June 2016

What am I Playing? What are You Playing!

stargrace June 20, 2016 5Comments

It’s that time of the year where people seem to be floundering in their usual game of choice, torn between the beautiful weather outside and hiding away inside to avoid the heat. I tend to be a restless gamer no matter what I’m playing, so it’s not really a surprise that I find myself all over the place.

In steam games I’ve been bouncing around between mindless clickers like adventure capitalist and the usual (Wurm Unlimited) with a brief stay in minecraft story mode. I have only completed the 4th chapter so far, and I love every second of it. I also installed skyrim thinking I’d finally get a chance to play through the entire game, but I haven’t gotten up the nerve yet. I’ve played it quite a bit (never to completion) only to have a computer issue that would cause my saved game to become erased, so I’ve started playing numerous times and then during the last incident finally gave up and said enough was enough.

I’ve also found myself playing a good amount of World of Warcraft and Sims 4. WoW is of course a nice comfortable game that I find very easy to fall into and I’m really excited about Legion. I love the friendly hype I’ve been seeing, and I hope more people return even if it is just a temporary visit until they get bored of things again. Sims 4 recently released a pack called Dine Out, and I’m having a blast with it. I’ve been playing my legacy family which is now on the 3rd generation and working towards the 4th. It’s the furthest I’ve ever managed to take a legacy family and I have high hopes of making it all the way to the 10th (eventually). Of course now that I’ve said that I’m sure I’ll start having issues with my PC..

What has everyone else been playing? Are you also bouncing around from game to game looking for something to hold your attention? Or are you outside, enjoying that bright object in the sky? I’ve seen a lot of folks playing The Witcher 3’s latest expansion, not my sort of game at all but I’m glad to see others enjoying themselves! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Gaming

Changes Coming (Pre-Legion)

stargrace June 18, 2016 0Comment

Last week I finally got into the Legion beta, after trying to get in since I heard about it. I eagerly downloaded the beta server and then was promptly unable to play because of some technical difficulties with a patch they had just rolled out. Such is my luck. Eventually later on in the day I was able to log in without facing a multitude of disconnects and lag, and what grabbed me right off the bat was not any of the proposed changes coming in Legion, but the changes coming before Legion hits. The ones that are now on the PTR for testing (with no live date in sight, but with Legion only months away, it’s only a matter of time).

Of these changes my absolute favourite is the changes to the transmog system. Instead of carting around appearance gear or storing it forever in void storage (which has a hefty fee if you ever want to remove the item from void storage) there’s a slick new interface that’s account wide. I absolutely LOVE this change, and I think it will really make a difference in how often I get to change my characters appearance from their typical gear. Not only does it take armour into consideration but things like tabards and shirts will also be account wide. The changes to this single feature (so far) outweigh everything else I’ve seen. In true blizzard fashion they’ve taken a system that’s already around in other games (Diablo3, GW2) and added their own design features and perfected it for World of Warcraft.

One of the changes that leaves me with a less than happy taste in my mouth is the changes (and removal) of glyphs. A few are still around, but characters no longer have a glyph panel and instead these are built into your spells. The problem I have is that it doesn’t seem that Blizzard has thought it through as far as the inscription craft class goes which of course I just swapped my 2nd main character to. Instead of making glyphs, inscription will make a consumable item that’s used by players once a week to help do more DPS to a specific boss.

Eh?

Of course I’ll reserve my overall judgement for when it all goes live (nothing is set in stone) but it leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. I guess there was some heavy debate over scribes making too much money with their glyphs and this is some sort of retribution and balance to that. Perfectly understandable but I’m still kicking myself for having just picked up the profession. On the other hand, I have enough alts that I have pretty much one of everything, so it’s not a huge deal.

I’m very excited to experience the rest of the changes, I think it’s going to be a great time for gaming in World of Warcraft.

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

Gaming

Death Visits the Little Legacy Family

stargrace June 14, 2016 0Comment

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Death came for Jessica Little who was out in the garden, one of her favourite places to be. Why he’s hiding behind an apple tree with his ipad, I have no idea, but that didn’t stop him from whisking her off someplace else. I’ve placed the urn beside her late husband Alonzo’s urn (pictured bottom right) with a description of what she was doing at the time of death so that as I continue playing this legacy family I remember the little tidbits that make them all unique.

Before Jessica died her daughter Emily did manage to get married to a young man named Tristan Givens, and together they had a baby boy. Right now he’s turning out to be quite the little musical prodigy, although Tristan joined the family with no job and no skills to speak of. A real winner there. For a few weeks he wanted to be an astronaut but now he has switched careers into programming. Emily continues her painting career, and the family already misses the royalty cheques that they were used to getting with Jessica. In fact it was that money that enabled the family to build a few addons to the house, including the garden plot, a new bathroom, and an outdoor patio. Now they’re back to saving up for things although they certainly are not lacking in their enormous house (I believe it’s got 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms as it stands).

This means I’ve finally passed on to the 3rd generation of my 10 generation game. I believe I made it as far as 3 before way back when in the Sims 3, but I’ve never actually stuck with a family long enough to make it to the 4th generation (let alone the 10th). I’m hoping that eventually the family will be able to purchase a restaurant and have it become some sort of family business, but it will take quite a bit of funds to get to that point, and I’m not sure the Little family has that sort of discipline.

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

Gaming

FTB Infinity Evolved Skyblock & Texture Packs

stargrace June 12, 2016 0Comment

I’ve been wandering through different FTB (Feed the Beast) mod packs trying to find the perfect one for me. The only mod pack that I played for any length of time was FTB Infinity Evolved, a kitchen sink mod pack with a crazy amount of things to do. It just so happens that FTB also published a skyblocks pack back on April 1st, considered to be ‘hardcore’. Recipes are harder than normal, some are even changed around to involve more components. Some people like these challenges, they can add a lot to your game if you’ve played through regular versions.

I also decided to play around with texture packs, something I’ve never bothered with in the past. There’s some absolutely beautiful packs out there that can completely change what your game looks like. I’m currently using JSTR and love the way everything looks.

I flagged myself as an admin for the server and created 5 different islands for people to start on in case others join in. Then I removed admin (it’s op name and deop name for those commands) and went back to normal play, heading to one of the islands with a friend. Unlike other skyblock mods I’ve played that had me start on a single dirt, this one let me spawn on a 3×3 of dirt. I also got a neat chest filled with a few handy items including a water tile and a lava tile.

We spent some time doing nothing but growing trees, one of the most boring parts of skyblock mods, but once we had a good selection of wood (and sprouts) we were able to move on to better things like generating cobblestone and compressed things. Dirt is now readily available, and I’ve got a little farm set up with a pair of cows, chickens, pigs, and sheep. Of course there was a moment where the lava tile was placed too close to a tree that suddenly erupted into flames, and so did part of our base, and then another moment where a creeper spawned on top of a silkworm infested tree and exploded a good portion of the base when it fell off, but aside from those incidents things have been fairly quiet.

I’ve always preferred the creation side of this game which is a lot harder to get into when you’re first starting out in skyblock. Once things are situated and resources are not quite so rare, it gets a lot easier.

I’ve died once so far and lost a handful of items and tools. I was placing the fencing for the farm when I forgot to shift and ended up walking right off the ledge. Oops. On the plus side I wasn’t carrying anything that couldn’t be replaced. There’s an unwritten rule to stuff everything into a chest if you’re not immediately using it now. I’m not sure how long I’ll stick with this mod pack, but so far it’s fun, and since it’s new people are still exploring it quite a bit. There’s a good number of youtube videos on getting started, as well as a guide in game if you get stuck. Over all, I’m excited to see how far I can get.

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

Gaming

The Legacy Family Continues

stargrace June 11, 2016 0Comment

The legacy family I started way back when continues on, still only in the 2nd generation (while the goal is to make it to 10 generations). Jessica Little is an elder now, and still pursuing her novelist career. Her husband, Alonzo, died some time ago but he still comes around the house and to take Jessica out for dinner every so often. I caved and ended up buying the ‘Dine Out’ pack, which is a whole lot of fun. Their daughter, Emily, is now a young adult and is looking for love. Neither Jessica nor Alonzo approve of the teenage boyfriend Emily has at the moment, but it’s not their fault that he hasn’t aged up yet. Emily is an artist, and her paintings are famous all over the place.

Dine Out allows your sims to visit restaurants, own them, and work in them. So far I’ve only been to one, Cafe Llama. I know there are various themes, and I love the interactions you can do at each one. You get seated at a table, pick a drink and a meal, pay your compliments (or insults) to the chef, and interact with your sims and other sims while you do it. I know I keep wanting an animal expansion, but in the meantime as long as they provide interaction like this one, I’ll be happy.

The legacy family home has grown by leaps and bounds since Jessica first started out with only a few dollars to her name. Each time either Jessica or Emily come home with a paycheque I immediately decide on a room to furnish with high end furniture. There are four bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as a fancy patio with a grill and a nice garden along the side of the house. Emily’s art studio is set up on a balcony so she can have a great view of the world going on around her, and Jessica does her writing in the family room. They’ve taken to hiring a maid as well as a professional gardener to tend to things so that they have more time to enjoy life. Of course I have no idea how much longer that will be, in Jessica’s case. Now that she’s an elder, she could go at any time. Still, it’s been a nice long road playing the character so far. Hopefully Emily is up to the task of keeping the family line going.

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

What am I Playing? What are You Playing!

Changes Coming (Pre-Legion)

Death Visits the Little Legacy Family

FTB Infinity Evolved Skyblock & Texture Packs

The Legacy Family Continues

You Missed

The Search For Hrada-Oki Bivouac

Personal EVE Economic Update (October)

Expensive Month (preparing for fun)

Locked Out (again)