The Friendly Necromancer

So, this week is intended to be a kind of a prep week for Blaugust. According to the official site, this week is where seasoned bloggers give tips and tricks to the newcomers, and I'm definitely SEASONED . . . like a fine steak of blogging with a side of savory podcasting and livestreaming with a little parfait of Pintrest for dessert.

There's no need for me to bore you too much with rehashing the past, but you can see the whole herd of blogs I've kept over the years from my profile (including the ones I kept with my kids when they were little and when blogging was more popular). Probably this blog's greatest claim to fame was that it got me a job, first, as a writer at Beckett's Massive Online Gamer magazine where I wrote mostly about Wizard101 and Dungeons and Dragons Online and, second, at KingsIsle Entertainment as the Community Manager for Pirate101.

. . . After that, my writing and livestreaming was mostly for work, and since I could no longer theorycraft about the games I enjoyed playing (because, you know, I already knew what was coming up), my blog changed and eventually waned.

Times also changed! YouTube took over as well as microblogging and a number of other Internet innovations that made your standard blog kind of fade to the background, but that doesn't mean blogging isn't still alive and well (as evidenced by the outpouring of bloggers participating in Blaugust.) There's a lot a standard video game blog can provide still . . . even in 2019 . . . and especially for those who love to write.

Thing 1: You've got to love to write.

It kind of makes sense, but you'll have a better time blogging if writing just comes naturally to you, and if it doesn't come naturally to you . . . write until you do love it. If that still doesn't work, maybe blogging ain't for you, but surely there's something else that will quench that thirst inside ya. (Vlogging anyone?)

Thing 2: Scream into the universe with your blog and make it your place.

What's the saying over there at Penny Arcade? Stream like no one's watching? Yeah . . . Stream like there's nobody watching.

It's a power statement. I like it. BLOG like there's nobody reading 0 0 0.

When you make a place your own, you control all the cards and ain't nobody gonna take that away from you despite how unpopular or popular it is. At least you can point people there and say, if you want to know what I think, read my blog. BOOM.

Side note: There's nothing cooler than when a topic breaks out and you can say, oh yeah, I wrote a blog post about that one time . . . link.

Thing 3: Build a community or be a part of a community.

While the power statement of "Stream like there's nobody watching" is amazing, it's a lot better when people are watching. For me, a really vibrant Wizard101 blogging community developed around me circa 2009 without much effort other than making a giant list of wizard101 bloggers and making a post. If you want on the list, contact me. Done. 210 posts later . . . I had a pretty cool community. They even made themselves a badge, and a couple of them still proudly display on their blogs. How cool is that?

Thing 4: Develop a thick skin and allow room for others.

Not everybody is gonna love ya, Smalls. That's just not how it goes. I mean, as much as I would love for everyone to fawn over me . . . lol . . . it's not going to happen. In fact, for the majority of this blog's life, I've been an outsider to mainstream MMO blogs. Wizard101 just isn't everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine. I'm cool with that.

Even then, within our own community of Wizard101 blogs, there were times when the waters got rough as big fish and little fish alike fought for territory in the itty bitty community pond without even knowing we were fighting for territory. It's real though. The pull to be THE FIRST to blog about a new upcoming feature, game, or thing is tangible 100%. In my blog's busy days, that drove us on. It was fun. I tried to always give credit to another blogger if they posted about something before I did.

Thing 5: Always be thinking about what's next for your blog.

You know . . . Drive! Passion! All of that good stuff!

Obviously this is no longer a big concern of mine seeing as how my post count per year has tapered off to almost nothing . . . although Blaugust is going to be a really good refresher for me! PROMISE! Back in the day, I constantly kept a running list of things I could talk about or do on my blog. I tried all kinds of "features" like Pet of the Day, Ask Friendly a Question, Interviews, and even a really lame comic series (let's be honest, it was pretty bad.)

Keep a steady stream of blog posts coming, and the readers will follow.

So that's about all I've got in me for tonight. Hope something in there made sense.

I do want to wish those new video game bloggers luck in their endeavors. Blogging truly can be life changing if you let it. (hint: Hard work trumps luck . . . you got this!)

Happy Dueling!

One thing that's great about Blogspot (and probably Wordpress too -- I'm less familiar with that blogging platform's tools) is that it gives you a nice page of your blog's statistics. Here's a quick sneak peek under the hood of the Friendly Necromancer blog.

That's all pretty straight-forward, but the one tool I want to point you to is found under the heading called Traffic Sources. Within that heading is a great piece of information called "Search Keywords."

So, people that searched my blog and landed there were mostly looking for Wizard101 information. Some of those topics I covered a long time ago and they still get hits, but there is at least one search term that grabbed my eye . . . and that's the Gems of War one.

I actually feel a bit bad for that person. They searched my blog hoping for a guide or at least some insight into building a good necromancer team, and I failed 'em. Instead all they found was me rambling on about how great of a game Gems of War is. So now it's decided! During Blaugust I'm definitely going to have a post on exactly that.

As for the other search terms . . . there's some outdated information, some good information, and some information that I haven't gone into detail on yet, but I do have some good links to where you can get information:

Grizzleheim books: https://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/2009/11/where-are-all-grizzleheim-books.html
Grizzleheim quest tree: http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/Quest:Grizzleheim_Quest_Tree#axzz5v9yzYOzF
How to get to Krokotopia: https://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/2009/03/google-searches-answered.html
Wizard101 Mannequins: https://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/2009/06/tons-of-exclusives-mannequins-go-live.html
Emperor's Retreat: https://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-do-i-solve-puzzle-in-emperors.html
Star School Boosts: http://www.wizard101central.com/forums/showthread.php?459453-Boost-Resist-Chart
Wizard101 Fishing: https://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/2014/07/fishing-wizard101s-test-realm-is-live.html
Gardeners in Wizard101: https://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/2010/12/where-are-gardener-moles-in-wizard101.html

I really like using that Search Keywords tool for finding out at least why people come to my page, and in my case it's 80 percent to find out old school information about Wizard101. And, now I have a topic I can add to my list of things to write about during Blaugust.

Happy Dueling!

You know, I used to play a wider array of video games until Overwatch jumped into my life like a Winston with no cooldowns, but now I've logged ~700 hours on that single game. And I still suck at it. Well, my Reinhardt is pretty scary.

OH! Those poor fools running into my ultimate!

If you play any Overwatch recently, then you know the big talk of the town is the incoming 2-2-2 role lock change. For those of you who don't know anything about Overwatch, that means soon you'll have to declare up front in a match that you will play a dedicated role for the group, either Tank, healer, or DPS. 2-2-2 means that your group will now always have two healers, two tanks, and two DPS. It's a "beauty" of an idea that's had a "beast" of a debate, but overall people feel it's going to improve the game.

I'm sure it will . . . and if not, well, there's always Overwatch 2.

From what I understand, you'll actually do your competitive placement matches now on a per role basis, which is interesting. In my comp group I play heals about 80 percent of the time, the other 20 percent of the time I play either Mei or TORBJORN!

IT WAS TORBJORN KILLED THE BEAST!

Oh my gosh I love my new summer skin so much.

Anyway, our comp group has done a lot of switch-on-the-fly calls in the past where if a certain defensive team isn't working, one of our swaps is to a team where I play a more offensive role. It's still a 2-2-2 comp for us, but once PTR hits live, we can't do that. I'll always be playing healer. That's OK in the long run, but it feels like flexibility for the group took a big hit. On the other hand, no longer will we see a 6-DPS meme team in comp mocking us for not being able to handle them.

One cool side benefit from all this is that, now I could play Comp outside of my group of friends in a totally different role (like tank) if I wanted to and not have to worry about getting out of the SR range our comp group needs to play together . . . either in the positive or negative . . . I worry more about the negative.

There's some speculation over on the Overwatch forums that the real losers from 2-2-2 are those that only play DPS roles, since that's the most popular role to play . . . or so it seems. Will there really be 20-40 minute wait times for a game? I have no idea. Those that enjoy it say it's to be expected and will be worth the wait.

All I know is that I'll probably have to take my love for the beast, aka Torbjorn, over to the arcade where apparently the old mode of quick play will still be sticking around. That's a beautiful compromise.

Happy Dueling!

The Necromancer class in Gems of War seems to be a one trick pony for me, and that pony gallops to the hoof beat of farming souls. For those that don't know, spending souls on your troops is the main way you level them up, and it isn't cheap. You can pony up anywhere from ~4,300 to ~6,900 souls to level up one troop based on their rarity.

I've horsed around with the Necromancer class enough that I have the class's Mythic weapon, which is a pretty mean-looking Scythe.

I hear that weapon actually pairs better with the Sorcerer class, but what I use when playing the Necromancer is the Soul Blade, which is arguably a little easier to get as it's a free weapon from getting 28 gem mastery in both blue and yellow. You get gem mastery naturally as you level up vs. having to win 250 battles as a Necromancer to get Creeping Death.

The whole key to farming souls in Gems of War is jockeying characters that have the Necromancy trait.

Yes, in fact, there's a great old video by a really talented Gems of War player, and he simply used three Warlocks and a Valkyrie in his set up, but that video is old and Valkyrie has been nerfed since then.

(I'm sorry, I can't stop with the "lame" horse puns.)

The best team I've seen so far comes from Sinnycool Games (Side note: wouldn't the name Whinnycool games be better?), but I can't use it . . . because getting the Pharos-Ra elite troop is a "bit" out of reach for me at the moment. (You need to "rein in" 4,000 diamonds by hitting the dungeon boss game every day for about three months)

If you're looking for the ultimate soul farming set up, that video above is probably what you're looking for . . . he even goes over how you should find the pet named "moon moon" and level him up for bonus souls.

But, again, I don't have Moon Moon . . . and you, kind reader, probably don't either.

So what do I use?

I use three troops with the Necromancy trait that also have the widest color variety. For me that's Soul Blade with Necromancer wearing Celestial Armor, Warlock, Keeper of Souls, and Flesh Golem.

With this team I can consistently hit the max cap on souls and survive moderately well. Basically you want to charge soul blade 3 times, and with all the other bonuses from being a necromancer and wearing Celestial armor, it does pretty well.

I'm sure your mileage may vary and there are a lot of builds with more horse power than this, but this seems to work pretty well for me.

Now the real question is . . . is there a necromancer build that *isn't* about soul farming, and how does that work? That's a mustang to ride on a different day!

Happy Dueling!

Do it! Just Google the word "Barrowmaze" and you'll find more links than you would think possible of reviews and information about this particular Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It's legendary. It's the ultimate Dungeon Crawl in a huge Mega-Dungeon that just goes on and on.

This is old-school role playing at its finest.

The Barrowmaze was originally written by one Dr. Greg Gillespie. He's an Associate Professor at the University of Western Ontario and actually teaches a class there on pop culture and role playing games . . . and apparently is a blogger himself!

The Barrowmaze gained a lot of renewed attention when it was re-released in the D&D 5e ruleset thanks to a successful kickstarter, but the one thing most geeks know about the Barrowmaze is that 1- It's deadly and 2- The most impressive part of this dungeon is its sheer size. When they say "mega-dungeon" they aren't kidding. You can easily get 100 long play sessions out of this dungeon.

I'm playing through this one with the infamous Jeff Toney as our DM and a few other cool people like The Art of Warlord, Vanessa Mythdust, Professor Falmea and Decius. (My word, we all got crazy handle names except for Jeff Toney -- I guess that's not true, technically his handle for fun work stuff is The Gobbler King.)

Jeff DMs this game every other Thursday for us on Roll20.net, and because of that is redrawing the entire map for his campaign to fit the Roll20 format.

In the Barrowmaze, you begin as level 0 characters who basically die if you breathe on them the wrong way. In the beginning of the campaign, it's best to try to keep your distance from monsters and get lucky with treasure until you get 100 xp. At that point, you're level 1 and Jeff will make you a personalized token for your Barrowmaze adventures.

My character is the green half-orc named "Gumby." He's a fighter that uses a spear and is about as smart as a bag of rocks. Which reminds me . . . another thing about your Barrowmaze characters, they are made with 6 3d6 rolls straight in a line from Strength through Charisma and what you get is what you get.

Our game this week was pretty great. We managed to fight a couple rats and got surprised by a couple of ghouls who burst through the door below when they heard the scuffle. Gumby was in great form and saved the level zero characters from being eaten alive by rats with a brave action surge and taking a risky opportunity attack from one of the Ghouls. If Gumby would have blown his Constitution saving throw, he would have been paralyzed and pretty much a tasty snack for the Ghouls.

This is actually my second time running through the Mega Dungeon. The first time was over lunch breaks once a week at work for around a year until our DM, Ben Durbin, wasn't able to host anymore. It's so huge that there's no way to memorize your way around and it's easy to get lost.

Needless to say, it's a good dungeon and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to pick up a new adventure. You can get it at Drive Thru RPG.

Happy Dueling!

A lot of the people that read my blog from the Wizard101 Community know exactly who Dalia Falmea is, but during Blaugust, chances are I'm going to have to explain why this is awesome.

The new set for Wizards this season in Diablo 3 features FIREPOWER.

In Wizard101, the FIRE professor is Dalia Falmea.

THUS DALIA FALMEA THE FIRE WIZARD WAS BORN!!

My only disappointment . . .

SHE NEEDS TALLER HAIR!!

Since I've never really played a wizard much in Diablo 3, I figured I'd try to really push myself hard to get all my seasonal achievements done by August 18th, which is when this season ends. That's super super soon, and I'm super super late to the party by deciding *now* is the time I want to go for a seasonal set, but I am happy that as of last night, I completed Chapter 1 of the seasonal achievements!

Go me! I'm going to have to really push myself to get those achievements done, but I figure enough adventure grinding should help me get that soon enough.

Time to KILL ALL THE THINGS!

Happy Dueling!

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was pretty great. I got spammed with the usual happy birthday messages on Facebook and Twitter, received cards from family, ate cake, and got a few presents. Couldn't be happier.

Check out the super cool Lucio figure I got!

He's chillin' out on some comics and by a homemade card from my kids. They know me so well. I AM Magical!

There was a mini-gencon going on at a local comic book store on Saturday called Dragon's Lair and we went there for my birthday and hung out for a bit and bought some stuff for my birthday. Also hit an Italian place (it's tradition to go eat Italian on my birthday) and got the worlds largest bowl of spaghetti for the family. I wish I had a picture of that, but instead all I have is this picture of me giving the side-eye to the side-eye picture of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield. Thank you Twitter for helping us solve that mystery.

I also played A LOT of Diablo 3 over the weekend . . . as evidenced by my post from yesterday, but I have new NEWS on my progress. Come to find out after burning though Chapter 2, I already had most of Chapter 3's achievements done! So now Dalia Falmea is a freaking max level TERROR OF FIRE! And pretty awesome looking too.

Funny enough, there's no photoshopping going on in this picture, her hat actually does a mini-Falmea hair all on its own. I mean . . . it could be bigger, but I'll take it.

GUYS, lemme tell you what it's like to drive this character now. It's amazing. It feels so good to just chuck fireballs out and completely destroy everything in my path . . . and walking behind me as well. Anyone who played Diablo I will fondly recount the pleasures of kiting enemies through firewall. It feels a bit like that, but way better.

I captured a bit of game play footage of me wrecking the place on Torment II setting:

(Sorry about going the wrong direction there at first . . . I can't tell you how many times I've gone the wrong way to Mahgda from that waypoint.) I even got to "show off" the main cool feature of that set at around the 3 minute 25 second point of the video: every 60 seconds, when you die, you are reborn like a phoenix and do damage to those around you. It makes me feel super brave in the face of danger. LOL! And of course, the constant barrage of meteors is super apropos for Falmea.

So now it's just a question of if I can put in the time to get Chapter 4 done in time. I've got a lot of other video games to play this Blaugust, so . . . we'll see? I am having fun with Diablo 3 for sure though!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes!

Happy Dueling!

Back in September I started talking about a "comic"(although hard pressed to call this a comic . . . more like a really cool D&D resource in comic book style) I had discovered at a local game shop. Rolled and Told! I even talked about how happy I was to pick up issue one. Then . . . silence . . . sorry about that.

I had been posting a lot back then, and then posts just sputtered out. The kids were back in school and life got busy. Well now that Blaugust is here and I need content to post about, here's a "catching up" post on what happened since then when it comes to Rolled and Told.

1- I now own every issue save for one.

Such a bummer I'm missing that June 2019 issue. Cash was tight that month, and I thought I'd have no trouble picking up the issue early in July . . . only to forget about it and then miss my opportunity. I've been to 3 local comic stores so far and no one has it. Sigh. Now the hunt begins.

2- I was also psyched to see they put out a hard cover book with the first six months of the Rolled and Told comics PLUS extra content you can't get from owning the comics alone. I kinda want that.

3- Now the real question . . . have I actually run any of the adventures from these books? YES . . . well, one. I've run the Thunderlock Barcrawl adventure from the very first free promotional comic (aka Issue zero).

It was pretty great. I incorporated it as a side quest for an adventure on the high seas for my group that I DM for. Basically the captain was bargaining with my players for their wages on the ship and then gave them an offer they couldn't refuse . . . her best signing bonus . . . all they had to do was win the Thunderlock Barcrawl.

Running the Thunderlock Barcrawl felt very much like running an escape room adventure for D&D characters. It's a series of action packed trap rooms that took a full two sessions to get through.

There's a long hallway of shifting floorboards, flame traps, acid pools and stun spores . . . all while a large iron spiked wall slowly closes in on the party
There's an animatronic owl bear
There's a room with flying skulls
There's a false-floored treasure room
There's a room that's shooting arrows out at you from every direction
There's a room with false levers that will send your party plummeting into a mist of doom
There's a room with laughing faces that spew magic spells at you while you try to pull a lever.
There's a room full of giant rats and a giant rat generator machine.

It's crazy, and it's fun, and the group made it through this whole nonsense and got their big signing bonus on the ship. HOORAY!

They were absolutely exhausted by the time it was all done . . . kind of like how you feel when you partake in a live-action escape room with a group of friends in real life.

As a DM for this, I have to say it was super confusing to have to keep track of all the initiative orders for all the traps. Typically in our games we work intiative in such a way that you just go in a big circle . . . either clockwise or counterclockwise based on who got the biggest numbers for their initiative rolls. For this adventure, I had to do it by the book because I had flame traps going off on 5 inititive while blunted arrows shot out on a 10 initiative, etc. It made things a little hectic for me.

They were all 4th level characters, so they really had nothing to fear and by the end they had figured out the smoke and mirrors of the encounter. If they had all been level one characters, I'm sure they would have never made it through. That would be a tough challenge for sure.

On the plus side, it was fun and very unique, and it was funny seeing Jeff Toney rage a bit when they couldn't find the fourth lever to get them through the final door. He was like, "Just drink a giant strength potion and rip the door down!" Nope. I wouldn't let 'em do that. You gotta figure out the puzzle, adventurers.

Anyway, I'm really digging this series and would love to run more adventures from Rolled and Told. These are chock full of one-shots that would be perfect for running over lunch at work.

Maybe someday!

Happy Dueling!

About 3 months ago a gaggle of Designers (a drove of designers? an ambush of Designers?) that sit near me in the Mobile game section of KingsIsle all started raving about a Steam game they were playing called Slay the Spire.

I'd listen to them as they started talking "the crazy talk" about a donut guy, slime guy, suit of armor dude, etc. Back then I didn't know they were referencing the bosses in the game because I was late to the party in usual fashion.

BUT NO LONGER! I am now well versed in Slime Boss, Donu, and The Champ. But, let's face the facts, I'm still a noob when it comes to the game.

The game fools you by running the credits very early on after you beat Act 2 the first time with what appears to be your only character. After this, you open up two more characters and a couple of different play modes.

From what I understand the game isn't over until you enter a separate new game mode called "Ascension" in which you run that 20 more times to face the final level. Listen, I ain't even close to being done yet!

I can see why my co-workers liked this game so much. It's simple to play and deceptively hard. It's a deck builder, inserting a nice flair of randomness where you can royally screw yourself by picking horrible cards and artifacts, yet reduces RNG a touch by giving a good base of predictable cards, a shopkeeper to sell you essentials, and somewhat reliable pathways to the boss.

Last night I spent some time playing Act I as "The Silent" which is a female rogue type character who wears a skull on her head and works in the rogue-like ways of poisoning and shivs. I've yet to beat Act II with her let alone Act III . . . and I don't even know what Act IV is like yet.

Anyway, I recorded my run so you can see the game I'm ranting about here. It took me a good half hour to work through Act I and I ended the run with only 2 health left. Gotta love the close ones.

For me, Slay the Spire is one of those games that just kinda sits on my desktop until I'm in the right mood for it. When I play it, I know I'm going to be there for at least an hour.

It's a fun game and I'm glad I listened to the other Designers and checked it out!

Happy Dueling!

Ever since I first heard about Project Gorgon, I was fascinated by it. It would have been four years ago when their kickstarter was in full swing back in August 2015.

That happens to me . . . I get fascinated with something but never buy into it, you know? I'm not one to bite for Kickstarters unless I personally know the person. Speaking of personally knowing the person, Eric Heimburg and Sandra Powers (the muscle behind building this game) seem like people I'd like to know. Husband and wife team that worked on Asheron's Call together . . . and engineers?! Awesome. In my mind, they would be fun people to get to know.

I mean . . . watching Eric talk back in 2015 about making flashy loot effects drop from loot pigs was friggen' adorable.

So for this Blaugust I thought I'd actually download the game and give it a run. There's a Demo version on Steam that allows you to play until your skills are level 15. There are certain features that are locked off from demo players like you can't trade with other players who have set up a bazaar stall . . . yup, you heard me right . . . just like in EQ you have lines of players selling stuff. it's really kinda strange and wonderful to think this is a "new" game.

Oh btw, yes . . . my character has a tail. I'm a Raksasha. The game only has 3 character races from what I can tell (at least in the demo), and I'm a purple'y hued Raksasha named Mistermeowsiepaws.

It's a face only an old Everquest player could love to be honest.

The game starts you off on an island with minimal directions and a goal . . . to get off the island. It warns you that swimming will result in a shark attack, so don't do that. I didn't do that.

I kind of loved this noobie island. It was full of wolves, skeletons, and rats. I even tamed one of the rats by tempting him with cheese. That's genius and I'm a sucker for pets . . . even if it is an ugly rat.

I also picked a lot of mushrooms. It was the one ground spawn that seemed incredibly plentiful, and while I picked it, I leveled up in Mycology.

The best thing though was I found a quest to get me off the island by using teleporters. My friends, I was used to modern MMOs holding my hand and I just "believed" that as I touched these four teleporters, and they gave me their number, that the game would just remember it and I'd complete the quest to basically find the telephone number for the island. Nope. Instead I was asked to type in the code, and then the game did the most magical thing . . . it opened up a notepad and basically told me in not so many words, "yo, we have this cool feature called notepad inside our game for you to write stuff down like this."

Hilarious. Do you know in Everquest how many times I would have killed for a notepad in game?

As for community events, you know what they've got? Open mic poetry on Saturday afternoons. I kid you not. *hand slams down on desk* Now THAT'S something I've got to see!

So there you have it . . . a new game with a shiny old skin and a bit of kooky charm.

My next goal in Project Gorgon? To make it to the giant hand without being killed by giant praying mantis.

Happy Dueling!

The first interview I ever did on The Friendly Necromancer was with the amazing Nelson Everhart, the composer for Wizard101. I did that because for me, the music of Wizard101 was of outstanding quality and brought an amazing soundscape that fit perfectly with the world. I also did that because I'm a songwriter myself . . .albeit not to Nelson's abilities, but a songwriter nonetheless. I love music and where some people turn off the music in video games and keep on the soundtrack of their lives, I generally keep videogame music ON and enjoy it!

Every once in a while, a videogame has such distinctive and great music that you can't help but take notice. Today I want to talk a bit about the music found in Terraria because . . . I LOVE IT. I will happily dig myself down into certain death of the world below the surface to the sweet tunes of Scott Lloyd Shelly of Resonance Array any day of the week.

First things first, if you don't know much about Terraria, take a quick look at the review I wrote up about it back in 2016.

Second things second, you can buy this music in two places:

1- Bandcamp

2- Steam as a DLC to Terraria

Now . . . just take a moment and listen to the main overworld theme:

. . . and then when it turns to night

Beautiful. It's got that same 16-bit aesthetic that Terraria has and yet sounds absolutely gorgeous.

All said there are well over 40 tracks of music associated with each biome or event of Terraria, and you can find pretty much all of these tracks on the wiki for Terraria.

Scott Lloyd Shelly seems to be an interesting person. An American living in Australia and most notably was the composer for all the Crocodile Hunter episodes to most of the world, but he's also the guy behind the music in the Reader Rabbit video games my kids used to play when they were little!

Loved this interview that was on his website about how he got into the biz and how he got involved with some of the projects like Crocodile Hunter:

Honestly, if it weren't for the charming music in Terraria, I probably wouldn't love the game as much. Good on you Scott Lloyd Shelly and good on Re-logic for contracting him for the game!

Happy Dueling

And as they say in Little Einsteins . . . mission completion.

The Firebird thanks you all . . .

Dalia Falmea has completed her season's journey in Diablo III, earned the Firebird's Finery Set, and is looking absolutely fabulous!

It took several hours of play, but eventually I had checked off all the right boxes save for one.

I had defeated all the bosses, raced through several Nephilim Rifts, and jumped through several flaming hoops until all that was left was to teach my Jewelry Crafter 5 recipes. The only way to get these recipes seems to be finishing Adventure campaigns and gaining one of those fancy Horadric Caches that Tyreal gives you.

So Adventure campaigns I DID! After grinding those this morning I finally had my last jewelry crafting recipe and BAM . . .

. . . Dalia was wearing her best Firebird's Finery.

Is it me or does that last effect of the set feels a little . . . unimpressive but totally needed. If I was to go on and finish more seasonal achievements, I'd need to delve deeper into the higher difficulties and to do that you need all the extra damage you can get. But it doesn't feel . . . FUN. Like I would hope that a final effect on a set would make me actually turn into a firebird.

What if it did that? What if it made the Wizard's Archon form a firebird? It could even behave the exact same as it does mechanically, but it just makes you look like a freaking firebird that breathes a beam of fire instead of a beam of energy. I would love that! It would make playing post-set completion so much more fun!

Anyway, I digress. I'm just happy to have completed the season's 4 chapters and collected the pet, portrait, and final gear in the set. I think Falmea would be proud. :)

Happy Dueling!

Yesterday when I sat down in the evening to play games, I just had an overwhelming case of the blahs. You know what I mean? You look at every game on your PC and you're like . . . meh . . . I don't really want to play any of those right now.

And then . . . I realized there was a game I got my kids so very long ago that I had never played but yet wanted to play. So I yelled upstairs to the kids, "YO KIDS! Where's the Switch?!" My 15 year old responded that he had it up with him but he wasn't using it . . . battery life was at 85% even!

LES DO THIS!

Here's the thing about Rabbids. (My daughter made this great analogy for me one time.) They're like just one step above Minions in cheese factor, but because they came before Minions, they're way better. The original is always better.

By the way, they totally struck a childhood fear for me right here . . .

See what I'm saying about the Minions comparison? Anyway, when I was 5 years old my sisters (who were all at least 10 years older than me) threatened to put me inside the dryer if I didn't do what they asked me to. I tattled on them. They got in trouble, and I got to hear my mom give them a long lecture about how that would cause skin burns and head trauma and lead to permanent brain damage. The lecture my mom gave them made it worse for me . . . I was like . . . my sisters were trying to kill me! Of course they were just messing around, they'd never put me in the dryer. *hugs sisters* Still . . . childhood fear . . . shiver.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is in the tactical genre. I watched over the shoulder of my kids while they played a couple years ago, so I was already a bit familiar with how this worked. You move a number of squares to position yourself behind blocks, do slide attacks on the "bad" Rabbids, and shoot 'em with a blaster from a hidden position. That isn't always as easy as it sounds. These are quality puzzles to sort out.

Can I just say how much I love the Peach Rabbid character? Look at that. She tossed her wig and crown in disgust and walked off the screen because she was so disappointed in my performance there. Also, she wears it better than original peach hands down.

Judge on little peach rabbid!

The game isn't purely tactical based, there are world puzzles as well. You run around discovering hidden gems and items and playfully move across the map through tubes, over bridges, and all the other great things like that.

Great game! This totally cured the blahs yesterday for me! I think this will end up being my go to Switch game for a while when "I ain't feelin' it" on the PC.

Happy Dueling!

Yesterday we took my 15-year-old out for some parent-guided driving lessons. There's a great spot about 20 minutes away from our home that basically works like a mini-driving course. No one's out there except for other parents and kids trying to learn how to drive, so it's a very chill way to learn.

While we were driving I asked the question . . . is there any kind of driving simulator wii game? In my mind I was thinking a bit about the jogging game in wii sports. You know the one . . . where you just sit and jog in place while holding the wii remote?

My kids had the most ridiculous answer . . . no . . . but there is this VR game called Desert Bus Simulator. I'm like . . . whaaaaat?

So I start digging up information and find the most incredible story from The New Yorker. To paraphrase it, Penn and Teller had an unreleased video game for the Sega CD that was half cruel joke called Desert Bus Simulator where you drive a bus with a slight pull to the right for eight hours, simulating the drive from Tucson to Las Vegas. If you made it all the way there, you got one point. If you crashed at any time, you got towed back to the start in real time.

The game disappeared until a few copies popped up here and there and one landed in the hands of the comedy group Loading Ready Run where they played this game for the Child's Play charity and created an amazing phenomenon known as Desert Bus for Hope and through 2017 raised $4.5 million dollars for charity.

Why have I never even HEARD of this?

And my kids were right! There is a new VR adaptation of this game on Steam. There's also a page of Roblox simulators and a bunch of Desert Bus simulator apps on the play store. Ridiculous!

It's on several lists as the most boring game ever made. A cult classic. And I've never heard of it . . .

Well maybe you were in the same boat (or bus) as me. If you were, consider yourself now educated about Desert Bus Simulator! If you ever play this game, you've got both my pity and respect.

Happy Dueling!

Yesterday's blog post about Desert Bus kind of broke out into a discussion over Twitter about Sega CD and specifically my co-worker Joel's idea to have a Sega CD Party at work. YES! I'M IN!

Unfortunately my Sega CD went belly up several years ago, but I still have my games. Here's what my small stash of games is looking like.

So I don't even remember a few of those, but the three games I really loved out of that collection were as follows:

- Double Switch. OH MY GOSH SUCH A GOOD GAME! At least I think I remember it being a good game. How could any game that features the acting talents of Corey Heim be bad?

- Dungeon II Skullkeep. So, there was this season in my life where I didn't have any kids yet and my mom had hooked us up with a big box of smoked pork chops for Christmas. I'd come home from college, cook up a pork chop, and play the heck out of Dungeon II Skullkeep. It was a first person perspective dungeon crawl where you move one block at a time. These days I'd rather play The Legend of Grimrock, which is in the same vein as this game, but more modern.

- Dragon's Lair. For obvious reasons. It was a childhood favorite and when it came out for the Sega CD, I lost my mind. Now you can get it on the app store for 5 bucks. It was absolutely mesmerizing as a kid in the arcade.

The other games were ok . . . I think I remember something about Mad Dog Mcree being a fun game. Wild Woody (I honestly can't believe that game's name) was kind of an earthworm jim type of a game if I remember right. Wheel of Fortune I think was simply unique at the time because of the video component?

The really big question I have is . . . what the heck happened to my copy of Sewer Shark?!?! That was the game that convinced me to buy a Sega CD in the first place. I was playing drums in a band and the guitarist had just bought a Sega CD, and we played Sewer Shark for hours at his house. I was sold.

Anyway, SEGA CD PARTY!!! I'd love to play a few of these games again. Let's make that happen.

Happy Dueling!

Gems of War added a brand new Delve into the game about 3 weeks ago called Amanithrax. This delve centers around all things mushroom and disease . . . and it makes me crave a pepperoni and mushroom pizza when I play there.

It's kind of cool when Gems of War adds Delves to the game because you get a little quest line along with it. in Amanithrax's quest line you join one of Gems of Wars most notable-weird-drunk-old-guy NPCs on a romp through a giant mushroom forest. Brian the Lucky is under the belief he will find a special periwinkle-colored mushroom here that will bestow upon him magical powers that will make him no longer the forgotten about troop in your selection of troops and instead be the greatest warrior in all of Krystara.

Of course, he got the information from a very back-stabby source, so it's obviously not going to end well. As you stomp through the mushroom forest you discover that the boss of the Delve is a goopy-looking goblin named King Gobtruffle, and Brian is absolutely certain that Gobtruffle's lair is where he'll find his periwinkle mushroom.

Brian makes several toasts to oddly named made up Gods along the way like Jaylanstore, God of Regicide and Fungolfin, God of Mushrooms.

He also overshares about the reason he knows so much about fungus . . . eww.

Eventually you reach the final stopping point and face the mighty King Gobtruffle, who also appears to be the king of "F" alliteration: "Face my fungal fury, fools!"

Unfortunately Brian doesn't find his Periwinkle Mushroom here, but he's not one to lose hope.

Ahh, Brian. I like the quixotic cut of your jib, sir. Here's a toast to Astaea, goddess of innocence!

The theme of this new delve reminds me of a certain adventure I had in D&D. If you've ever played through Out of the Abyss, you'll know what I'm talking about. Your group of adventurers will most likely at one point take a romp through a town made of living mushrooms only to eventually see the summoning of Zuggtmoy herself, the demon queen of Fungi. It was a pretty epic adventure in the underdark where you get terribly lost and run madly away from horrible gods as they are summoned up from the different factions that live underground.

I wonder if one of the Gems of War Devs played through that D&D campaign as well!

Anyway, I'm out of time today, but perhaps tomorrow I'll talk a bit more about the enemies encountered here and the troops you can win by playing through Amanithrax. I keep wondering how I can put one of these Delve troops to good use. Perhaps I could explore that a bit as well.

Happy Dueling!

Yesterday I talked a bit about the Lore behind the new Amanithrax Delve in Gems of War. Today I'd thought I'd talk a bit about a couple of teams I made surrounding the new troops you can obtain from Amanithrax.

Essentially there are four units you can get from Amanithrax:

As you can see, it's a lot of mushroom this and mushroom that.

I leveled up 3 of the 4 troops and even slotted 3 traits on the Fungomancer. To be honest, I'm still thinking about how to craft a good team around disease- and poison-based mushroom troops, but here are a couple of builds I came up with last night that were interesting.

~~

1- Venbarak, Fungomancer, King Gobtruffle, and Plaguelord with Spark Rocket 2.0.16

Venbarak -- Both teams feature the stylings of Venbarak. I just really like the 75% chance to disease all units that Venbarak brings to the table, also, when fully traited, Venbarak does double skull damage against any diseased enemy troop.

Ven's ability charges relatively quickly and 75% of the time gets that disease cooking quickly, which not only sets up the rest of the characters in this build, but by the very nature of disease, cancels any traits on the opponent team.

Fungomancer -- Straight outta Amanithrax, the Fungomancer has the ability (50% of the time) to change an enemy opponent into one of those gimpy little Mushroom Men. Let me tell you, I'd rather face down a Mushroom Man over a mythic troop any day.

I also found that most people haven't really leveled up their Mushroom Men troop yet, so it's a big whammy when that ability works from my mans Fungomancer.

King Gobtruffle -- Unfortunately because he's mana blocked on Blue mana from Venbarak, he charges a little slowly in this build. What I found myself doing eventually was holding on to Venbarak's ability to unblock mana for King Gobtruffle and then doing a big 1-2-punch of abilities once BOTH Venbarak and Gobtruffle were all charged up.

If you can do that, there's a really good chance that the board will become a sea of Brown and Green gems and another really good chance that King Gobtruffle will get into a charge cycle where his ability pops again and again, which is absolutely devastating.

I WISH I had the traitstones to fully trait him out. If I did, he'd also disease enemies on 4+ gem matches.

Plaugelord with Spark Rocket 2.0.16 -- I had never leveled the Plaugelord class before last night, but seeing as the class is all about spreading the disease condition, I gave it a go and managed to unlock the 10th level talent tree feature to disease enemies on 4+ gem matches (just imagine the power if you had both this and Gobtruffle's 4+ gem match trait)

As for the Spark Rocket, well, it's not optimal, but it does fill the void of Red and Yellow gems. If it exploded a few more gems, it'd be about perfect. As it is now, it just does a bit of extra damage and helps get the board moving . . . slightly.

~~

2- Venbarak, Exploadstool, King Gobtruffle, and Plaguelord with Anvil of Might

Venbarak -- Again, the ability to disease all enemies is super attractive when paired with disease troops like those from Amanithrax. The final trait in Venbarak's line of traits is really what it's all about in this build. What makes this build disappointing to me is that it's more about Venbarak than about King Gobtruffle . . . c'est le vie

Exploadstool -- This troop does everything the Spark Rocket wasn't doing for me in the previous build. It takes out 3 gems, poisons enemies if they're diseased, and gets mana rolling in. It's definitely not as fun as turning enemies into Mushroom men, but it works well to get the board moving.

King Gobtruffle -- Because Exploadstool is helping generate mana, even though Gobtruffle is COMPLETELY mana blocked by Venbarak and Exploadstool, it feels easier to charge Gobtruffle up, which seems counter intuitive. I'm still not sold on having him in the third position though . . . or even in this line up, which is sad.

Plaguelord with Anvil of Might -- The Anvil of Might in this build is used to give Venbarak more armor and attack. The fact that Venbarak is doing double damage against diseased opponents makes the attack buff from the Anvil of Might super sexy. Plus the extra armor making him more survivable in the top spot is nice.

The Anvil of Might fills in the red and brown gem void in the build, so . . . it all kinda works.

~~

Out of the two builds I came up with, I think I like the second one better. It just works more cohesively as a whole. Although, yes, in both builds, it feels like King Gobtruffle isn't the star of the show. There's gotta be a build out there that puts him front and center, you know?

I'll keep working on my builds, but if you have any additional insights or comments, please feel free to leave them!

Happy Dueling!

I've been neglecting Wizard101 lately, and it was time to head back into the game to see where it was that I left off.

The first thing I saw when I logged back in last night was our friend Harold Argleston staring at me with his tired dog eyes with a look on his face that almost said . . . y'all had to put the entrance to the new event behind me, didn't you?

Yup. Oh that's right! Last time I logged in to Wizard101 I was doing the Fire Decathalon event where you run through three floors of monsters using only treasure cards to fight and your health and mana have been reduced to almost nothing as you try to earn your epic gauntlets of power. It's a great event. The Myth Decathalon was going on last night, so I ran through stage one for kicks before saying goodbye to Harold Argleston.

I still had ice treasure cards in my deck, so what the heck . . .

Following my quest arrow brought me all the way back to the distant lands of the Aero Plains where I like pleasure and I like pain . . . but mostly the Stephen Tyler jokes are on point. I ended up handing in a quest to Helena, who wanted me to revive some Justicar with Stormade, which is full of electrolytes. That totally sounds like the favorite drink of the Nimbari.

She also had me catch some snipes. Yup, I went snipe hunting. Y'all know what "snipe hunting" is, right? That's when you go camping and your friends tell you that you're going to catch a snipe in your pillowcase and then they ditch you in the forest . . . if you ever wondered what a snipe looks like, I guess we got you covered.

Can't tell much from that picture, but I'm sure it tastes like wild goose.

So Velo city appears to be the place in the story where you finally get to participate in Whirly Burly. At work I got to try out the mini-game, and lost horribly to the seasoned Wizard101 Designers. As for what I did last night, all I did was beat up a couple of rowdy Whirly Burly fans and put 'em in their place. But it didn't stop 'em from being salty to each other.

By that time I had dinged level 128, it was time to head to bed. In fact, I was so tired I started drifting off with my finger on the "W" key. That never ends well.

Good times in Wizard101 last night! I'm excited to finally try Whirly Burly inside the game instead of on paper. Can't believe I was this close that whole time.

Happy Dueling!

Here it is! All these months after Empyrea Part 2 was released in Wizard101, and I finally step my way into the whirlyburly ring.

The only thing going through my head right now is that this would have been super fun to play with the community on KI Live. Whirly Burly matches where I get to give a little bit of my sports commentator flair and play against the amazing fans of KingsIsle's livestream would have been the best!

Anyway, yesterday I spent more time in Wizard101 where I had some time talking with Coach Landri (nice homage there writers, nice homage) about the ONLY entertainment Aero Dwarves have in Empyrea.

So I walked up to the WhirlyBurly stand, got my instructions, and steadily lost my first geame. It took me a game to refamiliarize myself with how things work in this minigame. The order of operations where you select a card, then select a player was just a tad strange at first, and things have changed a bit from the pencil and paper days, but not by much. (There's no dragon in the middle directing which team goes first this round)

If you're looking for instructions on how to play the game, I gotta give some props to Swordroll for writing this magnificent guide.

To sum it up quickly: You have a team of three that moves along a hex map claiming territory based on cards that define movement. During 9 rounds of play, try to sneak past the other teams to grab their chests and use a rock-paper-scissors style sytem to defeat the other team's troops and send them back to their home base while scoring more points for yourself in the process.

That's WhirlyBurly in a nutshell.

It's one of those deceptively simple games that gets in your head. Also, one of those games where you can go from completely winning to last place in a single round.

It'd be nice to get to coach status so I could get one of those super cool soccer jerseys from the faction vendor, but I'm so mediocre at the game (and it requires a good bit of luck) that it'd take some serious time investment.

At the end of the day, I'm just happy another minigame was put into a world as a quest destination. It's so cool when the Wizard101 team is able to make that happen.

Happy Dueling!

The details on Diablo III season 18 have been announced! Just click on over to this page where you can read all the details about the Season of Triune. (Funny enough, I was actually in a guild named Triune in Everquest for a while.)

The lineup of costumes is kinda hilarious . . . it's all dark and gothy except for the monk on the left, who apparently just came back from Burning Man where I imagine he was called "Happy Blue Dance Angel" and did the Running Man for 10 days straight outside a tent dedicated to "the water gods."

Meanwhile everyone else on the lineup is just straight up evil villians who have a secret base inside a Goth club in Canada.

So what are my plans for season 18? Oh I'm in club goth 100 percent. I'm gonna play the heck out of the Demon Hunter and cast up so many animals I'll be a fricken zoo keeper. I mean, that seems to be what the Embodiment of the Marauder set is all about at first look. The Companion ability summons all six types of animals at once? Sounds hilarious!

The Season of Triune seems to be bringing with it a new feature where circles of power will appear all over the battlefield

Triune of Love (Power): Players in the circle receive a 100% damage bonus while active

Triune of Determination (Resource Reduction): Players in the circle receive a 50% discount on resources spent while active

Triune of Creation (Cooldown Reduction): While standing in an active circle, any skills currently on cooldown come off of cooldown more quickly

So, we'll see how that plays with Season 18 goes live on August 23rd! Can't wait to throw my Demon Hunter into the ring this season and summon pets like pets have never been summoned before!

Now the hard part . . . choosing a name and a theme . . . Dian Fossey? Jane Goodall? Griffin from the movie Zookeeper?

But let's get real about expectations here . . . it definitely won't be as fun as playing Clarence's Zookeeper Caper on Cartoon Network's game site.

You gotta play Zookeeper Caper . . .

Happy Dueling!

Blaugust -- Prep Week Thoughts from The Friendly Necromancer

Blaugust Prep Week -- Looking for inspiration? Use your Tools!

#Blaugust2019 Day 1-- It was Overwatch killed the beast

#Blaugust2019 Day 2 -- Gems of War Necromancer Build

#Blaugust2019 Day 3 -- Barrowmaze Delving on Roll20

#Blaugust2019 Day 4 -- Diablo 3 Featuring Dalia Falmea, Chapter 1

#Blaugust2019 Day 5 -- Birthday Recap . . . so much Diablo 3

#Blaugust2019 Day 6 -- Catching up with Rolled and Told

#Blaugust2019 Day 7 -- Slayin' them Spires!

#Blaugust2019 Day 8 -- Project Gorgon Making the Old New Again

#Blaugust2019 Day 9 -- The Music of Terraria Brings me Back Every Time

#Blaugust2019 Day 10 -- Season 17, that's a spicy wrap!

#Blaugust2019 Day 11 -- Fighting the Blahs . . . with Rabbids?

#Blaugust2019 Day 12 -- Speaking of the Blahs, Desert Bus Simulator?

#Blaugust2019 Day 13 -- Sega CD Party!

#Blaugust2019 Day 14 -- King Gobtruffle, the Gems of War Fun Guy!

#Blaugust2019 Day 15 -- Vexxed by Amanithrax

#Blaugust2019 Day 16 -- When Last We Left our Wizards . . .

#Blaugust2019 Day 17 -- Givin' it a Whirl

#Blaugust2019 Day 18 -- Diablo III Season 18 announced