Hearthstone, hearthstoned, and hearthsteed

Tonight is one of those miserable nights that the back pain just won't let up. Can't sit, can't lay down, no position is comfy. Since I have to suffer anyway, I might as well game.

As some of you may know, Blizzard's card game Hearthstone just went 'live'. Apparently the beta is over and we can all finally enjoy the game. (Lol!) Part of the 'live event' (or maybe the whole of it) is players who log in and win three rounds of the game will receive a World of Warcraft mount and an achievement (Hearthstoned).

I will admit, I am crazy rusty in hearthstone, I haven't even touched it since the great beta wipe of '13, but after Ben's urging on tonight's recording, I figured what the hey.

Of course everyone and their grandmother is playing hearthstone right now for the pretty pony, which I did expect, but I didn't expect three wins to be such a challenge! My son had already cleared the intro 'story-line' (before he got his beta key) and so I was able to plunk right in.

It took me a bit over 90 minutes to get my pony, I found it was easier to play in ranked mode, rather then casual as I was much more likely to get players at my level, in spite of how intimidating 'ranked' sounds! You also can't game the system and get the Hearthsteed by playing against friends. Sorry! No win trading. I heard it was possible to get him with arena mode wins as well, but I don't like using my hard earned coins that way. (Yes, it costs to play in arena.)

I won with the Rogue, Shaman, and then Mage decks respectively, all at a crazy low level and the wins were not easy. But in the end I felt it was more rewarding to win my pony that way.

What? Am I supposed to be impressed by random wings? Please buddy!

You can see the amount of work and detail that went into hearthstone sparkle (as I have named him) over the other mounts. First off, I really like his face:

Hey good lookin!

It has a log of character, and a dragon like quality to it! He also has the best horse tail in the game, seriously, compare it to an older model:

Hearthsteed

Horseman's mount

Considering everything, I am calling this guy well worth the time, frustration and effort of playing a free game for 12+hands until I won 3 rounds! Now if only the horde red version was out...or a pet.

I'm a pretty princess!! (Finally!)

Ran into some problems this week with Final Fantasy XIV. Namely that my account information was changed by someone other then myself! Trying to log in and seeing that your email address is not found in the system can create the worst feeling that you can imagine.

Eventually I got my account restored thanks to the help of a friend (who pointed out that I was going to all the wrong places) a patient person in Square's help desk, and a quick email of my ID. I truly lucked out, about half my Gil was missing, and I was in an odd place, but none of my characters were deleted, they didn't change too much of my personal information, and I wasn't banned! Thank goodness!

As account hijacking goes, mine was actually pretty polite. 

Anyway I finally got in to take part in the Little Ladies day event! Billed as being a 'Princess for a day' event, you sadly don't get any cool or pretty dresses for your character to feel like a princess. You get some flowers, food, and eventually a companion pet, but not much else really.

The quest line is pretty simple as well, you simply go to the major towns and bribe, ahem I mean show off your pretty doll to get votes. The quests are well written lore wise and fun. I was squee-ing the entire time I was wondering around with my pretty doll.

I will admit some disappointment in the lack of any princess like gear or outfits. So far most holidays leave you with considerably less bag space with the odd vanity gear they leave behind (horse helms anyone?). The one time I want the gear, they don't offer it! I would expect a holiday that is billed around you being a princess (or in the case of the men a chance to 'dote on their princess and become a true gentleman, whatever that means) to give us some sort of fancy, dressy, royal garb. But sadly there was none to be found.

I also would have expected a doll competition to have...well an actual competition when it came to the dolls! There were none besides the players dolls to be seen. Having an NPC or two show off their 'entries' or seeing children react to the fancy toys would have been a nice touch. 

All in all this was an enjoyable (if short) event that made me feel like there was a lot of potential that went unused. Still I have a new favorite companion pet to explore the world with, and I guess that will just have to be enough. 

MMO world hopping frenzy

Tonight was a veritable tour of the MMO world!

First stop was World of Warcraft for a good long bout of raiding. Whomever thinks progression raiding is fun is the wrong sort of crazy. Tonight was one of those 'bash your head against the wall and see what happens' kind of raiding nights. Totally heartbreaking, but necessary in the long run of things. Oh well, I have my cloak, the world is shiny. 

Our next stop on the amazing tour was the great Final Fantasy XIV, or as I like to think of it 'catch the maintenance team napping!'

Seriously! This game always goes down during my prime time. (I am a recovering insomniac night owl and darned proud of it!) Extra heart break as I was working on a dungeon story mode quest when the healer bailed and we were stuck hoping to get a new one before the game went down. (shocking secret of the night: We didn't!) 

I decided to round out my night in Hex, and ended up staying up waaay too late as a result! (I think you guys are on to something!!) 

Hex, as I have mentioned, is still in Alpha, which means pre-beta testing. (Beta is where you find a ton of bugs! Alpha is more like 'watch us build a game! See changes happen! It's fuuuun! *entice entice*) Don't get me wrong, about 1/2 the games I played ended as concessions as the game would freeze, fuzz or become unplayable in some way, but the rest of the time was pure joy!

I played with 3/4 of the premade decks (the last one wasn't allowing the game to play normally) against the AI and other players. The AI is still making...questionable moves (he killed himself, used stupid cards that made no sense, that sort of thing) and made me feel utterly ridiculous when it won (I lost?? To the guy who tapped my tapped cards??) it could use some polish, but this early on I am not worried about it. 

The PVP mode is great! I actually have a friend also in the alpha and we spent the night discussing cards, strategies and general things about the game, comparing it to other card games (magic the gathering, hearthstone) that we have been playing lately. He's been in the game much longer so has a few personalized decks, but I still managed to hold my own (and win!) with the premades. 

So far I really like the originality of the cards, and the gameplay (no one deck seemed totally OP compared to the others) but I am really looking forward to the PVE content touted on the kickstarter! Raiding and dungeons with my friends and card games? Oh man I just can't wait to see this happen! (Or better yet, to be in the middle of it!) 

Being in the game so early means I can watch it form and maybe give important feedback, a duty I plan on taking seriously.

Well as seriously as I can as I dominate the world with fuzzy bunny troops!

What, I'm Alludra, did you really expect anything different?? 

Hex!!

One project I have been looking forward to since the kickstarter was announced is Hex, the upcoming MMOTCG!

True confession: TCG's were my first nerddom with magic the gathering. It was the first thing I was allowed to geek out over in my super strict upbringing where girls didn't do boy things. And Cryptozoic found a way to merge them with MMO's? Oh my goodness! That's it, I'm going to miss my family for a while. (or rather they are going to miss me as I plan to dive head first into this thing!)

The game is still in early alpha with kickstarter participants (and very likely friends and family) being among those lucky few who can play. And I just got my invite!

I haven't had a chance to play much unfortunately as a huge wave of invites sent out at once, part of the alpha testing is to slam their servers it seems, but I am in there and I am playing! So far I am totally in love with the fuzzy bunny deck, critters abound and new cards, but I am also still getting to know the cards and working out mechanics between the premades.

After a series of restarts today and maintainance, I can't wait to see if I can play tonight! But wait! I have raid!



Okay after raid, but then it's totally on!