January 2014

The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot

stargrace January 4, 2014 0Comment

I like loot.

Do you like loot?

You do? Great!

This game was gifted to me over the holidays by a friend of mine, and before then I had never heard of it before. It’s created by ubisoft and before I could even play it I had to fiddle around with their ‘uplay’ launcher which does not get along with windows 8.1 (of course that’s what I happen to run). Thankfully there are some fairly simple work arounds to the problems.

When you log in you’re presented with three class choices. There is a knight, an archer, and a mage. You can only choose to be a male character but I won’t hold that against the game for now.

Gameplay follows a diablo style, where you’re in top down view running through dungeons where the walls fade away as they come across your vision. Mobs are named adorable names like snotlings and derps. I chose to be an archer and even got a nifty falcon who follows me around. You start out in your pajamas, and as you complete the dungeons you’ll loot gear and other items of interest.

Of course what sort of adventurer would you be without a castle! Once the first battle tutorials are completed you’ll be given your very own humble abode which you can upgrade and grow and decorate with creatures and lots of other fun things. I’ve only just started this process, and it is also where the game shifts slightly. Creating upgrades for rooms and items costs currency, and time. You can instantly complete the upgrades by spending currency. Otherwise you spend a lot of time waiting for projects to complete. Not an issue for me, this makes it a very casual fun game to play and the voiceover and instructions are hilarious. You can find the game in closed beta on steam, and like so many other games are doing these days you can purchase your way into getting access.

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

Gaming

Cook, Serve, Delicious

stargrace January 3, 2014 1Comment

I picked this game up when it was on sale during the steam winter sale because it looked cute and I had never heard of it before. You’re given a restaurant to run, and you’re in charge of everything from scrubbing the toilets to doing the dishes and taking out the trash – not to mention the actual cooking. Everything is timed, can be done with either keyboard or mouse, and your job is to complete it all to the highest quality possible.

The tutorial is brief but since the game isn’t that complicated (just fast paced) it should be enough to get you started. You pick a few items to purchase for your menu, keeping in mind that if you don’t swap the menu up a bit, customers will get bored. You generate buzz with your food, and you open from 9am to 10pm.

At any time during the day you’ll be dealing with 1-4 (maybe more are added as time goes on, I am not sure yet) things at once. You’ll have to cook food according to what each customer wants. For example in the screenshot above there are three chicken breasts cooking. Each one has to be tenderized 6 times and then spiced and then cooked – and not burned. A little stopwatch ticks down on the food and it will tell you when it is ready but you have to pay attention because there are other meals and things being done at the same time.

So far my menu consists of beer, pizza, salad, chicken breast, and corndogs. Beer is the easiest to make, just have to make sure you don’t over fill the glass. Salad has about 8 different options that customers can ask for. Chicken is easy, as are the corndogs. Pizza has a handful of options as well. If you burn the food, serve it late, don’t clean the dishes, don’t take out the garbage, or encounter any other number of pitfalls the restaurant will fail.

You’ll also get email each day giving you a few more details about running your business, like upgrades you can do. You have to purchase equipment, and it’s way more involved than I had first thought but it’s also a lot of fun. I’m constantly talking to myself as I read the orders out loud so I can make sure I get them just right. I probably wouldn’t pay full price for the game (found here on steam) but as a 75% off sale item it was completely worth it.

Gaming

Unicorns, Deer, Cows, and Pigs! Oh My. #WurmOnline

stargrace January 2, 2014 0Comment

As I’ve already mentioned in numerous other Wurm Online posts, I really love raising animals, even the type that don’t have an enormous use. Take unicorns for example. Most deeds and open space is filled with them. They make great creatures to farm for leather, but here in my pen pictured above I have two sly and a champion that I’m currently breeding. I can’t ride them yet (you need very high body control) but they’re nice to have around. I also have three deer, who also provide leather and alchemy bits. They don’t pull carts and you can’t ride them but I like to have them around.

I was keeping a few pigs but there is a server mission ongoing that asks you to sacrifice them to Fo, one of the deity. I spent a painstaking few hours creating a sacrificial knife (really hard to do with only 1 weaponsmith skill) and then partook in the mission. We’re sitting at 63% completion with me being 46% of that. You get some karma and sleep bonus if you participate, so I hope eventually we’re able to finish the task.

I used to have a chicken but the servers went down yesterday morning and we had a slight rollback of creatures. I searched the nearby woods to see if I could spot it but I had no luck. Chickens are another ‘useless’ creature but I like them a lot.

I’ve been making a lot of progress with the deed. I used a pendulum to divine a water tile, created a nice path, almost finished my horse pens (they just need gates), and improved my forge in my workshop (which has no walls but will one day). Things are going pretty well and I’m looking forward to working my fine carpentry up even higher along with alchemy on the priest.

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

Gaming

Dragon Flight Heads into Heroic Scenarios #WoW

stargrace January 1, 2014 0Comment

Some time between when I last quit and when I started playing again last month heroic scenarios were added to the game. They work exactly like regular scenarios except for one thing – you can’t LFG for them. I find this a bit frustrating because I don’t have too many people in game that I can bug to do these instances with. I know lots of people in game, sure, a big selection of my friends are playing – but I don’t want to bother them by dragging them through these scenarios. Thankfully both Bloodgauge and Kanad were online this last weekend and we were able to attempt a scenario all on our own (you can only go with three people).

They were tough, but we managed just fine as soon as Bloodgauge (a DK) swapped to tank spec. I stayed in heals (priest) and Kanad was of course DPS (hunter). I won a nice purple ring at the end of our first one from the weekly quest, but the ones we attempted afterward didn’t reward much of anything so I decided to call it a night and to try again when they reset.

I’m still looking for upgraded weapons. I’ve had absolutely no luck at all. Bloodgauge picked up blacksmithing last week and since he was on holidays he managed to reach 600 without too much effort. He’s working on discovering a staff for me to use but it will take a few days because of the daily craft timers. That will be more than enough to help boost my ilevel towards the 530 mark. I’m currently at 526 and looking forward to finding a few more burden to help raise that.

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

The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot

Cook, Serve, Delicious

Unicorns, Deer, Cows, and Pigs! Oh My. #WurmOnline

Dragon Flight Heads into Heroic Scenarios #WoW

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