Redwolf's Journal (continued)

I'm a little surprised at how well today's The Queue column at BlizzardWatch accurately conveys my feelings about the patch thus far in its second answer. I've been pulled out of my garrison, which is good I guess, but the shipyard stuff feels rough in ways the follower missions don't (because you can not only fail missions but actually lose ships) and is still done at a less-convenient table. The dailies and such out in Tanaan feel kind of grindy already. It doesn't help that a lot of the mobs are fairly beefy level 100s. I don't have much problem with my paladin, but I know taking my shadow priest out there will be painful and frustrating. LFR won't start opening 'til next week, I believe. I like the treasures and the rares and the scenery is fine, but nothing has wowed me and I was expecting more accessible zone story instead of things that seem to be locked behind reputations and quests. And felblight is annoyingly rare when you want to be able to

Reminded of Disneyland and my youth, I felt a need to look things up on the maps again and make a note. There was a time I lived right here (though this link doesn't want to work cleanly due to quotes and such): https://www.google.com/maps/place/33°50'19.1"N+117°57'24.4"W/@33.8340579,-117.9359017 , close enough to Disneyland to taunt me and make me ask my mom why we couldn't have season passes. Heh. Those apartments appear to have changed little, though the area in general has seen a lot of infill. Heck, I remember strawberry fields a block or two to the east. West and north, there's still the park I remember with the crater-like pattern and raised concrete walkways....

Well, patch 6.2 is coming out next week. That's a little less notice than I expected. It might even be a little sooner than I expected, but I'm a pessimist that way. ;) Of course, raid wings will be staggered, so it'll take a bit of winding up before I can even chain run LFR if I want. I'm sure I'll be getting into the shipyard and Tanaan, though since those are... uhh... about it for my playstyle these days? I'm curious how the mythic dungeons will shake out, but it sounds like they'll be too difficult to be worth the effort for me, and nothing else looks very rewarding. They recently had a developer host a Q&A session that brought out a lot of... uncharacteristically frank comments. None of what was said really surprised me, but some of how it was said did. Blizzard needs to work on foresight. They've got the hindsight down to a science, but the company/developers for WoW are prone to wild, extreme swings in design and last minute changes that

Fury Road stunt doubles got married? That's kinda cool. E3 gears up. Ooo. Ahh. A remake of Final Fantasy VII? Fans have wanted that for well over a decade. I find myself less than enthusiastic that the time has actually come. Actually, the most interesting thing I've seen so far is the Mass Effect: Andromeda announcement. Mostly, I find it fascinating because it raises all sorts of questions about what happened after the original trilogy. Though the cynical part of me says it'll be glossed over or blurred rather than Bioware defining a canon ending and really exploring the repercussions. Clearly humanity has rediscovered viable FTL travel after the destruction of the mass relays, and even some way to travel to another galaxy. But there are some incredible narrative opportunities to exploring how society developed in the Milky Way after 1) life became techno-organic, 2) a benevolent-dictator Shepard-Reaper armada took over, or 3) all mechanical life (Reapers includ

I do so hate it when I manage to blow my mood on a Saturday (or Friday night) and leave myself mopey through the rest of the weekend. Ah well. So it goes. Planning a visit to the Grand Canyon at the end of the month, since my dad and stepmom are over there as campground hosts for the summer. Probably three nights there. Have had to make sure my tent in still intact, which led to it being set up in the second bedroom. It looks sorta funny in there, really. I've made my way through nine of the Honor Harrington books. There's a lot I like there in the strategy, tactics, and characters. Even the politics are usually bearable (for politics). It's interesting, and perhaps educational, to read the interplay between government and military motivations - I could certainly draw some parallels to real life. On the other hand, the down sides are getting bigger as well. The stories are feeling sort of formulaic. Even the chapters are often follow the pattern of 1) brief exchange be