Gaming – Page 336 – A Pixel Nomad

That Summer Burnout

It happens every year around this time. I can’t figure out what I want to play and so I spend the majority of my time bouncing in and out of various games, hoping one will catch my attention for longer than 20 minutes. Then I feel bad when it doesn’t. It could be the amazing weather, stresses from work, watching friends and family all do their thing while I’m across the country, or something else. I have no idea. I just know that normally when I have a bit of free time (and I’m at home) I think nothing of what game to play and I just do it. These days though I’ll log into 4-5 games only to wander around aimlessly and then decide they were not what I wanted to ‘do’ after all.

I managed to resist every sale on steam – even though there are quite a few DLC I’d love to own on my wishlist. I just didn’t think I was gaming enough to justify the cost at the moment. I’m tired of Early Access games. While I understand that crowdfunding and EA games are a fantastic way to get indie developers into game releases, I’ve just been burned and frustrated too many times. The latest is with Windborne, which sat on my wishlist for over a year before developers announced that they just don’t have the funds to continue.

I can understand that. I understand that we live in an age where there are lots of games out there, and to create something that’s going to be profitable is hard. It’s still frustrating as a player and as a potential investor in these games. I miss the day when I could purchase a completely finished game (or at least what I would consider ‘finished’). There are some great Early Access games out there, but the chances of me being interested in them when they finally release are pretty slim.

What have I been playing lately? Well. The list isn’t that long, but like I said I haven’t been doing a lot of gaming.

Wurm Online: In summer my Wurm interest flags a bit, but I’ve still got two active accounts and deeds, and I still check in daily to take care of crops and animals. I know my interest in this one will pick back up after summer, it always does.
FFXIV: I keep trying to be interested in this one, and it’s just not happening. I still have 44 days active on my account but something about the game is just not appealing to me lately.
WoW: I still have time left on my account, but honestly I just haven’t been playing. Garrison grind is a thing, and I just don’t like it. Not even pets are able to keep me entertained these days.
WildStar: I play daily, and I still enjoy it quite a bit but I limit my time so that I don’t get burned out. Since I work for NCSOFT on WildStar it’s also pretty much a given that I’m playing it daily.
EQ/EQ2: As much as I love the Ragefire server, it’s hard to get into if you’re not already in a community or with established friends. I was hoping it would be more like the communities of days gone by, but so far it hasn’t been and that bugs me to some degree. Instead I’ve been playing EQ2, my old haunting grounds. I’ve been clearing out older heritage quests and playing in my guild on my own, we’re level 78, and I’m having quite a bit of fun with that. My defiler is still only level 96, but I’m not really in a rush to reach level 100. I don’t even know what is available to do at level 100.
EVE Online: I don’t play nearly as much as I should / could / want to, but I do have an active subscription for a year, and in the meantime my skills are training up. I know this is a great game to pop into when I can here and there, so I haven’t been concerned about my lack of playtime.
GW2: Still working on my mesmer, on a new account. Right now she’s 49, which is great but I’d still ideally like to reach 80 before the expansion hits, and maybe get another character or two up there on the new account. We’ll see how that goes. It’s hard when I don’t really have any inclination to play.

Hopefully I climb out of this rut I’ve found myself in before too long. I imagine when fall rolls around I’ll be back to my ‘typical’ gaming self, whatever that is. In the meantime, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

ARK: Survival Evolved

This year will probably be known as the year I rarely post. Life has just been crazy, and when I have a minute or two of free time there’s always something else that needs to be done, like house chores, or reading, or groceries. I’m still working 48 hours a week, and I don’t have a lot of free time to game, let alone free time to write about gaming. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been playing anything though!

ARK: Survival Evolved released, a game I had never heard of before and was certainly not on my radar in any way shape or form. I saw a few friends on my list playing it on release day and then I decided on a whim to pick it up because it sounded like something I would be interested in. I was right. I love this game. It’s another survival game, this time with dinosaurs roaming the planet. You’re left in an area with an implant in your arm and no memory as to what has happened. There are a few hosted servers up for the game which include PvP and PvE servers, but I decided that I’d be better off running my own server, so after a few days of trying to figure things out, I successfully got that started. I opened it to a handful of friends, and let the dinosaur taming begin.

This game is incredibly beautiful, and even though it’s in early access right now (I know, what ever happened to me not buying in to early access games?!) there’s already a lot of features completed (along with a lot of bugs). Crafting is simple, you run around collecting components and killing things, as you do these basic tasks you’ll level up and earn ‘points’ to unlock recipes. There are not enough levels in-game to be able to unlock everything, so your best bet is to trade off on learning recipes with a friend. That way you’ll end up with a great selection.

Then of course comes the survival part. Dinosaurs will come and break through your structures, so you want to build in a location that’s going to be relatively ‘safe’. I ended up learning this the hard way as I had to re-build my home a handful of times. Eventually I settled on a location that was against a cliff, so that was at least one side where I didn’t have to worry about dinosaurs coming from. As you get higher in level you of course unlock more powerful recipes, and are able to build more sound structures. You can also create narcotics, pots for cooking, storage, and beds that let you respawn in camp instead of many miles away.

The dinosaurs are incredible, and it takes some learning (if you’re not familiar with them) to figure out which ones are only interested in the plants and shrubs near by and which ones are interested in tearing you into tiny pieces. The game released at a great time, too, when hype for Jurassic World is at a record high. I can’t wait to see where they take the game in the next year, and even though there are bugs, it’s probably one of the best early release games I’ve played to date. Check it out on steam (it’s also 17% off right now).

Cities: Skylines Gets Some New Content (YAY)

On the 19th of May, Paradox Interactive added patch 1.1.0 to Cities: Skylines and with it came European buildings, and tunnels. Of course that wasn’t all they added. The whole list is below:

New: European theme added
New: 72 European buildings in the European theme
New: Support for corner and adjacent buildings in the European theme
New: 3 maps added with European theme (Cliffside Bay, Foggy Hills and Grand River)
New: Tunnels for roads and rail added
New: Metro tunnels can be built at different levels
Options: V sync option added
Options: Invert Y mouse axis added

The downside to these awesome things is that to access the new buildings you’ll have to start on a new map, that includes a new biome called ‘European’ from the start menu. There are three maps to choose from, and they’re pretty nice. They also fixed a bunch of bugs (though I noticed my traffic still likes to disappear into the ground if there are any hills around) and of course made some changes for the editing / mod community. If you happen to use mods you’ll want to disable them for a bit to make sure there are no conflicts. A lot of mods won’t work with 1.1.0 so they’ll need updates.

The best part about the update was of course that it’s free for everyone who owns the game, and the price for the base game is very reasonable for the incredible game you get. Just check out the ‘overwhelmingly positive‘ reviews over on steam, with over 11,882 reviews and counting.

Of course first thing I did was go to one of the new maps and then promptly forget everything I had learned about creating a city previously. You can’t just start out with a city that stretches the entire plot of land you have, that’s a sure way to quickly run out of funds (which I did), so I started over. The second time I started at a smaller pace, but I still made some mistakes that caused me to run out of money and go take out a loan (or two) once I had a population of over 750. This game really is a nice relaxing gem, and I can’t wait to see what other things they add in the future. I haven’t played around with mods or re-skins yet, but I’m hoping to get into that eventually. If you haven’t picked the game up yet, I highly recommend it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Ding, 15 on Ragefire

Thanks to the early orc camps I was able to inch my way to level 14 and that made a huge difference to me because that’s when I got my next tier pet, and it conned yellow to me instead of dark blue. Once I picked up the spells I thought I would use (there’s no use in picking up every single spell right now, plus I just don’t have the funds) I headed back to that bandit camp that was giving me such problems before. This time I was able to easily break the camp and settled in to a nice round of killing for the next little while. The magician managed to ding level 15, and 32% in – the druid hit level 15 and 5% in before I called it a day. I need a bit of a break from camping to work tradeskills and of course gather my level 15 spells.

For the mage that means another pet – but I’m not going to pick it up because I’m happy with the current one I have, and all pets this tier will be the same level. I also got a new nuke that does far more damage than the last one. It’s over 100 damage instead of 42. I’m sure it also uses a lot more mana, too. The druid reaching 15 means the first of her port spells, Ring of Karana and Ring of Surefall Glade. I’ll be doing some traveling to pick those up, because who wouldn’t want their port spells. That’s a big plus of being a druid. She also got a new skin like rock spell at 14 that I haven’t picked up yet.

The game is bustling with players. There are over 400 magicians in chat this morning, along with over 400 in my ‘regular’ channels preventing me from joining them. People are all over the starter towns, and yesterday there were 5 instances of Commonlands up. The main one had 90 players and each subsequent instance had 40+. It’s really nice to see the game get so much love. I can’t help but wonder how long it will last.

Why Am I Playing on Ragefire?

I’ve been playing on EverQuest progression servers for a number of years now, but I typically end up going back to my ‘regular’ server sooner or later where I’ve already established a character (or two, or three). The problem with established servers is that EverQuest is still very much a group orientated game even for their later expansions, so unless you’re bringing friends with you it can get a bit lonely. Especially if your main characters include a level 97 bard and a level 100 enchanter. They’re not exactly the optimal classes for boxing with, mercenary tanks are alright but they’re not nearly as good as actual players with thousands of aa. I love EverQuest, and I tend to return a few times a year in order to get my ‘fix’ – especially since I can’t seem to get that fix in EverQuest2 any more, which used to be my go-to comfort game. What I love about it is the fact that my characters actually take a lot of work in order to be any good, and it takes time to get things done. I’ll probably always have a soft spot in my heart for EverQuest, and judging by the swarms of people playing on Lockjaw and Ragefire, I’m not alone.

The druid and magician are each level 13 now. I settled in for a nice evening of camping orcs in Commonlands. I was doing bandits for a bit, but the respawns are incredibly fast, and I didn’t have a stable amount of crowd control in order to feel confident taking care of things quickly. It was just safer if I went to an orc camp and pulled the whole camp of dark blues all at once, rather than trying to break a white / yellow camp with fast respawns. Still, it gave me a chance to collect some belts and turn those in to Freeport for some experience, coin, and faction.

I noticed at the log-in screen that Vox was the latest ‘new’ non progression server, and that server was released three years ago but is still categorized as ‘new’. I almost wish they would release another new non-progression server, for people who may want to start fresh with others but who don’t have the time / patience / desire to start with classic EverQuest. Of course that means people would be level 105 within a week I’m sure, but it’s also a chance for the community to move through the game together, and make friends / new guilds until everyone (once again) gets bored and leaves. I wonder what the population is like on most EverQuest servers. On Drinal (my main server) the general channel has 198 people in it, but talk is pretty light and that includes players from other servers who join the drinal general chat (I see a few ragefire folks on there).

When I got bored of orcs I headed back to Freeport to relax with a little fishing, and to work on my forage skill. Skills seem to crawl by, especially when you’re eager to raise them so it’s a good time to sit back with Netflix or Hulu. I’m saving up the fish I catch to work on baking, fish fillets will get me pretty far. I made my first 100 plat, and I’m sure every bit of it will go towards tradeskills aside from spell purchases. Research doesn’t use the classic method, but uses vendor sold items along with hides that drop from mobs. It’s a lengthy and expensive hobby, but right now it’s making money as people want their spells. I know we have quite a wait before an ‘official’ bazaar opens, and in the meantime there’s the EC tunnel, but I’m looking forward to that one feature.

One thing that has surprised me is the number of people playing who have never played before, or who just don’t remember anything about the game. I’ve heard so many people asking about mailboxes and other features that classic EverQuest just doesn’t have. It also looks like the pressure has lessened on Ragefire a bit now that Lockjaw has opened. No queues this afternoon – the real test will be to see how things are over the weekend.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!