All posts by Brian A. Thomas

I am the father of Ari and Sidd. I am the owner and administrator of this site.
BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, PC Gaming

Playing and Streaming Elder Scrolls: Legends – Bethesda’s Digital CCG Based on the Elder Scrolls Universe

After the huge success that Blizzard had with Hearthstone, a digital CCG based on the Warcraft universe, we’ve got a couple games that came out based on others. Chronicle, based on the Runescape universe, but with a lot of unique and cool twists that sets it apart from any of the others, that makes it well worth your time to check out. Meanwhile, perhaps one of the biggest RPGs (plus an MMO) out there, Elder Scrolls, has gotten it’s own digital CCG, Elder Scrolls: Legends. This game has a great deal more depth than Hearthstone (which remains a great game), and seems to straddle the line between Magic and Hearthstone near perfectly.

The game has a single player story mode, a solo versus mode, an arena versus mode, and others… I’ve been playing the single player story mode of late on my Twitch channel. Here are the highlights:

Elder Scrolls: Legends – Act 1 Chapters 1 to 8 1:18:55 The whole first act, from here on out I cut highlights by Chapter.
Elder Scrolls: Legends – Act 2 – Chapter 9 15:45
Elder Scrolls: Legends – Act 2 – Chapter 10 21:05
Elder Scrolls: Legends – Act 2 – Chapter 11 25:49
Elder Scrolls: Legends – Act 2 – Chapter 12 10:44
Elder Scrolls: Legends – Act 2 – Chapter 13 26:10
Elder Scrolls: Legends – Act 2 – Chapter 14 16:01

Unfortunately I don’t have any keys to give out.

Gaming, PC Gaming

Endless Legend Has a New Must Have DLC … or at Least Strongly Suggested

Endless Legend made my 2014 PC Games of the Year list, and would have scored higher than honorable mention if I didn’t suck at the game so much. It is much better than Civilization, but harder.

They recently released a new DLC, Shifters, which adds a new Major faction, Allayi, which make use of a new resource, Pearls which can have an influence on future winters if you build an Altar of Auriga and use it to pray, using more Pearls to cast an influence on the next winter. Some buildings and equipment also use Pearls to build.

The Allayi are a nice addition to the races. Continue reading Endless Legend Has a New Must Have DLC … or at Least Strongly Suggested →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, PC Gaming

A Few Gigantic Highlights

I recently got to stream Gigantic, while it was still under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) for most players/streamers. I also created a video, but the stutter in that video is even worse than the Division one so I decided not to use it. So I’ll link the 4 highlights I made that weekend instead. A huge thanks to Motiga for allowing me to stream it a weekend early. Needless to say, the fact I got to do that, even if it was only one weekend early, got put into my  My Noted Past In Gaming post.

I can’t embed these as a bug in either the Twitch player and/or WordPress makes them autoplay:

First Game of Gigantic in 5 or so Months

Gigantic Fun With Gigantic

By Far Not the Best Gigantic Player Out There

Finally a Gigantic Victory

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

My Division Video is Up

So there’s a new game coming out March 8th called, Tom Clancy’s The Division (pre-order/order Tom Clancy’s The Division via Amazon) for which I’ve been in mixed excitement and trepidation on. After playing a bit of it when it was in closed beta… got to say I’m more excited for it now.

I won’t go on and on about it in this post, and rather leave it to the video here for details (the video had far more stutter than usual, sorry, I must have goofed my OBS settings):

I’ve also got a Twitch highlight that follows it up (I can’t embed it, as it autostarts… even with autostart turned off, a bug Twitch hasn’t fixed yet, though it seems to be more a WordPress ignoring the setting thing, hard to tell): http://www.twitch.tv/jonathanstrangebt/v/39732910

TLDR: The Division rocks, get it. Follow the link above to buy it… and watch the video. 🙂

General

Thoughts on What Makes a Good Life and the Pursuit of Happiness

Generally this is a gaming blog. Occasionally I stretch into political discourse, and I used to discuss faith and religion. However, I’ve tried to keep it largely focused on gaming of late. What follows probably would normally be something I’d just post to Facebook for my friends, perhaps open that post up to the public… but I figured why not push it here for a change of pace… and then share it to Facebook. 🙂

There’s a new TED Talk video called What Makes a Good Life? Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness | Robert Waldinger | TED Talks

So let’s talk about a few things. Some are already pointed out in the comments, others are fresh and my own… Continue reading Thoughts on What Makes a Good Life and the Pursuit of Happiness →

Gaming, PC Gaming

New Homeworld Game Out Very Soon

Eons ago, I played a little game called Homeworld. It was an amazing RTS game, and ages later I still recall the theme. Then a few years ago we started hearing of a little game called Shipbreakers (it’s gone by a few names, but that was the main one that I recall once it started getting big attention) from some of the original Homeworld people. Then the original Homeworld property went up for sale in a bankruptcy… and then we got Special Editions for the original game and Homeworld 2…. and soon Shipbreakers was an official Homeworld game.

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak tells the story immediately before the events of Homeworld. As one can tell from the name, there it takes place in the desert of the planet the original game takes place. So gone is the full 3D aspects, but the rich RTS aspects still appear to be there. If you don’t have the original Homeworld games in their remastered forms, the pre-order of Deserts includes those.

Fists of Heaven is featuring a contest to giveaway a copy of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. It is one of those Gleem social media entry types. While the discount for the game is pretty nice for those of us who already have the remastered Homeworld games… I think I’ll give that a go first… especially as my poor brain normally isn’t any good at RTS games and why spend money to feel stupid if you can feel stupid for free? Lol. 🙂

Gaming, Overwatch, PC Gaming

The Museum Director’s Day – An Overwatch Fan Fiction

What follows is a bit of fan fic I wrote for Overwatch. It’s nothing overly great and was done way too quick (less than 1 1/2 hours counting editing)… but it is a stepping stone to something I have in mind for later. As of original posting the ending is far too rushed a bit to deus ex machina… And yeah, I inserted myself, but all other characters outside the official Overwatch universe ones are not based on anyone else (no inflated or busted egos out there).

I should perhaps note that I normally don’t write fan fic (heck, I haven’t really written much fiction on perhaps 30 years)… as may become obvious. Lol. Also there are a few lore errors here and there, which would likely not be in the main story.

The Museum Director’s Day

An Overwatch fan fic
By Brian A Thomas

“It’s been nearly a year since the events that initiated the museum renovation.” Brian paused, the audience at home was now watching clips of Reaper and Widowmaker’s attempt to steal the gauntlet. He was standing not far off from the gauntlet itself, he found himself wondering once again what would have happened had they succeeded. What if Winston hadn’t caught wind of the plan and asked Tracer to come and help? The battle outside the museum caused more damage than that inside, though it was the footage inside that everyone remembered. Continue reading The Museum Director’s Day – An Overwatch Fan Fiction →

Gaming, PC Gaming

My Dream ARPG and Upcoming ARPGs

One of my favorite genres of computer games are ARPGs, especially of the loot and grab/hack and slash style. Typically people think of Blizzard’s Diablo series. There are a couple strong other entries out right now. Path of Exile, an excellent free to play ARPG which would really take a full article to detail how amazing and in depth it is. Marvel Heroes 2015, an ARPG set in the Marvel universe. Torchlight 2 and it’s older sibling Torchlight are both nice light hearted takes on the genre, and good entry points for more casual gamers while still offering a good deal of depth for more serious players. As an added bonus the guys who made Torchlight are making a new game called Rebel Galaxy which I got an early look at, and it was full of win. Gauntlet is somewhat in the same vein, though it’s a bit more arcadey…

Anyhow, it’s among my favorite genres. There are a number of games coming out soon(ish) that I’m particuraly interested in. This is a very quick run down of some of my favorites that I’m looking forward to.

Devilian is an open world MMO with ARPG combat that is already out in Korea and Thailand, among some surrounding areas. The game is being brought to the west by Trion, who brought us ArcheAge (which I’ve covered extensively before overdosing on it). Now plenty of people out there feel upset at Trion for the way ArcheAge was handled at launch, but I for one am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and more than a fair chance to prove themselves with Devilian.

I’ve already covered Devilian to some degree:

Continue reading My Dream ARPG and Upcoming ARPGs →

General

My First Columbus Crew Match

I’ve wanted to go to a Columbus Crew game since they were formed in 1994, but it’s been the last two years as my interest in the sport itself has grown that I’ve really wanted to go, so I basically count the last two years or so of wanting to go as the real deal. Two years of wanting to go and not being able to for a variety of reasons, mostly work related. If I had the time off work, I had the kids and a two plus hour trip each way with young kids… If I didn’t have all those, it was normally really bad weather (as in thunderstorms in the area) or I just didn’t have the funds, and on occasion forgot or was busy with other things, a chance to to some board gaming with the local board game group, an important video game beta test, or whatever, including important things like spending time with loved ones. The point is, for a couple years I’ve really wanted to go but things didn’t work out.

I sadly can’t even really watch the games on TV as my TV doesn’t get that channel. I’d need a cable box for that, and I already spend enough extra on the cable for much needed Internet speed improvements. I can’t use the MLS Live app or anything like that either since I live in an area where the service is available, it is blacked out locally. I did recently find a site that often has the games showing live, though the quality leaves much to be desired. Still better than nothing.

Fast forward to recent events. On Reddit there is a sub-reddit called The Massive. There one of the users gives away extra tickets to the game, and as a bonus they are in the supporter’s section called The Nordecke (for fans of American Football, think of the Dawg Pound for the Browns). I entered, thinking there was little chance of winning, but in the end won anyhow. I finally was going to get to not only see a Columbus Crew match, but it was going to be perfect weather, there were going to be fireworks after the match as it was the 4th of July, and as an extra bonus I’d be in the Nordecke. Hopefully someday I’ll get to pay it forward, and help somebody else who wants to go.

So after spending some time with a loved one, if a bit too little time, I made the three and a half hour trek to Mapfre stadium… Continue reading My First Columbus Crew Match →

Gaming, PC Gaming

2015 in Games so Far – Mid May

It’s only May, so far to early to do a games of the year report like I did for 2014, but the year is shaping up pretty good so far. I’m just going to hit a few highlights here and there.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt,  so far is a strong contender for game of the year. Beyond the amazing graphics, the game has a nice depth to it, great story, acting and more. I think it’ll be hard to push it off the game of the year list.

Rebel Galaxy is also shaping up great. I’ve already done an early look at Rebel Galaxy. Should the game ship this year, then it’ll be on the short list for sure. It was just a great deal of fun to play… It might not have the depth of Witcher 3 or some of the others, but it has fun in droves.  Continue reading 2015 in Games so Far – Mid May →

BT Plays, Gaming, PC Gaming

Getting an Early Look at Rebel Galaxy

Imagine if you took the greatness that is Firefly1, and combined that with space trading of Elite: Dangerous (while removing the complexity of having to worry about pitch), while tossing in a lighthearted RPG and you’ll have a basic idea of what fun to expect from Double Damage Game’s first game, Rebel Galaxy.  They call it a “swashbuckling space adventure” and that is very apt. Continue reading Getting an Early Look at Rebel Galaxy →

BT Plays, Gaming, My YouTube, PC Gaming

Killing Floor 2 – Thoughts and Video from the Stress Test Beta

2 Comments

So I manged to get into the Killing Floor 2 Stress Test Beta (I don’t think my Dear Tripwire, Why I Want In the Killing Floor 2 Beta post helped, but it might have), and I had a blast. Seriously some of the most fun I’ve had in awhile playing a game. Tripwire Interactive has a solid hit to be on their hands.

Let’s step back a moment for those who don’t follow the latest and greatest in gaming. What is Killing Floor 2? Continue reading Killing Floor 2 – Thoughts and Video from the Stress Test Beta →

Gaming, PC Gaming

2014 PC Games of the Year

So I didn’t play a ton of new games this year, so this list is based off what I’ve actually played myself. This list is mostly PC, I don’t include any board games… that may be another list… or not… There is one XBox 360/PS4/XBox One game listed that isn’t on PC yet…

The Winners

Let’s get right out and say that the lead favorite, though I’m not very far into the game is Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s a truly massive game, and amazing in nearly every respect. My only issue with the game so far is that it is often times hard to connect to the Dragon Age Servers. I connected before I played the game, so it imported all the choices from the Keep into the game, but would be nice to be able to sync the files still.
Continue reading 2014 PC Games of the Year →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

A Bunch of New YouTube Vids Are Up

1 Comment

I haven’t been good at updating the blog here of late, but there are a bunch of YouTube videos since I last posted here. Check out my YouTube channel. All these videos, as with most of my recent videos are made from highlights from my Twitch Channel so quality isn’t as good as it would be if I recorded locally, edited and uploaded directly myself rather than have Twitch send it over. Remember, comment, like and subscribe! It helps. Continue reading A Bunch of New YouTube Vids Are Up →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

I Give Zombies Monsters Robots a Try

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En Masse Entertainment (of Terra fame) have a new game out in beta called Zombies Monsters and Robots.

ZMR is a fun, 3rd person shooter where you fight, well zombies, monsters, robots, armies of bad buys and a host of everything else. Over the top and immense fun.

Here’s my first try at it:

I might make more videos later… and share more about my thoughts about it at a later date.

Board & Card Games, Gaming, General, Warhammer 40K Conquest

Warhammer 40,000: Conquest LCG Comes to OCTGN

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I’ve previously mentioned that Fantasy Flight Games has a new Living Card Game (LCG) coming out called Warhammer 40,000: Conquest. Needless to say I’m pretty excited about it… Perhaps not as overly geeked out as I am over Imperial Assault (see previous story), but it was one of the games I was most excited for prior to GenCon (since then Abyss has slid down a bit and Five Tribes has moved up to just below Conquest and Imperial Assault for the post GenCon stuff). Anyhow, I can’t wait for it to come out.

Sadly, I don’t have a play group to play it with. I’m sure plenty of people at the Boardgamers of Greater Akron will be playing it, but it is a bit of a drive to Akron from where I am, and I don’t know anyone local who’s into LCGs. So being able to play the game over the Internet is always a sweet deal. Sure one could use Skype and just put the webcam on the table, but that requires a playlist of people to play with a much larger table than my desk, and a few other complications. Lucky for us, there are methods of playing LCGs, TCGs, CCGs, and other games over the Internet. For card games the two main platforms seem to be OCTGN and LackyCCG. This post will focus on the OCTGN plugin, but I know there is development ongoing for a LackyCCG plugin as well (by another person than the one who did the Conquest one). OCTGN is presently Windows only (though they mention they would like to do a Mac version and touch screen version eventually), while LackyCCG is multiplatform including Windows, Mac, Linux and iPad.

Before we continue, let me note that I am in no way involved with this project, either the LCG itself (although, FFG, if you want me…lol), OCTGN or the plugin being discussed below.

So what do you need? Continue reading Warhammer 40,000: Conquest LCG Comes to OCTGN →

Board & Card Games, Gaming

Team Covenant Shows A Full Demo of Star Wars: Imperial Assault

I don’t cover board games nearly as often as I would like to or should. But at GenCon this year, Fantasy Flight Games announced a new title that has me really excited. Star Wars: Imperial Assault. The game basically is Decent with a Star Wars license and a 1v1 skirmish mode option… I mean I was excited that Abyss was going to be on sale at GenCon (though I wasn’t going, so can’t secure myself a copy… though if anybody is in the area and wants to gift me a copy, cover order goes purple, green, blue, red, pink/orange), and I was excited to hear more about another must have game, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest a new LCG from FFG, which I hear sold out in a couple hours, and of course their Star Wars: Armada game (another must have), but Imperial Assault took me, and I think everyone, by surprise. Huge reveal. The fine folks over at Team Covenant have posted a nice full playthrough… Haven’t watched it fully yet, so excited about it I had to share it right away.

What I’m excited for are the vast number of fan created scenarios. I’m sure they’ll modify the Descent campaign creator tools to this… Continue reading Team Covenant Shows A Full Demo of Star Wars: Imperial Assault →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

Nosgoth Gameplay and Mini Review

Nosgoth is a free-to-play multiplayer action game that is presently in Closed Beta. I got in late February and I’m finally getting around to talking about it. At the end of this article I’ll have a gameplay video so you can see it in action. You can apply for beta at the Nosgoth link, or buy a Nosgoth Founders Pack which will get you into the game instantly (part of why I’m bringing it up now, as I think it’s worth looking at). Like most Founders Packs on games that will eventually be free-to-play, they include plenty of in game currency to buy skins, faster access to classes, and your typical free-to-play, but not buy to win, game… and that’s an important note. Based on my time in Nosgoth, I never felt the need to buy things, or that those buying stuff had an unfair advantage. That said, there are some really cool skins and stuff that would be sweet to have.

A small disclaimer, I’ve never played any of the Legacy of Kain games, the universe that Nosgoth takes place in, so I won’t be discussing any of that aspect. All I know about the world is there are vampires and humans, and from the dialog I’m guessing the humans are the rebels… Nosgoth refers to the world, the planet we are on in this story. Kain has died and the vampire race is in disarray and the humans seem to think it is a good time to rebel… or something along those lines. Like Titanfall (as I noted in my review of Titanfall), there is a story told here via dialog. Perhaps not as heavily well as Titanfall’s story, but in this case it has a rich history behind it already so it just needs to be there enough to connect it to the universe that it inhabits.

Anyhow, let’s talk about the gameplay itself, as that is what’s important. Nosgoth pits Humans vs Vampires. Each match features two rounds. One round you will play as a human, the other round as a vampire, keeping the same team. Whichever team has the best combined score, wins the match. Continue reading Nosgoth Gameplay and Mini Review →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

New YouTube Intro In Progress

In an effort to step up my videos to a more professional level, I started work on a new Intro. It’s semi-okay as it is, but I didn’t really spend the time to make the music loop properly when I extended the clip’s length. I have some plans on how to further enhance it from here once I get some actual content to add it to. Such as ArcheAge if Trion responds to my letter to them asking to get into the game (EDIT: They didn’t respond directly but I did luck in to the Alpa so…), and/or Blizzard lets me into Heroes of the Storm (yep, got a letter asking them for access to that game too).

It’s based on a template by Laurent Caccia. I made it longer, which is why the music has an odd loop at two points, and I have plans on modifying it from where it is now. For example I have it showing me playing Titanfall in the BT, but that’d probably change to the game being played in the actual video, and a few other small modifications that might be coming if I can make it work out well…

If any talented artists out there want to make a header for here (1200×240), backgrounds etc for my YouTube channel (which I don’t think even works anymore, I need to check that out more) and my Twitch channel, there I’m mostly looking for better header images above each block and of course overlays for the channel on the rare occasions I might stream, and can do them for free, let me know. I need to work on a better one for my Twitter as well, though save for how hard it is to read the smaller text, I think that one is somewhat okay.

Gaming, PC Gaming

Hearthstone Expansion Curse of Naxxramas Announced at PAX East 2014

So one of the cool pieces of news to come out of PAX East this year is that Blizzard’s digital collectible card game, Hearthstone, is having an exciting new expansion coming “soon”, and said expansion, Curse of the Naxxramas will include a single player campaign. One of the things that most appealed to me about the Hex TCG, is that there are plans for a PvE mode. I think there’s lots of room to grow in that field. Fantasy Flight has shown how it can be done with some of their LCGs, like Lord of the Rings.

I am a terrible Hearthstone player, so I can’t comment on the new cards much.

The new expansion will be across all platforms, including iPad. I changed my store to the Canadian store in order to get Hearthstone on my iPad early (last I heard the worldwide release is a week or two as of 11 April). As I understand it, again, I haven’t had time to get full details yet as I just recently got home and my smart phone isn’t that good to keep up with all the news, there are 5 dungeons or so, and the first is free, the other 4 will be accessible with in game gold or real world money.

I really should play the game on stream one of these days… just to see how bad somebody can be at the game. Lol.

EDIT: Just how bad am I? I got in the Closed Beta on 21 October 2013, and I still haven’t beat the practice modes… of course that may be exaggerating a bit since I haven’t really played as much as I should/could.

Sadly I don’t see Battle.Net Balance Cards in Amazon to link them here…