Crazy busy times! Holiday shopping, work, family stuff, helping my wife with her two side businesses, and gaming when I have a few spare minutes have kept me incredibly busy! I have neglected to post much here, but that will be very different this next week. I want to craft a bit of a conglomoblog to address numerous topics.
EverQuest “True Box Server”: Phinigel
Yes! It’s finally upon us. Phinigel launches Wednesday, December 9th. I’m ready to go! My Gnome Necromancer will be moving forward full-speed ahead ready to gain levels and conquer the world of Norrath. By conquer I mean farm plat & gear and get level 50, etc. All in all having a great time in a world I can’t quite seem to ever grow tired of visiting.
Wanting to play with me and my friends? The more the merrier! Let me know and I’ll get you the details you need to join a great group. I plan to continue my “Late Nights in EverQuest” series on Youtube which was waylaid by the announcement of the new server.
Albion Online
I’ve been enjoying the closed beta of Albion Online. At first I was a bit rusty. You’ll see that in the video I am FINALLY uploading tomorrow morning. Sorry for the delay in that… I’ve been promising to upload that for two weeks now. I’ve spent around 10 hours farming materials and overall just acquainting myself with the game.
If you’re looking to join in on what’s shaping up to be a fun and long-lasting UO’ish MMORPG, check out the founders packs.
Space Engineers Adds Planets
Remember that fun sandbox building game in space that Graev and I played in May 2014. We took a couple videos and had a blast playing with some of you. More than a year later the game has apparently developed significantly. There are now planets to explore! I’m going to dive back in and see what’s up in Space Engineers on Tuesday. Might be a fun filler game.
Battlefront
Graev and I have been playing several hours a week of Battlefront on our PS4’s. I recently saw that more people play on the PS4 than the Xbox One and PC COMBINED. While a little surprising, it makes sense. Consoles are the native platform for most games these days, and the PS4 is pretty much the front runner. I’d be curious to see the numbers for Fallout 4.
I’ll just leave this here. I’ll also link it in my next Albion Online post.
I keep trying to get back into Space Engineers but it seems so danged complicated every time I try.
Im still trying to figure out how to get an ox and horse, so i can craft a mount
@Wonderwyrm It is far easier to just buy a low tier ox or horse mount than it is to craft one. I have found that you can simply run into the starter areas and collect a bit of rough stone and rough wood and then sell them via BUY ORDERS on the marketplace. You make a few silver less per item but you get the silver straight away. Of course every market is different in their prices but people are easily paying 25-40 silver per rough stone or rough wood in most towns at the moment and you can buy a low tier mount for just a few thousand. Gather some of that, use them to fill a BUY ORDER and then just buy the mount. I think I paid about 2400 silver each for my ox and horse mount and I did it in no time at all.
@Wonderwyrm: You get the Ox and Horse by progressing down the farmer tree and breeding them. It takes a serious investment to make that happen, but well worth it in the end. If you want to just buy them as Nuke recommends above, you can run a quick quest to gather resources. At ~800 silver per reward, it takes a matter of half an hour to earn each mount.
@Drathmar: Oh it’s complicated for sure, but actually once you get into things it’s not so bad. It only gets truly complicated when you want to do something on a grand scale, but by that point it’s less about figuring things out and more about making them work the right way.
@Keen After the post last week about Albion and the discussion that followed I did some research over the weekend and took the plunge. I spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday learning the mechanics. I really see some great potential here, lot of work yet to be done with stuff like the UI but still promising.
Are you still going it solo or have you hooked up with others in a guild yet? I am rapidly approaching a point where I need to start focusing in on what I want to do with my character. I think spending time to get most skills up to T3 is a great way to get a feel for the various types of weapons, armor and crafting but it does become important at that point to choose a path and stick with it. If you have or are setting up a guild let me know.
@Nuke: I still need a guild. I’ll probably wait until launch to find or start a guild. I’m not going to invest TOO much time into the closed beta. Don’t want to burn out at all on grinding resources.
I was a fan of UO after release. There was this guy named hobbes who would literally run around and kill everyone, dev team banned him from beta eventually 😛
Anyway, it has potential, it doesnt seem hard to progress, I got up to t3 warrior armor and resources. I hear theres a wipe in a few months, so that also turns me off a bit so I may wait till they announce open beta with no more wipes or something along those lines.
There is a guaranteed wipe before launch. That’s why I’m holding back.
I am using my time to not really play the game so much as become familiar with the mechanics and trying to understand how things are interconnected. Crafting and playing markets is more entertaining for me in games like this than the combat so I am fascinated by the numbers at the moment. I know, very nerdy.
One problem I see at the moment though is that while I love localized storage and marketplaces the inability to see prices across markets limits the game. I do not want to see global markets, that ruins a game fast, but being able to see where the best prices are on resources can spread the world out and effect supply and demand. Currently there is no reason if you are in the Easterly Cross area to travel to Westerly Cross as the resources are identical. If a wealthy guild however was posting Buy Orders for resources and you could see this it would encourage players to travel the distance for the increased funds. This works in EVE and a player can literally make money simply by buying and selling between stations. This sort of mechanic can lead to some great in game drama such as an established guild offering very high prices for resources at their guild town but a rival guild attacking anyone they see trying to get to the guild town to sell.
That’s some good feedback, I agree. You should post that on their website forums feedback section.
Hi Keen!
I am looking for a Phinny guild/group although I won’t be starting at launch (going on vacation next week). Still, figure I’d get the details now for when I get back. I loved my time on Lockjaw (had a Wizard, Chanter, Ranger all at level 30 then they announced Phinny.. so I sat back to wait =)
Can’t recommend Albion, sadly. I bought a founder’s pack and the game runs like absolute shit on my laptop, which it really shouldn’t do (I’m talking 17fps with everything on lowest settings when I get 50+ on Diablo 3 with everything maxed out).
The support response has been a joke as well. Waving their T&Cs in my face to try and get out of refunding a broken product, then not responding when I told them that wasn’t a good way to deal with it.
Ah well. Just be careful, these people are amateurs and it shows 🙁
@Isey: Hi Isey! If you’re looking for a small group that loves to play together and have fun then you’re welcome to join us. 🙂 We’re on ventrilo daily.
keenandgraev.typefrag.com
Port: 60584
@Griddlebone: That’s really odd. I haven’t had any of the same issues. I’m sorry to hear about the troubles.
@Griddlebone
Honestly sounds like something on your end, and I’m not talking about the specs of the laptop. Just something regarding settings, drivers, OS, etc etc. Could really be anything.
But Albion has absolutely nothing going on for today’s standards when it comes to graphics. Would run like a dream on almost anything from this century.