World of Warcraft Undermine finished

 

On to Ghosts of K'aresh

So a couple quick notes on the new area.  What does it mean to have a apostrophe after a single consonant.  Is it pronounced ka-aresh? Or do they just think it looks cooler to add an apostrophe.  Second, the first quest is the normal learn the area and do menial tasks quest but at least they are honest about it in the quest text.

As I mentioned in the last post, Undermine isn't my kind of zone, urban areas being one of my least favorite types in MMOs.  I must abmit I'm glad for it to be behind me though I don't think the execution was bad, it just wasn't for me.  I'm not very good about taking screenshots but I believe I took only the one for my last blog post and, looking back, I'm not sure there were any great opportunities.  For atmosphere, I like all the other War Within zones better.

One quick call out for how they handled the raid. I really like the addition of Story mode raids with the War Within.  I think it is a good thing that the raids and dungeons don't just exist by themselves but in the context of the greater story and now with follower dungeons introduced with Dragonflight and Story mode raids with the War Within, casual players like myself can experience them without having to worry about skill or gear or insults or people rushing past the story.  Yes, if you want better gear you should participate in the true raids (though now Delves are another solo option) but I don't care about the gear.  I'd rather see it within the game by myself than watch a video, the only option we used to have if we didn't want to participate with others.

End of Blaugust, More World of Warcraft

 

Undermine, not my favorite kind of zone

Blaugust is ending tomorrow so I'll make this my last Blaugust post.  My goal was to post twice a week except for the week I was on vacation.  I probably missed that by two posts but I'm fine with 5 posts which is the Bronze award.  That's all I was expecting though it would have been nice to have one or two more posts like I planned.  I had two posts related to the weeks including a music post that I thought about doing for a while and was nice to get done.  This has been the first year that I've been going to concerts in a long time and there have been great ones within about a three hours drive though none of the bands I want to see have been local.

I did the next set of Undermine campaign quests which reinforced that I don't particularly want to spend extra time in this zone.  I don't think I've done any of the dungeons or raids so I'd probably like to do them either as they come up in the campaign or at the end just to fill in the story.  Undermine as a zone is fine in terms of quest density, I would just rather do quests in an area that seems more rural than urban.

I went back to Kantro to do some more quests and realized he isn't getting any bonuses right now other than the 5% of having a character at level 80.  I moved him to the zone where I plan on seeing some of the quests I haven't seen rather than repeating the campaign quests and did some mining which gave him some experience and will allow him to level his blacksmithing.

As a final World of Warcraft note, I really am looking forward to housing.  I think I only paid full price for one expansion after Burning Crusade, but early access to housing will get me to do it even though I realize it won't be fully implemented.  I've been in the same guild since beta in 2004 it has to be close to my 21st anniversary.  The original forum has been down for a while and the guild itself is pretty quiet both online and in the Discord but I still feel a lot of fondness for it and I'm hoping it can be a way we can feel more connected.

I hope everyone who participated had a great Blaugust.  I've only really added two blogs to my regular reading at this point, but I will still try to look at some of the new ones and add them to my list.

Blaugust - Creator Appreciation, New Music

Horsegirl - Phonetics On and On

I've been away on vacation for the week, but since I was only planning on posting twice a week, it hasn't really impacted my Blaugust schedule.  For three years or so, Spotify has gotten me to listen to more new music and this year, I've even gone to three concerts and have two more on the calendar.  I'll be posting music from 2025 for artist I've either seen, I'm going to see, or I'd like to see.  I'll include Spotify links and YouTube links for those like Blagpuss who don't use Spotify.

MJ Lenderman (and This is Lorelei) - Dancing in the Club

MJ Lenderman's new album came out in 2024 so I'm using this This is Lorelei song that he recorded.  I heard the original song and thought the lyrics were clever but didn't care for the music.  This version is so much better.  I saw MJ in January and it was a great concert.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2aFkH4wK9nZbgtmlq411f2?si=e564bedadb144229

https://youtu.be/7BUI9S6PEiI?si=GH94zex1DArX-VVX

Horsegirl - Well I Know You're Shy

Blagpuss included Switch Over in his blog, so I thought I'd include this one here.  The whole new Phonetics On and On album is great and they played the whole thing along with a few other songs at the first concert I was able to see with my youngest daughter earlier this year.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2t1PBeyHtPyGaHvxh3lLoY?si=d4d4ed8c9c5d447a

Unfortunately, no official YouTube version of this song

https://youtu.be/HkdLtb6Rg-I?si=7Sir4e1t0tr7xgBP

Julien Baker and Torres - Dirt

Boygenius was definitely my band of 2024, so I've been happy to listen to more of their songs both together and separately.  Was able to see Julien Baker and Torres at a great venue earlier this year. 

https://open.spotify.com/track/4joCdZ76bt2OQTqYMbizJI?si=22b2a3ccef864382

https://youtu.be/z9p13VpD3Aw?si=QkDiHBBaF7VAgvBv

Lucy Dacus with Hozier - Bullseye

Interesting so many of these songs are collaborations.  Forever is a Feeling is another great new album.  I love Lucy's voice and look forward to seeing her next month.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6hwzlorpMDQsHtIhwoNPP9?si=cf63e095157a4e4b

https://youtu.be/j8Hudcruuwg?si=4gPGFl8NdAS3RP9X

The Beths - Metal

The new album comes out in a week but three songs have been released so far.  I thought Expert in a Dying Field was both a great song and great album and am looking forward to the new album and seeing them live in October.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6KF6TkyYpEWKg6BZ3OYJz7?si=3b5c722ce41d420e

https://youtu.be/YrVEgP0LkDA?si=32cSTKKRKsZy8xGc

Wet Leg - mangetout

Blagpuss introduced me to Chaise Longue and that was definitely my song of 2022.  The new album is more mature but true to their sound.  There were several songs I considered but the clever use of a name for snow peas for which I wasn't familiar but this song over the top.  Though they are touring, no concert near enough to me.  Maybe they will add somewhere closer later.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5UW4tA4j23YL6kDfRw3rWT?si=3b85480909794883

https://youtu.be/ye1_CSuv5NM?si=2qCZjs47AULumpYV

I hope you enjoyed something new to you!

Blaugust Who am I? and more World of Warcraft

 

Xal'atath scheming as a dagger that my priest used

Yes, I am still amused by the fact that my priest in World of Warcraft was using the main villian of  the War Within as her weapon in Legion.  One time I'm glad I played as a Shadow Priest, even if she is one of my alts.

Before I get back to World of Warcraft, this week's theme is to introduce yourself.  I'm not very interested in introducing myself more broadly (and, it's a little disturbing what people could probably find, if they tried; I'm not at all interested in testing AI like Wilhelm or Bhagpuss).  For blogging, as I mentioned in my earlier post, this blog started as a way to figure out how I could transition to being a casual MMO player.  Over time, it has become two things for me.  First, it is a way to keep track of my casual gaming, sometimes MMOs, but often non-MMOs on the PS5, Switch, PC or even on my phone or tablet.  Generally these are covered in my 'Check In' posts that I try to do most months, but every once in a while I will include a post about a specific non-MMO that I'm either playing a lot or have finished.

The second thing I enjoy is posting about my MMO experiences.  I find the experience of MMOs more story-like and you end up building your own experience which, to me, is more fun to write about than other games.  Not necessarily more fun to play, just I find blogging about my MMO experiences fun and therefore I'm much more likely to post regular, maybe weekly posts, while I'm playing an MMO as opposed to the monthly posts about other games.  Also, although I enjoy having interactions with other bloggers, this is really for me.  Relatively early on it was about the larger blogging community but for most of the life of this blog, probably at least the last 10 years, it's really been about me enjoying writing about my gaming experience and very little beyond that.

Speaking of my gaming experience, I am continuing to alternate between experiencing the new content with my hunter, Kanter, and level an alt, initially Kantro my warrior.  My last session saw me finish off the Lorewalker Xal'atath questline on my warrior.  The Lorewalker quests can be done for characters as low as level 10, but since I wanted to level my warrior first, I thought I'd play it with him.  This was probably a mistake.  I only gained about 75% of level from the full questline rested and I think it would have been much more on a lower level alt.  However, it was a nice casual experience and I went from it to the War Within introductory questline and the beginning of the campaign quests, gaining another two levels in the process.

Depending on when it happens, I'll likely skip the introductory quests on my next alt but it was last December when I did them and didn't remember everything over the 8 months.  Just finishing the introductory quests and the campaign quests up to the first delve was a good couple of hour session and netted me two levels, as I mentioned, plenty fast enough for me.  I'm not interested in chain running dungeons or other ways of fast leveling and part of the reason I like having alts is to be able to use the different crafting professions.  Doing campaign and side quests gives more opportunity for gathering.

Speaking of which, I need to figure out where my hunter, Kanter, is on his professions for my next session.  I also believe I'm about ready to start the Undermine(d) campaign.  That'll will probably be next time.

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.