On Gaming Video and Streaming

I've been trying to record videos during my play sessions.  It's a lot harder than those crazy kids on YouTube make it seem.  Talking to yourself for two hours while playing is pretty taxing.  I'm mostly trying to get enough content to do some editing and come up with something watchable.  One of those projects is pretty ambitious, I'm doing candy buckets without audio and my plan is to edit it down to just the pickup from all the innkeepers and put some funny music or something behind it. I got some footage of me doing silly things in the costumes they put on you too. But that requires me to do alllllll the buckets. I mean technically I don't have to, but that's my aim.  That also gets me enough candy for some prizes I don't have. I did Kalimdor last weekend, that netted me around 130 candies and took me around 2 hours, so I figure I have 4 more hours to go, and hopefully will snag 300 more candies to get this year's pet, the horse butt from last year, and something else.

The main thing I'm on the fence about is the camera broadcast.  That seems to be an integral part of what you see in gaming now, but I don't really have a good setup for it, and apparently I have a bad habit of touching my nose all the time. I'd have to think about what to wear, what's in the background, posture, messing with my cats and texting while on screen, things like that.  It's stage presence.  But it's not a bad skill to learn, so maybe I'll give it a shot.

Holy WoW it's been a long time

So I was going through some old emails having a good old reminisce about the past session and what the heck?  I 100% forgot this blog was a thing, and 1000% forgot how many posts I wrote on here.  I'm actually surprised Blogger still exists 8ish years later, most internet things I've participated in since then have gone goodbye in a lot shorter period of time.  That aside, since I'm playing again I guess I should go ahead and start posting again.  I know all the cool kids are streaming now, but the few videos I've recorded aren't very good.  Maybe using little snippets in a blog is more my speed.

It's too daunting to cover everything that's happened since my goodbye post back in 2011, so I'll give the timeline for now and draft up a few posts to cover the more interesting parts when I'm in the mood.  Even though I'm inspired to do this, I do want to have some actual game time tonight.

I had to look at my account history to get the dates right.  I apparently bought Pandaland and renewed my subscription in September 2012, then transferred Zully and Yokanolu from Alterac Mountains to Fenris in Feb 2013.  This would have been a move with what was left of the Eye for an Eye crew.  I don't remember if the guild itself moved or not.  I'm still in the "i4ni" Diablo III guild, and Conn's thing is streaming PUBG.  So it still exists, in a way. I do remember spending a lot of time out in the world then, I have full reps and a lot of mounts and achievements.

I must have stopped playing again around April 2013 when DIII came out.  I bought WoD in December between Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry.  I feel like I played WoD sporadically for a few months then unsubbed again, Blizz doesn't keep monthly fee tracking older than 2017 apparently, just other purchases.  So I'm going to say I played WoD for a little bit, got bored having no-one to play with, and didn't come back until well into Legion.  I really don't remember much from then, and Zully was my only max level character from that era.  So really, from Apr 2013 - Apr 2017 if I was subbed at all, I played very little.  But then, as these things go, my IRL friend was in a raiding guild with some of his other IRL friends so a few of us from our friend group joined up again.  Most of them quit again within about 6 weeks.  I've been playing steadily ever since.

I'll pick up in following posts with my escapades in Legion, stuff about that raiding guild that has come and gone, some wacky adventures with my Canadian friend, and how things are coming along in BfA.  I'm actually a little disappointed hindsight that I didn't think to start this blog up again while I was raiding last year.  I'm actually really happy I wrote down all the things I did, it's been fun reading it.

My WoW Buds Already Know This

... but I haven't had a lot of time to play lately.  I've taken WoW breaks in the past, but usually they're self-initiated or self-enforced.  I tend to get grumpy when I'm forced not to play.  This time has been a little bit different, because I've been able to log in and do my auctions, say hi to Mal and Sil, do a few chants, etc and a half hour here and there to mess around.

Surprisingly, the top two things I choose to do when I have spare time right now are auctioneering/crafting and running low level instances.  If I had a little bit more time, I'd probably spend it working on Yokanolu's gear.  I've given up on the morning Frost Badge run.  I'm tired of healing heroics, even though it doesn't take very long.  It's boring, and since I got my high level robe, pants, and boots I feel like anything else is just icing, so I can sleep an extra half hour instead.

This has caused me to push off my auctioneering to the last 45 minutes before bed.  It's working out pretty well actually, because I have enough time to get everything done without rushing, including restocking the crafted items which have sold.  I was worried I wouldn't be making much money when I finally dropped the glyph market (I'm taking credit dammit.  There's only two other high volume glyph sellers I know of in the market.  Their prices are ridiculous, so I cut it in half for my sales. I've quit seeing their names except when I discover a new profitable glyph.  YOU'RE WELCOME Alterac.)  Yesterday I discovered that one of my competitors (not glyphs) is our guild bank sales toon.  No mercy!  The only person I've ever made an exception for is Sil and his bags, and I usually do that by purchasing the bag so I can re-post it at my own price.  It looks like the minimum level for auctioneers is going from 1 to 10, since the mobile application that's coming out will only work with characters that show up in the armory, and the min level for the armory is 10.  Eh, my banker's already 6 so that will only take me a few hours to do.

A while back I think I posted about my old high school Facebook friend who has (sigh) a night elf hunter on another server (ironically, in the same battle group as Altarac).  I rolled a little space goat priest to see if I could catch him online.  Well, it's been two months and I've NEVER seen him.  However, I have been having a good time healdpsing the lowbie dungeons at level with no heirloom gear.  They seem... easier than I remember.  I ran Stockades for the first time ever.  What a lame instance, RFC is a lot better than Stockades.  You got shafted Alliance.  She's level 27 now. If I only have 30 min and my auctions are done, it's easier than trying to explain why I don't want to do heroics/raids/pvp with the guildies.  I guess it's just my knack for helpfulness, I have to go somewhere I don't know ANYONE to get single player me time.

I do miss raiding.  Not so much the raiding part, but the teamwork with my guildies.  I feel like it's been forever since I got to spend time with Fooc and the twins.  They've made some progress too, I feel a little guilty about expecting to walk back into my raid spot when my break is over.  I feel like I'm getting preferential treatment, but I'll be really disappointed if I've been replaced.  I can't join group two because they raid during the week :-(

Anyway, I should be back soon, but I still have a going away party and a baby shower, and another commitment on Sat mornings till September that I'll talk about in a future post.  See you all soon!

First Impressions.

I was going to just edit that last post, but what the heck. I haven't had a multi post day in a while.

I've been mulling over the ideas behind the Cataclysm expansion in the back of my mind while I've been crunching my spreadsheets. I'm kind of excited about it, the same whay I get excited about anything new, but at the same time...

I can't help but feel like Blizzard has sold out. I think I'd almost rather see them throw their efforts into a new MMO than mess with the game that's already there. Heroic old instances? Great! New races, well alright, though I think werewolves is a stretch. Blowing up Azeroth? Uh...

I'm sure it will look awesome. I'm sure it will play awesome. I'm sure I will take 2-3 days off work and wait in line in the freezing cold to get it. But a not so little part of me will have a hard time letting go of the old world as it is now. Once it's destroyed, it will never go back. Good thing I took screenshots I guess.