Grace

Content by Grace

August 2018 Gaming Goals

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Happy Blaugust everyone! Before I dig into this week’s theme, I wanted to keep up my monthly tradition of evaluating my goals, seeing how badly I failed at meeting them, and then steadfastly creating new ones anyway. Note: I wrote most of these goals before seeing the new quest content in WoW yesterday. I’m not sure if I really want to follow through with them anymore but I’m putting them here anyway because I don’t have any other goals in mind right now.

July Goals:

WoW: Finish one priest transmog set from WoD and the last one I need from MoP. Done! I’ve completed all the variants from MoP and the LFR set from Blackrock/Highmaul. It feels like cheating since I had most of it already from garrison missions but I’m still counting it as a win.

Level one allied alt to 50. Maybe?? Does boosting count? I boosted a highmountain tauren. I still want to level one normally so I can get the heritage armor though.

Figure out who my main will be for BfA. Done. Sort-of. I boosted that highmountain druid on a new server so I can potentially raid with Belghast. I think I would still be agonizing over my choice but the free loot faucet from the pre-launch event was enough to force me to choose so I didn’t miss out.

August Goals:

WoW: Complete at least one more WoD transmog set. I know I’m going to put this aside for a while once BfA launches but I’d like to finish one more before I do.

Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. I am only missing the pet that only drops from 10N Lich King. I hate trying to get it because it feels like I’m wasting an attempt at Invincible, but I really want to finish this achievement so I can get my celestial bunny.

Level my druid through BfA. This is a no-brainer.

D3: Unlock adventure mode on a HC character. My hardcore mode achievement list is shameful. Although I’ve leveled to 70 with friends using their adventure mode, I never actually unlocked it myself. Time to fix that.

War of the Thorns part 2

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Spoilers for the WoW War of the Thorns questline.War of the Thorns part 2

Welp.

Other folks have talked about this more eloquently. I can only express my hurt and rage.

I went into this knowing what would happen to Teldrassil. I kept hoping that Blizz would surprise us, that something actually interesting would happen, that someone unexpected would be responsible for the burning of that tree. But no. Blizz took what was hands-down my favorite character in the game, stripped away all her depth and complexity, and made her a boring villain. While the Jaina animated short was cool but filled me with unease, the Sylvanas one just made me sad. Not sad at the story, but at having to mourn my fandom. I can’t get excited about my favorite character anymore. Not because she’s evil, she’s always been evil. Because they turned her into something boring and lifeless in service of a faction war that I actively hate.

War of the Thorns part 2

The flaming wreckage of any fucks I had to give about WoW’s story.

After the long quest chain last week, we barely had anything to do this time around. As much as I didn’t really want to be complicit in burning Teldrassil, having everything reduced to the cutscene and taking away any player agency* doesn’t feel good either. At least the Alliance side got to spend a few moments trying to help people evacuate.

I’m just heartbroken and disgusted by this whole thing. Even WoD didn’t make me want a refund on my pre-order so badly. This pre-expansion event has effectively killed any desire I had to actually play the expansion. If this is what we can expect from the storytelling in BfA, count me out.

*I mean they could have at least let us kill Malfurion!

AggroChat #214 – Bribed to be Content

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Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Thalen

aggrochat214

Tonight we sit down and talk through our feelings about Battle For Azeroth and its fairly tone deaf ad campaign.  We dig into the “It Matters” videos and how it feels fairly irresponsible at a time when our country and world is pulled apart already by some fairly serious points of division.  We talk about how playing World of Warcraft should be a thing to bring people together rather than pull them apart.  We also talk about the Warbringers video series and how we are afraid it is setting up Jaina, Sylvannas and Azshara to be the next set of raid bosses.  Finally we talk briefly about the novel and event that are leading up to this expansion.  At the tail end of the show we talk a bit about drafting M19 in Magic Arena and Bel’s nonsensical luck at pulling cards.

Topics Discussed

  • Battle For Azeroth
    • The “It Matters” Ad Campaign
    • The “Warbringers” video series
    • The “Before the Storm” novelization
    • The “War of the Thorns” quest event
  • Magic Arena
    • Drafting M19
    • Nonsensical Pulls
    • Golgari Pride

 

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Blaugust Prep Week: What’s in a name?

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Belghast kicked off Blaugust prep week with a discussion of what makes a good blog name. He talked about some regrets he had choosing his name and gave some advice to help folks choose a good one. I want to use this as an excuse to talk about my blog name too.

Bel’s advice boiled down to choosing a short, catchy name that vaguely connects to the blog theme, but isn’t so specific that you can’t change your direction later without changing the name. I’m not really sure whether I succeeded or failed.

Blaugust Prep Week: What’s in a name?

Did you think I was kidding about the moonshine?

I created this blog just prior to the launch of WildStar. My goal was to talk about the game in general, and also emphasize the housing system, which I still enjoy the most of any MMO I have ever played. Fans of the game might remember that one of the default housing “plugs” you could place on your land gave you a mini-game that let you make moonshine. I thought the contrast between a fabulous hand-built plot with tons of decor and the moonshine still out back was amusing, so I tapped it for my name. Moonshine Mansion was born.

Over the years I’ve drifted away from WildStar and turned this into a more general gaming blog. The name Moonshine Mansion wasn’t explicitly tied to WildStar, so it survived the transition just fine. On the one hand, I sometimes wish I had chosen a name that had more to do with gaming. On the other hand, this way I feel free to talk about other geeky things I love when I feel the urge. At this point I think of Moonshine Mansion as my digital home. It’s a welcoming place where I keep all my stuff and can invite my friends over to talk about games and things. If someone offered me the chance to go back in time and pick a different name, I would decline. There’s way cooler things to do with a time machine anyway.