Monday, September 03, 2007

GW:EN

Guild Wars: Eye of the North, or 'GW:EN' for short is here. I bought the pre-order in the online store a few weeks back, and played a little of the pre-order last weekend, but since I was working, I didn't really get to play much, by which time most of my guildies had raced on ahead. Back to solitary life then Lol!

Partly for this reason, but also because of an increased interest in that oddity they call 'real life' (hehe) I just haven't got into it.. I wandered around my 'Hall of Monuments' which still baffles me... and wasn't overly impressed.. you can only have images of your heroes, for example, if you've upgraded their armour.. Similarly, you can't display your own image/armour unless you bought the FULL set of elite armour.. me being a 'mix-n-match' kinda gal... no image for me.. which is very annoying, because my ele. for instance, looks gorgeous - imho of course ;) She's just got the elite Primeval upper and boots and wears a cute little skirt in place of the pants.. dyed black to match her hair.. she looks niiice.. but I can't display that in MY 'Hall of Monuments'...

Speaking of HoM... it's 'per character'... I'm still baffled as to how I will link all this and both my accounts to my ONE (not doing the 'double' thing all over again!) GW2 account... that's if I bother with it.. (which I probably will).

Anyway, Gwen itself is nice, from what I have seen so far. It's pretty much more of the same, but since Anet has always excelled in the art department as far as I'm concerned, you can't get too much of that. NPCs also talk to you now, which is well cool; though I suspect it might become rather annoying after a while. I can just see calls of 'please make it so that we can turn this thing off' in the not-too-distant future.. :p

We get new heroes too. Nice. I've only picked up a couple so far, but one is an 'Asura' Elementalist: Asura are cute little creatures with big sticky-out ears, and.. the other is a Dwarf Monk. I might have just picked up a 'Norn' Warrior too.. played a bit the other night whilst a bit tipsy.. can't remember whether I actually 'gained' her or not.. :o.

If you've actually got this far and am curious as to what the heck I'm rambling on about, check out Guild Wars Wiki here for more information :)

Friday, August 10, 2007

Visiting

I've been going through my bookmarks: seeing which are still valid (I have hundreds! - hoarder :o ), tidying, organising, etc.. This led me to check up on some old games, and associated with this was making sure my desktop was up-to-date, and updating some programs, including games.

Due to this, I checked up on Thang and was pleased that it loaded pretty quickly with no fuss: I'd expected waiting ages for a huge update.. hmm.. maybe that's not such a good thing.. heh. Anyway, the only thing I noticed from my brief visit was that you can now turn the screen/view 360 degrees, instead of the 180 or whatever it was before.. There may well be more than that that's 'new', but that's all I noticed..

Eternal Lands had to get a little visit too and I had to reinstall, due to the program I had no longer being used/supported. There seemed to be a lot of updates, according to the text, but things looked the same and although it's a lovely little game I would like to 'visit properly' one day, I wasn't in the mood for trying to remember what to do!

A 'games crawl' (kinda like a pub crawl but without the booze.. or pubs! :P) would have to include Planeshift - for me. This is one of the most frustrating games I think I've ever come across.. Why? because I've had such a good feeling about it ever since I first found about it, but I always found it a nightmare to play - well, actually getting to play always feels like a major accomplishment!! This time, as previously, it wouldn't update and didn't want to work, so I visited the website and realised there was a new build - good news, but I wish they'd sort out the updater so you don't have to uninstall and reinstall the darn thing every time!! I believe they are in the process of fixing that.. maybe they have, but I couldn't find it on the site. At least I managed to log into the site this time - I even had a nightmare with that last time I tried! I want to love PS but it won't let me!

What else did I visit.....? Oh yes, Puzzle Pirates! Login problems again, but it's more my fault than theirs, due to only visiting these games rarely. PP is a cute, easy little game. For me there are two 'levels' of approach when playing it. You can either get properly into it, making efforts to meet people, progress, and whatever else it has to offer.. Or, like me, you can just jump in and mindlessly have a go at the puzzles. I usually play the 'Bilging' puzzle ('Tetrisy' kinda thing) for a few minutes before logging off, lol.

I double-clicked the Rappelz icon, but after a few minutes of watching it try to download/update and thinking it didn't look like it was having much success, I gave up. It's just not appealing enough to me for me to put any effort into trying to get it going..

This may be an unkind or unfair thing to say, but I can't see me ever getting really engrossed in an Asian game.. They seem 'shallow', often bypassing any attempt to get someone fluent in English to check the content before pumping it out.. support seems a little lacking, but that's probably just a symptom of the modern world.. They do always look very pretty, but.. I'm forever seeking something with 'depth'.. like in the MuD, Cosrin I used to play. Some of the quests were deep.. I remember spending weeks up in a tower with a couple of friends, just trying to figure out how to get to the next bit, cross-referencing clues, going crazy to work it out.. I miss that, along with the depth of emersing yourself in your character... anyway, I digress.....

Farmer

I did get the GW:EN pre-order from the online store. A couple of weeks-ish till we can test it out..

I still haven't played much recently, but I've 'dipped in' a bit, here and there, and just done a spot of farming mainly: a couple of 'Margonite' runs with my Ranger and some 'Solo Boss Hunting' with my 'newer' Assassin who's just got a couple of missions left to finish Elona/Nightfall. The plan is to then get her through Cantha/Factions then delete my 'old' 'sin.. but with GW:EN coming up, it may not happen..

A friend showed me the Undead farming outside Bergen Hot Springs after I was there with my ele. and noticed the droves of monks there! I tried it, and as usual it took me a couple of goes to get it right, and I had to leave him and be alone before I did, and then I got the hang of it, then I didn't want to do it anymore! Lol!

Speaking of my Ele., I did spend a bit of time map-scraping with her. last week. She's up to 94.5% now.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

GW:EN

GW has been working for me for a while. Can't remember what I did.. it just seems to be hit and miss. I think I actually deleted it properly then reinstalled. It still plays me up but it's ok. GW:EN has been announced for the end of August. I'll order the pre-order from the online store soon I think.

I got 'Kind of a Big Deal' on my Ranger, and I've kinda lost interest since then. Funny.. goals keep you going.. ;)
I did a bit of work on my ele. finishing Elona with her, getting her some nice new armour from the final area then getting about 2.5% more on her Tyrian explorer title. She's crept up to about 92.5%.. tough going.

I'm worried about this Monuments thing that will be in Guild Wars 2.. it seems we can take some of our titles and stuff with us, but I'm concerned that I won't be able to take stuff from both accounts.. I'll have to pick one - 'cause there's no way I'm going to have 2 accounts in GW2! lol.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

What to do..

Well, I haven't really played anything for a while. Been busy, but also been trying to 'switch over' to Ubuntu. When (if..?) I get it working I'll try and post a nice concise little guide on it (though, knowing me it's unlikely to be either concise or little!)

After a long day at work I don't feel like anything very taxing. I'd rather just play. Alas, there isn't anything I really can play at the moment, not that I fancy anyway. GW went 'poooof' on me in Windows: it just won't work anymore. My poor computer's getting on a bit, bless it: I built it about four years ago, and haven't upgraded it, so I guess it's not done bad. A nice chunk of RAM would keep me going a few more months I reckon, but can I find any...? (old stuff, SDRAM or something, and I could do with it the form of a 1 gb stick really, as I've got two in there that are only 256k each . I suppose a couple of sticks of 512 mb would help..)

I popped in Thang last night, but... nah, there's no imagination going on there. If there was a quest I could try and figure out or some lovely scenery that I could wander around in, I'd get in there now, but alas, it's very lacking in stimulation for the imagination.

I could probably get Eternal Lands going in Ubuntu, but I don't really fancy that either right now.

I might let my dual boot take me to XP and have a wander around Planeshift..

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Repairing Data Archive

Waiting for GW to install.. I finally did it!
I've been plagued with 'Repairing Data Archive' on an alarmingly regular basis for months now, and will get kicked out of the game at times with a 'helpful' window popping up telling me that 'A serious problem has occurred...blah..'.
Anyway, tonight I couldn't even get the game to start! It 'repaired' it's data archive, yet again, then closed. Then it just kept ignoring me! Darn cheek! Pfft!
I used the '-contig' command which defragged my Gw.dat file, but that didn't help. They even recognise it on the official GW site here
now, which is a step in the right direction..
I've 'given in' though finally. Tried the 'reinstall GW to same directory' (or similar) option in add/remove programs, but that did nothing, so yep.. I UNINSTALLED Guild Wars! *breathes heavily*. I realised too late that my templates have gone in the bin too lol, but I'd put my screenies somewhere else, and have a copy of my old Gw.dat file 'just in case' - there are a lot of 'just in cases' in my life :P

Oh my..... well it just finished and I just got the 'A serious error has occurred that prevents the program from continuing to run; however... blah..blah...' Grrr!

Meh, back to the drawing board!

*huffs*

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Hero 'elite' armour

I'm totally skint now, having scraped enough together to get my monk some nice Elite Sunspear armour. It looks nice :)
I thought I'd have a go at upgrading some hero armour, but Dajkah Inlet was a pain. I'm not the quickest of workers, so I had trouble with the timer. I killed the Guild Lord three or four times and didn't get the necessary 'Stolen Sunspear Armor' that is needed to upgrade one hero's armour. I don't fancy doing that over and over to see if I can get one... I'll have a go if any guildies fancy it some time I think. For now, I'll try and get my monkie further through Nightfall.

I just did Venta Cemetary. Man, that took me ages! I was too busy trying to keep everyone alive to notice that half my Evacuees had disappared. I got to the NPC at the end to find that she didn't want to talk to me; so I had to go back and find my evacuees... They'd got stuck on one of the Guard Posts! lol!! I 'unhooked' them and went back and luckily, I got the Masters. I'm glad that happened, because I let the other Sunspear Evacuees die, so good job some kept themselves safe! Hehe!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Planeshift

I fancy trying PS again so I've downloaded it and been in briefly. I think there are a few things that will be new to me: I noticed that you can now 'sneak', which is kinda cute hehe. I might have a go tonight..

I find PS a bit of a pain in that each time they bring out a new version, you have to start all over again. I believe a 'proper' updater is in the pipeline, though I think they were talking about that last time I played, so not expecting it soon..

The updater that is currently built-in isn't good either, since you need to read the forums to realise that you SHOULDN'T use the updater..!! If you do, you mess up your install, apparently.. hmm..
When you load up the game to the character selection/creation screen, you are actually prompted to run the updater - though it's a 'not easy to read' message which briefly travels up your screen.. Still.. you'll have a nightmare with it if you don't check what to do first on the forums!

Anyway, I loved the ability to wander around in the 'countryside' for what seemed like miles, and the prospect of actually being able to roleplay properly again is appealing, so I'll definitely give it another go soon.

:)

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Hard Mode

Well an update on 19th April made sure all my Guildies were busy with the new 'Hard Mode'. Whilst this offers new challenges, not to mention titles (Vanquisher), I see it as a way to get you to play the game all over again.. Why would I want to do that? lol

There's always stuff to do in GW and it's not hard setting yourself various goals of different kinds. Someone's reply on a post I made on another game's forum springs to mind. I had basically said that I thought it was time for me to pop back to GW and they went on about how the 'main problem' with GW is it's level cap.. heck, that's one of it's major bonuses for me! lol. As previously stated, I hate 'grind', so I can get to level 20 then get on with other stuff: capturing some skills, trying out a new build, dabbling in pvp, or numerous other things, such as exploring - just about my favourite thing to do :)

I was just pondering on creating another blog to empty my jumbled head into, but I need to think more about just how to go about it, how to order the jumble so I don't make others' heads as messy as mine.. I might just create a private one which I can use like a diary. I can put my more precious bookmarks in it, because, knowing me we'll have a power cut/surge one day whilst the external HD is plugged in and I'll lose my backups at the same time as my 'live' stuff.. Lol! Then there's the absolutely outstanding free programs I've used to keep all the 'crapware' off my machine.. I'd like to donate to them someday, but an homage would make me feel better for a while.. Loads of people have done this already though I imagine..

I'll stop rambling for now..

Friday, April 20, 2007

GW is appealing again

Well, as I said, Thang's become a bit.. well.. it's time for another break from it. We downloaded 'Rappelz' and my bf managed to get into it and create a character. It kinda reminds me of GW: nice scenery and stuff. It looks better than 'Thang' but since my (rather ancient now) PC just locks up when I try to get it started, I haven't tried it for myself yet..

I popped into GW the other night and there have been a few changes. The ones that struck me were that you can now have your minipet with you in towns. I LOVE that! They've also increased the storage size, which is nice, though I've managed to fill it up already! lol! No surprise! :o

A few people were actually pleased to see me and it seemed I'd been missed! Gobsmacked! When I posted to say I'd be 'on a break' for a while, only a couple of people replied, so I assumed my absence would hardly be noticed. It was wonderful to be wrong! Hehe!

Well, I've been fiddling about with blog stuff today and now I've had a couple of drinks I feel like playing. Can't get into Rappelz, don't fancy Thang, so.. it has to be GW - it's 'Repairing Data Archive' atm... Grr! I'm used to that though. I can ramble on here whilst it's doing that...

Yay, it's up. See ya *waves*

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Thang occupied me for a while

Whilst on my 'GW break' I've been playing a little game called 'Thang'. I say 'little' because it takes only a very short amount of time to realise what the game's about: levelling.

Levelling/hunting/'grinding'/'farming' isn't really my bag, however Thang does have something which I find very appealing: a decent trading system. You basically put your items in your shop (just like another inventory window), enter the price you want for the item and that's it. You can go out and do your shopping for the day, or play in the park or whatever and come back and find you've sold stuff and made money. I know there are other games which have similar systems, but this is the only one I've really come across and I think it's cool.

'Little' also fits the size of Thang pretty well too, since there are three servers (four, but one has been combined with the first) and only about eight maps, not including the two towns and the general meeting/trading/lune (see below) purchasing place, Nusamlatana. The maps aren't exactly huge too, and you can easily come across 'KSing' problems (Kill Stealing - where someone decides to hit what you're killing, when the monster won't hurt them because it's busy gnawing on you, thus reducing your experience and possibly stealing your drops too).

I've quite enjoyed Thang though. It's light relief. Not being a 'grinder', I level as and when I feel like it, then do other stuff like trading, refining items, etc.. My other half actually likes it too, which is nice: it's been a while since we both played the same game, together (Syphon Filter on the Playstation - not even online or two player Lol!).

No-one seems to know what the max. level is in Thang. One of the GM's is L202 I believe. No player has reached that yet, though one or two have made it to somewhere around 170 I think..
Another quite refreshing thing about Thang is that any monster has a chance (though a small one) of dropping any item in the game.. I think... and there are 'boxes' which are visually exciting (they glow a lot ^..^ ) which appear randomly across the land from time-to-time which can drop nice stuff.

Prices in Thang are quite incredible... one of the rarest, if not 'the' rarest items in the game, goes for over 600 million 'dien'(in-game monetary unit)! wow! Low level refines easily go for 5k dien and up.. There's a bit of inflation going on at the moment there.. ;o

'Lune' is also in-game currency, though Lune is purchased with Real Money. You get somewhere around 6,000 Lune for about £3 and with this you can buy 'pots' (potions which give 99 decent heals or energy regeneration). An HP+1 (99) Pot can be sold to other players for anything up to 1 million dien! Something like a scroll for giving you more experience, goes for around 4 or 5 million.

Anyway, Thang's getting a bit stale for us now, so 'he' (how come there are LOADS of names for the female 'other half', but not so many for the male...? :/) will probably go back to his snooker and Op Flashpoint, and I'll re-familiarize myself with GW ;)

Friday, April 13, 2007

Back up a bit

Six months or so after Factions came out, Nightfall came out. Again, I had to get two copies. Grr! I wish they'd introduced the extra-character slot thing earlier! Meh. One of my copies is a Collectors' Edition and to be honest I don't really think it's worth the extra money. You get a nice 'mini pet' with it - a Kuunavang, which is like a small flying dragon, pretty cool :) and also a special dance, but this is only for the new races you create on the game I think (haven't played for a while - see below). Since I created each new race (two available) on a separate account I only had one special dance, which was for the new character on the Collectors' Edition account, my Paragon. My Dervish is on my other/second account. I think I prefer the Paragon, but both are great.


My gals


Nightfall brought the excellent 'Heroes'. You unlock Heroes as you work your way through Nightfall. If you complete all the quests and missions you need to complete to get to the end, you should have most of them. There are a couple of missions you can't do along the way, due to having to choose which path to take, therefore you also choose which hero to unlock. You can however go back once you get to the end and get them all, except one which has to be gained by doing something in the new high level area which is raaaaaather difficult, though by now I'm sure many have it licked. I wonder if my Guild do... I must check back on them soon :)
You basically equip your heroes with weapons and skills and they're just like having another person along with you - the conversation is even more intelligent than you'll get from some people! :P You can place flags for them to stay back or go to a certain spot, set them on attack or defensive, and I think you can even capture pets for them, though I haven't got around to this yet..

I suppose I should go back and at least try and get my Dervish through the game. The two new ones should both be finished at least I think.
A new mini-pet may have appeared on my Assassin and Ritualist by now too... you get a free mini-pet after a character's been in existence for a year. My first was a (purple) Kirin, then I got less valuable ones after that. Still, some of the 'white' ones are pretty cute: Scorpion (can't remember what it's called... der..d.. uhm... ahh yes, Devourer), Fungal Wallow, etc..
I tried to load GW up yesterday but due to my inactivity there are lots of updates and I couldn't be bothered waiting for it. I'll do it soon though, using the -image command.

Thanks for reading my rambling waffling gibberish (if you got this far :o).

:)

"We were on a break!"

I stopped playing a good few weeks ago, due to several reasons. Being in a Guild was great, but whereas when I was 'solo' I just decided what I wanted to do and did it, be it finding a certain monster for a drop or a skill, or joining a PuG to complete a mission; I found that being in a guild made me feel like I was always supposed to be joining in, and when it was often the stressful PvP or doing the same old missions yet again it became a drag.

I'm not great at PvP and I found it stressful having to try and succeed all the time and having people getting clearly annoyed with each other when we didn't win. Some would just say they had to go, when you knew that had we been winning they'd have stayed much longer. It wasn't fun. Of course, I'd like to win too, but I'm not gonna sulk when we don't. Also, there'd be ages of waiting whilst everyone got ready because someone always turned up at the last minute and need to know the build and which skills, etc. to bring, blah blah..



Also, it seemed that whatever type of PvP we did, there HAD to be a build. This got on my nerves sometimes, since at times I'd like to just do something spur of the moment, for a laugh and see what happens. Have fun! It's a game after all. If we win, what a crack; something to have a good laugh at: we just jumped in with any old build and won. If we lose, so what. We had a go, had a bit of fun, probably learned something and didn't lose ages talking/arguing about or simply taking orders about how to play. To make matters worse, this spilled over into PvE!! It got to a point where people didn't want to attempt later/harder areas because we didn't have sufficient characters/builds between us to do whatever build someone had decided was the build we must try. I'm not saying this is a bad idea. 'Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail' is a good philosophy to follow, but.. ALL the time..? nah. What about just doing something ad hoc, for the Hell of it!?

I really wanted to get good at PvP, and believe I was improving. A couple of people said I was good, but I don't know whether they were just being nice.. I ended up monking mostly because I wasn't too bad and there always seemed to be a need. The organising of PvP was a nightmare.. I'm sure I'll give it another go sometime. Who knows, maybe I'll be writing again in a year's time saying I love it! Hmmm... LoL!

Been a while

It's been a while since I posted. Amazing how time flies! ^..^

I got Factions and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had to get two copies of course, since when I first started playing, there was no option to buy extra slots, which you can do now.
I made a Ritualist on my main/first account and an Assassin on my second. I hated the look of the assassin to start with and actually started a guy. I thought I'd be cool and create one with a Japanese martial-artsy sounding name, but found that I was only one of many who'd had the same idea. There were loads of male assassins running around so I made a female instead. I actually grew to really like her and she farms boss monsters to get me some good drops, though I'm not the luckiest in that respect hehe.

I never really got into the ritualist, but hopefully one day I'll learn to enjoy her as much as all my others. I felt she wasn't really powerful as a killer and not particularly wonderful at being a healer either, but a couple of guildies (yes I joined a guild finally ^^ ) saw huge potential in the ritualist and used them very well, so maybe I just didn't get the hang of it.
I liked Factions a lot. The only thing that really annoyed me was forever coming up against locked gates that you couldn't get through till you'd achieved a certain task (completed another mission or quest or something) which was infuriating when you'd just spent ages fighting your way there - here's where having a 'runner' build is mighty useful.

I joined a really nice guild and should still be in it, if I haven't been kicked for inactivity! :o

I haven't played for a couple of months or so, because it became a bit of a chore. More about this later (skip the next section if you're not interested ;) ).

With Factions came Alliance Battles. They can be fun. I barely got involved for a while, but they're a quick way to gain 'Faction'. There are two types: the ones where you go in with a team of four, and get put into a bigger team with two other teams of four, so twelve of you go running round in the same party against another big group of twelve. The second type is where you just join the 'mission' and get put in a group of eight I think it is.. (memory like a goldfish). I prefer the smaller ones. No-one sulking if it goes wrong (well someone may shout NOOB or something but they're only kids, bless 'em :P) and not usually as much time sorting out the team.

As ever, anet delivered on the scenery score. The lush, enchanting forests, and the calming wide open vastness of the beautiful Jade Sea, not to mention areas of rolling hills with delicately placed oriental-looking bridges or buildings.. of course you can't just relax and have a picnic, due to the critters wandering around wanting you for dinner! lol