PvP and Me

So, not only did I give in and go ahead and start PvPing, but I now think I might be a full-fledged PvP addict. Yes, I get angry when I'm not winning and yes it can be frustrating when people are being stupid, but all in all, I've been having fun with it! No one is more surprised than I am.

Not only that, but I have my Gladiator's Quickblade and, after long and arduous AH farming, I have my Vindicator's Brand. Of course, right after I get those, Edge of the Cosmos drops out of Mech and THREE Blinkstrikes show up on the AH.

I haven't hit up Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm since getting them, but I'm thinking it can only be an improvement. I've decided that I hate, hate, hate Warsong Gulch, because of a horrible match in which the other team simply refused to cap the flag and farmed kills instead. I didn't think we'd ever get out of there. Alterac Valley just takes forever to wait for. I only attempted one 2v2 Arena with Martin and we got killed in record time. I think, after some gearing, we'll try 3v3 with our Pally pal.

Meanwhile, I've made a comprehensive list of all of the pre-Kara upgrades I want to get and where to get them. This just means finding people willing to run things like Old Hillsbrad repeatedly until I get what I want. At least that one's easy. (Heh. Easy. I never thought I'd say that of an instance.) Not like running Heroic Mech. That...sucked.

Shattered Halls Sucketh

It started out bad. I don't know why I didn't expect it to just keep going downhill.

Firstly, we had to PUG one of our members because we didn't have enough from the guild. No big, it's just one person, right? So, we snagged a mage. We already had me, Martin, a Druid healer from the guild that we like and our enhancement Shammy friend. I'm game, I'm fired up, it's the daily, I'm ready to tackle it.

We fly over to the Citadel, ready for action. "Go pick the door." "Uh, I can't. I'm four skill off of max and, evidently, it takes max." So we have no key and no picking of the door. I instantly feel like n00b roguetard! Dur! Ok, calm. Even though none of us guildie types has the key, the PUGged mage does! Awesome. PUGs don't look so bad, now. So, we get inside, and the Mage is like "I thought we were doing Heroic." So, already she's disappointed. You can see how things began to slide, can't you? (It was also discovered that I couldn't pick the door inside and we had to take the sewer to the first boss. No one was excited about this.)

In the end, Martin had never been there and neither had I. Pulls went wrong, aggro-stealing happened, wiping happened repeatedly. It was nasty. Finally, Martin decided to send me out to sap in a room absolutely saturated with mobs. We didn't know what to pull first. Three times I attempted to sap, three times I got seen and beaten down. Eventually the group was laughing so hard no one could speak. It was just that funny. It was Wipefest '08.

We ended up giving up and going to do the quest that gets you your key to Shattered Halls. Hey, at least I got to kill a Fel Reaver, finally. THAT tasted sweet.

Meanwhile, I've since realized...I should've distracted while trying to sap. It might not have worked, but it might have. And I feel like an idiot. Martin said "You should always distract when you sap". Here I've been relying on blind luck. This really goes back to what I'm having a problem with right now. I'm gear-stressed, yes, but more I've been feeling like I just don't know what I'm doing. If I knew what I was doing, I'd have already known to use distract. What else am I not doing that is going to drive people nuts or cause problems down the road?

I think I'm going to have to accept the fact that, if I ever do become one of those really accomplished, smooth rogues that everyone expects (which is looking unlikely), that it's going to be FAR down the road.

In the meantime, I'm fiddling with a new mage character to take the edge off. That's right. When too stressed from playing WoW, just play more WoW.

The pointy end goes into the other man!

Today I was talking with a guildmate who was attempting to choose a helm for his shadow priest. I told him I couldn't be much help, as casters completely confound me. He said that rogues confound him. Now, personally, I don't see much confounding about rogues. Ok, maybe there's stealth and finesse and timing, but really I think it boils down to that quote from Zorro. "You know how to use a sword, don't you?" "Yes, the pointy end goes into the other man!" I mean, c'mon, it's that simple. Put your blade where it's supposed to go and try not to get tagged by the bad thingie. Try to say it ain't so!

I've almost assembled most of the mats for my Shadowprowler's Chestguard. I've seen some discussions about this with people saying it's not good for rogue's at all, that druids should have it, ha ha you stupid rogues wearing gear that's not for you! Well, thhhhpppttt. Bite me. It has the stats I need right now and the list starts at Stamina. My AP is currently almost 1400, but my hit and health need help to reach the point where I can hit some heroics, start collecting badges and start working towards getting better weapons which is a huge thing for me right now.

So huge, in fact, that Martin and I have decided to switch to Aldor. Me, so I can get the Vindicator's Brand and him for...I don't know, something or other. Other than that, I've finally given in on the whole PvP thing. Yes, I hate it. After trying it, I can't stand it, it's no fun and it gives me a headache. But there are swords. I figure if I just keep going and hope everyone else doesn't suck as much as I do, I'll eventually grind the honor/marks to get a decent offhand weapon.

Meantime, instances, instances, instances. That part of the game I love. I like the shared experience, the teamwork aspect and the general laughter and talk that goes on during them. Even when I die six times (like in Mech the other night), I still have a good time. Plus, there's loots. I like loots.

Blood Elf Loan Shark

In the last three days I have been asked, no less than three times, to lend money to a complete and total stranger. The first offense wasn't so egregious. A teen-ish leveled player asked to borrow a few silver. I politely informed him that he shouldn't go around asking complete strangers for money and told him that, no, I wasn't going to lend him any. The second offense bothered me a bit more as he was in his 30s level-wise so I asked him, quite reasonably, what sort of interest rate he wanted to agree upon. He laughed it off and withdrew the request.

The THIRD one, however, absolutely blew my mind and drove me right off of the deep end. A level 70 asked to borrow 35g from me. Now, I've made it all the way to 62, bought an epic mount by selling every Enchanting mat I had built up from the beginning and I'm barely scraping 60g right now. I also know that 70s have daily quests that they can do to make about 100g every single day if they just make the effort that, I'm told, takes all of about 30 minutes a day. I went off on the guy. I started by offering an interest rate of 25% a day, provided he had collateral, of course. Then, I admit, I harangued him for the next ten minutes about how unbelievable I found it that a 70 would sink so low as to come to a level 62 he didn't even know to try to bum money when he could be doing dailies that I don't EVEN HAVE ACCESS TO. As far as I'm concerned, he should try sitting next to the cockroach seller in Undercity and hold a "Will quest for food" sign. Needless to say, he eventually put me on ignore with a "kthxbai". I hate that crap. I hope he learned something, but somehow I doubt it.

I'm curious exactly how common this is. Amusingly enough, I was warned by various sources when I first started playing WoW, that as a female player and a female character I would be given all kinds of special treatment and "free gear" from male players. Now, I wouldn't even begin to exploit that (No, really!), but I haven't seen a single bit of evidence to support this. Not one slavering, sex-starved nerdboy has come up and tried to hand me a BoE Blue just to see me in my elfy skivvies. Yet, here I am, having freeloaders slither all up against me to try to borrow money. Do I look like a soft touch or something? NO, I won't be your mommy just because I have tits!

A guildie suggested that I set up a loansharking business. Start lending money for desperate Epic-seekers at outrageous rates. I could get a few Ogres to act as knee-breakers for me. A few goblins shylocks. Whaddaya think?

Ms. Mojo Ridin'

So, Bourg gave me directions from Big Bear Butt Blog and I got myself a free Mojo! Check me out, all frogified!

Helping Hands

Lately we've been trying to help a couple of friends level their characters up to catch up with ours and Wot's. They're coming along quickly, a Shaman at 59 and a Paladin at 57, and will hopefully be joining us in Outland soon. To that end, though, we did a couple of instance runs this week. Sunken Temple, again, which went fairly well, all things considered, and Dire Maul, which had a moment or two of clusterfuck, a few moments of outright hilarity and one moment of steaming anger, but otherwise also went favorably. Of course, now that we're in Outland gear, all the nice leather starts dropping. Go figure. Also, now that I've changed to sword spec, all the nice daggers start dropping.

If I had to name one thing I learned this week...hrm...I think it's that Warlocks should not drink blue martinis before instance runs. Yeah. That'd be it.

Ramparts

So we ran Ramparts tonight with a group from our guild. Really odd thing, since we had people playing alts, but I think I got lucky because the Rogue that was going with us had to play his alt Shaman for heals...which freed up the awesome Rogue gear drops for me! I managed to get Bracers of Finesse, Shifting Sash of Midnight, and Sure-Step Boots from the actual quest turn in. Not a bad haul for the evening. And the belt (eeeeeeee, the belt the belt!) is my very first actual piece of socketed gear!! I got two beeeeeeeyutiful shiny red baubles to go in it and I'm so excited! I even picked up a couple of other items to Disenchant and I can start throwing some Enchants around again.

I didn't think the run went that badly, except for two things. One, Martin's video card overheated (still not entirely sure why, we think it was power supply) and started beeping and flickering his monitor. Made it hard to finish, since he was tanking. Second, the last boss, Vazruden and his mount, was a hard fight. The first time we wiped and the healer, who didn't seem to have healed anybody during the fight, tried to take him on by himself. It went poorly. The second time, though, we managed to get our shit together and take his ass down. Score belt. Awwww, yeah.

The Grind

I spent most of yesterday running around Un'Goro trying to find small thorium veins so that I could work my way up to rich thorium veins so that I could work my way up to all of the fel iron that I keep seeing just lying around in Hellfire, taunting me with its money-making potential. I'm starting to see why Martin says they're going to address mining not scaling well with the new leveling speeds. I would have thought that the metals I needed would, naturally, show up around the level-appropriate areas that I'm exploring. Thing is, I'm in Outland, which is level-appropriate (61), and all I have are 300-level metals I can't get. So now I have to make mining trips back to Azeroth. Long, tedius, running-around trips that annoy the crap out of me that have the sole purpose of getting me to 300.

On the other trade note, I'm starting to think that Disenchanting for just mats really is more profitable. Especially since I can't sell my metals because Martin needs them for jewelcrafting. Unfortunately I still have to skill it up, or I can't DE the higher level greens/blues/epics. So many hard choices!

494,000 XP???

Usually I don't pay attention to that little XP bar until it's almost full. Then I'll take a glance at it to see how far I have left to go. Last night, however, I noticed that, after all of my (admittedly mostly entertaining) questing in Hellfire Peninsula, that I was only about halfway through 60. I glanced at the bar and saw 494,000....whaaaaat? The XP needed between 59 and 60 was only, like, 175,000. Martin had said they'd made it much easier to level between 20 and 60, but apparently I didn't realize just how much so. Man, the push for 70 is going to be brutal at this rate.

Also, rare elites that need a full fuggin' group to take them and who just pop up randomly in the midst of a bunch of peaceful (ish) Helboars...hurt my brain. Fulgorge must've come around on us about five times last night. Martin and I couldn't take him and we tried again when Wot got there, but no go. Too bad, too, because he apparently drops some nice BoE blues. Unfortunately, he squishied us.

Epic Chicken

Or, as I like to call him, Giblet 2.0. With the auction of my banked enchanting mats (now I get to start collecting all over again), auctions of metal, Martin's contribution and, I later today found out, the contribution of our Warlock, I managed to buy my new chicken. I just wish they had them in black, but Martin says it's a PvP reward and I'd have to actually work for that. I settled for purple.

Do the Fel Reaver Stomp

I had my first close encounter with a Fel Reaver last night. I'm told it happens to everybody, but when it was said it sounded a lot like what you tell an impotent guy to make him feel better. Martin and I were killing orcs and managed to get ganged and killed. The second I get back and rezzed, a Fel Reaver stomps directly on my head. Squash, like a grape.

I don't even HAVE 6592 health!

Outland! Now with more Blood Elf!

So we finally made 58. I thought Martin was going to pop he was so excited. He actually seemed giddy about it. I believe the direct quote was "I'm back, bitches!". We made the dash to Outland directly after dinging in Eastern Plaguelands, talking Wot, the Warlock, into reluctantly coming with us. I don't think he digs Outland much before flying mount-time.

I picked up my first piece of Outland gear, which does far outstrip what I had previously been wearing. I also picked up my first items to be Disenchanted and got my first Lesser Planar Essence. Personally though, after a look around Outland to see that it's basically the same as the rest of the place, I'm more excited about 60 and finally getting my epic chicken. Giblet II, here I come! Ok, so I'm only 360g towards it, but I'll make it. I just skilled to small thorium, after all. After I supply Martin's jewel crafting, I'm free to go on selling on the AH and making that cash.

One thing I did like in Outland? The view.

Scholo Run

Last night we decided that we'd better do an instance run if we wanted to have a chance of busting out 58. Martin's been hot to hit Outland since he got me playing, so hitting 58 is huge for him. After some deliberation, Martin and the Warlock decided that Scholomance, though a tad high, was our best bet for quest XP stacking. I just go where I'm told, so I agreed, if we could find some more people. Some poking at the guild channel netted us the guild leader's alt 66 Pally to do heals and a level 70 Hunter with a pet to tank. No sweat, right?

It wasn't as easy as that, turns out. From the outset we had problems with aggro and pulling too many mobs at once. Our Warlock must've died ten times, but then he does have a sort of kamikaze tendency to dash in and see what happens. It can be hilarious. Like shooting the rat running directly in front of a group of mobs we've yet to pull. He's definitely our Leroy Jenkins of the group. Martin's Druid died about three times, but then he was tanking when the Hunter pet wasn't, so that's about par, I guess. I think I croaked it three times or so, too. One I know wasn't remotely my fault and one I know was completely me. I managed to stand in a green gas cloud until I died, not understanding the annoyed calls of "Get out of the cloud!". Very newbie mistake. I don't know the count on the Pally and Hunter's deaths, but I'm pretty sure everyone got offed at some point.

Still, it got me 10k off of 58 and I did get some awfully nice gear, like Silent Fang and Mirah's Song, and a whole ton of stuff to Disenchant. I ended up with a collection of Large Brilliants. Now I just need some Large Radiant to do the enchants on the new swords.

Next stop, Outland! I'm told there's gold in them there hills. (There are hills, right?)

Newbie...or Noob?

I'm a long-time gamer, I suppose you could say. I've been RPing off and on for about 12 years now. Is that a long time? Anyway, it has introduced me to a lot of interesting people (my fiance, for instance) and a lot of somewhat scary and annoying types, as well. For the most part, though, I would say that I've had fun.

But for all my time spent playing those games, I never touched an RPG vidoe game, much less even thought of playing an MMORPG. I never had a computer or a connection that could hold up to the strain. I knew that my fiance played a game called World of Warcraft before I met him and I also knew that, at times, it drove me nuts that he was so wrapped up in it. He said I'd understand once he got me to play it, something I laughed off at the time. I wasn't going near the thing.

Two years down the road, though, and we're living together, and I get a good look at this thing called WoW. It's pretty. It's engaging. It's...bloody! Be still my heart! So, I agree to give it a test-run on a 14 day trial account. Long story short, fourteen days has turned into two months of play and still going strong.

My Blood Elf Rogue, now a level 56, is gratifyingly hacky-slashy with plenty of battle grunts and screams and spurts of blood when she gets going. My fiance, after a quick trip through Blood Elfiness with a Priest, decided to roll a Tauren Druid (you can find his comments on the game at Dire Aquatic Form ). We've found a fun, helpful guild in Dominus Nihil and a nice group of very quirky people to level with. I've found a new hobby so absorbing that occasionally laundry goes un-folded and dinner is late to the table.

So, hereafter, I shall transcribe all of my game-related experiences, thoughts and feelings and we'll all get to see what it is to go from the absolutely greenest of greens to, hopefully, ripe with the fullness of experience...and pwnage.