Goodbye to training wheels

The biggest shake-up on the alt front recently was Blizzard's move to make PVE-PVP transfers possible. I've talked before about how I started on Dani's PVP realm and promptly transferred off because I was not a big fan of getting ganked and started a sprawling network of alts (with no real main) on Mok'Nathal.

Eventually, I stabilized at four characters: a draenei shaman and draenei hunter and a troll priest and troll hunter. I was perfectly content to level them simultaneously in a slow and steady fashion until I created and promptly became obsessed with Sinead.

When I made Sinead, my friend Tamar who also had characters on Mok'Nathal asked me if I was going to stop playing over there and forsake those characters. At the time, I thought this was ridiculous. I mean, I had put a lot of time and effort into those characters! I made my wallpaper of them imitating the cover of Let It Be (shut up, stop laughing)!



But she ended up being right. Part of it was that I was suddenly part of this whole network that wasn't just me and two or three of my friends, and for some reason I felt weirdly obligated to stick around even when I didn't feel like playing my priest. Part of it was that as Sinead got closer and closer to 70, she was better able to support my alt habit.

When it comes down to it, though, I think that on Smolderthorn I felt like I finally got the game, and didn't need to idly fiddle around as much. Mok'Nathal had served as a sort of sandbox for me to safely explore WoW in, in terms of learning the game, discovering the world, and figuring which classes (and specs) I liked and which I didn't.

By the time they opened up PVE --> PVP transfers, I had only played the shaman a handful of times and basically hadn't touched any of the other characters. So I sent the shaman over to Smolderthorn and said a private, silent goodbye to the other characters fairly certain that I wouldn't be playing them again in the forseeable future.

Wholahay and Sveren (who also transferred over) enjoy a quiet moment in Uldaman before the big move

You won't be hearing much about Madgebobbins, Squiddles, or Tammyfae around here - not that you heard much before either - but the stability and easy, comfortable entry into the game they provided was appreciated while it lasted. In the meantime, I'm totally not changing my wallpaper.

Brewfest Kodo!

Woot.

Project Level Alts: A Primer

As mentioned before, I love me some alts. Perhaps a little too much. A big part of why Dani leveled her rogue to 70 several months before I did was because I was too busy spreading myself between a bunch of characters. This is pretty typical of me in real life too - my advisers pick on me a lot for having too many interests.

While I was leveling Sinead, there was some withdrawal that happened, for sure. There were some dark times where I was half-convinced that by the time I got her to 70 I'd be so sick of playing a damn priest that I'd never actually raid with her. It was about that time that I started the army o' healbots.

But I'm getting distracted again (imagine that). What I really wanted to talk about was the goals of the project:

1. I want a choice of raiding healers. Part of the reason that I'm so addicted to warcraft is because the theorycrafting side of it taps into the same part of me as research and stats. Uncovering the logic behind class mechanics is thrilling for me the way getting badass gear is for other people. So, I've been reading up on it and I'm really intrigued with the differences between healing classes and want to fiddle around with them. But really, there's only so much insight you can get by running around a level 12 druid in Westfall. To really get it, I have to level these puppies up.
2. I want a max level horde character, which will probably also be a healer. I'll tell you this, it's the great tragedy of my WoW life that everyone I play with likes Alliance more than Horde, because I am such a hordie. Horde is awesome! And so much less bland and retread-ish than Alliance (though of course personal opinions vary). I mean, really, none of the Alliance races except for Draenei are nearly as cool looking as most of the Horde races. And, even though it shouldn't, that totally matters to me.

So that's the motivation and grand design behind Project Level Alts. In the next couple weeks or so, I'll post profiles of my alts and explain where they fit into my brilliant scheme. And then I'll use them to TAKE OVER THE WORLD! BWAHAHAHAHA!

Fix Sinead's Shit Campaign a rousing success!

Last night, with the help of Keridwen (I guess that's what we're calling you here) who totally figured out a better way to level enchanting and ferried me over to farm it AND then did most of the killing for it AND totally hooked me up with some much needed shards, I maxed out enchanting. Thank you for that, buddy, because I was totally not ever going to get around to it on my own.

Then, we went to normal shadow labyrinths and killed a single mob, giving me the rep I needed to pick up my last heroic key. Sinead's shit is finally totally in order (with the exception of aldor rep)! Woot!

Also, Dani helped too. Cause she's a team player. And I need many handouts.

Keridwen is awesome.

Just how awesome?  

He has the same amount of 70s as Sarah Palin does children.  

He still has blind powder.  

He has full Dragonstalker, all 8 of 7 pieces.  

His rogue will mutilate your ass.  Yes, I said mutilate.  Yes, I meant it.

Yes, he heals better than you.  Yes, he's discipline.

All his toons are chicks.  What?  You like staring at men's asses?  Tsk.

If you need more proof, then feel free to contact me.

I have bad timing.

Story of my life, really, so it's not a big shock that it should apply to Warcraft, too. Just like everybody else, I'm stuck in this weird purgatory waiting for the expansion to come out. Some people go to other games, some people stop gaming altogether for awhile, and I....am treading water.

Mostly, I'm kicking myself. I spent my entire summer leveling a character to 70 on a PVP realm I had left once before, lured by the promise of superfancy raiding. And I got to do it! And it was so unbelievably awesome (except the trash waves in Hyjal that are too much for my computer to handle. You know, the ones where I turn the camera up to the sky and just hear cool shit happening. Fun.)! I got thrown into it headlong and made cheat sheet and spreadsheets and tried to learn how to heal on the fly. All very exciting and heady stuff.

And then, one day, it all just kind of dried up. Overnight. Like a particularly vicious drought had hit and I hadn't read the forecast. Pretty much from the start of it, I was rather resigned about the whole thing. Truth be told, the End of Raiding As We Know It couldn't have happened at a better time - the semester was starting up and I had a lot of researchy and teachy type shit to pull together.

And as much as I love raiding (and I really, really do) I kind of needed the break to get Sinead's shit together, too. She was an idiot savant, frankly - enchanting only half leveled up and rep so messed up that she could only do a handful of heroic dungeons. Yeah. Not pretty.

So I had to let the dream of getting to Sunwell go. I had plenty on my plate, and while my guild was in a turbulent and unstable state, the interwebs suggested that most guilds were getting hit pretty hard. No real point in trying to find a new guild (which as Dani pointed out (woot! return to blogging!) take some time and effort) when I'd probably only be able to raid for a month or so before having to level to 80.

I've been biding my time trying to fix Sinead so she's able to shatter voids and get into whatever heroics people are running and leveling alts. The Fix Sinead's Shit campaign has been chugging along with some success - only the Lower City key remains to be gotten, I think, and she's 4 points away from max enchanting. The Level Alts campaign has actually been full of twists and turns. So, stay tuned for that.

But yeah. Kicking myself and asking two questions: why didn't I level to 70 sooner? Or just wait till after the expansion?

Dani's return is a gift to us all!

I, somewhat unsurprisingly, was overjoyed to find out that Dani had caved in to my demands and began posting again. KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON, DANI! YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO SHARE WITH US ALL!!

A side benefit of this is that I can start posting again, too. And I have ideas, you better believe it! Expect informative, witty, entertaining posts ¹ in the near future. If you're bored, try checking out Jarthen in the meantime. He's full of gay subtext and overly convoluted narration.
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¹Well, witty and entertaining and informative to me. These results may not be typical.

The Guild

Two posts so close together?  Well, I know it's such a shock, but I had something to say that I just thought of.

A treatise on the Guild.

Now this may be a little funny, it may not be funny at all, but in all honesty, I think it is necessary.  

What is the guild?  I have to admit that I wasn't really sure about this until recently.  I thought it was just a place where people organized raiding and 10 mans, where people got together to help level alts and just have somewhere to bullshit while they were messing around on WoW.  

I was really wrong.

I found myself a bit bored at night.  I had finally gotten down the mechanics of raiding and now my guild wasn't raiding anymore.  That mixed with a few other things, like the fact I never apped at my guild, but was invited in because I knew people there, made me think it was time to have my first guild hunting experience.  I went to ranking websites, and researched what guilds were doing what raids.  I looked around to see who was as geared as I was, and who was much more geared.  I looked to see what enchants people had and which I needed.  I started farming mats for things, and farming rep so I could get my best shoulder and helm enchants.  I read applications that were accepted and those that were denied before I even thought of applying for a guild.

What did I learn?

1) Applying for a guild is like applying for a job.  Sure, the research I needed to do took me a couple of hours on the internet, and a job hunt takes months and months, but the basics are the same.  I really had to know my stuff to make sure I was going to get in.

2) Getting into a guild is an exciting and new experience.  People want to know who you are, they are all suspicious of your skill and pleasantly surprised when you suck less than they expect.  Most want to help because you could be a new friend, also they like that you are showing up to raids while the person you are most likely replacing isn't around.  And if you're a girl, you're almost always a pleasent surprise on ventrillo, the talking program.

What else did I learn?

Leaving my guild was more like leaving a family than it was getting a new job.  Not only did i miss the people I left, I missed the sense of belonging I had.  Raiding was fun, but these were other people, not my people.  I didn't have anyone to share my excitement with, or my disappointment.  There was no one to complain to if I had to, and no one to commiserate if I lost a roll or died early in a fight.  The new fights were fun, but it was like leaving for college times a million.

I guess what I really learned was that my guild was like my family.  I really loved the people there, and their banter, and how well we all knew each other.  It wasn't just that they helped me to make me be an asset to the raid, but they helped me because they liked me.  And I found that I didn't just like them, I relied on their being there.

Not having guild chat was a sad shock.  not having vent was also less fun.  Even without raiding, being in my old guild was more rewarding and enjoyable than this new exciting guild full of wonderful people that just weren't my people.

And while I may have hurt feelings, and will always be a little suspect to the people in my guild, I came back.  It was as much like the prodigal son as I could think anything.  There were people there that held my hand and led me to the place I was out, and honestly, I would still be squeeling at boars if not for them.

I think I miss it more than I wanted to leave.  The more people that leave to raid, the more I miss the togetherness of it.  And I think that's what distinguishes WoW from any other game.  You're in it with someone else.  A lot of someone else's.  You have to look out for them the way they look out for you.  And sometimes you're good at that, and sometimes you're not.

Of course there is bickering, there is always bickering, but people seem to come together at the end.  And I will always belong to that group of people, even if they scatter to the wind.  Change is a hard thing to grasp, and some of you may be saying that by going back to what was comfortable, what I loved, I fought a change that could have helped me throughout the expansion and forever.  But when I really think about why I play the game, it isn't to be the best at it.  I never will be.  It's to be with people I like and work together and have fun.

I hope I am still doing that.  I think I am.

So thank you, Predatory Instinct, for being there, and taking me back.  And thank you(you know who you are), people who carried me through 70 levels and a whole lot more.  I'm sorry that this is more serious than the rest of our posts, and I promise to go back to my usual silly self.

Tomorrow.

The Strike is Over, and it's a Birthday!

So, I don't have much fun and exciting news to report as now that we're coming up on the expansion slowly but surely the servers are thinning out. There is an idea that anything you do now will be obsolete in a few months, and so the population is scarce. However! This is the ideal time to... level alts!

Now I am not an altaholic like our lovely birthday girl(more on that later), but I do have a small army of very low level alts as I try to find the fit for my soul. I think I found something that can at least be a close second in my heart to my happy rogue. I'm playing a hunter. It's easy, which is a good incentive. Also, I don't die. Now that is rare for me, so oo and aah. And? I get a nifty pet. A fun and nifty pet. I am pleased.

So, as I restart my slow unhappy grind to 70, just so I can grind back to 80, I get to rediscover all the joys of leveling I forgot the first time. Hurrah. Really, it's exactly like the first time. With a few differences, like I know how little I know.

One thing I meant to blog about before and did not was my experiences playing WoW at the hospital. I was in for a simple gallbladder booboo and had internet. It was long and boring days, 6 o them to be exact, so I thought I would play me some WoW. At first I just did it when I was sure no one would notice, but by day 3, the nurses saw that I was playing a video game.

It was amazing.

THere were multiple nurses that played! And one in particular was talking to me all about how she played a rogue too, and what server she was on and the gear she was going for. Of course, I was secretly very pleased that she had not yet been in a clear Kara, and I had been to Hyjal, but I didn't express this secret joy. I was really only happy because for once in my life i could talk about a video game with another girl and we weren't just talkng about how cute Kirby was. Well, other than Sinead's lovely player. But she never ceases to surprise me. Or be smarter than me. In everything.

Speaking of her, did you hear it was her birthday? It is. Today is the day she becomes as ancient as I. And for a few months we can share our woe at the same age. Then I get older. So there is much happiness and love to be said to her. I hope she has a good one!

That's all for now, but there's a better post coming.

Breaking News!

Last night during a fishing session in Stormwind (which took way longer than it should have, by the way), Dani made a promise to post "very soon." This bodes well. Stay tuned.