It’s Oscar season, folks, so it’s time for me to post my predictions for the 98th Academy Awards. I didn’t do very well last year; I hope I can change that this year.
There is a new category this year, “achievement in casting”. This category is long overdue. There have been some great casting choices, and the folks responsible for those decisions deserve recognition. There are countless movies where I’ve said, “So-and-so was a great casting choice”. The right person in the right role can really affect how the audience relates to the movie.
Again, I have not had the opportunity to see all the movies on the list, but I’ve tried; they are my picks for Drama Month. Look for that post early next month. Believe it or not, of all the movies I saw in theaters last year, none were nominated. You can head over to the Oscars website to see the list of nominees.
The second part of wrapping up another World of Warcraft expansion is to go over the numbers from my spreadsheets. At the beginning of the expansion, I had 22 characters at 70; 4 of which were created during the Mists of Pandaria Remix event. I also started with 6.8 million gold (across all toons) and 620 mounts. So now that the war (within) has ended, let’s get into the numbers.
Alts, Gold, and Gear
As I said, at the start of the expansion, I had 22 characters at level 70. The goal was to get all of them to 80 before the expansion ended. Before the launch of the expansion, Blizzard alluded to the fact that we would only have a year before the next expansion. It was actually about 18 months. Be that as it may, I leveled all 22 characters in just under a year (July 7th is when the last character hit 70).
A quick note before I talk about the gear. When the Midnight pre-patch launched, the item levels were squished. It was a difference of approximately 560 item levels. So when I talk about the ending values, it is based on a calculation of the pre-patch item level plus 560.
The average item level of a fresh level 70 was approximately 540.08. The average item level of my alts at the end of the expansion is 686.59. My raiding character (ie, my main) reached an item level of 714.31, which means the difference (of the average) from my main was 27.72. At the end of Dragonflight, it was 27.05. It’s interesting that I hit about the same number.
At the start of the expansion, I had about 6.88 million gold. I am finishing with approximately 8.85 million, which represents a net profit of just under 2 million gold. The only large expense was another 100k for the augment rune and the countless thousands of gold I have already dumped into housing. If housing hadn’t been introduced in the pre-patch, I’m sure I would have made a profit of over 2 million gold.
Mounts and Professions
The mount haul in The War Within was outstanding. During Dragonflight, I obtained 154 new mounts, including those from the Mists of Pandaria remix event. I started the expansion with 620 mounts, and I’m closing out The War Within with 833 mounts! That is an increase of 213 mounts; so I blew last expansion’s count out of the water.
Siesbarg was the most difficult mount to obtain
Legion Remix introduced 44 new mounts, of which I obtained all of them. If Simple Armory is accurate, of the 92 mounts available in The War Within, I obtained 65 of them, which is 71% of the mounts available in the expansion.
The most difficult mount to obtain was Siesbarg. It required a drop from a rare that started a quest. Several quests followed in which you had to obtain thousands of quest items from mobs all around the quest zones and the raids. It took quite a while.
My fondness for the changes made to professions did not grow with this expansion. It’s still tedious to obtain the knowledge points, and the amount of materials needed to craft certain items is obnoxious. I did manage to max all 11 professions this expansion. I’m sure a lot of that was due, in part, to the consolidation of materials in the warbank and the introduction of patron crafting orders.
With that said, 64% of my characters maxed out their professions, and all of them have profession accessories and tools with a minimum of uncommon quality (i.e., green).
And with that, it’s time for Midnight.
For the Alliance!
If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!
Blizzard’s 11th World of Warcraft expansion is coming to a close. This is also the first of the Worldsoul Trilogy. As usual, I like to go over the highlights and the lowlights at the end of an expansion.
This was a pretty good expansion. The leveling experience was interesting, and the story was engaging for most of the expansion. This probably ranks about the middle of the pack of all the expansions. I’d probably choose it for leveling a future alt.
Lucasfilm teased us yesterday (Feb 16th) that a full trailer would be released today. For some reason, they are still posting teaser trailers for trailers. I don’t get it. Regardless, here is the Mandalorian and Grogu official trailer.
This trailer had me at R2-D2! Then we saw Zeb, and then we saw another Ardennian (the last time we saw one was Rio from the Solo movie). I’m excited for this movie!
Din Djarin said he is looking for a Hutt. I wonder if he means Ezra (IYKYK). Anyway, I’m going to go watch this like six or seven more times.
UPDATE: I just learned that the swol Hutt in the trailer is Rotta, Jabba’s son.
The Mandalorian and Grogu will be in theaters on May 22nd.
For Science Fiction month, I decided to finally watch all of the Terminator movies. This series has quite the tumultuous history. The first two movies are written and directed by James Cameron. He wanted to do a third movie, but he lost the rights in an auction in 1997. After the release of the third film, the rights were sold again.
Terminator Salvation was released in 2003, and then the company filed for bankruptcy. Terminator Genisys was initially intended to be the first installment of a new trilogy before James Cameron regained the rights in 2019. However, the idea was scrapped after its low performance at the box office. Terminator: Dark Fate is produced by James Cameron and was also intended to be the first installment of a new trilogy. The project was scrapped for the same reason.
As a result of all this, the franchise is disjointed and incongruent. Does that affect their entertainment value?
Well, it’s January, which means it’s time to set those pesky annual goals. I’m a little late posting again, but things got off to a busy start. Last year was not my best year in all but one category, which you may have already read about in my post about my 2025 Reading Challenge. I really need to make sure I find a way to accomplish my other goals. Motivation seems to be the main factor. Be that as it may, let’s get into it.
