Gaming – Page 341 – A Pixel Nomad

What am I playing? LOTS!

I’ve probably played more games in the last week than I did most of last year. Part of that is due to having a bit more time on my hands than normal (hopefully a temporary situation that will be resolved by the end of this month) and part of that is because there are just so many wonderful games out there.

EverQuest2: My defiler is still only level 95, but she did manage to reach level 100 in tailoring. Crafting is an odd duck with the latest expansion, Altar of Malice. Doing the crafting quests themselves won’t get you to level 100, and grinding out writs goes quite slow – however, doing the daily craft mission will easily net you 30% experience, and doing the weekly got me an entire level. Missions re-set on Wednesdays. You can find me in game on Antonia Bayle as Stargrace.

Cities: Skylines: This game just released, and it’s so much fun. In fact it’s everything that I wanted from SimCity, at half the price. There’s an enormous mod community and enough content to keep me satisfied for quite some time. Well worth the cost, and I highly recommend it if you’re into the city building games at all.

Elder Scrolls Online: I just started playing this. It apparently starts going free to play on Tuesday. I’ve had a subscription for quite some time because I did some alpha testing on their billing system, but I never actually played. It wasn’t because of any drastic reason, I simply didn’t have the time. The game is beautiful but I’m not far enough into it to make any other calls about the game quite yet.

EVE Online: Still training skills, still working on faction, PI, and all of that good stuff. EVE Online is still one of the best games I have to relax with. That’s right, even though the skies are filled with pirates and horrible people looking to scam and pod you, it’s still relaxing.

FFXIV: I’ve started a new character on Cactuar. I’m hoping to go white mage, but I’m taking my time and things are moving along slowly. I believe my character name is Velours Reveurs for those looking to add me to their friends list. This game is absolutely gorgeous, and I’m hoping to keep it on my rotation. We’ll have to see how things go though.

Minecraft: I’m running The Dark Trilogy as a server right now for some friends. I’ve created a portal to the Twilight Forest, as well as a portal to the Nether. There are some really awesome mods in this pack, and I’m having a blast. I’m hopping to get some nether quartz so I can make some furniture that comes in a specific pack. Furniture like refrigerators and televisions. Mods really do make this game.

Sims4: Still working on my legacy family. Tristan is going to be the next person to carry the legacy name, and so I’ve been preparing him for adulthood. Right now he’s best friends with a feisty redhead neighbour girl, and they’re promised to each other. Meanwhile Jessica will probably just move into the basement (that’s right, Sims 4 is patching in basements!) and Elizabeth will age gracefully, as she watches her children carry on.

Wizard101: My life wizard is level 27, and I’ve been questing in Marleybone. It’s the home of cats, dogs, rats, and proper manners. Based on 19th century London. It’s also my favourite zone to date. It has been some time since I’ve played and it’s interesting getting back into things, but this is still a fantastic game no matter your age.

WoW: This has been taking a back seat to other games, but I still log in to check my garrison resources and to trade and do the dailies. As others have mentioned, by the time you take care of all of the garrison chores, my game time is already spent for the day. On one hand it’s great to have a reason to log in every day but on the other hand it would be lovely to play the game instead of just playing the garrisons.

The Secret World: A handful of combat wombats have decided to start up in the Secret World. We’re playing the Dragon faction, and while the game has never been a genre that I’m completely comfortable with, it does have one of the best (IMO) quest systems and story lines that I’ve ever participated in. Playing with friends makes it seem a little less scary, and even though I’ve just started (again) I’m looking forward to playing.

Wurm Online: Now that my guard tower is completed, it’s time to work on the rest of my deed along with taking care of my horses. I’ve been trying to breed 5 speeds for a while now and to also breed out the grey colour. It’s coming along well, but it requires time. In between that I’m trying to decide which skill to work on next.

Those are the games that came to my immediate mind when listing what I’m currently actively playing. There’s others I’ve left off the list on purpose – like GW2. I want to get back into the game but I just can’t seem to find the motivation to keep playing. Since it’s a buy to play game, that’s alright. I’m also still playing WildStar, but again it’s very casually and sporadic, so I don’t feel comfortable putting it up there with my ‘most played’ games. What about everyone else? Where are you spending your time these days with so many options available? Let me know in comments!

Missions, Missions, and more Missions

I’m making pretty good use out of my Tengu, running missions to earn faction. Right now I’m at 4.86 standing with Douvolle Laboratories, and I need to raise it to 5 in order to work with the research agent I have my eye on.

Meanwhile, I’ve got 5.37 standing with CreoDron, and I need a standing of 7 in order to work with an R&D agent over that way. I know I’ll get there eventually, but it does mean that a lot of my game time is taken up by running missions. I’ve been doing security ones because they’re quite fun and a lot faster than doing the mining missions that I used to run. Plus I get a lot of loot from the wrecks of ships. Now that I have my trusty mobile tractor unit tucked away in my inventory hold, salvaging ships is much easier. I decided to keep my fit with 5 missile launchers + 1 salvager, I know I can carry around another item that will let me swap out that salvager so I can use 6 launchers while in space, but for now the cargo hold doesn’t have a lot of room and I can’t be bothered, I’m getting along just fine with my current make up.

Meanwhile the 2nd account is flying a hulk and working on training some mining crystals. The Orca & Hulk combination is a nice steady one that rarely gives me any issues. Still I prefer to spend more of my time blowing things up with missiles than I do mining, these days.

Fly safe!

Finding the Right Mod

I love minecraft, but I love minecraft even more with mods. There are two mod launchers I use, one is the ever popular Feed The Beast, and the second one is the TechnicLauncher. Both have an enormous selection of mod packs that you can choose from. I was using Blightfall on the TechnicLauncher, but after a pretty frustrating weekend decided to try out The Dark Trilogy on Feed the Beast. Blightfall had a great quest system and it was a lot of fun but it was also a very challenging Mod, too challenging for me. The entire world was covered in taint, and some of my favourite things to do are explore and build. I felt that this mod really limited my ability to do those things.

The Dark Trilogy has three tiers of mods. There’s technology, magic, and nature. Each tier is as complex or simple as you want it to be. There’s one mod called MrCrayfish’s Furniture Mod that is a LOT of fun, and lets you create furniture such as couches, televisions, a computer, and even a fridge. So far I’ve made a bird bath but not much else. There have also been some changes to my favourite mods, such as Chisel (which is now Chisel 2). Twilight Forest is also included in the bundle, which I’m really looking forward to playing with. First I have to create a portal, which I believe requires a diamond. Needless to say I don’t have any diamonds yet.

I did have fun exploring though. I found the above volcano, and at the time it wasn’t spewing out lava. I noticed there was a lava spawner on the top and it said it was harvestable. SO I decided to hit it a few times with my shovel, and then giant balls of lava started shooting out of it. Never seen my character run and jump so quickly before, teehee. I didn’t want to get burned alive.

I do have a nice base set up, so I should be able to start creating some neat items soon. I did notice there’s almost 9 pages of different food I can make, everything from butter chicken to cherry cheesecake. It may not have a quest journal, but going through the achievement panel will often tell you what mods are available and gives you a sense of progression as you complete them.

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

Wandering through Frostfang Sea

I noticed Tipa was wandering around Norrath this morning, so I decided why not, it has been a few months since I have peeked in (ok, a few years) why not see what’s up.

Unfortunately, like many games, EQ2 does a poor job of welcoming a stranger back. Aside from the Brewday festival I didn’t have the slightest indication of where I left off, what I was supposed to be doing, where to go, or .. anything. My characters are level 95, and I know the cap now is 100 but I don’t know how to access any of the new zones or even where they are. So I logged in one character after the other. Checked their broker. Checked their research scroll status. Logged in my second account. I’ve been a member all this time so I claimed my station cash and browsed through the store. Twiddled my thumbs. Watched chat channels.

Eventually I decided I would make a new character. A troubador. I named the ratonga after one of my older characters, Goudia (a play on the cheese) and found myself in Frostfang Sea. After completing a handful of quests my little troubador was level 5 – and doing swell.

Channels were populated with players, and there were even a few newly created characters wandering around the zone with me which is always nice to see. Still, I couldn’t help but wish I knew what direction to take my level 95 characters. It just felt like too much of a struggle to get back into things. Instead I would have more fun mentoring down and doing older content, wandering nostalgically from zone to zone, dreaming about the days that were.

Trying to get Better

In any game I play, I like to know that I am playing my character well. I like to find the optimal builds, wear the right combination of gear, hit the keys in the right order. For some people, that’s just not fun and I can completely understand it, but that’s how I have fun, and I work at it. It would be nice if people could understand that how I decide to play the game has no baring on how they play the game, and that we can each enjoy things our own way.

I’ve been working on my priest as of late, in specific her shadow spec. For some reason I find it very difficult to break through the 12-13k dps range, though I can’t seem to figure out if it’s due to gear or due to my rotation. Right now she’s at 644 ilevel, which isn’t that high. I haven’t had the patience to go blood farming, so only one piece of gear has been upgraded. Plus I know she’s using the cheaper gems and enchants. Still, I want to be better and continue to strive for it.

I haven’t managed to level another character to 100 yet besides my priests. I have a few sitting at level 92 (mostly for garrison reasons) but mindlessly grinding has never been my forte. Probably the reason my pet battle building is also still only level 2, and my fishing shack. I’m hoping to work on both of those over the weekend.

Meanwhile I’m also trying to complete the final two raids that I haven’t participated in yet. That includes Slagworks, and The Black Forge. Unfortunately RNG absolutely hates me, so my chances of actually walking away with loot have been slim to none. I know eventually I’ll reach a point where it all just comes together, other shadow priests are pulling in some insane numbers. For myself, so far, it has been a struggle.

As always, happy gaming this weekend! No matter where you find yourself.