2018

Gaming Round Up

Alright, since I haven’t been doing too much exciting in game but I still want to make a post, lets see what we have.

First, Rift announced that they’ll be opening a special subscription only server that works a lot like the EQ/EQ2 progression servers if you’re familiar with those, but has some sort of conclusion that no one is really sure about. Will characters be deleted, will we get to merge them onto live servers, is this a one time deal, those sorts of questions pop up and prevent me from getting really excited about things. I played Rift for a good while, got to max level, did some dungeons, did some open world raids, but stopped playing when there were some major class changes that took place (cleric changes in specific). Will I play on the subscription only server? Highly unlikely. While I am drawn into progression servers for EQ/EQ2 due to a heavy nostalgia factor, I don’t get those same warm fuzzy feelings about Rift.

World of Warcraft released their latest update which included world wide level scaling. There was a massive outcry from transmog and mount farmers that Warlords and Mists of Pandaria were too difficult and people could no longer solo the raids. Blizzard heard these cries and Friday rolled in some changes to allow people to farm again. There are still quite a few glitches that I’ve seen people talking about, quests where rewards don’t line up or don’t actually scale, quests that are just completely broken to begin with, but I think Blizzard has their heart in the right place. Their game has been around quite a while now, and the pull of nostalgia is deep. Why not make money off of it.

Nintendo, doing what Nintendo does, announced NintendoLabo where you pay for a program, get some cardboard, and build things like fishing rods and robots that actually work. Intended for a younger user (think of building these things with your kids) I’ve seen my friends react with every spectrum of emotion available. Personally, the price point is way too high for cardboard when my kid is just going to goober all over it and it’s going to need replacing. The idea itself is pretty neat, and of course I want to see them succeed because why not.

Lots of announcements, including a visual novel FINALLY being released for the Switch (and tons of other great indie games, something I have been so excited to see). What’s your favourite announcement from the week? Let me know in comments!

Posts may be rare in the upcoming weeks as my family and I prepare for our move from British Columbia Canada, to Saskatchewan. In just over a week we’ll be packed up and driving to our new home. Posts should continue after we get settled though, so stay tuned and happy gaming!

Rematch (PetBattles)

I haven’t done a lot of pet collecting in Legion, I haven’t been through the zones to see what I’m missing, and I haven’t seen where I get the pets I’m lacking. Lately the mod I’ve been using the most, is Rematch. It lets me make teams which a few other mods let me do, but in this case I’m able to create it based on the NPC that I’m targeting. As you can see by the far right hand side I’ve got 4 Legion NPCs listed there, the ‘eternal strider’ one is just a leveling team that I threw together. Some of the battles are more difficult than others and I still need to look up the method that I defeated them the last time, but in most cases it’s pretty straight forward. Attack until the NPC pets are dead.

I’d like to get back to collecting. I’m missing almost everything you can catch in the wild in Legion, plus whatever specialty pets there are. There are only a handful on the AH that I don’t own, and I haven’t done the new pet battle dungeon yet, either.

It’s a great way for alts to level up and a relaxing way for me to spend a little time.

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

2018 Ravelry Challenge

This year Ravelry has added a “challenge” section to their project page, where you can sign up for a number of projects you want to complete in a year, and then add them to your queue, assigning them a completion date of sometime in 2018. This year I added a few things to my challenge, trying to be lenient on myself due to life more than likely getting in the way.

I’ve seen a lot of people knit the rose city rollers and I am hoping they don’t take very much time. I’m determined to FINALLY learn the fish lips kiss heel that I purchased two years ago and have never managed to actually knit, and I want to get those sock scraps used up by starting a memory blanket.

Will I actually complete any of these projects? Who knows, it’s nice to have them organized and planned out though.

Making Money in WoW

I read a blog post yesterday from @sypster about how he was making money in WoW without having to play all day long and without exerting too much effort. I believe his end goal is paying for his subscription with tokens, but it got me thinking a bit. I don’t have a lot of game time and what I do have is often played with a toddler on my lap, but I wanted to optimize my own gains a bit more.

One thing mentioned right off the bat was the class hall champions. For a while I was completely drained of resources so I wasn’t even using them. Their ilevel is hovering around 850 and most are not geared or leveled. That needs to change. My alts don’t even have more than 2 champions, something else I want to work on.

I also use TSM (TradeSkillMaster) but I don’t know how to use all of the features it provides. There are some YouTube videos and tutorials I want to take a look at, it’s just a matter of finding the time.

Then there’s world quests. I’ve been neglecting to do a lot of them because I figured that the gear was not an upgrade and who wants to do a quest for 80 gold – but that gold adds up, and those purple gear rewards can be disenchanted and sold for 250 gold each (give or take a few gold). So there’s certainly methods out there I could be taking advantage of in order to get myself a larger nest egg.

What do I hope to do with mine? Well, I’d really like to buy Overwatch. I meant to pick it up when it went on sale, but completely forgot (it was Christmas after all). I’m content paying my $18.99 CAD a month for my subscription, but there are shop items I’d love to get, and little extras that tokens could make up for. It would be great to buy a few mounts or pets that I’m missing, too.

Have any other gold making tips? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Thoughts on Crafting

I know, it’s late into the expansion to be talking about crafting, but it has been weighing on my mind, so here we are.

My favourite type of crafting is when it’s able to be completed independently from adventuring, or at least doesn’t rely too heavily on it. EQ2 did a fantastic job with this, allowing crafters access to higher level areas and abilities due to their crafting level, even if their adventure level was quite far behind.

I like complex crafting (think of Vanguard) and I like the ability to do something else besides beating in the heads of my enemies. Crafting fills that niche – in some games. This isn’t the case with World of Warcraft, and I feel like the past two expansions have been ‘dumbed down’ even further for those of us who enjoy crafting but who may want a break from adventuring.

First, there’s the fact that you no longer have to do any old world content to level up. You can get from 1-800 using just Legion recipes. They’ve obliterated their own content, allowing players to purposely skip it because after all who wants to do old content and farm in old places when there’s a shiny new place out there.

This was also the case in Warlords, and I disliked it back then too. I was sad to see it moving forward.

Legion also added gated content to crafting, something that I absolutely loath. You have to do adventure dungeons (on their easiest setting, but it’s still a dungeon) in order to unlock some recipes, to progress some crafts, and move forward. You are forced to group up, either with friends or using the dungeon finder tool to complete crafting quests.

I’m sure there are lots of people out there who have no issues with this, but me, I have an issue with it. I don’t mind doing crafting quests to grind reputation, or doing adventure quests to unlock things I need for crafting – but please, don’t force me into a dungeon situation when I may not be comfortable with that.

They also recommend you be 110 for the crafting quests, so that means you have to level your adventure stuff up first. I made the mistake of progressing my crafting first and I was unable to do what I needed to do because I wasn’t high enough level. It left me feeling frustrated and defeated.

Not everyone enjoys virtual killing all day long every day. Having options for people like – crafting – is a great way to keep retention on people who may not typically play your sort of game. The crafting community in MMOs is a strong one, and I dislike to see them being overlooked in a lot of games. We don’t all play the same way, and forcing us to is just a bit ignorant (and lazy).

I’m 778 in tailoring, and questing along trying to find the breadcrumbs that I’ve missed over time so that I can unlock more recipes. I still have enchanting to do and since this is a newer character I’m starting over at square one, which isn’t much fun, but I do want to get my crafting up there. Next? Maybe fishing.

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