The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (10 July to 16 July)

[Zloth]

Still having a great time with Final Fantasy 7 Remake!

OT: I usually just pass the bills to my wife, but I opened the utility bill today to discover that we owed them a little over $1400.

That's a WATER bill??? Or some sort of combined utility bill? $1400 would cover about three years' worth of water for me!

Also OT: COVID is starting to get pretty crazy around here again. Lots of co-workers are getting sick.

 

[Brian Boru]

That's a WATER bill?

More of a drowning bill for some folks

I'm still dipping into Far Cry 3. The UI annoys me too much to play a long session, but an hour here, an hour there works.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

OT: I usually just pass the bills to my wife, but I opened the utility bill today to discover that we owed them a little over $1400. It's never been anything like that unless we filled the pool, and they will give you a "no waste water" credit for that, so I called them up to see if they could provide an explanation, and they said that as a cost saving measure that they only actually send someone out to read your meters every few months, and the rest of the time they just estimate, and that they had been estimating low for us, and now we had to make up the difference. I feel genuinely sorry for all the people out there who got a bill like this today, and can't afford to pay it. What a crap system.

Edit: We do some sort of thing where we round our payments up, and the money goes to help needy families pay their utility bill, but there are going to be a lot of not normally needy families who struggle with this.

Wow, that sucks, man! What all utilities does that cover? Is it just your water? My water utility bill is just month to month, and they actually check the meter every month, unless there is a blizzard, or something. But my electric and natural gas bills, we chose to put them on a budget plan. Every year they make an assessment, like you're talking about, and make adjustments. But we chose to do that; it's not like they put us on it without our knowing. Still, I'd rather do that than have heating bills be 2-3x higher than the other months in the winter. Ours is always fairly close to what actually happens.

 

[ZedClampet]

Still having a great time with Final Fantasy 7 Remake!


That's a WATER bill??? Or some sort of combined utility bill? $1400 would cover about three years' worth of water for me!

Also OT: COVID is starting to get pretty crazy around here again. Lots of co-workers are getting sick.

It's combined electric and water.

And, yeah, Covid is nuts again here, too. I was putting off getting my second booster shot, but after my son had it a couple of weeks ago, I figured I was very lucky not to have gotten it too, so I got my booster yesterday.

 

[ZedClampet]

Ready or Not on Steam

Ready or Not is an intense, tactical, first-person shooter that depicts a modern-day world in which SWAT police units are called to defuse hostile and confronting situations.

store.steampowered.com

Hmm. That seems interesting to me. Wish they had a demo.

 

[Pifanjr]

My daughter and I tried out a few of the GameCube games, but none of them were a great success. She struggles with the amount of buttons she has to use.

My wife and I did play the first level of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on the GameCube, which went pretty well.

We then played two games of Soul Calibur 6 and she absolutely destroyed me. Neither of us looked at the controls beforehand, so while I was trying to figure out what was what she was just mashing all the buttons.

 

[mainer]

but I opened the utility bill today to discover that we owed them a little over $1400. It's never been anything like that unless we filled the pool, and they will give you a "no waste water" credit for that, so I called them up to see if they could provide an explanation, and they said that as a cost saving measure that they only actually send someone out to read your meters every few months, and the rest of the time they just estimate, and that they had been estimating low for us, and now we had to make up the difference. I feel genuinely sorry for all the people out there who got a bill like this today, and can't afford to pay it. What a crap system.

That's an insane way for a utility company to bill people, and how do they even "estimate" how much electricity or water that you've used? It smells like a scam system to me, where they can charge you whatever they want. I was annoyed that CMP (Central Maine Power) raised electricity costs by 20% this year, but at least they send someone out every month to read the meter. But that's my only utility cost (outside of internet & cell phone) as the apartment I live in has heat and water included in the rent.

COVID is starting to get pretty crazy around here again.

And, yeah, Covid is nuts again here, too.

Covid's actually in a lull right now in Maine, though with the millions of tourists and vacationers that we get over the summer, I'm sure it will spike again in Sept or Oct.

 

[ZedClampet]

My henchmen in V Rising don't take kindly to people walking by the house.

Covid's actually in a lull right now in Maine, though with the millions of tourists and vacationers that we get over the summer, I'm sure it will spike again in Sept or Oct.

I've not been following the statistics, so forgive me if I'm taking a couple of good days out of context, but it looks like the death rate has dropped quite a bit.

 

[SleepingDog]

That's an insane way for a utility company to bill people, and how do they even "estimate" how much electricity or water that you've used? It smells like a scam system to me, where they can charge you whatever they want. I was annoyed that CMP (Central Maine Power) raised electricity costs by 20% this year, but at least they send someone out every month to read the meter.

On the question of estimating bills it usually depends on your historical consumption and future energy prices. If that's not available then your previous supplier provides an annual consumption value. If that is not available then they use the consumption of the previous tenant. Failing all that then they assume you are an average customer. None of this is fool proof and stupid bills do arise. In the UK you can also provide your own meter reads. [About 40% of domestic and the small business market have remotely read meters - like my next door neighbour].

In the UK we have a regulator who also checks the method of estimation. The best method is to check the meter reading when you get a bill (especially if it is estimated).

PS - yes I did work in the UK Energy Supply Industry for many years.

 

[Brian Boru]

it looks like the death rate has dropped quite a bit

It has dropped a lot this year since April, lowest it's been since the pandemic start. There is an uptick in July tho. 1 page of easy to read charts:

John Hopkins

 

[WoodenSaucer]

And, yeah, Covid is nuts again here, too. I was putting off getting my second booster shot, but after my son had it a couple of weeks ago, I figured I was very lucky not to have gotten it too, so I got my booster yesterday.

I don't remember if I mentioned it on here or not, but I just got off of quarantine for having Covid on Tuesday. It was only really rough for me for like a day and a half this time. The first time I had it in January of 2021, it kicked my butt for 2 weeks.

It has dropped a lot this year since April, lowest it's been since the pandemic start. There is an uptick in July tho. 1 page of easy to read charts:

John Hopkins

It's definitely evolving to where it still spreads easily, but it's not nearly as dangerous as it used to be. It seems to be a hotspot with people around me right now. But everyone is getting over it pretty well.

 

[ZedClampet]

Setting: My son and I playing The Ascent. We just finished a big battle. We've been playing for over an hour. My attention to detail has never been keener.

Me: I almost died.

Son: You are at full health.

Me: Oh, that's your health.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a little bit of training in Soul Calibur VI to get an idea of the controls before playing against my wife again. She complained I made the game less fun by actually learning what each button does, but only when I won a round. She still won almost every match (though I might have thrown a round or two so she wouldn't rage quit ).

 

[ZedClampet]

I played a little bit of training in Soul Calibur VI to get an idea of the controls before playing against my wife again. She complained I made the game less fun by actually learning what each button does, but only when I won a round. She still won almost every match (though I might have thrown a round or two so she wouldn't rage quit ).

In 28 years of marriage, I never let my wife win. In fact, when we used to play Tetris, I would open up the save file and give myself the high score. Then I'd go to bed and she would stay up late, game after game, trying to beat my high score. She'd finally do it, with a score that was beyond me, so the next day I'd just open up the file and give myself a new high score. After a few weeks of this, I gave myself a ridiculous score. She got angry about my score. i told her if she were on my level, she could handle it. After she tried to kill me and we wrestled around on the bedroom floor, I admitted I hadn't even played the game in weeks and told her what I had been doing. This was probably 26 or so years ago and she still brings it up

 

[SleepingDog]

I don't remember if I mentioned it on here or not, but I just got off of quarantine for having Covid on Tuesday. It was only really rough for me for like a day and a half this time. The first time I had it in January of 2021, it kicked my butt for 2 weeks.


It's definitely evolving to where it still spreads easily, but it's not nearly as dangerous as it used to be. It seems to be a hotspot with people around me right now. But everyone is getting over it pretty well.

Had it a few months ago (the wife took another 5 days before she had symptoms) was really bad for a few days but all those jabs kicked in. Took the best part of a month to get to previous levels of health. [A healing potion would of been wonderful]. The infection rate in the UK is very high but thankfully death rates are extremely low.

 

[Brian Boru]

I might have thrown a round or two so she wouldn't rage quit

Now that's love!

I checked in on Big Fish Games to see if anything interesting had been released in the last month or so. I ended up playing 3 hour-long demos—if you're looking for relaxing games, one of these may suit.

Brave Deeds of Rescue Team
Rescue Team is a big series, I played the first couple but didn't like it much after that. This one is a new departure and is definitely on my to-buy list. There are 25 levels, each of which requires you to deal with a disaster—eg hurricane, fire, earthquake.

You construct buildings like fire station, burger joint, bank, lumbermill etc, and recruit workers like medics, firemen, rescuers. Then you grab various resources out around the city, eg fuel, money, food, steel etc so you can accomplish the various tasks required to fix the disaster.

The rating is low because many series players didn't like this game deviating from the path of the previous games.

Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 1
This is a cute little adventure and light RPG style game, also gone on to-buy list. You're the princess, wandering off to explore and upgrade your skills and equipment via discoveries and quests. Nice chill-out game.

Read pennmom36's review for a good overview.

Jewel Match Origins 2: Bavarian Palace
I find maybe 1 in 100 Match 3 games interesting. The Jewel Match series has had more than its share of good ones, and this one looks like it'll be fun—also to-buy.

Perhaps a downside may be there are so many different power-ups and artifacts—but I didn't get confused yet It's possible the Collector's Edition might be worth it for this one, apparently it has 30 extra levels—CEs are usually bad value for money.

she tried to kill me

Damn, you'd gone in and given yourself the premium armor too, right?

 

[ZedClampet]

Now that's love!

More like enabling. Anyway, if my wife thought I'd let her win something, she would be furious. Genuinely furious, not play furious. She don't need no man help.

 

[ZedClampet]

We'd been discussing FF7 Remake on here and I definitely want to play it at some point. Last night I got carried away and bought it. This morning I woke up angry that I'd paid $69 for a game and refunded it and bought Production Line and Good Company, a couple of tycoon factory games, which I'm actually much more likely to play in the near future.

 

[Zloth]

Full price for FF7R! That would be crazy! It'd be like paying sticker price for a car. Besides, you've still got X4 to play through.

 

[ZedClampet]

Full price for FF7R! That would be crazy! It'd be like paying sticker price for a car. Besides, you've still got X4 to play through.

Dang, I keep forgetting X4.

 

[Pifanjr]

More like enabling. Anyway, if my wife thought I'd let her win something, she would be furious. Genuinely furious, not play furious. She don't need no man help.

I was very careful about being too obvious about it, otherwise a rage quit would have been the least of my problems.