All thanks to Maiyya for tonight’s stop on the 30 sim tour. I found Omega Point after going through some of her pics on KoinUp. There are no words to describe the beauty of this sim. The amount of details in the textures and prim work is amazing. It was very hard for me to narrow down the amount of pics for tonight’s post and I am sure there are a few places in the sim that I missed. I will definitely be going back soon and if you are following along I -highly- recommend checking it out for yourself.
Tonight’s sim hoping adventure brought me to InSilico, a role play sim set in the year 2479. Honestly there wasn’t anything outstanding in their search description that brought me here but what made me stick around and take pics was the information available on their wiki page. I can appreciate a well planned out story. Here is an expert from the wiki page.
It is the year 2479. The planet lies broken and dying. Wars and environmental neglect have rendered the surface uninhabitable. Scattered amongst the shattered remnants of the old nations, surrounded by the flooded, irradiated, polluted regions, the last of our planet-dwellers live a harsh and brutal existence.
With that said let’s get on to the pics.
When I was a kid I would stay up late with my grandmother and watch the twilight zone. It was one of my fondest memories of my grandmother. I grew to love the show as much as the time I spent with her. On tonight’s stop of the 30 sims in 30 days tour I went to Immersiva and it instantly reminded me of the show. The feeling of being alone in someones strange nightmare or daydream was overwhelming. It’s a good thing I wasn’t playing in the dark. A few things, while these shots are not photoshopped I did have to fiddle with the in game environment settings to get this look to the sky. I remember when they introduced environment settings they talked about allowing residents to easily share saved pre-sets. That has not yet happened and its been over 2 years give or take since it was introduced into the viewer. So if you do plan on visiting this sim you’ll have to adjust your settings which can take some time, thankfully the owner of the sim provides a notecard with details. Okay on with the pics!
Yes this is not about WoW and this isn’t even about an MMO. I think I’ve reached an all new level of boredom and gone back to Second Life. You see I’ve been a member of Second Life for…6 years in July and while I have a small parcel of land and friends who frequently log in I have not touched the place since last April or May. Second Life is a complicated place for those unfamiliar with it. To this day I still feel like I’m beta testing the client. While some of the more prevalent bugs that plagued the place last I left have not come up this visit I still find the place to be magnet for instability. But what can I say I have a weakness for virtual decorating.
But that is not the purpose of this post. This post is to talk about a little project I’ve decided to work on. I got the urge to visit a sim that had nothing to do with the favorite past times of most SL residents; shopping, dancing mindless in clubs, “blingin” out, and drama hording. Instead I picked a random sim from the new showcase feature, well new to me anyways. At first I just figured I’d walk around and fill some time, snap some pics, and move on. While I was snapping pictures I thought it might be cool to find some other places to visit later on and keep an album. That some how morphed into this project, 30 sims in 30 days. While there are way more than 30 sims in SL I am only going to cover 30 cause let’s face it if I make it past one post it will be a miracle. So on with the pics. These are all straight shots, no photoshop work other than to crop them. The 1st sim I decided to visit was The Mother Road and this is the description that brought me to it. “Like Route 66, which snakes its way across the United States from Los Angeles to Chicago, this slice of Americana mirrors its real-world counterpart with its gas stations, diners, corn fields, and sense of remoteness.”
[que the soap opera music]
I was squealing over minipets, playing Aion, and raging over epic fail Halloween events. Who knew it would be months without a new post? Let’s skip all the boring little details and fast forward to the good stuff.
1. I switched from a chanter to spiritmaster. Gear itemization in Aion sucks. There just isn’t enough easily attainable gear for chanters. Some of course might disagree with this and that’s fine but personally I had a hard time finding the gear I wanted and or needed to play my chanter to the best of my abilities. Now I’m not asking for gear to be handed to me on a silver platter but what I am asking for is more options for a certain play style so that you are able to play your class the way it was meant to be played. Most if not all gear is made for clerics and we value different stats. It made it difficult for me to enjoy playing the class.
2. I love my spiritmaster. Despite pets not scaling with gear and a few pet bugs I love the class. I’ve managed to get my spiritmaster to 42. A well played SM is one to be feared, pun very much intended.
3. They introduced the Aion “vision” trailer. With awesome visuals and the promise of the future. I was hyped. Then the lack of any kind of time frame on when said features would added to the game became a joke. “It’s coming soon but not that soon cause then it would be too soon.”
4. I haven’t played Aion in 2 weeks. Instead I’ve been playing Dragon Age. I am addicted. The idea of my actions affecting the outcome of the game fascinates me. As Bioware is the developer and also making the next Star Wars MMO I am intrigued by what the future holds for that game.
5. My subscription to Aion runs out tomorrow. I will not be renewing. I plan on finishing up Dragon Age and going back to WoW. Despite what some people like to call ezmode I still find some aspects of WoW challenging, especially raiding. My hope is to gear up as much as possible via the badge system and hopefully find a guild that is willing to take on someone who hasn’t played in awhile but willing to learn. I had high hopes for Aion but the closer I get to Aion’s endgame the more disappointed I become. A lot of people will complain about the grind. I am not going to sit here and say the grind didn’t get to me -however- I don’t believe that the grind is Aion’s biggest downfall. Lack of real end game content, poor gear itemization, the craptastic notion that RNG is the best way to reward players who’ve put in time and effort, and PvP that is neither fun nor challenging because people always believe “zerging is real PvP” are my reasons for Aion’s downfall. That and the above about the vague “coming soon” statements from community managers is frustrating. So rather than raging all over the forums I’m making my stand by just leaving. Not that my little subscription money not coming in anymore will change anything it damn sure makes me feel better.
[/que the soap opera music]
Next time on Girl vs MMO….will she actually go back to wow? Or will she start playing Mass Effect 2 instead and turn her back on MMOs forever? Or will she post her thoughts on Star Trek Online and why she didn’t buy the game? Tune in next time for these and other questions might actually be answered.
When I was playing WoW the one thing that I was highly addicted to was mini pets. I had to have them. While I never managed to get them all I did have quite a few. Today when looking over my google reader I came across a story about Blizzard offering mini pets in game for real world cash. Now I know that some people are against micro transactions but personally I see no harm in one such as this. It’s not like buying either of the two mini pets they are offering will make or break the game. It gives no bonus other than maybe completing one of the achievements. When buying the Pandaren Monk half of those proceeds go to charity. If I was still playing WoW I would so pick one up. I mean really my Death Knight would look awesome running around with a Lil T.K.
So two weeks ago it was announced that Aion would be having a Halloween event. I was excited to say the least. When the 25th rolled around I was waiting for something a bit more than what I got, a stack of 5 candies that transformed you into sparkie via an in game survey. It was ok because I figured “no biggie its just the 1st day.” Next day was the same thing. I’m like perhaps they are waiting till the end of the week when more people will be on. I mean they’d want to have to time set up. You know since Asmodians would be what was that again “celebrate (ing) by racing after the Wild Kurthanir hunt leader during the Wild Hunt and cooking special traditional dishes.” While us Elyos would be “roving Dark Night bands to hunt and destroy the undead before they invade Elyos villages.” To my surprise however neither faction would be doing either of these. Instead the Halloween “event” consists of in game surveys that give you transformation candy. I mean sure I should be glad that each survey offers little chunks of lore goodness. ‘rolleyes. Not only that answer a survey on one character and none of your others get a damn thing because you only get one survey a day and the candy can not be put into your account warehouse.
Note to NCsoft West -this- is not an event. This is a load of crap. And while you might have later clarified what exactly would be happening this week its still a load of crap.
While it seems on Triniel that we are out numbered out in the abyss its nice to know that for one day we can all come together and win. Tonight the Elyos on my server came together and claimed not 1 but 2 fortresses and on to make it even better one was in the upper abyss. My lag was unreal but it was fun as hell. Hopefully we can keep the team work up and realize that while our names can’t all be on an artifact or fortress we are still one faction. Who am I kidding….the drama llamas will not stand for coordinated action. Either way I’m going to try and be at every fortress siege kicking ass and taking no prisoners!
I am a sucker for a good in game event. I’ve run around WoW looking for easter eggs, stupid candy hearts and gifts under the tree in Org. I’ve trick or treated in City of Heroes. I’ve ran around with a witches hat in Guild Wars. So I’m very happy that Aion will be having in game holiday events. There aren’t much details on exactly what will happen but here is the info they’ve posted on the powerwiki.
During the fall harvest, from time immemorial, the people of Atreia have celebrated the bounty of the land. Years ago, the joy of the annual revels was troubled by an eclipse – a peculiar and magical eclipse that brought darkness to Asmodae and Elysea. Ever since, for days during Harvest Revel, the sky goes dark and the peoples of Atreia join the hunt.
Asmodians find soothing peace during the dark days of the Harvest Revel. They celebrate by racing after the Wild Kurthanir hunt leader during the Wild Hunt and cooking special traditional dishes.
Elyos endure the dark days because during them the dead of Elysea are restless. Undead creatures rise from the grave every few hours, pulled back into a semblance of life by the power of the eclipse. Elyos must join roving Dark Night bands to hunt and destroy the undead before they invade Elyos villages.
Log in each day during Harvest Revel. Celebrate with us and every day rewards your investment with new Aion lore and tasty treats!
Harvest Revel
Begin: October 25, 2009
End: October 31, 2009
May your wings be strong and swift! We’ll see you in Atreia!
Woot! Can’t wait.
P.S. It really annoys me that I can’t get my screenshots to look centered even though I’ve told it 50 million times to center. Grrrr!!!
My legion is looking for a few more players to fill our ranks. We are a group of friends that have played together in a whole bunch of games from Guild Wars to WoW. Right now our main goal is to just have fun and have a dedicated group of people to quest and run instances with. Our only real requirement is that you be 18 and over as I curse like a sailor on vent. 
So if you are Elyos on the Triniel server and you are looking for a casual place to hang out give us a try. You can apply on our forums.
