Last Sunday (the 15th), Black Dagger Society and a bunch of other guilds (in particular, Blazing Saddles) and folks on the Entity server (Exile side) put together an awesome WildStar event called ThaydFest! We had a bunch of people come out for all the events and hang out and just be awesome together.

We held a housing contest called Lifestyles of Nexus where judges went around to folks’ houses and we came up with winners, whose plots are pretty damn awesome! You can see videos if you go look at the winners.

Twitter was afoot with tons of pictures and streams and videos and comments. It was so great to see the WildStar community coming together for a shared experience like that.

I spent a bunch of time going to as many events as I could, including the Fight Club hosted by Blazing Saddles, and then I was a pacer for the Footrace. I also attended the Fashion contest and took a video!

Chaide ended up winning one of the categories for the contest, and won a character sketch by the amazing Typrop. He’s very excited, and I’ll be sure to post it in the blog when we get it.

WildCast Podcast

I had the pleasure of joining Avidguru and Dahk (who was filling in for Behalter) for the WildCast Podcast, episode 61. (It is not up, yet, but I’ll be posting a link as soon as it goes live.) We discussed things such as ThaydFest, INVASION: Nexus (aka Drop 5), The Ravaging of Arboria, and just goofed off a little bit. It’s a family friendly podcast, so I’m proud of myself for keeping my sailor’s mouth in check except for saying “shit” at some point, which I’m sure Avid is going to gleefully bleep out.

Yardcore: Nexus

So, I recorded all of the videos for the winners in the Lifestyles contest, and I had a blast doing so. So much so that I’m going to be starting a weekly YouTube video where I sit down in Skype or TeamSpeak with a house creator, and interview them while we tour their plot for about thirty minutes or so. I’m aiming to have the first one completed for the first week of April, and continue them from there.

If you play WildStar and would like to volunteer your house for this, let me know, or comment on the post I’ve going on the official forums.

Monitors Ahoy (hoy)!

On Monday, Chaide and I met up at the Best Buy after work and purchased a second monitor for the both of us (as well as a PS4 for his graduation present, because he graduates in MAY!!!). After getting them home and trying to set them up, we promptly figured out that our graphics card didn’t have a VGA hookup, and the monitors didn’t come with the DVI cord to hookup the video card. -_- Why do you make things so difficult, companies? Why not just include both cords? *sigh*

So anyway, I drove back to the store, which luckily isn’t very far away (maybe 10 minutes) to buy two stinking DVI cords to hook up and set up our monitors. But, WE HAVE SECOND MONITORS!! I’m so excited!! Here’s what my new set up looks like.

Thursday night was not a good night for tech, however. While I was walking the dog I dropped my phone (which is always in a case) and the LCD underneath the glass screen shattered. The nuts and bolts were still working (I was still getting notifications, etc.) but the screen wasn’t working. Luckily, there’s a place nearby work that gives a discount to folks at my place of employment, and I had it fixed in about forty-five minutes after I got there. Needless to say, when it first happened, I was a wreck for the rest of the night, and part of Friday.

Today’s plans consist of some FFXIV (both before we head out and maybe after we get back), a guild meeting/RP in WildStar, and then some tabletop gaming with some friends, and possibly a Kodra sighting (meaning, he might show up to tabletop)!

Veteran Shiphands

Sunday afternoon, we ran a few shiphands to get Golds so folks could unlock the AMP point (or is it the LAS? I can’t remember…). It was a blast, and I finally got in a Rage Logic. All of the shiphands are major fun, but I get more of a kick out of them as a guild group than anything.

I discovered, for the first time ever, that there is a secret hidden up top in one of the shiphands–Outpost M-13.

This little guy gets you an achievement when you click on him, and then follows you around!! I promptly made lots of “it’s so cute” noises instead of going on about how adorable it was, and lamented the fact that I couldn’t have one of my own as a mini-pet.

I also took lots of screenshots, because, well, how can you not?! (Thank you to Alexi for telling me to go up the stairs, and for the other guildies in the run for not spoiling it for me!)

War Woolie

Right after all our runs, I had to log out to go take care of some chores, so I didn’t open all my bags, plus my bags were full, so some I did open went right to my mailbox. My thought process was along the lines of “AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR DAT”, so I resigned myself to cleaning out my bags and going through my mail next time I logged online.

Lo and behold, the next time I logged online I casually checked my mail… and then stopped. Just stopped. Wide eyed. Going “buhhh????”. And then I started the “OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG” freak-out that we all get when we get a collectible we want. (You know you do, too. Don’t lie.) So, one collectible mount down, one to go! Because I’ve lost all hope of ever getting a Luminous Equivar like I dearly want.

Nekkid Stormtalon

Tuesday night after freaking out about my War Woolie and how excited I was, it was time to run a few Nekkid Stormtalon groups! If you remember, a few weeks ago we ran a Nekkid Baby Protostar. This went much the same way, in that everyone stripped down to their skivvies, and we walked in and ran a bunch of runs.

I have to hand it to WildStar–for all the effort we’ve tried to get funky-ass looking costumes from these runs, they’re pretty well put together sets! Granted, there weren’t a lot of drops that weren’t heavy armor when we had three slingers, a medic, and a stalker.

Stormtalon’s Head

Speaking of drops, on one of our runs, Stormtalon’s Head (Head of Stormtalon… whatever!) dropped! We all rolled greed as we do on guild runs, and I won it. I was shocked. A War Woolie and the Head of Stormtalon both in the same night?! What?! I mean, I felt a little bad for winning it, as I usually do on rolls like that, but I am hoping we can do more speed runs and get his head to drop again for some more folks!

PTR Update – Drop 5

Today on Twitter, a few of us happened to go off on a tangent about how we needed mini-pets in WildStar, and, like, now! Then DasMoose just happened to feel like opening up his PTR client for shits and giggles (at least, that’s my assumption of how this all started snowballing). And, guess what? It started patching! And what did he see scrolling along the bottom? Winterfest! Pets! PETS! That brought Twitter to a screeching halt and we all opened up our clients.

At least it seemed that way. We were tweeting left and right: So and so saw this show up! And someone else saw that! Oh look! What’s that mean?! A few minutes later, Caydiem was like, “Pff, guys, stop speculatin’.” (Obviously, I’m paraphrasing…) And then not a few minutes later, the official “what to expect in Drop 5 as it hits PTR” notes hit the site! BOOM!

People are going CRAZY! It’s Drop 5 fever! I wonder if it’s more hype than Drop 4? It feels like it…

I plan to (when I have a little bit of free time after ThaydFest) hop onto the PTR and start putting together a guide on where to find all the mini-pets for the Pet Obsessed (There are a bunch of us).

In the meantime, DasMoose made a great video of all the pets you can find in the game (on PTR)!