Another legendary weekend! Ironically, I’m surprised I can say that given I technically skipped gaming on Friday. I can’t really explain it for the most part.
I logged into WoW with the intent of doing some questing but I just couldn’t decide on what I wanted to do at the time, and I ended up wasting the night watching YouTube videos, albeit some of them were game related.
There was of course at least a little regret when I called it around midnight, looking back over the wasted time, and wondering where I might have been able to get too on an alt, or my main.
As you can see by the wall of text below, the gaming was still an epic adventure on both fronts. Qvaid and I had an amazing week playing Outward Definitive Edition as per usual. The WoW adventures were a bit sporadic and not without some interruption, but still a grand time! I mentioned it below as well, but I’ve decided to adjust my gaming schedule to squeeze in another day for Qvaid and I. I find I spend far too many Thursdays gaming alone, and while I could certainly occupy that time in WoW running solo content, I’d rather spend it with Qvaid, roaming the lands of Aurai with her and enjoying our adventures together for another day of the week!
Days played: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Players: Qvaid, Hobbit
Comments: Monday evening, Qvaid and I were back in New Sirocco running through some Arenas again. We noted we were getting close to completing the upgrade for the Arena, and what should be our final building construction for what has effectively become our home for the time being at least. We decided to help with construction for a week to speed it right along!
The completion of the Arena upgrade yielded us the ability to purchase a rare passive ability from one of the trainers at the Arena. Thus far we haven’t committed to anything in particular, and I can’t say that we will just yet. All of these passives provide some sort of bonus or possible bonus to your preferred play style, albeit they come with some what of a hefty cost. There are negative effects to each passive in question. Qvaid and I haven’t decided just yet if it would be worth it to our over all ‘current’ play style, and already somewhat broken builds (first run, lots of mistakes! 🙂 ).
After the Arena was ready, we came across something we’d somehow missed. The side quests in our Journal… Yeah, I’m not sure how we didn’t see that before. We had a list of things we had in our list that we hadn’t completed. We were about to head out to work on some of those when we remembered the possibility of a quest or two for the New Sirocco mines!
We ran down to the New Sirocco Mines to be met by not one, but two new additions. There was a gargoyle statue near the entrance, and a horse statue inside the mines!? But… we needed materials to continue. The Gargoyle seemed to require a Petrified Organ, Chromium Shard, and Voltaic Vine. The Horse seemed to require a Petrified Organ, Amethyst Geode, and Voltaic Vine.
We dashed back to our stash chest to see if we had what we needed. As luck would have it, we had some of the materials, but lacked the Petrified Organs and Voltaic Vines. However, we did have samples we could turn in. We started turning them in one by one, as we thought we should be getting close to an expedition run from Evangeline. We managed to get all the Voltaic Vines we needed and one of the Petrified Organs! On a bright note, we did turn in enough for an expedition, so we asked Evangeline to send out a team to hunt us down another Petrified Organ.
We placed the extra samples and materials in our stash, and headed down towards the mine to see what these new statues might have in store for us! I asked Qvaid, which she would rather start with, and after a bit of thought, she decided we should start with the Gargoyle!
Qvaid and I stood before the new Gargoyle statue, all the requirement materials collected, and ready to turn in. We were anxious to see what would be requested of us! As a precaution, she placed down a totem, and I walked up to turn in the materials. *BOOM! LOAD SCREEN* The feeling of sheer dread sank into us as we were teleported to an alternate realm to face off against not 1, not 2, but 3 Gargoyles!
The first was just a bit tougher than the Gargoyles we faced off against in Caldrea. The second was even harder still. The 3rd and final Gargoyle was an absolute monster! He seemed to be extremely magic resistant, and had a rough melee combination he would cycle through when you were too close too him and/or you hit him. Qvaid got caught in it several times, and I had to run around frantically and try to revive her, timing how far away the final Gargoyle was from me! Qvaid and I both were combating the heat along with our foe! We were running out of every resource we had available in our ill prepared trial! We did manage to come out victorious, although even I was starting to question the outcome. Qvaid passed out from the heat as we were trying to gather our loot and escape back to New Sirocco! It was hilarious!
After the bout with the Gargoyles, Qvaid and I headed back in to New Sirocco, just a stones throw from the Mines. We knew we had one more statue waiting down there, and Evangeline should have the final Petrified Organ for us very soon. We spent some time gathering food, potions, and other various materials for our upcoming WAR against the Horse! After some time, we felt we were ready, and lo and behold Evangeline presented us with the final needed piece.
Qvaid and I took the Amethyst Geode, Voltaic Vines, and the final Petrified Organ we needed, and with high hopes we tromped to the elevator to ride down to the lower areas of New Sirocco ready to face the menace that lay beyond the statue of the horse! We stood before the scarlet colored statue, weapons at the ready, my lexicon in my off hand, and my spells circling me as I started the sequencing of runes and boons I needed to prepare. Qvaid started taking the desired potions, foods, varnish, and buffs she had at her disposal! We were ready for this WAR this time! Fully prepared to step into the portal and face off against whatever lie beyond!
I stepped forward and placed the materials into the statue… Qvaid and I literally looked at each other as a message just scrolled off the screen too fast for us to catch a complete look at it. We…were…not…ported to a battle!? What happened!? After a quick search online, I found that particular statue gave us a cosmetic pet. *Laughter ensued!* Well, laughter alongside of at least a touch of disappointment. We were so, so, SO ready for this WAR!? 🙂
From there Qvaid and I traveled back to Harmattan. We finished up a few side quests for some of the merchants there and learned a skill (mostly by accident) that neither of us will probably use. It was at this point that time had finally caught up to us, and we ended up having to call it a night in Harmattan. Ready to pick back up on another night and continue our adventures in Outward yet again!
On Tuesday evening, Qvaid and I traveled to Abrassar and then on to Levant. Given our situation with travel we had little supplies to combat the heat there, as I’ve moved to using my Gold-Lich gear, and she’s been rather fond of the Crimson gear she has. We did have some foods and potions, along with picking up some cactus fruits along the way.
After a bit of exploration and an Ornate Chest or two, we made it to Levant, and gathered a bit more supplies from merchants and our stash to get us around. We completed a quest with Pigeoneye, and was granted access to a chest in the Alley behind the Rogue trainer, and a new merchant named Tamara that sells rare items.
Tamara also gave us a side quest to rescue a Lost Trader she was expecting to arrive with supplies, but never did. She believes the trader will be lost in the desert some where, and we need to find said trader and give them a travel ration to insure they make it the remainder of the way to Levant.
Qvaid and I had rations on us, and we headed out. Now logically, I felt the trader should be somewhere between the exit to Levant and exit to Enmerkar Forest. I was wrong however, and it was the final place we checked, after giving up and checking the Outward Wiki inside the Walled Garden. We managed to save the Lost Trader, and headed back to Levant after a few side tracks.
We spoke with Tamara, and got a small reward for assisting her with her supply issues. Respectfully, I ‘thought’ aiding her with the supply run might change, increase, or at least alter her current inventory in some manner, but sadly, at least for us, it did not.
We ended the night by traveling over to Enmerkar Forest so we could hit a few places there, visit Berg, and prepare for the adventures ahead on Wednesday.
Wednesday evening, Qvaid and I left Berg with the intention of heading to The Colossal Hives. It was an area we’d never been too in our previous travels as we find Hive creatures to be a bit annoying earlier on. Our time in Outward has made us a bit braver and we decided it was finally time. Besides we had a Treasure Hunt quest to work on, and we are running out of things to do on our current play through.
We killed a few Hive creatures outside of the entrance too the Hive. We started with the Hive Trap, which ironically did catch us a bit off guard with combat starting as soon as we entered. You’d think, the name would have given us a bit of a heads up. Never the less, we did come out victorious, and moved from there to the Hive Entrance to adventure a bit more and see what might be next on the Treasure Hunt riddle!
In a bit of irony, we did appear to clear the dungeon, but we noted two areas where you drop down to the areas we were in. This led us to believe there was at least a part of the dungeons we had not been granted access too. We circled around the area numerous times, thinking maybe we missed a corridor or area that granted access too it. Going up to the top of the dungeon led us to an area with Corruption. Eventually we explored that area and encountered the great Hive Lord!
We defeated the Hive Lord, and Qvaid was granted the Worldedge Greataxe for our efforts! We noted an area to the side of the Corrupted area, which we had not been too. As it turns out that was the area we needed to go to grant us access to the other areas of the dungeon. We finished exploring and clearing (although I don’t recall anything else being there, as the bugs just dropped down and attacked us on the bottom floor), and moved from there back to Berg.
In Berg we dropped off or sold our loot, restocked our supplies as best we could, and Qvaid grabbed a few Corruption clearing potions. We headed out to the Cabal Wind Temple with plans to face off against the 4 or so Shell Horrors so we could use the chitin to make a surplus of Greater Life Potions. We were successful in that endeavor. Back to Berg for inventory management and supplies.
From there we headed to the Hallowed Marsh again on a trek to get to Monsoon to finish up some little side quests there, and because the ‘Treasure Hunt’ quest we were working on seemed to hint that the next area we would need was in the Swamp. We managed to get to Monsoon with little issue, and called it a night in our home there, ready to start the next set of adventures when the time comes!
Thursday evening, Qvaid and I finished a bit of prep and headed across Hallowed Marsh in search of the Treasure Hunt we’ve been working on lately. We finally found the Stekosaur’s Burrow to get the next hint for the treasure we’ve been tracking down. After defeating the Stekosaurs that were readily upon us as we entered, we found the note with the hint at the next piece of this puzzle.
Alas, we were going to have to head back to Abrassar for the final piece. It was a bit of somber moment, considering we had recently been in that area. Even still, Qvaid and I were more than ready and even anxious to see what might be waiting for us at the end of this small but exciting journey.
We thought we prepared well for the desert region, but as usual we were not quite there. Neither of us had gear to deal with the heat, albeit that was mostly our fault. We both have several sets of gear we like to use, and our favorite set isn’t really good at dealing with heat. In truth, my favorites set, Gold-Lich isn’t good at dealing with any weather. We managed to make it into Levant, and got Cool Potions for Qvaid, restocked on Weather Defense potions for the both of us, and bought some foods from the local merchants to deal with the rest.
The preparations were certainly a good help and we headed out to solve this Treasure Hunt and put it to rest once and for all. The hints from the last message we found said we should find what we need in the Old Docks in Abrassar. After a bit of a challenge to find the path we needed, we did manage to make it to the Docks. We found the lever needed to get to the Treasure! Qvaid did the honors of looting it. It was one of 5 ever rare and fabled Tsar Stones! This should make 3 of the total of 5 you can get per a single run. By this point, and considering the semi late start, it was close to time for us to call it a night. We scrambled back to Levant, and pretty much called it a night as soon as we got inside the gates of the Desert City.
Days played: Thursday, Saturday, Sunday
Players: Aces, Error, Kilen, Hobbit, DNC
Comments: On Thursday evening, I started out for a bit of World of Warcraft per the usual scheduling. At some point during the dig sites I was walking through on my Dracthyr Warrior, it dawned on me. I was mostly playing alone on Thursdays these days. Kilen’s work schedule has made it a difficult day to catch, especially with another early morning on Friday. Error’s work schedule pretty much rules Thursday evenings out for him. Iron hasn’t been on to game on a Thursday in a considerable amount of time, and doesn’t make Thursdays often. Falken hasn’t shown any interest in WoW (or pretty much any game, save for a bit of 7 Days to Die) at all. While I’ll happily admit, I’ve been fine playing WoW on Thursdays alone, the thought had occurred to me, I could just see if Qvaid wanted to hit some Outward again. She happily accepted, and I started the process of shutting down WoW and plugging in the Xbox Controller to prep for adventures with her. So, I’ve adjusted my schedule to that from here on out. While I love WoW, and plan to continue playing. I’ll happily play games with Qvaid from Monday – Thursday from here on out, and just save the NH Gaming days from Friday – Sunday. It should improve the possibility that I have someone to game with on those days, and allow an extra day to play games with Qvaid and ultimately, everyone wins.
On Friday evening, I did login to WoW, but no one was on, and for some reason, I just couldn’t settle on what to do at the time. I ended up just watching YouTube videos, and helping my wife (Qvaid) with some printing questions she had for some of her sublimation projects she was tinkering with. We did manage to get a process ironed out for that, which should improve the prints she’s doing. It’s a bit of a win on that front at least.
On Saturday, my son and I decided to queue up for a few pvp matches to break up the monotony of Time Walking Classic Dungeons we’ve been doing over the past few weekends.
As to be expected, the level of toxicity we encounter was certainly more than I can remember playing WoW back in the day. I find it so curious that people can be such utter trash when it comes to the concepts and experiences of PVP. I mean, maybe there is some magic process you can go through that I’m not aware of, but if you are starting fresh… you have to start somewhere? That would typically mean, you don’t know the maps, you don’t know the objectives, and obviously you don’t have the PVP gear yet…
Still you have at least a few people that groan and moan as if their very life depended on the outcome of said PVP match. It is almost as if their epeen might shrink an entire 4 sizes from just the fact that 1 or 2 people are not operating at a maximum efficiency.
I say all that to say, it is certainly not that Error and I were not taking the PVP seriously. We obviously want to be useful in the matches. We just were making a fresh start, or at least attempting.
We ended up moving from that too some follower dungeons to try and get Error a bit more gear and gear rating since his level had him a bit behind the curve in comparison to the rest of us.
Shortly after a few of those Kilen joined us, and we all worked through a bit of Time Walking Dungeons to grind out the gear, badges, and events associated with the 20th Anniversary of WoW.
Late evening, Aces, and some DNC (Guild Member and friend from some time ago) joined us for a bit more dungeon runs, some World Bosses, and other shenanigans before it was time for Kilen to call it, and shortly after Error and I did as well.
On Sunday, Error, Kilen, and myself were back at it again. We had a few interruptions over the course of the day, but ultimately it was a good bit of fun. Aces joined us for a short spurt of World Bosses, but never really made it on afterwards in a time frame for Error and I to join at least. Kilen called it a bit early in the evening after a spiel in 7 Days to Die for a bit, and I suspect Aces and our Guild Members had some runs a bit after we all called it.
I walked through more quests I found for the WoW 20th Anniversary, and managed to scrape up enough badges to get the Obsidian Worldbreaker flying mount, and the Corehound mount as well. I even managed to have some badges left over after it was all said and done. I ended up calling it after wrapping up a quest involving Rexxar. I mean there is quite a bit of travel involved in some of these quests, and I knew I’d need some sleep for work in the morning. I still had a blast walking through those quests, even if it was solo for some time.
