Stargrace

Merry Christmas to You all (Literally)

In November there was NaNoWriMo, and my attempt at raising a little money for their charity, the office of letters and light. In December, I run the 2010 Gamers Secret Santa, which soared after some twitter / facebook and forum promotions by some incredible people (Cheesy, you know I’m looking at you). Last year I ran the 2009 Gamers Secret Santa and although only a small handful of people participated that year, it was more than enough to entice me to run it again. I really hope everyone has had fun with it this year.

The point of that introduction is simply to say thank you. Through my work and my hobbies I have met some incredibly awesome people and this time of year as well as all year around I need to remind myself just how lucky I am.This list isn’t going to cover everyone, but I hope to name off those who have made this year especially amazing.

Tipa, who runs WestKarana – she is an incredibly strong woman who has inspired me on so many levels. I owe her more than she will ever realize, and if you don’t read her blog posts – you most certainly should!

Kasul, who runs Shattered, although he doesn’t write nearly as often as he should he has been an enormous help and a fantastic friend this year.

Blue Kae from his blog appropriately named. He made such a fantastic attempt at NaNoWriMo this year, and I really admired it. He has also continued on with the writing, and that’s something I think more people need to make time to do. Things they enjoy, even when time is slim.

Scopique. From Levelcapped. When I feel like I am the only one playing games I actually enjoy, and not ranting and raving about the latest bug, Scopique lets me know that there are others out there in the same boat. Some times it’s great just to know we’re not alone.

Petter, from Don’t Fear the Mutant. Another one of those “wow they need to write MOAR” bloggers, but when he does write, we all love reading it. It’s nice to know he appreciates gamers for their good and bad points, and he’s a fantastic listener.

Those are the main 5 from the community who have helped me out this year, but the list of those I’ve come to deeply appreciate runs a lot longer. There’s Hudson, though we don’t always see eye to eye I love reading his in depth articles. MMO Gamer Chick, who always has a great perspective on things, Pasmith who lets us all know about the latest gadgets and gizmos out there. Rebecca, who writes for A girl IRL – fellow Sims enthusiast, Jeremy Stratton, who writes for Massively, Ardwulf, who I have known for a long time now and just started co-hosting some EVE podcasts. How exciting! Leala who just finished creating an incredible Marshcraft diorama and is involved in so many gaming communities I wouldn’t know where to begin listing them. Arkenor who reminded me how FUN games are with his incredible Minecraft videos. Beau, who is always incredibly honest with his thoughts about gaming communities. ScaryBooster who is just .. insane. In the best way possible. Gavin from Flex Your Geek – who also writes from time to time for Nomadic Gamer, and is now a brand new writer for PC Gamer. There’s Ysharros, who is the most elusive blogger I’ve ever seen – but when she does write, oh boy you’d better read it. Ethic from Kill Ten Rats, who I have been reading for almost as long as I’ve been gaming. Sypster, who I watched start out writing for Biobreak and then grow to include writing for Massively. Werit, who is probably the most devoted gamer I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a lot of them. Krystalle, who I finally got to “see” in game for the first time ever in EVE. Talk about a star moment! Gordon, who is a fantastic writer for We Fly Spitfires. Victor, who reminds me of my younger brothers. It’s just a joy to read his work. Of course I can’t forget Dusty_Monk, who is the president of Windstorm Studios, and proves to us time and time again that developers are gamers too.

Then there are the others I know, not through their writing per say but from their influence on my gaming none the less. There’s Squeecha, who I know always enjoys a good cheese. Naylie, who has been fantastic at keeping Vanguard together this year. Domino, who I adore simply because of all the crafting goodies added to EQ2. ShutterCal for their amazing calendar project that has grown SO much over the last year. Kiara, who has been a fantastic friend. Findpurpose, who listens to even the most boring of my rants.There’s Pennie, who patiently looked at every single one of my decorated houses in EQ2, and Shadowgeist who gamed with me and kept me company no matter where I ended up.

Since this is a game related post, I’ve tried to keep the list restricted to those who have influenced me in some gamer aspect, but there are of course always those I love who are not involved in gaming what so ever. I love, and appreciate every single person I am lucky enough to have in my life, and I really hope that this next year is just as amazing as the last. Thank you all so very, very much.

Waiting on The Gift Giving Tree #Wizard101

I mentioned over at Nomadic Gamer that KingsIsle has a fantastic charity drive going on right now where players can purchase a seed for 2500 crowns (approx $5 worth) and grow The Gift Giving Tree (pictured above). I love the idea of helping out a charity this way, and I’m anxious to see what my tree rewards me with. I’m only one day away from being able to harvest it finally. Feels like I’ve been waiting forever.

My little garden is composed of 6 plants total, which gives me enough to do that by the time I’m done I’m almost out of gardening points (I’m sure they have a specific name, I’m just not aware of what they’re called). Running out completely would be bad but this gives me a little boundary if I happen to accidentally pollinate when I should have played some music. This happens to me quite frequently because it takes time to switch between gardening spells and some times when I think I’ve switched I’m actually just using the same spell twice.

I’m almost rank 3, and I’ve enjoyed harvesting from my Dandelion and Boom Shroom plants. My Desparagus will be able to be harvested for the first time tomorrow, and I’ve been making sure I log in every day to take care of my plants, other wise they will wilt, and die. It’s nice to see that Wizard 101 has joined the ranks in ‘keeping players logging in’ on a daily basis with their daily quests. It’s actually gotten me playing a lot more than normal, which I love.

Has anyone else picked up a gift giving tree? Have you been able to harvest from it yet? What sort of rewards have you gotten? Let me know in comments!

Ok EVE, You Got Me #EVEOnline

I have been spending quite a bit of my game time playing World of Warcraft, mostly due to Cataclysm releasing and the majority of my friends heading out that way. On Thursday I received an email that was tempting me back into EVE Online – and by Friday I was hooked again. To start things off CCP removed the learning skills that players could obtain in game. These skills were a bit redundant they explained, spending time learning skills so that you could learn other skills. I never gave it too much thought but in the end it made sense. They reimbursed players for all of the skill points spent which in my case was 400,000 or so. Not exactly a huge amount compared to some long time players but still enough for me to get a little giddy over.

In that email it was also mentioned that I could activate my account for free for five days. Everyone loves free stuff, so why not. On top of that offer came a new ship, the Echelon which is also equipped with a Sansha Codebreaker, specifically for Incursion. Tempting me first with the return of skill points, then free days, and a free ship was concluded by offering me 60 days at $20, and by that point my will was broken.

Pictured above is my brand new Noctis. This ship is a bulk salvager and I spent some time yesterday fitting it and training the skill required to fly it. Then I took it out for a spin and I have to admit, I am LOVING this ship. It runs smooth, quickly, and it does its job incredibly well. I headed out to asteroid belts which are typically filled with trash from hulks passing through killing rats on their mining runs and made quick work of all the materials floating around in space. While some players may not care too much about salvaging I tend to pick up every piece that I can because they’re incredibly handy for making rigs.

My ship collection is growing by leaps and bounds and I couldn’t be happier. I am now 9 days away from flying an Orca, that’s what those skill points went towards. I’m still 100,000 ISK away from purchasing one of these enormous ships, but I’ll get there eventually, not to mention actually fitting one. This ship has been my ‘dream ship’ for a while now, and I get giddy thinking about how close I finally am.

The Dominix is my ship of choice for PvE encounters, and with the completion of some drone skills I’m ready to take on harder missions. I just need to find the time (and a mission giver some place close to me). With my ship collection so far including the Hulk (mining), Helios (scouting), Noctis (salvaging), and Dominix (PvE) I’m feeling pretty happy. There are always more skills to learn and that’s the point of a never-ending MMO cycle, but I feel as though over the last few months that I’ve played I’ve finally come to a ‘comfortable’ point in game. I enjoy crafting and invention as much as ever, and I think I’ve finally gotten a grasp on a little more than the game basics. Of course I say that and then read a “real” EVE post and get as confused as I did on day one, but it’s all in good fun.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Guild Instance Runs vs. Pugs #WoW

In true nomadic gamer style I have been playing a handful of games but the majority of my friends seem to have divided themselves between EverQuest 2, and World of Warcraft. Of course being – well, me, I decided that we needed a guild in WoW so I created Dragons Flight on the horde side of Argent Dawn – and then I promptly also made Dragon Flight on the alliance side. We’re a tiny but friendly guild and so far most of the people who have joined are gamers that I’ve been playing with a long time now. Last night the majority of us were level 15 or a few levels higher, so we set out to do our first instances as a guild.That’s on the alliance side at least. On the horde side there is an 85 (hugs!) as well as my 82 priest, and another 81 priest as well as a handful of alts. We’re playing alliance for a change and because not everyone owns the Cataclysm expansion yet.

As a guild we’re pretty lucky. I play a healer and we have a paladin (or two) who are able to tank. That means instant queues right there. Two other members play a hunter and a rogue, so there’s some DPS. My healer was level 21 while everyone was 15 so I decided to try an instance or two on my warlock just so that the others could gain some levels. Well. In true PUG form we had incredibly bad luck with our healers.

The first one left after the first named. Why? No idea. They never said anything to group. The second one joined our instance right as we were fighting a named, and then never moved and promptly went offline. I pulled out my warlock tank pet, and the entire group wiped except me. One of my prouder moments, to be sure. Our third healer was a druid and I couldn’t understand why they seemed to be having an incredibly hard time healing after we died three or four times. Then I checked their playerscore. See, you can dislike this addon all you want but it DOES have its uses. Selecting the player and typing /gs provided me with information about their character and upon further inspection I found out that they were a BALANCE druid which means caster dps. NOT restoration. Now, at level 15 as a balance druid you’re missing one of your biggest heals. Restoration druids gain the ability to turn one of their heal over times into a direct heal. The skill has a fairly quick recast timer and even at 21 it’s my second largest heal. Since the majority of the group was not sporting heirloom even this one little thing was causing huge issues for us.

I asked the druid if he knew that he was balance spec’d even though he had queued up as a healer and he replied that he didn’t mean to join as a healer. O.. K.

Anyhow, it was our first dungeon and it was Deadmines and we were almost done after numerous wipes so we just kept trucking. After the zone was completed I relogged to my healer and we did Ragefire without any issues. I like the changes to Deadmines, particularly the boss fights, and especially the one that smashes the target up against a wall and then sticks to the heads of random players. The final fight with Cookie is also awesome where you have to click on healthy food and avoid the rotten stuff.

When the dust had settled everyone had obtained a few new upgrades and a few levels. My paladin is sitting at 24 and I’m looking forward to doing some more guild tanking of my own. We’re in the midst of raising cash for a guild bank and a few tabs since we’re completely new to not only the alliance faction but the server itself. In the mean time, hopefully everyone is having as much fun as I am.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

This is the Night Life #Sims3

I picked up Night Life a little while ago, the latest Sims 3 expansion. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, but it’s not without bugs. My little (newly created) sim attempted to join a party a friend was having, but for some reason the elevators to the apartment (there are high rises in the newest expansion) were not working so she sat at the entrance just waiting until the party was over. I was also a little sad at the way the newest town was incorporated. I had to move and import my previous sim into the new town, because other wise there’s no way to visit. It’s not a location you can head to at night via taxi.

I do like ‘city life’ though. It’s neat to run into stars, vampires, and other critters roaming the streets at night. The apartment complexes although small are quite interesting looking. You have the choice of moving to a regular house or the apartments. Having a job or a profession is nice, or even being self employed. Bouncers are fun to bribe to get into the hottest locations and there’s always lots to do at the night time hot spots.

For once I find myself taking a break from the creation aspect of the game and actually playing. Normally I just want to design new homes and venues but doing the “story” has been entertaining. Plus the graphics really are amazing. The game has come so far from Sims 1 way back when.When I want a break from MMOs and just want to relax playing something quiet this is typically the game I turn to. No killing involved, just a massively interactive world that I can adjust.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!