Stargrace

Counting Down to GW2 #GuildWars2

Gaming these days is still pretty limited, with the Olympics going on and family taking over (Nana is still in intensive care) but I’ve been relaxing at night with a little World of Warcraft while I (impatiently) wait for Guild Wars 2 to release. Not too much longer to go now, I still haven’t decided what I’m going to play.

World of Warcraft has been quiet as well, with MoP releasing in September there’s not really a rush to do anything because I know it is just going to get replaced. I have been working on a few old achievements, mostly from the Wrath expansion. Pictured above is my group trying to take down 100 zombies in one minute. Fun times. I also only need 4 more recipes to reach my goal of 200, which is every obtainable recipe in the game (for now). Two more days will allow me to purchase the final level 85 recipe I’m missing, and I just need to figure out how to spawn the two robots in Desolace to gain two more. I tried last week but didn’t have any luck.

I’ve been completing the LFRaid finder once a week simply for the valor points, there’s very few upgrades from the raids any more for my priest – and yesterday I was lucky enough to win an axe for my shaman. I was a bit sad to see that the second axe went to a caster shaman instead of melee, but I’m hopeful because the loot system also changes in MoP and it should prevent these sort of things from happening in the future.

What is everyone else who plans on playing GW2 keeping busy with? I know a good portion of my friends are playing The Secret World right now, and I would have given it a try on their free weekend, except I’m already very close to my internet cap for the month and I can’t download anything more until it re-sets on the 12th, or I’ll face fees for going over. I normally don’t come close to the cap, but this month I’ve reformatted so there was all sorts of goodies I needed to get again. I’ve managed (so far) to stay away from TSW despite hearing nothing but good about it, for the simple fact that I know myself and I know my game style, and I don’t think it would appeal to me. That doesn’t mean I won’t try it in the future, but for now with GW2 so close, I think I would be better off waiting.

I hope everyone has an awesome week, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Lets Talk “Community” #MMORPG

I have an issue with how people are using the word ‘community’ lately in discussing MMOs, in specific Guild Wars 2 and the incidents that happened yesterday during their live chat. If you weren’t around, there were many unfavorable and immature comments made during the chat, directed towards those hosting it.

Now, immediately afterwards came a whole slew 0f “wow if this is the community I don’t want to be a part of it!” comments – and the thing that bugged me, or rather, bugs me, is that when you’re talking about an MMO community to a game that you play or are contemplating playing – you are talking about yourself. You’re not just talking about those rude obnoxious people who disrupted chat, you’re talking about a whole.

Those people don’t represent the whole, and they never have. They represent a group of people who are able to speak louder than the ‘regulars’ that we see. Because the regulars, are people like you and me, who are calmly making blog posts and counting down until games go live. We’re the ones who are hyping up a game because we’re excited, even if that excitement doesn’t last.

THAT is your community.

What we should be doing is bonding together to raise our voices louder than those who are disrupting game play. Not giving them the satisfaction of having accomplished anything negative. Outweigh the balance, in other words.

So what can we do to counter this negative community that seems to form?

Patience. Have patience with every single person you come across, whether they are negative or positive. They’re just looking to get a rise out of you, don’t give it to them. Ignore their comments, and go about being the best person you can personally be. Help others, organize server events, make an effort to get to know the other ‘regulars’ on your server and not just the loud ones in open channels.

Understanding. People play video games for multiple reasons and you never know what a persons real life stance is. They may be a complete asshole in game, but are dealing with multiple things in real life and they have no method of coping. I’m not saying this is an excuse to be an asshole in a video game, but I am saying you just never know what someones situation is. When someone is being a jerk to you keep this in the back of your mind, and don’t let what they say get to you.

Be active. You can’t say a community is poor if you don’t get involved with it! If you’re never talking to anyone else, always group alone, never want to deal with another player – how on earth can you complain about those who are communicating (be it in a good or bad way). I realize that there’s all sorts of game styles and I’m not saying you have to be incredibly social all of the sudden, because I am certainly not a social gamer, but there are ways to get ‘involved’ with the community and push forward a positive vibe without having to leave the comfort of your play style. Some times you just have to put forth that little bit of effort to make it work. It is much easier for a small handful of people to put out a negative vibe that grabs attention than it is for a large handful of people to put out a positive one. That’s just the way things work (ie: bad news spreads faster than good news).

Just remember, when you talk about the ‘community’ of a game, you’re talking about yourself. You’re talking about every person who plays that game. There’s far more ‘good’ and ‘regular’ people who are quietly playing than there are the small handful who are creating noise. It’s up to us to be louder than them.

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

Counting Down To MoP #WoW #WorldofWarcraft

First, my apologies for a lack of posts, but my Nana is in the hospital on life support so I haven’t really been in the right frame of mind to post anything here. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been gaming, I have, it’s a great way of relieving some stress and occupy my mind for a bit.

I thought while I waited for GW2 to release I’d be playing nothing but GW1 – but that hasn’t been the case. When Blizzard announced the release date of MoP (September!) I started excitedly playing again. The first week ‘back’ (I say that in quotes because I never really left, having been subbed for the last year) has been eventful. My priest (who I consider my main) managed to pick up a lot of gear in her LFRaid groups, winning both the main hand weapon (healer) and off hand, as well as shoulders, helm, and gloves which I already have in my holy set so I added to my dps spec.

Of course when I ran my warlock and shaman through those same raids they ended up with nothing but the valor points you’re guaranteed for the win, for some reason my priest has always had fantastic luck and the other characters I have not so much.

I mostly just ignore raid chat these days, it’s typically one person moaning about a random other person in raid and what they’ve done to offend them, or moaning that their main could do this raid solo and why do we all suck and how we should vote out half the raid because they’re horrible. When I first doing raids in the raid finder these comments bugged me, my under geared warlock was even voted out once but as time goes on I’ve developed selective reading and pretty much ignore anything said that isn’t mechanic related.

My paladin also managed to inch her way closer to 85, I’ve been 81 for a really long time and just couldn’t find the motivation to push to the end. She’s now happily sitting at 84, and I even healed my first dungeon with her. I’ve spec’d the character as holy / protection, and have been having a lot of fun.

Aside from that, I’ve still got smaller characters that are a blast to play. I’m looking forward to mounts and pets being account wide, and I’m excited to see if perhaps today’s downtime is for the patch that’s on test. We’ll just have to see. In the mean time, it’s really nice having a very simple easy game to play when I only have a short amount of time and need to unwind my brain. I hope everyone has a wonderful week, and happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

Learning, Exploring, and Learning Some More #EVEOnline

Yesterday and today were glorious days for me in EVE Online, and I’m learning a bit more about the language of the game and how to operate. I managed to bring my Helios to the wurmhole my corp is set up in without dying, that was step one. Wurmholes are awesome, and scary, and awesome. I’ve been in a few on my own and you have to remember some pretty important things. First of all, bookmark, bookmark, bookmark. Also checking to see when a wurmhole is about to collapse is pretty important. In fact the more information you can learn about the wurmhole the better.

So I made it in one piece, and started getting myself familiar with it. The helios is a perfect little ship for this type of operation. I’ve actually never seen a POS before, and had no idea how they worked. For example, I learned you don’t actually dock at them like you do regular stations. You log out within the shield and a minute later you’ll leave the world. Interesting.

This morning came my new challenge, finding the way out. Preferably to some place that wasn’t going to eat me when I left. Probing is getting much easier the more familiar I get with it, and inside of an hour I had located an exit that lead to highsec (you can right click on a wurmhole and get information from it, it will tell you in vague terms whether the hole leads to highsec or some place dangerous and unknown). Found my way out, and back to my ‘home’ in highsec without any issues.

For those who are familiar and comfortable constantly living on the edge in EVE Online, it’s probably not that big of a deal but for me personally, it was an amazing accomplishment and I was quite proud of myself. Next I’ll be trying to bring some POS bits over to the corp for them to use, in specific all those consumer electronics I’ve been producing in my PI routine which are then used in robotics. I went and read through the huge wiki on POS to try to learn exactly what goes into one and how much work they are, confusing, but I’m grasping it.

So far I’ve still not reached out into the pvp side of living in a WH, but I’ll get there. I still prefer invention / manufacturing / PI to the sound of lasers across the sky, and I doubt I’ll ever really be the bloodthirsty sort, but one never knows!

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

The Grim Reaper Stole My Dog #Sims3

I’m a fan of games like EVE Online, Guild Wars (and Guild Wars 2) and even World of Warcraft – but some times I just like to relax and play by myself without having to deal with anyone. For this, I have been a long time fan of the Sims franchise. Sims 3 is a LOT of fun, there’s so much to do, build, and see. I own quite a few of the expansions they put out but there are so many now that it’s hard to keep up, especially on top of any MMO I may be playing.

Still, since I reformatted my PC I had a clean slate, and reinstalled my Sims 3 game, dedicating a few hours to it last night. The last expansion I picked up was the Pets one, and I hadn’t gotten very far with it.

I spent my Sim day in a typical fashion. Became a self employed writer, rummaged through some garbage cans in the neighbourhood (even found an uncommon seed), and tried to get one of the (many) wild horses roaming around to befriend me. Most of them shied away. Eventually I decided I should adopt a dog, and I picked out a great one.

‘Stone’ was his name, and he was a genius. Except two minutes after our introduction the grim reaper paid me a visit and killed my dog! I didn’t even have time to purchase a dog bowl or bed for Stone before he was an urn on my living room floor. GAH.

I gave my sim the appropriate 2 days to mourn, placing Stone’s grave outside in the yard. It’s a cute little dog bone. That night I was visited by ghost Stone, who fell asleep at the end of my bed. A bit creepy, but that’s alright. Once the two days had passed I adopted a second dog, this one named ‘Taylor’. Hopefully she lasts a bit longer. At least I had time to take her for a walk (pictured above). I bet it would make a great country song.

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