Redwolf's Journal (continued)

The Battle for Azeroth continues! Over the weekend, I've run a bunch of world quests, managed to get blacksmithing to a half-useful level (unlocking all current patterns), and run three of the four leveling dungeons for Alliance while pursing the Pride of Kul Tiras quest line to get Jaina back. For all that, I've got an average item level of 320 now, which appears to be sufficient for mythic dungeons and probably the not-yet-released raid. Island Expeditions: Meh. You need to run at least 5 different maps (three of which available every week) to advance some war (? not garrison or order, but same sort of thing) benefits. Beyond that, they reward some azerite and there may be some possible cosmetic rewards, but they don't seem very rewarding. Maybe on higher difficulties? I did, at least, experience some victories. The leveling dungeons are pretty easy if you run them in normal mode at 120. I'm sure I'll have to try harder modes at some point. I'm a little

So, prior to BfA's release, I picked up a half-priced No Man's Sky and decided to explore the "Next" update/version of the game. I'm still a little bitter are the creator(s) for the state in which the game originally released versus what was promised, but it sounded like it might be worth trying at this point. Verdict? I suppose it is, but probably not at full price. It's a fine space survival/exploration/building game in that it offers a fair amount to do. The procedural generation is the big feature and it's... okay? The exotic worlds don't make the best use of this system, but they sort of epitomize the game to me: - You scan it from orbit and see a "forsaken" or "glass" world or some other descriptor that makes you curious. - You fly down to the surface and see a landscape strewn with bunches of something, perhaps floating monoliths or chromatic bubbles as far as the eye can see. - You land and start scanning these featur

So, what's it been like working through levels and zones in BfA? Not that unlike other expansions, really. Story-wise, it seems my totally-uninformed choices made the faction conflict drop almost completely off the map for my leveling play. The Alliance has three zones to quest through. The Horde only really makes an appearance in about a quarter of one of those zones. It just so happens I didn't hit that area until after reaching level 120 (even without any XP boosting tricks beyond some rested XP here and there). Along the way, you open up three excursions to establish beachheads on the Horde island. Only one of those really deals with confronting Horde soldiers (the others deal with native snake-folk and some serious cannibal trolls that I don't think are specifically Horde-aligned), and guess which one I happened to do last? So, while other players may well see things differently, I hit Kul Tiras and promptly didn't worry much about the big, central conflict for a

It's odd to have a WoW expansion release on a Monday afternoon. I'd have to say it was relatively smooth for me. I did get disconnected two or three times over the course of the evening - each time, the game remained for maybe a minute or so, but mobs stopped spawning or responding, leading to an empty area before I got dropped back to the launcher, watched the download process appear to download a small update, then I was able to get back in. That's not remotely as bad as queue times in Burning Crusade or total server failures some expansions have seen. The experience was also strangely uncrowded. Whether it's phasing or sharding tech or just luck, the mobs of advancing players felt less mobby than previous expansions. I wasn't alone by any means, but it wasn't overwhelming either. And many major NPCs/questgivers seemed to have a small area around them that disabled the ability to mount - probably to prevent people from blocking them with mammoths and the l

I am weary. I have endured the alien world of Draenor, broken and not. I have walked the frozen land of Northrend to the peak of IceCrown Citadel itself. I have battled Deathwing, aspects of Old Ones, and even Sargeras himself. And it is now that I am tired. Sargeras' defeat and the shattering of the Legion was a great victory. I thought, perhaps, we could hang up our weapons for a time and relish an Azeroth free of imminent doom. Even with the damage done by his blade, the world could have, should have, been given a chance to rest. Instead, the wheel turns, the cycle continues, and the Horde lashes out. So, instead, I find myself taking up Oathseeker once more, even lacking the power it once had, and setting out to shield the Alliance.  This is not the first time, of course. When returning from the defeat of the Lich King, many territorial lines had shifted and Gilneas fell. With Garrosh's leadership, the Horde turned Theramore into a crater - much like the destructi

Well, I think I can finally call this little project done. I wanted a customized Star Wars blaster, and that's what I've got. It was looking about as I wanted after the primary painting, but required some touching up... Also, there was the issue of mounting the sight. I really didn't like the basic one any more than I liked the stock, so I picked up a reasonably cheap holo sight, but naturally the dimensions of a Nerf blaster don't quite fit regular rails, so that required some attention with Dremel, sandpaper, and epoxy to fill the gap left by the stock sight... That seems to have worked out pretty well... And while fixing little paint details prior to putting on a sealing coat, there was at least one thing to add... So, now I have a tiger-striped blaster that matches armor colors, is marked as Mandalorian, and shows clear customization over stock. And the blaster sounds still work. That... seems like a success to me.

This is pretty much precisely how these things go for me. I start a little project like this, but keep running into little things that delay the process. I knew I would be opening up the blaster in order to gut this firing mechanisms and I would be filling in the gap, because while one side of the thing looks fine, the other is the cylinder for loading darts, and that just doesn't fit. Open, remove mechanisms, file/sand down labels, fill in gaps... And yet at every step of the way, there's something. Open it up? Well, gee, the only "jeweler's" screwdrivers that I had that would fit went missing years ago, so I need those. What to fill with? Bondo's a bit extreme, and I was down to my last bit from last year that wasn't mixing well. I sort of wanted to use Green Stuff, but went looking for it at the local game shop and they only had a liquid version, which isn't nearly what I was after. I started using wood filling prior to finding some other epoxy

Well, Battle for Azeroth is only... what? A couple weeks away? I decided to catch up a little on the recent couple of outside-the-game stories Blizzard has put online to set the stage. Jaina's was a very moody piece. It feels out of place to me in a literal sense - I don't recall any real Charon-like lore in the setting, so we have a powerful ice mage getting an undead to take her out to a sea graveyard to raise her father's ships from beneath the waves? And he is her father maybe? Honestly, the whole thing feels much more metaphorical than literal as she basks in guilt and resolves to fight the Horde. Given that ambiance, I'm not entirely sure it should be taken literally. Sylvanas' story seems a good bit more literal. And... it seems to have evoked a community reaction that sort of confuses me. "This isn't morally gray!" "This is a war crime!" Well... yeah, this is Sylvanas, the same one who has been complicit to or directly behind oth