Cruising through the Galaxy

This is mostly just a quick update and excuse to show off some of my screenshots. >.>

Star Wars is still keeping most of my attention, to the point that, when I have to log off so sis can have her computer back, I'll spend the rest of the night in the forums, or browsing Youtube videos. We both have caved and gotten 60-day subscriptions, and losing the free-to-play restrictions have made it even more fun. I still tinker around a little on WoW, but I tend to get bored fast. Although my monk Sunre is still plugging along (level 83 and starting Uldum, because I really needed a break from Deepholm).

Poor Tagnesh has been temporarily shelved in favor of my agent, Qurana. I know I had just said in the last post that the storyline was getting boring, but then sis started playing her agent more, and I got rehooked. She's just passed Tag, at level 24, and is sniping her way through Nar Shaddaa like a pro. Unfortunately, I've been so distracted by questing that I keep forgetting about the screenshot button. :\  Oops? Edit: Hey look! I finally took a screenshot. Mostly to show off her cool new jacket. >.>

....I also might have rolled a second agent, a male character, on my alt server, Begeren Colony, for the single reason of being able to flirt with and possibly romance Watcher Two. >.>  And because Qurana is a sniper and I want to see if operatives are as fun as everyone says. I haven't actually started questing on him yet though, because I want to finish Qurana's story first. Playing two agents at the same time would just be too confusing. >.<

Krasio says "Hi"

My Jedi shadow, Khrysi, is still getting some play time, too. She's also in Nar Shaddaa, and is just starting on the questline to get her next companion. I have to admit, while I do like Qyzen, it will be nice to have someone new to run around with. Who will hopefully have a better sense of humor.

On one of the last quests in Taris.

Drax'o the bounty hunter has gotten to level 17, and is taking a break before starting on Balmorra. Mostly because I just need to play somewhere different for a while. So he gets to relax and accumulate rest xp while Qurana monopolizes my attention.

Relaxing in his ship's cabin.

I also have gotten my Sith warrior, Korriala, off of Korriban. With Rynna and Jhorren both being dps, I went tank (juggernaut) with her, though I'll be leveling as dps until she has more tanky-type gear/skills. For now, she's hanging out in Dromund Kaas until I need a break from Qurana.

Entering the tomb of... I forget which one, There are way too many tombs on Korriban.

Well, that's all the interesting stuff I can think of. I will be trying to get more screenshots in the future, and hopefully I'll have some good ones for next time. Also, if anyone happens to win the lottery or something, I would be eternally grateful if someone wants to send me a new gaming computer, so me and sis can actually do stuff together. >.<  (jk) (mostly >.>) (I should give up and just start playing the lottery myself :P)
/Waves

Proof that Balmorra can be a pretty planet.

Stuff (a.k.a. I'm bad at titles)

Well, not a whole lot has been going on, other than work and poking at stuff on the interwebs. Which by the way, I may have recently joined the tumblr club. >.>  Game-wise, Star Wars: the Old Republic has become my new addiction. The only problem is, my old piece-of-outdated-junk laptop can't play it, so I need to bum sis's desktop whenever she's not home. It cuts down on my playing time, but it is her computer, so I really can't complain. And I get to play enough to keep myself fairly happy. Currently, I have at least one character of every class, both Republic and Imperial side, with a couple extra alts to tinker with the different advanced classes. As a result, my highest level character is only 20, but I'm getting over the 'new shiny' aspect, and have been seriously working on a couple certain ones.

My level 20 is my Sith sorcerer, Tagnesh, who I unfortunately don't have any good screenshots of. I'll fix that the next time I play him, though.

Next highest is my Jedi shadow, Khrysi, at 19 (almost 20!). She's so much fun to play, it makes me wish Tagnesh was an assassin instead, but he's still fun, and I would probably get bored if I was playing two of basically the same exact class all the time. Khrysi has been my favorite so far, the consular story line has been pretty amazing, and I just like republic side a bit better than the Imperials.

Then there's my Jedi sentinel, Rynna. She's almost as much fun as Khrysi, and has the added bonus of having Kira Carsen as a sidekick. ("Eat lightsaber, jerk!" has got to be my favorite line in the game XD ) There's a very small inconvenience with playing her, though... Bioware has given hints that same-gender romance options might be happening in the future, (maybe, eventually...)(and I mean more than the handful of flirts available on the new planet) and I would really love for the bond between Rynna and Kira to actually happen in-game, rather than only in my own head. :P And I have no idea if it would be possible at later levels. *sigh* At least I have plenty of other alts to keep myself busy while I wait and see.

My Imperial agent/sniper, Qurana, is also 19, but her story quest is starting to lose my interest. I'm not sure why, it started out pretty fun, but I think I'm just getting tired of following orders from dull, obey-the-rules-to-the-letter kind of NPCs. Whatever the reason, she's been taking a break while I level Tagnesh and Khrysi. I'm definately getting back to her later, though.

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten many good screenshots of the rest of my alts yet. I've tended to get so much into playing that I forget to take pictures. >.>  I will fix that once I start leveling them up. For now, here's a pair of bounty hunters...

....Yes, I made two bounty hunters. Aerren (top) is on the alt server, Begeren Colony, while Drax'o (bottom) is with my main characters on Ebon Hawk. Aerren is a level 13 mercenary, while Drax is going to go powertech, whenever I actually get him through Hutta.

And just for kicks, here's my Sith marauder, Jhorren, holding a bomb. Poor Vette looks a little nervous.

I still log on Rift/WoW every so often, just to tinker around and 'see' my friends, but between boredom and lag, I haven't stayed on very long. I've been thinking of rolling a monk version of Kal, mostly because I've had to let my second account's sub run out, and that's the account warrior!Kal is on, and I miss her. And because monks are fun. I want to replace all of Sunre's heirloom gear first, though, because mailing everything between characters gets tedious. Sun is 82 now and starting on Deepholm, so it probably won't take long, once I can make myself stay on him for another leveling binge.

I had to cancel my Rift sub, too, but with it going free to play soon, I'll be able to play my above-level-20 characters again soon. And I have plenty of baby alts to tinker on until then.

And I think that's all for now. /Waves

So, um, hi

I've been kind of busy lately, between work and keeping myself distracted with gaming, and time just sort of got away from me. And, well, I won't say anything about being 'back' because it's likely to continue. Personal stuff has been making it hard to really want to write about anything, and honestly, I've just been bouncing between games, leveling baby alts most of the time, which is just not really that interesting. And it's not like a lot of people are reading this blog anyways.



Most of my game time has been on Rift. I reactivated my account and got the new Storm Legion expansion with my tax return, and it's been fun. Way more fun than WoW, I have to admit. I feel like a traitor saying that, but it's true. Blizzard has been making so many changes to everything, especially the classes, that it seems like there's no real challenges any more. On the other hand, Rift's class system hasn't changed much, other than each calling getting a new soul with the expansion. Another difference is the factions. While WoW has been pushing the Horde/Alliance war harder with each patch, the line between factions in Rift has almost disappeared. Defiants and Guardians share chat channels, and can even be in the same guild, and there's a new(ish) "mercenary" option for the warfronts, where a character can be switched to the opposing team when one side has a shortage of players. Personally, I have never been a huge fan of PvP, and while I do battlegrounds in WoW once in a while, it more out of boredom than any desire to smash the other factions faces. So the faction mixing in Rift has been a nice change.

Rift has also added player housing, called dimensions, in the expansion, and it's been a blast. There are so many different areas, and everything is completely free-placement, so anyone can build whatever they want, wherever they want it. And make it all public so other players can come admire their handiwork. I've spent almost as much time checking out other players' and guilds' dimensions than I've spent building my own. The only problem has been that it can get to be rather expensive to acquire some of the furniture and stuff. But that's mostly just a problem for lowbie characters. Since rogue-Kelesaria has hit level 50, money has been a much smaller problem, on my main server at least.

It only took until the first expansion to reach the old level cap...

a rather poor view of Vanyell's current home

Besides Rift, I still do log on WoW once in a while. I have discovered something, while running around with my PvP-obsessed brother (cross-realm grouping with friends has been the only really good thing Blizz has done recently). I've discovered that battleground healing is not only rather fun, I'm actually sort of good at it. Definitely not great, but at least mostly competent. And pet battles are still fun in smaller doses. And I'm trying to make myself level a few more characters, even if there's almost no chance of getting them geared up at all, thanks to the rep-gating for all the valor gear. Jahira actually got most of level 87 through healing BGs with my brother's shaman, and my warlock Rynia has had a few tries along with his feral druid. Unfortunately, I'm sort of a fail 'lock in PvP, so I'm trying to focus on leveling Jahira, so she can start tagging along with sis's Rheugan and a few of our Feathermoon friends. Rajji has also been getting some play time, because I want a second 90 hunter, and want to see more of the game's storyline from the Horde side. So far he's almost halfway through 87, in Kun Lai, which is still one of my favorite zones. Getting xp for pet battles is helping a lot, too.

Lord of the Rings Online has been somewhat neglected lately, but having a year-long subscription to it means that it will be there whenever I do want to play. I have gotten one or two more characters a new store-bought horse with my accumulated points, but I've been slacking on taking screenshots.

I did remember to get Dirken's new friend.

Star Wars: The Old Republic has gone free-to-play recently, and I've been goofing around on that whenever I get the chance. My old laptop can't handle the graphics, so I have to borrow sis's computer, which means I can only play when she's not home, but it gives me a couple hours on my days off. My altaholicism has followed me into that game, and so far I have a Sith sorcerer, Imperial agent/sniper, a Jedi sentinel and consular (who will eventually be going shadow once I get through the beginning zone), a trooper/commando, and a smuggler who is still in the starter zone. I'll probably roll a bounty hunter someday, but I'm not sure about the Sith warrior. I didn't really care for the inquisitor's storyline, and I'm not very impressed with the Imperial side in general. I think I'm just too 'nice' for their sheer ruthlessness. Light points all the way! Also, since it's only been on sis's computer, I don't have any screenshots. :(

That's all I can think of, game-wise. Only other things going on right now is work (blah) and real-life issues that no one would want to hear about. My depression has been up and down, mostly down, but at least I have Feathermeet in July to look forward to. We've already got our plane tickets and everything, so I'll have something to be happy about soon. I don't know when I'll have the time/energy/brain power for another blog post so I'm not gonna make any promises as far as that goes.

/waves

Update (with Pictures!)

Sorry for the silent spell, work is continuing it's quest to cause me too much stress and pain to have the energy to do much of anything when I'm at home. :\

Well, like I said in my last post, I've been spending most of my game time on Lord of the Rings Online, and I guess I oughta go ahead and show off, er I mean share, some of what's been keeping me interested.

First off, I've dusted off my hunter, Kelvren. He's one of the first characters I made, and at level 42 (for now), he's the highest. I have been tinkering on other characters, doing some farming and crafting and a few quests now and then, but as far as serious leveling goes, he's my #1 priority. Hunters in LotR are quite a bit different than in WoW, the most obvious thing being they have no pet, but Kelvren's tons of fun, and has recently begun exploring some new zones. He just left Evendim, which is still one of the prettiest zones in any game I have played, and started questing in the Misty Mountains, and I'm going to take him to check out Forochel soon.

In Evendim, on his new horse, Steelheart.

I recently started on a new alt, a guardian, and got him up to level 21 already, although a lot of that was thanks to the new xp-from-crafting that was added in the Riders of Rohan expansion. Guardian is a class that I never got very far in before, but a lot has changed since the last time I played one, and so far Dirken has been ridiculously fun. Being a tank class, he has no problems rounding up same-level mobs 4-5 at a time, and is able to beat them all into submission surprisingly fast. That might change once he gets into the higher level zones, but I'll have to wait and see. He may wind up being the next character I focus on once Kelvren is up where I want him.

Relaxing at home.

I've been working a little on my runekeeper Skandranon and Kerowyn my warden as well, but so far they haven't grabbed my attention like Kelvren and Dirken have (although Skan is really fun since I switched his traits from lightning to fire). I also have 2 champions (my favorite class), Aravann on Windfola and Arrwyn on Laurelin, so I doubt I'll run out of toons to keep myself occupied with any time soon.

Oh yea, and recently Bree underwent a makeover. With the Rohan-related expansion, I guess they decided to give everyone in town a taste of what the new zones will be like, because suddenly there are horses EVERYWHERE. Not the common, normal horses everyone is used to, either, but new models that look almost exactly like the warsteeds that the Rohirrim are riding around on. Have I ever mentioned that I am a total horse-nut? (No apologies for the following screenshot spam.)

Hello gorgeous....



I can has...?



Right next to the Prancing Pony

The only real downside to the Bree-update is the stupid amount of lag everyone now has to deal with in town. Though with all of the horses to drool over, it is mostly tolerable.

And now I finish with a view of the sunset in Lone Lands. /Waves

P.S. WoW-related post possibly in the near(ish) future. Just need to get some stuff sorted out in my head first.

Still here

I haven't fallen off the planet (yet) or anything, just been so worn out from work and holiday stuff that I haven't had the energy or brain power to come up with anything interesting to post.

I haven't been on WoW much lately, and when I have it's been mostly just battle pet leveling. At least at this rate I'll have all the leveling achievements done eventually? I think I just got myself a little burned out on dailies/farming/LFR/dungeons/etc., and most of my friends, the main reason I was still logging in, have all been busy doing their own things. So I'm just taking a bit of a break for now.

I've still been getting my gaming fix, but it's been on Lord of the Rings Online mostly. The winter Yule Festival caught my attention, so I started running my characters through the quests there and collecting cosmetic/housing items, and in the process got a couple levels for a few of them. When the holiday was over, I just kept going. It's been a nice change, and there's been a lot of updating that I've missed, like the new version of Bree. Some of the classes have had some minor changes which have made them more fun to play as well, like my new guardian alt. I'm most likely going to be sticking with LotR for a while, with some WoW pet battling thrown in for the excuse to say hi to everyone there.

I'll be trying to come up with a better post soon, with some screenshots and everything, but for now it's bedtime. /Sleepywave

Another down

So, depression slump had Rynia stuck at 3 bubs to 90 for a few days. Today I was feeling a teeny bit better, so I took her back to Dread Wastes for a few quests, and viola!

Unfortunately, I only had enough time to hearth back to the Shrine and get her flying training, then I had to log for work. I got back on her as soon as I got home, though, so she's got one day of dailies done already. I'm just going to do Tiller's and Golden Lotus for now, since Kel is still working on August Celestials and the Shieldwall stuff, and I really don't want to burn out again. What's kind of boggling is, with Ryn's racial rep bonus, along with guild perks and the commendation from Kel, she's about halfway through friendly with the Lotus folks already. Tiller's are almost honored too. And she still has Klaxxi quests to finish, if I get bored enough to go back to the Wastes. She's also made herself several pieces of the crafted PvP gear, so her ilvl is pretty darn good for only being 90 for less than a day. I'm hoping to get her geared for the raid finder ASAP, and with her crafted stuff, I can finally join in with friends in BGs without feeling like a total scrub.

Aside from the warlock leveling, I've been working on Sunre, who is currently up to 64 and just might wind up being my next 90, and doing some more battle pet leveling. I only need three more (magic, humanoid, and mechanical) for the every-family-at-25 achievement, which I believe will give me the 300 pet achievement points to get my jade tentacle. *braces for all the bad hentai jokes*

I think that's all I've been up to for now, although as tired as I am, I may be forgetting something. Oh well, if I am, it'll wait for the next blog post. /Sleepy wave

Playing with the patch

So patch 5.1 finally came out, and so far all I've been doing is goofing around, farming the new raid-drop pets and trying to find the new wild ones. Oh yea, and Kel has a new buddy.

His name is Zues. It was supposed to be Zeus, but I was really tired when I typed it and goofed it up. Honestly, it doesn't really bother me, and I can just get a rename scroll if it becomes a problem, so no big deal.

Me and sis have been duo'ing old raids for the new pets, with varying amounts of luck. We've gotten 2 (the imp for me, and I can't remember which one sis got) out of Molten Core, and sis got the mini draconid from Black Wing Lair. Temple of AQ has given us each one more (I got the idol, sis got the ooze). Most of the drops were from our first run throughs, and our luck seems to be going down, as we've run all three raids at least once more on alts and haven't gotten any more, although I think sis told me she got the imp on a solo MC run. We're going to start farming Naxx soon, which will be interesting since Pitch is sis's only level 90, and my other 90s aren't as well-geared as Kel, so trying to do it on alts might be a little crazy.

Oh yea, on one of our AQ runs, we did find this room with a giant eyeball in it....

leaving in the chatbox for the sake of lols

And one last thing for now- I'm apparently starting a new addiction. Death Knights.

kind of screwed up the screenshot, but oh well

Jorren was so fun to level, plus the fact that while I love him, he is- 1. horde, 2. on another server, which means I tend to get lonely after being on him for a while. So I'm leveling Riatha so I can have a DK to play with while still being around my friends. She also has an unholy spec, so I get some variation while I play her.

Getting back to battle pets, my collection keeps growing, although I'm still several short of the next achievement. I'm also working on getting a few more to 25, for some variety when I'm hunting for higher-level rares. I haven't had any luck finding battle stones, but that's pretty much normal for me, and I'm most likely just going to start checking the AH for any decently priced stones, after the 'new shiny' craze has had time to die down. I really only need a few of them, for certain pets like my wolpertinger, and Willy, and Haunt, my feline familiar. Which is another reason for my pet-leveling binge, so I have more options when I fight the trainer NPCs to get some goody bags. The few high level trainers I've run into, I've managed to win, but it was really hectic, with very close fights, and usually at least one of mine would be dead, mostly because I just didn't have any good match-ups with the very few level 25 pets that I have. So hopefully soon, Lurk the shadeling and Ripp the flayer youngling will be joining my maxed crew, along with a couple others I haven't decided on yet.

And I think that's all for now. I get a whole week of at-home vacation time starting today, so I'm looking forward to getting a lot of pets leveled, another DK also leveled, and start actually running heroics and getting Kal and Windstar geared up. And work on Jahira, since it seems like everyone is always having trouble finding healers to run things.  /Waves