Search Results for: the division

First there was maintenance 3 times in a row (nothing worse than finally getting some free time to have a solid sesh only to find servers are down), and now there’s a skills bug which renders the game completely unplayable at higher levels (as your skills work for a few seconds then they literally vanish!).

The bug only just started for me last night, but people have had the bug for the past 3 days. I’d imagine those guys are even more frustrated than I am!

I hate to be nervous… but it’s starting to look like the same old Massive, at it again. Why I thought the company would be any different this year is beyond me… I ‘hoped’ I suppose?!

1.4 update installed.

I’ve not played The Division for months. The times I did log in to play I just found it boring (mainly because nothing had changed). I’ve been waiting for the next update, and yesterday I downloaded it and gave it a go. I immediately noticed a supply drop in the open world (outside of the dark zone), that was pretty fun. I then noticed that I could choose different difficulty tiers for the open world (higher tier = better loot). Rad!

Of-course everyone was online, game updates tend to bring the crowds back. I joined a crew and hit the Dark Zone and yup, they really have changed a LOT. The game doesn’t feel any harder, or easier initially, but you instantly realise that NPC’s are dropping more loot (good loot too), and you get caches for levelling up and completing assignments. There’s just so much more loot everywhere! Then you realise your armour has dropped, and you can’t do the Lone Star ammo trick, and that they’ve released new gear which will force you to work on your character, which was expected to be honest, but within 2 extractions I was already getting better gear than what I was wearing, so I’m thinking that min/macing a new character won’t be so bad.

Having said all that I’m still feeling like I’m quite done with The Division. I do have the Season Pass though and will most likely come back to play the next DLC, Survival (trailer below).

Ved and I were just starting to ween off The Division. I’ve been lost in this game over the past few months (understatement!), but the developers have released an update for the end gamers, “Clear Sky” an Incursion (incursions are extra challenging missions designed for teams) and Ved and I decided to have an old school LAN Party (minus the stinky socks) to see if we could beat it.

Too right we beat Clear Sky first go, which had our team pretty damn chuffed!

I’m loving the hell out of Dragon’s Dogma 2. I’m 107+hrs in now and it’s my game of the year so far for sure. Such a great time for gamers, there are SO many awesome games to play and many more to come too.

I thought I’d try to put together a list of my fave games of all time.

My top 10 games of my time (in no particular order):
– Fallout 4
– Black Desert Online
– The Division
– Destiny 2
– Skyrim
– Warframe
– Gran Turismo 5
– The Last Of Us
– Monster Hunter: World
– Elden Ring

Honorable mentions:
– Prey
– The Surge
– Remnant: From the Ashes
– Remnant 2
– The Witcher 3
– Horizon Zero Dawn
– Nioh
– Quake I
– Quake II
– Marathon

And if I was stranded on an island, well… if I could only play the one game for the rest of my life it would have to be Skyrim.

Controller from my first console, the Atari 2600. Woodgrain baby, woodgrain!

I watched a fair few ‘gaming addiction’ related documentaries on Youtube last year. There are a couple of really good ones BTW, especially loved this one by SBS Dateline where young Korean boys are sent off to rehab to cure their addiction.

How much gaming is too much? The answer is debatable, but I know 15-20hrs a day playing games is indisputably too much, and yet when I was doing it I was quite proud of myself for being more hardcore than even the most hardcore of hardcore gamers out there. “Thumbs of steel!”, these were just the kind of comments I was fishing for when I bragged about breaking landmark levels and hours played.

Speaking of hours wasted (Oh that’s harsh… geez I’m quick to go 180 aren’t I?!), finishing the main storyline and a handful of side quests on a good role playing game (RPG) averages around 30hrs. I’m much more keen on end-game though where the ceiling on upgrading gear and character development are lifted and the carrot dangles forever.

I’ve spent 1,953hrs on The Division (most of these hours were spent in group play with mic active), 1,405hrs on Warframe (mostly keyboard chat), 692hrs combined in Destiny 1 & 2 (50/50 mic play and solo no comms) and 2,308hrs so far on Black Desert Online (BDO), a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game which I play mostly alone (not the point of MMO’s but hey, go your own way?!). Worth noting; there are a lot of ‘away from keyboard’ (AFK) activities in BDO (I fish!) so the number is inflated.

Now that I’ve got the bragging out of the way I realise that those massive numbers aren’t anything to brag about. Much like how I’m not advocating for weed so much at the moment, where I was once so proud to push weed into people’s faces I now realise how much of a passive aggressive dick I’d been.

Whenever the experts suggest that 2hrs gaming a day is more than enough I’d snicker, no fucking way could I keep up with the boys if I was only gaming 2hrs a day. But wow, seriously, without the bong I now find myself struggling to spend 2hrs of quality gaming time in any game. It now absolutely boggles my mind that the boys can play games until 3am nearly every work night whilst their wives and kids are asleep. I’ve been missing the boys, missing my daily login rewards on BDO… I’m not even doing AFK fishing FFS.

For me, bonging and gaming every waking hour, (and every non-waking hour as I often had epic long microsleeps whilst gaming) caused extreme sleep depravation, which caused poor health both inside and out to the point I didn’t want to see people, or for them to see me (I have an unhealthy soft spot for social isolation/being a hermit) which led me to depression and eventually suicidal thoughts.

In relation to problems; people say “sleep on it” but I’m more of a “I’ll sleep when I’m dead!” kinda guy, but the unfortunate truth is the shorter your sleep the shorter your life. Sitting for tens of hours straight (well, slouched on a couch) took a toll on my body. I forgot to care for the important things that I wasn’t doing, things that really matter like moving and getting a good nights sleep!

TL;DR, Staying awake gaming was my problem. 2hrs gaming at most per day, with regular sleep at the same time every night, for the same amount of hours every day has been my solution.

Also on Medium.

For reals.

Haha, it’s not what you think. It’s actually a lot more sombre, sadly.

Early on into my Warframe journey (it’s a free game and it’s taking over, download it here) I met a girl. Always refreshing in a shooter but over time I’ve realised Warframe’s community is 50% female/gay guys just as much into customising their frames to look good as well as kill efficiently!

Anyways, the game is super social. And just like The Division, sooner or later you end up talking a lot more about life than the game itself. Turns out this girl I’ve met lives in Ukraine and earns $120/month. In this game you can either grind for gear, or you can fork out cash for it. She’d been after this frame for months, farming hard, and one of the really nice things about this game is that when you’re in the shop, you see a little gift box icon which allows you to essentially buy anything for anyone in the game.

I gifted her Volt Prime, which costs 100 Platinum (in-game currency) which equates to about $8. Nothing for me, but something to her so that’s cool.

She’s since told me more about where she lives. She’s a developer looking to get out. The view out from her window is horrible, yes she can see those stacks and she tells me they glow at night.

Always late to the party; I’ve finally given Destiny a go (got banned off Facebook for a week for posting this Rosamina vid, so I had plenty of time!). I’ve heard a LOT about Destiny, my cousin Nicholas raved on about it a while back and it’s made by Bungie too, the guys who made the 1994 hit ‘Marathon’, which I absolutely loved and used to run on my Mac (playing lan pre-internet with uni mates).

I first tried the demo on PS4 and I liked it enough to then just buy the full game. My initial impression of the game was that the graphics weren’t so great. I looked for a PC version to see if I could run it in ultra (that ultra life!), but nooooo, this game is only available on console. Shame! That said, the game FELT good. Gameplay feels like the new Doom, fast and glossy (but not as glossy as Doom on the PC in ultra!), and the clean visual interface looks and feels like a well polished EA game (think Battlefront).

You’ve got to get to the end-game (level 40) in order to unlock beast gear, and I found myself grinding pretty damn hard, much like I would do in The Division. IE: Yes, Destiny is an RPG, not as complex or detailed as The Division (it’s so much friendlier!), but those hook elements are still there, enough for me to WANT to grind to level 40, which I have done so solo (except for joining a few randoms for a couple of strikes) in 3 days of pretty intense play (!).

The next step is reaching light level 400, which is a bastard to do, but knowing me… I’ll get there.

It looks like there are still a LOT of players in the Destiny community. Now that I’m at level 40 end game, and close to 400 light (I’m on 394!) I’ll be sure to get into the more hardcore raid missions (some which can take days to complete apparently!), as well as multiplayer modes.

My love for Bungie has been rekindled. It’s The Division, but in space! Destiny 2 comes out later this year apparently. I’m glad I’ve managed to get my head around Destiny 1 first and I’ll 100% be getting into Destiny 2 as soon as it comes out.