Monday, September 14, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- It's been a couple of weeks since I posted.

- Figured I would post today even if I have not yet returned to playing.

- I log in only to raid but at least that has been going well.

- Got three pieces of the new tier so far, need one more.

- Also managed to finally get the heroic four piece from last tier this past week.

- How sad it is that it took me this long to get last tiers tier set?

- Lets hope that 4th piece does not elude me for months and months on end.

- Just like heroic pieces eluded me for so long last tier.

- Or I will be stuck using last tiers for a very long time.

- I actually thought I would get the new tier set quickly after taking forever to get the last one done.

- It is murphys law.

- As soon as I finished the last tier and spent all that effort into getting it, it would not be needed any more.

- That is how my luck works.

- I had a feast week.

- Got the tier piece from BRF I needed, and 2 tier pieces from the raid this week.

- The only tier boss I did not kill this week on my hunter was gorefiend.

- If I were still into the game and not only logging in to raid with guild I would be pugging tonight to get a gorefiend kill.

- Heck, could even do a xhul kill as well, I could always use a coin even if I already killed it.

- Have the 3 pieces off the other bosses, so those two are on my must kill list each week now.

- I could talk about more but I have not been keeping up on the game.

- I have also not done anything other than raid.

- I did kill two of the new rares while flying around assembling for the raid.

- Did I mention how absolutely freaking awesome it is to finally have flying?

- Seriously, why was this not added during release.

- It should have been.

- Should have had it as needing loremaster, explorer and treasure hunter at launch and been done with it.

- I really hope blizzard does not screw up next expansion as badly as they did this one.

- Warlords will forever be known as a "How to destroy your game" tutorial.

- I might have to reconsider saying I still think cataclysm was worse.

- In the grand scheme of things, game play wise, cataclysm was 10 times better than warlords.

- It had flying, it had valor gear, it had great dungeons (with guild) with some difficulty at launch, it had good raids and it had dailies.

- And it introduced reforging at the end of the expansion which was awesome, but of course because people liked it blizzard needed to remove it.

- With the exception of good raids, which could easily be debatable, warlords has none of those things.

- I almost feel lost logging in when I log on to raid.

- I still log on an hour before start time.

- I've always been like that.

- Need to get my stuff in order.

- But I have mail expiring in mail boxes.

- I have characters stopped dead in their legendary quest line progress.

- I have alts I would like to play still not leveled.

- There is no much I want to do in the game.

- But I just have no desire to do it.

- I really used to love this game.

- Now I am not so sure any more.

- Warlords really is ax example of "how to destroy your game".

- At least from my standpoint.

- I'll make a post about what I have been up to otherwise later.

- So what have you been up to?

- Have a great day.

20 comments:

  1. Welcome back! Thought you might have saddled up and flown into the sunset. ;-)

    Like you I'm raiding, but only got as far as Iskar Normal in kills. Our guild has joined forces with another to try to progress further. They have plenty of good hunters so I've switched to my Mage (which is good) but I only have one tier piece on each character (which isn't so good).

    We got further in one night and 2 hours joint raiding than we have done in several weeks of trying with our own guild raid team. Numbers matter in this xpac, the scaling is so dire.

    Still fishing for lunkers and struggling with Archaeology due to the hilarious bug that came with 6.6.2. Otherwise I'm pretty well done with WoD and WoW. My life outside WoW has gotten more enjoyable recently so playing feels more like a duty than a distraction. Not what I need from a game!

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  2. My Guild fell apart about two weeks ago and I have stopped logging in, not even to login and farm garrison gold. All it took was two exceptionally bad weeks, I attempted to farm the new elites because the toys looked interesting the day flying came out only to watch my guildies who only knew about them from me win the drops. Did the elites across all four 100’s won nothing, and the new loot announcements made sure I knew what they had won. I than raided on my off and main, 17 consecutive rolls with nothing won. Logged in the next week to find out we were disbanding the raid group due to bad attendance (been 8/10 for about 3 weeks).

    I mainly moved on to my badly neglected Steam Library, with most of the time in Endless Legend which just got a new expansion released and Age of Wonders III, which I have had for a year but never installed. I have been thinking about scooping up Dragonage III once I find a good sale, but with my current backlogged catalog of games I can’t ever justify paying full price, even for a new release.

    That said I am really enjoying the break/exile from WoW. I love choosing what game I am playing and when I am playing it again. I’ll probably log in for BrewFest as I really like everything Dwarven and as an adult Oktoberfest is easily my favorite holiday, two weeks of drinking and feasting. I recently got married so my wife and I will head out Busch Gardens Bierfest (why has no thought of childless amusement weekends is a crime) and another, more local Oktoberfest the second weekend.

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  3. I'm sorta the opposite with WoW right now. I've basically quit raiding. We've killed everything but Arch on heroic and I can't muster the will to care about not finishing the full tier. First time that has happened for me. We used to be much more hardcore, finishing the mythic equivalent through Cataclysm, but that changed to heroic with Mists. So while it will be weird to not kill the final boss, it isn't so weird that I will bother doing it.

    I have about 30 days left in my paid time and after that, I'm taking a full break. Until then, I'm killing the rares for the final pet and toy that I need and farming mission gold. Nothing more.

    I hope to start a couple weeks of either FF14 or Guild Wars 2 this week. I'll take a look at both and see if either strikes my fancy. I never PvP, so I'm assuming that FF14 will be more up my ally, but who knows.

    Maybe WoW will get me back later either b/c I simply miss a 10-year addiction or b/c Legion actually ends up not sucking. We'll see.

    I've been trying to decide where I want to log my main out before the end. I still think about my EQ mage sitting in the Nexus. Weird to camp for what may be the final time.

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    1. If you decide to park your character and take a break, whatever you do please make a note of where you leave them. I took a break for the last 10 months of MoP and left my character sitting in Jade Forest on a beautiful overlook. I came back 10 months later and logged into my character. Well I took a step forward and proceeded to fall to my death. Yep, 5 sec back into WoW and I was dead from stupidity. Just a word of caution :)

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    2. Told my guild yesterday and I'm taking a break from the game. That was hard. I've played with many of them since launch. I don't think many were surprised given my thoughts on the state of the game and its maker, but still a weird situation.

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  4. GE,

    You may have posted Monday random thoughts, but you haven't been back going over your comments.

    Yeah, it's your blog, but since you have become famous and on everyone's list of a great hunters blog, you need to bring closure - yes, closure damn it. Most blogs just stop writing (look at your side list at how many are from 4 or more months ago) and just leave people dangling. Sure, it is the way things are done these days, but you are better than that.

    Also tried writing to you via email, but it looks like you stop answering that too.

    Sure, you are jaded, sure blizzard has destroyed what you like to do, so go do something else in the game. How about PVP more? Yeah, it sucks, but it's a start.

    Why not come up with a better than all the other blogs a "here's how you play a hunter good and not suck at it". Or how to bind counter-shot to a key stroke (still haven't figure this out) (and other hunter shots or macros) guide.

    Tons of stuff for you to do. BUT, if you are so jaded, maybe the new game you are playing - hints and tips and how good it is. :)

    Well, been there, but I got an excuse and at least on my blog I put something up where I screwed up and didn't have a backups.

    later mate
    -roo

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  5. forgot a couple of things -

    how about writing on what are the add -ons you use and why. What are good hunter add ons (or any class)? See, lots of stuff and why? Because you like to write. You like to put the GE stamp of things. You are a perfectionist and can't stand something half-assed done. See, I know you more than that you let on. As do most of your readers. That's why we are here and help make you "that site" hunters talk about and visit.

    You have taken over BRK's spot (many years ago!) due to your exacting knowledge of the hunter class, hunter play, and your friendly way of making everyone comfortable on TGE, even when you dis-agree or they with you.

    yeah, it may be the beers talking, but....zzzzzzzzzzzzz

    -roo the rascal you love!

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  6. Gratz on the tier gear and welcome back.

    Our raid team is back at it after about a 4-month layoff, but we are only raiding once a week every two weeks, so it is minimal. We have made it through the first two wings of HFC normal, but we can only do so by pugging, as we usually can only field 8 guildies. This slows things down even more, since most of the pugs drop group after one wipe, and we have to go back and find more. Not ideal, but still better than nothing. I guess.

    Anyway, glad to see you back again, even if it's only once a week for Random Thoughts. Nothing wrong with extended breaks!

    @Roo. Not for nothin', dude, but who peed in your coffee cup today?

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  7. As I said over on Fiannor's post (a good one, go read) https://misdirections.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/it-really-was-about-the-flying/

    "I think part of the reason I have been writing and commenting less is due to flying. Part of it is due to real life suddenly stepping up and demanding time for a bit, but outside of that, I’m just enjoying the game enough that I’m not making time to write. When I’m done playing, by choice or not, I’m more or less satisfied that I could play as I liked.

    Like you, it hasn’t fixed everything and I still would rate this expansion low overall, but flying, especially on alts, has made the game much more palatable and fun right now. Random stops or flights or just being out and about."

    Beyond that, not much. I'm lazily moving my ring quest along on various alts. Trying to rebuild gold reserves on alts after fully upgrading some garrisons.

    I hope that you are able to find fun in WoW again somehow. Whether it is after taking a long break or just for a short-time. And if not, I hope you write about your next game as I enjoy your point of view on things.

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  8. - Since they added flying back in, I've gotten two more toons to 100. The mage was almost there anyway, but lvled the druid from 95-100 in an afternoon by flying around and collecting most of the treasures.

    - So that's 5 100s, the most max level toons I've ever had.

    - Also started my shipyard on the druid to open up Tanaan. Haven't done the shipyard, I mean shityard, on any of the other alts though...

    - Druid is my herbalist, so flew around Tanaan collecting herbs for a while to get felblight,

    - So Hunter's 3 crafted items are fully upgraded now. iLvL is 704. That's probably all the higher he'll get though unless I get the desire to start pugging raids...

    - Killed Arch in LFR after they nerfed it. So much easier to deal with now. Still took several stacks of determination, but was doable with random LFR players instead of a wipefest...

    - Killed the new rares a couple times as well.

    - That's about all I've done in WoW over the last couple weeks though...

    - Been spending a ton of time playing Witcher 3 instead. Up to 110hrs played, 37% completion. Amazing game.

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  9. Keep that T17 4pc Grumpy! It's amazing for soloing old content as BM. Council fight in ToT just melts.

    Anyways, glad you got some T18 (finally). If you have a choice, try and get your Helm, Shoulders, Chest and Legs (skip the hands unless you can't get or don't have the chest). This is all assuming you're MM of course. Crafted hands with Crit/Multi (of the Savage) would be the ticket there.

    I personally am LOVING flying again. Admittedly, thus far most of my actual time in flight has been spent hovering over my Garrison (just being honest) BUT... I have been out in the world, got a couple Rukhmar kills that I joined a group and flew there on my mount to and leveled my Ally Hunter a couple levels. Being able to fly back and forth to the quest givers and the areas to do the quests is HUGE (in terms of time saving). It's not so much avoiding mobs, because when you're on the ground to do the quests... there's gonna be mobs... many mobs (handle it!). It more about the time it takes to get from quest giver to quest area and back. It's just SO much micer. Blizzard did say they are adding the Meta Achievement for flight at the release of Legion. So everyone can work on that right off the bat. As to when that gets "turned on", I don't know for sure, they haven't really confirmed that one. But I would HOPE they learned something from this Xpac and have that switch flipped on at the release of 7.1. I really dig the fact that it's achievement based, and not just something you purchase with gold (on all of your toons - that got expensive when you have a main and 10 alts that all need flying).

    I too have suffered from the lack of motivation issues you stated, but I will say this. Flight kinda made those all go away (for me). I'm gearing and leveling my alts now and actually planning out time for each one. Funny how something as simple as flight can renew your love of the game (at least for me it did). :-D

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  10. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

    Lord but I am so so jealous of you guys flying..., but sigh, I indeed find an overwhelming lack of interest in finishing Pathfinder out as it is currently configured. Eventually I hope to hit a sweet spot on the Auction House and purchase enough medallions to get it finished but that day has not yet occurred.

    Worst part is that I log on with every full intention of trying to do a tiny bit more but when I get to the actual time to go out and do it, I just log off. I don't think I have ever been so uninterested in doing a rep grind as I have this one. I have had good suggestions from many players on where to go and how to do it, but be damned if I can make myself go and do it. Which is a real hindrance to my plans for WoD now that flight will be enabled for all my 90+ toons with Pathfinder. God but I want to fly for those characters and I do want to find some way to get into the sky but doing it Blizzards' preferred method doesn't look likely. It also looks very boring and that is something a game already in trouble with me can't afford to be promoting.

    As far as the Legion pathfinder, any rep gains better be apparent from the get go if needed for the Legion Pathfinder achievement. As much as I have heard about WoW:L, I am inclined to be in favor of it, but any BS about flying before hand and I will not be interested in purchasing it. Hells bells, I probably will still be working on WoD Pathfinder at that time. Sigh.

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    1. Meh... I don't know man. If I really want something, I bust it out ASAP. It only took 2 weeks of dailies to get to Revered with those Tanaan factions (another week and a half to just get them to Exhalted - but Revered is all you need). It's really not that much of a grind, it's just doing dailies that also helps stockpile your Garrison Resources, Apexis and Oil (stuff you need any ways).

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    2. @ anon former guild leader of GE who is away and not commenting...

      you know it is really strange as I had done everything needed except the 3 reps. and they were done fast for some reason. Got them all the way to exhausted (yup, exhausted, lol). And you know why it was strange. No pvp, no raiding, all low gear (even now I am only 692) but I can take on all the rares in Tanaan Jungle and survive. Yeah it is boring but I found two friends a husband and wife team and that made it fun. So, find a group of folks who play wow and tackle it together Anon former guild leader of Grump the Hider. :)

      -roo

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    3. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

      This requirement for flight simply has had a negative effect on my desire to do it. This is not something that has a logical explanation, but is instead rooted somewhere deep in my contrariness. I admit that I had about nothing completed when pathfinder was announced but it was not hard to catch up on the lore master, exploration and so on. I still have about 30 treasures to find but that is still trivial and a playing session devoted to it will easily see it done. It was and still is, those damned reps that I can't get my enthusiasm up enough to do. Just thinking about them makes me despise them more, which for something I need to get done is not encouraging at all.
      Now my item level is still well below what it probably should be for Tanaan but I really haven't had any problems there, aside from the fact that I have a little bit slower kill rate than a lot of other classes being a ret paladin. On the other hand I am a ret paladin so my slower kill rate is more than offset by near invulnerability to death. So while I dislike the crowded conditions of Tanaan, it is not hard to do things there. The problem lies in not wanting to be there.

      For those who would say tough, well, yea, I agree; it is tough to want to get something done and yet find the doing of it so disagreeable as to not being able to do it. After all, I am playing for fun and not as a job or necessity. It is not like long rep grinds particularly scare me. While I don't have quite as many reps maxed out as our host here, grinding reps is one of the ways I like to play normally and for a lot of my toons, grinding one rep after another is exactly how I level them. So in essence, I know that it isn't the reps themselves that are the problem. The problem lies in me not wanting to have to do yet one more hoop for Blizzard to allow me to do what I should have been able to do since level 60 and that is fly in all zones at that point onward.

      I remember reading the pathfinder qualifications when they were released this year. I was all on board with an yea, I can get this done with no problem until I hit the Tanaan reps portion. That made no sense to me. What did Tanaan have to do with flight. More importantly, what did Tanaan have to do with delaying flight. It was a last thumb in the eye from Blizzard as far as I could discern as a retaliation against the player revolt forcing flight back in. I still feel that way and I guess at the end that is why I am having such a difficult time getting any enthusiasm for it at all.

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    4. oh I agree. Right now, I can't stand the thought of another garrison daily or a tanaan jungle daily. So, since I have the max amount of toons (just like the real military where it takes roughly 10 to 15 rear folks to keep 1 in the field) I have 4 to each that act as storage. So I started playing those with names like iEarth, iFood, etc. lvl 1 or even lvl 40, but I am playing and not worried about WoD area. And since I did not get my 10 year pin from Blizzard (not sure why as I have been playing and paying for the game since day 2) I don't want to jump thru hoops either.

      But, I digress, those reps just came, I wasn't out seeking them.

      But you have to admit, the way flying is done for WoD - only have to get one toon thru it, versus having to do it for all (or pay) for all toons, is much, much, better.

      Hopefully, GE will get thru what ever problem he has and get back to writing here.

      -roo

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    5. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

      Well it cost me a lot of gold, but I finally got flight enabled for WoD. The last 30 treasures took a while but eventually I found enough and now I am airborne. The gold I can replace. The losing of patience with the Tanaan reps I am glad to replace with a sense of "thank god it is done," and I really don't care how or why.

      Even so, buying the reps felt a lot like cheating, but it is built into the game, so I know it isn't. Just feels like it a bit. Oh well, I don't care. The long while without flight is over...for now.

      With regards to Pathfinder being the new method of opening flight for all a players characters, I do hope and pray they set the conditions for it in "stone" right to start with for WoW:L and don't dilly dally and hem and haw over it like they did with WoD. And really, reps should not be a part of it, especially not any last minute, johnny come lately reps like Blizzard pulled off in WoD. If (and I do emphasis IF) reps are to be part of the WoW:L pathfinder, then they need to be included from the start and have it be known that is the method and these are the reps needed from release date onward. Anything at all approaching the WoD debacle with flight, and their next expansion might actually be the first one that sees the game contract in size to below the original numbers of the first couple of months of WoW.

      In other words, I don't think I am the only one who still loves the game but doesn't like the current trends in it. Oh well, we will see.

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  11. It's good to see you back :)
    WoD seems to be expiring very fast for me.

    1. I have 5 Epic Rings now and I'm gonna finish the rest 6 by mid October.
    2. After that, it's essentially no good reason to login with any of my most developed toons.
    3. Just lazily doing achievements for my main.
    4. I'm trying to tank with human pally and trying to play a troll kitty - both from scratch - in order to try something new. Don't see yet if they survive over level 30 or not.
    5. New Starcraft coming in November and possibly I will eventually buy and walk through Diablo 3 as I liked the trial version pretty much. That sounds like a plan until Legion, if they don't give me beta pass :)

    Conclusion: WoD is definitely the first addon when I have nothing to do in the middle of expansion.

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  12. I agree completely with your thoughts. If I log in right now, I stare at the screen for a while and realize I don't want to do this right now. So I've pretty much stopped logging in. I'm playing Diablo 3, which has interesting new content and a massive power spike which allows you to continue testing your limits in the game. And I'll come back to WoW when I feel like it.

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