IntPiPoMo is almost at an end, but I wanted to give a quick shout out to those that signed up to participate this year. I’ve been lurking on posts, and it’s been fun to see how everyone interprets their participation in IntPiPoMo. It’s been a light in a pretty dark month to read everyone’s posts. (Blogs are listed in alphabetical order.)

• Mr. Peril – Contains Moderate Peril
• The Royal Family – Dating Sims on the Holodeck
• Cal – Galactic Antics
• Chestnut – Gamer Girl Confessions
• Shintar – Going Commando
• Magi – Indiecator
• Bhagpuss – Inventory Full
• Mailvaltar – Mailvaltar: MMOs and Other Stuff
• Paeroka – Nerdy Bookahs
• Stargrace – Nomadic Gamers, eh!
• Telwyn – GamingSF
• Tyler Edwards – Superior Realities
• Atheren – The Last Chapter Gaming Blog
• Arislyn – The Tanking Mage
• Welshtroll – Welshtroll

My Little Indrik

I’ve been grinding my way through the events in ESO as much as possible, mainly because I enjoy collecting mounts, and think the Indriks are interesting creatures. I finally got enough berries and feathers to unlock my first ever Indrik, and I’m in love! The Onyx Indrik is delightfully glamour goth, and it makes me happy the way it appears when you mount it. While I enjoy collecting mounts, this one is going to be my main for a long while.

Witches Festival

I was surprised that the Witches Festival wasn’t as involved as other holiday events I’m used to in other MMOs. The quest for the reward item was simple, and over sooner than I expected. But the hovel the witch lived in was fun for screenshots.

This post is a part of IntPiPoMo! You can find out more about IntPiPoMo and find the sign up form at this post. IntPiPoMo Count: 17/50

Image from Ru

IRON CIRCLE DEFEATED HEROIC ARGUS!

Congrats to all that were there on the first kill (March 29, 2018)! I’m hoping we can get the mount for some more guildies. A few folks have poked officers about it, and I think they’re concocting something along the same lines as the Moose? I hope so, anyway.

We’ve only downed him once, so far. But I’m sure we’ll get him on farm soon, so long as we can skip Coven. We’ve also only downed them once, and they are murder for us, apparently. I think I might be the only one in guild who enjoys the Coven fight.

Image from Moo

We skipped raiding on Monday, and we struggled a bit last night just due to lack of numbers, but we’re pushing back through for another full clear.

Maybe one of these days I’ll get my final piece for my four piece of tier… (That’s at least something I am looking forward to in Battle for Azeroth—no tier.)

Boss Train, Woop Woop!

Saturday I hopped into WildStar for an officer meeting, and then a scheduled Rose Bowl event!

Not only did we do Rose Bowl, however, we started a World Boss Train. It was a lot of fun!

I even got to do R12 for the first time! I’d love to do both again!

We actually downed King Honeygrave!! He’s an extremely buggy boss (no pun intended) and can reset randomly sometimes. So it was awesome to get him down for the group. Unfortunately, I didn’t get credit for him (and I didn’t get credit for the other buggy boss over in Farside, either). So I’m hoping Carbine does some magic fixes on both so I can go back and snag them without glitches!

Saturday while I was out running chores, I also stopped at a Game Stop and picked up two more box copies of WildStar hoping our luck would win out. I got the hoverboard from my box, so I sent it over to Chaide as it was the last thing he needed. And he happened to get the Snarfelynx out of his box which is the last thing I needed. So now I have my fat farting cat! And a title! Hurrah!

Speaking of titles, I also finally redeemed my Anniversary gifts for my title, and toys, and Rowsdower! He’s all candy-fied! He is mine! And I shall call him my Squishy!

Saturday night we also hopped over to FFXIV for a bit. A good friend we gamed with in WildStar (whom we met in EVE and have kind of game-hopped with them until WildStar) has a FC over on Lamia. We had initially played there but left due to some complications with folks who have since moved servers. So I rolled up a new Magnolia Chestnut that’s going to try to main a Bard.

Honestly, I plan to play much more often over on Cactuar, but I do plan on every-so-often spending some time continuing to play with someone Chaide and I would consider family. And who knows, maybe I can get two different raiding environments. (I find it funny I look forward to raids in FFXIV but could care less about raids in all of the other MMOs I play…)

Wars and Podcasts

Sunday was some Star Wars. I did two flashpoints, put on gear that will last me through to level 50 (so long as I consistently change out my mods and such) and tried to fiddle with my spells. It’s a tad overwhelming the number of spells, so I’m looking for any help folks might have for a Marksman Imperial Agent!

I was also the guest over at Strange Tales from Outerspace (Episode 48) on Sunday! It was a lot of fun! If you missed the livecast, the podcast will be up sometime tomorrow, and I’ll be sure to link to it… so long as you don’t mind listening to my sailor’s mouth, haha. I vaguely recall someone in chat calling me “sassy” and I had a great chuckle about that. It kind of comes with the territory of being a Ginger. ;P

I’m also finishing up edits to the next Yardcore, and expect to post that baby sometime today. If you’re playing WildStar over on Entity, I’m looking for more volunteers (Exile or Dominion), so please hit me up and we’ll set a date and time to record!

I haven’t been online/gaming much the past week and half, really. I had an opportunity for a new position with the company I interned with fall into my lap, and had to complete a project as a part of the interview process. I’m excited to see if I progress to the next step. I know I have cheerleaders in my corner there, so I’m leaning towards the positive.

Cake or Death

Last night was my first night back in-game since, well, Memorial Day, really. So almost two weeks. Good grief. Anyways.

The last time Chaide and I played FFXIV, we had gotten the quest to unlock Haukke Manor, but we thought it would be fun to try to take on this guy.

Yeah. We ended up dead and back in Limsa. So last night we headed back out to the Central Shroud and found the entrance.

Backstory

So, I totally didn’t post any of the screenshots/story leading up to Haukke manor from when we last Met with the Resistance. Ergo, here’s a screenshot dump. (Possible spoilers ahead!)

I think the story is finally starting to pick back up a bit!

The Manor

A guildie joined up with us, and we pugged a final spot as we headed into Haukke Manor. It was a tad difficult to tank as I am not yet level 30, so I was having aggro issues. Regardless, it was a lot of fun, and I’d love to run more of them! Special thanks to our NIN and healer for being patient with me (and Chaide for holding off on DOTing everything until I had sufficient aggro).

Much as we are getting into the main story, again, we think we’ll work on hitting 30 with our current classes, and then cross-classing and leveling to 30. Then pick the main story back up. Any suggestions on quick-but-fun ways to level our second (and any following) battle class(es) to 30 and beyond?

Random Shots

As we’re nowhere near ready for Heavensward, we figured we’d pick up the Digi CE content instead of the expansion (until we finish the main story, sometime by the end of the year), especially since we think it might go away once Heavensward comes out. We also hit the big-eye-mount prize for subbing! Doesn’t my Roegadame sit so lady-like and cute on it?

Off to the Races

The one thing I was looking forward to the most at the saucer was the Chocobo Racing. And I found out I kind of suck at it. Most of the time I ended up in eighth place.

I did win once, but I call it luck based on how terrible I was doing the rest of the time.

The animations for winning are so adorable. I’m looking forward to getting some more racing in to learn the tracks and figure out Stamina management better. I’m also looking forward to breeding, though I don’t particularly want to retire my current Chocobo because I love her name.

Yep, that’s right. She’s named after my favorite Sailor Moon character–Black Lady. Speaking of Sailor Moon, I want to start watching Crystal again (too bad it’s blocked at work). I’ve only watched the first two episodes, so I might sit down and watch them again and write a blog post on them. I’d also really love to get the mangas eventually. Maybe they’re online somewhere for free…

WildStar

We played a lot of WildStar this weekend. Saturday evening was “Dungeon/Adventure Day” where we ran about ten total dungeons/adventures with all of the groups that we had running in-guild (not all at the same time, mind). Sunday we did much of the same, plus some dailies. It was lots of fun to hang out with guildies and start back up on finishing the reputation for Crimson Badlands.

On one of the dungeon runs, we had the Torine Headdress mount flair drop, and I happened to win the greed roll. It looks quite fabulous on my War Woolie. He now has a feather crown.

QueueTimes

I’ve been enjoying creating Let’s Play videos so much that I’m going to be doing a Let’s Play of Shadowrun: Returns (and the player-created campaigns) weekly over at QueueTimes! There’s a lot of great folks over there from the WildStar and gaming community in general, so you should check them out.

Chaide and Chestnut Play TSW (With Cam!)

Speaking of Let’s Play videos, I’ll be adding another to the repertoire here on the blog. Chaide, Camara (a guildie from WildStar) and I have all picked up The Secret World and are playing together, so I’ll be posting those every so often here as well.

Meet Topaz

So named because eventually I will be feeding him (eventually) so he turns blue. He might not be the exact color of Topaz, possibly lighter, but I thought it was a fitting name for a blue Chocobo.

Manderville Saucer

We decided to head over to the Saucer even though we didn’t have much play time before bed. So we went to Ul’dah to talk to the guy we needed to so we could obtain our Golden Ticket, and then headed over.

I wonder if you can dye the racing Chocobos different colors? And I wonder what breeding is like. I’m looking forward to the Chocobo races, mainly. Though I’ll give Triple Triad a try. I know Chaide is very interested in TT as it brings back memories. We’re hoping to get in tonight before WildStar and do some mini-gaming galore!

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)!

Just a quick little check off list to the Elephant’s and my original list, and first update on the list.

What We Checked Off:

• Both weapon achievements: Knuckle Sandwhich and Four Types. They’re now feats of strength.
• All of the critter achievements. There’s now a new one… which I am diligently making a list for. Maybe I’ll even post the list when I’m done with it.
• The book achievement. Though, with the little exploration we’ve done, it looks like most books are generally in the same vicinity as they were before the Shattering.
• Loremaster of both Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. And we’re glad we got it out of the way, too. All of the changes really screwed some guildies out of theirs. One was about 600 quests into each and now has practically none.
• We fought our way through lots of dungeons to get Classic Dungeonmaster. Glad it’s finally done, though, we will still need to go back as a guild and down all the bosses for the Guild Achievements. Yay for fun nights!
• Keymaster was pretty much done thanks to our reps in BC, so we just grabbed the Shattered Halls Key as the last bit. (It seems to have disappeared, though, which saddens me, and my keyring is empty-ish. I wonder what keys I lost!)
• Ambassador of the Horde was a fun one as well. Lots of low-level quests toward Loremaster which just gave us the rep we needed. No cloth quests at all.
• The Argent Dawn and Argent Champion came together. It was awesome. I wore that title for days after I got it.
• We even maxxed out our rep with Zandalar. I’m glad we did. Even if it is a feat of strength, now, it counts toward our reps still.
• Timbermaw was pretty easy to grind out. We took turns smashing and looting, but we still shared rep from kills. It was great. We’re also just one step away from our Diplomat titles now. Come on, Mag’har!

What We Got in the Process:

• Various Exalted Reputation achievements.
• Various mount collection achievements.
• Swift flight form! The quest was so much fun to do with someone else. Instead of trying to solo it… at 70.
• We had gotten various quest complete achievements, but with all the changes, our ~2500/3000 quests keeps waffling between ~1400 and ~2500. Make up your mind, Blizzard!
• The Deadliest Catch. Most. Fun. Ever.
• Various holiday achievements; Brewmaster, Hallowed Be Thy Name, and Pilgrim in particular.
• We also got a For the Horde in one late night. Figured “What the Hell” and got all of them in one shot.
• Downing Sarth with three dragons (which we’ve now made a regular weekly event to get people their drakes).