stargrace

This Cat Tower, is Amazing

This cat tower is a reward from Guild Wars 2. Not too long ago daily rewards were changed, and now you get to pick what you’d like as a reward, and you earn daily (and weekly) points that contribute to said items. This cat tower chair posted above is one such item.

I absolutely love it.

The GW2 Wardrobe is Underrated

GW2 has one of the most robust wardrobe systems I’ve played with over the years, and I think it deserves way more attention than it gets. Not only can you dye each piece with multiple colour channels, you can also have pieces that completely change your character – such as the screenshot above which is displaying a pirate hand (hook) and a peg leg.

Unlocks like these are account wide, so your characters can instantly have access to dye & appearance items no matter who you’re playing. The only other MMO I’ve played in recent times that has such a robust system, is FFXIV – and these reminders are what bothers me about World of Warcraft’s system, which appears antique by comparison. WoW just recently gave players the ability to unlock appearance gear account wide, previously you had to unlock it on a character who could wear that type of gear. They also do not allow for any dye, restricting your customization further. I understand that implementing these things so late into the game’s life isn’t something that can really be considered (thank you spaghetti code) but the more I play other games, the more I realize how much WoW lacks and how it has not risen to innovation over the years – probably because it never had to.

The latest expansion has released, and I’m slowly making my way through the story (really slowly) and exploring the first zone, Lowland Shore. I think because I have not completed some of the prior expansions it has put me at a bit of a disadvantage. I don’t have the flying mount, for one. There seem to be some places I can’t reach or some objectives I can’t do because of it. Since it’s all new, I’m not sure if I’m missing out or if there’s other ways to reach these places that I just haven’t stumbled into. I won’t be posting any spoilers, but I will say I’m enjoying myself, and I hope it lasts.

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

Completing Rifts on Sklotopolis

I still wander around on the Sklotopolis server in Wurm Unlimited, but lately my time in-game has been less stellar than usual. As I’ve mentioned in multiple posts over the years, one of my favourite things to do in game is to explore and pillage fallen ruins, but there is one person who is always at every single ruin before everyone else, camping them for days and weeks on end. This person makes pillaging difficult, and while I understand that things operate on a first come first serve basis, it’s just not fun.

So I’ve decided to take a bit of a break from it (once again) and continue on in Wurm Online, where I find things a bit more fair. I won’t be giving up my deed any time soon, but I think it will be nice to step back and not get so worked up over very small things.

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

A Little Guild Wars 2

It has been some time since I played GW2 regularly, and I’m not really sure why that is. On paper, the game has everything I enjoy in an MMO – but it’s also the game I’ve had the hardest time trying to find a place to belong. I suppose in the end that doesn’t matter too much, I rarely ever stick around in any place that isn’t my own guild – but I do have goals that I want to accomplish, and they are easier if you have a community.

Anyway.

When I started playing GW2 I was playing an asura guardian. Fun class, I loved swinging my big 2h sword around – but a few years in, I just wasn’t feeling it any more. I decided to abruptly swap over to a mesmer, and I’ve been in love ever since. The problem is, I never bothered working on her personal story, and then I got distracted by multiple shinies, and here we are. I’m on the last chapter of the personal story, called Victory or Death. Today I completed the following parts to that:

  • Temple of the Forgotten God
  • Through the Looking Glass
  • What the Eye Beholds
  • Estate of Decay
  • A Grisly Shipment
  • Further into Orr
  • Stealing Light
  • Conscript Dead ships

Now I’m on Ships of the Line. I believe after this there are 4 more sub chapters and then my personal story will be completed. I think I’ll probably need help for the final quest, I remember getting help on it when I was attempting it with my guardian, but we’ll see when I get there. I’m pretty excited to get it completed! Ideally, I’d follow up by working on the next stories in order, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to resist the sirens call of the next expansion – which just happens to release tomorrow.

I’m incredibly excited about this expansion. It’s bringing player housing to the table, and anyone who knows me understands that this is a very big deal. I love player housing, decorating and collecting furniture and browsing other people’s builds is one of my favourite pastimes.

Are you going to be playing the expansion? Are you excited about player housing? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming – no matter what you play.

90 Day Suitcase Challenge – Conclusion

I debated if I wanted to remain in my WH for more than 90 days, but decided to take a little break – not from EVE, but just from the stress of leaving the Orca in a wormhole. It’s an expensive ship – and I rarely ever logged it in unless I absolutely had to, but that came with pros and cons (as does anything in EVE).

Overall, I absolutely loved my time living in jspace. I’d (ideally) like something more permanent – but nothing in EVE is permanent, and if you go at it solo (as is my way) you tend to get picked off fairly quickly. The goal with this challenge was to live in jspace using as small of a footprint as possible so that I wouldn’t draw attention to myself.

I made a LOT of ISK. Most of my ISK came from gas huffing and exploration (relic/data sites). A little bit of it came from running combat sites (I stuck to C1-C3), and a good portion came from PI. I’m not sure if PI counts because even though it IS in jspace, I’m using a wormlife freeport with a few alts rather than doing PI in the system I was living in. Once a week I’d collect my goods and move them to highsec, and then pick them up with the squall I eventually purchased.

I made a few friends out there – I joined up with a community of like-minded nomads, and watched a lot of videos and learned some things that I didn’t know before. I also figured out that living in jspace is absolutely my favourite place to be. I loved everything about it.

Taking my Orca home was rough, but not the part where I was moving it through jspace, the part that was rough was when I was trying to get back to my home system, in highsec. There were three gate camps going on when I initially wanted to move, so I had to wait those out and find a better time. It took days before I finally found a window to make the 35 jumps it would take to get back home. Ideally I should have just been patient and waited for a closer connection, but I was eager to move on to the next adventure.

The best thing I saw? Probably shattered wormholes. They’re beautiful. The scariest? Any time anyone showed up on d-scan. There were a few times I would leave my relic/data sites because I felt a weird feeling of being watched, even though I honestly didn’t know if someone was or not. I always used a perch to do my sites so that I spent as little time at the cans as possible. Oh, my favourite system is the one in the screenshot. It looked like an ocean in space, and it was beautiful.

Things I’d do differently if I were to do it again (which I might, I haven’t decided yet) – I THINK I’d like to anchor a small structure, or a POS. I know that it leaves a bigger footprint, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I know lots of corporations live in jspace, but I’m really not interested in joining up with a whole bunch of people that I may or may not get along with. In any case, it was a fun 90 days, and it went by VERY quickly. I can’t wait for the next adventure.

As always, fly your way! o7