"I'm Back, Baby!"

Good news, everyone! Not only am I finding plenty of opportunities to make Futurama references, but I've also managed to finally make a triumphant return to YouTube content creation! Behold; the first of hopefully many chapters, in the tale of a young dunmer heroine, thrust into the harsh land of Skyrim, ready to embark upon a grand and fantastic adventure. I give you The Tale of Ilori Lyedrai!

This role-play/walk-through based Let's Play series features not just the incredible DLC content released by Bethesda, but it also includes some of the stellar work of many talented modders, quest writers, and texture authors, curated carefully from the Skyrim Nexus as well as the Steam Workshop. The complete list of mods, tweaks and third-party DLC is over 50 items long, so I won't hurt myself trying to list everything. I will mention, however, that my plans involve lots of questing, exploration, and a few hints and tips for tricky parts of the game. Currently, new episodes are scheduled to be released every Saturday.

For those of you who are more interested in blocks, building and other forms of mad science, rest assured that I do plan on eventually resume making content featuring Minecraft. Details, at this point, are slim, but I will mention that one of the most difficult choices I face is which modpack to feature. While I've been a fan of recent Feed the Beast packs, including the latest Direwolf20 pack, I have also be watching the work of the incomparable Bacon_Donut, and his game-play, featuring the Mad Pack. So, what better way than to let my (currently-miniscule) fanbase help me decide. Sound off in the comments with your vote for which Minecraft mod pack I should make a Let's Play featuring. If you have a suggestion, chime in! I'll consider all suggestions (within reason).

One final word to mention. In previous posts, I have lamented my rather aging PC. However, I was lucky enough to find that one of my current co-workers had a number of spare PC components that he was willing to part with (for a fair price, of course). Check it:

Board: Biostar P4M890-M7 PCI-E Socket LGA775
CPU: Intel Pentium D 945 @ 3.40GHz
RAM: 3.00GB Single-Channel DDR2 @ 267MHz
GPU: 1024MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 6870

Certainly a remarkable improvement over my previous PC specs. While I do have intentions of upgrading a few things. The board supports up to 4GB RAM, and I can upgrade the Pentium to a Core 2 Duo E6700, if I want. I'll consider my options, as time goes on. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for new videos to be uploaded on the schedule I mentioned above, as well as other special stuff I might toss in every so often.

Until next time, take care,

ReDrew89

Ch-ch-changes!

Well, that progressed quickly. It's been less than a week since my relocation, and things are already starting to take off at a rampant pace. I just got home from my first day on a new job. I won't go into details, but I will say it's a part-time position, that could turn into more with time and effort. Regardless of the amount of hours I work, I'm just glad to be working again. Fortunately, after explaining my medical situation, I was assured that they would work with my needs.

While I adjust to a new location, and invest myself in a career opportunity, I haven't forgotten about my pre-imminent return to YouTube. I'm still mulling over details, in order to determine how I incorporate it into my schedule, and if I can justify uploading videos recorded from an aging PC. As I've been playing with the DW20 mod pack, I notice that the more I expand my base's processing, power, and storage systems, it continues to affect my computer's performance. CPU bottle-necks are no fun. I'll see if I can come up with a solution, or at least a stop-gap measure or two, in order to deliver the first few videos to those who might be keeping an eye out.

Stay tuned, folks.

-ReDrew89

Realizations

Hello, folks. Checking back in with an update on current happenings. I've been keeping myself occupied for the past few weeks, playing a bit of Minecraft Feed The Beast, with the Direwolf20 Mod Pack. I've been having a great time, and have actually gotten a bit of help from my younger brother, who recently purchased a Minecraft account. With my background in IT, setting up a "LAN" game to work over the public Internet is trivial enough as making sure my router has the 50000-60000 port range forwarded to accept connections. (If you have no idea what that means, don't worry, it's not terribly important.)

With respect to my injury, my hand seems to have healed well, and I have an appointment to have the cast removed tomorrow. Hopefully, everything will be working well enough that I can resume work after I move to New York with little to no problems.

Back on the topic of Minecraft, however, I've been playing quite a bit with the FTB/Direwolf20 mod loadout, and have realized a few things. One, ThaumCraft is ridiculously addictive as a mod. Two, my PC is a bloated whale. Fortunately, things have remained "barely" playable, averaging at roughly 20 frames per second in the Overworld. My concern, however, is that as I add more complex automation to my world, the performance will continue to suffer. This isn't to mention the difficulties that are added when I host for my brother to connect. I've been monitoring the performance of my PC, and while I believe there are a few things I can try to improve performance, nothing is ultimately going to solve the problem, other than these two options:

1. I need a newer PC (See Below)
2. I need to consider dedicated hosting (See Further Below)

Option 1 - New(er) PC

I've been using my current PC for less than a year. While I imagined it would do well enough for the short-term, it seems that, with resource-heavy mods, and my penchant for doing things more extreme than necessary, it isn't quite cutting the mustard. For those who have a bad memory, here's what I'm currently using:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+ Manchester @ 2.0GHz
RAM: 4GB (4x1GB) DDR 400 (PC3200)
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 4350 PCI-E w/ 1GB VRAM

Not exactly this generation of computer components. (Not even this decade, mind you.) I have parts picked out for an incremental upgrade; just the motherboard, processor, RAM, and graphics. I shopped with a budget of about $300, and managed stay just below that mark. Here's what I hope to upgrade to:

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition Deneb @ 3.4GHz (Quad-Core)
RAM: CORSAIR 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1333 SDRAM
GPU: PowerColor AMD Radeon HD 6670 PCI-E 2.1 w/ 1GB VRAM
Board: Foxconn A88GMX

All of these parts are listed on Newegg. I do have a couple minor items on the list, as well. Namely, some thermal compound for the CPU, and a slightly larger case fan. The total, before shipping and taxes is $288.94. Naturally, with things going as they have been, I can expect to wait until I've secured full-time employment before I can afford to spend this amount.

Option 2 - Dedicated Hosting

This is a more feasible option to consider, as it is less expensive, and has additional benefits. I've been looking at hosting packages on CreeperHost.net, and I would imagine that, for myself and my brother, the "Slime Package" for $12.11 USD per month, would be more than suitable. This would off-load hosting pressure from my current system, and would likely make the game run slightly more smoothly, as most of the world tick and processing would be on the dedicated server's hardware. I'll discuss it with my brother and see what he thinks. I'm sure that, once both of us are working, we could easily split the bill on a server. 

I'll Just Leave This Here...

Special Thanks: Clarence Yapp (SoundCloud)