Gaming – Page 328 – A Pixel Nomad

Mesmer-ing Around in Guild Wars 2

A few months ago I started a brand new account for Guild Wars 2. This meant that I would be retiring my old characters and leveling up new ones – hopefully before the expansion was due out. Because I’ve already done a good portion of the content prior to starting this new account I was in a rush to get to 80 so I ended up picking 4 craft schools and leveling those all to 400/500 respectively and then using a few of my spare level up scrolls to boost myself the last few levels I needed. My first character to 80 on the new account was a mesmer. I grabbed a few pieces of gear and set out to complete My Story before moving on to Scarlet’s War and the Living World Season 2 (which is where I’m at now). Because I leveled up through crafting rather than exploring, a lot of my map hasn’t been uncovered (still) and there’s lots of things to do.

I haven’t looked into what’s coming with the expansion this Friday at all, even though I have heard tidbits here and there (it’s hard to be a part of a gaming community and not hear anything at all about these things). My mesmer wasn’t playing quite how I wanted her to, so I set out to start another guardian, which has been my class of choice. About half way through leveling that character I decided (as is my way) to just stick it out with the mesmer. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the class, I do, it’s just that this time of year I’m constantly restless, and it shows in my gaming.

Once again I’m left with the feeling of ‘well, what now..’ when I return to GW2. I wish they had a better introduction for players who have been away for a while. So much happens in this world that when I come back I’m not even sure where we’ve left off or what’s going on or what I should be doing. There’s no easy way to tell what’s the ‘best’ gear to get, what goals one should be working towards or what direction you should be headed in. This has always been the number one issue I’ve had with GW2. Of course I’m also not as familiar with it as I am with say, EQ or EQ2, so returning to those games is quite a different experience.

That being said, the game is still as beautiful as ever, and I am excited about the new guild halls and other HoT features coming this Friday. I imagine there will be quite a nice turn out. Maybe I’ll go level up that guardian after all…..

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

My adventures with Minecraft: Story Mode

Today marked the release date of Minecraft: Story Mode. Now these games created by Telltale games are basically choose your own adventure games, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. To be honest before today I’ve never played one before, even though I was gifted the bundle just a short time ago. I went in knowing that I absolutely love these types of games, they appeal to every side of my gamer self.

I don’t want to talk about the game that much because it will give away details of the story that are much better experienced in person. I did put up a short video on my youtube / twitch channel with the introduction but didn’t stream any further.

I will say that Ruben makes the game. Your faithful sidekick. He’s awesome.

Oh and of course I’ll show a bunch of screenshots too. So glad I picked this up, and can’t wait for the next episode.

Into the Nether.

Fun with minecarts.

Getting Started with Streaming Games

Not pictured is the new c920 HD Pro Webcam that I bought, but along with that I picked up a blue yeti microphone and have started setting up my area to do some livestreaming in the future. Today I played around in WildStar (thank you those who came and visited while I was adventuring!) and I’m trying to think of some more exciting adventures for people to tune in to. I’ve done a few livestreams in the past but nothing very exciting (and most of the time I tend not to use voice, and I’ve never used my cam before) but I’ve always admired those who did. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for years now, and heck there’s no better time than the present!

If you’re looking to catch me live, you can follow my twitch channel:

Twitch.tv/Stargrace

Or if you would rather watch at a later time, you can follow my youtube channel:

YouTube.com/StephanieMorrow

I haven’t worked out a schedule yet, so my streams will probably be sporadic in the meantime. Due to where I live I’m also not allowed to sign up for the direct donations programs, but I did include a link on my twitch channel for those who may want to donate through paypal. You can also donate directly at the link here:

Paypal.me/stargrace

Donations will go towards keeping my web site (MmoQuests.com) running, as well as paying for things like twitch banners and avatars. I’ve been looking at getting some custom ones made, but so far haven’t had any luck finding what I’d like. Of course all content will continue to be free, this is not something I want people to feel roped into doing, but a nice little side hobby. We’ll see if it goes anywhere.

In the meantime I’ve been bouncing ideas around. I thought maybe I would try playing (and streaming) some of the lowest rated games on Steam – but that idea really didn’t sit very well with me. I don’t like to play bad games just because. Then I thought maybe I would try playing horror games – the one genre that I don’t have the stomach for – but honestly when it comes right down to it, I want to play games I enjoy. I don’t want to play just because I have an audience. So for now I’m back to the drawing board. I do have all sorts of games in my steam library that I’d like to slowly work through, but a lot of those are also visual novel type games. I don’t know how interested people are going to be in me reading aloud a romance story, even if it’s something I personally enjoy playing. For now I’ll just continue streaming when the mood strikes me, and the games will be random as well. There’s a good chance you’ll see me in Wurm Online, WildStar, and maybe some EverQuest or EverQuest 2 along with Sims 4. Those are pretty static regular games for me. Please remember to follow my channel, especially if you want notifications of when I go live. You’ll see the highlights of my last broadcasts up there and I’ve already moved them over to YouTube as well. I did find that the sound quality seemed to have reduced quite a bit when I transferred the videos from twitch to youtube – is that normal? Is there a way I can combat that?

Of course any help, tips, tricks, etc. are greatly appreciated. I’m brand new at this, I don’t know any of the fancy UI things people have on their twitch streams (I’m using XSplit to stream if that matters) so of course anything you can offer up as a suggestion is greatly appreciated. In the meantime, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Downsizing

I’ve had my current deed on Xanadu for a few years now, but of course I always get an itch to expand. My most recent purchase has been to set up a market that is just across a small canal from my main deed. With the market taking up most of my time, and my priests back over at my main deed, my deed up North was seeing little to no activity, and it was my most expensive deed at almost 4 silver a month for upkeep. I decided that I would disband that deed and focus my efforts on the places down South, along with exploring if I started to get that itch again.

The problem with disbanding a deed, and this deed in particular, is that over time you tend to accumulate a lot of “stuff”. Now some of this stuff is useless and you don’t need to take it with you when you disband, but a lot of it can be useful items that you don’t really want to part with. So that’s how I ended up sailing for 5 hours up North with a borrowed knarr, and then loaded up 38 large crates with all of my possessions (each create can hold 300 items). I took everything that I couldn’t “easily” acquire at my main deed, and then I disbanded the place which gave me the 16 silver I had in escrow.

Now I’m happily back down to two deeds, and currently sailing my way back down to the Southern deed. I’m actually moored right at this second because the fog rolled in and I can’t see my way any more. Great time to do a blog post.

Even though I’ve downsized my deeds, I still have three active accounts (and will until sometime early next year at least). I’ve got Stargrace my “jack of all trades” main, and then two priests. The two priests spend mos of their time hanging out in my temple building enchanting tools and gaining favour along with taking care of mundane chores like farming and animals which reminds me, now that I no longer have the deed up North I’ll need to start a new farm for the priests to work on.

I love the flexibility I have in Wurm Online. Want to travel and explore? You’re welcome to do it. Want to settle down and never venture past the front door? That’s an option to. Want to join a village? Live the life of a hermit? They’re all options. You just have to have a plan in mind (which is often the most difficult part).

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

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!