2010

2010 Gamers Secret Santa Under Way

stargrace December 1, 2010 1Comment

Wow. What an incredible turn out this year. With over 100 people from all over the world participating, this years Gamers Secret Santa is off to an incredible start. I sent out the emails earlier today, so if you registered and have NOT gotten the email with the address for your recipient PLEASE let me know (email me stargrace@mmoquests.com) and be sure to check your trash bin because my emails typically get sent there first.

A few things I learned this year. Number one, we as gamers belong to an exclusive club of inside jokes that most of the world simply wouldn’t get. These make great ideas for Christmas presents. We have such an incredibly awesome community, I can’t phrase it into words. Despite the fact that we are often at one another for having a difference in opinion, when it comes down to it that’s simply passion. Passion for what we believe in, passion for our hobbies. Making sure that passion doesn’t rise to an extent that it hurts someone else is what we all have to be mindful of.

To everyone who signed up and is participating this year, I couldn’t be happier. I wish I could partake myself, but it wouldn’t really be much of a surprise that way. I’m quite content to stand in the background and make sure everything runs as smooth as possible.

On that same note, I am once more offering to do a Christmas Card exchange with anyone who is interested. Simply drop me an email: Stargrace@mmoquests.com and we’ll exchange addresses. Last year I received more than 20 cards from old and new gamer friends alike, and it was a lot of fun. I typically tape them up around my desk during the holiday season to remind myself of all I have to be thankful for.

I know I’ve been coating everything in a nice layer of sticky sweet syrup these days but I simply can’t help it. Safe travels, and happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Gaming Real Life

November Update Thoughts #LotRO

stargrace November 30, 2010 1Comment

First of all, please don’t forget that TOMORROW is the last day I’ll be taking names for the 2010 Gamers Secret Santa. If you want to partake, be sure to email me! Compared to last year this years participation numbers have grown by leaps and bounds and I’m incredibly thankful and excited for everyone who has decided to partake.

Now, on to the good stuff! Yesterday was the November update for The Lord of the Rings Online, and what an update it was. I absolutely LOVE the changes to the vault / chest systems. As a crafter and a player with four alts being able to organize my belongings into tabs that I can name is incredibly handy. No, LotRO is not the first game to implement this feature but it’s typically reserved for guild banks (WoW and EQ2 both allow you to name the bank tabs). I now have tabs for crafting raws, recipes, gear, etc. There are 10 tabs in all as well as an ‘all’ tab that allows you to scroll through each of your named compartments. I spent an hour organizing each character as well as my shared vault.

The changes to crafting I could go either way on. Number one the UI is HUGE. It actually blocks too much of my screen when I am on my farmer and I have to adjust it in order to harvest from the fields below me. I also do not enjoy the fact that VIP’s who are already paying to play the game are bombarded with the store screen at every possibility. I understand that the company is there to make money, but if a player is already making those purchases I’d love to see them exempt. More motivation to become a VIP and all that. I do like the double layout, so that I can see my crafting recipe list at the same time that I can see what those recipes make. I just wish it were smaller. I realize you can shrink your UI down but it’s just this one aspect in particular that I find gigantic.

Tasks. I was disappointed with the task system. You will find bulletin boards all through towns, typically level appropriate. If you can interact with it you’ll see a quest ring icon on your mini map and the base of the bulletin board will also sparkle. You must be within 4 levels in order to accept tasks from one, and as has already been stated the jist of it is to pass over your vendor fodder in exchange for xp and faction.

Except in my humble opinion, it’s completely not worth it. At level 42 I received barely 1,000 xp – which is pretty much nothing when I gain 6,000 xp for doing some quests. 4,000 xp for doing a skirmish daily. You gain 300 faction which IS very nice but not at the cost of losing your vendor fodder. You can only do 5 tasks a day, and if you want to do more you have to pay 50 turbine points each time to refresh them, for a max of 5 times refreshed (granting you 30 tasks a day). I like the fact that you are unable to simply purchase items from the broker in order to level up – but on that same hand find the rewards a little lacking. Another issue is that the boards do not tell you what level ranges they provide tasks for, and you need to be within 4 levels in order to accept them. At level 40 and 42 none of my characters were able to accept tasks from Rivendell, although they were able to get them from the camp in Misty Mountains.

The barter wallet is there but again lacking. While most of my skirmish tokens were automatically added, none of my fall festival tokens were inside the wallet, nor were some of my other tokens. This is a great idea in concept but I wish they had of refined it a little before adding it to the game.

There were numerous other changes that took place as well, but those are the ones I had that directly affected my characters. Has anyone else explored the November Update yet? What are your thoughts on the changes?

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

What Are We Waiting For #LotRO #W101 #WoW #EVE

stargrace November 29, 2010 2Comments

It seems to be the time of year where we’re all waiting for things in our various games. The only exception (for me personally) at this time is EQ2, which has been abysmally quiet. The server merges have not taken place and aside from the push of the market place there wasn’t even a celebration in game for Thanksgiving. I suppose technically we are waiting on Frostfell to begin, but since this is a typical in game holiday I’m going to exclude it from the list. So. What are we waiting for?

LotRO – the November update which is (I believe) scheduled to take place today. This is going to introduce tasks, a whole slew of crafting changes (including farming), a barter wallet, class consumables, new mounts, new dye, and numerous other changes and goodies for players. Personally, I’m excited. I’m not a fan of the new shop window that will appear in the crafting panel and I’m not fond of how games are pushing their stores towards players who already pay the monthly subscription fee (it should be omitted if you have a subscription imo) but in F2P games this seems to be the new norm.

EVE – Incursion. While the really cool bits like the new character creator and sansha incursions won’t begin until January 2011, there are changes happening before then as well. (Scheduled at this time for November 30th). The learning skills are being removed and any points you’ve spent towards them are being reimbursed. There are new story line courier missions. There are numerous UI changes, camera changes, and ammo changes. New ships are being added. There is another patch coming just before Christmas which has very little details, and then the major incursion changes in January. Excited? Of course!

WoW – Cataclysm. Releasing December 7th we have already been privy to a whole bunch of changes. It would be impossible for me to list them all but a few that stand out are the class / race combo changes, hunters being able to tame foxes, lower level dungeons having the quest NPC’s added to the actual zones instead of you having to track them all down, of course there are the actual zone changes with the Shattering. Living through a cataclysm is great. It’s certainly not the first time one has taken place, but I do enjoy the entire world changing. There were new factions added and players have been busy dungeon grinding to raise them up. With those new factions came new mounts, and lets not forget the awesome Plants vs. Zombie tribute sunflower pet where you actually have to play a version of plants and zombies in game.

Wizard 101 – Gardening. Tipa has been posting her progress on the test server and I have to admit, it looks like fun. While I don’t play wizard 101 nearly as often as I’d like, I’m still a fan of the game and its unique combat style. I love seeing these types of updates, and I’m interested in diving right in and starting my own garden. I still haven’t even checked out Celestia, or any of the worlds after Krokotopia (Marleybone, Mooshu, Dragonspyre) but that is more of a lack of time then anything else.

The holidays are just around the corner and most of these games will also be adding some sort of winter update (including pretty much every single other MMO out there). I tend to avoid the real life holiday crowds as much as I can (I was diagnosed with agoraphobia and it makes things difficult) and look forward to partaking in these virtual celebrations. Of course much of the month will also be taken up with family festivities so you may see a dip in posts, but I’ll do my best.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

The Illusion of Life

stargrace November 28, 2010 6Comments

For years now I’ve thought of MMO’s as living breathing ever changing worlds. Yesterday I came to the harsh conclusion that this is a completely false statement. Lets see if I can organize my thoughts into text here on this matter.

In an MMO the NPC’s do not remember you. If you decline a quest and come back later they have no reaction what so ever except to offer you the exact same quest in the exact same manor. There are no relationships even though you may have spent a LOT of time working up faction for these people. A good example is that when my defiler (a Freeport resident) walks through Qeynos, the guards cheer for her. I don’t have any idea why but I’m pretty sure there’s no reason for the people of Qeynos to be cheering for my Freeport character. You can’t emotionally interact with anyone and you very rarely feel as though YOU are making a difference – except for one small area.

PLAYERS bring a world to life. Players are the one area of an MMO where actions (and reactions) matter. They remember you, your interactions with them actually count. If your game doesn’t have players it’s considered “dead” because running around talking to NPC who don’t care whether or not you actually talk to them, is boring. No, I’m not talking about grouping here I’m talking about seeing other players around, watching chat channels, and the ‘illusion’ of life and an ever living world.

My thoughts on this matter came after spending a day playing Sims 3 and trying to figure out on a very basic level why the game (and any RPG for that matter) appeals to me. It’s because it feels alive to me. Now, some games try methods to make their worlds appear alive. LotRO for example has their very sound story line built into the game. However, if a player decides NOT to follow that story path for whatever reason there isn’t a single NPC out there who would notice. The world itself would not notice. It is up to the player to approach and find the proper NPC and interact with them to find out where to go next. We may as well be talking to cardboard cut outs lining the streets for all they seem to recognize or interact with us.

I realize what I’m describing here is an RPG and single player games have these interactions in spades. It’s one reason why they’re so popular. I would LOVE to see MMO companies try to come up with inventive ways of bringing their games LIFE without relying on a heavy player population. I know that’s something that’s easy for me to say since I don’t design video games and I can’t even fathom the amount of time and work and money that would go into a project of that size, but I still don’t think it’s something that’s out of our scope of imagination completely.

Hopefully I’ve explained that well enough. It’s 7am and my thoughts tend to be a rambling disaster. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

A Little TOO Realistic? #Sims3

stargrace November 27, 2010 1Comment

I’ve been a fan of The Sims franchise for a good while now. I ignore what people tend to say about the ‘type of gamer’ that enjoys these games just like I ignore the comments others make about WoW players. Truth be told there are very few games out there that I don’t enjoy and I really like the number of choices games like this one give to a player. I enjoy creating, and watching the action / reaction that goes along with it. The Sims 3 is a beautiful game. There are so many actions you can chose, and many paths of character “progression”. Sadly, there are also (lately at least) a lot of bugs. One really annoying one causes my previously created sims to bug any time they require rest. They end up sleeping like zombies through the bed, and refuse to move after that point, even if they require some other daily need like food, or a bathroom. I browsed the forums and discovered that many other people also had this new bug. Great. Creating a new family solved it temporarily, but that means my previous house hold is out of the picture.

The point of this post is the screen shot above. My little sim is doing – you guessed it – laundry. Washing machines (and dryers) are new to the game, and if you own them any time your sim changes an outfit or disrobes (shower for example) a little pile of laundry will show up on the floor, which you can collect and bring to the washing machine. It takes some time for it to process the clothes and you can even select which cycle to use. After the wash is done you transfer the clothing to the dryer, and then after a little more waiting your sim can enjoy fresh clean clothes.

I’m not sure what to think of this feature yet. On one hand I think it’s incredibly neat and cool. The animations are fantastic. On the other hand do I really want to play a video game and do laundry?! I could hire a maid to wash it all for me but at the moment my little sim can’t afford such luxuries. I’ve already sold off every spare piece of furniture in her home and a fire in the kitchen last night put her stove out of order.

As an indication of how many choices your character has. My little sim has the environmentally-friendly trait. Any time she rides in the taxi by herself (ie: no car pool) she gets a little sad. Any time she does laundry with only one load, again sad. All of her fridge food is organic (and even says as much on it). She lives in the bayou and any time she spots any land being wasted she gets a little frown and feels bad. I find myself making choices in game that are eco friendly in order to keep her moods from plummeting. It doesn’t help that she’s also dramatic, and I shudder to think what would happen if she went out and visited the city sewage plant or dump.

I haven’t picked up the latest expansion yet, but I do plan on it before too long. I haven’t read up on it very much (It’s Night Life) but I own all of the other expansions, so I do plan on picking up this one too.Any one else a sims player?

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

2010 Gamers Secret Santa Under Way

November Update Thoughts #LotRO

What Are We Waiting For #LotRO #W101 #WoW #EVE

The Illusion of Life

A Little TOO Realistic? #Sims3

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