Warlords Closing Thoughts

The Legion prepatch is upon us and Warlords of Draenor came out 11/13/14. Perhaps a more relevant piece of information to note would be that the most recent major patch came out 6/23/15, or over a year ago. Just wanted to start out with that.

Legion is set to release August 30th, 2016. Last year, er, a year and a half ago, I was prepped, ready, and roaring to go. I had enough of Mists and while I was still playing nearly every day, I was ready for some new monsters to kill and pixels to loot.

While I am still very ready for some new monsters to kill and pixels to loot, the "preparation" for this expansion has been dramatically different. I have not been playing every day, I am very much not prepared, and I haven't exhausted every possible piece of playable content in Warlords. The reason being that Warlords was rather disappointing.

especially this thing

Chicken Thursday?

We're about to start doing some stuff over here at Pascal's house.

peep peep peep

These six little nuggets were picked up yesterday from Tractor Supply Co. Pretty cool place, didn't know it existed until a few days ago. It's basically like a small Home Depot but for farms. It also has general yard stuff, but, anyway, chickens.

The Great Readjustment

I'm playing WoW again.

I hope you didn't forget me

I struggled with deciding to reup my subscription or not for a few days. I planned on getting Legion from the beginning, that plan didn't change, but I had been piecing together a long term plan.

First, I would prepurchase Legion, which I still have to do and am planning on asking for it for my birthday. Secondly, I would, as money allowed, transfer a few of my characters over to Chromaggus.

Why the transfer? First, some backstory to catch you up:

Realistic Expectations

I had an interesting ritual of acting like I was going to start writing again, and then not doing it. At this point, I haven't written since November of last year.

so many missed caturdays

I acted like I was going to hype up some Dungeons and Dragons posts, and then I never wrote them. Not sure where my motivation went, but I've been playing a new campaign lately and we're already, like, eight play sessions in, and I obviously haven't written about it at all.

I've been building in Cleft of Dimensions, which if you're wondering about that you can just look at the next post down since that was the last thing I wrote about in November, of last year. I've built two areas and will be starting a new one tomorrow or Monday, based on Sunsnug Isle in MH4U. My first area was based on Animal Crossing (no single one in particular) and my second one was actually based on Spirited Away, the 2001 Miyazaki film. My second one was three times as large as my first one, which was quite tough but I pulled through.

it's about 75% source accurate with some personal additions and deviations

Pascal the Builder

Featuring once again, that weird text based game, Cleft of Dimensions.

I was "hired" as a builder, which is a low tier staff member who creates new areas. I say "hired" because I definitely am not being paid.

Staff members are called immortals, which is slightly fitting as they actually can't be killed, at least under normal circumstances.

I have been a very busy beaver, and I built an area in the game based off of Animal Crossing.

I meant to post about this sooner, and maybe do some updates regularly because of it, but frankly there isn't that much to say about the actual process. I've been entirely engrossed in this for almost two weeks, now. It's really been my main focus, but even the higher ups are impressed with how quickly I put it together.

Text Based Blog Post

I will write about that DnD session like I promised. Today is not the day I do that, however.

Today I'm playing Cleft of Dimensions, again.

yeah this one

I never really get tired of CoD (which obviously doesn't stand for Call of Duty in this context), but I just end up playing something else and forgetting about it for awhile. Then I go back to it and play it until something else comes up.

Back from the Dead

It's been awhile! Oops.

don't look at me

I've been, to make excuses, very busy. Things have finally settled down, now, and I no longer have any particular, looming deadlines for large events. I have been thinking about blogging for awhile, but I haven't played any video games for, like, a month.

zzzz

It's been pretty harsh.

However, I finally played DnD again with the original crew in our original campaign. I think a DnD post would be an excellent way to engage the grand re-re-opening of my blog to a hopefully steady and consistent existence once again.

Of course, it won't be today because I have a lot of housework to catch up on. But look forward to it!

Reformat the Remix

So I managed to start up Caturday after two months only to skip four post days in a row. I had two or three drafts sitting around, but I've been much busier than normal lately and just skipped out entirely. Once September is over, the majority of my tasks will be completed and I should have sufficient time to write.

busy teaching cats to take and upload their own pictures

One of the posts I was going to make was about city building and regular building games, featuring my two favorites Terraria and Banished. Well, I had to reformat my laptop and, while I tried to save my Terraria world - and still have yet to see if I was successful, my most recent thriving and bustling Banished town has been obliterated. Without time to actually play as it is, that post will have to wait.

The most exciting news about Warcraft that I have is that I'm currently reinstalling it after the reformat.

Oh, why did I reformat? What is this, an interrogation?

it's this cat's fault

I have been dabbling in a little Hearthstone lately because I just picked up a tablet, but honestly my laptop is usually closed and off to the side recently as is. I had been putting off reformatting it for weeks because I didn't want to have to go through all... all this, like I currently am.

I don't have to answer any of your questions, it's a long story okay? Gosh.

army cat drones did it

So I can't even play any computer games to write about them until I reinstall them. A new Colonial Charters update came out for my favorite Banished mod while I was busy not playing it, so I probably would have started a new town anyway.

The good news is that the reformat went well and my laptop will see a full recovery.

it's resting in bed

Look, don't worry about why, just know that everything worked out in the end.

Caturday Revival

I haven't done Caturday for about two months. Whoops. I never intended to stop, persay, but it got really easy to skip. I also skipped last Wednesday - but this week has been incredibly busy, so I have plenty of excuses.

Since I haven't done Caturday in so long, I decided that instead of giving myself a way out of it by trying to think of a theme and possibly not coming up with anything, I'm going to make it about my own cats.

these ones

If you're here because you're one of the people who see my cats on a regular basis, you may have seen these pictures before. I can only get so many interesting pictures at a time, since the cats are usually

just lazing around.

But I'm also going to talk about them a little bit, in case you've just started tuning in recently. And also because I want to, because they are my cats and I think they're great. Surprising, I know.

A Day in the Past: The WotLK Story

If you read The TBC Story, this story starts off right where that one ended. It's less self indulgence about me and my own personal history (but don't worry, I still managed to squeeze it in there) and more about the history of my long passed, best guild I'd ever been in.

To catch you up, after TBC release I screwed around as a non-raider until my guild exploded and asked me to go resto during T4. Fast forward through that guild dissolving shortly after, during T5, and over a year of me healing TBC progression in a new and better guild, and slow down around the end of TBC when I went back to balance.

flashback fade out, queue dream sequence music

TBC was the pinnacle of my raiding career. As I said at the end of my TBC story, at the homestretch of Sunwell, I was ranking as 4th best balance druid in the US and 12th best in the world.

I'm Not Buying a Ticket for the Legion Hype Train

As everyone knows, the next Warcraft expansion was announced.

wait wait

there, this one

I really don't want to know too much about it before it comes out because I don't want to experience the same kind of uncontrollable hype followed by months of disappointment. Of course, no matter how hard I try, there is only so much I can avoid learning beforehand, since the majority of people I talk to and follow are all talking about it like crazy. I can only expect that they will continue to talk about it until the day of release.

If you knew me back when Warlords was about to be released, you may remember just how hyped I was. It won't be like that for Legion. It's not that I'm not excited about it - my only impressions so far are bits and pieces I've put together from the unavoidable internet and I'm already super excited. It's just that I realized long ago the benefits of not spoiling yourself - learning everything about the game before it comes out is like reading a full script of a movie before you see it.

For these reasons, my blog posts before release will not be about Legion hype. I understand, too, that this will mean far fewer people will have interest in my blog for the time being. My most viewed posts are Warcraft posts about current content, controversies, or upcoming or recently released features. People aren't going to care about Terraria and what my guild was doing six years ago while there's Legion hype being thrown in everyone's faces.

But I'm okay with that.

This means, too, that I may make posts with thoughts, opinions, or discussions about things that are embarassingly irrelevant. For example, I may mention that I'm happy to be leaving my garrison, but in fact Blizzard has announced that your garrison as is will be air lifted into a new zone in Legion. Now, this is just an example, but I may make a faux pas like that. I don't know. That's what happens when you purposefully don't know things.

Speaking of garrisons, I am thrilled they won't be in Legion. They won't, right?

...

Wait, don't tell me!

A Day in the Past: The TBC Story

While I started as feral and fought tooth and claw to succeed and have my ability be recognized, at the end of Vanilla, a friend convinced me to go balance.

just add moonfire

He wanted to play my character late at night in WSG (don't tell Blizzard), so I let him. He raved about how amazing balance was in PvP and sent me many screencaps of impressive scoreboards. I think he was just a very good PvPer, but he did get me exalted with the Warsong Outriders, so there's that.

Because I was "stuck" as balance, I got adjusted to it, to the point where I realized, hey, I kinda like this. I stayed balance into TBC where I kept it while leveling and for the first three or four months.

In terms of socially being a subhuman low life hybrid spec, I definitely took a step backward. Feral got a lot better in TBC, while already ahead of balance in the first place. If I had stayed feral, I'd have achieved being a "real spec" a lot sooner, but as I've said before, I never back down from being an underdog.

How to Make a Liar Out of Yourself

I mentioned maybe one post ago that I'd be cutting back on scheduled posting days to help keep the pressure off me to write so often, hopefully resulting in consistent updates on the days I did have scheduled.

I am a liar.

I skipped out on Monday I apologize.

For Clarity

I'm a little weird about WoW right now. I haven't really played since the Wednesday after 6.2's release, but I've been thinking about it a lot. The thing is, I can't really play the game that I want to play.

I've written before about my early addictions to the game. I've been writing about some more particular, fond memories I have with a day in the past. I've only published two but I have others in the works. It's cathartic for me to write about my nostalgia with the game, but there's something weird about thinking about the game all the time but never actually logging in to play it.

I still follow a lot of Warcraft players and I see them talking about their shipyards, raids, and Tanaan and I feel like I'm missing so much. I don't dislike the 6.2 content - I wrote about how I was really into it when I played it. I've just been doing a lot of other stuff lately and I haven't had time to really sit down and play video games. It's not that I don't want to experience the new content, it's that when I sit down to play, I tend to, well, not get anything else done. Other things have been taking a higher priority than video games. I'm not exactly happy about that, but it's what it is.

it could be worse

I'm not sure why I haven't accepted my current status as a break, yet. I've been on the fence since last year about taking a break. I've sort of been drifting around, acting like I'm pseudo-active in the game, but I'm not really. I tried to pug one boss in the new raid and that's all I've seen of it. I haven't logged in about two and half weeks. I feel like part of what's kept me from officially "taking a break" has been my blog.

I'm officially accepting that I'm on hiatus. With the main source of inspiration for my blog writings on the backburner, I'm cutting back on scheduled post days, removing Friday from my schedule. My weekends have been significantly busy lately, so cutting back on post days should help keep me posting more instead of feeling overwhelmed and skipping a week. I'll still probably write about Warcraft related topics, but the vast majority of interesting topics usually stem from current, relevant content, which I won't be experiencing for the most part.

oh well

Maybe I'll be more active next expansion.

A Day in the Past: Vanilla Feral

Back in the day, when Androgyn might have looked sorta like this...

rough estimate. this was awhile ago man.

 Or more accurately, usually like this...

(mouth breathing sounds)

Most of our enemies were dragons and undead, we didn't have flying mounts, and only 1% of the playerbase even saw our most difficult raids. It was a simpler time, when the world was new and
"of the Boar" was for some reason a stat combination that appeared on gear on purpose.

yeah we're doing this

I reminisce a lot. I can't help it. Nostalgia is one of my most frequent post tags. Well, I'm doing it again, and this time I'm going to do it with purpose. I've written about parts of the following personal history before - it was actually my ninth post on this blog. This time it has a little more of a narrowed focus and specific purpose. I'm going to do two things that I really like - I'm going to reminisce, and I'm going to tell stories about my reminiscences.

Welcome to A Day in the Past, my new series about Warcraft back in the day. Specifically, my Warcraft life. If you're a stick in the mud about that dreaded nostalgia, feel free to read my post about what it is and why it's totally normal and okay!

Now, on with the show!

Jungles, Shipyards, and Orcs Oh My

So 6.2 came out yesterday. This was me, today, on Wednesday.

zeroed in on the druid changes

Yesterday, I went on a day trip and played MH4U, forgetting there was a huge patch. So, I dove in today.

I updated my addons, - except for Master Plan since it wasn't updated and doesn't work and my life is in shambles - half assed some of my garrison chores, and built a shipyard. I'm killing orcs in Tanaan Jungle, and vaguely remembering that there was something about being able to fly.

pigeons?

I didn't read up a lot on the new patch. Honestly, I haven't been keeping up to date with what's coming in and going out in patches for awhile. This is the biggest patch of Warlords so far, and here is an exhaustive list of what I knew about it before today:

• A meta-achievement to grant flying but apparently not yet or something
• Timewalking and relevant weekends (which I wrote about)
• Tanaan Jungle, supposedly kinda like Timeless Isle
• New raid instance
• Shipyards are a thing

Funnily enough, I've really been looking forward to 6.2. Not for anything in particular really, since I haven't been paying that much attention, but for a dive into some (hopefully) exciting new content.

World of Identity Crisis

It's been a little under three months since my guild dissolved. We had been struggling since WoD's release, a veritable rollercoaster of events with an initial huge influx of new members, the splitting off of one of our best healers, followed by a full split of the entire guild where both our most casual and most hardcore people left the guild for different perceived reasons. Our GM quit and we tried to merge with another guild, which failed tremendously. We had just enough good people to hold on while we tried to rebuild, but recruiting was impossible. Of the about six good people that were holding us together, three of them left to greener pastures due to our stagnation. We were done.

We never made it to a level of progression and success that I was used to, and I've been struggling with Warlords as an expansion on its own since December of last year. Without a guild, a raiding schedule, or any interesting content, I haven't had much reason to play the game. I keep logging in, though, and I want to play. I don't know if I should look for a new guild or not. I feel completely conflicted about what I think I should do right now.

Going, Going, Guano!

It's been a minute. I've been so busy lately, and yet I haven't had anything interesting enough to post about. I have a few ideas, but in the end I opted for the quieter, lazier option, and just didn't write anything.

it's not that I don't want to write, I've just been really preoccupied

I've started getting back to playing DnD, and we're setting up to restart our original campaign that we abandoned oh so many months ago due to various reasons. That's something to be excited about. We have had some new players come into the picture and new campaigns, so things have been a little up in the air lately about who we're playing with and which characters.

In general, I've just had higher priorities than video games and blog posts, which is kind of uncomfortable really. Whenever I've been free, I've been socializing, which has also been getting too frequent for my comfort.

Get the Cop Out Ready

Whoops. I didn't update Monday or Wednesday. Well, I've been busy.

As I mentioned here and there, I craft stuff. I want to do super cool things, but I'm still pretty novice. As I've also mentioned much less often, I'm unemployed. I was an employee and then later a manager at a fast casual restaurant for a total of four years, but due to a number of overwhelming situations, I put in my two weeks without having a back up plan. It's been almost a year since I took on the role of being a slacker and burden on my family, but I may have found an opportunity to make money through my crafting.

I made dis

The risks, fear of failure, and a general lack of confidence were the main reasons I avoided starting any kind of business or situation where I would attempt to sell my creations. A good friend of mine offered to host and sell my stuff alongside hers at the store where she works at no risk to me. I can see if my stuff is worth people's time and make a decision if I'm talented enough to invest money into starting a "business". Please give her crafts a look at her Etsy and if you're in the Ocean City/Maryland area, you can give her a visit at Shipwrecked, where she works and sells her crafts alongside a large variety of other merchants in the Maryland area.

Leatherworking with Pascal

I posted ages ago that I may make some crafting posts in the future. Since then, the only thing I delivered was a paper towel holder because I kept forgetting to take step by step pictures. I remembered this time, so please, if you've ever had an interest in taking your in-game professions to the actual world, enjoy taking a look through this very visual process of making a simple little leather bag!

three of my previously crafted bags