Flying in Draenor (finally)

 

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I finally earned enough faction to be able to fly in Draenor – and let me tell you, for me, this is a game changer.

I had neglected all of my alts and all of my alliance characters because I just don’t like running around from place to place especially when I know the option for flying is out there. It was overly frustrating in Tanaan Jungle when people would swoop out of the skies to take quest objectives from me as I quested. I almost wished that there was a zone phase for people who had unlocked flight, and another for those of us without. I’m especially glad that flight unlocks account wide, because now I don’t feel bored to tears as I quest my alts through levels 91-100.

Not only did I finally unlock flight, but I also upgraded my fishing shack to level 3, and recruited Nat Pagle as a follower who I put to work in the fishing shack. That leaves only one building left to upgrade, and I’ve been holding back because it requires me to group up – something I always have a lot of anxiety about in World of Warcraft, even though I know I’m more than geared enough to be able to handle heroic dungeons. I’m constantly afraid that I’ll do something to mess up or that I’ll get kicked out, no matter how many times I tell myself that it’s just a game and that I shouldn’t worry about these things. I still do worry. Please remember if you’d like to add me to BNet you can find me as: Stargrace#1783, and though I am playing horde at the moment (Area 52) I also have alliance members (Argent Dawn).

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

Look Ma! Old Raids!

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Today I was one of ‘those’ people. You know the ones who are not paying attention during a pull and instead they’re taking selfies with their bffs. OK so it was an older raid and I could have been dead on the floor for all of it and no one would have noticed, but I usually try to not be that person. The second I saw this named I wanted to take a picture with him. Normally for raids I go as a shadow priest, but today after my usual round I decided to swap over to my disc spec and heal for a while. It’s not that I don’t adore shadow, I do, but I get bored of doing the same things day after day, as anyone would. If it wasn’t for the Draenor faction I’ve been working on I would probably swap to another character for a bit. As it stands, I’m still trying very hard to complete my faction so I can fly.

The raids treated me well. They were in need of a healer and so I received an extra loot bag for each run. I made a tidy sum of cash and got some gear to send to alts. I’ve upgraded my garrison now and I’m only missing two buildings in order for all of them to be T3. One is the fishing shack that I work on daily (only 300 fish to go) and the second one is the Tavern, and for that I need an achievement which requires doing dungeons with other players. So far I’m not quite ready, though I really do think they’re much easier these days than they used to be.

I also ventured into Darkmoon Faire which I haven’t seen since their latest revamp. I earned myself a good number of achievements doing the racer events, and am at 11,000 achievement points even. I love that I can log in and play for an hour and feel as though I’ve actually accomplished something. Speaking of which, I earned enough money for another game token, so that’s my account taken care of until February 2017. I like saving up for a token each month, and I like that it’s an obtainable goal with my playtime. It’s still cheaper than it has been previously, seeming to bounce between 34k and 35k.

One thing I’ve really been slacking on is my barn. I just can’t seem to go out and collect the caged bits you need for the work orders. I’ve also fallen behind on my tailoring, I rarely ever get the supplies required. It’s something I’d like to focus on in the future if I can remember to at least.

All in all, just another quiet evening! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

 

LFGuild (again)

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I like to consider myself a pretty open minded person. Only a few things will ever really tick me off, but one of those things happens to be intolerance from other people, or people who purposely hurt others. Last week the guild I was in decided to make some pretty off the cuff remarks about cultures other than their own, and they were making racist comments and making fun of these people. Joke or not, I don’t have tolerance for that sort of stuff and so I decided not to waste my time any more and I left the guild.

I joined another one just after, a very large casual guild. One of the first conversations that took place involved a lot of bodily fluids and more less-than-nice remarks. Again, I value my free time quite a bit and I really don’t feel like listening / reading that sort of stuff while playing a video game, so I left the guild. I haven’t found a replacement yet, but World of Warcraft has a LOT of guilds. I’m thinking in the end what I’ll do is what I always end up doing, which is just creating my own guild. I’d love to just join up with the handful of friends I still have playing, but like all games with servers, none of us actually play on the same ones. I know not everyone has an issue with these types of comments, and I understand that ‘hey it’s just a game’ but overlooking these types of incidents just doesn’t sit well in my stomach.

It has been many years since I have been able to find a ‘home’ in a game. It doesn’t bug me as much now as it used to, I’m quite comfortable doing my own thing – but still, I have to wonder at the state things are in.

The cost of WoW tokens dropped by a fair amount over the Christmas holidays and I saved up enough to purchase my second one even though I slacked throughout the month. I really enjoy being able to buy game time this way. As long as I’m actively playing the game, the funds come pretty easily. Of course if I dither off or take a break it will make earning the coin a bit difficult….

The next Timewalking event started today – I haven’t looked at it yet, but I’m excited. I had fun with the last one. In the meantime, I’ll just keep looking for a guild I can call home on Area 52.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

It’s a New Year, Lets Game!

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It’s 2016. Another year has gone by, and while I didn’t write quite as much as previous years, I’m still ever so happy with my little corner of the internet. This will be the 10th year that I’ve had MmoQuests up and it has been a real pleasure getting to know everyone in the community over the years. I’m looking forward to a fantastic 2016, and I’ve set out a schedule that should help with my reluctance to blog every day. I’ll be posting three times a week here, and then dedicating two other days to other blogs (I have a book review blog and a knitting blog for those who didn’t know and were interested).

I’ve been working on my shipyard in World of Warcraft, and while it is yet another garrison grind it can also be quite profitable. I have been risking my ships a bit more here and there and while I haven’t lost one yet I know it’s bound to happen eventually. I continue to complete my daily faction quests so I can get closer to flying in draenor which also gives me a lot of loot to sort through. Weekly raids round out part of the days, along with working on achievements. I’m currently trying for the T3 fishing shack which requires me to spend a lot of time fishing. Thankfully there’s no end to Netflix shows to watch, so it’s not quite as bad as it could be if I were just standing around fishing with nothing extra to do.

When garrisons had first been announced I really wanted it to be actual housing. I think that WoW has a perfect platform for allowing characters to design their own home plots, and their denial of adding this to the game has been stubbornness. People enjoy player housing, and I just feel that garrisons could have been so much more (and I know I’m not alone in this feeling).

I joined a new casual guild yesterday. The guild I was in was being incredibly rude and racist. I know, it’s world of warcraft and sometimes it’s hard to see beyond that sort of community, but I don’t think that’s an excuse for treating other human beings like crap. It wasn’t long before I found myself in a new guild. This one has almost 1,000 members and typically has 50 on at any one time. A lot of the general comments are still rude but I always have such a hard time in WoW finding a guild that suits me that I’m willing to overlook it for now. I play on Area 52 as Horde if anyone has any suggestions.

I haven’t made any big resolutions for this year, especially not in gaming. I typically fall through on them so I just want to take it easy and see where my gaming goes naturally. I do have plans of a ‘special’ post on Wednesdays, maybe one that explores one of my unplayed steam games, but again I’ve tried to direct my posts this way in the past and I always end up failing. All I can do is dust myself off and try, try again!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

 

 

 

Games for Christmas

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The hustle and bustle of Christmas is coming to a close, and I hope everyone has had a happy and safe holiday. It’s a bit of an odd time of year for me. I love Christmas, it’s one of my favourite times, but it’s also incredibly lonely. My family lives too far away to visit, and I don’t know a lot of locals. My online friends are typically busy with their own happenings (as it should be) and so I watch from a distance, happy but sad if that makes any sense.

I did get a handful of great games from friends this year which was really awesome of them. I got enough WoW time to keep my account active for the next year (thanks Kasul and Shadowgeist!) I also received Stonehearth (thanks Scarybooster!) The Men of Yoshiwara (thanks Moumix!) and Aviary Attorney (thanks again Shadowgeist!) so even though it wasn’t quite the holiday I had planned in my mind, it was still very lovely. I didn’t spot anything in the steam sale that I wanted to pick up, but it’s always a great time for me to pass on some games to friends when funds are tight. I know Christmas is not all about the gifts or what you get from other people, but it does feel nice to be able to give and make someone smile.

I also decided yesterday to start up Minecraft again. I installed the new Infinity Evolved pack from Feed The Beast, and set the game to expert mode. This creates a more ‘difficult’ timeline in order to get things done, but what they mean by ‘difficult’ is ‘time consuming’. It’s not hard, it just takes a lot more time. One of the mods included makes it rain chicken / pigs from the sky on Christmas day. That would be what is showing in the screenshot above. I set up a home next to a mountain and began collecting items to better gear myself. The server is a bit crazy, I walked through 5 towns just to get to the place I wanted to settle. Each town had bits and bobs that I wanted to loot and take with me, so by the time I actually built my house, I had everything well established.

I’ve also been playing Wurm Online and World of Warcraft. In Wurm players received a reindeer decoration item which was pretty cool and nice of the developers. I didn’t log into EQ2 at all this holiday season, and a lot of the reason behind that is because I can’t seem to ‘get into’ it in such short spurt play sessions. I can’t do dungeons or raids simply by queuing, and I really wish I could.

A lot of my gaming has been limited because of a bug with Windows 10 and my mouse, too. For some reason it keeps performing double clicks when it shouldn’t. I know this is an issue with my logitech G700 mouse, I’ve seen lots of threads about it, but there’s no solution to keep it fixed permanently at this time and it bugs me to no end. It makes playing any game with mouse direction or clicking at all almost impossible, or at least incredibly frustrating. I’ve been plugging in the laptop mouse to game in the meantime, but that mouse is tiny and awkward. I keep holding off on purchasing a new mouse (like a corsair) in the hopes that microsoft or logitech or whoever will actually fix whatever my issue is (I’ve tried multiple drivers, I’ve tried no drivers, etc) but it’s certainly not happening any time soon.

Anyone else get any awesome game related gifts this Christmas? Let me know in comments and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.