From Now Until Warlords

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The community blog topic at WoWInsider asked What are you doing from now until warlords? Now I haven’t been inspired by any of the previous blog topics but this one made me think, as actually it’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a while. We don’t even have a date for the Warlords beta so we’re looking at several more months of Mists. How to fill that time?

At the end of every expansion there is always dead time and we’re approaching it now. Siege of Orgrimmar has been out three months. Based on the schedule Mists introduced us too we should have something new soon but there’s no 5.5, nothing until Warlords. It’s hard to put a life expectancy on a patch as people’s mileage will vary according to their goals. My personal experience is not the same as anyone else’s so it’s impossible to say. However, it’s my personal belief that if the beta isn’t announced soon, this month soon, then Warlords is going to come much too late. Beta lasts six months looking at history, so unless they break with tradition we’re looking at almost being in Dragon Soul territory already, only it’s worse as there’s a third lockout in flex every week.

At the end of Cata I wrote a bucket list, a list of things I wanted to do before Mists dropped. This isn’t the Mists version, I’m not too sure I’ll even write a Mists version, as I’ll explain below.

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November Retrospective

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I nearly entitled this post December Retrospective but then I thought that didn’t sound right. I’m looking back at November not December, I’m just writing it in December. Oh lets face it my brain is fried, I’m not even sure retrospective is the right word. Basically a post looking back at November and the madness that is NaNoWriMo.

I wrote a post about NaNo before November started stating my goals and what my thoughts were about the challenge this year. So it’s time to compare what I thought and hoped would happen with what actually did. What lessons did I learn this year? More importantly what am I going to do to carry it forward?

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Warlords of Draenor

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It’s Blizzcon time and they did announce the next expansion, well obviously they were going to. So I’m going to compare what I predicted and what they announced. I wish I could do a table but I don’t know how to do that. The website for Warlords of Draenor is up, as well as the feature trailer that they previewed at the opening ceremony.

I started writing this post right after the opening ceremony but realised that I couldn’t publish while new information was still coming out. I was writing something and then having to delete it as they explained the answer to my question. So I’ll probably be late to the blizzcon post party but hopefully what I write will make sense. Blizzcon isn’t over, they still have that big Q&A later but I reckon all the announcements are over now, so I’m going to post this. It’s already 5000 words, I know hardly anyone reads this blog but that’s still probably my longest post by a huge margin.

There’s some changes coming in Warlords and as usual some people like them, some people don’t. From my point of view there’s good and bad and I can’t wait for beta. I got into Mists beta thanks to the annual pass, and they’ve confirmed they aren’t doing another annual pass. I guess I can see why, I mean I got the annual pass and extra stuff to sub for a year, which I was going to do anyway, so they made a loss in that respect. So I might not be lucky enough to get a beta key whenever it does come out. It looked pretty far into development so I’m going to go out on a limb and say beta will be in out December/January. They need to get started on it really as otherwise the expansion won’t be released, and Siege of Orgrimmar will be out for too long, especially as they’ve said there isn’t going to be a patch 5.5. Anyway I hope it will be soon.

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Shift and Control

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I really did not know what to call this post but I wanted to write it anyway. November last year I wrote a review of my new mouse, the Razor Naga 2012. Well, I just took delivery of a new keyboard, a Steelseries Cataclysm bundle. It came with a standard keyset and the Cataclysm keyset specifically coded with Warcraft in mind.

I’d wanted a new keyboard for ages but I only have a small desk, most keyboards don’t fit on it very comfortably. In all honesty neither does this one, but it’s smaller than most of the others I looked at, so on balance it’s fine. Plus my previous keyboard was wireless, part of a keyboard/mouse set that came with the computer. It had an annoying habit of running out of battery during boss pulls, so it was time to upgrade.

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The Next James Bond

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On my 100th post I said that this would be an upcoming post. It’s languished in drafts for quite a while waiting for me to finish it, I figured it was about time I did so and pressed publish.

Daniel Craig has reportedly signed on for another two films after Skyfall, so they won’t be looking for the new actor just yet. However, for years I’ve had an actor in mind who I would love to take the role on. I’ve said this to people I know and been laughed at. However, this is my blog, you are free to laugh at me, but at least I can finish and say my piece.

I’ve been re-watching Hustle lately, it’s something I do relatively often. I don’t watch much British TV, it’s different from the US drama that I love, and I don’t like it all that much. However, Hustle is amazing, it’s American in it’s production really, it’s had some off episodes and it’s sadly not being made anymore, but I can watch it and rewatch it and it’s just as good everytime. The lead actor for this show (except for season 4) was Adrian Lester.

Can you see where I’m going with this now? Yeah, my vote for the next James Bond goes to – Adrian Lester.

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The Dark Heroes Below the Storm

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Two patent applications have been unearthed, ‘The Dark Below’ and ‘Heroes of the Storm’, the opinion of WoWInsider, and presumably other Warcraft blogs which I don’t read, is that these are both hoaxes, and not names of the next expansion. It’s since been confirmed that Heroes of the Storm is the new name of Blizz All Stars. However, it made for a good blog title so it all works out.

We’ve had the last raid tier of Mists, blizzcon is next month, if nothing leaks before then we’ll get some announcements there. So, this is my next expansion post, I’ve been planning it for quite a while. It’s all complete speculation, and some complete fantasy but I’ll try to keep it in the realms of realism, as it would be cool to link back to this post and say “I called that”.

It’s hard to believe that we’re talking next expansion already as Mists has only been out just over a year. I do have some concern over that, that we’re going to wind up with another Dragon Soul. After all with Dragon Soul came LFR and so people were seeing the raid maybe twice on their main, and then again on their alts, presuming of course that they were raiding normal/heroic. Even those that weren’t though if they had multiple alts were still seeing it multiple times a week, and even once a week over the months adds up. With Siege flex was brought in, some people are seeing the raid 3x a week, more on alts, how long will it take for people to be sick of it? Especially as we have no news of 6.0, let alone it being in beta. However, that’s this expansion and we’re talking 6.0 here and the future.

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Minipost – Marvel Agents of SHIELD

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It’s Marvel in a TV Show.

That is enough said really. I love the movies, I really seriously do but they have one major flaw – they are movies. They only last for a couple of hours, if that, and that’s all you get. TV shows equal movie length in 3 episodes and everything after that is just more.

When I really get into something then I want to watch it all the time, but how many times can you rewatch the same movie, or the same set of movies in a short time frame? TV shows are longer, so you can feed the addition, you can fall into that universe for far longer. It’s still never enough, not for me, as once I’ve rewatched a lot then I remember everything and I do hunger for new material. However, once the show has been running a few seasons there’s usually enough episodes that the memory won’t be clear for all of them, and I can scroll through the description and find one that I want to watch.

So Marvel and TV show is enough to make me a fan and two episodes is not enough to form an opinion of the show. I suppose it’s the pilot and one episode which then means even less. Coulson is awesome though, I have been punching the air and screaming “Coulson Lives!” because, it’s Coulson and it’s just awesome.

Clearly they want the show to do well, as I imagine getting Samuel L Jackson in to do just one scene was expensive. It’s really cool though as with Coulson heading up the team, Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) guest starring in the pilot, and now Samuel L Jackson in the first episode, it really grounds it in the SHIELD we’re familiar with from the movies. It’s a TV show so it has a smaller budget, I’ve spotted the use of CGI to manufacture a few scenes already, whereas in the movies I don’t notice the fakeness.

Some of the episode composition is a bit jarring too. It’s a familiar format but I guess because it’s Marvel, it doesn’t feel like it should read like an NCIS episode, but it does, it beats just the same. I don’t know whether ultimately I’m going to like the show once the “marvel!” thing wears off. I guess it’s showing a normalcy to something that wasn’t normal, all we saw previously were the missions and the heroes, these are just regular agents and you get the normal work too. The SHIELD in the movies is very shiny and I guess it’s Black Widow, Hawkeye, Maria Hill etc. that I remember the scenes of when I think of SHIELD. Coulson is a field agent but obviously in a different department, as much as I really like Coulson he’s not in the same league as the others. I didn’t realise that I was consciously expecting a Black Widow kind of SHIELD until I was disappointed. I guess what I was hoping for was a cross between my favourite bits of Alias and Flashpoint. Top level espionage with a lot of professionalism.

It’s early days yet and it’s the first new TV show that I’ve watched in a long time. I’ve stuck with my old favourites for years, so at least it’s something different. Once I’ve seen more I can post a more indepth review, so until then.

It’s that time again

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Next month is November and every November since 2007 I’ve tried to write 50,000 words in a month, aka taking part in NaNoWriMo. Posting about this insanity here isn’t new, in fact I just created a category for it. I attempted to spread the insanity around and do the challenge in April for Camp NaNoWriMo, but I failed that miserably as the word count meter to the right has betrayed ever since.

So if I’ve posted about it before, which I have, why am I posting about it again? Well, because I feel like it. I’m not going to disappear for the month, I’m still going to post here if I get a topic in mind, I’m still going to raid with my guild, in all probability I’m going to get blizzcon virtual ticket. November isn’t going to just be about words, but I do hope that it contains a lot of them.

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A Timeless Siege

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I started writing this post soon after I came home at the end of September but it didn’t really go anywhere. I know I owe a post about my vacation and I want to do that, but I have 1500 pictures to sort through as well as film to edit so it might be a while. 5.4 dropped while I was away and the first 4 bosses were killed by my guild. When I came home that Saturday I was unprepared to raid on Sunday due to the router being broken. I managed to get a substitute in time for the raid but I didn’t have the prep time I would have liked, and my feeling of being behind only persisted.

5.4 brought a few new things to Warcraft. There’s Timeless Isle, the new raid and the new raid difficulty – flex. I’ve been able to experience all of the above and there’s some good and bad. I had high hopes for 5.4 I admit and so far it’s not quite lived up to everything, but I suspect the problem isn’t the patch – it’s me.

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Where did August go?

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Well it wasn’t spend gaming in any form, is the relevant answer. My grandparents are in pretty ill health and we were worried about them, there were a fair few trips to the hospital, which is about as personal as I get on this blog.

Anyway, I may possibly be going on vacation in a weeks time. We booked it in a fit of optimism a few weeks ok, before the heart attacks and other drama. If nothing more happens then we’ll go, but of course if something does go wrong then we won’t. Family first, after all. I’m planning a blog post of epic proportions to document it, my first vacation in four years, my first proper vacation in eight. I’m quite excited to be honest, but trying not to be as I don’t want to be disappointed if something happens. It’s unfortunate that 5.4 is going to drop as soon as I go away, which brings us back to the proper subject of this blog – gaming.

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