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 2nd account, well and that first I had a 2nd 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 2nd 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.
