New expansion, new challenges

by on January 29, 2007 at 9:23 am
Posted In: MMO

I’ve been a bit slow really getting involved in the new BC content. I’ve done some questing in the first zone, and am starting to get somewhere with that. The obligatory new draeni, Aldisha, hit level 12 yesterday and is finally moving on to the second starting area. Merisan, a night elf warrior I’ve had for a while now, looks to be my contribution to the now level 20+ team of new characters that’s forming. I expect she’ll go the same way as Farmishi, that is she’s going to see a nice rise in levels as she helps everyone else get through instances. Considering that most, or all, of these won’t be mains either, she’ll probably keep up with everyone else for a while.

I’m keeping Farmishi on continuing lvl 60 instance duty at the moment. I’m sure there’ll still be runs for a while to come.

Though, the last two were in places that Dunain is still trying to finish up with. We did a Upper Spire run, that only got eight people. However, everyone went in with something from Burning Crusade, and most were over 60. The only death was me, as I tried to lead Drakkisath around. I did, however, get a better idea of how I might do it in the future without getting caught.

Most of us then went off and did a dead-side Strathome run. Actually, we did a 45-minute Baron run, with the idea that the newly-increased firepower would make it easier. Which was correct, we actually got through, and did the run with three minutes to spare, and Blondiewood finally got her Dungeon 2 upgrade.

Last night, though, was our first instance run in BC. Hellfire Citadel is a multi-part instance that you get directed to pretty quickly once in Outland. We went in with Blanc, Dunain, Thermidor, Blondiewood, and Asclepius; the only way to get any more classic Muse would be to replace Asclepius with Brunev or Jariedthe.

The Ramparts, the first part, or wing, of the Citadel is pretty simple with three bosses, there’s one quest going in, and another generated by the final boss. Apparently, everything through the first boss should be doable with 60s in vanilla greens. And I’d say that’s about right, the normal stuff certainly gave us no real trouble. The main part was just getting used to what they could do. The final two bosses (well, three, one’s a pair) were decidedly tough and generated multiple wipes between them. A good plan and group is decidedly needed going in, especially if you’re at about level.

That said, they’re quite doable. The main thing is there’s a lot of wide area of effect going on, and our resistances still aren’t where they probably should be. The last pair is exceptionally nasty since a relatively fast fight changes modes a couple times, and certainly left me struggling to keep up with what was going on. Most of the team got something good from the run. Dunain didn’t, but he did finally get to level 61. We have another three active main 60+s who need to do this, so we’re going to have to plan for that as well as doing the sequel wing, the Blood Furnace.

The video is decidedly more demanding on BC. Zangarmarsh (the second area in Outland) has seriously bogged down Haruhi when I’ve gone there. Oddly, Micca does well there, but Smudge reported that Hellfire Ramparts was really bad for her, when I didn’t have any trouble. Upgrading Micca is fairly straightforward if it comes down to it (though I had hoped for another year before even needing this), Haruhi is another matter. I’m already at the limits of what I can do without replacing most of the system.

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Other than that, how was the con?

by on January 23, 2007 at 10:39 am
Posted In: Conventions

Further Confusion is the most important convention for BackBreaker, as it is generally the highest grossing show we have. Even better, it is local, and a grand lot of fun.

However, there’s been a nasty flu going around, and Smudge caught it a few days before the con. I had a couple minor symptoms for a few days, and then they went away. I thought I’d beaten it off, but I started coming down with real symptoms Saturday night, and spent a fair amount of Sunday up in our room trying to recover. I basically skipped our Coffee, Tea & Memes panel that night because I knew I was in no shape for it.

About that room… Baron was the Artist Guest of Honor this year, which meant that he got one of the fancy suite rooms at the hotel courtesy of the con. The room was practically as big as the current place we’re renting. And the bathroom was just silly. We also brought Micca over and set him up in the room, so we never used the TV as Micca’s monitor is so much better….

On the other hand, the normal restaurant in the hotel was big disappointment this year. It’s normally slightly pricey food with quality that varies from well worth it to worth the convenience factor. This year the menu was minuscule (a single page, and half the meals were sandwiches), and food decidedly sub-par. Oddly, we found that room service had the normal full menu….

Generally, the con was very good this year. I had a great time Friday and Saturday. Managed to contribute a bit to the Furry Espionage panel (which is more Baron and Dave’s subject), and the Mad Scientist panel (which was easier, but also right when I started coming down with the flu. We found out later, that apparently the Mad Scientist panel was being broadcast live… if I’d known that, I’d have tried to look a little more intelligent…. -_^ At any rate, both of them went really well.

Spent some good time with several friends. Spent an evening entertaining Gerald in our room, and used the opportunity to introduce him to four anime series we thought he’d like (Full Metal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, and Utawarerumono), and he enjoyed them all.

Sunday, I tried to keep from getting the flu too bad while Smudge was largely recovered. So I popped into the Coffee, Tea & Memes panel long enough to offer my apologies, and grab some cookies (^_^). The upshot was that I was available to get Diana guilded, so we got that done.

Apparently, on Monday I looked worse than I felt, and I did not feel at all well. Smudge had relapsed and was worse off than I. So, getting the room and dealer’s table packed up and taken back home was quite an undertaking. We owe the con (and especially Carl) a big thanks for being understanding and very helpful during the entire process.

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As if I weren’t distracted enough…

by on January 16, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Posted In: MMO

It’s official. Burning Crusade is out. It’s installed on my machine, my account is upgraded, and I have seen the elephant (or at least the other side of the Dark Portal).

It is kind of odd. For the past many months I’ve been able to roam somewhat at will around Azeroth. Partly because I knew my way around, as well as being at the level cap. Now it’s all new, and while at the moment all the normal monsters are slightly below my level, that can’t last long.

And there is the fact that I’m in for the beginning of everything other than the beta. Last time, the game had been out for six months before we hopped on the bandwagon. The initial Alliance area and quests are just flooded.

I’m also slightly gratified that what I’m seeing in quest rewards is right about at the level of my existing equipment. It’s been slowly gathered from higher 5-man instances, and I’d hate to see all of it rendered useless by the first few quests, the way some have made it sound.

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Saturday Fun

by on January 7, 2007 at 11:32 am
Posted In: SFB

Yesterday was planned to either be Soldier Kings or a historical SFB scenario. None of us could really get a fourth, so SFB. However, Mark had to call Saturday morning and inform me that he had come down with the flu Friday, and couldn’t make it. Considering that I have a co-worker who’s been out all week, that wasn’t too surprising.

So, half-an-hour later it was just me and Patch, flailing around to figure out what we were going to do. I showed him my current stack of other games, and he decided to look at Plan Orange, as he doesn’t play too many naval games.

The problem is that they just don’t have any operational campaigns that are great for a first go. They all have way more ships than we really wanted to keep track of. So, we went with one of the battle scenarios. (Not the same one as I played with Dave, but very similar). I, as the Americans got to long range and started working on his CLs. He sank most of my destroyers. He then realized that I’d knocked out most of the guns that could hurt my light cruisers. Fortunately for him, he was able to get initiative on the second round and get out of sighting range before I could finish him off, with him winning for all the VPs he got from my destroyers.

That was quick enough, and after lunch we decided to go with a thought I’d had right before we dived into Plan Orange. We did a simple SFB duel with him flying a Gorn CA and me in a Fed CA.

The Gorns are the one active race that we haven’t seen yet, and I’d been meaning for Patch to try them out. He’s been mostly playing the Klingons, and the Gorn are pretty much the opposite philosophy from them. I figure this will give him a broader base and help his overall understanding of the game. The Gorns aren’t actually in contact with anyone besides the Romulans for another eight years, but that’s not a big deal here, since the ships won’t change.

Flying the Fed was different. I’ve mostly been in Kzintis lately, which are a bit zippy because there’s hardly any heavy weapons to charge. The Fed CA (especially before refits) has a hard time going at high speed, and that’s what’s needed against plasma.

The first round went well, I went as close as I dared, peppered him with two overloaded Photons and phasers on turn 2. Ended up trading my #5 and a phaser hit for his #1. It could have been worse, as a plasma got me that turned out to be a pseudo. So we both had half our heavies left.

This was the first round of what turned into a reasonably drawn out battle. I generally went 12, 17, or 23, and cursed my inability to get over that. Fired off another half volley on 5 and went in to try and get a more decisive result on 7. On nine I petulantly fired off another volley and turned to go off map (fixed) while I was only still crippled.

I’m happy with my overall performance, but it still wasn’t up to snuff. The big thing is that I should have gone in much earlier. On… turn 4, he had one Plasma and I had a full spread, and that’s the time to try to use the crunch power of the Fed. Die luck was also good to me. I generally hit slightly above average, and the overloads tended to hit. I weaseled (my first time ever) with a planned speed of four on turn 8, and it did well enough. The main thing is that Patch just slowly got rid my shields, and did a few internals, and I wasn’t answering in kind. I ended with just my #2 and #6 shields, no phasers (after repairing two) and… all my photons.

The main thing that affected me was a near inability to find power for overloads. I’m used to thinking in terms of going in with full overloads, and that just wasn’t going to happen, and delaying to see if I could make it happen caused me to not try and use some earlier opportunities.

So, two hard-fought victories for Patch. We’re currently hoping to meet the weekend after FurCon, and I’m hoping we can get Escape From the Holdfast done.

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A New Year

by on January 1, 2007 at 10:01 am
Posted In: Life

Since 2006 was the first full year where I had a Live Journal account, I thought I’d see what I did. I count some 55 posts, a bit over one a week on average, more than I would have thought. Of those, 22 are tagged ‘wow’, 11 ‘life’, 14 ‘gaming’ 1 ‘astronomy’, and 5 untagged.

I had thought there’d be less gaming and life in there. I also did more board gaming than even that indicates, since I’ve started writing my ASL experiences up on a forum dedicated to the game. I had also thought that WoW would actually be over half my posts, not under.

This last week has been busier than I thought. I had the week off, but had plenty to do. We were doing house- and cat-sitting, so at night I was generally over there with Smudge making sure Freya had time around people every day (…and enjoying a really nice TV). During the afternoons, I was engaged in helping program the web-comics database for BackBreaker. This is a project that started shortly after ComicCon 2005, and is finally finished (well, I’d like to see a little more bug testing done). This is a massive weight off of us, and I think it’s probably one of the best posting engines out there. Now… we need to finally do something about a new register program…. Sigh.

So, my free time for my week paid holiday mostly evaporated, but at least it has been largely relaxing.

On WoW this last week, we’ve seen the auction prices of Firey and Lava Cores tumble from 100+ gold to about 35 gold. Blanc also found the Black Dragonscale Leggings plan we’ve been trying to farm for up on auction for cheap. He spent pretty much all the money he had (with some help from Dunain and Farmishi) and completed Dunain’s Black Dragonscale set, and got the materials for the next couple of Dark Iron items for Blanc’s fire-resist set. I had started to think that Thorium Brotherhood rep was useless, now I’m looking at how to get to Revered in a reasonable time-frame again….

I’m hoping that gaming will be a little more regular this year than last. And I’m certainly hoping to suck Mark and/or my dad into some Federation & Empire online this year. (I really need something to leaven the constant string of defeats in ASL that Patch is handing me.) On the face-to-face end, we really need to gain an extra person or two, three is too much for many things, and too few for the rest.

WoW has eaten up more time than I’d sometimes like, but continues to be a lot of fun. With the expansion almost upon us, I expect that to continue.

I’m expecting this year’s gaming budget to be down, but then I wanted to get a few games other than the massive stuff I’ve been involved in forever, and I’ve done that now. I expect ADB and MMP will continue to get my money though.

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