Category: Gaming

If You Had all the Time in the World

If you had all the time in the world to play video games – what would you play? Would you spend the majority of your time in just one game at a time, slowly accomplishing whatever goals you had set out for yourself before moving on, or would you bounce around from game to game, following whatever whims you had for the day?

Do you think your gaming habits would be any different than they are now?

These are the sorts of things I think about when I can’t actually play a game. I have been what I call a ‘nomadic gamer’ for quite some time. I don’t really settle, I bounce around between a few games. Most of them are my ‘tried tested and true’ games. Games I’ve played for years now, and who feel like a comfortable sweater I’m putting on. Those games are familiar, EQ2. EQ. WoW. EVE Online. Wurm Unlimited (or Online). Sims of any form. Banished. RimWorld (a newer addition, but still an addition). Then there are a handful of games that I’d like to get a chance to play that take a back seat to my old favourites. Overwatch falls into that category, as does pretty much 80% of my steam library that I’ve never touched (thank you HumbleBundle).

Gaming is a way for me to relax, and while I enjoy learning and exploring new worlds I find greater comfort in wandering through worlds I’m already familiar with (or at least titles and developers I’m familiar with). Civilization, Tropico, etc. These games are ones I’ve played in various forms over the years, and they’ve helped me through some pretty dark times.

Trying to find a balance of what I WANT to play vs. What I have time to play is a delicate act. The more limited my time is, the more I want to just curl up with that familiar sweater instead of trying to stretch a new one to be as comfortable. Sure, it can be done, and I know exactly which sweaters will end up just as comfortable as my old ones, but it takes time to get there – and time is precious. A cliche, but true. That’s why I end up lusting over a whole slew of games but actually playing very few different ones over the years. Yes, I do try new games – but a lot of my ‘free’ time is spent in familiar worlds that are a simple comfort to hang out in.

Enough musing for one day, it’s time to play some games!

RimWorld – Star Wars

One of my favourite content creators (they made the Cthulhu mods currently available in the Steam Workshop for RimWorld) published some new mods last week, and wow are they a TON of fun. There are three in total, Star Wars Factions, Lightsabers, and The Force. It adds a bunch of new game play and if you’re a fan of RimWorld and haven’t played around with mods yet (or even if you have) I highly recommend giving it a try. Honestly, there’s no reason NOT to play this game with mods. There is a huge library of some fantastic ones out there and every time I watch a stream on Twitch of someone playing without mods it hurts my heart a little bit. The game is fantastic, but the community of modders is what really makes this game shine.

So far only one of my colonists can use the force. They’re a level 32 Jedi, and I’ve maxed out a lot of the skills available. One of the things I’ve learned to do (which is cheesing the game, but come on it’s fun so what does it matter) is to use the force on trader muffalo’s. You can check their gear out on the gear tab and pick one that has a few items that you could make use of (or sell for a large amount of cash later). Normally if you attack a trader you’ll get a faction hit but if you use the force to make the muffalo go crazy the traders will attack their own muffalo and kill it – leaving behind all of the goodies, and leaving you without a faction hit.

Since I use a lot of other end game mods I collected a fair amount of nice items from the slain muffalo and sold them back to traders who were traveling through space (I have a mod for that, too).

I haven’t tried lightsabers yet, but I’m excited about making some.

Have your own favourite RimWorld mods? Let me know in comments!

Free Overwatch Weekend? Don’t Mind if I Do!

I’ve never played Overwatch before.

Big surprise, right? I mean I obviously write about nothing except these types of games! Hah. OK So maybe it’s not really a surprise, but the fact that I’ve *never* tried the game is a bit of a surprise to myself, because I like to give pretty much any game out there a bit of a go (the one hard exception being horror games).

When I heard about the Overwatch weekend coming up, I admit, I got pretty excited. I’ve been wanting to try the game for a while now. I watch streamers playing it on Twitch and it looks fun. The characters appeal to me. The community, not so much. I’m a fan of blizzard games, and I’ve already got BNet, so I’m hoping this free weekend will give me a taste of the game and maybe I’ll end up enjoying myself so much that I save up for a copy of it. I could even try to save up some of my in-game gold to pay for a part of it. I don’t have a LOT of gold saved up, but I’ve got enough for a token or two.

Have you given the game a try before? What are your thoughts? Will you be trying it out along side me on the free weekend? Let me know in comments! If you’re looking to add me to your BNet friends list, you can find me there as Stargrace#1783.

EQ2 and a Free Level 100 Character

Every so often I still get the urge to log into EQ2 and poke around, even though I really don’t have a lot of time to play the game (ie: I don’t have enough time to get a group together to do things). I heard that Daybreak was giving away a ‘free’ level 100 character for people who logged in before May 22nd, so I eagerly patched my launcher – only to have it crash with an error 10x in a row. I took to the forums and found that a lot of others had the same issue. So I waited it out.

Saturday I was able to log in without any issues, and in my /claim window I was granted my level 100 character boost. Now most of my characters are already level 100 because right after my Son was born I had a lot of free time on my hands while he was sleeping the days away (not so much these days). I only had two characters out of my collection who were not already level 100. A dirge, and an inquisitor. I decided I would boost up the dirge.

I have incredibly fond memories of EQ2 as anyone who has been reading this blog for the past (almost) 11 years knows – but things have changed over the years. I’ve changed. The game has changed. How the game is played is changed. I return, but never to the same extent as I did back then. It’s just not possible. It’s not a bad thing either, it’s just how things are. I miss how things used to be, too. I miss raiding. I miss the community. I remember it all with fondness though and I don’t “blame” the game for changing because I think that it’s 1. completely natural for things to change over time and 2. completely necessary. Plus like I mentioned above, it’s not just the game that has changed, I’ve changed too. What I want out of a game has changed. What I can give into a game has changed. I find it a bit of a fascinating rabbit hole to dive down and think about, really.

Anyway. It was good to log in, I’m glad I boosted my character, and yes, almost immediately after I logged out. My station access is probably up before too long and I just can’t justify paying for another year of the game when my time is so limited. I feel the same about my World of Warcraft subscription which is also set to expire before too long. Of course if anyone would like to nudge a donation my way I’d keep them active (lol) – can’t blame a gal for trying! Speaking of subscriptions, EVE Online has once again been calling my name. There’s a game that I absolutely adore that doesn’t require a whole lot from me if I choose to play it that way (invention, mining, running missions, etc). Something to think about in any case.

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

Walls, Glorious Walls!

Things have been busy (as always) especially with Summer (we’ve skipped Spring this year) beginning. Still, those magical walls I was waiting for finally hit Wurm Unlimited last week, and I wasted no time in getting a new house created for pottery. It shows off the new pottery floors, along with the matching brick walls. I created a roof out of pottery shingles too just so the whole thing matched, and then added a kiln for good measure (plus I didn’t have one before now). There are a few issues with the patch (you can’t create fences on the left side of arches, and sandstone tiles are not working as they should be) but overall it has been a good update.

Zuca, my Magnaron priest also managed to (finally) reach 70 faith which means she can strongwall. I’ve been trying to inch her towards that goal for quite some time. I’m not sure why it took so long, I do have both a Fo priest and a Vynora priest at over 80 faith, but the Magnaron gains seemed to take forever. My tunnel between Quail Ridge and Quail Keep is currently two tiles wide, and I’m working on expanding that to three wide, then reinforcing the entire thing. I’ve been taking a bit of a break to deal with real life so only part of that is done so far. Having projects is always a good thing though.

I also re-did the entire front of my forge building in slate. I love the look and I’ve been contemplating re-doing the Temple building in marble. Sklotopolis is also accepting submissions on designs for the newest starter town, so DeedPlanner has been a good friend over the past few days while that gets worked on.

I was expecting to spend a lot of time at the Impalong last weekend but I got side swiped by some real life drama and then I caught a horrible cold, so I could do little other than logging in for a single morning. By the time I got to log in again the Impalong was over. One of the GMs kindly sent me an Impalong item so I didn’t miss out, but I felt horrible that I couldn’t be there for the duration, especially after all my excitement about it. I know attendance was low but the community of Sklotopolis makes such events awesome.

For the next little while working on the tunnel between my two deeds is my main focus. I’d like to get the entire thing mined three wide, and reinforced. Afterward I’d like to create some sort of plan for Quail Keep, and then Quail Cove. Quail Ridge is the only one of my deeds that I feel is “completed” and even there I have a building or two that still requires a roof (and a second floor). The majority of that deed is completed at least.

Anyone else playing with the new wall textures? What are some of your favourites? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!