Tuesday, December 29, 2009

You Might Want to Sit Down...

During all 99 days of Zully's playtime there's been one thing I've been adamantly against.  Shadow Spec.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Chasing My Tail

Old content is old.  Yet somehow, the achievement whore masochist in me goes back to it again and again.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Repost: How Online Gaming is Changing Parenting

Pixels and Policy: How Online Gaming is Changing Parenting


Let me say first of all that I'm not a parent.  I haven't gone down that road yet, and have no idea when/if that will happen.  People tell me I'd be a good mom, maybe I would, but not right now.  However, I have been part of a guild full of families for two years.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Quest Log Updated?

I'm a fan of the new LFG tool. It has been a very long time coming, and I'm glad Blizzard finally got it right. However, I fear this may be the final blow in the death of questing.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

No talk words good

I'll stick with pretty pictures to sum up the weekend.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Repost from PlusHeal: New LFG Tool

I haven't had a ton of time to use the random tool yet, but I was very pleased with it on patch day.

December Gear Upgrade Post

With the new patch, it's time for yet another gear upgrade post.  This time, I can just be lazy and link the Wowhead profile.  Yay!

http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=18935797

Yoka's list hasn't changed:

http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=17970075

Yamira's still a bit too young to worry about it.  Once she gets around level 77-78 I'll have to decide what her main spec's gonna be so I gear correctly.  Definitely gonna keep the Feral PvP build.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Dribs and Drabs

I wanted to QQ about how fail this weekend was, but I guess it wasn't all bad. Yamira hit Northrend after Jaqu did some lowbie runs with me and the British Twins. I quested with her on and off, she's sitting at 69 now. Haha sitting. 69. Oh never mind.

Didn't really do much with Zully. Wasn't in the mood. I'm irritated that I still haven't found an arena team. Looks like I get to raid again this week, were gonna do Ulduar.

Yokanolu is revered with the Hodir after a UP run with the guys last night. I think I actually nodded off during the first fight. Got killed by the giant sword. Also couldn't count to five for the spears. Good news is they're running Ony tonight and will probably need bodies. My DPS is topping out around 1.6k, but it's better than nothing I guess. I'm not even sure if I'm hit capped LoL.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Bug Juice




Posted by Picasa

Yep, that's Anub'Arak there, along with my achievement (thanks to AchievementScreenshotter) I was able to get home early on Tue and Wed so I could do a little raiding. And what do you know, we were able to do all of 10 man ToC in two days!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Bye Jake

This warranted a separate post, I didn't want it to get lost in the last one. Jake apparently decided to quit playing WoW. He logged in and deleted all his characters without a word to anyone. The only reason I know it was him and not a hack is that Brett happened to ask as he was deleting his last character.

So now we're down to three. Me, Brett, and Psycho. Psycho is going to try and spin up EnM as a late night raiding guild. I gave him full permissions, though my DK alt will still be the only one who can change the guild settings like bank rules and stuff. Maybe I'll be ready to hand that over in a little while, but not yet.

So long Jake. I would have liked to have said goodbye.


Monday, November 23, 2009

Lucky Ducky Turkey Lurkey



I spent all weekend in my computer chair and still didn't finish everything I wanted to do.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Repost Comment from RaidWarning: Hardcore vs Casual

I agree that heroic content is too easy now. Partially because gear is more easily attainable. You can’t increase the base difficulty of existing dungeons without making them impossible for their intended audience, the fresh 80. Until they do something like tune the dungeon based on what badge you want, heroics will continue to be a snoozefest. The death of crowd control and trash has taken a lot of the strategy out of heroics. It’s way too easy just to tank n spank every boss.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

You Can Still Call Me Zully

I've decided to go ahead and put my character names on the blog. I've been posting for quite a while now. I would really like to start sharing some screenshots and custom content so I can add a little more "substance". I've also gotten to the point where I'm perfectly willing to talk about my posts if someone I know comes along and wants an explanation. And, it will make my "gear upgrade" posts easier to read, though I'll probably still write out the upgrades for historical purposes.

I'll probably start talking in more general terms about my antics, but that's not all bad either. Gossip is one of my vices, it's good for me to practice restraining myself.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Fury PvE Notes

My poor little warrior's DPS is horrible. And no wonder, every thing is wrong. Terribly wrong. I need a new game plan. Here goes...

Monday, November 9, 2009

Twins, Dragons, and Elementals

I did a bunch of raiding this weekend. I didn't really log in till Saturday evening. Did my daily Triumph dungeons, then Eye wanted to continue their ToC from earlier in the week. It seems some of the people who are there during the week are not there on the weekend, because I got an invite despite not being saved to it. They were on encounter #4, the twin Valkyries.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Gloom

I've been spending most of my time leveling my Druid again lately. I'm still having a hard time being enthusiastic about WoW after my work incident and questing is my default no-brainer. She's at two bars to 65 right now. Getting to be time to blow money on Northrend and epic flying. Maybe I should divert some of my questing into dailies.

Edit 10/6 - Apparently I'm not the only one thinking about this
How do we deal with death in the metaverse

Monday, October 26, 2009

Lazycrafting

I got to do ToC with Eye last week. It was fun, but incredibly chaotic and demanding. Chaotic takes practice, demanding takes gear. I do the best I can without raiding, but I get lazy when I'm not challenged. I'm close to finishing up my Conquest badge gear, and I'm on my way to a nice Triumph piece. If I don't raid, I don't really need the Triumph gear, and if I do raid, I'll get it. Thus, I'm not worried.

Friday, October 23, 2009

When RL Intrudes

I don't like to mix my work and my WoW, but it seems to have gone and bled together without my permission. Something happened at work and I suddenly became the WoW expert, and it was not fun. I'm having a really hard time getting myself right at this point. I did raiding and stuff yesterday, so I don't think it's completely wrecked my fun, but the triviality of online gaming is very apparent right now.

Not cool.

New Achievement

This was inspired by my ToC run on Wed

New Guild

I moved Zully over to Eye on Tuesday.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Flip flops should be for the beach

I changed my mind about transferring. I know, Zully can never make up her mind. Sometimes I think she's more tusks than brains.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Plans for the weekend

I want to hit outland on my Drood. That's 3 and a half levels. I think I can pull it off, especially since I'm off on Monday. I wonder if I should still do 58-60 in BGs like I planned, or just suck it up and do Hellfire Peninsula.

Zully got Exalted with all the Horde cities this morning. Now what am I going to do with those 20 reputation scrolls I have sitting in my bag?

Thursday, October 8, 2009

It's all about the Drood

tl;dr - Spent a lot of money and tokens and leveled my drood like crazy.

Monday, September 28, 2009

New raid!

I was in the most epic 25 man raid on Saturday. I was a little worried because it was a PUG and the raid leader and his two guildies didn't seem very organized. I had trouble getting a summon so I met the group at the stone. Once I got there I realized this other guild of 15 was there. They were really pro. The guild master and two of his buddies were just tearing up the dps charts. The first wing was really hard, but there were no wipes. When we got to the second wing two of the other PUGs aggroed a group of wasps and left group, and a few of the ones from the larger guild went AFK, so we weren't able to quite clear out the second wing. Everyone did a great job! That big guild is recruiting, I may just go app with them.

Yep, creek cleanup day went really well. Those 10 foot tall weeds didn't stand a chance against the mighty power of the city volunteer day team!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Style!

A thread over on PlusHeal got me thinking about my PvE healing style. One of the reasons I have trouble as DPS is the notion of ability rotation. There IS no rotation as a holy priest. Well, after the inital tank cast. It's like as series of IF... THEN statements.

I lean heavily on shield/renew to prevent damage and keep people topped up. In the current patch, I've been stopcasting GHeals on the tank, and only using flashes when they're free or I have to hit multiple people in a short time span. I've gotten pretty good at always using the free flash. Having sparks shoot out from under my feet helps.

1. Open with PoM, Shield. Keep tank in range and hit with renew about 1 tick after the tank gains aggro.

2. IF the tank is a DK, I try and keep my shield up the entire fight. I leave gaps with rage users and pallies when the fight's not too intense to help them do their tank thing.

3. IF I see an aggro indicator on another player, I throw them a renew. If there seem to be a lot of people with aggro, I'll toss a PoM on the person who seems to be taking the most damage.

4. IF the damage is being caused by disease or magic I will abolish/dispel as needed. This is a pretty high priority for me. I spend a lot of time keeping debuffs to a minimum.

5. IF a player other than the tank has lost about a quarter health, I'll flash or gheal them when I can, depending on how much health is lost. 9k is about where I switch from flash to gheal. If it's more serious than that, I'll throw a new shield->renew->PoM on the tank, then renew->flash->greater the DPS.

6. IF things are really getting hairy with the DPS and myself taking damage, I'll usually damage control with PoH if it will heal more than the incoming damage.

7. If multiple people are going critical or the tank is taking massive damage, I'll activate a trinket if I'm wearing one that requires it, throw a guardian spirit/renew/PoM/shield on the tank, do a circle and a PoH if I have time, then start shield/renewing the DPS. At that point I usually have to start deciding which DPS is the priority to keep up.

8. MSBT tells me when my health/mana is running low. I have it set to a pretty high threshhold. IF it's health, I'll generally shield->renew->flash. IF it's mana, I'll let out my puppy if it's available, or use the Hymn of Hope. If I'm out of options, I'll use a health or mana pot.

9. IF I get bored because I'm overgeared, which happens more and more lately, I switch to my second bar, which replaces some of my emergency heals with dots, pw:d, smite/blast, etc. I still have the DPS part of my holy nova "turned on" so I like to run in and start spamming it when I'm really bored. I've outDPSed people in lower level dungeons before.

10. On top of all this, I'm constantly moving. Running, jumping on top of stuff, repositioning, watching for fires and pats, etc. I love having so many run and heal possibilites.

Things I could improve
-I could probably wait to throw on the renew until after the first shield wears off. I would need more Grid indicators for that.

-I could probably pay more attention to where the PoM bounce is so I don't overwrite one already present on the tank. I don't think that happens very often though.

-I could do more dispels on the tank's target. I'm sure there are occasionally things that I can dispel to help out the DPS

-I always forget about binding heal

-I should use Divine Hymn more. I know it's awesome, but I have this thing against using it unless I'm really desperate, which isn't really the best way to use a group heal

-I'm better about Hymn of Hope, but I should still use it more

-I'm bad at using lock cookies and mana potions early in the fight, which is really the ideal time to do it.

-It's been a while since I revewed my talent tree. A few patches have gone by, so there may be some tweaks to do

That's all of Zully's secrets! Have fun!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

What Step is this Again?

So I think I've finally kicked a lot of my unhealthy WoW habits. Yay for me! Now I just have to not backslide when I have a few more nights a week open.

1. I have started going to the gym again just like I did when I was on my last WoW break. Like not saying 'I'm going to go' going, actually moving my arms and legs going.

2. I tend to get excited when I have extra WoW time, like this week. However, last night I opted to have a sushi/beer/movie on the couch night instead.

2. I have been a lot more timely and consistent with my chores/errands, which means even if I don't leave the house all day I am out of my chair doing something else for at least an hour or two.

3. I pretty much go to bed by midnight on Saturday nights. Fridays tend to be closer to 0100, but a lot of the time I'm logged off at midnight and end up goofing off on the internet because I'm too tired to get out of my chair

4. I've been going back to sleep on weekends if I'm still tired rather than just getting up and playing WoW instead.

Things I still need to kick:

- Getting up 20 minutes early to do auctions/check mail/squeeze in the cooking daily, and then end up speeding like crazy and running to the train

- More Bio breaks. I still do the pee pee dance in my chair quite a bit.

- More showers. I know, it's gross, but I generally shower every other day, but sometimes on the weekend... I should just do it first thing in the morning on Saturdays.

- I have to stop putting off phone calls because I want to play WoW instead. I also need to stop talking on the phone and playing WoW at the same time, especially when I'm talking to my mom.

- I need to watch the fish/snuggle with the cat more. My poor cat has to practically sit on my face to get my attention sometimes.

- Umm I probably shouldn't be WoW blogging or surfing at work...

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

I think I played WoW this weekend...

I actually had to check Zully's achievements to see if I did anything with her this weekend. I did H ToC for the first time (what?), got champion/exalted with Thunder Bluff, and finished punching furlbogs in the face for my knuckle sandwich/master of arms achievements.

I spent some time on Yoka as well, H Nexus and a whole bunch of Isle of Conquest games. I also did the first "boss" of Ulduar. I was a gunner, so my gear level didn't matter.

Yam is lvl 44 now, I finished up Dustwallow and will be moving on to Tanaris. I haven't been 'sent' to Feralas yet, I wonder when that will happen. Tonight I think I will run around the world with her and turn in a bunch of random quests. Hopefully I can use the portal near Swamp of Sorrows now and save myself some running/flying. Also, I completely forgot how to get to the Badlands.

One of my big chunks of time was doing JC and other dailies on Mal's rogue. It was partially to help him out, but a lot of it was just me wanting to quest for a good reason. Zully's pretty much done with the Northrend rep grind, I just have 2 more factions to finish in the tournament. Mal's rogue, however, needs pretty much everything. I was able to get to 9 dailies remaining easy by doing the tournament, the brunhildar bear gamble, cooking, JC and Hodir. I would have done the last 9 but I couldn't think of what to do. I should have done Wyrmrest thinking back on it.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Breakfast Topic: I Hate

You know what I hate the most in WoW? Stranglethorn Vale. I refuse, utterly REFUSE to quest there any more. Even now I can't run through there without getting attacked, even on my F'ING LVL 80 PRIEST! Stranglethorn Vale single handedly caused me to abandon my first priest because it was impossible in Vanilla.

Probably a strong #2 in things I hate about wow is that damn troll ziggurat in the Hinterlands, that you had to do to get the mallet of Zul'Farrak. It's not so bad now, but back in the day all the trolls were ELITES, so it was basically a 5-man instance, out in the world, with mobs on a fast respawn and quest items on a slow respawn, where Allies could come kill you and spit on your corpse. In fact the only redeeming quality of the Hinterlands is the abundance of leveling herbs.

I think I've talked about this recently. I forget where. Hmm.

Wow.com Breakfast Topic: I Hate

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Call me the Zullypedia

I was mostly AFK this weekend, but I have quite a bit of WoW to talk about as well.

I've polished off all of my "easy achievements" list, you know annoying ones like explorer, squirrels, and northrend gourmet. I dropped some gold on the Gigantique Sack to get that out of the way too. Now it's back to grinding rep. I don't have Krom to back me up on the heroic Outland instances anymore :-( so I think I'll work on the old world ones. Zully is currently parked in winterspring with no staff equipped. Yes, I've been punching teddy bears in the face. It's quite theraputic actually. Got that unarmed skill up to 391 :-) I need to buy/find a grey dagger and grey mace to get those skills maxed out too. I'm pretty close to having all weapons usable by priests at max. I broke down and started making frostweave bandaids as well.

On Saturday I went and visited a friend. She and her other half had to go fairly early but let me stay the night since I was headed off to the mountains. I set myself up at the dining room table w/ my laptop. I was intending to just level my drood but I decided to poke my nose in on SDS first and they invited me to bring Yoka to Naxx. My dps went up from around 1k to about 1.3k with the spec change. I scored a new ring. I felt a little bad rolling on loot seeing as I'm not exactly a regular raider, but the other dps warrior that rolled wasn't exactly a regular either.

I ended up hanging with the Goblin clan on their boat Sunday. His kids are super cute and well behaved, which is very unusual for me to say. I'm generally not into kids. It was really funny when Goblin introduced me by my drood's name. LOL. I'm thinking I need to go visit them down at their house some weekend and have a little dungeon LAN party. If they could just get themselves a tank it would be great. Fortunately for the one non-WoW player on the boat the "Zullypedia" talk was only intermittent. I was having a blast getting to swim in the lake and hang out with some real people for the day.

Friday, September 4, 2009

September Gear Upgrade Post

I wasn't going to do one of these this time, since it looks like most of my upgrades are pretty straightforward: Farm, farm, farm the Heroics. Wowhead's profiler makes this process a WHOLE LOT easier. On a girly note, everything matched quite nicely. Except the gloves :-(

This is going to be painful:
75 Emblems of Valor, must be downgraded from Conquest
162 Emblems of Conquest
25 Emblems of Triumph, obtainable through doing the Daily heroic
Dagger has a 13% drop rate from the Black Knight on Heroic ToC
Chest has a 14% drop rate from the Black Knight on Heroic ToC

Head
Current: Lifespark Visage (Ulduar-Flame Leviathan)
Upgrade: Conqueror's Cowl of Sanctification(58 Emblems of Conquest)

Neck
Current: Torque of the Red Dragonflight (Malygos-Key Quest)
Upgrade: Evoker's Charm(19 Emblems of Conquest)
EDIT 8/4 - COMPLETE

Shoulder
Current: Mantle of the Preserver (Ulduar-Auriaya)
Upgrade: Ulduar +

Back
Current:Wispcloak (Crafted)
Upgrade:Disguise of the Kumiho (25 Emblems of Valor)
Priority Upgrade - Valor badges? Really? Wow am I behind.
EDIT 8/4 - COMPLETE

Chest:
Current:Moonshroud Robe (Crafted)
Upgrade Embrace of Madness(H Trial of the Champion - Black Knight)
EDIT !0/1 - COMPLETE

Wrist
Current:Resurgent Phantom Bindings(Naxx-Gothik the Harvester)
Upgrade:Cuffs of the Shadow Ascendant (60 Emblems of Valor)
Priority Upgrade - Valor badges again. Yeesh.

Hands
Current:Handwraps of Surrendered Hope (Trial of the Champion 5N - Black Knight)
Upgrade: Touch of the Occult(28 Emblems of Conquest)

Waist
Current:Elegant Temple Gardens' Girdle (Emblems of Heroism)
Upgrade:Sash of Potent Incantations (28 Emblems of Conquest)
EDIT 10/1 COMPLETE

Legs
Current:Leggings of the Haggard Apprentice (Trial of the Champion 5N - Confessor or Eadric)
Upgrade:Legwraps of the Master Conjurer (29 Emblems of Conquest)

Feet
Current:Boots of Forlorn Wishes (Naxx - Instructor Razuvious)
Upgrade: Ulduar +

Rings
Current:Band of Channeled Magic (Emblems of Valor)
Current:Inscribed Signet of the Kirin Tor (6800g + 1000g + Exalted with Kirin Tor)
Upgrade: Ulduar +
Upgrade: Apparently there is now an Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor as an upgrade. Since I dropped so much on it already, I don't see why I shouldn't keep upgrading it :-P
EDIT 8/4 COMPLETE

Trinkets
Current: The Egg of Mortal Essence (Emblems of Heroism)
Current: Tears of the Vanquished (Trial of the Champion 5N - Black Knight)
Upgrade: Whatever drops that I like. Trinkets are hard to find "upgrades" for

Weapon
Current:Staff of Restraint (Obsidian Sanctum 25 - Sartharion)
Current Offhand (in bank):Watchful Eye
Upgrade Staff: Ulduar +
Upgrade One-Hand: Spectral Kris (H Trial of the Champion - Black Knight)
Upgrade Offhand: Handbook of Obscure Remedies (25 Emblems of Valor)

Wand
Current:Wand of Ahn'kahet (H Old Kingdom - Herald Volazj
Upgrade:Brimstone Igniter (25 Emblems of Triumph)
Why does the only non-Ulduar upgrade for me have to have +hit on it?

Monday, August 31, 2009

Weekend Update

I'll make this part short: Drama did not improve. Whatever, it'll shake out eventually. I just need to start recruiting.

Went and did a bunch of easy achievements with Zully. I finally finished off those three critter quests, Pest Control and the two Squirrel achievements. Went to the Alliance part of Kalimdor and got my Explorer achievement. I also got exalted with the Ebon Blade, finally getting my Northrend Vanguard. I started gathering materials for the Northrend Gourmet title. All this came about because I made a list of the easy achievements I could finish but have been too lazy to do.

I spent some time messing around with Mal's rogue. I was just going to help him out with his JC dailies, but I ended up flying to Argent Tournamenet, so I did those, then I got dropped off the mount into Wintergrasp on my way to Sholazar, so I did that, then I figured while I was there I'd do the Wolvar dailies. It's all good, he was shockingly broke anyway, and I got to play with some of the high end rogue stuff. Killing Spree is pretty awesome.

I jumped on Yoka for a little while and was invited to do Gun'drak with the Trig clan. It was nice to have an at-level vent group for a bit. It went OK, but I felt really bad because I was barely breaking 1k DPS. On a DPS warrior that's just shameful, and does not cut it for PvE. Of course right before I was asked I had dropped my Fury spec for PvP arms. After that dismal performance I sucked it up and bought dual spec. I found myself a cookie cutter PvP and PvE spec and plugged those in, and glyphed up the best I could using what was in gbank. I think I had to make one minor on Zan and bought two from the AH, but I managed to get the other 5 or so from gbank. Bought a new PvP ring from the vendor. The savage stuff is going to have to be good enough for PvP for a while. Next on the PvE list is probably the same thing I did with Zully, go nuts on the Icecrown quests and grind out the Ebon Blade rep. The Argent stuff is pretty sweet too so I should probably work on that along with Hodir. I should get some mats for enchants as well. Probably should have put some on scrolls before I transferred.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

You Know You Play Too Much WoW When...

Your personal trainer tells you to stand on the balance ball and think about something else, and the easiest way to stay upright is to pretend you are casting a flash heal.

In the same thought, you think it might be easier if, like a troll, you weren't wearing shoes.

You spend over an hour looking for just the right bumper sticker or license plate for your car to proclaim your WoWness... and reject them all because they're too cliche.

You use all of the goblin merchant sayings regularly. "Glad I could help". "Have a good one". "Catch ya later". I use "yo" "heya" and "what's up" regularly too, but I don't think those are WoW related.

(Side Note: Many apologies for being so emo yesterday. I was having kind of a lousy day and Tar caught me off guard with his email)

Monday, August 24, 2009

The Drama Post

So far, things have been relatively drama free over on the new server. Having said that, I'm going to talk about drama. Heh.

I've had a little bit with Goblin over the 'loot incident'. We were running some low level newbie run and from what I can tell, he accidentally hit 'Need' on a cloth item he couldn't use. Creeps was kind of rude, which isn't surprising because he has a low noob tolerance, and now Goblin is all bent out of shape and refuses to need loot because he 'doesn't want to get shit on if he makes a mistake'.

I'm also anticipating some drama that I'm really not sure how to handle. Tar saw the ads for the shiny new expansion and is making noises about coming back. There are two issues with this:

1. I moved my main
2. I don't know if I can let him into my guild

I won't get into it much because it's a touchy subject, but he had a hand in the fall of the old EnM and I don't expect a warm reception for him on the new server. Honestly, I'm hesitant about bringing him in too. If he stays on Dalv, I can still play with him on my warrior, but I know I can't split time between realms so I don't know if that will be good enough.

I think my dilemma is pretty clear, but here it is anyway. If he comes back and wants to play with me, I may have to tell him I can't let him in the guild. It would be really inconvenient and difficult because it will probably hurt his feelings and I'd rather not have to say no to my guildies because I want to do stuff with him. I'd end up blowing him off in game, which would not do good things for the real life friendship.

I really enjoy playing with Mal and his crew. Not only are they fun to hang with, but they're pro and we can actually get somewhere in the end game. I mean geez, I recreated the guild to bring us all back together. I don't want to rip it apart the same way it died before. Mal has had a huge effect on my gameplay since, well, forever. It goes beyond WoW too, with us being e-mail friends even when he wasn't playing. I just can't choose between him and Tar, and it's going to be really hard to do what I usually do, which is keep friends who aren't compatible apart.

Every time I mix RL/WoW it ends in tears or drama. You'd think I would learn. I was sad when my RL buddies quit playing WoW. I was hurt and lost when the first EnM fell apart. I cried over some of my SDS guildies. I cried when Mal left. I got in a fight with Goblin over looting. Now I'm stressed about Tar coming back.

On top of that, I feel like a loser because WoW seems to stir up intense emotions in me more often than RL. It's just not fair. This is supposed to be a fun game, not a painful QQ fest.

Friday, August 21, 2009

First Impressions.

I was going to just edit that last post, but what the heck. I haven't had a multi post day in a while.

I've been mulling over the ideas behind the Cataclysm expansion in the back of my mind while I've been crunching my spreadsheets. I'm kind of excited about it, the same whay I get excited about anything new, but at the same time...

I can't help but feel like Blizzard has sold out. I think I'd almost rather see them throw their efforts into a new MMO than mess with the game that's already there. Heroic old instances? Great! New races, well alright, though I think werewolves is a stretch. Blowing up Azeroth? Uh...

I'm sure it will look awesome. I'm sure it will play awesome. I'm sure I will take 2-3 days off work and wait in line in the freezing cold to get it. But a not so little part of me will have a hard time letting go of the old world as it is now. Once it's destroyed, it will never go back. Good thing I took screenshots I guess.

My comments on the Blizzcon Keynote

It's the end of the world. Quite literally.

Looks like Zully better dance her little voodoo troll butt back to the old world before it happens. I was actually making a list of achievements earlier, and I think the old world ones just got bumped up higher on the priority scale.

I'm sure this will all be phased, and I'm sure our current 80s will be starting with the new content.

Time to start saving up a few holidays to take around expansion time. :-)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Everyone's Greedy...

There's an article on Wow.com today about sharding etiquette. I was interested mainly because of the pug I did for ToC the other day (my first on Alterac).

I did 2 runs with mostly the same people. The first run it was just everyone greed, and it was hunky-dory. The second run, magically after the first boss when everyone had already rolled, I won the item and, as I usually do to preserve bag space, D/E it right away. The tank then declared that we would roll on shards at the end. I stated that I wanted to keep this one because I won the roll, and we could do that for the rest. He just repeated himself and said "if we're lucky, we'll all get one anyway". Oh, I see, so not only might I NOT get the shard I won, but I had no chance at getting more than one because they were going to use "top rolls". I didn't argue, and I was just going to jet with one regardless, but I won a top roll so it was a moot point.

I'm not sure why this bothered me. I usually don't care. Then again, now that I don't have as many people backing me for runs and throwing me stuff to D/E, I see myself actually *gasp* running out of mats. I want to be able to chant my stuff with whatever I feel like, damn it. I put a lot of time and money and effort into maxing my chanting out. At one shard a run that's going to be really hard. I'd rather gamble that I'll win one or more items with rolls TYVM.

So I'm going to try a new policy. Everyone greeds, and if they want something D/E, they can trade it to me after the run. We can do that now with the 2 hour BoP window. It'll make my life a lot easier in PuGs.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

New Troll Here...

So I keep hearing rumors about Troll Druids. This brings up a bit of a dilemma for me. I'm loving my druid. If it takes a year for the next expansion to come out, I'm sure she'll be 80. But...

Will I reroll Troll? Right now every single class I play could potentially be a Troll. As it is, all my "best" toons are either Troll or Tauren. I suppose I have a Tauren warrior, not a Troll, and now a Tauren druid. But still. Considering my little troll brigade, there is an appeal to have my druid be part of the blue skinned family.

What are the odds Blizzard will allow a freebie one-time race change now that they're going to allow faction changes? I don't see myself paying for race change, honestly, but if they add new classes, especially for druids which only had one option, I would think they would consider letting people switch.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Future... Future.... Future....

I have a vision. A vision of the future.

I see EnM starting 10 man raids in a few weeks, maybe a month. I'm really excited about being able to raid again. Anyone who knows me knows I'm about the content, not the gear. We'll probably have to PuG a few, but at this point that may be a good thing. The five of us rip through instances like nothing, so I think anyone who PuGs with us will consider joining us. The loot rules might be a little tricky for a while though. I don't know if PuGs will be willing to go for a "guild first" raiding policy. Maybe if we specify certain items as straight up rolls, like weapons and tier gear, like the Steaks used to do. I'll have to think about that.

As for our current roster, I'm really hoping Dep will quit his whining and maybe feral tank for us. I'm pretty sure at least one of our DKs is a tank as well, so we should be set with that. I'm not sure if there are any other healers besides me. That could be a challenge. That may need to work itself out through recruiting. PuGging healers is always scary. We've got lots of melee DPS, but not a lot of ranged. I guess it depends on who wants to bring what character. Generally, it looks like we have as regulars 2 tanks, 1 healer, and 3 dps. There's 2 or 3 more DPS out there as well, they're just not 80 yet. I could probably bring at least one of the Wolves, maybe two if I can coach them a little. That's a pretty good start for a raid. If Coffee and Dkow come back we'll be in much better shape (though they're not approaching 80 yet). I'm hoping they're just on vacation. I miss Krom. I wonder if he'd switch servers if my guild starts raiding.

Goblin set up a Vent server for us (though it looks like we'll still need to pay for the server license. 8 slots isn't going to be enough once we start raiding). That should help even in heroics. We're going to be running a lot of heroics over the next few weeks. Then again, I like to talk. Other people, not so much.

We need a raid leader. Someone less anal than me. I don't want to end up like Px giving everyone orders all the time, it makes me feel like the succubus looks. Which I suppose isn't all bad, depending on who you ask. I'll probably end up doing it for the earlier instances (Naxx/OS/Maly), but whoever wants it is starting with just as much knowledge as me once we get to the "new" ones (Ulduar/ToC). Mainly though I am good at administrative BS and event planning, but I'm not very comfortable leading a group. That's been covered before, of course.

Overall, I'm feeling optimistic. Once I'm back into an early evening schedule it should make raiding easier. I think the 6p-10p Fri-Sun schedule works pretty well. We'll see which of those days I end up cutting short.

Friday, July 31, 2009

It is done.

Zully is now a member of Alterac Mountains. It's going to take a lot of getting used to. I was sad no one was online to welcome me, but it is pretty late.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

When Worlds Collide

I did something at work today that I don't think I have ever done. I stood up for myself, even though I knew it would rock the boat. Among other things, I can thank WoW for helping me along.

This whole turbulent guild switching drama I've been complaining about forever is almost over. I'm prepping Zully for transfer and Px or not she's going tonight so I can wake up and do dailies tomorrow. I had a thought that turned on a lghtbulb for me:

I can't fix work but I can fix WoW. Wait. I CAN fix work.

I knew it would suck, but it sucks about the same as quitting SDS as my main guild. Because both make management waves. And I have a severe fear of rocking the boat.

So I had victory today. And I will have more tonight. And maybe, just maybe, my stomach acid pains and insomnia will go away too. Heh

Friday, July 24, 2009

We and I

The longer I'm away from SDS the more I realize that I miss it. But not in such a way that if I go back that will go away. I miss how SDS used to be. I miss Huggy's escapades, which are toned down now. I miss talking about Fanta. I miss hanging out with Tran and Krom in TeamSpeak. I miss riding to the rescue with four other people when someone is getting ganked. I miss doing the Island every day and having rivalries with alliance guilds. I miss doing heroics. I miss healing Shak's Warrior.

Some of that is just a side effect of cutting back my WoW time. I'm just not there on weeknights to do these things, though I'm sure some of that is going on. But even on Friday and Saturday nights I can easily spin around in a circle in Org all night with nothing to do. Vent is empty most of the time, except for Trig and Fry. I didn't expect things to stay the same, but the reasons I stuck around so long are gone.

But now, I'm the Guild Leader, which is something I've always wanted to do. We roll around in old instances just for fun. I'm sure once we get into a decent bracket we'll be doing battlegrounds and world PVP. I'm hoping Mal will do arenas with me again once he hits 80 (and gets high speed internet :-P). As it is, we revel in every alliance kill we get. We're picking up a few solid members outside of our initial circle. Creep is putting together a guild website as a school project, and I think I've talked Goblin into setting up a vent server for us.

So why haven't I transferred Zully yet? I miss her too. I think I'm avoiding talking to Px again. Otherwise I think I would have done it a while ago.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Armory for iPhone

Finally!!

The item search is really slick. This is going to save me a ton of time. Sorry WoWHead, I think your day to day usage is going to drop significantly for me. The armory was always too slow to look up items. The app is speedy. I'll still be using WoWHead to find drop rates and stuff but the "What the heck is Primal Tiger Leather used for?" Off to the iPhone.

The achievement interface is nice, the only thing I'd like to see is the "compare" feature worked in (so I can see what things Krom has gotten that I haven't) I also see myself using this when I want to go out and work on achievements.

I wonder if it will ever be able to do gear sets? I haven't used the built in equipment manager so I don't even know if saving gear sets is possible. I'm just such a fan of Outfitter.

Biggest problem I see so far: Can't save the talents tree you've worked on in the talent calculator. WTF? What use is a talent calculator if you have to redo it every time?

Basically, my iPhone has become even more of a necessary accessory for WoW. I already had to have it near me to authenticate, but now I won't have to alt-tab out nearly as often to go check WoWHead.

Now if WoWHead came out with an app... that would be epic.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Sticking a Toe In

Things have been going pretty well on my "new" server. I'm still having a hard time taking the final jump over from my long time home.

I've been having a blast with my little druid. All that shapeshifting just never gets old. I've always been fascinated with the RP concept of changing form. The one and only time I ever played DnD, I played a half-elf ranger that could change into a panther. It would have been pretty rockin if I hadn't left for college :-D I think the only reason I haven't had a successful druid yet is that it's my default "alt" class. I have something like 4 druids and 3 shammies, all alliance, all under lvl 15, hanging out on various servers where friends wanted me to go.

My hunter's rolling along around lvl 20 now as well, but honestly, I find the gameplay too "easy". That seems to be my problem with pet classes, I like to be hands on with my game, whether it's healing hands or hands holding the two hander that's bashing your face in. It's fun to take her out and play with the scorpid once in a while, and I like the idea of her. I'm just not all that into it.

I'm still tossing around transferring my shaman. I would kind of like to level her to 50 first, so I can transfer 5k gold with her instead of 1k. The problem is, I get half a billion tells asking me to heal stuff as soon as I log in. Maybe once the new patch comes out with the spiffy new totem bar I'll finally do it.

I've also got in the back of my mind that once some of my buddies get close to lvl 80 I'll thwart their efforts to outlevel me by transferring someone. Maybe both. I'm still waiting to see how this new server is once the summer vacation is over and the kiddies go back to school.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

It only comes twice a year...

When the guards in Booty Bay get drunk and pass out, leaving a whole city to play with the Allies in. I Spent about 2 hours in Stranglethorn tonight. Bashed some faces with Yoka for a while, then switched over to Zully when things started getting hairy and I needed to bring someone with real gear.

We were camping and running around and killing until about quarter to 12. The Gurubashi Arena still has it's chest competition every 3 hours, so the remaining 7 or so from the raid group went over there and killed each other for a while. Hung out, killed some allies nearby. Then I needed to call it and calm down before bed.

That was a lot of fun. I still think world PvP is superior to battlegrounds.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Total Embarrassment

I logged on to my shammy to do my minor glyph for the day and I got a whisper from Aeth asking if I wanted to do an 8 man Naxx with him. It sounded like fun, since I haven't raided in FOREVER, so I went with it. They needed DPS so I grabbed Trig. Psycho, one of the guys I used to group with occasionally was raid leading.

Everything was rolling along great, I was having some "raid juice" and having a blast. I got the giggles as I usually do. I had a little fit of laughing and Psych goes "whoa zully, breathe"... Uh what? He can hear me?

Crap.

When I switched computers and set up my Vent, apparently it is set to voice activate by default. They could hear me the WHOLE TIME. I'm pretty vocal when I heal too. Nobody said anything! Assholes!

Trig must think I'm insane.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Re-Rollin

Now that Mal is back (a million smiley faces) I've been working on some characters on a new server with him. Having a fresh start has worked wonders on my "WoW stress" level. I'm actually having gameplaying fun again, not just "working through challenges" fun. I want to spend some quality time with my new toons, and I didn't want to feel like I was taking advantage of my rank by not playing but still having officer priveleges, so I offered to step down as an officer. Px basically said not to worry about it, since it's summer and not much is really going on anyway. I have mixed feelings about it, but I'm just going to run with it for now.

One of the other officers gave up his position a few hours after I tried to because of bank drama. I asked him to take it easy on the gems in front since he has access to the whole thing as an officer. We've got uncut gems he can have cut into whatever blues he wants, I was pretty fried that 7 of the perfect green ones I grabbed from the AH to "share the wealth" just disappeared. He was asking who complained, and no one did, it was just me doing my bank thing. I've seen him do "suspicious" transactions before, but I left it alone because he was an officer. Most of the gems reappeared immediately, which I did not ask for. I'm not sure why he didn't use them right away.

I haven't seen Krom in weeks due to my new schedule. I also have mixed feelings about this. I do wonder how much of my wanting to reroll has to do with what happened with him. Then again, it's not like we're ever online at the same time, so that doesn't really matter. I think I just finally hit "burn out" with being max level, at least for a while.

Friday, June 26, 2009

U L O S E

I popped in on Zully last night just to see what was going on. The second I logged in I got a whisper from Px asking if I wanted to come to H Naxx. They were on Saph, so I figured I would join them. I got beamed in, everyone was ready to go, and off we went. There was just one small problem:

I was still in Disc/Shadow PvP spec when the fight started. Oops.

Fortunately, I was "sixth healer" because they had a spare empty spot, so I wasn't exactly necessary. It was really interesting being on raid heals and not being able to cast circle of healing. Once I realized what had happened I just dug in my little troll toes and started shielding like crazy. I really wish I had a wws of that fight, heh. I'm sure I was doin it rong, but we only had one casualty so it was all good. I was shocked at how few mana issues I had.

I got myself into the correct spec for Kel and was put on 6'oclock raid heals. Everything was sailing along just peachy until after the adds had been out for a while. I'm not super familiar with the fight, and I wasn't even entirely clear on who was doing what since I had just joined the raid 10 minutes prior, so I can't tell you what happened, but a few of our dps died. Then another one. Then a DK and two warriors went critical. Next thing I know it's chaos. People are dying, adds are running everywhere, I'm an angel, and Kel is evilly chasing down our ranged dps. Everyone's yelling because Kel has 35k health and dropping. He finishes off all but one Shaman. He's at 10k and dropping fast. For two eternal seconds it's just him and the Shaman. The Shaman wins.

Epic.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

3.2 Patch WTF?

Well, they're trying to make PvP better. Some of the changes confuse and frighten me, but at least they're trying.

Let's see now...

Battlegrounds
Experience in BGs? Well, I guess that was coming what with Warhammer and some of the other RPGs having ways to level purely through PvP. I think it's only a small subset of people that will do this, and they made it possible for twinks to turn it off, which is good. It essentially makes a "twink bracket" since people with xp turned off will only be matched together. These changes are great for alts that want to mess around in BGs while leveling, but I bet the wait times for the 19,29,39 brackets is going to go way up for those not in the twink crowd. It also lets you start building up your point bank early by doing the BG daily while leveling.

They're trying to get people to defend the flags. It sucks that they have to bribe people not to play like idiots, and I think it's going to backfire. Get ready for the longest turtle games you've ever played. It's a good thing the BGs this applies to have point timers. I can't imagine how long old AV would have taken with this in place...

They added a timer to WSG. Thank god. No more honor farming.

Arenas
They're taking away current season gear for 2s teams. That makes me sad inside. That basically kills the entire 2v2 bracket. I think I died a little on the inside.

They took away the special alchemist "trinket" that allows insta healing in arenas. No more free cookies.

General
Sliding scale for riding, giving everyone riding at lvl 20. They're trying to push people through the old content faster, which I generally agree with, so I think this is cool. Ghost Wolf and Cheetah Form are still useful in that you don't have to slow down to do your farming or run away from an enemy, and in BGs you can carry the flag in form.

All Northrend badges dropped will be conquest badges. Yay, now I can FINALLY get some valorous badge gear running raids that I can fit into my schedule, and maybe even get a little Ulduar badge gear, and high level raiders with nothing to use the conquest badges for can trade them down for artifact gear. This will be patched in with the new raid which will use different badges, so I think this is fair. People doing OS10 pugs still won't be able to have the most current cool gear.

Priests
More mana regen adjustments. They've been trying to make Mana part of strategy again, and it didn't work last round, my mana pool is still basically unlimited in raid gear, so I'm not surprised.

Not a fan of getting my aoe healing reduced, but with the change allowing PoH to go to any group I see this getting abused. Inspiration change basically keeps the buff from getting ridiculous with all the crazy high armor tanks now. No biggie really, again reduces healing power a little but I don't think this will hurt as much as it seems.

Interface
The new shammy bars sound cool. It's about time they took away losing all that bag/toolbar space

I think Blizz is trying to kill Questhelper. It's probably for the best, but I hate to see one of the best addon developers get kicked in the crotch. That must hurt.

Higher potion stacks. Less trips to the bank, woot!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Super Secret Blizzard Arena Rating Scale

I managed to do some more arenas with Crav the other day. We lost. A lot. Miserably. We managed to win 1 game out of about 30. Despite that, we actually increased our rank by 45 points. That confuses me, but I guess that just means that we were up against teams that were winning more than us? I don't really care, as long as we keep at it we should have better luck.

I got myself a new computer. Finally. I've been complaining about my old one long enough. I'm downloading all the patches right now, looks like it's going to take a while. I can't wait to log in and set my graphics to ULTRA! Woo!

Now if only I had an Ulduar run to test out my newfound blazing computer speed on.

Oh yeah, and I'm ditching DSL for Cable tomorrow, so that will be about 10 times better as well. So much for WoW being a cheap hobby.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Well let's see:

There haven't been any gear update posts, because I haven't done any raiding
There haven't been any shaman posts, because she's been parked in Silvermoon City since the trade cartel post
There haven't been any warrior posts, because there's nothing really exciting about leveling from 78-80. I did unlock Hodir.

I have a lvl 20 Druid now on my friend's server. It's fun, and the people I've done lowbie pugs with have been really nice.

Mal's been going through some drama getting his account back. Yes, he has it back and he's going to play again once the high speed internet is installed. I'm excited, but I'm containing myself because I've had enough disappointments with WoW friends that I don't believe it's really going to happen. Then again, I didn't think we'd actually keep in touch either. I've encouraged him to come over to the server I'm building my Druid on. I recreated EnM. Not sure if it will be sad or feel like home. We'll see.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Turkeys? Really?

I logged on to Photobucket to use the image editor and this ad popped up asking if I wanted to see stats on my photos. I was thinking yeah, what the hell. I posted this picture of me doing that turkey achievement as the Happy Thanksgiving picture for the guild. It's cute, but it's nothing special.

Apparently it's had over 1500 views from Myspace. What? I don't even have this posted to Myspace! Has my Internet fame come and gone before I even knew it? I must ferret this out!

Monday, June 1, 2009

Awesomesauce

Arenas were a bust, because apparently I put the wrong time on the calendar and everyone showed up at 8 server not 11 server like I thought the calendar invite said. Stupid time zones, Blizz needs to be more clear on their calendar.

However, Crav the PvP monster lock was still on so we decided to do 10 games as 2s, just to get some points. Some is better than none right?

We went 10-9. Over 50% on our first run, and the first 3 matches were terrible simply because we were both rusty. We did much better after a Wintergrasp break, so we definitely need to do some BGs as a warm up before arenas. Yeah, after that run I think we're going to try out a few weeks. We didn't just luck out either, we decisively won at least 3 of those games, to the point where I had time to stop, regen our mana with my prayer, and keep attacking.

Also, Disc/Shadow is awesome. I was doing 34k damage in the better matches. One of our opposing warriors was only 3k higher than me.

I decided to calm down after arenas by doing some fishing in the Dalaran fountain and... I fished up the last gold coin I needed! I am now officially Salty Zully! I'm so happy. If I never fish there again I won't cry any tears.

Not bad for a Monday night.

Crafting Cartel

I didn't have a whole lot of playtime this weekend for one reason or another, so I didn't accomplish much in-game. However, last night while I was hanging out in front of the TV I grabbed the laptop and started thinking about ways I could optimize the trade skills of the characters (now maxed out) on my main server. I decided to back this up by buying a two tab guild bank for my 7 minor alts to share mats and low level gear easily. Here's the plan:

Crafting
Tailoring - Zully
Enchanting - Zully
Alchemy - Yoka (the Warrior)
Jewelcrafting - Zan (the Shammy)
Inscription - Zan (the Shammy)
Blacksmithing - Zinz (the DK)
Leatherworking - Tul (the Rogue)
Engineering - Mar, Sri (the Hunters)

Primary Gathering
Herbalism - Yoka
Mining - Zinz
Skinning - Tul

Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, Skinning, and Engineering are basically just there to be there, or as a convenience for my low level characters. I doubt I will make much effort to level them since my 3 mains have pretty much no use for what they produce.

Mining and low level Herbing could be a problem. I'm going to need a fair amount of materials to level Jewelcrafting/Inscription on Zan, so I'll have to either buy or farm. Mining in particular will probably hit a cap where I'll have to buy everything because I don't plan on leveling my DK. It's much more convenient to gather and craft at the same level.

My hunter twink is going to be skin(already done)/engineer. My fun hunter is going to be engineer/mining so I guess when I'm playing around with her I can do some gathering that way. I don't see myself playing my warlock, so I offloaded her JC mats to Zan, and my bank toons are just that, so whatever they have is going to stay that way.

It would look a little weird to have a lumberjack out picking flowers anyway.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Flying Cows and Ninjas

I had an unexpected block of time to play WoW yesterday morning, so I leveled Yoka to 77. I can FINALLY take her out herbing and exploring for XP. I'm also going to start doing any rep dailies I have available. It shouldn't take too long for her to hit 80 now.

I brought back Guild Arena Night. The first one is coming up on Monday at 10 server. I'm looking forward to it, and am happy that some people signed up to help with match-ups. I should probably come up with some team suggestions before then.

Looking back at my gap in posts, I realized I never talked about the bank ninja incident. While I was on vacation, Tess decided it would be a great idea to start intentionally taking high value items he wasn't using from the bank. Something about burning his bridges I guess. I told Px about it as soon as I noticed it, and took bank priveleges away the next day so it didn't hurt me any. Secretly, I was kind of happy that I got to kick him out during server prime time when everyone was on. A show of power every once in a while isn't a bad thing.

I'm not mad at Tess at all. I'm mostly annoyed at myself for not realizing he would do it sooner, he's been acting really squirrley lately anyway. I'm not worried about it though, I only remembered because I was sending an e-mail to Mal.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

:-)

I had a warm fuzzy WoW moment this morning.

I logged on to my bank toon and had a short /say conversation with the bank toon of a friend. What do bank toons talk abaout? Their auctions of course. It was like NPC flavor text, except real. A little RP now and then isn't a bad thing.

Then I switched over to my warrior. She's in Grizzly Hills right now. It almost felt like I was waking up on a camping trip in the forest, ready to start a day of outdoorsy goodness. It being chilly and foggy with the windows open all night here at home helped that too. I very thoroughly enjoyed soaking in the beauty of the hills on my way to Drakil'jin Ruins. What a way to start the day!

Monday, May 25, 2009

A brief interlude

I saw this on Penny Arcade and it made me laugh. I just had to share.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Spring Fever I Guess...

Wow, has it really been almost a month since I posted? I was on vacation and didn't really have anything profound happen WoW-wise so I didn't bother posting. I did reach lvl 76 on Yoka. I did another Ulduar raid with Meat, finally picked up a purple helm to replace the blue one I've been wearing FOREVER. Flame leviathon is confusing. I hope I never have to drive, I make a much better gunner.

I've been hitting the BGs pretty hard now that there's some new gear to get with honor points. I've found a couple rogues willing to do Arenas with me, but we need to get them geared up first. I guess I just have an advantage because I went from Brutal to a full crafted set of Frostsavage to Hateful. I'm in full purple Glad gear now. Discipline is so OP in battlegrounds it's laughable. Krom, Crav and I are just tearing it up.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Heard in Ulduar

Raider: "Do you want me to measure it?"
Raid Leader: "Yeah do a measurement"
Raider: "Let me see here..."

Me: "Do I want to know what you're measuring?"

Pause
Snickers

Raider: "Yeah, my cock is 40 yards long..."

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Zully's Bi-Weekly Gear Up Raid

After the Malygos incident with the huge lack of variety in classes, I think it's time to try and gear up some of our newer 80s. I was reading a thread about it on PlusHeal and I think the best way to do it is to set up a run specifically to gear new folks, and possibly to help some of our less skilled tanks get some experience. I picked twice a month because I have Monday nights available right now. That's probably going to change in a few weeks when the work schedule switches. I wonder if I could do a mid-day Saturday run? I haven't had much luck with early runs, but some of these guys are in school so they wouldn't really be able to start at 10 server. I could try 2p-6p server, that would give a break before the high end raids start in the evening.

The only difficulty I can see here is how I'm going to tactfully tell multiple 80s man that no, he can't bring his alts unless they're going to help me pull the raid along and let them roll on the lewtz. It's also pretty dependant on whether just me healing will be enough to boost an undergeared group. I'd need a higher end DPS to come with me, and I don't know who would be willing to do it.

I can also see a problem with only doing it one night a week, but maybe someone else in the group would be willing to keep it rolling the other nights of the week. That would give some leadership opportunities as well. Oh how nice it would be if these management things of mine worked.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Weekend Notes

I wanted to flesh this post out. Really badly. But work has been kicking my ass this week, so I'm going to release the shorthand notes as is. If I get inspired I'll come back to it, but most likely something more exciting will happen and I'll forget all about it.

Same thing goes for the April Gear Post. I just haven't had the time to devote to it, as I can't do it on my iPhone properly. I think I'll just wait till May, especially since it looks like I'll be running some Ulduar with Meat.

Went to Ulduar twice, killed Auriaya and got Mantle of the Preserver, also killed Kologarn. Cancelled malygos because not enough mix of people. Tried to do malygos but left to eat sushi. Got exalted with Orgrimmar and most of the way through Tranquillen. Krom got ditched for a raid at exactly the same spot as last time. Ran Goblin from Burning Steppes to Shattrah. Krom and Tran got Twilight Assist (1 drake up). Worked on the pally, ignored the warrior. Krom confirmed I'm a terrible warrior. Handled the fears really well with fear ward and pvp trink, and maybe something else. Shaman totems group wide or raid wide?

Friday, April 24, 2009

Late and Early

I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I logged on to wow intending to do some fishing for the raid tonight. My favorite absentee GL was online and doing BGs so I decided to join him. The games didn't go so well but I had a good time playing with my new pvp/grinding spec. We also had a good chat. I miss having him around, he's such a nice guy.

After he logged off I ended up grouping with a former guildie who happened to be in the same AB as me. Unlike some of my guildies, I have no problem with people leaving the guild. If I like them I keep in touch. I think it's an advantage that I did run with other guilds, I get a lot more opportunities keeping a network outside the guild.

I'm a fan of bring your own warrior. Maybe it's just a priest thing, but warriors are my favorite class to group up with. Nice steady incoming damage, high health, fear breaking abilities, and bloodthirsty single target focus. Hawt.

I also got into a wintergrasp battle and got the Against the Odds achievement. I also saw someone I haven't seen in a long time. Expatriate! Oh man did I have some choice words coming out of my mouth at 4am. Even if I do get destroyed every time, I have to go after him whenever I see him, I just can't help myself. One of these days Expatriate, I'll get to spit on your corpse for a change. It's funny how you pick up on the names of people that really give you a hard time in PvP. *RAGE*

Malygos tonight. I'm scared, especially since I know I'm gonna be exhausted after work now. Hopefully I can sleep on the train.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Break

I think maybe it's time I took a WoW break. A real one, not just a week with my Twitter going off all the time and checking up on WoW Insider twice a day.

I've been thinking about this since we started our raid alliance with the Meat. I think one of the reasons I was playing so much before was simple sense of obligation to my guildies. They're great people, and fun to play the game with, but as I pull back from the game a little I see that I miss my own friends, and my own family. Now that there's more healers and more people to choose from, I feel like I can step away and it won't sabatoge anyone else's fun.

I thought the patch would freshen things up for me, but it turns out there's really not any content that I'm interested in. The Argent Tournament is just annoying. I don't want to have to learn to push five buttons in the right order to get my reward. If I wanted to roll my face on the keyboard, I would have rolled a hunter or a death knight. I don't think we're going to be doing Ulduar any time soon, and I just don't have the schedule to pull off the gear up.

The last time I logged in I just stared at the screen and wondered what I was doing. I logged off Zully and went to my Shammy. I suppose I could take that route too, level up for a while, put my 80s on the shelf. But I don't know if I SHOULD, you know?

I planned a Malygos run for Friday. Four deathknights, three rogues, two paladins, two dps warriors, two hunters, and a warlock signed up. I called for 2-3 ranged and 2-3 melee. This is why I didn't send out the mass invite before. Do I do it on pure gear? Do I go with the people I know? What about the new people, if I don't invite them will they quit? We'll see if it turns into the mess I think it's going to be.

I'm going to level my shammy until my business trip is over, then see if I still want to play. Right now, I really don't know.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Casuals and Guilds

I was a true casual player once. I probably don't qualify as a casual player anymore, based on the sheer amount of blood sweat and tears I put into WoW both inside and outside the game.

I didn't know anyone when I started playing WoW. I had heard a lot about it and decided to graduate from college before I started playing (which I must say was a very smart move on my part). I rolled in as a warrior sometime before patch 1.5(I remember the battlegrounds being added and running all the way up to Northern Barrens to queue for Warsong Gulch). I did a lot of quests, but practically no instances. If I needed to do a group quest, I just randomly invited whoever happened to be standing there with a pretty good success rate.

Eventually, I had a few friends join me. We started characters together on a brand new server. We saved our pennies and created our own little guild, when all you really got was a tabard, a chat channel, and a tag under your name. We rolled around and did quests together, and ganked lowbies. We probably did a few instances here and there, since we did have a healer and a tank. That was about it. They quit playing, I inherited a vanity guild, and I realized that WoW really wasn't a single player game with a group as a convenience. Life without a guild was miserable. I'm pretty sure I was just questing and doing battlegrounds for a while, then I joined my first 'complete WoW friend' guild. It was PvP based, and only lasted for about 2 months, but it was a real turning point in my WoW experience.

That sharp transition from single-player to friends/family to player based guild seems to be what Blizzard is trying to soften with the difficulty levels of the content. Those people in the single-player phase have fun stuff to do, and new content to explore in the patch. Friends/family guilds are likely able to do 5-man hard modes and 10-man instances without too much trouble, because they can be done with a small group of people. Player based guilds can do the full range of content. Hardcore progressionists should, in my opinion, be gunning for the hard modes. I really don't understand people who say that the content is too easy, but also say that achievements are stupid. That's what they are for, to test the high end players yet still let all player based guilds have a chance to see the content.

I have a new WoW buddy at work. It's the first time I've had another RL person to talk about WoW with in over a year, to the point where it feels weird to talk about it without a headset on. That separation between WoW and RL has changed the way I play so much, that I'm having a hard time bringing it together. He's also still in the single-player phase, even though he does have his little family guild. I feel like such a raider snob when I talk to him, but when he gets frustrated by Stranglethorn Vale, I can't help but smile and think about what it was like the first time I got stomped by a Devilsaur in Un'Goro crater. If you're a big time raider, stop and look around before you hit your QQ button. Remember what it was like when you were a n00b. It will really change the way you see the World of Warcraft.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Shake your Money Maker

I wasn't much of an opportunist when the expansion came out. I was too busy hitting northrend to spend time thinking about money. I thought that my enchanting trick would still work, but it really didn't the way they changed chanting and my money source dried up. Well, this patch I'm ready to make some cash. I think my little scribe is going to be worthwhile after all, even if it's only for a few weeks.

I'm making something like 25-30g per glyph right now for herbs that cost a tenth of that. I was going to try to farm them myself, but I've been really busy this week so I haven't even been online. If they're still selling well this weekend I may just do a farming run. But damn, with just what I had sitting around in my bags I made about 800g on glyphs.

Maybe I'll get that Kirin Tor ring after all.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Downloading...

Turns out my IP address changed at some point and my port forwarding was not going through. I've been behind a firewall this whole time.

*facepalm*

My 3.1 Thoughts

As with every other WoW blogger out there on the interweb (ha, I called myself a blogger) I have a whole bunch of opinions on the 3.1 patch. Of course, I didn't print out the patch notes using a work printer, and I would never spend 45 minutes with a highlighter going through the 50 page printout on company time. That would be outrageous!

On that note, as much as I'd love to write an epic novel sized post about the patch right now, I think that's a little much for me now as I do have a crap ton of work to do today.

After I deliver a copy of the notes to my work WoW buddy as a gift of course.

Monday, April 13, 2009

The Evil is in the Goatee

I had another old world weekend. There wasn't a whole lot going being a holiday weekend. Krom and I ran five BC dungeons over the two days. The only one that gave us some trouble was the mind control boss in Shadow Lab. Essentially, having a green plate wearing ball of fury coming after me does not end well. I also knocked out 50 or so quests in Netherstorm, giving me yet another batch of dungeons to do.

Yesterday, just as we were starting the Botanica I got a tell from the Meat asking if I wanted to heal Malygos. I'm pretty sure Krom only saw a cloud of mana dust as I took off. He's pretty high on my list, but just below new raid content. To be fair he declined coming along. His loss.

We took Maly down in five attempts. I was really proud of myself. I basically went in cold only having watched the Tankspot video. Holy crap the tank takes a lot of damage. I was caught off guard the first time. The next time I was a little slow on the bubble. Well, actially the problem was I was waiting to hear the move command. I gotta be confident of my troll toes, they work real good. I made it through phase 3 twice, one of which was the kill. I'm glad I did Aces High enough to know the buttons. No loot for me, but I don't care.

I'm only short by H Oculus to get the Frozen Wastes title. Unfortunately they're taking the title out in the patch, and I'm not going to be on tonight. I was a little mad about it, but I'll deal. I should have done the Oculus a long time ago. A few months back when I was all QQ about not raiding I never dreamed I would actually finish the 10 man content. As much as I like doing 25s, I'm actually perfectly happy. As long as I get to see it. It's that moment of watching the floor shatter and fall out from under the raid that makes it worth it for me.

Shiny titles are nice though. Sigh.

Monday, April 6, 2009

No Skool like the Old Skool

We finished up the 10 man Naxx by 8p on Saturday, so I had some time to do some old world achievements this weekend. I got exalted with Argent Dawn and Sporregar, and I ran all the Heroics in Hellfire Citadel and Tempest Keep. I made a decent amount of money from disenchanting the green/blue drops, enough to toss Krom and Tran some gold for repairs this morning when I collected all the AH sales.

I did get a new purple ring from Naxx. I'm keeping the crit ring, but I was at like 20% crit raid buffed. That's just ridiculous. Swapping for a little haste was really necessary. I also got to try out my frost resist set for Sapph. It helps, but I think it would help more if everyone else was wearing it. It did make it so I could eat the blizzard if necessary. It was kinda funny, I was ignoring the blizzard and everyone was yelling at me.

We wiped on Kel about 8 times, but we did get him. Krom finally got his axe, and Swif got the healing mace this time. Still no headpiece for me. This blue one is really starting to get on my nerves.

I also got the EoE key. Wewt! I promised I would set up a run if they looted it to me, I'll jump on Wow Heroes later and get my list together. Now that I got two groups to pick from it ought to work just fine. Maybe try a Sarth +1 (or 2 if Meat's feeling up to it). I'm a little excited.

Friday, April 3, 2009

L2Ski

I had a total nerd moment while I was doing a ski lesson in Colorado last week.

The instructor was trying to teach me to keep my arms in front of me while I was turning, and had us doing this exercise where you push your arms out while you make the turn.

He mentioned that it was like martial arts or Tai Chi where you push the energy out. It looked just like "Hadoken". You know, from Street Fighter. I just thought to myself "Hadoken" every time I stretched my arms out, and apparently it was the best I did all day.

Of course I cracked up laughing as he was teaching us this, and I had to explain to two 60 year olds why. ROFL

In other, WoW related news I set up the Blizzard Mobile Authenticator on my iPhone today. That makes 2 personal and 2 work related Rotating Security Keys that I have now. It was a great idea for Bliz to do that, it should really cut back on hack jobs.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Uphill Both Ways in the Snow

The re-install seemed to do the trick, and most of my add-on settings carried over just fine. When I popped into TeamSpeak on Tuesday the guys were just moving over to the Meat's vent so I went over there. Turned out they were doing their first night of 25 man Naxx. So I let them know I was patching up and it finished up just in time.

There were 6 healers in the group, and I was healing around the middle of the pack. I was surprised that on the meters Zon was doing more heals than me. Then again, he's actually been a raid healer a lot longer than me, he just spun his tank up first this time. I kind of miss his tank, to be honest. He was really fun to heal.

It was my first time doing a serious run at a 25 man Naxx, and it was a little strange not having as much riding on my heals. I picked up a nice pair of boots, which is good since I have no idea when I'll get another chance to do a 25. Stupid mid-week raiders.

I guess they're going to finish up Thad, Saph, and Kel tonight. I hope Krom's axe drops. Then he'll have to find something else to complain about LOL.

I think there was a WoW April Fool's joke going on yesterday because I was getting some dial-up and Darth Vader noises yesterday. I wonder if the kids these days even know what modem dial-up sounds like. I can still tell the difference between different speeds. In my day...

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Vacation

I went on vacation, both from work and from WoW. I needed it, though I can't say I was completely offline. I did log in for about an hour one day and ran a few quests with Yoka (now 73), and another hour or so to craft a frost resist set, make my 4 day cloth, and research some gems. I also had Matticus spamming my Twitter with WoW stuff like crazy, so it never completely slipped my mind. It's a good thing I have unlimited texting or I'd be eating ramen for a month.

The Guild Message indicated they were trying to finish off 25 man Naxx with our meaty brothers. From the looks of it they worked on Kel both Sunday and Monday. Not sure if they actually succeeded or not, I'll know later today. I'm looking forward to talking to the guys later tonight. I miss my guildies when I'm offline!

I merged my WoW account with the Battle.net system this week, and I think it was a mistake. I was having some version authentication issues with Wowhead Looter for a while, but it was no big deal. Well, last night at the ungodly hour I came home I tried to log in and it told me it couldn't verify my version. Didn't have any issue with this on the laptop. Maybe it was just a fluke, but I took this as an indication that it was time for a clean install on the beast. I'm still going to port over my addons and preferences from the old install though. I didn't spend 4+ hours 2 weeks ago configuring my UI for nothing.

I installed the first 8 discs of vanilla and BC last night / this morning and left Wrath installing at around 15% when I left for work. I'll have to patch it up before I'll know if it worked or not. I wonder if I could use one of those "try me" Wrath demo DVDs instead of a billion legacy discs. I'll see what's available when I go get GH:Metallica at Best Buy later.

Gotta have something to do while all those patches download. Like work on busting another controller trying to play Metallica songs.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Ice Blocks are Evil

We've been working up to this for a while and this weekend we finally took out Kel'Thuzad. We still wiped pretty hard on Grob, but Gluth and Thaddeus went pretty well. Saph was an interesting fight with no frost resist gear, but that only took 2 tries. Kel on the other hand wasn't that bad until phase two. Then it was OMG massive heals right NAO! But we got him, finally, after three days of work. Having help from our new guild alliance buddies helped a lot. I got my tier leggings and some hawt crit shoulders, leaving me with only a blue headpiece to replace. I need to find more haste again though. Maybe there's some badge bracers or a ring I could replace my Mage gear with.

Px got the EoE key. Hopefully we won't wait forever to start Malygos runs. It would be nice to have him at least partially learned before Ulduar hits so we can keep getting help from our buddies.

I also scored the Hateful Glad robe which has served my Wintergrasp and Warsong runs well. I actually did go through with re-speccing and re-gearing my warrior this weekend with Krom's leet blacksmithing skills, though I think I actually offended him a little by sending him mats. I guess I just like to pull my own weight. It didn't really occur to me he would have been happy to repay me for all those chants I've been throwing his way. Maybe I'll ask for a supply of potions or something.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Alt-F4

This post is about my Warrior. Surprise!

Yoka is having an identity crisis. I think her semi-recent name change is a nice metaphor. A while back on advice/pressure from my guildies I moved her over to Prot. I have been having an easier time with not dying that way, but it's still taking forever. And honestly, I already play the OMG I NEED A _______ role with my priest, so I would really like to have a character just to screw around and be completely selfish with. All I really want to do with her is beat in faces with a giant weapon, just like I did back in the Diablo days.

I have not played my warrior regularly in a very long time. I leveled with her when I first hit Outlands, then I slowly dragged her to 70 after Zully was well into her purples, but didn't get very far. I'm still wearing lvl 68 blues and those pre-Wrath event purples. She's ready to level but...

I have completely forgotten how to play a warrior. My technique is somewhere between pre 2.0 PVP Mortal Strike spec and random button mashing. Every time I get on her and try to quest, I start to reminisce about her days with Body Count and all the faces I bashed in Arathi Basin. So the first time I get pwned by a kobold I get grumpy and log someone else. I just want her to be done leveling. I could care less about any other achievements with her.

But where do I begin? Arms or Fury? What kind of weapon do I pick? What stats are good for leveling? What's my weapon rotation? When do I change stances? I don't even know how to set up my button bars. For once, the Interweb doesn't help, because all my usual sources of info are way over my head when it comes to warriors. This could be a whole new game for me...

Monday, March 16, 2009

Raid Dynamics and World PvP

My OS +1 raid didn't go on Saturday afternoon. Not even close. I wasn't really feelin it anyway, so I wasn't entirely sad about that. Actually, I didn't end up running OS at all this weekend. I probably should check the loot tables one more time to make sure I'm not missing anything. I did miss out on the tokens though. I think rather than do the 10 OS +1 maybe I'll start a 25 OS + guild pug on Saturday afternoons. I won't be interfering with Naxx and I'll still get some tokens. Who knows, we might even get some recruits that way.

We made some great progress on Naxx this weekend. As usual Arachnid and Plague Quarters were no problem. We also finished the Military quarter this time around. We spent a good 45 minutes on the Four Horsemen on Saturday, and got them on the first try with no deaths Sunday night. We still haven't quite finished up the Construct quarter. Patchwerk is easy, but we still got hung up on Grobbulus. We're definitely going to get him next time around though, our final attempt we had all the positioning of the clouds down, but we didn't DPS him fast enough and everything stacked up.

I also learned something about our guild raid dynamics this weekend. There were about 15 characters bound to this run. Tran, being awesome, used both his Lock and his Pally as needed, so we could run either 2 or 3 healers depending on the fight. I seem to be the preferred person to do invites and handle the loot, but the tanks have been doing most of the explaining and actual raid leading, which is fine with me. On my OS runs I like to lead, but I'm not too keen on doing it for Naxx too. Overall, we have a tendency to brainstorm on new bosses, and once we figure it out have one person leading it. It was annoying when we first started out, but now that we're not discussing every boss at length it's not so bad.

PX implied they were going to wait for me to be available to do new content. That's pretty cool. I know they could easily handle it with Zon and Tran. In a way I think they depend on me a little too much. It's nice personally, but I think healer dependency is holding us back. We had 4 healers in raid right before we started the horsemen, the offtank was resisting swapping for a warlock because he thought a healer in each corner would work great. Um, no. I've also been fighting him on the min/max negativity with having certain classes for certain fights. Other than having one poison cleanser and one disease cleanser, I believe we can do it with any mix. We have to work with what we have, not give up because "we need 2 hunters for this".

Outside of raiding I was a PvP monster this weekend. I upgraded to the new Medallion of the Horde and racked up almost enough honor to buy another upgrade (haven't decided whether to do the belt or the ring next). I finally have over 600 resilience so I'm able to survive the 'average' ganker long enough to make them think twice about camping me. And also long enough to call in the goon squad. Our guild in general has been seeing more world PvP action recently, so hopefully this means we've made some KoS lists again :-D. The old favorite allies to kill are gone, but a new batch has taken their place. And surprisingly, none of them are DKs. Mostly Dr00ds and Warriors.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Gear Upgrade Post - March

Yep, it's that time again. I've had some nice upgrades the last few weeks, but things are definately slowing down. I did get the Aged Pauldrons of The Five Thunders and Devout Aurastone Hammer for my shammy too. All she needs now is the Discerning Eye of the Beast and Swift Hand of Justice. She'll be the most pimped out alt ever.

Head
Current: Forgotten Shadow Hood
Current Gem: Solid Sky Sapphire
Current Meta Gem: Tireless Skyflare Diamond
Current Chant: Arcanum of Blissful Mending

Head Comparison: They're all way better. I like the tier gear from Kel'thuzad.

Neck
Current: Lattice Choker of Light

Neck Comparison: I didn't really like any of the others.

Shoulder
Current: Silken Amice of the Ymirjar
Current Chant: Greater Inscription of the Crag

Shoulder Comparison: Mantle of the Locusts, Heroic Naxx, Anub'rekhan

Chest
Current: Moonshroud Robe
Current Chant: Super Stats

Chest Comparison: Robes of Mutation Heroic Naxx, Noth the Plaguebringer

Waist
Current: Elegent Temple Gardens' Girdle
Current Gem: Brilliant Autumn's Glow
Current Gem: Glowing Shadow Crystal

Waist Comparison: Belt of False Dignity, Heroic Naxx, Grand Widow Faerlina

Legs
Current: Cyanigosa's Leggings
Current Chant: Sapphire Spellthread

Leg Comparison: Distorted Limbs, Heroic Naxx, Maexxna

Feet
Current: Sullen Cloth Boots
Current Chant: Greater Spirit

Feet Comparison: Boots of Holy Light, Emblems of Valor

Wrist
Current: Azure Cloth Bindings
Current Chant: Major Spirit

Wrist Comparison: Bands of Impurity,Heroic Naxx, Noth the Plaguebringer

Hands
Current: Heroes' Gloves of Faith
Current Gem: Perfect Purified Shadow Crystal
Current Chant: Exceptional Spellpower

Hands Comparison: Valorous Gloves of Faith, Heroic VoA or Emblems of Valor

Finger
Current: Timeworn Silken Band
Current Chant: Greater Spellpower

Upgrades: I think I want to keep the crit on my rings, this one has good crit/spirit balance

Finger
Current: Titanium Spellshock Ring
Current Gem: Runed Scarlet Ruby
Current Chant: Greater Spellpower

Upgrades: Lost Jewel, Heroic Naxx, Zone Drop BoP

Trinket
Current: Majestic Dragon Figurine
Current: The Egg of Mortal Essence

Back
Current: Wispcloak
Current Chant: Wisdom

Back Comparison: All upgrades. I'll probably pick up Cloak of Kea Feathers with Valor Emblems

2H Weapon
Current: Staff of Restraint
Current Chant: Mighty Spellpower

Upgrades: Best in slot for 2 hands. Ooh yeah!

Weapon Combos: I still like my staff. I'd only consider switching if I had Accursed Spine (Heroic Naxx, Noth the Plaguebringer) as my offhand, and I'd probably go with Hammer of the Astral Plane (Heroic Naxx, Kel'Thuzad). But I lose a lot of stats that way, the main gains are in haste / crit / spellpower.

Wand
Current: Wand of Ahn'Kahet

Wand Comparison: Either Wand of the Archlich (Heroic Naxx, Kel'Thuzad) or Plague Igniter (Heroic Naxx, Grobbulus) would be fine.

Whew. Gear upgrade day is a lot of work.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Quest log updated

I ran 10 man Naxx with one of the alt groups of one of our server's big raiding guilds. Got to see two new bosses, I think I could explain them now, not too hard. One of their guild officers whispered me and asked if I wanted to join. Them being one of the highly progressed guilds on the server I was flattered, but I turned them down.

There's no reason to leave my guildies now after a year and a half. But it is nice to know if something blows up I shouldn't have a problem finding a new home like I did last time.

Our drake run was not successful, but I think we got the positioning down. Basically, we need a tank for the adds, and I need to find a better day to run. We were actually getting in position pretty well, but there was so much chaos people were getting smacked by the flame walls. I think I'll be wacky and try it at 2p server time on Saturday this week. I might be surprised who shows up, or I may have to PUG a few. And I'm ok with that.

I picked up the Staff of Restraint and the Majestic Dragon Figurine from OS this weekend. Zon scolded me for not using a main hand / offhand combo, and hes right, I need to find an upgrade and get the badge offhand for storage. I also need to regem my stuff, my crit is getting out of hand, I need more spirit again. My shammy has completed SM Cathedral and BFD thanks to Aeth. I'm really liking the shaman class. Cast cast shock heal cast... It's awesome. And a much easier transition from the DPS classes. I'm really excited to get onto the 50+ levels to see how things go with more other players in the mix.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

This Blog Needs More Mal

I had a crazy Six Degrees moment the other day. I was out fishing for my favorite buff food in the Grizzly Hills when I got a random whisper from one of Aeth's guildies. He said "Hey Aeth's friend you need to join our guild". I had a good laugh and we chatted about the good and the bad of being an officer, learning new raids, etc. He was really nice.

I mentioned that we were primarily pvp pre-wrath, and that I used to have a lot of fun running twos with a rogue friend who didn't play anymore. He then asked me "was it Mal?"

Needless to say I was very surprised. I knew the Mal fan club was big, but I'm dying to know if he only figured it out from talking to me, or if he knew who I was too. My server's not high population, so it wouldn't surprise me, but discovering a new branch of the Mal fan club was hilarious.

So there you go Mal, a little troll rogue lovin on the blog again.

No @*%&ing Swearing in Guild Chat!

I'm a fan of answering questions posed on other blogs. None of the WowInsider Breakfast Topics have caught my attention, but this question posted on World of Matticus did:

Is your guild vent dirty? As in rated R+?
This is a really funny question in my case. Every time I explain it to someone not in-guild, or someone new joining the guild, there's definite confusion.

- No swearing in /gchat. There's some debate over whether tv words like "crap" count.
- PG13+ in TeamSpeak, meaning the F-bomb is OK, as long as it's not every other word.

Whenever someone asks why no swearing in gchat, the only reason I can come up with is that it's tradition, and while TeamSpeak is optional, gchat is not. The whole PG13 thing is more a function of our guild being mostly people with families, but the realization that if you swear, it's difficult not to when you're frustrated and stressed.

And you know what? I like it that way. It's nice to have a haven in the game where you don't have to put up with people being nasty. If I really don't want to hear it, I just take the headphones off.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Fishing FTW

I got the achievement bug in me this weekend. I Holy Nova'd my way through the Deadmines and ran all the heroics in Hellfire Citadel with Krom and Auchenai Crypts with Aeth. Ran though a bunch of areas of the Eastern Kingdoms on my way to Stormwind, where I dropped my fishing line in to get the Fishing Diplomat.

Last night and this morning, since I was already in Terokkar Forest anyway, I decided to spend a little time looking for Mr. Pinchy.

And I got him! AND I got the Magical Crawdad Box on the first wish!

I think I'm just going to carry on with the achievements today. Head over to Ogri'la and do the dailies there, do some more exploring, maybe Holy Nova my way though Wailing Caverns and Blackfathom Deeps.

And tonight I'm throwing myself a birthday party at Claimjumpers because I'm out of food and could use some serious leftovers.

Friday, February 27, 2009

*sigh*

I cancelled the OS run for Sunday. Our tanks are being really annoying right now. I'm not going to rearrange my schedule for people who can't commit. All three of us raid leaders are frustrated with them, so I'm just going to back off. I hope things improve soon.

I mislooted some purple pants in VoA 10 today because I thought there was only one hunter, when there were two. If it doesn't get fixed Trig won't get his set bonus. I think I've lost my master looter privileges for a while.

I think I may just take the rest of the weekend off.

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