All posts by Pike

raiding, screenshots

Roleplayers Gone Wild

3 Comments

So what happens when a rather motley crew of roleplayers shows up in Moonglade to have an in-character Guild Lunar Festival Party… and then somebody randomly announces that a certain boss has been summoned?

Yep. We downed him.

To fully appreciate this you have to realize that about half of our little raid group consisted of people from levels 40-60. The other half were people in their 60s and a smattering of 70s. None of our healers was a higher level than 60, and that level 60 healer was spec’d Boomkin at the time.

We were completely and thoroughly unorganized, because we had no idea we were going to be doing this; people had been thrown into random groups without regard to party buffs, in fact nobody had any buffs of any kind really. There was conveniently a graveyard very close by, so the typical strategy was to do as much damage as you could before the AoE inevitably caught you off guard and killed you, at which point you would wait two minutes to rez and then rinse and repeat. It wasn’t long before everyone’s armor started getting shot so we started taking shifts running to the nearest repair guy and running back.

And yet somehow, after what I swear took no less than a half hour, our scraggly little group of roleplayers pulled it off. It helped that we had our ever-so-amazing pre-Kara-geared tank, who did not even die a single time, thanks to our ridiculously talented sub-level-60 healers.

We failed to get the quest beforehand, but honestly, I couldn’t care less about that. Being on Ventrilo with the whole group, cheering and squealing at the end and congratulating and complimenting everybody and simply being so giddy and high on our guild’s first little “raid victory”, was worth far more than any possible quest reward.

I cannot wait to start raiding.

(Oh, did I mention Tux didn’t die a single time? I musta died 5 or 6 times; Tux never once hit the bucket before I did though, Omen’s Starfall be darned. I’m proud of my boy. *ruffles his headfeathers*)

operation hug, rp, screenshots

Just A Little Personal Victory

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If you are Alliance, and I am Horde, and we run across each other on an RP-PvP server…

If we are about the same level, or if you are a higher level, I will fight you.

If you are blatantly attacking a fellow Hordie or a horde NPC or town, I will fight you. (About ten minutes prior to this I went and took care of a level 50 night elf hunter who was harassing Crossroads.)

If you make rude gestures at me or are otherwise acting annoying I’ll probably fight you.

But if I am level ?? to you, and you are all alone, and you are being polite… I will hug you. And then mount up and continue on my way.


Because you never know when you might run across someone who just might be a real bone-fide roleplayer, and those are scarce, even on roleplaying realms.

I like to think I had a really neat little in-character moment today. And those are some of my favorite moments in WoW.

I am a geek, and a carebear, and I like it that way.

meta-wow

It's All About the Balance

2 Comments

The current topic flying around the WoW blogosphere is “How do you balance WoW and real life?” I’ve seen this issue addressed in a few places; I know Trackhoof has covered it, as has Softthistle and Alda. (I keep seeing that last name there as “ALSA” which is a Linux sound thing. Forgive my geekism! /beg) And in the time it’s taken me to write this article, another one has popped up at She Rolls Horde. Apologies if I’m missing anyone!

Anyways my own answer to this topic has been stewing in my head for a little while now, largely because, to be honest, I often have no idea how I manage to pull off maintaining a balance. How the heck am I juggling the dozen or so characters I have that I consider “active” and my job and my family and my friends and housechores and so much else?

Okay, let’s break this down.

A Day In The Life of Pike:

Work Day:

4:45am: Up and out of bed. Feed my guinea pigs, get ready for work and grab some breakfast. While eating breakfast I’ll typically check my e-mail, catch up with my Livejournal friends, and read a WoW blog or two (or three, or four… I’m a fast reader)

5:45am: Out the door and in my car.

6:00am – 2:00pm: Work!

2:30pm: Arrive home after work. Take a nice, long shower. When you work at a pet store, specifically in the pet care department, you will come home covered in cricket guts, fish guano, hamster fur, and bird poop. It’s just unavoidable. The shower is a must. (My parents’ dog thinks my work pants are a tasty delicacy, however.)

3:00pm – 4:00pm: Checking the e-mail, the Livejournal friends list, the personal online forum my friends and I hang out at, the news headlines to see if there is anything going on that is marginally interesting to me (my definition of “marginally interesting” ensures I really only see the oddball or geek news, like the new Star Wars animated movie), and of course, checking Google Reader for updates on my ever-expanding blogroll. Sometimes I’ll work on a blog entry here.

4:00pm: This is typically when I log onto WoW. It used to be I would log into Tawyn and hang out on her for basically the rest of the night. These days– within this past month or so– I am much more apt to log into one of my alts at this point. Occasionally I will still log into Tawyn first to see if the guild has anything going on, if not, I’m off to play my lowbies. What can I say– I love leveling lowbies. Yes, I know I’m insane.

6:00-ish, give or take an hour: Dinnertime. Unless there is something crucial going on (like me being mid-instance) I generally take my sweet time with dinner and sort of take a half-hour or hour-long break here.

6:30-7:00ish: This is usually when I switch over to my Windows partition (it pains me every time!) and get onto Ventrilo. Originally I was only going to save Ventrilo for things like instances, but I’ve decided I like hanging out and chatting with the guildies so I try to get on for a little bit every day or almost every day. This is also usually when I log into Tawyn (unless I’m really into one of my alts at the moment) and if we’re doing an instance, this is usually when I do the instance. Otherwise I’m typically doing PvP or working on bringing rep or skills up.

8:30-9:00pm depending on how tired I am and what’s going on: Say goodnight, log off, in bed no later than 9:30pm (and being in bed by 9:00pm is preferable).

And that is how a typical work day goes for me. As you can see, my work schedule has me waking up early and going to bed early so I don’t have a whole lot of time for “social activities” even if I wanted to (and I’m so shy… I really don’t! =P) because I’d have to be back home before 8pm. Also, this schedule is of course subject to changing: somedays I am on WoW a lot less. Somedays I’m multitasking and doing my laundry while I play. Somedays… about once a month or so… work pulls a switcheroo on me and I work a 1pm-9pm shift instead of my typical 6am-2pm. In that case, I pretty much just flip the day: Try and get some WoW in during the morning.

Now let’s talk about my days off:

Non-Work Day:

Between 5:00-6:00am: Wake up. Yes, this is my definition of sleeping in. I try not to allow myself to sleep in very much, actually, because it throws off my circadian rhythm and gives me a headache.

Until about 6:00 or 6:30am: The general morning routine: feeding the pets, feeding myself, checking up on my e-mail and that fun stuff.

And then: Early morning WoW. I love early morning WoW. There’s something so serene and calm about playing so early in the morning. I love watching the skies turn from pink to blue. I love the fact that there’s hardly anyone else around and that sometimes I’ll be the only person in a given zone. Usually I really like playing my alts this early in the morning, but sometimes I’ll log on Tawyn too. Because lemme tell ya, 5am server time is the best time to go farming for motes at the Elemental Plateau. There will be like one or two other people there, and plenty of elementals for everyone. One time I was the only person hanging out with the water elementals for over an hour.

After a few hours of WoW I’ll generally log off and then this is where my schedule cycling kicks in– typically on days off I have a lot to do so I try to make the most of it. I’ll do blog stuff for an hour, then I’ll do housework for an hour, then I’ll maybe read or play another video game for an hour, back to WoW for an hour or two, back off to try and get more work done… etc. A lot of times on my days off, my family will go out to eat and I’ll accompany them. I’ll also try to do something decently social for a little while if I’m feeling up to it (yaaaaay being shy!)

As evening settles in I’ll sit down and get on Ventrilo and have some “serious WoW time” reserved for instances, hardcore-PvP-marathons or grinding. Those last two are actually often more fun than they sound.

And I’m in bed by about 9:00 or 9:30 again. If I don’t work the following day either, I’ll sometimes stretch it to 10:00.

Well, there you have it. That’s how most of my days go and I suppose you can say that my key for balance is a lot of variety and a lot of breaks. Way back when I first started playing, my initial addiction was pretty bad. Not to mention that was when I had a job that had a lot of problems giving me all the hours I’d ask for. So I’d be working 18 hours a week, and the rest of the time I was either eating, sleeping, or playing WoW. No joke. I’d be on from morning ’til night and eat while in flight from one zone to another.

Since then, I’ve made a big improvement in terms of striking that balance. I am not in game nearly as much, I’m rarely on for more than a couple hours at a tim

e (exceptions will be made for things like big instance runs), and my full-time job keeps me busy. In order to save time, I also often “consolidate” things; for example, if I need to go shopping, I just run over to the Target right next to where I work after my shift is done and grab stuff. The gas station and post office are on the drive home so I can stop for gas and stamps too. Things like laundry, as I’ve mentioned, can be done while playing. And of course, the constant switching between WoW and other things that need to be done, is something that I think helps a lot.

At this point you may or may not be asking “Hey Pike, what about that boyfriend of yours? When do you guys ever see each other?” Okay, well I will admit that it’s hard for a few reasons. Firstly he’s a notorious night owl and I, well, my schedule has got me turned into an early bird. Secondly he’s going to college full time and he’s also one of those motivated people (unlike I ever was) who studies and does homework and stuff. But we still somehow manage to be able to talk to each other throughout the day. I’ll send him a cheery text message on my phone during my lunch break or something, and somehow, no idea how, we still sometimes even manage to play WoW together. Oh, and to be completely honest with you guys, we’ve been dating for over three years and have successfully dealt with all sorts of weird scheduling conflicts in the past, so it sorta doesn’t phase us anymore. =P (That probably sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Hehe.)

I know a lot of you guys are far more busy than I am; you’ve got kids and school and all sorts of stuff going on that I currently don’t have to deal with. How you guys successfully manage to pull off a WoW/real life balance I don’t know, but I /salute you all. I hope I can be as balanced when life catches up to me and I leave the post-college doldrums. (Probably not gonna be anytime soon, but hey!)

alts, survival, the alt project

Lovin' that New Hunter Smell

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Not too long ago I mentioned how I pulled out an old troll hunter alt that I’d had lying around and wanted to retool her into a Survival hunter.

Well, she has been rerolled. There are a few reasons for this:

1.) She already had talent points in Beast Mastery and was too broke to respec.
2.) I did a lot of hard work getting her to Dun Morogh and taming a snow leopard pet. However, I decided that using a boar would be a much better idea. But I didn’t want to put that adorable snow leopard in the stable and never take him out again.
3.) Starting 12 levels into the game already sort of feels like “cheating”.

So I decided to make a completely fresh start and reroll her! I had a few issues at first deciding what server to put her on. All 10 of my Silver Hand character slots are filled up, and to be honest I really only play Alliance on Silver Hand anyway. I really like Venture Co. a lot, and RP-PvP servers are starting to grow on me, but I don’t know if I want to level two PvP hunters simultaneously– it’ll be good to have one to play on a regular ol’ RP server I think, if I ever don’t feel like the PvP. So finally I picked a new RP server which I’ve never played on before. It’s called Shadow Council and I know absolutely nobody there and that’s fine with me. Sometimes anonymity is fun ya know? It’s also the first server I’ve played on that is actually in the same timezone as me; I am an hour ahead of both Silver Hand and Venture Co. Not that it really makes a big difference, but it’s kinda neat.

And so we have Shantizar the Troll Hunter and her trusty pet Niels (first person to “get” the name, gets a cookie!)


Niels is cute and charismatic in a way I had no idea boars could be. And oh boy is he an aggro monster. I love it.

Anyways, I’ve been having a blast on this character so far. Right from level one I’ve been practicing my kiting and my jump shots (I consider both of those to be, by far, my biggest hunter Achilles’ heels. I really shouldn’t even call myself a hunter sometimes. /hangs head and blushes) and I sort of feel like I’m getting into the Survival mindset, which is kind of silly considering the fact that my first two points have gone into the Marksman tree, Lethal Shots specifically. The reason for this is because I’m a troll and get a 1% crit bonus when I’m using bows, and I totally am going to take advantage of this fact. MOAR CRITS. I will move into Survival after 5/5 Lethal Shots.

I wound up on the zeppelin to Undercity with one other passenger: a fellow female troll hunter who also had a boar. She was level 35 or so, and we both waved at each other and /patted each other’s boars and stuff. I glanced at her spec (I am super voyeuristic when it comes to other hunters and their specs… I can’t help it) and was somewhat surprised to see… a fellow leveling survival hunter! Woot. This is fun already. I can’t wait until I can put some points into that tree. It’s going to be so fun and different.

I went to Silvermoon City because I randomly decided I want a chicken mount so I figure I’d best start leveling there. And who should I run into but…


Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain!

The Fab Five, propelled into superstardom by their hit single I Am Murloc!

…I was too shy to ask for an autograph. =/

So yeah, The Alt Project is sadly being more neglected than it should be, simply because I am playing not one, not two, but three* hunters simultaneously. And I absolutely love it.

* Shantizar is actually guildless; she signed somebody’s guild charter for a gold and then left— er, was booted actually– after. Armory is just slow. I don’t know if she’s going to find a guild or fly solo– still thinkin’!

arrowed, guides, weapons

Arrowed!: A Guide to Ranged Ammunition Part 1

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First off, the title “Arrowed!” is a reference to a particularly amusing Homestar Runner cartoon.

*coughs*

Anyways!

One of the neat things about ranged weapons in WoW, is that we aren’t just keeping track of our bow or gun, but we’re also keeping track of the ammunition for it. There is a staggering variety of it; Wowhead tells me that there are 21 types of arrows and 26 types of bullets in the game. Seem intimidating? I’m not surprised! Furthermore, each type of arrow or bullet adds damage to your shots. Now in general, the higher you get in level, the bigger your ammo selection will be, so you will slowly be able to work your way up to the higher DPS shots.

Let’s take a closer look here:

Normal Buyable Ammo:

This is the stuff that you can buy around Azeroth at any Bowyer or Gunsmith. You can typically find them at major cities and in some towns:

[Rough Arrow] / [Light Shot] (1.5 DPS)
[Sharp Arrow] / [Heavy Shot] (3.5 DPS) (Requires level 10 to use.)
[Razor Arrow] / [Solid Shot] (7.5 DPS) (Requires level 25 to use.)
[Jagged Arrow] / [Accurate Slugs] (13 DPS) (Requires level 40 to use.)
[Wicked Arrow] / [Impact Shot] (22 DPS) (Requires level 55 to use.)

Now you get into the Outland, and added to the basic selection are:

[Blackflight Arrow] / [Ironbite Shell] (32 DPS) (Requires level 65 to use.)

So those are your basic, buy-at-any-vendor arrows and bullets.

But wait… there’s more!

Special Buyable Ammo:

Here is the ammunition that is buyable from a vendor, but only if you meet certain requirements, aside from the normal level ones:

[Scout’s Arrow] (26 DPS) (Requires level 61 to use and requires a Friendly reputation with the Cenarion Expedition.)

[Halaani Razorshaft] / [Halaani Grimshot] (34 DPS) (Requires level 66 to use and can only be bought if your faction is controlling Halaa.)

[Warden’s Arrow] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with the Cenarion Expedition.)

[Felbane Slugs] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with Honor Hold. Alliance only.)

[Hellfire Shot] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with Thrallmar. Horde only.)

[Mysterious Arrow] / [Mysterious Shell] (46.5 DPS) (Requires level 70 to use and requires a Revered reputation with The Violet Eye.)

[Timeless Arrow] / [Timeless Shell] (53 DPS) (Requires level 70 to use and requires an Honored reputation with The Scale of the Sands.)

Each of these special arrows and bullets, with the exception of the Halaani ones (you have to physically go to Halaa if you want those), can be purchased from the Speciality Ammunition Vendors in Shattrath City. You don’t have to do anything special; if you meet the requirements for a certain type of arrow or bullet, it will show it as being available to you.

One of the interesting things about these reputation-based projectiles is that you might have to grind different rep depending on if you have a bow or a gun. For example, currently I use a crossbow and am Revered with the Cenarion Expedition, so I use [Warden’s Arrow], which gives me an increase of 37 DPS. If I were to start using a gun, and I wanted to gain the same DPS bonus of 37, I would have to become Revered with Honor Hold so I could use [Felbane Slugs]. And if I was Horde, I would have to get Revered with Thrallmar so I could get [Hellfire Shot].

However, for the most part, all the arrows have a bullet equivalent with similar requirements, and vice versa. (A noticeable exception would be [Scout’s Arrow], for which there is no bullet equivalent.)

Wow… that’s a lot of ammunition. And we’ve only scratched the surface! I’ve yet to cover craftable ammo and ammo that you get as quest rewards, and other such special types. However, in the interest of preventing my readers’ brains from exploding, I’m going to save all of those for another post.

I’ll see you next time for the next installment of “Arrowed!”


Level 29 Tawyn shows off her [Quiver of the Night Watch] and [Razor Arrows]. (I love the fact that I’ve taken billions of screenshots throughout my WoW career. Although poor Tawyn must feel like I’m the mom pulling out all the embarassing baby pictures. =P)

alliance, factions, horde, thoughts

For the… well, nobody says Alliance, do they?

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One of the things that has always intrigued me about the World of Warcraft faction division, is that most of the people who play Horde are very, very firmly and patriotically “For the Horde!” Whereas a lot of Alliance are rather less enthusiastic about it– they like Alliance, yes, but they don’t go around posting “FOR THE ALLIANCE” as every other comment in a WoW YouTube movie or proudly proclaiming it on their website, whereas a lot of Hordies, well, do. (Note: I know this isn’t everybody… just the majority, in my experience.)

As somebody who really, truly, honestly enjoys playing both factions equally and is actually fond of *gasp* all of the races (even gnomes… actually I have a secret here: I adore gnomes. If gnomes could be hunters I’d never play another race), I’ve always found it interesting that there is that distinct difference there, and that Horde players get so much more excited about simply being Horde than most Alliance players ever do about being Alliance.

Now, I’ve heard all the out-of-character and out-of-lore reasons. I’ve heard people say that they simply like the aesthetics of one over the other, whether it be the look of the races or the look of the places. (Somebody once gave me “Elwynn Forest is a lot prettier than Durotar” as their main reason.)

And yes, I’ve heard the ever popular “People are more mature/friendly on [insert faction here].” Honestly my views on that last one is that it really comes down to what server you are on, what server type you are playing on, and the people that you encounter, as I have had both very positive and very negative social experiences on both sides of the faction fence. When I worked at a video game store for a few months this past summer, one of my coworkers told me “Alliance has the immature little kids, and Horde has the immature adults, it’s just a matter of which ones you’d rather put up with.” Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I agree with him (I tend to assume the positive about people anyway), but I am saying that he sort of has a point in that you are going to find immaturity and negativity anywhere in the game– just as you are going to find some very amazing and friendly people anywhere in the game.

So as you can see, my views have long been very neutral and unbiased regarding this issue. So it sort of took me by surprise when I realized over the past few days playing a lot of Horde alts, that Horde does indeed seem to have a homier, cozier feel to it. And I think I may have pinned it down (for me anyway):

I think it’s the NPCs and how they react to you, and the things that they say. The Horde NPCs have a very “fatherly” sort of quality to them. Taurens will tell you “be careful” when they put you on a windrider, and they sound so genuine when they say it. Same with the orcs when they tell you to “be safe”. Even trolls, when they say “You relax, mon”… yeah, it sounds so funny, but it also really is strangely relaxing. The Horde sounds like they are concerned for you.

The Alliance NPCs are more distant. Friendly, yes, but in a very formal way, especially with the humans and night elves. Dwarves are up-front and happy and tell you to “Keep your feet on the ground!” but it seems more… like a “best buddy” type of thing instead of a warmer familial thing. Really I think the closest the Alliance comes is with the Draenei, which is fitting since an unusually high amount of die-hard Horde players that I’ve come across admit that they quite like the Draenei. I think that maybe it’s because the Draenei has that same caring “aura” that you get with the Horde.

When it comes down to it, it just seems to me that the Horde is really about being “a family” and as this is sort of subconsciously represented throughout the game, it rubs off on the players and the players become a family as well, and this leads to a healthy amount of hometown pride. Alliance isn’t so much a family, it’s much more independent. I’m not saying that’s bad… I’m just saying, the Alliance’s faction allegiance is not going to manifest itself quite the same way the Horde’s does.

I think I am always going to be a Stormwind girl at heart; it’s where I was raised on the game, it’s where I’ve met my best in-game friends, and I simply love the aesthetics of the Alliance locations. And I know it’s seeped into my blood, whether I like it or not, because the other day when I saw some guy at work wearing a big Horde emblem on his coat, the very first thought that came into my mind was not “Oh cool, a fellow WoW player”, but “Oh crap, it’s the enemy!”

But I’ll be darned if it doesn’t feel good sometimes to log into my hordies and come “home” to the family in Thunder Bluff.*

* I have never really liked Orgrimmar for some reason. When I play Horde, I hang out in Thunder Bluff.

fun

The Hunter Song

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A few weeks ago somebody told me that when I talk about WoW, it sounds something like this: “Hunter hunter hunter hunter hunter…”

Anyways that sort of reminded me of a popular flash animation (no not “Badgers”, although that fits too)… so I sat down and wrote this:

“The Hunter Song”
(Based on The Llama Song)

Here’s a hunter
There’s a hunter
And a little dwarven hunter
BM Hunter
Marksman Hunter
Hunter hunter priest

Hunter hunter
Furbolg hunter
Shadowmelding Night Elf hunter
Hunter hunter
Murloc hunter
Hunter hunter priest

I was once a newbie
I made some mistakes
But I did my pet research
So I could tame The Rake

I was only level ten
Couldn’t yet wear mail
Best time for a furry friend
Or feathery or scaled

Did you ever see a hunter
Kiss a hunter
Roll a hunter
Newbie hunter
Expert hunter
Hunter hunter priest

Instance hunter
Raiding hunter
Trapping feigning kiting hunter
Hunter on a mount
Hunting a
Hunter hunter priest

I just love my kitty
And I love my boar
Now I’m out of stable slots
Oh why can’t there be more?

I think that it’s just so fun
To have a big red beast
Maybe I should retire now
And reroll a priest

arena, battlegrounds, blogs, pvp

My First Ever Arena…

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…was a 2v2, me (BM hunter) and a warlock vs. a warrior and a priest.

I really didn’t know a lot about what I was doing because I’d never even been inside an arena before. Somebody told me I should “run up the ramp” so I did. The warrior started pounding on the warlock first which gave me ample time to pop Beast Within, Abacus of Violent Odds, and Rapid Fire, and start devouring the warrior.

I actually got his health down quite a ways, but, ya know… he had a priest. So it was all to no avail. (In retrospect we probably should’ve attacked the priest first, but I didn’t see him for a while.) I eventually died, which I expected– I am so geared for PvE right now that it’s not even funny how gimped my stamina and resilience are– but to be honest I did better than I thought I’d do. I guess having 7000+ lifetime honor kills gives me a wee bit of an advantage despite my lack of gear.

I also played ten Arathi Basin games yesterday; I figured “why not” because it was still the holiday weekend for it and also because I had this sudden idea to record the results of the ten games, just for some fun statistics to look at.

Of the ten games I played, all PuGs, seven were against premades and were thus losses. (Though funnily enough, only two of those premades wound up actually five-capping us, the other five were all long grueling battles that lasted just as long as if it hadn’t been a premade anyway. One comes to mind where we constantly had two nodes capped and the premade only managed to keep three… they kept trying to take our other nodes, and they kept failing.)

So only three of the games were good ol’ fashioned PuG vs. PuG matchups. Of those three games, Alliance won two and Horde won once. For the first Alliance win, the Horde seemed to be off the ball right from the start, Alliance was ahead the entire way and won about 2000-1200. The second Alliance win was actually a very very close race for about 75% of the game, at which point Alliance somehow pulled off some crazy epic 5-cap maneuever and clinched us the victory. The one Horde victory was a pretty resounding Horde victory, they were ahead basically the entire game and it culminated in a 5-cap for them.

All and all I was satisfied; it showed me that despite all the premades you still get the occasional really fun matchups. I’ve been taking a break from PvP for a while but yesterday may have given me “the bug” again. I need to get some gear, afterall, if I’m going to be doing arena!

And now for something completely different: more and more WoW blogs are being hosted on WordPress, and that’s fine and all except that for some reason, blogs hosted on WordPress seem to have a lot of issues loading for me. I think it has something to do with “Google Analytics” because that’s always what shows up at the bottom of my browser, by the loading bar: “Waiting for Google Analytics”. Seriously though, I had a WordPress blog open in a Firefox tab just now and it took no less than ten minutes to load. They’re all like that for me. And it takes me forever to leave a comment at those blogs, for the same reason. =/ Does anybody happen to know what’s going on? So many good blogs are hosted on WordPress and I’d like to make them easier to access.

screenshots, the alt project

The Alt Project: Weekend Report

10 Comments

First thing’s first:

I’ve got the bear necessities on my druidling. /bow

I haven’t had much of a chance at all to mess around with the bear form yet, suffice to say that I’m rather enjoying it thus far and yes, I am one of those level 10 newbies who runs around doing everything in bear form and jumps all over Thunder Bluff and exudes “Wheee, I’m a bear!!” We’ve all seen them, and now I’m one of them. /shame

So the druid has gone from level 1 to level 10. Not bad. How goes the rest of The Project?

Meet Ralaenia Dexton. She’s spunky and upbeat and she likes kittens and walks in the rain.


She also likes blowing things up.

Yesterday she was level 19, now she is level 21. She has been leveling almost exclusively in Deadmines, with the help of a bunch of lowbie guild alts. We’ve all been having a blast running Deadmines with an appropriately leveled group of characters, all of us playing different classes (and even different group roles) than our 70s, which results in a lot of panic and laughter all around. Drives me nuts when there’s a hunter in the group though. The sounds of the firing guns and bows make me horrifically homesick.

BUT! She has Polymorph. And Blink. And Evocation. Evocation is one of the best inventions in the history of WoW, by the way. Just in case ya didn’t know.

So I now have a level 10 druid and a level 21 mage.

I have a confession to make though. Those aren’t the only alts I’ve been playing.

I also have a troll…

…hunter.

I have a valid excuse for this one though! I’m going to level this character Survival. Because it occurred to me that Tawyn leveled Marksmanship (she didn’t “officially” respec to Beast Mastery until level 57) and Lunapike is currently leveling Beast Mastery… but what kinda hunter am I if I’ve left an entire third talent tree untouched? So yes. Shantizar is going Survival. …at least, she will be when I get the money to respec. (I started this character a little while ago and she’s got a couple points in BM.)

If Lienna can do it and Trackhoof has a how-to for it… and Mirshalak makes it sound so fun and interesting… then there’s no way I’m going to be left out of this.

Well, that ends our special report. Coming up after a word from our sponsors: Hogger: horrible killer, or misunderstood defender of his people? Stay tuned!

guides, instances

The Pre-Instance Checklist

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I have my own personal little “Checklist” that I mentally go through when I’m going to be doing an instance. I thought I would share it with you guys in case anybody might find it useful:

Before Heading to the Instance:

–Ammo: Make sure your quiver/ammo pouch is full of the best arrows/bullets you can buy. If the instance is especially long you may want to bring a couple extra stacks in your regular inventory as well, but to be honest I haven’t found that I really need to do this in regular five-mans.
–Pet Food: I never bring anything less than a full 20-unit stack of pet food to an instance. If I know it’s a particularly hard instance, or one that is long, or that I haven’t done before, I’ll bring 25 pieces of pet food.
–Hunter Food: Unless you’ve got a mage handy, bring some food and drink for yourself.
–Repairs: Even if your durability is still at 90%. Get it to 100%.
–Bag space: It sucks to spend most of the instance trying to juggle what loot you want to keep and what loot you want to toss because you only showed up with three empty slots or something. (Trust me on this one.) Vendor stuff, put it on the Auction House or in your bank, or mail it to an alt and give yourself ample room for the things you’ll pick up!
–Potions/Elixirs/Buff Food: If you have some, bring it! Bring some for your pet too!
–The Right Pet: You probably don’t want to show up at Heroic Mech with the level 19 ghost saber that you just tamed a couple minutes ago. (Just a hunch.)
–Spec’ing the Pet: This is sort of an optional one and some people don’t like to re-spec their pet for every instance. But it’s cheap and it’s not a bad idea to give your pet extra nature resistance for Steamvaults, for example.

At the Instance:

– Growl is OFF. If you have Cower, it’s ON. If you have Screech, I myself like to turn it OFF (just because it causes threat on multiple mobs; I’m not sure if it breaks CC or not. Oh and a lot of tanks really hate the noise).
– Tank assist macro (feels an urge to write a macro article brewing) is set to the current tank.
– Pet is set to PASSIVE.
– Buff up: Is Aspect of the Hawk up? (I know I’ve forgotten once or twice). Have you used your food and agility elixir? Did you feed your pet some Sporeling Snacks or Kibler’s Bits?
– If it’s a group of people I haven’t worked with before I usually inform them that I am able to trap and that if they want me to trap something they should stick a blue square on it, and I’ll take care of it. Sometimes they’ll want to use a different symbol other than my usual blue square, that’s fine with me so long as they let me know (they always do).

Well, that’s my list. It seems long and scary but it really doesn’t take too long to do, especially if you’re like me and you like to be super-prepared and you go replenish your supply of ammo and pet food and repair every hour or so.

Everybody’s experience is different when it comes to this type of thing so develop your own list and find out what works best for you, but for the most part I think you’ll have a similar list. Do take note though that I have never done a real “raid” before so the list might be a bit different if you are further-progressed than I am (and I imagine a lot of you are).

Remember, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail”. Thus sayeth some random inspirational poster. =P

Happy instancing!