Gaming – Page 335 – A Pixel Nomad

A Deed is Never Done

I haven’t started any bridges yet, but I’ve been contemplating creating one across the little harbor my deed is settled against. Maybe some sort of welcoming guard towers along the front with a bridge that spans between them. I haven’t quite decided yet. What I did decide, was that entirely too much of my deed was taken up by water, and when you pay for each tile of land that you own, well. There’s only a few solutions. What I decided to do was use some of the dirt I had collected from the mountain side and begin filling in the harbor. It’s an area of approximately 5×7, so it’s quite a large spot. I haven’t decided what I’ll do with the newly terraformed location yet, it’s not like I need any more buildings, pens, or farm space, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.

I also decided to re-expand the deed slightly, raising the monthly cost to just under 3 silver. This brings my guard tower back on-deed, as well as a large portion of my mine and my grape orchard. It wasn’t essential that these things be on-deed, but it does make keeping it all repaired a bit easier.

I also spent the better part of one gaming session cutting down wayward trees and turning a large portion to lawn so that more wayward trees couldn’t grow. The reason for this is not because I don’t enjoy trees, but because those threes tend to block the view of the deed, and I wanted it to stand out a bit more. Since I have a dedicated tree farm off to the side it’s not essential that I have any extras, plus the top tier of my place is loaded with maple trees (my favourite type in-game).

I’m still undecided as to what skills I want to raise on my main character. My priest is pretty simple. I finally raised channeling to 60, and I’m working on Soul Depth. Animal husbandry, farming, hot food cooking, all the usual priest skills. On my main I’m debating between jewelry and going back to weapon smithing which is just the slowest skill in the entire world to level up. It’s one of those skills where you want to be doing something else as you work on it (like watching TV) and only work on it when you have sleep bonus. Even then, you’ll be lucky to raise it any significant amount. The more I think about it, the more that’s the skill I think I’ll end up going with. Now I just need to find something on netflix or hulu to watch so I don’t fall asleep from boredom.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Ragefire – Leveling Continues

I haven’t written about it much (well, I haven’t written about anything much this summer to be honest) but I am still playing on the EverQuest progression server, Ragefire. My magician is now level 17, along with my druid. I’ve been camping Dervish out in South Ro along with Kasul playing his shaman. The place is dangerous. There’s a mixture of dark blue mobs mixed with some white, a handful of yellow, and then the reds (usually Orc Warriors, and the odd Sand Giant that wanders by). The zones are still really packed with players, and I use the /pick function as often as I can to swap to quieter instances. There’s a large number of players who are now at the level cap, but I’m not in any rush.

We did have a poll option to see if we’d like Kunark to come out earlier than normal, which I did vote in favour of. I think it offers players a larger range of zones to explore and will help spread the population out even further. Of course one day I’d like to see myself in a raid but because of the population issue I’m not expecting to be able to help out for quite some time. I’ve been contemplating creating (yet another) alt in the meantime, but I suppose I should at least reach 50 on one pair of characters first. I know there are better (ie: faster) camps out there, but I”m content to sit and wait on three spawns in a relatively safe location.

There has been a lot of chatter in all of the channels I join when I log in, but not a lot of that chatter is centered around groups or camp checks. This is one of the biggest differences I’ve seen between playing back when I first started, and playing now. Now it’s only to easy for people to box multiple accounts, or to have already established groups. I suppose it was a bit foolish to think that things would be exactly as they were 10 years ago, but a part of me had hoped.

Between leveling I’m working up my tradeskills. Earning skill points is a slow process, but one I find incredibly valuable. I haven’t been selling anything I’ve created yet, but I do enjoy having a fine selection of foods and drinks to choose from. I did also create myself a set of gear, and while it offers nothing in terms of actual stats, it does offer AC, which is very important.

Playing a magician is quite easy. There’s so many of them around. The only time I really have any concerns is when a roaming mob (or two, or three) has wandered into my camp, and then I get flustered and forgot to watch the health of my pet and before I know it I’ve been taken out by a named I wasn’t even aware of. It’s exciting times, and I’m glad to be a part of it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

What Keeps You in a Game?

Not too long ago I was playing ArcheAge and I was convinced that this was ‘the game for me’. I purchased a multi-month subscription and leveled my main up to 40-something; where I promptly logged out one day and then never logged back in (minus one exception, I did log in when there was a promotion ongoing, I wanted the mount). What is it about games that draws me in? What changes about them that makes me question why I even began playing?

The first question is quite easy. I love a robust world. I love being able to explore, doing quests, and a crafting system. I love player housing and player created content. What I don’t like is end game, and the closer I get to that end game the less likely it is that I’ll continue playing. What changes about the games that makes me stop? Well, it’s not something about the games themselves so much as the fact that as I continue to play I get closer to the ‘end game’ whatever that may be. In most cases it’s a world that I simply don’t want to participate in. I have no interest in raiding and it’s rare that I want to group. I’m tired of running daily quests, and I dislike that dailies have become the crutch most MMOs use to convince players to log in each day. What I need is something to convince the casual player (me) to continue playing so that it doesn’t feel like a grind. In most cases this ends up being either 1. alts, 2. crafting, or 3. Some sort of mini-casual end-game like housing, collecting pets, mounts, or achievements. Problem is, there’s so much competition for these things that I can easily log into 5 or 6 other MMOs and find the exact same things in a world where I’ve already established my characters.

Lets look at ArcheAge in specific. I really disliked the whole idea of having to constantly log in to make sure that my plot of land wasn’t going to vanish. It made it seem like a task, and I worked really hard to get that piece of land when there were so many others trying to get land, so the idea that it could vanish so easily was quite upsetting. Then there was the fact that I couldn’t purchase more land unless I camped it and battled other characters to earn it, or spent a huge amount of money to purchase it. I didn’t want to have to wait months down the road for content that I wanted to do ‘now’. Add to that, labour. If I was ever at the cap for labour I felt as though I was wasting it, and that I must log in to use it up and make sure that I was always optimizing my character in that regard. Eventually it just became draining. Finally, there was the fact that I was quickly approaching end game. I felt that I was ‘behind’ everyone else, that I was constantly going to have to play catch-up, and that there would be little to no ways for me to actually catch up unless I participated in those tasks which I decidedly did not enjoy (grouping).

So I stopped logging in. Once I lost my plot, it was easy to cancel my subscription and stop playing. Take away one thing that I felt like I had ‘earned’ and the lure of the game goes down drastically. Make me feel obligated to log in (muck like work) rather than excited, and I’ll be less likely to log in. Make it seem like a chore, instead of fun. That’s what these systems did to a casual player like me.

That’s not to say I won’t ever be back, I did log in a few days ago because a lot of friends on twitter were excited about the game and I of course wanted to feel like a part of that excitement, but the instant I logged my characters in and realized they no longer own land, no longer have extra storage, and were so far behind that it would just be a lot of work to ever get caught up, I logged right back out.

That’s not how you keep me playing your game.

Happy 9th Anniversary

June 25th marked the 9 year anniversary of this site. Hard to believe it has already been that long. Back when I started I wrote mostly about EQ2, and talked about whatever I happened to be up to. Things like raids, working on major quest lines. Of course I was already working up my alt army, so nothing in that regard has changed. I’ve posted over 2,000 posts, and while I don’t always get that many comments, blogging has always been something I did just for me in the hopes that others out there would enjoy reading what I wrote. Since then I’ve branched out quite a bit. I rarely ever write about one particular game, but weave my posts between where ever my interests lay for that month. I still have my MMO loves, and some single player games, too. Like my Tropico 5 adventures, posted above.

Last week I picked up my very first SSD. Since I had to replace pretty much my entire machine last year, an SSD was the only real ‘upgrade’ I was still lacking. I found a nice 500gb one for less than $200, and researched the multiple ways to set it up. I’ve always been a fan of ‘starting fresh’ rather than cloning and running into potential issues, so I unplugged my two older drives, and installed windows 8.1 on the new SSD (after hunting for spare cables. Why doesn’t anything come with cables any more). No issues with the installation aside from the fact that I forgot I’d need to re-install my motherboard drivers before I could access the internet. Dug up my disks and everything was working well. I think things are smoother (faster) and I learned how to move things like the default windows libraries to my secondary drive so that it doesn’t clutter up space on the SSD.

For now I only have two games on the main drive, WildStar, and Sims 4. Everything else (including my steam library) is on a back up drive. This meant I spent a lot of time browsing through my installed games and remembering what I own. I love Tropico 5. I don’t own any of the expansions and there are far more than I realized (I saw them during the Steam Summer Sale, but refrained from purchasing any) but the humour of the game just tickles me in all the right places. So far I’ve only made it to the Cold War age, but things are coming along nicely. Or at least they were before a volcano erupted, and that was followed by a tsunami which wiped out most of my low lying coastal city. Still, I had more than enough funds to re-build everything and I spent way too many hours playing over the weekend.

Which reminds me, I have all sorts of lego games that are next on my to-play list, too.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Legacy Family Shenanigans in The Sims 4

What’s new in the realm of The Sims 4? Well, they quietly released another ‘stuff’ pack. This one is ‘Perfect Patio’ and costs $9.99. Included is 32 new items, and 12 new outfits. The previous stuff pack was Luxury Party, and included 12 new build items, and 40 new outfit items. It was also priced at $9.99. The game still has a lot of bugs (at least for me). One of them has been around since release, and it’s where my screen goes black every time I try to place anything I buy in build mode. Of course there is a work around (I can change the resolution, save it, change the resolution back, and it fixes the issue for that gameplay session) but I shouldn’t have to do that every time I want to build anything in-game. Of course mine is just one smaller problem with a workaround, where there are many others who have bigger issues (and who have no workarounds). Yes, I bought both stuff packs. There are stuff packs for $9.99, game packs for $19.99 (Outdoor Retreat), expansions for $39.99 (Get to work) and the base game. Right now these are all on sale, too. Unless you happen to be a big fan of the franchise (which I am) I wouldn’t go spending money for anything other than Get to Work, and the base game.

My legacy family ended up bugged in my last session. I threw a party, and everyone who attended that party decided to stay on the lot, forever. I attempted to move to a new lot and move back – bam, people there. I took my Sim off to a little mini vacation, and when she returned, yep, people. Eventually I ended up selling the lot and moving to a new map all together, which IS against the legacy family rules, but I didn’t want to have to start my game completely over. My sim already has a pretty robust history, and is established with her family (or what remains of it).

So Jessica Little lives with her daughter Emily. Her husband has passed on, his grave sits in the backyard under a lovely tree. They managed to save up enough money for a lovely home, and Emily goes to school full time. Jessica hasn’t found anyone to replace her deceased husband, but that’s alright because he rises out from the grave every night to keep the family company when he can anyway. I haven’t gotten very far with my legacy, only on the first round of children, but I’m hoping with a few gameplay sessions I can expand that. Now that they have a comfortable nest egg, it’s time to see who Emily is interested in as a potential mate..

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!