extravagantGEEK

Just a geek and her thoughts…

Category: Gaming

  • Breaking Through Creativity Blocks: My Journey

    Breaking Through Creativity Blocks: My Journey

    Wow, it’s almost April! This year’s first quarter is almost over and I have very little to show for it. I have had a creativity block for the last few months and have been hard on myself about it. I have spurts of energy where I’ll do a little bit but nothing that directly paints the bigger picture of what I’m trying to accomplish.

    I won’t consider any of my goals as immediate, because that sends my anxiety into overdrive, but I intend to have a broader reach with my blog, my Twitch channel, and everything in between.

    The prominent things I have done this year, are moving my blog to be self-hosted and creating a VTuber avatar for my Twitch channel. I changed hosting to get rid of ads because if I’m not making money from them… I don’t want them on my site. I may add them at a later time if I get more traction to the site but for now, having them forced on me and my readers was just a hard pass. I also have access to WordPress plug-ins that I couldn’t use before. As for the VTuber avatar, I used a free program and tested it out with my webcam. Everything works quite smoothly when using OBS (streaming software) so it’s just a matter of planning to stream and choosing what I want to discuss and/or the games I want to play during streams.

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  • Diablo IV Open Beta – Impressions

    Diablo IV Open Beta – Impressions

    As you may be able to tell, April has been a very busy month for me. I almost went the entire month without any posts. I started this article at the beginning of the month shortly after playing the open beta for Diablo IV.

    If you have followed me since the days of Google+ you may recall an article I wrote called The Resurrection of My Gaming Life. In it, I detailed how Diablo III was one of the main games that sparked my love of gaming as an adult. I enjoyed playing through the acts of the game with my best friend Jameson on multiple platforms. I would even go as far as saying that it is my favorite MMORPG! That’s a huge statement as it’s my favorite genre… ever.

    I have also played Diablo II although I did not get a chance to finish the game. I plan to give it another go once I have my PS4 back, or if I end up getting a PS5. I have the digital game so it will work with either console. What I love so much about the Diablo series is that it was the first RPG I ever played where the campaign can be fully done with your friends. It also lets you level up faster if you had a friend way ahead of you and pick up the gear they drop without putting it up in a market. I love that! The story was also very well constructed and engaging. It was literally everything that I could want in a game and more.

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  • Step One Complete.

    Step One Complete.

    So, I did my first stream a little over a week ago. It went pretty well for a first (in my non-expert opinion). I did really well on my overlay edits so visually it was near perfection. My roommate suggested that I add better lighting which I will try next time… especially since I already have a ring light that is still unboxed after like 4 years. Oops.

    The biggest problem I ran into was the audio, which I, unfortunately, did not know about until after my stream ended. I’m a very soft-spoken person so the game easily took over my voice for starters. This was followed by the fact that my sound settings for the output of my headset’s microphone were muted. *Insert facepalm* I managed an average of 3-4 viewers throughout the stream and had a total of 17 people stop in all together.

    I mentioned in my last article that this is not something I expect to be a major source of income and that remains the case for now. However, I do want it to help me get out of my comfort zone and improve my social interaction skills. I am one of those people who may seem shy or even stuck up initially, but I just need to get a feel for people before I let my guard down. Sometimes I get lucky and meet people that I instantly “click” with, but it does not happen as often as I’d like.

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