RPG Update

TBC - The Burning Crusade!

I have spent a far amount of time lately exploring the depths of the exapansion, and I must say that I am impressed. Tons and tons of new content for DK to run around, and play!

However, unlike most of my friends and Guildees I decide to run with the new races and areas first. A wise decision IMO, but I have played around in the Outland some and it looks really nice. I have completed several quests, and all the rewards have been upgrades - w00t!

The new starting areas are very impressive (I like the Blood Elf area better) - They are freakin huge, and have a ton of quests and the landscape and buildings are suberb. The blood elves got most of the love IMO. Their quests were easier and grouped together better, and their area including Silvermoon is a city that is beautiful and massive beyond words that can describe them.

Well that is it for now..I might write more after some Guild runs out in the Outlands!

RPG Update

I have made a decision about the blog over the last week. Subject matter and the layout will more than likely change to accommodate more involvement of RPG content (including MMO's).

So here is the first post of the new look!

---

WoW:

Alliance:
I have fun over the last week playing WoW! I worked mainly on my two alts (Human Mage and Dwarf Paladin), and made a respectable amount of progress in leveling.

My paladin, now Level 40 (since the Before the Storm patch) has been a hoot to play! I can actually solo decently, and hold aggro in an equal level group. Which is a big change from before the patch, but my improved gear and talents help my overall enjoyment. Wearing plate and having a mount makes a world of difference in my experience. The "free mount" was a super cool bonus, that I was expecting, but none the less enjoyable. Plate armor does a world of difference in the tanking category - When I put on all the plate that I had been hoarding in my bank for a year now damage reduction jumped up from around 30% to 52%.

Plate is cool, but I recently got to equip some of my potent gear. Aegis of the Scarlet Commander, Raging Berserker Helm, Ravanger (with Fiery Enchant) all have been put to use and are very nice. I dumped skinning this week, and picked up herbalism. This is mostly to help offset the costs of my alts (That plate is sure expensive!), but I have also been working on my fishing skill just for fun (and a little bit of money).

My mage, now Level 39 has been a little more difficult since the patch but I think that I have managed to make strides to regain my AoE grinding play style. My biggest problem was with the talent tree respec (and yes I did use the talent calculator before I respeced), but my problem came with lag. I was respecing the day after the patch, and lag was horrible but I was still determined to make sure I respec while it was fresh in my mind. That was a mistake! Too many points in Improved Blizzard, and Shatter were shown to be huge errors that could not be overlooked.

So after a five gold respec - I began to operate on a more normalized level of gameplay, and things are going well! I sold a rare world drop (Necromancer Pants) for about 50 gold, and I got the Illusionary Rod from SM the other day. So I just have to grind a little more and it will be mount time, and then my world will be happy!

Horde:
Roll me a that there Orc Shammy in anticipation of TBC expansion, but my ugly orc running around with a bunch of Blood Elves should be amusing to say the least. :-) I am still pre-1o so I really don't have a true feel for the class, but so far it is kinda like playing my pally. By that I mean that it seems like forever for something to actually die, but I will stick with it can a while at least!

---

XBOX360:

I returned Dead Rising after getting the A Ending, and completing overtime mode. I know that I have had said it all before, but that was a great game!! I picked up Enchanted Arms from my Gamefly account, and so far it seems like Final Fantasy Tactics. I looked forward to post more information as the game progresses!

TTYL,
DK

November Wrap-Up

The long vacation was really nice!!! I purchased an XBOX360 during the break, and devoted a lot of time to Dead Rising. This by far, is one of the best and unique games that I have played in over a year. I admit that I am a fan of B-zombie flicks, and Dead Rising is just one big custom B-movie. Got to love it!! Picked up of Call of Duty 3 at the tail end of my vacation, but I have not played it that much. RPG News: Played some pen and paper over the break, and it was nice break from the norm. Ravenloft 3.5 is a messed up bag of goods, but worth a shot. Made contact with some of my old LARP friends, and got suckered into reviving the game. Do not get me wrong, I loved the game (Eldaraenth) but all the drama queens really pissed me off. So I weather the path for as long as I can, and hope for the best. World of Warcraft: Work on my mage has been slow, but progressing at a decent rate. I am still leveling for every 2hours of playtime, but to get two hours can be a task at times. I rolled an Orc Shammy the other day - Since my guild is all about Blood Elves when BC gets out so I figure off tanking and off healer would be a nice adds for a bunch of Blood Elf Mages and Paladins. lol!! Major Content Patch!!!
Alright I must say that I am impressed with the new content patch. There were a lot of things that were left out of the notes that I later found in game while tinkering around.

I got some cool new ranks of hunter skills, and my overall DPS has improved. But by far the most impressive upgrade was some of the PVP stuff (which looks like a really awesome concept), adding the Draeni and Blood Elf models into the current game (even to the character creation screen), some cool new spell effects, and my personal favorite the paladin.

Now paladins have needed love for a long time, and Blizzard finally made some good decisions about the actual role that a paladin. The last talent tree upgrade was nice, but still did not encompass the problem as a whole. Yeah, the end-game role of the Healadin (Healing Plate Wearer) will probably stick around for a while, but a paladin can actually tank now!

Still lacking in the DPS department (the Retribution Tree helps), but the upgrades Blizzard just made to the paladins they will be more than likely to hold aggro better than the average warrior. Wearing plate never felt so goood! So I will probably rollin with my dwarven pally for a bit rather than my mage!

Warrior, Mage, and Rogue updates really didn't impress me that much, but those are my weaker knowledge areas. Sorry about the long post, but I am just a little bit excited!

So TTYL,
Justin

Weekend Report

Worked most of weekend, but did manage to get some recreation activities in!

WoW: Played for a grand total of about 5 hours this weekend, and managed to eek out 2 levels (Now Level 35). Still grinding in Duskwood, but I changed locations to the Worgen Cave and the apple farm(Low 30 spawns plus I rare 34 Elite). The worgen have been especially good experience. Decent xp, very few casters, and I have gotten about 12 green items to sell in the AH. The way the worgen mobs are setup it almost too ideal for AoE grinding, but who am I to complain.

I have used up my resources in Duskwood, but maybe Arathi will be a little more tolerable.

Other fun stuff:
Watched a lot, I mean a lot of movies this weekend (Got to love work)!
Here is the list:

Ultimate Avengers 1
A Man Apart
Into the Sun
Bloodrayne (Uwe Boll should be banned!)
Click
Full Metal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa

I will only comment of the Full Metal Movie (since that was the one that I had been waiting to see).

All in all not bad - I know some people dislike the ending (not my favorite ending), but it does bring a closure that most Anime series lack. To that I applaud the makers of the Full Metal series!!


TTYL

Two weeks since...

As previously stated I have been working long hours the past couple of weeks, and I was in a wedding last weekend. Beautiful weeding BTW!

So Warcraft play has been decreased dramatically, but I managed to level up to 33 last weekend. So powerleveing in that since has been very good, and now I am cruising around the Alterac Mountains for now. I have been thinking about retrying Go'Shek farms in the Arathi Highlands, but only time will tell!



TTYL

WoW Watch

It has been a few days since my last post, but there is not a lot of new news. I played for about an hour Monday before the server crashed, and I became frustrated and watched some show on DVR.

Almost Lvl. 31 - The Monday server crash destroyed my momentum, and I have been working late almost every night (and will for sometime). Moved to Southshore for a little bit to get a feel for the mobs, Murlocs and Nagas. AoE grinding was a bit difficult here because mobs resisted more, and there were more spellcasters in the mobs (So back to Raven Hill for a bit). I checked out Purgation Isle while I was in the area, and found out it was populated by Lvl 60 elite mobs :-( Logged on my hunter for some exploration fun!

So anyways, I think I have logged about 2-3 hours of total gameplay. Most of it however was tinkering some new UI mods, and helping out some Guildmates with my 60 Hunter. Not wasted time, but not very produced either.

---

Life other than WoW has been alright, but working 12 hour days tends to wear on my nerves!

TTYL

The New WoW Thing

I guess I decided to post some more ;-)

My newest project is powerleveling my Human Mage to Lvl 60 before the expansion pack is out. I have read a fair amount of information about AoE tactics and locations go, and they have been useful.

To keep track of my progress here is the beginning of record keeping:

Started 0ct. 1 with a 24 Lvl Human Mage Frost/Arcane spec
All but 1 14 slot bags, and a far amount of gold (20ish)

By October 9th I am now 30th Lvl, same spec, and average amount 7-8 gold a run (A run is about a 2 hour amount of game time)!

Long time since...

It is been a long time since my last post. I know that I have said it numberous times, but crap is my life busy.

Most everything is the same - I have started power leveling a few characters in WoW in anticipation for the expansion pack. Friends and family are the same as always.

Maybe I will post later (after work)!