2016

A Little Bit of Civ. 5

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It may come as a bit of a surprise but there are a few non-MMO games out there that I really enjoy playing. A lot of them stem around creation or building in some way – like Civilization 5, Banished, or any sort of city creator. This week I decided to re-visit civ. 5, it has been ages since I last played. I don’t think I own all of the expansion packs for it but that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying the game. I started out with three cities of my own along the coast on the left hand side, and then quickly decided to become a warmonger and took over three more cities, wiping Spain from the game. Not my fault they fell so easily. I’m ally with Monaco on the right hand side and they also hold a little city down South. I’ll leave them there for now.

No one has come along to invade me yet, so I’ve had lots of time to work on reinforcing my cities. Having gunpowder helps a lot, and I think a majority of my citizens are happy, minus the annexed ones.

I’m not sure why games like this appeal to me aside from the fact that I find them very calming. Turn based means I’m not rushing around trying to get things done, and I have lots of time to go AFK if I’d like, or to ponder my next move. Civ is also one of those games that’s deeper than it looks. There are lots of political mechanics at work besides the simple ‘running a country’ image.

Next I’ll be wandering over to the right hand side of the map and slowly making a name for myself. There’s plenty of map left to uncover and I’m eager to explore.

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

 

A PVP Area Appears

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I’ve never been a huge fan of PVP in Wurm Online, but I did give it a bit of a try on Chaos for a while. I enjoyed the thrill of it, and being able to join different kingdoms. My main reason (at the time) was to create a priest of Libila, a black lighter instead of the usual white light priests. I had grand hopes of hiding out and working on my skills in the dark, then transferring goods over to the other freedom servers.

On Sklotopolis there’s a vocal minority of people who also want some sort of PVP (I say minority because I truly believe that a majority of wurm players are not looking for pvp to be their main focus). So it was that the GMs of the server created an area where this can happen. It’s between a bunch of mountains, has a tunnel leading up to it, a camp outside, and functions like a regular PVP place except for a few restrictions that they’ve implemented. These restrictions include banning the ability to dig or otherwise terraform the land, creation of all forms, and a few other things added to try to keep the area pristine. I think most people were hoping for an entire server, with kingdoms that they could join, but this does scratch a potential itch.

Or at least it would, if anyone were interested. Yesterday’s PVP event had to be cancelled due to lack of interest. I walked over with my alt and have been hanging out in the PVP zone for a day and a half now, but I haven’t seen another person come by or enter local. The other “issue” with PVP areas is that people like to stay close to their deeds, and travel (at least from the southern portions of the map) is awkward and filled with mountains.

Still, I congratulate the GMs on trying to please all the players on their server, both the PVPers and the “carebears”. I don’t know if it will ever really take off, I think that they’re making the same mistakes that Rolf constantly makes with Wurm Online and that’s dedicating resources to something only a very small vocal group of people want. The population of the PVP servers on Wurm Online is about 10% of the average total population. Perhaps they’ll find a way to make it more appealing, without making it incredibly over powered for only a handful of well geared / skilled players. I suppose we’ll just have to see what happens in the future.

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

GM Downfalls and Colossus Building

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I finished the first of two colossus yesterday – wow, they are so much faster than I expected. Once I had the materials construction took less than 2 hours. The statue uses 2k bricks, 2k clay, and 10 gold sheets (for this particular one). The most ‘difficult’ part (I use that term loosely, nothing is difficult it’s just time consuming) was getting the gold. I also got lots of extra.

I need to fix the windows pointing towards the ocean and then I can begin work on the opposite side, mirroring this side. Moumix has 85+ carpentry now which means he can plan the shipyard building that will be in the center. He needs 92+ carpentry to plan one of the castle grounds longest walls but it seems to be coming along at a decent pace.

The biggest challenge is keeping my mining above my other skills. See, if I want to improve things to 70 or 80 I need 70 or 80 quality supplies. Right now my mining is at 76. I’m trying to get at least a point or two a day, which makes for a lot of mining. My goal is to reach 80 by this weekend, and if I stick to the 1-2 points a day plan I’ll get there without too much issue.

I held an auction and sold off a rare longsword I had created as well as a rare needle. The auctions went well, I sold the needle for 5s and the longsword for 10. I bought a merchant form with the money I earned (10s) from a trader, so there was a 3s return, actually costing me 7s. Now that my skills are pretty well off, and my channeling / vynora spell casting isn’t shattering things or failing quite so much, I can afford to put some cheap items up for players – especially since I have so many from working up my skills. I’ve been giving away 60-70 ql tools to new players for the past week just to move some inventory.

I’m still not OK with a lot of things that happen on the server, like GMs removing houses that are supposed to be left to decay (but only for certain people, everyone else has to wait) especially since my deed and my alliance mate’s deed is right there and we were the ones waiting for them to decay (as per rules) but that’s one of the downfalls of playing on a privately owned server as opposed to a professionally hosted one. You have to look the other way and accept the fact that these things happen. If they bother you to the point where you’re not enjoying yourself any more (especially since this is a video game, where people should be enjoying themselves) then move on. It does make me wish I had researched into the available servers a bit more first, asked around and found out how they ‘really’ run, but hey it’s a learning experience.

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

Distant Ramblings

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Lately, I’ve felt like I’ve been floating along. I know I tend to refrain from much RL here on MmoQuests and keep it to posts about gaming, but there’s a lot more to daily interactions besides gaming. My friends are playing everything from WoW to Otome steam games and everything in between. I’ve been floating along, feeling distant from it all.

There was the big kerfuffle over legacy servers that everyone seemed to be involved in and it’s all we heard about. Guess what, legacy servers don’t bring back that feeling that you long to recapture. Nothing will do that because we were all different people back then, with different worries and goals in life. Have games changed over the years? Sure, games have changed. So have people.

There was the butt incident. What an odd thing to get worked up over.

GW2 revamped a lot of their latest expansion because people spoke up about how not fun it was. I’m glad the changes seem to be working. GW2 is a game I think I love to play only to find out that I don’t actually love it at all. Every time.

A new season has started in Diablo, and while I wanted to get all involved with that, I fell short, again. I just feel like it’s the same game and re-playing it each season doesn’t excite me.

I’ve been playing Wurm Unlimited on the Sklotopolis server still and it seems to be about the only thing holding my attention gaming wise. The large deed Moumix, Maya, and I are working on is coming along wonderfully. I’m working my channeling up, weapon smithing hit 60, and I’m saving up for a merchant. I have two auctions going on at the moment which should give me enough silver to buy a merchant form (10s).

It’s summer here, and the weather is lovely. My anxiety has been bouncing off the walls and I’m not sure if it’s due to the pregnancy or just that time of year. 14 weeks as of tomorrow. I’m so very blessed, but it’s also scary being so far from my family and not really knowing anyone here (still). I feel like I’m floundering.

Finally, Progress!

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After moving to the new deed, I have FINALLY finished leveling and surface mining the dock so that it’s flat, and real construction has started. This is the very first part, the three towers and two arches. To the left of the first tower a vynora statue will stand, and then these towers, arches, and the vynora statue will be duplicated at the other end of the dock. In the center will be the shipyard, with bridges spanning from the towers to the building.

I’m VERY excited to finally be at this stage! It feels like it took forever. It’s also using a lot of bricks, not just for my portion of the docks but for the town that Moumix has been working on up above. Maya is also going to start on another field along the slope, which involves a whole lot of surface mining. I think I’ll take a little exploration trip before too long, I’m going a bit stir crazy on the deed and I haven’t been exploring in a little while.

Pregnancy woes have meant that I’ve been cranky and short lately. I don’t really mean to be, but I decided it would probably be best if I just (mostly) kept to myself and didn’t interact that much. Not that I don’t want to, I love interacting with people, but I don’t like snapping at folks for no reason at all just because my hormones are wonky and dancing all over the place. It’s a sure way to find yourself on the outside looking in.

Leatherworking reached 40, not a great feat, but it’s nice. I’ll have to improve my gear again before too long, it’s still 35 or so.

Natural substance, on the way to 70! Excited about that one. Potions and dye are much easier now.

I worked jewelry smithing up a bit so that I could make a neat marble brazier to stand on top of the center tower – and I love how it turned out. That skill is 30 at the moment. Masonry (which is my affnity) is almost 85! No surprise there, I think I spend 90% of my wurm time making bricks, mortar, or building.

So what’s next? I haven’t the faintest idea. Exploring a bit maybe. Relaxing before starting on the rest of the dock area. Making more bricks. More mortar. Saving up so I can place a merchant… somewhere. I haven’t figured out where yet. My enchants are not the best, but I’m not looking for too much.

Anyway, that was my Friday! I hope everyone else had a better one than I did. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.