I don’t like Mondays

There’s really not much to like about them, they start my work-week, they require that I am productive after 2 days of being unproductive. 

My brain usually doesn’t function all that well on Mondays, so here is a decent size brain dump from the WoW part of me.

Goals

With fall and winter approaching, there will be more time spent indoors so it’s more tempting to spend it all in WoW. I’m trying to come up with a list of goals for myself in game, so I can be productive while I’m in game and not feel like I have to play every second of every day. I know it seems early to think about winter, but in Wisconsin we have Fall for about a week and then have Winter for about 5 months. That is pretty much right around the corner. We usually have very cold nights/days in October, with September being on the mostly coldish side. My not so complete list of goals, so far and in no particular order, is:

• Finish Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor
• Finish Loremaster of Northrend/Wrath
• Laugh with my friends about how I’ll never finish Loremaster of Outlands/Burning Crusade
• Participate and enjoy the Retro Raids with my 60 Priest
• Oh yeah, get my priest to 60
• Finish the Hodir rep grind on Ysinnia
• Hit 10,000 gold on my bank alt (she’s at 6,500 now, the most I’ve ever had)
• Purchase the cold flying tome once the patch hits for my Hunter so I can fly around Northrend and level her mining
• Help a random new low level character get bags, potions, gear
• Attain the Seeker Achievement

Prepping for the Retro Raid

I was questing in Stranglethorn Vale over the weekend, trying to level my priest for the upcoming retro raids on Argent Dawn. I bumped into another drenai priest questing in the same area and asked if they wanted to team up. He had taken mostly holy talents, whereas I am heading up the Shadow tree. I found myself comparing my mana usage to his as we worked on quests and killed pretty much everything that was in our way. I was using a lot more mana, though I’ve always been the OMG KILL IT QUICK type. I’m finding as a shadow priest, I really need to relax a bit and let the dots work. It also helps if you, at level 34, visit your trainer both at 32 and 34. <sheepish look>

I’m almost 38 now, and absolutely giddy at the thought of picking up shadowform at 40. I’ve had to impose on a few friends to run me through some instances for xp and gear, and it looks like I’ll have to continue to do that. I wish that this priest was on a 2^nd account, well and that first I had a 2^nd account, and that I could power level her myself. Many of the people in the retro raid guild have offered help though. It’s strange, wearing a different guild tag than House Stalwart, and with the actual blessing of my guild leader. Guild chat was considerably more quiet over the weekend, being a much smaller guild and there was really only me and maybe one other person on at a time. I have other chat channels but none are as chatty as Stalwart guild chat.

Waxing nostalgic

During a recent trip through BRD, I was reminded of the time way back in Classic WoW days when 5 of us attempted BRD - at level - with 3 hunters and 2 rogues. “Our pets will tank” the hunters so confidently reassured us rogues. Most of the run is lost to the wasteland of my brain, but I distinctly remember NOT doing the ring of law and none of us had the key yet so we headed across the crowded balcony … when the crowd turned on us. Feign, feign, vanish, vanish, feign. We barely dared to breathe. “Now what?” <twitch> None of us moved, until finally we couldn’t figure any other way out of it.

We laughed the entire way back from the graveyard about that one.

I had played my rogue to 60 when, because of some issues with WoW and my network card, I stopped playing. I played other games, and no games, during my 6 month break and when I returned to WoW I rejoined my friends and family to start kicking it around in some dungeons. I met up with them at Scholomance and I was the second to arrive. So sitting there, acting all cute cuz I’m a female gnome, my friend (who was raiding MC at the time) says “your gear is shit”. Man, talk about getting kicked down a few (thousand) notches. “We will fix that”, he says. So everyone gets there and we head in. I managed to die several thousand times, and picked up a dagger off the gargoyle boss. I died no fewer than 5 times. I think I was stunned by the amazing display of “huntering” by my friend who said my gear was shit. He solod the green cloud room, as well as the zombie room. He could have solo’d the whole freaking dungeon, honestly.

I thought to myself, I want that. I want to be able to do THAT.  I was never able to do that at 60 in Scholo on either my rogue or my hunter, but damn if I can’t tear shit up as a Boomkin :D  I was playing with a friend of mine and looked at her gear.  My first thought was “your gear is shit” but I held my tongue.  Instead, I took her on a shopping trip to the Auction House.  There are players that play the game to have fun, and there are players who play the game to be competitive.  She plays to have fun.  She makes “pew” noises when she is in combat.  I play to be competitive.  I love the Achievements and doing various silly things in game, but in the end, I like having the gear and being able to destroy things when I want to.

People you play with, and people you have to play with

I think it’s hilarious when I’m watching one of my chat channels and I have a hard time following what is going on - only to later realize it’s because I have one of the people on /ignore. There are 2 folks that I honestly do not like that raid on the 25 man that I occasionally back up heal for, and they are constantly blabbing in one channel or another. I find them both to be huge know-it-alls and I hate that trait more than anything. Get this, one of these royal asses actually gets on our vent during our 10 man runs and makes suggestions for strategies if we are having problems. You know, cuz he’s not actually IN THE RAID or IN THE INSTANCE so he’s really helpful. And he only talks to the “officers” of the raid, on a separate keybind so I see his light on on my overlay but can’t hear anything. I think it is so insanely disrespectful, everything he does. I have him on ignore, and now on mute on vent so I never have to hear him again.

The other person that I just don’t like just acts like he knows everything. Or thinks he does. He always has an opinion, or a comment. And if he doesn’t personally know, then he says “well in my wife’s raid…”. Thankfully, I don’t actually have to listen to him because he is also muted on vent and on ignore. The funny thing is he used to not be this annoying. Both of these guys were in the raid group that I was in during classic WoW, doing BWL and such. Only the first was an asshole knowitall back then, the 2^nd one has just developed into an asshole. He was “my warrior” that I would pull to, as a Hunter. We kept the same warrior/tank assignments for pulls throughout the raid and from week to week. So we would frequently chat about stuff while waiting for the other 38 people to be ready. This one was tricky though, because he is a part-time healer and if I had him muted or on ignore, it might affect what was going on. Luckily, our healing officer knows that most of us think this guy is an asshole so we all mute him and our officer knows that we just listen to her for guidance, assignments, etc.

Ya know, there are just some people that I just immediately like. They are funny, generally helpful to other people, can theorycraft but don’t drone on endlessly about it, they can bullshit on vent but can stop on a dime when it’s time to concentrate on the job at hand. By the same token, there are people that I just can’t stand to be around. It’s not that they are as bad as the 2 know-it-alls, they just rub me the wrong way. Granted, I can be high maintenance and kind of a pain in the ass at times myself, but it’s hard when the people I can’t stand are friends with people that I like. I think I need to either stop playing games in the “massively multiplayer” genre, or just tolerate more people.

Ahhh the weekend!

 

This is the last day of the strangest work week of my life.  I actually had to look up the Spanish translation (for our cleaning crew) for “please shampoo the carpets due to a biological accident”.  Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m looking forward to seeing the HP movie.  I’ve spent hardly anytime in game this week, but managed to thoroughly enjoy our 10 man Uld raid nights. 

Things that kept me sane this week

• I discovered this sissy robe blog and have found myself sitting at work, reading the blog, and laughing my ass off.  Out loud.  Looking like a moron at my desk.  :) 
• One of the People-Everyone-Knows on the server posted a diddy on the realm forums about doing some Retro raiding, but doing it with level 60 toons locked (ala patch 3.2) at that level.  Very exciting!  I’m dusting off my old rogue, who hasn’t moved since a few runs in Molten Core.  I’m embarrassed to show her Armory as she is in half RP crap, half Nightslayer gear – and wielding a Finkle’s Skinner blade… Oh the shame!  But I’m looking forward to Old School content again!
• I’m only 2 Cooking Awards from my Chef Hat :)

Stuff to look forward to…

On Saturday night, one of my friends is coming over and we are “geeking out” all night and playing WoW.  This is a “present” from my husband in that if my little boy wakes up or cries during the evening, I don’t have to stop what I’m doing to take care of him.  I’m so excited, she’s leveling a hunter (among others) but I think she’s around level 50ish now.  Time to get a BRD group together and get me my achievement.. I mean, get her some gear!  That just leaves Blackfathom Deeps as my remaining old world dungeon to complete and maybe I’ll have the motivation then to complete it.  Assuming the instance server cooperates, maybe I can get both on Saturday night! :)

Whew!

Well, I feel much better after yesterday’s post. 

Last night we had a great time in our 10 man run.  We ran into Freya and beat our heads against her for a good while.  I think we had 10 minutes left on the trash respawn timer when everything clicked into place and we won.  We tried a few different strategies over that hour plus to take down the detonator plants in a more safe manner, and also the 3 pack fights got a tweak or two. 

We were having a good time with all the herbs around the area.  We joked that this was the situational test of this encounter – can your raids’ herbalists keep their heads while seeing yellow dots on their mini map, knowing that a Frost Lotus looms just over the hedge… We were pleasantly surprised to find an Alchemist’s Cache amongst the rewards to our hard fight.  Our DK and Hunter each received 5 flasks, while the remaining potions, elixirs, and herbs were guild banked.  I was also lucky enough to win the roll on the tier8 gloves.  Wheeee! 

We made 2 attempts on Thorim before the evening was over, getting a good feel for the gauntlet and definitely looking forward to Wednesday when we can make a b-line for Freya and Thorim after knocking off those in our way.  I look forward to the new possible option of extending raid lockouts that may be coming in the next patch.  If we were able to extend that another week, I’m sure we would down Thorim and keep our steamroll going. 

A disappointment

I was disappointed to learn that a member of one of the more respected guilds on our server was discovered to be running a bot to farm Timbermaw rep.  The video was captured by a horde character that is known on the server as being a decent guy/straight shooter, so no real reason to doubt it.  The chatter on the forums from the botter and a representative or two from the guild is showing everyone the true colors of this guild and I hope they can take swift action to remove the botter from their ranks.  If Argent Dawn is nothing else, it is rabid regarding the defense of the community as a whole.  Ninjas and whorish server transfers typically do not find a welcome home on Argent Dawn, on either side of the banner, and usually transfer off post-haste. 

<insert catchy title here before publishing>

 

I meant to get a post up yesterday but the day literally slipped away from me.  When I looked up from my desk at work, it was already 2:30 pm and I had a pile of work that would take me well past my 3:30 quitting time.  Today was looking much the same but I put my nose down and worked hard, carving out a half hour to type up what’s been floating around in my head for a few days.

Mini Lan Party!

Saturday night, I did a crazy thing and packed up my husband’s iMac and went to my friends’ place and we had an impromptu mini lan party!  Mike and Cindy are two of my “converts” into the WoW world, and I received my Zhevra mount by referring Mike.  We decided to tackle Maraudon to get them both some gear.  Their priest and hunter, respectively, are 48 and were in desperate need of gear.  We had some problems getting into the instance initially as “additional instances cannot be launched” whenever I try to do anything in the Old World or Outlands.  We fooled around on lowbie druids until trying again, and were finally successful.  Some nice gear dropped for them, and I think there was only one piece of gear that got disenchanted.  There are so many things in this game that I take for granted and hadn’t stopped to think how I learned the things I know in game.  For instance, I said “oh just auto follow me and I can run us there” and they both looked at me with a blank stare.  Auto what?  2ish months in the game and neither had discovered the Follow option on the portrait menu.  I imagine I was just as frustrating to a friend of mine shortly after release when he would try to help me finish quests (I have a problem reading Quest text… I just.. don’t read it).

I laughed as I told them about things had changed in game.  How back when I first got my mount at 40, I was in Stranglethorn Vale and the bridges used to dismount you.  They thought that was hysterical.  And how it would take an hour to mail yourself something.  From your own alt!  I told them about the legendary spamming from Blackrock when their server is down, and told them about some of the major drama that Argent Dawn has seen over the years.  It was fun to catch them up on stuff and it was nice to remember all those quirks in the old game.

I did pick up a few quests and completed them as I waited for them to find their way from Ratchet to Desolace and get their flight paths.  This threw the “planning planning planning” part of my Loremaster Quest out the window.  I have a full quest log, a bunch of quests here and there and I’m scared to abandon anything.  I have a bunch of quest items in my bank, who knows what those are for.  So I’m re-evaluating my approach I think : )  I’m only going to concentrate on Old World quests first.  I’m going to abandon any quest that is Burning Crusade or Wrath and I’ll pick those up later.  I need to look up the quest items that I have and figure out what they are for.  Then I will start tackling zones. 

Aggro Warning

It seems strange, so many funny stories or recollections that I mention are also talked about in Tales of the Aggronaut.  I guess this is because Bel and I are friends IRL, though half a country apart.  It’s also because he is my guild leader, and my raid leader.  He mentioned in a recent post about doing a little spring cleaning of the guild roster, etc., and this affects me because he promoted me to officer, a position I held long ago.  It’s nice to know that he finds me a responsible person and he knows I won’t do anything overtly dumb.  I just do small dumb things like forget to go Tree Form on the Ignis pull.  And on a Hodir pull.  Oops : )  I totally make up for those oopsies by proc’ing 8 extra Flasks for him hehehe.  So, thanks for the nod Bel : )

Anyway, we had a great run last night and finally put the beat down on Hodir!  Everyone did a great job and we managed to pick up the achievement Cheese the Freeze.  This was our 10 man run and we actually filled up quickly and were underway without much wasted time.  We ran into the Hodir wall about 8 or 9 times before it all falling into place.  I can’t wait to do it again!  Well, I can’t wait to win again, or fail at winning a few times and then winning : )  We started trash on Freya but never made it to the actual boss pull as we ran out of time.  We took down Ignis earlier and our new Pally OT is doing a fantastic job.  It’s nice to play with people who know what they are doing, and if they don’t know, they know how to learn.  We had some great communication on vent, aside from Euron bringing up horrible songs which led to a discussion about often misheard lyrics.  I choked on my water a couple times when people were sharing their favorites hehehe.  There was one that was something like “Make love to a calculator” instead of the Love in an Elevator (Aerosmith).  Classic…

Back up and running :)

Technical difficulties

It started like it always did, some flashes of light on my screen in places like Dalaran and Sholazar Basin. I put off cleaning my video card, even though I knew I would have to eventually. As the weeks went on, I got more flashing, more artifacts showing up, and finally when the flashing was noticeable on my bank alt in Stormwind, I knew it wasn’t just a regular cleaning that my video card needed. I couldn’t log in and do my dailies anymore because the flashing was unbearable. Usually I just use a whole can of compressed air on it and blow out the fans and anything near the video card, but this time that didn't solve the problem.

We tried running a video card stability test on it, and after 6 mins it crashed. Then we tried running it again, this time keeping an eye on the temperature and it hit 80* C within 3 minutes. Not good : ( So, we took the side off the case and broke out the vacuum and pulled huge chunks out of the inside of the card. Gave the whole thing a thorough cleaning and voila! No flashes! No artifacts (or as I like to call them, helmet kabobs)! Yay! Now I can turn my spell detail back up…

The split server decision

When I first started playing WoW, on release day, there were a bunch of us from City of Heroes that decided to stick together and play this new game together. We decided on 2 servers, Argent Dawn for Alliance characters and Silverhand for Horde characters. Just in case one server was down, we’d have another server to play on. Well as anyone could have guessed would happen, no one really played on both servers. Most people who rolled Horde on SH are still on SH, people who rolled Alliance on AD are still on AD. It’s just too hard, honestly. You miss out on so much when you try to do that, and at least for me, I’m very monogamous with my characters - I play one until I start playing another one. I don’t switch gears that quickly to play different classes effectively.

So, fast forward 4 plus years and I’m still playing on Argent Dawn. I have a small network of people I play with, and everything is hunky dory. However, I am mostly fresh off a transfer back to this server after moving to the Kirin Tor server shortly before Wrath released. I followed a group of friends to KT who had similar playtimes and were very casual and liked to have a good time on vent/guild chat. This meant I was leaving behind a server and friends I had known for years. I participated in the KT realm forums and organized many raids to accomplish For the Alliance! I did meet some good people there, and still keep in touch with one of the people I went there with. Eventually, I transferred back to AD after about 5 months on KT; I just never felt like part of the community and was missing playing with some of my friends and my family.

I’m just curious how other people are able to play on different servers. I wish I could, because then I could have my cake and eat it too, and omg I love cake : ) As it is, I think I’m going to concede and actually level another toon with my friend from KT. I hate leveling, and swore I’d never do it again - it’s so painful, the rep grinds, some of the quests are so boring, ugh. And knowing me, I’ll fall into the trap of wanting all the achievements on that toon as well. Arggg. At least I won’t be starting over from level 1. I have a warlock that is 25, and is the guild leader of my alt bank, essentially. Ah well, only 5 levels to go for a mount! At least that is a plus…