Redwolf's Journal (continued)

If my count is correct, I went through 39 novels in 2011. I've wanted to get back to reading more, and I consider that a success. Last night's Witchcraft-turned-Dresden Files tabletop game was... remarkable. Why? Because we went on a stealth mission that actually worked . Usually one failed roll means all hell breaks lose. Instead, we managed to fight a couple harpies outside in a storm. One survivor of the pair did claw its way inside and sound an alarm, but we managed to evade from there, find the prisoner we were after (and one we weren't) and get back to where we boarded the ferry without otherwise being seen. We even finished out the session by distracting the gunmen redcaps on deck with summoned tigers and leaping off to land (roughly but safely, via wind spell) on our own boat to make our getaway. Woo! I did a lot of "unsafe" casting in the session. Previously, I'd been looking at shift levels in my Conviction/Discipline range, but veiling a group to...

I've rambled on about it before, but I find myself once again considering the connection between interest/investment in something and the enjoyment gotten out. And right now, both seem pretty low as far as group gaming prospects online... The last few weeks have definitely been "down" on WoW. That's highly complicated because my main focus on play there is based on group/guild activities. That means other people's involvement impacts my enjoyment. I've always tried to maintain myself at the forefront, keeping my tank gear set up in the top few of the guild as far as gearing and brushed up on tactics as best I can so if the guild is pushing forward in raiding, I'm as ready as I can be. But when I perceive less interest on the part of others in the group, I start asking myself why I should be trying so hard. Right now, we might be seeing the extreme manifestation of that with our lack of healers. A fairly recent join who had healed some through our Fir...

Spent most of the weekend with my parents, which has become our tradition. And that's what Christmas itself feels like to me these days - celebration of family tradition, not religion. Good food was had. A basset hound was wrangled into position for photos. A long walk was had. And while there was no snow there, I still have some at home (shade and low temperatures, yay?). I was also able to expose them to Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, which was enjoyed. They're both Whedon fans anyway. It was nice. Along with some clothing and miscellaneous stuff, I received Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Uncharted 3. Couple that with the recent release of SWTOR and the ever-expansive Skyrim and I feel a little bit "buried" under games, but better too many entertainment options than not enough, right? Actually, after some play on Christmas day and yesterday, I was able to finish the story mode of Arkham Asylum. I guess there's a lot more gameplay in the challenge modes...

It's taken a few examples and some forum research, but I've come to understand (I think) the intricacies of orange-quality items in SWTOR, and they're... interesting. There's already the standard hierarchy. Gray items are most sellable, white items are basic no-frills stuff with no stat enhancements beyond armor/damage, green items start to have stat modifiers on them, blue items have a few more points than their green counterparts at the same level, and purple ones even more (and perhaps a slot for an sugmentation). All of them can be found, though white-quality armor/weapons pretty much disappear after the first half dozen levels. Crafting patterns you buy are for green quality, but you have a chance to learn blue versions of the patterns by reverse engineering green items (and purple from blue as I understand). Then there's orange items. Orange items have modification slots and the stat benefits of orange-quality items are entirely based on those mods. If y...

Another book read, perhaps the last of the year as my pile seems empty and the one novel I have in mind to read isn't at the local bookstore for immediate availability. It finishes up the trilogy previously connected on here and here . I find the ending less than satisfying. There are some good and neat world details. I like how the usual archtypes are pieced in, with the bronze-using native elves are supplanted by iron-wielding humans and the secrets of steel are held by dwarves. I like the magic blades being forged to fight against sorcerer-summoned demons, though the powers of the Ancient Blades seem unusually varied. The religions are interesting, though there's a hint of a thread in the second book that never was elaborated on. On the down side, I found some of the character development to be very uneven. That's especially true of Sir Croy in the second two books - if he's going to be a naive and idealistic knight, I'm okay with that, but he takes some tur...

Christmas is Sunday? Really? Sheesh. That seems strange to me, even if I do have a Christmas song stuck in my head and have for the last 36 hours or so... I actually dumped some free time into creating a World of Darkness character, ending up with a wealthy, immortal weaponsmith with ties to the Shadow Realm. Shades of Tony Stark or Batman (though not as extreme as either) turned in a more supernatural vein. And... that's about it. With a little bit of XP unspent and apparently no connection information for the MUCK, I couldn't dive into play even if I were highly motivated to do so. Heh. A few SWTOR observations: - I still love the Agent's ship and the space combat missions, limited as they are. Reminds me a touch of the old X-Wing arcade game (or Star Fox, or...). A few ship upgrades can make the starting missions way easier. - It's all too easy to dump credits into crew skills (doing Armstech/Scavenging/Research). I keep realizing I'm back down to 10k credi...

The holiday doldrums set in a week early (or so it feels to me). In WoW, we knew our guild leader would be gone Saturday, but he was the only one I was aware of. He tried to get a group together Friday night. That almost worked, but with our primary healers unresponsive or absent, current raid content was out of the question and we just knocked out Blackwing Lair, the old 40-man raid with about six people (easily) before I headed off. Saturday was disappointing as I think there were only three other raiders online at the usual start time (ironically, including said guild leader). I had hoped he'd be the only one missing at, at the worst, we could struggle through something or even take a partial team into LFR or take on the easy Alizabel and Morchok quick-like. Then when Guild Wars time rolled around Sunday night, I was the only person online . No progress. I expect Christmas night to be as bad or worst and New Years just as bad. So... it feels like we'll be rebuilding our g...