Stargrace

Do You Need Combat in your Games?

Spurred on by a conversation on twitter with Belghast and Adrel I started thinking about the games that I play that I enjoy more than others. Two immediately came to mind, Wurm Online and the Sims franchise. Both are games that (due to my play style) have very little if any combat – and I love that about them. Yes, arguably you can combat as much as you want in Wurm Online but that’s not how I tend to spend my time. In the Sims games there’s almost never any combat, not in the traditional sense. Of course there are ways to encourage combat if you want (you can make enemies and start fights) but for the most part the game is pretty peaceful. Then there’s all of the visual novel games that I enjoy playing, games like If my Heart Had Wings, and Dandelion – Wishes brought to you. Mindless games I enjoy just because like Cook, Serve, Delicious. Building games like Cities: Skylines. These are the sorts of games that entice me the most and I suppose until I sat down and looked through my games it’s not actually something I noticed before.

That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy combat in games, too. I do. Diablo 3 is pretty much nothing but blowing things up. The thing is I get very bored of those games very quickly – just like Belghast tends to get bored of games that don’t have combat in them (per our conversation earlier). I think that in the majority of games I play I spend my time equally between combat and no combat depending on the game. EVE Online is a good example. There’s combat, and I do combat via missions, but a lot of the time I’m running delivery missions or I’m mining or I’m doing industry things that don’t involve any combat at all. The same can be said for EQ2 and WoW, sure, there’s combat, but a lot of the time I’m harvesting, decorating, or crafting and none of that (at least for me) involves any combat at all.

Do you have a preference or are you about equal in terms of combat vs. non combat gameplay? Would you tend to fall asleep if one or the other aspect was missing from your game of choice? Let me know in comments!

Lost, Again.

Remember how just last week I was talking about video games that do a poor job at introducing you to what you’ve missed while you’ve been away? Well, World of Warcraft is another game that I’ve recently returned to – and I have no idea what I’m doing. I mean, I know how to play my character, I understand garrisons, that’s not the issue. I was around for that stuff. The issue is what I do with everything else going on.

So lets start with what I know. So far I know that they’ve added navel battles since I last played. These are like garrisons – on water. Plus you can lose your ship, and you can gear them up so of course when you lose them you lose all their stuff, too and then you have to start all over again. When you do the tutorial they do a great job of explaining about how much you suck. Thanks Blizzard!

The next thing I discovered was Warlord’s version of Timeless Isle – except it’s not as much fun, it’s much more pressure, meaner, and harder to get around. With that being said, I did get a pair of 675 shoulders last night, so that was swell. When I quit I was wearing 640 gear, and the new stuff is a big upgrade, plus I can upgrade it twice more. I haven’t figured out how that works yet, but I’m sure it’ll be revealed in time. The zone is awkward, the roads are narrow, and my map is FULL of stuff going on. Unfortunately most of it happened to be complete before I got there, and unlike Timeless Isle where people usually helped one another out, this place seems like a complete free for all.

Then there’s the Timewalking dungeons. Those reward various 660 pieces of gear, and for barely anything I was able to upgrade almost my complete set of gear to 675 from the vendor in Shattrah. I’m on my way to doing 5 dungeons, I just need one more. They’re fairly painless but not a complete cakewalk, one of the ones I went through ended up needing three replacement tanks since none of them were able to control their aggro. Happens, and I didn’t vote anyone out, but the rest of my group was less patient than I. Speaking of patience, the NPC who sells the Timewalking gear is currently completely covered by players in mounts with vendors, on purpose to be obnoxious so you can’t purchase anything. Isn’t that fun? There’s a quest to complete 5 timewalking dungeons, and so I did that and managed to get an ilevel 695 robe, yay! Now my ilevel is 666… that seems.. appropriate?

That’s where I’m currently at. I imagine I’ll do some LFR before too long, maybe on the weekend (though that has always been a poor day to do raids from my experience, best day is typically Tuesday when they re-set) and continue working on being able to fly in Draenor. If you want to group up or just add me to battlenet, you can find me as Stargrace#1783 – I’m playing horde these days, my alliance characters over on Argent Dawn have taken a back seat, and I’m playing over on Area 52.

What else do I need to know about recent changes? Have any tips / hints / tricks / guides to direct me to? Go ahead and leave them in comments as always!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Lets Give Away some Steam Game Keys (Contest Time!)

Since I’m not running my Gamers Secret Santa this year, I decided I would do something a little bit different. I have quite a few steam game keys I’m going to be giving away, all you need to do is enter a valid email address to be put into the draw (plus you’re going to want to have a steam account so you can redeem them if you win). The keys will go out randomly on December 25th at 1:30pm PDT, and the games I’m giving away include the following (and more that are not listed here):

Fez
Starseed Pilgrim
Neighbours from Hell Compilation
Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection
Sid Meier’s Civ. III Complete

Plus many more. You can only enter once, and the rewards are random. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from me, Stargrace, here at MmoQuests.com!

The Road to Level 100

Originally I had planned on playing my defiler, Stargrace, on the Antonia Bayle server. Of course I never follow plans and instead I played the illusionist, Seduit, that I have over on Maj’Dul. She was level 95 and I hadn’t even set foot into Altar of Malice (let alone the latest expansion) so I began with that. Questing was slow. Really slow. I can understand why people prefer to group elsewhere. Over the course of the weekend I did manage to level to 97, so that’s nice but I’m not sure if I have the patience to continue on with that method. I’ve been debating grinding out the levels in another zone (skyshrine comes to mind, though I understand that place is typically still packed) or maybe just going through older content. Thankfully there are options.

I also reached 98 provisioner by completing the Altar of Malice quest chain. I was contemplating grinding writs to reach 100 but decided against it because I don’t have a lot of spare resources right now. Doing the daily and weekly crafting quests should bump me to 100 before long.

Last but not least I started this character down the harvesting quest chain from the Isle of Mara. I’ve collected food items from the starter zones, antonica, and now I’m headed to Nektulos Forest and Thundering Steppes. It’s quite relaxing to be able to sit back and harvest, though I am eager to get it completed. I’ve been going through the giant list of tradeskill quests I want to get completed, it’s really amazing to see how many there are in the game when you’re looking at them in list format.

I don’t know anyone on Maj’Dul these days, but I continue to listen in on channels and I am enjoying the current population. Long term I hope to hit 100, continue to work on gear and spells, and maybe even be able to participate in a raid or two if I can find a guild that accepts alliances. I’m in a guild on my own and I don’t want to leave it because it compliments my play style, but I do like to participate in raids and other events. We’ll just have to see.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

The 3+1 Guild

The year was 2008. The server was Kithicor. I transferred there on a whim and I met some of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. Unfortunately the rest of the server was not kind. In 2009 we made the decision to transfer to Antonia Bayle and we packed up our homes and most of the guild hall, leaving one character behind to keep it safe for us. We set up a memorial for others to visit for as long as they could. On top of each tomb was a player written book describing our adventures and what we had done on the server as an incredibly small team.

Today I went returned to check in for the first time since we left. I didn’t even remember that we left the memorial. I’m still friends with everyone from the 3+1 guild. I’m the only one who still plays EQ2, but that’s OK because we have ties that run deeper than the game even if it is the game that brought us together.

I owe a lot in my life to video games. Everything from friends I have made to jobs I have held. I can honestly say that without EverQuest 2 I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I think that’s pretty amazing.