FFXIV Write 2019

So my last post on my blog started “I’m mildly ashamed to look at how long it’s been since I’ve posted on here”. And that was a good 20 months ago. What can I say? Life happens, and whilst this year hasn’t been all that good, things are picking up, and I’m getting back on track, which is quite nice to be able to say.

And since I am getting back on track, I’m starting to pick up all those things I’ve let drop by the wayside, like sewing (I got a new machine for my birthday!) and writing, which is why there is now life coming back to this blog!

I’m going to start with something easy, and something that I’m keen about – since early this year I’ve been enormously hooked on Final Fantasy XIV, which is their MMO game. And in a happy coincidence, my desire to get back into writing by doing some fan-fic for my character is joined by a FFXIV Writes Challenge for 2019, hosted and run by Moen Moen over on tumblr.

It’s a 30 day writing challenge, a prompt a day, very low-pressure with make-up days if you miss one, which is exactly the sort of thing I need to help me get back into writing. I’ll be writing them on my tumblr and cross-posting them to here, so you can enjoy them on whichever platform is your preference.

Feels wonderful to be back on here, fingers crossed for a productive September!

EGX

You would think that when you decide to go to a convention you would remember the date and be hyped up about it for weeks beforehand. Apparently both me and my partner forgot that we had tickets to this until reminded that we’d agreed to give friends a lift back from the event.

So Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent in mild anticipation, but I’m still unsure how I managed to forget about my first convention.

Of course, now I have been, and I am certainly not forgetting it.

I was bundled into the car fairly early in the morning (I am very much not a morning person, so rolling out of bed and into the car at 7am in the morning was not my idea of fun) and then the partner drove us up in very good time, so we got there a little after ten, got our wristbands, and stood in a huge queue for half an hour. That gave us time to study the map and plan our first moves. And watch a helpful videos highlighting some bits and pieces of the show.

Gates opened at 11am, and my partner made straight for the Elite Dangerous booth where they had VR set up. I am not all that interested by tiny flying spaceships, so I left him in that queue and went over to Nintendo.

I played Zelda Tri Force heroes, which looks really fun, and the best part is you only need one copy of the game and two friends with 3DSs to get a team together. Or you can play over the net 🙂

I then went and looked around the Indie block of games. I watched a fair few, and played an interested puzzle game called Induction. Cubes and timelines have to interact to solve the puzzles. It was good.

Then I went into the over 18s area, picking up a free energy drink sample, and went and played the Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate Demo. I liked a lot (although I am slow at playing it and didn’t get that far through the mission).

I went back to the VR line, where my partner was still queuing, and handed the energy drink off to him. It took him another twenty minutes to get to the front of the queue (for a total time of two hours) and get into that VR chair for five minutes, but his face as he climbed out afterwards was one of pure ecstatic joy. He even said “I could have driven here for three hours, queued for two, played that for five minutes, driven home for another three hours, and it would still have been worth it.”

Thankfully, that wasn’t it. We went and pre-ordered Halo 5, getting a bunch of free swag for doing so (including cortana’s chip USB sticks) waited around the Xbox area, had a talk from the lead designer person for Halo 5, snagged a free Halo 5 tshirt, and then we both went and queued for the demo they had running. It was AMAZING. 12 v 12 arena fight, with AI, bosses, bases and a whole bunch of gear as you level up. I got 50 points for my team by killing mini bosses! My partner got 600. Because he’s a freaking show off. But seriously, it was great, and normally I’m happy to leave online battle alone, but I think I might get into it if it’s that good! And the introduction videos for the games itself were amazing and so hype inducing, and Nathan Fillion is in it! I’ll admit it, I fangirled.

We walked around a bit after that, he checked out the Indie games whilst I flumped on comfy seating. There were some other bits and pieces. We attempted and failed to win an Wii U, but got Pokemon cards instead. Met up with our friends, played a couple more small games, then headed home.

All in all, it was really great, and I had a great time for my first convention. Sure, I would love it if there were less people, but that just goes to show how popular gaming is 🙂

And as well as checking out a bunch of new games, we got a heck of a lot of loot by the end, only a couple of bits of it bought!

Rise and Fall

Do you ever have the feeling…no, let me start again. Have you ever been in a place where despite having good things happen to you and around you, you can’t seem to feel it?

It’s not a feeling, it’s a lack of feeling.

Of course I then recognise the lack of feeling and get mildly annoyed, but since Sunday I have been in this weird state of being.

I can’t say I like it, because quite a few positive things have been happening to me this week, and I feel completely unable to enjoy them.

Last week, I was telling you about my mishap with technology. I have managed to not only re-edit the 3,000 words that I lost to that delete key, but I have managed to reach 17,000 words overall for this month. So that’s 15 days worth of effort, over 1,000 words a day, and I certainly haven’t finished with writing for today either. I’ve even come up with some new scenes and plot that help with a big part of my book. The stuff I have in there at the moment isn’t terrible (well, it may or may not be, but I haven’t got near to the stage for beta readers yet, so it’s fine) but the stuff I come up with is much better, streamlines the plot out, and makes more sense.

But I don’t feel accomplished. I love writing (normally) and currently I’ve been doing lots and lots of it. This is the most I’ve written in months, and yet I can’t seem to feel anything resembling positive about it.

Being a librarian means I have ready access to books, lots of them. And I spotted a new Quick Read that had come in, a slightly autobiographical book about an author’s publishing journal. It was really positive and encouraging, with lots of examples of different people working towards their goals with her experiences of working towards her goal – getting a book published.

But this book really annoyed me, and seemed to press all the wrong button. It was too cheerful, and seemed patronising to me, and the worst bit was I could tell that I normally wouldn’t get this annoyed. It’s great to hear about other experiences, especially about a subject area I’m interested in, and a person who had the same goal as me and achieved it, or rather it should be, but I just got annoyed reading it. The bit I found most annoying was the this person started to look for agents and publishers after only writing three chapters. I’m not even going to start that part until I have finished and edited my novel about seven times over, found beta readers, then polished it some more, and I’m pretty sure more people are on my side of this fence on this one (although I would like to hear from people who go down the traditional publishing route – how much of a book (especially your first ever book) do you write before finding an agent?).

I came into a little windfall recently, and last weekend me and the partner went and ended the debate between PS$ and XBoxOne by simply buying both consoles, with a bunch of games. These are games that I have heard really good things about, and been interested in playing for a while.

But AGAIN, no joy seems to be had. I mean, sure there was that awesome bit in Halo last night where I got a gravity hammer and snuck up on a brute and murdered him with a witty one liner causing my partner to go into a fit of laughter, but unless I am right in the moment, I can’t seem to find enthusiasm. For instance, right now, I can think back to that moment but I get none of the reflected amusement, glory or happiness that I normally do when thinking back to a good moment.

I have to conclude, that it is not a good state to be in.

I can’t even put a finger on what it might be. The weather is dismal, grey and muggy, which whilst not helping, I doubt is the cause. There has been no incident that could have cause me to be upset, so it’s certainly not that. All I can think of is that for happiness to be enjoyed the most, you have to have something to compare it to, and this would certainly be that. Not so much sadness, as the lack of feeling, which in turns causes thing to annoy me.

I can only hope that it passes.

In the meantime, if you have something happy you want to share, please feel free. I find that seeing good things happen to other people can be a real mood lifter in itself.

Oh, I did forget one thing:

I have reached 200 followers. It’s been coming for a while. I can’t enjoy it at the moment as much as I want to, but I can say Thank You. Thank you to everyone who has decided that what I write on this blog is worth some of their time to read. That is a special feeling, and when I am out of this falling phase, I shall relish it again.

Warlords of Draenor

I have my collectors edition, and I have passed through the Dark Portal opening zone.

Both are beautiful.

I am in love with Shadowmoon Valley already.

I know NaNoWriMo is still going on. But I already did 50K. I can slack off for a little bit, right?

Man, November is a busy month. How are the rest of you getting along?

Dragons in Video Games

Video games are a fairly big part of the entertainment industry these days. And within them are a fair selection of fantasy games. And within that, are the dragons.

It may surprise you to learn that I haven’t played all the video games with dragons in them. In fact, the number of video games I have actually played is fairly small. More often than not it takes me years to get round to playing a game. I still haven’t played Mass Effect, for example, but I have watched my house mates play it, so I know the major story lines.

Oh, and just as a warning, some spoilers ahead. Just in case anyone else is worse than me when it comes around to playing games!

We’ll start with a game that I have played. Dragon Age. Now I have only played origins, but that very, very good. It’s an RPG game, where you play a character that become a grey warden for a reason that depends on your class and race as each one gets a different introduction chapter, which is really really cool. I went with a Dalish Elf Rogue, duel wielding swords. All of the stabbing.

For a game being called Dragon Age, it didn’t contain all that many dragons, but the title does make sense. The Darkspawn are rising again, with an Arch-Demon in tow, and they threaten to wipe out the human, elf and dwarven population unless the Grey Warden’s stop the horde before it gets going.

The Arch-Demon takes the form of a dragon, and he pops up in your dreams every now and again, because your a Grey Warden and you can sense these things. There are also a couple of other dragons around the place, and as befits them, they are super hard to defeat. In my play through the only one I did defeat was the Arch-Demon, the other ones were too hard for me when I found them. Maybe on another play through I’ll get to them.

The next game is one I haven’t played, but I did watch my partner playing through it. Dragon’s Dogma is another RPG where the dragon is evident right from the start. The first thing it does in the game, is called your character the chosen one, and then rips out your heart. Yes, it is a bit of an evil dragon. One of the main plots is to then find the dragon and get your heart back. No, you don’t die from having your heart ripped out. Well, you technically do, but then magic happens and you’re kind of fine. Fine enough to go on an adventure quest.

I quite liked this dragon because it was huge, and made no secrets about being evil and going on rampages, and it was terrifying in that opening scene. If a dragon is going to be a baddie, then it’s got to be a really scary one for me.

World of Warcraft, does indeed have dragons. These ones are mostly good and on your side, but sometimes they go a little bit mad and evil and you have to fight them as bosses. The dragons are split up into flights, which are based on their colour. Red, Green, Blue, Bronze and Black are the main dragonflights. There were others, but they are not as big, and have mostly dwindled away.

Each flight has their Aspect – the leader of the flight and the embodiment of what the flight stands for, as each one was given powers over an aspect of the realm:

• Nozdormu, the Timeless One, Aspect of Time, Bronze Dragonflight
• Alexstrasza, the Life-Bonder, Aspect of Life, Red Dragonflight
• Ysera, the Dreamer, Aspect of Nature, Green Dragonflight
• Malygos, the Spell-Weaver, Aspect of Magic, Blue Dragonflight
• Neltharion, the Earth-Warder, Aspect of Earth, Black Dragonflight

Neltharion later goes a little insane, as does most of the black dragonflight, and this forms most of the expansion of Cataclysm, as he takes on the name Deathwing and tries to cause a cataclysm to end the world. His the last big boss of the expansion, and I must say, fighting him with the other four dragon aspects on your side – it was epic.

Spyro is a game I vaguely remember playing in my childhood. I love the little purple dragon, since he was small but courageous, and there were elements of puzzles in the games. I got so stuck trying to find my way around certain areas of the map, it was great.

Of course I have to give mention to Elder Scrolls as well. Another game I haven’t played but do intend to get round to doing so in the future (maybe in those six weeks off I have coming up). Skyrim will be the one that I start on, and boy does that have a lot of dragons in it. The main character is even a Dragonborn – a man who was born with the soul of a dragon, and can therefore use powers known as dragon shouts to accomplish things others cannot. The most prolifiv of these being ‘Fus Ro Dah!’, the fling things across the map shout.

Dragons form a lot of the enemies, and they tend to turn up randomly and when you least expect it, giving you a nice battle for your life. They fly, breath fire, and generally are a bitch to kill, but when you do kill them, you as the Dragonborn, get to absorb their soul and power up. It’s almost like recycling. In a sense at least.

But it does looks amazing from what I have seen other people play of it, and it’s so open world that you can do whatever you want in whichever order, so I don’t even feel like anything has been spoiled for me. And the glitches can be hilarious as well.

Now I know that I haven’t covered every game out these with a dragon in it, but these are the ones which stand out in my mind, and this post is already rather long. So do you, my lovely readers, know of any games with dragons in them that you enjoyed playing?

G – Dragon Games

Yes, this is where Dungeons and Dragons is going to come into it, as part of the games sections! I’ll showcase some of the dragon themed games, or games that include dragons in this post, hopefully it will be shorter than my other posts since this is more of a go out and try these yourself adventure.

Dungeons and Dragons: One of the more famous example of gamer and geek culture. Players (usually 6) and their Dungeon Master (DM) sit around a table with character sheets in front of them and undertake challenges in a fantasy world and roll dice to see if their character can accomplish these things. Pretty simple. Well, I think it is, but then I’m glossing over pretty much everything. In this world, you have a group of adventurers who go around killing big bad monsters and saving the day, and as the title suggests, some of these monsters are dragons. Not all, and very occasionally the dragons are nice to the adventuring party, or at least don’t kill them on sight, but sometimes they do just attack and gather treasure. There are of course other monsters, since only killing dragons gets very boring (and makes me upset) but dragon are some of the big bads in these worlds. It is of course, up to the DM, since he creates to monsters that the player have to fight. But Dragons are popular enough in this game to merit their own book. Two in fact, one for Chromatic Dragons, and one for Metallic Dragons. Unsurprisingly, I own both.

 

 

Dragons in Video Games: Dragons of course appear in quite a few videos games. Good examples include: Dragon Age (there is a dragon on the cover of both games, a lovely one in red); Skyrim, the most recent Elder Scrolls Games, as well as older Elder Scrolls games; Spyro, that lovely little purple dragon who I remember very fondly in bad graphic; World of Warcraft (yes, the MMO) contains a whole council of dragons, most of whom are on the side of good, but the black dragon have a bad reputation, and deservedly so; I have been reliably informed that Monster Hunter contains some really badass and hard to beat dragon as well, referred to as the Fatalis; And Bahamut in the Final Fantasy series has made several appearances throughout the game, usually in order to prove you have the right to summon him, by defeating him.

There are of course, lots of other game which include dragons, both as a main character, a companion, or as monsters, but there’s a selection of the most famous ones, if you have not played any of them (I myself have only played some, but I like it when the dragons are the good guys and I don’t have to kill them).

 

Dragons in Card and Board Games: I’ve already mentioned one dragon board game, which takes in place in the dragonology series and I find incredibly fun. Dungeons and Dragons also has a couple of board games out, of which dragons do feature (not exclusively though, I think Liches are a more frequent big bad boss at the end, but I don’t own all of them.) Talisman, a fairly popular board game which has more than one edition, has a dragon expansion. Dragonquest is a game that originally came out in the 1980’s, but has gotten a redesign by Fantasy Flight Games with a more modern look and feel, but the same original gameplay (I might have to look into buying this one, I did not know it had been remade). As for card games, there’s Seven Dragons, which plays like dominos in which you have to match the dragon’s colours to gain dominion over territories. Three-Dragon Ante is again a Dungeons and Dragon product, but plays really well and is very enjoyable to while away a couple of hours. Magic the Gathering also has its shares of dragons as monsters and planeswalkers (I did indeed build a dragon deck, and regret nothing). But of course, there are many more games out there, including one I kickstartered, which I await eagerly.

World of Warcraft

Currently sitting in my boyfriends kitchen and there are four of us around the table, all on our laptops, and I am the only one not playing world of warcraft. Mainly because my laptop cannot handle it (four years old, it’s a granny in computer terms), but also I would need to budget properly and actually make sure I have the money to play, as I really don’t have the money at the moment.

Also since my laptop can’t play it, I would need to get a desktop that could run it. If I want a new one, that like £400 for a decent one, or a friend has a couple of old ones in has garage that I could do up again, but they would need components. Having just had a fiddle with them and opened them up to see what the heck they actually are, we think I would need some RAM and a new graphics cards to make them decent enough to run WoW. Which is like £45 for a decent graphics card, and £30 – £60 for enough RAM to be good. So still no little expense. Hopefully I can get a job, and I have found one, I just need to go and hand in the application form.

I would like to get a job over the summer, I could really use the extra income, and having a job means that I won’t have many many hours to be bored within. Also money. Money is a very good thing to have. Means that I can actually do the things I want to do without feeling guilty.

Still have one exam left to do though, but it’s still over a week away, and I have actually started to revise for it. So that should take up a lot of my hours. Even if I find revision boring, it is essential to the whole going to uni, getting a degree thing. And I do have maelstrom to look forward to as well, as well as LARP. Now that I have nothing much else to do, I am starting to miss LARP a lot more than usual, kinda wish that it was more than once a week, but hey ho. At least I can go to it most weeks. Going to be mild torture during the summer when I’m not in Norwich and can’t go.