Screenie Saturday: Scorchwing

Blaugust 2015, Day 8

Screenie Saturday: Scorchwing

The bird itself

I spent a lot of time last night sitting around waiting for Scorchwing to spawn so I could kill it for my daily contract. There’s almost always a crowd, especially on contract days. I love the atmosphere, it gets pretty festive and silly, which inspires lots of screen shots.

Screenie Saturday: Scorchwing

Waiting for the flaming chicken to appear

After we had killed it I looked back through my screen shot folder and realized that I probably have more images of Scorchwing than anything else in the game. The earliest, like the one at the top of this post from last July, are of Scorch. The long time it took to kill it meant waiting around when it spawned so you had enough people.

Screenie Saturday: Scorchwing

Sometimes you find kindred spirits

The later images are all about the community silliness of waiting for the spawn. I like the Scorchwing fight as far as world bosses go. And I like that it brings big groups together and helps remind me how vibrant a place my server is.

Screenie Saturday: Scorchwing

So many people engaged in poultricide

Still, waiting around for a random spawn timer isn’t really engaging gameplay. I wonder if all the changes coming with F2P will standardize Scorch’s spawn to bring it more in line with the other daily contracts. If so, I’ll be glad of the time it saves me, but a little sad if we lose this weird excuse to have a party in the middle of Blighthaven.


Why Do I Raid?

Blaugust 2015, Day 7

Why Do I Raid?

The pinnacle of raiding in FFXIV before the expansion. Please ignore my corpse…

Wednesday nights are my main FFXIV raid night. I look forward to battling various monsters, dragons, and bad guys each week. But it has been a while since I sat down and thought about what keeps me coming back for more.

I started raiding back in World of Warcraft in 2007. I was still new to MMOs, and had finally leveled a character that I was happy doing group content with: a forsaken priest. I dutifully ran dungeons and healed butts for max-level content, slowly making a name for myself and filling up my friends list. Eventually some of those friends turned out to be raiders. A couple times a week they ran off to do this mysterious raiding thing with lots of other people. Raiders had the fanciest gear. Back in the days before cosmetic options, raid tier sets reigned supreme in terms of looks. If the promise of challenging group fun didn’t entice me enough the lure of fancy new gear sealed the deal.

I’ve raided in several MMOs now, and they each have their pros and cons. There are some constants that keep me coming back no matter what universe I’m playing in. First and foremost is a great raid group. They might be great in terms of player skill, or just great people I enjoy spending time with. Ideally both! My very favorite raid experiences have been in 8-10 person raids full of excellent players who were also my friends.

Even when I’ve had great groups I’ve sometimes walked away. Raiding is most fun for me when it is challenging and when there are still more achievable goals to meet. The times I’ve taken a break are often either when there’s an encounter that just feels insurmountable with our group, or when everything is on farm and there’s no new content in sight. This doesn’t mean I run away from difficult fights, but there is a difference between a fight that feels fair and that my group is making progress on every week, versus a fight that seems to stop us cold at the same point no matter what we do.

So why do I raid? I guess the answer is equal parts friendship, challenge, and sweet sweet loot!  Do you raid too? What keeps you going?


Shiphand Buddy: Outpost M-13

Blaugust 2015, Day 6

Welcome back to another episode of Shiphand Buddy! Today we’re exploring Outpost M-13.

Shiphand Buddy: Outpost M-13

Don’t let that monkey steal your precious crystals!

What: Stop whatever is terrifying the poor miners of Outpost M-13

When: Available at level 13

Where: Algoroc, Celestion, Deradune, and Ellevar

Gold Timers: Normal: none, Vet: 20:00

Gracie’s Run Time: Normal: 4:40 , Vet: 8:20

Shiphand Buddy Says: This is a nice quick and straightforward mission. First up is the cargo hold. Enemies will come in pairs, one to shoot you while their buddy steals a crystal. As long as you get a hit in on the thief he’ll run back toward you, so you should be able to prevent them from stealing anything. They spawn on alternating sides of the room, so use movement abilities to switch between them if necessary. One trick I use is to let the first plunderer on either side actually pick up a crystal. They drop their crystals where you kill them, so the later waves will have to move closer to the center before they can start stealing, giving you more time to deal with them. Once you’ve killed enough a mini-boss spawns. Remember you can dash to get out of his knockdown, and make use of the health packs that can spawn around the area.

Shiphand Buddy: Outpost M-13

Charge Locations. They spawn in the same place every time.

Next you head out to the surface, where you can zero-g jump to collect all the floating charges. If you are careful you can grab all of these without having to fight anything at all. Once you have all 10, head inside and talk to the foreman there to start the next section. There are more than enough bodies to loot for datachrons for this part. Just be careful to clear around them first as they will always spawn multiple critters when you use them. If you saved enough crystals in the first part you’ll have a team of mercs who will fight their way through ahead of you, clearing a bit of a path before they eventually get overwhelmed.

When you head back outside a ship will land and spawn 2 waves of adds and then a miniboss. As a spellslinger I like to position myself off to the side before they spawn to help line everyone up nicely in my telegraphs. The miniboss himself is quite easy and once he’s dead you can head into the cave for the last section.

Shiphand Buddy: Outpost M-13

Big bad mother.

Inside, kill bugs, infected miners, and eggs until the queen spawns. I usually clear a little extra to give myself room to move around for the boss fight. She can be a bit of a pain but if you can keep her interrupted she can’t stun you!

Differences between normal and vet: No floating charges to gather in normal mode. The Captain Wiko event is Vet only.

Shiphand Buddy: Outpost M-13

I found the love bug.

Other Thoughts: If this is your first time running, or if you love adorable bugs, make sure to check out the easter egg at the end of the mission. In the last room there is a staircase on the left side. Once you’ve killed the queen, head upstairs to find the lonely lost larva for an achievement!


Liebstered!

Blaugust 2015, Day 5

liebster-awardOn Sunday I finally caught that infamous blogging disease, the Liebster Award! Thanks Noctua and Mylex at Gamers Decrypted!

11 Random Facts About Me:

  1. I love origami, and can fold a mean shark.
  2. I have never played KOTOR, to my shame.
  3. I have 3 cats and only one of them hates me.
  4. My mom is the one who inspired and enabled my nerdiness. She still always calls me to make sure I don’t miss an episode of Doctor Who or a particularly cheezy made-for-Syfy movie.
  5. I came to MMOs relatively late, and WoW was my first MMO. I never played in vanilla.
  6. My first computer was a Commodore 64.
  7. In school I had to learn typing instead of programming due to my schedule. I hated and resented it right up until I realized that knowing how to type is amazing, and programming I could teach myself.
  8. Hands down, my favorite movie of all time is Pacific Rim. It is like it was made just for me and my childhood kaiju love.
  9. I absolutely hate wearing dresses or skirts. But I always end up playing casters in video games so my characters are constantly wearing dresses even though I won’t.
  10. I love Star Wars and Star Trek equally. Don’t drag me into your arguments, I won’t choose sides!
  11. My favorite food is cheese. If you don’t like cheese I will fight you.

Now to answer Noctua’s questions:

  1. What about writing do you love the most? Writing a blog is great because it forces me to reflect more deeply on what I’ve been doing, and connects me to the world of other game bloggers outside my social circle.
  2. Which is your favorite gaming console of all time? I’d have to say the original Playstation. It marks the point where I was capable of buying games I wanted without having to beg my parents for them.
  3. Do you believe in good and evil? I’m going to go with the sage words of god, or a computerized space probe that collided with god: “Right and wrong are just words, what matters is what you do.”
  4. What are your worst and best qualities? I can be overly competetive sometimes, but I make a mean spaghetti sauce.
  5. Are you an achievement, immersion, or social focused player? I’m definitely achievement focused first and foremost. I enjoy escaping into games, but once I’m there I need some objective to chase.
  6. What is your most beloved character of all times from a game?  If this means my personal characters, it would definitely be my forsaken priest in WoW, so many memories there. In terms of actual written characters, probably Sam from Gone Home. Never before had a game made me just outright weep at the end.
  7. What is your favorite book? This one is almost impossible to answer, there’s too many great ones! My favorite of what I’ve read recently would have to be One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire because it is full of sea fey.
  8. Which is your favorite fictional villain and why? I always love villains that are smart and scheming.  My favorite Disney villain is Ursula, because she’s amazing and because her design was based on Divine.
  9. DC or Marvel? I’m not a comics fan at all. I’d have to answer Marvel to this question though, just from enjoying their movies and playing lots of Marvel Heroes!
  10. What about maintaining your blog do you find the most difficult? Coming up with new things to say, and believing that my opinions are worth posting for everyone to see.
  11. Which is your personality type? INTP, the classic absentminded professor archetype, I guess it makes sense. I most certainly am an introvert.

Now for my questions for my victims awardees:

  1. Why do you blog?
  2. What was your favorite childhood cartoon show?
  3. Fantasy or Sci-Fi?
  4. What’s the most amazing place you’ve ever been?
  5. Pizza: Chicago or New York?
  6. If you could only pick one game genre to play for the rest of your life, what would it be?
  7. What inspired your character name?
  8. What is your greatest gaming moment or achievement?
  9. Do you share your love of games with your real-world friends and family, or keep it to the internet?
  10. Have you ever had a really weird pet?
  11. What is your favorite type of environment/biome in-game and IRL?

Phew that was a workout! I’ve chosen a couple of my Aggrochat buddies who are also participating in Blaugust to answer my questions and share their 11 random facts:

Ash and Thalen consider yourselves Liebster-ed! I look forward to seeing your answers.

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know me a little better!



Source: Moonshine Mansion
Liebstered!