Summer Begins.

Every time I go to do a thing and hit send something cool happens.. Just moments after I published last weeks blog a new patch arrived for the beta branch of Dwarf Fortress. You can spit now! That's always exciting. More so is the fact that you can also raise the dead and use animal people powers. There was some smaller additions as well that were not listed. Changes to dice interactions and poisons on FBs are going to get a lot stronger. As well as a lot of art added for mega-beasts and semi mega-beasts.

Since its has been awhile I also spoke with Putnam and recorded another chat with her. That video should go up along side of this post if I get my butt in gear by then. I've been super busy with actually having weekends. Its nice to be able to take a day or two a week to myself to garden and get fresh air.

June 2024 Putnam Talk Audio Mix

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Here is the audio for free!

Continuing with the fresh air topic. my Monday started with me riding almost 40km on my bike! It was a trip I did with my Dad as a day late fathers day thing. We had such a great time that we are going again! I was totally fine the next day but by mid day Wednesday my legs were so sore getting up was a chore.. Since then however I have rode my bike almost every single day. Two and from the garden, Pharmacy and other basic errands. Its been really good as a way to disconnect from the online world for an hour. Maybe two. Its a release and it lets me relax.

In last weeks blog I mentioned I was working on a video covering the AMA Kitfox did for their recently announced game Streets of Fortuna. But that got pushed back a week once I found myself making a DF News video. My output is slower right now and that is mostly due to the fact that being on Linux I have lost a lot of speed in my work flow. I am also in this spot right now where I don't know exactly what I want to do in these blogs so formatting will probably shift as time goes.. what was I saying? RIGHT! The plan for the week.

I started up Songs of Syx after not playing for 452 days according to my most recent save. That game has changed a ton. Lots of UI elements and units and balance changes. Mostly for the better. I think that game is in a great spot right now and I look forward to playing some more of it this next week.

Caves of Qud is hard to stream. But I'm working on it. Games with heavy story elements will always be hard as the fear of spoilers is a huge deal for a lot of people. Its enough that some people won't even tune in out of fear of having a event or mechanic spoiled. To limit this issue I'm slowly feeding Qud into the rotation. But we'll be playing a mix of builds and not trying to make it to end game. Just throwing my face on spikes and seeing how much blood comes out.

Soulash II is a game I need to get back into and mess with. Back when it released on steam it released in Early access I stated that there were a few things I wanted to see added from the tech tree before I played again. That has happened so its time to take the plunge in again and work this into streams.

Stream schedule for the week is unchanged. Tues-Friday starting at 9am Pacific on Twitch and 10am on YouTube. In the last 7 days the YouTube channel got 114,717 views an increase due to that short I mentioned last week and some videos doing okay. I'm aiming to get that number up to 150k per week but honestly, I'll take it! Even if its mostly from shorts and thus pays peanuts and lose dryer lint. Twitch channel average view count is up to 156 avg viewers and we got 108 followers. However 45 of the followers were in a 1 second window at the same time and I think those were bots.. not sure.. View counts are up from last week by 3, not much but its increased and that is what matters.

The first time I saw the Paradox logo was the in box edition of Mount & Blade. I bought it in the 1$ DVD bin at Zellars when I was a teenager. I lost a summer to that game and the Paradox logo was burned into my memory. The only had PDX had on M&B was the support to help them push the game out on disc and get it in stores. The second time I interacted with them was Magica, a true comedic masterpiece of modern games. Arrowhead Game Studios would later go on to make the mega hit HELLDIVERS 2 and of course the original before that.

Some other earlier Paradox titles I played were, Cities in Motion 2, Teleglitch, Shadowrun Returns and Age of Wonders 3. At this point I considered myself a fan of their published work. I avoided their grand strategy games as they never really grabbed me. I tried CK2 and Hearts of Iron but neither worked for me. But that did not stop me from keeping a close eye on anything They were publishing.

Then I saw the trailer for Cities: Skylines. My heart jumped, I loved cities in motion and the idea of a follow up series of games was huge. I followed every development and trailer right up till release. I then took the day off work for launch and played 15 hours in one sitting. While it was a bit bare bones EA games had been fully usurped by a small developer and a scrappy publisher. The need for a new simcity was filled. I played a good portion of the expansions for Cities for the first few years. After about 400 hours I had my fill and more or less moved on. This was around the mass transit expansion.

But there was always some.. Distrust from the communities around Paradox. While people generally enjoyed their games there was always criticism around their DLC model for their in house strategy titles. For the sake of keeping this post short I’ll just say that if DLC stops being optional and is needed for game mechanics and interactions or needed to complete a system that is partially added in a free update. It stops being optional and this upsets people.

As PDX grows so does their library of games. They get more ambitious with every passing year. Announcing Paradox ARC their indie publishing label. Along side of a AAA studio working on a follow up to VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE. But PDX ARCs releases have been getting mixed responses due to questionable quality and Vampire has been a mess of a rumor mill with devs leaving and projects being restarted. PDX ambitions were not paying off, but people were still putting money into their DLC. As this happens there is less incentive for them to release products that feel complete. Games no longer need to feel finished because the audience will pay peace meal for content. Completing the game one season pass at a time is a lot more profitable than simply releasing a finished feeling experience and adding to it once it succeeds. While this issue might seem obvious from the outside looking in. When your in that pot of hot water your vision gets clouded.

This has recently hit a high with Cities: Skylines II releasing in a abysmal state. Their civ competitor Millennia launching like a flaccid balloon out of a trebuchet. The lamplighters League, a game by harebrained schemes was sent out to die. Hardly marketed or promoted. Paradox shut down the studio after it released. After allegedly vetoing a pitched squeal to one of my favorite games ever Battletech. Since Microsoft owes the IP and Paradox did not want to give a revenue split to another publisher. All this brings us to the present. Paradox was set to release the heavily delayed “Life by You” a sims competitor. Developed by Paradox Tectonic a studio run by Rod Humble the ex CEO of the studio that created “Second Life” It was supposed to release last year but had been delayed due to being poorly received both internally and externally during early trailer showings. After two additional delays the game was set to release this June.

Paradox took a hard look at “Life by You” and chose to cancel the game on June 17^th. The day after Paradox Tectonic was closed by their publisher and parent company Paradox. I wish I had a solution for this. I used to look forward to Paradox titles. I used to be excited when they were getting involved in a release. I would get excited at just seeing that logo. In the same way I got excited when I saw “EA SPORT BIG” every time I played SSX Tricky. But now, I feel dread. The expectation of a disappointing release and expensive planned season pass for a game that has not even gone on sale yet. The expectation that I will be paying for two years before I have a game that feels complete to only expect to spend another 200$ over the next year because the recently released game will undoubtedly come tied in with a large amount of FOMO making me want something that just bloats an already shoddy experience.