February 2015

Two down, Ten to Go

stargrace February 27, 2015 No Comments

I took some time yesterday to run through the raid zones required for Raiding with Leashes III – and managed to get 2 out of the 12 new pets. I was hoping for better odds, but RNG has never been a friend of mine in any game that I play, so it didn’t really come as any great surprise. The zones are easily solo-able by players level 100, and they don’t take a great deal of time to complete, but they are annoying to navigate if you’re not used to them. They also drop a LOT of junk loot, so you’re going to want to have some extra bag space.

I also did my weekly run through Dragon Soul, which is great for coin. Coin that I really needed because I spent absolutely every penny I had this week on the money sink that is known as heirloom gear. 6.1 added tokens to upgrade your heirloom gear, as well as a few more pieces. Most cost gold, the tokens cost gold, and if you collect 36 pieces of heirloom you unlock a mount that a level 1 character can use.

There has been some debate on the forums about this because “how dare you make the game even easier! Just giving away free mounts at level 1!” but an important thing to remember is that these mounts are not just given out to brand new characters. If you have heirloom gear chances are you have a main already leveled up, and this gear is for an alternate character. I have no problem with letting veteran gamers level through content faster than new players because it will keep them interested in playing in the long run. Of course it’s also your absolute choice whether or not to use this mount, no one is obligated to.

So my collection is at 40 pieces now, mostly upgraded, unlocked the mount – and then realized that I don’t really have many alts who can take advantage of it. Sure I do have a handful of level 90 characters, but it has been a while since I created a new character. That of course meant it was time.

I created a mage, rogue, and warrior, three classes that I don’t currently have a 90+ version of. I’ve actually never played a mage at all, for whatever reason. Whether or not I’ll get anywhere with these characters I have no idea, but the option is there.

Meanwhile I’m still playing (and having a blast) EVE Online, still taking care of my horses and crops in Wurm Online, still piddling in FFXIV and a handful of other single player games on steam, Wii U, 3DS, and PS4. It’s a good time to be a gamer.

Gaming

Raiding with leashes III?

stargrace February 26, 2015 No Comments

It looks like I’ll be spending a bit of time in Black Temple, Hyjal Summit, and the Sunwell in order to collect a new round of pets. Right now I’m up to 507 unique pets, and rank #255 for Area 52. Of course now I have 12 more to go out and try to collect. I still haven’t unlocked the T3 garrison, needing to complete 150 pet battles in Draenor. Right now I’m at 70. I’ve slowly been working on getting more pets to level 25, though that was made a lot easier when I received a stone this week that let me instantly boost a single pet directly to 25 (thank you 6.1). My pet of choice was tied between the Pandarian Water Spirit, and Chrominius, but eventually I settled on the water spirit. Both come in handy for a lot of fights.

With my battle tokens what I tend to do is purchase the random bag that lets you grant 1 level to a specific pet family. Then I sort my collection by that family, and boost the first pet (or a specific one if I have one in mind) that is closest to 25. This has worked out pretty well so far, and I have a nice robust collection of level 25 pets now. The problem is the more difficult fights require a very specific team in order to defeat them, so it’s important for me to level those up too.

Right now I’m working on leveling pets to 25 outside of the horde garrison, there’s lots of encounters, and I’ll slowly be able to make my way to 150 pet battles. I’m using an unlikely team, the unborn val’kyr (need to get her to 25), along with chrominius, and my one level 25 on the team, lil’xt (has a bonus to most of the pets in this area). It’s slow going, but not too intense and I’m able to do these battles between other things, which I enjoy.

As always happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

How to Fix PetBattle Teams for 6.1

stargrace February 25, 2015 6 Comments

If like me, you were sad to see that PetBattle Teams was no longer working after 6.1 deployed yesterday (and this is an AddOn that I highly recommend if you’re into pet battles at all) you can find a fix here:

To fix this for 6.1:

1. Open Interface\AddOns\PetBattleTeams\modules\GUI\GUI.lua
2. Search and replace (ctrl+f or search/replace with your text editor) every “Blizzard_PetJournal” with “Blizzard_Collections”

There are 5 of them in the file. Make sure “Blizzard_Collections” is capitalized like that and that the _ is an underscore and not a hyphen.

Gaming

Mobile Tractor Units?! I’m in Love

stargrace February 22, 2015 2 Comments

I’ve been doing a lot of mission runs lately in order to get my faction up for R&D agents (so I can purchase those all important datacores if you recall). It’s very relaxing and low stress which I know is rare in EVE Online. One thing I always dislike about running missions is the clean up process that I have to do after each one. Now I know you don’t HAVE to loot and salvage wrecks, and in most cases you may not even want to because the items are not ‘that’ valuable – but I loot everything I can and I salvage for parts afterward. Unless you’re running a second account with a salvage fit, this can be incredibly time consuming and boring. You have to be within range of each wreck, so you typically need to either beam it all in closer to you (which of course takes up a precious slot on your ship, multiples if you’re trying to go even faster) and you’ll also need a salvager of some sort so you can scan the wreck for parts after you take the loot.

Then some friends told me about mobile tractor units, which I had never heard of before. These are little stations you can drop out in space and they act exactly as a tractor beam would. They pull all the wrecks to the unit, and then they loot everything off of it so that you can just fly up and open the cargo hold and collect your spoils. Since it also moves all the wrecks together on its own you’re also able to salvage everything MUCH easier without requiring a brand new fit for your ship. I recently replaced on missile launcher (so I’m down to 5) with a salvager instead just for this purpose.

You should have seen the smile on my face. I’m much happier not needing a brand new ship or fit in order to loot after a hefty mission run, and my second account (which I did activate) can go about her way without needing to come to the beck and call of my main account who has completed a mission. Over all, this is probably the best bit of information I learned this week.

Gaming

Things to do, Accounts to Sub?

stargrace February 21, 2015 2 Comments

I’m still getting familiar with things now that I have returned to EVE Online, and while most of it is like riding a bike (you never completely forget and it feels like second nature) there is of course the decision of what I actually want to DO in game.

When I last played I would use two accounts and do a lot of mining. It was calming, and I had fun using a mining ship & a hauler to collect ore. I also did industry and PI, but the majority of my time was dedicated to mining. This included running mining missions for faction. Since I have returned I have felt a stronger draw towards combat and I have been working on combat related skills. I’m still contemplating setting up my 2nd account so I can get mining going again, but at this time I’m not convinced that it’s something I want to do. Of course there are always other reasons for wanting a second account active, EVE is the sort of game (much like Wurm Online) where that is quite handy.

One thing I love doing is collecting ships. Now that my Tengu is fit properly for both PvE and Covert Ops I have been looking at getting a Proteus set up. This would be an ideal covert ops ship. The tengu is nice, but the proteus can tank better and it can also dps better. Now, I am not so strict that I feel people MUST use the best ship for the job in order to play, nor do I feel that there is only ‘one fit to rule them all’ – I prefer people use what works for THEM, and that can differ. I still really enjoy collecting ships, though, so it’s on my list of potential things I’d like to do.

I also want to re-learn how to probe for sites, I hear it has changed. I do have a ship already fit for probing, so perhaps this weekend I’ll spend some time re-learning how it works and checking out the changes. One of my favourite things to do was to probe the universe for unique happenings. I find it a bit.. weird, that signatures are now marked on the sky with a sensor overlay icon, but it’s something I have been getting used to. You do still need to probe the signature in order to warp to it in those cases, though you do not need to probe anomalies in order to warp.

So what say you, oh readers of mine. Should I subscribe that second account?

Two down, Ten to Go

Raiding with leashes III?

How to Fix PetBattle Teams for 6.1

Mobile Tractor Units?! I’m in Love

Things to do, Accounts to Sub?

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