Tales of the Aggronaut

Quintessential Quintet

December 3, 2013 by Belghast

Farewell to Arts

I did another really quick video yesterday since we are supposed to have an impending server reset. In the holiday weekend since the last restart folks have filled the server with all sorts of nifty stuff. So I thought I would do a really quick video showcasing some of the cooler things. The highlight for me is the alligator. I am wondering who built it, because seriously it was perfect. The server has essentially exploded with pixel art everywhere, some of it seeming to be freehand which is pretty amazing. While this is all interesting I am hoping soon we get a bit more substance.

It was rumored that we would be seeing a new patch today or tomorrow and in it I am really hoping they introduce two things. Firstly I want to see the crafting system and all the nifty things it can produce. This is likely going to be a massive thing because this also means they will likely change they way the blocks work so that we actually harvest them instead of just destroying them. Currently the game works a lot like Minecraft creative mode, where you have pretty much unlimited resources to place at your disposal. While this is cool for free range building, the game however right now is lacking a “game”. Wandering around and exploring, engaging in combat is fun but I feel like we need something to give us a sense of purpose.

The second thing I want badly is the cornerstone concept, aka your plot of lands that persists to each server you play on, and that no one else can disrupt. Part of why I have not built much of anything yet is the fact that we still have way too many mad bombers on the server all to willing to destroy your hard work. In fact I railed on Shawn Shuster of Massively a bit in the video as in his walkthrough that was posted yesterday… he was all too happy to blow up other peoples creations.

There have already been some pretty epic works of art destroyed by some idiot who would not suppress their inner poo flinging monkey long enough to appreciate what had been created. While I realize this is a side effect of having a game with no rules yet, it still depresses me to see the world as Swiss cheese. I am sure once the new patch has gone life I will do another quick video showing off what it added. So stay tuned to my channel and I will post something up there as soon as it is available.

Quintessential Quintet

Also last night I managed to push my paladin Exeter to 90 and with it came an achievement that I was not expecting. Apparently Quintessential Quintet is a thing? I cut an odd path on this one, by the time I left Jade Forest I was already 87 thanks to all the mining nodes. From there I made a beeline for Kun Lai, and critpathed my way through the zone until I reached the quest chain that lead to Townlong. Similarly in Townlong I quested my way through the Shadopan chain until I reached the jumping point for Dread Wastes. All of which was to set myself up perfectly to be able to start working on Klaxxi quests as quickly as possible.

Why you might ask? This is my blacksmith, and all the nifty things you can create seem to be on the Klaxxi vendor. Namely I wanted to be able to start creating masterwork weapons for all my other characters as I get them to 90. That seems to be the big weakness as it comes to the Timeless Isle content. You can gear your alts up with 496 extremely rapidly, but you have a few glaring holes… namely your weapons. Also I seem to have a much harder time getting Curios for trinkets, and the neck/ring slots to drop on the Timeless Isle. So as a result I have ended up spending a fair amount of time trying to remediate their gear just so I can be able to queue for something.

Timeless Isle is nifty, but I really miss the equivalent of the Icecrown 5 mans. I wish there were heroics that I could run that actually provided something viable for filling out a set of gear. I feel as though they should really have put in a new 5 man that dropped 496 weapons to go with all the gear they are handing out like candy. Even with epics… a crappy weapon is still a crappy weapon. Right now my paladin for example is using the treasures of pandaria BOA one handed sword that you find on the ground. Which is better than anything he has gotten yet, but at least being able to create the masterwork hammer will be something slightly better. I think those are 463 ilvl which is essentially what the heroic gear is.

What Next?

I have to say getting Exeter to 90 was a pretty cool thing. He technically was the very first character I created, and my intended main. For years my internet handle was “Exeter” and quite honestly “Belghast” was my main over in DAoC, and it was not until late in Vanilla that I started to play that character as a main. All the while through vanilla my main was Lodin the hunter, and it was an almost accidental occurrence. I had a death in the family that pulled me away from Warcraft a few weeks after the release of the game. As a result I got rapidly outpaced by the rest of the guild, and back then soloing a Paladin was a truly painful experience.

Hunters were the gods of soloing, so I started leveling Lodin just to be able to keep up with my friends. Within a very short amount of time I had caught up, and when we hit 60… I got drafted into the raid group of a guild member as they wanted to replace a troublesome hunter. I had no intent to actually play a hunter as my main, and in truth I am not terribly suited for the class… but I did for almost all of Vanilla because it was my “Raid main”. Once you start playing a character in a raid group you are pretty much committed to always play that character until they no longer need it. The positive effect however is that I met so many life long friends through raiding, and that the Late Night Raiders hunters were all such amazing people.

As soon as Burning Crusade was released, I saw this as my opportunity to leapfrog Lodin in gear and start playing Belghast as my main. That is the awesome thing about expansions, the gear reset lets you change your focus. From that point until the tail end of Wrath of the Lich King, I was a warrior main tank. It was not until I needed a break from the hot seat that I switched focus to the Deathknight and fell in love with it. All of this time I felt horrible for leaving Lodin abandoned in the dustbin. It was not until Cataclysm that I actually managed to level him out of the outlands. During one of my last sessions playing I pushed him up to Pandaria levels, so I feel as though it is probably his time to shine again. I pretty much permanently run around in Giantstalker transmog in honor of the fun times I had with him raiding during those early days of Vanilla WoW.

A Guild Divided

December 2, 2013 by Belghast

Nostalgia Won

If I remember correctly the last time I wrote a real post before my Nano recess, I was talking about the upwelling of nostalgia brought on by playing Hearthstone. I fought valiantly to resist but before long I was staring at the account section of the battle.net page and renewing my subscription. I had put this off because really I assumed this decision would end in tears. The odd thing is so far it has not. I have been enjoying the hell out of playing, and have even resumed raiding a bit. I don’t want to jinx it by saying I am back, but so far it feels like at least a possibility.

One of the awesome things about coming back at the tail end of the expansion is that Blizzard tends to give players many different ways to catch up gear wise. I have spent a ton of time out on the Timeless Isle and have been collecting sets of level 90 heirloom gear for each of my alts I intend to level. Since coming back I have caught my Deathknight Main Belgrave and Druid Belgarou up a bit in gear, leveled my Shaman Tallow and Warrior Belghast to 90, and am within a stones throw of 90 on my paladin Exeter. There is part of me that wants to push as many toons to 90 as I can before the release of Warlords of Draenor.

I have to say despite all of the negativity flowing around it, I am really looking forward to the expansion. They said during Blizzcon that the majority of the content would work more like Timeless Isle, and that was pretty much music to my ears. I love the way the content on the isle works, and I can spend hours both there and on the Isle of Giants tearing about the mobs with Belgrave. I think my happy medium is a mix of quests to give me purpose, and then found objectives along the way to force me to stop and smell the roses. If they can strike a balance, I think the content will be just about perfect for me. Not to mention that Garrisons sound amazingly fun, like a mix between player housing and the crew skill system in SWTOR.

A Guild Divided

At the beginning of Cataclysm I got a serious case of wanderlust. I would like to think it was because Rift was so amazing, but in reality I think I just needed a break from WoW. At that point I had played it for almost eight years straight without significant pause. But the sad thing is, that while I played it for seven years, I have yet to play a single game since for more than seven months. When I wandered off so did a lot of other guild members who were feeling a similar drag on their time. The untold story however is the fact that the vast majority of the guild stayed in World of Warcraft and in spite of my recruitment to other ventures… seemingly thrived. In fact I would say that right now Stalwart WoW was experiencing a bit of a renaissance with folks coming back that have long been dormant.

You can say this is the “Blizzcon Bump” but it seems a bit different for some reason. On my server Argent Dawn, I am seeing people showing up on my friends list that had disappeared years before I left the game. Even seeing familiar names popping into channels that out of nostalgia I am still joining. As much as I wanted to deny the fact, World of Warcraft is still thriving at least in pockets of players that have kept the embers of the community burning brightly. In my absence Rylacus has done a phenomenal job of “not messing with things” as he puts it. He has always been one of my closest and most loyal friends, and as I have been gone he has simply tried to continue on with what he thought I would do. It seems to have worked, because on week nights we tend to have 20-30 or more people online and active in doing something.

The only problem is that this maintaining the status quo has only caused to further some divides that started back in Cataclysm. When I said “A Guild Divided” in the section heading, I was not referring to the nomad gamers and the wow loyalists… but instead a rift that was always there but has deepened in my time away. Essentially our guild right now is a tale of two raids, the haves and the have-nots essentially. One raid has thrived clearing content and racking up the loot, while the other has floundered struggling to fill. There has been no intended malice, but the lesser performing raid has lost a lot of its brighter members to the better performing raid as folks sought out the path of easier loot. As a result there is more than a bit of bitterness and bad blood that has developed towards the alpha team.

Cleansing the Way

In the past I had served as a bridge between the two worlds, a bit of a buffer to lower the frustrations and aggressions. Rylacus has tried hard to fill these shoes but he simply does not have the volume of playtime that I do. Now that I am back at least for a bit I am trying my best to bridge this rift and hopefully mend the way between. As a result I have started tanking for the lesser progressed raid, and it seems like I am the difference between failure and success. The first week we downed new content, and it seemed so easy that I had no idea it wasn’t already on farm. The other tank is amazing to work with, and I am adjusting rapidly to this whole new concept for me of “no main tank”.

Additionally I am trying to attend the events sponsored by the alpha team to build the social equity there. The “big kids” have been gracious enough to host an open flex raid night on Mondays and this is getting betters of both teams in the same space. It is a bit awkward at times, but so far I think it has been an overall positive experience. The flex gear will help bolster both raids. The holidays have taken a big chunk out of our schedules, but I am hoping this week we can return to normality. In a sort of serendipity… several of my blogger and twitter friends have characters on Argent Dawn or are rerolling there. Going to try and get as many of them as I can into the open raid nights.

When I had come back for Pandaria the guild felt wrong to me. No one talked, no one worked together… and I really did not know how to fix it. Now coming back things are just different. Guild chat is full of lively conversation. Folks seem happy, and willing to help one another. Stalwart had survived all these years on a shared spirit, a feeling that we were all working together towards a greater good. During Cataclysm it feels that this spirit lost its way as we absorbed so many of the smaller satellite guilds that made up our non-guild-based raiding alliance. It feels though that in the midst of all of this a strong community has evolved. Here is hoping that I can be a catalyst towards solidifying this community into something truly great. If nothing else, I have been remembered and I still very much feel loved by my WoW family.

The Contest

December 1, 2013 by Belghast

Hello Self Conscious

I have officially finished my novel, and I say that in jest because really the hard part has yet to begin. The whole NaNoWriMo process was extremely draining. I almost viewed the past year of daily posts on aggronaut as training for the marathon that was Nano. The thing I was not at all prepared for however was just how draining coming home each night and writing a chapter of original material was. My blog is pretty much me just reacting or regurgitating “found material”. Nano on the other hand was me giving birth to characters, plots, settings and for all intents and purposes a big unique world of my own making.

Now that it is over it is time for me to return to the normal daily blog posts… and quite frankly I find myself a little self-conscious. For the last 29 posts I have simply dumped what I wrote the night before in private out onto the screen for you guys to read (or more than likely not read). Now I find myself sitting here having to come up with things to write that are relevant and timely. It is not that I find myself with writers block, because there are a month worth of topics backed up inside of me. I just find myself a little nervous about the entire process. I have to get back in the pattern of just dumping my innermost thoughts out onto a page for you all to pick over.

The Contest

During the month of my absence from morning posts a thing happened. Well actually if we are most truthful about it a lot of things happened. In this case two particular things happened. Firstly Trion announced the existence of Trove their new game that melds Minecraft, Cubeworld and MMOs. Secondly I somehow managed to get into the first wave of alpha invites. Thirdly when I realized that I was one of only a handful of people in the game, and that the alpha process had absolutely no NDA… I thought I should probably do something to show off the game. As a result I did a thing that I had thought about for some time… I recorded my very first lets play video.

So far I have recorded four videos in total, the first of which only being a super short test video in which I was trying to figure out the kinks of using youtube. I am completely new to this whole experience but so far the videos have been well received. An interesting thing happened however over the extended holiday weekend. I ended up getting a second alpha key. So I thought about what I should do with it, should I offer it up to my friends over twitter or g+? Then I came up with a constructive idea… hold a contest. The idea is to get people to provide feedback on features they would like to see in the game, so that I can compile this list in blog post form to present to the Trion folk.

The Rules

Since the video series is a youtube thing, I will be hosting the contest there. The basics are this… go to the Episode 3 link. Do the standard subscribe/like/comment youtube bs. In your comment describe a feature you would like to see built into Trove. The sky is the limit as far as features go since this is a melding of the traditional building game and an MMO. I will only be accepting comments that actually provide a suggestion in them, and will be ignoring all “begging for the key” and otherwise trolling posts.

I will be accepting comments through 12/3/2013 and Wednesday morning I will be pulling together a list of all of the comments and the posters name. I will be dumping this in a google doc and then using a random number generator to pick the winner. Everyone’s comments will be featured on my blog and I will cross post that on the trove reddit as well. Wednesday evening I will announce the winner over the various social platforms that I use. May the random number generator be in your favor! I just thought this would be a fun way to give away a key and hopefully provide some useful suggestions back to Trion in the process.

NaNoWriMo 29 – New Beginnings

November 30, 2013 by Belghast

NaNoWriMo 29

Today was a significant day. Firstly it was the last day of my family thanksgivings for the year. Secondly I came home and wrote the final chapter to the novel. The other night when I wrote the last bit to get over the finish line, I simply was not in the right frame of mind to write the closing chapter. Today however after spending the day with family, I decided it was as good a time as any to write the “happy ending”. The novel has come to a conclusion, but the story is far from over.

If you are feeling like you want to catch up, here is the story that has gone before. I have edited nothing.

29 – New Beginnings

Bethilda stepped through the threshold of the waygate station deep below the streets of avalon. Stepping out into the platform she joined Pico and Berrol who were saying goodbye to Bemel. In the weeks after her rescue she had watched as Bemel took a shining to the young boy, much the same as Pico had apparently done not long beforehand. The boy was very special, and in him rested the hopes of better times. Bethilda had reached out to her connections in Brittagus but the news was not good at all. It seems as though shortly after her escape from the island city, Astanax was publicly beheaded as a warning to any other dissenters. With him died the access to the hidden waygate, as well as the hopes of the Order of Merlin.

Pico had confessed that she was the creator of the weapons that the humans used to attack the members of the Elfen court. There were a few shouts and harsh words back and forth, but they had all come to a point of understanding. Things were changing in the shadowlands and Bethilda felt that new and greater threats were on the rise from the forces of winter. As a result she had proposed the founding of the Summer Alliance, and with Pico representing humanity they worked through the details of a treaty. The Ward Watch, now would protect not only humanity but the forces of good in the shadowlands.

After the events leading to Pico’s rapid exit, no one was really certain where Brittagus stood on these matters. They remained as isolated and xenophobic as ever, and in the past weeks managed to close the borders to even the Valkore traders who freely entered and exited the ports before. Battle lines were being drawn, but Bethilda was not concerned. The combined forces of the Elfen, Valkore, Wildfae and Sasquatch came back from the fields of battle victorious. With the addition of the humans, she knew they were as strong as any standing alliance had ever been in the nightlands.

As Bethilda stepped forward towards the trio they turned to face her, stopping their conversation. “No need to stop on my accord.” She said with a smile on her face. “It is nothing, Bemel was just saying goodbye” Pico said reaching down and ruffling Berrol’s hair. “I do hate to see you leaving, I feel there is much we can learn from each other.” Bethilda responded reaching out her hand to the shorter human. “Commander Farragut will be wanting a debriefing, and I am sure he will scold me for entering into this agreement without his consent. I am sure after he has heard all the details, and especially after you provided me my sample of dragon bone…” she said while lifting up the metal case at her side “.. I am sure he will come to see it my way as well.”

“You are welcome in Avalon at any time, and I look forward to reading your reports.” Bethilda knelt down “You too are welcome anytime you wish to come back Berrol.” The little boy ran over and gave her a hug turning around to look at Pico “We can come back to visit Aunt Beth can’t we Pico?” Pico shook her head “I am sure we can, I will want to study their library for information about the original Order of Merlin and scour it for any information about the wards after all” she said winking at Bemel. Was it Bethilda’s imagination or were the two of them flirting? Bemel was afterall a handsome man, but had never really shown interest in a particular woman. She thought to herself that it was probably good for him after recent events.

Pico took Berrol in hands, and Bemel walked over to the wall, placing his palm on a cyan stone embedded there. There was a purple mist that formed in the center of the chamber and within seconds it had condensed into a crack. From the edges of the crack poured a bright purple light before it finally opened into a oval shape, showing the corresponding chamber in the other world. Standing there was a man who Bethilda assumed was Commander Farragut. Pico said her final goodbyes and together she stepped with Berrol through the opening. The fissure sparkled and then she was standing on the other side conversing with the man. Bemel removed his hand and the way began to close eventually sputtering out in a puff of purple mist.

“I never took you for the ambassador Bemel” she said as she winked at him. Bemel blushed brightly for a moment and then simply responded “I have no idea what you are talking about, I was just showing Pico around our fair city.” Beth nodded as she grabbed his arm and proceeded down the corridor, and back into the main palace complex. The walked through a long shaft with Elfen Pikemen posted in pairs every few feet. As they passed the pair would straighten up and bring their spear across their chest in a salute. Bethilda realized that it would be disrespectful for them to not do it, but she always found the pomp of being the Queen intolerable. She missed the times she would sneak away to visit Jace at the farm, but she realized that the danger it posed would no longer be allowed.

Similarly it was no longer safe for Jace to return to the world of the humans either. Now that it was known he was the prince, others would be trying to get to him as well… and that was something she simply could not allow. The events had brought more than a few harsh realities to bear. She was however thankful that Kayle had decided to stay with him here in Avalon. Over the weeks spent rescuing her, it seems as though their friendship had blossomed into something more. For as brutish and unrefined as Kale could be, the girl had a softness to her, especially when it came to Jace or Dimcy. As far as the firesprite was concerned they were not inseparable as Kale had a permanent resident of her shoulder.

As they walked together through the corridor she turned to look at Bemel. “I will not be joining you in the audience chamber, I am stopping off at the infirmary first.” Bemel looked at Bethilda and nodded. “I assumed you might, do you want me to come with you?” He said grasping his sisters arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “No I will be fine” Bemel shoot her a look of incredulity for a moment but Bethilda shook her head. “No really, I will be fine… I just need to see him.” Bemel nodded again letting go of her arm. They passed through an archway, and to the left the path split, and Bethilda turned down it. Bemel continued on towards the audience chamber hoping she would find some peace.

Bethilda walked down a dim corridor, there were no guards along this one, and she was actually thankful for the quiet. It seemed as though almost everyone was doing better after the events at Fort Kraken, but there was one glaring exception. While she had been rushed out of the Fort in an attempt to protect her and her son, the Summer Alliance crawled over the keep leaving no stone unturned. Deep within the basement they found a chamber filled with a myriad of cruel instruments, all designed to torture both the body and the mind. It was within this chamber that they found him, half dead, slumping against the chains that bound him to the wall. The best healers the court had to offer tried their best to bring him back. Even the Sasquatch shaman healer Torklah failed to improve his condition.

Bethilda had ordered a room for him here in the infirmary, and she tried to make it as comfortable as she could. As she stood at the doorway to the chamber she looked at the once proud man now laying broken on the bed. She felt a tear sliding down her cheek as walked through through the doorway. She took a seat on the bed beside him as he lie there perfectly still other than the slow labored breaths. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it tight. “Benj my love, I am here… can you hear me?” she pleaded as she peered down into his glassy stare. She began to weep softly as she waited as always for a response, only to hear nothing but his ragged breaths.

She laid down across his chest, wrapping her arms around him. “Please come back to me…” she said softly. She had always regretted their decision, and never did more than now. She wanted to protect her son, and she felt the only way to do this was to disguise who he was. While she would work to repair the relationship between them, she could never buy back the days she lost with her beloved. “You just have to come back… I need you” she wept into his chest. She laid there like this for a good amount of time sobbing when she felt something she did not expect. She looked down to her side to see Benj’s hand had moved up slightly to rest upon her, with his fingertips spread out grasping her.

She exclaimed “You are still in there aren’t you!” She reached down grasping the hand and slowly his fingers grasped around hers. He was recovering slowly, she was certain of it. Benj had always been resilient, and he was trying desperately to come back to her. She looked up at his face and his eyes were closed with his mouth fixed in an expression of determination. “I will wait however long it takes” she said softly as his expression relaxed a bit and his hand fell loose at his side. She lay there listening to his heart beat with renewed strength. She would wait for eternity for him to be back at her side. They could be a real family this time, like she had always wanted them to be. Even if it meant war, she would do anything to protect them and keep him safe.