Weekly blog 5/29/23

A day late, but ah well. This has been an "off" weekend for me anyways. Guess I was out in the sun too long because it was one of those weeks that I kind-of regretted the weekend. Summer is here (as far as I'm concerned) and I'm already feeling it. >_> Been on and off writing this blog all day, this is even the third time I tried to finish it but couldn't.

More on that later, but let's get into it.

Videos and Stream

Guess what??? I did a stream... ...two weeks in a row! Wowz! But seriously, it's nice to slowly get back into the groove of consistently streaming, but it has been more of a struggle than it would appear. I was even thinking of taking advantage of the extended weekend to stream today but considering it's been a struggle to even get in the mindset to record videos today, I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Really want to test to see if my theory regarding recording Pokemon XG works before the end of the weekend, especially the entire well-being of continuing the playthrough rides on if I can work out the technical issues getting in the way of doing so.

Speaking of videos, as we approach the month of June, I think now is a good time to go over the June Youtube schedule. After all, things will start changing as we reach the end of the Dawn of Djinn playthrough.

As you can see, Dawn of Djinn will be wrapping up next Friday as the finale of the Youtube series will go live then. To fill in the time as I work out a new upload schedule, I'll be uploading a video playthrough of Kirby's Dream Land the following week, with a video of Pokemon XG the following week, and then I'll be taking the rest of the month off.

It's a bit unorthodox, but transitioning directly to uploading two XG videos a week is a bit rough as they tend to be longer and take more time to make than the Dawn of Djinn videos do. Not to mention all the struggle I've been having just recording the videos in the first place. There's been a few weeks I haven't been able to work on anything at all so I think I'm overdue for a break anyways. Even was thinking of taking two weeks off, but the Pokemon XG video is essentially already done so I didn't see a reason to hold off on it any longer than I already have.

I've also been pondering experimenting with mixing in editioral-style videos with the usual playthroughs, so if that does pan out, it might not even be realstic for me to keep up with the 3 playthrough videos a week as is, and that is already a small amount of uploads for the frequency people usually expect from that style of videos. So, I don't know, taking it easy for a bit until I figure all that out is probably for the best.

Streams will continue as per usual, aka every Saturday evening, but only if I'm feeling enough up to it. Again, we've gotten two weeks in a row as is so it's a good start.

Oh, almost forgot. I'm looking for some feedback of which stream series I should focus on editing down into videos, in a similar vein to the Dawn of Djinn video. As you saw, Kirby's Dreamland is already made and ready and I've been debaiting if I should jump right into Kirby's Dreamland 2 or start making videos out of the Pikmin 1 streams I've been doing as of late. I should be releasing a poll on Twitter and Youtube when I release this blog, so if you haven't already check that out; I'm curious which people are interested in seeing first.

GS Dawn of Djinn

Dawn of Djinn Second Mix/V2 is coming along great. In fact, I think I've just about finished preparing the demo version of both the casual and challenge patches. Feel confident that it'll be ready by the time the Dawn of Djinn playthrough finishes and I think that would be a poetic time to share it.

The only thing is that I'm still a bit hesitant to publicly share it with the drama I see every now and then either tied to Nintendo emulation or of fan game content. Usually relating to bigger IPs than Golden Sun, and usually it's for perfectly understandable reasons if you take the time to dig deeper. But all this drama, is still enough to put me on the fence about the whole thing. If you noticed a lot of my videos tying to modded content "disappearing" off the channel, that would be due to me deciding to hide certain videos out of my own hesitation and not out of any direct problems, at least not yet.

A bit of a tangent to say if I do decide to share my current progress on Dawn of Djinn, it'll be with significantly less fan-fare than with version 1; especially since it's technically not even half way done yet. If you're following me on Discord you'll see what I plan to do soon enough. I would expect some major update on it in Discord at the very least by the time the Dawn of Djinn LP has ended.

Mis

Well it's a long weekend, which is part of the reason I'm able to write the blog today. Got some time off for the holiday and I'm trying to capitalize on it, but heat makes me miserable and the recent stuff going on in Pokemon Go did not help matters. I did at least try get a chance to try the new Shadow Raid system, so I wanted to at least spend a portion of the blog reviewing that... at least I would if I haven't been on and off working on this blog for so long as is.

Long story short; did not have anyone to play with so I didn't do any Mewtwo raids. Attempted a couple tier 3 raids, since there was no tier 1 raids in the area. First one was a Sneasel so I was able to just barely beat it myself with a combination of taking advantage of the double weakness and using the new purification crystals. Then I attempted a Shadow Quilava raid (twice), used purfication crystals but had no success. Maybe it was weather boosted and that was throwing things off, but still don't think it'll be worth it for me to try in the future. Only reason I did that one in the first place was because I had the free raid pass to spare.

I guess what it boils down to is if Ninatic doesn't want me to do raids because I don't play with local players then I guess I'll just not do them. While it's disappointing to see them go back to the old way when remote raiding actually encouraged me to go seek out gyms and engage with the system, the fact remains that raids could all vanish at once tomorrow and the core elements I play the game for would still be there. In fact, considering my mix history with raids since their inception, I'd probably be overall happier.

No getting cram in cars for "raid trains" for hours at a time; the disappointment and frustration that were events like the first Articuno and Sucine raid days that made me end up disliking Pokemon I used to love; the focus I've been able to give to walking in more natural areas like parks instead of making a 30 min drive to a college campus; FOMO... yeah, I don't think I miss the old days in the slightest. Despite the frustration I may occasionally express from time to time, I think life has improved ever since Pokémon Go wasn't the main focus of my life. It's definitely nice to have to encourage me to go to the park on the weekends or walk on the treadmill every day. Ever since I stopped letting FOMO control my life, I've had more time to do thinks that have made me feel fulfilled in ways Pokemon Go ever could. (In fact, maybe it'd be even healther to care even less than I current do? Do I need to go out every community day when I'd be easier to manage my time to just walk in the morning?)

I could never go back to those days now. So I guess worst case scenario it'll be back in the early days of 2016 where all I got out of the game was rewards for walking, and maybe it wouldn't even be that bad.

By the way, has anyone noticed that those stopped spawning now that Shadow Raid event is over? Unless it was just for Rocket Balloons. Cause while I didn't get out today due to literal and figurative burn out from being outside the past two days, I did two Rocket Balloons and neither of them gave me those shards you get after defeating them.