Kusamoto's Army

Remembrancer, Part II: Tsurii's Decision

2011-01-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

Four Hours After Deathwing’s Awakening…

I watched the elf as he paced back and forth in our meeting hall, one of the numerous hidden catacombs that dotted Undercity like Alterac Swiss. His hammer made a rhythmic clanking sound as it bounced off his leg armor, one hand absently rubbing his forehead with frustrated ferocity right where his newly-acquired helm still chafed. Katsuko’s magic-powered lanterns burned brightly in the dank cavern without the haze of smoke associated with a Dwarven or Tauren dwelling, yet the air was still hazy and thick with dust as the aftershocks of the tremendous earthquake we had all felt continued to rattle our senses.

I absently sat polishing my giant sword, testing the edge with a skeletized finger for the hundredth time. Try as I might to lighten the mood, our “General” was in no humor for frivolity. Even my Sylvanas v. Thrall deathmatch shadowpuppet show had failed to rouse a ghost of a smile. Kusamoto had simply looked over at me and said, “Tsurii, honestly, now is not the time for childish nonsense. Information. We must have information. All hell is breaking loose out there, and you want to play pretend? Make yourself useful and find us something to eat.”

It hurt a little, I admit, to be dismissed like a common serving knave. Besides, even the Banshee Queen herself had declared that my reinterpretation of the retaking of Undercity, while totally fictitious, was in every way an improvement on actual events. People just don’t appreciate real art, I suppose. Especially Blood Elf people.

Luckily, I was able to find a panicked, but still coherent, vendor in the main hall who hadn’t sold, lost, or eaten his entire stash of day-old bread. He wasn’t paying much attention as I handed him a stack of gold that would have made royalty blush. He absently pocketed the jingling coins while grimacing in trepidation as another aftershock rattled the foundations of old Lordaeron. Oh well. He deserved it for still being here. If he lived, he’d have a pleasant surprise when he checked his books later.

If he lived.

I headed back, quick to skirt through the ancient archway, more aware than ever that we were snugly cocooned under thousands of tons of masonry and rock that could give out if another monstrous quake came our way. I turned the corner, realizing too late that someone was standing there, waiting for me or another unlucky soul. Vermin, these looters. Almost as bad as the elementals Katsuko and I had fought to dispatch in Orgrimmar earlier in the week, except without the good sense to retreat when they were outmatched.

It was probably too late, but I whipped the bag of stale bread at the hooded figure and drew my blade, cold fire and the starlight from the heart of diseased suns flashing along its edge as I rose to strike. Only then did I realize that my improvised missile had not only missed the target entirely, but was now floating two feet from me in a halo of greenish-blue mist.

“Raising arms against your Queen, Colonel Tsurii?” came the corpse-warm voice it seemed like I had heard my entire life. “And here I thought you at least as intelligent as you were irreverent. It appears I may have to reevaluate my opinion of you.”

She stepped into the light, simultaneously beautiful, horrific, alluring, and repellent. I felt something stir inside me, as I always did in her presence, which I thought long since vanished. A powerful longing for something to believe in. Something worth fighting for. Something to make this cursed existence worthwhile. Who wouldn’t die for that, or kill for it?

I knelt, holding my sword pommel-first toward her as a sign of fealty. “My sincerest apologies, Queen Sylvanas. I’ve been set upon by these thieving wretches too much of late, and my paranoia is running higher than usual.”

Sylvanus chuckled, idly motioning for me to rise. “Forgiven, my loyal servant. Of all my Forsaken, you may be one of my favorites, even if you are somewhat lacking in tact. Destroying you for a misunderstanding would bring me no pleasure.”

I shuddered imperceptibly as I rose and sheathed my sword. Notice she didn’t say she wouldn’t, just that it wouldn’t be fun, I thought. “Much as this unlife is sometimes not to my liking, I think the alternative would be just as, if not more, unpleasant.” I took a deep breath, more to steady my nerves than any real need for oxygen. Breathing was a reflex with our kind, and nothing more. “My Lady, is there any news from our forces in Silverpine? Northrend? Felwood? We need on-site intelligence to allow us to plan any kind of strategy. Is it true that Booty Bay has been wiped off the face of the world? What of the reports of Twilight Hammer forces seizing large swaths of Durotar?”

“Patience, my friend, patience,” the Banshee Queen replied, raising a hand. “Walk with me. Time is short and we have many decisions to make.”

I nodded, falling in to step beside her. For the first time, I noticed her usual retinue of rangers was conspicuously absent. Sylvanas never traveled alone, especially since a large portion of the royal apothecaries had been purged from the ranks some three years previous.

With a small smirk, Sylvanas noticed my questing glance and what it signified. “I have sent my rangers to the farthest corners of the world,” she explained, “to act as my eyes and ears. More than ever, I must have scouts that are absolutely loyal to our cause to feed our generals accurate information. To feed your General accurate information, as well… even though we both know who truly issues the marching orders for Kusamoto’s Army.”

I opened my mouth to protest, shaken to the core that our secret had leaked out. The reality was that Kusamoto was a figurehead, nothing more. Katsuko and I were the ones who strategized, who planned, who conspired with turncoat Alliance spies like Morney and Lorosaphne for information on troop movements. Kusamoto was the face, the artful diplomat, the fiery speaker, the symbol of our organization to further the Horde’s goals. And while I might have been the brains, Katsuko was our beating heart and need for vengeance. We made a fabulous team, and had won more plaudits for our actions in Outlands and Northrend than I could count. We were loyal to the Horde, forever, for our lives. Did our Queen now think us disloyal?

A look from Sylvanas snapped my mouth closed around the dissembling I was about to engage in. “I am…somewhat surprised…that we were that transparent, My Lady. I hope you do not believe us traitors to the Horde, or to you. Our army exists alongside your own, furthering our own goals, and supporting yours when necessary. I hope you do not think-"

“What I think,” she interrupted, “is that you and the girl – Katsuko, isn’t it? – have done a marvelous job with very limited resources. Choosing that comely Blood Elf as your mouthpiece was a stroke of brilliance. And fear not, Tsurii. I know where your allegiance lies. You are fiercely loyal to your friends, your comrades, and most of all, your Queen. And I appreciate having an experienced strike force to apply with precision at a problem, which is exactly what you have given me.” She shook her head. “But there are events occurring that you and your General cannot stand against. Not yet. You see, Deathwing is loose from his prison in Deepholm. Those idiots, the Twilight Hammer, have released him to bring about their damned apocalypse. That’s what’s behind all this; that was the earthquake we felt, that was what demolished Booty Bay, and that’s what’s coming for us.”

I stopped and sagged against the wall. Deathwing? The Deathwing? How could…why would they… ? “Gods, do they truly know what they’ve unleashed? What he’ll do?”

Sylvanas shrugged as we continued down the hall, now just a few yards from the Army’s bolt hole. Around us, blacksmiths, weaponsmiths, combat trainers, and civilians streamed out of the city in all directions, looking for some supposed safety. “Who knows? Do they actually care is the better question. To them, the Father of Terror is simply a means to an end. A tool to be used to upset the old order and replace it with their own. But to him…they’re food.”

I shook my head. It was inconceivable, but the pieces began fitting together in my head: The elemental attacks, the sudden resurgence of the Hammer, formerly rock-solid sources of information suddenly going silent, never to be heard from again. All of it orchestrated by Deathwing from his prison of agony.

Sylvanas was right: Our Army could never hope to fight this, not directly, and my fists clenched in impotent rage at that thought. We had ended everything that had stood as a threat to the Horde, to the world, even. Blood Princes, upstart Emperors, elemental masters, even the Lich King himself. None could stand against my steel and resolve, Katsuko’s magic and fury. We had ended other threats, we could end him, too.

“My Lady,” I said, “I have served from the ranks on up. You know my record, you know my dedication. Command me, even if it is to go into Hell itself to fight this monster. Say the word and I will tender my resignation to Kusamoto and lead whatever forces you wish to place in my care. Win or die, we will be who we are, and we show Deathwing that his will be a short reign. I beg you, My Lady, command me.”

For the first time in years, I saw her actually smile as she placed a delicate hand on my shoulder. The feeling was electrifying, and I knew then I would give anything, anything to keep her and my people safe. Even my own life, paltry as it was.

“You do me more honor than you know, Tsurii,” she said, “but I am no fool. A strike against Deathwing now would simply waste resources we cannot part with. We have to come at him sideways, destroy whatever infrastructure he is attempting to build, before an assault can be mounted. And for that, I need everything you have in your arsenal, including your figurehead. Except…he isn’t precisely a figurehead anymore, is he, Tsurii?”

I frowned, trying to discern her meaning. Kusamoto? He was a scribe, an excellent speaker, a healer with great potential. He was also raw, untested, irritatingly moral…

And with a start, I realized what had happened since Katsuko and I had returned from Icecrown.

How he had slowly taken over the majority of our recruiting.

How he had taught himself finance and overseen Taka’s ordnance and supply decisions, thereby doubling our reserves.

How he had quietly suggested that Undercity, not Orgrimmar, would be a better base of operations, and how we had unquestioningly gone along with it.

And how our ranks had actually grown, our influence spread, while the “brains” of the operation toiled against the scourge in the Frozen North.

“He’s a natural leader,” I said with wonder. “How did I miss it?”

“Because he doesn’t see himself as one either, Tsurii,” Sylvanas said. “He believes you are still the one really in charge, when in reality, he has been for almost a year. But that means if something happens, he will expect you to bail him out of trouble, and that weakness will get him killed. I need him, my friend, so he must be ready when the time comes.”

I straightened, realizing I could hear Kusamoto issuing orders from just down the hallway. His awareness of the situation was total, even though everything around him seemed to be falling apart.

“Relay this to Ginawa,” I heard him say to one of our runners. “Silverpine is in chaos, from what I’ve heard, and he’s been out there for a few weeks. If anyone knows what the situation on the ground is, it would be him. Now. Go. Don’t stop for anything.”

I turned to Sylvanas as a juvenile Orc raced around the corner, oblivious to our presence, the copper and gold lion etched on his armor gleaming brilliantly in the muted light. In a moment of clarity, or perhaps prescience, I saw our crest flying high on a standard above a battlefield of unspeakable carnage. Tattered and torn, but still flying high, and beneath it, shouting out our last breaths in defiance, stood Katsuko, Kusamoto, and I. We were dying, but somehow, I knew our sacrifice had bought the world victory.

Dying wasn’t on my list of things that needed to be done anytime soon. But if I couldn’t die at my Queen’s side, it wouldn’t be a bad death, at that. A good death, in fact. An honorable one. “What must I do, My Lady?”

Sylvanas pointed in our General’s direction. “Send him to Outlands, Tsurii. He is more than ready. Send him alone, with only what he carries, today. If he survives, he will be the weapon we so desperately need in this dark hour. I have skill; I have legions at my beck and call; I have all the powers of the etherium at my fingertips. But I need leaders, generals, respected commanders, or else we lose. The whole world loses. He must be who he was born to be, and soon.”

I nodded. “It won’t be easy to convince him, but in the end, he’ll go. This I swear.”

Sylvanas smiled and started to say something else, but I never got a chance to hear what it was.

A tremendous explosion rocked the hallway, and I was thrown through the air to land in a heap of rubble. Dust and pain obscured my vision, but I fought against unconsciousness, straining to catch a glimpse of our Queen. She couldn’t have been caught in that explosion…she couldn’t be…

With a pained sigh, I saw her form emerge from the obscuring detritus of the blast, shimmering faintly behind a protective shield of sickly green light. She padded over to me as I heard the shouts and curses of our forces as they stormed in our direction. “Remember, Tsurii,” she whispered, “it’s Kusamoto’s Army. Make sure he realizes that.” With a high-pitched whistle, reality bent sideways and swallowed her in a wash of magical energy.

The last thing I remembered as darkness claimed me was the elf running in my direction, the healing light already forming at his fingertips. I thank you, my old friend, I thought, but if you knew the decisions I am making for you, for your own good even, you would curse me rather than heal me. And you would be right to.

I would.

Scenes from Azeroth II

2011-01-01T23:43:00.001-08:00

Well, since we're having server authentication problems, let's get caught up. Where has the Army been? Fighting against the horrors of Deathwing, of course...

Here's Katsuko shortly after Deathwing's arrival on her way to Vash'Jir. One of the best screenshots I've ever done, methinks.

I'd talk about this quest if I could stop laughing.

Give an undead an ugly stick and then step back and just watch...

And here's Katsuko now. She was the first of the Army to the new level cap and is a very irritating 2 GS points away from being able to run heroics. Only having access to 2 Ramkahen dailies is really exasperating, since they easily have the best caster rep gear. I do appreciate the Cowboy Beebop anime hat, though, from the Earthen Ring folks.

Oh, and for you old schoolers? Outlands armor? Still outlandish.

Katsuko: Guardian of Dalaran

2010-11-29T18:31:00.000-08:00

A pall has fallen over Northrend. A nameless dread, a constant reminder of what we had and what is no longer. So much joy, so many celebrations, so many friends made and promises kept.

Naxxramas is destroyed.

Ulduar lies in ruins.

Even the Lich King, our hated nemesis, has been bested.

Now...

Now there are only memories of faded glory. A ghost of the greatness that was, and what never will be again.

The heroes have moved on, left the once-glorious floating city to its own devices. In their place, only the desperate, the corrupt, the forgotten remain. Organized crime, petty thieves, rapists, murderers...they are legion within the city, now.

My city. My beautiful, wonderful metropolis. I spent so many happy hours here. Yes...happy. Me, of all people. I was happy here. Content. At peace.

But now...

I cannot look at the shell of this place and not feel...rage. Rage against the people who sully it. Rage against those who abandoned it. Rage for all those that must remain and deal with the daily despair of life.

And that rage needs victims.

So while you heroes of the frozen north run back to Azeroth...

While you succumb to the consumerism of the Bilgewater Cartel...

While you quibble over useless theological debates between Thrall's followers and Hellscreams'...

I will remain as I always have. I will stay and defend those who cannot defend themselves. I will be the guardian they no longer have.

I am a poor champion, I admit. But if I am all they have, then so be it. The darkness that rules Dalaran now has an enemy. The people have a guardian.

Because for them I can be what I never have been. What I never tried to be. What I never wanted to be.

A hero.

(with apologies to Batman, Daredevil, and The Maxx)

New Tonight, Deathwing Returns…And Now Here’s Bob with the Weather

2010-11-24T10:57:00.001-08:00

So patch 4.0.3 hit last night and everyone is either a) up in arms because their portals/favorite spec/damage/heals/old tree form/cappuccino bar is gone, or b) very pleased with the changes in the world landscape/questlines/race-class combinations/guild mechanics. Personally, I’m a little of both of these. Am I happy that Warriors got hit with the ugly stick yet again? Not at all. Do I like the cosmetic changes to the old world setting? Absolutely. Do I want my portals back? Hells yes…well, except for my mage. Katsuko is raking in portal tip cash by the bucketful. I’ve already had to go get more portal reagents twice in the last 2 days (normally I only need to buy them once every few weeks…guess I need to rememorize the location of reagent vendors in Org and Dal again). Am I having fun? Dude, I’m having a blast. This is just what the doctor ordered for this game.

So like one of my favorite blogging compatriots, Dechion, the first thing I did after getting the kids fed and put away for the night was log on and roll up my undead hunter, which was THE thing I was most looking forward to. Had a name picked out, bags and gold ready on my trusty bank alt, and even knew where I was going to train his main pet (a Lion that will be getting named “Akodo,” naturally). Ergo, Shigetoshi was born…or died…or both; and let me just say that the new “awakening” portion of the Undead creation process is fantastic. Levels 1-10 are completely updated with very compelling vignette stories, which I certainly appreciate, and immediately immerses you into the game experience. Compared to early leveling before, this feels much more like you inserting yourself into the canon story rather than playing an FPS until you get to Silverpine/Barrens/Westfall/wherever. For now, Shigs has a Darkhound pet, which is very not bad for leveling as far as ferocity pets are concerned.

Also, the scenery! The beauty of the environment is outstanding, and I was very happy with the way the early Brill/Tirisfal questlines were arranged. No more running halfway across the continent to do inane things with/to Gnolls or grinding 200 mobs for 8 moldy fingernails. Quest item drop rates are much higher, at least early on, which can only increase your sense of accomplishment if you’re just now picking up the game.

I could go on and on, but let me just finish up with a few nice things I’ve noticed:

• The faction-specific quartermasters. This is an outstanding addition. For 10 silver, you can buy a tabard for each faction in their major cities. Like the LK factions, these tabards will allow you to grind rep for that faction while in any dungeon. Once you hit Exalted, which shouldn’t take too long with your home city, there are a number of excellent blue BOP items for sale at low prices, and a 16-slot bag that runs a little over 1G is available at Revered.

• FPs in starter cities. Brill, Razor Hill, and the cow city all now have FPs to the capitol a la the Space Goat and Blood Elf baby pools.

• Cosmetic baby gear improvements. Your starting gear looks much more like a military uniform or Nordstrom’s off-the-rack stuff, rather than something from the Homeless-Crackhead-of-the-Month-Club catalogue.

• Hellscream's Temporary Staffing Services, Inc. I mostly just found this amusing. However, I'm interested in seeing what odd jobs for heroes get tossed up there in the future. Maybe unique weeklies? Special quests that hand out Feat of Strength achievements? Envelope stuffing for the Argent Crusade's membership drive?

• New Orgrimmar. My God, Blizzard outdid themselves here. I really wish Undercity would have gotten a facelift like this, but Orgrimmar is a beautiful sight to behold. It can almost make me forget that Hellscream’s dumbest progeny is now running the place. Almost.

• Dude, valium. Speaking of, I talked to Hellscream last night just for fun and HE STILL TALKS LIKE THIS NO MATTER WHAT HE IS SAYING! CAN I BORROW A CUP OF SUGAR! I'M MAKING PIE AND NEED SUGAR! GIVE ME SUGAR OR I WILL DESTROY ALL YOU LOVE! I miss Thrall already...

OK, time to go. Need to jump back on my hunter for a bit. Remembrancer: Part II is in the can and being edited. Be prepared for a time jump.

New Feature! Random Screenshot Thursday!

2010-11-19T00:36:00.001-08:00

Because, "Work sucks and I have no idea what to post and Rembrancer: Part II is still at the shop getting new tires, so I can't do that," didn't have the same catchy marketing title to it.

Yes, a 40-man raid defense of Orgrimmar from the forces of elemental destruction infesting the world; because that's how we Silver Hand Horde roll. If there's a problem, yo, we'll solve it.

Having never been in a 40-man raid, I really don't know how you old-school folks did it back in the day. It's total chaos...but with more running and screaming.

And Now for a Word About Characters

2010-11-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

So, my wife is currently waiting to have her traitorous galbladder removed. I am scamming the hospital wi-fi, trying to think of things to do to keep myself occupied, and not going batshit crazy with worst-case scenarios. It's a simple procedure, but I had the same thing done 3 years ago and they had to do it the old-fashioned way...with a chainsaw and a baseball bat, apparently.

But that's as it may be. I'll try to keep off that. I wanted to go into how I choose and develop characters a little bit, since this is a question I get with a fair amount of regularity IRL.

So, I've been playing various RPGs for a really long time. In fact, I remember the old West End Games Star Wars System. Loved it; roll far too many D6's for no good reason. Yeah, I'm getting grey, I know. I've played AD&D 2nd, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, L5R, Rifts, Doctor Who, B5, WoT, V:TM, and so on. I go to GenCon every year, half to play the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, but half to see the weird new RPG tabletop experiments that are coming out. So I've got a fair amount of experience playing make-believe.

All those systems varied wildly from each other, for the most part. But the one thing that remained constant was the characters. Any RPG, no matter how poorly designed or executed, can be a really good time if you have interesting characters you like, care about, and enjoy playing. Conversely, the best-designed system in the world will fall absolutely flat if you don't give a damn about what happens to the main players (The Phantom Menace, anyone?).

That being the case, I go out of my way to build and play characters that are not just fun, but have history, personailty quirks, annoying habits, hopes, dreams, goals, character flaws...in short, I try to make them as close to real people as I possibly can, because that makes for interesting dialogue and game play.

What do you do, for instance, when your main group of characters has been hired by the mob to do a smash-and-grab at a local jewlery store, which sounds fine, but one of the PC's uncles owns the store and actually was a huge influence in his or her life? Maybe got him or her into NYU through his connections with the geology department? Or if another of the PC's was busted for petty theft 6 months ago and has been turned into a narc to avoid prosecution. How does he react to this? Does he do the job on the down-low, or does he stoolie out and run to the cops? Or how about a third who is naturally conceited and can't helping bragging to a few of his buddies after the job, and is overheard by a friend of the jeweler's?

See? Good, rich characters can make something that seems pretty ordinary on the surface (listen to the bit about the sandwich) and make it, if not epic, then so much more realistic, deep, and fun.

The same rules translate over to WoW, as far as I am concerned. Arthas, Sylvanas, Varian Wynn, Tirion, Thrall...these are all fantastic characters with rich, meaningful storylines. To create characters that are any less than 3-dimensional then, to my way of thinking, is an affront to the people who imagined up this awesome world. Therefore, my three flagship characters, Kusamoto, Tsurii, and Katsuko, have been developed over the course of months, even years.

Kusamoto, in particular, has a rich history, as he is my L5R alterego. I've been playing that game so long, in fact, they folks at AEG decided to give in and make him, and I, a part of canon. It's a nod at my peserverance and in a really strange way gives him, and therefore me, a kind of immortality most people can only dream of, so I am immensely humbled by the honor Shawn Carman and company have done me. So, here's my alterego, Kusamoto, in the card game:

Naturally, who else could I have chosen to create for my flagship WoW character? Since I play horde almost exclusively, the racial choice wasn't much of one (Blood Elf was the only thing that came close) and class was similarly chosen for me (Pally, of course). So I roll him up along the same lines as my card game character, and here's what I come up with:

You can see the similarities in type, which is why I was immensely pleased at how he turned out in game, and was really looking forward to playing the hell out of him. Only one minor problem:

I didn't like him.

In fact, he sat on the shelf for about 4 months before I started grinding away at the Blood Elf starting quests, but I still wasn't having any fun with him (and I'm certain the reverse was true). I couldn't figure it out at all. Until one day, in SFK, I chose DPS or healer, got in as a healer, and realized my mistake.

THIS Kusamoto was NOT entirely "my" Kusamoto. He preferred healing over righteous fury, and more "white collar" pursuits, like Inscription and Herbalism, over the down-and-dirty professions like engineering or mining. While this originally came as quite a shock, it made perfect sense with the background I had in my head of a mid-level functionary's son forced into a role and profession he never really wanted. And now, he finds himself, by virtue of his skills in writing and oratory, as the political figurehead of an organization he is more than glad to let Katsuko run behind the scenes while playing straight man to a undead warrior.

Even though I had built the character along the same lines as my true alterego, he changed and grew before my eyes in surprising ways because of the same rules I follow when building characters, not in spite of them. It's frightening when that happens; when a character you have made, played, and were both mother and father to, suddenly matures into something you never expected. Frightening, but also very exciting. It means you've done your job in creating and raising him well, and now you are simply along for the ride.

So, this has been pretty wall-of-textish, but I hope I got my point across. WoW is, for all intents and purposes, a tabletop RPG in a lot of ways. Character creation and development is similar, and if you go out of your way to make interesting characters with breadth and depth, it will never get old, no matter what changes are made to the game, and you will always enjoy playing it.

OK, back to the really real world of waiting for my wife to be out of surgery. But let me ask everyone: Who is your favorite WoW character (NPC, your own, or someone else's) and why? I'd love to hear your opinion.

'Cheeves!

2010-11-09T17:56:00.000-08:00

I must thank Ratshag for the cool addon he linked from his blog, even if it was just peripherally. I suspect it will make my life a lot easier. Plus I can catch important moments in the Corps' life much more grandly, like this:

Ginawa got a horse!

Or this:

DK Space Goat levels right in front of King Varian Wynn. Courtiers aghast. Film at 11.

And action shots like this:

That's a lot of fwoosh.

But I am very glad I was able to get this one. Kats would have never forgiven me if I'd missed this huge milestone in her quest for vengeance:

Teaser alert! More on Kats' first journey into ICC to come!

The End is Nigh...

2010-11-02T19:57:00.001-07:00

The Local 405 of the Doomsayers Union needed some new representatives for the Orgrimmar division. Recruitment and members willing to sow the seeds of chaos and disorder were apparently lagging in the face of political adversity from the local fascists. Plus, they pay well, and no one has to die...right now, anyways.

I have just one thing to say to any potential affiliates:

Repent, bitches.

We Interrupt this Broadcast...

2010-10-31T21:56:00.000-07:00

...to bring you the following special report...

BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

It only took two years, but Tsurii finally got "the single coolest piece of loot in all of Azeroth." It has now been tricked out as his PvP helm...and so he can buzz the Alliance in WG while laughing maniacally at them.

Katsuko also has been enjoying life after patch 4.0.1. Not only is she sporting new threads, but she picked up a new friend and a new title.

More to come soon, but for now, we're tired...it's been a long day and we need to eat the candy that the trick-or-treaters and/or various family members didn't get to.

When Loot Filled Bags Aren't

2010-10-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Blizzard,

We have now defeated the toothless horseman 8 times between our 2 80s. We have received one (1, I, uno, eins) Loot Filled Bag that actually has loot in it. On behalf of the rest of the Corps, I would like to suggest the following name change be made to the Loot-Filled Bag immediately (please select the one that seems most appropriate to you):

The Bag that Sometimes Contains Loot, but Mostly Just Irritates the Commander-in-Chief
The Bag That Glitches Your Interface Causing You to Crash Out
Moth- and Lint-Filled Bag
Bag of Justice Points and Continental Frequent Flyer Miles
It's Just a Bag, it Doesn't Have Anything In It. Please Don't Email Us Anymore

Or, as an alternative, you could actually have something show up in the Loot-Filled Bag, even it's only marginally useful, so that players have some sense of accomplishment. Candy, pumpkins, toothpicks, a rock (a la Charlie Brown), anything, really.

We appreciate the Justice Points, we really do, but getting all excited over a boss' stuff, only to find it totally empty, is anticlimactic at best, downright annoying at worst. We appreciate your taking the time to read this and make any appropriate adjustments.

Sincerely,

Gen. A. Kusamoto

...And Now I'm Happy Again

2010-10-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

The Army is back in action with new gear. And oh, what pretty gear it is. I never realized this game was so well-designed from a graphics standpoint until I got a machine that can run it effectively.

Now, as far as the game relating to patch 4.0.1...

I like it, for the most part. There are a few minor changes I don't care for, like separate friends and guild tabs and the profession filtering tools, but overall I'm content. Things I have noticed, however:

1) Pallys got beaten with the nerf stick, not just hit a few times. DPS with a Pally? Yeah, you're funny. Fight 3 mobs then heal and drink. Fight 3 mobs, heal/drink. Rinse, repeat. Mana management is impossible, and most of the really good damage-inducers are either gone or changed so much they might as well be. Healing, though, is a lot easier and costs next to no mana, which makes me glad Kusamoto is leveling Holy.

2) Mages are ridiculous. Katskuo went from barely 2300 DPS self-buffed to around 3.5k without reforging, regemming, or reglyphing. After I finished reforging and glyphing, she's almost to 4.5k...and she's wearing crafted purples and tier 9.5 stuff, mainly. After gemming, I should be at 5k+. Mages, enjoy it while you can. The nerf bat is probably coming for you, too.

3) Warrior tanking is an exercise in futility. Arms warriors seem to have gotten away with very little changed. Fury warriors got hit pretty hard, but it's still manageable. Prot? Yeah, not so much. We have one (1) AoE threat generator now, and the solo ones weren't all that great to begin with. However, shouts no longer cost Rage, and actually generate it, which is very nice.

Going to log on this evening to continue working on the Hallowed title for Kats. More to come...

Now I'm Sad...

2010-10-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

My computer has betrayed me. I have freed up 12 gigs of space...and it is still not enough room for patch 4.0.1. Ergo, I am WoWless until I pick up my new laptop this weekend. Pity me, for my laptop is old and substandard (read the first user review).

*sigh*

Oh well. Time to catch up on Psych.

2010 1013 2306 Zulu SitRep

2010-10-12T20:22:00.000-07:00

Hi, boss. Tsurii here. Our fearless leader, Gen. Kusamoto Esq. P.h.D. III, is slightly...um...indisposed. Therefore, I will be doing our semi-regular checkin with you. And boy, there have been some seriously jacked up things happeing in Azeroth. It started this morning when I jumped out of bed, ready to go kill in the name of good and fun...and because I really, really needing something to die. But the Sunreaver guard someone decided to post at the door to my crypt said I had to stop. Something about "the fundamental nature of the immaterium intruding on our rational world" or some such load of kodoshite. I was flummoxed for a moment, but then made the connection: Patch day. The patch. The big one you and our ambiguously gay commanding officer have been discussing. Chaos, disorder, magnetic polar reversal, dogs and cats living together, they are FINALLY coming here.

I can't wait.

But anywho...a lot has been going on with the team over the past few weeks. Firstly, we have a new recruit! He's a cousin of mine who dabbles in the dark arts...for informational and entertainment purposes only, of course. And for the sheer joy of tearing puppies into tiny shreds to summon elemental demons. Oh, and he has no eyes, but that doesn't stop him from doing some serious (spoiler alert! spoiler alert! heehee!) Book of Eli asswhuppin. 'Course...I'm better. I can do it without the blueberry...or the hocusy-pokusy frou-frou stuff. I gave him Katsuko's old clothes and staff so that he can get through the old world a little faster...plus, now he smells like a girl, which I find amusing. Hey, I'm dead; I get my laughs where I can.

Speaking of the girl, Katsuko was a little...um...miffed when she found out that a few of our buddies from Demon Knights rolled up and smoked His Licheyness a few weeks back. Miffed enough that she completely vanished for awhile. Not sure what's eating that kid. I mean, maggots are eating me, but I don't think that's her problem. But, she showed back up a few days ago with a lot of high-level gear and a very determined set to her pretty little jaw. It was hard to see behind her sparkly-new Hannibelle Lector Faceshield(TM), but I think it was determined.

As for me, I haven't had the chance to raid the remains of the Icecrown Empire State Building recently, but I did manage to find an armor vendor that had a belt better than the stupid girdle of "I'm wearing purples and you're not nyah nyah nyah" I yanked off the Black Knight's corpse almost a year ago. And I finally...finally...after going through it 500 times or so, got that whitchamacalit of souls in the forge to give up his shiny. 'Bout damned time.

Other than that, I'd been busy busting a move on Coren Direbrew once a day for almost two weeks. And you know what? HE DIDN'T DROP SHIT I COULD USE! Not one goddamned thing that was fun or needed. My groups must have summoned 300 barmaids and had a huge orgy the number of times I saw that stupid thing fall off his belt. His tankard? Shattered in a million pieces. The ram? Yeah, one of the Death Knights ate it. The Kodo rampaged and trampled all the dark iron dwarves in the hall next door after the troll accidentally gored it with one of his long-ass tusks. And yet, Kats' first run? The watch dropped for her.

>.>
<.<

Is Tsurii gonna' haveta' choke a bitch?

As far as fearless, and probably sexually deviant, leader goes...he's still stuck in the Badlands running Marudon and Uldaman over and over and over and...well, you get the idea. He's apparently seen enough cactus, coyotes, and buzzards to last him a good long while. I didn't tell him about Hellfire Penninsula...figured I'd let him find that one out for himself *evil laugh*

Well, that's all for now. My patch is done and I'm off to kill in the name of justice. And loot. OK, mostly loot. Late...

No One Puts Belfy in a Corner

2010-09-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

Not much of an update this week, I fear, but I had to share the following pics.

First pic is Katsuko and her new favorite tank, Alvi. Why is she her new favorite tank, might you ask? Because she tanks in a dress! Yes, that's right. She tanks like a girl, and I dare you to make fun of her. Keristraza did, and look where that got her. Yes...dead.

Awwwww, she even gave our hate-filled little burninator a hug. How nice of her. Only problem with Belfs tanking in dresses? There were two other dress-wearing Belfs in the party...follow the wrong one at your peril.

Pic #2 is from the recent retaking of the Echo Isles from good 'ol Zalazane. Yes, Zalazane...the same asshole we all killed at level 10. Well, he's back and officially beating ass. Er, at least he was. Now he's so much protoplasm being played with by the benevolent Troll voodoo God of death and vengeance; which seems to be a contradiction in terms to me, but hey...I guess if you smoke enough of the really green, stinky, crunchy peanut butter, wicked voodoo God worship starts sounding like a pretty good idea.

Anywho, in the process of assisting said dark voodoo God (for Darkspear rep and gold, of course...it's not like we do this for free), Katsuko discovered she was a pretty good recruiter. Now, if only she could get them into OUR Army instead of Vol'Jins.

That' all for this week. I will try to be less lax about posting than I have been. Remembrancer Part II is on the way, as is another Army SitRep, all within the next two weeks. Promise.

2010-08-26 2300 Zulu; Battalion SitRep

2010-08-26T21:59:00.001-07:00

Report Filed By: Gen. A. Kusamoto
Priority: Moderate

Classification: Secret

Batallion Status: Green

**Begin Trans**

Col. Katsuko deserves congratulations from the rest of our company on her latest achievement, namely promotion to the highest levels of Azerothian competence. However, since this milestone earlier in the week, she has only slowed down long enough to pull some new clothes, a knife, and a strange-looking orb (which, she informs me, has already been replaced with some terribly boring book) out of her footlocker. She seems absolutely driven to make it to Icecrown and Arthas' Frozen Throne in support of the rest of the battalion. While her singleminded zealotry is admirable, we all find it vaguely terrifying. Col. Tsurii even baked her a cake and had signs printed up ("Congratulations, Slacker") as a celebratory gesture, but she begged off saying something about the "twice-damned sons of Ho'Dir" needing her to do something. I swear I heard her mutter something about "waxing their helmets," but I really didn't care to listen past that. Tsurii just seemed amused in a knowing way.

Speaking of , after being unceremoniously stopped cold in his ICC advance by an entity known as the Blood Queen, Tsurii has performed a temporary retrograde action back to Dalaran in an effort to rally his boys and support Katsuko's drive. He did, however, manage to requisition new gear from an officer of the Ashen Verdict, as well as raid the Alliance's resupply and assault frigate for these. One of the creations of the Lich King's Lieutenant, Professor Putricide, apparently had no further use for this, either. While the remainder of his equipment is strictly standard issue, allied forces have reported that his conduct and performance under fire have been exemplary.

Sadly, the pressures and resposibilities of command have left me more-or-less stationed in Undercity for the foreseeable future. This is a delicate time for the Army, and I cannot ignore my post to go gallivanting off to the Arathi Highlands like some common mercenary. There are campaigns to plan, supplies to distribute, families whose loved ones Katsuko has set on fire to apologize to (cultists have mothers...huh...who knew?), then those same families to apologize to again after Tsurii ate a few of their cousins- ["OMNOMNOM! heehee!" "Dude, shut up! I'm recording here!" "Sorry, boss...say, does this clown taste funny to you?" "*sigh*They don't pay me enough for this..."]...where was I...oh, Dalaran city guardsmen to bribe...err...motivate, and plenty of new recruits to interview (although the Tauren that is convinced she is a Paladin and the very devout-if eccentric-Goblin flummox me). Our Army strengthens, and soon we shall be strong enough to not only push the last remnants of the Lich King's forces from our world forever, but also survive the cataclysm you have often spoken of. **END TRANS**

Remembrancer, Part I: Katsuko's Tale

2010-07-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

I remember how the apple blossoms fell from the trees like a winter snowstorm every year when I was a child. I remember the simple joy of running through them, laughing as they parted before me while my parents watched, content, from their bench in Falconwing Square. My father’s full lips and light green eyes showing his good humor at my cavorting. My mother absently brushing a lock of Raven-black hair from her eyes, wedged comfortably in the crook of his shoulder. I remember the caress of warmth as the afternoon breeze ghosted softly from the city-side of our little paradise, redolent with the exciting smells, sounds, and textures of civilization, progress, and affluence. We were a proud race, then, and an exceedingly rich one. Rich in worldly possessions, rich in culture, rich in knowledge.

And, as my parents often demonstrated, rich in love.

I was denied nothing growing up in the outskirts of our magically-powered city, yet for all that I was not spoiled. My father often spoke of our duty as virtual immortals to guide the younger races away from the paths of self-destruction they virtually careened down at top speed. That duty, instilled in my from the age of six, as well as my apparent and sometimes frightening aptitude for the magical arts, led to a fulfilling apprenticeship with Magister Jaim Sunfury; one of the most respected practitioners of magic in our little empire. I learned quickly and gained confidence, all the while lovingly supported and encouraged by those whose respect I desired most.

It was idyllic. It was utopian. It was glorious.

It was fleeting.

For you know, you remember, what came next. How the plague ravaged Lordaeron, leaving most dead and some far worse; how the Orcs fell upon us in a fury of bloodletting and murderous rage; how the Scourge nearly wiped us all off the face of Azeroth; how our world almost ended.

I was still young and idealistic then, and remember the bitter, senseless arguments held in our courts, by our mages, by our military leaders, by my parents. Oh, everyone said the right things; the arguments were sensible and logical: Entrench, prepare, hoard, defend, parlay. The counterarguments were equally good, however: Attack, surprise, conscript, flank, never stop or capitulate. I remember the first gut-wrenching time I realized the truth, and all my idealism and naivete was swept away in one painful rush:

No one knew what to do.

Yet our armies marched, proclaimations were made by pontiffs who knew better, households were prepared for seemingly inevitable sieges, larders were filled to bursting with hard tack and magically-preserved foods, battalions of mage trainees, myself included, were conscripted into elite units…I remember it clearly, these terrible days of debate and waiting.

All that ended when the Sunwell died. I remember. Gods, how I wish I did not.

The chaos. The pandemonium. The shrieks of my friends, some of whom I had known for years, as were traumatically severed from source of our knowledge, our morals, our sanity. I remember a few of them lashing out with their power at anyone and anything around them, burning buildings to ash with fireballs, freezing fleeing men, women, and children solidly in place with frostbolts, or simply tearing the object of their misplaced wrath apart with pure threads of the etherium. No description of this event in any textbook, or by any fanciful storyteller, can ever do justice to the awful certainty of destruction that hung over us all at that moment. That any of us lived was a miracle. That I lived, where so many did not, was something out of a tragic poem.

I remember heat, cold, screaming, than pain and disorientation as something cracked against my skull hard enough to send me flying into one of my beloved apple trees. I remember looking up through blurred, blood-filled eyes at the pink, red-veined blossoms. So beautiful, so ephemeral. I remember seeing the blast of flame inexorably marching toward them, flung in madness from a compatriot who had already torn his own eyes from his skull. My soul wept as the fire splashed against the trunk of the tree, setting it alight almost instantly. The blossom, caught in the conflagration, wilted and then crisped, raining ash in a parody of their natural life cycle. I remember knowing I was going to die, knowing that the fire would reach me soon. But somehow, the heat, the pain, the wonder of watching the blaze greedily devour everything it touched…it made me feel…feel…

Complete.

Then movement and dizziness as someone plucked me from my addled reverie, swinging around enough to grant me a vision of Hell. The city was exploding, engulfed, tearing itself apart. I remember…I think I remember…my mother trying to trying to fight through the chaos to reach me, calling my name in anguish as she was pressed back and out of the main square by the mob. The last thing I remember that day was Magister Sunfury’s voice telling me to close my eyes, to not look upon what he would have to do to win out with our lives. I obeyed, fainted, and the world fell away.

How we survived in the ensuing years, and even thrived, still astounds me. We all became mana addicts to one degree or another, a poor replacement for the Sunwell’s influence, but were mostly able to control our vice and retain our wits. I prospered more than ever before as one of a handful of mages that had survived that black day. My skills were in demand, my tutors were delighted at my progress, if somewhat chagrined at my changed demeanor and total lack of self-preservation, but were ultimately pleased that I had finally settled on a sphere of mastery. I spoke little, made no friends, performed the functions of my profession, and lacking any other option, grew up quickly.

One day, Jaim pronounced me ready for combat duty, and I was assigned to cleanup detail in the ruined portions of Silvermoon City. “Cleanup” was a euphemism for execution of the wretched ones; Elves who, having lost their minds to total mana addiction, fled for the supposed safety of their fellows. Killing them was a mercy, and one I was ideally suited for. Our situation had made me cold, detached, calculating, and completely devoid of any compassion. I was less than a machine. I was a tool; nothing more.

And so I killed. As a tool, a weapon, an assassin. Again and again, I killed and felt nothing.

Until one day, returning from those fields of the damned, I was confronted by a particularly wretched-looking wretch. She might have been beautiful once, but now her Raven-black hair lay limp and matted against gaunt, filthy shoulders. Her wordless snarl revealed broken, rotted teeth framed by cracked and bleeding lips, wild eyes, and hate. She raised her makeshift shiv, a low growl building in her throat.

I sighed in irritation, calling forth the cleansing red and orange flame that had replaced all that was lost in my life, preparing to finish her in one quick shot. There was nothing to these once-proud Elves, after all. They went up like so much dry tinder at the lover’s caress of the fire. Almost a waste of power…but pretty to watch, at least.

The fire was never released, though, as my adversary’s growl suddenly stopped, her shiv lowered. I stared in sudden consternation as recognition flooded her eyes, her mouth dropping open in shock. The flame in my hands died as her voice, long forgotten and rusty with the harsh rasp of permanent addiction, whispered past her abused lips.

“K-Kats? Is it…is it…really you?”

I remembered…I remembered, damn you all! I had not truly forgotten, but buried that which was too painful to bear. No one, no one but…but…her…had ever called me that. Not my friends, not my father, not Jaim Sunfury, no one else. She had often chided me with the diminutive of my name when I was younger, teased me good-naturedly with it. I hated it, of course. I also loved her for doing it, of course.

When my voice came, it was barely a husky whisper, equally as unused as hers had been. “Yes. It’s really me. I’m…oh, I’m so sorry that…that…this happened to you. It’s my fault. My fault for not coming for you that day. My fault for running.”

She shook her head, dismissing my concern. The wild look to her eyes was gone, sanity returned. The hunger remained, but I did not delude myself into thinking that would ever leave her soul. “No, no, baby. It’s alright. It’s…a lot of us ran that day when we should have fought. I…I ran…I ran to find your father, but couldn’t. I don’t know where…how he…if…”

She trailed off, her eyes darting left and right, searching, beseeching. “The fire was everywhere. In everything. Everyone burned, or ran, or died, or became like…like…I am.” She licked her lips, and I tried to hide my distaste as one particularly putrescent scab broke open on her upper lip, pus and blood running freely, unnoticed. “But I’m better now, Kats. I am. I really, really am. I can control it. I can…be…who I was. I just…I just…need a few more crystals. Just one or two more and I’ll be right as the spring rain, you watch!”

Her smile as she lied to her only child was the most disturbing thing. I saw she believed it, believed it entirely. She was lost. She…my mother…wasn’t there anymore. Only this masquerade remained. The smile died as quickly as she had plastered it on as her clawed fingers reached for my jerkin, pulling us both down to the ground as she shrieked into my face.

“I need it! You’re a mage, so I know you have it! Just one! Just one crystal! Give it to me! Gods damn you, you ungrateful little bitch! GIVE IT TO ME NOW!”

Her voice broke. She degenerated into wracking sobs, head lolling on my shoulder and soiling my clothes with blood, mucus, tears, and who knew what. I sat, unmoving, unable to comprehend what was going on, unable to superimpose this creature on the smiling, lovely face of my youth, unwilling to face what I knew had to happen here.

And something else. Something was about to break loose inside me. Something dark and limpet, struggling to be free of the whirlwind of that dark place in my mind I had shoved all the memories that I could not, would not, dared not, let out. I couldn’t hold it back, couldn’t contain it. And with one soft, strained sentence from her, it was free to ravage my conscience.

“If your father were here, he’d make you give it to me. If he were here. If he were only here…”

And I remembered. All of it. All at once. Every face of every one of my victims for the past months. Every wretch I had put down, thinking it a mercy to execute them. For the first time, I heard their screams, their pleas as the fire took them. I remembered the faces of friends, rivals, entertainers I had loved as a child, political figures most of us had detested, minor royalty…and one face. One face above them all. His denials and shrieks had been long and loud. His rounded jaw melting in the heat of the flames, the spark in his light-green eyes starting to go out in excruciating spasms as the blistering heat contracted all his muscles. But most haunting, most jarring…the recognition on my father’s face at the moment his soul shed its charred vehicle.

I almost gave up then. I nearly laid down, bowing to the inevitable tortures and horrors my erstwhile mother, and the others like her, were certain to visit upon me, as they would any interloper. Idly, I wondered what would kill me first; their madness, or the malfunctioning guardians that still roamed the old city. I wondered if I cared. So many terrible things I had done, so many deaths. No atonement, no altruistic act of contrition, could ever cleanse the stain on my soul. My indifference had made me a murderer, and guilty of possibly the worst crime of all: patricide. To forfeit my life in exchange seemed paltry in the face of the karmic debt I had accumulated. I deserved no less, and perhaps much more.

Ironically, it was the pathetic, wailing thing leaning heavily against me that saved my life. I remembered an afternoon, and a conversation my parents had had with me right before I was to begin my apprenticeship under Magister Sunfury. My father spoke at length of our duty to minister wisdom and prudence to the younger races; my mother spoke of the compassion one must have in the course of those duties; both impressed on me the responsibility that was now mine. At the time, it seemed like one more speech, one more lecture, and I only half-listened, making the right sounds back at them by rote.

Now I understood, truly understood, what that duty and responsibility meant. It meant that no matter what I felt inside, no matter how hard it was to follow the path I had been set on in my youth, to turn away, to lay down and await oblivion, was more than just cowardice. It was treason.

And that’s why, as I held my mother close, my hand found the discarded shiv and brutally thrust it between her ribs.

Her fingers dug into my shoulder as she convulsively gasped in pain, eyes flying open wide in surprise. Gently, I leaned forward and reclined her against the hard, ash-laden ground. “I must release you from this pain," I said, surprised at how even, and hard, my voice was. "I have a duty, now, and I can’t turn my back on it for anything, or anyone. Not even the people who once loved me. I hope you understand and can forgive me. But even if you can’t, please…please be at peace.”

She couldn’t respond, of course. I knew my trade well, and had punctured her lung to avoid attracting the attention of others like her. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t curse, couldn’t berate or chastise, but neither could she praise or forgive. She just stared up at me, the rising and falling of her chest becoming more infrequent, more labored. Finally, after only a few minutes, or maybe an eternity, she took in an erratic, grasping breath, let it rattle out from her ruined lung…

And died.

I remember wanting to cry, but not daring to, as I turned and left the blasted portion of the city. The flame of a simple conjuration licked around my mother’s corpse as I strode away. I couldn’t just leave her for the vermin, rodent or bipedal. That much compassion, at least, I still had to give. Soon, her ashes would mingle with the torched remains of our legacy, but I would be long gone by then. When she died, the last vestiges of my old life expired with her. My previous duty had ended, and a new one was about to consume my existence.

It took less than an hour to pack my meager belongings, requisition enough field provisions to last at least two months, and leave the barracks behind with no one the wiser. The wretched ones, and the occasional abortive attack by the remnants of the Scourge invaders, were simply a symptom of the disease. I saw that clearly, now. The true threat, the enemy who had nearly destroyed us, the creature responsible for my never-ending pain, the Lich King, was now my target.

And striding toward the Ghostlands where a bloody road of revenge and justice were soon to begin, I remember my resolve, my all-encompassing fury at what he had done to all of us. Then, as now, I swore an oath to never stop until I saw the architect of our suffering laid low and bleeding at my hand. I held no illusions, no doubt that this quest could only end in my eventual death, but that seemed a small price to pay to become the tool of our vengeance.

Even kings can burn, after all.

Rembrancer is coming...no really, I mean it this time

2010-07-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

Part one of "Remembrancer" is on the way. Just in final edit. Watch this space...and hope it doesn't suck.

Scenes from Azeroth

2010-01-28T22:13:00.000-08:00

Well, having ironed out my personal life issues, I started playing again on September 7th, 2009. All my characters had gone on permanent vacations or joined monastic orders or other such disappearing acts, so I started over...with another Undead Warrior named Tsurii (musta' been a relative or some such). On December 27th, 2009, I dinged 80. More about how I did that at a later date. For now, it's picture time!

Standing outside the dark portal...again...

I think I'm wearing her down...But why is her horse so much bigger than mine?

My first Epic Flyer; dropped for me in heroic Culling of Strat (in case you didn't know). His name is Mr. Blonde.

And here's Tsurii now, in all his facerolling Arms-specced glory. Yes, that is, in fact, the Tyrannical Beheader, probably the 3rd best 2h axe in the game. Ratters is probably jealous.

OK, enough for now. I'll figure out what exploits to put in here tomorrow. For now, hit hard and loot phat, peoples.

Remembrancer

2009-09-16T15:16:00.001-07:00

Remembrancer is coming

Watch this space...

Kusamoto's Last Stand

2009-04-01T21:44:00.000-07:00

So I jump on to BRK today, and I see his post from Saturday. To say I was shocked was an understatement. BRK? The BRK? Quitting the game? No way! Well, at least my wife and kid are OK with me playing this game.

Aren't they?

So I thought about it. Then I thought about it some more. Then I realized I haven't finished three of the writing projects I have been trying to work on for the better part of a year, my kid is always angry these days for some reason, I don't sleep very well, I'm irritable all the time...

And all because of this fucking game. Well, maybe not all. But a big part.

So I got home this evening, canceled my account, deleted all my characteres, and feel I am a better person because of it.

So I leave you now. This blog shall remain open for a time, but I will be officially disbanding the army and heading back to my old battlefield full-time. Those of you who have my email, email me. Those of you I see on thelionclan.com, you'll absolutely still see me there. Those of you I have enjoyed reading, and I hope you have likewise enjoyed reading here, I wish you luck, happiness, and most of all, victory. And as a parting gift, I give you the words of one of America's most distinguished leaders...

"The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished - tone and tints. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.

Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps.

I bid you farewell." -Gen. Douglas MacArthur

It's the song of the day + My very first tag!

2009-03-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

So I was filling out my NCAA bracket and this song came to me. I blame Megs. Enjoy!

The Great Lament of the Newbie Raider (as sung to the music from "One Shining Moment"):

*Intro music sung by the Thunder Bluff Phlegmatical Chorus...cleanup crew courtesy of Undercity Waste Management*

The purples drop
There you go
You’re “need”ing for your life
But DKP blows
Another raid
Has come and passed
Still in quest blues
Murlocs can kick your ass
(but with) One shining epic
The things we could do
One shining epic
To prove we’re not n00bs

But the raid is long
The loot so-so
Stupid Grobb
Tore you a new hole
No party wipes
Just your toon in shreds
Your “friends” all laugh
And jump on your head
(just) One shining epic
I’d sell my first born
One shining epic
No seriously…I’m really not torn

Feel the blaze of the screen
Feel the wind from heat sinks
“Ugh, Malygos again?”
Stomped fast as you can blink…

*Hammer dulcimer, banjo, and bagpipe solo*

And while you’re pwned
Your head you’ll bash
When you hear, “[Red Sword of Courage]??!
Man, shard that tank trash!”
(aarrgghhh!!!!) One shining epic
Not 4, 9, or 3
One shining epic, you QQ…
(please) One shining epic
Guess we’ll go PvP (zing!)
One shining epiiiiiiiiic…

Tagging time...
Ratters, Darraxus, Jed (yes, you, Nakama), Dechion, and, of course, Megs from /oom. Take your favorite uplifting sports-type tune, do terrible WoW-related things to it, and post it for the world to experience...ciao for now.

If it Looks Like a Tank, Walks Like a Tank, Holds Aggro Like a Tank...

2009-03-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

So in celebration of dinging 72, here's a quick photo op in UC with my new gear.

In addition to the Tundra Pauldrons, Boots of the Unbowed Protector, and Disturbing Giant Gauntlets, I picked up a Cobalt Helm for cheap tanking fun, tossed a bunch of Borean Armor Kits over everything that a guildie was nice enough to ship me, and finally got my Fiery on for the Iron Grip Shortsword of the Champion. My DEF is sitting at 429 (ok, not great...but better), STA is over 1k, armor at 14.3k, and health at 15.2k. All in all, we're coming along.

Although Tsuri hasn't been too thrilled with the quest choices lately...

Weekend Update

2009-03-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

Raids/Dungeons

Ran both Drak'Thalon and Utgarde Keep this weekend, which was a good time. I did quite a bit of boss tanking in UK and off-tanked the rest of the time. I think I'm getting better at it; we didn't wipe in either instance and manhandled UK. Got some kickin' quest rewards from UK, in particular, as well as some shoulders and gloves for my budding DPS set.

Leveling

I'm less than a bar from 72 after running almost all the Borean Tundra quest chains and starting on Howling Fjord. The Wyrmrest Accord catch-a-drake daily and the Walrusman "we need food" dailies pile on the XP and are a guaranteed 40k every day.

Professions

Just hit 400 mining last night, blacksmithing is still lagging at 310. However, I'm now a GrandMaster EMT with 405 in First Aid.

Random

Vengeance is mine!

Nexus Run

2009-03-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

Quick update (and since it's from work, no pics...sorry)...

Finally got to run my first Northrend instance last night, regular Nexus. I think this was one of the more fun instances I've run so far, even if it started out with bad vibrations. Lemme' splain...

So the more experienced guildie who had offered to run me through shoots me an IM asking if I'm good to go. I say sure, ready to tank whenever she's ready. After a few questions (such as "what's your def at?" which, at the time was 378...so not good), she says that someone else should tank instead; at which point I'm thinking, "fantastic...what precisely am I going to do other than get in the way?" I mean I leveled Tsuri as protection all the way from level 12 on. DPS? What's that? And is it my fault that everything I picked up in Outlands and the greens from BT were all pally plate? It's what the game gave me, man.

Well, I stomp on my pride, stick on the helm of nose-smushyness, and accept the summons, pretty much accepting that we're going to wipe a lot because we'll be effectively a man down for the instance, since everyone else is 73 or higher and I have no clue how to do anything other than draw aggro.

In retrospect, I needn't have worried. The DK tank was very good, the healing was awesome, and I discovered that I can actually do quite a bit of damage when pressed into a DPS role (I hit a couple of crits for over 2k on Revenge and HS). The fact that I was tossing 5 sunders on the minibosses I'm sure helped, but the rest of the guildies having a cohesive plan of attack and experience with the dungeon was the difference. Our only wipe was on Keristraza just as we killed her, and it wasn't even a full party wipe. I probably wouldn't have wiped, either, if I had realized the whole "you have to keep moving" bit meant jumping in place right next to the MT. I was even able to draw Keri's aggro on to me to fuel the Revenge+Devastate+Shield Bash+HS idocy.

So what started out as dissappointment quickly turned really fun. I'm certain I made a ton of noobish mistakes, but it made me feel better that the MT made a few, as well (she typically plays DPS or healer alts, and very well, but has only tanked a little, apparently...still really good, though). I was even able to pick up some DPS shoulders in addition to the absolutely badass tank gear quest rewards. The Tundra Pauldrons, in particular, are amazing good.

It was actually kind of refreshing to not have to stress about watching out for everyone else, checking mana pools, seeing who I needed to Intercept to keep alive...and I'm glad experienced people were running the show. I would have been sooooo lost in there.

Things to remember for next time:

• Vigilance on the healer for boss fights.
• Abuse defensive Charge to keep the hate flowing through me.
• Commanding Shout to buff the party before the last battle.
• TRINKETS DUMMY! You picked up all those +HP trinkets for a reason!

Pics of the new hotness later this evening...

Weekend Update, Part Deux

2009-03-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

OK, so now that that is out of my system...here's what really went down...

Raids/Dungeons

I gave Blackrock a shot to see if I could solo the Jenkins achievement. Everything was going fine until I ran into 5 of the caster mobs that summon yojimbo to take all the pain simultaneously. Non-AoE me at 68 vs. 10 50-something elite mobs? Fail. I'll give it another shot when I get to 75 or so. I did get all the Nexus chain quests, however, so my guildmates are going to be nice enough to run me through a regular, vanilla version of it on Wednesday.

Leveling

This one should be obvious, as the below post indicates. Leveling went swimmingly over the weekend. I am super, uber-glad I can now look at, and actually half-ass afford, some of the 70-only purples I've been drooling over on the AH for months and researching where they drop at. Additionally, I took a little time to level up Fujimaro a bit and got him his first pet (a lashtail red Raptor from Durotar). I named him Stelios since, when I found him, his aggro radius was ridiculous and the first thing he did when he ran at me was Savage Rend. Apparently, he is looking for a beautiful death. No sense of self-preservation FTW!

Tsanuri is still stuck at 13. I swear I haven't forgotten you guys, Jed! I'll be jumping back to her later in the week to at least get her to 15 or 16.

Professions

I got Tsuri's first aid up to Outlands max on Friday night, so now I just need to find the Northrend trainer and start making Frostweave stuff. Cooking is still way low, but I did break down and farm a ton of Thorium to get Blacksmithing up to 291. I'm probably going to do another Silithus run tonight to get it to 300 and then pay Outlands a visit for training and farming Fel Iron. Mining is progressing nicely; I should be at about 400 in short order.

Random

Does anyone else think that Bor'Gorok outpost in Borean Tundra sounds like somewhere the Swedish Chef would hang out? I half expected a Dwarf wearing a floppy chef's hat to be there handing out cooking quests.

Weekend Update

2009-03-01T23:40:00.000-08:00

'Nuff said...

Thanking all the mobs I had to kill...

2009-02-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the Academy Awards®, Tsuri would like to thank the following entities for getting him to Northrend:

• Durn the Hungerer
• Moth Larve (dey go squish real good-like)
• 3,467 Murlocs
• An indeterminite number of Kobolds
• Ditto Helboars
• The Venture Company
• The Scarlet Crusade
• The soon-to-be-extinct Talbuk (mmm...tasty)
• Drunk Ogres

Additionally, Tsuri needs to say thanks to everyone in Demon Knights for the assistance, encouragement, and allowing him to wash all their Kodos.

Last but not least, special thanks go out to:

• Boblynop, who saved Tsuri's ass from Hillsbrad through Hellfire and has been a constant quest buddy (and decent human being...err...Blood Elf).
• Vampireshade, one of the more fun hunters I've quested with.
• Ashfist, 'cuz the undead need to stick together. Solidarity, brother.
• Zuedama, who was constantly reminding me why questing was important...even if she's a bit OCD about it.
• Androctonus, for cooking up all those Talbuks and Clefthooves, and generally pushing me to get in the game.
• Revannsi, for escorting me through the tough stuff yet knowing when to step back and let me do what I do best (rawr, smash!).
• Nagiken, for the leather stacks and general amusement.

OK, enough thanks. Time for stats! Y'all will probably remember the first pic...Pic #2 is the new...um...hotness, I guess...

Wow...what a difference an expansion's worth of content makes. Huge sta increase, damage is almost doubled, 10K armor is awesome.

Now I need to get out of this pretty pretty pally princess armor and into some stuff that more fits my MO.

Borean Tundra is Mine!!!!

2009-02-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

Quick update since I'm at work and can't go into much detail: I hit 68 this weekend and booked my trip to the Borean Tundra! About fricken' time, too. Now I can focus on getting myself leveled up to the mid 70s, getting some proper tank gear (instead of Mighty-Morphin Pally Plate), and be able to actually play the game with my friends (which is why I bought it in the first place).

Will post in more depth tonight...

Tsuri's Drive for Northrend

2009-02-21T22:00:00.000-08:00

Can't wait to run Naxx...Can't wait to run Naxx...Can't wait to run Naxx...Can't wait to run Naxx...

What the Hell are you?! Die! Diediediediediediedie!!!

*WHOOSH* W00t! 67! Naxx here I come, baby!

O_o

o_O

O_O

585k XP until 68?! WTF???!!!!

Grrr. Where are them rare Nesingwary critters? And the Hungerer? Bring on the Hungerer, beeeeyotch!

That's right! You're goin' nowhere! Where you goin'? Nowhere! I gots Nesingwary's gun now; don't make me bust caps!

........

Can't wait to run Naxx...Can't wait to run Naxx...Can't wait to run Naxx...Can't wait to run Naxx...

So I can get out of this stupid purple armor...grrrr...grumble...

A Question for the Designers

2009-02-16T23:39:00.000-08:00

OK, I understand how the armor in Outlands needed to look different to differentiate itself from the Azeroth stuff. I get how you wanted it to look fanciful, yet functional. I empathize with your need to make some stuff that looked different from the old and busted armor.

But really, we tanks would like some armor colors that don't make us look like we're rejects from a Shriner's convention...

I understand Ratter's pain now. I hadn't seen the full effect of the armor rewards and drops I had been getting until I zoomed in this evening. I especially like the absolutely fabulous wolf-head helm (and yes, the shield is pink, too). Ugh.

Weekly Update

2009-02-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

Better late than...oh...never mind.

Dungeons/Heroics/Raids:

I wasn't able to polish off Blood Cauldron like I wanted to this weekend. However, I did manage to get the Uldaman achievement. Only a few more to go for classic DM. And guess what? That was solo, baby! Yes, for those of you unaware, Uldaman is soloable now. You no longer need 3 people to summon the stoner at the end. I was amazed at how expansive Uldaman was. I actually solo'd it twice, since I'd mistakenly left the instance in error and had to go back after everything had reset. Oops. Oh well. I filled up every bag I had with AH loot on it, too. I've never had that many auctions running at once.

At some point this weekend, I'm going to go take care of Sunken Temple solo and see about getting Scholomance out of the way, as well. I really want the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement and the phat loot that goes with it.

Questing:

The reason I even attempted Uldaman was because I was in Badlands farming Mithril for the Armorsmith quest. Yes, I'm still doing that. I really don't like farming, so I've been putting it off as long as possible. Well, my mining is maxed out at 375 for the time being and I only have 1 or 2 blueprints that will give me bsmith skillups, so I really needed to get the Ornate Mithril plans for the quest. So, I bit the bullet and started. In about an hour, I had 30 Mithril and some of my new guildies from Demon Knights are going to be shipping over whatever they can find, too (bless their demonic little hearts). Only 200 or so more to go...ugh.

Other than that, I finished off some more quests in Terokkar and got the sprirt wolf's head on a stick, then went on over to help the demoralized horde forces in Nagrand. I still deperately need some new bracers. The valor ones are looking pretty shabby next to my Outlands gear.

Leveling:

Tsuri's now at 65, still specced as a tank, still a walking human shield. I had 3 63 mobs pounding on me for a good two or three minutes when I wasn't looking, and when I came back, one of them was dead from my passive damage talents and throwing himself on my Mithril Spike. I personally had taken a whopping 500 damage. O_o

I also hopped on Tsanuri for a short while last Fri night and got her up to 13. I had forgotten how easy early leveling was. For those who have been too busy with the cooking dailies to work on a brand new alt, here's how Tsanuri's leveling has been going...

Tsanuri: Hello big, weird world! Hm. I'm apparently a goat. Well, that's going to limit my wardrobe options. Wait, who's that?

Boored-looking Draenai functionary: Hello. I'm very glad. To welcome you. To Azuremist Isle. *yawns and pulls out a pen* State your name.

Tsanuri: Uh...Tsanuri?

*WHOOSH!*

Booming Godlike Voice: You have reached Level 2!

Tsanuri (while hitting the deck): What in the name of the 7 Hells was that?!

Functionary (eyes barely open): Oh. Yay. W00t for you. I'm. So happy.

Tsanuri (still on the ground): Can I help you with something? What precisely are you doing here, anyway?

Functionary: I am the official Introductory Questgiver of the Draenai. Unfortunately, there is no room for advancement in my current job, the pay is barely subsistance-level, and you won't miss me after you've gone 20 feet down the road.

Tsanuri (gets up): Oh...well...why don't you put in for a transfer or look for another gig with the Blood Elves or something? Why stay?

Functionary (showing peraly whites): Dental.

Tsanuri (nodding sagely): Ah. yeah, hard to find a job with decent benes these days.

Functionary: Speaking of which *flourishing pen*...what class have you chosen to follow for the betterment of the giant galactic...whatever?

Tsanuri: Huh? Oh...Shaman.

*WHOOSH!*

Godlike voice of happiness: You Have Reached Level 3!

Tsanuri (shooting lightning bolt into the sky from behind the boulder she is using for cover): STOP THAT!

Functionary: Very well. *scribbles something on a rune and hands it to her* Take this to the old gnarled goat inside the totally incongruous spaceship behind me. He will give you your MOP-4 suit for HazMat cleanup duty. Welcome again to Azuremist Isle. NEXT!

Tsanuri (taking rune): HazMat duty? Like...industrial waste and stuff?

Functionary: More like radioactive and gene-altering. But it's perfectly safe. Please move along, you are holding up the line. NEXT!

*Tsanuri walks off, loking at the Rune in confusion. Meanwhile, the 30-deep line of paladins, warriors, priests, and druids moves slowly toward the functionary's desk. Slow dissolve*

This weekend:

I should head back to Nagrand and power up to 66 or 67 with Tsuri, but I'll probably do more Valentine's stuff, instead. I really need to quest in Nagrand for the gold and rewards, though, so I'll probably head back on Sat or Sun. I'd also like to get Tsanuri up into the 20s so I can head to Stormwind and quest there, as well. Blood Cauldron is still an option, as well as Scholomance and Strat.

Top 25

2009-02-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

Damn. I's been tagged. Fair enough. In the spirt of blogidarity, here is my list of the top 25 console/computer video games of all time:

25. Pitfall, Atari 2600. Let's start with a classic. I wasted hours of my life on this game.
24. Final Fantasy VIII, PlayStation. I may have been the only human being on Earth that liked this game.
23. Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega Genesis. Simple, fun, and addictive. Plus, at the time, we were prone to imbibe certain relaxing substances and then play what we lovingly called "Chronic the Hemphog."
22. Sea Battle, Intellivision. I can still sit down and play this to this day. Awesomely fun naval strategy game.
21. Demon Attack, Atari 2600. Somewhere I have the Polaroid I took of my top score on this game: 1,250,000. Yeah, I played for about 13 hours straight.
20. Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, PC. Lucasfilm's testbed for the 3D modeling engine they used for the X-Wing and TiE Fighter series of games. Big time fun as you bomb German factories into submission with your B-17 or take the helm of a theoretical Gotha GO-229 Flying wing in an attempt to preserve the Reich.
19. TiE Fighter, PC. Speaking of Lucasfilm, a highly enjoyable flight sim based on the Star Wars franchise where you play one of the hapless thousands assigned to a rickety, poorly constructed interceptor charged with taking out much better armed and armored opponents. The frustration factor early is offset by the coolness of some of the toys you get later.
18. Super Mario Bros., NES. I still have the music stuck in my head to this day.
17. 1942, NES. Would have been higher on the list except for the crappy ending.
16. Diablo, PC. The grandfather of all MMOs is still fun to play.
15. Doom, PC. Quite possibly the biggest reason PC gaming is as popular as it is today.
14. Madden '93, Super NES. The first of the next-gen sports games that took advantage of 16-bit tech to introduce realistic-looking characters.
13. Super Mario World, Super NES. Nintendo's franchise goldmine just gets better with age.
12. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, NES. A much more robust and difficult game than the original; added a "battle screen" side-scroller for in-depth gameplay.
11. Resident Evil, PlayStation. So incredibly cheeseball, but tons of funs. Introduced the idea of "survival horror" as an archetype to the industry.
10. Sim City, PC. Be your own city manager/mayor and make your townspeople happy...or find yourself testifying before Congress.
9. Master of Orion, PC. The first, and best, Empire-builder I ever played.
8. X-Wing, PC. What nerd didn't want to be Han Solo or Luke Skywalker growing up? Well...then again, I always wanted to be Darth Vader. I guess that's why I play an undead...
7. The Legend of Zelda, NES. The game that introduced the concept of role-playing to a generation of geeky kids.
6. Starcraft, PC. The king of the RTS games for my money. Great graphics, amazing storyline, replayability out the wazoo.
5. Civilization, PC. It was electronic crack long before WoW came along. The other titles in the series are amazing, too, but this one is still my favorite, bad graphics and all.
4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, PlayStation. Hear our battle cry: "Dude, I can grind that."
3. Legend of Dragoon, PlayStation. Quite possibly the best RPG in terms of story and playability ever made. I actually cried at the end, it was that good.
2. World of Warcraft, PC. Sorry, Blizz. You're #2. A strong #2, granted. I've had more fun with this game than any in a long time. But it still doesn't beat...
1. Resident Evil II, PlayStation. Fantastic voicework, great graphics that withstand the test of time, an engaging storyline, plenty of replay fun, and basically 2 games for the price of one as you get to play from both the heros' perspectives. This is the only original PS1 game I still own, and I still enjoy it every now and again.

Postcards from the Edg-AIIIEEEEEeeeeeeee.....

2009-02-02T18:30:00.000-08:00

Looky look! Tsuri sent me a card! How nice of him. Not sure how he got that picture on the front, but it's very epic-looking...

Holy crap! I didn't realize how freakin' tough critters out here would be. One second I'm king of the hill, straight murderin' Lich servants, Scourgies, and huge bugs. The next? Gettin' gored in the junk by some giant Javelina! WTF??

Well, it ain't all bad. After I got my bearings, the Orcs in a lovely little Hamlet called Thrallmar (not too inventive, are they?) gave me a job killing the various Scourgies that are runnin' all over the place. They neglected to tell me about the Fel Reaver, though. Two words: Tsuri pate'.

No, I am most definitely not hiding from the Reaver. I'm performing tactical reconnaisance...from extreme distance.

This place sucks so bad even the ghosts try to kill you. All I did was run past them, too. Wasn't even gonna' mess with them, until they decided to mess with me. Then I had to regulate, yo (like my impression of the Pally circle of death?).

Luckily, thanks to some work helping elements of thier forces take vengeance on the Fel Orcs that slaughtered them, I was able to make them see the error of their ways...and then they made me their King. All shall serve the Forsaken! BWA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha ha...ha....ahem.

Yeah, that's me and three Alliance DKs rolling on Arazzius. What? Hey, the enemy of my enemy and all that jive. Might as well at least try to be diplomatic. Additionally...DK's!: When it absolutely, positively needs to fucking die this very second, accept no substitute (and all the hordies were apparently passed out for the night).

All in all, I've been too busy to notice the suckage goin' on out here too much, what with being sent on seek-and-destroy missions against errant Voidwalkers, fortifying our defenses against the Alliance, and running messages back and forth to Thrall himself in Orgrimmar. Plus, the local General has been giving me some totally stompin' armor for being his Mr. Wolf. I've even gained enough strategic know-how to make it halfway to my 64th season.

Only a few loose ends to tie up before heading to Zangermarsh. I hear them Orcs in Hellfire Citadel have been causing a ruckus. Someone should really...talk to them...about that.

He Got Next?

2009-01-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

So now that Tsuri's in Outlands and the endgame is in sight, I am already thinking about who gets leveled next. I have a few choices, all of which are fun in their own way, but I haven't really settled on one in particular yet. Hopefully you kind, gentle readers out there can assist me (and take the decision-making process out of my hands...shirking responsibility FTW). So, here's a quick dossier of who's available:

Name: Fujimaro

Faction: Horde

MO: Hunter

Race: Orc

Server: Silverhand

Tradeskills: Leatherworking & Skinning

Current Level: 9

Benefits: Hunters are still EZ mode, even with the BM nerf, and it's really nice being able to pay attention to just one or two things in battle vs. the 50 different things you need to worry about with a tank.

Detriments: BM, what I wanted to get into, got smacked with the errata anvil really hard. Not sure about MM or SV as a main type, really.

Favorite Quote: "I'm old, but you're dead. I win."

Name: Richhard
Faction: Horde

MO: Warlock

Race: Forsaken

Server: Silverhand

Tradeskills: None chosen
Current Level: 5
Benefits: Dude...it's an undead Warlock named Richard! How can you go wrong? Plus the racial abilities of the Forsaken are still the best in the game, IMHO.
Detriments: I've tried Warlocks before (the failed Tsuko experiment) with very little success. Getting my mind wrapped around the squishy world is difficult.
Favorite Quote: "I...like...to...kill...things. What part of that is difficult to understand?"

Name: Kusamoto

Faction: Horde
MO: Paladin
Race: Blood Elf

Server: Silverhand

Tradeskills: None chosen

Current Level: 2

Benefits: Pallys, in general, are pretty powerful and flexible. I can DPS, tank, heal, whatever. This I like.

Detriments: I really can't stand Blood Elves as a general rule. Not sure why; playing one rubs me the wrong way. Plus, their racial abilities and survivability factor are not good, and the starting location sucks for quest leveling.

Favorite Quote: "Better to die for something than live for nothing."

Name: Tsanuri

Faction: Alliance
MO: Shaman
Race: Draenai

Server: Blackhand

Tradeskills: Mining & Engineering

Current Level: 10

Benefits: I rolled up this toon so I could mob around with my boys from the Swift Sword, and ended up liking the class really well. Shamans are a nice mix of Priest and Warrior, and the space goat racial heal is very cool.

Detriments: I wouldn't be able to roll with my local friends on Silverhand very often, except for raiding and heroics with Tsuri.

Favorite Quote: "Wait, don't tell me. The ship crashed again, didn't it?"

So each choice has its good points and bad, and I'm really torn as to which one should be my secondary focus after 80ing Tsuri. Please shoot me a reply with which you think would be the logical next choice.

It's Time to Make the Donuts!

2009-01-22T23:07:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am...for better or worse. The Dark Portal. The end of my time on Azeroth, for at least 10 seasons. A new beginning for me as a tank. I hope I'm ready for this. For posterity's sake (and to take a page from Kinnavieve's book), here's how I looked going in (ignore the sword, I've got a new one; basic stats nearly unchanged, except damage is now 220-270):

Soon to be old and busted:

True to form, I ran trough the portal with reckless abandon, luckily with a guide, and soon found myself flying over a blasted wasteland of doom to end up in the end-all, be-all of Outlands...Scenic Shattrath. Isn't Aldor Rise lovely at this time of night?

More to come soon, I am sure...

57

2009-01-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

57.

57...

It's just a number. It means nothing. Well, maybe not nothing numerogically speaking...

57; 5+7; 12; 1+2; 3

3, in classic numerology, was the perfect number. 3 represented harmony, balance, prosperity. In the Indian Vedic traditions, the number 3 as a name number meant artistic, and having the ability to pull society up through idealistic contributions. In Life Path numerology, 3 was reserved for those people with endless wells of creative energy and optimism.

Closer to home, 3 is the number of times a President has not won the popular vote but been elected by the Electoral College. 3 is the number of Series' the BoSox have won. We have 3 traffic signals, 3 branches of government, the big 3 automakers, 3 Blind Mice, and 3 Little Pigs.

So I guess, as a number, 57 could be worse. It adds up to a lot of things when you break it down numerogically. But...no matter how many different ways you add, subtract, or divide it...

57 does not equal Outlands. :-(

When nothing Happens...

2009-01-14T15:20:00.000-08:00

Been awhile since I've posted...apologies. Annnnnnd I have nothing WoW-related to say. But, here's an amusing email conversation my wife and I had regarding the possibility of going to Vegas for vacation. Enjoy...

Wife: I feel soso about Vegas. But I have heard you can get some really good deals with Hotel and food there. There just isn't much there that appeals to me.

Me: Barry Manilow! All the time!
Otherwise, if we aren't gambling, meh

W: Ooh My Gosh...BARRY?...WHOOT! yeah, not much of a gambler......I think we should see what kind of return we are going to get and bonus you are going to get before we consider going anywhere.

M: ......killjoy......

W: Oh man.....did I have to be the practical one? sorry.
We could get some cat sand, wine, and something to make the bathtub bubble and pretend we have Hawaii in the bathroom. Would that be considered a staycation or just sad?

M: I think that would be considered a desperate cry for help.

W: And a klingon drink at the Star Trek experience isn't?

M: No...that's made of awesome.

Tsuri Update

2009-01-02T00:36:00.000-08:00

This will probably be in my Top 5 for 2009...

Turns out I was a day later dinging 50 than I anticipated, but oh well. I'm there, and that's what counts. For posterity, I figured I might as well post this here, too...

In the Books...

2008-12-31T11:08:00.000-08:00

First, let me take this opportunity to say Happy New Year to everyone. 2008 saw a tremendous amount of change and turmoil for me, both personally and professionally, and I am not sad to wave bye-bye to it as it recedes in my rear-view like a bad, newsworthy highway accident. Y'know the kind I'm talking about; "Vanload of Nuns Crashes Into Amtrak Train Carrying Dahli Lama in Parking Lot of Renaissance Festival. Film at 11." However, a lot of good things did happen to me this year, and I wanted to share a few of them that are related to the main subject of this blog. So here are my top 5 most memorable moments of WoW in 2008. Feel free to blog yours, as well, or respond here:

5) 1st Shadowfang Keep. This was my first real instance, and the first time I was introduced to the idea of Tsuri as a dedicated tank. I hooked up with a few other people I'd been running around with (who are now my guildmates) and they invited me along. The old GM looked me over and said, "great. You tank." Having never done it before, I was just hoping I didn't make us wipe. In retrospect, I needn't have worried, as our priest kept up the heals, our 2 DPSers were awesome, and I was holding agro on everything I pulled. Halfway through, one of the party remarked, "Wow. This is a lot easier than it was yesterday. Wonder why?" The response was: /points at me. "Because we have agro-boy along." /embarrassed blushing with pride commences

4) 1st Flag Cap in WSG. So at 39, I stopped leveling for a bit to PvP for the Rune of Duty trinket and the Scout tabard, and found myself in WSG as the last run of the night. Now, I'm generally not very good at PvP, and seeing the group we had, my heart sank: Me, one lock, another warrior, one hunter, one shaman, and the rest Priests. No rogue, no druid. Ugh. The gates open and I immediately sprint for the flag while praying the group can hold everyone else at midfield. After looking over, I realized we had a chance as we outnumber the Alliance folks and they were sans rogue, also. I manage to get to the Silverwing flag room, grab the flag, and proceed to crawl back to base with the hunter running cover. Remarkably, our boys had pinned the alliance down and stalemated them midfield, so I was able to scoot past taking no damage and cap the flag. Me. A Tank. 'Dat's right!

3) Irresistible Force vs. Immovable Object. That same PvP night, I must have faced off against basically the same group of alliance guys 10 times. One of them, in particular. He must have been a fury-specced warrior, and I believe he was twinked a bit. In 2 hours, I faced him personally about 15 times on 6 different battlefields, and killed him dead a good 9-10 of them. He'd charge in and hit me once, and then could never get a decent chain off on me after that because my armor, block, and dodge ratings were ridiculously high (for 39), and I just stayed in tank mode the whole time spamming revenge/HS (hooray for glyphs). The last time we faced each other was in AB. He saw me coming down the road toward the blacksmith and, his frustration at this n00b whom could take far more damage than his pay grade would indicate coming out, screamed something incoherent in caps at me, to which I responded with a /roar at him. We both switched to arms, charged, and then proceeded to beat on one another without mercy, the ret/hamstring/HS/cleaves flying fast and furious. I managed to come out on top of that one with about 5% health. After we'd won, one of the other guys told me that he'd been in most of the battles that night and he and his buddy had intentionally stopped what they were doing to watch the last epic skirmish between the two of us. Too cool.

2) Hiding from zombies. So when the zombie plague event hit, I was in KC, MO for a card tournament and decided to log on after the fact to play, not knowing what was going down. One of my rl friends was also on, so we decided to go a-questing. We both stepped into Orgrimmar and right into a John Carpenter flick. There were zombies everywhere, eating everyone, and infecting the rest. I made the mistake of bending down to kill an infected roach, and suddenly had an urge for brains. The two of us ended up doing what all good heroes in zombie flicks do: We loaded up on weapons and ran for the Stonetalon mountains, where we stayed until Halloween. Definitely added a cool element of survival horror to the game, though.

1) Promotion to 2nd GM of Demonic Bane. This came at me out of the blue the other day. I logged in and Bob said "hey...check your status." Figuring I'd been busted back down to officer from general, I looked...and nearly choked on my blueberry white tea when I saw I'd been promoted to co-2nd. I asked Bob why he'd pick me, the newb, for the job. Honestly, I didn't get it. Still don't. He assured me it was because I'm active, trustworthy, and good at my role (that last bit I appreciate the sentiment, but doubt the veracity). I felt completely humbled, but very proud that of the 30+ people he could have chosen, I got the nod. That was easily the best WoW moment for me of 2008. Now...to figure out what a 2nd GM does....

So this has been a very good year all-in-all, and I can't wait to see what 2009 brings both in my regular life and WoW existence. I certainly hope everyone has a safe and pleasant New Year's. Drink some brews, watch Penn State annihilate USC, and don't get the cops called on you.

Altruism: We Haz It

2008-12-30T08:55:00.000-08:00

So every now and again, when I get depressed and think that people just don't give a damn about anything or anyone, seeing something like this is really a boost. OK, so it's not pure altruism, since I'm sure a lot of people are just in it for the year or lifetime WoW passes. But the goal was $5k. We've raised $21k for cancer through this site as a community. Stick around: Gamers are going to save the Earth ;-)

If you haven't donated yet, do so now! It's a great cause and you have a chance to pick up phat lootz, too.

Merry Winter's Veil

2008-12-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

OK, less of a downer this time. I hope everyone had a good Christmas/Hanukkah/Boxing Day/whatever and got everything you wanted (or at least what you deserved).

I got a couple of very good books, neither of which would I have bought on my own. I highly recommend Stephen King's latest short story compilation, Just After Sunset, simply for the first story in it, Willa. I've always said that Herr King is a much better short story writer than novelist, and this book is no exception. I'll also post a quick review of Patton's Panthers: The 761st Armor in Europe after I've read it. The 761st was one of the few all-black tank companies operating in the European theater of operations in WWII under the command of Gen, George S. Patton, Jr., and turned out to be the third most highly-decorated American company of the theater (with two other Patton companies ahead of them). I've always thought the 761st was kind of a footnote to history and no more, but apparently they were in the middle of a number of important engagements in 1944-45, including Patton's breakthrough of the Siegfried line and push into Czechoslovakia. Must educate self.

WoW news...My mechanical Greench is da bomb. It's nice having a lvl 58 "pet" running around helping me polish off some of the more difficult quests I've been beating my head against for awhile. Unfortunately, I only have one charge left. Sad Panda.

Lastly...what's with the Alliance folks wandering into Booty Bay and killing everything that moves? It's irritating, especially when you have to sit and wait for questgivers to respawn. I could understand if it was a Horde city, but it's neutral, right? So how do they gain? Or are these just adolescent griefers? See it's stuff like this that turns me off to playing Alliance...like...ever.

Serious Content Ahead...

2008-12-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

I apologize in advance for the content of this post as being neither WoW-related nor upbeat. While I appreciate the diversion WoW provides, and the people I’ve met through it, it’s just that: A diversion. And lately, I have had other things heavily weighing on my mind that I don’t really have an outlet for so y’all are going to get to hear about it. So, if you were surfing da interwebs for WoW content, please, by all means, skip ahead to some of my other posts. I just need to say the following out loud, and it isn’t going to be all that fun for me, either.

*waits for people to wander off*

OK, for those of you who are left, I’m sure you’ve heard or seen by now that Caylee Anthony’s remains were positively ID’d on Friday. In fact, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you couldn’t have helped but hear about it. Now, I admit, I’ve been following this story pretty closely for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that I’m a dad with a 5 year-old daughter and a one-month old. I really wanted that little girl found alive for that reason alone, let me tell you. I can’t even begin to describe the kind of emotional response I believe I would have if something similar happened to either of my children. I probably wouldn’t be able to continue living, as a matter of fact.

Unfortunately, I’m also a realist at heart, and the plain old statistics were stacked against her being found alive almost immediately. I don’t remember the exact number, but I seem to remember that an abducted child’s chances of survival drop by orders of magnitude every day after they have been missing for over 72 hours, and Caylee had already been missing for 2 1/2 weeks when her mother (and I use that term loosely) reported her missing on July 16.

Here’s the kicker for my part of the story, however: I won a trip through work in May to go basically anywhere I wanted to and, because I’d always wanted to go there myself, I decided we should all go to Disneyworld for our last big trip as a three-person family before the new kid showed up. The dates I chose?

July 9th through the 13th.

I didn’t even think about the timing until all this started coming out in late July and early August. I didn’t really start thinking about the timing until last week. Basically, we were fiddling while Rome burned. While my daughter and I were having a blast on Pirates of the Caribbean, Caylee was either in the process of dying or already dead and tossed to the side of the road like so much garbage. While I will always cherish that trip and the time I got to spend with my daughter, particularly, I can’t help but think that the diametric opposite to our vacation was happening or had recently happened less than 20 miles from where we were staying. It’s haunting, to say the least.

And yet…

And yet I can’t help but wonder if…A lot of if. Hell, let’s just capitalize and bold IF, shall we?

IF Caylee was still alive while we were visiting, and IF someone other than her mother was responsible, what would be one of the best ways to keep a 2 year-old sedate and happy, or maybe live out some twisted father/mother-daughter fantasy world, before ending her life? The Magic Kingdom is right down the road and day passes are cheap, after all…

OR

IF Caylee’s erstwhile mother wanted to have one last set of memories with her daughter, and IF she chose to use the discount she would have gotten from being a Universal Studios employee at the time (I believe, anyway), where would be the logical place to do so?

OR

IF Caylee’s grandparents actually performed this horrific act and IF they were feeling nostalgic for their granddaughter before the fact…well…see above.

We could play the IF game all day long, and believe me, I have, to the point of losing sleep. Last night, I went through all my pictures of that trip to the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom…I even looked at the blurry ones we didn’t save for the albums. I zoomed in on the digital pics, looking in the background, off to the side, with the other kids my daughter was playing with outside of Ariel’s Grotto™, desperately hoping and dreading I would see that face that most of us parents now have burned into our memories forever, and see the person or persons that could be responsible for what happened to her somewhere, as well.

OK, so perhaps I have taken the IF game too far. As I said, I’m a realist. More than likely, she had already been killed two weeks before our plane left the ground and her mother was busy preparing her alibi. Or her grandparents were. Or whatever.

But it still gnaws at me.

It rankles because we were in Orlando at roughly the same time everything went down. It’s bothersome that something that horrifying was going on while we were having so much fun as a family. Most of all, I simply can’t fathom why.

Look, I don’t jump to conclusions, especially where things like this are concerned. I’m a firm believer in “innocent until proved.” But the circumstantial evidence against Casey Anthony, plus her evasions and textbook sociopathic and/or bipolar behavior, lead me to only question if she is either guilty as sin or guilty as Hell. That being the case, I am left with a turmoil of questions, but the biggest one is always “why?”

I admit freely that my oldest daughter and I have had our share of rough days. There have even been times when I wondered to myself, “Hmmm…how many epics could I trade her for on the AH?” after we’ve spent the entire evening screaming at one another. I mean, seriously, what parent doesn’t have those thoughts once in awhile? Raising kids is a rough, unpaid, inglorious job that most parents screw up more than get right, and that includes me. It just comes with the territory. Understand that you will cause your child to have to go through at least a year of therapy to deal with your fuckups now, preferably before you have kids, and things will go much more smoothly.

But I will say this: Never, not once in the 5 years my daughter has been on this Earth, have I even given consideration, nor has it even crossed my mind, that my life would be better off without her in it. That thought is hateful and difficult to even write down. I love my children. I love them more than my life. I can’t think of any parent off the top of my head who I know that doesn’t feel the same way.

So it is appallingly alien to me how something like this could even be considered as a viable option, let alone be planned and executed with such methodical precision as she showed in destroying another human being; another human being that, if her ex-fiancé and parents are to be believed, she loved as fiercely at one point as I do my own kids. Why? What changed? How did this suddenly seem to be the better option to leaving your child alive to enjoy her life, grow up, have her own kids, grow old? I just don’t understand.

I wish I could go back to that first week of July, I really do. Not just because I had such a great time with my wife and daughter, although that’s the selfishness in me. But also because, IF by some minor miracle that little girl had still been alive, I would have offered to take her in rather than have what was done to her be done. In fact, I feel sick that I wasn’t there to offer; like I should have preternaturally known of the distress that little girl was going through and flew in like Mighty Mouse to save the day. I know that’s ridiculous, but there it is.

I am firmly of the opinion that life is always the better option, no matter how grimy, dingy, disorderly, and messy it might be. And the life of a 2 year-old little girl, especially, deserves to be a happy one, and not viciously terminated before she has the opportunity to discover what an amazing gift life really is. Casey Anthony didn't just kill her daughter; she stole the future from her.

OK, that’s my piece. I promise never to post on this subject again, and I apologize if I got a little preachy and emotional at the end. I think I’ll take a day or two off from posting, as well, but I’ll be back with more regular content at a later date. Feel free to reply or flame as you will…

I'm a Real Boy

2008-12-23T08:47:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to update...

Thanks to Thug'mol in Alterac, Tsuri is now almost entirely covered in plate; just need the legs. Granted, most of them are lower-level green plate, but still better armor and stat bumps than the blue & green mail I had before (and I even was able to smith the shoulders and gloves...yay for me).

So legs next, a replacement for the cloak, and another trinket. I almost feel like a real WoW player, now.

Question for the masses: Feralas or Stranglethorn? Which would be better for mid-40s fast leveling? Am guessing Feralas, but needed an opinion other than my own...

Letters from the Front

2008-12-19T14:21:00.000-08:00

So I got this missive in my inbox this morning from Tsuri and a scrawled post-it that read, "yo, assclown...pass this along to my adoring public...all three of them. MT." Enjoy! (with apologies to Ratshag)

Mmhello. I'm Matsu Tsuri. I am a warrior without equal. I am an instrument of the Dark Lady's Will. I am Forsaken.

I overslept.

Hey, it wasn't my fault. Blame my user. Y'know, they guy that gives you those boring-ass posts about Stranglethorn Vale and how wickedly awesome it is? Yeah, him. His fault. And let me tell you; Stanglethorn sucks. Their's hardly any decent mining to be had (which the pit boss...of the actual Pit, mind you...is none too happy about...I may need to find a new gig mole-ing it with the Venture Company), there are trolls everywhere, and everything that walks, crawls, slithers, or skitters is poisonous and out to get ya'. Have I learned a few things while I've been there? Well, duh...of course I have! If I hadn't, I'd be a small, mostly rotten meal for King Muku by now. So I'd like to see Mr. High-and-Mighty "we gotta' get ya' to level 60 in 2 months" user hop on in and get kissed upside the cranium by Bloodsail shadowbolts for awhile.

Anyhow...I overslept. Right. After my user logged off and released me from my puppet strings, I decided to go on a bender in Org. Hit the clubs, dance with the hotties, see if that weirdo Orc Ratshag and his homies were in town so we could mess some shit up...a usual Thursday night, in other words. I figured I'd even help out my loser user (heh...witty I am, no?) by pushing along the 25 drinks achievement by drinking everything I could get my hands on. Lemme' tell ya'...we started the night with 5 of 25...we're up to 12...and that's only because the winterfest ale was too good to have just one of.

I asked around for Ratters, Ellspeth, and, most imprtantly, DangerMouse (a hotter specimen of eyeless, zombie woman has not existed...rawwrrrr) and was greatly saddened to discover that most of them are in Dalaran recovering from some huge battle or other and not down for a good old-fashioned barfight. They were also celebrating the promotion of some Alliance chicky that Ratters has been...um..."helping"...for awhile. Eh. Their loss. Luckily, my boys Androctonus, Scyllomice, Strages, Bob, and Toraizo were down for the fest. After about 5 or maybe 14 rounds, Andro, Bob, and I decide it would be a fantastic idea to roll up and smoke Razorfen Downs, since Bob and I needed to wack the HMFIC for a quest (and as much as I like orc-forged weapons, that Hammerfall sword is gettin' dinged up). So we unsteadily mount our respective rides and shamble off to RFD. How'd it go? Well.....

.....Like the hat? /wickedevilgrin

OK, I'm out. I hear my user logging on *grrr.* He'll probably want to jet back to Alterac to finish killing a whole lot of Alliance wizardly scum...

...hm. Maybe he's not so bad, after all.

Trust no one...

For Blog Addicts...

2008-12-17T14:44:00.000-08:00

So Ratshag and a few others have an interesting post chain going on their blogs I thought I'd pass along: Who was the first to comment on your blog? Ok, granted, I'm a newcomer to the blog scene, but I thought I'd give a general thanks to Mr. Kelmar, who now resides at Sword & Sorcery. His blog has been both a constant source of amusement and very good advice to me, as well, and his was the first comment I ever received back (he was even nice enough to link the nOOb to his new blog).

Check out Need More Rage for a fuller listing of the people who posted first and when. Maybe my name will be up there someday /wistful sigh.

Another big weekend...

2008-12-15T11:27:00.000-08:00

Well, me and Tsuri had another immense weekend of wreaking havoc on poor, hapless fauna in Azeroth. But before we go into that, a word from our antihero...

Tsuri: "Mmmmm! Mmmph!" *gesturing wildly at helmet* "Mrrrrmmmmmpphhhh. Mrrrrmmm...Grr." *stalks off making labored breathing sounds*

I mean seriously, who was the design consultant for some of this stuff? Have you ever seen a one-piece solid plate helmet that covers the entire face ever? In any culture? And my god, it's ugly. The stat bonuses are the bomb...but it looks hideous.

That's right, I said plate. Dinged to 40 over the weekend after a frustrating 4-5 hours PvPing in Warsong Gulch to get the 30 marks for the Trinket of Duty. I think I'm done PvPing for awhile, too. Tired of dealing with Gnome mage twinks. We did, however, finally take care of the giantess princess in Arathi.

And in other news, I caused a party wipe in Scarlet Monestary. Hooray for me. My daughter woke up from nap early and, rather than just hearth out mid-instance in the Cathedral (which I thought would be extremely rude), I set her on my lap to watch us play. Unfortunately, her head was right in front of the chat window and I didn't see everyone scream "WAIT!" before I provoked the boss and his 25 friends came swarming from either side of the Cathedral where I didn't see them before. /facepalm

Made for an interesting conversation with my five-year old, though...

The Spawn: "Is that you?"

Our Hero: "Yup. In my superugly helmet." *shoots arrow into big nasty*

Spawnling: "Oh." *pause* "Who are they?"

Rotting Corpsefolk: "Those are the Scarlet Crusaders...they're...um...bad guys...yeah..."

Cutest Spawn Evah: "Oh." *another pause* "There sure are a lot of them..."

Soon-to-be-dead-again Warrior: "Um...yeah...you're right." *tapping every cooldown and AoE in arsenal and dying very badly* "Shit."

Bored Spawn: "Oooh. That looked like it hurt. Are you dead now?"

Guilt-Ridden n00b: "Uh...yes...exteremely. So's everyone else..."

Happy Spawn: "Yay! Let's play Princess Barbie!" *runs off into living room screaming 'Princess Barbie! Princess Barbie!'*

Pretty-Pretty Cadaver: *typing* /p sry guys...gtg crossdress for my daughter for a bit..ttyl

Also, 2 acheivements down for winterfest, 10 to go...w00t...

Leveling Madness

2008-12-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

First of all, check out Tsuri's new threads. Are they not spectacular? Are you not entertained? The helmet was nice, but I had to give it up to Mr. "Mehaveironpantstosellyou" in Ogrimmar for a blacksmith quest. Besides, I like the chainmail headband, and it's just a placeholder until I can get the plate helm equipped at 40 anyway. Also, notice the sword. It's the first epic-looking item I've gotten. Apparently, the Orcs in Hammerfall don't have a key to the city, they have a sword. Color me unsurprised. As much as I had to grind in Arathi to get it, they better be fricken appreciative. Lastly, I purchased a tabard for our guild which I like much better than the PvP scout tabard (they made me an Officer...I guess I better look the part). Blue and green appear to be Tsuri's favorite colors. All in all, I am much less ghetto-looking than I was just 2 weeks ago.

In the remainder of this episode, I will be extolling the virtues of level grinding in Stranglethorn Vale. OK, stop groaning. The general consensus seems to be that everyone despises Stranglethorn, and I can't honestly figure out why. Here's what I found when I went there last night with the express intent of exploring rather than screaming like a little girl and running from the ?? mobs (which is what happened last time I went at lvl 25 or so):

1. Achieveable, simple quests in close proximity to one another. When you arrive at Grom'Gol, there are 8 quests waiting for you. 7 of them are all within walking distance of the city, and all of them are the "kill this kind of critter" or "bring me back X number of looted items" type. All of them involve killing large numbers of pretty easy trash (except the raptors...I hate the raptors) for more XP and very good (if rare) green drops and cash. Just in the process of completing these quests I made about 2G, and that wasn't with going out of my way to kill anything extra.

2. Good XP and gold rewards for completed quests. When I showed up, I was at less than one bar of XP into 38 on my way to 39. Just completing the first of the quest chains listed above (7), I finished up at 43K XP out of the 62K needed for 39. That's an average of 6k per quest all told. I also got some decent quest reward items out of it, too.

3. Manageable quest chains. I say manageable because it's a slow progression of difficulty that can still be solo'd if none of your guildies or PUGs are around, and the chains are still in the same general area as the chain originator quests. None of this, "well, you killed X critters near our outpost, but now you have to swim 25 miles south to get this one rare item off an uncommon mob that's 5 levels higher than you and take it to the Tauren Shaman who lives on top of an inaccessible mountain in Quel'Thalas. Oh...and you have to do it while hopping on one foot, playing the accordion, and singing 'Ave Maria' in B Sharp. If you do not complete this quest, ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT WILL CEASE TO EXIST." After completing this ridiculous task, you then see "Experience: 450" pop up. I hate those. SV simply has logical progressions of quests utilizing the same mobs, locations, and tactics. No respecs, regearing, or long wait times for respawning required (unless you're farming Bloodscalp tusks for the Cyclonian warrior quest...and even then, they drop pretty frequently with a short-ish respawn time).

In short, SV is an AWESOME place to power level. Is it my favorite zone? Not really. I still really like Arathi just for the open-ness and beauty of the environment, as well as killing the humans that are trying to muscle in on Horde territory and eating their souls to give me strength. Forsaken, remember? Humans are the other white meat...

So, to promote talking amongst yourselves, what is everyone's favorite levelgrind zone? Can be in Azeroth, Outlands, or Northrend...we don't discriminate here.

And now a word from our sponsor...

2008-12-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

Not much new today. Hit 38 last night. Got some new tanking shoulders (thanks, Ash) and bought a good tank plate helm to go with the plate bracers I got from questing. Trying to function on 3 hours of sleep per night for the last 2 weeks (and no, it's not WoW's fault). Almost finished with all of the Arathi quests which, to this point, have been my favorite quests and favorite area in the game by far.

Finally decided to branch out and now have 2 new alts; Tsuko, an Orc Warlock (don't look at me like that...it seemed like a good idea at the time) and Kusamoto, a Blood Elf Rogue (who I want to eventually turn into my flagship character, if at all possible). Unfortuantely, splitting time between the three of them isn't possible at current. I just like Tsuri too much, so they're both at lvl 5 or 6.

Tsuri's character just keeps getting gruffer and rougher. I love it. I'm going to have to have him drop a post at some point soon a la team Ratshag. That's all for now. Need to eat (although I don't think the company caf will give me the well-fed buff...like...ever).

Tsuri's Long Weekend

2008-12-08T07:27:00.000-08:00

Wow, lots of stuff happened this weekend. Not the least of which was Arizona beating Arizona State to earn a trip to the Las Vegas bowl. Go Cats!

In WoW news, Tsuri is now at level 37 about to ding 38. I've already got two pieces of plate (helm and bracers) just waiting for the magical 40. I rolled on two new zones and decided I didn't much care for either; Wetlanbds and Desolace. Wetlands are low level, so none of the mobs give me any XP worth writing home about, and there are Dwarves everywhere. I hate Dwarves. Nothing that small should be able to take that much damage and live.

Desolace, on the other hand, has a ton of really good quests and higher-level mobs that are great for grinding, not to mention a bunch of Iron and Mithril nodes. The main issues I have are the intricacy of the quests (8-step chains? Gurg?) and the fact that everything is grey. OK, I guess it's called Desolace for a reason, but still, can we add a splash of color? I feel like I'm at work staring at my grey cube walls, grey floor, grey walls, grey ceiling, and grey people when I'm running around. However, it does make me quest that much faster just to be done and get the hell back to Arathi.

Now I had posted last week about those blacksmithing quests: I take back everything I said. They're time intensive, but when I finished the last one and saw 8k XP roll up, it was all worth it. I have another in the chain that takes a ton of iron, but hopefully that will be another big XP boost when I get it. I did hit Artisan in Mining, too, which is as far as I can go with the mining trainers I've found so far. Now if I could only do something with all that mithril I've mined...Oh, and if you're on Silver Hand and want to donate some iron to the cause, hit me up. I'll gladly craft some good greens for you in return.

Finally, it was with great sadness that I resigned my officer's commission in my old guild, AbraCaStabYa. I had worked with a fair amount of abandon to get us up to 10 members, which I did as of last weekend, and was quite happy that we were a real, honest-to-God guild. Unfortunately, no one is ever on, including the guild leader, so I was spinning my wheels trying to get it up to speed without any support. Happily, Bob and Ash were more than happy to take me in, so I am now a proud member of Demonic Bane, which makes sense since I run with them more than anyone else right now (including my rl friends whom are usually logged off by the time I get on at night).

So yeah, busy weekend. We're going to roll on the doublecrossing Princess of the giants in Arathi tonight, methinks. I'll let you know how that goes.

Nose to the (level) Grinding Stone

2008-12-05T12:59:00.000-08:00

So I have to admit that I'm digging on the Arathi Highlands as a leveling grinder. The quests all give very good loot and cash, as well as some insane amount of XP on completion, and the mobs in the area are all giving me about 200-500 XP a shot. Basically, with typical quest runs in the area, I'm leveling after about 15 quests or so. I dinged 35 last night with 4-5 Arathi quests, a few random Orc and troll quests, killing stuff, and the BFD quest I had completely forgotten about that netted me...drumroll...3650 XP and a better weapon! OK, better damage and no sta boost, but I'll take that for same speed and 10 more damage.

The one that's going to drive me up the wall though is the Blacksmith quest to make 4 Bronze Warhammers and 4 Bronze War Axes. Farmed for about 45 mins to find all the tin and copper (22 each!) I needed for the hammers, and now need 28 each to farm enough for the Axes (/facepalm). Oh well. Gives me something to do while I'm waiting for my peeps to show up. I hope those Iron shoulders are worth it. Looks like I'll need to head to Stonetalon/Durotar/Hillsbrad for more copper/tin. I'm surprised Durotar isn't covered in strip mining scars as many times as I've farmed copper from there. It should look like the tailing pits in Globe, Arizona by now.

Speaking of my peeps, Instigator (Bob) asked me to pass along that he's trying out ret for his 30-something pally for the first time ever and loving it (as I knew he would). He soloed BFD about 1/3 of the way in before getting logged. *sniff* They grow up so fast.*eyeleaky* Nice to know that between the two of us, we can quest fairly effectively with me tanking and him filling the DPS/healer role if necessary. Now if I could just get my Demon Knight buds and his crew on at the same time for once and we could go do some serious burnination...

Speed, Action Bars, and Outlook

2008-12-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

I'll tie it all together, I swear.

First, Outlook is down at work, which basically means our office stops until it's back up. I'm honestly not certain how modern business functions in our technology-reliant society anymore. One system going down shouldn't completely stop work from being done at a major financial institution, especially an ancillary one like email. But, since we're all not working, I figured I post a concern and a question here.

First, the concern: Speed. Needz moar speed. I was noticing while mobbing around with our rogue the other day that I have the initiative of a pregnant Yak. The speediest weapon I've found so far I've got equipped (click on Tsuri's pic to the left to check out his Armory page for details) and it's a lightning-quick 2.70. Ugh. Even dual wielding it and the meat cleaver, I'm ridiculously slow. Now, granted, one round of Hammer, Revenge glyph, Free HS and HS will generally take a comparably-leveled opponent down almost halfway, but after that I've got to wait for cooldown and Rage rebuild while still being slower. My stupid good Stamina, shield bock, dodge, and defense ratings usually save me, but it's still frustrating to go something like this in battle: Spinspinspin! "Hah! You're at 60% HP now!" *waits 5 seconds* whap! *another 5 seconds, Ragebuider still hasn't cooled down* whap! *another 5 seconds* "thank God I can HS again" *wait 5 seconds* spin! "Ugh...die, already!"

And the question: I just ventured to the Island of wannabe warriors last night and got my berserker stance, giving me access to Interrupt and a few others. Since I'm going to be in Defensive stance 90% of the time, what should my action bar look like? Right now, I've got it setup something like this:

1. Attack (natch)
2. Heroic Strike
3. Don't remember..must not be all that useful
4. Shout of Rage (the convert health to rage action)
5. Sunder Armor
6. Thunderclap
7. Interrupt (can I even use this in defensive mode?)
8. Shield Bash
9. Hammer Blow
0. Revenge
-. Shield Block (sooo goooood)
=. Shield *muble mumble* (can't remember the name...the "12 sec ignore damage" cooldown)

Last Stand, Execute, and Demo Shout are on my bottom right action bar separate from the others. And don't ask me why having Revenge, Heroic, and Hammer in those slots makes any logical sense, it just does. Any suggestions for retooling? And other than the ragebuilder, does anyone else even use the shouts much? Is Disarm worth it?

Doo-Doodey-Doo

2008-12-03T23:03:00.000-08:00

Quick update: As you can see, I haz a hat. It's a very nice hat, even if it does make me look a little like a Psilon-in-training from the original Battestar Galactica. I was finally able to ditch the leather shoulderpads for something more tank-ish, too, which is nice. Oh, and berserker stance is now mine. All mine! Yay for interrupt!

That is all...

Asshattery Abounds

2008-12-03T09:54:00.001-08:00

So, I don't want to seem like I'm copying off Herk's notes, but I figured I would post this just as a word of warning to everyone regarding a particular individual I had the misfortune of PUGing with last night. He was a lvl 62 Death Knight named Zombeh on Silver Hand. I don't know his other handles and, frankly, don't care.

So Bob, Ash, and I are tooling around last night and decide to see if we can find a few more people to polish off the remaining 2 SM instances. Bob sees another one of his guildies on and invites, but we still need a dedicated DPS'r. Shortly thereafter, we are introduced, much to our misfortune, to Zombeh.

Now, a quick word about power leveling instances with high level characters doing all the work: I don't like it. I never have, not since being rushed through Diablo II oh so long ago. The entire point of playing the game, to me, is to play and enjoy myself. If I die, so what? I'll res and try again. But, everyone else in the group was ok with it, so I went along. Besides, I was only running SM for the 2 quests and some better gear anyway, right?

But first, I had to go to Durotar for turn-in for the brutal armor quest in Sen'Jin (not for the armor, but for the 4k XP), which was admittedly time consuming. In the middle of this, the 3-week old that now lives in the spare room decides she needs to be fed, so I have to go in and grab her and mom the chuckwagon and make sure they're ok. I sit back down at the box to see a note from Mr. Zom saying, "Make up your mind, guys. I haven't got all day." So I explain the situation and say if he doesn't like it, too fricken bad. I then get summoned to SM, where the next thing he does that ticks me off is challenge me to duel. OK, I'm a 30-something warrior tank. You're a blood-spec'd DK. Put your schlong away and let's do some business. I decline.

Now we're inside, and he announces that DKs aren't that good at holding agro, so he'll pull everything and just wipe it quick. Um...level 62 vs 30-something mobs? Can't hold agro, huh? Okey-dokey. Basically, this means I'm following right behind him when he pulls half the instance to take care of the stragglers with Bob, if we can (while he's telling me to "stay back," which I am not about to do with trash running in all directions and then after us).. Naturally, about halfway through, this strategy backfires and Bob, who is the only member of the party who can res, gets wiped by 4 half-dead mobs that ran from this moron while I was trying to keep the other 3 half-dead mobs off the mage.

When dear Zom sees this, he immediately launches into a diatribe about how we don't know how to tank or play pallys and that Bob should still be alive and I should have gotten the mobs that swarmed him first instead of the mage. After all, he's been playing for three years and has 70+ of all classes and knows how to play the game.

This is about where I explode. Look, I may not have been playing the game for years, but I know my job. I'm the damage magnet and priority #1 is to keep the cloth-wearers alive because the pally/shaman/druid can take a helluva' lot more damage than they can. It was not our fault that he pulled every bad guy within a 20-block radius to him and then didn't seal the deal. Ret pallys are awesome at being able to do that, not blood DKs, so it was obvious where his main experience had been before he got teh new shineez.

Finally, he told me if I thought I could tank better, than I could bloody well do so and he'd stand back and do nothing. Since I was through having "fun," I decided instead to hearth back to ogrim and he could lick me. Bob, Ash, and I then proceeded to head to Arathi to quest, where we had 10 times as much fun as we had with asshat.

It's funny this happened right after Herk's asshat post. I didn't really believe people like that played this game. I now know better, and I will never roll with this prick ever again, under any circumstances. I hope he likes his Timmy the Power Gamer character. It's probably the only friend he has.

"I Kick Ass for the Lord!"

2008-12-02T07:38:00.000-08:00

So last night, a group of people I PUG with on occasion decided that it would be fun to run Scarlet Monastery...

Yes, you heard that right. Fun. "Fun" and "Scarlet Monastery" in the same sentence.

Now...having never run SM before, and having just picked up this seemingly difficult quest from the HMFIC in Undercity, I figured this was a perfect time to go see if I could complete the quest and get some better gear in the form of drops from a higher-level instance. So, I get tankboy all prepped for his run and meet up with Bob (who shall be now referred to as "the instigator" from here on out) at the summoning stone. Our party, at the start of the grind, anyway, looks like this:

Me: 33 Tank
Bobylnop: 32 Prot Pally
Ashefist: 35 Mage
Ponseexos: 28 (!) Hunter w/ Scorpid pet

In retrospect, maybe we could have used a dedicated DPS'er. Or a basic Priest to heal and let the mage go aggro. Or a tactical nuclear strike.

As it was, we went into the Graveyard portion of the instance first (SM is broken up into three sections...it's that big) and almost immediately got wiped in the first room of death (and the hardest part of that section of the instance, for my money). Respawn and try again, and we make it through...sort of...well, the Hunter did. Everyone else had to wait for Bob to come back and res the remainder of the party. After that, we waltzed through the rest of the GY area and were feeling pretty good about ourselves. A couple quick heals and we were off for part 2 of the instance, the catacombs.

To say that things went poorly is an understatement. See, the problem with SM is that the mobs RESPAWN EVERY 4 MINUTES, and part 2 of SM has a ton of mobs. We were about halfway through into something innocently-labeled as the Treasure Hall when we ran into our first group of mages and monks. I've never had a mob hit me with his fists and do 100+ damage. It didn't help that our mage, in an attempt to keep us all alive, was trying to polymorph and freeze them rather than healing, which drew mob aggro that I couldn't pull back without using cooldowns. It also didn't help that something crashed Northrend about 9 PM MST last night and was causing major lag issues across all servers. Our conversations were going something like this:

*As Pon and Ash take pissloads of holy damage before I can pull aggro back and Bob isn't moving...*
Bob: Ack. Bad lag. Sry.
Me: Heal plz.
Ash: cant out of mana
Pon (wiping): Well that sucked
Me: Bob inc to left
Bob: Not seeing them. Still lagged.
Me: Ash back off; mana pot and heal us
Ash (aiieeee): cant dead
Bob (gak!): Me too
Me (after sucking down a potion, Last Stand-ing, and Raging out Hudson-style from Aliens): well, 5 on 1...I got 3 :(
Bob: I think we need help...

After that, we called in assistance in the form of Pyraxii and Pyraxil, a hubby and wife team of a 49 Priest and 51 rogue. After that, the rest of the instance was cake and we got the keys to the vestibule. However, I think everyone was so exhausted at that point that we decided to call it a night and do the tower on Fri. Moral of the story? At low to mid 30s, you are not cool enough for SM unless you have:

1. An experienced tank, which I am not (although I am improving, there were a couple of times last night where I didn't pull back aggro using thundershock when I could have and instead concentrated on killing the mob in front of me...led to one party wipe).
2. A dedicated DPS character, such as a Ret Pally, fury Warrior, or battle-spec'd Shaman.
3. A bad-ass healer, preferably a higher-30s Priest.

On a lighter note, I did get a fist weapon and a new sword that, while it does 2 less damage than my meat cleaver from SFK, gives a better stamina boost. Which reminds me...if there's one thing I could change about being a tank, it would be our selection of armor and weapons being based solely on stamina and defense buffs. Just once, I want to go into an instance cracked out with my Haunted Blade and go berserker on everything. As it is, here's another conversation I've had recently on a few drops:

PUG Member: Hey, you want this [Random Crappy Sword of the Bear]?
Me: Depends. What's the speed?
PM: Ass.
Me: OK...damage?
PM: Nerf-like.
Me: Not exciting me so far. Any buffs?
PM: +12 Stamina.
Me: Ooh! Mine! Got anything else?
PM: How about this [Rusted & Partially Motheaten Leggings of the Platypus]? +8 Defense rating...
Me: Sold American!

In other news, about to ding 34 and need to start branching out into new areas. I have 4 completed quests to drop off, a few I want to do in 1000 needles, the warrior armor and cage match on the island quests, and then I'm going to blast everything out of my Log and go to Arathi and Desolace for some serious power-leveling. Anyone have any tips to get me into the high 30s-low 40s quickly?

Thankfulness

2008-11-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

Considering it's that time of year, I decided to put together a list of WoW-related things I am thankful for. This is just the top 5, I'm sure there are more, but I figured it would be at least partly amusing.

5. No more patches for awhile. The last 2.6 gig patch that I had to load twice did it's best to destroy my calm.

4. That I'm not Gamon. How much would that suck? There you are, sitting in the corner of your favorite watering hole, trying to drown your sorrows in a cool pint, and every motherfucking adventurer that happens along or hearth's in has to beat the crap out of you and take your bling as the first thing they do. It isn't bad enough that you lost your job at AIG (that's Azeroth Insurance Group, if you haven't seen them around), your wife left you for a handsome rasta Troll, and Realmwide Hovel Mortgage foreclosed on your yurt. Now, you can't even drink in peace.

3. That the zombie event is over. It was fun for a few days, but really, doesn't n00b griefing get old after awhile? Me and a friend ran for the hills in Stonetalon to wait out the zombipocalypse. I even bought a gun for it ('cuz I hear guns are good against zombies).

2. That I didn't have a lvl 70 when WotLK hit. After watching Androctonus try and actually complete the new quests without waiting for quest item/boss respawn and only doing about 1 quest an hour because everyone and their brother was logged on trying out the new stuff, I was very glad my little 20s self was tooling around, basically alone, running dozens of quests with no interference.

1. Horseyfied! It feels so good to be able to run away from mobs or actually have the ability to explore the world without getting callouses on both my middle and index finger from the mouse. Mounts: Best WoW option evah!

When Characters Come to Life

2008-11-25T11:10:00.000-08:00

So I was tooling around with good 'ol Tsuri last night, killing some stuff, mining nodes, and generally just having fun while waiting to ding, when I realized something: This wasn't the character I had originally intended it to be.

Oh, sure, I had made a warrior simply to be an easy way to learn the game, but as with every character I have ever created for any RPG, I had a basic backstory, general personality, and specific goals in mind. Originally, I was trying to design an antiheroic undead warrior who, while he could not remember who he had been in life, still revered the trappings of humanity. Sort of a noble villain like the Operative out of Serenity.

Boy, was I off. Tsuri's a roughneck.

I don't know if it was the combination of mining and blacksmithing that did it, his penchant for wearing whatever armor he can find that gives him a higher survivability rate no matter how ghetto it looks, or his horse that kinda' reminds me of a broke-ass 1978 El Camino. Something did it, though, and I don't think it was me. It just happened. He just turned into the kind of guy that would walk into the bar, wearing his oilstained bluejeans and Caterpillar hat on backwards, to stare at all the hawt little Blood Elf Priests, but end up going home with the Orc Druidess because she was more fun. He's every Pennsylvania coalminer you've ever run into.

And it really didn't start out that way, it just sort of happened. I find it a little disturbing. Cool, yet vaguely unsettling.

30!!!

2008-11-24T23:46:00.000-08:00

Well, I went with option #2 (although I did get another 3 AB marks and 6 WSG ones), and I don't regret it. 40 gold is steep, but I'll live, I suppose. Hoorah for mobility!

First Stab at PvP and Other Stuff

2008-11-24T08:42:00.000-08:00

So since I'm getting close to 30, I decided to sit down and PvP with a buddy of mine last night to see what all the fuss is about. Personally, PvP options in RPGs in general has never been my favorite thing. Normally, it's pretty klunky and prone to attracting Timmy the Power Gamer types, not to mention I had been told all about the "Twink" factor. So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I went into Warsong Gulch (WSG) for the first time.

Overall, the PvP option in WoW is not bad. Some things about it, such as the whole "I'm going to run in a circle so you can't get a lock, nyah nyah nyah" crap, drives me nuts. On the other hand, I got to see a Rogue flee in terror from me when he realized I'd just tanked the crap out of their twinked warrior and was coming for him next, so that was almost worth the price of admission all by itself.

Of the two lower-level PvP options, WSG and Arathi Basin (AB), I think I like the "let's go to war" style of AB more, but WSG is easier since you only have one objective to protect (your flag), rather than possibly 5. For you tanks, WSG is good because you can actually use your tanking skills to defend the flag while everyone else runs off to capture the enemy flag or sweep opposition out of the way.

The first few games went alright, and overall our side went 6-1, with our only loss being to an Aliance group that included at least 4 dedicated healers (ugh). I freely admit that those first few games I sucked hard, however, so if anyone was in the 20s bracket PvP last night I apologize.

Word of warning: Tanked warriors are very hard to PvP with, since we rely on people beating on us and having healer backup to properly do our jobs. If you're looking to PvP some while in your 20s, I'd suggest battle stance and revamping your action toolbars for things like the fear ability, Rend, Thunder, Cleave, etc. You still won't be as effective as a Fury/Arms-spec, but you'll have an easier time dealing damage and drawing people to you. One of my main jobs last night was keeping 3-4 opponents busy dealing with me while the rest of the group cap'd flags. I died a lot, but it kept us in the game.

On a lighter note...DING! 29. I'm less than a bar from 30, but am torn between wanting to farm enough WSG marks and honor for the Undercity trinket and getting my mount. Such decisions to be made...

Welcome to the World...of Warcraft: A quick general guide for new players

2008-11-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

OK, now that I have the impotent rage out of my system courtesy of the Gnoll issue, time for the promised content. A few words before starting, however...

*pours another scotch and soda*

OK, much better. Please note that a lot of the stuff I'm going to go over is general in nature. I'm not going to get into quest specifics or where to find teh fat lootz. This is specifically for someone starting the game out of the box having just read the manual and logging on for the first time, and are things I wish I had known when getting going for the first time. End of disclaimer. Let's begin with...

In The Beginning: Choosing Your First Character

Before you even start the game, you already have choices to make: Race, Class, faction (Horde or Alliance), sex, hair color, features, 401(k) allocation percentages...OK, that comes later, but you get the idea. Notice that each race has it's own racial bonuses, but may only be allowed certain classes to choose from. In general, you obviously want to pick a race you'll enjoy playing, but also look at the bonuses for the races and match them up with the Class you want to play. Generally speaking, Gnomes don't make good warriors and Trolls are crappy at spellcasting, but Gnome warlocks and Troll hunters are extremely powerful characters.

When I first started, I made Matsu Tsuri, the Undead warrior, because I figured it was the simplest thing I could put together to learn the ins and outs of the game. Later on, I found that warriors, particularly tanks, are some of the more complicated characters to learn. For your first character, Hunters are very good because of their stand-off and shoot capability, the ability to "track" mobs (which allows you to find or avoid monsters as you will) and train certain monsters as pets to do the dirtywork up close. Mages and Warlocks are also good, as they have the ability to do massive damage from afar or sic their summoned minions on people. For a first character, I would choose one of those three and leave Warrior, Paladin, and Shaman for a 2nd or 3rd toon.

Whatever your choice, once you have created a character and chosen a server to start on, your journey toward heroic stature will begin with...

"Dude, can you go snake me 16 wolf pelts and some sage?"

Yes, starting quests are not very glorious. Then again, as cool as your character looks, your stats and armor will be visciously uncool for awhile, so put glory on the back burner for now. Remember that you can have up to 25 quests stored in your log at one time, so run around and grab every quest from the starting area you can before attempting them. I highly recommend, both for the sake of enjoying the game and learning how quests work in general, not using thottbot or similar to "cheat" on the quests. While it feels unethical to me, I'll give you a practical reason: Some quests are in the same area with each other, so it is possible to multitask quests IF you have read and understood what they're asking for.

Beginning quests aren't very difficult (duh...they're for Level 1 civilians), so you should be able to go out and complete 2-3 quests at a time and then return for quest turn-in all at once. This will save you some upfront time and running back to the same area over and over again to do multiple quests you could have polished off in one shot.

After you complete a few quests, you should have been able to level up a bit and may have actually grabbed some decent armor in the form of loot off the monsters you've had to exterminate. Pick the pieces that give you best armor ratings and sell the rest, but don't worry about buying anything else at this point. Early on, the drops you get from mobs will be roughly the same quality as the stuff you can buy off a vendor, and it may even be better. You'll need gold at later levels for things like the Auction House, flight paths, skill training, food, melon juice, Blood Elf "escorts," etc. Start the habit early of only buying what you absolutely need so that later on you can afford the cool stuff without begging with a tin cup outside Ogrimmar.

Questing vs. Kill-Crazy Rampage

The best armor and weapons you will get early on will come in the form of quests, as will the most XP. While laughing maniacally and killing everythig in site is sometimes quite fun, it is not the most efficient way to level and get gold, loot, etc. Questing can be difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating, but it is the best way to level early, bar none.

Each quest you do within the first 5 levels or so gives you anywhere from 150-300 XP. Each quest usually takes about 15 minutes. So, my math advisor wishes to inform me that questing nets you roughly 10-20 XP per minute. The starting mobs, on the other hand, only give out 15-20 XP each, and there is no guarantee in the beginning that you can kill enough of them to compete with the questing math...and you might die. There is always that.

Therefore, take and complete every single quest you can early on to net the maximum amount of experience in the minimum amount of time. on't worry, there will be plenty of stuff to beat on later, and I guarantee it will beat back.

Class and Profession Skills

As you progress, you will need to visit skill trainers often. your starting area will have a skill trainer for your chosen Class that is more than willing to teach you the tricks of the trade for a price. Make sure you visit your trainer at every level early and then every other level once you hit 10.

After completing your first group of quests, you will be shipped off the bunny hill to a new area where more quests will be available, but also the first few skill trainers you can learn various professional skills from. This is where your character starts to take on a life of his/her own. What do they excel at? When they aren't beating on poor, hapless animals, zombies, or fish-men, what do they do in their spare time? You can choose up to two main professions to take on, and any number of secondary ones (first aid, cooking, fishing, etc.). Generally, you want to pick a profession based on three criteria:

• Will it compement your class choice? In other words, it doesn't make a lot of sense to choose tailoring as a profession if you're a Paladin (unless you're going for some karmic warrior-monk theme or something) since tailors can't make the best armor, weapons, etc. for Paladin-class characters. Blacksmithing might be a better option for your character.

• Will it complement another profession you already have? Herbalism and Alchemy feed very well off one another. You can level them almost simultaneoulsy. Mining and Blacksmithing are also complimentary. Engineering and Inscriptions? Not so much. You'll find much more difficulty leveling 2 disparate skillsets than two related ones; not to mention the cost involving buying raw materials when, in the other examples listed above, you can farm them for virtually free.

• Will it make you money? Mining, skinning, and jewelcrafting can all make you a ton of cash if done right. Ore and refined bars of ore are always in high demand, as is leather armor, raw materials, jewlery, etc. Money makes the world...of Warcraft...go 'round. If you're all about the Benjamins and don't care about actually making anything, by all means, choose 2 farming skills and rake in the cash. Remember, though, at higher levels created items may outdo drops, so choose accordingly.

OK, that's all for the moment. There's plenty more, but I'm getting sleepy and I'm out of Scotch. We'll continue tomorrow...

Sooo Close

2008-11-21T07:13:00.000-08:00

I hate Gnolls.

This is not run-of-the-mill hatred, by the way. You know, the kind of hatred you have for a hangnail, The View, people who read the paper while driving, or when the President is on TV right during that Heroes episode you haven't seen yet. No, this is the kind of hatred reserved for child molesters and oil company CEOs. The kind of white-hot hatred you typically feel after someone has walked up in the club and spit in your drink.

Yes, that much hate. Why, might you ask? Well...

So there I was, minding my own business while picking mushrooms for the Apothecary in Tarren Mills for some of his special recipes. Naturally, these mushrooms only grow in one field in the entire world, and this farm is overrun by Gnolls. When I rolled up and saw them I was like, "Crap. Not this again." The first Gnoll encounter back at level 9-10 or so was bad enough. However, I didn't have Revenge, Shield Block, etc. back then, so I figured I could take mobs roughly my level or slightly above, even if they were Gnolls, by myself...Right? >_> <_<

After the 4th time I wiped I gave up and went to kill things in Thousand Needles. Stupid mudslinging, item-camping bastards. So, the moral of the story is if you're a tank with no helaing abilities, don't try to confiscate a Gnoll's stash without some backup from 5.0. Preferably something with a quick heal/res spell.

In other news, I'm a bar away from 28, and would have been there before I logged last night if it weren't for the Gnolls. Grrr.

This is for All You New people...

2008-11-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Corps. I’ve started this blog in response to a lot of the information I’ve seen online regarding new WoW players, since I am one myself (just started up in July and didn’t buy BC until last week…yeah, I’m behind the times, apparently). While the game is fantastic fun and an excellent diversion from rl (stock market crashing, obscenely rich automobile manufacturers flying in their private jets to Washington to beg for bailout money and then retiring to eat Chicken Marcella at Spago’s, long hours at work…well, I’ll stop now to avoid the need to start taking Valium), I have had my share of frustrations finding good resources to help newbies like myself get to some semblance of respectability in a decent amount of time.

Now, having said that, the blogs to the left are some of my favorites and talk general strategy very well, so I encourage you to visit often. Plus, they are damned entertaining to read. But, unless you want to go buy the $40 strategy guide to power through and ruin some of the earlier surprises, you’re basically stuck figuring it out on your own or leaning on friends who, while extremely helpful and patient, would much rather be guild-raiding Kara then picking Strangleweed (thanks, Paul).

So, I’m going to post my experiences here, both good and bad, along with some of the tricks I have found helpful in my quest to not only understand and enjoy the game more, but to piss off a minimum number of people while doing it :-)

Oh, by the way, we will be using harsh language in this blog. This is the really real world and I don’t pull any punches. Sometimes you just have to scream “sonofabitch!” at the top of your lungs to make a point.

Disclaimer Part II: Most of what I will be going over here is from the point of view of a Horde-side tank. For those of you wondering, a tank is a protection-specialized warrior that excels at taking damage and drawing fire away from the rest of the party members, especially the mages and priests that tend to go squish when someone looks at them wrong. Tanks are meatshields, plain and simple. While they may not deal as much damage as, say, a Paladin or a Fury-spec’d warrior, they can take a serious beating while dishing out party buffs and enemy debuffs, as well as area-affect damage, to give groups a better chance at survival in instances and high-level dungeons.

Disclaimer Part III: I know, if you’ve played any MMOs before, you may have seen something like this scroll up in your text box and wonder if it’s really English:

[GENERAL]LF1M SFK NEED PALLY.

The first time I saw something like this, my initial reaction was to start railing incoherently on people to stop butchering my language. See, I’m a writer by trade and by choice, so text/chatspeak makes the veins in my forehead bulge and my teeth grind. Unfortunately, it’s a WoW thing, and I will admit that it has come in handy when I need healing in an instance setting and don’t want to type out, “I beg pardon, Mr. Priest, Sir: Could you please heal me and pass along that wonderful Fortitude spell so that I might have a chance at living through this? Thanks so much, old man” while I’m being shivved by six scary-ass Centaurs. Much easier to type “heal fort buff plz.” However, we are not in a real-time war setting here, so I will try to keep the acronyms to a minimum. There are a few well-known ones that I may not be able to stop myself from using, but I will use regular English wherever possible.

Additionally, since I am currently sitting at a brand-new level 27, I will be updating this regularly with my progress and thoughts as I go (as well as the occasional inane commentary for your viewing pleasure…not, not that kind of viewing pleasure; there are plenty of other sites for that).
So tomorrow, I will post the first installment going over levels 1-10 for your edification. In the meantime, look me up on SilverHand if you need a tank. That is all...