2131: It Builds Character

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[For some reason this failed to publish when I wrote it yesterday. Apologies.]

"Tell us about a favorite character from film, theater, or literature, with whom you’d like to have a heart-to-heart. What would you talk about?"

From the Daily Post writing prompt, It Builds Character.

There are any number of interesting characters from a variety of media I'd like to do this with, so in order to prevent analysis paralysis I'll simply go with the character that popped into my head immediately when I saw this prompt: Milla Maxwell from Tales of Xillia.

Milla was a big part of why I enjoyed Tales of Xillia and its sequel so much. She was a well-defined, very distinctive character, both visually and in terms of her personality — and even so far as her slightly lisping English voice acting went — who has stuck with me long after I was done with those games.

Milla, for those unfamiliar with Xillia is… well, to be honest, it's a long and complicated tale that is explained over the course of two games, but suffice it to say that she's not quite "normal" in that she's lived in isolation from human society for a very long time and has mysterious, quasi-magical powers thanks to her ability to commune with the Great Spirits.

All this stuff isn't why I'd want to hang out with Milla, though. I'd want to hang out with her simply because she's cool, and smart, and funny — but endearingly naive about lots of things. Her isolation from human society leads her to ask interesting but not always entirely socially acceptable questions, and her curiosity about the world is infectious. She knows how to get things done when the occasion demands it, but she also knows that it is important to enjoy yourself and indulge your body and mind's demands when you're aware of them.

Mostly, she just seems like a nice person, and someone I'd enjoy spending time with. There's not a single point in either of the Xillia games where Milla has a mean word to say about anyone — the cast as a whole is pretty closely-knit and pleasant, but Milla stands out even among them — and even when confronting her enemies, she's keen to understand them and why they are the way they are.

What would we talk about, though? Well, Milla's naivete means that we'd almost certainly have a lot to talk about, particularly if I were to introduce her to things with which she wasn't overly familiar. Perhaps I'd play some music for her, and attempt to explain the emotional power that sound has over us. Perhaps I'd show her some video games — I could show her her own game, that'd raise an interesting conversation, I'm sure — or sit her down and attempt to engage her interest with a board game. All of these activities would doubtless prompt the question "why?", and one of the nice things about Milla is that when she asks this, she's not being facetious, sullen or passive-aggressive about not wanting to do something; she genuinely wants to know and understand why people choose to partake in particular activities. And I think helping her with those big questions would make for some absolutely fascinating conversations.

So, Milla Maxwell, if you ever feel like stopping by, well, I'm pretty sure I can keep you occupied, entertained and intrigued for quite some time, and that's not something I can say with confidence to many people!

2130: Scrub Up

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I've been watching Scrubs on Netflix recently, because somehow, despite E4 showing it nearly every minute of every day for several years (the other minutes being taken up by Friends) I've never actually seen the whole thing all the way through. I've seen most of it, but I've not seen the later seasons in particular.

Scrubs is an interesting show in that it strikes a good balance between comedy and drama. It's not a show that you can particularly pigeonhole easily, because it's experimental and strange and isn't afraid to have one-off episodes exploring interesting, weird concepts. In many ways, it's a bit like earlier shows that took a similarly experimental approach in a fairly mundane setting — I'm thinking stuff like Ally McBeal here — but it very much has a feel that is all its own.

One of the reasons I've been enjoying it so much recently is because I'm finding protagonist JD to be quite relatable, in a number of different ways. In particular, his naiveté and hesitance to truly join the "adult" world — even when confronted with challenging situations, such as those that he faces in his job as a doctor every day — are very familiar feelings to me, and as JD gets older over the course of the show's complete run, it's almost comforting to see that he doesn't really get any more comfortable with being a "grown-up"; although he's only a fictional character, it's nice to know that the way I feel sometimes isn't entirely unfamiliar to others!

Scrubs is also fun for the fact that it captures the atmosphere of working in a stressful environment rather well. There are people who handle stress with aggression and impatience — particularly if, like in Dr. Cox's case, they're dealing with other issues alongside anything that crops up at work — and there are people who deal with it using humour. There are some who take the humour further and confront difficult concepts by making use of black humour, and there are others who, at times, allow emotions to get the best of them. And then there are those who are able to leave all the troubles and difficulties of the working day behind them the second they walk out of the door; while this is arguably the best approach for one's mental health, is this really the best thing for those you are taking care of?

To cut a long story short, then, watching Scrubs on Netflix has given me an appreciation of why this show has remained so consistently popular since it first appeared in 2001. I haven't yet seen the notoriously different final season, though I'm curious to, even if it's as much of a shift from the original format as it apparently seems to be. Even if it's rubbish, though, there's plenty of good stuff in the preceding seasons, and it remains timeless television that I can see remaining relevant to many people for many years to come yet.

2129: Devil Drink: A Call for Help

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Real Talk today. Serious business. And I'm probably going to regret writing this and making it so public, but I'm at my absolute wits' end, don't know what to do and could do with some support, be it from friends or strangers.

No names or anything will be given in this post, but some of you may be able to work certain things out from it. If you do, please do me a favour and don't point anything like that out in the comments or say things to the people involved, because that's just not going to help anything at all.

Anyway.

I don't drink any more. I used to drink quite a lot when I was at university and the few years afterwards; I was somewhat legendary among a number of my friends for spectacular drunk text messages, with the mangled garbage that T9 predictive text would come out with being far more entertaining than the stuff AutoCorrect spews out from the iPhones and Androids of today. It was fun, though I never enjoyed the hangover the next day.

I stopped drinking for two real reasons: firstly, I'd got to the stage where I simply wasn't enjoying it any more — alcohol tended to give me heartburn, and I came to the conclusion that being a bit wobbly and lary wasn't enjoyable enough to justify feeling a bit sick after just a sip or two — and secondly, more importantly, it became apparent that someone in my life had a capital-P Problem with drink.

This wasn't the first time I'd encountered someone with such an issue; a friend of mine at university suffered a similar affliction to quite a serious degree, though at the time, young and stupid as we were, it felt like something that should be laughed at rather than something that was a serious problem. More than ten years after that, though, I understand what a horrible, devastating thing alcoholism is, and how horrible it is to be in a position where you're absolutely helpless to give any sort of aid to the person who is suffering so much they feel the need to take the pain away with excess amounts of drink.

The person in question had a problem for quite some time before seemingly resolving it. I tried several ways of dealing with it — with humour, with sadness, with anger, with disappointment, with honesty, with support, with attempts to engage and understand — but nothing seemed to be particularly effective. What actually happened is that over time, the person in question simply seemingly got over it, stopped drinking altogether and we said nothing more about it, though I always took care to steer clear of conversations that involved alcohol or being drunk or anything like that.

Recently, though, this person has suffered a bit of a relapse. It's not to the same degree as it was before by any degree of magnitude, but it is happening again. And, once again, I feel completely helpless to do anything about it — perhaps because, if my past experience is anything to go by, there really isn't anything I can do about it, and the person simply has to resolve it themselves.

This is upsetting and deeply, deeply distressing, though. It may sound selfish to make this about me, but I feel it's important to note the impact of alcoholism on the people around the afflicted person as well as the afflicted person themselves. Because that impact can be devastating. It can have a huge impact on their mental wellbeing, and on the way they see the afflicted person. It can have a huge impact on the way they interact with the afflicted person, and the things they feel comfortable doing and talking about with the afflicted person. And it can impact on their life at large, preventing them from doing some things and forcing them to do others.

Ultimately it can build a great deal of resentment, frustration, anger and sadness — some of which is perhaps justified, but the rest of which is simply an impotent expression of fury at a sensation of powerlessness. I recognise this, and I would like to clarify that I certainly don't hate the person involved for this by any means, particularly as I'm familiar with the extenuating circumstances that have brought this relapse on. Rather, I just want to feel like I can support them and help them through it once again, but I don't know if I have the strength to handle it for a second time.

So that's pretty much where I am right now. I don't know what to do. I need help. Although I don't know how anyone might be able to help, and I feel guilty writing this, given that I predict a significant proportion of you reading this will put two and two together quite quickly. As I say, though, if you do, please, just, shush. That part isn't important.

Right now, I am sad, upset and angry, and I need help. Please help.

2128: Point to Point

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I'm apparently on a minor retro kick at the moment, what with playing The Legend of Zelda and, also, downloading the "3D Classics" version of OutRun on my 3DS.

I love OutRun. It's one of those games that I used to see in the arcade but, for whatever reason, didn't play very often. (I feel it was probably something to do with my Dad baulking at the idea of paying 50p for one credit, but I usually managed to convince him that it was worth paying this much to play G-LOC, which at least had aeroplanes in it.) We also had the dreadful Atari ST port of Turbo OutRun, which I actually rather enjoyed despite its atrocious framerate, appalling load times (in the middle of a race!) and loss of various animations and game features if you had less than 1MB of RAM in your computer.

Despite all these setbacks, OutRun has always remained a racing game that I've been very fond of, and when the Shenmue series hit Dreamcast with a variety of playable Sega games right there within the game itself, I spent a great deal of time recapturing past glories (or, more commonly, indignities) on OutRun and Super Hang-On. When the PlayStation 2/Xbox era rolled around, I spent a lot of time playing the wonderful OutRun 2, which brought the basic gameplay of the original up to date with fresh graphics, but otherwise played just like an old arcade game. And when the Xbox 360 got a tweaked port of OutRun 2 on its downloadable Xbox Live Arcade service, well, of course I was going to play it again.

3D Classics OutRun is arguably a step back technology-wise from OutRun 2 and its spinoffs; it's based on the original 16-bit sprite-based graphics rather than being rendered in full polygonal glory. This is true to the original game, however, and there are a few little tweaks here and there to bring it a bit more up to date. It runs at 60 frames per second, for one thing, making it look smoother than the arcade version ever did, and makes excellent use of the 3DS' glasses-free stereoscopic 3D for some impressive visual effects. Possibly my favourite "pointless but cool" feature in it, however, is the simulation of the arcade cabinets' movement that you can turn on; OutRun was one of the many arcade games in the period that had "Deluxe" cabinets featuring hydraulics that would cause your seat to move around as you played. Your field of vision on the tiny screen of the 3DS isn't quite the same as literally feeling your car being slammed around corners, but it's a decent enough approximation, and a fun (and optional) effect to play with.

But enough about the technical side of things; every time I play some variation on OutRun I find myself pining for this lost age of racing games. Not necessarily because of the graphics or the style of play or anything — playing racing games with strict countdown time limits can be a bit of a culture shock these days! — but because they feature a subtle difference from most modern racing games in that they are point-to-point racers rather than lap-based.

I like point-to-point races, and we don't see nearly enough of them in modern racing games. There are exceptions, mind you: Burnout 2 had a nice little feature where once you completed the various events in one area, you then had a point-to-point race to get to the next one; Burnout Paradise was almost entirely point-to-point races; the Midnight Club series took an enjoyably chaotic approach to point-to-point racing by allowing you to choose your own route through an open-world city, so long as you hit the checkpoints along the way. But despite these examples, many of the racers we have today are lap-based.

Why is this something I care about? Well, lap-based racers are fun, of course, and allow you to learn the course, even within a single race. Point-to-point racers, meanwhile, have a wonderful sense of going on a journey, and in the case of games like OutRun, it's immensely satisfying to successfully reach the next stage of said journey and see what new scenery there is to admire a little further down the road. OutRun even takes this one step further, by providing a fork in the road at the end of each stage, allowing you to continue in one of two different directions to create your own custom route through the game.

3D Classics OutRun isn't a deep game in the slightest, especially when held up against more modern examples. But there's a purity to the experience that you just don't get in more realistic fare; it's a game that revels in the enjoyment of taking a fast car on a rollercoaster ride and seeing how far you can get this time. I love it, and I'm happy it's still a relevant game in 2015!

2126: One of Those Times

I've been having a rough few days, depression- and anxiety-wise. Things have been "getting to me" more than they have for a long time, and today felt particularly bad; earlier in the day I just needed a cry more than anything. I wasn't crying over anything in particular; it just happened. Everything was too much. I felt a little better afterwards, but there's still some residual bleakness lurking around inside my head.

I was interested to see on Twitter that a friend of mine had also been having a rough time with his mental health, in his case noting that his anger at something that might seem relatively "trivial" to an outside observer had actually led him to self-harm for the first time in quite a while. Like me, he noted that the incident itself wasn't a particular catalyst for his reaction; it was, presumably, just more a case of "the straw that broke the camel's back", and everything coming to a head leading to something mental snapping.

Times like this seem to come for a lot of people around the same sort of time. I don't really know what causes it, but it's interesting to ponder. In this particular instance, it's entirely possible that the horrible things that have been going on in Paris have subconsciously infiltrated our minds and have been influencing our thoughts in negative directions, but to be perfectly frank, it doesn't feel that way to me at all; I'd been feeling bleak and miserable before all that happened, so perhaps it's something else.

Maybe it's environmental? We're coming into winter now, and the evenings are getting darker earlier, making the whole world seem just a little bit more closed-in and oppressive to some people. I've always quite liked the night, but it being dark outside is very much a signal to the body that "the day is over, it's probably time to do relaxing things and/or sleep now" and as such isn't particularly conducive to being productive.

Maybe there's some sort of physical reason; a literal "something in the air", as it were. Air pressure can sometimes have an effect on the way you feel physically, so perhaps there's an effect on mental wellbeing too, or perhaps just the changing weather of the advancing seasons has an impact on how everyone's feeling.

Or maybe it's even some sort of metaphysical, spiritual thing; the balance between Light and Dark, Good and Evil being off or something. (It's probably not this. But you never really know, do you?)

Whatever it is, it's pretty crappy, and I know from today that I'm not the only one who is feeling a bit bleak and miserable about everything for no real reason at the moment. As such, I'd like to say to anyone out there who is feeling a bit low that I hope things look up for you soon, and remember that it's often really helpful to try and express the things you're feeling, even if you can't quite explain them. Talk to a friend; write them down in a journal; blog them as I have; tweet them to your followers. Looking at things from another perspective can sometimes be helpful, and even if it isn't, it can give you a much-needed sense of relief and release to just get all those stray, dark thoughts out of your head.

Be well, everyone!

2125: Walk a Mile in the Tank's Shoes

One of the things I really like about Final Fantasy XIV is how easy it is to switch jobs to one of the other classes. Swap out your weapon (and, more than likely, armour) and bam: you're another class, with no need to create a new character.

This system encourages people to try out more than the class they start with, and provides a great opportunity for players to learn about not just the role they choose to "main", but also other types of character they might run into in cooperative content.

It's actually really interesting to run the same thing as each of the three main types of character — tank, healer, DPS — because the experience is often significantly different for each. And it's not always just a case of "tank stands in front of monsters, DPS stand behind, healer makes sure no-one dies" — one of Final Fantasy XIV's biggest strengths is that its encounters are often designed to keep things interesting for everyone in the party, with tanks, healers and DPS alike being expected to deal with mechanics and take care of themselves as much as possible.

Take something like the fourth floor of the Alexander raid, for example. As a tank, your job is relatively straightforward: stand at the front repeatedly hacking away at The Manipulator's legs until it falls over; try and mitigate as much of the incoming damage as possible. Straightforward, that is, unless you're the off-tank, in which case you'll be frequently sucked into a side "Quarantine" room with a DPS and expected to defeat a not-particularly-tough add before being returned to your party. DPS, meanwhile, are expected to pop exploding orbs that appear around the room, try and position themselves so tanks can intercept damage from laser attacks, defeat additional enemies as quickly as possible and, above all, try not to die. And the healers, aside from keeping everyone standing, have to deal with a unique mechanic in the last phase where they need to keep apart from each other and the rest of the party, lest everyone keel over dead.

It's not always this complex, of course, but even so, walking a few miles in each of the three roles' shoes gives you a better overall understanding of how the game as a whole works, and that's really important when playing cooperatively — if only to know exactly what all those buffs the healers are throwing on you mean, and that you shouldn't Stun enemies when the Dark Knight has Blood Price up!

That and it's just kind of fun to see how the different classes play, because even in ostensibly similar classes (Paladin, Dark Knight, Warrior, for example — all are tanks) there's plenty of variation in play style and overall "feel". You might even find yourself liking a new class more than what you originally considered to be your "main" — it's happened to me twice to date!

2124: Here are 35 Games From Between 1981 and Now with Female Protagonists

Polygon wrote something dumb the other day. As most of you know, this is nothing unusual, so I'm not even going to bother to link to an archive this time. The gist of the piece, though, was that female-fronted video games are New and Exciting, and their evidence for this was Assassin's Creed Syndicate (which features both a male and a female protagonist) and Fallout 4 (which features customisable, player-created protagonists).

Trouble is, it's not the first time either of those games have had a female protagonist. Assassin's Creed Liberation featured only a female protagonist — no bloke with whom to share the limelight — and Fallout has had a selectable character gender since its very first installment. In fact, female-fronted games are nothing new at all. And as an attempt to prove this, I am going to list one game from every year since I was born in 1981 that featured a female protagonist, be it of the pre-scripted, "written" variety, or the ability for the player to create their own female character with which to experience the game.

1981: Ultima

One of the earliest role-playing games, Richard Garriott's Ultima set the mould for many future titles to follow. It featured a fairly comprehensive, customisable character creation system that included the option to play as either male or female characters. Rather progressively, this choice was purely cosmetic, and had no effect on your stats whatsoever; none of that "women are weaker but can run faster" stuff here.

1982: Ms. Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man was copyrighted in 1981, but actually came out in 1982. Developed and released by Midway without the authorisation of Namco, Ms. Pac-Man is a very fondly regarded game that some people even prefer to the original Pac-Man.

1983: Ultima III

Cheating? Nah. Ultima III was an important installment in the series, as it was one of the first games to feature tactical turn-based combat. It also allowed you to select your gender as male, female or "other". How progressive!

1984: Ice Climber

Nintendo's two-player platformer featured both male and female protagonists who had exactly the same abilities.

1985: Gauntlet

Inspired by Dandy Dungeons from two years earlier, Gauntlet combined the aesthetic and theme of dungeon-crawling role-playing games with the immediacy and action of an arcade game. It had four playable characters, one of whom was a woman.

1986: Metroid

Samus, that armor-clad badass you play for the whole game, is a lady. Surprise!

1987: Phantasy Star

Sega's excellent sci-fi dungeon-crawling RPG (bring graph paper) had a female protagonist by the name of Alys. She was cool.

1988: Super Mario Bros. 2

Rather than getting kidnapped, Peach (then known as Princess Toadstool) was instead a playable character in the American and European release of Super Mario Bros. 2, which was actually a reskinned version of a Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic. Peach was one of the most useful characters due to her ability to float for several seconds after a jump, allowing her to reach places the other characters might have had difficulty with.

1989: The Colonel's Bequest

One of Roberta "King's Quest" Williams' early games, The Colonel's Bequest was noteworthy for being a somewhat more mature-themed take on the adventure game than its stablemates from Sierra (and Williams herself). Its protagonist was a woman named Laura Bow, who fronted both this game and its sequel The Dagger of Amon Ra in a short-lived mini-series.

1990: Gauntlet: The Third Encounter

Gauntlet's Atari Lynx-exclusive incarnation was noteworthy for taking longer to complete than a set of batteries in the Lynx would last. It also had an array of peculiarly unconventional protagonists such as "Nerd" and "Pirate", but also brought back the Valkyrie from the original Gauntlet. She is a lady.

1991: Street Fighter II

The world's first encounter with Chun-Li's thighs, and the world was never the same again. For many people, Street Fighter II was the first time a female character had been so noticeable in a major release, though as we've seen, there have been plenty of examples in the preceding years.

1992: Alone in the Dark

The first fixed camera angle 3D survival horror game, Alone in the Dark allowed you to play as either a male or female protagonist.

1993: Lost in Time

A gorgeous adventure game from Coktel Vision, Lost in Time featured a female protagonist, full-motion video, freely explorable 3D rendered backdrops and all manner of other goodness.

1994: Super Metroid

Samus is still a lady.

1995: Phantasmagoria

Noteworthy for several reasons: a female protagonist, coming on about a bajillion CDs due to all its full-motion video, being rather more adult-oriented than the rest of Sierra's catalogue, which was mostly family-friendly, and attracting controversy for its extreme violence and rape scene.

1996: Dead or Alive

While Street Fighter II was noteworthy for introducing us to Chun-Li, she was but one woman in a cast of mostly men. Dead or Alive gave us a cast with four women to play: Kasumi, Ayame, Lei Fang and Tina.

1997: Ultima Online

You could be anyone you wanted to in this, male or female. You didn't even have to be an adventurer if you didn't want to; you could play the game and become a shopkeeper or crafting specialist.

1998: Parasite Eve

Square's peculiar blend of survival horror and RPG wasn't entirely successful at what it set out to do, but its protagonist Aya Brea was pretty badass and went on to star in a couple of sequels.

1999: UmJammer Lammy

The sequel to PaRappa the Rapper featured a leading lady guitarist instead of a rapping dog. Playing it still felt like you were tripping balls.

2000: Resident Evil Code: Veronica

The Resident Evil series as a whole had always had playable women; Code Veronica put female protagonist Claire Redfield very much front and centre.

2001: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

A spinoff of the Baldur's Gate series of Dungeons and Dragons-themed RPGs on PC, Dark Alliance was a Diablo-style action RPG for one or two players, and had a playable female character in the form of the elven Sorceress.

2002: Fatal Frame

This absolutely terrifying game featured a playable female protagonist, though you played as her brother for the prologue sequence.

2003: Dark Chronicle/Dark Cloud 2

This sequel to one of the more unusual RPGs out there featured both a male and female protagonist that you could switch between at any time.

2004: Metroid: Zero Mission

Samus is still a lady!

2005: Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit

The world's first encounter with David Cage featured several different playable characters, including a woman and a black dude.

2006: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Not one, but two playable ladies in this adventure game and sequel to the wonderful The Longest Journey (which also had a lady in the leading role).

2007: Tomb Raider Anniversary

Can't talk about gaming ladies without having Lara Croft in there somewhere. Tomb Raider Anniversary was a considerably enhanced remake of the original game.

2008: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

This year's Castlevania game brought us Shanoa, a pretty awesome female protagonist who would be seen again in the underrated PS3 and Xbox 360 time-attack Castlevania.

2009: OneChanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad

Exploitative it may be — and deliberately so — but OneChanbara certainly features some of the most ass-kicking young ladies you'll see in gaming.

2010: Final Fantasy XIII

Love it or hate it — I love it, everyone else hates it — Final Fantasy XIII had a highly capable woman at the helm. For double Progressive Points, the one black character in the main cast was also arguably one of the most well-realised characters in the whole thing.

2011: Hyperdimension Neptunia

An all-female cast, with any male characters being literally faceless, the original Hyperdimension Neptunia managed to kick off what has become a highly successful series even after some atrocious reviews from people who really didn't "get it".

2012: Atelier Meruru

The Atelier series is pretty much the nicest series in existence, and has always had pretty girls at the helm. This year's installment was the wonderful Meruru, the third and final installment of the Arland trilogy, and a favourite of many series fans.

2013: Gone Home

A favourite of progressive, narrative-loving types, Gone Home was a "walking simulator" with a female playable protagonist who ultimately was of little importance to the story; instead, the story was largely focused on her sister, who, being her sister, was also a lady.

2014: Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus

The Vita installment of this lovely hack-and-slash series of brawlers came out this year, and features some wonderfully well-realised characters in its almost all-female cast.

2015: Life is Strange

Another narrative-heavy game, this well-received episodic series featured a female protagonist.

I think I've made my point. Can we stop with this shit now?

2122: EXTRA LIFE: 24 Hours in Eorzea - Tonight from 8pm UK Time

A somewhat different post to usual today in that I'm promoting something I'm doing later rather than just writing about what's been happening today.

I've been meaning to participate in the Extra Life gaming marathon for the past few years, but for various reasons have never quite got around to it. Finding myself with a free 24 hours or so, though, I've decided to spend 24 continuous(ish) hours playing Final Fantasy XIV in an attempt to 1) raise some money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and 2) thoroughly explore both the new patch 3.1 content and aspects of the game I haven't delved into too much as yet.

From my Extra Life page, where you can donate:

Hi everyone!

While the world is busy with Fallout 4 and Call of Duty Black Ops III, I continue my life's work of yammering on about Final Fantasy XIV until people give it a try just to shut me up.

This year's Extra Life conveniently falls around the first major content patch for Heavensward, which means there will be lots of exciting new stuff to explore, including the Extreme-level version of the Thordan boss fight, airship exploration missions in the Diadem and much more besides. So I figured why not take the opportunity to show what's new in version 3.1 — or perhaps, for some of you, what's new since you last tried the game, or even what this Final Fantasy XIV malarkey is about in the first place — and hopefully raise some money in the process.

I'll be streaming on Twitch between 8pm UK time on Wednesday November 11 and 8pm on Thursday November 12; there may be brief gaps for food, drinks and whatnot, but otherwise I'm aiming for a full 24 hours in Eorzea. Join me!

ABOUT EXTRA LIFE

Children's Miracle Network Hospitals treat thousands of children each year, regardless of their family's ability to pay. These kids are facing scary stuff like cancer, cystic fibrosis, and injuries from accidents to name just a few.

Extra Life is a huge worldwide celebration of the social impact of gamers of all kinds: from video games to board games and tabletop RPGs! Since 2010, Extra Life has raised more than $14 million to help children's hospitals provide critical treatments and healthcare services, pediatric medical equipment, research and charitible care. It's my sincere hope that you'll find it in your heart to support my efforts with a monthly pledge or one-time gift that will go directly to my hospital.

Your donation is tax-deductible and ALL PROCEEDS go to help kids. Donations to me will be aimed at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland, California, since I don't live in the U.S. but my brother John does, and that was the closest hospital to his home!

I need your help to reach my goal For The Kids. Please make a safe, easy donation online today. Click the "Support This Participant" button on this page to get started. Thank you so much for supporting my efforts!

I was originally intending to start streaming around 5pm UK time, but I've pushed this back a little in order to take care of some business in the early evening. I will be fuelling myself with cheap knockoff energy drinks, pasta pots and anything I can convince my wife to cook up for me, and will be appearing on stream both "in character" and via webcam, all being well, assuming I can get said webcam working adequately.

I'd greatly appreciate it if you popped in and checked out my stream for a bit, and if you're feeling particularly generous, slip a few quid to my campaign page. None of the money goes directly to me; it's being aimed directly at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland, California, one of the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals supported by the Extra Life initiative. I know it's not UK-based (because Extra Life is North American) but a good cause is a good cause, regardless of its geographical location, so I hope you'll consider digging deep and showing your support, both for the kids and for my endurance run!

Thanks in advance for your support.

2120: Farewell to Socks

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Hello, Socks.

You can't read this, because you can't read. And because you're a rat. And because, saddest of all, we lost you today after your battle with illness. But I wanted to write this for you anyway. Perhaps someone wherever you've gone has my site bookmarked and can read you this post, or perhaps they can just feed you bits of poppadom as you try and figure out, once and for all, whether or not it's possible to get to the top of the wheel.

We brought you into our lives to keep Lucy company. Lucy was older than you, but she was very lonely after her friend Lara passed away peacefully, so we decided to get her some friends. That was you and Clover. You were both so tiny, but both of you captured our hearts right away; you because of your sleek, grey-brown coat, and Clover because of her endearingly scrappy-looking, extra-fluffy fur. We brought you home, and while we were worried about how Lucy would react to some unfamiliar new friends, as elderly as she was getting, it wasn't long before our minds were at rest and she was fussing over the pair of you. Where Lara had once been the one to fuss over Lucy — who always seemed "younger" than Lara, despite being a similar age — now Lucy was the one fussing over the pair of you.

You were both very jumpy when we were first getting to know you. You seemed to feel safer when Lucy was around, though; the three of you would even come and wander around on the bed if we let you. Clover built up a bit more confidence than you; you were always the scaredy-rat, starting at any noises slightly louder than "silent" and being a bit more hesitant to come and be sociable.

You came around, though, partly with a bit of help from the treats we liked to spoil you with, and both you and Clover started to take on your own distinct personalities — and we grew to love you both as much as we loved Lara and Lucy (and, for the short period we knew her, Willow). Clover was more adventurous and sociable, and quite possibly — forgive me — the brighter of the two of you, though both of you quickly came to recognise things like the sound of a treat bag being rustled, or a piece of lettuce being pushed through the bars of the cage for you to find and enjoy.

You were the active one, though; you loved running on the wheel, even when you were a little bit too big for it and its curvature made you have to bend at some funny angles while you were running. You're a rat, though, and thus made of rubber, so it never seemed to be much of an issue for you. It's because you were so active and energetic that it was so sad to see your decline, though; we'd become accustomed to you charging around the cage, climbing into every nook and cranny just to see if there was anything interesting there today. To see you suffering with a wheeze that made it look painful to breathe, let alone eat or do anything more strenuous than move a few feet around every half an hour, was heartbreaking. We really felt for you, and we know that you didn't like it when we grabbed you and gave you medicine, but I think you knew that it was for the best; the last time I gave you some, you barely struggled at all, and it all went in your mouth rather than over our bedsheets and clothes.

We hope you know that we loved you very much, and that we were very sad to see you suffering. We didn't want to have to say goodbye to you, and we did everything we could to try and make you better, but every night before I went to sleep I worried — or perhaps hoped? — that I'd wake up in the morning and you'd have found some peaceful rest with no more suffering. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you turned out to be a stubborn little fighter, though; even though there wasn't much you could do towards the end, you kept on hanging in there, having a little nibble at some food when you could, indulging in your favourite pastime of draping yourself over Clover's sleeping figure when you just wanted to warm up a bit, propping yourself up against the side of the cage to help yourself breathe a little easier.

Clover loved you very much, too. The two of you were very much a pair, and it's hard to contemplate a future where Clover's by herself without you by her side. But that's what we're facing now. We will miss you very much, and Clover will too; she's been very tired for a few days, because it's plain to see that she's been fussing over you and wishing she could do more to take care of you, just like we were. I hope she understands that it was time to say goodbye, and that wherever you are now, you're happier and more comfortable than you would have been wheezing in that cage. One day you'll be reunited; we hope it won't be too soon, because we love Clover a great deal, too — and, because, God's honest truth, it was impossible to pick a "favourite" out of the two of you — but when that time comes, I like to think that you'll be together again, free to do as you please, like munching your way through a massive poppadom without any sort of consequences.

We love you, Socks, and though you can't see the tears we've shed today — and doubtless will continue to shed for a little while yet — we hope you know how much you meant to us. You were part of our lives for far too short a time, but in that time you were part of our family.

We'll miss you. Sleep well.

2119: Squishing a Bug

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Finally cleared Ravana Extreme in Final Fantasy XIV this evening, bringing me up to date on absolutely everything in the game so far with the exception of Alexander Savage, which I'm not in a particular hurry to rush through at the moment.

Ravana, though, was a lot of fun. I'd held off even trying that fight for a while for some reason — I'd got it into my head that it would be "scary", and I didn't want to be a burden on any group who took me along with them. In some ways, this was quite a nostalgic feeling; when I first started playing Final Fantasy XIV, the prospect of pretty much any group content was absolutely terrifying, and playing a role with responsibilities more than "dodge shit, do damage" (both important, to be fair) was simply out of the question. Now, of course, my best-levelled, best-geared classes are both tanks, and I have a healer on the way to the higher levels, too, while I haven't really touched my Black Mage — the class I started with — for quite some time.

Anyway. Ravana EX is a challenging fight, to be sure, even with decent gear. There's a lot of damage, and a lot of reliance on party members knowing and understanding mechanics together. But, for me, this sort of fight is the most satisfying kind of battle in Final Fantasy XIV; it's a really fun experience to see eight people working together, moving as a team and doing their best to overcome a stiff challenge. A couple of years ago when I first decided to check out Final Fantasy XIV more out of curiosity — and some fond memories of the 20 levels of Final Fantasy XI I played a few years back — I couldn't have imagined I'd be challenging difficult battles like this, but now I'm happy to be not exactly at the top tier of players in our Free Company, but certainly someone who can be relied on to jump in and try their best at whatever the game has to offer.

I like Ravana EX because there's a nice combination of learnable mechanics with a little bit of randomness thrown in to make things interesting. Ravana does the same moves in the same order for the most part, and the way in which you deal with them is the same. However, things like positioning and who is initially targeted for his most powerful attacks vary with each attempt, so you have to be on your toes. As a tank, there's also some fun mechanics, most notably dodging his frontal cone "Tapasya" (sp?) attack and sharing the damage from his devastating Blinding Blade tankbuster with the offtank; it's certainly a lot more than "stand there and get hit while doing as much damage as you can". Which is nice.

Now that I'm up to date on everything, I'm very keen to see what patch 3.1, which is out in a couple of days, has to offer. A few days ago I commented on the things I'm particularly looking forward to; mostly, I'm excited about the fact that the new content is likely to bring a bunch of people who maybe haven't played for a little while back to the game; they're tricking in already, but there will doubtless be a big surge once the patch is actually available, the main scenario storyline continues and the more impressive new content is ready to be challenged.

In the meantime, since my Dark Knight sword failed to drop in three successful clears of Ravana, it looks like I have a bit of farming in my immediate future if I want to have a decent weapon ahead of the new Relic's arrival in 3.15…