Tag Archives: Gaming

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Overwatch League Stage 3- Week 3

Can I just enjoy this moment? This week was another incredible week for matches. There were shocking moments and heartbreak. This is a look at the week in the Overwatch League and outside of it. Especially a nice moment to gloat about my favorite team.

First, a look inside the league. The matches here were relatively as expected. Shanghai is still without a loss, though people expected them to finally get their win against the Mayhem. They worked hard but ultimately still walked away from the match win-less. Maybe next stage everything will finally come together. I’m rooting for them, especially Geguri. I love a good tank and I do support the only female player in the league. If I didn’t love NotE so much, I would take her over him. But NotE is awesome and we are lucky to have him on the team.

Speaking of the Boston Uprising, holy cow! Their week was set to be another tough one: going against the London Spitfire and the Seoul Dynasty. Both teams have been in a sorta slump, not achieving their potential. Spitfire, the stage 1 champions seemed to have struggled since their first big win. Seoul just seems to be suffering from something, but I don’t quite know what it is. Is it a communication thing? Have they just not found a group that clicks for them yet? Whatever it is, the Spitfire seems to be struggling with the same issues.

As much as I love the Spitfire, Boston is my team. I rooted for them but honestly, I didn’t think they were really going to win. They have been strong so far this stage but they were due for a loss. After that season where the Patriots went undefeated only to lose the Super Bowl, I kept saying “only one of those games mattered and they lost it.” I don’t want to say this about the Uprising. It was definitely a struggle for them in their first match against the Spitfire. They finally lost on Temple of Anubis and the next map was Numbani, which is a bad map for them anyways. They went into halftime down 2-0. Then much like their football counterparts, they took control of the second half. It started with a strong showing on Ilios, then a not so promising start to Junkertown: the map that was going to decide if there was a defeat or tie breaker.

Despite only capping one point, they managed to surprise everyone by holding the Spitfire to 0 caps. This led to quite the intense tie-breaker map. After splitting the first 2 rounds, the last round was going to decide it all. With 99% cap on both sides, it did not look good at all for the Uprising. Until it did thanks to their strong team work and a clutch EMP from the new kid on the block Mistakes. Then my hand went into the ceiling fan as I jumped in excitement and awe over it. There is a battle wound still, but I’m fine.

The next night was going to be another difficult one. Despite their slump, Seoul is still a strong team that was going to be extremely hard to go against. The first map was Volskaya Industries, our final undefeated map. We walked away still undefeated in this map. We then went on to tie on Blizzard World, making every map so important now since there was no tie-breaker map to fall back on. The next map would win it all for them. Both teams came back after halftime with their game faces on. Then, Uprising went on to win the next map, Nepal. They lost the final map in Route 66 but they had already walked away with the match.

This leads us into territory that no one thought we would be in: Undefeated and in 1st in Stage 3 and overall in 2nd place. Not bad for a team that everyone said would be in last (or second to last) place.

As a final note, be sure to check out the social media accounts of these amazing players. You get such great moments, such as the creation of Froguri (Geguri in a frog onesie will make anyone’s day) or hilarious interactions between these players. Because at the end of the day, they love the game and they are here to win but also have a great time with each other. The casters are also very amusing to follow on social media. This is a great group of people and I am proud to support the league.

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Overwatch Leage Stage 3- Week 2

There were a lot of surprises in the Overwatch League this week, but the biggest surprise of them all comes from the underdogs of the league: the Boston Uprising. Here is a closer look at a quick recap of this week of play, primarily focusing on my favorite team.

Going in, a lot of Boston Uprising fans (including myself) were scared for our future without our disgraced former star. We were on a high after upsetting teams the first week, primarily as a result of the strong play from the aforementioned disgraced star. With only 1 other DPS player on the roster, the future seemed pretty uncertain for the team. I, having watched Mistakes stream, was decently confident that he would do better than most people gave him credit for. My husband, who is as much of a fan of the team and league as I am, had his doubts. After arguing back and forth about the next move here: Do we go with Mistakes? Does Neko step up as DPS and let Snow or Avast come in as our second support? Do we try to go after such strong players as Shadowburn or Pine who doesn’t seem to get the playtime that they deserve? What about streamers like AimbotCalvin? I dismissed the idea of one of the world’s best Zenyattas going DPS, because, well, he’s one of the world’s best Zens. I put all my eggs in the Mistakes basket and hoped for the best.

… and anyone who didn’t made some huge Mistakes this week. (Those jokes never ever get old.) Our first game up was against the New York XL, a game that as much as any Uprising fan wanted us to win knew that it wasn’t going to be likely. Again, especially without such a strong player that we have grown used to. This was going to be Mistakes thrown to the wolves to see what he was made of. And to everyone’s shock, the Uprising won 3-2 against the best team in the league. Going into the game, XL had only lost 2 games the entire season so far. The team came together and showed us that they are more than one player; they are a strong team.

In case anyone thought this win was a fluke, they also went 3-2 against Florida Mayhem. We’re still undefeated as of yet in the stage, putting us in the position no one predicted we would ever be in: 2nd place for the stage and 4th place overall. Not bad for a team that people predicted before the season started that would be in the last or second to last spot. In true Boston fashion: never count us out.

In other shocking news, Seoul and London are continuing to struggle. London faced off against Fusion for the first time since they lost to them in the Stage 2 playoffs, but they were not redeemed. Shanghai is still looking for their first win of the season and Mayhem is still struggling to find something that works for them. These two are going to be facing off this week and it will be very interesting to see just how this plays out.

I have been streaming the Battle for Azeroth alpha play on my Twitch stream. Next week I may be adding some of my amazingly mediocre play on Overwatch as well. I play mystery heroes. My gold rank in comp will probably just rot because toxic people are no fun. We’ll see. Check me out on Twitch in case you haven’t already.

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A Plague within the Overwatch League

I am a huge fan of the Overwatch League, so much that I dedicate my “gaming” day of the blog on it. Normally today, I would be discussing politics or some other relevant issue that I felt like needed to be discussed. Instead, today I will be dedicating another day to the gaming category to discuss the problems with the Overwatch League especially in light of the big events that happened to my beloved team, the Boston Uprising. I touched upon this briefly in my blog yesterday, but I will elaborate my thoughts further on this today.

DreamKazper was a player that I frequently applauded during matches and someone who I would always watch on Twitch when I would see him streaming. He wasn’t my favorite. As a tank main (specifically D.Va), Note and Gamsu are my favorite players. Still, he was easily one of the best flex DPS players and a perfect DPS partner for Striker. It was exciting to watch him play. I even agree that we won a lot of our matches because he was such a solid player. Like other fans of the Uprising, I feel betrayed and disgusted at these turn of events. At first, I was suspicious for a lot of reasons but that didn’t take away the fact an adult pursued a barely-teen girl and it was absolutely reprehensible anyways. When the second accusation came out, any suspicions that I had about the matter went away and he went from “an immature adult who did a horrible thing” to “a predator”. It’s awful. It’s truly awful. The Uprising did the right thing. I feel horrible for the girls that came forward and those who may not have. I won’t be surprised if there are more but we don’t know that there is. It’s all speculation at this point.

This does show something that apparently needs to happen within the Overwatch. There needs to be a sit down with all of the players with a discussion of “what is actually appropriate behavior”. This includes:

  • Not using derogatory terms
  • Not using “racially insensitive” gestures
  • Do not sexually harass or sexually exploit anyone, including minors
  • Do not send or ask for naked photographs from people who are unwilling participants and/or are minors who cannot legally consent
  • No does mean no
  • Just generally avoid anything that a decent human being would avoid, such as homophobia, racism, sexism, or general douchebaggery
  • If you think that you may be doing something wrong, you probably are

Some could argue that these are young kids getting a ton of money before they have fully matured. “They are gamers, they are just socially inept geeks that only know how to game.” I’m a gamer, socially inept, but I know what appropriate behavior is. This is not only one more notch against the Overwatch League in the eyes of non-gamers, but these are all behaviors that contribute to the belief that the gaming community is a toxic and perverse one.

At the age of most of these players, they should know better. Even if they have the inkling to do stupid things, as would be expected of many people their age, they need to know better. They are in the public eye. The teams should better monitor their players. They are representatives of not only a professional league, but of an entire community of people across the globe. If there was a microscope on this community before, it has only gotten worse today.

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This Week in Gaming

This year, I was fortunate enough to make it to at least one day of Pax East. However, one day wasn’t enough to discuss everything awesome that was there, so I will mention some quick thoughts about the event. One, it has grown to be more massive than it was last time I was there, which was about 6 years ago. I was disappointed that they didn’t have the classic arcade there this year, something that my youngest was really excited about. He wanted to play games like the kids from “Stranger Things”. I love that Blizzard and Warcraft had such a huge presence there, especially as an admitted Blizzard fangirl like myself. I do wish I wasn’t too exhausted for the Overwatch photo area, but you can’t win them all.

One surprise that I was really excited about was that Frostpunk was there and on demo to play. I have been dying for this game to come out since I first heard about it months and months ago. From what I saw of the demo, I was not disappointing in anyways. I love the feel of the game as well as the play style of it. It comes out in a few weeks and I will stream the play of it when I get it.

I always love seeing the tabletop freeplay area, but was always disappointed in how small it was. This year it was massive and I wish I had more time to checkout the games, including Thornwatch. But we did get to enjoy some time in the classic console freeplay, which my youngest child really loved.

I was surprised that the Uprising didn’t have a booth there to sell merch. I would have easily blown my entire Pax spending budget on stuff specially if they had those hoodies like the one Striker wore during their match against the Houston Outlaws. It could have been a missed opportunity to make a fortune.

Speaking of the Overwatch League, teams played hard this week and I was very shocked but excited for the destruction that Uprising brought down on Houston. As much as I like that team, I like my home team and love to see them win. There were no other huge surprising during league play this week. I do enjoy looking at the standings list for Stage 3 and seeing the Uprising in Stage playoff position as well as league playoff position. Not bad for a team no one thought would amount to anything.

The news with their star player DreamKazper is more than disappointing. There really are no words at this point to describe the situation. It is disturbing to hear the detail of this incident and I hope the Uprising can still go out and do their job.

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A Quick Recap of Gaming this Week

First thing that should be mentioned is some of the gaming related April Fool’s Day pranks.

  • Blizzard released all of their hilarious gags as usual, though I do miss the days when the joke’s were actually believable. That doesn’t take away from the hilarity of how ridiculous they are, like the WoW Dance Battle Arcade system, the new micro-holidays, and the Blizzard Game Room. In fact, check out all of the hilarious Blizzard ones here.
  • Want to up your gaming ability? Razer’s prank promised to give gamers the edge that they need to improve their skills thanks to Project Venom. What is Project Venom? Nanobots that you drink. They even offered signups for the beta, which I did because they probably are going to actually release an energy drink and my husband lives off them.
  • Final Fantasy XIV Online Go was a prank that seemed to mesh the worlds of Pokemon Go and Final Fantasy in one bizarre mobile game.

These were just some of my favorite ones. I do have to say that I would actually really love the Blizzard Game Room idea.

Overwatch League Stage 3 starts this week, and the Boston Uprising are in the running for the big final playoffs at the end. They just keep getting better and I can’t wait to see what they do in this stage. I also wonder what changes Seoul Dynasty will make to help them overcome whatever slump they seem to be in and see how Spitfire bounces back from the Fusion upset in the Stage 2 playoffs. Stage 3 is going to bring a lot of excitement.

I have been playing in the Battle for Azeroth beta, which has been pretty fun. I like it so far, though my first impressions are they had most of their focus on the alliance side of things. The first zone that I have played in, Stormsong Valley (which didn’t make the stream because I thought that they automatically saved streams on Twitch. They don’t unless you click a button. Rookie mistake that has been fixed.) was very polished looking, the zone didn’t seem as bugged, and I didn’t feel like I was traveling miles for the next quest. The Zandalari Trolls look amazing, though I’m sad the race isn’t playable yet in beta. So far, it is fun and I look forward to seeing more of it. I will be sure to blog more about the beta as well, maybe even dedicating another day of the week to the blog for this purpose.

Lastly, I have started a Twitch stream of me playing the World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth beta. You can check me out as I play both the Void Elf priest and a Nightborne mage. Eventually I will also be playing a Zandalari Troll druid, moonkin of course. I try to remember to speak while streaming, but I end up getting in a zone that makes me forget I’m even streaming. I’ll try to be better. I may move onto other games, including when Frostpunk comes out later this month or watching my fails as I play Overwatch (especially in my favorite mystery heroes mode). We’ll see how it goes. But for now, you can see the streams saved on Twitch for your viewing pleasure and I will be sure to save them after I stream there and on my YouTube channel.

 

 

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Overwatch League Stage 2 Finals and Other Gaming Announcements

The Overwatch League was full of fun this week, with some really shocking moments. My Uprising wasn’t in contention for the Stage 2 playoffs, but they went out strong with an unexpected California sweep, defeating both L.A. teams in their matches this week. In their match against the Gladiators, the Fusion waited in the crowd to see their fate in the playoffs which rested in the hands of the Uprising. If they were to at least win 1 game against the Gladiators, Fusion would get the 3rd spot in the playoffs. Uprising ultimately went 3-2 in the match, which meant Fusion would go up against the Stage 1 champions the London Spitfire.

Without the Uprising in, I defaulted to my second favorite team. I expected them to easily take on Fusion, then go against New York for the championship again. In a 3-2 match, Fusion upset the Spitfire and went against the top team in the league: New York XL. This match also went into the tie breaker map, only Fusion fell to XL and New York took home the Stage 2 championship trophy and money.

The next stage will bring in some interesting changes, especially with the Shanghai Dragons being able to play their new players including the much hyped Zarya player Geguri. They are currently 0-20, so here’s to hoping that they don’t go the whole season without a win. I’m especially excited to see Geguri, not because she’s the first female in the Overwatch League but because her videos of playing Zarya are just insane. I wish I could play tanks as well as she can.

In other gaming news, I have recently received my Alpha invite to the “Battle for Azeroth” World of Warcraft expansion. After much convincing, I’ve decided to not just blog about it but to also stream and post videos of game play. I’ve never streamed before and I’m told I sound like a Smurfette on the headset, but here’s to trying. Look for me on Leighanneore on Twitch and I should be starting sometime this week.

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My Adventures on Monster Hunter

Normally today I would do a recap of Overwatch League or discuss something Overwatch League related. Today, a non-Blizzard game related topic seemed like something new to address. I’m not a big console person. I enjoy playing some games on the Switch, love playing the classic SNES, and definitely loved playing my DS. In fact, the only console games I really enjoy are Nintendo games. Primarily, I’m a PC gamer. Anything Sims related (Sims 4 was such a let down but the new mobile app is pretty entertaining), TF2, most Blizzard games, things like that.

My husband is primarily a PC gamer as well, but sometimes gets spurts where he is obsessed over certain PS4 games. Our oldest started playing Monster Hunter: World, a game he had wanted to play. So he naturally bought it for his PS4 pro. He has played this thing pretty religiously since, constantly saying the phrase “You really need to try this, I think you’ll love it”. Finally, he came out with “Monster Hunter: World was ranked the best game for couples to play.”

Finally the other day, I gave in. I was avoiding Overwatch Competitive because I was feeling insecure about my skill after a bad match where my D.Va was blamed for the loss of the match though looking back it wasn’t the case at all. I didn’t really feel like leveling today. I just finished working out and showering and wanted to relax on the couch before the kids came home. There was nothing on TV and the only things on the DVR were shows I needed to save for the husband to watch with me. I decided, “why not?” though I dreaded if I actually enjoyed the game I would have to listen to “told you! What do you think? Tell me everything!”

A good portion of my first day of playing consisted of creating my character and her Palico. At first I’m already annoyed that there is no dog option for those of us who may not be big fans of cats. Still, I style the Palico after our own Lady Sylvanas (my oldest son’s beloved cat who thinks she’s a dog) because why not? Then I get into the game. Graphics are nice and the game has a good aesthetic appeal to it. I get to choose my weapon and as a person who has problems with melee, I started off with a bow. I got a few quests in before I didn’t get a chance to get back to it.

Early observations? I hate having to move the camera around in this game. I always lost track of what I was attacking and it was generally annoying because I was dying as a result. Console games suck. I never have this problem on my PC. The game would be infinitely more entertaining if this wasn’t an issue anymore. I also don’t like feeling like I’m forced into doing quests with randos on the internet. It’s one thing when playing a team FPS but not when you are playing an RPG. I’ll still play it and maybe there will be some nice changes when the update hits in a few days. Otherwise, I may not fully enjoy the game until the PC release which is not really expected until fall.

I can be okay with that. Until then, I’ll try to get further in the game on the console and continue to wait patiently until Frostpunk gets its release. I have only been dying for that game since I first saw it. As a fan of the Victorian era, I have a soft spot for steampunk and I already professed my love of Sims. I will certainly talk about it when I get it.

Until then, this week the final week of Stage 2 of the Overwatch League. Uprising has been doing very well and I hope they keep it up. They may not be able to make the finals in this stage, but the overall playoffs are still obtainable for them especially with their amazing play against the Valiant. Keep up the good work guys and it was so good to have Gamsu back.

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Allied Races and You

World of Warcraft’s latest expansion is out for pre-order, but much like every other time there are excellent incentives to ordering it before its release. In this case, you get access to 4 of the 6 allied races: the Void Elves, Highmountain Tauren, the Lightforged Draenei, and the Nightborne. The last two allied races, the Dark Iron Dwarves and the Zandalari Trolls, have yet to be released but it will be interesting to see how these former foes in the story’s lore decide to join the Alliance and Horde.

I was most excited that once again, Blizzard listened to my hopes and dreams despite everyone telling me it was never going to happen. In Burning Crusade, I wanted to be a demon hunter. For ages prior to Mists of Pandaria, I wanted to play a Pandaren. These were my goals and dreams. When Pandarens were announced, I squealed with excitement and immediately rubbed it in everyone’s faces. When demon hunters were finally released, I did the same. I have no grace. I like to be right. I like to get what I want. And I did. The Pandarens were pretty disappointing though, but the demon hunters were everything that I dreamed they would be.

The minute I got to Suramar and saw the Nightfallen, I wanted to be one. I would do anything to play that race. They were awesome. I kept telling everyone that they should be a playable race. Now they are. But, instead of waiting for the expac to be released and disappointed, I can indulge my wishes now. The minute that I could afford to purchase it, I did. Then I started the time sink to create these characters. Here is my takeaway from it.

The story for the Lightforged Draenei was neat. I enjoyed that questline to unlock them. The Void Elf story was interesting, a little longer than the Lightforged in my opinion, but it was still decent. One of my favorite quests was the Nightborne one, not just because it was quick and simple but because it was pretty interesting as well. The Highmountain Tauren quest to unlock the race was much like the quests in Highmountain: long, time-consuming, and really not worth the reward at the end of everything. It made me remember why with every other alt, I never went to that zone to level up.

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Blueleigh, the Void Elf Priest

My first choice to level was ultimately my Void Elf. I am leveling as a shadow priest, my 3rd shadow priest. I thought a priest was the best fit for her and thought her shadowform would be even cooler. I was right. I may even main swap her, giving up my main that I have had since the beginning. The leveling is a slow grind, but I enjoy the menial work. What I like so far is how OP Void Eruption is at a low level. You could pull as many mobs as you can and it will instakill any that you have dotted up. It’s insane. I love it. Her racials seem so/so. The Spacial Rift ability reminds me of Moira’s Fade ability. Preternatural Calm is also quite nice, since is prevents the casting delay when getting attacked. Entropic Embrace (bonus to shadow damage and healing) also seems pretty powerful at lower levels as well. However, I have no real use for more void storage, so getting a discount on this doesn’t really impact my life. After my void elf, I will move onto my Nightborne which I am really excited about trying out.

Once you unlock these characters (which requires some achievements in addition to the questline), as long as you have a level 110 on the server you can create your new character. They start off as a level 20, but leveling these days is quick enough. It is still tedious until you get flying, which they should give us veterans the ability to do imo. You probably have plenty of time to get these characters leveled and geared up by the time the game is actually released, so happy hunting!

 

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Overwatch League- Stage 1 Week 4

First of all, can I say “holy cow, the Uprising is in a Wildcard Position”? From a scrappy team that no one expected much of, they are doing far better than people predicted. This adds an extra level of excitement for me as a fan of the team.

Before the recap, I would like to mention that if all goes well, I will be posting to the gaming part of this blog twice a week starting this week. On Friday, I will be pre-ordering the new WoW expansion and I can’t wait to start talking about that as well (and any other game worth mentioning.) Here’s to hoping things go as planned.

Unlike last week, there weren’t too many surprises that fans witnessed as the games were played. For the most part, things went as I had expected. London Spitfire took down Seoul Dynasty, but it was still a really exciting match to watch especially since I was rooting for the Spitfire to win. It was odd to not have Ryujehong in the game, which some could argue is what made the difference in the game. Spitfire is a strong team, so I’m sure it may have been closer with Ryu in the game, but I just think that Spitfire may arguably be the stronger team. There’s still time for me to be wrong on that, but I stand by that statement. Fleta was still unstoppable this week and it was awesome to watch him and Jake face off in the next night of matches. Outlaws put up a strong fight against Dynasty, but ended up losing in the tiebreaker map.

Uprising is proving themselves to be quite the team to go against. They took down both of the “home teams”, the Los Angeles Gladiators and the Los Angeles Valiant. While they expected the Gladiators to go down to Boston, the casters seemed to think that Boston didn’t stand a chance. In true Boston fashion, they went on to sweep the Valiant to the shock of the commentators. They went 4-0 in both matches, something they really needed to find themselves in the wildcard. From underdogs to real contenders, next week is the last chance for them to climb up or stay strong in their spot for the playoffs.

The final week of Stage 1 is going to be an exciting one. I say this also as a Patriots fan, who would love to see the Uprising avenge the Pats by beating Philadelphia Fusion next week. Their games this week are going to be hard as Outlaws are a strong team and Fusion seems to have some power to them when they click. Crossing my fingers for you, Uprising.

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Overwatch League, Stage 1- Week 3

This was an incredible week for the Overwatch League. There were still undefeated teams this week that never seemed to have any issues with opponents. It seemed a bit boring to have these teams not have any challengers. That was until this week. Here is a look at what happened this week in the Overwatch League.

The first upset on an undefeated team was During the Boston Uprising and London Spitfire game. Both of these teams are my top to watch in the league, but Boston being the home team I was rooting for them this time around. I went in with little expectation except that my scrappy Boston team would put up a fight but ultimately fall flat in the last seconds as they had in the past. That was exactly how the game started out on the first map in Numbani. Control points, as I discussed last week, was a weakness that they needed to really work on. I wrote them off on the control maps for this game. Except, they won. They conquered their weakness. They forced a tie out, going into the tiebreaker map. They unexpectedly came out on top and dethroned an undefeated team.

The next match on this same day would see New York Excelsior fall to the Philadelphia Fusion, which also went into the tiebreaker map. Seoul Dynasty became the only undefeated team at this point. That was until Friday’s match-up against New York Excelsior. Much like every other upset and fall of the undefeated team, this also led to the tiebreaker map.

This week made for a really exciting one. Some stars this week? Striker, especially for that pulse bomb attack on the Temple of Anubis map. Dreamkazper, for always being an amazing player. Carpe is still a strong player and Fury is one of the best D.Vas out there. Jake is also just fascinating to watch. As the first stage winds down, there seems to be no guarantees anymore. It is going to be even more exiting to see which teams ultimately make the cut and win the prize pot.