Happy Holidays!!!

And Merry Shipmas to you all! I didn't reach either of my 2017 WoWS goals this year; I didn't quite get an elite captain (19 skill pts), nor did I graduate to a Tier 10 ship. Both of those will be easily achieved in 2018 if I don't rage quit somewhere along the way. (For anyone who spends any time at all playing this game rage quitting is always a real possibility. :) With the help of supportive friends (of which we have many online) we may still be interested in it all come holiday season 12 months from now.

The short animation here is all about one of the most special achievement medals the game offers: the Kracken. I don't score a lot of Krackens (5 kills in a match) but I have had a few recently, and none of them came as easily for me as they do for our intrepid animated captain below. I do enjoy the same elation when I get mine as he does however.

So sit back, relax, and Enjoy! And may blessings be on you and yours for a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year!!!

Naval Traditions, Ep 2

... especially the cup of seawater part.

Naval Traditions

I didn't know even half of this before watching! :) Enjoy!

WoWS & MST3K

My reference to "Nikki" in the narration is to the administrative assistant at work whose husband is also a friend of mine and another rabid MST3K fanboy. MST3K, for the uninitiated, is/was/and is again Mystery Science Theater 3000, a great Saturday morning television show of the late 1980's and 90's. A recent KickStarter campaign has brought more MST3K episodes, new episodes, back on Netflix. What you're watching here is a World of Warships (WoWS) mate of mine, "theLaaLaa", live streaming his gameplay on Twitch today, and doing so uniquely in that his webcam is showing archived episodes of MST3K instead of him. It's lazy and free Sunday entertainment that I enjoy because it's simply Brilliant!

Enjoy!

Naval Legends - Arctic Convoy part 2

Naval Legends - Arctic Convoys Part 1

Naval Legends: Midway (CV-41)

A history lesson today... Enjoy!

Capt Bad Advice - The Shipsmas Clause

Happy Holidays, Everyone!!!

World of Warships - Halloween 2016 Replays

Despite a few computer connection issues I finally got some Halloween World of Warships gameplay recorded tonight using a couple of work-arounds. You'll get to see the spooky world Wargaming created for us and the amazing detail they poured into the special event ships we had to sail. Almost all gaming companies go all out for Halloween and players look forward to the surprises in their favorite titles, and this one was no exception, although I found it quite frustrating and difficult at times. Eventually I figured out that it was much like the April Fools Day "Jacuzzi" event in that it was great opportunity to harvest materials that can be put to good use in the game later... in this case, ship camouflage.

Sit back and relax. This is a longer video than normal but you get to see each of the ships in the series in port and in action. Enjoy!

World of Warships - Halloween 2016

Twice a year - first during the week of April Fools Day and again during the Halloween week - Wargaming and many other gaming companies pull out all of the stops and treat their players with special events. We look forward to them like a 6-yr old looks forward to Christmas morning. If you look back thru the archives here or search for WoWS postings you'll see what happened in the Jacuzzi this past April. Well, Halloween 2016 is right around the corner and Wargaming's teaser for this year's World of Warships event just dropped and it's looking nothing short of AMAZING! In my estimation 80% of the allure of games like these nowadays are the visuals anyway, so...

Buckle up, swabbies! Strap on those life jackets! Grab a life saver ring! And you might want to swallow a bottle of Dramamine too. This is about to get epic!!! We'll be sure to post plenty of spooktacular battle action in the days ahead. Stay tuned. :)

Capt Bad Advice

... and it's not napalm in the morning... unless they use napalm in torpedoes I guess. Enjoy!

Orlan Division

Something a little different: a Tier I cruiser. Or is that crusher? Watch and see.

Enjoy!

Capt Bad Advice

We sink these guys all the time. ... and their fishbowls.

Sampson on the Loose!

This battle just has to be shared and re-shared. Sadly however it isn't one of mine. Jammin411 does a great job of narration, and his excitement throughout is justified many times over. It's easily one of the best World of Warships battles I've ever seen regardless of tier. The fact that it was fought in a tier II Sampson makes things even more amazing.

Enjoy!!!

Clemson Screening

The YouTube notes for this video describe today's replay as being as much about a battle as it is my freshman Adobe Premier Pro video editing "skills". I'm finally dipping a toe into the game of real video editing and as such am still at the low end of the learning curve. There isn't anything special here, I'm just getting a taste of the basics and moving away from the live commentary idea. Over time I hope to refine the editing workflow, set a template, and improve my narration (too much dead air at times... I'm a quiet sort anyway), and create more standardize content. For now however sit back and enjoy a little carnage on the salty waters surrounding the Solomon Islands as delivered by Capt bubby_koa's USN Clemson tier IV destroyer.

Capt Bad Advice

Sigh... too true... too often.

Shipshape

Captain Bad Advice checks out his Das Boot boat.

Enjoy!

The Bottlesheep

The Pokeboat, Bathyscape, and Das Boot to follow... stay tuned.

Torpedo Science

It's amazing how many players still haven't read this book! Thankfully, sometimes!

Clemson Encounter

Notser, who is an outstanding (!) WoWS player and posts daily high quality Warships content, shared a similar Clemson replay the other day. (See: "Clemson by Reikoku" on his page) What struck me was that the base experience (XP) achieved in that match and mine were just about the same... in the mid-1600's range. So I did well enough in my battle to be comparable to something worthy of a Notser replay sans four (4) kills of course. But it's a team game, right?... not entirely individual glory. :p I've learned a lot by watching Notser's videos... not that everything he says always sticks or sinks in right away, unfortunately. Sometimes you've gotta throw a lot of mud at a wall like me to get any to stick. Eventually even I need a shower, so he's doing good.

The replay above is in my current collection, but it felt good enough to post here separately. The commentary gets sparse part way in... that's how you can tell I'm thinking. At some point I might be able to verbalize what I'm thinking and analyzing in those moments, but for now I can't afford to split the core processing time. :)

Enjoy!