Juxtaposed Life

I am back again, and with much less angst and apologies for my last post.  All my old frustration has been washed away by last weeks big news.

Cataclysm Alpha Leaks!

If you don’t want spoilers for the next World of Warcraft expansion, you should be careful about traveling to some of the popular WoW fan sites and blogs.  Last week the Friends and Family Alpha for Cataclysm started up and some people got their hands on the client and have been going crazy posting images pulled from it.

Since I don’t mind being spoiled, I could not resist the indulging in the information, and thus far I have not been disappointed.   The face of the old world is changing, in some major ways,  and I am encouraged to go back and visit some of my favorite (and not so favorite) locations; taking screenshots along the way.

I have also made a decision to put my plans to level up a shaman on hold, until I can do so with a Goblin. I am going to want to experience the leveling up process through the new world, and I think a shaman will be a great class to do it with since I can heal or DPS.

MMO-Champion currently has the largest compilation of information I have found, so if you want to spoil yourself head over there.

My Play List
Probably a surprise to no one,  I played a whole lot of World of Warcraft last week.  The highlights:

A second trip to ICC10
I was able to sub into my guild’s weekly ICC run and had a great time.  My first visit, with some alts,  took me up to Professor Putricide and I thought it was a good run.  That is until this last week, when in about just as much time this group sailed all the way up to before Sindragosa.  It was a blast.  I love running with people that have a clue.

More Rogue Leveling
My little Rogue is not up into her 50s and I have been having a blast with her.  I could be more efficient with her, and level her faster, but I am enjoying simply wandering around and doing blocks of quests.  I will be much more efficient with here when I hit Outland.

Shaking the Dust of my Pally
I have a confession to make. I have never been a tank.  For some reason I every character I have started with the intent of tanking has become either a healer or shelved.  My Blood Elf Pally has been resting unplayed in her high teens for years.  Until last week!

After talking with a few of my Raiding Pally friends I decided to at least try leveling up a pally and tanking some old instances.  Step one is complete, I have her UI set up and got here up to  level 26 so I can learn the basics of how to play her.   Step two will be to Tank and instance, and I hope to try that out this week.

Achievements
While I have not been actively working to acquire dungeon & raid achievements, there are a few general achievements that my priest has been working on getting. I know its not the “smart” thing to do, but I enjoy having meta goals that I can slowly work toward while doing other things.

My Watch List
And I will end with a quick list of things I have been watching:

• Lost : Only a few episodes left!
• Castle
• Mentalist
• Buffy and Angel: I know I am a bit late to the party here, but I am finally watching all of these in order.  Its slow going, but I am really enjoying these shows.
• Iron Man 2:  Yes I actually went to the movie theater!!  In fact, enjoyed the heck out of it.

MrAnderson Games, World of Warcraft, tv Games, MMO, tv, World of Warcraft

Dear Blog,

I hope you don’t mind listening, but I feel I need to unload and you have always been a good shoulder for me to cry on.

But the last couple of weeks have been exceptional.  I know I told you I was playing World of Warcraft again. I have been really enjoying my time back, doing dailies, leveling up an alt, and last week I even raided.  Ya, I know I am back into the game.

Of course being back also means trying to keep up with WoW news, and rumors.  To do so I have turned to podcasts and blogs, since these people normally do a great job of collecting and analyzing things for me.  Podcasts are particularly useful for those long drives to and from the office.  I have a lot of respect for those that take time each week to record conversations about a game / industry they love.

But, and I have pretty thick skin, sometimes people make me nuts.  Most of the time when this happens I will simply sigh, roll my eyes, or chuckle, but sometimes when normally rational people, say things I disagree with, or say things that are simply wrong, I *cough* get worked up.   Over the last couple of weeks two discussions, set me off.

Read more…

MrAnderson Games, World of Warcraft Games, MMO, rant, World of Warcraft

Welcome to another episode of “What I’ve been playing.”

The last few weeks have been full of World of Warcraft goodness.  Its been a lot of fun to be back in and chatting with old friends, and just enjoying the game.  The key to this has been not raiding.

Sure I would love to see Ice Crown, or help guildies with Ulduar, but I have little patience for four hour focused intense sessions of play. Instead I have been enjoying popping in at lunch to do daily quests, jumping online before bed and running a quick dungeon, or even sneaking in a quick Battleground.   Good times.

I have also played a little bit of God of War 3. Though for some reason, which I have not yet figured out, I have not been drawn to play it. *shrug*

Unlike the last game I want to mention, Warstorm.  This is a Facebook collectible card game that has captivated me, its all about crafting your squads (decks) and watching them battle opponent squads.  It’s a great between tasks at work sort of game, but it does have the “please spend your money”  hooks.

That’s about it on the gaming front.

As for other entertainment, I wanted to mention that two weeks ago we officially (though minimally) entered the HDTV era.   I had been holding off on a new Tivo for a couple of years, but finally decided it was time.   I picked up a new Tivo Premier, and signed for Charter’s basic HD package.

Amazing.  Even on our 10 year old rear projection 1080i TV the picture quality is great, and we can not record 2 shows in HD at the same time on that machine, while the old tivo has become a dedicated kid show recorder!  I cann’t recommend Tivo enough.

MrAnderson Free2Play, Games, World of Warcraft, tv Games, tv, World of Warcraft

Last week our family had to face the death of our long time canine companion, and that event weighed me down a lot.  In response this week consisted of a bit less “playing” and a bit more sleeping, though here is my quick list of things I played last week.

Everquest 2
I toyed around a bit with my characters, but did not spend a whole lot of time playing EQ2 last week.   Actually as the leveling up, in both tradeskills and adventuring, slows down I started thinking I might need a break.  I enjoy the depth of activities and character/guild growth the fame offers but I miss the connections I had in the past with some friends here in town that are playing another game.

Which leads me to ….

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MrAnderson EQ2, Games, Musings, World of Warcraft EQ2, Games, MMO, Musings, World of Warcraft

I read something on  Scott Kurtz’s PvP blog today that I feel is worth repeating.  It was in a post about his iPad impressions, and this section about how it works as a comic book reader struck me so much that I wanted to record and repeat it here.

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MrAnderson Musings comicbooks, Musings

This is my first new “What I’ve Been Playing” update. The first of I what I hope many regular updated, but we shall see.

Everquest 2
While I have several characters on two accounts, I am still a very casual player.  I have one pair of characters, a conjurer and Templar, that I play most of the time and have almost up to level 40.  Most of the other characters I started have been either sat idle or are only active to craft.   I am taking it slow , playing maybe an hour a night and enjoying the world and all the activities it provides.

I  have to thank all the awesome members of The Halasian Empire.  Four months ago they took me, an EQ2 noob, in and they have aided and supported me as I move, ever so slowly, through content.   They are good people!

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MrAnderson Games GameJournal, Games

Lately It’s been hard for me to actually finish a blog post. Here is what generally happens:

• I hear or read something that triggers a passionate response in me, or think of something really “smart” I want to record.
• I open notepad and jot down my a quick passionate comprehensible only to me thought.
• Then I pause and try to figure out how I want to finish it and, I guess, make it comprehensible to everyone else.
• I am at a loss and decide to let it sit until I can think of something.
• Come back in a day or two, and decide I don’t really need to post about whatever it was I was passionate about 2 days earlier.
• Repeat.

Heck, I have not even been able to complete a “What am I playing now” post.  This makes me sad because I have been failing my personal goal of posting to my site regularly.    Thus I have decided to at least post a very “form letter” style “What I Played Last Week” post.  Like all my posts, these posts will be strictly for my benefit and allow me to keep a history of what I was playing.   Look forward to that very soon(tm)

PS:   I hate Jythri for re-subbing to WOW.   I hate him because now I want to re-sub to WoW, even though I know it will then drag me back into a “not smelling the roses” style of play that I burned out on.    I hate him because now he is taunting me about doing just that and that he knows  we always have so much fun when we play.   Grrrr

PSS:  I don’t really hate him.  I hate the fact that deep inside my head, I hear I little voice screaming to click the re-sub button.  “Come on, you know you want to do it.  Lots of people you know are playing.  The guild is still there, they like you.  Healers are always needed.  Do it. You know you…”  And so it trails on.

MrAnderson Musings, World of Warcraft Musing, World of Warcraft

Last week I realized there are finally enough exclusive PS3 game that I want to play to make me I decided it was time to get one.   So check at my local Best Buy while I was there picking up some printer ink; OUT OF STOCK.   The next day I check Target; OUT OF STOCK.  So I run across the street to Walmart; OUT OF STOCK.

Fine I will check Fry’s near the office at lunch; OUT OF STOCK.  *throws hands up*   Ok, I will call Gamestop I am sure they will have one; OUT OF STOCK.   Its an epidemic, I start calling several other stores out of my normal driving paths all return back to me the same Response; OUT OF STOCK.   So getting it local is not going to happen, no worries I will just order it from amazon and get in a few days.

Wrong. Amazon has zero 120gig slims, for sale at MSRP, they only have 3rd party sellers pushing them at a premium.

It appears someone does not want me (or anyone) to actually to buy a PS3.

[update] After writing the above out of a bit of frustration, I started again calling local-ish stores.  The 13th location had just received a shipment and put one on hold for me for an hour.   Thus last night I was finally able to load up Uncharted 2 and Final Fantasy XIII.

MrAnderson Games, Musings, PS3 Games, PS3