I didn’t get a good amount of time in the game this week, but I did make sure I did a little bit for both characters to advance their stories a little bit. This week I’m having to try and deal with another potential loss, this time for my other character and I also got something completely unexpected this week – a taste of what it must be like to have flying mounts.

Exploring The Cape Coast While Lost

Last week saw me leaving my Pandaren Hunter Teddired in Booty Bay after a realisation that the game wasn’t going to let me recover my Lashtail Hatchling until much later. Much as I disliked it, I couldn’t take back what was mine just yet. So I continued on with my quests and ended up in Booty Bay.

The only problem is, after collecting all the quests I could find… I didn’t quite know how to leave again…

Booty Bay is impressive. I love the idea of all of that dwelling and shop and gathering built up the side of a cliff… but my god it was so easy to get lost in there. In case you’re wondering how I managed to find my way in there I swam. It wasn’t fast, but I had to find my way there however I could for the quest.

Eventually after finding a few more quests I’d missed I finally found the cave where I should have entered and left. Then promptly lost sight of where it was again. Oh well.

After collecting a few things for some of the quests I was making my way back down the coastline to make the long swim back, when I spotted a quest marker in the sand…

Someone needed help it seemed, and by chance they were on the isle just to my immediate right! I saddled up onto my Reaver and swam my way out to this jungle island filled with apes of all kinds and found… a Tauren princess?!

Well it seemed that despite the message she wasn’t ready to leave quite yet, requiring a little clearing of the way first of the panthers nearby. I did this, using skills I utilised in past weeks to hunt down the panthers. Then, she said that a number of her items had been stolen by the apes and would I please retrieve them. I’m nothing if not helpful so…

Oh.

Oh, that’s King Mukla.

Before I began playing World of Warcraft I played an awful lot of Blizzard’s other game, Hearthstone. I’m familiar with King Mukla as a card…

And guess who’s gonna have to fight him to free this Princess?

Bring it on!

Is This What It Feels Like To Fly?

So I left Bodeclaw outside of a Horde operation that was polluting the land. Well, as a Druid we weren’t going to be tolerating any of that shit, oh no. And as usual everyone majorly concerned over it wanted me to be the one to do the actual dirty work of sabotage.

Murder is fine if it’s for a cause right?

The Sludgewerks also held a gnome spy in disguise as a goblin. I was told that he knew where the information on a giant-ass Horde bomb I’d first seen in the questlines weeks back when I accidentally went too far into Stonetalon was headed. I wrapped up some other quests and made my way up to the tower where I was told I could find the book with the details. Once found I brought it back to him to read…

Danger looming and no time to lose, I hurried back to the camp where I’d picked up my quests, handed them in and made my way over to Battlescar Valley and Thal’darah Grove via computer-controlled flight. Once there I continued the quest and was given use of another hippogryph, expecting that as with similar missions the hippogryph would fly itself and I’d just be hitting the commands provided.  Only when I used the whistle and launched… it didn’t move.

At least, not until I told it to go forward.

As flying mounts won’t be unlocked for many levels yet (and neither will my Flight Form) I practiced a little bit on the back of this loaned mount, quickly picking up descending, moving and launching off the ground again. I enjoyed myself thoroughly but I had young Druids to rescue and so I did as I needed to… only to be a passenger on it again as we watched the bomb total the Grove – unable to stop them.

I was rewarded with a nice hat though, with actual stats unlike the top hat I’d been wearing since practically day one in game. I put it on and was a little unsure. It didn’t look bad, but I was just so used to Bodeclaw’s little top hat… I dunno. We’ll see if I can let go of the appearance for the sake of stats.

On my way out to the next quest giver I found another two talking about an ancient evil tainting another nearby place and I decided to go do those quests instead while I was in the area. I ran down the path and…

Well shit. That’s not good.

Rime, Elite Dangerous and Shadow of War – your news update!

It’s time for your weekly round-up of Kickstarter gaming campaigns that have caught my attention.

First though I will update you on some of the campaigns I’ve previously covered and this week the news is unfortunately mostly not that good. A lot are struggling to reach their goals, and one has even finished short of their target. Struggling right now are INTERSTELLAR ROGUE, Sons of the Void, Lost Cities and BLANK – all with less than 10 days to reach their goals and some with a lot less then that. As well as that one campaign has concluded unsuccessfully, Soul’s Light now still in process but being slightly delayed by the failed campaign.

However there is also some good news. One campaign has not concluded successfully, with Forsaken Castle having reached its goal long before the end. Other campaigns doing well right now include Ashes of Creation, Kynseed and Trouble For Hire all of which have bypassed their funding goals. I can’t wait to see all these games take shape in the future.

Badlands: Outpost of Humanity

First up this week we’re starting with a post-apocalyptic boardgame.

Badlands is a game for 2 to 4 players, set in a wasteland after an apocalyptic event. Each player controls post-nuclear survivors and has to help them survive through expeditions, trade, fending off enemies and other such tasks. Each game comes with 4 settlement area boards, a central badlands board in which play takes place and miniature player pieces. There are also cards and other things included to help with the actions that take place in the game.

Badlands: Outpost of Humanity has a €25,000 goal, of which it has made €12,926 with 24 more days to go.

Street Masters Rise of the Kingdom

Next we have another physical game, this time based off the beat ’em up genre of video game.

Street Masters is a game that is inspired by the likes of Street Fighter and its ilk, with about 65 different miniatures included the developers have tried to make a game that combines “the concept of a tactical combat board game with the flexibility of an intricate card game”. The game includes two playable ‘modes’ – Arcade in which players can customise their own ‘levels’ as well as Story which will let you go through pre-planned scenarios.

Street Masters Rise of the Kingdom has made $35,863 of its $60,000 goal. It has 25 more days to run.

Two Scoops

Third, I chose one that I usually wouldn’t – a dating sim game.

Before you wonder, Two Scoops is a game I’d heard good things about previously. The game follows the protagonist as they start their new job at an ice cream palor. The game is a graphic novel as well as being a dating sim and your player character has only a week to prove they are capable of filling the shoes of two employees who are going away next week. With four romance options, there’s a chance that they will all be fleshed out nicely to set the game above other dating sim games.

Two Scoops has 24 days to go, and has made $8,310 of its $25,000 goal.

Ash of Gods

Finally we have a rogue-like with added PvP gameplay.

Ash of Gods is a game that is described as “a mix between a roguelike role-playing visual novel and an online turn-based strategy game” and will be coming to many platforms if all goes to plan. These will include Windows, Mac, Linux, XBOX, PlayStation®4, Nintendo Switch, Android and iOS, with PC being the one that the team is aiming for as being the first platform to release on. This means the game will be coming to Steam, DRM-free GOG, Humble – all of which are also listed.

Ash of Gods has made $19,895 of its $75,000 goal with 25 days to go.

Friday the 13th, Shenmue 3 and Polybius – your news update!

A recent patch to Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds has unfortunately come with an unintended side-effect. While it might have improved overall game performance some players have reported that the game is now randomly disconnecting them and giving fairly noticeable lag spikes following the update on Thursday.

As is the way of the Internet, there’s already been a great many angry Reddit posts made with players threatening to quit the game in big numbers. Developer Bluehole have now come out and taken to Twitter to assure players that yes they’re working on it. They are going to be making some server changes to try and alleviate some problems, but they have admitted that unfortunately that’s not going to be the end of it as it won’t “fully fix the issue”.

Seems that some hardcore server overhauls will be needed to properly nip all the lag problems in the bud once and for all. That’s going to take them some time to do though, so they’re encouraging Battlegrounds players to help speed it up by disabling custom startup parameters, and then by submitting their computer’s system specs if they’ve been having issues in this special support thread. They’re hoping this will help them narrow down the issues at certain tiers of the computer machine hierarchy so they can start working on fixes and hopefully get the problems mostly if not fully sorted out by June’s update where players should hopefully see a “bigger improvement” over the quick-fix server changes.

So unfortunately a little bit of patience is needed, but at least Bluehole are communicating with their community. That can only work in their favour.