Hello world!

[BinnZ]

Hello world!

I thought I had posted about this earlier, but couldn't find a trace of it, so I'll start with the beginning: in '21 I started my Master study in Art Therapy. I had the opportunity to do so because my employer wanted to pay for it, so I decided to take on the challenge.
Now, at the start of '24, with only half a year of elogation, I delivered my final research and completed the study; I may now call myself Master of Arts!

During the whole study I haven't gamed much, since I needed that extra spare time for my study, but I have been thinking of games a lot, in terms of 100% completion and achievement hunting. I think there's no single game that was so challenging as this study regarding time consumption and stress levels. I longed for the simple challenge of having to complete a nasty achievement, instead of having to w0#k throuhg an entire research project. Well, GTA V with its heist achievements came close. Not because of its difficulty, but mainly because of the lame mission design and online connectivity issues that made me suffer for months until I got the hardest achievements done.

Now that I am done, I have a lot of extra free time again. Almost feels unnatural. There's many things I thought of doing once I completed the study, but now that I finally did, I just don't know with which to start, lol

Guess I am going to just enjoy doing nothing in particular for a while

[PZ]

Hearty congratulations, BinZ! 

Definitely a significant accomplishment! Do you have plans on what you might do with your degree?

[Dweller_Benthos]

Very cool, congratulations, Binn!

If you're looking for a game to play with an achievement that's hard to get, look at Starfield, where there's an achievement to visit all the star systems in the game, which are 120 according to this https://www.trueachievements.com/a403834/the-stars-my-destination-achievement but you'll need to upgrade your ship to the highest level jump engine first to be able to get to the more remote systems as well, and that requires money and the ship building skill to install it, both which take a little while to get but not horribly long. Not sure if it's your kind of game though, a lot of it is exploration just for the sake of exploration really, well, there is a main quest and a story, but honestly I've got over 200 hours in the game and have only done the bare minimum of it to unlock some things and went off to explore and haven't been back.

Oh yeah it also crashes now and then, including, for me, a couple of BSOD crashes which are annoying to be sure. Not sure what the deal is, but I'm suspecting the nvidia drivers and how they interact with the hardware, as I'm told, BSOD crashes are only hardware not software, but the software is telling the hardware what to do, so it's kind of a circle there.

[fragger]

 

Well done BinnZ, that's awesome! I'm always impressed by people who undertake a lengthy degree study and achieve it. Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back from me, mate!

[BinnZ]

Thank you guys!

@PZ: I don't have plans yet. What I am currently doing is quite satisfying still. I w0#k as a teacher at the Uni for bachelor students and I give Art therapy to inmates with psychiatric illnesses. Want to keep on doing that for now. I will be able to give research classes now on the bachelor program. That's at least some sort of promotion

@D_B: Nah, Startship doesn't sound like my thing. Also, I'm not really into hard achievements right now 

I am currently busy with a new playthrough in RDR2. I saw you busy with it too, PZ, having fun? Is it your first playthrough? I the most enjoyable SP campaign I've been doing for the past 5 years or so.

I did buy Days Gone though, a gift I purchased for myself on anticipation of my degree. Now that I'm free, I haven't found the guts yet to start something new. I feel more like relaxing and enjoying what I've been missing the most. Which is games I'd been playing before I started this serious carreer thingy. So far, I'm enjoying the West a lot again. I found the white Arabian horse just yesterday. I magnificent horse. Although it's small, it's one of the best horses in the game and definitely the prettiest. You can find it near the Icy lake North West.

[PZ]

Sounds like you have a great life right now, BinnZ 

Yeah, I'm having a blast in RDR2, and have been exploring quite a few mods and a simple trainer. I found a mod that installs Mexico as a place you can travel to. However, it is a pre-release and there is nothing to see and do yet - just a reminder of what was in RDR1.

Mods I like are the scripts installing new activities like robbing all the banks on your own, added contracts, bounties, and other things that expand what you can do.

[BinnZ]

Those mods sound pretty cool! In a way they make me think of RDR Online. That was great fun, too. The biggest problem is that there are no friends only servers. And since they released an 'Online only' version of the game for a few bucks, the amount of rats and trolls in the online world has tramendously increaded. Which is sad. Because in online you can customize your own character and you have your own, also customizeable, camp. Which you can put up in so many cool places, like Big Valley for instance. Man, I wish it would allow you to play it on your own or with friends only.

[PZ]

I never did play online RDR except for a very brief stint with my eldest son. I always feel like I am holding back my team so I'd rather go it alone to play in my simplistic style. The mods are loads of fun, and are broken down into scripthook versions and many that need Lenny's mod loader. Having that trainer totally changes the game for me. Vanilla games these days kind of remind me of the original FC2 in which the mercs knew exactly where you are after the slightest noise and began raining lead in your direction. Modding FC2 did the same for that game as modding all the games I now play - lots more fun and way easier exploring however I want.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah the online version was fun for a while then more and more I saw hackers doing the usual hacker stuff, spawning explosives on you or tossing you high in the air so you die of fall damage. It also seemed that at least in events you couldn't do anything unless you had a full posse with you to act as a team, because single players had so much less advantage against teams of four. So I haven't played the game in years, actually never finished the single player game either, just lost interest in the story.

[PZ]

That's kinda sad that you lost interest. Although the story is not that great for me either, I love the stunning graphics. Yesterday I discovered something new (for me): hitting the "V" key cycles through 3rd person close, medium distance from behind, even further, and 1st person.

i kind of like switching between the views depending on what I'm doing. 1st person in which I can see my weapon(s) and the top of my horse's head over which I'm shooting is fun when I'm in a fire fight. The three 3rd person views are fun when traveling the countryside where the scenery is spectacular at times. Sometimes I stop just to admire the view!

[Dweller_Benthos]

It is a very nice looking game, for sure. Maybe someday I'll pick it up again.