Silver Linings And Lemonade

One of the major advantages of playing on North American servers from the United Kingdom is that, other than in times of truly exceptional hysteria, grown adults staying up all night to play video games, skipping work the next day, leaving their computers running when they sleep, if they even do, their characters still logged in, butting their heads against the walls to keep from giving up their place to one of the thousands hammering on their keyboards, I don't often have to worry about queues. 

Similarly, one of the major advantages of using a cloud streaming service to play games is that someone else does all the patching. The game is always up-to-date, always ready, always waiting. I'm convinced it's the future even if Google's not.

Yesterday, when I decided on a whim I wanted to see New World's Brimstone Sands, the latest miracle patch that's set to save the game from oblivion and bring ex-players thundering back in their tens of thousands, like the great herds of buffalo crossing the plains of the old west, all I had to do was remember my password for GeForce Now. 

Of course, GeForce Now comes with queues of its own, or it does when you're too mean to stump up for the paid version. That's where another major advantage enters play - the advantage of being semi-retired and able to play video games at times when most of the population is out at work. In the evenings and at weekends, non-paying users of Nvidia's excellent service can expect to wait anything from a few minutes to the best part of an hour as dozens or even hundreds of other spongers line up ahead of them for their free turn.

On a weekday morning, though, there's no-one waiting. It's a green flag and go right in. Even in the afternoons, wait times are measured in single minutes. Yesterday there were thirty or so people ahead of me. The line cleared in less time than it took me to make a coffee and then there I was, having fun.

I must have had a good time because the hour just flew by. When it was over, I throroughly enjoyed rehashing everything I'd done in a blog post, something that took me almost exactly four times as long as actually doing it had, but for once I did feel a little peeved that I was writing not playing. I would have preferred to carry on further with the storyline, which was beginning to get interesting, something I certainly wouldn't have said about the one it replaced.

Unfortunately, by the time I'd finished posting, had tea and walked the dog, it was dark outside. People would be home from work even on the US East Coast and queues on both sets of servers would be filling up and stretching out. I opted to leave New World for a new day, when all would be quiet and empty once more.

This morning I woke up late to a prospect of several hours of heavy rain (Which, in the event, never arrived. Thanks, Met Office.) There was a even a helpful comment left by Tyler Edwards on yesterday's post, letting me know about an opportunity in New World's Halloween event, Nightveil Hallow, I really ought not to miss. I had nothing special lined up and no particular place to be so it seemed like the ideal opportunity for a lengthy session, exploring the newly-revamped island of Aeternum and all it newly had to offer. 

I took Beryl the dog out for her necessary requirements, brought her home and let her go back to doing what she likes to do best in the mornings, namely sleep. Then I logged into GeForce Now and...

Game down for maintenance. Ah, yes. Giant update yesterday, should have expected nothing less, of course. Even the longest-established, most stable mmorpgs often take two or three bites to digest a major patch. New World could be hiccupping for a month after a blowout like Brimstone Sands.

GeForce Now was unhelpfully vague about the details, telling me only that the downtime would be "several hours" but not mentioning when the clock began ticking. Steam, luckily, was much more precise, saying the patch had begun at 3am Pacific and was expected to last four hours. 

Even after all these years I'm still never quite sure about doing time zone conversions in my head. I thought the US West Coast was nine hours behind me, but that would mean the update wouldn't even have started yet. Oh, well. It obviously had, so that was the morning out.

While I was there, Steam popped up a window reminding me The Sims 4 is now free to play. I'd read that somewhere but immediately forgotten about it. I've never played a Sims game but I've read an awful lot of very entertaining blog posts by people who have, so I thought I might as well grab that and give it a try, now I had the morning free.

 

It was a substantial download so for something to do while I waited I thought I'd get today's blog post written. With luck, by the time the new game was downloaded and installed, I'd have finished typing and be ready to give it a run.

Well, it has and I have and I am but also so has/is New World. I have no idea what or why or how but as we all know, time works differently in Aeternum. The green "Play" button is smiling at me and all mention of delays and downtime have disappeared, so I'm off to do what I wanted to do in the first place.

Better yet, I've finished my blogging for the day and I've got a new game to blog about another time - so that all worked out very nicely, didn't it?

Don't you just love serendipity?