Return to World of Warcraft for 11.2

 

Kanter helping with what's left of Dalaran

Post 2 of Blaugust

Just a quick note that I'm not interested in the rainbow achievement for Blaugust.  My goal is twice a week or 8 posts during Blaugust.  That'll be at least 7 more posts a month than I have been averaging and plenty to keep up with my gaming.  What I've discovered is that I like regular posts while I'm playing an MMO but otherwise, 1 to 2 posts a month is usually enough for me to feel like I'm keeping up with my gaming time.

When I first started this blog, I was looking for an alternative to World of Warcraft since I didn't think I was playing enough to keep up.  What I discovered over time was that, rather than finding a new MMO, if I wanted to play casually, it was easier to just change the way I played World of Warcraft.  Instead of joining at release and joining in some raids with my guild, I would join after release, once it has calmed down and gone on sale, play until I felt like I was ready to stop, then join again towards the end of the expansion, finish up the story and advance some of my alts.  Depending on the expansion and how much time I have to play, there have been a few variations, but it has played out pretty much that way since Pandaria.

For The War Within (WoW 11), I played through the early game in January, enjoyed it, but didn't feel any compulsion to work much on end game activities, including crafting, something that I typically like to keep up with.  With 11.2 announced for August 5th (tomorrow!), I thought it would be a great time to catch up on what I missed in 11.1 and play through 11.2.  Another motivation for me is that I'm very interested to see how housing is implemented.  I've always thought it would be something I'd like to work on but I didn't have the motivation to actually play far enough in the MMOs that had it to see (EQ2, FFXIV).  I'm still in my guild from WoW day 1 but it is now very much a casual guild and I'm hoping it can be a way for us to reconnect as well as an outlet for my enjoyment of crafting.

So I joined back on July 26th and have had three sessions so far, I little more than the One Night a Week that motivated the name of this blog but certainly in the spirit of keeping it casual.  I've decided to alternate between playing the new content on my first character and, what has always been my main, my hunter, Kanter, and leveling an alt.  I've gone through the Arathi and most of the Dalaran content.  It's been a nice solo jaunt of side content.  The Arathi content filled in some of the story with Faerin while the Dalaran content has been mainly revisiting npcs from past expansions.  I'm expecting the Undermine(d) (11.1) and Ghost of Karesh (11.2) stories to be more involved but it's been a nice easy way to get engaged again.

For my alt session, I decided to start with my warrior, Kantro.  He is usually my second choice because he is the miner in my alt group and if I want to craft with my jewelcrafter (priest) or my engineer (mage), I'll need to ore from my miner to help.  Based on something from another blog (Aywren maybe?, I should try to remember these things), I decided to use the Lorewalking quests for leveling.  I didn't make a full level after finishing the Xal’atath scenario but it was fun, particularly since I had experience part of her story with my Shadow Priest, Kantra, during Legion.  Given the slow pace of experience, I'll probably go back to the War Within zones for Kantro and let either my priest or mage do the other Lorewalking quests.

Welcome to Blaugust 2025!

 

Welcome to Blaugust!

Welcome to Blaugust 2025!  

I started this blog as part of the first Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI) back in 2012.  That was a precursor to Blaugust that Syp ran for a few years.  More about me later but the reason I started blogging was because I enjoyed reading the blogs of people like Syp and Belghast who blogged primarily about MMOs at the time and I was in a transition in my MMO playing at the time and wanted to use the blog as an outlet for my thoughts and find a new way to play MMOs less frequently without giving them up all together.

This year I, like many I expect, would like to show Belghast that was he wrought has helped others and can exist independent of his having to drive it.  My thoughts and prayers are with you, Belghast, and I hope this year's Blaugust can bring you a little happiness in your sorrow.  Take care, Belghast and I hope all participants can enjoy the ride!

July Gaming Check In

 

Library DLC for Logic Town

I didn't post anything for June because I haven't been gaming much.  I have plenty of games, just nothing that is calling to me.  I keep considering resubscribing to World of Warcraft, but again, it doesn't seem like there is anything motivating me right now.  I will definitely be interested once housing becomes available.  I may just wait until then.  I'll be interested if it is in the Midnight pre-patch or if it waits for the expansion.  They might make it available if you preorder which would probably get me to do just that while I usually wait until an expansion goes on sale.

I did purchase the four available DLCs for Logic Town when it went on sale with the Steam Summer Sale.  I've been playing it most days, have already finished 2 of the DLCs, and find it a relaxing when to spend some time.  I'm not great at it and I'm sure there are people who cheat at the daily challenges but I'm glad Krikket made me aware of it.  The DLC doesn't have a huge amount of content but it's cheap, I enjoy it and I'm getting a lot of content out of the daily challenges.

May Gaming Check In

 I usually put a screenshot here but with my limited game playing, I may just leave it off.

I have been playing Logic Town daily games most days.  Thanks to Krikket for making me aware of it and giving me a goal to get better.  I don't have any trophies in the dailies, but I enjoy them even though I often frustrate myself with mistakes or messing up the controls (the difference between select and de-select is how long you hold in the mouse button).

I did play the intro to Tactics Ogre on the PS5 and when I came back to it, realized I have to learn how to play and I wasn't in the mood.  The fights are quite long.  I guess maybe Unicorn Overlord was similar but they seemed faster and they were certainly easier at the level I was playing.  I also played the intro of Arceus, Pokemon Legends, but didn't feel compelled to continue.

I'm sure I'll eventually play Civilization VII again.  I've thought about resubscribing to World of Warcraft but the leveling event I was eyeing only lasted two weeks and didn't seem like the right time to pay for a month's long subscription.  For now it's just phone games and Logic Town and that's ok until something interests me again.

March Check In: Civilization VII and Logic Town

 

Last level of Logic Town Story Mode

I spent 40 hours of Civilization VII (mostly in February) but haven't finished my first game though I am at the end of the Exploration Era.  I'm sure I'll go back to it eventually but decided I want to something simpler so start playing Logic Town

Krikket on Nerd Girl Thought. had been talking about Logic Town and it sounded like something I'd like to play.  It was on sale for $2.50 so I bought it and started playing.  I have 42 hours of play time that completed the story mode plus they have daily games that I plan on using now that I've done the Story Mode and there are four expansions that I can pick up when they go back on sale, so I definitely feel I got more than my money's worth already.

In the music space, I saw M. J. Lenderman in January, horsegirl in March and plan to see Julien Baker win April.

February check-in: World of Warcraft and Civilization VII

 

After The War Within Campaign

I'm officially on my next break from World of Warcraft The War Within.  I was just able to finish the campaign questline and the prerequisites for the Earthen race.  I enjoyed the quests and I'll try the delves and solo dungeons when I join again but didn't play for several weeks which shows it's time for a break.

I preordered the standard version of Civilization VII from Gamestop and so was able to start playing on February 11th.  I decided on the standard version because I thought it would have enough content to keep me busy until the DLCs went on sale.  I started a game as Catherine and Greece on a relative low difficulty and I've been enjoying my time so far.  Playing a relatively passifist side focused on science.  Just started the exploration age so we will see how that goes.

January Check-In - Holidays and Back to World of Warcraft

 

False sun in The War Within

Publishing my January check in on February 2nd because I haven't done this for December or January and I'm still hoping to have a February check in late in the month.

I had a two plus week break over holidays and thought it might be a good to time for World of Warcraft if the expansion went on sale.  Sure enough, it went on sale the day before my vacation started so I was able to get some play time in that first week.  However after that things go busy and I have played that much.  I have gotten to level 76 and I'm on the third of the four zones so I'm hoping I can complete the campaign and get to level 80 in the next week and I already plan to take another break after that.

In other gaming, I was given The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Persona 5 for Christmas and my birthday.  I've played them both some but I'm not currently.  I expect I'll go back to them later this year when I'm in the mood.  I also was accepted into the Stars Reach Playtest recently.  I downloaded it and logged in and did a little teraforming to show that I could but that was all.  I don't think I'll play it more but maybe news for Wilhelm and Bhagpuss will inspire me to play. 

The reason I decided to cancel my World of Warcraft subscription in February is that Civilization 7 is coming out on February 11.  I was reading the different takes on reddit, but for me, as a player since the original Civilization (if not in 1991 soon after), I'm willing to pay for the game at launch but I know I won't have a lot of time for it.  Therefore, it makes sense to just buy the base game and wait for sales to purchase the DLCs and inevitable expansions.  I don't have an issue with the model.  It is expensive to makes games like this and I want them to keep improving on it and providing more content.