Mamahood Works Nerdy Quests Imaginefully

This week I managed to hit current posts on the first 6 blogs I traveled to…a true Six Degrees…well, actually, I have some of these blogs closer to me than 6 degrees, but I traveled 6 links to get from JVT Workshop to MMOQuests.

And this week has a nice diversity of topics covered from goats to books and single player games to MMOs and opportunity costs. I’m finding it enlightening to see the intellect of all these different writers and their backgrounds and then to realize that they are all tied together through game blogging.

Six Degrees of May 20, 2016

1. JVT Workshop
2. Light Falls Gracefully
3. Geeky-Mama
4. Shards of Imagination
5. Nerdy Bookahs
6. MMOQuests

JVT Workshop – Today I Smiled: Kept Busy!

Joseph Skyrim talks about…goats over at JVT Workshop. Actually, he talks about a bunch of things including Judas goats used by hunters to find and track herds, what he’s been doing in Neverwinter and Skyrim, and using the Wayback Machine to take a look back at one of his first websites – The Hellsing Crucifix.

Sounds like he’s been pretty busy. Neverwinter and Skyrim are games that I always wanted to get into but never actually did. There are way too many games on my list of purchased but not played extensively and one day…I might get around to playing some of these games. It’s kinda interesting how this falls in line with the next post on my travels…

Light Falls Gracefully – The Opportunity Cost of Smite

At Light Falls Gracefully, Karinshastha looks at the pros and cons of playing Smite and how they add up to uninstalling the game for a second time. I find the discussion interesting since it ties into how I feel about some of the games I am currently playing (League of Legends) and games I’d like to play or are on the long list of games I CAN play since I’ve purchased them on Steam or something. I like that opportunity cost is examined because I can see that I need to do some evaluation of my gaming behavior similar to what Karinshastha has done. This enlightening post talks about cognitive dissonance and holding conflicting thoughts in something as basic as video games played for pleasure. When free time activities become subject to economic and psychological theories and I have to analyze where I can best spend my time, I start to feel I’m not enjoying my free time after all.

Geeky-Mama – Books I Will Read Just Because They Look Pretty

Cori over at Geeky Mama, talks about reading and selecting books based on how they look. I’ll have to say, I used to pick books based on their cover but have since moved on…at least for novels. For comics, I’ll gladly pick a book/series with nice cover art, even if I know the interior artist might be different. But then a comic is usually a short term investment while novels take me quite a while to get through most of the time, and I’ve been burned by novel cover art that has nothing to do with the story. I think it’s kinda like commercials for movies that play popular music then don’t have that music during the movie…I feel cheated.

Shards of Imagination – The franchises I snubbed and end up in love later

I also feel cheated by games that falsely advertise with cut scenes portrayed as gameplay. But Rukuno over at Shards of Imagination posts about games that initially he passed on, but then came to really like. I can agree with Dark Souls…once you get over the fact that you ARE going to die, the game gets really good. As for the other games, other than Life is Strange, I haven’t even purchased any of them…maybe I’ll give them a chance sometime since they I’ve heard good things about them. Avengers comics, though, are something I can agree with. I’ve always preferred Marvel to DC, but I was more of an X-Men and Spiderman reader growing up. But now that I’ve had Marvel Unlimited, I find I actually do like the dynamics of the Avengers – at least what I’ve read so far. And I agree 100% – DC needs something like this to bring in new readers.

Nerdy Bookahs – Paeroka’s Ponderings: Original vs. expansion “maps”

Paeroka over at Nerdy Bookahs questions how developers go about making maps for expansions vs how they build the world for a new game. It seems that most expansions have maps that are made to tell the story of the expansion while new MMOs have a map that is a much richer environment. Paeroka brings up GW2 and Rift as examples of expansions that seem flat in terms of only providing maps that are tacked on rather than organic. Is a new area created just to give a game more space or is there a reason that the area needs to be in the game…does it move the story along or is it just a set piece? While I understand, as mentioned, it would be kinda funny to see a level 90 Paladin delivering a cake to a mom-and-pop farm, but there still needs to be some level of background to make a new expansion area feel alive. It’s an interesting post and I’d love to see what actually drives developers when they design thier maps…some seem to be labors of love while others just seem to be…“how can we make the player run around walls and mountains so it takes a long time to get from place to place when they are actually right next to each other if they could fly”.

MMOQuests. – Sklotopolis Updates

Finally, Stargrace over at MMOQuests give us a look at what she’s been up to in the Wurm Unlimited world of Sklotopolis. She’s moved one of her deeds and renamed it and now is making some silver selling exchanged weapons…pretty cool. One thing I’m sad about Wurm Unlinited is that it’s not out for the Mac. I’d love to set up characters on both my PC and Mac so they could compliment each other, but unlike the Online version, WU doesn’t have a Mac client. I also wonder about Sklotopolis since it is a private server. I’d like to get into the game there, but as Stargrace pointed out in her post, a bunch of the community assistants have gone MIA. With nothing keeping them going on the server, it could really cause some issues if large groups decide to leave like that…particularly in Wurm where roads and tunnels need to be maintained. I wonder what the degradation rates are for that server?

Roundup

This week’s travels took me all over the place…from single player games to MMOs to MOBAs to private servers. Books and comics were also thrown into the mix. Some interesting questions about what games you play and why and are there better ways to spend your gaming time were brought up and I’m gonna have to do some real thinking about these topics. In all, I think it was a good week and I’m glad to have taken the time to visit these blogs to read the fascinating ideas they bring to light.

Morning Ramble 2.97