Finger Wiggler Bel
When I came back to the game during the tail end of Cataclysm, my account had been dormant for long enough to be eligible for that “welcome back” program that blizzard was running. One of the perks was to get a free level 80 character on the server that your friend recruited you back into the game on. Since I was recruited back by a friend in my own guild… I decided to spend the free 80 token on a character I thought I would never actually enjoy so I created a Worgen Priest. Over the course of Pandaria I managed to level it to 85, entirely so that I could park it at the silk fields for daily tailoring cooldowns. All of this time Belglorian has lived in this awkward place where he was essentially a glorified bag maker. One of the tasks I have been trying to do is to make sure I had every tradeskill represented in the Garrison system. Belglorian was the character that needed the most effort to get to 90ish and as such he was the last one to make it.
Over the course of the weekend I got him to 90, but as of last night he is now 92 pushing him higher than several of my other Draenor alts. I am not sure how or why… but I have actually been enjoying Shadowpriesting. This is like the least likely class for me to ever be playing, but I find myself having fun. Granted I hate the fact that I have no health and can take no damage, but the rhythms of the actual attacks are pretty enjoyable to me. At this point I have every class over level 90 apart from Warlock and Monk. More than likely those classes are going to be the next thing I try and push to Draenor levels. This expansion more than anything has been an odd case of me enjoying mechanics that I have not in years. I am playing Belghast my warrior as my main again, and Lodin my hunter is quickly becoming my chief alt. The other day when I was playing my Warlock I was really enjoying that as well, so who knows what I ultimately end up leveling.
Pax Virgin
By this time next week I will be in transit to my very first gaming convention. I have this mix of excitement and extreme anxiety about the concept of going to a big convention like this. Granted growing up I went to a few of the local sci-fi or gaming conventions… but never anything of this scale. For my readers and listeners that are savvy convention experts, what tips do you have for me? Right now I am starting to plan what all I am going to bring. As per my friend Ashgar, I plan on having my 3DS set to street pass so I can play the “collect the countries game”. Other than that I picked up a pretty badass messenger bag that I plan on carrying around the necessaries in. I’ve already been warned that food is going to be insane there so I plan on packing a few Cliff bars to tide me over until I can get “actual” food, similarly planning on having a water bottle handy that I can refill from a water fountain.
The biggest thing I have yet to sort out is what exactly I want to do. The schedule is a rather nebulous thing, but there are a handful of panels I know I will already be attending. Most of the events I am really interested in are happening on Saturday, so I am hoping Friday I can hit the floor before the big crush of people appear on Saturday since that day is completely sold out. While I am not a huge fan of Guild Wars 2, I am interested in attending their panel because the speculation is they are going to announce and talk about the expansion. There is even more speculation about what Riot might be announcing on the main stage later that afternoon as well. From what I understand Riot almost always shows up at Pax, but rarely has a main stage presence so it might be interesting. The other big thing that I have to see is the panel with Linda “Brasse” Carlson. Its got Brasse, Lum the Mad and Sanya Weathers in the same room… so it has to be epic right?
More important than any of this… I want to meet awesome people. I’ve put a few queries out to my twitter feed but had minimal results. I am hoping to meet up with various folks from my online connections. If you are going to Pax let me know, and what days you are going to be there. I want to at least do a drive by meet and greet if nothing else. My plan is going to be simple… I intend to post a picture of what I am wearing each day so that if folks see me, even if I don’t know them they can feel comfortable saying “Hi Bel!”. This conference is going to push me far out of my comfort zone. I am generally a deep introvert when it comes to face to face interaction. I psyche myself up that something is going to be awesome… and then right before the time to do whatever it is… I start feeling like it is the worst possible idea in the world. I am sure I am going to go through this cycle on Wednesday and Thursday next week but I am hoping I can power through it and be amped for Pax South.
Square Outage
One of the major frustrations over the last few days has been a series of rolling problems with Squaresoft and their servers. The symptoms seem to be at least partially localized around the server cluster that Cactuar, our server, happens to be in. As a result none of us have been able to log in and play. This has lead one friend to renew World of Warcraft, and live in complete and total denial that they actually have done that. For me it has been a nuisance since I actually have wanted to play. With the big 2.5 patch dropping next week it has me pumped about my member of the Lalafel Master race. Also there have been a bunch of new folks filter into our guild, and I want to hang out with them. I really hope they can get things sorted out soon because it is getting super frustrating. Right now I am not sure if this is another DDoS or something more systemic. In any case especially for my friends sake I hope it clears up before the weekend.