The Banished Country

I've written before about Banished, and I'm sure you're wondering "what else can you even attempt to write about this game?" The game is addictive and I've put many, many hours into it, but it's true - there isn't too much to say about it.

"this game is fun 10/10"

The game is a city builder, but it has some distinct differences that make it stand out. You aren't technically "the mayor" or monarch, as there's no treasury or currency or ultimate Collectible Thing that you aim to accumulate.

CC added a governor, but he's a randomly appointed townsperson

All the resources are given to the town itself for use by the populous to survive and to expand. Indeed, other than a couple achievements, you are given no actual distinct goals... at all.

This is one of two of the main criticisms I've seen from people who dislike the game - the other, funnily enough, being that the game has a steep learning curve. Apparently, you won't like Banished if you need to be told what to do, how to do it, when and where to do it, and when you're done doing it. As I've said before, I don't agree that you need to be told what your goal should be in order to enjoy this game.

here is what you do: build the town

But, I've already written about that and I try not to be too repetitive between blog posts.

The Banished Colonial Charters

Banished is a great game that I haven't played in awhile. I wrote about it and why it's amazing despite its supposed flaws a couple months ago. A friend told me that he's been playing Banished while waiting for Warlords to come to an end, and that there was so much new stuff for him to do because of this mystical colonial charter mod.

I had looked into their mods last time I played, which was around when I wrote about it, but it looked like they weren't actually in service yet. They finally came out and let me tell you, this one is crazy.

The colonial charters mod adds so much stuff. It has its own website. From the moment I loaded the game with the mod enabled, I could tell there was going to be an overload of new things to understand.

what's CC Medium- oh holy crap what even is this

Addon Highlights - Master Plan

Addon Highlights are back! I originally stopped writing these due to the upcoming expansion release, not wanting to suggest any addons that would end up being abandoned or non-functioning after WoD release. Now that addon developers are on track, it's time to start it up again!

Today's feature is my favorite new garrison related addon, Master Plan.

Edited to note: Master Plan has changed a lot since I wrote this. It's being constantly updated, which is great! But that means it doesn't quite look or operate the exact same as when this post was written.

Addon Highlights: A PSA

Now that 6.0.2 has been out for awhile, most addons will work properly and should continue to work properly after Warlords release. If you use addons, it's important to remember to update your addons correctly and to try not to go into Warlords using out of date ones, as addons can cause really weird things to happen to your game. Not just limited to LUA errors, addons can cause disconnects, inability to use skills on your hotbars, and I've recently had an error where my bags didn't update while I was filling them up.

dun dun dunnnn

Pascal's Gold Making Guide for the Economically Challenged

for ACTUAL gold making advice, visit actual gold maker's sites

So, you want to make gold. You've read professional gold maker guides by wealthy individuals who are probably way smarter than you, but you're still poor. My friend, I am here for you. I, too, was once a common peasant scrounging under the bridges of Undercity looking for a way to make gold. Now, I'm at least upper middle class.

If you're anything like me, you've read dozens of guides on how to play the auction house and make gold. They tell you "Anyone can make tons of gold, easily!" Well sign me up, you say. Then you read the guide and you're like, what even is this?

are these even words?

Addon Highlights - Impending Warlords Edition

Warlords is around the corner - today marks exactly two months until its release. My biggest preoccupation in preparation for its release has been a focus on my addons. My goal is that before Warlords is live, we have a majority of working addons and I can do a complete wipe and refresh of my addons folder without outdated addons that can cause periodic lua errors or display bugs. 

This will be harder than it seems for me because there are addons that I have become so used to that are not part of the default UI, but haven't been updated in a year or more. Of course, we haven't had a content patch in a year, so it may just be that they authors are waiting until it's actually necessary to look at their projects. I know that before Mists came out, a vast majority of my preferred mods had been ready for compatibility with Mists days before - this was probably due in part to basically everyone having beta access, but hopefully our addon authors have the ability to tweak theirs for the upcoming expansion. I was able to use certain out of date addons reliably at Mists release but what I really want is to cut down my dependance on addons whose authors have stopped updating them, and hopefully cut down on addons that are not entirely necessary to begin with. 

Addon Highlights Part 2

It's that time again for a couple more addon suggestions! I have a few mods that are great for low CPU usage and one that's just very handy.

Collect Me is a great mod that I just found out about. Collect Me will show you what mounts and pets you're missing, and you can filter based on things like the pet shop or TCG items.

When you mouse over the name of a mount or pet you're missing, it has a tooltip of how to acquire the missing item. There is also options within CM to create macros that let you mount a random mount or summon a random pet, however I use a different mod for this functionality that I like more (Livestock) and additionally, Blizzard is adding something like this into the default UI in Warlords.

Addon Highlights - Pascal's Choice Awards

I actually play on a laptop full time - I own a small foldable table with a built in mousepad and that's it. That's my "battlestation".  All of my computers for the last eight years have been laptops. I was recently able to afford this one two years ago and it was worth all $1,300.

My laptop, while fairly powerful, has a couple of limitations. It has some positives, like it's easy to take with me and it doesn't shut off when the power goes out, but it also has negatives.

Along with needing a cooling pad and costing more to fix when it breaks, it has a very small screen. My laptop has a 14 inch screen, which translates to not having a lot of space on for a fancy UI. I'm a function over fashion person to begin with, though I do feel a tinge of envy when I sit down at someone's desktop and they have all the space in the world to do whatever they'd like with their UI. Not all of my mod choices are related to reducing memory usage or making the most out of my tiny screen, but here are a few of my favorites.