Happy New Year

2018 was a whirlwind for both me and my family.

I could write a novel about all the firsts, all the highs, all the lows, lots going on.

So instead, I'm making a bunch of top 5 for 2018.

A Double Whammy

Who's big idea was it to have both the WoW expansion AND TI8 be at the exact same time?

Probably someone who wants our family to not get ANYTHING productive done this month.

As many of you probably figured out, Breaky did not make it to TI8 this year as talent. But that was good news for us, as we got to have more time with him at home! Kinda. 

I no longer play WoW, though I did try a while back. Even had a two-part blog experience as a result. Part I, Part II. I also did a little piece about being a WoW Widow. 

Between WoW and TI8, attentions were diverted, to say the least. So we made it a family affair!

TI was always on the TV in the living room, and Breaky was usually somewhere playing WoW at the same time. Within earshot of course! We made sure BabyCPK wasn't always in front of a screen, with equal family, bath, feeding and story time. It's all about that balance! 

Watching the finals! 

Watch party for the finals! 

I Have Created a WoW monster

 So we are in the "Final Countdown" so to speak with our pregnancy. Literally any day now. I've been eating dates, bouncing on the yoga ball, walking all over Costco, baking (yes, I have successfully been baking, and for some weird old-wives-tale reason it is supposed to help the baby come?), eating spicy foods  and virtually everything else that is supposed to help labor come naturally.

Breaky has been doing a great job of taking care of me. Cold compress? Check! Back massage? Check! Walking with  me around Costco? Check!

When he is not helping? He is doing this Project 80 thing for World of Warcraft. Even on the laptop in the living room while we watch the 2018 Olympics. He is super dedicated to getting this completed. If I understand correctly, it basically involved leveling up a WoW character to 80. You can get more information by watching him stream! 

I responded to his tweet this morning regarding streaming his Project 80 WoW stuff:

I have created a monster. My husband is SUPER competitive, so when he says "challenge accepted" he means it. 

I did have to make sure to let him know he could NOT play while we were in the hospital actually having the baby. 

WoW Widows Unite!

A WoW widow, to me at least, is someone who has essentially temporarily lost their significant others to WoW or World of Warcraft. Sometimes this epidemic can be permanent if communication of unhappiness and discontentment continues. Right now, I am a bit of a WoW Widow. I am surviving.

So, unless you have been living under a rock, or have nothing to do with gaming what-so-ever, you may have missed the big release of World of Warcraft expansion: Legion.

Side note: I did pop on to Facebook to make sure 1. I was giving correct name information on the expansion and game and 2. spelling everything correctly, because heaven forbid I'm human and make a typo. When I typed in World of Warcraft in search, underneath "World of Warcraft" it said Games/Toys. I had to chuckle, because I am positive if I called this game a "toy" to anyone who is at all playing the game I would be turned in to a sheep or something.



Ok, back to the originally scheduled blog post.



As you may remember, I did the whole World of Warcraft for a short spell. Basically to get some pretty cool stuff for Hearthstone (a "spin-off" game if you will) and it made for a pretty interesting blog post. Needless to say, I can't keep up with my husband and our good friends when it comes to grinding and really leveling up. In a game like that, I want to learn what I'm doing, read about the lore, take my time, and as with most games, play by myself (with the exception of a few co-op games with Breaky and Overwatch of course).

So, Breaky and his friends got the expansion and pretty much has been spending any free time playing. With the exception of forgetting to take the dog out and leaving her to roam upstairs by herself, which we don't do anymore (because of the loss of 2 cords, one pair of prescription glasses, one pair of sun glasses, one tan pump, three crate beds, part of our carpet, a few books and a few coasters,) he's been pretty good about keeping "real-life" things in perspective and latching on to my not-so-subtle clues to my need for attention. That doesn't mean that while he's downstairs in Azeroth, I may not be a little salty while figuring out where those pans go BECAUSE THEY DO NOT GO ABOVE THE TOASTER OVEN SWEETHEART and evidently they "don't fit" in the drawer below the oven.


It was a struggle to figure out what I wanted to write about this week and when I brought up the whole "WoW Widow" idea to Breaky, he staunchly defended his interest in playing WoW and this expansion. I wasn't looking for a 10 minute introspective as to the importance of the story-line and how this particular expansion was something he had been waiting for for, like 6 years. It was like he thought I was complaining at him, which I *never* do, and had to defend himself and his interest in playing the game.  Well, didn't that just solidify this week's blog post. :)

Now, if you are reading this and you are like, "oh my God I can relate, my significant other is super in to WoW and I don't know what to do!" Great, welcome to the club. Take a seat. Let's form a support group. We should have a logo, like "I am a WoW widow, but I am okay with it." The only piece of advice I can give is be as supportive as you can be without being walked on. Communicate when you feel like it is getting out of hand without insulting the game or your significant other. Compromise, because this game is important to them, and sometimes schedules can get tricky, as you often have more than 3 people trying to raid together.

This is my second rodeo, so to speak. My boyfriend in college got in to the game when it first launched (World of Warcraft, not just Warcraft. I'm not that old thankyouverymuch), and I have to admit, neither of us were super good at communicating our feelings, which resulted in a pretty complicated breakup come that January. I am not saying I'm super good at communicating my feelings in a mature, calm and collected manner, especially if you ask Breaky (don't, by the way), but at least I recognize that there is a better way to address your concerns about you being temporarily widowed by a game. I say temporary, because like many things in this life, the hype will fade and interests will be diverted. However, if you do feel like communication and compromise (yes, compromise!) do not work, maybe some professional intervention may be necessary (as a kind of last resort).




If you are reading this and are like "I play a lot of WoW and maybe my significant other doesn't get as much attention as they should get" maybe you should have them read this blog. Honestly, they should be reading this blog anyway, but I feel that way about everyone. Make sure you are communicating your schedule and commitment to this game with your significant other. Try to carve out some "real-life" time with them so they do not feel neglected. Talk with them about your character, or the lore. Share with them the stuff that makes you so obsessed with the game. This is important to you, and for them to understand, seeing you enthusiastic about your hobby is one sure-fire way to do so. There is nothing that makes me feel better than hearing Breaky talk on and on about his passions, even if I don't understand half of what he is saying. He is sharing something that means something to him with me. That makes me feel important.


So kids, what did we learn today?

Communicate and balance.

The Alliance Tee-Shirt Saga

As many of you know, Breaky and I have been together for over 4 years. Before I knew Breaky, I did play games, just not with the enthusiasm and frequency as I do now. I tried World of Warcraft during a promotional free month period. I chose to only do the one month for free, because I worked at a call center, had student loans, and lived in an apartment by myself and had no money. In addition to taking advantage of free-month games that usually cost way too much, I also took advantage of ThinkGeek's promotional $5 tee shirts, back when ThinkGeek's customer service was decent and was not owned by GameStop. The promotion was you send them $5 and they send you a random tee-shirt. Usually one that was the wrong color, discontinued, or couldn't be regularly sold. 

Why this information? It all ties in, I promise.

The tee-shirt I received from ThinkGeek was a navy blue shirt with the Alliance logo from World of Warcraft. This was around the time I was thinking about trying the game out anyway, so I did. Was Alliance. Got really confused and frustrated (I didn't have anyone else that played, and was shy about playing online games with others for fear of making a fool of myself), so I cancelled the free month before I got charged. I didn't dislike the game, but definitely couldn't justify the purchase of a game I couldn't see myself playing all the time.

But I kept the tee-shirt. Went about my merry way. Met Breaky (our "how we met" will be a different blog post), and when I would wear that shirt, he would get all pissy, in a joking manner. Told me he was Horde all the way, and that dating someone with an Alliance shirt was blasphemy for him, as he was ride-or-die Horde. Told me when I wasn't looking he was going to burn it, or take scissors to it. When I cut around the neck of it to make it a workout shirt, he was disappointed I wasn't destroying it just for him.

YEARS later (just kidding, probably just less than a year), the shirt, like most articles of clothing, had seen better days, so it was reduced to rags, with Breaky doing the honors.

So imagine my surprise when years later, he started playing WoW again. And with what faction? Oh, Alliance.

* Activate Bitch Face *

All of the grief I got for wearing an Alliance tee-shirt? And you end up Alliance?

"Well," Breaky explained, "it is less about Alliance vs Horde now babe! It is all about 'For Azeroth' and the people I am playing with are Alliance."

Ok, I thought, not that bad. I'll tease him about it, sure, but I won't be super mean about it.

Sure enough, at Blizzcon that year it was evident that Blizzard and the game were really pushing for a "united Azeroth" kind of thing.  Despite being Alliance, Breaky got us Horde shirts at the gift store, as well as got me a Hearthstone journal and a Hearthstone necklace.

Less than a year later, went to see the movie. Even wore our Horde tee-shirts.

Couple months later, the Legion expansion came out. Breaky, ever the socialite, organized a few chat groups to decide what faction, what server, when to play etc.... I had a few weekends here that I have been busy with family and our cabin up-north, so I decided not to join in this time.

Needless to say, emotions were high, and arguments happened. First they were going to be Alliance. Then they were Horde. Finally Breaky came back and said they were officially Alliance. I laughed to myself, and then decided to have my revenge for my poor, fallen tee-shirt. Went online when he left the room and ordered him an Alliance tee-shirt similar to the one I had. It was going to arrive in two days.

Perfect, I thought. It will be a cute surprise, we'll get a laugh out of it, blah blah blah.

That next night, driving home from our Trivia Tuesday at the bar, Breaky announced that they decided, officially, to be Horde.

My head hit the dashboard in a frustrated thunk. I think Breaky thought I was broken. He described all the drama and in-fighting and how someone made this rallying speech and someone followed someone else and that was the end of it. Horde it was.

So I explained with an exasperated sigh about the gift that was coming and how he was going to wear it anyway, because I was his wife and he owed me a little for all the grief about my old tee-shirt. He chuckled and agreed.

We received it the next day. Even wore it, right away. Of course, did so to be troll at work and in his WoW chat. But that's the man I married.

Guest Blog Post: BreakyCPK

Below is a guest blog post by my husband, BreakyCPK, who frequently appears in my blog. He is often asked how he got in to the industry of esports and video games, so he decided it would be neat to share with everyone! Below is the blog post: 

My name is Nikolas Caras, but most people that know of me know me by the name that I go by online which is BreakyCPK.  My closest friends and even my wife refer to me as Breaky instead of Nick, and it doesn’t faze me.  I started my Video Game casting career back in 2009 and over the years I have had the privilege of traveling all over the world, as well as my current place of residence in Kalamazoo Michigan where I met “The Good Geek Wife” or as I know her as, Kelsey.

But this post isn’t going to be a full story of my journey over the years of casting (that I am saving for either future posts, or hey even a book).  Instead, I wanted to go over the story of how I even got into casting Video Games in the first place some 7 years ago, which is probably one of the most popular questions I get to this day.

The very short version is simply I was looking for more ways to get experience with sports casting, so I decided to give it a shot with video games, specifically Heroes of Newerth since I was playing it at the time.

The more detailed version is as followed.

Back in 2005 I graduated from high school, where I was overall a fairly good student.  When it came to my first year of college up at a school in northern California however, I let World of Warcraft get the better of me.  As a result of flunked out after my first year and decided it was best to come back home to San Diego, and live with my parents.  So here I was, in the “what the hell am I going to do with my life” phase that I am sure most others have gone through or are possibly going through as well.

I worked several different retail jobs over the next ~3-4 years including Blockbuster Video and Home Depot, while at the same time attempting to go to some local community colleges just to simply keep up with education and earn some type of degree that I could use to further pursue a career.  It felt like I was just going to school just to go, not really knowing what I wanted to pursue and really just getting general education classes done, but mainly because my parents told me I had to.

During this time as well, I continued to play plenty of computer games and also become more and more of a follower in a very new competitive gaming scene.  Ranging from CS 1.6 to WoW arena, to DOTA, I even did a little bit of writing for some gaming websites just to be involved in that scene.

In 2008 however I happened to be looking at upcoming classes for the new semester of a Community College, and came across sportscasting / radio broadcasting.  I have been a lifelong sports fan, specifically a San Diego Chargers and Los Angeles Lakers fan and I also have been told many times that I have a great voice, and I should do radio.  So it just seemed fitting that I should give it a shot and see where it took me.

I ended up taking the class for the two semesters of that year, and both enjoyed going to school for the first time in a very long time, but also started to gain experience in a career I would potentially be pursuing.  I started to cast some local high school football and basketball games for the college AM radio station.  However those seasons only lasted so long and the opportunities for them were constantly shifted from person to person.

A game that I happened to get into recently was called Heroes of Newerth, a recreation of the popular game DOTA which I had previous experience playing with friends.  Streaming video was also starting to become a more popular thing, however the tools were nowhere what they are today.  But I wanted to get more experience in this career that I have come to realize is something I could really make something out of in broadcasting, so I decided why not.

Now to be clear, streaming has evolved a LOT in very little time.  Back in 2009 when I did some research and a lot of testing, I was lucky to get a stream going with 360p quality.  But hey, that was great for its time and the idea that people could just see what you had on your screen was cool enough.  For a better idea of what it was like to stream, you can check out this video that I made in the earlier days, before Twitch was a thing. 

The first couple of times I did it, I don’t think I had any viewers, especially without there being a platform like today with Twitch where people would just go to watch streams.  But that never deterred me, I honestly wasn’t doing it for recognition or in hope that I would one day be a video game caster.  However after a couple of weeks of casting random games, between “in house” matches to some scrims between “top teams”, I started to gain some recognition within the scene.  It wasn’t until I was contacted by someone concerning a project they were planning to start about streaming HoN matches that eventually became the Honcast we know today that I realized maybe I could get something out of this more.

Over the next year things drastically changed, going from me just doing this on the side for experience while still working my retail job living with my parents, to getting a monthly pay check and eventually moving out on my own.  My parents, especially my mother were never really behind the idea of me focusing so much on a video game, especially with my history and of course I can’t blame them.  But in summer of 2011 the offer came to move out to Michigan and work officially as the head caster of Heroes of Newerth for S2 Games, and the realization finally hit that I had started what would be an awesome journey towards being an esports caster.

My Journey Into Azeroth Part 1

Whispers to husband: It's Azeroth, right? Do I have that right? That's not the name of the place we started though. Azeroth is the "big picture" place yes? 

So, that will give you an insight in to how my journey in to playing Blizzard's World of Warcraft. I will break it up in to different parts, so hold on to your hats, we are going on an adventure!

DISCLAIMER: I am no expert in World of Warcraft (WoW). This is written from a "noob" perspective. I will call things the wrong name. I will make assumptions that are wrong. It is meant to be a good read.

To give you a little insight, I am mostly a first-person shooter game kind of gal. I do thoroughly enjoy Hearthstone though, so many characters and items/objects I recognize.

So one night, after years and years of pestering, I finally got a trial version of World of Warcraft. Why you ask? Well Hearthstone was running a promotion that if you reach level 20 on a new character in World of Warcraft, you get a new hero in Hearthstone: Lady Liadrin, a paladin.

I have a mediocre Murloc Paladin deck. Not necessarily the level of my Dragon Priest deck, but it was reason enough to dip my toe in the waters of WoW.

So for weird reasons, I folded. Told my husband I wanted to try it out. 

Logging in, we had some connectivity issues, which we will find out why later. Once logged in, we decided to go with Night Elf for our ..... race (asks husband...it's race right?), yes race. I decided to be a Priest class. Meaning I do the healing and damage stuff from a distance. Plus, got to rep my priest and stay consistent across most Blizzard games as a healer (I play Mercy in Overwatch).

Now this does mean my husband is playing as Alliance instead of Horde, which, considering he wanted to burn an Alliance shirt I owned when we first started dating, is a big frickin deal.

So we started. Since there is no tutorial, but instead hints and help as you start, I relied pretty heavily on my husband to fill me in on how to play. First and foremost how the hell to make my character move. Clicking, right clicking, left clicking etc... on top of the usual up, down left, right key bindings. I found myself often getting stuck because I couldn't figure out how to adjust my view and making my character do what I need her to. 

First impression? A crap ton of things going on. Lots of things to read, if you want to follow any kind of story line or get history/lore. Since Breaky has done this already, it was kind of go-go-go. Often times I had to be like, "Hakuna your Ta-Tas dear". I want to read why we have to pick these flowers to get experience. Although, in that "quest" I did figure out that we can swim! Which, I must confess, I did for a good few minutes. It was just fun. I think on that quest I lost my husband having too much fun swimming. 

I found that my biggest challenge once conquering the whole getting my character to move the right way, was binding spells and items accordingly. There just seemed like there was soooo much to read and consider and little time to do it. How was I supposed to know I can't use leather and plate? If my husband wasn't around, I would be picking up everything and be completely lost. Where is it said that it was a leather object? Do I need stamina? What's the difference between stamina and intelligence? The learning curve is intense. Or we went through everything far too quickly, which is possible. Actually attaching things to me (I believe the word is "bind" it to me, but I could be wrong) took me a long time, because I'm the kind of gal that wanted to sit and read and figure out what would be best, strategically. Look below, those are so many things I don't know what they do. 

(NOT MY BAG! Picture from the internet)

Visually, the artwork and the characters, the landscape, the animals, etc... were all very well created and appealing. Lots of fun to take a look at all the different artwork representing the different mechanics. 

I finally got the basics and Breaky and I did a great job of working together. Eventually. In the beginning, I would get annoyed when I wanted to kill something and he jumped in and did it for me. Mind you, we were on the same "team" or what ever, but I wanted to learn dammit! Anyway, we did find, however, that because of the promotion (we believe), there were WAY too many other people where we were. Everyone trying to level a new character super quick to get the Hearthstone promotion (again, we speculate. It's not like we asked anyone). We would get to where we had to defeat someone and there would be like, 4 people waiting to do the same thing. Because this is the internet, it wasn't exactly like they were going to wait in line according to who got there first. So that was fun. Honestly, it had more to do with me still figuring out how to target people and missing than it did with the amount of traffic for that one quest. 

The next step was going to another location. We flew on hippogriffs -PS, why did auto-correct want to change it from hippogriffs to hippodromes? What is a hippodrome anyway?

I couldn't tell you where we flew to, but the view was stunning. Such detail to the landscape. We did a few more quests, which usually involved me being about 10 paces behind my husband, healing him and doing some damage from afar. Fine. With. Me. 

My takeaways: 1. The art and the landscape and the characters were all very well created and visually appealing. 2. The actual play took some getting used to and sometimes caused me some frustration. 3. thus-far was playable and fun when we weren't waiting for other people (who have obviously played a ton already) to do what we were trying to do. 4. I am no expert in what certain things are called and we should have written down some of my attempts to communicate with Breaky what I was trying to say. It was hilarious, I'm sure. 

Part 2 will be about my travels into "Dungeons" which, from my experience thus far are "caves" not dungeons. And yes, I'm being pedantic. Sue me. Well, don't *actually* sue me. I don't have money. 

Till next time! FOR THE ALLIANCE!