Legion – Page 4 – AggroChat

Battered Paw

September 8, 2016 by Belghast

The last twenty four hours has been interesting for a few reasons… most of them not terribly good. A few days back I introduced you to Luna, and to say her integration into our family has not been going swimmingly is an understatement. She is quite possibly one of the sweetest cats we have encountered… when it is human to cat interactions. However as she has gotten more comfortable in the house, she has also become less tolerate and more willing to straight up fight our other two cats. We are trying to work through this, but occasionally one of us has to try and break up a fight. Yesterday my wife attempted to break up one of those fights by trying to remove our youngest from the situation. In a highly stressed and freaked out state Kenzie bit the shit out of her hand. Now this same sequence of events had happened a few weeks earlier to me… but this time Luna bit me. For me everything seemed to be fine once I stopped the bleeding because four puncture wounds can really produce a lot of blood. For my wife however she is having some adverse effects… namely that her hand is swollen, red and fevered. Yesterday after work she went to an urgent care place here in town, and they too were concerned giving her a shot of antibiotics, and a ten day course. They also drew a boundary around the effected area saying, if the redness breaks this line… to get to the emergency room because my wife will need a course of IV antibiotics.

Needless to say I am now doing a lot of things for her, given that it is painful to grip anything in her primary hand. I’ve latched a couple of bras and opened a lot of pill bottles and pretty much anything else that requires grip strength. I would post a picture of her poor battered “paw” but honestly I am not sure the comfort level folks have with seeing injuries. When I posted my knee, it looked questionable but there were no open wounds. This on the other hand feels like it would cross some invisible internet line. Needless to say it looks bad, and thanks to the irregular line around it… and the swollen nature of the area… it kinda reminds me of a jellyfish. On the Luna front, what is ultimately happening is that we have built her a little suite of sorts in my wife’s office with litter, food and water and some comfy places to chill. She is ultimately staying there when we go to bed around midnight, and then getting back out when we are physically home and able to intervene if needed. The problem with this is that when I let her out each night she is starved for attention, and it just makes me feel horrible for doing it. That said I don’t want either side of this squabble to injure themselves further. Both Luna and Kenzie/Allie have several battle scars already from the past scuffles. Nothing yet that needs a trip to the vet thankfully, but still I don’t want to encourage more unsupervised “encounters”. Additionally when we are at home we try and make sure there is one of us on each floor of the house… so that there are clear safe zones that they can stay away from each other. I just am not sure how we get past this current situation and get to one where they at least tolerate being in the same room… if not hopefully someday are friends.

As far as the game goes, last night was a night of doing so many World Quests. Early in the evening I unlocked a set of quests… the first was to do 30 World Quests, and the second was to collect 30 Demonic Runes. Somehow I managed to actually complete both of these last night during my extended play session. With my wife in her current injured state I purposefully tried not to get into anything that I could not also get out of rapidly. There are so many little things that she just needs help with at the moment, and I didn’t want to inconvenience her or my party by getting into group content. So I spent the majority of the night running around doing these little vignettes of action, and I guess I caught it at exactly the right time… because when I finished the first round there were a handful of new ones up popping which allowed me to complete the 30 in total. This is not the sort of thing I will do often, as in try and do “all the quests” but it was fun to do it at least once. One of the things that I like the most about World Quests is that I don’t have to worry about collecting a quest… and if I get interrupted having it stranded in my quest log that I will then have to abandon to pick up something else of importance. I get to enjoy the action while it is happening and then forget about it if I need to get pulled away. The real shocker of the night however was that I did one of the PVP quests… admittedly without really intending to. I was bouncing around the map and noticed that there was a nearby quest with good rewards…. and it was only after I had killed a few mobs did I realize that I was now apparently flagged. It took a lot of deaths… not to PVP but just to the density of the mobs, but I managed to complete it and get my shiny bauble. All in all it seems like these are a way more reasonable and enjoyable form of potential PVP for me… it is doing an objective that has a clear reward at the end… rather than just killing players for the sake of killing players.

AggroChat #122 – Glimmers of Hope

May 21, 2019September 4, 2016 by AggroChat

Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra and Thalen talk about a bunch of stuff… with a significant emphasis on the launch of World of Warcraf Legion

Tonight we are down a Tam thanks to Pax West Shenanigans, and in theory at least we will be talking soon about those experiences. However for the time being… we talk a bunch of stuff but mostly World of Warcraft Legion. Right now Ashgar, Belghast and Grace are playing… and talk about their experiences with the launch, and the revisions to the game. The long story short is that we all seem to be enjoying ourselves. The main story is still frustrating, but the sub stories are amazing. We also talk a little bit about the game of the month Tales of Maj’Eyal, largely related to a few tips for getting started and things that players should really avoid getting bogged down in. Finally Kodra talks about his experiences with Deus Ex and Necropolis in recent play sessions for both.

Things Discussed – World of Warcraft – Legion – Class Halls – Spec Fantasy – Leveling Content – Tales of Maj’Eyal – Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – Necropolis

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

New Expansion Buzz

September 2, 2016 by Belghast

I have been having more fun in World of Warcraft than I have had in years. That at least feels like a true statement, but also one that makes me question it. Sure it seems like I am having a blast, but it got me thinking… don’t I always have a lot of fun at the launch of a new expansion? One of the interesting things about having a blog that has been active since 2009 is that in theory I should have evidence of how I felt at the launch of Cataclysm, Pandaria and Warlords. Around the launch of Cataclysm I seemed to be mostly focused on grouping and gearing… and grinding dungeons to get to the magical number needed for raiding. I think I was still very much in my “games are serious business” mode, so there really isn’t any talk about the expansion being fun or not. In truth remembering that time period I was very much not having fun, and I think in the grand scheme of things that is ultimately why Cataclysm was the expansion that caused me to “quit” World of Warcraft. The quit is of course a lie, considering that I am still playing the game… and never really went longer than six months without reactivating my account. The launch of Pandaria unfortunately happened during a serious lapse in my posting, and by the time I start back up… I was on the daily posting kick and talking about casually playing the game. With the launch of Warlords… I talk a lot about how nostalgic the game makes me feel, but in reality not much actually talking about how I am enjoying it. This was after all the expansion I had originally said I was going to take a pass on… so this quote makes sense.

I still stand by my original statement that if you have no interest in World of Warcraft, this expansion will do little to change that.

So if I set out to prove that I am always pumped about the launch of a new game expansion… I guess I disproved that theory? I guess at least on some level, any infusion of new content is something that I ultimately enjoy. There are new zones to explore, new quests to figure out… and lots and lots of tasty loot. However this time around something feels different, and I am having trouble quantifying exactly what that is. For the first time since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King… I have hope that the best days of the Warcraft franchise are not behind us. With all of the previous expansions… I felt like they did a decent job of stirring up nostalgia, but not really doing a great job of making me feel like the game has a new purpose. This time around so much feels fresh, from the class designs and reworks to the fact that they all seem to be focused on a clear vision of what that class does. I attempted to talk about this yesterday, but the fact that my airflow was pretty low ended up with the post being a jumbled mess. To be truthful I am still sick right now, so for all I know this post is also going to be a jumbled mess. However I love the feel of my Warrior for the first time since I really came into my own as a tanking main during Burning Crusade. The irony here is the fact that I am not really tanking at all, but instead dpsing my way through the content as Fury.

The only problem here is that we have just barely scratched the surface, and myself even more so than that. The game launched Monday night, and we already have four level 110 characters in House Stalwart. I am very much not one of them… but instead hanging back in the middle of the pack at level 105, having completely finished Stormheim and just started Azsuna. I have no idea what the “feel” of the expansion is going to be once we all kick off the training wheels and move into that sometimes glorious time known as the end game. Even Warlords had some really fun moments while leveling, and including some really amazing cinematic experiences. However once we arrived at the end there was a very hollow game waiting for us. I guess the difference this time is that with the launch of Warlords I absolutely expected to have bounced off of the game by about the three month mark. In truth it was a little closer to the six month mark, but the bounce did in fact happen at least mentally even though I don’t think I ever actually cancelled my account this time around. This time however… I have a blazing pyre of hope that maybe just maybe that won’t happen. Ultimately I really like what is going on… with the class design, with the storyline, with the zone creation, and heaven forbid with the lore itself. The bigger story of Khadgar being Khadgar and Jaina being Angry… well it can screw off. However the intricate intra-zone stories are awesome, and I totally want to have reasons to hang out with Havi during later content. World of Warcraft and Blizzard… please don’t break my heart this time.

Expansion Retail Forgot

August 31, 2016 by Belghast

Yesterday was of course the launch of Legion, or more so the first full day of the expansion. I have a lot of memories of acquiring copies of World of Warcraft throughout the years. When it launched in 2004, I was firstly in the “never pre-order anything” camp, and while there was a line out the door and down the sidewalk at Gamestop… I was able to stroll into Walmart at midnight and pick up my copy. I remember Walmart having this huge display in electronics, the size you would have expected for a major movie release. With Burning Crusade, getting a copy was significantly more difficult, but I still managed to roll into Walmart at midnight and snag one. I did however spent the next few weeks going out at lunch trying to find copies for folks who could not for whatever reason seem to get it in their area. When Wrath was released, once again I did the Walmart at midnight thing… and this time there was actually a line. I had an awesome conversation with another warrior tank while standing in line waiting on our boxes. However by the time Cataclysm came around… I believe that was the first expansion you could purchase a digital collectors edition and I did so happily because I was getting “too old” to be doing this midnight madness. I had reached that point in my life when I just wanted to be able to log in and play, and didn’t care too much about how that happened.

With Pandaria I somehow ended up with another physical collectors edition, and at this point I don’t even remember how or why. Now traditionally speaking around here… World of Warcraft Collectors Editions rot on the shelf. Not in a large quantity, but up until recently there have been a couple of physical copies of Warlords of Draenor available at various stores. I have a second account, and could use a second key… so yesterday I checked a few places to see if there happened to be one available. The idea was that I would ultimately trade that CE key with a friend who just got the normal copy, given that I already have the digital entitlement on my battle.net account. That plan however backfired in the most spectacular of ways because no one seems to have Legion in any form, let alone Collectors Editions. Throughout the day yesterday I heard tales of Amazon switching orders to arrive on September 29th, and listened as several friends had to dodge and weave to get around this delay. Throughout the day I checked Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Gamestop… none of which had so much as a single copy. When I looked up Legion on the Best Buy website, it stated that there were no copies available in a 250 mile radius. 250 miles includes the Dallas Metro, Kansas City Metro, Fayetteville/Bentonville Arkansas area, Wichita Kansas, and Oklahoma City.

I refuse to believe that every single copy sold out, because that just seems impossible. What seems far more likely is that there has been some massive shipping mishap, that involved delays to the central southwest. The result however is that it feels like Legion was the expansion that retail somehow forgot. While Warlords of Draenor was supposed to be this expansion to invite people back that had been gone a long time… it feels like Legion is actually delivering on that promise. It is going to be sad if it somehow misses its opportunity simply because the copies of the game are not available. The truth is… my only interest in a physical Collectors Edition is the fact that it includes the soundtrack. I wish that they would add that to the list of digital entitlements that you get when you buy the collectors that way. I can also always use a new mouse pad at work, so there is always that bonus as well. I however more than anything wanted to walk into Walmart and see a big display of pretty new copies of the game, in the hope that it might entice players to return. It has been great seeing players coming out of the woodwork for the first time in years, and I guess part of me wants to see that continue. Pretty boxes sitting on a shelf taunting you when you go to get groceries… seems to be an awesome way to guilt players into coming back.

As far as the expansion itself… so far I am enjoying myself. It is a much slower paced expansion, but that is precisely what I had wanted. I spent all night playing the game, from the time I got home around 5ish until when I finally went to bed around 10:30. During that time I managed to make it to level 101 and about 15-20% into level 102. As I had originally planned I went Fury this time around… which is quite honestly the first time since the launch of the game that I will not be leveling my Warrior as Protection. I am sure somewhere something is turning over in its grave… but more than likely it is just the old me that used to take pride in saying “Real Warriors Level Prot”. Fury is fun as hell, but there was a period when I started on the artifact quest… that I questioned my decision. I am guessing that maybe these quests are just a little “overtuned”… because I remember in beta thinking they were rough. I died probably no less than a dozen times when I tried to do this as a Deathknight, and I probably took a half dozen deaths as a Fury Warrior. Towards the end I was super carefully picking my way through the zone a single mob at a time, and kicking myself for not bringing any food into the quest. That was ultimately the hardest part was that I had no real way other than bloodthirst to get back my health. I finished it however and once I started Stormheim… everything leveled out and I have had no problem taking down any of the starred mobs solo. So far I am enjoying the hell out of myself, but I don’t feel like I have spent enough time in game yet to give it much more than a thumbs up.