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By heide, May 2, 2010 10:58 pm

Children’s Week started in WoW today, so I went and did the quests for it on my primary characters. It’s too bad that it takes three years to get all of the rewards for it — it’s the first time for my current main character and the warrior still only has two of the pet rewards now.

Back in Forza 3, I finished off the R3 championship series. After a bit more experimenting, I discovered that I can leave the difficulty on medium and just turn traction control on for the higher-end cars. And, as usual, I did a handful of other miscellaneous series, mostly in the R3 and S classes. The Lambo Miura Concept ’06 is possibly my favourite S-class car now, as it launches easily and is crazy fast. It’s a bit sluggish in turns, but it doesn’t go out of control, at least.

And I finally put some more time into the current major RPG on my back — Dragon Age. I’ve done the initial swamp area and the battle at Ostagar, and am now wandering around trying to raise support for the fight against the darkspawn after being betrayed. I’ve already picked up a bunch of companions, including Morrigan, Alistair, the dog, Sten, and Leliana. So far I’m sticking with Alistair as my ‘tank’, and Morrigan and the dog as damage-dealers, as I don’t have a decent healer yet.

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By heide, April 30, 2010 11:10 pm

Not much has been happening in WoW lately, just the usual dailies, though tomorrow I’ll be guaranteed to be able to purchase the Chef’s Hat, at least.

In EQ2, our weekly group was postponed until tomorrow due to one member being sick. I worked on tradeskills a bit more, provisioning and woodworking in particular. They’re about the only useful ones since it’s hard to keep up with our class levels now so equipment and spells aren’t much use, but any food or water is better than none, and the woodworking stuff is all unique. I also used my ebon cluster to resume the Bone Bladed Claymore quest and now I have to kill 1000 sentient monsters. That’ll probably take a while…

I got back to Forza 3 for a bit, starting the R3 championship and doing a few other series in the meantime. I find I have to turn on traction control and bump the AI down to easy for the R3 races though, as they’re hard to control otherwise. I’m kind of unenthusiastic about it at the moment though.

Our EQ1 group on Tuesday went and visited the Lake of Ill Omen for a daily quest and then popped into Mistmoore, where we got mobbed and wiped. We haven’t really been following ‘proper’ pulling and crowd control techniques, but they’re less important now and we’re just out to have fun anyway.

And finally, I messed around with Hearts of Iron 3 a bit. I played as Panama and turned off fog of war and just sat back to see how the rest of the war would unfold, and it didn’t quite go as expected. The USSR attacked Germany but got stomped, losing everything even way past Moscow; the US tried landing on the NW tip of France but failed to break through after years of fighting; Britain was barely involved in the European war and went around conquering Africa and South America instead; and Japan was stopped short by Nationalist China, so they never got around to taking over the rest of the Pacific.

HoI3 has a bit of a bad reputation among the strategy game purists, and I haven’t even delved into the mechanics properly yet, but it’s fun to goof around in it so far. I’m tempted to start a game where I try to turn Canada into a nuclear power before anyone else…

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By heide, April 18, 2010 3:14 pm

Yesterday I managed to do something that I haven’t done in a while now: complete a game. And not just one game, but two games!

First, I played Flower, which I bought a while back but hadn’t even tried yet. This one was actually pretty quick to finish as it’s fairly short, but it’s still pretty good. You control a petal that glides around on the wind, and it’s serene and relaxing to start, and then suddenly develops into something much more game-like. It’s really more about the emotional effect it induces than gameplay, though.

And second, I finished off Little Big Planet’s main story levels. I did about half of them two weeks ago (and forgot to write about it), and went back and did the rest of them today, along with some of the community levels with a friend riding co-op. It was a decent enough game, but the controls and physics were frequently aggravating enough that I don’t think I really want to spend any more time on it. It treats everything, yourself included, as real objects, and the momentum makes it really difficult to do things like jump on small platforms. The lives system also seemed a bit unfair at times; there would often be one really difficult section and if you failed it, you had to go back and redo the much-easier rest of the level all over again, and the aforementioned control issues didn’t help.

I’ve also recently played through a bit of New Super Mario Bros Wii, and so far I’m up to the middle of world 2. I don’t know if the game’s getting harder, or if my reflexes are getting worse (I used to be able to finish the original SMB no sweat), but it feels a lot tougher than I’m used to. Making jumps doesn’t seem as precise as I’d like, which leads to a lot of deaths.

And I also fired up Lego Rock Band and worked through the first two tiers of songs. The presentation is cute, as expected, and there are a few good songs in there, but a lot of them are teen-oriented ones that I haven’t heard of before, and don’t really appeal all that much to me. I’m thus still not sure whether I’ll export the songs back to RB2 or not. I’m not sure how far into LRB I’ll get when I’d prefer to play songs back in RB2 either. LRB does have at least one new feature: occasional rock challenges where you do something storyline-related, like demolish a building or scare ghosts with your music. They don’t really play that much differently, with just some restrictions like not being able to use star power, but they have custom background animations at least.

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By heide, March 10, 2010 11:29 pm

Yes, it’s yet more catching up…

EQ2: I missed a week due to being out of town, but last week we managed to finish off Deathfist Citadel, getting me a few nice chain upgrades and level 45 along the way. We’ll probably be off to either Everfrost or Feerrott next. Not much else to report since I haven’t been spending any spare time in it like I used to.

WoW: As usual, most of my time was in WoW and I’ve done zone quests up through most of Icecrown now, with a lot of the remaining ones being group quests that I’ll need help on. Faction-wise, I’ve gotten to exalted with the Argent Crusade, Sons of Hodir, and the Horde Expedition, with some nice upgrades from them. I’m still working on the Oracles and Wyrmrest Accord, and just started working my way through the Argent Tournament as well. I don’t really like the jousting, but the rewards are nice and I’ve got a tedious-but-reliable method for beating it.

I finally hit 450 alchemy and picked up the rest of the trainable transmutations, though I still have a bunch of other recipes to learn via discoveries. I also hit 450 in cooking and fishing, and picked up a bunch more fishing achievements. I managed to get the giant sewer rat from Dalaran, but that turtle still eludes me, though…

And I’ve also started working on the Loremaster achievements again. I still have a ton of quests to do in Outland, but I’m starting with Azeroth since everything there might change with Cataclysm. I’m working on the Eastern Kingdoms right now, and after going through Silverpine Forest, Hillsbrad, and Arathi Highlands, I only have 43 more quests to go in EK.

Forza 3: I caught up on the DLC packs and fired it up for a bit, completing a few more series, but I’ve still barely made a dent in the total list of events. I also discovered that I have to bump the difficulty down to ‘easy’ for the R2 events right now; they’re just too fast to keep control and fight the AI.

Dragon Age: I finally gave Dragon Age a proper start, picking a dwarven rogue and going through the dwarven noble origin, with a bunch of politicking and backstabbing that the dwarves are apparently infamous for. I’ve now just arrived at the Grey Wardens camp at Ostragar, where the main story will presumably start.

Borderlands: And we managed to squeeze in some time in Borderlands, getting to New Haven and doing the quests there and a bit past it. I’ve picked up the Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC, but that won’t really be usable until we hit the end of the main plot.

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By heide, February 9, 2010 12:46 pm

It’s kinda been a while…

EQ2: Not much happened over the Christmas holidays, but since then our group has mostly been working in Zek, finishing off zone quests and venturing into Deathfist Citadel once so far, getting my mystic to level 42 in the process. We didn’t complete everything there, since we got stomped by the arena champion, but we’ll be back… We also stopped by the Enchanted Lands one week when not enough people were around, doing a bunch of the zone quests there, but it’s not part of our official schedule right now.

I worked on a bunch of tradeskills, especially over one weekend where there was a 40% xp bonus, and I’m up to level 42 jewelcrafting on my illusionist and level 41 alchemy on my mystic, with a few minor gains on the other lower alts as well. I started a provisioner as well, so I can make my own food and drink without raiding the guild’s stocks.

We also completed a few more HQs recently, including Hadden’s Earring and the dark elf mask. Now that we’ve gained a bunch of levels, more HQs are open to us, but we haven’t really started them yet.

The new expansion is out soon, but it looks like there’s absolutely nothing in it for characters around our level, so I can wait on it for a while yet. There’s a collector’s edition, but the bonuses are laughable for the $30 extra they want for it.

WoW: Still missing that last crocolisk on my warrior. But that’s not what’s been taking up all my time, as I’ve kinda pulled my old priest, my very first WoW character, out of retirement and transferred him to Borean Tundra, where some friends are.

He was still level 66 from when I’d last played him, and I quickly worked my way through the remaining Nagrand and Shadowmoon Valley quests (skipping Blade’s Edge and Netherstorm for now), got him to Northrend, and then went through Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra. He’s now level 75 and about halfway through Dragonblight.

I had to spend a bunch of gold getting him caught up on getting a flying mount, dual specs, missing skills, and alchemy (now up to 405), but now I’ve got some breathing room to build up some savings before I can get cold weather flying. I’m finally homed in Dalaran now, so I can more easily do the various dailies, at least.

I switched to a shadow spec for levelling up, and it’s fairly powerful indeed. I’ve set up the second spec as holy, but haven’t really gotten much practice doing actual healing yet. I should probably do some pickup groups just for practice, especially with the new Dungeon Finder, even if PUGs do tend to suck.

Borderlands: I haven’t played it in a while, but we’ve finished up in the first area and moved on the to Dahl Headlands, though we haven’t done much there yet. I might have to go back and farm Sledge a bit for loot, though.

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By heide, December 28, 2009 1:15 pm

Yeek, I’ve been falling way behind with the updates…

Not much has happened in EQ2 since the holidays have interfered with most everyone’s plans. We finished up some Butcherblock quests and picked up the starter quests in Zek, and then worked on the first stages of the Glowing Black Stone quest. My illusionist alt is currently level 30 and working through the BB quests as well.

I played through Pixeljunk Shooter over a couple of days. It’s short, but pretty good, reminiscent of the old scrolling shooters like Zeppelin and Fort Apocalypse. Your main goal is to rescue scientists and collect diamonds, but to get to them you have to manipulate various fluids and gasses by shooting passages that let them flow around, interact with each other, and so on. I’ll be looking forward to a sequel.

I played a bit of Europa Universalis Rome: Vae Victus. Since I’m still new to the EU series I started out with the Pictii, a minor province in the Scotland area. Unfortunately it’s a rather slow way to learn, as it takes quite a while to get the funds, population, and civilization rating to actually start expanding, and I kept getting overrun by barbarians. I started another game as Carthage, which is much more advanced, but haven’t done much with it yet.

I picked up DiRT 2 for myself over the holidays, and played through all of the rookie-level events. It is, of course, much like the original DiRT, except that the rally raid mode seems different (point-to-point, whereas wasn’t the original’s on circuits?), and there are no hill climb events. The difficulty seems inconsistent, too — I can do certain events like rallies on casual and beat the pants off the AI, but raids and rallycross on casual are only just barely beatable.

And last but not least, a friend got me Borderlands for xmas and that’s what I’ve primarily been playing the last few days. It’s basically Diablo crossed with an FPS, and the variety of weaponry you can find is tickling the loot whore in me. So far we’re level 16 and have done most of the first couple starting areas.

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By heide, December 13, 2009 10:45 pm

Falling behind on these updates has become a bit of a habit…

EQ2: On Thursday we had our regular weekly meeting and finished off a lot of the quests in Butcherblock, hitting level 29 in the process. I also worked on the Frostfell event quests, getting a bunch of crafting recipes, stuff for the house, and holiday wear, and also hitting level 30. It’s back to AAs for now though, as I’ve still got a lot of sub-30 quests to finish. A smaller group of us also went and finished off the Dwaven Work Boot and Greater Lightstone quests over the weekend.

Forza 3: I finally resumed playing this, hitting driver level 21 today and finishing a bunch of other events. All but two of the event series are unlocked now, but I’m still playing along in season mode and still have two more races to go in the A-level championship series. I’ve got a pretty good stable of cars now, including a few gifted ones from Turn 10, a few I bought myself (including a WRX and an NSX), and a few from driver level awards. I still need an S-class one, though.

Diablo 2: Yes, the old favourite is back again. A 1.13 patch is in testing, which means a new ladder season is probably coming as well, so I spent a bit of time in it tonight to see if I could complete the Insight runeword before the ladder season ends. It’s a ladder-only runeword, so it would be nice to have at least one of them made before it ends and then I can use it on my non-ladder characters. No such luck tonight, though — I’m still missing the Sol rune and a good weapon to put it in.

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By heide, November 2, 2009 10:52 pm

I did a bit more questing and hit level 21 with my illusionist in EQ2 tonight, mainly concentrated around the eastern parts of Antonica, where I discovered a couple new quest hubs.

But I don’t want EQ2 to dominate all of my time, so I also got back to Forza 3 tonight, continuing to work my way through the single-player career. I’ve collected a few more cars from driver levels now (where I’m up to 15), up through B class, but I’m just about to start the A class championship. I’ll have to buy an A class car, and this is the first time I’ve actually needed to buy a car to progress (technically, I could upgrade one of my existing ones, but I’m trying to keep them within their original classes for now).

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By heide, October 28, 2009 11:32 pm

I spent some more time in Forza 3 tonight, but mostly in multiplayer this time, as we had a good little group going. I still need to unlock and buy a lot more cars since I’m currently limited to only a couple each of C class and below, but it was still pretty fun, and everyone was pretty close in skill so the outcomes varied a lot.

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By heide, October 27, 2009 11:19 pm

Today was the release of Forza 3, and I picked up my Collector’s Edition of it right after work and spent a few hours in it tonight. It’s a lot like Forza 2, but the big, earth-shattering change is the rewind ability, as seen in a few other games like GRID. A single little mistake on the last lap won’t ruin your race anymore, as you can just rewind to before it happened. The downside to it is that laps set when you use rewind won’t rank as highly as ‘clean’ laps on the leaderboards.

There are also more cars and tracks, and I’ve been pretty happy with the new tracks I’ve seen so far. I’ve done a handful of F-to-D class races and championships and I’ve stuck with the reward cars for now. I’ve got the AI set to easy, but all of the assists turned off, to try and get used to driving that way first.

And speaking of the AI, it’s capable of making its own mistakes. And even pretty big ones…

Edit: Oh, and since I got the Collector’s Edition of it (I’m a big sucker for special editions), it came with a handful of bonuses, including some exclusive cars I haven’t gotten around to buying yet, a VIP flag on my account (can’t remember offhand what the benefits of that are), and a Forza-branded keychain and 2GB USB stick. The keychain is metal and much sturdier than the cheap plastic thing you’d normally expect to get in a package like this, and the USB stick is a bit small compared to what you can get nowadays, but I can move my Ubuntu live disc over to it and free up some space on my regular thumb drive.