2013

Bring on the Warrior! #WoW

stargrace December 6, 2013 No Comments

I had an urge last night to create a warrior. I’ve played a few low level ones but I always end up deleting for one reason or another. I need a blacksmith, and didn’t feel it would be a good fit for either my monk or rogue, so it was really the perfect excuse to start a new character.

I’m not really a fan of starting out in secluded starter zones (Wargen, Goblins, and Panda all share this fate). I can’t mail myself any heirlooms since there are no mailboxes, and once you’ve gone through the story one time, it gets old. I have a panda monk, rogue, and now the warrior, though the rogue has also not made her way out of the starter zone yet (something to work on today, I suppose). Thankfully the starter zone for this race feels much shorter than the one for the goblins and wargen, you leave on your way to Horde or Alliance by level 11. First thing I did was get situated with some bags and mail my heirloom over (I never realized just how much heirloom I have. There’s a lot of it). I didn’t own the plate pants (I don’t think I could afford them at the time) so I picked those up and decked the little warrior out.

I’m hoping to level this character up as a tank, and try a lot of LFG. I’m sure I’ll get lots of ‘creative comments’ from people and maybe even kicked out of an instance or two. That being said, it’s just a game, and I’m looking forward to it. Tanks are always the one class I tend to stay away from, but in WoW it’s just so easy to get a group, I would like to give it a go. We’ll see.

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

Gaming

Exploring Starbound #Starbound

stargrace December 5, 2013 1 Comment

When I first started playing Terraria, friends told me I should look into a game that was going to be released soon called ‘Starbound’. It focuses on the same basic concepts, a survival type game where you can craft and create in order to ensure you survive, but the game also has a story and quest system behind it, in other words, it’s a sandbox game with themepark aspects for those who get lost in a sandbox.

You start off on a spaceship, lost in space. You can fly around to other planets but eventually you’ll run out of fuel. Before any of that you get to pick a race, I went with a plant type (pictured above). The tutorial teaches you the basics, how to maneuver around, feeding yourself, and the basics to crafting (which I still didn’t pick up on right away). You’re given a few pieces of gear in order to live long enough to get yourself settled. One of my favorite features is the flashlight, go and take that object into a dark cave and shine it around, it’s awesome.

You’re also given an item that lets you interact with the trees and terrain all around you, a manipulator of sorts. You can see me using it above to chop down a tree so that I can create a craft table. Once you’ve got the craft table created, you’re asked to hunt down some of the creatures of the world you happen to be on, and then cook a meal.

I haven’t played very far into the game yet (it did just release yesterday) but so far I can already tell it’s going to be a lot of fun (that’s easy to say, I adore Terraria). I like that there are quests and ‘things to do’ for the times that I’m feeling lost. On that same note, I like the vast openness of the world, and exploring.

There are a lot of these ‘types’ of games coming out lately, but it’s important to note that they also all have their differences. Unlike Trove or Cube World, Starbound and Terraria are 2D and not 3D. Some people are OK with this, others are not. You’ll also have to keep in mind that the game is still in beta, there are patches, bugs, and issues with connecting. It took me two tries to get the game working and each time it hung waiting to work. Still, compared to some betas I’ve participated in, it’s very well done.

Interested in giving it a try? You can purchase access on steam, or on humble bundle. It’s the sort of game you need more than 10 minutes to play, so I’ll be posting in-depth on it another time. If you’re curious about how my first 30 minutes went, you can find it on my twitch channel (warning, I did not learn how to cut anything down, and I died a lot. My second play was much better).

Watch live video from Stargrace on TwitchTV

Gaming

My First Otome – Magical Diary

stargrace December 3, 2013 No Comments

Yesterday a good friend of mine gifted me a game on steam called ‘Magical Diary‘ which I had heard of vaguely but wasn’t really familiar with on any grand scale. This game is considered to be an ‘otome game‘, and I love games that involve a lot of story so I was pretty excited to play.

Little did I know.

I started playing at about 1pm, planning on just dipping my toes in for an hour or so before moving on to World of Warcraft or some other game. By the time I came up for air I realized it was 6:30pm and I really needed to get some dinner made. I had SUCH a fantastic time playing this game, it was unbelieveable.

You might laugh when you hear the premises. You’re a 16 year old human girl sent to go to a school of magic, much like Hogwarts, actually. You’re a Wildseed, a human with magical abilities, but not everyone there is, some have magical parents. You meet two roommates along with a lot of classmates and professors, and you have the choice to go to classes or not. You can study, relax, go to the mall on Saturdays, and you get a weekly allowance. Along the way you get sucked into the incredibly complex and interesting storyline of individual people, and you make choices based on certain activities. Because every decision furthers your personal story in a different way you can replay the game quite a few times for a bunch of different results.

It’s not just the interesting stories and personal play that kept me interested, either. There’s a great combination of ‘other stuff’ going on, like learning spells and taking exams. Your exams tend to send you to a dungeon (a puzzle) that you have to solve using your spells or another creative means. So far I’ve failed three of them and only passed two. You earn demerits for each time you fail, as well as any other ‘bad’ things you may do in the story line. I don’t want to give too much away so I won’t get into a lot of detail, but needless to say I am not a good student and I’m sitting at -40 demerits. Oops.

I’ve really enjoyed playing so far. It’s a relaxed pace, without having to worry about any of the usual game issues that I experience while playing an MMO or a ‘regular’ single player game. Sure it’s not going to be a game for everyone, but it IS on sale on steam right now, so if it sounds interesting you should pick it up.

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

Gaming

Pet Battles, iLevels, and Pandas – Oh My! #WoW

stargrace December 2, 2013 No Comments

This weekend I spent most of my game time in World of Warcraft – something I had not intended on but seemed to just happen. It began innocently enough, with me working on pet battles. At this moment I have 151 pets in my collection. I joined Warcraftpets.com some time ago and forgot just how much I love the site. I managed to get my first team to level 11, and completed a bunch of quests for pet trainers. I won an item that allowed me to upgrade any beast pet to rare, then learned later you can trade them if you don’t want to upgrade a beast pet. My team (so far) consists of Lil’ XT, Scooter the snail, and the Onyxian Whelpling. The weak link in the team is Scooter but I base that on the fact that he’s weak to the encounters I’ve been facing. When he’s fighting flying creatures he does quite well, and he has a lot of HP in order to survive encounters. Lil’ XT is my tank, as long as the encounter is not something he is weak to, chances are he can solo it. I’m trying to work up to the current pet level cap (25) on at least 15 pets so that I can partake in the celestial battles. I have a ways to go yet.

Speaking of celestials. When I returned to the game I was sitting on an ilevel of about 476, that was back in March. This weekend I spent a lot of time on the Timeless Isle, and am now sitting at 508 ilevel. It’s still no where near where I would like it to be, but it is a start, and I’m having a lot of fun. I really like the fact that I can ‘farm’ loot and gear for my alts by playing my main character. Of course none of my alts are even slightly close to level 90 yet, but one day I hope to get them there, and it’s comforting to know that I won’t necessarily have to grind the exact same quests to gear up that I’m currently doing. I like this process a lot, and to be honest it’s probably also one of the main issues I have with EQ2’s latest expansion, Tears of Veeshan. Unless your alt happens to use the exact same gear as your main character you are forced to complete the exact same quests in the exact same timeline that you just did on your main. When you have as many alts as I do, this makes for a painful experience.

I appreciate the fact that I don’t HAVE to raid in order to earn Valor points. I did partake in the first Siege of Orgrimmar that was unlocked to me, but I didn’t feel like dealing with LFRaid over the weekend, so I did my dailies, some scenario, and earned my valor that way. Choices are great.

All in all it was incredibly relaxing, very fun, and I’m surprised. WoW gets a bad rap from a lot of people that I know but it’s not ALL bad and sometimes it is exactly what you’re looking for.

Gaming

Welcome to Oasis Landing #TS3 #TheSims3

stargrace November 30, 2013 No Comments

I held off purchasing the latest Sims 3 expansion, Into the Future, because I knew that shortly after I bought it for full price, it would go on sale. It happens every single year, and every year I get mad at myself for paying full price. So I waited.

I didn’t have to wait too long, thanks to the black friday sales. I picked up the game on Thursday and am incredibly happy with it so far.

Into the future adds a LOT of extra game play. I decided to start with a fresh game, and I actually had to look up some guides to figure out how things work. To get started it is pretty simple. Your sim will be hanging out in the present, and a portal device will land on the lot. When you go and interact with it, a time traveler will pop out and introduce themselves. They will ask for your help with collecting some power cells, and once you’ve completed that challenge they’ll give you a little book / device that you can access from your inventory screen (it’s located beside your phone) as well as the ability to use the portal.

You will then be whisked away to Oasis Landing, the futuristic city where your sim and their descendants live. That’s right, I said descendants. You can go and meet members of your family in the future, and how you live in the present (your money situation, your job, who you’re seeing, etc) will affect those people and their future lives. It’s awesome.

There are also a lot of new technology bound items in game, as well as skills and jobs. You get a jetpack and learn how to fly around using it. There are new modes of transportation, and you can create bots that are equipped with trait chips so they can specialize in certain functions. I ended up using “Carl’s the Sims 3 Guide” to figure out the finer details of things because there’s just so much content to learn this time around.

You can pick future timelines. It can be a Utopian or Dystopian timeline, or the regular default one you start with. There are rewards and achievements for unlocking each one. There’s a big section on legacy statue requirements, and how to achieve that. There is a bot arena career, an astronomy career, there’s nanites to be found, the new advanced technology skill, how to make bots, and much, much more.

Overall this expansion has not let me down at all. I’m very glad I picked it up and I think it was well worth the cost. It added so much besides new house items and outfit choices. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

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

Bring on the Warrior! #WoW

Exploring Starbound #Starbound

My First Otome – Magical Diary

Pet Battles, iLevels, and Pandas – Oh My! #WoW

Welcome to Oasis Landing #TS3 #TheSims3

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