Category: Gaming

Waiting on The Gift Giving Tree #Wizard101

I mentioned over at Nomadic Gamer that KingsIsle has a fantastic charity drive going on right now where players can purchase a seed for 2500 crowns (approx $5 worth) and grow The Gift Giving Tree (pictured above). I love the idea of helping out a charity this way, and I’m anxious to see what my tree rewards me with. I’m only one day away from being able to harvest it finally. Feels like I’ve been waiting forever.

My little garden is composed of 6 plants total, which gives me enough to do that by the time I’m done I’m almost out of gardening points (I’m sure they have a specific name, I’m just not aware of what they’re called). Running out completely would be bad but this gives me a little boundary if I happen to accidentally pollinate when I should have played some music. This happens to me quite frequently because it takes time to switch between gardening spells and some times when I think I’ve switched I’m actually just using the same spell twice.

I’m almost rank 3, and I’ve enjoyed harvesting from my Dandelion and Boom Shroom plants. My Desparagus will be able to be harvested for the first time tomorrow, and I’ve been making sure I log in every day to take care of my plants, other wise they will wilt, and die. It’s nice to see that Wizard 101 has joined the ranks in ‘keeping players logging in’ on a daily basis with their daily quests. It’s actually gotten me playing a lot more than normal, which I love.

Has anyone else picked up a gift giving tree? Have you been able to harvest from it yet? What sort of rewards have you gotten? Let me know in comments!

Ok EVE, You Got Me #EVEOnline

I have been spending quite a bit of my game time playing World of Warcraft, mostly due to Cataclysm releasing and the majority of my friends heading out that way. On Thursday I received an email that was tempting me back into EVE Online – and by Friday I was hooked again. To start things off CCP removed the learning skills that players could obtain in game. These skills were a bit redundant they explained, spending time learning skills so that you could learn other skills. I never gave it too much thought but in the end it made sense. They reimbursed players for all of the skill points spent which in my case was 400,000 or so. Not exactly a huge amount compared to some long time players but still enough for me to get a little giddy over.

In that email it was also mentioned that I could activate my account for free for five days. Everyone loves free stuff, so why not. On top of that offer came a new ship, the Echelon which is also equipped with a Sansha Codebreaker, specifically for Incursion. Tempting me first with the return of skill points, then free days, and a free ship was concluded by offering me 60 days at $20, and by that point my will was broken.

Pictured above is my brand new Noctis. This ship is a bulk salvager and I spent some time yesterday fitting it and training the skill required to fly it. Then I took it out for a spin and I have to admit, I am LOVING this ship. It runs smooth, quickly, and it does its job incredibly well. I headed out to asteroid belts which are typically filled with trash from hulks passing through killing rats on their mining runs and made quick work of all the materials floating around in space. While some players may not care too much about salvaging I tend to pick up every piece that I can because they’re incredibly handy for making rigs.

My ship collection is growing by leaps and bounds and I couldn’t be happier. I am now 9 days away from flying an Orca, that’s what those skill points went towards. I’m still 100,000 ISK away from purchasing one of these enormous ships, but I’ll get there eventually, not to mention actually fitting one. This ship has been my ‘dream ship’ for a while now, and I get giddy thinking about how close I finally am.

The Dominix is my ship of choice for PvE encounters, and with the completion of some drone skills I’m ready to take on harder missions. I just need to find the time (and a mission giver some place close to me). With my ship collection so far including the Hulk (mining), Helios (scouting), Noctis (salvaging), and Dominix (PvE) I’m feeling pretty happy. There are always more skills to learn and that’s the point of a never-ending MMO cycle, but I feel as though over the last few months that I’ve played I’ve finally come to a ‘comfortable’ point in game. I enjoy crafting and invention as much as ever, and I think I’ve finally gotten a grasp on a little more than the game basics. Of course I say that and then read a “real” EVE post and get as confused as I did on day one, but it’s all in good fun.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Guild Instance Runs vs. Pugs #WoW

In true nomadic gamer style I have been playing a handful of games but the majority of my friends seem to have divided themselves between EverQuest 2, and World of Warcraft. Of course being – well, me, I decided that we needed a guild in WoW so I created Dragons Flight on the horde side of Argent Dawn – and then I promptly also made Dragon Flight on the alliance side. We’re a tiny but friendly guild and so far most of the people who have joined are gamers that I’ve been playing with a long time now. Last night the majority of us were level 15 or a few levels higher, so we set out to do our first instances as a guild.That’s on the alliance side at least. On the horde side there is an 85 (hugs!) as well as my 82 priest, and another 81 priest as well as a handful of alts. We’re playing alliance for a change and because not everyone owns the Cataclysm expansion yet.

As a guild we’re pretty lucky. I play a healer and we have a paladin (or two) who are able to tank. That means instant queues right there. Two other members play a hunter and a rogue, so there’s some DPS. My healer was level 21 while everyone was 15 so I decided to try an instance or two on my warlock just so that the others could gain some levels. Well. In true PUG form we had incredibly bad luck with our healers.

The first one left after the first named. Why? No idea. They never said anything to group. The second one joined our instance right as we were fighting a named, and then never moved and promptly went offline. I pulled out my warlock tank pet, and the entire group wiped except me. One of my prouder moments, to be sure. Our third healer was a druid and I couldn’t understand why they seemed to be having an incredibly hard time healing after we died three or four times. Then I checked their playerscore. See, you can dislike this addon all you want but it DOES have its uses. Selecting the player and typing /gs provided me with information about their character and upon further inspection I found out that they were a BALANCE druid which means caster dps. NOT restoration. Now, at level 15 as a balance druid you’re missing one of your biggest heals. Restoration druids gain the ability to turn one of their heal over times into a direct heal. The skill has a fairly quick recast timer and even at 21 it’s my second largest heal. Since the majority of the group was not sporting heirloom even this one little thing was causing huge issues for us.

I asked the druid if he knew that he was balance spec’d even though he had queued up as a healer and he replied that he didn’t mean to join as a healer. O.. K.

Anyhow, it was our first dungeon and it was Deadmines and we were almost done after numerous wipes so we just kept trucking. After the zone was completed I relogged to my healer and we did Ragefire without any issues. I like the changes to Deadmines, particularly the boss fights, and especially the one that smashes the target up against a wall and then sticks to the heads of random players. The final fight with Cookie is also awesome where you have to click on healthy food and avoid the rotten stuff.

When the dust had settled everyone had obtained a few new upgrades and a few levels. My paladin is sitting at 24 and I’m looking forward to doing some more guild tanking of my own. We’re in the midst of raising cash for a guild bank and a few tabs since we’re completely new to not only the alliance faction but the server itself. In the mean time, hopefully everyone is having as much fun as I am.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

This is the Night Life #Sims3

I picked up Night Life a little while ago, the latest Sims 3 expansion. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, but it’s not without bugs. My little (newly created) sim attempted to join a party a friend was having, but for some reason the elevators to the apartment (there are high rises in the newest expansion) were not working so she sat at the entrance just waiting until the party was over. I was also a little sad at the way the newest town was incorporated. I had to move and import my previous sim into the new town, because other wise there’s no way to visit. It’s not a location you can head to at night via taxi.

I do like ‘city life’ though. It’s neat to run into stars, vampires, and other critters roaming the streets at night. The apartment complexes although small are quite interesting looking. You have the choice of moving to a regular house or the apartments. Having a job or a profession is nice, or even being self employed. Bouncers are fun to bribe to get into the hottest locations and there’s always lots to do at the night time hot spots.

For once I find myself taking a break from the creation aspect of the game and actually playing. Normally I just want to design new homes and venues but doing the “story” has been entertaining. Plus the graphics really are amazing. The game has come so far from Sims 1 way back when.When I want a break from MMOs and just want to relax playing something quiet this is typically the game I turn to. No killing involved, just a massively interactive world that I can adjust.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Exploring Archeology #WoW

After reaching levle 81 yesterday and picking up my new skill (and training my new talent point) I decided to slow things down a bit and explore archeology which is a new secondary profession that came out with cataclysm. By secondary profession I mean it doesn’t count towards your maximum of two – it runs on the same lines as cooking, fishing, and first aid.

My trainer was in Orgrimmar so that’s where I headed. Training the skill gives you a survey command, as well as the archeology button that you can click to see your collections. How it works is quite simple. At any one time on all four continents there are dig sites. You can locate these by right clicking your map and viewing in continent mode. You’ll see little shovels marked on the map. The next step is to fly to these locations. When you get close, you’ll see that the map has a red area marked off. This is your dig site area. Landing, you’ll use your survey skill and a little machine pops up that scans the area. It will point a telescope in a direction, and a coloured light shows up. The light indicates how far away you are from your extraction site (red, green, or yellow), and the lens of the telescope points the direction you should head.

From there it’s just a matter of narrowing down your search field. Eventually you’ll scan an area and an item will spawn near by that you can interact with. You extract the item and discover something, fragments, tablets, those sorts of things. So far I have discovered 12 fossils (common) and 17 night elf fragments. These work almost like EQ2 collection quests, where you need a particular number of fragments before you can solve the puzzle. They (the fragments) represent pieces of lore and history within the game, and if you’re looking for something fun and different to do (since WoW lacks housing) I really suggest you give it a try. I need 31 pieces to solve the fossil puzzle, and 30 to solve the night elf one. The rewards are fluff items (as far as I’ve been told) but can include mounts and vanity pets. You also gain experience for extracting fragments just like you would for harvesting (mining, and herbalism).

Like most crafting in WoW, it is level restricted. The dig sites will be in any zone area that is equal to your level or lower. That means if you’re level 30 trying to search for dig sites in Outlands or Northrend you won’t find any. I’m pretty excited to solve my first fragment collection and see what sort of lore / story is revealed. Sure, it’s mindless busywork, but I really don’t mind it at all. There are so many people in a rush to get to end game I’d much rather just take my time and enjoy the sights and sounds.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!