inspiration

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.

Farewell to Legion

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So not exactly my normal blog post, but I am a huge fan of World of Warcraft. It’s lore and dialogue have inspired me on many levels, especially when it comes to my writing.

So this is a blog to say farewell to Legion and hello to Battle for Azeroth. Legion was a really fun expansion. Still not my favorite, like Mists of Pandaria was, but still really fun.

I decided to take some screenshots and in game selfies to capture the place I enjoyed the most. Please enjoy.

 

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Here’s some early Legion screenshots that I took. Some were when my Monk Mistweaver was a Blood Elf.

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There were a lot of good times in Legion. From class-based questlines and class halls to beautiful regions of the Broken Isles, Legion provided a fun and exciting way to play World of Warcraft once again. Don’t even get me started on the awesomeness that was the artifact weapons. Each weapon with its own lore and reason to be part of the class-based stories and gameplay, they were a brilliant tool to use in Legion. Though I’m still holding out for fist weapons with Intellect on them so my “fistweaving” style will be at it’s most epic.

Blizzard did a fantastic job with this one. But now it’s time to say goodbye.

Goodbye Legion. You were great. Now it’s time to fight for the Horde in Battle for Azeroth.

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/

 

Cloudy Days

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Today is overcast. I love cloudy days. oddly enough, I feel energized during them. Not a huge fan of the hot sunny days.

It’s the cloudy days that remind me how much I love to write. I don’t know about other writers, but cloudy days are the best days for me to write on. Something about the possible drizzle, or flurry, that inspires me. There’s a gray tone to everything.

I may not be writing as a career yet, but days like this that inspire me, I can only smile with the idea of reaching that goal someday.

It’s only two days after NaNo, where I finished my 5th manuscript. This is a new beginning for me. My first four were a series I self-published due to my impatience. With this 5th one, it can stand on its own and hopefully help me become the full time author I want to be.

NaNo Struggles

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So I’ve been writing my 5th novel during this year’s National Novel Writing Month. The goal for NaNoWriMo, NaNo for short, is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That comes out to 1667 per day.

I wrote my entire 4th novel in one month during the 2015 NaNo. It’s a long and hard process of learning to get a routine, trying to squeeze words into any free time you get. This year is no different.

I’m a student, I have a job, and I also have a hobby of playing video games, so writing time is far in few. I also like to read when I can, as every writer should.

I’m actually almost done with my 5th novel with this NaNo. There were a few times when I was able to write a lot in one sitting. There were few days, though, where it was hard to even write more than a sentence.

My advice to those writing, or perhaps planning on writing next year, is don’t get stressed about word count. Write whenever you can, even if it’s one word.

Take part in write-ins, local events to gather several NaNo writers to write together. The change in scenery helps. Plus you can meet some awesome people.

Find some writing music that connects with your novel and/or character(s). I can’t admit enough how much Alesana helped with my second novel, Elements of Blood. Last year for NaNo, it was mostly Owl City. This year, it’s been a mix of Poets of the Fall and Ninja Sex Party.

Take part in forums. NaNo has many that are for those who need inspiration and support to meet the word count.

Lastly, just keep writing. Even when I’m not writing, I’ve been thinking about what to write next. So even when I’m not at my keyboard, I’m support till processing and refining the next sections of my novel.

9 more days till NaNo is over, so I wish anyone participating good luck. To another writers and aspiring NaNoers, I hope to see you next year.

Type:Rider, an adventurous colon.

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I posted the second video of the second level of Type:Rider. I learned even more about the history of typography and writing. It’s insane how much a game can teach me that my English classes in high school failed to cover because of curriculum. Oh how I hated standardized testing.

Watch the video here.

The second level was the Gothic level. As it did in the first level, the art in the background just amazes me as I jumped around as the colon. I’m a huge fan of history, literature, and art. Ironic part is I am taking a Humanities class that encompasses all of that. I even used my first video as a reference for a discussion post. Video games and education! WOO!

Type:Rider is a game developed by Ex Nihilo and published by BulkyPix and Plug In Digital. It’s a brilliant indie game that I hope my videos spread that awesomeness to other possible gamers.

I’ll play it through till the end.

Remember to keep writing, keep reading, and keep gaming!

H.P. Lovecraft Games

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My first H.P. Lovecraft game that I played for PlayingWithWords was an indie game made on GameJolt, by Cloak and Dagger Games, called The Terrible Old Man. Of course it was based on the short story by Lovecraft himself.

Watch the video here.

The first interaction with H.P. Lovecraft was probably the huge geeky icon that is Cthulhu. More specifically, my cousin was explaining the entire concept of the tabletop game Call of Cthulhu. It blew my mind that there was so much behind another short story.

I’ve got several Lovecraftian games in line up for PlayingWithWords, so I hope fans of his readings will stick around to see them!

Remember to keep writing, keep reading, and keep gaming!

PlayingWithWords

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What is PlayingWithWords? It’s a YouTube channel based on bringing together the common ground between gaming and writing. There are dozens, if not hundreds, games that are based on writing, writers, authors, books, short stories, poems, etc. My goal is to bring entertainment for gamers, writers, and readers.

You can watch my introduction here.

As an author of two books, I not only draw my inspiration from the obvious (reading), I also gather it from video games. I’ve played video games for as long as I can remember. Even before I started writing short stories in kindergarten, I was playing my N64.

I never really hear about authors playing video games, at least mainstream ones. I know writing is always number one priority for writers, but you can’t really get inspiration if you are always writing, can you? If there are others out there, I want to show them that video games are a great way of getting inspired and be entertained, outside of books.

I know gaming takes time, as does writing. Personally, gaming can easily take over most of my free time. So with PlayingWithWords gives me short bursts of gaming and commentary that give me the inspiration to write more.

I love being a writer, and I will always be a gamer.

Remember to keep writing, keep reading, and keep gaming!

PlayingWithWords (YouTube Channel)

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I’ve started a YouTube channel that is going to be based on vlogging and gaming. The key to this channel is it has a “theme” of sorts. I plan to only do let’s plays on games about writing, reading, writers, books, and authors. The theme can be stretched broadly over those subjects, but my main is goal is to give entertainment to those people into writing, reading, and gaming. No author I know has ever mentioned playing video games as a pass time, probably because writers don’t have that time to.

“Keep writing” are the two words that I see plastered all over writing groups on social medias. The thing is, what if one draws inspiration from not just writing? I, for one, love to read and play video games to gather most of my inspiration. Sometimes, it’s hard to force myself to write when I don’t know where to even go in my stories. So yeah, I may take more time than most writers to finish a piece of work, but at least I have a hell of a good time doing it.

Subscribe to my channel here.

Videos coming soon!

Keep writing, keep reading, and keep gaming!