Off to Visit Santa #WurmOnline

wurm.20131228.2243After experiencing a few issues with my web site early last week, I lost two weeks worth of posts and then didn’t really feel like writing. I’m hoping to make up for that over the next little while though. Just because I haven’t written doesn’t mean that I haven’t been playing games!

Most of my time has been spent between Wurm Online and World of Warcraft, two incredibly different games. Wurm is as sandbox as they come, and WoW is a theme park. Still, I love both of them. In Wurm I continue to play on the Pristine server. Actually I decided since I have been neglecting my Exodus deed I would move the token and downsize the place. It used to be approximately 60×60 tiles, and is now 18×18. This lowered my rent a considerable amount and since I had a lot of upkeep pre-paid, I earned all of it back. I shifted that coin over to Pristine, and went shopping, hence the screenshot above.

The market is in the center of the zone and I live along the very south coast. I swam from my island to the mainland, and then proceeded to walk to Blossom. Since the character I decided to go with is a priest of Fo I had no aggro from any creatures along the way. The walk was relatively painless and it was neat to see how the land has changed and been shaped over time. I crossed many deserted deeds, and fought back the urge to pillage. I didn’t want anything to weigh me down until after I got to the market.

Once there, I took out some coin from the token and then browsed through all of the merchants. I picked up three 70 quality weapons. A two-handed sword for the Fo priest, a long sword for my main character, and a large maul for bashing. I also picked up a full set of chain armor for 10 copper per piece. It’s only 60 quality but that was more than enough for me. A copper lantern caught my eye, 70 quality which means the light is quite bright. A 60 ql toolbelt was added to my quickly growing pile of items. I saw a miss-priced emerald and picked that up. I debated getting a new carving knife for working on my fine carpentry skill but decided against it for now. Oh, and I also purchased a shield.

Instead of walking all of the way home I decided to use some of my karma to gate. It costs 1,000 karma but it ports you right back into your town. I had never used the skill before but it worked flawlessly and I was pleased. The coloured smoke you see off in the distance is Santa who stands at Blossom (or stood I suppose, he’s gone now) feeding players delicious holiday food and rewarding premium players with a 99 ql snowball lantern (our gift this year). It was quite a walk, but  really had a great time. No surprise there, I adore exploring in Wurm.

The deed is coming along very well, expect a post about those details to follow! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

 

It’s all about the Pets (and Addons) #WoW

WoWScrnShot_122313_210823I recently picked up two very nice addons for my pet obsession. The first one is called PetTracker and to sum it up, this is an amazing addon.

  • Displays the locations of all pets, stables and tamers on the world map.
  • Tracks your progress of catching pets in your current zone.
  • Shows the rarity of pets in battle and warns you of upgrades.
  • Exposes pet breeds in combat, the journal and tooltips. NEW
  • Displays all your enemies and allies abilities as you fight.
  • Provides a journal of all tamers and their teams. NEW

If you’re working on pet battles I highly suggest you pick this little gem up. You can customize it to track only the pets you’re looking for and there are so many other options. The second addon I got was a suggestion from Kasul who has been leveling up multiple teams so that there is less downtime. This one is called Petbattle Teams.

  • Create an unlimited teams of pets and quickly switch between them in the pet journal.
  • Reliable pet switching even when spammed with requests to change teams.
  • The skills in the tooltip are the saved skill selections
  • The frames location is now saved.
  • Pets are saved to your current team as you make changes, no more hitting save. (This behavior can be disabled by unchecking “Automatically save teams” in the options).
  • Teams can be named, deleted or locked by right clicking the team.
  • Additional options are available from Game Menu -> Interface -> AddOns -> PetBattleTeams

So far my team has hit level 15, and I’ve collected pets in all of the zones that I’ve done battles in. My collection has grown to 183 owned pets, and I’m looking forward to finally hitting 200 and maybe even reaching level 25 one of these days. The battles have started to get a bit more difficult now, I have to fight three on three instead of two on three, but I haven’t had any great losses.

How have your own pet battle experiences been so far? Are you close to reaching level 25 with your team? Any advice for other addons that I may find useful? Let me know in comments!

A Month of Steam Sales

UntitledNormally when the steam sales come around, there is very little I want. This year, was different. See, I made a resolution not to buy a single game unless it was at least 75% off. In the past I’ve just picked up whatever game or expansion came out at release, and that really hurts the wallet. It meant that for the first time I was able to really make use of all the wonderful sales – combine that with some awesome gifts from friends, and you have got one very happy gamer.

What did I end up with as my final tally?

  1. Botanicula
  2. Machinarium (& soundtrack)
  3. Samorost2
  4. Brothers – A tale of two sons
  5. Cook, Serve, Delicious
  6. The Lord of the Rings (LEGO)
  7. Reus
  8. Age of Empires II HD & The Forgotten Expansion
  9. FEZ
  10. Castle Story
  11. Dishonored
  12. Craft the world
  13. Spore Complete pack
  14. Gnomoria
  15. Ittle Dew

I’m really pleased with the games I’ve picked up so far, even though I have yet to play any of them. Santa forgot to give me a some free time this Christmas and things have been hectic between family happenings. I’m not even sure which game I want to start with first! Did you pick up any games this steam sale? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Long Live the Queen

QueenSmallYou are a fourteen year old Princess who just lost her mother, and you’re being trained to become Queen, one day. At least that is what you hope. As you play through the story you learn that you’re not very good at anything at all, especially not the things you need to be good at.

Long Live the Queen is a game rich with story, and a lot of skills that influence that story. You go to classes during the week and decide where to earn your points. There are a lot of different sections to learning to become a queen. Each decision you make influences your mood and you’ll gain a bonus or a penalty towards that skill depending on where your mood is at. It is no good trying to learn expression when the last thing you want to do is talk to people!

The story progresses along and you will either fail or succeed at different situations based on those skills. An evil Duchess may come to live with you and to welcome her to the castle you decide to trip her  – except if you’re anything like me you’ll fail your flexibility roll and then trip over your own two feet instead while your father (the king) looks sadly on.

I don’t want to give away the story, but so far I’m having a lot of fun with it. It is much more involved than Magical Diary, but no less hilarious in some of the choices you get to make. It becomes a bit absurd if you keep in mind that the “princess” is supposed to be 14 years old, but since I am not a kid playing the game, I just chalked it up to humor. These games where I don’t have to worry about hack and slashing my way through dungeons, and can just enjoy the richly detailed world laid out before me are some of my favorites, and I’m so glad I’ve been exploring them.

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

P.S. The fact that this game plays “Long Live the Queen” as the opening song made me giggle to no end.

Dear Esther

2013-12-14_00006Dear Esther is probably one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played. I know it’s hard to categorize it as a game because lets face it, you don’t actually DO anything except wander around desolate locations playing through partial story snippets, but it is a game none the less, and one that I really enjoy. I listened to the dialog as I walked along exploring, wondering if I could get into the little nooks and crannies I found, wondering what the story was of the island, what the sadness was about, how I would have reacted. Feeling, in other words. Yes, this is a game that is all about feeling.

Everything from the graphics, to the music, oozes out a story that you get to piece together and think about.

You can check out some screenshots from the game I’ve posted on my Steam profile (under the username Stargrace) or if you follow me on G+ I’ve posted them there for people to view as well. There were moments during the dialog that I just stood still and listened and looked around me thinking because I found the situation profound. It’s incredibly rare that a video game has that sort of effect on the player, and I’m very glad I gave this one a try.

Of course, these types of games are not for everyone (just one of the perks of us all being different types of gamers) but if you’re looking to get away from combat and the constant wars that go on in video games I would highly suggest you give it a try.