Galactrix

An Expansive Month

Summer is on the way. With expansions and relaunches dominating the month, what’s going to be hot in June?

During May, a lot of things seemed to be either coming to the end of their run or launching something new.

On TV, most of the main series I’m currently watching are coming to the end of their seasons. With them ending all at the same time, I’m going to have to find new things to watch over the summer while I wait for all those cliffhangers to be resolved.

Similarly in the world of gaming, the penultimate episode of Living World Season 3 was released in Guild Wars 2. The story plots running throughout the season culminated in some pretty exciting reveals and twists, leaving me eagerly waiting for the season finale.

New releases also dominated the month, with the Morrowind expansion arriving for players with early access in The Elder Scrolls Online. Also, a brand new Parenthood game pack was revealed and then fully launched for The Sims 4. Continue reading “An Expansive Month”

Take a Trip to Vvardenfell

Visit the island of Vvardenfell, meet some dark elves, see Red Mountain and have a grand adventure… nothing could go wrong, right?

Morrowind, the first expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online has arrived for PC/Mac players eligible for early access, which includes people who have pre-ordered the Digital Upgrade and Digital Collector’s Edition Upgrade. The expansion launches for everyone else and console players on 6 June 2017.

As soon as the servers came back online after patching, I jumped in to the game and decided to create a brand new character for exploring Morrowind and the new Warden class. Continue reading “Take a Trip to Vvardenfell”

April Showers Bring Forth May Flowers

It’s the end of the month again, so I recap things that happened in April 2017.

I still feel like a total blogging newbie, despite this being the ninth month that the blog has been up and running. I’m finding it useful to take a moment at the end of a month and look back at the stuff that happened.

This month, I’ve mainly been playing The Sims 4, but I’ve also started dipping my feet back into MMOs with a few sessions of The Elder Scrolls Online and The Secret World. On Twitch I’ve been watching streams about Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and Secret World Legends, as well as binge watching TV shows. Continue reading “April Showers Bring Forth May Flowers”

Plants Are People Too

PlantSims begin to appear around the neighbourhood in The Sims 4 for a new limited time challenge event.

I’d heard about challenge events happening in The Sims 4, but as I’ve only recently started playing it, I haven’t seen one before. But today I launched the game and got the announcement that the PlantSim Challenge has begun.

Challenges are events where you’re set a particular goal to complete within a timeframe, such as growing a certain number of special fruits or completing a special collection. I like how The Sims 4 isn’t just a static game – it receives regular patches from the developers and sometimes new experiences are patched in to keep things fresh.

I’ve read about previous challenges, such as the Day of the Dead Challenge and the Growfruit Challenge and was intrigued, wondering if I’d get a chance to try them if they were repeated someday. The PlantSim Challenge started on 13 April 2017 and lasts until 4 May 2017, and I believe this is a brand new event that hasn’t happened before. Continue reading “Plants Are People Too”

The Idling of March

Time has marched on and I took a break from MMOs this month to focus on single player gaming.

Everything feels like it was put on hold during March, compared to how active I was across a spectrum of games back in February. I had speculated that at this point, I’d be deep into playing Mass Effect: Andromeda, but instead I picked up The Sims 4 and became hooked.

I haven’t really been up to much recently other than playing with my sims, but I did manage to pop into The Elder Scrolls Online for their new Jester’s Festival annual event and sat back and watched as forums and social media exploded when news about The Secret World’s impending relaunch were revealed… Continue reading “The Idling of March”

Welcome Back To The Neighbourhood

The lives of a new generation of virtual people has become my obsession, after I picked up The Sims 4 during the anniversary sale.

I’ve loved playing The Sims since its first iteration back in the year 2000. The game is all about virtual people, known as sims, who live out their lives and are controlled by you. You can choose to be benevolent and try to keep the sims happy by fulfilling their wants and needs, or be malevolent and make their lives a living hell.

2017 is the 17th anniversary of The Sims franchise, and so the publisher decided to have an anniversary sale. It’s been a long time since I last played a Sims game, and so the opportunity to grab The Sims 4 at a massive discount was too good to miss. Continue reading “Welcome Back To The Neighbourhood”

The Shortest Month, But Action Packed

February has flown by, but looking back over the last few weeks it appears to have been quite a busy month.

It may be the shortest month of the year, but February seems to have been full of events and new content releases in the world of massively multiplayer online games that I play.

There’s been an anniversary in Star Trek Online, player housing introduced in The Elder Scrolls Online, new Valentine’s themed store items and a limited-time challenge in The Secret World, the continuation of the Living World story in Guild Wars 2, and most surprisingly… revamped misbehaving cowboy robots in Champions Online. Continue reading “The Shortest Month, But Action Packed”

Like Gravity

A limited-time challenge in The Secret World gives you the chance to grab a pair of high-tech gravity skates.

Just when you’ve set aside The Secret World for a while due to an ongoing content drought, they find a way to entice you back into the fold, at least for a limited time…

The gravity skates look awesome, and are a new sprint customisation you can acquire by completing any 35 challenges before 19 March 2017. The challenge period began on Valentine’s Day, so that’s over a month of time to obtain the skates, doing at least one challenge per day and having weekly challenges make up any slack. Continue reading “Like Gravity”

Homestead Is Where The Hearth Is

My house in The Elder Scrolls Online is starting to look homely.

The Homestead update in The Elder Scrolls Online allows your characters to own housing and craft furniture. After a week of owning a property, I’m appreciating how nice it feels to have a place to call home in the quiet moments between adventuring. Continue reading “Homestead Is Where The Hearth Is”

Year of the Rooster

It’s the start of a whole new year! Here’s what I’ve been up to during January.

We’re a month into 2017, but the lunar new year just started. It’s the Year of the Rooster, and Guild Wars 2 is celebrating with its annual lunar new year event in Divinity’s Reach. But I’ve also spent some time in a few other games throughout January, including The Elder Scrolls Online, The Secret World and even Star Trek Online… Continue reading “Year of the Rooster”