I Have Touched the Sky: Belghast

Showing posts with label Belghast. Show all posts

Sunday, February 7, 2016

PAX Riparia

Scooter enjoying the view (of her phone)

Having gotten up very early to drive to San Antonio, then walked around PAX for something like seven hours, Scooter and I were ready to head to our hotel. Thanks to my job, I have accumulated a lot of points with the International Hotel Group (which includes Holiday Inn), enabling me to book free rooms every so often. For PAX weekend, I splurged and got us a reservation at the Hotel Indigo Riverwalk, an excellent "boutique" hotel north of the main downtown area. I did see a few other folks that had PAX badges, which was cool.

The hotel overlooks the San Antonio River from the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts (the building on the left in the pictures). After checking in, we relaxed on the balcony and enjoyed the early evening (relative) quiet. Having eaten a heavy lunch, we decided to keep dinner simple and went to a local market to get sandwich stuff and fruit for dinner.

Had I realized Bel was leaving on Sunday morning instead of going back to the convention center, I would have made a bigger effort to hang out with him and the others on Saturday. But, finding out fairly early that he wouldn't be there, I was in no hurry to get back myself. Scooter and I enjoyed a leisurely morning and checked out of the hotel before walking along the river to find lunch and then check out the PAX tabletop games hall. Scooter introduced me to her favorite place on the Riverwalk, Casa Rio, located right under the Commerce Street bridge. It was delicious.

After lunch, we made our way over to the convention center and headed into PAX. I convinced Scooter to see if we could get more time on the Intel PCs. We got in at just the right time, with only a 10 minute wait and almost the full 45 minutes of promised playtime. When we left, the wait was back up to about 40 minutes. We went through the DOTA2 tutorial. I decided that I don't like the isomorphic view and click-to-move mechanics of DOTA. If all MOBAs are like this, I'd avoid them even if they didn't have a reputation for toxic communities. I got in a little more time playing Rocket League as well, deciding that I would need to get a controller if I want to buy it and play regularly.

Leaving the PC Room, we wanted to explore the PAX tabletop gaming hall, which we had skipped the previous day. Much to our surprise, the hall was actually mostly tables with folks playing various games. The exhibit booths were only a couple rows deep, and we could have explored them the evening before. That's not to say they weren't interesting. There were quite a few developer reps explaining/demonstrating their games to convention guests, and others had tabletop accessories on display. Scooter has a history of playing tabletop RPGs that I missed out on as a teenager. But it's been decades since she played, and I have been interested in trying it out. At one booth, we were looking seriously at the Pathfinder Beginner Box because it supports 2-player games, but we couldn't make a decision right then.

All in all, I had a great time at PAX. If we get the chance to go again, I think we will try to head down Friday night, and attend just the one day on Saturday before spending Sunday relaxing in San Antonio. At least this time around, neither of us was really interested in any of the scheduled panels, leaving only the exhibits and chance to try out some games. Still, a ton of stuff to see and do. I'd like to meet and hang out with people more, as well, and not being exhausted by 5 p.m.—13 hours after waking up—would help.

Thanks again to the anonymous person who gave us tickets, and to Belghast for arranging such a wonderful gift. We need to find a way to get together again soon, without thousands of people milling about. LOL

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to this blog.

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

PAX Populi

Continued . . .

The Aggronaut navigated his way through a maze of electronics and humanity with Scooter and me in tow. The apparent star of the exhibition floor was literally a Dreadnought. Meatbags were willing to wait for hours for the chance to sit down and play the latest blockbuster before it is released. Our companion was more focused on the smaller independent developers and their wares. Meeting up with several others in Bel's orbit, I joined in a game of Ultimate Chicken Horse—a fun little game of cooperative competition played on the XBox. Unfortunately, that was the last time we would see and recognize any of the Candy Van Crüe except another quick visit with Bel.

Scooter and I spent hours weaving through the milling sea of humanity in the PAX exhibition hall, checking out everything from fancy anti-glare glasses and fancy leather hats to luxury gaming tables. There was plenty of merchandise to drool over from folks like WeLoveFine (the booth under the floating unicorn, above), and also demos from big-name and indy game developers. There were even charities like a "Gamers for Jesus" group and a veteran's organization. Despite packing well for our excursion, I completely forgot I was toting victuals and found myself famished by about 1 o'clock. We were headed out to find some grub when Bel caught up with us again for just a minute before heading off in a different direction.

And then all the Formics were wiped out.

After a delicious lunch on the nearby Riverwalk, the highlight of our afternoon was an opportunity to play some games in the PC Room (brought to you by Intel!). After our fifteen minute wait stretched into thirty, we were ushered to the computers, told we had thirty-five minutes to play (instead of forty-five), and left to our own devices. After a warm-up on Peggle Nights, I played several rounds of Rocket League against bots with names like Iceman and Goose. The game is hella fun. In case you don't know, it's a soccer-like game played with cars and trucks. All too soon, our twenty-seven minutes was over, and we were unceremoniously frogmarched from the venue (not really).

After wandering about for a bit, I checked the Candy Van group texts and discovered that Belghast, who had worn himself out, had headed off to meet his wife and her friend for dinner. We decided we would check out the tabletop side of the exhibition hall the next morning and left the convention center for our hotel.

To be concluded . . .

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Tuesday, February 2, 2016

PAX Belana

(I have more to say about the show. But things are really busy right now, and I wanted to get this out, mostly to express my gratitude to Belghast and the person who gave his tickets to PAX South. So, THANK YOU!)

A couple weeks ago, as I came to the realization that Belghast was planning to go to San Antonio for PAX South 2016, I suggested that we could meet up, either for a meal on his way down (he and his wife and friend passed within about fifteen minutes of our house), or for a meal down in S.A. (well within driving distance for Scooter and me). Given the late date, we had no plans to actually attend the gaming conference. As it happened, Bel knew someone who had purchased two passes but would be unable to attend. Because I met certain specified criteria, he gave the badges to Bel to pass along to Scooter and me.

And so on Saturday morning, with many thanks to Belghast and and our Anonymous Benefactor, we found ourselves traveling to San Antonio not merely to meet with Bel and Co., but to actually attend the gaming convention. After navigating the parking headache (during which I managed to hurt Scooter's feelings when she was only trying to help) and trekking to the Convention Center, we met up with Bel and headed into the show.

To be continued . . .

~~~~~~~~

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Blaugust the Second: Blaugust as a Writing Exercise

In the heat and doldrums of the late summer, Belghast sent out a call to his fellow bloggers: "Follow me! Post every day!"

I'm not sure what I want to get out of this Blaugust. A good chunk of my posts last year were about what a pain it turned out to be. And I ended up hardly posting in September, which I then dubbed Slacktember. While I don't think I can or want to sustain the daily pace of Blaugust indefinitely, I am hoping to not be so burned out by the end that I only post twice the following month.

I also hope to post less about how I don't really want to post. Because that's kind of lame.

But if blogging is like a marathon, Blaugust is like a sprint at the end of the marathon. One of the keys is finding a good routine. Through the years, I have tended to compose my posts during downtime at the office, in between assignments. Obviously this means that when work gets busy, the blog suffers, because I have neither the habit nor the energy to writing at home in the evening.

I could get up in the morning and post while waking up, like Bel does. But that has never really worked well for me, and it impacts how late I can stay up. Unlike Scooter, I need a good 8 hours of sleep, so an 05:30 wake up requires that I be in bed asleep by 21:30 (9:30 for you non-military Americans). If I want to include a decent post in that routine, I need to get up even earlier, necessitating an even earlier bedtime. I understand now why my father, who arose about 4:30 every morning while I was growing up, was asleep in the recliner by about 7 pm on weeknights. And when would I ever get to gaming, the discussion of which is the whole reason for this blog?

Are all these things just excuses for not developing a good writing routine? If I had a little more self-discipline, could I develop the writing routine that I could then use to actually write the fiction I would like to? Can I develop the strength or stamina to write even when inspiration hasn't struck?

~~~~~~~~

If you're interested in joining the madness (Vloggers are welcome, too!), Belghast has a set of rules for qualifying for any prizes at the end. Your second stop should be the Blaugust Nook, where Bel is keeping track of everything and community members are sharing encouragement and ideas.
~~~~~~~~

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Blaugust the First: Rise of the Blaugustians

The month of August is upon us. Last year, Belghast the Aggronaut challenged the blogosphere to follow his pattern of daily blogging for 31 days. While old Bel was surprised by the number of people that ended up participating, I was not. Despite (or perhaps partly because of) Bel's self-deprecation, he has developed quite a following.

I see nothing wrong with beginning the insanity of Blaugust with a roll call of my fellow inmates:

I included Tales of the Aggronaut and IHTtS as well, so the count will be slightly different than Bel's. I think I will create a special blogroll for the month, as well. But not today. And since I have to fluff this up a bit, can I just say making two columns in html was a pain?

If you're interested in joining the madness (Vloggers are welcome, too!), Belghast has a set of rules for qualifying for any prizes at the end. Your second stop should be the Blaugust Nook, where Bel is keeping track of everything and community members are sharing encouragement and ideas.

~~~

Friday, June 19, 2015

The Bel Effect

So Aggrochat Episode 60 was called "Second Chances," and Belghast, along with his cohorts from Stalwart Gaming, were talking about games they had recently returned to after having discarded them for various reasons. Featured in this discussion was ArcheAge, a Korean import brought to the States by Trion Worlds, of Rift fame. (Forgive me if you know all this already.)

Scooter and I had enjoyed dabbling in ArcheAge last fall; however, technical issues with her computer kept us from getting very far before we gave up. But I was intrigued by the Skill/Class system and character progression at the time. My recent trip to Seoul helps me appreciate some of the elements of the game as well, like the townsfolk speaking Korean, the design of the Harani, etc.

In any event, the Aggrochat episode made me think it would be cool to try it again. You know, to keep from burning out on SWTOR stories (which, as you know, we have also been giving a second chance). I had uninstalled it somehow, and I think I used a different login than my Rift account (all now linked through Trion's Glyph). On top of this, something glitched right near the end of the installation process, and I had to start over. Then stuff and things happened. All that meant that, even though I decided to check it out on Tuesday evening, it was last night before I was able to log in and create a character.

Following Bel and the Aggrochat crew, I decided to role a Firran on Tahyang server (doubly appropriate since Tahyang was the legendary prophet/leader of the Firran). I wasn't too sure about the females, who seem very kawaii (if that term can be used for a Korean aesthetic). As opposed to the male Firran, who are much more catlike. But Scott Rankin likes them, and thinks they look more alien than human, and they don't need to be that catlike anyway. After messing around with the character creator for at least an hour wherein I discovered that they can be given more feline features, I came up with a face I liked. So, meet the ArcheAge version of Achillea (I almost gave her green hair). I only got up to level 5 or 6 before logging off, starting with Archery, and picking up Occultism along the way. I plan to make Vitality my third skillset, forming the class referred to as Blood Arrow. I may still role a male Firran, and save the cute for a Harani. Maybe I can even convince Scooter to give the Cat Folk a try.

~~~

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

It's an Honor Just to Be Nominated

I finally got picked! Chestnut from Gamer Girl Confessions and Stubborn from Sheep the Diamond both linked to me for the Liebster meme/chain letter. I am not as curmudgeonly as Jeromai about stuff like this because I like finding out about my fellow bloggers. I rearranged the questions to flow from blog- or game-related to more deeply philosophical, but kept them separated by who asked.

Let's start with
Eleven Random Facts:

I am a U.S. Army Veteran.
I have sported a beard for most of my adult life since graduating college, with the biggest gap being during my tour of duty.
I am the youngest of three boys in my family.
I was not a "dog person" until about 4 years ago.
I am very conscious of grammar errors when reading, but have realized it's not worth pointing them out unless I've been asked.
I use a standing desk at work.
I wish I had time and space for a woodworking shop.
I am wicked good at trivia games.
I have very eclectic music tastes, ranging from classical through classic rock to modern pop.
My left big toe is bigger than my right one.
I can't think of another random fact worth sharing.

Chestnut's Questions:
Tabletop, PC, or Console?
PC, though I'd love to get involved in a tabletop game some time.

What is your favorite game?
I can't say I have a favorite game right now, partly because I seem to be bouncing around a lot.

Do you have a favorite zone from a game? What is it? Which game?
Thinking about it, I would have to say the Eversong Woods in World of Warcraft, because of the idyllic autumn atmosphere (see below). A close second would be the Grizzly Hills (again from WoW), because it is so evocative of the Sierra Nevada, which I visited often in my youth.

Do you see yourself still enjoying gaming when you hit 100 years old?
All things being equal, yes. We'll see how my senses and reflexes turn out to be at that age.

What prompted you to first start your blog/site?
I wanted a specific place to post my thoughts and stories about World of Warcraft, and eventually other games I play. As I said in my very first post, "I don't promise to stay on topic. I have no overarching plan for this project. Much like playing with my Legos as a child, I will just put stuff together and see how it looks."

How did you choose your blogging name?

I just sort of fell into Rowanblaze, which was actually my WoW main. When I started raiding regularly during Wrath of the Lich King, they called me Rowan on voice chat, and it stuck. The rather uninspired name of my original WoW blog was "Rowanblaze Saves Azeroth." Ironically, my handle in STO is another WoW character, "Sunsage," because I had not fully settled into my Rowanblaze blogging persona.

Which blogger/podcaster would you like to meet in real life and why?
I have actually met a couple fellow bloggers because my job involves semi-regular business trips. Of those bloggers that I have not met, I most want to hang out with Belghast and Scarybooster. I would also love to have a big meet-up with Xander and the rest of the folks on Holosuite Media.

Name three bands or singers that would be in your dream concert lineup.
Right now, Pentatonix would top the list. Meghan Trainor would be fun, too, I think. Hmm, a third one is actually really hard. Taylor Swift, I guess? My kids are right; I am a 16-year-old girl. Really though, between the huge crowds and the less than ideal acoustics, I don't like big concerts.

What is your favorite season? Why?
Autumn, I love the display of colors and the cool, crisp air—such a relief after the heat of the summer. And because we celebrate my two favorite holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving, in the fall.

What is your dream career?
I'm almost—but not quite!—to the point in my life where we should be discussing my dream retirement. :P If it paid enough, I would teach high school. I just don't think teachers get enough credit or compensation.

If you could change one thing in your life, would you? What and why?
Scooter and I have a plaque on our wall that says, "If I had my life to live over... I would find you sooner, so I could love you longer." Most of my go-back-and-change-things fantasies involve her.

Stubborn's Questions:
What game has influenced you the most over your gaming years? How so?
I would have to say World of Warcraft. It's the game I played the longest, and only since then have I considered myself any sort of gamer. As I cut my MMO teeth on it, I have compared every game I have played since to WoW, favorably or unfavorably. I haven't really played heavily since Cataclysm launched, so Wrath is my frame of reference. There are plenty of games I like better at this point, but my yardstick will always be WoW.

Which blogger(s) did you find most influential when you started. Have you contacted them recently? Why or why not?
I would have to say MMO Gamer Chick was my biggest initial influence, simply because she encouraged me, and I borrowed a lot of ideas for posts from her. She is still one of my closest blogging friends. I also want to mention Scarybooster, since I thought he was huge stuff back then, organizing the Developer Appreciation Week and all. I love his easy sense of humor; it's a style I can't possibly emulate. We're in regular contact through Twitter and G+.

Do you have pets? What are they? How did you choose them? Or if not, why not?

We currently have six dogs, two of which belonged to Scooter when we met. Two are a brother and sister we took in from a coworker that was moving to a location where he couldn't have a lot of animals. The last two are a stray Scooter rescued from the street and her pup. I can't imagine parting with any of them.

What movie / TV series / book / or music (or all of the above) do you wish more people had been exposed to?
Joss Whedon's Firefly in its initial run, if for nothing else because we would have more of it if more people had watched from the beginning. The exigencies of TV production make hidden treasures more likely, I think. Movies, books, and music tend to get the exposure they deserve, in my opinion.

Do you vote? Why or why not?
I do vote, even though I have little faith in the power of the individual voter in the U.S. system of government. I feel we have to exert what influence we can or we will lose it completely. After all, "What is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?"

Did you like school? Why or why not?
Which year are we talking about? I struggled through my early schooling due to undiagnosed learning disabilities. I liked most of high school and college, though. I am "good at school." Life is harder.

On the same note, did you have a teacher who meant a lot to you? If so, have you contacted them recently? Why or why not? And if not, why do you think you didn’t?
The teacher that influenced me most (that I can remember) is my high school choir director. Choir dominated my high school social life, and helped give me the confidence I had needed to excel academically. Lest you think this was some tiny club like on Glee, during my senior year (about 25 years ago) the choral music department constituted about 10% of the whole student body and was the largest individual organization on campus. A great deal of that can be attributed to the way my choir director ran the program. He is one of my friends on Facebook, so we correspond occasionally.

What’s the most important lesson kids should learn when growing up? Why?
There will always be someone better than you at a given activity, and someone not as good. I think it's important for kids to find their strengths and play to them. I also think our education system is woefully inadequate to help kids do this. (Not individual teachers, mind you; most do their best within the constraints of the system.)

If you feel comfortable talking about it, what’s your biggest vice?
My biggest vice—that I feel comfortable discussing—is my tendency to procrastinate even mildly unpleasant activities. Heck, I'm procrastinating something right now.

To balance that out, what’s your biggest virtue?
I had to ask Scooter for this one. She says "kindness" and "sense of justice." I think these are somewhat related, honestly. For example, I used to not like pets and, for a long time, had only a rabbit left behind by my ex-wife. People thought I loved animals simply because I have always treated them kindly. But not liking to be around animals and abusing them are two very different things. And I get very angry when I see people (or creatures) being treated unfairly or abused.

Describe in detail something that makes you very happy.
Holding my granddaughter always makes me happy. I'm not sure how much detail I need to go into with that.

And now I ~~challenge~~ nominate the following brave souls:

Endalia (who apparently is accepting all questions right now)
Ocho (who helped me soak up Philly like a sponge)
MMOGC (haven't heard from you in a while)
Scarybooster (this, I can't wait to read)
Harbinger Zero ( who always has an awesome perspective)
[EDIT] Oh! I meant to include Ravanel Griffon!

My questions for you:

Why did you start blogging?
What is the origin of your blogging name?
What was your very first MMO character and why did you choose that race/class?
Did you stick with that character as your main as long as you were playing that game? Why or why not?
What is your favorite zone in any MMO?
What gaming innovation are you looking forward to or hoping for most in the next twenty years?
What is your favorite pastime besides video gaming or blogging?
What house would you be sorted into: Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, or Slytherin?
What is your favorite holiday?
What is your favorite vacation spot (or dream vacation)?
What brings you joy?

Thanks for reading, and thank you ahead of time to my nominees.

~~~

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Real Relationships in Virtual Space

Hey, everyone. I guess it's been a while; so much for my wanting to post more consistently. If you're wondering, a combination of too much work and not enough play left me without energy or inspiration, so I've failed to post anything since my anniversary post in January. I just realized that last month was the first calendar month since I started this blog that I did not post at least once. This is also the longest gap I've had between posts. If you're still around, thanks for hanging in there.

I got caught up on Battle Bards (though I just saw Syp has posted another), and realized I had missed Belghast's Bel Folks Stuff with Petter Mårtensson, of Csicon and other endeavors. Bel and Petter, discussed (among other things) "virtual" relationships, and how they can be just as real as what I would call "meatspace" relationships. This is the culmination of several threads and discussions I have had recently on this topic. My daughter and I were talking yesterday about Facebook, and how because of FB's stream algorithms, you might end up seeing a lot more from people you may not have been that close to in high school, and your best buds fall off the feed. I have actually met almost all of my "friends" on FB, but I feel closer to and interact on a daily basis with far more people on Twitter, most of whom I have never met in person at all, and then only because we had already cultivated a friendship online. In many ways, FB represents "somebody that I used to know," while Twitter (and G+) represents my current circle of friends.

Now, as I am sure is the case with you, there is some overlap between my virtual social sphere and my meatspace friendships. I have friends and co-workers that I have played MMOs with and that I occasionally hang out with if we are on trips. Of course, Scooter and I share our life together, both in person and online.

Xander from Beyond the Veil mentioned yesterday that he misses his buddy since I dropped out of the show. I worry about Scarybooster when he deploys to the Middle East. I wonder how MMOGC is doing with her family. These are real friends of mine. I know people who have fallen in love completely online, and their feeling is not diminished by its virtuality. In verifying that February was indeed the only month I had completely missed, I came across a couple errant comments covering the concept of the Monkeysphere, and my view that at a fundamental level, our brains don't comprehend the difference.

Petter and Belghast speculated about a future where we will be able to fully experience virtual reality, talking about direct stimulation of the brain's sensory regions. While I agree that this is a closer possibility than the holodecks of Star Trek: the Next Generation, I initially thought that holodecks would be better for us because of their relative physicality. But Petter and Bel pointed out that "jacking in" could free persons locked into the physical limitations of disabling injuries or illnesses, enabling them to interact once again with loved ones in virtual space.

And that sounds like a beautiful thing.

~~~

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Scooter and I, on "Bel Folks Stuff"

So a couple weeks ago, Scooter and I got together with Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut to chat about stuff. I had enjoyed his first show, featuring Syl, the MMO Gypsy, and I was thrilled when he asked me to participate in the second one. He put the finishing touches on our interview yesterday and hit the publish button. And here is the result.

We talk about various things, like our gaming history and (at the time) recent news in the MMO genre. Bel says he plans to record future episodes closer to his planned publication date, given the slight timey-wimey-ness of our conversation. Honestly though, I guess I am a bit out of touch, because he mentions things have been resolved that we were speculating on two weeks ago.

Anyway, rather than reading me blather on about the show, why don't you give the podcast itself a listen. We had a good time chatting, and I hope you get a kick out of it.

~~~

Thursday, October 23, 2014

The Tide Rolls In

Rift's Nightmare Tide expansion launched yesterday. And with our return to Telara only last week, Scooter and I were sort of primed to get right in and check it out. Since I wasn't really tracking the date of the expansion other than "some time this fall," when I discovered there was a patch to load, I initially assumed it was the Halloween event. Until I started reading the patch notes (which, honestly, I rarely do). Rift 3.0 brings lots of changes and new things. Stats have been simplified a bit, like Deflect being rolled into Block. The Warrior soul "Reaver" has received a complete overhaul, warranting its own section in the patch notes. And, of course, there are new zones, new instanced dungeons, raids, etc.

We are concentrating on new characters, and our highest level characters are not even through the Storm Legion content. So Scooter and I were not in a position to check out the Nightmare Tide zones. The plus side to sticking to lowbies was that we didn't encounter huge crowds fighting around us like Belghast did.

We did, however, get a chance to try out the brand new Minion system. I assumed at first that minions would be like some kind of combat companion like SWTOR or EQ2 have. However, it bears more resemblance to STO's Duty Officers mixed with Neverwinter's Professions, where you send your minions out on adventures to collect stuff for you. The interface is kinda cool, more like a card game than anything else. Scooter and I bought all the basic minions, who turn out to be creatures, rather than humanoids (Stofie is a shrimp, for instance). The adventures range from one minute to several hours, with corresponding costs and rewards. And many are amusing, though there seems to be little choice beyond the four on display at any given time. Unlocking adventure slots costs credits (in other words, RL money) and I accidentally bought one because of where the button is on the interface. Overall, Minions seem like a cute diversion, though an offline interface through the Rift mobile app would be really cool.

I totally stole this screen from Belghast, I was going to replace it, but my interface looks basically the same.

We were looking at crafting last night, as well, and I ended up going with Dream Weaver, among other things. DW is a "new" crafting profession (introduced in January, 2014) that is able to create Dimension (a.k.a. Housing) items and effects, including whole Dimensions. Seems like it may be quite a resource sink, especially given that the resources it uses are artifacts (a.k.a. Shinies). So I am torn between using Shinies to fill out my own collections or using them as the crafting materials for my Dream Weaving. DW-crafted items seem to go for quite a bit at the Auction House, but I noticed they were all buyout only, so the prices may be wishful thinking on the part of the crafter/sellers.

I ended up raiding the guild bank of House Stalwart of a bunch of Shinies, but I don't want to seem too greedy. On the other hand, prior to last night, it had been over a month since anyone had touched the guild bank, and House Stalwart's message of the day can be paraphrased as "Take the Shinies."

Having just plunked down a bunch of dough on patron status and other goodies, I was not prepared to purchase any of the Nightmare Tide special editions with their bonuses and boosts. We'll see next month whether we are still enjoying ourselves and want the goodies. I really like Rift, but I am cautious about making the investment only to leave in a few weeks like the last time we played.

And I kind of hate that, too. That indecision about making a commitment to my hobby.

~~~

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Life Goes On

So it's been a couple weeks. How've you been, Dear Reader? On this trip I just returned from, I was doing a lot of technical writing during the day, so when I would get back to the hotel in the evening, writing a post was the last thing I wanted to do. Days stretch into weeks, and suddenly it's been half a month since I've posted. Add to that the funk I (and several other folks in my circle) have been in since the untimely passing of our friend, River, and writing just hasn't been high on my priority list. I urge you to listen to Scary's last PastCast podcast which features River. If you don't have 17 minutes to spare, Scary has a recap.

Considering we never met, and I was never sure of his true position on certain topics, Mr. Cavelle apparently made a huge impact on me. In retrospect, I wonder how much he knew. A couple of his latest posts were . . . wistful. They demonstrated that he was rethinking some things about his life, his youth. I have things I regret about my youth: mistakes I made, the way I treated some people that didn't deserve it. People I will never be able to apologize to. Hell, I am still making such mistakes. I can only hope I get better.

However, life goes on for the rest of us, I suppose. Belghast is playing the Warlords of Draenor alpha (among other things) in Honor of River. I even have a Wildstar character I named for him. I'm still playing Wildstar with my beloved bride and loving it.

And Scary is embarking on a writing project with his 10-year-old son. A summer NaNoWriMo event seems in the offing, though I am not sure of the details or whether Scary's efforts are part of it. I for one am looking forward to reading his collaboration.

~~~

Rants tag

Pages

Sunday, February 7, 2016

PAX Riparia

Thursday, February 4, 2016

PAX Populi

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

PAX Belana

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Blaugust the Second: Blaugust as a Writing Exercise

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Blaugust the First: Rise of the Blaugustians

Friday, June 19, 2015

The Bel Effect

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

It's an Honor Just to Be Nominated

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Real Relationships in Virtual Space

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Scooter and I, on "Bel Folks Stuff"

Thursday, October 23, 2014

The Tide Rolls In

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Life Goes On

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