imported

Blaugust 2015, Day 5

On Sunday I finally caught that infamous blogging disease, the Liebster Award! Thanks Noctua and Mylex at Gamers Decrypted!

11 Random Facts About Me:

1. I love origami, and can fold a mean shark.
2. I have never played KOTOR, to my shame.
3. I have 3 cats and only one of them hates me.
4. My mom is the one who inspired and enabled my nerdiness. She still always calls me to make sure I don’t miss an episode of Doctor Who or a particularly cheezy made-for-Syfy movie.
5. I came to MMOs relatively late, and WoW was my first MMO. I never played in vanilla.
6. My first computer was a Commodore 64.
7. In school I had to learn typing instead of programming due to my schedule. I hated and resented it right up until I realized that knowing how to type is amazing, and programming I could teach myself.
8. Hands down, my favorite movie of all time is Pacific Rim. It is like it was made just for me and my childhood kaiju love.
9. I absolutely hate wearing dresses or skirts. But I always end up playing casters in video games so my characters are constantly wearing dresses even though I won’t.
10. I love Star Wars and Star Trek equally. Don’t drag me into your arguments, I won’t choose sides!
11. My favorite food is cheese. If you don’t like cheese I will fight you.

Now to answer Noctua’s questions:

1. What about writing do you love the most? Writing a blog is great because it forces me to reflect more deeply on what I’ve been doing, and connects me to the world of other game bloggers outside my social circle.
2. Which is your favorite gaming console of all time? I’d have to say the original Playstation. It marks the point where I was capable of buying games I wanted without having to beg my parents for them.
3. Do you believe in good and evil? I’m going to go with the sage words of god, or a computerized space probe that collided with god: “Right and wrong are just words, what matters is what you do.”
4. What are your worst and best qualities? I can be overly competetive sometimes, but I make a mean spaghetti sauce.
5. Are you an achievement, immersion, or social focused player? I’m definitely achievement focused first and foremost. I enjoy escaping into games, but once I’m there I need some objective to chase.
6. What is your most beloved character of all times from a game?  If this means my personal characters, it would definitely be my forsaken priest in WoW, so many memories there. In terms of actual written characters, probably Sam from Gone Home. Never before had a game made me just outright weep at the end.
7. What is your favorite book? This one is almost impossible to answer, there’s too many great ones! My favorite of what I’ve read recently would have to be One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire because it is full of sea fey.
8. Which is your favorite fictional villain and why? I always love villains that are smart and scheming.  My favorite Disney villain is Ursula, because she’s amazing and because her design was based on Divine.
   
9. DC or Marvel? I’m not a comics fan at all. I’d have to answer Marvel to this question though, just from enjoying their movies and playing lots of Marvel Heroes!
10. What about maintaining your blog do you find the most difficult? Coming up with new things to say, and believing that my opinions are worth posting for everyone to see.
11. Which is your personality type? INTP, the classic absentminded professor archetype, I guess it makes sense. I most certainly am an introvert.

Now for my questions for my victims awardees:

1. Why do you blog?
2. What was your favorite childhood cartoon show?
3. Fantasy or Sci-Fi?
4. What’s the most amazing place you’ve ever been?
5. Pizza: Chicago or New York?
6. If you could only pick one game genre to play for the rest of your life, what would it be?
7. What inspired your character name?
8. What is your greatest gaming moment or achievement?
9. Do you share your love of games with your real-world friends and family, or keep it to the internet?
10. Have you ever had a really weird pet?
11. What is your favorite type of environment/biome in-game and IRL?

Phew that was a workout! I’ve chosen a couple of my Aggrochat buddies who are also participating in Blaugust to answer my questions and share their 11 random facts:

Ash and Thalen consider yourselves Liebster-ed! I look forward to seeing your answers.

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know me a little better!

Source: Moonshine Mansion
Liebstered!

Blaugust 2015, Day 4

Welcome to our first installment of Shiphand Buddy! Are you ready to face the dangers of Fragment Zero?

What: Unlock the secrets of a creepy skeech-filled asteroid and save the Ekose captain

When: Available at level 6

Where: Quest givers are in Algoroc, Celestion, Deradune, and Ellevar

Gold Timers: Normal: None;   Vet: 30:00

Gracie’s Run Time: Normal: 12:58  ; Vet: 17:59

Shiphand Buddy Says: This is the newest shiphand and it has some nice touches like cute old-school sci-fi themed cutscenes and a story that ties into the world story a little more than just “some folks went into space and bad things happened to them.” The vet gold timer can be a little tight if you are new or if your dps is on the low end, but once you’re used to where to find everything you should have a few minutes of cushion.

There are 3 tunnels, you go left first, then right, then finally straight, before returning to the start again. The black box you need to collect can spawn in several random locations. I like to check the spot on the right side right after killing the first skeech waves at the start while I am close. The first tunnel has a strain infestation. There’s 3 fairly obvious big strain creatures to kill before you can find the missing crew member and move on. Make sure to kill the xenobite eggs along the walls for your gold medal.

When you exit the first tunnel, you need to gather cargo. By far the fastest way to do this is to kill the “Looter” skeech, which drop many crates at once. I usually clear the area immediately to the left as you exit the tunnel, since there are several looters up there and one of the black box spawn points is up there as well. If I get all my cargo and still haven’t found the black box I check the last location before entering tunnel number 2.

The second tunnel is full of skeech, be wary because more waves will spawn behind you as you progress. To get gold, you need to use 3 panels in this tunnel to shut down the defense system. The first is down a side passage on your left after the entrance. The second is nearby on the elevated area. The third is on a cubby on the left in the last room. Kill the skeech matron, find the missing crew member and fight your way back out.

I try to skip as much trash as possible on the way to the last tunnel, usually heading immediately right after exiting tunnel 2 and using the zero-g plus my movement abilities to bypass the skeech up in that hilly area. If you have around 80% of the “kill skeech” target met when you enter the last tunnel you should be on track to complete it for your gold medal.

The last tunnel is a pretty straight shot to a mini-boss. Just dodge and/or interrupt and he shouldn’t give you any trouble. There’s some lore all the way in the back if you’re a collector! Rescue the ekose, wait for him to do his thing, then run back outside. The final bit is just silly fun. Stay in the bubble, watch out for telegraphs, and kill a whole lot of skeech!

Differences between normal and Vet: There’s no timer and no black box to find on normal, and no minimum number of skeech to kill to get gold. There’s also no “Looters”, so you have to loot 10 crates off the ground.

Other thoughts: This isn’t the fastest, but it is a great choice for finishing some contracts. You can easily knock out “kill skeech”, “kill strain”, “interrupt telegraphs”, and “get multi-kills” in this shiphand.

Shiphand Buddy returns on Thursday with our next mission: Outpost M-13!

Source: Moonshine Mansion
Shiphand Buddy: Fragment Zero