Seed Catalog Time!

 One of my real life hobbies is gardening and it's that time of year for Seed Catalogs!  So I am here to shill for Johnny's Selected Seeds and their new digital catalog!  Believe it or not this is not a paid promotion; just sharing it as it came across my inbox and I was out of time and ideas for a blog post today.

So much stuff... so little time!

 Work is a bit crazy and my leisure time has been spent playing New World so blogging has suffered as a result.  I wanted to mention a few things.

New World's dev team released a new edition of Forged in Aeternum talking about the game's economy.  Anyone that knows me knows that game economies are my jam so I do want to try and find time to make some comments.

Throne and Liberty released a video ahead of their December launch in Korea.  Lots of information about the game and video looks good as T&L videos always seem to.  I am hoping they've made some progress from the previous iterations that basically crash landed in the western MMO market killing any and all buzz about the game.

Ashes of Creation also released their long awaited "caravan" demo. Surely this is the update where it all comes together?  Right? The game is shaping up but I still walked away unimpressed so want to drop some more comments about it.

NaNoWriMo also kicked off and as it's 11/2 and I haven't started I will just have to pass again for this year.  Oh well!

Low Effort Halloween

 Happy Halloween you rascals!

Pax Dei Alpha This Year?

 It is almost November, but the Pax Dei team is still maintaining that their alpha test is going to happen this year according to this MMORPG.com article.

The Pax Dei team is affirming their plans for alpha this year and has released some stats from the small Friends and Family playtest.

 I also found the numbers from the friends and family test intersting.

Those testers have used over 346,749 building pieces with the top builder having used 25,767.  Since everything in the game is player created, it does make one wonder what 25k pieces added up to. There have been  5,284 deaths by NPC and 1,771 deaths by falling. Dungeons have seen over 180,000 square meters covered, and over 47,200 km explored. Those testers have also killed over 3,500 rabbits.

  The building numbers specifically stand out.  This tells me that building is a big part of the game and not just a secondary pursuit.  Also coming from a game like New World where fall damage is something you laugh off it will be an adjustment to fear falling from great heights again. And the poor, poor rabbits (though not as many as I'd suspected so maybe they are more evasive than your standard MMO rabbit).

 I will continue to watch this one with interest.

Sunday 10/29/2023 Post

 Possibly the worst team in the league.

New World Servers Down 10/27

Update 10/27 10:15a ET: Servers back up

>>>>

 When you log in to check your Trading Post buy/sell orders but New World servers are down:

Looks Interesting: The Finals beta

 The Finals is a new FPS in a short beta period starting today.  Looking to give it a try later tonight.

Mind Blowing Star Citizen Video

 Anyone that has talked to me about Starfield likely knows I am not a fan.  I'd go as far as to say Starfield is a bug-ridden mess of loading screens.  With my disappointment in Starfield it has had me on the look for other games to scratch the space opera itch.  The two that come to mind are No Man's Sky and Star Citizen.  Itching even harder today is Star Citizen after I watched a mind blowing tech demo video!

 Does this mean I am a Star Citizen fanboy now?  Am I drinking the kool-aid?  Am I upset about a major financial investment I've made in Star Citizen?  No x3.  I am honest when I say Starfield sucks and there is a serious itch I want to scratch for a space exploration game.

 Also the more I've learned about Star Citizen the more I realize the general "Star Citizen is a scam and will never release!" sentiment online is way off base.  First off, there is a valid Star Citizen alpha that is online and playable.  Just watching a few videos I'd argue it has numerous aspects that beat out games like Starfield by a mile.

 I think the sentitment about Star Citizen comes from its ever-growing scale and watching this video I can see where that comes from.  But this video is in their engine.  This is in theory a literal path a player could take without ever hitting a loading screen.  Jump in your ship, fly to a planet, explore, hop back in that ship, zip off to a space station.... and it goes on and on and on.  Consider me impressed, if not mind blown, by where Star Citizen is at.  I shall watch it with much more interest now.

TIL you can harvest the statues in Elysian Wilds!

 Since the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion launched for New World I will admit I've not spent nearly the amount of time in the new zone, Elysian Wilds, as I should have.  Today reminded me of that as I was wrapping up my mount quests and I came across the realization I could "harvest" the stone statues scattered across the zone.  When I learn; you get to learn with me!

Sorry buddy!

 

 The statues are of various animals our human characters.  Walking up them you can interact and "mine" them with your pickaxe.  The result is Petrified Fragments which are a crafting material in a few recipes.  I will admit I am not exactly sure what these crafts are for, but at a minimum there is seasonal objectives tied to upgrading your spore jelly container which requires the fragments.  As soon as I learn more; I'll share.

Halloween cometh!

 Always love Halloween events in MMORPGs.  Some screenshots from the current New World event.

Turning in rewards at the cauldron

Fighting the big Halloween baddie.  Love the circling crows!