2022

Why I Blaugust

I’ve been participating in Blaugust for a number of years now – but I always do so on the outskirts. As much as I crave being social, I have a mixture of imposter syndrome, anxiety, and other issues that prevent me from ever REALLY feeling like I’m a part of the group. I lurk, I follow from a distance – and I write. I attempt to write every day, and those days where I don’t write, I backdate it and write extra. I love the feeling of accomplishment Blaugust gives me, and I love being even remotely connected to a group of people who don’t necessarily feel like blogging is on the out. I have three fairly active blogs. This one, my world of warcraft dedicated one (mostly about making gold), and a book blog. Writing my thoughts out lets me speak without interruption. It usually lets me vent without fear of being counseled in my area of expertise (especially when it comes to making gold). It lets me share some creative spark with the world in a process that only takes a few minutes. Sometimes I plan out a concept or idea that I want to talk about but that’s pretty rare.

Why do I Blaugust? Lots of reasons, but the main one is simply to be held accountable (even if it’s false accountability) to write. Making it become habit again in a year of posts that might have been quite sporadic. I thrive on that sort of motivation, and it’s wonderful. It may not be everyone else’ cup of tea, it may put undue pressure on you – which is absolutely not what I’d ever aim for, but for me it works. I’m so thankful to Belghast and others for continuing on with the tradition each year.

Working on my ‘Battlestation’

There is an entire reddit (of course there is) dedicated to people showing off their ‘battlestations’ – their video game set ups. There’s another one dedicated to showing off work stations/computers. Both of these places are almost magical, there are some incredibly creative people out there. I love my little gaming area, but we’re still pretty new to the house, so I haven’t done a lot with it yet. One thing I wanted to do sooner rather than later was to dust off my Huion Pro 16 and have it actively set up on my desk. I do a lot of my drawing on the ipad, but my computer is (understandably) more powerful. I know Clip Studio is going through a shit storm right now with their newly announced PC subscriptions, but there are other alternatives (like Krita) and my usual ‘let’s just pull it out when I want to draw’ was not working. Out of sight, out of mind. I want to make use of the tablet (I just ordered some felt nibs for the pen) but I also hate a cluttered work area.

For now I’ve settled with the picture above. Things are neat and pretty tidy, the drawing tablet is out reminding me to use it, and my stream stuff works pretty well in the configuration I’ve decided on. I do want to mount the sound bar to the wall, and I’d love to get an arm for the monitors, or even wall mount those, but that’s a project for another time.

Now it’s time to learn Krita and see what it can do for me.

Who to Play in Dragonflight?!

I’m torn between playing my druid and my paladin in the next expansion coming out. I love both classes for different reasons, and one of the main reasons I lean away from the druid is a silly one – I’m tired of leather gear. I’ve been playing a monk for many years now, so leather gear is something I’m very familiar with. The look and the collectability of plate is really appealing. That being said, I do NOT enjoy healing on the paladin, and I love healing on the druid. I have also not tanked on either yet, but with envokers coming out I have a feeling that there will be a need for tanks since they are a healer / DPS combination. Right now I end up playing both classes, I farm on both, do my weeklies, and raid (well, LFR only). I’m very slowly leaning towards the paladin as a main and then the druid as my ‘backup’ but I just wish that the paladin felt more comfortable to heal on. Thoughts?

Still Playing World of Warcraft

I know World of Warcraft is still a game that people feel strongly about, whether they have decided to play it or not. I decided that my enjoyment of the game and supporting those who remained to work there was the rout I wanted to go, after I took a four month hiatus. I’m incredibly happy to be back playing, and I have had an awesome time – but not with the latest expansion. I do not really enjoy Shadowlands at all (lore wise I do, it’s gameplay that isn’t appealing to me) but there’s so much other stuff that I’m thankfully never bored.

The auction house just merged (commodities only) region-wide on Tuesday, and there has been huge issues and fallout from that. Right now many items are ‘stuck’ in a pricing loop that no one can get past, making it impossible to buy any materials. Then there was the duped gold, the duped items, and all of the other issues that come with a change of this magnitude.

I keep thinking I should go back to FFXIV – but I have nothing there to entice me long term. I don’t have a community, I don’t know how to make gold there, I can’t run older content for fun (that I know of, maybe this is incorrect) and while there is housing, for some reason I just can’t seem to make the game stick. It feels like that’s a game that is supposed to appeal to me, and for some reason every time I give it a try, it just doesn’t.

In any case, I am enjoying my time in WoW – I have 23 level 60 characters, and while things look very different than they did in the previous expansion where I was 5 boxing, I’m still managing to make gold, and have fun doing it.

Where does everyone else find themselves these days? Are you playing any MMO at all? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Nomadic Gamer