/goodbye

I'll be back, I'm sure.

But! My account ran out yesterday and I totally didn't notice. Around the end of August I started playing less, pretty much only logging on for raids and checking WorldPvP. I did actively enjoying raiding, but the rest...farming motes for cash, doing dailies...yeah. They all started to get boring. I'd finished my FSW set, and never wanted to look at another eel again. Then school started up again, I got a freelance job on top of my normal library job..and well, yeah. It hard for me to make our measly 3 nights a week raiding, because I'd rather be working on comics or sleeping. WoW seems to work best if you have a 9-5 job (or none at all, haha.) with no other obligations. My schedule, and the amount of work I have to produce weekly makes putting aside those 12 hours nearly impossible. So..yeah.

I may pay for more time, I haven't decided yet. I still do enjoy PvP and that's something that can be squeezed in whenever. I'd really miss AV weekends, and PvPing with a holy priest buddy of mine. I do have to alert the guild. I feel kinda awful about it, I believe I may be one of the most geared warlocks due to all the raiding I did during the summer. But... RL > WoW. And I suspect I'll come back, if not anytime soon, then probably for the Wrath of the Lich King. I WILL be Death Knight #9209210, and Northrend looks too gorgeous to go unexplored.

Happy hunting, guys.

Hurreh

Gorehowl just dropped off of Prince and our orc warrior got it. Made me smile, it was pretty appropriate and he was so excited about getting Grom's axe.

Currently levelling a warrior, it's even harder to get used to than the shammy. More to follow soon.

Von Helsing Boombox

At last! A label to call my own: Dedicated.


Though that wowwiki entry is a bit harsh, I'm sure there are hardcore players who take real life ino consideration. Right?

This week in WoW the guild downed Prince and Illhoof for the first time. Prince was somehow one-shotted, we'd been beating our heads against the walls of his platform for two weeks now, but crappy infernal landings and our inexperience got in the way. Illhoof we dropped on the third try (after 2 wipes at like...1%. Much wailing on Vent.) That fight is nuts when the warlock dies. Note imps:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a78/fu_inle/ScreenShot_080707_015851.jpg

Yow.

I also appear to be building a nice network of Horde defenders. The same core group of 10 people tend to show up to defend Crossroads/Tarren Mill when the cry goes up over World Defense. Reminds me of when I pugged everything before joining this guikd; you'd end up finding the same people in LFG. Nice people, too. Its been good times this week.

OMFG LEAKS

From the EJ Forums:

-- Arthas getting off his butt and wanting to kill everyone.
-- Northrend added.
-- Death Knight Class. (doesn't say if hero or not)
-- Level cap raise to 80.
-- New battleground/PvP "stuffs."
-- "Expanded character customization options."*

*Expanding character customisation options including new hairstyles & dances, the ability to change the hairstyles of existing characters, and new skin color variants.



ARTHAS. ARTHAS.

Although..will only 5% of the WoW populace get to see him? Waaaaaaugh. Northrend as the new continent makes me happy. I love all Scourge related story-lines. Death Knight class sound interested, I would've preferred Necromancers, but hey. Wow, I'm not being coherent.

And the level cap being 80 makes sense, but man...1-80. I'd be overwhelmed if I picked up the game after this expansion. It'll probably come around in two years, knowing Blizzard. Yow.....wonder if I'll still be kicking the game by then.


I will celebrate this weekend with my newfound love: Alterac Valley. Last AV weekend I levelled my Enchanting up considerably. I'm much more inclined to hang around major cities, popping in and out of BGs and spamming my Enchanting ads in Trade. Woowoo.

Top of the Hour

Not sure if this is particular to my server or what, but every time these guys play, there's a massive brawl all over the stage and seating area. Its a welcome surprise, considering it's a PvE server.

Yay mosh pit. And for the Horde, mahaha.

Casual Hardcore, or something to that effect.

So for the record, I love my new guild. Nice friendly guys, most of them fathers so I don't get creepy a "zomg gurl" vibe from them at all. I've been joining the Karazhan team pretty regularly over the past 2 weeks and I gotta say its been a blast. No yelling, friendly banter on Vent (yes they fixed it so I could connect with my MacBook :), and patience from the guild leaders. We have a very small core group of raiders (about 15-20 people), so people step out when needed. I think its kinda nice this way, if I can't make it, then there's always somebody ready to step up and take my place. If we have too many people, seems like the people are chill enough to offer their spot up. So hurray, that's working out nicely. So far we're still working on getting past Prince, but everything before him is relatively easy.

I'm also not sure if its because I'm new to raiding or what hey, but I think Karazhan is a lot of fun. Trash doesn't feel that tedious; the boss fights alternate nicely between the Maiden loot pinata and the controlled chaos that ensues once our main tank charges at Shade of Aran. I'm always excited to see what we get for Opera, and am happy when we get Big Bad Wolf. I won't spoil the event, but Vent turns into a chorus of man-squealing whenever we get it. Good times. I suspect it's a lot less stressful when you're not running the place for loot; any upgrades I get are nice, but I'm not gunning for Tier 4. My Shadowweave set is almost complete, and its a damn solid set for an Affliction warlock.

Questing has ground almost completely to a halt; despite the easy gold it would yield to me. There's just (somehow) still so much to do, I'm pushing to grab heroic keys (Have Auchidoun and Caverns of Time; one run away from Coilfang), haphazardly working on Sha'tari Skyguard rep, and rushing off to the Crossroads or Tarren Mill whenever WorldDefense informs me that the Alliance are getting cheeky.


Bloo. Now if only I can get my gold past the 200 mark....eh heh.

(And for my own reference: Biased Comment Against Warlocks.

Forum in a nutshell.

Heh

Right about now would be a good time to troll the forums...just noticed that I logged out with a 42 pound Redgill equipped.


That is all. (I really don't want to start this drawing project for work. /sigh)

At least I'm not Aldor

Note to self: Windrider=Outland. Raptor=Azeroth. As lovely as my raptor is, it cannot sprout wings and fly. So stop mounting up and sailing off the Scryer tier. Crashlanding onto a gaggle of gnomes won't help Horde/Alliance relations any.

(On that note, it'd be nice if other players took damage if you landed on them.)

PTR Notes 2.2

Warlocks are gnashing their teeth over the resilience buff, but eh. I've dueled my resto shaman friend plenty and usually it's all he can do is frantically outheal my DoTs. Then he's out of mana and its a shadowburn/deathcoil combo to the face. These duels last a while though. Regardless, I found the rest of these notes far more interesting that the DoT nerf/resilience buff.

Nightfall: This ability can now trigger while the Warlock is sitting.

I, of course, cast Corruption and promptly sit afterwards all the time. If I can wrangle it during one of my skirmishes defending Crossroads, I'm going to sit, leap and insta-Shadowbolt at least one invader. It'll be priceless, provided I'm not too busy laughing.

Monstrous Kaliri: This creature now has loot.

GOD YES. Filthy Skettis. Oh, the number of times I've dropped quietly onto their platforms, decimated the Birdmen and tried to quickly cross a bridge for my next batch of kills...when I hear a twitter and one of these creatures is attacking my arms and face. I retaliate, only to have the thing evade bug repeatedly unless I fear it, whereupon it appears to have a fit and suddenly dies, the health bar going from green to empty in about .5 seconds. A 40 second fight gets extended into about 3 heinous minutes of Massive Kaliri Frenzy In Your Face until it actually decides to die without warning. And it wouldn't even have the decency to drop vendor trash.

The pitchLimit console command has been re-enabled.

Thus rekindling my interest in obtaining a flying uterus and having to deal with aforementioned Kaliri Frenzy. End game is flipping madly at people in Shattrath on my Nether Ray for hours on end.

Mac Movie Capture: the Mac client can now capture in-game video to QuickTime movie files using a configurable choice of codec (H.264, Motion JPEG, or Pixlet), resolution, and frame rate.

Really? This is just all sorts of awesome. I only wish it had been implemented before the Fel Reavers in Hellfire were glitched and scooting about, instead of fearsomely stomping the landscape.

And, of course, all the Ahn'Quiraj enchants been available through Outland rep: priceless. I'd love to get an AQ group going for sight-seeing, but I'm sure not farming the place for Agility formulas.


As for the rumored internal VOIP and guild bank, I really hope they're in this patch. My guild's Vent doesn't work with Macs, so I've gone to Karazhan sans voice instructions...it was surprisingly nerve-wracking. I thought I didn't like Vent unlike I'm hanging out, but for pulls and involved boss fights, it's so much easier getting things explained to you and having people call out warnings quickly. I'm surprised we downed all the bosses we did, me having never gone past Maiden and sans Vent. Managed to get Attumen/Midnight, Moroes, Maiden, Opera (got Romulo and Juliann), and the Curator, all with just one major wipe. Ho ho.

Anyway. SPINNY NETHER RAY.

FILTHY OTHER HAND, OBEY AND BE CO-ORDINATED

Summer makes it much harder to justify sitting inside for hours at a time. As it is, my spacegoat shammy sits at 22, parked in Ashenvale somewhere after I gave up trying to navigate her to Duskwood on Alliance boats and flight paths. Making the switch is aggravating; I know where everything is, but not exactly how to get there. Its a frustration akin to trying to use your left hand to write when you're normally a rightie. She got a flight point south of Booty Bay, one in the dwarven port in Wetlands, and some death in Splintertree Post(Forgot I was playing Alliance and ran her straight into the town.) Grah.

Yeah, I could ask for help, but where's the fun in that? I also get ignored half the time anyway. Alliance continue to suck, even when I'm on their side.

Meanwhile on my warlock, I haven't been questing much; which leaves a whole lot of Netherstorm and Blade's Edge mountains unexplored. Been busy trying to get my Shadoweave set crafted, and Enchanting levelled so that I can start making gold off it. Shadoweave shoulders are done, and hopefully I can get the boots crafted by the end of the week. I spent most of last weekend merrily pillaging in the zergfest known as Alterac Valley. First time in there, since I mostly ignored BGs for my 60-70 career. Racked up enough honor to upgrade my very old (yet hilariously named)cloak. In the process I picked up enough AV tokens to grab this fellow (I have WSG and AB tokens in spades from my younger days, heh.) Though I feel a bit guilty riding him about (What's a warlock without her hateful Horse of Doom?), he is so very jaunty. He also makes leaping off the Orgrimmar bank roof while yelling "CLEVER GIRL" my new favorite thing to do while waiting for people to buy enchants. Sometimes I don't know why my server tolerates me at all.

I want none of your filthy gold

WTB [Level 70 Hunter}

Since Blizzard implemented the anti-spam changes since 2.1.2, my chat log has been blissfully free of "Get gold fast easy $12!!!" from level 1 orcs named "Ednjksazz". The gold sellers are a crafty lot, however; they've taken to parking a level one who just spams his wares in /s. Its AV weekend, and I've yet to find a level 70 hunter who's neutral with the Frostwolf Clan. Boo, why don't warlocks get some form of Misdirect?

In other news, I've stepped into Karazhan twice and passed the Attumen/Midnight gear check exactly once. The guild is trying to form two teams, since we seem to have about 20 people interested. I'm second string and I don't mind at all. I've got 1/3 of my Shadowweave set crafted, and a necklace from a Zangermarsh quest still equipped so ..I'm still happy exploring new zones and running 5-mans. I've just started exploring Netherstorm and I've been 70 for a few weeks now. I don't understand how people blew through all this content in a week when Burning Crusade dropped.

Time to level enchanting..its at (a hilarious) 295.

I'm okay with my halo, however

Dusk expresses our collective warlockian disappointment: "Where is my pimp hat and scythe?"

Mahaha, he's on of my favorite posters on the 'lock boards.

Driving Raider Friends Insane

Well, the new guild has merged with another in an attempt to flesh out Karazhan teams; we were a ragtag DPS-happy group; they had tanks and healers aplenty. So that worked out. None of it really matters to me; I've been running Shadow Labyrinth for a pretty piece of loot. I should probably just pick up this instead, I'm about one Black Morass run away from Revered with the Keepers of Time. Guess my fascination with helping Thrall and Medivh pays off in the end. My rep sheet is pretty funny; I've been ignoring the Scryers and the Sha'tar because I don't feel like doing those quests/farming for rings, so they sit at Friendly. I'm Honored with the Argent Dawn since I sure do love impromptu dead Stratholme runs, and I don't like turning down fellow warlock requests for aid in the Scholomance. As mentioned previously; I'm nearly revered with the Keepers of Time, just because I am all sorts of in love with both Durnholde and the Black Morass. The scripted stuff is just so much more interesting; as opposed to your typical dungeon crawl. Sporeggar rep is midway through...Neutral. Hahahaha, I hate picking mushrooms.

I play the game pretty haphazardly; so it drives my raiding buddies nuts, I think. "But if you grind up your Scryer rep a little, you can upgrade your ring really easily!" ME: "*blink* ..but I wanna go play in Stratholme. It's neat-looking. And maybe I can get this!"

I can hear heads hitting desks even without Vent.

Old, but I lol'ed pretty hard.

Been kinda busy IRL, it's graduation season and hard as it may be to believe, I do enjoy going outside every once in a while. WoW Highlight of the the Weekend was playing on my boyfriends best friends 6-foot tall projector for a night. I pretty much just flew around Outland with the interface toggled off. I forget the game is so pretty sometimes.

New guild is pretty quiet. We're growing, but despite them having started Karazhan I can't seem to get anybody to go with me to Steamvaults for my second key fragment. LFG has been surprisingly barren these days, but I'm thinking the high school set are busy with finals. Something tells me everything will pick up next week. I want to get my Kara key already, though..had a nice offer for a spot in what sounds like the ideal group for me: Tuesday/Wednesday nights, led by a good IRL friend of mine, and there are other people I know IRL in the group. I'm so painfully new to this raiding business, I'd want to run with people are aren't going to go all Dives on me. Its hilarious when not directed at me. (NSFW, by the way.)

WIN

DING 70

No screenshot, was busy flailing at ghosts in Deadwind Pass. Am tired, time for bed.

(70! HELLO REP GRIND!)

My health cargo, you cannot break.

Just because I'm easily amused: WALL OF PANTS

The warlock is mighty indeed.

Anatomy of the Post-BC Guild Implosion

Despite being guildless, I managed to witness (overhear?) a fairly classic post-Burning Crusade breakdown on Vent recently. Most of my RL friends on my server are raiders, and I get pulled into their Vent often for idle banter whle questing/grinding. Last night, I hop into Vent to find that there's a massive meltdown taking place. I guess they ventured into Gruul's Lair for the first time ever that evening and lo: people who felt they deserved a spot didn't get one, pointing of fingers about cliques, accusations about being undergeared, "Well I wouldn't be undergeared if it wasn't for the cliques", /gquitting, and a splinter guild forming from the dissatisfied members. Vent turned into a pretty hilarious play-by-play of guild chat and the storm of gquitting.

While all this made getting Diemetradon spleens a hell of a lot more entertaining, I've heard this story before across WoW forums and blogs a million times since Burning Crusade hit. I wonder if Blizzard knew what they were doing introducing this new 10 and 20 man content. It seems like they must have, they're so thorough with everything they do and design. Apparently this was supposed to make end game more appealing to casual players, but I dunno...I don't see it. What I see is lots of tension in 40-man raiding guilds and casual players (like myself) looking at the rep grind for simple Heroic keys and quietly recoiling. I consider myself casual, but I am powerfully curious about end game content, would have reached 70 a while ago if it weren't for RL (harhar!), and lurk in the EJ forums. But I am not a raider, I don't theorycraft, and I suck at making gold. I'm not sure you can make a raider out of players who are casual at heart, who have kids, who have no interest in playing more than an hour a night, who aren't going to spend hours farming just to cover repair bills for purples. Blizzard released a fanastic expansion, but I wonder about ending the 40-man raid.

All that being said, I might join the splinter guild since I got asked last night. I miss green text, I'll already know some of the dudes, and they said they'd focus on Outland instances with Karahzan in mind for the distant future. We'll see.

HEALS

I've been on vacation for the last week or so, hence the quiet. Now, I acually took my laptop with me, since the friends I was staying with were the Alliance people I made my shammy for. Despite being Alliance, they're really cute. He raids and she just started, so he made an alt to level with her. The spacegoat dinged 20 while I was there; Ghost Wolf FINALLY. I also think I settled into the Shaman rhythm since I played her exclusively for a few days. Seems I kept panicking when I'd run out of mana: "NOO NOW I CANNOT HURT THEM WHERE IS LIFETAP BUTTON"; but hey...shaman can hit things and do considerable damage that way. Who would have thought? /self-depreciative

Got pulled into the Deadmines yesterday, and ended up main healing for the first time ever. Healing is nerve-wracking. I don't see how they do it, particularly in later instances and raids. I grouped with some random kids, and seeing that it was such a low-level instance...yeah, they were a bit nubbish.

Tiny Warlock:"drood heals"
Druid: "k"

*Druid starts hitting things at every pull*

Tiny Warlock: "drood mean u dont fight k?"
Druid: "k"

*Druid goes catform*

Me: "..how about i heal, guys?"

I have healing buttons, and she was making me nervous. CatHeals then proceded to yell "HEALS" at me constantly, usually when I was winding up Healing Wave for her. I'm not sure DPS or tanking gets so much prompting. I've never seen anybody yell "SUNDER" at a warrior, or "MOAR DOTS" at me on my warlock. So big ups to you, priests, pallies, shammies, and droods. Not only do you keep my Hellfiring self up, you probably had to deal with that nonsense constantly for the first 40 levels of your career.

Good times.

Dear Warchief Thrall,

You're a wonderful leader and an excellent diplomat. As a tank, you're...well. Kinda subpar. You gotta work on not breaking sheep when we're helping you escape Durnholde. Crowd control is important. Do we need to practice in Wailing Caverns again?

Love,
Cicatrice

PS
You might also want to look into getting a mount that goes faster than 30% speed, eh? You can afford it, I'm sure.

Do not want.

The Space Goat shammy is now level 15. I'm going enhancement with her, modelled after my favorite shaman buddy Horde side. And good god, is it hard. Maybe it comes from stepping down from a level 65 warlock, but ahhh. For some reason I can't seem to grasp the totem-shockety-smack-heal deal. I'm too busy whacking away to notice my health is dwindling, trying to figure out which totem to drop, not noticing that my shocks cooldowns are up...agh. I thought warlocks had pretty extensive repetoire, the shaman is completely bewildering. Also the lack of crowd control is tough. On my lock, I'll have my succubus out if I know I'll be working near humanoid mobs, felpup for caster mobs, VW practically never since he can't hold aggro anymore. He's there for the bubble; so basically when I'm about to try something stupid, like try to kite the entire courtyard of SM Library. (Hehehe.) Even if I get jumped while I have my imp out, I have fear kiting, howl of terror, and death coil at my disposal. I have one heal and its my healthstone, no casting time. On the shammy I get one add, I drop a Stoneclaw and pray it holds aggro as I try to make my escape. It's awesomely undignified.


Eh. I'll keep on with this, since I do want to play with these Alliance-side friends. I'll be happy when I get ghost wolf and can self-rez. I see my aforementioned 70 shammy friend ripping though 2 or 3 mobs at a time, so I know it gets better. Laaa. Back to "KILL 500 BEASTS OF THE AIR AND LAND" for Nesingwary in Nagrand.

There are few things funnier than a friend pyroblasting a dancing Gnome in Gadgetzan. Unless that friend promptly gets WTFpwned by bruisers and then after laughing for 5 minutes over Vent says "Well, that was worth it."

He was so angry.

Dear Mr. 70 Human Warlock Chilling at Halaa,

I know I'm an offensive sack of bones and decay. I know. And yes, as a level 65, it's a bit hard to defeat you. But dude, just because I got a lucky SkillCoil in, and you somehow didn't resist the ensuing Fear doesn't mean you have to rez at half life three times and try to own me. I would have let you go off, regain health and mana and return for a fair fight. Why pop and immediately shoot shadowbolts at me with no minion out? I'm not so crappy a PVP'er that I'd fall in the face of that hilarity. Next time, fly away, mana up and then come back to destroy me.

Yours,
65 Undead Warlock with the Bunny and the Succubus

(PS
Thanks for the HKs. :)

I think I've seen this place on Youtube.

Har, been WoW-busy this week. A friend helped power me to 65 in a day; another sent me stacks of netherweave so I can get on with my Tailoring. Finally made it into the one cheerfully colored Outland zone (HAI 2 U NAGRAND) and had a tiny fit at seeing Grom Hellscreams son (who is curiously terse).

Yesterday I had the pleasure of running a frends alt through Zul Farrack and I got invited to a raid group for Upper Blackrock Spire. Both were hilariously good times. I just love and miss ZF, though it was pretty neat blasting through at 65; I remember epic wipes in there at 43. None of my alts are anywhere near running that normally and probably won't be since I'm focusing on gearing my warlock with the Shadoweave set and keying for Kara pretty soon. I dont do alts well.

The UBRS run was equally awesome, although it was my first time in there. Buncha giddy 63+ toons running around like goons basically. Some of those pulls looked like they could have hurt way back when. I also laughed to myself when we passed the whelp room and everyone cracked Leeroy jokes. I love that the game has its own culture, for I'm a big ol'dork.

Night ended with me getting pulled into a Ramparts group for the last two bosses, since they kept wiping. Everyone followed directions pretty well and we one-shotted Omar. For Naz and the dragon, we wiped 3 times until we had to call it. The druid kept insisting on tanking in cat form and switching to bear midfight, despite us pleading with her to just jump in bearform. I don't like telling people how to play their class, especially since I still consider myself a nub and I've never gotten a druid past lvl5. BUT WHY CAT. It got to be a joke, we'd run back, buff up, and she'd be sitting there ready and...stealthed. Maybe I'm missing something here. Eh. At that point I was just exhausted, and so logged out with teh rez sickness.

Off I go, no WoW for a few days as I visit boy for the weekend.

Hellfire breaks stealth, y'know

Still puttering around Zangermarsh. I got bored beating up on the ogres, so I flagged up to see if any Alliance would play. Didn't run into anyone until I got back to the little Cenarion outpost with the Night Elf and her cat. A dwarf pally was there turning in a quest. As I rode up, I see him target me, then wander off a ways. "Ho ho, he's going to blue flag me." I hand in my 15 mushroom cacas, finger over the Fear hotkey. I actually get to turn in the quest and watch the Hungry Bog Lord eat his fill when I get backstabbed by the pally's friend. Nice. I love how it seems like everyone Alliance side on my server seem to always have a rogue friend on call. I seduce the rogue, and go after the pally, dot him up/fear, and turn back to rogue, skillcoil and attempt to load the dots up on him. Before I get too far with that, he's got me stun-locked, and I'm wondering whether to /dance or /fart before the inevitable end..

When out of nowhere I see double Corruptions up on the rogue and a strange Voidwalker flies past me and into him. A Belf warlock had actually stopped to help my foolish flagged self. Her VW and my succubus finish off the rogue, while she and I go after the Pally, whose bubble does nothing much in the face of two warlocks (maybe he sucked? Who knows.) Foes vanquished, I salute and thank her and we both ride off for Zubraji. On the way up we encounter Dwarf pally again, dispatch of him swiftly and continue on our merry way.

I suck at pvp, by the way, so that pretty much made my night. I suppose expecting to be blue-flagged gives me a leg up. Stupid RP server. Miss Belf Warlock, I won't be making fun of your people (for a while).

WoW Forum Post of the Day:
What does the captured Gnome in Zubrajin say?

WELL then

Dreadsteed obtained yesterday; that event was just a little insane. I no longer bemoan the fact that my lock never ran Dire Maul in earnest; I wanted to smash somebody once we got out. Oh god trees, quit stepping all over my face. I'm so very pleased with this horse, even if its skin is all flaky and peeling and man you're violently on fire.

Today I powered a little Draenei shammy to lvl 10 in a few hours. Rolled on a different server to play with some old friends who (surprise, surprise) play Alliance. If the inital wave of WoW players weren't so heavily skewed towards the Allies, I'm thinking this awful imbalance wouldn't be quite so large. I've heard so many people say "Oh, I rolled Alliance because that's where my friends were. I would've rolled Horde otherwise. MCJESLDKL NOO. I imagine all the very first WoW players all being goddamn hobo human male pallies, infected people with their thrusty dance. Ngh. Those people are KOS for me along with Nelf hunters. And Gnome rogues I guess, but only if I manage to see those before they start stabbing my ankles. Regardless, I really like the draenei despite their uber pacifism (plus I got to kill Belves with lightning bolts, which was a plus.) .The enormity of my betrayal won't hit home until I have to venture out of the starting area and into Stormwind or Ironforge, hahah.

Besides, it's a soothing break after all the brutality I had to endure at the hands of the Zangermarsh nagas. Christ, is that ish painful.

"Oh hello, Beefy Naga-Man.. I see you've brought a slave. Well, I'll just seduce him, and dot you up. Ah. Why is this elemental smacking me? Banish, then. Awesome, charm broke. Guys, quit interrupting my casts. Guys. GUYS." *Succubus dies*Naga Siren appears to MATERIALIZE FROM THE SURROUNDING SEAWEED and proceeds to shoot Arcane Missiles up sad undead warlock ass.*

***You are dead***

Mmyup. That place is worse that the human farm in Hillsbrad; which I decimated when I hit 60 out of sheer spite. You will get yours Naga Camps. Oh yes.

It is patch time atm

Oh man, finally back. All projects squared away and nothing much to do until school kicks in again in September. It wasa pretty sweet to log into a flurry of /w's. "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN" "OMG", etc. Heh. I'm currently guildless again, everyone jumped ship for a larger raiding guilds, and since I'm still sittign at 62 I don't really feel like commiting to a guild yet (particularly if its full of people I don't know/only ran with for like amonth). I'm beginning to seriously doubt the existence of fun casual end-game guilds on my server.

Guild woes aside, it was a pretty good first night back. Ran Blood Furnace with a friend who finally caught up to me (I think he was in his 50's when I took my hiatus) and a random pug. I was put on double-CC duty for the Fel Orc waves before Broggok, and I didn't do half-bad, surprisingly enough. Coming back to my UI was kind of LOL WHAT IS THIS after nearly 2 months of not playing, but I chain-feared and seduced well enough that we didn't wipe on our second attempt. I love being a lock. Then we ran Scholo for the Imp Delivery bit of my Dreadsteed chain; and I logged after staring at the bank and deciding I didn't want to deal with that at all.

Agh.

Upon snooping around the Armory, I find that my new guild has suddenly dwindled down to 16 members; the guy who originally extended the ginvite to me has left, along with the other 70's (among them a pally and a priest.) They're currently unguilded. I figure the same thing happened here as in my last guild, everybody left to gear up. Tch. Or maybe there was some sort of drama, I know they're all mostly RL friends. Bah. Guess I'll find out next weekend; seems like I'll be adding shopping for a new guild to my WoW to-do list.


And forum goodness of the day:
http://www.wowtcgdb.com/carddetail.aspx?id=768

Snerk.


http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=97559999&sid=1

If I were a warlock for the day, I'd soulstone and hellfire people off of me on the subway. The thought has occurred to me before; I Hate public transportation HARD, particularly at 8AM on a Monday.

Arrr

One of the wow_ladies went ahead and got herself friendly with the Bloodsail Buccaneers (apparently not once, but twice). No cross-faction AH, no Gadgetzan, no Everlook, but damn does she look stylish.

EDIT:
It's a locked entry, sorry to anybody who wanted to see pirate hat screenies, but couldn't access the community.

nooooo my weakness

I like how a month after I find out about the Unstuck button, they nerf it so that it shares a cooldown with Hearthstones. The one and only time I got to use the Unstuck feature was when I got stuck behind a bookshelf in the Scryer's library. I'd just hearthed, otherwise I would've used that in the first place (instead of wailing in Vent and being told about the Unstuck button.) BAH. Now'll I'll just have to watch out for those stupid Blood Elf bookcases.

I GOTS SHOOTS

The World of Warcraft official forums are usually a pit, but I like the warlock boards. Amidst all the posts calling for nerfs to locks, fear, and/or skillcoil, there are useful threads on specs and gear, much preaching from the Book Of Kralnor, and stories of common warlock griefing practices (I'm biased and I find most of them hilarious. I'm 12 years old at heart and fearing some douche who's been tagging my mobs into said mobs makes my heart sing). And sometimes you find gold in the "Dumbest Things Said to Warocks" threads:

Not using names, but I've had multiple run-ins with this guy while questing in thousand needles.

This is word for word what he said to me. We were about to summon that red snake thing.

Warrior: BRO
Me: Yeah?
WARRIOR: BRO
Me: What?
WARRIOR: U GOT WAND
Me: Yes. I got wand.
WARRIOR: AIT WEN SUMMON SHOOT
Me: ...what?

/kick

He whispers me "BRO LOCKS GOT SHOOTS. U CAN SHOOTS BRO, DROP YA ROLF".

<3


<3, indeed.

EXCITEMENT

Yeyy, the boy said he'd play with me over the summer, when we're both significantly less busy.


I am all sorts of excited for a few reasons: we're in a long distance relationship at the moment, and playing together makes for nice hanging out time that isn't aim or the phone. We can kill things together! He actually got a trial account right around the same time I did back in November, but he let it run out. "This is too addictive." Heh. As you can see, I stayed. This is also exciting cause I've been wanting to roll a new character, but I haven't had anybody to level a new char with. I don't really like questing by myself; I did 47-60 solo on my lock since she was really fun to play at that point, the lure of Outland (HELLO HELLFIRE PENINSULA ENSLAVE EVERYTHINg IN SIIIGHT), I grouped with a fun troll shammy for my 50's, and many friends are waiting for me at 70. All the alts I created on my server are failed Blood Elves (long since deleted, I cannot deal with their emotes, their run, and their idle animations), or just...toons I started playing around with to get a feel for the class, but couldn't bear to level out of the starting area alone. Waugh tangent. But yes. Now I am all excited and trying to figure out what server to roll on (join RL friends that don't play on my home server? Try PvP? Exciting possibilities!), what classes/races we should play. (I love playing Horde, but the Draenei are quite appealing; the ladies are pretty and the dudes look hilarious.) He's definitely a pewpew mage, so I'm thinking I'll roll something that can tank and/or heal. We want to be fairly self-sufficient duo. Pally is out if we're playing Horde side....I'm thinking of rolling a shammy or druid. Then again...mages have pretty good crowd control, so perchance I can roll priest and go shadow? Ideally, I'd just be rolling a lock again, we could use the blueberry as a tank for a while...hmm.

I love it. I can babble about this junk forever, but I am very much looking forward to hanging out with him in Azeroth and RL over the summer. It cannot come fast enough.

Side note:

I kinda wish the Amory had an away message capability or something. I haven't logged in very close to a month, but I'm also very close to finishing this project up. Too lazy to ask boy for password so I can log and let friends and guildies know I'm alive and intend to come back to the game. I didn't tell anybody I'd be gone since I was hoping to be done by now, RL friends know I'll be back but the guild and a few other dudes are pretty much in the dark. It probably doesn't matter, it's not like we're raiding or anything.

Yarr.

(On second thought...the Armory would probably require the account password, like the forums. I'm going to quit babbling to myself about WoW and keep working.)

Huh.

"While men and women alike can enjoy transversing these spaces, women are afforded an experience they are likely not to have had offline. While both the landscape and its creature might threaten the explorer, in the game space this threat is not based upon gender. Unlike the offline world in which gender often plays a significant role in not only the perception of safety but its actuality, in EQ women may travel knowing they are no more threatened by the creatures of the world than their male counterparts are. While this may seem an odd reassurance, it is far from minor. Risk of travel in-game is tied more to general categories of faction (does a particular town or zone's inhabitants hate your class or race?), power (do the area's creatures know you are more powerful they or are they more confident in their ability to kill you first?), or skill (can you effectively hide, sneak, or pass through undetected?) Because of this gender-neutral approach to threat and safety, there is a kind of freedom of movement that women often do not experience otherwise. It is also the case as one levels and obtains greater mastery of the game sace, zones of free exploration are broadened. An area that was previously quite dangerous to a character was not dangerous because of gender, and eventually it might become accessible with game c ompetency. This is an important pleasure of the game, and many women enjoy extended travel and exploration of the world. (T.L. Taylor 98)

I've been poking through T.l. Taylor's Between Game Worlds: Online Gaming and Virtual Culture. That wall of text up there makes an excellent point. I can only speak from my own experience, but this is huge. I live in a large city and I know some areas you just don't go to and some areas you don't go to without somebody with you. I schedule my life around the whims of other people sometimes i.e., I really want to go to this show, but if I don't find a second person, I'll be fucked since I'm not hopping on the subway at 2 am by myself. Or I have to stay at someone's house because I stayed out too late and I just don't feel comfortable travelling after a certain hour. In an environment that so closely mimics life, I love being able to "stay out" and not having to depend on anybody for safety's sake. It's...hard to explain without sounding like an asshole (so you win, T.L. Taylor!). Obviously this is a virtual world, I'm not actually going anywhere, but most gamers will know what I mean. These virtual places definitely have life to them. Winterspring feels different from Feralas. In the Eastern Plaguelands, I felt more on edge than any place else in the game because of the muted tones and what felt like legions of the Scourge about to chase me halfway across the zone. But I got a kick out of it, and I could explore as long as I wanted without fear. I forget how programmed I am in the real world to be indoors at a certain time, or always have a friend around. It's constraining and awful and it makes me miss living in a small town (which I did briefly for a year or so). WoW gave that to me and I didn't even realize it, heh.

But! Rested XP like You Wouldn't Believe

Still behind on work; still haven't logged. I'm curious to see how I'll be greeted after a month's absence. I don't think I told anybody I'd be gone. WoW time is similiar to internet time; a month may as well be half a year.

TAUREN CHAIR NINJA

Musical Chairs in Karazhan

This is the stuff I love about the game; not the videos of mages WTFPWNING 100 mobs, not sneak previews of T6. I like watching a bunch of Orcs and Tauren lumber around playing muscial chairs in one of the higher instances in BC. Also: Vent laughter.


(In other news, my comic project isn't so screwed anymore, but I'm going to have to push back my return to WoW about another week. Guess I'll continue lurking in the forums during comic down time and listening to The Instance while I ink. Y halo there various and sundry placebos.)

Buh.

Haven't logged in a week. Can't honestly say I'm ambivalent about it; I miss running around, I miss some of the people on my friends list and I miss instancing. I miss forgettng myself for a few hours at a time and I miss sitting around in Vent, listening to the dudes laughing while I'm dodging Fel Reavers. Boo to this. I'm going to safely conclude that I'm not really addicted (which I was afraid of), since I haven't caved and asked my boyfriend for the password back. Although I won't deny that I'll be really happy when this project is over and I can kick back in Azeroth again. (Attunements! Dreadsteed! Finishing up EPL/WPL quests because of lore! Get fishing back up to speed!)

I'm in no rush, but it'll be nice to hit the cap and then begin to hang out with the friends who were 60 when I was 40, and hit 70 when I was in my 50's. Finally get to play together, as opposed to whispering to each about how crappy our respective PUGs are.


Another week or two to go, not logging until this is done (and it looks like I won't be done on time, cause I am AWESOME.)

My second life is on hold.

I need to finish this comic up, so I'm not going to log until the 29th. I gave my boyfriend access to my parental controls for good measure. If I log "just to check the AH and my mail" during the weekend, I'll end up getting pulled into Blood Furnace, or everyone I need to complete the Dreadsteed quest will be logged on. And there would go 5 precious inking hours. I suspect most of the people I've been grouping with will be near 70 at that point. Ah well. Real life/actual accomplishment before the World of Warcraft. It's pretty ridiculous that I had to take the extra step with the parental controls. I am well stuck on this game WHOOPS.

ALSO:

MY KINGDOM FOR A ROBE


I've been waering a tunic for about 12 levels now. Nobody wants to see my lack of knees or my goofy welcome-to-outland-good-stats-heinous-clown-aura pants for so long.

Man.

The new guild now knows I'm a girl. This doesn't change anything, really. I'm used to everyone assuming the person behind the char is male, because girls don't play video games at all. And I don't bother correcting people with they call me "dude" or "man" or "bro", especially if they're not somebody I interact with on a normal WoW basis. I don't see the point, they're just terms of familiarity people toss around. But in guild chat, somebody specifically referred to me as "he", and I stared at the little chat log for a few seconds. I could not decide whether to correct or just let it be. I was bemused by my real indecision about speaking up. For one, I don't want to be perceived as a player who HAS to bring up their gender at every turn. I see that in general, saw it in my old guild, will probably see it in future guilds or raids or whatever. It bugs me when a player gets referred to as the aforementioned "dude", and they have a fit: "I AM A LADY I HAVE BREASTS OKAY". So there is that (admittedly irrational) fear, since I'd just say it once.

Secondly, you just get treated differently as a girl in game. Certainly not by all players, but it happens. One in game friend of mine is constantly referred to as "sweetie" by her guild leader on runs. My old guild (whom I loved dearly, by the way. I miss them, and I keep bring them up since they make up most of my WoW experience. I've got no other examples to draw on at the moment.) ..well, my guild knew I was a "real girl", we had Vent. One of the dudes would also refer to me with pet names, help me out all the time, and would generally flirt. Did that REALLY bother me? God, no...I'm not going to call out somebody on being nice over a MMO. But I know he was nice based on my gender, which is strange. Not the end of the world, didn't make me incredibly uncomfortable, but it's weird knowing that if I were another 18-year-old boy, my experience would be just a little different. I prefer being friendly, cracking jokes, and just being another person playing the game. As a girl, you don't get the easy boy's club familiarity right away. You gotta ignore "LOL THERE'S A GIRL HERE" comments for a while before they forget. I've never experienced anything quite like this before. I've never been in the Army, or trained to be a police officer or firefighter, where the majority of your peers are men. Also, gender is usually immediately apparent in the real world, so people respond to you for who you are right off the bat. In WoW, you might talk in guild chat and run instances for months (or weeks in my case), before you figure out that hulking Tauren is not, in fact, another dude. My char is actually female, so I found my new guild's assumption that i was a boy doubly funny.


As for what happened?

me: "oh...not 'he'. she."
dude: "wow, two girls in the guild."
me: "yeah wtf. everyone knows girls don't play wow."
dude: "lol i know."

Heh.

61 nubbin

Spent another day bouncing between Azeroth and Outland. This dreadsteed quest is ridiculous, but I'm determined to have the LOLFIERY mount. Finished gathering up all the mats today, so I can go cajole people into helping me out with Scholo and DM sometime later this weekend (or week, honestly...I have a fair bit of real life work to do).

So, my old guild flew apart a few weeks ago due to inactivity and lack of leadership. I'm presently in a newish guild founded by a group of real life friends, myself not included. I'd had fun questign with the guy who sent me the invite, so I accepted. (Much to the chagrin of RL friends who wanted me to join either their guild or go for a more well-established one on the server. Eh. Their guild is for their alts, their mains are in one of the more hard core raiding guilds. Maybe if it wasn't an alt guild.).This new guild is about as quiet as the guild I left, but there are active people at my level, so I've not been wanting for company on quests and instance runs. Today 2 of the dudes in the guild asked me to come along on a Blood Furnace run. We blasted through it with an awesome warrior and rogue they'd picked up. (Rest of the group was a shammy, hunter, and myself). They tell me I can go nuts with the demons in there, so I grab myself a true Felguard (not the mino demo version!) and proceed to smash things with him. As we move on to the next group of mobs, they ask me to dismiss so he doesn't break midfight.

Me; Okay! ........ :D
Fellow: He must really like you.

Shithell, I'd somehow completely forgotten how to manually dismiss a pet. My normal minions I tend never to dismiss unless I'm jumping down places (which I somehow haven't had to do for 9 levels or so), and whenever I enslave, I tell them to stay and then just leave them until it breaks. So I fiddled with everything but the things portrait for about 2 minutes. Nub moments are hilarious at 61. Nobody seemed to really care, but I felt foolish for the rest of the run. Replaced my Dreadmist belt though. I'm starting to care just a bit about gear. That spells trouble. Stupid game.

Cheering from my corpse

Downed Omar the Unscarred with a pretty good PUG today. Crystalfire Staff dropped...and lo, I won the roll. Wiped twice at Naz, but it was late and we were tired. I gotta say, all the PUGs I've been in so far have been surprisingly awesome, everyone knows what their roles in the group is, tries to compensate for weak spots in our make-up. I've also been grouping for quests with random people in Outland, and that's been (somehow) a joy. I guess most wilful nubbins get phased out somewhere between 35 and 70? The worst runs I've had have been SM runs. Ninjas, warriors who didn't know what sunder was, melee warlocks (I have a firestone equipped, it's cool!), huntards. It's funny, my levelling buddy up until 40 was a hunter, but I can't stand to play with them these days. I also don't see very many in Outland, dunno what's up with that.

The thrill I get from downing a boss (even one as simple as this dude) makes me think maybe I will go for raiding once the char hits 70. It may be a terrible idea...should probably just leave the game. But we'll see.

Regardless....a good night! Tomorrow we're going to try Naz and his goddamn dragon again. (After I do a whole bunch of comic work, har.)

Oh, fail.

Tried doing Ramparts last night with a 60 shadow priest, 61 shammy, 64 warrior, and 2 affliction specced locks (one of them being me). We did okay on trash mobs, died a few times, but no total wipes. People weren't kidding when they said Outland instances will test your mettle; seems like you need a really solid tank and healer to do these smoothly. Crowd control is essential too, I was tossing CoR around like it was my job, charming extra mobs, trying to yank aggro off the healer when the MT was otherwise occupied. I wish there was a mage in the group, though. We couldn't down Omar the Unscarred. Too low levels, not enough DPS. Will be trying again at 61 and 62. The group was pretty fun, though and everybody tried their best. I like running with people who know how to tank, but aren't above pulling out their Blue Moth during the run.

I require mats that nobody farms anymore for my Dreadsteed quest, this whole quest line is going to be a bit of an ordeal. Unlike locks pre-BC, I will have the option of having level 70 friends help me out in Scholo and DM.


And now to bed.

DING

60. Forgot to take a screenshot, dinged on one of those massive Legionnaires north of Thrallmar. I'd be more excited if BC didn't steal my thunder and if I hadn't lost my favorite levelling buddy 15 levels back.


Regardless, hurray. Curse of Doom on everything.

I begin.

So, it's been a while since I've done truly anonymous blogging (or blarghing!). This will be a small chronicle of playing that hilarious timesink known as the World of Warcraft. I'm currently sitting on a level 59 undead warlock, so I'll probably end up recalling my 1-69 experience, and then whatever happens afterward. Possibly raiding, who knows. The entire game changed just as my warlock was coming of age. She'll never see Dire Maul, Scholo, or Strat the way they were meant to be. I've already gotten run through Scholo by some level 70 friends. It was nice getting run through, but it felt more like sight-seeing than actually playing. These instances are pretty much abandoned on my server these days. I don't know much Warcraft lore, but hell...I loved what I saw of the Eastern and Western Plaguelands (Time rifts? WHAT?) before I gave in to the allure of quick levelling and awesome greens in Hellfire Peninsula. Bah. I'll be trying to wrangle friends and perhaps my new guildies into helping me with the Dreadsteed quests, so I'll be seeing Dire Maul for the first time then. So strange.

I'll also be noting the places my char gets stuck. I seem to have a knack for getting stuck in the most innocuous places in-game, much to my friends amusement. This wouldn't happen if I quit testing what I can hop on/into so much.

I've had to hearth out 3/4 times.

Some stupid chasm, RFC
Hall of the Brave, Orgrimmar
Random orc hut, Stonard
Scryer's Library, Shattrath City

Luckily I've yet to cause a wipe or anything catastrophic in an instance due to leaping about. Once I fell through the glitched stairs in Sunken Temple and died, which was heinous. The group couldn't stop laughing, though.

Alright. I'll be back to whinge about the paucity of non-RP, casual end-game guilds (with a minimal use of "lol fag" in /g) FILLED WITH HILARIOUS PEOPLE.