Live Long and Prosper, Spock

This will be short and sweet, as Syp has said it much better than I ever could.

But it hit me really hard today, to hear that Leonard Nimoy had passed away. When I read on Star Trek's site a few days ago that he had been admitted to the hospital for his COPD, I was a tad worried, but was positive he'd be around for a while yet.

It hit me like a wall today to find out he'd passed. I literally cried in my cube at work for a good half hour or so. While I wasn't a youngin' at the time that Star Trek was on television, it's something that my parents made sure I watched in full force. I always admired those pointy-eared weird unemotional folks. I wondered how they could keep it all together like that.

As I got older, I admired the cast for their roles in other materials and their amazing forward thinking on social issues. They were role models, through and through.

I don't have much more to say than he will be sorely missed, and my thoughts go out to his family during this time.

Live Long and Prosper.

Ding 15!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of working from home, so I was able to spend a good chunk of my evening and night in FFXIV.

Fishing

I did a LOT of leveling of fishing. I got from 14 to 18. Higher than I've ever gotten! Ding! 15!

I'm quite enjoying fishing. It's relaxing. It's a great way to spend time in game while also getting other things done. For instance, working on the blog (I updated all my pages, including the blog roll!), or watching some Netflix, or cooking dinner, or exercising. It's something I've missed since WoW, and I'm glad it's back in a current MMO that I'm playing. It's a huge selling point for me.

Marauder

Last night Chaide and I both finished out level 15 class quests. Mine, sadly, was just to go smash a big rock, and then a big creature. Uhhh, okay. All that to throw a Tomahawk? Sure.

Chaide, on the other hand, had these amazingly epic cutscenes and storyline, and it was a tad sad based on what I did catch. I'm looking forward to actually leveling Arcanist at some point.

Guildhests

Since we hit 15 (technically 17), we decided to try our first Guildhest. It was definitely an adventure, and I didn't do all that well until I realized that I didn't have my AoE taunt available (d'oh!) because it was a level 10 guildhest. But regardless, it was a great experience to actually run with a PuG that was nice! NICE! A PuG! It was amazing! It was great! We loved it! It was refreshing, for a change, to be with a group that was kind. We can't wait to run some more guildhests.

Aleport

We also headed out to Aleport for the first time. The scale of this game is amazing. Just the landmass we've already covered and it's not even a quarter of everything there is.

Minions!

We picked up the first minion quests, which I have been dying to find (mini-pet addict, here). I made sure that they were of the utmost priority before we logged for the night. And I'm so glad I did! How can you say no to this cute little wolf pup?! Chaide enjoys his coeurl better. The cool thing is that the two interact with each other if we leave them together long enough! His coeurl will arch its back and stick up its tail, and my little wolf pup will bark at it.

I'm looking forward to more time in FFXIV tomorrow before some WildStar RP, but tonight, it's a Veteran Malgrave Trail. Off to go run some!

Nekkid Baby Protostar

What exactly is a Naked Baby Protostar, you ask? Well, do any of you remember doing naked raids in WoW?

An Explanation

It's where you go into a raid (in this case, a level 10 instance) at level, stripped down to your skivvies, and you roll need on items for your class (light needs light armor, heavy needs heavy armor, etc.). At the end of the night, the goal is to see who has the wackiest and most put together outfits. Plus, it's a tad more challenging than just going in and completely facerolling.

Nekkid Protostar!

In passing, naked raids came up in TeamSpeak about a month ago, and some people commented that they had heard about them, but never run them. I thought it would be a grand time for all if we set one up and tried it out.

We didn't know what the scaling would look like, so we decided to try the "easiest" dungeon we could think of--the new Protostar Academy.

It's a lot of fun, even if you think it's straightforward now, I know I would've loved to have had something before hitting Stormtalon's Lair for the first time (when WildStar first released) so I knew what the hell was going on, and what a MOO (Moment of Opportunity) was, and why they were awesome to have.

Anyways. We decided to try a Nekkid Run last night, and we had a great turn out! We didn't get as many drops as we expected, but folks had a lot of fun, so I'm going to be setting up a Nekkid Stormtalon sometime next month.

It was wonderful to see so many guildies come out and participate. TeamSpeak was full most of the rest of the night, which was also amazing to see, and made me really happy.

Screenshots?

Oh, you want those screenshots? Fine. I guess.

Levequests, ho!

Coming up with a title is the most difficult part of an entry. My question, before I begin, is: How do all of you bloggers come up with titles that are relevant to the post, and not just parts of it?

FFXIV

Last night, I logged in to do some fishing and relax after doing quite a bit of real life food prep for the rest of the week. Some kindly FC members gave me and hubs some fishing gear, as well as gear for our main classes. We're so excited to be in such a great home!

When Chaide got home, we leveled from 11 to almost 15. We made our way out to Western La Noscea for the first time and unlocked Levequests. They're really cool! We enjoyed the large chunk of EXP we got without having to move very far, and the stories behind the Leves were fun. I can't wait to try out the Crafting and Gathering ones.

We also unlocked Guildhests, though we didn't have enough time to ask in FC if some folks wanted to run some, based on our bedtime. Next time we're online, possibly Wednesday, we may ask to run one or two and try them out for the first time ever.

WoW

So, I was wondering today if Blizzard still has the 10 day account reactivation trial running. Mainly because I want to see (a) if the account-wide achievements/mounts/pets are still active so I can see what I have/can get easily in 10 days, and (b) look at all the changes that have come to the game since mid-Cata.

Why the sudden interest? Because I have a weird suspicion that it won't be a sub game for much longer (of course, much longer is more around the 1-2 years mark), based on a lot of the 6.1 feedback. Or at least hopefully offer different payment options as they see plenty of other games roll in the dough with different options (because Blizzard is greedy). Honestly, if they offered a sub model and a non-sub model along the lines of TSW/GW2, I might pick it up and play every so often.

In light of my first question, I also pose another question to you experienced bloggers out there: How do you finish your posts so eloquently? How does one transition into closing statements? I can do it in essays, but struggle here.

In Which There is Stuff and Things

The past few weeks I've had stuff to write, but I didn't know how to go about it without (a) pointing fingers, (b) revealing too much and (c) without sounding like a whiney you-know-what.

There's still a lot of details I can't, and won't, go into, but I think I can pretty much sum up.

Black Dagger Society

For those that don't know, I'm one of the GMs in Black Dagger Society in WildStar, along with my husband (Chaide), and a good RL friend.

I love the guild. It is a place we feel like folks can come, relax, and be family. And then be successful when folks have the desire to run things.

The past few months, however, the guild has taken a direction more from "let's have fun and down vets for the first time!" to "Let's raid!". Now, granted, raiding is something I'd like to do eventually, maybe as a pick up, but based on the focus of the guild, and how it was originally designed, raiding doesn't particularly appeal to a large base of guildies, and I myself would never want to do it full time. 

This change sprung a chain reaction. Suffice to say, rifts started happening amongst members who enjoyed the more casual outlook versus the raider outlook. And it caused a fair bit of drama in its own right.

But, after ThaydFest, we're changing the direction of the guild back to that of a more casual "come, play, have fun, and down things at your own pace" with no focus on raiding or warplots. And it is making a lot of folks much happier already. There's more participation, more talking in guild chat, and more folks in TeamSpeak. I'm happier, too. I don't have to login to put out fires, or walk on eggshells so as not to create any.

It's been a painful experience emotionally, based on some of the things said and done by others (myself included), but I am glad that we have worked through a "growing pain", and are moving forward.

I think that all made sense, while not being too vague or upfront, pointing fingers, or whining... right?

WildStar

Let's switch gears and go to happy! Last night in WildStar, we ran two different Vet Dungeons. We ran a Vet Protostar and downed Squirgnasium for the first time, as well as getting Slimy Feast down to 4%--our lowest yet. 

We also sent a group into Vet SSM for the first ever time, and I'm waiting to log in tonight to hear how it went. 

Tomorrow I'm hosting a "Naked Baby Protostar" run. We go in clothes-less and smash faces for a few runs and need on gear we can need and see what kind of outfits we come out with at the end. Think of it like "Naked Karazhan" from the WoW days. I'm hoping we can get two groups of that running and take an awesome screenshot after we're done.

Some guildies are also hosting some RP this weekend, which'll be a lot of fun, too.

Also, Black Daggers are in full swing getting ready to host ThaydFest II with the help of our awesome community. Everyone is hella pumped. :)

FFXIV

Chaide and I picked up FFXIV to play with some folks we thought we might enjoy playing it with to find out, well, we don't quite enjoy playing with them, as much as we love the game.

So, at the kindly offer of Belghast, we ended up moving to Cactuar to hang out with some other Twitter folks, and we're having a blast. We're amazed by the hospitality of everybody there in the FC, and we're loving leveling at our own pace, and having folks that are willing to run things with us as we progress at said pace.

We can see FFXIV being our home for a quite a while, long after we've hit the WildStar burnout (which we hope is none-too-soon, but we can see it sooner than FFXIV).

Also, expect a "First Impressions" post at some point in the near future.

On Playing Two Games

For the first time in our lives, we're in a financial spot where we can afford to subscribe to two games, and it feels wonderful to be able to play different things depending upon scheduled events, or what we just feel like playing at the time, and which amazing group of folks we feel like hanging out with. It's quite freeing, though we lack the time IRL to do much of anything.

Big Changes

In real life, I started a new job and just hit my 90 days not too long ago. It's in my career choice, which is amazing, and I'm loving what I'm doing, even if the material is kind of bland. But that's what I'm for! To make it not bland! Plus, I seriously get to write how-to guides and manuals and web training for a living. How can I say no?

Chaide is finishing up his teaching degree, and is in the final stretch--he graduates in May! This past month has been hell for him, and also stressful for me as a result. Isn't it awesome how couples stress together? :P We're looking toward his graduation, and I'm helping him with his resume to find an awesome teaching position. We're also looking forward to seeing my mother for the first time in almost two years, as she's coming down for his graduation.

In that vein, we're also looking at a "new" (used) car for me that isn't a 1990-something van that's going to die at any moment, as well as starting to look at purchasing our first house,  starting to try for a family, all this summer.

Finale

I get stuck a bit at tying up post endings, but I think as I continue to blog more, I'll get better at it. Hopefully see you tomorrow with things to say!