Assassin’s Creed: An Overview – Pre-Resynced Rambling

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So it’s been a little over a year. There’s currently a heatwave, I am waaaay too hot and not turning on the PC/console/TV etc. unless I have to because my PC especially functions like an oven. I tanked my Nintendo Switch battery this morning so now I’m rambling on the iPad (hey I have to keep myself occupied somehow). Anyway! Last time I mostly rambled about Shadows and I was a bit over-complimentary if I’m honest.

You see, I think I’m often not honest because I don’t like to admit how much I suck at games sometimes. I said that Shadows had “so much depth to the combat system” and… maybe? That’s certainly what the videos on YouTube say, but for me? Nope. It’s too much for me to engage with, and likely as a consequence I find the combat to be very ‘button-mashy’ and quite boring – at least on Yasuke.

Recently I picked Shadows back up to finish it off, as I need to make space on my PS5. They have made quite a few updates as well, so it’s possible I need to credit an update with it feeling better than I remembered on Naoe. Like the chain assassination thing – that’s fun! I also tried mixing up strategies a bit, like attempting to use smoke bombs, or luring guards near explosives and then using a throwing star to detonate them. However, Yasuke is still not good to play. I still just wind up spamming the abilities, flailing until the adrenaline fills, and then spamming the abilities again, until everything is dead. Nothing else seems to work.

So how do I rank the games now? And have I played anything else?

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Player Housing and Controversy

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With beta coming out on Tuesday I started to think about my Warcraft opinions. I’m still a little salty that Ion apparently thinks that all WoW players are brainwashed lemmings just repeating the takes of the ‘popular kids’ (aka parroting feedback from influencer videos). Anyway, I had a nice little rant about that and then started to wonder why it had got under my skin so much. I started to wonder if maybe that’s because I feel trapped? Constrained? Voiceless basically. I’m not on any of the ‘usual’ social media places (I’m on tumblr and I watch some videos on YT but that’s it). I’m not sure if discord counts as social media but I’m not in anything that the WoW devs are looking at.

The WoW forums scare me. When I’m really looking forward to something, I’m enthusiastic, eager etc. I’m not good at waiting and I try to still immerse myself in the thing. I’ll watch loads of videos on it for example, and I want to talk about it! This is usually when I make the mistake of checking out the forums and the relentless negativity and name calling upsets me everytime. Seriously looking at the ‘comment section’ on YT videos (or anywhere) is always such a mistake. It’s sad and it’s scary. If anybody expresses anything vaguely positive then they are a ‘shill’. It’s like the only acceptable thing is to ‘love to hate’ and that’s just so sad.

I don’t know what I’m going to do about beta because I desperately want to give feedback. Blizz are turning addons off and creating in house versions, and it probably won’t do any good but it’ll make me feel better if I can tell them what’s good, and what needs work.

Anyway! This post isn’t about beta feedback because that hasn’t started yet – it’s about something I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot bargepole, controversy.

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Librarians: The Next Chapter

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So anyone that knows me knows how much I absolutely LOVE The Librarians. It’s my comfort show. I have no idea how many times I have rewatched it because it’s something I do constantly.

Anyway! I was apprehensive when they announced this sequel because how could it ever live up to the OG show?

I’ve seen the first two episodes now and I have thoughts. Spoilers under the cut 🙂

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Assassin’s Creed: An Overview – Shadows Update!

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Shadows has released and 107 hours later I have Platinuumed it.

Love the hideout so fun getting to place the buildings/some decor and then run around and see everything where I put it.

The game is so pretty. The level of foliage for the trees is insane. It’s so dense and the blossoms are gorgeous. The lighting, riding through the forest is just a real wow.

I think the combat is pretty deep. There’s lots of builds you can do with the gear, engravings and mastery points (I have seen some videos). I don’t understand the combo thing, and I wasn’t very good at anything ‘complex’ but I did manage to make the smoke bombs work a couple of times on Naoe. I never did manage the vault which was sad because it looks really cool. I did eventually managed to block (sometimes) which is better than at the start of the game haha.

I do find games like this addictive. I like collecting and finding all the things, completing it all etc. it feels good to get a clean sweep. I said that I wish Mirage had been longer and considering I paid about the same for it, as I did for Shadows, and I still have some things to finish up and there’s the free DLC coming Shadows is much better value.

Having both Yasuke and Naoe play so differently was fun. Evie and Jacob played basically the same in Syndicate. They had great personalities, I loved the banter between them (Naoe and Yasuke are much sweeter with each other). Yasuke isn’t an assassin, he’s a tank and his leaps of fail are funny. It’s a completely different combat style.

Anyway I have been obsessed with it since release (obviously) so how does the ranking go now?

But before I do I want to talk about Origins. I said in the previous update that I was pissed Steam had bricked the game and I refused to rebuy it as I was so mad. That’s been true for most of the time but just recently I have softened. I nearly got it on the last PS 85% off sale. Call it nostalgia I don’t know but I always have loved the Egypt setting. I’m not sure whether to include it in the ranking or not. I did have about 60 hours and finished the main campaign, but it’s been a while and Steam bricking it has made for complicated feelings.

Ranking:

1. Syndicate

2. Origins

3. Shadows

4. Rogue

5. Black Flag

6. Mirage

Anyway this is what I am thinking. I said I still had AC3 and Liberation on the list but ehhh, I also said that they were free so I wasn’t going to stress it. I got Freedom Cry the DLC addon to Black Flag and I want to play that. I also still want to play Odyssey and Valhalla. I don’t know where the time goes. So I still don’t know where they will rank but I suspect Odysssy will go high.

However! With how Mirage and Black Flag are sliding down the list I am feeling a bit weird about it. I just like these games and the whole franchise has the same aspects (which is why I like it) and so it’s hard to say X is better than Y. They are all good.

That just leaves Unity as the only game post-Black Flag that I haven’t played and I’m starting to get tempted by that as well. I have always dismissed it as unplayable due to the bugs and reports vary. Some say it’s been fixed now and others say it’s still bad. I don’t know maybe I will try it.

Until next time – hopefully not another year or two or I will be having to talk about Hexe! 🙂

Goals for 2025

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So I did the ‘year in review’ and then forgot to come back and set out my goals. That doesn’t mean I forgot to set out my goals (I set up my progress thread on WriYe) but it’s helpful to record them here. I often add extra context (aka rambles) and that’s helpful when it comes to write the year in review – not that I want to think about the end of the year!! Honestly years disappear far faster than I am comfortable with already.

In my ‘year in review’ post I said I would come back to two topics:
– Readers
– A side project
I’m not going to address these directly but I haven’t forgotten and they will be included in this post.

So what do I want in 2025?

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WriYe 2024: Year in Review

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So this was a quick year, huh?

Seriously how it got to be end of December is mystifying. I feel like it was just last month it was January. Anyway, it is the end of the year which means it’s time for a retrospective, time for the usual introspection. I bring up in tabs the review I did last year, and then the goals post (which I actually made this year). I quote myself and go over how it went.

How did it go?

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Gear as a ‘Reward’ in Warcraft

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So I don’t usually comment on stuff but SoulSoBreezy posted a YouTube video about the datamined ‘18 gilded cap’ from delves for season two. He invited comments and I had thoughts.

My first argument was basically that I don’t think there should be a cap at all.

NO delve specific cap. That’s what I think. I mean I started the season running 8x delves every week to max vault. I did that for like a month on my main and then I didn’t need to anymore. I did it sometimes on an alt but truthfully I didn’t have time. For someone that just does delves? Let them play! Equality. Fun for everyone.

I raid. My guild gets Ahead of the Curve every tier. In The War Within I switched classes (from Prot Paladin —-> Prot Warrior) and tried M+ for the first ever time. I’ll only run guild groups and we don’t have a regular M+ time slot like we do for raids, so I will go weeks in between runs. Currently sitting at about 2.2k score.

I say all this to establish my ‘bonafides’ because I feel like the argument for “cap of 18” is to somehow ‘pacify’ players that raid/M+ and that feels like absolute nonsense to me.

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Twenty Years and Player Housing

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Just found this in my drafts. I forgot to finish it haha.

So player housing huh? Did anyone have that on their bingo card? Honestly no I wasn’t expecting it. I figured they’d have to have an announcement of something for the 20th anniversary but I pegged my expectations a lot lower, I was thinking a new allied race. I remember reading an interview with Ion I think and he said player housing would take so much dev time, that it would only be something they’d do if they were effectively ‘sunsetting’ the game. Like you can have player housing, or you can have new raids/dungeons. I mean that was the joke when garrisons happened. They actually put a gravestone in the garrison of ‘Ray D Tear’ or something like that.

Part of me is worried. I mean are subscription numbers dwindling so much they need to pull out the ‘big guns’ like this? On the other hand content pace seems to be increasingly massively (I can’t keep up!) so it’s not like they are slowing down on patches. I don’t get the vibe of a game sliding into retirement. Maybe it was simply that they wanted something super big to celebrate 20 years and it doesn’t get any bigger than player housing!

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Lego: Horizon Adventures

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So I picked up Lego Horizon Adventures yesterday because of course I did – it is Lego + Horizon!

I love the Horizon games. I have a bit more of a “love hate” feeling with the Lego games, but I always get drawn in because Lego. I think I always think I will like the game more than I actually do. I have a very fond memory of playing the first Lego Marvel Superheroes game. I still miss Marvel Heroes because there is just something soothing? I don’t know if that’s the word but I like running around places like Avengers Tower, or the X-Mansion. For Star Wars I like that I can be Hera or Sabine from Rebels because I don’t know, I feel closer to the media I love that way? It’s hard to explain.

Anyway I probably didn’t need this preamble ^^ but I just wanted to explain how I was both looking forward to the game but also expecting to be disappointed. All Lego games I have before I have dipped in and out of over long periods of time because I just feel so meh after the initial “shiny new thing” has worn off.

So what about Lego Horizon Adventures?

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Can you have a writing ‘bucket list’?

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So this months WriYe blog topic is – What’s on your writing bucket list? Which one is the most achievable?

I think that’s an interesting question so first let’s define ‘bucket list’. A quick google kicks back:

“a number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime.”

Now I think there are two keywords there ‘have’ or ‘accomplish’ – this isn’t pie in the sky dreaming. It’s not thinking “man I would super love to write the screenplay for the movie and have it gross a billion dollars” (to be honest I don’t think I would actually like that, but it was the most over the top thing I could think of as an example). It’s still talking about ‘hope’ but it’s more of a realistic dream, akin to a ‘to do list’.

So what is my ‘realistic’ dream?

Well obviously making a viable career as a storyteller. I’m not taking big bucks, just enough to pay my bills. That’s all I really want. Is this achievable? – That’s the rub because there’s two conflicting parts to it. 1) I control because it’s about producing a product, 2) I don’t control because it’s whether anyone likes or buys it. I can do my best to produce a quality product, I can do everything within my power marketing-wise etc. and it could just not work out. There is no guaranteed ‘win’ button when it comes to a creative career.

How about achievable then?

Basically this is everything to do with hard work and personal persistence, and nothing to do with anything external. I never wrote a list but I am trying to imagine what writers might put on it, and things like “write a novel” or “write a million words” or “write a story that cracks triple digits” or “write a novel in a month” etc. those all seem like challenges or milestones – and I have already done them.

I think the big challenge I have left is basically “write a complete series”. I have a lot of first drafts littering the place. I have written various drafts of book two’s (I even wrote some of a book three once). I have a lot of plans and notes and outlines etc. but I have never written a complete series. This is definitely my big goal moving forward.

What else?

  • I think I might have written a holiday fanfic story but I want to write an actual novella/novel. I have some notes on it but I’ve just never fleshed it out and written it.
  • Last year I started writing a serial and I would like to finish and develop that further, right now it doesn’t feel like I can tick ‘serial’ off the list because there’s still a lot of work to be done.
  • I kinda want to write an ‘archaeological adventure’ story because I absolutely love the genre (think Nathan Drake of Uncharted or National Treasure type thing) but I have to be honest the ‘research’ requirement terrifies me. I can just imagine me getting something wrong, or using a bit too much artistic licence and getting roasted. Still I do love the genre and it’s nothing like anything I have done before, so it deserves a spot on the list.

There’s probably a LOT more stuff. Honestly I don’t imagine I will ever stop writing so hopefully I’ll have years to write dozens of stories. Anyway I’m going to leave it there for now, before I get too carried away with imagining all those potential fictional universes (remember I need to finish my current series first).