So much WoW

[zillah975]

Well, only once. But almost over and over and OVER. Omfg.

So I've started this baby paladin, Besh, on Shadowsong, partly because I like my guild on Shadowsong and they seem perpetually short of tanks, so I thought I'd try making one there and see how it goes. She's a human! \o/ I am expanding my horizons. And she's doing the starting quests in Elwynn Forest, and got the one where you have to collect crystal kelp fronds or whatever, mostly by killing murlocs.

Dude, what the hell is up with the respawn time on that island?? Seriously! She was surrounded by piles of dead murlocs, she couldn't kill them fast enough to leave the freakin' island, much less loot the poor bastards. She only died once before I got the hang of healing her in time, but for the love of God, it was an unending sea of murlocs! She'd get one half-killed, and two more would come running up from behind! Loot one, kill two, loot one, kill three more, loot one, kill another two or three, loot one, kill four...the unlooted bodies just piling up. She probably would have died again if not for the timely intervention of a passing priest and his power words.

I swear to you, half an hour spent killing murlocs on one half of one teeny tiny island. A few times I got sick of it and ran away to the mainland to kill the two or three that were attacking her, just to get out of the respawn range. And then would look back at all the shiny loot just lying there on the island...and back she'd go.

After I finally got the bodies looted and got the fuck out, I sent my level 84 hunter in, because I wondered how long it would take a pack of murlocs to actually do her any damage. But apparently you have to be killing them, or the respawn time got fixed, or something, because although she killed a few, she never got the ravening packs of murlocs that tried to take down poor Besh.

It was sort of hilarious to watch Daniria just stand there staring at this poor murloc as it tried to stabinate her.

Yeah, I'm easily amused.



Okay, I am never visiting the Blizzard forums again, EVER. Holy fuck. Is there a more negative place in the multiverse? I DON'T THINK SO.

I mean yes, my first reaction upon hearing that pandas would be a playable race was to check and see if this is April. And initially I thought that when my guildies said non-combat pets would be able to fight, they meant fight alongside you, not battle each other like Pokemons. And yes, the whole "Asian-inspired" thing may be skeevy, but who knows, maybe it'll be awesome! The artwork is awfully pretty, that's for sure.

And I'm super excited about the new monk character class.

Kind of freaked out that they may be removing auto-attack, because I don't really understand what they mean -- do they mean that every shot I make has to be uniquely instigated by a click or keystroke? -- but apparently that's not a done deal yet, so I'm not yet in full freak-out mode.

And sad to see the end of my stat sticks for my hunter, but on the other hand, it's not like non-ranged classes will get to equip ranged weapons just for stats, and since they're doing away with the minimum range for ranged weapons (yay!), it doesn't hurt my ability to defend myself if I fail to keep the mobs at bay. It'll also save me time, as I typically spend way too long trying to figure out which of the available weapons actually gives me a better result. Hopefully they'll balance everything out, since a bunch of us have been relying on those extra stats from our non-primary weapons.

I am worried that the system requirements will go up. That would suck. I shouldn't worry too much, because right now I can play the game fine with almost all the settings at their highest, but still...I hate the idea of anyone being sysreq'd out of the game. :(

But overall, I'm curious, and cautiously optimistic, about the upcoming changes. They'll make things different, but not necessarily worse. And monks!

OH ALSO. The ability to capture non-combat pets! I hope all the critters of Azeroth are capturable.

And the forums, ohgod. What a cesspit. There are some awesome people there, but the amount of crap you have to wade through to get to them is just...ick. Because seriously, regardless of whether you think the new Pandaria designs are racist or not, the answer to "Dudes, this is pretty racist," is NOT, "lol ur stupid."

Honestly, that's always the wrong answer.



My hunter is about halfway from level 84 to level 85! I think I'm going to start trying to be online and ready to do old raid content every Saturday (or most at least) at 6:30 server time, which is 9:30 my time. It's raid night for my guild, but if they don't have enough folks to raid, they'll totes do old raid content, and have actually asked me to join the last two weekends, but I couldn't because I hadn't planned on it. I'm not geared to do the really-o truly-o raids, but they said they'd help me get geared, so yay!

gramina, Ebrasse should come too -- I'm sure they'd make the same offer to you, if they haven't already.



WOOOO! Omg. A seasonal festivity thing that I'm really enjoying! I've had so much fun just putting out fires in Goldshire, seriously. I got the achievement pretty early, but it's such a hard job that I've been hanging out helping so other people can get it too.

And I got to turn someone into a ninja yesterday. :) They asked in General chat if anyone could do it for 5gp, and I was on Daniria, who's got plenty of cash, so I said I'd do it for free.

I really, really like helping people out. It makes me happy to see them be happy.

And I got to turn Ebrasse into a pirate the other day! Ebrasse makes a sweet pirate.

I really wish I could use the wands on myself, though, or pass them to another party member to use on me. Oh well.

And I got to see the Undercity without getting killed! The "drop stinkbombs on the Horde" thing is pretty juvenile, but on the other hand, it does give hordies the chance to get the "clean up the Undercity" achievement, so I tried to drop them in easy places.

And I got the Feline Familiar for Daniria! Yay!! I want the flying broomstick for her too, but Besh got it in a crudely wrapped gift from one of the orphan kids. (She's banked it until she can get her riding skill.) So now I'mma start doing that fires quest every day for Daniria, in hopes she will as well, 'cause there's no way she'll be able to get another 150 Tricky Treats between now and the end of Hallow's End.



The weirdest thing happened to me while I was playing my level 41 mage, Lyrie. She was in Mudsprocket to turn in a quest, and got one-shotted by another player on their level 85 undead warlock. But I don't have any idea why her PvP flag was on. Her icon was flagged, but when I clicked in to disable it, it also already showed disabled. She hadn't been anywhere except Theramore, and Mudsprocket hasn't suddenly turned into a PvP zone, at least not as far as I can tell. I don't know. Is there a PvP zone around there that maybe I don't know about? It was extremely unsettling!



And I signed up for a year on WoW, just 'cause I doubt I'm going to quit soon, and signing a year agreement gets you Tyrael's Charger, which looks pretty cool, and also a free copy of Diablo III when it's released. Oh, and also beta access to the next expansion.



I shelled out $25 for the Celestial Steed on a whim the other day. I got the key, redeemed it, got the steed, had it for a few days, and then BOOM, got an email from Blizzard saying they hadn't been able to process the payment and were taking the steed back. :(

I checked with my bank, and on their end it shows a successful payment which was refunded a few days later. Blizzard has no insight as to what happened, but would be glad for me to try again!

I have no interest in trying again. I just hope my monthly fee payment doesn't get fucked up by the same glitch that screwed me out of my steed.



And that's all I can think of right now.

What about y'all? What've you been up to?

Comments

[montanaharper]

The "no auto-attack" means exactly what you think it means, but it applies only to the new Monk class. And it's not set in stone yet, either. We'll see how it feels when it gets to beta (if it even gets that far). I suspect it'll feel kind of like playing a rogue: lots of keymashing.

I avoid the forums for the same reasons I avoid General and Trade chat, and for the same reason that I'm on an RP realm instead of a normal realm: so many jackasses.

As for the wand costumes, you might consider asking in guild chat if anyone has extra wands they could zap you with. If the high-level people are doing all the candy buckets (as many of my guildmates are), they'll probably end up with tons of the durned things. :-)

The Magic Broom will probably go away once Hallow's End is over, so I wouldn't actually buy it if I were you. (There's some disagreement about this statement in my own guild. Historically, items that are labeled with "Requires [holiday]" only exist through the end of that holiday, and there haven't been any blue posts on the forums to the contrary, so I'm just assuming that's the way this is going to work, too.)

You should be able to get enough tricky treats for the kitteh and the wicker man by doing all the buckets (Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, Outland, Northrend, and Cata), though. You might need to do the horseman daily dungeon a few times (accessible at 84), but generally just the buckets will net you at least 300 candies.

Don't forget to do the quest chain that gets you the creepy crate pet. It eats critters!

ETA: Oh, and on the subject of being PvP flagged.... Sometimes there are quests that flag you with no warning. I don't know anything about the new Dustwallow quests, so I couldn't talk specifics there, but I hate getting involuntarily flagged. Rawr!

[faesdeynia]

Dustwallow Marsh has a nasty habit of stealth-flagging Hordeies. A number of the quests are, "Go kill Theramore infiltrators!" but there are special ones you have to kill, or you'll get marked.

[zillah975]

Ah, maybe it's started doing that to Alliance, too. She was definitely killing things on her way to Mudsprocket...and there was one weird point where she passed over a bridge and some weird disembodied voice started laughing about how it was going to rip her arms off or something, but nothing ever attacked. I'll have to go back (on a toon that won't get one-shotted) and see if I can get it to happen again.

[zillah975]

Well that's disappointing about the broom mount. :( I haven't been able to get one yet on a character high enough level to try it out.

I must have missed a bunch of buckets -- I'm not sure I have the patience to try to find them all.... I do have the creepy crate, though, and you know, it actually is pretty creepy!

Hey, do you spend much time on the forums? How do you deal with the assholes and the negativity? I'm having a seriously hard time with them, because sometimes there are some good comments (even from people I disagree with! :D) and I know there's info there that I need or can use, but the amount of asshatishness and privilege-waving that goes on really damages my calm. :(

[montanaharper]

For the missing buckets, there are a lot more for Alliance than just the ones required by the achievement. Wowhead.com is a good resource for that information; just pick an achievement (Tricks and Treats of Kalimdor - Alliance version, etc.) here and check out the comments. (I usually filter to comments made during 4.0 and later using the drop-down "filter by patch" menu at the top.) There are links to maps for each continent in the comments, and though they don't have town names on the map, you can usually eyeball the dot's position in each zone and figure out which flight point it relates to.

While I recommend you go to Wowhead yourself and poke around and get used to using it as a resource, because it's incredibly helpful, here's a list of the buckets not included in the achievements, for the sake of convenience (and maybe getting you cool toys this year):

Eastern Kingdoms
Chillwind Camp, Western Plaguelands
Stormfeather Outpost, The Hinterlands
Swiftgear Station, Wetlands
Greenwarden's Grove, Wetlands
The Fastrider Lodge, Loch Modan
Fuselight, Badlands
Dragon's Mouth, Badlands
Iron Summit, Searing Gorge
Bogpaddle, Swamp of Sorrows
The Harborage, Samp of Sorrows
Nethergarde Keep, Blasted Lands
Surwich, Blasted Lands
Fort Livingston, Northern Stranglethorn

Kalimdor
Talonbranch Glade, Felwood
Whisperwind Grove, Felwood
Farwatcher's Glen, Stonetalon Mountains
Windshear Hold, Stonetalon Mountains
Northwatch Expedition Base Camp, Stonetalon Mountains
Stonetalon Peak, Stonetalon Mountains
Northwatch Point, Southern Barrens
Honor's Stand, Southern Barrens
Fort Triumph, Southern Barrens
Cenarion Wildlands, Desolace
Dreamer's Rest, Feralas
Bootlegger Outpost, Tanaris
Marshal's Stand, Un'Goro Crater

There aren't any unlisted ones in the Cata zones, Northrend, or Outland.

As for the forums, well...I stay away, mostly. My guild leader reads the guild raid and leadership forum and occasionally links me to something she thinks I'll find interesting, and I have an RSS feed for the MMO-Champion.org Blue Tracker, so I can see if there's anything official that interests me, but otherwise I don't bother with the forums unless I have a question I need to get an answer to. In that case, I do a search first, and then—as an absolute last resort—post my question. For a while I hung out on the Customer Service forums and tried to help people where I could, but it was kind of exhausting to deal with all the asshats with entitlement issues, so I stopped.

ETA: If you were Horde, I'd say roll a new character and join my guild; we're great at being helpful and supportive, even if we are a bunch of dirty blood elves and trolls. ;-) Seriously, though, if you ever want to take a walk on the Horde side, PM me here and I'll get back to you with realm and guild info. We're a small-ish guild (~250 characters and ~20 regular players), and we don't bite. Unless you ask nicely. *koff*

[ketawafox]

*waves* Hi, I just joined today and found this blog. It sounds like you're having a great time in Azeroth!

I've been enjoying Hallow's End a lot myself. Especially sneaking into Lordeoron and dousing the wickerman with my rogue.

[zillah975]

Hi and welcome! :D So glad you found us!