I hit 85.

That’s right.

I finally got there.

I made it.

I actually got to the end of the levelling experience!

Of course, I immediately felt that horrible sense of ‘… and now?’  That feeling of not having any of the right gear, of being out of practise, of not knowing whether you had the right spec, the right rotation, the right anything.

And, of course, it turns out I was pretty much on the money with the spec and the rotation anyway.  I have one talent point that I mysteriously put in the total wrong spot while levelling (no biggie, really), and while my levelling rotation was terribad (I’m lazy, and Corruption takes effort when I’m questing.  As little buttons as possible when brainlessly killing crap, kkthx), I knew almost instinctively what to press and when to press it when I was attacking  the target dummy.  At least my Warlock sense is still kinda existent!

I probably won’t right too much about what buttons to press and when to press them – I think most people would be past that point in the game now, and don’t really need that.  So, instead, you will probably get more sporadic babble about my adventures.

I got my first (85) epic as well! Although it was kinda cheating – I noticed I had a heap of honor points left over from whenever it was that I used to PvP, and figured I may as well replace one of my lame ass rings with a some what better one.  So, it’s a craptastic epic, but hey, it’s purple, right?  I’m a little spoilt, and I’m kinda used to being in epics.  Although I think everyone is, with how the game works now!

Now I’m probably going to keep doing random dungeons and PvP, and work on my Hunter and Druid for a bit – I got another heirloom for the Hunter to move her along a little faster, and my Druid… well, it’s only 5 levels.  How bad can it be?

(Answer: Very bad.  Definitely not doing Uldum again.  Not a fan.  Too many cutscenes, damn it!)

So. 85 attained.  Next up – time to find my old snarky attitude.

Tags: Ding, Levelling, PvP, Warlock

It’s been a while since I have had the time to play WoW.  Mainly because the boy keeps stealing my computer every time I have nothing better to do!  In fact , the only reason I am able to write this post is because he is too busy watching the cricket to use the damn thing.

From what I can tell, the vast majority of my guild is defecting to SW:ToR.  So, I think things will be pretty quiet on the WoW social scene for me.  However, I’ll still plod along, maybe just PuG this that and the other if I ever hit 85, and muck around with alts.  Who knows?

It’s funny, because the thought of playing WoW is a lot more entertaining than actually playing WoW.  I don’t know whether it’s because things are so quiet in the game or what… I usually don’t cope well without a bunch of people to chat to.  So, to that end… if you want to add me on Real ID, let me know.  I’m always after more people to chat to!

Here’s hoping I can actually get in the game and get somewhat interested again!

Well, so far so good.  I’m almost at the end of the wonderful level 83, without even stepping foot in an instance (which is the total opposite to my usual method of levelling).  I’ve knocked over Hyjal and Deepholm, and foresee myself finishing out my levelling on Sar in Uldum (which, so far, I am not enjoying… but then, I hated Deepholm for the first 30 quests or so.  I think I just have to get used to it).

I’m feeling a little sad that I couldn’t keep Pebble as a pet. Apparently, I have to do a damn daily ten times to be able to keep him or some such nonsense.  Damn it, I hate dailies.  This is probably reflected in my Smurfs game, which positively reeks of the whole concept of ‘daily quests’.  I probably have the most wasteful farm in the history of Smurfdom. I like to blame my failure at the Smurf game on my feminist objections to the franchise (can we refer to Smurfs as a franchise now?  Or just a really annoying phenomenon?  One that actually made me dislike something with Neil Patrick Harris in it even?), but really, I think it’s more that I fail at the concept of dailies and doing the same damned thing every damned day. Blah.

This might also be why I fail at many aspects of that thing known as Real Life.  After all, what is a job but a fricking lame daily quest?

Aaaaaanyway, back to the point.

So, a bunch of glorified rocks now think I’m pretty awesome.  I think that’s all I got out of my time in Deepholm.  Which could be better than my time in Hyjal, which can be summed up as “I’d rather be eating these baby animals than saving them, but what the hell ever, you damn elf hippies”.  It has been interesting levelling on my own, without interacting with anyone, anywhere, at any time.  It’s also been rather quick (rested XP is the shiznit), which means I am not totally dreading it on my Druid.  I’m not much looking forward to dragging my Hunter through another 25 levels though. I might be forced to disembowel myself with a rusty spoon before hand (I like rusty spoons…)

Anyway, it kinda sucks that I haven’t found anything too major to snark about.  The quests have been, for the most part, engaging.  Even the ‘Kill ten rats’ style quests are grouped together in such a manner that they don’t feel too craptastic.  At least I get most of them knocked over together.  Escort quests are still annoying as all get out, but that’s ok… there were only a couple!  And I even managed to get Friendly with my guild, which is nice I guess… it allowed me to waste some money on a tabard to make them like me even more… which, I think, lets me buy another tabard that will make them like me even more again.  It’s a never ending cycle of tabards!

Anyway, Helen Mirren is on TV, which of course means that I can not write anything else.  I may have a slight crush on her.  Even though she has said a couple of not so good things in the past.  She has also said some awesome things, and hey, no one is perfect.  Anyway, Helen Mirren /swoon.

So.  Almost 84.  Yay?

Tags: Helen Mirren, In Which I May Talk The LEAST About WoW While Pretending To Talk About WoW, Levelling, Salad Fingers - Oh The Memories!, These Tags Are Getting Even More Ridiculous EVERY DAY

So, the new talent system for Mists of Pandaria has been announced, and I, as always, am considerably underwhelmed.

One of the things I liked about WoW talent trees is the sheer amount of stuff that was in there.  Other games have always left me feeling a little let down at the lack of options I have for specialising my character.  I like to be able to play with talents, to see what different things I can make my character do through making different choices.  I want to be able to make my character that little bit different from everyone else… if I’m not really keen on the whole cookie cutter idea.

The argument for the new system is that it will give us more choice.  We apparently will have a wider range of options, and there won’t be a ‘cookie cutter spec’ any more.  Honestly, I find that very difficult to believe.  We all know balance is almost impossible to achieve – the likelihood of every talent on each tier being perfectly equal and balanced is almost non-existent.  We will still have cookie cutter specs – they’ll just be a damn sight easier to remember.

If anything, this seems to be another move towards (you all know I’m going to say it, so head off now if you don’t want to hear it!) dumbing down the game.  Let’s all make it easier by giving people less options!  People won’t be so intimidated if we don’t have big talent trees!  I think that ultimately, it will back fire.  Having less choice means the ones you do have to make are all the more important.  Not to mention easier to laugh at and ridicule. 

I think it will also be interesting to see what effect this has on specialisations, particularly for DPS classes.  Will it dilute the differences between specialisations, or will it make them more prominent?  For this to work, I think Blizzard really have to aim for the latter.  It could just be me, but I feel that there is a lack of class identity, and a lack of specialisation identity.  I know a lot of this happened for ‘good reason’ – I find it difficult to argue with the ‘bring the player, not the class’ philosophy.  However, it definitely came at a cost of identity.

Each tier has three talents, and each of these talents are apparently going to be similar in their focus.  While this will make balance easier, I think it will make the system bloody boring.  Which DPS increase talent is going to be marginally better than the other two?  Oh yay, that’ll be so exciting for us to figure out!  Which is better suited to this fight?  Awesome, that’s going to be massive amounts of fun in raids – “Now for the five minute interval before each boss where everyone changes their talents –again”  Respeccing, re-glyphing… it’s going to be the biggest time waste since some guy got paid to work on Mage design. 

Mists of Pandaria is the first expansion where I have been left totally unexcited.  Not a single thing has appealed to me at this point. Pandaren do seem kinda silly to me, but perhaps that’s just me being a fantasy snob.  I can’t really see the need for another class – Blizzard appear to have enough difficulty balancing the ones they already have.  The changes to talents have ruined one of my favourite things about WoW, and that is really disappointing for me personally.  MoP (is this the worst acronym ever?) feels like a massive amount of filler, and I am just not keen on the whole idea.  Will it cause me to leave the game (again) come expansion time?  Probably.  If I can get my way with other things outside the game in my life, most definitely.  Is it annoying enough for me to have a huge hissy fit right now?  Nope.  I’ll have this minor one, and that’ll be that.

So, really… Dude, Where’s My Talents?

Tags: Dude Where's My Talents?, MoP, Unimpressed, We are the talentless, What the Hell?

I am possibly the world’s slowest leveller.  But, eh, I’m actually kinda enjoying Hyjal while I am at it.

Apart from having to kill some dead goddesses crazy ex (who happened to be a bird).  That was weird.  I mean, she didn’t ask for her ex to be killed.  But, hey, whatever, I got my tail feather, and since when have I cared about the ethics of who or what I kill anyways?

And I’m pretty happy that asshole Staghelm finally got what he deserved.  Cos, you know, I never liked him** anyway.  Whacked out nutjob that he is.

I’m amazingly unhappy that I suck ass at playing WoW.  And haven’t levelled anything but a Hunter in so long that I keep running through angry crowds, hitting my feign button, and then dying… cos, oh shit, I’m a Warlock now.  Good grief.

I’m also still playing with the default UI.  And the nasty keybindings created through a mishmash of my old UI breaking them on the default, and the asshole who hacked my account way back when I had quit moving things around.  It’s a little annoying going to use Soul Fire and realising that’s (totally irrationally, WTF Hacker?) now bound to Fel Armor.

(I didn’t even know what spell was meant to be there, by the way.  I just kept hitting the button thanks to the worlds longest lasting muscle memory)

(I had also forgotten Soul Fire existed.  Until I found the button.  Realisation!)

(I also just remembered.  That spell I’m thinking of isn’t Soul Fire.  It was Chaos Bolt.  WTF, me.  Also, don’t know whether we are meant to use that spell any more, but what the heck ever.  Seriously)

So, summed up in a not so pretty table for you all:

Shit that has changed

Shit has that stayed the same

Quests are even MORE unethical. Staghelm is actually getting in trouble.  Buttons everywhere (in a way I don’t actually understand, rather than my organised mess) Guild rep, Guild everything.  Huh? People keep talking about Pandaren.  I think it sounds silly, but it means I can now legitimately say “Just get Fatty to tank/heal/DPS that”. Less people read this.  Which I think is a good thing for you all.

I suck ass at questing. Staghelm is still an ass. Buttons everywhere Lag from holy freaking hell.  Damn it.  (actually, I was sitting at 450ms, which I would consider good.  But damn it, some asshole on Twitter [whoever the hell you were!] whined about 50ms latency.  Seriously.  Shut the hell up.  Whiner.) …. (must’ve been a Mage) Mages are still everything I have always said about them. I still make the worst looking tables IN THE UNIVERSE.

 

** I know, it’s really weird that I can remember posts that I wrote in 2008 well enough to link to them.  What can I say, I have no life.

** Also, I know the formatting is screwy on said post.  But damn it, I’ve changed theme like four times since I wrote that.  Shit has got to be messed up somewhere, OK?

Tags: I suck at levelling, Staghelm must die, Tables are fun, who reads the tags anyway?

The world of Azeroth has changed since the last time I logged in (oh, what… 6 or so months ago?  I don’t even remember anymore, but it feels like forever anyway).  Transmogrifithingy is coming in (so I hear).  Portals are gone (I think that happened before I left?).  Mages are even stupider than I previously thought.  The Stormwind Auction House is… well, different!  I’m sure of it! (Please please pleeeeeeeease tell me it moved… don’t tell me I’m hallucinating).

But, oh my goodness me… they took away my keyring?  What is with that?

Oh keyring, you followed me everywhere
You held my many keys, and did not complain,
You bound them together, whether they be encrusted in blood,
or poop, or other unmentionable bodily fluids…
And you let me in to so many places.
(Alas, a key for Thrall’s Chastity Belt could not be found… Woe is me.  I think Jaina stole it!)

Oh keyring, you made me feel special.
You reminded me that I could go where others could not,
You had so many memories attached to you,
horrible quest chains of never ending torment
Boulderfist Key, just to remind me, of course, that a real Warlock never frees prisoners
(Because, hey, that’s what Mages are for, right?
… And, besides, that Corki is bloody stupid.)

My keyring, you made me feel superior,
to every plebian player who did not have the beautiful array of keys I carried.
You took up so little space in my beautiful interface,
And when I opened you, you made me smile,
Because you told me, that deep down inside, I was better than everyone else.
(Except for everyone who had all the same keys as me.  I guess we were equal.)
(… But better than everyone who had less.  Or more.  Because that’s just how it is.)

(… And definitely better than the Mages.)

 

Besides, what WOULD Medivh, and all those other keepers of wonderful places, say now, knowing that their doors are unlocked, and waiting for intruders?  What would they say?

Tags: Where is my keyring?

Behold, my terrible skill at using a mouse!  Worst eraser effort EVER.

Tags: I be back bitches!

Today, I was pondering coming back to the game, and futzing around on alts.  Why?  Well, I had work to do, I was procrastinating, and I used to play WoW when I was procrastinating.  That and I need to stop going out and start saving money, and WoW would let me do just that.

What do you guys think?  If anyone even looks here anymore, I’d love to know your thoughts on the current state of the game, the state of the Warlock, and whether or not it is worth my while reactivating my account, or whether I should just spend my spare time shooting zombies and eating pizza like I have been… or whether I should try RIFT or something (although, really, could I possibly be arsed blogging about a new game?)

Tags: Alt-tastic, Hi!!!, Out of the Blue, Random stuff

Cos, you know, I’m still dead and all.

So, I know people rave on and on about this crap all the time, but timely reminders are like booster shots – you damned well need them no matter how much they make you cringe.  And hey, if you are good, you’ll get a lollipop at the end.

Account security, people.

It’s important.

Because otherwise, some mangy ass thief is going to find their way into your account, molest your squidey, touch your favourite pants, and smoke all your herbs.  And, if you are still playing WoW, which one would assume you would be if you are reading this… well, that would really bloody suck.

So why the heck am I babbling about this? 

Because some mangy ass mothertootin’ thief got into my account, y’see.  And they went through everything.

Now, for me, this wasn’t a massive deal.  It’s not like I was planning on playing any time soon, they weren’t interrupting my raid time, and I didn’t much care about all the crap accumulated in my bank, for the most part.  For you, however, this could prove to be very bloody inconvenient.  So, what should you do?

1. Have an authenticator already!

I mean, now they have a free call in authenticator service even.  What’s not to love?

2.  Check your computer every so often for bad shit that likes to lurk around the corners of your shadier files.

Yeah, that hard drive full of ‘Arty movies’ *coughcough* could have something ugly there.  Or that addon you just installed.  So, every so often, run a virus and bot scan on your system.  And make sure you keep those programs up to date!

3.  Change your password every so often.

You should change passwords, as a rule of thumb, once a month.  And please, for the love of all things chocolate and gooey, don’t make your password something easy (like password.  Yes, people do that.  I know.)  If you really fail at remembering passwords, write them down somewhere.  People say not to keep passwords near your computer, but if you are like me and live in the bloody sticks, it’s fairly unlikely someone is going to be interested in the password for your WoW account when they break in.  If you are worried about this, keep them saved somewhere else.

Otherwise, you too could end up with a molested Squidey.  Because these guys will take everything.  Including, and not limited to:

Your Blue Dragonhawk Hatchling!!  No more pet you probably never click on for you!

Illustration of the Dragon Soul.  If those punk ass bastards knew how long that damn thing took me to get, and how amazingly angry I would have been at the thought of its disappearance, they might have thought twice.

Terestian’s Stranglestaff – those bastards touched my Squidey! 

Unidentified Plant Parts – hey, I might have been able to identify those one day…

 

That and it’s just creepy when someone goes through your bank.  It’s almost like someone breaking in and going through your knickers… you really don’t want strangers knowing the state of your underwear!

So, account security.  Get on it! 

And here… have a lollipop.

Tags: Authenticator, Hacking, Theft

I kinda cheated and announced this on Twitter (in a manner of speaking – you know, there were no tooting trumpets, or blowing horns, or anything like that.  Just a little note chucked in there, somewhere, surrounded by all the other Sar babble) well before I decided that perhaps it was a good idea to say this here after all… and of course, in typical OMG wall of text!!! fashion.

I’m officially on hiatus.  For an undisclosed length of time.  It could be a few weeks.  it could be a year.  It could be forever.  While I haven’t played in months, I finally took the scary step of freezing my account a few weeks ago, and, I must admit… I haven’t looked back.

So, here you get it, a final dose of everything I think about the game I no longer play, the community I am no longer a part of, and the blog I will no longer write on.

Firstly, knowing full well that no one from Blizzard will ever ever ever read this… I have a few words to say to them anyway.  Then, some things for the blogging community.  Then, most importantly, you guys that actually bothered to read my drivel for the last however long (really, let’s not think about how long I have been doing this for. It scares me).

To Blizzard

Of course, I have to say thank you.  Thank you for creating such a wonderful, immersive game experience.  Thank you for making said experience affordable, accessible, and entertaining.  Thank you for somehow, magically, creating something that I was willing to passionately argue for.  Fight for.  Wax lyrical over.  Ditch numerous social events for (wait… is that a good thing? /shrug)

But, with all the praise and the glory, of course there comes some criticisms.  I just can’t thank you for making the game more ‘casual friendly’, or less ‘time sinky’, or however you want to put it.  I’m sure you didn’t intend to spawn a giant batch of angry drooling gearscore quoting gremlins of doom, but, well… you kinda did.  And it wasn’t fun.  Suddenly, the quality of a player wasn’t judged by the person behind the keyboard (unless, of course, they were somehow so misguided as to how to play their class that they selected spells at random, clicking frantically with their mouse [keybinding wot?] all over the screen like a drunk guy trying to undo a girl’s bra but failing oh so miserably and spilling his drink down said girl’s front instead).

I’m ever hopeful that this has been fixed in Cataclysm, but the loss of immersion in Wrath was strange and horrible for me.  Oh sure, the quests, they made sense, they tied together, they linked everything up comfortably.  Then, all of a sudden, raiding just went weird.  ToC?  Really?  Your rationalisation for that was weaker than a Jenny McCarthy argument (oh yes, I totally referenced something people haven’t been talking about for months.  You guys are really going to miss the cutting edge controversial nature of this blog, no?) 

Yeah, yeah, it was all about sorting the weakest from the strongest, the wheat from the chaff, etc etc.  Since, for some reason, they wanted to kill off all the weak ones, and send in the strongest… while, in the meantime, the Horde and the Alliance got to engage in some idiotic pissing contest while Jaina wept about all the mess on the floor she’d have to mop up later.

Two words: Cannon fodder.

Why would it be tactically sound to kill your weakest soldiers?  Use them as distractions!  Send them in to get annihilated!  Surely they’ll achieve some small goal while they are at it, and if not, they would serve as a great distraction.

They should have started with the gearscore gremlins.

Finally, well… heroic and normal mode.  Yes, I know you guys liked it.  And we all know I hated it.  We all know I was the only person in the whole damn universe to hate it as well, so I guess we’ll just ignore this whole passage.  See, when there was just one mode of raiding, well… you beat your face against the wall.  And you beat it some more.  And more again.  And then, eventually, you damned well got it down pat.  And you felt awesome.

Instead, now, we have some weak arse watered down version.  With minimal head beating.  You get it down, and you put your game face on, and you walk into heroic.  You beat your head a little against the wall.  Then, lo and behold, all of a sudden it’s ‘too damned hard’, and everyone whimpers and whines and you go back to farming normal.

This is not a good state of affairs, people!  sure, it wasn’t everyone’s experience, but it was some.  I know you guys won’t fix this… so meh.

To the Blogging Community

You guys were, in some ways, the biggest reason for me sticking around for so long.  Even when I felt like the game went to shit (or at least, my experience of it took a turn for the sewer), I loved the fact that I was part of a close knit, wonderful community.  In the other blogging I have done, I have never found anything quite like the WoW Blogging Community.  Hell, the ‘general life babble’ blogging world is like some weird horrible desolate land compared to the oasis that is WoW blogging, and that is entirely due to the wonderful people in this community.

I hope that you guys can keep up that sense of community.  Helping each other out, talking about things with each other, and, for heaven’s sake, not letting things get too serious.  I can see some of this crumbling away at the edges, and that scares me a little… but I think you guys will make it through it anyway. 

You guys all know the people that influenced me, that helped me out, that made my way through this vast blogging landscape a little easier.  Sure, a lot of them have done exactly what I am doing now, and that makes me sad and happy… which, frankly, is weird.  But some of them are still around, writing away.  Some of them were important influences and faded away from my blogging outlook as our views diverged, some of them became more inspirational every day.

So, who or what was important to me over my blogging career?

Blog Azeroth:  I stopped hanging around there a long time ago.  I didn’t have time, I was lazy, all those things.  However, it was this wonderful place that got me started, that allowed me to meet people, get a better grip on the whole blogging thing… and, of course, let me into the infamous BA Chat (a place where, in its day, moved so rapidly with masses of conversation that one could not look away for more than 2 seconds without missing half the conversation and getting confused).  BA Chat has been and always will be the absolute highlight of my time as a WoW Blogger.

Twisted Nether Podcast: I’ve talked about these guys time and time again.  If you want to see what caring about the community is all about, this is it.  Personified.

Every gosh-darned Warlock blogger out there: really.  I love you guys.  Nib and Hydra get a special mention, for the mere virtue of having been around longer than me, and thus being the only two Warlock bloggers I can think of who have blogged about ‘locks the whole time I have.

World of Matticus: when I started blogging, Matt scared the shit out of me.  I had a serious case of ‘Oh my muffins, this guy is so damned good at what he does that he makes me babble like a nervous idiot’.  Then, I got to know him a little better, and he scared me slightly less.  Now, of course, we have a totally different outlook on blogging and all the stuff that goes with it, but Matt is still a little inspirational.  And intimidating, although he’d probably deny it.  More importantly, I made some great friends out of his blog… who, I swear, I totally will have drinks with next time I’m in the US.  Pinky swear.

The only blogger to make me honest to goodness cry: When Fulguralis said I was an early influence… yeah, I’ll admit it.  I wept.  Like a Mage who just looked at the damage meter.

Ratshag: for many reasons, the biggest of which is showing you can make people laugh without using actual words.

Stop: for being my poor, long-suffering Blizzcon room mate, who had to put up with me sleep talking, sleeping in, and being drunk and so not going to sleep.  That’s a whole lot of sleep related suffering right there.  I would not have blamed him in the slightest for trying to push my bed outside so he could just get some rest!

So, guys, I will miss you all.  Seems we hardly ever get to talk, and what with me not writing and therefore causing mischief, well… I’ll admit there’s a big damned hole in my life.

Remember: WoW blogging isn’t about numbers, readers, hits, or blog-epeening about how many people read you.  Seriously, who gives a fuck about any of that?

It’s about celebrating the fact that we are a bunch of WoW loving nerds who aren’t afraid to don a writer’s cap and talk about the game!

To My Readers, Wherever They May Be

When I started blogging, I figured that, if I stuck with it and didn’t totally suck, I might be able to get, oh… 50 readers or something?  Such an amount seemed far too large to hope for, but that was my foolish goal, and I was carrying it.

Now, at least, if Feedburner can be believed, there’s something like 500 of you.  Still small taters, blogwise, but amazing to me.

I feel like I know some of you from your comments left here.  Others may not have commented, but hey, if you kept coming back, we clearly have something in common.  Which is amazingly awesome.  Fantastically astounding even.  I mean, to think… there’s 500 people out there who like some of the things I like, think in a similar way to me, and who don’t object to my extensive and rather ridiculous use of parentheses!

Thank you for reading.  For raging at me when I write something inflammatory and making my little trollish heart happy. For supporting me when things have seemed difficult.  For pointing out the frequent flaws in my logic, my math, my reasoning, and everything else I manage to screw up.  For your unending generousity.  And, of course, for reading and giving this place some sort of purpose.

So.  This is goodbye.  But, never fear, I’m leaving you a present!  You only have to listen for about 30 seconds (although it’s worth listening to the rest, even if it is totally irrelevant to anything here), and … if you don’t think of your favourite Hunter (or something… I know it makes me think of Hunters) you’re doing it wrong.

Oh…

Mages Suck!! <3

Tags: Death to Mages, Does Anyone Read the Tags?, I'll Miss You Guys, Never Gonna Give You Up, Never Gonna Let You Down, Never Gonna Run Around and Desert You, Thanks For All The Fish, Toodle-oo