I am so incredibly happy to announce this months ‘Inspirational Girl Gamer’ – Emily (aka Domino). You may not recognize her in her Dalek form pictured above, but Emily has played an important role over the years in the development of EverQuest II, especially concerning tradeskills. Not only that, but this girl gamer has inspired many with her fantastic minecraft creations, book suggestions, and is just a plain ‘ol wonderful person. Of course I’m slightly bias since she’s also Canadian and we have to stick together. *grins* A huge thank you to Emily for taking time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions for me, I hope everyone enjoys reading them as much as I did.  Without further wait here they are:

1. What was your first gaming experience, and how old were you?

I don’t even remember how old I was. I remember loading “Frogger” from a cassette tape at my aunt and uncle’s house; that’s got to be pretty long ago. But I’m not 100% sure if that was the earliest. I remember Pong, vaguely, but I don’t remember if it was the original arcade game or a later personal computer version. I do know I was absolutely fascinated by arcades when they appeared, and I’d spend hours (if allowed) just watching the bigger kids play things like Pac Man. The local laundromat had a game called Tutankhamun, and later Elevator Action, and I spent a LOT of quarters playing those.

2. How many hours did it take you to complete your Halloween costume for this year, and by the way, WOW what a costume
I didn’t keep track of the hours, but it was an ongoing project for several months. The most time-consuming part was spray-painting all the foam hemispheres and then gluing them on. I did save a lot of time by starting with a dress I found at the Salvation Army and converted into the skirt, rather than sewing one from scratch. The top was likewise a corset purchased on ebay which I just sewed some silver ribbon onto. The headpiece was a bit fiddly too, as I actually did some soldering to get the central blue light to work.

3. What are your favorite types of video games to play?

I tend to prefer strategy and sim type games, although I do play others. Currently I’m obsessed with Minecraft, I also got almost all the remaining achievements in “Plants vs. Zombies” over the holidays. Alpha Centauri is also one of my favorite games ever (and IMO the best in the Civ series) and of course I played lots of Sim City and Populous way back in the day. I don’t like feeling forced down a particular plot track or into a particular gameplay style, and I love to explore and find new ways to entertain myself, so sandbox type games appeal to me quite strongly, as well as MMOs of course, which is why EverQuest and EverQuest II have drawn me in for years. That said, I was one of the Tetris champs in my college dorm; I actually used to be able to play left-handed or even play with my feet and still beat my boyfriend of the time (this didn’t go over too well).

4. How do you find balance in your day between all of the activities that you do?

To be honest, I’m not sure I do. It’s an ongoing effort. I guess it’s a hazard of loving what you do for work; it’s difficult to remember not to work way too much, and take time to do other things. My friends help to remind me of this, and playing things like Minecraft rather than the game I work on helps also. (Although I do also play the game I work on, these days I find it’s almost impossible to relax while doing so, and I usually end up with an email full of notes on things to improve or fix at the end of a play session, unfortunately.)

5. What is one of the most emotional moments in gaming you’ve ever experienced?

This is more of a moment in game development than pure gaming itself, but as tradeskill developer during EQII’s Destiny of Velious expansion, I created a new present-day version of the Coldain Prayer Shawl quest for tradeskill players. The original quest was a huge mark of crafting accomplishment in the original EQ, and I wanted the EQII version to make the player feel epic, and as if they had really affected the world. I did a ton of research and the new quest was tied very closely into the lore behind the original quests; to make a long story short, in the original EQ, after the events of the original quest, the ring wars between the coldain dwarves and the giants drew to a close with the giants advancing on the dwarven city of Thurgadin. Defenses crumbling, the desperate dwarves had only one last option remaining to them, their absolute last-ditch plan of last resort: they set explosives beside the waterfall above Thurgadin, blowing away the top of the mountain and unleashing the icy waters onto the battlefield. The floods of frigid waters and their cryomancers’ spells froze the torrents solid, encasing both giants and dwarves below in an icy tomb. This ended the ring wars for good and saved Thurgadin from the giant invasion, but it also meant the death of all the brave coldain warriors who were fighting on the battlefield that day. For hundreds of years thereafter the coldain in Thurgadin have had to live with the knowledge that they knowingly murdered their most brave defenders to save themselves; and worse still, the spirits of the dwarves (and giants) killed in that final battle have been somehow trapped, re-enacting the final battle over and over again as ghosts instead of proceeding the afterlife of feasting halls and dwarven revelry which all dwarves look forward to. The coldain have spent the years in fear and guilt that their ancestors have been trapped in this endless undead hell because they were killed by the hand of their own kin, and the dwarven god Brell Serilis has therefore rejected them from proceeding to the afterlife. In the new coldain prayer shawl quest, the player gradually learns this history and learns of the horrific burden of guilt that the coldain are suffering, and struggles to make contact with the ghostly warriors and the god Brell Serilis to try and free the trapped spirits. Without going into all the details, suffice it to say that the player manages to gain the assurance from Brell that the warriors are serving an essential purpose and will indeed proceed to their just rewards when that is completed, and to take this news back to the coldain dwarves of Thurgadin to at last relieve them of their incredible burden of centuries-old guilt. It’s a pretty epic story and I really hope the players who complete it feel their actions have had a real and fundamental effect on all of Thurgadin. I confess to tearing up a little while writing some of the dialog for the guilt-wracked, and then unimaginably relieved, coldain dwarves and imagining what extreme depths of emotion they must be feeling.

6. What is your favorite book?

Oh, very tough question – so hard to pick just one! You could ask me this question every day for a week and I could probably give you a different answer each day depending on my mood, but today I think I’ll nominate the novella “True Names And Other Dangers” by Vernor Vinge. This was written in 1981, pre-world-wide-web, pre-virtual reality, before William Gibson’s “Burning Chrome” and before Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”. It’s probably the first recognizable description of cyberspace written, and when I read it in the early 90s it just blew my mind. When you consider that the internet as we know it was still well over a decade away from existence it’s simply amazing that he wrote this in 1981. I recommend it to anybody interested in cyberspace, cyberpunk, and SF in general (it’s currently available in the collection of essays “True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier”). Vinge’s later novel “Across Realtime” is also highly recommended! Other favorite authors include Pratchett, Bujold, Austen, Tepper, and Gaiman.

7. Any words of wisdom for people looking to get into the video game industry?

I joined the industry in a rather nonstandard way, so I don’t know if the specifics of my particular experience would be a lot of use to others. But in general I will say the following: learn Excel. Learn everything about it. Learn how to do vlookups and concatenations and substitution formulas and match formulas and nested if statements. Use it to write your Christmas cards and organize your book collection and calculate your D&D stats and anything else you can think of. Excel is a game designer’s best friend. Also, learn to write and communicate clearly and effectively. It doesn’t matter if you have the best ideas in the world if you can’t communicate them to other people (be they players or co-workers) both in words or in writing. And finally, be positive. Never criticize anything without also offering a solution to fix it; and preferably compliment a good point at the same time. This is true whether you’re a game player or a game designer; in fact it’s worth trying in all aspects of life both personal and professional, regardless of where you work or play.

8. What has been your geekiest moment to date?

Another question to which there are many, many possible answers! I could pick any number of occasions, but the first one that springs to mind this evening is spending Valentine’s day in 1996 sitting alone in the university computer lab learning how to make my first web page on the ancient unix-based mainframes. That was a pretty exciting evening, in terms of learning new stuff. But okay, maybe just a little bit geeky. In fact, one of the features of my brand new web page was a small stick figure comic called “geek girl”. I drew about 20 of them, I think, before retiring Geek Girl somewhere around 1997.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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I know, I’m a little behind this year Santa so I’m sending this letter to your wife. She not-too-gently reminded me that Scarybooster posted his letter December 3rd and how DARE I wait three days before responding but I’m pretty confident you’ll forgive me, because after all I do run a ‘Secret Santa’ every year for gamers, in your name of course. Speaking of which, I still haven’t gotten my paypal payments. Oh, what’s that? You’re upset because even MmoGamerChick, Rivs, Rowan, and Scopique found the time to send off their lists? Well. That’s just how this year seems to be going. I’ll make up for it by being extra good next year. We both know the goodness meter was stuck at full for the past twelve months. I hope you can find time to give me the things on my wishlist, at first I didn’t think I was asking for too much but well, after reading some forums. I think this may be one of the hardest wish lists to fulfill yet.

1. If you could remind people that games are supposed to be FUN, that would be fantastic. I think there are a few sour grapes who have turned this hobby into something like work and they feel the need to shower down their negative thoughts and opinions on the rest of the happy gamers who are content with playing a 15 year old text based game and don’t see anything wrong with the fact that their UI is completely outdated (do they even HAVE a UI?! What IS that?!) and the controls are garbage. On that same note, remind people that it’s O.K. to be having fun in whatever your game of choice happens to be. That’s right, games are choices. What we play are also choices. That’s how hobbies work.

2. Make everyone do one random act of kindness in game. That’s right, I’m complaining about the lack of community and friendship we feel with anyone outside of our own personal little bubbles. I understand that these days there’s very little ‘community’ that we want to be a part of, and finding a place to belong is even more difficult – but doing just one simple little thing can brighten up someones day. I’m not saying you have to be best friends with the person or even talk to them ever again, but if you could remind people that not everyone is bad, that would be great.

3. I would LOVE to see more games like Glitch, A Tale in the Desert, and Wurm Online. I’m a bit tired of smacking things around all of the time, and I’d love to see one of those types of games become REALLY popular. Just to prove all the naysayers wrong.

4. On a more serious note, I just want people to be safe and healthy. Whether I know them or not. More happy days than sad days would be a nice plus, too.

Sure, my Christmas list is pretty selfish this year, but that’s what I want. I think I deserve at least a few things off of that list, hmm? I’ll even leave out a can of coke for you, the white cans. Because polar bears rock.

P.S. Don’t forget to collect a list from Tipa over at West Karana.

P.P.S. Please tell Alfie I want to sleep for more than 5 hours a night.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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This morning 65 eager emails were sent out with care, in hopes that secret santa, soon would be there. That’s right, I finally kicked off the 2011 Gamers Secret Santa and wow what a fantastic turn out! If you’ve signed up be sure to check your email to see who your recipient is, and if there’s any mistakes or issues or for some reason you are unable to participate this year, please don’t hesitate to contact me and let me know! After all, sending out so many emails means I’m bound to make a mistake here and there! If you’re having issues coming up with something to send to your gift-receiver, don’t forget that we’re all gamers at heart. We share a secret bond of game related history that few others ever comprehend.

I hope everyone enjoys this round (the third year running) as I have putting it together, and I’m already excited about next year! Thank you all for taking part, without you I quite literally would not be running this small event.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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1. When and why did you start getting interested in video games?

Pinball games were everywhere when I grew up. I don’t remember the first video game I ever saw, but it was probably at the Ramada Inn. My cousin brought me there. I’d never seen anything like them. I know they had Pong there, and a shooting game called Boot Hill, and a little motorcycle jumping game, and a top-down racing game. Colors were just plastic overlays on the screen. From there it exploded, and the pinball games were replaced by video games.

I sucked at them all but I loved them to death.

I joined a gamer club in college. I wasn’t a gamer at the time, but I’d heard about D&D, had bought the basic set and tried to play with my little sister. It was mostly engineering students in the club, and military types who worked at Pease Air Force base in nearby Portsmouth. The two influences brought a huge variety of games to the club.

The engineering students all had access to the university’s timesharing system (and so did I, as an electrical engineering undergrad). Video games had been undergoing a quiet revolution in universities the world round. The very first video game ever made, Spacewar!, was used to demonstrate and sell the DEC PDP-1 in 1962. UNH had twin PDP-10s, named Scylla and Charybdis. We all learned how to write multiplayer video games on the DECs even as we played ADVENT (Colossal Cave Adventures), Rogue and DUNGEON (Zork), DECWAR, Walter Bright’s EMPIRE and so on.

2. What are your favorite types of games to play?

Definitely RPGs. Making a character and facing unknown dangers ties so perfectly into the fantasy novels I loved as a kid. I like best the kind of RPG that provides a canvas on which to write your own story, like the original EverQuest, but single player RPGs with a story are worth playing if the story they tell is a good one.

Single player RPGs are like books, but instead of turning a page, you’re hitting the keys the designer specifies to move the story along. I’m not looking for a challenge in story RPGs, just more narrative, because I’m just consuming, and I’m eager to finish the story and move on to the next one with a minimal of hassle.

I give more leeway to MMORPGs. They usually have less story and require more skill, and you have the fantastic benefit of playing with other people. It’s less like reading a book, more like going to an arena to watch a sports game, a game you yourself can step into and play.

3. If you could work any job in the gaming industry, what would you see yourself doing?

Programming. Working out graphics subroutines, making responsive UIs, bringing worlds to life — that’s what I would love to do. I’ve applied for dozens of gaming jobs, though, and only once got any sort of response. After awhile, I gave up and just settled for more mundane jobs.

I’m no game designer. I’ve written games in the past (and even sold two of them), but every single one of them was written to try out a new UI idea or a new graphics trick. The two games were both for the Sony Magic Link handheld computer. Reversi (Othello) I wrote to test out a new heuristic-based minmax algorithm for the moves, and was fairly challenging. Gammon was my integration of pre-rendered 3D graphics with gameplay, inspired by Rare’s Donkey Kong Country games. Both were part of the Sony Magic Bag game pack, and got decent reviews. It led into a freelance writing job with PDA Developer magazine for a few months.

4. What inspires and motivates you in your day-to-day activities?

For a few dark years, I was motivated entirely by my love for MMOs. My kids were teenagers at the time and mostly doing their own things, so I was free to lose myself in gaming. And I did — I lost myself. When I lost my job in the aftermath of the dotcom bust, I played EQ and any other MMO I could get my hands on. I lost my house, moved to San Diego and kept playing. Eventually I came to my senses, cleaned up, got a job, got my life back in order and vowed to never fall into the trap of “hardcore” gaming again. That stuff will eat your life.

I want my life to be a story where something fascinating is always on the next page. A story you don’t ever want to have end. I’ve learned to always have something to look forward to, to work to. This is how MMOs trapped me; I substituted real life goals for the goals of reaching a new level, mastering the next raid. I’ve since found that real life has just as much magic as any MMO.

Currently I am training for my first ever road race. This winter holds the adventure of finding a new place to live, a place of my own for the first time since I lost my house almost a decade ago.

5. How many computer languages do you know?

BASIC, FORTRAN, Pascal, COBOL, APL, Forth, Simula, ALGOL, LISP, C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, PL/SQL… 16?

6. What is your favorite book?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach. It changed my life when I read it as a kid. After that, probably Ubik by Philip K. Dick.

7. How do you find a balance in your day between all of the activities that you do?

I don’t really have that many activities. I tend to go to work and then come home. Whatever it is that interests me at the time, I do. It could be writing, or blogging, or playing a game, or reading a book, planning a weekend bike ride or working on a program.

I love writing programs to solve puzzles. I spent weeks writing a program to solve a puzzle in kids MMO Neopets, and fell into a community of other solvers which I did not even know existed (though I suspected). I solved the short-lived EQ2 tie-in game, Fantasy League, with a genetic algorithm-based solution that quickly brought me to the top of the scoring charts — even though I wasn’t paying much to play.

Life is a puzzle. It can be solved.

A huge congratulations and thank you to Tipa for sharing her answers here, if you know a girl gamer you would like to nominate for this monthly feature, please don’t hesitate to contact me: stargrace@mmoquests.com

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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In case you’re not familiar, last year I ran the 2010 Gamers Secret Santa, and the year before I ran the 2009 Gamers Secret Santa – and it was a huge success. I had over 100 people participate, and geeky gifts were sent out all over the world. This year I’ve decided to attempt to run another one. If you’d like to participate or are interested in what it’s all about please read further!

What it is: Those who want to participate, are more then welcome to. You can be a gamer, blogger, a member of the game industry, whatever. As long as games are some how a part of your life. I will take names / addresses, and assign everyone a ‘secret’ person to buy a small less then $20 gift for, as well as give them the address required. Send out your gift and wait for one to head your way, and that’s it. Ok, let me explain it a bit better.

What is “Secret Santa?” here’s the definition!

How:

1. Send your full name and mailing address to me at stargrace@mmoquests.com, make sure it comes from a valid email address. If you happen to run a fansite or a blog, please mention which blog you write for. If you’re just a gamer mention that too. It doesn’t matter who you are or how involved in the gaming community you are, anyone can participate.

2. On December 1st I will email you back with someone else’ address.

3. The price limit is $20, don’t spend any more then that. Be creative, make something, have it be unique to your culture or your life, if you need suggestions then please don’t hesitate to let me know. Try to keep in mind that we’re all gamers, no matter where we come from.

4. Keep your person a secret! Don’t tell anyone who else you have. If you DO happen to run a fansite or blog, then when you receive your gift write about it and let everyone know.

5. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to let me know below in comments, or email me.

Details: I understand that you may not be comfortable with me or one other person having your mailing address, so if you’re not please don’t feel pressured to participate. The idea is to share with one another and realize what a fantastic community we have, not make you feel on edge that you’re going to potentially run into issues.

If you’d like to participate but simply can not afford to no matter what, send me an email and let me know, I will do my best to help you out. I want anyone who’s interested to be able to participate in this event. I think some times we forget that these people we all talk to online are not just random pixels, but are actual people on the other end of those computers.

Please keep in mind that only myself, and ONE other person will have your address. It won’t become a mailing list or anything like that. If you’re only comfortable with me having it and no one else then let me know, and I’ll have your gift sent to me and then I’ll send it out to you. Anything to make sure people are comfortable and still able to participate.

YOU HAVE UNTIL DECEMBER 1st TO EMAIL ME YOUR ADDRESS – please take your time to think about whether or not this is something you really want to do. If it is, get me your address by December 1st so that I can give people some time to get their shopping done. If it’s a little late (the gift, not the address) that’s alright.

If you don’t celebrate christmas but still want to participate that’s alright too! This isn’t a religious thing, I just want to try it out and see how it works this year. There are some amazing gamers I have met from all over the world, and I think that we have a lot to share with one another.

I think that’s about it. If you can think of something I’ve missed then please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer it. If this is a completely horrible idea don’t feel shy to let me know. I just wanted to share some of the christmas joy that’s going to be flying around before too long and figured this would be a fantastic idea for people to experience it with one another.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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I know, a lack of posts this weekend – however it’s Thanksgiving here in Canada, and I have plenty to be thankful for. I’ve also been spending most of it with family (understandable) and getting up at 5:30 am to catch the sunrise in the Gatineau Hills.

I’m thankful for everyone in my life, whether we get along or not. I’m thankful I’m surrounded by fantastic people, I’m thankful for my health even if it (at times) fails me. I’m thankful for video games, of course! I’ve met some wonderful people through them. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t realize how lucky I am, and I try to be thankful for this life at every opportunity. I hope all my fellow turkey-day comrades enjoy the day, and don’t fill up too much! Save some room for desert.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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But I’m always interested in the Android market, especially since a lot of my friends on twitter are split between iOS users and Android users. A trip to Best Buy told me they were out of the ipad 2 (surprise) but they had three more Xoom tablets in stock. The other half and I talked back and forth about the benefits to one or the other and in the end we decided that we would REALLY like to use flash on our tablet, so we bought the 32g Xoom.

That same day, we returned it and sheepishly put ourselves back on the mailing list for an ipad. There were a few reasons for this and I wanted to talk about them just in case others are also trying to make these decisions. Number one, yes, flash worked – but on the Xoom tablet it was INCREDIBLY slow. Because it was so slow swiping the screen at all while using flash was next to impossible, you ended up on the next page or were zoomed in too much or too little. The camera was beautiful and the design was sleek, but it’s also very heavy. The android store is not for the faint of heart. In the Apple store at least I know exactly what I’m getting. Browsing is easy, and I can wander through the different apps and at least know what I’m looking at. The android market on the other hand is really not for beginners like myself. I’m sure with persistence I could have found what I wanted in the form of an app but it was incredibly difficult for me and I just got annoyed.

Netflix is a no-go on the Xoom (or any android) at this point in time. We tried a work around or two and none of them worked. This is due to the lack of protection on the android marketplace, Netflix afraid of people stealing material. There’s talk of an app in the future but it could be some time off (later this year) and one of my main reasons for wanting a tablet at all was to watch Netflix. Being in Canada I don’t have a lot of other movie / tv show streaming options so to me personally it was a big deal.

Not only was Netflix a no-go but I couldn’t find apps for a lot of things I had wanted to use. Things I already had apps for from Apple. I realize this is hardly the Xoom’s fault, for example ShutterCal only has an iOS version. It was just one more reason that I wanted to go back to the safety of what I already knew. My frustrations mounted as I tried to get comfortable with the device and after fiddling around with it for a few hours it just wasn’t clicking for me. Back into the box and back to the store.

The ipad gets here May 10th, and yes, I’m excited. Even more so now that I’ve played with my Fathers (he waited in line at the Apple store on release day for 15 hours to get his). My Mom gets hers tomorrow. In some ways, it almost feels like a comparison of WoW vs. Other Games to me. You hate to use it, but you always go back because it’s just so simple and easy.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

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There have been a number of large internet debates here in Canada over the last little while. There is the discussion going on currently about having user caps (as low as 25 gigs a month) and charging $2+ every gig over the cap. There are also continuous debates over throttling, and the monopoly that Rogers has over the market (although it does share that market with Bell Canada). The latest news bit is about how Rogers is throttling World of Warcraft players because WoW uses peer-to-peer to transfer game files. Rogers has throttled peer-to-peer for as long as I can remember, and that was one major reason why I stopped using their service. As not only a gamer, but a gamer writing about games it was next-to impossible for me to download a game (especially a free to play game) in time for an article because I would be throttled every inch of the way. I very literally could not do my job using Rogers internet service. I have since switched, and while my service is actually slower the fact that I’m not throttled is a blessing.

For a country that is considered to be ‘free’ in many aspects (healthcare, etc) we sure do have a lot of issues when it comes to technology. Every time I see a commercial for AT&T High Speed Internet my stomach does flip flops – the prices are noticeably lower for the services provided compared to what I see up here. Jealous? Of course I am – a little bit.

These days just about everything is on the internet, not just my video games. I subscribe and pay to use Netflix to stream tv shows and movies – and they actually had to lower their video quality in order to cater to Canadians who have low internet usage caps put in place by their ISP. It would seem that Netflix is afraid of losing customers who may worry about the rate that their data transfers. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t we be increasing the quality and performance (at a lower cost) of internet usage instead?

I truly love where I live and appreciate the comforts that we’re given on a daily basis, but I hate to see that we’re falling so far behind the curve in this matter.

In other news! My bard has completed her 1.5 epic and it looks amazing. I also spent a little time in Rift last night, participating in the world wide event that has taken over. My cleric is still hanging out at level 21, but it was nice to peek in and see how the server was doing population wise. I hope everyone else has a delightful Thursday (this is my Friday, woohoo for three day weekends) and happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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That’s the jist of it. If you want specifics, please take a look at my friend David’s in depth post. It’s a fantastic read. You can also find more information here, and here.

My job requires me to download multiple games every single month in order to write about them. I also work from home, so I use my home internet. That does not include any internet I use for regular things like downloading movies, ipod apps, netflix, youtube, game play and game patching. That doesn’t include the multiple purchases from steam, etc. There is, quite frankly, NO WAY I will be able to afford to do my job with this cap in effect. I simpley can not afford to pay $2 extra for every gig I go over the cap, I don’t make enough money.

PLEASE speak up about this fellow Canadians. Contact your local government officials, sign the petitions going around and get involved. This is NOT ok to implement, the internet is supposed to becoming EASIER to access, not only for the rich who can afford it.

Please help out by spreading this news around to your fellow Canadians who may not be aware of these changes.

Another great post here by Darren from Common Sense Gamer – check it out.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Rift – Today the 3rd Rift beta starts and runs until the 31st of December. Chances are if I were participating in it a lot of my time will be spent there.

EVE Online – I’m also three days away from flying an Orca – my dream hauler. I can’t afford one quite yet but I know that will come with time. I can’t wait to fly one of these. Ever since I got my hulk and saw my friend David flying on I’ve wanted to be able to fly myself.

WoW – I haven’t been playing in the Cataclysm zones (80+) all that much. Both my priest and my warlock are at a comfortable 82 and I’ve been working on their crafting skills as well as playing lower level alts on the opposite faction. I have been having a great time with the new quests in “vanilla” WoW. I just finished Redridge mountains on my paladin and I thought it was really well done, gained a few levels even though the quests were gray and worked up my enchanting skill. I’ve been enjoying the slow walk towards 85 and I mean it’s more like a crawl than a walk. I’ll get there eventually. I’ve unlocked and completed two dungeons (Throne of Tides and the one in Blackrock) which were quite fun. Healing PUGs is always stressful but I’ve enjoyed the challenge.

Sims 3 – This game continues to hold my attention in a big way. I wish there were less bugs would be one of my major complaints. It feels like EA just likes to push expansion packs out the door and rarely fixes any of the issues that they come up with, so it’s all about me dealing with bugs from a few expansions and packs that they’ve sold. I really enjoy and appreciate the amount of options we’re given in game, and though at times it feels a little “too real” for a video game there is enough humor to keep me trucking along finding out what happens next.

Neverwinter Nights 2 – This game was on sale at Steam for $10 including two expansion packs. I own NWN but haven’t played in ages, and while I have heard there was a lot of bugs at launch for NWN2 I decided why not, and picked it up. Still a few hours left to go on the patcher, but it should be a few hours of fun none the less.

As pictured above I also got a brand new Logitech G700 gaming mouse for Christmas, and so far I’m really liking it. The fit of the mouse is perfect to my hands, and unlike my previous razor, I can very easily hit the buttons and what’s more important to me – feel the buttons while I game. I found with the razor it was impossible for me to hit the buttons because they didn’t exactly stand out to me. I don’t want to fumble along the mouse or have to look down in order to hit them. Fully programmable with different profiles, I’ve already set one up for WoW. My attempts at learning WASD are going alright. I’ve completely unbound the arrow keys as movement keys in all of my games so that is at least forcing me to use them. I own a Steelseries merc keyboard which has a special gaming pad section on the far left that emulates the WASD keys as well as a few others. It’s not something I’m used to quite yet, but my right wrist is MUCH happier with the new set up.

How about all of my wonderful readers, get anything new and shiny for Christmas? Any new games on your horizon? Let me know in comments!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

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