2015

The Art of Leveling

stargrace May 4, 2015 0Comment

Last I left my mesmer she was level 43, and I was working through my story quests to get caught up. I leveled to 43 mainly through crafting, which I mentioned in a previous post. I picked up a set of tailored gear, a new weapon, and some new trinkets and accessories, ready to face the world.

One thing I really appreciate about Guild Wars 2 is that no matter where you’re leveling, the experience gained equals out. So lets say you’re playing in a lower level area and you’ve auto mentored down (the entire game works this way) so that you’re level 16. Whether you’re playing in that level 16 area or a level 40 area, the experience you gain balances out, so you don’t feel as though you’re wasting your time in that lower level zone. By working on catching my story up to my actually level I managed to ding 47, and all I did was work the story quests which ranged from level 10 to 40, I didn’t go out of my way to do anything else. It was refreshing to know that I could still gain a healthy amount of experience this way and I believe I’ve just started on the level 40 story quests, so I still have a ways to go before I’m completely caught up.

I had a thought to get into some WvWvW but I have absolutely no idea where to start or how things are working in that regard. I think I’ll give it a bit more time before I start to pvp. I had done some way back when on my other account but it has been ages. I’m hopping to gain a level or two a day until I hit 80, and continue working my way through the story quests that are available to me. I know at 80 a whole slew of things opens up and I don’t have the faintest idea where I should begin, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless. I bought a few things from the gem store this week too, of course. I picked up the spring kitten that trails after you (non combat pet), an extra row of bank slots, allowing my items to stack to 500 rather than 250, a package of dye (I got a black, very pleased), an item that lets me salvage, and I think that was the end of my spending spree.

It’s nice to be able to log in for a few minutes here and there and feel as though I’ve accomplished something. I may not be running dungeons yet (I really want to) but seeing the experience creep up is nice. I also like the daily incentives to logging in, I haven’t been playing in the proper zones in order to get the dailies completed, but there’s always a little bag of ‘stuff’ waiting for me at least. It feels a bit like a loot pinata, but I’m not complaining.

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

Gaming

What Do you Need in a Deed?

stargrace May 3, 2015 1Comment

I’ve owned more than my fair share of deeds in Wurm Online over the years, and there are some very specific things I look for when it comes to setting up a new one. Some things you want to keep in mind for a generic deed include how far away clay is, what about tar, or peat. Clay is typically the more important of those three, but if you can be in proximity to all the natural resources you might need, that’s obviously better. What about mining, is your deed low to water? That could create an issue with mines being under water once you open one. You’ll want to make sure that you can mine above the water level. How much work do you want to put into your deed? This will depend on your play style. Some of my alliance members are incredibly ambitious and have designed a deed right into the face of a mountain side, where as others (like myself) prefer a less intensive design.

What interests do you have? This will help decide what sort of deed you’ll want to create. Do you want to spend a lot of time working on your farm fields? Tending to animals? Maybe you want to be a hermit who lives inside of a mountain most days – or maybe you want to spend the majority of your time exploring, so becoming a villager in another town is best, that way you have a bed to come home to but you don’t have to worry about building a deed from scratch.

How is your fight skill? Are you going to need to hire a guard for those first few days or can you hold your own? What about a guard tower? How close do you want to be to other players, or to an active market? Do you want to start building ships? Thanks to ship transports being near to water isn’t quite as important as it once was, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Some of these things you may not even realize you’re taking into consideration when placing a deed, but you do on a subconscious level. Of course how the area looks is pretty important too. Do you want to live in the middle of a forest, or way up on a mountain cliff? Take the time to find the right deed for you, there’s so many areas to explore and there’s no need to settle down at the first place you tumble into (unless of course it is the perfect spot for you).

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

Gaming Real Life

Getting Started with the Newbie Blogger Initiative

stargrace May 2, 2015 0Comment

It’s May (already?!) which means the ‘Newbie Blogger Initiative’ has kicked off. Basically it’s a group of people who encourage others to blog more often / at all if they’ve ever had an inkling to. Belghast wrote about it in greater detail here, and they also have some forums set up here. I’ve been running MmoQuests for 9 years as of June this year, so I know a thing or two about blogging and what it takes to keep going. Though I have slowed in my writing since I started working for Carbine Studios, it’s not from a lack of desire but just a lack of time. I’m not getting super involved in the event, but I do like to watch from the sidelines.

For people who may have always wanted to blog but haven’t wanted to deal with the hassle of setting up a blog or actually running one – there are options out there. For example did you know that besides MmoQuests I also run Nomadic Gamers? This is a multi-author blog that I started five years ago for people who wanted to blog but didn’t want to deal with the hassle of setting one up. Over the years it has come down to just one current author, but I keep it running and people are welcome to contact me if they want to be a contributor. There are other multi-author sites like this out there as well, so don’t feel that you have to do things a certain way.

One thing I personally strive to do more of is not just read new blogs, but to leave comments on other blogs so that the writers know they’re being read. It can feel like this community is very closed off, that everyone interacts within their own little bubble and rarely spends any time looking outside that bubble and then the opinions that are being shared just turn into a circle of back patting and self congratulations. I think that sort of promotion is harmful, and we need to break out of it.

Why is blogging important? Well. Besides the obvious reasons like blowing off steam and sharing your opinion with the world, it has the potency to turn into something much larger. Like I said, I’ve been running MmoQuests for 9 years now. I started off small, writing about my main game (EverQuest 2) and kept the posts informative and not vulgar. Honestly that part is completely up to you – but if you know how to write negative things without coming across as a douche, it helps. Anyway. I started writing about EverQuest 2. Because of that, I landed a job with Beckett Massive Online Gamer writing guides and interviews. I spanned out a few more games besides EQ2, but still had my roots there. Because of my involvement to date with all of THAT I landed a volunteer position with SOE on the Community Council. Occasionally I’d get another freelance job, like writing for MMORPG. I continued to blog while working for Beckett MOG, and wrote for their magazine aimed at younger gamers, Fun! Online Games (also known as FOG). These things carried on for a few years until eventually MOG was shut down, and I landed a job a few years later with Carbine Studios (WildStar) which is where I’ve been for over a year now. A lot of it was luck and knowing the right people, but having not started out some place small I wouldn’t be where I am. I’m not saying everyone who starts a blog is going to move on to bigger and better things – but it sure doesn’t hurt your prospects depending on how you conduct yourself and how bad you want something. The one piece of advice I give to everyone is consistency. Be constant. Be reliable. Keep writing.

Gaming

Bypassing Content

stargrace May 1, 2015 0Comment

I recently started playing Guild Wars 2 again, blame it on the hype surrounding the expansion that was announced not too long ago. I’ve already got a level 80 guardian and an elementalist, as well as a handful of alts. I also recently started a new account that doesn’t have any characters on it so I’m trying to get an 80 or two before the expansion comes out. I began with a mesmer. I have one that’s already level 51 but I’d like to get to the level cap. Since I’ve already got a handful of characters at max level and I didn’t want to spend a great deal of time leveling through content I’ve already played, I decided to work on my crafting and enjoy the ‘free’ levels that comes with it.

In the gem store you can increase your active tradeskills from 2 to 4, so that was the first thing I picked up. I decided to go with weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, cooking, and jeweler. Thanks to the handy guides out there it was easy to raise each one to 400. Along the way it meant that my baby mesmer managed to ding 42, which allowed me to bypass a bunch of the older content that I’ve already done a bunch of times.

Now, I know not everyone thinks that content should be bypassed and honestly I’m torn on the debate myself. I would never suggest that brand new players skip content because they’re missing some great storylines as well as the time it takes to learn how to play the class. For veteran players, I have less of an issue. If you’ve already gone through the story and you already have a max level character, bypassing the content isn’t going to be that big of a deal. Most characters play similar to one another and it doesn’t take much time to learn from a guide. In my case, I’m really just interested in reaching level 80 and then I can go back to anything I missed that I consider important, and I can always go back and get older achievements that way. With the ‘mentoring down’ that Guild Wars 2 employes, this is even easier. I never have to worry about being too high level for any content in the game, I only ever have to be concerned about being too low level. If I’m level 80, that becomes a moot point.

I also created my first ranger. I’m not sure if I’ll actually level the class up, but it’s nice to have one. The world is as busy as ever and I’m always running into other players. I’d like to get into some dungeons and exploring more pvp, but for now I’m just having fun doing things as they come.

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

Gaming

Games with an Ending

stargrace April 29, 2015 0Comment

It’s an ongoing joke with anyone who knows me that I never finish the games I buy, especially not steam games. They can sit in my to-play list for years before I finally get around to them and even then, it’s rare that I ‘finish’ them. In truth I don’t own many games that have a solid ‘ending’ where I can sit down and feel confident that I’ve ‘beaten’ the game. Finishing a game is a pretty subjective point of view no matter how you look at it. Is a game completed when the story is completed? When you’ve earned all of the achievements? When you can’t progress a single character any further? What about games that have no real ending? Games like Sims 4, Banished, or Cities: Skylines? What constitutes the ‘end’ for you there? What about in an MMO, when have you ‘finished’ the game? When you’re at the maximum level available? When you’ve defeated all of the end-game encounters? There’s so many different values that you can attribute to the end of a game that it’s hard to know when one has completed it. At least for my games of choice which are typically sandbox games or at least games with sandbox features. Games like Super Mario World are much easier to decide when ‘the end’ is – but what about trying to accomplish all of the goals the game sets forth, for some people just making it to the end of a game isn’t actually ‘the end’.

So how do you decide when you’ve completed a game? How do you know when you’ve reached that point where there’s just nothing more for you to do and what do you do after that point, do you never return to the game even though it may have been one of your favourites? Or do games have unlimited re-play potential so long as you’re enjoying yourself?

Of course the whole reason this question came up is because I was glancing through my steam library trying to decide how many of my games (if any) I had ‘completed’ over the years. I’ve played through Magical Diary a handful of times now and seen multiple endings, so does that count as me having ‘completed’ the game? In the end, so long as I’m having fun, I suppose it doesn’t much matter – but it is fun to think about.

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

The Art of Leveling

What Do you Need in a Deed?

Getting Started with the Newbie Blogger Initiative

Bypassing Content

Games with an Ending

You Missed

Keeping Organized (Bookmarks)

Why a Nullsec Bloc Just Wasn’t For Me

Expensive (To Me) Skills

My Biggest Exploration Holy Grail