July 2017

Still Gaming – Sort Of

stargrace July 27, 2017 0Comment

Life has been kicking me around for so long now I don’t even know what I was doing last, but I do know that I want to get back into the swing of things, back into being me. So here I am. I have done pretty much zero gaming these past few weeks. It’s not that I haven’t had the time, I do, but I’m just emotionally spent and so I end up watching Netflix or reading for an hour and then going to sleep. Or tossing and turning and dreaming about wildfires (that was last night). Either way, I love gaming and I love writing so it’s time to suck it up and get back to it as much as I can with the turmoil that’s going on (if you want to know details you can PM me on twitter / facebook or email).

Yonder – love this game. I’m unfortunately limited to gaming from my MacBook for the foreseeable future, which isn’t completely horrible because I can still stream from my PC to my MacBook, but lets face it, this is not a gaming laptop. I’d love to save up for a proper one but that just isn’t in the cards right now (if you spot a fantastic sale on a gaming laptop that delivers to Canada please let me know). I’d love to get rid of my desktop completely and just use a gaming laptop as I don’t see things changing any time soon for the next couple years. Yonder isn’t compatible with my MacBook but I’ve been streaming it and that works out pretty well.

I’ve also started playing RimWorld again. I downloaded a whole slew of new mods (more details about that later) and happily enough the game doesn’t have to be streamed to play it. So long as I don’t fry the MacBook everything should be good. I haven’t played a lot since the A17 update, a lot of my older mods were broken and I was waiting on them to get fixed, but now some time has passed and the majority (of the popular ones at least) have been updated. I’d love to stream my game play, but for now it’s just not possible (unless I get that gaming laptop, then I will gladly set up some streaming) so you’ll have to live vicariously through my gaming blog posts.

Games coming up? There are a few of them, but honestly I have my hands full with the games I’m already playing. My renewal for WoW comes up soon and I’m still working on my deeds in Wurm Unlimited on the Sklotopolis server. We took down a drake on Saturday and I won another set of gear – but passed it off to the next winner because I’ve already won some and I wanted someone else to get the opportunity. People sort of looked at me oddly for passing, but I felt confident in my decision.

Anyway! This is a post to basically say yes, I’m still here, and I do plan on getting my post counts back up there again. It may not be every day, but we’ll see how it goes. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

Yonder – Where did you come from?!

stargrace July 19, 2017 1Comment

I had never heard of this game before, Yonder, but then it started showing up in a few Twitter feeds that I follow and of course as soon as I heard it was a Steam game I had to check it out which lasted not even a full day before I ended up getting the game.

Yes, it’s good.

Well, that depends on what you’re “into” as far as gaming. There’s no combat which for some people means they simply won’t enjoy the game. You basically run around as a shipwrecked person doing fetching / finding quests for townsfolk and eliminating “Murk” (the big evil) from various places while playing hide and seek with sprites that you collect.

There’s crafting, there’s housing (in a way, you’re given a farm to run), there’s collections, quests, exploration, and all of it is bundled into a game that looks absolutely beautiful. There’s seasons, weather, and so many little tiny details that I have no idea how I had never heard of the game before.

The best part? It was on sale (already) on steam, and even without the sale it was under $25 CAD. That’s a big win for me.

Oh, and there’s fishing, too. Because what fun is a game like this if it doesn’t have fishing!

If it sounds like something you’d like to play I’d seriously consider picking it up. Give it a try, if you don’t like it get a refund from steam (with their guidelines and rules of course) but I know I’ll be sticking with it and continuing to play. Every so often a gem wanders into my little ring of static games, and this is most definitely one.

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

Real Life

You’re NEVER Too Old to Learn

stargrace July 11, 2017 3Comments

Growing up I was never very interested in computers or coding or even video games. I didn’t own a computer until I moved out on my own, back in 2000. As years went by I would lament over the fact that I couldn’t code like a lot of my friends (and my family, my Dad is an Oracle programmer) and I started resigning myself to the fact that it was something that I’d never be able to do. Sure, I learned some basic HTML like everyone else who used forums and wanted to format some stuff, but nothing further.

I think it’s really important to keep learning things as you grow up, it keeps us from being stagnant. With a new kid I don’t have a lot of spare time but I wanted to make good use of the small amount of time that I did have. I still wanted to learn how to code, but I had absolutely no idea where to start or what language to learn – there are so many! I asked on twitter for some help from friends and they came through in a big way offering all sorts of advice.

One of the best pieces of advice was to take a look at freeCodeCamp.org. It’s a learning tool that teaches you how to code in a bunch of different languages and they offer you certificates for passing their courses. Each certificate they offer takes 200+ hours, depending on your speed. Not only that, but their ‘camp’ helps non-profit organizations. You take the stuff you’ve learned and apply it to real life situations; in this case that means creating apps for non-profits to use. So not only are you learning how to code (for free) you’re helping out some fine folks who need it, and your stuff is actually being used. I signed up, got a GitHub account attached, and started on the first lesson (which you can see part of above in my screenshot, the left hand side is my instructions, the center is my code, and the right hand side is the result).

They start you out with very basic HTML and then move to CSS. I’ve done 19 of the challenges so far, and as you progress they hold your hand less and less. You can “ask for a hint” which takes you to their forums where you can interact with other students and help each other along with your code. They encourage community and local study groups which I think is fantastic. No, I’m not doing very complicated things (yet) but I’ll get there. I can learn at my own pace, on my own time. I feel like I’m doing something constructive with the limited spare time I have. Eventually, I may even be able to get a job with my new skill set, even if it takes a few years.

This is something that’s really important to me, and near and dear to my heart. As such, I’ve decided to do a weekly coding blog post, where I talk about what I’m working on and where I am in the program. I’m hoping it’ll be a motivational tool for those who think that they’re too old to learn or don’t have the time. A sort of “hell if I can do it, anyone can do it” example. I’m also INCREDIBLY excited and proud of myself. This is something I never thought I’d be able to do and here I am. I know it’ll take some time, but I’ll get there.

Gaming

Pet Battle Dungeons (and other fun)

stargrace July 2, 2017 0Comment

Today was an odd mixture of accomplishments. I finished off a few raids I wanted to get done before things reset on Tuesday, obtaining a few upgrades (mostly artifact items for my weapons, and a wrist piece) and I got my dailies done. Then I attempted to clear out some quests from my journal, wandering around aimlessly in Broken Shore because I still have no idea what’s going on there.

I managed to unlock more traits on my DPS weapon which is pretty neat. I’m close to “finishing” the basic traits on my holy weapon, so that’s nice too. I’m not punished too much for spreading my artifact points all over the damn place.

Eventually the evening was dragging on and I decided I wanted to attempt one of the pet battle dungeons that were added not too long ago. Friends who know me are aware that I have a lovely little fascination with pet battles (and collecting pets) with 603 unique pets in my collection. Of course not all of them are level 25, or rare, but maybe one day. I haven’t done a lot of pet collecting in Legion (if any) so that number should go up before too long.

The pet dungeon I decided to try was Wailing Caverns, and it was awesome – but a few things frustrated me.

There’s an achievement for completing the dungeon, but you can’t get it on your first attempt through with the weekly. Instead you have to try to get it on your second attempt, the attempt that doesn’t let you heal any of your pets. Great achievement, but it should specify that some place.

Completing the weekly did give me a token to boost a pet to level 25, so that was nice, but I found the dungeon very long. Maybe it’s just because I wasn’t sure what pets to use and it required some trial and error, but it took a good amount of time to defeat the final boss. Of course that’s also a rewarding feeling, but I was hoping for something I could dart into and not worry about if I had to leave early.

Still, I love the idea, and hope they can make a few improvements with time and practice. I only had time for one run through and I don’t think I’ll have the pets required to make a run without heals, so for now I’ll be happy with that.

I also collected enough essences to boost my 940 legendary to 970, yay! Almost forgot to mention that.

So while I don’t have a lot of time to play, I AM making progress. Slowly. In my own time. It’s still a pretty nice feeling. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

The Broken Shore (Lost…)

stargrace July 1, 2017 0Comment

This weekend is a holiday weekend, so I was able to dip into some WoW while the other half took kiddo for a walk – it was glorious because I finally finished off the very beginner part of my class hall campaign! YAY!

Then I started working on The Broken Shore stuff.

What?

I don’t understand the point of this zone. I understand what’s going on from a lore perspective, but the place just doesn’t make sense to me. So far I’ve run around completing a few missions / quests, but I’ve seen only a handful of other players, the place is awkwardly packed with encounter after encounter, and I haven’t gotten a single item as loot / quest reward yet. What am I missing? Do I need to progress further in the chain before the usefulness of this zone becomes apparent?

Am I working towards something? I couldn’t even tell you aside from the ability to research my artifact stuff beyond 25.

Speaking of artifacts. I wish I had of been much smarter when it came to spending my points in the beginning. I swapped between all three of my weapons and spread points everywhere. I’m finally on the last 1.2 million required for my main spec (these days that’s DPS) and then… well then I work towards finishing off my holy weapon, I suppose.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying playing a huge amount, but I just don’t understand what I’m doing in this zone. Plus, I have a quest to go do a dungeon, and it’s causing me some anxiety. It’s not a mythic dungeon (I believe it’s some sort of citadel?) but I still don’t see myself doing it any time soon in a PUG. We’ll have to see, I suppose.

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

Still Gaming – Sort Of

Yonder – Where did you come from?!

You’re NEVER Too Old to Learn

Pet Battle Dungeons (and other fun)

The Broken Shore (Lost…)

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Keeping Organized (Bookmarks)

Why a Nullsec Bloc Just Wasn’t For Me

Expensive (To Me) Skills

My Biggest Exploration Holy Grail