The Friendly Necromancer

Once upon a time I was chatting it up on Twitter. (This is how all good stories begin.) I was gabbing about Wizard101, and I said something to the effect that "MAN, I really wish Wizard101 had daily quests." I think it was around the same time I posted this post entitled, Do a Dallop of Dailies.

COME ON! That's like the best blog post title ever . . .

(Side note: My favorite comment on that video is, Why did my name have to be Daisy?")

Anyway, while I had a catchy commercial jingle in my head, I had another person reply to me on Twitter something to the extent of "The grind! It's a bitter sweet symphony, am I right?" (that so was not a direct quote . . . ) And suddenly I was watching and listening to this old song again, I kid you not, for like a week afterward. (This song and I cross paths sometimes and linger on for a while.)

It really made me stop and think about dailies. For some it's "something to do" and for others it's just a frustrating run on the treadmill. It's partly about attitude, but once the magic is gone from an MMO for you . . . it's just something that solidifies the aspect of "This is super boring."

This morning, in Guild Wars 2, I'm looking at my list of dailies right now, in fact . . . shall we finish them? Lets!

There are 13 of them and to get the daily completion flag, I only have to do three of them.

- Daily Engineer or Necromancer Winner (PvP win)

- Daily PvP Rank points (Earn 50 points in PvP)

- Daily PvP Reward earner (earn 1 rewards from PvP)

- Daily Maguuma Vista Viewer. (Go click a vista point -- DONE!)

-Daily WvW Objective Defender (Defend a castle, keep, or tower in World vs. World)

-Daily WvW Big Spender (Go spend 25 badges of honor -- DONE!)

- Daily Kessex Hills Event Completer (Complete 4 events in Kessex Hills)

- Daily WvW Caravan Disrupter (Destroy an enemy supply caravan)

- Daily WvW Camp Capturer (Capture supply camps)

- Daily Inquest Golem Mark II (Go beat the inquest Golem Mark II world boss)

- Daily Warrior or Elementalist Winner (PvP win)

- Daily Kryta Miner (Gather 10 ore from mine nodes in Kryta -- DONE)

LOL Of course I chose the easiest ones. ;)

If I really wanted to, I could go back through that entire list . . . and i'm sure many do. It's "directed" play that gives you decent rewards and gets you out into the world where you may bump into other players, etc. I like Guild Wars 2's daily system, but I keep going back to that Bitter Sweet Symphony song . . .

Games without dailies, like Wizard101, usually means that you're in charge of your play. YOU direct where you want to spend your time and you're not following a company's treadmill suggestion. POWER TO THE PEOPLE! But let's be honest, dailies in Wizard101 are generally hatching pets; checking gardens; farming for gear, jewels, and reagents; and clearing out your side quests. ;)

So leave me your thoughts (I keep hoping people will start commenting on my blog again):

1- What are your favorite types of dailies . . . do you go for the easy ones like I just did?

2- What game do you think has the best dailies? (that older post I linked to up top talks about Rift dailies and WoW dailies)

3- Is it a Bitter Sweet Symphony?

4- Other thoughts, my friends?

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaughust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Our family digs Little Big Planet. We own the original LBP plus LBP2, LBP3, and the kart racing game, and while we haven't put in thousands of hours in creating new content for other players to enjoy (And there are a TON of levels out there in the wilds of player-made content . . .), we've done our "fair share" of goofing off with the level creator in LBP. :)

One of my first attempts at building my own level was a weird homage to Wizard101 that didn't really translate well. When people search a game name (like Wizard101) on Little Big Planet, they want to find either an LBP version of the same game or a simple level that provides Sackboy costumes that look like the ones you would find in said game. My strange little Wizard101 creation did neither. LOL. I don't care. It was fun to make and, strangely, not many people have ever even finished it.

Anyway, none of that has to do with what I want to talk about today. What I want to talk about is this particular way of creating objects in Little Big Planet that's striking a chord with me today in a weird fatherly way that I'm going to try to explain . . . but probably fail at.

~~

When going through various objects that our family had created in the past for level creation, I found a random sackgirl object. I placed her down in an empty world and pressed play. The sackgirl object came alive and started singing "Firework" by Katy Perry in my daughter's higher-pitched voice from four or five years ago. It was a little minute long song and dance of what very much seemed like a puppet possessed by the spirit of that little girl who no longer exists in the living and breathing world (she's a moody teenager now). And it was hilarious as well. Firework?! By Katy Perry?! My girl?! WHAT? LOL!

It's quite fascinating actually, and because it is a moving object in a game world, it feels a lot different than say a video of her from around that time. Conceptually it's the same thing, but I think very different because it's an object that you can place in a scene, any scene, in this particular game world. It feels different when it's an "object" for some reason. Hard to explain, but stick with me.

My daughter is tragically embarrassed by it, but, without getting too sappy, there's that "dad" part of me that finds this little dancing doll in a virtual world hugely sentimental. Up until this morning, she was the only one who had ever figured out how to make a dancing puppet that "acted" like this . . . and that could partly be why it amazed me so much. But anyway, this morning I made it my quest to figure it out myself. As it turns out, it wasn't too hard -- just took a bit of hunting around and making a few educated guesses.

~~

Step 1: Pardon the quality of my pictures! There is possibly nothing worse than pictures of a TV Screen. Unfortunately Little Big Planet 3 is one of those games that doesn't play nicely with the standard PS Button, Screenshot method (especially when in a menu). Now that we got that out of the way . . .

Step 2: Go to Tools, scroll over to Creatures and Characters, Select "Sackbot," and press X to use.

Step 3: Assign whatever character look you want to your Sackbot and then select that the behavior you want your Sackbot to have is "Act."

Step 4: Scroll down a couple steps, make sure to turn on record audio and have an audio source hooked up (the eye camera works nicely, although distorted), and press record.

Step 5: Wait for the count down of 3, 2, 1, and then go Crazy! After you're all done, stop the recording, and press the left joystick to watch your living puppet dance and do its thing! (bottom right hand corner can turn the volume on for this vine btw.)

It's like you're creating a little virtual doll out of your kid's play, which is really awesome. That moment of play -- that living doll of your kid -- may just end up being in a level someday, and if not . . . when your family rediscovers LBP many years down the road, you'll have this strange recorded Living Puppet of your child in a moment that will never be recreated in quite this way ever again.

Am I the only one that finds this awesome? hehe, I hope not. Maybe some other time we'll talk about the creepy weird "Captured Soul" voodoo doll aspect of this feature, but I'm going to stick with the sentimental vibe I got this morning. :) It's all good.

Happy Dueling

~~

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Hello, friends! I have a story wrapped within a story and a conclusion to a story for you today! If it sounds exciting, it is! If it sounds complex, well, lemme unravel that for you. :)

Back on Day 10 of Blaugust I reported a trip through Darkmoor that netted a Khrulhu spell for one Thomas Lionblood. Today I finished up that trip, with no deaths to report, and a big KO to Malistaire the Undying.

And it was all thanks to the amazing team of Alura, Lucas, and Boris . . . my new favorite Russian Wizard101 fan and husband and wife team.

Yay long list of loot!

I learned a lot and would definitely like to run that a few more times.

For the Yevgeny fight I was on blade duty for Boris. Not much to worry about there! Alura (who has two max level wizards of every class . . . in standard mega-fan fashion) was quick to hand over a few conviction Treasure Cards, and the blades flowed like honey.

For the Shane Von Shane fight I was on low-pip damage spell duty and just plunked away on him with dark pixie, vampire, wand strikes, and banshees while the two storm wizards did that thing they do so well!

Then came Malistaire the Undying. Here I played backup heals for Alura and some shielding duty with a little Shadow Sentinel, and it really did work well . . . Sentinel saved Boris at the end! Great team work all around for sure.

Good to see that Malistaire is finally a mega fan . . . although he probably still has issues, I wish him nothing but the best in his retirement.

Anyway, back to the real star of the show . . . Boris! Boris is awesome! He has a full fish collection in his myth house . . . one of every fish to be found.

How did I meet this magnificent wizard? Well, funny story . . . I had left myself afk after the last KI Live, and he waited along with a group of 10 or so who wanted to say hello when I came back. Usually, I'm pretty quick to unplug since overtime is pretty much a guarantee on KI Live days, and I'm in a rush to get home. Anyway, I got him on my friends list there (haha, he was pretty persistent)!

It's nice to meet people who are mega fans of Wizard101, and in his own words, that's him! (Probably fits the description of many people who visit my blog, right?)

Speaking of Mega fans . . . our lady Sophia was kind enough to help me out this morning with some bazaar sniping of a few Agave Nectar and Turquoise so I could finish up those left over Crafting quests from Azteca and Khyrsalis.

. . . and finally, my other Comrade besides Boris became a new mega fan of my fishing skills when I finished up Dragonspyre fishing.

Yuri's pretty awesome for a ghost fisherman . . . then again, I can't say I know many ghost fishermen outside of Yuri.

All in all, the mega fans made it a great day in Wizard101 for Thomas Lionblood.

Thanks all and Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Whispers silently into the printer (this is where they keep the secret microphone) "Dear Blizzard, if you give me a Legendary card in Hearthstone, I'll convert to a paying customer!"

WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! It's Leeroy Jenkins! LOL! From what I understand, this particular legendary was overused back in the original game . . . like Dr. Boom overused, but what do I know? I'm a just a noobie here to feed the wins in Ranked and Arena.

Sigh.

OK, since I promised. Blizzard, here, take my money. GAH!

As I will say to my friend Leala when I see her online, "I hate this stupid freaking game...," right before I begin a long session of play. It's definitely a love/hate relationship, because . . . CONFOUND YOU, NUB WRECKER!

First they give me Leeroy Jenkins and then they pit me against Anub'Rekhan the noob wrecker?! It's like the game is encouraging me to make a Facehunter build!

Ok, Hearthstone . . . we're gonna dance! Those deathrattle cards will be mine, and I will construct my friendly necromancer! MUHAHAHAHAHA!

(I think I just shifted alignments . . . neutral evil?)

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

I'm a sucker for free stuff, especially when it's free nerdy stuff. I'm the type of person that used to go to conventions with my mom and run around with a bag collecting all the free pencils, pens, erasers, key chains, and "convention swag" as they call it. This carried over into real life . . . anytime I go to a convention, the real goal is to get as much loot as possible.

. . . perhaps that's why the very mention of "free" is enough to get me to try something out. I like to think it's a weakness I share with many people. SHOUT OUT TO ALL THE POOR PEEPS WHO WANT FREE STUFF!

And that's why the announcement about getting a free Lord of Terror, Diablo Hero, in Heroes of the Storm has convinced me to at least download the game. . . . and I usually avoid MOBAs like the plague!

I'm possibly the worst MOBA player in all of history, but free is FREE!

So here's the deal . . . the Uber Wife plays a lot of DOTA 2 (follow that link to DOTA 2 and tell me you aren't blown away by the $18 million prize pool for the International Championships). She has an online buddy that convinced her to download it a long time ago . . . she also claims to be the worst MOBA player of all history, but she actually LIKES that kind of punishment. (Truth be known she plays a pretty mean Jakiro.)

Shhhh, so my plan!

I'm gonna throw down the gauntlet and see if my wife will join me in a few matches of Heroes of the Storm!! Maybe our powers of Noobness will combine and create the perfect noob storm in Heroes of the Storm! Amirite?

Happy Dueling!

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

I had a thought the other day (yes, I know this is dangerous). If I just stop and think about certain games in my past that I played a lot of, there are certain areas that seem to come mind faster than others. I'm not exactly sure why. It could be that I spent a lot of time in that one location or perhaps I have a strong emotional memory of that spot, or maybe it's just really hard to forget. I'm pretty sure my top memorable locations are not going to be the same as yours, but I'm going to log into these games as I think about them during the last half of Blaugust and revisit the sites (if I can) or search my screenshot folders to see if I have a picture of that location.

The first game I'd like to do this with is DC Universe Online. This was a game I played a lot of last year. A lot of my old writings and thoughts about the game (which, I didn't write a lot about) can be found here.

And now . . . the list.

~~

1. Defusing those stupid amazon bombs in Gotham under Siege. Unfortunately I don't have a particular picture of this area, but I do have a vine of me freeing an Amazon in the same location (which looks more like I'm helping her braid her hair)

I hated this quest with a passion. there's nothing more mind numbing than clicking on an object and bringing it back to a basket . . . and why this one particular location in Gotham Under Seige was so FULL of landmines. That's MMOs for you though. *shrug*

~~

2- The Hive Base, aka the area in front of the Metropolis Metrodome, which you visited during A Black Dawn, a Tier 4, 8-player Alert. Again, really strange that this location sticks out to me in my mind, but it does.

When I was going back through my screenshot archives, I found that I was particularly fond of taking screenshots of my achievements. Maybe that's why this area sticks out to me . . . I had to spend an evening there destroying these buzz bomb guys to get a feat, which I felt pretty awesome about at the time because soloing them at the CR I was at was pretty difficult. It made me feel epic. (I went back there last night, and apparently they one-shot now at CR 110+.

~~

3- ACE Chemicals in Gotham. It's a fun little stop off on your way to Arkham Asylum!

This was another area I spent a lot of time flying around thanks to a daily quest that happened in this location and the need to finish them all for an achievement. It was covered in mutated clowns and a couple cool instances were found here as well. Maybe this one was in my head for sheer cool and creepy factor.

~~

4- The Park in Gotham -- AKA The Forum of the 12 Ceasers.

I know exactly why this one is in my head. I spent FAR too long circling here trying to collect exobytes. Many players knew it as the best spot around and there was an easy path to follow to get those precious little glowy bits.

~~

5- The Batcave, and particularly being tossed around by the Batmobile robot. Sadly I didn't have any pictures of this instance, but the DC Universe Online Wikia page did (Thank you DC Universe Online Wikia for the use of this picture).

It was perhaps the most confounding encounter in all of DCUO. It was not unusual to find yourself stuck in a remote corner of the room or just at very strange angles because you would get tossed around and knocked back like you were a potato bug in a jar with a very shake-y 5-year old.

~~

6- PvP by the bank in the JLA Watchtower.

This is perhaps locked in my brain because it was just fun and I *cough* ruled over the other members of Team Spode in PvP. They pretty much hated me every time I'd throw that invite to a friendly PvP match. Stingheal! Why you gotta be so rude?

~~

7- Gotham Courthouse Instance.

Although the picture I have here is the regular PvE version of the courthouse. In my mind I remember running this a ton when the Legends PvE version of this instance came out -- you could play as stock heroes and villains instead of your own character . . . again, for achievements and marks.

~~

8- The Minotaur near the Metro station building, which was conveniently located next to my home "the Mojo Dojo"

I've killed The Minotaur countless times . . . because he was right there by my house. At first I felt epic when I could solo him. Last night when I took him on he just melted in two hits . . . I felt bad for him.

~~

9- The Shady Nightclub Duo.

SADLY . . . I don't have any pictures of this duo, which is super strange! I logged on both of my DCUO accounts and discovered that neither of them had actually purchased this episode? What?! Gotta love it when your yearly subscription runs out and you hit that pay gate . . . not. I must have run this particular duo with my partner in crime, "Clever Clara," about 100 times. Why I never thought to take a screenshot is beyond me. It's a great instance just packed with super-villains!

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10 - Last but not least . . . The Vault, which is accessed from the On Duty menu and shares a bit of the same environment as the Joker's Funhouse Tier 1 single player instance.

Yup . . . I'm blaming this memory location on sheer repetitiveness. It's one room with a whole lot of presents that you crash through daily. Not much more to say about it.

~~

So there's my ten. I don't know if I'd even call them my "Top" ten, but the "First" ten that came to mind, which is strange going back through all of my screenshots. There's a lot of other amazing environments like the Gotham Wastelands, Superman's Base, the Brainiac Bottles, Holiday event locations, Races, and just too many other good locations. It's a bit strange these were the first that came to my mind? *shrug*

If you've played DCUO and you have some locations you'd like to give a shout out to in the comments, please do! I'd love to hear about 'em.

Happy Dueling!

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Yesterday I was talking memories from DCUO, but today I'm talking memories from DDO! It's a lot of D's and O's, but much much different . . . Dungeons and Dragons Online. EPIC! It's been a long time since I put my little halfling feet into the world of Eberron, So long, in fact, that it took me a good while to patch this game up into a playable state, but it was still safely sitting on my computer just waiting for a time when lightning would strike.

Like that! (That's coming from me, not toward me FYI)

DDO used to be my Sunday Night group's game before DCUO . . . about 3 years ago. Unlike DCUO, I actually did write a nice-sized compendium of my adventures there.

Anyway, three years is a long time, friends! In fact, I was playing DDO before I got my job working for KingsIsle, so let's tax my inner cortex, shake off the cobwebs from the DDO portion of my brain, and see what falls out. Shall we? Onward to the memories!

~~

- Staging spot for the Kobol excavation missions in Cannith.

Before the world of DDO went delving into the Forgotten Realms, one of my last memories of really playing this game was when I was hitting the Cannith Challenge Missions over and over for experience, loot, and challenge. They were grindy little instances that were short enough you could complete a couple on lunch time, and for a sorcerer who liked to solo things, and stay one step ahead of the rest of the group, they were perfect!

Plus there was a giant ghost dragon you could fight if you were super crazy! (I was super crazy)

~~

- The bridge leading to Remembrance Plaza from Lordsmarch Bank in the Marketplace.

There's nothing particularly neat about this bridge other than its view. It wasn't like I spent a lot of time hanging out on this bridge just passing the time or anything -- it's just a place that comes to mind for me when I'm thinking about DDO . . . um, did I happen to mention it has a really cool view? Onward!

~~

- Risia Ice Games Ramp in the Harbor.

I had to go to my old DDO blog for this picture. The Ice Games is when the normally sunshine-filled Harbor goes all Frozone on you, and there's this big, terrible ice ramp where you can rent a pair of ice skates and fulfill your Olympic dreams. I must have made that jump hundreds of times. Such dreams.

~~

- Gianthold. Yeah, our little group spent far far too long in Gianthold for me to ever forget it.

I remember kiting around giants through Firewalls for hours, and our group had THEE WORST time with a particular instance called Gianthold Tor. We were getting our butts toasted by three dragons for what seemed like two months. *Shudders* But what a cool way to get your butt toasted! Dragons, Giants, and purple rock textures for miles!

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- The Crazy beholder instance, AKA The Reign of Madness. Um, so the only picture I have of this currently is one from my old blog where I must have been in a kind of a strange mood and photo shopped Barbara Streisand into all of the pictures. You can read the blog post here. *scratches head*

If you love beholders in D&D, you'll love this instance . . . and I happen to be one of those that think Beholders are pretty freaking amazing. How could I ever forget being transported into the belly of one.

~~

- The Waterworks . . . Yup, it's the kobold sewer instance way back at the beginning of the game.

From the first time you wander into the instance and hear the dungeon master say, "The strong smell of sewage permeates the air around you," you know it's going to be a good time. And by good time, I'm talking about traps, kobolds, and miles and miles of dreary sewer.

In fact, the very location I'm standing in is a recreation of the very first screenshot I ever saw of the game. My buddy Tony had jumped into DDO when it was new and sent me a screenshot to show me what it looked like . . . I'm standing in that same spot. Good times. I'm glad he shared it with me.

~~

- Smuggler's Rest . . . the Pirate event. This picture actually comes from the Press Release about the Smuggler's Rest unveiling for the fifth anniversary of DDO.

I ran around a lot in this instance in search of a really awful banana-yellow pirate hat that I wore proudly for several month's afterward . . . what was I thinking?

- Bogwater Tavern

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villiany . . . Actually it seems like one of the nicer pubs! It's open air with plenty of nice NPCs around and even a small amphitheater. Hmm, maybe it was just the bouncer that made me always think this place was sleezy. For some reason it's always stuck in my mind.

~~

- The Eveningstar -- Wait, are you sure this isn't LOTRO?

Well, it could be LOTRO! It's made by the same company after all, right? I still have content here that I've never seen, and I think that's why it's in my head today. I wanted to explore this area . . . I really did, but my group of friends was ready to move on, and I wasn't in the mood to stick it out alone. My character is still level 20, and this world made the levels in DDO go up to 25. Maybe someday I'll get to fully check it out . . . it'd be nice. (Too many games, too little time)

~~

- The Den of Obscurity.

What I remember about this instance was that it was like running a maze in the dark, and it was the definition of insanity. I pull the picture above from my blog post about it. This instance kind of lives on in my nightmares. I think if I ended up in Hell . . . it'd be running this dungeon over and over for all eternity.

~~

- The Cerulean Hills -- It's that open area off to the side of town. Remember that spot? I do!

Well I decided to stop in last night and revisit this place that was haunting my memories. Sure enough, it was still the same ol' Cerulean Hills that I remembered. Bugbears and Orcs a plenty jumping out of you from behind bushes and around unseen corners! The giant walls of Stormreach in the background like a big comfortable line of security. It's pretty too! I can see why it stuck in my mind for so long.

. . . and that's my "first" ten memorable locations of DDO. I wrote them all down before entering the game again, and the same thing happened to me like it did when I explored DCUO the other night . . . a flood of memories and places came back to me. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF LOLTH AND THE SPIDER WEB BRIDGES?! Why didn't I think of this bridge, or this rock, or this mailbox? Why didn't I think of the Butcher's Path? . . . All good questions! It's just what came to mind first. :)

I'm happy I logged into DDO and took another look around. What a great game and what a lot of good memories!

Happy Dueling

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

YO! So, I had full intentions of posting another "Memorable Locations" post today for Everquest, but instead I have a funny story that I just have to share.

These Memorable Locations posts are really time consuming and have taken much more effort and time to put together than my other posts.

My thought was that if at all possible, I wanted to grab a recent screenshot from within the game, and this requires logging in and re-orienting yourself to the controls of the game.
I'd like to avoid wiki use as much as possible, right? Of course I would! Taking a trip down memory lane is more fun without a map.
It's Blaugust! That means I need to get a post out every day! Normally I'd take a while longer with a project like this or not feel bad if I missed a day.

So my next Memory Lane post was to be Everquest. It's a huge world--HUGE! Navigating that is a pain, even with the wonderful port stones and shortcuts hidden around the world (remembering where to go for said shortcuts is also an interesting endeavor)

On my list of first-thought-of locations for Everquest was the Plane of Fire. A year or so ago Everquest offered a promotion to instantly upgrade one of your existing characters to level 85 to help get people back into the game and cut down on the leveling time. I had a level 70 something Beastlord (ahhhh, Stingite), and decided to get him the free levels.

When Plane of Fire was released, the top level in the game was upped to 65. So, Stingite the Beastlord is 20 levels higher than the zone and when I took him for a spin in the zone grabbing screenshots, everything melted in front of me.

I was killing spiders and fire elementals and multiple mobs that might have wiped a raid force (or at least caused massive delays) back in the day.

It was a lot of fun to just throw caution to the wind like that. WEE!

I finally came to THEE raid spot I remembered.

On any given night back in 2002-2003, this spot would be covered in players, anxiously awaiting the monks pulling back a boss. When the boss got there, the main tank would establish agro and positioning. The clerics would begin a "complete heal" chain on the main tank. When the tank felt he had solid agro, he'd yell out for the 40 other people to jump in and start hammering on this thing . . . it was quite a production, and we loved it. Now it was just devoid of life. Empty . . . and my playground.

I looked over at the first raid boss, Criare Sunmane . . .

He con'd light blue, which means you wouldn't get much, but you'd still get some experience from defeating this boss. "HA!" I thought. LET'S DO THIS!

I cast a slow debuff on him, and I was instantly pulled toward him where I got a couple swings in and actually took his life down fairly quickly, but then this charming firebird charmed me! Now, I'm maxxed out with 700 magic resist . . . apparently that doesn't matter, because, HAHA, I was stuck! I was the puppet of this firebird, who would charm me every two minutes and not let me go. He wasn't damaging me. He just held on to me in his talons and kept charming me.

I tried taking a few swings in between charms . . . too much regen on the boss.

I tried clicking the X in the top right hand corner of the game to shut it down. THE GAME WOULDN'T LET ME!!! LOL!! I literally had no control, and it wouldn't even let me shut down the game. So instead I pressed Control+Alt+Delete and shut it down the hard way.

I came back a few hours later, and yup . . . I was still in the clutches of the bird. I was terribly afraid I was going to have to use "/petition" and get a GMs help to get me unstuck. Oh man, embarrassing! I wonder how many old noobs they have to save like this?

I wasn't quite ready to give up, so I'd wait the two minutes while charmed, and then use that one second window between charms to mash a few buttons to see if it'd buy me any time. To my surprise, I found that I was able to run away for a few seconds when I hit my "Foray" ability. INTERESTING!! I figure it must have a slight stun component to the ability.

I wait another two minutes, hit the foray skill, and just started booking it over the sea of lava. I WAS OUT OF HIS CLUTCHES! FREEDOM!!!! In fact, I made it all the way across the sea of fire and up on the mountain side.

I instantly hit my Origin gate button, which is a skill the ports you back to your home instance where you first opened your eyes in the game. For Stingite, that's Cabalis. I couldn't wait to see my scaly old Beastlord trainer! YES! GET ME OUT OF HERE!

Nope. As the countdown for Origin was running, guess who was flapping right toward me? . . . and I was charmed again, right before Origin fired. NOOOOO!!! I was so close!!! He began dragging me back to the original spot, and I was following him. Before I knew it, I was right back in the same spot, and still held in his clutches.

It didn't stop me though, every two minutes I hit my Foray skill and would see how far away I could run . . . It was like he learned from my previous trick, and it just wasn't working like it did that one time.

Then one time I got pretty far out over the sea of lava, he charmed me, and suddenly I was stuck on some geometry! I decided to kill my game again with Control+Alt+Delete. I was still very close to the Boss. Probably close enough that he might charm me again, but I thought if I even had a second before I agro'd him, I could hit an Invisibility potion (yup, I was smart all those years ago, and had a supply of those ready to go in my potion belt), and maybe it'd save me.

I logged back in. Hit the potion, and . . . It worked! I was invisible. I was free. YESSSSSS!!! I ran back away from the area to a safe spot, kissed my invisibility potion and clicked the origin button.

Whew.

. . . and that's why Everquest is a great game, and that's why you don't have a memorable locations post about Everquest today. I was too busy building a new memory while seeking old ones.

Happy Dueling!

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Everquest, Everquest, Everquest . . . where to even begin with Everquest? It was my first MMO. I remember walking past the Boxed version of the original game, thinking "YES!" . . . then looking at the monthly subscription rate and thinking, "NO!" (All these years later, and now it's free to play! Imagine that!)

I've dipped my toes back in the world before for the progression server, but it hasn't been my main game since many of the kids who read my blog were born. I was playing this on dialup. My extended family would get mad at me that my phone was always busy. Zoning from one area to the next took ten minutes!

Ben Conrad, who used to work at KingsIsle, left us for a time to work for Everquest (he's jumped to a different game company now), and he helped put together this (you can see him at the 32 second mark)

Instead of a first 10, Everquest deserves a first 50, but I don't have time for a first 50, so here it is . . . these are the first 10 zones that I thought about when I sat down all these years later, and just thought about them.

~~

- Befallen! More than just a hole in the wall . . .

I do believe Befallen is a perfect dungeon. Traps, keyed doors, necromancers, shadowknights, false floors . . . dead dwarves on hooks . . .

Befallen is legendary! I don't know many people who played Everquest and haven't stepped foot inside here. So popular it's even been translated to a pen and paper RPG, and even my buddy, Tipa, recreated this dungeon in Neverwinter!

Just look at those skeletal excavators digging new tunnels! (you'd think by now they'd have made a new wing)

I have a pretty great story myself about getting a temporary horse bridle through a quest here one night with an old friend (who I haven't talked to in years) . . . but that's another story for another time. (If you're reading this somehow years later, I miss you Makalani!!)

~~

- Plane of Fire (Doomfire, the Burning Lands)

Uh, yup, I think I've said enough. ;)

~~

- Plane of Disease bone wall. And the entrance to the land of creepy giant hair follicles is done by jumping into a sewer pipe . . . ALRIGHT!

This used to be the spot where groups would sit and soak in the glorious experience all night long. Pulls were easy. Experience was decent. and the scenery was GORGEOUS.

Well . . . it was the plane of disease . . . rats, goos, giant centipedes, mosquitoes, decrepit pus filled magicians, and did I mention giant hair follicles?

There were a couple times I journeyed even deeper into the castle in the Plane of Disease where a raid group would take down the ever-so-good-looking, Grummus. Good times. I remember it fondly.

~~

- Crypt of Nadox

There's a big part of me that just loves to solo in these big social MMO games. I don't know what it is . . . maybe it's just that my schedule just usually doesn't line up with my friends' schedules. Anyway, this particular spot at the entrance of Nadox was where I had my Cleric parked for a long time.

Sometimes I'd just log her on and down these three fire elementals near the front and log back off. It was a 10 minute or so endeavor that could result in some good loot and decent experience. I don't think I could ever forget this spot.

It also was a stop off right before Hate's Fury. The coolest pirate ship around!

There was some pet-procc'ing weapon I wanted from here that I never got. There's a sense of "Grrrrr" when I think about this place and not getting that weapon.

~~

- Felwithe. Starting area of the majestic high-elves!

Felwithe has the honor of being the center-piece of the sole fan fiction I penned about Everquest. It's super cheesy . . . I'm not going to link you to it.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time here with my high-elf cleric as her starting town, and I spent a lot of time here with my beastlord farming the guards for money. Good times! Finding the false wall that allowed you to go up on to the walkway above the town is definitely a highlight for me!

~~

- Karnor's Castle Wall in the Dreadlands. SO MANY PEOPLE! JUST PACKED WITH COMPUTER NERDS!

Well it used to be at least.

Yup, it's not much to look at no matter which direction you're facing, but this used to be PACKED with groups believe it or not. The Dreadlands was a haven for exp groups, and if your puller somehow overwhelmed the group with too many mobs, the zone to Karnor's Castle was just right around the corner. TRAIN TO KC!

I loved these drachids btw . . . (they used to be a lot uglier btw -- this is the improved model)

~~

- Butcherblock Mountains -- the chessboard.

Butcherblock is a big zone mostly known to be the starting area for Dwarves, like this fine lady

Gotta love the beard on her.

Most of my cleric's young life was spent hanging out at the Chessboard! If you killed enough skeletal pawns, eventually higher-ranked boss skeletons would appear . . . even an UNDEAD KING!

I wish I could remember the name of the Dwarf I used to hang out here with . . . I liked that dude . . . come to think of it, I like most people that played dwarves.

~~

- Golra Island in Timorous Deep

If it sounds like an esoteric memory, it is. I highly doubt many EQ players made it out to this remote island in Everquest. Maybe a few tradeskiller people who were looking for chunks of ice to craft rootbeer floats, but not many others.

These Golras look hilarious when they're chasing you.

Stingite spent a lot of time hunting these down for fun. It was a super quiet spot for soloing . . . but let's be honest . . . dying out here and getting your corpse back would be a pain in the keester . . . and that's probably why it was so unpopular. I can't remember if that ever happened to me. If it did, I'm sure I was ranting about it for days.

I guess Golra island is kind of like the antarctic of Everquest . . . remote, vacant, and hard to convince a cleric to come res you there.

BONUS SCREENSHOT FROM TIMOROUS DEEP!!! PARROT PEOPLE!!!

. . . that's all.

~~

- Tenebrous Mountains, on the way to Katta Castellum.

So, there was a big +20 wisdom shield that I got for my Cleric back in the day--the Shield of Bane Warding, in fact. I had to spend a long time in this particular zone hunting down Vah Shir skeletons for the quest.

It's kind of a cool zone . . . up on Luclin, the moon of Everquest! Here's a view from in front of a vampire tower looking down on Norrath.

The nearby town of Katta Castellum was a pretty great place too. I used to take a rag tag group of friends there to hunt down Lcea Katta, who was a raid boss that held a piece you needed to get into another raid dungeon (A scary place called Vex Thal -- which strangely didn't make it on to my top ten)

Too many memories on Luclin.

~~

And finally (speaking of Luclin) . . . The Ssraeshza Temple in the Grey.

Ahh, the Grey. It's a very barren zone that is devoid of oxygen. You had to have some kind of water-breathing device attached to survive here for too long; although you could usually sprint and make it across to the Ssraeshaza Temple in the middle.

Once inside it was full of SNEEPLE! (Snake people reference for the Crystal Gem fans out there.)

This was mainly a raid zone, and I spent several nights here with my guild killing a metric ton of Sneeple. It was pretty much the last zone you needed to visit before you went to Vex Thal. Later on it became a fun soloing zone for Stingite. I had fun destroying the entire thing the other night.

Those sneeple didn't stand a chance!

~~

Whew . . . that was exhausting to write and take screenshots for, but I hope not too exhausting to read. If you know the zones, you'll relate and probably have tons of stories of your own. If you don't know the zones, you'll probably be reading mostly gibberish there. You know it's a good game if it sounds like mostly gibberish when people are talking about it. :)

Again, logging in and wandering around made me think of a ton of other zones that were amazing. It's pretty easy to see most of my memories center around the first few expansions of Everquest . . . Strange that I didn't think about any of the Omens of War, Depths of Darkhallow, Gates of Discord, or (insert the name of any of the past 20 expansions I missed).

I did have the thought that it would be very very strange to have this be your main game now and be in a raid guild . . . how weird would that be? I wonder what end content is like now?

Happy Dueling!

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

So for a long time on this blog I only referred to World of Warcraft as "The Game Which Shall Not Be Named." This game will easily eat all of your spare time up with about a billion fun things to do, and you will raid, and you will PvP, and you will buy mounts, and you will have a super fun time ignoring everyone in the real world . . .

*shiver*

Just writing this article on it and dipping my toes in again almost made me resub. I ain't kidding. It's super alluring. As a dad of three who are all about to start school again . . . JUST SAY NO!

While you can play the first 20 levels of World of Warcraft free, any characters you previously had that were above level 20 will be locked and unplayable. This severely limited my ability to visit some of the zones I had jotted down from my memories of 2005-2006. But lucky me . . . I had THIS!

Well, at least that helped me get a few missing screenshots . . . and the Internet will provide the rest!

Onward, to my first ten memorable locations in WoW!

~~

- Zul'Gurub (ZG), or as I first jotted it down before the real research began: "Troll dungeon place"

Apparently also home to really funny looking hydras.

We had a raid alliance with several smaller guilds and this was one of our favorite places to hit for general "gearing up." I got a couple great pieces from this place including this wicked awesome shield.

LOOK AT THAT THING!

I SAID LOOK AT IT!!!!!

(Wait, what are you looking at? Oh yeah, that glowy green cleaver thing from ZG was pretty hot too . . .)

You know what I didn't get from this dungeon? (Like most people) The uber exclusive and super amazing raptor mount. Sure, if you were Horde and a Troll, this was no big deal, but if you were Alliance (like we were), this thing was pretty much the rarest mount in the game at the time.

And it dropped for us in a dungeon, and I rolled a 97 out of 100!!!!!

(and as you can see . . . another dude rolled a 99 . . . I don't want to say I'm still burnt about losing that roll, but I'm still burnt about losing that roll.)

~~

- Stormwind, the Human town of humanness and humanatude! NORMAL HUMANS!

I made a new version of my female human paladin, Reverencia, yesterday and flew in to Stormwind. I was happy to see that Stormwind's bank was still the popular nerdfest I remembered it was. Good times! Nerd fest! PARTY AT THE BANK!! There was even a guy selling gold for USD!

~~

- Blackrock Depths. So, there's nothing quite as cool as running down a length of chain, right?

That picture was graciously borrowed from a wonderful blog called Wolfe's Den. You should read his extremely well written blog post where he pines for the WoW of the past (and decries the broken promises) . . . and it's also where this great screenshot above comes from.

now . . . I honestly don't know if this is a headnod or not, but it sure reminds me of something I've seen before in another game . . .

*cough* O.O

~~

- The Barrens.

You know, I don't know what it was about this place . . . oh yeah I do . . . Barrens chat, as the WoWWiki so nicely puts it: "Barrens chat is like a stupidity centrifuge, distilling the unexpurgated banal thoughts of a thousand morons into a hardened impenetrable lump of smacktardery, spilling endlessly across the bottom of your screen."

I didn't see any of that yesterday when I logged in, but I did get to punch a zebra unicorn a few times!

Worth it.

~~

- Un'Goro Crater . . . or as I first wrote it down in my notes "Dinoworld."

This picture was also graciously borrowed from a blog entitled Shattered Beginnings. This particular post from 2010 was about the author's journey through Un'Goro Crater for the first time with a new character. It's a great read, and I'm very grateful for the picture above.

Personally, I always thought of this nugget of fun when entering Un"Goro Crater:

Yeah, I watched this show religiously as a kid. It was definitely one of my favorites, and this zone sparked that from my childhood every time I stepped foot in it. Especially since there's a safe zone here called Marshal's Refuge (yup, they went there). How could I ever forget it. In fact, if there was one zone in World of Warcraft that I would want to see again . . . as strange as it may seem, this is the one. Wanting to visit here almost got me to resub. (You're a father of three, you're a father of three, just say no, just say no. breathe.)

~~

- Stranglethorn Vale. Um, I did some reading up on this. So, it's probably pretty apparent I haven't stepped foot in WoW since a week after the launch of Burning Crusade, but after the cataclysm, apparently this place got split in two. The "fishing tournament" I so fondly remembered is now found in a location known as "Northern Stranglethorn." *shrug*

What I did have on my CD of screenshots, was a picture of my old Hunter, Stingite, flying through the Stranglethorn Vale.

It appears I most liked the "jungle'y" zones in WoW, but what really made me think of this zone was the fishing tournament that happened here every Sunday . . . or rather the frustration of always losing the fishing tournament that I remembered most.

~~

Scary water island place? So, I actually don't know where this place is and therefore I can't provide you with a screenshot for this memory location. What I do know is that Naga lived there in vanilla WoW. Looking at this gamepedia page, none of the vanilla WoW zones listed there seem to fit my memory . . . so, either I'm remembering this place wrong, it doesn't exist, or some other third thing amounting to, oh well I forgot the name of the place.

*shrug*

Sorry.

It was super cool and the naga were terrifying. The particular area in my mind had a path leading up a hill and view down on to some beautiful ruins surrounded by naga. It was bright and full of sunshine. If you think you know the place, leave me a comment and I'll get this section of the blog post in ship-shape ASAP.

~~

- Undercity -- home town of the Forsaken.

I had an undead priest that I used to play around with that I think I ended up getting to perhaps 30th level? Not sure . . . but what I do remember is this amazing underground den for the undead. It was probably my favorite city Horde-side.

And just like Stormwind . . . it was awesome to see the nerdfest happening around the bank. PARTY AT THE BANK! (although I do believe Orgrimmar would be more packed if I remember right)

~~

- The Stockade . . . or as I fondly first remembered it "stupid dungeon in Stormwind!"

My paladin couldn't solo much, but she could rain down holy terror in about five minutes upon this lower level dungeon, and I had a blast farming it for gold waaaaay back when . . . and leaving bodies strewn about in interesting patterns.

~~

- Pandaria. What?! Pandaria?! How would I remember that?!

Well, I'll tell you how . . . Leala, Beau, #JuliafromKI, and myself actually ran through the starter zone one day a number of months ago. I ain't kidding . . . we all rolled up pandas and played right to the point where you decide if you're going Horde or Alliance. We all went Horde . . . and then never played WoW together again. End of story.

I made a new panda to get the screenshot . . . I like his name. I may have to play him a bit more just because of that.

~~

And THOSE . . . (which I'm sure many players of WoW would be absolutely dumbfounded by my astoundingly dumb list) are the first zones that came to my mind when I reflected on my time spent in WoW. LOL!

I sincerely apologize to the WoW players out there. I do. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane regardless. It was pretty fun to take a look back through all my saved screenshots and to log in and play with my new characters. Thanks for the memories, Blizzard!

Happy dueling!

(grumble . . . 97 out of 100 and I still got beat . . . grumble . . . trolled by a troll mount . . . grumble.)

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Wizard101 . . . you're up!! Obviously this is a game that is near and dear to my heart. I've logged thousands of hours between being in the game and penning thoughts about the game (and even more if you start counting my time behind the scenes at KingsIsle). I have to admit -- some of the first ten zones that came to my mind surprised me, but here they are . . . in the order they came to my mind.

(As long as I was taking screenshots, I thought I'd give you a few angles on them that you might have not seen before. :))

~~

Unicorn Way.

Actually, this is not surprising at all. HAHA! For many people this street and Triton Avenue *are* Wizard101, but when I think of Unicorn Way, I think of the excitement of starting up a new character. There's the thought of "ok, here we go!" -- before you know it, you're earning your first healing spell, downing Lady Blackhope, and hanging out with Dorothy and friends.

~~

The Atheneum.

I used to spend a lot of time here collecting Stone for crafting. Then the quest for Loremaster spells rubber banded me here again. And now the fishing quests have rubber banded me back AGAIN. For being (largely) a non-combat zone, I sure do find myself spending a lot of time here!

I like it though. It's compact, interesting, and a nice staging area for things to come. It's too bad the Dragonspyre Academy isn't used as interestingly as The Atheneum.

~~

Grand Chasm Past.

I really do think Dragonspyre is my favorite zone in Wizard101. I waited for it with excitement and when it dropped on us, it was amazing. There were specific gear drops where had you go to different bosses to farm them to get your "best of dragonsyre" gear set. Remember Ironhawk's guides? I just loved Dragonspyre in general -- I may not have liked the formulaic zone layout, but I dug it just the same.

Grand Chasm Past had you porting through a time machine to see how the world was before the destruction of the Dragon Titan. In fact, outside of the BOXES event, I think this is the only time that's done. Must be strong magic. I feel it!

~~

Big Ben.

Really it's just room after room of mobs, but I used to hit this place all the time with Kevin Battleblood. We liked all the free rank 5 snacks. :) Besting this tower with Angus was an experience I'll never forget (in fact, I'm exhausted just thinking about it). Good times!

In general there's a lot to love in Marleybone. That extended stay under the stars is pretty awesome.

~~

The Great Beast of Starfall Sea.

This has my vote for the coolest dungeon in Wizard101. Again, when you boil it down, there's really not much to this zone. It's basically an interior and a battle circle on the beast's back.

Those that haven't made it to the second half of Khrysalis are in for a real treat. Make sure you read up on Duelist101's guide. I had an enormous amount of fun with this one.

~~

Cyclops Lane.

My mind and thoughts took me back to Wizard City next and the majesty of Cyclops Lane! I penned some fan fiction for Wizard101 that you can find on my blog here. I never finished it, but General Akillies was the center piece! Also the staging area for heading to Aquila and packed with some pretty decent fishing, it's a great zone, but watch out for those Minotaurs!

~~

Firecat Alley.

I think I actually liked the story behind Firecat Alley more than I liked the story behind Cyclops Lane. A Fire Elf Prince gone mad just sounds like a recipe for adventure. I also spent a lot of time in this zone collecting reagents. I had a little path I'd run to pick up as much Red Mandrake as possible. There's also plenty of bosses in this zone as well, which makes it fun for return visits.

~~

Baobab Crossroads.

Zafaria has some super beautiful locations, and the hub of the zone was no exception. The treehouse qualities were nice, and it felt a bit like a hidden (and difficult) oasis to arrive at.

Hub zones *should* be relaxing and beautiful . . . that's Baobab Crossroads.

~~

Celestia Base Camp.

Speaking of World Hubs . . . how about Celestia's main area?! I love that you can fish in this pond now. Ever since finishing up the fishing quests in Dragonspyre, it has me here just seeing what I can catch. I'm pretty sure we'll see some more fishing quests here if we're lucky.

Overall it's a nice, compact zone, that gets a lot done. A lot has been packed in here. Even better for me are the memories of being one of the first to see the zone before it was released. I was a fan back then, not an employee and my reactions are priceless.

~~

Marleybone's Balloon Car ride from Digmoore Station.

Two words . . . Mister Personality.

~~

And there they are . . . the first ten zones that came to my mind when I thought about Wizard101. To be honest, I think I'm more intimidated to post these than any of the other posts because it means so much to me, and my choices felt so . . . flippant? random? I guess when it's a game as close to your heart, it would feel more fitting to do a TOP ten instead of a FIRST ten, but a lot of these would still probably line up. Strange that Azteca, Avalon, Krokotopia, Mooshu, nor any of Paige Moonshade's dorm rooms didn't end up on the list. ;)

I love this game and the greater community around it. It's been such an important part of my life the past seven years -- hard to believe we're going to celebrate that game anniversary soon!

Happy Dueling!

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Hey all! So here we are near the end of Blaugust, and I have to say it's been interesting to put blogging as a high priority again. This was very easy to do since it's summer, and I was able to take a couple hours in the morning and devote it to simply playing video games and thinking about them in the form of blog posts.

NO MORE!

The problem here is that . . . school starts for my kids today. So, I have to be dad again in the mornings. Sigh, it's over. I MISS YOU ALREADY, SUMMER!!

One might say, well then just wake up an extra hour early, Friendly!! Yeah, I already wake up at five in the morning. I'm not waking up at four. I love you guys, but I don't know if I love you that much.

Those memorable locations posts I've been doing take a lot out of me. I've been burning a bit of the midnight oil to get all the pictures in all of the games. So, I still have a few more games that I want to do "memorable locations" for, but I'm going to have to put them off until the weekends. Stay tuned beyond Blaugust and you'll see "memorable locations" posts for the following:

Pirate101
Guild Wars 1
Guild Wars 2
LOTRO
Super Mario 64
AND MORE!

I'll get them out there eventually, but not today. (I'm hoping Saturday mornings will give me a bit more time?)

Next, over the course of this month I've changed a few things here. My look is super cartoony thanks to my daughter making an awesome new header for me, and I don't mind that. I think for the most part I'm part humorist and part serious gamer, and I want my blog to keep that lighthearted yet serious feel. COME! READ THE FRIENDLY NECROMANCER! I'm a guilty pleasure, admit it . . . I'll give you some news, but you're gonna get a little Ziggy and a little Fox Trot while you're here.

(Thanks daughter for at least trying to doodle me a comic five minutes before leaving for school)

Also, I'm doing an experiment, and I added a contact form over on the right hand side to see what happens. If you have a tip, or a question, or a thought you'd like to share, type it in there and shoot it over to me. If it becomes too spammy, I'll remove the contact form, but in the meantime . . . USE THAT BOX! It may spawn blog posts with your question or thoughts.

Finally, I'm going to trim a bit more of the fat on my blogroll. Those who haven't posted in a few months are going to get cut in anticipation of adding new friends and new blogs . . . active blogs!

TFN is still changing, so thank you for staying with me. We'll reevaluate after Blaugust and see how things are looking for the future.

Happy Dueling!

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Hey all! Just wanted to give you a quick update on Hearthstone today. I'm continuing my quest for more cards to build my Friendly Necromancer deck in Hearthstone. As you know, I laid down some money the other day to buy the Curse of Naxxramas adventure. I've had a lot of fun playing it an hour here and an hour there, and I've managed to complete three of the wings so far. Looks like good ol' Patchwerk is up to bat next.

It feels like using a facehunter-esque build (I don't have the cards to build a true facehunter) or a ramp druid build have actually been working very well for me. I switched to Mage a few times here and there as well when the druid just wasn't cutting it.

I haven't been reading guides to be honest. That's kind of how I like to play anyway . . . if I can avoid looking at a guide I will, but when it gets too punishing, I crumble. ;)

Speaking of crumbling. Mexina crumbled to me and coughed up this bad boy card!

Now that's what I'm talking about! There's a card with some bite! ahHA! ahHAHAHAHA! Ok, my jokes aren't nearly as funny as Naxx's jokes. I try to screenshot them every time I win. Like this:

'NOTH' HIS DAY! THE PUNS!!

. . . and why when I die, don't I come back as Super Saiyan Stingite!

It's gotta be tough being Naxx. ;)

Also of important note . . . that whole Grand Tournament thing happened this week. Sigh. Can I just say I'm not happy about the Joust mechanic? Not that it's horribly broken or anything (although I've got a friend who just refuses to use it), it's just . . . seriously, I lose like every joust, which makes this card a little less attractive to me for my Friendly Necromancer deck:

Although, just the *chance* at better card drawn when you're card starved is worth it.

Wish me luck on those last two wings of normal difficulty of Naxxramas!

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Last night I finished up a goal for myself in Guild Wars 2. For months I've been toting around a Moonshank dagger, which ain't shabby, but I always wanted to replace it with something a bit meatier.

Crafting this is no harder than crafting any other ascended weapon, but it is an endeavor that takes a lot of patience and money. This is the basic recipe:

Pretty clean, right? four ingredients and BAM, right? WRONG! Each of those four items go deeper. You can tell by that little magnifying glass to the right. When you click that it shows you what else is needed. So let's click each of those and show you what goes into those four items.

Zojja's Berserker Insription

Deldrimor Steel Dagger Blade

Deldrimore Steel Dagger Hilt

Vision Crystal

See those little spyglass inspection symbols on those four above . . . now I think you're getting the gist of this. I'll spare you the screenshots of going deeper into this recipe, but I will try to explain it a bit.

Globs of Darkmatter -- these can only be obtained from salvaging level 80 epic items. Cheaper epic items cost about 75 silver in the Black Lion Auction House. Or you could just salvage ones you find while out questing for a while.

Deldrimor Steel Plated Dowel -- that's 3 spirit planks and 3 spirit ingots. The planks and ingots can only be crafted once every 24 hours. You can buy the ingots outright for about 4 gold each and the planks for about 3. These items are the real money drain in the whole process. Either you're playing all day long to get the raw materials to make the planks and ingots, or you're going to buy the raw materials, or you're going to buy the planks and ingots outright. (Or you can simply buy a Deldrimor Steel Plated Dowel -- current price 26 gold and change.)

Personally I bought the components and then crafted them. My daily buy list was like this:

90 Iron Ore
40 Platinum Ore
100 Mithril Ore
80 Soft Wood
30 Seasoned
60 Hard Wood
150 Elder Wood

(Those quantities changed based on how much I had actually been out and about questing)

Beserker's Orichalcum Inscription -- Again craftable, but goes for about 8 gold in the black lion.

Crystalline Dust -- The easiest way to obtain this is by salvaging ectoplasm, which is obtained from salvaging rare items. This is the least of your worries.

Thermocatalytic Reagents -- this is a minor gold sink for Guild Wars 2 plain and simple. It's a vendor sold item . . . you'll spend about 1.4 gold getting these just for the main recipes. (also required when you craft the planks and ingots)

Dragonite, Empyral, and Bloodstone -- . . . also plain and simple, you get these from actually playing the game. If you're out there hitting Silverwastes, you'll have all you need -- unless you're using items like Princess to nibble away at your excess supply.

Augur's Stone -- This is a straight trade of 20 levels (or spirit shards) as you were. You get 3 spirit shards every day you complete the dailies, so as long as you're out there playing the game, you'll have plenty of these to spare. Go see the Mystic Forge attendant to pick one up.

~~

And with all that behind me, I'm happy to say I'M DONE! I now have an ascended piece of gear in every slot, and now both weapons. The only thing I'm missing now is an epic weapon.

If you thought the above recipe sounded exhausting, it's nothing . . . NOTHING compared to an epic weapon. Then again, you could just straight up buy an epic weapon. The one I have my eye on currently costs 3,500+ gold. *cough* Bifrost *cough*

Yeah . . . it's probably not going to happen any time soon. HOWEVER, I do hear it will be a bit easier to obtain when Heart of Thorns comes out. So there's that at least . . .

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaugust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

After finishing up Zojja's Razor the other night, I started thinking about how I arrived there. It wasn't like I had a guild directing me to craft the Razor so I could begin raiding with them or anything like that. (*cue raid guild requirements discussion somewhere in the distance) No, this was of my own volition and a goal I had set myself. When I look at my own play of MMOs, it's really easy for me to see how setting a goal is what sets me on fire, and meeting those goals is something I like to advertise. hehe. Because it's fun!

If I don't really have a goal in a game when the run of the level cap has already been obtained, then I find a different game, or pursue after another goal. You know, like real life goals . . . like, uh, clean up the house or um, pay the bills.

Anyway, so my current game goals seem to be this:

- Fully finish the Khrysalis 2 story line in Wizard101. When I hit level 100 in Wizard101 and finished up Darkmoor, that felt like I had met my goal . . . but I really would like to see the rest of the story.

- Finish Pirate101 with my third pirate.(I've been sitting on this for far too long)

- Build my Friendly Necromancer deck in Hearthstone. (This one is hot on my agenda)

- I don't know if I'm fully ready to commit to getting that epic weapon in Guild Wars 2 or not . . . probably not . . . more thoughts on that later.

- Download and play Wildstar when it goes free to play. (Because it always looked fun to me.)

- Download and play Skyforge. (Because I have a couple friends playing it.)

- Make it through the tutorial for Heroes of the Storm. (Done!)

Woot! Goal achieved! Oh, I can feel the greatness already pouring through me like little back up guys heading to their ultimate destruction in a pathway of death. (It's a very specific feeling)

Anyway, Goals . . . GOALS . . . are a funny thing. I talked about company directed "daily" goals a bit back, but I didn't focus much on the goal part of it . . . I was focusing more on the good vs. evil part of it.

In the comments to that post, Raltsmster made a very interesting statement, "If I got 100 Crowns a day for logging in and hunting 200 Fire Elves, I'd play more." I think what he speaks to there is the idea of "reward." I think my earlier statement, "meeting those goals is something I like to advertise"also speaks of "reward" because as a natural braggart (lol -- I mean STORYTELLER, yeah, STORYTELLER not braggart) I value the story behind the achievement!

I'll never forget when I was young, my mother used to tell me to find a way to reward myself after I made a personal goal. Whether it was a bowl of ice cream after a grueling session of studying for a test, or some TV time . . . or whatever. If I kept whatever small motivation I had in the back of my mind, then reaching the goal and feeling even better about it would help.

I also remember learning somewhere (can't remember this exactly and don't have time to look it up or research it right now *hugs blaugust*) that the most successful people in the world took on several challenges that had several medium to hard difficulties but not one giant challenge with an extreme difficulty. (*cue Epic Weapon in GW2 discussion somewhere in the distance: it's not the difficult, just buy it with real world money -- LOL RIGHT! LIKE I'M STUPID! WHAT A WASTE OF REAL MONEY! I HAVE BILLS TO PAY, PEOPLE!)

I know there are studies done on Goal Setting, but applying them to MMO objectives in this blog post seems silly. Really the end goal should be to have more fun and the last thing I really want to do is apply Edwin Locke's scientific papers to anything having to do with having fun in MMOs. Cripes.

Anyway . . . what was this blog post about? How about: How to find success with fulfilling moderately difficult goals in MMOs through Goal Setting. Sounds legit to me!

Have at it people . . .in the comments:

1- What's a recent goal you completed in an MMO?
2- Did it feel awesome?
3- Did you reward yourself?
4- What's your current goal and why is it important to you?

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaughust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

I had a thought cross my head the other day about why I play certain games, and why I don't play others. Why I'm totally willing to watch a streamer play a type of game I typically won't play? I don't know. It's a little strange.

In general I avoid FPS games because I'm like Jim from the Office when it comes to them.

So why do we play the games we play?

Hmm

WHO'S READY TO PLAY FRIENDLY FEUD!?

Friendly's Top 22 Answers are on the board:

- Duh, it looks like fun

- Graphics look amazing

- I heard it's super challenging!

- Bro, all my friends / office mates are playing that game.

- Bro, EVERYBODY is playing that game right now.

- No school like the old school / Nostalgia

- I'm broke and this game is the best for the money

- I just want to be a SUPER SAIYAN / Wish fulfillment

- I'm looking for new people to chill with / Community or Social needs

- I'm searching for something deeper *cue gong*

- Read a good review about it

- Saw an advertisement

- ADRENALINE!

- Recommended by a friend

- Totally random purchase -- cover art looked good.

- It was a present

- I played the Arcade version

- It came with the Console / Device

- I love the company that makes it

- I'm fascinated with all things in the fantasy / horror / whatever genre

- Watched a YouTuber / Streamer play it

- I played the 10 prequels to the series

THANKS FOR PLAYING FRIENDLY FEUD!

;) I'm just brainstorming things up there really . . . and I guess there are reasons you START playing a game, but those aren't the same reasons that KEEP you playing a game. i.e., I may start playing a game because I saw an advertisement for it, but what kept me playing the game was that I found something deeper there.

In general, I don't think I hunt out games to play because I'm looking for a new experience, but sometimes a game looks so compelling to me that I just have to play it, like Journey.

I also don't know if anyone ever blatantly thinks "I want to fly, so I'm going to play a superhero game." So I'm sure a few of those items on that list are debatable.

So what do you think. Do you have any other ideas about what gets you playing a game and keeps you playing? Tell me why you play the games you do: what brought you to your game and what keeps you there for just a little bit longer than you anticipated?

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaughust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

It's the weekend, and I found some time to journey a bit in a game that is near and dear to my heart, Pirate101. I had a blast doing it too, and it made me want to get back in and level up my third pirate to 65! (Definitely a goal!) The new fast combat changes are great, and it's a great game no matter how you slice it.

Again, these are memorable locations that first came to my mind when I sat down and typed out which zones game to mind. I only ran into one snag, and that was I wrote down "the spider fight in Cool Ranch" when I was making my list. I was referring to the Spider portion of Dusty Arroyo Cave, which . . . well . . . that difficult fight has been removed. All that's left now are rumors. ;) I realize a lot of people were defeated on that particular fight, but I liked the challenge. It's still a great instance that looks very cool, but I went ahead and chose an alternate.

With that said, here we go!

~~

The beach on Skull Island proper.

I've always liked this spot. It's a nice non-combat zone that's big and empty and peaceful. It's a great place to gather big groups, it's picturesque and reminds me of a spot I'd like to visit in the real world.

(Hidden secret: there once was a developer-only version of this zone that had every vendor from the Spiral plunked down around in it for testing purposes. It's a perfect spot for this because it's so big and wide-open.)

I'm glad they put the transportaler across the beach here. It's a pleasure to run through every time you're on your way to somewhere. I couldn't think of a nicer entry / exit point.

~~

The Tower of Moo Manchu in The Paths of Penance

There's only one word for this place when looking at it from outside, running around in Paths of Penance: Ominous.

There's only one word from running around on the inside of this place: Ouchy. You're pretty much guaranteed a few knocked out companions, and it's sent me packing a number of times. (Side note, I still need to get my glowy eyes from here)

What is there to say about the Tower of Moo Manchu, it's the most epic dungeon in Pirate101 currently, and something you won't forget quickly.

~~

Stupendor-X in the Valley of the Titans.

I don't think I even need to bring up the old "un-nerfed" state of this fight for it to be a legendary occurrence in Pirate101. It's possibly the coolest thing in the game.

I actually have some original concept art of this fella hanging above my computer at work. I'm sure I'd be able to meet a Pirate101 player 20 years from now, and we'd still have a great back and forth about this fight.

~~

The Traveling Medicine Show in Cool Ranch.

It's a small little island that has an allure all its own, and of course it is the stage for the boxing match of the century!

Ahh Tyson, don't you know you shouldn't bring boxing gloves to a voodoo fight? (It's all about the details here too *waves* to Boochbeard and Gandry in the crowd.)

We had a housing item scavenger hunt in Pirate101, and this place suddenly became the most popular stop in Cool Ranch for farming. ;)

~~

Valley (and temple) of the Gold Monkey.

Deep in the heart of the jungle, Gortez rules his mighty domain!

The famous conquistador for Monquista, turned native! Why? Because the throwing of the banana was unseemly?

YES, the Mighty Gortez! Here we have another fight that had its difficulty toned down a bit. That said . . . it's still a solid fight when you're level appropriate, and a lot of fun to revisit. Farming for his hat and to unlock him in the Crown Shop is reason enough to visit this instance at least 25 times. (I'm still pretty far away from unlocking him)

~~

Sacrifice Cave in the Dark Jungle.

There's something about the way this place glows with luminescent light that I just love.

The fight inside is an interesting one as well! Put out the fires to save the cooking conquistador and then take out the high chief, but when he gets low on life he sacrifices his minions to heal himself . . . it's pretty fun. Not terribly difficult, but still interesting.

I looked at my badge list last night when I visited here to see how close I was to unlocking Eep from the Crown Shop. Unlike Gortez . . . I was close on this one! 18 of 25 battles! So I decided to go all the way on this one, farmed him the remaining seven times and bought him up in the Crown Shop. Tada! You're coming to work for me, Eep!

(I also had a nice conversation with Virtuous Anne Radcliff from the Pirate101 Messageboards while I was at it! Bonus!)

~~

Airedale Pier in Marleybone.

It's a pretty disturbing spot actually . . .

Not so much for the grand Ferris wheel and the Popcicle shop, but for the war torn town that was directly a part of our actions. There's some great writing by Blind Mew and the team here -- really good stuff.

~~

Khotan, home to General Tso . . . and his chicken.

This to me is one of the last great fights of Pirate101's vanilla game that hasn't been altered too much. It's still incredibly difficult, and one that players will probably bang their heads on quite often. In fact, it got a mention on the 50 million player graphic as being the toughest fight boss in the game.

Definitely beautiful though despite it being so deadly.

~~

Off of the Port Regal Skyway in Skull Island . . . the fortress known as Fort Elena!

There's nothing quite like a prison break!

. . . and the characters you meet inside the prison are pretty awesome too! Napoleguin, Count Brastillo de Brass, Mustang Sally, Phule . . . I also just love fighting Corporal Klegg. It's a longer dungeon that's a lot of fun.

~~

The Old Chum

"The Old Chum?" you ask? But of course!!!

Surely you remember this from your past?! You venture here for a short stop while doing Bonnie Anne's first promotion quest, but that's not why I remember it.

hehe. I spent a lot of time videoing it for a Marketing project that never surfaced. ;) I'll just leave it at that.

~~

And there you have it! My top (er, first) ten memorable locations of Pirate101.

Got a different first ten? Scribble them down and post them in the comments! I'd love to hear from you, and hope you've got some fun zones for me.

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaughust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Well well well . . . looks like it's the 31st of Blaugust and I survived! Hurray!

I'm going to use this opportunity to take a look back at the month and reflect a bit while predicting the future. Here's a quick summation of what happened on the Friendly Necromancer during Blaugust:

Changed the focus of my blog and removed myself from the list of official Wizard101 fansites.
Modified my blog look (which is still a work in progress)
Made actual progression on Angus, who was blocked forever in Celestia.
Talked about and played Hearthstone, Guildwars 2, Wizard101, Pirate101, Lord of the Rings Online, Badland, Little Big Planet, Heroes of the Storm, DC Universe Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Everquest, and World of Warcraft.
Talked about a couple of ideas like daily quests and gear swapping
Made a couple of discussion point posts

Hopefully it's been a lot of fun to read along and catch up with me. Personally I had a lot of fun in Blaugust discovering other blogs who were also participating.

~~

Shoutout to Mama Needs Mana, who came here and posted a couple of times. I really like her writing style and it's good to know there's someone just as awful at MOBAs as me.

Shoutout to Jaedia from Dragons & Whimsy, who also stopped by to say hello on Day 1.

Shoutout to Jaromai from Why I game, who dropped by to talk a bit about Gear Swapping in GW2. Good luck with the raids in GW2!

Shoutout to Maeka Gaming, who mentioned me a couple of times in her awesome online paper.

As always, shoutout to the awesome Wizard101 and Pirate101 communities that offer their support each and every day: Adventures of the Spiral, Mercs, Petnome, Edward Lifegem, Chrissy, Central, flash33, Paige, Ditto, Stars of the Spiral, Leala . . . all y'all that I failed to mention . . . thank you for the retweets, comments and general support. It's hugely appreciated.

Shoutout to Team Spode!

Shoutout to all those who make these games! Good times are had every single day thanks to the hardwork and magic you pull out of your dev hats everyday. Thank you.

. . . and last but not least, thank you to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut who hosted the event. The list of bloggers participating was astounding and herding those cats is a lot of work. Thanks so much!

(Shoutout to any I might have missed LOL -- feel free to berate me in the comments)

~~

So, what this exercise has taught me is that August is a strange month. It starts out with oodles of time and then whittles away to nothing toward the end, which makes it harder and harder to complete this goal successful. I could keep a daily blog again, but to do so it has to become a higher priority in my life and something I think about every day. Will I keep a daily blog now? Um, most likely I will *NOT* be posting everyday, but I think I will be posting with increased frequency now. (especially when compared to very dry years like 2013 and 2014.)

Hopefully I can continue to grow and change this blog and gain a few new readers along the way and make a few new friends while keeping my old friends informed of the goings on of The Friendly Necromancer.

I've got a few loose ends to tie up from this month of blogging like . . . will I build a viable Friendly Necromancer deck in Hearthstone? Will I ever actually play Heroes of the Storm? Can I make more top memorable locations posts for the Original Guild Wars, LOTRO, etc.?

Looks like I can't stop posting just yet! ;) (Besides, I haven't even told you guys about me playing Final Fantasy 13 again -- it's a good story.)

Thanks for reading.

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaughust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting.

Last night my wife turned to me and just said . . . "Yay, Blaugust is over." ;) (Did I drive her crazy with my obsessive compulsive need to post and think about blogging?) Strangely, I still feel the need to post something. Oh habits!

Just wanted to do a quick catch up on Hearthstone.

I finished Naxxramas!

And that means I now have a few more beautiful cards in my inventory. Check 'em out:

I gotz me a lich and a couple o' zombies! Oh, it was a hard fought battle, but . . . with patience . . . I finally got that K to the T.

I still have the class challenges to finish (and of course the heroic mode *shudder*), but I've already begun using my "Friendly Necromancer" build in hearthstone. Um, it needs work. The problem with thematic decks is that they usually lack a few basic cards that really rock. It's more "fun" than it is "functional." eh? Although it did net me a number of wins in the tail end of the season so I could hit rank 20 for my card back in ranked play.

I'll post more about my build in the next few days as I firm up my deck.

Happy Dueling!

WHOA . . . weeks like this shouldn't even HAPPEN. I was busy from start to finish and I've still got a long laundry list of things to do, say, think about, and FIX! My word where does that time go?

So let me catch you all up on all things Friendly Necromancer . . .

~~

1- Blaugust Conqueror!

That's right, I came, I wrote, and I won (along with a lot of other great bloggers as you can see here in the Blaugust Results). Happy I could join in and rock it.

Also, to my surprise, I won a free game from Bel's collection . . . I opted for . . . Terreria! I've now got that downloaded and on my list of games to play and write about in the future.

~~

2- Wizard101 turned Seven. Wait a second . . . seven years? SEVEN! Can't believe this game has been such a major part of my life for so long! Make sure you get your free gifts and take advantage of those amazing member benefits! My word the double seeds are coming out of my ears!

I also hope you all had a chance to join us on KI Live the other day. PARTY TIME! Believe it or not this was also our 1-year anniversary of the show.

. . . the things I do for you guys . . .

~~

3- WILDSTAR! Yes! Wildstar! So if you haven't heard, Wildstar is going free to play very soon, and you can pick up the boxed copies of Wildstar at select GameStops for $10.

But, Friendly, why would I pay for a boxed copy of Wildstar when it's going free to play? Aha! Because you get cool stuff from buying the boxed copy before and when it goes free to play.

. . . plus, I just have wanted to play this game forever and never had time. I finally bit the bullet and jumped for the game, so I can get a jump start on the free-to-play madness that's already begun.

So you may hear me talk a bit more about this game in the future . . . for now . . . Robotom Digilover, the dominion aligned Settler Engineer Robot and his two mini-robot sidekicks are kicking butt and taking names in Ellevar. Level 10 and growing.

I'm super psyched about it. I might even stream some play. :)

4- Final Fantasy 13.

OK, a few days ago I promised you all a story about why I was once again playing Final Fantasy 13. Grab some popcorn.

At one time this was the new thing and my children were much younger and . . . more dangerously curious than they are now. My son really wanted to play the game, but I felt he was too young to do so, and I was worried he'd save over my game. I started putting away the CD and hiding it from him so he couldn't find it, and I played all the way up to what I thought was probably the very last fight or close to it.

I kept dying and dying in this fight and decided that I probably just needed to go back through some old content or nearby mobs and level up a bit before trying it again.

That was my plan at least until my son, with a burning desire to play the game, went into the back end files of the PS3 and thought maybe he could directly play the game from messing around with these. Long story short, he somehow deleted my save files, and I was out. I was super irritated and obviously I explained to him that . . . made daddy less than happy.

So much so apparently he still remembers this encounter to this day. He's a super sweetheart of a kid with a really good soul (he's my high-functioning autistic super hero). Out of nowhere the other day he asked me to bring back this game and finish it . . . that he was still sorry he deleted the save files.

It's a huge time commitment, but I can't pass this one up to get it all straight and help him gain a new memory.

The only bummer is that I can't take screenshots from my PS3 of Final Fantasy 13, so . . . if I share pictures and things from this . . . egads . . . I might actually have to take pictures of the TV?

Ugh . . . if anyone has a good inexpensive suggestion for capturing PS3 screenshots, let me know.

5- I finished mowing my lawn today.

And there you go . . . A quick catch up on what i'm doing, and thank you for sticking with me.

Happy dueling!

#Blaugust Day 14 -- Dailies, A Bitter Sweet Symphony?

#Blaugust Day 15 -- The Living Puppets in Little Big Planet

#Blaugust Day 16 -- Mega Fans Make the day Mega Awesome!

#Blaugust Day 17 -- In where I give Blizzard my money

#Blaugust Day 18 -- Free scary demons vs. MOBA noobs

#Blaugust Day 19 -- My Top Memorable Locations in #DCUO

#Blaugust Day 20 -- My Top Memorable Locations in #DDO

#Blaugust Day 21 -- How Charming: why there's no memorable locations post today

#Blaugust Day 22 -- My Top Memorable Locations in #EQ

#Blaugust Day 23 -- My Top Memorable Locations in #WoW

#Blaugust Day 24 -- My Top Memorable Locations in #W101

#Blaugust Day 25 -- We Pause Now for Station Identification . . .

#Blaugust Day 26 -- Naxxramas Update (THE PUNS)

#Blaugust Day 27 -- FINALLY crafted Zojja's Razor

#Blaugust Day 28 -- Discussion Point: Goals in Online Games

#Blaugust Day 29 -- Discussion Point: Why do we play the games we play?

#Blaugust Day 30 -- My Top Memorable Locations in #P101

#Blaugust Day 31 -- Blaugust wrap up and thoughts

Naxxramas Haxxramas . . . Gimme a K, Gimme a T

Weekend Catching up with Friendly!