The Big DING! Warlords Edition

It took some of my guildies a little less than 24 hours, and a lot more of my friends aren’t even anywhere close, but for me it took about eight days. Last night, a week after the release of World of Warcraft’s newest expansion Warlords of Draenor, I hit the new level cap of 100.

I have to say, the experience just keeps piling on in this expac. My husband and I weren’t pushing hard towards 100 by any means, mostly keeping to our regular gaming schedule and only playing a couple hours in the evenings, a bit more on the weekends.

Not to mention, I kept getting distracted from questing by about a million other things — treasure hunting, collecting and battling companion pets, archaeology…and most of all, I got constantly waylaid in my leveling by my Garrison. Every half hour or so I’d be hearthing back to my base to set up new missions, check in on progress and status of my buildings,  start new work orders, etc. It’s bloody ADDICTIVE.

It’s actually a wonder I made it to the new cap in only about a week.

Obviously there’s so much to do in WoD. Even though I’ve achieved level 100, I know I’ve only scratched the surface. I’m happy about a lot of the new content and while my overall impressions are positive, it’s still probably too soon for me to do any in depth write-up. The expansion has been keeping me quite busy though, and that’s good thing (though not for all the other stuff I have to do this month)!

WoW: We Are Legendary

The legendary cloak wasn’t something I expected ever to get, but at the beginning of September when I resubbed to World of Warcraft I saw that things for the quest chain were in full swing. With a game-wide buff Gaze of the Black Prince increasing rep gain and drop rate for the raid items you need, I figured there’s no harm in trying for it – and there’s no time like the present. I’m also grateful for Tententacles for also going for the legendary cloak chain, because without him doing it too, I honestly don’t think I would have been as motivated!

So, seven weeks or so later (I did get lucky these last couple of weeks with Titan Runestones), I finally got my cloak on my Monk. And just in time too, with the prepatch for the next expansion said to drop next Tuesday, and apparently the quest chain will go away. If you’re still thinking of going for the cloak, this may be your last chance to start, because starting Tuesday next week it might not be possible to get the first quest anymore.

But if you’re in the middle of the chain, it’s not too late. I’m in that boat too, as I’ve actually begun work on the legendary cloak on another character, my Druid. She’s been my main forever, and even though I’ve been playing my Monk a lot more recently, my emotional attachment to the Druid is just too strong to not try for the legendary cloak with her too. When the patch drops, they’re removing the valor grind requirement section of the quest, which was by far the most aggravating and longest part anyway, and there’s a good chance to finish before or around the time Warlords of Draenor is released. Sure, a few weeks into the expansion and the cloak will probably be obsolete, but for completionists, it’s still an impressive achievement and a nice memento to have.

 

Secret Mondays: We’re Back In Business

The Secret World is back with new content, having released a new pack of Side Stories in their latest patch. I had to delay my return to the game for a week because I was out of town, but now I’m back and together with my usual Secret Monday crew consisting of Syp, Tententacles and my husband, we rocked more quests in Tokyo.

Side Stories: The Last Pagan includes six new missions, and seeing as big updates from Funcom seem to be so few and far between, once again stretching out the content by doing one quest per week feels like a pretty good idea.

For our first mission, our party hit up new NPC Ricky Pagan in all his pompadour glory, and sought to reunite his lost gang by using THE ALL MIGHTY POWER OF ROCK! Oooh yeeeaaaah…

Like any mission, The Pagan had your fair share of fighting and kicking ass, but as you can see, much of it was also spent rollicking and jamming out to my swanky boombox. I ask you, what other game lets you do that…as part of the mechanics?! Oh look, my teammates are in combat and getting killed, but eh, let me just finish this song, okay?

The mission even ends with a dance party…with ghosts. If this first quest is any indication, looks like we’ll be in for some wild, whacky fun for the rest of this mission pack.

TSW: Love And Origami

So, updates for The Secret World, which is pretty much the only MMO I’ve been playing these days. It’s been a pretty hectic summer, and gaming time is at a premium! Regular Secret Mondays are still going on, even though thanks to a severe thunderstorm earlier this week my power went out and we had to reschedule TSW night for Tuesday. Hence, this post.

Oh man, I was so excited. In this newest “Side Stories” content update is an investigation quest involving origami. Naturally, I broke out all my origami paper in preparation. But really, I’m horrible at origami. My husband’s actually the origami nerd in the family, which is why we have all these books and packs of pretty paper just sitting around.

If you’ve read my fellow Secret Monday-er Syp’s post, you’ll see that questgiver Gozen’s reasons for sending us on this wild origami goose chase around filth-infested Tokyo are pretty questionable. But hey, chalk it up to her being sentimental and a romantic.

My husband and I along with our TSW regulars Syp and Tententacles went around solving these origami riddles, while Ocho — who had already done this quest — oversaw us all, prepared to jump in to save us if we happened to get stuck. Luckily, that wasn’t necessary. We completed the quest without any major snags, though it was mainly due to sheer dumb luck more than anything.

I gotta admit, the quest was a bit anti-climatic. And we didn’t get to do as much origami as I was led to believe. I think the quest technically calls for it, making you recreate the writing on the paper from the game and folding it into figure it required to read the full message. But if you ask me, doing so would be making it ten times more complicated and less efficient for yourself. What we mostly ended up doing was punching the Kanji characters into Google translate, pulling out keywords and running with it. Hey, whatever works.

I was with Syp on this though — there was no way I was going to end the night without doing origami, dammit! Secret Monday momentarily became Arts & Crafts Monday as we took to the in-game origami book with all the instructions for making various origami figures.

Behold, my sad attempts. My butterfly wings ended up a bit lopsided, and there’s a gaping rip at the bottom of my tulip (artfully hidden in the photo). Well, at least my kid will take great delight in playing with them while destroying them in the process.

 

 

The Secret Wednesday: Postcards From Tokyo

For The Secret World players, the day has finally arrived – we are Tokyo bound!

Issue 9: The Black Signal is now live, adding content beyond the current quest line. It became available today to purchase with points for subscribers, though free players will have to wait a few days longer to hit up Japan. So rest assured, I won’t be posting a detailed summary of my impromptu night in TSW, in case of spoilers for those who haven’t done it yet.

But I will say this, it’s already pretty tough. I probably wouldn’t want to traverse the city alone, at least in the beginning. First though, we had to get through some pre-quests…

Grab a friend (or two!) since it can be completed as a group. The more the merrier, and a lot easier too! And you might need someone to steady you when you recognize someone familiar from your past…dun dun DUN!

Ah, here we go, sakura and skyscrapers. This must be it! Wish me luck now…

D’oh! Not another pre-quest! But we gotta learn how to use the new Aegis System. Or rather, they just sort of vaguely show you how it works and you’re supposed to stumble around and figure it out for yourself. In other words, business as usual in TSW.

The Secret World sure loves its subways…

Finally! This is for real now. Tokyo, I am in you! And yes, signs of Orochi are everywhere…

Er, look, I’m making a great first impression on the locals already. Please don’t kill me!

The new headquarters…nice looking digs.

Hmm, I kinda feel like a dragon roll. But I don’t think this is that kinda bar.

Chucho, Thermic and Laeyn, surveying the new place!

Updates From Tamriel

It’s been a while since my last Elder Scrolls Online update, and I figured there’s no better time to do it than the one-month mark.

To cut to the chase, I’m still kicking around Tamriel on my Dragonknight, since I’d paid for a three month sub up front — ESO just feels like the kind of game I’d like to take my time in; I knew I was going to need at least that much time, and I think for the most part my instincts were correct. Granted, I’d like to throw myself into the game, but things have just been crazy this month. Thankfully I’ve been able to play here and there as time allows.

But already though, I can see and feel the effects of the post-1-month flight. Most nights, I don’t see as many people in the guild anymore, and some of the barrow instances where I used to see tons of other players going through to get skyshards — I never even used to have to fight, everything was always already dead! — well, they’re like ghost towns now. I think we’ve seen enough MMO launches to expect this cycle; it’s a pattern that has established itself since time eternal, but its effects are still very noticeable.

On a more positive note, I’m still enjoying my time playing. The quest writing in this game really is phenomenal. My Dragonknight is currently sitting at level 28, making my way through the content in Rivenspire, which probably puts me in the middle of the pack. It’s still a long way until 50, but I do plan on getting there, even if it takes me longer than the three months.

Right now I’m still sitting on the fence regarding WildStar. That I’ll be playing WS is probably a foregone conclusion, the only question is when. I’ve long given up being a game juggler, and if I’m to have any chance of seeing level cap in ESO, I’m going to have to simply not commit myself to another game until that happens, and stick to that plan no matter how tempting it might be to cave. It’s not looking like I’ll be able to play WS on day one, but I’m just crossing my fingers by the time I do get to buy the game and jump in, a lot of my friends will still be very active in it.

ESO: Storming Spindleclutch

The first time in a new MMO’s dungeon is always such a learning experience — it not only gives you such insight on the play style of your role or class, but also into the game and its mechanics as well.

On Friday night my husband and I along with guildies Tententacles and Ryan ventured into Spindleclutch (with Musei cheering us on in the sidelines and Pid setting up to go next in round 2), the first instance in The Elder Scrolls Online. I hadn’t gotten the chance to try any group content in beta, so it was all new to me. First of all, four seemed like a curious number for group size, but if it worked for Star Wars: The Old Republic, no reason it shouldn’t for ESO.

Thus far I’d been leveling with a sort-of-tank-sort-of-damage build so I wasn’t sure how I would fare, but I was reassured by the fact that most group make-ups can handle the instance without much problem as long as there’s some heals. It took a lot of the pressure off and I saw it as a way to learn the ropes and practice…even if I didn’t have an optimized tank build or abilities.

Let’s just say there was definitely a lot of flailing involved on my part! But it’s so much easier once you know who to target (healer mobs die first!), when to dodge (there’s a lot of that) and for the love of the Nine Divines keep up your stamina and magicka stores for your taunt and evade abilities. Once we got that down, it was all smooth-going. Though, ah, still quite explosive.

For a first instance I was surprised to see it was pretty well balanced in terms of difficulty. I’d dreaded being in there for hours and was all prepared for wipe after wipe…but for the amount of time we were in there frustration was minimal and it was very painless. More importantly, I definitely know where my build needs work. Overall a very awesome time!