Getting Started

Haven't looked forward to a new game like this in a while. Ready for Friday so starting what I can now…

Laziness Reaps Additional Rewards

I never picked up XCom: Enemy Unknown. I loved the original X-COM: UFO Defense back in 1994. Played it for a number of years. Some nostalgic barrier kept me away from the new one. Then last week I caught Gopher playing it and it changed my mind. Captures a lot of the spirit of the original with fun twists. Added to my Steam wishlist, figured it might come up in the next Summer Sale.

Here it is one week later and *bam*. Got the eMail that it is 75% off this week plus it was added to my library for three days so I can play it for free first. Perfect! Then I looked at my next eMail from GMG…

WHAT?! *lol* Hilarious. I was meant to play this game; not going to fight it anymore. Needless to say I got the voting done immediately and am now downloading it…

As to the voting I didn't really feel qualified to speak up in most of the categories. There are so many games that I haven't played. So many that I haven't even heard of. Just went with the ones I knew in most cases:

Good times.

World of Warcraft Patch 6.0.2: The Iron Tide

Finally time for some new content. While Mists of Pandaria was an enjoyable expansion it went on far too long. I assume it will happen with Warlords so this will likely be the last expansion I play World of Warcraft.

Recorded a quick video of parking my Hunter out by the Dark Portal. In retrospect that may not have been a good idea. It will be lag city so I may not be able to log into her first.

I should log into some of my other characters anyway. As I mentioned in the video I am most excited about the Toy Box. Silly as that sounds it's going to save me TONS of bag space and most of the awesome rare trinkets I've collected over the last decade are now available to all my toons.

Of course the removal of hit/expertise/reforging is a close second. Having more than fifteen characters across the two servers has been exhausting. It's going to be a lot easier to maintain raid-ready alts.

I'm concerned most about the tradeskills changes; seems like Blizzard trivializing all of them. Removing their bonuses along with giving all the basics to the garrison is strange. The only benefit to having a profession is the ability to make high-end crafted pieces. But there is so much competition and they're so easily replaced by raid drops... how is this going to work out? Guess I'll find out over the next few months.

The real dread is unavoidable: addons. *sigh* Many of the ones I use have been updated in the last week so hopefully the authors can keep up with whatever get actually released. I suppose the only critical addon I need is WeakAuras. If it dies there's are other addons out there but none with it's power and flexibility.

As to raiding, I'm not sure what's going on. I don't think I'll make the 20-cut on the top-tier team. Little ego damage but I'll get over it. I already have the mount anyway so I should be helping out the second team. Or third. Or whatever ends up happening. I do enjoy Eternal Kingdom but, as usual, I am certain I'll be hedging and raiding elsewhere.

Still Denied Moore Pride

Looks like my Warcraft problems persist...

Still doing the same thing. Shows that message for twenty seconds then disappears. Haven't gotten any replies on my forum post. There's another post with players having the same problem that I've commented on. It has two blue notes but it's the usual front-line techs suggesting a modem reset.

Pretty frustrating when I can see friends on my Battle.Net list that are logged in and doing things. Blizzard's twitter response this morning didn't help:

Naturally I had to respond and I even got a response back:

Not sure what is happening on Mal'Ganis specifically. Makes me wonder how their issues are tracked. And if one solution can help address other similar issues. Sure happy I don't work on the Blizzard Infrastructure Team but sure not happy I can't play the game. *snicker*

No You Will Not Proudmoore!

Would like to get some leveling done and a few of the Brewfest quests, but no!

Really annoying how the client doesn't say anything; it just tries for twenty seconds then gives up. I was annoyed enough to make a nuisance of myself. Posted on the forums then tweeted at Customer Service. Even tweeted another general bit of crying…

Ugh. Can log onto some #Warcraft servers but not the one I want. Client waits 20sec then gives up. :( http://t.co/x5nOpkVf6X
— Aenara (@aegamer) October 3, 2014

My Fishou

Had a Mage Dominate daily quest to do last night. Noticed AJ Sacher mention a deck that had worked well for him on the ladder. Hadn't heard about it but apparently TheFishou had some EU fun with it. Naturally I didn't bother looking up what it was supposed to do, I just tried to build it the best I could then headed on over to ranked play:

Sadly I'm missing a core card—Bloodmage Thalnos. It has spell power, death rattle, and card draw! *sigh* For now I'm subbing Haunted Creeper. Novice Engineer and Kobold Geomancer might also work. Stupid Legendaries. Crazy mage deck overall though. No Flamestrike! No Polymorph! No ... et cetera.

Anyway. With all the low cost cards it was obviously aggro. I'm still awkward with aggro since I like to keep the board clear; this made for good practice. Took eight games to win my five so that's an okay ratio. Biggest problem was a Priest who had every damn taunt in the game, early to mid, so I conceded. Came up against a ZooLock and a HandLock—destroyed them both. Fun deck.

Maybe ArcheAge in my Old Age

Just watched Kripparrian ramble on about why he won't be playing ArcheAge. He did research about how the game works which makes me feel good about passing on it. Right before release they changed they way Labor Potions worked—adding a Pay-to-Win element. I agree with Krip in that once a company makes this kind of decision there will be more bad decisions around the corner.

For me it was a little more basic than that. Land ownership is core to the game and it requires either a massive amount of effort or $50. That tells me it's not free-to-play. So removing the cooldowns on Labor Potions plus making crafting require more Labor Points didn't surprise me.

Crafting itself was the next deterrent for me. While detailed and complex normally creates a rich experience, to me it all seemed tedious. And if I'm bored with crafting I would be missing out on a large chunk of the game. Not like I could anyway… since I won't pay $50 I couldn't even own land anyway. Public plots? Yeah right.

The final "meh" for me is the PvP requirements. Too often I enjoy doing things on my own. And being forced into PvP even in leveling situations is not appealing. It really sealed the whole "This Game Isn't For Aenara" thing.

Which is too bad. They did do a number of things right. The class design is incredibly flexible and interesting. They have gliders. Their dynamic events aren't terribly interesting or original, but they do add spice. The UI was tolerable. And I have a couple of MMO friends that I never get to game with anymore who are playing it. *sigh*

Oh well. Maybe the next one.