Sunday, May 30, 2010

What I Am Up To : May Edition.


I have a bad case of the WoW blahs after some rather nasty guild drama.  Still, my guild managed to continue its push through ICC, downing Festergut and getting pretty close on Rotface.  This is due in part to our excellent group of raiding members, and in part to the buff that has been pushed to 20%.  Another reason is, since we lost two raiders in this messy dramatic break, we have been having some friends of the guild help out in a couple of places, some of which have already seen all of ICC, if not having already completed it on other characters.  They have been a big help explaining fights that some of us never took the time to study (hides behind her keyboard and whistles innocently). Oh, and did I mention Delgada got shelved? Turns out I know what I'm doing on Carlotta, and we don't need another healer.  Look up there, you'll see our raid group, about 50% Tauren, and made all that much sexier with Carlotta's ethnic color.


Since I have been fairly uninterested in doing anything in WoW, I have been playing a couple other games to pass the time.  The game that has taken the most of my time, up until our last ICC raid, was Perfect World, a free to play game with cash shop.  I am trying to play it without using the shop, but I think it's going to get difficult when I exhaust the quest means to expand my bank.  There are no quests to expand bag space, only a "quest" to turn in a bag expansion stone, which you have to purchase. Your bank,. however, can be added to by completing two gathering quests.  The first I was able to complete by level 20.  The turn in for this quest, however, is at the very top of the game map, far and away from a level 20 anything is questing. By this time, my cleric had maxed out her flying skill, so this was not too difficult to turn in.  But what a gigantic time dump!  I think all I did that day that I turned in that quest was turn it in and log off.  I am not looking forward to the second collection quest.  Let me not forget to mention that I joined a great faction there.  HVND has been around just as long as KNR, and been in many of the same games.  I remember frequenting their town on the Corbantis SWG server, paying my credits for their great doctor and dancer buffing house. The faction in Perfect World is just as friendly, and I'm looking forward to my next few stolen hours of playtime with them.


Another game that has taken some of my gaming time is Wizard 101.  Rowan Trollstalker is level 30, and I decided I would spend some time farming bosses for pets, since part of the new expansion for the game has been pushed live, with the introduction of pet leveling, breeding, and min games. Tonight, I spend a good part of my evening killing General Akilles in Cyclops Lane over and over again.  No pet yet ( I hear he drops a blue ghost), but I managed to snag a cyclops statue, a tonne of armor, a shelf, and a one day flying broom! After, Mister Winston and I fiddled around in the Pet Pavilion, playing in the maze game, the cannon game, and the dance game (we don't like the falling food game, no we don't!) Below is a picture of a practice derby Winston tried out yesterday.  As I play with crowns, I didn't run a rated match, but if this is any indication of how well he'll do, I may shell out a few crowns for some rated matches when he gets to ancient status. Right now, he and my dragon Madame Hannah are adults, and I could mate them to hatch another pet, but the price is outrageous!  Since we were lucky farming for pets (accidentally, mind you, what I really wanted was a flame cat statue!) the day before, I think we will stick with that for now.  If you want to try this out, level a character to 7 and talk to the Headmaster.  He'll send you on a delivery mission that will end in you getting a piggle of your very own to grow and love!


I would be a bad, bad game blogger if I didn't mention my other game addiction, We Rule. It's free to download and play, though if you wanted I suppose you could support them by buying mojo to speed up your farming and building, but you don't need to. Oh, and it would help if you had an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad to download it to, as I think that is the only platform they support.  Recent expansions have moved the level cap from 20 to 25, then to 30, and added such neat things to add to your kingdoms as stocks, jails, orange and ruby groves, and golden roads.You can farm, visit your friends villages and purchase their wares, and rearrange your town to your hearts content. Below, in no particular order, are hubby's homes and gardens, Michelle's(of VGO and WCO) kingdom, a picture of what the neighbors menu looks like, and a view of the loading screen and my kingdom.  These are all a little dated, because I had planned to post them earlier.

Other than those titles, the only thing that has been keeping me busy are the end of school rush for extra credit (or just regular credit), getting ready to close my work kitchen, and teenage drama.  I hope you are all in a better state than I am. 

That is all I have for now.  Stay tuned as summer hits, and my gaming adventures become less mundane.  I promise a summer vacation of free to play mmo's and free  iPod apps that will leave you feeling like you took a grand vacation!

6 comments:

KiwiRed said...

Congratulations, you convinced me to give Wizard 101 a try. After about a day of fluffing around to get the wretched thing installed (due to an obscure bug, i'm sure, but an annoying one) I'm relieved to find it's actually kind of nifty.

After a days play, my pyromancer is level 6 and I suspect I could easily become addicted to Sorcery Stones (and I've just found the iphone version of it, WizardBlox, which could be even better - or maybe worse).

Out of curiosity, do you subscribe to the game or buy crowns?

ShawndraKai said...

I use crowns. I figure this way, once I unlock everything, I can go through the game for free several more times with my alts :)

I don't buy the crown store items, as I have found that many of them drop off boss mobs. I recently looted the one day seraph wings and the one day horned broom off a mid level boss, so I imagine the permanent ones can be found on the end level boss mobs :) And trading crowns for gold is also pretty silly. All you have to do is stick to the road instead of the sidewalk to make all the gold you could possibly want :)

Have you won anything interesting on the wizard blox app yet? It's one of my favorite apps!

KiwiRed said...

Nothing exceptional from WizardBlox (stuck on level 11) so far (although I've still to turn in a couple of codes), but I picked up a 1-day horse mount and 1-day wings from a couple of bosses in Unicorn Way. (I have to say, I know the horse is designed to look children-friendly, but it really does make the starpony in WoW look classy by comparison - the wings are nifty though :)

My biggest battle so far is fighting the urge to run back to town re-dye my loot so I colour-coordinate...

ShawndraKai said...

I am that sad that I go to the auction house every 5 levels and buy my gear. The auction house allows you to choose the colors, which, depending on how vivid your colors are, changes your price. My color scheme is the cheapest life wizard scheme, and I think it works :)

You must have amazing luck having got a couple mounts already. It took me hours to get the two I had.

KiwiRed said...

Make that three - a 20% speed broom dropped after posting that...

I've picked up a couple of items from the auction house, but the lack of appealing colour choices for a conjurer is disheartening. Mind you, I'm still trying to decide on a scheme for my current character - I've gone from black+gold to silver+gold to (currently) black+red... I really need to pick something and stick with it.

The server's just gone down for maintenance, so I guess I have a while to give it some thought (if I can actually think all that much, that is, playing wizardblox).

Oh, and nothing really interesting in the way of rewards from WB - an accuracy elixir (which made a surprising difference), a power elixir, some treasure cards, and several gold rewards (between 100-150-ish each).

ShawndraKai said...

Yes, sometimes the school we like doesn't have the colors we like :( You could wear gear that is not class specific, but it wouldn't help much.

I have looted transformations and reagent packs when I play the blox. And, of course, all the other things you mentioned. The elixirs sure are a nice boost when you are leveling!