WoW

Warlords, Dragons, and Sackboys, Oh my!

stargrace November 18, 2014 1Comment

Like a lot of my friends lately, I have found myself (most often than not) logging into World of Warcraft since Warlords went live. While I typically enjoy new expansion releases, this one in particular has pulled me in with their combination of cinematics, quests, and of course garrisons. Each day I log in to complete any garrison missions that I have left running over night, and pick up all of my work orders. On my main my garrison buildings include:

• T2 grand hall
• T2 mine
• T2 trading post
• T1 fishing hut
• T1 tailoring emporium
• T1 enchanter’s study
• T1 stables

I haven’t been in as much a rush to unlock things because I’ve been leveling up, but I do tend to get distracted by the shinies. I’ve picked up quite a few battle pets, worked on archeology (which is where one of my latest pets came from) and of course have been having a blast just wandering through each zone. One of the things that really appeals to me is just how much stuff is out there randomly in the world. Besides the bonus quests you can wander into, I love that there are clickies scattered about randomly. I never know what I’m going to stumble into, and I love that.

Of course it wouldn’t be enough just to have Warlords launch, two other games that are going to be taking my time include the latest Dragon Age, and of course – Little Big Planet 3. I can’t wait to start playing that on my PS4.

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, it’s great to be a gamer.

Garrisons and all their Goodies

stargrace November 14, 2014 2Comments

Alright. I know there are going to be a lot of WoW posts from various sites over the next little while, so for those who are not interested in WoW, I apologize. It is one of the (many) games I tend to play, so you’ll have to handle a few posts here and there! Warlords released, and while there have been issues (server issues, bug issues, etc) for me personally things have been relatively smooth – minus the server issues which were of course expected and I don’t mind them.

When I first heard about garrisons I got all excited thinking these were player housing. They’re not. They’re instances where you get to plop down buildings and sure you get to choose what buildings you plop down, and yes they are incredibly useful – but this is not player housing as I have come to know it. There’s no decorating, no creativity. You’re not naming any of your followers, or doing anything to the zone aside from choosing what building is going where. That being said, it IS highly addictive.

If you’re familiar with the Rift minion system then you already know what to expect from followers in garrisons. You earn NPC through PvE quests and through garrison quests (there are other ways but these are the beginning methods) and they’ll randomly take on a quality. The  beginning NPC will start at level 90, you get to level them to 100 through garrison quests. You’ll spend a lot of time at the Mission Specialist in the garrison, choosing which follower is going on which mission for the best odds. Unlike Rift where you’re not given a percentage of success right there on the mission, WoW takes all the guess work out of the equation for you.

You send your little minions followers out, and they come back after a pre-determined length of time. Some times they come back with experience, garrison resources (used for upgrades), a fancy item for you, some gold, etc. You get the picture. They level up, and you work on your garrison. You start with an Inn, Barracks, and if you have a crafting specialty chances are you’ll run into a quest that will reward you with plans for your craft (in my case this was engineering). You’ll play some more and wonder how the heck you get to earn more buildings, and how to upgrade the current ones you have.

Thankfully there are loads of guides on this part of the game. One in particular that I have been using is on Icy-Veins, and it explains that in order to upgrade your town hall to T2 you’ll need to complete the quest Bigger is Better. In order to get that quest, you need to complete a majority of the quests in Twilight Glade (Alliance at least). You’ll also need 200 resources and some gold, so keep that in mind. I’m not quite at the point where I’m ready to upgrade to T2 yet, but I’m slowly getting there and I’m quite excited about it. My warlock just reached level 92, and I’m enjoying the ride more than I’m trying to rush.

I have to admit, it’s also very nice to see so many of my friends playing – I know it probably won’t last, but I’m still very happy.

Simple Weekends

stargrace November 3, 2014 0Comment

Clocks went back an hour on Sunday morning, and while I had planned on taking advantage of the extra hour to do some gaming, after a very long week all I wanted to do was sleep, and so that’s exactly what I did. 10 hours worth, all be told. It was glorious. Once my day got started, I decided to spend it relaxing and with as little stress as possible. Of course that included a lot of gaming.

While I had killed Garrosh in LFG numerous times, I had never attempted any of the more difficult runs. I queued up for a FLEX raid over the weekend and defeated the normal mode version, which granted me my first heirloom staff, a 556 ilevel beauty that was a significant upgrade over the 510 mace I had been using previously. I also won another weapon, a warforged mace that goes perfect with my healing spec. The raid itself was pretty smooth. As a healer your job is simple, keep people alive and stay out of the purple. With the removal of our instant cast heals, keeping people alive got a LOT  harder. Once I had defeated Garrosh on normal I decided it might be neat to try heroic. I queued up once again and was invited before too long. We managed to get him down to 25% but we kept wiping on the final phase when there is mind control going on. Still, it was a good learning experience for me. Dying costs a lot of out of pocket coin, so instead of spending more on wipes I decided to go run older raids with a friend to earn that pocket change back and prepare for WoD.

It was SO MUCH fun. We ran 25 man Ulduar which I had never been to before, along with pretty much all of the raid zones from the Lich King expansion. I earned so many achievements it made my head swim, and I also won two new mounts. I made a fair amount of coin back and I expect that in WoD the amount raid mobs drop may be reduced slightly. It seems like since the stat compression everyone and their dog is running older raids and stockpiling for WoD, which is now only days away.

I’m so excited!

What’s in a Server

stargrace August 21, 2014 1Comment

I’ve been playing on Argent Dawn (alliance side) for a number of years now, but even after the server merged I found it very quiet. On a whim I decided to join a friend over on Area 52 (screenshot above) and the two servers couldn’t be any more different. This time around I’m playing horde, and the server is constantly bustling – which makes me very happy to see.

I really dislike having servers at all. They separate your player base, they make it easier to quit because your friends are scattered to the wind, and they make it impossible for new players to figure out where the “good” place to be is. More games need to do away with these archaic things and implement an open world. I get tired of trying to figure out where all my friends are playing. Some are fans of PvP while others enjoy roleplaying. Some are EST and others are PST and then there are my EU friends who typically get sequestered off in some server that I can’t even access.

Frustrating.

When you’re starting a new game, how do you pick what server you’ll be playing on? Do you typically follow your friends? Immediately jump to the highest population? What about queues? What if new servers are added? There’s always a fear that if new servers are added to balance out the populations on the heavy servers, that those new servers will eventually become desolate as the population evens out down the road.

I don’t mind phased instances, and I don’t even mind instances themselves as a masked way of keeping the population in tow, but I really REALLY dislike constantly having to decide where it is I’m going to play. Especially since these days my friends never ever play just one game – and they’re never playing those games for long, either. One minute it’s WildStar and the next week it’s FFXIV, then the week after that it’s WoW. Having to figure out where everyone is going is just one headache that I don’t think gamers should have to deal with any more.

I know it’s not that easy, after all if it were wouldn’t we have already given up these systems by now? But still.. wishful thinking.

10 years, 10 questions

stargrace August 16, 2014 0Comment

Area 52 (horde side) was packed tonight, it was awesome to see. 

All the cool kids are doing it, so I decided I would also partake in the “10 years, 10 questions” phenomenon that is ongoing due to the impending anniversary of World of Warcraft, though it does make me feel pretty old.

1. Why did you start playing World of Warcraft

I don’t know that I really have a ‘why’. My partner at the time and I had been playing EverQuest, and I had no real plans of adding another MMO to the list, but there it was. We also played EverQuest 2 together, although that game took me far longer to get interested in because I was so deeply vested in the first version. At the time I was still pretty new to MMOs in general, having played nothing but MUDS until then.

2. What was the first character you ever rolled

I don’t remember what class it was, but I do remember it was a troll. Why I decided to go with that race I have no idea, something about liking their hair I think. I started out as horde, eventually swapped over to alliance, and now play both.

3. Which factors determined your faction choice in game?

Pretty sure we had friends who were playing horde, though I never did meet up with them in game…

4. What has been your most memorable moment in Warcraft and why?

I don’t actually have one. I know, how sad is that, right? A game I’ve been playing for 10 years now and I don’t have a memorable moment.. thing is, I never formed a community in WoW, I never did any “real” raiding besides PUGs. For me, those moments really come from playing with friends, and sadly enough I just never really made any. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the game, I did and I do, but my “memorable moments” are things like, earning 400 pets, and things like that.

5. What is your favorite aspect of the game, and has this always been the case

Pet battles, by far. It hasn’t always been the case because they’re still pretty new. Before that it was LFRaid, and I know that people could go either way on that but it gave people like me a chance to experience content that I wouldn’t even get to see otherwise. Before THAT it would have to be the humour of the game, and yes, that has always been the case.

6. Do you have an area in game that you always return to?

Pretty much all of the old dungeons. I have no reason for it, there’s no gear upgrades there and my characters have long since out leveled them but I absolutely love doing old content.

7. How long have you /played and has that been continuous?

I have played off and on since release, but not continuously. I tend to get bored or move on to another game when I run out of things to do. My last break was about a year ago, and I haven’t run out of things yet. With the expansion on the horizon it looks like I’ll be here for a while longer at least.

8. Admit it: Do you read quest text or not?

First time through, yes I read it. Though I admit I am much more likely to enjoy a cinematic.

9. Are there any regrets from your time in game?

Not finding a proper community, as I mentioned above. I really think that having a group of “friends” to play with would have made a difference for me. Now I think it’s too late, there’s no real reason to meet up with people, and I wouldn’t even know where to start.

10. What effect has Warcraft had on your life outside of gaming?

I think playing Warcraft has made me a bit more tolerant. I know, that’s a strange thing to say. I have heard so many people coming down on those who play a particular game, judging them and thinking they are some how less ‘good’ because of their video game choices. None of that is true. Playing multiple MMOs in general has made me more accepting of the fact that we all have different interests, and none of that has any baring on what type of a person we are.

Feel free to answer the questions yourself! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.