The 20 Days of World of Warcraft: Day Nineteen

How many hours do you play a week, roughly?  


The number of hours per week that I play has varied over my WoW career. Currently, I pretty much only play on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (my days off of work). I'm not sure I could clearly estimate how much time I spend playing on those days. Afterall, this here blog takes up a good portion of my free time as well, and is often done interspersed into my WoW time. Can I include blog time in my /played since it is WoW related? Hehe.


Rough estimate, I'd say I spend about 20-25 hours per week actually playing the game. Bump it up to 30-35 hours if we include my blogging time. I don't think this is unreasonable. Some other people would say I'm obsessed and addicted and whatever other stupid labels there might be. To those people I say, "What if I took away your television?" Tell me you're not "addicted" to TV, then we'll talk.

Random Six

I took inspiration from Pilfkin at Moar Alts! and started my very own "Project 10." Except there aren't 10, and I'm sure I didn't set it up the same way she did. I have 6, that way I don't have to try and dig out my D&D dice set. I haven't the foggiest where I put them, in fact, its entirely possible the ex took them and my rule books in the split. Wow... got a lil off topic. Ermm... yes.

So, six toons, the first of which is my paladin, Audrid, whom you all have met already. I'll be introducing them individually over the next days, and one of them even adds an interesting new twist to your normal way of leveling.

Admittedly, I am not doing one of each class, even though eventually maybe I would like to have one of each. And I'm definitely not doing much cross-faction, only one of them is Horde. It seemed like a good way to get me playing and making the toons I've always wanted to have.

Thanks a million for the inspiration, Pilf!

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.