Legacy Family 2.0 Moving On Up #TS3 #TheSims3

Screenshot-445BBIt has been a while since I posted about my adventures in Sims 3, but I am still playing. I started my legacy family over some time ago because I had (inadvertently) broken a bunch of (self imposed) rules like moving lots (and entire towns in my case). I don’t mind starting over but it did take some time to get my family back to the point where there was more to life than simply finding flowers to be able to afford another wall to the house.

Blesse and Jack (the elder she eventually married) gave birth to a baby boy named – Teddygirl. An interesting story behind this name, I happened to be streaming my legacy family on Twitch for the Extra Life benefit when my sim went into labor. Those who were watching shouted out whether they thought the baby would be a boy or a girl, and I named the child after the first person to guess correctly. Congratulations again, Teddygirl, although this baby boy may have a rough time when he heads to school.

Jack is in the military and makes a pretty good salary since he’s almost ready for retirement. Blesse is a school teacher, not very far into her career. I’ve managed to build a modest home for the family along with a basement (after todays session) that includes their first washer and dryer. They own a very ancient television and an exercise machine (mostly for Jack).

They also have a pet kitten, Mushi, who just turned into an adult. I’m excited about Teddygirl aging up so that there are more interactions besides ‘eat, sleep, and poop.’ I purchased him a really awesome UFO tree house and a swing set that he’s too young to make use of yet (although certain adult activities can be done in the tree house, and adults can also use the swing sets).

Hopefully Teddygirl can find himself a nice lady to settle down with, and progress the legacy forward. We’ll just have to see!

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

Bridges Coming to Wurm Online (oh my) #WurmOnline

1468576_687064091312662_1291102745_nI still play on Exodus with Stargrace and Faralithe, and I still have Blesse over on Pristine although that account is currently inactive (just too expensive to keep everyone premium). Today I took a rare sailboat that was donated to me by Yetian (who is staying at my deed while we wait to see if Pristine ever joins the rest of the server clusters ) over to Deliverance to check on my merchant at Puzzle Plaza. I had almost 5 silver waiting on my merchant, so I decided to brave the walk and head from the south coast to the market. Not too bad of a walk, I do have 75 fight skill, but I am also not wearing any armor at the moment, so things tend to hurt (it’s on my list).

Anyhow, the real excitement came when I saw that the developers have been working on new bridges for the game. Above is one of three models they’ve posted so far, the stone one. I do think that their rope and wood bridges also look fantastic, but if you want to see those ones you’ll have to check them out yourself, you can find pictures on facebook, twitter, and the forums (and my G+ profile if you happen to use that). I’m eager to see what people do with these bridges. Will they span servers connecting people together? Will they at least span oceans, and islands? It opens up so much travel potential – of course a lot of that depends on the state of decay and how quickly these bridges may fall apart. Hopefully people using them will do their bit to help repair.

There are also some new torches in the works that are supposed to be ideal for lighting dark areas – like the inside of mines. I’m also excited about this, even with lights my mine is incredibly dark, and some characters rarely ever see the light of day because of all the mining they do.

I managed to finish off a house project that I had started some time ago. I grabbed a bunch of clay on my way home from Deliverance (I haven’t bothered to find out where there is clay close to me on Exodus) and after completing the last 7 remaining walls (20 mortar and 20 bricks each wall) I was able to add the roof. I’m debating adding a second floor but I usually prefer single story homes. We’ll see how adventurous I get.

Aside from that life in Wurm (lately) has been pretty quiet. Until I outfit myself with a bit more armor I haven’t been wandering far from home or exploring. I’m hoping to change that a bit this week perhaps, first I’ll have to stockpile some food and drink and a bandage or two.

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

Did You Know? #EQ2 #EverQuest2

EQ2_000285Pictured above, the inside of my awesome cabin that I mentioned from yesterday. The drapes actually work (they open and close) which was one of the coolest items that the SOE team could have released. They’re made by carpenters, although there are also drapes you can purchase from the station cash store.

I learned something new yesterday!

Ever since Tears of Veeshan went live, I have been avoiding the black globes in the sky. It turns out, these have the chance to be shinies! Now there are two types. One is a large easy to see black globe with lightning coming off of it. These can be one of three things. A speed boost, a speed debuff, OR a shiny. Then there are other smaller very difficult to see in the sky black shards that look like tiny little lightning clouds, or cracks. These are always shinies, and there are a few collections hidden within them so chances are you’ll get a random one.

I had no idea!

I spent yesterday working on a few things. I added crit chance adornments to both my swashbuckler and my fury, and then I proceeded to complete advanced solo dungeons for etyma. I’m still saving up for the blue gem recipe, and I’m getting close to being able to afford it.

I also bought my second piece of SLR gear (selling loot rights). There was a dagger up for sale that I really wanted, and since I have been sitting on a bit of cash for some time now I decided to just go for it. I paid 2,000 plat for the dagger and couldn’t be more pleased. It’s rare that I purchase items that expensive for my characters, but in this case I think it was worth it.

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

Instances and Decorating #EQ2 #EverQuest2

EQ2_000291Yesterday I decided to start decorating part of the guild hall. I decided to create a cottage in the courtyard for myself, along with a little garden. As you can tell by the screenshot above it turned out quite well! I added a fireplace and a chimney with smoke that puffs from the top (thanks to the fog machines from nights of the dead that I sunk into the stone).

Once I was done decorating, it was time to attempt another heroic instance in Tears of Veeshan. This time the group was a bit more prepared (with gear) and we decided to head into the Hive. The group consisted of:

  • Shadowknight (tank)
  • Inquisitor (boxed)
  • Berserker
  • Swashbuckler (me)
  • Fury (boxed by me)
  • Monk (mercenary)

The first named posed little issue. The tank held the named while we burned down the blobs that spawned, and while he would sometimes heal it was manageable. Our first truly difficult encounter came with the bixie that has two bears alongside. The bears would charge off in the direction of a player and pretty much instantly kill. Our mechanic was simple, run around in crazy directions so the bears don’t touch you. Die a lot. Hope a healer could rez. It took a few tries, but eventually this method actually worked. Of course most of the fight was the shadowknight soloing the entire encounter along with the monk mercenary, but still, we succeeded.

Our next difficult fight came from the flaming bird mid way through the zone. They cast an aoe incineration that one shot anyone who was too close. It meant a lot of laying on the ground while again the tank and mercenary did all of the work, but again we were successful. We had some issues with one named that summons a lot of adds while frogloks look on help but we didn’t wipe on that encounter so I consider it one of the lesser evils of the zone.

I’m not sure what the purpose or reasoning is, but there are four sense of urgency you can earn per zone. Each one requires a shorter completion time. It feels very forced to have so many achievements for the exact same thing when there are better achievements to add, but so be it. We earned three out of the four, and completed the zone earning our first piece of arcane gear which can be upgraded with blue gems (that I’m hoping to purchase the recipe for today). It was nice to be able to complete a heroic dungeon, and I’m looking forward to completing more in the future. There’s a patch today that fixes some of the ToV issues that have been reported, and that should help some.

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

The Difference Between Quest gear and Solo Advanced Gear #EQ2 #EverQuest2

EQ2_000281People in channels keep asking what the point of advanced solo dungeons are because they reward gear that’s equal in stats to the items that you quest for out in the open world.

Except they’re not the same.

What is very hard to see is that the armor piece that you loot can actually be upgraded four times with gems. You can’t tell that these armor pieces can be upgraded unless you examine the piece, and then you’ll see at the top on the left hand side a little blurb that says 0/4 gems.

How do you get these gems?

Easily enough. There are recipes for these gems for crafters, or you can purchase the gems outright from a vendor in Vesspyre.

  • Cryptic – Advanced Solo (up to 4 yellow gems)
  • Arcane – Tier 1 Heroic (up to 4 blue gems)
  • Potent – Tier 2 Heroic (up to 3 green gems)
  • Energized – Tier 1 Raid (1 red gem)
  • Mystical – Tier 2 Raid (1 purple gem)

EQ2wire has a fantastic write up on their FAQ about these gems. I highly suggest people go check it out. Hopefully, SOE will make these gem slots a bit more noticeable in the future because as it stands right now unless you go to outside sources and read about it, or you pick it up from another player, it is incredibly difficult to learn about them. Mousing over the gear mentions nothing of the gem slots.