April 2024 In Review

 Taking some inspiration from The Ancient Gaming Noob (TAGN for short) I wanted to start up month-in-review posts.

Microsoft Designer / prompt "an image to represent a blog post summarizing the month of april"

The Blog

 I will likely write a bigger post about this but I had a "surprise" after researching recent random traffic spikes.  The findings are best explained in this summary which guided me through blocking spammers that are abusing Google Analytics GA4 tags.  Needless to say my bubble was deflated as 90% of the traffic to my blog has just been spam and not real traffic (which explains why I see so few comments).  So where I was thinking I had 1,000 visits a day I really just have 100 (and that may still be high).  

 Anyone using Google Analytics should read that article and take the actions to block the spammers and build reports to review your historical traffic without that traffic counted.  I did parts of this through April so won't have a full picture quite yet and will share more on traffic stats in future monthly updates.

 In other metrics:

• Posts:
  
• Target: 22 (at least one per week day)
  
• Posted: 16
• Difference: -6
• Why the miss?  Work.  It's been busy so spare time has been gaming instead of blogging.  Fortunately clearing up here for May to get back on track.
•  Search Trends
• "new world ultimate trophy" is the main search driver to the blog and then hundreds of other New World search terms after that (daily checklist, season 5 artifacts, upgrade named gear - just to name a few)
  
• "call of the wild the angler multiplayer" is the big non-New World driver anytime that game seems to have a hiccup with this multiplayer features.
  

What I Played

 New World continues to dominate my time even though there isn't much new to do in the game.  My main focus has been on 3v3 arenas and the Springtide Bloom event.  The spring event, while bugged, was a good "do it and chill".  The bug let you get rewards faster so I was able to get all skins and rewards from the event with less effort than expected.   For 3v3 arenas I peaked into the top 10 for wins briefly for Season 5 and am back to 12th.  My main playing partner hit #1 though so that was cool to see; though both of us lack the time to stay on the top for the full season.  We'll still give it a go though.

 Fallout fever caught me as it has so many others and I gave Fallout 3 a couple hours of attention, but will admit it fell off almost immediately in favor of New World.

 I also got time with the Pax Dei Wilderness Alpha and spent several hours there.  The game has a good bit to improve but there is a little glimpse of promise of game there.

Years Ago

 One thing I wanted to steal from TAGNs is his look back over the last twenty years (we're getting old!).  My look back will mostly be from my blog history but a real life event may pop in here or there.

1 Year Ago

 April 2023 brought us Season 1 in New World and Rabbits Revenge (which due to patch delays we did NOT get in 2024).

5 Years Ago

 April 2019 caught me in my drought of blogging so had no posts, but my youngest son was also just turning 3 months old at the time so I was plenty busy.

10 Years Ago

 April of 2014 was all about the MEGASERVERS coming to Guild Wars 2.  Ten years later and we still have MMOs thinking they can launch with single servers.  How I wish New World had a megaserver model!

15 Years Ago

  April of 2009 I was looking at the news about A Dance With Dragons being delayed and fifteen years later, while we did get Dance, we have NOT gotten the next book in the series!  But GRRM is not my bitch so I'll leave it at that (if you get this comment you get it).

 20 19 Years Ago

 Technically I have 20 named years on my sidebar, but mathematically 2005 is only 19 years ago.  And April of 2005 I was not yet blogging, but that was all about to change as I started in May 2005!  Which means I was thinking about it in April!

Steam Backlog: Fallout 3 (and a fix for crashing when you click New Game)

 This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).

 I jumped back into Fallout 3!

Oh how I've missed you Pip-Boy!

 

 First; I kept crashing when starting a new game in Fallout 3 and a little searching directed me to needing a DirectX9 file.  Once downloaded and placed in the right folder I was off starting a new game.

 One thing I realized off the start was that Fallout 3 does not use cloud saves of any sort so all of my past adventures are long gone.  I had to start back out at the beginning which is literally as a baby coming out of my mother.  Then I explored the vault as a toddler > teenager > young adult before finally heading out into the wasteland.

 Once out into the world I had to admit myself the game graphics feel dated.  It is amazing to me how games that looked "amazing" 10+ years ago just don't hold up anymore.  That is both a good and bad thing I suppose.  Good that we've seen such amazing progress in graphics but bad in that I don't get the same sort of nostalgia hit from a Fallout 3 as I do from a stylized graphical game like a Super Nintendo RPG.

 I made my way to the first town in the game which is named after the nuclear bomb at it's center: Megaton.  This is where my journey ended for now as I have to contemplate how I want to solve this particular puzzle :)  Anyone that has played the game knows what decision happens here.

The clever way that Fallout 3 has you set your starting stats via a children's book... while you are playing as a toddler.

 

Fallout to the Fallout

 

 The Fallout series on Amazon is all the rage and rightfully so as it recreates not only the theme of the games but also the quirkiness.  I am one episode in and even I, the can't-ever-seem-to-play-single-player-games gamer, am contemplating a jump back into the Fallout games.

 I was reading Tales of the Aggronaut and the post from Belghast: Radioactive Nostalgia.  Both in title and content the post was spot on.  The Fallout TV (is it really TV?) series is spot on translating the game to the screen.  From the look of characters to the well-placed medpacks on the walls everything just feels right in the first episode and I can't imagine it gets too far off later in the season.  

 It is so good that it has many players such as Belghast back and playing the Fallout games.  Even I'm considering going back to Fallout 3 or 4 which I never finished.  Or maybe like Belghast I revisit my favorite in the series: New Vegas.  Regardless of my decision the SteamDB charts don't lie: lots of folks are returning to Fallout games with the popularity of the TV series (see charts below).  You might say there is some fallout... to the Fallout.