Redemption Mud

The year was 2001, and I was completely enthralled with a mud called Redemption. I played a number of characters, became an imm briefly and made a ton of friends while I was there, a portion of whom I still keep in touch with. I had just moved out on my own a few years previous, and I owned my very first computer. Sure, our home always had a computer in it, but it was considered my Dad’s computer, so while we were allowed to use it, it was certainly not ‘ours’ in any way.

Redemption shut down back in 2013, and in 2009 I went and visited again briefly. It was revived late in 2014 (as far as I can tell) and is once again active. I couldn’t remember all of my character names but I did remember a few. Aimee. Taya. Miyu. I think I used to have a green dragon called Snuggle or Snuggles or something, too. I tried to log in as those characters but they’ve been deleted, either by myself or someone else I’m not sure.

I was able to log in as Stargrace, the character I created in 2009.

Things have changed, but not that much. The game still plays very much the same. There are even some of the same people there. I am not sure if any of them remembered who I was, but it was interesting talking to them none the less. It was also completely strange to be walking around in the text based game that I spent so much time in so many many years ago. Slowly commands and directions started coming back to me. Before I knew it, my level 1 dragon cleric (9k to level) was level 5. Though I am thinking about remaking, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t thinking clearly when I created the character. Maybe I’ll try to re-create one of the characters from my past. I can’t create Aimee as it tells me the name is illegal (I have no idea why, she was a simple non-clanner) but I can try some of the others.

So while E3 was going on today and everyone was ooh’ing and aaahh’ing over the latest 4k graphics and games coming out, I was playing a text based game with the biggest grin on my face. Sometimes, it really is the simple things.

I’ll be streaming Redemption on Thursday for my newest Throwback Thursday feature, starting on twitch at 7:30pm PDT. Please give the channel a follow so you don’t miss any of my other streams!

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

BDO – Woah

I haven’t played BDO since it released back in 2015, finding it an incredibly grind-orientated game, with confusing features that I could never keep track of. Know what has changed? Very little.

If you try to return to BDO after two years away chances are you’re going to remember even LESS than what you used to know. Just how it works. The only way to bypass this is to create a new character and run through the tutorial (or read the tutorial messages) so you can re-learn everything like how to free mouse look.

I did get some mail from my family. 100,000,000 silver. I’ve been gone a while, what can I say. My sorcerer was still there, still hanging out at one of her houses. I had a (get ready for this) 77 gig patch, before I could play.

77.

I’m not exaggerating.

It would have been easier for me to just re-download the entire game instead of just patching it.

I’m also frustrated that I can’t play through the steam client (unless I add BDO as a non-steam game) because it would require me purchasing a brand new account for $10 (or $6 on sale, USD). I already bought one of the expensive starter packs, the least they could let me do is launch it from the platform of my choosing.

Anyway.

I spent the entire day cleaning out my mailbox. Wow. BDO REALLY enjoys their events, and at the start they were giving away potions and goodies like candy any time there was a slight disruption in service. After two years, that adds up. So did my lack of inventory space which just reminded me how this game gets you.

Still, it is an absolutely beautiful game. The cameras available for pictures are stunning. The game play didn’t catch on for me any more than it did last time, and I’m pretty sure I could have found something better to do with the 77 gigs I downloaded.

It was neat to see that BDO is going to be heading to XBox. I hope it does well there, just like it seems to be doing well now with the steam release. It’s not a bad game by any means, it’s just not the game for me.

GW2 – Getting Familiar (Again)

Last night I decided to dive back into Guild Wars 2 and see what I had missed. I played briefly when HoT released, but it has been some time since then. My stream had a rocky start (a pretty bad stuttering issue when I first started the stream, and then some issues with the music being louder than me talking) but it didn’t take long to get off and running.

Literally.

I checked out my guardian and noticed that her personal story was at the level 10 stage. I had leveled my characters up by doing crafting instead of adventuring, so I missed out on pretty much everything. This is my second account so I just wanted to level up as fast as possible and move past the content I had already done (many) times before on my old account. I headed off to do my level 10 story and… got completely stuck. I had NO idea where the instance wanted me to go to progress the line. I walked all over the place but was constantly told if I walked any further I’d be outside the instance lines (looking back, the NPCs wanted me to go under the water.. I just didn’t grasp that at the time).

Instead I headed out to do the opening sequence that leads you to HoT. Lots of information about lost troops and the bad guys basically destroying everything.

I didn’t get too far into it before my hour of game time was up, but it was nice to be playing. I really enjoyed GW2 when I had more time to play. I still saw players everywhere, and while it may not be as busy as it was, it’s still a pretty hopping game. I always smile to see things like that. I never want a game to fail. Sure, there are games out there that I don’t particularly like, genres I don’t enjoy playing, but that’s perfectly OK. Not all games have to be for me.

My characters all passed another birthday so I picked up the goodies from that, too. Scrolls, miniatures, everything deserving of cluttering my bags. If you missed the stream and want to take a peek, you can head on over to my twitch channel: http://twitch.tv/stargrace. If you like what you see, please consider giving a follow! I stream Tuesday-Friday 7:30 PDT-8:30 PDT.

Have you recently returned to a game and if so are you enjoying yourself? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

A Stream Scheduling Change (Life Happens)

I had intended to stream Black Desert Online last night at 7pm PDT but that didn’t happen.

I wasn’t feeling the game, my mood was a bit bleh, and instead I hopped into Gwent: The Witcher Cardgame. Things were moving along at a pretty nice pace, I was 13 minutes into my stream (yes, I remember the exact minute) and I was doing a multiplayer game against a random person (my apologies, whoever you were, but at least you won).

My little guy doesn’t sleep through the night quite yet, and last night was a rough one for him so at the 13 minute mark I had to suddenly sign off and go take care of him. He was screaming and crying and wouldn’t calm down which I hear is pretty normal for 8 month old babies. Truth of the matter is I may just not be able to stream until he’s a bit older or at least sleeping through the night.

In a test, I’m moving my Tuesday to Friday streams up half an hour, from 7:30-8:30 PDT instead of from 7-8. I’m hoping this gives my little guy more time to fall soundly asleep, leaving me with at least an hour to stream. I don’t know if this will work, I may be too tired, he may still wake up, a number of other factors come into play. I REALLY want to stream. Right now I feel like my days are 99% baby filled (which they are) and the small 1% I’m entitled to helps me keep my sanity. Unfortunately it also comes down to the fact that I need sleep. A lot of sleep. I’m a nursing first time mother and sleep is incredibly important. When he starts sleeping through the night hopefully I’ll also be able to sleep more soundly and I may have more time to stream then. I need to find the balance that lets me take good care of my family, and also allow myself that 1% of sanity. I am still a human being, after all.

So! Tonight should be guild wars 2. 7:30 PDT. We’ll see how that goes. Please tune in, give my channel a follow, and stick around if you enjoy things.

What happens on the Rim..

Last night I streamed RimWorld once again, continuing off from the cliffhanger of the night before. We were down to four colonists, being raided by five pirates with guns. We had two guns, and two knives.

Would we survive?

Turns out, we did. Barely.

Then things progressed, we expanded the base, created more gardens, supplied clothing to the nude – and another raid came along.

This time there were seven of them, all of them with guns.

Our colonists fought with all of their might, but two of them were kidnapped (girlvsmmo and carloverz28) and the two remaining colonists, Hampooj and Scopique, couldn’t fend off the attackers. The pirates decided to give up after kidnapping our colonists – but not before setting fire to our base, including the solar panels and the wind turbine. This created a continual burning fire within the base, and things got hot. REALLY hot. It was a whooping 180C inside the base at one point and that’s when Scopique succumbed to his injuries. Soon afterward Hampooj passed because there was no one to take care of him.

Bront, our pet Ori, survived the attack and wandered around the empty base feasting on corpses because all of our meals and the remaining supplies had burned up.

That’s life on the Rim for you.

If you’re interested in watching the series, you can find it over on both my YouTube channel and over on twitch.

Today (Thursday June 8th at the time of this post) I’ll be streaming some Black Desert Online, starting at 7pm PDT (until 8pm PDT) – so be sure to tune in! I’m working on the game schedule for next week, I’m thinking some Wurm Unlimited, combined with.. well, we’ll just have to see!

I’m also trying to raise some funds for a new computer chair, so if you happen to be feeling generous and want to support me please stop on by my donation page. As always, thank you, and happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!