GameNotes March 31, 2020

I’ve played very little since last week.  When I do, it’s mostly my Blackwater Raiders Hunter who is now at level 105 thanks to the xp boost in effect.   I feel the character has been underplayed for a long time–of course she is or she’d be at 120.

Her Tradeskills are Herbalism and Skinning.  These two skills are a particularly fun combination, and skinning always suits the Hunter model as a fantasy.  I’m just questing my way around Highmountain, which is an area that suits a Hunter character as well, and not just because the Class Hall is there.

She’s a Beastmaster, and though she never feels powerful to me as a fighter, her varied pets and the self heal give her good survivability.  Which makes her appealing to play.

I’d like to be running dungeons, but the wait times are around half an hour now, and I just haven’t the patience this week to wait in a queue.

 

I got Feedly working again by changing to an actual Feedly account rather than living with the silly Google and their sudden inability to recognize my device.   I needed to start over with my feed list, but that’s fine, I narrowed it down a bit to the feeds I enjoy most.

 

Random Stuff:

 

You know you’re too isolated when you start trying these:

A Few 19th-Century Parlor Games to Amuse You While You’re Stuck at Home

 

It would be hard to mess up a Dragon’s Lair Movie, right?

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/ryan-reynolds-netflix-dragons-lair-movie

 

The Stories that inspired Dungeons and Dragons.  I had a period where I read all the “Golden Age” Science Fiction I could find.  I’m pleased to see much of that here, plus many other great titles.

The Fantasy Books that Inspired Dungeons & Dragons

GameNotes March 24, 2020

How am I doing, you ask?

 

That’ll do for the personal stuff.

On a very happy note, World of Warcraft, for the first time in my memory, is giving 100% xp till April 20.   I hit the dungeons with a level 43 Warlock Friday night, and a couple of hours later she was level 51.  Boom boom boom.   So happy making!  Thanks Blizzard!

On Saturday, I moved my Hunter through Draenor and now she’s working in Highmountain.  Dungeon times were so quick Friday evening and Saturday in the day.  Then on Sunday, longer times.  I even sent my Level 116 Priest into Waycrest Manor.  It was going really well, until somehow in the basement she was separated from the group, died a couple of times, and I was so embarrassed.  I left the group but it wouldn’t let go and eep, I think she’s still in there.  I’ll try to dig her out tomorrow.

I’m loving the extra xp.  It’s like the heady old days of leveling fast with a mix of quests and dungeons.  Only better.

I like to use Feedly these days to get my gaming new.  Everytime we have Internet issues, and reset the Wireless stuff, it doesn’t recognize my device and locks me out of my gmail for a couple of weeks, then suddenly it knows my device again.  Good thing I have all those blogs on my sidebar.

Stay safe! It’s a good time to be a gamer, in worlds far, far away.

GameNotes March 17, 2020

Unexpected, eh?  I’m trying to work with Word and creating layers.  Making progress!  It occurred to me after I finished this, Goblins probably look more like leprechauns.  Oops.  Green Lepre-Orc is good enough for this year.

 

Atherne has moved to Ice Crown in Northrend, attempting to finish the Northrend achievement before the SQUISH, and God knows what else.  Look at poor Uldum and the Vale.

As itchy as I was to finish the Scholazar Basin, Ice Crown is really an awful place.  I played through parts of it with various characters.  Every time I log in and work on some quests, I think “this is why I skipped through this content and most of Northrend”.

I’m kind of dead meat, unless the next expansion and it’s squishiness comes out in September or further out.  I’ve only completed two areas, argh.  I’d have Dragon Blight if the quests hadn’t dried up.  I’ll backtrack after Ice Crown, I think.  Dragon Blight will look utterly charming in comparison, will it not?   I don’t mind Storm Peaks, Grizzly Hills (can’t wait for the exploding outhouse quest), and Howling Fjord.  Zul’ Drak is another grim one.  Why did I like this expansion when it came out?   It had to be the dungeons and dungeon finder.

 

As I’m working with my Hunter in Draenor, I’m still enjoying it.  As I do the Mission Table, and the Fishing Daily, and the Mine daily run, and try to trap animals for my Barn, I begin to see how people got a bit caught up in some of the rat-on-a-wheel aspects.  I never did, but it is my way to just play the parts I like and ignore the parts I don’t.

 

Not game related, but we’re all Who fans here, right?  If not Who, you know you love Oscar.  Win, win.

 

 

Be safe!  Stay out of Ice Crown!

GameNotes March 10, 2020

Finally I have the pictures of my ESO Lucky Cat Landing home.  It has a really pretty outside area with views, and all of the inside rooms are like jewels, very comfortable jewels.   As always, I wish there were more lighting, but I’ll have to add that.  My khajiit loves the place so much she has not left there since I purchased it.

 

The Splashscreen

 

 

The Lucky Cat Living Room

 

 

The Lucky Cat Kitchen

 

Up the stairs to a first bedroom.

The second bedroom.

 

World of Warcraft

Whiplash finally showed up so Atherne has the Stormsong Adventurer achievement.

Plugging away in the jungles of the Scholazar Basin, going from one group to the next killing more exotic prey than the last set.   I only have one single part of the Scholazar achievement so far, and I feel like I’ve been working there for a year.   It’s better than Coldarra.

My Hunter just got her fishing shack, I’m loading her inventory with nice food makings.  Life is good in Draenor.

 

Parallel Context: One Final Lesson

Read Redbeard’s new and lively tale set in Wow Classic’s evocative Elwynn Forest called One Final Lesson.

https://parallelcontext.blogspot.com/2020/03/one-final-lesson-part-1.html

It is a really well done story of a family being terrorized by the Defias in the early days of that group taking advantage of the unprotected homesteads.  The characters feel like people you know, and you can picture all the scenes in Elwynn and in Stormwind.

GameNotes March 2, 2020

When you think there will be no Magic in your day:

 

World Of Warcraft

 

Oddly, I don’t read MassivelyOp much anymore.  I used to read it every day, checking in multiple times a day.  So I, whose main character is slogging through Northrend, almost missed this most entertaining retrospective on the Wrath of The Lich King Expansion by Elliot Lefebvre      https://massivelyop.com/2020/02/28/wow-factor-the-world-of-warcraft-expansion-tour-wrath-of-the-lich-king/

It’s interesting to see how the original Wow crowd, who started in Vanilla, reacted to the games changes.  Classic is still all bright and shiny new for me, with much offered that is not in the present game in my opinion.  However, it is also true that I never liked World of Warcraft till the Wrath Expansion, and didn’t play it regularly till the time of that expansion onward.

My character is in the Scholazar Basin, having finished the Borean Tundra but getting stuck at Dragonblight.   The quests are mostly enjoyable, except that Hemet Nesingwary is a big game hunter who has you do all his hunting for him.  Weasel.

The area is one of the better jungle settings they’ve done, very dense and lush.

 

Meanwhile, I’m loving my Hunter in Draenor.  It isn’t just the Garrison, which I love, it’s the stories of the characters all around you who travel through Draenor with you.  And who eventually end up hanging around in your Garrison, one big happy.

I love the little Thresher, who becomes the size of a dog as soon as you tame it, but begins to quickly gain in size.  Everywhere you go as a Hunter, the pets you can get really enhance the game.

 

 

In Classic, my Rogue is getting Time in Play.  For some reason, I don’t take pictures in Classic.  She’s just level 13.  She says Hai!

 

Even though I don’t plan to test it, I’m hoping to see Shadowlands Alpha hit this week, or soon.  Once the Alpha is up, we get that flow of info.  It will be interesting to see if this time around they do what they always seem to do, write the Horde areas and quests first.  That was the way of the last three expansions. Good luck to those asking to get in!