faff Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Veritech Pilots Unite!

January 24, 2014 by Belghast

Profundity is Gone

For those that followed me during the recent couple day bump of new readers… I am rarely as cogent or pointed as those topics come off as. Most of the time the Tales the Aggronaut spins are yarns of faffing about and doing scattered things in the games I play. That is not to say that I won’t again be overcome with feels and post something dreadfully important, but most of the time I just ramble on about whatever is in my mind. This is the side effect of my whole “blog every morning” crusade I embarked upon nearly a year ago. So if you have a limited appetite for game ramblings, I apologize ahead of time.

My office right now is like a magma chamber, and I am not really sure how long I can keep up this mornings post before I wither and melt away. The heating and air system in our house is pretty horrific, and for some reason there are two heat vents in my very small office. As much as I have tried to block them off completely… the heat continues to radiate through the wall. So the rushed feeling I am having is likely going to cause this to be one of my extra “special” mornings. Right now all I can say is thank god it is the weekend… and even though I have to pull a wi-fi miracle out of my hat tomorrow… I am ready to be done with work for the week.

Veritech Pilots Unite!

One of the side projects that has been underway for roughly a month is the coordinating of my crafting cooldowns each day in order to eventually produce the amazing Sky Golem mount. I realize I am way behind the times in getting it crafted, but hell it is news to me. Last night I managed to make the last two components and then went on an absolutely giddy flight around the Vale. I loves it so much in all of its mechanical glory. I feel like a Veritech pilot from Macross/Robotech. For the next few weeks every single character of mine will be zipping around on this goblin machination. Then I am sure like always I will get bored and pick a new mount for a few weeks.

I have already set my sights on the next big crafting project. I am a horrible engineer… or at least I have traditionally been a very poor one. I never raised the bankroll to get my chopper back in Wrath, and during the expansions after I simply lost sight on it as a goal. Now my intent is to farm up everything I can farm and then raise the required monetary commitment to craft one of these puppies. Not that I think I will ever actually use it… I have so many cool ground mounts like the Fiery Warhorse’s Reins or Rein’s of the Swift Spectral Tiger that I am always anxious to break out when I am in a flight limited area. I feel like getting a chopper is just one of those things I want to do moreso than really have a reason to do.

Blackwing Descent

Finally on the silly activities front, several of us were hanging out on mumble last night. The question was posed… how many people would it take to clear the old raids, namely Blackwing Descent. I surmised that we could probably limp by on three, 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 dps. Next thing I know we are on our way to blackrock mountain and giving it a try. Thing is… I remember nothing about this raid at all really. Granted while we were doing it several things came back, but I had literally not see any content past the first two bosses. I left WoW shortly after the launch of Cataclysm and at that point we had only managed to down Magmaw and Omnomitron (yes I know that isn’t the name). So for the most part it was a completely new place for me.

We of course entered for the purest of faffing reasons… the druid in our party wanted these shoulders for transmog. I myself would not have minded getting an Ashkandi 2.0 to drop, simply because the fidelity of the weapon is so much higher than the one I keep in my bank for transmoggy goodness. All in all the run went pretty smoothly. We struggled a few times, including several attempts at Chimaeron just trying to figure out how to work the fight mechanics. For whatever reason my purgatory talent seemed to be glitching out the key fight mechanic, so I popped outside real quick and summoned my vendor mount and changed that talent.

The trippy fight honestly was Nefarian because I was the only one to survive the initial flood everything in lava phase. So for the most part I solo’d a good chunk of that fight, namely the swimming around the room in lava killing the guys on the platforms phase. Then the monk healer and I duo’d the final kite him around the room phase. Since it was a 10 man fight, we only had one battle rez, and as such it seemed like a better idea to rez the healer than the druid dps. It was a fun night and I could see myself doing it again. I am really hoping that we can mostly trio the rest of the content. Funny enough we managed to get an achievement during the process without really intending to. I really want to go off and do firelands so I can hopefully get my druid friend his fire kitty.

Comfort Gaming

January 11, 2014 by Belghast

Tamiflu Chasers

Over the last several days I have talked about my own respiratory misery. My focus over this time had been on somehow surviving through to Friday and not making a complete and total ass of myself during my presentation. It seems that I was at least somewhat successful in that mission, however during all of this time I seem to have neglected the fact that my wife had been getting progressively worse. It reached a head last night when at bedtime she was running a 101* temperature. This morning she teetered back and forth on whether or not we should go to urgent care.

For those not familiar with the absolutely fucked up medical system here in the United States… Urgent Care is this weird beast that sits somewhere between your doctors office and the actual emergency room. The idea is to create a construct that allows you to get after hours emergency style treatment for non-life-threatening ailments. In the master plan the insurance providers tend to treat these like doctors office visits, and as such you only have to pay one neat co-pay. The problem is… they are insanely deluged with patients. Our local Urgent Care place opens at 9 am on Saturday, and we were there mere moments after opening… and the waiting room was already completely filled.

I dropped my wife off at her suggestion, and ran around running errands in the meantime. We are both a bit concerned that I will catch something since firstly… I was born with a naturally weakened immune system, and secondly… that my lungs are already in a pretty severely compromised state. I felt like an ass for her waiting alone, but she and I texted back and forth throughout the morning. At roughly 10:30 I picked her up and she was brandishing a prescription for tamiflu. She was in fact diagnosed with the real life full blown Flu, and unfortunately despite my yearly flu shot this puts me in a pretty bad place for likely catching it from her.

As a result I am in the process this morning of trying to get ahold of my own primary care physician to attempt to procure a preventative prescription for tamiflu as well. Needless to say my morning did not go anywhere near planned and as a result I am finally sitting down to write a blog post. With all the excitement I don’t really have a whole lot to say. Or at least nothing more exciting than what has already transpired.

Comfort Gaming

One of the best things I have discovered in the past year is the Alternative Chat podcast. If you are not in fact already an avid listener you should make steps to rectify that. In the latest episode the Godmother of Faff mentions a term that is so uniquely perfect, that I am shocked I had never heard it used before now. “Comfort Gaming” is a concept that is very near and dear to my heart, but I never really had an adequate term for it. There are so many gaming experiences that I can return to time and time again when I am in the need of some solace. Here in Oklahoma we are big on “comfort food” with our heaping piles of mashed potatoes and white gravy and our chicken fried steak. This same concept applied to gaming also makes sense.

I guess in a way WoW is my comfort gaming. I spent so much time trying to move past the game, but in fighting it I was denying the fact that I really did enjoy it and the people who play it. Sure there are so many games out there that do one thing or another so much better than the World of Warcraft. Games like Rift are pinnacles of technical brilliance with their deep systems within systems. However something just gets lost in the translation at times, and in all of my years of wandering between games I have found another game that fullfilled so many of the little high points I have looked for in a single package. Playing wow, questing, farming, exploring, collecting transmoggy bits, soloing old world content… all feels comfy.

Crawling back into the game this time was like breaking out that worn out pair of jeans that just feels amazing. There is nothing new under the sun in wow, and it is not exactly a pinnacle of innovation… but what you have here is a really great mix of fun ways to spend your time. I created my WoW Bucket list as a way to have something to fall back on when I got bored. Thing is with the great number of people I have assembled in my guild… I have yet to really get bored enough to search on the list for some purpose. Purpose seems to find me constantly in either helping someone else out or getting a wild whim that I want to follow.

So as I embrace the year of faff, I am also embracing “comfort gaming”. WoW is by no means the only comfort game I have. I find myself able to crawl back into the Fallout or Elder Scrolls worlds and get lost for an entire afternoon at a time. Similarly I am deeply looking forward to the release of Elder Scrolls Online… because that universe is one I supremely love. However saying that, I have no real intent to abandon the World of Warcraft. It scratches an itch for me, and in part is that way because of the amazing people that are playing it. While I could never play a game only for the people… the mixture of absolute fun activities and amazing folks makes the game as sticky as ever for me.

Accidental Achiever

December 29, 2013 by Belghast

Outside is Evil

Yesterday we recuperated from the whirlwind shopping trip around Joplin Mo. It was a pretty glorious day to be honest, because we were both in hibernation mode. We talked for a bit about getting out, because it really was a lovely day. But when it came to actually getting up and doing it… we both failed the willpower check. Personally I am completely fine with this notion, that we both stayed in, ate three meals in, and overloaded on relaxation. I hung out in my fuzzy blanket cocoon on the sofa and she upstairs in her loft of power (that you all will remember once it was my game loft).

I have a feeling that once summer happens the roles will switch with me inhabiting my office and the loft and she the downstairs, but it is cool that we have our own places and are still within vocal range of each other. I played a ton of World of Warcraft, attempted to play a closed beta I got into… but suffered from severe graphical issues that made it completely unplayable, and snuggled with my ferrets each and every time I passed their cage.

Accidental Achiever

I rarely if ever set out to master a tradeskill in a game, but instead it is a thing I usually do out of an odd sense of commitment more than anything. Lately I had been on a mission to level my rogue so I could get a transcriptionist up high enough to be able to start making living steel. I want the 30 bars that it takes to craft my Sky Golem pretty badly. So yesterday I was not paying much attention was I was pushing my way to 600 alchemist when immediately after getting it, I also got the Master of All Achievement. Sure enough… now that I think of it… I do have a max crafter of every profession. The only disappointment is you get exactly nothing for it… except for 75 achievement points.

This is a pretty massive undertaking if someone was to actually set out specifically to do this achievement. I think it is worthy of a crafting tabard, mount, or at the very least a title. I feel like this is a pretty massive oversight on the part of blizzard. Then again crafting is kind of its own reward. Being completely self sufficient feels amazing. Additionally you end up needing to hit the auction house far less often because your army of crafters can make damned near everything you would ever want made. It is a pretty great feeling knowing that you can make an entire set of gear for a friend, as I did for Scarybooster yesterday. In a matter of moments I had a starter set of gear for level 85 ready for him, and I did the same thing for my rogue Gloam.

A Vicious Sneak Thief

Speaking of my rogue, I am roughly halfway through Jade Forest and as of yesterday am about halfway into 87. I should finish up and ding 88 before I finish the area, and will likely skip Valley of the Four Winds entirely and go straight to Kun Lai Summit. When I am trying to power my way through to 90 the path I tend to take is to milk every last drop of experience from Jade Forest, transition to Kun Lai immediately after and then transition to Townlong as soon as you get the quest starter to go there. Finally this ends up with you either dinging 90 in Townlong or doing so just inside of Dread Wastes. Granted this is complete shit for your quest completion, but I figure it also gives you a lot of “questing to make gold” time if you so choose it at max level since xp gets converted up to gold.

Granted I have yet to actually do that one of of my 90s… since as soon as I hit maximum level I start going through the paces of trying to gear out the character and such. I am such a sucker for getting my characters those purples and am willing to sit through all manner of horrible LFR experiences just to do so. I should however have most of a set of timeless leather stocked away and ready for this guy when he needs it. I will just have to figure out how best to get the weapons. This time around I will likely just craft him a set of 463 agi swords and call it good until I can get something decent from LFR. Once I finish his leveling the characters I really need to work on are Belghast, Exeter and Belgarou as they are woefully behind Tallow and Belgrave in gear levels. Oh well… the faffing about with my characters never seems to end.

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.