#I'magamer
I am a lifelong geek. After getting introduced by my auntie to an ancient handheld Donkey Kong Game&Watch, I got my first superNES when I was 10, playing the hell out of Zelda, Plok and Mario Kart. Then my grandma gifted me a Nintendo gameboy for my 12th birthday with Tetris and Pokemon. Kirby, Duck Tales, Yoshi, Wario, … I befriended them all. Whilst growing up, I spent most of my summer holidays spending all my saved up coins in our coastline’s “lunaparks” (arcade game halls). Pretty sure there’s a Street Fighter machine in some danky wet cellar that still holds my top score!
Then we got our first family PC, epic dial-up connection and everything. My student chambers at uni consisted of 1 mattress, 1 food rack full of cocktail sausage cans and a small TV with a Playstation II. And I was SO content. After that, things kind of derailed. I got a job, money to spend and what follows is a succession of gaming PC’s, X-boxes, a Wii with guitar hero and a long history of gaming addictions. But for the past decade, I seem to be completely satisfied with my two go-to mmo, my favourite hell franchise and a 25-year old game called Neopets.
THE MOST RECENT E-PEEN POSTS
[BDO] Suma’s Terrmian Top 3
[BDO] The Sakura Institute for Waifu
[BDO] Vixxie’s Cribs: Heidel
[BDO] Vixxie’s yearbook full of memories
[BDO] Vixxie’s blessed and snowy Yule
[BDO] Vixxie’s Haunted Halloween
[BDO] Vixxie writes a ghostly Halloween story
[BDO] Vixxie cracks the Mistery Puzzle
[BDO] Vixxie’s summer holiday at the Terrmian Beach
WORLD: OFF. GAME: ON.
When Vixxie becomes Sumanhi.
SUMA? WHO THE F* IS SUMA? OR LOA?
In the Blizzard universe, Sumanhi is a night elf restoration druid in World of Warcraft. Having played alliance for so many years before the faction merge, the grass on the horde side seemed greener, and Suma traded her blue gilded lion tabard for a Zandalari Troll called Loa. In Diablo III & IV, she turns into a bloodthirsty wizard, part time witch doctor & necromancer.
In Black Desert Online, Sumanhi is a kick ass witch with a small arsenal of alts. 21 of them at softcap level, to be to be precise – pretty much one of each class. That sounds like a fulltime job but unlike other games, in BDO, alts and gear are basically interchangeable. So it doesn’t require days consisting of 72 hours to play them all. Suma is a horse breeder, knowledge hunter, housing guru and a very annoying pacifist in a world full of open world pvp.
I’ve also dipped my toes into Tera, Elder Scrolls Online and Lost Ark, but I didn’t really get stuck into any of those. During lunch breaks and whilst on public transport, Suma collects, grooms, levels and snuggles her Neopets and their petpets. When I’m not in reach of a PC, I’m most likely sleeping with the cats.
BLACK DESERT ONLINE
“BDO is an open-world, action MMORPG set in a realistic medieval fantasy world where you can experience intense, action-packed combat, fight alongside friends to siege castles, and train in professions such as fishing, trading, crafting, cooking, …!”
But the one things that drew me in and kept me hooked is the shear beauty of the game. Even on the lowest of the low settings, which is what my former 7 year old gaming PC could muster at that time, the game scenery is simply breath-taking. A lot of hours have been spent making screenshots and scrapbooking together wonderful memories made. Reaching the highest tier bracket is a process that spans several years, but fortunately they have a very alt friendly approach where most gear is easily transferred so unless you have a die hard main character, dabbling on alts and clearing lower tier content is still incredibly satisfying. Unlike other games such as WOW, where a new alts are complete wet noodles that require a lot of help from friends to get to a certain playable level, alts in BDO are basically ready to go after leveling up. And best of all? I can take a two month break, come back and still feel relevant.
WORLD OF W-WHAAAT?
“WoW is an online roleplaying game where players from around the world assume the roles of heroic fantasy characters like elves, trolls, orcs and dwarves…. and explore a virtual world full of magic and endless adventure.”
I’ve been a resto druid for as long as I can remember. I’m currently (veeeery casually) playing a troll, whilst my old night elf and all the alts are in (permanent?) hibernation. It’s pretty fair to say I’ve healed a lot and then some. I raided competitive hardcore and semi-hardcore mythic content, started at 5 days a week but dropped quickly down to two day raiding, which I’ve done for many years. I collected pets and used to engage in most available content, getting the achievements to show for it. But I must admit that my interest in wow has been on a slow decline. A bit like the collagen on my face. After almost two decades, I guess it’s become very hard to be positively entertained by what Blizzard puts out these days and I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to justify the cost of the monthly fee for all of this recycled and milked out content, Still, 20 years of my life is well worth an honourable mention on this blog.
ME AND MY EPIC WOOD
“Me and My Epic Wood”, aka my gaming blog from a couple of lifetimes ago, is no more.
I kept it online, albeit inactive for the past years. For nostalgic purposes. Because I still somehow hoped I would some day be able to finish that healing guide. But, well…., we are just about 6 expansions later now. And I had that awesome Project Lore I was working on with friends. The lore is still there but, well…., the friends have moved on. Getting rid of this old cow was long overdue. No one needs an outdated druid colour chart from good old Vanilla times, no matter how great the images were. I’m letting go, and I cherish nothing but lovely memories.
My game blog was a journey. It was as much an outlet for my flustered mind, as it was a search for the person behind the words. It was a combination of real life getting me on a tighter leash, wanting to attack non-game-related subjects and having been under fire by a bunch of _really_ mean aussies for paraphrasing content that made me lose the motivation to write for a long time. And thus the blog went comatose.
Then Twitch happened, and gamers became more interested in “artish” tittie streams (or shaming them) than in reading blogs. Youtube and monetizing the gaming industry happened and then finally Discord happened. All the awesome guides and conversation disappeared in neatly categorized channels and pins. And that’s okay because times change. Gamers change.
And the gamergurl behind “Me and My Epic wood” changed too. Thank f*ck.
THE ARCHIVES
“You’re an interesting one. I wonder if your friends know what you truly are.”