Pine ridges

Good morning all you people in internetland… that’s right the forced cheerfulness means I had another one of my bouts of insomnia.  Last night it was not so much that I had another panic attack, it was more one of my classic “can’t shut brain off” nights.  I wound up getting back out of bed and coming upstairs and building in Minecraft.  After about an hour that calmed me down enough to be able to actually sleep.  But of course this will put me a little over an hour under my normal sleep schedule… and I am feeling immensely groggy this morning.  Coffee… take me a way! Scavenger of Hunts Yesterday I essentially did what I stated I was going to do.  I knocked out my guild harvesting daily and then proceeded to start working my way through the old world summerfest scavenger hunts.  Overall they were pretty fun, a few of them were more tedious than others.  Several of them taught me things about the zones … [Read more...] about Spires of Bone

One of the coolest things that Rift has is hidden puzzles, cairns and static spawn treasure chests scattered throughout the world.  Your instinct is to gather up the list and go after them as soon as you can…  but since each of them gives you a physical reward…  there is a bit of a trick to it.  Essentially each puzzle or lootable in the world has a fixed level range… and in order to give you the best possible reward it is always a good idea to wait until exactly the maximum level. Since I have a large number of friends just starting the game, I figured I would take a few moments to compile a list of puzzles, cairns and lootables by level range.  This is in many ways a remix of the information found on KFGuides.com and I will be redirecting you there for the individual puzzle and cairn information.  They have done a ton of work organizing this information I am just presenting it in a checklist form, similar to my bonus level ranges post … [Read more...] about Rift Puzzles and Cairns by Level

With all the controversy swirling around lockboxes and other monetization strategies, I see an increasing number of people pining for the day when subscriptions were the standard business model for online games. I think it might be time for a reminder of how we ended up here. There’s a reason that free to play and buy to play are now the norm, and it’s not that developers are conducting an evil international conspiracy to make us lockbox addicts. It’s that subscriptions failed as a model, and they failed because people realized there are better options. For all the flaws of other business models — and oh boy, they do have them — none are quite so bad a deal for the player as a monthly subscription fee. I firmly believe it is the worst business model for an MMORPG. Let’s look at all the ways subs ill-serve players, and please note that for the purposes of this article, “subscription” refers only to games that require a regular fee in order … [Read more...] about Subscriptions Are Still the Worst Business Model

So with Legion, Blizzard decided to remove the Legendary Ring storyline from the game.  Since this storyline does a lot to set up the explanation behind the Legion expansion, as well as go into many of the motivations for staying around on Draenor after the destruction of the Dark Portal, I felt that it was deserving of a story summary so that people can have some level of reference if you want to know what went down in Warlords of Draenor. Chapter I: Call of the Archmage Upon reaching max level, you will find a familiar glowing friend wandering around your garrison.  This arcane construct brings word to you from Archmage Khadgar who requests your aid with a mission he has and asks that you come meet with him at his tower in Zangarra.  There he, along with trusty Watcher bodyguard Cordana Felsong, explain that to accomplish this mission he will need your help and to do so you will need a special tool that will help you along the way. A powerful piece of equipment … [Read more...] about World of Wacraft: Warlords of Draenor – Legendary Ring Story Summary

Last night, husband and I tagged along for a free guild run of Foul Cascade offered by a couple higher-level guildies Faraii and Rer. It is an instance located in the Scarlet Gorge zone, and as a Defiant, getting to the entrance is half the fun. It’s a beautiful “dungeon”, its circular map surrounded by tall ridges and open to the sky. Much thanks to Blue Kae for the following screen capture. 1. Queen Vallnara is the last boss of the instance. One of her abilities involve impregnating random people in the group which stuns for two seconds and places a hatchling inside of you. After five seconds, the spiny little bundle of joy bursts out of you and fights as an add. 2. Giving birth to an arachnoid baby is as painful and horrible as it sounds. The proof is in the falling health bars. 3. My being impregnated more than once did not help the situation…nor my reputation. Har har, laugh it up, guys in vent. 4. It takes a truly wicked and diabolical person to take … [Read more...] about Riftshot Of The Day: WTB Spider Contraceptives