activities
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Alexa’s mood-matching music suggestions come to the UK
For Amazon Echo owners in the UK, the arrival of Music Unlimited provided the likes of Apple and Spotify with some music needed competition. The company immediately made it the default music service on the smart speaker, allowing users to instantly queue music using their voice once they'd signed up. Understandably, Amazon is keen to differentiate its service from its more popular rivals, so it's banking on Alexa "activities," which have today arrived in the UK.
Adafruit's Circuit Playground show to teach kids about electronics with cute components
Adafruit already welcomes newcomers to do-it-yourself device culture, but it still assumes a certain amount of comfort with coding and soldering. The shop now wants to accommodate the most basic of beginners by starting a children's web series that teaches electronics. Circuit Playground will provide activities, songs and stories that put a friendly face on engineering, in some ways very directly: many of the shows will involve big-eyed characters (and, naturally, corresponding toys) like Cappy the Capacitor. Although the series doesn't start until March, it could be vital to a generation of kids growing up immersed in technology -- and ultimately create a larger customer base for Adafruit in the process.
Officers' Quarters: 10 tips for successful guild events
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Guild events outside of the usual raiding and PvP activities can help break up the monotony and get people excited about their guild. This week's email comes from an "event officer" who wants to know, how do you get people to show up? I am an officer in my guild, and we have been re-evaluating our roles. I am considering becoming the Social Event Coordinator, and I am looking for some advice to get things started. ... My ideas include scheduling nights to do scenarios/dungeons for achievements, old school raids, and probably a pet battle league once people aren't as focused on gearing up for raids. My questions are: Do you have any suggestions on how to communicate to guildies that aren't around much that these events are being planned? Do you have suggestions on how to determine interest before scheduling? Do you have suggestions on how to encourage participation? Do you have other event ideas that have worked for you?
Drama Mamas: How to share choosing what to do in a duo
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. Once upon a time, two shy people made a duo. They leveled happily ever after ... except one of the players always had to choose the activities. So are they both actually happy? I am very very close friends with my guildmate, oh let's call him Sam :). We're a guild of two and have been playing together for roughly two and a half years. Ever since RealID came out, we've been getting closer -- I'm very much an altaholic and being able to talk even if I wasn't on my main server was a huge blessing for us. When Cataclysm came out, he rolled on all the different servers I play alts on, created vanity guilds for the two of us, and now we have over a score of pairs that we play exclusively with each other! Now, every single toon he created was his own idea. I'll admit I definitely encouraged him to sprawl out with me but I never once said "You should come play on x server now!" or bullied him in any way.
Officers' Quarters: Accelerating guild achievements
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. News broke last week of a new Cataclysm beta patch that added a host of guild achievements to the game. MMO Champion has the full list. Some of these achievements -- such as looting 200,000 gold from creatures -- you may decide to allow to simply accumulate over time. After all, most of them can be earned through the natural course of events, assuming your members participate in all aspects of the game. However, if you'd like to pursue these guild achievements aggressively, this column is for you. Let's take a look at how you can accelerate some of these achievements and how you can motivate your guild to help. First of all, let's talk about the motivation that the game itself will provide. Earning guild achievements, according to August's guild advancement Q&A, provides "nice, fat chunks of experience [that] feel great when you get 'em." We also know from blue poster Mumper that "anything that grants guild XP will also grant guild faction." Putting two and two together, we can conclude that earning a guild achievement will also award the players who earned it a hefty dose of guild reputation. This extra guild rep and guild experience may be motivation enough. But why stop there? Let's take an active role, as officers, in providing organization and incentives.
The Daily Grind: Favorite activity to do at the same time as MMOing?
Let's face it: there are times when playing MMOs that your full, undivided attention isn't really required. Maybe you're in a slow group or raid, or camping some rare spawn, or just online to keep an eye on the market. We're often left with enough mental capacity to start up a second activity. Here are some popular ones: Reading a book Watching television Getting paperwork done Browsing the internet Playing another game These are just some examples. Maybe you have something a little less common you like to do that you could share with the rest of us. Knitting? Making and flying paper planes around the room? Sorting M&M's by color? Let us know how you keep yourself occupied during the duller passages of gameplay.
Player vs. Everything: Maxed out and bored
Congratulations! You've hit level 70 (or whatever max level is in your favorite game), and you're officially a badass. For many players, this is a goal they've been striving towards for months -- even years in some cases. The feeling of having that first max level character is immensely invigorating. It's like putting the finishing touches on a long-term project or getting to the last page of a monstrous novel. What an accomplishment! However, after basking in the glow of your newly maxed out character for a few days, you quickly realize you have a small problem: What do you do with yourself now? The answer to that question is going to depend heavily on what game you play. For most people, it's going to be PvP, raiding, or a nice mix of both. You'll probably continue collecting gear for your character or working on your skills. Depending on the game, you might be able to work on some sort of alternate advancement or achievement system for your character -- maybe even hunt down some unique titles. All of this is pretty standard fare for endgame content. Sooner or later, you'll probably get a little bored of it. Don't fret, though! There's a whole host of other interesting things you can do to keep yourself entertained at maximum level that go beyond the planned content. Read on for a few suggestions.
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Breakfast Topic: Downtime games
Last night, a warrior guildmate trying to score her Dungeon chest armor piece had her entire group drop before the final mob fight in Arcatraz. Four of us responded to her call for replacements and together we took down the giant cockroach from the planet Xenon, but we lost the priest in the final moments. The key to Arcatraz doesn't work from the inside and the priest didn't have the key. While the keyed rogue hearthed out and headed back to the zone entrance, the rest of us had to kill the time before we looted.First, we used the joke emote and commented on the lame repetitive jokes the human females have. Then we brought out the illusions (furbolg, druid bear form dancing, shrinking). Then came the pets (sleepy willy, sprite darter; etc.) Finally, the conversation turned to mat gathering for epic recipes. This would have been a perfect time for a mini-game. Eventually, the rest of our group arrived and, to the warrior's delight, her chestplate dropped. A happy dance later and we were off to return to whatever we were doing before.But this led me to wonder: what do you do during enforced downtime?
