Stargrace

Working Towards Flight

Things have settled into a nice routine in World of Warcraft. My ‘main’ character is still my priest, and while in the past I would spec her as a holy / shadow combination in Warlords holy is sort of .. not that great, so I’ve just been focusing on shadow and going with DPS. I ran all of the raids except the very last one over the course of the week / weekend, and got a few pieces of 685 gear, including a new staff. I upgraded the staff with valor, and next I’m going to try to get the flight ability because I really dislike running around, especially while everyone else is flying. There’s a very easy way to see what you still need for this achievement here. I need to complete ‘Securing Draenor’, Master Treasure Hunter, and Tanaan Diplomat. I’m going to try to get the treasure hunter portion done today since that’s pretty easy, just running around collecting treasures that are marked on my map, and then I’ll work on securing Draenor and Tanaan Diplomat.

I also have a level 100 paladin, and I have a retribution spec there but I’d also like to create a tanking spec and maybe give tanking a try. I’d rather do this with friends, so I may try to ping some over the weekend who are playing horde and see if anyone is brave enough to group with me. The paladin is just wearing 640 gear, so there’s a lot of upgrade potential.

Next up is my level 96 hunter. She’s been stalled there for quite some time. I’d like to reach at least level 98 because that’s when she can unlock the next part of her garrison. I tend to procrastinate and haven’t gotten anywhere with her in quite some time, though I do log in daily for crafting purposes.

Trailing behind is my 91 deathknight, and 90 monk. I have barely played either character since WoD released, though they do both have a garrison started. Once the hunter is at 100 I may start leveling them up, but I’m unsure. I’d also like a shaman, but mine is 97 and on the alliance side which I haven’t visited in quite a while, along with my warlock.

I certainly can’t say that there isn’t anything to do. Between leveling, questing, trying to get flight, and pet stuff alone my game schedule is nice and full. That doesn’t even take into account my ‘other’ interests like collecting pets, mounts, and recipes. I’m still delving into EQ2, EVE, Wurm Online, and even a steam single player game from time to time. It’s nice to be a gamer.

Just Trying to Fit In

Playing video games in a lot of ways is still like high school to me. There are cliques everywhere, and being the awkward introvert that I am, I find it really hard to fit in any place. I know a lot of people, but don’t dig down into personal stuff about myself, and we (“we” meaning the folks I know on various social media platforms) never seem to play the same game, and when we do, we never play at the same time. Then there’s the whole “I’m awkward” thing. I don’t really feel that I fit in and I never have. People used to ask me if I wanted to do stuff, but me being me, after so many declines they’ve stopped asking. Trying to find a guild to fit in is a futile effort. I normally end up creating my own guilds with a tiny selection of ‘closer’ friends. Eventually we all move on to other games, having never grouped up or done anything together.

There are exactly three steady played games of mine where this isn’t an issue. One is Wurm Online. I’ve been in the same alliance for years now, and we get along pretty well. People come and go, but the core always remains. Today someone who merged with our alliance mentioned in chat “you guys are weird” – and I said yes, we were, but that I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s completely true, too. My Wurm Online alliance is completely comfortable, and I really treasure the people in it.

The second game is EVE Online. I’ve been in a guild there for about two years now if I recall correctly. I don’t play as often as I’d like to, and my time doesn’t always (ever) match up, but when I’m on and members of the fleet are on I feel comfortable. I don’t end up grouping up very much – but the fleet is alright with that, and they haven’t kicked me out. I like that. I like that they understand.

The third game would be World of Warcraft, and this isn’t because I already have a well established guild or friends playing. Nope, this is because of the LFR mechanic. Blizzard doesn’t let me feel left out of anything. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on something because I’m too awkward to fit in with a crowd. I did join a guild, but they’re completely anonymous to me and go about their own thing. They also never kicked me while I wasn’t playing, which I appreciate. I see friends on my bnet list doing their thing, and I sometimes wish we could all group up and play together – but I know that’s just not how things go for me. I’m always going to be that socially awkward girl who declines invitations but still secretly wishes she got them.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Pictures from Broken Age

Another steam game I’ve had in my library but I didn’t actually get around to playing it until this week. Broken Age is tons of fun, with lots of puzzles. I didn’t even know about the “all star” cast until after I went back to the steam store page to look at why I hadn’t played it before (it has voice actors Elijah Wood, Jack Black, and Masasa Moyo).

There are two character stories you get to participate in from the start, and I flipped back and forth between both of them.

He doesn’t look very impressed, I blame the cereal selection.

These adorable little guys were just so cute I wanted to HUG THEM ALL.

Looking over some little creatures that we want to save.

All in all, I had a great time playing. It’s no wonder user reviews mark this game as ‘very positive’. Can’t wait to see where the stories take me next.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

A bit of Trove

I had beta access to Trove for the longest time but never actually made it in-game to play. A few people have been talking about the game as being a ‘hidden gem’ so I decided to peek around this weekend some. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, and I’m still not really sure what to think. What I played around with was fun, but the world didn’t really appeal to me at the start. Of course it’s never fair to judge a game after only a few hours of playing but I will say that I earned enough of the in-game currency to unlock an awesome reindeer mount, which I loved.

The game is F2P with a subscription option as well as store options. I was playing as a free player and nothing stuck out at me as a “hey you must have a subscription!” point at the offset, and I appreciate that. A ‘why don’t you consider subscribing!’ screen did pop up once as I gated between worlds, but it wasn’t completely intrusive.

There are no traditional groups in Trove, instead those who are in proximity, get loot. A neat concept but one I wasn’t exactly prepared for. I leveled up a few levels and was just standing around outside of some giant fortress type dungeon and suddenly had a bunch of loot for no effort. That felt really weird.

Crafting is fun, and there are a TON of collection options. Graphic options for every single thing you could imagine. I figure there’s some pretty neat outfits out there that people probably want to get their hands on.

I also enjoyed playing the trickster quite a bit. I was able to shoot from a huge distance and take down most encounters before they were ever near me. If they did get near me I would blink away and call my illusions to fight the battle for me. In the lower levels as you go through the tutorial there’s a lot of hand holding and a lot of ‘place your house, craft this item, do this dungeon. Rinse. Repeat’ but I still had fun doing it.

I don’t know if I can safely say at this point whether I’ll be playing long term or if this was just a brief little afternoon excursion, but I DID see lots of players around no matter where I went, and that’s always a good thing.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Sims 4 – Get Together

Another Sims 4 expansion has been released, this time it’s called “Get Together” and includes a new feature called ‘clubs’. Just like in real life, your sim character can join a club, earn points by doing ‘club things’ together, and even lead their own club if they want to.

I wanted to take advantage of some of the new styles in-game, along with traits, so I decided not to start with my legacy family (more about how they’re doing later). I created a new character and moved her to Windenburg (shake your butt-enburg to the locals). The map is a European inspired world that has ancient ruins, cafes, and discotheques. Unfortunately the game also comes full of bugs, some of them really annoying like the one pictured above.

My character and a bunch of strangers just gathered around this counter and stood there forever. They were talking to one another and just frozen in place. It happened twice before I decided to just automagically send my character home which freed her up. I believe the bug occurs when you have so many people gathered in one location. Hopefully EA fixes it before too long (yeah, right).

My sim browsed through the clubs that would accept her without having a whole range of skills and eventually settled on joining the Garden Gnomes. This is a gardening group – at night. At least I think they only operate at night because any time they have a meeting it’s dark. Their last meet up was at a local park, dead of night, complete with a child playing on the playground (that’s not creepy or anything). The group typically gets together (in the dark) and then performs some group farming rituals over some thriving plants, or goes fishing. Yes, that’s exactly what my sim wanted to do on her Thursday evening, go fishing in the city in the dark.

As you go to these gatherings and complete tasks together you earn club points, and these points can be spent on all sorts of things to enhance your club experience. Clubs come with a few by default, and if you’re the leader of the club you’re able to customize it even more. Secret handshakes, cool outfits and accessories of course.

Besides all the fun club things that comes with the expansion there’s a whole range of new items and skills to play with. I’ve been working on my dance moves and have every intention of trying out the new DJ options one of these days. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the expansion so far – minus the bugs, of course.