All posts by Pike

thoughts

So Much To Do, So Little Time

2 Comments

I keep seeing people talking about WoD’s lack of content.

And all I can think is, “Man… I wish the expac I’m playing had this lack of content!”

I haven’t enjoyed WoW endgame this much since WotLK.  Nor have I been so busy.  Here’s a little look at what I’m busy doing:

  • Pet battles and pet leveling
  • Archaeology leveling
  • Fishing leveling
  • Garrison upgrades
  • Follower upgrades
  • Messing around on the auction house
  • Mount farming
  • Pet farming
  • Apexis Crystal farming
  • Loremaster achievements
  • Reputation achievements
  • Various other achievements (like the SELFIE one)
  • Getting all the music scrolls
  • Dungeons
  • Daily quests
  • Darkmoon Faire/holiday stuff
  • PvP (when I’m feeling masochistic)
  • Probably raids, eventually, when I feel comfortable with my gear

There is not nearly enough time in the day for all the crap I wanna do.  Every night I log out sadly because I want to keep playing.

So yeah, I’ll trade all you “no content” folks!  Seriously!  I want to have time for other video games again!

Edit: I do want to clarify that I do understand where the complaints are coming from.  I’m lucky in that I play WoW because it’s a great “alt-tab” game between bouts of writing.  But if I was big into raiding again I’d probably play another MMO.

garrisons, screenshots, thoughts

Garrisons are an interesting study.

IMO, Garrisons are, by and large, absolutely fantastic.  It’s basically player housing except that you’re the quest giver handing out quests to your underlings, and it’s just really, really fun.

And that’s weird.

Because those of us who have been gaming for just about any length of time can recognize the way Blizzard has gamified the entire process of, well… work.  Mobile and Facebook games have the art of “waiting” and “upgrading” down to a science, and garrisons are no different.  It’s all just Farmville with a fancier skin.  And yet, it’s something I can live with.  Why?

Because my garrison feels like home.

That sounds cheesy but it’s true.  You can customize it (to a degree – of course we’d all love to see more customization), it’s got your pets walking around, and it’s got NPCs and friends that you met along your journey hanging out.  It’s your own little place – when you’re tired of dealing with people out in the world, you can go to your garrison and just chill.

WoWScrnShot_030115_121811

And so, once again, I’ve let Blizzard sucker me into something.  My mind says “No, Pike, this is just Farmville,” but my heart… my heart sais “No, Pike.  This is home.”

screenshots, transmog

Dear Blizzard. Fix Transmog. Love, Pike.

3 Comments

I like transmog.  I like it a lot.  Case in point:

WoWScrnShot_030115_173531Pretty good, huh?

It does, however, need an overhaul.  Mostly because it’s REALLY UNWIELDY.

If I want to transmog into an awesome new set, I have to dig through my bank and my void storage, pull everything out, go over to the transmog guy, pay money to transmog every item one by one, then go back to the void storage guy and pay money to put my stuff back.  It’s all a great big first world pain in the tushy.

giphySo what should we do?  Well, we should make it like Diablo 3’s system, or failing that (say if Blizzard wants to keep farming for transmoggable items a thing) then we should be allowed to stick all the gear for one set into, say, a box, and then be able to label that box and transmog into everything in that box at the click of a button.

Also it should be cheaper.  Yeah, I said it.

What do you guys think?

Edit: I have been informed that I have been Wrong On The Internet and you can transmog from void storage.  It’s still far too unwieldy because I still have to dig through all my different sets.  I still want my gorram box.  And it should still be cheaper!

about, special

Official Aspect of the Hare Relaunch and Restructure!

2 Comments

[Pike bursts in and shoots fireworks from her Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle]

Having given this ol’ blog a test drive over the last week and a half, I feel ready to come back full-time. I have no idea how successful that will be, given that I’m pretty sure most of my original readership has disappeared into the nether, but hey, at least I like doing it, right?

WorldOfWarcraft-BabyMurlocTopHat

So here’s the scoop:

First, I’ve set up a new theme!  The old one, Mandigo, served me well for many years, but it no longer updates and is really buggy these days, so sadly it had to go.  It’s been replaced by a default WordPress one, which isn’t terribly exciting, but on the plus side it looks really good on mobile phones which is what all the kids these days use to view blogs with – right?  Anyways take a gander at it and tell me whatcha think.  I wanted to keep the original “feel” as much as I could.

Secondly, let’s discuss the blog’s content.  While I’m sure this will remain a hunter themed blog for at least the near future (seeing as hunters are – yes, still – basically all I play), I can’t guarantee whether I’ll be providing guides and that sort of thing yet.  I’m still returning to this whole WoW thing and I don’t really know if I’m going to dip back into raiding or what.  Who knows!

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And while we’re on the subject of content – there will be non-WoW stuff here.  Not terribly often; once a week or so.  Partially because I do, as a matter of fact, play other games and I like talking about them.  And partially because I think a lot of my older readers no longer play WoW but I want them to have stuff to read too.

Phew, does that cover it?  Let’s say that covers it.  ONWARD TO BLOGGING!

Want me to blog about something in specific?  Leave a comment or tweet me!  I’ll be glad to see what I can do.

good games that are good, non-wow

Good Games That Are Good: Rogue Legacy

I do not consider myself a WoW player – rather, I consider myself a video gamer who is currently playing WoW (among other games).  As such, Sundays are for posts about games that are not World of Warcraft.

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And today I’m going to talk about a game called Rogue Legacy which I became addicted to for a while last summer for a very simple reason: it’s great.

Rogue-Legacy-Full-Game-6

Basically with Rogue Legacy you’re running around attacking furniture and monsters.  You will die.  That’s a given.  Permadeath is also (usually) a thing.

But!  Then you can play as one of your character’s heirs.  Heirs have unique traits that change the gameplay around a little, for better or for worse, and some of them are just there for flavor or to be silly.  But it’s certainly an interesting thing that I haven’t really seen before.

Probably the best way to describe Rogue Legacy is that it’s Dark Souls Lite™.  If you like that kind of thing, you should play it.  Even if you don’t like that kind of thing, you should play it anyway, because it’s fantastic and heck, I’m far from the world’s biggest fan of Dark Souls.  But Rogue Legacy is just a bucket of fun and it’s available on a variety of platforms.

You should get it!  And then promptly get addicted to it.  I’m not kidding, this game is like a can of Pringles.  Once you pop the fun don’t stop and all that.

fun

What’s This?

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When it comes to WoW, I’m feeling a bit like Jack Skellington right now.  How so?  Well…

nightmare_before_christmas_jack_skellington_lights

What’s this?  What’s this?
Pet Battles everywhere
What’s this?
Garrisons over there

What’s this?
I can’t believe my eyes
I must be dreaming
Wake up Pike
This isn’t fair
What’s this?

What’s this?  What’s this?
This isn’t how it’s done
What’s this?
The expac is still fun

What’s this?
The game is lined with
The new models laughing
And the game just feels so happy
Have I possibly gone daffy?

I want to know, I want to know
I want to know, I want to know

WHAT IS THIS?

Hmm… Warlords of…. Draenor…?

I dunno you guys.  I definitely don’t want to make any promises but this is the first time since Wrath that I feel like I might be around for more than just a few months…

Jack-skellington-christmas

But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

amusing anecdotes

Hello friends!

No real blog post today because I was getting my wisdom teeth removed.  So instead, have some tweets I made about five minutes after waking up from the general anesthetic (start at the bottom and read up)

never forget 2-26

For the record, upon first waking up I “saw” lava everywhere and my addled, drugged mind decided that clearly I was in Blackrock Mountain.

karazhan

Attumen Promised Me a Pony

I was just in for the music scroll and possibly a pet from Curator but I’m not gonna complain about this one.

WoWScrnShot_022515_124435

(Disregard the pumpkin on my head, I kind of misclicked when I was trying to garrison hearth)

For the record I can down all bosses from Attumen -> Curator in sub eleven minutes.  Probably a good five of those minutes are waiting around doing nothing during Opera and Nightbane.

Back in my day it would take eleven minutes for everyone to get buffed up before the first pull! /waves cane around