Tastes Like Lint

Fun times, fun times.

2010-05-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Recently, Kate and I have been having some fun doing something revolutionary that we haven't done before, and that only a handful of people do; roleplaying in a roleplaying game.

As many of you know, Kate and I both play World of Warcraft, a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game). A few days ago we created two new characters on a new server (which will remain unnamed, to protect the innocent). We had a grand ole time, actually; relaxed in a nice little bar, met some people and made some friends. Yeah, roleplaying in a roleplaying game; who knew it could be fun?

Seriously though, this is something Kate and I have wanted to do for a long time; we both enjoy RPGs and were both, I think, disappointed at the lack of roleplaying in WoW. Indeed, RP is somewhat looked down on as somewhat stupid by the majority of players. Those are the same people that I would classify under the "twitch-happy spazbot" label and proceed to do my best to avoid. WoW even has specific servers which they designate "roleplaying" servers and even on those ones you still get people who complain about it. I don't understand why people act surprised when they play a RPG and people want to Role Play. Too many people out there just don't think.

Resurrection!

2010-03-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

Much has been happening this past week.

We were getting ready for the arrival of our newest little one, Rosie, when she decided surprise us! With herself! Panic ensued.

But seriously, no, she's here, she's happy to be with us and we're happy to have her with us, too! Here's some pics. First off, me and her in the hospital together; skin-to-skin contact is very important with babies like Rosie that are a little early.

Second, a picture of her looking at us, she has beautiful dark grey eyes, and hair that seems to be more my color of brown than Kate's.

And finally, Rosie in her car seat snuggled in tight (look at those chubby cheeks!) and her favorite toy, Sisseahorse. Kate thought up the name and picked up the toy LONG before Rosie was born, she's been playing it occasionally for Rosie while she was still in her.

So that's the big news from us, we'll keep you updated and make sure to post more frequently now that things are starting to get settled down!

Update on Rosie

2010-02-23T07:54:00.000-08:00

Less than two months left to go, and I can't wait! I want this baby out of me, and I think she wants out, too--she's constantly kicking and punching me, as if to say, "Hey! Let me out! It's getting crowded in here!" (It really is.) I'm looking forward to being able to hold her in my arms... and I suspect I may even sleep better after she's born, given how much her kicks keep me awake.

Yesterday we went for a growth ultrasound and non-stress test--both went very well indeed. Rosie was quiet enough for the ultrasound (though even when she's barely moving the techs always seem to think she's being unusually wriggly) and we got to see a lovely picture of... her foot. She's face-down and kind of squished in there, in the same position as last time (when we also got a nice foot view), so it's likely there will be no more cute pictures until after she's born. We did get to see her exercising her lungs, though, which was quite interesting.

The non-stress test was especially interesting, as it was the first one we'd done, and I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. The rooms they normally use for it were all full, so since the test was done on the Labor & Delivery floor we got to use one of the regular rooms, which was very nice and now I have a better idea of what to expect when Rosie's born. For the test, they had me lie down on the bed and strapped two monitors to my belly, one to listen for the baby's heartbeat, and one to measure any contractions I might have. The test was to last 20 minutes, and they wanted to see two accelerations (Rosie's heart rate going up from her usual 130ish to 150 or so) in that time... I was warned that for some people it could take up to a couple hours to get enough accelerations.

Well, Rosie is not 'some people'! By the end of the 20 minutes, there had been 9 accelerations recorded... and no one was quite sure whether I'd had any mild contractions or not, since she was kicking the monitors the whole time, so hard that we could see them moving up and down. (It didn't help that I was laughing a bit... she's feisty, and very protective of her space it seems.) So, it seems our little girl is doing very well indeed. :)

The mystery of the pancake cookies

2010-02-11T05:42:00.000-08:00

Apparently I'm not the only one who's had problems with the basic cookie recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag--I really should have done my research before I started last night, but I wanted something soft and chewy that would work well with nuts, and I thought that it couldn't get any simpler. Well, I was wrong... I ended up with 32 thin and lumpy chocolate-chip pancakes that refused to come off of the pans (and yes, the recipe does say to use an ungreased baking sheet!) While this could have been averted by not following the recipe (using shortening instead of butter) or simply chilling the dough first, I seem to have come up with a rather unorthodox solution.

You see, I have this pan.

It's a dark pan, so I never ever use it for baking. It has raised edges, making it absolutely wonderful for when I want to bake potato wedges, heat up breakfast sausages and toast, make chicken nuggets, bake ribs, etc. I love this pan.

So last night when I had used the last of my nice light-colored insulated cookie sheets I sighed, got out my favorite pan for the last dozen cookies, and hoped they wouldn't come out too burnt.

They were perfect.

Love conquers all? ;)

"Fast" Food

2010-02-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

I decided to go for a different sort of theme with Jon's lunch today...it didn't turn out quite as I'd hoped (we didn't have any ketchup packets, and I think Jon might have been disappointed at the lack of a cool toy) but for the most part I'm pretty happy with it:

Chicken patty on a bun with lettuce and mayo, another hippo cookie, potato wedges, blood orange slices, green grapes, and cherry tomatoes.

I still feel like I'm over-using the cherry tomatoes, but they're just so handy...and I already had a cup of grapes, it would have looked weird to use those instead. One potato's worth of fries wasn't quite enough to fill to the top of the box, I should have baked another half potato or so, and the blood orange slices ended up not looking too exciting. I still have a couple left, so for next time I will look for ideas to make it really stand out--maybe peeling and segmenting the fruit instead of slicing it?

I'm not sure yet what Jon's lunch is going to look like tomorrow, but I did practice a fun kiwi cut on my lunch today, so that may play a role...maybe some banana, too. Maybe I'll make a big pot of rice tonight to last us the rest of the week in lunches, that keeps things fairly simple!

Bento + Bonus Baby Belly

2010-02-05T12:58:00.000-08:00

I don't always do fancy, pretty lunches for Jon...those are just the ones I like to show off. Here's his lunch for today--much simpler than the other ones I've posted! (It's a little sad that my fridge has better lighting than my kitchen, don't you think?)

Baby carrots, sliced pickle, peach with yogurt and brown sugar, cold cheese sandwich, and a chocolate hippo cookie--simple and super fast, I was done in under 10 minutes. (And yes, that's homemade bread--I love my bread machine!)

Anyway, I have been scolded for not putting up pictures to show just how large I'm getting, so here I am, posing for the camera:

All right, so I'm not really a whale, but I'm certainly starting to feel like one! Even most of my maternity clothes are too small...and the ones that still fit are a little tight. Thank goodness Jon has plenty of comfy shorts and t-shirts for me to borrow!

Here's a real picture of me--my dad sent the awesome shirt, I love it. :D It's only been a week and I already think my belly's gotten bigger...

And here's a bird's-eye view, proving conclusively that I no longer have feet:

I want it to be April already! =p

This is becoming a habit

2010-02-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

but I don't think Jon minds. ;)

Pickle springs (I got the idea while flipping through this book at the mall, though it uses cucumbers), more of that ranch chicken (Jon loves it!), cherry tomatoes, pasta sauce in the heart-shaped container, a big slice of apple, spaghetti, and some little hearts made from mozzarella cheese and red pepper.

I've noticed that a lot of my lunches tend to lean toward a red and white color scheme, when really there should be a bit more variety. I think part of that can be blamed on a lot of my accessories being red, but then again, I do pack Jon an awful lot of tomatoes and apples. I think next time we buy fruits and veggies I'm going to make more of an effort to get some other colors, too--maybe some broccoli, kiwi fruit, and pineapple. I also need to get some sauce containers that aren't red!

More bento fun :)

2010-02-02T14:33:00.001-08:00

Jon's lunch on Friday...after he'd eaten part of it, there were more carrot sticks and cheese pieces to begin with. Bagel quarters with spinach-artichoke cream cheese, heart-shaped carrot sticks, apple heart slices with banana, cherry tomatoes, and heart-shaped cheese pieces. The heart box holds three raspberry Hugs--yum!

I did a lot of things the hard way here. Instead of slicing the apple and then using my large heart cutter, I tried to cut the whole apple at once...it worked, but it took a while. The carrot sticks were also problematic, as the cutter wasn't really the right size anyway, and I should have just used a knife to begin with. The banana and cheese were easy, though I probably should have just had cheese slices to fill the apple instead of using banana, it would have been prettier. Still, Jon liked it, and I got to try out a bunch of my new cutters.

This was Jon's lunch today, his second one in the new box (I really am in love with it). On the left we have rice with flowers made from celery and colored peppers. The brown at the bottom is a soy sauce packet, and makes a pretty good mound of soil--a very nice coincidence! On the right are celery sticks, a flower-shaped cup with peaches (I tried to arrange the slices in a petal pattern), and leftover ranch chicken with a decorative pick. I wish I'd had a flower-themed pick (maybe next time) and I could have added some cherry tomatoes to fill in the gaps a little tighter, but overall I'm thrilled with how it turned out. Definitely my favorite so far!

Pirate Mac 'n' Cheese

2010-01-27T12:13:00.001-08:00

I slept in a little late this morning and had to rush to put Jon's lunch together--I really need to make my carrot sticks ahead of time. He sent this picture from work:

Leftover mac 'n' cheese, some carrot sticks, a clementine, and some cherry cake. The cake is one of the German foods I picked up at World Market, it's kind of dry so I thought it would handle being in a bento pretty well (a lot of things end up soggy). There's way, way too much orange going on here, but I expect that it tasted just fine. :)

This is Jon's new bento box; the hardcover book, while Jon probably did not intend it for this purpose, shows its size pretty well. It was a lot more fun to pack into than a sandwich box, though I do need to get used to it being a little shallower. The decorations are all things I picked up at Michael's: The cheese cutouts were made using mini butterfly and tulip shaped cutters (I need to start keeping some white cheese on hand) and the pirate flag and cupcake paper came as a set.

His & Hers Lunches

2010-01-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

I've been making bento lunches for Jon just about every day, but this Wednesday was the first opportunity I had to make one for myself (it seems a little silly to pack one when I'm not going anywhere, after all). I had a lot of fun putting these together, though I put way, way too much time into getting everything perfect, and it would have been better to make the pancakes ahead of time. The apple bunnies took a while, too, though they turned out pretty cute--it was my first time making them, and I really should have practiced earlier.

Jon's is the larger sandwich box on the top, mine is the little blue one from Dollar Tree. (It has a picture of Bob the Builder on the lid, but it's pretty much the perfect size for me, so I just ignore that.)

Jon's lunch: Rolled omelet, baby carrots, mozzarella and grape tomato mini-kabobs, apple bunnies with sliced apple underneath, pancakes with butter (syrup is in the sauce cup), and a couple peppermints left over from Christmas.

My lunch: Rolled omelet with soy sauce and bacon bits (yummy! Jon wants his this way next time), clementine segments with an apple bunny on top, a baby carrot and one mozzarella and tomato mini-kabob, jam and pancake sandwiches, and a peppermint. I ended up hiding a slice of sharp cheddar under the pancakes to keep them from moving around once I put the lid on.

As for why I needed to pack myself a lunch, Jon's mother and I went up to Portland to visit the Container Store and pick up new lunch boxes for Jon and his dad--here's what we decided on. We also stopped in Keizer on the way back, and I got some mini cookie cutters at Michaels that I think will be fun to use for lunches, along with some cute picks and other goodies. (We also visited the World Market store... Jon was very pleased to discover that I'd picked up a big jar of German pickles for him.) Anyway, it was a fun day, and I can't wait to try out the new lunch supplies I got...it seems like there are only going to be a few things I'll end up buying online, so maybe I'll sneak a few snacks into the order as well. (If I could get it more often, I would have a serious addiction to Pie no Mi.)

I made Jon a bento...

2010-01-05T00:13:00.000-08:00

but he eated it.

Back before I met Jon I became fascinated with bento lunches, ordered a bunch of extremely cute supplies online, and then decided it was far too much work to make cute lunches just for myself. Now that I have a test subject... er, audience... I once again find myself wanting to experiment. Luckily Jon is a good sport about it (or has been so far--he gets to try my first attempt for lunch tomorrow, so we'll see what he thinks after that). The idea of a tasty, attractive boxed lunch is very appealing to me, and I admit that while I've been making sure my darling husband gets a good breakfast and dinner, I've been leaving him to fend for himself on lunches, which means he either comes home hungry or ends up buying lunch at work. If I can get the hang of this, it'll be a great way to use up leftovers, keep Jon fed, and save us what he would have spent on burritos and sandwiches. Besides, it's a great excuse to look at cute bento accessories online (not that I really need an excuse, of course).

My old bento box is just a little bit small for Jon, so for this Lolcat lunch I just used a basic sandwich-sized container. I used lettuce for dividers since I don't have any plastic ones; I have no idea if Jon's going to eat it, but it looks pretty and keeps things neat. I tried to stick with what I know about proper proportions for this kind of lunch--3 parts rice (leftover), 2 parts fruit and vegetable (cucumber, tomato, and carrot mini-skewers with a layer of red grapes underneath), and 1 part meat (leftover meatloaf). Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be 2 parts just vegetables, but given how many carrots this guy eats, I'm not going to stress over it. ;) With the lid on, nothing moves around (except a lone, rebellious grape) so I'm feeling pretty good about the whole lunch.

I wasn't planning on decorating it, but once I'd finished, everything but the veggies did look a little plain. I cut a slice of cheese with some vague notion of adding a bit more color, then realized it was roughly cat-shaped and knew just what I was going to do. :) I managed to get the cat shape and all of the letters out of just one slice of cheese (the paws, for instance, are each half of the triangle from between the ears), the cat's eyes are coriander seeds, and the nose is a carob chip. Pressing the nose into the cheese made it crack, but I covered that up by making a few extra cuts to show whiskers--I'll have to be more careful next time. And there will definitely be a next time, I'm already having fun thinking of what I'll make for Jon's lunch on Wednesday!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

2009-12-10T09:05:00.001-08:00

...I actually know what to do with a kitchen of my own. Also, Christmas, of course. xD

The past few days I've been on kind of a baking kick--here we have the latest results:

On the left, we have a variation on my dad's ohmygoshsoyummy chocolate chip cookies--I think the recipe he sent me called for a little too much molasses, and I only made things worse by melting the butter so I could stir it in more easily. To make up for the horrific gooeyness, I ended up adding a whole extra cup of flour, and then an extra quarter cup of sugar to sweeten it. The end result was a cookie with a much milder flavor and firmer texture than my dad's, but pretty tasty nonetheless. It was also a little less greasy than usual, and I think it will hold up pretty well in Jon's lunch today--we'll have to see. ;)

The chocolate chips were Hershey's Special Dark, and I had trouble not just eating them out of the bag... yummy!

On the right, we have the remains of a small batch of cornbread muffins I made to go with dinner last night--I had a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix sitting around, so I used that, but I added an extra quarter cup of sugar to get the sweet crust on top (noticing a trend here? hehe) and followed the suggestion on the box to let them sit for four minutes so the muffins would puff up nicely. I think they turned out pretty well--they were sweet enough that we skipped the honey and just put butter on them.

As for Christmas-y stuff, here's a picture of our tree. It's the same artificial we used last year, minus about half the ornaments so it doesn't look quite as overloaded, and I found a tree topper that doesn't make it bend over! It's an oven mitt type thing shaped like a gingerbread girl, which I think goes pretty well with our "peppermint" theme.

I can't wait til Jon's mother gets back from Utah, I have a feeling baking cookies with her is going to be really fun this year. :)

Allods online, a new world!

2009-12-10T00:50:00.000-08:00

I take it upon myself to write this post, as every time Kate tried to she'd log on to get a nice screenshot and realize there was a quest or two nearby she wanted to do, and five or six quests later just shrug and forget about the blog post.

The TL:DR version; play the game already, geez.

So, here we are. To give you an idea of how the game looks, here are a few screenshots.

The top picture is of the Empire Capital, the character in the foreground is an Arisen Savant. Cyborg undead. Coolest. Thing. Ever. When you use the /sleep emote on an Arisen character, they get a pneumatic, powered coffin that closes around them. Everybody else just lays down. I have provided a picture of Isyris, Kate's Arisen Heretic, inside her coffin, down below.

It's a Russian game, here is a picture of some of the Russian that appears, as it's still in closed beta they probably haven't translated everything perfectly over yet.

This picture here is of the League starting area, an island you are transported to after a demonic attack on the magic tower where you start the game. It's quite idyllic, actually, except for the shipwrecks of mutineers and necromancers.

This shot is as you are being transported off the island, rescued from marooning, really, the elf in the picture is Kate's Elven Priest, by the name of Rue. And below Rue are my three little Gibberling Seers (from bottom to top) Viskar, Suzie and Hobbes, shaking their stuff with a /flex emote.

So, the pictures are to capture some interest in the game visually, now I'll discuss how it plays. Quite well, actually. It's easy to transition from WoW to this game as there are similarities in the interface; many emotes are the same, key bindings, menu layouts are similar in many ways.

The gameplay is smooth and less fast-paced and intense than WoW; there are some bugs in the system, but once again, a game that's in closed beta is that way for a reason.

Kate and I both like it because it integrates things we like in World of Warcraft, namely ease of communication with fellow characters, and an emphasis on party and group dynamics while still allowing a character alone to accomplish things, but it also has some things in it that WoW lacks, like a more relaxed battle system and more customizability in characters (the creation options are much more varied than WoW).

We recommend this game for people who are looking to get into online gaming, as it's got a nice solo introduction into the game but leaves you feeling like you are accomplishing something with every quest. In WoW, the quest to kill 10 boars in the beginning is basically "because there's too many of them," while in Allods the quest to kill 10 rats for the Empire is so that you can test the effect of the stress that battle has to find out why you weren't ripped to shreds by a teleporter.

Oh yes, did I forget to mention that? The storytelling in allods is actually quite impeccable, they put emotion and feeling into the quests by giving each non-player character (NPC) personality and interesting dialogue. A quest that comes easily to mind is a quest in which an innkeeper's husband has died and she asks you to talk to potential suitors to see if they are interested. Instead of going the grieving widow route, the game takes the route of "okay, who can I get hitched to that'll be good for the inn." She's looking for a sugar daddy, and many of the "potential suitors" respond in ways ranging from mild disgust to amusement.

So in conclusion, download the game and play it if you can, for heaven's sakes, and if you wanna find out how to download it, ask Kate or I, the thing's gonna be free to play anyway.
Here's a link to the website to get a beta key: Allods Online w/the Zam Network

The Proud Family Tradition Continues!

2009-11-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

The moment of truth arrived today, in a cold dark room in the Salem Hospital. An old Finnish woman waved her magic scepter about, and wondrous pictures appeared on a screen.

The picture up above is the one that shows us what gender the baby is. For those of you who do not know how to read Ultrasounds or know what to look for, It's a Girl! That's right, the Guppy's now going to be Gerda Rose (but you can all call her Rosie). Here's another good picture, this one showing the head at the right, and a good view of the ribcage and torso.

We're very much looking forward to our new baby, Kate and I.

Happy Halloween (from the three of us!)

2009-10-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

Our WoW-time hasn't been so much busy as boring lately--we haven't even been playing much, though we at least got the in-game Halloween stuff done. That Troll of mine is level 80 and re-named (finally!), Jon's been working on leveling a Troll Shaman (hmm, I sense a theme here), and we've been missing most of the guild's raids in order to spend more time together and with family in real life.

After all, real life is where the real excitement is right now: I felt the baby move for the first time yesterday!

I was lying on my back after taking a nap, I woke up with a funny feeling in my belly and wondered if I would be able to feel the baby (I'd been trying for a couple weeks, but the little one was still, well, little) so I put my hands down there for a minute, and tried to get a feel for anything that wasn't just my own pulse. I held very still, and I did feel something, a gentle little bump against my hand and a light fluttery feeling on the inside! I felt the same thing a couple other times, and a few times without my hand over the exact spot, but I still wasn't totally convinced. After all, I'd been wanting to feel the baby move for a while now, I could be just imagining it. I texted Jon at work that I thought I'd felt the baby move, then called my mom for her advice. (She'd never felt the baby as early as 16 weeks, though, so that just made me more confused. :P)

This afternoon, though, I felt the bumping again...and I guess the baby was getting a little antsy and feeling like I was ignoring him/her, because it was even stronger and there was definitely no mistaking it this time! I already knew I had a wiggly little guy in there, I guess now he/she is letting me know that they want to play soccer when they get a little older? ;)

And speaking of he-or-she, only a little while now until we know for sure...hopefully. We've got an ultrasound scheduled for Monday morning, and either Jon or I will be posting the new pictures and letting you guys know when we know for sure--so if you want to make a prediction, now's the time!

I know Katie thinks it's a boy from the craving I've had for steak, and Jon's mom thinks so too (though I can't remember what her reason was). Naajaku from our guild asked about spicy foods (Thai yes, Mexican no) and then proclaimed it to be a boy as well.

No one's predicted a girl yet, but there's evidence on that side, too--I was apparently just as squirmy when my mom was pregnant with me (though I certainly didn't kick so hard), and not only are the oldest kids in Jon and my families female, all of his siblings that have had kids so far had girls first.

What do you think it will be? Vote in the poll on the right if you want to guess, and let me know why you think so in the comments! :D

Five things I love today!

2009-10-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

5. "Kid food." I'm not sure how to describe this other than as that category of foods that even a picky third-grader will be happy to eat. PB&J sandwiches, carrot sticks, apples, cheese sticks, strawberry-kiwi juice, and cold cereal. I went really nuts with the sandwiches (like I said in the comments on my last post) and we're out of bread now. T_T

4. This seahorse plushie toy. It's just adorable! Someone on the What To Expect message boards had a picture of one in her signature, and when I found it at the store it was just as cute in person. Actually, I'm more in love with the pink version, so I'm waiting until we find out the baby's gender to pick one up. And if it's a girl, I found this pink seahorse bedding while trying to find a picture. Hmm... ;)

3. The ladies on the What To Expect message board for April 2010. It's so nice to be able to talk to women who are going through the same part of pregnancy that I am, and they're all super-friendly and nice. I think most of us are past the panicking every other minute stage, so it's fairly relaxing now, too.

2. Cute maternity clothes. I've been checking out a bunch online and I'm feeling a bit more positive about when I'll eventually have to switch over from my normal clothes. (I'm not showing quite yet.) Also this seems like it will be very useful. I'm actually a little bit excited for maternity wear now that I know I won't be a shapeless blob hiding in my apartment all day. (I'll be a shapely blob hiding in my apartment all day. I want my energy back!)

1. My wonderful husband, of course! Jon still thinks I'm beautiful no matter how ugly and bloated and queasy I feel, he's patient with me even if I don't have the energy to get out of bed until lunchtime and end up making mac 'n' cheese for dinner again, and he loves me even when I get one of my crazy mood swings and snap at him for no reason. He's just as excited about the little one as I am, and already talks to it sometimes (though I'm pretty sure that at 13wks he/she is still too young to pay much attention). I love this man so much!

Well, good.

2009-10-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

The Guppy is happy, healthy, and a little squirmy. (He/she even waved at us for the ultrasound!) Made the doctors work to get the view they wanted. Here are some of the more choice pictures.

The first one, I think, makes the Guppy look like Skeletor:

The second picture is a nice cute profile view that affords an excellent view of the Guppy's brain and spine. This is the view they were trying to get--it took nearly an hour until the baby squirmed into the right position. Looks good to me!

The third picture, near as we can tell, is an overhead shot. Maybe? I don't know, but once again, a good view of the Guppy. Some of the other pictures that weren't printed out had good shots of the arms, legs, etc so we know that the Guppy is well-formed.

What a night!

2009-10-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

Tuesdays are raid nights, specifically 25-mans. I've been really pumped for raiding this week, since thanks to an enchanter guildie coming along for several runs of regular Trial of the Champion, I finally have my pretty, pretty axe enchanted with Berserking. (Yay!)

Anyway, it was a pretty crazy night. We started out with Onyxia, nearly wiped when about a third of the raid got DC'd by whelps and hit by Deep Breath (I think that's her special combo attack), and somehow managed to one-shot her anyway. Jon ended up tanking in phase three after Ony tore through the rest of the tanks (he was assigned to whelps, but luckily we didn't get any after she landed) while I switched over to using my Maelstrom Weapon procs for Chain Heals and doing as much damage as I could at the same time. It was crazy, fun, and I did die twice, but it was totally worth it to see the look on Jon's face when the Sharpened Obsidian Edged Blade dropped. He's been crazy about that model since forever, he says, and it was a huge improvement over his current weapon. He was a little nervous (running-into-walls panicky) because one of the newer raiders had higher loot priority, but it turned out the guy didn't have the minimum EP required to roll on loot, and so Jon won the sword and had it enchanted almost immediately. Grats!

25-man ToC was next, and since we had a few people who hadn't been in there before, it did take a couple wipes before we got the Beasts encounter down. (I love that Icehowl is skinnable!) The rest of the raid was much smoother--we one-shotted Jaraxxus and I got to upgrade my necklace to a shiny new ilevel 245 one with no yucky Armor Penetration on it. (Of course, I spent most of that fight face-down on the floor with the rogues, as someone didn't think to move his Legion Flames away from us.) Faction Champions we also got down in one attempt, though a very long one (time for two Bloodlusts /shame), and Twin Val'kyr took two. Anub'arak we one-shotted, and a couple mail pieces dropped--a sidegrade belt that I passed on, and some sexy pants with Armor Penetration. I did think about rolling on them (I still had high priority since the necklace was cheap) but we had a couple Hunters in the raid, and there's got to be someone similar without the ArPen for me, right?

We finished up with VoA, and there's not much to say about that, except...

WHEEEEE!

It dropped off Koralon, and somehow I rolled 100 (which has happened maybe once before in my entire time of playing WoW) and no one else did even though I was sure they would and I had my fingers crossed under the desk and I won it!

The raid leader offered to buy it from me, but by that point I'd already used it and was babbling excitedly to Jon about how I'd always wanted a passenger mount and how I couldn't wait to get outside and use it. I'll admit that the rest of the raid was kind of a blur...

(I wouldn't have sold it anyway, though. I've seen the mount drop only twice, and there's no way I'd ever win it again. You just can't give up that kind of opportunity, and besides, now I can give my friends' lowbie toons rides when I run them through stuff!)

I also managed to finally get up to Revered with the Knights of the Ebon Blade (though that wasn't a raid drop, so it doesn't quite fit this post) before crawling into bed and falling asleep. It was a good night. :D

Turtle Sunday

2009-09-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

If I could, I'd tame a Druid. Not just because it would be really, really awesome--I'd want a pet Druid because at least he'd be able to tank.

Hawrt is only two levels below me, but can't tank at all. I had a black raptor to match my mount, and he didn't do much better. Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem, but I've been a bit spoiled in the past--both of my level 80 toons quested with Jon's tanks, and I've gotten used to being able to take on any quest mob I run into, elites included. Schen has been leveling up with Jon's Warlock, though, and it makes me feel very, very squishy.

So, Sunday afternoon after the two of us had barely managed to take down Ragemane, my Troll set off on a quest to find a new pet--one who could tank.

Petopia was my starting point, of course, and I settled on a rare bear named Ursol'lok because the name caught my eye. When I got to Ashenvale he was nowhere to be found, though, and I was getting impatient. I wanted to get back to questing so I could hit 75 and go do the Brewfest boss. I was about to give up and tame a normal, boring bear when I remembered that BFD wasn't too far away. Maybe a turtle or a crab would be a better choice... after all, I'd heard good things about Shell Shield.

Ten minutes later I had a shiny new green turtle named Desdemona.

I've specced her for heavy tanking--the next couple points I get will go into Pet Barding and Taunt--at the expense of any damage-increasing talents. I'm hoping that Misdirect and her Growl will be enough to keep threat, and I don't plan on using her in any AoE situations so Thunderstomp shouldn't be needed. So far I've only needed her for normal questing, and she certainly has not been taking much damage, so I'm feeling optimistic. I'm excited to see how she does against elites.

Meanwhile, she's been growing on me. I didn't expect to like a turtle--they're big and clunky and ugly, and my ideal Tenacity pet is still my Night Elf's ghost hydra--but she's got personality. Maybe it's just the ridiculous name. Whatever it is, I did something I've never tried before and spent about an hour yesterday customizing her emotes with the PetEmote Editor, since the default options didn't really do her justice.

I may be a little crazy, but at least I'm having fun! :)

To The Asshat Outside My Window:

2009-09-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

Yep, you woke me up. Kudos, I guess. Check that one off on your Dickwad Bingo card.

It's all right though, I understand. It's hard to find something interesting to do at three in the morning. It's not as if the liquor store across the street is open all night, or there's a Denny's in the area. And don't worry, I know sleep isn't even an option--with your IQ, you'd probably just choke to death on your own drool. I totally get why you'd feel the need to hang out under my window shouting profanities at your buddy for nearly an hour, then amuse yourself by trying to wake up "the people in the apartment with the window cracked open, lolz." I even get why your friend sticks around with you, drunk, pill-popping, maggot-brained delinquent though you are: Huge asshole, big mouth... Let's just say I'd be careful about what I drink if I were you.

No, I didn't call the cops. I'm the understanding sort, remember? You would have just run away into the bushes like the scared little rabbit you are, anyway. I'd run too if I'd been stealing and ingesting my mom's hormone supplements. No, instead I lay there and attempted to get on with the sort of things that I like to do at three in the morning: Sleep, not have a headache, etc. Obviously my attempts failed, probably because I'm not quite such a determined and charismatic individual as you. It might have worked better if I had attempted to inflict my sleeping upon the whole neighborhood, but I digress.

Instead of sleeping, I decided to be productive, and come up with something fun I could do to while away the long minutes next time you and your special friend decided to visit. I scratched my head, and I stretched my toes, and I came up with a lot of really fun ideas! Unfortunately, there would probably be legal consequences for offering free, laxative-laced cookies or installing a giant live-capture trap, so I was forced to examine options further down my list. I was planning on going with a giant print of goatse, lit up in my window for all to see, but then I remembered that my husband has a very delicate disposition, so that idea had to go. Besides, I wouldn't want you vomiting on the sidewalk (any more than you already have, at least). After much thought, I finally settled upon a solution I'm sure you will agree is classy, charming, and quite agreeable (much like yourself).

This morning, soon as the sun rises, I shall be paying a visit to the local Goodwill. Specifically, I will be looking for the largest speakers they have (though of course I won't purchase anything under three feet tall, so I may have to turn to Craigslist).

I will install them facing my window. I will wait. I will be ready.

You will come, I know you will. You will be loud, boorish, and utterly obnoxious.

And then, my fine young man-child, I will introduce you to my good friend Mr. Astley.

No new news.

2009-09-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

Yay! We just got back from the doctor's office, and the Guppy's heartbeat sounds good and strong! There was even a little market there where we got some excellent plums and cherry tomatoes afterward, so I got to see a big, happy smile on Kate's face all the way home.

It's been a good day today. In WoW news, nothing too exciting, the guild seems to be caught up on General Vezax in Ulduar, although 10-man Trial of the Crusader we've gotten cleared through. Maybe someday I'll even get a new shiny pair of boots.

I've been playing some other games, too, most notably one called "League of Legends." This one's still in the Beta process (ooh, my first closed beta!) It's just recently been ... well, I can talk about it now without the thugs coming to break my kneecaps. It's based on the Warcraft III Defense of the Ancients map type, one that's been very popular, and I've even had fun playing it before now. The heroes all look very fun, with unique characterization, looks, skills and voices; the only catch, oddly enough, is that it's an online game.

Most of the appeal with online is playing with friends. Random people online are rude, inconsiderate, unintelligent and often unskilled. This comes from around 12 years of experience playing online games (remember, just because someone is up to Jedi rank in X-Wing vs TIE Fighter doesn't mean they can play like a Jedi.)

That's all I wanna say for right now, maybe next time I'll tell you about my first impressions of Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.

One Night In Ulduar

2009-09-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

One night in Ulduar makes a Shaman humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Ulduar and the melee tumbles
Can't be too careful with your company
XT dropped a Gravity Bomb next to me

"Kate, wake up!"

"Mmph...g'way...Nesingwary Moon Laser...grmph."

"We're doing Ulduar and we need you to come DPS. Wake UP!"

"Gimme back my blankets!"

"No. Now get up and go get a drink while I log you in."

Grumble, grumble. "Fine. Hate you."

"Okay, the computer's ready. Just hop on vent and let them know you're logged in."

Stare blankly at screen.

"Guys, Tana's on, go ahead and invite her!"

Minutes pass.

"Tana, are you going to log on?"

"'m logged on 'ready."

"That's funny, I don't see you online..."

Mumble.

"What was that?"

MUMBLE.

"What do you mean you're not in the guild??"

Grumble. Accept guild invite. Accept raid invite. Accept summon.

"Okay, now the first boss is Flame Leviathan. Everyone knows this fight, so we're going to be trying it with four towers up. Demolishers tanks choppers cannon pyrite Leviathan BOOM!"

Confusion.

"Uh, guys, she hasn't done this fight before."

"Just have her get in your siege engine and shoot stuff."

Okay, shooting stuff I can handle.

"Autobots, transform and roll out!"

...

We're all gonna die.

-------------------------------

I should probably take this opportunity to confess: I consider myself a raider, if not especially hardcore, but until last night I had seen the inside of Ulduar once. It was on my Hunter, back before bombs were nerfed so they wouldn't go off during XT-002's Tympanic Tantrum, and it was a miserable wipe-fest. I was brought in because it was a pure melee group, then kicked because I couldn't solo all of the adds before they reached the boss.

I cleared 10-man ToC with Jon's guild before setting foot in Ulduar again. Yes, I skipped an entire tier of raiding.

Last night was a great opportunity to get caught up, and I had a blast:

Flame Leviathan was much more fun that I expected from the whiny descriptions I'd heard in Trade Chat right after Ulduar was released. I got to ride up top in the gunner's turret of the siege engine Jon was piloting, and since my biggest complaint about vehicle combat is the steering, I really enjoyed myself. I'm a Hunter, I shoot things. Okay, so I was actually on my Shaman, but I had fun, darnit. We ended up going for two towers instead of four, but it was still fun.

Next up was XT-002 Deconstructor, my old nemesis. He was surprisingly weak compared to what I remembered, and no one died to bombs. We didn't quite have the DPS to try for hardmode, but I'm not complaining.

Razorscale was fun in a crazy sort of way. I was told to focus on the "big shirtless dudes" and had a bit of trouble figuring out which dwarves had shirts on and which ones didn't. They're made of metal, it's tricky! I cheated and spent my time interrupting the casters instead. <.<

--This is the part where Blogger ate half of my post so the next couple boss descriptions are going to be short cause I don't want to write everything out again.--

Ignis was a big pair of feet with fire everywhere. He didn't seem too complicated, but he picked me up and killed me so I guess it's a hard fight after all. I couldn't even use my healthstone. :(

Assembly of Iron (which I shall refer to as the Three Bears) we tried first on medium-hard mode, which did not go well, and then normal mode, which we somehow survived. Baby Bear turned into a GIANT LIGHTNING SPIDER at the end. 0_o

I was a little behind the rest of the raid when we got to Kologarn, so I didn't get to see him do his pop-up book thing but that was okay because the fight was so FUN! As melee I didn't get to see much of the eye lasers I was warned about, and I didn't have to do anything about the crazy packs of adds, either--all I had to do was beat on his arm til it broke off, then hit him in the stomach for a while until he decided he'd had enough of that and grew his arm back, and then it was back to the arm again. The really fun part was that he and his arm had low enough health that I felt like I was actually making a difference, unlike certain bosses that just take FOREVER to die *cough*Anub'arak*cough*. About halfway through, Jon told me to start using Chain Lightning instead of Lightning Bolt, and thanks to that and the efforts of one of our DPS DKs we killed both arms and the body all at the same time and got a nifty achievement!

Auriaya was a little disappointing after all I'd heard about the crazy cat lady--the pouncing kitties didn't seem to cause much trouble at all. We just stacked up in a corner and went wild. The trash leading up to her made up for it, though--basically you play monkey in the middle with big balls of lightning. It's been a long time since trash was fun, and I really enjoyed it.

Hodir was the first of the "big" bosses we did, and he totally beats out Kologarn as my new favorite fight. We wiped on our first attempt--a bunch of people got frozen--but I at least got a nifty achievement for picking up all of the buffs at once. We downed him on our second try, and it was just crazy. I love fights where the positioning really matters, had a ton of fun running in and out and around trying to stand in the spotlights and on the ice and avoid the glowy blue circles. Near the end, I somehow got aggro--scary scary! I held out for a couple seconds, popped my wolves' Twin Howl to taunt him off of me, got him back on me as soon as it wore off, and then the tanks got him off of me and we killed him. It should have been embarrassing, but it felt pretty awesome. I was all RAWR I ARE SHAMAN TANK. :D

Thorim was our last boss of the evening (though I could have kept going much longer), and also pretty fun. It took us a few tries--the arena group was having a lot of trouble and they ended up with six people while the other four of us took the stairs--but we finally got to the part where we could fight the boss. The gauntlet was super fun, especially once I got the hang of the giant fireballs, but Thorim himself was kind of boring. The zappy feet were just confusing, and he didn't seem to have any fun mechanics like Hodir. (And the IN THE MOUNTAINS line was not nearly as epic as I had been lead to believe. They should have had Mr. Smite do his voice!)

Anyway, that's probably as far as I'll get this week--tonight Jon and I are going over to his parents' house to have dinner with the family in celebration of ~~them finally getting rid of his little brother~~ Brian leaving for college (Gratz Bri! :D) and while I'm sure the guild will finish up the rest of Ulduar while we're gone, family stuff comes first.

Shaman goes ARGLEBLARGLEBLARGH!

2009-09-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

/flex

Things have been going quite a bit better since my last post--Tana is now kitted out in almost full epics (still got a blue ring and trinket in there, but the Meteorite Whetstone is darned sexy), I've been doing 2.5k and up pretty consistently depending on the fight, and I went and bought a helm enchant from the Wintergrasp vendor so I don't feel quite so silly anymore. I've run Vault of Archavon on 25-man, including the new boss (I hate Koralon so much), and was alive when each of the bosses went down. People who died halfway through tried complaining about not getting Bloodlust, and I was able to point out that I was still sated, and so would they be if they didn't suck at not standing in the fire. I mean, I'd never done Kory before, and even I figured it out after our first five wipes. Not that hard.

(Yes, I refer to bosses by cutesy nicknames. I can't imagine how this could possibly come as a surprise to anyone.)

Anyway, while I had trouble breaking 2.5k DPS in there, the fights were rough on melee, and I know that I was doing my best simply because I didn't die and made sure the melee were covered by my totems at all times. I even won some nifty new pants--Elemental stuff, but as the only Shaman remaining, I got them by default, and they're going into my rather minimal healing set for emergencies.

Naxx 10-man was a lot better--I was breaking 3k on some bosses, top 3 for DPS on some of them too--though unfortunately we never made it to Patchwerk so I couldn't get a really fair estimate of my real raid DPS. I still had fun, though, and if the main group hadn't failed so hard at switching on Four Horsemen I would have been able to call myself a real Shaman tank: I was assigned to the back of the room (as Resto of course) and did a pretty good job if I do say so myself. We wiped repeatedly because the front group refused to switch bosses when the tanks did, though, getting up to about 8-9 stacks before dying. We ended up just calling it a night after the third attempt since no one was really awake enough to focus. I'm hoping I get another chance at shammytanking next time, though!

So, now that I'm feeling a bit more positive, here's what I'm looking at:

1. I need a new weapon. Yes, skill > weapon damage (I watched another Enhancement Shaman with Angry Dread barely manage 1.7k DPS--if you're not going to use it, give it to me! <.<) but I feel like I'm reaching the limits of what I can do with Greed and Pride. Besides, I want to replace my weapon chains with Accuracy, and if I'm going to shell out the gold for that, I'd prefer it to be on something that's a little higher quality.

2. I need rep. I was originally going to go Resto at 80, so I'm Exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord, but I never bothered to get my KotEB rep up past Neutral. I've been Enhancement long enough that there's not really any excuse for me not having ground it up to Revered yet--sometime this week I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go do the opener quests.

I'm going to start in Zul'Drak, though, so I can pick up a few stacks of Bitter Plasma for any healers who don't bother to bring drinks and then beg for water. Yummy!

I also need to get my Sons of Hodir reputation up. I'm doing a bit better on that, though, as I'm already nearly to Revered. I killed the Wild Wyrm on my own for the first time today, hooray!

3. Enchants. I've got almost everything covered already, but my cloak and chest still need to get zapped. I just keep forgetting. >.<

4. I want to see if I can tweak my spec to pick up Earthen Power, maybe even just one point. I've been in a few situations, not just PvP, where I could definitely see it being useful. For that matter, my Enhancement spec could probably use a bit of fine-tuning in general--it hasn't changed since I was leveling. I just hope I don't end up having to give up instant Ghost Wolf!

It's a Guppy!

2009-09-05T21:34:00.000-07:00

About a month ago we discovered that we are going to have a baby! Kate and I were very excited, but also a little scared and nervous. We made an appointment with a doctor as soon as we could, much thanks to the Salem hospital, btw for sneaking us in and also pushing our appointment back from 8:15 to 1:15 when we asked nicely.

The doctor had good news for us and some good pictures, too, so here they are.

Here's the first picture; the darker area is the womb, and the smaller blotch inside it is the baby.

This second picture is from another angle (the CRL1 and CRL2 at the right of the screen are the measurements of our little one), so far about 16 mm long. From this the doctor deduced that she is about 8 weeks pregnant.

OK, OK, I'll stop now; we wanted lots of pictures, so sue us! But we're very excited, and not at all willing to discuss names until we can at least deduce the gender.

(Note from Kate: It's not going to be named Aragorn, Link, or Samus. We promise.)

Grumpity grump grump.

2009-09-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to enjoy my Shaman.

Jon wanted to transfer his pally to Ursin, and I insisted my shammy not be left behind, so I only have myself to blame for it. I feel as if I have to play her more to justify going to the trouble of transferring her.

(Really I just think they're a cute couple and didn't want to split them up.)

It seems like no matter how hard I try, I have trouble breaking 2k DPS. With the number of AoE pulls in Northrend dungeons, its understandable that I lag a bit behind, especially given my gear. I mean, I got my first Emblem of Conquest last night. I still have a green necklace. My gear sucks.

But I think I must suck too. I've seen Enhancement shamans pulling off crazy high DPS. I may just need to use my cooldowns more, and melee positioning is hard so maybe that's the problem (though I don't die, and I have plenty of expertise). I'm pretty sure it just comes down to skill, which I don't have.

I don't even have crazy awesome luck to make up for it, though, like the BM hunter I did yesterday's daily Heroic with. Couldn't break 1k DPS (including pet) to save his life, was not in Viper, and basically had no excuse to fail as hard as he did. He made my barely-2k DPS look good... while the 5k DPS Elemental shaman sat in the back and laughed her tusks off at both of us.

He had Skoll, of course.

Life is horribly, horribly unfair. :(

Raiding with Diabetes

2009-08-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

Putting on my serious hat for a little bit (the one with all the ruffles) so I can talk about something important to me.

I have type 1 diabetes--it seems to run in the family. I've made no secret of this to the folks I play with, though it's not the greatest conversation starter. "So, hey, I like to stab myself with needles." Yeah... nope. But because I like to raid, it's important for me to get the information out there. Why?

Most people know about the needles thing (or about insulin pumps), but they know a bit less about diabetes in general, including the effects of an overly high or low blood sugar. It can be a little tricky to manage at the best of times, and since many guilds raid right around dinner time, that's a less than ideal situation. I need to be sure that I will have the support I need if I encounter something I didn't expect in my blood sugar levels, so that I can get up and deal with it immediately.

Raid Times:
Raid time overlapping with dinnertime is the least serious of my concerns, but can still be a problem. I take two kinds of insulin--one that lasts 24 hours and keeps my between-meals blood sugar steady, and one that kicks in very quickly after I eat. If I'm snacking during a raid, it's hard to keep track of how much short-term insulin I need to take, and if I get really distracted, I've been know to forget altogether. Not good! On the other hand, taking half an hour out to cook and eat a full meal isn't really an option, either.

My raid-night solution is to make dinner something that pretty much cooks itself, or takes very little time. I'm not much of a sandwich eater, but bagels and cream cheese with some carrot sticks are always good, as are basic nachos. My favorite is tossing some pasta in to cook with a can of soup--mmm! I also make an effort to estimate how much I'm going to be eating, and take my insulin before I get started. This lets me eat a set amount while I raid (unlike snacking where I don't keep track at all), and helps cut down on the chance of my blood sugar being too high or too low later on in the evening.

High Blood Sugar:
High blood sugar is my second worry. While in the short term it's not too dangerous, it can have long-term consequences as the high sugar levels can be very damaging over time. The solution is easy--take more insulin--but noticing the problem is a bit trickier. Things that I watch out for include headaches, irritability, and drowsiness... if I feel like crap and I know it's not low blood sugar (which has its own set of symptoms), I check my blood sugar. If it's from 150-200, I may wait a few minutes and test again to see if it's going down--if it's over 200, I make an effort to bring my sugar down to normal as quickly as possibly. It's no fun to raid with a crabby Hunter, after all. ;)

Low Blood Sugar:
Low blood sugar is the most immediately dangerous situation, and definitely the least pleasant. I've heard different levels for determining a "low"--anywhere from 70-60 and below--but for me, symptoms start if my blood sugar drops below 80, so that's when I start to treat it as a low. When my blood sugar is low, I may get grumpy and confused. My fingers just don't work right, and I shake all over. Sometimes my speech is slurred or I don't make any sense. I've never passed out, but that's also a risk of low blood sugar.

If my blood sugar drops below normal levels in a raid, there's a chance I may not notice right away--the excitement of downing a boss can cover up the shaking, and playing a Hunter doesn't require too much concentration (just kidding!) While I'm always the best person to catch myself acting odd and check my blood sugar, I also rely somewhat on the other folks on vent to tell me if I'm being a bit weirder than usual. I'd rather waste a test strip than put myself in danger, and chances are that if I'm acting "drunk" it's because my blood sugar is low. (I don't drink at all, both for religious reasons and because I'm a year too young anyway.)

Once I know my blood sugar is low, I have to bring it back up quickly. Glucose tablets (think giant Smarties of the American variety) are the best immediate solution as they are processed extremely quickly. I try to keep a roll of them by my computer, but if they've been moved (like if I had a low blood sugar incident during the night and Jon brought them to me in the bedroom) or if I've run out, I need to be able to get up from the raid and deal with the problem immediately. Letting my guildies and the raid leader know ahead of time that I am diabetic is what makes this possible--I still try not to go AFK without a fair amount of warning, but knowing that there won't be negative consequences when I need to deal with an emergency is a huge boost to my confidence.

Raid Leaders:
There are several major things that raid leaders have done to make raiding easier for me, especially as a diabetic:

Trust. I trust my raid leaders enough to let them know I have a problem that might come up during raids, and they trust me to deal with it and not be a disruption. They know that I don't like messing up a raid any more than they do, and that this isn't something I do for fun or attention.

Concern. A lot of guild and raid leaders get to know their guildies very well over vent, which means that if someone is acting odd or out of character, they notice. I've had people tell me I was acting weird before I felt a thing--and sure enough, my blood sugar was not where it was supposed to be.

Pacing. A raid where we get no breaks at all is one where I'm most likely to have trouble. Just a five-minute break after every other wing of Naxx can make a difference by giving me time to check my blood sugar and grab some food if it seems it might be getting low--not to mention that giving the raid a bathroom break definitely improves focus.

Understanding. The best raid leader is the one that knows his or her group well enough to recognize their unique needs. He understands that the Warlock is in school right now and shouldn't raid past 9 PM, that the pregnant Priest is going to be making frequent trips to the ladies' room, and that a certain Hunter is completely worn out and just glad to be alive, and should probably take the rest of the night off (whether she wants to or not).

I owe many hugs, thanks, and (imaginary) cookies to the raid leaders who've put up with me for the past year. Just one grump could have put the word out that I was a sloppy Hunter who liked to go AFK during boss fights, and there would have been just enough truth in it to make sure I never raided again. Instead, they were supportive and understanding, put up with the frustration I caused, and have made raiding one of my favorite things to do in WoW. To any of my past raid leaders reading this: You guys rock! Well, except for whoever thought it would be funny to have me pull The Beast in UBRS...that was kind of mean. xD

*bigsquishyhunterhugs*

-----

For more information on diabetes, this website is pretty much my favorite--if you're interested in what exactly happens with low blood sugar, their hypoglycemia page is great.

I won't link to the American Diabetes Association (they've harassed me asking for donations in the past) but for something a little less information-dense their website might be good as well.

Work complete!

2009-08-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

Turned in the final quest at 3:04 AM server time. Woot!

Blizzcon is over, and what I saw during the stream has me very excited indeed...I can't wait to be able to use Minloth again, so hopefully they'll decide they don't mind hunters choosing their pets' talent trees like they said they might. Hunter mana change is exciting as well--I wish I knew more about how they plan to make focus regen work, though!

Jon starts his new work schedule this Tuesday. Will we raid again? We'll have to wait and see...

For now, we just get to relax. :)

There's Some Lint In My Bellybutton

2009-08-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

Warning! Long, navel-gazing post to follow. tl;dr version: Kate loves roleplaying, roleplaying on a Normal server is not fun, planning to transfer to an RP server.

I had my first introduction to organized roleplaying while visiting my grandparents in Utah. Sure, I'd done the usual "playing house" before, and my friends and I loved to get together to act out scenes from Star Wars (I was always Chewbacca), but this was Dungeons and Dragons. This was real.

The game was run by my cousin Danny, and players included his brothers, his fiancee, and me. We tried to get one of my brothers to play as well, but it ended in him being turned into a chicken and forbidden to play with us anymore. My character was an Elven thief named Kestrel. She had silver hair, hazel eyes, and the amazing Dexterity score of 15. I had no idea how to play (I think we might have been playing a very early edition going by what I remember of the setup) but I loved every minute of it, and I squealed loud enough to wake the dead when Michelle drew a picture of my little elf for me. This roleplaying thing was so cool!

Eventually we had to go home, and I promptly forgot all about it. I would occasionally rediscover my character sheet and picture, folded up and lovingly tucked away in a free AOL tin---I'd unfold it, sigh happily, then put it away again after promising myself to try that again someday.

That day came when I discovered D.A.B., a roleplaying site based around one of my favorite book series. It was linked to from the official Redwall website, and I was immediately intrigued. Earning points and competing with other people from other places, on the computer? And making up my favorite kind of stories? I begged my parents to let me join, and eventually they agreed. My first character, Daffnee, almost immediately managed to get on the wrong side of one of the site's leaders, so I scrapped that idea and went for another: Amber Merida, a Good Wildcat. When I grew tired of roleplaying her as a child, I switched over to the more grown-up Lancepaw's Fort, and kept on going.

Realizing instinctively that going for one of the least common villain races in the books and making it a good character to boot could easily lead to Bad Roleplaying, I made an effort to give her various flaws--she was a skilled fighter, with a speshul non-magical sword from her parents, but she hated battle and would always take the peaceful way out because she had horrible wracking guilt from the one time she charged in without asking questions first. Eventually she evolved into more of a healer type, though still with heroic aspirations, and became a much less annoying character. She fell in love, adopted a baby rat, and then faded away as I focused on other interests: Specifically, adoptable dragons and RedVenture 2. I played a major role in RV2 as Anora the stoat, returned for RV3 as Elana, and won entry into and then flaked out on RV4 as an insane feline cook. By that point, I was pretty much through with the whole Redwall thing; most of my friends were long gone from the community (including Hawkeye Bigmouth Longears, my "bestest friend ever"), and even the books weren't good enough to keep me around any longer.

Luckily, I'd fallen in with a very nerdy crowd in real life, and in between beating each other with pool noodles and falling asleep in Sunday school, we played Dungeons and Dragons. Edition 3.5 was very different from what I remembered, and my new Dungeon Master was much more strict about setting enemies on fire, but I still loved it. I didn't revive Kestrel for this game--I'd learned upon purchasing the Player's Handbook that all sixes and sevens with one score of 15 was not a good array of stats--but instead created a half-elf paladin and proceeded to badger the DM into giving me the following as rewards for battles won:

-A cape that turned into wings so I could fly.
-A fiery, shocking sword. Zzzzzap crackle pop!
-A dark bay pegasus named Whuffles.

That character lasted until the group fell apart, shortly before I left for BYU. (Our DM had headed out the year before, but we'd still played together when he was home for winter and summer breaks.) Suddenly alone in a strange new place, I did the only thing I could: I joined another D&D group.

This time, I knew how to avoid most of the mistakes I'd made with previous characters. Hazel the human ranger was a grumpy, anti-social bounty hunter with a pair of very sharp knives, a huge mastiff as her companion, and a fun and detailed past: After her parents died, she started hunting criminals and highwaymen to earn enough money to allow her younger brother to keep the family farm. He grew up, got married, had a couple of kids that she adores, and never ever found out where all the money was coming from (though he definitely suspected something). The rest of the party, meanwhile, always wondered why she never seemed to have any gold to spare, and spent what she did have carefully. I had the extra challenge of having her get by on only about 20% of her share of the party's loot, and I got to make her favored enemy humans--convincing the DM was no easy task, but it was definitely worth it in combat.

She developed more of a personality as we played, gaining a slightly twisted sense of humor, and leaning away from her original True Neutral alignment towards Neutral Evil thanks to the efforts of a certain monk of Hextor. The players connected just as well as the characters in this case, and Jon and I got married the next summer--but not before he got me hooked on WoW.

World of Warcraft was a very different roleplaying experience for me. My first few characters had very little personality at all, though I enjoyed exploring the various actions and emotes built into the game, and would always /sleep on a bed in the inn before logging off for the night. My Orc Shaman was different. I didn't know who she was or where she'd been, but I knew there was a story there, and I wanted to find out. Even when I started leveling Izsera, my Night Elf Hunter, Tanakyll (named after the ratling Amber adopted years before) was still my main. I hit 70 on Izzy, raided, leveled up to 80, raided some more... eventually Tana became an alt, one that at times I forgot existed. I didn't roleplay.

Then I started leveling Hellen again. I'd created the Human Warrior a little before the Scourge invasion event marking the approach of WotLK, talked Jon into helping me get enough of the dropped items to trade in for an Argent Dawn tabard as a joke, and walked all the way to Light's Hope Chapel before learning that although I had the required currency, I was too low level to unlock the vendor and actually buy the item. The little teasing voices of roleplaying that I'd been ignoring for so long suggested that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't the only one who was annoyed here. Hellen was pretty upset, too. And, having been rejected by the Argent Dawn, perhaps she would turn to an alternative source of help in fighting off the undead menace. After all, there was a wearable Scarlet Crusade tabard in-game...

If WotLK hadn't come so soon after I got Hellen her tabard, I probably would have simply focused on her. I was loving the Warrior class (Charge is officially my most favorite ability ever), and I was finally roleplaying again, even if it was just by myself. But I needed to get to 80 so I wouldn't get left behind the rest of my guild, so I set my little warrior aside, and got back to work. I hit 80 easily enough, and then real life stepped in, limiting me to only a few minutes of play time a day. I left the guild I'd been with, joined several new ones but never really fit in, and in between getting a headache from TEH DRAMAZ!!1 I secretly worked on leveling Hellen. She was my escape, the character I logged onto when I just wanted to work on building up the story that was growing around her.

She stuck with the Crusade until she once more arrived at Light's Hope, this time following Scarlet Commander Marjhan. Despite her previous rejection, she chose to assist the Argent Dawn's efforts. Unfortunately, her argument of "Hey, we all just wanna kill some zombies, why can't I help them out?" was not persuasive enough to keep her from being treated as a traitor to the cause, and when she helped a dying Tauren Druid it was the last nail in the coffin for that part of her career. Following the battle at Light's Hope she headed to Outland, hoping to find some sort of purpose now that her original goals were out of reach...

Hellen is level 70 now, and just venturing into Northrend. (She has yet to learn that the Scarlet Crusade are there as well...that will be a fun series of quests to do!) While I've got Tanakyll up to 80 now after a week or so of frantic questing, I can't wait to have a "roleplaying character" on the Alliance side of things as well. Tanakyll is, and really always was, a healer and a background character. Hellen is ready to be a hero, and I can't wait.

I'm not sure that she'll get her chance to shine on Sen'jin, though. It's a Normal server of the sort where roleplaying is mocked whenever it comes up--when I did the Battle for Light's Hope Chapel on my DK and went so far as to *gasp, shock, horror* /kneel, I immediately got tells and /says from three or four different people all telling me to go and lolRP somewhere else. Meanwhile, even the ones who hadn't whispered me were bouncing up and down impatiently and one guy was spamming /train at Mograine (who looked kind of pissed about it, but then he always looks like that...)

I'd be taking a bit of a risk by transferring to an RP server. No one wants to walk in on a threesome, especially one consisting of two Gnomes and a Draenei, and I hear that sparkly vampires have become a bit of a problem in Silvermoon. The alternative is being forced to stop doing something I love, something that's been a major part of my life for nearly ten years, or be mocked publicly by people who think that MMORPG stands for "Massage Myself, Obliterate Rats, Purchase Gold". Which, really, isn't much of a choice at all.

Now I just need to decide on a server. :)

The best thing about 3.2...

2009-08-05T15:36:00.001-07:00

...is the new raptor minipets! :D

Here I am in Nexus with my Leaping Hatchling--he's my favorite of the four I've hunted down, and took me the longest to get, with two hours of camping. I also have the Deviate, Darting, and Razormaw Hatchlings--and I picked up a second Darting Hatchling this morning for Jon's Warlock. (He can be terribly cute when he wants something.)

My eventual goal is to get all eight of them, but it may take a while--the Ravasaur Matriarch is quite elusive.

Trail of Fire

2009-07-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

(Based on this quest.)

"So...there be our next target. And...one more?" Schen squinted, trying to make out the narrower figure kneeling in front of the armored human. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it didn't appear to be a healer so it should be all right. She'd take down the human Lieutenant first, and worry about any others after she was done. One or two more humans wouldn't add too much of a challenge anyway.

Patting her hound's shoulder to get the beast's attention, she pointed toward the human and nodded. With a joyous bark, Hawrt shot off through the camp, and Schen grinned as she watched her pet start tearing at the foe's legs. Of all the companions she'd had over the years, this scarlet hound was the first she's found whose thirst for blood matched her own. She waited until the human was sufficiently distracted, then stood and added her bullets to the fray.

The human didn't last long at all, quickly collapsing with a hoarse shout (for help? Schen had never understood the humans' language) that was cut short as Hawrt grasped its throat in her jaws and bit down, shaking her head back and forth until the body had stopped moving entirely. The hound worried at the body a little longer, but hopped away with a happy yip as her master approached, jumping up to lick the troll's face. "Get down, you!" Schen ordered, stifling a laugh. She's really just a big puppy... "You knock me over, how I gonna give you a treat for fighting so good?"

"Hey, troll! Over here!" The raspy voice identified the speaker as one of the Forsaken, but when Schen turned to look she saw nothing.

"No, down here. On the ground." The Forsaken sighed. He was tightly bound and lying on the ground in what had to be a most uncomfortable position. He was also, Schen noticed, wearing an apothecary's robe...one with large, bloody pawprints all over it. "Look, not that I don't appreciate your heroics--I was decidedly not looking forward to what these Alliance scumbags had in store for me--but this is a pretty poor rescue if you're not even going to untie me."

"Not here to rescue you, mon. Just killin' some humans."

The apothecary sighed. "Fine, I can make it out alone, just--"

"Hey now, I still gonna help you." She grinned and waved her skinning knife under what was left of his nose, her grin growing wider when he didn't so much as blink. "I love you zombies. Not afraid of anythin' and you all fight just as hard as I do. Now, hold still."

It took a little work to cut through the thick cords binding the Forsaken apothecary, but while they were perfect for keeping him from escaping on his own, they couldn't last too long against a good sharp knife, and he was soon up and stretching out his limbs with a series of disconcerting popping and snapping sounds.

"You ready?"

He cracked his knuckles one last time and nodded. "Indeed. Let's get out of here and see if we can get back at them somehow." He glanced around. "Is that a campfire over there?"

Schen laughed and began looking around for something to use as a torch. "I like how you think, zombie."

The apothecary would have been content merely to destroy the camp's food stores, but Schen managed to talk him into torching everything that could possibly be used against them--gunpowder, the tents, even the wooden barricade was soon in flames with the help of a few flasks of oil applied in just the right spot to get it started. It had been a few weeks since the Howling Fjord had seen rain and even heavy wood caught like paper. Even with the ocean so close, there was no way the humans would be able to put out all of the fires in time to save their supplies.

"Well, that," The Forsaken rubbed his hands together gleefully, "was most enjoyable. I think, though--" His words were cut off by a loud rumbling and the wooden wall in front of them exploded into dust and splinters, the force of the explosion knocking them back onto the ground.

Coughing as she rose, Schen finished his sentence. "It be time to get out of here for good."

He frowned. "I wasn't expecting them to start the bombardment so soon, but yes. We'll need to move quickly." Brushing sawdust off of his robe, he added, "I think I see a way through. Stay close to me."

The troll nodded, and hurried after him, keeping her eyes open for trouble.

A few humans did notice them and try to stop the pair, and one foolhardy gnome tried to attack Hawrt, but soon they were through the gap blown in the barricade and heading for the lines of Forsaken troops. A volley of fiery arrows whistled past them, a couple glancing off of Schen's mail and one lodging itself in her helmet. She sighed and pulled it out as she ran, tossing it aside to let it burn itself out in the muddy grass. "Call em off, mon? I'm not helpin' you just to be made a pincushion."

"Don't shoot! Apothecary coming through! Hold your fire!"

To Schen's surprise, it worked, and the Forsaken fighters parted to let the small party through as they approached. Then they were through,and a pair of healers appeared to show them back to the medics' tents set up behind the lines. Shaking them off--she'd rather rely on her natural regeneration than on Forsaken medical technology--the troll sighed and let herself relax. It had been a long day, and she couldn't wait to get back to the inn.

"Before you go--" It was the apothecary again, doing his best to thwart the herding instinct of the healers fussing over him. "I'm going to stick around here for a while, but you should talk to Apothecary Lysander when you get back to Vengeance Landing. He might be able to give you something for your trouble. Tell him you got Apothecary Hanes out of a bind and that I'll be back as soon as I cause a little more mayhem."

"I will indeed." She grinned, and waved as the two healers, fed up at last, picked him up and carried him toward the tents.

The last thing she heard as he was carried away was, "I have a wonderful idea for a new, weaponized..."

She'd have to come back later and ask him exactly what he was planning. It sounded like fun.

R&R, and Disappointment.

2009-07-27T22:54:00.000-07:00

In life, moods will change, tastes flow from one thing to the next. A fun little game called Fable enchanted me about 3 years back, one of the first games that I'd played in which it felt like my actions had a noticeable difference on the game's world and where the characters in the game were more important than the items and fun things to do; even with the NPCs it felt that way.

A friend and I exchanged games recently to try out, I lent him Devil May Cry 4, a game I thought would be up his alley, while I asked him to lend me Fable 2. I was hoping from the description that this game would be a similarly free experience to the first game. I got what I hoped for.

Now, from the title of this post a different response might've been expected, but there is more to it than that. You see, when I played the original Fable, it took me a very long time because although the story moves at a good pace, the optional part of the game really drew me in; things like starting a family, protecting a city, things that made me care about the towns, cities and the people in them. Unfortunately, Fable 2 didn't.

Although it still had the freedom and the options to choose either good or evil, and the same ability to do almost anything in the world, from buying real estate and shops even to theft and murder, unfortunately the game really didn't make me want to choose either. I thought what had attracted me to the original Fable was the option to choose good and evil, but in truth it was more how my choices affected the people in the world that drew me in. Here's an example contrasting the two; in the original Fable, you have to escort a merchant through a werewolf-infested marsh. Each time we were attacked, I fought them off not because I thought "hey monsters, good, I'll get more XP" but because the merchant was a well-done enough character to make me want to protect him. In Fable 2, you have to help a bandit named Reaver escape from an army of fanatic soldiers that he called to town try to collect a reward for your capture. I tried to shoot Reaver, and only killed the soldiers out of a vague desire to get past that part of the story. That, and shooting Reaver didn't actually have any effect at all.

Fable 2 struck me with an apathy so great, that once I'd finished the main story, the prospect of re-entering the game for more optional quests and further development of my character filled me with nothing but a vague dread. My feelings about Fable 2 can be summed up best in the words of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, when he said "but why would you want to?"

/moo

2009-07-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

Who's that Pokemon?

I've been taking a bit of a break from WoW for the last little while--I've been leveling alts whenever I have a free moment, but I've been completely avoiding my main server, Sen'jin. My laptop can't handle raiding anymore, and I don't really feel like explaining for the millionth time that Jon and I left our last guild because we were hoping it would help the guild leader become less dependant on others. (Given who re-joined the guild shortly after we left, I'd say that we failed to accomplish that, but on the plus side, playing the game is relaxing now.)

So how have I been spending my non-raiding time?

Well, besides rolling an Orc Hunter and doing far more Warsong Gulch (player-vs-player 'capture the flag') than I care to think about, I've finally done what I was convinced I could never do, and leveled up a Tauren Druid. On top of that, he's male--so that's two barriers broken down right there.

It's Druidbearmon! Okay, so that's not his actual name...

With my new Druid, it feels as if I'm seeing Azeroth for the first time again. It's been so long since I did most of the quests Horde-side that each one is new and exciting (though I still remember enough to find the trickier ones!) and there was a whole Tauren-only quest chain I'd never done before involving cleansing the water wells of Mulgore. On top of that, I've been making a conscious effort to do every quest in every zone I level through to get the full experience, and it's been amazingly fun. It feels so much more satisfying than doing only what's necessary to progress to the next area. Sure, I might be a bit slower, but if I hadn't done that I might never have fought in an epic battle against the Centaur of the Barrens, or watched a Horde-aligned Dwarf (!) turn into a Trogg, or jumped off of a cliff only to be whisked away at the last second.

And, speaking of Mulgore and the Barrens, I'm in love. I'd never realized before how gorgeous the early Kalimdor zones are--I'd always been rushing to get to the next quest hub, to finish the next set of missions, leveling as quickly as I could. This time, though, I was moving slower, and could appreciate the scenery much better. And besides the beauty of the zones, I also noticed various interactions between NPCs that I hadn't seen before, and stuck around to watch. There's a little orc kid who goes fishing to feed the guards, another whose father is fighting up in Ashenvale (the conversation with his mother may have had me sniffling a little), and the wyvern trainer in Freewind Post will occasionally blow a kiss to his pets. (I laughed so hard when I heard him!)

I've finished up all of Mulgore, the Barrens, and Stonetalon Mountains now (save for a few dungeon quests), and I just need to find Page 7 of the Shredder Operating Manual to be done with Ashenvale, too. I'm questing in northern Thousand Needles now, getting ready to head out to the Shimmering Flats and help out the goblin racers (and maybe the gnomes, too...creepy little guys, though). I'm still not bored, I can't imagine ever getting bored if I keep playing this way. And it makes me wonder, if maybe the reason so many people say WoW is boring and easy is because they don't take the time to explore and challenge themselves. I certainly never had this much fun when I rushed to reach the level cap, and it seems like every few quests I run into another rare elite monster that's a challenge to take down, that normally I would have just avoided to save time.

I love this. :D

The Kodo is named Matilda. I am such a sucker for bad puns.

Well, it's true enough I guess.

2009-07-04T01:38:00.000-07:00

All right, now that Mania has finally posted about the Worgen pet, I guess I can post this without feeling a little silly/guilty about beating her to it. (I kid, I kid! I just had my internet working all day, that's all.)

Here I am with my brand-new Worgen, exulting in its real-ness. For a long time, I was convinced that the whole thing was a hoax, and even posted a picture 'proving' I was right. Whoops? Major hugs and cookies to the Hunter class forum folks for all their hard work and research in figuring out which mob the mysterious Worgen pet was (as you can see in my screenie, it's Garwal, a quest mob in Howling Fjord).

I think that's what got me the most excited about the whole thing, in fact. Even if the Worgen pet had turned out to be a fake, the way the Hunter forum came together and worked on this was amazing. Seeing teamwork and friendly conversation instead of the whining and belittling I normally expect from the o-boards was surprising and very pleasant. I may have made a few jokes about Pokemon, but for the most part the original thread stayed polite and on-topic until post cap, and the second thread seems to be doing the same. Yay for Hunters!

One thing that bugged me about the original post was the behavior of the Hunter who was first spotted with the Worgen pet--I get that he wanted to keep his pet something special, but it's a little cruel not to even give a hint or two. I've always been happy to answer any questions about rare pets I might have (though in the case of my Hydra, I have to warn people it's no longer tamable, which is kind of a bummer). It is, to my mind, part of being a good Hunter--sharing tips and tricks with others. So as soon as I got out of Naxx (they dragged me in as soon as I was done taming, of course) I headed to Ironforge to show off Mowgli.

I got tons of whispers and comments, and was able to help a bunch of folks find the information they needed to (hopefully) tame their own. Of course, I felt a little bad when I realized I was just sending more competition Jon's way--luckily it didn't take him too many tries to get a Worgen on his hunter as well. He's named her Raksha, and is just as excited about her as I am about mine.

Since they're technically Wolves (the best non-BM pets and good for BM too), we'll be using them a fair bit from now on--though I've got a lot of leveling to do before I bring Mowgli to Naxx again, I'm used to topping the DPS charts, darnit. <.< We're going to be very careful to avoid PvP as the worgen will reset to a wolf model if used in Arenas, and we have our fingers crossed that Blizzard won't just go ahead and reset all of them...

*crosses her toes, too*

Even if they do, though, we'll have had fun.

Are you smarter than a Death Knight?

2009-06-28T12:27:00.001-07:00

Answers at the bottom. No, this is not multiple choice!

1. What is the Death Knight tanking spec?

2. What does Death Grip do?

3. How much spell power does a DK need to power up his diseases?

4. What kind of weapons can a Death Knight use?

5. Who was the first Death Knight?

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1. Any tree can tank, given the correct gear and talents. ~ 2pts.
Any spec can tank. ~1pt.
Frost/Blood/Unholy is the only tanking tree! ~0pts.

2. Pulls the target over to the Death Knight and taunts it to attack him. ~2pts.
Pulls the target over to the Death Knight. ~1pt.
Any other answer. ~0pts.

3. None, Death Knights get no benefit from spell power. ~2pts.
This is a trick question, spell power isn't used for the diseases. ~1pt.
Any specific or general number, or "At what level?" ~0pts.

4. Axes (1h and 2h), Maces (1h and 2h), Polearms, Swords (1h and 2h). ~2pts.
Missed one from the list above or added in one from the list below. ~1pt.
Bows, Crossbows, Daggers, Fist Weapons, Guns, Staves, Wands. ~0pts.

5. Teron Gorefiend. ~2pts.
Arthas Menethil. ~1pt.
Any other answer. ~0pts.

TOTAL:
0 = Total DeathTard. That's okay, hopefully you don't play one anyway!
1-4 = Below average, but you seem to be working on it.
5-7 = Yup, you're about as smart as a Death Knight.
8-10 = You're way smarter than a lot of Death Knights--but then, they've got more important things to worry about, like not decomposing.

Ding!

2009-06-26T18:39:00.001-07:00

Hee hee. It's now been one year since Kate and myself got married. We're very happy together, and though it hasn't all been easy, there have been many, many more good times than bad. In celebration of a year, we've spent a day together in hedonistic luxury, I've showered Kate with gifts and she's created two wonderful things for me. I shall now show you them. First, a small cartoon that she drew of the character in WoW she's been working very hard on, her warrior named Hellen, and my druid Mikkano who we've brought over from Burning Legion to Sen'jin, our new home server. He can turn into a moonkin, and I find their dancing to be a wonderful thing. Kate ... agrees? Mostly. Anyway, now that her warrior's no longer a raving fanatic of the Scarlet Crusade, she's become much more approachable.
Second is this portrait here that she drew of my druid. More serious and detailed, she's happy with how it turned out and I love the look of it, but Kate feels it isn't quite Night Elfy enough.

Down The Scarlet Path

2009-06-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

(My warrior's experience with this quest, written for this thread.)

"Travel to the town of Southshore, in the Eastern Kingdoms. Seek out a crusader named Raleigh the Devout. Give him this letter of commendation bearing my seal and he will escort you to a place of honor in our Scarlet Monastery."

Hellen smiled, feeling herself fill with pride as she remembered the priest's words. Finally! She'd worked so hard for this, at times not even certain she'd ever be allowed into those hallowed halls. She was young, she knew, and inexperienced in the eyes of some... a frown crossed her face at that thought as she recalled the humiliation she'd suffered a year ago, when she'd volunteered for service with the Argent Dawn.

She'd fought her way through the Plaguelands on foot, eyes sharp and ears pricked for any hint of danger, nearly falling a dozen times as the cursed land seemed to spring to life--unlife--around her. Murderous ghouls, screeching bats, and grubs of tremendous, unnatural size all appeared to block her path, but she'd never faltered, never even considered giving up. Once, from a distance, she'd seen what could have been nothing other than the type of undead called an 'abomination', a massive conglomeration of rotting, oozing corpses sewn together. She had not then dared to get a closer look, but even from the hilltop where she lay waiting for it to pass out of sight, she'd been able to smell it. That scent...

And when she'd at last reached the tiny chapel, so much smaller than Stormwind's grand cathedral, bustling with all manner of warriors and adventurers, and hurried to the nearest commander, eager to prove herself, to join the cause, spilling out the contents of her satchel so the runes she'd collected lay in a glittering heap before him--

She growled angrily to herself, the sudden sound eliciting a snort from her placid bay mare. The girl stretched out a gloved hand and patted the beast's neck in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. If speed was not important here, she would much rather have stuck with her own two feet. Especially since riding gave her far too much time to think.

Too young. No use at all. Was that ill-fitting mail her older brother's armor? And they'd laughed, given her a bed for the night, and sent her back to Northshire on gryphonback the next morning.

She hadn't given up, though. She'd set to work, training hard, honing her skill with the sword until she had proven first to herself, and then to her masters, that she was ready for more. She'd begged the paladins for training, too, wanting to learn more of their Light, the power that made them such a potent force against the undead. By that time Stormwind itself had come under attack, and everyone who could lift a weapon was needed. Yet when she'd asked, pleaded with them, each paladin had frowned and shook his head. The Light, they said, was not merely a weapon to be used, and its blessing was not to be given carelessly. She was too reckless, too stubborn, and too bloodthirsty, and the inner fury that drove her was incompatible with their vows.

Then she'd found the Crusade. Here were people who took her seriously, who could teach her what she longed to learn. She'd set to doing their holy work with a calm happiness that she'd found nowhere else. She slew undead, they encouraged her, and not a word was said of inexperience, or rash behavior, or the dangers of letting hatred overwhelm all else. And now, at last, all her efforts were coming to fruition. Finally, she would become a full member of the Crusade, and then... well, Brother Anton had told her that the Scarlet Crusade had its own order of paladins, and that they were not so peculiar about who they allowed to join as those of Stormwind.

She smiled again, reaching to touch the letter she had tucked carefully under her armor. It was a good day. And in another day's ride she would reach the port town of Auburdine, where she could find a ship to take her to Southshore, and then, well, she'd just have to see how things turned out. It was unwise to let her hopes run off with her, after all.

. . . . .

She stood straight and mostly still as the balding paladin read through the letter, muttering to himself and occasionally going over a line twice before moving to the next. She fidgeted a little, nervously, hoping he wouldn't notice. Hellen wished she knew what the letter said. Even if she'd been able to read more than a few words herself, though, it had been sealed, and it would have been a dishonorable start prelude to her entry into the Crusade if she'd sneaked a look at it. And she did trust Brother Anton, really she did, it was just that this was so important, and even he didn't really know how much it meant to her...

Silly girl, she scolded herself, and forced her hands to stop fiddling with the buckles on her bracers. He wouldn't have sent the letter if you needed more training, after all. He's proud of what you've done, and he thinks you're ready. This is it, this is what you've been waiting for.

Raleigh coughed, and she realized he had finished. Hoping she did not show the worry she felt--there was nothing to worry about, after all!--she examined his lined face, trying to get a hint to what he was thinking. The letter could hardly be less than a glowing report of her efforts, so why was he frowning?

He sighed. "By the Light! This is not good." Setting the unfurled letter down on the table--she could see now that it was covered in narrow, curly script in a dark red ink--he began sorting through the books and papers surrounding it, looking for something. "You see, Hellen, there's something you don't understand."

Her green eyes narrowed as she rapidly tried to think of anything she might have forgotten, might have misplaced. Brother Anton had only given her the letter, but maybe there was some sign, some gesture, something... or was this another test? One to measure her composure in the face of the unexpected? She quietly took in a deep breath to calm herself. That had to be it, this was just one of the more subtle challenges her mentor had hinted at. If she showed shock now, or surprise, she'd be showing weakness.

Now the paladin had found what he sought--a small, round firestarter. It made a rasping noise as he gripped the handles, grinding the stone and steel together until sparks leapt from it, dropping onto the letter and quickly igniting the dry hide.

I must not show surprise. I must not appear concerned. He was her superior, presumably there was some reason behind this, and she shouldn't question it. He would explain everything that she needed to know, and anything else was not her concern.

But then he opened his mouth, and the words he spoke were almost too much for her practiced calm.

"I once served the Scarlet Crusade with honor, loyalty and pride. I believed their cause to be a noble one..."

But no more, it seemed. He rambled on about horrors he claimed to have seen, injustice meted out in the name of righteousness, a thousand different lies, each more blasphemous to her ears than the last. For almost an hour he spoke, pacing the small room, waving his hands in great gestures, at times almost shouting. It astounded Hellen that Brother Anton did not know of this, had not even suspected...but he must, else why would he have sent her here?

Raleigh was watching her now, forehead creased, measuring her reaction. Her silence and intent gaze satisfactory, he lowered his voice and continued. "Do you understand, Hellen? The Scarlet Crusade must be crushed in the name of the Light. You must destroy the deranged regime!"

She nodded, face impassive. "I do understand. And..." She paused, searching for the right words. "I thank you for telling me this."

He sighed, relieved, seeming to shrink a little as he relaxed after his impassioned sermon. "You'll do it, then?"

"I will do what must be done."

The coldness in her voice was the only warning she gave, but somehow he managed to get his hammer up in time to block her swing as she unsheathed her sword and leaped at him. Hiding her frustration she repositioned herself, quickly taking a step back and shoving the heavy table to one side, clearing the center of the room, scattering papers and ashes onto the floor. She readied her weapon again.

"You're just like the rest of them, it seems." She wasn't sure if it was disappointment in her or in himself she heard, but the disgust in his voice was clearly only for her. "I was a fool."

With the last word, he swung. She was ready, and parried with her sword, but the heavier weapon jarred her arm, and she realized that she would have to dodge aside next time. If she stood toe to toe with him, he could wear her out easily.

"Traitor!" she countered, turning a little to give herself more room. "You would have us fight among ourselves, weaken our forces while the Scourge devours all."

"And do you truly believe that there will be anything left to save if the Crusade has its way?"

This time she stepped aside as the hammer blurred past. He was older, a little weaker perhaps, but still fast. Very fast.

A good test.

(Note: This is pretty much how things would have gone if, 1. Hellen was a little bit more confident/brainwashed than she actually is, and 2. Quest NPCs were attackable. Neither of these being the case, in "reality" she was heartbroken and spent the next couple of weeks moping around in Stormwind. The story took on a life of its own while I was writing it, though, and while the first half is completely accurate, the second should be treated more as her fantasy of what should have happened. ^.^)

Review of a book: Arthas, Rise of the Lich King.

2009-06-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

On the one hand, I can definitely see why they chose to make a book about Arthas; main villain of the current storyline in WoW, he was a large focus of Warcraft III as well. The whole "former prince betraying his kingdom" is actually something I haven't seen done as well as Arthas has.

The book was fun to read because the characters are well-fleshed out and done in a way that reveals new parts of them; Kate and I were both surprised by how much Kel'Thuzad steals the show; for an undead skeletal magus, he shows a lot of emotion. Throughout the book you see Arthas growing up, trying and learning new things, and I think the author does an excellent job tracing what made him turn into the man that he is. Throughout the book I had fun trying to differentiate between what was Arthas' own personality and desires, and what was the influence of the Lich King. Now the thing about the book is, unless you are already into WoW or interested in it, this book will not have a lot to keep your focus.

Arthas himself is well done as a character, but truthfully they don't do a lot with him. I suspect that Blizzard dictated rather tightly what line the story would follow, and the author suffers a bit for it; the book is short and I found myself wanting to read more. Someone who hadn't played Warcraft III would not be able to predict most of what happens in the book, but I think someone who hasn't would not be very interested in what happens to the characters.

I enjoyed reading the book but would not be able to recommend it to someone who wasn't interested in the Blizzard games that it follows. The author stuck very well to the story line she was writing about, but one of the things that made her other story, Lord of the Clans, such a delightful read was the little bits of flair and things outside of what's already known about Thrall that she added in there. In conclusion, if you're interested enough in the book to want to read it, I definitely suggest you do, you'll enjoy yourself. But if you aren't and don't play World of Warcraft, then you'd be all right skipping it.

Wewt!

2009-06-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

That is all.

Ignore the messy bags, please. =D

And I won't even mention what happened to the cookies... (Guest post!)

2009-06-05T00:05:00.000-07:00

Well now ladies and gents, today we have a guest visiting our little slice of the internet. Everybody's favorite Ravager of Galaxies, the Extinctionator, Sargeras, the Dark Titan! As his awesome visage cannot be safely viewed by a camera, we have this artist's rendition, courtesy of my lovely wife. And yes, Kate, the planet-sized "World's Greatest Titan" coffee mug was brilliant, I just think we should have paid extra and gone with a slightly more heat-resistant one.Hey, hello, hi, how are you, this is Sargeras of the Burning Legion and I'm very excited to be here today on Kate's blog, Tastes Like Lint! Based on her blog's subtitle, I see already that she and I have one thing in common: we both Never Shut Up. And what's more, I have proof.

Looking through my old files, I came across this gem from 406 B.C. - one of Plato's heretofore unpublished dialogues between myself and the esteemed philosopher, Socrates. I still remember that little guy - kind of scrawny, a scraggly beard, but a pretty decent sort of fellow. Sort of awkward, the way that Plato dude always followed us around taking notes. Shame about that hemlock business...I could've given him a much more interesting death.

Well, anyway, I'm pretty sure the copyright on this expired, like, two thousand years ago, so without further ado, allow me to present...

THE SARGERIC DIALOGUE

SOCRATES: How does this day find you, friend Sargeras?

SARGERAS: Well, sir, and you?

SOCRATES: I am well. Tell me, how goes the kingdom-smashing business?

SARGERAS: Very well indeed. Though as I have told you before, I smash things much larger than kingdoms.

SOCRATES: You know, Sargeras, that I believe little of your fanciful stories about traveling among the stars. Such travel as you describe must surely belong to the gods alone.

SARGERAS: Well, think what you wish. But tell me, how is your philosophizing going?

SOCRATES: It goes as well, and pays as little, as ever. But I have a question for you also.

SARGERAS: I do not doubt it.

SOCRATES: Why do you inquire about my welfare, when you wish to destroy all life?

SARGERAS: You are always asking questions of ethics, Socrates. For months now we have practiced your art, discussing duty, society, right and wrong, love, knowledge, and scores of philosophical questions. Is it not fair that we should now practice my art for a while?

SOCRATES: Your proposal does seem just.

SARGERAS: In that case, would you like to see something wicked sweet?

SOCRATES: Indeed, as wicked sweetness is the very paragon of sweetness, there can be nothing sweeter. Please proceed.

SARGERAS: In my hand I have a fireball.

SOCRATES: I could hardly fail to notice. It is the size of the Parthenon.

SARGERAS: And is that your friend Euripides over on yonder hill?

SOCRATES: It is indeed.

SARGERAS: Check this.

SOCRATES: You have obliterated Euripides!

SARGERAS: And good aim from this distance, I must say.

SOCRATES: This is a highly immoral act.

SARGERAS: Back to ethics again! We agreed we would not talk of ethics today.

SOCRATES: Very well. I must honor my word. It is wrong to lie.

SARGERAS: Again with the ethics!

SOCRATES: I am sorry. It is sort of "what I do." Please, continue.

SARGERAS: And is that not Sophocles, on yonder other hill?

SOCRATES: Oh dear.

SARGERAS: BAM!

SOCRATES: Yes, that is rather, er, interesting...

SARGERAS: Look, a farmer!

SOCRATES: No longer.

SARGERAS: And over there is a cow!

SOCRATES: Its life is assuredly ended.

SARGERAS: Do you want to try?

SOCRATES: Um.

SARGERAS: You promised, remember? Here, just take this fireball...

SOCRATES: Oh! It is exceedingly hot.

SARGERAS: Then you'd best get rid of it. Look, there's an orphanage!

SOCRATES: Oh my.

SARGERAS: Great job! Look at 'em run!

SOCRATES: I fear I must be leaving.

SARGERAS: You can hear 'em scream even from this distance! That was amazing, little dude!

SOCRATES: Yes, well, I have to go home. To, er, tend my garden. Yes, that's it. Goodbye, Sargeras!

SARGERAS: What, so soon? Socrates, it is not right to lie, as you have told me many times.

SOCRATES: We agreed we would not discuss ethics! And besides, I think perhaps it is time I, er, thought of a new philosophy.

SARGERAS: One that doesn't involve massacring orphans?

SOCRATES: Yes indeed! Come along, Plato.

PLATO: Yes, Teacher.

SOCRATES: Plato...you're not writing this down, are you?

PLATO: That was wicked sweet, Teacher.

SOCRATES: You'd better not let one of your students tutor a warrior who goes on to kill thousands of people.

PLATO: Wouldn't dream of it, Teacher.

SOCRATES: I am freaking serious.

PLATO: ...want to go watch 300?

SOCRATES: ...

PLATO: ...

SOCRATES: ...

PLATO: ...

SOCRATES: ...yes.

Vicious Glee

2009-06-01T13:19:00.001-07:00

Today, Izsera and I had a rather bad experience. One of our friends on Sen'jin was helping out a new guild and wanted her help in Naxx as the guild is very short on experienced level 80s. As she's been missing her Hunter a lot, she was happy to join up and help out.

Things had been going so well, too; one or two bad Heroics with a healer that has confidence issues, but the Naxx 10-man full clear put her in a much better mood. So today, even though she wanted me to run her new little Death Knight through Zul'Gurub, she agreed to DPS for Halls of Stone at Heroic difficulty.

I watched the run; it seemed to start off pretty well, the first boss is never a problem, and even though they employed a flawed strategy on the Maiden of Grief to get the achievement, at least they got her down on the first try (no achievement though). Then a little hiccup as the tank pulled 3 groups at once and got everyone but her killed, then another as the tank pulled 4 mobs at once, 2 Unrelenting Constructs and 2 Raging Constructs. Given the gear level of the group, that was more than they could handle.

This is where I come in: After they die trying that, they need a new DPS as one of the others has run out of time. I offer, they invite and summon me in. The tank says "just so you know I'm going to do it exactly like that again."

"If you do, Izsera and I are going to stand back, Shadowmelded, and watch you all die," was my response. "Possibly laughing," I added on as an afterthought, excessively mean but they made Kate sad. So in we go, and the tank does exactly the same thing again, and dies in exactly the same manner.

On the one hand, I feel slightly guilty for letting the group die like that without lifting a finger, on the other hand I did tell them what we would do. I just don't feel anything more than empathy for the other Death Knight in the group who went in there with them.

I've died too many times to people doing stupid things and forcing me to come along and take the indignity of dying for no other reason than I'm there in the group anyway. It felt nice to call out exactly what was going to happen, watch it happen, and be able to say 'I told you so,' all without having to get smashed flatter than a pancake by insane, raging golems.

Bolt

2009-05-31T00:50:00.000-07:00

No, not the movie about the dog (though that's where I got the name), this is Izsera's demon wolf! I drew this picture a couple months ago, along with some others (baby Spirit Beast, anyone?), and am just now starting to get stuff scanned in.

I'm pretty happy with this drawing, I think the proportions and such are okay--the front left leg is a little wonky, but other than that I like it. :)

Speaking of art, if you haven't heard already, Pike is doing avatar commissions! I know I want one, but I'm holding off until I can decide which of my pets I want included. Bolt is my usual companion, but Sassy is just plain awesome, and I miss being able to raid with Minloth. Hmm...

Doing the Huntard Dance

2009-05-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I did anything serious with my hunter--long enough to forget some of the really basic mistakes to avoid. I ran a Nexus achievement run and OS10 and part of Naxx on my hunter tonight for the first time in a while, and I think I managed to hit just about every one of them:

Wrong Aspect:

During several pulls in Heroic Nexus, I left Aspect of the Viper on while I was at full mana. I'd been tweaking Power Auras earlier--my settings are a real mess right now--and had it turned off. Even without an addon telling me not to be stupid, though I don't have much excuse. Another party member noticed before I did.

Later, in Naxx, someone had to tell me to switch out of Aspect of the Pack. Less embarassing, though, since it ended up being about 20 minutes before the next pull due to getting replacements.

Wrong Target:

On the achievement for Anomalous I was so focused on my own leet DPS (having made sure to turn off Viper this time) that I didn't notice I was pewpewing happily away at one of the rifts until it was down to about 10% health. Whoops!

Poor Pet Management:

I actually had the opposite of the traditional problem--I kept my wolf on Passive, but forgot to send him in most of the time. Thank goodness I'm Survival now.

Really Poor Threat Management:

I pulled aggro so much that I spent half of the time I wasn't feigning death in shadowmeld. MASSIVE failure on my part--it's so hard to pull off the tank with my shaman, I'd forgotten I couldn't just go all out on my hunter as well. It was so noticeable that the other hunter in the Naxx raid (/waves at Grindell in case he's reading this) prefaced each boss fight by whispering me "Hey, let's spam our Misdirects on *insert tank here*! It'll be fun!"

I really needed that, though. :)

Unprepared

I brought no water or regular food with me, had to get my potions made on the spot by a guildie (though at least I had the mats), and I'd farmed up a stack of fish feasts that spent the raids sitting happily in the guild bank. I are teh smart!

Loot Ninja

I ninja'd a BoE green from Heroic Nexus. It was an accident, I was trying to click target another mob when the loot box popped up, but I'm counting it here because...

I have now, at long last, earned my True Huntard Merit Badge!

/weeps tears of joy

Spock/Sulu Lurrrrve 4eva

2009-05-24T03:50:00.000-07:00

J: So, I guess whoever wrote the script for the new Star Trek movie is a pretty big Spock/Sulu shipper, huh? Man, I'd hate to see the fanfics he has stashed away!

K: Wait, what? No. Why would you even think that?

J: Come on, it was so obvious that they were totally into each other!

K: No. No it wasn't. What are you talking about?

J: You know, Star Trek? Spock and Sulu? All those scenes where they were making out?

K: There. Was. Never. Anything. Between. Spock. And. Sulu. EVER.

J: What, are you crazy? They kissed and everything! In front of Kirk. Maaan, that was hilarious!

K: Okay, I think we must have seen different movies, despite sitting next to each other at the theater, and I'm going to have to go scan your hard drive now for fanmade Star Trek porn. Geez.

J: Don't you remember? When they were on the transporter pad?

K: That was UHURA.

J: ...

K: Yeah.

J: So when I said Spock and Sulu.

K: Yep.

J: You were picturing...

K: Yes.

J: Want brain bleach. NOW!

Unfortunately I have to torment him a little bit more now, with the original and therefore not-even-remotely-appealing Spock and Sulu. This is the first image that came up when I did a Google search...with SafeSearch on of course.

(Actually, this is the first image that came up without SafeSearch on, too--it must not be a very popular fanship.)

Also, I am now referring to any hints of Spock/Sulu fanshipping as Spew-lu. You have been warned.

Shaman Update: Still Loving It

2009-05-20T19:58:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting much because, really, what is there to say? I've been doing a fair bit with my Shaman lately, and enjoying every minute of it. I've been slacking on dailies (hate the tournament stuff, just so boring) but running plenty of Heroics, and managed to get into a Naxx 10 pug and grab my t7 chest for enhance, a leather helm, and a mail healing chest as well. (And I was only there for three bosses--crazy rolls. xD) I also got to do Emalon on 10-man--crazy fun, I think it's my favorite fight so far as melee.

I haven't had to do much as Resto--Jon's been great about finding someone else to heal our Heroics, with me stepping in only if the healer DCs or fails horribly. It turns out I can heal quite a few bosses as Enhance--when I have trouble keeping the tank up, I just taunt with my wolves, and it gives me enough breathing time to get him topped off again. I really do love Enhance spec, and the more I play it the better I am becoming. Not to mention all the gear upgrades--I routinely break 2k DPS on Heroic bosses now. :)

I do wish, though, that I had the guts to PvP as Enhancement. Not Battlegrounds--those I can handle, and have fun with. Much to my surprise, I loved doing the BG achievements for Children's Week, and I've been itching to do more. What I really want to do now, though, is try out Arena with Jon. Everything I've read in the past, though, suggests that an Enhancement Shaman's place is not in the Arena, and if I do want to try it out I had better be willing to Bloodlust and then die very very quickly. I suppose it might work better if I went Resto for PvP, and I would still have a decent healing spec/set, but it's the smashing faces aspect that really appeals to me, and Resto doesn't work so well for that.

So, since I really want to do some melee PvP, I'm leveling a Rogue. Yeah, I know, I don't need another alt... but I am having a lot more fun than I expected, and I have a friend to level with, so I think I might actually make it. To 19 at least, so I can try out WSG and see if I do enjoy Rogue PvP.

I really just want to play my Enhance Shaman though.

Three Bad Pugs!

2009-05-15T02:04:00.000-07:00

P.U.G. For those uninitiated, it stands for Pick Up Group. Its definition, a group of random people who come together to do something. Whether playing 3-on-3 basketball or a game of flag football, it usually means fun.

In the context of World of Warcraft, it means a good 1-2 hours of sheer agony. It is my intention in this post to spotlight 3 "players" whose incompetence astounded me at every turn.

Our first subject: A Hunter, who I'm going to refer to by a shortened version of his character's name, Durr. After we'd fought a group of Twilight cultists in Ahn'kahet and were preparing to rest to heal our wounds, Durr shot the group behind them. I shall now quote you his exact words after he shot and pulled the next group into attacking us: "It wasn't a pull, it auto shot them."
That was what he said after the first time. The second time he did precisely the same thing on precisely the same group. Nobody said anything, but the sound of our palms hitting our faces was quite audible.

Our second subject: A rogue, who shall remain anonymous. Now, as any novice dragonslayer will tell you, the worst place to be when fighting a dragon is near its mouth. Ignoring the razor-sharp teeth capable of spitting a wild boar, there's also their breath. Keristrasza, a corrupted red dragon driven insane by Malygos' torture and warping of her, is no exception. If you are being burned by her crystalfire breath, it's obvious from the searing flames that cling to your body. Now most people, upon suffering once or twice from this inferno, would begin to re-think their placement and perhaps relocate to a position somewhere less adjacent to her maw. The survival instincts and common sense of a lemming would have served our friend well, but he seemed hell-bent to dive into the dragon's gullet. Maybe he was trying to slay the dragon from the inside out...?

Our third subject is a warlock. Normally, these wielders of demonic energy are near-insane fanatics, driven by bloodlust and an insatiable thirst for more power. This specimen was somewhat less...zealous. During one fight, the final boss in the Nexus, an intense cold permeates the room, causing more and more damage as time wears on. This effect can be cleared by moving; even something as simple as jumping in place will do. This encounter caused us difficulty, and after about the third or fourth attempt the warlock decided he'd had enough. From then on, he'd follow meekly wherever we led, huddling in a corner while half-heartedly throwing out the occasional Shadowbolt.

These stories here aren't the worst I have experienced, but they are the most recent. All 3 of our subjects I've partied with in the last two days. If anybody has stories about pugs that are worse, I'd love to hear about it.

Dual Spec

2009-05-10T18:06:00.001-07:00

I'm almost used to playing two different characters now--by which I mean that I've nearly adjusted to dual spec on my Shaman. The action bars switch automatically, and I've been keeping most of the really important things in the same place. Since I'm Enhancement and Restoration, though, there's a huge difference in my playstyles between the two, and I sometimes will go for an ability that I don't actually have. (I love my Spirit Wolves, everyone should get to have them!) It's nice knowing that I can fill whatever role I'm needed for, and that I don't have to choose between two specs I love.

The hard part is going to be getting geared up for both roles. I mean, I'm pretty much playing two different characters--but I only have one person's worth of playing time, and one character's worth of Heroic runs. I can't very well roll on loot for both specs, but at the same time, I don't want to have to choose just one to focus on.

I know I want to raid as Resto, though--I just don't trust anyone else to do it right. So Resto gear is probably what I'm going to work on first, and I won't have to compete with two other people for loot the way I would if I were Enhance for dungeons. Enhancement, well, I do have fun with it...I'm thinking I might go for a PvP spec and gear though, since I should be able to DPS just fine with that.

Also, the amount of hit rating an Enhancement Shaman needs scares me.

Oops.

2009-05-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's me on the left. I was waiting for the zeppelin to Durotar, getting pretty bored, when I remembered that I had my Brazier of Dancing Flames from last year's Fire Festival in my bags, and decided to see if I could get the other people waiting with me to use it too. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the orphan I was escorting around for Children's Week was watching--until I turned around and saw his surprised little face.

I told him it was a Shaman fire ritual, but I don't know if he believed me. Oh well, at least I got my Matron title already. ;)

Oh, Blizzard, you tease.

2009-04-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

Recently the Death Knight changes have left me scratching my head. Death Strike's gone to an erratic, but useful self-healing ability to a major damage-dealer for Blood with hardly any healing, back to a solid damage dealer with good self-healing.

At the point when it hardly healed at all, I despaired of ever being able to duo old raids with Kate any more; wistful memories of Zul'Gurub, Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair flashed through my mind and a tear slowly traced its way down my cheek.

However, Death Strike now heals me for about 15% of my health each time I use it, provided I have at least 2 diseases on the target, which is a good enough portion of my health to definitely be worthwhile. So Death Knights, rejoice! Once again, we can sustain our own health in most situations without the assistance of a healer!

Goodbye, quivers... and hello again!

2009-04-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Jon was a bit sad when he found out that quivers and ammo pouches were being made obsolete--his hunter had the epic quiver, after all. He wasn't about to vendor it off, of course, but he was going to miss it. Me, I wasn't too concerned, after all I had barely seen my quiver since level 70 or so, and the ammo stacking changes would give me a lot more room in my bags. As soon as 3.1 hit, I unequipped my quiver (planning to vendor it later) and stuck a 20-slot bag in its place--I was thrilled.

As soon as I had the quiver in a bag slot, though, I noticed something strange--my quiver was showing up on my back again, even out of combat! I wasn't sure why... maybe it was just something added to the ranged weapons, rather than anything to do with the quiver itself. The graphic for the Knothide Quiver (yes, I was still using that at level 80... /fail) is pretty recognizable, though, and did not look very nice with Arrowsong.

Once I vendored off my old quiver, sure enough, the graphic no longer displayed--wanting to make sure it wasn't just an odd fluke, I picked up a low-level quiver from the Auction house and stuck it in a bag.

It looks pretty darn awesome. :)

Wowhead has some other neat quivers listed--I'm sad now that I vendored the Hunting Quiver when I did that quest. Oh well, I like the Light Leather one almost as much.

Now I just need to figure out if this is a Hunter-only thing, or if quivers now display for other classes that can use bows as well...

Edit: Thanks to some help from my friend Mutilated, I can now say that this seems to be a Hunter-only effect (or at least, it doesn't work for Rogues). Thanks, Mut! :)

Six Heads Are Better Than Two

2009-04-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

And here's the proof!

I spotted Kaynor showing off his Hydra in Ironforge yesterday and couldn't resist bringing mine out as well. Sassy seemed pleased to finally encounter another of her kind. :)

This brings up the count of Hunters on Sen'jin who I know who have Hydras to...2.5. I know Gunwright had one but I'm not sure if he still has it or not, and so far I haven't run into any Hordies with em. That might just be because I don't visit Orgrimmar too often, though.

It's a fun feeling, seeing someone else with the same rare pet--I imagine it's a little like how a Hunter with a ghost wolf might feel seeing another one, though the Hydras were much easier to tame (the tricky part being simply leveling quickly and getting a specific daily). For a while, I thought I was the only one here with a Hydra--now I know I'm not, and it's not so lonely, more like being part of an exclusive club.

The Azerothian Hydra Fanciers Association perhaps?

No d20s required?

2009-04-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

Despite enjoying roleplaying (we met at a Dungeons and Dragons game), Jon and I don't really do much with it in WoW. Sure, each of our characters has a somewhat well thought out back story, and I at least like to collect fun outfits as I level, but we play on Normal and PvP servers, and what little roleplaying we can't resist doing tends to be mocked unmercifully.

At one point last year we had decided to try out an RP-PvP server and really get into the whole roleplaying thing. We came up with our characters and their stories before hand--a Blood Elf of some sort, and an Undead Rogue--and were really looking forward to RPing them. I ran my Belf over to the Undead starting area, we had a little dramatic reunion (in /p, because I was feeling shy and not at all convinced there was roleplaying even on RP servers), and set out to kill some Scarlet Crusaders.

About that time, an Undead Mage decided she had a problem with me--she started following me around, tapping any mobs I so much as looked sideways at, and telling me in /say and /whisper that my kind weren't welcome here. This was before Sylvanas got her new model, so telling her "Why don't you go say that to your Banshee Queen?" only confused her, and she continued to follow us around, harassing me, for about an hour.

We haven't logged back on to those characters since.

With all that in mind, it's understandable that when I ran into a newcomer to the game, who still believed with all his heart that it was a role-playing game and played accordingly, I was quite surprised (though pleasantly). I'd just rolled up a human mage to play around with, and there he was, a level seven dwarf paladin complaining aloud about human architecture and how was he supposed to find anything in a building that consisted mostly of lots and lots of stairs. We killed some Defias together, headed south to Goldshire and the farms, and traveled as far as the Eastvale Logging Camp. He was in character most of the time, and I found myself trying to do the same--I don't know if I succeeded, but I did use "LOL" a lot less than I usually do, and once I accidentally misspelled "it's" as "tis".

We're both up to around level 18 now (with the heirloom shoulders "from a wealthy relative" I caught up easily), and Jon's joined us, as have a couple of other friends who rolled new alts at around the same time. We're getting ready to do our first Deadmines run, and he's so excited--he's not new to roleplaying games, but he is new to WoW, and watching him discover everything for the first time is a blast. I'm a little worried, though, how he'll take it the first time he runs into someone who tells him "lolRP, u fail nub" or something similar.

Does anyone else still believe WoW is for roleplaying? :)

Survival...and loving it.

2009-04-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

I'm a great BM hunter. Pet micromanagement is my forte, and there's really nothing so awesome as the stunned look on a player's face when he realizes that no matter whether he attacks me or my big red pet first, he's dead. (At least, I imagine they look kinda stunned, it's possible there's some panic there as well. Can you tell I'm having fun leveling on a PvP server?)

That said, as the title and screenshot attest, I have gone Survival (at least with Izzy, Schen is still BM for leveling), and it is amazing.

It's kind of funny that I'm going Survival now, long after everyone else switched over, and after the BM-crippling nerfs have mostly been reversed (I didn't even respec for that). I'd tried it out in the past, and I just couldn't seem to get the rotation down--immolation trap, explosive shot, multi shot, ack my pet's dead and I have aggro! It was uncomfortable and it seemed just too hard. I was satisfied with where I was with BM, and so I went back to it.

This post made me step back and take another look at why I was staying BM.

Beast Mastery is my comfort zone, my safe place. I know it very well, and I can squeeze about as much DPS out of it as my gear will allow. Survival is only "hard" for me because it's not BM. It's a trap I fall into frequently. When we go out to eat, I always order the same thing or the closest I can find to it. I like one particular smoothie at Jamba Juice and don't really go out of my way to try the others though I'm sure they're just as good. I admit to being a little more adventurous with my Doritos, but that's only because my favorite flavor is no longer available. And it kind of bugs me--I don't want to miss out on something good just because it's different from what I'm used to. I realized that this was what was happening with me and Survival.

With my earlier re-spec I'd focused on the differences and how alien this strange new playstyle was to me. I tried trapdancing and even tamed a new pet. This time, I made an effort to give Survival a fair try. My wolf, Bolt, stayed at my side, and still does a fair amount of my damage. I spent about an hour practicing my rotation on the test dummies in Ironforge before tagging along on a quick Black Temple run for the achievement (I finally got to /fangirl at Illidan!) and then a Heroic Azjol'Nerub where I blew the other DPS away. This time, I'm staying Survival.

My wolf still bites and my hydra still tanks, though. I'm still a Hunter, after all.

Of keeping one's cool.

2009-04-05T12:00:00.001-07:00

She never believed me, you know. When I insisted that Player-versus-Player action would help you in fights against computer-controlled monsters, she would just shake her head and find an excuse.

A few days ago, we were together on our horde characters, myself a paladin, her a Hunter. She always keeps up Track Humanoids, which helps us to spot enemies from far away, on Dragonmaw they can attack us with impunity, and fresh into Northrend means we're fairly low-level. We were fighting Magnataur close to the mountains, when she noticed a Death Knight riding by. She advocated leaving it alone, I concurred but with the understanding that if he should be working on the same quest as us we should attack him.

He was.

After he went down, a rogue attacked us. It was higher level, and took down Kate's Hunter. She did not escape my wrath, however. Soon the rogue and death knight came at us together. We focused on the rogue first, bringing it down quickly, but I died right afterwards, from the death knight. Kate handled him beautifully, managing to bring him down with little trouble.

Afterward, Kate remarked how back when she was new, another player attacking her like that would've made her freak out, but now, with more experience and more importantly, having learned, as she put it, "one death won't kill you," she has become much more adaptable and calm in the frantic circumstances of PVP, which helps her in all other aspects of the game, too.

Here's a picture we took of my paladin shortly before the attacks.

More sparkles than Edward Cullen! -Kate

Like riding a bike, apparently.

2009-03-30T23:40:00.000-07:00

Except I never really got off the bike. Yesterday Kate, myself and David, our friend who just got to lvl 80 on his Warlock were playing around in WoW. On Sen'jin. I know, everybody thought we were through with that server, but not yet. I thought I wouldn't be on my Night Elf Death Knight until the Argent Tournament started up. We actually had fun.

Our first order of business was to get David some better gear. BC epics is what he's still using, and they're good quality stuff. So first we went through the Culling of Stratholme, got him an upgrade and also got him a Bronze Drake mount.

Then, on the way to the next one, Heroic Azjol-Nerub, Kate stopped in Dalaran to turn in the cooking daily quest, when suddenly she squeaked very loudly (it was a joyful squeak) and started freaking out. When asked what it was about, she just said "You'll see soon!"
We didn't have long to wait, she soon linked us a recipe she'd been looking for for a long time, the recipe for Delicious Chocolate cake, which she'd been wanting for her Chef title, she's only 8 or 9 recipes away from that, and she'd nearly given up on it.

Afterwards, however, Azjol-Nerub was disappointing. We had problems with the healing, and I'm well-geared enough and skilled enough for that not to cause a problem, at least until the last boss. There are these monsters that come in to reinforce the boss spray poisons everywhere. I recommended the Druid remove the poisons, which he can do, because David and Kate died to the poisons during the fight, but he insisted that the poisons weren't the problem, but that it was the DPS.

3 times we tried and failed. For the fourth try he said "I hate to be that guy but I g2g" (got to go for all those playing at home). So we picked up a priest to replace him, one that we knew but had only hit 80 recently. First time we did the boss, we took him down. Poor, stupid druid.

Remember, folks, changing tactics when they're failing consistently is a sign of wisdom, not weakness. The only people who're afraid to try new things are idiots and fools.

He's no Loque'nahak

2009-03-23T04:02:00.000-07:00

But he'll do.

Before anyone asks, "Wait, I thought you were leveling a Blood Elf"--yes, I was. This is my old hunter, my very first character, the one I went Survival with and melee'd because I had no idea how to kite. The one who lost her very first pet because I was too stupid to do the second part of the Hunter quest and couldn't feed him. The one who got put on the shelf at level 46 when I started up my Shaman, and sat there until earlier this week when I dusted her off to run through Ragefire Chasm farming linen cloth.

Clearly she's come a long way since then, and I am having fun.

Now, as for the gorilla in the picture...

After hitting 56 tonight in BRD and "rescuing" the stupid princess, I had all the gear I needed out of there and never wanted to see a Dark Iron dwarf again. Un'goro seemed like a good spot--plenty of quests, lots of mobs to skin, and the pretty green was a nice change from red and black. I picked up the gorilla quests first--my first time into the cave, I noticed a named mob on my tracking and nearly panicked. I knew there was a rare white gorilla that spawned in the back of the cave (I remembered from when BRK posted about his), I knew it had a name that started with a "U"...

/target U'cha

Nope. Just a regular old mob, probably for a quest. I picked up the last few pelts I needed and headed out, trying not to feel too disappointed. I mean, it took BRK over 5 hours...any less for me would be silly. That's actually what I told myself to feel better. I'd been so excited, too.

I wandered around for awhile doing a couple other quests--gathering scales from the pterrordax and diemetradons, picking up every green crystal I could find, attempting to singlehandedly wipe out the entire tar beast population. Eventually I got back to the Tauren, turned in my gorilla pelts, and noticed he had another quest for me, to kill the named gorilla I had seen earlier. I already knew the rarespawn wasn't going to be there, so no stress, but I could use some more rugged leather so I picked up the quest and headed back.

About halfway to U'cha I checked my tracking to make sure I was heading the right way.

U'cha, Uhk'loc...

Wait, that can't be right. That has to be the rarespawn.

/tar Uhk'loc

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(I don't seem to have a Brain, just a cuteness/awesome detector. It was squealing away like crazy and babbling something about nice pets, though, which I am willing to accept in lieu of actual conversation so long as it doesn't turn on me.)

Bad news, though--he was right next to the big U'cha guy and a couple of other apes. Even with me a few levels higher I wasn't sure if I'd be able to take out the others first, or pull him alone for long enough to tame him. I was ready to try, though, and also recruited Jon's paladin as backup in case I needed a stun. It's a long flight from Orgrimmar to Un'goro, though, so I decided I would try on my own and feign death if I had to.

I cleared up until I could see into the room--there were a few gorillas on the left, U'ch on a big rock in front of me, and Uhk'loc was wanding in a circle. I backed up a bit, abandoned my raptor, dropped a trap, and rummaged through my spellbook for Tame Beast. I waited until he was rigt in front of me, crossed my fingers, and clicked.

Nothing happened.

Apparently I was too far away. Okay, scoot closer to the trap, try again--none of the other gorillas came with him, thank goodness, but now he was right on top of me and there was no way my trap would last for the whole cast time. I hoped he wasn't one of those difficult creatures that would interrupt the taming spell as the last second...

That's funny, he was glowing, and getting smaller at the same time. I hope that doesn't mean he's gonna--Oh. I tamed him. He's mine now.

Wow.

I sat there for about a minute just looking at him before I remembered that I was, in fact, on a quest, and it might be a good idea to finish it up before flaking out and running off to post a screenshot. (I did.) I'm thinking I'll call him Snow.

Subtlety's finer points.

2009-03-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

"Are you logging on to your warrior?" Kate asks me as I log off of my Death Knight.
"I'm thinking about it," I replied, "but I remember promises of ice cream, and snuggles."
"Oh, I'll get the ice cream," Kate says. I hear her rummaging around in the kitchen. "It looks like there's only Hunters looking to join a group for BRD, so I totally don't want you to think this is a bribe."

Somewhat confused, I remain silent.
"Think what's a bribe?" I ask.
"Well, I really really want that ammo pouch and the leggings from BRD, but I don't want you to think that I'm getting you the ice cream as a bribe," Kate says.

We laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
When she brings the ice cream in to me, it's the vanilla ice cream, sprinkled with green sugar, a Peep perched up on the top of it and jelly beans scattered on it.

I look at the ice cream, then look at her. "You're very good at bribery," I say.

Fail Gank.

2009-03-22T12:08:00.001-07:00

Life on a PVP server is difficult. The reason is that when you're still leveling up somebody who's much higher level than you can come along and just rip through you like a bull through a wet kleenex. This is just the way things are, and people have different ways of coping with it.

First there's the suicidals. These ones just hold still and hope it'll be over quickly. It usually is. I consider these types to be fatalistic, weak-willed and pessimistic.

Second there's the escapists. These ones do their best to run away, sometimes successfully and done well, other times they mess it up, but with varying levels of success. This type is hopeful and positive, but not confident.

Third, the fighters. This type is where I classify myself, and I shall soon explain why with a story as well. These ones will try to kill the other one, fighting back with everything they have. Once again, varying levels of success, depending on level difference, numbers and skill. These ones are aggressive, positive and confident.

Now the story. I've got a level 53 warrior, Sazhur is her name. I was doing a quest in the Blasted Lands, fighting various Shadowsworn cultists, when suddenly a gigantic gorilla slams into me from behind, and bullets start pounding against my armor. I turn around and see a level 62 night elf hunter using me for target practice, as his gorilla plays bongos on my skull. Thinking fast, I charge up into him. Take away a Hunter's range, and they don't have much else. A few other Shadowsworn ran toward me, but the Hunter dropped an explosive trap, and the explosion from it made the cultists focus on him instead of me. After a few Shield Slams and one well-timed Revenge, I manage to kill the hunter with a sliver of health and 2 angry cultists still alive. I then proceeded to execute a tactical withdrawal.

Now, excerpts from the combat log.
1.

2.

3.

4.

Now, a few things that our little friend Jaystand could have done differently. First, Disengage. It's a cheap, easy way to get distance that Hunters get at about level 20. Second, he shouldn't have tried to drop a trap, especially Explosive; that only made the cultists focus on him, not myself, and did minimal damage. Thirdly for heaven's sake, he didn't even try to kite me, he used Wing Clip once, but in a rather perfunctory manner without any follow-up to try to get further away.

Matching pets and mounts for RP purposes

2009-03-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

I almost always have a story behind my pets and mounts--Izsera's hippogryph mount, for instance, is one that she raised herself (not only does she have the minipet, but when I did the quest to rescue an egg from Feralas it was perfect quality). Her gryphon has a similar story, since she would have had to be crazy to just hand the eggs over to a Draenei with no notion of how to take care of animals. And for the longest time she had a Ghost Saber and a Spotted Frostsaber that were (of course) one and the same. Now with Ireta, although I'm going to have to shuffle things around to make it work story-wise, I'm planning to pick up the worg pup minipet, she has an unarmored black wolf as her current pet which will be switched for an armored one at 59, and I will be grinding out BGs so she can learn to ride her wolf (that is, pick up the pvp mount).

The following list-o'-links is something I've been thinking about writing up for a while, and is probably incomplete, but here are some of the other pet+mount combinations that ought to work well. Links are all to Petopia, Warcraft Mounts, and WarcraftPets (all of which I spend more time at than I should...I swear I'll get back to leveling in a--oooooh pretty!)

Horde-only sets:

Worg Pup (black phase) -> Black Worg/Warhound -> Black War Wolf
(The brown phase matches the Brown Wolf but there is no tamable wolf that color.)
Frostwolf -> Frostwolf Howler (Eye color changes.)
Dark Grey Wolf -> Dire Wolf
Grey Wolf -> Swift Timber Wolf (Not an exact match, but colors are close. Eye color changes.)
Green Raptor -> Emerald Raptor (Not an exact match, but close. Eye color changes.)
Pink Raptor -> Violet Raptor (Not an exact match, but close. Eye color does not change.)

Anyone can pick up the Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling and tame a Dragonhawk to match, but it looks like only Horde will be able to complete the collection with the Red Dragonhawk mount (Alliance players get a blue one, which is available as a minipet but not a Hunter pet).

Alliance-only sets:

Frostsaber Pride Watcher -> Winterspring Frostsaber
Nightsaber -> Striped Nightsaber (The Black Tabby Cat is tricky for Alliance to get, but might be a good minipet match.)
Striped Frostsaber -> Striped Frostsaber (The Silver Tabby Cat might be a good minipet match, though the eyes are a different color.)
Frostsaber -> Swift Frostsaber (The White Kitten might be a good minipet match, though the eyes are a different color.)
Snow Leopard/Ghost Saber -> Spotted Frostsaber

Neutral sets:

Black Bear -> Big Battle Bear (Horde and Alliance Black War Bears aren't really a good fit but could also work with a little imagination. They could also kind of work with a Grey Bear.)
Brown Bear -> Armored Brown Bear, Horde or Alliance
Baby Blizzard Bear -> White Bear -> White Polar Bear
Tiger -> Swift Zulian Tiger
Nether Ray Fry -> Purple Nether Ray -> Purple Riding Nether Ray
Green Nether Ray -> Green Riding Nether Ray
Red Nether Ray -> Red Riding Nether Ray
Blue Nether Ray -> Blue Riding Nether Ray

I don't *think* I've missed anything, but if I have please do let me know. :)

thoughts on shopping/cooking for two people

2009-03-12T18:30:00.001-07:00

Shopping for two people seems to be a lot harder than shopping for one or four or six. I can't just buy one thing, because Jon does have to eat too, but I can't go with the bulk options either because the two of us can't eat that much before it spoils. I've always thought that its a good idea to go with whatever has the lowest unit price but that's not really a good idea. When we moved in here I bought a huge bag of potatoes, made food with potatoes in it a few times, and then went a couple weeks at a time ignoring the potatoes completely. This was a mistake, because the next time I reached into the bag I pulled out what appeared to be a miniature pineapple. I've had similar incidents with big bags of salad and cartons of eggs. I'm still not sure if we should have tried to eat potatoes or salad every night until they were gone, but my new solution is simply to buy less--even with the slightly higher prices, it'll be better in the long run since we won't be wasting so much. (I hope!)

I'm also working on cooking meals from scratch more often, since "easy" meals have the same problem of being designed for either one person or a large group--I love Hamburger Helper, but the box says four servings and generally if we cook it, we eat it all. It feels a little silly and wasteful to me, so I'm trying to cut back on boxed food and put the "leftovers" away first when I do make it. I'm a lot less likely to bother with seconds if I have to pull them out of the fridge and microwave them, and it makes lunches a lot easier.

On the topic of cooking, I stumbled across this site a while back and have just started getting into it. It makes everything seem super easy, without making me feel like a complete failure for not knowing all of this totally obvious stuff. (No, I did not even know how to bake a potato before watching the video. Sad, isn't it?)

The plan for tonight is baked potatoes and salad, with brownies left over from last night. Mmmm.

Time for a new pet?

2009-03-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't about the new spirit beast or Aotona becoming tameable. It's actually about my new Blood Elf Hunter, so if that doesn't interest you I won't mind if you ignore the rest of this post and go drool over the pretty new pets in the links above. (In fact I'm gonna go do that myself when I'm done here.)

Like Jon said, we've re-rolled Horde. We're back on Dragonmaw, the PvP server where I started out--I do have a 70 Shaman, but I enjoy Hunter much more, so I've been leveling a little Blood Elf named Ireta. At the suggestion of one of Fogol's guildies I ran over to Bloodmyst Isle and tamed her a Ravager, one of the pretty green ones. (The Ravager's name is MyHat--rather than explaining why this is funny I shall simply direct you here.)

I hit level 30 yesterday and got my red hawkstrider, so I think I'm doing pretty well. The Ravager's weakness as a Cunning type pet is really starting to show, though, and so I'm looking into alternatives. The only Tenacity pet I really like (besides the Hydra) is the Warp Stalker, and I'm nowhere near high level enough for that, so Ferocity is what I'm going to need to go for. I think the white tiger from STV might be a good match, even though I'm not fond of cats, but he's level 43 so I've got a while before I can tame him.

My favorite Ferocity pet is the blighthound, but that's pretty high level too. Stats-wise though, a wolf is a wolf... I've been planning on taming one of the riding wolves from Hellfire Ramparts, and later go for the PvP mount. I am considering looking for an unarmored wolf with similar coloration so that when I tame the higher level wolf I can just say that specialty armor I was getting made has arrived. ;) The worgs in Silverpine seem like they might be a good match, and it'll be a good chance for me to see if I like the furry wolves as much as the shorthaired ones.

I'm still totally not sure what I want, though, so any suggestions would be nice. :)

Factions, Guilds and Helping Hands

2009-03-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Weeeeellllllllllllll okay. My perspective on the situation involving Malygos and the guild officer is a little bit different than Kate's. We talked it over with another officer in the guild, and discovered a few interesting facts. First of all, it was a pickup group, not a guild run. Sort of.

It was begun by an ex-guildy who'd been kicked out of the guild for running pickup groups at the same time that guild raids were scheduled to be, and told us he didn't care if he was kicked out because of it. So he was. The guild had been having trouble with Malygos, so they decided to ask this ex-guildy for help. He agreed, and then they proceeded to fill out the group with mostly people in our guild, which is when Kate was asked on her Hunter to DPS. The ex-guildy who was running the raid wanted to fill it up fast and get going, so the officer who whispered her was in a rush. Apparently a terrible rush, because he forgot to mention a few things.

The things he should have mentioned: 1)It was a PUG, not an official guild run. 2)He was not necessarily in control of invites.
Had he mentioned these two little facts, it would've resulted in Kate not feeling like he was putting down her DPS and saying, effectively, "I don't care if you know Marksman and Beast Mastery, you're still not good DPS."

So they ended up downing Malygos, which is great. Unfortunately, the guild lost a Hunter because of it. Our guild's problem is not tanks, our tanking is fine. Our problem isn't healers, our healers are wonderful. Our guild's problem is DPS. The DPS gets killed in the most simple of fights; they cross Charges on Thaddius, they die consistently (like, every time) on Heigan's Safety Dance, they crowd up on Zeliek and get fried, etc. etc. Not to mention most of them have trouble pulling over 2K DPS on fights where they do manage to survive.

My perspective on what happened is that it was a great opportunity for our officers to show to the guild and to the ex-member that was helping us on the raid two things: 1) that people in the guild come first, and 2) we are in control when we run raids. Now let me explain. If the officers in the raid had explained to the ex-guildy, "she's re-speccing Marks, we're going to give her a few minutes," there would've been two possible outcomes.
1) the ex-member would've gotten impatient and left the group, which to my mind was not a negative outcome at all, as there are undoubtedly other people on the server we could've asked for help with Malygos.
2) he would've acquiesced to wait for Kate, which would not have resulted in the guild losing a Hunter.

But instead, the officers were afraid to lose the ex-member's help. I know the one officer that Kate spoke with probably didn't consult with the rest of the officers in the guild as to how he should ask her to come along, the guy was a jerk for talking to her that way. But the real problem is that we showed the ex-member that to us, progression is more important than the guild members. Which I find strange, since they've been tolerating sub-par DPS without much effort to force them to improve and allowing people to consistently make the same mistakes on boss battles that get them killed without much effort to correct them.

A strange situation to be sure. So, yeah, in the aftermath of all of that, we re-rolled Horde on a server with an old friend of ours who's kept in touch with us.

Promised Fogol I'd post this...

2009-03-05T16:59:00.000-08:00

I think he's in there somewhere....

Mood: Grumpy

2009-03-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

Got hit on by a gnome while I was running around on my lowbie druid in Ashenvale. Told him "no" about thirty different ways, stealthed, and still couldn't get rid of him. Told him I was a hairy, overweight man in real life. His response: "Wat?"

Logged on to Izzy to try and get some stuff done. Got my 50 pet achievement along with Stinker the skunk. Jon has a black cat on his DK so I'll finally get to try that out. The excitement was marred somewhat by a level 20 druid in grey armor asking me to give her gold to buy a twink weapon, and then following me around asking questions like where I got my white hawkstrider.

I did find a group for the Heroic daily, eventually--right as we were about to pull the first boss, though, a guild officer whispered me and wasted about five minutes of everyone's time. I say wasted, because the conversation went something like this:

Him: Are you still BM?
Me: Yes, why?
Him: We need more ranged DPS for Maly.
Him: But we only want good DPS.
Me: I do good DPS.
Him: Yeah, but your pet is worthless in phase 2. Could you respec SV?
Me: I don't have the gear for SV but I could switch to MM pretty easily, just need a few minutes to set up my action bars for it.
Him: /waffles
Me: So do you need me or not? My group is about to pull the first boss in H UK so I need to know now.
Him: Nah, we need good DPS.

/facepalm

And woo, looks like this is our 100th post. Yay? /confetti

edit: It appears that now they've brought in a former guild member to fill out the raid--one who was gkicked for skipping guild runs so he could pug.

>.<

Gaaaaah! Too much!

2009-03-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

So as I was pondering what subject I should write about today, my mind was rather overwhelmed with the little things that could be mentioned. I'll have to post more frequently so I don't forget something fun and interesting.

My current work schedule's thrown off my WoW life, being unable to play w/the usual group of guys n gals on Sen'jin has made me sad. So I've been resorting to a lot of PVP. It was kinda cute, late one evening as I was in Alterac Valley Kate came over and curled up around me; she and I talked for a bit, then she fell asleep there on the beanbag chair using me as the pillow.

Recently I've been doing a lot of PVP in Wintergrasp, particularly. Let me offer my ideas as to what constitutes a good strategy.

1) Offensive strategy. Even if the horde pour all their resources into defending one point, if that's the weakest point that most people are bunched up at, it's still profitable to rush there. Spending 15 mins attacking the untouched walls on the east side when the west has nearly broken through to the center of the fortress is a waste of time.

2) Defensive strategy. Unless there's only 5-6 horde in the zone, you will not be able to defend until the battle-timer runs out. You need to send out some people to attack the towers; not only does this give you a buff to damage, but when the towers are gone, we win. Trying to "hold them off" is a strategy for failure.

Always remember, if you make the game about anything other than winning, you're gonna lose. Those WSG (the Capture the Flag Battleground) fights where people get into the mindset of "ZOMG JUST GET OUR FLAG BACK" are the ones that are lost.

Recently when I was playing racquetball with my father I pointed out that sometimes we get so focused on just one part of the game that we forget what the overarching goal is. I had hit some hard shots, and I suggested that instead of just trying to return the hard shots, remembering the point of the game, namely to score. His shots became more difficult when he started focusing on that and he got a couple good ones on me that I wasn't able to return.

Well, that's all for now, I'll post again soon if I remember something interesting or something interesting happens.

Tips for Newbs in Naxx

2009-02-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

There's some stuff in Naxx that seems so obvious that no one should ever have trouble with it...yet your first time or two in, you are almost guaranteed to mess it up. Here are some tips which I found helped me a lot. :)

1. Turn UP your spell effects. Many bosses in Naxxramas use AoE abilities, and it's essential to be able to see them and move out quickly. Even if you must have all other settings at the bare minimum, you really can't get away with not having your spell effects up.

2. On Heigan, face the platform and strafe. This is much, much easier than facing and running forward, and makes following others less tempting. Just remember not to strafe all the way to the wall on the end sections, as you will not be able to get back out in time.

3. Don't hug Zeliek. There seem to be an awful lot of strategies for the Four Horsemen, but this one point is important. He casts a chained holy attack--a little like chain lightning, but it can jump to an unlimited number of targets and the damage increases every time. Here's a picture:

To be fair, it's a little bit simplified--you'd need more than one person standing in the wrong place for the spell to jump to anyone standing at max range. On the other hand, standing too close to the melee puts you at risk of taking damage even if the other ranged DPS are safe, and that's rough on the healer. It is best simply to NOT stand anywhere between melee range and max casting range. (Also do not stand within melee range unless your raid leader has told you to do so--having too many people in melee with Zeliek can also cause deaths.)

4. Run behind the slimes on Frogger, not between. It's tempting to squeeze in between to slimes, but even with perfect timing, latency can still be an issue. Instead, wait for a fresh slime to spawn, and run directly behind it. You should be able to make it through running diagonally from left to right, moving with the slimes somewhat.

5. During the Grobbulus fight, when you drop your poison cloud you will raise your hand. If you just can't watch your buffs to see when you're going to drop the poison cloud, watch your character--there is a distinct animation when dropping the poison cloud, giving you enough warning to get out before it ticks and kills you. (I am going to assume that you know where to run to when you get injected--this is just a little trick to make sure you don't kill yourself.)

6. Run forward and hit your jump key right as you reach the edge to get to Thaddius's platform. If you jump to soon, or walk up to the edge and then jump, you're not going to make it. Rather than relying on a friendly mage to cast slow fall, it's worth it to put the time in to practice and get it right. Blackfathom Deeps has an excellent area for practicing your jumps in--if you've been there before you should remember the broken walkway. (I know I do--I had to be summoned across by the party's warlock because I just couldn't get across.) If you're not comfortable starting with something so challenging, I'd recommend Wailing Caverns to start with--you can always go back to BFD when you're a little more confident. Once you can make all of the jumps in BFD, Thaddius should give you no trouble at all.

7. Watch your charge and keep an eye on Thaddius. Your raid may have someone on vent calling out when the polarity is about to shift or when it has shifted, but nothing beats being completely aware of the situation yourself. Make sure you have your UI set up so that even if you are healing you are able to see when he begins to cast Polarity Shift. When he starts the cast, switch to watching your charge--as soon as it changes (if it changes) run straight forward, through his legs and out the other side. Do not rely on anyone else to time your movements on this fight--vent can lag, but that doesn't mean it's the lag that will get blamed if someone crosses the charges. ;)

baby in need of a heart transplant

2009-02-26T14:36:00.000-08:00

EDIT: Looks like things worked out for them--the donation button has been taken down and the website now says: "Thank you for your prayers and support!! Because of you we are currently en route to a transplant facility! Details to come!"

http://www.katu.com/news/local/40324212.html

This is the part that really gets to me:

"The baby's parents have health insurance but it does not cover transplants. And the family makes too much to qualify for coverage under Oregon's state health plan."

I can't imagine how horrible that would be, to think you're doing everything right for your family and then find out that you might have been better off if you had done nothing at all. Life just seems so unfair sometimes.

On the one hand, the family does seems to be fairly well off, looking at the photos they have up on their site. I'd like to see more of what kind of effort they're making (selling their home? taking out loans? trying to work out a payment plan with the hospital?). And I can understand why, if it's such an expensive surgery, the hospitals would be unwilling to just do it for out of state patients.

On the other hand, there's no way any normal people have 1.5 million on hand, and he's a cute little guy.

I guess I'm just sort of on the fence about this...I want to help, but I don't want to feel like I'm being taken advantage of. 1.5 million is a lot, do they have any plans for what to do with the money they receive if they don't get enough, or if the baby dies before the surgery?

I'm still deciding for myself, Jon and I will talk about it when he gets home. We won't give more than we can afford, but it's not too big of a loss to us to skip a couple meals out and stop buying oreos and chips for a while, and if what we give helps to save a life than it will be more than worth it.

Click here for a link to their website.

More stomping, less howling...

2009-02-26T11:15:00.000-08:00

I haven't been keeping track of all the pet changes on the PTR right now, but the ones that affect me seem pretty interesting.

Wolves are getting their howl changed quite a bit:

-Furious Howl now only affects the hunter and her pet (currently bugged so only pet gets the buff?), but it now stacks with other AP buffs. It's about time, and I am just thrilled about it. :)

-Duration increased to 20 seconds from 10, but cooldown increased to 40 seconds. The AP amount looks like it has been increased to make up for this. I'm not too excited here, honestly--I liked having my buff up all the time. We'll have to see how it pans out, but mostly I think its just stupid. Having to time big shots to get the buff? Still not being able to trigger the buff manually because the cooldown will be short enough to put it on the pet GCD? Fail.

Hydras (and all other Tenacity pets) are getting some love, though--Thunderstomp will now be a Tenacity talent instead of for Gorillas only, so I won't feel bad about avoiding the buttscratching, banana-stealing nuisances. Sassy already stomps around quite well, I think she's been practicing.

One thing I haven't heard about is Bad Attitude, which seems to be bugged for me (no idea if it is on the PTR, this is on live). It's a 2-minute cooldown, so even with full points in Longevity it shouldn't be on the pet GCD, I think--but it's acting like it is, and I have to spam the crap out of it any time I want to use it, just like I used to with Roar of Recovery. It's way too long a cooldown to leave on autocast and hope it's up when I need it, though. Not happy about it. I'm thinking of taming a normal croc to test it out, but I'm not sure where to go with it after that. Maybe I should skim the o-boards first.

Tagged! And we woke up 3 days later with radio collars on.

2009-02-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

So it seems we've been tagged, which means we are now obligated to post the sixth screenshot that both of us have made.
Here's a link to the gentleman who tagged us: His name is Bob.
A long time ago I made mine, in Molten Core, shortly before we fought Magmadar. Back in the innocent days, when Hunters would get 2 points of ranged attack power for every 1 point of agility, and raids were a pain in the butt with 39 other people. Much has changed since then.

Kate's was on her Hunter, Izsera's, parent server, Moonrunner, we were making a guild there with some of her friends from the My Little Pony Arena (Sidenote: I always have pictured that as something more violent than it really is) and she was having fun with the Guild Tabard maker. Her original name was Medley.

The people we're tagging, although not hunters, are still guildies. Hopefully this doesn't proc some kinda crazy curse.

The best thing about WotLK.

2009-02-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

*cackles*

When you can't find a PUG...

2009-02-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

"I've been sitting in LFG for the past two hours...there's just nobody on."

"Hmm, have you tried /who?"

"Yeah... everyone in Dalaran is busy looking for those books, and there aren't any level 80s in IF or Stormwind."

"What about Darnassus?"

"Are you serious?"

"Um. Yeah, nevermind, that was a stupid idea."

"I haven't checked Shattrath, though--hang on a sec."

"Okay."

"Hmm... well, I've got DPS. Pass me lead?"

Illidan joins the party.

Kael'thas joins the party.

"What the... why are there raid bosses in our group?"

"Well, it's not like they were doing much, just sitting around Shattrath twiddling their thumbs. Actually, there's a lot of them there, seems to be where all the unemployed bosses go. I could have picked up Vashj, too, but I don't want the competition on Hunter loot."

"She has Hunter loot!"

"Yeah, but the Drake-mounted Crossbow would be an upgrade for her, too. Anyway--"

"YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!"

"--like I was saying, I know that, we still need a healer. Any suggestions?"

"Um."

"Okay, BRB. I'm finding a list."

"Okay."

"Back. Looks like we have two main options. Personally I'd rather go with Delrissa, but she's probably busy. I know there's a bunch of people still running Magister's Terrace for that white hawkstrider."

"And the other option?"

Freywinn joins the party.

"You have got to be kidding."

"Hey, finding a boss that heals isn't easy. Anyway, we're going to need to summon him; he doesn't have a flying mount so he's kind of stuck right now. We should probably start heading for the stone. Everyone know how to get to Utgarde Keep?"

--

Thank goodness I don't have to try to find a group for H UK anymore--it was the Heroic daily yesterday and I finally got my Plunderer's Helmet. Re-gemming my gear so I could go for a really nice meta gem was a pain, and I'm back under 4k AP again, but barely, and I gained about a percent of crit.

The guild put together a couple of 10-man Naxx groups to gear up some newer 80s later on, and I finally got to see Sapphiron down. We're planning on going back in for Kel'thuzad tonight, right before we do 25-man Sapph and KT. I'm not sure whether I'm hoping for the UglyGun or not...still, it should be fun. :)

Portal

2009-02-17T02:53:00.000-08:00

Today was Jon's day off so we spent it getting some shopping done, including stopping in at the GameStop at the mall. We picked up a copy of Portal (okay, Jesse, you can get off our back about it now) and just finished it.

Dang that game was freaky. I think it might give me nightmares. But it's okay, because Jon and I finally got to play a game together (no! put the portal over there!) and we had a ton of fun. :)

Now we need sleeeep.....

She's terribly cute, you know.

2009-02-16T19:13:00.000-08:00

Ah, how I love my wife. Kate's recently decided she wants to test out a druid. I was watching her play through the night elf quests, and I noticed she'd let her health get extremely low. I mentioned that she should cast Rejuvenation on herself, as it slowly restores her health.

"But it's on cooldown!" she said, referring to the delay that some spells have before you can cast them again. I was confused. You see, my years of playing as a druid had led me to believe that Rejuvenation doesn't have a cooldown. I peered more closely at her screen to confirm my suspicions.

"Rejuvenation doesn't need to cool down, you can always cast it," I replied, pointing to the spell's details, which indicate nothing about a cooldown. She read it closely, then looked up at me, pouting angrily.

"It's too dark, it always looks like it's cooling down," she said, a cute little frown on her face as I laughed.

RAWR!

2009-02-12T15:02:00.001-08:00

I was sitting around in Darnassus (for you non-WoW folks, that's not a bad word, it's the Night Elf capitol city) when someone posted in Trade Chat looking for more for Onyxia. Jon knows (along with maybe one of two other people) that she's one of the bosses I've wanted to fight since I started playing--I mean, big black evil dragon? With cute little baby dragons (which admittedly are also evil)? Yes please! I was a little hesitant since the lock putting the group together was only level 60, but he did have an 80 prot pally along so I was willing to give it a try.

After finding a couple other people, losing the pally, and picking up a warrior, the group was:

Me (80 Hunter) and Sassy (80 Hydra)
60 Warlock
79 Holy Priest
60-something Warrior
60 Death Knight
80 Warrior

The 80 warrior wasn't prot but was going to tank--I had Sassy along just in case we needed an off tank for anything, or the tank DCd. Everything went pretty well for the first phase, despite most of us not being familiar with the fight. Once adds came out, though, the lowbies started having trouble--5k health just isn't enough when you have 3-6 little dragons nibbling on you--and then the floor started spitting lava (thank goodness I had some practice with that sort of thing), and avoiding that as well as the aoe flame breath thing was a little much for them. So it was me and the Warrior, me putting everything I had into it while watching his health--when he hit about 20% I switched Growl on and hoped Sassy would survive long enough to let me get a couple kill shots in. With the damage the tank was taking I really didn't expect to live long if he went down.

He died, Onyxia went straight for me--Sassy didn't have quite enough threat built up. Shadowmelded, but lagged a bit, and ended up moving before my pet had enough time to get aggro back. Feigned death--was resisted. Ran around the room for about a minute just trying to stay ahead of her, me at 4k health because I'd been careless with the AoE earlier, and spamming my Lifeblood button hoping it would get off cooldown before I got hit. Sassy finally grabbed her, and I went back to DPSing.

I went OOM, and ended up spending a while in Viper, panicking and hoping that I was doing enough damage (I have no idea what the enrage timers are on old bosses, but it felt like I was taking for ever). Most of the others had released, assuming that it was a wipe, and were talking about respeccing for more DoTs (no, really, I am not making this up). Suddenly Sassy was at half health--aaagh, Mend Pet, search for Last Stand button, panic about my mana, switch back and forth between Viper and Dragonhawk to get the most out of my Arcane Shots without going OOM**...my hands were shaking a bit with the excitement/stress/panicpanicpanic.

It took me a while to realize we were actually going to be able to kill her, it wasn't until she was down to 96k (that's when I looked up) that it finally hit. I looked down at the chat log and apparently they'd been cheering me on for a bit but I hadn't really noticed....

And then I was the only one who got the achievment. 0.o

Anyway, I know it's nothing special for most folks, but I was just so excited, never having done it before. (And so proud of my Hydra. *snuggles Sassy*)

I feel so dirty....

2009-02-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

I knew this day was coming, and I've managed to hold out for a long time. My recalcitrance had become nearly legendary among the guilds I run with, and I could even maintain a certain devil-may-care, maverick attitude about it. But curse it all, they just kept making too many add-ons too fun and useful!

I still maintain all my opinions and prejudices, namely that they can cause bugs in the game, that they can devour system resources like an Arrakis sandworm devours a harvester (and for any who didn't get that extremely geeky reference, I take this opportunity to recommend Dune, by Frank Herbert. Read it!) but still, I broke down. Curse my human weaknesses! I blame Kate, who kept on showing me such useful and pretty little programs to download!

I'm sorry, I just can't continue, I'm afraid my emotions might overwhelm me. Anyway, they fed us at work on Saturday at least! Croissants, a fruit platter, donuts and danishes in the morning, and pizza in the afternoon. They even went around with a list and got everyone's preferred toppings. Unfortunately, I got stuck on a call and apparently my preferred toppings (sausage and mushroom) were more preferred than everyone else's, and my pizza was gone. Ah well, so I just had a bunch of everyone else's! Also, mom and dad took david, sarah, myself and kate out for dinner at Red Robin. Good food, good times.

Carrots + WoW (but no Carrot on a Stick)

2009-02-05T14:49:00.001-08:00

For some reason, until today I had never tried to eat a whole carrot. I peeled too many to fit in with the carrot sticks, though, and it was tasty. I might go have another. They make a wonderfully crumb-free gaming snack, and unlike celery don't get stuck in one's teeth or require dip to achieve maximum levels of yum.

WoW-stuff:

Got a very pretty bow for my Hunter and things are going much better with the guild and all. Actually getting some gear now (a cloak and some other stuff besides the bow), and I passed 3k DPS for the first time (I think I was doing like 3.2-3.4, I can't remember off the top of my head, but it was good). Pugs have been painful lately but Jon is having fun with his Unholy-specced DK tank so when he gets home we've already got half a group to finish just about anything.

It's a little sad, though, that even with BM being overnerfed I am consistently first on the damage meters with full pugs (lower if it's a guild group, thank goodness). Sometimes Jon's second, and that's while tanking. I know rep-grinds are a pain, but there really has to be some sort of pre-requisite to running heroics, otherwise it's just a waste of time. Preferably it would be something that taught DKs not to Death Grip everything, Hunters to stop smashing their faces against the keyboard, and Priests to pay attention to their surroundings and move out of the AoE...

I've been working on my Warrior a bit too, it's fun switching from ranged to melee for a bit. She's Arms at the moment but when I log on I will probably switch to Fury just to try it out, now that I have two good one-handers and Berserker Stance now. I might try Fury 30-ish to 60, since I've done Arms up till now, and switch to Protection once I hit Outland. I'm pretty sure Prot is the way I'm going to want to go at 80, since I've had nothing but good experiences with that spec so far (only bad teammates), but I want to make sure I give the other specs a fair chance.

I'm halfway tempted to work on my BE pally and Troll hunter as well, but Hellen (my Warrior) takes top priority since I've already spent so much time on her. Planning on buying her the exp bonus shoulders, too. And I might need to make her some glyphs.

But first I have dinner to make, dishes to do, bathroom to clean, mail to get, among other things. I'm trying to treat 'em all like daily quests...if only I was getting some rep for it. XD

My Little Pony, version 3.5

2009-01-28T01:08:00.001-08:00

THIS is the future of My Little Pony.

Photo from magicfeuilledethé on the MLP Arena--and yes, there's more. Rainbow Dash, what have they done to you? :(

Reminds me of this.

Huntery Frustrations

2009-01-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

If I have to explain to a certain hunter one more time that the hit cap is 8% not 11% and no, Expertise is not a helpful stat for us, I think I will go mad.

Other than that, things are going well--I got Izsera hitcapped without too much trouble, and have been doing much better DPS since I upgraded several pieces of gear. Tried Survival and hated it, so I'm sticking with BM for now, though I need to level another pet in place of my wolf since his howl ability isn't too useful when there are pallies and warriors around. No sign of King Krush yet and I've heard Devilsaurs have serious hitbox issues, so I'm looking at maybe a cat from Winterspring, there are a couple of skins there that I actually like. I did tame a wasp but I'm not too fond of it, so I won't be leveling it if I can help it...

Ran Heroic Culling of Stratholme last night and got Jon the bronze drake mount, I'll have to have him post a screenshot when he gets home. :)

No, but seriously, folks.

2009-01-26T11:19:00.000-08:00

Okay, enough with the shenanigans, this is my first day off in our new apartment, and I'm savoring the moments. Mmm, delicious. Kate's gotten the place nicely organized and everything's sorted out now. She cooks much better than she thinks, she just needs to be left no viable alternatives.

Now, on to Death Knight tanking. I've tanked in 10- and 25-man Naxxramas as well as countless 5-mans, and here are my thoughts. Before the patch, Death Knights did indeed take too much damage tanking, you had to rotate your cooldowns very sparingly as Frost (Unbreakable Armor, Icebound Fortitude, Lichborne, etc.) in order to survive some of the more brutal fights. Now, however, we take much less damage, and there can be much more variety in the type of tank that one wants to be.

First, Blood. Very good if you have an absent-minded healer, as between Improved Rune Tap, Vampiric Blood and Bloodworms, you can heal yourself of a lot of the damage, but not particularly sturdy in any way.

Second, Frost. Lots of cooldowns, longer Icebound Fortitude, and a couple good talents (like Frigid Deathplate) would make this an excellent spec for general tanking, if not for one thing: Howling Blast. Buggy as HELL, even though they "removed" the cooldown, it still acts like there's a cooldown on it, and usually even triggers the GCD even if it doesn't cast. So no. Until they fix that thing, I must be separated from my true love.

Third, Unholy. Dunno, haven't really tried it, I'll let you know, cuz I've re-spec'd and am gonna try it out in a couple Heroics today.

Rawr, I am big scary Death Knight!

2009-01-24T21:37:00.000-08:00

Yay, we have Internet again! This is the first blog post I've been able to make in a long time. It's good to be back, I've missed teh Intarwebz much! Rejoice, world, I have not left you alone and desolate!

All moved in...

2009-01-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

...but no internet yet, I'm at Jon's parents' house right now. I can't wait, it gets kind of boring during the day and I am running out of books to read.

The kitchen is wonderful and the bathroom is neat, but I lack living room furniture so it's still a mess. It shall be clean for my birthday tomorrow, however.

WoW-stuff:
According to BRK it looks like Beast mastery hunters may not be as bad off as previously thought, so maybe I'll get to tame my devilsaur after all. Rawr!

Moving Day!

2009-01-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

...of course the banks are closed, which we forgot about, so Jon and his mom are running around trying to scrape together enough cash from all our checking accounts (yay ATMs!) for rent and the deposit. It's really annoying---we have the money in our bank account, but we have no access to it, thanks to the bank never ordering our debit cards (which they promised they would about four weeks ago <.<). Hopefully we can find a decent local bank, but I somewhat doubt it.

We're getting internet on Thursday, at which point we'll also renew my subscription (expired Monday) so I can play again, and we'll have Jon's computer set up by then too... we may be able to actually start running Heroics and getting prepared to raid by the end of the week! (It has been waaaay too long.)

Until we get Jon's computer up and running, though, I'm probably going to be working on my baby belfadin Aristane if I play at all. Here's a pic of her with another pally who could easily be her brother. I've actually been questing with him a fair bit though I'm sure he'll be like level 40 by the time I get back online. >.<

I want my computer back!

2009-01-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'll have it back in a few minutes, but it feels weird just letting Jon use it. (It is my preciousss...) He's writing something, probably awesome, for this blog so I guess I can try to be patient.

He doesn't like me peeking over his shoulder though. So I am trying to be patient and keep away. It looks t be something based on a weird conversation we had a few days ago, though, involving My Little Ponies and the Burning Legion.

Also:

There's a tiny little link to me at the bottom of this post and I don't know whyyyy. Or what segment of hunterness he is saying I represent, or anything. Jon finds my panic amusing. <.<

Oooh, Jon says he's almost done! I'm gonna go read his post now.....

EDIT -- it's right under this post, cause he started before I did even though I finished first. That, uh, makes sense....

Doom for everybody!

2009-01-18T11:21:00.001-08:00

A few days ago, Kate and I were walking through Wal-Mart; as usual she had checked out the My Little Pony selection, and she was disappointed. She commented that they seemed to be dying out again, but that they did that occasionally, dying out then coming back a few years later. A rather interesting panorama opened itself up to me as my twisted little mind thought about that.

****
I imagined a G.I. Joe action figure poring over a map inside a plastic tent, the sounds of battle outside, explosions, screams, distant roaring. Suddenly a Barbie Doll burst into the room, covered with dirt, gouges showing in her plastic body.

"Sir!" She shouted, "a group of Pinkie Pies slipped behind our back lines, the Nerf artillery is being attacked!"

"My men are barely holding them back at the front, the Superhero dolls are trying to get around to flank them, I don't know who we can pull back to help," he sighed heavily. "Last time we had the might of the Thundercats; this time we were ill-prepared to drive back the Pony Legions. The Power Rangers underestimated the savagery of the My Little Ponies, and they paid for their arrogance dearly. I fear without a miracle, the minions of Hasbro might very well destroy us all this time."

"Maybe the Pokemon trainers can be called upon," she said. "The loss of Palkia and
Dialga was severe, but they still number in the hundreds."

"They might do as much damage to the artillery as the Ponies," he shook his head wearily. "No, I fear we have but one option left if we are to drive them back again. We must unleash Ruxpin."

She gasped. "Teddy Ruxpin? He's more than just a legend? I've only heard stories about him! He's not been seen for years!"

"Only in times of dire need has he been called forth, but we have need of him."

Suddenly the plastic radio next to the map crackled, and a panicked voice came through. "For Mattel's sake, hold them back! Sir! Do you read me? The ponies broke through, the Flutter Ponies dropped in a pack of newborn cuties and we can't hold them back any longer, we're in full retreat!"

"Fall back to Candyland, soldier, I'm sending reinforcements!" the commander shouted into the radio. "Galactic Heroes Obi-Wan, are your troops ready?"

"We are ready and approaching the front lines, General, the last of the Lego AT-TE walkers were just constructed and are being flown in," came the reply.

"Good, your Clones and Jedi will have to hold them off until we can bring out The Ruxpin. Without his might we haven't a chance."
****

In the end, the casualties would never be fully tallied. The Power Rangers had been nearly exterminated, the already vanishing Bratz would never be seen again. The Ruxpin's power wiped the Ponies out, but the Clones paid heavily for it. Even decades later, those traveling across the former battlefield would find scratched bricks and decaying weaponry. Without their dark masters, the fakie ponies and Littlest Pet Shop creatures were no more threat; hunted down like animals, they retreated to the deepest forests and the darkest of caverns. Time passed, memories faded and many convinced themselves that the Little Ponies were nothing more than shadows and nightmares. Though many forgot, the G.I. Joes would always remain vigilant, for they knew that someday Hasbro would again send in their Pony Legion to destroy the world...

Black Stone Cherry

2009-01-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

Picked up their second CD for Jon for Christmas after listening to one of their songs on the radio, we liked it enough that we got their first CD at walmart last night and I have been listening to it pretty much nonstop. (Yeah, I know that's kind of backwards.)

This is the song that we heard that got us hooked, hope you guys like it too. :)

A poxy on all broadband internet providers!

2009-01-16T20:40:00.000-08:00

The cursed fiends cannot for the life of them settle on a single price. I ask Qwest, they say $39.99. A reasonable price, I should think, I say to myself. But by the end of things, it's up to $45 a month. So I check with Comcast. $42.95. Well, a little better, and I'm used to dealing with them. So be it, says I. Then all of a sudden they're asking about the service I have, and Kate and I don't use much in the way of TV, when suddenly they're looking at a price that's over $50 each month. I decline the offer. Qwest it is, but for heavens sakes I wish someone would charge what they say they would.
At least we'll only be a few days without internet in our new apartment. Hopefully barbarism will not overtake us.

Gold Spammers

2009-01-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing that annoys me more than gold sellers advertising their virtual wares in Trade Chat, it's when I have to put up with the same kind of crap in real life, thanks to the stupid radio ads. The fact that its real gold they're trying to sell doesn't make it better; it's just as annoying and twice as stupid, especially when there are three nearly identical ads played back to back.

Can you spend gold?

No.

Can you eat gold?

No.

Can you plant it and let it grow?

No.

Can you use gold to create useful tools and objects?

Generally, no.

Gold is WORTHLESS. Unless you are actually going to use it to create something (like jewelry, where the value is more in the craftsmanship than the raw materials), there is NO REASON to buy gold. You might as well have a pile of rocks for all the good it would do you. All the gold-sellers' claims that the economy is in trouble and gold is "safe"? Think about it. If you only have a little money left, what are you going to spend it on? Food and other basic needs, or useless rocks? And if you are the one selling items with actual value, which are you more likely to want in payment, useless rocks that are not accepted as currency, or money that everyone at least accepts as having value?

The only people getting any benefit from this whole "invest in gold!!!" thing are the people SELLING the gold in the first place. They get to trade their useless rocks for real money. Now that's a good investment.

/rant mode off

Haircuts!

2009-01-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

Cindy and I both got new haircuts on Friday, Sarah took this picture on Saturday while we were cleaning (thanks Sarah!) I had rubber gloves on, which I am trying to hide in the photo...lol!

I have my first driving lesson in just a couple minutes so I should log off for now, I'll write about that later. :)

Yay stuff!

2009-01-07T18:23:00.000-08:00

This post, I'm afraid, is going to be a bit scattered. The training at T-mobile is going well, much more interesting now that we're past the stuff that Kate so delightfully described as "induction into the hive mind." (Those unfamiliar with the term, look up the Borg.) In the exercises today we took some practice calls from other people who were training in the same room. We all have phones at our desks, so we just dialed the extension from someone across the room and made up a problem for our account. Having worked in a call center before helped a lot. Some of the other people who hadn't were talking about freezing up during the calls, and some of them I could really tell were struggling, but it went pretty smoothly for me when I was talking. My dad a while back said I sound much more confident on the phone, my response was that it's pretty much an act. A good one though; I do have practice, after all.

Anyway, as my lovely wife already posted before, we have an apartment. Right now I'm busy pondering who to use for high-speed internet, Comcast's affrontery will not go unpunished, no, so I'm looking into Qwest and seeing what other options are available around here. Maybe I'll ask someone...no, best not go crazy there.

On a side note, just when I thought I'd been getting over the effects of withdrawl from sudden denial of WoW, the prospect of once again having our own place is once again causing the symptoms to return. Well at least I've got something to look forward to when we return, a good guild (still intact, that's a first for me) and I've always got the claim to fame that I was the first Death Knight in the guild up to 80 (the one who beat me before left the guild shortly after his final ding, so he doesn't count, hee hee.)

Regarding the Death Knight in general, I hope that dual wielding DPS works out as well as I hope it does for me, I've always been quite enamored of that. Not enough to level a rogue, of course, heavens no, I do have some self-respect after all. Another side note is that making an especially witty remark is a bit frustrating when the knowledge that nobody who'll read it will understand it hits right afterward. Ah well, I think I'll stop for now. Thank you for reading, and congratulations if you made it this far.

Kate-edit: added paragraph breaks. <.<

WoW hunter stuff...figuring out what I want to do after the next patch.

2009-01-07T15:11:00.001-08:00

1. Spec. Everyone's testing seems to be showing Survival on top, the massive buffs to Explosive Shot are probably to thank for that. Actually, I'm not too upset--BM is getting nerfed pretty hard, but I like SV too, and it will be fun to have it as a viable raiding spec. If I was going to be expected to go MM I would be grumpy, since I hate that, but SV should be fun, and I think I'm going to give it a try. Good raid damage is a must for me, and since I love kiting and trapping I can't really complain. :)

2. Pet. I've finally gotten my little huntery butt over to the EJ forums and tried to figure out what they're talking about. It looks like Scorpids are on top, followed by cats--scorpids are cute, and the Tenacity tree is interesting, but I never would have expected them to top DPS with their poison. It sounds like it doesn't stack with applications of poison from other hunters' scorpids, so only one per raid is really useful, but I know that most of the other hunters in TTC use cats, so I think I can get away with it. Anyway, I really like the idea of a pet that's ideal for raiding, soloing, and PvP, and I think I even know which skin I want to tame. (Actually, it's between two--the strawberry milkshake colored ones from Tanaris, and the tan-and-teal pretties from Durotar. I'll put up pictures later but Blogger seems to be having trouble with that right now.)

Edit--looks like there are incoming changes to Scorpids that are NOT on the PTR right now but will be implemented in the next patch nonetheless. Cats are still on top. =/ Ah well, I might just get a Scorpid anyway.

3. Main. I'm definitely sticking with Hunter, I love the class, and I like to think I'm pretty good at it. I'm going to have to keep playing Izsera as my main for now of course, since she's already level 80, but I've got a little dwarf hunter too, and with the 1% extra crit with guns and the time I've put into her Engineering already, I'm really having fun. I think what I'm going to do is, once I get her up to level 80 and geared up form Heroics, make her my main, and bring Izzy when they need a hunter but I'm already saved to the instance on Kal.

blogness!

2009-01-07T12:57:00.002-08:00

Because making up a word is totally okay. :)

I was looking at everyone's blogs today and realizing (first) that I should probably have links to all of the stuff I read, and (second) that mine is terribly, terribly plain. So, I'm gonna work on making this place a little less boring to look at; we'll see how that goes.

Any advice?

looking for a job is not fun.

2009-01-03T14:53:00.002-08:00

everyone wants "experience" but no one is giving it out. If this was an MMORPG, it would be one of the ones where everyone is either at level one or max level and you need groups to level because the difficulty curve is more of a wall.

Jon used to play one of those I think.

random stuff

2009-01-02T19:41:00.003-08:00

My dad sent me the link to this video--Katie, Jaymie, Sarah, Cindy wants you to watch this, and anyone else reading this it is definitely worth the 15 minutes. =)

It gets really hard to hear towards the end so be sure to turn your volume up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao

Jon's been enjoying work so far, he has 8 weeks of training but he says it's not boring at least. I've been doing my part to make sure he looks really nice--he absolutely hated having to go shopping, but he was so cute popping in and out of the dressing room trying everything on, and we got him a few nice outfits to wear.

We also found an apartment, really nice and clean, and huge for a one-bedroom place (850 square feet, with a big, roomy kitchen!). We handed in our applications today, and we should know for sure late Tuesday or maybe Wednesday morning--I've never really done this sort of thing before, but I don't -think- we'll get denied... but I am still nervous and excited. <.<

So, Jon has a job, we probably/mostly have a new place to live, and everything seems to be going well!

Also, the shaman thing I mentioned? It's not working out. I hate it. I miss my hunter. So, switching back, and trying not to be so stupid in the future. Jon thinks it's hilarious that this is one of the VERY few times I have actually regretted a decision. <.< Don't worry, there will probably be more...

christmas!

2008-12-25T20:49:00.003-08:00

okay, starting with last night:

it seems like the Myers family Christmas traditions aren't -too- different than what I grew up with. We did a little pageant (of course there were enough people to even have some animals, but I don't think we had a Herod), and sang songs, and opened one present each (although we didn't get to pick), which is pretty much what I'm used to. The present each family got was an olive wood nativity, it's beautiful and just what we needed since Jon and I didn't have a nativity set yet. We gave Jon's parents their presents (slippers and Set) and played a bit of set before going to bed. Jon slept like a baby but I just couldn't fall asleep. That's been happening a lot lately though, I think because of stress, not because I was excited about Christmas of course.

((Edited to add the photo--thanks, Katie!))

Jon and I got up around 5 because I was terribly, terribly bored (I pretty much spent all night trying to sleep, giving up on that, drawing little donuts on the computer, and trying to go back to sleep), and we got online for a little bit to open up christmas presents in our online games. (My hunter has all 4 winter minipets now, 8 more til I have enough to get the skunk pet, which now that I think about it is really kind of a weird prize...)

We opened presents at 7:30 (David and Sarah came over too), all the little kids were having a ton of fun. Alex seemed very interested in my white chocolates, maybe because the wrappers were shiny--I gave him one but it was too big to bite so he just gnawed on it until Jaymie told him he couldn't have any more candy (at which point he stuffed the whole thing into his mouth and tried to escape. It didn't work.) Jon's mom and dad gave him a shirt and cologne, and gave me driving lessons (which will be great!) and a My Little Pony I didn't have (eyeshadow/henna Scootaloo) which I totally was not expecting! I actually had spotted it when I was helping move stuff around upstairs, but I figured it was for one for the little girls. =D I think they know me better than I give them credit for.

Jon and I had Jaymie's family and they had us--we loved the present they gave us (hats and gloves and BB&B gift cards will be great!), and hopefully they liked our present for them, which was a popcorn bowl and movie treats and a card for Blockbuster. I didn't get to see them open it though, so I guess I feel a little disappointed, but I bet they loved it. (It was so fun to put together, too.)

Jon and I snuck back into our room to open the presents from my parents (among other things, HUGE hot chocolate mugs and some of my mom's hot chocolate blend, YUM!) but came out in time for breakfast, and then I went back in and finally got some sleep. I've been so tired lately, but at least I got some rest, and I felt way better after I woke up. Maybe I was just excited about the presents I got for Jon after all... a loot card he's been wanting, a CD from a group he was interested in, a little Wiimote candy dispenser, and some other smaller goodies. I was definitely relieved when he liked all of them. I think, for our first Christmas together, I did not do so bad at all.

And Jon got me a premium membership for the forums I go on, and more pony stuff (Winter Minty, Music with StarSong) so he definitely knew what he was doing too.

Jon and the other guys went to go play basketball at the gym, he had tons of fun but now he's sore and tired so I think tomorrow we'll use the hot tub out back. After he got back we talked about what we're going to do with WoW once we get out own place, since I don't feel like I can raid with my hunter once the nerfs hit. The guild needs healers, but I don't want to level another one from scratch and we can't afford recruit a friend, so his idea is to transfer his shaman to my account. I already have a level 70 resto shaman, so I know how to play the class, and it'll keep me from having to level another one (I can't use mine since Tanakyll is Horde and I play Alliance now). I think it should be interesting at least, and it'll be nice to be able to contribute to the guild again (besides just with my cooking).

We all had a big dinner (ham and the usual traditional stuff, plus this awesome jello thing) and everyone told stories about when they were kids, there were some really weird ones but mostly they were pretty funny. After we ate I came back in here to *start* this post but of course we had to come back out for pie and games (Taboo and Set). I totally won at Set, but Taboo was boys vs girls and we lost. Everyone's out watching a movie now, but I think Jon and I are probably going to read for a bit and go to bed early. I think tomorrow we'll see about getting up a little earlier than usual and using that monkey bread kit, mmm...

more hanukkah stuff

2008-12-22T00:15:00.002-08:00

dinner was a bit different than planned, the meat we were going to use for the fondue was not of a quality to work well with that, so instead we had stir-fried veggies and chicken which was delicious. donuts also did not work out as I didn't realize the dough needed to be made the night before so it could rise (oops). So both of those we'll probably be having later in the week, along with more latkes since they were such a hit. :) a triple batch, gone in about 20 minutes...hehe.

One of the candles had a really long wick which I should have trimmed, it ended up burning really really fast but still lasted long enough once it slowed down a bit. I'll be more careful tomorrow night.

anyway, Jaymie and family got here safely, if very very hungry, and we all had a good time playing games before bed. everyone kept jumping at the falling branches though, it's a little scary to hear since some really big ones have been breaking off, and the backyard is a mess. I don't know if we can even move the fallen branches without cutting them up first, I guess if the weather is better tomorrow we'll find out.

whee, almost christmas!

Hanukkah update

2008-12-19T20:42:00.002-08:00

Picked up a menorah (cute tiny classic-looking one) and some candles at Hallmark, and some picture books at the library. Sarah was cutting sugar cookies when we got home, she'd found a Star of David one and was so excited (and so am I!) that we will have some themed cookies for Hanukkah. We'll do white icing and blue sugar probably.

Still need dreidels, an Oregon member of the MLP Arena was able to help me out there, she's mailing them tomorrow so they should get here by the second or third night. :) Have the chocolate coins already.

Menu is latkes, fondue, and cottage cheese donuts. Mmmmmm.

Still need to find a book with a short explanation of the Hanukkah story, and the candles we got have the blessing on them in Hebrew (once with Hebrew characters, once written so I could at least read them but my pronunciation is likely to be a bit off) and I would like an English translation so that everyone can understand.

I don't think I've forgotten anything...

I hate this...

2008-12-19T20:11:00.002-08:00

Everytime I start spending time online I run into people who have serious issues going on at home--wait, scratch that, even in real life. Maybe it's because I am fairly sensitive to emotions (Jon thinks of this as a good thing, and mostly I do too) and so I really CARE about everyone I meet. And really the worlds seems to be a messed up place right now, parents can neglect and emotionally abuse their kids all they want so long as the kid isn't starving or being beaten, even doing weird shit like happened to Sara P. where they withdrew her from school one weekend without even a chance to say goodbye to friends, drove her like halfway across the country, and left her with her mother and stepfather. Permanently.

What really gets me though is that so many kids won't DO anything when they are being emotionally abused and neglected. Sara was a skinny kid, I believe she didn't eat at home very much, and she never brought a lunch or lunch money to school. We started sharing our lunches with her, and after a while brought extra lunches because she was so hungry. We could never get her to talk to one of the teachers or a counselor about it, and she didn't want us to, either. Maybe I'm just mad at myself because I didn't do more--I should have told someone, regardless of what she said. But her telling an adult would have had the largest impact--we had no way of knowing for sure what was going on at home, but she had the full story, and her word would have been able to get her some help.

I've been thinking about this because, like I said, I keep running into these kids. Especially online it seems, maybe because they have a need to get away from their lives and talk to people who are generally more caring...I don't know. It's not usually attention-whore drama drivel, it's kids asking what they can do to stop their parents from being disappointed in them, kids who wonder what they're doing wrong when the real problem is that their parents have no idea how to have a healthy, loving relationship. Plenty of adults, too, who grew up that way, and are able to at least give sympathy and comfort.

Jon and I went out to a Chinese buffet--a woman and her two kids were placed at a table next to us despite the place being nearly empty, and we got to hear her yelling at and belittling her kids the entire time we were eating. Telling them to shut up, that they were stupid and worthless, that she was never taking them out to eat anywhere again. The kids were very quiet, and absolutely adorable (though the little boy went straight for the food that still had antennae and claws attached). The awful shouting just made me sick, and if we hadn't been watching our money so carefully I would have done something to make a point maybe, like pay for their dinner on the way out and ask the cashier to give them a message from us. I can just see it.... "The young couple who were sitting next to you have already paid for your meal, and wanted to let you know that your children are adorable and well-mannered but your HIDEOUS SCREAMING VOICE spoiled their appetites." But I should have at least said something. :(

What is wrong with people?

I've been thinking about this sort of thing tonight because of course another one popped up, this time on the PonyIsland forums. I've given her all the advice I can, and I HOPE she gets some help soon. But even if she does, there are still so many others out there.

I want to help them all somehow, but at the same time it scares me. I get so angry and full of hate when I think about these people who treat their children poorly, it makes my stomach clench up and I'm sure my face gets a little red because I feel hot all over, and I want to punch them. Who DOES that sort of stuff to kids? Do they not realize how seriously messed up their kids are getting?

I know the organizations that are supposed to help with that sort of thing are overworked dealing with cases of physical abuse and serious neglect and starvation and stuff. Hell, there are even people who kill their own kids, getting them out of danger of death certainly should take priority. But emotional abuse IS real abuse, and so common too...it makes me hurt inside to think about it.

There's got to be something more I can do besides give scared kids links to information websites, there just has to be.

:(

Mmm, cookies!

2008-12-18T04:20:00.002-08:00

I'm making cookies cause I can't sleep.

I'm thinking about using Twitter. I may be too busy/spastic to write real blog entries right now.

Speed Racer = fun fun eye candy. (The movie, not the character!)

*hugs all*

A most productive weekend...

2008-10-05T23:05:00.002-07:00

Jon got his title too, but I won the roll for the head. (Almost more excited about that than the epic ring that came with it...hehe.)

More later, I am weary.

Ironic? Funny? Infuriating? You be the judge.

2008-09-27T14:06:00.002-07:00

(Note: The 3d models below can be turned, zoomed in and just generally manipulated with your mouse, have fun!)
This has been quite the week for Kate and myself, as far as World of Warcraft is concerned. Now that we're both doing a good bit of raiding, we've both seen quite a bit of payoff. The loot's been dropping for the two of us like nothing. Funny story, though, about her current gun. As you may or may not know, a Hunter's bow, gun or crossbow is extremely vital to their usefulness. They got a crappy one, they don't do crap. They got a good one, they do good. Simple equation. Kate's been lamenting her bow, Valanos' Longbow. Found this cool 3d model somebody made of it even, on thottbot.com.

Here's a fun little way to view it. It's an okay weapon, y'know, if you aren't raiding. But she's been jonesin' for something better mighty fierce. So one day, while we're out questing, somebody shouts out their luck at getting Don Santos' Famous Rifle to drop for themselves. It's definitely an upgrade, so after a few minutes haggling she buys it from the gentleman for 1,000 gold. Not a small investment, but well worth it for an upgrade of that stature, she says. She's extremely excited about her new gun, and in the Karazhan raid she's so happy, plugging away bullets like crazy, practically squealing with joy each time its bonus procs. Finally we're up to Prince Malchezzar, the final boss, and we take him down easily, we've got quite a good group with us, and lo and behold, what should drop but the Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix.

Now, this bow here is much, much better than the gun that she just bought. After we finish in Karazhan we head out for Zul'Aman, a jungle dungeon with many nasty trolls. So we're ripping through the place, doing rather well, making good time, we even get the bonuses for killing the first two bosses within the time limits! Nothing really stellar drops for us, except off the second bosses' extra treasure chest dropped the Tuskbreaker, a gun that's even better than the Sunfury bow of the Phoenix that she was using before! Just in that little span of time, she bought an epic gun, and then won an even better bow and a gun that's still better than before! I even got to say "I told you so," when she said she was kinda sad she'd dropped the 1000g for the first gun.

Impressions of madness and sanity

2008-09-13T20:07:00.003-07:00

I've had a few opportunities to play Warhammer Online. I've tried a varities of archetypes and sides. I must say, I prefer to play Chaos as a Zealot. The Lord of Change, Tzeentch, holds my soul! Unfortunately for me, my beloved plays an Empire Bright Wizard. She channels the primal powers of fire for the Sigmar and the Emperor. A few things I like about Warhammer online; although it takes many tips from World of Warcraft, it doesn't do it in such a way that makes it feel like a clone; it feels like a completely separate game, albeit in the same genre. The professions in some cases is not exactly intuitive, Scavenging for example is hard to grasp how to salvage some of the wrecked items which (theoretically) can be repaired for use, but is very simple to see which enemies have extra loot that only Salvagers can acquire, but Cultivation is rather entertaining although more time-consuming. The seeds drop very frequently, and it is apparently the supply profession for alchemy, or chemistry, or whatever they call it, I dunno. More than that I haven't found trainers for, we'll see what's available in later portions, thus far Rank 5 is the limit of my accomplishments.

The UI would be my biggest complaint. Sometimes it feels very crowded and busy, with notifications sometimes occupying important parts of the screen. However, the ability to choose a defensive target is very nice, allowing simultaneous support through healing and buffing as well as continuing a stream of damaging abilities, which is useful for when you're with only one buddy. This came into sharp relief when I was working with some people I met online, three Marauders, the close-range damage class, were attacking groups of well-armed refugees. They were close to dying when I came along and managed to keep them alive long enough to dispatch the remaining few, so they invited me into their party. At first, they had difficulty with groups of enemies, engaging one or two at a time, but a few pushing through to attack me, who has fewer defensive capabilities. But later on we found a Chosen, the tank class for Chaos (tank = heavy armor, many abilities to keep the enemies focused on himself), and things went much easier, I'd keep him as a defensive target, keeping a steady stream of healing spells going on him while being able to use my offensive spells to weaken and chip away at the enemy, while the Marauders just went wild, and if one started getting low, I'd just switch defensive targets to heal them, while still keeping an eye on our Chosen friend. Quite successful.

My goal for this post was to make it easy for people to understand who don't have much of a background in video gaming. Feel free to ask for clarification. So that's all I can think of right now, I'll post more about my experience as an Imperial Warrior-Priest and also on my World of Warcraft guild's progression and my never-ending quest to get better and better gear.