6 posts tagged “game”
I first started playing Pet Society on Facebook about four or five months ago. I was bored one night, and I remembered how Celena had urged me to start playing even months before then. So I hopped on Facebook, thinking that I would just check out the new game. After five minutes of playing around with designing my own pet, I was hooked.
A little while after that, my pet Tea Leaf was born. (Actually, it may have been a long while since I couldn't decide what I wanted my pet to look like.) Tea Leaf's resemblance to Yukimo and Fru, my past and present hamsters, was no mere coincidence. I wanted to have a virtual, pixelated representation of my love for white hammies online. Pet Society provided me with the perfect opportunity! ^___^ Everything about Tea Leaf reminds me of my hammies-- ahh, such love! I will admit that I went through an "adjustment period" where I kept changing the way Tea Leaf looked, but I eventually settled on the way she appears above.
Once I was happy with my pet, I moved onto other important business: designing my pet's house. I wanted to kick myself for not starting to play Pet Society a few months earlier, because I missed out on some great items. Thanks to some really close friends, I was gifted a lot of the kawaii items I now own. <3 These past couple of months have given me the chance to accumulate a ton of house items, as seen in the screen shots below.
My house currently has seven rooms, but these three rooms are the most developed ones at the moment. The first image displays Tea Leaf's main playroom-- hence, all the plushies! The second image shows Tea Leaf's bedroom (pink, of course). And the third image shows the kitchen. I'd still like to do a little more remodeling with the kitchen in the future, but I'm satisfied with its current appearance for now.
As I've mentioned on other online communities, I am very particular about how I do things on Pet Society. For example, while Tea Leaf's appearance changes from time to time, I'm extremely critical of what she wears. I usually don't like throwing together set items (since everyone else always does that; I like to stand out), so I like to coordinate items in different ways-- like according to color and/or theme. Also, I don't get every single new item that comes out. I mostly just buy things that appeal to me at first glance. Once I'm happy with more rooms, I may start buying items that will increase in value so I can start trading for rarer kawaii items. ^___^
All in all, I highly recommend playing Pet Society. It's available on both MySpace and Facebook, although I, myself, prefer using it on Facebook. It's a great way to socialize online; there are amazingly cute pets to make and play with; and there are new things (items, stores, etc.) released all the time.
In other Facebook news, I would like to introduce my new URL. Recently, Facebook allowed its users to create usernames for their accounts. I was going to go with my actual name, but after thinking about it, I realized that my name would be changing once I'm married. (Facebook isn't allowing people to change their URLs after the confirmation step.) Anyway, I went with the following URL:
There was a specific reason I chose this name, and I'll talk about that some other time! ^__~
I had some really great responses in my last post so I thought I'd do a follow-up post on how I've been spending my time since then. ^__^ Thanks to Virna's mention of Gaia Online, I decided to check out the site again. I had signed up for at least two accounts a few years ago, but I could never really get into the game concept. At the time, Gaia seemed more like an online community (something a bit slower than I was used to), rather than a game like Maple Story (which is more of an RPG).
Since my last rendezvous with Gaia Online, I've gained a little more experience with really studying sites. I have found that in order to really enjoy something online, I really have to jump into it-- full force. I signed up for a new account and before I knew it, I was in the deep end of Gaia's forums and avatar designing. That said, the character and concept of Momokii Heart was born. ^^
As noted above in my little story of Momokii Heart, I've gone into more depth with creating a background story for this virtual character of mine. Momokii Heart is extra special because her entire look reflects her background. I picked out a lot of rarer items to equip her with (which cost me a pretty penny), but they're all worth it. While Maple Story allows players to both design characters and then fight them to gain levels, Gaia immerses people in mostly the design aspects. I'm on a little hiatus from Maple Story and Gaia just feels right at the moment.
I have a few favorite things to do on Gaia. For one thing, visiting the towns is fun to no end. ^o^ Basically, I get to visit towns without having to download any type of programs or applications. (My computer is already equipped with Flash and JavaScript.) It's like visiting a chat room, only I get to speak with other people through Momokii Heart. In the towns, I get to visit other peoples' homes, and I get to take them back to my home if we want to just sit and chat one on one. I get to see time pass by as we talk by watching the lighting change. A gradience of light changes as it change from morning to night; it's fun seeing how time goes by in something virtual.
While I like visiting the forums every now and then (which is one of the biggest social experiences on Gaia), I really don't like participating too much there. I get really tired of the petty drama that goes on online, and I can't really seem to escape it-- whether I'm on a doll forum, or something like Gaia or Maple Story. Stuff like that is just a given, I guess.
I do, however, like checking out all the events that Gaia hosts. Right now, Momokii Heart is entered in an avatar contest in the Avatar Arena. It seems like she's in the top 500 right now (yay!) and I'm really rooting for her. I thought up the little story at the beginning of this post specifically for the contest, but I feel like ths story really fits Momokii. <3 If she wins, or even gets in the top ten avatars this week, my account gets a couple thousand gold. (*__*)
Another thing that I'm really liking about the "game" (er, community) is the currency. I hear a lot of complaints about the system when skimming through the forums, but I like how it's all arranged. Basically, almost every item can be bought using forum gold (gained anywhere from simply navigating through the site to playing games or entering contests), or bought by using my own money (which I can pay through with PayPal). Gold can buy items like clothes, pets (which are virtual plushies), furniture for a home, new skin colors and other miscellaneous things. I probably spend more on virtual clothes than my own clothes. *shuffles feet* I prefer it this way!
If anyone who comes across this post of mine is interested in joining up, feel free to let me know so I can send you an invite! If you accept an invite to Gaia, you can get a nice chunk of gold to start off with. (I tested this out, and it looks like an invited person can get at least 850 gold right off the bat.) Just leave me a comment letting me know that you're interested and I'll get in contact with you through a private message. ^^ If you're someone who isn't into games like Maple Story because you're not fond of the fighting monster part of it, then Gaia might be a nice alternative. It has to do more with being part of a community and customizing a character by playing around with cute items. Gaia is completely free, unless you decide you want to put your own money forward for some of the Gaia Cash Shop items. It's pretty awesome
I've been spending a lot of my free time playing "virtual" games lately. The latest one I'm hooked on right now is a combination of plush and virtuality: Littlest Pet Shop (LPS) Virtual Interactive Pets.
Shawn and I have been up to our necks with stress over buying new furniture and necessities for our new apartment, and while on our search for that stuff, I came across some incredibly adorable plushies with big eyes and pretty fabrics. I think the reason I was attracted so much to them was because of their big eyes and sweet faces. (Shawn said I have a thing for toys that are top heavy, haha.)
I first came across the LPS bunny when Shawn and I were at Kohl's a few weeks ago. I saw that there were more animals available so I started searching for them at the stores we went to. I immediately fell in love with the panda, and after noticing how rare it was in my area (I had only seen one in all the stores we visited), I snatched her up when I realized I couldn't live without her. Normally, I go for the pink plushies, but there's something about her dark oriental print that really draws me to her. I've named my panda Moshi Moshi (which can mean "hello" in Japanese in certain contexts).
Plushies aside, I found that I could delve even more into Moshi Moshi's world by visiting littlestpetshop.com to interact with her virtual character. I just plugged her special access code in the LPS: VIP system and Moshi Moshi's life started coming together.
Even though the games and plushie sales in general are geared more towards younger, teenage girls, I'm actually not that great at all of the activities, haha! In fact, Shawn had to help me out for a while until I got the hang of it. As I play more games, I gain more points to spend in the stores for clothes, furniture and plants for my garden.
There are some features I haven't accessed all of the features yet. There's an option where I can "meet" other people on LPS, but I'm thinking that I'll rawk out Moshi Moshi and her friend, Chiisai (a pink mouse) and their houses first so I won't look too silly in the LPS virtual world. ^__~
Chiisai (which means "small" in Japanese) is the newest addition to my LPS family. I looked up all of the plushies online, and I thought the mouse was very similar to Yukimo's build (tee hee). Of course, I couldn't resist.
This last Sunday, Shawn and I made it our mission to hunt down and find the mouse. I really didn't feel like ordering her online when I knew that at least one could be found in stores just a few miles away from me. >__> I think I have a kawaii sickness or something.
Anyway, we ended up finding Chiisai at the very first store (a Toys 'R Us) we went to, and there happened to be only one mouse on display. Just like Moshi Moshi, Chiisai was one of a kind for me.
I'm still working on building her wardrobe and room in my house.
Besides playing my newfound LPS love, I've been working on a new Maple Story character. Kathleen decided that she wanted to try playing on a new server, so our friend and I decided to try it out with her.
Now, I'm not a huge Harry Potter book fan (the writing style seems too simplistic and I get bored easily), but I do enjoy watching the movies. So when Kathleen said that she wanted to create a guild dedicated to Harry Potter characters, I was in. I would take a bullet for Luna Lovegood and Kathleen was nice enough to let me take that character while she took Nymphadora Tonks, and our friend taking Professor Moody. We had to think up names that sounded similar to the book characters, yet were original enough to enter into the MS system. As it turned out, Luna Lovegood became LunieLove; Nymphadora Tonks became NymphyTonks; and Professor Moody became MadMoodDood.
I don't think I'm as attached to LunieLove as my other MS characters (Minkka and Roonies), but it's been fun starting working on a character of such a low level. ^__^
I've also gotten into the routine of playing Animal Crossing after I finish my work shift every day. There's something extremely relaxing about sitting down and playing in a world that contains absolutely no worries. I can get money for my house's furniture just by collecting fruit around the village, and I can pay my mortgage at any pace I want. In fact, I don't even need to pay off my house if I don't want to! Living a simple virtual life is so much more enjoyable sometimes.
November has included one of my longest absences on Vox, and after all this time has passed, I'm starting to wonder what even happened to November. It was here and now it's almost gone.
I have a lot to catch up with and a lot to say, so I thought I'd sum up how my month has been going through a series of little snippets from my life. I feel like I often share huge chunks of my life at Vox, and switching a post around to a small medley of events might be fun for a change.
Kawaii design. I thought I'd start off by introducing my new banner. Kawaii (at) Vox (dot) com finally has a new look and feel to it. I've been struggling with what kind of banner I wanted my blog to have. I'm extremely picky and very obsessive over the appearance of my Vox. The content is important, yes, but the whole look of my personal space at Vox is just as essential as the rest of it. The usual routine for making and choosing a banner for my Vox usually consists of: having a photoshoot, editing old photos, experimenting with color schemes, finding fun brushes to use (if needed), and then either trashing the results or actually settling on using a banner. The entire process usually takes a couple of days. I don't like switching around my banner a lot, so whatever I decide on means that it will be around for a while. After a lot of work on this last banner, I finally decided on Kawaii Pink Medley:
I wanted to include a lot of the elements in my life, especially ones that I love right now. I figure that Lola the fawn stands for my plushies; Yukimo shows for my love (of Yukimo!) of pets; and Plum represents my adoration (for Plum!) for dollies. Being the narcissist that I am, I like including a photo of myself to kind of, I guess, represent my blog as a whole. (After all, I'm the voice, tee hee.)
The kitties. As I mentioned in a past post, Beth and I decided to keep our sister kitties. Falling in love with them took a little longer than usual-- a lot longer than it usually takes me to fall for a cat. Even though it took a while, the wait was worth it. Both Edgar (Ed) and Isis are pretty awesome companions, and although they're a little insane, I like their craziness around the apartment (sometimes). After all, unpredictability is priceless.
As much as I hate to admit it, Beth and I have had an easier time bonding with Ed. Even though the sisters were raised the same, Ed has a much more friendly personality, and she's a lot more willing to be happy. She's the only cat I know that will pur for no reason at all. I'll walk into a room and Ed will be purring so loudly that I can feel the floor shake.
Isis, on the other hand, has really stayed in her shell-- and not in a good way. An example of this is when I get up from the couch to go to the kitchen. I won't even be heading towards where Isis is laying down on the floor, yet she'll see me coming and run away and hide under the bed for hours. If I get up and go to the kitchen when Ed's around, she'll either follow me or affectionately rub against my legs. Beth and I are still giving Isis the same amount of attention as Ed, but it's hard having such an unfriendly kitty around the house, especially one that hates to be held and scratches. (I have some painful pieces of evidence on my stomach if there's any doubt about Isis.)
Despite their differences, Beth and I love Ed and Isis. It's great having built-in friends. ^__^ More of Ed and Isis can be seen in my My Kitties collection.
The work load. I wish I could say that the stress wasn't as much of a problem anymore, but to be completely honest, it's about the same. I've been working my butt off at school. On the days that I'm not in classes, I'm either working or doing schoolwork (projects, papers, presentations, etc.). On the days that I do go to school, I'm working in between the classes. This time of the year is always crazy, and this November is no exception.
Blog, blog, blog! One of the benefits of working and being a Professional and Technical Writing major is that I can have some fun by combining both worlds-- that of school and that of work. Throughout the semester, I've been doing a lot of interviews for papers and projects with fellow bloggers, friends and co-workers. Like a lot of the projects that I've chosen to do, one of the last projects I worked on focused on blogging. My Technical Writing professor assigned the class a huge project where each person had to write a technical description. I chose to focus my descripion on networking at Vox.
As long as I've been at Vox, I've noticed that a lot of the articles and people who help others expect the new people at Vox to be familiar with everything blogging has to offer. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. A lot of new Vox members are often unfamiliar with what blogging is and how it can be used as a networking tool. They sign up for an account but then never return because no one explains to them what they can do to get their blog "out there." Bloggers not only want to write, but they want to meet people and share their thoughts with them. Because of new members' lack of networking know-how, I decided to create a description on how people can get to know the ropes of Vox for networking uses, whether it be for social or business reasons. Some of the results can be seen here:
Here are little pieces of my project. The entire technical description was several pages long, but as long as it took to create, I found that I really had fun when I wrote this. I'm a huge fan of screen shots and creating tutorials for helping people, so I guess that's why this project didn't seem as painful as some of the other ones I've had to do. Plus, I was able to focus on a topic that I love: blogging!
I'm currently working on an article that involves many Voxers and their thoughts on blogging. The article is for my Creative Nonfiction for Publication class. I'm thinking about posting it here once I have it completed (which should be sometime later this week).
Mapling it up with gaming. So after my long days of work, work, work, I realized that I needed some sort of release. I resorted to one of my on and off obsessions: Maple Story. I decided to pick up where I left off with my very first character, Minkka. Instead of going out every weekend, I've been sitting in my cozy apartment, zoning out by playing MS and finally leveling Minkka to 50. *grin* I couldn't be happier with her level right now. MS is great for not only relaxing, but for socializing as well. A lot of my old online friends started to slowly come back to the game, and I've been able to get a lot of energy out just by chatting with them through the game.
... And when I "socialize" on MS, that also means that I'm spending money on making my character super kawaii. I hate to admit it but I've spent a good chunk of change on Minkka-- her appearance, her accessories, and her pet(s). This last round of playing has resulted in a lot more clothes for Minkka. (I decided to go pink this time.) Her outfit includes: the Starry Pink Beanie, the Pink Sunglasses, the Pink Camo Hoodie, the Brown Plaid Pants, the Pink Ogg Boots, the Heart Tattoo Gloves, the Bunny Doll Cape, and the Seal Pillow Weapon.
The above screen shot shows Minkka in action: kicking some Master Chronos ass by using her Holy Arrow power.
My month. November has been a long month. The main thought that's keeping me going at this point is the middle of December-- when all of my classes end and some of the stress is gone. I'm so pumped for the holidays and my birthday right now. As much as I hate to admit it, I love this time of the year.
I've learned my lesson. I already knew that I wasn't a person who loved to socialize in big groups, but for some reason, I sometimes try too hard to make other people happy... which leads me to do things I know I'm uncomfortable with.
Shawn and I have been dating for almost five years now, and he's sacrificed a lot for me, including time he could spend with other people. Because of this, I've been trying to balance our time alone and the time we spend with other people. We both easily get annoyed with most people (it's true), but he's trying really hard to fit in and do well at his internship-- so part of this means socializing with other interns. Unfortunately, the other interns are party people. They love to go out every night, whether it's a work night or a Friday night, and they love to come back absolutely smashed. Shawn and I just aren't into this scene. I think part of Shawn wants to be, only because he feels left out when the others go out and we stay in. I'm a very introverted person, so the idea of going out with a huge group of mostly drunk people just isn't appealing to me, however, making Shawn happy with his job and his friends means a lot to me. I want him to be happy and to feel comfortable around those he has to work with on a daily basis. Basically, for the past three weeks, I've been trying to sacrifice more of my time to give a little more to our relationship. Plus, that gives me more excuses to spend time with him, even if that means having other people around.
Week 1: There's a nice volleyball court right on campus, so the interns like to go out and play every now and then. I really love playing volleyball, and I know Shawn does, too, so we've joined them a couple of times. Since I hadn't played volleyball in a few years, and because I was no longer up against scrawny high school kids, I wasn't used to the amount of force that goes into hitting and bumping the ball. Before I knew it, my arms were sore, bruised, full of broken blood vessels, and almost unusable. I stayed there, playing, because I'm used to getting a little sore in sports. Sometimes it just takes a few bruises to have some fun, and I don't mind a little pain once in a while-- after all, I was getting exercise. My arms were like that for the rest of the week.
Week 2: I guess I didn't take the hint from the previous week. My arms had actually healed by the next Sunday, so Shawn, his roommate, Nick, and I went to do some simple practice bumps outside-- no harm done. This other guy decided to bust out of nowhere and ask if he could play with us. Because we had four people, we figured we would be able to play a small game instead of practicing. After about an hour of playing, I checked my arms to make sure they weren't too beaten up this time. That's when I noticed how something with my hand looked out of place. My knuckle and wrist areas on my right hand was completely swollen and a bone looked twisted in an unnatural way. I immediately called Mom to see what I should do. (Having both parents in the medical field is extremely helpful at times.) Within the next half hour, I was at the Emergency Room at the local hospital getting X-rays and getting a splint put onto my hand. The doctor said I hadn't dislocated or fractured my finger/hand, but it was probably sprained. I ended up taking two days off of work (since I couldn't type) to let my hand heal, and I felt bad about leaving my team with extra work, so I took off my splint two days early. It's healed pretty well since then!
Week 3: Even though Shawn and I had been out with his friends playing volleyball, he still felt a little left out when it came to the weekends-- when all of the interns head out to the bars. I told him I'd go along and hang out with them (since he's always done that for me when I'm with my friends in the past) when they went out on Saturday. I never go outside of what I feel comfortable with as far as alcohol goes, so I only had a little drink after we ate at a restaurant. The night pretty much included: waiting for over an hour for a taxi to pick us up, eating a dinner when I was already too full, going to a bar to watch the interns play drinking games, a boat ride on a polluted river, and then randomly stopping into a club. Finally, we were able to do what I wanted to do: go home and rest. About and hour after Shawn and I went to sleep, we found out we had food poisoning. We were sick for the rest of the night and morning. It was one of the worst nights I've ever had.
I've learned my lesson. As much as I like to make Shawn happy, I'll just let him do his own thing on his own time, and I can join him when I know we'll have fun in a type of way that I'm comfortable with. I've known for years that I'm not a party girl. I love my time spent inside, on the computer, reading a book, watching a movie, or just... relaxing. Going out for a bunch of drinks to the point where I won't remember what happened the previous night just isn't me. Even though I always stayed within my own personal limitations and tried to have fun in a more sociable way, I realized that I'm so much more content not doing any of that stuff at all. I love the quiet and the simple.
Since my three weeks of revelation, I've been taking every day as easy as possible. I fell back into playing Maple Story, which I've come to rely on yet again for relaxation. I've been buying new little outfits for Roonies, which you can see throughout this post. She also has a new friend-- her pet yeti! I've named him Meep (a word that I fell in love with because of my friend, Misty), and he's pretty awesome to have around to train. One night, after playing Maple Story, Beth and I were too awake to go to bed. We stayed up to six in the morning, talking about how we weren't happy with our living situation. The people (mostly students) in our apartment are too obnoxious, and we've been harassed with people ringing our doorbell while we sleep. We're tired of the immature people on campus, so we've decided to look for another building in the area instead. The location may not be as ideal, but we'll be happier in a quieter place with a little more room than this building provides us. We started our apartment hunting today, and we already have a person interested in subleasing the apartment we live in right now.As if that didn't make life a little more complicated, I just found out that I'll be taking on more hours for work. My schedule will be changing, and I'm looking into going full-time for the rest of vacation. Even what I'll be doing for work will be changing in extreme ways, so I'm a little anxious to see how the next few weeks go with possibly moving and more work.
I feel like such an adult.
I just started playing Maple Story again last night. I had to stop for a while because the game started to consume the majority of my life during the summer. I'm glad to still have my favorite character, Minkka, with me after my somewhat long hiatus. <3
One day, I had to step back and look at how much I actually remembered: reality vs. computer life. The answer was scary so I stopped, cold turkey. I honestly don't think that was a good idea, now that I think about it. My guild depended on me and I just stopped showing up altogether. Kathleen mentioned them asking about me, as well as some of my other friends, and I just didn't want to disappoint them. Yes, it was cowardly of me. I just hate disappointing people... yet that's what I ended up doing in the end.
Anyway. I decided to sign on last night so I could renew all of my NX cash clothing and accessories that expired. I was a little disappointed to find that there were hardly any new items to choose from. I was sure that a ton of new NX items would be added since I'd been gone so long but I guess it actually slowed down instead. I chose the same combination of items as I always do, just because so many people know me by my look. I'll take new screen shots some other time.
Oh, and I used the Water of Life Elixir to bring Milk back from being a doll. She's a peachy as ever.
I'll try to update more on my Maple adventures, mwa ha.
