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Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson

Invisible Daggers

As a loyal reader, you probably noticed I haven’t been posting nor have I been very active on the Twitter. Of course there is a reason. Some of you might know or have read about it in my ‘About‘ section, but my health isn’t very good. I’ve had pain attacks for the past few weeks and they’re only getting worse. Read more

Bus

How many people are on the bus?

I was seven years old when I had mastered the basics of summations. I had to practice what I know and teachers, of course, gave us basic sums every day. Our education system wants to connect math to the real world. That’s how our math books was filled with stories of kids going to the market to buy apples, count the books on the bookshelf or count the people in buses. They’re relatable. As a kid I was now familiar with the paradigm of paying for food in a shop and how much was adequate and if I gave too much, I would get change.

I never expected to see bus sums in real life. Until I actually started taking the bus regularly. I take the bus every day to get from the office to the train station and my preferred seat is behind the bus driver. I see most of the things he does and that’s when I noticed. Some bus drivers have a sheet with all the bus stops and they write down how many people are in the bus. 25 people are on the bus. 7 get off and 3 people get in. How many people are in the bus?

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The Sims 2 Ultimate

EA Gives The Sims 2 Ultimate Away To All Sims Lovers

EA is stopping with the support for The Sims 2. That’s why they wanted to give all The Sims 2 owners a free copy of the game on Origin. That was only a few days ago and now they have decided to allow anyone to claim their free copy of the game. Why? Sales have stopped, so they’ve got nothing to lose anyways. It certainly is a nice way to trick people into using Origin.

Find out how to claim your free copy after the break.

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Steam Summer Sale

Steam Summer Sale 2014

If you’re a gamer, there are two seasons which are the death of your wallet: summer (June/July) and winter (December/January). Just about every digital game store has a sale and the Steam Summer Sale has its encore of best sales until tomorrow. So if there’s anything you still want to buy go for it. But remember, there will be more sales this year and do you really need that game right now? I know I don’t. Check out this year’s loot.

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The Real Life Sims

Something happened today and I wanted to let everyone know, because I’m excited and I’ll talk about it here. I just signed in for my own piece of land. It’s nothing big. The Americans among you will think too much of it now. It’s a terrace house, so nothing like the screenshot above.

But it’s an amazing opportunity for someone with a low-income to be able to build their own house. I always loved building houses in The Sims and this seems like the perfect opportunity to play The Sims in real life. That’s why I’ll be documenting it here as a series called The Real Life Sims.

The whole process from signing to getting the key will be about two years and I’ll expect it to keep me busy. So if things slow down, this project is the reason.

Yes, I will be making an awesome gaming room.

The PlayList – Boss Fight Edition

This is a special edition of the PlayList. It’s been a while since I’ve last written one, but I fully intent to bring it back as a weekly post. The past couple of weeks I’ve done a few boss fights. Not just any boss fights, but the Final Boss. The last one you’ve to beat before the credits start rolling.

But non of the boss fights felt epic to me. Find out why. [WARNING: SPOILERS]

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League of Newbies

Last weekend we played the League of Legends competition with NBI participants. We went 4 vs 4 ARAM, All Random, All Mid. Everyone gets a random champion that they own or are free during that week ans there is just one lane. The objective is still to destory the enemy’s nexus, before they can destroy yours.

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Character Creation Guild Wars

Creating Your Character

I’m part of this year’s Newbie Blogger Initiave (see the badge on the right) and they asked the community to either give advice or write guides for beginning game bloggers. One of the topics I’m personally very interested in is creative writing. I’m working on my own game and novel at the moment. One thing that’s very closely related to creative writing is character creation.

In RPGs, you have the chance to create an avatar. In some cases, you can even add the background story of your character to its bio so other players can read it as well. I never add a background story for my avatar. I don’t know them until I start playing. My character’s story grew by playing the game. This also keeps me from writing a universe inaccurate background story.

The role-playing aspect made this character not an avatar of me or a set protagonist in a story, but I could make any character I want and let them experience a story with the choices I make. These choices shouldn’t just be something you pick at random. What good would it do to make a good decision now and then cancel it out later with an evil decision? Most of these games have neutral options if you want to stay neutral.

To guide me through the decision-making progress I started writing the background stories of the characters and these stories became more complex each time I took a decision. Why would my character save this murderer? Sure, he followed bad advice, but he still killed dozens of people. Does my character show him mercy, or does she kill him on the spot? I don’t just think about the what, but also about the why. Why does she make these decisions.

If you write down the ‘why’s and turn into a narrative, congrats! You’ve written your first fan fiction for the game.

I know there are bloggers out there who keep a weekly diary of their characters living in the MMO-world. I play and read a lot of Guild Wars 2 blogs and these diaries are fun to read. It’s an excellent way to get more involved in the world and the lore.

Have you written any character diaries or background story? Please leave a link in the comments so I can check them out!

 

Wildstar

Free keys for Wildstar’s Closed Beta Weekend

Alienware has another giveaway. This time it’s keys for the beta weekend, this weekend 18-20 April. Who cares about Easter? Just go play Wildstar! Be quick to grab them, before they’re gone. Don’t forget to sign up for an NCSoft account as well.

The exact event is: WildStar Closed Beta Weekend: April 18 at 7 AM PDT – April 20 at 11:59 PM PDT

Have fun playing!

Hearthstone Always-on

hearthstone-heroes-of-warcraft

When Blizzard launched Diablo 3, people raged about always-on DRM. There was no single player, because of the auction house and they wanted a more ‘social’ experience, allowing your friends to jump in at any time. Now I’m playing Hearthstone in beta, and I noticed that this is also always-on. I don’t like it. Not at all.

I noticed the always-on when I played the tutorial. When you start the game for the first time, you have to play a few rounds to get used to the mechanics. During the last tutorial, one card away from winning, my internet disconnected (yay, wifi) and I had to redo the whole match. This also happened later when I was playing in practice mode. These modes can be offline, and I would really like that. My wifi wavers a lot and I notice these lags during a play against AI. I don’t see what my card does, I’ve to wait two to three seconds before I can play another card. It annoys the hell out of me, mostly because I lose my flow. This is even more annoying in PvP, but that can’t be helped.

I would like to know what you think. Should AI battles in Hearthstone be offline? Is Always-on essential to Hearthstone?

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Guild Wars 2 Fiction

Miira Lightbringer:
Fried Moa Steak
Quiet Before the Storm

Young Miira:
Tail Tugging Part 1
A Promise Made Part 2
Night Falls Part 3
Grawling Preparations Part 4
Badazar Incarnated Part 5
Graduation Part 6 - Final

Savyrius Belain:
We Meet Again...

Naella Ysangwan:
Dogs and Ogres

Play with me!

Do you want to game with me?
You can add me on Steam, Origin, Raptr, X-Fire or League of Legends. All use the same nickname: Endalia.

Or, if you want to give me some extra love and want to play League of Legends and you don't have an account, you can sign up here and give me some love <3
Diablo 3 Battle Tag: Endalia#1709
Guild Wars 2 Identifier: Endalia.8109

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