I got to catch up with Tazzly and Lacivious again last week (both members of Australia Clan in Diablo Immortal). Before packing her bags to catch a plane to Sydney Laci asked if I’d be interested in shooting her. Of-course I said yes!
It was a private shoot, so I can’t share the images, but it was a lot of fun! She’s the oldest I’ve shot to date, and I think she looks great!
A reddit comment of mine was read out in this video.
And a recent comment I made on the Diablo Immortal subreddit:
Imagine a game where the more you grind the more you get penalised. Oh wait! That’s Diablo Immortal!
IMHO Diablo Immortal was always intended to be a casual game, but many players I’ve met since launch, both in my clan and on the server have pretty much no-lifed this game, some players putting in 10+ hours a day or even more.
It’s been clear from the very start that when you go past server paragon level your XP gains get penalised. This alone suggests that the intent is to have players fall behind the server paragon level, and each day play catch up to get to server paragon level, then log off and rinse and repeat the next day. Skip a day or 2 because of real life? No worries, your XP gets boosted so you can easily catch back up to server paragon level.
A lot of other MMO’s go from being hardcore to more casual friendly over time. No doubt the more hardcore gamers can clearly see the amazing potential Diablo Immortal has as being their main game, but the hardcore reality is that Diablo Immortal is meant to be a casual game and I doubt that will ever change.
Rogue, my main character (currently level 73).
Necromancer, my alt.
Been playing Diablo IV a LOT. The game has a pretty aggressive scaling system where each time you level up and get more powerful, the monsters do too (this takes away the power fantasy of gearing up to overpower your enemies). A LOT of people have been talking about it, mostly negative feedback too. I was one of the people against it earlier, but I was wrong.
I’m at level 73 now, and I’ve spent the time to find the right pieces with the right stats, then added the right affixes to upgrade them all into Legendaries (such a good system!), and I have to say, where I struggled in Tier 4 Helltides and solo dungeon runs before (had to use potions) I now melt everything and never once have to use a potion to heal.
I get that in a few more levels time I’ll have to probably get rid of my current min-maxed gear and find upgrades, but that’s the loop, right?! You sometimes feel too weak, but then you get to a stage where you feel like it’s challenging but fun, then you get to a stage where you feel like a God. Rinse and repeat.
Maybe the scaling will be an issue as I progress more levels (people at 80+ seem to think so), but the more I play the game the more I love it. Still feels very much like a solo game, but the Helltide events are awesome fun. I hate countdown mechanics in most games, but farming enough cinders to open 2 mystery chests and 2 normal chests as the timer runs down is addicting. A true hour of power. Love the world bosses too.
Today I stepped down as leader of Australia Clan. I’ve been playing a lot of Diablo IV and trying to keep up with Diablo Immortal, but I’ve never been able to play more than one game at the same time. I figure I might still be able to play Diablo Immortal as a casual, especially if I step down from a leadership role.
Here’s the announcement I shared with the clan:
Hi all! Just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve decided to step down as co-lead of Australia Clan.
Initialy I was hesitant to step up to the role, but thankfully Tazzly was willing to co-lead with me. I couldn’t have done it without him. Special thanks to our officers Lunate, Sausage and DarkSader too for the hard work, support and voice of reason when I needed it.
Much thanks to all of you. Especially those who have been with us from the start, and stayed with us when there was a change in leadership. I love you guys!
It’s been a wild ride! I’m very much looking forward to enjoying Diablo Immortal as an Australia Clan member without the added responsibilities of running a clan.
Much gratitude X.
Awesome catchups with Nanami and Alex. Check out Alex’s quirky Nissan Figaro! Manual conversion and it’s turbocharged too!
Rex Begonia.
Queen of Hearts (Homalomena ‘Maggie’).
Alex from More Plants (my local plant store) is back from her 3 week trip overseas so I thought I’d drop by yesterday to say hello, and of-course, to buy some plants!
I ended up buying 2 plants I never thought I’d ever buy, and know very little about, but hey the cabinet is full of aroids and Mia is very much leaving all the plants outside of the cabinet alone, so I figured that A) I can add more plants to the lounge room where I spend most of my time and B) I can start looking into keeping plants other than aroids!
Mummy!
Just my initial thoughts on Diablo 4 (D4), specifically in comparison to Diablo Immortal (DI).
1. Diablo Immortal feels a lot faster (both movement and combat). I’m sure my build in D4 will get faster in the end game when I unlock more movement abilities, but straight off the bat, DI is faster (both movement and combat). DI is also more ‘zoomed in’ (field of view) than D4 which also makes it feel faster.
2. DI is a lot easier than D4. DI is just so much more casual. You can literally just stand there and kill mobs. D4 involves a lot more work, placement and timing, all in all it’s just more involved. D4 unfortunatly makes it so enemies scale to your level, so even if you go back to a starting area, those enemies scale to your level. I’m not sure this is a good thing as you never quite feel radically more powerful despite getting better gear and levelling up.
3. The D4 story is dark, real dark! Great character development so far (your character speaks too and appears in all cut scenes which is awesome). I’m only at the start of Act II, but I’ve already found that the dungeons all look and feel a bit sameish (whereas DI’s dungeons all look and play so different to each other).
4. The skill tree in D4 is HUGE. The game allows for so much build diversity it’s actually insane and no 2 players would ever have the exact same build in the game. Anyone who loves build crafting and min-maxing will love this system (that’s me!).
5. DI feels like an MMO, D4 does not. In-game chat just doesn’t work or feel the same and right now the clan system is a skeleton in D4 (no benefits to joining a clan at all), and PVP is not a mode, but instead just 2 areas on the map (no leaderboards, nothing).
SO far, so good. I wouldn’t say I’m hooked just yet, but I’ll at the very least finish off the main story quest before putting it down.
PS: Cross posted this to reddit and it’s gotten pretty good upvotes and engagement: https://www.reddit.com/r/DiabloImmortal/comments/13ysmom/my_initial_thoughts_on_diablo_4_vs_diablo_immortal
5 month update.
The Anthurium Dorayaki X that high school friend Fifi gave to me as a little baby late March has grown 3 new leaves and the latest leaf is absolutely MASSIVE!
5 months into the plant hobby and I’ve yet to kill a plant (this makes me happy!). I’m really unhappy with how the cabinet is looking though. It’s lost the jungle vibe as I’ve had to move my Alocasia Watsoniana, Longiloba and Frydek out as they’ve outgrew the cabinet.
The Queen Anthurium was my dream plant. I have 2 of them, one which I got as a baby and another which I bought with one large beaten up leaf. Both have grown new leaves but none of the new leaves are perfect. The large one has grown what would have been a much bigger new leaf, but for some reason the whole bottom half of the leaf is completely missing!
I’m aware that you’re not meant to touch new Queen Anthurium leaves as this can cause marks and imperfections when the leaf matures. I swear that I didn’t touch the new leaves at all, but the damage seems to have been done as the leaves were unfurling. Super upsetting and frustrating.
The cabinet was looking really empty so I moved a couple of cuttings into the cabinet; a Monstera Peru and Albo (which an old high school friend so generously gifted me!). Both had shown no new growth at all since I got them (about 2 months ago) but just a few weeks in the cabinet and amazingly the Peru is about to push out 2 new leaves and the Albo has a new leaf unfurling! I put it down to the cabinet having higher humidity and also warmer temperature (we’re heading into winter in Sydney Australia).
I also bought 3 more babies for the top shelf; a Philodendron El Choco Red, Gloriosum and a Thai Constellation. They’re still in moss at the moment but I’ll transfer them to leca (like all my other plants) when the roots develop a little more.
Whilst I’m upset that I’ve lost the jungle vibe of having huge leaves in the cabinet, it’s not all bad! The plants are all getting more light now (especially the plants at the bottom which were living in a lot of shade under the huge leaves of the Longiloba and Wastoniana), there’s more air flow in the cabinet and the plants that I moved out seem to be doing just fine outside of the cabinet (no new growth but no negative signs despite it much lower humidity and much colder temps).
Sunrise to sunset hangs with Gina. Been a while since we’ve shot, but we thought… why not!
Urgh…
I used to get really mad about people stealing my work, so much so that I’d do everything in my power to take them down, but the stress of fighting these trolls takes a toll, and these days I make the conscious choice to try my best to ignore and accept that I just can’t win.
I’ve gone as far as convincing myself that it’s a compliment, that I must be doing something right in order for people to plagiarise my work.
In the end I did report this account, only to have Instagram send me a message to say that they get too many reports on the platform, and unfortunately because of a lack of staff they cannot review my report…
/rant.