Patch 5.4 in World of Warcraft: The Timeless Isle

Also known as the savior of the Mists of Pandaria Expansion.

The incredible Gleaming Crane chest minigame. THIS IS WHAT AN RPG TRULY IS.

Words cannot describe how wonderful this place is. Finally, a respite from working your ass of for a set amount of payoff each day or each week.

Words also can't express how amazing last night's Breaking Bad episode was. It was so incredible that I am still pondering about it now, an hour after I saw it. So because this, along with thoughts on BioShock stuff, is all really distracting, I'm just gonna post pictures and captions.

This is the greatest thing ever

The Dread Ship Nautilus  Vazuvius

This guy is a pain in the ass

Hitting these birds will get you to the "Ruby Lake" that's way up impossible to get to normally, but these birds move slower than Mannoroth on a moving turtle.

I started a sensation. 

Crappy photo, but I'm the Crazy Cat Lady now!

BioShock Infinite Odds and Ends

I played the original BioShock so that I can finally see what started this series and how it relates to this game (which, aside from the upcoming Burial at Sea DLC, isn't a whole lot). I'm fairly impressed with it, what I find really interesting is that it almost felt like a totally different game. I mean, I knew that it would, but I wasn't expecting such a huge degree of difference. I think I still like Infinite better, which probably goes against everyone's consensus that the first is better, but come on. While Rapture is quite an immersive environment (especially for the game's time), it isn't a completely breathing environment (I mean, hello, everything is dead or screwed up on ADAM). Also, while I wasn't expecting much of a story aspect to this game, the lack of a real plot detracted from the game a little. I especially hate it that (SPOILER ALERT) this whole game is spent being someone else's pawn, especially through mind control. Mind control is one of the cheapest plot devices to use, but this game is relatively old and it really isn't meant to be that story-driven, and I understand and accept that.

I also bought the season pass for BioShock Infinite, so I'll be getting the Burial at Sea stuff as they come out. Nobody has any idea when those will be released, but Ken Levine said that everything should be out by March 2014, so there's that. Since I bought the season pass, I also got Clash in the Clouds thrown in with that, so I decided I'd check it out. I knew it was mainly a "horde mode," wave of enemies styled fighting mode that exists outside of the story and feels completely bizarre and surreal whenever I stop and think, I wonder when this would've taken place if it did happen. Well anyway, so I knew about that wave mode thing. What I didn't know was that this addon has a "museum" of sort, where you can unlock character models, concept art, music, and even videos on the game's development. I haven't seen such an ingame goodie room since the days of Ratchet and Clank, when they would include a literal entire world, known as the Insomniac Museum, full of concept art, "lost levels," things the developer's used to test the game, and so on. It was insane the kinds of things they included in those places. BioShock Infinite's museum doesn't really live up to that awesomeness, but it's still pretty neat anyway.

So meta.

I just really can't wait for Burial at Sea though. It take's place on the New Year's Eve Riots, like, hello! In spite of what that would suggest, I think if I'm not mistaken, Levine said that the first part of the DLC won't really feature combat as we know it in Infinite's main story. He said something about a system that's meant to get you looking all around Rapture and stuff. It would be cool to see the places from BioShock 1 in it, but he said they were making whole new areas since those others were meant to look dilapidated. Still, I'm sure there'll be something that Rapture fanatics would recognize.

Also in the museum, after finishing each stage, there was a little extra surprise in store...

I think of it as a tease for Burial at Sea. I'm not sure when it was announced exactly, but I don't think this easter egg came out before the announcement of the future DLC. Whatever the case, this is pretty awesome and I am so looking forward to Burial at Sea when it's out! I even managed to make a poster out of the first episode's "cover art," as I got lucky enough to find an image with 200dpi!

As for my Timeless Isle post for World of Warcraft, that might come out a little after Tuesday. No promises though, things at school are getting out of hand a bit in terms of how much work I am getting.

New Computer! And Other Things!

It's that time of the year again, where I return to school and begin a tremendous silence on this blog. Hopefully I'll still write more often, and seeing as how WoW's Patch 5.4 is coming out, there should be plenty to discuss here next week. Unfortunately, since the 3DS I used to play Animal Crossing was actually my brother's, the New Leaf Chronicles feature is postponed for now until I actually get the job that can pay me money for a 3DS. Until then, I guess everyone I know in Alsatia will move out and I'll have a whole ensemble cast of new faces. Plus, the town will probably be overrun with weeds, which at least will give me the chance to catch some flies around a rafflesia. None of this sounds really good to me right now, but hopefully I can recover from that mess.

The good news is, I have a new computer! I might've mentioned this already... Well, I didn't. I can't believe that, but yeah, I now have an ASUS A55VD-TH71, with a 2.4 GHz Intel i7 quad-core processor, six gigabytes of RAM, and an Nvidia GEFORCE 610M graphics card (with a supplementary two gigs of RAM). It's not amazing, but I was looking for a computer to match my desecrated MacBook Pro, and this computer is actually a little better than my old one. The budget was six hundred dollars, because that's how much it would've cost to replace the MacBook Pro's logicboard, and I was having huge trouble finding a computer that good for just $600. Then, it was tax-free weekend, and Tiger Direct had a sale on top of that, which reduced the price of this laptop from around $900 to $700. I had to take it, because otherwise I would find myself looking to replace my laptop if it was something else in the $600 range.

This computer runs WoW decently on good settings, more or less the same as on my MacBook Pro. I never cared that much about running WoW on fantastic settings, even though I must say I played the game on my friend's cousin's computer, which is a mammoth Alienware laptop, and it was incredible. WoW isn't really a graphics game for me though. Bioshock Infinite, on the other hand, is so scenic that it makes me want to run the game as best as I can, and I've found that this computer can actually run it on high with less framerate issues than my old computer! But then I played Skyrim on the same settings, and it had ran a little worse than it did on my old computer. The thing is, though, that Bioshock Infinite is split up into "levels" that are pretty much pre-loaded when you start them, whereas Skyrim is a massive open world that constantly needs to be loaded. I have noticed actually that the game runs better in houses and caverns than in the actual "world map" itself.

Alright, on to other things... Not much else really. I am so excited for Patch 5.4, it seems like it will be the first, and possibly only, good patch Blizzard has made since the launch of Mists of Pandaria. I am maxed out on valor points, which I'm saving for item upgrades on the 535 gear in the next patch. I've also completed the 5.3 weekly quest as much as I could, stockpiling about five Gahz'rookis, since they will be much harder to come by from 5.4 and beyond and I have some faith that this will cause their price in the auction house to rise significantly. I've also been trying to get the legendary quest done, but collecting tokens from Throne of Thunder is, to put it simply, a pain in the ass. What pisses me off is that I'll have to do that again for Echoes of the Titans, which is incredibly baffling as it is the SAME EXACT QUEST as Secrets of the Empire. Sure, you don't have to collect trillium and you collect less tokens, but the concept is EXACTLY THE SAME: run a raid each week for tokens that barely drop, making you spend months gathering these stupid things. Thankfully this will be amended in 5.4 with additional bosses from Siege of Orgrimmar, each aside from Garrosh with a chance to gain a token of whatever kind, whether it be sigils or secrets or echoes.

Aside from this boring Mists of Pandaria stuff, I've also finally acquired a full transmog set of my favorite paladin armor, which is the tier eight set. Also, I finally got an elemental drake: the volcanic stone drake.

So beautiful :')

I got a slightly better picture of my main in the tier eight gear.

And some other shenanigans I've experienced since I had my computer back.

I have no idea.

Again, no idea. Basically, this room at the inn of Goldshire became a gangbang.

Err'body be lovin' my blood elf.

... Don't ask.

What happens when you pull nearly all of Zul'Farrak... as well as when you're bored.

Remade my death knight into a blood elf. Also, DON'T BAN ME, BLIZZARD.

It took a while, but it's great to finally be where I am today with my paladin, with the capacity to solo (nearly) all of Glory of the Cataclysm Raider, get transmog from Ulduar, and pretty much do nearly anything. Now I'm just dragging this post along, so I'll let it go. Until 5.4 is launched! See you then!