December 2013 - Page 3 of 8 - Tales of the Aggronaut

I Hate People

December 23, 2013 by Belghast

Plans are a Crutch

I had these plans yesterday of running the last part of Siege of Orgrimmar, but didn’t actually do that at all. I queued for it at one point, but after seeing it would take an hour I bailed and gave up. After being iced in for several days, we were out of a few things… not the least of which was toilet paper and paper towels. The above picture is to show the extent of the icing… for years I have gotten in the habit of raising my wiper blades so they don’t get frozen to the window. As you can see it is like everything had been sealed in plastic to preserve it for eternity. If nothing else I knew I had to clear the vehicles so we could leave if we absolutely needed to.

It actually did not take as long as I expected. I went outside in my pajamas and started my jeep, then went back inside to take a shower and get ready for the morning. When I got back out the heater inside and engine had managed to warm the ice up enough to where I could start breaking it off rather easily. Roughly 20 minutes later I had cleared my Jeep and was headed back inside to let my wife’s vehicle warm up. I could barely feel my fingers… but it was at least clear. When I cleared my wife’s vehicle I had the foresight to actually wear gloves.

We made it out of the house pretty easily, and I have to say this is the weirdest ice storm I have ever experienced. Everything is absolutely coated in a layer of ice… the trees, the vehicles, the grass, anything elevated even slightly off the ground. However the roads are almost completely dry. It is like the perfect ice storm… all of the pretty with none of the consequences. Granted some parts of the city are out of power as the ice snapped powerlines… so they would definitely question my assessment of no consequences. All in all however it could be been and likely should have been much worse.

I Hate People

I mean this in the nicest possible way… but I hate people. When you put me in a room with more than a half a dozen people a severe fight or flight instinct triggers. Now imagine how that instinct multiplies when you put me in a busy store during the holidays filled with hundreds of people. I am generally pretty good at swallowing down that feeling, but the more stores you expose me to… the more of an asshole I become. I am thankful that my wife realizes this because by the time we reached the last two stores of the day I am sure I was an absolute bear to be around. We had several things still to pick up on our list, so while we were out and about… and since we were both going a little stir crazy we decided to try and knock as many things off the list as possible.

Target was both the worst and the best place we went all afternoon. It was the worst because it was inanely busy and as I rounded the corner near the seasonal area… the instinct kicked in harder than it has in years. There was this huge zombie-like shambling mass of people migrating back and forth between toys and electronics. I gave up on any notion that I was going to go check the Lego isle and got out of there as soon as possible. It became a logistical exercise to even navigate my shopping cart through the narrow passages left by gawking customers. I suddenly realized why a lost child just sits down and cries… because at that point I seriously did feel like surrendering to the hopelessness that was all of those people pressing in on me.

That was the worst part… the best part however is just how efficiently they were managing the checkouts. They had roped off the area in front of the cash registers and while this caused the line to snake all the way down to the pharmacy area, it did make it move faster. They had a worker acting like a traffic cop to funnel people down the little shoots and to the next waiting cashier. Additionally they gave us a 10% discount as an apology for the whole credit card fiasco. Since we were actually hit during that event… I felt like we had more than earned it. Last weekend my discover card was off in Oklahoma City and Norman making purchases without me… and we are assuming since we still have our credit cards… it is tied to the whole Target event.

I probably would have gone postal at some point during yesterday, but we went to eat at Monterry, a Mexican chain restaurant we go to regularly. When I say regularly… I mean it, because the waitresses know our order by heart and often times fight over who is going to wait on us. Yesterday we had Daisy, who is extremely awesome and has the same pen fetish that my wife does. Over the time we have been going there, we have become rather social with them… and eating there act like a reset of my buffer. It was a happy place that helped me cope with the madness that was stores like Old Navy. Still by the time we ended our tour at Big Lots, I was so far past going that I am sure I was acting like an ass.

Relaxing with Friends

Yesterday before the madness began, I noticed that my good friend Vernie had managed to hit 90 on his mage. I did my normal song and dance about how awesome the Timeless Isle was for catching up, but as a very squishy class it seemed that soloing out there was just not something viable. We made tentative plans for me to grab one of my characters and help him get some gear after I got back from the holiday craziness. It was shortly after I got home that he logged back in and we did just that. At first I tried to use Exeter my paladin, but I quickly realized that I already had gotten the weekly chests when I swam him out to get the chest in the pirate cave. I grabbed Belgarou my druid, because I knew I had not really played him in a few weeks.

It turns out that this was a great call as I ran out of leather some time ago and could greatly use a run to replenish it. We faffed about the island for several hours and in the process we managed to get him Helm, Chest, Bracers, Belt, Gloves, Back, Legs, Ring and Trinket. Which in itself was a pretty amazing haul for our first outing. He had not really played since Cataclysm, so there are a ton of systems that simply did not exist back then. The big one is the LFR system, so as we hunted for gear on the island we queued for Mogushan Vaults. The queue was surprisingly short and we managed to make it through the three boss raid in extremely quick time.

I guess the game did not want him to have an unrealistic view of how the LFR system worked, because when we queued up for the second part of the raid… it went horribly. Someone pulled the boss too quickly, the tanks had no clue what they were doing… and we wiped. Moments after the wipe the raid just disintegrated in a matter of seconds. I told him that sadly that was also extremely common. While we waited for that raid to officially die we went out to Dinosaur Island… or more properly Isle of Giants. We had zero luck in both pets and eggs, but we killed quite a few and I got some more leather. I am not sure if it was in the first raid or the second… but at some point Vernie managed to pick up shoulders.

During the course of our faffing about he managed to go from 450 something to 474 and if we can get him a few more upgrades he should be able to start doing Throne of Thunder…. which I think is one of the more enjoyable instances of the expansion. After we finished the second raid, that went surprisingly successfully. Elegon managed to eat a half dozen people to the “floor boss”, but all in all we pulled out a win. Will of the Emperor was a wipe at first, namely because the tanks didn’t really know what they were doing. However someone luckily explained to them and we managed to pull that victory out as well. All in all it was a really fun night, and I was happy that we got Vernie a ton of upgrades in the process. Once again Faffing about pays off.

Beatstick Acquired

December 22, 2013 by Belghast

Ice Ice Baby

We are still functionally iced in, at least in the way that everything outside is coated in a thick layer of ice… including both vehicles. This has been the weirdest storm however as it has clung to everything but the concrete. Additionally the temperatures have remained at just the right place to keep the ice from melting. This means for the most part the roads are completely fine. It is just lack of caring that has kept us in the house. By the manifest restlessness upstairs from my wife, I have a feeling this is coming to an end today. We honestly need to get out and about to pick up the last few gifts in order to be done for the holidays.

Right now on twitter, I have the name “Belgrinch Stole Xmas” and to some extent it is not just clever use of my existing naming convention. I tend to be a big of a humbug when it comes to the holidays. Over the years bad things seem to fall near the holidays, and when you combine that with the fact that Christmas as an adult is a massive let down if you don’t have children. My wife and I have not put up a tree in over a decade. For children, Christmas still is a magical time but for me I just see the hassle of having to run between four households and shop for a bunch of people you literally only see once a year. I wish so much we could make Christmas be Thanksgiving 2.0.

Thanksgiving is pretty much my ideal holiday. People get together to share a meal together, and there is no expectations past that. You just have some good food, good conversation and then everyone goes on their merry ways. Instead we have an awkward exchange of time as everyone tries to avoid the inevitable gift exchanges. This year because of my aunt’s dialysis the timing is all messed up. Normally we do all of this on Christmas eve, but instead this year everything is pretty tentative. We considered going up tomorrow so we could just spend time with the family members we want to without the rest of the three ring circus. For me it is about spending time with my parents and my grandmother… past that it just gets progressively more and more awkward. Namely I am trying to avoid being around my bigoted uncles as they seriously destroy what little inner peace I have… and make me feel absolutely dirty for being around them.

Beatstick Acquired

I have chronicled the hunt for one-handed weapons over the last few weeks. My guildies and I have been running daily Heroic Scenarios for a shot at the 516 weapons that can drop there. Additionally I have been working my way through both Throne of Thunder and Siege of Orgrimmar. Yesterday I spent most of the day queued for the various ToT dungeons that have a chance of dropping a weapon. Turns out the in game loot advisor thingy doesn’t list everything. It seems there is a series of weapons that can drop off every single boss in the instance, and after killing Jinrohk yesterday I managed to get one of them. The mace pictured above is Zeeg’s Ancient Kegsmasher and comes from that list of alternative drops. While not ideal, I wish it was a 2.6 speed weapon and not the awkward 2.4 speed… but it is better than what I had and I am extremely happy to get it.

Additionally I managed to get through the Underhold section of Siege of Orgrimmar which unlocks The Downfall and a shot at another one-hander off of the Klaxxi council event. I am honestly not sure what it is about Underhold, but every single group I would get into would spontaneously disintegrate shortly after finishing Malkorok. There always seems to be either a mass exodus immediately after finishing the boss, or after failing that first time to Spoils of Pandaria. Last night… fairly late… I actually managed to find a group that oneshot every single encounter there… including captain lunchmeats himself… Thok. I won’t lie, I am not sure if I will actually ever queue for Underhold again unless a guild member needs it for something. The queue is around an hour generally, and with the lacklustre success rate it seems like a bundle of frustration I can simply live without.

Christmas Gifts Abound

So I am bad at this… let me start out by saying that up front. My intent in this section is not to be “look what soandso go me, neener neener” so you are going to see some thank yous, without me actually listing who they are directed to. I figure the people read my blog and they will know it is heart felt and directed at them. First up someone very awesome got me Talisman Prologue from my steam list. This is a game that I have thought about picking up so many times in the past but never pulled the trigger. I love the Talisman board game, and even the crappy american version that Milton Bradley released called Hero’s Quest. Despite how much frustration I have built up over the years… I am still a massive fanboy for Games Workshop and Talisman seems to be one of their purest gaming experiences. Really looking forward to seeing how well the digital version translates.

I am a massive sucker for the sandboxy shooter experience. Everything I have heard from friends and read has said that Farcry 3 really takes this whole concept up a notch. As a result this is one of those titles I have almost bought half a dozen times. But thanks to another amazing friend the decision was made for me. Again I plan on devoting some of my two weeks of downtime to exploring this game. Quite honestly… I have stuff on my steam wishlist as more of a reminder to myself, and because steam emails you when one of those titles goes on sale. I never in a million years expected anyone to buy me something off of it. Thank you guys very much, it made me feel loved.

Last but definitely not least… the League of Legends Mystery Gift madness is back in full swing again. For those of you who are not indoctrinated, you can send a friend a random skin for one of the champions they have. The price is 450 RP but you are guaranteed to get a skin that is of higher value, but it will be assigned completely at random. The coolest part about it is there is a chance of getting skins that have long been retired or for whatever reason removed from the game. One of the skins I have always wanted but never picked up is Chosen Master Yi. Who doesn’t want to play as a Jedi Knight? Huge thanks to another good friend for sending me a mystery box and giving me this awesome skin.

Caroling in Ulduar

December 21, 2013 by Belghast

Tis the Season

It is that time of the year when we naturally reflect upon what was good and not so good from the previous year. I myself am planning a post like this in the not so distant future. However this blurb is not about that at all. Yesterday the amazing Queen of Faff, Alternative Chat posted her very on audible review of the previous year. It is most definitely worth a listen, but then again everything she does is worth a listen. I have to say that while I knew of her before this year, it was a few months ago that I first listened to her podcast. I have to say I am truly thankful for discovering it, because now along with several other podcasts I look forward to hearing each episode.

She brings a deeply thought out quality to the air that reminds me in many ways of NPR. I am very much an NPR junkie so I think this soft spoken and rehearsed manner suits me very well. In the podcast she has declared that 2014 will be the “Year of Faff”, and I wholly support this notion. Before her I tended to view “faffing about” as a generally negative thing. Now I have embraced my inner faffitude and find myself doing odd little things on a regular basis. I look forward to seeing what directionless madness comes form this new venture.

Caroling in Ulduar

Early in the week my good friend Rylacus, and the warden of House Stalwart while I was away… asked me if I would be willing to do an Ulduar run. He needed a single meta achievement to get his 25 man proto drake. I told him initially that I was not sure if I would be around, but if I was most certainly I would help out. I have had both the 10 and 25 man versions of the drake for quite some time, but as I know the achievements pretty well I am always willing to help out. Since last night ushered in yet another icebound weekend here in Oklahoma, I was most definitely available for faffing about in Ulduar.

My only requirement was that we try and get EVERYONE that came along their drakes. No one seemed to mind and as a result we filled the ranks with tons of folks hopefully seeking their own. Additionally we managed to knock out Algalon, who’s room is pictured above. Most of the achievements quite honestly were pretty easy at 90, or at least easy if you knew what you were needing to do. Yog’Saron of course takes a few tries mainly to remember exactly what we need to do. The three of us that went into the portal went insane because we could not remember how to exit. We then proceeded to murder everyone else in the raid.

After that little set back we pushed forward and got him on the next try earning everyone on their drakes. Currently the only really annoying meta achievement is the “kill 25 dwarves with razorscale” one. Initially we had this idea of just gathering up all of the dwarves and letting Razorscale enrage… theoretically killing them all. This would in theory kill us all, but we should have also gotten the achievement at the same time. Two things we found out… firstly the enraged flame breath is still not enough to kill a dwarf that is sitting at full health. Secondly we can easily survive the enraged form and ended up going four rounds after that in order to get all the dwarves.

Desperately Seeking Weapon

While I managed to walk away with some really cool transmoggy bits and two pieces of the tier 8 set, I did not further my overarching mission of finding some weapons for my shaman. Granted I didn’t really expect to do so in Ulduar, but the Heroic Scenario that we ran beforehand proved both painful and fruitless. My hope is today that I can finish running Siege of Orgrimmar and that the loot gods will smile on me and let me win the axe that can drop in the final part. If this continues to prove futile I may just run Throne of Thunder as well. I need to farm up the magical happy luck coins so I can turn them into extra roll chances for Siege, but I do not have the stockpile on my Shaman that I have on my other characters. Other than this… I am going to try my best to stay warm and hopefully continue having power since the entire world outside is coated in an inch of ice.

What About Wildstar?

December 20, 2013 by Belghast

4.4.14

It as been roughly ten days since Zenimax announced the official PC/Mac release date of Elder Scrolls Online. In doing so they either knowingly or unknowingly threw down the gauntlet to the other developers with their own tentative release dates. The success and fail of an MMO has become so much more than whether or not it is a good game, but instead how distracted the gaming populous is at any given moment. I remember a time in the not too distant past where major PC releases were truly few and far between. However it currently seems like there is always something bigger looming on the near horizon. Like it or not every single one of these releases is competing for the same relatively small pool of players, subscribers, and even money in general.

Yesterday Massively voted The Elder Scrolls Online… the MMO most likely to flop in the coming year. While I personally think this is deeply cynical and maybe even more than a tiny bit inflammatory, I think more than anything it is short sighted. Quite frankly the success and failure of Elder Scrolls Online has nothing to do with the PC gamer, and that is more than a tiny bit humbling. We will no longer be the king makers for these online games. With ESO and games like it, that torch is being passed from PC Gaming to the much larger pool of console gamers. I have to say the console market is rabidly waiting for a new Elder Scrolls Experience, and especially a multiplayer one at that . I think it might be a bitter pill to swallow to realize that the success and failure of these titles may very well be out of the hands of the “PC Gaming Master Race”.

3.25.14

Being the master tacticians that they are, yesterday Blizzard announced the release date for the Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls expansion. With this they are releasing roughly four weeks ahead of Elder Scrolls Online, and as a result giving themselves plenty of time with the sole attention of the PC Gaming market. Similarly however they are also hungrily eyeing the console market, and you can bet that they will be timing the release of the PS3/PS4/Xbox360/XBone release against the June release of Elder Scrolls Online to the next gen consoles. I feel like a four week buffer is more than safe and should play well to the gamers that may not have the ability to purchase every title they want. I know I am personally amped about this version of the game, because it fixes a lot of the loot problems I had with the initial release. Additionally I am holding out hope beyond hope that they manage to roll in the console “controller” features as well.

There is no way to look at this release date as anything other than business strategy. Elder Scrolls started this ball in motion, and now each game company will have to decide when the most opportune time is to deploy their own “forces” on the game board. While the Diablo 3 demographic is not exactly the same as the Elder Scrolls demographic… there is more than enough overlap to have caused issues for either game. As a result two major juggernauts have been placed on the “game board” and as a result the new year is less open than it was. Now the launches of so many titles will have be strategized to figure out when the most opportune time to release will be.

Warlords of Draenor

Since the title Blizzard announced was the release of Diablo 3 for the tail end of the first quarter, my assumption is that Warlord of Draenor was simply not close enough to ready to be able to launch against Elder Scrolls Online. As a result I am guessing this means that WoD will be another last quarter of 2014 release much like a few other World of Warcraft expansion launches. If this is the case that bookends the year up pretty nicely. Diablo 3 first quarter, Elder Scrolls Online second quarter and Warlords of Draenor closing out the year. You can already see the 2014 release calendar starting to tighten a bit and this will make it increasingly difficult for game companies to find a “clear window” to release against. I personally thought I had written off the WoW franchise completely, but nostalgic can be a pain sometimes.

As a result I imagine there will be a lot of players that either intentionally or un-intentionally come back for the release of Warlords. The lifespan of a WoW expansion rush seems to be roughly three months, so an end of the year release will also make the 2015 schedule some what slippery as well. The problem is there are lots more pieces to be placed on the board. Games like Titanfall and Destiny will also be chipping away at the pool of players that would h

ave normally played an MMO. Additionally we still have EQ Landmark and EQ Next that have not committed to any release schedule and will likely be just as large of a force on the Calendar as the games that have already been confirmed.

What About Wildstar?

I will be the first to admit… I am actually not that excited about Wildstar at all. By all rights I should be, but for whatever reason there I have not followed it. I do however have a lot of friends who have, and as a result I want it to be a success for their sake as much as anything else. Up until this point we have heard a tentative “spring 2014” release. As I have just outlined however the “spring” timeframe is extremely packed as it is. Wildstar is in a really precarious place right now, and I do not envy them. They are launching a new MMO, with a subscription model into a world that seems to have fallen out of love with subscriptions. Additionally it is an unproven IP, and there are additional issues on selling a new player on “the vision” for this world. Finally it is releasing against some really powerful forces.

The safe bet will be to release Wildstar in the July/August timeframe. As much as I myself hate it, the players who are likely to leave a game will have done so by the time three months have passed. July would be the beginning of a window where generally the “locusts”, a group I have been a member of so many times in the past… will have consumed what there is to consume with ESO and be looking for a new target to move to. Plotting a course for this opening in the schedule seems like the safe choice for them. However all it would take to make this more treacherous, is for the other pieces that are unplaced to fall into this window. Releasing against EQ Landmark would be enough to make the fate of Wildstar uncertain, and we have yet to even discuss the potential for the upcoming and as of yet unnamed Rift expansion.

My money is still on Wildstar penciling in a July release date, and EQ Next as a game being a spring of 2015 release. I just don’t see Carbine being confident enough to release Wildstar without a good opening in the schedule. They are in a much more tentative position than Zenimax, since the entirety of their fate rests upon the shoulders of the PC Gaming market. Elder Scrolls Online could realistically release against another big game, since they will be gaining a bunch of “new to genre” players coming in from the console market. Additionally they have a well established and well loved IP… and even if folks are not completely sold on the game… they are likely to at least dip their toes in the water for awhile. I find myself caring far more about the people at the companies… than the companies and games themselves. With several friends in the “industry” I honestly hope that they can stack the schedule in a way so that all of these titles fine at least limited success. If we see another crop of relative failures, I think this year might be the last hurrah of the triple A MMO market.