Over the past few days I have re-visited a fairly old game, FTL: Faster Than Light. First released in 2012, FTL: Faster Than Light is a top-down real-time strategy ‘roguelike‘ game developed by indie developer Subset Games. I first played FTL back in 2012 and remember it being an excellent game, since then the game has been developed further to include new ships, more stats, an achievement system and an ‘advanced’ play mode which includes new features such as mind control and hacking among other things.

The idea of FTL is simply to use your ship’s FTL drive to jump between nodes, deal with random encounters and fight off enemy ships. If you’re lucky you will gain ship resources, weapons, even additional crew members to improve your chances of reaching the exit of the ‘sector’ before the enemy rebel fleet catch you. Once your ship reaches sector 8, your ship will need to be fully equipped and upgraded because you will engage the rebel mother ship which will end the game in victory or defeat.

FTL: Faster Than Light is actually a pretty hard game, I have yet to beat it on the ‘normal’ difficulty setting, although as you can see from the stats above, I have been able to beat it on the easy ‘advanced’ setting a few times. Because I have so far failed to complete it on ‘normal’ however, I will not add it to my list of completed games until I do.

So far, for the grand total of £1.74 (Steam sale), FTL has given me over 27 hours of game play, which would have been much more if I didn’t already know the game from 8+ years ago. It really goes to show that you don’t need to spend much money to game, the best part is you don’t need a gaming rig or even an internet connection to play FTL (once downloaded). If your computer is capable of letting you read this blog post, it’s capable of running FTL.

Season 3 of Snooker Nation between my good friend Jason and I has ended with me as the winner. One small consolation for Jason is that he wins the highest break prize, and has shown me up for scoring far fewer centuries. It’s quite remarkable how I was able to win 6 matches in a row after Jason himself had won 6 matches in a row and had a significant lead. Unfortunately we didn’t make it until the last match of the season and as such agreed to have a break from playing and focus on our weekly conversation which we used to wrap up our 2020 among other things. Jason has agreed to another 6 months of Snooker Nation which we will start in the new year.

04/12/2020 – Match 110

Thankfully my win streak continues to grow having won 6 frames to 2 in a best of 11. There were no century breaks which is always a shame, especially as I had numerous opportunities to score one. The main thing however is that I am now 1 match away from equalizing and am now even on frames won.

11/12/2020 – Match 111

Yet another victory, this time winning 6 frames to 5 in a best of 11. This is one match Jason will want to forget because at one stage Jason was ahead 5 frames to 4 and only needed to pot the blue ball to win the match and end my win streak. Jason potted the blue but also potted the white, giving me 5 points which enabled me to pot the blue, pink and black to win the frame by 1 point. The only consolation for Jason is that he scored the only century of 138 in the 8th frame, further increasing his lead on centuries scored.

18/12/2020 – Match 112

Another victory for me which will conclude season 3 of Snooker Nation. I won 6 frames to 4 in a best of 11 and while there is 1 more week of the season, even if Jason beat me 6-0 I would still win the season by 1 frame. There were 4 century breaks, I had 120 in the 1st frame and 115 in the 5th frame while Jason scored 103 in the 2nd and 102 in the 4th frame. I am proud to have won the season, especially as Jason is a worthy opponent, but what I am most proud of is that we played 23 matches consisting of 203 frames and 52 centuries.

Season 3 (July – December 2020) statistics

Seasons 1 – 3 (June 2019 – December 2020) lifetime statistics

Phase 6 for Classic World of Warcraft has arrived and with it a new raid, Naxxramas. This will be the final phase before the next chapter in World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade. I have enjoyed playing Classic WoW consistently from the beginning, I even stayed up late to create 2 characters before the official launch back in August 2019. Since then I have been pleased to document my adventures on my blog and, to some extent, on youtube.

But it’s not over yet. My guild mates and I will still want to conquer phase 6 and then, well, who can tell. The first thing I need to do is completely re examine my wish list. I haven’t been able to get the two trinkets remaining on my October update list, they are no longer the best ones for me, but because my current trinkets are quite weak, I will keep them on the list as desireable items. It’s worth noting that Bonescythe Waistguard is not the best belt for a Rogue, but, regardless, I would still like to use full Bonescythe Armour set if possible and have been very lucky in obtaining 4 pieces already.

Desireable
Drake Fang Talisman
Jom Gabbar

Best
Bonescythe Helmet
Bonescythe Pauldrons
Shroud of Dominion
Bonescythe Breastplate
Bonescythe Bracers
Bonescythe Legplates
Bonescythe Gauntlets
Bonescythe Waistguard
Bonescythe Sabatons
Bonescythe Ring
Band of Unnatural Forces
Slayer’s Crest
Kiss of the Spider
Gressil, Dawn of Ruin
The Hungering Cold
Nerubian Slavemaker

My guild mates and I have already eliminated 11 out of 15 bosses in Naxxramas, however, the final two bosses, Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad are only made available when the other 13 bosses have been eliminated in the same weekly lockout. With a lot luck I hope we will be attempting these bosses soon, possibly even on Monday.

Having for the most part been another lazy month, my ‘things to do’ list hasn’t seen much progress. However, I have seen that Naxxramas grants Argent Dawn reputation and I have completed a few new quests which also gave a reputation boost, making it even easier to get exhaulted with Argent Dawn.

Gain exhaulted with Argent Dawn
Gain exhaulted with Darnassus
Gain exhaulted with Gnomeregan Exiles
Gain exhaulted with Stormwind
Obtain Darkmantle Cap
Obtain Darkmantle Tunic
Obtain Manual of Eviscerate IX

In the coming weeks I intend to be more active and will attend at least 2 raids a week rather than just 1. I am however still interested in playing a variety of different games as well as World of Warcraft, as such 100% commitment will be difficult.

Since writing my EVE Online Resurgence post, one activity I have been doing since I started to play EVE Online again is wormhole exploration. This is where I leave the relative safety of high security space and enter unknown regions using wormholes in search or relic or data sites. Once I find these sites I hack into containers which contain somewhat valuable items. To achieve this I use an Astero as pictured below.

The Astero is pretty much designed for wormhole exploration with bonuses to core scanner strength (used to scan systems for anomalies) and relic and data analyzer strength (used to hack into relic and data site containers). The Astero is also able to equip a covert ops cloaking device (which allow the Astero to remain cloaked while in warp) and is generally a fast and nippy ship, which, if used properly, reduces the risks involved in wormhole exploration.

In my first exploration I found 3 lucrative relic sites in wormhole space and bagged around 56.2 million ISK (Interstellar Kredits) in roughly 75 minutes. While this isn’t a huge sum of in-game currency, I think it’s a pretty good haul for 75 minutes of play. I made the below video to show off my adventure.

While you can be successful and obtain a lot of wealth with wormhole exploration, it is by no means a guaranteed source of income. It’s entirely possible to spend hours exploring wormhole space and find very little of value. Other activities, such as completing missions or mining ore in high security space, may only give low rewards, but it is consistent.

I find exploration exciting and hope to do much more of it. There are other, low cost ships which are both Alpha and new pilot friendly and can achieve the same results as an Astero. If any reader is interested in this or are interested in how I fit my Astero and how I use it for wormhole exploration, please leave a comment or contact me.

Recently I have started to play EVE Online again. Originally when I started this blog it was my intention for it to heavily feature EVE Online as at the time it was my favourite game which I played daily, even many of the images initially used to create my blog were screenshots taken within the game. Shortly after the creation of my blog however, I got bored of EVE Online and decided to play other games. Because of this, I only made a few EVE Online posts and had to quickly rethink my approach to blogging.

I am not sure what I want to achieve this time around, but so far I have found it helpful to completely liquidate, consolidate and organize my EVE Online assets to a single account and 3 characters. After consolidation I had around 45bn ISK (Interstallar Kredits) of which I spent around 15bn on some capital ship BPO’s (Blueprint Originals) and I am in the process of researching material and time efficiency for them, which will ultimately allow me to construct capital ships faster for less raw materials. This project will take some months to complete and there are still many other Blueprints which I do not have for all the different types of capital ships.

While thinking about what I want to do, I have been completing quite a few level 4 security missions with a Dominix which has a cool ‘sniper’ sentry drone fitting allowing me to destroy enemy ships at long distances. I may share this Dominix fitting on my blog, perhaps accompanied with a YouTube video. My most popular blog post to date is Alpha EVE Online: Vexor, written back in April 2019, where I share a Vexor ship fitting which I find useful.

Whatever I end up doing, I do not want to let myself get too involved with EVE Online and keep everything to a single account and well organized. I also want to try and avoid spending too much time playing a single game, I have tried to reduce this habbit in recent years and am happier for it.

If you play EVE Online, I am interested in knowing about what you do and why, feel free to leave a comment or contact me.

It has been a much better month of Snooker Nation for me, winning 3 out of 4 matches and in doing so I have kept myself in the race for the title. With a maximum of 4 more matches remaining of the season, it has become apparent that if a lose 1 more match my only option will be to try and win by number of frames won, which isn’t so bad because it is the one statistic where I am not behind.

06/11/2020 – Match 106

Yet another win for Jason, winning 6 frames to 4 in a best of 11. Jason played exceptionally well and scored 4 century breaks. 135 in the 3rd frame, 129 in the 4th, 124 in the 5th and 101 in the 10th frame. I didn’t play too badly and secured a century of my own of 107 in the 7th frame. I think I just got very unlucky and Jason was able to capitalize on my misfortune.

13/11/2020 – Match 107

Jason’s 6 match win streak has finally come to an end with me winning 6 frames to 4 in a best of 11. With only a potential of 6 more matches of our 3rd 6 month Snooker Nation season, I can’t afford to lose much more. Jason secured the only century break of 133 in the 8th frame, which is a shame because I should have done better to get centuries of my own. Although I won, I am not satisfied with my performance and will need to do better in the weeks ahead.

20/11/2020 – Match 108

I have started a small win streak of my own by winning this match 6 frames to 1 in a best of 11. There were 3 century breaks, 139 in the 3rd frame and 120 in the 5th frame belong to me while Jason scored 138 in the 6th frame and in so doing narrowly escaped a white wash. It feels good to start catching up not only on matches won but also frames won and centuries.

27/11/2020 – Match 109

Another good week of Snooker Nation, winning 6 frames to 2 in a best of 11 and increasing my win streak to 3. As with last week there were 3 century breaks, a massive 143 belonging to Jason in the 2nd frame while I got 141 in the 5th frame (increasing my season highest break) and 127 in the 7th frame.

Season 3 (July – December 2020) statistics

I wasn’t going to write a Classic WoW update this month, I have achieved so little since my last update, yesterday however marked a real highlight for my Classic WoW journey and is too good not to mention.

After over a year of continuos raiding, my guild mates and I finally obtained Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker for our main tank, Eremir. This iconic legendary item involves obtaining Bindings of the Windseeker (right half) from Garr in Molten Core which we obtained back in May, I recorded the guild’s reaction below.

Fast forward a little more than 6 months and around 24 more clearances of Molten Core, the Bindings of the Windseeker (left half) finally dropped from Baron Geddon yesterday. I was able to once again capture the guild’s reaction which was an amazing moment for everyone. You can also see in an act of superstition and desperation, I jumped in the lava as Baron Geddon was slain to try and increase the liklihood the bindings would drop. Other desperate acts have included having someone other than the raid leader form the raid group and on one occasion a guild member engaged Baron Geddon without any items equipped.

The left half of the binding dropping was extra special because we knew that with the right half we aquired back in May, our main tank, Eremir, would be able to aquire our guild’s first Thunderfury which is exactly what we did when we completed the raid. Defeating Prince Thunderaan, the last part of the quest string to get Thunderfury, was a simple afair and didn’t need as many of us to attend, but it was nice that the guild could share the moment.

Other than this guild achievement, I have quite literally nothing to report other than I have, as always, been consistently been raiding Molten Core and Blackwing Lair with my guild. I have obtained no new items, have been unable to cross anything off of my ‘to-do’ list and I am still not attending The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj (AQ40) raids or any of the many optional raids my guild officers host during the week. Hopefully by this time next month I will have more individual progress to report.

On another note, this blog is really starting to pay off as I am able to read about what I was doing this time last year in Classic World of Warcraft. It seems that I had just reached level 50 with my rogue and I started to think about joining a guild.

As with most of the other raids in Classic WoW, it has taken me a long time to share my thoughts on the Ahn’Qiraj (known as AQ40) raid which was released back in July. Thankfully, Ahn’Qiraj is harder than any of the other raids in Classic WoW so far, it took my guild several weeks and multiple attempts to kill some of the tougher bosses, such as Viscidus and C’Thun. While it is harder, I still find that it is still disappointingly easy, with only Naxxramas left for Classic WoW, I really hope to have a challenge to finish my Classic WoW experience.

Here is a video I made of my guild and I clearing Temple of Ahn’Qiraj in September. My favourite video however is when we killed the final boss, C’Thun, in August, which I shared as part of my WoW: September Update post.

Also, as part of my WoW: September Update post, I featured a screenshot of the guild and I after killing C’Thun for the first time. It really was a momentous and great moment for everyone, and probably the best screenshot I have ever taken in my World of Warcraft ‘career’. Everyone was so happy to have been part of he guild’s first C’Thun kill, and because it was such a joy to have been there, I want to share the screenshot a second time.

There are a number of reasons why I haven’t enjoyed raiding Ahn’Qiraj as much as some of the other raids. Ahn’Qiraj can actually be kind of expensive, after you factor in the usual consumables, players need to bring with them multiple Greater Nature Protection Potions, Greater Shadow Protection Potions and Greater Arcane Protection Potions which altogether can add up to a fair bit of gold (the in-game currency). Inspire guild does what it can to help out and gives out free potions as much as possible, but there is a limited supply. Another reason is that it frustrates and even angers me when players show up and are not properly prepared. I end up having to hold my tongue and find myself bottling up negativity, which I could do without. Also, I actually don’t like most of the items available, most of it is pretty ugly, it’s foolish of me to look at it that way, but I can’t help being a casual care bear.

As part of taking a break from Classic WoW, I have avoided Ahn’Qiraj for a number of weeks now. I do intend on returning there to assist my guild where possible, but for now I am finding it beneficial to just attend 1 raid night per week, where as before I would have raided perhaps 4, possibly even 5 times a week, risking burning myself out and not enjoying the game.

When it comes to Snooker Nation, October 2020 is a month I want to forget having lost every match. With a win at the end of September, this puts Jason on a 5 match win streak and is now 4 matches ahead with a maximum of 8 more matches for the rest of the season. If I want to win our 3rd 6 month Snooker Nation season, I am going to have to start winning soon.

02/10/2020 – Match 102

Quite a convincing victory for Jason, winning 6 frames to 1 in a best of 11. I felt like I was pretty unlucky early on this match, this seemed to put me in a bad mindset and I made some terrible mistakes and choices. Jason played really well and is deserving of the victory, he even secured 3 centuries of 102 in the 3rd frame, 136 in the 5th and 137 in the 7th frame, bringing his total centuries this season to 18, while I remain on just 9 centuries scored in 13 matches and 107 frames.

16/10/2020 – Match 103

Another win for Jason, but thankfully much less convincing than last week, winning 6 frames to 5 in a best of 11. There were 3 century beaks, I scored 125 in the 3rd frame and 105 in the 6 frame, while Jason scored 100 in the 4th frame. At least I got 1 more century break this week, which could make all the difference.

23/10/2020 – Match 104

Jason’s win streak continues winning 6 frames to 4 in a best of 11. There were 4 centuries, I got 132 in the 1st frame and 109 in the 8th frame while Jason secured 121 in the 3rd frame and 132 in the 5 frame. We both played quite well but if I don’t find that extra edge I could end up losing our 3rd season of Snooker Nation long before it ends.

30/10/2020 – Match 105

Yet another victory for Jason, winning 6 frames to 5 in a best of 11. Jason also had the only century break of 110 in the 3rd frame. This makes the 5th match in a row that I have lost to Jason, putting me significantly behind. For this match we both actually played pretty bad, both missing some really straight forward shots and we were both pretty unlucky at times. Going into November I am going to have to take a deep breath and end this win streak which is getting out of hand.

Season 3 (July – December 2020) statistics

Ever since powering on my Playstation 2 for the first time in roughly 14 years, I have been playing Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. Released in 2001, Gran Turismo 3 was the flagship game for the Playstation 2 and was usually bought with the console as soon as it hit the shelves. I however bought Gran Turismo 3 much later when the game entered the platinum range. For readers who are unaware, many Playstation 1 and 2 games entered the platinum range maybe a year or two after release and was considered to be a ‘budget’ range. To give you an idea, if I remember rightly, a brand new Playstation 2 game at the time of release might have cost £30 – £40. If the game entered the platinum range it would cost about £20, maybe less, and had a platinum coloured case.

While I always enjoyed playing Gran Turismo 3, I could never stick at it and never got remotely close to completing the game. This partly because I am genuinely really terrible at playing racing games, even my friend Jason, who in almost 20 years of friendship, has actively encouraged me, has shown belief in me and doesn’t like it when I put myself down, will most likely on this occasion agree that I really, really suck at playing racing games and that it is something not likely to change. Because I am bad at playing racing games, I am actually proud to have achieved 28.6% completion and for winning 223 out of 267 races with an 83% win rate as shown in the screenshot below.

To be honest, much of what I achieved in Grand Turismo 3 is because I saved up credits (in game currency) to buy and tune a car so that it is so powerful that even if I crash on each corner of the race track, I am still likely to win. What the above screenshot does not show however is that I did actually complete all 20 beginner league challenges and 7 of the amateur league challenges including the Japanese, American and European championships, which is much further than I ever progressed back in the early to mid 2000’s.

What I really like about Gran Turismo 3 is the role-playing and customization aspects of the game. Choosing which cars to buy and how to tune them, which races to compete in, winning cars and deciding whether or not to sell them, watching the statistics grow and the feeling of achievement when you get a car you like or by winning a championship all make this game very attractive even to someone who typically doesn’t like racing games. I have also found Gran Turismo 3 to be ahead of the curve compared to other games of its time, Gran Turismo 3 features a full soundtrack, replays of races, dual shock controls (which is amazingly simple but lets you feel gear changes, collisions and the track through vibrations in your controller), and even features the ability to trade cars with friends. These features are very basic and simple by today’s standards, but at the time the developers (Polyphony Digital) really did do an amazing job at utilizing what the Playstation 2 was capable of.

One side note is that while my cheap RCA to HDMI video converter and cheap external USB video capture card has allowed me to use my Playstation 2 again, the quality of the video output is questionable as you can see from my screenshot. While I do find it tolerable, in that it has not detracted much from me enjoying the game, I do find it difficult to use to produce media at a quality I am comfortable with. With that in mind, I am considering purchasing better equipment, but for now, what I have works fine and I can’t complain for the price I paid.