Skyforge in Almost Open Beta

Hello again!  Today I want to talk to you about Skyforge, the up-and-coming MMORPG that features both sci fi and fantasy elements, in which your goal is to transition from immortal to god.
I purchased a founder's pack on Friday and have been playing it since.
(Unfortunately, I was only able to afford the cheapest version but I want the best one, so feel free to donate to help me get there.)
Skyforge is beautiful and captivating.  The combat system is new and keeps me on my toes.  I think I'm more mobile in this game than I've been in any other, including TERA.
Skyforge has some items in it that remind me of Star Wars, including at least two of the mounts.

Starting out in Skyforge, with the basic edition: You only have three classes to choose from, but you can switch between these freely.  They are the Lightbinder (my choice), Cryomancer, and Paladin.  The Lightbinder is a support class, that can both heal and damage.  The Cryomancer, which seems pretty cool but I haven't really played yet, is pretty awesome, too.  They wield this weird cryo-tech crystal and specialize in frost magic.  The Paladin is pretty standard, a righteous tank.  In your character menu you can swap between these classes.  You have more options if you purchase the higher tier founder packs, including the berserker and the gunner.

Character customization is pretty nice.  There aren't that many standard choices but you have quite a few customization options to change facial and body shapes.
I made my character look like Angelina Jolie!

Of course, the hair isn't exactly her, nor is the eye color or awesome facial tattoos, but she's got the cheekbones, lips, and nose down for sure!

One thing that I'm not a huge fan of is boobs.  The basic, 50% that you start out with is pretty massive and those things jiggle like crazy.  I mean turn your character a tiny bit and they turn into jello.  I had to go down to like 30% and even the 1% is still like a C cup.  Some armor and costume options (costumes, woot!) make the boobs less jiggly, but pretty, wispy cloth options are very 'free'.

Overall though, I really like what I was able to do with character creation.  You can even change the way your character runs, from "girly girl" to aggressive, which is badass, and the way she stands.

One thing I'm torn on is the character system.  You only get one character.  You can change the way she looks, but you can't make "alts".  I'm an alt-oholic, this is hard for me!  I usually make one of each class and become the master of none!  The reason for this is understandable: you can be anything you want on one character, and you can go back and do lower level zones to gain enough skill points to level each class you want to play.

Regardless, I'm still very much enjoying the game.  The combat is fun, graphics are good, and the story is intriguing.

My character name is Elysia Starstorm.  Look me up if you decide to play.  It goes free to play on Friday, in open beta mode.

Food is calling!  I must be off.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in game!

My Opinion on Elins... and Pedophiles

Elins are the adorable race of strange proportions in TERA.

Taken from the TERA website: 

The elins have one driving goal: if it’s not good for nature, stop it. Older and wiser than they appear, they join with forces of nature and mortal races to sweep their enemies from the battlefield. Their speech is often dark, forthright, and otherworldly, and their sense of humor can border on vicious. Other races find the elins' manner and behavior off-putting.

Their appearance is both adorable and slightly creepy.  They look like giant adorable children with optional animal ears and tails, and can be designed to have everything from purple skin to green hair, and so much in-between.

One aspect of their appearance that has been the source of some contention are their thighs.  Yes, sadly, an important part of their costume design is that their thighs are almost always visible, and they're disproportionately large.

(However, for an individual to point to someone's thigh size as indicative of their age and sexual disposition is the same thing as someone pointing to the chest size of a girl and saying “twelve-year-olds don't have breasts that size, she must be legal and willing!”. This is “rape-speech”, and is deplorable.)

Regardless of thigh size, the impression of an Elin a viewer is left with is certainly a childlike one. Even the lore points to them being modeled after children.

Building corporeal forms around tiny fragments of her own divine being, the goddess Elinu created the elins. Their physical appearance reflected the youngest daughter of Arun's naïve desire for beauty and peace.

So that wording is a bit off, but what I had read previously, both in-game and online, was that they were modeled after Arun's young daughter. I believe the paragraph taken from their website contains some language errors.

Elins were the last race to be announced and released to the public.

TERA originated in South Korea, and there have been a ton of modifications to make them more palatable to our society.

Taken from an interview in 2012, regarding the modifications. This quote is specifically regarding the costume and outfit differences, and how Elins don't run around in panties with their midriffs exposed in our NA version of the game:

There seems to be a big cultural difference between how we view this and how Koreans view this.

Lucile Le Merle: In Asia their mindset is completely different. To them it is not a problem. It is not related to paedophilia. It's just part of the culture to have small, little girls that run around smiling. People just find it normal. If you read manga or watch anime, this is the exact same thing. People consider this normal. But we do not have the same mindset in Europe, which is why this change had to be made.

( http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-14-from-panties-to-shorties-why-the-young-anime-girls-of-tera-were-censored )

I believe that explanation is very short-winded for the topic. Having “small, little girls that run around smiling” is way different from having small, little girls run around practically nude.

One common argument among hardcore Elin “lovers” (ie. pervs), is that Elins are thousands of years old, and so it's perfectly harmless to find them sexually attractive. Whoa, back up, you find them sexually attractive?... !?!?!

This person (people, really – there are a lot of them!) is admitting to finding child-like females attractive. They were modeled after children, both in the lore and in real life.

This is definitely not okay. If you find the faces and bodies of children to be sexually attractive, you might be a budding pedophile. If you masturbate to images of Elins, who are modeled after young girls, you might be a pedophile. And, if you fantasize about Elins in a sexual manner, you might be a pedophile.

There are many people who have pedophilic tendencies but have never acted on them. Last year Upworthy published a story about a young man who wanted to have himself locked up for his pedophilic thoughts, despite never acting on them. It has been theorized that, like mental illness, pedophilic thoughts are not something that can be controlled, only one's actions while under the effects of this disorder can be.

If you have these thoughts, please seek therapy. This isn't something you should be ashamed of, you just need help. As long as you don't physically act on those tendencies, you don't need to beat yourself up about it – but you do need to seek help.

Let me reiterate here: I'm not poking fingers, calling names, or being a bully, I'm simply trying to get people to realize that these people need help.

You are always in control of your own actions. Remember that.

(This has been a public service announcement brought to you by V the GRRL Gamer.)

ZOMG - Costumes in TERA

Whatever criticism one may have for TERA, their costume selection is amazing.
It's sad that, not for the first time, I may be sucked in to spending money on a game in which I still haven't leveled to max.

I made a new character, Jessamyn, a High Elf Gunner and she's gorgeous.  Like seriously, why can't I look like her?

At the completion of the starter quests, I got this badass giant gun.

Then, I started browsing the brokerage to view costumes.  I've wanted to deck her out in a least somewhat steampunk-themed gear, and there's a costume to cover that.  Unfortunately, the weapon skin doesn't work for Gunners or Reapers.


In the midst of that disappointment, however, I found these, Pink Brow Glasses:

Cute or CUTEST?

So, they're not steampunk - at all - but they're adorable and they suit her.
Unfortunately they cost at least 4k gold, which I do not have (hey, having never passed level 43 and with the in-game economy as strange as it is, I'm happy to have broken 2k).  Alternatively, I can purchase costume boxes which *might* contain them, at a cost of approximately $3 each.  Yikes.

I'm on Tempest Reach, so if anyone wants to throw me some EMPs or gold, I'd be more than grateful!

Thanks for reading!
Signing off,
V the GRRL Gamer

Gaming Again

So, I'm sorry.  I had basically forgotten about this blog, but now I'm back.
What have I been doing lately?  Mostly playing ESO, but, with the character name release, I recently re-downloaded TERA and have decided to give it another shot.


ESO pluses:

• Great story, lots of dialogue (or RP if you prefer)
• Community involved and less immature than in WoW
• Expansive world with a LOT to keep you occupied
• Responsive customer service and support team
• Great guilds.  I even found an LGBTQ-friendly guild full of awesome people.

ESO negatives:

• Graphics are a bit behind the times
• Some bugs
• No DLC added yet, despite promises
• Small patches with no new content

TERA pluses:

• Shiny graphics
• Cute characters with a lot of clothing options
• Engaging combat with looming threat of death
• Can be challenging

TERA negatives:

• Weird community.  Elin race obsession confirmed and creepy.
• Poor support and customer service.
• Some bugs/brokenness. 
• Story has yet to engage me
• Difficult to get back into or to start out

You know what they both have in common?  They're not WoW and that's a great thing!
I have gotten so tired of the WoW bullshit and community, not to mention the fact that all I've done in-game for the past 3 months is log in and take care of garrison missions.
With the release of patch 6.2, that may change, but I won't hold my breath.
The things that used to captivate me about the game have lost their allure.  I'm no longer a fresh-faced Night Elf bracing the wilds of Azeroth, exploring new zones and experiencing the magic.

I have made a few additional posts about ESO on my other gaming blog that was mostly geared towards WoW, http://a-girls-eye-view-of-azeroth.blogspot.com/

And, as always, feel free to click my ads!  I'm not affiliated with anything on here, but I do make a measly amount of income through Google AdSense.  Or, if you'd prefer, you can donate directly to my PayPal.  (I will add a button.)

Thanks for reading!

Oh Noes!

So, WoW is down for some reason (something involving them screwing up while doing rolling restarts and messing with the authentication servers) and in the meantime I thought I'd write a bit about hunter pets. One of my favorite aspects of being a hunter is being able to choose a [preferably] shiny companion to join me on my travels, and hunting the perfect pet. Yesterday I found a model of Quilen (some variety of a Chinese lion-dog guardian) that is very unique. The skin is a purple stone model and I found it after realizing that Quilen are the exotic version of a wolf (crit buff) with a battle res thrown in. After browsing for awhile on Petopia, I found this. It's a very rare model, at level 88 anyway, because you can only tame it while on a specific part of a specific quest-line, and I had not yet seen anyone else with one. Usually uniqueness is a key attribute I search for while researching pets. I also try to find pets that match with my character's color and personality scheme. In this case, her name has to do with the night and her coloring (as a Night Elf) is pink/purple and blue. Therefore I usually seek pets that are either pink, purple, blue, or black. 

During Cataclysm I decided to level her, raising her from her permanent-alt status to a level 85. During that time I had a lot of fun hunting and taming all of the pets I wanted, including Skoll, Skarr, and the oil-stained wolf. (Yes, I know two of those were from Wrath, but I listed them because they were part of the leveling experience, especially because she had been somewhere in the 40s or 50s prior to Cataclysm.)

With a new expac comes a variety of new skins and new families of pets. One such new family, the waterstrider, is very helpful to keep around while leveling in Pandaria, because it provides a water walking buff and we are all ground-ridden until level 90.

Alright, back to either real life or WoW, depending...

[As a final note, the links above are to either Petopia or Wowhead and both are trusted and widely-used sites.]

Sucked Back In

Well, that didn't take long.  It's been less than two weeks since Mists of Pandaria was released and I'm already sucked back in.  I was up until 4am-ish just trying to complete a quest-line.  I've been focusing on solo-leveling my Alliance hunter on Malygos for now, and have been trying to enjoy reading all of the quests and paying attention to the stories.  My husband has been doing the exact opposite and reading as little as possible, and it doesn't seem that he has been that much more time-efficient than I.  I had not been focusing on leveling this character until a few days ago, and am now almost level 89.  In addition to questing, I've run the dungeons that have been available to me, in the queue-while-questing style, and have been moderately impressed by them.  Even more than the main things, it's the little things in this expansion that have me intrigued.  I'm looking forward to the entire cloud serpent acquisition process, as well as the farming and reputation with the Tillers.  I also maxed out her professions, skinning and leatherworking, last night and was pretty pleased and impressed with how easy it was.  Other than running around and skinning other peoples' kills, I haven't actually farmed any leather, and had more than enough to achieve max level with just my own leather.  Speaking of leather, I find it interesting and convenient that while you can create Exotic Leather from the "scraps" through leatherworking and gain points from it, you can also click-to-create, and while it is a short cast time, you can do it while mounted and moving, so after having achieved the max amount of leatherworking skill points from it, I was able to just click and create while running (of which we do plenty in Pandaria, due to not being able to fly yet).

Why is it so damn easy to distract myself from real life?

Transcription... TROLLING

Transcription WoW Audio Clip

(note: loud and background noise, not 100% SFW)

Playing WoW and other MMOs can make you feel like a kid again, in more ways than one, and I'd like to point out one of the less positive ways.

So... my personal story is, part of my personal story anyway, I'll try not to bore you, is that I have played World of Warcraft for... off and on, let's see, 5 years? No... Maybe... 5 and a half? Wow, that's a long time. See, right there I just totally overlooked how much of my life and how many hours I spent playing a video game. Well, it's not just any video game. If you know anything about WoW you know that, right? But here's the thing: I think it set me back emotionally and mentally, just because I paid attention to chat. What's up with that?

So... there's this whole troll underground society, both on the internet in general and, more specifically within MMOs. So you get to create this fantastic-looking character, um, you know, you get to look like exactly what you want to look like, and you get to do all these cool things like slay dragons and wear super shiny armor, right? BUT, you also have to interact with other people, and while this is generally speaking a good thing, those other people are also all hyped up about their newfound anonymity and they get to hide behind these fantastic characters they've created, right?

So even to the most casual gamer, the world channels of chat in MMOs become a free-for-all playground of childish taunts, name-calling, accusations, um... wanton ranting about political and scientific matters of which you have no actual basis in the real world... you don't have a degree, you don't have a job, but you're an expect at everything... and this mindset, this activity, of trolling online, is catching, it's contagious: it can suck in even the most rational of creatures...

Now I am not saying I am the most rational of creatures, I am not at all implying that, I am implying that part of what led me to lose control over logic is losing myself in the chat channels in an MMO. And WoW is particularly infamous for this. It's a “Rated Everyone” game so you have... ::ahem::... no comment... children who are, let's say five years old, playing the game, with teenagers who are going through their rebellious phases playing the game, with older people playing the game, and all these people, at every age, see this as an opportunity to hide.

And it's like hiding behind a giant tree and throwing rocks at someone from behind it, it's petty and it's stupid and it's a waste of time, a waste of energy... It's not fun either; I mean a little bit of bantering, light witty sarcasm... remarks thrown back and forth between two willing players is “fun”, but reading trade chat for three hours at a time and just shaking your head and wanting to smash your head against a brick wall because you can see just how stupid people really are... do people really think that way? I mean some of them do! And it's sad and it's sick but... once you're sucked into that community, that lifestyle, that mindset, you're not stuck there... and I'm not saying you have to quit playing WoW or any other MMO, I'm not saying that at all, I'm just saying... maybe we should all wake up, do a little bit of growing up, and uh... leave behind the mental throw-up, the regurgitation of these semi-truths and half-facts and uh just play the damn game and have fun, you're there to fight dragons, FFS... sorry, but seriously, LET GO of the troll mentality. It's not healthy, it's not fun, it doesn't get you or me anywhere and it certainly doesn't accomplish anything.

So uh yeah, that's it for now... thanks for listening.

(c) Copyright 2012 Veronica Elizabeth Raj