November 2, 2020: Where Has LT Been?

TL;DR: I simply felt unmotivated to write. Though the primary reason is that I've been playing too much Genshin Impact, I've also allocated more productivity time, including game development practice and looking for a job.

Hi there. It's been a while, hasn't it?

Yes, I'm doing fine. I'm getting very close to graduating college, so thanks to the limited number of available courses, I only have 2 out of the full load of 4. This gives me more time for a lot more productive or fun stuff outside of my studies.

But I suck at introductions, so time for a...formal explanation.

Genshin Impact

I've...been playing too much Genshin Impact. Yes, I know it's an unacceptable reason to be so inactive considering I've put so many hours into the game and I'm now at Adventure Rank 28.

Why am I addicted to it? In my self-introduction, I stated that open-world and RPG are my favorite video game genres, and it just so happens Genshin Impact is a free-to-play open-world RPG.

Speaking of my self-introduction, my favorite Genshin Impact characters were a recent edit in my original draft. I originally drafted it in September 2020.

I coincidentally ran into the game in my YouTube subscription feed with some gameplay from ZeldaMaster. I didn't realize the chain would continue with one of my UPOU classmates recommending the game and some articles popping up on my Facebook News Feed. Huh, since I was introduced to The Legend of Zelda series by watching Breath of the Wild, I should try out this new BoTW-like game, I thought.

Needless to say, I'm KILLING EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM hilichurls with the Traveler. (I wasn't able to get Venti.)

I might write a post completely related to Genshin Impact this month.

Productivity

As lazy as I am, I sometimes don't feel good when I'm not doing productive things. I don't know why, though my wild guess is it's a combination of Chronic Hero Syndrome and If I Were a Rich Man.

There's still a lot I don't understand when it comes to C# and Unity, so I'm trying out as many tutorials as I can to expand my knowledge. Though I plan to specialize in competitively balanced RPGs, I want to make as many different genres of small games just in case I need the knowledge from developing those games in making my dream RPG.

"John Lemon's Haunted Jaunt" tutorial by Unity Technologies
As a rogue, I like stealth games, thank you very much.

I'm not ready yet for a game development job, so in the meantime, Mom wants me to use my English skills to teach others, so I've applied for such a job and passed the company's proficiency test.

Problem is, there are no open interview slots this week. -_-

I wish I scored perfectly on the Grammar part since I ranted about awful Facebook Dating profiles, but whatever. I'll take this victory.

Our Store Has Reopened!

March 2020 was the start of what I like to call the worldwide quarantine (Sweden not included, of course). In the Philippines, a strong quarantine protocol was implemented in Metro Manila, so our store was forced to stay closed for months--fortunately, at that time, we sold almost all the products we had in stock.

The quarantine was "weakened" in later months--mid-June, I think. This allowed employees to get back to work...under the usual mask-wearing and social distancing protocols, of course.

Technically, our store was allowed to reopen...but we didn't 'cause the manufacturing companies where we get our products from had their supplies completely annihilated.

In October, though, the companies finally had supplies, so we obviously seized the opportunity. Now I'm back to my usual store work.

However, when I'm not eating, I keep my mask and face shield on, even if there's no customer. It's not because I'm scared of getting infected--it's because I'm paranoid about being punished by the law, whether it's due to a tattletale Karen, an undercover law enforcer, or a newly installed security camera.

While foot and vehicle traffic are back to normal on my home street, customers are much fewer--usually between 0 and 2 transactions a day, each for less than US$2.00 worth of products.

Friend Stuff

This has taken the least amount of my time overall during my absence from my blog, though I still feel like mentioning it since I had fun working my butt off for friends.

Some UPOU friends are inexplicably offline for extended periods of time; others are ones I simply did not feel in the mood to initiate combat conversations with.

Conversations between my other friends are very short and rare now since the school year has resumed in India (BoltOLightnin) and the Philippines (YoSquid).

I know I'm not supposed to give a firetruck but my Chronic Hero Syndrome says otherwise. I feel bad that they're having a much harder time in studies than I do (even in my full course load), but I can't help them because my courses are more heavily focused on sociology rather than...the painfully nerdy calculations in the natural sciences, which they are getting a boatload of. (BoltOLightnin is still in high school, for crying out loud! But I hear India has a very rigorous education system. Gotta supercharge the economy, after all.)

I suppose the best I can do is give them advice I'm capable of giving when they ask for it.

Genshin Impact Homebrew D&D Rules

View and download the rules here.

Permission to add this part was obtained from BoltOLightnin and YoSquid.

My Genshin Impact addiction has carried over to D&D. Since BoL, YoSquid, and I have started our Dragon of Icespire Peak campaign a few months ago, I felt it was necessary to ask them if I should add Genshin Impact elemental reaction rules, and everyone approved.

It was, needless to say, an Overloaded blast to write those rules. In addition to rules for the reactions themselves, I wrote tips, recommended spells, and magic weapons.

The recommended spells were added mainly to save BoL time that would otherwise be wasted by reading through a long list of official spells.

So far, only LT and YoSquid have magic weapons to balance them with BoL's character, a sorcerer named Telnior.

I haven't actually used the rules yet since our previous game was almost completely filled with conversation.

LT was dropped to 0 HP by a stirge in an earlier session since I made him Draw Aggro to keep the other two characters alive and in the spotlight.

When the fight ended in this session with a super effective arrow to the last stirge, Telnior and YoSquid left LT's body lying unconscious, ending in three failed death saving throws in a row, killing LT.

I announced it by saying "LT died!", assuming the characters wouldn't know LT died since I thought they left the battlefield. Well...they played as if they knew LT died and did a ritual to summon BoL's homebrew god, Kelpian, the god of time. I allowed it because I don't like permadeath.

In exchange for the adventurers promising to use their time for the benefit of others, Kelpian resurrected LT in the end. Yes, I made Kelpian say "time" a lot, considering BoL has told me almost nothing about his personality at that time.

The conversation took about 30 minutes, considering it was done purely through Discord text messages. I like it that way since it's less vulnerable to slow/inconsistent connections, uses much less bandwidth, and lets me relive the epic and funny moments exactly as they happened.

The session was cut short due to...family issues, I think. (Not on my end, I promise!) Then again, all our D&D sessions so far are short mainly because of a monster we all call "school".

My next session has an estimated 75% chance to involve at least one elemental reaction considering I plan to trigger an encounter as soon as the session starts. The characters will run into a time distortion, a combat "collectible" that combines Field Ops from Prototype 2 with elemental oculi from Genshin Impact. Each time distortion reversed improves friendship with Kelpian, potentially granting powers like Divine Pulse from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

This specific distortion is in Umbrage Hill, a place where two dwarf clans battled. As such, the enemies are illusions of dwarves from the past. They wield lightning morningstars, allowing BoL's character to inflict Superconduct on them with his cantrip, frostbite.