Giving In

I've despised Facebook's games for a very long time. I admit to getting sucked into one where you built a cafe and made food for a while, but since they all required you bugging your "friends" and getting bugged by them, I got annoyed and decided to ban them all from my account. I didn't want to see what my friends were playing nor did I want any more invites for games I didn't want to play.

And then, information was released yesterday that two games from my childhood that I was absolutely obsessed with will be available on FB. I think I'm gonna have to cave on my "No FB Games" stance This Huffington Post article shares with the world that The Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? will be launching in February. AHHH!! I'm SO gonna die of dysentery over and over again. And travel the globe looking for that woman in the red trench and oversized hat. I can't cussing wait!!

Remember, always pay for the ferry. Don't try to ford the river. You'll lose half your gear.

Level Up!

Girls and Gaming...

Like that isn't a topic that's been approached from a million angles a billion times over, on my way home from school today, while listening to "All Things Considered" on NPR like I always do, I heard an interesting piece. It comes from WNYC's Radio Rookies program that allows teens to record their own short radio segments and air them for the world via public radio stations nationwide.

The story comes from a 17 year old gamer named Jessica. She, like many of us, plays games, but is frustrated by the way girls are represented (and underrepresented) in the medium. There are very few games with female protagonists (this doesn't include games with customizable PCs), and those games that do have them so idealized or objectified with little clothing and perfect bodies. How are girls supposed to look up to that? I mean, if the game has a strong female lead who can kick butt, such as Bayonetta, or Tomb Raider, they're practically naked. If  the main female characters are there at all, they're probably whiny sidekicks (See FFX) or the damsel in distress who needs rescuing (Princesses Peach and Zelda). I'm not much of a console gamer, so I'm really not "up" on whether or not strong "normal" girl main characters exist, but from what I've ever seen, no.

Video game bondage anyone? 

Also, the games marketed towards girls and women are pretty much terrible. Ok, I'll admit, I like Cooking Mama. It's a quirky Japanese game that appeals to my love of cooking. It's ADHD like me, and you don't think about the protagonist at all, since there's really no "story". But all of the Imagine line from Ubisoft makes me gag! Make some real games for girls. We like more than ponies and styling hair. I enjoy seeing people's reactions to the fact that these games even exist, like Marian Call's response on Twitter last week. Do you have a favorite "girl" game?

The point this story eventually made was the incredible catch-22 about girls and games. In order to have more games that are really, truly for girl gamers of any age, we need more women working in the video game development and design industry. And to entice more women who want to make positive female games into the video game industry, more girls have to be truly passionate about the games that exist (and more than just a few just don't exist yet).Plus I'm gonna guess it's pretty intimidating for women to even try breaking into such a male-dominated industry. So, I beg you to encourage any girls you know who might have an inkling of interest to go for their dreams. I think we could use many more women working on creating strong, positive women in video games. I'm looking at you, Vanessa (@gAMgRL)!!

Wake up gaming industry. There are women out there who like to game. Who don't want to look at T&A all the time.

*Like I said, I'm not a huge console gamer, so if there are games out there that fit what I'm talking about, feel free to share!*

OMG I'm Still Alive! (also: OCD/ADD gaming)

This first semester of the new school year was insane! I'm really loving teaching 5th grade, but it's also keeping me much busier than normal. I've kinda let this fall by the wayside since September, and I'm terribly sorry for that. :(

Trust me, though. I'm still here, and I'm still geeking it up! I can't actually say that it's been all school that's been keeping me busy and away from the blog. Nope. It's also been the fact that the hubs and I restarted playing World of Warcraft back in October at level 1 and have been furiously leveling and playing more than anyone ever should.

See, I often apply my OCD to gaming, too. I usually get waaaay into a game for as much time as I can devote to it, but then eventually get bored (there's the ADD kicking in) and put it aside for months, maybe even years. I've done that with multiple FF games, The Sims, WoW in the past, Pokemon on my DS, Cookin' Mama, etc. I even hunted down Skies of Arcadia: Legends (GC version) and a Wavebird controller about a year ago to play on the Wii. I got about halfway through and then lost interest.

This time through with WoW has definitely been obsessive, with me spending too much time playing and shirking other responsibilities or social obligations to play.  But this time around, there are multiple reasons I'm not planning on quitting anytime soon.

1. I'm playing on a PVE server instead of PVP. 
I hated playing on a PVP server. I didn't want to kill other players. I didn't like dying constantly while trying to level my paladin in Hillsbrad Foothills. It seemed lame to have my husband with his level 70 rogue as my stealthed bodyguard just so I could go kill a few furbolgs or whatever. Now I can basically go wherever I want in-game without worrying about getting ganked.

2. I'm not leveling by myself.
Previously, I joined late in the game on my husband's server, in his guild, with some mutual friends. At this time, they were hardcore raiders and all at max level cap. It was when Burning Crusade came out, so I guess they would've all been 70. And they were running Karazhan ALL the time. I was starting over at one. Again. I could have these guys run me through dungeons for gear, but I never got good XP due to the great level gaps. Leveling was slow, tedious, and irritating. I was also playing a ret pally at a time when they were TERRIBLE, I later found out. I got tired of this, plus really not *knowing* or feeling accepted by the guildies, so I quit.
Now I've got not only my husband leveling with me, but a whole guild full of Twitter friends to chat with, goof off with, and hopefully soon run heroics with. Most of the people in the guild either started over at level 1 or transferred characters over, so they're not up to level cap. Not that I am, but I'm almost 84 and have rarely played alone. Only when I wanted to.

3. The game has changed so much! 
When I played all the way back in November 2004, you had to figure everything out for yourself. You might spend an hour trying to figure out where on your map the mobs to farm for the quest were.  As it was the beginning of the game, there were so many elements that hadn't been implemented yet. I got annoyed and quit. Then with BC, they added new stuff, but as I've mentioned, I got fed up with other things and gave up.
Now, I've actually leveled high enough to visit Outlands and Northrend. I've gotten mounts at level 20 (now it's less annoying to travel the world)! There's the Dungeon Finder which makes PUGs easier to find since our guild isn't all at the same point yet...

4. Fun pop culture references
I've noticed lots of little pop culture references the more I've played. So far, my favorite are these two Cataclysm quests:
[Once More with Eeling] in Vashj'ir (yay Buffy!!) and  [Troggzor the Earthinator] in Deepholm.

So, now that I'm almost level 84, have run my first ever heroic (Culling of Stratholme), have run my first Cata dungeon and survived (Stonecore), have lots of friends to play with, and am actually having fun with a class I LOVE (Destruction Warlock), I doubt my gaming ADD will overtake the OCD for a while.


See? Obsessive! 

Level 83 Warlock of DOOM!

Casting Magic

So, randomly, this weekend, I decided I wanted to try and learn how to play Magic: The Gathering. The hub played quite a bit in the past, so he agreed to teach me. We set out to buy some pre-made decks and a box of cards for deck-building, just in case. (Good thing we did, as I'd soon find out.)

Knowing nothing about the game mechanics going in, I tried to figure out what kind of deck I'd want based on what I read on the boxes and what the hub had told me about the various colors. I ended up getting a Blue/White deck, and he chose a Red/Green deck so that we had cards in a variety of colors. They were very pretty. :)

We played an open game so I could see what was happening, and he could explain things as we played. Early on, we could see he was going to annihilate me because I wasn't drawing any land, so he started playing nice. I wholeheartedly took advantage of this. I know, I'm awful! I ended up beating him because I put his creatures to sleep. I had been hiding my Sleep card so he didn't know it was coming. :)

Then we decided to build a deck. I thought it would be fun to play Red/Black after looking through all the cards we'd bought. How right I was!

First I played against a Blue/White deck, and other than his flying creatures I couldn't block and that he used Pacifism on my Dragon, I beat him fairly easily by pinging away at him with my Blood Seeker and Giant Scorpion. Deathtouch, FTW!

Then, he decided to try his Red/Green deck again that he'd played with last night. He could've beat me with that one and all of his giant Wyrms, but I discovered some more lovely things in my black deck. They are cards that took care of his insane attacks. I also had a bunch of little, relatively worthless creatures out blocking for me, so when he attacked with a +20/+20 buffed Wyrm of some sort with Trample, I only tool 13 damage, and I'd buffed back up to a full 20 at that point. And since I blocked with a Deathtouch creature, his poor Wyrm died. (I'm not sarcastic or gloating at all. Such a sore winner - and sore loser.) I then managed to take him out using things like Doom Blade and Hideous End.

I've decided I really like playing with this deck we built. It's very much a strategy deck that plays more defense and slowly whittling away at the opponent's life, but for now, I feel safe with it. And that's what I want for a newbie. We also have some friends who still play, so I'm hoping I can play more, and lose graciously. That'll be my biggest challenge...