Blizzcon, Rift, and Pandas, Oh My

So where to begin. Right now I feel like my brain is in overdrive. Between Rift, WoW, and Blizzcon, I am going in to gaming info overload.

Rift
So, let’s start with Rift. The world event is going, slowly. I’m about half way through getting my raptor mount, and hoping to finish it soon. I’m still looking for a guild, but haven’t found one yet. Other than that, I’m enjoying the event so far.

Haunting For Pets
Meanwhile in Azeroth, Hallow’s Eve is progressing slowly. The event is almost halfway over, and I still don’t have enough tricky treats to get either pet, let alone both. I need to do more dailies, and finish hitting all the trick or treat pumpkins. If I end up getting only enough treats to get one of the two pets, it will definitely be the Halloween cat, I mean come on who can resist a black with a witch’s hat on a broom stick.

A Whole New World
So you probably heard about a little event that happened over the weekend, ya know Blizzcon, maybe you’ve heard of it.
Well, Wife once again proved how great she is. I wasn’t planning on ordering Blizzcon at first this year, so while I was out getting blood work done I was checking for updates about the opening ceremony when I saw they had announced the new expansion. Later on that day I mentioned it to her, and her response was “well did you order it yet, if not do it when you get home.” So I went ahead and ordered it when I got home.
So there were all kinds of awesomeness this year. We found out that the new expansion is going to be Mists of Pandera, and we will finally be able to play as those giant balls of fluff, the Panderans. You have no idea how excited I am about this. I have been wanting to roll a Panderan since WC3.

Not only that, but we will get to be Kung Fu masters. That’s right we will be getting the monk class, and from what I’ve seen we will be a cross between street fighter, Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan. Every race but Worgen and Goblins can be a monk. I was a lil bummed that Worgen can’t monks, I would’ve loved to have a Kung Pow Wolf lol.

Goodbye Stat Sticks
MoP is bringing all kinds of changes with for us hunters. They are finally doing away with our minimum range. That’s right. We will no longer have a dead zone. We will be able to shoot at point blank range. We will be one step closer to finally getting pistols. Now on the flip side, we will no longer be able to use or equip melee weapons, and no other class will be able to equip ranged weapons either.

A New Tree to Bark Up
Then there’s the changes that are being made to the talent tree. They are scrapping the old talent tree system and are rolling out a new one. In the new system, you will get to choose one of three options every fifteen levels. They also rolled a lot of the old talents in to new class and tree abilities. It looks interesting, but I haven’t had a chance to play around it yet, so I’m not sure about how much it will allow us to customize our builds.

Gotta Catch Em All
The next, in my option, big announcement was the non combat pet battle system. That’s right kids, Pokemon has come to Azeroth. All kidding aside though, I’m interested in seeing how PokeWoW works out. I mean, hell, even Wife perked up over this announcement. I think it’s going to be a fun way to kill time, and just take a break from the grind.

Diablo 3 For Free
The final announcement was they are starting the WoW annual plan thingy. It’s actually kinda cool. All you have to do is sign up for a one contract. You don’t pay anything extra. So, you’re probably wondering what do you get in exchange for signing this contract you ask? Well, you get three great things. First you get a bad ass BoA mount, that looks sweet. Secondly you get a guaranteed invite in to the next WoW expansion beta. Finally, you get a free digital copy of Diablo 3 the day it gets released. That’s right three great FREE items for agreeing to pay for a game you play, and would be paying for any ways, for just signing a contract that is shorter than most cell phone contracts.

So all in all Blizzcon was a blast to watch again this year, and who knows, maybe I’ll get to go next year. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out if ammo.

Great Deal on a New Set of Legs

So 1.5 The Ashes of History world event started up last week. New dailies, new gear, new pets, a new level 50 zone, and new mounts. All kinds of stuff to do, and not much time to do it in. It amazes me how quickly Trion is able to pump out new content and events. The story line is interesting, and the rewards look pretty good so far. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

Back Home Again
About a month ago, I left Shadefallen to join the Player Vs Rift guild on another server. Well I logged on on Saturday to find out that the guild had moved to a new server. Now transferring servers wouldn’t be that big of a deal, except they went to a PvP server. Ugh. I hate PvP. I rolled on a PvP server once in WoW, and that didn’t last long at all. I don’t have that much time to be online, so when I’m on and running quests, I don’t want to deal with the extra crap of jacktards ganking me when I’m not looking.
So back I go to Shadefallen. It’s not all bad news about heading back, Wife’s toons are still there, and I have a bunch of alts there to help run dailies to get the raptor mount. So now all I have to do is find a new guild for my toons.

New Legs
So the 1.5 world event started this week, and it’s brought some tasty new goodies. New gear, and a new pet for us to collect, but more importantly, we have access to 2, yes, 2 new mounts.

The ember raptor, and the spindrel, are our newest rides, are now available to us. The raptor is obtained just like the mossy tartagen was obtained. You buy an egg with special event currency, then either buy the essences that you need to grow it, with the same currency, or go earth and fire rift hunting, and hope that the essence drops. The biggest difference is the amount that you need. The turtle needed fifty essences, while the raptor only needs thirty five. That makes the raptor faster, and slightly easier, to get. Now the spindrel is a different story all together. You have to buy the Ashes of History upgrade to get it. Now before you start having flashbacks of WoW, and paying $25 to get just a mount only, it’s not that bad. You aren’t buying a mount. You are buying an account upgrade, just like the collector’s edition is an account upgrade. The upgrade costs $10, and it includes the spindrel, a personal banker that you can summon, and faction based tabards. So for less than half the price of a mount in WoW, you get a mount, a banker, and a new shirt. Not too shabby if you ask me.

So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

A Tales of Two Games

As I started to write this post on a warm Friday morning at the local flea market, I noticed something new about the WordPress App. There was a new line. I could suddenly make things biggerer err stand out more. They finally put in support for bold and italics and all the lil bells and whistles that they have on the website.

Off the Wagon
So on to game stuff. I ummm started playing WoW again. I know I had I was done with it, but after seeing the new armor sets, and reading about the Deathwing raid, it really caught my interest again. So, yeah I’m back and working on getting geared up.

A Whole New Side of Rift
So 1.5 dropped recently, bringing all sorts of goodies with it. The AA abilities are interesting, and not quite what I was expecting. How they had explained it, it sounded like you could only choose one elemental tree. Nope, you can put points in all the trees. Now to unlock the second tier of abilities, you have to fill in all the slots in the first tier. So if you want to go in to several trees at once, you will take forever to even see the second tier.

Now the other big thing for me in 1.5 is the Chronicles instances. These are the one and two man instances. The story for the first one is actually pretty interesting, not to mention it’s how you get the planar attunment (or AA) ability. They seem to be tuned properly for what they are meant to be. The gear and money that you get are pretty good too. Then there’s the plaques. Plaques for better gear. It’s been a blast to far.

Back to Azeroth
Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. I started playing WoW again. I know I said I was done, but, well… err… yeah. I’ve been seeing the updates for 4.3, and I was impressed. The story sounds exciting, and the armor. Oh god the armor. I love the look for the new tier sets, and the 5 man sets, and the weapons.
So I’ve started updating my gear, by running the Firelands daily quests. So far I’ve updated a ring and a trinket. Slow going, and I haven’t had a chance to run any heroics yet either. So now I’m trying to find the time to run instances in two different games. However, I finally got my black Brewfest kodo mount this week.

So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.