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. 

Podcast Addict

This is post 21 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Over on the Blaugust Nook, there's a thread going with various and sundry writing prompts, and I thought I'd tackle one of them, especially after someone was asking about a certain type of app on Twitter, the other day. The prompt comes from Void of A Green Mushroom:

What is your favorite smartphone app and what is so awesome about it?

You may or may not know, but I'm a...

I may or may not have an addiction to podcasts. And I'm the type of person that likes to listen from the earliest available cast, too. I have over fifty casts I'm following in the app (3.6k episodes left to listen to...), and playlists going every day to listen to as many as I can during my work day.

It's a great app full of tons of features for the free version. I don't know that the paid version gets you much more on the features, but it does get rid of the non-intrusive ads on the bottom.

What I like in particular about the app is that you can do a basic search from iTunes, or directly add RSS (and YouTube) feeds and URLs, add your own downloaded content locally, browse networks (like NPR and BBC), discover from trending and top categories, as well as obtain suggestions based on what you've already downloaded. Oh, and you can also add videos you follow, too. Granted, I don't use that section at all.

My favorite feature, however, is just being able to download episodes I'm going to listen to the next day, create a playlist within the app, and listen throughout the day so that I don't have to waste my data. It also works really well via WiFi streaming, but I spend about an hour in the car each way to work (when I hit traffic) so I'd rather have a downloaded playlist I rotate daily.

I've tried out a lot of podcast apps, but this is the one that's robust in features for Free compared to a large swath of the others. (And the UI is attractive, too.) If you like podcasts, and are unhappy with your current method of consumption, or looking for an app to listen to them, I highly suggest checking out Podcast Addict.

Goodbye Living Legend

This is post 20 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

I've been holding off on posting this for a few days, because I needed to ruminate on it so it didn't come across as whining. Granted, it might still come off as whining, but cest la vie.

By now, I'm sure you know about the Living Legend title and the Ikthian Crawler mount. To obtain them, you need to have played with no break in subscription from release date to F2P release. I was pretty sure I qualified for it, but was sympathetic to the cause of folks who may have had credit card issues, or for the swath of people that randomly got unsubscribed from the game by Carbine itself. I still think that people should get a 24-48 hour reprieve, because life happens.

And I now support it even more. Why?

Yep. On a whim while I was organizing my email receipts (because I keep them all like a crazy person), I stumbled upon emails saying that my sub had been cancelled way back in August 2014. I was all, "WHHHAAAAATTTTT! I know I didn't unsub!" So I checked the emails and time stamps.

Thirty-seven minutes of being unsubscribed. I'm not going to lie. I'll be upset if the Developers don't allow a reprieve for the folks they accidentally screwed over, and those of us who had credit card issues (which is what mine was--I asked Chaide about it, and he's said, "Oh yeah, remember? We got updated cards in the mail.") but remedied it to the best of our ability as quickly as possible.

But. I still love the game, and this little hiccup, while as sad as it makes me, will not stop me from continuing to play WildStar and subscribe. But I know I'd be a hell of a lot happier and willing to drop even more money on the game if they put a reprieve in. Besides, they could use the easy goodwill PR.

Kuralak Down

This is post 19 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Last night I got to hang out and raid with the guild, which was a lot of fun. I enjoy the raids in WildStar, but quite honestly, I think I burned myself out on raiding back in the WoW days. Doing two days a week is almost tedious, and doing it weeks in a row is not something I get great joy out of like I used to. So I'm kind of glad that I take it slow with raiding. Regardless, I really did have a lot of fun! Got to run with some folks for the first time, which was great!

And I got Kuralak down for the first time! The guild has successfully downed her about three times now, but it was my first time seeing her hit the ground. She's a really tough fight, and I'm interested in seeing how the guild will handle her once the devs fix the whole "Engineer Strategy".

I also got down a new mini-boss for the first time: Fetid Miscreation. And... I also kind of made out like a bandit on gear with three purple pieces--two for DPS, and one for tanking. I'm not really looking forward to re-runing everything, especially right before F2P drops with all new runes. Maybe I can make use of the few I have sitting around in my bank, and just fill in with some cheap purples for now so I can at least take advantage of the tokens when folks get refunded for runes.

I'm looking forward to seeing Phagemaw for the first time, Saturday. He looks like fun!

Yeah! Game Time!

This is post 18 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

The Secret World

Both Monday and Tuesday I got in about an hour of TSW. I'm really enjoying the game, especially since I'm starting to get into some quests I haven't done yet! The three of us playing finished up Red's quests and have started talking to Sarge in the camp directly into the Mountains, and we did one of the Sasquatch quests, as well. They're so sweet and make sweet noises! I think they're some of my favorite creatures out in the world, so far.

I'm also hoping to finally get the first Let's Play video for our romp through TSW up sometime this week(end). We started recording these back in May, so I have a hefty backlog (with some of our play sessions clocking in at over four hours), so there's no lack of video to be had!

Chaide and I started playing with the purpose of recording Let's Play videos, but it's awesome that one of our guildies from Daggers (who's not currently playing WildStar) decided to join in. I feel like three is the perfect number for our play style.

We won't be playing TSW tonight, but we're hoping to get some time in on Thursday, and maybe late Friday night after Chaide and I go to a nerd bar (based on Twin Peaks!!!!!) in the area.

WildStar

I hadn't planned to log into WildStar last night, but I had hopped up to say goodnight to the folks in channel and remind our raid leader that I'd actually be there for raid tonight. They were running a dungeon, but one of our guildies wanted to try to get Metal-Maw (the one in Deradune) because it was the only world boss he hadn't tried yet that didn't constantly glitch on him.

So, I signed on and we smashed Metal-Maw in the face. There was a high-level medic that tried to flag a bunch of us so he could try to kill us, but he underestimated our secret weapon (aka our raid leader who's an epic player regardless of what his gear-level) and promptly got his ass handed to him between Paws and Dahk.

So, folks got Dahk attuned! Hurrah!! I'm hoping he'll be able to attend raid tonight after he gets out of work. It's farm night, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue if he's a bit late. Which reminds me, I should really re-watch the video on Phagemaw as he's our current progression boss...

Burnout, Real Life Edition

This is post 17 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

We've all experienced burnout before in games. We play it so much that we just get drained and are over the game, so we move onto something else. And I'm sure folks have experienced this to a degree in real life--work gets overwhelming, or you're just extremely busy with other obligations and you get tired and drained.

But did you know it can actually cause harm to you physically and emotionally? Burnout isn't just something that we think of as "overworked". Burnout is considered a psychological disorder as a part of the DSM-5, and is, according to various recent research, probably a form of depression.

(Granted, I feel there's some over-diagnoses going on in mental health as a whole (EVERYTHING IS A DISORDER! WHEEEE!), but that is neither here nor there, and I do recognize that there are some disorders and diagnoses that are tried-and-true, as it were, as I do suffer from some of my own mental health problems.)

How does this relate to depression and burnout and gaming? Well, let me tell you.

If you didn't know, I suffer from depression/anxiety issues, and as of late, I've felt completely overwhelmed in my personal and work life. And not just "oh man, work was busy" (thought it has been). I'm completely and utterly drained. I've been on "Energizer Bunny" setting since we moved at the end of July. Considering it is the end of August, that's a whole month.

And it is definitely something that's been affecting me in many ways. Not only has my depression and anxiety gotten worse, but my value systems have changed (prioritizing everything else above my own needs is a big one), I've been neglecting myself (not just hobbies and the like, but emotional and physical health and well-being), I've withdrawn, felt like a shell of myself, and just generally experienced extreme symptoms of depression like being constantly tired, overeating, etc. It's gotten to the point where it's extremely difficult to concentrate on anything, including gaming and blogging.

I'm sure most of my friends didn't notice. Aside from maybe being sparser than usual, and not spending a lot of time in TeamSpeak or multi-player games overall.

For those who have never suffered depression, consider yourself lucky. Trying to dig yourself out of a hole like that is extremely difficult. At least, it usually is. The hard part for me was talking about it, and addressing it. But once I told Chaide about how I was feeling, I started to feel a little bit better. I could see the sun's rays through the clouds, so to speak. What's helped me the most, though, was getting permission to turn off Energizer mode. Once I had that permission, it was like I was able to move past a lot of my stress and start taking care of me.

As of today I'm feeling a whole lot better. I'm still trying to take care of me, but I feel like I can better balance my obligations and the like. It helps a little to talk about it, too. Burnout is real. And not just "I'm tired of games" burnout. Real-life burnout is vicious. But it's not something one has to struggle with.

Mental Health Awareness Month was back in May, but it is always relevant to say that if you ever feel unlike yourself for whatever reason, know that there are others in the same position, and that it is not a sign of weakness (or whatever negative attribute that has been attached to it) to search for help, or even just to talk to another person about it.

Blaugust AMA

This is post 16 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Syl came up with a grand idea for Blaugust with a sort of AMA chain--you ask a question to the person above you, and they answer it!

Rowan Blaze of I Have Touched the Sky posed the following question to me:

I don't see a lot of blogs devoted to Call of Duty and other single-player games. Do you think the social aspect of MMORPGS spills over into the blogosphere more than for SPGs? Or is there some other factor? Or is it simply the circles we run in?

This is something I've also wondered about, myself. And I can think of a couple various reasons, though, I'm no expert, so I may be completely off the mark.

1. I do think part of it is the social atmosphere associated with MMORPGs. I know that the reason I have so much to talk about, sometimes is from doing content with another person/people. And sometimes, it's just that I had this super-awesome conversation with someone and it spurred my blogging juices and I had something to write about just from a conversation in TeamSpeak or tells. Granted, one can also have social interactions with single-player games, but I feel it is rarer and less immersive, or in-the-moment.
2. I feel that part of it is also the content types and updates you find in MMORPGs versus SPGs. Obviously, being and MMO means lots of people around to run various group content for goals, whereas in a SPG, you may be running similar content, but there's no real goal or point to run it again and again. There are also constant updates to an MMORPG versus SPG. Patches and expansions provide expanded worlds and content to complete. In an SPG you may get DLC or updates, but they don't seem to provide as much replayability as MMO content can.
3. And I do feel it's the circles bloggers run in, a bit, too. Most of us who started blogging got our inspiration from someone, who got their inspiration from someone, etc. It's a nice big circle. And most bloggers follow a core set of bloggers and have interactions with them, depending upon the game(s) one plays, or other interactions you may have had with a blogger in the past.

The caveat to all of this, however, is that as a person who prefers MMORPGs to SPGs I don't go seek out blogs devoted to a single game, or SPGs as a genre. And I think that is a big reason, as well. I know they probably exist, just as, for instance, LARP blogs do, but as a person who only dabbles in SPGs, my favorite blogs are also folks who write about MMORPGs but dabble in other things as a whole.

Bleeder of the Pack

This is post 15 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

The Salt Strands in FFXIV over near Lamia.

I've been on kind of a screenshot kick, lately. This one I took while I was working on my Marauder quest, Bleeder of the Pack. I've been posting all these screenshots mainly because I'm trying to catch up on Blaugust posts (don't judge!). But also because life has been so busy, as of late.

I haven't been getting in as much gaming as I've wanted to, and it's wearing on me. The last time I hopped into Final Fantasy was over on Lamia back at the end of July (before the move). And it wasn't for very long. About a week before that was the last time I played on Cactuar. In fact, as of today, it's been a month since I logged in on Cactuar.

But, I haven't logged onto Cactuar because I'm feeling a tad stuck with real life. Plus, I really want to get to 30, and I can't do that without Chaide because we play together on those classes. I suppose I could login and do some farming this weekend. Just some fishing while I work on chores, or watch some Netflix. Or put together my character sheet for our new D&D game that starts this weekend.

Or even putting together videos. Videos are something I've also wanted to do a lot of this month, but haven't had the time to.

So, there we have it. I resolve to hop into Cactuar this weekend, even for an hour or two, just so I can work on some professions. If I recall, I think I even put Mining on my list of goals for August. So there! Motivation! And a goal! I'm feeling better and less stressed already!

Class of 2015

This is post 14 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Chaide, myself, and our friend Camara have been playing  up a storm in The Secret World (though not this past month, because it's been super busy). I've been trying to finish some Let's Play videos, but since work and life have been so busy the past month, I haven't gotten to completing them, yet.

We've all really been enjoying our time in the game. The stories are amazing, and totally make up for the combat that's kind of "Meh". I also really adore the costuming system. I wonder if it's because it's more realistic than all the other MMOs I've played with costuming?

We took this shot outside of the Academy. I love all the quests there. Aside from the fact that I'll continue to fangirl over Weyoun being the head of the Academy.

I'm hoping to get in this weekend and play some. I am, however, really worried about the future of the game, what with Funcom's recent announcement. I'm hoping that the devs are able to come up with something. There's so much of this game I have yet to explore that I would like to, and I'm worried that I'll never have the chance.

At least I'll have some good memories, like this one.

TGTCML, Part 2

This is post 13 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 two of this journey. You can view part one at your leisure.

Down the rabbit hole.

In 2007, I transferred from a State college to a Private college for various reasons. I'd been poked about playing World of Warcraft by some of my friends from the state college, but I never really felt any real connection with those friends. I guess you could call them just folks I sort of hung out with between classes rather than had any connection with and spoke with outside of school.

It wasn't until I made some friends at my new college that I decided to bite the bullet. Just as I started that school year in 2007, I picked up World of Warcraft. I was watching one of my friends play out in Outlands, and decided it'd be fun to roll up a character and try. He gave me a free trial card, and the rest is kind of history, in a way, I guess.

I wrote a post a while ago detailing my first few days of WoW. I started on Detheroc (Horde), but then moved to Dalaran (Alliance) to play with the majority of my college friends. I had so much fun leveling and healing in Karazhan. It was a great way to get closer with my circle of friends in real life, and meet some new ones online. At one point, I decided to roll an alt (Horde) with an online friend over on Ravenholdt. I started raiding on both servers at the same time.

Just as I started grad school, I switched servers again (Llane, Horde) to be a "more laid back" player with some friends I kept in touch with from my undergrad that played but weren't over with the folks I was raiding with. Things progressed there, but I think that's another story for another time.

But, I can say, that during this time of my life I was going through a lot of changes. And WoW, as silly as it may sound, was a way to keep me sane, and help me through a lot of emotional distress I was experiencing. The friends I made through WoW at this point in my life helped to define my future self, and the choices I made. For instance, deciding to move to Georgia to attend graduate school.

Trying Terraria

This is post 12 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Last night, Chaide and I wanted to game some together, but we wanted something with little pressure, and something where we could only spend a half hour or so without getting dragged into other things. Essentially, we wanted a quick bout of play where we could cut it off without any strings attached.

We settled on Terraria. For those that don't know, open-world building games are not a forte, nor a favorite, of mine. I'm not fond of the digging and general exploration, and I just don't enjoy building. I'm never happy with what I build, so I get emo and then just turn it off.

I'm also just not the best at the combat and such in games like this, as it's a different key-set that I just can't seem to get used to. And when I play in a larger group of folks in games like this, I feel almost overwhelmed. I don't feel that I'm a good enough player, or that I contribute enough, or that I'm holding folks back, etc. (Ironically, I rarely get this mindset in typical MMOs...)

Anyway. We booted it up. I've had it for a few months. Chaide got a four pack and gave one to me. I played it for about forty-five minutes with Chaide and two other guildies and just didn't enjoy it (see above).

But last night with Chaide, I had a lot of fun. Yeah, so I asked some stupid questions, and needed to have my hand held (not literally) while I played to get an idea of what to do--but I had fun. One thing I like about the game is that there are achievements through Steam, which make it more fun for me. I enjoyed digging up some ore because I got cute-named achievements.

I also like that there's pets, mounts, and costumes in the game. So I could see myself picking this up every so often when Chaide and I just need some us-gaming-time without any strings attached.

I can tell you that it felt really good to be able to get some game time in with him for a change, as his schedule and available gaming time has changed a lot since school started. I'm hoping we can pick it up some more in the coming weeks!

WildStar Malaise

This is post 11 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

I spent a good chunk of time in WildStar on live, yesterday. Did some dailies, piddled around in Thayd doing some challenges for Tarnished Tint boxes (there are dyes I need, damnit!), and ran a bunch of stuff (including Shiphands!) with Gracie and chatted with her in TeamSpeak, which was tons of fun. One of the things we ended up chatting about for a bit was the lack of vitality on Live, at the moment, which she and Bel also discussed in the most recent Aggrochat.

BDS is a fairly active guild, but even we're seeing a decline of logins on Live except for raid nights--and it's really depressing, in a way. I know there are so many people stoked for changes coming with FTP, but at the same time, there's just not enough folks on. Drop 5 had a lot of content, but people seem to have hit a dry spell with it.

I know I'm more motivated to play than I ever have been. And I still have lots of things I can work towards on Live. But it seems the general populous of WildStar have hit a period of malaise.

Syl wrote a post today questioning on whether F2P is the right move for WildStar, and if it will end up saving the game. I do think that it is the right move for the game. And I hope, from the reactions I've seen, that it will end up saving the game. I'm hoping that WildStar ends up being the "new" LOTR when it comes to the F2P success stories. The game has an extremely dedicated staff and community. I just hope those who haven't been bitten by the bug in the past few weeks still stay as interested when F2P rolls around.

The King Pin

This is post 10 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

I've been dabbling some in Marvel Heroes, and Chaide and I have also been watching Netflix Daredevil. I was never a Daredevil fan, per se, but I've been enjoying the Netflix version.

This image is a club owned by King Pin. I don't know if it's cannon or not (I'm assuming not), but it's a really neat looking club outside. I've never really gotten into many villains (except the X-Villains) because I've never felt that many were beyond the, "Here to destroy the city! Yeh heh heh!" stereotype. I like knowing the motivations behind the villains.

King Pin is definitely one of those villains who seemed kind of flat on paper (from what little I've read about him) that has come to life in the Netflix show. We just finished the episode that focuses on King Pin, and it was intense, but made King Pin feel like more of a character than someone we just kind of shrug about and hope that Daredevil takes care of. Based on that episode, I want King Pin and Matt to work something out. I want them to better Hell's Kitchen together. To come to an agreement. And that's pretty awesome storytelling.

Now, if only more comics worked to give supporting cast characters and villains more motivations and made them well-rounded characters. One can only hope, and try to find some that do.

A Hogwarts Party

This is post 9 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

The past few days have been spent planning my birthday party for Saturday. While my birthday was the end of July, we're celebrating my party late because, well, we were moving my birthday weekend.

I grew up with the Harry Potter books, and as much as I dislike Harry as a character (ugh, stop being so emo!), I really love the other main/supporting characters, and the Wizarding World as a whole.

So I decided that I wanted to celebrate a Hogwarts birthday this weekend.

What does that entail? A lot of prep. I've decided to share with you guys all the stuff I'm doing so that maybe one day someone can make use of it! (Bonus? ANOTHER BLOG POST TO CATCH UP WITH BLAUGUST! ... *ahem*)

I'll be sure to take pictures of everything once made, decorated, etc. For now, this is just the list of everything I want to do/make. Y'know, the planning part. Because that's the hardest part.

Goody Bags

No party is complete without goody bags, am I right? Including myself and Chaide, there are twelve people invited to my party. So we needed twelve goody bags. Because it's just fun, even if they're simple.

Chaide found some Candy Cauldrons (No, they're not made out of candy. They're plastic), so we're going to put the following (loose) inside of them:
Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean
Lemon Drops
Chocolate Frogs (made from chocolate melts)

Activities

For activities, we're mainly going to watch some of the movies that are my favorites. We don't own all of them, so we'll end up renting some of them via Amazon, I'm sure. That's something we actually need to check on prior to this weekend.

We're also going to create wands, and potions (from corn syrup and fine glitter)! I know, you'd think this was a party for kids, wouldn't you? Nah. We're just a bunch of folks that like to get crafty along with our nerdy endeavors.

Food and Drink

And of course, I'd be remiss to list out the entirety of our menu. So, here we go!

• Hogwarts House Salad - All the colors: red (cherry tomatoes), yellow (yellow peppers), green (cucumbers and scallions), blue (blue cheese on the side for those that don't like it) with various sundry dressings.
• Hogwarts Fruit Salad - I wanted fruit, so we're making a fruit salad with bananas, strawberries, blueberries, and green grapes with walnuts on the side.
• Turkey Shepherd's Pie - I'm not big on heavy meats (lamb and beef), and some of our friends lean toward pescatarian, but will eat poultry in a pinch, so it's a good compromise.
• Brussels Sprouts - Just your typical roasted sprouts with some balsamic vinegar. They're so tasty that way! One of my favorite recipes, and oh so simple!
• Professor Sprout's Herbology Plate - Again, I want some extra veggies, so we're going to use broccoli, tomato, and carrots.
• Professor Snape's Stuffed Toadstools - Who can resist stuffed mushrooms? And I'm making them vegetarian, because why not?
• Golden Snitches - Cake pops! They're going to be adorable! I can't wait to make them! Even if they look ugly, I'm still looking forward to it!
• Butterbeer - Non-alcoholic for friends who don't want the two alcoholic drinks we're making. See recipe number 2 for the one we're using!
• Pureblood & Mudblood - The two cocktails we're going to serve. Our liqueur cabinet is still accruing new additions, so we had to limit what we're making.

Phew. Think we'll be exhausted, much? Haha. But hopefully we'll have some tasty leftovers! This post was actually a lot of fun to put together. I should write one up for the Lovecraftian birthday I put together for Chaide's birthday last year! Or was it the year before... Ia! Ia!

More Marvel Heroes

This is post 8 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

A few days ago, I mentioned that I downloaded and booted up Marvel Heroes for the first time. I wasn't particularly sold on the game, at first.

I'm a bit more sold, now. To the point of at least opening it up more. I think overall it'll be a game where I pick it up here and there if I have limited playtime, or I need an off night where I can just de-stress and do my own thing.

What finally got me interested was fiddling around a bit with Storm's powers. Once I figured out her lightning aura mechanic, I was smiling and giggling as I smashed things without even having to touch them. I'm still not particularly fond of her as a main character to play, per-se, but I did have fun. I got her up to level 9, which means I can utilize any of the other heroes to try very soon. Braxwolf mentioned that if you use the "t" key (so long as it's not rebound) you can choose any of the other heroes to start with.

Someone asked me what the current starter heroes were, and quite honestly, I didn't pay that much attention to it. I think Rocket Racoon was on there, and maybe Spiderman. I'm honestly surprised there's not a list of starters. Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much, as you can try all of them up to ten, anyway?

I wonder, though, if you can pick one of the non-starters as the first hero to play without spending splinters...

Under the Platforms

This is post 7 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

The guild has been raiding twice a week for about the past month. While we're not past the first area in Genetic Archives, it's still been a lot of fun. Knowing the fights now, it's kind of a bummer when you die to silly mistakes. But sometimes it can be fun, too, because you have the opportunity for neat screenshots on the way to your doom.

This screenshot in particular is underneath the platform in Experiment X-89's room. I got this when I fell through the platform one time. I knew I was about to plummet my death, so I had to make the most of it. I love the colors used in this raid. The strain in general are very purple and yellow. But I love the utilization of different colors underneath.

You see strain in the typical colors, but you also see a lot of Eldan influence (this is the Green/Gold scheme). This is the case because we're in Genetic Archives--a repository of all the eugenic data of every species on Nexus, compiled by the Eldans, specifically a certain one. The blue is what gets me, though. It's so bright and almost out of place. I wonder what parts of the Strain utilize this blue, and why we haven't seen more of it.

Impromtu Prompt: Have you taken any screenshots that were opportunities from a death? Have you ever died because you were taking a screenshot? Share the shot(s)!