This weekend I ended up going to Amtgard twice. I expected to go to Amtgard on Saturday, but I didn’t expect to go to Amtgard on Sunday. It was, an unexpected day. Originally the plan was to go to Gustav’s house to run a Dungeons and Dragons game. Sadly he was sick so we had to cancel and reschedule.
My Day at Silvermoon
Saturday was a very short day for me. I honestly wouldn’t have gone to Silvermoon (Salem, OR) if it wasn’t for a very important vote, a vote to determine which park we were going to be playing at. I had previously made plans to go to a small get together at a friend’s house.
The vote didn’t go in my favor, the park voted to move the holding out of the Salem/Keizer area to a very small town called Aumsville, about ten minutes out of town. I strongly believe it was the wrong choice for the future of the holding, limiting the population which we could draw new members from. I think in the long term, a year or so, the holding will be greatly diminished.
Still, despite the vote not going my way, the day was alright. It was “Parksgiving”. There was a smoked turkey with sides. It was a good potluck feast. I didn’t actually play Amtgard that day. I was only there till about 2:30. I left as the first battle game of the day was being prepared.
My Day at Dusk Hollow
Sunday was a much better park day for me. I went to Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR). I got there a bit late, having slept in till 11:30. When I got to the park I was a bit worried, there were less people than usual but it turned out to be okay. After I garbed up and made it to the shelter more people arrived, but it was a smaller day than it had been for the last few weeks.
We started the day with a ditch, in which I participated in. I did horribly. I was slow and lazy. My heart just wasn’t in it. Things improved slightly later in the day but this first ditch didn’t go well for me.
After the ditch was the first battle game of the day. It was a simple kill the captain game. Each time you killed the captain, your team scored a point. we were playing best 3 out of 5. I originally wasn’t going to play in the game but I was goaded into playing to help even up the teams. I played a spell ball wizard.
In the end I had fun playing the game. It was very lopsided though. My team scored three points in a row, winning the game. There was no real back and forth. As for my performance, I did alright as a wizard. I fumbled over the incantation for Ward Self though, which made me feel silly. It’s a pretty simple incantation. My aim was the spell balls slightly improved but I still missed most of my shots.
I did into a spell ball wizard battle with Darb, who was the opposing team’s captain. I dodged one or two spell balls, but if it wasn’t for my Ward Self and Elemental Barrage, I would have lost. At one point I failed to move completely out of the way and a fire ball hit my leg, activating my Ward Self. Not having to say the incantations for spell balls, due to Elemental Barrage, allowed me to fire off more balls. In the end I got Darb with a fireball right to the chest, scoring a point.
After the battle game there was some down time, then we moved into the next game. It was goblin ball. Each team had one goblin character and they were the only person who could move the “ball”, which was actually a dagger. They had to use both hands and walk heel to toe across the field to the opposing team’s base. Once there, they hit a shield and a point was scored.
I didn’t play in the game. I took the chance to head to McDonald’s to get some food, although I mostly wanted something to drink. When I arrived back they were still playing the game. It lasted about long enough for me to finish my lunch.
After the game there was more ditching. I did better in this second round but still not great. I did have a few moments though. I was probably the third best on the field this, although I didn’t feel like it most of the time. I still made a pretty big difference on whichever side I was on though.
The ditch lasted for quite a while but eventually it ended. People were not really motivated enough to play a third battle game. It seemed people were feeling as low as I was feeling that day. We visited for a while but people started to drift away. We were only there for 3 to 4 hours. The last few weekends we were there more like 5 hours.
Unlike previous weeks we actually had an afters. We went to a local sushi place. The food was decent, I didn’t get anything too special though, just gyoza and a veggie sushi roll. I would have liked a bit more rice in my sushi roll, but it was fine. I was satisfied overall. The company was good. 4 of the other 6 people that went with us were people I didn’t really know, so it was a good bonding experience. Sadly I’m bad with names. The other two people, which I did know were Darb and my Man at Arms Ozzward.
While I wasn’t exactly motivated on Sunday, I did enjoy myself and I didn’t want the day to end, but sadly it did. Next weekend I probably won’t be going to my local park. I might have gotten a side job doing some web designing for a friend’s business and I’m spending the day at his place, working on it. I might be able to stop by on my way to his house though. We’ll have to see.
I should be going to Dusk Hollow though. To be honest, I’ve been having more fun at Dusk Hollow than I have been having at my local park of Silvermoon. There is a better balance between battle games and fighting. I also seem to be able to get convinced to play in their battle games more often too.
My Upcoming AMA
If you’ve been paying attention you’ve probably noticed I’ve been putting up polls on my Facebook page about hosting an Ask Me Anything Twitch stream. The first one was to garner interest, which went well, the second one was to pick the game. It was between Destiny 2 and Terraria, Terraria won out.
I plan on doing the AMA on a weekday, but I’m not sure what time I’ll start. I was thinking 7 or 8pm, PST. I plan on putting up another poll to get peoples opinion on the matter. I also need to determine which day of the week. I was thinking about Thursday but I’d like to hear everyone else’s preference. I’m pretty open to other days of the week.
I hope to do the AMA in the next few weeks. I’m mostly waiting on my banner for the Twitch Channel. A friend is designing it for free and they are having a rough time, so I’m not being pushy.
I’ll be honest, I’m pretty nervous about the AMA. I’m not the most talkative person so keeping it entertaining might be hard. Also playing a video game while reading the questions will be difficult. If I had a second person to keep track of the chat while I’m playing the game it would be much easier. In the future that might be possible, but at the moment it isn’t.
I really do hope it’s successful. I’ve streamed a lot of World of Warcraft, to no avail. I think this will be more go over better. I hope I’ve built up an audience of at least a few people for this endeavor. I plan on doing more streaming in the future if there is even moderate engagement.
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