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

Delayed Update

So first of all, I've been having issues with the Blogger bar on the top of my page. It keeps randomly disappearing. No idea if it's a problem with Blogger or my browser, but since it happens in both Internet Explorer and Firefox, I'm thinking it might be Blogger. Whatever is causing it, it makes it impossible to log in to make a new post, which is why it's been so long since my last one. Sorry!

On to the good news, my little leveling slump seems to be over for now.

I achievement spammed myself >.<

Jorren and Windstar have both joined my growing crew of level 90s. My slight dislike of Townlong Steppes and Dread Waste seems to be going away, too, so it shouldn't be too long (I hope) before Rynia joins them, and gives me my 5 max-level classes achievement. Further proving that I really do have no life. XD

Windstar hasn't been doing much since she dinged, other than a few days of Tiller dailies, although Kel has made her the epic chest piece and she only needs two more spirits of harmony until she can make her epic inscription staff. I'm thinking of taking her back into Dread Wastes and actually finishing the major quest lines out there, since I haven't done that on anyone yet and questing with her is pretty fun, now that she's starting to kill the mobs faster and taking less damage. Although she still seems really squishy against most rare spawns she's found. I do plan on gearing her up in heroics and doing some raid finder runs with her, but right now Jorren has been taking up most of my attention.

Death knights have become incredibly fun to play, at least for me. Jorren was able to find the 2-handed crafted axe at a fairly good deal in the AH, and he's been tearing things up during his dailies. I've been focusing mostly on Tillers and Cloud Serpents, just to get them finished and out of the way, but he's started on Golden Lotus as well. I haven't run heroics much, but I blame that mostly on the holidays keeping me busy at work, and making me less willing to take chances on LFD groups. After spending a stressful day at work around crowds of strangers being jerks and idiots, I just want to relax by myself once I'm home and in-game. Hopefully my upcoming vacation time will help that, before the Christmas rush starts. :\

I've been plugging along on my little monk, too. Sunre is currently 38, thanks to a bunch of dungeon runs with sis dual-boxing with Pitchblack and her little shaman, Laoden. We're taking a break from that to get some questing done, since we're at the level range of several zones we both like. He's been lots of fun, and I might possibly take a break from my higher-level toons and get him up to Pandaria after Ryn is done. Seeing so many other people having fun on their monks is making me very eager for that, and I'm looking forward to getting him into a bit of RP eventually.

And I think that's all the interesting stuff for now. Hopefully it won't take so long for my next post. /Waves

Two grinds down, plenty more to go

Finally getting a couple of Kel's rep grinds out of the way. She's slowly plugging along with Golden Lotus, and hit honored with them a few days ago. It's kind of funny, I hear so many people complaining about their dailies, but I don't really have any problems with them, other than wishing they gave more rep. 110 rep per quest, with guild perks, does seem kind of ridiculous, but eh, I guess it could be worse. At least there are plenty of them, and different hubs gives me enough variety that it doesn't get too boring.

A night of onyx egg hunting got Kel within 500 rep of the Cloud Serpents before other people farming them finally chased me away, and the next day a couple dailies finally finished it off.

The ceremony was one of the coolest things I've seen in the game so far.

Sunset is gorgeous, and he and Kel have bonded pretty well over the weeks of raising and training him. And it was fun enough that I'm probably going to go ahead and just do the grind on alts for the other serpent mounts, rather than spend the gold to buy them. Especially since they'll need the training to ride them, anyways.

I finished Kel's Tiller's rep in the same morning, although I was slacking on her quest to get Hoahn's (sp?) vote to join them, so I need to finish that before her farm will be upgraded. Then I'll most likely continue doing some of the dailies for rep with individual NPCs and the cooking token, but I think I'll stop wasting a slot on Yoon's planting daily. Yes, I know I can just dig up the plant and put in whatever I want afterwards, but it seems like more waste to me, and I never bothered.

Besides dailies and alt-leveling, I'm still happily addicted to pet battles. My 'main' team of Rawr the guardian cub, Starlight the celestial dragonling, and Coal the black panther cub, are all levels 21-22, and I've been working on getting a few others leveled up for subs. My little Chuck (the only croc I was able to get from that darned fishing daily) is tearing things up on his way to join them, and I've got a couple others of different types that I'm trying to work on as well. It's been a bit more difficult with the couple green-quality pets I'm trying to level, like Ale the wolpertinger. After fighting with so many rare pets, the uncommon ones seem squishier, if not less powerful. I'm hoping that will be fixed after the upcoming patch, when I can hopefully upgrade my favorites to rares. I've also been catching any green-or-better quality pets that I don't have to fill out my pet journal (although I have settled for lower quality for pets I don't plan on using, like the spiders *shudder*), which was up to around 260-ish unique pets the last time I looked. \o/

Quick recap of my alts- Windstar is still sitting at 88, which is getting frustrating. I want to level her, I really do, but every time I plan on logging on her and going questing, something distracts me. At least I'm still getting on her to make her Scroll of Wisdom every day. In fact, all she needs now to make her level 90 epic staff is the spirits of harmony, which she should pick up while she's leveling. Whenever that might actually happen. :P

Rynia just hit 87 last night, and is about to start on Kun Lai, which is still my favorite zone, even if a few of the quest chains are starting to get a bit tedious.

Jahira got to join in an instance spree with Feathermoon friends, and has healed her way to 86 while doing hardly any questing. Oops? Druid healing has been fun, even during the 'holycrap everyone is dying at the same time what do I do' moments. (I'm looking at you, Stormstout Brewery.) She did get to boomkin in the last instance of the night, which really just helped me decide that I totally fail at boomkin'ing, and will probably just focus on gearing her up for resto, just keeping her balance spec for questing and dailies. I just hope my self-confidence gets better before I get any chances at raid healing. :P

My Hordies are still being neglected, but hopefully that will change soon. I think I give up on poor Jorren, for now at least, and will be working on getting Rajji up to 90. Mostly, I just want at least one Horde character leveled before the patch, so I will be able to see all the new stuff from 'both sides of the fence'. And I've been wanting to play with a hunter again, so this will hopefully all work out. Sis will be leveling Booggah as well, which means Go Go dual hunters! I just hope we don't have too many issues with gear drops in instances, but I'm not really worried about it.

That's pretty much everything worth mentioning for now. Time to get some pet battling in while I wait for sis to get home from work. /Waves (Sunset waves too)