Nogamara

WoW and Season 4 goals

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Thanks to my awesome M+ group I got my Season 4 mount on Friday

! Managed to do 2 19s and then one of the instances I was completely missing (Upper Kara Fortified) which brought me over the hump of 2000 rating. Then I noticed I’d forgotten to buy one of my BiS trinkets with the raiding Dinar and a macro was broken. Oh well, I’m really good at this game, you know. That’s 4 +15s for the Vault this week as well, nice.

Wastewarped Deathwalker mount

I also healed a few +10s in PUGs to get my Shammy to 1400 rating to upgrade some gear, I guess I’ll even try for 1700, I’m still missing enough Fortified/Tyrannical runs that this should provide a good base with +10s and then I can grab 1-2 +15s with the team.

On the downside I’ve not really felt like tanking, so both my DK and my DH didn’t do a lot, maybe I’ll try to get a +2 in on the weekend, but unlike with the Shammy it feels a little pointless this late in the season. There’s only a few weeks left, so I’d have to hardcore play tons of dungeons and I don’t want to really learn it. Maybe in Dragonflight…

So overall everything looks pretty good with regarding to goals in Season 4 and Shadowlands overall – I’m working on a few achievements as well, mostly the Stitchyard and some zone metas. I won’t make the big overall Shadowlands meta achievement because I didn’t care for the Kyrian (Path of Ascension) and Venthyr (Ember Court) thing.

The only thing I’m a little worried is the Fated mount, as we’re still missing the last 3 bosses in Sepulcher, but the guild -again- only did the first 8 when I missed my first raid, so I hope we’re extending this week because no one should have this mount unless the pugged later in that week.

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Random bits about games

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Currently a bit meh on everything gaming wise. Retail WoW is ok, but also not perfect, detailed post probably incoming soon.

I’m feeling the urge to play something Diablo-like, but not the same old Diablo 3 again. As I wrote, unfortunately I couldn’t find a lot of fun in the Torchlight Infinite Beta. I thought about Path of Exile, but as one of my main points atm would be co-op, and my wife wasn’t enthusiastic about returning to it, that’s a no. (“How about PoE?” – “Nah, I don’t like it” – “Steam says you played it for over 250 hours” – “Yeah, but maybe I didn’t have fun for the last 50 hours” – “…” – “…”).

Then I saw that Darksiders: Genesis was on sale and people described it as Diablo-like, so we tried that, but both didn’t really get to terms with the WASD movement and some research yielded: click to move doesn’t work, also in general some keybinds seemed to be “play this with a controller or GTFO” – so that was the first game in a combined ~20 years of Steam that was returned after 30min. (Only bought one copy and both tried it).

So, I also didn’t like Torchlight 2 (she did) and so I’m not fond of trying Torchlight 3 and that’s that. Maybe we should try Grim Dawn or Victor Vran after all.

Then there’s also the loose end of Guild Wars 2 where the bugged multiplayer story missions annoyed me so much that I completely stopped playing in July, also I don’t really want another WoW-like MMO atm, I want some ARPG. Maybe we should actually go back to Diablo 3 and I’ll just not take a Demon Hunter…

But I also played a little bit of “The Bridge”, a puzzle game I found in my Epic library, it’s really cool.
Then I tried out Solitairica which is kinda cute (but the sound effects are a little annoying) and I think it’s a good game if you enjoy Solitaire or Rummy or such things. I found it a little too luck-based and slow.

Then I also finally gave Prison Architect a spin, a game I’d had wishlisted for quite some time and then somehow got it, maybe also for free via Epic, but I noticed I don’t like it. Like, I was impressed with what you can do and it looks enjoyable enough.. but it simply didn’t click with me but I can give no objective criticism except one time in the campaign I had to let the fire brigade try to extinguish a fire and for some reason that burning tree would not stop, no matter how I positioned four firemen around it, moved them around, tried auto aim and manual aim. Had to restart the level, which was no problem, that were like 3 minutes lost, still weird.

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Torchlight Infinite Impressions

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When I saw Connor’s post about Torchlight Infinite I was interested and wanted to give it a try. We played the original Torchlight for quite a bit in this household (Diablo-style ARPGs are usually very popular) and while I didn’t really get into Torchlight II, my wife really liked it and also played a lot.

So, beta it is. The graphics are awesome, I love Cel Shading and it looks nice. After playing for just shy of 2 hours that’s unfortunately everything positive I have to say. It kinda feels clunky (maybe also because it’s a mobile port to PC), the UI is not great, but mostly… it just doesn’t seem to be fun for me. I tried all the classes, some are better than others, but overall there’s a complete lack of this “I just started and I want more” feeling that these games usually evoke. One more mob, one more level, one more map. Nope, nothing. It feels kinda slow, the mechanics feel weird to me and then there are the little things. The minimap is on the upper left and I always want to look to the right (very minor detail), I didn’t yet try to rebind from Q W E R + D F, but I can’t hold shift to stay still, I need to only right click attack. Yes, this sounds a bit like “I want Diablo” but those controls make sense for me, these don’t.

I guess it’s absolutely worth a try if you like these sort of games, but it’s not for me. Watching a Level 30 Fire Mage destroy stuff looked kinda fun, but I’m not feeling like putting even 3h in to continue. In my opinion they need to work on the first 20 minutes of gameplay.

Now it’s a day later and I continued to play the Melee Warrior type class a bit and it was actually a little more fun, interesting how a single skill can change everything. Also my wife agreed that the dual pistol class I originally started with is not fun. Maybe I’ll sink some more time in after all, now that I didn’t hate it.

Torchlight Infinite Beta – standing in town

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Single Abstract Noun

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Once upon a time in 2010 Tam of Righteous Orbs (no, not that one as far as I know) had the idea to collect all EU bloggers who played WoW at the time and form a guild to play together for a bit, this was <Single Abstract Noun> on Argent Dawn-EU. I don’t exactly remember who was in there at the time (I think Jaedia was there), because that was a long time ago.

I started a male Troll Hunter – I’m pretty sure there was a little inspiration because I was watching Kripparrian at the time when he was raiding and making cool videos, but not the main one. I’ve had several hunters over the years, I always liked them, and my second most important char at the time was a male Troll Warrior on my main server. I actually leveled quite a bit in 2010 and 2011 and because this was an RP server, I remember a few occasions of stopping by and looking at RPers in Orgrimmar doing there thing. It was nice, especially on this remote (to me) server with no pressure to level up or get anything done – yes, I’m usually very goal-oriented in WoW and there’s always something to do.

Anyway, at some point I reached Northrend and stopped playing and when I came back, the guild was pretty dead. A single person had a few max-level chars and we chatted for a bit, but that was it. Then I hardly logged in once a year for another few years and that was it basically.

When I bought the bundle of 8 or so transfers a few months back I only had used up all but two and I was still unsure what to do, but I never wanted to just delete this Level 30 (after the squish) Hunter with a history, so on the weekend I transferred him off to a server where some friends play and I already have 2 Level 60s. I changed the name and it’s now a female Troll Hunter who just reached the Shadowlands last night, 20 Levels in current retail are easily doable on a weekend without stressing too much.

Unfortunately I had only made a single post about this but at least it helped me pinpoint the start pretty clearly. So here’s a second post now, as the final end of chapter. Thanks to all who participated back then even if your names are lost to time, it was a fun project and came just at the right moment, in the middle/end part of WotLK.

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Transmogs are the real endgame

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The Trial of Style is one of the most important ingame festivals in Retail WoW because while it’s live you can transmog for free. This is really important if you have too many alts.

Here’s the 2022 Rogue/Warrior autumn collection, a bit heavy on Tier gear this time, but I didn’t farm it for nothing.

My main Night Elf Warrior in Dragon Soul Tier gear
My Troll warrior in mostly Tier 6
My Goblin Warrior in Tier 10
My Highmountain Tauren Warrior in some blue colored gear
My old main Orc Rogue in Tier 4
My Mag’har Orc Rogue in the coolest leveling armor
My Gnome Rogue in 10-man Tier 8
My Human Rogue in something that took ages to color-match
My Void Elf Rogue in something black-colored

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Blaugust 2022 has ended

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I’m a little late, but back in town now. Blaugust 2022 has come to a close, thanks to all the participants and Belghast for organizing it again. I didn’t comment a lot, but I tried to check out the people who I don’t usually read all the time and the new folks. Good job, everyone!

Here’s another link to the participant list and that’s the Blaugust overview page.

As for a personal review, I did manage to reach my stretch goal of 15 posts, which means I got the silver badge again.

The Silver Club 2022

Unfortunately I only managed to do three non-WoW posts despite playing quite a bit of EVE Online, but this blog is mostly a diary of stuff that happened, through the lens of what I’m in the mood to write about, and so I guess that included mostly WoW. This time I also didn’t really take part in the themed weeks, but I felt I had nothing to contribute there, so why push it? I’m also skipping the achievements part because I didn’t really try to do them, so all hits are purely coincidental.

Anyway, it’s been fun and I’m glad I could take part in a non stressful way, looking forward to next year.

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Shadowlands Season 4 raids

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This is the fourth week of Shadowlands Season 4 and while M+ is kinda ok I’m not a fan of raiding right now. While I originally supported us going down to only one day instead of two days per week – you can’t really get a lot done in just 2h. Today we barely managed to get Nathria Normal cleared (in the order of first continuing the old bosses from Sludgefist alive, then doing a new ID up to Council, in total 10/10) and no one seems to be motivated to go for Heroic after our first try three weeks ago and noticing it’s not a pushover after all these months of no one doing the fight, and no one’s really up for progressing – the only draw seems to be the mount (for clearing all 3 on Fated Normal) and the gear, to a degree. Legendary bow for Sylvanas and some odd bits and bobs here and there. Today I got the missing cloak of the Normal set but didn’t get the Shoulders.

But that’s not really the problem. I’m not really enjoying it, Normal is just too easy for this group, and some people have already stopped logging in for this weird season, and I can’t hold it against them (amongst them our replacement raid leader). I mean, I’m happy to hopefully get the mount – but this 3 Dinar loot system doesn’t excite me. I know I should take the Jailer’s Gavel (would be an upgrade from 259 to 285) but I kinda dislike the mechanic, it just makes most sense. I mean, the system seems fine in geenral, I’d like that in a normal raid tier. Kill 30 bosses, be able to buy a weapon or trinket (maybe make it 20, for 2 complete Normal clears and not 30 for 3 Normal clears, or something) as a form of bad luck protection. But I’m simply noticing I’m not made for farming content. We’ve seen it on Normal+Fated now and I don’t really want to go back. Go Heroic or stop trying.

Overall I’m simply not sure I’ll keep logging in for raids until Dragonflight launches if we’re keeping up this pace of only clearing Normal, but maybe people are actually up for a challenge and reprogressing Nathria after we got the mount, but I somehow doubt it. I think I’ve not missed a raid in this guild since July 2021, but maybe that’s coming soon. That’s not to say I hate Season 4, but I guess I’d be more ok with Season 3 just petering out slowly like in other expansions. That feeling of “being done” – got 2 of 3 AOTC and now for 3-4 months.. just go away and play other games, like I did after our Heroic Sylvanas kill – but instead we got this weird Raid tier, that’s just interesting enough to not just sod off.

Also I’m noticing that I’m in a certain end-of-expansion mood as I’ve been going around and knocking off soloable achievements in Shadowlands. Quests, Exploration, finding treasures, grabbing pets. I’ve not done that for a long time…

This is Blaugust 2020 – post #15.

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Collecting transmogs

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It’s Friday and I’m mentally preparing for a vacation trip on Monday, which also means I’ll be missing the last 3 days of Blaugust and I’ve not yet reached my goal of 15 posts per month. More like a stretch goal but unless I’m going for the full 31 (like in 2018) I don’t really feel like cheating by just banging out a semi-random post. This one might sound like one, but I’ll be coming to the point shortly. I’m just not sure if something will come up for the last one.

I’ve been keeping busy this week by running tons of old instances in WoW, in order to finish out some transmog sets. See, at some point they added achievements to have a full set of one raid tier. SimpleArmory nicely shows these under Achievements -> Collections -> Appearances.

Despite me playing a ton over the years, I’ve never actually been in a guild that kills stuff very quick and then spends months farming, so my completion of Tier sets was actually abysmal until I started farming old raids.

The first ones I finished were the Tier 5 Rogue set quite recently and the Paladin Nighthold set, probably also this year, since then I also managed to get the Tier 11 Warrior set from Icecrown Citadel and the Rogue set from Siege of Orgrimmar in Pandaria. My main targets at the moment are Rogue Tier 4 from Karazhan (1 piece missing), Rogue set from Throne of Thunder (1 piece missing), Heart of Fear/Terrace of the Endless Spring, Rogue set from Naxxramas 25 (1 piece missing), and with a little less focus Black Temple and Ulduar.

It really helps to have several Rogues and Warriors and I’m sure I’ll lose interest again soonish, but right now I’ll push a bit more. So there are 28 achievements for raid tiers in previous expansions, and I currently have only 12 of them, and I really want to get to around 18…

Next week there will be the Trial of Style event again (and I’m missing the start of it), but I’m just to cheap to simply transmog 30 chars, so I’ve been waiting for this for a while. I’m not saying I don’t transmog my main chars, but that alt that I probably won’t touch in a few months.. Yeah, Trial of Style free transmog it is.

Now if only WoW had something like tokens I could save up and just buy the one thing I need after 10 runs of the old instance, that would be great.

Thinking about all the transmogs I also noticed that I was missing some of the Shadowlands Covenant transmogs, there are 16 of them – one per Covenant and armor class. Now it’s Saturday afternoon and I already managed to grab the Kyrian Plate one, the Night Fae Mail one and most of the Necrolord Leather one, it’s kinda easy to rush through with decent gear. The missing ones are Kyrian Cloth and Venthyr Mail… for the latter I don’t even have a char that chose this.

Maldraxxus Covenant Leather armor, 6/9 pieces

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #14.

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WoW and gearing

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Had a nice lengthy chat with our ex-raid leader (Sanctum) on Discord last night, WoW was not a major part of the discussion, but as we was also back ingame I checked his Armory and well…

We needed 6 weeks to clear Sepulcher on normal, that’s when he stopped playing. He was mostly doing M+ that season and just occasionally popping in for raids. His toon is still at iLevel 272. This is noteworthy insofar, as he’s basically wearing a single piece of gear from the normal raid (iLevel 252/259). Heroic was 265, Mythic was 278. So all his pieces are already higher item level than Normal drops and 7 are above Heroic Level, 5 are at 262/265.

I’ve lost track how many weeks Season 3 lasted (we killed the Jailer on Heroic in week 22 and I think it was the last one), but after 6 weeks he was already at 272 and I only managed to get to 277ish when S4 dropped – that’s 16 weeks.

If gear was any major motivation for me this would make zero sense. M+ drops are simply too strong and it’s kinda ridiculous. Yeah, I’m not checking out and just leaving the gear on the table – I’m not good enough to just ace the content, I kinda need the appropriate gear… or even a smidge higher than that. But we killed the boss that dropped 265(+4?) loot when a third of the raid already had 278 gear and everything we needed was a special weapon or trinket.

It’s not really taking away a lot of my enjoyment for the game – I just find it a little pointless that I can’t get any nice upgrades in raids.

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #13.

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Which MMO mount do you like using the most?

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Saw this prompt at Paeroka’s blog (originally by Syp) and it’s a fascinating question.

I guess I’m not one of the “forever” people, if I have a favourite mount I usually get a new, more interesting one at some point months or years in the future and then I’ll change it.

There are a few notable exceptions though:

  • WoW:Black War Raptor on my Orc Rogue (PvP Rank 11 in Vanilla gave you Epic Riding without having to buy it, and I wanted a Raptor and not a Wolf, so I ground Cloth for a while to raise my rep and get this)
  • WoW: The class hall mounts of Legion are all pretty nice and I use them a lot, Raven on Rogue, Elemental on Shaman
  • WoW: The Headless Horseman’s Mount is one I lucked out on getting and a few chars have used it for years
  • At a time, some of the reward mounts for completing a Raid
  • WildStar: My Aurin’s Hoverboard
  • Final Fantasy XIV: A healthy mix, different one for every job, but I do like my Black Chocobo
  • SWTOR: I was very happy when I got a Jetpack for my Powertech and have used it ever since

But overall, if I get a new mount I’ll probably use it for a while on a char, or even longer if it fits a theme, like this one I just crafted myself for around 90k? instead of buying it for 220k.

Freshly crafted Depleted Kyparium Rocket

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #12.

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