Gaming – Page 327 – A Pixel Nomad

IntPiPoMo Day 1-4

Never heard of IntPiPoMo before? Well, no time like the present! I’m going to swipe the information from Gamer Girl Confessions, and you can find the post about it here.

NaNoWriMo is about writing 50k words throughout the month of November. If a picture is work a thousand words, that would mean we’d need to post fifty pictures!

These can be screenshots from any game, or even photographs you take in real life and want to share on your blog. They can be anything–character selfies, shots of combat, sharing your game UI, showing off that awesome-tacular Deathclaw kill you got in Fallout 4… you get the idea.

So without further wait, here are my first four screenshots for the IntPiPoMo of 2015. First up, EverQuest 2. Long time readers of this blog will be very familiar with my love affair with this MMO. I played it fairly steadily for 7 years before wandering off – and returning – and wandering off – and returning. It has been a few years since I’ve played with any sort of consistency, but that seems typical for video games. Below I’m wandering around in Commonlands, enjoying the sunset.

Next up, another of my MMO loves (and my current one) Wurm Online. I’ve been playing Wurm for 6 years now, and if ever there was a sandbox to love, well. This is it (at least for me).

Next up, Cities: Skylines. This game (to me) was everything that Sim City should have been, at a more cost effective price. Bugs? Sure, all games have a few of those, but it ran the way I expected a polished product to run, and I had hours of enjoyment from playing. Now they’ve released a few DLC, and while I haven’t picked those up, they are on my wish list.

Finally, we have Tropico 5, and my island being pummeled by natural disasters. That’s OK, my citizens didn’t need homes anyway…

There you have it, the first four days of IntPiPoMo, underway. Expect more screenshots throughout the month, I’ll probably post them in a bundle like this every couple of days instead of posting them individually. Don’t forget, you can participate too! The rules can be found on the post linked above, and it’s a really simple little project to get into. Plus it gets you looking at your screenshots folders – and lets face it, there are probably a lot of those, along with some fantastic memories stored up.

Happy gaming!

No 2015 Gamers Secret Santa

Since 2009 I’ve been running a Gamers Secret Santa, where I would take names of gamers and match them with other gamers and then everyone would unite and purchase or craft a little something for one another, and spread a little joy and cheer around. Unfortunately this year I won’t be hosting the event. If someone else would like to take over that’s great, but honestly I just can’t dedicate the time involved this year, especially since I’m doing NaNoWriMo for the month of November. I loved running the event previously, but it’s a lot of work. I also spent quite a bit out of pocket to ensure that everyone actually received a gift, I wanted to make sure that anyone who wanted to was able to participate no matter their financial situation, and I wanted to make sure that things that were unintentionally lost in the mail didn’t deter people the next year from participating.

With that being said, I want to remind everyone that we don’t need a special day or event to connect with other gamers. Sure, we don’t all like the same types of games, but we’re still joined in this not-so-secret club and that means we should treat each other with the utmost of respect (ideally of course you’re treating everyone with respect, but I see so much gamer on gamer hate that spreads back and forth over the year that I want to make a special note). Remember, it doesn’t take much effort to make someone smile. It can be as simple as leaving a comment on a blog post of theirs you admire. Responding to a particular tweet in an uplifting way, noticing something about them and checking in to make sure that they’re alright. Maybe taking a peek at their steam wishlist and randomly buying them a small gift. Treating fellow gamers well in-game and helping out new players. Lets not forget these small acts of kindness over the days and weeks that go by. We’re all so very wrapped up in our own situations that it can be difficult sometimes to take a step back and see how others around us are doing – it’s well worth the effort to try.

Once again my apologies for not running the event this year. I hope that everyone understands and that I’m not letting too many people down. I hope this post inspires some random acts of kindness throughout the gamer community that I have come to know and love.

Market Roads

The Rag and Bone Market (located on Xanadu at P22 for anyone who may want to stop by and place a merchant) is coming along nicely. There are market stalls up, an inn, pens for horses to be sold, a craft hall, a public mine, and other amenities. We’re also working on dredging the canal for larger ships, right now only knarr / sailboat depth boats can pass through. My next task was to join the market by road to a highway that runs North and South along the map. The highway is West of the market, a few hundred tiles away, through a desert and into the woods. It’s right beside a nice guard tower and travelers spot. I spent most of the weekend working on that road, flattening the path and then paving it. Then I went back and lined the cobblestone with gravel on either side, so that it’s three tiles wide and considered a ‘highway’. I can only place 1 sign every 24 hours if it’s off-deed, so I put one at the end of my new road that points towards the market and lets people know what direction it’s located at. I also added a fountain along the side of the highway so people can stop for drinks. I may eventually also plant a barrel in that spot and fill it will meals for travelers. I don’t actually know how many people use the highway, but I think it’s a great start.

In the meantime, my priests, Oshi and Maivis, have traveled to F25 of the Xanadu map. There they are participating in sermons that have been going on since July or so, in an attempt to raise their faith. Maivis (my Vynora priest) is sitting at 82.54 faith at the moment, and Oshi (my Nahjo priest) is at a quaint 61.61. I’m really trying to get Oshi to 70 so that he can cast genesis and strongwall, the two spells that I started a Nahjo priest for to begin with. There are enough others at the sermon that each time we preach the counter for prayers re-sets, so I’m getting quite a good gain. It should only take a week or two of preaching to reach 70, I’m hoping. A lot of that depends on who sticks around and how many are active listeners.

I’m hoping with the addition of the market, the area gets a bit more use. It’s on the East side of the server, so it’s close for those traveling from other servers. It’s not exactly coastal as it’s a mesh of waterways to get to our destination, but it’s accessible by the ocean which also helps a lot. There’s a ton of space in the area (which is the nature of Xanadu, the server size is gigantic) and it’s not too far away from Estron, one of the starter towns. Whether or not this attracts any new players we’ll just have to see.

I’ve seen a few new players coming to explore Wurm Online thanks to Wurm Unlimited. On that same note, I’ve seen a fair amount of older players selling their characters and leaving for Wurm Unlimited. I played Wurm Unlimited for a few days, but after my hard drive crashed (it had the server on it) I was once again reminded of why I prefer to play the MMO version of the game, and not the (much smaller) solo-esc version. There are just too many community aspects that I adore about the base model of the game. I’m hoping that Rolf doesn’t decide to terminate the MMO servers any time soon, and that the steam version of the game only enhances and adds to the support that the MMO version requires. I suppose only time will tell. I’ve seen my share of games shut down over the years and if that has taught me anything it’s that when you enjoy a game, you should play it. No matter what anyone else says about the game. I’ve enjoyed Wurm more than a lot of other games I’ve played, and I’ve come across a lot of naysayers over the years. None of this has ever bothered me, and I’ve always just continued doing my thing. Honestly it has been the best thing for me and as long as I enjoy playing, that’s what matters.

Anyone else have games out there that they enjoy playing, that perhaps the general populace does not enjoy? Did you continue to play it anyway?

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

There’s Just So Much To Do

Yesterday I sat down and finally got into the ‘meat’ of the Guild Wars 2 expansion. Wow. At first I was frustrated. I felt like I couldn’t actually accomplish anything or make any progression without dying in a million new ways. It started when I couldn’t get back to the proper zone in order to work on my masteries. See, there are two types. Both “level up” by you participating in events. Personally I feel that they take way too much experience in order to ‘level’ but I suppose that’s the point, extend the content. Anyway. The masteries for the expansion are things like gliders, unlocking some languages for merchants, and being able to use the random mushrooms to bounce on. They also include things like being able to use the updrafts with your glider. When you finish the opening scene you’re expected to go back and start doing events so that you can level up these masteries. Of course for the ‘good’ ones you need to do it in the proper zones (ie: the new ones). Turns out that I just missed the entrance to the new zone, and a guild mate came along and fixed that for me. Took me over an hour of wandering around The Silverwastes to have a small tiny door pointed out to me. Sigh.

Once I was back in the right location it was time to find events. Of course with my map not even started I couldn’t port around to any of the happening places, and things hurt. Eventually though, I did manage to unlock my glider. That made things a bit easier. I began working on unlocking mushroom jumping, which is required for story progression. Again it took me a while (longer than I feel is necessary, but c’est la vie) but by the afternoon I had also unlocked that. Once those two things are unlocked the zones got much ‘easier’ in terms of survivability, though they were still incredibly confusing because there are different ‘tiers’ to them. I progressed the story to the second map, and I think I’m still only about 33% done the first one (there are four maps total).

The story is amazing, and I won’t get into any details about it here but if you’ve ever been a fan of the GW2 lore it won’t let you down.

If that wasn’t enough to keep you busy, there’s also the Halloween event going on right now. I took a run at the Mad Clock Tower (and failed, utterly, I am just not a jumping puzzle person) and then attempted a few runs through the labyrinth. We spawned the skeleton lich but we didn’t have near the number required to take him down. I did get a few achievements and about 300 candy corn. Unfortunately you need at least 1,000 before you can even get anything useful, so. I’m not sure if I want to spend that much time farming it. I may just look on the broker for the handful of items that I want.

Besides the things mentioned above, there’s guild halls (which I haven’t even looked into yet in any capacity), there’s the new class (I have no intentions of making one, it doesn’t really appeal to me), there’s the new specializations for your current class (I haven’t gotten the 60 points required yet to unlock the Chronomancer but I do plan on going that rout one of these days), a new crafting class (Scribe, in order to get to that point you need a guild hall) and a number of other QoL changes and additions.

Over all I’m having a great time, and I like the way the content is presented. It’s still a bit confusing as far as “how can I progress my gear” – because I haven’t the slightest idea. Right now I’m wearing exotics, but I’ve got no clue how progression for gear actually works. If anyone happens to have a handy site that explains it, please let me know!

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

Wurm Unlimited Releases on Steam

I’ve been playing Wurm Online for many years, and I’ve loved it for many reasons. It’s the ultimate sandbox game, and while aspects of it may seem outdated (graphics, this game uses java after all) it still incorporates every single aspect of a sandbox that I adore. I’ve made some great friends in game and I belong to an awesome alliance. I have three active accounts and two deeds but I’ve owned countless more.

When Wurm Unlimited was announced I was of course a bit concerned. I had visions of population decreases and a lack of development on the ‘main’ game. Then I realized that this version of the game was never intended to entice people who were perfectly happy playing Wurm Online. This version of the game was meant to capture those who have always wanted to play, but didn’t want to pay a monthly subscription, or who were concerned about griefing, or who could never find a nice place to settle down. This game is made to encourage those 5 friends of mine I have who used to play Wurm but left for whatever reason, to come back to the world that they could enjoy if it was only tweaked a little to their specifications.

In that regard, Wurm Unlimited is perfect. Right now I’ve got a dedicated server running with a few mild tweaks. Skill gain is 10x faster than normal. Actions are 5 times faster. There’s no deed cost. I created an adventure server which means there’s still kingdoms and this also enables the starter towns (pre-created) along with treasures and hidden items in the world. There are also quests. The server is protected by a password which I’ve given to a few friends who were interested in playing, and we’ve started our little set up just outside of the Mol Rehan starter town (the mine is pictured above).

There are of course some ‘downsides’ to playing Wurm like this. It’s MUCH quieter. There’s no real ‘community’ aside from those you invite along. The economy won’t exactly thrive in this play setting. The server could poof one day accidentally if my computer dies. These are just things that have to be dealt with.

On the other hand, it could encourage others to try out WO and meet the wonderful community there. It could mean extra money in the pockets of the developers which would be a good thing for both versions of the game. It gets word out about the game which is also never a bad thing.

Over all, I’m optimistic. I purchased the game to support the developers and I enjoy the small server I have set up currently. It’s not perfect, there are a few glitches here and there and the game still has a huge learning curve, but I am hoping that more people come and experience what this game has to offer and that they appreciate it and maybe even enjoy it as much as I have over the years.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!