This is yet another slow start morning. I am not sure if I am just massively sleep deprived or what, but I have just been exhausted this week so far. Having to be in training all day yesterday, certainly makes the week feel bizarre as Wednesday now seems an awful lot like Monday part two. To add to the upheaval, my boss has been in the hospital all week thus far and they are thinking he might need emergency gal bladder surgery. So I have this odd mix of deep concern and worry wrapped in the knowledge that I am going to have to fill in for him in meetings and such. I am definitely not looking forward to the three hour block of meetings I have to attend this morning as his proxy.
Daily Bonanza
Yesterday was the first day I managed to complete both the Ashora and Steppes of Infinity daily quests. I have always had this tainted relationship with the concept of daily quests. On one hand I like the idea that I can repeat them over and over, and on the other hand I have always hated half of the ones that blizzard has come up with. I really really dislike “gimmick” quests and mini-game quests, and while playing wow it seemed like there was no set of dailies that did not involve at least one of these.
So I could have simply skipped the quests I disliked, and did the rest… but this always felt somehow wrong to me. There is a certain satisfaction rolling into a camp and there are no active quests available for you. I think another problem I have is that I LOVE kill quests. These seem to be the bane of the industry, but nothing makes me happier than getting a quest that tells me to go kill 10 of something pending they are relatively easy to find.
I love killing mobs, and can only go so long without randomly charging into a pack of them. I am sure this is a trait that drives my friends insane, because I am constantly in combat. So when I pick up one of these kill X quests, it gives my bloodlust a sense of purpose. Yes random quest giver man, I will go kill these ten rabid wombats for justice and great freedom!
The thing in particular that I have always liked about Rift daily quests is that they mix things up considerably. Today you might go to this camp and do three quests there as part of a daily, and tomorrow you might go to a completely different quadrant of the map and kill completely different things. WoW tried to do this, but it never felt the same, because on a daily basis there was a good deal of overlap from the previous quests. So for now at least I will continue to do my daily quests, because I need the money, faction and sweet sweet infinity stones.
Tower of the Shattered
On Tuesdays and Wednesday nights, the Alea Iacta Est Rift crew has been trying to gather together and run a few instances. The last few times it has been nothing but Empyrean Core over and over, but still been fun to run around as a group. Last night we pulled Tower of the Shattered from the random queue, and it was an extremely enjoyable experience learning a new place. Luckily Plasmodia had run most of the dungeons, and had some vague guidelines that helped us get through all the fights without a ton of wipes.
For anyone who has completed Cape Jule, the instance is a trip down memory lane as Auram the melodramatic monotone construct leads you through the zone. One of the first things that Auram does, is turn on a series of jump pads that enable you to move throughout the levels of the instance silently. I thought this was an extremely cool mechanic, as they added the feeling of platforming, without the need for skill jumps. All you really do is orient your body towards the platform you want to land on, and jump… the game takes care of the rest. The first set of jumps took a little getting used to, but there is no cursing or tears of frustration as you fail to land just right at the top and have to do it all over again. I am looking at you Guild Wars 2.
Another spiffy thing, was that most of the boss trash floors could be cleared by using this special “Execute” command that you got from Auram. Essentially you had to wait until each storm legion mob was alone, sneak up behind them… and then hit the special ability. Like all stealth checks, I failed miserably at them… and wound up with us having to clear an entire floor by hand. After that I gladly let Marklaar, who appeared to be excellent at them, to run as scout and clear the wings for us.
I loved Empyrean Core, but so far Tower of the Shattered is my favorite dungeon in Storm Legion. It is just the right mix of gimmick and stand up fight to make it enjoyable and not painful to experience. I feel like this is how you make an Occulus-like thematic dungeon, without making it pure hatred to run on a regular basis. Essentially you are given a choice, you can either use the stealth mechanic or fight the floors outright. You don’t seem to be punished for taking either path. In addition, just to ratchet up the coolness factor, there were tons of hidden chests we were able to find by kicking our way into air conditioning shafts.
Bad Decisions
If you are super close to me, you might already know this… but across the board I have not talked much about it. I’m fat, I have been all my life, and I likely always will be. I come from a fat family, from a proud German-American fat heritage and to make it even worse I am 6’4”. I will never weigh what someone considers normal, I have that whole “big boned” thing going on in addition to the excessive “chub”. However my wife and I of late have been trying really hard to be “less fat”.
On the most simple level we are just watching what we eat, making slightly better choices, and most importantly logging EVERYTHING. I’ve been using Loseit.com and their related phone apps which end up monetizing food for me. There have been several times I have made a mental decision of… Nope that food is just to pricy for me right now. When you reach a point where you cannot look at a donut without seeing 350 calories sitting there, it changes your outlook on food and American portions.
Over the course of the last 8 weeks we have been pretty religious about the process, and in doing so I am down over 30 pounds. My wife like usual, loses weight slower than I do when we actually attempt it, but she is down a good 20 pounds as well. We are both making progress, and definitely noticing it in the waistline and the fact that I keep having to move my belt up another notch. I am going to have to go jeans shopping again soon, but that is totally a good problem to have.
The Game Had Changed
However last night for whatever reason, we were both craving Mexican. One of the things we had decided is that we would take away the demonizing of food. If we want to eat badly, fine… just log it and try and do better so that you are still in a good position for the week as a whole. We both ordered Cheese Enchiladas, and the first sign that the game had changed was the fact that in both cases we barely put a dent in our plates. I managed to eat the enchiladas before I was just too stuffed to continue, and she made it through most of the rice and a single enchilada.
The problem is, we were both painfully stuffed the rest of the night. I am not sure if that adequately describes the state we were in… we were absolutely miserable at having eaten less than half of what we were normally finishing off. The other thing is we both felt horrible and sluggish, and still do this morning. Basically it is like our bodies are treating the food almost like a toxin. It feels like mine is screaming… “Wtf did you just do to me?”. So while I think the concept of a “cheat night” is a good one, I don’t think we can really do the full blown Mexican thing again.
This is probably the most personal post I have made anywhere, so feeling a little naked at the moment. However I promised myself I would share more about my life since it is my blog and nothing professional. I hope you guys have a great day, I am going to try and recover from the walking food coma of last night. I have so many meetings today, so I just hope I can escape with my sanity in place.