First off, sorry for the lack of a post yesterday. My brain was in weekend mode even though it was a Monday. I was scurrying around trying to get a pet dropped off at the vet, and when I finished I just came home and ate breakfast without thinking once about logging in and posting something. That is life I guess, but I am going to blame that I was off work for Veterans day. The other thing I don’t quite understand about my brain is the way it sometimes does the opposite of what I think it would. When I relinquished the blockade of Blizzard games I fully expected to return to World of Warcraft Classic. Instead I find myself dusting off my Warrior and running around in retail as Fury.
I think it largely started with the concept that there are a bunch of potential drops available through the Holiday event, including updated versions of several two handed weapons I have been chasing for years. This lead to a line of thinking that in order to do the events I needed to be 380 item level. In order to get to 380 item level I needed to do enough of Nazjatar to unlock the Benthic items. Then I remembered that these were trade-able and I purchased a full set on my demon hunter to trade over. This still left me a bit short, but I found level 400 artifacts on the Auction House for pretty cheap, which finally tipped me over so I could start grinding content for an achievement and mount I have already gotten.
Then at some point I realized that I really should be working on the second achievement which is get 200 Timewalking Badges in the nostalgic version of Alterac Valley. Doing this managed to complete a quest that gave me one decent two-hander, a version of the Ice Barbed Spear. However as to the achievement… getting 200 Timewalking Badges feels like a WAY bigger ask than doing every one of the nostalgic raid encounters. This involves a certain amount of grinding that I am not entirely certain I am willing to do considering that I am not even halfway there and have run four AV groups. I am wondering if badges earned on multiple characters counts, because there is a quest that gives you a large chunk at once that is completed only your first time.
Having one decent weapon lead me down another path… which is effectively the MMORPG version of “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”. I started running through the most recent raid content… of which there are exactly two available two handed weapons… and neither of which dropped. This gets into the problem that I have with the post Legion version of World of Warcraft, Weapons are just a pain in the arse to get. Had they thrown a weapon on the benthic vendor it would have gone so far to helping make this not suck. It still feels like Battle for Azeroth drops were designed around thinking we still had our Artifact Weapons. Today is reset however so here is hoping that I get one of the many two handed weapons from the nostalgic 15th Anniversary content so I can move on with my life.
Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last Regularly Playing column. The idea behind this is that I throw out and update once a month talking about what I am playing and what has faded away. It also serves as an opportunity for me to “true up” my regularly playing widget in the sidebar of this blog. However had I updated at the beginning of October you would have largely just seen a single entry for Destiny 2. I was in a pretty unhappy place with Blizzard and it really made me not want to spend much time writing about what I was doing other than Destiny.
However we have a new month and with it comes some new perspectives. I’ve allowed myself to step back from that precipice even though I feel like a bit of a fraud for doing so. I was making myself unhappy by dwelling so much on the bad feelings. I am back dipping my toe into Blizzard things, but I am still largely feeling awful for doing so. However lets get to the list so I can start talking more about each one of them.
To Those Remaining
Destiny 2 – PC
I’ve been playing an excessive amount of Destiny 2 and if you have read my blog over the last month or so you will have noticed this. Destiny is in a truly amazing state right now and the Cross Save functionality has created this hotbed of players on the PC platform. Over night it seems that PC went from the lowest population platform to the highest as folks are taking advantage of just how much better the experience is on the PC as opposed to the aging console generation. I still only have a handful of people regularly playing but it helps greatly to have Thalen who is also going through a similar renaissance. I’ve more or less given up on most of the AggroChat crew understanding or even latching onto how great this game.
Diablo 3 – PC/Switch
This game was periodically off the menu… but as soon as I eased up on my stance regarding the Blizzard/Hong Kong situation it was one of the first things I logged into. With all of the news about Diablo 4 it has renewed my interests in playing some Diablo 3. I more or less failed miserably at this season but I did managed to knock out the cosmetics for it. I am hoping to get back on track with the new season starting soon and return to semi-regularly playing this with Grace.
Dragalia Lost – Android
This continues to be a nightly thing that I play as I am winding down from the day. I am not super active in it, but generally speaking I play enough each night to knock out the daily objectives. I am not sure what it is about this pattern that I find relaxing but generally speaking as I am wrapping up the last few things I am finding myself fighting to stay awake and can lay down the tablet and slumber peacefully. The release cadence as I have said before really is the piece that keeps me engaged, and the fact that I get a gacha summon pretty often through simply playing the game normally. They are not getting money from me, but they are getting a bunch of active usage.
World of Warcraft Classic – PC
I’m leaving this one on the list but I have to admit it is hanging by a thread here. I initially stopped playing Classic over the Hong Kong incident as I stopped playing any Blizzard games. However upon resuming play I am finding it exceptionally hard to get back into the slower pace of this game. I’ve become used to the run and gun pace of Destiny 2 and my brain is sorta fighting back against this. I had some experience with this when I came back to Classic after the launch of Destiny 2 Shadowkeep. In theory I probably need a bit more time to figure out how to slide back in and resume my path to 60.
To The New And Returning
The Outer Worlds – PC
While I am in a bit of a holding pattern thanks to activity in Destiny 2, I eased into The Outer Worlds a few weekends ago and am looking forward to maybe getting in and playing some more this weekend. This is pretty much the perfect logical successor to my favorite of the Fallout series, New Vegas. It is a weird remix of Fallout, Firefly, Bioshock and Mass Effect and were I not as addicted to Destiny as I currently am it would have become my primary game. I am sure I will get back in and play some more, hopefully prior to the podcast on Saturday.
World of Warcraft – Retail
This is one I did not expect, but after my ceasing of hostilities towards Blizzard… I am finding myself playing a lot more of Retail than I am of Classic. I got in the other night and did the 15th anniversary quests, but I am also finding myself just running around on the Demon Hunter a bit. The other thing I found odd was that I attempted to log into my Alliance characters and found myself turning my nose up at them because they just didn’t feel right. I guess I made a legitimate transition over to The Horde at some point? I blame Grace.
To Those Departing
Bloodstained – PC/Switch
I am sure I will pick this game back up at some point but I have had another things on my mind. In truth I will always be more of an MMO player than I ever am a purveyor of Single Player games. This one will get attention because I still have yet to beat it. I just haven’t been in the mood for it of late.
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers – PC
I am sorry Shadowbringers… you suffered a cruel fate at the hands of WoW Classic and never quite recovered. I know there is a new patch, with new content to experience… but I am also not exactly finding myself rushing back to play it. I am not exactly sure what it is with this game but I go through this cycle after the release of an expansion. I play it hard and heavy for awhile… level two characters… and then disappear. It happened to some extent with Heavensward but absolutely both Stormblood and Shadowbringers saw me in exactly the same pattern. Once the overarching story was completed, my desire to keep playing dissipated.
Magic the Gathering Arena – PC
I’ve also found myself simply not logging into Magic the Gathering Arena. This is a game that desperately needs a tablet friendly version. If that existed I would spend way more of that “before bedtime” tablet gaming playing Arena. As it stands when I am at a PC there are just other games I would rather be playing. I’ve also not felt nearly as connected with either War of the Spark or the Eldraine expansions as I have with previous themes. I loved Ixalan, and I think it might go down as probably my favorite non-Dominaria plane we visited. Return to Return to Ravnica felt weirdly watered down as though it were a subject that had been just spread too thin. I am sure I will return at some point but for right now it leaves the list.
Monster Hunter World Iceborne – PS4
You just never had a chance did you Iceborne. You launched at a bad time for me when my attentions were drawn elsewhere to WoW Classic. Then you announced the release of the PC version and I more or less decided to wait. The PC version really is the best version of the game and I found myself just struggling to get used to using a controller again. I am sorry that we just couldn’t come to a workable arrangement. I will see you in January.
Summary
Hopefully I can get back on the wagon of keeping this updated at the beginning of each month. We have a lot of familiar faces on the list in spite of a few of those exiting. I am sure for example I will play through the new patch content in FFXIV at some point, but that point is not now and it is not even really on my radar. My goal is to finish up The Outer Worlds and try and ease back into WoW Classic. However I have a bad habit of abandoning my goals.
Last night with the assistance of my good friend Grace I did in fact get my World Destroyer mount that is currently available as part of the World of Warcraft 15th Anniversary event. It was nowhere near as painful as getting the Core Hound Chain, which required you to clear the level 100 version of Molten Core. That is not to say that this mount is a cakewalk, because it did in fact take far longer than I expected it to. You get the mount from the Memories of Fel, Frost and Fire Achievement which involves fighting a bunch of versions of classic raid bosses encounters. You have to do the following Encounters.
Defeat Burning Crusade Bosses
Lady Vashj
Kael’thas Sunstrider
Archimonde
Defeat Wrath of the Lich King Bosses
Heigan the Unclean
Anub’arak
The Lich King
Defeat Cataclysm Bosses
Cho’gall
Nefarian
Ragnaros
The fights themselves are greatly simplified versions of the raid encounters. You also do not have to get the boss all the way down but instead to somewhere around the 25-35% mark before exiting and getting sent to the next fight. There is a chance at getting loot drops after each trio of encounters, and I managed to pick up a really nice ring for my trouble from the Wrath sequence. Grace picked up a modernized version of Cho’gall’s mace which was also really nice. There is one problem however that makes this whole process a little less nice.
If you wipe at any point you seemingly have to restart the entire sequence. So if you for some reach wipe on Archimonde… that means you will have to do Lady Vashj and Kael’thas all over again. You also have to mechanic. Moments into the Heigan fight we were down to I think five players given that almost the entire raid stood in the plague explosions and didn’t do the “Dance”. On the Lich King folks ignored Defile and as a result spread it across the entire platform wiping the raid and forcing us to go back and do the first two bosses again. We stuck through it and have our Deathwing mounts to show for it, but I doubt I will be farming for items.
First off we are going to start off the post with a little bit of “good guy Bungie”. There is a patch coming up that changes the way pinnacle drops work. Currently Pinnacle rewards give you a single point of light, making it exceedingly hard to change the calculation and increase your light past 950. In truth I never quite expected to be needing pinnacles to move me forward but I find myself in the same position everyone else is. After Thursday there is a change coming in that bumps this up to a guaranteed two light levels per pinnacle reward.
Now this week is the Iron Banner and with it comes a bunch of bounties that all reward pinnacle gear. There has been a bunch of talk on the internet about saving up your bounties to turn in AFTER Thursday’s patch, but just in case someone missed this when you log into the game you get the big damned notice across your screen that you see in the first screenshot. I greatly appreciate them going above and beyond to make sure no one was unaware that a patch was coming and that they should not spend any of those precious precious pinnacle loot drops until then.
I’ve now reached the end of the seasonal journey track and still have 34 days left to go until the end of the season. Like I said yesterday I was honestly not sure if I would make it, but I did with plenty of time to spare. Now I am continuing to gain ranks but to the best of my knowledge there is nothing gained from them. It appears that post 100 you gain a Nostalgic Engram every 500,000 experience points, and since each rank is 100,000 xp that is every 5 levels. I feel like that is a perfectly reasonable reward for time spent grinding thanks to all of the xp boosts that come with the seasonal ranks. Now doing this without the pass… probably is a massive pain in the butt.
The interesting thing about the process is that as you move upwards you start getting these perks that say you have a chance of getting one of the weapons from the seasonal journey in various activities. I’ve run a bunch of activities after getting these “scavenger” perks but never actually saw one of the weapons drop. Then last night I managed to get a second Machine Gun and a second Auto Rifle within two matches of hitting Rank 100. I am wondering if the chance of getting these goes up exponentially after hitting 100, or if Iron Banner is somehow juiced to give higher drop rates?
Whatever the case I have shiny new versions of the two weapons. I am not at all certain if they are better than the original rolls that I got, but both have Range Finder which may or may not be useful. I was not a huge fan of either when I first got my hands on them, but I figure I will give them some more testing to determine if they are useful. I might break out the original rolls just to see how they feel as well. The original HMG had Hip Fire and Pulse Monitor, so I definitely think the new version with Quick Draw and Range Finder was an upgrade. The Auto Rifle however I am not sure about with the original having Outlaw/Dynamic Sway Reduction and the new version with Range Finder and Mulligan. Given the spray and pray nature of an Auto Rifle… Mulligan might be a pretty solid perk.
The real win for the night however is that I managed to finish the “Get Guardian Kills with Void, Hand Cannons or Void Hand Cannons” step of the Thorn quest. Slowly bit by bit I whittled away at this for what felt like ages, but thanks to the Iron Banner giving extra credit it seems… I managed to go from just under 50% to finished in a single night. I still need to run the mission for both this and the Lumina so I can get both weapons. Side note I also finished 3 of the 4 bounties available for the Iron Banner. The one that increases thanks to super kills is always the one that lags behind.
Tonight however I am planning on running around in WoW Retail and doing the 15th anniversary quests lest I forget to do them before they disappear. So I logged in this morning to park at the Caverns of Time where they I believe all start. I got the letter in the mail and have the quest step to talk to Chromie, so I will get all that taken care of tonight.
