Legion Approaches ~ The Green Team, Twitch, & More

I am still working on my Social Gaming course, but I did finally finish unit one! I have to get a move on though because I have to have it finished by the end of this month! And that's not really that far away...

But I have been distracted...

I had surgery in July and am in recovery, getting comfortable sometimes is challenging...

And then there is WoW...

The newest expansion is coming out August 30th so I thought I would be able to focus until then...but then, because I pre-ordered, I had early access to the new class, Demon Hunters. Of course I had to make one, and they are super awesome!

On top of that they released demon invasions, which are very fun! Plus, completing the invasions gives you access to 700 item level Legion themed armor. I may have gone a little crazy and now have a complete team...the "Green Team" as I refer to them. These are my max level toons decked out in the Legion gear. The invasions are also an excellent way to level so I have been dragging all my low level alts through as well. No rest for the wicked!

Most importantly, I have discovered game streaming on Twitch. I am loving this! Feel free to stop by, give me a watch, and give me a follower. The more followers the better, and once I get to 100 I am going to have a giveaway.

Watch me here!

You can also find my Twitch Fan Page on Facebook over here.

I have a Fan Twitter Page over here.

I also have a Curse Page over here. 

The Curse page is a local hangout where we can chat even when I am not streaming. I also post interactive polls and the giveaways I run sync through Curse. So I hope to see you there!

And now back to the homework...maybe...

Gaming Update

I am still working away on unit 1 of my Social Gaming course. There is a lot more reading than I first anticipated, and as is to be expected with most course readings, a lot of it is very dry...

I am anxiously awaiting the download for a new game, Black Desert Online. The download link goes live on the 16th with the Beta server going live on the 18th. I already reserved my family name. I tried to choose Love, but someone had already snatched that, so I went with Lobo instead due to my love of all things wolfy. I also reserved the first name Amaroq for my first character, after my favourite character in the ever traumatizing children's book, Julie of the Wolves.

I have been reading articles and forums, and watching many video reviews on this game and I am pretty eager to get in and see what it's really like.

I also reactivated my WoW account in the meantime and made a Night Elf Monk. I saw that my guild was only missing a Night Elf Monk for their Night Elf Classy Achievement, so I figured what the heck. I have made a few monks before but never got very far with them as I don't really enjoy their melee play style, but since it's for the guild, and in a way as research for the course, I figured what the heck?

I named her Eldia, roughly translated from Spanish to mean The Day...because she was just kind of thought of on the day, as a passing thought. She is currently level 28 and I gave her all the heirloom gear I had available to her to make her leveling experience less painful.

I have also spent some time checking out the Diablo III seasonal play. It's very interesting how they have added this type of play style to the game to help avoid boredom and burnout. Each season is about three months long. You make a new character and instead of running it though the same old story line again, you can simply do bounties, enter rifts, etc. I still don't have the hang of it to be honest, but I am still finding it very entertaining.

I also decided to go ahead and try out Heroes of the Storm, just because it was there in my Blizzard downloader and it was free. It's a more cartoony, WoWified version or League of Legends (LoL) which I really am not a fan of. I enjoyed the intro and the first set of tutorials. I accidentally clicked out of the tutorial menu and couldn't find them again and ended up in a training match...which even though I somehow won, I was not really prepared for and it seemed to go on forever... If I can find my way back to the tutorials I might attempt it again, but really, not my type of game.

That's about it for now! Back to the books, and games!

It Begins...

Today is the start date for my new course mentioned in the last post, Social Aspects of Games, Leisure and Entertainment. I spent a good part of the day reviewing the orientation portion of the study guide and setting up my profile and learning journal on Athabasca University's online portal, The Landing.

I had never really used The Landing before except to follow updates and discussions regarding the implementation of etexts, since that was a hot topic for myself, as well as many others. I didn't realize until today all the other ways The Landing could be used. I took the time to fiddle with all the little details and now have a pretty fleshed out user profile. I didn't feel comfortable adding an actual picture for my avatar, so I used the next best thing...a Dr. Horrible avatar. /grins

I also managed to find and join the group set up specifically for our course code, as well as create my own wiki complete with sub-pages for each of the four units that make up the course. I will most likely add more sub-pages to those sub-pages to further organize my reflections and tasks as the course goes on.

Earlier this week I also picked up two books to use as additional reading for this course. They both look very interesting. I have already started My Life as a Night Elf Priest, and it's even more enjoyable and enlightening than I expected it to be. I have sticky notes hanging out all over the place marking spots to go back and re-read and reflect on later. I read a bit of the beginning of Reality is Broken as well, I think it will be intriguing as well.

And of course...I spent some time gaming today! I made a fresh character on Tera, on a new server where I had no previous social connections, and chose a new class I had never played previously (Gunner). I named her Gwenyth.Love. I don't know if it's just the class, or they just made it much easier than it was when I first leveled my first character, but man, I am just whizzing through it! My goal is to get at least to level 40 so I can try their new super class they have, the Reaper. You can only make one once you have a character reach level 40, and then the new Reaper starts at level 50. I'm not a fan of the fact that the Reaper can only be played by a female Elin character (because I find them kind of creepy) but I will have to suck it up to be able to try it out.

I did have a positive experience pretty early during my game-play. Myself and 4 other characters were in an area where we had one of our first BAM (Big Ass Monsters) quests. All 5 of us kept jumping in and attacking the BAM. We were all trying to help each other, but no one was getting credit and we were all getting a little frustrate. Finally, one of the characters suggested we try attacking it one at a time and see what happened. Well that was exactly what we needed. It seems the quest was set so only one person could get credit at a time, and it is made so the character who does the most damage gets credit for the kill. We each took our turn, but we all still stood around and waited until everyone that had been in the area received credit for their kill so we could help figure out something else if there was any other type of glitch. Now that's what I call cooperation! A far cry from the rush in and kill the boss in front of the person that had been patiently waiting for it to spawn as so often occurs in WoW...

Rise of the Phoenix

Ok...maybe not quite that dramatic...but yeah...

/clears throat

Hello out there! Have you missed me? Did you even realize I was gone?

Can you believe in two days it would have been 5 years since I touched this blog? And what a messed up 5 years it has been! Right after my last post I became very ill and had to have a major surgery in November. I was out of it for quite a bit after that. Started to recover slowly and just started to get back to normal when WHAM I got sick again last September. I am currently waiting for yet another pretty major surgery, so we will see how that goes...

Anywho....

So why am I back? Well, for the past year I have been so ill I have had to drop all my courses and just be calm and heal. Well recently I started getting the itch back and I really wanted to get back into some school work. I had no desire to dig back into my boring and overly challenging accounting courses so I looked to see what else I could do. I quickly realized I still had a few humanities type courses that I need to complete to round out my degree so I decide that was the best place to get my feet wet again. I combed through numerous listings of courses with little to no interest to me when suddenly I found the one...are you ready for it?

Social Aspects of Games, Leisure and Entertainment

I swear I heard it whisper my name!

I read through the synopsis and I was hooked. They actually require you to play video games for this course! I mean...what else could you ask for? Oh, and did I mention...no final exam either! You want in...admit it...

That being said, it definitely won't be easy. There are many tasks to complete and it will be quite time intensive...the estimated time is about 120 hours. But the good thing is I don't have to worry about leaving the house for a final exam (or even a midterm) and everything can be done from home if I do end up needing the surgery and being bedridden for a while. And who doesn't like gaming...right?!

My start date is November 1st and I am pretty excited, and nervous about it as well. I reactivated my WoW account just last week, so it feels pretty timely. Maybe time for a new ALT?

Now to look at what other games might help me round out this course nicely and maybe even checkout some of those non-fiction gaming books that have peaked my interest in the past. Any game or book recomendations for me? And please don't say EVE...that game gives me nightmares...

Game on!