So, what about games Jesse? What have you been playing?

 

I am glad you asked, made up imaginary italics question giver! I’ve been focusing my time over three games. First, of course, is World of Warcraft. We continue to press on in Icecrown, despite a week off for vacation. We’ve downed Rotface and Festergut, which I am pretty pleased by. Putricide is of course proving to be difficult, but we’ll get him. I admit a lot of these fights frustrate me, because for various reasons I’m not really getting to tank. I am kiting, aggro swapping, or AOE stunning zombie chow most of the time. Still, I got my Boots of Kingly Upheavel and my T-10 helmet before vacation so I can’t complain. I’ve been running stuff on Hightower during the week to get frost emblems, which I use to purchase primordial saronite for Tyrolos. It was this method that got me those boots, and hopefully will get me the Pillars of Might. Those are some hot tanking pants, and I’d rather have them than the T-10 Paladin pants, aka the War Skirt.

I am incredibly excited for Cataclysm, even if I think we’ve still got 6+ months til it’s release. I mean, we don’t even have a beta yet. Still, it’s been good to focus on Tyrolos and getting him achievements, gear, etc. I’m a handful of mounts away from my 100 mount achievement, which is awesome. I’ve been doing some light PVP on him, though I hate battleground PVPing anything other than AV as a tank. Even Isle of Conquest isn’t much fun on a tank. I admit, the survivability is nice – but I can’t nuke people down fast enough. And against a spell caster or anything else that can keep me at range, I am owned. (Sometimes I PVP as holy, which I admit, is a whole lot more fun.) Mostly I just want the honor kills, so I can eventually get the 100,000 honor kill title.

I’ve also been working on Tyrolos’ reputations. I missed Burning Crusade on him, so I am working on their dungeon reps, plus the Violet Eye from Kara. I’d love to get the reps out of Hyjal and Black Temple, but that might be asking too much. :) I’m also working on the Thorium Brotherhood, Hydraxian Waterlords, and Zandalar tribe. I know, do I know how to party or what?

Aside from WoW, I’ve also been putting in some time in Star Trek Online. I enjoy this game, but it’s experience is much different than WoW. Cryptic seems to reward grouping, while Blizzard often feels like they punish it. There doesn’t seem to be a massive XP drain if you have a higher level friend come with you, they just scale the encounter to having a high level with you. In fact, the game is a million times more fun (and more rewarding in skill points) if you do everything in a group. So I like that aspect to it. However, with no real end game I am not sure how long it’ll hold my attention. We’ll see – I’m already a Rear Admiral, but there is some content I’ve not cleared yet.

Finally, as I referenced in an earlier post I am playing Magic: The Gathering again. This time is different, because I am not a poor 15 year old, hunkered down in the hallways of my high school at lunch trying to play a game on the gritty dirty floor. This time I have money and a house to play in and friends who play, some of which are very attractive and female. (Another radical departure from the last time I played). I really do enjoy this game, and I like deck building. I find I enjoy big multi-player games more than just one on one, but I do enjoy building decks for both. Diana and I bought a box of M10 last week to fill in some of the gaps in our commons and uncommons, and I was able to build some awesome stuff. I want to play more, so people should move closer to play with me. We can start the Grinning Geek Tournament!