Gaming “Chores” and Moving Preparations

On the gaming front:

In WoW, I’ve been <afk> since before Nobelgarden till last night. I was sitting at 40% on the trading post bar and decided to bang it out on my Moo Shaman. Yes, his xmog is mostly the same mog since BfA (the Heritage quest changed the helm from Headdress of the First Shaman to the heritage helm and the hidden back to the heritage totem):  Ancestral Chieftain’s Headdress, Pauldrons of the Chosen Dead, Ancestral Chieftain’s Totem, hidden chest/shirt/tabard, Earthfury Bracers, Gor’s Re-Inforced Gloves, Firearrow Belt, Orgrimmar Leggings, Earthfury Boots, Fury of the Stonemother (enhancement artifact magma-mace appearance), The Highkeeper’s Ward (elemental artifact flame-shield appearance). Unless there’s a tier set that makes me all squirrelly, I don’t see his appearance changing that much in the future. I finished filling the bar in a couple hours and got him a level and a half out of it.

I still haven’t done the Forbidden Reach content. I was toying with heading over there on my main and at least getting the glyphs, but didn’t feel like putting forth the meh-ffort to do it. I’ll get there at some point. /shrug.

In FFXIV, I’m current with all of the MSQ, but all I do is retainer ventures/market-board and stable/train my chocobo (and train any chocobos in the apartment’s stable). Occasionally, I’ll go fishing and fill out some more fish in my fishing log.

I’ll probably be more focused on gaming once my living situation is stabilized. In the meantime, I’m glad there’s something that can get me logged in to both games and make me feel like I’m doing things. How meaningful the things are is completely irrelevant to me.

On the moving front:

I took the bike to the shop yesterday for tires, brakes, and a full inspection to make sure she’s good for the trip from Portland to Denver. Should be picking her up today with a clean bill of health.

Jo and I will be riding to Denver over Memorial Day weekend. It’s approximately 1300 miles. She wants to do it in 2 days so we can go to a festival on Memorial Day. That puts it at about 650 miles a day, which is doable for only 2 days. She’s used to LOOOOOOOOONG rides in a car, so the time isn’t the issue with her. It’s more the physical whooping you get on a bike that I’m worried about. I’ll be bodily blocking most of the beating up, but it’s still going to be very different than in a car. I’m hoping to put the bulk of the time in on Saturday so that we can have a leisurely ride home on Sunday and rest up for Monday.

It’s been about 2 decades since I’ve done an interstate trip with a passenger. She’s up for long bike rides, so I’m hoping it’s not another 2 decades before my next cross-state-lines trip with a passenger on the bike.

Upcoming Journey and Gaming Hiatus

Once again, I find myself in transition. Six years ago, I was preparing for my relocation from Florida to Oregon. This time, I’m heading in the opposite direction. However, I’m not heading back to that shithole swamp. I’m heading to where I should have stopped when I was heading west. I’m headed to Colorado, where my chosen family is.

The difference between this transition and my prior transitions, is I am able to play WoW and FF XIV during the transition period. I just find myself not wanting to. Our guild has had some issues recently (combination of real life and other external forces) that have made progression a problem. We’ve decided to halt our progression so people can handle life. I’ve logged in to both games recently (multiple times) and I find myself just sitting there with no drive or direction. I loved chasing KSM the last 2 seasons. I even helped others chase it too. This season, I’m 500 io away from it and I couldn’t care any less. Maybe I’ll feel more of an urge as season 2 is announced. We’ll see.

In the mean time, I’ll likely be posting more about the scoot ride that will be happening over Memorial Day Weekend. That will be my final transition to Colorado.

First week in to Dragonflight

… and I find myself completely distracted by IRL. In a good way.

I’m not doing a lot in the game currently. I log in and run heroics and mythic 0s to help gear folks, farm pixels for the grumpy old bastard and the playa, and then I log out.

I will say that I’m happy that being distracted isn’t a problem with my player progression. Considering how much time I spend (or more aptly, don’t spend) doing “chores,” I’m comfortably geared at an item level of 365. I’m sticking with my mostly naked purple transmog for a while. I’m using it as a tool of shame for my IRL self to get back to the gym. It’s working a little.

Dragonflight launch

Just a blurb, but wanted to post something about the launch.

Got a 3-ish hour late start into it, so not as far along as I hoped I would be. I know there were folks who had a problem getting on the boat/zeppelin to the point they created a portal too (which had some issues too), but that was sorted out by the time I logged in. So far, it’s playing nearly identical to how Beta went (except that this time, I’m actually reading the quest text and watching the cutscenes).

Being an iLvl 301 guardian druid is making the questing blitz by pretty quickly. Queued for the Ruby Life Pools and just completely disrespected the dungeon. Started slow to see what kind of damage the group was taking/doing and realized I was not in danger of dying. So pulled more and realized I could pull as much as I was comfortable mitigating and dpsing. Over-geared bear is stupidly broken for leveling. I highly recommend it. This is going to be a LOT of fun.

The (most likely) last KSM push for SL season 4

I think this was the last one for the season, unless someone expresses an interest in the next couple of days. Our druid friend in the prior post, Ohsata, got the last of her dungeons done last night. We’re so happy to have helped so many guildies and guild friends get into the dungeons they needed for their purple kool-aid mounts. Several folks that have been involved over the course of the season were logged in at the same time after she got it, so we figured a group picture was in order.

Really looking forward to the new season coming up. I think folks are enjoying the challenges of M+ and we might have a couple groups running them.

Changes. Ever Onward.

Minor detail from the prior post that a few might have caught in the image, but I’ve changed guilds. No drama, no malice, just a difference in desires and direction. I won’t be elaborating on that. I only say something, because folks have noted my guild previously from screenshots and were familiar with its origins and/or progress through the years. I still run content with folks who are still in or have previously been in otQ.

Not done yet. Still have work to do.

Due to people moving (both in real life and in-game), the KSM wave puttered out for a while there. Last night, we finished up Jakjak’s KSM journey and have made a decent dent in Ohsata’s io score too. We should have hers finished up next week, so be on the look out for another Grape Kool-Aid picture in a few days.

The title of this post is from Dr. Liet Kynes in the miniseries version of Dune. For some reason, his words in the desert have been running rampant through my head. Truth be told, I know the reason, but I’m playing dumb so that I can enjoy the endorphin boost of reconnecting the thought processes every time I “hear” him say it in my head. That’s a story for another time though.

It’s like Oprah… KSM FOR YOU, KSM FOR YOU, KSM FOR YOU, AND KSM FOR EVERYONE!!!!!

Got the next guildie their grape Kool-Aid mount last night and made a noticeable dent in another’s M+ score.

Jakjak there, without his purple drink mount, should be able to get his shortly after the next weekly reset. I’m having more fun getting folks through the io requirements than I am with old farms, so I’m gonna keep riding this wave. With an actual launch date of end of November for Dragonflight, I know we’re probably a month-ish from the end of the season. The window of opportunity is going to be closing soon, but we’re going to sneak as many through the window as we can in the meantime.

Another one achieved. I’m super happy

Our band of misfits got another KSM last night. Looking at a couple guildies that are doing M+ and are getting close, we’ve set our sights on yet another person who’s wanting to keep pushing. I should be posting yet another picture like this in the next couple of days.

We even did this last night while I was feverishly foggy-headed. Doesn’t it just give you the warm fuzzies knowing the person keeping your group alive is dealing with some sort of plague?

The little big things

As mentioned here, a couple of us in the guild have been trying to help a couple guildies on their journey to KSM. To be clear, this isn’t a carry situation. This is simply a couple of us making sure that folks are able to get into the keys they need when they’re available to run them, because life doesn’t always give them time when it’s most convenient for the rest of the world. Our little band of misfits in the guild keep odd hours across multiple time zones, so we tend to be around at the inconvenient times. When we group up, it’s usually 3 or 4 guildies and we typically look for a DPSer or two that has listed their key and is lonely in the group finder. We’ve met some really cool folks this way.

Getting back to the point though, after raid last night, one of my guildies asks me if I’d be able to heal a 15 Iron Docks. I told him I didn’t care what I heal, any dungeon would be fine. He replies with something along the lines of “I need a 15 Iron Docks and only a 15 Iron Docks.” It caught me off guard because he doesn’t “NEED” anything at a 15 because his vault is already filled with max M+ options, but whatever. He’s kind of an odd character, so I just ran with it. After the group forms, he sends me a message to look at Raider.io for this guildie and specifically look at fortified Iron Docks. There it was. I was pretty sure that mathematically it could happen this reset, but he went and found where the numbers were. We cruised through the dungeon at a decent clip and timed with with 4-ish minutes left on the clock. When the boss went down, there is was. Guild toast for KSM! The 3 of us hopped on our Grape Kool-Aid mounts for the obligatory group picture.

We’ll be adding the other guildie mentioned in that previous post to the picture sometime this coming week. I’m still hopeful that we’ll be able to get even more guildies their KSMs this season.