Agnarr – The Latest Progression Server

I love progression servers and I must not be alone in that. EverQuest has opened up their latest – Agnarr – and it’s a Planes of Power progression server, which means that it will unlock content slowly up to the Planes of Power expansion and then stop. Well, sort of stops. They’re also going to release Legacy of Ykesha and Lost Dungeons of Norrath, but neither of those expansions raise the level cap from 65.

Daybreak is also holding a contest where you can win some neat stuff, details are on this post here and if you’re interested in the Agnarr FAQ you can find that here too. Content unlocks every 12 weeks. It’s also a ‘true box’ server, which means you can only play one account from your PC – they’re trying to encourage grouping.

Will I play?

Well. You need to have an active subscription to play on the timelocked progression servers, and I’m not sure how much of my subscription I have left (I’ll have to look into it). I’m also not sure how much time I can actually dedicate to playing EQ – it’s a time intensive game where you’ll want to group up most of the time to make the most of your time.

That being said, I’ll probably look into it just because of nostalgia and see if I can get anywhere.

Gwent – Open Beta

I’ve never played The Witcher before, but I know a lot of people who have and who enjoy it a huge amount. Apparently within the game there’s a card game called Gwent, and now it’s a real card game that you can play. I love these types of games so when I heard it was going into Open Beta and anyone could try it out, I decided to jump on it. I downloaded it from GOG (pretty easy to set up) and it’s almost a 2gb download but it went smooth. You can find me on GOG as Stargrace if you’re looking to add friends for matches.

The game is pretty easy to get into (at least the basics). I haven’t done any deck building nor do I know what all of the ore etc rewards are for that I keep getting, but the basics are simple.

You have 11 cards. They have to last you at least 2 wins, or a total of three rounds, whichever happens first. You need to score more points than your opponent in order to win that round. The round ends when you either pass (as does your opponent) or when you run out of cards and are forced to pass.

There’s a few different decks, each with different abilities. There’s a leader card that can only be played once in any given game, and weather cards that can affect the board. You can trade cards in at the beginning of the round for some different ones, and it basically plays the same as any other virtual card game out there. Strategy comes into play when you’re running low on cards. Do you eat a loss one round so you can save cards for the next one and potentially win, or do you want to make your opponent run out of cards first.

The tutorial does an excellent job of guiding you through the initial game and I imagine if you’ve ever played the game in The Witcher you’ll already be pretty familiar with it. If you’ve ever played any other types of card games like this (Magic The Gathering, Legends of Norrath, heck even Harthstone) you’ll be familiar with the basics and you’ll be able to pick the rest up. I’m not sure how long the open beta lasts for, but I had a good evening playing vs. a few friends and streaming it over on Mixer. You can catch the VOD replay for the next 14 days (just scroll down my channel to where it says previous broadcasts) before they’re taken down.

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

Mixer – The New Beam

Yesterday the Microsoft owned streaming platform formerly known as Beam was re-branded as Mixer. I joined Beam quite some time ago but I haven’t actually gotten around to streaming on the platform even though I have spent a number of hours watching others use it to stream. The interface is sleek, there’s almost zero delay between the stream and your chat which makes things incredibly nice when it comes to interaction.

None of that is the main reason I like this particular platform though.

As a gamer, community is key to me. When a platform I use gets shut down, it bothers me. Imzy is one such platform though they were not for streaming (you’ve probably never heard of it and that’s OK). Forge is another streaming platform that I used to use but it has changed and redesigned itself so many times I find it unreliable and I don’t have very much faith in it (plus it no longer does what I wanted it to do). The fact that Microsoft owns Mixer sits very well with me because they’re an established company with money at their disposal. It gives me a little tiny bit of confidence that Mixer (even under a new name) isn’t going anywhere, and that they’re invested in the product.

If you’d like to follow on Mixer you can find me there as Mixer.com/Stargrace – the same handle you can find me as pretty much everywhere. If you’re on Mixer, let me know your user name so I can give you a follow back! I spend a lot of time looking for awesome streamers to watch and I’d love to see more of my friends streaming. You’d be surprised at the things other people find interesting enough to watch (as I say this, I’m watching a stream of a seagul nesting. Yesterday I spent the better part of the day with a stream of puppies playing in the background).

If you’re trying Mixer for the first time let me know what you think of it! They’ve just announced a ton of new features including co-streaming, which is really neat to see in action. You can just invite whomever you wish to co-stream (for a maximum of three invites, four streamers total) and the chat channels will merge while the display shows each streamer. Perfect for matches of Overwatch or Mario Kart.

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

Flying (again)

I knew I had a PLEX sitting around, and decided that it was time to make use of it. EVE has been calling my name for a little while, and I’m usually pretty good at resisting the siren call – but not this time. This time I wanted to play.

PLEX has changed some (I think in March is when it started?) Instead of it being a single PLEX they have measurements like a type of currency. A month of game time is no longer 1 PLEX, but is 500 PLEX. You can purchase different amounts and use them for not only game time, but for character and account functions. You can sell small or large amounts for ISK just like before, and the value of PLEX has changed because of this. If you were to purchase 1 month of PLEX from the CPP store, it would cost approximately $25 USD (you can purchase 110 PLEX increments for $4.99). Meanwhile my subscription only costs $9.99.

Anyway, I logged in and actually remembered what I was up to for once. There were a few items for me to claim, and I had been working on faction in order to fix my standing with an R&D agent. I’m still sitting at -2.1 but it’s a start. I don’t know what I did to mess the faction up, I must have been working on missions that had me attacking them. Anyway, it’s something I can fix at least. I also checked in on my planetary colonies (I believe it used to be called Planetary Interaction, or PI) and set those working again. I joined the help channel to watch a little bit of chit chat flow back and forth and to pick up little tidbits of knowledge. There’s still so much about the game that I don’t know.

I flew L1 missions for most of the afternoon, taking my time, enjoying the views. Not great rewards, especially flying them in a Tengu, but it’s a start. As I work my faction up I’ll be able to access the more difficult missions and get some better rewards. Once I fix my faction I intend on going back to producing drones to sell at JITA. I haven’t done any mining yet (aside from the little bit that a mission had me doing) but I’m looking forward to some relaxing time hanging out in my hulk (or whatever other ship I decide to take out that day).

Speaking of ships, I need to figure out what I want to fly (build, collect) next. I have about 15 ships, which isn’t that many. I know a few new ones have been added since I played last, and I’m wondering what I need to be able to try them out. I guess I’ll have to research a bit!

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

If You Had all the Time in the World

If you had all the time in the world to play video games – what would you play? Would you spend the majority of your time in just one game at a time, slowly accomplishing whatever goals you had set out for yourself before moving on, or would you bounce around from game to game, following whatever whims you had for the day?

Do you think your gaming habits would be any different than they are now?

These are the sorts of things I think about when I can’t actually play a game. I have been what I call a ‘nomadic gamer’ for quite some time. I don’t really settle, I bounce around between a few games. Most of them are my ‘tried tested and true’ games. Games I’ve played for years now, and who feel like a comfortable sweater I’m putting on. Those games are familiar, EQ2. EQ. WoW. EVE Online. Wurm Unlimited (or Online). Sims of any form. Banished. RimWorld (a newer addition, but still an addition). Then there are a handful of games that I’d like to get a chance to play that take a back seat to my old favourites. Overwatch falls into that category, as does pretty much 80% of my steam library that I’ve never touched (thank you HumbleBundle).

Gaming is a way for me to relax, and while I enjoy learning and exploring new worlds I find greater comfort in wandering through worlds I’m already familiar with (or at least titles and developers I’m familiar with). Civilization, Tropico, etc. These games are ones I’ve played in various forms over the years, and they’ve helped me through some pretty dark times.

Trying to find a balance of what I WANT to play vs. What I have time to play is a delicate act. The more limited my time is, the more I want to just curl up with that familiar sweater instead of trying to stretch a new one to be as comfortable. Sure, it can be done, and I know exactly which sweaters will end up just as comfortable as my old ones, but it takes time to get there – and time is precious. A cliche, but true. That’s why I end up lusting over a whole slew of games but actually playing very few different ones over the years. Yes, I do try new games – but a lot of my ‘free’ time is spent in familiar worlds that are a simple comfort to hang out in.

Enough musing for one day, it’s time to play some games!