September Digest #6

World of Warships

NA Account (Thu/Fri)
Interesting session for part way through I got distracted by Akira Kurosawa's epic masterpiece The Seven Samurai. Happened to switch tv channels and there it was. Even though the movie was halfway through, I couldn't stop watching it till the very end. Game simply had to wait, and I didn't mind at all. 

After that pleasant interlude, I resumed playing. Ended up playing nearly twenty games, some more than once. Boosted both Italian and Pan-Asian tech tree lines by adding new ships - Longjiang, Nino Bixio, Phra Ruang, Taranto, Curtatone, N. Sauro. Not much to say except to say I cannot wait to upgrade to the mid-tiers (Tiers VII and VIII). 

SEA Account (Fri)
Played just three ships today. And of these I played Perth the most, in Operations, in order to fast track ship XP earnings for the usual daily coal loot crates. To my surprise I had fun playing her. The new and upgraded Operations missions were also interesting adding variety and novelty. 

Relogged in tonight to check something unrelated out and learned this is now happening.

You can find it in the Update History section of your main port screen.

Progress is revealed when you click on the icon. Total of twenty games. Rewards are four Supercrates. 

Should be more; at least ten or twenty! It's little surprise side events like these with generous rewards that will bring please us and likely bring back the player base of yore in numbers that will deflect the general opinion that the game is dying. But they generally say that about most games given people's attention span tends to be short anyway. 

Reward will be automatically credited when Update 15.9 kicks in next month (they state 8 October). This was a total surprise to me and quite unexpected. No indication concerning that this was happening unless one took time to read the reams and mire that is the WG devblog (you know, TLDR).

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NA Account (Sun/Mon)

Two reasons for creating this second account. One was accidental. The second reason was "to see how the other half lives", so to speak. And to have some fun as opposed to the heavy grind associated with my other account. 

Started to see myself repeating what I'm doing with my SEA account in that everything was both a worry and a grind. So I did something about it tonight. 

Sold off just under half the ships in my port fleet of fifty-six ships. Basically got rid of the ones I've already played and I am unlikely to replay. Kept a few that I enjoyed and would like to continue playing some time in the future. 

This sell off freed up valuable port slots as well as earned some credit back. Kept the few upgrades I'd deployed on certain ships. I was able to upgrade a couple of lines with new ships, at least six more Tier 4 and 5. 

Goal for the rest of this year will be to upgrade all the tech tree lines I'm currently playing (seven) to Tier 5. Which is an exceedingly generous amount of time for achieving given a couple of lines are already there. 

Wanting this second account to be a fun chilled one, a proper alternative to my SEA account. 

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NA Account (Mon/Tue)
Change up after grinding the new ships at Tier 5. Upgraded and acquired Acasta, Emerald, Hawkins, Iron Duke, Tiger, Shenyang, Guissano, Turbine to the port fleet. But also sold off all my Tier 2 ships, a fair amount of the Tier 3 ships (with a few exceptions). There are others but I need doubloons so I can demount their upgrades and redeploy them on future ships. 

Decided to end out the session playing my only Tier 10 ship, the premium Tempesta Nera. Just for laughs. Ended up also playing it to complete the credit mission in the Dockyard Event. And score the three Dockyard tokens on offer. Which I traded in for some necessary free XP, elite commander XP, and coal. 

Last mission was rewarding. One-shotted the carrier United States. It went from full health to sunk in one broadside salvo from the Tempesta. As one player commented, "Dang!"

It's times like this that makes playing the game "fun" and "worthwhile". But such moments are extremely rare nowadays. Still, to be treasured when they occur. 

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Cinematic Trailers

Saw a YT streamer react to the recently released Starcraft trailer in the weekend. To be honest, I did not think much of it. Loud and overhyped. Too much bombastic noise. As the reactor herself mentioned several times, she kept getting "Starship Trooper vibes". 

The trailer depicts the career of a new recruit from induction through to training before graduation as soldier fodder. And the closer to his graduation he gets, the louder the propaganda becomes until the day of reckoning. Then reality hits. Only his name tag remains to record that he ever existed. But, more importantly, indoctrination always comes at a price. Don't buy into the hype that Big Brother foists upon you. 

What made me smile was one commenter pointing out, the only steady seemingly safe career in that effed up world is that of equipment maintenance technician - the individual cleaning out and repairing the armoured suits. For the next sucker. 

Perhaps the more relevant career is weapons technician.

On Syama Pedersen's Digital Bones YT site, I saw that he had just released the teaser trailer to Astartes II that's been circulating for about a week now. There is a lot of excitement and hype surrounding this upcoming release, more so since he's been involved with it. Shows how much impact the guy has had on the 40K world, especially in regards to how he portrays the Grimdark universe. 

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Sports

Well done the Wallabies for smacking the Springboks in Perth. And with a depleted side too. Impressive courage and spirit shown by Australia. I think they've got a winner in their coach, Les Kiss. And their rebuild is coming along really well. 

It seems the Wallabies are the bogeymen for the rampant World Cup winners and #1 side in the world. As it should be. The Rugby World Cup next year is looking to be an interesting one for sure.

Congrats also to the Brisbane Lions for winning the AFL Grand Final over Freo on Saturday. Three-peat. Again. Wow. Just wow. 

And what a win for the Newcastle Knights over Penrith last night in the NRL semi final. From wooden spooners last year to Grand Finalists this year. What a turnaround. I wouldn't like to bet on who's gonna win this weekend though. I can barely win a Division 9 in Lotto. 

Did I watch any of these games? Of course not. But well done to Australian sports. Glorious weekend. Praise to the winners. Commiserations to the losers. 

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