Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Clinic for Video Game Addiction

Episode 25 is out. Uber thanks to Spurlock for sharing his awesome story with me! It really cracked me up! /lol

Oh yeah, I also get a cameo in the story! He made me a pink pigtailed gnome! sweeet!


(the real life clinic in Amsterdam)

Smith and Jones
Sint Nicolaasstraat 16
1012 NK Amsterdam
Tel: +31 (0)20 5286371
Fax: +31 (0)20 5286372
www.smithandjones.nl
info@smithandjones.nl

also, China opens a Video Games Addiction Clinic

This story is not meant to offend other addicts or small people.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Girly vs Priest image


(alachia wearing a dress)

It's funny, I made this recording back when I was a full shadowpriest on the way to work while I was stuck in traffic. I was going to save it for the podcast but the background noise was too loud so I opted to just post it as one of my on the go mp3s. I'm basically admitting why I didn't want to play the priest in the first place...and how I discovered how wrong I was. Even though I'm not shadowpriest anymore, I still feel the same way. No matter how much Blizzard hates us, I still think we kick ass. Healers FTW!

The funny part is that today, my priest finally got a chest piece that looks like a real dress. woot! girly!

onthego3.mp3

.....

Monday, February 26, 2007

Boozefort hits 70


(boozefort dings 70 in the Eco-Dome grinding out the lynx quest)


(boozefort trying to claim my island as boozefort land. not gonna happen)

So yup, Boozefort finally hit 70 last night. Felix and I had been power leveling him the last two nights in Blade's Edge and Netherstorm. He seemed actually more excited about one of his green chest piece rewards from a quest than about hitting 70. lol. It was funny, after he hit 70, we went to go get him his flying mount. As we were flying to Nagrand, he said, "Sweet, I'm 70, now I can stop logging in." I laughed and said, "Yeah, you can quit playing, you're done." The he said, "yup, pretty cool, I beat World of Warcraft."

hahahahaha. I guess sarcasm runs amok when you fly to high. Speaking of flying, when we got to Nagrand, I showed him a small island with waterfalls coming off of it and told him he could claim this Boozefort land. He looked up, flew to the larger island with waterfalls and said, "nope, this is Boozefort land." I said, "no, way, that's Alachia's Isle!" We then dueled on the very top of it for claim. He won but I had my healing gear on and not my PvP so I'm not sure if that was fair. :)

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Netherpiss


Okay okay. I drew in the pool of piss but I felt it was implied. :)

We took a break from WSG tonight and helped Boozefort level. He's ooching his way into 69 now and still on full rested XP. He's burning up the quests in Netherstorm (my recommended leveling grounds from 68-70). We did the Nexus-King Salhadaar quest line for him and that got him masssive XP and his new axe. What we did was drop party and let him tag it while we dpsed and healed. Since all the mobs are still green to us, he still got full XP as if he were soloing.

..........

WSG took a beating out of us this afternoon. We played for somewhere around 10 hours I think before calling it a night for battlegrounds to help Booze. WSG is a bitch. Alliance tend to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. It's insane how good at group think the horde are. What's your secret?!

The funny thing I thought was that we find ourselves saying things like "damn mother f0cking pallies!!! They just won't die!" hahahha. I wonder if the horde feel the same about shamans and their totems.

After losing about 5 games in a row towards the end, Felix and I decided to run Eye of the Storm where we owned and got way more honor.

My estimated honor for today is 5855k. So it'll be less because of the diminishing returns nurf. :) One thing I have noticed about PvP is that it's costly. Because I don't have access to a vending machine, I'm buying tons of water at 65s for 5 stacks. I'm trying to get my mage to 65 so I can at least get the 5500mana water.

Tomorrow, we'll grind out more honor but probably less WSG and more EoTS. I'm hoping to be able to get my next 24k honor set piece by Monday. Not sure what I'll go for.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Power Infused Mushroom


So we had Italian for lunch and Chipotle for dinner. In between and after, we ran Warsong Gulch (double honor weekend) over and over and over again. We had quite a bit of a winning streak for awhile but then got slammed by a few pre-mades with dual fire mages and thunderfury rogues. ouch!

I think I got about 4.3k honor this evening.

But no worries! I found this I-WIN trinket in the bank I fogot I had! Now it's total pwnage!!!! hahahahhahahhaha!!! Power Infused Mushroom..can I get a midi playback please? :D

Friday, February 23, 2007

Felix visiting

So I'm pretty excited. Since Taint and Sadin are out of town, Felix volunteered to come visit and keep me company. We're planning on hitting up the BGs like crazy to get massive honor this weeked. We were hoping Eye of the Storm would be the double honor game this weekend. But most importantly, I get to eat food! I mean real food..not just pop tarts, cereal, and tomatoes. hehehe. I'm one of those people who don't cook and hate going out to eat by myself.

I'm hoping for IHOP, Texas Roadhouse, Thai food, Sphagetti...yum!!!

Hoping to get some food soon actually. All I've had today is a glass of orange juice.

Soo fueling up and then BG onward!
Only 80,000 more pvp honor points to go!!! :)

Alachia TCG



THANK YOU Sean for making my immortalization into the TCG. LOL!
I hear if you scratch off the code in the back and enter it into the game, you get 10 copper!! hehehe

...

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Arena Setback


(ring of trials)

(circle of blood)

So after getting some pretty good gear, we all did a few more skirmishes for 5v5. I must say that maebee and myself were able to stay up a whole lot better this time around. I think our survivability went up about 60%. Both buffed, we have well over 10k HP. Our biggest setback is lack of DPS. We're still trying to figure out certain strategies against different class make-ups.

I've noticed a few things during our practices. We do 90% better in Ring of Trials than in Circle of Blood arena. If you notice the pic, circle of blood is about high ground/low ground while Ring of Trials has all the kiting room you could ever dream of. We're devising a strategy to not use the bridge at all when we do Circle of Blood.

(for our make-up) Classes to NOT go after first, paladins (they can shield and heal), mages (they can ice block and get healed), warriors (they are focused healed and have too much armor). Classes that are super fleshy are hunters and warlocks. They have very little except for traps and fear to protect them from total anhiliation.

In the end, I'm almost positive lack of DPS is going to be our main issue through out the arena season. After Maebee and I become more geared, Taint will probably respec his druid to be pure DPS and very little healing. So far the three healer combo is pretty good so long as two rogues don't take out one of the priests from the get-go. Stun lock, kick, kidney shot....gabam gabam..dead. A priest can't even get off a shield at that point.

I'm a little concerned that Arena battles will really be about 70% class make-up and only 30% skill. Shaman/Pally/Warlock/Rogue/Rogue or Pally/Priest/Shaman/DPS/DPS. Or say a full party of mages or full party of druids. It will definitely be interesting to see the future battles with different class make-ups. So far, Paladin/Mage groups have been giving us major issues because of their ability to stall and heal. Sometimes, it just comes down to buying 0.5 seconds.

But our biggest problem is the timing of this arena opening. Sadin is off in NJ for work and tends to have to work super long hours and Taint is about to go snow boarding again for a week. I swear, I don't know how that boy can do so much RL stuff and still have like two lvl 70 characters already. So we've been trying to get Boozefort up to 70 so he can sub next week for Taint.

In the meantime, Felix and I have been grinding out honor points in Eye of the Storm. When the whole gang is done with out-of-town work and vacations, JAE is gonna try a pre-form group to do battle grounds. We tested it out this weekend with about 7 of us. With Boozefort and Maebee and a few others added, we can probably have around 10-12 people which will be very, very nice.

Why do PvP first instead of PVE? Well. It's a really good time. The discrepency between gear is nulled because of the expansion. Horde and Alliance groups have equal opportunity right now to battle each other out without a full Grand Marshal or Warlord geared group just coming in and pushing the I-Win button. Plus, the honor reset and new PvP honor system is completely achievable. It still may take a few months to get a full set of lvl 70 PvP gear but at least it's not like you have to dedicate your entire life to it for fear of losing honor. You can come and go as you please.

I'm excited about trying out PvP. I did AB for the first time ever this weekend. Before that, I had only done Warsong Gulch. I was too focused on PVE and the PVP honor grind didn't appeal to me at all back then...and now I'm glad I didn't.


(this is me in my first AB learning what four noding means)

Details


My static part (tai,sad,felix,me) steemrolled through to 70 really fast. I'll be the first to admit we were one of those groups of people who acted like reaching 70 as fast as possible was the only right thing to do...like our lives depended on it. heh. We were joking and saying things like "Who plays for content? We just play for xp!" lmao.

But seriously, we all knew we had several more characters to level up and that would be the time to appreciate the details of the content. And sure enough, as Felix and I have been leveling up our next set (his pally, my mage), I've gotten to notice a ton of details I completely missed. Things that really, really make the WoWverse something extremely unique to engage in and experience. The richness of the details like the way the fountain is designed or the way the lamp posts have glowing light-bug thing bouncing in them...

If you study the history of art or sculpture or architecture, you learn how so much of the design was all about experience and bringing certain emotions alive. All of those aspects are very prevalent in WoW and perhaps that's why the game is so addictive. Because for the first time, in a long time, we can feel awoken....our senses, our aspirations, our desire for accomplishment...things that have been extremely dumbed down by modern social culture.

I often say, to the dismay of fellow architects, that architecture is dead. Then, I point to our local stores and malls and movie theaters and restaurants. How generically low-bid they are...all about ease of construction and the lowest budget possible...almost never do I hear a client talk about what the architecture can do for society but rather what architectural needs they have themselves. Basically, for the average American, at least, architecture is artless... But in WoW, the idea of vastly influencing experience and social engagement truly shine through.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

WoWcast Bunny FTW!



New logo. I hated the old one. And the introduction of WoWcast Bunny. Yeah! I don't know why but sometimes I get obsessed with objects or symbols. For some reason, the bunny got sent to me in an e-mail and I just loved him a lot. So I started using him in e-mail signatures. Now, I just took it to the next level and made him part of the WoWcast family. :) Next step is to revamp all the wowcast gear. Coming soon...

Involuntary Puking


heh. Neon green puke starting pouring out of everyone's mouth in Shattrath. Gross! Can someone please tell me what quest this is? I want to read up on the storyline.

Monday, February 19, 2007

10,000 HP


We started practicing arenas this weekend since we have to have 10 matches done by Thursday. :D
Our make-up is Felix (warlock), Sadin (warrior), Taint (druid), Alachia (priest), and Maebee (priest). It's not an ideal set up. In fact, I had no idea how horrible priests were in PvP without serious know-how. Just at base value, they're fleshy cloth wearers who have very little armor and hp to begin with. They are the NUMBER 1 target for most PvP encounters. One, that means I die first. Two, that means its extremely hard for me to cast anything.

I respecced twice this weekend. I finally settled on a triple talent tree spec based off the experience doing the practice arena skirmishes. Fear, silence, power word shield, and spirit of redemption seemed like important aspects for me.

My current PvP priest spec

I chose these talents out of the trees because they seemed the most useful to me for arena battle.

Discipline
Unbreakable Will- resist to Fear, Stun, Silence by 15%
Inner Focus- Reduces mana cost of next spell by 100%
Improved Power Word Shield-Increase Damage Absorbed by 15%

Holy
Spell Warding-Reduces all spell damage taken by 10%
Spirit of Redemption-Free healing after death for 15 seconds

Shadow
Silence-Silences target for 5 seconds

A lot of people told me that silence is a huge mistake. But being able to silence the mage straight out of battle before he/she can CC me or being able to silence a warlock before he/she dots me up saves me so much time. Plus, it's an instant cast. Improved psychic scream is also huge...as fearing is my only means of getting melee off of me...unless they're a beast mastery hunter.. :P

I toyed with the idea of going full discipline to get pain supression (reduces all damage taken by 60% for 8 seconds). However, everyone said that this can be offensively dispelled very, very easily. I'm still debating it though...if I have enough buffs on me, maybe it'll last long enough for me to get a those critical heals off. Doubtful though.

I made it a mission this weekend to improve my gear for PvP. I started doing battlegrounds...AB and AV for the first time ever. But I mostly ran Eye of the Storm. I have to get about 60k honor for all the stuff I want to buy. RESILIENCE gear baby! ALL THE WAY. Hahahaha.. Actually, I've been reading different things online. I can't find any concrete data regarding the effectiveness of resilience gear but at this point, I'll stack shit just for precaution.

If you haven't checked it out yet, http://www.worldofming.com is a great site for people interested in WoW Arena Battles. I've been reading up on the priest portion of the blog..and eyeying Jesta's current PvP Priest spec. Still unsure.

I collected 60 [Oshu'gun Crystal Powder] to get 3 Halaa Research Tokens and killed 60 horde to get Halaa Battle Tokens in Nagrand at Halaa to get Hierophant's Leggings and Hierophant's Sash. I grabbed every piece of stamina gear I could find and had +stamina gear enchants put on. My last task is to get Clefthide Leg Armor made for my pants for an additional +30 stamina.

Currently, my HP is over 10,000k! After vamping up my gear, I saw a huge difference in my survivability. It was amazing how long I lasted in battlegrounds. I still get WTF PWNED when 3-4 melee jump me. I figure most of them do 2k dmg per second. That's about 5 hits and then I'm a dead gal.

Anyhow, should be interesting this week as we have our first round of matches. From what I've seen so far.....Warlocks and Paladins FTW!

Friday, February 16, 2007

What's the perfect number?

Dear: Alachia,

First, let me warn you that my spelling can get out of hand. My freind and I have know eachother for YEARS befor we started playing WoW. We are both big fans of your show and were interested in static groups when we herd you talking bout it. He is a 42 frost mage and I am a level 43 fury warrior. we know we can't do a two man instance our level so, I was wondering, what classes do you think we need and how many people we could get away with in our static party.

Thanks, Zorkmide (pronunced with out the "e") of the venture .co server



Yo Zorkmide,

Interestingly enough, the best static party consists of two people. A healer/hybrid-healer and DPS (caster or melee). The next best is a 3 man static party with two DPS and 1 healer/hybrid-healer. Then 4 and then 5. Five man static parties are a classic because it's the intended party cap Blizzard designated...but leveling goes about 30% slower I think because of collection quests and RL schedules. My favorite static part is Felix and myself. My most enjoyable time leveling was when he brought up his druid and I brought up my rogue to about level 40 and then Sadin brought in his rogue and we were the coolest stealth static party ever! heh. We have the same play styles, Felix and I, we like to do things fast but we also don't mind taking the time to pick herbs and do mining or take a screenshot. :)

To make your static party complete, I'd find a healer, any kind will do..shammy, druid, priest, pally.. You'll do really well with three...you'll have all the classic roles, tank, dps, healer. As far as having enough to do instances, if you and your party member are good, you can easily just find 2-3 puggers. It's not so bad especially with a healer/dps combo. In your case, you'd just need to find a decent pug healer.

Limiting the amout in your static party is a good thing actually because then there's less schedules to have to coordinate. You might be able to get away without a third if you can't find one, you'll just have to invest in tons of bandages and healing pots..it'll go slower though but it's doable.

Good luck!

WoW4Life Baby!
70 or bust!

Alachia

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Life after 70

I spent most of tonight working my uber frost mage to level 63. I just got the new frost bolt. It took me quite some time to get back into her but now I remember why I loved her so much. The dmg is just sick. Sick Sick Sick!

Felix's pally and she have been tearing up Zangermarsh. I must say the second go around is a lot easier without everyone and their mother fighting for the same mobs. :)

Zanger is pretty safe from 70s too since not too many of them circle like vultures in the air like in Hellfire and Nagrand. Thank goodness for the shroom clouds that block out visuals from the air. hehe.

Taint is leveling his hunter up solo since it's easier and faster that way....I don't need to say it but I will...overpowered. :D

We'll be starting up arena soon. I need to respec my shadow priest. Any PvP priests out there got any advice? This is what I might be going with http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=rZby0Ic0oZVMGtMto0tg

...

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

WoWcast Episode 24 Notes


(The Dark Portal on the night of the The Burning Crusade release)


(Sadin jumped into this chimney, karma for what he did to Taint in Episode 13)


(Alachia on her new riding mount, the Ebon Gryphon)

World of Warcraft(R): The Burning Crusade(TM) Shatters Day-1 Sales Record

Riding Crop

Special Thanks to Kaizen, JoJoKnit, and Dorthonion for donating!

Also thank you, thank you to everyone who helped me find a way to recover my iaudio files!!! MUCHO GRACIAS!

....

The Black Morass


Hehehe. I love space/time continuum. There is an instance in the Caverns of Time called The Black Morass. Apprently, The Black Morass is the swampy land where Medivh opens up the Dark Portal which in turn rifts the area into The Blasted Lands and Swamp of Sorrows. The encounter takes place in the past, obviously, and is pretty damn fun. 18 waves of mobs come and you're goal is to keep them off of Medivh so he can perform the opening of the portal.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Here Without You

WoW. This has great production value..good story telling. It has the whole loved lost/revenge theme to it. Just in time for v-day. :D

Are the Horde evil?



(above, if Alachia were horde)

As I've said before, I like that I haven't gotten to know much about the other faction. It's kind of a nice mystique for me to not ever need to empathize with the horde. It makes the dynamic between the two factions that much more exciting for me.

But I have to wonder, are the horde really evil? Is that the design of the story? I don't follow much of the lore but my understanding was that the horde are an axis of evil races...except for maybe the tauren.

So I went straight to Blizzard for the answer:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/races/
ALLIANCE
Draenei: "Dedicated to preserving life and upholding the tenets of the Holy Light, the draenei hope to gather a new coalition of warriors to battle the Burning Legion and put a halt to its horrific Burning Crusade. Armed only with courage and their unshakeable faith in the Light, the draenei look forward to finding the alliance and ushering them towards the destiny that awaits beyond the skies of Azeroth"

Dwarves: "In past ages, the Dwarves rarely left the safety of their mountain fortresses. However, whenever the call to battle sounded, they rose up to defend their friends and allies with unmatched courage and valor."

Humans: "Following the heroic examples of the legendary Sir Lothar and King Llane, the defenders of Stormwind are considered to be among the fiercest warriors in the land. They stand resolute in their charge to maintain the honor and might of humanity in an ever-darkening world."

Gnomes: "Nearly half of the Gnomish race was wiped out during the fall of Gnomeregan. The ragged Gnomes that survived fled to the safety of the Dwarves' stronghold of Ironforge. Committed once again to the Alliance's cause, the Gnomes spend their time devising strategies and weapons that will help them retake their ravaged city and build a brighter future for their people."

Night Elves: "They now have renewed interest in shaping the world, and for the first time are allying themselves with other races to insure the continued survival of Azeroth. As a race, Night Elves are typically honorable and just, but they are very distrusting of the 'lesser races' of the world. They are nocturnal by nature and their shadowy powers often elicit the same distrust that they have for their mortal neighbors."

HORDE
Orcs: "They are commonly believed to be brutal and mindless, possessing no humanity or empathy for other races. Born on the hellish world of Draenor, the Orcs were brought into the kingdom of Stormwind through the dimensional gateway known as the Dark Portal and forced to wage war on the Humans. Although few are aware of their history, the Orcs once cultivated a noble, Shamanistic society on the world of Draenor. Tragically, the proud Orc clans were corrupted by the Burning Legion and used as pawns in the Legion's invasion of Azeroth. The Orcs managed to rebel, however, and they were ultimately able to help turn the tide against their demon masters."

Undead: "These dark warriors have established a secret stronghold beneath the ruins of Lordaeron's former capital city. Situated deep beneath the cursed Tirisfal Glades, the labyrinthine Undercity is a sprawling bastion of evil. Within its shadowy confines, Sylvanas' royal apothecaries scramble to develop a devastating new plague - one which will not only eradicate their hated Scourge rivals, but the rest of humanity as well."

Tauren: "They live to serve nature and maintain the balance between the wild things of the land and the restless spirit of the elements. Despite their enormous size and brute strength, the remarkably peaceful Tauren cultivate a quiet, tribal society. However, when roused by conflict, Tauren are implacable enemies who will use every ounce of their strength to smash their enemies under hoof."

Trolls: "The vicious Jungle Trolls, who populate the numerous islands of the South Seas, are renowned for their cruelty and dark mysticism. Barbarous and superstitious, the wily Trolls carry a seething hatred for all other races.

One tribe, however, was forced to overcome its prejudices when it encountered the Orc Warchief, Thrall, and his mighty Horde. The Trolls of the Darkspear tribe, long since exiled from their ancestral lands in Stranglethorn Vale, were nearly destroyed by a band of aquatic Murlocs, but Thrall and the Horde managed to save them. In return the grateful Trolls swore an oath of eternal allegiance to the Horde."


Blood Elves: "Though the scars of that conflict are evident, the remaining elves have banded together and retaken much of their homeland. Calling themselves "blood elves", these grim survivors are committed to regaining the vast powers they once commanded. Inspired by the leadership of their beloved prince, Kael'thas Sunstrider, the blood elves now seek out new sources of arcane magic and the means of defending their land against the undying horrors of the Scourge."

First, you can't ignore some pretty obvious classical terms used in the short descriptions provided by Blizzard. Conflict, scars, cruelty, dark mysticism, prejudices, implacable enemies, cursed, crawling bastion of evil, brutal, mindless, and corrupted to describe the horde. Dedicated, courage, faith, light, committed, resolute, honor, and heroic to describe the alliance. I also make vast assumption, probably true as well, that the writers of the World of Warcraft Lore borrowed greatly from historical references to the ideas of good and evil. They would not be the first to exploit the classic theme of good and evil to propel a story line... Just look at some of the best selling pop culture movies and fantasy books out there, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordon, Terry Goodkind, CS. Lewis, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Chronicles of Narnia, Beowulf. It makes sense that someone wanting to sell a game to millions of sci-fi, fantasy junkies would borrow heavily from themes that have worked succesfully in the past.

Then there is the unmistakable Pre-TBC release of the World of Warcraft aesthetic selection. The alliance have a selection of smooth skin, elegant posture, bright large eyes, and perfectly posed hair styles. The horde have a selection of green, grey, and partial skin, slumping postures, piercing eyes-some without, and punk hairdos which belong to the subculture of popular america and none that look like they've been washed. And the question you have to ask when presented with this is: Does Beauty represent good and Ugly represent wickedness? Long and short without me having to write a HUGE paper on the anthology of "beauty" as representation for "good" as an accepted theme, just look at our average societal views. Beautiful music, art, building, behavior, posture, graciousness, conduct, action are all representative of the "good" in life. While "ugly" actions, conduct, posture, behavior, music, and art are not favored or respected by common society.

This of course, is all based on pereception. I'm making no claim as to what is truly "right" in life. I'm just trying to build a good frame of reference here. Good and evil, dark and light have accepted perceptions.

I believe the intention of Blizzard was to create a good and evil side to the game. A sect of people who were far more interested in playing the role of the "good" and another sect of people who wanted to play the game from the flip side of social norms....evil.

Interestingly enough, something happened over the course of the last two years.... Perhaps something Blizzard game designers had not intended, or maybe they did. Something very "real life" occured in how we play the game. The exploitation of the social roles of the game morphed the meaning of many of the players. The dynamics of real life players interacting in their avatars shifted the perception of evil and good. Alliance took it upon themselves to play the "role" of the "right" and used that assumption to devestate the horde territories. In defense, the horde bonded together more tightly and formed far more social bonds than the alliance faction (assumptions based only on talking to my horde friends). The horde's "behavior" in servers are far more "good" to each other than the alliance. I have noticed among my alliance players, there is not a lot of comroderie. We mostly devide ourselves into cliques and only band together when we need something from each other..ie, 40 man raid groups, world bosses...etc.

I came across this article which kind of shows what I mean.
http://www.mogland.com/write/2007/jan/08/horde-evil
Check out the chart towards the bottom of "Collapsed attacked zones by attacked Faction." I think it's fascinating!! Reverse psychology at work! hahaha.

If you were to ask me if Alliance were good and Horde were evil, I'd say yes that may have been the broad intent of Blizzard for purposese of story telling and setting up the premise of the game. However, in actuality, I have this sneaking suspicion that there are far more classical themes of evil in the actual Alliance players and themes of good in the actual Horde players.

....

Friday, February 09, 2007

He-man aka Adam




LOL. Thanks Theadin for sending me this easter egg I never noticed! Apparently in pre-beta, his name was actually Adam Heman. hehe.

"The arathi basin battlemaster in the lower city of Shat is Adam (aka He-man) and his faithful cat Cringer (who turns into Battle Cat) is right behind him....In fact the battle armor for the cat looks like it was modelled from this old cartoon. Only in the cartoon, the cat was green with orange strips and the gear was red..."

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Slim Shady


Guess who's back, back again
Shady's back, tell a friend

lol. I wonder if Eminem plays WoW. Doubtful :)

The Unspoken Hybrid Class


Do we have to be what people tell us to be? Do we have to become what people expect of us? In real life, I can't tell you how devestated my parents were when I told them that I was dropping Pre-Med/Computer Science for Architecture. In the WoW, certain expectations are just as strong. There is the preconceived notion that you must conform to certain party structures, certain class structures. Hybrid healer classes have for so long been faced with extreme performance stereotypes. You picked a class who CAN heal, therefore you’re main purpose is to heal. People don’t ask you, they just expect that’s what you’re going to do.

There was a huge, huge debate back when we were in Cykos, my old raiding guild, about a certain Shadow Priest. Not many guilds at the time even allowed any of their priests to spec shadow or druids to go Moonkin. Every raiding guild was always short on healers as is. But the issue came up regarding allowing the Shadow Priest to play the way they wanted to vs. how the raid needed them to. Even loot distribution was a problem. Locks vs. Shadow Priest priorities came to a head on one particular night. There was a ton of arguing and I remember a statement being made about how certain classes should perform the way they were meant to. What does that mean?!

What made this case special was that we had invited the guy into the guild with the full knowledge that he was proposing to stay shadow. And yet we were holding all of these prejudices against him. I remember saying, “Maybe we’re not ready to accept that certain classes can be more than what we know them to be”.... In the end, the guild decided to allow him to stay Shadow but he got last priority on shadow/dmg gear and last priority on healing gear. The ultimate SHAFT! That night and that debate stayed in my head and I promised myself one day I’d put myself in his shoes.

Nearly 10 months later, here I am. In his shoes. Level 70, ready for end-game content and I’m CRINGING every time people say to me, “yo, let’s go run something, you can heal and I can do damage.”

They don’t even ask me if I want to heal, they just assume that’s what I do. And it kind of pisses me off.

The funny thing is that I don’t mind healing. I think it’s fun, an adrenaline rush, it’s a real challenge and I feel great when I’m able to surmount some of the most difficult boss or pvp encounters by healing efficiently.

But that other people get to make gross assumptions on how they want me to play, that’s not cool with me. It makes me want to rebel. “Hey! I do as much dmg as the warlock, damnit, plus I heal while I’m doing dps! I’m valid!! VE FTW!”

Will I try out the Holy tree? Most definitely. I’d love to be the main tank healer for awhile. But I want to do it of my own volition...not because someone says I HAVE to because it’s what my class is supposed to do. That’s just BS.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Shat-is-Faction


So are you South side or West side? I'm a south side girl. Me and dah Scryers are like THIS tight!
hahaha. not really. I just gained enough faction with them though that the Aldor's start attacking me on sight. I landed my bird on the Aldor platform and the guards just started kicking my arse. Luckily, I was able to fly off before they finished me off.
I'm not sure but I think it's progressive. Felix said he had just chosen faction with the Scryers and accidentally went into Aldor turf and the guards came and ported him out of the city. The next time he invaded their turf again later that weekend, he got attacked. Shat city is pretty violent for having the horde and alliance on netural ground. I kind of like this new element...that combined with the slums gives it a realy gritty edge.
Which contrasts highly with the snooty upper class Scryer pad. Elegant water fountains, plush red carpet walkways, and velvet lined setees. There's nothing quite like it on the alliance side so I was really drawn to it. Unfortunately, you should not make your Shat city faction choice by aesthetics alone, actually at all.

I spent a good hour going back and forth looking at the rep rewards.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Comparison_of_Aldor_and_Scryer_rewards is a good place to help compare. Wowwiki says that Scyer gear focuses more on PvP combat while Aldor has more focus on PVE. However, you should really look at the gear and rewards themselves to make the real decision.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Attunement to Hell



Thanks Boozefort for sending me the diagram.

I knew there was a reason why I stopped playing my Level 70 Priest. I couldn't put my finger on it...but now I know. Hahaha.
Yeah, attunement does not appeal to me at this point, so I'm working to bring up my Mage to 70 as well for free water vending..

Tonight, after I try to recover my audio file, I'm going to go get attuned to Onyxia for some fun. And to think I used to cringe at the thought of that attunement.

edit: Hmm. After staring at the diagram for awhile, I think this is actually a good map to help motivate me to start getting attunements. I love check lists. I'm going to print this out and start making my way to Mt. Hyjal.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Cursed


F#*$@#(!~!!! I know everyone likes to believe that the behind the scenes here works like clockwork...but it doesn't. At least not for me, especially not for me. I just lost ALL of my recordings from my iAudio for the Burning Crusade release.... I imported the wave files and then put them into Audacity. Then I saved the file and OH SO WISELY deleted the original voice recordings. As it turns out, the Audacity file is somehow corrupted and won't give me any playback. I can see the wave files but it won't play any sound. Somebody please one shot me right now! This is why you don't edit late at night. It impairs your judgement. OMFG.

....deflated.... :`(

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Alachia Takes Flight

WoWcast Vids Session 5


more WoWcast Vid Sessions can be found at http://www.wowcast.net/vids.html

Friday, February 02, 2007

Time is Money, Friend

That goblin in Gadget has it right, Time is Money!

That's what I heard Taint say last night as we were all spending the first ten minutes of loggin in on bank alts. What he was referring to was the fact that we could be leveling instead of managing our banks. Everyone wants to level, quest, and raid for a reason. There are three main reasons I notice and I call them the three G's. Gear, Gold, Glory. And yes, they are all related to one another.

Gear
Most people don't notice, but I truly believe Blizz developers are pretty manipulative. They are appealing to our sense of style and desire to socially conform. None of us want to look inadequate both aesthetically and actually. Everyone knows how crappy gear looks when you mix and match from 1-60. Nothing you put on looks all that epic.

Wham! Out comes the first model to strut into Ironforge with full Tier 2 gear! Now there's a nice looking set! Check out those shoulders! Wham! Out comes the first priest in our server to get full Grand Marshal gear. I remember sitting outside the Ironforge bank admiring her for a good 15 minutes. I took several screenshots. She was gorgeous, sparkling NE priest with long white hair and piercing eyes. She would park herself outside the bank and just sit there AFK in all her Grand Marshal Raiment glory, literally glowing! She turned out to be a man from Australia.... but that's not the point. The point is that she looked epic, she looked put together, she looked like you should look at end-game.

Half of what you wear tells your WoW story for you. It speaks to where you have been, and probably of how many times you've been there, and how important end-game threads are to you....oh, and how much free time you have. :)

Back in the 40 man raid days (I love that you can say that now), having tier 3 sh1t on said a lot about a person. Good and bad things. Everyone wants to be the best or better than they are. It's human nature to try and exceed your status. Most of us were just trying to feel adequate. It's hard to convince yourself that you're okay wearing 3/8 Shadowcraft when every other rogue has full Deathmantle sets on. I don't care how many times you say to yourself, "I'm just playing casually, this is the best I can do," it's still hard to be okay sitting on subpar gear for nearly a year while everyone around you can probalby one-shot you.

The week TBC was released, we were finaly able to go head to head with High Warlord geared horde for the first time in a year. People try not to make a big deal out of gear but unfortunately, it is pretty important in terms of game play. It defines about 50% of your character. 20% is skill, and 30% is gaming style (includes class).


Gold
WoW gold is very important in this game. Although a lot of people try to blow it off as not being that significant to game play, I'd like to point them to the billion dollar industry in China that says differently. Real life commerce takes place in Azeroth every day and some of us know how to play it right....and some of us are just getting by. Unfortunately for me, I've never been that great at being smart with my WoW money.

Instead, I invest my mats and green armor to someone who knows what they're doing. I have a WoW financial consultant essentially. Someone to play the market for me. Fascinating, huh? So when I needed the money for my riding epic mount, I had it easily. And when I need money for an expensive recipe or spell, I usually have it. The last thing anyone wants is to need something and not have the money in WoW to pay for it....especially you're repair bill.

Making money in WoW....and I mean serious gold, like 10k plus, takes a lot of know-how, some risk, and the desire to play the AH and trade channels. It also takes time and patience. Getting rich isn't over night, it takes at least a good week of smart AHing. I might actually try it out myself and see if I can't find quick ways to make money over the next week to see if I can reach the 6.5k mark. I'll report my findings.

Professions cost more money that they usually make. This statement is true for me because I suck at being an entrepreneur.
I don't know how to whore my goods out there and really take advantage of the real commerce going on daily. I'm honestly too shy to shout in Trade Channel. "WTS Enchant Greater Spell Damage! PST! "or "WTS 2000 runecloth for xxgold!" I also never invested the time in the AH to see what craftable goods actually sell...and then take the time to make those. But some people do make a lot of money from their profession. These people are usually the first and only to craft things and spend a great deal of time to level up their character specifically to better their professions.

....but about needing money. Why do we need money in WoW? Why is it so important that people will pay real world dollars for it? Game play security! Having a good chunk of change on your character insures that you can continue to play the way you want to and not have to worry about repair bills, not being to afford your newest spells, or say, buying that crusader enchant you always wanted to get or hey, an epic flying mount! In many cases, it can help you level. My xp from level 51-52 was almost sponsored entirely by wool cloth, silk cloth, and runecloth. I basically paid gold to for xp. There have been many other occasions and quests like this....ie..That's Asking Too Much at Light Hope's Chapel.

When we started out, we started from absolute scratch. I remember the first time Sadin racked up enough silver to hit 1gold! It was really exciting. We all felt really rich with 2 gold in our pockets. We fought over 8 and 10 slot bags. We had to save up and collectively help each other out with riding mounts. I remember having to pick and choose which spells I wanted in the beginning because I didn't have enough silver for my spells. We're far from those times but I don't ever take for granted the gold we have now.

Glory
What would compel someone to organize a guild to power level them for 28 hours straight to be the first to level 70? Glory! What would compel someone to skip classes or work so they can say they defeated the Four Horsemen in Naxx? Glory! What would compels us to want to conquer a dungeon or ding the next level? You guessed it.

Glory is about achievement, accomplishing things that are praiseworthy, and even gives most of us a certain feeling of dinstinction in an otherwise rather mundane lifestyle. I know it's sad that we don't come home after a hard days work and go DING! I earned money today. We don't make dinner and go DING! Woot! I served dinner! I don't think that any of my friends who have children go DING! Diaper changed!

These are all things to be proud of....things that are necessary and important tasks of our RL life....but life happens regardless. WoW does not happen regardless and as pathetic as it sounds, leveling in WoW gives me more of a feeling of accomplishment than say washing my car or doing laundry. As you get older, you DING in RL fewer and fewer. I mean when you're young it's like DING! I learned to ride a bike! DING! I won the All-State baseball game! DING! I got into college! DING! I'm not a virgin! DING! I got married! DING! I had a baby! DING! I bought a house! DING! I have a family and kids and morgage to support now! doh!!!!

WoW gives you some glory back. Some way to DING again. It's nice having fun goals to accomplish in life besides the mundane responsibilites of RL. And there are a multitude of ways to get Glory in WoW. Public and personal. My personal glory this week was to fly to the top of the floating island in Nagrand and declare it Alachia Isle!

For others, it's being rich in the game or making it into the top raiding guild or being the number 1 PVP arena team or being the most likeable and friendly person in the guild or getting that rare non-combat pet drop or being the first in your guild to fly. You get my point. ;)
.....

SO that being said, the 3 G's are pretty important aspects to this game. And in order to achieve those G's, you have to play, you have to level, you have to progress in the game. All of those things take time invested in the game. Every moment you're not in the game, is a moment you could be closer to the 3 G's. This makes it fairly frustrating for people who can't play every day or as much as everyone else. Because you know that there's always someone out there who can invest more time in the game than you. It's easy to feel left behind and not as adequate as everyone else.

My good friend Boozefort wrote to me last night: "Last couple of days I have been so tired. Last night I logged out at midnight. I don't know if I am ever going to get to 70." And it got me thinking...

My group out leveled him about a week ago and now he's back to soloing. From time to time, he'll admit that the game lifestyle is rough and sometimes lonely. He says its fine with him though, makes his characters a little rougher around the edges and gives them a stronger sense of individuality.

His priorities are his children and family. His kids come before the game absolutely. He and his wife are devoted parents. Just last weekend, I asked him if they'd want to run Mana Tombs with us Saturday. He said that Maebee and he had a date with the kids to watch Cars and take them out to eat sphagetti. I thought it was really sweet and admirable. It makes me sad when people put the game before spending time with their kids.

So yeah, he can't put as much time into the game. He's never the first to level or go into an instance or see content. But something I have noticed over time is that he's the first, in our guild to develop a strong character personality. He's the first to take his character beyond just an avatar. And he doesn't know it but it makes me a bit jealous. Alachia is just another mage, priest, rogue, or druid in the guild. Boozefort logs into the game and everyone's like "BOOZE!!!!!" "its Boozefort!" "you drunk, Boozefort?"

The Booze-factor:
*Widely known among the guild that he collects all things booze-related in the game. Anything that gets you drunk or resembles something you drink booze out of. Not uncommon for his PMs to have a ....hic at the end of them.

*Will mail you (male or female) an item such as a Blackend Defias Legging and write in the content of the in-game mail: I think you left these over at my place. I don't remember last night. What the hell happened?!!"

*Will pick some of the funniest moments in an instance to throw a snowball at you.

*Carried around a shovel on his back because it looked funny.

*HUGE into mining, was mining things in the Southshore and the Badlands about 15 levels beyond him because he loved mining so much.

*Spends a ton of time devoted to learning the Auction House and can pretty much ramble off the price of any item. He's rich.

*Always good for a laugh. You know when he comes along to any raid, it's gonna contain at least one good laugh.

*Pretty well known to collect all of the random useless items in the game. Full Twill Set, The Stoppable Force, etc.

*Did I mention that at one point he was a Defias Gear Salesman?

See, that stuff gives your character some serious personality. And that persists regadless of what level he is. He has the most personality in the guild, the good kind. I wish I had 10% of it because that's a kind of "G" I will never be able to achieve...no matter how much more time I have.

Error 404

Much thanks to Gecko for emailing me about my podcast link snafu.
I looked into the situation and it turns out that my credit card expiration date wasn't updated on the site that hosts all of my podcast mp3s. So if you try downloading any of the episodes, it gives you an error. :(

I updated the info and called customer service and told them to please charge me and to unfreeze the account.
I seriously don't know how all these other podcasters keep their sh1t together. I need to take podcasting 101. I wonder if Prof. Eloy's class is full. hahahaha.

So hopefully all of that will be up and running again in the next couple of hours.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Alachia Airlines


Now boarding! Alachia Airlines flight to Nagrand! Please keep your trays in the upright position, seatbelts fastened at all times! We're in for a wild ride! I can't begin to say how much excitement flying brought me. I'm not sure if I'll get tired of this one. It's so much fun. It basically took all the fun of WoW and gave it another dimension. I explored, I scouted for herbs, I ganked horde.

Needless to say, we hit 70 tonight. We stayed in Netherstorm and started the night with a bang. Just as we were leaving town,
we found a quest turn in just off the road, which lead us to this quest reward for the X-52 Rocket Helm which when you use launches you into the air! It's really fun. 30 minute cool down though. But for those classes without slow fall or levitate, you can use this helm in mid air if you dismount while flying. Don't use it in town (area 52), the guards will attack you for some reason. I guess it's a no fly zone. hehe.
So we found a gold mine of quests in Kirin'Var Village in Netherstorm. Again, key quest leveling because of close proximitiy to one another and quick kill and gathering quests. 12k a pop for turn ins...and none of the mobs were even slightly difficult..easily soloable for the most part. It suprised me how fast we were getting XP. We had our doubts on wether or not tonight would be the night we hit 70. But After hitting Kirin' it became apparent that it wasn't going to be an issue.
So after we all dinged 70 (Sadin, Myself, Taint, and then Felix), we went to Shadowmoon Valley to pick up our flying mounts. Taint and his friend Terrer already have enough for an epic flying mount. Sadin, Felix, and myself bought the regular flying mount (Ebon) because the difference in cost between them is only 200g.

After that, I went crazy flying around all over the place. Seeing how high I could go, seeing if I could fly to those islands in Nagrand I admired from the ground. You can! It's like owning your own private island.
Okay, so now I'm 70. Approximately a full month of non-stop WoW. What do I do now? Do I start asking the perverbial question..is there life after 70? hahaha.. Of course there's lots to do! I need to make money, finally sort out my bags and banks and alts, start working on some of the instance attunements, and getting my alchemy up to 375....oh..and gank horde. :) Not to mention I have a lvl 60 Mage, Rogue, and Druid to bring up to 70 eventually as well. But the push is over... /sigh. It feels damn good.

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