I don’t know about everyone else, but I know that the closer we get to Christmas, the more I want to spend all my time gaming. You know: snugly, warm Christmas holiday spent gaming in monkey pj’s. Completely natural. Right now I’m back in Everquest 2 for the Xmas content and generally rocking my own guild hall, and playing my way through Halo Anniversary.
Inspired by this, and by Xmas cheer, I’ve made a few gamer ornaments for our tree. Like this Halo Anniversary bauble:
One of the many great little things about Eveqruest 2 is all the funny descriptions of the spells and attacks. This just happens to be funny because my boo’s name is Jed and because this text fits all to well with a rather rude in joke we used to have:
"Hey, Jed? Why's that guy's fist glowing?"
Another cute perk is the pets you get. Who wouldn’t want a Frostpaw kitten named Jedh following you around?
I am looking forward to Portal 2 as a kid to x-mas. The thought of it makes me feel all bubbly and squee-ful, and I don’t want to go to sleep because I want to stay up late and ambush Santa Claus. In fact, the game was due for release before x-mas 2010, but Valve decided to postpone it until 2011. They promised that the world would not come to and end because of this (and they had good reason and that the game would be better).
So meanwhile, I’ll just have to comfort myself with the mock-companion cube in Everquest2. *hugs* *seeks comfort* *shivers*
First Monday of the year. X-mas is over, guys, it’s time to clean out all the tinsel and glitter and crap. In Sweden there’s a tradition to do this on the 13th of January, but I always figure, why wait? The party is over. Bring out the new year.
Mondays always sucks, this according to a treasured, worldwide tradition, and so the first Monday in a new year must suck more than usual, right? After (hopefully) having had a couple of days off, eating too much good food and drunk too much good wine, and slouching off with your lover man, you get back to work. The fridge is full of rotting food that the shift workers left behind after the holidays. You inbox is crammed with frickin’ emails from whiny people who can’t think or act for themselves. All your co-workers are equally pissed off that it’s the frickin’ first Monday of the new year.
Well, now is the time to go to your happy place. If you don’t have a happy place, go zen on your own ass. There are situations and people that you can’t change, and that’s ok. It’s not the end of the world. You will not die. After work, go home, have a glass of wine and just don’t think about the idiots. I don’t have better any advice than that.
When I walk into the icy wall that is the dark and arctic January of both bones and soul (gee…) what I do to get some peace of mind is to plan and organize. Even if I don’t follow through, I still like to have a plan, I make lists about everything. Photo projects I want to do, food I want to cook, games I want to play. I even plan how to level up my characters in Everquest2 (I wish I could plan my own career as efficiently). It’s sort of like making a hundred new year’s resolutions that you don’t intend to keep, but if you get one of them right that’s still something. I just like a bit of structure, even if I don’t follow it.
So here’s a sort of mashed up Monday Madness update/plan:
Game of the moment: Everquest 2 My ongoing vice since 6 years back. Sure, I have tried a lot of other MMORPG’s, but I always come back to this one. Right now I’m trying to get as much X-mas gear as possible for my toons before the event runt out on the 6th of January. Also, I have been crafting like a mad woman, since itäs been double XP for a couple of days. Grind grind grind!
Music to my ears: All of Robyn’s Body Talk albums, and boyfriend’s made up songs about my cat and our car rides.
Fuel for my misanthropic attitude: People who walks out right in front of cars when there are so much snow that the cars can hardly break in time.
Reading right now: The Digital Photography Book (part 1) by Scott Kelby X-mas gifts from my mum and dad.
It is rather well known by now, and a little bit like Photography for dummies: easy and quick to read, simple language, simple explanations. Basically it’s a whole bunch of good tricks and techniques that professional photographers use. Some things feels very obvious but some of them have been quite helpful. What I like besides the good tips on composition and light, is the fact that he mentions (often expensive) equipment that could really help you out and why, but also brings up really affordable alternatives. Plus, he’s ironic and funny.
I constantly have moments when I think I am done with Oakmyst Forest, for good, but I never am. Oakmyst Forest is a low level adventure zone in Everquest 2, it’s adjacent to the burrow Castleview Hamlet in Qeynos (where almost all my characters have set up their first home), and it has always been one of the first places I’ve gone after one of my new alts have arrived in the big city.
It is green, small and snug, with one or two trails you can follow around the zone. It has fairies and badgers and noisy blue frogs and evil dryads and bears and a waterfall. Sometimes a very pretty white unicorn spawns, which walks slowly around the forest being all alluring (you know it has good loots, but come on, who would kill a unicorn?!). Sometimes there’s a big ass bear that spawns and he always surprises you and rips you to shreds. There is a cave with a pretty impressive dried up tree creature that has killed a lot of brave, enthusiastic adventurers.
You always go back to get revenge.
Oakmyst Forest was one of the places where you picked your first roots and rocks to craft armor and pointy weapons. And it is absolutely bursting with shiny objects you find of the ground, little trinkets to collect and turn in for XP and loot. I remember the first year I played EQ2; I must have spent at least a third of my gaming time in that tiny forest. See, you could always make out a couple of sparkly pixels in the horizon, you knew there was another “shiny” to pick up, you just had to do one more lap, what if you missed a really rare collection item because you were lazy or sleepy or hungry?
Just one more lap.
So, now that I’ve been playing the game for six years one would think that that low-level newbie zone would be out of my system. How could I possibly need to go back there? I have two accounts with 13 characters in total, all of them well beyond that level in both adventuring and crafting. Also, Oakmyst is one of the original zones from when the game launched, a lot of things have happened since then, whole new continents have been discovered, a lot of new content has been added, including several more low-level zones in the same range. I have certainly spent to much time in that one zone already.
Yet I always go back. I realize that one of my characters are missing a spotted butterfly for one of the collections, and that zone just happens to be the best one to find it in. Or maybe I decide to do the introduction quests for crafters on an old toon just for fun and Oakmyst is just so well placed next to Castleview, it’s so easy to run back and forth to the quest giver. And since I’m there, why not do some low level harvesting and sell what I find on the broker? And, I might have another character who’s missing a collectable, so I’ll just pick a few more shineys. And it’s nice and quiet there now, with everyone adventuring in the new zones. And, happy sigh, the old trail, my favourite way of running through this zone, so fast and efficient, it feels like yesterday. And there is always a shortage of ore on the broker, let’s pick some more. And OH, there is another shiny over there, it’s MINE! And…
“Flying Mounts – Soar high above Norrath and explore EQII like never before”
I wish I could have been at the SOE Fan Faire when they showed the trailer for the Destiny of Velious expansion. At first the camera fly over beautiful new zones, and then at the very end, the last few seconds, there is a character on a griffon. A flying mount. I mean, COME ON, that is so squee worthy! If I’d been there I would so have been screaming like the girl gamer I am.
Come ON! Look at it!
Screenie squeefully stolen from the official vid. K'thanks. *hide*
Flying mounts is of course one of the most important features in the new expansion. Now;
This is going to be a long-ass post about EverQuest II and the coming expansion. I am just way to excited and need to get it all off my chest. If gaming is not your thing, please ignore this post ;)
SOE had their Fan Faire at last and announced the next Everquest II expac, “Destiny of Velious” (they also mentioned EQNext as well, but that is a different post entirely). It’ll be released in February 2011.They have promised a full goodie bag; hundreds of new quests (oh Everquest II, my Evercrack!), new instanced dungeons and raid instances, new PvP battlegrounds, one massive contested dungeon, and flying mounts (Holy crap, Batman!). See press release here.
Of course I am all over this. I can’t wait, I want it now. Naaaa-oooowh! I wish they could have released it in November, as most of the expansions. It happens to correlate with my birthday, and it’s sort of a tradition for me to take a week off from work and just game (best B-day pressie ever, from me, to me, k’thanks).
Cheese Pirate is a really sweet webcomic based on EverquestII, and if you have been playing for a couple of years there are a lot of references that makes you smile and laugh. And in general I think every MMORPG gamer can relate. Totally worth putting an animated gif on my blog for the first time in years for this!
Last year my friend Linus gave me an extra screen he had stuffed away in his basement, an offer a dual-boxer like me could not possibly pass up. Of course it took me ages to even get to a point to set it up properly, but I built a new computer not long ago, and Jed helped me out a lot, so here I am, with two screens on my tiny desk, and I am NOT going back. Ever. I am telling you, people, this is the shit. I don’t know why it took me so long. I guess sometimes you need someone to boss you around a bit and give you a shove in the right direction.
I have the two screens connected to my new computer, but the secondary one is also connected to my old computer. So I can dual-box with both game accounts on one computer or on two separate ones. Or I can craft with one account on one while I harvest on the other. I dunno, I have loads of fuzzy plans. It’s all good.
Problem is my old computer sounds like an old tractor, compared to my new one (my new one is quiet like a ninja!), so it’s not all that tempting even turning it on. I’ll end up buying a gaming lap top, I just know it.
