Lava death and medieval dress

Priorities:

I have been spending a lot of my free time on the internet. Not playing games, just watching youtube videos, editing and reading the Unlimted Craft forums, and other surfing.

Otherwise I am playing minecraft.

Yesterday I played some battlefield. It was fun, I think I might play more.

Virtually virtual:

I am excited for the Minecraft xbox game to come out! It will be fun to get all the achievements and play split screen with the wife.

I am kind of loosing interest in minecraft again. As I have said before, it comes in waves.

It's ironic I loose interest now because I was just promoted on the UC server. I have more responsibility and should be there more. But I am tired of building mundane things. I want an epic project again. Even then, I just want to do the epic project.

Maybe I should take a week vacation or something from UC.

The Head-Staff, eydya, and I are good friends (through minecraft) I am sure he would ok it.

Maybe I will get back into battlefield. Or if I ever get skyrim I will just play that.

Thoughtful gab:

So I got my wife to play Minecraft with me a few weekends back and she was totally hooked. We played all evning then on Saturday we played all day together! We have made some roads and stuff in the jungle, around our base. We have a farm and a sheep farm with different wool colors. Its fun.

She had never found a diamond on her own and was sad. She was recently killed by a creeper. So I used an xray texture pack to find some diamonds and let her mine them. I saw that there was lava behind them and warned her. When she got the diamond she freaked out and said the computer wouldn't let her move. The lava poured over her and she was dying. In a panicked act I placed dirt around her to stop the lava and somehow eneded up suffocating her with it.

So I technically killed her, but we say the lava did.

She lost all her stuff to the lava, including her first diamonds. She shut the game off and said she would never play again.

-sigh- it happens. We have all been there before. I am sure I can get her to play again though. I made chest with a present for her for when she gets back in game. :)

We also went to the Renaissance Festival here in Arizona this past weekend! Totally fun, like always. We dressed steampunk.. or attempted to.

Saw some sweet medieval costumes though. And the turkey legs were a hearty meal. HUZZAH!

Senses of direction.

Priorities:

I am back into minecraft. Have been for a few weeks. Between my last post and now, I got a new monitor and got back into StarCraft 2 and Battlefield 3.

Virtually virtual:

In StarCraft I played some ranked matches (Bronze ladder 1v1 and Gold 4v4) and am working on the campaign on brutal difficulty.

In Battlefield I got to the colonel rank (45) and stopped playing.

Now I am back into minecraft, specifically playing hardcore mode single player, playing normal single player with my wife when I can get her to play with me, and playing on the Unlimited Craft server. I will talk more about this in my next post.

I want to get skyrim because I have heard A LOT of hype about it. Better give it a try. Just a matter of money now.

My wife is playing dragon age 2 and a little minecraft with me. :)

Thoughtful gab:

Ok so I have an interesting story for today's gab, about direction.

I was just talking with my wife the other day while she was driving us in a area of town that we weren't familiar with, about how good my sense of direction is. Because during the drive, she managed to lose her sense of direction a few times.

For example, we were going East and she pulled into a gas station to get gas. We left the gas station and she turned out a different driveway and starting going North. She was completely unaware that she was going a different direction than before. It was obvious to me so I gave her a minuet to see if she would notice then told her the error. Similar instances happened 2 other times that same trip.

It just seems no matter where we drive, how many turns we make, or how unfamiliar the layout is, I usually know which way we came from, which way we were going, and which way is N.S.E.W. I don't need to look around a lot or check where the sun is, it just seems natural. I call it my internal compass. I never really questioned that it was anything besides a natural born sense of direction. Until today...

I was playing minecraft today and left my home to go chop wood in a nearby forest. I noticed that I had taken some turns and could not see my home anymore. But I remembered how I got to where I was, and even more importantly, where my home was from my position. I started thinking about how if my wife or parents would have done the same thing, they would be turned around and lost in the forest.

Now I have played many video games, for a long time. A lot of those games have minimaps and often you will need to backtrack. In an RPG you learn the layout because you travel back and forth often, while questing. In first person shooters you have to learn the map quickly so you know where the strategic points are, learning the layout as fast as possible drastically increases your odds of pwning a newb that has no idea where he is going. This "learning" of the maps and direction has become second nature, I don't need to activity memorize what is where, it just comes naturally and instantly.

So my theory is that this video game direction training has become a real world ability. Like a map on Battlefield 3 or Old Republic, in real life I am keeping track of my N.S.E.W. direction and the path I came from without consciously thinking about it. I am learning the layout automatically because I am so used to doing the same in video games.

Could this be another way video games benefit real life? Now of course I have no evidence that supports this. Just a coincidence and a simple theory really, but who knows. It might just be a natural sense of direction and not video game teachings, but It's an interesting thought none the less.

Segway

Sorry I haven't been adding new posts lately. Iv'e been sick and watching a lot of the office. Two things that don't pertain to my blog.

In Minecraft LC server news we finished building that town.

I put my old house up for auction. Started at $3000 and sold for $5000. I was pleased :)

Battlefield comes out in a few days!

Think of this lull in blog posts as a segway between my Minecraft days and my Battlefield 3 days. Its taking some time for servers to switch over, so there is downtime. Metaphorically.

Dead Island

Priorities:

I fell asleep and watched TV and then came up with a plan to get a new game. I played the new game for a few hours, was busy, out, with the wife, then went to bed.

Virtually virtual:

small Dead Island review coming next post.

Thoughtful gab:

I love zombie games. Surprisingly enough I am just now hearing about this game called Dead Island which is supposed to be a really fun zombie RPG. Sounds awesome.

I have two problems though. I am already buying a monitor, BF3 and Old Republic collectors edition the end of this year, and don't really want to drop another 60 of our hard earned dollars for another game quite yet. Not sure if the wife would appreciate it and even if she didn't mind, I would somehow feel kind of bad considering she makes more money for us than I do.

The second problem is the same as the first but for a different reason. I am getting those other games so I will be playing a lot of them. I don't want Dead Island to gather dust while I'm playing those other games, and even more so, I don't want Dead Island to take priority over them. I want to get as much BF3 in before I get Old Republic so I can have played my $60 worth and so I can have a better rank to be sitting on, so if someone asks, I'm not some wimpy enlisted rank.

I really want the game though so I don't know what I will do.

-later-

With the help of my friend Jake, we both ended up getting it. He is playing the sword girl and I am playing the throwing knife guy.

The wife had some reservations about me getting another game but we talked it out. I still can't help feeling kind of bad that she works more than I do and I'm spending more than she is on extra things.

I guess that just goes back to one of my earlier blog posts though.

Betas

Priorities:

Didn't keep track but Iv'e been playing a lot of the BF3 beta.

7:00-7:30

StarCraft 2

7:30-9:00

minecraft

then more Battlefield 3 beta

Virtually virtual:

My Battlefield craze is dying down a little bit. Due to the face I have few friends to play with and it is only one map. It's still great though and I look forward to the release. I'm currently at level 20.

To switch things up I played some StarCraft 2 with my friend, unfortunately he didn't want to play much.

Also waiting for Minecraft 1.9 update to come out so I can stat a new survival server. Should be fun.

I wonder when they will be done with the Minecraft beta and finally release the full version?

Ug I just wish BF3 was out so it could eat my time until Old Republic!!

I've noticed more glitches in the BF3 beta. When in the open park area I sometimes fall through the ground. Blank nothing beneath me and the world above me. Its weird and dumb because the only way I can seem to get out is suicide.

BF3: PC vs Xbox

Priorities:

6:00-6:30

Soul Calibur 4

7:30-8:30

minecraft

Virtually virtual:

Battlefield 3 is coming out soon. It will be a good thing to get my mind off of Old Republic. My problem is that I am still undecided on whether I should get it for xbox or PC. Here are some personal comparisons.

PC

-possibly bigger servers

-better lighting, graphics, ect..

-better effects, added detail?

-mouse precision

Xbox

-More comfortable on couch

-Have a friend or two that would play with me

I want PC mainly because I am excited that I have a top of line gaming computer and I want to utilize it. Battlefield 3 is supposed to be cutting edge in the fields of graphics, beauty. I want my breath to be taken away with the stunning visuals that only a computer can offer.

This is my reasoning behind even considering xbox.

2 months after this comes out I will drop it like a bad habit and dedicate my time to Old Republic. I'm sure I will occasionally play BF3, just for a change of game though. If I get it on PC this means I will be sitting in the bedroom, on my not so comfortable office chair, on the computer for hours playing Old Republic, then what if I want to play BF3? I stay on the computer and do it some more. But if I get it on xbox it will be a nice change of location and comfortableness to be on the couch in the living room.

Battlefield, unlike call of duty, is best playing with a team. I like having people I know instead of random noobs being on my team, and I have more confirmed friends getting it for xbox.

I am really torn between which platform to play it on. Either way I will regret not choosing the other. I am really excited to play the xbox beta on the 29th of this month. The beta will give me a chance to see for myself how the xbox handles the game play and graphics, hopefully giving me enough opinion on it to make a decision so I can pre-order.

Thoughtful gab:

I was talking to my wife about buying Battlefield 3, Old Republic, and a new computer monitor (around $300 total) which are all non essential items. She was kind of frustrated that I get to spend all this money for myself, where she works more than I do and she doesn't spend as much as I do.

This is an interesting dilemma.

Living in this apartment has been the first time I have been away from my parents house. I am used to spending 80% of my money on every check I got on games and silly things. Now, I've been spending a lot more on bills but a part of me still tries to get those fun things when I probably shouldn't. I think we can handle getting those 3 things over the coarse of the rest of this year but that is not the problem. The problem is that my wife feels like she doesn't get to buy anything for herself because all the extra spending funds go to my expenditures. This is actually mostly true, only for the reason that she just doesn't have many expensive things to buy. She buys books now and again but they are cheap. Otherwise she is happy on the internet and playing my games. It's not the same with a gamer. Games are expensive and the hardware to play them even more so.

Lets just not count the numbers here, but measure how happy we are. My wife is happy getting her few books a month, and I am happy buying games. We spend different amounts but achieve the same level of contentment.

So I say to her, you don't need to spend as much money as I do, as long as you are happy. If you want to spend more, lets talk about it, I can wait longer to get a computer monitor :)