Revisiting WOW Cataclysm

I have many fond memories of the 2010 World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm. It was my last two year of college and the last time that I was able to spend a good amount of time gaming. I was in a great guild that I will play with on and off over the next 9 years. I was part of their raid team for 2 raid releases and had a blast. In 2011 I got to attend Blizzcon and meet up with several of my guildmates as well as dozens of players on our server, Illidan. It may be the rose colored glasses but Cataclysm will always be one of my favorite expansions because of the relationships that I built and those memories of kicking butt.

For the past several months, I’ve been playing on the WOW private server Apollo. Instead of playing one of my tried and true class, I dove into something new to me. I created a Night Elf Druid which is something that I have never done before (I know! It’s a shock to most people when they find out that I’m a girl). I spent my time exploring the zone that had been completely changed due to the wrath of Deathwing and to my delight. I realized that this was my first time leveling in these zones, even though I’ve been playing World of Warcraft intermittently since the game was initially launched. I had the pleasure of floating around a flooded Thousand Needles and got to explore a wonderfully revamped Ungoro Crater along with many more new and improved areas. Experiencing these zones for the first time made WOW seem like a brand new game.

Of course by the time I got to the end of my leveling experience I discovered that I wasn’t really interested in the gear grind and the scheduled raiding that typically goes into endgame raiding on private servers. I spent most of my time farming and leveling up professions and trying to make a bit of money. One of the ways that I measure success in an MMO is how well I can make money in the game. If nothing else, this experience on the private server drove me back to play retail WoW so that I could further explore the early zones and have my progress saved forever on my 15 year old account. If I’m going to be leveling up characters for fun, I might as well be unlocking heritage armor on my allied race characters!

As a final gesture, I split my remaining gold between those folks in my guild that were kind enough to answer my dumb questions and make me feel included. Enjoy the gold! I know that you all will get more use out of it that I will.

Diving into Dauntless

Dauntless first caught my eye 2 years ago at PAX East. I tracked down one of the developers working the booth to see what this game was all about. He asked me what kind of games I played. Naturally I told him that I was big into MMOs like World of Warcraft. He went on to tell me that this game took your traditional MMO dungeon run and slimmed it down the fun part: Boss Fights! Instead of spending time tediously killing the grunts blocking your path, you are faced with one brutal enemy with interesting and challenging mechanics.

We put him through the ringer. Lava is no match for me.

Combat in Dauntless is an action system where you learn the best way to mount your attack and the best time to get the eff out of the way (ehem enrages). The zones remind me of the 3 man quickie instances in Skyforge where you are dropped in and have a quick run to the final boss. The zones are lush and there are plants that you can gather for crafting. Some of the behemoths that you fight become familiar, and as you work your way through to the harder monsters they become more sophisticated versions of the owls and lizards that you fought in your first few adventures.

Is my sick gear making you envious?

My first impression of character design was that it seemed to be a mix between Wildstar and Fortnite. The armor sets that I’ve seen so far range in aesthetics from ninja turtle to hungry viking. This game is free to play and the cash shop offers a multitude of different emotes and cosmetics for your character. The crafting system is sleek and make sense for the newbie (me). It’s a refreshing change from the sometimes overwhelming systems in your typical MMO or dungeon crawler.

The character progression systems is based on craft your armor and weapons using the skins of the behemoths that you kill. Later you get cores which grant special abilities and resistances to your armor and will be more important as you skill up. You can select 4 different special items to use during each fight. These items include healing potions, items that buff you for a period of time, grenades, and probably much more than I have access to at my current level 7.

Fighting style depends on the weapon that you are welding and can be switched quickly through your Loadout interface. This means that you are not locked into a specific play style and are free to experiment with the different weapons. I’ve come across a few bugs so far, which is to be expected since the game is currently in Open Beta. Overall I’m having a blast hunting monsters and look forward to exploring the later game, social systems and see how far my dollar goes in their cash shop. Happy hunting and see you in game!

Pax East on the cheap – where to sleep

Where do we sleep at PAX East?  The answer is the bean bag chairs!  I’m kidding of course. 

If you have ever been to Boston, you know that one of the big expenses of visiting the beautiful city is the rental of a bed, or other surface, to sleep on.   The first year that I attended PAX East we got passes just for Sunday to try it out.  This was eight years ago and we’ve been attending every year since.  This month I will be going over what I’ve learned over the years attending gaming conventions.  Last week I talked all about what to eat to save money at PAX, in this post I’ll be talking about where to sleep while you’re in Boston.  When planning a big trip like PAX East I always start with a general budget.

Sample Budget:

  • Convention Badges
  • Lodging (hotel, airbnb)
  • Flight/Train tickets
  • Driving (gas, parking at event and at hotel)
  • Meals (coffee/breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks)
  • Swag/Souvenirs
  • Taxi/UBER/T-pass (to and from airport or convention center)
Decompressing in the beanbag chairs at PAX East

Lodging: I’ve found that it’s best to make plans for where you will be staying as soon as you know the dates of the event. Usually this is before tickets go on sale. In my experience, it does not pay to wait till the last minute.

  • Hotels: The Westin Boston Waterfront is attached to the convention center but you will pay an arm and a leg to stay and eat there. I’ve found that it’s best to shop around in the surrounding area. Many of the hotels in the area have shuttles that will run from the hotel right up to the door of the convention center. You can see a list of hotels and shuttle routes here. If you find a hotel that is not listed check your maps, often there will be a shuttle stop within a block of hotels that are not listed.
  • Airbnb: If we have a group of us going we have been opting to rent a local apartment or house. Not only is this often cheaper per room than staying at a hotel, but you get a kitchen which can be used to save your group even more money! We usually try to find a rental within a mile of the convention center so that we can walk if the weather is nice but also we can take an UBER for a reasonable amount if we would rather not walk.

You may be wondering: Is it worth your time to stay further away from the convention center?  Lets first look at this as a math equation.  

Assume that we can save $100 per night by staying 8 miles away.  

UBER – $24 per day (assuming $1.50 per mile) 

Driving – $45.28 per day which is $9.28 (assuming $0.58 per mile in gas and wear & tear) + parking at the convention center $18.  The parking at the hotel would be there if you were had your car parked there the whole time or if you moved back and forth each day, so for that reason I’m not including it in my figure.

The second thing to consider is how much your time is worth.  If you value the time to travel to and from the convention center more than you value the money that you would save, you’re better off staying closer and paying a little bit more.  

 

A few things that I look for when finding a place to stay for the convention:

  • Fridge – I save some money if I’m are able to store food in our room. It increases the variety of snacks that we’re able to bring. We’ll also save leftovers from eating out and sometimes grab some beverages to keep in the room (hotel pregame anyone?) Just don’t get too loud or risk your party getting shut down.
  • Want a way to keep beer cold for just the night? You can buy a bag of ice and if you are lucky enough to have 2 sinks, fill one with ice and your beverages. A box and a plastic garbage bag can work in a pinch as a makeshift cooler.
  • Proximity to parties/convention center. There are a lot of offsite adventures to be had after the show floor closes for the day. You can find a list of parties and events outside of the convention center on the Penny Arcade forums. A lot of these events require you to sign up ahead of time. There will be unofficial meet ups all over the conference area if you want to play it by ear.
  • WiFi – Check the hotel reviews for wifi. I’ve found it to be very hit or miss depending on where you stay and if they offer upgrades to their wifi. I often rely on wifi over my cell service for streaming/tv channels and also to save data on my cell plan.

My hotel room checklist

  • Google chrome or amazon firestick. Some nights we are beat but want to watch the streamed events that are broadcasting on Twitch. We have netflix and amazone prime, so it’s nice to have easy access to those services.
  • Laptop is a must anytime we travel. It’s an easy way to read up on the companies that you are interested in visiting on the show floor.
  • Headphones if you’re staying with friends or family. There’s always one person that wants to stay up later than me, (spoiler alert: it’s my husband) the headphones allow him to watch a show or play a game without the sound keeping me up.
  • White noise machines are amazing. If you are not use to all of the city noises you will want to explore some white noise. You can also use a white noise app or the bathroom fan to help block out the sirens and car horns that drone on throughout the night.
Taking a moment on the sky-walk to soak in all that the show floor has to offer.

What’s most important is having a clean, safe place to crash for the night. Trust me when I say that you will be exhausted at the end of the day. It may be tempting to explore the convention all day and party all night but make sure you allow enough time to decompress and rest up for the days ahead.

Pax East on the cheap – all about food

It comes as no surprise that I’m a big lover of video games. When it was time to my gaming fandom to the next level many years ago, I decided to check out Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). Conventions are not cheap events to attend and it seemed like each year we were shelling out more and more for hotel, travel, and event tickets. So now, I like to head to PAX each year with a plan and a budget to keep us on track.

Sample Budget:

  • Convention Badges
  • Lodging (hotel, airbnb)
  • Flight/Train tickets
  • Driving (gas, parking at event and at hotel)
  • Meals (coffee/breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks)
  • Swag/Souvenirs
  • Taxi/UBER/T-pass (to and from airport or convention center)

In this post we are talking all about food. You will probably want to eat while attending the convention. There are a lot of options to fill your tummy in the area with different advantages and costs to each.

  • Restaurants – There is no shortage of dining establishments in the area but this would involve leaving the convention center, maybe paying for an extra coat check (you may laugh but paying a few bucks every time you leave adds up). In my opinion, the quality of food is better than eating at the convention center. You can expect to pay $15 or much, much more depending on your restaurant choice.
  • Food Trucks – If you venture just beyond the sliding glass doors there will be a variety of food trucks lined up and waiting for your business. I’ve found the food trucks to be hit or miss. My rule for food trucks is to always go for the ones with a big line. This may go against your instincts to get food as quickly as possible, but trust me when I say that you probably don’t want to eat at an empty restaurant or a dead food truck. Expect to spend $12
  • On Site – There are vendors in the convention center with a large variety of food but be prepared to wait in yet another line to eat. Last year the on site dining did not offer alcohol and I haven’t been able to find a definitive answer on if it will be offered this year. If you like your beer with lunch this is something to keep in mind. Expect to spend $8+
  • Packed Lunch – We’ve been attending PAX East for the past 8 years and we only eat out for every meal when we were staying at a hotel with no fridge. Fueling my body with a bunch of junk was not a good call. The best thing that you can do to save money on food is to hit a grocery store at the start of the convention weekend. If you do not have a fridge where you are staying, get some sandwich bread and peanut butter and fluff. While you are at it, grab some pastries for breakfast as well. One loaf of bread will yield 9 sandwiches. This will run you about $0.72 per sandwich.

Brown bagging your lunch is the way to go! Not only will you save roughly $10 per person, per meal but you will enjoy a more satisfying and healthier option to the food that you might otherwise consume. We pack all of our snacks and lunches the morning of the event and usually get to the convention center shortly before it opens at 10am. March in Boston is usually cold so we won’t worry about the temperature of our food staying warm for too long if we decided to head over early and wait in line outside. You will want a food that tastes good cold or room temperature.

We usually plan the following food schedule:

  • 8am – Breakfast at the rental/hotel – pastries, eggs, toast
  • 11a – Snack of fresh fruit or anything that you brought that you don’t want sitting in your bag all day
  • 1pm – Lunch time! We usually do sandwiches and some light sides to go with
  • 3pm – Snack of nuts, jerky, granola bar or anything else that we brought
  • 6pm – Dinner back at the room. We take turns cooking and will usually do something easy to make and satisfying. Little prep is the name of the game!

Here are some lunch ideas:

  • Sandwiches – Peanut butter is probably one of the cheaper options but deli meat sandwiches are also great.
  • Salad – Load up on dark leafy greens, protein, cheese, veggies and your favorite dressing.
  • Pasta/Potato Salad – best done in batches if you are traveling with a group. Or this can be done at the beginning of the trip and portioned out for the week.

My Favorite Snacks:

  • Seeds or nuts
  • Hard boiled egg
  • Peanut butter crackers
  • Granola or granola bars
  • Fruit leather
  • Cheese sticks
  • Raw carrots or other veggies
  • Jerky

No one knows your body better than you do.  So make sure you are making decisions about what to eat that will keep you satiated and avoid the bubble guts.  One of the worst experiences that you can have, is suffering through stomach pains when there is a whole world of gaming to explore at the convention. Any convention is not a great time to start taking iron supplements when you’re not used to them.  Ask me how I know.

If you are staying at a place with a kitchen, use it! We usually have at least one person driving in to the event and we will have them bring a crock pot for an easy meal that can cook all day while you are out exploring and be ready as soon as you get back to your room. If you are cooking from scratch each night, some easy meals after a long day of walking around are:

  • Tacos
  • Pizza – get already cooked crust
  • Chili
  • Chicken and Rice
  • Pasta

Don’t be limited by this list. Any meal that you are comfortable cooking and doesn’t involve a lot of preparation will work for these nights. The goal is to make it easier to cook than it is to spend the time finding a restaurant with open seating. Set yourself up for success and look forward to your meal at home. Your body will thank you later for not over doing the restaurant food.

Boston is a great city with some amazing restaurants. If you decide to take advantage, like we do, limit your eating out to one or two outings. We like to meet with local friends (guildmates) that live in the area and will usually eat out with them. I like doing one lunch and one dinner on separate days. We know ahead of time what days these will be on so we know where we are eating and when. I find that this makes our days much easier if we have things planned and we don’t have to make so many decisions.

New BFA raid Siege of Zuldazar! Method vs Limit REMATCH!

The latest World of Warcraft expansion has received a fair amount of criticism, Blizzard has made a lot of design choices that fell flat with their audience. One thing that Blizzard is doing well in the Battle for Azeroth expansion is showing unique story differences between the Alliance and Horde factions. If you like playing the game on both factions you are able to experience a completely different story and zones. In the second raid for the BFA expansion they have carried forward this theme by having unique horde and alliance perspective encounters. This doesn’t mean that you are limited to the bosses that you are able to experience but rather you are changed to the opposing faction depending on the fight.

On Tuesday the Mythic version of the raid will be available for play which will no doubt be an event to rival the popularity of the Uldir race to world first. What I’m most looking forward to is the rematch between the guilds Method and Limit. Both were neck in neck for the World First title with Method pulling the win in the end. For the first time ever, several of the top raiding guilds were streaming their boss kill attempts gaining a huge audience on Twitch.tv. Historically guilds would not publish videos with their attempts or strategies until well after several guilds have figured out the fight for themselves. With the growing popularity of streaming games on twitch, there is a lot to gain by showing your attempts. I know that I was watching Method’s attempts, sometimes on the edge of my seat as they had those super close attempts and 1% wipes.

Limit has been pulling out the stops when it comes to preparing for this next race to World First. I’m hoping that Limit will join in with streaming their own content, which could generate a lot of fans and revenue for the players of the #1 US guild. Limit has reportedly transferred over to the Alliance faction in order to take advantage of the benefits that the faction will receive from warmode. Will they transfer back to Horde side which has been their home or will they capture the hearts of the newly adopted alliance brothers and sisters? It would be refreshing to see Limit represent the Alliance in the race and hopefully help balance the represented factions in high end raiding.

Method will be streaming their raid attempts once again will no doubt be flooded with support for their stream team. I’ve been watching many of their players maintain steady viewship since the release of Uldir back in September 2018. Prior to Method streaming their Uldir progression I would have told you “World of Warcraft raids are not that popular to watch on stream” but here I am eating my hat. The streaming of Uldir brought streaming of wow to a whole new level and some well deserved attention to all the players that work so hard to play at a high level. They once Method will be teaming up with Redbull to give their content a professional level of production value.

I’m hoping to see more high end raiders get into streaming. I know that I will be tuning in to twitch to watch those gracious enough to share their journey with us plebs. Tune into Twitch.tv for this epic event starting on Tuesday January 28th and get hyped!

New PC Setup!

I first built my dream desk back in 2012 after graduating college and when we bought our first house. I wanted a big desk with plenty of room to spread out and one that was visually appealing. I was very much into IKEA hacks on reddit at the time wasn’t able to find anything that I want that was pre-built…as a desk. So I dreamed up my future gaming space and started planning it out in my head. I would need space for a second monitor and a large surface for my mouse. I wanted my desk to be ergonomic so that I could avoid the chronic back pain that seemed to creep into my life when I was spending a little bit too much time at my desk. I explored our IKEA store and found each part of the desk that I had built in my mind. Instead of a desk I opted for a table top and legs for more space, I found a shelf and the legs that go on the bottoms of most of the small dresser to make my monitor shelf. It’s was a project that I gladly assembled and enjoyed for years.

I tend to update my gaming PC in stages, so a new graphics card one year and then a new motherboard/processor another. I have been building my own computers for the past 10 years, it is just like a big lego set with interlocking pieces. My desk is an extension of my gaming experience. For many years I’ve enjoyed my set up, the monitor height, the ability to push and pull the elevated shelf as I needed. Even though I loved my desk there were a few things that started to annoy me about my set up. When I added my microphone (which is my new love) it limited where I could attach it the arm. Also the legs of the monitor shelf would tend to interfere with where I wanted to move my mouse around. I enjoyed my desk but I was ready for a change.

Black desk with raised monitor shelf and Darth Vader
To my old desk: You have server me well for many years. I throughly enjoyed you but now it’s time for a change.

In my family, we are not big gift givers. So when the extremely thoughtful gift of wireless headphones needed to be returned due to my discomfort, I was left with funds to play with and the opportunity to select my own gift. My gaming set up needed a face lift! I already had some experience with desk mounted monitors with my set up at work and how my husband’s desk was set up. I wanted to free up all of the space that the monitor shelf took up and also gain a bigger range of motion to move my monitors around. So I ordered my mount!

2 Monitor Desk Mount on Amazon

I waited a few days and when I got my mount I was super excited, except there was one problem….One of my monitors wasn’t able to be mounted. My husband pointed out that now was a good time to update my monitor since they were far older than my desk was. So I put him to work shopping!

What? He is way better at finding the deals.

He picked out a BENQ gaming monitor which boasted a refresh rate miles ahead of what I had. He mentioned that this new monitor wouldn’t likely align with my old monitor on my new mount. This made me a little bit sad, would this bother me? I thought about it.

The hubby says to me “you know….you could just get two monitors”

I was surprised, “could I do that?”

Of course he would give me a smart ass response “yes, you see this box right here where it says quantity? You can make it what ever number you want and they’ll send that many to you”

I was super excited to be getting a monitor upgrade for the first time in a long while and probably the first time ever where the monitors that I was using wasn’t broken. Set up was easy since this is the 4th monitor mount that I’ve assembled. I still need to redo my cable management but for the most part everything is how I want it.

I love this more minimalist style of desk, I have a lot more room and the monitor height is adjustable to a much greater range. The whole space just feels more open. ❤ my new set up!

Farm Together keeps getting better!

I’ve been playing quite a bit of Farm Together since one of the streamers that I regularly watch played it earlier this year.  To date I have 70 hours logged for this game mostly in the early access version as they were still adding a lot to the game.  This is a farming sim with beautiful graphics, animations with robust game play and the choice to either be social or keep to yourself.  It’s created by the indie game studio Milkstone Studios by a 5 person dev team and is available on Steam.  

This is one of the houses that you can set up and decorate inside.  You also have pets that you can customize that will follow you around.

I want to start out by saying that every time I go to write down my thoughts about this game I get utterly sucked in and end up playing for hours before I can tear myself away.  I think I spent 4 hours working through my quest log and visiting other people’s farms.  It reminds me of the first time I played the Sims back in 2004 there were endless possibilities of what you could create.  You can get lost just exploring other people’s creations and chatting to people as you visit their farms.  

Farmers are working rain or shine.  Sometimes we are rewarded for working through the hard times.

I play this game on an occasional basis and it’s perfect for taking a break from the MMO grind when you just don’t want to do another dungeon run.  Every time I log in this game it gets better.  I picked this game up in an early access state but you wouldn’t know it from the amount of content that was already introduced and they just kept adding.  New animals?  yes.  New crops?  yes. Minigames and missions? YES! Player housing?  WHAT? YES YES YES.  On top of all the new systems and assets they’ve added, when I logged in today I found that a lot of the small annoyances in the game have been changed.  Dev team that listens to it’s players?  CHECK!  No more punishment for not being able to log in regularly (your crops used to die and not give you resources).  Your gas tank goes further as well!  I don’t remember getting the hybrid version of a tractor but better gas mileage is always better.

My daughter always wants to to go feed the piggies!

If you want a community to chat with or ask questions of you can join the game’s discord https://discord.gg/ngEYx4W  The always-active developer, Waaghman, posts updates and patch notes weekly as well as responds to bug reports.  The community is so very helpful with questions and there is a great screenshot thread.  Happy farming all!