Power Outage, Connection Issues, and Inattentive Teammates

Overwatch disconnect issues

What was up with Overwatch this morning? I had my worst experience with the game even though I played well and won 3 of the games I was in.

Basically, the game kept disconnecting me from the game servers. It must have happened a dozen times in the 4 games I actually got to play (though some seemed to be partial games). The connection problems occurred sometimes before the match began, sometimes during champ select, and then sometimes in the middle of the map as I was trying to attack or defend. It was not a fun experience and eventually I gave up.

I did get 3 more wins to put me at 9–8 overall, but I didn’t gain any levels today. I’m not sure, but I think because I kept being disconnected and did not get in full games, it may have pro-rated my experience so I did not get full recognition for the 4 games.

One thing I actually tried today (on a game I seemed to stay connected to) was champ switching. We were trying to assault an objective on some map – I didn’t write them all down this morning because of the connection issues – and were having a tough time of it. I kept running as Lucio and we also had a Mercy on the team, but they kept holding us off and I kept getting killed. So I switched out to Bastion. Once in near the objective, I went turret mode on a bridge that offered a little cover and was pretty much lined up so I could target 75% of the objective. As my teammates jumped around and assaulted the area, I sat back (not taking enemy fire because I was at a distance and had some cover) and lit up the enemy team. I ended up getting 10 kills and we took the objective to win the match. I think this type of flexibility is gonna be key as I learn the game more.

Hopefully the connection issues don’t occur this weekend or I might really have a struggle getting to level 25.

Paying attention during champion select

With Overwatch having server issues, I decided to throw down a match of League. I stuck with my familiar Zyra and played pretty well, though I may have prevented our ADC – Miss Fortune – from getting a Pentakill. The enemy team was going for Baron – they had a 1 man advantage because I was caught by Illaoi and died to a 3v1, but it took them some time to get to the pit. They started and after a bit, Kha’Zix jumped in and started smacking them around. MF, Tahm, and Fizz showed up and followed suit but the enemy killed Nashor and then got Kha and Fizz. Then MF went off with her ult and took out 3 of them.

By this time, I was alive and headed to the fight. Tahm grabbed Lucian and spit him out in front of MF and she picked up the quadra kill when I showed up and saw that Lux had thrown out her combo and trapped MF. Tahm was running for his life and I threw out a seed and E to catch Lux before she escaped or ran after Tahm. Unfortunately, by snaring Lux, she decided to target and kill MF, but not before she did significant damage. So much that the burn from Red Buff would have taken Lux out except that my plant keep attacking and was seemingly timed just right that I got the kill instead of MF. Oh well, dead is dead and we went on to win the game.

One thing I will mention about this match though, is that it started out poorly with our midlaner. Fizz had our 2nd ban during champ select and was either blind or dumb, because he banned Hecarim whom our jungler wanted to select with 1st pick. Fortunately things worked out, but people really need to pay attention when they are playing ranked games.

Blackout during the Olympics

Such a frustrating night last evening…we had a power outage around 9pm. We were in the middle of watching Mr. Robot while recording the olympics – the women’s all-around gymnastic finals were on – and everything cut out. I’m frustrated it took over an hour for SDG&E to get the power back on, but I think it was pretty interesting how we dealt with the issue.

In previous years, we probably would have ran around to find flashlights and candles to light things up, but this time we already had light – our iPads and iPhones. The lights went out and we were bathed in the glow from our devices. It never got dark – it got warm without the fans on in the house, but it wasn’t a bumbling and fumbling around type of scenario that it’s been in the past. We did a quick check around the house and turned off the computers that were on battery backup, but it was a pretty mellow affair. And then we sat in the living room listening to radio dramas and podcasts waiting for the power to return. I even was able to get the configuration set so we were able to get the balance beam stream on the NBC app on my iPad.

With all the energy that today’s devices require, technology has even made a lack of power easier to deal with.

Maybe I’ll get a solar charger for my iPhone.