Monthly Archives: October 2007

blogs, pets

Beware My Rudimentary Art Skills

4 Comments

I have made a topbanner for my blog! As I do not have access to a working scanner at the moment, the characters were mouse-drawn in GIMP. Then they were pasted onto a picture of Elwynn Forest. I think it turned out okay. The hardest part was figuring out how to center the image because, by default, it aligned to the left. It’s still sort of stuck to the top of the banner but it looks okay for now.

Let me know if you’re having trouble reading the banner, I realize the bright blue text is kind of an iffy idea but I tried to make the text large enough to still be easily readable.

Other blog-related news: I’ve added my e-mail address to the sidebar. I don’t know if anybody would have reason to e-mail me but I thought it would be a good idea to have it there, just in case!

WoW-related news: My boyfriend admitted to me the other day that Tux’s wings annoy him sometimes. This is understandable and the curse of pets with big flapping wings. I love Tux and would never part with him but as I get closer to “the higher levels” of the game (aka the Outland Levels), I figure it’s time to start thinking about an alternative pet to use when the people I’m grouping with would rather I not have a bird. I have my raptor in the stable, but I’ve also been thinking about the ever-so-classy cat. Decisions, decisions, on what my third pet should be…

rp, server types

Born and Raised on an RP Server.

4 Comments

I’ve made a post before concerning my personal experiences with PvP servers, and I’ve been thinking I’d like to revisit that subject, as well as discuss another one. So, without further ado…

I play on a roleplaying server.

I play on a roleplaying server because my boyfriend picked that server, and he picked that server because it’s where one of his friends plays– as far as I know, that particular friend does not RP in WoW, so it’s sort of ironic that the three of us wound up on an RP server.

RP servers are interesting places and they have their own little “culture”. They have defined WoW for me and, I believe, sort of spoiled me because I was born and raised on one.

Now don’t get me wrong– for the most part, RP servers are really a lot like other servers. Not everybody is “in-character” 24/7, in fact the vast majority aren’t. And contrary to what you see on the WoW website about RP servers, I have seen people “in-character” on the general channels maybe… once or twice. We have hardcore PvPers and hardcore raiders, and we have lots of casual players, just like most other servers. I do, on rare occasion it seems, see people roleplaying. I do see a lot of people with the FlagRSP or MyRoleplay addons, though not everybody with those addons roleplays. Perhaps my favorite part, off the top of my head, is that you don’t get as many people named stuff like “Lolpwnsyou” or whatnot as you seem to get on non-RP servers. I don’t want to chalk this up to something like “maturity” as much as I want to chalk it up to how I think a lot of people on RP servers, whether or not they actually roleplay, sort of see their character as a real character in a story and thus want to bestow their character with an interesting name.

Now I have to admit, when I first began playing I didn’t see an RP server as a particularly viable choice to me, and I ended up on one mostly because I wanted to play with my boyfriend. But as time has gone on… I’ve discovered that RP servers fit my style perfectly. I do have a personality for my character. I do have a backstory for her. I do think about her life and adventures in Azeroth and how she would react to them. And, as I’ve mentioned before– pretending like I’m actually in a fantasy world is one of my favorite aspects of this game. (Yes I’m a nerd.)

My boyfriend, who has roleplayed via message boards and forums in the past, really jumped onto the WoW roleplaying thing and even though I was a bit wary at first I’ve started to roleplay myself as well. I don’t do it very often, but I have fun when I do and I’ve started to do it more frequently.

All of this has actually made it hard for me to play on non-RP servers. I miss being able to read so many interesting RP addon descriptions that make characters more than just pixels and polygons. I miss those random bits of good roleplay that I occasionally stumble across on my home server that make the game seem more real to me. And I miss the general attitude… it’s hard to describe without exaggerating, but RP servers are like the bright yet clumsy and picked-on kid in the back of the class who has loads of personality if you get to know him. We’re a bit different, and we know we’re a bit different, and we’re the brunt of jokes on occasion, but we like it that way.

And now back to my opening sentence– PvP servers. As much as I hate to say it, it’s true, I’m a carebear. =P My poor level 26 tauren hunter, who I love dearly, hasn’t been getting any playtime at all recently and it’s because she’s on a PvP server and I just can’t get into PvP servers. I’ve kept her on that server for so long because she is in a ridiculously awesome guild. But, sadly, a lot of important people have been leaving that guild and I think it’s on the verge of disbanding. If that’s what it comes to, I’ll be transfering her. To an RP server of course!

blogs, links

Here's To The WoW Bloggers

5 Comments

As a few of you may know, I am fairly new not just to the hunter class, but to World of WarCraft as a whole. When I was first starting out, I was a pretty terrible player. I really had no idea what I was doing, or what I was supposed to be doing. Today I look back on some of the epically bad newbie mistakes I made (“Hey, putting my pet on aggressive in Deadmines is a great idea, right?”) and cringe.

Fortunately for me, I was bright enough to realize that I was… lacking in the hunter skills department. So one day I went on a Google rampage to see if I could find some information to help me become a better player.

The two blogs that came up were The Hunter’s Mark and Big Red Kitty. These blogs really need no introduction; they both provide a wealth of information on the hunter class and WoW in general and both helped me immensely in my newbie-hood. Lassirra and BRK are hunters that I have huge amounts of respect for and I /salute them. However, after a while, I also noticed that they weren’t my only mentors– the commenters and readers of these blogs had a lot to offer too! Slowly I started visiting their profiles and sites and following various blog links that I stumbled across and building up a little collection of blogs to read. Some of these blogs are bigger and some are smaller but they have all helped and continue to help make me a better hunter and WoW player.

Kestrel’s Aerie is chock-full of information and help regarding pretty much anything and everything that is WoW-related, and also includes highly interesting features such as UI/addon reviews and a frequent “blog roundup” listing some of the most interesting blog posts of the week.

Little White Lion chronicles the both the ups and downs of the adventures of a hunter as she gets closer to level 70, and has shown me a lot about what I have to look forward to as I get there myself.

Balls of Z is a highly informative and entertaining blog about mages and a couple hunter alts. (I certainly don’t blame anyone for having more than one hunter alt, I can’t even count how many hunters I play by now.) Mages are possibly my second favorite class in the game and this blog, while still fairly new, has been a solid reference for my own baby mage so far.

Mirshalak’s Lair is to Survival what BRK is to Beast Mastery. This blog also has a lot to offer about various aspects of WoW, and these informational posts are accentuated with an inherent thoughtfulness and introspectiveness which makes a very good read overall.

Little Black Kitty is a newer blog that documents the adventures of leveling a draenei hunter. It’s been a remarkably fun read so far and the posts are often accompanied with absolutely adorable pictures of the blogger’s real life kitties!

Thrill of the Hunt features Top Ten Lists and a lot of information on everything from raiding to “budgeting your WoW checkbook”.

Bubble-Hearth is a pally blog (as you’ve probably guessed from the title =P) which I started reading not too long ago but from which I have already gleaned some advice on video capture and reducing lag, and which I look forward to reading more of.

Grumpy Old Dwarf is, well… about a grumpy old dwarf! This is another blog that I just started reading recently, but it has a lot of personality and is always fun to read.

Saber Squadron I actually just started reading today =P Because I found out that they were linking to me and I regret to say that I didn’t know about the blog earlier! It’s about somebody who has gone all out and is multiboxing five hunters. It sounds like a fun adventure and I’m excited to read more about it.

And that is my listing of all the WoW blogs that I currently read. I am always looking for more because I am an avid reader/learner, so give me a shout out if you know of any others that deserve looking into! But this post is largely to say thank you to the WoW blogging community, particularly the hunter subset of that community, for unknowingly helping to raise this little hunterling. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a good hunter yet– I’m still low-level, and I’m still learning– but I think that I am getting there, slowly but surely, and a large part of it is thanks to you guys. I hope that someday I’ll be able to help newbies with my blog the same way your blogs helped me.

So I raise my Brewfest cup to you WoW bloggers today! =D

beast mastery, marksmanship, respec, specs

Spec'ing Back… for now.

1 Comment

After spending a good few levels and over a week as a Beast Mastery hunter, I’ve returned to Marks. What do I miss the most from the BM tree? Believe it or not, probably Improved Mend Pet. I hate it when poor Tux contracts a disease or something and I can’t do anything to help him out. I also miss Intimidation, and of course, Serpents’ Swiftness and “The Big Red Button”. But I’ve found myself wishing for IMP back more than anything else.

Thoughts on returning to Marks: I thought for sure “Oh, my poor pet won’t be able to hold aggro anymore”, but actually he’s still an aggro-holding machine, possibly even more than he was as BM. I believe that this is thanks to two things: Improved Hunter’s Mark, which gives him a melee boost, and Go For the Throat, which gives him more focus and more chances to use Growl. These are two things that a normal 41/20/0 build would probably have, but mine didn’t because of lack of talent points, and it made a big difference. I also think my Trueshot Aura helps out a little, but obviously it’s not going to make up for the lack of a Beast Mastery build in the pet-power department.

Tux is back to doing about 35% of my total DPS instead of 45-50%. That’s still a considerable amount of damage. I really feel that a marksman hunter cannot and should not underestimate the power of his or her pet.

Overall going back to Marks sort of feels like “going home” to me, but that’s just because I was “raised Marks”, so I’m comfortable with it. I really enjoyed the time I spent as BM and I definitely plan on returning to it and playing with it even more once I get some more talent points. Next up, though, is Survival! I’ve been wanting to try that one out for a long time.

Anyways, one last thing: thanks to one of my jobs, I am going to be WoW-less for the next eight days starting tomorrow. I will have my laptop with me, (because I’m a geek with three computers), but my poor laptop isn’t capable of running WoW. Fortunately I will still have internet access, and thus I will still be able to read all my favorite blogs and also try and make a few posts for my two or three readers to enjoy. I have a couple ideas for things I would like to write about. =D