World of Warcraft
81 entries. 52,060 words.
2013-10
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WoW, Relaxing Trinquility.
2013-10-23.
Perhaps as a result of a post on Inventory Full and a post on Herding Cats, I found myself playing WoW over the weekend. It was not one of my better weekends in terms of getting productive things done in my life, but I choose to think of that as the cause of playing WoW, rather than the effect. Anyway, I made a number of observations about WoW as compared to more modern MMOs.
- MMORPG
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WoW Doesn't Take Itself Seriously.
2013-10-29.
Playing WoW again recently, it dawned on me why it’s been so popular. It’s a good game and all, and it’s more addictive than blue meth, but I think that one of the main things that pushes it over the top from niche game to mainstream hit is: It doesn’t take itself seriously.
Most people would probably be embarassed to admit that they play a game involving elves and dwarves and knights and dragons.
- MMORPG
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Halloween in the MMO.
2013-10-31.
Autumn (aka. Halloween) celebrations are a staple of modern MMORPGs.
Ye gods what is that?
(I was going to put another picture captioned “It’s always Halloween in Kingsmouth!” but I couldn’t find my screenshot.)
- MMORPG
2013-11
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When WoW Tanks Go Rogue.
2013-11-05.
I had an odd, somewhat amusing experience in WoW recently. I’ve been playing a lot of dungeon instances lately, partly because I’ve never actually done any WoW dungeons before, and partly because I wanted to level a mage without going through the hassle of soloing. Almost every instance has been an enjoyable, workmanlike experience … until this tank decided to be an ass.
So the random dungeon selector came up with the Scarlet Monastary.
- MMORPG
- Tanking
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Is WoW Leveling Really That Fast?.
2013-11-06.
So my WoW mage has Enchanting as a profession, and he’d leveled way past the point where he could disenchant the magic items he picked up at the measely skill level of 15. I had a couple of other characters in the 25-30 range that I could have used to farm items from dungeons, but I didn’t think those items would be any better. So I got the brilliant idea that I would level another character to 15 and just keep doing dungeon instances and send all the excess low-level magic items that I picked up to my mage.
- MMORPG
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Flying Mounts In WoW.
2013-11-13.
The Burning Crusade has been out since January 2007, which makes it nearly seven years old. Since that time, there has always been a contingient of people on every new MMO forum who scream, “Where are the flying mounts? I keep getting hit by mobs!” I, like most everyone else, always scoffed and thought, “Just run around the mobs. Jeez. We don’t need no stinkin’ flying mounts.”
Flash forward to today, when my Hunter finally bought a flying mount on the Hellfire Penninsula.
- MMORPG
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WoW Dungeon Guides Are Terrible.
2013-11-14.
There is one area where WoW is woefully far behind other games like Rift and FFXIV. That is: Normal dungeon guides on YouTube. Good ones, I mean. They don’t exist for WoW. Or maybe they do exist, but they are so deeply buried within the noise that you can’t find them.
I don’t want to see some guy rambling about nothing for twenty minutes of unedited game footage. I want a little intro telling me what the trash mobs are, then I want to see the first boss and his special mechanics, then the second boss, and so on.
- MMORPG
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WoW Warlords of Draenor Impressions.
2013-11-18.
Here are some first impressions of the newly announced WoW expansion Warlords of Draenor. I’m not a hardcore WoW player but recently I’ve been playing more than I usually do, so I have more of an opinion than “meh, whatever.”
New Character Models. It’s about time, I say. I can’t believe anyone would oppose this. I found it rather annoying that they made these nice, smooth panda models and animations for MoP but left everybody else with like fourty-seven triangles and six frames of movement.
- MMORPG
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WoW Tanks Are Top DPS??.
2013-11-26.
I realize nobody wants to read about WoW, but historically I haven’t played it much, and about 90% of it is still new to me. Well “new” isn’t the right word exactly-it’s more that WoW’s implementation of familiar MMO tropes is new to me. For example, I’ve made a shocking observation in my low to mid-range dungeon runs: The tank almost always does the most damage in the group. Sometimes by a very large margin.
- MMORPG
- Tanking
2013-12
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WoW Progress Report.
2013-12-16.
I bought a 3-month subscription for WoW when I suddenly got interested in playing again. Now that I’m running out of interest, the subscription will be expiring in January. It’s obvious that game developers are not doing subscriptions anymore, but I have to say, it’s pretty awesome to play a game where you aren’t bothered with cash shops or gems or other alternate forms of cash-based currency.
Anyway, my highest-level character in WoW is a 66 Night Elf Hunter.
- MMORPG
2014-01
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WoW Battle Pets FTW.
2014-01-09.
This is it. It’s all or nothing. My marmot is almost out of health. He won’t survive another round, and he’s the last one. I throw the box. I watch with breath caught in my throat as it teeters … totters … and falls down on the frog. I got it! I pump my fist and celebrate the capture of a new battle pet in WoW.
My gnome jumps for joy on the screen, too.
- MMORPG
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WoW – Who to Boost.
2014-01-28.
I am blatantly stealing TAGN’s post subject here, which is the question of who to boost to 90 for Warlords of Draenor. My situation is a lot different than his though, because I only play WoW when I’m really bored with other games, and my highest-level character has only recently broken into the Wrath of the Lich King era of the game.
Hunter? This was the second character I created when I started WoW in 2006, and my second-oldest surviving MMO character.
- MMORPG
2014-02
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WoW – Outlands Completed, Or At Least Left.
2014-02-04.
Due to a heat pump failure, my normal schedule of writing scintillating posts (ha!) was totally borked. But lucky for you, I found some posts that I have previously rejected as being totally lame and irrelevant, pulled from the dregs of the barrel of mediocrity.
My WoW Hunter has finally reached the level cap! Of Burning Crusade, that is. Which means he is now Level 70, a mere twenty levels and five years behind where everyone else is.
- MMORPG
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WoW – $60 Seems Reasonable.
2014-02-27.
I don’t have a problem with Blizzard’s $60 for a level 90 character. It’s within reach, but high enough to keep it from being an impulse buy (for me, at least). I think I would only pay to level a brand new character. It seems like a waste of money to take a mid-level or higher character up to 90.
If you’re a person who can play all day and night, I could see where $60 seems high, because you can probably level a character to 90 within a month of subscription time, which is $15 I think.
- MMORPG
2014-03
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Landmark et al – Take My Money!.
2014-03-03.
Here’s my feedback to SOE regarding Landmark’s proposed monetization plans: Hey can I just pay you and not get spammed with advertising for potions and costumes? That would be super. Oh, and by the way I already paid you. Maybe factor that into your plans, too.
Also, are you ever planning to increase the percentage of your game that is finished? It’s been at 60% now for a month. (Okay, that probably wasn’t fair.
- MMORPG
2014-06
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Mid-June MMO Status Report.
2014-06-20.
Not much to talk about, so here’s a non-WildStar MMO status report!
ArcheAge. I’ve only logged in to pay the taxes on my measely 8×8 farm, and occasionally grow aspen trees. I don’t expect to play this any more until after it launches.
The Secret World. I have logged in every few days to grind through a mission or two in the City of the Sun God zone. I’m attempting to collect AP and SP so I can fill out my skills better, which will better prepare me to go back to the Besieged Farmlands and continue the main story quest, which will then eventually allow me to get to Tokyo perhaps sometime in 2018.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – Yeah, You Read That Right.
2014-06-23.
There’s WildStar to play, right? So of course I spent a big chunk of time over the weekend playing … wait for it … World of Warcraft. I have about ten days left on a subscription so I figured why not use it. I leveled my Hunter from level 72 to 75 with plain old PvE questing. It now seems quite plausible to level up to 90 before WoD comes out.
- MMORPG
- Status
2014-07
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Ditching WildStar for WoW.
2014-07-02.
I cancelled my WildStar subscription*. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I don’t feel like playing it any more. My Esper has remained largely static between levels 20 and 30, with no noticeable improvements in abilities, so I fully anticipate it will just be a repetitive chore to get from 30 to 50, at which time I would enter the cesspool of toxic behavior that I keep hearing about.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – 85 of 90 – Death March Continues.
2014-07-08.
Status of my WoW death march to 90: My Hunter is at level 85. I finished the Deepholm zone which was quite enjoyable; it was colorful and weird and gigantic (although strangely devoid of pets to tame). I had just started the Twilight Highlands, which the “Altoholic” addon told me was where I should go next, when I hit 85. It’s not as colorful but I love the way the dwarves go on those little raids to retake their little villages.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – 86 of 90 – Jade Forest.
2014-07-11.
I’ve been experiencing a lot of drama at work lately, so vegging out with WoW has been pretty awesome. By the time I get home I’m not in any mood for challenging gameplay. I tried the Death Knight for the first time and couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to use all those weird rune resources or whatever. So on we go toward level 90 with the Hunter!
I was going to spend a little more time in the Twilight Highlands to see what happened with the dwarves, but then I noticed that my experience bar barely moved after I turned in a few quests post-85.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – 87 of 90 – Jade Forest Continued.
2014-07-17.
Since I’m now pretty sure I’m going to hit 90 well before Draenor comes out (I’m guessing it will be late Fall at the earliest, but I hear mutterings that it may not even make it out by December), I no longer feel the need to rush to maximize my leveling. So I’ve stuck around in the Jade Forest doing “low” level (85) quests so I can complete the whole zone, rather than rushing ahead to the higher level zones.
- MMORPG
- Status
2014-08
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WoW – 88 of 90 – Valley of the Four Winds.
2014-08-06.
July was a rough month for me, professionally speaking. To make a long story short, I’m unemployed now. Consequently I’m forcing myself not to spend any money on games, so I cancelled my WoW subscription and I’m sticking to bought-but-unplayed Steam games. But before I did that, I made it to level 88.
Ding!
Valley of the Four Winds was kind of a weird place. Lots of giant mutant vegetables and Monty Python-esque cute, furry, dangerous creatures.
- MMORPG
- Status
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Warlords of Draenor Launches Nov 13, 2014.
2014-08-14.
I don’t really have anything to say about it, though. I just wanted my cleverly-crafted post title to draw you into my blog lair. Ha-ha! I social-engineered you!
(I’ve been reading about copywriting and headlines today. Sorry.)
I will say, though, that I’m a little surprised Warlords of Draenor is shipping so early. I figured it wouldn’t be out until December. I haven’t heard anything but “it’s not ready” from beta testers.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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WoW: 10 Years, 10 Questions, 10 Answers.
2014-08-19.
Alternative Chat is asking everyone 10 questions about WoW for a documentary. Most answers that I’ve seen have been coming from semi-hardcore WoW players, but I thought it would be fun to give answers from a non-hardcore WoW player. Plus, it’s good material for a blog post!
1. Why did you start playing Warcraft?
I started playing in 2006 after I saw the infamous Make Love, Not Warcraft episode of Southpark.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Responses
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What’s The Best Subscription-Only MMO?.
2014-08-29.
What’s the best subscription-only MMO out there right now? If you could only pick one to maintain, which one would it be? (By the way, the possible answers are: WoW, EVE, WildStar, ESO, or FFXIV.)
This is pretty easy for me to answer, actually: Final Fantasy XIV. Hands down. No need to even talk about it. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, there’s a lot to do, it’s updated often, it does every MMO mechanic (that matters) exactly right, and it’s cheaper than the others at $12/month.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2014-10
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Ping-Ponging My Way To Nightmare Tide.
2014-10-23.
I took a little break from ArcheAge and it turned into an unintentional gaming ping-ping-a-thon. Don't worry, I still log into ArcheAge to gather the fruit from my trees a couple times a day. Also, I finally destroyed my Scarecrow Garden to make a Farmer's Workbench. I hated to do it, though. I wish I could rotate my house to face a different direction. FFXIV First I dropped back into Final Fantasy XIV again because I had an active subscription.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – Level Cap At Last!.
2014-10-24.
I haven’t mentioned Bragtoberfest yet because a) I haven’t really had anything to brag about and b) I’m not a very braggy sort of person to begin with. I’ve never been one of those people that parade around banks riding high-end mounts and wearing raid gear to make everyone jealous. I usually wear rag-tag outfits that don’t match.
But this is undoubtedly the braggiest thing I will accomplish this month so: I dinged 90 in WoW!
- MMORPG
- Status
2014-11
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Rift Enthusiasm Waning, Bring on Draenor.
2014-11-29.
November is nearly over, which means NaNoWriMo is almost over for another year. As of this posting, I have some 1,500 words left to do before validating. (The story is nowhere near done, and I expect I will need to add another 40,000-50,000 words to actually finish the novel.)
I’m growing a bit tired of Rift. I finished the main story and got my main Mage to 65, and my Rogue, Warrior, and Cleric are all sitting at 60.
- MMORPG
- Status
2015-01
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Arbitrary Mid-January Status Update.
2015-01-19.
I’m in a “bouncing around between games” mode at the moment, now that I’m done with Elite: Dangerous. I’ve been logging into two or three or four different MMOs a day, looking for one to capture my imagination.
Level 100!
WoW. My WoW subscription runs out on the 20th, and I won’t be renewing. WoW is a fun game, but I always tire of it pretty quickly. I did manage to reach level 100 with my Hunter and upgrade my Garrison, though.
- MMORPG
- Status
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Comparing Played Times.
2015-01-21.
I found an old, old screenshot of my main Asheron’s Call character from near the end of my playing time:
What MMORPGs looked like when they were more work than fun.
There’s some interesting things to note there. First of all, my /played time was 17d 11h 26m 22s. I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing that game… it seemed like my entire life was spent in that game for about a year.
- MMORPG
- Musings
2015-02
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WoW – My Favorite Addons.
2015-02-20.
I started this post in November 2014, and TAGN’s recent post on addons reminded me that it was still sitting in Drafts. So I thought I would finally post it.
Addons are a fact of life when you play World of Warcraft. You can play without them (I’ve done it), and most of the gameplay basics are there, but Blizzard has consistently refused to put in any of the quality-of-life enhancements that we are all used to from every single other MMO released in the past ten years.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2015-08
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Reactions To WoW Legion.
2015-08-10.
World of Warcraft is so far off my radar right now that the announcement of the new Legion expansion* is about as interesting to me as a deer tick. Even that horrible analogy was more interesting to me. It’s not that I don’t like WoW when I play it. It just doesn’t hold my attention for very long.
There are two things I just don’t understand about WoW fandom: The first is how people can look around at all of the MMORPGs out there and decide that WoW is the only one they want to play, and the second is how anyone can follow any of the lore that happens in WoW.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Pre-Release
2016-08
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Legion Pre-Expansion Invasions Are Fun.
2016-08-15.
I had fun with the WoW Zone Events aka. Invasions over the weekend.
But first, the biggest news from my weekend was that I finally moved all my furniture from the old rental house into my new house. I achieved my goal of picking the hottest day of the entire year to move. I believe it was upwards of 95 degrees Farenheit with a heat index of 105. (Google tells me that’s 35 and 40.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
- Status
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Legion Ordered.
2016-08-17.
I went ahead and ordered Legion. Why not? I had fun with the last expansion. For a little while, at least. And a level 100 boost is worth a fair chunk of change to me, considering it normally takes me years to get to the level cap in WoW. (Although I confess I have yet to use the level 90 boost I got in the last expansion.)
My second-highest level character in WoW is a Gnome Mage at, now, level 77, thanks to a handful of Invasions.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW Invasion Level Tally.
2016-08-22.
WoW leveling tallies from the Invasion events so far: Mage from 73 to 87. Warlock from 50 to 60. Priest from 34 to 52. Druid from 23 to 32. My goal is to get the Priest and Druid to 60 before the end of the event. That will give me three choices from which to pick my two level boosts (one to 90 and one to 100). (My understanding is that if you boost from 60 it will also boost your professions too.
- MMORPG
- Status
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Melee Classes in WoW.
2016-08-26.
While leveling my alts in WoW, it occurred to me that I don’t ever play any melee characters. I have a Warrior-two of them in fact-but I just don’t like Warriors in WoW. My very first character in 2006 was a Warrior, who I leveled to about 20-something and gave up on because I kept getting killed by those stupid Defias (or whatever they’re called) guys in Westfall. (Back in those days if you ever got jumped by 2 mobs you were basically dead-at least I was-hence my switch to a Hunter.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Early Legion Impressions.
2016-08-31.
So far Legion is … well, just like playing WoW.
On your mark, get set, …
I only played for about an hour and a half last night. I stopped right after I got my Mage Artifact staff Ebonchill. Obviously I haven’t seen all there is to see in Legion, but it starts out with … quests. Just like you’ve done in WoW for the last 50 bazillion years.
As yet there is no emergent new gameplay to be seen, which makes it a bit less interesting for me than the pre-expansion Invasions.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
2016-09
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Why I Can’t Follow WoW’s Story.
2016-09-02.
I hadn’t had a chance to play much WoW since Tuesday, so I logged in Thursday night to continue my adventures with my Mage and his new Ebonchill gizmo. I hadn’t done much of anything since he obtained his Artifact.
When I logged in, I had a quest to turn into the Great Alakazam, or whatever his name is. (I can’t quite make it out in the picture below.) I clicked him and turned in the quest, not really paying attention to what it was.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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WoW Legion Status: Almost Done.
2016-09-08.
Since my last WoW post, I’ve finished the first four zones, and leveled my Mage to 106 and my Hunter to 110. Total WoW time played since August 30, according to ManicTime, has been 55 hours. (It was a holiday weekend.) So yes, basically I’ve been playing nothing but WoW.
I intended to play my Mage all the way to the end, and started out going through Azsuna, then Stormheim, ending up at level 106.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW Legion, Last Impressions.
2016-09-12.
In this post I will share my thoughts on the new features found in Legion. This will probably be the last time I talk about WoW since, barring a last minute change of heart, I’m planning to let my subscription end today, the 12th.
A brief character status update: In case you’re wondering, the brick wall hits in Suramar, the fifth zone. That’s where the grind begins and you’ll start wondering why you ever came back to WoW.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
- Status
2016-12
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The Prestigious Endgame Viable Awards 2016.
2016-12-22.
It occurred to me that the end of the year is approaching, and it’s time to do one of those year-end posts that bloggers love to do. Unfortunately I kind of hate doing them. It’s a lot of work. You have to actually look things up and think and count and multiply and divide and things like that. That goes against my normal principal of blogging by “just typing words into a text editor.
- MMORPG
- Single-Player
- Steam
2017-08
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Comfort MMORPGs.
2017-08-25.
Here’s another post based on a MassivelyOP’s Daily Grind:
What’s Your Comfort MMO?
I find this to be a somewhat odd question, because I generally like to have a constantly-changing game experience, as opposed to an experience that is always the same. I am the kind of person who likes to learn and try new things all the time (within the boundaries of crippling anxieties, of course). This is why I try out most new MMORPGs if I can.
- MMORPG
- Responses
2017-11
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WoW – Battle For Azeroth.
2017-11-06.
From the media assets on the Battle for Azeroth web site. In general, I don’t think about WoW very much, but when Blizzcon comes around every year, Twitter explodes with chatter about this game. Even more than the moderate level of chatter that persists year-round. It continues to amaze me how many people seem to live completely inside a Blizzard bubble.
I guess there’s nothing wrong with focusing completely on WoW, but, to me, WoW is just one game out of a hundred, a game that remains dormant roughly 22 months out of every 24 months.
- MMORPG
- Pre-Release
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WoW – What I Thought In 2006.
2017-11-22.
In light of the announcement of World of Warcraft Classic, everybody’s abuzz with WoW nostalgia, so I thought it would be fun to re-post my very first thoughts about WoW Vanilla from 2006.
From blizzard.com - I can’t find any screenshots prior to 2014.
World of Warcraft October 10, 2006
Inspired by the recent episode of South Park, and being bored with FlatOut2, I finally installed my trial version of World of Warcraft yesterday, which I’d gotten with a video card about a year ago I think.
- MMORPG
- Musings
2018-02
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MMO News Reactions 4.
2018-02-09.
_A series of short reactions to the week’s MMORPG stories, otherwise known as “just about giving up on blogging” because I can’t be bothered to write long posts lately.
_
Nexon laid off some people. I don’t think I play any Nexon games.
Forbes interview on WoW Classic. I don’t think I mentioned this at the time, but while Blizzcon made it sound like WoW Classic was right around the corner, I secretly thought it sounded like they hadn’t even started on it yet.
- MMORPG
- Roundup
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MMO News Reactions 5.
2018-02-16.
A series of short reactions to the week’s MMORPG stories, otherwise known as “just about giving up on blogging” because I can’t be bothered to write long posts lately.
Sorry about last week’s post. I was scrolling through Twitter last Friday and much to my own surprise I found that I’d posted something to my blog without even looking at it or setting a header image or anything. This time I will refrain from scheduling this to post right after creating the draft!
- MMORPG
- Roundup
2018-04
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Weeklies – Haven Week.
2018-04-06.
New title! “Weeklies?” Get it? Like Dailies, but Weeklies! I was actually planning to stop doing these but then Bhagpuss had to go and say that he enjoyed them. :)
I’ve been very distracted this week by re-watching the complete Haven series, because @MissByx reminded me that I had not yet seen past season 4, so I started it again from the beginning. I could write volumes about this show but I will try to refrain.
- MMORPG
- Roundup
2018-07
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Week End – WoW 8.0.
2018-07-21.
Weekly news and observations.
In The News The biggest news this week is the World of Warcraft 8.0 pre-expansion patch dropping Tuesday. I don’t have a WoW subscription and have no plans to play this expansion (which doesn’t actually begin until next month), at least not right away. It’s tempting to jump in with all the excitement at launch time, but I haven’t played WoW since about two weeks after the last expansion, and I know I’ll only play this expansion for about two weeks before running into the “I’ve done all of this before” wall, so I’ll just save myself the $65 this time around.
- MMORPG
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WoW – Questioning My Belonging In MMORPGs.
2018-07-24.
MMORPG players are abuzz about World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Battle for Azeroth, which begins next month. (There are too many posts to link here; throw a dart at the blogosphere and you’ll find a post on Battle for Azeroth preparations.)
The last character I played in unsubscribed WoW: A level 3 Goblin, c. 2017 Nothing makes me puzzle over my association with the MMORPG genre more than a World of Warcraft expansion.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Week End – Thorny Battle.
2018-07-28.
In The News Nobody is talking about anything except World of Warcraft’s “War of Thorns” event. It’s either the greatest thing ever, or the worst thing ever, or some variation in between, depending on where you look.
However, some people are talking about the newest update to No Man’s Sky. I’ve been tempted to get this game forever, but I’m really hesitant to get a game so dependent on procedurally-generated worlds, even at a discounted Steam price of $30.
- MMORPG
- Roundup
2018-08
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Those WoW Cinematics – Blaugust 4.
2018-08-04.
From Legion, Helheim Normally each Saturday I post a summary of interesting gaming news and events from my week. But this week, I haven’t seen any gaming stories of interest, and I’ve already posted a number of things about myself for Blaugust.
Instead, this morning I thought I would write about these wacky World of Warcraft cinematics all the kids are talking about. Specifically, Warbringer Jaina, Warbringer Sylvanas, and Old Soldier.
- MMORPG
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Battle for Azeroth Impulse Buy – Blaugust 13.
2018-08-13.
It was probably inevitable. I went ahead and pre-ordered the World of Warcraft expansion Battle for Azeroth one day early.
There’s a couple of reasons I caved. First, I was thinking about buying a new game anyway. Even though I said I wasn’t going to buy Diablo III, I started contemplating it. I did in fact load up Path of Exile Sunday night and play a little bit of my old characters (level 13 is my highest level guy there), and it wasn’t as fun as I expected.
- MMORPG
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The Siege of Lordaeron – Blaugust 14.
2018-08-14.
I re-activated my World of Warcraft subscription this morning and played the new expansion for about 45 minutes. Hardcore!
I had some hope that I might avoid spamming posts about Battle for Azeroth, but what else is there to talk about? I also made an appointment to take my dog and cat to the vet next week. Not exactly riveting stuff.
I’m going to refrain from mentioning any of the negative observations I made and just focus on the good things.
- MMORPG
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2.5 Hrs Into Battle for Azeroth – Blaugust 15.
2018-08-15.
Finding spoiler-free screenshots typically results in rather bland imagery for blog posts. The second problem with writing post after post about Battle for Azeroth, besides boring everyone to death, is that nobody is going to read them. Everyone is avoiding spoilers, so nobody is going to click on a post about the expansion two days in. (I wouldn’t, and I’m generally not reading WoW posts right now.)
As of this writing, ManicTime says I’ve played the expansion for a total of 2.
- MMORPG
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Finding Teldrassil – Blaugust 16.
2018-08-16.
That's not Teldrassil, that's the new city in Kul Tiras, which I can confirm is, in fact, sprawling and confusing. I’m already tired of writing about Battle for Azeroth and I’ve played for less than 4 hours. It’s possible that you can infer something on how I feel about MMORPGs in general right now, but I’ll leave that to the reader’s imagination.
Big news, though: I installed an addon! Bagnon, the one (of many) that merges all your different bags into one big bag.
- MMORPG
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Realm Pop – Blaugust 17.
2018-08-17.
Thanks to a post from Leo’s Life, I learned about a web site called Realm Pop. It’s a very simple site that charts demographics information about all of the World of Warcraft servers.
I’ve always suspected that I played World of Warcraft on a fairly low population server (Undermine), but now I can finally see it in black-and-white:
232,356 players. And that is including the populations of its two “connected” realms, Anvilmar and Xavius.
- MMORPG
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Sunday Browns and Disenchanted Disappointment – Blaugust 19.
2018-08-19.
Drustvar, the brown zone … for a few steps, until the lighting changes. Today is not just an “I can’t think of anything to write” day, it’s an “I actively don’t want to write because I hate the way I write” day. I was working on a post about comments last night but it’s not finished and I don’t want to post it until it is.
It’s been, what, two days since I reported on Battle for Azeroth, so surely there must be a clamoring for news there.
- Media
- MMORPG
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Drustvar Screenshots – Blaugust 20.
2018-08-20.
Screenshots! Because it’s that kind of a day.
A friendly, inviting architectural feature for the entrance to a building. Here we see the bow of a boat built in a house, and the incredibly rare Swift Stormsaber mount that I usually ride in WoW. This vaguely terrifying creature was called a "mountain doe." That doesn't look like any doe \*I've\* ever seen. Except maybe in my nightmares. Here we see the standard position of my Hunter's pet in most attempted screenshots.
- MMORPG
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Drustvar Complete, Mastodon – Blaugust 21.
2018-08-21.
So we meet again, blank page. Stop yelling at me, now-a-total-of-150-draft-posts-I-can’t-use, you know what you did.
Ever wonder why I embed the image in the post and also set it as the "featured image" in WordPress, so it shows up twice on the web site? For the RSS feed. I design my posts almost exclusively for RSS feed readers. World of Warcraft In Battle for Azeroth yesterday, I got to the end of the Drustvar zone, which actually isn’t the end because there are still some side quests and missing pieces for the zone completion achievement, but it’s the end of the main story for the zone, and of course I excitedly ran after the NPCs to go into the final dramatic confrontation to complete it … until I saw I was running into a Dungeon Portal.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Where Exactly Is This Battle? – Blaugust 24.
2018-08-24.
Stormsong Valley This is going to get me into trouble, but I’m already bored with Battle for Azeroth. I didn’t even play yesterday. It’s basically a continuation of Legion, and … well, I already played Legion. The story that got me interested in the first place is nowhere to be seen. There is no “battle for Azeroth” taking place in the Battle for Azeroth expansion, as far as I can tell, at least through level 115.
- MMORPG
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Stormsong Valley and On Accident – Blaugust 25.
2018-08-25.
Moonshade Highlands, I mean, Stormsong Valley The Azshara short was the weakest of the three Warbringer videos, as self-contained short films go. (Sylvanas being the strongest.) My reaction before watching it: Who is Azshara? And after watching it: Who is Azshara? As far as I could tell, it had no connection with the game of World of Warcraft that I’ve been playing the past week.
As I’m going through Stormsong Valley, I can understand why people rush to endgame in WoW.
- MMORPG
- Writing
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A Logical Dead End – Blaugust 26.
2018-08-26.
Island Expedition tutorial I just went ahead and cancelled my World of Warcraft subscription today. It was largely a formality. I can’t imagine a world (of Warcraft! Har!) where this expansion would have been so great that I’d have played for more than a month.
Incidentally, no other MMO makes it so easy to cancel its subscription, I’ve noticed. You just click the “Cancel” link and that’s it. No questions, no guilt trips, no nothing.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Side Quests and Spigots – Blaugust 27.
2018-08-27.
Isn't anyone going to clean up this beach? Really bad for tourism. My Blaugust posts have definitely turned into a diary. Not normally what I like to write, but the posts must be posted.
I’ve abandoned the concept of playing World of Warcraft by giving the game my full attention. I played for two more hours yesterday while watching Hulu, clicking through the quest text without reading it, blindly killing mobs and collecting drops until the objectives were done.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Battle for Azeroth 119 Update – Blaugust 30.
2018-08-30.
This will be my last “spontaneous” Blaugust post this year. I started tomorrow’s “performance review” post a week ago, and then there will be my “what I played this month” post after that, which I started yesterday. I started today’s post … well, today.
So since it’s my last one, I better make it good!
Um. Okay. Here we go. Any second now, something interesting will come to me.
- MMORPG
2018-09
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Games Played – August 2018.
2018-09-01.
The first story thing WoW gave me to do upon reaching level 120 was to go to this Zandalar desert to assassinate some Horde NPCs. I completely forgot to say this in my huge missive yesterday: Blaugust seemed like a great success, congratulations to everyone who participated! Huge thanks to Belghast and all the mentors for pulling all of that together. To all the new bloggers, great job! It doesn’t matter if you posted every day or not.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
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WoW – Finding Jaina’s Trail Again.
2018-09-03.
I mentioned that I was close to giving up on World of Warcraft’s Battle for Azeroth expansion, because the game seemed to have given up on telling me Jaina’s story. Well I finally picked up her story again.
It turns out that you have to complete all three Kul Tiras zone story chapters (half of which don’t seem to have anything to do with anything) before a new quest unlocks which begins the followup to Jaina’s cut scenes from the very beginning of the expansion.
- MMORPG
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Week End – Carbine, CCP, Daybreak, Witcher.
2018-09-08.
I started to write three or four blog posts this week, didn’t finish them, and didn’t want to post them. Instead I decided to cram all of them together into one summary post for the week. This allows me to post, but without the bother of crafting long essays that have beginnings, middles, or ends, when everything I want to say can be summed up in a paragraph. No wonder listcicles are so popular!
- Blog
2018-10
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Games Played – September 2018.
2018-10-01.
Even with a week and a half of down time from cataract surgery, I still managed to play a few games this past month.
The Witcher (Enhanced Edition), 39 hours. This is what I spent most of my gaming time doing after World of Warcraft and before surgery, and a little bit afterward to finish up the story. This is the first time I’ve finished the whole game. It got kind of weird at the end.
- Consoles
- Progression Report
- Roundup
- RPG
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Battle for Azeroth Conclusions.
2018-10-03.
My World of Warcraft subscription ended weeks ago, and the last time I actually played was September 3rd, a month ago. I meant to go back and complete the Siege of Boralus but I got too involved playing The Witcher again. I rescued Jaina though, so that was a good-enough ending for me.
I figured I should finally post what I thought of the expansion.
I get the impression there’s a lot of people complaining about Battle for Azeroth.
- MMORPG
2018-12
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Endgame Viable Awards 2018.
2018-12-31.
It’s time once against for the prestigious Endgame Viable Awards for 2018.
2017 Awards 2016 Awards 2015 Awards I give out three awards for PC games only: Game of the Year, MMORPG of the Year, and MMORPG Expansion of the Year. In my warped worldview “Game of the Year” sort of implies Steam game of the year (because that’s the only place I buy PC games) and excludes traditional MMORPGs.
- MMORPG
- Single-Player
- Steam
2019-02
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Cultural Perspective On The Activision/Blizzard News.
2019-02-14.
I’ve been trying to think about how to approach this particular story, and whether I should address it at all. It doesn’t really affect me personally, and it’s dangerously close to Expressing A Political Opinion On The Internet. Which is basically an invitation for the world to come over here and yell angrily because there is only one correct opinion on everything and conformity must be enforced at all costs. Because yelling at people is historically proven to be the best way to change their views.
- Opinion
2019-08
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WoW Classic Fever Heating Up.
2019-08-16.
Most of the blogging and Twittering MMO world is talking about World of Warcraft Classic, with all the recent hubbub about name reservations. My advanced Googling skills tell me that it launches on August 27th.
Not WoW Classic, but probably a quest that will be in WoW Classic.
I personally have never been interested in WoW Classic, have never yearned for the “good old days” of World of Warcraft, and have no idea why anyone would want such a thing.
- MMORPG
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WoW Classic Obligatory Post.
2019-08-27.
Okay I’m going to try to be brief here because nobody likes a buzzkill.
World of Warcraft Classic launched Monday night here in the U.S. It was extremely smooth and free of major technical issues, as far as I’m concerned, which is an amazing accomplishment. Blizzard has gotten really good at launches. The “narrative” will be that it was a catastrophe, because that’s the only narrative that can be spun to draw a crowd, but it wasn’t.
- MMORPG
2019-10
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Four News Stories.
2019-10-09.
For SEO purposes, I should probably break these into separate posts, but I just don’t feel like it. But I’ve identified four big gaming news stories of late that I figured I should at least make a note of for posterity.
Raph Koster’s New Company. Don’t really care. It’s vaporware until proven otherwise. Mainly it makes me wonder about the future of Crowfall. Perhaps he’s only left because Crowfall is fully set on its course and there’s no more creative work to do.
- MMORPG
2020-10
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Resident Evil 3 Demo.
2020-10-19.
I tried out the Resident Evil 3 remake demo on the PS4 the other day. It looks nice, but the gameplay is brutal. It takes three headshots to kill a zombie, and about a dozen non-headshots if your aim is as bad as mine, so you run out of bullets in about 10 seconds flat, and then have to either run away or use the knife. The knife is not a very effective weapon.
- Blog
- Consoles
- Videos
2021-08
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Best MMO Technology.
2021-08-25.
Yesterday I mentioned how much I worried that Final Fantasy XIV was staggering into their new expansion on duct tape and bailing wire, so I thought today I’d mention the MMORPGs that appear to have a much more solid technology base that I don’t have to worry about.
- Gaming
2022-01
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Microsoft and Activision/Blizzard.
2022-01-19.
I have to write a post about this don’t I. It would be like not mentioning 9/11.
- Gaming
2022-08
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Those New MMOs.
2022-08-15.
I heard talk about a couple of new MMOs, Tower of Fantasy, and one other one which disappeared so fast I can’t even remember the name of it.
- Gaming
- MMORPG
2022-09
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Wrath Classic Launch.
2022-09-27.
There’s a bit (ha!) of buzz going around about World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King Classic launch today.
- Gaming
- MMORPG
2022-12
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December 2022 Bullets - Top of Mind.
2022-12-04.
Status report for the beginning of December.
- Blog
2023-11
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Next.js - November 2023 Part 2.
2023-11-30.
World of Warcraft did a thing. New Next.js and AWS blog development. Dev vlogs. Lower Decks. Fairy Tale. Thanksgiving vacation. A work presentation. Jupyter.
- Blog