I haven’t been playing much lately due to a massive amount of work and also some odd problems with my hands. It may be carpal tunnel (what gamer doesn’t have a touch of carpal?), but it came on very suddenly a couple of weeks ago. Initially it felt like I’d sprained the ring and little fingers on each hand -possibly from the damned cover or vault action in The Division- but now I feel as though I have a pair of broken lumps for hands. Not great for an artist or a gamer.
The Division has been irking me a bit because of the massive amount of cheaters and hackers in the Dark Zone. Seriously, what fun is that, either for the poor saps playing the game honestly, or the guy on God Mode who is teleporting and untouchable by anyone? Bah, no point until they address that.
As a result I’ve been levelling horses in Black Desert. I’ve always wanted an MMO that allowed you to tame wild horses, train them, breed them and train and sell the foals…a bit like a grownup version of a horse game. I adore this. The RNG is horrific, as you kind of expect in an Asian MMO, and some of the colours are…well, see for yourself:
My first attempt resulted in a blueberry mare with pink mane and white tail. My second attempt resulted in Greenbean, my green hulk horse. Meh. Phil (ever the lucky bastard in every game we play) bred his horses once and got a stunning golden palomino mare with white mane and tail and white feathers on the legs.
Levelling horses for breeding actually takes a lot of work, albeit afk work as the horses autoloop for hours and days. I am working right now with the soporific sound of galloping hoofbeats in the background, tah-dum, tah-dum, tah-dum. I’ve learned to never just leave it running while I go elsewhere, as the horse will automagically die for some reason, even if on a loop that has been working safely for hours.
So, I am currently playing a game by proxy by letting it afk loop. This is what we have come to. :)