Atheren’s Adventures The Year In Review 2018

World of Warcraft

The bulk of this year was spent playing World of Warcraft. Right after Blizzcon 2017, I started leveling characters so that they’d be at max level when Battle for Azeroth arrived. I found as I was doing this that I enjoyed the Class quests more than I would have guessed.

I stuck in my toe in some LFR’s, and they weren’t bad at all. I didn’t feel like there was much of a reward for participating in them, which I suppose is the point. You’re supposed to be in a Raid Guild that only let’s you go along if they’re desperate, and they sure aren’t going to let you have any gear drops, because those are for the real raiders. Pretty icky, in my opinion. At least if something is available as LFR you can just leap in there, and experience the content, since many story lines conclude in Raids, apparently. If that’s actually the case, you might want to tweak that so everyone can complete quest story lines start to finish on their own.

Only seven characters were ready when the expansion arrived, and I sent them through each area in kind of a little conga line. It was good, and then it became grindy, particularly in Stormsong Valley (which I’m still not over).

After taking a break in November/December I’ve gone back in with a new plan, an even better plan (Start the Revolution Without Me). I’m going to run characters to 120 one at a time, leading this time around with my Demon Hunter.

I didn’t realize how much I missed bouncing around on my characters on other servers, and creating new characters on new servers. Sometimes I like to drop back to simpler times in the game world. I killed off four characters I never play (still very hard to do). Whoo hoo! I now have six open character slots for creating new characters on realms unknown.

Once again I have to comment on the awful new character models. It would be more palatable if there were barbershop options to change eye size and color, and many more hairstyles and colors available.

Everquest 2

I was really enjoying Everquest 2 earlier this year, and subscribed for a time. Somehow I got caught up in trying to work on crafting for each character, and while it was interesting, it felt onerous after a bit, so I drifted away. I’m certain to return to this game in 2019 as I have some really enjoyable characters there, I like the world, I love the quests.

Blaugust

I participated for the first time. I was really pleased to reach my goal of posting every day, and I liked my content. What started off as a pretty convivial atmosphere among bloggers soon seemed rather clique-y to me. It also seemed to me that there was some unneeded competitiveness and bloggers taking shots at others. No need for that.

On the plus side, I looked at some games in my Steam Library, and really liked them, but need to go back and finish them.

As part of Blaugust, I dipped back into some games I hadn’t played in awhile, Lord of The Rings Online, Wildstar, and Rift and Secret World. I enjoyed my time in all of them, and was sad to see the announcement that Wildstar would close. I will try to make time for the remaining games again in 2019.

Elder Scrolls Online

I started playing this more regularly in September, logging in each day for the Reward. By October, I was playing longer sessions, had truly fallen for the game, and I subscribed. I hope to write about it more, it is so deep and rich.

Star Wars Galaxies (Emu) The other game I’ve played at almost Live Game Levels this year is Star Wars Galaxies, the Pre-Combat Upgrade version. The game remains the most absorbing, live your life in an alternate world experience ever. I’ve always hoped someone would make a game with all of it’s features, but there is still nothing like it.

Return of the The Last Chapter Blog as my Game Blog

It has been a good thing, moving back to my earlier blog. The blog was originally created to share World of Warcraft tips as I was learning them with my guild mates/family. They’re a rowdy bunch, though, and only my spouse always read it. I do like the Pages option at the top for linking to my favorite games and the sites that give guides for playing. That will need quite a bit of work.

I’ve found a bunch of new podcasts to try out, and will work on getting a updated list on the sidebar.

I miss my nice pictures to break up headings on the sidebar, so I’m going to get around that by sticking any picture I want to use on the sidebar in some selected post. Once you do that, it seems to become part of some nice picture archive you can always draw from. Work around solutions ftw.

My Blaugust Story

(Title stolen from Survivor’s “My Ponderosa Story”).   The blogosphere has really come alive in preparation for Blaugust, and I’m enjoying people’s “Why I blog” stories.   Here’s mine.

I’m pretty sure this will be my first Blaugust.  We’re always off on ten day vacations in August in places with spotty Internet, so it hasn’t worked out.  We finally decided it is way too hot everywhere in August, and my husband super can’t take the heat, so we’re traveling at other times.

This may be the fifth or sixth incarnation of my games blogs.  For some reason, I periodically just pop em’, and poof they’re gone.   Soon enough I start a new one.  I have three other blogs and the content I write here just doesn’t fit in any of them.  For me, don’t cross the streams, I say.

That doesn’t mean what you think it means.  My blog won’t rule Blaugust, hehe.

I have a post goal of 100 posts for the year, and in November/December I’m always trying to squeeze in a ton of posts to reach the goal.  Blaugust should put me on Easy Street for this blog.  This post puts me at 31 for the year!  Whoo hoo!  I got this.

I’ll be using my weaselly November/December crunch time techniques to make sure I get the 31 August posts.   Look away now.

The Triumphant Return of Blaugust

Just when you’ve been reading that things are awfully quiet in the blogosphere, a battlecry goes up from Belghast of Tales of The Aggronaut.    Check there for all of the exciting details!

In a nutshell, you write a post on your blog every day for the thirty one days of August.  It is easier than it sounds.  You’ll get lots of ideas from the long time bloggers who have volunteered to be mentors for Blaugust.

Don’t have a blog?  In a fiendishly exciting development, The Newbie Blogger Initiative is now part of Blaugust.  It’s a great encouragement for you to create and get your blog started.  Some really great blogs started as part of the Newbie Blogger Initiative.  We’ll all be reading and cheering you on.

Also included this year will be Developer Appreciation Week, something I always mean to write about but have not.   Now I can get credit  for my heartfelt post.

I really do appreciate the people who create the worlds I get to spend time in.

Check Belghast’s blog for the information on the Discord channel for Blaugust.   Lots of your favorite game bloggers are there, it’s a great opportunity to converse.

Note  I’ve added any blogs to my blogroll for those signed up or mentoring that I didn’t have, I do love game blogs so I had most 🙂

Updated blog roll with new participants 7/13/18

Feedly and Blaugust

At the suggestion of noone in particular I tried Feedly again.  Slick as anything.  I just had to pay attention because they kept suddenly sticking things in “uncategorized” or “mmo” and I was compelled to go back and drag blogs into the Gaming category.  As I’m reading along I can’t help intoning Feedly in honor of The Little Shop of Horrors.

My entire blogroll is now on Feedly and all of the Blaugusters are there for easy updates.

I read through every blog on the Blaugust list and was impressed by the many distinctive voices.  Varied writing styles and topics, including one which made me cry, are a great find. Reading about games pleases me, even if I don’t play the particular title.   I saw just one Vlog, but the guy has style.

Blaugust: Game Blogger Tales from Many Realms Coming August 1st

Tales of the Aggronaut is sponsoring an opportunity for game bloggers to practice their craft every day during the month in August, with prizes (!!) and commendations for the hearty souls who manage to write about the games they love without stint for all of August.

He  (?) had 47 signups as of this morning. Almost 50 wondrous tales per day for those of us who like to read about the adventures of others.  Many of the blogs are on my blogroll now, and I’ll get the rest on so I can enjoy the rousing tales, deep thoughts and pictures from lands familiar and unknown.  Onward!

(Note we’ll be gone four days in August with iffy connectivity so I will enjoy this round and think about next year.)