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Posted on November 19, 2012 by stargrace

At new york film academy game design school ( http://www.nyfa.edu/game-design-school/ ) understands the process of creating art assets and animation for video games, and how that process informs, alters, and co-exists with the design and writing aspects of game development. The New York Film Academy is the worlds leader in hands-on film making education and acting for film training. Subscribe to NYFA youtube videos today.

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A University Way of Life #TheSims3

Posted on May 22, 2013 by stargrace

Screenshot-73Ah university life. Staging protests against death (pictured above), doing street art, attempting to go to class, juice pong… These are our days, right?

I purchased Sims University when it released, mostly because I’m a huge sucker for everything Sims related. In fact I can’t wait until Sims 4 is released next year, even though Sims 3 has only been out a short while and they seem to put out a new expansion every month (or two). This expansion is a LOT of fun, and it gets your sim off the usual map, which is great if you’re a bit bored with your current family.

So Ellithia (my genie from previous posts) is off getting a degree in the arts. She spends lots of time exploring the various social groups too which is hilarious and bad all at once. They are your stereotypical groups, jocks, nerds, rebels – but what did you expect from the sims, the entire game is made up of stereotypes and generalizations. That’s where the humor comes in.

Screenshot-69You can even get dares – the one pictured above is me going dumpster diving. I walked away with a little extra cash which is really important while you’re off at university (especially if you don’t use the motherload cash command). You attend classes, take exams, and go to a lot of parties. I haven’t been playing this expansion as much as I would have liked yet (there are still 8 days left before finals) but I’m having an absolute blast. A few things of course make it all easier. My sim (as I mentioned) is a genie, so I can instantly clean the dorm I’m living in, myself, and any friends. This saves me a LOT of time that I would otherwise be spending in the bathroom. The dorm is disgusting, constantly. I can also conjure food, so I save time cooking. It may look like ‘cheating’ but since they’re built right into my Sims everyday functions I don’t see them that way.

When she’s done at university I expect she’ll go home and take up her singing career again, but we’ll just have to see. Maybe she’ll change her mind altogether and become a doctor. You just never know, and whatever happens during a play session is random and unique to that encounter – one of my absolute favorite things about this game.

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Bring on Bertoxxulous #EverQuest

Posted on May 21, 2013 by stargrace

EQ000064This weekend was a holiday weekend for me, Victoria Day here in Canada, and of course I took full advantage of it and gamed most of Monday with Oger in EverQuest. The enchanter is almost level 96 but I find experience VERY slow, and like I’ve mentioned before, playing by myself is almost impossible. Yes, I can charm kill but it’s incredibly risky not to mention lonely to play that way. I’ve tried LFG but my game time hours are not always optimal for everyone else. So I try to squeak some time in here and there.

In order to combat this I decided to make a magician. They’re a ‘solo’ type class, and since I do have two accounts and I typically do box, I figure it will be a good combination. The leveling has been very quick so far, I followed my way through most of the hot zones from level one and up and after yesterdays adventures, Anastatia is now level 72. This means she can group with my ranger without any issues who is 86, and together they can happily head shot mobs over and over.

One of my favorite events out of the numerous ones I participated in was fighting Bertoxxulous. I have a warm spot for this Norrath God because it was the first “raid” I ever went on, so many years ago. I was in awe at the hundreds of players who showed up. Everything seemed so much larger than life back then. Now you can take the Gods down solo, which is both good and bad.

The magician is nice but it still hasn’t replaced all of the hard work that I’ve got on my enchanter. Still, a back up for the times when no one is around is appreciated. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

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Gone Fishing #Rift

Posted on May 16, 2013 by stargrace

2013-05-16_115100

It’s been a little while since I’ve played Rift, but since I won 30 days free + the storm legion expansion, I decided I should probably take advantage of the 9 days I have left. Although the game IS going free to play in June (starting the 12th) so who knows maybe I’ll still be playing.

Anyhow. The last time I played was well before dimensions came out, and it was before fishing, and survival. My goal today was pretty simple, reacquaint myself with the crafting portion of things (very easily done, my bank is filled with bits and bobs) and take it from there. I managed to complete some weekly and daily crafting quests, and before too long I found myself with a pole in hand, relaxing and catching fish.

Fishing is pretty easy. You hotkey the fishing rod. Click it and move a little circle icon over the water, it will change colours based on difficulty level. Wait for the splash, and then left or right click the water. You may not actually “catch” the fish that round, and you may have a second or third splash to listen to. Eventually you end up with a random fish, a piece of crap to sell, or a collection piece. Before I knew it an hour had gone by and I had finished a handful of quests along with some survival quests, which are basically cooking quests.

I wanted to purchase a new dimension, but I’m out of money so that is on hold until I can earn some more. Quests seem to reward a lot these days, and although general chat was VERY quiet there was some conversation about how 9,000 plat at level 51 was the ‘norm’ these days. Oh my. I have 3.

I’ve been trying to find a game I can play while my usual group is busy with real life. So far nothing has really stuck or kept my interest beyond an hour a week. So I’ll keep looking. I’m hoping to get into the Wildstar beta one day, but for now I haven’t had any luck.

Are you going to give Rift another try when it goes free to play? Or do you feel that Trion has just put the last nail in the coffin so to speak? Let me know in comments and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

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Missions and Achievements #EverQuest

Posted on May 14, 2013 by stargrace

EQ000063I haven’t had a lot of time to game lately, the weekend was filled with purchasing a new entertainment unit and then helping to bring that thing home – and then I got a really bad tooth infection so I’ve been pretty out of it on painkillers and antibiotics. I did get a little bit of gaming in though. Fremder, Oger and myself managed to make our way to a VOA mission or two, and they were quite fun! In the one pictured above we had to move some objects over so that we could kill the Avatar of Steel, he would send earthquakes out over the land and cause a ruckus. We didn’t have to do too much for this mission, but the next one made up for it.

In the next mission we decided we would try to complete the achievements as well. This involved killing a bunch of different creatures in the instance, as well as defeating all of the hunters that were down one path. The mission itself was quite neat, we had to follow an NPC down a path to a cave area, and while the NPC was not aggro to anything, we sure were. Plus everything sees invis. Once we made our way there, we had to open a crate that had a mommy dog in it, and then she attacked us, so we had to kill her. We opened the rest of the crates and found other pups in those which we had to collect and return to the NPC. It seems like those pups were being stolen and shipped out illegally! Who would do such a thing!

I like missions that have a story and have more to them than just simple killing. Although we had to re-start the second one because we didn’t get the updates properly. Experience is quite slow now, my enchanter is almost 96 but not quite there yet. With everyone busy finding a group to gain experience with is something that doesn’t happen all that often. I’ve been thinking of delving into WoW again for a bit as a nice ‘relaxing’ no brainer game, but we’ll just have to see.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

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Housing Quests and An Epic Request #EverQuest

Posted on May 9, 2013 by stargrace

EQ000061With the hand aug finally out of the way, it was time to decide what to work on next. My typical group of EQ players are a bit bogged down lately with work, so most of the time I’m on my own. EQ is a tough game to play alone, for a number of reasons. I spent some time over at the latest EQ fan site, EQResource – they have a fantastic little area of “special quests” listed. One of the sections is all about housing quests, which I have partially worked on but not yet completed. This is on my list of things to do before too long. I also want to complete ‘An Epic Request‘ which allows you to get an ornamentation for your weapon if you’ve completed one (or both) of your epic quests. I’ve always loved the graphic of my enchanter epic, so this is something I certainly want to complete.

Instead of doing any of that, yesterday was spent with me working on obtaining my Master Baker Trophy. In hindsight I really should have obtained all of my trophies well before hitting 300, because the baking test that you have to complete is much easier at lower levels. The higher level ones tend to require a bunch of items that no one sells and you’ll have to go out hunting for. For the Master trophy I had to create the following:

Create 1 Hearty Meat Sauce using tradeskills
Create 1 Sea Green Cookies using tradeskills
Create 1 Wolf Fillet in Cream using tradeskills
Create 1 Pixie Powder Cinnesticks using tradeskills
Create 1 Beer-Battered Darkhollow Basilisk Souffle using tradeskills
Create 1 Grandmaster Baker’s Spoon using tradeskills
Create 1 Blood Raven Stew using tradeskills
Create 1 Hero Sandwich using tradeskills
Create 1 Hobgoblin Surprise using tradeskills
Create 1 Misty Thicket Picnic using tradeskills

As you can see it also requires the Grandmaster item which is the old crafting trophy people used to get with a 5% mod. The new ones grant 15% at their highest evolution. Of course me being me, I accidentally gave my quest piece to my enchanter PET instead of to the quest NPC. The pet stands right in front of me, constantly, and if I’m not paying close attention it is way too easy to do this. So I had to send in a petition and have a friendly GM return the piece to me. Thankfully they did so without any issues at all and I didn’t even have a very long wait.

While I was waiting to complete the trophy I decided to start a new magician. I still yearn for a class that I can play alone when my steady group is otherwise occupied. I’ve heard good things about magicians but I’ve never played one before. I leveled her up in Crescent Reach last night, and I’m level 15 so far. Things should be pretty straight forward until about level 40-50 and then I’ll see how much I enjoy the class.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

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