I took a break after watching the Fallout TV show six times, but am back watching a seventh time. The characters and music just get into your head.
When it was released, we adopted a puppy who just did not like a person to be sitting at their computer. You’d hear an odd sound right behind you that didn’t sound like a dog bone or a toy…hey, is that my area rug you’re nibbling on? My library/office has all of my collectibles in it and, ya, we won’t be letting those go down as snacks.
So she’s banned from the room, and I found myself spending lots of time on my iPad in the very boring living room. I played a ton of Fallout Shelter, and was thrilled when the game started offering characters from the TV Show.
The first six characters are earned by doing quests.
Unexpectedly, more characters have popped up over time.
Summer used to be so boring on TV. Now with all of the keen competition among the streaming services, there’s always something to watch. These are the shows I’m looking forward to in August. Perhaps there’s something for you.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (Netflix) has a teen doing a school project on a murder five years ago in her small town in England. She’s certain she can solve the murder. I binge watched the six episode series Friday night. It’s no cozy teen mystery, with subjects like drug dealing, abuse, racism, date rape. The main character Pip is fascinating, tough and clever. I love her friendships with Cara, who she’s known since she was four, and her new investigative partner Ravi, brother of the confessed killer.
Only Murders In The Building Season 4 (Hulu) Three apartment building residents who are super fans of true crime podcasts gain some notoriety with a series of podcasts about murders in their own sprawling building. Steve Martin and Martin Short play off each other as usual, with Selena Gomez providing the personal warmth they lack.
The Umbrella Academy Final Season (Netflix)
I love time travel, and this show is packed with it. It also has the most whacky set of characters ever assembled under one umbrella. Honestly, since time is relative, it should go on forever.
I don’t see how they can top season three’s Footloose sequence, but I’m ready to see what’s in store.
Emily in Paris Season 4 (Netflix)
I’m surprised to have been enchanted by the first three seasons of the show. Emily Cooper, ad agency ingenue extraordinaire, floats her way through Paris in a relentlessly upbeat manor. She wears what are to me completely bizarre clothing combinations and she looks fabulous. Come for the fashion, stay for the romance.
A Discovery Of Witches Seasons 1-3 (Netflix)
The series has been available on various other streaming services, but I only managed to see season one while they were elsewhere. I’ve read the Deborah Harkness novels the show is based on, and was really pleased with season one. The actors are perfect, the tone is right, it’s just what you’d wish for in a book to film adaptation.
Diana Bishop is an academic who has given little thought to the witchcraft she was supposed to have inherited but did not. Matthew Goode is a researcher whose long life as a vampire has served him well. There’s time travel, dark academia, romance, and a deft hand with history.
Lord of the Rings: The Rings Of Power Season Two
I loved the first season, mostly because I was a huge fan of this version’s Galadriel. She was a wonderful warrior, smart, a bit too trusting, driven.
Not a fan of Elrond here. I don’t care for the actor or his portrayal. He’s kind of a ratty little sneak.
His good friend Durin was magnificent, as was Durin’s wife.
I’ve been rather disinterested in the last two expansions: Shadowlands and Dragonflight (the name of which I finally stopped thinking of as Dragonblight, but never quite get it right anyway.) I didn’t finish Shadowlands, and I barely made any headway at all in Dragonflight.
The next expansion, The War Within, and its grand part in the three expansion Worldsoul Saga came out with a bang at Blizzcon 2023.
I’m in a place I haven’t been in for a long while in the modern era of the game. I’m excited! I’m doing the level up/gear up event The Radiant Echoes for my main character. The fact that I’ve fallen back to having a main character in this time period is notable.
Most of my playtime since Warcraft Classic was made available has been in those eras of the game. I’ve looked forward to each expansion as if I’d never played them before.
Now, time to step into a new world, which would be reminiscent of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth in its approach to adventure and wonder if we are lucky. Probably not! I’m ever hopeful though. In we do go.
So many characters, so little time. I should count my characters across realms someday.
In July, when I had very little playtime, I focused on leveling my Timerunning Panda Warrior. Doing 3-4 dungeons per day as I could (some went very fast!), I finally have her sitting ready to be released.
Aside from that, I mostly dabbled with my lowbie Cataclysm Classic characters.
In August, I’m focusing on Atherne, my signature character from modern era Blackwater Raiders. I’ve done the Harbinger Questline and the Warbands Bank quests. I am now working on the Radiant Echoes events.
I was able to buy 2 Warband bank tabs for now, and need just a little for a third tab. I have a tendency to fill open bank spaces quickly. Since the third Tab is 100,000 gold, I want to make the best use of the initial two tabs. This picture just shows one, but I do have 2. 1000 gold for the first, 25000 gold for the second.
Oops looks like I’ll want to deposit some gold as well. I have some very poor characters out there with only a few silver in their pockets.
I’m Atheren, named for a Star Wars Galaxies character in a galaxy far far away and long long ago.
I don’t take myself or my writing seriously enough, so my slinking in and doing Blaugust once a year doesn’t quite fit in. These things happen! I get penciled in on the participants list anyway. Don’t be shy, just sign up and have fun. Earn that Rainbow Diamond Award, by God!
This blog began when I thought my family guild members would appreciate my finding out all sorts of cool and useful things about World of Warcraft, which we were all playing.
Every once in awhile one of my siblings will say they really like my writing and they’d read a book I wrote.
None of them ever read my blog posts. So they never have read any of my grand tips, nor anything else over the years. Good thing I have you!
I usually try to get post material by trying out games from my vast Steam Library. It’s a good way to go! This season, I’m going to try to just write about World of Warcraft in its many incarnations, since I play all but Season of Discovery.
I’m not quite sure of the form these posts might take, but I do feel there’s plenty of material. And it’s all I play right now, bonus!
Reading Belghasts pre-game warmup post today, I clicked on many of the participant links, and thought I should have something recent on my blog just in case someone made it waaay down the list to look at this blog.
My post for tomorrow is written and scheduled. Since I’ve written so little this year at all, I fear my 31 posts for the month goal is unlikely this time, but it could happen!
Posts going into next week are planned, they just need that bit of tweaking that is called “writing a post”.
This is always a fun month, I don’t know of another event like it. If you like writing or blogging at all go for it. Do not under any circumstances let yourself get caught in the pool of despair that is day 15. I like the phrase “push through”. That’s all you’ve got to do, move through that one day and you are sailing to the end. We got this!
When I logged into Wow this morning, my first Warband was set. It looks to me as if it was the most recently played characters on the live servers.
I had decided, since it’s cross realm, to have the Guild Leaders from Earthen Ring and Proudmoore, plus Atherne (GL, Blackwater Raiders), plus my hard working, newly minted Level 70 Panda Warrior Elizabear as my first set in a Warband. I love them, I love them.
Since I’m two expansions behind with the modern game, I boosted Atherne to 70 from 64 when I purchased the base game War Within.
I’ve set Atherne along the pre-expansion path of quests with The Harbinger, which seems to have a nice mystery tone to it. Early on, of course. Had to stop to re-set my talents before moving on. It feels good to have her, my signature character, back in action. Backed by her merry mates.
Update: Have to boot the Panda from the Band, I had forgotten she’s stuck in Pandaria till the end of August. I need to pick someone who can run the pre-patch quests and events.
It appears Dragonriding is the default form even in the old world. Die die die!
Goal one: try to get my Pandaran Warrior to level 70 before the time running event ends. I see others running multiples of these Timerunning characters through to 70 in a trice. They don’t have Clifford the Big Red Dog’s little sister eating the carpet behind them when they sit at their PC. It’s the modern version of The Dog Ate My Homework! But it’s true. We have the best puppy in the world, who has a few key concepts to learn. I’ve gotten so I can run a few quests and several dungeons a day on my gaming PC.
If I am using my gaming laptop to play Classic versions of the game, she’s ok.
Goal two: level up my new Cataclysm era characters on a new to me server there. When they smooshed all the Cata servers, I killed off everyone on Westfall and Windseeker, keeping my my Bloodsail characters safe and started anew. I used the names of my favorite characters from all eras of the game for these, making them extra appealing to play. Saving a character slot for a Death Knight!
I can play this time period on my gaming pc, in the living room, where chair eating and carpet munching can be spotted easily. Problematically, the keyboard on that laptop died about a year after I got the PC so I have to use a regular keyboard sitting on top of the dead keyboard to play. Also, the thing either doesn’t boot up to anything but a black screen, or boots and loads all programs extremely slowly. Big pain. Once it’s going though, it plays my games smoothly.
I’ve got characters in all different guilds. Again I don’t play much so I can’t get a real feel for them. It’s just nice to play with other people since even my husband has abandoned the classic timelines. Also, I got tired of being on a low pop server. No more low pop servers for me.
I could write a whole post on how much I love the Cataclysm era of the game, but not today!
I love my Hardcore characters and the rule set of the game from that time. However, the permadeath just became too discouraging, and I found I didn’t log in because I didn’t want my characters to die. As it turns out, you can always transfer them from the Death Realm to a Classic Era Realm where they can live their lives, and when misadventure strikes, it’s ok. You don’t lose everything. I personally lost 6 characters and immediately deleted them. My husband lost approaching 30 characters, oops.
I thought at first you could only transfer your Dead character, so I sent my main Hardcore character to die by murlocs.
When you die it will say try again and bring you to the character select screen.
The steps for moving a lively character and a dead character are the same.
From the character Select Screen pick your character.
In the lower left, click on Shop.
Click on Free Character Transfer and Buy Now
Your current realm is displayed, and the drop down option to choose a character to be transferred.
Select Character and a drop down list will appear. Pick your character here.
Now you have the option to select a Classic Era Realm (not Cataclysm Classic, just the Era Servers using the same rule sets as Hardcore.)
Verify your selection, and on the Character Select Screen you will see a Gear by the character whose transfer you requested.
A bit of trouble with Serine! When I looked back at her she had an odd code by her name. When I hit Enter World, I got this notification that her name was taken on the new server. Typed in a new name and there we go.
My first transfer was an intentionally dead character. The second was my Banker (not dead). For a moment when I tried to log my Banker in it said Character Not Found (small panic), but I hit Enter World again and voila!
The items in your Inventory and Bank transfer with you.
Classic Era servers you can transfer to Free from Hardcore:
Once again I largely played World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls in January.
Elder Scrolls Online
My game time dropped in ESO once I found myself with six level 50 characters. Though there are many places in Tamriel I haven’t played through yet, there’s something about doing so with maximum level characters rather than leveling characters that simply isn’t as fun.
I purchased a character slot for an Argonian I felt I should have, and she’s great, but again, she is treading ground I’ve been over numerous times.
While I was briefly enjoying dungeons, they’ve felt like an empty experience after a bit, once my characters had better armor than they were getting questing. I hoped to get furniture and other recipes in dungeons, but you can never stop to loot even a crate or you’re way behind the crowd. My feeling was they ruined the game for me a bit. All flash, no truly interesting loot.
Now, I’ve just been logging in for the daily rewards each day, not even doing my Main Crafter’s Writs most days.
Even so, I’m super excited about the Next Chapter, the Gold Road.
I had looked at pre-reveal speculation on the next chapter, and Skingrad seemed the most popular choice. My first thought regarding Skingrad was Vampires. Not my favorite thing in any game, let alone Elder Scrolls. Never speak to me about Knights of the Nine.
Even so, look at that picture. Sun drenched adventure. Everything you want in Elder Scrolls is promised by that one painting. I pre-ordered immediately. Here’s part of the map from Oblivion, showing the Gold Road and Skingrad.
Is it possible we will get to visit Kvatch, Anvil and Chorrol as well? I haven’t been so excited about a Chapter since Morrowind and Elsweyr. Goal oriented person that I am, I should have my main character work through as many of the Pact areas and expansion areas as she can by June, so she can go in strong, adventuring along the Gold Road.
World of Warcraft
My time in Hardcore Classic and Modern Era Dragon Isles might be about equal in the last month, again with little Wrath time.
Hardcore’s version of the game where everything matters remains irresistible. My Paladin Main is halfway to level 30. My Paladin Blacksmith is 19 and my Priest who levels with my spouse is just about there too.
My secondary Alchemist who was doing all the low level alchemy crafting, was killed by a Harvester in Westfall last week. Dang. It’s still horrible to lose a character completely. She was a level 13-ish Warrior. I’ve been playing Prot Warrior in the Wrath version of the game, and wanted to do that here too. My usual spec has always been Arms. I was playing her as Arms until she got Revenge, and was busy nattering between the two stances when I got within the Very Long (!) aggro range of a harvester and she couldn’t fight him effectively, and classically tried to run too late and poof.
In her honor I made a character with her name on Blackwater Raiders, so she lives on and can’t be destroyed again.
I also created a character in her place just to hold meats and fish (somebody has to do it). I came up with the name Sophiebear on a whim and loved it so much, I created a live game Pandaran with that name and got her through the Panda starter are in a single night. I really dislike this area, and it often takes a month or more to struggle through. Sophiebear FTW! I love her so much.
Speaking of love, here is my Kul Tiran Druid and my real life little sister queuing up for a few dungeons.
The Trading Post is becoming interesting to me beyond logging in to get the new Mount of the Month. I’ve found myself looking at some of the pets and transmog items.
Since I’ve been killing off and creating new modern era characters left and right, I’ve had some of the lowbies who survive these purges doing Pet Battles, something I never got far in, and I go to the Transmogrifier after every dungeon run to get my character’s “look” back.
Alan Wake 2
Department of games I’m not playing: Alan Wake 2. My son got it for Christmas and I’m sure he’s not afraid of anything in the game, but he and I disagree on what they did to Alan’s face. Aggh. WTF. The new version, with no explanation of his changed visage, looks like he should be in the Last of Us. Axe Man must have got him
Screenshot
Real Alan
The Elder Scrolls Castles
It has apparently been released in the Philippines, but there’s little information on the game. Here, however is a Redditor’s guide that may give you an idea of game play. It looks different than anything else I’ve seen from Bethesda. I like that they are doing so many new and interesting games.
Wow “live” continue Shadowlands for most modern characters, level my “Fabulous Five” on Blackwater Raiders through Dragon Isles (Druid, Warlock, Mage, Paladin, Rogue).
Hardcore keep my Paladin main moving along without dying, natch.
Starfield
A short note on Starfield-I did have to uninstall a fair few things to get it to run, and it wasn’t enough. Everything was sluggy. I uninstalled Starfield last week and will try to (gasp) finish something that remains installed, then poof that to make more space. I don’t know how I fill a hard drive so fast.
The Last Chapter Gaming Blog 