Nerdblock for October

Khajiit has wares….

So last night I’ve been still struggling to pick what characters to play in Legion. I think I will settle on my 4 alliance toons: Draenai hunter, gnome mage, pandaran priest and of course my human warlock. Seeing that classes matter more in the next expansion, it has actually given me an insentive to level every class. I say every class, but I won’t have a dk, rogue or monk. I just can’t get the hang of these classes.

Ofcourse WoW isn’t my only mmo, I mean this is me, the girl who is always undesisive about games etc. So what mmo’s have I been playing?

Guildwars 2: I have to admit that I really enjoy playing my necromancer, but I really am playing this game as if it was a single player. I’m not interested in the dungeons or pvp. I’ve just been focussing on her personal storyline and it’s really good. I don’t know if I’d want to get the expansion Heart of Thorns for this one as soon as it’s released though.

Elder Scrolls online: I adore this game! I am playing it on ps4 now and the quests are a lot of fun. As always it took me a while to settle on a character, but I now have a nightblade Khajiit and I really enjoy playing her.

I do feel that this game is just better on the ps4, it doesn’t feel so clunky when you play it with a controller. Also the Aldmeri Dominion (one of the factions you choose to join at the start of the game) has the most amazing NPC in the entire game: Razum-Dar

This Khajiit always makes me giggle when I have to help him with missions and it’s one of the reasons why I ditched my bosmer sorcerer for a Khajiit. Also Cats Rule!

If you’re thinking of picking up ESO I would say ‘yes, do it!’, but I do feel that it plays better on the ps4 personally. The storyline is great and the world is amazing. I love discovering tiny things that lead you to another quest or more lore.

So this is how I’ve been dividing my time on mmo’s lately.

New expansion announced…. and I have to start making choices about toons

I’m sure all wow players will have watched the live stream of Blizzard presenting ‘Legion’ at Gamescom. If not check it out here: http://www.blizzgc.com/

I am happy about this xpac, but I haven’t been throwing my cash at the monitor like I used to in the past. I’m excited for it, but I’m also a bit cautious. Perhaps it’s because Warlords disappointed me more than I was happy to admit to. It’s not a bad expansion, but I just don’t feel involved into what’s happening in Draenor and the story was lacking in the end. However, Legion seems to be focusing a lot on some of the story lines that I’m interested in (and yay no orcs for once).

I will try out a Demonhunter, but I don’t know if I will main it unless it blows my mind. Knowing me though and my experiences with monk and deathknight, it has to be a pretty amazing class.

And here comes the kicker…. I don’t know what to play now. I love my draenai hunter, but I can’t see myself rp-ing with her, she’s also not on an rp server. I do think I will be focusing on her, but this xpac has made me want to level something on my rp realm. A character I can write stories about. Now my rp server holds some of the toons I dearly love because of their backgrounds: The goblin priest who will guarantee your place in the here after if you are willing to pay the coin for it, The undead mage who in life was a teacher and now that the maggots are eating away at her brain, is getting quite confused at times and yelling at everyone as if they were naughty kids in her classroom. The bloodelf hunter who is a ranger and has a fear of spiders. So many characters to choose from.

I did create 3 new alliance toons on that server: a pandaren priest, a gnome mage and a human warlock. Now the gnome mage will probably played as Vanellope VonSchweetz from Wreck it Ralph. I love that character and I can see this mage being just as much of a little know it all brat. The panda has no background yet (I always find pandaren hard to rp), but my warlock… oh my warlock…. She is a young girl from Elwynn forest, her family works on their farm and her older sisters are all married and mothers to dozens of kids. But my little lock Zoellha wants a bit more in life. Ever since she saw Jaina Proudmore as a little girl, she wanted to be just like her. She loves her books and tried to study really hard to become a great mage apprentice. Unfortunately, when she tried to summon down some rain for some of the locals (which did not ask her to do this at all), she kinda… sorta summoned a rain of fireballs out of the sky… destroying all the crops. Also her water elemental doesn’t really look like any of the other ones she has seen… it’s kind small… and it has horns and a really bad attitude. Her sisters told her that perhaps it would be a good idea to give up on all this magic nonsense and become a wife and mother, but Zoellha was determined to make her Lady Jaina Proudmore proud! Her mother, always the understanding kind, sent her to a warlock trainer and even if Zoellha is gutted that arcane magic isn’t hers to command, she will now be the best warlock ever to make Lady Jaina proud. She sometimes still is in denial about her warlock abilities and calls herself a mage with a bit of spice. Ow and did I mention she has a crush on Anduin Wrynn? And this girl is clumsy as can be?

And that is why I love playing her… except that I’m really awful at playing warlock >.< So what am I supposed to do now? Ugh….

When you have to start making hard choices

For the last months I’ve been having an internal struggle. As many know, I played WoW for many many years, but this expansion just fizzled out for me very quickly. This doesn’t mean I think wow is a bad game and I’d still play it, but only for the pvp. I had, however, subbed for 6 months in one go. All that time I felt guilty for not playing it every day.

I thought that perhaps dabbling in FFXIV would show me the ways of mmo-love again, but even if the game is gorgeous, I just can’t get into it. The story is great, but there’s not enough in one go to keep me satisfied and I really hate grinding several levels by just doing fates or dungeons to get to a level which will unlock more of the story quests. Again, the guild of paying money for a game that I hardly enjoy playing, played a big part in my final decision.

I still think WoW will be my no 1 mmo, but for now I am not going to pay or play either of these mmo’s. Instead I am going to save my money and will spend it when I go on holiday to Spain and Holland this year.

So what will I play? There are many great free mmo’s out there. I definetely am going to return to The Secret World. They have had many quality of life changes in the game, so I am going to start over with a Templar character this time. Being in England for around 8 years has made me rather patriotic of this country, and the Templar would be perfect for that feeling.

If I want my fantasy fix, I am debating between the following mmo’s: Guildwars 2, ESO, ArcheAge and Rift.

Now I have enjoyed Rift in the past, but found the storyline kinda meh and I don’t know enough about ArcheAge to give it my honest opinion though I have heard many people complain that it’s pay to win.

So that leaves ESO and Guildwars 2…. Eso was incredibly enjoyable, but I think I will start playing it on my ps4. I did pay for that transfer and it will be lovely to play it on a bigger screen. Also I can see this game being easier to play with a controler.

Guildwars 2 has such a unique vibe to it. Biggest problem for me in that game; I can’t pick a class ;). I think I might go for an elementalist or Mesmer. I had a very cool sylvari ranger, but there’s something about casting spells that makes it more epic. Or I could try out the new class that they are hyping 😉

So still many choices to be made, but I do feel happy that I no longer have to feel guilty about not playing mmo’s I have to pay for. That’s around £15 a month I save and for a whole year it all adds up.

So what am I playing?

As many people know who follow me on either the podcast, twitter or now this blog again, I do love mmo’s a lot. I think it has to do with the fact that you’re never truly alone in the game. It’s what attracts me most to mmo’s, the social aspect. If I want to have the experience of a solo game there are many other games out there, one of them is Dragon Age: Inquisition and I’m playing a lot of it, but I will give that game it’s own post.

Currently I’m still running around in WoW. I’ve levelled to 100 and tried a bit of LFR and trying to get my garrison to progress, but something is just not doing it for me any longer. I don’t know what it is, but I was often logging in, looking at my quest/chore list and just logging off again. Plain and simple: the game wasn’t any fun for me.

I tried to find out what I did like all those years ago. Sure, I loved raiding, but with my current working hours that is a nono and there is only so much LFR you can do before you go a bit silly. I took a brave step towards my old rp server and created a new human warlock. I thought well about her background story and the more I thought about it, the more enthusiastic I got about playing here. I actually created a role play character after many years.

Meet Zoellha, the clumsy warlock

So far, she has proven to be a lot of fun. I’m not very good at warlocking (yes that’s a verb now), but i will just level her slowly while trying to get more and more into rp. I even created a new dreanai paladin and a nightelf mage to get more rp stories. Tho in all honesty my knowledge about nelf mages is a bit lacking.

So what else is there to play besides wow? Well actually this is a pretty good time to start dipping your toes into some of the non-sub mmo’s. I actually went back to my old time favourite:

The Secret World

It’s one of those mmo’s that’s more aimed towards a mature audience and because it’s set in the modern world, it gives you quite a unique experience. I love the stories by H.P. Lovecraft and this mmo is dark and disturbing. again I’m on a roleplay server and I’ve just created a Templar this time. Mostly because the Templars are being portrait as the super good guys and that will be a nice challenge from my neutral Dragon character. Also it will be interesting to see if the changes to the game have made it more friendly to players who just start out.

Creepy goat demon will probably want your soul in TSW

Guild Wars 2

I always loved the visuals in Guild Wars 2 and the storyline for Silvari is pretty interesting too, but for some reason I stopped playing. When I got told there was an expansion coming out, I figured it would be time again to jump back in and see what’s going on and you know what, it grabbed me immediatly. I kept on running through areas with my hunter and it was just so stunning seeing the landscape change. I’m not a big fan of the questing, but when there is a world event going on, I always participate and it’s fun seeing all these people try to take down this big monster. My bet is, I will be returning back to level my Silvari slowly.

Graphics wise Guild Wars 2 is pretty amazing!

 The Elder Scrolls Online

I’ve been incredibly harsh on this game when it was in Beta. I didn’t like the questing and the starting areas dragged so all in all I was not going to play this….. Ow how boredom can change things. I don’t know what came over me, but I decided to get this game when it was launched live, not only did I get a copy… I got the special deluxe edition. And let me tell you, it didn’t disappoint. I got a gorgeous statue and the art book is just amazing! Well worth the money.

Don’t judge this game too quickly!

I created a dark elf and joined a different faction than what she was meant for (I think I started at the woodelf and Kajit area) and after escaping a prison (spoiler I guess) I was pleasantly surprised by the new starting area. It really grabbed me and I just kept on running around hunting for treasure, doing quests, exploring the world. I loved it! Admittedly, there were some dodgy bugs in the game and I soon found out that my rogue wasn’t quite able to do certain quests on her own level just because the mobs were impossible to kill, but I still enjoyed it. It was like playing Skyrim, but there were more people, making the world feel more alive to me. The reason I stopped playing this game was purely because of the sub. I didn’t want to pay for another mmo, so the news that ESO is going to be buy to play like Guild Wars 2 in March is very good news to me. I already updated my game with the patcher so I can’t wait for March to roll around.

What mmo are you playing?

Look what I won on Ebay!

Finally got my hands on these two. So now I can read up on our vampire campaign 😀

Unexpected changes

That’s right, I created a new bounty hunter in SW:ToR and I was surprised to see that instead of the two character slots I can now create six characters and that makes me incredibly happy.

The only thing that is still a bit of a downer is the fact I can’t play Chiss as a race. I love them, but I’m not willing to pay extra to get that race unlocked.

I’m giving SWToR another chance and see how much I’ll like it, but since it’s F2P now, I might as well play it very casually to unlock some more story content.

 

Friday: Picture time! What am I loving at the moment?

This little beauty arrived on Monday and I was giddy as a 5 year old on Xmas morning. After carefully opening it, I was left with the cutest 3DS XL I’ve ever seen.

 

I charged it straight away. I saw that it didn’t come with any chargers (Amazon warmed with about that and it was on the box), so I wasn’t standing there with a DS without any juice. Then came the fun part: setting it up. I don’t know why I enjoy things like that, but it makes me feel all techie and it also feels like it is really my item. 

Now I got a free game with it (Super Mario 3DS land) and I am adoring it. Though I’m looking forward to October when Pokemon X comes out. Because I want this pokemon so bad!

 

Did you purchase anything lately that has made you really happy?

WoW Monday; So what’s going on?

After a long time I’m finally enjoying WoW again. I know that it is perfectly normal to get burned out at times when you play a game for 8 years. Luckily I’m part of a great community and have wonderful friends who knew how to get me out of my little dip in WoW.

EJ and Raven (my co-hosts on Girls Gone WoW) suggested I would just focus on one or two characters. I have to admit that it’s three chars now, but I’m feeling a lot better. I’ve decided to level my pandaren hunter, Draenai shaman and my panda monk. I alter them when I get a bit bored with one toon or when they run out of rested xp. It has made playing the game a lot more enjoyable.

I also don’t feel the push any more to do all the things. I’ll do my farm when I feel like it and the same goes for dailies. I still plan on seeing all the content, but I’m in no rush. Same goes for levelling all my toons. I want all my characters on both sides to reach 90 in the end. I guess levelling is just a thing that I do and I enjoy it if I don’t get overwhelmed for choices.

That leads me to my new pondering though. What do I level on the horde side? I don’t want to level 3 toons there at the same time. I want to focus on one toon and just play it and I’d rather not play the same class that I’m already playing on alliance side, so no shaman, monk or hunter for the moment.

There’s a few toons I’m oogling:

Greskaa; the Orc warrior who is running around in Howling Fjord

Zanija; the troll warlock who just arrived in Feralas

Katili; the bloodelf paladin who made her first steps in Pandaland

Tinkxi; the goblin priest who is healing her butt off in Outland

Aliskayla; the goblin mage who is ready for Pandaland

I think I might have to keep the warlock for our little GGW levelling project that I’m planning on doing with Raven and EJ and any other guildies that want to join us. I’m thinking of rp-levelling even through dungeons and zones if people would be interested in that.

So what class to level on horde side… *ponders*

I’ll buy that!

My new default mount for all my panda’s!