January 2015

More Ancient Warfare in Minecraft, and FFXIV for the PS4

stargrace January 14, 2015 No Comments

After playing with the basics of ancient warfare yesterday, I decided to add a bit more to it. I set up a wheat farm, a cow farm, and a courier to pick up the items at all of the farms (ink sac, fish, and wheat) and then deposit them into containers. For some reason my farmer keeps going missing and I keep having to replace him. He probably gets eaten by something, but since I do have a special torch that prevents mobs from spawning at night in a 64×64 area, I’m not sure what is eating him. I know the torch doesn’t work if there are monster spawners in the vicinity, and I’m pretty sure I have a zombie spawner some place. I’m just not sure where.

In any case, having these NPC doing the mundane jobs leaves me free to pursue my other interests, like drying rotten flesh out for jerky (pictured above). I believe I’m going to get an NPC mining system up before too long, but I might need to do a bit of research into that first. Having the basic skills performed automatically lets me wander off and explore and learn other mod packs without having to worry about running out of food or supplies.

The torch took forever to make. I needed a ghast tear from the nether, along with a blaze rod from the nether. It also needed two potions, which you make with brewing. A brew station requires a blaze rod as well. The rest of the components are fairly straight forward except for one. The hardest to find was a melon. It comes from the jungle biome, and because I have ‘biomes o’ pleanty’ turned on there are SO many biomes, finding a jungle one was taking way too long. In the end I stumbled across a village, and a villager traded me 8 melons for 1 emerald. Well worth it. Now I have seeds for future plants, and I can get an NPC to automate that as well.

Besides playing minecraft, I picked up FFXIV for the PS4. It was on sale for $20, and since I already have an active subscription and because you can play your PC characters on the PS4 or vice versa, I decided to pick it up. I really wish Diablo 3 had something like this, true cross platform play. More games need it.

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

Gaming

Ancient Warfare – Minecraft Mods

stargrace January 13, 2015 No Comments

I decided to play around with a bit of Ancient Warfare on my home server. I’m still using IceHenge as a mod pack, and it’s still providing hours of enjoyment. I’ve also still barely even touched on most of the mods. Ancient Warfare lets you create (very delicate) NPC to do most of your basic chores. The ones I have pictured above are a fish farm and an ink sac farm. Both items are heavily used (well, food, not fish per say, but fish is easy) in the creation of ancient warfare items. Ink sacs are used for research, and fish can be cooked and turned into food for your town hall, which the NPC will wander up to when they’re hungry.

Next I’ll create some couriers to pick up the goods and drop them into a building I’ll designate for it. I’ve also created a cow farm, and have a wheat farm in the works. I haven’t learned how it all works yet, but I’m getting there slowly. There’s a lot of tutorials online, but it does require some trial and error.

I also made some barrels for storage, making things much neater. I have so far been unsuccessful in finding a Nether Fortress in order to find some blaze mobs so I can get a rod. I need two of them, one for a torch that will prevent mobs from spawning in a 64 tile radius, and a second one to create a brewing station. I did quite a bit of exploring in the nether and had a lot of fun, but without any success at finding the rod I want. Still, my little town is coming along well, and I’m excited about whatever I decide to work on next.

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

Gaming

The Sims 4 – Outdoor Retreat(soon)

stargrace January 10, 2015 No Comments

Big news has been coming out about Sims 4 this week. Well, big news for me at least. A release date was set for Outdoor Retreat, which is basically a “stuff” package if you’re familiar with previous sims expansions, but here it’s called a “game pack” that is going to release next week. An exact date next week hasn’t been given yet, but of course I’m looking forward to it. The game pack costs $20, and adds a bunch of new features for your lovely sim families including a herbalist skill. Your sim family will be able to head to Granite Falls, which is a new world and partake in a bunch of outdoor related activities.

EA also released a mobile version of their Sims 4 gallery in an app on the itunes and google play stores. This lets you browse, favourite, and add to your download list. Great if you’re not at your PC and you want to get a fix of sims 4. The interface is easy to use, and I haven’t had any issues getting it to work so far. In fact I quite like browsing the gallery to see what other people have created, especially when I’m in the mood to play the game and not decorate (it happens, rarely). Lately I have been looking at unfurnished homes, and then designing the interior myself once I have downloaded a new home that catches my eye. Designing the structure of a home is something I don’t always feel like doing, mine end up square blocks of ugly, but I love interior design.

There are still a lot of aspects I miss from Sims 3 (most notably the expansions and the open world feel) but I also think they have done an amazing job with Sims 4 and that it will come into its own with time. Once we get some real expansions and maybe a better ‘feel’ for the world (I really want a pet expansion) I can certainly see myself spending a lot of time playing (not that I don’t already spend a lot of time playing).

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

Gaming

New Game Thursday – Child of Light

stargrace January 8, 2015 No Comments

For Christmas my cousin got me this steam game, and I have to say I was completely surprised (pleasantly so. Child of Light is a Ubisoft Montreal game, and with it you play the part of Aurora, a young girl who figures herself to be in a dream world, taken from her father. The game is beautiful, the art style one that I was just absolutely in love with the moment it started, and the story is fascinating. That does mean of course that I put the game on the lowest (ie: easiest) setting possible so that I could enjoy the story fully, but I had no issues with that.

Aurora is quickly joined by a firefly, which you control by mouse (Aurora moves by using the WASD keys). The firefly is her companion, and helps during combat. The game is a mixture of puzzles and combat, has a skill and gear system, and even some basic crafting. Honestly, telling you anything more will ruin the story, so I don’t want to get into much detail. What I do want to highlight is this awesome review that someone posted. The entire story is narrated by a calm voice of a woman, and this review mimics the formatting. It talks about how you’re required to install uplay to play the game, which a lot of people (including myself) don’t want to be bothered with.

Dear child,

Tuck yourself in and listen to what I have to say.
It is for those too, who have doubts with Uplay.

When I first heard that a third party program needs to be installed,
I thought ‘It’s too much a bother to be buying this at all’.
But I was in love with the game as I was with Odin Sphere,
so I researched and researched until all doubts were clear.

It seems that Uplay has improved over the years,
as told by a friend whom I very love so dear.
After registering I instantly unravelled
that once I ticked ‘auto login’ it is never a hassle.
Switch Uplay to offline mode so it won’t meddle.

As confused as I was along the way,
thorough research finally made me pay
and playing this game now makes my day.

Child of Light is like a delightful bedtime story.
You play as a little girl, very cute and dandy,
though her arms are a little bit wobbly
to be carrying a sword both sharp and pointy.

What I really appreciate is the effort that they took
to make each and every sentence look so good.
The beautiful world of Lemuria will captivate your eyes,
with beautifully matched music as you zip through the sky.

Bottom line be told,
This game is made of gold.
I did not regret buying it a single bit,
and I’m writing this so that your path may be lit.

Godspeed.

The game was on sale near the later days of the Steam holiday sales, so if you’re not in a rush, you should add it to your wishlist and wait for the next sale. Highly recommend this one.

Gaming

Those Lazy Minecraft Days

stargrace January 6, 2015 1 Comment

The urge to play Minecraft came once again (as it does every few weeks) and I decided to check out what was new with Icehenge, which I run through Technic. The technic launcher has been completely revamped, and on top of that Icehenge 2.2.0 was released. Lots of new goodies have been added, including a hat mod that is pure fluff (but so much fun). At first nothing was working for me – then I remembered I need to have Java 7 and not 8 in order to make things work. I really dislike java, in every form. It has been nothing but a hassle.

I started a new server on my computer and had fun wandering around exploring the world, one of my favourite things to do. I set up a home base (but didn’t like it that much) and was promptly swarmed by zombies and skeletons. I wasn’t very fond of the world, so I started a new one which is much friendlier to beginners. Home base has been set up and I’m ready to begin exploring. To my north is an active volcano, along with an ice biome. My home base is set up in a cherry grove, which gives me lots of nice red wood to make items out of (like my entire house). There’s a few islands and lakes to the East, and I haven’t explored to the West yet. I haven’t explored all of the mods available (there’s just way too many) so I’m looking forward to getting back into it. Minecraft has always been one of those completely relaxing games that I can play in my spare time without too much hassle.

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

More Ancient Warfare in Minecraft, and FFXIV for the PS4

Ancient Warfare – Minecraft Mods

The Sims 4 – Outdoor Retreat(soon)

New Game Thursday – Child of Light

Those Lazy Minecraft Days

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