Diablo 3 -- Side Game Fun

There are extra "instances" which may (or may not) appear in any one section of the game.  I check the whole map before actually going to the "goal" for this area just in case one of these shows up.  It's a great chance for extra experience and goodies -- and in some of them you will "rescue" a person who turns out to be a specialized gear vendor.  You can buy rare quality items from these vendors.  Each of these mini-dungeons will have a stone at the end that teleports you back to where you entered.

WITCH DOCTOR - At level 5 you get flaming bats.  Later on, you get a pack of undead dog-kinda thingamabobs.


Certain areas trigger a random event.  Some areas (cellars, etc) have merchants there (usually offering a rare item for sale in exchange for having saved them from monsters.)

Southern Highlands:  Cave of the Moon Clan (2 levels)
* Abandoned Servant House -
Northern Highlands: Watch Tower
Black Canyon Mines:
* Deserted Cellar may have a rare level boss.  Once defeated, this allows you access to the Tunnels of the Rockworm, which is a single level dungeon
* The Breeched Keep:
STINGING WINDS
Mehtan the Necromancer - one of the good guys.  Help him defeat the bad guys (often with a side order of whatever's wandering around the place at the time.)
* Hadi's Claim Mines:  One room.  One monster.  You know what to do with it.

THE CURSED HOLD
* Free Queen Asylla's servants

THE OLD RUINS
Dark Cellar - monsters.  You know what to do.

Equipping the Rogue:
He'll need two-handed crossbows or regular bows.  After level 18, special "relic" items (they look like a pair of dice) drop for him.  Pick the ones with dexterity.  Gem his weapons with RED (strength) gems, but gem his rings with GREEN (dexterity) gems.

OLD TRISTAM ROAD
The Cave Under The Well - monsters.  Have fun.

TRAILING THE COVEN
Make sure you're well geared for the "approach the Kharza barricade" section.  There will be wave after wave of the goat men.

SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS
* The Lyceum - if this appears, you'll have a quest to explore it.  The same architect who worked on the crypts, etc, was apparently responsible for this structure.

ROAD TO ALCARNUS

MACHINES OF WAR
The number of monsters increases dramatically.  Be prepared and be geared for it.  This is where you'll want to use a lot of "AOE" attacks that damage lots of enemies at once.
* Guard of the Keep -- a guard decides to join you.  He's almost impossible to keep alive.
* The Forward Barracks -- a side excursion with gold.
* Colonel Severyn -- help them fend off an attack

Treasure Pygmy/Treasure Bandit -always tries to escape, leaving a trail of gold to tempt you.  If killed, drops magic items and gold.

Your follower's icon will glow and flash when they can add a new talent point.

Shrines are a "one use" item.  Healing Wells will refill after a minute or two.

Monster talents change from level to level.  In "Normal" mode, there are very few special attacks.
Snares - your character and followers are encased in a reddish cylinder and can't move until the spell/effect wears off
Elite (purple) mobs in Nightmare can come in groups of three.
Laser beams -- Some of the elites throw points of light on the ground that become rotating laser beams.  Try to stay out of them.
Lava pools -- Some of the mobs create lava pools.  Try to stay out of them
Green goo -- not good for your health.  Stay out of that, too.
Stone walls -- restrict your movement
Frost traps - freeze you for a short period of time, during which you lose any generated talents (like rage for the Barbarian)

Recipes:
Each level drops its own unique things
No pages drop for Normal level
Nightmare level: pages drop

The Waze To Go

Like many other folks, I do a lot of driving to get to science fiction conventions.  While I don't mind driving, I do mind running into traffic jams and other complications that make the trip more wearisome than it should be.  When I was in San Jose to visit with the Other Daughter for her surgery, she had me use an app called Waze to navigate around the city instead of using a GPS.  I didn't download it then since I don't drive much at home, but when we started planning our Florida trip, I thought it would be a good time to check it out.  It turned out to be a real timesaver.

Since we ran both our GPS and Waze at the same time, I could directly compare the two.  As far as map accuracy, Waze was more accurate -- my GPS was two years old and the maps weren't current.  Both showed the same position for our car, so the tracking was good.

At first it was just amusing -- watching out for stopped vehicles and confirming them or reporting them "not there."  But Waze showed its real worth when I spotted a notice of a big wreck on the interstate ahead and figured out from the messages and reports that the mess stretched for about six miles and average speed on that part of the road was around 4 miles/hour.  A quick view of the maps showed that we could avoid it all with a pretty simple detour.

The interface is pretty simple -- just a map and two buttons.  The one on the left allows you to customize your account; the one on the right allows you to report on-road issues to other drivers.  The app alerts you (if you wish) when you're within a half mile of cops, stalled cars, and various road conditions including roadkill and weather.   

The maps are all real-time maps and are generally more current than your GPS, since Waze gives you points for making edits to correct road conditions -- places where other maps might not be updated (recent construction that's closing the roads, for instance.)   It was better at identifying accidents than my GPS (which only reports based on the state's Department of Transportation status reports), and some of the features (tires in road, bad weather conditions) were alerts that turned out to be very useful.  Also included is a "gas prices" feature -- Waze gives you points for reporting updated gas prices, but because it can only be done when you're actually stopped at the gas station (the software has a method of checking), it isn't quite as useful as GasBuddy.

 Waze shows your position on the map with a custom icon that also indicates your activity if you're in the top 10% of active users for your state.  While this is fun, it also leads to some false reporting, which is a problem in some cities.

If you're the only person in the car, it can be a  very distracting app, since you will be tempted to respond to alerts.  This is especially true if you're driving in a city, since the number of alert messages can be pretty high.  But it's THE perfect app to hand to your passengers, and it's a real timesaver (and sanity saver) for long trips.

Waze is available as an Iphone app and an Android app.

UNINSTALL It!

It's rare, but every once in awhile you get a really badly behaved app for your Android-- one that just won't work for you or isn't right for you or even locks up your device.  But a misbehaving or inappropriate app can become more aggravating if the thing simply won't uninstall.  It sits there, taking up space on your phone or tablet, and attempts to get rid of the thing end with your system hanging up and nothing being done.

I ran into this situation myself after trying out the highly rated Nun Attack and its successor.  After a few attempts at the program (and at turning OFF the sound), I decided that these games just weren't for me.  So I tried uninstalling them... only to find that the built-in uninstall program for these games just didn't work on my Samsung Galaxy 5 phone.  Annoyed, I went into the settings for my Samsung phone and tried using the file system to uninstall, but they didn't go away.

And that's about the time that the whole situation got on my last little nerve.  So I did what any good geek does -- went out and started hunting down an application to get rid of it.  After a few tries, I came across a little app called "Uninstall" by Diya.

This is a little freeware gem for your android phone software problems.  It doesn't need fancy permissions, it doesn't throw ads at you.  It brings up a display of your apps (in alphabetical order) and you tap on the one that you want gone for good.

And it uninstalls it.  Just like that.

I gave it 5 stars.  You can find it here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=diya.android.uninstall

HabitRPG -- a good habit to get into!

My least favorite part of the day is doing ordinary tasks.  I like novelty, I like excitement, and I've been a gamer girl for decades, so when I saw that there was an app to "RPG your habits" I went over to check it out -- with just a tiny bit of skepticism.  How could you possibly have a web and smartphone app for tracking your habits that's been turned into a game?

After two months of trying it, I'm wondering why nobody ever thought of this before!


The application is lean (no memory hogging here!) and its simple interface and will remind you of your favorite 8-bit game graphics. You are given a character and you set your own tasks and decide whether you want them done daily, weekly, or on whatever schedule you like.  If you're a habitual procrastinator (that would be me, folks) then there's also a column for the "get this done or else" list.  Delay your tasks too long and your health bar goes down.  Quit doing them for a day or two, and you're dead.

Or at least your character is.  There's scary stuff out there!

Luckily there's a "vacation mode" (if only we could get life itself to install a "vacation mode.")

After two weeks, I don't know that I've developed any habits, but it IS an excellent reminder system for me to keep up with certain tasks... like writing new posts for The Silver Geek.

https://habitrpg.com

Sports Tracker: A Private Little Exercise App

Monetization is taking its toll on Android applications.  Now, it's understandable that the developers want to see a return on their investment in time and resources -- and it's understandable that the users aren't keen to throw down a lot of money.  We'll try free stuff before we try paid stuff -- unless that "stuff" (a book, music, film, etc) is from someone whose work we really enjoy.  Android developers are using the tactic of "free to play but if you want the good stuff, you have to pay a few pennies for it."  At the same time they also do a social media push to get your friends to join you as a small community that uses this app.

"Sign up with Facebook and (by the way) let us have access to your friends list and your personal information" is the new Terms of Service of many apps.

The trouble is, not all of us want to bother our friends with our games or our diet progress or many other things.  And many of us don't want to compete or interact with strangers.  Enter "Sports Tracker", a free app from a Finnish company that has some interesting goodies and gadgets to support the software.  It doesn't ask you to join anything, doesn't ask your email.  Open it up, hit the "explore" button and you can start tracking your own walking or running activities.  It saves the log for you, if you like. 

You will have to go into setup and change the settings from Metric to Imperial (the foot/pound/miles standard), but this is trivial.  After you enter your weight, gender, and age, the system will tell you how many calories you burned.  If you're stuck for ideas on where to go for a nice hike or run, the "Explore" button shows you other places nearby that people using this app have walked, jogged, or cycled using this app.  This is a nice feature if you're away from home and would like to find a good place to do a little exercise.

They do have options if you want to share your data on Facebook or with a partner or with a team -- but that's something you set up for yourself.  You aren't forced into doing this to use their service.



So why am I so twitchy about the "new paradigm?"  Well, I got a new Android phone three weeks ago, and was trying to restore all my favorite apps.  I lost the password and couldn't remember which email I used for MapMyRun, so I downloaded it and tried to sign up as a new user.  But MapMyRun had fallen into the Facebook Sharing crowd and wanted access -- to figure out what language I spoke (is anyone having a "DUH" moment right about now?) and who my friends are. 

I refused it access and it wouldn't let me sign in another way.  So I trotted back to the app store and tried to find something that didn't need to have access to my Facebook information.

So why am I so adamant about this?  Well, one of my college classmates competed several times in the Olympics and won a Bronze and still teaches athletics.  I do NOT want to have my scores hanging out there (where she might see them and chuckle to herself at how slow I am.)  Another's had surgery and recent health problems and I don't think it would do her morale much good to see that I'd finished a 2 mile walk, no matter how slow it was.  I'm not on any teams nor am I likely to be and I sure don't want to "compete for the leaderboards."

Several other apps that I poked at requested the same amount of information.

So here's to the Sports Tracker App -- a nice little app that does what I need it to and doesn't want to blab all over the internet.  It's exactly what I wanted.

Oh... they sell bike mounts, arm straps, and heart rate monitors that synch with the app. 

Company site: http://www.sports-tracker.com/blog/

If you'd like to click and try it, here it is for Apple Itunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sports-tracker/id426684873?mt=8
And here it is on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stt.android

Diablo 3 Wizard - Nightmare Notes on Bastion Keep and Heaven

I've seen statements that you should be able to end Nightmare Level at level 50, but I think this is true ONLY if you're using a toon that's very well geared (and it's more likely on Barbarian or Monk simply because they're the toughest characters.  Wizards have about all the durability of wet tissue paper.)

At Nightmare level in Diablo 3, wizards are very crunchy targets and apparently number one on the diet of every bad guy out there.  After surviving the interior keep, I was fairly certain that I could handle the battlefields -- they hadn't been THAT much more difficult in Normal mode, and by now I was level 49.  Just charge in, throw the Templar at them, and it'd be great.

Boy, was that the wrong assumption. 

I found that I needed to upgrade my gear (via auction house) AND the Templar's gear to at least level 45 to get through there without dying every two minutes -- instead, I died every three minutes.  Switching to Frost Build also helped.  After trying all three followers, I found that the Scoundrel seemed to work better for a lot of the battlements and the Enchantress worked better in the battlefields.  However, once we got to the "heart of sin" part of the quest, the Enchantress proved less than successful and the Templar turned out to be a better choice. 

The Wizard in Diablo 3: Bastion Keep, Nightmare Level

Having zapped and fried my way through Caldeum, it was on to the Zoltun Kulle quests and Bastion Keep.  I don't know about you, but I found Kulle annoying the first time through.  The second time I had to do this, I got him started talking... and left.  The Escape key works, too.

Unless you've got really good gear, it's very hard to take down Belial before level 45.  I used Archon and Teleport with fractured images, had the Scoundrel out as my companion (highest DPS), and did a lot of dodging and running.  I had tried it with Diamond Skin, but that didn't hold up, so I switched to ice armor and teleport.  Of course (as is typical), I thought I was relatively indestructible after that and went to the Bastion Keep... where I promptly fell over dead on the first set of monsters.

I'm blaming it on the cold.

Surviving Caldeum at Nighmare Level with the Wizard (part 1).

It's all Fun and Games until you hit Nightmare Level

It isn't easy being green.  Or Arcane.  Or Frost, for that matter.   The first thing I found out that was once I hit the Nightmare level, Azumi folded like a cheap suit everytime ANYTHING came close to him.  I got through the first few quests with only a death or two, but after I hit the Cathedral, things changed.  I adjusted my build a bit more, and downed Magda.  I was feeling really confident when, as level 38, I set out for Caldeum.  I was confident with my play, confident in my gear, and ... just confident.

And once more, Azumi fell over dead within the first few mobs as soon as we hit Stinging Sands.  After some tries (and a lot of repair bills), I came up with a reasonable strategy.

Diablo 3: It's all Fun and Games until you hit Nightmare Level

The title pretty much says it all.  I've been leveling one of each type of character (yes, I'm an altaholic) but given the limited amount of space in the stash, I'm now only leveling two characters.  The others are acting as extra storage space at the moment -- because you often find a piece of gear that would be Just Perfect for another class when you get around to that.  Right now, my Barbarian's level 44 and my Wizard is level 37 and both are in the Stinging Winds area.

I think my Wizard is plotting to have me eaten by a grue.

With equipment donated by his good friend (my Barbarian, who is level 45 and stuffs all the mage-y junk in the Stash chest), my mage blasted through the Normal levels and splatted Diablo to bits as he hit level 30.  The build I chose was effective but not perhaps the best, using Frost Nova (ice snap), hydra (Arcane), ice armor (Chiling Aura), Mirror Image (simulacrum), Magic Missle (charged blast), Ray of Frost (snow blast) on my casting bar.  Evocation, Astral Blast, and Blur for the passive skills.  It wasn't a very high-powered build.  My armor was 1088 and the official stats say my damage was 586.17 -- so not very high, actually.  Since I'd killed him once (after many tries) on my Barbarian, the experience I had on how to manage the fight actually made it possible to solo Diablo at a much lower level on the Wizard.

Well, that and the gold and knowing how to use the Auction House.

Defeating Diablo, Normal Mode (Wizard)

After playing around with the Barbarian (to Nightmare Mode level 45) I decided to toy with some of the ranged classes.  Although Demon Hunter is very popular, I decided to pick the Wizard.  I'm not sure why -- maybe I just liked his looks.

The Wizard leveled a lot faster than I figured he would.  My basic tactics were "gear up Templar, let HIM run in, and blast things from a distance."  I picked gear for overall DPS, figuring that the Wizard's job is to stay out of the way of things while someone else dies.  It worked quite well and he actually made it all the way up to Diablo (last boss) without dying -- even the icy battlefield didn't give him any trouble.  By the time he was level 30, I figured it was time to move onto the "let's get into Heaven and smush up the forces of evil."  The Barbarian (my first character) had trouble with the icy battlefields and I didn't get to heaven until she was level 34.

So what could go wrong with a Wizard character -- right?