An Idle Hand

An Ounce of Prevention

2010-07-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

Recently we had a couple of guildies that got their accounts hacked, items lost, characters deleted and transferred, badges spent and, weirdly enough, moved to remote locations. One guildie, in particular, was the guild leader, which also compromised the guild bank. Fortunately, while a lot of items were removed and supposedly sold, they were also things no one really used or needed, so it was nothing we couldn’t live without for the time being.

One of the more interesting quotes I heard from someone, someone who wasn’t one of the hacked, was “NOW I’m going to get an authenticator”. Why is it that people are so bothered by that tiny little electronic device that they can’t be bothered to get one and apply it BEFORE they need it? It’s like saying, “You’re pregnant? Let’s start using a condom.”

We had another guildie who DID get an authenticator and, even having waited impatiently for it to arrive, didn’t apply it for approximately 3 weeks, because the directions were complicated. I said, really? I think it took me all of 5 minutes to go to the various websites and apply this or that and bam, done. I think what finally worked, talking him into finally doing it, was reminding him that he got a pet for doing it. Same person, let me point out, who went and bought Lil XT the same day it was released. Hey, if it takes a pet for you to help secure your account, so be it.

But why? Why are people like this? People will spend money to move a character from one realm to another before they’ll spend a fraction of that on an authenticator. I’m not saying that having one is going to absolutely totally and completely secure your account from any hacking attempts whatsoever. But it is going to prevent a lot. Condoms aren’t 100% effective but the medical field is never going to say don’t bother using one.

You can tell your friends and family you’re as smart as you want. You can say you don’t go to “phishy” websites and you don’t give out your account information and you are super careful about what you do and you never DL stuff and whatever. The other guildie hacked was the IT manager for his company, who cautions and berates others for not being more careful with their online activities.

It’s true, what they say. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Would $6 have been worth the time, effort, mental peace of mind plus a really cute in game pet that these guys lost? One guildie lost his main, favorite toon – an 80th level hunter – who was transferred off his account and to another server. He also lost all the gear on his raiding healer, and we had a raid that night that we obviously had to cancel. Plus he sat on hold for the Billing department for over an hour. And he was livid. If you ask him now, yes, $6 would have been a very low price to pay to avoid all that. But if you’d have asked him last week, $6 wasn’t worth it when he was saving up for some other, temporary, in game service.

This is a cautionary tale. Will everyone be hacked? No. Does everyone care about their account? I hope so. Do you have to spend real money for account security? No, actually, you really don’t. A lot of people go for years being extremely smart, lucky, or both, and never have an issue. But sometimes luck works against you and everything falls apart in a matter of hours. Whether you choose to spend the money for another layer of protection is up to you, of course, but it really comes down to how much is the cost upfront worth the cost after the fact. Consider not only the initial outlay but also the manpower hours as well as mental tranquility.

Plus, cool in game pet!

The Raid Healer

2010-06-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting conversation with one of my roommates. He plays a priest, holy. We got talking about yet another friend who plays a holy paladin. I had mentioned how much my friend is asked to raid heal lately and, frankly, hates it. I was commiserating because I, too, dislike immensely having to raid heal as a discipline priest.

He says, you guys are better equipped for raid healing than we are.

I made that face at him. You know the, O_O one.

Upon my reaction he says, "I don't really know anything about discipline priests."

So then I did the /)>.<(\ face. (My version of a facepalm.)

Beyond the specs not knowing what the other can do (hey, I'm a victim of it too. Remember the Great Respec Of 2010), I kind of thought everyone knew that the discipline priest was the red-headed stepchild of healing.

I said to him, what's your HPS? He says, somewhat sheepishly I might add, oh, only about 3sh, maybe 4k. I said, very seriously, mine is about 2k unless it's a bad fight and things go very wrong (such as last week in ICC where I hit very nearly 4k because of the insanity but it's nice to know it's possible).

That's where he gave me the O_O face. He said... but you've got... um... I said, shield. And it's a wonderful shield. I can spec it down to 0 cool-down and it will heal and it will do damage in the right circumstance and it's pretty. And I have 1 AOE heal. You, sir, have, what, 3?

I know what you guys are thinking. But holy priests are doing more burst damage. We're doing flash heal all the time. We're using shield. We're using prayer of mending. And I agree, yes you are. And yes, I have prayer of healing. And lightwell? I know it isn't popular. But drop that down near the tanks (hey, I've seen you do it) and they can take a second to hit the bowl. Circle of Healing. I, as disc, get penance. Yours - AOE. Mine - targeted, channeled.

I'm not complaining. I love being a discipline priest. I just am not well equipped for raid healing. I do it. Shield, shield, shield. But if people are relying on me to completely heal the raid, they're going to start dying. Priority is tank, second is healers, third is DPS. DPS is what gets us through the raid, I know. Uber important. But the fact you're not on my priority only means that by the time I can get around to you, the tank is back to dying. And I'm very much more equipped to heal that one, and keep us all alive, than you.

Let me use one fight as an example. Stinky in Icecrown. Major points: decimate, AOE damage, stacking debuff that makes healing the tanks harder. When the decimate starts to come, I watch real close the countdown and try to time my prayer of healing to go off just after we're hit. And it heals for a VERY little amount in the grand scheme of things. Then I shield shield shield. And, again, tanks --> healers --> DPS. And I hope for 2 things. Someone else didn't shield a second too soon so it doesn't fall off prematurely and that the other healers are doing their AOEs, because if they aren't we're going to lose people. And after that, I start hitting penance and flash heals.

I raid heal because I have to, not because I'm any good at it. I don't hate it like my paladin friend (funny how this story started with her and here I am trying to get back to it) but I don't particularly like it. As you may or may not recall, I did spec into holy, and thus, raid healing and I had a few good experiences with it. If nothing else, it taught me mad respect for the spec. But I'm not good at it. My paladin friend is not good at it. Why is the new trend for us to be raid healers? I know in my guild we're short on healers, which is a valid reason, we all need to pull together (3 priests in ICC. It's a challenge), but that isn't the case of my friend.

Srsly, raid leaders, wry?

And The Winner Is…!

2010-04-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

Discipline FTW!

I finished out the week with holy as my main spec and shadow as my off spec. And I felt I didn’t necessarily give it enough time as holy, and I felt I still could and needed to learn some things about the spec, so I opted to keep it, at least for a little while longer. I didn’t hate the spec, and I even had that good VOA 10 run, but it still wasn’t comfortable to me.

I did, however, turn my off-spec to discipline. My idea was, give holy a little more time, use disc in raids when I might need it, and also try to use disc as a viable questing spec. I wasn’t sure how but a guild member told me he used it for questing and gave me some pointers, so I was going to give that a shot for the week.

We head to our raid that night and the raid leader tells me, ok, spec back to disc and heal. The FIRST thing I do, of course, is shield. And immediately I squeal on vent "OH MY GOD, I MISSED YOU!" No, I really did. They laughed. And mocked me. They’re mean.

We proceed through the rest of the night. I asked my raid leader a few times, do you want me to switch to holy. His answer was always either "Do what you want" or "Stay disc". There was one fight where he did say do holy but then I switched right back to disc after. Then, as we get to Saurfang, we couldn’t get past him, just couldn’t no matter how we tried. So the guild gets talking, we need more DPS. After our next wipe, the raid leader hands me 50 gold and tells me to go respect to shadow.

Now I did learn some things. And I learned how to better utilize some spells. So it was definitely a learning experience that I don’t regret taking.

And now, because of all my fancy footwork, my "main" spec supposedly is shadow now and my off-spec is disc. But I think we all know the truth.

Discipline FTW!

Holy and Discipline Enter the Ring - Who Will Win?

2010-04-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have never wanted to be a Holy priest in World of Warcraft. By the time I got to about 30th level, when I was still using talents in both trees (Holy and Disc that is), I realized I was really healing the way more of the mitigation and shielding. By the time I hit 40ish, I fully specialized into Disc and never looked back. I really preferred my shield over spamming group heals. I liked a more efficient healing.

My guild also knows I like the Disc spec, regardless the crap I catch for it. There's even an officer in my guild ho thinks Disc priests suck and can't heal. The only reason he hasn't pursued either forcing me to change to holy or getting rid of me entirely is because I am also an officer.

So, all that said... why did I respec Sunday to holy?

I got talking with our raid leader after a particularly successful and frustrating night (yes to both) and he was ruminating on how he'd wished at times I were a holy priest but then he'd lose a tank healer...

Well, I got thinking about it. And I thought, as much as I disliked the idea of going holy spec, I should perhaps talk to him to see how serious he was and how sincere.

His main concern was that he wanted me to learn all aspects of the class and so far I knew 2 of the 3 (disc and shadow) and I couldn't honestly say I knew holy at all. I couldn't argue with it.

We agreed to give it a week and the caveat was I couldn't keep disc as an off-spec because, as he said, he needed to know I was only healing in holy spec AND he said, "I know you, you're going to get frustrated and switch specs to heal because that's what I would do."

So. Yeah. Goodbye to you my trusted friend, we've known each other since I was 9th or 10th...

It's been... frustrating, as predicted. The first day I didn't like it -at all-. I didn't heal anything particularly challenging though but I did completely act like I was still in disc spec, throwing shields around and trying to spot heal, and that just wasn't working, of course.

Second day was a lot like the same, I hit a couple of instances and tried to do more of the AOE healing but I didn't like the mana drain. AND I got told that's something I'd have to deal with. Seriously? I just have to suck up that I'm going to have massive mana issues with this spec and things are just going to get worse with the expansion AND this is ok with everyone? Srsly?

By the third day I still didn't like it but I drug myself to an instance to heal. Fortunately it wasn't a very hard one, as far as they go, and I was getting more into the habit of just spamming AOE healing but it seems to me that's not very efficient. By the end I had more of a hang for it but it still just doesn't feel "right" to me.

So, moving on to the fourth day, I'm requesting of my group hitting a raid, even if it isn't a big one, because 5-mans really aren't going to be a challenge enough to test this out. Mind you, I don't really WANT to test it out, because I don't think it's in my internal make-up to be a good AOE spam healer. Or any sort of AOE spam healer. I very much prefer seeing who needs the healing where. The problem with that philosophy, of course, is when "something" happens and suddenly 4 people need big heals.

There is a time and place for each type of healer. One is not better than the other. That's a matter of skill, not tools.

On the plus side, if I really do continue to dislike it by Friday, I'm assured my raid leader will accept that and I'll merrily respec back to disc. I may occasionally be called on to respec holy for circumstance but I won't have to live with it. Another (unhappy) possibility is having two healing specs, dropping the shadow. I think that'd be really hard to live with because I use shadow for everything else I do - questing, PVPing, instances where I'm not healing. I probably can do all that with a healing spec, well, except the whole instance thing of course, but it's so much harder that I avoid it. There was the minor threat of making me respec weekly between the two healing specs, or even more than once or twice, depending on what we'd need but I am so against that that if I HAD to, I might take both. But that'd kill my life outside of raiding on that toon so I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Oh well, just day 4 now. We'll see how the rest of this week plays out.

Is it bad that I really hope I don't end up liking holy? Or just human?

Beware. I live.

2010-03-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

At least it hasn't been a year, right?

So a lot has happened since I last wrote. My hunter has been dropped to "Alt" status. I still bring her out regularily but she's my banker/auctioneer now without having the stress of going out to hunt. I might drag her around since she's also my herbalist but that's on rare occasions. Oh, and she got to 65 before I gave her up.

I just realized at some point that it was unsatisfying playing her. I'm not entirely sure why. In a way, it was too easy. Send in pet, pewpew. Wash, rinse, repeat. I know there are challenges to every class and I'm not knocking it. It just wasn't for me after a while.

Also about this time, the guild I was with sort of had a breaking up moment, but not really. See, the guild leaders decided our guild wasn't progressing enough for their tastes - they had some 80th level characters and were having a hard time getting to the end content, even with PUGging. So they were trying to "merge" with another guild, which sort of resulted in them joining the other guild, leaving the guild I was with open, and leaving an invitation for people to talk to the new guild to join. I don't blame them in the least for it but it still sent a ripple effect through the people left behind.

So as I was feeling a little of the left-behindedness and wasn't feeling the need to play my hunter, so I rolled up a priest. I'm not entirely sure at the time why I did it but its worked out rather well. I mean, I got her to 80 in record time for me (remember me with the 1001 alts?) and I'm still playing her regularily, in instances and raids. Go me.

She's fun. Priesting FTW.

She started as an undead because I liked the racials. It wasn't so much the cannibalism (which is always entertaining) since I could heal but I liked the underwater breathing (I'm odd, I can't help it) and being able to use Will of the Forsaken. However, when I realized that Will of the Forsaken was going on a cooldown with other movement-clearing abilities, it became less of a novelity for me. So I switched her to Blood Elf. Hey, I'm shallow, I know, but I also fell in love with Arcane Torrent. +6% mana instantly every 2 minutes? Yes, please!

Others may scoff at this little gem but its saved my life - and countless others - time and again. And while it isn't as useful as it may once have been, what with gear upgrades and such, I still have occasion to pop that little sucker off (stopping Moorabi's transformation, anyone?) so it's still part of my style. I've considered changing her to troll but I'm not as serious about their racials so it's just a consideration at this point.

I'm also working on raising a paladin up, tanking style. I figured if I wanted to heal I'd just bring out my priest so I'll leave my paladin with tank/ret. Sides, I'm not sure I want to try to remember two separate healing styles. It's far easier to say "Ok, when I'm healing, this is my rotation and this is where the buttons are located" versus "When I'm a priest, this is my rotation but when I'm a paladin, this is my rotation..." Cha'know?

I'm not seriously considering at this time raising anything else. Oh, don't get me wrong, when the expansion hits, I fully plan to try out a troll druid. But, hopefully, I'll have finished my paladin and ready to move on. Sides, the number of times I've tried and abandoned a druid doesn't give me hope that I'll stick to it. But I want to give it a go all the same.

So. Hey. Hi. Remember me? I sure remember you!

Random Moments in Life

2009-08-21T18:39:00.001-07:00

A guildie and I were trying to kill off these things and they literally spawned like a second after they died.

Yeah, they weren't too pleased with us. :)

This was just a pretty image I saw one night wander around Sunstrider Isle.

This... is Sid trying to devour me. :( Bad goggie!

I'll leave the caption of this one up to you.

In case we lose it all

2009-08-21T18:28:00.000-07:00

With the upcoming changes, I just wanted to remember something.

Rest well, fallen warrior, whoever you are.

Swifty, Swifty Me

2009-08-21T18:13:00.001-07:00

I know its still a giant chicken but it's 40% faster!

If you wait long enough...

2009-08-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

I was running around Silverpine last weekend and I just couldn't help myself.

The Noob Is Starting To Get Irritated

2009-08-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, I get it. I joined the game after the third expansion, some 4 odd years after it started. I didn't have to walk uphill, both ways, in the snow to get to school. I didn't have to run around Azeroth until 40th until I got my first mount and be grateful for it. There's a lot of things I didn't have to do and I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I'm a Jackiemofenanay-come-lately. I'm sorry Blizzard decided to make the game easier to level, made great new content, made great new stuff to make your game play easier and more fun and to keep you around longer and I get to reap the benefits of timing on my side. I'm so sorry I get to hop on the train after it's already been running for a while.

I'm not being as sarcastic as it might seem. All right, I'm being a little sarcastic. I understand people worked hard for what they got and then us newbies (not to mention us casual newbies, of which I am completely one) come riding in on our shiny new tricycles and act like we own the place and how much that pisses some of you oldtimers off. I've been there in other games. And I stomped and raved and had to bite it all back too. It's really hard thinking how much you had to scrape for and then some nouveau riche punk comes along and just gets whatever they want without nearly half the effort you put into it for the same thing.

But for the love of dog, could you please try to enjoy it instead of complaining? Instead of complaining how easy it is and the newbies have it easy and that sucks. Instead of making it sound like you would rather not have any progress at all and keep with the status quo, even though you know you'd be long gone by now without updating and changing?

And quite frankly, maybe you are blowing through the content like it's jello puddin' but this is still my first time through it (ok, 20billionth time on an alt) and it isn't easy for me and I don't have sugar daddies to support me and I don't have heirloom items, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I hate the generalizations of "everyone else is blah blah blah" with a passion uncontained.

You know what this all feels like to me? It's like going to a car dealership and saying that when you bought a car, they were all black and that you had no choice but to have a black car, and it's not fair that there's all these colors now, and everyone should have to have black because that's all you had.

And we totally shouldn't have color TV. Or HDTV. Or shoes. If our ancient ancesters could survive without shoes, damnit, we should be able to too!

No, seriously.

When I was growing up, there were no MP3 players. We had vinyl albums, with record players, and three speeds to play them in. We had to amuse ourselves with playing them at different speeds and you didn't carry around a player in your pocket to listen to your music just any old time you wanted and things were so much harder then!

Get me?

Why can't people just shut up and enjoy things?

40th and BEYOND!

2009-07-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

I hit 40th level with my hunter.

This is a huge feat for me.

At 40th a hunter gets to wear mail armor, up from leather. For the class, it's a big milestone. For me, it's huge.

Not just that I can wear that mail I've been hoarding armor (ok, not really hoarding, more like "Holy smokes, I don't have anything saved! What am I going to do?!" sort of scrambling) for a while and could finally get it out of my bank. But it was more like "Wow, I'm halfway there."

Granted, 1-40 is not the same as 40-80, I know. But I'm my highest level character. That means a lot to me, even if it doesn't mean anything to anyone else. My previous highest character is 32. It may only be 8 levels, but it's a matter of commitment. I even went to Dustwallow Marsh, where I should have been anyway, to get me past the last push.

Now, of course, I'm back to Stonetalon, where I should have left long ago, I know. I can't help it, I want to see how the quests play out. You know, they really do just randomly send you around to other zones. Usually they'll lead you to another zone intentionally of course but there's just a number they ship you off to. I imagine you are supposed to pick where you want to go, or you're going to go everywhere and end up in places that are much lower for you. Hey, that sounds familiar...

Oh, and a mini-rant. I've noticed that most of the mail armor for women is very revealing. Gee, Blizzard, sexist much? Now, you and I know that your audience is largely male and they're all about the sexiness while getting their hack and slash on. But, come on now. You know women are making up another huge faction of your audience. And while I like to look pretty and all I also want to be treated with respect, and usually when people are ogling the girl, respect isn't really on their minds. It's rather belittling. I want to be as bad-assed as the next guy and not every girl is a pink wearing bubble head. Just how protective is a chain mail bikini? I guess it's a good thing the enemies are only hitting the outsides of my character's thighs or the chest above the midriff, because the rest of the legs and the stomach is bare. Yeah, bare. The leggings cover the genitals and have flaps that cover the outside thighs. Seriously, Blizzard?

Factions, Werewolves and Goblins, OH MY!

2009-07-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

(Wherein I rant and rave yet again.)

I haven’t been able to play all week because of my messed up schedule. Basically, I have too many commitments and the Sims 2 is easy to play when you’ve got only a hour or so to waste. Yeah, sure, I know what you’re thinking. “But, Jackiemofenanay,” (that’s me), “you could totally play for an hour in WoW!” Ok, possibly, but I would end up maybe running around looking for herbs or shuffling items around in banks and bags, and not really questing or, horrors!, getting to 40th finally. (I have sitting in my mail box a “starter kit” of mail pieces for when I turn 40th [for people who don’t know what I’m talking about, at 40th hunters get to wear mail armor, which is usually an upgrade from leather they start with]; they’re not great pieces but hopefully they’ll get me going since I keep forgetting to “need” on the mail rolls in instances.)

So… not being able to play makes me cranky but I still devour all the WoW news I can get. Usually from podcasts (fwoot! I finally caught up to the end of World of Warcast! Go listen!) or WoW.Com (odd caps FTW!). But anyway, new topics and rumors! You’ve heard them all before elsewhere, so why not read yet another post on them? And because I’m so cranky, it’s a long post.

Faction Changes

How do I feel about this… I think Blizzard is smart to give players the option of changing factions if they want to pay for it. If you don’t want to pay for it, you’ll roll up another character, right, and start them over again. Sure, it’s tedious and time consuming. Some people like making alts (guilty!) and some hate the grind. For those that hate the grind, they’ll either pay up the money (not that anyone knows how much it’ll be – I suspect around $25 like server transfers; more would be excessive and less would be sweet). For anyone who hates the grind but doesn’t want to pay for it, I guess they’ll decide what is more important to them, their time or their money. Or hey, just not change. That’s totally an option too.

Ok, let me back up a little and lay out the supposed process.

Blizzard is going to allow people to switch a character from the Alliance to the Hoard or from the Hoard to the Alliance for a fee. So far the only details we have, I believe, are (1) that there’ll be racial restrictions on what race you can pick when moving over as determined by your class – as in there are only some races with some classes, such as the only two races that can be Paladins are Human and Blood Elf and the only two races that can be Druid are Tauren and Night Elf – and (2) if you choose to switch back again with the same character, you must go back to the race you started with and cannot choose another – no starting with an Undead Warrior, switching to a Human Warrior, and then coming back to an Orc Warrior, for instance.

I don’t think this has an iota to do with lore and I think the passionate people complaining about it that way are, well, not thinking about it from the right angle. People aren’t defecting to the other side. For whatever reason, they want to go to the other side. Could be play with friends on the other side. Could be sick of the faction they’re with (guilty again, although it wasn’t like I had a character on either side even high enough to consider doing something like this with them). Could be boredom, could be they wanted a special racial only mount, or liked a hairstyle. And I’m sure there are a number of reasons I’m sure I’m not even considering. But it cannot be lore motivated because a person isn’t going over there as the same race they’re leaving as. I know, there’ll be people insisting “No, no, no, I really was a Human and now I’m a Blood Elf” or whatever. That’s way more out of character than paying some money to the company to do the change. And I know there’ll be people doing that and trying to justify it but honestly, there’s no in character way to justify it. So logically, it’s an out of character decision.

Exclusion – there is one, and only one, change I’ll find marginally acceptable and try to keep my eye rolling to a minimum and that’s (can you guess?) from Human to Undead. And then I’ll expect them to be all moody and broody and et cetera.

Oh and let me just put this out there. The excuse “it’s magic!” has long ago stopped being a valid excuse for 99% of the reasons it’s used for. “It’s magic!” is a lazy non-explaining, non-thinking way of why anything is the way it is. Do yourself a favor. If you’re ever caught in a discussion and someone pulls out the “it’s magic!” card, just stop. Disengage and move on. They’ll think they’ve won something and hopefully leave you alone, and you’ll have saved yourself the time and energy of trying to have any sort of reasonable conversation with someone who clearly isn’t going to listen to valid points to ponder. If you can throw in a scathing eye roll or something on the way out, even better.

So like I said, I think allowing the process is a smart idea. They’ve already allowed people to switch basic details of their characters via the website – faces, sexes, colorations, etc – and they’ve allowed people to move servers. This just seems another step in the grand scheme of things. Especially if people want to pay for it. It’s a game, you want to have fun, and they’re a business and they want your money. If you have fun at the same time, bonus! I don’t think they’re selling out either. You have the same amount of toons you’ve ever had, you can create another on the side you want, or they can let you pay for the change and you keep everything the same but change to the side you really want to be on.

I know everyone talks about “it’ll upset the balance” and “but there’s a war going on” and I fully support that – in character. This isn’t an in character thing. My character is “For the Sin’dorei!” all the way. I, however, want to play what’s fun but at the end of the day I shut the computer off and go to bed. I don’t begrudge my Alliance friends and we don’t have philosophical talks about what side is more right than the other. And quite honestly, even if a thousand people defect (and for the sake of argument let’s just assume the players do favor one side for the other), there are still the ka-jillion unknown, unnamed, unwashed masses that make up the rest of the population that will still be there, supporting their faction. I’m talking about those NPCs and the unseen population that we may never seen but, from a lore standpoint, exist.

How many people play on a server? And how many of those people play PvP in some form? Is it really so many that we have to limit who can “switch” sides? If that’s the case, why aren’t they limiting what side you can roll up a character on?

Personally, I’d love it if they let me talk to my Alliance friends (ew, Alliance, ew) even if I could only (a) they had to be on my friends list and I on theirs (mutal thing), (b) I could only whisper, and/or (c) make it an OOC chat channel if they want. That’s really all I need. Me, switch from Hoard to Alliance? Oh heeeeeck no. (I’ll rant about the Alliance some other time. No, this isn’t an Alliance rant. Sheesh.)

Back to the topic. I don’t really see a fundamental issue here. Some people claim there’s no lore reason for this. Uh, there’s no lore reason to pay $14.99 a month either (thanks, Starman, for putting that thought in my head).

Werewolves and Goblins

Ok, ok, Worgens. Anyway… new playable races? This is the latest (as of this posting anyway) rumor going on around the marshes and back alleys. Apparently, if I understand this correctly (remember, I’m still a noob), some people at “Scrolls of Lore” dug up some Halloween masks (I’m guessing from the PTR builds or something) that showed male and female versions of Goblins and Worgens and what makes this special is that we’ve never seen a female Worgen in game. Some are taking this to mean that the masks are there, playable versions of them must be right around the corner, right?

I’m not going to say that isn’t the case but I will say this is pretty thin reasoning. Basing this on the sense that there’s never been a female Worgen… how about the idea that they’ve decided to make Halloween masks for males and females? Sure, the women can wear the male masks. But it’s generally an accepted practice that you make a male and female version of things when they’re for players. After all, as a friend of mine likes to complain about, they don’t restrict only males to Night Elf Druids and only females to Night Elf Warriors, as the lore suggests they should. I’m assuming players would be up in arms about it (hey, my first character was a female Nelf Druid, but then I didn’t know any better) so I’m likewise assuming that people would throw a fit if there were no female Worgen masks.

Yeah yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I’m making a lot of assumptions. Yeah, well, there’s good reason and precedence for it. Not to mention that some people will complain about everything.

Again, I’m not saying they aren’t going to be playable races. I’m not privy to the minds of Blizzard Devs. And I’m not saying it isn’t a juicy rumor. I’m just saying it’s pretty thin reasoning.

Worgen pets?

Lastly, and totally leastly, that whole snafu with the taming of the humanoid worgen. I’m not going to spend so much time on it (because clearly I’m spending so much time on the others).

It was a bug (notice I’m not going so far as to say exploit because I’m not judgmental like that). No matter how you slice it, it wasn’t what the GMs intended so they removed it from the game. That’s it. And because it isn’t a beast, it wasn’t meant to be a hunter pet. Because it isn’t a beast, there’s no talent “family” for it. Because it isn’t a beast, hunter’s can’t feed them, and because it isn’t a beast, hunters can’t keep it as a pet.

This isn’t a beast! It’s a humanoid, sentient being. I get that hunters want cool pets. Hell, I play one! I want something cool, something interesting. I picked the ugliest battle boar because it was the least used skin. I have friends telling me gleefully how someone whispered to them because the particular pet skin they tamed is cool or “pretty” - just different. So trust me, I get it in spades. I’m a big wolf fan more than a cat fan so when I saw the spirit beast wolf, I fully went into OMGBBQWANTWANTWANT mode. And was bitterly disappointed that was another “not intended” pet so it was removed (I think? I need to research this because maybe it’s back? I dunno). So I get it.

But the Worgen wasn’t a pet, wasn’t meant to be a pet and will never be a pet. No one seriously considers people saying they want to keep a Gnome as a pet, or a Human, or (my personal favorite, yes) a Blood Elf. (Although if I’m lucky maybe I can just have one following me around faithfully anyway.) Even if we’re not talking PCs but NPCs, no one would realistically get up in arms about not being able to tame one. Just because a Worgen isn’t a playable race does not mean its fair game.

A Pretty Sky

2009-07-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share a story about one of my guildies.

I met this guy in a PUG (pick up group), blood elf Paladin, along with the guild I eventually went along to join. Originally I thought he was a hot-head and didn't like him. He kept rushing ahead when people weren't ready and pulling things over his head and either expecting the rest of us to support him or figuring he was just invincible enough to handle it all. Maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever the reason, I quickly figured he was "one of those guys" and told myself, well, it's a PUG, I hear this is how they are.

I got the distinct impression he was fairly young so I tried to keep my snark to a minimum.

After that, he kept asking me if I wanted to go on instances and since I want to experience the game as much as I can and get used to things, I would agree. I figured, worst case scenario, it would get me used to wiping and what not. He also noticed I was sporting the guild tag after a while of that one I'd mentioned so he was asking me about it. Granted, I'd only really been in the guild about a day so I couldn't really talk much about it but I said I thought they were nice people and he should talk to the GL when he came on. Fortunately for him, the GL showed up maybe 5 minutes later so I gave him a head's up and set them after each other.

The next time I saw him, he was wearing the guild tag.

Now, since then, he's greeted me every time I hop in game when he's there, which prompts me to do the same back to him. And we had a period of time where he wanted to clear RazorFen Krawl several times and just couldn't get through it in one sitting (he vastly underestimated how much time he had to run it) so it became a running joke, "Are we going to try RFK again tonight?" I was a little disappointed when he said he got another guildie to run him through it just to finish it (Granted, we were both pushing 30 at this point so it really was probably getting to be

We continued to find things to do when we were both online and I really warmed up to him. Yeah, he was still the hot-head that wouldn't hang back for the group long enough but since I stayed ahead of him in levels somehow it wasn't too hard to keep up (and being a hunter, I could manage my health and mana better than he could so I could wait when he needed to break).

He was always saying he was bored and trying to come up with things to do. I was rarely bored since it's all new to me but I also liked company so I'd go along with some hair brained scheme of his. One time we went from Orgrimmar to Westfall via Stranglethorn/the Vile Reef to run Deadmines and got about 5 paces into it when he announced he had to leave (it's ok, I made him go back for the achievement another time).

When the Midsummer festival came upon us, I immediately decided I wanted that pet for 350 blossoms and started working on some of the tasks. I did the dailies and hit the flames that were easy enough for me to get. Then as I realized that wasn't going to be enough, I started moving out of my comfort zone and hitting some flames that weren't so easy to get and even ventured to the Alliance side a few times for more blossomy goodness.

About a week into the festival my buddy announced he was bored and what was I doing. I told him I was working on my dailies and he should try it. THE NEXT DAY he told me he'd gotten over 300 blossoms (about twice as much as I'd managed to gather) and I should go with him to Stormwind to steal a flame. (As he put it, "You have no idea how much free time I have.") We grabbed another guildie as we got started (ironically, another person who joined after we all met up in the same original PUG) and went to become smears along the streets of Stormwind (we were all low 30s/high 20s; it wasn't much of a fight).

The next day, he and I stormed Darnassas, Exodar and finally Iron Forge. Originally he said he wasn't going to do Iron Forge again because it took him over an hour to work his way through the city the week before, but he agreed for me because I needed the achievement and he wanted to help me through it (he kept me bubbled a lot and got the guards to go after him first).

After we got our "A Thief's Reward" and that OMG INSANELY COOL "Crown of the Fire Festival", he decides we have to fly to Thunderbluff because he wants to show me something. I'm sure everyone else knows this trick but I didn't. We went out the hole at the top of the flight tower and, after drinking the festival ale that makes you "lightheaded", leapt off the tower and gently floated to the pond below.

Let me just set the scene a little. Because we were spending all day dying at the hands of the Alliance, I was running around in my Midsummer dress and crown and my friend was running around in... his underwear. At one point I was trying to figure out where he was due to the little buddy icon on my map and realized he was coming from overhead. I looked up to see the underside of this nearly naked blood elf, in his red under-roos, surrounded by flower petals, floating slowly toward me.

I look in chat and he'd typed out: We're making the sky pretty.

You have to understand the perception I have of this guy. Young, fairly innocent (doesn't understand half the stupid innuendos I make, which is a good thing, really), eager... a "good kid".

I was completely touched by the innocence of the statement.

We really *were* making the sky pretty.

"I survived the Barrens chat and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"

2009-06-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

For anyone not familiar with the Barrens chat, WoWWiki has an entire paged devoted just to it. In summation, you've got a very large zone for low leveled players to spend a long amount of time in (in some cases, 10 levels worth) and inevitably conversations degrade over time. And it isn't just the low levels hanging out there. Some people show up just for the conversation and what they can "add" to it. I swear they do.

I just finished (a couple days ago) my last real Barrens quest. I dumped one for Ratchet because I found out it doesn't give me any Orgrimmar rep and that's really the only reason I was in the Barrens in the first place (I want that wolf mount and I'm not a PvPer so battlegrounds is sort of not my cup of tea).

I've done the Barrens quests with, well, this will be my third character now.

The first character I sent through there was a blood elf warlock. Why I was out there instead of Silverpine, I have no idea, but I was. I think it had something to do with well-meaning friends sending me out there to level up. I didn't spend a whole lot of time out there because after a few levels they drug me to Ashenvale and then off to Tarren Mill. And that's about as far as that toon got.

The second was a Tauren druid and I like the Tauren mentality and I like the playability of druids (even if they're fricking complicated still). What I could not stand about Taurens was their running. I'm convinced that because they're so much bigger, if they were to run with the same stride as the smaller races, they'd zoom past everyone, and Blizzard can't have that. They do a much slower lope to keep pace. But my goodness it's painful to watch because it feels so slow. So not only am I suffering (yes, suffering) watching my Tauren run across the plains, and then the plains are soooooo loooong and soooooo boring... I mean, by the time I got to 20th and I got cat form, things got a little more entertaining but geeze, it felt like I was out there in the blazing sun and the savanah was endless and... bleh.

My latest character is, of course, a blood elf, and she decided early in life that she wanted a wolf mount. So that meant some rep grinding with the orcs. Granted, since I'm so new to the game, rep grinding is a new concept to me but I get it fundamentally. And thus I was out in Durotar and then the Barrens.

To give a little history on my playing, I came from years of online text games. Oh yes, countless hours of watching white text scroll by on a black screen. It's amazing I'm not blind by now. The curious thing is I've learned how to ignore the text I don't care about. I tell people I only read something these days if it scrolls past my screen. And I also tell them "You learn what to ignore".

Although I was out in it for, gosh, months?, I didn't even really see "Barrens chat" anymore. Sure, in the beginning I saw all the bad puns, the even worse sexual jokes that some people didn't even bother to disguise, and the endless Chuck Norris comments. Near the end, though, I couldn't tell you what they were talking about. It helped that I learned how to make a separate channel to filter messages to me and guild stuff and others when random stupid things overtook the window, but honestly, I couldn't begin to tell you what anyone said in the past few weeks.

Although I'm sure it was bad puns, the even worse sexual jokes that some people didn't even bother to disguise, and the endless Chuck Norris comments.

I guess I have to figure out where I'm going now. I've been in the Barrens so long people were getting worried for me. =)

I Guess That's Why They Call It Desolace

2009-06-24T18:22:00.001-07:00

I've heard people complain about Desolace before. Until last night, I'd never been there, and if it weren't for the Summer Fire Festival thingee going on I doubt I would have last night. But I got a quest and supposedly I'm supposed to be hunting there anyway (ha ha on that) I thought I may as well hike out there.

Well, my gosh. I know it's me because this is completely new for me and I'm not a daredevil type of gal, but my heart was really racing as I ran my purple neon chicken through Stonetalon (ok, I hadn't explored that yet either, but hey! I'm looking around still!) up to Desolace. It's definitely got a particular look and feel to it. I liked the Kodo graveyard. I was actually a little touched.

Never did find my quest end. I really had no idea to look and my quest cheat mod didn't seem to have a record of it. Oh well. There's always next year, right? ;)

Proudmoore's Pride Parade

2009-06-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

This last Saturday I found myself on the Proudmoore server for the Spreading Taint/Stonewall Family's pride parade. I'd only read about it hours before it was supposed to start so I rushed to get to where I had to get. As you may have noticed, I created a Blood Elf alt. Since the parade started in Camp Tuarajo I had to run through Silvermoon City to Undercity, take the Zep to Org and then run through the Barrens to my destination. That was a heck of a run.

It was really cool seeing the people organize and set off on their "floats". I'm not going to report on them since I was only there as a spectator but I was highly amused and impressed that people had their themes and really pulled together for their travel through the Barrens, up to the Crossroads and over to Ratchet.

It was very civilized, with a lot of yelling, cheering, cajoling and dancing.

Everyone really seemed to be getting into the spirit of the event.

There were some craaaaaazy things.

(I think those battlebots only came out that day, too, right?)

Death Knights on parade. :D

Non-boat crashing goodness!

Nothing like a good water party!

If I ever defect from my home server, I'm heading to Proudmoore.

Someday

2009-06-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

As a dutiful hunter I told myself that among my pets I needed a bear. Now, I never liked the bear skins, hunter and pre-hunter alike. But I knew I needed one! So I went through Petopia and Wowhead looking and staring and staring and looking and finally decided one of the white bears from Dun Morogh would suit my Alliance hunter well enough.

But, yeah, I'm playing Hoard now. And, yeah, I'm geographically illiterate (in game and out). I just know that getting to Dun Morogh, especially at level 12, was completely out of the question.

My wee hunter packed off to Silverpine Forest for a boring ole brown bear. (Tangent: I had put away my raptor and on the way tamed one of the black worgs just as temporary support, immediately fell in love with one, named it Sid ((short for obsidian - no one ever asks!)) and hiked back to Undercity to stable it so I could go back for the bear I intended to get the first time.) I got a bear, no trouble, and went back to questing.

Nearly 20 levels later, the bear still had no name, really only got used as I was keeping all my pets at the same level, and I only sighed whenever I had to get the poor thing out.

I'm not entirely sure how it came up but a friend in game suggested I get one of the boars from RFK. I didn't even realize you could. See, since I'm a noob to the game and never had to go through the trials old hunters did, what with getting a pet to learn its attack just to get rid of it for another... I definitely don't have the thought of just trying out random beasts and seeing which are trainable. So we ran into the instance to look at the choices.

Let me just warn people of something. If I perceive the choice I have to make is somehow monumental or permanent (OMG, the trouble with tattoos!) it could be really irritating to have to deal with me. It took probably a half hour or more of staring at these things, tamed and untamed, before I finally chose the "I don't see anyone else with that color" pig. (Yes, I'm that shallow.)

But.

Granted, we get 5 stable slots. But I am not a rich woman. I paid for 3 and they were filled with a raptor, a wolf and the upcoming boar. So I had to obviously clear a slot.

The day before I got rid of the bear, I said to myself, "I need to name this bear someday."

Then before I could tame the boar, I had to abandon the bear. I waited until we were in the instance, of course, and was feeling bad about it (yes, I know it's a game!). So my friend says, "You're not abandoning him here. You're just sending him back to the wild."

So while I was waiting for her to come back from AFKness, I said goodbye to the bear. It went a little something like this.

"Farewell, oh mighty nameless bear, and thank you for the service and attention you gave me. I wish you lots of happy cubs and may many an Alliance fall beneath your powerful paws."

My friend came back and said, "Aw."

I said, "Yes. And his name was Someday."

Someday I might have to run into Someday again.

Re-Beginnings

2009-06-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

Warning: It's Long. TL;DR version: I play a Blood Elf Hunter. :)

Gosh, where do I re-begin?

When I wrote the two previous posts, I was playing Alliance, as I believe I mentioned. Well, I've since gone back to the Hoard. Yeah, gone back to.

Before I started playing WoW, I knew plenty of people who already did (I still know them, don't get me wrong) and they played Alliance. So I naturally aligned my mind to the Alliance, thinking naturally I'd play with them. And months before I picked up the game, I was getting an idea in my head about what race and class to play.

(Laugh now. I know. That's just crazy talk. I've been playing online far too long to fall into the trap of "Oh, I'll play X- Y- and -Z and everything will be perfect!" but I did anyway. I'm a bad girl.)

I decided on a Night Elf Druid. Druid was the class I picked first, the race came after. My idea was I'd have utility and changing forms and healing and all the good stuff that makes playing a game worth play, right?

Oh my fracking goodness, what a difficult class! Now, remember, we're seeing this from the eyes of a true-noob. I did join on a RAF set up, and my friend was here when I first logged on -- she helped me get set up a few ways with my UI. And then her and another friend were running me around the newbie starting area until we got to whatsthatplace Dolanaar and then we sort of split up for the night. But I ARE EXCITED! I want to keep playing! So I sign on the next day by my lonesome and continue questing.

I did a lot of things wrong, got lost a lot, and because this was completely new to me and I didn't have anyone there to stick it out with, I ended up doing the "what's lurking around that corner" exploring. I really got into the mindset of jumping at my own shadow. It took probably a week or more to get to 10th level. 10TH LEVEL. My bear form was neat and I think I stayed in it all the time without really knowing what to do with it. And the quest for swimming form had me in tears. 16th level, off the coast of Westfall, utterly lost and terrified of dying, I very nearly signed off and didn't go back. Fortunately I had yet another friend online who talked me through it and introduced me to Wowhead and I didn't quit that day.

I did quit playing a druid not long after.

Round about this time, another friend suggested I should go over to his server and make a character and play with them. They (friend of a friend - I will have to start naming Person A, Person B, Chadwick, Dumberer...) were playing Hoard and I, being shallow and all, thought those Blood Elves are kinda neat, so I made a Warlock. They rushed me through leveling too because they wanted me closer to their alt's levels. They too had been playing for years so their mains were 80 and thus I was going to play with their alts. I didn't mind though, because we were having fun. And this is really where I started under standing what it meant to have your main and have your alts and spending time on them, blah blah blah.

After a while, dwama happened and people canceled their accounts and I found myself stranded without knowing really anyone and not really having a clue as to what to do next. Sure, I mean, quest, get levels, etc. But I was sort of in shock hearing my friend carelessly quit his account and was going to restart it just as soon as whatever whatever (and still hasn't after a few months - I don't think it's going to happen for a long while) that I found myself moping around.

Then my RAF friend says "Come play on my server, we'll have fun!" and she's Alliance so I dutifully head over there and make a Human Paladin this time (Seriously, Why The -F- do I keep picking such complicated classes when I'm clueless?!?!). Now, I gotta say, I like Stormwind and its surrounding lands. Took me a while to get the hang of the city, but now I can get around pretty good there (I think it's an achievement, pbbbbbt if you don't). But she had been playing for years and quickly ran out of steam again, so, here I am, unsociably alone.

As I was lamenting to yet another friend, he said "Hey, come to my server, my guild is good!" Yep, I headed for server number four. It was cool, I knew my friend wouldn't be available but after, oh, 20ish failed characters by now...? Anyway, I had a much better idea of how to play. I created a Human Warlock and about 20ish level decided I really really didn't want to play a Human Warlock in the Red Ridge Hills.

I have to make a much bigger confession about this someday but for the time being I'll just say that I'm not a big fan of the Alliance (don't hate them, I just think they're boring) and sort of told myself, y'know, I have that Blood Elf warlock back over there... who is kind of set up... has some access to a defunct guild now... lemme go check that out. Also on that server I had a mage, warrior, druid (yeah, druid - pretty cool actually, need to get back to that toon), paladin, I forget what else... but by about now I was thinking, hey, I've just raised a hunter to 31 (what?) but I really wasn't ready to leave the class, I just wanted to defect to the Hoardside. So I started over with a Blood Elf Hunter.

Starting a new character is always fun, especially when you realize you didn't make it on the right server (don't ask) and you have to redo the same said 10 levels the very next day - what fun! But I was also feeling the "What's the point"ness of it all. I didn't know anyone on the server anymore, my RL friends were not only scattered around but all established in the things they do and really didn't need a "little sister" hanging around with their noobish questions. I really was very close to quitting, at less than 6 months playing time (that just seems so little to me).

Frankly, I was lonely. The best times I had in the game was running around playing with my friends. Hell, even PUGs weren't that bad, all things considered (is that a sign?). I just really wondered if I should move on, and then the question was, well, move on where?

So I was just doing my thing, deciding I'd take my time and look around. Since no one was dragging me around and shoving experience down my throat and egging me out of this or that zone. For what its worth, the hunter was turning out to be a good class for me - easy to solo, entertaining enough that I wasn't staring at the exp bar wondering why it wasn't moving, and I'm predisposed toward RP so it was fun acting like my pets had personality.

Wow, this got long. And sort of off the track. Good thing everyone reading this loves my rambling. The main point was I'm playing a Hoard now and I think the Alliance are still boring. Sorry Alliance! Love you much, k tx bai! You're welcome to my BBQ anytime. Fortunately you'll be the kindling so you won't miss the festivities.

As an aside, I met an awesome group of people in a PUG, joined their guild and I'm having a great time! That was... until my computer died.

Oh look, a story for another time.

RTFM vs PAFO

2009-05-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

I am not an RTFM kind of person For anyone who doesn't know, it means "Read the Fudging Manual" (or some other such type wording). I am a PAFO type person - play and find out.

It's not that I'm lazy. I just don't have the kind of time to read the jillions of things out there. I try to pick and choose for maximum absorption in the least amount of time possible, because when I'm finally at a computer where I could browse websites, I'd rather be playing.

I do, however, listen to podcasts. Lots and lots and lots of podcasts. Granted, I started back at the beginning with them but that was still back to 2005 with a couple of them and by the time I catch up to 2009 we'll probably be in 2010. My favorites are World of Warcast, WoWcast and Taverncast (not necessarily in that order). They're PACKED with information but considering I've only been playing for, oh, about 4 months at this point, a lot of what they're talking about it lost on me. I have barely been through six instances in my gaming life here (Dead Mines, Ragefire Chasm, Wailing Caverns, Blackfathom Deeps, Shadowfang Keep and easy part of Scarlet Monastery, whichever one that is) and was lead by the hand through them all. In fact, with the singular exception of SM, my job was to "follow behind the leader", usually my ?? level friends.

But I'm getting off my point. I'm a "what does THIS button do" kind of gal. And, to be fair, I've always been like this. Again, it isn't that I'm lazy exactly but I can only read or hear so much before I just cannot brain anymore and things just spill over without retention like an overfull cup of coffee. It's just better to leave the rest in the thermos and drink what you have first. I do learn much better (usually) with repetition and hand's on training. Well, I still suck, but after 40ish alts (I'm so not kidding) I might be getting the hang of it. (I'll save the story about that for another time.)

So, yes, it's definitely my responsibility to RTFM. But maaaaaaaaan, is there a lot of stuff out there to read. Overwhelmingly so. So I apologize in advance for asking questions I should be looking up myself and feel free to remind of that.

P'ingAF'ingO, me.

I Have A Confession To Make

2009-04-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

I'm a n00b.

I know I'm a noob and usually I'm pretty quiet about it because who wants everyone to know they're clueless (I guess making a blog entry about it might not be the right way to do that, wha?), right? But there's times where I'm just confronted with the obviousness of it that it makes even me laugh. For instance?

I have no idea where Un'Goro crater is.

A friend of mine tried to explain last night, saying "If you get to Tanaris..." I don't know where Tanaris is. "Ok, well, if you can get a port to Dalaran..." I don't know where Dalaran is either. I could almost hear the sigh through the chat channel. So then he says I can go south of Thousand Needles. Now there I know! Except that was when I played a Hoard character and I'm playing Alliance now and that's south of the Barrens right? How do I get there again?

Yeaaaaaaah. Isn't that cute? Don't you wish you could still experience the newness of the world like I am? Bet you don't remember how frustrating it was. :)

It's all right. I'll complete the Noblegarden quests next year, when I've been around for a while, and know how to get around. The world feels huge to me, and then I remember I've barely scratched the surface. I know basically the newbie starting zones.

See? Newbie. I has it.