Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Kind of Bored And Waiting for the Next Expansion? Already? Really?

So we're not even 6 months in to this, and I'm already kind of done with Warlords.  Not that I'm going to stop playing.  After all, I've got something like 10 more toons that I need to get to level cap to be ready for the next expansion, and as a severe altoholic, I do enjoy the leveling.

Even in Warlords, that process is something that I'm still enjoying.

But the rest of it, I'm kind of done with.  Unless they've got some interesting new content coming in 6.2, I have sort of lost interest in the rest of it.  Garrison's were a neat idea and something that I was pretty excited about going in, but now it feels a little bit like the list my wife leaves on the fridge for me every weekend.



I could really go for a couple of interesting faction daily quest hubs.  Something with some interesting rewards at the end.

The legendary chain has been interesting, but I think I decided to do it on more toons than I should have this time around.  Three was just way to much, and it's not leaving me enough time for leveling.

Right now, I've got two elemental tablets put together on my warlock, one fully put together on my hunter, and I'm pretty close to having my first put together on my death knight.

So my plan is to finish this phase with these three and when the next phase rolls around, decide if I want to move forward on anyone other than the warlock.

In the meantime, I've been making a little bit of leveling progress on the paladin and he's sitting at level 94 getting ready to head for Talador.

Shadow Priest will be up next.


Monday, March 23, 2015

Recharged and Refreshed

So my day job can be pretty stressful and always has been.  It's one of the reason's that I enjoy escaping to Azeroth every now and then.  It's always sort of gone with the territory that even when I've been away on vacation, there will be several work related calls that I have to take, and a certain portion of the day and evening will be spend reviewing things, or responding to things, or approving things, or what have you.

Typically, some of that time in the evening after I finished my work stuff would also be spent on World of Warcraft - doing dailies (now garrison chores), running LFR, doing heroics for valor - really the same types of to do lists that go with my work.

So it was with much personal surprise this past week when I did none of that.  Nothing.  No e-mails.  No calls.  No WoW.  I sat on a beach, with a drink in one hand and a book in the other.  I stuck my toes in the sand,  I played with my kids in the ocean.   I went for early morning walks on the beach with Mrs. Joar, or I just sat and had coffee and watched the ocean in the morning.



In the evenings, I read a book - a total of three actually over the course of the entire week.  In short, I relaxed.  Utterly.  It was glorious.


So now I'm back at work, refreshed and recharged, and ready to dive back into Azeroth as well.

So cheers!

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Is This Really How I Want To Be Spending My Time?

So I've got a total of three characters that I'm currently running through the legendary quest line that are all currently engaged in accumulating Elemental Runes.  As I pointed out last week, I expect that it's going to take me somewhere from 7-9 weeks to finish that portion of the quest line across all three of these toons, and I'm really questioning whether I want to even bother.

My schedule with work and real life now has made it extremely difficult for me to find the time to knock out full LFR clears across three different toons each week, so I may decide to just abandon it and focus on getting it done on my warlock.

The paladin finished up Frostfire and is now working through Gorgrond.

Both the shaman and the druid are hanging out in their garrisons gearing up and making money via garrison missions, which as an altoholic, works quite well for me.

It lets me keep gearing them in a way that they'll be ready for the next expansion, or able to hop into an LFR if I feel like it, with minimal investment of time.

Oh, and I finally got the Selfie camera on Joar.  I was a little disappointed to realize that it doesn't actually take a screenshot for you when you use it.  How hard would that have been?

This week will be more Elemental Rune grinding, more follower missions and leveling the paladin.

Next week I'll be out of town on vacation, so probably won't be playing at all.




Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Ding, Level 100 #6, and Grinding Through Runes

So for those of you that get annoyed by the Ding titles on my blog posts as I hit max level on various toons, I apologize.  For me, it gives me an easy ability to quickly track my progress from expansion to expansion, with my blog history being an easy display of who hit what level when.

Now that I've written that down, I could probably just add those data points to my existing spreadsheet and spare you all the pain.  Amazing how that works some times.  This is what that particular exercise looks like character by character.

So as you can see on here, I finished my alliance hunter earlier this week finally.  The time on him was a bit disappointing frankly, but this particular character was one that I was leveling using a method that I'll fondly refer to as "screwing around with a friend".  While it's lots of fun, it's not the most efficient leveling process.

Next up is the Horde paladin, who is getting close to being done with Frostfire.

I've also continued to work three characters through the legendary quest chain - my warlock, death knight and hunter.  If my calculation on elemental rune drop rates are correct, it looks like it is going to take me between 7-8 weeks on each to finish amassing Elemental Runes.  No, that's not a grindy pain in the ass.  Why would you say that?

My warlock had a bit of a head start, and is also further along on Garrison followers, giving him a few extra here and there, so he may end up a bit faster than that, but it wouldn't make the difference of more than a week I think.  My shaman is also now geared enough to start running LFR courtesy of the Joar empire crafting guild, but not sure I'm actually going to be doing that anytime in, oh, the next 7-8 weeks.

Cheers.





Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online Updates

I continue to balance my playing time between Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2.  I finished running my Reaper through the new Guild War...