Mystic Worlds

Star Citizen - Separating My Personas

I recently concluded that I want more than one character in the game, something for which there's no mechanic. I do have a second account. However, ships belong to a specific account, and there are no features for moving items between them other than the Gift System, which comes with restrictions that prevent me from shifting the ships I want to move. Moreover, after they've been gifted once, I wouldn't be able to move them back if I decided to stick to my primary account. The ships would be permanently stuck where they were moved.

Given that there's no game mechanic to assist me, you only have a single character associated with an account; I'll have to be creative.

I came up with the idea to use the recently introduced localized inventory system. I'll shift the ships, outfits, and accessories related to Bounty Hunting and Mining to MicroTech's Port Tressler.  Even though I seem to encounter more space combat missions in Hurston, that may be due to having more reputation and therefore more quests in general in that vicinity. Tressler is more for mining on celestials that have the minerals that were profitable before the introduction of Quantanium. Due to the volatility, additional mining equipment required, the go-boom timer associated with storing the cargo after extraction, and the possibility of turning into a ball of flames while landing, I don't find mining Quantanium a relaxing experience. I view mining as fishing, making Quantanium the opposite of what I'm looking for.  I also prefer to conduct mining operations away from the popular Arial to ARC-L1 corridor to reduce pirating encounters. At the moment, the risk is minimal with low server populations but that won't always be the case. I choose to operate today for the expected level of threat in the future.

Simple Pleasures in Star Citizen

A Gamer's Musings are brief random thoughts about whatever I'm playing at the moment. These days it happens to be Star Citizen. I left New World once it became clear, that to have any hope of participating in the territory wars which are part of the end-game content, would necessitate a ferocious grind. Coupled with the RNG crafting outcome, it wasn't where I wanted to spend my time. I exited New World as one of only three released Triple-A MMOs designed for North America, where I bailed before at least hitting max level. New World joins the ranks of Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, and Wildstar.

I've returned to playing Star Citizen for the past couple of weeks. My current availability and desire to game happens two to three evenings during the week and perhaps a bit on Saturday. Travel time, missions scarcity, and preparation being what they are, I can only accomplish a small amount of progression in a gaming session that's under two hours. Compared to other MMOs, the time it takes to get things done is considerably longer in Star Citizen. Regardless, of the things I enjoy doing, it's definitely an entertaining distraction from the real world.

I spend my time rotating between doing simple PVE Bounty Hunting missions. I haven't paid too much attention to the reputation of the various factions. Given my limited playing time, I grab whatever bounty missions are closest. Because I do them infrequently, I'm not earning much reputation when spread across each faction. Subsequently, I mostly receive what are called Very Low and Low-Risk Target offerings. They're minimal threat targets, flying light fighters with small payouts between 4K to 6K. On the plus side, I'm getting used to combat and the updated flight model using my single-seater, the Aegis Sabre.

Casual Citizen Season 2 Episode 4 - The Long Goodbye

It's been a minute since the last episode of Casual Citizen and Night Bus, even though most of the content was completed when I started. The game commentary is no longer relevant but I do want to release the fiction so that it stops sitting on my mind, and I can either continue it immediately or pick up other stories I've since started. I have to compose new commentary which there are things that easily come to mind given that I've been playing a bit of Star Citizen lately.

Episode 4 discusses the recently release Origin 400i and the next installment for Pod City, The Long Goodbye. You can take your pick of listening on SoundCloud, iTunes, or YouTube to see in-game visuals. Whatever you choose, I hope you enjoy the show.

SHOW LINKS

• Jenn's GoFundMe Page
  
• YouTube Video version
  
• SoundCloud Audio Only
• iTunes Playlist
• Amazon Music Playlist

Medical Game Play in Alpha 3.16

Medical gameplay is one of the professions I'm interested in doing in Star Citizen. At least, I thought it was but I'm not so sure now. I'm realizing that my vision of it was more like how it plays out in The Sims, where patients arrive for treatment and I engage in a mini-game to deduce the malady based on symptoms and attempt to determine the right treatment. What we have in Star Citizen, as it stands today, is that the game detects the illness and applies the correct remedy.

When a character materializes into the game for the first time, they choose a home city. Unless you state otherwise, that's also the city you're returned to when you die. The hospitals, of course, look really nice. The facilities have actual treatment rooms with beds and all the accouterments of a doctor's office. There's a reception area that looks plausible, gurneys in the hallways, and NPC staff meandering about. There's a pharmacy where players can purchase portable medical devices such as the Medpen, as well as the ParaMed from CureLife, a professional-grade emergency medical device designed to stabilize patients until they can be taken to a hospital or ship with a Medbay.

When you die, you wake up in a hospital room, laying on the bed in a dressing gown. Anything you were wearing or carrying is gone, as it remains with your corpse. You can attempt to retrieve your items using the map marker provided but that's only if someone else doesn't loot it all first.

Yep, Star Citizen has full corpse looting now.

Depending on the extent of your injuries, party members can stabilize you - bring you back to consciousness using the ParaMed gun or transport you to the hospital or a MedBay. In this way, you don't lose any of your items. Since the ParaMed only stabilizes you, you must visit a hospital or MedBay at some point to have the actual injury cured, and as a result, remove whatever debuffs it applies.

The Return to Star Citizen

A combination of winter, work stresses, the family spread across 3 states now, and Jenn's health crisis has left me feeling rather blue at times. We were all anxious to kick 2021 in the butt. However, nothing could have prepared us for the crisis mode we'd be in entering 2022. While always endeavoring to remain hopeful and manage what's within our control, I'm in desperate need of my time away from it all.

Nothing removes me from the present pressure-cooker like gaming, specifically, MMOs. And not one to game hop, I'm returning to Star Citizen, the game I hope to call home for years to come.

Can Star Citizen Alpha 3.16 deliver enough variety and entertainment in the current alpha state? I'm about to find out.

The ability to escape into my own brand of fun is why I mostly solo MMOs. It's a time when I don't want to care about what anyone else wants. Where, what, when, and how of others is mostly off the table, especially during the week. And I definitely, without exception, am not interested in hearing some random player's voice coming out of my speakers. I enjoy being among but not with other gamers when I'm decompressing. Social gaming is what weekends are for in my world. Of the game-play that Star Citizen has to offer at the moment, I'm most inclined to mine, do FedEx-type deliveries, and NPC bounties. The latter two offer opportunities to gain reputation standing with the various NPC factions.

I'll likely rotate among the content as the mood strikes me. For now, I'm starting in ArcCorp, the planet-sized mega-city so that I can do the rooftop deliveries that seem to be more readily available there. Setting up your base of operations immediately requires that you consider the physicalized inventory and medical system available in 3.16. It also adds a lot of roleplay/depth to your decisions.

Given that you're character is limited to the inventory, including the ships, you have stored in a given area, planning ahead is a good idea.

After selecting ArcCorp as my home planet, I elected to establish my base of operation at the orbital station. Baijini Point is a Trade Hub Space Station in geostationary orbit around ArcCorp, located above Area18. I elected to start looking for missions, which are regional, from that location. Additionally, I decided to mine on Arial, a moon of ArcCorp, with refining operations at ARC-L1. Officially named Wide Forest Station, ARC-L1, is a Rest & Relax owned Rest Stop located in ArcCorp's L1 Lagrangian point.

Life, New World and Star Citizen

LIFE

We're about to see if Star Citizen is at a point where it can stand up as a casually played MMO. I need something! MMOs are where I escape for a little while to decompress, exhale and have fun adventures, and I'm desperately in need of that now. Even now, when I see a picture of my daughter in the hospital, she looks - normal. It doesn't look like she's in a fight for her life, but she is.

2021 sucked for a whole lot of us due to life being life and COVID. Unfortunately, it was really tough for my youngest daughter, who is my middle child. She's battled autoimmune disorders for the past few years but felt like she was declining toward the last quarter of 2021. Numerous doctor visits where no one seemed to care much beyond, it's probably stress, so yielded no help. Then within the course of three weeks, she went completely blind in her left eye and started experiencing muscle weakness down the same side of her body. It took stumbling on one doctor, a referral from my optometrist for someone in the medical profession to give a damn. You'd think someone going blind is a normal thing for all anyone cared.

Getting Plasma Treatments Just before Christmas

Due to this one hero, she was immediately admitted to a hospital he trusted even though he doesn't practice there. She's been diagnosed with NMO, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the central nervous system, eyes, and brain. They tried everything they could but it was too late to do anything for her left eye so focused on retaining vision in her right which was experiencing symptoms. The full story and updates are on her GoFundMe page. She's self-employed so you know what that means if you live in the US - bills and loss of income are your own problem. If you're able and feel inclined, this is her GoFundMe that I'm managing on her behalf.

GAMING

I arrived at gaming, particularly MMOs when I was diagnosed with cancer. I had three small children at home, while I was being cared for 45-minutes away. Desperate to find something to occupy my mind in between surgeries I found online games and latched on, as a way to share experiences with my children at a distance. In case the worst happened, I didn't want tears to be the last memories we shared. I wrote them each a book of poetry and wrote individual letters. I wanted them to be certain of how much I loved them - not assume, presume, wonder. The strange tricks our minds play on us after a tragedy. They would have it in black and white. God is good. I survived, have remained cancer-free, and gaming became a staple of our lives.

I turned nieces, nephews, best friend's kids all into hardcore gamers, of the MMO variety. And since that very first MMO, Asheron's Call 2, we've played every triple-A MMO developed for North America together through Guild Wars 2. We even played a couple of imports such as Tera and ArcheAge. Through high school, college, and beyond. The girls and I played Don't Starve Together as well. My illness formed a bond with gaming to have shared virtual experiences that persisted 20+ years later. It doesn't matter where we individually live, we game together.

They game less now that they have careers and families, as do I owed to a demanding profession but talking about games never ends. Did you see this trailer? Hey, I heard about this, that or the other remains. We're also very close as a family. I text or speak to my children every day - literally, every day at least text messages are exchanged.

THE ESCAPE

I've been searching for a new MMO home for a long time. No matter how often I've tried, I can't return to World of Warcraft. I own every expansion and never make it past a few levels, and yet I buy them hoping the magic will return for me. My son and nephew tried to corral us all back into WOW Classic but after watching the beta and remembering the effort and time commitment, not a single one of us returned retained an interest. With all that's going on, I need something to play.

I've been looking forward to New World, Ashes of Creation, and Star Citizen as my MMO swan songs. Large scale MMOs are far and few that aren't built around cash shops can become contentious. New World being funded by Amazon Games seemed like a good possibility. And I wasn't too far off. The game world, combat, animations, and extensive crafting are really great. However, the random mechanics around crafted attributes and the watermark grind for gear is a no for me. Toward the last stretch, it sucked out my enthusiasm. There was no reasonable way to get the gear need to participate in the end game so I exited. I might game a couple of hours every few days. I need something that supports casual but rewarding progression.

The jury is still out on Ashes of Creation. However, as it stands today, I'm not of fan of animations or combat. I backed the game a  couple of years ago so we'll have to wait and see. That leaves me with Star Citizen. The MMO I'm most excited about even though my concerns over the game's progress have increased as the years go by. I don't have any doubts that they're attempting in good faith to build the game they promised. I am, however, concerned that they've become too enamored with crafting a universe more than the game itself. After all these years, not a single one of the half-dozen player professions I backed via ship pledges has even hit tier 0 implementation but two are on the horizon.

STAR CITIZEN

The infancy of passenger transport is estimated to arrive in Q1 2022. Ship refueling and hacking are getting air time. The glorious space bazaar, the Banu Merchantman, is in production. For a player who only does combat out of necessity and never does FPS, is there enough content in Star Citizen to support it being my primary MMO? Well, I'm about to find out.

I'm not into surfing games or hopping around. My enjoyment comes from the progression of a character through a well-conceived world. And while I am baffled by the lack of content, that to me, seems like missed opportunities using the assets and mechanics currently in the game, only CIG knows why that is. But since is the game that I planned to be the last man standing, I'm going to see how it fits today.

I'd like to say that I'm going to get Casual Citizen Season 2 in the can. It's sad really. Two stories have been finished for months and the final story only needs the last 25% edited but the way my life feels at the moment, it's a bridge too far.

Jenn, my daughter who's ill, lives within walking distance. I began spending more time with them as her health went into decline. I take kids for the weekend more often to give their parents a break and some alone time. They both work a lot of hours. The stress of that, COVID, the decision to home-school their children to keep them safe, both of whom are autistic, and her undiagnosed health issues were wearing on their relationship. Everyone at their wit's end, and now this.

They've united around this tragedy but it's hard and it's heartbreaking. When I have precious time for me, I have to do what gives me some relief, and gaming evolved into my preferred form of entertainment. Oh, and yes, I was diagnosed with Graves' Disease several months back. So when I say 2021 can fuck all the way off, I mean that with a vengeance.