Daily Ramblings – Gaming Saturday – Welcome to the DMZ!

Tags

Call of Duty, DMZ, Gaming, Munitions box, Solo operations, Stealth, Stim, Throwing knives, Warzone

One of the new modes of play is the DMZ. It is so much fun. You typically will go into the DMZ with two other players. You can also go in with just one buddy or even solo. What makes the DMZ unique is that there are extraction zones across the map that allow you to exfil from the DMZ whenever you want.

When you first start playing the game, you’ll see a weapon’s slot that is insured and a collection of weapons that are labeled “contraband”. If you die during one of your excursions into the DMZ, you’ll lose your insured weapon slot for an hour before it resets. Any contraband weapons you take in with you, you will lose permanently.

Here are a few tips and tricks from my experiences in the DMZ, so far:

1. Avoid taking in anything you do not want to lose. This is really important, particularly with keys. You’ll gather keys that open certain areas on the DMZ maps that will help you complete missions, provide great loot, or play some part in one of the story missions. If you die, you’ll lose what you brought in.
2. Play with friends if you can. It is the most effective way to play in the DMZ. If you get random players in your lobby, try to figure out if anyone needs to complete a mission. Find out what faction they are working on and what challenges they are trying to complete. If one person finishes the task, everyone gets credit for its completion, provided they have selected that mission for this particular deployment.
3. If you play solo, plan on dying a lot. After while you’ll get better at fighting the AI and know where they are likely to be. You will also know where the loot is in the area you are deployed to. When I go in solo, I only take tacticals, lethals, and a munitions box. The tactical I use is a stim. The lethal I use is a throwing knife. This throwing knife will help you silently kill your first AI and get his weapon.
4. Pay attention to the missions you’ve selected. Some are on Ashika island; others are in Almazra. Some will require you to have certain gear like a stronghold key card, or some specific piece of equipment you’ll need to accomplish the mission.
5. Watch YouTube videos to figure out how to do a particular mission.

Here’s a video I watched to complete the mission called Muddy Waters:

YouTube is my go to for anything involving Call of Duty multiplayer, DMZ, ranked play, and Warzone. If you are stuck, there will be some creator like the one above who walks you through every part of a mission, a weapon build, or a tactical strategy that you can add to your own gameplay.

The DMZ and Warzone are terrific ways to add some variety to your gameplay. If you get tired of grinding camos or camo challenges, try out some stuff in these areas. You may die a few times, but once you get the hang of things, you’ll be chalking up wins, completing missions, and exfilling effectively. But, you’ve got to try them out to get any of the benefits.

Happy Gaming!

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Free Writing Friday – Women Gamers

Tags

Call of Duty, Endra, Escape from Tarkov, facebook, Nadia, Slapstick, Tails, Twitch, Women streamers, YouTube

I’m so happy women are playing video games! It’s so much fun. Because of the month we are celebrating, I wanted to highlight a few gamers that stream for a living. I don’t watch them all the time, but when I do it is always a treat. Below, I’ll introduce you to some of the females I follow on YouTube. Below is Nadia playing COD MW2 Multiplayer.

Here’s Endra. She’s a female streamer who plays a game called Escape from Tarkov. It falls in the genre of what we call an “extraction shooter”. Extraction shooters are unique in that you can exit the game whenever you want. Typically, there will be missions or tasks you have to complete. The catch, you have to survive to complete them, and if you do not, you fail the mission and lose all the gear you possess. It’s interesting to watch. Here’s a short clip of her below:

Here’s one more. Her streamer tag is: Tails. Her stream is hilarious. She plays a multitude of games, but most of her content is just funny. She adds humor to her streams and her audience, including me, love it. Here’s a video she dropped a while back:

Women add value to whatever they do. Here are just a few examples of women streamers that actually make enough revenue to do this exclusively for a living. I hope you enjoyed them. If you like any of them, feel free to subscribe to their streams. Most of these folks stream live on Twitch, some are on YouTube, and some are on Facebook, which also offers streaming capabilities.

Well, that’s it for today. I hope all of you have a great Friday and weekend.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Gaming Saturday – Power Outages

Tags

Call of Duty, CODM, Contraband, Gaming, Insured slot, items of interest, Key cards, keys, Missions, Power, Xbox

All, we had a power outage kick in last night and it was not resolved until 4:30 PM this afternoon. Luckily, we have a generator, but it is only hooked up to certain items in the house for survival, like our heaters and gas, refrigerator and freezer, and lighting in the main part of the house. Subsequently, I missed most of my gaming today, but did want to offer up some information on the DMZ, which I started playing yesterday. Boy, what a great game.

For those that are unaware, DMZ is another addition to the Call of Duty game. It is a mission-based game, with extraction points across the map. The radiation, which is normally part of the Warzone gameplay, starts within the battle area (Ashika Island or Almazra). Ashika Island is the new addition in battle pass 2. It is terrific! It has vehicles like the ATV and a few trucks on land, and there are boats and skidoos on the water at various places across the periphery of the island.

I have not played much in Almazra, but will after I refine my skills on Ashika Island. I’ll update you some more as I get more proficient. Here are a few pointers for you.

You should create an alternate weapon build for the weapons you carry into the DMZ. When you first begin, you will only have what is called an insurance slot. This slot is a place you can bring in any weapon you currently own. Your build should be composed of at least a suppressor. I recommend maximizing your magazine and bringing the field upgrade called the munitions box. An added recommendation, if you are comfortable, to add thermal sites to your build.

Silencers will keep you quiet as you pick apart a group of AI and typically will delay any alerts that occur. When the AI is alerted, you’ll begin to see helicopters begin delivering more AI to the battlefield. As far as tactical equipment goes, you’ll want to carry a stim. Your lethal should be either a semtex, thermite, or molotov. Some of the missions you will go on, will involve AI with riot shields. You’ll want to deploy your semtex, thermite, or molotov to kill these guys. Today, we ran across a stronghold with two riot shielders on the inside–we killed one with semtex; the other was taken out by a teammate who had a flanking shot on him.

Speaking of teammates, you’ll want to play with what are called “randos”, unless you have friends that want to play too. I play a lot with my brother and one of his stepsons.

I don’t want to spend too much time on this now, but will get some screenshots put up for you so you can see what I am explaining. It’s a lot easier when you can see what I’m talking about. Anyway, I played the bulk of my time yesterday solo, to explore the map, figure out where things were and that sort of thing. I died a lot. During that process I exhausted my contraband weapons, which are the weapons you use when you die with an insured weapon. Let me explain.

When you enter the DMZ, you will likely take one of your favorite weapons in with you. You can put that in your loadout in the one insured slot you get when you begin playing. If you die, it takes an hour for your insured slot to open again. While your insured slot is regenerating, you’ll have to start using contraband weapons. You’ll start out with 9 contraband weapons when you start playing. If you die in the DMZ with contraband weapons, you’ll lose them.

How do you get them back? Exfils with weapons you pick up on the battlefield or buy from a buy station and exfil with. This also goes for equipment. While you are playing, you’ll have the opportunity to pick up keys, key cards, and other cool items. If you do not want to lose them, make sure you remove them from your inventory before reentering the DMZ. If you have a key card, key or any items that will be useful later and you are not going to use that item on your current excursion, get it out of your inventory. You’ll lose that key if you die, so don’t risk it.

If you want to rebuild your contraband weapons up, you can run specific weapon runs when you go into the DMZ. I did this a few times yesterday in solo mode, and it works.

From what I’ve seen so far, the AI is always in the same place each time you enter. They will move around or do patrols, but typically, the same number of AI is always in the locations they are discovered. The question mark is always the other players that are in your session. I have been ambushed getting on a helicopter to exfil, I have accidentally ran across them on the train on the Almazra map DMZ missions, and also on Ashika island.

Well, that’s it for today, folks.

Happy Gaming! We’ve got power again, and I’m heading down to do some more work on weapon camouflages.

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Reading, Watching, and Learning – Deep Mind, A Deadly Influence, Call of Duty MW2, and MS Excel, Discord, and Canva

Tags

A Deadly Influence, Call of Duty, Canva, Deep Mind, Discord, MS Excel, Streamers, Udemy, YouTube

Deep Time has the crew of America has caught some type of virus the medical AI could not detect, and they are quarantined until they can find out what it is. In A Deadly Influence, the police are still searching for a young boy kidnapped for ransom.

I’ve been watching a lot of Call of Duty MW2 YouTube videos, watching influencer streams, and all the rest to get back into the console version of CODMW2. Man did they do a great job on this game!

Getting ready to finish up the MS Excel course. Discord is almost at its end, Canva still has a way to go. I really enjoy the variety of courses available on Udemy, which is also available on my phone, my iPad and my laptop. I can always get in a quick lesson, regardless of where I am.

Well, folks, I have a lot on my plate today. I hope you all have a great Thursday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday – The First Thanksgiving

Tags

Call of Duty, Contentment, Grateful, Gratitude, History, Holiday, Thanksgiving, Warzone

I found this video on YouTube liked it. I always try to pick short videos to respect your time. There were others that were an hour + if viewing. I like watching videos like this and so many others, depicting the first Thanksgiving. Obviously, there are a lot of perspectives on Thanksgiving nowadays.

I choose the perspective of giving thanks for what we have. Cherishing what we have is a terrific way to look at our lives. Think about the access to information, music, entertainment, and so many other things. In most cases these are free or inexpensively priced. I’m grateful for my health, my family, and for all the good in my life.

I am grateful for the ability to make friends with people all over the world. I have a friend who is an author in Australia. I have a blogger friend in South Carolina and another in Colorado. I met all of these people online and they are just terrific people that add value to my life, by exposing me to their stories, their point of view, and their talent.

So, as we get closer to Thanksgiving, take a few moments and count your blessings. Thanksgiving doesn’t have to be about what is described in the above video. It simply is a time to take account of what you have in your life that is good. When you concentrate on these things, you naturally feel better.

Well, that’s it for today, folks.

Here’s a shameless plug for Call of Duty MW2. The new Warzone 2 will be coming out tomorrow and it looks absolutely sick. Water mechanics are in, new vehicles, a huge map, and all kinds of new game play, including DMZ, which should be really cool to play. They’ve also added proximity chat, so that means you can communicate with opposing teams and even join them! HUGE!!

Well, now I’m done.

Have a great Tuesday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Gaming, Reading, Watching and Learning

Tags

Amazon Prime, Call of Duty, Civil War, CODM, Dark Time, Diablo Immortal, Grand Master, Ian Douglas, Star Carrier Series, The West Wing, Udemy

The Call of Duty Mobile saga continues. I am currently at the Grand Master level in both Battle Royal and Multiplayer and have a few more levels before I hit legendary. It’s a real grind. For those of you who do not know what grind means in this context, it is the literally playing and playing and playing until your objectives have been met. I grind to get ranked and I grind to get my diamond camouflages for my weapons.

I have also started a game called Diablo Immortal. Boy, that is a great game. All kinds of things to do, all kinds of weapons, gear, gems, and gold to collect. I am really enjoying the Role Playing Game (RPG) genre again. These guys at Blizzard really know how to create great games.

I’m started reading Dark Time, another book in the Star Carrier series. It’s another great read so far. The way Ian Douglas writes is terrific. The characters are awesome. The weapons and military craft descriptions are the best. I highly recommend this series if you are a SF fan.

My sister and I are in season 2 of The West Wing. It’s terrific. I never grow tired of The West Wing. The characters are so terrific! Sam, Toby, Josh, Donna, CJ Craig, Danny, President Bartlet and Leo are terrific. I won’t give away any spoilers, in case any of you are interested. The entire show is on Amazon Prime Video, but you’ll have to pay. It’s about $25 US per season.

I’m watching a new documentary on the Civil War and continuing with my Excel class on Udemy. Yesterday I learned about HLOOKUP. Today it will be INDEX(). I enjoy this class because of the short session lengths and the easy example files to work with.

Have a great Thursday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Hobbies, Games, Books, and Movies – CODM, Better Call Saul, Secret Societies, and Bay City Blast

Tags

Better Call Saul, Call of Duty, CODM, Curiosity Stream, Remo Williams, Secret Societies, The Destroyer Series

Well, here we are, folks! I changed my title to include books in the description, since I give you an update on my reading of the Remo Williams series I’ve been captivated with. Bay City Blast is the latest title, and again, a funny, exciting, and engrossing story. These books are relatively short, but always provide an entertaining read.

We started Better Call Saul and we both love it. The backstories of the original Breaking Bad crew is awesome. That’s all I’ll say, because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. If you liked Breaking Bad, you’ll like this. It has a different flavor, but is funny, sad, and all the rest.

I’m a little disappointed with Call of Duty. The stage 3 tournament will probably not happen for me. The key is to know people and build a team before the event. There is still time available to do that, but the mechanism they are using in-game and on their Discord channel is not very intuitive. So, lesson learned. It’s time to build some relationships so next year I can compete as far as I want, without going through this turmoil. That being said, it is a great season so far, with a new character–an Egyptian! The theme is in the desert and there is an actual sand storm on the Battle Royal map. Wow! They’ve also started a tournament game, which commences each weekend Friday – Sunday, so those that are still working can jump in and compete. This was WAY COOL. They introduced a new sniper rifle, a new melee weapon called Kali Sticks (see Rambo movie where he begins in Thailand).

I’m watching the third part of a three-part series on Curiosity Stream. It is called Secret Societies. Watching this show, prompted me to find a cool video I posted on Tuesday about the Illuminati. Anyway, the third part is about conspiracy theories. They disbanded the “Jesus married to Mary” theory, and just began looking at the conspiracy theory spurred by HItler during the 1930s to focus public opinion on something other than the outrageous inflation rates, unemployment, and everything else Germany was going through at the time. It’s a great documentary so far.

Well, that’s it for now, folks!

I hope you have a great Thursday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Hobbies, Games, and Movies – CODM, Bottom Line, and The Sopranos

Tags

Books, Bottom Line, Breaking Bad, Call of Duty, Call of Duty Mobile, Games, Hobbies, Movies, Ozark, Remo Williams, The Destoyer Series, The Sopranos

Well, folks, my sister and I finished The Sopranos yesterday. Wow, what a great show. We started re-watching Season 4 of Ozark to get ready for the second part, which starts tomorrow on Netflix. We can’t wait!!

I’m reading yet another Remo Williams Book in The Destroyer Series. The title is Bottom Line. Again, a great series of stories which never disappoint.

In the gaming realm, Season 4: Wild Dogs started today in Call of Duty Mobile, They have introduced some new challenges, the melee weapon Kali Sticks, and a whole host of new characters including a new skin for the Ghost player. There’s also a new map dropping called Satellite. It’s going to be great fun! I completed one of the new challenges yesterday.

My sister and I often talk about things while we hang out watching TV. One of the things I suggested was a hobby. Everyone needs a hobby. Something to look forward to after work or chores, or whatever you do that you consider work. I look forward to my game time after I’ve finished my tasks for the day. Painting, crafting, hiking, or whatever just wakes you up each day is something to consider. We all need balance in our lives. Hobbies are a terrific way to pass the time and enjoy life.

Well, that’s all I got for today. If you haven’t watched Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, or Ozark, I highly recommend all of them. They are terrific! If you’re into mobile gaming, give Call of Duty a whirl, it is an awesome game and the creativity these guys bring to the table is unbelievable. I have never been disappointed.

Well, that’s it for now. Have a great Thursday everybody!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Hobbies, Games, and Movies – Call of Duty Mobile, The Sopranos, and Power Play

Tags

Call of Duty, Challenges, CODM, Gaming, The Destroyer, The Sopranos, Zombies

Season 3 of Call of Duty is a real kick! There have been some great challenges, my quest for diamond camouflage continues, and there will be more to come. Ahh, gaming is my passion, and this game never disappoints. They’ve continued Zombies indefinitely, which is awesome!

My reading of The Destroyer Series continues. I’m on book 36. It’s called Power Play and it is another great read. I won’t ruin it for anyone, but it’s a terrific series to read. I’m going to focus my reading on this fiction series for the near future.

My sister and I just started Season 4 of the Sopranos. Boy is this show getting good. It is so creative how the tension in series like this, Breaking Bad, and others are woven together. I am really enjoying it. We haven’t decided what we’re going to watch next, but I think it’s going to be Game of Thrones. Believe it or not, my sister has not seen this show, except for a few episodes. Crazy, right?

Well, that’s it for this week. If you know of any great shows, video games, or books to read, drop me a note. I’m always open to new ideas.

Have a great Thursday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Hobbies, Games, and Movies – House of Cards, CODM, and The Destroyer

Tags

Breaking Bad, Call of Duty, CODM, Diamond Camo, House of Cards, Remo Williams, The Destroyer, Zombies

My sister and I are in season 3 of House of Cards. Man, I forgot how intense this show is. So much going on. Multiple story and character threads. Wow! If you have not watched this show yet, watch it. It is a terrific show, with great writing and a great cast. The final season is the only thing I do not recommend. We will not be watching it this time around. It is just bad.

In Call of Duty Mobile, I’m playing Zombies, working on Diamond camo on most weapons, Gold on some launchers, and that’s it. I discovered that some games within CODM are more efficient for getting the achievements for Diamond Camo. Hardpoint seems to be the game, since you can get a lot of kills while teams fight over various points on the map for dominance. Team Deathmatch, Frontline, and Kill Confirmed are fun, but don’t last long enough to work on Diamond camo for certain weapons, like the Crossbow. The Crossbow is fun to play, but so frustrating. It’s reload time is long, and aiming down sights is almost as slow as most of the sniper rifles. It’s tough, but I am making progress.

The Destroyer series is terrific. It’s interesting when you visit Goodreads or Amazon. There is always one reader who consistently gives the series a 1 or 2 star rating. The question I have: Why do you keep reading when you dislike the books? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

When we are done with House of Cards, my sister and I are going to watch Breaking Bad next. I’ve seen the whole show, but she has not. It’ll be a great time, because the series is really well done.

That’s it for this week’s edition. Have a great Thursday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave