Storytime: Emerging from Darkness

Storytime: Emerging from Darkness

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Courage is more than facing an enemy

She paused on the threshold, hesitant. If she took this next step then she would be leaving behind everything she had ever known. She glanced over her shoulder, crystal blue eyes searching the darkness behind for some sign that maybe, perhaps, she could still belong. The darkness remained still and silent, refusing to yield to her silent plea.

Though she could not see it from where she stood partially in the light, within that darkness was everything she had ever known. A home built into the side of a mountain with cramped caverns and dim lights. She had been born there, in one of the many caverns that honeycombed the mountain, to parents that were broken before she’d even come to them. The mountains were where they sent those who were broken, who had been trodden underfoot by countless others. It was where the outcasts could make a home, have some semblance of life in that darkness.

Her parents had met down in that darkness, both having been exiled from their homelands for supposed failings on their parts. She had never fully understood that, seeing as her parents were wonderful people who had scraped together the meager resources available to them to raise herself and her younger brother.

Her brother. Now that was a thought that could dampen even the excitement she felt at being so close to the outside. Despite everything her parents had done for them, her brother had wasted away in the dark tunnels and caverns of their mountain home. He had been a sickly child, and eventually succumbed to illness a couple of years back. Everything changed after his death.

The light her parents worked so hard to bring into their lives dimmed and finally went out. They began to simply go through the motions of life, no longer truly living.

She couldn’t stand to see her parents like that. And so finally she had reached the decision. She was going to leave behind everything she had known and venture out into the world that had rejected her family. She was certain she could survive, she had eagerly gobbled up stories of the outside from anyone who would tell them as she grew up, imagining what it would have been like to live out in the sun, amongst the trees and flowers, birds and critters.

And now here she was. Standing on the threshold between light and dark, between her known past and unknown future. She took in a deep breath, knowing that it would be easier after that first step.

With a determined expression, she stepped forward into the moonlight, leaving the last of the darkness behind as she moved into the silvery light.  She didn’t know where she was going to go, but that uncertainty was exciting. She had always known what life would bring in the caverns, this unknown was new to her and she was ready to embrace it.

 

 

Gaming: Fallout 76

Gaming: Fallout 76

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

War. War never changes.

Not even when you get to explore a radioactive wasteland with your friends.

I’ve only played a few hours of Fallout 76 so far, so this is very much my initial impressions of the game. And, to be perfectly honest, I am so far impressed.

It isn’t a legendary game in terms of pushing the barrier or creating completely new experiences, in fact it feels a lot like Fallout 4 to me. But it is something that the husband and I have wanted for many, many years now – a co-op game set in the Fallout or Skyrim universes. Why? Because those are amazing and immersive worlds that we would very much enjoy exploring together.

The fact that there are no actual human NPC’s in this game is kind of crazy to me, but so far it is working. There are still robots that you can sell and buy items from, and you encounter a lot of holotapes called Survivor Stories, which are little snippets into the lives of now-dead survivors, often found near to their corpse. A little morbid, sure, but what else can you really expect from a world set after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization?

I spent my first 30 minutes or so of my play time making my character perfectly adorable (a must for any game) and then exploring the initial vault that you have been living in. The vault itself felt reminiscent of the after-effects of any “partied too hard night”, with confetti and discarded balloons everywhere. I very much enjoyed all the little stands that were set up for you to pick up essential starting supplies, like a couple bottles of water and your C.A.M.P.  I don’t know what C.A.M.P. stands for yet, but it is no doubt something clever. Bethesda is great at the clever acronyms. Upon exiting the vault, I looted a nearby corpse to find my first pipe pistol and ammo to go with. At that point, I had to shut the game off and go to work.

It was a long day, let me tell you.

Once the husband and I booted up the game that night, the first thing I did was insist that we take a screenshot in front of Vault 76 to commemorate the beginning of our adventure. True to life, it looks like he is grabbing my arse.

DsBO0WWVsAARVZi

That incredibly important task complete, we ventured out into the wasteland. The first thing that struck me was how incredibly beautiful this post-apocalyptic world was. Even the worn walls and weathered pictures held a beauty of their own.

In our journey, we encountered a number of other vault dwellers who had ventured from the safety. We kept seeing the same names over again as dwellers ran through the same starting quests that we were ticking off our list. Most didn’t pay us any mind – perhaps it was obvious that the husband and I were a team, or more likely because they were still taking in the game and you can’t PVP until you are level 5.

DsBO3jmUwAc8Hxd

My favourite person we ran into was a female dweller with short black hair who, after looking at me, gave me a thumbs up. My vanity said it was because she approved of my appearance. I waved hello to her. We later came across her again, and she and I waved again as we forged our way through adversity.

Aside from the obvious of now being able to play Fallout with other players, one of the biggest changes that struck me was how easy it was to get radiated. Seriously, in Fallout 4 I would maybe get the tiniest tick of radiation from doing stuff, unless I was chilling near some clearly radioactive barrels. Everything seems like it is radiated – you can’t go in the water without getting radiation, there are corpses that crumble and give off radiation when you are near them for too long. It is perfect. Being set in the earliest time of any Fallout game, it makes perfect sense that the radiation is far more severe and happens with more frequency and severity.  I don’t know if mutations are still a thing now that the game has been released, but I look forward to finding out.

Ah, and I almost forgot – S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points and perks! Rather than a big chart to look at when you decide what to do with your level up points, you choose a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute to put a point into and then choose a perk card that is available to that level of attribute. You can only equip a certain amount of these perk cards, the limit depending on how many points you have into the attribute. You are also given perk packs at certain levels (I don’t currently know if it is every level after 5, or certain levels as I have gotten 2 and am level 7). You can change these up at any time, customizing how your character plays. Personally, I’ve got some extra weight limit and the ability to drink/eat with less radiation damage.

I’m currently planning on building my character around guns – pistols and snipes maybe, or maybe just a trusty old AK, haven’t fully decided. I’ve been pistol-whipping the shit out of radiated monsters, though, and that has been kind of fun.

dsbo2xyuuaaeico.jpg

May your adventures in the wasteland be fulfilling and interesting, and may you ever seek the top of the next hill.

Game on.

Arcia

Ramblings: Tech Addiction

Ramblings: Tech Addiction

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Don’t try to deny it – you are just as addicted to technology as I am. Wait, you say, what could you possibly mean? I can put down my phone any time I want, I can stay off Twitter. Yea, and so can I. But that doesn’t mean I can’t admit that I am well and truly addicted to technology. Not just phones and computers, but think about how much we touch technology in our daily lives. And perhaps addiction is the wrong word, perhaps a better would be ‘reliance’. We are all good and mightily reliant upon our technology.

It pervades every aspect of our daily lives, even in the little things. Your coffee in the morning – can you imagine if you had to hand grind those beans, heat the water on a fire and then pour it over the crushed beans into your cup? What if suddenly that was the only way you would ever have coffee again, would you do it?

It’s funny because we don’t realize just how reliant we are until it disappears. Think back to the last power outage you had that lasted more than a couple of minutes. What did you end up doing? Were you like me and every idea you came up with was shot down before you even said the words because it requires power?  Trying to stay entertained without power can actually become a challenge! Well, assuming you aren’t one of those people with a nifty, hands-on hobby that doesn’t actually require power. Or lighting.

Today and on Friday I had the dubious pleasure of no work computer. Now, I have spent the last three years or so relentless bringing the lawyers files up to date on the directory, religiously scanning and saving documents and keeping them organized digitally. It is easier for me, I find it simpler to locate documents, provided everything has been named properly, and it takes up far less physical space. This is a wonderful system. Until I can’t access it.

As with the power outage, I was left going “Oh, I could do this!” and then realizing that no, no I could not do that. Instead, I was forced to do one of the tasks that I hate so much it helped motivate me to move everything to the digital world – filing paper. I have been collecting paper filing and allowing it to gather dust for months at a time before I tackle them. And generally, it gets tackled because I have no power or no computer or something of that nature. I do not do it voluntarily.

You know what, though? I wouldn’t change it. Technology makes life easier, we are able to connect with people on the other side of the planet and have a meaningful, real-time discussion with them.

With technology, we have learned things about ourselves and about the world around us that our ancestors could not have even guessed at. We are able to do things that those same ancestors would be so in awe of they might label us demons or angels, depending on whether they were more frightened or more impressed.

Well, I don’t believe I have anything further to type about on this subject right now. So let’s end this here before I start rambling or worse.

Ciao

Arcia

Gaming: Awesome MMO

Gaming: Awesome MMO

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If you follow me at all on Twitter (and let’s be real, at this point, if you are reading this, you probably are) you will have seen some of my recent screenshots of playing Black Desert Online, a really cool MMO. It is what one might describe as an Asian grind game – there is A LOT of grinding. Grind to get your level. Grind to get your “Life Skills” up. Grind to raise a good horse. And if you like that sort of game, BDO does it very, very well.

I started my BDO career as a Tamer. A female class that gets a bestial pet that fights alongside her. I generally enjoy pet classes, but for some reason, this one just did not jive for me. She did look awfully pretty, though, with her light pink hair and a sultry gaze.DqHiH8aUcAA4TLEDqRzMDdU8AASs_F

 

I was forced to level her up to level 56, however, so that I could have the game for free. It was a slog, but so worth it! I had a hope that once I reached level 56 the Tamer’s awakened skills would make her awesome. Alas, it was not to be so. Predictably, her damage is tied to her pet, that was fine. What wasn’t, to me, was when my pet only decided to attack about half the time, maybe less. I’m sure I was doing something wrong, but I just couldn’t get into the swing of her.

So I made a Witch.

2018-11-07_386134556.jpg

The husband was already a Wizard, which is the male version of the Witch class. Their base skills are identical, but their awakened skills are quite different. Where his focuses on his fire and ice spells, mine focuses on the lightning and earth spells. Funny thing, I preferred the lightning spells and he preferred the fire spells, so it worked out really well. We’ve been tearing up the mobs with our combined spells. He is worried I don’t feel powerful enough, because I’m a level behind and haven’t unlocked some of my more powerful abilities, but I know I’ll get there so I don’t much care. He has a lot more time than I do!

And there is just so much I could do in the little time that I do have to play games (I say little time, but frankly I spend all the time I can playing). The crafting is very in depth, with you needing to process some ingredients several times before they are ready to be used in building a wagon, boat or piece of furniture. You can get farm plots and grow various veggies, grains, and flowers that you turn into food for yourself or your pets.

One of my favorite aspects is the horses. You get your first horse just through the main quest-giver, the black spirit and are able to purchase horses from other players or go out and tame your own wild horse. Not only can you level your horse up, but they are also different “tiers”, a higher tier is a better overall horse. I was lucky enough that when I tamed my first horse it was a T4 or T5, out of 8, I believe. And you had better believe one of my horses has been named Epona.

dqhiotwuwaeub_b.jpg

Another neat aspect is trading. You are able to make and buy trade goods which you take to a different city and pray they will pay good money for it. They weigh a lot, though, which means your horse might end up looking like the hubby’s in the above screenshot!

The game also encourages making and playing alt characters. You get two pools of points, one is your energy and one is your contribution points. Crafting stuff takes energy, and so do some conversation options to allow you to gather knowledge. The contribution points you use to invest in various nodes and cities and will be able to get workers to gather resources or get a residence and such. So how does this all mean the game encourages alts? Well, first of all, the knowledge you gain is cross-character and it helps in terms of making monsters easier to kill, things easier to find, etc. Second of all, certain (maybe all, unsure) quests give you contribution experience every time you do them on a new character. Thirdly… well, ok, I don’t really have a third except that I am a bit of an altoholic, so love making alts regardless of the necessity and whether I would actually play it beyond an hour. Oh, and you use those contribution points to invest in nodes and get residences and workshops, which is a whole big thing tied to crafting.

I’ve really been enjoying our time playing this game. One of our only complaints is that you can’t actually trade, well, anything to another person so we are unable to do our usual of splitting up the crafting so that we each focus on something different and are able to together make amazing things. It is a shame, but manageable.

If you are looking for a good MMO to sink your time into, this is one that I would wholeheartedly recommend. At $10 for the base game and no monthly fees unless you choose to purchase the ‘Value Pack” that gives you extra inventory space and access to different dyes, this is something that can fit most wallets, too. And just to add some sprinkles onto an already delicious cake, it is releasing an XBox port soon. Prior to the end of the year, if memory serves correctly.

If you do end up in the game on the NA servers, feel free to look up the Izavi Family (that’s me!)

Tata

Arcia

 

Ramblings: Introductions

Ramblings: Introductions

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

What better way to start a blog then to introduce myself? I sure couldn’t think of one, so here we are.

I am called Arcia. No, that isn’t my real name, but it’s as close as you are going to get for now. Once in a while, I may drop my real name, but frankly, it doesn’t much matter. Arcia is my gamer-tag and my online persona if you will.

Speaking of gamer-tag, that is what I plan on writing about mostly on this blog – video games. If you came here from my twitter, you know I love gaming and enjoy sharing my adventures with my friends. Mostly in the form of screenshots. Which I will also endeavor to share here.

So what sort of video game content can you expect from me? Mostly my opinions or experiences, or possibly short stories based around my characters in games. Honestly, we will see. I made this on a whim.

Oh, right, more about me?

So, I am married to a wonderful man and have been for 8 years now. We’ve known each other since I was in grade 7 and started dating for the final time in 2004. This is where everyone goes “awww, so cute!” so I will wait a moment. . . Done? Cool.

The hubby and I do not have any children, nor any real plans for children. We do have two cats, a big black guy named Grim and a little, scrawny thing named Seraphim. They have many other names, but I won’t list them all here. You may see stories about these little buggers here, too. Because I love them.

I think that about sums me up. Feel free to ask me questions, no promises you will get an answer but the worst that will happen is I will decline to provide a response. No biggie, trust me. I’ll be nice.

OK. Well, that is it. Thanks for popping by, have a great day, and maybe I’ll see you around again!

Tata for now.

-Arcia