OMG Steam Sale!

Had a long weekend and am now back at work... I can already tell it's going to be a boring/relaxed day since the office is more than half empty :/

Did lots of stuff over the long weekend ^_^ Had another boardgame night on Saturday, this time we played Iggy's Cutthroat Caverns and some Saboteur, then chatted till 3am or so.

Then came Christmas gifting! :D Got some gifts for friends on Steam... bought some for myself and got some as gifts from friends too! ^__^ Braid! Little Inferno! The Longest Journey! Terraria!  Bought World of Goo for some of them because its a pretty awesome little game (and one for myself as well, since I lost my old copy some time ago). Finally got my BL2 seasons pass too... after months of just "thinking about it" lol.

I spent so much on the Steam Sale this year x___x *sigh*

We're back in TSW for the End of Days update! Fluffy Pink Unicorns will be clearing up the event achievements and the dungeon ^_^ Will probably run NMs again for the hell of it. If you're a multi-build Templar playing during Oceanic times and looking for a team to NM/raid with, PM Aelyrra in game.

As for TERA, I'm still farming out rep for better gear :) Am already in full t13s but I want the cooler t14s! Also twinking up all my alts in enchanted gold gear! hehe ^__^ After playing many other mmos, nothing comes close to the combat in TERA. Its fast, reactive, and incredibly exciting each time.

I'm suddenly caught in a massive influx of games though :/ With TERA, TSW, and Final Fantasy XIV Realm Reborn... there really is not much time to split between them! Then there's the rest of the gifts/games I got from the Steam sale.... lol. WTB more time!

FF14 Alpha

Got into FF14 Realm Reborn alpha testing! :) This is going to be fun.

Player base in Tera

Whenever silly people QQ about how Tera is dying or the population has left... or something equally stupid about not seeing people around...

They proooobably should join Nexus :) LOL This screenshot was taken yesterday right before the start of Nexus. The game stopped rendering the rest of the players at this point.

Back from hiatus!

And I'm back from being away for a month or so... In that time, I played (and was done with) GW2 rather quickly. It bored me to bits. Nothing much good to say about it so I will not even post about it.

I also have a new job! ^___^ Its been a month now. Great job, lovely people, awesome place to work in, and even awesomer salary and perks! lol.

Aely is currently playing Borderlands 2 with a bunch of people! Very very veeeeery fun stuff!

Have also resubbed to TSW again! :D Sigh I love that game so much! Will post more later.

Executioner deck

Executioner Deck Outfit :)

TSW Screenie time

Random screenie post because I'm bored ^__^

Iggy tanked a run last night :) We 4 manned Hell Fallen and Slaughterhouse and I must say it went great! Considering Shizzy has not even reached Egypt yet (he's still at Blue Mountains lol). We've been rediscovering the lowbie dungeons mostly for the lower level members. Its a good time to try out different builds and roles too ^^ P.S. Iggy is a pretty awesome tank!

Camping the Illuminati spawn point in Fusang Projects. Full Templar domination once again (nothing new here haha). Bah Lumies /spit

Yet another Nightmare Mode Darkness War :)

Unlocked another deck outfit! Crusader.

I spend too much on clothes :)

In game I mean ;)

After awhile, it seems as if I've already bought the entire store in TSW :/ lol, at least its not monies spent IRL I guess?

I'm running out of clothes to buy!

How Aely looks like right this very moment!

Bumming in London as always :) After the usual Nightmare runs.

Nightmares!

Its been a month plus now that we've been playing TSW and its been a good month! Funcom gave out some free points and a new Celebration t-shirt last weekend to celebrate TSW's first month! Bought a new outfit with the points and might add more to buy a puppy or raven :)

We've also started running Nightmare mode dungeons after farming elites. So far its going good! :D We're able to down the starting bosses in all Nightmare modes (we started from scratch, i.e. the bunch of us ran elites until we cleared everything once lol, killed the gatekeeper, and went on to NM in our blues). Easiest way to get geared up in epics is to run Nightmares anyway. Drops are plentiful and after 2 nights, you'd be able to buy at least an item from the Nightwatch vendors. After a week of Nightmares I've already bought 3 or 4 items. Don't get people that say its easier to gear via pvp lol.

Downed the 2nd last boss of Polaris last night before we had to go :)

Kinda surreal in Egypt during night time :) I love Egypt. Just bumming around while waiting to have dinner.

Puritan deck outfit

Unlocked my 2nd deck last night. Puritan.

Previously unlocked Exorcist :)

Almost done with Magus! Will upload once I get it!
Magus deck outfit

Aelyrra

Rant of the day.

What follows is a short snippet of my conversation with a good friend of mine. I believe most of my friends are aware of how I feel about rl-friends vs e-friends.
(Slightly edited for clarity. Googlechat posts are so messy :/)

 T:  hahaha

i like your line 'i'm done with rl friends'

 me:  lol

that just came out

 T:  I wish I could get new circles of friends too to be honest

but it gets harder as you age
the time investment per potential person both ways decreases

 me:  yea

you see...

i've come to the conclusion that i will only have rl friends that will not impose on me

like for example;

people whom are friends with each other

good friends even

but dont feel a need to "meet up" every weekend or any other day 

just because they feel that friendship warrants some sorta upkeep

it honestly doesnt.

i have a bunch of friends that im still good friends with even if we've not seen each other since high school

or not seen each other at all since we knew each other via internets

 T:  I think perhaps the mode of 'catching up' is different for different people

some people feel the need to physically meet but not neccessary any quality time either

its just for the sake of being there

 me:  yeah i think thats just one big farce

you can spend quality time with a friend when you chat

or on the phone

 T:  hahaha

yeah i agree

but i guess yes, some you know mode of contact and communication could be different

at the end of the day, as long as no one judges anyone or you know makes people feel guilty and is open minded about other people

then WORLD PEACE

 T:  Virtual worlds are better right

hah

i sometimes do think so

 me:  yeah

less fake

ironically

What about you?

Some TSW Screenies

Thought I'd post some screenies since I have time (while my game is patching! ^_^)


After our Inferno run, outside the Outlook Motel in Savage Coast. Obbu's still looking as yellow as ever...


Sunrise over Egypt :) It's a beautiful place.


Spent most of the past 2 days solving the bulk of the puzzles and codes in Egypt before moving on! No spoilers of course ^_^

TSW ~ Second round of impressions

Played TSW alot more over the weekend, (finally) got out of Kingsmouth and into The Savage Coast (the other end of Solomon Island) by last Sunday. I'll recap on some stuff we've done over the weekends before moving on.

Investigation quests are amazingly well done. It sometimes stops you in your tracks when you finally realise what it is you will have to do to solve the puzzle :) And then you end up spending an hour or two figuring out the whole quest! There's a real sense of achievement in that (Please don't go around looking for spoilers online... It spoils the fun!). One great thing about the community in game: They don't allow for anyone to post spoilers in game chat. You'll basically get shot down by most of everyone if you post it out. Always try to give helpful hints without giving away the main answer/plot. We spent an hour deciphering a morse code sound clip... and 2 hours on another quest. Still think the Kingsmouth investigation quests are better than that of Savage Coast.

Playing TSW makes me feel like I'm in a horror movie... and I don't like horror movies :/ if it wasn't for the game being this good I would have stopped playing ages ago lol.

Bugs wise, we've encountered a couple of them as we're questing. One was ofcourse the "Something Wicked" quest, where the white ravens did not fly off when you walked close. At this point in time, it can only be fixed by someone inviting you into another dimension/server where the quest has worked before. Only one person can do the quest at a time if not the birds will bug again :) Game also crashed a couple of times as I was trying to complete the amusement park story quest... had to leave that for another day. (Update: The Carnival quest is working for me again! Yay! Completed it.)

Sometimes I don't like the fact that we each have to complete the important bits of the story quest solo. Yes, instanced parts of the quest that you can only do it on your own. For this, I definitely recommend having a viable solo-ing build to swap into, if not it'll be painful and annoying. Deaths don't cost much in this game, repair bills are a minor inconvenience. Its almost unnoticeable anyway, seeing that you'll be swimming in cash after a day or two of play.

Am now in Blue Mountains! (as of Thursday) and doing the Wabanaki quests :) There are sasquatchs in game! Will post more later... have some work to finish :(

Chat has been really buggy in game recently. I personally think the chat options are incredibly clunky and annoying sometimes. Settings dont always stay the way you want them to. Hope it gets fixed soon!

The Secret World ~ First Impressions

**Originally posted on my FB page for my guildies and some gamer friends. Reposted here for posterity.

TSW

I played a few hours of it last night, intermittent dc's because my modem was problematic as the night progressed. I'll list what I think about the game in no particular order (note that what follows is my personal opinion within that short span of 7 hours-according to Raptr and I'll try to be as unbiased as possible)! Will add more as I go along. 

Character creation

It's a pretty basic character creation system. Nothing like the detailed (Aion wheee!) stuff that I tend to prefer. Choices are much better than that of WoW and War, much less detailed than Tera/Aion/FF14. I think it could be around the level of Rift creation with less colours and not much facial modification :) Possibly has about 8 face choices, but its not too bad tbh... I eventually found a face I liked and changed her eye colour (the colours are alot brighter than in the other games, very nice in cutscenes), jawline, etc. Only took me about half an hour plus (and 1 deleted toon) but I eventually did settle on one :P Character creation -- best part about mmos! 

You also get to select what clothes your newbie toon will start with (cosmetic). The rest of the gear you can buy from the Clothing store. 

I went with a black haired Templar female -- Templar because I love british accents and how the faction feels :)

Still cant decide on if I like my fist/elementalist build but it appealed to me most. Thanks to Leth for some starter help at skills and weps! I do want to dual wield pistols at some point tho :))

The skill wheel thingy can be an info overload when you first look at it lol. You gain points to unlock passives and skills -- higher tiers unlock once you've bought the lower tiers etc. Not too different from some other PC games out there. 

Ambience, gameplay and overall gaming experience

Lovecraftian-inspired ftw. I like how dark and creepy it feels, and for once... a game that you have to pay a bit more attention to when someone is talking/giving you a quest... Something I'm really not used to anymore seeing that I'm just fresh from a bunch of games with quests that were simpler objective-wise. And ohhh boy the quests... I'm a huge sucker for creepy stories, and each quest you encounter - sidequests especially (for now anyway) - is like a peek into the lives of these people, what happened in their last hours? What did they see? What was that sound???? *shivers* Its like an elaborate puzzle game mmo!!!! :D

Seriously though, am loving the puzzles they throw at you... one of the early story quests was pretty damn interesting, you have to get from 1 point to the end without triggering the alarms which would in turn set off explosives (you die and have to start again) :) good fun lol. 

The whole game is pretty atmospheric... I liked standing on the Pier, looking out at the sea with the dark, overcast sky and fog or what seems like tendrils of fog whipped about by the wind. Wrinkling your nose as if you could feel the cold wind carrying the stench of the undead -- then an earpiercing scream suddenly snaps you out of your meandering thoughts (TSW actually made me jump and go "shit what was that?!!!" a couple of times) and you notice some people killing a banshee like creature nearby. I'm suchhhh a chikin. 

Zombies. In the 1st zone. HALP I hate zombies. I dont play zombie games ever because they freak the shit out of me (Plants vs Zombies dont count)... So when I started on the game proper (out of the starting/tutes/main city, they threw us in the midst of a crazy zombie situation with superspeed zombies that run at you =.= arent all zombies supposed to be slow-ish??? Luckily, we never run out of ammo in this game. I hope we dont get more zombies later :/ Or my friends will have to put up with lots of screams on vent lol. 

You still need to use your Tab button in this game :) hahaha I'm soooo not used to that now coming from Tera. 

Combat is usual -- face target, make sure its within range of whatever weapon youre using, proceed to smack/shoot/zap/bolt it. 

Some quests arent exactly shared when in a group, so if someone finds an item and clicks on it, it doesnt update for everyone in the group -.- Most quests are easy to hand in tho, turning in via cellphone is really convenient :D UI design/quest display is pretty damn good, looks sleek and modernistic. You can browse on the ingame browser while playing! Quests are marked with arrow placement markers if you need to be at a certain place (the starting tute will help you with basic gameplay commands). 

Animations

Dont really like the simplistic and repetitive combat animations, but its no big deal, you'll just get used to it as with any other game. Not the best movement out there. Havn't really paid attention to the idle animations/emotes yet, will note tonight. I liked how Rift toons had subtle idle animations, and TERA ones were pretty nice (minus human females because they look deranged. for real). 

Overall impression -- pretty good! I guess this comes from having little to no expectations ^_^ I dont look forward to the combat as much as I do in TERA, its definitely not as pretty, and I've not been to a TSW dungeon yet but I'm pretty happy with it! *easily amused* It's pretty immersive at this point (ok 5-7 hours isnt much i know)... Very very different from the usual fantasy mmos that are my staple. No world pvp, no flashy animations (because i guess it just wouldnt fit in and western mmo companies dont do flashy :( ), no Elins QQ. But its just so... cool... the puzzles, the stories, the hunting for clues, the creeeeeeepy as hell shivers you get when the game leads you through this dark, morbidly fascinating world. I cant play this game alone. 

Now to buy that cute tartan skirt I saw in the shop....

**One major con: the game is expensive and comes with some rather unnecessary bells and whistles. Also how does one tell what stage of progression the character is in? With no leveling system how exactly do you tell if youre ready for a particular dungeon??? >.> Gotta find out. 

Love,

Your friendly neighbourhood gamingunicorn

Templar - Server Huldra (but it doesnt matter really, since its a very fluid server system. you can group across all servers, across all factions)

Also need to find a way to play both TERA and TSW at the same time lololol. 

Oops

Ever had a time when you realised you let a wrong group of people or wrong person into viewing a post on fb? Just had that happen to me again this morning when some random person I briefly knew on WoW (yes, that game with amazingly craptacular ppl) posted comments on some screenshots I uploaded. Firstly, I'm a tad annoyed that he commented (somewhat retardedly... maybe his brains weren't in gear) on a number of pics and then my mind immediately switched to deciding how to remove his viewing privileges without it being rude... Or do I even care? lol. Sigh gaming all these years has taught me to not randomly add people you know in game (or sometimes in your guild even) before verifying that they're tolerably unannoying/unretarded. I've had several bad experiences that has ended with me restricting them to the garbage bins before removing them. Also could be why I dislike gaming with people from my country. Omg I sound like snob :/ And ranting so early this Tuesday...

***
TERA again!

I'm also back in TERA ^__^ after taking a break when D3 released, its good to be back! Picking up where I left off, I'm currently back to leveling my priest (level 47 now). D3 took a month plus and I'm finally done with it. Thanks to Marco (who's an awesome Monk tank) I cleared Inferno on my DH <3 Find it super funny that my DH is an alt. Nothing much left to do in there other than grind gold and finish up what's left of my achievements (CALRETH! Let me know if you wanna clear achievements!). Had some good times in D3, the elite packs can be insanely tough but its now a hell lot easier with the nerfs. Good times ^_^ Time to move on!

I hate Mondays

Oh goddddddd. So sleepy ~__~

Sec while I wake myself up...

VGL, Naga Hex, and Inferno madness

It's Thursday!!! Weekends coming up woooooot! Then I have an event coming up next week (which I'm not too keen on but don't have a choice because it's part of work). Oh well.

I went for Video Games Live last Saturday! The music was awesome and the event itself is pretty fun. I can die happy now knowing I've heard Lament of the Highborne played live <3 Other stuff they performed and I particularly liked were Assassin's Creed, Shadows of the Colossus, Mass Effect, Uncharted, and Portal. Would definitely go again if they come back :) I'll request for Baba Yetu and more Blizz music next round.

The bf's Razer Naga Hex (Wraith Edition) arrived yesterday! :) It only took 2 days for it to arrive! But then again it got shipped from Singapore so... >.> It's sooooo pretty! (Am totally crazy for new toys) Red and glossy with mechanical side buttons too. The buttons are a hell lot easier to click on (lighter keypresses) compared to my Naga Epic, which can be a problem when you're new to the mouse or when playing MMOs >.< I told him to not put any spells with big CDs on the buttons lol. I LOVE YOU RAZERRRR HIRE ME PLEASE!!!!111

So quite a few of us have been 60 for week now and Inferno farms are the norm. Ravenz on the other hand just got his SECOND character to level 60 and he's dragging it through Inferno =.= I've been spending most of my D3 time farming Inferno, the rest of my time shopping on the AH and playing my little alt DH (sometimes with Calreth, whom I'm way hotter than by the way lol) Got a little bored of my Monk alt, so I've decided to play the DH more. Leveled her to 30+ last night with a couple of other people, lastly with Calreth and Adeen... 3 demon hunter's ftw!

Act 1 Inferno is pretty ok these days, ran one round after work yesterday with Crow, Obbu, and Ari, and another run much later that night with Leth. Both times were pretty fast and I didn't die as much as I expected to lol. Should probably get a move on and continue my Act 2...



Also, this makes me giggle like a crazy person at work >.< Hyperbole and a Half

P.S. Turrets are so cute :)

On partyhopping in D3...

Goodness... I've not logged into TERA since D3 launched on the 15th! >.< Definitely didn't think I would enjoy it so much considering it's not an MMO and I've never played the other Ds. I'm currently Level 56 on my main (wizard) and have a monk and demon hunter lowbies on the US servers (yep the same laggy ones that are down alot). Got to play alot in between all those Error messages, but I never did get alot of those Errors to be honest... just the launch day.

While the game is starting to get a lil grindy now that I'm at Hell Mode, it is still infinitely fun to play with friends! :) I love the game hopping system Blizzard has implemented based on its battle.net. It's really easy to join your friends in their games or have them join yours no matter which point of the quest everyone is at :) Party hopping has become my favourite thing to do lol.

I had one major issue with it though... A few nights ago I added an old collegemate. Nothing special about this guy, not spoken to him in ages, and figured its ok to add him since I have a ton of friends on bnet anyway, its not like I'll ever game with him. So what happens is this, he first entered one of my games I was playing with my friend Cat (I hopped into her Act 1 Nightmare game for abit). He popped in, didnt say anything at all, and after awhile left the game. We didn't think too much of it and continued our game. Much later that same night he entered one of my games AGAIN. This time I was playing my lowbie alt (a L20+ Monk doing Act 3) and had another low level friend with me that I'm helping powerlevel. This guy enters my game, doesn't say anything and sits AFK AT BASE! ~___~ Like WTF. So now I had to deal with mobs meant for a 3man party alone. I literally raged and tried to boot him out of my group, which is usually just a click away but for some reason... THERE IS NO SUCH OPTION. I removed him from friends list instead and started a new game. Its ridiculous, someone needs to find that remove/kick from group option and tell me where it is. =End of rant=


On another note, I have just updated my layout with a premade template. Gotta love this PINK! Hehe :D Yes I know the blog is called Gloom of Night and pink just doesnt fit the gloom word but who cares yea? ;)

WTB good TERA database!

I've been playing alot of TERA lately... Other than being terribly tired last night (that kinda made me crash off to bed at 12am) I got my priest to level 40. We've been farming Cultist's Refuge as much as we can. Instant pop dungeon queues are the best :) Tank & healer team ftw. We finally got around to 4 manning the place but Freida (being 43) was nerfing the gold drops too much so we ended up back on the instance queue. Got some gold drops last night too :) 2 gold cloth chest pieces! Wheee! Lots of blues, some random gold weapons. Only problem with my gold chest piece is that its kinda boring looking on my Elin... Will probably need to remodel it tonight! WTB a good TERA database that shows detailed pics/screenshots of gear!

A little bit of TERA (lag)!

So... I've been playing TERA for a few weeks now and am really enjoying the experience o.O Surprisingly lol. Didn't expect to like it this much to be honest but its last beta won me over.

I'm currently playing on the EU servers because US servers are region locked to people in my region (Asia, *shakes her fist at them*). It's my first time playing on EU servers and I must say that its interesting! :) Really interesting to see so many different languages and guilds around. People are pretty helpful and nice too ^^ (although I'm sure now with TERA launching yesterday, the lower level chats must be horrible).

Since me and the bf (and a couple of friends) preordered the game, we started playing about a week ago during headstart. Managed to hit level 32 before servers reopened for launch on our mains (an Elin Priest and Popori Lancer).

Launch day for me was... laggy??! Pretty bad lag at that. A second delay on all actions made combat annoying... dodging attacks was challenging as well. My warrior alt ended up taking more damage than necessary while killing normal quest mobs. Lag makes me rage in any MMO but in TERA, its extra annoying due to the nature of the game. Like you can possibly make do in any other MMO but definitely a huge pain in TERA :) We managed to quest for a level, did a heroic group quest and then log off for the night. Had spikes up to 1000ms+. Found out much later from a friend that it could be made worse by heavily populated zones in game. A tunnel service will have to do for now.

Heading off from work now to level some more! ^__^ /waves

TGIF!