Gaming – Page 366 – A Pixel Nomad

Lets Indulge

I know it’s hard to believe, but some times I just don’t feel like playing an MMO. There are a handful of games that I absolutely love to indulge in, and my latest is a game called Flower Shop: Winter in Fairbrook. It’s a dating / farming simulation game – I know, I know. Laugh away. These visual novels (also known as otome) don’t typically include a lot of actual game play, but a well done one is fantastic and can keep me entertained for hours.

The one I was playing before this was Magical Diary (also on steam), which is where I first discovered that I really enjoy these types of games.

Is there a game that is a bit off of the beaten path that you enjoy playing? I have a small handful of friends who also enjoy these types of games, but it’s not exactly a popular genre in my circles which can make finding these gems difficult. Have you ever tried a genre that you had never heard of before and then found yourself completely enthralled with it? Let me know below in comments!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Blaugust in August

Belghast over at Tales of the Aggronaut is looking to help motivate bloggers for the month of August with some pretty neat initiatives. He’s running Blaugust, which is to encourage bloggers to post every single day, 31 in total, for the entire month. You can about the event over on his blog here, and I decided why not, I could use some motivation. There are even prizes. He set up a nook for people to check out / sign up / etc. Though I haven’t seen a way to join, I’m going to take part anyway. I used to be very good about posting every day, some times multiple times a day but all it took was a few months of unrest (back in April) for that to cause 7 years of blogging to fall out of sync. I’m hoping this will motivate me to get back into the habit.

Will I be able to succeed? I’m honestly not sure. At one point in time I would have laughed and said it was no problem at all – but life happens. There’s work, friends, family, and then of course finding time to actually game so that you have something to write about. Maybe it will motivate me to start writing about some of those steam games I have that are sitting neglected, just waiting for me to try them out. I can’t help it, there have been some great deals and humble bundles!

In any case, it’s sure to be an interesting little experiment, and with any luck I’ll make it stick past August. If you’re looking for motivation you should definitely go check it out. On the flip side, if you’re interested in reading posts by some great writers for the month of August, you should also check it out, maybe you’ll find a new site you didn’t know about. I wish more people took the time to leave comments to other writers, even if there’s nothing controversial being written about. While I do think it’s important to write for yourself and not an audience– eh, this is a topic for another day!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Goodbye Vanguard, from a Guide

I have been thinking about how to word this post ever since they made the announcement that Vanguard would be shutting down and I still can’t seem to find the proper words. I played in beta and immediately fell in love. The open world was my first experience of the sort, and even though we constantly “chunked” across zone lines, it was still amazing to me. Yeah, there were bugs, but I never spent much time getting upset about them because I was busy having too much fun.

I was one of a small handful of guides for Vanguard for almost three years. Our job was to interact with players and run quests and events for them to partake in. Vanguard may have been a dying game but it had a fiercely loyal fan base of players who would log in and it made my day a lot more fun to see them interacting with one another.

Some of my favorite guide events to run included transforming all of the players into frogs and shooting them into the air. We had quests where we role played that we were zombies and were unable to talk, requiring players to some how cast a spell on us and “cure” us from our ailment. My favorite quest was a fortune telling one. Since I was a dark elf I would always tell a fortune about how the player was going to be meeting a beautiful stranger – and then proclaim the fortune telling device worked because low and behold, there I was, a beautiful stranger.

I stopped just before the announcement of its closure was made, and I have no regrets. I met some of the most wonderful people, explored some of the most beautiful zones I have ever seen, and my blood mage will probably always be one of my favorite characters to play. Finally a game that got healers right, where we could participate in DPS and keep a raid up. The crafting was top notch, complex but not too complex. I took pride in my creations. My house, which was there until the end.. I built by hand, brick by literal brick.

Goodbye Vanguard. You will be missed.

(Note: I had a post about Blaugust scheduled for today, but I’m moving it to tomorrow instead, so keep an eye out here for that).

The Legacy Continues

I had to reformat my computer when I moved – not once, not even twice, but THREE times. This meant that all my hard earned progress on my legacy family in the sims 3 was lost, multiple times. Since I adore this game of course I just picked myself right back up and started over, again (this time with backups).

Jessica Little is my founder sim, and she decided that the straight and narrow life was just not for her, so her profession is a thief. It works well with her kleptomaniac behaviour. Right now her rank is ‘decoy’ – and she has already been thrown in jail. Her job profession enabled her to meet MD – a police officer. It was love at first sight, and the two got married before their first date was over. Hey, when you’re in love, you’re in love.

Jessica gave birth to little Tristan, who is about to turn two years old. Their house is also compromised of Llia, their cat, Mr. Boots, their dog, and Daisy, their horse. Animals lovers? You don’t say.

They were getting pretty low on money, Jessica’s job doesn’t exactly pay that well and MD had just joined the family when low and behold an enormous amount of good luck befell them – they won the lotto for $50,000. This went a LONG way in upgrading their home, and it was a lot of fun. Normally my legacy families have so little cash that their home is a shack for much of their lives. It was a lot of fun to be able to purchase some opulent belongings.

Of course the day wouldn’t been complete without a Feast Party (the Sims world version of Halloween) and someone falling asleep on the floor..

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

Crazy Cat Lady

Even though there are never enough hours in the day to play all of the games that I’m interested in, I have kept up with WoW. I know, how on earth can I be a fan of more than one game at a time, right? Well, if you have followed my blog for the past 7 years or so, you’ll see just how possible it is. This weekend I decided to work on my pet collection a bit, and finally earned the title pictured in the screenshot above, “the crazy cat lady”. A fine representation of me in real life, even though at this exact moment I don’t own any cats. I found a crafter created one on the AH for a handful of gold and decided to pick it up – unaware of the fact that it was the last one I needed for the achievement (that means I already had 19 of the 20 required).

I also spent some time doing older raids that I had not earned the achievements for yet. I have no idea how I missed Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern, but apparently I had, so I went back and finished them off. It was a nice relaxing weekend, stress free, doing one of the things I really enjoy (gaming).

I still haven’t finished my legendary cloak yet, but I’m on the runestone collection portion of it, and I have 4/12 of the drops required. I need raids to re-set on Tuesday in order to earn any more, and while I was hoping that I would be able to obtain 6 this week and 6 next week it’s more likely that I’ll earn another 4 next week and my final 4 the week after. Still, it’s better late than never.

I’m still finding all sorts of things to do in game that I haven’t done yet. I did finally complete the ‘Now I am the Master’ achievement which means I finished training Nomi to be a chef. I have also been working on the brawler achievements, so far I’m only rank 4 but that granted me access to yet another battle pet. That doesn’t even begin to touch on my alts, who have sat neglected while I try to divide my time. Need more hours in a day, as always!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.