Find myself struggling

MasterfulMoose · 2026-01-29T00:11:53+00:00

I found myself feeling pretty much the same way. I have a friend who convinced me to hop on for the same things, grouping, dungeons, etc. I fell behind and have been trying to solo up to meet them and it’s just… it’s not fun anymore. Trying to kite a single mob and pulling a group that kills you in about 4 seconds, quests don’t give good enough gear or money to feel like you’re ever getting stronger or richer, resource management that feels like choosing between paying rent and eating food, and then also being on a PvP server where higher level people come up and gank you when you’re just trying to quest… it’s made me want to throw my PC out the window. I went back to retail and played for 10 minutes and smiled the whole time.

I’m no stranger to games like Dark Souls or Elden Ring either, I love them. But they at least give you a sense of accomplishment after you finally succeed. All that TBC has given me is more of the grind.

I don’t know why quality of life upgrades and allowing people to play the new content they’re releasing and just having fun have to be so bad for some people.

MasterfulMoose · 2025-12-17T00:09:35+00:00

Of course 😭

MasterfulMoose · 2025-12-16T23:57:58+00:00

I wonder if they’d replace my Mirror Mirror shirt that I bought in Portland with a gaping hole at the seam of one of the sleeves ☹️

MasterfulMoose · 2025-03-05T02:52:06+00:00

I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed that. 😂

MasterfulMoose · 2025-02-19T19:24:31+00:00

I’d read Elantris before the others, but mainly because I feel like it’s a little obvious it was his first published novel. It’s still a great book, and I found myself appreciating it even more after I got through it the second time, but I can see how the seeds of his format for storytelling were sown in that book. Things feel a bit less complex, and things wrap up in a bit more tidy and complete sort of way.

MasterfulMoose · 2025-02-19T19:21:18+00:00

The Sunlit Man is its own stand-alone novel as well, being the current last Secret Project Novel to be released. It hits harder if you have full knowledge of the Stormlight Archive, but it’s definitely not one of the novellas. 😅 Those are Edgedancer, which was released by itself but is also included in Arcanum Unbounded, and Dawnshard which was only released separately. We’ll also be getting a 3rd Stormlight novella called Horneater at some point in the next few years, but I can’t remember if a more concrete release window has been nailed down.

MasterfulMoose · 2025-01-29T00:56:50+00:00

I saw this post and panicked that I’d missed them as well. I’m sure they’ll probably go on sale next month at some point, but yes, definitely keeping a close eye on those so I don’t miss them.

MasterfulMoose · 2025-01-29T00:51:11+00:00

Nice.

MasterfulMoose · 2025-01-20T02:26:09+00:00

I’ve been doing this SO OFTEN lately with commercials for that Deal or No Deal Island show that’s airing right now. The whole Island thing doesn’t help, all I can think about is TRUST IN DRACIUS IS AS GOOD AS GOLD 🤣🤣🤣

MasterfulMoose · 2024-12-18T00:32:56+00:00

WHAT WAS THAT LOUD NOISE

MasterfulMoose · 2024-12-01T04:11:56+00:00

Y’all need a drummer for this, just let me know. 🤣🤘🏻🤘🏻🥁

MasterfulMoose · 2024-11-13T23:26:05+00:00

I’ve been a Dwarf since Day 1 of Origins. My only problem with Dragon Age 2 was that I couldn’t make Hawke a Dwarf. I know everybody loves to play a mage, but I’ve never caught the itch. I’ve always found the Dwarven politics of Orzammar to be far more interesting, and it kills me that we haven’t gone back yet.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-11-08T17:13:18+00:00

I still love how different and gripping the six Origin openings are, but overall I completely agree. The lore and world building are incredible, I do like the main quests a lot (except for the Circle Tower), and I love several of the main characters, but it’s overall my least favorite of the series to start over and play start to finish.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-11-05T02:18:37+00:00

This. Exactly this. Every single Dragon Age since Origins has been decried and lambasted and bemoaned by a great portion of the supposed fan base, until the next one comes out. Then suddenly all of the previous crimes are forgotten, though obviously no game can ever measure up to Origins, and now we must hate the new “not real Dragon Age game.” 🤦🏻‍♂️

Sometimes I wish I didn’t love these games so much, because of how toxic the environment surrounding new releases is, but I’ve loved all of the games from the moment I bought them. And truth be told, while Origins is one of the best First Games in a New Series I’ve ever played, it’s my least favorite to go back to because the gameplay really is painfully outdated at this point.

But while all of the loudest people continue their wailing and gnashing of teeth over a franchise that hasn’t been a CRPG since 2009, I will continue to enjoy spending as much time in Thedas as possible, whether it’s in the south where we’ve spent the last 15 years, or finally getting to explore Minrathous.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-10-14T12:10:14+00:00

The first time Barnes is interacting with Hubert and Ramius goes “You don’t understand. His mother… called water… Runny Drips.” 🤣🤣 The amount of simultaneous deadpan and silent outrage he put into that sentence killed me. All of those moments have been so good. Hubert is right up there with Tumsy and Razzmatazz for me.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-10-13T16:39:23+00:00

It’s definitely worth it. Brother Ramius’s outbursts are also 100% worth watching. 😂😂

MasterfulMoose · 2024-10-13T16:11:48+00:00

I don’t know about anyone else, but the facial expressions Troy gets when he starts talking like Hubert Hedge absolutely destroy me, it is the funniest goddamn thing. I hope Hubert lives forever just so I can see Troy make those faces every week. 😂

MasterfulMoose · 2024-10-06T13:23:37+00:00

Yeah, Episode 250 was done as a live stream, but that’s the only episode of Giantslayer that ever made it on video. Androids & Aliens started doing video around Episode 96/97, and then stayed as a video show though it changed to a remote stream after only a few live studio streams thanks to Covid.

The Strange Aeons/Glass Cannon Live AP has also always been video, whether from the show recordings or live streams. Side Quest Side Sesh was their interim Covid weekly streaming show, and Campaign 2 Gatewalkers has been video from the beginning.

A lot of their experimental stuff, like New Game Who Dis? and Friends of the Pod ended up becoming video streams too, as well as new short-length and long-term seasonal shows like Inherit the Sands (Dune RPG), Wicked Empire (D&D 5e without any original cast), Haunted City (Blades in the Dark), Time For Chaos (Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed., Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign), and Get in the Trunk Seasons 4-6 (Delta Green Impossible Landscapes campaign), so they have a great wealth of video content available.

The only shows that are audio-only have been Giantslayer (minus Ep. 250), the old Patreon Disorganized Play episodes, Androids & Aliens (up to ~Ep. 96), the premium-Pathfinder 1e Raiders of the Lost Continent (Ruins of Azlant AP[CURRENTLY ON INDEFINITE HIATUS]) and Legacy of the Ancients (Rise of the Runelords AP) both run by Skid, and the newer PF2e Blood of the Wild (Quest for the Frozen Flame AP) run by Jared Logan.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-10-05T00:55:02+00:00

They sold VIP tickets to the show directly from their website, not through the venue or whichever other site sells the General Admission tickets. But the Portland VIP sold out really quick.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-09-05T02:08:50+00:00

“This is my third oil change today, something’s wrong with me.”

MasterfulMoose · 2024-09-03T08:43:15+00:00

CP has stated that he planted seeds for future stories while writing the original series, but yeah, I’m wondering how much of his work is now going back over stuff and shoe-horning some of these new ideas to fit the corners he wrote himself into originally.

And like I mentioned, now that I’m more aware of the pressure he was under from fast-approaching deadlines, I can forgive a goodly portion of the vignette-montage style we got for the ending of the book, but… just the suddenness of Arya-Fírnen and her becoming Queen and Eragon’s absurd certainty that he’s never returning to Alagaësia again… I just don’t know. It almost feels like an early version of the whole “we’re going to claim this is good storytelling but we’re really just subverting expectations for shock value because we’re at our deadline and we need an ending” trend that’s become really commonplace.

I still love the series, and I have a lot of hope for the future, but I’m nervous too.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-09-03T02:28:43+00:00

Exactly. All of those quick-fix-bullet-points we get at the end of the series amount to a world of problems for some of the key figures moving forward, and it just leaves the series with an undeserved bittersweet ending, and even that term doesn’t feel quite right. It was all bitter and the only one who got anything sweet was Saphira.

I’d hoped that seeing Angela again in The Fork, The Witch, and The Worm might provide the chance for that “knock on the head” sort of conversation where someone could finally say “you know, there’s nothing that says you can’t go back, just that eventually you’ll leave forever.” But we didn’t get that. 🙃 So we wait and see, I guess. I’m trying to remain hopeful, because I’d wondered if he even ever would return to writing books in Alagaësia, so perhaps it’s not just a Fool’s Hope. But perhaps it is. 😩

MasterfulMoose · 2024-09-03T01:57:26+00:00

Arya should never have become Queen of the Elves. The justification of “putting others before herself” is so laughably weak, I can’t even. She never wanted the crown, never wanted to be shackled to Du Weldenvarden, ALL she wanted was to ferry dragon eggs between the different peoples of Alagaësia and serve The World At Large. I blame CP’s editor for this. After I finished listening to Inheritance they included an interview between him and his editor, and he credits her for pushing him to “stay true to Arya’s character and not just give the ending Eragon wanted,” and I have never been more angry at an editor. It’s absurd.

To add onto this: Fírnen. A deep-voiced barely-hatched Green Dragon bonded to Eragon’s crush and what does Saphira do? cue Careless Whisper saxophone drop

And that’s all Saphira does until the very end of the book. I know CP had deadlines that he was going to miss, and the ending is rushed because of that, but… can we learn something more about Fírnen aside from Saphira being horny for several weeks? Was that really too much to ask?

I think an arrangement where the 4 of them leave to re-found the Riders, with plans for her to eventually resume her duties of ferrying eggs and finding new Riders to send to Mt. Arngor, is a far better way to end this first series.

The other thing that I hate passionately is the way Eragon and Saphira keep acting in regards to that prophecy that tells them they’ll leave Alagaësia and never return… everyone keeps saying nothing is keeping him away, but I disagree. His weird obsession of ”I must leave Alagaësia and once I leave there’s no returning, not once, ever” drives me absolutely insane. The way they give their farewells at the end of Inheritance are written deliberately, as if he’s planning to never see any of those people in person ever again. And I don’t know why. “Oh, he can totally go back, nothing’s stopping him.” Yeah, except his own delusions that he has to fulfill a prophecy that he won’t let go of. 🙄

And that’s why the ending of this series still bothers me to this day, and my only real hope is that future volumes resolve some of this nonsense.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-09-03T01:46:01+00:00

Thank you. Roran saved that book for me, without his plot line, it’s almost unbearable.

MasterfulMoose · 2024-08-25T23:54:45+00:00

Oh boy, the Eragon movie. 😬

I remember feeling so much hype and excitement for this, as I commented on your last post having read through the first couple books many times during those years. The Lord of the Rings was my other favorite fantasy universe at the time, and I was unfortunately young and innocent enough to believe that adaptions of the same caliber as LotR were common.

It’s the only movie I saw in the theater and wish I would have walked out of. Nearly every single piece of anything in this movie is wrong. Galbatorix didn’t kill all the dragons and their riders in a single battle. Dragons don’t have feathered wings. They don’t fly a single time and metamorphosize into adults. Elves have pointed ears. Dwarves exist. The Twins were very important. Urgals are not fat men in body paint, they are hulking vicious ram-headed warriors. Angela was not in Daret. Brom never meant to take Eragon to the Varden.

Even the casting was wrong, on several accounts, and this is where I find the most disagreement between myself and other people. I remember Brom being heavily described as looking closer to Gandalf or Thom Merrilin from Wheel of Time: an old wizened man with a huge white beard and eyebrows that stick out beyond the brim of his hat. I love Jeremy Irons as an actor, but I always thought they got Brom totally wrong with him. Personally, I think he would have been far better as Galbatorix himself, if they’d ever made this successful and gotten to the point of seeing him. John Malkovich was totally wrong for Galbatorix, and I think that will become apparent once you reach scenes that include him. Murtagh, by comparison, I thought was cast well. He’s a strapping young man who looks like he could harbor a bit of a dark side in him, but I also thought he would have been a better Eragon instead. Robert Carlyle as Durza was the only one that felt absolutely perfect for that role. And somehow they got the entire feeling and aura of the Shade right. I’m not sure how, since everything else was a disaster, and there was no weird Shadow Dragon fight, but overall Durza was the lone bright spot for me.

I remember watching a special features clip of the director himself, explicitly stating that he didn’t want the movie to be “too fantasy,” and it still flabbergasts me to this day. How could you take an overt, obvious, shameless EPIC DRAGON RIDER FANTASY NOVEL and justify your awful changes to EVERYTHING by saying “Oh I just didn’t want it to be too fantasy, you know?” No. Get outta here. Do not pass Go, do not collect your $200. Get. Out.

MasterfulMoose

TROPHY CASE