Category Archives: Terraria

SpartanNerd…Catching Up…

by

0

Has it really been three years since I posted anything?

This means that throughout Corona…throughout the last several MTG releases…Throughout the ending of MOTUC and the new Masters of the Universe lines that have come out. I have written zilch.

Well, it isn’t because I stopped being nerdy. Believe it or not, online teaching and also attending classes took all of my energy out for this project.

So here’s a few new things that have happened.

Masters of the Universe.– As the Classics line ended, I began to realize I just didn’t have enough space anymore. MOTUC items are pretty large. And I got lots of joy especially from my He-Man and Battlecat and also Skeletor and Panthor. But also the Griffin was one of my favorites. Vikor. But some of the others…I decided I could part with them. And then I decided when I saw the price I could fetch to go ahead and sell my core items. All I have left is Vikor and my custom Battleground Teela. I sold it all in May 2020. For $600. I use that money to re-invest in MOTU Mega Construx. I have the Castle Grayskull and basically every item they have released in that line. A downsize in square footage, it is easier to get these just by walking into a store. There are other advantages.

Sorry about the backdrop-less pic. This is a very large item. Kitchen table will have to do.

I decided early on that the MOTU Origins figures look too crappy…I don’t like the colors. And the Masterverse figures on first reveal, I thought “That He-Man looks “gutsy.” Meaning, the way the belt is that pale color yellow, it blends in too well with He-Man’s skin color on his belly. It looks like he has a gut. The other figures, the one that came out with the new CGI Anime line, do not appeal to me at all. I hear fans (Scott Neitlich) accepting what is going on apologetically, that this line is meant to appeal to the kids. But kids just don’t watch the cartoons anymore. Trust me. I know. Middle school teacher. So they are messing around with beloved source material and creating something “corrupt.”

I have picked up some of the MOTU Minis, and the Hot Wheels.

Magic the Gathering- For something that took up so much of my life and my children’s time, this has become a much rarer treat. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns, there haven’t been as many tournaments. We pretty much decided that SpellTable pretty much stinks. Arena isn’t a strong alternative. Now some tournaments have returned, but we have to drive a long way to get to them. Mostly these are Commander League events. And we haven’t really paid into the leagues on account we can’t reliably attend. Just the same, we have played EDH some. But the thrill of the old Modern tournaments is gone. I have done a few drafts and sealed. But it is doubtful that we will go and draft Double Masters II this weekend. That is $50 or more. To play maybe three rounds. Which I will have to drive a distance to get to … meaning I can’t stay out late in my old age driving home sleepy.

Oh yes…Secret Lair. At first I bought it all. I bought the super bundle…the one with the cats and the goblins. The Walking Dead. After awhile, I realized that this isn’t sustainable for me. They have churned out so many Secret Lairs, each with an enticing value usually, but then if you start adding all that up, you better be rich if you are a completist. I figure the Wizards/Hasbro weren’t achieving their bread and butter anymore on packs because people stopped playing. And Commander is so popular, but you can play virtually any cards you can find competitively even, that they had to capitalize on that crowd the best they could by dangling lots of shiny, pretty, artsy, and seemingly charitable carrots in front of them. So I certainly had to start pacing myself on this one. The last one I got was the Dracula one. I got my kid the pixel art lands. These things…they take forever to arrive. All the shipping delays and production delays that have plagued the past couple of years…Which brings me to the next big one.

Playstation 5. I got the money together for this…in fact some of the money from my MOTUC collection, plus some gifts, etc. I had the funds in hand right before Christmas 2020. And went to buy it, only to find…THERE WERE NONE. ANYWHERE. When did I finally get mine? OCTOBER 2021. Used! I am grateful…it has performed like a champ! You wouldn’t know. It didn’t come with a proper stand, so I had to get a third party one, which was supposed to charge the controllers and add extra fan-power. But none of that seems to be working. Still, it stands very well. The best two games for me have been Horizon: Zero Dawn, Horizon: Forbidden West, and Gran Tourismo. But I have lots more games. Spider-Man, Terraria, Mortal Kombat. I paid for the streaming services, but haven’t hardly used them…which brings me to

DISNEY+. Since this launched, I bundled with HULU (Which I already watched) and this has been what I have watched on TV. I have hung on to NetFlix for Stranger Things and Masters of the Universe: Revelation. (More on that on a different day.). The Mandalorian has been a terrific show! Obi Wan was pretty good. The Book of Boba Fett might as well have been season 3 of the Mandalorian. I haven’t watched anything else much on the service, though.

Comics- I have moved back into collecting these. I picked up IDW’s “Best of” TMNT books. I am looking to get a frame to display them in.

I have been collecting all of the IDW Transformers books…this was actually how I got back into collecting comics. IDW decided to reboot the franchise, and I felt it was a good “jumping in” place. Highlights of this have been “Shattered Glass” and “King Grimlock.” The main story kind of meandered a little bit. I was introduced to a bunch of characters I didn’t know or had forgotten. I also got into “Beast Wars”… which was admittedly NOT MY CARTOON. Unfortunately, IDW passed on the license, and all of these stories have come to a wrap up, which has seemed very rushed. But my love of getting the covers and important/valuable books has become rooted again. I collected up all of the “Batman/Catwoman” story, got back into Spider-Man and Ghost Rider. But I have dropped DC for the most part. In fact, almost everything they have been publishing in any form is tripe that panders to anyone except the classic fan. I thought “The Batman” was a much slower slog than it needed to be. My next problem is the amount of room this hobby is taking up…

Gundam- I built my first Master Grade…EW EPYON. I am still applying decals. But this has been a terrific project! I eill post pictures when I finish.

It is good to be coming back to the blogosphere…an I hope to have a review tomorrow!

SpartanNerd Follow Up…Terraria

by

0

(This entry is a follow-up on an article you can find here!)

I’ve finally done it!  Beaten every boss and maximized my character, as well as earned all of the NPCs.  The problem with Terraria…there isn’t a specific goal.  You just…play….

I suppose I can consider that I have beaten the game.  I have already begun a few new worlds.

Here’s what I have learned…

It took me a long time to beat “The Wall of Flesh.”  But after I did, WOW, the game got a lot more fun!  My continual defeat to that boss had me put the game down for about two months.  My character could kill any other creature he would encounter or summon.  But in order to advance, killing the Wall of Flesh is very necessary.

The mechanical bosses are very difficult (Except for the coolest one, “The Destroyer.”)  “The Twins” beat me over and over.  And I had a hard time coming by “Lenses” late in the game…an item essential for building the “Mechanical Eye” needed to summon the Twins.  The way I eventually beat them was by rigging a transporter…I built a boss arena right in the middle of the Hallow, Purity, Jungle, and Crimson biomes in my world.  I preserved a single Crimson Altar right in the middle of the arena.  I rigged a transporter that would take me to the nurse…I would be healed, and then zip back to the arena!

The “Solar Eclipse” and “The Steampunker” are essential to getting the strongest and best items.  “The Clentaminator” is a very nice machine for shaping your world how you want it to be.

I found some very nice weapons and made some as well.  However, the strongest weapons and items aren’t necessarily the best.  I made “The True Night’s Edge” and “The True Excalibur.”  But the “Murderous Death Sickle” is the best weapon I found.  It launches copies of itself that spin through walls and hit any enemies around it.  And you can fire multiple copies..so you are surrounding yourself with powerful hitting energy!  Virtually no enemy on the game except the bosses can withstand this weapon.  And the bosses don’t stand long!

As for wings…I crafted both the Angel and Demon wings.  Neither seemed as good as the Fairy wings.  I also have the sparkly wings, and I haven’t decided yet if I like them as much as the fairy wings.

I still can’t mine the Jungle Temple Bricks.  I have spent minimal time finding spoilers.  I finally broke down and learned how to mine the “green stuff…”  I had a BEAST drill, but it just wouldn’t do it.  So I have the best drill now, the Drax,…which can.  (The green stuff is “Chlorophyte”.)  But even the Drax can’t bust the Jungle Temple block.  The internet says a “Picksaw” is required…a rare item drop from beating The Golem.  I have beaten him five times, and he hasn’t dropped the Picksaw.  😦   What makes Golem so frustrating is the rarity of the “Lihzard Power Cell,” an uncraftable item rarely dropped.  YOU CAN beat “Plantera” and take his jungle key to a new world, where you can unlock the temple and just steal one or two from the chests inside, then bring it back to your world.  But this feels like cheating to me.  Either way, I’ve done it in order to summon the Golem…and he always drops something really nice.  But he hasn’t dropped the Picksaw yet.

Following are a couple of pictures of my game!


My world is quite large and detailed.  Note that I have been “purifying” the world.   You can see my “Boss Arena,”  That square thing right at the underground level.  I designed the arena around a Crimson Altar, so that I could summon a boss here easily.  It is easy for me to see whether or not it is daytime or nighttime…most bosses have to be summoned at night.  Before I cleansed it, a little of the Crimson, Purity, Hallowed, and Jungle all converged at the arena…this caused a variety of enemies to always spawn in the arena.  I also have two machines.  One generates hearts so that my character can easily heal during a fight, the other is the transporter, discussed above.

Eventually I figured out that it was best to build the houses for the NPCs in the sky.  The Harpies and Wyverns are occasionally a headache.  But during Blood Moon and other events, the NPCs are always safe.  The most interesting part of this plan is that there is a Mushroom Biome incorporated into the Sky City…to accommodate the mushroom man character.  This biome eventually became a money generator.  I would harvest the mushrooms and sell them to NPCs and then buy stuff.


Here is a close-up of my Sky City.  Notice the transporter…If I had a mechanical item selected in the access bar, then you could see a long wire leading off to the arena, which is strategically a good distance from the Sky City.  It was challenging to build, though.

And the picture below is of my character, named “Teddie”, is fighting the Golem.  You can see I put the heart generator machine nearby so I could constantly heal.

Terraria has been a terrific romp into a kind of game I never played before.  The game designers evidently also push out special holiday bosses and biomes.  The two month break I took evidently had an Easter theme…but I missed out.  But I will keep my eyes pealed.  If the game designers do that, I will continue to be engaged in this deep, new, and yet nostalgic game.