Survival Games – Page 2 – Ms. Bella's World

6–9 minutes

Have you ever had one of those weeks where, despite things moving along in a perfectly normal manner, you just feel like something is off? You can’t put your finger on it, but it’s there. It hovers over everything like a giant rain cloud that won’t go away.

That’s rather how I’ve been feeling lately. Just that little bit off. It certainly doesn’t help that the weather keeps waffling between spring and something more resembling winter. It doesn’t help that I suffer from clinical depression which rears its head every so often. And I’m no doctor but I’ll almost guarantee that I need to start taking vitamin B again.

You’ve probably even noticed in my last few videos that I’m more low-key than usual. Not that I’m ever super bouncy cheery, loud and boisterous. LOL, perhaps I should be. I’m often told I’m too loud and boisterous in real life! There’s a fun fact for you.

My biggest issue with the channel right now, however, stares at me each time I open my weekly planner and look at the schedule. I have entirely too many games to juggle right now! Eleven games I’m juggling, none of which I get to play for much longer than the time I have allotted to record for each of them.

I tried to ignore the fact that I’m feeling stressed. Perhaps even a little overwhelmed. But there is no longer any ignoring it. I don’t know how I’m going to rearrange things. I don’t know what I should keep or get rid of.

I do know that I won’t be dumping LOTRO.

I don’t want to stop playing Grim Dawn.

I’m really enjoying Enshrouded.

And I’m finally having fun in Skyrim, now that I’ve stopped trying to chase the main quests and have just gone off adventuring.

Against the Storm is a Let’s Play and I’ve no problems with that, knowing that in Q3 of 2024 it’ll be replaced by the next game.

Now, for the rest …

Valheim – Gus and I have taken a break to enjoy LOTRO again while we wait for Ashlands to release and the subsequent need for mods to all be updated and fixed. And honestly, I think Gus is a tiny bit bored with the current biomes, considering he’s already beat every boss to date!

On a side note, I’m also thinking Gus would love Enshrouded, and he’s looked at the game and agrees, however we’re not certain he can even run it.

Broken Ranks returned, both because I had an idea for the series and because someone requested it. However, it’s not been well-received and I’ve not gotten any feedback as to why. I’ll finish out the current subscription for the game, playing it and seeing how I fared vs. being F2P, but if people still aren’t responding well I may retire the series completely.

Subnautica has also returned by request and, while I’m enjoying it again, I’m not getting enough time to explore in the game as I’d like. Hence, I’m feeling like I’m not progressing very fast and I’m frustrated.

Guild Wars 2. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the game still, even if I only get to play a little each week. I’m especially liking the Asura right now. But I’m not loving the game and, if I were honest, I don’t think I ever will /love/ the game. I like it well enough, certainly enjoy exploring the world and doing the story quests. Not much else to say here.

Last Epoch is one of those games that, while I love it, I’m going to be slow AF playing it. While I don’t mind, I’m not certain it makes for the most exciting videos. Well, maybe watching me die is exciting. I could do that more.

And of course there’s Dragon’s Dogma 2, though I guess in all fairness I don’t do videos for it. I mainly livestream it. However, it is a pretty slow moving RPG and I frequently find myself having to backtrack multiple times to find something. I know I’ve died plenty of times though and I imagine that’s entertainment enough. I know I find them funny, even the deaths caused by me being stupid.

That’s the whole list. It was a lot longer than I thought it’d be. I’ll have to figure out how to rearrange things, what to retire, what to keep.

And of course, games don’t stop getting released and I’ve always got my eye out for new and interesting ones!

With all of that out of the way, there have been little bits and bobs of gaming news that has interested me. Things like –

Stellar Blade released on April 26th, 2024 and was almost immediately patched, censoring some of Eve’s outfits. Who’s to blame for this? Did Shift Up straight up lie about not censoring the game? Did Sony force them to censor it? Whatever the reason, it’s stupid. And it’s even more stupid to see games journalists cheer about censorship. The same journalists, mind you that would cheer about jiggle physics in male characters in Baldur’s Gate 3. I’d love it if they’d stop with the hypocrisy, but I won’t hold my breath for that to happen.
Manor Lords, by Slavic Magic, also released on April 26th 2024 in early access. The medieval strategy simulation is created by a solo developer and, while I’ve not had a chance to delve deeply into the game yet, I’ve tinkered with it a bit. Once I’ve gotten some hours in we’ll look at it. The Steam reviews are mostly positive and the reviews on GOG (yes, it’s on GOG, where I got my copy) it’s holding a respectible 4.3/5 stars. However reviews at both platforms suggest it’s got a lot of room to grow still, so keep that in mind if you’re looking to buy it. It’s not cheap for an EA game, $40 USD, but until May 10th it’ll be on sale for 25% off at both GOG and Steam.
There seem to be some life simulation games on the horizon for people who’ve been long time Sims fans. And yes, I have played The Sims. I’ve owned every version from the original up to Sims 4, and various expansions & DLC for 2, 3 and 4. I love building stuff in the game mainly. However, games like Life by You (Early Access – June 04th, 2024), Vivaland (? 2024), Paralives (? 2025), and InZOI (? 202?) are set to try to dethrone the long running franchise. EA seems to be doing everything in its power to help them along, with lackluster packs and expansions for the Sims 4 that add very little for their price points except game breaking bugs. I, for one, have uninstalled Sim 4 and returned to played Sims 3 because even with the bugs in that version, it’s still a far more open and fun experience. We’ll see how Life by You, the first of the new batch, shapes up.
Little Kitty, Big City, an absolutely adorable looking game by Double Dagger Studio is set to release on May 9th, 2024. In the game, you play a cute little cat who needs to find his way home. It features colorful graphics and a cute protagonist who may just cause a little mayhem as he navigates the world. Definitely on my wishlist!
And speaking of cute games, Tales of the Shire by Wētā Workshop takes the concept of cozy games to Middle Earth. While I enjoy the occassional farming sim or other cozy games, I’ll admit I don’t tend to stick with them for long. Perhaps Tales of the Shire could be that special something to keep me engaged, but with no release date and not a whole lot of information to go on, it’s a wait and see. Still, it’s certainly on my wishlist.

That’s it. Well, except for one more thing. I’d like to shout out Kabrutus and his new website – DEI Detected. I look forward to seeing where he takes it in the future as people push back against the DEI that’s caused such a divide in various communities.

Like many gamers, I believe there’s a difference between organic diversity in games and the forced diversity and inclusion that is the hallmark of much of this DEI push.

Done organically and with thought and care, diversity can enhance a game’s world, its characters, and the story. But shoehorned in, with established characters race or gender bent, hyperfocus on immutable traits or preferences to the exclusion of everything else, creates unlikable characters, stale worlds, and boring stories.

And that, for the moment, shall conclude my rant.

Until next time, bye for now.

4–5 minutes

In the last few posts we’ve talked about immersion, the world, crafting, building, and combat in Valheim. Now we’ll go over what I consider to be the cherry on top of the cake – co-op.

While Valheim is great to play solo, like many survival games it really shines when experienced with a few friends. You have options on how to do this. First, you can open up one of your existing worlds as a server, choosing to start a server for only friends or a community server that allows anyone with the password to join the fun. The game supports up to 10 players at once. Not a massive number, but certainly enough to go out and find lots of trouble!

With this setup, friends should be able to easily find you. Open the game, click on Start, and go up to the tab that says Join World. If they’ve never been to your world before, they can find you either through the friends tab or the community tab, provided they know the server name.

Don’t forget to remind your friends to put your server in their favorites list for easier access the next time! Also, I highly recommend a password for your server to protect it from potential griefers.

Another approach is setting up a dedicated server. There are two ways you can do this. You can host it on your own computer, using the Valheim dedicated server tool provided for free on Steam. This requires a little extra work, including editing the .bat file to input your server name, set up port forwarding, and tell it the world name you want to host if you have one. If not, it will make a new one for you.

If this is a little too much technobabble however, you can also rent from various hosting services that will set up and run one for you, 24/7. Prices range from as low as $5 a month on up to $15 a month. Shop around for a hosting package that provides whatever security and extra features you want at a price you’re comfortable with.

Now everyone is in the game, how do you communicate? There’s the default text chat, which is good for when you’re all hanging out at base doing crafting, farming, or perhaps a spot of fishing. Those fish are mighty tasty, after all!

However, as of the date of this post, Valheim lacks an in-game voice chat. If you want to use that for coordinating during exploration and battles, some options include Steam, Discord or Mumble. The use of voice chat could save you several minutes of running back to your grave to recover your items in the event of an unfortunate end.

What makes co-op play beneficial? Well, the primary advantage is the social aspect. Valheim is great fun alone but with friends you can make some lasting memories of intense battles and hilarious deaths.

Other benefits of co-op, off the top of my head, are –

Shared gathering and crafting: Multiple people playing together makes gathering, crafting, and building faster. Two people can gather materials faster, and if you’re attacked, one person can defend while the other continues gathering. Division of labor gets the more mundane chores done efficiently, though it does mean you’ll need a lot more materials to gear up each player.
Efficient building: More people also means that building progresses faster. You’ll likely discover one person who excels at building. In that case, you may find yourself happily gathering materials while they plan a perfectly laid out base, complete with anti-troll armaments.
Diverse Combat Specializations: Playing together makes those challenging encounters a little easier. Each person will likely have their strengths and weaknesses and working together helps to bring down mobs faster. This adds a layer of strategic planning to combat encounters.
This doesn’t mean the mobs will let you walk all over them. The game adjusts based on how many players are within 100 meters of spawning mobs, increasing their health by 30% and their damage by 4% for each additional player up to 5. This keeps combat from becoming too easy and stale.

I’ve enjoyed playing Valheim both solo and with my friend, Gus. Exploring is a little less daunting, he’s a great builder, and I often find myself being the gatherer and crafter while he creates wondrous structures for our mutual amusement. It’s an arrangement that works incredibly well as I enjoy gathering in games and find the activity rather zen. And, as a crafter and artist in real life, I especially enjoy the crafting in games too. Besides, I love being surprised by the many different builds that Gus comes up with, while he appreciates that it takes him far less time to secure the materials to do those builds!

As we come to a close, I want to ask you – what are some of your favorite memories of playing Valheim, or any survival game, with friends? Share them in the comments below.

Until next time, bye for now!