Raising Coat, a World of Warcraft blog.

Sooo ya!

2011-03-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

It has been many moons since I have graced this page with the meandering and musical notes of my typing prowess. I have been through hell and back, got T-shirts to prove it too. I have injured my back, been on workers comp, returned to work and have been laid off since I posted last. This is not to say that these are the cause of my long silence, just a re-cap of events outside of the game that have occurred since my last write.

After my last post I was sure I would never return to WOW on a regular basis or at least anything near my then habitual 8+ hours per day. I was lucky in that when I hurt my back and was out of work for almost 10 months, my wife allowed me to return to Azeroth seeing as I could do little else while either doped up to my gills or in so much pain I couldn’t even see straight. SO I played quite a bit then and was able to continue playing after returning to work. I was playing less yet still having a good time playing and digging the new content. I still am.

I went back to work for almost a year before being laid of due to government cutbacks. So as I languished at home lamenting my lost job and very few prospects for a future job right away, I played more WOW. I was excited for the launch of CATA, and have been playing it since launch. Hell I was playing it before launch. I have to say I am impressed with the way they handled this expansion. It went off with very little trouble and not too many glitches. Those glitches that did occur were quickly fixed and no one even had time to QQ about them. There are still a few lingering, but I’m not sure that they are even worth mentioning since they don’t seem that common.

Since we do not have a ton of money we only have one account active and it happens to be the original account created in the very beginning of my WOW time. It contains my second character Jolygreen and his friend Coat. Now while I was hurt and out of work I managed to get him to 80 and geared very well. I then stopped playing him in order to level a Holy Paladin, I missed playing a pally.

I made him Holy and it turned out to be really fun. His name is Kerfluffle. As I started playing they completely revamped the way the characters can allot skill points and changed the trees for cata. It came at a good point for me in that I was not all set in how I healed. I was able to learn the new way of healing quickly. For this pally I took full advantage of the new random dungeon systems as soon as I was high enough level. I leveled Kerfluffle almost exclusively inside dungeons using mostly dungeon quests. Applause to Blizz for putting the quest givers into the dungeons and having some quests activate and get turned in on the fly inside the dungeons. I managed to get to 70 or so before having to quest outside the instances, mainly for gear as I was getting very few pieces of decent gear inside them. I screwed around a bit an got geared enough to do the 70+ instances and then continued to heal inside dungeons until 80 and left them again for gear.

Kerfluffle got to 80 very quickly. I actually dinged 80 before cata was released. I was also 80 for a few weeks after it got released but meh. I was 80 for some time really and was able to gear him up for and beyond heroic level instances long before cata dropped. After I became pretty epic at heals I decided to explore ret a bit more and began gearing him up for it. He does ok but still isn’t what I want for dps. Gear will come eventually I guess.

Cata dropped and I had to wait for a few weeks to afford the game. I decided to go for the collectors ed for the swag. Here’s where I will end this post so I can continue the next with my first impressions of cata.

Extended Hiatus.

2008-09-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

This is one of the hardest posts i have had to write. I stopped playing WOW not long after I posted last. It wasn't the game driving me away. I found that while playing the game I was losing my family. I decided it was time for a real change in my habits.

I was pretty much as close as you could come to losing my wife, no scratch that, she was leaving. No joke. I believed her, and still do. I know it’s not only possible for her to leave but real, where there would be no going back. I decided after I was given the news that she was leaving that I would not give up with out a fight. She did not set any conditions for staying. She was leaving. I took the initiative on my own to prove that I was not just a lump, that I could in fact maintain a relationship with her. I was under no impressions that what I was doing would win her back; I did it because it was the right thing to do. I made a promise to myself that I would be a better husband and father. She would have none of the husband part. She liked the better father part but basicly told me to leave her out of it. Focus on the kids was all she wanted from me. So I did.

It was rough the first few weeks, knowing that she was leaving and nothing I could do would stop it. I was miserable all the time. Amazing how much you miss something when you know it’s going to be taken away from you. I lost a ton of weight since I couldn't eat and felt like shit. Part of it was prolly the loss of anything worthwhile to take my mind off my troubles. I canceled my account and deleted all WOW files off my computer just to make it harder to restart playing. I wouldn’t even watch the damn game if someone else was playing.
Another side effect of no WOW, I actually left my computer room and played with my kids. Weird, I didn't know what I was missing. Now I do. I felt an feel that I can’t really return to WOW fully, or as fully as I can with my new life schedule, until I can regulate myself properly as befitting a logical and responsible parent/husband. I am working toward that. I still want to play WoW, it’s a damn fine game and nothing I have found in 8 months measures up to the satisfaction and emersion and pure entertainment of WoW. To bad for the other guys. I would have returned to console games if there had been anything to spark my interest.

I have managed to reconnect with my kids. I spend more time with them now then I have in a long time. I have learned and will keep learning how to be a better father. I have taken steps to make sure that perhaps my kids wont be as big into video games as I have always been. We have never liked them watching TV or playing on the computers all that much before and now its been even more pressed upon them to get out an play in the yard or down the street with the neighbor kids. Anything to get them active and outside. With the wife working mostly nighttime shifts it has been me who has been fixing dinner and putting the kids to bed. I have gotten used to no leisure activities for me until after 8pm or so. Usually I will stay up till midnight just for some time to myself.

I did not foresee what else would come from my being away from WoW would do, and what being a better father and man would bring me. By not trying to do anything to force a mind change on my wife an just being what I should have been all along, I managed to catch my wife's affections once again, mostly by being here and stepping up to the responsibilities that are part of being a Father and Husband. I listen and actually hear her when she tells me about her day. I don’t give her sarcasm at every turn if she complains about something. I am genuinely interested in how her day was.

In the beginning it was for show, I admit. I was to far into my own depression to really worry about anyone else. My selfishness was quite paramount in my worldview, meaning there was really no one else but me in my little torment world. Gradually I came to accept that she was leaving and that it was in fact my fault for not living up to what I had promised. Once I was sure it was over and nothing I could do would stop it, I started doing what I should have done before, i.e. the listening and hearing and being a friend. Doing the little things that sometimes get dropped from long-term friendships and associations. Hugs and touches, smiles and kind words. Doing things just to be nice or to make someone feel happy just to do it. I started doing all the things that had attracted my wife to me in the first place. It was hard continuing it since every time I did do something that sparked her interest in me, she would reiterate that she was leaving. This hurt alot, not that I figured a few good days would reverse all the pain and anger, but it wasn’t understood by her that I was not doing all this stuff in order to change her mind. It didn't help any that she couldn't keep her hands off me. I would go all day with just a small touch or brush of her fingers on my arm. Pathetic I know, but a really do love my wife an I felt the distance keenly. No amount of telling could convince her that I was doing what I was doing because she deserved it from me. Plain and simple. I dropped the ball and no one else was to blame.
I continued with what I set out to do, being a better father and husband, even though one would stop and the other would be a once every few week’s deal. I maintained what relationships I had with my kids and tried to salvage a friendship I didn’t want to lose.

Somewhere alone the way my wife fell back in love with me. She tells me its different this time and I believe her. I feel different too; I don’t feel like the person I was before. I still spend the majority of my days with my kids, but now my nights are more taken up with spending time with my wife as we rebuild our marriage. It is still a marriage. We do things together, we have time just for us without the kids or our work or games or any thing that could interrupt us just being together. She has shown me that she trusts me again, even letting me play a little toon on her account; btw she rarely plays anymore either. Mostly cuz she’s spending so much time with me. I think its great. We still have some wounds to heal, but that are doing that. Healing. I love my wife an kids. I love WoW, but not as much as I used to. Maybe in that I will one day be able to crank up my old account and wreak havoc on the legions of the enemy.

I have jumped online to talk to guildies a few times and all keep asking when I will return, those that knew of our marital problems ask after that. I tell them all the same thing, yeah I will return to WoW, but not anytime soon. I have set myself a date perhaps two months after WotLK goes live. Maybe.

I'd have to go dig out my copies of the game or fork over forty to sixty buck for a new copy. Meh, digging through all my storage junk is not very appealing so I will prolly fork over the cash.

Before I left the game I had gone ahead with a respec. I may write up another entry about my adventures as a Prot pally at some point before comming back. Yeah I went prot on Gawds and got geared enough to tank Rage in Hyjal....for the last 20 secs of the fight. Yeah bitches. Gawds rocks ass. We shall see what the future holds for a Prot pally named Gawdsicon and a Gnome rouge named Mindkiller, perhaps a long overdue entry concerning a lost hunter named Jolygreen and his bear Coat.

Ret is dead, soon at least.

2008-01-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

I haven’t been enjoying my Ret Pally all that much recently. The sigma of not being a tank or a healer is getting to me. Working on itemization has shown me that to make a ret pally perform will take an inordinate amount of time and effort. I have also been told that some decent gear is to be had from the Season 1 arena gear.

PVP, I cast my spite at thee.

So I have been giving serious consideration to respeccing protection. No healing for me. I like the tank role. On my warrior I so enjoy taking the hits and dishing out the aggro. Only problem now is I have to completely revamp my armor and weapon itemization. I am hoping that some of the stuff that Darstar can make with Blacksmithing will work as a temporary fix till I can get some real gear. I will not be getting rid of any of the gear I have just in case that doesn’t work out. Hell I’ll be able to use most of it to help in grinding if needed. Sure as hell not gonna get rid of my HOD. I still would like to get the hammer of naruu, and it will be a bit before I actually respect, need to have the gear ready to go for the change.

I got Darstar up to 50 this weekend and with it I respecced full prot sos I could spec down to devastate. Oh what an evil skill that is. Sunder armor and damage based on how many sunders are up. SO it increases in damage the more you use it till sunders are stacked 5 times. Very fricking cool. I topped the damage meter in a few ZF runs after I got this thing rollin. Poor enchantment shammy couldn’t figure out what had changed. I had run with him a few time before I had devastate and he kept pulling aggro. Not any more.

More good news from ZF. I had gotten Jang’Thraze to drop off the chief on Friday last week. Now I was stoked. It's decent main hand, it has a nice shield proc that will take maybe 1 hit from an attacker, plus it looks bad ass. (I need to get the thing enchanted.)

Now I have run ZF over 300 times, really I’m not kidding. 4 characters over 42 all went to ZF from 42-50 or so. MANY TIMES RUN’ED THERE IN. So I can pretty much fight through there in my sleep…and have done so…a few times. In the beginning it was just for the exp and a few quests…nothing in there really sparked my fancy, till I saw Sul’Thraze. This was my obsession. Yeah was. I have falling off of it a few times. Usually when the character I was trying for it on leveled past 50. I figured it would be the same on Darstar, until Friday when Jang dropped and every one passed on it.

I have JANG” I wsp to all the people who knew I was questing and had been questing for it. I equipped that bad boy and proceed to kick even more ass cuz NOW imamtankwithJANG. Yeah I was frickin happy. I gladly went on back there a few times with a guildy willing to run to the basilisk boss and try for Sang. We tried 5 times in 2 days and no Sang; I was disappointed but willing to let it go. I had just dinged 50 and knew the second sword would only get used in solo runs, hell even Sul would only me a soloing weapon. This weekend the wife had a bit of downtime between raids and decided to run ZF on her 43 priest and asks me ifin I would be willing to tank a group through ZF. I say sure another shot at Sang, plus I get to play with the wife who is cranking out some mad healz.

She gets a group together and I get summoned to ZF. We set up and dig into ZF and maul through it. We had along an Enhancement shammy (Same one as above, good player) and a mage and a ret pally (giggle, he was wearing a shield and a 1 hand mace, idiot) I had asked him at one point why he was 1 handing it instead of swinging a skull-crushing 2hander…he never responded. The ret pally kept breaking the mages sheep but that wasn’t all that bad as I had no problem keeping aggro. We smash our way to the basilisk boss where we tear through him and his adds. Guess what dropped…SANG FUCKIN THRAZE. I about shit myself. In all the times I have run this place I have seen Jang 3 and Sang 2 times. This was the second Sang. Before I can ask “ohpleasepleaseprettypleasecanineedonthatIhavepentmyentirelifelookingforthatsword!” the wife types in for people to please pass since I have been waiting for it AND have the other half. The mage and shammy have no problem with that and the wife passes also…that leave the Pally. Now I know he was salivating, so I type in

“Dude I’ll pay you 20g to pass on that.”

Pause
Pause
/slash eyeball

He passes, I got it! Fucking yeah baby. I have been to the mountain and seen the virgins and they serve BEER I fucking got them damn blades!! So yeah I am pleased. I tell the pally straight up thank you and if he sticks around after the sun I can send him the cash. Darstar was a little broke but the bank I have has plenty enough to cover that. The wife decides to not let him wait and was gonna pay him for me, but he refused the trade. I don’t understand it but oh well. I got the blades and they look sick together. I’m gonna have to look real hard at the stats for Sul before I decide to join them. I really like the way they look together and they will be good for keeping sword skill up being a matched pair. I will have to see how my damage is solo with a 2hand using devastate to really see if it would be worth it. Till then I have a nice pair of swords that need enchanting.

Now for the new character I made this weekend. Yeah another. I have a few friends that adopted a mascot for their house. It is a little plastic alligator toy they have named Wally Gator. Now there is a cartoon character named this, but this is not the derivation of this mascot. No, it is from an episode of The A-Team where Murdock adopts a baby alligator and names him Wally Gator. Now according to Murdock “Wally Gator knows about war” and since my friends play a lot of first person shooters about wars they immediately felt a kinship with Wally Gator and thus the house mascot was born.
My wife and I were discussing the cleaning up of our accounts and getting rid of older characters we will never play again, so we freed up a few slots on the account I play on. I was looking for a cool name and “Bigdaddykingthunderstick” would not fit in the name box…I tried…several permutations…unsuccessfully. Sigh. So the wife hit on the idea of making a Wally Gator. It took me all of 2 secs to figure out that Wally had to be a Draeni. Since my other Draeni shammy is now the Guild leader/banker of my private stash, I can no longer play him and keep him easily near the important things, ah/bank. So I picked a male Draeni shammy since I still want to see how these guys play and named him Wallygator. I got him to 12 in little under 6 hours. My banker Draeni only ever made it to 14…over 24hours. Yeah I played Wally a bit this weekend. I’m gonna move him to IF to crank some easy quests there then prolly over to SW for those as well. I’m gonna quests his ass off, when ever I have the time. Pretty soon Darstar will be ready for the plunge into BRD and the goodness therein, and with the guild tooling up for some serious runs at TK and perhaps SSC I might get in on those. I really want to get into ZA, which might come about after a respecc. We shall see.

No Hammer, but nice legs there bud.

2008-01-23T14:59:00.001-08:00

Now I left KOW then almost immediately got re-invited back to Honor. Much jokes an ribbing were sent my way for leaving in the first place. Now I still felt I left for valid reasons, yet I’m also willing to change my attitude toward dealing with what the guild has become. This means I will actually sign up for raids that I intend to attend. I don’t think I’ll be getting back into Kara since the times for raiding it are still too early for me. I will however be able to attend the SSC, TK, Gruul, and perhaps ZA raids as they tend to happen later in the day or on the weekends.

I happen to be invited to go on Honor’s first run at TK: Eye The plan was to see if we could clear to Void Reaver and take his ass down. We had some scary moments on the dragon hawks pulls and a few deaths to cleaves on the bigger blood elves, but all in all no more then a 30% death toll on the bad pulls, which only happened 2 times due to unfamiliarity and a sheep breaking without notice. We tightened up the strats as we went and made it to Void I decent time. We wiped once on the pulls immediately around Void due to a lock taking a really bad hit. Again we tightened up the strat and went on to clear the room for a shot at Void. As we were setting up for the fight, some one accidentally aggroed void and the race was on to the door. I was last one in and actually took a hit from Void as a parting shot. I lived.

The dead release and run back and we set up for a try at Void. Strats are discussed and we attack. We did a damn good job. We got him below 45%, can’t remember the exact number but it may have been as low as 29%, before the poundings took their toll and kill off the melee dps. We were using the in/out strat, but it ended up costing us too much dps. We wiped but still learned what to expect. I was dead at around 70%.

We set up for another run, this time the melee will stay in and have 2 dedicated healers. The tank was not taking any really big hits so the healing could be eased up from him. So most melee stay in for the pounding and rely on the heals. I didn’t listen as I figured it be more effective to trade off who runs out and who stays. This time I lasted till 30-34% before a bad bomb got me after a pounding. During the fight we could see the trash was re-spawning near the entrance. We reset and discuss what to refine as the strat. People were summoned form the entrance for a final shot.

It was decided that the dedicated healers stay, but the melee try to in/out if needed. Low health or out of position to the healer dictating movement. As we are setting up for the 3rd run we can hear the trash respawning behind us and getting closer. We knew this was our last shot. We set off for the third try. Every one knows what going to happen now. No surprises any more. We settle in for the long fight and tough it out.

VOID REAVER DOWN.

We kicked his ass. We hurried for a pic before lewting the goodies. We kicked his ass. I know we can do it again too. We got the heals, the tanks, the dps. We Cracked his Skull.

Honor has also been working on ZA progression. Lots of nice stuff there to be had. Last night they completed their first complete clear of ZA. Hells yeah. This just after a complete run of gruuls. Yeah we made HKM our bitch. We had one partial wipe setting up on HKM, and one true and a partial wipe on gruul due to some one deciding to res people instead of releasing and runnin. My hammer did not drop, but I’m sure he was just polishing it for next week for me. Its ok, I can wait. We went on and showed gruul that he may slay dragons but he is just a bump on the road in front of the juggernaught that is HONOR.I managed to snag a winning roll for my t4 legs. Oh how nice it will be whenever I get 2 then 4 of the pieces. Very nice bonuses. I’ll run gruuls over and over again. It is a quick fun run.

Me can has posts?

2008-01-23T13:25:00.001-08:00

A little updating to be had.

I have been back in my “Old” Guild for 2 weeks, Yeah I went back.

I found that KOW, while seeming a fun loving group of people, are really lewt hungry adolescents with an over-inflated view of their own importance to the world. Yeah, a buncha dick heads. Seriously, I did not go on one raid with them, by choice. I could have asked for a slot and if an item dropped that I could use, I may have had a shot at it if no one wanted/needed. I chose to sit out raids not because of the slim chance at lewt, but because I really didn’t want to be the guy they blamed wipes on. I prolly would have just based on the attitudes they get over the wife’s vent when they do wipe. They seem more interested in placing blame then fixing the problem in an adult manner. So any who, what really got me to leave was a combination of a former guildy’s lobbying and some comment from the GM to my wife (Not to me, OH no. Don’t speak to the person who might be doing something wrong in an adult manner and work to address and fix it.) I will admit I do tend to type what is on my mind; however I play to the feel of the “room” and audience. I don’t go out of my way to be a dick, if I do it’s defiantly intended and a few have felt my succinctly barbed digs. So during a converse in KOW gchat I seemed to piss some people off. How? I don’t know or care really. Some people are too damn sensitive and mistrustful of snappy and intelligent dialog. Yeah it was actual conversation dealing not with lewt or specs, but with our mutual love of movies. The other party in the converse was perhaps my junior by at least a decade, so we traded movie quotes and guessed at them. Now bare in mind this was really late at night and not much was goin on. No raids, pvpin, or setting up for a heroic run. Nothing was being said in gchat. So we filled it. Apparently this is NOT what gchat is for.

So after a highschoolesque note passing session between the wife and the GM, my wife turns to me and says the GM had got complaints about my converse that evening. I was quite frankly disgusted. First that something that affected like all of the 5 people on at that time, was that important that the GM had to get involved, but at the same time I wasn’t given any heads up that maybe I don sofin so rong. So I tell my wife that I’ll leave the guild the next day. As I lay down to sleep I realized that waiting till premium time would be overly dramatic, unintentional, as it would have been based on my schedule. So I cranked my puter back up, logged in and left Kings of War. I won’t miss them, they won’t miss me. They are welcome to their psychosis. The wife gets a little upset since it was she who pestered me to join. I shrug it off as a lesson learned. I have little tolerance for drahmah and high school tom foolery. It should have ended there, but it didn’t.

The wife went out of town this past weekend to have a girl’s night out. I figured it be a great time for some dual-boxing. Her rouge and my warrior and a ZF full of lewtz. So I set our comps up to maximize viewing fields and log onto both accounts, the wife’s character on mine and my warrior on hers since he will be following and wont need much actioning. I see the ghcat but ignore it. Her character gets a few tells and I politely inform them of my true identity. I have done this a few times in the past and have had no drahma from it. I was on for maybe an hour when a comment in gchat grabs my attention and I am compelled to respond. It was a play on words on a question someone asked. No vulgar or offensive remark at all. As soon as it gchat people start saying hi to the wife’s character. I then identify myself and not the wife, but the hubby. 5 seconds later an officer demotes the wife’s character. Now I can understand why, but it was handled in totally the wrong way. I simple message in gchat or wsp saying something like “ For security reasons we will be demoting all “The Wife’s” characters till she returns.” No not good enough for the children apparently. People freak out and I get really pissed. I msg the idiot with my opinion of his mental capacity, in wsp btw since I can no longer type in gchat, yeah they took the character down well beyond any access to officer stuff. In fact I think he did it purposely just to piss me off with out any real worry about the gbank. This guy is a dick head simply put. I knew that before I joined the guild from hearing his dickhead ass on vent. So I call him a few names in wsp and he gives me some shit about how I would have been treated like a guildy ifin I was still in the guild and shit. Fuck him and his fucking guild for fucks sake. Now the funny part is…it took them 20 minutes before they decided to demote the wife’s other characters. In 20 minutes I could, if I really wanted to, have lewted every piece of gold worthy item from their bank. I knew I had access, really I had seen the ranks. I knew I had, through my wife’s characters, access to a raiding guild ‘lewt from a tousand werlds’. Yet I never considered doing the bad things they think I’m capable of doin. First and foremost, these were my wife’s characters and would damage her position in the guild, much more then me just being her husband. Hell I went out of my way to make sure there was no confusion between me and the wife. Second of all, there is nothing, from what I saw over the wife’s shoulder; in that bank that would net me any thing in gold or items that I couldn’t get on my own with minimal effort. Pretty much the same amount of effort it would take to lewt a bank it what it would take for me to duplicate what they had. Maybe not the amounts but defiantly the content. I have been self sufficient from day one. I don’t rely on any one to get me stuff than I know I can get on my own. It is only the high end stuff, raids/heroics that I even would ask for help on. This is how the game works.

Earlier this week after the wife returns from her carousing, she gets informed by the GM/Officers, that in order for her to have restored/keep her officer status, she would have to limit MY access to her account. (Btw the account she plays on is the original account I started playing on. The account I play on was purchased for her, but since her one of only 2 characters over 40 are on that account, she plays on that one. Because of our schedules at the time we started playing, it kinda borked how our 2 accounts were set up. With one playing the one while the other is playing an alt. It’s really confusing any way. Some day I'll clean up the accounts so there’s a definite separation.) So they want her to limit my access to the account and characters, so to them me having characters on that account that I might play(how the fuckers fucking know?) doesn’t, mean shit. Now again if you sat my ass on her character, with officer/gbank privileges, in front of the gbank which is ideally located next to a mail box, I still would rather run my alt through ZF. Nothing, FUCKIN nothing in that bank even come close to being so fucking fanfuckingtastic that I would soil myself with the shit of stealing a fucking electronic bit of fucking data!!

So with a heavy heart I will appease the fucks and delete the characters on that account….huh what am I saying? Actually they can go fuck themselves. There is one character I will be deleting off there but only because he’s obsolete now that my warrior is nearing 50. He was my first character but I don’t ever see myself playing him. I'll sell of all his shit for a bit of cash and get rid of him. I’ll see if I can make another character on my account with the same name. The names special…the character in this case isn’t. I won’t be deleting any of the character and I won’t be limiting my access to the characters that are mine, i.e. I put in the time to level/learn the toon. I will how ever steer clear of the wife character that are in the guild unless perhaps I can make arrangements with the GM to have them demoted ahead of time if I am looking to dual-box when the wife is away. Meh. Not gonna sweat it all that much. I was really pissed at first at the childish behavior, but as I look back on all the conversations I over heard (lets see them limit my listing in/reading that shit) they are really a fucked up bunch of people. Small minds and dwarfed by inflated egos. If the decide to take their angst out on the wife they will confirm my lowest opinion of their integrity. She busts her ass keeping the fucked up dkp system they use updated and accurate, and she doesn’t get shit out of it besides criticism and whining. Assholes, the lot of them. They can fucking die in a fire. They Fucking fail. Game fucking over. (Oh btw they are paranoid about spouse goin off and lewting the bank cuz one did do it after some other piece of ego charged, supposed insults. I won’t say I laughed, I didn’t then, but now? Fucking priceless. Karma is a bitch)

I have seen the Hammer, and it is good.

2008-01-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

A few notes, maybe it will grow into something more.

So I quit my old guild almost 3 weeks ago. I will say I did remain solo for those first 2 weeks. I am focusing on getting my new warrior up to 70. More on that in a bit. My wife finally convinced me to join her guild, with the blessing of the GM. Sorta. Seems the GM is worried that if/when I leave that I’ll take the wife. She seems to ignore the fact that my wife has been in her guild for a while now and I have not. Maybe we don’t act like those other drahma hors. If I leave this new guild it will be for my reasons and I will not be dragging my wife away from a guild she seems to be enjoying. Plus she is now an officer officially now, where before she was just the DKP person. Seemed to me she should have been an officer in name and deed the second she took over the crap that is DKP. Anyway. So I rolled Gawdsicon, my 70 ret pally into Kings of War. I haven’t been to any raid with them, but I have earned standby dkp. Yay. Still suffereing from the raid timming and the fact that if KOW is raiding, so is the wife. Having 2 parents raid at the same time and nearbouts the same time as dinner or bedtimes; a little difficult. We may be able to work it out, but I’m in no hurry. I have received a few tells from people from my old guild asking for my return….ok just one person seems to be. He is a friend though so I take it seriously.

Speaking of my old guild. They have worked out a weekly deal with a few other interested guilds to run AQ40 and perhaps Naxx on Saturdays just for giggles. I was invited and accepted a slot on the weekly runs, where ever they may go.
We ran into AQ40 last weekend and it was a blast. Even though we had a decent number of 70’s, we sprinkled it with a few 60-65’s. Hell some o the gear in AQ40 will be decent enough for them. I’m not sure how many we had but it was prolly around 30 or so people kicking in there for a few hours. Most, I think, had a blast. I know I sure did. Seeing a part of the game I had never seen before.

It got me in the mood to check out how far I was from getting attuned to Naxx. Turns out I was revered with AD, so it only cost me the price of 30g and 2 nexus crystals as I had a stack of arcane crystals in the bank. So being attuned I then decided to find Naxx and enter it to check it out. After running around EPL for 45 minutes I went to wowwiki to find the entrance. Yeah, its in the middle of Plaguewood. So I invite the wife to a group, change to raid and enter. Wow, this place if huge. I wondered around the first room and then decided to challenge one of the big green guys. I might have taken down one, if he wasn’t linked to the other three. In 5 hits I’m smooshed. Oh well I can get here now and will be back there some day.

Back to my old guild. Last weekend I was invited on a sorta progression run into ZA. Yeah I’m not in the guild and now I get invited to ZA. So I go and we get to the bear boss with 7 minutes left on the timer. Jesus that fight is loooong. We wiped on the first attempt so now extra loots. We got him on the second try. Nice fight, pretty simple on the strategy as long as you have the heals and tanks. The rest is burning down fast and getting there in enough time to do it before the timer runs out. Afer catchin our breath we tried for the bird boss. That gauntlet is rough lemme tell joo. We attempted 4 times without getting all the way through. They then decided to trade out one of us for a bigger AOE. So who has to go? Me of course. Oh well. I thanked them for the run and switched over to my warrior for the rest of the night.

Yesterday I log in and get a tell from an old guildy asking if I wanna try Gruul with them. I’m like “ Dude, I get more raid invites now then I did when I was IN the guild.” He then asks me if I had thought about returning, I gave him a truthful answer of no. I have not been thinking about it mainly just so I don’t have to think about it. Not quite ready for that line of thought yet.

So since KOW had already smooshed Gruul this week and I was not in on that, I was free to go to Honor’s run. We smashed through the trash to HKM, and sat and chilled while instructions were spoken…..and spoken…..snore….Oh! and spoken. I’m heading out for pizza.

After a lengthy discussion/summation/pandering, we finally make the first attempt. It flopped horribly as the main healer was way out of range of the tank on HKM. We wipe spectacularly. Reset, then again, more words. (I’m all for strategy, but being DPS I just want to be pointed and shot at what ever needs killin) We try again and make better progress. We wipe a second time due once again being placed wrong for heals. The third attempt was going well until the main on HKM took some real nasty hits from the lock after tour hunters lost their healer. It was like a domino affect. The main healer just could not compete with HKM and the lock beating on the tank. The main tank went down just before we took down the third guy. We kept at it just for giggles and manage to get down 3 of the five guys in the room. Not bad really, it gave the rest of the raid what we needed, confidence that we could do it. We reset our selves and waited for the respawns. Buffed and thrashed through the trash to HKM once again. It went flawlessly on the fourth try. Only 3 people died and 2 of those were dps. We got the king down and much joy was had. He dropped the Hammer of Naruu and 2 sets t4 gloves for pallys and rogue. Since I wasn’t guildy I didn’t expect anything, but that hammer looked noice. The only other pally rolls, I wait for others to roll. No one does, then they tell me to roll too. “I’m not guildy”, I says. “Fuck that shit, you’re here and you helped. Roll fucker!”

So I roll to. The other Pally got the win by 15 points. Oh well maybe some other time. I had fun, and wasn’t there for gear any way. I was compelled to roll on the t4 gloves and didn’t get those either, again no big deal. I’ll be going back Monday when they make a run on Gruul hisself. So I have been to AQ40, Naxx(touring the first room) ZA, and HKM.

Shit, can I call my self a raider yet?

Maybe I’ll wait till I get the hammer.

Alone again.

2007-12-21T10:55:00.000-08:00

Well it finally happened.

I have left my guild.

Well it’s not MY guild any more. Honor. That was the name of the guild. I’m not sire if I have ever talked about it on here before. Prolly have in passing but not specifically. Now I will.

I joined a guild some few months after I started playing wow. That guild was called Kaos. It was a guild on Duskwood server. I joined because my wife was in it and she recommended it to me. Besides I wanted to play with the wife and being in the same guild would facilitate that easier. Now Kaos had a lot of good people and players. Those 2 things not being mutually inclusive either. Yet enough of them in the guild were both to make it a nice place to hang. Or so I thought. A few months (or days, can’t remember) after I joined that guild it imploded.

Several of the good ones started another guild for the other good ones. This guild was named Honor. I joined them around the 3rd day of Honor’s life. The GM was an older guy named Ressager. This guy really knew how to treat people. He was a GM people would defend and listen to. Yet he wasn’t a domineering kind of guy. He led us by example and it seemed to work. People differed to him when disputes arose over anything. He made it clear that Honor was a casual guild that was looking to raid, but not jam ass into hardcore.

So we didn’t advance as fast as the other guilds. Yet we advanced at a steady pace. The guild did all the pre-bc raids and were quite successful. We never had a guild only Rag kill, mostly due to the pre-reqs, but we could go in there and smash it up pretty good. We advanced enough to tackle ZG, AQ20, and even dipped into BWL and Ony. I think a few even made it into Naxx. All this was pre-BC of course. When BC was about to hit we lost a lot of members due to the fact that we were laying off raids and only doin impromptu attempts at the higher dungeons. Most came back after BC and joined the run to 70.

It then came to pass that our leader, Ressager, had to take some indefinite off time to do some moving and house building. We all understood and wished him well. Most assumed he would be back after a few months. During the time he was away, many left the guild due to having no direction or solid leadership. The guild deteriorated into almost a feeder guild or a guild just for alts. A lot of the key players took their “mains” out to join raiding guilds for gear and experience. No one seemed willing to make the big decisions that would turn around the guild and bring it back to the Pre-Ressager’sleaveofabsence. The attitude of the guild slumped and many rules that were enforced before were let slide. The guild became, in my opinion, a swampy shadow of its former self.

After a period of time when we didn’t hear from him, he was contacted by other means. It was decided by him and his Vice GM that he would give up control of the guild to the Vice GM, Borvoh. This guy was the right hand and a proper choice for a replacement GM. So no one thought anything of it. In fact most heartily endorsed it. Now Bor set about returning the guild to its former glory, hell at one time people were clamoring to get into Honor since our rep for fairness and fun were renown across the server. He re-enforced the rules and listened to the officers to institute others. Oh yeah did I mention that at some point I became an officer or equivalent. Hell I was up for Class leader just before those positions were removed. Since I was an officer and interested in the guilds long life, I helped out where I could. With pride and fairness I helped police the guild for idiots. Never abusing my powers, and I had some decent ones too. There was plenty of friction when we started to raid Kara. We lost a few more due to misunderstandings and friction.

The guild weathered the trials that Kara presented. After a period of unsettling conflict we pulled through and became a guild that could field a successful Kara group. It wasn’t long after we started having weekly success in Kara that a lot of the old guard returned from their wanderings. Soon we suddenly had enough members to realistically run 2 Kara groups and expect them to perform well. And they did, and it was good. Well not so much for me.

Due to time differences and actually having a life (yeah kids do need tending sometimes) I was unable to run with group 1. Also at the time my only 70 was my Rogue. Dps wasn’t a big need so he was very rarely needed; besides there were plenty of DPS that hit harder then him. So I started a pally just to see how it plays. I loved it of course. It wasn’t long after I got to around 40 on Gawds that I decided that he would be a raider, DPS of course as I cant stand to be in the background healing. I should have realized at it was a pipe dream. Not only is DPS not hard to come by, it is in overabundance. While healers and tanks are still scarce.

Soon after Gawds reached 70 there was a call for a second group for Kara. I was excited. Here was my chance to break in and do some damage in Kara. I didn’t know at the time that there really isn’t all that much gear in there for a ret pally. (Turns out that heroics is prolly the best place for decent ret pally gear, if you can stomach wearing mail. Ick!) Yeah I say. I was still willing to go an help other get some goodies. My first attempt to get into group to failed miserable. The time it was set to go was almost an hour before I could realistically get home from work. Dayam. Next attempt was tolerable better only because it was delayed until key players logged on to give the group a chance to work. I watched as the group slammed through the first few bosses and then failed to get past Curator. Why? DPS wasn’t high enough. Since ret pallys don’t have fast ass DPS, I bowed out and let a mage come wail. That was the last time Gawds went into Kara. That was prolly 3 weeks ago, maybe more, I’d have to check.

After ZA was introduced the guild set up a progression group, whether it was set I don’t know, I was never asked for participation. So I have yet to see the inside of ZA. Shrugs.

I left Honor for various reasons. Some I have yet to state some I may never state, but the bottom line is: I no longer felt my presence in the guild amounted to anything. I couldn’t raid, wasn’t included in heroics when I expressed interest(mostly due to preplanned excursions), was flat out ignored when I asked to get in on a ZA run and generally left to twiddle my thumbs. I was excluded from playing with the people I had come to love playing with. I rarely saw any of the people I enjoyed playing with face to face (in game). All I have had for the past few weeks is reading in /gchat all the guilds exploits in Kara and ZA. Yeah. I’m happy. Shit. I will miss the guild a lot. Hell Honor, for me, was my only guild. Nothing will come close to it I think. No. I know nothing will come close to it. Yet I find that leaving wasn’t as hard as it should have been, coupled with the fact that when I left I got all of 2 people asking why I left. So yeah I quietly disappeared from everyone it seemed. I considered goin to the wife’s guild, but the chance even though the chance to raid is there, the chance at gear is slim to none based on the rules they have about raiding/loot.

There have been slim opportunities for me to raid, shit, same thing happened pre-bc. I have been tinkering with a prot warrior. After 2.3 it has become disgustingly easy to level, and with 2 high level characters to finance, I can afford the best gear to make it even easier. I started this game solo, so it seems I have come full circle. I’m solo again. I don’t know how long I will stomach playing solo or whether I will keep playing till WoTK graces us with its presence.

So with a heavy heart, yeah it does hurt a bit, I bid farewell to Honor. I will miss alot of people. Can’t say if I’ll ever go back. Future is uncertain.

Mindkiller
Gawdsicon
Darstar

More Altism, I have it in spades.

2007-12-10T15:01:00.000-08:00

I was a little premature in thinking that I would be raid lots and lots on Gawds. Seems even though Ret pallys have increased in utility, they are not all that wanted in raids. Or perhaps its just this persons pally that is not welcome. I’m being bitter, the one time I have gone to Kara on Gawds we can’t kill Curator. I bowed out so they could bring in another dps. They get him down and what drops? T4 pally gloves , with no one there who could use them or need them. Yeah. I have been unable to get into any other raids due to the time slot they seem to shoot for. It is just as I get home if I don’t make any stops. If traffic is heavy, I’ll be late. We don’t get penalized for not showing up on time, but it means they have to look for some one else and maybe that person needs stuff in there. Couple this with the fact that I have been told that the gear in Kara is not a big draw for Ret pallys, yeah again. So in order for me to get gear I have to do Heroics for drops and badges. Well after the long haul to 70, I find myself with out purpose. I can spend time in heroics for a small chance something good will drop, or just farm badges to make a nice epic set out of that. I have yet to decide what to do.

I still get a lot of tells asking me to heal or tank on Gawds. I see a lot of players assuming Ret is a broken and worthless tree. I’m glad they are wrong. Our damage is based on crits and procs, but both are tied and can be enhanced easily. Well easily within the games mechanics, ie farming for drops and badges. Same as most characters. The only thing I see as what they are complaining about is that to be truly effective you need to stick almost soley to the ret tree. Not like healing or prot where you can diddle in and out of 2 or 3 of the trees. Myself I went with 10/0/51 to gain the maximum amount of dps per swing as well as the nice boost to stats from the 10% to str and int. It means I can’t heal heroics or the harder dungeons for more that a few heals. Yet I didn’t roll pally to heal. I made him to get those insane crits I see in all the PVP videos where a pally rolls through 20 guys before the screen goes blank. Can a rogue do that? Sure, but you damn well better have some beastly equipment. Mindkiller doesn’t, and won’t. He just does not have the utility people look for in raids. I am disappointed that a character I really loved leveling to 70 turned out to be only worth using as a farmer. Maybe I’m playing him wrong. I don’t know, and I’m tired of tryin.

I have also taken a break from Gawds. I’m really thinking about moving him to my wife’s guild. If they will have me, not sure as I have not applied yet. I have started and leveled to 26 a brand new Human Warrior named Darstar. I decided finally to make a tank. My luck will be such that when ever he reaches 70, the tanks will all be druids or Prot pallys. It will also give me a slim chance of playing side by side with my wifes preist. If only I can get her to play at all with me instead of raiding. I can burn oast her so fast due to my ability to smash through areas and their quests in no time at all. Coupled with tha fact of my memory retention of all the quests I have done for various reasons. Hell I have done the human, gnome/dwarf, Night elf, and Drani quests on a few characters. Some just for rep at 60 or 70. I know where I need to go for this or that quest. She has limited herself to playing only NE for so long she only knows those quests, whil I prefer the gnomes and dwarves. Still I have ploughed through the Teldrassil and darkshore stuff a few times just for the beefy rep you get. An ill do it again on Darstar sos he can have a cat at 60. We will see if we can meet up for some play time. Might not be for a bit though as packing will have to come first. My time for the next few weeks will be at a premium as I have to move me and the family out of the apartment we are in.

Numer Two 70, But #1 Character

2007-11-28T16:26:00.000-08:00

Well Gawds has been 70 for 5 weeks now. The final push was real quick. I just finished out some of the easier quests in BEM befor heading into Netherstorm for the 68-70 quests. I knocked out a few of the quests. I’ll edit this with the specific area I dinged in someday.

I entered 70 well ahead of the game. I had been trolling the AH for an upgrade to my Helreaver. It was getting much harder to kill things quickly, that usually means its time for a weapon upgrade. I was purusing the AH for a suitable replacement and was decided on the Oathkeeper for the 68+ questing and to take me into Heroics and Kara. Hell a 70 pally guildy had his until last week when he got Gorehowl off of Prince. He’s been 70 since a month after BC….or less. Well I was at 65 when I decided on the upgrade shopping. So into the AH I go and I see a lot of good things…cept they are for 66-68 and not gonna help me. I finally decide to go with a pole arm that had some very nice stats. I asked my guildies for some advice and the concesus was to go with OathKeeper. A guildy even offered to give me one at a tremendous discount. (Yeah for something like that I have no problem paying a guildy.) As I was deciding wether to take him up on the offer I see a spam in /2 for the Hammer of Destiny. Guy wanted 1.2k. So I asked the guild if it was worth that much. Most agreed it was worth more like 800. So I messaged him with the 800g and he said he would take that price if I traded other things for it. (It seems to me now that this guy was an ex-Diablo 2 Player. A lot of transactions in that game revolved around trading items as gold was so easy to come by and items were not soul bound. Lots of times it was gold + item trades. This was the first time I had seen it as an option in WOW. Item for Item, sure. Money for Item sure. Just not both.) Where ever this guy came from it didn’t change the fact that I only had 924g on that character ( yeah others had more) But I was not gonna pay more then 800. I could walk away and not be upset. He would be out 800 he didn’t have. So I tell him I only have the gold and no tradable items as I have been saving for an epic. (True but the real money is elsewhere). He says he will keep me in mind. He spasm his ad 2 more times, I suspect now that some guildes messaged him and offered him an amount lower then the 800, yeah they would do that, cuz in less then 5 minutes he msgs me back. He says he’s having a good day so he was gonna pass on the joy. (If he had giving it to me for 500 that would have been some serious joy). We meet and I hand over the cash, he hands over the Hammer. I then had an epic that is widely said to be the best pre-raid epic weapon. Tell you what, I think they are right. See my priority here? I have a 3 sentence paragraph stating how I got from 65-70, in 3 days mind you, while the weapon gets a huge chunk o space. I am not a lewt whore really, but I am jazzed that I got the hammer. I slapped Savagery on that bad boy as soon as I found a chanter with it learned.

It languished in the bank till I neared 70 then was immediately equipped once I dinged. 114g later I trained all the skills for 69 and 70. I was ready for dungeons…um no. I still needed rep in a few places for the heroic keys.

I spent a great deal of time in Nagrand farming the Obsidian Beads for Consortium rep till I had over 100 of them. I then headed to Netherstorm to crank out the consortium quests that would put me close to honored. It took a bit but after tuning in the beads and quests I managed to earn my key. I also had to work on my Shatar rep but the only way for that was to run TK instances. So I placed that on hold while started my Kara attunement. It took me over the course of a week to get it all done. By the time I was keyed I was honored with KOT(1 Durn FC + BM FC) and pretty well into friendly with Shatar. I still need a few more runs to get me to honored. But one problem, no one wanted to run them. I had the shitiest time putting together a run to any of the TK dungeons.

I was screwing around in Shat when I decided to turn in some signets and tomes to the Scryer people. It turns out that turning in those signets, tomes, fel armaments, and marks of Keal/Sarg, also gives Sha’tar rep. Well shit I didn’t know that. I spent some time farming some up and looked for deals on the AH and /2. Got some major steals from people looking to make some quick cash. After all my wheelin and dealing I got enough signets and tome to make a huge dent in my Scryer and Sha’tar rep. In fact I got my Sha’tar rep to 5999/6000 with all the turnins. That’s where it stopped. Shit. Still needed a rep run. I then decided to put that on hold for a short time so I could run through the quest chain for the arcatraz key which would take a character into Bot and Mech. After I ran through the quests (Btw I soloed the elite demon who held the shard in Netrherstorm, took 3 times though) I put out a call again for a run into Bot and maybe Mech. This was last Saturday and luckily there were guildies about and looking to run some Shar’tar rep up. We blasted through Bot before everyone had to run over to kill Kara. It was cool I dinged honored with the first kill in Bot. I had to wait till Sunday to run Mech. Sunday comes and I get a tell from a group already in Mech. They were at the last boss and needed DPS.

“Are you ret?”
“Fuck yeah I’m a Skull Cracker,” me replies.
“Wanna kill the last boss in mech?”
“Hell fucking yeah!”

We wipe on him the first time but destroy him the second. I got the second frag and made my key at Shat.

I am fucking Keyed for everywhere and all levels. I have run UB and SV heroic. I’ve run Bot and Mech on heroic. I’ve even been in on a disastrous SL heroic. I am loving the heroics on Gawds. Mindkiller has never seen the inside of a heroic. Mindkiller has now become a support character as I grow deeper into the Paladin. I will raid with Gawds like I never did wit Mindkiller. Oh well they both are money makers, and with my one-man guild banker I have no problem storing and selling all the stuff these two can acquire. I think I will have my epic mount money in about a week if I just put a bit of effort into it. It took me 4 months or so on Mindkiller to do that. It will prolly be a total of 2-3 weeks on Gawds.

Getting there.

2007-11-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

I have managed to make it to Nagrand and be well into level 65. I layed the smack down on the remaining Zangar quests up to and including a few rep quest for Sporragar. They had a nice shield I was willing to grind for. It was a bit repetitive but in the end worth it for a blue shield that only cost 15 Glowcaps.

I managed to hit honored with CE while messing around in Zangar and after getting to 64 moved on into Terrokar. I remember all the quests here and picked the ones with the best rewards and exp coupled with the easiest. I also knocked out the Shat welcome quests and picked Scryers just for convienience. Not much to be had from either faction really for a Ret pally. People seem to think the grind to exalted is worth the shoulder enchants, I do not. I chose Scryer cuz you can jump off the top tier and not die, as well as its closer to the FP and I have gotton used to goin to the their bank on Mindkiller. I usually just sell any rep items I get for either faction on Mindkiller. I see me doin the same on Gawds.

I managed to plow my way through the Terrokar quests before heading into Nagrand. Now the real grind begins. I want to clear out the quests here before rolling over to Blades Edge. I had forgotten the grind that is the Nessinwary quests. I’ll still do them since they are good exp and some nice DE stuff. I decided to grind out the ogre chain quests in order to get me a new weapon. Turns out the new weapon has higher dps but isn’t much of an upgrade. Pity, it looks spiffy. I’m not sure I want to waste the mats to slam Savagery onto it to see if it is a true upgrade. I may have to do another search for an upgrade an see what I can find.

As I was questing in Nagrand a call went out over general chat for people to group up and raid Halaa and take it back from the Horde. I ignored it since I was only 65. Then a guildy happened to be in Nagrand, heard the call and asked if any in the guild wanted to come join the fracus. Seems they already had like 20 people in raid waiting to make a move. I sent a wsp and got an invite. I headed over to see whas shaking. By the time I got to Halaa there were 30 people in the raid facing off against 20-25 horde. All the allys were unflagged and the town guards had all been killed. The leader called for everyone to flag in 5 minutes and start the melee. All the horde were just waiting for a fight. Five minutes roll by an we all flag and go to town. I died in 2.3 secs and spent 2.3 minutes walking back. I shoulda just bubbled. I get back and we have pretty much smashed the defence. The battle rages for almost 15 minutes with the horde getting filleted, I managed to hit a few in the few seconds they were live. I got a nice 22 battle tokens. I may actually use them to get some gear too. I saw some decent stoof on the quarter master. No weapons though. I don’t want the mount, not into the horned goat thingy. Some day I’ll spring for the epic flyer on Gawds and start the 12 day march for the Drake. I’m certain I may be able to shave off one day if I get some lucky egg drops. That’s all in the distant future.

I actually logged onto Mindkiller a few times this week to help a guildy with his epic mount quest. The warlock mount quest simply rocks for intencity. The final fight in Dire Maul was chaos, even with 3 level 70s assisting. I can’t imagine 5 level 60’s doing this fight an not failing a few times. We killed everything and the locks were able to keep the artifacts active most of the time. After a bit of a rest the deamon horse spawned and we bitch slapped it. Its owner came after wards and was mighty pissed off that we had kilt his prized equine. We rocked his ass and made him beg for death which, as compassionate people we are, we granted. We had dragged a second lock with in order for him to get his mount quest done too. So both got some nice fiery horses to play with and I got to help out a guildy, and get what used to be some decent lewt for the level. It more then covered the repair bill with a nice little profit.

I have been using another character for AHn stoof from Gawds. It is working real well. I can send shit to him and have him collect then post it. He has already made back the opening allowance I sent him for mail and postin, I might spend a bit of time on Mindkiller mining and send the stuff over for posting as well.

Month of busy, Enjoy.

2007-10-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

I’m looking at the dates on my posts and realize I’m not very prolific. Most times I write anything it’s in response to something some one else has said. If it’s about my in game adventures I lag like a mug in getting it all down. So unfortunately it makes for long posts and missed stories. So I’ll get to the meat.

When last I posted I was a mere 52 Paladin, now I’m 62 ½. How you say? Well let’s see if I can remember a bit of the last 25 days in game. ….ah yes I was pissed about losing out on Sul Thraze, or at least the chance at Sul, and consoling myself with Destiny. Well I never used Destiny, I had forgotten about the level 51 AV quest where you can get this awesome pole arm. The Icebarbed Spear. Very nice. I got this one easy and slapped crusader on it. Very cool. I used this bad boy all the way up till I got me an upgrade in the Outlands, more on that later. Any who, after several times trying to resell the Destiny blade I just sent it off to a mule for storage until I need it for a character or find a buyer. Soon after I got my new spear I went off to WPL and smashed through a few quests there. At some point my guildies decided it was a good time for a Strat run to farm some Righteous Orbs, and they dragged my happy level 53 ass with.

Now I had only been to a few strat runs…most times I had to leave or the group would fail after 2 pulls. This time I was with 2 70 pallys, a 70 hunter and a 70 warrior. Cake doesn’t even come close to the ease. We wiped a few times only cuz the pallys got bored and wanted a challenge…..an then had to work to make it so then shot themselves in the foot. Oh well. I got some decent exp, drops and a mess of stones for AD rep, oh yeah they boosted rep gains in Strat to at least 10 per kill. After 1 Strat run and Sholo run after I was half way through Honored with AD, and had enough stones to push me to revered easy. So we blast through the undead side in less then 45 minutes then go to the live side. We kilt the guy that goes to warn the baron of our arrival and I got my key to the city…at 52. It is then decided to try for a 45 minute baron run. No one needs it we just wanted to see how long it would take us.

We roll through the gate and the timer starts. Our pallys spread out and grab like 4 groups. They get most of them down. The spiders seem to like casting silence on the pallys. We wipe spectacularly and have to run back. Now in the old days this would be a scrap, but not with 4 70s. We roll back sans handy timer, and proceed to get serious. We blast through everything, well they do I’m just along for the exp and rep. We roll to the final room with the 20 Patchwork wannabes, and the 10 minute warning sound. Oh shit. Will we have enough time I ask? They say yeah no problem. So I watch as they pull 2-3 of the brutes at a time till none are left. We all trump back to the gates to wait the next wave, smash them and roll in for the fight. About this time we hear the timer expire and the baron offs the chick. Too bad. One pally runs in and aggros the boss while most are still out side. A pally, the warrior, and the hunter make it in before the door closes. Leaving me and the other pally outside to sit and listen. They smash him for his crimes and we roll out, 2 orbs richer.

After we get out another group of guildies decide to run sholo and want to take me along. I ask if they want me to take Mindkiller for dps, they reply no. They want to drag Gawds through Sholo. Hells yeah I’ll go. We tore through sholo, even the chick in the basement that no on wants to fight cuz she’s such a bitch. We did the whole place in like 40 minutes. I got my freaking lightforge helm and some decant gloves…too bad their both 57. So they go in to the bank. By now I have a huge stack of all 3 types of stones for AD rep. I go to the AH after and pull the mats for the rep quests in Light hope, 30 of this 30 of that. They had to sit in the bank till I was hig enough to get those quests but when I turned them in finally it gave me like 45k exp for just a few quests. I spent a lot of time in WPL and EPL over the next few levels with a quick jaunt to Felwood and Winterspring to do a few of the easy stuff in those two areas. I got to roll on a few BRD runs that were a real waste of time. Not much exp and no rewards to speak of. I blasted through some Burning Steps quests also, man I look forward to leveling my next alt after 2.3 hits. The march from 52 to 58 had some spurts an stops but I got there about a week and a half ago. Me an another guildy hit 58 at the same time so we met up at the portal and marched through together and started the first few quests. He had to log after an hour but I kept on rollin. I didn’t touch any of the real meat quests till I ran Ramparts a few times…like 15 times. Most times I was with guildies so only a few were pugs. I got some decent gear but what I was really looking for was the rep. I got it too.

My guildies kept dragging me through till I got to 59 ½, and I got all the gear I could use from there. I had 6 pieces I couldn’t use till level 60 sittin in my bags. We did one more run mid week last week and my new pole arm dropped. Hellreaver. Very cool . I slapped Savagery onto the bad boy. It is one of the most awesome looking blades. I am very happy to have it and thanked the guys who ran me profusely for there help and patients. Next I’ll need to bug them for Underbog runs, not yet though I still got a few things to do first.

After I got the blade I saw that I was very near honored so I went ahead and started to blast through the Hellfire quests, I had most of them done in a day. Yeah all Saturday last weekend, I finished up a few group quests Sunday morning and decided to dip into Zangarmarsh. I picked up a mess of quests an proceeded to wail on them. I’m almost done with all the Refuge and Telredor quests. I was gona finish them up before goin to the Haborage and the chick near sporragar. I’ll have to check if it’s gonna be worth it to farm sporragar rep. CE has a nice head enchant I want so Ill defiantly be crankin some rep there. I have noticed a marked change in how easy it is to kill things. There was the same thing on Mindkiller when he moved into Zangar fro Hellfire. Another thing is some of the more obnoxious kill/collection quests seem to go a lot smoother with a plate wearer, basic, but still it’s nice to know plate is worth having. I also had a “Holy Shit!” moment when I took down bog lash solo, hell I had an add too. The add killed me but not until after I rolled Boglash.

That about rolls it all up to now, I haven’t done crap on Mindkiller cept gather mats for his epic flyer when ever 2.3 rolls out. He has been shelved until I hit 70 on Gawds. I just don’t get that excited like I used to about him. It probably the lack of progression and rewards. Spending 4+ hours every few nights in Kara just don’t blow up my skirts. The rewards are spotty and only moderate upgrades for the work it requires. If you team is decently geared and experienced then you can fly through the place, but group 2s usually have the lighter geared people with less exp. Even splitting the elites into the 2 groups make for a long run, with a minimal hope of reward. Is it bad of me to want a new shiny for my efforts all the time? I don’t think so really, but I try not to say it out loud. That would piss some people off. I’m not really a lewt whore, I like upgrades and working toward them. However the stuff in Kara is not exiting enough for me, and to make it really snap you need to get a few of the pieces or it just doesn’t have a great impact on character power. I know they are not sets, but I went head to head with the wife’s rogue, who is decked out in no less the 7 Kara Epix. We have the exact same build. I have all quest blues an greens with very few dungeon drops. We did a few tests on regular mobs solo with 2 damage meters running to catch all the goodness. I was about even with hers for most of the fights. A few times I went over her in damage, and on mobs we duo’d I pulled aggro. I do not see me needing a damn thing from Kara before WoTLK hits. I may get into it with another guild, or mine, but what I really and only want from Kara are 2 new weapons. Ill take the Ripper off Moroes and the weird named dagger off of prince. I need to figure out if I really want to go and make the time to go. I tried to get into group 2 last week. I was excited to go, even prepared by getting all my shit straight. I log on and realize I read the start time wrong. I was 45 minutes late for the start. No one cared, doesn’t make me any happier. The wife offered up a spot on her guild’s Kara runs, she has no authority to do that so I’m not holding my breath. She also keeps trying to get me to move my pally over to her guild. Maybe some day….prolly not. I’m a lump. I think I’m real close to becoming guildless. I don’t bring anything to my current guild but a few bits of humor. As dps I am ok, not fantastic, could be blamed on gear but I’m not sure that’s all that’s lacking. As a pally I do not do what is needed to make me an asset to a raid, and I will not respect to healadin or tankadin. I’ll stay a ret noob. Wow this got really depressing.

Gawdsicon;

OUT.

Just some update on a Friday.

2007-10-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

I haven’t posted anything for awhile. Mostly due to just not having the will power to put anything down. SO I will try to get something written here now. It’s a slow day with not much going on so I can spend a few hours typing and it will look good to the outside observer.

I have not been playing Gnome Mindkiller all that much. He’s been to a few Kara raids but has received nothing but a repair bill, I’m not complaining, I got to see some neat fights and Kara is gorgeous. I did notice a lack of fun there though. I remember my first time into ZG or AQ20. ZG was a blast, even if it was hard it was still a blast. AQ20 was a lot harder and we had to be on our toes, but it was still fun. Kara seems a lot like work, maybe that’s what it was supposed to be. I don’t know. I am obviously not a “Raider” in the smallest of definition. I go, if I go, for the content. I don’t see me getting much loot out of the place. Yeah there’s stuff I could use, but they drop so little or when I chose to not go. The only way to upgrade I see is to grind rep and get me some ok gear form KOT or Consortium. I really see little use in going to Kara except to see stuff I haven’t seen. I still have never seen all of MC and just recently went through a full Strat run. We even did the 45 min Baron run in like 30 minutes. I would rather see a full ZG run then a full Kara. Pretty sad I know. Never seen Naxx and prolly never will. Very depressed about my rogue. He seems to have reached a plateau and I see no reason to push him farther. I got him an epic drake mount, so what. He has one epic piece, helmet/crafted, and a long road for any replacement daggers.

So enough depressing stuff. I started a paladin awhile ago mainly as a bank character. I had so much fun that I decided to go back to him and level him up. After a few weeks I have gotten him up to 50. With some monetary backing from Mindkiller; Gawdsicon (God’s Icon) has become Retribution pally with, more often the not, an epic weapon. Which reminds me: I need to make some time to do dailies on Mind.

The last few levels went by real fast. I was in Searing Gorge when a bored 70 guildy and friend decided to help me smash through several quest…ok 14 of them. They gave me a full level, so that pushed me from 48 ½ to 49 ½. That rocked ass let me tell you. I did a bit of questing on my own then got invited back into ZF for a mostly guild run. 3 Guild 2 PUG. 1 of the pugs was a friend of the guildy who put together the run. This guy tuned out to be a dickhead.

Group make up was as follows:
Gawdsicon, 49 Ret Pally wearing all plate.
Guildy 51 Holy Pally wearing a lot of cloth.
Guildy ~44Enhancement Shaman decent gear if a lower level then me or the other guildy.
Pug 47 Prot Pally, Shaman’s “friend”
Pug 45 Pally, no idea what spec.

Now we started ok, summons for me as I was all the way in WPL just about to lay the smack down on some undead. We go through the first 5 pulls when the Prot pally makes a comment about the Guildy Pally wearing cloth instead of plate. He spouts some shit about how HIS brother is the BESTEST PALLY IN THE WHOLE WORLD and he only wears plate. Well that’s just fanfuckingtastic and shit. Cept plate at the lower levels, pre-BC, has very little if any + to spell, healing or what ever. Cloth, however, can be found in plenty with those bonuses that make a 1.2 crit heal into a 3k crit heal, and makes them come out more often. Now the Shaman new this guy had his head up his ass and says so after this comment was tossed off. She even said to him in /pchat to just drop it or “Oh here we go again.” Some shit like that. Now I am new to playing a pally, it true I know it hard to believe an all, but I know that pallys are played by all types and with desires that we can only fathom. I started one be cause some of the best players I know play them and dish out some mad DPS, sure they have some bad ass weapons and equip but they also know how to play the class. These are my teachers. Some are even straight holy and kick some major ass on the healing charts. These are the guys that don't give a damn what you are wearing as long as you do you chosen job. No compulsory respects here dude. Play your shit the way you want to, end of story good bye and fuck all you haters.

Now back to the story, this asshole pops off with this comment and I just can’t seem to let it go so I lay into his ass with my best ‘defending a Guildy self righteousness’ and I laid into him hard. Talking about how no one gives a fuck if his bro is anything other then his fucking imagination and shit, despite the fact that he was commenting on a guildy that happens to be one of those players that can take a class and master it out the ass. This holy pally guildy was enough to later help us 4 man ZF with just him healing…so yeah cloth is ok. If the tank is doing his job the healer won’t get hit. After I give this ass the “come to jesus burn down of his illusions” he starts saying he will not protect any one but his friend (the Shaman), and how he will let us all die……..now I’m more then pissed so we (myself, the healadin, and the other pugged pally) decide to sit the next battle out and let the assholdin take on 3-4 44 elite mobs all by hissself. The shaman was healing…so he managed to pull of the fight. The shaman gets the hint and says good bye an rolls, with the protassdin in tow. Just before he leaves the party I make sure he has no misconceptions of how I feel about his brain case. I call him a dick head just before he leaves party. So yeah that better be the last I see of that idiot.

The shaman apologized to both of us guildys in /gchat for the moron’s offences. Seems this guy may have once considered applying to our guild, small favors and gods grace kept that asshat out of our hair.

We picked up a rogue and a warrior, but the warrior dropped to help out guildys so we 4 manned most of the rest of ZF including the stairs, which was a blast. It usually is for me, always loved the absolute chaos of the stair event. We had this rogue that seemed to not know how to respond to simple commands like “roll for shards”, don’t need on BOE items without asking first, and shit like that. I was for kicking him the next time he need on a BOE, but he kept his rolls to the right things, even though I needed on shit just for the sharding as the plate shit wasn’t needed by any and a shard would be worth more then the item any way.

We demolish the stairs and Bly and have the little goblin break down the walls for us sos we can kill the chief. Here's where some shit happens:
I have been farming ZF since level 40 with the help of guildys, my wife, the occasional pug, and dual-boxing while the wife was at work. The whole purpose? Sul’Thraze. In all those levels and like 40 runs, I had never seen even one half of the blade. The haves being Jang’Thraze and Sang’Thraze. Guess what dropped off the chief? Jang’Thraze. I tell the group I’m gonna need on it. I tell them it was my purpose of coming besides helping a guildy. My Guildy has it already so its cool, the pug pally has no interest in it…they both pass and congratulate me.

The rogue…need’s on it.

…..
…..
…..

I need on it….the rogue wins the roll, leaves party and hearths.

The only thing keeping me from tracking this asshole down, murdering his family, and making him watch as I do it and as I delete what ever this asshole has for characters on WOW, before I feed him slowly into a chipper shredder: I had been scouring the AH for an alternative to Sul for a week before this dropped. I found the alternative I had been looking for and got it for a measly 250g, that morning. Destiny. Yeah, I can’t use it till 52, but its more juicy then Sul. If the proc on it is even slightly nice it will make some nice slice and dice Ret pally action. Plus I think crusader will go nice with it. Not sure if it will stack, but even if it don’t they may setup a chain reaction where one goes of and process the other and back and forth till a battle is over. I can’t wait to see if it will work that way. I got the mats for crusader a while back at a huge discount so I’m not out muck in the way of money.

After this idiot ninjad, what else would you call it?, he won’t even get the full benefit out of it. Couple that with him getting a hold of Widowmaker when it dropped. Dude went away with some gear he can’t even use, did I mention he was 43; yeah asshole won’t even be able to use the sword yet. Anyway after he left I was so pissed I just fucking left, after apologies to my guildy for leaving him hanging I just turned off the game and went to bed. Early. Very fucking early for me. I hope I can help him get his gahz kill later this weekend. Hell I’ll take my rogue and burn through the place in 30 minutes.

I logged on the day after and saw that I was less the 1000 exp away from 50 so I scoured the nearby area for green level mobs and kilt a few till I dinged…yeah 50 and I never got hold of Sul. Shitty.

I feel my climb to 70 has gone into overdrive. It is time for me to head to Ungoro and knock out a few quests there before I head to WPL and kick some undead ass there.

I was in fact in Un'goro for abit last night be fore a warrior guildy decided to round up keyed members and hit Kara again…there was a run there earlier so we picked up a few that went then and hauled ass over there for a few attempts on the prince. We did the chess event, I thing this was an after though on Blizz’s part i.e. keep um coming back for free epics and shit. We plowed through the trash like butter with only one wipe due to a bad pull on the tanks part. Well not a complete wipe as I and a mage friend survived with our asses intact. We get to prince and this is the first time I have even been in this fight. Seemed pretty straight forward to me and instructions were concise and to the point. I think we did well even though we didn’t manage to get him down after 4 tries. The first 3 times we had a bad infernal spawn right along our enfeeble route that kept us from getting back to prince. Also on those attempts our tanks got critted so fast and hard that even constant healing couldn’t keep him up. He was confused as to how that could happen. Pissed actually cuz it shouldn’t have happened that way and hadn’t before.

The forth attempt was prolly the closest we came to being perfect. We all kept our head and had some lucky infernal spawns till the 6th or 7th. We had to sit out a bit near the end of the fight as an infernal spawned right next to the prince and blocked us again at like 15%. So we held of and just did ranged. We got him below 10% when some one got the idea of all running in and going balls out to try and burn him down, my wife was watching the fight over my shoulder and counseled me to not do it. We just didn’t have the dps to burn him down in the few seconds it would take for the infernal to kill us all. I held my tongue as it was my first time in this fight. We all rush in and…die…wipe…at 8%...last attempt before respawns. Night over. There are plans to go back in there tonight and get him down…if I’m invited I’ll go. I can only hope I get me the dagger, it will make the whole hour and a half fight worth it. Plus I need an upgrade badly. I haven’t had any new gear worth shit for along time. If I’m not invited I’ll be spending a lot of time this weekend (4 DAYS BABY!!) leveling my pally to how ever high I can achieve. It’s too much to hope that I get him to 58 this weekend. That would be sick. Then the shit will really pick up, this time I’m gonna do it right. All instances before any of the quests, with guildys willing to help me blast though dungeons I can get me some decent gear and rep…but not yet of course. It will come…soon.

Hirelings for WOW?

2007-08-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

I was checking out Gitr’s latest post where he asks an interesting question. I post it here in full for effect. My response to this post grew so large I decided to post here. This seems to happen a lot and I thank Gitr for inspiring me to be overly verbose. Hell I need content just like the next guy. My response follows the article. All in quotes is Gitr's. I bolded it for clarity:

“Single-Player Mode
August 3, 2007 at 12:57 pm

Pursuant to my discussions with Lassira about private servers, I finally came up with an original content idea. Original, at least in that, as well-read as I am in WoW, I have yet to see this idea.
For those of us who have always played RTS, FPS, and the various FPS/strategy games like Rainbow Six, I have a desire to see the entire game. Obviously there are thousands, if not a million people willing or able to put the time into the game to get attuned, geared, and learned in the end-game instances to play them through to the end of Blizzard’s content.
What I propose is a single-player mode. You get a crew of 4, 9, or 19 computer-controlled players, just as you do when you assault the subway in Rainbow Six. That would enable someone who gets off work and eats dinner and puts the kids to bed to play for an hour per night to get somewhere. We don’t all have a bunch of guild whores that can drop everything they are doing to help us out whenever we log in, do we? You do!? You suck!
There would be no need for acquiring the loot directly, as you would need to take control of another player should your main die in combat. Bosses would drop tokens that represent a particular piece for your given class, which you would then obtain when you rez and take control of your main again.
The only thing missing at that point would be a save game feature for your progress through a long instance. Granted, instances don’t take 3-6 hours any more, but they are still longer when starting off than many people have. Even playing on private servers to experience end-game content won’t alleviate everyday time crunches.
Would you like to see a Single-Player mode? What things have I missed here? Would you consider playing on a private server just to have an instant 70 to see end-game content with a new class that you’ve never tried? Are you even remotely as busy as I am?
I love WoW as much as the next guy, so let me see it all. Sound off.”

Nice idea. Let’s poke some holes shall we.

The first thing to think about when making this sort of “single player” game is AI. (Big deal here) Second would be balance, encounters and rewards. How much worth would you get out of this type of game play?

How will the mobs interact with your party? How will the party interact with each other? Sure it is easy to have a set number of rules governing actions, but when does it become ‘easy mode’? You have several NPCs under you helping you along. This makes the game less MMOG; in fact it turns it into a single player game.

Working with 4-19 computer controlled NPCs means that all the encounters will have to be tuned to account for the lack of real people governing the actions of the participants of a particular instance. How high an AI will be needed and can that be regulated for zone or level? Will all levels be able to field several bodyguards? Will they be able to use them in PVP situations? Will characters be relegated to their own private instance while using NPC groups? Will these instances encompass the world or just a dungeon? How will gear and progression be affected? Can you take a +9 NPC group into Kara and expect some lewt? Will you have to level and gear your ‘special’ friends? Will you be able to use what you earn during these forays with the NPCs in the real world with other people (MMOG Style)? How will this affect balance among people who put in the time? Will raiders and the leet be able to skyrocket to the tops of DPS Meters and arena rankings using this part of the game?

This game was built on the premise of co-operation among several parties. Yeah there is single player content and the best stuff requires a team of people who know what they are doing and can adapt to changes. Does this leave out a lot of people? You damn skippy. So what? I have never seen Rag, or Strat (either) and have never even figured out where Naxx is. I may never go to AQ40. How ever I have been to Kara, will likely go to Black Temple in a few months, and someday I don’t doubt I will see Hyjal. I may even get some Phat lewts on the way.

To make a single player option like you are proposing in this here game we play will seriously undermine all that has come before to make this game as accessible as it is. Some day when the developers are in a quirky mood they will give us the tools to go back and see the content we have missed due to the requirements of needing large numbers of live bodies. I hope to hell that it does not ever come in the form of a tag-a-long team of NPCs. If you played Diable2 you know the AI involved with an NPC bodyguard is pretty limited, as it should be. No reason for you dummy to have more brains then you in any given situation. Can you imagine trying to govern +4 to +19 or +39 for the older stuff? It would be a nightmare, when would you get to see anything when you are busy micromanaging every thing from heals to dropping aggro on the hunters or laying off on the DPS from your rogues/mages/locks? Tank switching for key fights? You would have to have a degree level knowledge for every class that goes into the raid/group.

I would love this idea if I didn’t think it would destroy this game. It has so many issues involved with the implementation of it that they developers would spend more time trying to fix what this screws up then making new stuff for us to rompe through. This would be a game changing event of monumental proportions. Armageddon for WOW. Game over, the Scourge win. Thank you and good night. People will be reading about the big WOW crash of 09 or 10 or when ever this would theoretical be pushed out to the, conceivably 12million by then, players world wide. I see a lot of suicides and killings, even outside the game world. People would long for the days when it took 10-40 people to raid a dungeon. There will be guilds of NPCs just sitting in SW waiting for their Overlord GM to wake them for the evenings dungeon kill. Upside would be the decrease in gold sellers, trade spam and Barrens chat. All would be a waste land of NPCs following one lonely player on his way to raid Black Temple. Nameplates saying things like ‘Main Healer’ or ‘Off Tank2’, the only unique name plate you see is: ‘Gitr’

PS. I will note that most times when Gitr posts something that gets a responce from me, it sends me off on a rant. This is the case here. Props to Gitr for getting me out of a writing laze.

A PVP Gem of a Match.

2007-06-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

I have to make this post as an addendum to my rant against the arenas.

It surrounds my statement of never having fun in WSG except with guildies. I now have to take that back. Last Friday I was feeling up to a little pvp. I didn’t have a lot of time or more truthfully didn’t wanna be at it all night. So I picked a WSG BG for a quick match. They usually run anywhere from 9 to 25 minutes. The longer the match the more likely it’s a horde pre-made farmin kills.

I played 1 WSG……for an HOUR AND TEN MINUTES!

I will say bar none that was the best match of any of the PVP BGs I have been a part of. This includes all WSG, AB, AV, and EOS. I love AV, still do, but I never had this much fun there. Both sides seem to be matched almost perfectly, even with people afkin out or just plain leavin. There was never at any time an imbalance that led to an easy victory.

It was a close match through out the entire hour and change play time. I didn’t see any uber weapons of death, I saw stuff from quests and drops from normal dungeons. Tactics were used on both sides and both sides seemed to be communicating with their teams the way its supposed to be. Occasionally after a stalemate we would meet in the middle and just wail on each other till enough were dead for one side to make a grab for the flag. I did not top the damage done or kills made, but damn I got 60 kills and 48 killing blows.

I was the bane of one poor hunter that seemed to think he could solo 2 level 70 rogues working together. He was wrong. While he would be occupied by one of us, the other would sneak around, disarm his freezing trap, and the stun locking would commence. Also a level 70 warrior got rolled several times by yours truly. He seemed to think cuz he could limit my run speed that it would help him…..cept I was using crippling and mind numbing poisons this time. Yeah, no getting to charge range for you baby.

I also finally got back into using gouge, haven’t used it much for a long time…never really needed it. It helps a lot in PVP though. If I feel I need more CC I’ll see about incorporating Blind back into my action bar, never used that much either. We will see. As the match progressed it seemed more likely that it would last awhile longer. I kept seeing a few people afk out yet, another would replace and get right into the action.

At about 1 hour 5 minutes we took each other’s flags, theres made it out with some heavy help from their side…ours got smooshed midfield. We ended up losing the match, I didn’t care I had a BLAST!

I didn’t go into any other BGs that night. Hell I haven’t doen any PVP since that match. I’m sure I’ll get back in there, I need 10 more marks before im through with WSG. Then comes the real nasty AB for token. Meh. EOS will be a nice change after ward. Then AV for honor.

If all WSGs were like that, more people would play them for fun….instead of marks.

I have the wings to prove it.

2007-06-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

Might as well spill the beans.

Last night I achieved a mile stone in my WOW playing. I hit 5000 gold. With a little questing before heading to Shadowmoon I had pushed that to 5025 gold. A quick money transfer form the wife’s account an I have enough cashe to buy my EPIC TRAINING & FLYER.

I opted, after careful consideration and advice from the wife, to go with the blue griffon. This thing hauls 10 kinds of ass. Now I can fly anywhere in style and speed. Rockin baby!!! After I took a spin around the world to stretch out my new ride, I looked up the opening quest giver for the Netherdrake quest lines. After about 10 minutes I finally find him and begin the journey. I killed the rock flayers for their goblets and carcasses. Props to blizzard for making a collection quest actually fun and quick. I had 8 whole carcasses in about 15 minutes as I learned the fights with the flayers. I fed the drakes which seemed very appreciative. I went on to killing some dragonmaws, which was cake being the uber rogue I am. After collecting the crystals I was told to free some drakes. Now this one was a cool quest. You fire this sparkly thing at the drakes in the dragonmaw’s camp, they snap out of their funk and attack the nearest dragonmaw. You have to help them kill the orc guarding them and then they go free. Again props to blizzard they could have made this part a drag ass kill quest. Instead you only have to kill maybe 5 orcs to free the 5 drakes, more if one wanders too close and aggros the drake. I did all these quests in under an hour, mainly cuz I kept having this urge to buzz the wandering mobs with my uber fast griffon.

I got all the way to the quest to free the dragon-in-the-sky’s wife. I had to end the night at that point as there was no one around for helping. Maybe tonight or this weekend I can advance to where you open up the daily quests. Those seem to be cake as well. I didn’t see too many people around doing them, maybe the 5000 gold threshold is keeping them away or at least down to a trickle. I might have to enlist my guildies for the group quests.

I took a screen shot when I hit the big 5k mark. I may never get there again anytime soon. I have been grinding out the cash and scrimpin for almost….hell I don’t know, awhile at least. Some weeks I pulled in 800g while others it was a measly 50. I did it even though it took 2 characters. I have been funneling netherweave and nettherweb silk to my wife’s character. Not to mention all the DE’d equipment turned into arcane dusts and planar essences. All this in order to level her tailoring high enough to make the Imbued Netherweave Bags. Since I did all the farming for the mats we were able to under cut anyone and get our bags sold. Though this route we have made a good 500g on hers and that’s just half assed. Theres no telling how much we could make if we could put more then 5 bags up per week.

But that will wait at least a week. I’m done on the farmin for now. I will concentrate on some quests to build up a bit of cash. Also see about completing the Netherstorm quests I still have. I don’t want to start on the Shadowmoon quests, excluding the Netherdrake stuff, until the other areas are done with. I still see a lot of yellow exclamation marks in Shadow moon so I know money will still come easy. I didn’t want to reach a point where I couldn’t bang out a quest and get some cash. Though now with the daily quests that’s prolly not an issue. Still it will be nice to get back to knocking out quests primarily for the questing and not money makin.

I finally got my third key fragment, now I just need to get into Durnhold then Black Morass. After them it’s on to Kara.

Me an PVP....not so much.

2007-06-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

I wonder if I can squeeze out a post with just random things about my time in game with out a theme of sorts. Here goes.

I have been playing Gnome Mindkiller heavily. I really want to get the need amount of money to get and train an epic flyng mount. I have been scrimping and saving all I can. I have been doing the daily quests religiously for the skettis, and if I could get a group for the last in the series of 5-mans for the ogres I would crank out their dailies too. I don’t want anything from either of these faction so its all about the money. I don’t even care if I get to kill the large beasties you need for one item drops for their faction. You can have that shit. I do want to try out the bombing quests for the ogres, the idea of being shot at by AA guns would be cool. After I get me an epic flyer it would prolly be cake, not sure though yet.

I spent the better part of the last week mining and just plain screwing around. I got an invite from a former guildie to check out the arena. We made a team with just us and tried it out last night. I will say it here now: 1 on 1 pvp and I do not like each other. I suck big time. I’m ok when there are a few more team mates around to help me out, but solo or 2 v 2, nope no dice. I’m not specced for it is a nice excuse but I just don’t have the skills for pvp. I have never used blinding powder, I rarely use gouge, and its hit and miss with stun locking people. Some of it can be attributed to lag but not enough that I can use it as a crutch. I liked the arenas for the scenery even though I barley got a look before I got smeared, they had a nice look about them, but not near enough to get me to go back. I have read about all the little details for each arena where you can do this or do that to help you and screw your opponent. Yeah, I never got a chance to even think about that crap when I’m fighting to stay alive long enough to actually hit my opponent.

The “matches” went pretty quickly. None lasting more then 30 seconds I would say. We got rolled. I was usually the last on our side standing…only because they seemed it think he was the greater threat and Focues Fire on him……yeah I’m not even insulted cuz its more then true. We got owned first by a lock/pally, then a rogue/priest then a hunter/shaman. After the first battle I knew I was not long for the arenas. After one fight I had done maybe 2k damage. That’s shit compared to any classes health at level 70specially any PVPrs. At the same time I was getting 4-5 shotted by a rogue wearing t4s. Yeah the matching system blows. I have one piece of D3, the rest aren’t even close to that level. If it was by rating…fuck it I don’t care. Just another aspect of this game I will fail to see to any degree. My team mate decided 3 losses was enough for the night. I agreed and added that I thought 3 losses in a row basicly told me I was not cut out for the arenas. He explained that after awhile we could get better gear and get better. Yeah nice wish. I am not into self flagellation, I need advancement even if its just the accumulation of virtual wealth. Getting butt raped by PVPrs is not my idea of a fun time. Why would I pay to play a an aspect of a game that rewards the narrow minded pursuit of making a fight so one-sided that the opponent has no room what so ever squeeze out a surprise victory. There was no point in the three battles that I had and thought that we could win. Not because I knew I sucked at PVP either. It was because I knew what classes are most often in the matches and what builds they prolly are and what combos are pretty much an ass kicking waiting to happen. I know I can take out a……shit I can’t take out anything since I suck so bad. That’s what pisses me off: I can’t seem to translate my ease with PVE into any thing resembling an decent showing in a PVP setting. (I told him I wasn’t gonna take this shit for weeks on end to build up enough point for piece of gear that wont increase my chance of beating the next opponents enough time to get more points for the purchase of more equipment. Naw I got some repeat/daily quests already thank you, I’ll stick with those. At least I will get gold and items from that and a better chance at weapons and armor after gaining rep with those quests,)I have even thought of respeccing and learning a new build as an alternative. I don’t think it will work though. Any spec of any class I will encounter in PVP will be catered to PVP and as such I am screwed. I hate dying, I hate it even more when it is some asshole on the other side who just 2 shotted me with a nice “Kill-Rogue” macro. I know how to use my rogue to stun lock casters in PVE but that wont work for human target since they have all kinds of nifty gadgets an then there is the twitch factor that is disastrous to the mediocre PVPr that I am. I told my guild that the next time I even consider doin arena I will quit WOW. I’m pretty sure it would happen to. I have never gotten that mad at this game since….hell never really. I quit the arena team after 3 battles and losing 40pts in standing. Fuck you arenas!

So I go to get my “free epics” from the BGs instead. At least there I can get in a few actual kills. I had assumed I would never go back here again, yet I did the crawl once to get my dagger and Knight rank so it seems to me better investment then the arenas. Plus I’m not going to be forced to play “X” amount of battles to ensure I get points.

I had farmed up a ton of marks from the different BGs pre-BC. I ended up trashing them after since they had not released the lvl 70 BG stuff yet, or if they had I didn’t see them. I plan on working toward the 3 non set epics from the BGs the honor is within reason and the marks are just a matter of showing up and getting the required amount.

I need approximately 35000 Honor Points and
40 marks from EOS
40 marks from AB
20 marks form WSG

These will get me the bracers gloves and boot. Or is it bracers, boots, belt? Crap who cares? It will be 3 non set epics that are damn nice and better then I could hope for since I have only one Heroic Key and have yet to finish the Kara Attunement crap. (I remember when I first saw the attunments for the BC, I was floored, now it don’t seem all that bad even with all the dungeon time needed. The Heroic keys are a walk in the park if you have a decent group to run theose needed lvl70 instance for rep. 1000+ per most of the time is not bad. Though I’m still behind on that too.)

I digress, I zoned into a WSG last night to get another mark toward my goal of 20, I have 8 now btw, all from losses. I look at the horde side and see……10 players from the same server…..same freaking guild, and all obviously on vent. Not that it mattered since most of the alliance afked out right at the start. How bad was it? Let’s see I did almost 3000 damage total in 10 minutes. The only reason it lasted 10 was they horde were there to farm HKs. They took the flag and capped it 2 times, then grabbed the flag and held it while massacring the alliance in the center of the BG. Just like lambs we all went there and waited to be killed. I do not understand how they can be consistently more coordinated in WSG and AB time after time. If I could figure it out I could at least find a way to beat them.

The only fun I have ever had in WSG is when 5 guildies joined me there and we just stood at the ally’s tunnel and killed anything that came near. We got 45+ kills in one match. We lost but we got the kills so we could give a shit. It looks like I will spend another 12 matches there unless we pull off a miracle. I am not looking forward to the 40 ABs, those matches cam go one for ever. I like the 5 minute Abs where the pre-made take all 5 nodes and the resources just skyrocket. Three and a half hours of five minute Abs would get me all the tokens needed.

I know I will like the EOS BG. I have been there a few times and it seems ok with several things goin on so you can just DO something at least, not like AV where there is a ton of shit to do. I think AV is much more fun then any of the others. Not because the ally’s win these more then the others but because there are actual points where team work just falls into place with out any one needing to try an wrangle everyone into the right path. A few times yeah it all falls apart but for time/reward my moneys on AV all the way. If you don’t want to fight you can farm shit there for rep with out screwing around with anyone.

Not that I need AV rep anymore. Exalted had some nice rewards….now? Not a fucking thing. I still have my lobotomizer. I just can’t seem to get rid of it. I can sell it or shard it so the only way to get rid of it is to destroy it. I’m not sure I can just toss a dagger that took me that long to grind for, money and rep wise. So in my bank it stays, along with my PVP trinket and AV trinket that I never use anymore. I prolly will use the AV one when I go back the to farm honor. Since I wont have to care about wining or loosing AV it will be a nice fun time where I can contribute my damage to a kill at certain choke points and most time get some bonus honor just for showing up. If I manage to get my ass into Kara or some Heroics and get some drop that will negate the awesomeness of the PVP stuff, then I will have to reprioritize my plans. Yet as soon as I have 20 tokens I will prolly have enough honor for my first piece of PVP gear: The bracers.
Wow for random thoughts I created a monster post. Here you got Gitr, chew on this for an update

I grew as a person because of games.

2007-06-07T12:56:00.001-07:00

This is a response to a friend’s statement of growth as a person. It became too long to put into a comment so I decided to make a post that is very non-WOW related.

Responding to Peterson:
Glad to see someone evacuated the cylinder of plant matter out of your posterior extricator.

Growing as a person is something I can understand. I was a wall holder for most of my high school years. I had many friends that knew me as a quiet yet imposing figure. Many stories were made up about my 'legendary' anger that had no basis in reality. The stories kept me out of trouble since no one wished to challenge the voracity of those claims. I kept that image in line by being fiercely loyal to my friends and defending them when needed.

I still had this aura around me even after I graduated. Kind of a suppressed violence about me. I had always felt I was alone and would stay that way forever. I looked at people as rivals for living. Not that I attacked or did anything really. Yet I didn't let anyone come close either. I created a bubble around me that was a deterrent to others. I was always polite but not overly so. I never allowed the slightest interest in anything other then a passing familiarity to show to people I interacted with.

I can remember the exact time and place when I realized that it was time to slough off that mode of existing without living. Course the realization was after the implementation. Sometimes my body runs ahead of my mind. Turns out this time it worked for the better.

It was 1999, prolly around March or so, at a Denny’s near where I still live. I walked into the place like I had for the few months at pretty late hour. I had quit a security job yet had some funds still available. There were these to guys there, twins yet very different personalities. They were having a discussion about a video game, a game which I was very familiar with and loved a great deal. I wanted to join the conversation, yet the old high school clique mode of interacting kept me from saying anything. They were gamers, but at the time I had not thought of my self as a gamer and that we are a community. Sure I played but I was a solo by geography and not choice. I kept my mouth shut listening to them discuss a game I felt in my blood was the greatest game ever, that is until I heard them giving false info out to some one who would not know it was false. After I heard the one say it, I was compelled by some force to correct them, these strangers that knew no what they dood. (Did. Yeah, but dood sounded better.) I corrected them and they paused, for a second I thought they would disregard my statement and dismiss me from a discussion I had no place in. Instead there passed a moment of synergy, a pulse of like to like, they recognized that which was there that I had not seen.

I was a Gamer.

Introductions were made, food was ordered, and a relationship with these 2 amazing people began. I was welcomed into their inner circle of friends and gained new ones as our friendship grew. We became a normal fixture at that Denny’s so much so that people when looking for us would look there first. People would arrive to catch a few words then leave just as the next group would arrive. Looking back I see that I had been allowed into their ‘court’. First I was just a visitor; soon however I was one of the few, the diehards that stayed there well past the midnight hours and sometimes deep into the next morning. For over 1 year I spent most of my waking time when not working or sleeping (and sometimes sleeping there to) at that Denny’s. As the months passed I became more of the person I am today. Perhaps it was the variety of people I was exposed to or the camaraderie I felt with these 2 men. My self worth grew in tandem with my confidence. I met intellectuals, Goths, college students, aspiring actors, and workers. We were there when the place had to shut down do to lack of food because of a screw up with the ordering. We helped clean the place before a very important inspection that would determine the longevity of the restaurant. I helped people by being there. Me. Some how I became a something other then a person not wanting to be around other people. I became a human with all the emotional baggage that goes with it. I would not change that for anything. Because of that single piece of misinformation about a video game I was opened up to the world. Confidence, in my right to say and have opinions that I would have kept to myself in school, became a permanent fixture in who I am. I also gave up placation. I stopped telling people what they wanted to hear and told them what I wanted to say. People listened to me. Very weird.

It comes as no surprise to me now that I met my wife at that Denny’s. No she wasn’t working there, though she had in the past. In fact she had quit or got fired from there only a few months before I started going there at night. Might have turned out differently if she had still worked there…perhaps.

I look at the person I am today and I see the steps I took to get here. I made mistakes, most often with money, but there were times when the relationships I wished I had nurtured were let whither due to callousness or distance. Most often distance lead to the dissolution of a friendship. I recently took the time to find 2 friends I was very close to in high school. Perhaps it was my love of RPGs that always lead me back to searching for them. Side quests for the win.

I have attempted to track them down a few times in the past 10 years with little success. After my newest child was born I had a week off to help the wife. I spent nap times on the computer digging through the muck of the intertubes. It took me 2 days of search engines and white pages. I found one of them through his mom and dad. The other I found through Myspace. Yeah I have one, doesn’t get much love but its there. I speak with one a few times a week through IM and the other through emails. One has had a rough time of it yet is thriving, while the other seems to have given up on life. I wish they didn’t live so damn far away. I’m a guy who even in my introverted high school days knew the power of a hug. I spread that to my friends then and still do to this day.

Finding these guys makes me realize how much has happened to me since I received that piece of paper telling me I’m done with being a kid. Although I held on to being one for a few more years. Through all this time one thing has let me into more circles, video game. I look back and still see the kid I was. High school kid, yeah not a young adult. Nothing about me in those last few years was adult, except maybe the drive to make up for the mistakes I made academically. I was 16 years old for at least 5 years. That 16 year old is still here. He is more verbose and eloquent when it comes to expressing his feelings and even expresses those feelings. He stands up for what he believes. Still plays way too many video games. (Not really, GAMER FOR LIFE!) Games are a part of who I am and helped shape me into the well adjusted dashing man meat that I am. Without the knowledge of a certain game who knows how long I would have maitained the distance, placed by me, between me and other humans.
I’m not really sure how to end this strange piece of verbage, or if it is really a response to what Peterson wrote. I can not bring myself to hit the delete button. So now I end it without having any idea as to how to end it. Perhaps a critique of my self to show there is still room for improvement:

I do not take criticism well. No joke there and no remorse. Don’t be hating. I’m always right and righteous. That’s just how I roll.

Busy week, gold grows when tended.

2007-06-04T11:54:00.000-07:00

I started to play my Gnome some more since I can't really play with the wife all that much on Velen. I finally started the Kara chain. I now need the first Fragment, course it seems to be the hardest to acquire. A few more runs and I will be revered with CE and can start to run that Heroic there. Looking to get me a primal nether for my Epic Goggles of DOOM! I cleared out a whole lot of quests and started in on the Netherstorm quests as well. I have made over 300g just from quests and a few instances. I'm only half way done with the quests in Netherstorm. I still have yet to go to Shadowmoon and start the quests there. Plus all the instance quests I have neglected are waiting for completion. There are a few scattered quests in Nagrand, Terrokar and Blade’s Edge that I have not touched yet. With the new daily quests it won’t be hard to get a constant income of cash. I tried out the Skyguard quests and started the Ogre’s chain but dropped them to go and run with the wife for an hour or so. With all the quests now available to me I don’t see me having trouble getting to 5k gold. Might be able to afford to start the Netherdrake quest chains for the mount. I want one o them. I just have to pick the right times to tackle the tight quests so I can have support.

Last weekend I spent 4 hours farming netherweave cloth for my wife’s character. I shot for and got 16 stacks of 20 plus several green items and a mess of Marks of Kejadeen or what ever. Also picked all kinds of pockets and made 40g just from drops and pockets. Landed 4 stacks of Super Healing potions for use in making a Healing potion Injector. I had to return to sell and repair about the same time as getting all the cloth and running out of space. After transferring all that cloth and the Arcane Dust from the green items Snow started to make all the Imbued Netherweave bags she could. Turned out we had enough mats for 3 bags. She made them and posted them for a price I recommended. All three sold in less then 2 hours. 30g a pop. I’m leaving the gold she makes form my farming on Snow. If I can gather enough cloth to keep making the bags I can make enough money from quests and bag making to afford Mindkiller the epic flyer training and buy Snow an epic ground mount.

I checked Joly last night since I haven’t played him in 9 days. I forgot I had put some bags up n the AH. They had all sold. Walked away with 14g in me bags. Bag making is defiantly lucrative in any server population. Only downside is getting to where you can make them and farm/buy the mats cheap. Meh, still worth it.

WC PUG...LF....a clue.

2007-05-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago I found myself playing Jolygreen with Shurshot tagging along for some pre-Stonetalon leather farming. I was helping in the killing while she did all the skinning, being the skinner. I see a call out for a group needing more to venture into Wailing Caverns. Now I LIKE WC. I think it is what all the dungeons at the lower levels should be.

Level Appropriate, between levels 19-23 a balanced group can have a cake walk.
Decent loot, Lots of greens and stackable grey for cash. Blues on most of the minibosses. Decent hunter/rogue loots.
Plenty of skinnable creatures, very good place for skinner.
Elite mobs, nice cash on the humanoids and excellent exp for level appropriate.
Winged structure, you get in and can go left or right depending on time constraints and what investment you are willing to give.
Quests, of a sort. A few kill quests and collections. The pinnacle being the druid awakening after killing all the bosses, very cool since it gives meaning to clearing the place.

Now I will admit to being confused the first few times I came here. It’s just like anything else. I cared about it enough to learn the layout. Hell I still get lost in BRD and I have run that place numerous times. (Though I have yet to kill Bael or the Emporer. Sad I know)

Anywho. I see the call for a group to go to WC so I ask the wife if she would be up to a quick run in there. We are at 21 at this point. Midrange for this place. (With a 3rd person, tank or healer, we could blast through it ourselves. Hell with pots and enough ammo we could take it duo, more on that later.) She agrees to go for it. I msg the guy recruiting and he sends out the invites, sorta. He can’t seem to get the spelling of Shurshot right. Takes him 5 times to figure it out. Then I had to explain how to do the /invite command. We happened to be right next to the caverns as we were killing the lions for skins. We sauntered on over.

The leader, who shall remain nameless, was just chilling near the summoning stone waiting for us. That’s cool we all are to assemble there before heading in. One of the group says he will be afk for 2 minutes….ok I guess. So wee cool our heels for a few minutes. Seeing as one other had not made I to the caverns it really was not a big deal waiting. After the minutes pass the afk’r rolls on in thanking us for waiting. There we are chillin at the entrance to the cavern…without the leader. He is still waiting at the stone. So we ask what’s up and he chats with fer a bit. He stays at the stone, for 5 more minutes.

Finally he runs over and we dive into the cave, at this point the afk’r states he hates WC cuz he can never find his way back after dying. Day yam. I am of course speaking to my wife since she is just across the room from me. She states she is not sure this group will be worth our time. I was thinking the same thing but willing to give it a try.

Group break down:

Level 25 warrior
Level 25 hunter
Level 23….er something unmemorable…
2 level 21 hunters. Me and the wife.

No healing but a butt load of dps. I feel we can do this. I ran SFK with 4 dps and 1 pally no problem. We would just need to burn things down fast without taking aggro from the tank. We get to the instance and I mention to the wife that she needs to tell them she is a skinner. She does, 2 others are as well. Skin rotation?….nope not even a discussion about it. Ended up being whoeverrememberedtodoit’s turn throughout the run.

We fight our way through to the central cavern before I realized something: the tank is pulling by either running at the mobs or throwing an axe. Oh boy we in for a long fight. The afk’r then yells out that we need to be prepared for a 2 hour instance here. 2 hours? Um…yeah sure if you take an hour nap. With the levels we had it would have lasted maybe 45-50 minutes. Even with out a healer. I also noticed that our level 25 hunter was not using his hunters mark with any frequency. It was me or the wife who kept the marks up on target, and some how I manage to out dps the hunter, without pulling aggro btw. I got this sinking feeling that this group didn’t know dick about playing their classes or the game. Newbs or noobs I don’t care it was that bad. At one point I had to explain what DPS meant! Yeah! Though since I was not the leader I kept my mouth shut on all the mistakes we encountered. Like the tanking of the raptors so close to the other raptors that the screams would pull the other groups. We cleared the entire upper ring before heading down into the water to choose which way to go.

We decided to go left since it was the shorter route. We roll through the crocs and kill Kresh (Fast for a turtle). As we head up the ramps with the snakes I decide I have had enough of this group and the wife has had all her energy sapped by the incompetence of this group. She put her char onto follow mine and I ran us out of the instance as fast as possible. We quit the party as soon as we left the portal. I did not say goodbye, tell them why, say thanks, or anything I usually do in situations such as these, they did not deserve any kind of warning or words of advice. Nothing can help those idiots except perhaps for them to uninstall WOW and crank out LOTR. Go over there and learn to play in a group before ever returning here.

I have had some awesome pugs where the actual value of the group was way more then the sum of the parts. Groups where we stuck together long after the quest or dungeon was over just to maintain the synergy we had found and help each other progress. Some have even joined my main guild.

How can you get to 25 without learning you basic class skills and how to group with other players? There are plenty of low level quests for all the races that need a group to finish. I see the folks I grouped with in WC going on to making a living hell for those needing a group for that ever important elite quest with the phat lewts all the way to what ever level they finally cap out on. I have their names burned into my mind so I will never group with them again. Hopefully they will get bored real quick and get out of the world.

Farming for leather and ore.

2007-05-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

No real progress for the hunters. What time we spent playing together was in the Barrens killing things for Shurshot to skin. Got her some serious light leathers and a nice chunk of mediums. We plan on taking the fight to Stonetalon for some easy leveling an quests

Ravenkiller is poised to take on the harpies in Stonetalon, it will be a short fight. I'll prolly plant some trees there too.

I did make about 25g between my 2 characters. I also spent a little time on Gnome Mindkiller, mining thorium. Hell it goes for 20+ g a stack on Duskwood. I cranked out 2 stacks before the farmers really got started in my chosen area. They both sold within 2 hours.

The ore on valen seems to be on the rise as well as the enchanting mats. I havent had a chance to get a proper read on them yet though. It is a reality that copper is up to 50s median now , Tin is doing well, iron ok, mithril is 2x what it really should be so will prolly fall in a week or two. All the rest of the metals are just.....wierd.

Interesting note. Snow noticed that in our old Guild on our old server....just doesnt have the same atmosphere that it did pre-BC. Now everyone that can is gearing up for Kara and Heroics. It doesnt feel the same anymore. I never thought i would ever consider transfering Gnome Mindkiller, but if i were to pool all the money on my characters into Mindkiller he would have over 2500g. Money that would be easliy transfered using the neutral AHs. Something more to think about now.

Paladin Paladr's Preposterous Production

2007-05-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

Tuesday last week I logged on and got a tell from our GM of Buttered Monkeys. Seems he needed some assistance with his pally’s level 22+ weapon quest. I logged onto Ravenkiller who BTW is halfway through 25, and met up with him at Ragefire Caverns. We blew through most of it till the final room with its honeycomb design. Multiple pulls almost did us in but we managed to win through to the end. We summoned the quest mob and kilt him ded. Blood was taken and we started the long haul to Black Fathom Deeps. I had not been in the area as yet so it was a long run for me. Got both FPs in the area so no big whoop.

We entered BFD, killed 3 mobs. On the 3rd mob the quest item dropped……F’n Yeah!

We leave the area just as anther guildy logs on. It’s our priest friend Nynave. “you wanna come run SFK to the stables for the GM?” Sure he says, and he’s already in UC. Don’t get no better then that. I ported to UC…no wait I was out of runes…..I Hearthed to TM and flew to UC. I met up with the priest at SFK’s stone and we summoned the GM.

We ploughed through to the stables. Only a few times were we in jeopardy due to some of the mobs having Anti magic shields. Pretty much made me have to melee. We get to the stables and the GM pulls the single mob guarding the box he needs. He used an AOE to grab aggro…unfortunately it pulled the horse he was next to, which pissed it and his buddies off. They attack and we are goin down. The priest keeps up the heals while we try to take down the guard. GM goes down and they turn on me. I manage to burn the guard down before I hightail it outta there. I’m talking assholes and elbows people. I was using every thing I had to keep them from catching me. I jumped down the entrance and zoned out…the priest wasn’t so lucky. I think they smooshed him. Survival…that what I do especially as a squishy. They ran back and rezzed inside. We approached the stables and see the horses peacefully glaring at us but they don’t attack. The GM gets his goods and we all go to meet up with him at Silvermoon for the forging of the blade.

I DC’d before I could get 2 steps inside SM. Thankfully they waited. I got to see the little blacksmith crank out a beautiful piece or the GM.
(Picture here)

After the forging the GM called it a night and I stuck around long enough to do some shopping and AH work on Ravenkiller and Jolygreen. Might have some decent cash waiting when I log on tonight.

*I really need to get me into the mode of adding pictures to some of these.

Questing for pets.

2007-05-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

It turns out there is not a big demand for the white lion. So I give up on that for now. Maybe in a few months there will be a better market for it. As such I abandoned that quest so I don’t have to see it.

I logged on last weekend and helped the wife power level her Pally through a few quests using Ravenkiller for some Mage AOE goodness. We managed to push her to 16 from 13 or so before we decided to crank out a few quests with our hunters. We have made a bit of progress, little due to time available and stuff, but got them to 18 most recently.

We went to the Barrens at 16 for to get us some new pets. She picked up a purple raptor but then had to have a red one. So we hoofed it over into Durotar and she got herself a level 9 red raptor which she named Trogdar. After feeding him we started the quest chain that leads up to summoning Echeyakee. We burned through the quests pretty easily it also had the added benefit of helping the raptor become more loyal. He wasn’t getting any exp though but that would come soon. After I summoned the White lion he…..um…he ate me. My tame failed and I didn’t have the heart to kill him. I tried to tame again but didn’t have the life for a second try. I died and the wife ran so she wouldn’t aggro. I got back 2 seconds after he de-spawned. I was pissed. Lucky we were both on the quest. She summoned her Lion and I started to tame him while she kept the huntresses off of me.

4……3…..2…..1..WOOSH!! He is MINE!! I got him. I didn’t have a name for him then so he was cat for a day or so. We hearthed back to Tranq since neither of us were interested in Barrens questing. I do think we will go straight to Stonetalon when we leave the starting area.

We cranked out prolly 5-6 quests in Ghostlands while our pets leveled loyalty and hers gained actual levels. Her raptor got to 16 just as her, The Lion and I got to 18. No doubt her pet will catch up to us no problem. After some searching around I figured out a decent name for a cat of such blinding White and beauty. I was going to go with a few names that mean power or Fury:

Riddick
Furian
White Fury

The first one was not allowed for stupid reasons and the others are more titles then names.

I did some more digging and got some inspiration from my own name and came up with:

Aslan
Formerly Echeyakee of the Barrens
White Lion
Level 18 Cat
Growl, Claw, Bite
Natural Armor 3
Greater Stamina 3
Loyalty level 5 (soon to be 6)

This kitty is staying with me for awhile. My hunters tend to bond with their pets for life. I don’t think any of my hunters has ever had more then one pet for anything other then training purposes. I hope to play tonight with the wife’s character. Since her time has gotten more limited I may be able to devote more time to Ravenkiller.
Ravenkiller is starting to se some profit from Dis-enchanting items for the AH. Didn’t do too badly over the past few days. Jolygreen went with Tailoring for the bag making. Lucrative it is. He made 9 silk bags and they all sold made back all the money spent to make them plus a nice little profit. Now I just need to get him to 20 so he can learn the next level of the profession and can get points. Being able to make my own bags always seems to come in handy for the hunters with their limited bag space due to the ammo/quiver pouches taking up a whole slot. Maybe some day I can afford a HUGE quiver for those long grind sessions.

A Simple Plan

2007-05-02T13:03:00.001-07:00

I logged onto Ravenkiller monday night for a little while.

I wanted to see what would entail in the chain to get the white lion to appear. I started by teleporting to Oggrimmar. (love the teleport). I then headed down to Razor Hill. I found the orc that sends you into the Barrens and thus started the chain. I could have prolly started it from the Mulgore side since in seems to be a progression mechanic in the game. I took the walk to the border or Durotar and Barrens and talked the orc there who sent me to the NPC in the Crossroads that starts the chain to kill some of every type of mob in the Barrens. I cranked out the first 2 quests, the beaks(I can believe the 3% drop rate) and zebra hoofs(bout 25%drop rate), before loggin for the night. I picked up again this morning and went after the cat claws(these seemed to be 100% drop rate). After I cleared all the cats I went off to get a good look at the white tiger. Notes on the area he spawns in are true, the other prowlers spawn super fast after being killed. I must have killed the same cat 4 times in the time it took me to blow the horn and get a good long look at the Lion. He is B E A U T I F U L. I didn’t kill him….not yet. I may save him for sale or something. Hmmm I wonder if I could do that. Get money to spawn him for alliance hunters just for the purpose taming him. Gonna have to check that out later. Might be able to make some cash.*

*Update: I logged into Ravenkiller to restart the Lion kill quest then decided to check if the Alliance might provide a limited market for the animal. Granted I logged on pretty late so I was not expecting a great response.

I made a grunt character; a human warlock by the name of Vultar. Might even play him eventually. Great name. Any way I ran his ass to Stormwind the have access to the trade channel, created a /macro for the /2 channel only. I’ll add the general chat next time I log in. I actually got a response from a curious new hunter. I’m thinking I will charge 50s for the summon to start.

I may raise it to 1g but defiantly no higher. It’s not out of reach for level 16 players and a steal for anything higher then 20. I can always transfer the money easily later. I have been wanting to try something different for awhile. Now that I have small packets of time to devote to a weird project I’m gonna see if I can get this to work.

A Simple Plan…er sort of.

I will advertise in the alliance areas that I have Echeyakee ready to summon in the barrens.
Perspective hunters contact me.
Money is sent vial in game mail. *
Money confirmed. Meet up in the barrens to summon.
I will provide support until the taming is complete (Ie keep all mobs off of hunter taming.)
If need be I will re-summon until the taming is successful.
*If proof is asked for before the money is transferred, I will arrange meeting to show them the beast. I can always control who tames by the simple fact that attacking the beast will void the taming. I will have plenty of time to abandon the quest before I kill it to not get the quest completed.
If anything it will be a neat way to make money. If I see a bigger market I may devote time to this endeavor for a bit. Plus I can always raise the price if it looks like a higher demand develops.

2 New Hunters For The Horde!!

2007-05-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

After we moved the Monkeys to Velen we managed to dig up enough of us to start the guild…after many a days of making enough money to buy the charter. Through all this I was leveling Ravenkiller. Now I love the mage, but playing solo with him just wasn’t cutting it. I will still play him just not when the wife is around. He will make a good farmer someday. The wife couldn’t play as often due to being someone’s primary food source, so I out leveled her to the point she got bored “playing alone”. SO we decided to roll 2 new characters to run together….completly together…like joined at the hip together. So we debated and discussed the available class/race/side to play. We settled on:

DUH DUH DUUUUUN.

Blood Elf Hunters.

Yeah we went there. Belfs are the new Nelfs. We love the new starting area and since we have rolled at least 5 Belf characters across 4 servers, we knew we could blast up to 20 and catch up to the other Monkeys in level easily. We have a /played time of somewhere near 10 hours and are deep into level 14. We blast through all quests like it was melted butter. We only run from the elites in Ghostlands….until we are 18 or so. Then they will go down. We are also going to do almost the exact spec.

Mine:
Jolygreen /w Sprout (Elder Eversong Kitty)
BRK’s BM Spec

The wife’s
Shurshot /w Jellopudding (Elder Eversong Kitty)
BRK’s BM Spec

We most likely wont need to train the level 14 skills, or want to, until we hit level 16. Then we will head back to SM for the training. I have a feeling we will ding pretty quickly with the next few quests. It is cool when we turn in a quest and have dual ding animation. People stop and stare when it happens. Our cats are almost in sync as well though for some reason hers got to likin her faster then mine did me. Weird since we tamed them at the same time. Oh well. Our cats will get an upgraded skill and a new one once we hit 16 and can tame Ghostclaw Ravager in the Ghostland for Bite 3 and Claw 3. I think I might also make the trek to the barrens for the white lion there. It will involve a chain but after researchin it I have made up my mind. Echeyakee will be mine. Just need to convince the wife to tag along for the long ride to this ego pet. Maybe we can get her one too if she likes it…..

Ravenkiller slogging along and something else.......

2007-04-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

It has been slow going for Ravenkiller. The lack of a partner has slowed me considerably. The wife rolled a paladin on Velen but has little time to play. Some of that is my fault some not. I did of course help in causing us to have 3 kids now. For some reason they flock to her for every day stuff like food and drink or snacks and attention. She blames me for them coming to her….is it my fault she is home all day? No it is not. Is it my fault they go to her out of habit, having done this all day while I was NOT there? No.

I have however neglected to say a few things to her over the last few weeks. So in good blogshere tradition (is it even right to call it that yet?) I will bear all right here right now. Er or when ever I can post this after some heavy editing.

Dearest Snowstormer/Suprhero,

I do appreciate every thing you do. This includes all the little things like giving me 2 handsome sons and a beautiful daughter that will keep me up nights when she hits puberty and there after. I thank you for the support you give me when I have had a bad or trying day at work. I thank you for making sure I have clean cloths to wear for that job. I thank you for feeding me at my desk when I just don’t want to leave the group (rare but it happens). I thank you for bringing me luch to work when I just don’t wanna leave or forget to bring anything. I thank you for all the wacky meal ideas that seemed to work. I thank you for being able to make a cake with out messing it up (Like a friend of yours that can’t bake her way out of a paper bag). I thank you for toiling over the sink trying to make all the dishes go away and be clean. I thank you for understanding my frustration at not being able to help you that first week back form the hospital after hurting my stupid self. I am still very irritated that you wouldn’t let some one else take me to the hospital. But I do understand why. I thank you for trying to bring order to our chaotic house. It did really go down hill the weeks leading up to the surgery. My fault I got lazy. I promise to do better. Perhaps I have been depressed, or just under a bit of stress I hadn’t noticed. Perhaps the slow time at work gave me too much time to sit and do nothing. Maybe now that it will pick up will help me stay motivated when I get home and be able to help more.

I’m sorry you had to give me a day of the silent treatment to get your point across. However I point out that I am a man and subtle hints won’t work…it’s a racial trait. In fact un-subtle hints have a good chance of failure too…go figure.

I do appreciate all you have done in spite of your still recovering body. I do appreciate the work you have put into making our house presentable. I do appreciate that our children are happy and healthy (disgustingly healthy can’t we skip a few meals so they aren’t so…bouncy?).

I
Am
Sorry.

I do appreciate you.
I do love you.

-----Mindkiller

Belfs Ravendawn and Mindkiller: MIA. Meet Ravenkiller.

2007-04-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

For starters I have been neglecting Gnome Mindkiller in favor of my Belf Mindkiller and my Belf Mage Ravendawn. This is mainly because of the time it would take for instance runs or to complete quests on Gnome Mindkiller. (Form here on Gnome Mindkiller =GMind and Belf Mindkiller = BMind. Both are Rogues.) I could log onto BMind and knock out 5-6 quests in 1 hour, I liked that also I was playing a different way BMind was to be all combat. I then started Ravendawn a Belf Mage.

I soon grew to love this one more and played him exclusively in my limited WoW time with only a few dives back to GMind. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure I will get back to GMind soon. It is just there is a long uphill end game until I can play with friends again. With all the attunements and rep grinds I just am not ready for that play style. I like the starting areas for the Belfs, not as much as I like the Draeni. I think they got the sweet end of the deal there. Hell the quest to learn Furbolg is the most entertaining chain I have seen yet. I managed to get BMind and Ravendawn up to level 25 and 24 respectively before I hit the big wall of PVP servers. Yeah these guys are on Burning Legion. Gankfest begins at 20-21. I will refer you to my rant earlier in the program.

The GM and all the cronies (cuz that’s how Gitr rolls) got together on the forums and brain stormed a move. Gitr, Me and Snow (My wife and yeah she plays) decided to scope out Kargath since it was Gitr’s home server. He would be able to support us with some higher farming of mats and gold. Well Kargath is at full population according to Blizzard. While there have not been any Queing issues since they raised the active population caps on all realms, they do experience lag spikes and disconnects every so often. So after I leveled a Draeni Mage to 10, Gitr decides Kargath isn’t gonna work…..great so I reluctantly say good by to what was shaping up to being my fastest run to 20. Meh.

So after much soul searching and debate, my other home from home, Buttered Monkeys, will be moving to Velen Server to start fresh and new. It is a young server with a very small population, as such the AH is ripe for exploitation by a savvy businessman such as my self. I plan to use all the nice little tricks I learned from mature servers to slowly build market share. We will be able to play both factions, which will be a neat change. I was never much into horde but I like the Belfs for some reason. Prolly their starting area that does it for me. I made a mage once again since I really want to get me a high level one of these. I like the challenge of staying alive while dealing tons of damage. Having to manage Mana and health helps me pace battles better. Also having a lot of crowd control s fun. I had just got to the point on Ravendawn that I could AOE grind somewhat. Wanta get there soon.

The new Character:

Ravenkiller
Blood Elf Mage
Level 8
No proffs yet as I need to explore the avenues for profit on this server.

Since all Buttered Monkeys will be starting from scratch it will take some time before we have enough cash to start the Guild. I may just grab to gathering proffs for some 100% profit deal. I’ll prolly end up making a Draeni here as well if only to se how the AH is on the other side. Cross faction trade scheme here I come. That’s all for now.

Death has come once again.

2007-04-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

This post breaks from the norm for me. It is in refrence to the killings at VA Tech this week.I saw a post at my favorite place. Gitr has joined with a few others in a blogsphere vigil by not having any posts on the 30th of this month. I think its is admirable of them. I however, don't see the point. Maybe that makes me a insensitive prick, so be it. Having nation wide moments of silence only helps keep this a cultural phenomenon. A bad one yes, but still a phenomenon. (prolly spelt that wrong. Oh well, it's broke.)

I write this not to lessen the pain of all the death an injury that has happened this week. I do not write this to lessen the impact of these deaths or cheapen the loss. This all poured forth from my mind when I saw the call for silence in the blogsphere. I do this for my piece of mind.

Students died because one of their own decided it was time. This sucks some serious donkey balls. I know for the next 5 years we will hear about this incident over and over again as if we can find a good reason why it happened and stop it from happening again. Not gonna happen. More likely we will hear about it sooner when this happens again. This “growing trend” of kids killing kids is not going to stop. It will cycle up to epic proportions. Why? Because we let it as a society. We allow media to hype up these incidents to such grandiose heights that more and more kids/teenagers/ college students are looking to this as a way to express themselves.

Killing your fellow students is the new way to voice your rage/ sadness at being outcast or alone or maybe that guy just stepped on your damn foot. Big fucking deal, grow up a little maybe you can then do the honorable thing an blow your own brains out and save us all a lot of bulllshit. This is the crap that made me give up TV. Too much focus on the deaths of others. Oh how I long for a time where we don’t give a damn if some kids had a troubled youth. So did the rest of us. People not like you? Find those that do and hang out. Otherwise take yourself out of the gene pool and do us parents a favor.

The publicity surrounding shootings at schools send as bad a message as the killings themselves. Those kids seeing this splashed all over the media look at this and see how much of an audience they could have. It’s all about attention. Yeah they have pain and hurt. So damn what. Go punch a wall, break a few fingers. Might make you think a little about the pain you might cause others with some random or even worse, planned, act of violence. Unless these kids had a specific beef against their targets it all comes down to them saying “Hey look what I can do”. Kids looking for attention copying what they see that gets the most attention. I am not blaming this on the TV. TV is not alone it this here perpetuation of death. Internet, text magazines, radio, books, what ever the medium of transferring information. It all contributes to this behavior where thoughts and acts of violence lead to getting your picture plastered all over the place. The 15 minute fame crap has ballooned into lifetime fame, but only if you kill more then the last guy/guys.

People die every day yet we don’t see every one of those names or stories flashed in front of our eyes. We don’t see the outrage and pain their loved ones go through. No connections to other incidents are made or inferred. Once students at some school go down it's all over. No new news until this crisis has passed. Guess what. It won’t pass, ever. This shit will keep happening as long as there is a market for it. I wonder if there will be a market for “Remember VA Tech “shirts. Prolly coming soon. They will be sold by shirts emblazed with “Remember Columbine” or “Columbine: Redux” crap.

We have troops overseas dieing, and yet unless it is some amount over 5 in one sitting we don’t hear about it till they give us the numbers for the week. This is crap. Even if you don’t believe we should be fighting anywhere but our own back yard (I hear those Canadians are shady) those guys deserve as much of our sympathy and pain at their loss. Yeah they chose the danger whilst the students were reasonable sure they were safe. Why were they sure? It has happened before and will happen again. (Real iffy prediction I know but I play it safe with the negative.) Perhaps we wait for it to happen so we can look at it and thank our respective deity figure that it was not us or our loved ones. It hasn’t happened to every one yet. Prolly never will but it will come close to it before it gets fixed. Fixing it will be the hard part. I have a few ideas but since the perps are dead it won’t be very effective. Something involving hot pokers and…..never mind.

What I’m saying is that maybe its time to give all the kids guns so they can defend themselves when one of their class mates goes bonkers and pulls a nine. Standard issue firearms for all students. Make them pick um up at the gates. Have the schools surrounded by bullet proof walls and ceilings so when the shooting starts they won’t take out grandma walking by. Yeah we will lose a lot of kids but after awhile we will weed out the negative tendencies. We might come out with a few super soldiers and crack shot cops. Maybe the thought of going to school and having a lunchtime shoot out will change the attitudes of those not quite willing to die just yet. Perhaps then they actually go to school for the purpose it was intended: Learning and social interaction. Then again it might make it possible for students to take out that next jack ass with some issues before he takes to many with him to the grave. Might be a good deterrent to idiotic behavior.

For those that actually read that entire last paragraph without hitting the little X. I am not serious about giving kids guns…..maybe Kevlar vests. Yeah the vest would be better. Toughen them up a bit cuz ther heavy and stoof. Hell full body armor even.

I think it is shitty that kids had to die and yes there are issues that need to be addressed here like how did people not get to leaving after the first shooting. Not sure about yall but I would call it a day if some one shot up a campus dorm. Information like that would have been disseminated faster then the first shot echo died. Time to check out the mall in the next county.

My condolences to those most affected by this loss. I’m talking the parents of those who died. Yeah the students will be scared for life. How many of those students won’t put this out of their mind in a few years. We are a self-centered race; we deal with grief in similar ways. The ego of the young won’t let them dwell too long on these deaths. Course with the hype that will continue they will milk it as long as they can. That’s what we do. We take the pain we suffer and try to turn it into an advantage. “Woe is me I saw a friend die so I can’t have given my all to that test paper.” Though how many of those friends of those killed would really keep in touch after they had gone their separate ways after graduation.

Shitty deal. Kids died. The perps died. No punishment possible. Empty feeling.
Now we get to sit back and wait for one of those who were affected by this incident to snap and start another cycle.

PVP Rant of DOOM

2007-04-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

I had a quick discussion with my GM of Buttered Monkeys on Burning Legion. We spoke of the frustrations I and my wife were having trying to level on a PVP server. We spoke of the possibility of transfers or re-rolling our chars on a PVE server. 25 bucks per would be a definite hindrance to transfers. New baby, new car too damn many bills. If WE did do a transfer it would prolly only be one char per and the other would get axed and all the proceeds given to the xfer'd. I would easily be in my 30s if I didn’t have to stop and let the gankers get bored before questing once again. I just don’t have the patients to be killed by chars that are so much higher then me that there really is no point in fighting back. It not like they get credit for the killings. No honor = No honor kills. So it comes down to how much you want to harass the opposite faction. I would love the PVP if it was limited to +/- 5 levels, any more then that and it becomes one-sided unless you catch some one at 25% life. It then would only work if they were not too much higher then that +5 levels. With all the resisting, dodging and parrying that the higher level would get it still would prolly be suicide.
Gitr suggested moving to Kalimdor as I and Snow chose to quest in Hillsbrad. I have never been a fan of Kalimdor. Too damn many brown areas, and come on Desolace is a waste of space. The only worth while zones I like on Kalimdor are Feralas and Un'Goro with the top zone being Winterspring. I don’t have any night elves. At least none I have played past 10 and prolly not even that high. I don’t get any kind of warm 'n fuzzy from the areas they have to quest in. This pretty much covers all of Kalimdor. So being forced by idiot level 60-70 alliance players that enjoy camping Tarren Mill for no reason (since they sure as hell don’t get honor for it) to have to transfer continents just sos I can level up enough to defend my self takes much of the fun out of the game.

I can expect many a derisive comments on being a care bear, but it stands to reason if I didn’t want to PVP I would not have tried it out on a PVP server. The over kill ratio I and any low levels have to deal with smacks of laziness not only from the programmers but also the players that get a kick out of one shotting level 20’s as they get off the bat in TM. Yeah I like to level in peace, I do also like the thrill of seeing a red labeled enemy approaching. However if I see a skull where their level should be I think to myself: “What are they getting out of this? A chance to tell their friends they got a 1550 arcane shot crit on a 23 mage?” That’s like me proclaiming in /gchat that I just got a 2500 ambush crit on a rat in Shattered Halls. This I actually did as a joke. Very few cared but it was a funny blurb. No new prestige was bestowed upon me for it. It was just something done off hand. This is what it seems be a re-occurring theme on PVP servers. “Get high enough so you can camp the lowest level PVP flagged area of the opposite faction so you can get back what was taken from you”. If I stick around on a PVP server long enough I can see me repeating this behavior and terrorizing the lobbies on the Alliance side. Well maybe for an hour or two, then it would get boring as a waste of time.

Again I hear people say this is how it is on PVP’s but I think it is a smokescreen put there by blizzard to control the idiots. Let them have there way on PVP’s so they don’t realize that they have a flawed PVP system. Blizzard knows they need restrictions on PVP. Why else would there be brackets in the PVP Battle Grounds. If level was not such an important thing then why don’t level 11s and 70s play in the same BG. “Oh but they do,’ you say,” It’s called the world of Azeroth across both continents and in the Outlands”

Bullshit. True PVP would have balance. I’m not talking a ‘rock, paper, scissors’’ approach. I’m talking a dynamic system where you can not attack a player that is so far below your level that battle would be decidedly one sided. They have made a measly attempt with the honor gained being only applicable with players being near each others level. (Not sure what the actual spread is as I haven’t PVP regularly since pre BC.) I still see level 60+ shepherding lower levels in PVP even though they can’t get dick for honor and I wonder if they even get the kill if it was a high level doing the killing. Even so they wouldn’t get near as many points per kill, if any, than if they manned up and took on some like level characters. I got real excited yesterday when I spotted a level 24 rogue of the opposite faction. I was quite willing to die for trying him out PVP. He decided to run and not even try me. I was the same level! Perhaps the prospect of a possible loss out weighs the certainty of a win if he was more then 10 levels higher.

What I want is PVP with like levels +/- 5 levels to make it interesting. I’m not talking a new BG or the old ones with the +/- 10 difference in levels. It is still a bit much since pros like to linger at the high end for maximum Honor gain and viability in those BGS. Maybe even a penalty for high levels ganking levels low enough to be a ridiculously one sided fight. I’m not talking Dishonorable Kills and point reduction. I’m talking a de-buff that shows how pathetic these people are. Something like:

Aura of the Ganker (Name subject to change)
Duration 1 hour
Causes all damage effects, spells and attacks to be 10% reduced for duration of aura.
Affects all party members whether or not they took part in the killing. (Leaving the group of a Ganker will remove the de-buff from all but the Ganker unless you were grouped with said Ganker for the kill and were within 50 yards of kill.
A yellow streak will appear on the back of the Ganker and those grouped with the Ganker for the Duration of the De-buff.
Multiple killings of Honorless lowbies will result in a brighter and bigger Yellow streak and will increase the de-buff by 10% for every kill after the first one for the duration of the de-buff. (Was 5% but I decided, in for a penny in for a pound.)
Cumulative for the duration of the de-buff.
Percentage of reduction based upon pre-de-buff stats. De-buff will go above 100% reduction. (So after 10 kills reduction is -100%. It can go higher. By the time you reach this level of cowardice you will only be a yellow streak rollin around the country side. )
*I reserve the right to edit this as I come up with a better de-buff scenario.
**I’ll prolly get zinged for the double hyphen.

This may not be that big a deterrent. I’m sure some would shoot for a de-buff where they can’t do enough damage to kill a rat. I’m just saying why not have something like the de-buff you get for leaving a BG early.

This has been a rant brought to you by the Idiot Gankers of Burning Legion camping Tarren Mill the entire week I had off to level my Belf Mage.

My New boy!!!

2007-04-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

Michael James born by C-Section, April 4, 2007 at 5:59pm PST. Weighing in at 7lbs.. 12 oz. and measuring 20 1/2 inches. Mom and baby are in excellent condition and are enjoying some rest. Hehe I have a new squishy to play with. My son and daughter are going to flipp when they meet him.

He comes with a few Abilities.

Racial Bonus:

Invunerable to Harm:
Instant Cast
1Year duration
1 Charge
Casues all cryings, wettings, dirty diapers, and collateral peeing on pops to have 0% aggro to parents. For the first 3 months a 25% aggro reduction(cumulative and will go below negative) is in place for every act stated above. (Ie. Everything is cute for the first 3 months) This aggro reduction helps in survival as the child grows.

Quick Wizz:
Instant Cast(Initial. Gains in level will increase cast times and legth of spell duration.)
30 sec cooldown (Unless there is a cold breeze then all bets are off.)
Gains on pick-up the skill to hit multiple targets with wiz before any other attacks. (No damage reduction possible. Always hits.)

Stat Bonuses:

+5 STA
-10 INT (Gains +5 every level regardless of itemization.)
-20 AGL (6 Month cooldown before becoming +20)
+10 SPR (Gains +5 every week for 6 months then......it goes off the charts)
+30K ARMOR (Cuz theys gotto get through me first!)

Gitr: A Name Brand?

2007-03-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

A question posed by my GM on his blog got me to thinking about names. Instead of responding on his site I figures it would make a good post on mine since I got kinda carried away in the responding.

I had quite a few Unique names when I was playing Diablo 2 and later LOD. I was only able to bring over a few of those names since most violated naming conventions in wow. Example:

89lvl Sorceress named TaintedBeef. Also a lower level called LabiaSlayer.
There were a few other nasty names nothing too contrived. Most had some basis in the character in some way.

The name Manbeast is a name I earned playing Halo and was my first character in WOW.
Lvl20 Human Warrior now.

I also had a Barbarian named Jolygreen.

Jolygreen is a nickname I got in high school because of my height and cool head. I have used this name on several toons in wow, 3 hunters over 3 servers. The highest being my 1st real Main that I stopped playing to level Mindkiller.

I’ve played my Gnome Mindkiller the longest of any character expect my main from Diablo 2.
I played a warewolf Druid name Dinosupreme for a good 2 years before I switched to WOW. Got his booty to 82 before I just started screwing around. Nothing like being able to hit for 25k-35k a hit (Un-hacked on closed server BTW)

Mindkiller has become my new nick, my brand I suppose, since none of my current friends, in game or out, really don’t know me as anything else.

Mindkiller was something I made up for the rogue. It seems to fit the way I play to. I make sure casters can't cast. Killing their minds. Not sure I want to take it into other classes:

Warrior = Lifekiller...Bodykiller....Moneykiller meh
Mage = Manakiller....Bunnykiller....Sheepkiller
Druid = Oilcompanykiller....got nothin else here.
Shaman = See above.
Hunter = Easykiller....Farkiller(Nice)....AnimalBane(had to throw that one in)
Preist = Buzzkiller....Facekiller
Paladin = Funkiller....Timekiller....
Warlock = Allkiller....BGkiller....
Meh I think most of these can die a quick death and no one would care.

Gitr’s question was about brand names and how perhaps your name could become your brand, your stamp on the internet commuities you freaquent. I guess it boils down to how much importance you place on people being able to identify you. Also the amount of time you wish to be refered by such a moniker. We live in a time where we can and do choose what people call us. Our names have started to go back to the times when our proffesions or appearence WERE are names. This could be a good thing, especially for those of us named things like Theodore or...whatever.

I have chosen to go with Mindkiller for however long I am apart of this community. As for Gitr and his identy crisis, he will prolly always incorporate the ‘r’ into the name of his sig. So I guess ‘r’ would be his brand no matter what it is attached to.

How to make money in WOW AH

2007-03-06T15:35:00.000-08:00

Money making in the World of Warcraft MMORPG is a touchy subject for most people. There are those who closely guard their secrets from all comers. I am not one of those. I will tell you how I make money as close as I remember it.

Seed money:

Seed money is important. I will say it over and over again if I have to;”You need money to make money”. Whether it is for repairs or supplies to do instance farming or for the more risky (yet profitable) AH investing. I will focus this essay on the AH investing as any moron with a toon can farm instances. Though in order to get the money needed to invest you will need to farm.

Instances are good for sellable items. Be it armor or weapons that can’t be used by you or materials for skill professions. Items with white names are useable by some profession. Keep the ones that stack and research the ones that do not. Who knows the white axe might be an ingredient in some Uber Axe of Death and sell for a good amount of gold/silver. If in doubt save those white items till you can get to an AH and check if they are for sale there. Some won’t be as lucrative as the greens and blues and such but can be a decent income just the same. Selling higher end vender trash is important. Keep an eye out for the money you get from certain items and try to load up on those and get rid of the items that are worth less. Seems obvious but not everyone knows or takes note of the prices received for things. Having trouble remembering? Use a notepad, I do. Before I got a real notepad there were little post-its all over my desk as well as little pieces of paper with tidbits of info on them. They aren’t important now but for important things you might as well have them near and in the same venue, i.e. notebook.

So sell everything you won’t use and keep an eye out for lucrative items. (Normal trash)

Well now you have some money and need more, but grinding for it is not what you want to do today. Well here are a few things to do.

Investing in the AH:

The best way to get some nice constant cash flowing into your coffers is to anticipate the market. How you ask? Well when is the most items bought?

Weekends.

Yup, people play the most on weekends. This is your time for selling ingredients to other people’s trades. It’s also the time when people are impatient. They want get some stuff made so they can raid or quest or put stuff up on the AH themselves. Here’s where you can make a little cash off people’s greed and impatience.

Regents and ingredients to various recipes.

Getting an idea of what people use the most just takes a little common sense. Alchemists will always need herbs even if they harvest themselves. You can never have enough regents for potions. Other trades need a lot of metal so ore can be a good money maker too. Blacksmiths, engineers, leather workers, and even alchemists all use some metal in their skills.

Harvesting herbs and mining ore are real good money makers. Spending as little as one hour or two dedicated to just harvesting will turn you a big profit. Placing these trade goods on the AH and undercutting the lowest just a little will get your stuff sold. Bear in mind that going too low will hurt your chances of getting a good return on your time. If there seems to be a whole lot of a certain type of trade good switch to another and hold what you have. Eventually there will be a shortage and the prices will sky rocket. In the case of flooded and depressed prices, taking a few of the lowest buyouts and saving them for later can net you some profit. That’s if you can spare the money to do so.

Items Required for a Trade Skill or a Quest:

There are a few items made by profession skills that are required for other professions. Such as rods made by blacksmiths are needed in enchanting or goblin rocket fuel is needed in goblin engineering. These types of items will always be sought after by players in these trades. Investing in making these items available will provide a steady income. Knowing a few of the quest related items needed for completion of quests can supplement any income. Such as copper tubes or delicate arcanite converters. Both are needed for certain quests.

Quick Cash:

If you are looking for real quick turnover on items, undercut up to fifty percent off of the lowest buyout, unless of coarse this doesn’t even get you a return on the deposit price. If you can’t get more then the deposit price on an item just sell it to a vender.

Picking an item in demand all the time can give you a constant inflow of cash. There will always be a need for smelted ores of various types, or raw ores for that matter, this will not go away ever. Herbs are also never going to go out of style.

Know Your Customer’s Needs:

Another way to get money is to know what regents are needed for the beginning levels of some trade skills and focus on gathering for those. Some high levels switch trades and need these regents to skill up. They will also more likely pay for those regents then go out and collect them. They will also be able to afford a bit more. The same pricing strategy will hold true though, they will go for the lowest pricing for the biggest amount. Note: knowing how much of a regent is needed for certain recipes and packaging the regent with just enough for those spells will increase your chances of a snap sale.

Knowing what sells all the time regardless of the pricing can net enormous amounts of money. Like the ingredients needed for the higher end enchants. Like agility enchants or the higher life and mana chest enchants.

Buy low sell high:

Pricing rare items and recipes or anything for that matter can occasionally turn up some one’s mistake. Perhaps they didn’t know that the Uber Killing Sword of Death is worth fifty gold and instead are selling it for one. Snapping up sales like this can turn in to big money. Turn around and sell them while under-cutting the lowest buy outs. This could also back fire, so be careful of deals that look too good. Take the time to look at the bid/buyout of the items you think are a really good deal. Some try to catch those tired people bidding on items late at night but putting a cheapy item up with a huge buyout and hoping some one will click on it.

Hard to reach Vender Recipes:

There are many places where people over look a vender, either for not having what they want or not having anything at all. Some vender sold items are on a limited basis with short and long respawn rates. Getting to know these instances and taking advantage of this can net a five to six hundred percent profit. If you can make it to these hard to reach stores, you are now providing a service and should be compensated for it in the price of the items. The difficulty in getting the items has an understandable impact on the price of an item. Research what is available on the AH in this regard and seek to fill that lack.

Playing The AH:

Another aspect of the AH is price, just like in the real world, is driven by supply and demand.

High demand + low supply = high price

Low demand + high supply = low price

If there is a glut on the market, buying a few of the lowest priced items can raise the pricing overall. People not using price tracking won’t know that a few hours ago the prices were lower. They will try to undercut the new lowest bids. So can you. You might not make much more then what you paid for the items but you can control the pricing in a small way. This is where saving items till the glut has passed would work.

Auction Friendly Player Made Items:

A lot of people pick there professions based on an idea; I can sell what I make for money. This is true for the most part. People will buy stuff they need rather then make it themselves or go and find something better by grinding. Knowing what people will use is hard, but can be inferred by looking at what kinds of characters are prevalent. Rogues and druids will use leather armors. Warriors and paladins use mail and plate. Mages and warlocks use cloth all the way through to level sixty. Hunters use leather then mail after level forty. Knowing that a few hunters, warriors and paladins will be looking for new armor soon can help you maneuver to fill that need. Just placing items that are attractive to certain classes will get you some cash. Understanding what stat bonuses are wanted by each class will give a clearer view of what to put up for auction.

Getting into a good habit of checking prices on the AH will over time give you a great understanding of the way prices fluctuate. It all depends on the time of day and time of the week. Any world event happening can also affect the prices. Keying your auctions toward predictable price fluctuations can be easy but requires a broad world view. Keeping an eye out for groups going to the higher dungeons will mean they will probably need potions and regents. Playing on that can and will pay off. Knowing when the fair will be in town can help. If you know people are doing turn-in quests for reputation provide the items for those at reduced prices.
You can make money by just paying attention and using common sense. People will always need certain items and be willing to pay for them. I will not get into providing services as I have yet to delve into the too much. I know I will once I have a marketable and in demand skill to sell.

Being specific won’t help here until I get some real time down on certain items. This is just a broad outline of things to think about when you are trying to make money. The market fluctuates so much that there is not going to be any particular items that will always sell for big money. This is often times because when people see an item going for a lot of gold they will take the time to farm their own supply to cash in on the pricings. Be sure to never put more then 3 or 4 of any particular item up. Make it seem that they are limited. Pricing can be regulated this way. If too many of one item is up for sale it reduces the prices for that item. It makes it seem that the item is easy to come by. People will then wait for a better deal to come along. Scarcity is your fiend when playing the AH.

Epic Flying Mount Fund Update

2007-03-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

Woot Money Money Money.

I have reached the nice chunky plateau of 1500g. I make the most of my money by mining/selling ore and primals. Some serious cash here. Primal earths are ok for some small change, but the real money is in Primal air, waters, fires, and manas. Not sure about the shadows, but since I have yet to make a single primal shadow this can wait.
Adamantite and fell iron sell really well. I keep all the eternium I have for making fel steel, it seems to do well too. I also dip into Azeroth for some thorium. It has skyrocketed since the BC; no one is mining it any more. Where it used to be a few gold for a stack of ore is now going for 20+ gold. Crazy shit man.

I got myself a 20 slot mining bag for those extended mining forays. I have yet to make a real effort to crank out some serious mining time. It’s mostly been a few sessions of me going some place and finding a spot on the way for some quick nodes to hit. I was also putting a lot of enchanting mats up with a DE’n alt. That changed when I found out that the mats I was selling are a key component in Imbued Netherweave Bags. I wants me some of these. I know I would be able to make a killing on the bags if I farm most of the mats. Doing this will prolly not last as I can do the mining thing so much easier and gain ridiculous amounts of cash. Plus the often dropped raw gems net me some nice pocket change sometimes. This is just what I’m doin in the spare time I have in between questing. I will post a better take on how to make money.

Instance runs FTW!

2007-03-02T15:19:00.001-08:00

I will now put down my first runs though the first 4 instances I have run in the outlands.

I didn’t even get to run my first instance till I was 64. Then I finally got a spot in a ramparts run. Let me tell you I love the new format for the dungeons. Blizzard really did a good job with making the instances accessible to all and easily learned. At least the first few ones are. Not to sure about any past the slave pens.

The layout of ramparts is pretty basic. It forms a spiral with the last bosses being at the top and end of the spiral. Basic CC and high dps will see you though to the first boss and his buddies. He goes down pretty easy. You just have to watch out for his adds and not to tank him too close to the mobs farther in. I didn’t have too much difficulty staying alive thanks to some decent healing and a boat load of +sta on my gear. We progressed pretty fast through the ramparts and made it to the last platform in about 45 minutes. I remember asking the higher level who had run this a few times “How close are we to the end?” He states “about 10 minutes.” That’s just crazy yall we did a complete run in like 1 hour. We wiped once on the dragon boss because our tank did not know to get out of the fire. Second time we owned the dragon. The demon boss isn’t even worth mentioning he was so easy. We blasted through so fast we decided to hit the Blood furnace afterwards.

Blood Furnace rocks the hell. It is a beautiful instance with a crap load of detail. I really liked that it was a step up in difficulty and challenge. Just enough for you to screw up a few times but learn with out it being a huge loss of time. We did wipe a few times mostly from mistakes having to do with aggroing to many at once. We also wiped at the Door event when we were unable to take down one rooms add before the next opened up. We got through it the second time and were ready for the Floating eyeball dude. I think we wiped on him from the gas rings he puts out but I can’t remember. We got past him (second attempt?) and preceded down the spiral to the last boss. I realized I kept hearing some guy bitchin about being held captive. I asked the guide what it was I heard and he told me it was Megtheridon: The 25 mad raid in Hellfire Citadel. He was under us yall squirmin to get out and kill the ones holding him. Nice touch there. We make out way down to the boss watching for the stealthed rogues. Hehe these guys were fun to take down . I was high enough that I could spot them before they aggrod the group. All the way down we plow through the mobs till we reach the lower circular chamber. The last boss is surrounded by like 6 or 7 adds that have to be taking down first before battling the boss. Get this…the boss was a squishy. So were his adds. They all went down like a ton of bricks in no time. Boss lasted about as long as one of the adds. TOO MUCH DPS. Not.

Here’s another thing I liked about the new instances. The quick exits. Ramparts had a drop down to the entrance while ht Furnace has a long straight hallway to the entrance that only opens up when the last boss is killed. They made it so you could hit the instance as many times as you want and not have to deal with a huge walk back to the entrance. WTG BLIZZARD!

About a week after I got into the Furnace I was invited to go along with a group to the Underbog. This was a disaster as we did not have priest or a viable tank. We struggled all the way to the first boss Hungerfen. We wiped 4 times on this guy because the tank would not make big enough circles to got out of rang of the exploding mushrooms. When we finally got him down most were ready to call it a night. I just wanted out of there so I rolled out. I will need to go back there eventually jus for some quests and I would like to see it all the way to the end.

Last night I went to the slave pens. I think I will like this one too. Mobs are spaced so you don’t have to be too careful just careful of fear effects and kicks. Unfortunately I had to leave after 30 minutes do to real life drahma. This is a very doable instance and I think will be a lot of fun. I will update this in later posts as I explore these dungeons better

I feel like gabbin....alot.

2007-03-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

It has been over a month since I deemed anything worthy of my time to write in this blog. I think I will try to crank out a few entries as I have had quite a few experiences. I’m gonna list some things I want to write about here so I don’t forget them.

First Ramparts run.
First Blood Furnace run.
First Underbog run
First Slave pens/partial due to RL commitments

Money
Quest for the Epic flyer.
Money makers I’m using (maybe, if they stay consistent)

Questing in out lands:
Hellfire, Zangermarsh, Terrokar Forest, Nagrand.

I started 2 new alts over the last month in order to get all the new content. I sparked up a Draeni Shaman and a Blood Elf Rogue. (The Rogue is on a PVP server so I can play with a Blogger Named Gitr) These 2 chars also are accompanied by my wife’s 2 new chars, a Draeni Warrior and a Blood Elf Mage. We are both part of a new guild on the PVP server. The guild is called Buttered Monkeys. I have never played on a PVP. Should be interesting. We have advanced our characters on the PVP server to almost 18. A few more levels and we will have to leave the safe area and venture out into the world where evil Alliance waits to gank the lowbies.

We also started some Draeni and hoofed them up to 14. I really like the shaman. I will have to practice a lot in order to not pull aggro from other player, AKA my wife’s warrior. I went with a healing build initially so I can help with the leveling. I sit back and heal with the occasional lightning strike. I still can manage to pull aggro if I’m not careful. It will take me some time to get back into a back line combatant role. Once she is able to get and hold aggo better I can start to lay on the damage.

I have reached 67 and am halfway to 68 on Mindkiller. Time spent is lost among the ether, no idea how long it has taken me. I do know that if I had the time to dedicate I could have reached 70 with in 2 weeks easy. Not because I’m that good but because of the abundance of solo able and easily group able quests available in the outlands. I did the majority of my leveling solo. Not by choice but by circumstances. I was late off the mark due to not having the BC. So I was a week behind everyone. With some real life issues I was and still am limited in my play time. I do however enjoy very much the new WoW. Very well done. I have purified the darkness in Hellfire, weeded all the evil from Zangermarsh., cut down my share of baddies in Terrokar Forrest, and hunted the beasts close to extinction in Nagrand. I will say this place is smoking hot with quests and things to see. Can’t wait to see it all.

I like chahhhhclate milk.

2007-01-26T12:35:00.000-08:00

I have the expansion!!
One of my guildies had offered a solution to our cash flow problem.
At his job he gets free swag from local venders and corporate sponsors as well as stuff from his own company. One of the things he had received was a Gift card for a video game store. It had over one hundred dollars on it. He sent it to me an the wife expressly so we could get ourselves the BC. We happily agreed. Since these things have a time limit on them we wasted no time at all in running to the local store and scamin a few copies. I even grabbed the strategy guide just for giggles and I like those sorts of things. I thank you my friend and I will not turn down an opportunity to help you out in any way in game or out of it.

I have been in the outland for about 6 hours total at this point and am real close to hitting sixty-one. I have made over one hundred gold just from trash, quests and quest rewards that I can’t/won’t use. I see me having no trouble at all getting to afford the flying mount or even the epic flying mount. With my ability to grind out cash all I need now is a working understanding of the best available trash and where it is. This will come in time I’m sure so I will not be rushing it.

I am finding myself overwhelmed by the sheer number of quests in just the first area. Sure a lot are kill quests and chains but a few are more of the stuff I enjoy, like the “go here and pick this up and bring it back”. The bombing runs are the shizznit and I see myself hitting those over and over again for the fun of it. Too bad they don’t give rep or a small amount of coin. Thinking more about it they could have made the bombing run timed and if you can beat your time over and over again you should get a money reward and maybe some lewt. Hell even a hat or goggles that say you are a master bomber or something would be sweet. I like that there are in place guns and defenders of fortifications of all kinds here it really sets the mood of a grand fight for survival.

I also like the feeling of danger everywhere. The “in jeopardy’ vibe I get from the area is palpable. There is at almost no time, even in the “safe” city that you can get away from the feeling of being under attack and in a hostile environment. I do feel it has given a good mix of solo-able content and the more group-necessary content. That there is a real possibility of soloing it all the way to seventy is plain. I sure don’t want to do that but I can if I so decide to do so.

I have already replaced a lot of my armor and let me tell you, a blue chest piece I got from a quest is a ridiculously powerful item. It has double the t2 armor I think. It was also more juicy then the PVP chest epic. Crazy shit. I have yet to see a dagger worthy of replacing my Lobotomizer, but I have seen a few candidates for my off hand Thunderwood poker. I went back to this from the Electrified dagger since the proc wasn’t hitting often enough for it to be worth it. With all the new chunky stats on the new armors I have some crazy armor and stamina now I’m almost to 4k health un-buffed!! Although in the outlands where things hit harder I guess it balances out some. I am sure I will be hitting sixty one tonight and perhaps sixty-two tomorrow. At least I will try for it. I look forward to running the first new instance this weekend if I can as well.

Mordeh on the rise. Heffasita close behind.

2007-01-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Man what a fickle person I am. Until I can get me a copy of the BC I will be playing very little of my Rogue. I will use him for farming mats and such.

I have bee working on leveling my Warlock Mordeh. He is close to level 27 right now. I am so enjoying it. I got a hold of a macro made for grinding and it is working so well. I have been able to burn down as many as 8 mobs an just a few minutes. I’m talking 8 mobs in like less then 3 minutes fast. I can’t imagine the speed I can achieve if I was to just sit and blast through the quests especially the kill quests. I don’t think I will have too much trouble with elites as well since I can just spam out the curses, have Blue tank until he is dead then chain fear the mob. I did this on a level 26+ elite mob and survived with just one hit to me. I think he will keep me sharp for using the priest since both are squishes and need care taken not to get hit too much.

I have been able to level my priest Heffasita to level 20. It only took a few days of work and a lot of patience. I may even get to like it as a shadow priest. We will see. I also got her enchanting up to the next max of 225 and will need to level her to 35 and do an Uldamun run to get her the next levels/recipes. This will prolly wait a while and can. She only needed to be 225 to DE all the stuff up to level 60 items. If I find I have a lot of drops with Mindkiller after I get into the Outland then I will consider leveling her up to the required level. I will prolly be able to make a double box effort with my rogue as the clearing character while the priest tags along for the ride. It will most likely be cake and if I can get some guildies to help it will be that much faster.

Epics will not be shown today on account of BC.

2007-01-18T10:10:00.000-08:00

Once again I have been slow of the mark. As I geared up for a long haul up the honor hill the Burning Crusade Expansion rolls out. On time and without too many hitches. Now the BGs are ghost towns. With barely enough people for a single game, or at off peak no BGs at all. So I am stuck with a huge stack of AB tokens I will most likely never use and a whole mess of game time wasted. Yes wasted as the fun was minimal to nonexistent and the reward nil. I have not gotten one reward since the new change to the PVP system. If it is possible to earn honor in the BC maybe I will be ok. It all depends on when I get me a copy of the exp. I will plow up to level 61 and see if the new bracket has any life in the BGs. I have seen some amazing loot drop for guildies and the quest rewards while not spectacular are level appropriate for when new 58-60s get into the Outlands. So I will most likely be shelving Mindkiller and playing my alts until I get me a copy. I have been meaning to level my enchanter to 20 so she can DE the loot I get with Mindkiller.

Very depressed I have no money to spend on my addiction.

Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory.....Epics mmmm.

2007-01-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

It seems my updating is getting more and more lax. I will try to do better I promise. (As if any one is actually reading this.)

I took a bit of time to grab as much cash as I could so I could learn to ride the Epik mount I had sitting in storage. It took me about a week and a half to farm up the 450g I needed to get the training. Not to bad I think. After I spent that, money just started flying in much faster then it had when I needed it. Oh well. The money will go toward good things for me any way.

I have made it to Exalted with Darnassus on Mindkiller. I got a jones over the new years weekend and decided top slam out some Elf quests. With the boost to rep being applied I just planted myself at the Nelf starting area and blew through all the quests available to me. I was getting an average of 250 rep points per quest. I started out with 1500 in Honored and blasted my way to 16770 in revered. After that I did a few other quests around felwood which pushed me real close to the mark. After buying 60g worth of runecloth I dinged EXALTED and ran over to pick up my brand new Mistsaber Mount. This was a piece of cake. I hope rep is as easy to get in the BC as it looks to be a major necessity to doing dungeons and gaining rewards.

I wasn’t really interested in doing PVP until I saw a post about how the GM weapons will last awhile in the BC. So I started to collect the required AB tokens about a week ago. This is going to get grueling. I am up to 40/80 AB tokens so halfway to my goal. I’m aiming for a GM sword, dagger and the kick ass X-bow. I do more damage per hit with my bow then with my melee. Sad. I may even shoot for the shoulders and anew helmet depending on how well I can accumulate honor. If it drags on I will cut my losses and go for the weapons. I am not sure what the BC will do to the AV and AB matches. I am hoping they will still be ok population wise but who knows. I just can’t see everyone getting a copy of the BC on or near the opening date. So honor gain might slow down to a crawl. It’s something I keep thinking about. Will this all be worth it if I keep at it long enough? I didn’t get on the PVP wagon when it changed. I was fresh off of the grind to Exalted with SP and gaining Knight rank before the changes. I was burned out on PVP so I missed the huge head start most got before hey nerfed the amount of honor gained per match/kill. Stupid me, now I'm paying for it. I don’t see that I will have much to do till I get me a copy of the BC. PVP will be my focus for awhile again till February. Maybe I’ll get my hands on a copy then.

Much to discuss there is. Hhhmm?

2006-11-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

It has been awhile since I updated this journal. That seems to be what this has turned into. It is a way for me to remember that life and times of the characters I play as well as a good fall back to help me pick back up the threads of the adventure for each individual. So it screams obvious that I rarely play my hunter any more or for that matter my mage. I think unless I have some one to run with them I will not likely get them any higher in level. I get too much of a kick out of my Rogue. He seems to rock at anything I attempt. I have all sort of cool thingies to do to control an enemy. Course the other classes do too but as I haven’t played them near as much as this guy I would have to relearn all the skill related to each character. That might be why it is so hard to go back to these characters that I enjoyed playing so much. The relearning of skill usage and tactics related to soloing. I have been real successful in soloing with my hunter and rogue. I have seen real good mages solo to 60 and be massive grinders, but I can seem to get that hang. I always end up dying horribly trying to take on mobs that I could easily handle on the other characters. Though they all had much more armor and life and could get out of trouble much easier. Well enough of the self pity. Time for update.

I have been 60 for at leas 2 months now. I have raided ZG, AQ20 (once), Molten Core, UBRS, and LBRS. I will say that ZG is the most fun of all the places I have been so far. The feel of the place is like a caged animal waiting to be unleashed onto unsuspecting victims. Even the layout tells of danger around every corner. Yet you never really feel like the next trash mob is gonna wipe the party unless you go in with less then 12 people or so. The fact that each boss can be skipped if wanted or done in what ever order preferred makes for a nice relaxing dungeon crawl without the gloomy walls and dark corners. This is not to say it is not challenging. All the bosses require strategy and correct placement of people with the necessary spells and skills. Still going in after the first time still has a nice fun aspect to it and as long as the sloppiness is kept minimal a decent party can come away with some nice rep and items for a few hours spent. I will always try to be in on the ZG runs just for the fun of this place.

AQ20 is just plain mean. They did a good job of making this instance a battle that can only be won with practice and knowledge. The one time I went we made it to the second area just after Kurinaxx. We never made it past 3 waves of baddies. I think the guild went back once or twice but we haven’t returned since. We seem to be focusing on MC, ONY and ZG, which is fine at least we have focus and aren’t trying to bite off too much.

MC has got a nice “In Peril” feel to it that I will assume goes away once enough people have their resists and armor level up. All the mobs seem to have a huge aggro radius and have no shame in running your ass down to smack it flat. I went and made sure that for the second MC run I was in I had completed a certain quest chain as far as possible so I could get even further and will be ready when we can make it to Majordomo and Rags. In MC we have managed to take down all bosses up to and including Gar. Not bad for a guild just beginning to field 40+ lvl 60 players. We have been running with some members of another guild and their experience is freely passed onto us. We in turn make sure they have as much a chance at loot as we do. I.e. dkp is earned by guildies but not spent on guild sanctioned runs with the visiting guidies. This means we will earn dkp but still get to roll on items for our classes or universal loot. Essentially giving us twice the chances for loot. All mat items are split and extras are rolled for by one member of each guild. Most time the visiting guildie will pass on the extras. They seem a great group of people and I do enjoy running with them.

We also have been hitting up Onyxia and have been handed our asses it seems. I do not know how far we have progressed in the battle with her as I have not attended any of the raids. I finished my attunement to Ony last week but due to real life responsibilities I had to skip this week’s attempt. Maybe next week.

We seem to be focusing on MC, ONY and ZG, which is fine at least we have focus and aren’t trying to bite off too much.

I have been hitting AV pretty hard these past few weeks in an effort to get exalted with Stormpike and a knight rank. This last weekend was the last AV weekend and it pushed me well into knight as well as got me to exalted +999 with Stormpike. SO I went and bought me some nice epics before they become out of reach. I got me the Lobotomiser and a Don Julio’s Band as well as the Stormpike Battle mount which I can’t use yet until I train Epic riding. Also for being that high on the rep I got the Insignia Rank 6 which is very nice. With all that I am up to four epics. I’m not a loot whore but all of these I earned my self with out the help of guildies and pugs. Solo baby. I would have welcomed all the help I could get but I really didn’t need it for these particular gems. So I am looking forward to the next patch knowing that I have all the pretties I want until BC get loaded up on my puter. Any fat lewts I received till then will be icing on the cake for me. After BC drops I will be hittin the Outland and plowing through those nice reward quests and killing the shit outta the new dungeons.

Level 60 on Mindkiller.

2006-10-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

I have been sixty for almost a month now. It didn’t take me too long to level those last two levels. Funny thing it they were supposed to be the hardest levels to finish. I actually got from fifty-eight to sixty in less time then it took to get to fifty-eight from fifty. I hit the Eastern Plaguelands for the last six bars of fifty-nine and in less then forty-five minutes I dinged sixty.

I hit AV for a few days for rank and rep with Stormpike. I managed to achieve rank five and hit revered with SP. Now some serious up hill time for exalted + 999 rep for the rank six insignia. I was going to save up for the lobotomizer, but now it looks like it wouldn’t be as good as some decent greens coming with the BC exp. I will still try for exalted and knight rank just for the joy of being there. I may also start the grind for Argent Dawn rep so if my guild ever decides to hit up Naxx I will be able to go.

I have been in on a single Molten Core run and it was ok. I’m not sure I was doing anything in particular while I was there. I seemed to only be a leech on the healers and not producing too much on the damage side. I also have been to Upper Blackrock Spire and I find that much more fun. I can see my affect on the mobs clearly and know I’m contributing to the group. I hit up a ZG run last night too and got to take a shot at the snake and bat bosses. I was called upon to be a key player in the bat boss as it was the rogues’ job to stop her from healing herself. I think that battle would have gone smoother with one more healer and one more rogue, but hey, we one-shotted the snake and two-shotted the bat. I had to bow out as it was late in the day and time for bed for me. I still haven’t seen AQ yet maybe next time my guild runs it I’ll be able to attend.

I have been loving the gold I now get from completing quests. Since I don’t get exp any more I have been raking it the gold. I have more money then I’ve had since I bought my mount at forty. I still haven’t decided whether or not I will spring for my epic mount or just slum it till I accumulate so much money it wont matter to drop eight hundred gold for the swift Chicken mount. Hell I may just go for the AV ram mount as that is a little more attractive to me and won’t have that annoying mechanical sound all the time.

I have had an idea. Drop engineering for enchanting and farm the lower instances with Mindkiller the Deadly Gnome Rogue for shards and stuff. I know I can take on anything below Scarlet monastery and I can easily solo all four wings of SM for blues. I have an enchanter priest but she will prolly never get out of her twenties as it is so tedious to solo her, however I have a nice little gnome warlock that’s up-and-coming.

I am digging this little guy, he dies a lot but that’s only frustrating when I am almost done with the quest I’m on. I have gotten him to level seventeen and am still getting the hang of managing his aggro. That will come in time. I have him skinning and herbalism since both my skinner and my herbalist are on the other account and inaccessible most of the time to me. I may change him to an enchanter. It depends on the profitability of herbs/leather/shards. I will have to research the difference to maximize the money I can make. I am trying to find the right mix so I can have a total money maker that is geared for profit so to fund other things on the other characters. The more I think about it being an enchanter for the DE skill and farming then higher herbs will prolly net the most cash. It will have to be a combination of Enchanter/Herbalist or Enchanter/Skinner. I know the shards and stuff will always sell and with the jewel crafting needing some dusts from DEing it will be scalable in the BC. Leather might be more of a slow build money maker while herbs and shards are just flying out the AH. I won’t be able to rely on money from quests, although the amount of money we are to get from quests in the BC seemed to be increased quite a bit. I found a nice place to grind for some decent loot. I made sixty gold off of the items I found there and can make more if I just put in the time. We shall see how that goes.

Level 58 and damn is my quest log full!!!

2006-09-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

I have made it to level fifty-eight since the last post. I managed to plow though the last 2 levels and have only four bars to go to fifty-eight. I then didn’t get back on for a few days and ended up with six bars of rested exp to play with.

I got lucky when I logged back in on the latter part of fifty-seven. There was a BRD run staring up for an attempt at JailBreak!. I figured it would be good exp so I tagged along. Half way through clearing the prison area I dinged fifty-eight. I was surprised as I stopped watching the bar as soon as we started the run. Now only two levels separate me from the magic level sixty!

I have a damn near full quest log and I am hoping to get them mostly knocked out this weekend. I really want to kill the Mara Princess for the nice bow quest reward. I think that just the quests I have will get me close to fifty-nine if not all the way to it. I have decided to start the long process of upgrading my shadowcraft pieces to the darkmantle set. I got the fist quest already. We will see how this goes. I still need to do the last rogue quest though the reward will only be exp and money as the rewards are crap compared to the stuff I already have.

I will most likely be spending a lot of time in AV this weekend as it rumored to be the double weekend this time around. I hope so since I have decided to go for Knight as well as my goal to exalted with stormpike. I will be balancing those 2 goals with the need to farm some cash as I spent a large chunk of money for an arcane crystal and a little plan for the Arcanite Dragonling. I got the both of them for around seventy gold off of the AH. Good thing too as the crystals skyrocketed in price the day after I bought mine. It was the first time I have seen the plan go for that little. They usually went for over ninety to one hundred twenty-five.

I also had a guildie transmute the arcane crystal and a thorium into my first arcanite bar. Whoohoo only seven more crystals and I can make the damn thing.

I have been seriously considering switching my professions. Like dropping one and picking up skinning just for the huge cash flow I can get. Engineering isn’t a real money maker, the slow turnover, even on quest items makes it no be cost effective to me. Though I would have to give up all the cool explosives…..which I really don't use much anyway.
I keep thinking about the amount of money I put into making this engineer and I cringe at loosing all that time and in game money investment.
I may one day tire of it then I can make the big bucks.
Perhaps I just need to level my second hunter so I can play him and use him for skinning. Oh well I shall see. I just had a crazy idea, Start a warlock. Yeah, besides a paladin it is the only class I haven’t played really extensively. I have seen a well played warlock kick some serious ass. I may have to check that out this weekend too…. If I remember that is. Gonna be a busy weekend but I shall prevail. I hope.

Time passes and life gains wisdom.

2006-09-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

It been awhile since I have updated this blog. Mostly because I have been so busy with work and actually playing. I am on the downhill (almost) crawl to level sixty. I have made my way to level fifty-four since I last wrote up something here. Updating on the events last posted:
Edit: I took to long to finish this post so now I am one bar (rested) away from 56.

I managed to get the full 320 deviate fishes and made a nice chunk of change on them. Took almost 30 minutes to cook all the fishes too. I made about eighty gold on that insanity. It was worth it though. Near the end stacks I got into a price war with a regular fisher if the fishes. I got the price down to two and a half gold per stack of twenty. Heh. I kinda screamed through levels forty-five to fifty mostly hitting as many quests as I could mixed with a few ZF runs. One night we hit ZF seven times in a row so a guildy could get his complete Sul’thras sword set. (Prolly wrong name). Anyway it’s the two piece sword set that can be joined into a single blade of Killing Stuff Badd. He was stoked and the rest of the group were glad to be of help. I still run with the guy. Only problem happened when he accidently joined them before he was level fifty. So he had to wait until then to use the Uber sword. I have really expanded my areas of questing. I’ve been to Un’goro, Azshara, Searing Gorge, Felwood, and Winterspring. I even have been able to dip into the Blasted Lands and Burning Steps. I find I like Felwood the most next to Azshara just for the runecloth drops and the felcloth possibilities. My new favorite home for the next few levels will probably be Searing gorge. Good grinding spots and easy access to BRD, LBRS, UBRS. When I came here I was level fifty-three and only a few bars shy of have a level. After knocking out eight quests in a single night I leveled to fifty-four. Now I’m sitting pretty on two pieces of Shadowcraft. Soon I will be organizing a run into BRD for a few quests there as well as a recipe for the repair bot and the ability to smelt dark iron. I can’t wait for the weekend to come.

I have been tying out the BGs at the high levels and I have found a new home in the Alterac Valley Battle Ground. The few times I played last weekend has allowed me to become a corporal finally. I think if I just play a few AVs I can make sergeant and keep it till the expansion comes out. And the longest battle there so far was only forty-five minutes. I don’t even care about dieing anymore. I a just interested mostly in the reputation gain with stormpike. I wanna get exalted to I can start saving for the Lobotomizer dagger. That is my new obsession since I managed to pick up th3e epic dagger Gut Ripper for my main hand weapon. I likely this dagger, this thing his hard and fast and has a COH that doubles the damage on top of the poisons I use. Makes for some huge crits. I’m getting better at taking down casters. I actually took down a level sixty mage in AV solo. Sure I was below half life but being able to stop their spells is a nice way to get the jump on them. I have been getting some decent honor points it the BG but like I said I’m more into the rep for the long haul. I am really not looking forward to the Timbermaw and Thorium rep grinds. I’ll see if a really need those some day. Kinda thinking I wont. I don’t think they have recipes I need for my rogue. I just need really one more recipe for him to be complete…no wait two: The field repair bot and the Arcanite Dragonling. Yeah those will be all I need with the rogue. I have all skill except fishing maxed or above three hundred now (fishing 282/300 eng 310/315). Fishing just requires time and engineering I can wait on till I can afford it. I really want to be able to have the last engineering point be the one I will get from making the Dragonling. Silly I know but I gots me goals to achieve. I need to start finding enough arcane crystals to make eight arcanite bars. I may just buy them and ask a guildy to make the bars on commission, for the next sixteen to twenty days. I don’t know the cool down on arcanite so it might take longer for them. I will prolly level to fifty-six tonight without much work. There are a few more skills to buy. Whoohoo!

I really need to start some research into a level sixty rogue build. I know I could be doing what I do better. So I will be seeking guidance from the web and fellow guildies I might even try to ask a high level rogue from one of the leet guilds around on my server.

My Money Making Meglomaniac Mindkiller.

2006-08-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

Had a busy weekend. I fished my way up to two twenty-five this weekend and managed to complete the artesian fishing quest in about an hour and a half. Most of which was travel time. I had an escort to Feralas just in case of trouble. I remembered this being so much rougher last time I was here. I got the fishes I needed relatively fast. The longest attempt was the fish from the Desolace shore; it took almost thirty casts before the needed fish dropped. Too bad I couldn’t gain levels during this quest. I would have easily advanced to two thirty just from this quest. I have amassed a whopping one hundred thirty deviate fishes in my attempt to make big cash. I won’t stop until I have filled by back pack with sixteen stacks of the fishes. Cooking will take forever but hey I got time and thanks to some good drops and lucky spawns I have over fifty gold now to play with. This even after an AH raid to upgrade my equipment. I plan to place stacks of twenty on the AH for four gold and fifty silver per. The lowest price I have seen is been consistently five gold per stack of twenty. I managed to sell what ever I put up for the lowered price pretty quickly. I have also made back all the money I spent on the recipe and have turned a profit. Every time I place another stack I’m getting almost one hundred percent profit. All I’m spending is time and four and a half silver on the spices per stack. That will mean a little over one gold to cook and post all those stacks. Damn fine turn for cash there.

I am now halfway through level forty-four. I went back to STV and picked up a few quests that I had left for later. I knocked out the zanzil quest with some difficulty and also hit the money lender’s quest chain. Through these quests and a little grinding on some gorillas I got to forty-four.

Along the way to my fishing spots for the quest I picked up four quests in Swamp of Sorrows. They didn’t take too long and gave decent exp. So now I’m at the half way point to forty-five and once I get there I can train up my lock picking so I won’t have to turn away people with lockboxes over my skill level. Soon I can make even more money with picking. I need to get back down to Gadgetzan area and pick some more pirate pockets for some sturdy junk boxes. I wisely stocked piled a few (six) for the level up to forty four to train up my skill quickly. I will need a few more for when I reach forty-five. All this will be after I have achieved greatness in the providing of Savory Deviate Delights to the masses and reaped the great piles of dough they will bestow upon me. MWUAHAHAHAHA!!

Game progression 0, Money progression 0. Level 43 though.

2006-08-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

I made it to level forty-three on Mindkiller last night. I took awhile as I was more interested in making money then leveling. I have a few decent ways to make money now.

Ore seems to do well and has increased in prices over the last few weeks. Iron bars are ridiculously priced while mithril bars and ore seem to have a steady price range. Iron keeps bouncing from a single gold per stack of twenty to as much as four and a half gold for the same. So I have been busily seeking out any and all iron and mithril nodes. I sold a few of the mithril stacks I had been stock piling. I wasn’t using enough of them to keep so many in the bank. I made some decent gold off of them as well as the solid stones there too. I have made several attempts to farm a particular recipe in the Barrens for some time. Last night I had had enough and since I accumulated enough gold I just bought the recipe out right. For a whopping twenty-five gold the recipe for Savory Deviate Delight is now part of my cooking skills. I will be attempting to make back all that gold over the weekend. If I can fish enough of the deviates I can flood the market with low cost fish for a buying frenzy. I’ve already made three gold toward recouping the loss. I also got my fishing up to one hundred ten so I can use the Big Iron fishing Pole I farmed for awhile back. Makes a good weapon too. I might take a break from fishing after I reach one twenty-five and read the book to gain expert fishing and dip into the Wailing caverns for some greens and blues.

Last night I came across two rare spawns. A rare Yeti in Alterac Mountains and an elite hydra in the lake outside the wailing caverns. Both dropped a green item. The hydra dropped a two-handed sword that deals frost damage. I need to see of my hunter can use it and if it will be useful otherwise it is AH bound. I put up some goblin rocket fuel recipes on the AH they didn’t sell the first time but after a ten percent reduction in buy out they took off fast. I need to do a blue pearl run now that I have the deepdive helmet it will be a snap and I can prolly take out the elite guarding some of the spawns too.

I have been hitting SM a lot and now that I can hold my own there I kinda like it. I haven’t been going so often that its getting old and I try to find runs going to the different wings so it’s not always the same run. I would like to hit the grave yard again though but there never seems to be any one going there. It’s always the cathedral or the armory or the library. Hell it wouldn’t take too long to do the yard if there is a decent group running.

I took an idea form my wife recently. I started to advertise my lock picking skills for use by other players. Two more levels and I will be able to open any type of box in the game. In just a few minutes I can earn over five gold and people will come to me for service. I don’t expect tips but I do appreciate them. Especially when the tipper tips out one to two gold for a single box. I will never make as much as she will at this part since she does it naked (female night elf). I with my stunted gnome body don’t get that kind of love.

Spending money to make money.

2006-08-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

I took Mindkiller on a trip to a recipe vender last night and luck was with me as there were 4 high skill level recipes. I grabbed those and stuck around for a respawn. I got one more recipe before logging off for dinner. I came back a few hours later and there was a full respawn so I picked up three more recipes. With very little work I will make over 25g while only spending 4g, damn I’m good. I didn’t have anything pressing to do so I just posted a few of the recipes.

I got lucky when someone in my guild decided to do an SM run. I went with and found I was the only character over thirty-eight. I ended up tanking most of the time with my rogue. Too bad the hunters kept pulling before I had sapped anyone. They made it so our healers had to work way too hard to keep us alive. For some reason our leaders bear kept dying. I mean a lot. I don’t remember coat dying as much when he was thirty-eight or thirty-nine. Huh. I like to use my bear for tanking a lot so him surviving is important. Guess I’m a minority where it comes to pet management. I can manage Coats aggro just fine with using the buttons correctly. We only were able to do the armory. I had to get to bed. I will try again for a group there or RFD maybe. My wife says there is a decent blade there for rogues. Anyway I will have a lot more time tonight for playing as the laundry is all done and I have no plans for the evening, except to make dinner for me and the kids.

Before I logged I checked and saw that someone had already bid on one of the recipes. I was smart this time and marked it up five hundred times its worth. I also put a few of the recipes in the bank for later when these all sell. I think it was a really good time investment since I wasn’t playing then anyway. Might as well stay there and be in a position to farm again before getting back to the game.

Longtime play, notime blog

2006-08-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

I have achieved the magic 40th level I’m now mounted on a cheesy mechanical bird. I chose blue as it was the one color I hadn’t seen much of and it was the least gay of the choices. So with mind killer at 40 I went out to……..start another alt. Yeah I know pathetic. However since I can’t plat my dwarf hunter as often as I want I made another one. Thos guy is on my “wife’s” account.

I made a Dwarf Hunter with mining and blacksmithing. His name is Longarm. I can’t believe no one had this yet. My next choice would have been Bigiron. I chose blacksmithing cuz it was the only trade between the two of us not covered and I will be able to make spurs and most importantly eventually I can make some kick ass weapons. I made this char for the sole purpose of running with my wife’s alt and her friend’s alt. Only problem is I can level a hunter in half the time of the other classes. I know hunters pretty damn good I know what they are capable of taking down and how high a level gap I can use. Factor in that I prefer bears above all other pets, I have a tank on call 24/7. I had to power level a bit to catch up with them. I got from one to ten in under 3 hours of constant play. I got to fourteen without even noticing it. I had to lay off it till the can catch up to me! I have had a lot of success so far with this hunter, easy to say since I can make stuff for him to use on Mindkiller. I’m gonna try a different approach to the talent points with him. I’m gonna lay off the pet upgrades and key him for battle. Perhaps I will delve into the survival tree. I have spent a little time on Longarm just mining. My wife is jealous of the huge amount of ore I always seem to have. She keeps asking me to write down a how to for AH use and maybe I will someday. I killed the first two blacksmithing quests in about an hour of mining and a little cash at the AH. I also cleared the quests up into Loch Modan. I’m thinking I won’t stick around in the dwarven area for the next few levels. I’m gonna head to Westfall and start on the Defias quest lines there.

I logged onto Mindkiller to try out my new ride and see if I could clear a few quests that have been sitting in my log for awhile. I went north to Arathi to get a look at the Ogre Mage that holds a tiara I need for a quest. He was a level thirty-nine mage. Did I mention he was elite? Turns out elite mages are just as squishy as the normal ones. I took him down with our trouble. I think it helped that some one had come through and killed off a whole lot of ogres in the area so I didn’t have to contend with adds at all. Just me and the mage and I kicked his ass. Quest done.

With my new found asskickishness I decided to try for the Trelanes quest completion. I had to kill elite ogre shamans in Stormgarde till one dropped an azure agate. I rode on down to the keep and stealth into the area with the ogres. They were so jammed together it took me a few minutes to find a lone shaman. I found two that were far enough away from the patrols that I could kill them with out aggroing the heavy hitters. I killed one, two, three, and on the forth kill the agate drops. Yippee. I go on to get the next quest in the chain and head back to the tower in the ogre area. I stealth in (have I said how much I love stealth) and go after the chests. Now I have read up on this quest and I know it’s possible to do it with out ever fighting an ogre so I try it out myself.

I went to place the agate on the pedestal but the ogres were too close so I skipped that part. I had read that the best way, at least for some one who can’t stealth is to go for the second and third chest first and go out the top and come back for the first. Well I decided to go kinda that route. I went in after the second box first. I had no idea what was going to happen. I knew mobs would spawn but I didn’t know where and how many or how fast they would find me. Well the spawns are three to four mobs that spawn outside aggro range and they are real……real….slow getting to you. If I timed it right I could unstealth, wait, and then open the box with auto loot. This gives the stealth cool down enough time to reset. On the second and third boxes I was able to stealth and hug-a-wall-walk out of the area. The ogres would just sit there and stare at the now empty box. I should have gotten a picture of that. I repeated this on the third box with no problem. Though as I started down the stairs I misstep and fell down three storeys. Far enough that it knocked me out of stealth….right in front of an ogre. I could have taken him down but an add came from behind and beat me down. After a corpse run I rezed near the first box and stealthed till I was back at full health. I had to time the loot just right as there were three patrols nearby. I saw my chance and took it. Stealthing got me out of there with out a scratch. Quest done.

Since I was having so much luck that night I decided to hit badlands and kill the named trogg there in the south. I also had to kill twelve of his buddies. It turned out to be easier then I could have dreamed. I completed that quest with a little bit of careful pulling and ambushes. I killed the main trogg half way through killing his friends when he aggrod me. I didn’t realize it was him till I noticed his level. He still went down like a bitch. A quick run to turn in those quests and I decided to try for the Deviate cooking recipe again.

I traveled to the Barrens and spent two hours killing anything that moved. No drop at all, not even a tease. I went back there this morning to try some more and I think I will stay there till I get it. I will not pay thirty gold for a dropped recipe that’s supposed to be an uncommon that drops frequently. GRRR. On a lighter side I made five gold off of a thirty-six silver recipe I spent two hours vender farming. I’m thinking about heading back there to do it again I can make ten to fifteen gold off of three recipes. So I might be headed back there since I’m in the neighborhood anyway.

40, you elusive number!

2006-07-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

Well it looks like I’m gonna have to do some serious leveling. I didn’t play too much this weekend. What I did was fish a little and try to farm for Savory Deviate Delight recipe. I got my fishing up to 60 but no recipe.

I hit Wailing caverns in hopes of getting the drop, no luck there either. I did manage to clear the entire cave by myself. I got a boat load of greens and a few BOP blues. Too bad they were BOP as I sent the whole lot to my enchanter for mats. Selling all that stuff at the AH would have cost more then they were worth.

I haven’t reached 40 yet, hell tonight I may make it to 39. I really need to get up there so I can get more skills and better armor. I’m getting mauled by same level mobs. I will see if I can hit the lower quests in my log tonight as well.

I made up all the money I have been spending and reached the magic 90 gold. I went a little over that before I spent a bit to recover armor healing pots and poison mats. If I work at it just a little I can have 110-120g by the time I reach 40. Maybe more, who knows? With the way iron has been selling this weekend I will be able to make some really decent cash just from a few hours of mining. Arathi FTW! This is where I have gotten the most iron in a single run as well as the common mithril nodes. So after hitting up some exp and quests I shall head north and mine some iron for the masses. Hmmm, I just remembered all the quests I did in shimmering flats. Just a whole bunch of kill quests. Maybe I’ll head there after STV quests for some quick exp there. I can’t believe I forgot that place.

I logged onto my wife horde character to check prices on the horde AH. It seems prices are noticeably cheaper for a lot of things. Prices are between 20-80% cheaper on the horde AH.

If only I had the will to level a horde character just for the purpose of farming the AH for stuff to buy and sell on the alliance AH. If I made a hunter on horde I could be at farming status in a month. With mining and skinning and just using those to make seed money I could prolly pull it off. The only tricky part would be the transfer on the neutral ah, though with two PCs I would be able to pull it off. This may be a project for when and if WOW becomes too boring.

Sold! Weekend goes to Mindkiller.

2006-07-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

This site should prolly change names, but maybe not.

I am still on Mindkiller, Jolygreen my hunter is prolly really hating me right now. I feel like such a traitor. All the time and energy to get Joly up to 40 and get his mount and I don’t play him……for a month. Oh well I shall burn in Warcraft hell some day.

To be honest I haven’t really had the chance to play him. The wife is real big into her rogue and using her to raid SM and ULD. SO I amuse myself with Mindkiller. I know when I want to I will be able to jump back into Jolygreen and be able to maul stuff easy.
Though Coat is gonna be real hungry when I get back there. He might even eat Jolygreen.

I seemed to have accelerated a bit in the leveling of Mindkiller. I have over a dozen quests to finish and most are orange still. The rest are yellow but elite. I am going to try and get my wife’s help with those quests as she has passed over the magic 40 and on her way to a mount.
I have been hanging out in Arathi a lot mostly for the mining there but I have picked up a few quests that I haven’t done before which is very nice. I got Mind half way through level 37 in a few hours just from a few quests and a little grinding. The grinding was mainly clearing ore nodes of guards or things that were too close. I have advanced mining to level 230 and will be murdering any truesilver nodes I see. Mithril still gives skills but has turned green for me. I will still be mining iron as well since it sells real well and if I get a request I can turn it into steel. I am making real good money in the AH, enough that it covers al my voracious spending. Seriously if I stop spending money on other characters I could make 100g in a week just from drops and mining. I need to knuckle down and stop throwing my money away. I can’t rely on blue drops to get me some big chunks of change. I will most likely start selling the Solid stones I get and only keep enough to make my dynamite and recharge my mortar. I have also started prospecting for hard to reach recipes form venders with limited supplies. These recipes seem to sell the best as people are lazy or don’t wann find out where they are located. I can also make a little money selling GRF form Savoy as Mind wont need too much of that for skill ups now. I might be able to swing 300 in gob engineering with just dense blasting powder and dense dynamite. We will see. I am gonna try for 40 this weekend. Good luck to me.

It might be time for some money saving practices.

2006-07-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

I seem to be spending a lot of time with Mindkiller. Don’t get me wrong I love my hunter and I still consider him to be my main. However I like the versatility of the Rogue.

It been a slow process to 35 but I’m here at last. I actually ignored the leveling aspect for the last half of 34 by doing kill quests and helping people with some of theirs. I came upon 35 without even realizing it till, DING! Coolness now I can head to Theramore and Gadgetzan for the Completion of Artisian Engineering and First Aid. It only took me 2 tries to complete the FA quest. I’m happy now. All I need to do is train up fishing….which may never happen…and hit 200 in mining. I did the mining last night and moved over 200. So I will be spending more money to get the Artisian Mining. I decided today that I will set up a bank alt to send surplus money. It has worked real well for my wife. She has managed to save almost enough money for her mount. It didn’t take her too long either. She is on a skill starvation diet. No skill upgrades till she gets a mount and she only spends what she absolutely needs to survive. I need to do this to and I might if I can control myself.

After I got all the profession upgrades I could, I head to the highlands. I had a quest in Arathi. It always seems I go here for one quest intending on leaving right after and I get stuck here because of my curiosity. I picked up a few quests in the area, just a few “Kill this and also collect these.” I had seen a cave when flying to Refugee Point and decided on this trip I would see where it goes. I figured it had to go somewhere for some reason. I was right. There are three ships in a cove there; two are sunken and are the object of the few quests here, and one still sails, this one is the quest giver haven. I only went into the water to get a few mithril nodes I saw there. While mining I was asked to party with a level 39 warrior. I accepted and he showed me the quest givers and we started a chain quest there. There were also two gathering quests and a kill quest. All would take place at the sunken ships. Which were surrounded by level 38-40 naga warriors and sorceresses. We hit a few of them till we figured out what it was we were gathering. The gather quest giver gave us some special goggles to see the gems he wanted. They appear on the mini map as yellow dots. Most were guarded by nagas. We had killed maybe two or three nagas when the warrior suffered a disconnect. Great now I am all alone. Well, nothing new there.

I waited for a few minutes to see if he was going to come back but he never did. So I went on with the quests by my self. I managed through careful swimming and poisons to kill the guards on certain nodes to get the gems I needed. I got most of them off of two nodes that kept respawning within two or three minutes after harvesting. This quickened up the gathering quite a bit since I only had to kill the one naga after 4 harvests then harvest 4 more before I was done. I had a setback when I aggro’d a level 40 sorc and she pwnd me all over the place. I wasn’t too upset, except for the fact I had used up my last underwater breathing potion before I died. Luckily I only had one more sorc kill for that quest. I scouted out a level 39 and beat it to hell. Its strange that the difference between the level 39’s and the 40’s is such that I can easily take out the lower while the higher makes me into jam. Huh. I DID NOT try for the other gatherer quest. It called for four documents, two out of each sunken ship. However they are guarded, in tight quarters by the same nagas that are swimming outside. I will keep this quest and come back when I’m a higher level, like 39 or something.

In all it was a very lucrative run. I managed to hit 36 while beating on nagas. I had also two other quests in the area to turn in. So for four quests, one of which was a short chain, I gained over 14000 exp pts. Very nice, level 36 and a fifth into it for a few hours work. As for the money, I mined enough ore to give me some decent mithril and gems. The gems I put up on the AH. Also some stone I don’t use anymore went on and a few green items. I can hope to make at least a good 10g over night.

After running out of Under Water Breathing potions I decided it was time to show some love to Savoy, my mage and alchemist.

I have seriously neglected her even after the free respect. So I poured a little money her way as well as some mats for potion making. At first I just wanted to make some UBPs but I soon realized she was close to being able to make Goblin Rocket Fuel. So I funded her rise in alchemy. Took something like 5g to get the required mats and skills and I got her high enough to make UBPs and GRFs. I was also able to teach her to make Elixir of greater under water breathing. One hour of swimming…nice. Too bad the mats are nuts expensive and scarce. Another time perhaps. I sent of a few UBPs to Mindkiller and a few to my wife’s main and posted a few things at the AH for Savoy and called it a night.

Can't wait till summer is over.

2006-07-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

I didn’t get to play my hunter. Oh well I still need to get to 35 and further with Mindkiller.

I log on and get my bearings. I’m struggling to find a decent place to grind level a little. I at least want to be mid 34 before I go back to STV for the rest of the journey to 40. I’m limited on what I can right now but I might have found a decent place to get some good exp.

I got on last night and was planning to just screw around a bit. Maybe take on a little Kursen peeps for the quest there. On the way there I decide to hit the stockade alone. I just went in for the chests. I cleared the two rooms with chests and left. As I was leaving the instance I saw a LFM for stockades so I msg him and got in a group. To top it off just as I came out of the stocks someone turned in a Nefarian quest and buffed the town with dragon slayer. OH YEAH. 5% increased crit and +140 attack power. Right on, though it took the other members almost 15 minutes to get set for the run. We entered and proceeded to kick ass. We had to be careful since we couldn’t get a healer. We wiped twice on account of the lowest of us kept drawing aggro. I had finally gotten the unsent letter quest earlier so I was able to complete it here or at least continue it. We cleared it and no big loot to tell about.

Earlier I got into a group for Deadmines with some obviously adolescent players. They hardly knew how to play their characters let alone the game and group dynamics. Our leader kept acting like he was an expert on the Deadmines telling people what to do. That’s what leaders are for right? Yet everything he told those other players was false and got people killed. If I hadn’t needed to get VC’s head I would have left but I figured if I could get them there they would be fodder while I wail on VC, loot and roll out. No I didn’t do that but I was close. So close. We wiped a few times since none of those idiots knew their aggro range and how to manage it. Lets all blast our most powerful spells 3 feet from the captain as he walks by. GRRR. All the time we are getting reamed the leader is yelling for us to get on top of the wheel to break aggro. I did that once in Deadmines, they found a way to get us. Having six parrots maul you is not fun. We wiped two times at the captain since he decided to bring his friends and two others to beat on us. We kill him and the priest decides to loot the body, while he was supposed to be healing, and chooses need for the Emberstone Staff the captain drops. He doesn’t even ask the druid if he wants to roll for it. The druid was a Heal spec and would have used it too. So one of us dies because assmunch wanted a staff. Topped of with the moron wasn’t even healing us correctly to begin with. I know about mana conservation. Yet it’s not an issue unless YOU USE YOUR MANA. All the way through when some one died, and this happened a few time to the others, he would have a full bar of mana and was not even trying to cast a heal. We finish this run by killing VC and his body guards. All through the fight our leader keeps a running dialog of what he wants us to do, where to position ourselves, and who to attack. Dude I’m frickin level33 rogue here I can handle VC and two of his minions easy. I did in fact tank VC and one rogue, the other was sapped until I decided to take her down too before the others appeared. We managed to kill all five of them but not before we lost our mage. Fucking beautiful heal priest, and druid too. Good thing the mage didn’t need the quest. We roll on the blue shirt VC drops. I wait till every one rolls greed before rolling greed. If the ass had rolled need I was going to give him a 50% chance of losing it. I won’t use the shirt so I sell it. Yeah I won it woohoo. SOLD. I played till almost midnight and got within a fifth of leveling. I added a bit more this morning by grinding on Dark runners in Duskwood. Get some decent exp there and some ok loot. I will be heading back there today to finish up level 33 and get a good start on 34. If I can find a questing group in STV I will head there to hit up those quests. Pushed past 30 gold yesterday and I’m steadily amassing wealth that will leave so soon after I hit 40. I think tonight I shall log onto my warrior and see if I can upgrade Mindkiller’s armor a bit. Might have to farm for materials with my hunter. There’s time there is always time.

Slow crawl to level 35. Part 2

2006-07-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty good group for Stockades. So I had no problem agreeing to help some lower levels clear some quests in Redridge.

We all flew to Lakeshire…well I didn’t. My hearth point is there still. I’m thinking I will change it soon to IF. We get there and the plan first is to beat up on Thallzun. The elite headman outside the orc keep. We get there and fight our way to his hole but we lose the druid and one other when they aggrod the mobs at the keep’s door. They run back and we start taking out the guards around Thall or what ever his name is. It went perfect 1warrior, 1 mage, 2 rouges, and a druid. We took hi and his buddies down fast.

Oh before this we went to the tower north of the keep to complete the Azora quest there for some one. He predicted it would take us 5 minutes or so to get to the top. It took less the 45 secs to clear the entire tower. That included the guards outside and down the hill a bit. I joked about how long it took and everyone got a kick. We were between 24 lowest to me at 33 so it was cake.

After the keep kill we went to the other tower that is east of the keep to complete a quest for the mage. The warrior left to pursue other interests so we tackled it with just 4. As we get to the tower the mage says it will take a few minutes to get to the top. It took 30 secs. The tower had all its mobs; we just mowed through them so fast that we got to the top in no time. We get to the top and we kill the Bad mage at the top who then spawns a stitches looking freak for us to kill. We kill it and no deaths. Yay for our side. We exit the tower and begin to traverse the distance to the orc camp in the hills above Lakshire to kill champions. On the way through the camps outside the tower we meet a low level mage who asks for escort to the tower we just cleared. After some discussion we decide to help. We kilt every thing in there again in record time. The little mage gets the quest he needed and we head over to kill us some champions. The little mage joins us as he has the quest as well.

We slaughtered our way into the orc cave in search of more champions as we killed the only two outside. In no time we killed enough to satisfy 3 quests full. I call to my party’s attention that there is another quest available here where we can escort a man out and get some ok rewards. So we all form around the corporal and haul his ass outta the fire. We get to the cave entrance and see the camp outside has fully respawned while we were in the cave. Luckily the corporal has to rest. That gave us time to maul the camp to prevent any harm to com to out charge. We got him back with no trouble. We even helped another low level who got ambushed by an orc mob outside of town. We called it good so others could travel and turn in some stockade quests.

I decided to try to get in on a Scarlet Monastery group before I went to bed. My wife was setting up a run with our guild and even though I’m still too low to really help much she got me a slot. I ran up from Southshore with her to Trisfall Glades. I got kilt halfway through by a level skull and had to walk from the Monastery graveyard to where I died just to walk back to join them in Scarlet. Not a good start.

Since we were late additions to a raid in progress we got to hear them kill a few Named elites while we ran to them. We ended up going to the library. This was good for me since I didn’t have a Scarlet Key. I forgot a few times that now I’m the low level here and aggrod a few mobs to me. I was able to hold my own with a druid healing. I did get the idea that keeping me alive was not the group’s idea of a good time. I almost left a few times because it just wasn’t worth it to me to be there and not be able to contribute. I we get to the Dean and kill him. I got my key and a few k exp and that was it. Whoopee. Maybe if I had more time there with a character above 37 it would be worth it to go. Till I reach 36-37ish I’m staying outta the monastery with my rogue. The stockades or BFD or even RFK might be better for me then this place right now. Tonight I’m prolly gonna be playing my hunter as my wife has got another alt she wants to start on. It’s on the same account as Mindkiller. So I might get to burn off some of the rested exp he has and hit SM with him to get the helm in there.

Slow crawl to level 35.

2006-07-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Well I have ground my way to level 33 on Mindkiller. I am now a goblin engineer. I have over 20 gold and I’m ready to hit Stranglethorn. Well maybe in a little while.

I made it to 30 as fast as I said I would. I made the journey to Gadgetzan but I could not get the trainer to talk to me. Turns out you need to talk to the trainer in IF to get a quest to go get the training……how fun for me. I hearth back to Redridge and fly to IF for the beginning of my long journey back to Gadgetzan. I get there and do the turn in and get me the good stuff. More explosives yeah baby! I get the recipes for all the ones I know I will use including the goblin mortar. I had to buy some of the mats but it’s worth it. A long range attack that stuns what it hits for 5 seconds. Add to that it’s on a different timer then dynamite and I have a one- two punch for those hard mobs. That is if I don’t wanna ambush them.

I picked up a few new blades for him. A jade serpent blade was custom made by a friend of my wife and I picked up a tigerbane dagger for 1g in the AH. I had to wait till 33 to use the dagger.

I am getting good at timing my attacks with this rogue. The combinations of finishing moves mean I can tailor the moves I use to the difficulty of the mob. Higher level go with expose armor and rupture. Same level rupture and eviscerate. Lower level…..um I usually don’t have time for a combo before they die. I am also getting to like cheap shot and kidney shot. Being 2 combo pts up out of stealth plus time to get a few more on before the target wakes rocks big time. I drudged my way up to 33 doing a few quest here and there. I started the first few quests on the three mastery quest lines in STV. I had to stop because I was dieing every five minutes. I died so many times I had absolutely nothing on when I finally made a run for Darkshire. No weapons too. I headed over to Redridge to knock out a few quests I had neglected there. The champions kill quest and the escort quest for the corporal. Both were easy at 31 and they got me close to 32 before I quit that night.

I logged back on deciding to quest in the Wetlands. One long flight there and I pick up the quest for killing undead sailors. I died here a few times from chain aggro. I managed to get that quest done with no trouble including flying back to SW for the cleansing part of it. I stuck around in Wetlands long enough to level my lock picking up to 160 before I decided to do the orc quest in the area. This went like butter. I killed maybe 60 orcs here just for the banners and cuz they were easy. I went deeper into their valley to go after the main dude even though I didn’t have that quest. (I may go back tonight to take care of the 2 other quests in the orc chain just for fun). I met a rogue on that very quest and was asked to help. We tried once and nearly wiped, the rogue failed to tell me she was suffering rez sickness. So we had to wait for it to run its course. While we waited the camp respawns…all of them. I had cleared the whole camp before the rogue showed up. Now we had to clear it again. We did with only a few hairy spots. So we try for the leader I was going to ambush and he was going to sap. I should have gone with garrote. Next time I will. We killed him after a fierce battle and the rogue went away happy. I didn’t get too much from the run except a mess of silk. It was getting late by this time so I walked back to the harbor to take flight to SW. (For the cleansing of the orb quest). I let the flight happen and the game log me out.

I came back to it the next day after work to turn in the quest not knowing that I was so close to 33. Then DING! Level 33 woohoo baby I’m there time for Tigerbane dagger.
I traveled back to SW for some AH time and got in to a PUG for Stockades. This was a pretty good group in spite of the leader/warrior thinking that because he was a warrior, he deserved all the aggro. Prolly wouldn’t have been too much of an issue except we were facing level 24-26 elites in tight quarters with multiple mobs close together. Every time I tried to pull or sap he would jump the gun and aggro before everyone was set. Our main job became keeping his ass alive for no reason. This isn’t a high level instance where tanking is the key. Just pulling correctly here will do the job just fine and well if handled properly. I guess he didn’t take into account that I was a level 33 rogue who was at the very least familiar with how to play it.

We managed to clear up to drexen's corner and the druid with us aggros a room before we clear the first. Two go down, our mage and the hero. Hero calls for a rez like an ass and gets it leaving the mage to walk back alone. Dickhead. Luckly the mage was level 31 or something so was able to kill the few respawns back to us. (I offered an escort and he declined). We kilt drexen and go after Bazzil. We waste hammy and clear the side rooms with no problems. I was going to pull some defies out of bazzil’s room when the “Hero” decides to pull Bazzil from the middle of the room surrounded by mobs. I had planned on saping him or at least one of the closer mobs to help lessen the asswhooping. So hero aggrod 5 mobs plus Bazzil. We are screwed. With in a few seconds the other rogue goes down followed by the hero. The mage and I blast out as many as we can with the druid healing me as fast as he can. The mage goes down I pop a potion and some dynamite, down to 3 mobs and Bazzil against me. I kill one mob then the other and put a dot on the last add before running for my life. Bazzil was so close to dying. I was pissed. He was down to less then 3% when I ran. The other mob died from the dot. I got away from Bazzil only to die from a respawned patrol. ARRRGG. We all make our way back to the Stockades and hero doesn’t want to finish it and he wouldn’t have except one of the group needed Bazzils head for the quest. So we fight a few respawns and take down Bazzil pretty fast. Done. We leave and hero cuts out. Good riddance. The others in the group had some quests in Redridge so I joined them in clearing them. I talk more on that with the next post and my first Scarlet monastery run with this character.

Goblin Engineering here I come.

2006-07-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight I will reach 30. Prolly within like five minutes of playing. I had to stop last night as it was late I had to work today. I try to get at least six hours of sleep a night. I try not to infringe on that time most nights. I managed to get my mining over the magic 165 with some gold I found and now am able to smelt steel. Steel seems to be in high demand but not very many people are selling it. I only needed steel for one thing and I have yet to require it for anything since. I may take a look at the higher engineering items and see if it’s a req for something…….Looked and I don’t see me using steel again. Cool I have no problem selling it for 25s a pop.
I looked into the reqs for the goblin engineering specialty and it looks like it will be within my budget. I have more then half the materials already in my bank deposit. As soon as I hit 30 I will be ready for the long journey back o Gadetzan. I will also shortly be leaving Ashenvale for the more prosperous area of Stanglethorn Vale and the questing goodness that resides therein. I had a lot of fun in the Vale with my hunter. Killing things mindlessly works for me and with the drops of hairs that sell for almost 1 gold a stack are real nice too.

I stumbled upon a cave in Ashanvale I had no idea was there. Near the south eastern section where there are roads to the Barrens and Azhara there is a cave full of forsaken. There are also zombified night elf dreamers. I got 12 green items of them in like 10 minutes. Not super groovy stuff but enough value that it will prolly pay for the mats I need to complete the engineer quest. I also discovered the demons inhabiting the area south of the Warsong Lumber Camp. I like the idea that I can take down the Infernals all by myself with just a little damage. I wonder if killing them gave me faction with any one.

I have a little start on my Argent Dawn rep with all the assists I have been doing in Stormwind. Any time two or more npcs are beating on a flaming skeleton I jump in and get in a few licks. If I can get five combo points on the skeleton I will try for the Expose Armor to help speed it along. If it hits the battle is over quickly. I would never be able to take one on alone at this point but its fun knowing that I helped take down a creature almost twice my level. I might be getting a new weapon for my rogue. Now if I will use it at all is another question. I will have a whole level to decide. I might be creating a new character just so I can learn blacksmithing. It seems to be an easy skill to level up since I will have numerous characters to provide mats and money. I might go with a paladin/ blacksmith. I have never played a paladin so it will be a new experience. It will wait till I get some more levels on both my “main” characters. I still am neglecting my mage but I’m sure I will get back to her eventually.

Mindkiller: Rogue in search of glory.

2006-07-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

I have had some time off from my hunter, on account that my wife wanted to get back in touch with her rogue. I made the best of it by hitting my rogue hard and getting him up to 29. I’m shooting now for 32 so I can learn deadly poison. At least I think it’s at 32, might be 30. I’ll have to check when I get online tonight. I kinda did some mixing and matching with my quests for him. I chose only the quests with the biggest rewards and ones that were fun. I’m not even going to touch the 2 long chain quests in Darkshire till I can solo it, if ever. They just don’t have any draw for me. I really want to start in on the Stranglethorn quests as they shot my hunter form 30 to 40 in no time and I didn’t have to grind for exp at all. I just had to do the quests and they did the job fine.

Also at 30 I will be heading back to Gadgetzan for to choose my engineering specialty. I’m going with goblin. I like having explosives to use in battle. They have saved my bacon a number of times. Though it sucks that I will have to wait a few levels till I can get artesian. I’m maxed out in engineering at 240 so nothing I make, that can, will give me levels. I have been really getting the hang of playing a rogue. I went with 2 daggers shortly after going back to him. I saw another rogue do an ambush and crit that killed his target in one hit. I wanted that so I shopped the AH for some level appropriate daggers before I settled on the flesh piercer for both hands. They have a piddly dot on them but I was going for max damage at the lowest price. Maybe I can get lucky in the Stocks by myself and find the rare and he drops his dagger. I might try it a few times and see. I have been trying for Rohh in Redridge but no luck I haven’t spotted him yet. I may need to farm with my hunter for some decent blades. Though that will have to wait for my wife to get away from her rogue.

I have been making some steady money on my rogue with crafted shot and mechanical squirrels. I had a little price war with another engineer in IF. I had fun making up ads for the trade channel. He would say something about his low price and I would tout the “quality materials” used to make my squirrels. He then offered alcohol with every purchase and I would make it known that I didn’t need to get people drunk before they would buy my wares. I ended up selling a few below what I would have normally but at least I got the sale and made a nice profit.

The one thing I’m making the most money off of right now is silver ore. People are paying 1g for 2 ores and that’s just the ones I sell. I actually sell for 50-60s less then the other people. I have a stack of silver bars I can use later if I need so I don’t need the ore any more and since I don’t get and points for smelting I might as well make some money off of it.

I have yet to take him into another instance since the last wipe at VC. I just haven’t had the time. Maybe this weekend I can get that damn quest over with so I can start Stockades and then who knows. I think I will have an easier time of getting money enough for a mount on this char. I will be a high enough level in engineering that I can make custom orders as well as doing some low level stuff for whole sale on the AH. I will do the quest item making for other rogues and a few of the other things needed in the other professions. Ammo will always be easy and I can sell the mid to high level stuff for amazing profit. I wonder if there is a market for ez throw dynamite. Hmmm I will have to check that out. It won’t be long before I can so the artesian quest in first aid and also get artesian in cooking too. That will be a fun quest.

Mobile Dwarf Hunter Explorer Extraordinaire

2006-06-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

I have DONE IT.

I have purchased my first mount.

Whew, now I can relax and make money for no reason other then upgrade equipment. Like this is any different from before. I started out with 58 gold on my hunter. I did a few turns through the Stockades just killing the hall guards and the unique spawns. I made like 4 gold just from that. So I was up to 62g. I then decided to see how my rogue was doing. I had placed like 20 stacks of Crafted Solid Shot on the AH for 45s each, that’s was 20-25s cheaper then the other guys stuff. It didn’t cost even 1 copper to place them on the AH so I was looking at large profit since I farmed the mats through regular questing. It turns out they are much in demand. I sold the whole lot. I made 8g 8os off of the aggregate sale. SO I decided that making bullets can be very profitable. I created and placed another 20 stacks and in 4 hours half of them had sold. I then transferred a good 5 gold to my hunter, I don’t want to impoverish my rogue, and then logged onto my hunter. I made and sold a few heavy silk bandages to bring in a few more gold. I get so much silk it’s more profitable to convert them to bandages for quick cash then placing them in the AH.

Now I have 70 gold and some copper. Time for some quick cash. I hit Stockades real quick and made 1g 50s left then sold some heavy silk bandages and got the 72 gold I needed for the mount. I chose the White Ram for the looks, brown or grey just don’t do it for me.

I took my new mount for a spin around Ironforge for a bit till it was time for bed.

I’m diggin the mount already.

I logged back on yesterday to find that 8 of the 20 ammo packs I put up came back so I will refrain from making more till those sell. I’m thinking I might have a better chance of selling them on the weekends. I’ll try that out Friday and see how that goes. I transferred some more cash to my hunter just cuz I can and he needed it bad.

I went and logged onto my mage and re-spent all her talent points. I’m going with ice/arcane spec for easier leveling. I’ll hit fire if I think it's needed, but prolly not. I really need to level her and her alchemy. Soon I will be able to mine thorium and I will want to hit up the arcanite transmute for some really decent cash. I already have one recipe for transmutation that I can’t even use yet. Maybe this weekend I will focus on her. I need to get her some decent armor first though.

My hunter; Last night I broke the 230 mining barrier. What does that mean? Truesilver. Yeah baby gonna be hitting up some trusilver till 250 then I hit the thorium. It will be difficult but I am gonna try to get into those high level areas just for some quick mining if I die oh well. It will be worth the profits I will make from the ores and gemstones and stone pieces. I have also made it to level 41, mostly by mistake. I was grinding for cash; however, I also had rested exp so I got my mount like an hour before I leveled. I did reach my goal of a mount AT 40 so I’m happy. With the increased mobility I will be able to make money faster, and can spread the wealth to the others. I still need to get the next level skills for Coat. I looked them up and I will be traveling to Dustwallow Marsh for Claw5 after I get Bite5 here in Arathi Highlands. Then I will go to Swamp of Sorrows to get Bite6 and Claw6. I could go straight to the swamp but I’m not sure yet if Coat has enough training points for the higher skills yet. Any how I need to go to the western continent for a few quests so it won’t be a waste of time. It’s past time for me to do the artesian first aid quest in Theramore. I had to save up some silk and mage weave for it. After I do all this I’m thinking about hitting the Scarlet Monastery. I here it might be fun and with the upgraded attacks for Coat and some mageweave bandages I might have a good time there. I’ also thinking about changing my melee weapons to maces seeing as they seem to be cheaper and hit harder than the swords. Plus I can find maces that are actually close to or even with my level. So I’m in for some long journeys and training.

Shrug.

That’s what makes this game so fun to play. So many things to do and chose from.

Level 40 and time fer some money makin.

2006-06-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

Well it has been awhile since my last post. So this will be a big one.

I decided to stick around in Stranglethorn Vale for awhile. There were a lot of quests to be had here. I went north to Nesingwary’s camp and hit all the quests there, yes even the annoying “pages” quest. Though that wasn’t that annoying to me. If you know what your gonna be picking up it just becomes a storage issue and I got plenty of storage on my hunter. So I went through the mastery quests and owned everything pretty easily, I only needed to group for the panther and raptor elites. I had taken out the tiger elite several times before I even got that far in the quest chain. In my travels I found that there are quests in the rebel camp so I hit those up too and killed a few kurzens for the caurse. I managed to spot both giants in the area, though I did not approach for fear of being smooshed. Since damn near everything here is skinnable I have managed to push my skinning to 285…very nice. I’m gonnna be ready when I hit those higher mobs for the rugged leather and such hehe.

I grabbed a few quests from Booty Bay. One had to do with a mission to Aralthi Highlands, I can’t remember which. So I went up there and found a crystal, a talking crystal. It wanted me to help it get free. I needed to get some fragments from some local rock circles. I did this and then I had to fight a Giant for a rod. Well I wasn’t prepared for that so I put it off for a few levels. Last night I found a group going after Fozruk so I tagged along. It was my 40hunter w/coat another 38hunter w/cat and a 43warrior. We tried to get 2 more people to help us but no one answered. After following the giant for 15 minutes I suggested we try it on our own. Hell I could have taken out 2 of the 3 bodyguard he had by myself before I died. Since we had, in effect, 5 bodies there anyways I figured we had a better than average shot at killing him ourselves.

So we waited till he was in a clear spot free from spiders and raptors. I set a trap before our warrior charged. I marked the mage kobold while the other hunter went for another. The warrior tanked the giant. I took out my target then began on the remaining kobold. The other hunter finished of his then began attacking the giant. I finished the kobold then siced coat on the giant and we proceeded to tear him apart. We owned him in every sense of the word. He was not a very impressive 42~ Elite. The battle took all of 2 ½ minutes. Our group the went to where we need to turn in the quest and what happens. We spawn another Giant. This guy comes alone. We kilt him fast too. We each spawn this giant and take him down fast. I wonder if you could spawn more than one at a time…maybe I will try that next time I do this quest. All totaled we took down 4 level 42~ elites in like 5 minutes. I think it was damn impressive and I’m still giddy from it. We took a griffon to IF for the next quest in the chain. I was delayed with some RL stuff so I got there late. They had gone off to the next chain which it to go to the badlands in search of some dude who is supposed to help the crystal/thing we freed. I will be exploring the badlands next it seems.

Oh by the way I have made it to level 40. Most of it was done in Stranglethorn Vale. Nice place for 31+. Got some good vender trash and a lot of skinning to be had. I still need like 15 gold to get my mount I had miscalculated how much I was going to need. I spent the 18 gold to learn how to ride just to get it out of the way. Now I need to bear down and gear up for some serious money making. I will prolly need a few more gold just so I can shop for some mail. Now that I can wear it perhaps I will be better suited to survival. I also had to spend a few gold on skills so I was frugal and only learned and upgraded the skills I use and will use a lot. I didn’t buy any thing for coat though soon I will be heading out to retrieve his next level skills. Thos of which I will need to look up soon for the locations and mobs.

I also splurged for a new rifle for my hunter. I could not pass up a sniper rifle that added 10+ point of damage overall and was a slower speed for ammo conservation. I also used the thick leathers I have been getting to upgrade his armor abit and soon I will be able to make a Thick Ammo Pouch = 16 slots and 13% increased ranged attack speed.

So I have a bit of a grind ahead. Maybe I can hit Uldaman or the Stockades a few time to farm for items to sell on the AH. I may see if I can get in a group heading to a dungeon with humanoids just for the money. Maybe I can solo DM for some cash. We will see. I want a mount before I leave level 40.

Traveling the world in search of...

2006-06-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

I finally got my full dsl back I'm now running at the optimum speed so now more disconnects from lack of signal, at least not at my end. I have been running around in all my chars the last week trying to level certain professions. So here it is.

I played a bit on my main hunter got him to 36 last night. WOOT! I have been sending mats to my other chars for the leveling of profession. Ore and stone to Mindkiller and all my leather to Manbeast. I have managed to level Mindkiller’s engineering to 210 so now he can make mithril slugs for my hunter. Just this morning Mindkiller made a Mithril Blunderbuss that I sent over to Jolygreen. He will be able to use it right away, but I still have to wait a level till he can use the slugs. Oh well.

I picked up a bunch of quests for Stanglethorn Vale and Rachet that I will be working on later. If I can survive long in the vale that is. I might just drop the vale quests and go back to Thousand Needles for a bit. The flats south of there are real good for leather and exp. I have broken the 50 gold barrier and am marching toward 100 gold…..slowly. I will get there; I want a mount at 40. None of this “Wait a few more levels.”, crap. I can always focus on mining some mats for bronze or hit up the mithril in Needles and Desolace. I will need the mithril anyway for the ammo. I will soon max out my leather worker again. So I will prolly have to level him to 35 or something to be able to pick up a specialty leather trade. I really need to work on my mage and get here alchemy up to the level I will need to make some arcanite. I have neglected her for a long time. Prolly after I have a mount on my hunter I will send her some gold just for a respec to help in grinding. I will be able to afford it after since I will be able to move around faster then.

I have been able to see a great deal more of the world just recently. I have dipped into Feralas. I have pwnd the wildlife in Shimmering Flats. I have hunted elementals in 1000 Needles. I have even dipped deep into the Stranglethorn Vale, though I died there because I couldn’t get a crit on a damn raptor. I’m real close to going back to Desolace for some serious asskicking on the locals. Though I will most likely go back to the Flats and grind there since they are skinnable and they give good vender trash. Specially the bug things that are there. The dried husks I got of them (3) netted me a nice chunk of change and I don’t particularly like them very much. So killing a lot of them AND making money will be a good time killer as well as a good exp boost so I can get to the all important level 37. Hello mithril slugs.

Little bit at a time.

2006-06-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

I managed to down Morbent Fel on my next try. I got lucky and picked up a group just outside. They seemed to want to camp him for a bit and allowed me to group for the quest.

I can’t remember much between now and that quest as I wasn’t on very much till last night. With packing, moving, and unpacking I had few decent log on times. I was able to start leveling up my hunter’s cooking level. I’m just a few points away from being able to cook Big Bear Steaks which will get me to Lean venison and beyond. I finally figured out that it would be a better time investment for me, as well as money wise, to cook food for me and Coat. My wife was a pal and sent me some big bear and stag meat for the recipes as well as the recipes for them. Now all I have to do is level to the 110 mark for the big cooking to begin. I have moved my hunter into wetlands for some questing. Seems to me it will be a good way to run up to 35-36 maybe till I can handle Deslace. I really want to start in on some mithril. But that will have to wait. I’m gonna try for another Stockades tonight. Maybe I can get a hold of another blue since that last one netted me 15 gold easy. I was at 46 gold for almost a day till I decided to fund my gnome rogue’s change in profession. I changed him to engineering for the ability to make ammo. I think it was worth it since I still have a ways to go till 40 and now I only need 90 gold for the mount and training. I still haven’t decided on trying for rank 3 pvp before 40 for the added 10% discount. If I run a few bgs for a week or 2 I might be able to get there fast but who knows?

So I dropped herbalism with my rogue. It was an easy decision. I wasn’t very effective trying to use one or the other item finds. So now I have something to do with all that ore I will be mining. It cost a bit to start up but it has already turned a profit to me. I was able to sell something like 20 bronze tubes individually on the AH for 35s a piece, the cheapest was 50 but seeing as I have a rogue I felt for the other rogues going through the poison quest. They all sold. Made like 7 gold on top of the fact that I only bought a few stones and fluxes to get here I made a nice chunk for a start. I might not do much more the level the skill for anything but my hunter though it might come in handy later on for new characters and such.

Back with the hunter.

2006-05-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

This week I am moving to a new apartment. What does that mean; rested experience. Best thing in the game baby. I will prolly not have too much down time. I will make sure all my characters are inside inns when I log of for the move. Though I pretty sure my mage and warrior are maxed out on rested by now and my rogue has been resting since Sunday. It will be interesting to go back to my mage just for the leveling purposes.

So I got to play my hunter this week cuz my wife needed to level her druid. I managed to hit Deadmines finally. It was with her guild…and no I didn’t sign up. They needed some big guns to make it easier on the low levels and I also really wanted to clear out those quests. Plus it’s a fun instance. We ended up having 3 hunters and 2 druids. One of the druids was my wife running a restore spec while the other druid was running restore/melee. The 3 hunters were all of us near or better then level 30 so it was a cake walk. We were pulling2-4 mobs at a time and wasting them. We owned all the bosses in no time. We only had one death and that was because she was a level 16. We had a little trouble with smite just because of his stun but no one took serious damage there either. We cleared the ship completely before taking on the captain and VC.

The captain went down hard and fast. Followed by VC. We took him down so fast we still had all four bodyguards alive at the end. We took them down to and high tailed it out.

Then some one called for a reset…….we all agree. We ran Deadmines again this time it went faster as the other 2 hunter's leveled last time so we were doing a bit more damage. We took down Smite, Captain, and VC in quick succession then left a ruin behind us. The group broke up after the last run as it was late and time for sleeping and stuff. That was a great time though.

Last night I had the opportunity to run The Stockades with a PUG. All were below level 25 except for my level 32 hunter. We had a full group with us but no true tank so Coat had to act as one for the run(side note: I had somehow turned of growl before the run so Coat couldn’t maintain aggro. I couldn’t and didn’t figure it out until the run was over) Despite my SNAFU we managed to clear all the way in and to the end of the left hand passage before we had our first wipe. The Priest was a 21 and kept aggroing the mobs though doorways if she got to close. We rezzed and made our way back through the respawns the took the right passage toward Bazil. We wiped at the ogre. Our mage wasn’t maintaining sheep on one of the 2 mobs that come with the ogre so we were wiped again. We rezzed then ran back to the room right before Bazil and 2 of our group decide it time to go so the rest left too….. I only had Bazil left on my quest log after this run and I decided to try and solo him. I did not know he has 4 adds, so I die slowly and messily. I will get his ass soon though.

I then decided to finish the Morbent Fel quest chain and go to Wetlands to get the ingots. Took my all of 30 minutes to get them all then to Stormwind and Duskwood again. I got the charm and I go to see this Morbent Fel for to kick his booty. I fight through a few mobs to get to him and begin on him. Before I can tag him some asshole comes up and steals the kill. I cleared the way and this dipshit tags my mob. I had even used the charm so he was weakened by then as well as my pet tanking the adds. He took full advantage of it and got himself a kill I then had to sit and wait for the respawn. I tried to take him my self but failed as I didn’t use the charm right away and lost precious time trying to cast it. I died and then had to go to work so I shall be attempting it again tonight after some packing. Maybe. I might have to play my rogue for a bit. I’m getting the feeling that my wife wishes to play her rogue a little. She dies a lot with her new druid and needs to get revenge on something soon.

A very blah weekend.

2006-05-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

I DID NOT get to play my hunter at all this weekend. Due to the fact that my wife totally monopolized my account so she could run Black fathom depths with her guild. That’s getting real annoying too. Seems it’s ok for her to spend 4 hours running an instance but as soon as I try to due any time lengthy process I get the riot act read to me. So I played my rogue all weekend.

I decide to level my rogue up so I could get the poison quest. I took me all of 1 hour to get to 20. All I did was grind on Defias in Westfall. I got a mess of line cloth, made some real good money in the AH with these too. So I go and start the quest woohoo.

When my wife found out that I was doing this quest she wanted to come along……she's a level 27 rogue….and she doesn’t have poisons….meh.

I agree to wait for her to show up but first she wants to try for a Defias mask. I tell her it drops from all the Defias mobs in the area….we killed like 40 of them between us and not one mask. So she decides to go to Stormwind to upgrade her tailoring and leaves me to wait for her in Westfall. I got mad and said something stupid which pissed her off. She then threatened to not help ME complete the quest….like I needed any help. The quest is for level 20s and is supposed to be able to be completed by same. Sure the elite guarding the chest will give you some trouble but hey one death is worth poisons IMHO. So I leave our party and go solo, which is my normal mode anyway.

I travel to the tower and meet up with the rogue there to start the next chain and proceed to the tower. I managed to pick the Malformed Defias’s pocket on the first try WOOHOO, and then I run away. Made it out alive. I then went back and stealthed into the tower to find…..everyone is dead….?....cool. I run up the stairs dreading coming across a bad mofo that will eat me and get to the top to find… a level 26+ pally wailing on the elite guy there. So I help out….a little then go get my chest and get poisoned. Crap. I knew about this and had a plan for it. I had some anti-venom in the bank to use when I got back. I had forgotten to bring it with. So I go to leave after thanking the pally for clearing the tower, inadvertently, for me when he thanks me for helping him by removing the poison/curse. Awesome now I don’t have to do that obnoxious cure quest.
I did it any way. Hey it’s all in town and has ok exp and faction so done and done.

So now I can make poisons. Very cool. Yet only 2 for now. So I make a few of each and go to try them out. I decided to go to Loch Modan to take out some quests there. I am shooting for exalted with Ironforge so I can get me a ram for my gnome. Just the idea looks good to me. A little gnome on this tall honkin ram. I know I have a long way to go but hey it will happen eventually. I don’t want to be on those stupid metal things for too long. I’m thinking I can use my other characters to get me the nessesary items for the rep quests but I will see how that goes later still real early to be worrying about the mount issue with this char. I picked the chain for Defense of lands and blew through that in like an hour all the way up to Grawmug or what ever his name is. I actually killed him 3 times before I even had the quest to do it. There was a fast repawning silver vein in the cave I was playing with so since I was there I killed him between spawns. I finished out most of the quests available there all except the dam quest where you have to get a mo gorosh crystal. I don’t know how I’m gonna get one of those yet. All level 18-22~ elites guarding the area not cool at all. I also sighted a unique in the area. A level 21 elite Tauren and his 2 elite lackeys. I tried to take him and died messily and quickly. I might try for him with my hunter if I’m ever able to play him again. So I built up some rep with iron forge here toward my goal. I need to find more Ironforge related quests and focus on those.
I took my rogue up to Aralhi Highland to see the First aid book seller there. I got the Expert book as well as the 2 Manuals and I can now say my rogue has a healthy supply of Silk and heavy silk bandages to use for his very own. HEE HEE. I then decided to hit up Southshore and check it out since I was in the neighborhood. Got the flight path and a few recipes for my other characters. Then on a whim I decided to shoot for Chillwind Point flight path. ICKYPOO. That area is a deathtrap for low levels. I died a few times trying for it ,and getting lost as well, but I made it and have the fight path to get back there when I’m growed up enough .

I came back to civilization for a spell for leveling and headed to Darkshore to screw around with a few quests there. I picked up the Washed ashore chain and hit the first 2. Before going after Murkdeep. As I traveled down the coast I kept coming across the other dead sea creatures so I picked them up as well. When I got to Murkdeep’s camp he wasn’t there so I continued south and picked up more sea creature remains. I got all the way to Zorham Strand before turning back and picked up another sea creature remains. All totaled I had 6 sea creature parts in my packs.
Ick smells like tuna around here.

On the way back north Murkdeep rezzed in his camp. A full camp by the way. I pulled carefully all the minions around him. It wasn’t too tough I was level 22 and I think they were at a max of 18 but I was still careful. 1 on 5 will still get me killed quick. I get to Murk and he spawns some little critters that harass me while I wail on Murk himself. He goes down with out too much trouble then I turn to the rest of the minions and wipe the whole camp. I whistle as I walk away. I turn in all the quests and make a whopping… 30 silver… total. Meh it got my rep up…a little. Now I need to focus on leveling and making some money.

Got some skills I doo.

2006-05-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

I went for a little adventure last night. I decided on a whim to go visit the Barrens and harass the locals. I killed some centaur looking creatures and got a key. So I searched the entire Barrens till I found a chest to use it on….Nothing special there. I took a dip into wailing caverns on a lark and I hope to go back later with a group. I could prolly run it solo but that would take hours since I would have to be very careful. I fished a bit in the Oasis just outside and caught some deviate fish. Can’t wait till I can get a recipe for the fish delight. I took a spin through Desolace again and found a few places that will be good for mining mithril later. I’m prolly not going to seriously quest this area till I'm over or near 35. It is just too much of a hassle. I aggro too easy and there is too many mobs close together for me to effectively defend myself and Coat. So Desloace is on hold for me for awhile. I ran up to Stonetalon to hop a flight to Astranar for dumping of stuff now that I think about it I could have gone to Nijel’s Point, but it worked out great as there were 2 creatures around Astranar that I need to tame.

So I get to Astranar and dump off and mail a bunch of stuff. I made some decent cash in the Barrens, something like 2 gold just from trash too. I then went looking for a Ghostpaw Alpha since they have Bite4. I found them way south of Astranar. I died on my first attempt some how….don’t know don’t ask. So I went back and tried again. This time I popped the racial stoneskin before the attempt and was at the extreme rang for tame. I got him. I took the walk to Darkshore for training till I got the skill and I ended up learning Furious Howl 2 before I finally learned Bite 4.
Great so I abandon that pet and make the flight back to Astranar to get me an Elder Astranar Bear . This guy went down faster then the wolf and with less pain. I know now that it was the high attack speed of the wolf that killed me. So I get the bear and proceed to beat up on his former friend bears in the area. 2 hits later learned Claw4 Yahoo. So I hang out for a few with the bear killing bears and grab some big bear meat, need a recipe for these too now , before heading back to Astranar and Coat. I abandon the elder bear and retrieve Coat and teach him his new ranks.

After this it was pretty late so I hearthed back to Darkshire. I’m gonna farm more silk and iron till I reach 175 mining then I will head back to Stonetalon for some mithril mining. After a few levels I might finally go and complete the Sven quest line and this weekend I’m going to try to get into a group for Deadmines so I can’t complete those quests. I know it’s a ways off but I’m already thinking on how to save the money for my mount. I already have the 10%discoutn covered so I might try for rank 3 in BG to get another 10 eh we will see.

Farming it is.

2006-05-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

Took out my Gnome Rogue last night to do a little farming. Seeing as my wife wanted to run her 24+ NelfRogue to Mulgore….don‘t ask me why.
I had decided to get some first aid leveling prep work done so I went to Westfall and farmed linen. A good place for me was the Defias camp right near Sentinel Hill. It’s got some level 10-13 Defias there and if you die your only on the other side of the hill. Got to 142 linen in like 1 ½ hour before I called it a night. I’ll be back there tonight to get a full 150 then go farm gnolls for wool unless I can find a better farm mob some where else. Maybe I will just farm the wool with my hunter then send it over. Prolly be easier.

I just made a new ammo pouch for my hunter that now holds 14x200 rounds. Very nice. I also commissioned an engineer to make my some crafted solid shot so I have a 13% faster fire rate and .5 more dps per shot. VERY COOL. I had my warrior make 3 of the first Blue item gloves and tacked on a heavy armor kit for each one. I sent one to my hunter and rogue, and then sent the 3rd to my wife’s rogue. I haven’t been able to really test them out as I was sitting in Stormwind waiting for some auctions to expire. Seems the silk is flooded in the AH so it won’t be as profitable as I had hoped. But I’m just 10 pts away from mithril and mageweave, and then I will brave Desolace for some mining. I don’t know if it was a fluke but I got a single mageweave off of a troll mage near the Thunder Axe Fortress so I might farm there for a bit soon too.

I need to head over to Ashenvale to learn Bite and Claw 4 even though Coat seems to be wailing on anything we meet. Still he could use the boost to damage. I have received 5 invites to guilds since I hit level 30. I guess this is a magic number or something. If you reach this high a level it must mean you are serious about playing or something. I was kinda flattered, but not really, the only guild I might have been interested I have since forgotten the name of the recruiter and the guild. He actually struck up a conversation with me before the invite I turned him down because I was playing an alt. He might have invited me because the alt was a priest. Oh well maybe soon I will find something to try out. Kinda like to have a regular run on something with a group. Soloing is nice for quests and farming but it makes the instance running boring to me. I have dipped into Deadmines a few times to farm wool but it just isn’t fun without a group there. Man I can’t wait till my wife levels her druid up to a decent level so we can run in a group together. Not much to tell I was only on for a couple hours. Maybe tonight will be better. We will see.

Let the good times roll.

2006-05-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

I ended up not going to the barrens or Durutor on account of my wife usurping my account the last few days. She finally allowed ME to play MY account last night. So I dusted off my hunter and was perusing the AH and I found the recipe I have been looking for. NICE. Got it cheap and sent it off to my mage for use. I then realized I needed to get some money together for some new skills. I also needed to level up my mining. So I traveled back to Duskwood and did some grinding on ogres for silk while watching for iron deposits. I got a mess of silk and was able to level my mining to 165. 10 more points and hello Mithril. Yeah. I hate that smelting goes grey so soon . Now he only thing that will give me points is mining gold and iron and smelting gold. I have yet to see a gold deposit. But I will prolly just hang out in Duskwood for the 10 more points while getting good exp and drops. I came away with full bags of decent loot and actually got 2 trusilver bars from chests there. Very cool. The made me some nice cash in the AH.

Speaking of the AH; I posted about 14g in auctions last night before bed and I am hoping they pan out when I get outta work. I checked this morning a few had already sold and some silver I had posted came back, I had put it on a short auction by mistake. So I have to repost that. I’m sure it will sell eventually. So I will be sitting pretty in the cash area till I go and buy the rest of my skills I couldn’t pick up the last time I was in Stormwind. Just mostly stuff for my pet and a few upgrades for me.

Had a blast farming the ogres for exp and silk. I can take them down in threes if I need to. Though in fact I did have a scary moment when facing the named ogre there. I went after him thinking he might drop some decent stuff, repeatedly, but he didn’t blow up my skirt whit his drops. Anyhow I was fighting him with my pet tanking when 2 ogres rezzed near the fight and aggro’d so now a 2 on 1 is a 2 on 3 and we weren’t fresh. I left Coat to tackle the named one, I think his name is Zakk thul or something, while I took on the 2 adds. I had just run out of ammo….oops. Yeah I know a hunter without ammo is dead well that’s what I though too. So there I was….dramatic eh?......getting pounded on by ogres. Luckily one was a mage type so I wasn’t getting mauled. I took them out with about half life left and turned to help out Coat. Just then the ogre gets a crit and nocks down Coat. So now I have no tank and he has more the half of his life left, well at least his wasn’t an elite or I would be worm food. We go toe to toe for awhile exchanging blows till we are both ready to die. I’m down to like 11hps and he isn’t’ much better off but I know he will get the next attack so I prepare for death and the long run back.

He attacks….. I dodge.
I attack…critical hit for 112.
Zakk dies….woot.
I eat rice cake and take a break.

I headed back to Darkshire after that to rearm repair and sell some trash. I was there long enough to make 1g in money drops alone plus what I got for all the trash I made like 3g on that run Piddly I know compared with later areas but it was a big deal to me. I sent of some items for disenchant and use to my other characters though my warrior won’t be able to use what he got for awhile but it will be nice even when he can. He has an almost complete set of armor for when he reaches level 20 and will probably be twinked out every step of the way from my hunter and I’m ok with that.

I also decided to start upping first aid so I farmed Westfall for linen since I have loads of wool and silk. They might come in handy later so might as well get it up to a useable level since no w I can farm linen, wool and silk easily. I also ducked into Desloace to get a feel for it and I’m thinking I will wait a few levels before venturing in there alone. I handled it ok but I think t would be easier at level 33-34 so I shall grind and try for a DM/VC and maybe Stockades till I’m ready.

Burning the midnight oil. A LOT!

2006-05-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

Pay attention class, we have a lot to cover.

It has been a few days since my last update. I have been working on my hunters mining as well as leveling my warrior/leather worker. I also started a new character on my wife’s account. She has a rogue on my account that has obligations with her guild. We will be trading off accountstill she can level her new druid.

Jolygreen
Dwarf, Hunter. Mining, Skinning

Dinged 30 over the weekend as well as got the new skills I wanted. I looked to upgrading mining and skinning but will have to wait for some cash. I’m gonna need 9 gold to buy both the skinning and mining artisan levels. Oh well it shouldn’t take to long I'm thinking I will farm ogres for some silk then AH them they seem to sell pretty good all the time. So does most cloths for that matter. I’m also thinking of taking a trip to the Orc starting area to farm crokilsks for an alchemy recipe for my mage. Seems it only drops with any amount of decency in that area, or for that matter any area with orcs. Sucks but it wont take too long to burn through a thousand or so crocs to get what I need and I’m real patient about these sorta things. I can always annoy the low levels in the area for fun. So I will be making a long trip to Durotor later this week, I’m so glad I made the trip across the barrens with him to get all the way to Ratchet which in turn got me to Booty Bay. Now I just have to fly to the bay then to ratchet on a boat and swim to Durotor Will be fun to see a new area and not have to watch my back. Maybe I can sneak on boat for Undercity too. Might try for it after I get the drop. Prolly will be awhile but that’s how it goes some times.

Manbeast
Human, Warrior. Leatherworking, Skinning

I have taken him to Darkshore so I can run with my wife’s new druid though she plays a whole lot differently then me. I will get quests and stack them and complete as many as I can. Then farm for trash till I’m full. Then go back to turn them in and start the whole thing over again…. She, however, seems to be at the whim of the people who helped her before. She lets the drag her around to areas her character is not ready for and then gets pissed when she dies every 5 minutes then has to run back for 10. Any how I tried to play with her but it might not be possible at least at the low level. Perhaps when we get our different chars up above 20 it will be easier then we can support each other in the same areas instead of me going to her areas (NightElf) and instead staying in my areas (Human, Dwarf) Which I feel are better at getting you to level 20-22. Then I would head over to the western continent and hit the mountains. Yet I shall still try to play with her as much as I can till we can hit dungeons together. By the way my warrior is now level 15 and will soon be 16. I've played him less then she has played her new druid and I am 2-3 levels higher then she is …..Different playing styles.

Well with my wife getting a WOW account of her own to play on her comp I had to create a new char on it so I could play WOW while she plays her level 23~ NightElf rogue with her guild. So I created 2 one I created on a different server since Duskwood was full and had a huge wait time just to long on. SO I made another Dwarf Hunter on Norganon……got him to 14 in little over 5 hours. However this server is dead and lonely there doesn’t seem to be any one around except a few dozen level 54+ characters. Also there is absolutely no general chat of any kind going on…..I can’t believe how much I miss the chatting across general even if it wasn’t to me. Though I had great success in playing the AH on that server. I went with Mining and blacksmithing for fun. Made some decent money but I think I will delete that char soon now that I made this new char I've been playing.

Mindkiller
Gnome, Rogue. Mining, Herbalist

Made this bad boy on Duskwood so now I have 4 characters on 2 accounts on the same server. Nice. I’m digging the hard hits this dude dishes out even at low level. I was able to blast through the first few quests so fast I had to hang out and farm for a few levels before moving on to the Karanos area. I then proceeded to own this area with only a few deaths from bad pulls 2 of which were not mine but idiots who can manage aggro. Oh well I leveled him to 14 in some thing like 6 hours game time I think. I will have to check then I will change it here. I can’t wait till 16 when I can start on lock boxes. I know where a few always spawn. I have seen them with my hunter all over the place since he can track treasure. The real cool thing is that since I don’t need the herbs or ore on the other chars its all money for Mindkiller I made him over 1g in one trip to AH at level 10 all by himself. Instead of smelting the ore I sold it raw. Yeah it will take longer to level it but I only did that for the first 60 ore I had, It only tool 2 hours to get that much and I wasn’t even working on it much. After I trained for herbalist I was able to sell the lower herbs for some serious cash so I was able to but my some decent weapons at level 13. I’m gonna go with dual weld sword till I can get a hold of some decent daggers. What I trade for speed I more then make up for with damage. C’mon taking out Icebeard at level 12 solo with no potions. After I completed most of the quest here I found that I’m already close to being honored in Ironforge and Gnome’s eyes…cool. Maybe it will help me save some money. I am really looking forward to the lock picking quests and the poison quests. I will prolly get poisons before my wife does with her rogue. That will chap her ass good. Hehe. I’m taking him to Westfall for levels 15-22 or so then I hit up some other area. I was also thinking about leveling him to 19 then hitting WSG for some kills. I might not have the patients for the waiting in lines for them to start but I shall try. I would like to have at least one character geared toward PVP mainly. This will be mainly for revenge kills and such so I have to find a good build for it.

Savoy
Gnome, Mage. Alchemy, Herbalist

I haven’t been playing my mage so much. I am not happy with the way she has turned out and I am thinking about a respect already and I will prolly go with frost arcane as a build. I know it’s too soon to start spending that kind of cash but I can afford it. I think it will make her a more viable solo grinder and will make it easier to run instances later on. Since I will have worked with her till that point I will be more familiar with how to play her effectively in raids and such

Now I just have to start the process of moving to a new apartment soon which will cut deeply into my WOW time. I think I will survive.
So I’m making the money and planning a long trip in real life and WOW life.

Liking this game more and more.

2006-05-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

Coming along REAL nice here.

I have been playing my hunter almost non-stop with a few trips to towns to sell trash, reload and mail items to my support alts. I spent a long time in Stonetalon Mountain before I decided to go back to the Eastern continent and grind Duskwood. I got from 20 ½ to 24 ½ in the mountains before I decided to head east.

I took a detour to Westfall for a few quests then headed into Duskwood. I own this area. There isn’t much I can’t handle here at only lvl 24. I dinged 25 in about 30 minutes. I picked up as many quests as I could in the area and went out hunting all the mean nasties in the area. Note to self: Get track undead. I really should have got this one long ago. Shrug, I didn’t think I would need it this soon and frankly I didn’t think, period. So the first thing I do tonight is go to Stormwind and get me some skill upgrades for me and Coat.

As I was saying I burned through like 6 quests in 2 hours easy got my hunter close to 28 before I logged. I also managed to get mining over 130 so I'm sitting pretty with the iron in the area. I’m gonna check today what the prices are for iron ore and bars. I have been making a killing on bronze and copper ore in the AH. Just a few silver ore made me over 1g. Nuts! Well I can’t use it and it won’t give me skill ups any more so I have no problem taking money for it. My skinning is up enough that I’m getting into heavy leather territory, though I shall have to take my Leatherworking warrior to darnassus soon to become an expert. Then I will have to lvl him to be able to do the artesian quests depending on my choice for ending specialty. Prolly gonna go elemental but I haven’t made up my mind.

Pretty soon I will have to stable Coat to go find the mobs with his upgraded attacks on them. I’m not looking forward to this but it will be just 2 different mobs until I get the attacks. O well the trials and tribulations of a hunter and his pet care. Once I get the skills straight I will most likely go back to Westfall to run the mines. I am really looking forward to that with my uber hunter. I just get a kick outta taking down mobs that are 3-5 lvls higher then me with little or no damage to me (if I’m careful). The mines will be a snap if I can get into a decent group that doesn’t hate hunters. Just means I will have to keep Coat on a tight leash, which I do anyway.

Oh by the way Coat is my pet, in case you don’t get that by now. He was a lvl 9 Ice claw bear when I found him. Now he is a lvl 27 MobKillerOfDeath, who answers to me. Heh. I was thinking in the beginning to get me some unique creature to ride with me but he grew on me fast so I decided to keep him. I might later get me a cat of some type or perhaps a wolf type but it will be for specific purposes like kill quests with a lot of mobs to down. Having the extra power might make things go faster in those times. Though most likely I will stick with Coat and not change him or take the time to replace him.

So tonight is all about the skilling and the lvling to 28 for the next batch of skills and maybe I can shop for a new gun. I’ve got about 15 gold spread over 3 chars now. I am loving the ease of making money in the mining industry. Leatherworking is starting to pay nice to as well as out fitting my hunter in some nice duds. Soon I will get me a new ammo pouch and a new 10 slot bag prolly around the same time too. Yeah baby.

That’s all for now. Maybe I should start advertising the blog so I can get some readers who comment on my babble.

Making some exp.

2006-05-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

Just a bit of fun. I decided to take my mage back to Wetlands for some herb picking. Big mistake. I should have stayed in Darkshore.. Oh well it won’t take to much time to get back there. Maybe I can get her to Stonetalon mountains to kill stags. They seem to drop a few items worth some decent cash. I managed to get a few more grave moss but since the stack I had didn’t sell I'm gonna wait to get a full stack before I put it back on the AH. I also got a few life roots which will come in handy when I get my greater healing potion recipe. That will help out a lot in battles. I switched over to my hunter to complete a few quests in Redridge Mountains. Seems he is high enough now, and I have a big new gun, to kill the mobs there pretty easily. I finished 3 kill quests there then hung out until I dinged 22…very cool didn’t even realize it was close till after the quests. I died a few times because of stupid players that seem to want to agro entire camps with out support or CC. I just don’t get it. Going in blazing, getting killed isn’t going to get the job done. Sure you are lvl 21 but going up against 3 19 lvl mobs will get you dead fast. By the time u kill one you are half life then you start the second. Maybe you heal but it gets eaten by the third guy who finishes the job after you kill the second guy. DEAD. Stupid. Yeah death is just time lost and a little money to repair but it’s just so damn stupid when you could have taken your time killed the one at a time and are ready to take on the next camp. Anyway enough ranting. Got my hunters mining up to 100 now so its prolly time to get some quests in wetlands and look into some mining there. This place is also a good area for skinning. The raptors are easy kills for a hunter/ pet combo and then can be skinned, let alone the crocs. If I need some cash I can take down some orcs or those walking hyena looking things. I maybe I will hit up some firefin fishing off the coast. Really need some leather to get my warrior up to making some decent leather for my hunter. That’s all for now.

Couple of hours work.

2006-05-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Some interesting happenings. I took Savoy on a journey to Darnassus last night. I needed to learn to be an expert alchemist. So I cleared up some business with my warrior and hunter then settled in for the long haul.

I had to travel all the way from Westfall to Loch Modan on griffon then walk from there to Menethil Harbor. I picked up the quest to kill 6 orc scouts and 8 orc brutes and proceeded into the hills above the loch. I met up with a human mage on the same quest so we teamed up for the kills. We got to the orc camp an started the killin. We were doing well, pulling and killin at a good clip without too much damage to us. Then this idiot dwarf and his even more idiotic gnome friend decide to aggro the entire camp then kite them out of the valley.....right into us. Brain dead idiots.... If they had partied up we could have taken out the camp in like 5 minutes. Instead we all had to walk back from the loch graveyard. MORONS. They of course died too...first as a matter of fact. Yet they tried to do the same tactic when they came back. Luckily we had gotten most of the quest done by then so we finished it up and began the long trek to Menethil. The road was pretty clear no crocs or oozes to speak of. I did leave the path to take down an ooze guarding a patch of kingsblood....not gonna pass this one up, no sir. Got to Menethil after picking up the delivery quest along the way turned in both quests and decided to linger in the Wetlands for a bit. I wanted that ooze covered bag. 10 slots are nice. So I hauled back to the middle of the area and went north. Killed like 10 oozes before the bag dropped. I did find some nice grave moss. SO I picked about 9 pcs of the stuff. I prolly won’t use it for awhile but it might sell real well so what ever. I return to the harbor turn in quest and get the griffon point. Time for the long boat ride to Auberdine.
Get to Auberdine and hit the hippogriff point and get on another boat to the world tree. Griffon point again and take the portal to Darnassus. Now at this time I'm Maxed out at 150 in alchemy and 148/150 in herbalism so I'm doing pretty well. I just can’t make any potions till I get the next lvl. What do you know, I have just enough money to buy me an expert status as an alchemist, but not herbalism...yet won’t be too long though if my grave moss sell today. I also need money to buy the formula for the greater healing potion that’s another 50s Oh well I can go farm in Ashenvale for a little while till I get all the potion formulas here. I already know from my wife what to kill for some good money making trash. Shouldn’t be too hard. I have been sending all my leathers form all my chars to my warrior. It started to pay off good this morning. It won’t belong before he will be able to make some decent leather for my hunter to wear. Leatherworking is over 100 now and I can make nice armor but can also make medium armor kits for +16 to armor for legs, hands, chest, and feet!! Yeah my hunter is going to be decked out soon. I’m planning on taking my hunter back to the wetlands to harvest leather from the velosaraptor looking things there as well as the crocs. I got him a new weapon from the AH...I know I know “Don’t buy at low levels” but I can afford it with the money he is making in metals and leathers so sue me. It will be a good place for him to lvl a bit too. Soon
I’m gonna have to take out my warrior and lvl him too. He’s gotto have the full amount of rest exp coming to him by now. He hasn’t left Stormwind in like 2 1/2 weeks. Oh well there always this weekend if I can convince my wife to give me Saturday instead of Sunday for MY-ALL-DAY-PLAY. We will see.

Some news from the front.

2006-05-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

I have been bouncing around with all of my characters the past few days.

I'm sorta using them all to support each other in different ways. Like my mage has alchemy so se gets all the herbs and fish an stuff for potions, while my warrior gets all the leather so he can make armor an stuff. My hunter is just a money maker but still my favorite right now. Mining and skinning are really starting to pay off. I just have to split all the leather he gets with the warrior and sell the rest at the AH.
Bronze bars seem to go for a good amount and I don’t really have to work to hard for the mats. I have been real lucky on mine spawns so it won’t be long before I can start to mine iron in dusk wood. It will probably happen about the time I can effectively battle the beings in that area, which isn’t far away now and I've only just dinged 22. Good place for leather too as well as plenty of spiders to get venom sacs from for the all important anti-venom potions that my wife char will need soon.

More on Savoy.
My mage is coming along real nice, although I have been neglecting her a bit in favor of my hunter. I did finally go and learn a few spells I had been putting off like blink... This is cool I have not had a chance to use it in game for emergencies but I know it will come in handy.

I took her into Deadmines once again this time with a warlock, a rogue and a paladin. Yup 4 man team....again. We couldn’t find a priest so it was the pally’s job to heal. Good thing too since he was only lvl16 and could barley hit anything. The warlock and rogue were levels 26 and 27 respectively. So it wasn’t too hard since we also used strategy to deal with the run. The rogue did most of the pulling while the lock and my mage did crowd control as needed, me sheeping him fearing. We made it past the mechwarrior wannabe, wasted him easy btw, and made good time down to the ship.

We discussed strategy on the first mate with sheeping being a good way to go. The rogue pulled the mate by sapping one of the stealthed adds which I then sheeped. So now we had just 2 to fight. The rogue tanked the mate and the rest of us gangbanged the 2nd body guard. Took it down fast then started on the mate. I kept resheeping the other bodyguard, so it wasn’t a factor in the fight at all really. The mate stunned us 2 times before we took him down. On his last hit he smote my mage....grrr. It was a real cheap shot but was my fault. I didn’t watch my dps and drew aggro at the last second. But I rezed back at the beginning and was summoned to the team at the gangplank.

We boarded and decided to go for the cook. Easiest kill of the run right there. We took him down with out any problems. I got a cookies tenderizer on a greed roll. No one wanted it or needed it so it will fetch something as vender trash. We went back to the front of the ship and started the long haul to the top...but it wasn’t that long this time. Was a real good team even the pally kept up on the healing real well. No one died on the run except me and the pally and we each only died 1 time.

We got to the top and used the same strategy on the captain, sheep/sap and drew the captain down the ramp a bit before killing him. Then we took down his bodyguards down one at a time....cake. We paused to catch our breath. The rogue or the warlock said they had never beaten VC, can’t remember which said it, so we went into this battle TENCE. We decided to risk the adds that would spawn at half life and sheeped and feared the fist 2 bodyguards. Then I took down one of them before bringing my fire power down on VC.

I must have irritated him because he left the rogue who was tanking him and came after me. They managed to pull him off just as he called for the other 2 guards. That’s 3 guards and VC now. So I resheeped the last original guard and tore into VC again. The warlock was fearing the other 2 guards while the pally was healing like mad. The rogue maintained aggro through out the rest of the fight.

Then it was time to lay down the hammer.

I loaded up some arcane bolts followed by fireball r3 and then fire blast.......DEAD. VC went down but we weren’t done yet, we still had 3 guards to go so we ganged up on them one at a time and took them down. YES!! Got my VC head and so did 2 others who needed it. We sat a few minutes to soak in what we had done....yeah we kilt him. It was my first DM run finished and it was fun. We made a run for the exit sheeping and fearing all the adds and made it to the exit portal.

We then marched back to Sentinel Hill like heroes. Many compliments went back and forth. I tell you we all deserved it. Yeah it’s a low instance but it still was a fun time. Good teamwork and communication was the key. We discussed and planned just enough to know what the others were doing. So we were cohesive in the task at hand and came away with the big W. Yeah now I just can’t wait to take my hunter through there.

I’m gonna maul stuff with him.

Bored at work. Might as well post.

2006-04-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

I got on this morning to check the AH. My copper ore and linen sold well. Money money money. I have to wait until I get home to check the rest of the stuff I put up as my employer frowns on gaming in the workplace. Maybe I can get a job with yahoo....not. I’m using my hunter mostly now. I like the not being alone deal while still being alone. My pet is an Ice Claw Bear I got from Dun Morogh, named him Coat. I was intending to drop him for one of the rares in the area, but he kinda grew on me. Maybe I still go get a white bear just for the heck of it. I think I'm not getting the hang of the learning a new attack/rank deal. I caught a spider in Loch Modan to get Bite 2 but I don’t seem to be letting me learn it. I'll have to look it up. Hopefully I will be able to play some when I get home. Gonna be a fight between me and my wife I bet. Oh well I brought this on myself so I'll deal with it.

World of Warcraft; A Start.

2006-04-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

Bringing everyone up to date.

This is a story....well maybe not.

I recently got into World of Warcraft MMORPG. When I say recently I mean like a month ago. I will say this game has a lot of groovy bells an' whistles. I actually began researching WOW about 3 months ago. I had heard of it from friends and seen some articles online about it but never really looked at it as a game I would get into.
Then one day I happened upon a comic strip in penny arcade. It grabbed my attention and sparked my curiosity. I began to look into the game, checking it out for min reqs and such. Turned out my system wouldn't even be able to run the game with out an upgrade. So I had to wait a few months to get some money together for a new Graphics card and more RAM. Let alone the cost of the game itself. I spent my time sifting through blogs and articles and movies trying to get a feel for the game. I couldn't see it first hand, like say on an account of some friends. They all are on different schedules then me. My research drove my wife nuts, but she’s over that now.

Well a few things came down about 1 month ago.

I had purchased a moderately expensive TV just before I decided to try the game. I knew the PC upgrades were a must even if I dropped the game idea. This was realized after I bought the TV. Unfortunately (or maybe not) I had left the TV in the box till I could clear a spot for it to rest, so it was a big surprise when I pulled the TV out of the box and IT WAS BROKEN. I was real miffed to say the least but I figured I could just take it back to the store and get me another. I was wrong about that. No more in stock and it was discontinued. So I decided to get my kids a new TV which was much smaller and cheaper then the one I'd had originally. What does that mean? Store Credit. Very cool.

I was able to buy the game as well as a few things for the family to enjoy. So I have the game, now.....time for the upgrades. My box is an older Dell prolly a good 5-6 years old. It has handled all the games I have put on it but it was seriously lacking in the graphics hardware department. Also the RAM needed a face lift.
So I turned to my tech friends at work.
These guys know their stuff. They directed me to a few search sites for good prices/real good equipment. So I searched for compatible video cards and memory upgrades. Took me almost a week just because the PC is old enough not to have an AGP or a PCi E slot so I had to find a decent PCI card with enough of a bang to run the game. I ended up spending $150 total for a 256mb card and 1GBz of memory. Not bad if you ask me seeing as I had limited options available.

I can tell you I was jazzed. Just those easily installed components made my machine run so much better then it has ever. I can't see how I had been able to limp along with just 256MB ram for so long and an onboard video.....bleeaach never again.

So my PC is now beefy (*giggle* I know its still pathetic bit it works for my purposes) and I begin the 3 hour process of installing WOW and its newest patches. This was just after 1.10 came out so I had an extra 350mb of stuff to stream after the initial install. After the game was installed I then made the mistake of trying to download the patch from blizzard direct, I know ...stupid. I changed my mind after seeing it would take a few days to get from them, so I went to a mirror site and got it all streamed in less than 30 minutes. Then come the hour for the game to update itself.
Done! Yeah, now I can play.
Nope, got to create an account. Ok. Done, NOW I can play right?
Right. I log on, Username/ password stuff, and get to choose a realm. I see a realm with a bright shiny NEW next to it so I chose DUSKWOOD. This is my new home. Welcome.

Intermission: this is turning into a real long story, but hey, I have a lot to say and knowing where I came from might interest some people.

So I'm now a part of this Duskwood realm thing. Time for character creation. My first choice was a human warrior, an easy pick for to get the swing of the game. I played him up to 10 then decided to switch to a gnome mage, very cool, she is now lvl 21 and coming along very nicely. I also started a dwarf hunter mainly cuz I still like to solo and liked the idea of having a mobile tank that’s not me. See I'm already using the in-game lingo....I am so cool. Not. I know there are a lot of people who don’t like hunters. Well that’s tough I like them and I have played this hunter to lvl 14 in 18 hours of play time. No record I know but seeing as it took twice as long to lvl my mage I think it’s a real accomplishment. Better time on account of the knowledge of quest goals and knowing where to go. Big help. I say I like to solo yet I am more then willing to run instances with groups, needed in most cases any way.

FUN WITH MY MAGE
I took my mage into Deadmines a few days ago. There were 5 of us me with my then lvl19 mage, 21hunter, 19druid, and a14priest who died more then the rest but still contributed well. We also got a 22mage later after we wiped a few times. I will say the four of us didn’t wipe till after we took down the mechwarrior wannabe and his driver goblin. We kicked his booty. The big ogre was not even worth mentioning. We mainly died from the patrols coming up behind. We didn’t know and I was not using proper CC. I got better believe me. As we went deeper we wiped a few times then sent out a call for a 5th player we got a 22 mage, nice. Not an ideal package I know from the forum posts a read but it worked for us. We made it all the way to the docks and worked up to the ugly carpet on top of the boarding ramp. I was warned by the other mage about the 2 stealthed rogues so I was prepped to sheep at the right time. We pulled him and they came. I sheeped one while the other mage sheeped the second. So all we had to face was the first mate. The 22mage TANKED him while the rest of us beat on him with all we had. The mate stunned us then ran. Just as we came out of stun, the sheeps wore of so we ....sheeped them again just as the mate came back. We finished him off the started in on one of the rogues. Took it down then took down the second. Whew! Much different then the mechwarrior battle. We rested....a lot and then began our assault on the ship. I had requested that we try for Cookie for a possible wand for me and everyone agreed. We carefully pulled all the way to the back side, left from the ramp, and took down cookie pretty fast. Though no wand, oh well maybe next time. Though now I don’t need it, but still. We doubled back the dockside of the ship and began the tough, for us any way, climb to the top. We had a bad pull right at the second ramp. Had like 6 adds come after us. Wipe #4 for us four and #1 for the new mage. We rezed and trudged back with only a few respawns, no problem.

We got back to ship and we were much more careful this time. The mage was nominal leader he kept us where we needed to be and was real patient with us. 3 of us were there for the first time*grin*. We made it to the top of the ship and we were doing fine. Till we aggroed the Captain and his buddies, WIPE! Again the long jaunt back. It was quicker this time with no respawns. Back up top we cleared out the extras left. Then planed to take out Captain Greenie. I called left pirate and the other mage took the right one. SHEEP!!!. We then pulled the captain down a flight to isolate him so we could work him over. We killed him after a short fight then waited for the pirates to come at us. Sheeped one again then killed them one at a time. RESTED. Now was time for the big man.

We were in for a butt whoopen.
I had known about the rogues guarding them but I didn’t know how long we would have till he called more. We sheeped and tried to take him down first....not gonna happen. WIPE. He called his friends and had a mudhole stomping party. We tried 2 more times then called it. We just didn’t have the needed tank for this one. Well maybe next time. I think that covers it except I recently discovered the wealth to be had on the AH. My hunter is making bank mining and skinning then selling it in the AH. Yeah money.
To sum up: I Love this Game.
Duskwood
lvl20~ mage Savoy
lvl10~ warrior Manbeast
lvl14~ hunter Jolygreen

P.S. After all the bad mouthing my wife gave me about the run up to this game she now has 3 chars on my account and competes for play time. HA!