I attended a mini guild meet this weekend in Denmark and came home feeling like a detox was a good idea. I met two other Shadow Priests (a fellow Norwegian guy and a Swedish girl), a Holy Priest (British guy that just moved in with Swedish girl) and a Resto Shaman (Danish guy). We proceeded to get drunk, take lots of pictures, talk shit and theorycraft (Kalecgos at 2% on Sunday!!). It was lots of fun and a second guild meet is already in the works - I can't wait. It's really nice to meet people you play with in real life and get a chance to find out if they're ticklish or not.
Not to mention taking pictures of them while they're drunk for future blackmail!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
055: Murlocs are everywhere
I'm sitting at the train station, waiting for the homebound train, when I hear an all too familiar sound.
"Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!"
What? What the hell? Murlocs at the train station? No. Just the ringtone of the guy sitting beside me.
"Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!"
What? What the hell? Murlocs at the train station? No. Just the ringtone of the guy sitting beside me.
Monday, March 10, 2008
054: Raiding post-Illidan
"So what are we doing tomorrow?"
"Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Take over the world!"
What does a guild do once Illidan is down? Game's over, right? There are no more challenges, no more bosses to progress, nothing you haven't seen. You've done it all. So what happens then? What's next?
First of all, and I can guarantee you this - no wait, actually, I will bet you 100g that this will happen - right after Illidan is down, someone in your raid or someone lurking on vent will say the magic words 'so what are we doing tomorrow?'. Provided that you didn't kill him on the last day of the reset, this is. (They might try and say it anyway though, never underestimate the individuals need to say something witty-only-it's-not-really-witty-at-that-time-but-kind-of-a-bummer-to-everyone-actually.) We had two people do this, one of our Wonderbears and a Hordie lurking in our vent channel. All I can say is that it sort of breaks the magic of the moment and forces you to think about the fact that the game really is over, at least until the next patch/expansion.
Bumming as it is though, it pays to be prepared. Kamuflasjefylla had held off attuning new people to BT/Hyjal while we were progressing Mother/Council/Illidan so attunement runs through TK and SSC were naturally planned. To give the raiders a treat though, we were gonna hold off a couple weeks longer and head off to Naxxramas once Illidan was down. A few people had raided Naxx pre-TBC but none had cleared the whole thing and at any rate, they were all just as excited to see it again as the rest of us were to see it for the first time. I don't want to sound like a whiny bitch but I really do feel like more care were put into the little things in the oldschool raid instances. I don't know. Maybe I just fail to see the little things in Black Temple and Hyjal because I'm too focused on the encounters. Anyway, the atmosphere and music in Naxxramas is amazing.
We didn't do much when it came down to it - took out Patchwerk, Grobbusomething and the big doggie, then wiped a couple times on Thaddius cause one of the tanks kept getting knocked into a wall - but we thoroughly enjoyed the change of scenery. Really, just seeing some different colored walls than the brown-and-gold of BT was a relief.
For most guilds though, the immediate focus after Illidown is to cut down on raid time. As you progress raid the bosses you normally play pretty hardcore (we did 5 hours, 5 days a week) and when Illidan is the only one left you might push it even harder (6 days a week!!). The main focus we've had since we killed the Betrayer was to try and get the clearing of both BT and Hyjal down to 2 days. Not only would this give us some time off, it'd also open up for doing other things like attunement runs and farming Gruul's Lair for that elusive Dragonspine Trophy our rogues are drooling over. (I'm still hoping to squeeze a World Dragon or two into that free time somewhere!) Let me tell you this though: Clearing those two raid instances in two days is a pain. The bosses aren't much of an issue, but the trash? Is neverending. Especially the Mother ShaWaWaVoom trash - seeing all those luxurious beds with their inviting pillows is a pain when you've been raiding for 4 hours+ and you're getting really sleepy.
We've somehow managed to do it though, and these days we normally take out BT up to Council on Wednesday, then take out Council, Illidan and all of Hyjal on Thursday. Fridays I organise and raid lead a Karathon for badge-horny mains and alts in need of gearing up. Saturday is off, Sunday we sell loot in Gruul/Maggy/TK/SSC to encourage more 25 man guilds (our server still sorta sucks Alliance-side) and Mondays & Tuesdays we watch our poor raid leader bang his head against the desk as Sunwell on the PTR is down yet again. Since my Karathon project is on a volunteer basis, that means I only really raid 3 nights a week. For some, that suddenly freed up spare time is best spent out there in the real world doing... I don't know. Stuff. Things. For those of us with little to no life though, it means we get to focus on PvP or level up alts. I find myself in Outland for the second time now, as my baby warrior walked through the Dark Portal recently, and this time around I plan on not rushing it so I can actually enjoy the different zones. I also plan on focusing a lot on reputation farming, so I can get those rep rewards while they're still useful, like it was meant to be.
My point is that I think a lot of guilds fall into a trap once they've downed Illidan. Simply plodding on and doing nothing new or different will most likely wear down your raiders pretty fast, and might lead to people quitting or going on breaks. Everybody wants full t6 and even full offspec t6, but don't do it at the cost of good raiders. Give them some treats, make sure their schedule is varied and interesting. Drag them to Onyxia one day for the hell of it. Schedule a 25man Naxxramas run. Go say hi to C'Thun for old times sake. Go world dragon hunting (and take me with you, damnit!). Insert some flavor in the schedule and things won't be so bad when you step out of progression and into the unending lands of farm-raids.
And beware those luxurious beds.
"Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Take over the world!"
What does a guild do once Illidan is down? Game's over, right? There are no more challenges, no more bosses to progress, nothing you haven't seen. You've done it all. So what happens then? What's next?
First of all, and I can guarantee you this - no wait, actually, I will bet you 100g that this will happen - right after Illidan is down, someone in your raid or someone lurking on vent will say the magic words 'so what are we doing tomorrow?'. Provided that you didn't kill him on the last day of the reset, this is. (They might try and say it anyway though, never underestimate the individuals need to say something witty-only-it's-not-really-witty-at-that-time-but-kind-of-a-bummer-to-everyone-actually.) We had two people do this, one of our Wonderbears and a Hordie lurking in our vent channel. All I can say is that it sort of breaks the magic of the moment and forces you to think about the fact that the game really is over, at least until the next patch/expansion.
Bumming as it is though, it pays to be prepared. Kamuflasjefylla had held off attuning new people to BT/Hyjal while we were progressing Mother/Council/Illidan so attunement runs through TK and SSC were naturally planned. To give the raiders a treat though, we were gonna hold off a couple weeks longer and head off to Naxxramas once Illidan was down. A few people had raided Naxx pre-TBC but none had cleared the whole thing and at any rate, they were all just as excited to see it again as the rest of us were to see it for the first time. I don't want to sound like a whiny bitch but I really do feel like more care were put into the little things in the oldschool raid instances. I don't know. Maybe I just fail to see the little things in Black Temple and Hyjal because I'm too focused on the encounters. Anyway, the atmosphere and music in Naxxramas is amazing.
We didn't do much when it came down to it - took out Patchwerk, Grobbusomething and the big doggie, then wiped a couple times on Thaddius cause one of the tanks kept getting knocked into a wall - but we thoroughly enjoyed the change of scenery. Really, just seeing some different colored walls than the brown-and-gold of BT was a relief.
For most guilds though, the immediate focus after Illidown is to cut down on raid time. As you progress raid the bosses you normally play pretty hardcore (we did 5 hours, 5 days a week) and when Illidan is the only one left you might push it even harder (6 days a week!!). The main focus we've had since we killed the Betrayer was to try and get the clearing of both BT and Hyjal down to 2 days. Not only would this give us some time off, it'd also open up for doing other things like attunement runs and farming Gruul's Lair for that elusive Dragonspine Trophy our rogues are drooling over. (I'm still hoping to squeeze a World Dragon or two into that free time somewhere!) Let me tell you this though: Clearing those two raid instances in two days is a pain. The bosses aren't much of an issue, but the trash? Is neverending. Especially the Mother ShaWaWaVoom trash - seeing all those luxurious beds with their inviting pillows is a pain when you've been raiding for 4 hours+ and you're getting really sleepy.
We've somehow managed to do it though, and these days we normally take out BT up to Council on Wednesday, then take out Council, Illidan and all of Hyjal on Thursday. Fridays I organise and raid lead a Karathon for badge-horny mains and alts in need of gearing up. Saturday is off, Sunday we sell loot in Gruul/Maggy/TK/SSC to encourage more 25 man guilds (our server still sorta sucks Alliance-side) and Mondays & Tuesdays we watch our poor raid leader bang his head against the desk as Sunwell on the PTR is down yet again. Since my Karathon project is on a volunteer basis, that means I only really raid 3 nights a week. For some, that suddenly freed up spare time is best spent out there in the real world doing... I don't know. Stuff. Things. For those of us with little to no life though, it means we get to focus on PvP or level up alts. I find myself in Outland for the second time now, as my baby warrior walked through the Dark Portal recently, and this time around I plan on not rushing it so I can actually enjoy the different zones. I also plan on focusing a lot on reputation farming, so I can get those rep rewards while they're still useful, like it was meant to be.
My point is that I think a lot of guilds fall into a trap once they've downed Illidan. Simply plodding on and doing nothing new or different will most likely wear down your raiders pretty fast, and might lead to people quitting or going on breaks. Everybody wants full t6 and even full offspec t6, but don't do it at the cost of good raiders. Give them some treats, make sure their schedule is varied and interesting. Drag them to Onyxia one day for the hell of it. Schedule a 25man Naxxramas run. Go say hi to C'Thun for old times sake. Go world dragon hunting (and take me with you, damnit!). Insert some flavor in the schedule and things won't be so bad when you step out of progression and into the unending lands of farm-raids.
And beware those luxurious beds.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
053: Oh dear
Back in late summer one of my best friends decided she wanted to try this WoW thing. I lent her my old vanilla-WoW guidebook and explained at length about the different classes, races, specs, etc. I instructed her to try leveling at least a couple different class/race combos to level 10 so she'd get a better feel of the differences, and then focus on whichever she liked best. I walked her through the first five levels on a human warrior and a night elf priest, stressed the importance of repairing continously and taught her the gear basics. Then her trial ran out. Life was busy so she didn't come back to WoW again for some time, though I'd ask her every now and then if she was planning on returning.
Christmas arrives. Said friend is very pregnant and can't move around too much so her boyfriend gets her, among other things, a pre-paid card. Unfortunatly this was around the same time my attunement took place and I began hardcore raiding so I wasn't able to play alongside her anymore. We kept in touch through whispers though, and I answered various questions as the weeks went by. She crawled her way through the levels slowly but surely and I was happy to see her ding 20 on her priest last week.
Yesterday we had an off-day from raiding and out of the blue she whispers me and asks if I'm busy. For once I'm not, so I send my baby hunter over to Ashenvale so we can quest together. As I arrive I inspect her of course, and I am horrified at what I see. The poor thing has no clue, of course, and how is she supposed to, really? It's not like this game is easy - we've all been there at some point.
She's weating about 3 greens, all below her level, a pair of blue gloves from Deadmines and the rest are vendor-whites. She's very proud that she's bought all new items from the vendor recently. Oh, and she's disc-specced, with 5/5 in both the first talents.
/mortified
I tell her to not move an inch and send out a distress call to my friends. 2 minutes later she's safely tucked away in my old guild and I've hopped on my baby rogue to summon her to Westfall. Mr Rogue, he of level 70, runs us through Deadmines. It's slow moving, as I explain with each drop whether she can us it or not and wether the stats are any good for her. I should have made her write it down. The mysteries of the need/greed system are unravelled for her, bit by bit. She explains that last time she was there she had no idea what was going on, at all. She'd been whispered by some random person, invited into the PUG and summoned. She had no idea where she was, or what to do. She was the healer in the group and she knew how to heal, but nobody took the time to explain anything to her. At all. By the time they reach the Goblin Foundry they tell her she's useless and kick her from the group.
My very pregnant, very homronal friend had a little cry over that one. Oh the poor thing. I felt so ashamed that I hadn't had the time to babysit her little character more and teach her the ropes.
After the boost was over I took her to Stormwind, made sure she got the flight paths and then had her respec Shadow. I told her where to put her points and showed her how Mind Flay works. She was most impresssed and declared it her new favorite spell, as it 'looks much cooler than Mind Blast'. Then she had to go. I picked up some items off the AH and mailed them to her with strict instructions to swap them out with her last remaining whites.
It's nostalgic, as I said to Mr Rogue during the DM run. We've all been there, but how much do we really remember? I can vaguely recollect not being able to figure out how to swim underneath the water surface for the life of me, until I finally asked a friend around level 30 or so. There was also something about not being able to locate a cooking trainer even though the guard insisted that he was in that building. Nobody told me there was a back room! I'm sure there were a million other little things that I didn't understand or did wrong, too, but they've all faded with time.
A part of me is envious as everything is new and exciting to her. When was the last time I discovered something new in WoW, after all? I bet she wishes she knew her way around already though. At least she's got my old guild now.
Christmas arrives. Said friend is very pregnant and can't move around too much so her boyfriend gets her, among other things, a pre-paid card. Unfortunatly this was around the same time my attunement took place and I began hardcore raiding so I wasn't able to play alongside her anymore. We kept in touch through whispers though, and I answered various questions as the weeks went by. She crawled her way through the levels slowly but surely and I was happy to see her ding 20 on her priest last week.
Yesterday we had an off-day from raiding and out of the blue she whispers me and asks if I'm busy. For once I'm not, so I send my baby hunter over to Ashenvale so we can quest together. As I arrive I inspect her of course, and I am horrified at what I see. The poor thing has no clue, of course, and how is she supposed to, really? It's not like this game is easy - we've all been there at some point.
She's weating about 3 greens, all below her level, a pair of blue gloves from Deadmines and the rest are vendor-whites. She's very proud that she's bought all new items from the vendor recently. Oh, and she's disc-specced, with 5/5 in both the first talents.
/mortified
I tell her to not move an inch and send out a distress call to my friends. 2 minutes later she's safely tucked away in my old guild and I've hopped on my baby rogue to summon her to Westfall. Mr Rogue, he of level 70, runs us through Deadmines. It's slow moving, as I explain with each drop whether she can us it or not and wether the stats are any good for her. I should have made her write it down. The mysteries of the need/greed system are unravelled for her, bit by bit. She explains that last time she was there she had no idea what was going on, at all. She'd been whispered by some random person, invited into the PUG and summoned. She had no idea where she was, or what to do. She was the healer in the group and she knew how to heal, but nobody took the time to explain anything to her. At all. By the time they reach the Goblin Foundry they tell her she's useless and kick her from the group.
My very pregnant, very homronal friend had a little cry over that one. Oh the poor thing. I felt so ashamed that I hadn't had the time to babysit her little character more and teach her the ropes.
After the boost was over I took her to Stormwind, made sure she got the flight paths and then had her respec Shadow. I told her where to put her points and showed her how Mind Flay works. She was most impresssed and declared it her new favorite spell, as it 'looks much cooler than Mind Blast'. Then she had to go. I picked up some items off the AH and mailed them to her with strict instructions to swap them out with her last remaining whites.
It's nostalgic, as I said to Mr Rogue during the DM run. We've all been there, but how much do we really remember? I can vaguely recollect not being able to figure out how to swim underneath the water surface for the life of me, until I finally asked a friend around level 30 or so. There was also something about not being able to locate a cooking trainer even though the guard insisted that he was in that building. Nobody told me there was a back room! I'm sure there were a million other little things that I didn't understand or did wrong, too, but they've all faded with time.
A part of me is envious as everything is new and exciting to her. When was the last time I discovered something new in WoW, after all? I bet she wishes she knew her way around already though. At least she's got my old guild now.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
052: Plans for the future
* Complete the Noggenfogger questchain
* Kill a World Dragon
* Kill the Four Horsemen in Naxx until Corrupted Ashbringer drops, then freeride with the lucky winner into SM for the RP event
* Hoard DKP until I can get Handguards of Absolution
* Level the baby warrior to 70
* Gather mats for Bracers of Nimble Thought
* Raise a toast to spell haste in the next patch, and another for Fear Ward being castable in Shadowform
* Have 'never ever go back to ZA' tattooed onto the back of my hands
Illidan Stormrage is a really really long encounter, and it's sorta boring to watch. At least more than once. Especially if you've been wiping on that encounter for hours and hours. In order to prevent ours from being just another run of the mill Illidan kill movie, we spiced it up with an RP intro and a rap song. I take no responsability whatsoever, though I helped with both:
http://www.stage6.com/user/cascada/video/2127048/
From the Rogue's POV I am my normal human female self. However from the Shadow Priests POV I am an undead, as he uses skins. I'm the one with Marge Simpson hair :[
* Kill a World Dragon
* Kill the Four Horsemen in Naxx until Corrupted Ashbringer drops, then freeride with the lucky winner into SM for the RP event
* Hoard DKP until I can get Handguards of Absolution
* Level the baby warrior to 70
* Gather mats for Bracers of Nimble Thought
* Raise a toast to spell haste in the next patch, and another for Fear Ward being castable in Shadowform
* Have 'never ever go back to ZA' tattooed onto the back of my hands
Illidan Stormrage is a really really long encounter, and it's sorta boring to watch. At least more than once. Especially if you've been wiping on that encounter for hours and hours. In order to prevent ours from being just another run of the mill Illidan kill movie, we spiced it up with an RP intro and a rap song. I take no responsability whatsoever, though I helped with both:
http://www.stage6.com/user/cascada/video/2127048/
From the Rogue's POV I am my normal human female self. However from the Shadow Priests POV I am an undead, as he uses skins. I'm the one with Marge Simpson hair :[
Friday, January 25, 2008
051: What's in a name
The best thing about killing Illidan is undoubtedly this. I don't know how I lived without it! Being able to HS to Black Temple every 15 minutes makes travelling around the worlds so much easier, not to mention the Netherwing dailies.
Todays blog is gonna be a refreshing break from all the raiding I've talked about lately - it's gonna be about names. I've actually wanted to do this ever since I joined Kamuf and saw the guild list, but I've been too busy. I'm sure that in you too, in your travels around Azeroth, have randomly come across someone with a name that was just plain awesome. Either incredibly well fitting or funny or simply really cool. Well I want to hear about it!
Personally I name most of my characters names I come up with myself, or in the case of elves names put together from various elven dictionaries. Kahdri, for example, was made out of the ElfQuest characters Kahvi and Ahdri. Nemnes is from the elven word Nem which means white (she's pale and has white hair) and -Nes which means sister or daughter or somesuch. My horde bank alt is called Korathem, which meas Dark Dragon according to a different elfin word list. My main, Tieryn, is entirely made up, so I was surprised to discover that other people use the same name. Oh, and by the way, when I came up with it I did so with Norwegian in mind. It's not pronounced Ty-rynn, and it bugs me when people say it like that. It's Tee-eh-rynn. Us Norwegians don't say 'tie' the same way English people do. And then there's my neglected mage, whose name is the Norwegian word for Pancake. Don't ask.
My point is though, that some peoples names are simply awesome. In Kamuf, there's a warrior called Tantrum. How fantastic is that? Tantrum! It couldn't fit any better!
Then there's a feral druid called Lettuce. She told us the story of how she ended up with that name last night: She was on the character creation screen, contemplating using the name of one of her old characters but didn't really want to. Her boyfriend asks her what she'd like on her sandwhich that he's making and she goes 'Uhm, lettuce and... oh, that'll do.' I think it's brilliant.
Of course there's a bunch of people named after objects or food running around as well. I know a rogue called Toad. I've also seen Motorsaw and Refridgerator running around Shattrah. The only other priest (at the time) in my old guild was Tard. When I went to create a bank char for my RP Horde, I was surprised to discover that the name Nemesis wasn't taken. All awesome names. I love it.
So share yours! Which names made you go 'Hey! That's brilliant!'? Which ones do you wish you'd thought of first?
Todays blog is gonna be a refreshing break from all the raiding I've talked about lately - it's gonna be about names. I've actually wanted to do this ever since I joined Kamuf and saw the guild list, but I've been too busy. I'm sure that in you too, in your travels around Azeroth, have randomly come across someone with a name that was just plain awesome. Either incredibly well fitting or funny or simply really cool. Well I want to hear about it!
Personally I name most of my characters names I come up with myself, or in the case of elves names put together from various elven dictionaries. Kahdri, for example, was made out of the ElfQuest characters Kahvi and Ahdri. Nemnes is from the elven word Nem which means white (she's pale and has white hair) and -Nes which means sister or daughter or somesuch. My horde bank alt is called Korathem, which meas Dark Dragon according to a different elfin word list. My main, Tieryn, is entirely made up, so I was surprised to discover that other people use the same name. Oh, and by the way, when I came up with it I did so with Norwegian in mind. It's not pronounced Ty-rynn, and it bugs me when people say it like that. It's Tee-eh-rynn. Us Norwegians don't say 'tie' the same way English people do. And then there's my neglected mage, whose name is the Norwegian word for Pancake. Don't ask.
My point is though, that some peoples names are simply awesome. In Kamuf, there's a warrior called Tantrum. How fantastic is that? Tantrum! It couldn't fit any better!
Then there's a feral druid called Lettuce. She told us the story of how she ended up with that name last night: She was on the character creation screen, contemplating using the name of one of her old characters but didn't really want to. Her boyfriend asks her what she'd like on her sandwhich that he's making and she goes 'Uhm, lettuce and... oh, that'll do.' I think it's brilliant.
Of course there's a bunch of people named after objects or food running around as well. I know a rogue called Toad. I've also seen Motorsaw and Refridgerator running around Shattrah. The only other priest (at the time) in my old guild was Tard. When I went to create a bank char for my RP Horde, I was surprised to discover that the name Nemesis wasn't taken. All awesome names. I love it.
So share yours! Which names made you go 'Hey! That's brilliant!'? Which ones do you wish you'd thought of first?
Monday, January 21, 2008
050: Game Over
Illidan Stormrage is down.
World first kill with two feral druids tanking the Flames of Azzinoth. At least as far as we know. That didn't sound right to me (someone in the guild said it), so I asked the lovely women over at wow_ladies to clear it up. Most people prefer prot warriors but it has been done before.
Thank you and goodnight <3
Thank you and goodnight <3
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
