2016

Free Player? Lets Make Things Difficult..

stargrace January 15, 2016 1Comment

A lot of friends of mine are playing Star Wars: The Old Republic lately, whether it’s inspiration from watching the latest movie or just an urge of theirs. That’s how I found myself downloading the client last night. The game is free to play, but it has been a long time since I felt so incredibly shunned as a free to play player. First, there are tons of race restrictions. Even as a subscriber there are race restrictions for certain classes that you have to unlock through various ways. You can’t sprint until level 10, subscribers get this at level 1. Whether or not you can sprint isn’t going to necessarily make or break the actual gameplay, but while you’re questing through wide open spaces and everyone else is running past you it can be painful. You also can’t hide your helmet graphic unless you subscribe. That one bugs me a lot. You can’t use group chat until level 10, even if you’re on friends lists, so that meant I couldn’t actually talk with any of my friends playing. At least not yet.

You can’t choose your quest rewards, they’re already designated to you. None of this is new and the comments and discussions have already happened, but as someone who has never played before it’s very off putting.

As a Canadian gamer, subscriptions are a prickly cactus. They’re typically charged in US dollars, and the Canadian dollar is worth less than 70 cents to the US one these days. That means a regular $14.99 subscription actually costs me $21.71 and there are rumors about it falling to around 50 cents to the US dollar before the end of the year. A failing Canadian dollar means my groceries get more expensive as they’re imported, and so I have less money for things like subscription games. Not a big deal if you’ve only got one subscription game on your plate, but if you play more than one subscription game, or your a multi-gamer household, it gets expensive, fast. That’s why games like WoW, EVE, and EQ2 appeal to me. I can earn enough in-game currency to purchase a token to continue playing. Of course that means casual games are almost nonexistent, you need to be able to dedicate x number of hours in order to raise the funds.

I did manage to get to level 10 last night and unlock sprint as well as the ability to talk to people. The game is pretty, the story amazing. Whether or not I continue to play however will depend on how many more limitations I come up against and whether or not I decide to subscribe.

Knitting Yarn

Thursday: What’s on your needles?

stargrace January 14, 2016 0Comment

Like I mentioned in my last post, it’s easy to feel motivated when January rolls around. There’s so many KALs and projects just starting out and of course we’re all flashing our stash and making unreasonable goals (which is half of the fun). I find it harder to keep knitting projects going throughout the rest of the year. This year I’m knitting from my stash and I have a handful of WIP. I’m working on a MKAL shawl hosted by Sherwood Knits and I’m half way through the second clue. I hope to finish it up tomorrow just in time for the next one.

I’m also working on vanilla socks, hosted by the beginner’s knit-along group that I belong to. I’m almost done the first sock and I’ve been making them on 9″ circulars to try them out vs. DPN. So far I’m a huge fan. The third project I’m working on is also hosted by the beginner’s knit-along group, and that’s my BKAL blanket where we complete one square a month and then stitch them together. This months square is completed, so it’s not a WIP or on my needles any more, but it was until recently (it’s the picture featured in this post). The final project I’m working on is the Pine Forest Baby Blanket in a bright sunshine yellow. I also have enough yarn to make a second in a sky blue, and I’m hoping to gift them. The blankets are so soft and smushy it’s tempting to just keep them for myself. I enjoy having multiple projects on the go but on that same note you want to make sure that you don’t get overwhelmed. It’s easy to feel like you’re ‘falling behind’ and setting up goals that you can obtain and that won’t frustrate you is important. I had a double knit afghan on my to-do list but found that learning the skill on top of all of the other knitting that I wanted to get done was just frustrating me instead of giving me joy. For now I’ve set that project aside, and I’ll pick it up again when I’m feeling more confident about it. Double knitting is an intense technique, and as a beginner (yes, I still consider myself a beginner) I just found it overwhelming. I did manage to get to row 17/45 before I messed up beyond repair, but it didn’t relax me like my other knitting projects do, even the MKAL shawl is not so bad.

So what do you have on your needles this week? Let me know in comments!

Gaming

Flying in Draenor (finally)

stargrace January 13, 2016 0Comment

I finally earned enough faction to be able to fly in Draenor – and let me tell you, for me, this is a game changer.

I had neglected all of my alts and all of my alliance characters because I just don’t like running around from place to place especially when I know the option for flying is out there. It was overly frustrating in Tanaan Jungle when people would swoop out of the skies to take quest objectives from me as I quested. I almost wished that there was a zone phase for people who had unlocked flight, and another for those of us without. I’m especially glad that flight unlocks account wide, because now I don’t feel bored to tears as I quest my alts through levels 91-100.

Not only did I finally unlock flight, but I also upgraded my fishing shack to level 3, and recruited Nat Pagle as a follower who I put to work in the fishing shack. That leaves only one building left to upgrade, and I’ve been holding back because it requires me to group up – something I always have a lot of anxiety about in World of Warcraft, even though I know I’m more than geared enough to be able to handle heroic dungeons. I’m constantly afraid that I’ll do something to mess up or that I’ll get kicked out, no matter how many times I tell myself that it’s just a game and that I shouldn’t worry about these things. I still do worry. Please remember if you’d like to add me to BNet you can find me as: Stargrace#1783, and though I am playing horde at the moment (Area 52) I also have alliance members (Argent Dawn).

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

Gaming

Playing Games with No Set Goals

stargrace January 11, 2016 0Comment

I spent a lot of my gaming time playing games that don’t have goals set out for you (also called sandbox games). You choose how you spend your time and progression isn’t typically linear. I’m still running my Infinity Evolved server for Minecraft and last night I spent most of it creating items from decocraft, a mod that allows you to use dyed clay to create modern items. Pictured in the screenshot is the office area. I also made a bedroom and a kitchen (with fully functional taps). I could spend hours creating items like this and designing ‘modern’ looking homes. It’s just one aspect of gameplay that I find enjoyable.

I tried to go through some of the minecraft achievements yesterday, but I find them a pretty lackluster bunch. I also learned a bunch about Endermen that I never knew by playing the Telltale game of it on steam. I had no idea what made them aggressive! With my new knowledge, I can pretty much always avoid them (by the way, that was a fantastic game, highly suggest you play it if you haven’t yet).

In minecraft the top floor of the base I’ve created is dedicated to resources and a few ‘pretty’ rooms. This is a drastic change from the room below, which is filled with computers and machinery. The bottom floor houses my tinkerer’s construct. Outside I’ve got a farm growing crops, and I’ve set up some animal pens. I’ve ventured into the Nether but haven’t gotten anything fancy set up there. I’ve also started working my way through Twilight Forest, but I’m feeling a bit lack luster about it because that’s where I spent most of my time in the previous rendition of my server.

There are still a lot of mod packs that I haven’t delved too far into, like Blood Magic. Once I get the ‘house’ looking the way I want, it will be time to pick another mod pack to figure out. Normally I just go with whatever my mood decides, but maybe this time I’ll take a look at the over all list of mods and work my way through them or something. I haven’t decided yet.

In any case, even though Minecraft isn’t an MMO and there’s no progression set out for me, I’m still having a blast playing and creating. Sometimes it’s just exactly what I need.

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

Gaming

Look Ma! Old Raids!

stargrace January 8, 2016 0Comment

Today I was one of ‘those’ people. You know the ones who are not paying attention during a pull and instead they’re taking selfies with their bffs. OK so it was an older raid and I could have been dead on the floor for all of it and no one would have noticed, but I usually try to not be that person. The second I saw this named I wanted to take a picture with him. Normally for raids I go as a shadow priest, but today after my usual round I decided to swap over to my disc spec and heal for a while. It’s not that I don’t adore shadow, I do, but I get bored of doing the same things day after day, as anyone would. If it wasn’t for the Draenor faction I’ve been working on I would probably swap to another character for a bit. As it stands, I’m still trying very hard to complete my faction so I can fly.

The raids treated me well. They were in need of a healer and so I received an extra loot bag for each run. I made a tidy sum of cash and got some gear to send to alts. I’ve upgraded my garrison now and I’m only missing two buildings in order for all of them to be T3. One is the fishing shack that I work on daily (only 300 fish to go) and the second one is the Tavern, and for that I need an achievement which requires doing dungeons with other players. So far I’m not quite ready, though I really do think they’re much easier these days than they used to be.

I also ventured into Darkmoon Faire which I haven’t seen since their latest revamp. I earned myself a good number of achievements doing the racer events, and am at 11,000 achievement points even. I love that I can log in and play for an hour and feel as though I’ve actually accomplished something. Speaking of which, I earned enough money for another game token, so that’s my account taken care of until February 2017. I like saving up for a token each month, and I like that it’s an obtainable goal with my playtime. It’s still cheaper than it has been previously, seeming to bounce between 34k and 35k.

One thing I’ve really been slacking on is my barn. I just can’t seem to go out and collect the caged bits you need for the work orders. I’ve also fallen behind on my tailoring, I rarely ever get the supplies required. It’s something I’d like to focus on in the future if I can remember to at least.

All in all, just another quiet evening! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Free Player? Lets Make Things Difficult..

Thursday: What’s on your needles?

Flying in Draenor (finally)

Playing Games with No Set Goals

Look Ma! Old Raids!

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