Rounding Things Up (WoW, SWTOR)

This week mostly playing SWTOR, dabbling in WoW and also fiddled around with Guardians of Ember which we picked up on Steam's Winter Sale. Dire grabbed some great deals, which I really wanted many things, I couldn't justify adding more to an already dusty backlog of games I need to play!


If you haven't found out by now, WoW is celebrating Diablo's 20th anniversary. There isn't a message or anything alerting players in the game, which I thought was kind of weird. My account had just died so I decided to use gold again, this month, to subscribe. Off I went in search of what to do!


......Then onto WoWhead after I couldn't find anything in game. Basically it consists of killing treasure goblins which spawn a portal to the Cow King. You can always find one at the end of a dungeon after the last boss. They aldo spawn out in the world randomly or in the Dalaran sewers, but none seemed to be showing. So, my son, a friend of mine, and myself, we set off to do a heroic and there he was at the end. We killed the goblin and entered the portal.

It ports you to a Duskwood setting, full of cows (Tauren) and the Cow King. There is a timer and after this it boots you. Enough time to kill the king and leave. I got the new toy which plays the Diablo song everyone loves. It is only usable in an inn, with a one hour cool down. Kind of a wet blanket on my excitement with those restrictions, still glad to get it. Then you can also make a second hearth using town portal scrolls. A neat event, but nothing really that great.

So, now I have another month to play around. I need to make some more gold if I want to do this again. At least there are plenty of ways to get gold in this expansion.

Minor Spoilers (SWTOR)
This week I hit the level 70 cap in SWTOR, as well as completing the story from the expansion. I thoroughly enjoyed it! BioWare spins some great tales. There were some points that exasperated me at times, but overall I really took my time and enjoyed the story.

Now at 70 there are other things to do. I do miss the story though, especially since I took my Jedi Consular through all of the end game story chapters that have been added over the last year. I think Dire was a bit exasperated with me wearing earbuds through the cut scenes, and doing a lot of shushing, but I am the type of person who cannot miss a word or I will hit escape and start it over. I look forward to the next story, this is something that really makes SWTOR memorable.

At the endgame there are different things to do, general mmo stuff. I can replay chapters, do instances, go out in the world and complete objectives, all of it seems pretty enjoyable. There is the new command system and you can pull up a window that offers different things to choose from. A lot of people on the forums do not like this new system, so far I am only rank three, but I am in no rush.

Some interesting things about this new part of the story do feel a bit heavier on your choices. You come to a few decisions that alter the story, choosing between Vette and Torian being saved later on. Hard choice, one I did not want to make. I ended up saving Torian, he really grew on me. Still I did not love having to pick between my companions. It was interesting though, at least I did get to pick. I wish Gault was one of the options, lol, but that would have been too easy of a choice!

There is also the choice to save Arcann the big baddie and former Prince/Emperor. I thought this was really great as an option to branch off the story. I am sure it alters it quite a bit if you kill him and Senya off. I couldn't do it. I like the way it changed the story for me to leave him alive and have him join you. Plus I am a collector of companions, gotta catch them all. His presence in the continuation of the story was a nice addition, he is very powerful through the story and I was glad to have him. He is now my companion who I use the most. I am working him to rank 50 he is currently 40 something. I like having a melee force user, it makes things easier on me (being melee as well). Many of mine have been ranged, just about all of my favorites, so this is a nice change of pace. I only wish we had a few more customizations for the various looks he has been shown in.

I really wish I could get Dire to play this with me. We did start playing Guardians of Ember, which was fun, but it isn't the same. The game is decent, it offers mounts and housing. There are plenty ways to spec and lots of options, as well as multi classing, I did enjoy playing this with him and need to pick back up on it. I'd like to write more about it in time, one of these days.


That's it today, sharing some of my shots from TOR, enjoy!