terrycloth

This week's MLP was much less of a disappointment than this week's attempt at playing a game. In today's episode, Discord learns that he needs to stop being such a self-centered jerk.

( Or something. )

Still, a very funny episode. 3/3

In today's My Little Pony, I discovered that I don't like rodeos, or clowns, or rodeo clowns, which would have ruined the episode but it was already bad.

( spoilers )

So, yeah. 1/3.

In other (pony) news... more chapters of Pathfinder Ponies:
Power of Prayer, where the party finally interrogates their hostage.
Field of Battle, where they lead an army to destroy a horde of undead.
Reserve Force, where they leave the army behind to face down a horde of zebras.

In this week's My Little Pony, Applebloom gets her cutie mark. Repeatedly.

( and if you believe that... )

So... yeah. I think on rewatching, I liked it better than Castle Sweet Castle, but... I don't know. I guess it's still only 2/3, but I'd me more likely to bump it up than down.

New communist ponies! Season 5 started today, and it was a pretty enjoyable 2-parter. The second half fell a little flat but only a little, and both parts were sprinkled with the spot-jokes that really make the show for me.

( spoilers )

So, yeah. I'll give this pair of episodes 3/3.

In other news, I've been neglecting to post about pathfinder ponies again. Three new chapter:
Gather Information, where Applejack is a much better spy on her own than with Rarity trying to tag along.
Smash and Grab, where the party executes a cunning plan, with only one little hitch.
and Smuggler's Run, where, um, they kind of walk into a tunnel and fight some stuff.

I got it on sale because it got really good reviews, but I'm sort of hating it.

The combat system is awful. The characters have abilities that don't seem to really do anything (when you do X difficult thing, Y enemies take 1 damage. Wooooo.) and once you start killing the enemies, they get turn after turn after turn before you can go again, basically guaranteeing that you lose several people in every fight.

In between combats, you get to play choose your own adventure with all the stupidity and randomness from the original books. You get vague choices and half the time what your characters do in response bears no relation to what you thought they were going to do. Or they don't tell you that you have only one choice from the list when logically you'd be able to do them all, so you pick the easiest one first and it fails accomplishing nothing and your people all get low morale and the annoying NPCs berate and mock you for not doing the other option that you were going to try next.

I think I'm done with it.

Finally, the long-awaited finale of the kobold dungeon arc of Pathfinder Ponies.

After breaking out of the vault, the party bypasses all the GM's carefully constructed encounters and ends up Behind Enemy Lines.

Then, Rush Hour, in which a climactic final battle is completely ruined because the party decides to go and shop for the boss's kryptonite first.

Yes, these are roughly modeled after what the actual parties that I ran through this dungeon did. But I'm not bitter.

Okay, before I unleash the torrent of whining, I'll mention that I uploaded another two chapters of Pathfinder Ponies, describing the party's foray into a kobold-infested dungeon.

First, A Good Old-fashioned Dungeon, which is mostly about them getting through the first room.

Then, Security Theater, which has them dealing with a trap, and some kobolds.

===
Okay, complaint time. q:3

Despite being a completely new computer with no hardware or software in common with the old computer, running a different OS and everything, my new desktop still has the random 'sorry, we can't load this website' problem that NO OTHER PIECE OF HARDWARE except for my previous desktop ever had, despite running off the same router at the exact same time. Said other hardware including two windows tablets, a windows laptop, and an ipad.

I've replaced literally everything, and the bug is still happening. I wonder if I should try moving the computer to the other side of the room? @.@

Wait. I haven't replaced the monitor. Or my headphones. Oh! The keyboard! I bet the keyboard is to blame!

(sigh)

====

MWO is having a challenge this weekend, where you have to get 1 kill and win the game to get a point, and 30 points wins a mech. I played for a couple hours Friday night, and got 8 points. This was encouraging.

After playing for several hours on each of Saturday and Sunday, I now have nine points. Either I get a kill and my team loses, or my team wins and I don't get a kill. In the last match, some jerk decided to deliberately turn around and shoot me, perhaps because my Atlas didn't back up as fast as his Catapult when he decided to reverse down the only narrow ramp and block the chokepoint. Then when I shot back, he had the gall to die from a single hit, and then accuse me loudly of teamkilling him.

No, that doesn't count for the contest.

But yeah, that's sort of why it was the last match. I'm not in the mood to play more MWO right now.

===

So I installed Starbound's 'unstable' branch to see what new stuff is coming. After a couple hours of play -- including an unfun and infuriating 'mission' where all your crafting and placement stuff was locked and there was only combat, which you had to restart when you died and which blocked further exploration until you completed it -- it crashed. Meaning I lost the entire day's progress, since Starbound doesn't let you save except at the end of a session (so, I could have saved sometime in the middle, but it would have been really annoying because I would have had to quit and restart, and Starbound is not really a fast-booting game).

This is why I don't play betas. WHY DO I KEEP BREAKING THAT RULE? It always ends in pain.

Two more chapters of Pathfinder Ponies, actually, if you're following it here, since I forgot to note the last one.

Twilight and company travel through the pass, escorting the caravan, and are railroaded into attacking a mysterious camp of illusionists which turns out be to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy, in Hidden Hive.

Then, they move on through the rest of the pass, which is quiet and safe. Maybe Too Quiet!

Since I finally finished Guards and Monsters, I can get back to work on my other stories. I posted another chapter of Pathfinder Ponies, in which Twilight Sparkle has a terrible, terrible, unnecessary idea that looks brilliant only because it works.

Pathfinder Ponies' next chapter: Whirlwind Assault

Ponies: I put up a new chapter of Pathfinder Ponies, where Twilight realizes she's addicted to mind control, and then they fight some mummies.

Ponies: I picked up a copy of Rainbow Rocks. This time, I couldn't find it at Target, so I had to go next door to Fry's. While there, I tried to find the 3ds games to see if they had better prices than Target had, but I couldn't find them at all. Fry's is really going downhill; most of the shelves are nearly empty.

Nevermind: Um... I was going to say something here. I'm almost certain. BUT WHAT?

Maybe I was going to complain about there being so many moving parts, little things with simple resolutions that I nevertheless have to remember to do, or remember to verify are getting done, that I just can't keep track of it all? Like, I had to go in to work for fifteen minutes this weekend because I forgot one of the twenty-odd random steps to get actual working overnight builds. Or my car's 'check engine' light just turned on again. Or I barely remembered to set the DVR to record the next Agents of Shield (and still have to watch this week's). Or the toothpaste is running out at work again and I should remember to buy some to replace it the next time I'm at the grocery store.

Ugh. x.x I have a vague notion that I should write everything I have to do down in some fashion where I get reminded about the appropriate thing to do when so that I don't have to remember it, but that would just be ONE MORE THING to worry about.