“Bound by Blood”, the Prologue Chapter of Guild Wars 2: The Icebrood Saga, Out Now

The prologue chapter of The Icebrood Saga, Guild Wars 2’s latest Living World episodic content, is out now free for all players who own Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire.

The Icebrood Saga is a totally new story in the world of Guild Wars 2. After Season Four’s thrilling conclusion in which Dragon’s Watch finally defeated Kralkatorrik, elder dragon of Crystal and Fury, it is a time of great celebration. But a shadow of dread grows over the festivities as whispers from the Far Shiverpeaks indicate Jormag, another of Tyria’s elder dragons, is emerging from its slumber and luring charr and norn warriors under its thrall. A new cast of characters take center stage as the Pact Commander and crew investigate the looming conflict that threatens the world’s snowy reaches.

Bound by Blood introduces myriad new features to Guild Wars 2, including:

• An all-new story exploring the culture and mysterious traditions of the norn and charr races while setting the stage for the conflict to come

• A new map, Grothmar Valley, the homeland of the feline charr and their military legions

• The debut of strike missions, an epic new 10-player activity allowing groups to face off against challenging bosses, including a titanic Icebrood golem

• New map-wide meta events, including an interactive musical performance from the Metal Legion, a thrashing charr rock group that puts the “band” in “warband”, and featuring three original songs created especially for this episode

• Hair for Braham

As announced at PAX West, Guild Wars 2’s first expansion Heart of Thorns is now free for all players who purchase Path of Fire.

#Blaugust2019 The End of Blaugust (for this year!)

 

Well, it’s the end of August and with it the end of another Bluagust. Sadly time got away with me this year and I barely wrote at all, certainly less than in previous years. Given that I spent a quarter that time on the Mediterranean with no internet connection. Having said that, I have been inspired to pay more attention to my blog and try to record more, especially with my introduction of my daughter to the world of roleplaying, that’s something I’d like to record for posterity.

So until another year, I hope you all had a good August, discovered some awesome new bloggers and if you started blogging this year, I wish you luck and hope you can keep it up beyond Blaugust!

#Blaugust2019 Taking the leap into 5ed

Back the early 1980’s , my sister bought me a red box of books that became the start of a lifelong hobby. Dungeons and Dragons was in its infancy and I had no idea what a role playing game was but my friends and I posted over those books and figured out for ourselves how to play. We had no if we were doing it right, but we were having fun and soon enough I fell into the role of Dungeon Master.

A few years later, as a teenager, I stepped into Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and this became the game I played most for the next ten years along with other flavoured RPGs, Middle Earth RPG, Warhammer, Call of Cthulhu and so on.

In the following years, new editions came along, but I mostly ignored them. I dabbled a little with 3rd Edition but I preferred the complexity of 2nd Edition.

Now I am introducing my daughter to RPG’s and decided to try out the last edition of the game, referred to by those in the know as 5ed.

This 5th edition is quite different to my old game but seems easy to learn and play so I’ve got the bug again. We’ve rolled up two characters for her to play, an Elven Bard and a half elf ranger. She’s even picked some minis to match her characters perfectly, so I need to practice my painting skill again.

I look forward to crafting adventures, just as I did almost 40 years ago!

#Blaugust2019 – LOTRO goals

As most of my PC gaming time is currently dedicated to a single game, The Lord of the Rings Online, I often think I should organise my goals for my characters in the hope that I might focus on them instead of wandering off into random dailies and instances. I am also levelling a couple of new characters with my daughter but not too concerned about goals for them. Other alts will be on the backburner while the three mains get to scratch.

What better place to hash this out than my blog. This is more for my benefit than anyone else’s but hey, it’s good to share!

Jestro – Hobbit Hunter

Current level 120

Goals

• Complete steps required to get all class points.
• Max out virtues (45 left)
• Max out legendary items – Scrolls needed Bow 33/Dagger 35
• Complete Anduin Vales Zone
• Achieve Kindred with Iron Dwarves and Beorning Faction

Brandenhelm – Human Loremaster

Current Level 120

Goals

• Max out legendary items – Scrolls needed Staff 58/Book 217
• Achieve Kindred with Beornings
• Work on Iron Dwarves Dailies
• Max out Virtues (35 left)

Pinhealer Elf Minstrel

Current Level 116

Goals

Get to level 120

• Get gear for level 120
• Max out Jewellery crafting tier

Blaugust Ends #blaugustreborn

So here we are at the end of August already and as predicted I had little time to post. Including this, I wrote 6 posts but given how little I’ve posted this year , that’s a massive improvement.

In addition, I have moved over from Blogger to WordPress, something I’ve meant to do for ages and Blaugust gave me the impetus to do that, so going forward it should make posting more streamlined.

I’ve also cleared up my blogroll and added some new folks. If you like to be included, drop me a line and I can include your own blog.

So Blaugust has helped with my blogging, introduced me to some new blogs. And I started streaming again!

See you next year (and hopefully before!)

Play by Post happenings #blaugustreborn

It’s been a while since I posted anything about my pbp games running on GamersPlane.com but they’re still going strong.

Call of Cthulhu – A Time to Harvest

We are now on chapter four of this long running campaign, the students (or what’s left of them) are now working for a major corporation in search of what appears to be an alien race, terrorising the Vermont town of Cobb’s Corners.

Call of Cthulhu – The Dreaming Ward

Another Cthulhu game, this one following the exploit of four friends in short episodic adventures. Louis Karabekian and co have just checked into an institute who are studying dream states and can’t help feeling like they are in an asylum,

Call of Cthulhu – Shadows of Yog Sothoth.

This classic campaign has been running for many years and is still fairly slow going, the intrepid investigators are seeking cult goings on in the Scottish Highlands.

Warhammer Fantasy – The Enemy Within.

My only fantasy game I’m currently running, a new set of green adventurers are trying to get the bottom of a case of mistaken identity, where one of the characters is being followed by a bounty hunter as he resembles a man due to collect a huge inheritance. This is the start of a massive campaign and I hope my players stick around to see it through.

No Man’s Sky 2 ~ Sky Harder #blaugustreborn

So I was one of the few that stuck with No Man’s Sky after its rocky launch and loved the game. I never played on a regular basis, as with all survival games I have a habit of playing non-stop for hours, days, nay weeks at a time, not getting anywhere in terms of story but collecting and building, mining and farming, until I got all the stuff, which of course, is never. Looking back, I blogged about it quite a bit in the 2016 Blaugust season. Eventually I burned out and though I returned a few times, especially after major updates, it never became my ‘main game’ after that initial burst.

Recently, however, the game has gone through another evolution, with the Next expansion. My stream friend list has gone from half a dozen owning the game, to well over twenty and i have returned and jumped in head first. Base building is a major attraction for me with games like this and the new system is great. I was initially stumped about my old base disappearing but soon enough I got things back on track and have built something bigger and better.

My planet, originally named Knifesedge Homeworld is neighbour to the imaginally retitled Iceworld and Waterworld ( no prizes for guessing what type of planets they are!) and between them they have all I need. With my base built to my satisfaction, now I need to earn some cash and get a better ship. I’m loving it so far and hope it keeps my attention for the weeks to come.

I stream some of my gameplay at http://www.twitch.tv/Knifesedgegames, most evenings around 10pm GMT so stop by if you’re interested, or at the very least, follow my channel, and I’ll gladly follow yours.

 

To stream or not to stream? #Blaugustreborn

So over the last week or so I have thought about returning to streaming. I never did it with any particular fervour in the past, my machine never up to running both a game and streaming it at the same time, but with a better machine I decided it was time to give it a try.

Now because of my setup, I have opted not to use camera or voice (for now). I know this is no way to build a hugely popular stream but I’m doing this to share my love of gaming, not to become some internet celebrity. I want the focus to be on the game, not me.

Having said that, I have gone to some length to try and figure out the technology required and was to pretty up the stream. I’ve started using Streamlabs OBS, instead of the original OBS software I used previously and I’ve been playing with templates to have a Stream Starting screen and a template to make it my own. I’m never comfortable designing this kind of stuff, but I think I’ve got it working effectively.

So far I’ve tried streaming LOTRO ( a pain as it crashes every time I tab out) and No Man’s Sky, a game a recently returned to following the Next Update. I do get the odd viewer popping in and have a couple of new subscribers since I returned. I’m sure if I start varying the games I play, I’ll attract a wider audience and having access to Pre-release review copies, that might be good opportunity to show them off.

So, dear reader, if you stream, what do you play? Do you have any tips?

If you’re a twitch viewer, swing by my stream if you see me online, and say hi. You’ll find me at http://www.twitch.tv/knifesedgegames

My crop 2018 #BlaugustReborn

So part of the reason I haven’t blogged about gardening in some time is that I simply haven’t had time to grow anything. Last year I gave up my allotment and even my little back garden was neglected as I focussed on my teaching.

This year I’ve managed to carve out some time to grow a little something, so I focussed on things I know my wife and I eat a lot of, tomatoes and cucumbers.

At the end of last year, I obtained some plastic greenhouses, on sale at the end of the season, so I got them set up. I’ve also set a few to grow outside and with the incredibly hot summer we’re having in the UK this year, they’re doing extremely well.

Cucumbers 

Tomatoes

Do you grow your own vegetables? What are you growing this year?

Leave a comment below.

Blaugust Reborn!

Over the last few years (except 2017), myself and a community of fellow gamers have taken on a challenge set by a fellow by the name of Belghast (a veritable legend in our little community.)
This challenge involved posting a blog post every day throughout August. I took part as a best I could and when it was announced it was returning for 2018 I both jumped for joy and groaned inwardly at the same time. I knew I wouldn’t have time to take part given my new work schedule, damn, I’ve barely posted at all this year. I jumped on the community Discord server and announced that I would remain on the sidelines.

 Then I read the post by Belghast about the year. He spoke of burnout that posting daily causes and as a result the dwindling of the gaming blogging community, something I’d experienced first hand in previous years. As a result, the rules were made a little less rigid, posting daily was no longer a requirement to take part, so I decided to jump in. I might only write this post and nothing else. Then again, this has somehow inspired me to try out streaming again and I may post some video content as a result. I’ve recently jumped into No Mans Sky again so might  share something about that. I also have some games to review, so that might end up here too.

Either way, Blaugust has dragged me back in and I’m delighted. Oh and I must update my blog roll, so I am looking forward to checking out other participants and hope you will too!