This week in Snooker Nation Jason managed to win 4 frames to 1 in a best of 7, giving him his second victory in a row and his second victory this year.

Like last week, I thought I was in for another whitewash when I found myself down 3 frames to 0. I am thankful therefore that I managed to secure at least 1 frame.

Jason played pretty well but he did get rather lucky in the first 3 frames, managing to pot a half chance plant and narrowly avoided potting the white once or twice. What’s unfortunate is that neither of us managed to get a century break which makes it three weeks in a row since one of us managed to score a century.

I was sad to learn that my favourite snooker player, Ronnie O’Sullivan, lost in the 2019 masters snooker final to Judd Trump 10 frames to 4 in a best of 19 after beating Ding Junhui 6 frames to 3 in a best of 11.

In November last year I wrote about my Starcraft journey and I thought I would do the same for another one of my favourite series of games, Diablo.

My Diablo journey started when I was around 14 years old in the late 90’s in a card shop. Not the kind of shop which sell greeting cards but the kind of shop that sold collectable card games among other nerdy things including video games.

After school most days and some weekends I would spend what little money I had there with friends and play our favourite card games. When bored the shop had a Playstation and Nintendo 64 which we could use providing we paid a few pounds for the privilege. A man called Fred, sketchy I know, brought in the game Diablo and I agreed to play it with him. Before I knew it, the shop was closing and I needed to leave.

I very quickly noticed that the same game developers that produced Starcraft, Blizzard Entertainment, had also produced Diablo which very quickly became a favourite of mine. It didn’t take long for me to get the game for the PC and I can tell you from first hand experience, the PC version is much, much better.

Unfortunately the game was easily abused with item duplicating software along with other hacks which made my online experience of Diablo not particularly fun.

In 2000 Diablo II was released for the PC but the family PC I was using at the time simply was not up to the job of playing the game and I did without for a number of years to come. A school friend of mine had it when he was given a laptop but once again it did not run very well. It was not until 2002 when I got my own PC that I had the ability to play Diablo II properly, incidentally this was around the same time cable broadband was installed where I lived and I quickly took advantage of it getting myself a 512kb internet connection, no less than 10 times faster than the previous dial up modem my family and I used.

This time the online experience was amazing and I really enjoyed playing the game using the hardcore setting which is where if your hero dies, it’s over and you need to start again. Unfortunately however, in Diablo II I did something I regret to this day. I started to sell in-game items for real money on ebay and directly to contacts who knew me as a seller of items. I also levelled up peoples characters for money and sold accounts with a high level character with items. I don’t know how much money I made doing this but it was not substantial, either way, I regret my actions. Both my Paypal and Ebay account were suspended but I was never penalised within the game. I shouldn’t make excuses but thankfully  in today’s world if people want to monetise their passion for gaming they can do so more easily without breaking the rules like I did.

For a while I thought Diablo II was as good as it was going to get, especially when using battle.net which allowed my friends and I to communicate across all blizzard games, a unique system for the time which has subsequently been replaced by a new battle.net. After World of Warcraft was released however, Diablo II fell by the wayside.

Around 10 years passed until Diablo III was released. I was so excited that I had acquired a brand new PC before hand, specifically in order to surpass the recommended Diablo III settings so that I may play the game on the highest graphics settings without the fear of latency. While I was disappointed in the end game (what you can do in the game after hitting the highest level), I have always found Diablo III to be a phenomenal game which has had some excellent changes to improve the end game experience, especially with the launch of the Reaper of Souls expansion. I have levelled every hero class (with the exception of the new Necromancer class) and I have logged over 1300 hours game time, mostly playing wizard (909 hours). I have taken part in Season 1-7 but stopped playing the game after that. I am very interested in playing Diablo III again and as luck would have it, season 16 started two days ago, Friday 18th January, and I have already made a start. Let’s see if I can keep my Diablo journey alive and improve on my previous Diablo III accomplishments.

Yet another week of Snooker Nation playing against my friend Jason. This time, for the first time this year, Jason won 5 frames to 4 in a best of 9.

For a while it looked like I would suffer a whitewash defeat like I did back in October and August last year. At one point Jason was leading 3-0 and was looking likely to win the 4th frame. Thankfully, somehow, I managed to win 4 of the following 5 frames to equalise 4-4 before Jason claimed his victory.

There were no century breaks this week, which is a shame, especially as it was the same last week which I will remember as the week where I got tilted by a snooker game. I think Jason takes more pleasure in my Snooker Nation rage than actually winning.

A little off topic for a gaming blog but I have been watching the Snooker Masters tournament recently and have admired just how skilled the real players of snooker are. My favourite player, Ronnie O’Sullivan, has made it to the semi finals and is playing against Ding Junhui in around 5 minutes time. Good luck Ronnie!

Yesterday morning I could not sleep and decided I would play a little Sunday morning Magic: The Gathering Arena.

It has been a while since I played this game and I was interested to find out what, if any, changes there have been. The first thing I noticed is that there is now an option to play against your friends (not that I have any interested in Magic The Gathering). The second thing I noticed is that there is now an option to play games that are ranked or not ranked and that ranking is more defined under your player profile, showing you both your ‘constructed’ and ‘limited’ rank and what rewards to expect should you reach silver, gold, platinum, diamond or mythic rank by the seasons end which incidentally ends 17 days from now.

Each rank has 4 tiers and everyone starts as bronze tier 4. Happily for me I have managed to increase my rank from bronze tier 4 to bronze tier 1 which should mean the next rank will be silver tier 4 and I will be eligible for the silver rewards.

The games creator, Wizards of the Coast, have also pledged a $10,000,000 prize pool for 2019 to kickstrat their way into the eSports community which is really exciting and have created the below youtube video.

Furthermore Wizards of the Coast are getting behind streamers to bolster the online presence of the game and their eSports goals. I have been tempted before to stream Magic: The Gathering Arena myself, I think this is probably an excellent game for first time streamers such as myself.

Before the launch of the new World of Warcraft raid, battle of dazar’alor, Midlife Crisis (the guild I am in) is trying to achieve some last minute progress in Uldir. Over the Christmas and new year celebrations most raiding has been cancelled due to either a lack of interest or the inability for many members to participate. We did however have a fresh run last Sunday and managed to increase our progress from 2/8 heroic to 5/8 heroic. There is another raid scheduled tonight and there might be time to squeeze another two raids in before the launch of battle of dazar’alor on the 22nd January.

Here I am standing over the corpse of Zek’voz herald of n’zoth after killing it on heroic difficulty.

After the 22nd I suspect my guild officers will leave Uldir in favour of battle of dazar’alor and go back to super casual normal raiding mode. I have signed up for the raid tonight but I am not sure I will be picked to go and will in all likelihood find myself on standby. I am fine with that, there are players who put more time and effort into getting the most out of their characters and do more damage than my druid. There are also players who are more versatile with what they can bring to the raid, there is one balance druid for example who has learned his or her restoration specialisation and presumably has gear for it. This means they can change specialisations according to what the raid leader thinks will work best on a boss by boss basis. There have also been 2 or 3 new recruits to the guild which seem at first glance to be high quality players, giving me even more competition if I want to take part in progressive raiding in Midlife Crisis.

Regardless of whether or not I am able to raid tonight or any other progressive raid night, I am still thankful that Midlife Crisis has opened a lot of doors for me. I have taken the time to get to know my new guild mates and in return I am invited to take part in the occasional mythic+ dungeon and am more likely, providing I am patient, to get help with my World of Warcraft goals in general. I have since my last World of Warcraft post completed no less than 4 mythic+ dungeons, including a +9 dungeon giving me a bunch of achievements, crafting items and perhaps most importantly, the experience required to do them better next time, perhaps at a higher level.

Now for a general update. The average item level (ilevel) for my druid has increased from 371 to 374 and I have also dropped the mining profession for inscription. My warrior has increased her average ilevel from 359 to 368 and has joined my druid in Midlife Crisis which leaves my paladin average ilevel increasing from 364 to 373 yet remains outside of Midlife Crisis for now.

On a side note, I am really impressed with the new plate skins of the ilevel 385 Darkshore set, I have collected a lot of it but still need to replace my shoulder and chest item.

My account achievement score has increased from 19040 to 19195 which has mostly been down to mythic dungeon achievements but also a few others here and there. Unfortunately I did not level my warlock, Khorium further and remains level 45.

My goals going forward are the same as last time. I hope to level my warlock some more, increase my account achievement score and also enjoy what raiding I can with Midlife Crisis and hope to make some progress in Uldir and/or battle of dazar’alor.

Unsurprisingly I have played another game of Snooker Nation with my good friend Jason this week.

We played a best of 9 which I won 5 frames to 1 which is also slightly unsurprising because I do not believe Jason has ever won a best of 9. For an atheist (myself) and an agnostic (Jason) it’s kind of odd how we jokingly have this superstition, it’s also odd that when Jason wins the first frame of a match he usually loses.

There were no century breaks this week unfortunately, actually I think we both played quite a scrappy game, we have both certainly played better. I did however get very tilted in the second frame. I thought, wrongly, that I ran out of position and I could not pot any of the three reds left on the table. Jason said that one of the reds did actually pot and could squeeze past the brown which was tucked in the corner of a pocket. I disagreed to the point that I played a safety leaving that shot on if he wanted to play it, knowing full well he would miss if he tried. He did try it but it did pot. I almost lost my mind and got really tilted.

There were two or three other instances this match where I thought a ball would pass another to a pocket but it didn’t. There was also another shot where I voiced profusely that a red would not pass the pack and cut into a pocket. Jason played it and it did pass and pot. Each time this happened I got more and more tilted.

It seems strange to get tilted by such a game. No other game that I play get’s me tilted like Snooker Nation and I don’t know why. I even resorted to blaming the Unreal Engine physics for getting it wrong, quite stupid really.

Jason and I settled down to another game of Snooker Nation and I managed to win 5 frames to 3 in a best of 9. To be fair on Jason, he did say before we started that he had not been sleeping well and was tired. I played pretty well considering I have been fairly sick, I think it must have been the co-codamol I have been taking, I can see why the stuff is addictive.

There were two century breaks this week, 115 in the second frame and 135 in the 3rd frame, both of which I scored. I am really happy with the 135 break, I think my record is 137. I was on track to score a 3rd century in the 8th and final frame but but unfortunately failed to free up two reds which were tight on the black.

It is good to start 2019 with a Snooker Nation victory, the first of many I hope. I would estimate that Jason and I are equal in this game and that he wins about half of the time, including two embarrassing whitewash instances. Hopefully we will find something else to our liking as the year progresses as we certainly have got our monies worth out of Snooker Nation, that’s for sure.

Almost a week ago I wrote about being inspired by chap named Geoff ‘iNcontroL’ Robinson who recently completed XCOM 2 on commander difficulty with iron man enabled which you can read about here.

I am happy to report, despite being unwell since writing that post, I have completed the goal I set out for myself to complete the game on veteran difficulty with the iron man mode enabled. Not nearly as good as what Geoff recently accomplished but I am really happy with my achievement.

Here are 4 screenshots which show my campaign statistics.

I don’t mind admitting that this was the 4th or 5th campaign before I got a good start and started to understand the game mechanics a little better. The first 1 or 2 campaigns were nothing short of a disaster and for a while I did not think I would manage to accomplish my goal before the end of the year.

This has been the perfect way to end my 2018 gaming but there more I could do with XCOM 2. There are a number of relatively easy trophies/achievements which I could do using easier difficulty settings, not to mention the ‘War of the Chosen’ expansion which I have not looked at yet.

In 2019 I hope to set myself more goals like this and beat more games. While I will always be interested in playing games like EVE Online or World of Warcraft, it is good to take a break and beat a single player game like XCOM 2 from time to time.

Jason and I did battle once again by playing a game of Snooker Nation. This time we decided to play a best of 9 which I managed to win 5 frames to 3. I am particularly pleased to win this week as this will be our last game of 2018 which I wrote about in my last Snooker Nation post.

Unfortunately I scored the only century break of 115 in the 8th and final frame. I was saddened because the blue, pink and black were left on table which meant I missed the opportunity to get a break of 133. This is rather typical of me, I often tend to choke on the last few balls of a would be high break. The same thing happened earlier this month which I wrote about in my Snooker Nation Week 13 post.

While Jason and I are always on the look out for games that we will enjoy playing together when we have our weekly chats, I look forward to playing more Snooker Nation in the new year and who knows, maybe score a 147 break which I just know is only a matter of time before one of us gets it.

I noticed on Twitter recently that Geoff Robinson also known as iNcontroL, managed to complete XCOM 2 on commander difficulty with iron man enabled after nearly 500 attempts and 2000+ hours of game play logged. For those of you who do not know about XCOM 2, this is a pretty big deal, especially with the ‘Long War 2’ mod he was using.

iNcontroL has always been a source of inspiration for me and as such I have followed his career as a professional Starcraft 2 player, caster and gaming personality. If you haven’t already, I suggest you follow him on twitter or take a look at his twitch channel and youtube channel.

In light of this huge success, I have been inspired and have decided to try and accomplish my own goal in XCOM 2 by beating the game on veteran difficulty with iron man enabled using my Playstation 4 Pro. If I succeed this will not nearly be as good as Geoffs’ accomplishment, but it will do for me.

Using the Unreal engine, XCOM 2 is a turn based strategy RPG (role-playing game). You have fully customisable soldiers which have different skills, abilities and weapons which you use to embark upon missions in order to accrue resources, rescue engineers, scientists and make progress in defeating the alien invaders.

XCOM 2 reminds me of one of favourite games, Front Mission 3 for the Playstation 1 developed by Squaresoft who also made the Final Fantasy series. During each mission you take turns moving and attacking with your soldiers using the terrain as cover or to gain vantage points. I have uploaded two short missions I played during the early stages of my campaign to youtube which I hope will give you an idea.

I will be putting in some serious time into this mini project and will be sure to share the results. If I do beat the game I will be shown statistical score sheets which I will share to prove my success.