Gracie update

I’ll be writing my monthly gaming goals post in a day or so, but I wanted to give a more general update since it has been a bit since my last post. Real life has been interfering with my gaming time quite a bit for the past few weeks. On top of that, my interest in games has dropped sharply, other than for mobile games. The combination means I don’t have a ton to talk about here. I wish I could pin down why WoW went south so fast for me this expansion. I was skeptical going into BfA because I didn’t love the core theme, but the Horde-side leveling content really won me over. I had a blast through leveling, and was having fun doing dungeons with friends. I’m not sure what killed the fun fastest – the stress of healing M+, the boring re-hash of world quests, or the failure of islands and warfronts to remotely live up to the hype we were sold. I still have a week or two left on my subscription but nothing is motivating me to even log in. The most WoW I’ve played in weeks was to finally run Dragon Soul for the last time on my rogue to get her legendary daggers. Yes, old content from Cata is more appealing that the current expansion endgame right now. Coupled with the disappointment of WoW is the wet blanket that Blizz has thrown over my hype for the Diablo franchise. With the coveted post-opening-ceremonies timeslot at Blizzcon, lots of people were hopeful for a Diablo 4 announcement this year. Sadly Blizz has already warned us to tone done our expectations. I’m still hopeful that we’re getting some kind of new content for Diablo, even if it is just another character pack for D3 like the necromancer. I’m perfectly happy to keep throwing money at the game to keep development chugging forward if they at least keep giving me something new to be interested in once in a while. Meanwhile I’ve been mostly poking at Dragalia Lost, which I can do while chilling out on the sofa and watching TV. It’s a nice change from being isolated up in my office all the time. I’ve also been reading for fun instead of chewing through my reading challenge list. I re-read all of the October Daye books by Seanan McGuire to prepare for book 12’s release (spoiler: I liked it). Now I’m re-reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson since the sequel to that comes out today. The Traitor Baru Cormorant was the only book I’ve read in the last 10 years or so that I was so engrossed by that I immediately started re-reading it the minute I finished it for the first time. I’m hoping the sequel lives up to it.

October 2018 Gaming Goals

It’s another month and time for another round of gaming goals. September started out optimistic but I got pretty derailed from what I intended to accomplish. Luckily it’s a fresh month which means a fresh start with new goals.

September Goals in Review:

WoW: Level an alliance-side character to 120. Nope. I barely touched my alliance characters at all this month.

Run each available dungeon on mythic difficulty at least once. Nope.

Run available LFR. Nope. I did the first wing but still haven’t run the wing that released last week yet.

Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. Nope. I am beginning to hate ICC at this point. It needs to give up that last pet.

D3: Unlock adventure mode on a HC character. Yes! The only goal I actually met this month. I’m not a total failure!


October Goals:

WoW: Run available LFR. The rest of Uldir LFR should be out this month and I do want to see the whole thing.

Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. Someday this pet will finally drop. Someday.

D3: Help Belghast get a stash tab. I don’t know if I will want to push much farther into the season for myself, but if I’m helping out a friend I’ll be way more motivated.

Dragalia Lost: Finish the story. I’ve become a bit addicted to this mobile game, I really enjoy it. It seems like most of my friends are playing it right now too. I want to see the whole story before I get distracted by something new.


I scaled back my WoW goals this month because honestly I’m not really feeling into WoW at all right now. Likewise D3, where I got super invested in the season for about a week and then my interest faded again. I’ve been easily distracted by mobile games, that let me chill on the couch with the spouse instead of hiding away up in my office. I’ll be losing more than a week out of October for work travel, so there’s no sense setting ambitious goals this month.

October 2018 Gaming Goals

It’s another month and time for another round of gaming goals. September started out optimistic but I got pretty derailed from what I intended to accomplish. Luckily it’s a fresh month which means a fresh start with new goals. September Goals in Review: WoW: Level an alliance-side character to 120. Nope. I barely touched my alliance characters at all this month. Run each available dungeon on mythic difficulty at least once. Nope. Run available LFR. Nope. I did the first wing but still haven’t run the wing that released last week yet. Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. Nope. I am beginning to hate ICC at this point. It needs to give up that last pet. D3: Unlock adventure mode on a HC character. Yes! The only goal I actually met this month. I’m not a total failure!
October Goals: WoW: Run available LFR. The rest of Uldir LFR should be out this month and I do want to see the whole thing. Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. Someday this pet will finally drop. Someday. D3: Help Belghast get a stash tab. I don’t know if I will want to push much farther into the season for myself, but if I’m helping out a friend I’ll be way more motivated. Dragalia Lost: Finish the story. I’ve become a bit addicted to this mobile game, I really enjoy it. It seems like most of my friends are playing it right now too. I want to see the whole story before I get distracted by something new.
I scaled back my WoW goals this month because honestly I’m not really feeling into WoW at all right now. Likewise D3, where I got super invested in the season for about a week and then my interest faded again. I’ve been easily distracted by mobile games, that let me chill on the couch with the spouse instead of hiding away up in my office. I’ll be losing more than a week out of October for work travel, so there’s no sense setting ambitious goals this month.

AggroChat #222 – Gacha of Mana

Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

aggrochat222

Tonight my stalwart friends managed to make me completely fail at getting through the intro once more.  The truth is I never know what Ash is going to say when I call upon him… tonight was not a thing I was expecting.  The first game discussed was Spiderman for PS4 which had rolled over from a few shows. Next up the start of the MTG Arena Open Beta and the end of wipes…  so that everything from this point in theory carried forward indefinitely. Kodra talks about his experiences playing Celeste and its interesting variable difficulty settings.  We talk about Dragalia Lost and how it is once again taking the world by storm… as most Nintendo mobile releases seem to. Finally we talk a bit about Battle for Azeroth and why some of the systems and the grind involved with them feels bad and often times pointless.

Topics Discussed:

  • Spiderman PS4
  • MTG Arena – Open Beta
  • Celeste
  • Dragalia Lost
  • World of Warcraft Grind