Hey all! So here we are near the end of Blaugust, and I have to say it's been interesting to put blogging as a high priority again. This was very easy to do since it's summer, and I was able to take a couple hours in the morning and devote it to simply playing video games and thinking about them in the form of blog posts.
NO MORE!
The problem here is that . . . school starts for my kids today. So, I have to be dad again in the mornings. Sigh, it's over. I MISS YOU ALREADY, SUMMER!!
One might say, well then just wake up an extra hour early, Friendly!! Yeah, I already wake up at five in the morning. I'm not waking up at four. I love you guys, but I don't know if I love you that much.
Those memorable locations posts I've been doing take a lot out of me. I've been burning a bit of the midnight oil to get all the pictures in all of the games. So, I still have a few more games that I want to do "memorable locations" for, but I'm going to have to put them off until the weekends. Stay tuned beyond Blaugust and you'll see "memorable locations" posts for the following:
Pirate101
Guild Wars 1
Guild Wars 2
LOTRO
Super Mario 64
AND MORE!
I'll get them out there eventually, but not today. (I'm hoping Saturday mornings will give me a bit more time?)
Next, over the course of this month I've changed a few things here. My look is super cartoony thanks to my daughter making an awesome new header for me, and I don't mind that. I think for the most part I'm part humorist and part serious gamer, and I want my blog to keep that lighthearted yet serious feel. COME! READ THE FRIENDLY NECROMANCER! I'm a guilty pleasure, admit it . . . I'll give you some news, but you're gonna get a little Ziggy and a little Fox Trot while you're here.
(Thanks daughter for at least trying to doodle me a comic five minutes before leaving for school)
Also, I'm doing an experiment, and I added a contact form over on the right hand side to see what happens. If you have a tip, or a question, or a thought you'd like to share, type it in there and shoot it over to me. If it becomes too spammy, I'll remove the contact form, but in the meantime . . . USE THAT BOX! It may spawn blog posts with your question or thoughts.
Finally, I'm going to trim a bit more of the fat on my blogroll. Those who haven't posted in a few months are going to get cut in anticipation of adding new friends and new blogs . . . active blogs!
TFN is still changing, so thank you for staying with me. We'll reevaluate after Blaugust and see how things are looking for the future.
Wizard101 . . . you're up!! Obviously this is a game that is near and dear to my heart. I've logged thousands of hours between being in the game and penning thoughts about the game (and even more if you start counting my time behind the scenes at KingsIsle). I have to admit -- some of the first ten zones that came to my mind surprised me, but here they are . . . in the order they came to my mind.
(As long as I was taking screenshots, I thought I'd give you a few angles on them that you might have not seen before. :))
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Unicorn Way.
Actually, this is not surprising at all. HAHA! For many people this street and Triton Avenue *are* Wizard101, but when I think of Unicorn Way, I think of the excitement of starting up a new character. There's the thought of "ok, here we go!" -- before you know it, you're earning your first healing spell, downing Lady Blackhope, and hanging out with Dorothy and friends.
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The Atheneum.
I used to spend a lot of time here collecting Stone for crafting. Then the quest for Loremaster spells rubber banded me here again. And now the fishing quests have rubber banded me back AGAIN. For being (largely) a non-combat zone, I sure do find myself spending a lot of time here!
I like it though. It's compact, interesting, and a nice staging area for things to come. It's too bad the Dragonspyre Academy isn't used as interestingly as The Atheneum.
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Grand Chasm Past.
I really do think Dragonspyre is my favorite zone in Wizard101. I waited for it with excitement and when it dropped on us, it was amazing. There were specific gear drops where had you go to different bosses to farm them to get your "best of dragonsyre" gear set. Remember Ironhawk's guides? I just loved Dragonspyre in general -- I may not have liked the formulaic zone layout, but I dug it just the same.
Grand Chasm Past had you porting through a time machine to see how the world was before the destruction of the Dragon Titan. In fact, outside of the BOXES event, I think this is the only time that's done. Must be strong magic. I feel it!
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Big Ben.
Really it's just room after room of mobs, but I used to hit this place all the time with Kevin Battleblood. We liked all the free rank 5 snacks. :) Besting this tower with Angus was an experience I'll never forget (in fact, I'm exhausted just thinking about it). Good times!
In general there's a lot to love in Marleybone. That extended stay under the stars is pretty awesome.
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The Great Beast of Starfall Sea.
This has my vote for the coolest dungeon in Wizard101. Again, when you boil it down, there's really not much to this zone. It's basically an interior and a battle circle on the beast's back.
Those that haven't made it to the second half of Khrysalis are in for a real treat. Make sure you read up on Duelist101's guide. I had an enormous amount of fun with this one.
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Cyclops Lane.
My mind and thoughts took me back to Wizard City next and the majesty of Cyclops Lane! I penned some fan fiction for Wizard101 that you can find on my blog here. I never finished it, but General Akillies was the center piece! Also the staging area for heading to Aquila and packed with some pretty decent fishing, it's a great zone, but watch out for those Minotaurs!
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Firecat Alley.
I think I actually liked the story behind Firecat Alley more than I liked the story behind Cyclops Lane. A Fire Elf Prince gone mad just sounds like a recipe for adventure. I also spent a lot of time in this zone collecting reagents. I had a little path I'd run to pick up as much Red Mandrake as possible. There's also plenty of bosses in this zone as well, which makes it fun for return visits.
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Baobab Crossroads.
Zafaria has some super beautiful locations, and the hub of the zone was no exception. The treehouse qualities were nice, and it felt a bit like a hidden (and difficult) oasis to arrive at.
Hub zones *should* be relaxing and beautiful . . . that's Baobab Crossroads.
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Celestia Base Camp.
Speaking of World Hubs . . . how about Celestia's main area?! I love that you can fish in this pond now. Ever since finishing up the fishing quests in Dragonspyre, it has me here just seeing what I can catch. I'm pretty sure we'll see some more fishing quests here if we're lucky.
Overall it's a nice, compact zone, that gets a lot done. A lot has been packed in here. Even better for me are the memories of being one of the first to see the zone before it was released. I was a fan back then, not an employee and my reactions are priceless.
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Marleybone's Balloon Car ride from Digmoore Station.
And there they are . . . the first ten zones that came to my mind when I thought about Wizard101. To be honest, I think I'm more intimidated to post these than any of the other posts because it means so much to me, and my choices felt so . . . flippant? random? I guess when it's a game as close to your heart, it would feel more fitting to do a TOP ten instead of a FIRST ten, but a lot of these would still probably line up. Strange that Azteca, Avalon, Krokotopia, Mooshu, nor any of Paige Moonshade's dorm rooms didn't end up on the list. ;)
I love this game and the greater community around it. It's been such an important part of my life the past seven years -- hard to believe we're going to celebrate that game anniversary soon!
So for a long time on this blog I only referred to World of Warcraft as "The Game Which Shall Not Be Named." This game will easily eat all of your spare time up with about a billion fun things to do, and you will raid, and you will PvP, and you will buy mounts, and you will have a super fun time ignoring everyone in the real world . . .
*shiver*
Just writing this article on it and dipping my toes in again almost made me resub. I ain't kidding. It's super alluring. As a dad of three who are all about to start school again . . . JUST SAY NO!
While you can play the first 20 levels of World of Warcraft free, any characters you previously had that were above level 20 will be locked and unplayable. This severely limited my ability to visit some of the zones I had jotted down from my memories of 2005-2006. But lucky me . . . I had THIS!
Well, at least that helped me get a few missing screenshots . . . and the Internet will provide the rest!
Onward, to my first ten memorable locations in WoW!
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- Zul'Gurub (ZG), or as I first jotted it down before the real research began: "Troll dungeon place"
Apparently also home to really funny looking hydras.
We had a raid alliance with several smaller guilds and this was one of our favorite places to hit for general "gearing up." I got a couple great pieces from this place including this wicked awesome shield.
LOOK AT THAT THING!
I SAID LOOK AT IT!!!!!
(Wait, what are you looking at? Oh yeah, that glowy green cleaver thing from ZG was pretty hot too . . .)
You know what I didn't get from this dungeon? (Like most people) The uber exclusive and super amazing raptor mount. Sure, if you were Horde and a Troll, this was no big deal, but if you were Alliance (like we were), this thing was pretty much the rarest mount in the game at the time.
And it dropped for us in a dungeon, and I rolled a 97 out of 100!!!!!
(and as you can see . . . another dude rolled a 99 . . . I don't want to say I'm still burnt about losing that roll, but I'm still burnt about losing that roll.)
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- Stormwind, the Human town of humanness and humanatude! NORMAL HUMANS!
I made a new version of my female human paladin, Reverencia, yesterday and flew in to Stormwind. I was happy to see that Stormwind's bank was still the popular nerdfest I remembered it was. Good times! Nerd fest! PARTY AT THE BANK!! There was even a guy selling gold for USD!
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- Blackrock Depths. So, there's nothing quite as cool as running down a length of chain, right?
That picture was graciously borrowed from a wonderful blog called Wolfe's Den. You should read his extremely well written blog post where he pines for the WoW of the past (and decries the broken promises) . . . and it's also where this great screenshot above comes from.
now . . . I honestly don't know if this is a headnod or not, but it sure reminds me of something I've seen before in another game . . .
*cough* O.O
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- The Barrens.
You know, I don't know what it was about this place . . . oh yeah I do . . . Barrens chat, as the WoWWiki so nicely puts it: "Barrens chat is like a stupidity centrifuge, distilling the unexpurgated banal thoughts of a thousand morons into a hardened impenetrable lump of smacktardery, spilling endlessly across the bottom of your screen."
I didn't see any of that yesterday when I logged in, but I did get to punch a zebra unicorn a few times!
Worth it.
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- Un'Goro Crater . . . or as I first wrote it down in my notes "Dinoworld."
This picture was also graciously borrowed from a blog entitled Shattered Beginnings. This particular post from 2010 was about the author's journey through Un'Goro Crater for the first time with a new character. It's a great read, and I'm very grateful for the picture above.
Personally, I always thought of this nugget of fun when entering Un"Goro Crater:
Yeah, I watched this show religiously as a kid. It was definitely one of my favorites, and this zone sparked that from my childhood every time I stepped foot in it. Especially since there's a safe zone here called Marshal's Refuge (yup, they went there). How could I ever forget it. In fact, if there was one zone in World of Warcraft that I would want to see again . . . as strange as it may seem, this is the one. Wanting to visit here almost got me to resub. (You're a father of three, you're a father of three, just say no, just say no. breathe.)
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- Stranglethorn Vale. Um, I did some reading up on this. So, it's probably pretty apparent I haven't stepped foot in WoW since a week after the launch of Burning Crusade, but after the cataclysm, apparently this place got split in two. The "fishing tournament" I so fondly remembered is now found in a location known as "Northern Stranglethorn." *shrug*
What I did have on my CD of screenshots, was a picture of my old Hunter, Stingite, flying through the Stranglethorn Vale.
It appears I most liked the "jungle'y" zones in WoW, but what really made me think of this zone was the fishing tournament that happened here every Sunday . . . or rather the frustration of always losing the fishing tournament that I remembered most.
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Scary water island place? So, I actually don't know where this place is and therefore I can't provide you with a screenshot for this memory location. What I do know is that Naga lived there in vanilla WoW. Looking at this gamepedia page, none of the vanilla WoW zones listed there seem to fit my memory . . . so, either I'm remembering this place wrong, it doesn't exist, or some other third thing amounting to, oh well I forgot the name of the place.
*shrug*
Sorry.
It was super cool and the naga were terrifying. The particular area in my mind had a path leading up a hill and view down on to some beautiful ruins surrounded by naga. It was bright and full of sunshine. If you think you know the place, leave me a comment and I'll get this section of the blog post in ship-shape ASAP.
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- Undercity -- home town of the Forsaken.
I had an undead priest that I used to play around with that I think I ended up getting to perhaps 30th level? Not sure . . . but what I do remember is this amazing underground den for the undead. It was probably my favorite city Horde-side.
And just like Stormwind . . . it was awesome to see the nerdfest happening around the bank. PARTY AT THE BANK! (although I do believe Orgrimmar would be more packed if I remember right)
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- The Stockade . . . or as I fondly first remembered it "stupid dungeon in Stormwind!"
My paladin couldn't solo much, but she could rain down holy terror in about five minutes upon this lower level dungeon, and I had a blast farming it for gold waaaaay back when . . . and leaving bodies strewn about in interesting patterns.
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- Pandaria. What?! Pandaria?! How would I remember that?!
Well, I'll tell you how . . . Leala, Beau, #JuliafromKI, and myself actually ran through the starter zone one day a number of months ago. I ain't kidding . . . we all rolled up pandas and played right to the point where you decide if you're going Horde or Alliance. We all went Horde . . . and then never played WoW together again. End of story.
I made a new panda to get the screenshot . . . I like his name. I may have to play him a bit more just because of that.
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And THOSE . . . (which I'm sure many players of WoW would be absolutely dumbfounded by my astoundingly dumb list) are the first zones that came to my mind when I reflected on my time spent in WoW. LOL!
I sincerely apologize to the WoW players out there. I do. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane regardless. It was pretty fun to take a look back through all my saved screenshots and to log in and play with my new characters. Thanks for the memories, Blizzard!
Happy dueling!
(grumble . . . 97 out of 100 and I still got beat . . . grumble . . . trolled by a troll mount . . . grumble.)
Everquest, Everquest, Everquest . . . where to even begin with Everquest? It was my first MMO. I remember walking past the Boxed version of the original game, thinking "YES!" . . . then looking at the monthly subscription rate and thinking, "NO!" (All these years later, and now it's free to play! Imagine that!)
I've dipped my toes back in the world before for the progression server, but it hasn't been my main game since many of the kids who read my blog were born. I was playing this on dialup. My extended family would get mad at me that my phone was always busy. Zoning from one area to the next took ten minutes!
Ben Conrad, who used to work at KingsIsle, left us for a time to work for Everquest (he's jumped to a different game company now), and he helped put together this (you can see him at the 32 second mark)
Instead of a first 10, Everquest deserves a first 50, but I don't have time for a first 50, so here it is . . . these are the first 10 zones that I thought about when I sat down all these years later, and just thought about them.
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- Befallen! More than just a hole in the wall . . .
I do believe Befallen is a perfect dungeon. Traps, keyed doors, necromancers, shadowknights, false floors . . . dead dwarves on hooks . . .
Befallen is legendary! I don't know many people who played Everquest and haven't stepped foot inside here. So popular it's even been translated to a pen and paper RPG, and even my buddy, Tipa, recreated this dungeon in Neverwinter!
Just look at those skeletal excavators digging new tunnels! (you'd think by now they'd have made a new wing)
I have a pretty great story myself about getting a temporary horse bridle through a quest here one night with an old friend (who I haven't talked to in years) . . . but that's another story for another time. (If you're reading this somehow years later, I miss you Makalani!!)
- Plane of Disease bone wall. And the entrance to the land of creepy giant hair follicles is done by jumping into a sewer pipe . . . ALRIGHT!
This used to be the spot where groups would sit and soak in the glorious experience all night long. Pulls were easy. Experience was decent. and the scenery was GORGEOUS.
Well . . . it was the plane of disease . . . rats, goos, giant centipedes, mosquitoes, decrepit pus filled magicians, and did I mention giant hair follicles?
There were a couple times I journeyed even deeper into the castle in the Plane of Disease where a raid group would take down the ever-so-good-looking, Grummus. Good times. I remember it fondly.
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- Crypt of Nadox
There's a big part of me that just loves to solo in these big social MMO games. I don't know what it is . . . maybe it's just that my schedule just usually doesn't line up with my friends' schedules. Anyway, this particular spot at the entrance of Nadox was where I had my Cleric parked for a long time.
Sometimes I'd just log her on and down these three fire elementals near the front and log back off. It was a 10 minute or so endeavor that could result in some good loot and decent experience. I don't think I could ever forget this spot.
It also was a stop off right before Hate's Fury. The coolest pirate ship around!
There was some pet-procc'ing weapon I wanted from here that I never got. There's a sense of "Grrrrr" when I think about this place and not getting that weapon.
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- Felwithe. Starting area of the majestic high-elves!
Felwithe has the honor of being the center-piece of the sole fan fiction I penned about Everquest. It's super cheesy . . . I'm not going to link you to it.
Anyway, I spent a lot of time here with my high-elf cleric as her starting town, and I spent a lot of time here with my beastlord farming the guards for money. Good times! Finding the false wall that allowed you to go up on to the walkway above the town is definitely a highlight for me!
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- Karnor's Castle Wall in the Dreadlands. SO MANY PEOPLE! JUST PACKED WITH COMPUTER NERDS!
Well it used to be at least.
Yup, it's not much to look at no matter which direction you're facing, but this used to be PACKED with groups believe it or not. The Dreadlands was a haven for exp groups, and if your puller somehow overwhelmed the group with too many mobs, the zone to Karnor's Castle was just right around the corner. TRAIN TO KC!
I loved these drachids btw . . . (they used to be a lot uglier btw -- this is the improved model)
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- Butcherblock Mountains -- the chessboard.
Butcherblock is a big zone mostly known to be the starting area for Dwarves, like this fine lady
Gotta love the beard on her.
Most of my cleric's young life was spent hanging out at the Chessboard! If you killed enough skeletal pawns, eventually higher-ranked boss skeletons would appear . . . even an UNDEAD KING!
I wish I could remember the name of the Dwarf I used to hang out here with . . . I liked that dude . . . come to think of it, I like most people that played dwarves.
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- Golra Island in Timorous Deep
If it sounds like an esoteric memory, it is. I highly doubt many EQ players made it out to this remote island in Everquest. Maybe a few tradeskiller people who were looking for chunks of ice to craft rootbeer floats, but not many others.
These Golras look hilarious when they're chasing you.
Stingite spent a lot of time hunting these down for fun. It was a super quiet spot for soloing . . . but let's be honest . . . dying out here and getting your corpse back would be a pain in the keester . . . and that's probably why it was so unpopular. I can't remember if that ever happened to me. If it did, I'm sure I was ranting about it for days.
I guess Golra island is kind of like the antarctic of Everquest . . . remote, vacant, and hard to convince a cleric to come res you there.
BONUS SCREENSHOT FROM TIMOROUS DEEP!!! PARROT PEOPLE!!!
. . . that's all.
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- Tenebrous Mountains, on the way to Katta Castellum.
So, there was a big +20 wisdom shield that I got for my Cleric back in the day--the Shield of Bane Warding, in fact. I had to spend a long time in this particular zone hunting down Vah Shir skeletons for the quest.
It's kind of a cool zone . . . up on Luclin, the moon of Everquest! Here's a view from in front of a vampire tower looking down on Norrath.
The nearby town of Katta Castellum was a pretty great place too. I used to take a rag tag group of friends there to hunt down Lcea Katta, who was a raid boss that held a piece you needed to get into another raid dungeon (A scary place called Vex Thal -- which strangely didn't make it on to my top ten)
Too many memories on Luclin.
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And finally (speaking of Luclin) . . . The Ssraeshza Temple in the Grey.
Ahh, the Grey. It's a very barren zone that is devoid of oxygen. You had to have some kind of water-breathing device attached to survive here for too long; although you could usually sprint and make it across to the Ssraeshaza Temple in the middle.
Once inside it was full of SNEEPLE! (Snake people reference for the Crystal Gem fans out there.)
This was mainly a raid zone, and I spent several nights here with my guild killing a metric ton of Sneeple. It was pretty much the last zone you needed to visit before you went to Vex Thal. Later on it became a fun soloing zone for Stingite. I had fun destroying the entire thing the other night.
Those sneeple didn't stand a chance!
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Whew . . . that was exhausting to write and take screenshots for, but I hope not too exhausting to read. If you know the zones, you'll relate and probably have tons of stories of your own. If you don't know the zones, you'll probably be reading mostly gibberish there. You know it's a good game if it sounds like mostly gibberish when people are talking about it. :)
Again, logging in and wandering around made me think of a ton of other zones that were amazing. It's pretty easy to see most of my memories center around the first few expansions of Everquest . . . Strange that I didn't think about any of the Omens of War, Depths of Darkhallow, Gates of Discord, or (insert the name of any of the past 20 expansions I missed).
I did have the thought that it would be very very strange to have this be your main game now and be in a raid guild . . . how weird would that be? I wonder what end content is like now?
