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!