The Trials of Real Life At the start of 2019, I had three big goals in mind. Moving to a larger more diverse job market, leaving the Business Intelligence space and completing a novella. Deciding to move away from my family and friends was a hard decision. I’d been wrestling with the idea of moving for a couple of years at least. Establishing a 5-hour drive as the furthest I was willing to go, didn’t leave many cities I had an interest in moving to. And I didn’t really want to be five hours away. I was hoping for three or less. Career-wise, I was completely burned out in the BI space. Every paycheck felt like blood money with a drip-drip loss of my soul. My third priority was establishing a consistent writing routine to help achieve my dream of completing a novella as a step toward returning to one... Continue reading

Casual Citizen Episode 32 is available on Youtube. The show discussed my efforts to resume creating content for Star Citizen in the midst of other priorities. It includes video versions of my new 2019 fanfic series set in the Star Citizen universe - Zora's Chronicles and Podcity. As mentioned in the show, I'll be compiling the content produced during a cycle into an eBook/eMagazine for those who might enjoy reading the articles as chapters with the ability to use bookmarks and whatnot. eBook Formats Download My-World-of-Star-Citizen-Generic (suggested) Download My-World-of-Star-Citizen-Print Download My-World-of-Star-Citizen-Kindle Download My-World-of-Star-Citizen-Apple Download My-World-of-Star-Citizen-Google Download My-World-of-Star-Citizen-Nook I hope you enjoy. Continue reading

Grrr, I have an on-going pet peeve with Star Citizen's so-called persistent universe. They have a wonky way of deciding when to store a record of what was aboard your ship. It requires that you certain checkpoints successfully. Namely, landing at a location that can store the ship. Until then the game can and does disappear your assets if you crash, DC or are forced to restart the game. As you can imagine it being an alpha, having to restart the game because of an unrecoverable state is quite common. So why are they waiting to retain a manifest of items aboard the ship, especially assets that only the game can place or remove? Your guess is as good as mine. I discuss my frustration with this mechanic on Aly's World. Continue reading

The second planet and its moons have arrived in the Star Citizen Alpha. Yet, I only had eyes for Area 18. The first time we saw the area it was a small testbed called the social module. Visiting it now, as part of the 3.5 release of the full planet, ArcCorp, felt like coming home. Read more on Aly's World. Continue reading

Trains in and of themselves are cool. However, when interjected into transportation like professions, they’re bad. I mean, really bad. There isn’t a courier or transportation service in the world, that would have a driver disembark their utility vehicle to hop on public transportation in order to complete a delivery. NONE. Read more on Aly's World. Continue reading

It's been a long time coming. Star Citizen Alpha 3.5 introduces the female avatar. Combined with the first iteration of the DNA it's pretty darn fabulous. We lack hairstyle variety. They only added a couple explicitly for women until they tackle how to dynamically handle the hair based on headgear - helmets, hats, and accessories. Even so, it's a great first outing. You can read more and see screenshots on Alys World. Continue reading

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. For many of us in the US, it's a 3-day weekend and I'm definitely enjoying that aspect. I've been popping out Star Citizen articles here and there in an effort to return to producing Star Citizen Nightbus more frequently. Continue reading

There's a trend in MMOs, even in sandbox games, where a particular group of players declares how they play the game, as the only way it should be played. Anyone who's not interested in the content, interaction and progression that suits their play style must be doing it wrong. Continue reading

Breathtaking views in Star Citizen Alpha 3.4. Stunningly beautiful and atmospheric gliding over Lorville in the industrial Drake Caterpillar. Not an expected combination but it works. I get why we have no-fly zones but wish there was a different option. Floating above the city, even at this distance, is amazing. If I could just get a little closer. I'd be right there. StarCitizen visuals + Pedro Camacho music is sublime. Continue reading

This episode discusses my excitement for the new faces that have joined the Star Citizen streaming family since from the Anniversary event, the magic of Hurston, re-visiting Stanton lore for new listeners and a new piece of fanfic. Please sit back, relax and enjoy. Continue reading

I have a massive amount of screenshots and in-game footage from Star Citizen. Alpha or not, the game is breathtaking. Today I started cataloging what I've captured so far from Alpha 3.3.5, which introduced the persistent universe's first planet and city. I wanted to get a handle on things before it got away from me. Pick which files to keep and name them so I can reuse them as needed. Looking through just the video of me taking off from and landing at the new city, Lorville, it's hard to believe that's me. They're gorgeous in and of themselves. Not to mention that I'm actually in the cockpit flying each of these ships and seeing these sights first hand. *Head explodes* It's exhilarating to do and often mindboggling seeing it afterward. Flaws, warts and all, this is hands-down the most beautiful gaming world, I've ever been a part of. And... Continue reading

I was asked to join At The Call, a weekly Star Citizen VidCast, to discuss my opinion of being a female gamer in the Star Citizen universe. And the importance of the much delayed female avatar. Introvert and all that, I'm not a huge fan of live shows but things turned out just fine. You can check it out on Twerk17's YouTube channel. Continue reading

The combination of the Anniversary Sale, Free Fly Weekend and the first planet, have generated a new wave of interest in Star Citizen. The event, which lasted a week, brought in9.5 million dollars in funding and 50+ thousand new backers. That's pretty insane. We've also had a new cadre of streamers join the ranks of players who are regularly featuring Star Citizen gameplay. We've seen visits from Lirik, GiantWaffle, Captain Burke and other multi-game Twitch Partners. Seeing a stream with 35K viewers that isn't a Could Imperium event - whew, that's exciting. I've been enjoying the influx of new Twitch personalities, some of whom are roleplayers. Yes! You can read more about it on Aly's World. Continue reading

I put up a quick post on my Star Citizen website about Alpha 3.3.5 which delivered the first planet to the persistent universe. It's nothing short of stunning, warts and all. The RP bug has hit many players now that we have the first planet with atmosphere - albeit polluted. It's common to see people walking instead of running. Many have ditched the default spacesuits for civilian clothing and I am surprisingly among them. You can read the post and see a quick video here. I hope to return to creating more SC content in the near future. Hurricane season wasn't kind in the south this year. In fact, Hurricane Michael tore through the first floor of my home. We're all safe but the first floor is gutted - everything had to be removed to prevent the possibility of mold. Floors. 3 foot up from all walls. All cabinetry. Gone... Continue reading

Rather slammed at work these days so I haven't had time to post this since finishing the initial prototype. Continuing my love affair with Star Citizen lore and the planned physical universe, I'm automating visual star systems guides, and selected Helios, the 2nd largest star system, as the prototype. Continue reading

I've pulled out the mining content from Casual Citizen 31 and enhanced the video into a Step-by-Step Mining Guide for Alpha 3.2. I hope you enjoy. Alpha 3.2 Step-by-Step Mining Guide - Released to YouTube on Friday, June 29th. Casual Citizen EP 31 Video - Released to YouTube on Thursday, June 28th Casual Citizen EP 31 Audio Only - Released to SoundCloud on Wednesday, June 27th Continue reading

Excitement abounds for Star Citizen Alpha 3.2. In addition to new ships, such as the first luxury yacht to roll out of the showroom, the Origin 600i, we have the first iteration of the mining mechanics. Quality of life improvements is also addressed with updates to the party system and quantum travel. Things are really heating up in the development now, with many new game mechanics and professions slated to be introduced in 2018. Casual Citizen EP 31 - Alpha 3.2 PTU The video version is available here on my YouTube channel An audio-only version can be found here on SoundCloud Continue reading

With Cloud Imperium Games' intention of creating a living breathing universe, it should come as no surprise that options for pure luxury would exist. Alpha 3.2 delivers the first large-scale luxe version of a touring yacht and an exploration ship. The Origin Jumpworks 600i series has rolled out of the factory. Continue reading

Mining has arrived in the Star Citizen alpha. Continue reading

Frostpunk is hands down, one of the best non-MMO games I've played in a long time. It's rare for me to complete RPGs, world-builders, etc. I need the random encounters and small social interactions provided by MMOs. Frostpunk caught my eye because of the steampunk elements, and I'm glad I took a chance on a genre I don't typically play. Continue reading

I had a very enjoyable session this evening playing the second scenario in Frostpunk, The Arks. I'm over the moon from the detailed graphics and animations. Continue reading

I’m an introvert and no, that doesn’t mean I’m at all shy. It’s that social interactions are draining even when they’re pleasant. My source of creativity and energy come from within. I’m not motivated by external interactions. Revitalization comes from being separated - apart from others. I can be alone for very long periods of time without feeling lonely. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced loneliness. Many years ago, a coworker asked me why all of the paintings in my office were distant landscapes with an isolated element - tree, lighthouse, cabin. I blinked and looked around, never having noticed it myself. My response? “Hrm. Uh, they look relaxing to me,” I shrugged. I wasn’t consciously aware that there was a definition for this preference until I was in my late twenties and participated in a Dale Carnegie team building exercise sponsored by my employer. I just thought... Continue reading

For the past week, I’ve had a fun playing Frostpunk, a new steampunk-inspired survival game by 11 Bit Studios. I’m not into city-building games and the only survival game I played for any length of time was Don’t Starve Together. In this case, it was the steampunk theme that attracted me to it. Continue reading

It's been months since I've blogged or created any content for Star Citizen. Life has been very busy with freelance work, that came about from having created content for Star Citizen. I've had some grueling weeks working my day job and taking on freelance work but I also enjoyed it. If the Angels are listening, it would be great to break into a new career one of these days. I'm slowing things down to consider options. All work and no play is extremely stressful. And while I'm considering options versus working myself to death, I've had time to turn my attention back to gaming. Back to playing a bit of Star Citizen. Alpha 3.1 is live for play-testing and I've been partaking of it the past couple of weeks. It's not perfect and there are few missions I'm interested in doing BUT we've turned a corner. And this little alpha... Continue reading