Stargrace

Welcome to Spitzville – Population: ME! #SimCity

I’m already well aware of all of the stuff that’s wrong with Sim City, people have been incredibly upset and venting those feelings all over the internet for the past day or so now. Rightly so, but that’s not what this post is going to be about, so if you’re looking for someone to share in your anger, well. I’ve never really been that sort of a gamer.

I didn’t download the game when it went live at midnight, knowing that the servers would be bombarded. Then today Sims 3 university released, and they were bombarded even harder. So around 11am EST I got around to downloading the game, installed without issue. I did (and continue to) have problems with the friends list but for one brief moment the planets aligned and Scopique managed to ping me with an invite to a G+ region with spots for 16 cities. Not feeling especially creative, I claimed a spot of land near to the railroad that runs through the map, and named it Spitzville. I may come up with a better name later.

I then proceeded to laugh my ass off for 5 hours straight. The game is hilarious, and I’m having so much fun with it. The detail is amazing, the ability to follow my little fire trucks and ambulances around the city just adds a level to the game that I enjoy so much. I also got to partake in my first interactive session, as I sent over fire trucks and ambulances to Scopique’s city. He has students coming over to mine for some schooling. I’m also purchasing water from his city, and he sent over a garbage truck (thank you) to help with any waste issue I may have.

Cooperation is key. Your region is equipped with a “wall” where you can post things like “really need doctors, please help” and those members of your region will hopefully step up to the bat and help your city out.

I did pre-order the limited edition, and so I got a superhero and villain combination with it. Instead of a regular police station I placed down Maxis Manor, and let me tell you, he’s a hassle. He’s expensive, and after healing up a few of my wounded sims he wanted a garage so he could chase down criminals. Who am I to say no, I have no police station after all. So I built him his garage. Now, my city is getting quite large, I’m up to 16,000 citizens. Crime is on the rise. In fact the leader of the super villains asked me to build him and his friends a headquarter. They were obviously jealous of Maxis Manor. In order to build this I need to have 5 crime lords roaming my city. I’m not sure if I’m OK with that. So far I’ve had my superhero capture them all. If you do these little ‘side quests’ for lack of a better term, you earn money. You can really never have too much money when it comes to building your city, so the more the better!

There are a lot of ‘things’ I’m saving up for right now, and the game is really detailed and complex which I enjoy. It’s not just about building a super huge city this time around. There’s much more to it. So I’ve just added an education department to my city hall, and I’m looking forward to placing a college or at least a high school so my little citizens can get smarter and go to work at places other than just your basic factory. The city is also growing by leaps and bounds. I’ve had to replace my roads with the largest ones to keep traffic jams from happening.

All in all, I’m having a blast. I hope EA can get a hold of their issues so that people can go back to enjoying playing a game, instead of being so angry over it.

Stone Hive and Thoughts about Housing #EQ #EverQuest

The beastlord 2.0 (and shadowknight) have managed to climb their way to level 42 after our play session today, just a nudge shy of where the 1.0 versions were at before we started over on Drinal. Things are going well. Today we spent most of our time in Stone Hive which was filled with people taking advantage of the hot zone experience. Once we were done I had more than enough bits and bobs to turn in to various NPCs and got quite a few upgrades.

When we had first started our adventures I turned on leadership aa because I wanted to take advantage of some of the perks those abilities give. However they take a substantial chunk of your over all experience away, they gain slowly, and the ability I want (health of targets target) is not even available until I’m much higher level so there’s no point quite yet. I fell behind almost a full level before turning it off and gaining experience like normal.

I’ve also been debating purchasing a house for my beastlord. I used to own one but I’m pretty sure I let the rent on it lapse and I haven’t set one up since. EQ1 houses are a lot of fun and you can get a lot of unique looks if you learn to work the mechanics properly. You can also use the houses for storage, something I can never have too much of.

Yesterday I also came to the conclusion that I wanted to create a shaman to level up for the specific purpose of one day making potions. The alchemy skill is level based and doesn’t unlock until 25 so I’ve got a bit of prep work to do first. Potions are nice to have though, and they can sell well in the bazaar as lowbies purchase them to make their leveling experience a bit easier (especially damage shields and mana regen).

Aside from that, things are going well. My trader has made almost 50,000 plat in offline mode which I’m pretty pleased about. Of course it all seems to just get spent on mercenary upkeep anyhow but hey every game needs its money drains.

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

The Combat Wombats take on Sorrow’s Embrace #GW2 #GuildWars2

The Combat Wombats were down by one, so I volunteered to fill in the empty spot on their weekly dungeon run. This week we were exploring Sorrow’s Embrace, a level 60 dungeon located in Dredgehaunt Cliffs. The moletariat running the place became corrupt, influenced by the inquest, and enslaved their own kind into mining forever. So that’s where you come in. Or a group of you in any case.

This was one of the most fun dungeons I’ve been to in GW2 so far, but I haven’t completed them all yet. I think the guild had a great combination of classes and we did pretty well. There was really only one tricky fight and that was a particular boss who liked to spawn a golem every 25% on us. Each one would have a unique tactic, like fire or poison. It took us three attempts to get him down, but we did it (and there was much rejoicing).

The final boss fight was the best yet, as you can see by the Terminator 2 tribute in the screen shot above. It was a fight where it didn’t matter how “good” you were or what gear you were wearing, what mattered was paying attention to where you were standing, and then hurling these giant boulders at the named throughout the encounter to damage him.

Since the zone is level 60 and my guardian is 80 the final reward wasn’t of much use to me, but I still had an amazing time playing with fellow Wombats, and the rest of the loot was nice. None of it was really an upgrade but it’s great to be able to clear story mode dungeons so that you’re ready for the exploration mode ones (which I have yet to do). I’m still contemplating what I’d like to level up next. I’ve been playing more EverQuest than GW2 lately but that’s one of the pleasures of not having to pay for a subscription to GW2. At least I don’t feel like I’m ‘wasting’ any money. In any case, there’s the mesmer I’ve been leveling up as well as my new found love for the elementalist. I’m not sure if either of them will ever actually make it to level 80, but at least it’s a project to work on.

Beginning Again, on Drinal #EverQuest #EQ

The more we played on FV, the more we realized that perhaps this server just wasn’t for us. One of the appealing things about Drinal (the server that I currently play on as my main) is that you’ll see people mention XYZ item is rotting in 123 zone, and players are free to come loot it. It’s very rare to see items selling for extreme amounts of money. On FV because the server has unique rule sets that allows for the trading of no-trade items, EVERYTHING is for sale, and there’s a lot of money floating around.

The down side is that there were easily 400+ people on during my play time, where as Drinal had around 200-300 in general channel. Still, that could also be a good thing, as it means that there’s a chance I may be able to get a few named and a few camps that are not already taken over by people.

So the decision was made, we would re-create new characters on Drinal, and start over. I have a lot of characters there already so switching wasn’t that big of a deal. I do have a 58 beastlord, but I’ll be replacing her with the new one I created.

We decided once more to skip the tutorial. I’m just not fond of it. Headed to Crescent Reach and spent the evening there taking down bears, pumas, spiders, and other nasty creatures. Before we knew it we were level 18 – which is a great chunk towards the level 47 that our previous characters were at. We also managed to get a lot more loot this time around, which I think is fantastic.

Being on Drinal has a few advantages, like the fact that my mains are here and I’ve done a lot of crafting over the years. I’ll be able to make backpacks, and jewelry, and other bits and bobs if I choose to. I have a keen interest in making racial armor for the beastlord, so I’ll be starting on that eventually. It’s also nice to be home. We’ll be looking for a new guild to join with our low level characters, and I’m excited about that. While the server may not be as populated as FV, there’s still a great number of folks playing, especially for a game that is 14 years old.

As always, happy gaming! No matter where you find yourself.

Dranik’s Scar Adventures #EverQuest #EQ

Dranik Scar came out with Omens of War, and it’s one of my favorite expansions. For some reason I thought that the zone was higher level than it is, my beastlord headed there at 40 because it’s the hotzone. A few rats and bats later, as well as a noc or two, and both beastlord and shadowknight are sitting at a very comfortable level 45. We’re almost ready to start working on AA.

When we first chose FV as a server Oger looked for a guild to join. Our first choice was Insanity, the name really represented the guild – and that’s not a good thing. Chatter was filled with a lot of conversations that I just wasn’t personally comfortable with. Lasted a day there before we moved on to Sentinels of Truth. This guild is incredibly friendly, and VERY active, when we logged in last night there were close to 20 others on doing things. Not bad for a Monday night. As EverQuest nears its 14th anniversary I expect those numbers will go up slightly.

I’m incredibly excited to be playing during the 14th anniversary. I’ve always loved all of the events, and having fabled drop in zones again is pretty neat. I told Oger we’ll have to go hunting for low level fabled gear for our characters.

One thing I completely forgot is that this server is FV, with its own rules. So when I out leveled a piece of defiant gear I had been deleting it if it didn’t sell to vendor. WRONG thing to do! Even though gear says you can attune it, on FV you don’t attune gear. So nothing is no-trade. Gear is re-useable! I’m going to try to keep that in the forefront of my mind today as we play. I can pass it off to alts, or sell it at the bazaar.

Speaking of, I actually sold a few hundred plat worth of items yesterday, yay! Mercenaries are paid for a bit longer. I also picked up a few pieces of gear to fill out the missing slots I have, although I DO still want to get into crafting. It may be easier when I’m higher level and have an easier time of harvesting bits. We’ll see I suppose.

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