Monthly Wrapup

It was a good month for games.  I played Battle for Azeroth, and really love this expansion.   It may be the best yet.   All my higher level characters are playing really well.   It’s taking each one long enough to work their way through Freehold in Tiragarde so that I can queue for dungeons.

 I’ve gotten Freehold, Waycrest Manor and Shrine of the Storm with various characters.  Freehold is smoothest, with everyone getting lost in Waycrest Manor, and dying at the Ritualists and  Lord Stormsong in Shrine of the Storm.   Tanks and Healers are a bit cranky.

Everquest 2 was played a bit almost everyday.  In a stressful month, I was thinking of it as “my happy place”.  Now that’s a good thing for a game to be.

I’ve played my newly minted Mystic the most, and she’s at level 17.  She also has 7 gold, which is way more than my level 17 Fury has.   I’m almost thinking you get more looted money and things to sell in the Frostfang Sea area.

My Fury is not getting any money as loot, it’s gross stuff like Canine Saliva.  She’s in the Qeynos/Antonica area.  I just like the little ching ching sound of gold.   Also, it feels as if there is better bank and vendor access in the Frostfang area.  For sure, there are more rugs to be had in Frostfang.   I wonder if they kind of loaded it up when they went Free To Play.

There’s still a little Bruiser Froglock on the Isle of Refuge.  I wonder if I send her to Kelethin if she’s likely to get some new and unusual furniture 🙂

I enjoyed my Steam games and plan to go back in and work on those.  My son recommended the Witcher to me and I have all three of the games.  He’s generally right about what games and classes I’d enjoy playing.

Loved Broken Age.

Curious to see the plot play out in Dear Esther.  

The Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell is pretty funny, in I’m sure an unintended way, as it is so serious in tone.

I logged in to Rift a couple of times, and am set to send my Cleric out adventuring.

It took forever to get ESO to update, but I’m now able to log in and see which character I want to play.

Looking at my GW2 Hunter for a post or two, I think I may back up and try her Personal Story.

 

Battle For Azeroth

Launch night was pretty smooth.  I had to wait for my character screen to populate for a few minutes.

The Heart of Azeroth segment in Silithus was not too bad.  They’ve done a lot with cinematics in this expansion to enhance story.

Love Boralus, still.

The ferries don’t get old.

I ran all seven 110s through all the quests available to get to Kul Tiras.  Once there, I picked up their Kul Tiran Trade Skills  and a stack of 100 of whatever their main purchasable crafting ingredients were so as they gather they can craft.

Then I sent them by ferry to Eastpoint Station,  and picked up the quests there.

Tonight it was Ashmane Foundry, with it’s perky orphans and Ursula-like Lady Ashvane.  I’m not the only one who’s noticed Priscilla looks and sounds like Ursula.  I don’t think Jaina looks like Elsa from Frozen though.

In any case, I think it helps the story to have her telling her employees to refine that azerite faster and faster.  When I originally went through this area in beta, no such connection was made.  It’s interesting how they’re weaving pre-BFA storylines into this world.

My order for sending each character through an area is:

Demon Hunter
Priest
Rogue
Paladin
Mage
Warlock
Druid

Each did the Foundry, then, when all were through, they headed into Eastpoint Station, and picked up the available quests there.  There were several choices of places to go and I decided to head to wherever the winds blew with Flynn, that charmer.

Next stop, Castaway Point.

There are castaways from all over Azeroth here, even members of the Horde, sitting around wishing their ships hadn’t been wrecked.

On a character’s turn, they gather any nodes they see anywhere nearby.  Grab any Treasure Chest.
Stop and fish in any pool that appears.

I’ve never done this method of sort of simultaneous leveling before.  So far I like seeing how each class handles the same content.

They’re all now just short of halfway to level 111.   They all have Reputation with Proudmoore about three fourths of the way towards Friendly.

The real beauty of my plan is, when they are at Friendly with Proudmoore, I’ll move them to Drustvar, get Friendly, move to Stormsong.  Once they’re Friendly everywhere, I’ll send them back to Tirasgarde to complete that, then Drustvar, then Stormsong.   They’ll be ready for World Questing at 120 and not have to wait to finish one more rep grind.  Could work!

Looking Back At Legion, Looking Forward Towards Battle For Azeroth

I’ve been meaning to write a post regarding what I appreciated in Legion and what I’m looking forward to in Battle For Azeroth. 

The Best of Legion

Getting Pathfinder for Flying has to be the top moment.

 I could see people were getting it easy peasy in just a few weeks, but the reputation grinds and the Broken Shore completion were really unpleasant.  The next time around (BFA) I’m going to make certain to do every single quest everywhere, to do every single thing that might be an achievement I can do, and it will be quicker this next round.

My Frost Mage Gets Her Artifact Weapon

I had a terrible time getting my Frost Mage to the Broken Isles because I could not beat the boss in her Artifact Quest.  Every other character had no trouble.  She was just stuck in Draenor.  It was very sad.  Then one day I tried it again and she got it!

Soon thereafter, I changed her to Fire Mage and she’s had a much better time of it.

Suramar

I loved Suramar.  It was like a mini-expansion, completely different from every other area in Legion. The story was really well done, though it might have ended a bit sooner.  At first I hated Suramar City, but as I got better gear and could easily take on the roaming elites, it was fun.

I loved that in disguise my Feral Druid looked like a beautiful cat.

Even the Suramar Swim Form disguise was great.

Looking Forward To These In Battle For Azeroth

Pirates, Tales of the Sea, Yo Ho! 

I feared Battle for Azeroth would be all icky and PvP filled, but it isn’t at all!  The Horde are barely seen, I suppose unless you’re in Warmode or a certain city in Stormsong Valley.

I have a lifelong love of pirates and sea stories and this expansion is a dream.  It’s sort of amazing they took three large geographical areas and gave them all different takes on seafaring superstitions and monsters.

The quests in Tiragarde Sound and Drustvar really flow well from one area to the next.  You’re drawn along by story and your own desire to explore.  Does it get better than that?

The city of Boralus (Alliance side, of course) is, I think, the best drawn out city they’ve ever done.  It sprawls, but in a natural way a city would sprawl, right down to the docks.

You can get boat rides everywhere!  In addition to flight points you can take ferries from one place to the next.  The oarsmen and women are often telling stories or making comments as they go.

Herbs grow in some unexpected places.  Like the sides of buildings, or on trees, or in rivers, or by the seaside.

I love the dungeons.  I’d like ten more!

See you in Boralus!

Sooper Secrit Dungeon Report

The clock is ticking, but I wanted to see the two dungeons for BFA I’ve never seen  The Underrot and The Temple of Sethraliss.  After an hour wait, I got into The Underrot.

Everybody died several times a foot or so away from the dungeon entrance.  Looking good!

Except! Ugliest dungeon I’ve ever seen.  We’re talking Ug-lee.   Don’t look at the picture below, it’s a spoiler, and it doesn’t do the Ug-lee justice.

And everyone kept dying.

Then…some guy in gold shows up and I found him mesmerizing, except, when he moved it looked like he had a diaper-load.  Yo.

Gonna love this one.

Needed to break from play in BFA after this.  They’re all right, at 120 you can’t fight a dead snake on the ground.  Luckily before my Live characters get to 120, they’ll have fixed all of that, I’m sure.

Teldrassil Burning

Now that we’re in the midst of the War of Thorns, a few thoughts:

Breaking up the quest chain and having an entire week between the parts blunted the impact of it considerably.  It was much more powerful in Test all in one sequence.

The Sylvanas section of The Warbringers was interesting as backstory to a character I don’t know.   It didn’t have the resonance of Jaina’s story though.   And, cringe away, but I had no idea who the big bad human guy was who decimated her world and turned her into a monster.  Her burning of Teldrassil was no surprise, and I wondered that people were even speculating it would be someone else.

For some reason, I hope she gets a redemption arc.  She’s powerful, she’s badass, she could be awesome and heroic.  Dang, that leap to the seige tower in the BFA cinematic, it rallied her troupes in a heart beat.

Next up, The Battle for Lordaeron.  I think I’ve played through it at least 15 times.  Eye poker time.  If it weren’t for the xp, and my stubborn desire to let all my characters prove themselves (and I do think it’s a good class test), I’d sure skip that one if given the chance.

I’ll be interested to see where they split the narrative.

I played through it once as a Horde character to see how the story played out from that side.

I find it difficult to play the Horde side.  Note her name.  Felt icky shooting at dwarves and Stormwind Soldiers (sorry buddies!)  Killed her off.

As a toss in, I also can’t really play a male either, because I can’t take it seriously.

I got this guy all the way to Aszuna.   Might have done a Battleground with him.  Lolmeister all the way.  He’s a goner too.

Blizzcon Reveals, Initial Thoughts

I bought my first ever virtual tickets this year and was unable to watch yesterday at all, and today doesn’t look good either.  At least I can still see them and catch up.

Battle For Azeroth Expansion    My first thought was “well that’s the most boring expansion idea ever.”  I never played Warcraft 3 or any of the previous Warcraft games, but it seems as if they may be trying to bring elements of the RTS games to WOW, which may be interesting if they pull it off. I’ll wait and see how it plays out.

Classic Servers!!!!  There’s the glorious reveal.  I never played a single moment of Vanilla WOW, so I don’t have any expectations that it has to be some particular variant, I’m just really excited to see what earlier incarnations were like.  I’ve never seen Thousand Needles when it wasn’t underwater.  I’d loved to see Auberdine restored.  It still makes me sad whenever I send a character through the area.

Auto-scaling everywhere.   I thought Auto-scaling would be a good thing, but in truth, I feel like I’m treading water and never getting anywhere in Legion.  I like getting new skills as I level.  Gawd, don’t let there be some Artifact Weapon equivalent so you don’t get to level up yourself (that’s how it feels) but your boring weapon gets all the goodies.

PVP Servers gone, except now they’re everywhere.  I put my characters on non-PVP servers so they don’t have to be vulnerable to some nitwit with bullying issues.  I hate as it is that you can be flagged PVP under certain conditions.  In my mind, the only pvp that should occur on a non-pvp server is in instanced battlegrounds, or instanced anything not part of the general world.  If this change removes the chance of being accidentally or otherwise flagged pvp, then fine.

Those are the biggies.  More after I get a chance to watch the panels.

Side note:  I actually liked Anduin Wrynn in one of the cinematics for the first time since Pandaria when he was a selfish, thoughtless boy endangering his own people as they tried to find and “save” him.  Mass rez!