Northrend . . . better late, right?

Okay, I've been dragging my feet about going to Northrend.  Honestly I don't know why, maybe the mad dash to 80 that everyone felt had to be accomplished in 2 hours or less after launch!  All I know is I've had no desire to go.

I lie.  I did take my Shadow Priest to Howling Forde and parked her in the building there about two months ago!  And I did see Dalaran while at the TCG back in early March, but otherwise - I'm prolonging the mystery of Northrend!  I've heard about the zones, but have pointedly avoided reading or researching anything as I want it to be new and fresh.

So, . . . Sithi, my hunter, took the plunge last night.  She jumped on the boat in Stormwind and set sail.

Why last night - I'm not sure. Likely the joy of having my DSL line back instead of dialup on a laptop for the past week had something to do with it!  I've been stuck for a week solo playing easy, meaning no lag areas, on my laptop on DIALUP!!!  At least the guild bank is cleared out, and all the lower level characters on Darrowmere have been leveling their skills. Very boring though.  I digress . . .

First impressions of Northrend - very nice job Blizzard!  I like what I've seen so far.  The transitions from zones, the zones themselves (Grizzly Hills is graphically is quite pretty), etc.  The quests so far seem very easy though.  I was hoping for something a bit more difficult, but it's cool - too easy in a start area is probably a good thing rather than so difficult you can't complete them!  I did a few quests than decided to go take a tour (I'm a WoW explorer in the worst way), and made it all the way from Borean Tundra to the Howling Forde area . . . I don't know how as I refused to 'unfog' the map, but it was a nice tour.  I did get a few flight paths, saw no Horde (a good thing at 70), and didn't see too many things Sithi and Holiday couldn't have handled . . . okay solo mobs at least!  

The funniest thing (I'm known for this in every guild and among all gamer friends) I fell off the cliff near Utgarde and died.  Trying to find my corpse I discovered the Alliance dock - lol - so took res sickness and swam back to the dock!  Pathetic way to locate things!

The bad part with my random wandering, few of the flight paths connect so more travelling will be in order.  That is a good thing.  I'm looking forward to seeing ALL of Northend without benefit of knowing where I'm going.

Three boxing druids

Three boxing fun

Continuing with the three boxing fun, I rolled 3 druids last week.  Sticking with the lore, I made all male night elves - Sidthr, Uldur and Biyril.  (I think the whole Emerald Dream thing sounds outrageously fun!)  

Now, I've never levelled a druid - I think 13 has been the record in the past - so this is going to be interesting and challenging.  All the stance changes, gear needs, etc., will keep me on my toes - especially x3!

I've always admired good druids, and will have to start haunting the druid blogs (already a Big Bear Butt fan!), to learn how to play properly.   Gearing will be interesting as it seem similar to hunters, but more int/spirit seems helpful, plus tanking need strength.  It will be interesting!!!

For kicks each is going a different spec - Sidthr (main of the trio as he gets the big window - lol) is feral tank.  Uldur is going balanced and Biyril will be resto.  As Blizzards RAF (recruit-a-friend) program has such a nice xp gain my issue with this is Sidthr & Uldur are outleveling poor Biyril. Yesterday the boys were 26, 25 and 17!!!  As Biyril keeps getting further behind, I figured he'd be he best healer!  He's going on a few TLC runs (instance drag alongs!) to hopefully catch up or my 3-boxing will be 2-boxing before long! 

The druids are a complete change of pace from the hunters.  I love the forms and learning the new spells.  I've been working on macros and keybinding things.  Trying to do this x3 on one keyboard is challenging, but fun!  

So far I've only totally wiped them two times - both times from not clicking the right key combo and once actually not responding.  At least it was on 'rated' group boss mob - that was higher level!!!  Poor Biyril pulls so much aggro he's only healing himself right now.

It's all good and fun so far.  As it's a PvP server it will be hilarious the first time I have to PvP and get my a@@ handed to me!  The other person will feel so uber and not realize they just beat a boxing noob - lol!!!  

I do wish I had the time and was willing to devote the $$ to five-boxing.  I tried it briefly with the RAF trial accounts.  It's fun and I could see doing this in PvP or high level instances as being a riot!  But knowing me, I'd want five different classes to keep it interesting lol!!!   As I'm not willing to make the financial commitment three-boxing will have to do . . . for now!

Random stuff

Didn't do a whole lot today with WoW.  Messed with the UI some more . . . (I have another long post about this), so I'm going to stop - for now at least!  I'll post a pic of the current trio-boxing setup - it's not overly busy - I'm trying to come up with clean/yet usable.  

I'm sure it would be trimmed down some more if it was the hunter trio, as I can play them not quite blindly, but there isn't a whole lot of mystery to hunters until later when shot rotations, chain trapping, etc., should prove interesting with three!  

But as I'm working the druids and doing this on the 'learn as I go' method, it's keeping me involved.  First I haven't a clue on all the forms/spells let alone doing that X three - eek!  Add to that the boxing challenge.  Getting three of them to do what you want when you want requires a bit of planning for macros and key bindings.  Being a leftie, I've complete 'unbound' the right side of my keyboard - so I'm also getting use to different keys for quest, skills, guild, etc.  Fun fun fun!  

The downside to three-boxing I've found with WoW (it's a good thing but seems bad), is the RAF program.  Two (the veteran account and the newbie account) are getting excelerated leveling so they've outpaced the third, which was the second but doesn't get the bonus xp.  The druids started at levels 5, 1 and 1 and now are 23, 22, and 14!  PIA!!!  I like the speend the RAF adds, but to continue to take advantage of the RAF and have #3 fall further behind OR hold off until the 90 day RAF bonus time is over OR continue what I'm doing and drag the low guy along as the other two stream-roll along.  Bleah.

I did organize everyone a bit more.  Cloth for first aid, enchants and glyphs are made. I still haven't determined which will be the 'Engineer', so I'm just stockpiling stuff from the random engineering supplies I keep picking up, all deposited with one 'holder' toon.  I did clear out the guild bank from all the excess green items that I thought one of them might need and d/e it all.  Of course as soon as I'm done I realize Treja (level 15) is running around in grey/white level 5 gear (with enchants on but still!).  She's 75% to level 16, so a DM run is in order.  

Sithi threw a few Alliance recipes/pets on the neutral AH - I'm sure as dead as Darrowmere is, nothing will sell.  It's a really low pop server - I do miss Wildhammer.  Not the wait time or 'too many instance open' messages, but a healthy economy, lots of people around everywhere, it was a PvP server and you actually saw the oppostion other than in Shattarath or Dalaran.  Oh well.

Other than that I just dinked around with a few of them, while watching Babylon A.D.  I like Vin Diesel in many movies - Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick to name a couple.  He's a D&D fan and supposedly into WoW.  Hmmm I wonder what he'd play?

The random stuff - 

1. Twitter is addicting!  Too many new places to go from there.  Found out about FragDolls - going to check their site tomorrow.  An all femal Professional Gamer team sponsored by Ubisoft. . . should be interesting.
2. Twitter has the WeFollow Directory which makes locating/following people or politics or  businesses or whatever, much easier to locate.
3. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog - OMG!!!  It's a must watch.  Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser M.D./Starship Troopers, Harold & Kumar movies fame - love this guy) stars.  I didn't know he could sing???  This show is hysterical!  Also part of the cast Felicia Day (TheGuild - another must watch) and Nathan Fillion (He's one of those - where'd I see him guys??  The movie Serenity was what I finally figured out!). 
4. Dr. Horrible was nominated for a Hugo award to top it's success.
5. Hulu.com - streaming video.  Lots of new TV, and old/new movies.
6. WoW Headlines - blog lists by class listed by the most recent updates.  A huge list, but what a great resource. 
   

I didn't get to read Greedy Goblin today /frown   It's another addictive read.

Well, i's 2 a.m., I just wrote a bunch of crap - typos and all, but its out!  As I have to be on the road by 8 in the a.m. for a fun weekend visiting friends - I'm out.  

Game on!!!

PvP Rant

Why do people play on PvP servers yet never PvP?  I'm not talking arenas or BGs as those are available for all servers.  I'm talking actual player vs player?  I'm not even meaning the ganksquads or ones that thrill on killing someone 20 levels lower than them. 

But if you're on a PvP (or PvE server for that matter) when your city/town is under attack, why do so many people totally ignore it?  I'm not saying drop whatever you're doing and ride in like the white knight, but sitting on your latest and greatest mount or showing off the newest armor set piece in Org or Stormwind and absolutely not taking advantage of World PvP when its presented - I don't get it!  

It's handed to you!  They're there to kill your king or inconvenience everyone by - heaven forbid - taking out the auctioneers, flight masters and bankers - so why not fight back?  Are all the level 80's that jaded and it's just to boring to bother?

Why be on a PvP server if PvE raiding is all people do?

What I see (and don't generally get) is the group that will PvE kill npc's - how thrilling - in Westfall or Crossroads, but run if any opposition shows up!  I had assumed (bad word that ass out of u and me word!), they did this with the goal of drawing out the higher levels to defend/pvp, but if you run away - I guess beating up the npcs was all they intended to do.  Getting there jollies that way - ???? 

I don't get it.  I'm pretty 'quest and let quest' mentality generally in not actively killing or seeking PvP when someone is obviously out questing.  Especially when they're doing escort quests - its oh so tempting at times - but I've been killed right near then end of one those and what a pain to escort those stupid chickens again!    

But if you're close to town, ganking lowbies or being a pest  . . . you die or I die trying to kill you!

Stress Relief

I think everyone has either ran a guild or been an officer in one.  I inherited a guild in EQ2 after being a senior officer.  I really started to hate the responsibility as making sure everyone else is happy takes away from actually playing, or so I found.  In WoW, I've always declined any officer or leadership roll for that reason.  I want to play and not worry who needs what, can I have that in the bank, why do we have these rules, can you run me now, so and so in mean, whisper, whisper, whisper about so and so . . . can the drama and b.s. - I want to have fun period!  I need drama there is plenty in everyday RL - thank you very much!

So, when I first started playing Alliance, I chose Wildhammer as it was a busy server and after playing horde on Blackwing Lair primarily and to a lesser degree on Onxyia (with a RL friend) both medium to low pop servers, I wanted one that was busy and full of activity!

I played on Wildhammer most of 2008, was in a couple or so guilds with different characters, some good, some not so good!  The biggest issue I had with Wildhammer was its an East Coast server (I live WC), and the horrid lag/disconnects that were getting more frequent.  I mean how busy can it be at 11:30 at night that I'm still disconnecting?

Long story short, when Blizzard offered free server transfers to a less populated server, my thinking no wait to log in, no disconnects, no instances are full messages, so decided it would be time to move the gang (9 of them at this point).  I did a bit of research and decided on Scilla. Well apparently so did alot of other people!  Scilla went from (all I heard/read) a tight-knit community to an explosiong of new bodies, login waits of up to 45 minutes and very angry Scillians not happy with Blizzard or the immigrant population!  

It was two or three days later Blizzard offered another round of free server transfers, so did the research again and thought - ah ha!  A West Coast server that is physically located on the West Coast should hopefully solve the lag issue, so chose Darrowmere.  I had a few doubtful moments looking at the AH economy as Darrowmere's is dismal at best,  most definitely was NOT Wildhammer, but figured it be better than Scilla.  So off the gang went!

After the gang was moved, and I had added a second account, I thought about the benefits of a guild and had one of those duh moments of why not make a guild to take advantage of the guild bank!  

So Stress Relief was born!

Poor Ziboo (banker/gm/manager of the crew) set out to gather the needed signatures and start the guild.  It didn't take long, but boy do you feel horrible asking for signatures (I paid 2g each to get it over with!).  The tabard designed is fairly feminine keeping with a guild dominated by female toon.

The guild name I thought, while not original was perfect.  Stress Relief it's why I play - lol!!

Here's the guild as it stands now (and yes I play all of them! How is that for alt-itis!!!)

Ziboo, level 2 banker/gm gnome rogue.  She keeps everything organized and works the AH.  She's basically chained to Ironforge, but has taken a few sightseeing trips to the major Alliance cities (and has a pretty dress from the Lunar Festival.

Hunters (my favorite class by far!)

Sithi, night elf hunter, 70.  Leatherworker 340/skinning 435 is the first Alliance character I leveled last year.  (Not the first I made that honor would go to Frothe.)  Ambassador Sithi,  is commuting from Darnassus to Winterspring - she's selling things on the neutral AH.

She still has a few achievements to knock out in Azeroth, so won't be headed to Northrend for a couple of months. Sithi is in the header photo with her gorilla, Holiday, and cat, Ulthuan.

Zadril, dwarf hunter, lvl 24. Enchanting 223/skinning 150. I've not been playing her as I'm trying to take advantage of Blizzards RAF (recruit-a-friend) program with the excelerated xp gains.  So, she's just hanging out for the time being.  

Treja, another dwarf hunter, level 17. I was boxing with two other hunters but ran into the RAF problem two leveling fast one not!  So she's likely going to box with Zadril in a couple more levels. 

Biya, draenei hunter level 24.  Alchemist 152/herbalism 100. (toying with twinking at 30-39).  She's survival specced (I'm a BM player so this is new to me!).

Sidrii, night elf hunter, lvl 15. Enchanting 5/skinning 1.  She's for boxing and d/e instance drops that can't be used.

Pradia, draenei hunter, lvl 13. Herbalism 61.  She's for boxing and really an extra hunter so may go to 'toon heaven'!

Keggard, dwarf hunter, lvl 18.  Engineering 150/mining 108. Keg is the semi twink.  He has better than average gear but not uber enchants.  The libram is still waiting to be completed and the level 19 gear is stored too.  I haven't been Pvping much as the boxing has been entertaining me so much.  But he will be back to it soon.

Death Knights

Greaf, gnome DK level 61. Inscription 182/herbalism 247.  All she's been doing is running alts thru instances so she's only been getting the daily minor inscriptions accomplished and stocking up ink from the many herbers!  I may end up boxing her with Landrel - two DK's should be fun in outlands and instances - lol!

Landrel, human DK level 58.  An extra miner with enchanting.  She only d/e's items as Zadril is the one that enchants and her primary job is running the lowbies.  This way she can d/e any green/blue drops that can't be used.  

Locks

Frothe, gnome lock, lvl 11.  Frothe engineering 156.  She's ancient one of the first characters I made long ago and levelled to 5 and she's sat there until just a few weeks ago!  Now Frothe is being boxed with Waddra and a third which ever seems like a good idea!

Waddra, gnome lock, lvl 11.  Skinner 75.  Both are adorable pink haired gnomes and I'm enjoying them when I play them that is!

Druids

Sidthr, night elf, lvl 26.  Herbalism, enchanter (for d/e purposes). Feral spec.

Biyril, night elf, lvl 17.  (trying to catch him up . . . darn RAF!). Resto spec.

Uldur, night elf, lvl 25. Uldur is specced balanced,  I'm very UN-familiar with druid specs, so this may change as I experiment.

The rest . . .

Mithe, draenei mage level 10. Tailoring 150.  She's stockpiling cloth and recipes for the next power levelling session at 20!

Sassii, dranei shaman, level 13. Jewel crafter 105/miner.  I've been boxing her with Mithe on occasion.  I like shamans and wish more alliance classes could be shamans.  Maybe I'll roll her a buddy or two - we'll see!

Lealah, human pally lvl 5. Blacksmith level ?.  I've never played a pally and never tried blacksmith so Lealah gets the honors!

And unbelievably there are a few others at level 1-5.  A couple of priests, a rogue, another lock and another mage - I think that's it!  Heck three accounts I can have 30 toons cruising around Darrowmere - but I'm trying not too.

Stress Relief . . . hmmm!  Not so sure. LOL, but fun nevertheless!!!

The Streamy's voting time!!!

I absolutely love all the work at Project Lore!  Totally awesome.  

The huge BUT - The Guild is soooo hilarious.  I still laugh rewatching that series!  We all know people that are just like that.  I've been comapred to Clara.   Hmmm is that a good thing?

Vote here - The Streamys

Find a guild

Gildor over at the Hunter's Mark posted this and I thought what a great idea for those looking for a guild - Looking for Guild.net.  Right now its only available for WoW and Warhammer.  

I've been fortunate to have been in a few fabulous guilds with some exceptionally fun people (Broken Souls, BWL in WoW), (Granata, Ungrim in Warhammer), (Avalon, Blackburrown in Eq2) to name a few.  

Right now I've been playing the guilded characters so infrequently I'm surprised I've not been /gkicked - lol!   Oh well, RL tends to interfer with endless game time - so many characters are guildless and it's suiting my playstyle/time I have to play at the moment.

If you're looking for a guild though - check out that site!   

Alt-a-holic or the buffet player

How many alts is too many?  

Is alt hopping ADD?  Lack of commitment?  Inability to complete something?

In Wow you can have a maximum of 50 characters spread across servers with 10 maximum per server. As I have been three-boxing, I now have access to 150 character slots.  The mind boggles at the sheer possibilities of class combinations, professions, mini-groups, etc.  LOL!

I've honestly been having fun with this and have even been leveling characters other than my beloved hunters.  Last night was a shaman and mage on on Azuremyst Isle (I really think Bliz did an excellent job with the Blood Elf and Draenei start zones - a redo of the others would be great!!!).  

Tonight . . . hmm.  The level one druids? The three hunters working the Defias Gang chain quest?  The 'locks are needing some love too.  Two-box the DKs?   Lol time will tell when I log on!

In EQ2, I've always felt Sony was a bit stingy holding you to a mere seven character slots unless you 'upgrade' to a Station Account.   Seven is definitely not enough!  The argument is you can make more on test or on the EU servers.  Personally, I've found that to be a lame reason.  I've toyed with going back and boxing EQ2 as I really love that game, but the whole character slot issue always grinds me.  If you have 10 or 12 classes you should be able to make at least that many per server.  JMO though.  

You can't really try different servers in EQ2 with the limited character slots.  I've killed off a few that were close to max level, just to try a different class.  I hate that!  I mean EQ2's  PvP is a major commitment and if you don't have the character slots to play . . .  the same goes for the RP servers they sound so interesting, but do you wipe out years of work on characters to start over?  /sigh   I wish Sony would loosen up on that!  I'm seesawing between cancelling my account and up the other two - how is that for split personality - LOL!

Part of my buffet/alt issues (I'm polite I know I have issues!) are - 

• I've really discovered over the past few years of playing MMO's that I like leveling and questing.  I want to read the quest, some have lots of lore or humor.  Just the npc's what they say I find interesting.  Finding those Easter Eggs is a hoot!
• I like crafting (EQ2 trumps WoW, but I can tolerate WoW's as its light years better than Warhammers!) and have tried every profession in every game.  Some I enjoy more than others but all fun.
  
• I love exploring - developers made these huge worlds with all the backstory and lore, yet so many just pass through without even seeing it (or caring I imagine)
  
• I like PvP whether its RvR, world raids or scenario/battlegrounds - I'm not much of a ganker, so unless someone's being a real jerk I tend to live and let live, I don't embrace red is dead.  
  
• I like RPing (in my mind - I'm not sure I can type in the action that I'm thinking I'm doing - if you know what I mean). But creating a personality for that individual character (mine all seem very distinct!) with each's personality reflected in gear, housing, pets, mounts, skills, places to quest, etc.  Why else would a ratonga from Freeport want to live in Qeynos?  Why does my night elf insist on regular vists to Darnassus?  Why is my gnome banker fretting to get back to Ironforge (she's been touring Stormwind, Darnassus and now The Exodar)?  I know weird but so it is.
  

Alts vs Mains

First I hate calling one a 'main' and the rest alts.  Whomever I'm playing at that moment in time is the main.  Whether its a level 2 or 20 or whatever.  It's the focus and the 'main' at that time!

But how do you know you  have too many alts?  When they blur together?  LOL!  When you need a spreadsheet?  When you're playing a character and don't have a clue who it is?  I don't know.  Some people bound to one character and max that one, then start over with another and max it.   I'm too ADD I guess - I jump from a hunter to a mage to a hunter to a lock to  . . .  with relative ease and lots of enjoyment.

But in all honesty I do use a spreadsheet for WoW to keep track of skill levels on crafting, also on the secondary professions - who needs mageweave for bandages and who needs wool.  Who's done cloth turn ins, etc., what spec each is, etc.  Plus the number of hunters I have (it's a closely guarded secret as it's an embarassing number) keeping specs/pets/gear needs straight a spreadsheet is almost mandatory.

In EQ2 there are collection quests, heritage quests, etc., along with crafting and skill levels - so a spreadsheet (okay a few spreadsheets) keeps them in order. 

Warhammer with its (IMO crappy crafting and no housing, etc.) I've never bothered organizing the gang.   

I guess we each have to find our joy and entertainment in the MMO worlds we play in - if you're bored and not having fun time to find that joy again!    This is why I don't condemn anyone for their play style unless they're abusive or nasty!  If you want to sit in Goldshire and b.s. all day or never level past 10 or level to 80 in ten days or less your dime!  Just have fun doing it.  

Me - I'll be running a couple of characters somewhere on Azaroth or Norrath - finding the obscure places for them to visit and taking screenies and just entertaining me!  

More Achievements

Sithi achieved Chef de Partie for having learned 75 recipes.  As her skill is sitting at 365, with many Horde recipes, 21 Outlands recipes and all of Northrend left to learn Sous Chef will be easy!  Alot of work left though to achieve Hail to the Chef.  

As for the Explorer title - one area in Wintersprings then Kalimdor is complete!  Finding The Hidden Grove without cheating in Wintersprings is on the agenda next.  Then on to Outlands.  I'm assuming she's going to be ready to head to Northrend at some point, but she hasn't felt the urge yet for some reason.

The cat lady . . .

I was watching one of the videos over on Project Lore by Dr. Dorkin regarding the achievement for companion pets.  As I've been doing this on a couple of characters, I was reading the comments and had to laugh as one person mentioned the cat lady, Donni Anthania in Elwynn Forest and the fact she was holding a bloody cleaver.  

I hadn't noticed so had to go check it out to see if it was true . . . she is!!!  OMG!!

The mystery is why.  Is it to protect them from the Defias thugs in the area or something more nefarious . . . hmmm