Pulling Me Back In #EVEOnline

There have been a few changes since I last played EVE, and I haven’t really kept up to date with any of them (it’s just the way I am, I rarely keep up with any of the game ‘news’ out there). Of course some changes were unavoidable to notice, like the graphics that have been updated. As soon as I pulled out of the corp hangar I noticed the skies have changed. They’re far more richly detailed, and have a lot of depth to them. It was beautiful.

Even though it’s been a while since I logged in, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had been working on finishing up a new fit for my dominix, my mission running ship. My plan was still saved in EVEMon, so I loaded that up to see what skills I wanted to add to the queue next. After that it was time to check on my PI, set the new programs running and make sure the locations still had room for new produce. I’ll have to pick up the cargo some time this week and ship it out to Jita.

I had some jobs on the go when I stopped playing as well. My copy job completed, I now have a nice selection of hammerhead blueprints. I’ll turn those into hammerhead II blueprints (hopefully), and then produce hammerhead II’s. My research agents have been neglected as well, and I have to go pick up some datacores from them.

From there it’s mission running. Working on my factions so that I can work with better datacore agents and buy nifty faction items. I have been contemplating signing on with a new corp, there are some that are offering a signing bonus to haulers, and it would put my Orca to great use. I’ve never really been part of a large corp before and I’m still trying to decide if it’s something I’d like to try, or if I’m better suited to continue in the smaller corp that I’ve been apart of since I started playing EVE. I did try to give another corp a try, but that didn’t end too well, as they sent me threatening letters when I died, implying that if I were to fly where I shouldn’t they may even simply fire on me so that others could not. Really not a place I wanted to be.

In any case, it’s no surprise that my attention has turned back to EVE at the same time that I’m fully engrossed with Wurm. Last night I was mining in both games, and while they’re at completely different ends of the spectrum, the end result was the same. In Wurm I use a pickaxe to harvest ore to use for items, and in EVE I use a ship with guns to perform the same actions and end up with the same results, ore used to make other items. I’m looking forward to getting back into mission runs, and outfitting the dominix. It’s been a while.

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

 

 

Down Goes Kyklops, Loincloth and All #WurmOnline

The Kyklops finally fell! It was a great time had by many, and even though I didn’t get a title for my participation (there is a chance I may still get it, the organizers have emailed Rolf about this) I still had a great time. There were 106 people who showed up to the event, which is incredibly large for such a tiny sandbox MMO. The fight took 30 minutes, and there were people gathered hours before hand on the docks of Tristan. A huge thank you once again to the hosts of the event, and those who donated prizes.

The Alchemist In Me #WurmOnline

There’s one more incredibly handy skill that Fo priests are allowed to do that other priests are not able to perform. This is the alchemy skill. I’m not quite sure why it’s removed from other priests, but I’m very thankful that Fo priests can still make healing covers and dye.  Lately I’ve been working on this skill in the hopes that I can make my dye stronger colours. Not that there’s anything wrong with the colours I’ve been making, but brighter is always nice.

To make healing covers you combine 2 bits of animal parts together along with some grass, leaves, and moss. The only bits you need to physically have are the two animal parts (handy chart on the wiki on what you can use). So while I write this blog post, my character in game is busy combining deer glands with black wolf paws. Delicious n’est pas? In the screen shot above, the list on the far left hand side is a barrel I have currently holding all of my alchemy supplies. The tab beside that contains kindling, then water, then the contents of my oven (I had a meal and some meat cooking) and then finally my inventory. I’m trying to use up supplies that are decaying first. I’ve made 35 healing covers so far, which is not a large amount. I still have a huge amount of supplies to work through.

I find these tasks incredibly relaxing. I can queue 3 actions at once, work on the 2nd monitor and easily go back to the game when it’s time to queue three more actions. I’m in the safety of my house so I’m not worried about being ambushed by creatures, and I’ve got food and drink with me in case they run low while I’m crafting. The only thing that stops me at this point in time, is when I run out of supplies (which is bound to happen sooner or later).

I’ve managed to reach 25 in my animal husbandry skill, this allows me to see one more trait on the list of traits. None of my horses (or cattle, or deer) have the trait that is related to this skill level, but it’s nice to know that if they did have it, I’d be able to see it. Did you know you can use 0.01 of a horse eye combined with a black wolf paw to make a healing cover? Turns out that’s what I just made.

Gross.

As Arkenor and I are always saying in game, waste not, want not. There’s nothing that goes to waste in this game, it can all be used for something, even if it’s just a sacrifice to my deity for favor. I enjoy that aspect of Wurm, and I’m pleased that I’m now into my second month of playing with no sign of me wanting to stop any time soon – although I will admit, EVE has been calling my name pretty hard lately. I got an email about a 3 month deal for $30, and I may just take advantage of it. Maybe.

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

Loving The 3DS #SuperMario #3DS #Nintendo

I’ve wanted a 3DS for quite some time, and my other half finally gave in and bought one for me about two weeks ago. I’ve had a LOT of fun playing with it daily, and it feels really nice to have a hand held that’s “just for me” as it were. I’m picky about my games – and nintendo offers a nice collection of games that I’ll actually play. There is also an XBox and a PS3 here, but the last game I played on the XBox was Fable 3, and I don’t remember the last time I used the PS3 for more than just Netflix. I used to play Mario games with my Mom growing up, while my Dad was doing his late night radio show. I have fond memories of eating ribs together and getting my younger brothers to beat the harder levels for us. Of course one of my first purchases for the 3DS would have to be a mario game. Actually it was more like my 3rd purchase, but I’ll talk about the other ones in a bit.

I am absolutely loving this game. It was a bit hard for me to get used to the 3D option when I first started playing, but as long as I’m not playing hours at a time (and these days I never am) it doesn’t seem to bother me too much. I can’t get over how amazing things look with the 3D option turned on, it really IS 3D! It makes my mind boggle, to put it bluntly. Looking at the screen without needing any glasses at all is wonderful. I’ve only beat the first world so far, but I just got the game a few days ago, so that’s not bad.

I don’t have a very large collection of games yet, my other two favorites are Super Scribblenauts (and this is for the DS not the 3DS), and Harvest Moon. The 3DS was a bundle that also came with the newest Zelda game, but I haven’t played it yet so I don’t really have any idea about how it is. I’ve never played any Zelda games, actually. My other half has though and seems to enjoy it quite a bit.

Aside from the fun I’m having with games, I really like the camera and camera options. I took the 3DS with me to a hockey game, and red turns out VERY well in 3D, it just so happens that hockey jerseys for my home team come in red, and so now I have a bunch of 3D images of that game saved to the SD card that came with the device. I have also been having an incredible time playing with the “AR Cards” that comes with the 3DS. These cards are just amazing. You place a flat piece of card board on a table with a question mark image on it and using the 3DS suddenly that question mark comes to ‘life’ and all of these amazing 3D images happen based around it. Suddenly you’re not looking through a screen at a camera but you’re fighting a dragon that’s popped up out of your coffee table. Maybe it’s just that simple things amuse me, but I could stare at these illusions for hours and never tire of them. I have five cards right now, and I’m wondering if there’s any way to obtain more.

I’ve also played with Netflix a bit, but the load time and screen reaction is quite slow, so I’d rather just watch it on the Ipad 2 or my PC. Once I got the show I wanted to watch playing it was nice and smooth, but I just felt that the interface was a bit lacking.

Over all? I’m incredibly pleased with the purchase. I love wandering around with the device in my purse, hoping to come across other “mii” who have streetpass on. I’ve only found a few so far, but I don’t venture very far from home so that is probably why. I’m thinking of picking up a pokemon game, I’ve always been interested and have played the card game a few times but never any of the video games. I was thinking of the black or white pokemon games that are out there. Anyone have a suggestion?

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

The Bounty Hunt and Useful Sites #VGD #Vanguard

Looking for things to do in Vanguard never seems to be a problem for me. Remembering what I was doing, and what all the pieces in my inventory were for, now that is a problem. Hampooj and I decided to continue working on the bounty hunter chain of quests in Qalia, hoping for some gear upgrades. The quests are not too difficult in a duo at our level (35) but if you’re doing them solo you may want to be a level or two higher. As it was the later quests were all red, with mobs around level 37-38. We did end up finishing a large portion of the quest chain, and walked away with some nice necklaces as well as a new pair of pants. Next we’ll be going back to get the chest piece.

I mentioned before that information on Vanguard is pretty slim, but that’s not to say there’s none out there. I’ve decided to share some of my most-used favorite Vanguard sites, in the hopes that other readers out there who are giving the game a try will also find them useful. If you know of  a site that I don’t have listed, please let me know and I’ll add it!

  • VGWalkthroughs – a handy site with a few detailed guides on what to do from levels 1-50. It’s missing the newer additions to the game (50-55, flying mount quests, etc) but it’s still great when you’re trying to come up with ideas on where to go.
  • Telonica – A newer wiki that’s attempting to fill in the blanks for people. It still needs a LOT of work, but they’ve got a good start.
  • VGTact – This has been moved, but you can still access this diplomacy wiki and it’s one of the best ones out there.
  • Mount Guide – Created by Warriormonk this doesn’t detail EVERYTHING in game at the moment, but it’s a great start. They have information about all of the vendor sold mounts, a few of the quested. At the bottom of the article you’ll see links to other Vanguard guides, including fishing, griffon quest (incomplete), a leveling guide (incomplete), etc.
  • Soresha.net – A long time supplier of map mods for VG, this site is essential to anyone who has issues with the in-game maps (and that’s pretty much all of us). They’re easy to install, and work wonderfully. I highly recommend players download InfoMap.
  • Gestalt guide – TenTonHammer has a write up about where Psionicists can find their Gestalts. I’ve no idea if it’s up to date or completed, but again it’s better than nothing.
  • Racial Mount Guide – Kayoss.net still has the best racial mount guide, thankfully. Complete with pictures.
  • VGInterface – for your interface needs. Not updated often, but they still work and it’s great to have. I personally use CoreUI.
  • VGNecro – A forum for necromancers with some guides. Hasn’t been updated since August 2011, but there’s still useful information on this site.
  • Leveling Guide – The Vanguard Vault still has a handy leveling guide, even though it doesn’t have any new information on it (50+).
  • VG Crafter’s Resource – Final Resolve has kindly made this portion of their forums public for users, there’s a lot of handy craft information that was lost when the main craft site was taken down.
  • VGCrafters – A newer site that has taken up the collecting of craft information. They have walk throughs for the Artisan’s Saga, which are incredibly handy.
  • Swamp Armor Guide – Another great guide at TenTonHammer, at 45 this armor is available, and you can start faction for it around 42 or so. It can take you up to level 50 as you work on each piece.

If you know of any other active Vanguard sites be sure to let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.