Author: aabicus

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Player Housing: WoW vs. FFXIV

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World of Warcraft has recently made waves in the gaming sphere by finally adding housing! Arguably one of the most requested features since the game first released in 2004, it’s crazy to see it finally come to light 22 years later. And even more exciting, it is (by all accounts) quite good! I’ve heard nothing but glowing reviews from those who got to sample the closed beta or PTR version, though I myself have kept my sub suspended for my own productivity. But Blizzard, perhaps anticipating the recalcitrance of fair-weather gamers such as myself, has cleverly offered a free weekend… [Continue Reading]

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How to Hit More Shots in Call of Cthulhu

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One of the reasons combat builds aren’t recommended in Call of Cthulhu is that the odds are pretty much always stacked against you, even in the areas you’ve specced yourself out to excel. A starting character cannot have more than 75% in any given stat, meaning even if you max yourself out in something (which, let’s be real, is a gigantic stake of skillpoints to expend on a single skill), you’re still gonna fail a quarter of the time! And nowhere is this more visible then when your “WWI veteran sniper” constantly misses more shots than a member of The A-Team.… [Continue Reading]

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My Cat’s Gaming Killcount

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Five years ago, Sydney and I adopted a ragdoll named Bean who has quickly eclipsed both of us as the owner of the house. What few cats my family had in my childhood were aloof outdoor loners, so Bean was my first real experience with just how affectionate and loving a cat can be. It’s incredible how many different emotions and personality quirks she has, and she’s become far and away one of the best parts of my life since she entered it. Even when she sits on my keyboard in the middle of a high-stakes gaming moment, I can’t… [Continue Reading]

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What’s the BEST Commoner You Can Make in D&D 5e?

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This is the sort of dumbass question I love to wrap my head around instead of interacting with my hobbies in an even remotely normal way. Meet the Commoner. Has to be probably the saddest statblock you ever did see. Zeroes in every ability, no skills or proficiencies, a single weapon and its the worst one in the game… D&D 5e has a pretty sorry opinion on the most basic building block of any medieval setting. While there are plenty of things to say about the developers’ rather reductive attitude towards a group of historically quite hardy individuals (I bet… [Continue Reading]

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The Sentimentality of Pokémon X/Y

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The other day I was scrolling through my Pokémon Home account looking at all my old Elite Four teams. I’ve played every generation of Pokémon (though Red was a bit of an oddball run), and almost every member of my final teams survived the various transitions into modern day. My original goal, in my nostalgic boredom, was to choose the most sentimental “companion” mon of each team, the one I bonded most with and remember the quickest and most fondly. And indeed, I was able to identify one pretty much every time. Until I got to Pokémon Y,  a game that… [Continue Reading]

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Bullet-jump everywhere, to heck with the consequences!
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My 5 Favorite Mobility Tools in Gaming

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Way back in 2010, Valve gave Portal away for free and it became the first game I ever owned on Steam. Ever since then, mobility shooters have remained my favorite genre in gaming, from PvE/singleplayer games like Quake and Warframe to PvP games like Loadout, Apex Legends and Rocket Arena. (I even made my own in college!) Also known as ‘arena shooters’ to differentiate them from ‘tactical shooters’ like CS:GO and Red Crucible Reloaded, I love their focus on parkour, explosive jumping, aerial control, and general physics abuse in every way the players can find. I’ve spent hours on empty… [Continue Reading]

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How to Not Die in Call of Cthulhu

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This is a sister article to my previous on mitigating Sanity loss, and equally not-recommended because dying horribly should be the expectation (not the exception) in Call of Cthulhu. The whole point is that your characters are delving into things mankind is neither supposed nor equipped to know, and the system is built to run your party ragged and then spit them out as chewed-up gibbering husks. That’s half the fun! However, I’m not gonna pretend there aren’t ways to spec your character out for a bit more survivability than the average joe. I checked the internet to see if… [Continue Reading]

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Mitigating Sanity Loss in Call of Cthulhu

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If there’s one mechanic most people know about the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG system, it’s that investigators have a tendency to go insane and die from witnessing eldritch horrors and learning horrific truths mankind was never meant to know. It’s practically a selling point, I know that was the primary reason I excitedly leapt into my first ever campaign back in undergrad. If you for whatever reason are worried about your player character dying a horrible premature death before you were done playing them, this sadly is probably not the right system for you. But to those people, I wholeheartedly encourage… [Continue Reading]

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My First Day in Sea of Thieves

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Sea of Thieves has been on my radar for ages, not just because Retvik’s written multiple articles about the memorable adventures she’s experienced as a member of SPUFer Bacxaber’s crew. I’d also heard great things from multiple sources from very diverse gaming interests, and at least 2-3 different people on my friends list are in-game at any given point across the last 5+ years, which is usually a very good sign regarding the quality of a title. But still, I dragged my feet on wading in myself, and I’m not quite sure why. It might have been how many people… [Continue Reading]

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World of Peacecraft: The Neutral Pandaren Lifestyle

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In both of my previous WoW articles, I claimed to have played only two characters for my entire on-and-off history with the game. This is essentially true, since the druid is Alliance and the warlock is Horde and that means I can interact with every part of the world between the pair. I’ve never really felt any urge to make more characters since leveling is my least-favorite part of the game. The only thing that ever tempted me to make a third character was learning about a specific quirk through which a player could theoretically reach max level without ever… [Continue Reading]

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