It’s getting close – the New World expansion is next week, and I’m so looking forward to it I kind of dont even know what I’m doing ingame anymore. I dont even save the loot I get – I’ve got basic crap-gear I’m running around with, but I cant really be bothered with trying to find anything more useful to use, because it’s literally just a few days away. Four days.
I’ve got my eyes set on a few things though – I want to get a good flail, a good sword and a good round shield, get all the signs..and then make the Elite Island my home.
I know a lot of people are itching to try out the new “artifacts”, but other than a few good pieces I’ve seen, I’m not too interested in trying to obtain anything. It’ll be more like “if I find something and I find use for it, great”-kind of deal. There’s a chest-armor that supposedly doesnt weigh anything, which means I could probably use light armor, that chestpiece and a good shield without losing the healing bonus, so I might want to go for that one – that way I might be able to get a Lifestaff and Flail and shield healer going. At the level 100 on the Season Pass, there’s also an earring that seems pretty neat – it causes health potions to give 33% more health and gives empowerment and fortify on potion uses, as well as a free perk you can chose eventually. The drawback is that the potion cooldown is 20% longer – I’m also only interested in this, if you can stack Refreshing Toast on it, getting a lowered cooldown on potions, which should bring the cooldown to 108% of the regular timer, which still isnt that great, but a heck of a lot better than 120% of the regular timer. There’s probably better perks than that though, so I might change my mind about that in the future.
Besides those two, the only artifact I’m actually are keen to try out, is the Greatsword Serenity – which is unfortunately locked behind PvP as a random reward, deep into PvP as well. They’ve got something called “PvP tracks”, which is basically the equivalence of short “battle passes” for doing PvP – it only has three checkpoints, and then it refreshes and gives you a new “track”. And only after having fullfilled more than twenty of them, you can get the Serenity. As one of three possible rewards in each of the three checkpoints. But it’s all random; meaning you might be able to get it on the first checkpoint on the 21st “track”, but you might not even see it until your hundreth. I’m not touching that. Like, I legitimately rather eat physical gravel.
It’s just so insane to me, that the best PvE Greatsword they could create, which has basically no use in PvP, and they lock it behind PvP. It’s got stacking empowerment on hits, bonus damage on heavy attacks and heavy critical attacks – which it is when hitting something from behind – as well as CD refreshing on any attacks, including heavy attacks. The heavy attacks are almost never used in PvP, because it’s too telegraphed to actually land on people, and that’s where this Greatsword shines the most. So you have to play PvP in order to get it, but using it as a PvP player isnt going to be a thing. It feels like either AGS doesnt even understand their own weapons, or they’re trying to force PvE players to play PvP, regardless of how little they want to play PvP. But I’m curious though.. there’s a slot for another perk, and in the faction store there is an item that grants gem-sockets as a perk. Does that mean that we can socket gems into that Greatsword, and would that be better or worse than a perk that anyone could slot in?
Eh, better not to worry about it. I’ll try to grab it if AGS gets their shit together and enables us to get that weapon in any other way other than playing PvP.
In other news, I’ve noticed that my kids are increasingly more and more interested in playing videogames. The six year old usually plays on my PS5, but it’s mostly Minecraft and the occasional Dark Souls and Elden Ring. I’m letting it slide, because mostly he’s interested in the mount in Elden Ring and gathering stuff – and if he gets a real taste for that kind of game early, I dont mind. The four year old though, he has mostly been uninterested in anything media-related except for his pad, which he uses to watch kid stuff on youtube and Disney+ and such, like Blippi, Grizzly and the Lemmings, Bluey and that sort of thing. However, I got a game on the PS5 that even interested him, a Dinosaur game called Gigantosaurus The Game. While he’s not progressing that far yet, atleast he got interested enough to learn the connection between the controller and what’s happening on the screen, and he’s quickly been picking up how to control the character!
While most people probably go “yeah, he’s four, they usually pick that up fast”, well.. my son is mostly non-verbal autist that doesnt really do that. The fact that it interested him enough is what caused him to pick up on the connection between the controller and the screen, which is a huge step forward in itself. Now I’m curious if that means that he’ll be interested in trying out more stuff, so…
I bought an arcade cabinet for kids! It has yet to arrive though, but when it does, I hope I can set it up as I want it and then I’ll let the kids play with it as much as they want, whenever they want.
It only has three games on it, which is a bummer, but it’s mostly just for starters to see if there’s interest. It has Pac-man, Dig Dug and Galaga. Admittedly, not the best games, but good enough for something like this, and if they’re interested in this sort of setup, atleast I know what to save up for in the future – there’s tonnes of youtube videos detailing how to build arcade cabinets such as this one, either with a raspberry pi and emulation of loads of games, or faking one with Evercades or Switches. I already have a Switch, and I’ve got my eyes on Evercade-stuff, so.. Maybe that’ll be something in the future?
Also looking around to see if I can find a bunkbed for the younger boys, which is nearly impossible. Either they’re super expensive, as in €300-530 depending on the model – I’ve seen some goes for €930! – or they’re just not cheap enough for the wear they’ve got as a second-hand bed. I’m not paying almost full price for a bunkbed that is five years old with noticable wear and tear and is wobbly like a bobble-head doll. Sorry, but that’s just not happening.
Since they share room, I thought it’d be good to give them more floor-space, and in not too long, I probably need to get the six year old a desk for schoolwork as well, which is.. not really possible if they’ve got a bed each. Especially not after I bought them a play-house to use indoors, that thing takes up so much floor-space.. But it’s used as a hide-out for the boys, and they like it.
Dont mind the lack of bedsheets in the bed. It’s the weekend the kids goes to their moms place – which means an all-weekend playing and singing session! – so I’ve stripped the beds for laundry.
In other news – I actually got my reading habit started up again. I dusted off my old Kindle, and apparently it’s been almost three years since last, according to the in-app tracker. I have read since, physical books and webnovels (Shadow Slave, by Guiltythree is surprisingly good, by the way), but it has not been on the same scale as when I was reading books upon books on the Kindle. I used to read hundreds of pages every day, on breaks, while sitting next to the kids putting them to bed, often pulled it up while waiting for the train or stuff like that. I got loads of reading done – according to the app, I had twenty-eight titles read only in the first six months in 2020. Not short books either, it was Warhammer 40K Omnibuses mostly, but several other fantasy books by Sara C Roethle as well. (I really do recommend her Tree of Ages-series, as well as her trilogy The Thief’s Apprentice!)
After having dusted off my Kindle, I booted up Calibre to convert a bunch of my old e-books I’ve bought over the years, into the Kindle format and loaded them into the Kindle. I even treated myself to a new cover! Nothing wrong with the old cover, it’s neat and black, but kind of scuffed for all the use over the years – it’s the Kindle Paperwhite 4, 2018th edition after all. Looking at it now, trying to find an image to post to show what the art looks like, I realise that it probably wasnt a licensed art on that cover.. The image on the cover actually is this one (second image), and I’m going to reach out to the artist who says he drew it and check with him if he knows the art is being sold as a Kindle Cover. If not… I dont know. That’ll be uncharted territory for me.
Looking to get the Wheel of Time book series on the Kindle as well, but for now, I noticed that both Sandy Mitchell and Sara C Roethle has new books out – Mitchell has released Ciaphas Cain; Vainglorious and Roethle has released an eighth book in the Tree of Ages, City of Ashes! – so those two are on the list for now. I also have the Amber-series loaded up if I want to read that again, as well as the Narnia Chronicles and twenty-three R. A. Salvatores Drizzt books that I got off of Humble Bundle a few years ago. Hopefully that’ll last me the rest of the year, and I’ll look into the Wheel of Time bundle after that. Who knows, maybe that bundle will last me atleast half a year on its own?
