I have been playing a crazy lot of Neverwinter the last couple of weeks – it’s not even that the game offers anything that others haven’t in the past, but somehow being able to solo play and immerse myself in a world like that is offering more to me personally than I thought was possible.
I think I’m a bit addicted, yeah?
I mentioned before that I’m getting more than a little into the pet battle system in WoW. It is very much like Pokémon but I find myself able to easily get into this kind of hunting – even though the payout is really NOTHING – than I was able to get into Pokémon itself. It’s really weird how much I’ve been doing it. I think it has gotten to the point where people are actually thinking about staging interventions for me, but you know what? SHUT UP, I FIND IT FUN.
What this means, though, is that the completionist in me had to find a way to keep track of all this stuff outside of the game in its own little area. Something to let me know how good I’m doing – or how badly I guess considering I have less pets than nearly everyone – and to keep track of my collection in a way that I can show off to people, which lead to me finding…
Okay, I know you think I’m especially crazy now and that my friends were probably right in saying that an intervention was not far off, considering the three days I’ve spent doing this – almost non-stop… I sleep, but when I wake up I’m pretty much on pet duty if I’m not dying of pain – and the fact that I actually signed up for a website outside of the game itself to keep track of and deal with my collection. Â You’re judging me, and for now, that’s really okay.
I’m proud of my mediocre little collection and what it’s coming to, and I like the idea of this profile thing they give me… it allows me to feel connected without having to actually interact with a single… goddamn… person. Â My rare pets are climbing and the rest are evening out into nothing. Â Soon I will rule the world with rare pets and awesomeness. Â Fear me.
If you are crazy like me, for some reason, feel free to add me there, and once I confirm you’re not a psychopath who wants to stab me and steal my babies pets, we might exchange battletags.
So for the last day and a half I’ve spent most of my time in World of Warcraft doing pet battles and trying to get rares of each pet just because it’s a goal to have. Music helps with the flow, but I seriously zone out in this shit, and it’s not the same as Pokemon where I kind of get easily distracted and stop focusing on the task at hand. I seriously just go bongo and continue to search for these pets for ages at a time.
I’m starting to wonder if I maybe have a problem. … Maybe. I also think my blog needs a new theme.
With the somewhat recent release of the Diablo 3 Talent calculator, the hype for the game has become even more so than it was in the last couple of years– the newest wave of beta invites have gone out and while I didn’t get in, a friend of mine did. I’ve already calculated just how my Demon Hunter will be, and am absolutely ecstatic for the chance to play it.
Some people have mixed feelings about this Blizzard Game and find that the art hasn’t progressed enough, or that it’s too light hearted, or that somehow they’ve lost the meaning of the game. I find it to be the quite opposite, given that they’ve stuck to their original style of character creation (You’re male or female, otherwise you’re the same, deal with it,) overall theme, and game play mechanics. I feel like momentarily addressing some issues people seem to be having…
While the art isn’t out of this world, it’s capable of running on almost any system and looks /good/. Some people find it to be too underdeveloped, but I’ve always had a kind of love for the rough around the edges art style that Diablo presents, and it is leagues above what it was in D2.
The game play itself looks as much like it was in the original with certain tweaks to make things a bit more fluid– I haven’t had a chance to test it out myself, so most of this is second hand information and hope– while keeping to the original style of the Diablo game. Clicking, smushing, killing, looting… everything you loved about D2 will still be capable, as well as a few new additions.
The biggest announcement has to be the allowing of real life money to be spent on in-game auctions, allowing for people to actually make money off of their account, something blizzard has, in the past, frowned upon in more ways than one. While it’s not clear just how far this system is going to go, and just how refined it is going to be– and likely won’t be announced fully until release– it feels like they’re finally allowing for some lenience in that department, and in a game where item grabs are a gamble more than others.
Honestly, there hasn’t been a day since I heard about D3 that I haven’t wanted it, and nothing that anyone else says will change that. I feel that the art style is fine, that they’re amount of ‘darkness’ is fine, and I feel that they’re improving upon a concept that was already wildly successful, so why complain?
If anyone here plays World of Warcraft, or might be trying to play it at some point in the future, I have a list of add-ons I honestly couldn’t live without, no matter what. I realise some of these will not apply to anyone, but there should be something for everyone– whether you like to raid or Role play, there’ll be something for everyone, or at least I hope. 
Download – For RPers, there’s always this wonder if there’s a way to put other notes about your description and such up, and that’s where add-ons like IRP come in– most people use MRP or RSP or some such program, but I tend to go with IRP because it’s light-weight and easy to use– it’s not as bloated as the others, and it’ll allow you to put in the information you want people to see, as well as a prename, last name, and ‘title’ to go beneath your name. All of this information will only be seen by others who have some form of RP add-on, but IRP is cross-compatible, so people with RSP and otherwise will be able to see your information. 
It’s a must have if you plan to RP, at least in my opinion. Please do me a favour and if you use it, don’t put your life story or marital status in that description box, it’s for physical things– that’s why it’s a description box.
Download – Recount is essential for keeping ontop of your DPS numbers and adjusting what you’re doing to further your DPS output- it’s one of my favourite add-ons because it tends to motivate me to push myself further on my Rogue and just DPS my ass off. Most Raiding groups will be a bit iffy if you’re not pulling certain numbers, and they tend to run these kind of meters to figure out if you should continue running with them, so it’s good to have your own so you can adjust your numbers and make sure you’re as good as you can be for each raid. This doesn’t just apply to DPS, there is a meter that measures your healing done, as well as overheals1, but I only use it for DPS as of right now.
Download – NPCScan requires you to delete a cache file in your WoW folder, so it might be a bit more for advanced users– there are many add-ons that do things similar, but I tend to prefer NPCScan because it gives less false positives, but it’s mostly meant for tracking Rare Spawns in various zones, and when coupled with NPCScan Overlay it can become essential to finding the one you want– as a rare spawn hunter it became a part of my add-on list recently, but I’d be lost without it.
Download – Bartender is kind of a new addition to my WoW gaming experience– I used to just use the default UI And deal with it, but for some reason I came upon Bartender and just learned to love it– it allows you full control over your action bars, stance bars, vehicle bars, and otherwise– its become kind of natural for me to use now. You can have a few bars in the center of your screen for your actions, just one, just two, all of them, or none of them– it really is up to you where you want you bars to be to function for /your/ needs. My general setup is three action bars towards the bottom center of my screen and all my extra bars set vertically off to the side, and that’s what works for me.
Download – This might sound ridiculous, but Bag Sort makes me not go insane at people or things because it automatically sorts all the things into my bags into like categories– quest items, ore, etc. It’s a very simple add-on, as all you have to do is type /bagsort and all your stuff is sorted. Honestly, it really would make me insane if I didn’t have it, I have weird OCD-like issues with sorting things out into their proper places, and this makes it easier for me. Be careful using /banksort as it can totally mess up your way of organising your bank.
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