And that's it for another Friday!
So, Isaac was a bit of a bust overall... I didn't really make any progress and I'm a bit annoyed that dropping my gamepad pretty much lost me today's Daily Challenge Run as the game stopped responding, especially as it was starting to punch above what I was expecting, to the extent that I think that I could have at least beat Mom, if things didn't conspire against me! On the plus side however, I do feel more comfortable with using my gamepad now, so that's some progress in some regard. I will coincidentally be starting every Isaac session with the Daily Run now, just for a little bit of variety, before I slide into my main game 60-90 minutes later.
With regards to Doom II, we made some great progress tonight, managing to make it to the start of Map 24 (having started at Map 16), leaving 6 more maps to complete! Arguably, the hardest one will be Map 30, which is the final level of Doom II. I expect to die a lot before I ultimately run out of ammo, but if I somehow make it through, I'm going to be looking to do the John Romero Doom levels first, before I do Episode 4 of The Ultimate Doom, which is Thy Flesh Consumed. The reason why it's going last (contrary to what I just said on stream) is because I'm essentially playing Doom in its original incarnations, before moving to the newer stuff; the John Romero levels are going first purely because they should be a bit faster to get through!
That said however, another reason why I'm doing the 4th Episode last is that I've not really played them before, so don't know what to expect with them, and it may result in me dying a lot, whereas with the 2 JR levels, I should probably be able to get through them alright. Additionally, it may be that I might find it a struggle to get through those levels - as I heard that the difficulty throughout the episode is fairly inconsistent compared to the first 3 episodes - which means making it last is a better idea, especially as I can proceed to it after finishing Doom II, which is tricky in itself, so it may be that I get the confidence I need to take it on and nail it! I'm expecting to ideally be finished with the first two classic Doom games before the end of the year, so after that, I'll be trying something different, that isn't a Doom Engine game, or not even an FPS, seeing as Frenetic Fridays are about "action games", and not just FPS games.
I do however need to start making a list of games that I've finished, so I have a clear timeline as to what I've done. Either way, it's probably almost time to consider what I'll be playing after the JR levels and Episode 4. Isaac will of course be staying put, although I might occasionally mix it up a bit with another action roguelike/roguelike, just to allow me to give a game some more attention, although what I'll likely do is do an Isaac Daily Challenge Run, then switch to my next warm-up game, just so I keep up to date with things, plus given that I stream slightly longer (and may also start doing a 5 hour stream on Fridays from 20:00 hours), I should be able to slot it in easily enough. Either way, this month and next will be the time I work more on my presentation stuff, to the extent that I'll be doing some "paperwork" when I'm on my break in Ireland, seeing as even if my streaming stops, I can't fully stop with things!
I will also mention that over the next couple of weeks, I should be implementing my new CPU and board, although I'm probably going to also look into doing something with my new CPU between Sunday and Wednesday, as I at least want to know it works, and also to see how it handles additional browser loads, such as what I'd be adding with Quest Mode or Loots (the latter of which needs re-adding, now that I know what's going on). Thinking about it further, I probably should unload my other 2 overlays when not in use to free up extra CPU, mainly because a few seconds of a mostly blank screen (from when my overlay is reloading) isn't the end of the world, although changing from 3 similar overlays to one "blank" one, and I locally handle the text has paid off dividends for my OBS operations in Linux, as has compiling NVENC (hardware) encoding within it, meaning the CPU no longer handles all that stuff and offloads it to the GPU! In any case, further reducing strain on my CPU (regardless of which one it is) isn't a bad idea either, because it means that I have more power to dedicate to the game, or more demanding ones.
Additionally, I've now made it easier to stream on Windows by cutting down on the amount of scenes (and overlays) I run, so I can be (mostly) consistent across the board. I will be spending some time with OBS Windows to make sure it's as in-line as much as possible with OBS Linux, although I will eventually need to reinstall Windows 10 and install Linux Mint 19.1 (when it comes out), which should hopefully make things run more smoothly. I additionally need to do some work with my bots, my "loyalty scheme" (outside of subbing/bits), and also nail the Discord server stuff, all of which I expect to (hopefully) have significant progress made before the end of the second quarter of next year, seeing as I need to have a smooth operation going with stuff at my end, especially if I want to add a 4th weekly session, and start doing regular videos.
I'm sure I said it before, but I'll be reiterating that the pilot of "SGU Pickups & Thrifts" will be put back till early next year, and what I'll be doing is recording and releasing January's one in the first half of February, though I'll be making the cutoff the last week in January, though the following one will work to the standard schedule; the pilot is having to be filmed in February, as I won't have access to my stuff to look at until I get back from my holiday. That said however, I will probably start making filming preparations later this month, so all I'd need to worry about with regards to what I'll be featuring as what is essentially a "best of and most interesting pickups/thrift finds" from the past year, meaning that I'll have a 3-way list, that being stuff I'll give a cursory mention to, stuff I'll show off briefly, and stuff I'll go into more detail with; the last category will also cover stuff I plan to do videos on as well, although I won't go into too much detail either, as I want to properly research things and give them their proper time in the spotlight!
On top of all that, I at least want to roll out one non-live Played Up With Stormkeeper series, which will likely bew The Binding of Isaac, albeit on its own (the first) save slot, independent of streaming. My current plan is to do Isaac recordings 5 days a week (recorded on off-times), although I won't be editing these ones (as far as I'm aware), seeing as they're pretty much quick and dirty runs anyway - not too different to my live streams - meaning I'd be able to maybe spend a few hours over a couple of days churning out those episodes, and finally giving my Played Up channel more purpose than stream archival! I might also revisit past games I've done Let's Plays of, although right now, only Isaac seems viable. I also want to revisit my "Lightning Plays Indie" series, though I need to think about how I'll be branding it from here on as the only episode I did so far wasn't bad, but I think that I need to have a more professional approach in places.
I also think it needs to also have a consistent flow from the "first look" (where it's handled on an individual's PU channel) stage up to review stage (where it's published on Gamed Up's channel, usually done by the same person who did the first look feature), and then also giving it another look 6-12 month after release, because games are living projects; in most cases it's not a "release and move onto the next project" thing, so it's important to be able to compare how it was at release to how it is after launch day, and a lot of bugs have been fixed; many games have good launches, others less so, with the ones in the latter category sometimes improving a lot compared to what they were like at first release (No Man's Sky is an example of this). Either way, whilst my solo Stormkeeper at Geeked Up & Played Up with Stormkeeper stuff is important to me, I also need to start putting some thought into how I'm going to put the Geeked Up Network (GUN) on the map, because that is pretty much supposed to be my job!
Naturally, you have seen a little of the upper level GUN (Played Up on a slightly wider scale) stuff on the co-stream I do with UberFate, but that's just the beginning. I have other plans too, although nothing I can really mention just yet, but let it be known that 2019 will see GUN and also Stormhaven Media start to take off some more, though it'll be done in stages. That said, I am looking at doing a weekly/fortnightly "geek news summary" where I spend half an hour or so bringing up the most interesting topics for the week/fortnight, and after that discussing those topics in a stream involving myself and at least UberFate as we also do some gaming at the same time, but equally, that's still in the planning stages!
Either way, I have a lot to think about, so I'm going to leave it here for now. I'll catch you all later on, and hope to see you on a stream next week.
Until next time, take care and goodnight!