Alrighty folks it is time. If you have not been following or read my other posts it is time for me to lay out the official goals of 2019. I have spent a lot of time brainstorming these and I am excited to finally be ready to share with the world what I will be accomplishing this 2019.
Social Media:
50 followers on Twitch
300 followers on Twitter
20 subscribers on YouTube
Personal:
Read 30 Books this year
Keep a Blog of my progress every day of the year.
Be more attentive to my wife
Physical:
200 or less pounds of weight (Currently 221)
Be able to run 3 miles without stopping
Blue Belt in JiuJitsu
Improve flexibility enough to stop getting sore hips after long work/game sessions
Progress monitoring:
I will be posting the numbers at the bottom of each blog post before I finish. The goals that are more subjective I will not be posting about but I will let you all know when I hit these goals.
Goal Tracking:
6/50 Twitch
235/300 Twitter
12/20 YouTube
221/200 Weight
White belt/ Blue Belt
I have to admit that I am running out of ideas for the build up of my relaunch/rebrand next year. I look forward to the many things that I will be accomplishing and maybe I have taken too much time to try and figure things out rather than just do things so here I am trying to learn all the things that I can in such a short amount of time. No matter what is going on with this writers block type thing I feel like I can finally say that I am here and ready for the beginning of the new year.
Since I started these mini blogs a couple of days ago I have kept up on my daily Japanese lessons, it is so difficult to try and learn a new alphabet, especially when it is so completely foreign to me, but I am having fun learning and growing and look forward to the 365 days of growth I will be experiencing. I have also posted these updates every day leading up to the new year and have decided I want to keep chronicling my journey on a daily basis. Even if I do nothing to build content or to grow my hobby I will post here with a run down of the day and what I will be doing. I have really enjoyed the time to reflect and grow with my content. I have also been reading through the Steve Jobs biography and even though he was a jerk in his early life I have to admit the goals that this book has developed in me is worth the price of reading about such a jerk. I know that he redeems himself in the end and that the 1980s were only a part of his empire but still he was mean.
I have also done something I thought I would never do. I downloaded Swarm by Foursquare and have been using that to help with my social media marketing. I know that this is not the best idea as it can lead to a stalking type situation but I do enjoy the fact that I can share if I choose to and use it to interact with others in meaningful ways. We shall see how long I end up using it, or letting it post to social media I should say.
I am actually all set up for my launch tomorrow and am happy to say that tonight I will be going to the Botanical Gardens for their light display. It should be an amazing thing to do and I look forward to the walk to get my mind off of all the things that I should be doing to market this blog/twitch/YouTube/Twitter campaign. I think I have done the most that I can do and from here on out whatever happens will happen.
Goodbye 2018 and Hello 2019. I hope you all have a wonderful new year and use it to grow in some way.
Come back tomorrow for the official 2019 goal list.
This mini project of mine has been a lot of fun as I move towards starting my journey next year. I hope that you all have been enjoying reading these small posts as much as I have enjoyed writing them. Today is going to be a smaller post but one that is just as important as the previous ones have been. I look forward to the challenges of 2019 and I look forward to the growth that I will experience, but I am also very excited for the opportunity I will have to read some of the greatest minds that have been released.
When I was younger I was always told that a wise man learns from his own experiences, the wiser man learns from others experiences.
I need to constantly remember that as I move into uncharted territory with my blogging, vlogging, video making, social networking, and streaming. I do not need to reinvent the wheel, I just need to make it work for this community.
I am starting out my journey through reading the Steve Jobs biography. He has become a great model for me in how to chase your dreams and create your own realities. I look forward to finishing this book and looking at some other business leaders in a way that will help me to move forward with my dreams. I do not know how far reading alone will take me but I know that through hard work and having a set of goals to get me there.
Some of the steps that I have been trying to get into the habit going into the new year that I hope to continue and improve on once the new year begins is going onto social media sites and commenting on others more than posting my own stuff. It has been a lot of fun creating communities of people that I interact with rather than just posting my own stuff and hoping that I get noticed. That leads me to a point that I want to make.... As I increase my brand on the internet I don't ever want to forget the hard work and networking that was required in the beginning. I want to continue to pop into other peoples streams, YouTube channels, and twitter feeds and keep interacting with folks on all levels. I think the biggest turn off is when people forget who they are as they grow and no longer relate on a personal level.
Tomorrow is going to be the last brainstorming session before I start my 365 days of blogging. I want to thank you all for coming in and reading my rants and raves about this new project. I am doing this for me but the support that I have been getting has been so great that I can't even imagine doing it without you all. Side note aside tomorrow is the last brainstorm day of how I'm going to work through some of my goals, after that on Day 0 I will be posting my official goals for the year as well as a plan for how to change goals for every week of 2019.
On January 1, 2019 I will be launching this project with a renewed passion and seeing how far it will really go. Like Nas Daily I will be setting a goal for 365 days of content and see how far I can go. I believe that we will be able to see a lot of growth together and I look forward to you all being along for the ride.
Let us all make 2019 the most blessed and magical year that we have experienced.
I was sitting in bed today thinking about all the things that I want to accomplish next year. I realized that I had wanted so badly to do so much that would get my name out there and then I felt bad for feeling the need to be more popular or famous or whatever. I sat thinking about how I wanted to build a community and how I wanted to go and make a difference and I realized that one of my biggest strengths is in making people feel welcome no matter what the circumstances might be. So here are some more things that I will be trying to accomplish this upcoming year.
1. Community
I want to build a community of people on the internet that is not all about tearing people down or making people feel that they are not welcome in the communities that we are developing. I want to stream with likeminded people, and interact with people that will be working to make the world a better place for all around. That being said I will not be allowing any political talk, homophobic or transphobic speech, or anything else that is not polite in society to take place across any platform that I will be on. I may not be able to make a lasting change but I feel that I will be able to make a small change in the overall gaming community.
2. Environment
I want to help change the pollution levels that are around my city. One of the hardest things to witness is the brown cloud that is constantly flowing around our buildings and our foothills. I will be more aware of the amount of time that I am using resources and will be doing monthly or maybe biweekly neighborhood cleanups to make the world a better place for any and all that wish to join in. I was blown away by an article I read on Japanese Times a couple months ago where communities would not be cleaned by municipalities but would instead be cleaned by the people that lived there. I hope that we as a society will one day work just as hard to keep our neighborhoods as clean as our homes.
3. Personal Growth
I feel that I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to accomplish that would maybe make me feel better about myself, I realize that I am not going to be super happy just by working on what people think about me in an online environment. That is why I have a goal of reading 30 books in 2019. I also started to learn Japanese on duolingo the other day and I have decided that I will be working hard to try and at least become somewhat competent with that language so that I can cross traveling there off my bucket list.
Thank you all for taking the time to stop by and join me on my journey to better myself this upcoming year. I think we will be able to accomplish much and I look forward to growing with you all as we push to become a greater force for good in this world.
I have still not done much for the setting up of my goals for the year of 2019 but I took today to spend some time with my wife at the Phoenix Zoo. I have to say that even though I did not do anything to build my personal brand or to get myself set up for the perfect launch. I did however take the time to utilize the different social media sites while I was at the zoo to test out some of the tools that I could use to help my business grow.
Today:
I was extremely happy to go do a mini date day with my wife. I loved seeing the different animals and watching the people that were around me doing their thing. We had the opportunity to go to the zoo with some friends that had young kids and there is something magical about seeing the zoo through a child's eyes. If I could capture that magic and apply it to my video game streams this year I feel that something great could happen.
I am still trying to figure out the best way to set up this site. I think that I will have a running commentary on the goings on of the day as well as the goings on in my overall goals. I look forward to moving forward and as the new year gets ever closer to us I can't help but feel excited for the opportunities that 2019 will bring us. My wife is telling me that by the end of 2019 she hopes to be making 10k a month, me I just want to be happy and feel like my life is going in a direction that I can be proud of.
No matter what next year brings I promise you all that I will continue to post this experiment and share with you the joys and pains that will come with putting myself out there.
Here is how my closing is going to look....
New Followers on Twitch: 0/50
New Followers on Twitter: 1/100
Overall feeling of the day: Average (Nothing amazing happened but nothing bad happened either. I would say that this day was one of those days where life just moved forward.)
Okay folks it is time to get serious about what I want to accomplish with 2019. I know that it is a little early for the new years resolutions to come about but I believe that it is always good to be setting goals and making things happen.
I have decided that this coming year is going to be the year of the stream. I have always had a lifetime goal of figuring out how to make my passion for gaming become a little more than a hobby. Yes I know that many of you that are reading this are probably rolling your eyes and saying "oh great, another wanna be streamer looking for a payout" I would be doing the same thing if I were in your shoes but I plan on doing it differently. What I mean by this is going to be the year of the stream is that I will be pushing myself to put myself out there. I have always been a little on the shy side and a total introvert, but I will be pushing myself to not only stream games but interact with as many random people as I can.
This year of the stream project of mine is more of a way to get myself to interact with life. I want to be able to go outside and talk to people in the streets and not get tongue tied while doing so.
So now that you know the nature of the project here are some of my specific goals for the 2019 year:
Design a Logo, for branding purposes
Increase my Twitter Following to 300 (a lot harder than it seems as many people seem to follow you just for follow backs)
Utilize my Instagram account for more daily posts
Maintain a daily blog to talk about the ups and downs of putting yourself out there
Set a streaming schedule of one day a week minimum and stick to it.
Interact with other streamers in the game genres that I will be playing and make some connections.
Practice to become one of the best gamers that I can be in the games that I play.
Read some self help books to learn more about acting, and the art of improv.
50 followers on twitch
20 YouTube subscribers
I feel that if I am able to accomplish these goals during 2019 I will be better equipped to take my life one step closer to my ultimate goal of making my hobby something I am able to benefit from. Thank you all for joining me on this great journey. I look forward to improving myself with you all this 2019.
Dropping a quick line here to let you all know that I have made it back to the blogging world. After some difficult times and a lot of time constraints I am back and ready to write once again. I am not going to change things up or do anything like that I will be picking up where I left off. I look forward to all the games that we will be playing in the future and all the games that we will be streaming as well.
I appreciate those that reached out during this hiatus to see if everything was okay, for the rest of you... Yes everything is okay.
Our first official coming back post will be an overview of the new World of Warcraft expansion. There is so much going on and the community has been very divided over the whole thing. This is shaping up to be an amazing expansion and I look forward to covering some of the twists and turns that have popped up in the expansion itself. The new expansion goes live on 8/13/2018 so the news and reviews will be going up within the next couple weeks.
Have you ever wanted something so much it hurt when you didn't get it? Have you ever realized that you did not even want that thing until you had been passed over on it? That is where I am at right now. I have worked very hard to try and make something happen, to learn a new skill, and to be the best that I can be to others that I am able to. If you do not know what I am talking about, I am in the passed over for belt promotion blues in my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. I have been a white belt for about a year and a half and even though I know that I am not quite good enough to be a blue belt, I am sad that I did not get the nod for promotions this Saturday. I do not know how to get better and I know that we all earn our ranks at different speeds and I should be happy that I just turned 34 the other day and have been blessed with a body that is able to learn a martial art, but I'm not. I feel that I have let myself down. I have pushed myself to be better but I am unable to get better. I for whatever reason have spiraled down a rabbit hole of self doubt as I think of all the things that I could do better.
The funny thing is I know that this belt is just a stepping stone on the path to knowledge. I know that it should not define me as a human being, or give me a sense of self worth. I had started to believe that maybe I had something, that maybe I had grown a little more as a martial artist and was ready to show that I could step up my game and be the best that I can be. Oh well I need to take this pain and self doubt and tell it to shove it. I have worked extremely hard to get where I am, and maybe it is time for me to work that much harder. I will have to learn how to push myself to be better every day. I think in order to do that I have to do a couple of things, which will be difficult but not impossible.
First, I need to stop eating and drinking stuff that is not good for me. My diet has left me lethargic and unable to perform anything to the best of my ability. I have faith that if I get my eating habits under control the good will come. I will be pushing myself to substitute all added sugar out of my diet and get into better shape through the diet that I have.
Second, I need to hit the gym. It is not enough to just go to jiujitsu and think that I am getting fit. No, I need to work my hardest to make myself a better person. That means that I need to start putting on some strength that will help me to compete with those around me and help me get better at what I do.
Third, I need to start asking God for some help. I have been trying to balance so much in my life and have been failing miserably. I will be asking and thanking God for all that I do in my life at all times. I was raised in a very spiritual church and I know the power that is God, and I will be trying to live better through that so that I can come closer to Him.
Sorry for taking so much time on a rant, but I have been told that the best writing comes from emotion.
There are times in our life where it seems that the world is spiraling out of control and we don't know where to grab ahold and wait it out. I have recently entered one of those stages where things just don't quite seem to make sense. My normal comforts seem to have been pushed to the side, and my go to places have lost their draw to pull me out of the strange feelings.
I started a series of Facebook posts the other day where I choose a good news story or quote to flood my feed with uplifting and happy thoughts. I did this mostly because I have a hard time seeing the hate that has been permeating our society as of late. I wake up every day and pull up my news app on my iPhone which is good because it helps me stay informed, but then as I search for a news story that has the pull of being uplifting I get sucked into a downward spiral of biased journalism. I am not super conservative and I am not super liberal either and all I see is both sides of the spectrum berating and hating on each other. I am forced to see the people that want all members of a cabinet to be routed from the country that they love enough to be in office, I see people spewing verbal slurs at those without a voice because they look different from themselves. All I see is a world that is slowly starting to unwind at the seems and all the people in it are blaming others without taking blame themselves.
I was always taught to lead by example. If you want the world to be a better place it has got to start with you. My wife she put up a quote in our house that read "Be the change you want to see in the world." I want to live that way. I want to be the change that I want to see. The first thing I want to see is that all people no matter who they are receive equal treatment. I used to laugh and joke and say I was the most unbiased person in the world because I dislike everyone equally, now I want to be the person that listens to everyone. I will continue my 30 days of positivity on Facebook, I will continue to push for people to be treated as people, and I will try to be a more compassionate listener to both sides of the argument. If people are trying so hard to be heard maybe it is time for me to hear them and try to understand both sides.
It has been a long time since I have had the ambition to write anything on this site. It is not for lack of interest but mostly, and this may come as a surprise, marriage is hard!!!!!
I have given up a lot of hobbies to try and fit into this new partnership, but I realized that giving up on your being is not the way to make sure that you are able to give everything to your wife. I have started to get back into writing, only to find that I am so far out of practice that writers block has become a constant issue that I am trying to get over. This is not much of a problem for a hobby blog like this one, which nobody really reads, but my wife and I have decided that we were wanting to create a travel based website. This I will be giving myself actual deadlines and work for the express purpose of entertaining those that come across the golden pages of our endeavor.
In all seriousness I am very excited for this next chapter in our lives. We are in the process of creating content for the site and it will be full of many fun adventures for you all to experience. I don't want to go to deep into what the site will be, or even what the url is, but I will say that this project is one that is very exciting and through hard work we should be able to create content that everyone would be able to enjoy.
What this means is that this blog that gets very little time put into it might fall by the wayside for a bit. I am still a part of the community and will be working diligently to make sure that the content you care about will be coming here at least once a month, but I will be taking some time off of the posting of video games and pop culture to create a blog of journaling our process of creating our new page, short stories, and still the what I've been playing.
I hope you all enjoy our short journey as we get ready to launch with us. Subscribe to the feed here and comment with the phrase: "We go where the wind takes us" for a special treat when our website goes live. Also comment with some of your favorite expeditions you have done, whether they are local or abroad we want to experience them all.
Over the weekend I broke down and bought the latest installment in the Final Fantasy series. I have many fond memories of this series of games, from Final Fantasy 3 when I was very young to Final Fantasy X while I was in High School, I loved them all. I have been a long time fan of the series, but have stayed away after the combat changes that happened after Final Fantasy X-2.
Here are my initial thoughts on the newest Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XV
On load up you are given a tutorial option for the combat system. Even though I had played these games for as long as I can remember, so much has changed that I actually completed the tutorial. My first thought was, "What happened to the series that I used to know?" You can sing that to the tune of Gotye, which I did as I wrote it. Long gone are the turn based mechanics that gave it a great RPG feel. Now I have to stay alert and respond in almost real time to stimuli making the series more action based than turn based. At first I didn't like the change, but the more I work on my playthrough, the more it grows on me.
Control Basics:
Your character utilizes a simple action based system.
D-pad changes weapon type, B button is attack, X button dodge and parry, Y button teleport strikes
There are more advanced options but I haven't fully explored them yet
Instead of utilizing only a random number generator to figure out combat: now positioning, timing, weapon choice and ultimate abilities dictate damage done and received.
This system does simplify the mechanics but also makes the game flow way less choppy than its previous incarnates.
It is hard to be unbiased because I am such a fan of the game series and also one that does not like change. That being said the live action combat system both works for the game, in regards to flow and graphics, and works against the game, in regards to strategy and planning.
Controls = 3/5
Visuals:
The thing that always draws me to Square Enix productions is how beautiful their games are. This is no different, after playing through the prologue and a bit of chapter one I can say this game is no different.
Highlights:
Sun shafts
dust effects
meticulous detail of a desert landscape
3D models so believable that you get lost in the game
My only complaint is that I have never, in all my life, seen anybody stand with their pelvis that far in front of the rest of their body. This detracts from an almost perfect human model.
Visuals = 5/5
Plot:
What would a high fantasy game be without a fantasy plot. This is no different, but the plot that they have chosen for this game has been used so many times that it comes across as fake.
The basis for the game:
Young Prince leaves with friends to go to neighboring kingdom.
Young Prince must marry the princess to cement alliance and save his broke kingdom.
Prince has really good childhood friend who is also female, they are pen pals, he is duty bound to marry princess.
Vehicle breaks down and Prince learns about himself and life as he comes of age on a road trip.
Now I know that I haven't beat the game yet so this plot may change, but for now this is the story that I see.
The beginning plot is so over done in media today that the I feel that we have all played this game, or seen this movie enough that it isn't anything new. I will update the review upon completion and hopefully as I play through this game the plot score will change.
Plot = 2/5
Writing/Dialogue:
The tone of the writing hasn't found its voice yet, but I can say I am getting lost in the dialogue. I feel like I am on a road trip with my best friends, which makes me want to continue the story that much more.
Writing = 5/5
Miscellaneous:
The Fantasy genre is always a great place to make an RPG, this game is no different.
It has been a long time since I have felt a part of the game I was playing. Each party member has a unique personality and unique interests which makes the game deeper than most in its genre. The depth of character in each person you come across makes for a detail oriented experience just as complex as life in the real world. This level of detail makes for a game-play experience like no other.
Miscellaneous = 4/5
Overall = 3.8/5
I will be doing a final review upon completion of the game.
In the future there will be a tab on this blog where all review will go with links to the original review.
Also remember I do this for fun but the best way to support me is to share the love. Thanks again for being a part of our community.
How many of you have thought about programming for a living? Of being a part of your favorite company on the development side of the gaming industry? Of creating something that could possibly stand the test of time?
Well I have. At least I think I have.
For those that do not know me well enough I work for the school district. In my position I have had the opportunity to work alongside one of our talented computer science teachers. This teacher always told me that I have a knack for computer languages and ultimately a logical brain that could solve problems through computer languages. You know what I do when people tell me I am good at something?
I roll my eyes, allow my self doubt to kick in, and go about my business as if I was not any good at anything. Yeah my personal sense of self worth is so good that I am the poster child for self affirmation.
This time I decided to take my time to try and understand at least how these amazing machines I use to blog, record video, and more commonly play games on. I did a quick web search in order to understand some of the common languages out there and came across this language called java.
Java is not one of the most powerful languages, at least that is the consensus from reddit users in the /r/programming forums, but it is a language that is almost neutral enough for me to at least learn a little bit about how to create a program. I poked around /r/programming for a bit and came across the recommendation to use a website called hackerrank.com which operates as a tutorial center, a hiring platform, and a game. The tutorials work in many different languages and help you to understand some of the limitations and processes of writing code. The game form comes from these coding challenges that award points based on how you solve the logic problems that are presented to you. I think in theory as you solve these logic problems through coding, you come to a point where you have the highest rank of all the other users. This appears to be the point where recruiters will look at your abilities and offer you a job based on how well you are doing.
I am proud to announce that my current rank is at the bottom of the site, I can't even code the program Hello World yet but I am going to take the next thirty days to try and understand the coding language, the coders mentality, and mostly understand how this little machine that I am using is able to operate the way that it does. Who knows maybe I'll be able to reach the point where I can write my own program to create something amazing in the future, or I'll just learn to appreciate the people that have developed these languages so that I can enjoy the many games that I do end up enjoying.
It finally happened, I got my legendary drop. The funny thing is it happened exactly 20 minutes after uploading last weeks post about the drop rate of Legendary gear in World of Warcraft. It happened while opening caches from the emissary world quests. It happened because I had stopped looking for it. I resigned myself to just playing the game and it happened just like people said it would. Last week we had talked about some of the achievement hunting I had been doing. We talked about Pathfinder Part One and Two as a whole, now we will dive a little deeper into the nitty gritty of it.
This week we will look at reputation.
On a boosted character reputation grinds are a little harder than they should be. You start out at a higher level character with no reputation for the base races in Legion but the ability to go almost anywhere. For pathfinder you need to raise your reputation to the third tier for all the groups. This is a hard thing to accomplish because the world quests only give 150 reputation rewards per completion while the revered tier of reputation requires 12,000 + points to reach. I found through some playing around that it is possible through world quests alone, but to really get that reputation you should also complete each zone. So I have gone back to Azsura in order to finish the quest line for the zone. This has taken my reputation to friendly on to honored, and just shy of revered. I believe by the time I finish the story line in the zone the group of Azsura should be complete up to the revered in the zone. I will continue these updates as I continue toward finishing the expansion of Legion in the most complete way possible.
Legendary stats:
Legendary one: 1/67 = 1.49 % drop rate on first legendary
Legendary two: 0/24 = 0%
Total drop rate = 1.09%
The current theory is that once you have one legendary others drop at a quicker rate. I tend to think that is because the item level score is boosted by the legendary making more endgame content available not an actual change in the drop rate.
When we last talked about this subject when it comes to Legendary armor dropping in the game "World of Warcraft" I had talked about the random number generator and the bad luck protection. Well it has been about one week and I still haven't received my first drop on my test character.
This last week I have put an additional ten hours into the game. During this play time I have done some things that increase my chances at a drop and some things that didn't increase my drop rate. I have been working on my "Pathfinder" achievement for Legion which allows flying in the current expansion. The achievement requires you to explore all zones by foot, complete 100 different types of world quest, raise all expansion base reputations to revered, and fully complete the story line in every zone within the expansion. Once this is complete you acquire a faster ground mount speed and the chance to earn "Pathfinder Part II" which does allow flying.
You may be wondering why flying would be important in a legendary seeking experiment. Well some of the drop chances are tied to world bosses, world quests, and Legion invasions. These activities are spread all over the questing zones which makes a lot of your playtime spent traveling around the map, flying just seeds the travel time up just enough to cut yor daily playtime by a few minutes. And we all know that every minute counts when time is limited. These reasons are why I am choosing to grind towards completion of all zones this expansion, it is time to finally see what the game has to offer.
As far as activities spent working towards s a legendary drop this week, I had already cleared the highest tier raid so I was forced to do other activities. I capped my rated player vs player conquest for the item level 915 drop, during which I opened around 5 battle chests. I also completed 5 world quest chains and 2 legion invasions. These activities took my drop chances up to 62, with a zero drop so far.
Legendary 1: 0/62 or 0% drop rate.
Next week we will look at some of the other achievements in the game as well as give another update to how this experiment is going.
We all come to a point in our gaming lifespan where it seems that everyone is better than you, that the random number generator is favoring those around you while leaving you to your own devices. Well that has hit me. In World of Warcraft: Legion legendary armor is distributed by a random number generator which as the community managers present you have a bad luck protection. The longer you go without a legendary the chances of getting a legendary increase. I have three characters at max level not including the mage that I just boosted and still have no legendary armor among any of my max level characters. I wanted to see how long it takes for a drop to happen, this means that I will only play my new boosted character and keeping track of how long it takes for that magic number generator to finally fall in my favor, by the way I should never gamble as me and random number generators do not mix very well.
Baseline:
Every Hour I play at max level I will count as one try.
Every Raid boss kill will count as one try.
Every Dungeon boss kill will count as an attempt.
And, Every emissary cache opened will count as one attempt.
I will count all of these up after every playing session and keep track of how long it actually takes for my mage to gain access to a legendary piece of armor. You can find this series every Monday right here on the blog as I keep you all posted on how long/ how many attempts it actually takes to make the random number generator finally go into my favor.
Starting stats:
Hours played at max level: 16 hours
Raid bosses killed: 15
Dungeon bosses killed: 4
Emissary caches opened: 5
Total attempts: 40
Legendary #1: 0
For those that have played the entire expansion and still haven't gained a legendary piece of armor know that you are not alone. Some of us also have bad luck too.
I recently purchased my pre-purchase for Battle For Azeroth (BFA). I am saying this because like every expansion that comes out I smile to myself as I try and convince myself that I have an exit strategy, that the time has come to explore different games, and that the age of WoW has ended. Well like every expansion I come over to the dark side, dust off my keys and try and get back into the game. This expansion was no different, Legion kept me entertained and I had fun but quickly shoved it aside as I finished leveling one character and then played some simulation games (my first true love). I had moved on, ready to tackle the game a bit at a time depending on whether I had somebody to play with or not as I would not be playing by myself.
I made the mistake, not really a mistake as it was on my bucket list, of going to BlizzCon 2017. After a whirlwind of emotion and fun I came back and jumped back into WoW. The trailer gave me such joy that I had to try and level up some characters that I wanted to play in the new game. I leveled up two more characters and played at least an hour a week between BlizzCon and when I pre-purchased the game. I got sucked into the vortex of WoW once again, and I love it.
As I write this review I want to tell you all that I have only played through the second patch of Legion, which means I never went to Argus and haven't played through any of that content. I used my token for a 110 boost on a Fire Mage, not my YouTube Mage, on the alliance side. One of the points of this purchase is that you can start to build your alliance and get the new races, but you have to complete the Argus quest line as well as gain exalted with the races you are trying to recruit. So I guess what I am getting at is a quick look at boosting a 110 character without playing through the current expansion, the quest line, and ultimately how to go through the work and gain your reputation as quickly as possible.
Review:
The difficulty of Argus:
I know that World of Warcraft has gone more casual in the recent years but this end of expansion zone is one of the most difficult that I have played. The mobs (monsters and other npcs that try and attack you) boost their skills to match your current gear score (ilvl). This makes them hit hard no matter how much raiding you do or how much gear you are lucky enough to secure. I bring this up because this is one of the hardest parts of boosting a new character, unless you are a tank you will die a couple times as you get used to a class that you don't play very often.
Getting that out of the way, this patch is fun. You finally get to take the fight to the Legion, which means invading their home planet and trying to fight them on their own turf. I would say that the story this expansion is one of the best and I look forward to it every day I log in to find a new angle to write about.
My advice would be to log in and start the campaign on Argus. It is a little difficult but the story makes up for it and the trial by fire mentality is very helpful in learning your new class.
Raiding:
Your brand new level 110 character will have a base ilvl of 870 and weapon ilvl of 900. This means that you cannot do the last raid of the expansion in LFR (Looking for Raid) but you can go through all wings of the previous raids. I found jumping into LFR to be another avenue to learn your new class as well as experience some of the content that I had missed. The encounters aren't that difficult and the biggest thing is that you don't stand in stupid during the fight. My advice to the newish raider is to just pull up the map and click on the boss portrait when you get there. This will pull up a brief synopsis of what to look out for and what to do so that people don't rage during the encounters.
PvP:
Your gear is awful but with the base stats this expansion for PvP you should do alright. If you are new to the game I would recommend getting used to playing your new character before you jump into player vs player combat. I'm not saying this because you will be bad, which you will, but because I love PvP so much and I want you all to enjoy it too. The learning curve for PvP is huge, and because the encounter changes every time you queue up it can get disheartening to always feel like you are losing or dying all the time. Do yourself a favor, go quest a bit, get used to your keybinds, practice on training dummies, find a sequence of keys to push that make the training dummy scream for mercy, and then enter the fray. When you enter be prepared to have fun and make new friends in a sometimes old and dry game.
Allied Races:
I have not had the opportunity to unlock any of these races so I can't comment on the difficulty or the ease of the scenarios to unlock them, I will say that once I get them unlocked I'll do a quick blurb about the scenario and how it was to unlock them. Who knows maybe I'll go and record the scenarios so you all can see second hand how not to do them, or what they entail. I will put spoiler warnings on them if you do not want to see them for yourself.
Overall:
I have enjoyed the presale of Battle for Azeroth a lot. It has breathed new life into a game that can sometimes stagnate, and gotten me to want to complete the current expansion because I mostly want to get it done while it is fresh content. For those of you coming into the game hopefully the pointers I added in my review will help you at least know what to do, and for those of you that have played through the entire expansion let me know what you think of the pre-expansion so far either in the comments here or on my google plus page.
It is 2018 and time for new technology and games to come out. This post is all about where we are going with this community, our YouTube channel, and our social media. Instead of our normal written format we will look at it in a more concise bullet format. 😀
Blog:
At least one post per week
Reviews, releases, and video game news
YouTube videos embedded for your enjoyment in one place
Community building exercises
Books, Pop Culture, Video Games, and Exercise
YouTube:
We are limited by technology so we will be playing games a little older than the newest of new titles.
Come on over and relive some memories at Wylesco Gaming (add a hyper link here)
Current Series:
World of Warcraft Leveling
Stardew Valley Exploration
Next up:
Banished
Twitch:
As soon as I have a microphone for XBox we will be streaming different games for that system at one to two hour blocks
Current games that I am playing
Battlefield 4
Farming Simulator '15
Social Media:
You can stay updated at any of these handles, well any except SnapChat because I don't use that one much.
Facebook
@Wylesco
Twitter
@Wyles_co
Instagram
@Wylesco
SnapChat
@Wylesco
Feel free to add me on any of these for up to date information. I will add my Twitch handle once that gets going.
I look forward to building this community with you all this year and for many more to come.
Before I launch into my review of Ready Player One I want to launch into a quick recap of day 1 of fitness for gaming. I made it home from work and set the timer for 52 minutes. I spent that 52 minutes harvesting canola in Farming Simulator 15 for the X-Box. I'm not sure if it is working but my weight is down to 213.6 lbs so I'm going to make it.
Now onto the review:
Plot: Future Society is broken outside of a computer simulation. The creator of the computer simulation passes away and launches a scavenger hunt within the simulation to take control of it. Our hero Wade works with friends and against an evil corporation to make sure the simulation stays free.
Review:
This is the second time I've read this book and I love it for what it is, a retrospective longing for a time long past. I loved the pop culture references, from video games to music this book was like a walk down memory lane. I am an avid gamer and have been known to get lost in a different world in order to escape my own. As I read this book I found myself day dreaming of a time when I could plug myself into an imaginary world and actually live there.
The deeper I got in the book the more I got swept up in the story of friendship, loyalty, and what happens when an honorable person is faced with unimaginable odds. I loved the underlying themes more that the story itself. I especially loved the theme of honor, as honor should be what everybody strives for.
My only criticism of this book is the ending. The story was so well built up and had my full attention. I was sucked into the story and the build up was so good I was expecting a great show of completion. Unfortunately at the end of the book the story just stopped, there was no concise conclusion and there was no cliffhanger either. I will not ruin the book by talking about the ending but I will sum it up with one word, revived in the book itself, lame.
Overall I love this book. On Goodreads I give it 3 of 5 stars for the sole reason that the ending left me wanting. I do love this book, I wish for the technology i this book to become a reality, and I do look forward to the time when immersion rigs are as commonplace in the world as our cell phones. Maybe when we reach that point I will look back at this book, smile, and remember the way that I wanted it to be a reality.
The next book that I am reading is Love Your Life, Not Theirs by Rachel Cruze. I will work through this book and review it upon completion.
Today my goal is to build compassion in some way. Our world has become too divided, we are too busy worrying about ourselves to stop and help another person. I challenge myself and all of the small, but growing community, to choose to listen to a fellow human. Include a fellow in your life some way, and reach out to anyone that may be in need of help on that day.
Every day try to live your life in a way that brings joy to others. Go out of your way just one time a day to lift another up. This could be as easy as holding a door for a busy person with their hands full, or as complicated as volunteering in a soup kitchen or some other community outreach system. I would guess that the bulk of us don't even take the time to look up from our daily lives to reach out to somebody in need.
Fitness Action Plan:
I bought a fitness tracking watch that counts my steps over the holiday. After rereading the novel "Ready Player One" I wanted to take the lockout program from the novel, the one where Wade has to workout before he can unlock the Oasis, and apply it to my life. I created a program where every 100 steps equals one minute of game time. Also every minute of exercise equals one minute of game time. This will keep me honest and through the use of "Alexa," Amazon's smart home device as a time I have to earn my play tie. So far it has worked only in theory as I only implemented it yesterday and spent the day working on the computer and playing games. I will make the best of it and see how far I can go down this fitness journey.
Hello and welcome to my blog, the special place where I talk about the goings on of myself and all that I do. Since I wrote last a lot has happened. I have had the blessing of getting married to my girlfriend of 10 years, which has been both fun and a bit of a problem as we are still trying to figure out how to live together. I know I'm strange as I did not live with her before marriage, but it is making the actual process of trying to get to know each other a lot more fun. I also had the opportunity to go to BlizzCon which was a lot of fun, and may have been a once in a lifetime opportunity. I got to play some of the new expansions, saw some panels, and got to watch some of the e-sports. A couple of weeks ago I got to go to Las Vegas for Christmas and Phoenix for New Years. We had a lot of fun exploring the two cities and preparing for the new year and going back to work this week.
Together with my new wife I have developed some goals for 2018.
1. YouTube- I have no goals of growing an income from YouTube, but I do enjoy making videos so I have started to upload a weekly show as I get ready for the next World of Warcraft expansion. This series follows a young mage as he discovers who he is, who he was, and where he will be going. I have been trying to increase the vocalization patterns that I utilize by reading the quest texts in different voices in order to try and make it almost like a read along series. It has been a lot of fun, and I have learned a lot as I have practiced the different voices.
2. Presence- I have always had a problem with either living in the past, or day dreaming. It has led to some problems in my personal, professional, and interpersonal life. My goal this year is to try and be more present in all that I do and make sure that I am able to do all that I need to do while not getting lost in the emotional flailing that I tend to go through.
3. Money- This year is the year that I get out of debt and start to learn how to make my money work for me. I heard that true monetary success is when your money works harder than you do, and I look forward to learning more about finances.
4. Fitness- I have two goals this year. I want to travel, through cardio equipment, a total of 2,018 miles. It has been fun so far and I look forward to seeing if I can do it. My second fitness goal is to try and get into good enough shape to compete in a jiujitsu tournament some time this year.
5. Blog- I would like to use this blog as a way to grow my internet community. I want to use it as a sounding board for good, and a way to make a difference in an indifferent society. I plan on posting at least once a week, but hopefully I will be posting more often.
Now I would like to talk a little bit about what this blog is going to look like. I will be doing personal blogs where I just talk about life, liberty and my pursuit of happiness. I will also be doing fitness updates, where I talk about the workouts that I do and how they are making me feel and any progress I may feel. The last type of post will be Video Game, Book, TV, Movie reviews where I discuss the good, bad, and ugly of the games and things that I enjoy. I will also use this to give you all a look at what is going on in my life through games and how I am getting on.
I look forward to this 2018, as it will become one of the best years of my life. I will be working hard to hopefully bring entertainment and knowledge to you all. Best wishes this new year and let's go on a journey together.
