World of Warcraft – Page 34

Games of the Decade: 2016

December 24, 2019 by Belghast

We continue this morning towards the trajectory of recounting the games that were especially important to me over the last decade. Yesterday I stated that I had been trying to avoid talking about expansions and DLC… and now this morning I am going to break that guideline and include an expansion. I guess that is the good thing about this being a very personal list and not some attempt at a “greatest ever” concept, because I can make the rules as malleable as I like. All of these games feel very fresh in my memory as though I could have played them yesterday.

Doom (2016)

I somewhat hate that they titled this game the same as the game that came out in the 90s… because it forever means that we are going to be stuck putting a year in parenthesis behind it. However on another level it absolutely makes sense. This game is effectively a re-imagining of the original game and bringing it up to modern fidelity. It feels like a game that is a throwback to an older era of visceral shooters that were fast paced and twitchy. It also adapts the style of the game to include much needed breaks in the action allowing you to catch your breath and collect any power-ups that might be laying around before charging head first into another furious wave of combat. This was one of the things I loved about the Painkiller series, and it is nice seeing the originator cherry picking some of the best features of those who ultimately copied it.

Final Fantasy XV

I will admit when I first saw the concept of this game I viewed it with some serious side-eye. I was not sure how I would feel about what looked to be a boy band on a road trip. The end result however is charming as hell and one of the most unexpectedly touching games I played during this year. I was not sure what the future of Final Fantasy would be, but I never quite expected an ode to Route 66 roadside towns. Having lived my entire life near the “mother road”, there is so much of this game that resonates with me and they somehow managed to capture so many aspects of it perfect… albeit filtered through a Japanese lens. What I found the most compelling however was the combat and how it still very much felt like a Final Fantasy game while remaining fully action based. I need to spend some time and finish this game up and play through all of the side content that I missed.

The Division is a rollercoaster of emotions and feelings, not all of which are positive. I latched onto this game hard when it came out and pretty much dedicated every waking moment to exploring it. The narrative it presented was infectious and I gobbled up every bit of lore I could get my hands on about how exactly the fall happened. I personally found it to have some pacing issues as you got higher in level, and not having a stable group was a major detriment to my long term stability in the title. Soloing the content felt amazing at first but eventually became way more challenging since I am not naturally drawn to cover shooters. I kept wanting to try and play this like my beloved Destiny, with a run and gun nature… but was thoroughly punished for it. Regardless of all of this it still carved out a very important place in this very packed year of games and deserves its space on the list.

This is the year that Pokemon Go became a phenomena and people absolutely lost their shit. This also represents the very first time that a mobile game mattered to me. Up until this point I had downloaded and installed very few games on my mobile phone. The interface never felt compelling to me and it always seemed like a worse version of a game genre on either a hand held or console. Pokemon Go was an entirely new type of game-play that only worked on mobile connected devices, and I took wandered outside of my house at night looking for the illusive creatures. The biggest problem I have had with the game is that if you are in Rural areas or the Suburbs, your game-play experience is not amazing. You have to go places to be able to play, because still to this day I can go for a walk around my neighborhood and only encounter a half dozen critters. whereas if I do the same thing in the downtown Tulsa are I work I am constantly coming across new and interesting things. It has earned its place on my list because I still to this day keep popping it open when I am in a new place to see what I might encounter.

World of Warcraft: Legion

Up until 2016, had you asked me what my favorite World of Warcraft expansion was, I would have predictably said Wrath of the Lich King. In many ways I considered that to be the pinnacle of the WoW experience and everything since that point has more or less been a downhill slide with occasional plateaus. Legion was an expansion that I didn’t expect much from because quite honestly it seemed like a bunch of elements left on the cutting room floor from other expansion ideas. However what it wound up being was a complete and total revitalization for World of Warcraft that I greatly miss. Battle for Azeroth has been a disappointment in every possible way, and I think that has been all the more apparent because of the unexpected greatness that was this expansion. My hope is that Shadowlands brings us back to this era of the game and I can wholeheartedly love it again.

If You Give a Warrior a Weapon

November 12, 2019 by Belghast

First off, sorry for the lack of a post yesterday. My brain was in weekend mode even though it was a Monday. I was scurrying around trying to get a pet dropped off at the vet, and when I finished I just came home and ate breakfast without thinking once about logging in and posting something. That is life I guess, but I am going to blame that I was off work for Veterans day. The other thing I don’t quite understand about my brain is the way it sometimes does the opposite of what I think it would. When I relinquished the blockade of Blizzard games I fully expected to return to World of Warcraft Classic. Instead I find myself dusting off my Warrior and running around in retail as Fury.

I think it largely started with the concept that there are a bunch of potential drops available through the Holiday event, including updated versions of several two handed weapons I have been chasing for years. This lead to a line of thinking that in order to do the events I needed to be 380 item level. In order to get to 380 item level I needed to do enough of Nazjatar to unlock the Benthic items. Then I remembered that these were trade-able and I purchased a full set on my demon hunter to trade over. This still left me a bit short, but I found level 400 artifacts on the Auction House for pretty cheap, which finally tipped me over so I could start grinding content for an achievement and mount I have already gotten.

Then at some point I realized that I really should be working on the second achievement which is get 200 Timewalking Badges in the nostalgic version of Alterac Valley. Doing this managed to complete a quest that gave me one decent two-hander, a version of the Ice Barbed Spear. However as to the achievement… getting 200 Timewalking Badges feels like a WAY bigger ask than doing every one of the nostalgic raid encounters. This involves a certain amount of grinding that I am not entirely certain I am willing to do considering that I am not even halfway there and have run four AV groups. I am wondering if badges earned on multiple characters counts, because there is a quest that gives you a large chunk at once that is completed only your first time.

Having one decent weapon lead me down another path… which is effectively the MMORPG version of “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”. I started running through the most recent raid content… of which there are exactly two available two handed weapons… and neither of which dropped. This gets into the problem that I have with the post Legion version of World of Warcraft, Weapons are just a pain in the arse to get. Had they thrown a weapon on the benthic vendor it would have gone so far to helping make this not suck. It still feels like Battle for Azeroth drops were designed around thinking we still had our Artifact Weapons. Today is reset however so here is hoping that I get one of the many two handed weapons from the nostalgic 15th Anniversary content so I can move on with my life.

Regularly Playing: November 2019 Edition

November 8, 2019 by Belghast

Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last Regularly Playing column. The idea behind this is that I throw out and update once a month talking about what I am playing and what has faded away. It also serves as an opportunity for me to “true up” my regularly playing widget in the sidebar of this blog. However had I updated at the beginning of October you would have largely just seen a single entry for Destiny 2. I was in a pretty unhappy place with Blizzard and it really made me not want to spend much time writing about what I was doing other than Destiny. However we have a new month and with it comes some new perspectives. I’ve allowed myself to step back from that precipice even though I feel like a bit of a fraud for doing so. I was making myself unhappy by dwelling so much on the bad feelings. I am back dipping my toe into Blizzard things, but I am still largely feeling awful for doing so. However lets get to the list so I can start talking more about each one of them.

To Those Remaining

I’ve been playing an excessive amount of Destiny 2 and if you have read my blog over the last month or so you will have noticed this. Destiny is in a truly amazing state right now and the Cross Save functionality has created this hotbed of players on the PC platform. Over night it seems that PC went from the lowest population platform to the highest as folks are taking advantage of just how much better the experience is on the PC as opposed to the aging console generation. I still only have a handful of people regularly playing but it helps greatly to have Thalen who is also going through a similar renaissance. I’ve more or less given up on most of the AggroChat crew understanding or even latching onto how great this game.

This game was periodically off the menu… but as soon as I eased up on my stance regarding the Blizzard/Hong Kong situation it was one of the first things I logged into. With all of the news about Diablo 4 it has renewed my interests in playing some Diablo 3. I more or less failed miserably at this season but I did managed to knock out the cosmetics for it. I am hoping to get back on track with the new season starting soon and return to semi-regularly playing this with Grace.

This continues to be a nightly thing that I play as I am winding down from the day. I am not super active in it, but generally speaking I play enough each night to knock out the daily objectives. I am not sure what it is about this pattern that I find relaxing but generally speaking as I am wrapping up the last few things I am finding myself fighting to stay awake and can lay down the tablet and slumber peacefully. The release cadence as I have said before really is the piece that keeps me engaged, and the fact that I get a gacha summon pretty often through simply playing the game normally. They are not getting money from me, but they are getting a bunch of active usage.

I’m leaving this one on the list but I have to admit it is hanging by a thread here. I initially stopped playing Classic over the Hong Kong incident as I stopped playing any Blizzard games. However upon resuming play I am finding it exceptionally hard to get back into the slower pace of this game. I’ve become used to the run and gun pace of Destiny 2 and my brain is sorta fighting back against this. I had some experience with this when I came back to Classic after the launch of Destiny 2 Shadowkeep. In theory I probably need a bit more time to figure out how to slide back in and resume my path to 60.

To The New And Returning

While I am in a bit of a holding pattern thanks to activity in Destiny 2, I eased into The Outer Worlds a few weekends ago and am looking forward to maybe getting in and playing some more this weekend. This is pretty much the perfect logical successor to my favorite of the Fallout series, New Vegas. It is a weird remix of Fallout, Firefly, Bioshock and Mass Effect and were I not as addicted to Destiny as I currently am it would have become my primary game. I am sure I will get back in and play some more, hopefully prior to the podcast on Saturday.

This is one I did not expect, but after my ceasing of hostilities towards Blizzard… I am finding myself playing a lot more of Retail than I am of Classic. I got in the other night and did the 15th anniversary quests, but I am also finding myself just running around on the Demon Hunter a bit. The other thing I found odd was that I attempted to log into my Alliance characters and found myself turning my nose up at them because they just didn’t feel right. I guess I made a legitimate transition over to The Horde at some point? I blame Grace.

To Those Departing

I am sure I will pick this game back up at some point but I have had another things on my mind. In truth I will always be more of an MMO player than I ever am a purveyor of Single Player games. This one will get attention because I still have yet to beat it. I just haven’t been in the mood for it of late.

I am sorry Shadowbringers… you suffered a cruel fate at the hands of WoW Classic and never quite recovered. I know there is a new patch, with new content to experience… but I am also not exactly finding myself rushing back to play it. I am not exactly sure what it is with this game but I go through this cycle after the release of an expansion. I play it hard and heavy for awhile… level two characters… and then disappear. It happened to some extent with Heavensward but absolutely both Stormblood and Shadowbringers saw me in exactly the same pattern. Once the overarching story was completed, my desire to keep playing dissipated.

I’ve also found myself simply not logging into Magic the Gathering Arena. This is a game that desperately needs a tablet friendly version. If that existed I would spend way more of that “before bedtime” tablet gaming playing Arena. As it stands when I am at a PC there are just other games I would rather be playing. I’ve also not felt nearly as connected with either War of the Spark or the Eldraine expansions as I have with previous themes. I loved Ixalan, and I think it might go down as probably my favorite non-Dominaria plane we visited. Return to Return to Ravnica felt weirdly watered down as though it were a subject that had been just spread too thin. I am sure I will return at some point but for right now it leaves the list.

You just never had a chance did you Iceborne. You launched at a bad time for me when my attentions were drawn elsewhere to WoW Classic. Then you announced the release of the PC version and I more or less decided to wait. The PC version really is the best version of the game and I found myself just struggling to get used to using a controller again. I am sorry that we just couldn’t come to a workable arrangement. I will see you in January.

Summary

Hopefully I can get back on the wagon of keeping this updated at the beginning of each month. We have a lot of familiar faces on the list in spite of a few of those exiting. I am sure for example I will play through the new patch content in FFXIV at some point, but that point is not now and it is not even really on my radar. My goal is to finish up The Outer Worlds and try and ease back into WoW Classic. However I have a bad habit of abandoning my goals.

Mind the Defile

November 7, 2019 by Belghast

Last night with the assistance of my good friend Grace I did in fact get my World Destroyer mount that is currently available as part of the World of Warcraft 15th Anniversary event. It was nowhere near as painful as getting the Core Hound Chain, which required you to clear the level 100 version of Molten Core. That is not to say that this mount is a cakewalk, because it did in fact take far longer than I expected it to. You get the mount from the Memories of Fel, Frost and Fire Achievement which involves fighting a bunch of versions of classic raid bosses encounters. You have to do the following Encounters.

Defeat Burning Crusade Bosses
- Lady Vashj
- Kael’thas Sunstrider
- Archimonde
Defeat Wrath of the Lich King Bosses
- Heigan the Unclean
- Anub’arak
- The Lich King
Defeat Cataclysm Bosses
- Cho’gall
- Nefarian
- Ragnaros

The fights themselves are greatly simplified versions of the raid encounters. You also do not have to get the boss all the way down but instead to somewhere around the 25-35% mark before exiting and getting sent to the next fight. There is a chance at getting loot drops after each trio of encounters, and I managed to pick up a really nice ring for my trouble from the Wrath sequence. Grace picked up a modernized version of Cho’gall’s mace which was also really nice. There is one problem however that makes this whole process a little less nice. If you wipe at any point you seemingly have to restart the entire sequence. So if you for some reach wipe on Archimonde… that means you will have to do Lady Vashj and Kael’thas all over again. You also have to mechanic. Moments into the Heigan fight we were down to I think five players given that almost the entire raid stood in the plague explosions and didn’t do the “Dance”. On the Lich King folks ignored Defile and as a result spread it across the entire platform wiping the raid and forcing us to go back and do the first two bosses again. We stuck through it and have our Deathwing mounts to show for it, but I doubt I will be farming for items.