2015

An Expansion In the Works (Sims 4)

stargrace February 10, 2015 0Comment

It was only a matter of time before EA released information about the first Sims 4 expansion, and now we finally have those details. Their first expansion will be called “Get to Work” and includes three new careers for your Sims.

I was personally hoping for a pet expansion, but I don’t think we’ll get one for some time. The expansion releases in April of this year, only a few months away. Players will be able to choose from careers like doctor, scientist, and investigator. One feature that we started seeing at the tail end of the Sims 3 is the ability to create retail businesses, and that is included in the first expansion of the Sims 4. You’ll be able to create bakeries, clothing boutiques, art galleries, bookstores, and basically whatever else your little sims heart desires.

Aliens will also be making a return, but this feels like less of an expansion feature and more like something that should have been included in the base game that is finally ‘done’ and they decided to tack it on as a feature.

Of course I’m excited about the expansion, even if it isn’t pets. I’m hoping EA also goes through and eliminates some of the bugs we’ve had since release, and I hope the expansion gets off to a good start. I’ve been afraid to patch lately because of the latest fiasco, and EA doesn’t exactly have the best of track records.

Do you plan on picking the expansion up? Are you sticking with Sims 3 for now until 4 has a good backing behind it? Let me know in comments!

Gaming

Too Little Time

stargrace February 8, 2015 3Comments

A lot has been going on and keeping me busy, so of course something had to give. In my case it was gaming and updating this site. I’m hoping things are under control now, but we’ll just have to see.

With the announcement of a Guild Wars 2 expansion on the horizon excitement started to flutter past my typical means of social media. A few friends were playing here and there, and I decided to get in on the excitement. I’ve always enjoyed playing GW2 but my problems with the game are two fold. First of all, I have no idea what you’re supposed to do at level 80. I can understand the leveling process and earning gear and crafting, but once I hit 80 I couldn’t figure out how to keep myself interested. On that same note, I have no idea what has changed and what the story is and what I have missed in the history of the game. For example, Lion’s Arch is a huge disaster. There are NPC scattered all over in small groups crying. The place is in ruins. I have no idea why or what happened. I wish games better handled those who are returning.

I did pick up a second account when they had the $10 weekend sale, because that was just too good to pass up. It gives me some room to make new characters when the expansion comes out along with giving me some extra bank space. I love buy to play games where you get to play the entire game for the simple cost of the box. Of course GW2 also has a shop, but I haven’t really felt pressured to use it.

I deleted two of my older characters off of my main account (they were low level and characters I had never played before) and re-created them on my 2nd account. I have more potions (especially experience ones) than I know what to do with, and I figure these will come in handy down the road.

Have you recently returned to GW2? How are you finding it? How do you find motivation to continue playing once you reach level 80? Let me know in comments!

Gaming Real Life

My Thoughts on Joystiq & Massively

stargrace January 30, 2015 3Comments

With the recent news that Joystiq is merging into Engadget and Massively is on the way out, I’ve had a lot of thoughts cross my mind. Now, let me get some things straight first. I’ve never written for Massively before but I do know a good number of people who have worked for them. I also don’t follow Massively on twitter, I don’t subscribe to their RSS, and to be very blunt and honest it’s because I simply don’t like the articles. They didn’t appeal to me. A small handful did (I loved reading things on Wurm Online and Vanguard:SOH) but for the most part it just wasn’t a site that I had interest in.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for those types of articles. There are. Just because my personal preference doesn’t match up doesn’t mean I suddenly want to see those people without a job. If every single video game site was the same, it would be incredibly boring. There’s an audience for EVERYTHING out there (size of that audience differs, of course) and I think that in these times especially it’s important to show compassion. These are people. Friends. They work hard. A lot of past employees from these video game sites move on to bigger and better things. I wouldn’t be where I am today were it not for my humble beginnings writing for Beckett Massive Online Gamer, and MMORPG (many years ago). Did everyone like my stuff? No of course not, I’ll be the first to admit that I am not nor have I ever been a journalist of any sort. I’m a writer, yes, and sometimes what I say is interesting enough that I get paid for it, and sometimes it’s not.

Anyway. The whole point of this ramble is to say that it’s sad to see others celebrating when sites like these close down. I’m sure people rejoiced when Beckett MOG shut down too, but that was my paycheque, and it hurt. Show a little class.

Gaming

Stranded Deep

stargrace January 28, 2015 1Comment

As I mentioned last week, I really enjoy survival games. A friend pointed out ‘stranded deep’ to me last week, which is available on steam greenlight. The basics of the game are simple. You start out on an airplane and that’s where you’ll do a brief tutorial. You make a martini by dragging items around and learning how to use your inventory (which is a maximum of 8 slots to begin with). Crafting is pretty simplistic, which in this game I found to be a good thing. Basically you right click and drag items around close to one another in front of you, and a little square menu will pop up that tells you those items craft into something.

Eventually your plane crashes and you find yourself swimming around in an ocean, surrounded by sharks and water, with more sharks and water (and a few islands). Your goal from that point on is survival. The graphics to this game are absolutely beautiful, and the music caused me to jump out of my chair more than once. I managed to survive the first day, but just barely. A shark decided I would make a great meal as I was swimming around trying to explore an old abandoned boat I found just a few feet off of my island. I was getting a bit tired of eating nothing but crab, so I crafted a crude spear so I could catch some fish.

For this game it may be worth watching some of the tutorials that are out there if you’re easily frustrated by trying to figure craft recipes out. Most of them are simple logic, like dropping sticks on the ground in a pile (5) will allow you to create a campfire. You can then turn that campfire into a firepit, and turn that firepit into a fire spit, where you can hang food and cook it without having to manually hold your food over the fire.

So far my only negative comment would have to be that when food finishes cooking – you hear a ding, like a microwave. Out on my little island home away from home I’m not really expecting to hear a microwave ding when my crabs are done cooking over an open flame. Since the word of the food changes from crab to cooked crab, I really feel this is an unnecessary feature, and should be disabled. Unless of course your isolated island is equipped with a microwave. Then by all means, keep the ding.

Gaming

What do you Do if your Class isn’t Fun Anymore?

stargrace January 23, 2015 2Comments

Back when I first started playing EverQuest, I only had one character. I adored my enchanter, and never dreamed that I would want to play anything else. In EverQuest 2, I also started out with one character. Eventually as time ran on and I started raiding, the needs of my raid guild came first, and I swapped over to a new character. Their needs (of course) changed over time, and I decided I was flexible enough to keep up with that, so my one main character soon became 5, and I swapped between them all. There was even a time where I was dual boxing on raids and playing two characters at once. Those were hectic times, and I quickly burned out.

Since that time, I have rarely (if ever) settled on just one character. I have over 20 characters in EverQuest 2, around 10 in World of Warcraft, 4 in WildStar, and multiples in pretty much every single MMO I have ever played, including but not limited to Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Fable, Rift, The Secret World, and Wurm Online. On one hand I quite like having a great selection of characters to play; on the other hand though, it’s very stressful (and expensive) to keep so many alts around. The decision of “who should I play tonight” is never a straightforward answer. There are so many variables that come into play it’s like an entire game on its own.

Now the point of this post. When WoD released, I started playing my priest as my ‘main’ character. It has been a character I’ve stuck with the ‘most’ if there was such thing. I had no desire to play any alts at all, and I found that a relief. Now that I’ve been level 100 for some time, I’m not sure I actually enjoy the class as much as other classes that I have played (like my shaman, I love my shaman). I’m not sure if it’s because I dislike the changes that have come to healers overall, or if there’s just something about my priest in specific that I no longer find appealing. So what do you do when this happens? Do you tough it out and continue to play that ‘main’ character of yours, or do you decide not to waste another minute, and start working on a more-favourable alt? For now I’ve decided to work on an alt of mine and see if I enjoy playing them any more than I did the priest. The downside to that is that my priest had so many more achievements than my other characters, it seems almost a shame to have to “start over” – even though I do realize that achievements are account wide. It’s not quite the same for me.

An Expansion In the Works (Sims 4)

Too Little Time

My Thoughts on Joystiq & Massively

Stranded Deep

What do you Do if your Class isn’t Fun Anymore?

You Missed

The Helios Adventures Continue

Deepflow Rifts?

Keeping Organized (Bookmarks)

Why a Nullsec Bloc Just Wasn’t For Me