Let's talk Overwatch?

Listen, y'all.  It's The Art of Warlord's fault . . . straight up . . . that I play Overwatch. Make no mistake. I would have NEVER given this game a shot if it wasn't for Morgrim hounding me to play this game so much.

There was a Twitter spat and everything.

Then I finally caved and started playing on a free weekend last November, dubbing the game "Junkrat" instead of "Overwatch" because that's the only character I played for the first couple of weeks. Watching my first ever highlights reel video is hilarious now. It consists of me spamming at the enemy group, using riptires out in the open, and I think the final clip is even from a medium bot match.

Since then I've clocked 370 hours of game play and fallen in and out of love with various heroes, but what I've mostly found is that no one really wants to play the tank . . . so that seems to be where I fit best with Reinhardt.

That's 93 hours playing Rein -- not quite the 100 hour mark, but I'm getting there. When I still had my beard growing, I kinda even looked like a Reinhardt main.

Don't worry my friends, I am your shield.

I also switched my main DPS to Doomfist from Pharah because I play a lot with "Elik" from work who mains Pharah. I need to make a more up to date Doomfist highlight reel, but here I am in all my "punchy guy" glory:

I'm curious to find out how many of my followers play Overwatch. It's totally different from the usual game I write about here on TFN because traditionally I'm a super passive PvE playin' type of a guy. I mean, you "could" technically play Overwatch as a single player game, but that would be pretty boring ultimately. If only they made some kind of practice bot match somewhere in between Medium and Hard? (I mean, look at a game like Dota II and they've got their bot difficulty tuned pretty perfectly. I'd play bots on Dota II all day and still feel like I had a good challenge. It's probably intentional . . . I doubt they want you playing bots all day.)

As it is currently, I mostly queue for quickplay matches and mystery heroes either by myself or with the self-dubbed "Austin Potatoes" group. We're the potatoes because . . . that potato aim though!

Outside of this, I've recently had the pleasure of playing a bit of Overwatch with Miss Courtney Olivia. She plays an amazing Junkrat btw . . . So if you tune into her Twitch channel you may even catch me there from time to time? Maybe?

I've been kind of wanting to try another Team Fortress 2 / Overwatch knock off game called Paladins. If you have some experience with that game, please give me your thoughts in the comments.

Happy Dueling!

Weekend at Pedro's

Saturday morning I was out early mowing my front lawn when all of a sudden I saw a grey "thing" moving right in front of the mower. I'm glad I caught a glimpse of it because I was able to stop my mower in time to not run over a little, grey bird dude.

At first I just tried to shoo it away, but soon discovered this little guy couldn't fly, despite his efforts to get away from me. In fact, one of his wings looked in pretty bad shape.

I ran inside and asked Uber Wife to grab a box and come see this bird. At first she brought out a shoe box, and I'm like . . . ok, this will do for now.  We scooped him up into the shoe box and then transferred him over to a bigger box.

We own a parakeet, so I put some seed and water in the box and I snapped this picture and sent it out to my follower buds.

As you can see, the responses I got were fantastic, and I really didn't know what to do with this guy.  He was pretty chill though and I was kind of taking to him at this point, so I sent out a second picture and dubbed him "Pedro."

My followers were on point, as to be expected . . . Pedro was quickly identified as a birb . . . most likely a dove birb . . . and most likely a fledgeling mourning dove birb.

I put Pedro in a safe, warm place underneath the trampoline at our house at this point because Jeff Toney was headed over to play another session of Althea and company's ongoing D&D Game. You might have read a bit about our adventures on my sub-blog about it (which is now sadly out of date). It was a great session on Saturday where our characters finished up a quest chain in the Feywild and took a portal back to the Neverwinter Woods. It involved hunting a pre-cooked pig and partaking in some "intrigue" at a party in honor of Princess Buttercup of the Summer Court . . . but that's a story for another time . . .

We leveled up to 6!

After the game I did some quick research on the Internet and found out that you could feed Fledgeling Mourning Dove's the same stuff you use to hand-feed more domesticated birds, so I ran down to the local Petco and picked up a packet of this stuff for $10 and tweeted it out because Pedro had become the weekend project. I was now fully embroiled in the story plot for A Weekend at Pedro's. 

Feeding Pedro wasn't easy. I took that yellow mush and sucked it up into a syringe and then would drizzle it down to his beak. At first he wasn't interested at all, and then suddenly I saw a little light go off in his birdy head, "Wait a second . . .  you want to help me?" I'd squirt a drop of food on his beak and then he'd nibble it a bit. After he got a taste of it, he started really working that beak, sliding it back and forth along the edge of the syringe like he was trying to figure out how to really feed from this thing.  So I kept that up, drizzling a bit on his beak and letting him nibble a bit, drizzling a bit on his beak, nibble, etc.  It was a messy operation, but got the job done.

After his first feeding he let loose with a really cute and soft satisfied chirp. OMG PEDRO IS ADORABLE!  You gotta play this two-second clip I tweeted out. 

By this time it was night time, so I tucked his box away in my stuffy, yet perfectly safe, garage. And muddled over what to do with Pedro. 

When I woke up on Sunday, he was still doing good, so I fed him his mush again, and Uber Wife (being "uber" as she is) committed to taking Pedro down to the Austin Wild Life Rescue, per Leala's excellent suggestion on my Twitter Feed. Uber Wife sent me pictures of the whole drop-off and even staged a great pic for me of his box near the drop-off sign.

No, we didn't actually just drop him off at the foot of the sign . . . Uber Wife took him inside the building, filled out a form, left the baby formula as a donation, and Pedro was finally being cared for by some professionals. As cute as Pedro was, it ultimately was better that he was left with the center. They were going to x-ray his wing, see what could be done, and do a better job at feeding him.

I just want to give a big thanks to my Twitter followers for their excellent suggestions and for joining us for a Weekend at Pedro's. I'm glad I can count on my Internet buddies to help with my wildlife mishaps.Thanks for the hand!

Happy Dueling!

Revisiting Neverwinter 2018

Several weeks ago, I saw one of my new friends from Overwatch (Oh Hai Eboni! Everyone visit her Twitch channel, she's awesome) playing Neverwinter. I hadn't thought about Neverwinter in forever! In fact, the last time I talked about Neverwinter was back in 2016. And before that, the last time I actually played Neverwinter was back in 2014.

It was that dang Foundry system . . . it pulled me back in! I reinstalled just to see if it was still a thing and if I could play my Dragonspyre tribute dungeon again. What I found out from the Neverwinter Forums was that no, the foundry system wasn't in, but yes, it would make a return in the future! I guess this is a thing. After every major update to Neverwinter, there's a huge lag time (we're talking months) and then the Foundry system quests get published again, and then a few days later after that, the entire Foundry system once again is available.

Anyway, when I came back to Neverwinter, the Foundry system was offline thanks to the new Ravenloft expansion to the game, so I decided . . . what the heck . . . let's give this game another shot.  My character, Dr. Philgood, was level 30-something and all I needed to do was get my character to the new cap of level 70.

This free purple Owlbear mount offer from Twitch Prime was a nice encouragement as well.

My leveling up experience was . . . interesting. What I discovered was that all the leveling up areas kind of played in the exact same way. You go to a hub, you solve all the problems in that hub, culminating in a solo instance adventure, which then leads you to another hub, where you solve those problems and go deeper in the zone . . . wash, rinse, and repeat that three times and you're ready to move on to the next area of the game. Wash, rinse, and repeat that exact same thing in the next area -- only this time with different monster types. (Now that I think about it, that describes most MMOs, doesn't it?)

But in how many MMOs can you kill a beholder in . . . 2 . . . maybe 3? Still cool.

It was a little boring grinding out to max, but that's actually when it became a bit better. What I discovered was that Neverwinter has a gear rating system similar to DC Universe Online, which is a game I've played MORE than my fair share of. To level your character, you undergo "campaigns."  Campaigns lead to permanent character boosts, which equate to higher gear rating.

Oh good . . . you're still reading this blog post . . . I thought for a second all that talk of leveling and gear rating would have scared you away by now.

Long story short, the game gets a lot more fun post-70 when you're doing campaigns rather than grinding out the leveling areas.

Yes, I run from T-rex's . . . standing very still didn't work.

Just last week the Foundry system was put back into the game and I discovered that I had unpublished my "Dragonspyre" adventure in the hopes of fixing it since it was a bit buggy.  I went ahead and republished it with the bugs still in it, and after a day or two it showed up as an available quest! It was exactly as I remembered it only a lot easier since my character is a lot more powerful now.

Now for the good news for returning players in Neverwinter who want to experience Ravenloft but have bad gear ratings . . . what I also discovered was that any character that can make it through a relatively easy intro-quest to get into Ravenloft, also gets a free set of gear that boosts your character's gear rating up to a nice new minimum.  You can't beat free gear. It won't be quite enough to really demolish things in Ravenloft, but you can survive a few quests.

Barovia is a nice place once you get past the gloomy forest and deranged cultists.

And that is, in a nutshell, where I sit currently with Neverwinter.  I think my current plan is to keep logging in daily while I still have VIP membership and grind out some of these older campaigns to get my character a few more boosts.  When I reach a certain gear level, I'll be able to survive a bit better in Chult and Ravenloft, which are kind of the end campaigns in the game currently.

I'll let you know how it goes, and if I'm feeling brave enough for the challenge, I might take my hand-written D&D 5e dungeon and try to recreate it in the Foundry system . . . we'll see.

Happy Dueling!

Medulla Conquered at Long Last: Thanks Cat Club!

You know what's amazing?  People . . . uh, gamer people . . . uh, famous gamer people like THEE Blaze Lifehammer and THEE Tara Dawnbreaker and THEE Marcus River.

Just look at this team. We're gonna do great!

That's right! That's us standing tall in Sepidious after a successful run at Medulla that was streamed last night on Tara's Twitch Channel. Tara was kind enough to also put up a YouTube highlight of the run as well:

I couldn't be happier with how smoothly this thing ran. These guys have this down so good it was absolutely the best time I've had in Wizard101 in a long time. Big ups to the Big Names in Wizard101! They've totally earned their reputations. Quality peeps.

As part of the benefit of working here, KingsIsle employees get a stipend of Crowns to spend each month, so I took advantage of that and blew all my KI Employee Crowns on the second chance chest at the end and ended up with a full set of Cabalist gear . . . banner and all. :)

Oooo! glowing green eye of doom!

Looks pretty cool, but I think I'm going to need to stitch that to my traditional Friendly Necromancer outfit because, yo, that's my jam.  The Friendly Necromancer needs to *look* like the Friendly Necromancer . . . um, I'll just need to wait until I get my Crowns stipend again. *whistles*

Something I don't need to stitch is this adorable Tara Dawnbreaker MERCH!

Adorable! amirite?

I do need to wash it though. ;) (pulled that out of the laundry bin for the pic -- still need to get out that new shirt vinegar smell)

Happy Dueling!

Animal Cove has arrived: Friend me!

It's here! It's finally here!

We've been working on this game for a long time, and I've had my hand in its development for quite some time. This is the first game I've ever had my name mentioned in the credits three times: once for Marketing, once for Writing, and once for Design. So what does that mean? Here's a quick laundry list for my involvement to date:

• Initial Social Media setup and posts during early beta
• Early responses to initial app store reviews and our beta forums
• Sending pre-release gifts to players through the in-game inbox
• News announcements on KI Live from Soft Launch until now
• Working with the "early" Writing team up through the Park Entrance
• Working with the "late" Design team creating Animal Cove levels (my first starts on level 151 and then they're scattered throughout the rest of the game)

Because of Animal Cove, I now have my current job, and I'm getting a chance to get my feet wet with Unity! Woohoo! I couldn't be happier that it's out now on the app stores, and best yet . . . It's been FEATURED in both the iOS and Android app stores. That's never happened for a KingsIsle mobile game before!  I couldn't be happier. Someone reported to me yesterday that we had hit the Number One Trending spot for casual games. YES!

The first thing you need to know, is where to download it. It's a mobile game, so download from here:
-iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/animal-cove-match-3-adventure/id1217914031?mt=8
-Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.KingsIsle.RES&hl=en_US

The second thing you need to know is how to make friends.  You can find out how to do this on this Facebook post, and here's the graphic that details how to do it.

Third, Add me as a friend!  I'm "DeathUnicorn" in game . . . 'cause you know . . . death unicorns win . . . duh . . .

Fourth, Vanessa Mythdust has already been writing up some stellar break downs of the story. If you're the kind that likes to read ahead, follow this link for some great reads.

The fifth thing you need to know is that we are currently making more levels, when you hit level 300, don't worry . . . more are on the way.  After you finish, just log in daily and keep collecting your powerups so that when those new levels are released, you'll be ready to go.

~~

Let me know if you have any questions about the game!  I'll be happy to answer what I can (leave your questions in the comments).

Happy Dueling!

Hello, old friend!

I haven't posted on the Friendly Necromancer for quite some time, so I thought "Why not just say hello and see who's out there and willing to read along if I blog a little?" Let's chat!

The big news for me of course is that I have a new job at KingsIsle! I announced my departure from being a Community Manager on the forums and on KI Live. Now I'm taking a new direction in my professional life, and it's one that probably seems a bit unexpected from those who mostly see me as a "communicator." It's probably more expected from those who see me as a creative person. If you don't know me, I love to be creative, whether it's making music, or writing blogs, or crafting poetry, or what-have-you, I love to create THINGS.

No need for me to reflect too much, but some of my best times at KingsIsle were when I was a brand new community manager for Pirate101. I loved that position and what I was able to do with a new community. As all things do, that position changed and grew to where I was not only doing work on the Pirate101 community, but many other things as well. (NOTE: Ask me in six years how my Designer job has evolved from now.)

Being a Community Manager is pretty intense, and I don't think those who haven't been a CM can really know what it's like. Even describing it to someone, it always sounds a bit strange. Ultimately, you're a gatekeeper, a town crier, an advocate, a marketer, and a "fun committee" (and more!) combined into one person. Every day brings a new challenge.

It's super cool my company has allowed me to shift into a new role so I can grow and learn: and that I am! This is all good stuff.

~~

Some other cool things have been happening too! Like this amazing picture that Dearly Doodles made for me:

IT'S A ME! FRIENDLYO!

And, as to be expected, I've been playing a lot of games (outside of the ones I play all day for work) like Neverwinter . . .

Currently lost somewhere in the Jungles of Chult.

. . . and Overwatch.

I'm a #dumbfist wanna be (but mostly play Reinhardt) main

I've got a tentative date of "sometime this week" to also finish up the Medulla fight in Wizard101 with Blaze and Tara, so who knows . . . I may even have some more Wizard101 gameplay to share in the future!

Anyway, I just wanted to get this first, uncomfortable, and long overdue post out of the way. Hopefully I can post a bit more again soon, and maybe even try my hand at Twitch streaming again. (I don't know if you happened to catch my marathon run of the game Overgrowth, but it's three and a half hours of bad voice over and animal on animal violence. GOOD TIMES! I want to do that kind of stuff again!)

Let me know what you'd like to hear more about here on The Friendly Necromancer. It's been a long, strange road . . . hasn't it? So what's been going on with you? (That's a request for comments, yo.) 

Happy Dueling!

Stingite . . . and the State of His Gaming Part 4 -- The Kitchen Sink

So this post really serves as nothing more than a summary of everything that wasn't captured in posts 1, 2, or 3.

Lesseee . . . what's left.

1- Wizard101 -- well well well, if it isn't the game that started it all here on The Friendly Necromancer. I'm going to be honest. Lately all I've been doing is logging on to do my various jobs in game and do a little Monstrology . . . although I really would like to keep my Wizard City to Polaris adventures going with Morgrim.

we left on Episode 26 . . . that was back in January . . . WOW!



I never got a lot of feedback about that series, but there were a few kind comments here or there from people who enjoyed the series. Thanks to you all!

This week looks to be the week we launch our Test Realm to the Live Realm, so . . . hold on to your PvP gear and let's DO THIS THING!

2- Pirate101 -- well well well, if it isn't the game that got me into the biz. I've been enjoying reminiscing back in Cool Ranch lately. My apologies to those of you who don't really enjoy the Cool Ranch part of Pirate101, but it's one of my favorites these days.

If I could again find the time (it's in short supply these days), I wouldn't mind heading back to Twitch to play through more of Pirate101 with Virtuous Vanessa.

I loved having Pet Battles with her:

Watch live video from Stingite on www.twitch.tv

3- Ark, Survival Evolved -- Uber Wife downloaded this and started playing it the other day, so I gave it a go for about 30 minutes.  Not a bad game at all!  At some point I'd like to explore that a bit more, but honestly . . . I kind of like the 16-bit Minecraft survival game a bit more . . . call me crazy.

4- The Switch!  We have one!  What the heck am I doing not playing that thing 24-7?  AGAIN, not enough hours in the day.  I would like to go back and give Zelda a more dedicated play through. I watched my kids beat the game, and they had a blast with it.  It's dad's turn now.

5- Rocket League!  Ok, so . . . I got really bummed out about Rocket League the other day. The reason why?  I can't explain it, but my aim is terribly off in that game lately.  To make matters worse, I'm ranked a Veteran now, so I'm getting matched with really good people and if my aim is off, I look like a complete doofus.  If I could rank reset for free, I would, but that wouldn't be very fair to the rookies . . . it's just . . . what is up with my aim???

Anyway . . . this video of Morgrim and myself playing Rocket League is hilarious.



6- Elder Scrolls Online -- I was actually set to play this game with my friend, Andrew before I got sucked back in to Everquest.  WHY EVERQUEST, WHY?!  We managed to sync up our play times a couple times, but group play was a stuggle for us at best.  Sorry, Andrew.  I may come back to this if . . . I find the time. (this is definitely a reoccuring theme this post, isn't it?)

7- DC Universe Online -- NO!  Just no.  I refuse to open that game again. I've spent far too much of my gaming life playing this game. (just between us though, it's still loaded on my PC, and I do get tempted to log on just to say hello to my friends -- even if my stomach instantly turns the moment I log on.)

8- Magicka -- I was convinced to give this one a go by Morgrim, so I bought it for $2 and played the first few chapters.  Pretty fun actually!  I can see how this would be a good time in multiplayer. I'd like to play it again . . . um . . . if I find the time. (It feels silly typing it again.)

9- Dubwars -- what?  It's loaded on my PC but I haven't played it for like forever.

10- Guild Wars 2 -- what? Oh yeah . . . I kind of killed myself playing that game last year, and now I can't bring myself to log on.  Sorry.

11- classic gaming -- You know what I want to do if I ever find the time?  I'd like to have a party where I line up a couple tables, bring out my old gaming systems and invite my buddies to come play classic games with me!  Put that one on my bucket list.

. . . and that's about all I have the time or inclination to write about this morning.  whew . . . that was a nice 20 minute brain dump.

Thanks for reading and Happy Dueling!