Balmorra and Oryx

Awesome Wife Update

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My wife is always awesome, but every now and then she does something so cool that I have to brag on her.  This weekend she was out shopping with a friend when I got a series of excited texts from her about something she found for me.  Awhile back I picked up some Star Wars shoes with this “A New Hope” artwork spread across the two shoes.  The problem being that they were expensive as shit and I hate the idea of wearing them out in my normal shoe rotation.  I wear a mixture of Vans and Airwalk slip on style canvas shoes and I seem to be able to destroy them pretty effectively.  My wife however found the above pair that is absolutely Star Wars print but not to the level that I wouldn’t want to wear them constantly.  She didn’t end up picking them up, mostly because she wanted me to try them on.  We get up yesterday and they were apparently also on sale at Target, so I am not sure how much we paid but I think they were under $20.  I just think its awesome that she saw the shoes and immediately thought that I would want them.  My wife isn’t necessarily a geek like I am, but she has always “gotten” the fact that I am and supported me in my quirkiness.  I am exceptionally lucky, and every now and then I feel like I need to acknowledge that fact publicly.

Starting Balmorra

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I had all of these intentions to make a big push yesterday in Star Wars the Old Republic, but in reality I only ended up playing it in the evening while watching television.  I did however manage to finish up all of the end of chapter one back and forth for the smuggler.  I now have Risha as an official companion rather than just someone hanging out on my ship.  Granted I will likely never end up using her, given that the Tank/Healer combo of Treek and I allows me to pretty much take on anything with ease.  Overall I do like the character of Risha and it is going to be interesting to see how the rest of the game plays out.  I figure she is going to remain being a vocal participant in the content.  Now we are going to enter into some spoiler territory, so you might want to stop reading if you have not completed the smuggler story line and intend to do so.  One of the absolute best moments in the game so far… was when I finally got to take down Skavak.  Up until this point I kept thinking to myself…  god why will this game not let me just kill this guy already!

Now that we have moved into Chapter 2 we get a new set of bad guys.  At this point I don’t really care much about this Voidwolf character, but I am absolutely all about taking on Rogun the Butcher.  Up until this point I have had him looming over my head and he has sent the occasional bounty hunter after me.  My hope is that when I finally am able to take him down it will be just as sweet as it was for Skavak.  I feel like as a smuggler I probably shouldn’t want to have a stand up fight against these Kingpins, but then again Leia did slay Jabba in rescuing Han…  so there is that example to follow.  There are moments in this game that I know are traps… but you pretty much have to go through them anyways.  The “rescue” mission on the derelict freighter for example, was absolutely going to be a trap and it was.  I did not however expect Port Nowhere to be the trap that it ended up being.   I guess it makes sense, because pretty much EVERY map you go to that is not on a main world ends up being a trap.  Looking forward to pushing through Balmorra because I can tell you right now I am ONLY doing class story quests here.  This is the planet that often kills my progress on Sith side, so will be looking forward to getting through it here on Republic.

Heroic Light

Heroic Ready Titan

Yesterday was a day almost entirely lost to Destiny.  After finishing my blog post, advertising the podcast, and finishing up the youtube version we ended up running out to Target to pick up my shoes.  We got home around 11:30 and from that point until around 3:30 I was engrossed in this or that activity within Destiny.  I wound my way through the Taken King story, largely because I wanted to open up the Dreadnought patrol zone.  I have to say Oryx was one of those fights that was probably way worse in my head than it actually was in reality.  The entire time during the fight I was tense beyond reason because I did not want to die and have to start over again.  So I spent most of my time dodging and running away while trying to regroup and get some solid shots in.  I don’t want to go into too much detail for those who have not done the fight, but there is a moment where he goes invulnerable except for a specific moment when you can attack.  This phase…  freaked me out more than anything I can remember in this game.

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I kept trying to time my sunbreaker super attack for when he was becoming vulnerable again all the while dodging taking damage.  The only negative about the encounter is that the adds definitely felt like nothing more than ways for you to regenerate your ammunition, and they were less of an issue once I realized this.  At first I kept trying to run from them and focus down Oryx, but I quickly realized that if I kept doing this I would get overwhelmed.  The big takeaway from the weekend is that I managed to hit 240 light, which is the first heroic level.  I did a couple of the Vanguard strikes on the play list, and I am going to keep trying to do those periodically.  I also started getting quests to do various “end game” content.  My main goal for the week is to regenerate enough Strange Coins to be able to buy something next Friday if Xur has anything interesting.  I am really happy that I had enough to buy Hawkmoon since I pretty much exclusively use Hand Cannons on my Titan.  At some point I plan on working my way up on either a Warlock or a Hunter, but for the time being I am really enjoying leveling Sunbreaker.  I am not sure exactly why Destiny has this renewed life for me… but for whatever reason I am grabbing on with both hands while the fun lasts.

 

Tech Pedantry

Roguish Charm

ffxiv 2015-02-23 06-12-46-67This weekend was one of those where we stayed inside for the majority of it.  For starters I still feel like crap, with whatever bronchitis type thing that I have.  I think it might be getting slightly better, but still feeling drained from all the coughing.  For the most part I spent my weekend in a blanket cocoon on the sofa catching up on the show scorpion and playing an awful lot of Final Fantasy XIV.  While some of my time was spent with the guild running group content, a far greater amount was spent working on leveling rogue.  The class is really starting to grow on me, primarily because of the extremely well done animations.  Even though I essentially only have four buttons that matter right now, the animations feel important and it feels like I am the master of dagger based combat.  I started the weekend at level 18 and ended the weekend at level 26 so I am pretty happy with that.

For the longest time I had struggled with what to level next.  My monk was the closest to max level at 33 but really there is just something about it that does not excite me.  I’ve never really liked unarmed/fist weapon classes in games.  At high levels you can get some insane looking claws which I am sure improves the enjoyment…  but in general I have never actually liked monk characters in the Final Fantasy franchise.  Tifa, Sabin, Yang, and Zell all got a minimum of use in my parties, always favoring other jobs for my melee classes.  So I guess for me I don’t have this fond nostalgia for the monk and as such it just feels like a less interesting dragoon.  Rogue and I am hoping ninja on the other hand feels like this blade master that moves swiftly and delivers fast attacks on their target.  I can see leveling both at some point, but I think for the time being I will be “yet another ninja” waiting in the party finder.

Tech Pedantry

mpc-hc64 2015-02-23 06-18-44-52 The other aspect of this hibernation was watching all sixteen episodes of the show Scorpion to catch me up to date.  For some time now my wife has been telling me that she thought I would enjoy the show.  Some people are pedantic about grammar or spelling… for me it is about technology.  If you show a technology used in an inappropriate way it grates on my nerves and I struggle to get past it.  The logo for the television show is stylized as </scorpion>  which is an ending html tag…  and it drives me insane that they did not instead use the appropriate syntax for a single tag which would be <scorpion />.  Anyways at some point I pushed past this frustration when I kept hearing from friends how good the show was.  It took me a few episodes to start caring about the characters but right now I think I am officially hooked.

The strange thing about the show is that for the most part they do get technology right.  When they go into a nuclear reactor they talk about SCADA based systems, which are an actual protocol that for the most part runs all major infrastructure.  Other elements have a bit of science fantasy applied, but still the vast majority of it checks out in theory.  The only question is just how much of the show is based on the real Walter O’Brien and how much is made up for the sake of Hollywood.  The hacking NASA thing is supposedly true, but I feel like much of the show is romanticized for the sake of the screen.  I am just happy to be watching a show that does a pretty fair job of representing tech, and doing so as close to reality as probably any other show has managed to get.  Sure it suffers from the same “goofy interface” issues that any other show does, but I have connected enough with the cast of characters to get past that.  All I have to say is that Happy Quinn is a badass, and so long as she continues to be an interesting character I will probably keep watching.

Best Shoes Ever

starwarsvans I have this strange attachment with Vans, Airwalk and Converse shoes.  There is just something I like about canvas low tops that make me happy… especially the slip on varieties.  I would not say that I collect them but I definitely have more than a handful of pairs that I swap back and forth between.  The other day my wife stumbled onto the above pair of shoes and thought I needed them.  That is how cool my wife is, that she found something like this on her own and suggested I order them.  Granted for size 13 shoes they were a bit more expensive than I originally thought, but damn are they worth it.  Today is going to be the first time I wear them, and I am sure I will get some goofy looks…  but fuck it… they are amazing.  They did have some really subtle Darth Vader shoes that I contemplated getting, but I only wanted to get one pair… and the choice was obvious.

sunningcats While I am posting pictures, I figured I would drop this one on the blog as well.  This is one of those rare moments when all three of our cats are getting along.  It is a great size comparison picture that shows just how insanely huge Chloe is compared to Kenzie and Allie.  As I write this I have Kenzie the kitten sleeping on the top of a computer case on my desk, Allie picking at a box on under my desk, and Chloe sprawled out blocking the exit to my room.  They feel like they should be fed apparently, and are going to guard me until I make it happen.  Every time I stop typing the look around anxiously as though I am going to bolt from the room and try and shake them.  Living with my fuzzy menagerie is definitely an interesting existence, especially when at the same time both ferrets are demanding attention.  These are all the reasons why I often am late getting out the door in the morning, but I would not change it for the world.