Stargrace

Still Catching them All #WoW

Last night was another night I spent working on pet battles, inching my way to owning at least one team of level 25 pets. So far as you can see by the list above, my highest pet is level 17 (also happens to be my favorite pet, Lil’XT). I’ve been able to keep a team of three but what I’ve started to do is swap out the third pet to one that I capture so I don’t have to actually level it for battles. The two pets with stars are my ‘core’ pets, and then the third I swap to something I have captured. At the moment that is the adder. Leveling my team is still a bit slower than normal because I capture and upgrade any wild pets I come across (so long as they qualify) which reduces the xp you earn – but I’m very pleased with my collection so far.

I’ve got 196 / 615 and while I know I will never ever come close to ‘catching them all’ it’s still a fantastic way to spend some time when I’m done with my hack ‘n slash adventures.

In other news, thanks to leveling up alts the guild is just a smidge shy from level 24. We have also been running a daily heroic scenario which helps earn a bit of experience and gives the guild bank a bit of cash. Nothing extreme, but it is still nice to see. I’m excited about reaching level 25. At one point in time I had contemplated joining a different guild temporarily while leveling to take advantage of the perks – but now there’s absolutely no need. I’m content staying in my little guild of three members. Thankfully with flex raids and LFR and LFG, there’s no obligation to go out and join a larger guild in order to do end game content. This works out perfectly for players like me.

I’ve got three level 90 characters so far, but I still have at least two more I would like to reach 90. There is the 87 warlock along with my 85 druid. I’m sure the warlock will be next as she is already most of the way there, then I’ll attempt the druid. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing, and I still attribute that to the fact that I find there is a LOT to do, plus I’m playing other games in between so I don’t get burnt out (mostly Wurm Online).

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

Enter the Butler #TS3 #TheSims3

It has been a little while since I played The Sims 3, but I still love it as much as ever. There were a lot of free items given away over the holidays, and I dutifully logged in each day to make sure I claimed them. They were worth anywhere from 400 to 700 sim points, so they were some pretty nice items. I picked up the latest expansion as well as the latest venue and world (the one that includes the roller coaster) and have been having a lot of fun with both. Of course my legacy family doesn’t get to play with those quite yet, so where is what they have been up to.

When we last left the family, it consisted of Mushi the cat, Teddygirl the boy (who was named during my Extra Life fundraising campaign), Blesse (wife) and Jack (older gentleman that she married). Jack got up to feed the family goldfish and passed on, while his family freaked out. I was expecting this, Jack was pretty old when he married Blesse and it was only a matter of time. I moved his gravestone to the backyard, and now his ghost haunts the house.

I decided that since Blesse was now a single mother and had a lot on her plate with work and Teddygirl, I would hire a live-in butler. These costs $1200 a week (if only) and require a room with a bed in your house. I added a room for her in the basement, and now Tashia lives with everyone. Clothing was starting to pile up and my shower and toilets have all broken multiple times now, so it’s nice to have a pair of extra hands to deal with all that stuff.

Teddygirl also decided to become a scientist. He wants to become a robot breeder in specific, but any career in the science department would be a good start. Blesse is still a middle school teacher, although she did get a promotion for telling the principle that another teacher was sleeping while her students watched movies all day. This did not earn Blesse any bonus points with those teachers, and now they’re all angry at her. Oh well!

As always the point of the legacy family is to get as many generations up as I can, so next I’ll be looking for a suitable partner for Teddygirl. Hopefully someone who doesn’t mind his name too much.

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

The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot

I like loot.

Do you like loot?

You do? Great!

This game was gifted to me over the holidays by a friend of mine, and before then I had never heard of it before. It’s created by ubisoft and before I could even play it I had to fiddle around with their ‘uplay’ launcher which does not get along with windows 8.1 (of course that’s what I happen to run). Thankfully there are some fairly simple work arounds to the problems.

When you log in you’re presented with three class choices. There is a knight, an archer, and a mage. You can only choose to be a male character but I won’t hold that against the game for now.

Gameplay follows a diablo style, where you’re in top down view running through dungeons where the walls fade away as they come across your vision. Mobs are named adorable names like snotlings and derps. I chose to be an archer and even got a nifty falcon who follows me around. You start out in your pajamas, and as you complete the dungeons you’ll loot gear and other items of interest.

Of course what sort of adventurer would you be without a castle! Once the first battle tutorials are completed you’ll be given your very own humble abode which you can upgrade and grow and decorate with creatures and lots of other fun things. I’ve only just started this process, and it is also where the game shifts slightly. Creating upgrades for rooms and items costs currency, and time. You can instantly complete the upgrades by spending currency. Otherwise you spend a lot of time waiting for projects to complete. Not an issue for me, this makes it a very casual fun game to play and the voiceover and instructions are hilarious. You can find the game in closed beta on steam, and like so many other games are doing these days you can purchase your way into getting access.

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

Cook, Serve, Delicious

I picked this game up when it was on sale during the steam winter sale because it looked cute and I had never heard of it before. You’re given a restaurant to run, and you’re in charge of everything from scrubbing the toilets to doing the dishes and taking out the trash – not to mention the actual cooking. Everything is timed, can be done with either keyboard or mouse, and your job is to complete it all to the highest quality possible.

The tutorial is brief but since the game isn’t that complicated (just fast paced) it should be enough to get you started. You pick a few items to purchase for your menu, keeping in mind that if you don’t swap the menu up a bit, customers will get bored. You generate buzz with your food, and you open from 9am to 10pm.

At any time during the day you’ll be dealing with 1-4 (maybe more are added as time goes on, I am not sure yet) things at once. You’ll have to cook food according to what each customer wants. For example in the screenshot above there are three chicken breasts cooking. Each one has to be tenderized 6 times and then spiced and then cooked – and not burned. A little stopwatch ticks down on the food and it will tell you when it is ready but you have to pay attention because there are other meals and things being done at the same time.

So far my menu consists of beer, pizza, salad, chicken breast, and corndogs. Beer is the easiest to make, just have to make sure you don’t over fill the glass. Salad has about 8 different options that customers can ask for. Chicken is easy, as are the corndogs. Pizza has a handful of options as well. If you burn the food, serve it late, don’t clean the dishes, don’t take out the garbage, or encounter any other number of pitfalls the restaurant will fail.

You’ll also get email each day giving you a few more details about running your business, like upgrades you can do. You have to purchase equipment, and it’s way more involved than I had first thought but it’s also a lot of fun. I’m constantly talking to myself as I read the orders out loud so I can make sure I get them just right. I probably wouldn’t pay full price for the game (found here on steam) but as a 75% off sale item it was completely worth it.

Unicorns, Deer, Cows, and Pigs! Oh My. #WurmOnline

As I’ve already mentioned in numerous other Wurm Online posts, I really love raising animals, even the type that don’t have an enormous use. Take unicorns for example. Most deeds and open space is filled with them. They make great creatures to farm for leather, but here in my pen pictured above I have two sly and a champion that I’m currently breeding. I can’t ride them yet (you need very high body control) but they’re nice to have around. I also have three deer, who also provide leather and alchemy bits. They don’t pull carts and you can’t ride them but I like to have them around.

I was keeping a few pigs but there is a server mission ongoing that asks you to sacrifice them to Fo, one of the deity. I spent a painstaking few hours creating a sacrificial knife (really hard to do with only 1 weaponsmith skill) and then partook in the mission. We’re sitting at 63% completion with me being 46% of that. You get some karma and sleep bonus if you participate, so I hope eventually we’re able to finish the task.

I used to have a chicken but the servers went down yesterday morning and we had a slight rollback of creatures. I searched the nearby woods to see if I could spot it but I had no luck. Chickens are another ‘useless’ creature but I like them a lot.

I’ve been making a lot of progress with the deed. I used a pendulum to divine a water tile, created a nice path, almost finished my horse pens (they just need gates), and improved my forge in my workshop (which has no walls but will one day). Things are going pretty well and I’m looking forward to working my fine carpentry up even higher along with alchemy on the priest.

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