Here we go, the penultimate stream from Season 2 of our Shared Hardcore attempts, there's not much left so place your bets now, will we defeat a Wither, scour a dungeon, best a Warden? Have we already done any of those? Who knows, you'll have to watch the season to find out! I certainly can't remember at this point!

In all seriousness this was a blast, an experience I've found myself musing over from time to time since we stopped, and one that I would gladly return to.

We still have one more VOD for Monday, so for now I'll just say I hope you've been enjoying this little experiment of ours, and I'll see y'all next week!

https://youtu.be/mzdaS36mZkU

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There's one other existing structure that we haven't talked about yet, one which we only encountered once or twice throughout the entire season. A structure haunted with the souls of a lost civilization, seeking revenge on those who seek the relics of a cursed god.

Even beyond the Dragon, this hidden dungeon proved a worthy endgame challenge to acquire any remaining relics. Randomly generated hallways filled with spirits of those consigned to guard the treasures within.

https://youtu.be/nrh3V1fCBhI

#Gaming #VideoGames #Streaming #LetsPlay #LiveStream #Twitch #TwitchStreamer #SmallStreamer #Minecraft #HardcoreMinecraft #SharedHardcore

As we approach the final few streams of this past season of our Shared Hardcore experiment, I am left with a sense of longing, a subtle yet present feeling of wanting to return, to try again...

I feel though that we would want to prepare for such a venture, not just within ourselves as players but also as those who constructed the experiment to begin with. There were plenty of things we never got to see come to fruition, things that have changed drastically since we left them back in 1.20. A new randomly generated structure is still on the docket, artifacts need to be updated, and memes need implementing.

Some day, though, I hope we have made such improvements. Some day, I hope I can report that we will begin again, to jump back into the fray and try to conquer the unwavering apathy that is a universe long separated from those who inhabit it.

Today though, is not that day. Today we have but a memory of our time doing the best that we could not destroying the world for everyone else.

https://youtu.be/eh8AGJ74T24

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Seriously though these last two seasons were some of the most fun I've had returning to vanilla Minecraft of all things in a long time. We didn't need complicated quest lines, stretched out progression, or tedious microcrafting to arbitrarily keep us engaged. Sure things got tough when we slipped up but the fact that everyone involved went in agreeing to the rules meant that we all were prepared for a few set backs, and honestly the resets were the point. The whole experiment wouldn't have worked otherwise and I wouldn't have it any other way.

https://youtu.be/RtpFXnUMy-Y

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We're in the final stretch, the last string of VODs for Season 2 of our SHC attempts. Will we make it to our goal of going beyond the Enderdragon and defeating The Wither? The Warden? Who will do it this time?

All of these answers, and most likely plenty more, may be answered today, or Friday, or possibly never, I legit can't remember anymore! Stay tuned and find out!

https://youtu.be/72GeSBb9jEQ

#Gaming #VideoGames #Streaming #LetsPlay #LiveStream #Twitch #TwitchStreamer #SmallStreamer #Minecraft #HardcoreMinecraft #SharedHardcore

At some point during this season, we started spending more time during a run simply working on whatever village base we wound up in, breeding farm animals (before automating chickens), harvesting crops (before getting villagers to do that for us)

In order to encourage us to not do that and actually provide interesting content, we added treasure maps that pointed to our custom ruined structures in random chest loot tables. These structures are what contained our relics, so we definitely wanted to explore and acquire these powerful items, especially myself since I had a custom hat that gave me night vision, which helped my viewers see in the numerous number of caverns I kept throwing myself down.

Sometimes, though, a treasure map didn't point to one of our old builds, but instead to a mysterious place simply known as The Library...

https://youtu.be/kr9e_KOP9u8

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Even though the tone surrounding my posting of this season's VODs may seem more middling, I do look back on this season as fondly if not moreso than the first. That first season was much more of an achievement for our group, there's no doubt about that, but I feel like the vibes this time around were much more casual, leaning much more into candid conversations, friendly banter between each other, and generally just more casual than before.

The pressure of whether we'd be able to achieve our goal had be lifted not only because we already knew we could, but also because we did it again fairly quickly this time around as well. Our confidence in ourselves and each other really helped solidify those early days each attempt. The roguelike karma system we employed helped cut down on the grind whenever we did reset too, which is still my favorite iteration in the whole experience.

https://youtu.be/OXt9J5tJ-RQ

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I haven't gone to sleep yet it doesn't count as a missed post! It's just really late Friday night still, yep!

Anyways, it's been hard to find new and interesting things to say about this season. As much as I enjoyed this season better than the first, and that it's objectively a more interesting season to have been a part of, there just wasn't nearly as much unique situations we found ourselves in. The first time around we were restarting so often which meant fresh starts, new strategies, new bases... This time around everything was optimized out, and that's not entirely a bad thing, it just means things got kinda consistent.

We're coincidentally coming up on the end of our time in season two, at which point other games released and confirmed our collective attentions, life got in the way, and we simply haven't returned since...

https://youtu.be/ofM0BKu5GhA

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At one point we were actually starting to be able to defeat the dragon relatively consistently, at which point we asked ourselves, "What next?"

We tossed around a few ideas, the main one being "Kill The Wither", but there were murmurs of another...

Kill a Warden.

I don't think I need to explain just how absurd that idea is given that anyone dying doomed everyone.

https://youtu.be/g00msm26VnE

#Gaming #VideoGames #Streaming #LetsPlay #LiveStream #Twitch #TwitchStreamer #SmallStreamer #Minecraft #HardcoreMinecraft #SharedHardcore

Overall, the tone of Season 1 vs Season 2 has been interesting to reflect back on. I didn't personally attend as many attempts during Season 1 for a few reasons, mostly due to more participants playing from parts of the world that were not during my free time. For Season 2 we had a smaller cast of players, but I also had a much grander design for whatever video content I intended on making out of it, so I participated much more often in an attempt to have more footage.

In the end, though, editing became too daunting a task and eventually burned me out of such a project. It's a shame, really; having this whole experiment shift from a direct goal to achieve into more of a broader roguelike experience had quite a bit of potential for a narrative through line, I just couldn't stay motivated to see it come to fruition.

At least we get to experience it in some form or another through these VODs, so there's that.

https://youtu.be/yZknDZHvycc

#Gaming #VideoGames #Streaming #LetsPlay #LiveStream #Twitch #TwitchStreamer #SmallStreamer #Minecraft #HardcoreMinecraft #SharedHardcore