Stargrace

Bugs, and Lieutenant 8 #STO

I inched my way to Lieutenant 8 this weekend and learned a lot more about what I should be doing in game. Sadly my learning was also hampered by some pretty annoying bugs in an area I was attempting to do missions in. One required me to deliver products to a planet in need – you may be familiar with this quest called ‘The needs of the many” the problem is there appears to be a respawn timer for you to be able to help planets. Plus it took me an exceptionally long time of scanning in the Delta Volantis Sector just to find a place with a planet to aid. Once I received the message that I should go help I entered only to fly around in lazy circles. Turns out they didn’t really need my help after all.

In that same sector I was helping a friend scan down and explore different locations. One place we were sent to had a ground mission that started off wrong right off the bat. We were there, but our bridge officers were no where to be seen. Well, that’s not exactly true, we could see where they SHOULD have been standing on the mini map. We just couldn’t actually SEE them. Our mission was to clear out groups of Klingons, so we decided even though we couldn’t see our bridge officers we’d attempt to do just that. Except it wasn’t just our bridge officers who were lost under the terrain, it was also the Klingons. It’s really hard to fight things that you can’t see. We knew we were surrounded, but we may as well have been fighting ghosts. The one saving factor was that our bridge officer ghosts could see these new Klingon ghosts, and we could target through them. It was a lot of melee combat that ignores shields and after dying a few times we decided the ghost Klingons and bridge officers were really not worth it, and called it a night.

Despite the bugs I still had a lot of fun. I answered questions for Q’s son (thank you Tipa for letting me know this was not actually who I thought it was) and won some nice items. I sold a few extra things that I didn’t think I’d use in order to fund some purchases. Picked up some photons for my ship and spec’d down that line for space combat. I’m really excited about getting to the point where I can fly a different ship, an actual science vessel would be nice.

Tipa asked me what I thought of STO compared to EVE and I replied that I felt it was much more hands on. Since you’re in control of a character that can leave the ship, and because you actually control the movement of the ship in specific. In EVE I’m so used to orbiting around the bad guys as I fight them (or some other entity in space) where as in STO I actually have to move around lest my shields get low on one side. The crafting on the other hand is far superior in EVE, and the learning curve in EVE is also a lot higher. Both games feel foreign to me since they involve science fiction which I know little to nothing about. Playing a game that’s basically written in a completely different language from the one I am comfortable with still proves to be quite challenging. I had the same feeling with Perpetuum as well.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Becoming a Fan #STO

I played a little tiny bit of STO when the game was in open beta and wrote about my impressions over on NomadicGamer. My point of view comes from someone who has never even seen the TV show before let alone been a fan of the IP. A huge thank you to Petter who helped me get started when I had a few worries about picking up the game; once more I’m reminded of what a fantastic community I’ve become involved with.

I deleted my old character who had never even made it out of the tutorial and decided it would be best if I started from scratch. I had to relearn everything – lets not even call it relearning because I’m not confident that I ever really learned it to begin with. I had to learn the game. Starting with the basics of movement, how to spend skill points, and building up my bridge officers. I created a Zhen, Shen Andorian and decided to go down the science path as it fits my ‘typical’ game style quite well (healing, buffing and debuffing). I have some engineer bridge officers as well as science, a mixture of Andorian and Borg. I took a lot of really neat screen shots last night only to discover that since my STO client is launched from steam and not a stand alone, the print screen button doesn’t actually take screen shots. Fixing that as we speak and reminding myself to keep Fraps open so I don’t forget to capture those neat moments next time.

How did I spend my first evening? I managed to hit Lieutenant 4 (almost, I am just a smidgen away at the time that I write this) which I hear is equal to level 4 in basic terms. I did space and ground missions, finding myself enthralled with both types. I’ve just been following the quest chains that I pick up and hopefully that’s what I should be doing. I’m still a little lost when it comes to things like how to fit my ship but I don’t have to worry about things getting too complicated until I hit the next Rank. For now I only have one option of ship, and it’s pretty easy to tell if something I’ve looted or won from a quest is an upgrade or not. I’ve been training myself down the science lines to make my science skills work better.

I have really surprised myself with how much fun I’m having. I enjoy the challenge the game presents to me because it may as well be a completely different language than one I am used to. I find myself encouraged to learn more, to try to figure things out, and explore. I want to know about the different races and how they interact, and the politics behind everything. I know there are so many key points that I’m missing because I just don’t know anything about Star Trek. Like who is Q, and why does he float and is Club 47 a place in the TV show as well? I did his quest this morning and had to ask friends for help because I didn’t know a single answer. I’m not big enough to do the Saturday uhm.. I don’t know what they’re technically called. I’ll call it a mission for now *sheepish* give me time here my brain is on overload! I need level 6 for that, but I’ve been having so much fun playing I expect I’ll keep with it for some time to come. Don’t be afraid to have your MMOs challenge you, and to break out of your ‘usual’ game to try something new! Even if you don’t enjoy it or keep with it, at least you’ve tried.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Trading for House Items in Legends of Norrath #EQ2

LoN has a new house item, a fantastic looking (empty of fish) aquarium. In order to make sure I got one, I took part in the promotion they had going on where you could purchase a tournament pack which included three boosters and the aquarium for $10. Since there’s no guarantee that a booster pack comes with a loot card (and that’s pretty much the only reason I play LoN, is to win goodies) I decided to trade my booster packs for loot in the trade area. I came away with 2 paintings, a pack of shrink potions, a tapestry (house item), and a storm in a tea cup (another house item) from trading with other players. I may not be the best player, but I really enjoy LoN as a way of wasting time while LFG etc. and winning items I can use in game is always a plus.

I’m still working on my Norrathian museum and have obtained a few more books through donations (thank you!) which I’ve added. I think I am at 405 books now give or take a few because I’ve been slightly neglectful of adding titles to my list. There are a lot of items I still have to get, like the tapestries in Sinking Sands and I haven’t even begun to work on faction for that yet. I love collecting these items that continue to tell a tale of my character.

Once the multiple house ownership goes live (I expect it will be a few months after the expansion comes out) I’m looking forward to adding an “actual” house to the museum via portal. I’d like Stargrace (pictured above) to have a living area, which is something I don’t currently have because I’m always adding relics instead. Not that it’s a bad thing! I really wish more games took the time to implement player housing, I understand that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but there ARE a lot of people out there who find this a nice relaxing way to enjoy their game when they don’t feel like quest grinding and partaking in PvP etc. Ah well, one day, maybe!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

An Electrifying Experience #Magicka

Last night I finally had some time to spare and managed to dive into a few rounds of Magicka with Blamefulgecko and Petterm – two good friends of mine. I haven’t even finished level 1 yet on my own but that didn’t stop us from sharing some laughs and dying a handful of times.

“Magicka is a satirical action-adventure game set in a rich fantasy world based on Norse mythology. The player assumes the role of a wizard from a sacred order tasked with stopping an evil sorcerer who has thrown the world into turmoil, his foul creations besieging the forces of good.”

One very important thing to remember while playing is that wet robes = bad. Very bad. Especially for me who tends to have a heavy lightning casting finger. See electricity and water combined means that you’re likely to end up dead and to demonstrate this I did it over and over again. Mostly because I wasn’t paying attention to the condition of my robes (little water droplets spray forth) and I was trying to move out of the way of the “friendly fire” from Blame.

I’m not sure if we even finished the level, but it was still a lot of fun and I couldn’t stop giggling. I’m glad I picked up the game from steam, and so far even the single player levels have been a lot of fun while I run around exploring and learning what combination of spells to cast to get the effect I want. Of course a lot of the time I end up with some hefty backlash that instantly kills me, but it’s still fun.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Silhouette Makes an Appearance (Sorta) #ChampionsOnline

I haven’t logged into Champions Online since uh, well. Since release actually. I never made any secret of the fact that me and super heroes don’t typically get along. It’s hard enough for me to find common ground in a science fiction MMO, superheroes rank even further. However; that doesn’t stop me from logging in and playing with the awesome character creator, or WANTING to enjoy these types of games even if they’re not really a good ‘fit’ for me.I tend to dabble. Maybe one day I will find a game that changes my mind completely, much like EVE.

I spent some time re-visiting my first superhero, Silhouette (pictured above). I love her character name and had designed a dark costume that you can barely see unless you look close at the details (I’ll post a “clearer” picture later on). Thanks to some awesome twitter conversations (as much as 140 characters ever is a conversation at least) my interest was piqued and I wanted to see what had changed and explore a little. I finally made it out of the tutorial, although I don’t remember how to do a number of things in game. The first thing I had to re-teach myself was how to hide the UI for screen shots. That came before everything, even movement.

With the basics learned I managed to finish the tutorial, and since my character is technically over 100 days old I had a whole lot of goodies waiting for me. I also noticed I have all sorts of little action figurines that I can summon as companion pets (I don’t think they have an actual function, correct me if I’m wrong).

Before I progress too much further I’ll probably start over with a new character so that I can learn things like – how to learn skills or upgrade them or anything at all to do with skills actually because I don’t have the faintest idea how those work. Or what I need to look for when it comes to gear. A brief revision is much needed.

I will also be poking my head into STO (Star Trek Online) over the next little while. Another game I haven’t played too much since release but I’m abnormally excited about – again I blame twitter conversations. It’s amazing how much more ‘fun’ a game can be when you’re playing something that a number of your friends also talk about.

Speaking of which, today I played Magicka with two such friends, and it was a blast – literally. I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!