Category: Gaming

A Day Spent Decorating, and Chronomagic Goodies

I absolutely love the little statue replicas of the boss mobs that you can purchase once you’ve completed the daily chronomagic quest. I spent most of yesterday working on my Norrathian museum, I expanded the library so that the shelves are now floor to ceiling, and since SOE gave all homes an extra room in their last big update, I decided to take that and pannel it with wantia, and then add my replicas to that room.

My favorite (so far, since I don’t own them all) is the one pictured above. Well before any of the mobs had that graphic in later expansions, that is the boss from an instance within Fallen Gate. It’s by far the best ‘boss’ graphic I’ve ever seen, and I LOVE fighting this creature. I realize now it shares a graphic with a TSO boss, but the Fallen Gate version is a lot easier (grins).

The chronomagic quest from yesterday also sent Calreth and I off to the Shard of Fear in order to kill Kyr’Tok, who is pictured above on the right. I love how each one of the replicas are so exceptionally detailed, they really did turn out amazing. Maybe it’s silly that I spent an entire day decorating in game instead of raiding or grinding quests, but I still had a blast. The museum is almost at the point now where all I need to do is place artifacts as I obtain them, rather then having to design entire rooms. The basement still needs to be turned into living quarters for Ellithia, but it’s coming along.

As always if you’re interested in checking out the house (and maybe the very expansive player written library I own) please feel free to head to the North Freeport Mage Tower, bottom floor (LoN magical housing) and look for Ellithia on the door. If you’d like to donate to the museum, please just add me to friends and let me know!

As a side note – if anyone out there has a spare griffon tower house item (it came from the live event that took place to build the towers a few years ago) please let me know! I’d be willing to pay 500p+ for one if I could get one. I used to have one but it was sadly lost in transit as I moved servers. Some how I doubt anyone would really be willing to give theirs up, but it’s an important part of Norrathian history that I’d absolutely love to be able to reclaim.

Safe travels, no matter what game you find yourself in!

Achievements and Good Friends

Some how last night the planets aligned and we had a good number of guild mates on – that pretty much never happens these days. Not only were Wpus, Calreth, and Hamal around but the very elusive Tipa made an appearance!  We met up with a friend who is doing the 14-day trial of EQ2, and headed to Wailing Caves, on a Friday night it was packed (and is a small zone to begin with) so we quickly changed our minds and headed to Blackburrow. I needed the named Champion in the zone for my Shattered Lands achievement, so we spent some time camping the basement waiting for him to spawn.

Since we were already inadvertently working on achievements, I decided to continue along those lines for the remainder of the evening. With the help of Calreth and Hamal I managed to finish off my Ro achievements (and received some very ugly armor in a crate) as well as my Kingdom of Sky achievements (a nicer crate of clothes for those ones). I’m slowly moving up through my final three aa, but it’s pretty slow. I’m looking forward to feeling as though I’ve “completed” a character. Then of course it’s time to move on to the next character.

I also managed to pick up a few books that I didn’t own yet for my player written library. I want to work on my housing some this weekend, I really don’t like the tables I’ve used as “desks” in the upstairs portion, I think I can build or create something better there. We’ll just have to see!

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend as always! Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

Learning the Fine Art of Combat

In my previous post on Fallen Earth I was asked how combat worked, what I thought of it. Since I’m 100% newb when it comes to the combat of Fallen Earth (and similar games) I’m going to talk about it from that perspective. I’ve never played shooting games (which I’ve stated before) and aiming is (at the moment) uncomfortable for me – but I’m getting the hang of it.

The first thing I really had to learn, and I had to learn fast, was how to switch my weapons around during combat. Control 1 and Control 2 will move between the first two weapons, but you’ll want to look at your weapon screen to find out the hot keys for the rest. I can’t remember them off the top of my head. Some times I’d want to start out with a ranged attack, and then move closer to my target. I had one major problem with this and it’s from years of playing nothing but my fantasy based MMOs. I don’t use WASD to move, I use my number pad. I don’t use my mouse for gaming. In Fallen Earth you must adapt and learn how to move with the WASD (and some times q and e) keys. This will save you a LOT of difficult game play later on. If I were used to those keys I wouldn’t have nearly as many issues as I do now. The game works (as I imagine) any shooter game would work. You move your character with your left hand, and you aim and shoot (or aim and smack if you’re using a melee type weapon) with the mouse. The controls are pretty simple, and if you’re already used to them you’re already ahead of me.

A few other things I had to get used to. While you can click and target a mob, you can’t auto attack per say that I can see. You have skills that you can hit before you’re even in combat, and it will cue them for once your actual attacks start. Hitting the center key on the mouse pad causes you to enter (or exit) combat mode, it brings up the little round circle in the center of the screen that indicates where you’re hitting. Once you’ve got a target, the right and left mouse buttons will cause whatever you have equipped to attack whatever you’ve focused your circle on. Of course mobs (and players) don’t stand still, so you’re constantly moving your character around, moving your aiming around, and trying to coordinate all of that to go off together all at once. Again, I’ve never done any of this until I started playing Fallen Earth, so I don’t have years of expertise to back me up. It’s going to take a lot to get used to. I felt better knowing I wasn’t the only one who had to get used to control, as Wpus who was trying out the game with me decided to accidentally blow up the ATV you’re asked to ride in the tutorial. He’s also shot his mount Old Mare a few times. Thank goodness you can repair those.

The combat is fun, a LOT of fun. I enjoy being able to have so much control over my movement, and aiming. I love attacking from range (and cackling gleefully though I’ll deny it if anyone asks) while I walk up to melee range and then taking out my wooden plank to lay a few smacks. So far things have been simple enough that I feel like I’m being eased into it rather then flung head first. The tutorial gets you pretty familiar with the basics, and the first few quests I’ve picked up have helped out a lot. If you’re not a quest person I would highly suggest you try to be one. I’ve spent three hours (roughly) in game, and I’m level 2. There’s so much to see. I squealed like a child when I realized that the pylons surrounding some junk car could actually be moved and toppled over, and rolled down the street. It’s those things that make me want to play more.

Hopefully that explains the very very basics to combat, at least the things I’ve learned so far. I’ll write more about my adventures as soon as I have a little more free time!

Maybe You’re Just Not That Good

Alright. I typically refrain from making these types of posts on my web site because I’ve always taken a ‘my web site is not for controversy’ stand. However, this thought has been filtering around in my mind for quite some time now, and it has to be said.

VERY often in games you’ll hear the phrase “must have y piece of gear” (where y equals some random piece of ‘uber’ gear whatever that may be at the time). Since I spend most of my time in EQ2 I’ll use that as an example. In the 70-79 channel you will hear no less then 10 times a day that people are looking for those who ONLY have their mythical. Not only that, but you will hear numerous people exclaim that unless the entire group has said piece of gear, you will not be able to beat it.

My question to people who say that or think that way is – did you ever think maybe you’re just not that good at the game, and THAT is why you require those pieces of gear in your groups.

There are VERY FEW zones that MUST have a particular piece of gear to complete. There are so many other factors that come into play, and the very basic one is PLAYING WELL. I know I use the example of my group mates very often, but that’s what it comes down to. We beat every TSO instance except for Palace and one of the Guks BEFORE any of us obtained any raid gear (T3+) or mythicals. Sure, we died. We died a lot some times. We still did it, and what’s more we did it as three or four people, boxing. We did own master spells, we worked very hard on getting our characters as well geared as we possibly could within our means. Saving up coin, sharing between us when we could, buying spells for one another, using the research assistants.

Imagine what a whole group could have done. We defeated Ravenscale without mythicals, wearing T2 gear and instance drops. It’s not impossible (now Ravenscale is childs play). Sure, we weren’t about to take down Varsoon any time soon (hah) but we tried zones over and over until we found a way that worked for us. Some times that involved switching characters around, or using means that were not conventional (we used charm in the guks for example) and it sure wasn’t easy – but we have NEVER ever said – oh, you must have T3+ and a mythical and 200aa before you can come with us so we can defeat this encounter.

I think some times people have an over glorified picture of how good they are at something. Especially in video games because the game itself causes you to think you’re amazing. The NPCs shout your praise, and you’re framed as the hero. Lets face it, some people are just not any good. They don’t know their character, they haven’t done any research, they don’t know what spells to cast and when – and that is what will hold you back.

Next time you see someone LFG who doesn’t have their mythical and isn’t decked to the gills with raid gear, think of giving them a chance and taking them along with you anyhow. Do mythicals and great gear make things easier? Of course they do. A LOT easier, but what ever happened to the thrill of taking down a really difficult encounter as the underdog. Not everyone raids or wants to and you can argue the fact that “good” players will have their mythical, but that’s not always true. There are a lot of really bad players who ride the coat tails of guilds and have better gear then anything I’ll ever see. Just like there are some amazing players who are wearing mastercrafted.

Lets face it, when it comes to Fallen Earth and the combat in that game, I’m horrible. I admit it. I’m really bad and it will take me a very long time to feel like I’m any good at it. Some times, we’re just not that good, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

A Mix of Games

Yesterday morning I was heading into Aion to get some work done, but alas the game was down for patches. So I decided to turn to Fallen Earth – which was also down for patches until 5pm EST. Dang it! With all of my regular choices down, I had a few options still. I could log into EQ2 which I haven’t really felt the pull of lately (sorry!) or play someone off line. Dragon Age has been taunting me and begging me to play – but something with an even stronger pull, was Sims 3.

I love the sims. I played Sims before I was into any other video games at all. Before I got into MUDS, MMOs, consoles, etc. Sims was the game for me. I even played the Sims Online and started doing online radio shows as my persona “April Love” in the wee hours of the morning. It was fun, though I burned out fast.

Since I recently reinstalled windows on my PC everything from my previous games was wiped. I decided to start over fresh, and I simply had a blast with it.

It’s fun to take control of a world that resembles real life. Why? I’m not exactly sure. It just is. Where in previous versions of the Sims my biggest pull was creating and designing houses and very little actual game play, this time around it’s different. The story pulls me in, the choices I can make and the direction I can set my little Sim off to.

It was a great way to spend the day, and one that I wasn’t expecting. I hadn’t played Sims 3 in quite some time, but EA also released a new expansion (the first) for Sims 3, so I was excited about that. I haven’t decided if I want to pick it up yet, but chances are I will. I don’t want to mess with tradition after all!

Hope everyone has a fantastic Thursday, no matter where you find yourself.