Chillin’ In Space

I stopped playing New World a few weeks back. I don’t know where Amazon is going with the game but for now, it’s not for me. The exorbitant amount of grind required across such a narrow content pool stopped being enjoyable. I’m not into meta min/max. I aim for a well-prepared and functional character able to hold her own and participate in activities without being a burden. I do not ever aim for being in the top 5% and grinding my heart out to get there. That’s not entertainment for me.

I’ve been mostly fishing in Star Citizen, aka mining. I pick locations based on where I want to be or want I want in my field of view. And I do not mine quantanium – ever. That whole rush rush rush scenario is the last thing I want in my downtime. Furthermore, what would I do with millions and millions of in-game currency? Gaining ships isn’t my end goal. It’s experiencing the activities they expose, and there’s very little of what I’m excited about doing functional at present. So — I mine to pass the time in scenic locations. I deliver boxes when I’m in the mood for a directed goal. I pew-pew if I have the energy to pay attention in combat. I found a quick 10K profit cargo run that takes only a few minutes since it’s a short hop. The route has stunning views which makes it pleasurable to do a few times, back to back, if the supply lasts.

My son received a huge promotion at work so he hasn’t had time for gaming. Between the additional hours required and spending time with his family, he decided that at least for now, PC gaming is no longer on the menu. The boon for me is that he brought me his desktop to borrow. I’ve been playing on a laptop for over a year, not feeling that Star Citizen warranted a new desktop when mine experienced its last gasp. Wow, Star Citizen is gorgeous on high settings with steady frame rates. It makes me wish that we had a broader density of content even more. It feels like there are so many wasted opportunities based on the number of assets in the game.

As much as I dislike traversing the cities on the way to and from missions, if there were missions throughout the cities I do them. Make it worth the time it takes to fly there and shuttle over from the spaceport. Let me pick up 3, 4, 5 tasks to do inside the city, and it would be worth the trip. It seems as though C.I.G. is trying to avoid dozens of players completing the same exact task at the same time. I don’t see how that’s going to be possible in a massively populated single-server game. It worries me that the content will always seem shallow if unique task tracks are part of their design philosophy.

From the point of view of immersion, I’m digging the fact that I only have access to items based on where they’re physically located. When I’m doing the activities such as deliveries and cargo, I like that I have certain outfits in the space station I call home, none of which are industry or combat-related. Changing clothes to deliver diamonds to a major city I almost bought a pistol because she felt a little bit naked having recently done a lot of bounty hunting. But then I said to myself, this type of person wouldn’t carry firearms so I didn’t purchase one. As I’ve said before, I don’t roleplay in a traditional sense but I’m definitely in the headspace of the character I’m playing at the time.

I haven’t felt up to recording any audio hence no Casual Citizen episodes even with the short stories done. Am sure you can understand that making it through the workweek and the emotional stress of what my daughter is experiencing, that finding small moments to disappear into a game to fade away from reality for a time to relax, is about all I can manage.

Jenn has had two transfusions since being released from the hospital. The expectation was that they’d take the NMO antibodies present in her system down to 0. Unfortunately, this week’s blood work shows they’re higher now than when she was discharged. It makes my chest hurt to think about what this means. However, I’m taking the advice I gave her. Let’s not focus on “what it could mean”. Let’s wait to hear what the doctors think it actually means. Here’s a link about my daughter’s recent medical diagnosis if you hadn’t heard about it previously and are curious.

That’s it for now. I hope that you and yours are safe and well. Prayers for those caught up in the nightmare taking place in Ukraine.