Finally! Here I Come, Sims Freeplay! Farewell for now, other games!

So guys, as you all know, I've been forever obsessed with anything related to The Sims. It all started with the original The Sims way back in the early 2000s and since then, I've never looked back. Despite the fact that I've played a wide array of games (from LAN to MMORPGs) over the years, I always find myself going back to The Sims. As a matter of fact, with a very heavy heart, I just stopped playing The Sims 3 early last year. I don't want to let go but my laptop was already suffering from the abuse so I made a choice thinking about saving up enough money for a gaming PC. Until I now, that plan hasn't materialized yet as I have other priorities so The Sims 3 (or 4 now) is still out of the picture. So what's a Sims addict got to do? Well, look for options.  And guess what, I've discovered that EA in partnership with Firemonkeys has developed The Sims Freeplay (it was released in 2011, how come I haven't heard about it?!) which is really cool. Of course, it's not as good as The Sims franchise but still, it's enough to satiate my craving.

Initially, I started playing Freeplay in the second half of last year but stopped after a week since I've encountered issues while playing it on my phone. And besides, my heart wasn't ready to settle for a watered down version of The Sims during that time.  But anyway, what's important is that I've just started playing Freeplay again 2 days ago. And that, I am finally appreciating the features of the game and being more acceptant of its limitations. Once I had this mindset, Sims Freeplay became more enjoyable since there are plenty of quests to be completed and stuff to unlock. Oh, the adrenaline rush...:) 

So far, so good. I just wish that I started playing earlier so I was able to fully take advantage of  the French Romance Live Event--a 12 day event to celebrate the upcoming Valentines Day--which is really great except for the fact that it needs a lot crafted items to unlock sets. With only 3 days left, there's no way I can complete the quest. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, however, that EA and Firemonkeys will hold the event again in the future. 

Playing The Sims Freeplay is not without its sacrifices though. Like The Sims franchise, Freeplay is also very time consuming so my other games are also affected.  As of today, I am on official hiatus from Taichi Panda; and finally said goodbye to Clash of Clans (my sister is the one using my account now), Arcane Legends and Super Monster League (pity! This is a very good game so if you're into Gachapon, this is a must try). 

With this announcement, I would like to express my thanks to all those gamers who became acquaintances, friends, enemies etc. in COC, AL, SML. No matter how short the time is, what's important is that moment wherein we were in the same world, walking the same path, and aiming for the same goals. Wherever my gaming journey takes me, we've already shared  history together and that's something that I will never forget. Thank you very much. 

Please expect changes around the blog particularly the post contents as they will mostly feature updates, tips, guides, commentaries about the Sims Freeplay.  Thank you for bearing with me. 

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September Wrap-Up

What's going on, guys? So again, this wrap-up post is late. Sigh. But at least, it's only eight days late which is, I guess, a huge improvement from my August wrap-up post. But anyway, my lateness aside, a lot of things transpired in both my gaming and real life during the month of September. 

For one, I have decided to take a hiatus from Arcane Legends. Whether it's going to be short or long, I'm still uncertain yet. Though my decision saddens me, I have to stick by it since even logging into the game felt like a chore and that defeats the main purpose of gaming; to have fun.  And besides, I have a new job, guys.  And it's an office job so I don't own my time anymore. So I don't know about you but it's really hard to juggle between a 48-hour/week work and three games without sacrificing my health. At the end of the day, I had to choose and the game that I'm enjoying the least has to go for now. Sadly, that's Arcane Legends. Don't worry, I'll be back once I have time. XD

Re; Taichi Panda, well, the game has been hard at work in infuriating me. I mean, it's still an enjoyable game but the developers are really fucking up with the updates that they've been releasing. Just recently, they've released the Edge of Survival update, which doesn't really help in improving the gaming experience of the majority.  By majority, I mean the F2P and the low VIP players. Well, Snail returned the roulette, which is awesome and not awesome at the same time.  Awesome because I FINALLY WON THE COVETED QUALITY 30 WINGS.  Lookie......

That's an additional 10K might right there plus I'm finally done with being stressed over that empty slot in my character's gear profile.  On the other hand, the come back of the roulette means that the developers are really finding ways to tempt players in spending their diamonds particularly that there's a new reward in the roulette, a quality 34 Core Rune called Seasons Mark. Look, why can't we just stop at level 32 runes? The roulette and the inclusion of some awesome rewards in it seem like a diversionary tactic of the developers to give the players some false belief that Snail is being generous but actually it's not. It's actually milking us for more moolahs. 

Instead of addressing more pressing and long overdue concerns like the fucking pvp matching system, instance time scheds, prices of items in the diamond store, etc., Snail spent its time developing a new pet (Seriously? We already have so many pets!), a new ugly mount that allows a second rider, and new higher quality (34 and 36) runes.  Snail, at least, has the decency to add new instances in the squad instance portion and improved the drop table and rate in those instances. But still, it's not a solution to bridge that gaping gap between  F2P/low VIP  and average-high VIP players. At any rate, it's just helping the strong get stronger and the weak to become weaker. 

And as if to further mock the players, Snail also took the time in fixing what's not broken. I'm talking about the Neptune ring and necklace which were previously sold in Fortitude>Warrior store. After the update, both accessories have been transferred to the Valor store. WTF, Snail! One of the reasons why I went Neptune was that it was easy to collect accessory shards compared to Champion or Hades. And now, you did this? And when someone pointed this whole issue to you, you have the audacity to tell the player that those Neptune accessory shards have always been sold in the valor store. 

Oh, Snail, it's either you didn't train your support staff well or you actually don't know your own game. WTF! But whatever, Snail, you continue going down this road and I wouldn't be surprised if two years from now, Taichi Panda is already history.  

Right, that's enough about Taichi Panda because it's already giving me a headache. Let's move on to Clash of Clans. Well, I'm still stuck at TH 7 but maybe not for long.  I only have a few bombs and one troop to upgrade and then, voila, TH 8 here I come.  I'm not really excited in getting to the next TH level but I really want to try my hands on the Go-Va-Ho attack. Hahaha. Oh well, I'll get there...I'll get there.

So that's all for the month of September, guys. I will try to post more interesting stuff in the blog for the coming days...but I'm not promising anything. Hahaha.

Have fun and game hard!

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August Wrap-Up

Howdy, guys? Gaming life has been pretty much hectic these days so this really came VEEEERRRRY LATE and that, I wasn't able to post as much as I would like to. There were just so many in-game events that transpired in the games that I'm playing that it was hard for me to take a break and write up a post. I even forgot to have-a-life for a week because Arcane Legends has rolled out one of the best events ever and I just couldn't stop playing. Anyway, here are the highlights of my gaming life for the month of August:

Arcane Legends

As I've said earlier, Spacetime Studios--the developer of Arcane Legends-- launched this event called Eggstravaganza. Basically, every mob death will have a chance to spawn Mythic and Arcane vendors and most importantly, a zombie mob named Eggzavier. And Eggzavier's loot table includes all the eggs of the existing pets in-game. For every pet collector, it's a dream come true.  And the most exciting part is that you will only be given 30 seconds to kill Eggzavier, otherwise, he will eggscape! It was such a fun event (Arcane Legends version of Pokemon Go?!) despite my frustrations. I DIDN'T GET A SINGLE ARCANE EGG! But all in all, the event was a blast and I'm really grateful to STS for rolling it out. From 9 (or 15?) eggs, I now have 73 eggs and look, even managed to get 5 or 6 mythic eggs. :D 

Aside from the eggs, my noobish rogue finally reached level 54 all because of the Egg-Zavier hunt. Here she is with her new mythic pet, Abaddon.

Taichi Panda

Two words: LIFE CONSUMING. I swear that this game's a huge cash cow but it's so addicting that I can't just stop myself from playing it. I'm, however, thankful that I haven't caved in yet in terms of topping up. The way I see things in this game, everything's achievable without shelling out $$$ as long as you are EXTREMELY PATIENT like willing-to-wait-for-a-hundred-years-patient.  So far, my Fox Mage is already level 61 with 290k+ might. And my runes are at least pretty decent, no more greens and blues. And BTW,  I couldn't believe that I'd be saying this but I already have the pieces to make a Quality 32 Core Rune but it would still take me around 15 days to make it since the Synthesis rune shard is such a pain to collect. 

Another stuff worth mentioning is that I created a Treasure Hunter named Heartrender and she's currently level 43. Was actually thinking of making a priest but I don't think I'm ready to shoulder the burden of you know, keeping everyone alive while doing team instances. Bwahahaha.  Here's my noobish treasue hunter BTW. 

Clash of Clans

I can't believe I'd say this but I finally reached Town Hall 7. Wooot~ It feels like it was just yesterday that I was building my first ever Army Camp but look how it is now.  And of course, I finally unlocked dragons which I've been looking forward since I started playing the game. I am also ecstatic to announce that finally, I am getting some luck in clan wars since I'm mostly paired with TH 7s or below  but maybe it's just because most players now are in the TH 7 bracket and up. Anyway, I'm just really happy that I'm finally able to get stars and loots in clan wars now. And it's also fun learning the different strategies in attacking bases and I'm really inclined to specialize (if that's even applicable to gaming!) in air attacks. ATM, I am getting good in drag-loon attacks but would like to try different mixtures of air troops from time to time. My ground attacks really suck though, there are just so many variables to think about that I' not really sure if I'm going to be sitting one day poring over notes and game blogs trying to learn the intricacies of ground attack strategies. But whatever, I'm going to stick with what I'm comfortable with at the moment. 

Here's a bird's eye view of my TH 7 base:

Others

As I've said in my last recap, I will try to post as much as I can but obviously, that didn't happen and I doubt that it'd be happening any time soon. The fact is, I really want to focus on Taichi Panda and it's a very time consuming game that I'm seriously considering whether to ditch my alt (Heartrender) or not. Add the fact that I maybe doing something new IRL which will take most of my time but I'm not going to divulge that until my September Wrap-up post. Hahaha. I am really sorry for being so late in publishing this one but it's better to be late than never, right?

Anyway, have a good gaming month ahead. PLAY HARD! 

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July Wrap-Up

So what has been going on with you, guys? I know I've been pretty lousy in updating this blog but you know... play first, blog later.  July has been a month of ups and downs in terms of gaming. On one hand, it was exciting as I've discovered a new game (more on that later) and on the other, I've ditched some of my offline games reluctantly.  As much as I want to maintain 'em all, a gamer could only do so much. 

I got to say that you can all blame Taichi Panda regarding my decision. Honestly, guys, I can't say that it's the best game in the market but it's definitely engaging to the point that it became the main course of the day putting Clash of Clans as morning snack and Arcane Legends as a side dish. I'm not saying that COC and AL are boring or something like that but Taichi Panda offers a variety of things-to-do in game that it's hard to stop playing. Of course, you can take that with a grain of salt as I'm pretty new to the game and who knows, my opinion would change after a couple of months playing. But so far, in terms of first impression, Taichi Panda didn't disappoint-- vibrant graphics, diverse PVP system and elaborate pet system. As much as I would like to make a lengthy analysis of the game, I figured that it would be much better to write all about it in a separate post.  Just know that, my gaming life revolves around TP at the moment.  Here's my Fox Mage by the way. And yes, her name came from Jay Kristoff's The Lotus Wars series.

But what about Clash of Clans and Arcane Legends? You just started playing them... Well, as I've been telling my sister over and over again, Clash of Clans is a wonderful game but it bores me most of the time. There's a lot of waiting involved-- the builders, the cooking time of troops-- that I just can't enjoy the game fully. Rest assured though that I'm sticking around but my in game presence would be minimal unless I have vacant builders which'd require me to farm actively.  I'm almost done with my TH 6 upgrades so come next week, I'm going to put on my farmer's hat again. >.<

Arcane Legends would stay, too. Afterall, it's my first ARPG and it did provide me with a lot of entertainment. But I'm afraid that I will only go online just to do Klaas, Shazbot and the Wandering Minstrel. I really want to be active in the game especially that I still have a lot of things to do--like buying a Mythic or Arcane weapon, Planar Pendant, Arcane ring, and Nekro-- but as I've said, Taichi Panda consumes a lot of my time so this gamer needs to prioritize. But hey, at least, I'm staying. And hell yeah, I finally managed to get my Rogue to level 50. I know it's not much of an achievement considering the ease of levelling up in the game but I was seldom online and I still managed to reach the 50s bracket so... CONGRATS TO MYSELF!

So there you go... I've got three games to maintain which is already a handful if you think about it. So that brings me to the games that I've ditched in order to maintain a semblance of a life. As sad as I was, I have to let go of Cooking Fever, Sims Freeplay, City Island 4: Sim Tycoon, and Adventure Town.  I might go back to them someday but as of now, COC, AL, and TP are enough to give me my daily fix of gaming.

As for my other hobbies, I'm really behind with reading although I've already completed my Goodreads challenge. I know that my games are biting into my reading hours but I think that the lack of interesting books to read is the main reason why I'm lagging. I've recently bought Harry Potter and the Cursed Child because it's my number one anticipated book for this year but alas, I can't even get past the 65th page. It was clearly not a Rowling book but you know, I had high hopes for it since the Queen herself approved the script. Why she did that baffles the hell out of me because the plot of the Cursed Child is just so fucking ridiculous that I can't still even wrap my mind around it.  The book should have been titled as Harry Potter and the Cursed Book because it's awful and I want Rowling to write a new one to erase the memory of the accursed book.

Luckily, I have a good lineup of Korean dramas to keep my mind off from the horrible that is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Although I'm also behind with my drama watching, I can still proudly say that I was able to finish Yong-Pal which isn't perfect but good enough to while away the time. ATM, I am following this currently airing drama entitled Doctors which was fun and heartbreaking at times. It has its horrible moments but I still liked it especially that I'm seeing a new facet of Park Shin Hye's acting.  Mind you, I am not a fan but I have watched most of her dramas post-2007 and I can definitely say that she's improving from the naive and dim Go Min Nam in You're Beautiful.  And also, did I mention that Kim Rae Won is awesome?

So that's my month of July in a nutshell.  This month of August should be exciting and challenging since I'm planning to publish more posts concerning Taichi Panda and Arcane Legends.

So how have you been gaming last July, guys? Share your stories below. 

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