Another week and weekend that flew by at the start of 2025! As per the status quo it was a fantastic week of gaming for me..
Qvaid and I had a great time in Outward and we are closing in on the end to our 3rd run. This will finish up the Heroic Kingdom Faction Line for us. If everything plays out the way I suspect it will, we will likely finish up this run sometime next week.
While the participation in gaming together with the NH group (or at least those I’ve branded as NH) was a bit slim this week, we still had a great time in Red Dead Online and No Man’s Sky over the weekend. Saturday is pretty much the only day Error gets to play as of late due to family and scheduling. His change in schedule has made the game play together a bit odd as of late. Error, Kilen, and myself prefer to play together and since we are playing Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria in the ‘campaign mode’ we kind of hate to leave him behind while he’s away.
I decided to try something a bit different on this Hobbit Plays: listing a schedule of how the game play went, honorable mentions, and the highlights of the week.
Schedule
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Outward
Outward
Outward
Outward
No Man’s Sky
Red Dead Online
No Man’s Sky
Honorable Mentions:
Valheim, Diablo IV
Falken and Iron played some Valheim through out the week. Aces showed off some of the fun that can be had in Diablo IV late Saturday evening. Kilen and I watched him stream his game play in Discord for a bit as the night was rolling to a close. While I admit the game certainly looks interesting, I suppose I’m still a bit perturbed by the massive price tag the game carried on release for an action rpg. This also comes with the new price tag of a needed expansion now to get into the frills of current game play as well.
Highlights
Days played: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Players: Qvaid, Hobbit
Comments: Monday evening, Qvaid and I started the quest to get the special fertilizer for New Sirocco. We finished up the Myrmitaur Haven, got the egg, and headed back to New Sirocco to resupply and rest up. This of course alongside the always needed inventory management. Qvaid and I both are loot goblins and our packs fill up relatively quick, although we have gotten quite a bit better at knowing what is worth keeping and what is not. Not perfect mind you, but um, better? We headed over to the Sulphuric Caverns with the egg, made our way to the area, defeated the Nobles, and took the egg for a dip into the left over jelly fish to finish the fertilization process. It will now make a fine bit of fertilizer for New Sirocco’s drug farm. Er, um, crops.
After finishing up the Ambraine quest, Qvaid and I did some dungeon farming to gather up some more materials for building in New Sirocco. In a bit of irony, we actually have a decent amount gathered from our previous games. I’ve already freely admitted we transferred them over to this game (and the last run for that matter), to ease the grind a bit and help us finish up the run a bit faster. Since we have an abundance of materials, samples, and funds, we did spend several spans of time helping New Sirocco with the build (ie: fast forwarding time effectively 7 days). We would also camp out a few days in New Sirocco in situations where we were close to finishing up a build. Mostly just to keep from being in the Caldera and having it sit there waiting to start the next phase of construction.
By the end of our gaming adventurers for Monday evening, we are ready to star the quest to get the Forge stone for Josef. We decided to call it there since it was already getting a bit late and we figured by the time we attempted or completed the quest we’d certainly be regretting the decision to attempt it so late. So, we’ll pick back up as scheduling allows on that quest on our next game night!
On Tuesday evening, Qvaid and I picked back up and managed to complete the forge stone request for Josef.
Since we already had 3 specialized building done, we were able to move on to the next part of the quest line for Evangline. We needed to find and speak with a Noble to see how they were controlling or negotiating with the Djinn. It turned out to be an amulet, which just so happened to be on this particular Noble. I snatched the amulet from his neck, and lo and behold. He was turned int a Crimson Emissary!
We finished him off and headed off to the oil refinery (top) to start making our way through the dungeon there to get to the Djinn. Once we went as far as we could, we headed down to the oil refinery (pipe) and worked our way through the dungeon until we found the Djinn’s hideout. He wasn’t really in the mood to speak to any humans. He also didn’t see very keen on helping us work through moving the Emberheart to New Sirocco.
Alas combat ensued and after some time, Qvaid and I came out victorious. He agreed to assist us after all, and we agreed to destroy the amulet binding him. Over all, it was a fair trade I think. Of course he could have accomplished this without the fight, but there doesn’t appear to be any dialog to prevent it so far as I can tell.
Back in New Sirocco with the Emberheart in place, we are now able to build 3 more specialized buildings! Unfortunately it was later in the evening by the time we got all this done, so we called it a night there. Not a bad run if you ask me though, with us completing two major quests of the quest line and upgrading all 3 specialized building we have in New Sirocco (Black Smith -> Armor Forge, City Hall -> Embassy, -> Food Store -> Communal Garden). We are ready to start some new buildings when we start our next set of adventures!
Wednesday evening, Qvaid and I were back in Outward again. We decided on the following buildings for our final build of New Sirocco Alchemy Store -> Levantin Laboratory, Water Purifier -> Fountain of Life, and Arena -> Training Grounds. In this particular build 2 of those upgrades (->) were different from our previous play throughs. Technically speaking, it was the Levantin Laboratory and Fountain of Life. We’ve built both Arenas at this point, but opted for the Training Grounds on this run as we both had combat skills we wanted to pick up.
After the building and upgrading was complete, which did in fact take a decent amount of time, even with assisting the town for 7 days at a time, Qvaid and I fought in the arena for a few days to earn enough tokens to purchase our weapon skill for each of us, and allow Qvaid too get two Ornate Chests from the tokens which cost 2 tokens each.
We were in the air about started the final round of the New Sirocco quest line, where you have to face off against the Crimson Avatar. Another look at the time, made the decision for us. We had to start the quest, make our way to the Crimson Sanctuary, clear the way, and then fight the boss. Ultimately it was earlier than we would have called it, but still too late to really accomplish all that without effectively getting locked into a late night. Especially when you consider that we usually have to fight the Crimson Avatar at least a few times before we take him down. We decided to hold off on even starting the quest, and will probably pick back up there on Thursday evening, so long as scheduling works out for us.
Thursday evening, Qvaid and I rested at the New Sirocco Embassy, then continued the quest line for New Sirocco with Evangeline in the morning.
The Crimson Avatar once again revealed he was the cause of the rising magma in the lower areas of New Sirocco and Qvaid and I were tasked with finding him and putting a stop to his evil revenge.
Our initial attempt went better than any attempt we’ve made at the Crimson Avatar to date. However, we were once again defeated by him. Sadly the first defeat we’ve had this run thus far.
Fret now, however, as we were able to take him down on our very next attempt, thus saving New Sirocco for the 3rd time from the impending levels of rising magma!
Qvaid and I finished up the quest with the residents of New Sirocco and started some major inventory management to prepare for travel to Harmattan, and the start of our final major quest on our 3rd run. Rust and Vengeance !
Once we gathered everything we thought we would need and either put it in our stash or our back packs, we grabbed some travel rations, and I made sure to get enough coin to pay for the trip via the Sorborean Carvan, and to purchase the house in Harmattan upon our arrival.
We purchased the house, sorted our inventory from our stash to our bag yet again. We gathered all our usual travel supplies and headed out to activate the Wind Totem for the region so Qvaid could use her Cabal Hermit skills. We managed to finish that up and a bit of travel back to Harmattan to clear up some corruption we both ran into. A bit more inventory management, and sadly it was time to call it not long after that. We are ready to leave Harmattan again to head to the first dungeon for the Rust and Vengeance Quest Line, but time caught up to us a bit faster than we anticipated and we were not able to get a good start on it. It probably didn’t help that we got lost on the way to activate the Wind Totem as per our usual start in the Antique Plateau.
Days played: Saturday
Players: Error, Kilen, Hobbit
Comments: On Saturday, Error, Kilen, and I jumped into some wild west adventures in Red Dead Online. I’m fortunate in that, unlike GTA V, RDO still works flawlessly in Linux. I’ll admit it came as a bit of a surprise to me that we were back in RDO for the second weekend in a row, but I was certainly thrilled to be playing it again. This truly is just a beautiful game. While it isn’t flawless in terms of bugs or cheaters, what the developers were able to accomplish with the performance, graphics, and game play is an amazing feat.
It did bring me a bit of a somber moment as I also enjoyed playing GTA V with Error (my son), but I can no longer participate in the game at this time due to the refusal to allow Linux players with their ‘new’ anti-cheat. It does work in Linux, they just choose to kick anyone detected on a Linux system at this time.
This weekend was featuring some Bounty Hunter extra rewards and experience, and while Error and I are both max on the Bounty Hunter Role, the extra gold, funds, and over all experience is still a nice perk. We were certainly missing the free Fast Travel from the previous week though!
While I can’t speak for the entirety of the group, I know I certainly had a fantastic time, and we made a great day and evening of the adventures. The final legendary bounty was just Error and I as Kilen had hopped off to pay closer attention to the streaming of Diablo IV that Aces was doing in our Discord channel. Error called it after that final bounty, Kilen after a bit of chat and watching Aces’s stream, and I did shortly after Kilen called it.
Days played: Friday, Sunday
Players: Kilen, SoSirius, Hobbit
Comments: On Friday evening, I was excited to hop into No Man’s Sky with Kilen for a bit. It wasn’t as smooth of a session as we were hoping for as something was amiss with the Multiplayer, but I enjoyed the opportunity to play some No Man’s Sky none-the-less!
I mostly explored, while Kilen worked on a settlement he’s had for awhile now, and then he started work on a ‘Living Ship’ from a Void Egg he had.
On Sunday, I had a bit of a strange day. I had intentions to login and game earlier in the day, but got side tracked with some things and didn’t really finish the attempt until later in the early evening. By that point, no one was on or in any games. I hopped into No Man’s Sky again, and just picked up on the Artemis quest line. SoSirus made attempts to join me a few times during my game play, but he ran into some technical issues he had to work out with his video card / monitors.
I did manage to progress farther into one of the primary quest lines than I have on any other game to date. I tend to get side tracked a lot when I play this game. I know it doesn’t pay well, but I love trying to find every fauna on planets I visit. I don’t know why, it’s just fun for me. Of course that is mostly granted that I discovered the planet.
