GameNotes 2/25/20

Through the magic of dropping back to work in the area of another expansion, all of those icky corrupted items have disappeared from my game.

Atherne is working her way through Northrend, something she’s never done.  I’ve always just dungeon leveled past most of it.  I wish it were easier to see the actual quests she needs.  I’m four quest achievements short in Dragonblight, and I just can’t see any quests to pick up anywhere to work on those.  I’m hoping Wowhead comes through as always.

I did get three quests in quick succession that required disguises.  I love the silly disguises in this game.

 

 

So, is this guy the Bolvar everyone is so excited about?  He was kind of a stiff and had nothing to say.

My level 92 Hunter is loving Draenor.  It remains my favorite of all the expansions, I think.  Getting that home of a Garrison, finding treasures, the fishing and cooking are great.  I love most of the areas of it’s world.   She has skinning, so it’s fun to kill all the beasts there.

I see you can opt in for the Shadowlands testing.  Ha!  I had actually  looked one day in my account to uncheck testing and couldn’t find it.  I do like how transparent Blizzard is when they test, their beta forums are right up for everyone to read, there’s no NDA, just here’s where we are today.  I just am not interested in stepping into this next bit.

I spent an hour or so tonight in Classic, working in Duskwood with a couple of people.  I like that there are still plenty of people around, and finding help is not hard.  Except for dungeons, I don’t ever see the dungeons I need.

 

In ESO, I bought the new Elsweyr house, decorated.  I didn’t get pictures though and they’re doing their big steamroller of a download so I’ll get some next week.  It’s really nice, and was not expensive.

 

A couple of games looked interesting this week.

 

GameNotes February 18, 2020

Mysteries, mysteries!

It seems to be a Golden Age of Mystery Games.   Ever since I searched out games with mystery elements at the Winter Steam Sale, I’m seeing reviews and notes about upcoming games everywhere.  It’s so exciting!  I want to collect them all in this window of time while they’re being produced.  I read mostly Science Fiction and Fantasy, but I’ve always loved Mysteries as well.

They’re often an intellectual exercise as we attempt to solve a crime, there are puzzles to solve, justice to be meted out.   In a game environment, you step right into the shoes of the detective, you can be in danger, you must be observant, ask questions.  As a way to generate plot in a game, mysteries can be rich stories with all of humanity’s foibles and strengths portrayed.

If the game’s stories and plots and characters are engaging, you can have a series starring your detective solving cases, and enjoy a return to the world just as you do in novels.

In a recent article, PC Gamer asked Who is your favorite videogame detective?   https://www.pcgamer.com/who-is-your-favorite-videogame-detective/

They present some suggestions from their forums and staff, there are lots of good suggestions!   They also link to an article they did last year The Best Detective Games On PC, which has even more ideas.   https://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-detective-games-on-pc/

There are others I’ve noted recently:

Backbone (Developer Eggnut)   Description from Adventure Gamers   https://adventuregamers.com/games/view/34989

The planet is sprawling with anthropomorphic animal species. Streets of Vancouver are overgrown with ivy and humongous trees, branches and vines piercing through the concrete, and huge flowers nesting on top of the roofs. Howard Lotor is a raccoon private investigator. His mundane life is interrupted with the appearance of a powerful technology that can blur the lines of conventional order and change society forever.

Visit Eggnut   https://www.eggnut.net/

 

From  developer Media Tonic Murder by Numbers   https://www.mediatonicgames.com/game/murder-by-numbers

I saw it mentioned on Rock Paper Shotgun.   https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/game/murder-by-numbers/

Their description:

Honor’s boss is dead and she’s the primary suspect for foul play, meaning it’s time to roll up her sleeves and catch the real murderer. Unfortunately, Honor’s no detective, she just plays one on TV.

 

Via Kotaku, Aviary Attorney from Developer Sketchy Logic.   https://kotaku.com/on-the-case-with-aviary-attorney-1749366059

http://www.aviaryattorney.com/

Kotaku’s description:

A frog has been murdered, a cat has been arrested, and the cat’s father hires Jayjay and Sparrowson to exonerate his daughter. Bird puns ensue. Great bird puns. Then come horse puns. Jayjay uses his deductive reasoning. Sparrowson uses his tenuous grasp of how the law works.

The artwork is incredible.

 

Out last year on PC (but I missed it)  Draugen from Red Thread Games.   https://www.redthreadgames.com/draugen

The developer’s game description:

From the studio that brought you Dreamfall Chapters, and the creative team behind The Longest Journey and The Secret World, comes a first-person psychological mystery set in 1920s Norway.

The year is 1923. You play Edward Charles Harden, an American traveller who’s come to Norway to find his missing sister. But you’re never alone: every step of the way, Edward is accompanied by Lissie: a lively and enigmatic young woman with a mind of her own.

Together with Edward and Lissie, you must explore a forgotten coastal community nestled amongst the dark fjords and towering mountains of rural Norway, and unearth the terrible secrets that lie beneath the picturesque surface. And what begins as a quest for a missing woman becomes a journey into a painful past.

 

Not a mystery, but looking intriguing, was a post from Rock Paper Shotgun https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/01/31/inkle-studios-next-game-is-an-arthurian-story/

I love Arthurian tales, myself.

https://www.inklestudios.com/

Inkle Studios did 80 Days, which I’m familiar with, and Heaven’s Vault, an “archeological science fiction adventure game”.  Sounds perfect to me 🙂

They have lots more on their page, including a beta of Inklewriter, Write Your Very Own Interactive Stories.

BFA Wow

Atherne is back to iLevel 426 so she’s just hanging around waiting for Whiplash to spawn in Stormsong.  Speaking of Stormsong, one of her World Quest rewards there was a 420 Ring that I didn’t immediately notice had +35 Corruption on it.  I popped that thing right in the Scrapper.  I’ll have to look more closely at the item stats everywhere, it seems.

I got my Mage to iLevel 314, so thought she could handle Nazjatar.  Pretty easy for her, to my surprise, and she’s on her way.   I remember when I fist got to Nazjatar, everything seemed to hit so hard.

My Hunter, on her last Pandaria level, is doing the Nesingwary questline before leaving the area.  I’ll miss her farm (sniff).

 

Darkmoon Faire, Classic

It turns out I was south of Thunder Bluff and the Mulgore Darkmoon Faire.  Checking a modern map, I made my way along through a fairly thickly infested area.   Finally the Faire!

It is very small, but most of the most familiar characters are there.

It turns out you give them 5 Copper Modulators (Rinling) or 3 Toughened Leather Armor and 3 Embossed Leather Boots to earn rewards (Chronos).

I was very tired when I got there, and there was no repair, so I just talked to all the carnies and gratefully ported home to Darnassus.

No repairs, but TWO Outhouses!

All that damaged armor and weaponry only cost 8 silver and 96 copper to repair, because her stuff is no good to begin with.   There were many parts of the trip where I wished I’d brought spares of everything.

I’ll just visit the Faire when it’s in Elwynn from now on!

GameNotes February 11, 2020

Darkmoon Faire is now live on the Classic Servers.   Old hat for some, but as with everything Classic, I’ve never seen the bare bones version of the Faire.  I have always meant to do all of the attractions at the Faire, but haven’t gotten around to it. Here’s my opportunity to try out the Faire at it’s most basic, and eventually, that will lead to my trying out everything.  If only I can find the Faire.

Bizarrely to me, it floats between Elywnn Forest and Mulgore.

I do not and never have known the Horde areas at all.  So, once I saw it was in Kalimdor, I thought I’d send Atheren, my level 15 Hunter, since she’s already on the continent.  I looked up how to get there from Darnassus.  Simple.

Unless you have no clue and you take several wrong turns.

The worst of them was trying to die my way through the Charred Vale.  Only to find two high level Horde were guarding the pass, once I finally made it across the vale.   Eventually I made my way down to the Barrens, crept along a length of mountains, and finally found myself in Mulgore.

I died 15 times during the trip.  Most in the Vale.   All my armor and weapons are at zero and useless.  I sure hope there’s a repair guy at the Faire!

It took most of the evening, and I left Atheren standing on a hill where I hope nothing attacks.

No clue where the Faire actually is, nothing shows on the map, as happened in a trip to The Barrens with an earlier character.    As I was crawling along, I thought, maybe I should really play through with a Horde character just so I can find my way around when I have to enter these areas.

BFA level Atheren is at ilevel 384. Moving along.   Also, everyday I look for the WQ for Whiplash, the last elite I need in Stormsong for Stormsong Adventurer.   Then I’ll drop back to Northrend with her to get the achievements there.   So fresh faced and happy, la la la.

I’m leveling two other characters towards 120: A 116 Priest and a level 89 Hunter.   After all of the darkness lately at higher levels, working on Cooking and the little Farm at Halfhill Market in Pandaria seems pretty great.   I’ll move her on to Draenor once she hits 90, but I think I’ll wish I could linger there as well.

The Priest is very slow going.   As Discipline, fights are long but she’s practically invulnerable (except against four or more, ouch).  As Shadow it’s a little quicker, but I have never liked Shadow.

You Can’t Make Me Blue

There I was this morning, working on Emissary Quests.   A simple Azerite Mining quest.  I’m thinking I am happy to be so powerful feeling at item level 435.  My character Atherne is completely blue with corruption, but I ignore it.  Because I can.

But no, the curses you are dealt from wearing corrupted gear pile up on each other.  A new one called Thing From Beyond entered a fight in the azerite cave and my health just went boom boom boom.  Could not heal or recover from it and I died!  Doing a simple quest!

The curses have been annoying me anyway, but I thought I could ignore them.

I have not been doing the quests in Uldum and the Vale.  Mostly because they’re so time consuming.  It seems to me as I’m working on them that mobs are scarce that I need for quests and the drop rate for quest items is really sparse.   I haven’t been working on Horrific Visions either, because I don’t care for them.  So.

I take off the four items that my inventory says are corrupted, and the blue effect goes away immediately.   My item level drops to 322.  To my chagrin, I’m still cursed because I’m “holding” a corrupted item.  So I put the four corrupted pieces in the bank and I’m still cursed.

It turns out my other pieces of gear, gotten from other questlines have become corrupted.  Wow.   I take them off.

Still cursed.

I comb through my inventory for every single thing that has a purple square around it –even a recipe was cursed!   I stick it in the bank.   While I’m trying to identify these items, standing at the bank in Boralus!!!!! I DIE from a curse.  You are so joking.

Everything off and out of inventory, finally, and the curses go away.

My item level is 55, but by god, I’m not dead.

That’s the ball game on this stuff.

Luckily, all my crafters are at 120, and there are 225 Leather pieces in the guild bank.  On my way back!  I have to get a Cloth Cloak from my Tailor, see me go.   My Jeweler had already placed rings in the bank.   Just need trinkets!

I’m going to be doing world quests and finishing questlines I haven’t completed to gear back up to a reasonable level.   I did one right away for a 420 ring. Yay now back up to 242 item level. Go go go!

It has to be that because I wasn’t working on my Cloak upgrade that all this corruption got me.  I was unable to Cleanse any piece of the Corrupted gear.   Clearly, once you go down this path, you’re like a rat on a wheel trying to keep ahead of the Corruption.  You have to play the game a certain way, or you’re dead meat.

One of the reasons I can play Wow when others get discouraged, is, because I can always play it my own way.  There are many playstyles supported, which makes the game always fun.

Now we see if I can continue to just play my way.

Clearly, if the new expansion requires this treadmill of activity, or else your character is ruined, then I’ll play other characters, or Classic, and I will, for the first time ever, since I’ve regularly played, just sit out an expansion.

You probably can’t tell, but I’m just livid.  I will cool down.   My eye is twitching.

I’m going to leave the Corrupted things in the bank for a bit and see if they ease up on all the Corruption.  If they don’t, I strip Ath to her skivvies so none of her new things can get corrupted, and I’m running that (stuff) through the Scrapper.

Thanks for listening!

Note: Luckily back in game it came to me I should just buy a new set of Benthic Gear, so now we’re back to 322.  Will see what I can upgrade, plus look for a Weapon and new Trinkets on Rep vendors if they’re available.

GameNotes February 4, 2020

Death At Darkmoon!

The new Arcade is up at the Darkmoon Faire!  It’s right behind the roller coaster, and is very hard to miss.  It needs to show up on the island map, and have lots of lights to show the way to it, or those great goblin neon light arrows.  The area itself looks very innocuous, with only the arcade machine and it’s operator standing at the front.  When you open/play many of the games, they come up right in that open area.  Other players who are working on games run right through yours.  These aren’t instanced like the leyline games in Nazjatar.

Here are the games.  Just click on the one you want and it will offer a description and tips for the game as well as a Start the Game! option.

 

HexSweeper is apparently based on Minesweeper (?)   You get a grid and you’re supposed to identify safe spots vs. the spots that will kill you in a second.  I do not see what the 0s and 1s represent, in theory one is safe and the other not, but I didn’t want to die again to figure it out.  Who knew there was a graveyard on Darkmoon Island?

HexSweeper Rules

 

Runematching is everyone’s favorite Bejeweled-Alike.

 

 

Bull-E Is the Leyline Puzzle from Nazjatar, only initially less torturous

 

Barrells O Fun is just the old shell game-the actual one where someone puts a pea under a walnut shell and moves it around fast and you’re supposed to pick where the pea is.  Hmm I guess there’s a cup and ball version too.  The arcade version isn’t hard but you’re kind of far away from the barrels and there a bit behind the console…it may be you can just go out nearer the puzzle as you can with a couple of others, I did not try.

 

Remembery is the in game Shell Game which I love to death.   Like the old Concentration card game.

 

Totemic Matris sounds so doable in the instructions, but it will be awhile before I conquer this one.   You toggle the totems between fire and water, trying to get them all to be water.  They’re interconnected in groups of four.