Warcraft Quick Review

Two thumbs up for Warcraft. They did a solid job with the story, and the best part of the special effects is that they were well-enough done that they mostly faded into the background and just... were. It didn't take too long to stop thinking, "Oh, look at those special effects!" and think, "Wow. Durotan is really worried..."

The actors did a great job, particularly Travis Fimmel as Anduin Lothar and Toby Kebbell as Durotan. Gul'dan was especially loathsome, exactly as he should be, and Daniel Wu did a great job of bringing that across. I'd be lying if I said I didn't really like Ben Schnetzer as a (young!) Khadgar, too.

Someone who's a Warcraft player will obviously get the most out of the film - for example, there's a scene with a young Varian, which was amazingly cool. There were lots of little things like that which will have significance if you already know Warcraft lore; but knowing them really isn't essential to understanding the story, which can stand on its own.

I'm looking forward to watching the director's cut.  I heard that they trimmed the movie about 40 minutes, and I'd have a feeling that the story will flow better if it's spaced out slightly more. Based on the plot points and the box office take, I'm going to bet that there's at least a second movie based on TBC in the future.

Oh, and there's a murloc, which everyone rode past and just ignored. That made me laugh out loud :-)

Killing Time...

... waiting to escape from Draenor.  What to do, what to do?

Make a million gold, of course.

Technically, that's my second million.  My first million went towards buying two years worth of game time and upgrading all my heirloom items to max level.

For those curious about methodology: six max-level alts, each will a full garrison (five with a full shipyard).  Each garrison includes an Inn (for treasure missions), a Salvage Yard (for extra loot from running garrison missions), a Trading Post (for turning garrison resources into crafting materials), and two profession buildings (typically the character's main profession, plus an enchanting building).

Oh, and the Menagerie, because pet upgrade stones.

The routine: Complete garrison and shipyard missions.  Send followers out on new garrison and shipyard missions.  Collect garrison resources.  Exchange resources for crafting materials.  Visit profession buildings to turn crafting materials into high-level materials or items plus sorcerous elements.  Visit Salvage Yard to see what my followers brought back from their garrison missions.  Vendor anything that had an auction price of less than 500 gold.  Exchange any excess Primal Spirits for Savage Blood.  Do the daily pet battle(s) and then put any leftover salvage items, crafted items, sorcerous elements, Temporal Crystals, and Savage Blood up on the auction house.

Overall, it takes about an hour a day, and each alt pulls in around 2000 gold a day (some more, some less), mostly from garrison and shipyard missions.

I've got a few more things to spend gold on; I'd like to bank another year of game time, for instance, and maybe buy some of the more expensive mounts and pets.  Honestly, though? At this point, I'm just doing it because I enjoy making the numbers go up.

Oh, and so I can blow it all on new neat stuff when Legion finally hits, of course!

"Now witness the firepower..."

...  of this fully armed and operational battlemage! [1]

Yeah, I am a grown man - married, with children, as the saying goes - and I spent this morning playing dress-up with my imaginary friends.

Meet Aetherna, my main character in WoW.  She's an arcane mage.  Has been since the very beginning mumble years ago, and aside from a (very brief) switch to fire once for a particularly nasty boss, arcane she's stayed.

Now, normally in WoW, mages are limited to cloth armor.  However... with the latest Warlords of Draenor expansion came the ability to buy cosmetic armor sets using captured Iron Horde scrap. These are armor pieces that you can use to make whatever you are currently wearing look like something else entirely.  As it turns out, one of those sets is a replica of the armor worn by guards in Stormwind, the human city in WoW.

So a few weeks worth of collecting various pieces of scrap, and now Aeth can finally look less like a soft, squishy Orcish chew toy and more like someone ready to wade into the middle of a fight!

I mean, she always did that anyways... but now she at least looks the part.

[1] Though, as Richard pointed out, "Battlemage?  That's not a profession.  It barely qualifies as a hobby."  So, yeah, ok.  Her hobby is battlemage.  Her profession is using arcane power ripped from the twisting nether to make people's heads explode, usually in return for inadequate footwear.