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Road to Borderlands 3 [Video Games]

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Like most fans of the series, I am very excited for Borderlands 3. I mentioned in my last post about how I am actually on the way to getting all the Borderlands achievements in the Handsome Collection and GOTY edition of Borderlands.

Since my solo attempts on PC, I have started to play the series again on the Playstation 4, along side some fellow Groove Crusaders. At first, I was playing off of Daybreaker Rein’s console, until I finally got my own and had a new account. 3 of us (sometimes 4 is Gypsy was online) all played through the Pre-Sequel together. My dreams of playing Handsome Jack as a character were finally (almost) met with the Doppleganger class. Doppleganger is hands down my favorite Pre-Sequel character. Also is a plus he can get a Rhys skin and head mod from a Tales from the Borderlands shift code.

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“And the world just got twenty-five percent more handsome.” – Doppleganger Jack

Back at it again, I decided I would play through BL2 with Zer0 as a sniper build. I’ve never ever played a sniper character in Borderlands, so I thought it would be fun. And as I didn’t expect, playing solo sniper was easy mode. One shotting just about everything with critical hits and killing bosses in a few seconds. Starting to think Zer0 might be the best solo character without a minion/pet/turret.

After getting the first playthrough achievements, I went back and made an Axton who I have just recently gotten through True Vault Hunter Mode. He is my first level 50 ever. I built him heavily on his Gunpowder skill tree for headlining as much gun damage as possible. Wasn’t as much of a challenge this time around because I eventually found my first Infinity Pistol (a gun with unlimited ammo). Slapped on my Sheriff’s Badge relic to increase pistol damage, and went ham on TVHM. It was a fun experience.

With those two playthroughs, I’m just missing a handful of achievements as of today. Just Maya’s and Salvador’s (the Siren and Gunzerker respectively) achievements, the raid boss and side quests achievements because the raid boss quest is a side quest, and finally the challenges achievement. Waiting for some other Groovers to fight the raid boss with. Not too worried about the class ones, because I can easily do those solo. The challenges are what is taking me forever.

Here’s hoping I can get the rest quick and move on to the GOTY of BL1. Already have a handful of hours with a few friends. I decided to play Brick to resist my temptation to play Roland support.

Anyone else working on this personal feat before BL3? I’ve seen several reddit users on r/borderlands posting they had just finished it themselves. Would love to hear of anyone else’s experiences in achievement farming in this series or any other video game!

Reliving Borderlands’ Pandora [Video Games]

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Next to being a writer, I love playing video games. Since the announcement of Borderlands 3, I have taken it upon myself to try and get all the achievements in the Borderlands series, but I wanted to share my experience with the games.

Borderlands has always been one or my favorite video game series. I first played Borderlands way back in the day on Xbox 360. My first character was Brick, the tanky explosion punch-you-in-the-face kind of character. Not exactly my kind of playstyle, but I enjoyed what little time I was able to put into it.

Fast forward, I finally have a gaming computer and decide to play Borderlands 2. I had learned the story of the first one, so I felt comfortable playing the sequel. I was yearning to play Maya, the siren of BL2, because she had a support skill tree and I love playing healer/support in anything. But the problem was, I had no one to play with and I wasnt comfortable online match making. So I played through with melee Zer0, the assassin character.

I am also a huge fan of stealth games, and playing Zer0 in that manner was a fun experience. I was told by a friend to switch to his middle skill tree because it was more efficient DPS-wise. I did so and promptly killed the Warrior in less than a few seconds by throwing all the kunai at him. Needless to say, I was kind of sad how easy it was.

Now I know there are “new game plus” features like True Vault Hunter Mode and Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode after that, but I felt I wanted another challenge in the game. So I played Axton, the soldier class with his trusty turret. Playing Axton definitely made the game completely different. It felt more challenging because I couldnt simply disappear whenever I wanted to like Zer0 could. Battling the Warrior felt like an actual battle.

Then came Borderlands the Pre-Sequel. I knew that Claptrap had a support skill tree, but again, I was a solo player at the time. So I chose Nisha, the gunslinger character. I had a blast using her pistol focused skill tree.

In my next post, I’ll talk more about coming back to the series with the Handsome Collection on console, where I was finally able to play support. Are you a fan of Borderlands? Has the new announcement made you get into the series or start playing it again? Would love to know which game and character everyone is playing on the road to Borderlands 3.

Trying out Wattpad

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So I’ve decided to take the advice from a fellow writer and try my hand at Wattpad. Already, I like the community and the layout of how the website works. I went ahead and posted the first chapter of The Planes Walkers on my account, and will be serializing the story over the following weeks.

If anyone is interested in the middle grade fantasy, you can read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/user/Ragnosk

If anyone else is on Wattpad, let me know! I’d love to see your work.

Writing Panel at Sabaku Con!

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My writing panel got approved for Sabaku Con 2017! My panel “Think It, Write It, Panic, Publish” is to help anyone who wants insight on the writing world!

Description: Ever think about pursuing writing as a career or a hobby? Don’t know where to start? This panel can give you the insight from the experiences of a self-published author on the world of writing novels, fan-fiction, poems, short stories. and publishing.

Anyone who is in the Albuquerque area, and attending Sabaku Con, is welcomed to come. I’ll be joined by my writing friend Asiera (you can check more about her here)! She has some unique insight into writing that I don’t so it’ll help.

The panel will be informative by the information Asiera and I provide, probably with a PowerPoint slideshow showing our experience as writers. I want it to be open to questions anyone has, because I’m sure everything can’t be answered in slides.

To attend the panel, you have to be attending the convention, so here’s a link to the membership passes: http://www.sabakucon.com/memberships/index.html. The convention is being held at the Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North.

Hope to see some people there!

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AuthorBrandan
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BrandanChapman1/
And check the main site for other blogs: https://brandanchapman.com/

A Trip Through Virtual Reality

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So for anyone who knows me as the being I am, they should know that I am a writer and a gamer. I started gaming way before I started writing, but that isn’t by a huge gap. I started writing short stories about LEGO’s Bionicles in kindergarten, and had been playing video games since I was old enough to understand what was going on.

So as my 5th novel is being edited, I’ve been tossing around the ideas of the next story I will write. I was going to possibly write a story based in the TRON universe by Disney, but with recent rumors of Disney rebooting the series, I didn’t want to risk the investment. Writing a story like that could only be published by Disney Hyperion, so making it a possibly outdated story canon-wise just makes it harder.

So I’ve been tossing around the idea of writing the concept/genre of people getting stuck in video games. Several authors have done it already. Some off the top of my head are Andrew Klavan’s MindWar trilogy and John David Anderson’s Insert Coin to Continue. Though writing for different age groups, I believe this is a popular subject matter. Things like Sword Art Online wouldn’t be as popular if it wasn’t. One of my favorite series growing up was .Hack GU, where a virus in the game was causing people in real life to enter into comas. The main character, Haseo, was super cool! af212a1140143d5eafb35ebaf3200f2c0668cc7c_hq

As a gamer, I thought, what better thing to write about? Mixing fantasy and gaming, and the countless hours I’ve spent watching YouTubers game, I think I could create a pretty cool story.

Virtual Reality (or VR for short) is the hot thing right now in video games, and it might seem cliche, but it might be a great use of the bridge between the concepts of reality and gaming.  I can’t afford to buy a VR headset to test it out in person, but I have watched many let’s players on YouTube test it out. (That’s research right?).

A side note, as a gamer and fan of Disney, they are surely missing out not making the Grid Games a VR game. Just saying. discanim1

Might be writing a couple more blogs on the idea of gaming meeting writing. Figured it could be a good way to get ideas flowing for stories. It might even help some other writers out there!

Any gamers out there like to read about this concept? Or any writers currently writing this? I’d like to know how it’s going! Let me know in the comments! I’d love to know what kind of games inspire anyone out there, or even games you just like to play.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AuthorBrandan
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BrandanChapman1/
And check the main site for other blogs: https://brandanchapman.com/

 

NaNo 2015 Winner and Progress Update

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So in October I had just finished my 3rd novel, Element of Sight and its first edits. Then along came November, where I remembered it was National Novel Writing Month.

In my determination to finally participate, I immediately began my 4th novel to the Shattered Soul series, Elements of Light. On the 28th, I completed NaNo’s 50k word goal and my 4th novel. *applause* *cheers*

So now at the beginning of December, I’m back to the final edits of Elements of Sight. Hoping my 3rd fantasy novel will be out by the end of the year. The edits to Elements of Light will soon follow, and hopefully I will have that out by the end of January or February at least.

Seeing that it is possible to write a novel in a month’s time, I have never felt more like a writer. I have several more books planned for 2016, including a possible second series in the same universe as the Shattered Soul series, with brand new Elements and characters.

As a self published author and a college student (working a day job), I feel I need to use my free time to bump out more than just 1 or two books a year, like I have been doing. Elements of Lightning came out January of 2014 and Elements of Blood came out in December that same year. My 3rd book took until October because I was still unsure if I should continue my series as a self published writer and try to write something that I could send to agents/publishers. Maybe I’m impatient or read too many articles that are “pro-selfpublishing,” but I decided against it and began to finish EoS.

So now I have completed a book series. Not originally as planned (I was maybe aiming for 6 or 7 books), but it needed to be finished. It feels good to have more than just one or two now. Hoping the more I write, the more chance I’ll finally get the readers I dream for.

Writing Interference and Resolutions

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Well, life seriously throws curve balls at you. Suddenly find myself having to move soon again. Hope it doesn’t interfere too much with my writing, but it may. I still want my third novel done by the end of Spring.
What I’ve learned in the past couple weeks is to choose who you put your trust in carefully. You don’t want to end up in a situation that sucks with any choice you make due to others. At least I have more trustworthy people back where I’m heading.
I want to at least write two to three blogs a week, and stream about the same. I hope to begin uploading my streams to YouTube and Facebook. This year I plan to be more active in getting myself out there as an author. Cheers to the rest of 2015!