Steam Trading Cards

So Steam has incorporated a new thing, trading cards, what the hell are they?

"Steam Trading Cards are virtual cards earned by playing games on Steam that can be combined into game badges.

Collect cards

Play any of the participating Trading Cards Beta games to get trading cards. Up to half the card set is dropped through game play, the other half is earned through your collecting prowess. 

Craft game badges

Once you've collected a set of cards you can craft them into a game badge. Like the current badges, they are tied to your account and are shown on your profile. Unlike the current badges, crafting games badges earns you tradable items like emoticons, profile backgrounds, and coupons. Level up your badge by collecting the set again and earning more items. 

Level up

All badges now have XP which contributes to your Steam Level, a summary of your badge collection. You can view someone's Steam Level by hovering over their avatar. Leveling up earns you non-tradable items like profile showcases, extra friends list slots, and more. 

Joining the beta

If you'd like to participate in the beta, just join this group! We’ll send out email notifications (plus some extra invites) in the order of members joined."

I managed to get a few invites to the beta (sold one for like 3p? I just wanted a badge) and now I have a level on my profile, I'm level 4 and this makes me sad :(

The games that are currently in the trading card beta, are:

• Borderlands 2
• CS:GO
• Don't Starve
• Dota 2
• Half-Life 2
• Portal 2
• Team Fortress 2
• L4D2
• Sanctum 2
• Go Home Dinosaurs
• Triple Town
• Cubemen 2
• Monster Loves You
• Really Big Sky
• Faerie Solitaire
• BIT.TRIP RUNNER 2

And many more to come!

With these cards, you collect them to make a set (all from one game), and then craft them into badges. Once you made the game badge, you get little extra's:

• a random emoticon item created for this game, that can use in chat or discussions;
• a random profile background item created for this game, that can use on your Steam Community profile
• a chance to get a discount coupon for a different game or DLC
• 100XP, which may increase your Steam Level

If you complete another of the same badge, you get an extra 100XP

I have no idea if this a worthwhile thing to do, but it does seem like a little fun thing to do, and another competitive thing for gamers XD

FF XIV: A Realm Reborn

So we have Final Fantasy XIV Online coming out this summer.... again, what do we think of this?

I've lost my love of Final Fantasy recently, don't get me wrong I'll play VI to X anytime of the day! Love the story and the music is amazing! Can play XII occasionally, Balthier is kickass. But I'm not big on MMO's and just felt like XIII was something too different (wasn't a big fan on the music and characters were meh too me) but I know other people think it's a great game, that's just peoples opinions. So I'm not sure if I'll give this a shot yet.

Especially as it's the re release 

I managed to play a little bit of the beta at my brother's earlier this year, just went for the Hyur so I wouldn't waste too much time making the character. Even though I spent a while trying to find the 'right' hairstyle.

I managed to get lost easily, but that's because I'm silly and don't know how maps work, derp.

Image from IGN

One thing to say about this, is that is so beautiful. As my brother's computer is much better than mine, I could play it with full everything. Fuuuck son.

So I got to do a few quests in Gridania, just simple kill a few monsters, save a farm, pick up some apples, deliver some post kinda quests (I didn't actually do those) it was just fun and so smooth to play, I didn't chat to anyone in-game, as I'm not big on that, one day maybe. I think I'm scarred from when I played WoW a few yeards ago XD.

But yeah, this was just a wee ramble about nothing really!

NERG COMPLETE.

NERG has definitely killed me this weekend, it was brilliant!

Just a shame about the heat and that the lighting wasn't brilliant for photos :(

I had my stall opposite machines such as Daytona USA, 2 Star Wars machines, Road Blasters and others! And I was lucky to be next to the lovely stall, Lair of the Nerd, who make fantastic tshirts and other goodies.

Obligatory stall photos 

Sorry about this terribad post, I'm a wee bit tired, and now I'm off to recover a bit more, then plan on replenishing my stock!

If anyone knows of any events, conventions or anything that you think Charles Bazaar will suit, please send me a message :)

Zzzzz

Lit Fest Mini Comic Con

I ran out of business cards a few days before an event, luckily my bestie made me these cuties!

Just printed in photo paper, and they work really well!

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to Middlesbrough for Lit Fest Mini Comic Con at the central library.

It was a tiny event, but the deco was gorgeous! Reminded me of Lara Croft's library, all heavy wooden furniture with massive iron radiators. The staff were lovely, with free tea and coffee, there was about 10 stallholders all together, 2 authors, and a fair few artists.

Here's me pulling a weird face.

It was a very long day, as Middlesbrough is quite far away, about 1- 2 hours away, just for a little event where I didn't really make enough money to cover the cost of petrol. But it was fun!

Then I got home and started preparing for NERG (North East Retro Gaming) with a few hours spent at a mates, then right back into it!

Bubble Bobble!

Lego LOTR

Bought this game when I was in Dundee as it's something that I've wanted since it came out (if you couldn't tell I'm a proper LOTR geek)

As I find with every Lego game, the controls are awkward, I know that it's my fault though, I'm just terribad with them.

The problem I find with this game, is when you play co-op and if you both switch characters at the same moment, you also switch screens.... I don't understand why! And imagine if it happens during a hard part :( Much panicking ensued. But Lego makes up for it with much humour and damn adorableness. We see a lot of the comic relief that Gimli brings in the films, and this is fine! It is used in a way that makes it nice for kids and adults, especially when Gimli grabs Legolas' arm in Paths of the Dead.

Don't get me started on dwarf tossing.

Or Gimli riding Shadowfax.

Seriously though, if you are a fan of the books and films, get this game, it's so good <3

Legend of Zelda Inspired Pieces

 I should start by saying that I have never played a Zelda game in my life, well, that's a little bit of a lie. I played the beginning of the first one, I think, and the beginning of a Gamecube one, starts with a ship?

See? I have no idea!

But I was asked by many people if I would make some, and of course! I'm always open to requests and I do like the Legend of Zelda story/Universe.

Na'vi

Link head

LOZ Health bar (I've now replaced the white with transparent)

In-progress shot of me making Link head, photo by Darkview (Jordan)

Link heads and Squirtle! Photo by Darkview (Jordan)

I'm going to make full body versions of Link and Princess Zelda, and maybe the baddie (Ganondorf?)

Hm

Raptr

So I've had Raptr for while and I only really started to notice things about it, like the reward scheme it has. I've never used it as I don't have any of the games for it, but it looks really good! Nice little something for people using their site, shame it's for games I'd never buy :/

I get easily lost in it, never too sure what I'm clicking on, all I want to see is my chieves! And to compare them to mine XD Even though my score is always lower *sad*

Sadly I don't think I'll use Raptr to it's full potential, as I'm not a one for using forums and such, I don't even use Steam's community forums :/

Also, I've been watching The Office US

Rayman Legends

So we had a new trailer for Rayman Legends at E3, now I couldn't help but stare at this young lady.

Barbara the Barbarian.

Ubisoft has decided to give her some gravity defying assets, as we can see at work below

We actually see them jiggle at 0.27, whuuut?

I'm just slightly dissappointed as I always thought that Rayman was aimed at young kids, and I dunno, it just seems inappropriate and unneeded.  And you can see from the comments that no-one is interested in the game, just the tits :/

20 hours later...

Still playing Skyrim.

Lovely and sunny outside, yet here I am! XD

First time for everything

Like Skyrim! Yes I have finally bought it *cheers and applauds*  But yeah, so I bought it for Xbox so I wouldn't be tempted to cheat like I did with Oblivion XD

I just wish that the horses were better to control, and when you select someone to follow you they equipped the things that you give them, *cough* Uthgred equip that bastarding Dwarven armour *cough*

And ohmygod, that climb to the Greybeards, almost killed me of boredom! I'm not ready to do anymore of the main quest until I've played about with the other quests. Like, right now, I'm in Morthal and trying to get rid of all the baddies, the guards really didn't appreciate that :( 

I can't decide who to side with either, Stormcloaks or Imperials, I prefer the people on the Stormcloak side, but the Imperials just seem better, idk. And the Thalmor, wtf?!

Anywhooooo. Bye!

*plays Skyrim*

Last Of Us

So I've only recently heard about this game and I just brushed it off as a Fallout-esqe game (I've only played the 1st one when I was a young'un and was terrified by it, so I've never played any of them since, even though I know they are meant to be amazing games, maybe one day I will). It's caming out around the time that we have Tomb Raider, Walking Dead and Uncharted, which it looks a combination of to me.

Of course I have never read anything about it or watched any of the trailers.

Looks unbelievable pretty

Oh. My. Fucking. God. 

I remember wiki-ing The Road a few years ago, after I had watched The Book Of Eli, which is fantastic btw, I just remember how interesting it was that someone would go so far to help out a child that wasn't there's, that their survival meant more to them than their's. I hope that Naughty Dog will keep this in the Last Of Us, and that the girl, Ellie, will be able to help you, Joel, out, maybe like Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite!

Gameplay trailer

Also it's Troy Baker! adjlakhgjlglajg. (Do you think we'll get to ride horses??)

Now to get a PS3 :( 

Ho shit son! Telltale Games

Telltale games just teased future content on their Twitter!

I watched Yogscast Hannah's playthrough of the first season, and it was amazing, I'm not a one to play zombie games (scaredy cat here!)

She play's video games pretty similar to me (though she's a wee bit better XD) so it's nice not to have to play them, but still thinking about buying it in the future, as I totally bum Telltale Games.

Here's the link to one of Telltale Games' Vine's https://vine.co/v/b3YOhn5DTFA - Russell

Go check out the rest, mega excited!

Here's a link to their Twitter too! https://twitter.com/telltalegames

This week's Humble Bundle has The Walking Dead in it too. Aswell as Back to the Future, Sam & Max: Devils Playhouse and many more awesomeness.

So I recently got into playing with Hama beads (also called Perler beads and Fuse beads) and bought lots of mini ones, these are tiny! I recommend using tweezers with them, and of course a peg board.

These are my first attempts!

 Legend of Zelda Health Bar and Pacman!

Red and Green Super Mario Mushroom

 Super Mario Super Star and Pokeball

White and Black Mage from Final Fantasy

'Wark' Yellow Chocobo from Final Fantasy

These were all unbelievably fun to do! I've made many more since doing these fellas and won't be stopping anytime soon :3 

Check out my facebook page over here!

I'm setting up a tumblr page at the moment for my jewellery, it'll be under the name of charlesbazaar just like this.

Blog Beginnings...

I'm so bad at starting these xD

Hello and welcome! 

So at the moment I'm playing Mass Effect (youtube playthrough here!)

I've heard massively good things about the ME series and knew I had to try it out. I'm not that big on the rpg playing style, I'm far to used to playing Final Fantasy games, I enjoy the ATB (active time battle) gauge, and having time to think about what to do! I always forget to press space, such a silly billy. I'll have to write more later!

Mostly what I'll use this for is to show people what I do with clay. I have a wee business at Charles Bazaar. I create different things, rather cute, food like jewellery with polymer clay, Videogame logos/sprites with Hama Beads and pretty beaded jewellery :)

I have a few events coming up in March/April and I'm super excited XD

But yeah, this will do for the intro I think!