2017

Ding 30 – Done with Blightfire Moors

The beastlord is sitting at a comfortable level 30 now, and I need to go and pick up my spells (again). Leveling is still pretty fast over on the FV server but I haven’t had a lot of time to log in and play. Thankfully over on FV that’s not such a huge deal. I still get envious over those friends I see playing on the Time Locked servers, but I continue to live vicariously through them and their adventures.

It’s about time I moved on from Blightfire Moors. Tomorrow I’ll visit the quest giver out in POK and see where they send me at level 30 for the hot zone.

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

Wurm Chores – A way of Relaxing

For me, playing video games is a way of relaxing. I typically play whatever I’m in the mood to play, with little to no outside pressures. Sure, I keep a streaming schedule now, but the games I play during fluctuate, and if I’m not keen on playing what I have scheduled I’ll change it.

I decided to stream Wurm Unlimited in a very impromptu stream (you can check it out over on my Twitch page!) and it was a really relaxing time. I tended to my fields, took care of my bison, went and harvested my wheat – and noticed one of my hens had succumbed to old age. Chickens don’t live as long as other animals (for whatever reason) so they die at aged. Sad times. Since watching Paw Patrol (thanks to my kid, I swear) I have become obsessed with naming all of my hens Chickaletta. It was sad to have to bury the animal, but she had a good life.

Then I tended to my cows and my sheep, harvesting the fields. I showed off my winery, stuck more moonshine in the distillery and was going to go do some meditation when I had to cut my stream short. Such is the way of life. Still, it was relaxing, even the 20 minutes I got to spend in game. I love talking about a game that I’m so passionate about. It makes time go by much faster, and I like feeling confident in what I’m saying.

Things have been pretty quiet on Wurm, but I still log in often, even if it’s just to take care of the chores. I know I’ll be back full time before too long, as always my interests are just all over the place with my lack of availability.

I did put up the schedule for my streams this week, too. I’ve decided to start a Throwback Thursday feature, and the remaining days I’ll just play whatever I happen to plan. This week (because I know you’re all so interested) I’ll be playing:

  • Tuesday – RimWorld
  • Wednesday – Pinball FX 2
  • Thursday – Redemption Mud
  • Friday – Castle of Illusion

As well as any impromptu streams I manage to fit in there (maybe some EQ, or some EVE Online). Next week I’ll switch things up again and we’ll see about getting a visual novel in there for one of the days. I am trying to get qualified for affiliate on Twitch, so if you like my channel please do give it a follow and tune in during my streams – it really helps me out a ton.

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

Redemption Mud

The year was 2001, and I was completely enthralled with a mud called Redemption. I played a number of characters, became an imm briefly and made a ton of friends while I was there, a portion of whom I still keep in touch with. I had just moved out on my own a few years previous, and I owned my very first computer. Sure, our home always had a computer in it, but it was considered my Dad’s computer, so while we were allowed to use it, it was certainly not ‘ours’ in any way.

Redemption shut down back in 2013, and in 2009 I went and visited again briefly. It was revived late in 2014 (as far as I can tell) and is once again active. I couldn’t remember all of my character names but I did remember a few. Aimee. Taya. Miyu. I think I used to have a green dragon called Snuggle or Snuggles or something, too. I tried to log in as those characters but they’ve been deleted, either by myself or someone else I’m not sure.

I was able to log in as Stargrace, the character I created in 2009.

Things have changed, but not that much. The game still plays very much the same. There are even some of the same people there. I am not sure if any of them remembered who I was, but it was interesting talking to them none the less. It was also completely strange to be walking around in the text based game that I spent so much time in so many many years ago. Slowly commands and directions started coming back to me. Before I knew it, my level 1 dragon cleric (9k to level) was level 5. Though I am thinking about remaking, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t thinking clearly when I created the character. Maybe I’ll try to re-create one of the characters from my past. I can’t create Aimee as it tells me the name is illegal (I have no idea why, she was a simple non-clanner) but I can try some of the others.

So while E3 was going on today and everyone was ooh’ing and aaahh’ing over the latest 4k graphics and games coming out, I was playing a text based game with the biggest grin on my face. Sometimes, it really is the simple things.

I’ll be streaming Redemption on Thursday for my newest Throwback Thursday feature, starting on twitch at 7:30pm PDT. Please give the channel a follow so you don’t miss any of my other streams!

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

BDO – Woah

I haven’t played BDO since it released back in 2015, finding it an incredibly grind-orientated game, with confusing features that I could never keep track of. Know what has changed? Very little.

If you try to return to BDO after two years away chances are you’re going to remember even LESS than what you used to know. Just how it works. The only way to bypass this is to create a new character and run through the tutorial (or read the tutorial messages) so you can re-learn everything like how to free mouse look.

I did get some mail from my family. 100,000,000 silver. I’ve been gone a while, what can I say. My sorcerer was still there, still hanging out at one of her houses. I had a (get ready for this) 77 gig patch, before I could play.

77.

I’m not exaggerating.

It would have been easier for me to just re-download the entire game instead of just patching it.

I’m also frustrated that I can’t play through the steam client (unless I add BDO as a non-steam game) because it would require me purchasing a brand new account for $10 (or $6 on sale, USD). I already bought one of the expensive starter packs, the least they could let me do is launch it from the platform of my choosing.

Anyway.

I spent the entire day cleaning out my mailbox. Wow. BDO REALLY enjoys their events, and at the start they were giving away potions and goodies like candy any time there was a slight disruption in service. After two years, that adds up. So did my lack of inventory space which just reminded me how this game gets you.

Still, it is an absolutely beautiful game. The cameras available for pictures are stunning. The game play didn’t catch on for me any more than it did last time, and I’m pretty sure I could have found something better to do with the 77 gigs I downloaded.

It was neat to see that BDO is going to be heading to XBox. I hope it does well there, just like it seems to be doing well now with the steam release. It’s not a bad game by any means, it’s just not the game for me.

GW2 – Getting Familiar (Again)

Last night I decided to dive back into Guild Wars 2 and see what I had missed. I played briefly when HoT released, but it has been some time since then. My stream had a rocky start (a pretty bad stuttering issue when I first started the stream, and then some issues with the music being louder than me talking) but it didn’t take long to get off and running.

Literally.

I checked out my guardian and noticed that her personal story was at the level 10 stage. I had leveled my characters up by doing crafting instead of adventuring, so I missed out on pretty much everything. This is my second account so I just wanted to level up as fast as possible and move past the content I had already done (many) times before on my old account. I headed off to do my level 10 story and… got completely stuck. I had NO idea where the instance wanted me to go to progress the line. I walked all over the place but was constantly told if I walked any further I’d be outside the instance lines (looking back, the NPCs wanted me to go under the water.. I just didn’t grasp that at the time).

Instead I headed out to do the opening sequence that leads you to HoT. Lots of information about lost troops and the bad guys basically destroying everything.

I didn’t get too far into it before my hour of game time was up, but it was nice to be playing. I really enjoyed GW2 when I had more time to play. I still saw players everywhere, and while it may not be as busy as it was, it’s still a pretty hopping game. I always smile to see things like that. I never want a game to fail. Sure, there are games out there that I don’t particularly like, genres I don’t enjoy playing, but that’s perfectly OK. Not all games have to be for me.

My characters all passed another birthday so I picked up the goodies from that, too. Scrolls, miniatures, everything deserving of cluttering my bags. If you missed the stream and want to take a peek, you can head on over to my twitch channel: http://twitch.tv/stargrace. If you like what you see, please consider giving a follow! I stream Tuesday-Friday 7:30 PDT-8:30 PDT.

Have you recently returned to a game and if so are you enjoying yourself? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Nomadic Gamer