Note: This is going to be a big post because I'm now starting to plan out things happening between now and the second week of February, between my streaming, LP, and niche series commitments, and also my non-Geeked Up stuff.
And that's it for another session of Frenetic Fridays! Not only that, but I managed to do something that I never accomplished before... I beat Doom II legitimately! Not only that, but I managed it at Ultraviolence difficulty! Granted, I never completed the original 3 Doom episodes at Ultraviolence either (though I had completed the shareware version of Doom when I was younger at the lowest difficulty), so I rightly feel a sense of accomplishment with completing both the original Doom, and Doom II at Ultraviolence difficulty, which makes me feel that I'm, getting my groove back gaming-wise. Granted, there were a lot of deaths and reloads, but I still did it without resorting to cheats. Granted, I was going to stop at Map 28 initially, but then I thought that I should continue, both because I was so close to finishing, and the fact that I'll be missing out a stream on Wednesday. Now granted, it was Wednesday rather than Friday that I'm not streaming on, but I felt like I should push forward regardless, and that paid off.
Of course, I did reload Map 29 quite a bit, plus I ended up losing my save for some reason (more than once!), so eventually, I got into making double saves just in case it happened again. That said of course, I died and reloaded a lot with the final Cyberdemon battle on that map too, because I had to beat him, partly because I had beaten 2 Spiderdemons in the previous level, but also because he was the penultimate boss (plus I need to try and prepare myself for 100%ing the game later), and he was ultimately put there as a final hurrah before you get to the final boss. It was tricky beating him initially because I walked into his rockets a few times, or I strafed into the exit, but in the end, I pretty much got one level below him and emptied out my BFG blasts into him until he was nothing but a bloody red mist, and it felt great to FINALLY kill him, as after that, there'd be no more Spiderdemons or Cyberdemons, rather just one massive demon that spawns lots of enemies.
Initially, I wasn't sure of how to beat the level, and whilst I made a couple of missteps along the way, it finally came to me, and I made sure I made all the correct moves and timings, then I did what had to be done, and won the game! I had to say, it was a bit of a rush, although less so than when I was playing Quake Live a few years back - and making it into the top 3 (sometimes #1) leading players - although for Doom II, it was more a sense of accomplishment; on the 25th year that the first Doom game was released, I managed to beat it, as well as its sequel at Ultraviolence difficulty, the way it's meant to be played; I beat it and I have a record of this on Twitch, as well as via this blog.
That said, however, I'm not done yet. I now have to go and do the 2 John Romero maps, E1M4b (Phobos Mission Control) & E1M8b (Tech Gone Bad), followed by Episode 4 (Thy Flesh Consumed) of The Ultimate Doom, before moving to the Doom II Master Levels to say that I've completed all official and semi-official Doom 1 & 2 maps, in time for the release of Episode 5 (SIGIL), where I hopefully will be able to continue my Ultraviolence streak; the announcement of SIGIL has renewed my determination to complete Episode 4, and complete it I will! As for why I waited till now to tackle the JR maps and Ep 4, it comes down to the fact that I was playing the classic Doom I remembered, especially considering Doom II was released in 1994 (was my first Doom game), with Ep. 4 being released in 1995. As for why the JR maps are going first... well, partly because there's 2 of them, partly because they affect Ep. 1 (and therefore come before Ep. 4), and partly because it makes the most sense to do that.
Of course, when I plan to 100% the game, I'll be playing maps in a more consistent order, with the 'b' maps happening after I finish the first episode, and then I will do episodes 2-5, then Doom II, then the Master Levels, and possibly Final Doom; I at least want to get "Classic Doom" 100%ed, seeing as although Final Doom is technically official, I have yet to decide if I'd include it, and yet it is also a sequel to Doom II, so I'll definitely revisit it down the line. That said however, I have one final map for Doom II that I want to tackle, that being the Xbox level (Map 33 - which I recently discovered existed) before I move onto the JR levels and the other Doom content, so I'll likely include this in my 100% run. Of course, if I'm including Final Doom, I need to include Doom 64 too, but I think finishing all the Doom 1 & 2 content is a major aim before anything else; as much as I love Doom and have gained a new-found appreciation for the way the maps were constructed (which again, all finally click in place with me), I need to move onto some different games after I finish off SIGIL (which I estimate will happen before the end of February)! I will of course return to Doom with Final Doom and Doom 64, but after SIGIL, I'm going to try a different game, one that isn't an FPS ideally, but at least not one that uses the Doom Engine.
As for other games, it's time we gloss over Isaac briefly, isn't it? First of all, I suck at doing Daily Runs, and need more practice with them! Secondly, I'm really thinking that next year I should start doing some Isaac Let's Plays once more, especially as it would be around 2 years and 4-5 months since I've done any about the I time I decide to start them back up again. This, of course, means that I'll be going back to YouTube, albeit on my Played Up with Stormkeeper channel, anb doing only the one series for now on there. I'll also be doing SGU Pickups & Thrifts on my Stormkeeper at Geeked Up channel, and will release a "best of 2018" video summarising my most interesting finds in the past year (partly because it makes things a bit easier. I'll be making the cut-off the end of the first week in February, partly because I'll need time to get my head in order, but also because it'll cover any stuff I happen to get before I start things up, although every video in the series after that (at least for now) will be every 2 months.
I'll be spending time between now and the first video getting my list prepared, but also locating all the items I bought over this year, so I can note what they are, and then put everything into groups, like I said I would before. Certain things I'm going to gloss over because they're just standard things, other things will get a show and tell, whereas others will get a "show and I'll tell you later", as I plan to do videos on them. Either way, I don't want to have the pilot video go on for too long, so I'm going to plan stuff out now, and nip down to my storage soon, so I have time to list things and think about what will appear, etc. in an episode. Further to that, over this month I also want to get the DiggerFeast back on track somehow, even if it means me only doing Loot Crates for now, but I do have to get used to doing things solo, as things have changed regarding the show, meaning that I'm on my own with it for the time being. This also means that all other DiggerKrew projects are suspended, except for maybe the odd post to the Diggerventures Instagram account every now and then, but that's about it.
That said, since doing these solo streams, I feel a bit more confident doing things solo (I especially feel like my solo LP stuff will benefit), so it may be that I'll be alright in this regard. Either way though, February onwards is where things go up a gear, so I'll be making sure I have better scheduling and the like, as well as more solid plans; even if I'm doing freeform shows, I still want to have skeleton documents for episodes that need that sort of structure (such as the DiggerFeast); I also want to start looking into doing different angles with certain things too... granted, there is the first person view, which might work for some things, but I also want to do a semi-facing view in the sense that the camera is facing me, but it will be looking down at my hands, which may be useful in certain cases; as much as Ashens is one of my influences (along with LGR and Nostalgia Nerd to varying degrees), I need to be wary of copying the perspective verbatim, although equally, it may be better to do it like that too... I need to give it some thought, but I do need to put my own spin on it too¬
Anyway, it's quite late here, and I want to do a charity shop run today, so I'll leave it here for now. I'd like to thank neur0net for the follow towards the end of the stream, as it's very appreciated! I'll be back on Monday with UberFate (and possibly KevinB) for what is likely the final session of Titan Quest before we probably start up Diablo III, but I have no idea when that will be exactly; the Xmas schedule for UberFate should be known within the next week or so hopefully.
But until then, take care, good night and see you all again soon.