Blast From The Past – Theme Hospital

I’ve been waiting eagerly for the steam game Two Point Hospital to announce a release date, but so far all it continues to say is ‘2018’ – in a fit of nostalgia I downloaded Theme Hospital from EA, and decided to give that a whirl. I remember spending a few precious computer hours playing when I was younger, back when our family computer belonged to my Dad and us kids were lucky enough to use it here and there when it was free.

The sound track immediately took me back, and even though the resolution on the DOS emulator wasn’t exactly playing nice 20 years later, it was still a lot of fun. The graphics aren’t THAT bad for a game that age, either. Or maybe I’m just used to playing pixel games.

I had forgotten that there were levels involved and I made it to about level 4 in the short time I devoted to it, allowing VIP to tour my facilities as I worked on deflating gigantic skulls, and developing new research methods. My doctors were moderately happy with their pay (I hope…) and I provided a nice staff room complete with one sofa and a working television! Woohoo!

It was a really nice relaxing way to spend an hour or two, but in the end what I want is a newer version of the game, which I’m hoping Two Point Hospital will provide. Now if only they’d announce a release date.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

The Sad State of my Knitting

Here it is, part way through April, and I have completed a total of ONE knitting project in 2018, and that was actually started in November 2017 and finished January. One. Even in 2017 I managed 11 projects, and that was a crazy busy year doing solo parenting for six months of it. So what happened?

The move took a lot more out of me than I thought it would, especially since I was sick for two months straight. Being pregnant with my second child is taking its toll, and running after a toddler for most of the day. My fingers (and legs) have been so swollen that even typing on the keyboard brings discomfort, let alone manipulating knitting needles or crochet hooks.

The real reason though is that I just haven’t found any motivation or inspiration. I have all of this lovely yarn, and no idea what I want to knit. I was thinking of crocheting a beautiful blanket for Nug (baby #2) and got frustrated because even the most simple of crochet patterns appear to be over my head. I wish I picked it up as easily as I picked up knitting. For some reason I just can’t and it bothers me. I thought about working on some socks, quick simple knits that don’t require a whole lot of attention especially since I’ve knit quite a few pairs of socks but again, lack of motivation. I did end up knitting a few extra cotton dish cloths but I couldn’t even be bothered with updating my Ravelry project page with them.

I’m hoping my knitting mojo comes back soon. I have such beautiful yarns just waiting to be turned into something fancy. It’s still really cold (below freezing) where we live now, so it’s not a matter of warmer weather making me change my interest in knitting. It’s just a … melancholy type of mood that I just can’t figure out. Here’s hoping my needles see some action soon.

Battle for Azeroth – We Have a Release Date!

Today it was announced that Battle For Azeroth will release August 14th! That’s about a month earlier than I thought it would come out, just before kids start heading back to school. I’m due with Nug on July 27th, so I may even be able to get in some game time by then, though I imagine it will be greatly reduced hours.

There’s some preparation I’d like to do for BfA, especially since I’m sure they’ll be reducing the gold output from Order Halls. In no particular order, some of the things I want to finish off before BfA are:

  • All 6 110 alts to 950 order hall and collecting coin missions as often as possible
  • Professions all at 800 in preparation for BfA
  • Class mounts for as many characters as I can
  • Allied races unlocked
  • Level my final 2 characters to 110

Right now I’m working on the professions portion because it’s simple enough to do if I actually focus. I’ve swapped my main (again) from my priest to my monk, and I am having an absolute BLAST with the class. The monk is a character I boosted to 90 way back when and then I never touched. I leveled to 100 doing invasions, and then afterward (again) never touched. This time I’m playing windwalker (though I do have my tank and heal artifacts as well) and I just can’t express what a great time I’m having. I feel like I’m actually contributing to groups, and it’s fairly stress-free since I’m not playing a healer (the class I typically play). I’m not 100% sure if I’ll stick with her as a main in BfA, we’ll have to see – but for now I’m having a great time.

The two remaining characters that have yet to reach 110 are my shaman and my warlock, neither of which I am that keen on playing. I currently have:

  • Monk – Engineering / Inscription
  • Paladin – Alchemy / Herbalism
  • Druid – Mining / Herbalism
  • Priest – Tailor / Enchanting
  • Priest #2 – Skinning / Mining
  • Hunter – Skinning / Leatherworking

Then the two pre-110 characters

  • Shaman – Mining / Jewelcrafting
  • Warlock – Engineering / Blacksmithing

The only profession I have at 800 is skinning on my 2nd priest, and everyone else is hovering in the 600-700 ranges so it’s a pretty big goal of mine to get them done. Rumor is it will be harder to level up professions through the older tiers, so I really want to be able to focus on the new content.

What are you going to be focusing on for BfA? Any plans in the works? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Humpday AddOn – Altoholic

The collection of addons I use is growing, and some of them are quite amazing so I thought once a week I’d take an in-depth look at one that I use, explaining how it works and what it’s used for. AddOns are not essential to any game, but they do help quality of life a huge amount, and I think there are so many options available out there it’s nice to get a cohesive list.

The first addon I’m going to talk about is one called altoholic. If you’re not familiar with how to install addons in World of Warcraft, well there’s really no excuse these days it’s pretty hands off. You simple download the twitch desktop client (previously known as the curse client) swap the screen over to mods (top left side), find WoW (make sure it’s pointing at the correct directory) and you’ll see two columns. One is ‘my addons’ and the other is ‘get more addons’. Pretty simple stuff. Then you just do a search.

Anyway. Altoholic keeps track of pretty much everything for all of your characters, and it’s lovely. It will keep track of order hall resources (and pretty much any currency you want), how many order hall followers you have, what ilevel they’re sitting at, what your artifact weapons are at as far as levels, what professions each character has and what level they’re at, bag space, and even what inventory they each have. I’ve been using this addon to monitor old WoD garrison resources so I can trade them in for craft materials to continue to level up a few characters that are below 700 in their respective craft.

It will tell you if missions are completed, how long it has been since you logged them in, how many auctions they currently have on the go, how much mail they have, how many AH bids they have, and even things like achievements.

It’s basically a one stop shop to see everything about everyone you play, and if you happen to be a collector of alts (like some of us are) it’s an addon that I really can’t recommend enough.

What I like most of all about this addon is that besides logging your characters in there’s almost no customization required. The default display is everything I need though you can customize some features and even enable account sharing if you happen to be multiboxing.

The addon is also pretty small as far as memory usage, clocking in at around 3.8mb for me personally. So far I haven’t come across a downside, but if you spot one please do share!

Next week we’ll be taking a look at GSE: Gnome Sequencer Enhanced, an advanced macro addon.

Noblegarden and Other Happenings

There’s a lot going on in World of Warcraft this week, and I love it. Yesterday marked the beginning of Noblegarden, an event where you can harvest some awesome eggs for a pet and mount (I know there are other things but these were the ones that interested me the most) and of course there’s temporary appearance gear like the cute bunny ears I am wearing on my Draenei monk above.

There was an invasion in the broken shore yesterday, so with some help from my husband we took my monk through them all and she reached just shy of level 105. Afterward we decided to duo one of the 98-110 instances just because, and she reached 105. I have leveled through the broken shore so many times (I have 5 level 110 characters so far) that I love finding new and interesting ways to push my characters along. Invasions are a great way to get a level and a bit, pet battles still reward a fair amount when I’m in the mood, and duoing dungeons meant for groups is always a sure winner.

I’ve also been working on my professions, but I’m not sure where I want to go with the monk. Right now she has inscription (and is my only scribe) and herbalism. I’m thinking of dropping herbalism (I have two others) and picking up engineering so she can use some of the fun toys which would come in handy for farming (like the loot a rang. There’s a draenor version that anyone can use and then there’s an engineer version that can be used anywhere). For now I’m undecided.

I REALLY enjoy the monk. I have been learning how to optimize my windwalker spec, and I want to pick up the other two artifacts and complete those so I have them on hand and so I can get down to learning brewmaster (tank) and windwalker (healer). I don’t expect it will take me too long to reach level 110 and then I can start running WQ (world quests) for gear, order resources, and all that fun stuff. It’s also my first time playing a draenei and I am LOVING the look. I may race change to a lightforged one if I can ever manage to unlock them. For now I still require a fair amount of faction. Ugh. Faction.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!