Summer Gaming

Well, the Destiny 2 update arrived and ... I'm a little underwhelmed. I guess I thought that each vendor on the planet maps would have bounties in addition to the planetary challenges, but it's just Shaxx and Zavala with bounties for Crucible and Strikes respectively. Which is cool, but I don't really do those activities, so it was a bit of a let down to find that out.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure where I stand with Destiny now. It's been a roller-coaster for me these last couple of months. Once I get into it, I really get into it. At it's heart, the core gameplay is phenomenal. It is literally so much fun to run around as a galactic super-hero, kicking butt and collecting tokens. The problem is having a reason to run around and kick butt. It's great for a few hours each week, and then the progression grinds to a halt. I was hoping the bounties would help with this, but it doesn't look like it, at least this week.

Next week, No Man's Sky will drop the NEXT update, which looks pretty cool, according to the trailer released today:

I started to play again over the weekend to get ready for this, starting a new game from scratch, since it's been over eight months since I played last. It's a beautiful game. After slogging through toxic worlds, icy worlds, irradiated worlds, I landed on a world with lush green fields dotted with red trees, something that looked like it belonged in a Dr. Seuss book.

But No Man's Sky, for me at least, has also suffered from a decent reason to play, though that's part of it's open-ended design. It really is up to you to come up with what you're going to do. The game has a decent story mission to get you started, but after that, it's all you. I'm hopeful that with a multiplayer environment, there will be more to do.

Which leads me to what's been occupying me the last couple of days: Grand Theft Auto Online. GTAO is also due a new expansion, though this one doesn't have a release date, except for "July." Since it didn't drop next week, the earliest could drop would be on the 23rd, alongside the No Man's Sky update.  The GTAO update features yet another criminal enterprise, this time money-laundering nightclubs, which to be honest is a refreshing change from the paramilitary updates provided by the last few expansions.

One of the nice things about GTAO's open-endedness is that you can actually play the way that you want to play, and have a pretty good time. If you like death matches, or the free-for-all chaos of Downtown in free mode, or racing, or heists, or missions, or just making money and buying cool toys, there are a lot of itches that GTAO offers to scratch.

My go-to method for grinding cash was boosting cars. I’d source a high-end car, steal it, take it to a special warehouse where we would mod it, and then sell it for a tidy profit. But it’s pretty intense, running high-speed through the map while other players try and take you out, so since I’d been away for a while, I thought I’d ease back into it. I’ve been trying to do my dailies, but sometimes you just can’t get them all done. Then I tried racing, which is pretty fun, but not a great way to make money, unless you can win consistently.

What I settled into is weed farming. Motorcycle club businesses are hard if you're running solo. If you get over one bar of product, you'll end up with multiple delivery vehicles, which are impossible for a solo player to complete consistently.  So, what I've been doing is small runs locally, and then switching to racing to burn some time while some more product is generated. Part of the beauty of the MC business over CEO work is that you get partial credit. If someone interferes with your crate running or car flipping, you're going to be out all the cash and product if the delivery fails. With the MC business, if you make three out of five drops, you'll make three fifths of the money.

I originally thought that I could do result runs while I was waiting for more product, but it looks like production stops while you're out on a supply run. And while the supply runs are relatively easy, they take time -- time that could be spent making product to sell. So instead I'm spending that time making some cash, at least enough to cover my expenses.

So that's what I'm playing this week. I'm excited about the No Man's Sky update next week, and I'm hoping to stream it when I start. It's a beautiful game to stream as well. If I do, I'll post it here.