• Made it to 85

    Posted on by suguay

    So I made it to 85 on my Death Knight. I made it pretty quickly given the amount of play time I put in and in comparison to the slog it was to 80. I did it in less than a month. I did no dungeons and had no guild benefits as a boost to anything. I also did not play as rabidly as I did when trying to reach 80.

    My trip from 80 to 85 was strictly via quests and mining. Yep, that’s it. No guild bonus.
    I’m in what is basically a bank guild and while there are about 26 or 27 members most of those are toons of about 5 of us. The majority of the time I am the only guild member on and many of the others are lower level toons. So with over a month since Cataclysm and the new guild leveling system we are still only 32% to level 2. So no guild perks yet.

    I still haven’t run any of the new dungeons. In a few cases I was out geared for them on normal by the time I located the entrance. Truth is, I haven’t run a dungeon in a group on my DK since I changed to Unholy and that was at least a couple of months before Cataclysm, so I’m a bit out of practice and I have little idea as to how things will go in a group with the new spec.

    I found the leveling to go very quickly just doing the quests and mining. The fact that you get experience now from mining and herbalism and I think Archeology is a huge bonus in my mind. Sometimes the XP is fairly small but when you are mining to get ore for prospecting, as I do, you tend to need a lot to get the gems you need and so the small amounts of XP add up and quickly.

    The change in the way quests are done is very helpful as well. By not having the group quests and being able to turn in and acquire some quests in the field makes things go a little quicker. Having map markers for where to go to do the quests helps make planning my route easier as well.

    There have been a couple of quests that have caused me to have to stop and rethink my approach and ultimately use spells that I had not previously used. I think this is really good training for the things I’ve heard about from the new dungeons.

    I have found some oddities with a couple of the new Cataclysm zones. For some reason in Hyjal, while I haven’t finished all the quests there, I can’t seem to find anymore there. I have the same problem in Uldum. So now how am I supposed to get the achievement for doing a certain number of quests in that zone? Deepholme is also a little strange. I have done the required number of quests, I can’t find any more though I do have the two dungeon quests but now the dungeon entrance is gone, the ports to Stormwind and Orgrimmar are gone as well as the vendors and there is fighting in the temple.

    I still need to do Twilight Highlands. I had pretty much just started it when I hit 85, I haven’t even gotten as far as getting the portal to Stormwind open, though I have a quest relating to it. No, sadly, I got to 85 and lost a little interest and have wandered off to level my Gnome Warlock. I will have to put some time in with my Death Knight though. I need to be prepared for Friday. I’ve been invited to my first raid. If it happens it should be interesting and maybe even fun. I’m expecting to be really bad and I think a couple of others are expecting a wipe fest. I know I am.

    Guess we’ll see how it goes. And then I’ll be leveling my Warlock up to 85.

    See you in the machine.

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land

  • New Sci-Fi MMO — Perpetuum

    Posted on by suguay

    There is a new Sci-fi MMO out called Perpetuum. This game comes to us from Avatar Creations Inc. out of Budapest, Hungary. The basic premise is that you work for a corporation controlling a robot/Mech that is on another planet. The need is to control the planet and it’s energy resources because we here on good ol’ planet earth have run out. Hmm. Shades of the future?

    I think that is what I find most intriguing about the game. The back story has just enough shades of how things are today to make the world you join more viable. A quick bit of the story background. Basically, the governments of the planet were doing a really bad job and were overridden by the corporations. The major corporations for the 3 main factions formed a syndicate to control the new planet and take over it’s resources for our energy needs. There’s one hitch. The planet is inhabited by a robot race.

    The game includes questing in the form of assignments. There is mining and crafting as well as the usual military style play and of course the currier quests. The market is player driven much like Eve and Planet Calypso(Entropia). Leveling is a bit different. You don’t buy skill books or pay a trainer to learn new skills. You are given so many extension points per account per minute for the time the account is active. You can spend those along with some cash to either learn a new program(extension) or upgrade one you already have. This is a sandbox style game with pvp.

    The controls are a little different. I am accustom to playing most games in angel view with the ability to zoom in to first person and you are looking the direction you are traveling in. The robots don’t handle quite the same, or if they do I didn’t find the setting. You may not be looking the direction you are traveling and that can be a challenge to overcome if you play other MMO’s. It will take some time to re-program your brain. You can control that by changing your view as you go.

    The mechanics of fighting are also a little different. Like in Eve it takes time to acquire your target and then you have to set it to active before you can start shooting at it. The mining mechanics are even more different. You have to do a large area scan and then a small area scan and you have to have charges for doing the scans for a particular type of resource. Then you have to target the area you want to mine and have mining charges for that particular resource. It’s a bit more involved than say World of Warcraft, Everquest II, or even Eve, though that one can get more complex.

    When you loot the robots that you fight you sometimes get these shard type things that you research. When you do this it will give you a percentage of the knowledge for creating an item. It will not always give you the same item. One may give you 7% of the knowledge to create a particular kind of bullet and the next my give you 20% knowledge on how to create a miner. The crafting/manufacturing processes on the surface seems a bit complex and expensive. However, I must confess, I have not played it long enough to really get involved in that part. I did play long enough to want to purchase stuff from the market. However, at just a few days into public launch, the market, being player driven, was not very developed in the area I was.

    The social aspect of it felt a little isolated to me. You start off in an NPC corporation, one of the major ones in the syndicate. There are player created corporations as well, like guilds, societies, or corporations in other games. I have not gotten involved in these. There is the corporation chat channel and probably a more global chat. It’s very easy to turn these off and so I didn’t pay attention. It is also easy to filter the other players out of your HUD list so you only see your targets. This too has it’s dangers. Because of that ease of filtering you can find yourself very isolated in the game.

    The game is prices comparable to other MMO’s at $10 to $15 (USD) per month for play. I think that’s reasonable. When I paid they were running a special at $10 for a month though the normal is $15.

    So overall, I like the game. I like the sci-fi concept and it being planet side instead of in space. Space based games are sometimes very dark visually and there are days that that really doesn’t appeal to me. Not to say that Perpetuum is all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a little dark visually as well with some variations. While I will probably spend more time playing it, and paying for it, it isn’t likely to be my main go to game when I want to play. I didn’t find it engaging enough that I was compelled to go back to it right away after I had been out of town for a couple of days. I think I loaded it once or twice after that. Some of that is the isolation and some of it has to do with my preferences. I really have to be in the mood to play a sci-fi MMO. I think it is something about the genre. They tend to be more involved, require more commitment to really advance to anything other than a grunt warrior. Not that I think that’s bad. When I’m really in a thinking mood where I need or want something really complicated and involved, I want a sci-fi MMO to play. And Perpetuum is likely to be my next go to game for that.

    Just a note: I’ve included the link to the website at the top so you can get all the information on game play and story line yourself. It is quite developed and there is no way, especially with the little time I have spent in the game, that I can come close to filling in all the details of information that you may want or need for getting involved in Perpetuum. Therefore, I encourage you to visit the website at: www.perpetuum-online.com

    Cheers and see you in the machine.

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land

  • Gunnars are Pretty Awesome

    Posted on by suguay

    I recently got a pair of Gunnar Optiks glasses and think they are awesome. They make a big difference for me with all the time I spend on the computer at work and at home. The difference is just amazing.

    These glasses have an amber tint to the lens that adds warmth to what you have been looking at. When you take them off, especially in someplace like and office with all the florescent lights, then without the glasses everything seems a little dull and grey. It’s a bit surreal at first.

    At work I spend a lot of time staring at a computer screen and I work under florescent lights. I work in a cube so it’s not like I can turn off the overhead lights and use something else. And with the phasing out of the incandescent light bulb, well, most everything is going florescent anyway, so to get away from it I would have to use a candle and they really frown on that in corporate buildings. So my challenge has been that my eyes have been so tired and gritty. It’s hard to read stuff I need to without just wanting to shut my eyes.

    I was speaking of this problem with my Optician and she suggested I look into the Gunnars. She showed me a few styles and I went a way and looked them up. I did not find anyone who didn’t like these at all. I found one or two reviews that felt they didn’t need them. I was impressed and decided it was worth a shot because I was tired of the frustration.

    I wear glasses on a regular basis, I need them to see and I’ve worn them since I was 12 years old so I asked them to order a pair with my prescription level in them that would be good for computer use specifically. Apparently, the style I chose is one of the most difficult to make with the prescription in the lens. It took a month before I got them. It was worth the wait.

    My best example is that first day I picked them up. I start work at 7:00am and I got them on election day. After work I went to work out and then vote, and then home for food and such. By the time I got to sit down and work on the things I needed to get done on the computer it was easily 8:30pm. Usually at this point things would be a struggle. I put on my new Gunnars and got to work. I was busily figuring out a piece of code for a component on a site I was working on for someone when I glanced at the clock and discovered it was more than half an hour past when I usually give up and go to bed. I wasn’t even tired at that point. It was great. I was able to finish the code and get it working just as I wanted and not struggle with it, at an hour when I would usually be fighting to stay awake.

    My Gunnars glasses have made and huge difference for me. I don’t struggle with keeping my eyes open at the computer. My eyes don’t burn and feel gritty and itch and all that like they did before. The difference is incredible.

    A bit of information I came across when looking into the Gunnars that helped me make the decision to get them. Did you know we blink approximately once every 3 seconds? When we stare at computer screens or televisions, we don’t blink as often and our eyes dry out. The light emitted from computer screens and televisions is from the blue spectrum of light. Our eyes have trouble focusing on things that are in blue light, or are a blue light, we are constantly trying to bring that into focus and so our eyes work very hard. Florescent lights, flicker and while tend to be more green in unfiltered photographs, the light emitted tends more towards the blues. If what we are looking at isn’t enough, that stuff that keeps the office and computers a comfortable temperature, the air conditioning, well it too drys out the eyes.

    The things about the Gunnars that make the difference, besides the new technology they use, are that the lens is amber in color, this counters the blue light coming from our computer screens and television screens and the florescent lights. The lens is designed to wrap farther around the eye to hold more moisture in and around the eye. The combination of those seem to help the body remember to blink at a more regular interval.

    Gunnar Optiks also uses some really cool technology that I couldn’t begin to explain. I suggest checking out the link above or visiting them at: www.gunnars.com.

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in The Blog!

  • Winter Veil and Cataclysm…Reasons to Play

    Posted on by suguay

    The release of Cataclysm for most in World of Warcraft is reason enough to be playing almost constantly. And just a week or so after it’s release begins another reason for some to be playing and that’s the Feast of Winter Veil. Ok, these are reasons for me to be playing.

    Have you seen the new content yet? Have you played any of it yet? In addition have you seen what they have done to the old world parts of WOW? Have you made a Worgen or a Goblin yet? Which one do you play most?

    Yes, I got Cataclysm the day it was released. I did not stay up all night to get it at midnight. I got it the day of release on my way home. I even managed to get it loaded on my computers before I had to go off and do something else. It was, alas, the next day before I had a chance to really get into it. The first think I did was create a Goblin. I play both Horde and Alliance just on different servers. I started playing my Goblin and doing some of the beginning quests. I have to say I haven’t gotten very far with her. I got side tracked leveling my Draenei Death Knight. I think the Goblin will be interesting to play and fun. I just haven’t gotten very far with her. There’s so much to do and I don’t have unlimited time to play. So I’ve started her and we’ll see from there.

    I did start a Worgen though honestly I may re-create because I’m not sure I like the class I chose for her so I’m not going to really discuss the Worgen except to say, at first I was confused in creating the character, I got to choose what my Wolf-person form would look like and then I got in world and I was this boring human. Then I got far enough along that I was no longer confused or disappointed. I haven’t played the Worgen enough to have an opinion on the race.

    I have finally found reason to give a little love to my Draenei Death Knight. She was languishing at 80 with her trade skills still needing work and I had little interest in working on them. Until Cataclysm. Now I need to get her to 85 and since I’ve caught most of her skills up to close to Lich King level, well, I might as well work on them as I go. Especially since some skill now give XP as you do them and there are new Cooking and Fishing Dailies that award a point to that skill when you complete them. There are new Jewel Crafting Dailies as well if your Jewel Crafting is high enough, sadly mine is not. I’m getting there though. I can still do the Dalaran Dailies so that works. Added bonus, all those dailies once again give me XP, so there is more reason to do them.

    And then along comes Winter Veil. This is one of the world events in WOW that I really like. The Blizzard people decorate every inn and town with at least a pretty tree. There are quests to do that give you holiday awards. It’s just fun. Then on December 25 you get to open presents under the trees. For Horde it has been in Orgrimmar and for Alliance it has been in Ironforge. It’s just good fun.

    For now I’m really enjoying the new expansion and the holiday. I hope you are too.

     

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land

  • Pilgrims Cooking and the Shattering

    Posted on by suguay

    So did you participate in the pre-Shattering events for Cataclysm or were you off doing other things trying to avoid the main cities? What about Pilgrim’s Bounty. Have you done anything for that?

    I did for both. I wasn’t really staying away for a particular reason but I didn’t seek them out until, someone pointed out some valuable information. The pre-Shattering quests to deal with the cultist and such offered good experience and cash for not a lot of really hard work. The Pilgrim’s Bounty cooking quests made it quick, easy, and fairly cheap to level your cooking to 300 in about an hour maybe two.

    Since my level 80 Death Knight M was sitting with her Fishing and First Aid maxed out and her cooking at a pathetic 137 it seemed like doing the cooking quests were an awesome idea and way to at least bring her up to the Outlands level of cooking. Now I will be running around Outlands trying to level my cooking. Beats having to run all around the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor first and then having to run around Outlands and then Northrend. Yeah. Way better. So I did the quests on M.

    Then I decided my little Gnome Warlock would be a lot better off if I leveled her cooking while I had the chance since she’s at 28 and it seems to me it should just make things all around easier. And I’ll be able to better work on her cooking as I go. The Gnome Rogue got the same treatment. In the case of the Warlock the experience gained from doing the cooking quests was almost enough to get me a level. For the Gnome Rogue, it did get me a level. I went from 13 to 14 just doing the cooking quests.

    Next, I had to get on my Horde side characters and get them fixed up. I first did my Troll Rogue over there. She didn’t get enough experience to level but she did get some good experience. I was trying for the achievement where you kill a bunch of Turkeys in a short amount of time or at least kill them all without loosing the timer, I think it was a buff, I didn’t look, anyway you have to kill turkeys without that disappearing. On the Troll Rogue I got 27. I thought I was doing pretty good. But not good enough for the achievement. I took out my Blood Elf Death Knight and tried it on her and got 33 and still not good enough for the achievement. Oh well. I think I still have today so I might try it again. Or not and wait until next year.

    So I got the cooking up on 3 of my Alliance toons and 2 of my Horde toons. I was going to do a third Horde toon, my Orc Warrior who is 27. Yeah, that hasn’t happened yet. He was hanging out in the Barrens when the Shattering happened. He died just trying to get to a safe spot. They have totally destroyed Camp Taurajo. It’s in ruins an tatters. The way to Mulgore appears to be blocked off my a massive gate that is guarded by the Alliance. And all the mobs are 3 to 5 levels higher, minimum, than my poor Warrior. I managed to get him to the camp that is near what is left of Camp Taurajo. I don’t remember the name of it. I was just glad to get there. He’s hanging out there now while I decide on his next move. This will make leveling him up a different experience than it was going to be. But he still needs to have his cooking leveled so I may take care of that for him today. Who knows.

    The pre-Shattering quests I did on my Gnome Warlock, well what was available. I did them on my Draenei 80 Death Knight, Blood Elf Death Knight, and my Troll Rogue. I didn’t make real effort to get them on everyone. And to be honest, I was like a lot of others by the end, the rifts and fights in the cities were more annoying than anything. Especially when I logged in at 6:00am to check my mail only to not be able to find the mailbox because Iron Forge was being evacuated. I did try to help out and kill things in that case. Only to die. So then I tried to free trapped citizens, only to have the even end before I could find the last 5 in the Great Forge. Yeah, the quests were fun, that part though got a little tedious after a while. Probably because so few others seemed interested in participating. Oh well.

    Now we are all prepared for Cataclysm or maybe not. Our world has just been rocked hard and maybe you’re not ready for the changes coming in the expansion. Or maybe you can’t wait for your Worgen or Goblin. I for one am looking forward to a Goblin Rogue with Engineering. I think it makes the most sense, should be fun to play and if not a Rogue, Warlock if it’s available. What about you?

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land