The Game Situation
Last month I re-subbed to WoW Classic. I reached level 50ish and called it quits again. The grind is brutal, basically. Even though I’m playing a mage!
When I first started playing Classic at launch, I was thinking – these kids today aren’t going to make it! They don’t have the patience!
I just assumed I would be able to do this without much problem. I was too overconfident.
Blizzard is also a complication. I’m not such a fan these days. I’m not so thrilled to give them $15/month, for the main game. Classic is just a perk. I’m not actually using what I’m paying for. Feels weird man.
I tried Bethesda’s Doom. It doesn’t have the feel of the original, to me. There were no swarms of enemies in the original Doom.
If you faced 2 enemies at once in the original Doom, you needed to be careful. If you faced 3+ at once, that was a big battle. There was also more dreadfulness and suspense, because each enemy was more deadly.
Or at least, that’s the way I remember it.
I’ve also been playing Dragon’s Lair, the classic arcade game on Steam. I was doing well until I ran into a bugged room that has been bugged for 2 years, apparently, and another sequence that appears bugged because it isn’t showing the direction hints. So I have no idea what to do.
So I’m searching for a game, as usual. I don’t know what to play. The big Baldur’s Gate 3 gameplay reveal was earlier this week.
It was OK. It didn’t blow me away. It looked a lot like NWN2 to me. Other people say it is more like DOS3, because Larian studios is the developer.
U.S. Stock Market
The U.S. Stock Market crashed 10% this week. The consensus is that the crashing is far from over. There are a bewildering array of problems caused by the spread of the coronavirus.
For example .. no, I’m not even going to get started.
I sold 50% of my portfolio on the bounce first thing Monday morning. So I’m doing fine! This afternoon I nibbled back at Netflix (NFLX)and Akamai (AKAM).
I’ve been watching Akamai for a while. They had a great earnings report. In a world of major teleconferencing rollout, Akamai should benefit, as well as from increased home internet usage.
Netflix seems like a no-brainer, but of course it was sold off severely along with all overpriced tech stocks. How can Netflix not do very well in a world where everyone is staying home, schools are being shut down, nothing to do etc.?
The thing is, all of these tech stocks are bundled up into ETFs, such as total market ETFs, S&P ETFs, etc.. And the biggest tech companies are a large percent of the market now, like 20%?
So, as always but more than ever before, the broad market is much more important than an individual stock.
I also like Tencent (TCEHY), but that was a stock I took profits in on Monday. I had way too much of the stock. So I plan to start rebuilding my position at some point.
I also sold NVidia on Monday, because of large profits I wanted to turn into cash. Today an analyst said NVidia should do well regardless of the virus because of cloud and gaming. People jumped in today to run up NVidia!
Well, the cloud needs businesses doing well to need more cloud capacity. If businesses start sending people home, hunkering down worried about financial conditions, etc. the cloud is going to get hurt.
The call on Nvidia today, while notable, or else I wouldn’t note it, seems pretty suspect to me. It caused a bunch of chip stocks to do well today. Really? I think Americans just love chips. I’ll get back into NVidia at some point, but I’ll be waiting a bit on the chip stocks.
The virus is going to get far, far worse. I can see the market dropping another 10% or 20%. I can also see Trump making more of an effort to fix the stock market than fix the completely incompetent and failed response by the American government to the arrival of the virus.
So. I sold my portfolio down to like 75% cash at about 3% from the top, and I started nibbling a bit at the down 10% mark today, on companies that the virus shouldn’t hurt so much.
Of course, if I’m dead from virus it won’t matter. I’ve already been sick for the last month from something.
Personal Project
I’ve been working hard in the last 2 months on my game’s first dungeon. (Game art shown above.) The beta playtesting version of The Cursed Tombs is online here.
(Please note that if you play from this link, and you don’t have a saved code, you will do very poorly as a default non-statted character.)
The title of the dungeon is pretty generic, but it’s just the first entry level dungeon? I learned a lot while making this dungeon. Developed far more tricks and techniques than from any other effort previously.
So that’s good. Now I just need to get healthy so I can get back to working at full strength.
Feb. Updates:
Illustrated the first Owl River dungeon, approx. 70 pieces of art in 1 month despite having a virus and working full time.
Added a fourth fight and two more rooms.
Some playtesting, still needs Spanish translation.
Redesigned character panels to be more like a familiar classic character sheet.
Added another gear slot “Jewelry” slot, to go with the previous “Accessory” slot. Jewelry is now a separate and equal category to Accessory, which includes misc. trinkets, tomes, magical belt buckles, whatever.
Recruited a new dungeon developer, who is working on a second dungeon.
Planning and plotting second chapter of main storyline.
January 2020: Updates/Fixes
A3: More bug fixes, added Seelie Court rep. Archmistress Glumskayah now has wings? Not sure about the wing thing. I wanted to make her more devilish and less human, basically. I have a big problem with all of my non-human NPC’s managing to look lamely human. More dialog and options. Fixed removal of Learaiche’s wand.
A4: A few minor bug fixes, dialog cuts and improvements, added a skip option for theatre talking.
A5: Several bug fixes, broken conversation lines. Preloads.
A6: more bugs fixed, extended ending, new longest, most complicated module by far. Preloads.
D1: First dungeon is in development.
Tarot Training– added preloads for tarot cards
French Club – fixed more bugs, broken dialogue, Spanish language
Connor library – edited, translated.
Help – another edit through the dialogs to update for diplomacy changes
Library – fixed map, reduced high rate of special encounters prior in place for testing
The stock market in general is struggling right now, which means a good time to buy might be coming. Even the high-flying Electronic Arts has been “basing” in recent weeks with
Kitty Kitty Boom Boom 