2012

Goodbye Glitch @playglitch #Glitch

Glitch was the first game shut down that I actually really enjoyed, so it hit me hard. Sure, it’s not Star Wars Galaxies, and it’s not City of Heroes, and it’s not even The Matrix, but it was a game I spent a lot of hours playing, and I’m sad to see it go. I logged in for the final two hours it would be running last night and I was pleased to see that the servers were absolutely packed with people coming to see the world for a final time.

A bunch of Glitch items also went up for sale on Etsy, had it not been so close to Christmas I would have tried to pick up an item or two, but the timing just didn’t work out for me.

I spent my time using the camera function to port around, and decorating my home. I tuned off general chat because the spam just became too much for me to watch, and I chatted with friends who had also logged in to see the game off.

I was once again reminded about why I’m supporting games that I enjoy, no matter if they’re indie or not. Games need players to survive (in almost all cases). Without players, games suffer. Without players spending money, in specific. Now, there were obviously a lot of issues with Glitch, if you have a poor business model it doesn’t matter how many people are spending money, it just won’t ever be enough. Still, I don’t want the next game to close down to be my game of choice, and I would feel perfectly horrible if it did and it was because I never supported it.

A sad learning experience, but a learning experience none the less. I’ll miss you Glitch!

December Impalong #WurmOnline

I’ve always been a huge fan of player run events, no matter what game they happen to take place in, and for Wurm Online that means the Impalong. This years is going to be especially gigantic, not only is is the last year for Willow to be hosting it, but it also takes place after 1.0 goes live which means we’ll have armor graphics and multi story and “officially” be out of our 6 year open beta.

So what is an “impalong”? The name comes from ‘improve’ which is of course how you better all items in Wurm Online, you ‘imp’ them. There is a pretty detailed post about the event on the Wurm forums, which you can read here. The event takes place at Festival Cove, which is on the Independence server, just south (and slightly West) of The Howl, which is where new players on Independence first land.

You don’t need to be of high skill to participate in the event for prizes, and there are some very nice ones so far:

  • 1 gold coin yes thats right a whole shiny gold coin!
  • 95ql Drake Set    there will be some enchants on this set, but as of yet it is still being worked on
  • 1 Settlement form    plus 10 silver to help you get started
  • 7q pickaxe (102 coc) – thank you Eladia
  • free pan filling   (10k  meals) everything supplied – thank you Ishy and Akan
  • another 1g coin – Ruger will hold a contest to be decided later – thank you Ruger
  • Boat – Thanks Ugora
  • 2 cherrywood sailboats,  both are over 60 ql and will come with lock and anchor – Thank you Crutchly
  • I will be donating a full set (minus greathelm) of enchanted 90ql scale.  AoSP from 83-93 across the set – Thank you Tam
  • 5 freee forge imping – Thank you Raycg
  • 91CoC 5QL butchering knife  – Thank you Blahsonson
  • 2 rope tools of 26 and 23QL, both with 63CoC – Thank you again Blahsonson
  • Brass Compass ql 82.60 – Thanks Raybarg
  • super special prize alert* 1 newbie account comes with a full year premium already added
  • Variety of high enchanted tools and weps for random daily shout out giveaways – c/o Tam again, thank you so much Tam, always my partner in crime.

I’ll be sailing down with some of my deed mates as we get closer to December 19th. The event runs from then until January 2nd, so there’s plenty of time for people to make their way.

Of course the more people who help out for this event, the better. I’ll be bringing two priests down with me to act as batteries / cast spells for those who need it, as well as Stargrace to help out where she can. Without the players behind this event, it would never happen.

If you play Wurm Online but you’ve never checked out this yearly event before, or you’re thinking of getting involved in Wurm and want to see what a player run event is like – this is your chance. Come help make this years the best ever.

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

Peaceful Days #WurmOnline

Things in Wurm Online are going well. The dock has been completed at Mystic Cove, and I’ve been working on my skills. I expanded the deed slightly, taking in a bit more land. I tried to fix up the waterfront a bit but along the East side is a lot of clay that is a bit of a pain to terraform.

Today I spent most of my day on the steppe collecting animal bits so that I could trade them to another player who will use them for alchemy. In return I’ll get 75c credit at his dye store. I have my eye set on some pink dye for my brand new sailboat that Moumix crafted for me.

In the mean time, tonight disaster of a sort struck. I died in a mine due to a troll, and so far have been unable to find my corpse. It’s fallen into the geometry of the game so I’ve had to send in a support ticket. On the corpse are all my tools, armor, and keys. Hopefully I can get it back.

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

A Little WurmOnline, NaNoWriMo, Sims 3, EQ2, and WoW

I made my 50,000 words for this months NaNoWriMo, but it was a very difficult run. I would start a story, get interested with it, get bored of it, and then write a new story. I even gave up for a week or two. After some consideration I decided there was no reason for me to give up and so I started again. I’m very glad that I did. I’m not really sure why this year was so difficult compared to others, it was my 5th year attempting it so there really no surprises, but it seemed like everything hit this month, and I really felt it so maybe that’s why.

Of course in between writing I still played games. Wurm Online being my main choice these days as far as MMOs go – but I’ve also decided to pop back into WoW now that 5.1 has come out. I’ve been playing a little EQ2 (have you seen the incredible new house they added that’s a ship? Much love) and I’ve been playing some single player games like Sims 3. During the black Friday sale EA had some fantastic deals on their Sims franchise, so I picked up the last expansion I was missing, and now all I’m missing are three “stuff” packages that I don’t exactly care about getting. The base game was going for as low as $9 which was really great to see.

TODAY is the last day to register for the 2012 Gamers Secret Santa. I’ve gotten over 150 replies so far from interested parties, and I’m really happy that people are still interested in this. I’m also doing a card exchange this year, so if you’re interested in exchanging your address for that, please email me!

What has everyone else been up to this month? It feels like it went by so quickly! Before we know it, Christmas will be here!

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

What Else is There to do? #WurmOnline

Despite the fact that a lot of my posts talk about me creating my deed in Wurm Online – that’s actually my least favorite thing to do. I would prefer to purchase a full deed already built, which is what I did when I first obtained Thorin’s Bay. There was very little work that needed to be done. Since this time I was starting over completely from scratch (literally, no tools or armor or anything until Yetian donated some) I had no choice but to build Mystic Cove from the ground up. Now that the village is up and running I’m enjoying myself 100x more than I was before, which is a huge amount since I was enjoying myself while building the village too. That’s just how smitten I am with Wurm Online. Anyhow.

What else is there to do if you’re not working on your deed? Well. There’s a LOT of things. Some of my favorite things to do include alchemy (making healing covers, and dye), animal husbandry (taking care of animals, grooming them, breeding them), working on a skill like weaponsmithing, leather working, chain armor, or cloth. Creating bows, or arrows. Exploring and pillaging old lands that have since been abandoned. Building ships. Working on hot food cooking – and under that same category, making wine. Farming. Fishing. Working on my meditation skill.  That doesn’t even include the ‘basic’ skills that people tend to work on (especially to sell in bulk) like mining, making bricks, digging, making planks, etc.

There’s always a LOT to do in Wurm, and it really depends on what you enjoy doing. If you don’t enjoy building your own village then don’t do it! That’s the fastest way to get annoyed at the game. Later this week I’ll be posting a few “what the tutorial doesn’t tell you” posts, so look for those in a few days time.

Meanwhile, I’ll be working my weaponsmithing. Slow. That’s the word that best describes this skill, lol. It’s perfect to do while multi tasking though and watching shows on Netflix or writing a blog post and working on NaNoWriMo.

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