I’ve finally leveled my way through The War Within on my ‘main’ (I use that term loosely, I’m not sure I really have a main any more) and I’ve started working on upgrading my gear. I know I’m a month behind the release of the game, but I’m glad I stepped away and took a little break when I did. Now I’m back to it and feeling good about playing. Things have quieted down and I’ve been taking my time to enjoy the story – the looks of the zones are just fantastic, and for a game Warcraft’s age, I feel like the team has done an amazing job. Is it as graphically intense as other games released this year? No of course not, but they’ve done really well with a game this age.
What am I aiming for next? I’m not exactly sure! I need to work on my ilevel, there’s pets that need leveling, and of course professions need knowledge points. I’ve gotten a start on my blacksmithing, but all of it will take some time. I’m having fun, and that’s what really matters.
As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself!
From time to time I wander into other games that catch my eye – it doesn’t happen often (after all, I enjoy what I enjoy, and my free time is pretty limited) but I figured I could write about it here when it happens every so often.
The first game I stumbled into earlier this week is called ‘Dicey Dungeons’ – and I found this on my xbox game pass. This game was a LOT of fun, and reminded me of games like Slay the Spire, and Monster Train. You get to pick from a roster of characters (you start with the warrior, the easiest character, then comes the thief, and then a robot) and you move through unique maps and defeat enemies by rolling a dice. There’s some minimal inventory management where you might need to shuffle some skills around (they fit in slots, there’s a large selection of skills and limited slots where they can fit) and you get little goodies for leveling up, defeating opponents, that sort of thing.
Each floor things get stronger, and while I only made it to the 5th floor in any given round, it was still interesting enough that I kept trying after I was defeated. The graphics are cute and it didn’t take me any time to pick up on the ‘rules’ of the game, so I found it easy to dip into when I only had a few moments here and there.
It’s not the sort of game I would necessarily purchase, but because I was playing it for ‘free’ on the xbox game pass, it felt like a great use of time. If you enjoy those types of games, I would absolutely recommend it.
I’ve been slowly meandering my way through the new zones of The War Within, not doing absolutely everything (yet) but taking my time and just doing things casually. I have to admit, the graphics are absolutely stunning, for Warcraft, at least. This is one of the best expansions I’ve seen as far as graphics go. They stay true to Warcraft, but you can see so many amazing looking vistas, and the skyboxes are astounding. I often just fly around taking screenshots, I’m that in love with the look of everything.
I’m not a huge fan of the nerubian race, spiders are not my favourite creature and since these ones are so incredibly well done I spend a lot of time being grossed out all together. I have upgraded all of the old gear I was wearing from Dragonflight, and I’ve gotten to the point where I needed to put my paladin into her protection spec rather than retribution because she was dying to trash fairly easily. This is something I normally do when a new expansion comes out, tanks may kill slower, but they’re almost impossible to kill.
I also picked up my fishing rod and started fishing my way through this expansion. I haven’t done anything fancy yet other than reach 300 in the skill, but I’ve looked into what can drop – I managed to land a few cosmetic pieces which is always nice. I have not figured out professions yet, I haven’t even started working my way through them or leveling any sort of reputation in a dedicated way. I imagine I’ll get to 80 first, and then work on unlocking whatever it is I need to unlock, along with working on reputation gains. There’s lots of talk in the Economy Discord about all things gold making related, but at this point in time a lot of it simply goes over my head.
The goal? Short term, reach 80 – then work on professions (and alts) from there. I’m debating whether or not I want to level everyone up with pet battles like I normally do. It might be time to just work on them in a traditional way.
As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself.
I’ve been a huge fan of Tradeskillmaster ever since I started my gold making adventures in World of Warcraft – way back in 2016. They’ve been around even before that, but for me, that’s the exact year that I decided I wanted to get into the meta game and I’ve been playing it ever since.
TSM has recently overhauled their entire website, and I have to say – HUGE – fan of these changes. They’re not perfect (yet) and there’s still some issues to work out, but as I take a look at what they’re doing I couldn’t be more excited for the future of TSM. Another big bonus is that if you were already supporting TSM with a subscription they’ve grandfathered you in to the new platinum tier for 6 months. This is a great show of faith to their customer base, and I appreciate it. Using TSM is free and always will be – but if you’re a fanatic about statistics, like I am, you may want to look at their gold and platinum subscription options.
What I’m most interested in is their updated ledger. I’ve been away from the game for a little while, and my ledger doesn’t appear to be up to date quite yet (at the time of this post it’s not picking up on my most recent sales this week, I believe there is a 3 day delay going on that is being looked into), but one of the most exciting things they’re displaying is your profit and loss across ALL of your servers. Normally, I keep track of this in a google sheet – and once it’s working as it should be, I can’t wait to see.
Another big perk to this revamp is the ability to easily see your in-game groups outside of the game. When you have a gold or higher subscription you can publish your groups and create easy-to-share links, which allow for import of the group and operations. If you’re interested in gold making at all, I HIGHLY suggest you join the WoW Economy & TSM discord (you’ll find me there as a moderator, just look for Stargrace) and spend a few days lurking around and getting familiar with the basics.
Gumdrops, Sapu, and the rest of the TSM team have been doing a fantastic job – so give it a look, and let me know what you think! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.
It was only a matter of time before I found myself back in World of Warcraft and joining the ranks of those leveling and exploring through the most recent expansion, The War Within. The first thing I had to do was settle on a character to level – I have a lot of characters, but eventually decided that my paladin should be the first one to reach 80. I’ll (hopefully) get things unlocked and started on her, and then move to other characters as time goes on. I have a ‘core’ group that I’m using with my warband, I collect recipes and attempt to complete the main story with these 4 characters, but as always, nothing is set in stone.
I completed my first dungeon (I ran it with NPC which was much less stress and gave me an opportunity to learn the dungeon) and right now I’m questing in the Ironhaul Station area. I love the aesthetics of the expansion, so far the graphics are beautiful and though I’m only level 72 (part way through at the time of this post) things seem to be moving along quickly.
I also completed my first Delve, which reminded me a lot of the mini game solo dungeons from prior expansions. In specific the Niffen ones from Dragonflight. People seem to be enjoying themselves, and that’s always good to see. Is it enough to keep people playing long term? Well, I guess we’ll just have to see! For those of us who enjoy partaking in the various meta games that Blizzard offers (collecting, gold making, etc) there’s at least always something out there to go after.
As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself.
stargrace 
