sweating and panting
11:30 Actually boarding plane
Delay 4 - Sitting on runway
waiting for flight slot12:14 Flight actually takes off
Flight departure scheduled for 11:55 and there no compensation or anything I can do about it except bitch and blog.
Tom Clancy’s The Division – the downside of Server side gaming
Hazards and delays avoided
Heavy or cumbersome hand luggage
Travel document misplaced
Gadgets misplaced
Fast steady pace walk pass all NPCs
(In real life - families, groups,tourists, airport staff walking the opposite way and folk who arrived early)
Shopping queues
No window shopping
No phone calls
No App checking
No SMS or VoIP
No other players
...single player runs are definitely faster
Mission accomplished – Side effects
Elevated blood pressure
Massive adrenaline surge
No time to think
No last minute detours
Hight chance of verbal conflict
Countermeasure
Arrive 2 hours ahead of time.
(Problem: 4 out 5 EasyJet flights delayed)
ABSOLVER – Time to relax
Chaos can raise its head rapidly. Are you prepared?
Winter version is similar with the added bonus of being able to use your coat to conceal a second carry-on bag avoiding the additional fee….whoops, did I say that out loud.
On reflection, I now crave the simplicity of my life in the 90’s. The flow of data was slower, less widespread and simpler to secure as not many people knew it was there in the first place.
Today, we are swimming in data flows and everyone is their own system administrator. iOS Beta 3 is now available, I can’t see the differences but no doubt the vendor is crunching an exabyte of test device data. I’m still hooked on the Screen Time application.
I’m part of the generation that didn’t realise what it actually meant to push all end-users to be Network-centric and eventually dependent. Now, turn off the Network and all hell breaks loose. The option to live an offline digital life is now cumbersome, awkward and attracts suspicion as to why you are “not online”.
Data availability
28 years ago I knew users would have to be on the network to make data availability work, now I realise that helping to create that dependency was a mistake. And like South Londoner, Michelle Wallen sang so wonderfully as Pica Paris “I Should’ve Known Better”.
Back in days of the BootLeg
Of course, it creates a nice arena for Data Privacy specialist like me.
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Today, we are swimming in data flows and everyone is their own system administrator. iOS Beta 3 is now available, I can’t see the differences but no doubt the vendor is crunching an exabyte of test device data. I’m still hooked on the Screen Time application.