I have had this idea for a bit but just haven’t committed to it yet so maybe If I write out my thoughts on it i’ll actually get ti started. Let me know what you think in the comments
Basic Idea
Run racing events on Vendetta Online utilizing the already existing Race tracks in Sedina and integrate it to a Twitch stream for external interaction.
Planned features
Host plugin
Announce race to 100 periodically (5 or 10 min)
In system count down race automatically
Once race started track racers using LUA events on entry, death, and finish of race track
Track time of racers for statistics separate of VO’s already existing race stats
Award points based on 1st, 2nd,3rd finish
Process “bets” from twitch users outside the game viewing the stream
Create/Show leaderboard in between races either in game or via external web portal
Actually a web based would be better it can then be overlayed to twitch
Plugin will track the win loss/race k/d ratio of racers to relay out to Twitch before betting opens
Twitch Bot
Relay VO chat out to Twitch channel (relaying in will be disabled)
Twitch users have channel points, these can be used to bet on players in game
Twitch users can bet on a racer they believe will win eg !bet CrazySpence
Twitch Bot will announce race starts, player deaths and who killed them and winners in chat
Twitch Bot will track the win loss statistics of the player betting plus keep a point scoreboard of betters
If you want to know how my mind works the best way to do that is to let me sing. While some times I may be a bit off key it is the clearest window into my mind without having to suck it up and just ask me.
Join with me, in my emotional symphony.
The path is clear with each song you hear
Don’t run away, listen to what I have to say
In my mind, my soul you’ll find.
I have been keeping a running playlist over the last year that I add to whenever a song reflects a moment or feeling I have. I initially populated it with a few songs I have always identified on but for about a year now I have continued to add to it. I add the new songs to the top so the beginning of the playlist more closely reflects the current me than the end. I keep it publicly available on Apple music, even if you don’t have Apple music you should be able to view it with this link below:
I find listening to my music, singing to it, facing what i am feeling at the time keeps me from sinking into a depressive cycle that I see so many other people affected by. I deal with my feelings by making myself express them through the songs I can relate to. I know this isn’t a solution that can be applied to everyone.
There are a lot of people in my life that I absolutely cherish. They are a part of who I am and I cannot see my life without them there in some manner. However as I get older I am starting to notice more and more that a lot of these people I value do not see to value me in the same manner and I notice how much effort I am having to put in just to keep them barely around in my life.
Fine, I won’t stop you from going
They say if you truly love someone you should let them go and if they come back then they love (or in this case value) you too. If they don’t then they never did. I have been letting people go for over the last couple years now. I’ve started to be able to tell when they are just absorbing my own effort and not putting forth any of their own. In some cases they will eventually come back and make an effort to me, when this happens it is wonderful and the friendship continues on as it should and maybe even better. Sometimes a long time will pass and I have to accept that they aren’t coming back and that I did not matter.
This is a very painful moment
It hurts a lot to realize you don’t matter to someone that matters to you but it allows you to let go and stop being dependent on their validation. You can take this negative and make it positive. You can use it to learn the signs of an unhealthy friendship or a relationship and this allows you to make better choices for yourself in the future.
In the last 3 years I have let many people go and each one that doesn’t come back hurts but the remaining whole is better than it was before. I can work on the friendships and relationships that remain and I feel much more emotionally involved in what’s left than I did before. There are still people left who I don’t see putting in the ‘effort’ that I do to keep them in my life and eventually I’ll have to let them go too.
So after months and months of grey skies and cold the sun has finally graced us with its presence. This of course can only lead to trouble. Trouble on the roads
I am talking about Construction
So within a couple weeks my commute of 1 hour and 10 minutes has been turned on its head and the first 1/3 of my drive has now become 1 lane or detours. All at once! Now I get that road maintenance is important and repairs are key to my safety however this year it really seems like they are taking an all or nothing approach, something I have yet to see in my decade of commuting from Niagara to the Toronto area.
For starters they have had the 406 down to 1 lane for about a year now as they repair a bunch of overhead bridges. This was not unexpected I have seen them do this all long my commute replacing or reinforcing old bridges for over 5 years now. The problem is that a lot of stupid people seem to live in Welland or Port Colborne and they like to ride the middle of the lane to block proper use of the merge. It’s as if they feel they are far too important to allow anyone to merge a car or two ahead of them?! However now it seems they are planning to completely replace two bridges that cross lake Gibson, they have been building what appears to be bypass lanes across the grass median to the other side on both sides of the bridges. That is going to be hell.
Secondly they now have the QEW/406 Toronto bound merge all blocked off and they force you to go from the 406 to Seventh and then you have to take the side street down to Jordan station. This was ok the first week, not much of a delay but now it is a stop and go hell. Lets not forget that the Niagara Bound 406 merge has been blocked 75% of the last year and they also have a bunch of the St Catharine’s interchanges closed.
I’m not spending the whole summer traversing this mess so I am taking a country detour for the foreseeable future. I just don’t see why this all had to be done at once. It feels as if they didn’t consider any of the impact to the Niagara Region by having the entire St Catharines/Thorold sections of the QEW and 406 under construction.
I had been waiting for this release for a month or so now and was very excited to pick it up when it launched. For me I don’t have a good gaming PC nor do I have Xbox or a PS4 so this was my first chance to try this game. I had many people tell me it was a fun and exciting game on PC and I was hoping the Switch version could also deliver an exciting experience
It does
Once I got past some irritating initial patching and a 7GB download I jumped into the game. During the intro when the character is chained up I felt the tugs of the chains through the Pro Controller and the scene on my TV had set the mood. I was in.
I wasn’t sure if I was watching the game engine or a video at first but once my cross hairs appeared and I instinctively started pressing the RT button the monsters fell before me and I was stoked.
I picked up the shotgun down the hall and got into my first “battle” up the hallway with a horde of monsters who quickly dispatched me 2 times. I was terrible at it but I loved the game.
Good 3rd party gaming is back on Nintendo
An important step
The last time I can remember 3rd party support being really good on a Nintendo console goes all the way back to the SNES, that’s a long time. Nintendo has since been able to carry their consoles on the backs of their very solid 1st party offerings but if you wanted anything outside of the Nintendo ecosystem and you wanted the game play to be good you have had to rely on other consoles essentially. Everyone is always concerned with every new Nintendo console release “How’s 3rd party support going to be” “Will it be passed over” “Does it matter?” and really I suppose in general it doesn’t matter. Even without it Nintendo sold millions of Switch’s, millions of copies of Zelda, Splatoon and I’m sure Mario will as well but I saw Doom as a potential turning point if it worked. After playing Doom now for a few days I think it has worked and we’ll see more adult geared 3rd party content in the Switch’s life because of it
What about the GFX
Yes I know everyone goes on about how the GFX had to be reduced in quality to work on the Switch I have even looked at the comparison images and you can see it is quite extensive. I don’t care. Once I’m in a fight I don’t see that, I see monsters, I see explosions, I see glory kills. It all looks amazing as I’m playing and the only time I notice the GFX is if nothing is going on and I happen to stop and take a close look at stuff. The point is they crammed an x86 AAA title into a portable tablet. It’s amazing, it’s portable. The changes while they can be noticeable don’t matter. The experience of Doom still remains
The future
I am hoping with a week filled with games like Doom, Skyrim and Rocket League released for Switch that this catapults other publishers into at least attempting to make their games work on the platform. We know it won’t be perfect but if you can make the gameplay experience translate to the Switch you will have a winner. We have solid proof of this now. 3rd party AAA titles can work, they’re enjoyable, we’ll buy them!
