Cities: Skylines

So Many DLC (so little time)

It has been quite some time since I’ve played Cities: Skylines, and it showed when I went to see which DLC I was missing. Even with the 50% off sale that was going on, it would cost me over $100 to purchase the ones I was missing. A lot of those are cosmetic items, but I did pick up four DLC that I was missing that looked moderately interesting. They were the more expensive ones, as I was hoping they’d provide actual content. I didn’t get a lot of time to play, but I did re-familiarize myself with the basics. This game is one of my favourite city builders, and if for some reason you haven’t picked it up yet, you should give it a shot.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

IntPiPoMo Day 1-4

Never heard of IntPiPoMo before? Well, no time like the present! I’m going to swipe the information from Gamer Girl Confessions, and you can find the post about it here.

NaNoWriMo is about writing 50k words throughout the month of November. If a picture is work a thousand words, that would mean we’d need to post fifty pictures!

These can be screenshots from any game, or even photographs you take in real life and want to share on your blog. They can be anything–character selfies, shots of combat, sharing your game UI, showing off that awesome-tacular Deathclaw kill you got in Fallout 4… you get the idea.

So without further wait, here are my first four screenshots for the IntPiPoMo of 2015. First up, EverQuest 2. Long time readers of this blog will be very familiar with my love affair with this MMO. I played it fairly steadily for 7 years before wandering off – and returning – and wandering off – and returning. It has been a few years since I’ve played with any sort of consistency, but  that seems typical for video games. Below I’m wandering around in Commonlands, enjoying the sunset.

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Next up, another of my MMO loves (and my current one) Wurm Online. I’ve been playing Wurm for 6 years now, and if ever there was a sandbox to love, well. This is it (at least for me).

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Next up, Cities: Skylines. This game (to me) was everything that Sim City should have been, at a more cost effective price. Bugs? Sure, all games have a few of those, but it ran the way I expected a polished product to run, and I had hours of enjoyment from playing. Now they’ve released a few DLC, and while I haven’t picked those up, they are on my wish list.

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Finally, we have Tropico 5, and my island being pummeled by natural disasters. That’s OK, my citizens didn’t need homes anyway…

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There you have it, the first four days of IntPiPoMo, underway. Expect more screenshots throughout the month, I’ll probably post them in a bundle like this every couple of days instead of posting them individually. Don’t forget, you can participate too! The rules can be found on the post linked above, and it’s a really simple little project to get into. Plus it gets you looking at your screenshots folders – and lets face it, there are probably a lot of those, along with some fantastic memories stored up.

Happy gaming!

Cities: Skylines Gets Some New Content (YAY)

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On the 19th of May, Paradox Interactive added patch 1.1.0 to Cities: Skylines and with it came European buildings, and tunnels. Of course that wasn’t all they added. The whole list is below:

  • New: European theme added
  • New: 72 European buildings in the European theme
  • New: Support for corner and adjacent buildings in the European theme
  • New: 3 maps added with European theme (Cliffside Bay, Foggy Hills and Grand River)
  • New: Tunnels for roads and rail added
  • New: Metro tunnels can be built at different levels
  • Options: V sync option added
  • Options: Invert Y mouse axis added

The downside to these awesome things is that to access the new buildings you’ll have to start on a new map, that includes a new biome called ‘European’ from the start menu. There are three maps to choose from, and they’re pretty nice. They also fixed a bunch of bugs (though I noticed my traffic still likes to disappear into the ground if there are any hills around) and of course made some changes for the editing / mod community. If you happen to use mods you’ll want to disable them for a bit to make sure there are no conflicts. A lot of mods won’t work with 1.1.0 so they’ll need updates.

The best part about the update was of course that it’s free for everyone who owns the game, and the price for the base game is very reasonable for the incredible game you get. Just check out the ‘overwhelmingly positive‘ reviews over on steam, with over 11,882 reviews and counting.

Of course first thing I did was go to one of the new maps and then promptly forget everything I had learned about creating a city previously. You can’t just start out with a city that stretches the entire plot of land you have, that’s a sure way to quickly run out of funds (which I did), so I started over. The second time I started at a smaller pace, but I still made some mistakes that caused me to run out of money and go take out a loan (or two) once I had a population of over 750. This game really is a nice relaxing gem, and I can’t wait to see what other things they add in the future. I haven’t played around with mods or re-skins yet, but I’m hoping to get into that eventually. If you haven’t picked the game up yet, I highly recommend it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

What am I playing? LOTS!

Screenshot_20150305_164319I’ve probably played more games in the last week than I did most of last year. Part of that is due to having a bit more time on my hands than normal (hopefully a temporary situation that will be resolved by the end of this month) and part of that is because there are just so many wonderful games out there.

EverQuest2: My defiler is still only level 95, but she did manage to reach level 100 in tailoring. Crafting is an odd duck with the latest expansion, Altar of Malice. Doing the crafting quests themselves won’t get you to level 100, and grinding out writs goes quite slow – however, doing the daily craft mission will easily net you 30% experience, and doing the weekly got me an entire level. Missions re-set on Wednesdays. You can find me in game on Antonia Bayle as Stargrace.

Cities: Skylines: This game just released, and it’s so much fun. In fact it’s everything that I wanted from SimCity, at half the price. There’s an enormous mod community and enough content to keep me satisfied for quite some time. Well worth the cost, and I highly recommend it if you’re into the city building games at all.

Elder Scrolls Online: I just started playing this. It apparently starts going free to play on Tuesday. I’ve had a subscription for quite some time because I did some alpha testing on their billing system, but I never actually played. It wasn’t because of any drastic reason, I simply didn’t have the time. The game is beautiful but I’m not far enough into it to make any other calls about the game quite yet.

EVE Online: Still training skills, still working on faction, PI, and all of that good stuff. EVE Online is still one of the best games I have to relax with. That’s right, even though the skies are filled with pirates and horrible people looking to scam and pod you, it’s still relaxing.

FFXIV: I’ve started a new character on Cactuar. I’m hoping to go white mage, but I’m taking my time and things are moving along slowly. I believe my character name is Velours Reveurs for those looking to add me to their friends list. This game is absolutely gorgeous, and I’m hoping to keep it on my rotation. We’ll have to see how things go though.

Minecraft: I’m running The Dark Trilogy as a server right now for some friends. I’ve created a portal to the Twilight Forest, as well as a portal to the Nether. There are some really awesome mods in this pack, and I’m having a blast. I’m hopping to get some nether quartz so I can make some furniture that comes in a specific pack. Furniture like refrigerators and televisions. Mods really do make this game.

Sims4: Still working on my legacy family. Tristan is going to be the next person to carry the legacy name, and so I’ve been preparing him for adulthood. Right now he’s best friends with a feisty redhead neighbour girl, and they’re promised to each other. Meanwhile Jessica will probably just move into the basement (that’s right, Sims 4 is patching in basements!) and Elizabeth will age gracefully, as she watches her children carry on.

Wizard101: My life wizard is level 27, and I’ve been questing in Marleybone. It’s the home of cats, dogs, rats, and proper manners. Based on 19th century London. It’s also my favourite zone to date. It has been some time since I’ve played and it’s interesting getting back into things, but this is still a fantastic game no matter your age.

WoW: This has been taking a back seat to other games, but I still log in to check my garrison resources and to trade and do the dailies. As others have mentioned, by the time you take care of all of the garrison chores, my game time is already spent for the day. On one hand it’s great to have a reason to log in every day but on the other hand it would be lovely to play the game instead of just playing the garrisons.

The Secret World: A handful of combat wombats have decided to start up in the Secret World. We’re playing the Dragon faction, and while the game has never been a genre that I’m completely comfortable with, it does have one of the best (IMO) quest systems and story lines that I’ve ever participated in. Playing with friends makes it seem a little less scary, and even though I’ve just started (again) I’m looking forward to playing.

Wurm Online: Now that my guard tower is completed, it’s time to work on the rest of my deed along with taking care of my horses. I’ve been trying to breed 5 speeds for a while now and to also breed out the grey colour. It’s coming along well, but it requires time. In between that I’m trying to decide which skill to work on next.

Those are the games that came to my immediate mind when listing what I’m currently actively playing. There’s others I’ve left off the list on purpose – like GW2. I want to get back into the game but I just can’t seem to find the motivation to keep playing. Since it’s a buy to play game, that’s alright. I’m also still playing WildStar, but again it’s very casually and sporadic, so I don’t feel comfortable putting it up there with my ‘most played’ games. What about everyone else? Where are you spending your time these days with so many options available? Let me know in comments!

Nomadic Gamer