Go go go?

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After a very long wait Pokémon has finally released over here in most of Europe with the Netherlands getting added only yesterday. I had downloaded the US version on my iPhone with the help of a new US based Apple account, but with the wonkyness of the app in general and the huge security “bug” in the app on Apple phones I decided to uninstall and just wait for the official release here. Which didn’t actually take that long.
So yeah I’ve joined the Pokemon GO hype. Allthough I’m probably not as hardcore as some people I’ve already caught a neat bunch of Pokemon and am working on hatching eggs. I don’t necessarily go outside especially for this game, but I do take my phone with me if I have to go somewhere anyway and that way I’m slowly making some progress. It’s a neat little AR game and I’m mostly laughing at the Pokestops around my neighbourhood. Niantic really knows what to pick here and then and so far they have included a drawing on the wall of the school I live across and a specially painted school crossing on our nearby roads. With the lack of statues or actual symbols I guess this is the best they can do tho, otherwise people in the boring suburbs like me wouldn’t have a Pokestop anywhere!
As you can see from my screenshots I’ve chosen team Mystic (Articuno <3) and I’m only level 5 or so. And yes, I picked Bulbasaur as my starter Pokemon. Mostly a childhood nostalgia thing, when I was 8 and got Pokemon Blue I picked Bulbasaur as starter aswell. So I just went with it this time again. I’m slowly learning the ins and outs of the game and am keeping high CP Pokemon and transferring all the rest away. Basically I just keep catching everything I see, just for the candy fodder. I’ve not really come across anything rare yet, although for some reason a Ghastly popped up at my house this morning, so obviously I had to catch it.
So far I do still find the game incredibly buggy. I had a nice stroll of about 35 mins around the neighbourhood, going off into the park nearby. Unfortunately I didn’t notice that my phone was continuously trying to connect to the servers (spinny pokeball), so not only did nothing register for my eggs, absolutely no Pokemon popped up either. Oh well, atleast I walked a bit today!
I might even go out again in a few hours, since the weather is incredibly nice and it’s a shame to sit inside all day anyway.

Grinding dailies and racecourses
Next to the Pokemon Go hype I’ve been mostly engrossed in playing FFXIV and Mario Kart 7. I got the latter with a discount from the Nintendo e-shop thanks to “My Nintendo” and I’ve been having a blast playing the game. I finished 50cc and 100cc cups and am now throwing myself at the 150cc ones. I’ve been slowly unlocking all the wagons and accessories and with every 150cc cup I beat I also unlock a new character to play. I actually forgot how immensly I enjoy racing games and Mario Kart is no exception. I predict I’ll be done with the 150cc cups by the start of the weekend next week and after that it’s just perfecting them all to three stars, win all the cups in Mirror mode and grind out a retarded amount of coins if I want to 100% the game. Ohwell.

In the FF department I’ve been mostly busy with grinding items for my relic. I’m only 6 items off of upgrading as we speak and I hope to get two more by the end of the evening. If I have calculated everything right I should be done with my upgrade somewhere this week…
I can then finally start to focus on some other things like levelling my Monk and maybe some crafting classes.
I also hope to grind out the last two ranks of Brawler’s Guild I need on WoW before the patch hits on Wednesday. So far I’ve just been making silly mistakes on the bosses, causing me to ragequit here and then. I really do want that mount though, so I’ll have to suck up and just do it I guess.

 

A Good Vacation Start

Today kicked off my vacation and it couldn’t get off to a better start. I went to the gym first thing in the morning and have been feeling energetic all day. I played some WoW, some FFXIV and Pokémon X aswell as watch the last few episodes of Gotham I had left, which means I have finished the first season.
I haven’t felt this relaxed in a very long time and very motivated to game again. Funnily enough I decided to spend a lot of time on World of Warcraft yesterday evening and tonight. I have made some goals for WoW this month and I’m happy to report I achieved one of them today already! With a small stroke of luck I had gotten an Elixir of Rapid Experience and two Champion’s Honor’s from my missions. I sold all of those combined for about 20-25k gold and I broke the 100k gold barrier once again. I’ve been flooding the markets with a lot of other stuff I still have on my various toons (mostly crafting mats) and I’ve been raking in a lot of money. As of now I’m looking forward to getting another 800 gold just from selling Savage Bloods. It really proves that the economy on my server isn’t as dead as I thought it was. It’s certainly alive enough for me to make a nice bit of gold atleast!
100k gold! And selling more.For now I’ve mostly sent all the gold from my inactive alts to my Warrior, only really using my Priest and Paladin to generate even more revenue since they both have level 3 Garrisons and a lot of gold missions aswell as missions that give me more stuff to sell on the AH. All in all the gold flow is nice and I’m building up a nice little fortune before Legion launches.

Next to churning out gold I’ve also been doing some other things WoW related. I caught the rumour that Blizzard will be putting the Brawler’s guild on hiatus sometime before Legion launches so right now is the perfect time to start getting involved. As I’m typing up this post my Warrior is sitting on rank 5, which isn’t really that impressive. I aim to get to rank 8 in a considerable amount of time and also to complete the special brawls that I’ve unlocked by finding items throughout the game.  I really like the Brawler’s Guild so far because it makes you think about how you want to kill the bosses you’re faced with. Although some you can mostly get through with using brute force, others are a little bit more difficult and take more strategy to take down. As an added bonus when you reach rank 8 you can buy a nice Mushan Beast as mount for only 1.2k gold. Being the collector I am I obviously really want that mount so I will continue to grind on this as the month passes.

FFXIV and Pokémon X have gotten some love aswell with my MCH dinging 47 earlier today and I’ve reached the city for the second Pokémon Gym, so I should be able to cross two more goals off my list for June very soon. I’m unsure why but I’m really enjoying Pokémon X again over Blue and Alpha Sapphire. Maybe it’s because I’ve never actually finished the game so the story is fresh to me, maybe it’s because I like the setting and all the little quirks they put into the game. There are so many events and places outside of the regular “beat 8 Gyms and the Elite Four” story… You can really notice Nintendo and Game Freak wanted to show off this game as the first 3DS Pokémon game. I hope I can get to beating the second Gym and then continue on because I’ve never really gotten past it in my previous playthroughs so the game is mostly new to me anyway. It looks like I will though because I’m slightly hooked to my 3DS lately and it’s the only thing I’ve been playing outside of Blizzard games and FFXIV.

 

Gaming Goals: June

Today my vacation starts which means about 2.5 weeks of not having to even remotely think about work. I can finally turn my attention to a lot of games but also to cleaning the attic and other stuff in my room aswell as getting rid of a lot of stuff in the garden and shed. We have so much junk and it’s been annoying me since forever and now that my dad and his GF are on vacation for 5 weeks I really want to take the time to get things sorted.
I think one of the reasons I didn’t finish many things in May is because I just set goals that I wasn’t really believing in. Eventually I want to level everything in FFXIV yes, but trying to get so much stuff levelled up in a short time is just undoable. So for June I’m going to change things and focus on stuff I really WANT to complete, and not stuff I feel like I should complete.
So here is the list:

MMO Goals
Taking it a bit broader so going to share FFXIV and WoW under one category: MMO’s.

  • Level Machinist to 50 on FFXIV
  • Unlock all 3.3 content on FFXIV
  • Do the Golden Saucer event on both my Moogle and Cactuar character
  • Get 100k gold on WoW Alliance side (currently sitting on 83k)
  • Start working on the 300 toys achievement in WoW (currently sitting on 102)

Blizzard Games

  • Reach rank 20 in Hearthstone
  • Reach level 15 in Overwatch
  • Finish Chapter 4 of the Diablo Season
  • Play HotS and unlock another Hero (Lunara or Chromie)

Consoles and Handhelds

  • Defeat the second gym in Pokémon X
  • Defeat the 4th gym in Pokémon Blue
  • Play through chapter 8 and some side missions in Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright
  • Play through the House of Gales in Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds
  • Ratchet and Clank: PLAY IT!

This is about it. A lot less goals than in May even though I have a lot more time to play. I just really want to focus on the stuff that I enjoy right now and anything extra is a bonus. So yeah, let’s get started with June!

It’s Halloween!

It’s kind of funny how I get excited over an event that isn’t even celebrated officially here in the Netherlands. But seeing as all the games I’m currently playing have some sort of Halloween event going (except Destiny), I can’t help but feel a little envious when it comes to my US friends who actually get to celebrate this holiday for real.
It’s really interesting to see how every game has it’s own take on the holiday and celebrates it differently. (Warning, spoilers ahead!)

In FFXIV this year the developers have chosen to do a simple questline for All Saint’s Eve, as the holiday is called there, which rewards you with a nice glamour set, a pet and a mount. If you so choose there is also Halloween themed furniture to buy for your house or FC room. This time it’s paid with Gil whereas last year I remember having to farm currency from FATES to get things from the vendor.
Personally I enjoyed the little questline in FFXIV. It took me about 30 minutes to complete and I’m really happy with the rewards. And the fact that they actually offer a permanent kickass looking broom mount is something some other MMO’s can look at and learn from.

Speaking of other MMO’s. WoW still has it’s tried and true Hallow’s End with the Headless Horseman to defeat in the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard and a ridiculous amount of Trick and Treat bags spread out across the entirety of Azeroth. The core of the holiday event hasn’t changed much over the years, but they have been adding stuff like pets and toys and, this year, a costume for Pepe.
I have obtained all of the pets that this year’s event had to offer, but I have yet to see either of the toys drop for my Priest. I really hope I get lucky soon because it would be a huge disappointment I would miss out on stuff due to RNG.

Wildstar has it’s first real ingame event aswell this year: Shade’s Eve AND a hoverbord event that only lasts for 5 days. Unfortunately I have not arrived in Thayd yet with my Engineer or my Spellslinger, so I won’t be able to comment on those events just yet. But don’t worry! I will when I get there.

Lastly I managed to grab a special Heroes of the Storm portrait for watching the official stream with my Battle.net linked to my Twitch account. And they announced a special Halloween event ingame there aswell! So I’m seriously planning to get that.
Speaking of Heroes of the Storm, I am moving my project over to my main account. I don’t really play that much and I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of resources on my main account by not playing it. So I will continue to go for 100 games on Valla on there (I only need 31 more) and then I’ll pick out a new hero. Probably Jaina or Kharazim, but I’m not sure yet which of the two I prefer.