Gaming – Page 311 – A Pixel Nomad

From Esper to Medic

I enjoyed playing my Dominion Esper quite a bit, but once I reached 50 I decided it was time to make an alt and see how the Exiles play. It didn’t take long to fall in love with them. I’ve been leveling up a human medic this time around, and I’m just about level 50 on her too. It’s easy to see why some people may prefer Exiles to Dominion, but I think in the end I like both factions. I know there’s always a lot of discussion surrounding Exiles being more popular due to the Aurin race, but so far I haven’t made one. Maybe a future alt.

The medic class is a lot of fun. I’ve kept to a pretty simple DPS spec and I’ll branch into a healing spec when I’m level 50. I’ve been questing my way through Malgrave, which is a neat zone but unfortunately the regional story bugged for me so I can’t complete it. On Monday morning I didn’t have any of the lag issues that had plagued the release, and I managed to get a few more levels. The guild experience buff isn’t showing up on my buff icon for some reason, and I miss being able to get the buff from my housing plot. I also need to figure out how to revamp my housing plot now that they’re larger. Everything is pretty bunched up in the center and I’ll need to fix that. I do like the larger plots, but wish the fabkits you place were a bit more spread throughout.

One change that came with the F2P launch that I’m simply not a fan of is the change to Challenges. These used to be little mini events that you would do and then get a chance at a random item. The basic idea of the challenge is still there, the mini events, but now when you complete them you earn an amount of points that move up a line and unlock a specific goodie bag of your choice. Once you’ve unlocked three of the smaller goodie bags via points, you get to unlock a larger one. Gone are the awesome random prizes that we used to get a chance at winning, and instead there are three very drab choices. Aside from experience and achievements, I don’t see that big of a reason to complete these challenges any more. There’s no ‘good’ prizes, and I can certainly find better elsewhere.

Not all games get a second launch, and I think it’s a mistake to see WildStar as “just releasing”. Yes, everyone is working incredibly hard to get the issues taken care of, but treating it as a “new game launch” is ignoring the fact that the game has already been released, charging people to play, in the state it was in. I don’t expect people to be quite as patient with the issues that are occurring now and I think it’s understandable that folks would be frustrated. Of course how you demonstrate that frustration is another story. It’s not a reason to go out and treat people poorly, especially when they’re working incredibly hard. Just something to keep in mind.

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

Market Progress

The market is coming along, and slowly but surely each day it looks more like a market and less like the deed that used to occupy the space. The 20 horse stalls are completed, though they still need locks (and keys) for each gate so the contents inside can be purchased. I’ll do that at the very end because I’ll also need to adjust my deed permissions to allow players to lead. When the market is complete I don’t expect to keep much there aside from the regular market objects, so I won’t have to worry about people stealing. The way the horse stalls work is that the keys will be marked with a price, and placed on a merchant. You purchase the key, take it to the proper pen, and then unlock the pen, and lead your new horse away.

I’ve also got the storage shed built, and a portion of the craft building. The market stalls have been started, and I’m gathering ore to craft some altars surrounding the center of the market. I want to get more of the ground marked out properly with paths and such, right now it’s a mesh of whatever was used for paving in the past.

P22 is where the market is located, at a canal that currently allows for shallow boats (up to a depth of 5 I believe) but no lower. This also allows me to get back to my own deed as the canal is between us. Eventually I’ll dredge the canal deeper, and build a bridge so I can reach my place. Naitey has been working on lanterns for the market so we can light it up. I haven’t decided yet on what sort of decoration I want the place to have as far as the entrance goes, but I’ll get there. I was thinking of a few colossus but I’m not sure if I want those. I’m also hoping to get some trees in while I finish the basic paving. I may change the paving in the future, but for now the basic outline of the market should be in place. Helps for those who are going to help me build, too. I’ve linked everyone the map, so there’s no confusion.

All in all I’m pleased with the progress. It still has quite a way to go, but I’ll get there slowly and at least I know this market isn’t going anywhere.

I’ve been contemplating disbanding my deed up north so that I only have two places (right beside each other) instead of three. The place up north is lovely and holds a LOT of goods, which is the main reason I still have it. There’s over 17 silver in escrow which I’d like to take out, but there are so many supplies there it would take me more than 5 boat trips back and forth from north to south just to haul it all away. I’m also very reluctant to part with any of it (ie: I don’t want to sell the deed). For now I’ll just keep all three places, and maybe I’ll entertain the idea of hauling my stuff to the main deed in the future. If only Xanadu were not so enormous.

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

Creating a Marketplace in Wurm Online

My neighbour in Wurm Online sold their character and disbanded their deed. They’ve been there longer than I have, and the deed was enormous. It’s also a great prime location (one of many on Xanadu) and since I had been thinking about starting up a marketplace deed for quite some time, I decided why not take advantage of the prime location. I put down the deed yesterday, naming it Rag and Bone Market. For those of you who have no idea what is meant by ‘rag and bone’ check out this definition here. Alliance members use this nickname for my adventures in Wurm Online since I spend a lot of time pillaging disbanded places and acquiring items. The area is already flat, and though it’s covered in what seems like a million bulk storage bins and storage crates, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get things set up (with some help, of course).

The plan above is what I have in mind, not including the fancy items that will help draw shoppers in. There’s a canal to the East, and I’ll need to dig it a bit deeper as well as construct a bridge so I can get back to my original place. I’m thinking a colossus or two may be in order at either end along the East side, and I have ideas for flowers and gardens in the checkered portion. There’s room for 40+ merchants, 20+ horses, and an area for bulk storage bins where players can buy a key from a merchant and then use that key to unlock the corresponding BSB. There’s an inn for people who want to stay overnight, altars for priests, and two larger buildings to store all of the stuff I’ll need to create the market. Alliance members are already planning merchants to place down, and once I’ve got a few market stalls established I’ll put a post up in the forums and advertise around the area that we’re open for business. I’m looking forward to this project, I’ve wanted to own a market deed for quite some time but I’ve never gotten around to it. The issue I have with most markets is that the owners vanish, leaving the markets to disband. This way, I can just take care of it myself. Even if I take a break, I make sure there are 200+ days of upkeep left, and I always end up returning.

I know a lot of people are concerned about the new Wurm Unlimited that’s going to be releasing on steam, and sure I have a few small worries too (things like development for the MMO lapsing, etc) but there are some upsides as well. Maybe people who buy the solo / smaller version of the game will want to try out the MMO version. This could be a very good thing for future development. I’m going to hold off making any huge claims until we see how it’s actually affected (if at all) when it goes live in October. I think for current players, we won’t see much of a change, but that it will help spread the word about Wurm Online and it will have an effect on returning players. It should also mean extra money for the team, and that’s always a good thing.

Do you have any concerns? Do you think you’ll try out the new Wurm Unlimited on steam? Let me know in comments! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Changes to ARK: Survival Evolved

The last time I played ARK: Survival Evolved was right when the game released on steam as an early access game. While many people had performance issues it ran pretty well on my machine, and I happily set up a dedicated server for a few friends. Of course after a few weekends of playing I got completely burnt out, which is usually the case for me and early access games. I let it go for a while, updates happened, and then yesterday I decided to play and see what had changed.

First of all, there’s a lot more server customization than there was last time I played. I decided to play around with these settings not necessarily to make the game ‘easier’ but to make it less time intensive. I changed the experience bonus to 3x what it is at by default, along with the amount of resources you gather at one time. I left encounter difficulty and damage alone, there was no need to change any of that.

There are now dedicated servers, and non-dedicated servers. Non-dedicated are easier to adjust. You basically just select all of the options at the login screen, login, and then friends can join you. There are a few ‘downsides’ to this type of server though. One, your friends are tethered to you. They spawn at you, they can’t walk beyond you. This can be frustrating. Also they can’t just log in and play whenever they want to, it’s all reliant on you playing with them. Hence why I decided to go with a dedicated server.

In order to adjust the settings on a dedicated server you need to adjust the server.ini file. There are TONS of options that can be adjusted. There’s a pretty good list of them here on the steam forums.

There are also mods that you can use in your game now. I haven’t looked into these at all yet, but I know the steam mod community is a large and amazing thing to witness. I can only assume that the ARK branch of this community is well represented and I’m sure I’ll start checking out the mods before too long.

They’ve also added a lot of new creature encounters to the game. While I was collecting supplies in the jungle I ran into some mosquito like creatures that ended up poisoning me so I died. There are also new water creatures, new dinosaur types, new crafted items – and of course the game is just as beautiful as always. I didn’t have any issues with performance even though I was running the server along with my game client, and I really think that for a game that I had not even heard of before the company has done a pretty incredible job.

Did you pick up ARK when it first came out? Are you still playing or would you prefer it to be out of early access first? Let me know in comments!

I still haven’t found a way to turn off friendly fire, so a word of caution when you’re playing with friends…

Season 4

I didn’t participate at all in Season 3 of Diablo III, and I’m not even sure why. I was probably playing something else at the time and just didn’t have enough hours to go around. That’s usually the case. Anyway, when the season swapped to 4, it came at a pretty good time. Aside from WildStar and Wurm Online I haven’t really been dedicated to MMOs, and live is pretty stressful lately (maybe you can tell by the lack of blog posts) so what I needed was a game where I could just hack things to pieces and then shower in their loot. As luck would have it, that’s exactly what Diablo 3 lets me do.

I created a demon hunter this round. The only two characters I have actually played previously was the Crusader, and I had an old Witch Doctor sitting at level 55. That character was ancient by now and I think I had something like 95 hours played on it even though I was only 55. Leveling is MUCH faster now. Once I set my mind to it, things were faster than ever. I now have a level 70 monk, barbarian, and wizard alongside the demon hunter. I’ve only focused gear on the demon hunter because for now that happens to be the character I’m enjoying the most, but I am sure I’ll flip flop between everyone else. There’s something to be said for not having to do any thinking and just be able to let go and game. I tend to keep CBC radio on in the background and just listen while I complete bounties or rifts. It’s a very stress-free way of gaming, and it was exactly what I needed. Anyone else have a game or two that they tend to hunger down with when they’re feeling exceptionally stressed out in real life? Let me know in comments!

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