Wednesday Boredom

Blaugust

This week has been busy, and I am now just getting to a place where I feel able to blog about events that I'd sort of half-ass pre-written about as they happened.

I've discovered through Blaugust, that even when I have the best of intentions and put together thoughts/images in a post as pre-writing, I don't always get back to it in a timely manner if I'm feeling overwhelmed, or that I just need downtime. Which isn't a bad thing to discover about my blogging habits.

Heck, blogging 2-3 times a week isn't a bad goal to keep towards, especially with my busy schedule. It feels manageable, and like it's something I can continue to do. And if I post more, cool! If I barely get two posts in... well, that's cool, too!

When One Doesn't Raid

This week was a weird one. Monday, I don't even remember what I did! I don't think I was able to really settle into playing a game. I think I hopped into both WoW and WildStar for a bit, but I wasn't really feeling either. I do remember hanging out in TeamSpeak with folks and just shooting the breeze.

Tuesday I had a hair appointment which took longer than expected (it's normally two and a half to three hours, but it's DragonCon time here, so she was booked solid and it took me four hours to get my hair colored), so I didn't really sign on for Legion. Which was fine—I expected things to be buggy and laggy and stuff, so I hopped into WildStar for a bit to get my T3 contract done.

Wednesday was raid night in WildStar... but we didn't have enough folks to raid. So instead... well, we had shenanigans. A picture is worth a thousand words...

We eventually ran some dungeon groups, but it was fun sitting in TeamSpeak for over an hour joking around and talking and making a Snarfelynx line on the wall and showing it off to Caydiem. Goes to show that sometimes, you really don't need the game to have content for you and that you can make your own.

August Gaming To Do List

She seems a bit overwhelmed...

Yeah, I know it's Saturday, and August ends on Wednesday. But Legion is out on Tuesday, and there's gaming things I want to try to finish before that happens. I'm not going to pressure myself, but here's the list of things I want to try to get done in (mainly) WoW before Tuesday is here.

WildStar

• Finish the pre-quest for Redmoon Terror (I need that mount before it's gone!!)
• Finish re-runing all the new DPS gear that unlocked with the RMT changes (Tank can wait until September)
• Get the birthday presents for the folks I'm getting them for
• Finish Wildcast (I'll give myself until Wednesday for this one)

WoW

Psyn and Fyn have this awesome spreadsheet they've been using to prep for Legion, and they let me steal it, so I've been using that to help organize what I feel I can accomplish via invasions.

• Level mining on the Naught (hopefully hit 700, but we'll see how far I get...)
• Level cooking on the Naught (again, hopefully 700)
• Level first aid on the Naught (see above)
• Level fishing on the Naught (see above)
• Do a few invasions on the Nut for some gear for her
• Get paladin to 80 (Invasions!)
• Get hunter to 80 (Invasions!)
• Get rogue to 80 (Invasions!)
• Get mage to 40 (Invasions!)
• Get warlock to 40 (Invasions!)
• Run some achievement runs in Wrath and Cataclysm with Chaide (because once Legion hits that'll be total backburner for a long while!)

Wildcast Ep. 94 - Kurtenackered!

Such a fantastic time we had hosting our favorite composer, Jeff Kurtenacker! Speaking of which, did you buy Volume 2 of the soundtrack yet? It’s on sale RIGHT NOW! Go on, we’ll be here when you get back!

You can always listen to our podcast over on iTunes, and visit the Mognation website for the episode and complete show notes with links!

Moosey Moosey Moose!

Blaugust Update

I like the new schedule I set for myself. However, last week I only got in one post, when I meant to at least get in two. This post was slated to be posted over the weekend, and then I just never got to it because I was editing the podcast (which I plan to finish as soon as this is posted!), adulting, and spending what little time I had left relaxing over in WildStar. My goal this week is to try to make my three days for at least once. We shall see, though.

Moooooose!

I've been trying to find a #FriendshipMoose run for weeks with no luck. Oh, I've sat in Twitch and such and chatted and raffled and attempted to get in, but lady luck was never on my side.

Last week, though, T and Hearn decided to put some Moose runs together for Iron Circle folks who didn't have it yet, and the guild carried one or two folks per run. I feel so blessed to be a part of such an amazing guild that does things for each other like this. I mean, I would've understood if I couldn't've gotten a Moose, despite how much I wanted one.

But that all those folks went out of their way to do that for guildies just makes me feel really good to be back in WoW and over with Iron Circle (and kind of silly for not joining them sooner... five years ago!).

[Disclaimer: I had this stuck in my head when I got the Moose. Hence the title.]

Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher

Speaking of mounts, Chaide and I were missing two or three achievements for our Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher, so we knocked those out one weekend, and now we have both mounts! There's so many mounts for me to go collect, now. Especially since I got so lucky with Mimiron's Head on my birthday weekend. I just feel motivated again to go collect them and the achievements in the older content that I'm missing. Of course, now it'll have to wait until after I hit 110.

It's Invasion Time!

Blaugust Update

Missy over at Ancient Mana has similar thoughts to myself on Blaugust—I'm not doing so hot at the schedule I picked out for myself, but it is getting me back into blogging again (despite busy work schedules), and I feel like I'm slowly starting to slip into the groove of blogging three times a week. So far, if I keep a Sunday to Saturday schedule, I've posted twice in week one, once in week two, and once so far in week three.

Honestly, I think I'm just going to follow a Monday to Sunday schedule instead for posts, as it's easier based on how my planner is laid out (which I will totally be covering later this week thanks to inspiration from Jae!). If I follow a Monday to Sunday schedule, so far I've posted twice for both the first and second week, and this will be my first post for week three, leaving me three more days to post my next two Blaugust posts, which feels much less stress-inducing than having only two days for two posts.

TL;DR - I'm changing my posting schedule to Monday to Sunday instead of Sunday to Saturday. Based on this change, I've made 2 of 3 posts for both the first and second week.

Those Cutscenes, Though

First, the obligatory warning, because I don't plan on holding back (especially since the first week is over)...

I was wary when I picked up the first quest for the Invasion lead in. Blizz has this way of either doing it right or doing it wrong, without a lot of "meh" in between. I mean, there is some, but it's usually toward one end of the spectrum or the other. I was also kind of worried because I don't know much of the story outside of a few big points here and there from Pandaria and Warlords (though I do plan to go back and do all the content to catch up on my lore!).

But man oh man. Blizz blew it out of the water this time with the lead-in quest (I have yet to pick up the second one, though it's on my list of things to do before the weekend). While I didn't necessarily understand a few bits here and there of what was going on, it didn't get in the way of me overall enjoying the plot of the Invasion lead ins.

And the plot... The plot. I'm a total sap and I cried like a baby, starting at about, oh, here...

From that point onward, I was a mess of emotions. I cried when Wrynn died. I cried when Vol'jin died. I cried at the whole scene where Sylvanas is like, "WTF OMG..." (that scene was really powerful for me, and even though I kind of saw it coming). I cried a lot. A whole bunch. So good game, Blizz. I hope you can evoke more feelings so that I feel invested in the story and how the raids tie in (which I hear Pandaria did really well, but I have yet to experience it).

Warrior Fun

I've really been enjoying my new Warrior main. Honestly, I kind of like her better than the Druid, especially after how they changed up Guardians. I like the mobility of the Warrior compared to the Druid, and I feel like I have an easier time recovering after "oh shit" moments. I've even been having fun playing her in PvP. And I got to tank an alt run of HFC as well as a boss or two in Heroic HFC, which was lots of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing how she'll play in Legion!

Stepping into Datascape

On Tuesday, our raid group stepped into Datascape as a whole for the first time.

I sadly wasn't around due to the project at work that's currently going on, but based on our logs, we made some pretty good progress on System Daemons. Plus, it's always fun to see guildie reactions on Twitter during raid.

It's like a bad dream sequence ... all those floating bodies. #wildstar #raiding pic.twitter.com/dX9QwVghix

— SpousalUnit Fitch (@CirindeFitch) August 11, 2016

So, I just have to point out, to those that might not raid in WildStar, this is what the first boss of the second raid looks like.



We stepped in again last night, and I had a lot of fun wiping constantly to the bosses. It's fun getting back into progression, and based on how we've been doing, I don't think it'll be long before we're done with System Daemons and onto some more Challenge Rooms and more bosses.

I know our raid group is "behind the curve" of raiders, but for a group that is more "take it at your own pace" about the whole raiding thing, I think we've done a pretty amazing job as a whole to get where we are, and I couldn't be prouder of the raiding circle. I'm looking forward to smashing more high fiving robots next week!

Wildcast Ep. 93 (& Blaugust)

Quick Blaugust Update

So my goal for Blaugust is to try to blog three times a week to get myself onto more of a schedule. I missed out last week, with only two posts, but I started a bit late due to a crazy work schedule, and then a crazy weekend ensued.

I'm trying not to stress myeslf out about it—stuff happens, and this work project has priority over almost everything else. (I've made concessions for my sanity with a bit of gaming during dinner, and I ran two Mythics in WoW last night.) But I'm proud of myself for getting back into it, and I'm enjoying blogging again, even if it's only in a limited way.

Anyway, one of the things I'm doing with Blaugust is posting a snippet to Wildcast (which is a WildStar podcast for the unknowing) when it releases. Thanks to Avid for setting up the notes and the posts over at Mognation, and for being the ever-stalwart host. I figure it's fair to post, though, because of how much work goes into editing the audio after we record. I bow down to you folks who do this thing weekly!

Wildcast Episode 93 - Hanging With Maggie

This episode we had the pleasure to be hanging out with Margaret Krohn from NCSoft! We checked out the news, community doings, and a couple of really awesome houses. Come take a listen, and make sure to check out WildStar Hub and build something for the August CBDC!

You can always listen to our podcast over on iTunes, and visit the Mognation website for the episode and complete show notes with links!

A WoW-Shaped Hole

Back Again

Back in May Chaide and I got the email from WoW about that free week trial period, so we decided to give it a whirl (... mainly because I was going to write something for MMOGames that I have yet to finish writing... *cough*). And, well, we have yet to leave.

We were going to play Alliance, but then we thought about our Druids over on Llane (Chaide and Chestnut) that we started back in 2010, and I thought since they were our mains way back then that maybe we could race change them or something to go play Alliance over with folks in House Stalwart.

But then we logged onto them, and all these memories came flooding back, and we couldn't just transfer them over and make them Night Elves (Ugh, elves!) or Worgen (meh). So, since Shade of the Elm disbanded in the five and a half years we'd been gone, I decided to hit up Ru on Twitter and see if Iron Circle was still around and accepting new members. I figured since we'd run with them back in the day and enjoyed their company that hitting them up again would be a good idea.

And it was! We're over in Iron Circle now with awesome people doing awesome things, and I'm having a lot of fun being back and playing with folks I haven't seen in five plus years, plus more folks that happened to trickle into guild that I know from Twitter.

New Main

So I leveled up Chestnut, and Shaelee (shaman), and started on Jhisalith (priest), and boosted a Monk (Maziwa), but I've settled on a new main. Mainly to help balance out raiding come Legion--just too many Druids if I went on Chestnut. So I boosted my Warrior (Andryna, at the time) to 90 and Chaide and T and Keng helped me to power level her to 100 to make her my new main.

Of course, because she would be my new main I wanted to name her Chestnut because my mains are always Chestnut. But obviously I have the name already on Llane, and I wasn't going to name change my Druid and wait to rename my Warrior. So I decided it'd be a good idea to try on Arygos since the realms are sister-realms or whatever. But, of course it was taken. So I bemoaned this fact to a few people, and a guildie suggested naming her Chestnot or Chestnaught, and Chaide jumped on the opportunity to second the Chestnaught thing. So now she's Chestnaught!

I've been running old instances and stuff with her and on a whim Chaide and I headed out to Ulduar with our guildie Raptor, who loves to run the old stuff for transmog and such, and I also got Mimiron's Head this past weekend, which is super exciting.

All in all, I'm really enjoying being back, and I'm kinda sad that I left WoW. But, I wouldn't have met all the awesome gamer folks I consider family if I hadn't... so I'm just glad that we're back!

#Blaugust2016

Image from Tales of the Aggronaut

Another year, another Blaugust! Last year was my first time participating in Blaugust, and I had a lot of fun, even if it was extremely difficult to keep up with the thirty-one posts for the month. But I made it last year!

This year, Belghast is doing things a bit differently. While he will still be doing the thirty-one day thing, he's opened it up to more folks, and made it more of a "get yourself on a content creation schedule you can manage and keep up with" initiative. Which I really like.

I enjoy that it's more about content creation in general, and less about blogging. Last year he opened it up to Vloggers and such, but not many folks joined on the bandwagon. I think with the way MMO blogging has gone as of late on my own experience (folks branching out into more things, for instance, on their blogs; folks starting YouTube channels to supplement their blogs; folks creating podcasts; etc.) that it's a great way to expand participants. Especially since it's never been just about MMO or Gaming bloggers, though that's what many of us write about.

For myself, I plan on content creation of some form or another three times a week (weeks are Sunday to Saturday, for my own clarification). For me, this will include:

• Blog posts here
• Wildcast podcast updates posted over on MOGNation, and a link to the content posted on the blog
• Articles written over at QueueTimes and MMOGames and snippets posted here with the full content on their respective websites
• YouTube videos (TSW Let's Plays, Yardcore Nexus, etc.) linked to here on the blog

This is going to be kind of tough, as my therapist is wanting me to keep a personal journal of sorts at least three days a week, and work has been super demanding in the writing department as of late. But I'm going to power through it and figure it out. Even if it's just a screenshot with some funny things about it and why I took it.

I didn't ask Chaide for a birthday present this year, because I wanted to use Blaugust as a motivation for myself to blog, and then have him treat me to a belated birthday present of commissioning Ammo for some artwork for a new blog and purchasing a new domain via Safeshark. So, if I can keep up with the three times a week schedule this month, expect a blog move!

Blaugust Conqueror

I'm coming out of con-coma, finally, and real life (aside from work) has calmed down. Expect some posts and videos incoming, as I've a renewed vigor now that I'm feeling less pressured in my personal life.

This post is going to be a quick recap of Blaugust to get my blogging fingers going again, especially since I ended up a Conqueror for 2015!

You can view the full list of Challengers, Survivors, and Conquerors over at Bel's blog. And thank you again, Bel, for setting up such a fun event!

Much in the vein of Murf, I'm putting a post together of all the posts I made for Blaugust this year in case I'd like to reference them at a later date, as well as provide a few stats on what Blaugust did for the blog.

The Posts

I've labeled posts with the games they're discussing, or "General" for topics that didn't revolve around a particular game.

• Playing Catch-Up [General]
• Gaming Goals Review: July [General]
• Gaming Goals: August [General]
• First X-89 [WildStar]
• Trying Marvel Heroes [Marvel Heroes]
• The Game That Changed My Life (TGTCML) [General]
• Under the Platforms [WildStar]
• More Marvel Heroes [Marvel Heroes]
• A Hogwarts Party [General]
• The King Pin [Marvel Heroes]
• WildStar Malaise [WildStar]
• Trying Terraria [Terraria]
• TGTCML, Part 2 [WoW]
• Class of 2015 [The Secret World]
• Bleeder of the Pack [FFXIV]
• Blaugust AMA [General]
• Burnout, Real Life Edition [General]
• Yeah! Game Time! [The Secret World] [WildStar]
• Kuralak Down [WildStar]
• Goodbye Living Legend [WildStar]
• Podcast Addict [General]
• I'm Zatanna! [WildStar]
• The Park [The Secret World]
• Phagemaw... So Close! [WildStar]
• TGTCML, Part 3 [WoW]
• Warrior, Here I Come! [FFXIV]
• Time For Super Snacks [WoW]
• DragonCon 2015 Hype [General]
• Marauder Feels [FFXIV]
• Neutral Good [D&D]
• I Regret Nothing [General]

The Stats

So, I won't have as detailed statistics as some other bloggers who are using WordPress. Sadly, one of Blogger's downfalls is the fact that their statistics are limited unless you've been using Google Analytics from the get-go. Which, well, I haven't because the blog is a few years old, now!

Another downfall to the statistics is that I can't choose a particular period of time, so if I want to view the last month of data, it starts on August 10th, a good week and a half into Blaugust. So my data is inaccurate (because I can only view the past year if I don't want to view the past month).

But anyway, I received approximately 4,400 page views throughout the month of August. Which, holy crap, guys. Uhh, how? I'm kind of blown away, and not sure what to think, aside from saying "Thank You" to all of you who thought that my drabble was worth reading and commenting on. While I may blog for me, it feels good to know that you guys get something out of it, too.

My top traffic source was various feed readers pulling my RSS feed, followed by Twitter links and Anook (yay Anook!).

The post with the most hits ended up being the planning for my Hogwarts birthday party, followed by my discussion on the real-life burnout I was suffering, and how it really is something you can experience that goes beyond just "Stress" or being "Overwhelmed". I had wanted to touch a bit on how we kind of throw around the term "burnout" so easily regarding games, but never really got to that point. But that's neither here nor there, and mayhaps it's a post for a later date.

I received a huge spike in hits on August 30th when I blog spammed and wrote four different posts to attempt to catch up, and I wrote the most posts on August 31st with a total of five to finish out the month.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I'm looking forward to participating again next year!

A Question: WP or Blogger?

So, one of the things (of a few) that bums me out about using Blogger is the lack of detailed Statistics I can get. However, one of the things that bothered me most about WordPress was the lack of free themes and customization I could do without having to drop any money. I am wondering, since so many folks are using WordPress (and many have moved from Blogger to WordPress): what are the pros and cons of using it?

What do you like about WordPress? Is there a package you'd suggest for allowing customization without having to purchase premium or a yearly subscription (or whatever the payment model is now)?

And if you've used Blogger and moved to WordPress, why? What are the advantages to using WP over Blogger? When you moved, did you export/import all your previous posts? Is doing so worth it?

It was also brought to my attention that if there's a server I can put WordPress on, I'd only be out the cost of a Domain name. Call me ignorant or uneducated, but how does this work? Is it something worth pursuing? But then the question becomes, what should I get as a URL for a domain?

I've been contemplating moving the blog for a while, but I'm a person hesitant to change (especially after just rebranding myself and getting back into blogging in February), and I really want to make sure it's the correct course of action for me, so any help and feedback is much appreciated, fellow bloggers.

I Regret Nothing

This is post 31 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and see all the fabulous people that participated this year, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Today is the last day of Blaugust. What does this mean? That myself and a bunch of other folks have put in a lot of time and effort into trying to blog daily (or at least post 31 times during the month if we couldn't make it daily)!

Going into Blaugust, I thought I'd have a fairly easy time since I was blogging three to four times a week to begin with. What's adding on a few more days that only need to be 250 words at least, right? Well, I learned very quickly that I don't work very well like that. Due to real world (and some digital) obligations, posts had to sit by the wayside.

A move and bad luck hit me at the beginning of the month, followed by about two solid weeks of "overtime" (it's not overtime when you're salaried...), and hitting real-life burnout to the point of physical and emotional health issues surfacing. But I was able to rearrange time, and even carve some out when I didn't think I'd have any.

I learned a lot from this endeavor. First and foremost that a daily format is not something that I can guarantee as a commitment. It's something I'd like to aim to try to do my best at, but it's not feasible to say it will happen with all of my prior obligations. And honestly, sometimes I really don't have anything to write about other than, "I worked today, and then we cleared bosses in raid we've cleared before. The End.".

I did learn how to utilize my draft posts, and how to keep them better organized. I'm a person that writes bits of ideas and such in my draft posts area so that they're all together, but they're usually untitled and just a jumble of ideas and words. I learned very quickly to pre-label and upload pictures ahead of time, even if I wasn't going to use them all, to make it easier to create a final post from the jumble of a draft that I had going.

I also came to accept that bouncing off of ideas posted by the blogging community is not bad, even if it's not much original thought from my end. It can be just as great to acknowledge the person(s) involved in the topic-at-hand, thank them for their time and thoughts, and then throw one or two in. It keeps the writing flowing, and it's a great way to show link-love rather than just saying, "Here, go check them out. The End.". It also helps foster a community of bloggers.

And last, but certainly not least, I reinforced how much time and effort go into endeavors like this on the creator's end. I'm no stranger to running community events. If you're in WildStar, you know this to be true. But I've always seen those as easier to manage, or whatever, than something on this scale. The events I run are one-shots, mainly. This is an effort that took an entire month on Bel's end--and he's super amazing for doing it. 

So thanks, Bel, for encouraging all of us to participate in this craziness with you. I'm sure you're glad it's The End.

Neutral Good

This is post 30 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

An impromoptu prompt that went through Blaugust recently was that of taking the D&D Alignment test as yourself to see what results you garnered. If I have tracked it correctly, it all stemmed from Eldaeriel's post a few days ago.

When I took the test, I ended up with the Neutral Good alignment. The quiz states:

A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. The common phrase for neutral good is "true good." Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias toward or against order.

Taking this from my own perspective was interesting. I've always considered myself more Lawful than Neutral, but I guess I could see myself falling into the Neutral category. I did figure that I'd fall into the Good category, though. I care deeply about things/people--whether they be silly little arguments online, or someone truly in need (it's a blessing and a curse). I always try to follow the "golden rule" as difficult as it may be, sometimes. I also try to stay positive, and keep any negative thoughts about others to myself, though I do have to bite my tongue quite a bit sometimes.

Overall, I feel that it describes me fairly decently, though, as with any character you RP, I'm sure my personal alignment will change as I experience more of what life has to offer. I'd be interested in what it looks like a few years from now.

Marauder Feels

This is post 29 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

As I mentioned, Chaide and I hit 30 in Final Fantasy! So we spent some time going through our level 30 quests, assuming that we'd open up our jobs immediately, but we found out that's not quite the case. That's okay, though, we'll be leveling the other class to 30 as well (mainly because he didn't mean to do ACN first).

For my level 30 quest, I was sent to go take out Kajuta. Time to take my revenge for the child and his family!

Time to explore. I'm sure he's around here somewhere. Look at this mess! I also hear he's attacked a farm nearby.

Oh hey, there he is. He's uh, bigger than I remember.

I'm glad I had some help. He seemed extremely daunting.

I really loved this cutscene, in all honesty. I think I got some of the greatest screenshots of my character so far during this whole sequence. I sometimes feel constrained by the screenshot system as is. Though I'm sure if I practiced, I'd get better with it.

Time to fight!

The fight, while straightforward, would have definitely been really difficult if I didn't know how to use my cooldowns effectively, or if I had to deal with the hyenas myself on top of Kajuta. I'm glad it was actually kind of a challenge. I was worried I'd fail it, because Skolwyb was almost dead by the time I finished.

It was sweet that they carried the boy out to see Kajuta's demise.

So I really did get hit in the feels at the end of this quest. The speech that Sighard gave about becoming a Marauder one day, and thanking me for avenging his parents made me tear up. I started crying a bit, too.

Though, I'm wondering what the next part of the Marauder/Warrior storyarc will be. Because Kajuta was pretty much the big-bad to take care of when I become "a big Marauader!". I'm hoping it's good!

DragonCon 2015 Hype

This is post 28 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Every Labor Day Weekend in Atlanta, there's this thing called DragonCon. It's a multi-genre convention that covers various geek-related tracks. It's fun, but it's no PAX (they really could use some more gaming stuff! ;) ).

Regardless, I'm really excited for it this year. Chaide and I are able to attend for a change (finances have kept us from doing so in the past), and we live close enough to take the train into the city for a change. The train is also supposedly free this year, which will help save costs if it is true (not that taking the train is much more expensive than driving, but any cost cutting is great!).

We will have to drive one day, though, because we want to see Rasputina the night they're playing, and by the time we get out, the trains will have stopped. But parking for one day versus three/four sounds much better! One of our guildies is also coming into town and staying for about a week, so it'll be fun hanging out with him!

What I'm most excited for, however, is to see Terry Farrell (and Rene Auberjonois, again)! The fandom nearest and dearest to my heart is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. While folks just a few years older than me grew up with Wesley Crusher, I grew up with Jake Sisko (granted, I still watched TNG, but I was a few years behind). Even though I know what happens in various episodes, the feels still get to me. And sometimes I see something I missed before.

I'm hoping to be able to attend the panel with Farrell and Auberjonois. It's the one thing I'll regret missing during the whole con. It's of a high priority to me.

Something else I'm trying to do (last minute, of course) is put together a costume for Saturday. The group of geek girls I hang out with comes up with a costume theme every year and takes group photos. I wasn't going to participate this year, but it's a fairly easy theme to try to pull off last minute--1950s Fandom.

We're taking 1950s fashion and mashing it up with our favorite fandoms! So, I plan on making a blue poodle skirt with the DS9 communicator on it, and painting Trill spots on my neck. I'm hoping to do a Victory Curls hairstyle, cat eye makeup, and I'll need to buy a shirt to wear with the skirt, but it should be an easy find--even a regular t-shirt tucked into the skirt will work and I can bring my black cardigan that I use for work (because I always get cold).

I'm actually really pumped to try to pull it off! I just need to figure out when I'm going to hit up the craft store, though. I'll have to check the hours and the closest fabric store and prep tonight by taking my measurements to make a quick non-pattern skirt. Maybe I'll even get over my dislike of photos and post one or two on the blog if I manage to pull it off!

Time For Super Snacks

This is post 27 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Stropp from Stropp's World had a prompt for Blaugust I found interesting:

Find a funny or insightful video about games or gaming culture and link or embed it in a blog post, along with enough words to satisfy the Blaugust rules.

I consider this video a classic. Whenever the inevitable conversation comes up of, "What are some of your favorite YouTube videos?" I always pull this one out (along with the Star Wars one that cracks me up every single time).

Illegal Danish (and the subsequent videos) are funny, regardless of whether you've played video games or not. Granted, it's much funnier if you have, and funniest of all if you have memories of vanilla WoW (though, coming from BC, I got all the jokes as well).

I especially related to the Druid bit. I always wanted to try feral, but even in BC, a lot of the groups I joined had an extreme stigma against druids doing anything but healing. It was a bit annoying, especially when I really started to delve into tanking and DPSing, because I loved the play style.

It's been a while since I watched this one, and I want to re-watch the rest of them, too. Are there any funny machinas you'd suggest?

Warrior, Here I Come!

This is post 26 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

I really need to try to get a better shot of her at the end of dungeons...

Chaide and I finally hit thirty tonight in Final Fantasy! Last time we played was way back when I bemoaned the fact that we were stuck at level 29.

Tonight, however, thanks to Sylver (a WildStar guildie who's playing over with Greysky, now) and Keryn, we moved beyond that barrier!

We logged in, thinking we'd do some quests over in Little Ala Mhigo, but Sylver told us that if we wanted to run a dungeon or two to let her know. She's been working on various classes and thought it'd be fun to run a dungeon with us, especially since she's loving the Black Mage to death.

So Chaide and I decided that since we were so close to level 30 that running a quick bit of Haukke would get us there. And it did! I still don't know the dungeon all too well, but thanks to Keryn, I think I could do a better job finding my way around and taking care of the pulls.

Chaide and I also ran a second dungeon later this evening to help Sylver get her healer leveled. We ran a quick Copperbell with her and Deafening (another WildStar guildie who's playing over with Greysky--he's been playing the game for quite a while and transferred over), and helped her level her healer about one and a half levels.

It was great to spend time with them in a slower-paced environment than WildStar. Don't get me wrong, I love WildStar, and it's my main game at the moment. But it's such a frenetic pace, sometimes, that it can be difficult to take it easy and just laugh and BS with each other. So that's what we did, tonight.

We also did our level 30 quests for our main classes, but that's a different post for tomorrow. Next on the agenda: get Gladiator and Conjurer up to level 30! Well, after doing the anniversary event tomorrow evening!

TGTCML, Part 3

This is post 25 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Aywren, one of the Blaugust participants, posed an impromptu writing prompt on her blog asking:

Do you have a game you feel changed your life? Blaugust about it!

This post is part three of this journey. You can view part one and part two at your leisure.

In the last post, I talked about WoW, and how I discovered it. The last part I detailed was moving over to Llane to play with some friends from college who were more laid-back and not raid-focused.

I had recently moved to Georgia for graduate school, which was a result of various circumstances both in real life and in my game life. Some of the friends I had made, that I was close to at the time, over on Ravenholdt lived in Georgia, so I felt that I had a bit of a support network available through them if I got into the graduate school I wanted.

Things worked out a little differently than I wanted. I got into grad school, but I ended up drifting away from those friends for various and sundry reasons. Sometimes friends aren't meant to stay in your life forever, as much as you would like certain ones to. I was also at a fluid time in my life, being out on my own for the first time, and needing to explore myself and all that jazz. I kind of hit that spot in my life a little later than most people who start hitting it as soon as they start their undergraduate degrees (or earlier).

So, because things ended up differently, I started up a character on Llane to play with my friends. Soon after, however, I ended up meeting Chaide online. I don't know if I've ever talked about how we met. It was on a dating site. We'd chatted for a few weeks online, when we decided that it would be neat to meet up at a restaurant for some coffee.

At the time, things weren't very good--my depression and anxiety were off the charts, I was away from my family whom I missed dearly, and had never been so far away from before, I had no support system in the area, and no friends to speak of despite trying to join various groups to hang out with. I even had half of my stuff packed up, thinking I would quit graduate school and move home with my parents.

I didn't do any of that, though. I found Chaide. We were both into gaming, and he had just started up his WoW account again. We talked for hours about gaming and various geeky things. And we hit it off. Some of our first dates were leveling our druids together. In fact, we both remember one of our first dates being sitting at a coffee shop together with our laptops out, and running around Mulgore for the Easter event.

I don't think I'd have met Chaide without WoW, quite honestly, Despite all the crap I was going through during my time playing the game, it was worth it because I had the courage to go to graduate school away from my family.

So, yeah. WoW changed my life. I met my amazing husband because of it. And even if we don't play anymore, we still have a lot of great memories that go with it.

Phagemaw... So Close!

This is post 24 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Saturday night was raid night. I got the chance to tank some, which was a lot of fun. I was able to re-rune a bit before raid to replace a piece I got, but instead of selling it, I put it into my bank. Maybe I'll get the four rune slots back as tokens. It's an idea... we'll see if it actually works.

I didn't get to re-rune my DPS set, though. There wasn't enough time before raid, and I had two pieces to try to finagle instead of just one. I probably won't get it done before raid on Tuesday, either, but I'll have plenty of time before I'm able to make raid again, so maybe sometime during the week I can get it in.

On Tuesday we got through the first floor, with one mini-boss left. Saturday I got to see the second floor for the first ever time! It was so neat! Similar but different color scheme to the first floor. It's more techno-phage and less strain-infested.

I downed two new mini-bosses for the first time, too! Phagetech Guardian C-148 and Phagetech Guardian C-432.

They're fairly simple fights, actually, compared to a lot of the other mini-bosses we've encountered. Honestly, I think the hardest fight in the whole raid that I've seen so far has to be Kuralak. Especially since we're still using the Engineer trick to get her, rather than being able to do the pillars ourselves fully, yet. I'm hoping we can get there soon, though!

I also got to see Phagemaw for the first time ever! I mean, yeah, I've watched videos, but it's different to see a boss and learn the dance. I was in the non-bomb group, so it was fairly easy. Though honestly, from what I saw of the bomb group, it doesn't look too much difficult either, as a DPS. I can't imagine the hell the healers go through during this fight, though. I'd be interested in one day trying these out as a healer, though I don't know when it'd ever happen because we have a lot of our healers DPSing already.

We got Phagemaw down to 13%, and while I'm sad that I didn't get him down this week, I know that the guild will have him down in the next week or so, and I'll get him down for my first kill soon after.

The Park

This is post 23 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

If you haven't heard by now, Funcom is releasing a new single player horror game called The Park. Aywren, Gryph, and Syp have all wrote great pieces about it, so go check out their thoughts!

Horror games (and movies) are a genre that, until recently, were not something I was into. Honestly, I'm still not too fond of them. However, since I've fallen in love with The Secret World, I'm more open to trying horror and indie games from the Developers who have worked/are working with the team.

I know this is probably deemed a form of "fangirling", but at the same time, is it really?

"What do you mean, Chestnut?"

Well, I'll tell you! I know that I enjoy the writing, animation, etc. that goes along with The Secret World. It takes a genre I normally shy away from, and makes it immersive enough for me to greatly enjoy my time spent within it. So much so that it has gone from "Oh yeah, I used to play that when it first released..." to tied for my first-spot MMO-of-choice.

If I know that I enjoy the styles and ideas employed by the developers and writers within the project, so it stands to reason that I would enjoy their styles and ideas employed within another game. It also stands to reason that since I enjoy The Secret World as a whole, a game set within the same universe would be something I would check out.

I'm looking forward to more details, and am adding The Park to a goals-list I have in the works... which I will delve more into later.

I'm Zatanna!

This is post 22 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

A few weeks ago, the Wildcast Podcast was hosting a contests to give away some NA and EU codes for the Fancypants jacket. So I decided to try my luck! And, well...

Congrats to @ggchestnut for winning a Fancy Jacket from our first giveaway! #WildStar

— Wildcast (@WildcastPodcast) August 19, 2015

*SQUEE* I got lucky! So I finally had the time to add it to my costumes the other day, and uhh, it's pretty freaking awesome looking!! Of course, all I could think was...

I totally look like Zatanna!

Yeah, I know, it's not perfect. But whenever there's another costume contest on the server, I plan on saving my base look (which hasn't changed since character creation) and going with smaller ears and some different hair and skin-tone. I'm also contemplating adding the Poohbot Fez, as she's better known with a hat, but I don't get the right vibe from it--especially since it can't be dyed any other color than the red it already is. 

Granted, if I could ever find a way to get my hands on an NA code for a Fancy-Pants Top Hat from Gamescom 2014, I think I'd die of happiness. Because... it's a freaking top hat!

Regardless, I plan on enjoying the crap out of my new Zatanna costume. This is the first costume (aside from my main one) that I've really had a lot of fun putting together.