Completed: Pony Island

I saw the trailer for Pony Island quite some time ago. It looked quite interesting, but not enough to instantly buy it. Thanks to the Winter Sale it was cheap enough that I got it. (Yes, I do feel a little bad for buying things only on sale, but looking at my games buying history of the last years.. I wouldn’t have bought it, really. So this is kind of the only way the creators get some money. :/)

I just “finished” it after 2.6 hours (12/20 achievements) and I could’ve probably shaved off 5 minutes by sucking less at jumping 😛 I’ll probably continue looking for the missing nooks and crannies, but the game told me I beat it, hence this post 🙂

TLDR: It’s awesome. And quirky. And weird.  Go buy and play it.

Diablo 3: Season 8 – done

I just finished the last 2 todo items on my Season 8 checklist. Solo GRift 20 and reforging a socket. I opted to play a Barbarian this time and I hated it most of the time at 70. The Season set favors Whirlwind heavily and being ragefury-starved is one the worst thing for fun. Luckily I was good enough equipped that I managed the GRift 20 on my first try (according to their scale, GRift 19 is equal to Torment IV and I was struggling with Torment 3 in Nephalem Rifts, that’s why I never tried it back when I played for a few days).

Anyway, I’m done and probably not revisiting Barbarians for a while. Let’s see if I’m even up for Season 9 in 2 weeks.

WoW: Legion, 10 weeks in

Quick summary of what I did (achieved?) after 10 weeks since the launch of WoW’s 6th (if I counted correctly) expansion.

• 5 characters at max level (NE DH, Orc Shammy, Troll Warrior, Orc Rogue, Dwarf Paladin)
• 9 more level 100 chars (every class besides Monk, and Warrior/Rogue twice :P)
• started to get mostly one of every class towards max level (or even just starting) on Alliance side as well (Priest 72, Hunter 60, Mage 20 – missing Warlock, Druid, DK, Monk)
• used my Level 100 bost (Pally), still have the Level 90 boost
• 2 class hall quest lines done, 2 more mostly done, 1 just started
• iLvl 851 (Shammy), 848 (DH), 841 (Warrior), 834 (Rogue)
• zero exalted WQ factions, many revered
• started/grabbed at least one artifact weapon on 3 more chars
• Finally levelled some pets with the event, sitting at 55 Level 25 ones now
• Still trying to finish the Naval mission achievements
• Started Tanaan on one character, very low prio
• Timewalking is really fun
• Still haven’t done more than one Mythic – I just don’t like 5mans
• Transmog is still one of my favorite features

I’m not a fan of FPS anymore

Downloaded the free FarCry3: Blood Dragon and gave it a shot. The intro is really nice and the tutorial made me laugh very hard, it’s basically excellent if you love 80s movies (and/or Kung Fury).

Sadly I’m just not in the market for shooters as it seems, I didn’t really enjoy the first level and stopped playing pretty soon after. Which is a shame, it looked tremendously fun at the start. But I am pretty sure it’s because of the shooting stuff, level design and general “ranged mobs are trying to kill me”. I think I only made it through ME1+2 because I could use a Sniper Rifle + cover the whole time. And because I loved the setting, the story and everything. The shooting was… ok.

Diablo 3 – Season 8

At first I was a bit hesitant to play Diablo 3 again but after a quick 3.5 hours I was rushed through 3 Torment V rifts and few other things and boom – my Barbarian is Level 70, Paragon ~50 and at 8/10 Chapter 4. So I now just need a weapon to roll a socket on and do solo GRift 20 and Chapter 4 is done – with 4h /played. Too quick? Maybe. 4h of fun? Hell yes.

This Legion thing is fun!

So yeah, just barely made it to not post for 2 full months. Too much work, too much summer, too much WoW I guess.

My main is a Female Night Elf Demon Hunter at iLvl 832 that has yet to tank a Heroic, but is doing some OK damage in Heroics and the one Mythic I tried.

I also levelled my Orc Ele/Resto Shaman to 110 (iLvl 820) but so far I’ve been very unimpressed with the damage, maybe I should try Enhancement.

Finally I got some Artifact weapons (Assassination Rogue, Fury Warrior, and Frost Mage) and brought the former two to 101.

During the Legion pre-events there was a lot of pushing. DK 90 to 100, 2nd Warrior 90 to 100, Druid 90 to 100, Warlock 90 to 100, Hunter 90 to 100, Mage 90 to 98, Paladin 90 to 93, Monk 85 to 90, 2nd Paladin 1 to 61. And maybe I even forgot some – but I was so unimpressed with Draenor levelling after the first time Horde and Alliance (still managed to get 5 toons to 100 the proper way, 4 back when WoD launched and one in my month before Legion) that I decided to take every advantage I could get from the easy XP.

All in all I’m really happy with Legion, especially transmog, Artifact Weapons, the Order Halls, the level scaling.

The only downsides for me are Professions (too different, too many dungeons, too many quests, too much focused on your main) and Reputations – I was hoping I could skip like one zone per character to not repeat *everything* but because of the reputation requirements for World Quests you have to do all of them (or at least the first half) and can only decide on the order. That is a very wasted opportunity for replayability for me.

There and back again

I bought my first WoW token 3h ago and so basically I’m back. My last visit was a short one – bought WoD and stayed for exactly one month. Now I have one month to become excited for Legion… or not.

In other news, I haven’t really played any games (except a bit of training and moving ops in EVE) and logging in for daily rewards in GW2 and Marvel Heroes.

40 Heroes, yay

Not only did I grind enough Cake Slices in the anniversary event to buy my 39th character (chose Doctor Doom because he’s 600 Splinters), no, I also had 400 Splinters to buy another one, Juggernaut. Already brought that one to 60 this evening.

I also finished my first Cosmic Trial. Of all Heroes it was Spider-Man. Did some equipping for a few days (not really much play time) and with some less than perfect gear I managed it on the 2nd try where I failed spectacularly with Hawkeye and Gambit. Both of those I thought I can play a lot better, having invested quite some time, gear and money.

 

I also played around 3 hours of Faeria when it was free on Steam. Was a lot more fun than when I tried Hearthstone, but right now I think I don’t want to collect cards, build decks and least of all play against other people. My penchant for PvP in any form seems to have vanished completely. It’s still 30% off (and early access) so maybe I’ll bite tomorrow. I absolutely enjoyed the solo campaign, but as it’s only ~14 games, I managed to finish that already. It reminds me a lot of Magic: The Gathering, but I really like the board game aspect. If only it weren’t for the frustration of other people’s decks with cards you’ve never seen…

A Season’s Journey

Oh wow, 3 weeks no post. Not that this is so uncommon, more like… I was busy playing instead of writing.

Diablo 3’s Season 6 has me completely engulfed. I’m only logging into GW2 and Marvel Heroes for my daily login bonuses and checking my skill queue in EVE from time to time – but I’m only actively playing Diablo 3 atm.

I played 71 minutes on a Crusader in Season 4, otherwise this is my first time participating, and it’s surprisingly fun. I rolled a Crusader again and my time /played (and I just looked this up while writing this) is 66 hours and 6 minutes. I am Paragon Level 331 and just finished the Slayer part with a 30 GR that felt very boring. But I had only managed to finish Chapter IV 20 minutes ago with the Seeker of the Light-Set-Dungeon after failing the Akkhan one for a while.

So yeah, GR 46 and Torment IX as a duo is my absolute record in terms of Diablo 3 after having been burnt more than a bit when it launched (my Barbarian with 70h /played has worse gear than a 7h old character I rolled a year or two after launch. My main account is also at just Paragon Level 100 and my second best character (Sorceress) was doing ok in Torment I when I logged in after many months and tried to get back into the game for a few minutes.

More Heroes, More Prestige

So I gave in and bought the Deluxe Advance Pack 3 in Marvel Heroes. I already had Green Goblin, but at least got a new (prettier) Costume. Also got Elektra already and now waiting for the other Heroes and Team-Ups (Heroes: Nick Fury, Ultron, Angela, Black Bolt, TBD and Team-Ups: Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Spider-Man (Miles Morales), 2 TBD). I also stopped getting random splinter boxes and instead bought She-Hulk for 400 splinters.

Also there was again some visible progress:

• Cyclops to 60
• Elektra to 60
• She-Hulk to 60
• Nightcrawler prestiged to Purple (3x)
• Jean Grey prestiged to Green (1x)
• She-Hulk prestiged to Green (1x)

So that’s now 38 Heroes and currently 19 missing.