Coffee for the Road

I prepped this ahead of time, so by the time you read this we'll be on the road up I-74 to Indianapolis and Gen Con. Unlike last year, we're not going to experience any rain, so parking outside by Lucas Oil Stadium* and walking to the Indianapolis Convention Center ought to be pleasant. That's relative, given the heat and humidity of summer in the Midwest, but a lot better than a downpour.

In case you're wondering, I'll be somewhere in the Exhibit Hall....

*Where the NFL's Indianapolis Colts play.

#Blaugust2024

For The Record...

People who play Retail WoW have been posting their Favorites in the loading screen, organizing that front screen based on what they want. Of course, Blizz has their own criteria as to how toons are selected for your initial Favorites listing, and I've not seen the decision criteria for it.

Being mildly curious as to what I'd find, I did login to Retail, skipped the cutscene, and found this:

Uh...

Well, whatever I was expecting, it certainly wasn't this.

I'm pretty sure three of these four toons were not the last four I'd logged into, and obviously none of them are my highest level toons either.* 

So... my belief is that if you don't have enough play time for Blizz to properly select four toons as Favorites, they just pull four toons out of a hat from those that were logged into over the past year or two.

The only other MMO that I've played that has this sort of grouping in the login screen was TERA,

The scenery may not have been impressive,
but the music was epic.

and for me it's pretty much a toss-up as to which is better. TERA has the better music and your toons striding forward like a badass, while Retail WoW has the more pleasant background and toons in, well, "down time".

*My highest level toon is the original Azshandra at L35, at the same location --Shrine of Seven Stars--  as she was when I last left her in the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

#Blaugust2024

How to Rest on Your Laurels

OG Cardwyn is finished, gear-wise, for Classic Era. That's not exactly a surprise to anyone who knows that this particular toon was there to see Kel'Thuzad die*, and she had enough DKP at the end of Vanilla Classic to splurge and get the full T3 set.**

Okay, so she didn't get the Wraith Blade, which was BiS if you weren't in line to get the Atiesh legendary staff, but that's not a big deal. I think our raid team had more Atiesh staves created (2) at the end of Vanilla Classic than Wraith Blade drops (1), and that's saying a lot about the quality of our raid drops.

The traditional World of Warcraft reason why someone would want to play a toon, to get gear and/or complete a raid, is not really there. And if I were the sort to stand around and show off my stuff, I'd not be hanging out in Darnassus, the least active Alliance city, like I traditionally do. 

But I do spend a decent amount of my time in Classic Era logged in to her.

***

OG Cardwyn, the Evil Twin, does have her uses. Okay, 90% of the time those uses involve her being used as a DPS mule...

The Good Twin could have handled this fight
too, but due to the punier damage and smaller
mana pool would it have been more of a challenge.

...but I don't mind. While it's nice to see enemies melt a lot faster than on the Good Twin, the main reason to bring OG Cardwyn to a fight is because her mana pool is large enough that I don't have to drink to recover mana nearly as much.

***

Honestly, I prefer to simply do things on the Good Twin simply because I like Frost Mages better than Fire Mages. I could change the Evil Twin to being a Frost Mage, but... Eh, I don't mind having two mages with two separate specializations. If I ever wanted to join an AQ40 or Naxxramas raid, the Evil Twin is available for use. And given that I figure the best geared I can get the Good Twin while still remaining as a Frost Mage is the gear out of AQ40***, I'm kind of fine with how things are as-is. 

Is there anything I might want, or want to do in Classic Era, Mage-wise? Trying for Atiesh, maybe?

Eh, no thanks. 

There are three four reasons for that lack of interest in the original caster legendary staff:

• To get in line for Atiesh, I would have to join a raid team actively raiding Naxxramas and likely raid twice a week at minimum to get in line for Atiesh. I really don't have the time I can presently dedicate to raiding at that level, hardcore or not, so it'd be silly to sign up and then have to constantly put myself on the bench.
  
  
• If I want to get Atiesh, I have to prove myself to any prospective raid team. Just because I have the gear doesn't mean that I'm "good enough" to get to the front of the line for Atiesh. After all, I was Fourth out of Six Mages, DPS-wise, and of the three Atiesh staves that our raid team eventually built our top Mage was actually the last of the three people to receive their Atiesh, that coming after the Dark Portal opened.**** If I wanted to justify receiving an Atiesh, I would have to do more than just show up and do my job; I'd have to get sweaty, and I'm not doing that.
  
  
• This is admittedly personal, but I think that Atiesh looks as ugly as hell; until I examined it more closely I thought it was a walking stick with a sulfur ball stuck on the end of it. 
  
  
  

  

  Kind of like this, but without James Burke.
  A screencap from Connections Episode 2,
  "Death in the Morning", at roughly 28:03.

  
  I now know that's it's a carving of a raven on top, but it still looks ugly to me. 
  
  
• I really just don't want it and everything it represents. I'm one of those people who zig when everybody zags, and I look at Atiesh and instead of looking at the staff as an achievement I think of all of the politics that have to be played to actually get one. For my money, I'd rather keep my hands clean and pass on all of that crap.*****

***

So, I've got a toon that doesn't really "need" anything. But I do login as her and just hang out; watching the chat channels, buffing baby Night Elf characters as they run by, and helping out my friends as-needed. And that's fine; I don't have to be doing anything when I login, and I've found that I derive a lot of joy from merely being present in the game. 

*Just how many times had he died canonically? Three? Four? I'm thinking three, unless he makes a reappearance in WoW after the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

**For reference, the full Tier 3 sets for Vanilla Classic are different than that in subsequent raid tiers in that the full set is nine pieces, including the ring that you can get as a drop. The so-called 'full set bonus' is for eight pieces; while OG Cardwyn does have all nine pieces, she isn't wearing the belt as the belt that came out of AQ40 is better for Fire Mages.

***For the most part, the three piece Bloodvine set are the best Chest, Legs, and Boots until a Mage reaches AQ40 and gains access to the (so-called) Tier 2.5 gear, the Enigma Set. Typically, that's also when a Mage will switch from Frost specialization to Fire due to the inherent bonuses with stacking several Fire Mages together. That being said, I know of some guild raid teams who let people bring their Frost Mages into AQ40 and Naxxramas. That latter one does puzzle me quite a bit, given that Frost is definitely at a disadvantage there in the same way that a Fire Mage has real damage problems in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. But hey, those guilds are sticking to their "bring the class/spec you want" credo.

**** Yes, a Warlock and a Resto Druid were ahead of all of the Mages. Typically a person tagged to receive Atiesh is not merely the highest DPS or healer, but performs services to the guild above and beyond the average raider. In the case of the first two Atiesh staves, they went to a co-Guild Leader and the Guild Officer who ran all of the non-progression raids for the guild.

*****You are talking to someone who had an Onyxia Head in OG Card's bank that I'd completely forgotten about. I rediscovered it in Era while I was moving items around to free up some bank space, and when I mentioned the head to my Questing Buddy, she told me "I'm not surprised."

EtA: Corrected a few sentences.

#Blaugust2024

The Dog Days Are Here

August looks to be busy for me.

There's Gen Con to kick off the month, then some other family related activities in the middle, and then probably back to working on the deck by the end of the month.

Maybe back to the deck? I'm not sure when, exactly, but definitely during September at the latest with a new batch of deck boards.

It may not sound like a lot, but trust me, my free time can evaporate pretty quickly around here, even with only one kid left as an undergraduate in college. Besides, there's stuff going on that I'll report about after it happens, so let's just enjoy August for what it is.

#Blaugust2024

Meme Monday: Gen Con 2024 Memes

Yes, it's that time of the year again.

Gen Con is this week, from Thursday, August 1st through Sunday, August 4th. As usual, I'll be attending on Sunday along with my son, his SO, and my wife. I was kind of surprised when my wife wanted to go since she'd not expressed interest the past few years, but hey, I'm fine with it. 

Well, duh.
From Giphy and the Gamers.

I've got a few items I'm going to want to look for that aren't at my local game store, and I think that this year I might actually buy some artwork. Not exactly sure where I'll put it, but I'll come up with something. While I can appreciate some of the art at Gen Con,  not all of it really fits into the decor for the house. 

Although these are really damn cute.
From Gen Con 2023.

So, in honor of this year's Gen Con, time for some more memes!

I have only been there one day all of the years
I've been going, and I'm drained after that.
I shudder to think what it'd be like being there
for multiple days. From Reddit.

Hey, we got ours early this year too!
From Elon Musk's place.

Yeah, it's like that. I've kind of given up
explaining gaming to my non-gamer friends,
but if I tell them "it's like going to Gatlinburg for
the week" they all nod their heads. Yes, I live in
the Midwest; does it show? From Musk's place.

Although to be fair, given some people's
addiction to board and/or role playing games,
"Dealer's Hall" might be more appropriate.
From Musk's Place.

What Might Have Been

This YouTube video was posted only this morning (my time), but...

The Baldur's Gate 3 music is kind of surprising.

They could have gone with, say, Elwynn Forest

and it would have been better in my opinion.

Yes, I realized that it was done in the same vein as Baldur's Gate 3, but I have to admit that this little 2 minute video underscores just what an RPG set in the Warcraft universe would look like.

The thing is, I'm not sure whether Blizzard could actually create a good CRPG based on WoW. What your character is --and is capable of-- in WoW is vastly different than in an RPG such as Baldur's Gate. You're practically a walking demigod in Retail WoW, whereas you'd have to scale back everything to you being pretty much a nobody in a Warcraft CRPG for it to work well.

I'm not trying to put my biases from Retail WoW here, it's more that I've played a few pencil-and-paper RPG campaigns where you start out as a big ol' hero and... Well, it just doesn't work well. It's much easier to build yourself up from zero to hero and have a satisfying campaign rather than essentially starting out as high level (or high society) and trying to figure out the world when you're already supposed to be an expert. When you start like that, the DM ends up doing a lot of the heavy lifting as you get up to speed, and you frequently feel like you're watching the DM play with themselves for hours at a time. 

If Blizz were to swallow some humble pie and create a story that starts with a bunch of nobodies or lowbie types and follow an arc like in one of the Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, or Neverwinter Nights CRPGs, yeah, that'd work. Although knowing Blizz, they'd probably model it after one of the Divinity games but amp up the power scaling very very quickly.

EtA: Corrected grammar.

What I Do When I'm Not Gaming

I suppose I ought to provide an update to my deck adventure, if for no other reason than as proof that I didn't abandon it again like so many other years.

Last year, car repairs ate up all available money, and the year before I was still in recovery from my little hospital adventure. And the year before that, 2021... Well, I'd rather not talk about that summer again.

But yes, I have been working on the deck this year, and I do have a long term plan of action.

The first stage was to determine if the top of the beams and joists were good enough to use as-is. If they weren't, then I'd likely have to replace the entire deck and... with costs for a new deck running $12,000 to $20,000 for a direct replacement, we don't have the money for that right now.

So I bought a couple 8 foot replacement deck boards and pried the old ones out on the far end with the intent of determining if the so-called bones of the deck were worth saving. 

Luckily, they were, so I replaced them and put in an order for decking that would cover somewhere between 35-40% of the deck. I give it a range because you always over-order on wood being delivered to your house because you have to assume that some of the wood is going to be unusable. 

Looks can be deceiving.

From this side, the wood looked pretty good. However, when I began flipping the boards over, I discovered that was not the case.

There's a reason why I put some boards up
high like this. This flaw just had to be in
the middle, because if it were on the end
I could have found a place for it and cut off
the bad section.

Some boards, however, could be made usable by merely flipping them over so the flaw wasn't showing.

Such as this one. I do sometimes wonder how
people at the mill where this is cut convince
themselves that wood such as this is perfectly
fine to sell at the same price as other, good boards.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been pulling out a row of decking and replacing it with a new one. Although I've been out there early in the morning from time to time, typically as stress relief from work, for the most part I've begun my work after 3:30 PM. That's when the deck is covered in shade from a nearby chokecherry tree.

If you notice that the last board on the end is an old board, that was done on purpose. I'm using that board to be able to snap a line once I'm finished and trim all of the excess off in one cut. That does mean that there are boards that extend pretty far out from the edge of the deck, and I've nearly thwacked myself a few times by forgetting that fact. When I cut the grass last Sunday, I forgot about the 16 foot deck board I set on the top of the rail and nearly smacked into it with my temple. 

Still, the project is continuing, and I'm about 30 - 33% finished:

That has left a lot of old deck boards to get rid of.

That pile is after I broke down a bunch of boards, took care of the nails sticking out, and set them out for trash removal. I sure hope that the trash people aren't gonna complain about the steady stream of old decking they're gonna see.

***

The plan going forward is to finish using these deck boards, then in September I'll get another round of wood, and go until that round is finished. If I need a third bunch in October, that's fine; October is usually our driest month of the year. 

Why spread it out? Well, the short answer is money. I can afford a bit at a time, rather than pay for it all at once. Since the cost pushed me into using pressure treated wood instead of composite*, cost is also determining just how much of the deck I can complete at one time. I'm a one man operation, so I don't want to have all of the wood delivered just to have it sit out, unused, for months.

Once the deck boards are replaced, then I have the Winter to plan out how I want to attack the next phase, which is either the railing or the steps. I'm thinking it's going to be the railing, but I could change my mind and do the steps instead. The last stage of the deck repair will be replacing the skirting and putting in some gravel and whatnot around the edge of the deck to keep the weeds away.

So yeah, multi-year project. One step at a time, however. One step at a time.

*At one point composite decking cost as low as twice that of pressure treated wood, but the price of wood has gone down recently. Still, I'd likely have to rework the deck by adding joists if I wanted to use composite deck boards, because composite isn't as strong as regular wood. Yes, I'd have to paint the deck more regularly than if I used a composite material --and paint is not cheap-- but having to resubmit the deck for review by the county inspectors isn't worth the extra up front cost.