games – A Pixel Nomad

[Life] Steam Machine Thoughts

I’m going to preface this by saying that this is not an unbiased review of the steam machine. We’ve had a steam deck in our house since 2022, and absolutely love it (for reasons that I’ll get into shortly). It is not a surprise that we also enjoy the steam machine a great deal. If you’re looking for unbiased comments or someone who hates it you’ll have to keep searching.

To start things off, we are a 4 person gaming household. We have two PC, a laptop, and (previously) the steam deck (now replaced by the steam machine). We also have a Switch 2, but that isn’t the object of this post.

Our steam deck handled our (huge) steam libraries, including family sharing, and also hosts our xbox game pass (streaming library). That in itself is a very large collection of games. The steam deck would see daily use, but it had some limitations, not all games work, and some games really needed a mouse / keyboard combination. It has also been a few years now, and I’m not certain if you can upgrade the hardware, it was starting to show its age.

So we discussed whether we would buy a new PC, another laptop, or the steam machine. All of them are expensive prospects this day in age. Eventually we decided to go with the steam machine. I put us in the queue and waited for the lotto – which we did not initially get in.

A few weeks later, here we are.

It was VERY simple to set up. I did also have to configure it to add the xbox game pass to it, but that went without a hitch. I know these days you can also add GOG, Amazon Gaming, and even Epic Games. I haven’t done any of that.

We opted to go with the 2TB version, and got the controller, too. The price could absolutely be reduced if you opt to go with the 512GB version, get an SD card, and forego the controller (you can use a wireless xbox controller just fine). The footprint this machine takes up is TINY, which is amazing. It’s silent, and so far honestly I have nothing negative to say. It has only been a day though, so of course I’ll need to give it more time. Hopefully it holds up just as well as our steam deck has.

[General] May Gaming Wrap Up

As always, statistics come from TempusGameIt though I will admit that a week or so of statistics are missing because I keep forgetting to start the program once my computer restarts. Normally I restart my computer very little, but we’ve had a few storms that knocked the power out, so it is what it is.

This month saw a huge shift in my gaming – all of the sudden Guild Wars 2 became my #1. There’s a number of reasons for that, really. I’ve been floundering a bit all over trying to find community in World of Warcraft (unsuccessfully, so far) and I had some definitive goals that I wanted to accomplish in GW2. One of those being, a legendary – which I did manage to obtain. I am still posting auctions over on WoW, but I really need to restock, which I have been procrastinating on.

There was a little bit of EVE in there – basically just me logging in for the Capsuleer Day rewards, and a tiny bit of FFXIV. After playing for a season or two I decided that I simply did not have the time to dedicate to this game. It’s hard on me physically (the forced dungeons / trials, etc) and I have no community over there either, so it felt like I was replacing one game for another with no different outcome.

In GW2 I also swapped over to the EU servers – this means the game is incredibly busy during my actual hours of play. I am not an evening person, so my play times tend to be sporadically throughout the day and end around midnight in the UK. Having so many people around has been amazing, and I like that I can just dip in, run a few boss fights, and leave if I have to. Getting in to the content is quick, unlike FFXIV where I waited for 2h for a DPS queue to pop when I needed a trial. Oof.

Anyway. There was no mention of Wurm Online, but I did dip in and play there too. I just didn’t have TempusGameIt running, so it wasn’t recorded. I have not been playing there much, I mostly just check and see that everything is still standing. I tend to wander back in the fall, so we’ll see if that holds true. I am also still waiting for EverQuest Legends to release to the public. I’m unsure about this one, but I think it will be a good thing for all involved.

Anyway, that was gaming for the month of May. Here’s hoping I can actually get more blog posts out in June. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

[EQII] It’s Tiiii– Frostfell!

I’m not always a huge fan of in-game events when they correlate to real life holidays, because I feel like some folks always get left out, and sometimes those holidays are not happy times and the emotional reminders can be a lot. One of those exceptions is EverQuest II and their celebration of Frostfell. I have loved Frostfell since it first became a thing way back in 2005. The Frostfell village that many of us love came to be back in 2006, and each year the event tends to grow with a new quest or two, and some new crafted items.

Each day from Dec 3rd to 15th you get to claim a free gift, but before I could get to that, I ran around Freeport collecting shines. The closet (the portal you take to get to the Frostfell instance) was in the same place I expected it to be, though the zone itself does look slightly different from when I saw it last. I picked up a large number of crafting books from Frostfells gone by, and then spent the next hour running around the zone harvesting. Frostfell has its own crafting components.

I received a blue-striped sentient present as my daily gift from Santa Glug, and then spent far too long crafting Frostfell items to decorate whatever house I feel like focusing on. There were also shiny collection pieces strewn across the zone, so I picked those up when I spotted them. I did also pick up the few quests that were scattered about, but I haven’t completed them yet. It was nice to see the zone active, there were people running around all over the place collecting their own frostfell goodies.

I haven’t decided which character I want to play and focus on – a recurring theme in pretty much ALL of my gaming history. I am fairly sure I’m going to use a level 130 boost on a coercer, which is my absolute favourite class to play. I do have a level 120 coercer already, but I’d like to create on the Maj’Dul server. Antonia Bayle has been my home for many many years, but I’m looking for a wee bit more population these days. I have two characters over on Maj’Dul, a level 100 illusionst, and a 120 shadowknight. I need to make a choice ‘soon’ as the next expansion, Rage of Cthurath, launches on December 10th! Exciting times.

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

Bring on the Cozy Games

There’s a lot of arguments lately over whether or not cozy is a genre, or just a feeling people get that encompasses a whole bunch of different games, and I always wonder why it can’t be both. I don’t have the energy to argue about it all so I will just say that these are in fact games that are cozy for me. Latest acquisition? Tiny Book Shop.

This game is adorable, and makes me feel happy when I play it. Plus it promote actual books, and I’m a big fan of that.

Tales of the shire I haven’t actually played yet. I’ve heard good and bad about this one. I did have high hopes for it, but the initial comments were not especially promising, so I decided to give it a bit of time and play a bit later.

Then we have my usual suspects. RimWorld is one of the coziest games I know, but for a lot of people the game creates a huge amount of stress. I don’t play it on the most difficult mode and that probably has something to do with it.

Date Everything is another newer game, and it’s hilarious. Highly suggest picking this one up for anyone looking for something a bit different to play.

Wobbly life is not actually a cozy game of mine, but it is one for my kids, so I play along with them. Personally this game drives me crazy but I’m glad they’ve found their own ‘thing’ to enjoy.

Euro Truck Sim 2, and Wurm Online round out the list of my usual cozy suspects. I can’t wait to dive into either of those, especially if I’ve had a difficult day.

So what constitutes as ‘cozy’ to you? What games top that list? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

Unique Ways to Level

I am not a fan of traditional leveling methods in most MMORPG. Since I mainly play World of Warcraft these days, that’s what I’ll be talking about. After running through a story or quest chain once, I’m pretty much done with it and I don’t want to do it again unless I absolutely have to. So over the years I’ve found other ways to level my characters, whether it’s purchasing boosts or through pet battles.

At the moment I have 11 level 80 characters (almost all of them leveled through timewalking, minus my main) and 27 characters at level 70 (almost all of those were leveled up with pet battles). When a legion trainer pops up who is repeatable (especially snail race) I know it’s going to be a great time to level a character (or two).

With the release of The War Within came a new race – the Earthen. This race has a bonus to exploration, and it didn’t take long for people to take advantage of that. The addon above (Dystinct Earthen Skyriding) allows you to level from 10-70 within a few hours time. It does take some time to get used to the method, you do need to use the fancy dragonflight and not just basic flying. You also need to spam a movement key as you fly for a lot of the discovery to actually register. Nothing to do with the addon.

I created a warlock since I don’t currently have one at 80 and I would like one – it took me 15 minutes to do their starter tutorial (I died, was rushing things) and then I was off, flying around Azeroth. After two hours of flying, I was level 42. It took me approx 1-2 minutes per level. I could probably shorten this time significantly as I become more familiar with the addon. For example, it doesn’t warn you before you fly over top of faction cities, and 6x (so far) I was shot out of the air by alliance guards. Not ideal. Instead of trying to get back to my body in a hostile land, I would just talk to the ghost and continue on my way.

It’s a really fun change of pace, and then once I hit 70 I have the option of doing more timewalking (if I’m not sick of it by then) or I can wait for a legion trainer daily and grind out some pet battles. Last night I managed to get from 70-80 on my mage with that method. Sure, she doesn’t have any gear, but that’s not a big deal as I have a lot of warbound stuff or I can just craft her some. Most likely I’ll just leave her at 80 without gear as I don’t really play that class, at all. I just like having an alt army available, if I need one.

I did also set 10 characters aside who are forever parked at their covenants, doing the covenant table twice a day. This is mostly for farming pet tokens and reputation, nothing fancy. These characters don’t really have a purpose, I don’t “need” 65 characters, but it’s nice to have, fun to level, and you just never know.

Have your own unique way of leveling up if you’re not in the mood to quest? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.