2018

The Road to 4 Million

stargrace June 14, 2018 No Comments

In Battle for Azeroth it was announced that there would be a mount (pictured above in that fancy bar graph) that cost 5 million gold. Currently 4 million if you faction first. I am not sure if I actually want to purchase it (it has a mobile auction house, which is awesome if you use the AH a lot and don’t want to get phased) because my servers have been pretty low population and I don’t really need a mobile auction house – not to mention 5 million (or even 4 million) gold is a LOT of cash.

Still, I do enjoy challenges. I enjoy working towards goals. I decided to set my goal to 4 million earned by the start of BfA, and so far I’m actually on track (I had a few fantastic sale days). Lately I haven’t been making that much, and I expect that as we get closer to the expansion and I get closer to my due date that the amount of coin I pull in will drop quite significantly.

I do have over 1 million gold and I’m pretty close to hitting 2 million. It’s the most gold I’ve ever had in WoW, but it didn’t happen instantly. I’ve been learning how TradeSkillMaster works since December, learning my market and figuring out what sells and what doesn’t. It has been a trial in patience, and honestly it has been a really good trial. I still make bad purchases from time to time but I feel like I have a fairly good understanding on what is going to sell and what I’ll be sitting on for quite some time.

If I don’t get the mount I imagine I’ll just try to keep my liquid gold (the actual amount of gold I have on hand) over 1 million, just because. It’s a pretty number to see.

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

Gaming

E3 Excitement

stargrace June 13, 2018 No Comments

Another E3 is almost over and this year I’ve been watching as many panels as I can. It feels a lot like Christmas! I know that on various social media platforms it’s cool to hate on everything that you don’t like, but I’ve never really wanted to participate in that sort of promotion, so I’d much rather talk about what I DID like.

I own a PS4, but not a lot of PS4 games. I’m hoping to change that this year (once I actually get my PS4 set up). Last of Us 2 wasn’t that appealing to me (the genre and gore hit too close to home) but I am looking forward to Kingdom Hearts 3. Weird, since I’ve never played the first ones (but I am planning on picking up 1.5/2.5 Remix and fixing that).

As far as PC games go, well. That’s where I’ve been hanging out for so long that it’s just comfortable. Ooblets and Two Point Hospital have been on my steam wishlist for a good while now. Both of them are pretty exciting to me.

Just Dance 2019 – yep, I want it. I watch a fair number of Just Dance twitch streams, and even though I know I won’t be any good at it, I’d love to give it a try. I also signed up for the PS4 beta of Trials Rising, I probably won’t get in, but the game looked neat. One of the games I didn’t think I’d be interested in that I am suddenly VERY interested in, is Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Yes, it’s because I can play a female character.

It’s RARE that I get to be a female character in those types of worlds (aside from the obvious games, like Tomb Raider) and I’ve never played an AC game before, but it has been suggested that I pick up Origins, so I will start with that one. The game looked beautiful, and even though there is killing and gore (both things I don’t handle well) it still interested me enough that I want to play. The Crew 2 also looked neat, but I know very little about it.

Square Enix had a lot of neat games shown, but besides Kingdom Hearts (already mentioned above) none really appealed to me. Bethesda’s announcement of The Elder Scrolls 6 was pretty exciting, but I feel like that game is probably so far off, there’s no reason to be excited (yet). I’m also not a fan of Fallout, so Fallout 76 and Fallout Shelter on the Switch doesn’t interest me.

Cyberpunk 2077 looked amazing. It might not be an instant buy for me, but I want to watch others playing it for sure. The world looked so detailed and rich, I instantly fell in love. Besides, what’s not to love about cyberpunk! Unravel 2 also looked really cute but it’s a game I’d rather see go on sale first before purchasing.

Right now I’m waiting for the Nintendo presentation to start, and yes, I am a huge fan of Nintendo in general. I don’t do well with shooting and killing and gore and blood, and Nintendo has a calmer type of gameplay that suits me. I am hoping for a proper Switch Animal Crossing announcement after I was let down last year. We’ll just have to see how that goes.

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

Gaming

Jurassic World Evolution

stargrace June 12, 2018 No Comments

I’m pretty sure I had heard of Jurassic World Evolution before, but with so many games releasing daily, not to mention that it’s E3 and there are new videos / presentations / other happenings going on, it seemed to have slipped my mind. A friend graciously gifted it to me yesterday, just in time for release today. Since my little was up at 4am (which of course means I was up) at around 5:30 I was able to download the game and install it, jumping right into the theme park.

I read a few reviews that brought up some legitimate concerns like the fact that you can’t play in sandbox mode until you’re further in the base (tutorial, basically) game, and you need to complete the missions in order to unlock objects to use in your theme park. For a game that was designed by the same folks who created Planet Coaster, you may find it lacking in a lot of areas – but that shouldn’t hamper your enjoyment, it’s one of those “stop comparing it to every other game” moments.

I started out learning about bioengineering dinosaurs, and then decided to work on the security of the park. I created Berta, a fairly docile herbivore. Spent some money to add some research into genomes, sent a team out to examine fossils, and then with their discovery created George. Another herbivore. I’m not ready to get into the meat eating (people eating??) ones yet.

I placed some food for them where tourists could easily watch so that my park rating goes up (who wants to go to a park to see dinosaurs if you never get to SEE dinosaurs) and did a practice escape run by letting George out of his pen. A helicopter came and tranquilized the creature then air lifted him back to his (now) secure home. Easy peasy. I imagine things ramp up in difficulty as you progress through the game, but for now it’s fairly straight forward and I’m OK with that.

The game is also just plain beautiful, something I appreciate. I’m sure when things get really hectic (like a meat eating dinosaur is on the loose going after my tourists) I’ll sing a different tune, but for now it’s quite a relaxing and tranquil place to hang out.

There’s not a lot of park customization available (absolutely nothing like planet coaster), but so far that hasn’t really bugged me. Maybe when I’m further along. There’s a lot of research to do, dinosaurs to discover, gnomes to study. There are three paths (which are not really that different at all) of research to progress down and various things to unlock with each. You’re also in charge of 5 islands, each with their own finance and budget to look after. Unfortunately many players are commenting that the game seems to lack ‘stuff’ and you may find it quite repetitive after a bit. I also think the price tag ($62 CAD) way too steep for what the game offers at this time.

With all that said, I’m happy to be creating dinos and content to watch them romp through my park, eating trees and hopefully not tourists. For now, at least.

Gaming

An Odd Conversation..

stargrace June 11, 2018 No Comments

Every so often I’ll have a really weird conversation with someone, and yesterday was the day.

I got the tells above, and then the person said that their lag was too bad and so they’d have to write their proposal out to me and send it to my character in the mail. I said alright and said that I hoped their lag cleared up soon, that was the extent of our conversation.

They never did mail me, so I have absolutely no idea what they were going to propose….

Very weird.

Knitting Yarn

Experiment – Socks without Math?

stargrace May 30, 2018 No Comments

Any time I start knitting socks, I have to do a bunch of math – even for my own foot, which is also one reason why I’ve only made socks for myself (and a pair of baby socks but those ones don’t really count). This isn’t because you HAVE to math, but because the components of a sock that I have chosen to knit so far have required it. The reason this frustrates me is because it means stopping my knitting, going to do the math, and then painstakingly counting during those portions so I don’t mess something up and end up with a sock that would only fit a fish.

There’s math to figure out the cuff size (based on yarn and gauge), there’s math to figure out the heel turn, there’s math for a gusset, etc.

I would like less math in my socks, and I know there are lots of patterns that allow you to do this, so I decided to challenge myself and figure it out. I wanted to also learn TAAT (two at a time) but you need two balls of yarn for that (or at least two ends) and my yarn is already in a ball so I decided I had enough techniques on my plate and to save TAAT for the next pair.

The first thing I had to learn was toe-up socks. Socks can be knit toe-up or cuff-down. I’ve only ever knit socks cuff-down before. I find them easier, I’ve never really been a fan of learning toe-up. In order to start a toe I had to learn a new cast-on, so I went with a figure-8 cast on, where you weave the yarn between two needles in a figure 8 pattern, then you knit across the top, and bottom, and slowly start increases. You can see my progress so far pictured above. It was actually a LOT easier than I thought, I love using DPN (double pointed needles) so I didn’t have any issues aside from the toe being a smidge more loose than I would like. That will come with practice though.

So my toe is started, it’s looking like a toe, I’m doing increases. Before I started this, I made a cardboard cut out of the bottom of my foot, and marked the ankle bone, also called the hinge. For my heel I’ll be using a technique called fish lips kiss – a ravelry pattern for $1 that claims there is zero math and you’ll get perfect sock heels every time (as long as you can learn the stitches). Once I’m done the toe, and the foot, I’ll start learning that technique and see how it goes. I’m pretty excited to be done with gussets. One of the reasons is because if you look at store bought socks almost NONE of them come with a gusset. Instead they use negative ease to make socks fit us all perfectly. Sure there’s also a bit more elasticity, but most of the magic is through negative ease.

Here’s hoping I get some beautiful ankle socks by the end of this experiment, and that I learn a few techniques to help me with future socks.

The Road to 4 Million

E3 Excitement

Jurassic World Evolution

An Odd Conversation..

Experiment – Socks without Math?

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