The 20 Days of World of Warcraft: Day Eighteen

Post your favorite Screenshot.

Oh gosh! You're going to make me choose one favorite? Nuh uh. Isn't going to happen.

So here they are, in no particular order:

The Love Picture

Steam Punk Draenei (or Space Pirate, Ashelyth is too sexy for her goggles)

Background - Dryad in Ashenvale (Pre-Shattering)

Harder than Vanilla

WARNING: Rambling and disjointed rant incoming.

I got into an argument the other day with one of my co-worker/friends who also plays WoW. He is quitting WoW and insists that players are making a mass exodus because of the difficulty of Cataclysm raids. He claims that he's been raiding since Vanilla, and these are the hardest dungeons he has ever seen. He insists that only the most hardcore of elite guilds are getting any bosses killed. He claims that its not fair if one person's mistake causes the raid to wipe.

I can't really argue with any of it because I am not personally raiding at this time, although I have friends that are, but the whole conversation really ticked me off. I'm sorry, but even if raids are "too hard" right now, we haven't even seen a real patch yet (well, up until yesterday).

Comparing Cataclysm to Vanilla is like comparing apples and oranges, yeah, they're both fruit, but...

I highly doubt that my friends' guilds can be considered "the most hardcore of elite," afterall, I am on the Cairne realm. We're notorious for being low on the PVE charts, yet many of these guilds are at 7 or 8 bosses down.

As far as one person causing wipes... uhh... hello? Lich King Defile anyone? Seriously? Can't remember that? It really wasn't that long ago. And this was certainly not the only situation where one person's mistake could cause wipes. Remember Flamewreath on Shade of Aran? Remember Solarian's Wrath of the Astromancer?

I find it hard to believe that raiding is so hard that people are quitting in droves. If that was the case we would have either seen a massive nerfbat taken to the instances or a massive boost to player talents/skills by now. Blizzard would not sit idly by if the game was so unplayable.

There is a fine line to walk between making the gameplay too easy at endgame and making it too difficult. Maybe its because I am a BC baby, but I think the raiding difficulty in BC was just about the right balance. If current raiding is anything like that was, then I'd say things are just about right.

Being a blogger, I see people come and go all the time for various reasons. The reasons I see more often are not because of the difficulty of raid content, although I'm sure some people do quit for that reason. If I were to quit the game, it certainly would not be because of the difficulty of raids.

Honestly, I find it very telling that when things get hard this particular individual gives up. It speaks volumes about his character. Then again, who am I to judge what he does during his free time. This feels like yet another instance of rage quit. No one does the quitting thing quite like a WoW player does.

I can't sit here and say that I think WoW is the best game ever made and that it will never jump the shark, but I don't think it has yet. At least it hasn't for me.

The 20 Days of World of Warcraft: Day Seventeen

What do you do when the server is down?


A fitting topic for the day. Well, since maintenance day is typically Tuesday and  I typically have Tuesdays off of work, I pick Tuesday for my chore day. I run errands, clean up the house a bit, whatever needs doing. If I really run out of things to do, I catch up on my blog reading/writing. And then, if I still have time to spare, I'll either watch some TV or pick up an F2P game to putz around with until servers come back up.

Totally boring, I know, but there you have it.

The Dungeons: 1-5

The first dungeon I set foot in on Audrid was actually Deadmines. I ported in to find the group already ahead of me, the tank nearly dead and pulling more, the balance druid calling me out for not healing while I wasn't even in the dungeon yet. I was level 16. This was my first dungeon on this toon. I was not about to cope with the abuse that I could feel coming if I decided to stay with this group. So I said a quick word about not pulling before your healer is there and bailed.

Hello 30 minute deserter debuff. Goodbye happy fun healing time.

That one didn't count. I call for a do-over.

So the first dungeon I completed on Audrid was Ragefire Chasm. You have to try really hard to mess that dungeon up. Sometimes, when I look back on it, I feel jealous of all those years the Horde had keeping this instance to themselves. It has to be the best starter instance ever. Deadmines for a beginner is much, much harder, imho.

Dungeon number two was Deadmines. I was nervous so I started out warning the group that I might be a little shaky on the heals, and asked them to please bear with me. It turned out I had nothing to worry about. This was another smooth run with kind folks to boost my fragile healing ego.

Dungeon number three was Wailing Caverns. An hour and a half of Wailing Caverns, because I was the only one who had any kind of clue how to navigate, which means we got pretty lost. But everyone stuck with it and we had some playful banter as we went through, as well as a few bio breaks. Although this was not as painful as some WC runs I've had, I still absolutely hate this instance, almost as much as I hate BRD, but that's another story for a different time.

Dungeon number four was another Wailing Caverns. This one went much more smoothly since I had just done it I remembered where everything was and was able to guide us through.

Dungeon number 5 was Shadowfang Keep. Oh, how I love to hate SFK! It's my favorite and my least favorite dungeon all rolled up into one. We did just fine all the way up until Godfrey. When we wiped 3 people bailed including the tank. The next tank in new exactly how to handle the Godfrey fight and taught us. It was beautiful and I can't thank Notapally of Echo Isles enough for being such an awesome tank and being patient with this newb healer who didn't know how to do it.

At this point Audrid was level 21, and looking pretty awesome in her kilt. All in all, not too shabby for pure pugs.

Stay tuned for dungeons 6-10, coming soon.

Quick pug stats: Tanks - 2 Warriors, 2 Bears, 2 Paladins.
                         Ranged - 3 Hunters, 2 Mages, 1 Balance Druid, 1 Warlock.
                         Melee - 2 Rogues, 2 Warriors, 2 Kitty Druids, 1 Paladin, 1 Shaman.
                         Wipes - 1 to Godfrey in SFK.      

I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face

She almost makes the day begin.
I've grown accustomed to the tune that
She whistles night and noon.
Her smiles, her frowns,
Her ups, her downs
Are second nature to me now;
Like breathing out and breathing in.
I was serenely independent and content before we met;
Surely I could always be that way again-
And yet
I've grown accustomed to her look;
Accustomed to her voice;
Accustomed to her face. 

Alan Jay Lerner from My Fair Lady

There's been a bubble of people who have left WoW and the WoW blogging community recently. The two that have had the most impact on this lonely little blogger are the loss of Jaedia of Jaedia's Menagerie and Ardol of WoW Philosophized.

I don't want to put a guilty burden on these folks for leaving. That is not the intention of this post. I truly wish them all the joy in the world in whatever they move onto next. But they are going to be missed.

I know what you're thinking. People come and go in WoW all the time. What does it matter that these two have left? No doubt, in time two more will pop up to take their place. Still it leaves me in a sort of melancholy state. Its a bittersweet happiness or a semi-sweet bitterness. I don't know exactly what it is, but I feel the same way everytime someone I've cared about has gone away, whether it be IRL or in a game. The strongest regrets that I have are the ones about losing those closest to me.

I'm not going to say that these two were close and dear friends, but you don't read someone's words day after day for over a year and not somehow feel close to them.

I've read each of their posts about why they are leaving. Each is well written and well thought out. I can understand the reasoning, and yet, there is a part of me that never will truly understand (at least not until I feel the same way).

It worries me that some day down the road I will be in their shoes, saying my goodbyes to WoW and the blogging community I've grown to love so much. I can't even think about quitting WoW right now, let alone the unique community that blogs about it.

I can't even imagine what my life would be like without WoW and without my blog. I think I'd be a little bit less happy. Today I'm feeling a little bit less happy to see some friends say goodbye.

Lady in Gold?

At the entrance to the Pig and Whistle in Stormwind's Old Town, there is a picture of a beautiful human woman in gleaming golden armor. Who is she? Why is her picture there? Has it always been there?

I've searched Wowpedia and Wowhead and various other WoW sites for information on this, and have come up with nothing.

There are two scenarios that seem to fit to me.

1. She was the owner, daughter or wife of the owner, or some other kind of relative to the owner of this fine establishment. However, there is nothing in game to back this up. None of the NPCs in the bar mention her, and there is no one in the bar that looks like her.

2. This is an image of Lady Luck (otherwise known as Lady RNG), and I should be spending my spare time worshiping in this holy place (in other words gambling), in order to increase my reputation with this Goddess.

What do you fine folks think? Does anyone have any information that I haven't been able to find?

But You Have Full Mana!!!

This has been the battlecry of the fail dpser/tank who died because (in their opinion) I must be a horribad healer.

I would say, on average, my experience using LFD so far has been 60/40 Good/Bad. I can only imagine that it is either going to get better or worse, considering the dungeons I've been doing are the early/easy ones.

As a Paladin, my spells are limited at this level. I don't even have Flash of Light yet. I'm limited to Holy Shock, Word of Glory and Holy Light as my bread and butter, which is a long cast spell. I have no AoE (unless you count passively healing myself whenever I heal anyone else). I can't work miracles.

I'm talking about you, Paladin "Tank" in Intellect gear spamming Exorcism. I'm talking about you, crazed Hunter who refuses to wait for the tank to pull and has his pet on aggressive+growl. I'm talking about you, Druid who tried to tank in Kitty form. I'm talking about you, Balance Druid who refused to let the tank pull because you have better armor than the tank. Fine, but then switch into freaking Bear form. Don't try to tank as a Night Elf. You are squishy and will die.

It's as if by the fact of just having mana I should be able to instantly transfer all of that mana into health magically saving everyone's stupid ass. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way. There is no magic IWIN Healing button. If I spam heals on a tank and he still goes down, either a. the tank was not geared/specced correctly or b. the tank (or someone) pulled way too many or c. the tank (or someone) didn't move out of the bad or d. the tank did not pick up adds and I was too busy saving myself. I don't like to blame others. When people point the finger at me all I will say is I'm doing my best. If they keeping blaming and complaining at me I simply leave. Its just not worth the effort to argue.

I am a damn good healer. I've been healing for so long its like second nature. I know when a wipe is my fault and I will freely admit it. Just because I still have mana doesn't mean I've been sitting and twiddling my thumbs letting you die. Believe it or not, at this level I have yet to go OOM. Maybe its all the Spirit gear I've been getting. Maybe Blizz tried to make it a little easier on low level healers. I don't know.

Wipes happen. I don't know if anyone told you, but Godfrey is a hard boss, even on regular at level 20. I don't know if you realize, but 10 mobs is a bit excessive and is likely to wipe even the best group, especially if no one seems to know how to CC. How many healers are going to be left if the first thing we hear is that its our fault? Even if it is our fault, c'mon, cut us some slack.