Nostalgia Wins

So after thinking a long time on what I'd like to do next after Dungeon Siege 3, I realized that most people watching my videos seem to like watching content from the old games a lot more than the new games. I'm not sure if that's because there are more videos of the new games out there, or people just like watching older games for nostalgic reasons. That or there are reasons I don't quite comprehend or haven't thought of, which is probably the case.

My point here is that I know what I will be doing an LP of next. I will leave it a surprise. In the meantime, I will finish Dungeon Siege 3 and continue to post a series of micro videos highlighting my adventures playing an MMO. I don't play MMOs very often. When I do, I get bored fast. I have two great people to play with, and I find having them play is motivation enough to keep up in levels and look for better items. We've been playing the Neverwinter open beta, as mentioned in another post I believe, and it has been decent all around. So far, the difficult dungeons and PvP have been the most fun for me. I don't really care about items or getting my hands on the best stuff. The only reason I want decent items is so I can take on more challenging opponents. The best are those equally matched with myself. That way I don't feel bad about winning and I don't get frustrated for losing.

Anyhow, I picked out some of the clips that amused me the most, and hopefully they'll amuse you too. I worry sometimes that my humour is too strange or stupid for anyone to care for the jokes. And in some cases...they're really awful.

Like REALLY awful.

Like so awful that you want to rip out your own eyeballs with your bare hands and offer up your soul to the highest bidder because you have no use for its tattered remains.

That bad.

Imagine Dragons

Amazing concert by Imagine Dragons last night. Opening bands were fairly decent as well. I'll admit I liked the sound of X Ambassadors from New York. The lead singer had an amazing voice. Their flailing, head-banging and terrible "Canadian accents" were also very amusing. Probably added to my enjoyment overall, though probably not for the reasons you'd expect. Regardless, I'll be looking into their music more. The Envy Corps was the second band to open, and while they were a little more generic sounding than the first, I still enjoyed listening to their music. The most engaging part of their music was actually the introductions itself. I loved the bass they used, but the singing didn't do much for me.

The Imagine Dragons themselves, while coming out a little late, were fantastic. I have a feeling the delay was so the stage crew could move and set up a massive amount of drums and the full stage aesthetic, which included bare trees with glowing lanterns hanging from them. This was certainly one of the most pretty shows I've seen, and the fact that they're from Vegas really shows with their showmanship.

I was so happy when they opened with "Round and Round," one of my favourite tracks on their Night Visions album. The whole show included lights, amazing vocals and bass, and for their bit hit, "Radioactive," the lead jumped into a harness, rose above the stage and flew like superman to a drum suspended over the crowd. I'm still not sure if I found this more amazing or hilarious. A bit of both I suppose.

I loved the energy of the band, I loved the was the stage and light show in the background looked, and I loved the giant confetti balloons. Because balloons and confetti make everything better. Strangest part of the whole performance that evening? Nothing overly strange, stupid or crazy happened. It was a completely "normal" concert for me. No shady underground bars, no parking tickets, no money falling out of my pockets, no hail storms, no one spitting water over the audience (though the lead did open a bottle and throw water on the crowd), no super intense wide-eyed stage destroying singers, no drunk people tripping all over you being dragged across the room multiple times...just a couple of people smoking weed. That's pretty normal. That doesn't happen. Prepare yourselves. The apocalypse nears.

I'd definitely recommend the concert though, just be prepared for a 4 hour+ venture for the evening.

Lord of the Rings Concert

Turned into a Fellowship of the Ring movie screening with live music. Full orchestra plus about a 100 person choir, singing and playing on cue to the movie. It was spectacular. I never saw the Fellowship of the Ring in theatres (I was 11 at the time and I would be in Jr. High right before the release if The Two Towers before I learned of it) so this was really quite special for me. I love movies, and I love going to watch them in theatres with the perfect audience. These people were the perfect audience, laughing, gasping or being sad all at the right times. Also, about half the audience understood or knew of the many memes now associated with the movie, so I was quite entertained when half the audience started snickering at those points.

I was actually reminded of a drinking game my friends played on one of our ski trips watching the trilogy over three nights. I thought I'd share it here for those interested in such activities.

1. Drink whenever you see the ring.
2. Drink whenever Pippin screws up.
3. Drink whenever there's an "Oh-face."
4. Drink whenever one of the characters sheds a stoic man-tear/
5. If you hate your liver, drink whenever there's a "moment" between two characters (common one Sam/Frodo or Legolas/Aragron) - can be adjusted to be between only a few characters if you're worried about alcohol poisoning.

Special/additional rules:
-Drink once for every man-tear you or your friends shed for Boromir at the end of FoTR
-Drink once for every over-the-top trick Legolas performs
-Drink once for every character that arrives in Frodo's bedroom in RoTK at the end of the movie

If you play this game all the way to the end, especially in FoTR and RoTK, I can't guarantee you'll be alive at the end of the screening.


Meanwhile in video upload land. I need to record more Dungeon Siege 3 and get that posted. I think we're done with Amnesia-type videos for now. I still have a large amount of Left 4 Dead 2 videos to post as well as some new videos of the newer MMO, Neverwinter that I'm playing with my friends Shauna and Nick. I'll try to keep you all updated.

Because Nintendo Wasn't Making Enough Money

They decided to cash in a little more:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/nintendo-takes-legal-action-against-its-own-community-claims-rights-over-yo

I haven't LPed any Nintendo games in the past, and wasn't planning to LP any in the near future, but this seems a little ridiculous to me. The article practically sums up my thoughts on the matter, but I figured I'd spread the word (as small as my audience is) and let other LPers know what was going on. I must say I am upset, especially because I really like a lot of Nintendo games (cough cough FIRE EMBLEM), but I certainly am not interested in LPing any of their games if this is the way they are going to act towards people that actually end up promoting their games at the end of the day.


Oh crap, I just realized the sound effects and possibly some music from my videos would technically fall under this category. Wonder if I'll be seeing some notices in the near future. Hmmmm

Drifting

All my marks are in from school, so now all I need to do is put on a silly robe, pick up a couple of pieces of paper and wait around for three hours while I wait for other people with silly robes to pick up their slips of paper. In the meantime, I will continue making LPs and other videos for YouTube.

I will be gone for a month and a half this summer, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to start new LPs after I complete Dungeon Siege 3. I am estimating that I'm a little over half done DS3, but it's been a long time since I was last at the part I'm thinking of AND I never actually finished the game last time. I got very mad about this one battle, which I am sure will make me very mad again. I have a ton of ideas for new LPs however.

1) Single Player LPs:

I am thinking of LPs I can do on my own time in the next while. I may return to the Dungeon Siege series to complete additional quests or do a showcase of pets and recipes, but ultimately I want to move on to new games.

My top options for LPs at the moment are: Half Life 1 (the original, not the overhaul it got last year), Diablo 1 (of which I have only completed once), Baldur's Gate (of which I already have three videos) and Overlord 1 (of which I started a text LP and then promptly gave up on it).

2) Multiplayer LPs:

I have a lot more Left 4 Dead 2 videos I can post, which people seem less interested in watching. My brother and I play most of them, but I have some friends join us in other campaigns, including another LPer, IskatuMesk, which I unfortunately didn't get the entire recording of the campaign for. Shauna and I are still debating whether we will do an Amnesia: Machine for Pigs LP, but you can guarantee that we will be doing more LPs, probably horror survival related, in the future. We are also contemplating joining up with another friend of hers to do a Neverwinter LP, but we haven't got the details of that one worked out yet. I also have multiplayer videos of Dungeon Siege 1, but I'm not sure what videos of that one are going to be produced.

3) Reviews, Compilation videos and Music:

I currently have a review of Amnesia: The Dark Descent done by Shauna and myself encoding on my computer. I plan to upload it tonight (if it cooperates. It is an hour and 7 minutes long, and would probably only target a few people, but I feel we give an in-depth analysis of the game. It's the first time I've done a video review and I may move on to do reviews of the Dungeon Siege series and perhaps some Fire Emblem games. I am not sure how these reviews will work yet, or even if it's worth doing. I'll have to see if people are interested in seeing them. As for compilation videos, I have another Left 3 Dead 2 one planned that I need to review a lot of video for. I currently don't have enough footage for another "Five Years of Flails" type video yet, so that will be a long time coming. As for music, I plan on making some more continuous tracks for video games, but I am not sure which ones yet. Probably Dungeon Siege 2 or and extended version of the Dungeon Siege 1 version.


Overall, I have a lot to work on. I will be asking any viewers interested what they'd like to see as an LP. If no one really cares, I'll do whatever the hell I want and hope for the best.