MMORPG Archives - Page 153 of 398 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Shovel Cow

August 6, 2018 by Belghast

I am in this really weird place because I am both disconnected and connected to World of Warcraft at the same time right now. I am disconnected from the storyline because of the events of arsonist Sylvanas, but I am also finding myself enjoying the simple act of leveling. On the alliance side I have one of every class up in the 100-110 range, but on the horde side I am severely lacking in a bunch of columns. As of right now I have a stable of 110s on The Scryers in the form of my Warrior, Paladin, Demon Hunter and Warlock and then a 110 Deathknight over on Eonar. That said there are a bunch of spots left in my roster to level something and with the introduction of the prestige races I thought it would be really funny to make a High Mountain Tauren Monk.

So lately I have been spending most of my time in game rolling around… figuratively and literally… on the Monk. The highlight of the weekend was when I found out that I had a one handed shovel graphic in my transmog collection and that if I turned both of my weapons into them… they would sling across my back. This only really works because monks don’t actually use weapons at all and they just sit there strapped across my back as I punch and kick things. Now I am also just realizing that I can probably do a shovel knight transmog of some sort on a heavy armor character.

I’ve always found the leveling game to be one of the stronger points for World of Warcraft and as screwed up as the 60-80 leveling bracket seems to be right now… I do feel like them slowing things down a bit and blunting the effect of heirlooms was probably a good idea. Sure it means I can no longer solo world bosses, but it also means that I can have an experience that feels a little closer to what it actually felt like to level something originally. I am still flying through the levels however, but the ability to sit down and finish an entire zone without the need to move on in order to satisfy the part of me that wants to be “optimal” is a good thing.

It had been years since I had finished the entire Hillsbrad>Arathi>Hinterlands crawl always dropping out of each zone at some point as soon as the next zone lit up as having a quest available. Now I am doing the Plaguelands which honestly I feel like is one of the zones that benefits the most from Cataclysm. However on the podcast this weekend we largely talked about the big problems with World of Warcraft storytelling… and eventually drew a conclusion that Cataclysm was the expansion that derailed what seemed to be an arc of really solid story. If you are curious the above embedded video is that show… but be warned we bash Warcraft pretty hard.

In other news… I appear to no longer be allergic to casters in video games. I recently started playing my Warlock a lot and have even been considering maining it in Battle for Azeroth. This weekend I started a brand new Nightborne Shadow Priest and spent a few hours really enjoying myself leveling it through the Ashenvale content. I am not sure what snapped inside my head but I actually sorta find casters relaxing. I’ve always said that “me and finger wigglers don’t get along”, and that was sort of my shtick. The truth however is that I never really enjoyed that style of game-play and recently something changed. I find myself enjoying this game of “can I kill it before it touches me” that I have never really gotten into before.

I think we can blame Final Fantasy XIV for this because that is really the game I first seemed to get into the caster thing, or at least the gameplay style of “dot all the things”. I had a shockingly enjoyable time leveling Arcanist and then Summoner, and put quite a few levels into my Thaumaturge/Black Mage as well. I went through this thing where I leveled every single class to 50 just to help get rid of a bunch of gear, and in doing that… I arrived at a sort of truce with playing a caster. Recently however that truce has turned into a comfort level that I have never really experienced before. I don’t necessarily get it myself and my friend Grace thinks I must be ill… but whatever the case I had a lot of fun running around on the new babby Shadow Priest this weekend.

Lastly… my friend Chestnut had this idea as part of Blaugust to do a bunch of mini podcasts asking some questions about how we got started. It took me awhile but I sat down yesterday after editing AggroChat and before I editing the weekly sermon podcast from the church my wife attends. I tried very hard to keep it under 10 minutes and managed to do so… which is a miracle in itself since AggroChat is sort of known for long shows. I thought I would share it here and I believe Chestnut has a master plan for some other use for these as well. Hopefully you have an awesome week and I am sure I will get back on doing some Blaugust related topics tomorrow.

Because Rocks

July 30, 2018 by Belghast

While we are still very much in Blaugust prep week, I am going to take the morning off and talk about some non-Blaugust stuff. First off the above embedded video is the YouTube version of this weeks Podcast where we talk at length about our feelings regarding Battle for Azeroth. Of the crew Grace and I are the only two that are really still connected to World of Warcraft in any major way, and the show itself became a bit of an extended version of the feelings we are both having. This weekend I spent a good deal of time prepping characters for the expansion since I had not really done that yet, and can abuse the event that is happening as a way to get some reasonable gear easily.

Unfortunately I made the decision to main Horde this expansion before I experienced the nonsense War of the Thorns quests… but as part of that decision I have been prepping my Warrior, Deathknight, Demon Hunter, Warlock and have been pushing up my Paladin. Now it had been awhile since I had done one of the class order hall missions, and I was immediately struck by now good tone wise it felt to be gathering up the paladins on either side of the fence to work together towards the goal of saving Azeroth. I am not sure how we got to this point where all of the past gains of the Legion expansion are out the window and we are back to a forced Red vs Blue narrative.

One of the things we talk at length about in the podcast is just how bad the Advertising campaign feels. Firstly we are divided as a nation and as a world by so many serious issues right now that it just feels irresponsible to be pushing more of that for the sake of selling your product. Secondly… in our experience World of Warcraft isn’t a dividing line but instead something that brings people together with the stupid artificial boundary between Horde and Alliance just being an inconvenience that maybe keeps you from playing with some of your friends. I tell this tale in the podcast but I figured I would talk a little bit about it in person.

When I went to take my ITIL training and eventually take the test, there was a significant amount of waiting around because of a scheduling mistake. This meant me and the trainer of the class had to sit around and hang out for a bit while waiting on my online time slot. During this we realized that we both had played World of Warcraft and were both raiders back in the day… but on opposite sides of the fence. Instead of it becoming a discussion about Horde vs Alliance… it became a discussion about our shared experiences leading guilds and raids and all of the weird things we had encountered in the process of doing that. We both immediately realized we had more in common in our experiences than different and focused in on those things… rather than some nonsensical artificial rivalry.

So as I find myself prepping for the launch of this expansion I end up thinking about the expansion that could have been. Had we continued the class fantasy and kept moving forward towards a unified Azeroth it could have been so amazing. Legion was probably the strongest World of Warcraft content to date and in part it was so strong… because the Horde and Alliance factored so little into it. There is a sequence in Stormheim that feels awful as you are forced back into the shoes of Red and Blue but everything else feels so good as you are working side by side with the other faction to face bigger evils. That is the World of Warcraft I want, where we take on things bigger than ourselves as we face what will be the obvious resurgence of the Old Gods.

I feel like Battle for Azeroth is the expansion that no one wanted, and I have arrived at this point by listening to my social media feed made up of a bunch of long time WoW players. Sure there are a few people I know who were excited for the War Mode… but only because they rolled on a PVP server to be with friends and don’t want any part of that nonsense and will be turning it off completely. It just seems like a weird gamble to triple down on the faction versus faction thing, when it felt so amazing to get away from it completely. I keep hoping that maybe they will throw us for a loop and that the factional nonsense is short lived, but I somehow doubt that.

I will be there with my hordelings hanging out with that side of my gaming family, but I am not going to be super pumped about it especially with the way that the early questing has gone so far. We are fighting a war “because rocks” and that we don’t want the other side to get any of these macguffins of ultimate power. Here is hoping that things get better from here.

Protecting Sanctuary

July 24, 2018 by Belghast

Tomorrow is the official launch of Blaugust and I am pretty freaking excited about it. I think last I checked we had something in the vicinity of 52 blogs signed up and I am hoping once the first topics start rolling in that number will keep incrementing upwards. July 25th through July 31st I have dubbed the Blaugust Prep Week, and what you can see from me and hopefully the other mentors is a series of posts talking about how to get started. These may range from technical discussions of WordPress vs Blogger vs Tumblr to more general discussions of picking a format for your blog or coming up with a name you won’t immediately outgrow. For the participants however, they should view this as a time to stretch their legs a bit and prepare for the month ahead. Get some of those early posts in so that you can sort out your own personal blogging rhythms.

Since we had a few more folks sign up I figure I should link their stuff here as well.

New Participants

Joseph Skyrim – JVT Workshop
Data_Error – This Thing is Neat

Once again if you have not taken the time to sign up, please do so. Considering we have all been there before deciding if we should be blogging at all… I promise you can do this thing. When you have signed up make sure you pop by the discord and come hang out as we chat about bloggery things.

One of the weird disconnects thematically that I have in Elder Scrolls games has always been the Dark Brotherhood. For the uninitiated, the Dark Brotherhood is a group of assassins that answer the call of the Night Mother. Around the game world individuals perform a ritual known as the Black Sacrament that calls on the Night Mother with a very specific prayer “Sweet Mother, sweet Mother, send your child unto me, for the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear.” This prayer is heard by the Night Mother and relayed to the Listener of a specific sanctuary which then goes and seals the contract. We as players traditionally carry out these contracts that involve taking the life of someone who has generally speaking wronged someone else.

So you would expect that from within the Dark Brotherhood everyone would effectively be blood thirsty assassins ready to kill at a moments notice. While the last bit is true… the Sanctuary has a very different feel on the inside. The Dark Brotherhood represents some of the most weirdly sweet content in an Elder Scrolls game. The members all take care of each other like a family, and when you return home the various other assassins are generally happy to see you. There is something almost weirdly wholesome about the whole situation, and ultimately I think that is what makes the experience all the more unsettling.

Ultimately every tale of the Dark Brotherhood tends to end in the same manner, and I am wondering if the tale told in Elder Scrolls Online will be the same. There are several characters that I genuinely like… like the Nord who sheltered a scared werewolf girl and adopted her as his sister. Every game seems to have some characters that you just feel protective over… in spite of the fact that they are legitimately cold blooded killers. It is a bizarre juxtaposition that makes me completely uncertain how to feel about any of it… but it is also one of those guilds that I always look forward to seeing the storyline. It is progressing much slower than the Thieves Guild did, and I can’t say I am any better at getting a kill in without being noticed. That said it doesn’t really seem to matter much in the grand scheme of things as I can simply hide out until the heat and my bounty clears. The thieves guild and dark brotherhood skill lines are amazingly complimentary… and my only complaint so far is that I cannot assassinate folks during the thieves guild dailies without triggering “being seen” and reducing my timer.

May the dread father guide your blade.

Traders Row

July 23, 2018 by Belghast

This weekend the Discord was super active with folks talking about their blog and various related topics. I am traditionally super bad at following any sort of social media or chats over the weekend. I barely respond to instant message or text either because I am generally engaged in something that takes all of my attention, either that or running around. This weekend we went out junking for a bit which was extremely fun, and got this amazing ice cream at a “from scratch” sort of place a town over. I had English toffee and my wife had cotton candy and both were phenomenal to eat while we roamed around looking through the various junk shops. I mean they are all labelled as “antiques” but really… if it isn’t a junk shop I am not terribly interested in looking at it.

We had a few more people sign up for Blaugust which is awesome. If you have not done this and are at all considering it… please fill out the form link and join us in this madness. Onwards to the new blogs… one of which has yet to get complete set up but we are going to mention her anyways.

Alli – To Be Determined… but think the name “The Parent Trope” was chosen via the discord this weekend.
Void – A Green Mushroom

One of my favorite things this year is seeing us spread out. We’ve got several sign ups that listened to either the Massively OP Podcast or Geek to Geek and then I am seeing other interesting references showing some word of mouth from folks I am not sure if I even know who they are completely yet. The other thing I find interesting is several of the comments are written in a way as though they think maybe I don’t know who they are. If you are a long time reader of my blog and a regular favoriter or commenter regardless of the venue… blog, twitter, wordpress reader… I promise I know who you are and am super happy anytime I see you pop up in my notifications.

It isn’t often that I link my podcast from the weekend in my Monday morning post but maybe that is a thing I should do more often. This weekend it is directly related to the sort of weekend I had, namely it is a show where we largely talk about Elder Scrolls Online and our recent renaissance with that game. At this moment myself, Ash, Tam, Kodra, Void, Neph, Thalen and Lyle are playing it more or less in various states of “active”. I believe ToadChild and Eliyon are also playing as well but I have not really seen them online… either that or not as a name I would recognize them as. We have a pair Miko and Uldane14 that seem to be leveling together in Morrowind because their levels stay synchronized but never respond to guild chat so not sure who they are.

One of the things you have to realize about House Stalwart in Elder Scrolls Online… is this represents the last great guild that I tried to build. That is not to say that I have not done my fair share of recruiting for various guilds and continue to do so to this day. Stalwart on ESO however was my last guild building experiment where I attempted to get all of the people who know me and all of the people they know together in one room… and over night blossom into a guild of like 150 people at the launch of the game. We had folks that I knew from various games I had played, folks who worked on said various games… lots of members of the blogging and content creation community including Dulfy for a bit because we had bumped into each other during the alpha. It was a massive thing and so long as folks were willing to abide by the three tenets they were welcome.

The only problem with that is there are a large number of people in the guild that I do not remember at all. In fact there was at least one person I kicked recently that was the ex-husband of a good friend of mine who left her under some seemingly shady conditions. When there is a situation like that I tend to punt the spouse as a precautionary measure just so at some point in the future there isn’t a moment when they are both online and forgot that they were both in that same guild. Anyways this is not at all what I intended to be talking about this morning, but suffice to say there are a lot of people in the guild and since you can technically be in five guilds at once… not many have left. I have two guild slots left, and in truth one of those could be easily pruned in a pinch because I think we only used it as a private extension of the guild bank.

The thing I actually wanted to talk about this morning is how my opinion has shifted in relation to a topic from this game. When it first rolled out I remember myself being extremely frustrated by their version of the Auction House system. I had gotten used to games like World of Warcraft that had overarching global Auction House systems that allowed you to within moments search everything that was available for sale. It felt extremely efficient, but in hindsight it also has lead to practices that I am not quite so down with like the various gold making schemes that involve playing the Auction House and looking for bargains. This isn’t my jam… because I don’t really have that day trader instinct and as a result it always just seemed to unnaturally inflate the price of things making it harder for me to get what i wanted. I remember receiving threatening messages in game from a bag making cartel when I dared to break their agreed upon price point and sold some bags for less to move them quickly. I told them if they didn’t like it… buy my bags and relist them but otherwise I will do whatever the hell I want.

So for the uninitiated instead of an Auction House system, Elder Scrolls Online has a series of Guild Traders that are located throughout the world and in clusters that can be found in most towns. I tend to personally refer to these areas as Traders Row and in most cases they are fairly close to the Wayshrine making it easy to pop over and check them. Now each Trader is bid upon by various guilds in a blind bidding scheme for a fixed bid cycle, and then that guild is charged a weekly rate to maintain the guild store. I have no real first hand experience of this other than one of my guilds regularly has an active trader somewhere in the world. When your guild has a trader you have the ability to sell items on the guild store to anyone who happens across your trader and decides to open the inventory and purchase something.

This has a lot of interesting side effects… namely that all traders are not created equal. The traders that are in higher rent districts for lack of a better term… areas of that have higher churn from the player base tend to have much higher prices. So I am sure over in Summerset, the brand new expansion the prices of items on those traders would be artificially inflated to account for the fact that in order to win that trader… the blind bid that guild had to put up was likely extremely significant. Now the inverse is true as well… if you find some trader in a backwater area that isn’t even a main city… the items you find on that vendor are likely going to be extremely cheap. This creates a cycle of being able to find bargains… if you are willing to go do the leg work. There is technically a search engine for items… but it isn’t very complete and requires that people be running an addon that updates the pricing.

Instead what I did on Friday night was spent roughly two hours popping around from town to town looking for deals. I was ultimately trying to complete the Dwemer crafting set, but in the process I also completed the outlaw weapons and the rest of my mercenary armor pieces. This process involved taking a way shrine to what I thought I remembered as one of the main towns in a region, making my way to the traders row and searching each of the vendors looking for any of the items I currently was hunting for. What should have been tedium… honestly felt pretty enjoyable. Each region has its own feel and its own group of people that prefer to frequent it. For example like I have talked about how Shornhelm is my home in this world… there seems to be people that feel that way about almost every city.

Over the course of several trips to various guild traders, I found myself noticing a lot of the same names hanging out around them. It feels like a trader may anchor a guild to a location and with it gives the world a tangible destination feel that has been lacking from other games. The world is massive, but it also feels lived in… populated with players who happen to prefer one area to another and go there to deal with their “upkeep”. Just like I preferred Iron Forge for years… and later the Dwarven Quarter… you can prefer Elden Root to Daggerfall and it is perfectly okay because there is nothing that you can get in one location or other other that makes one superior. I guess that isn’t entirely fair… given that you need to go to a faction Capitol to get your Undaunted dailies but that really isn’t that big of a deal.

In a game with instant travel… it has been interesting to see how many things are there to keep you connected to one location over another.