2017

Armies of Legionfall Faction Work

stargrace December 5, 2017 No Comments

I really want to fly in Legion before I level up any more alts. It makes it easier, and a lot more fun. Especially since I’ve already leveled up three times (I realize many people have done this many more times, but this is my personal experience). So I’ve been grinding away on my priest who is the furthest along with the achievements.

One of my hangups has been getting Legionfall Commander – where you need Armies of Legionfall faction. The problem is one huge chunk of this faction comes from a quest where you defeat the legionfall armies. For whatever reason Blizzard has this on a really weird schedule that you have to do on their time and being a solo mother with an active one year old who doesn’t let me game with two hands I have just not been able to meet their schedule until yesterday. The assaults take place maybe once a day, sometimes twice a day really spread out. Never more than that. They occur at odd hours, and the easiest way to see if a legion assault is going on is to check out Wowhead because it’s on their main page. At the time of this post (4:30 PT) the next assault is at 3:30pm – no way could I make that one. Then the following one is 10am tomorrow, again another one I couldn’t make, and 4:30am on Thursday. Nope. It was by pure luck that I happened to make the one yesterday. When the assault goes on you need to go to the zone it’s taking place in, and complete four legion assault world quests. Then you need to do two more smaller quests, and a scenario. you defeat a commander boss, and you get a chunk of faction.

Now you don’t NEED to do this to work on flying, but it’s the difference between 1500+ faction, and whittling away at faction 83 points at a time. It was INCREDIBLY frustrating, and I absolutely dislike this mechanic. Lock things behind time walls all you want but let it be on MY time, and not your own schedule. Or at least make them more frequent!

I am very glad I got it done. Now I just need to keep grinding away at the weekly and daily quests and eventually I’ll get there.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Gaming

The Wombats do Fractals

stargrace December 2, 2017 No Comments

I had never done a fractal in Guild Wars 2 before because it’s really hard to join up with people when I never know what my schedule will be like. Thankfully @Pixel_One_ has loads of experience with all things GW2, and she organized a night for the Combat Wombats to get together. There was only the three of us (myself, @pixel_one_ and @scopique) because @arislyn met up with some account difficulties, but that didn’t stop us!

Fractals are like mini instances. Shorter than your average one, and they scale in difficulty. We started off at level 1. The first zone involved some tribal folk being held captive by this bone guy, and we had to smush his adds while tossing boulders at him to break him out of the invulnerable shell he had. Then we had to run through the zone like Indiana Jones, dodging flaming boulders. The final fight had another flame themed boss – and most people left without looting the chest – whewps!

We decided to do one more, this one involving a crazy Asura and their zone of endless jumping. We defeated harpy after harpy while balancing delicately through the skies, or rather falling to our deaths once or twice. We had some electric beams to run and try not to get hit by instead of the flaming boulders, and our boss fight seemed pretty simple in comparison to the first fractal, we had to fight four robots that came to life one at a time, then fight them all together while trying to dodge electricity from their boss.

Another chest of fun and it was a great end to the evening. I enjoyed myself quite a bit, fractals don’t take a huge amount of time, and the lower level ones at least are not exceptionally painful, even though there were only three of us. Hopefully this becomes a weekly event for the Combat Wombats, and if you’d like to get in on it you just have to let one of us know. It was nice returning to GW2 for a bit. I had wandered off not too long after Path of Fire released through no fault of the game, my attention span just doesn’t last that long.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

Nintendo Switch in the Family

stargrace December 1, 2017 No Comments

I’ve wanted a Switch since they came out, but they’re pretty expensive and I already have a WiiU and a PS4 (which is basically collecting dust). I used the WiiU quite a bit until my cat chewed through some of the cords, and then I bought replacement cords and miss placed them.. some where.. I’m sure I’ll find them when we’re packing up the house to move.

Anyway, my husband surprised me this year buy making a black Friday purchase of a Switch for me for Christmas, along with Mario Odyssey, Skyrim, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. I was incredibly surprised and it got here this week – I asked first if it was OK to set it up and use it before Christmas or if I had to wait, because that’s just the polite thing to do!

He let me know I could use it right away. My main reason for wanting a Switch was because my little guy is pretty clingy and I don’t get a lot of time to do any sort of gaming because he wants to be on my lap at my desk, and occupies my hands. I’m restricted to playing games with one hand, and he gets wiggly and he doesn’t actually want to be up on my chair he just wants to be close. So I spend most of my days sitting on the floor playing with him while he roams around the baby gate area of our living room, and watching him do his thing when he doesn’t want to play with me. He’s great at playing on his own – so long as I’m within arms reach. I’m sure a lot of this is due to his Daddy not being here, he has kept me in close range ever since his Daddy left for depot back in July.

Anyway. The Switch is an amazing console and I couldn’t be more pleased. I tend to use it mostly as a handheld, and have only played it on the TV a few times. It’s smaller than I anticipated, so it sits on my mantel with no issues at all. I was concerned I’d need a second table set up and that my little guy would start pulling cords, etc. Now it’s perfectly out of reach.

I haven’t picked up an SD card yet, and I’ve been contemplating the pro controller that everyone has been raving about, but honestly the joy con has suited my needs just fine and I haven’t had any issues. What really surprised me is how incredible games look on the hand held. It’s quite a bit larger than my 3DS (the only other hand held I’ve owned) and the games are just amazing, especially Skyrim.

I’m hoping to pick up Stardew Valley, Portal Knights, and a few other games as time goes on. It depends on the budget, of course. There are quite a few games in the library now which I’m really pleased about. I do wish there were some visual novels in there because honestly that would rule out my desire for a Vita instantly. As it is Sony still holds the market for those games.

Is it worth the very high cost? Well, for my family, yes. I have already used it more than I ever used the PS4 or the WiiU. I haven’t played Mario Odyssey yet because I’m waiting for my husband to come home so we can play that one together. I’m really happy with my Christmas present though. Hopefully he enjoys my gifts just as much. It’s not as extravagant as a Switch (good thing, our budget certainly couldn’t handle that) but I got him two board games because he expressed an interest in collecting them and trying to get to know some of our new neighbours when we move in February. Hopefully this all works out.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

Pocket Camp – Just Not For Me

stargrace November 27, 2017 No Comments

I don’t consider myself a nomadic gamer for no reason, nope. I have been known to bounce around from game to game depending on any number of reasons. When Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp came out I was first in line to dive into a new AC game. I play all the 3DS versions and adore them, even to this day. I was a little bit cautious because I remember the last mobile game I played from Nintendo and that was a huge flop, but as I started playing I let the hype and excitement wash over me thinking wow, here’s a game I can play on my phone and I might actually last in it!

I didn’t even last the weekend.

Honestly, the game LOOKS like Animal Crossing, but it’s so incredibly limited and bare, that I kept wandering around looking for more. I love collecting bugs and fossils in the regular versions, but here the things you can find are pretty limited, and you have no way of cataloging them. Aside from dropping them off to NPC who give you 3 quests a day, or selling them to players, there’s no real inspiration to want to collect.

Those three quests a day from NPCs really started wearing away at me. Visit someone, give them a handful of stuff, repeat, repeat, move on to the next NPC.

As a friend pointed out, there was little motivation given to visit friends camps, you could give them kudos but that didn’t actually reward either of you with anything except complete a daily quest. Sure looking at their stuff is neat, but it just wasn’t enough.

Then there was the quarry zone. I unlocked it once using friends and even though I had more than 5 friends help me out every day after, I could never seem to get it open unless I went and used my precious leaves.

The whole thing started feeling really repetitive and boring very quickly. A big difference from how I feel actually playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which I still play now.

So, I uninstalled the game, and I’ll just stick with my 3DS versions, and keep hoping that Nintendo releases a Switch version. THAT I would like to see.

Real Life

Meal Prep Sunday – Keto Edition

stargrace November 26, 2017 No Comments

I’ve stalled out a bit with my weight loss, sitting at 191 (down from 248) and I still hope to get to 180 by January 29th so to kick start things I decided I’d try going back to keto temporarily. It’s usually a great way to get my body used to eating smaller meals, craving less carbs, and being nice and full from healthy fats.

Keto is not always the cheapest way for me to make and eat meals though, and I’m on a pretty strict budget so I had to come up with a meal plan that works for me for the week, and that sticks to my budget. Thankfully I have some ground beef and tuna so I don’t have to make a purchase there.

Breakfast: bacon & eggs. Add some hot sauce to spice up the eggs and I’ll be set.
Lunch: spicy salami stuffed with cream cheese, and tomato tuna bites. Basically you slice up a tomato, top it with tuna (a bit of mayo, salt, pepper), cover it with some cheese and pop it into the oven until it’s a melted mess. Sort of like an open face sandwich but without all the bread.
Dinner: spicy meatballs with a sauce, and cauliflower buffalo bites. Another really easy recipe. Simple meatballs cooked in a muffin tin with a tiny bit of sauce, and cheese melted over top. The cauliflower is just tossed with some melted butter and some hot sauce then baked.
Snacks: pickles and olives. You’ve gotta be a fan of these for it to work, but they work for me.

A simple week of foods that don’t have too much cooking. The total cost comes to about $40 CAD, with the most expensive item being the package of bacon – I plan on getting the good thick cut stuff. I wanted a break from chicken, I’ll probably go back to that staple next week.

We’ll see if this helps to kick start my weight loss again. In the past it has done wonders but we’ll have to see. I can’t do keto long term, it’s just not something I can ever stick with, but I do like how full I feel while on it and it does help me get back to eating smaller meals instead of trying to fill my plate with all the things.

Armies of Legionfall Faction Work

The Wombats do Fractals

Nintendo Switch in the Family

Pocket Camp – Just Not For Me

Meal Prep Sunday – Keto Edition

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