3 posts tagged “virtual”
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.
