Girl vs MMO
…cause gaming is serious business
Starting over…again
Feb 14th
If there is one thing I’ve learned from my time gaming its this, a guild is more than just the name you wear over your head its about the people. I learned that last week as my guild unexpectedly exploded. I logged in last Monday to find my GM and the top tier of officers had decided that Cataclysm wasn’t living up to their standard and drama was ruining the game for them. Instead they decided Rift was the new game for them and they would be leaving pretty much post haste. In the process they would hand over control to anyone who offered to step up but not give them the guild leader title. While I understand their decision and I wish them well it all left a sour taste with me and I decided rather than stay on a sinking ship I should move on. I know on the outside it might look that I rushed to a decision but trust me I know when its time to say goodbye. I’ve done this dance way to many times. So while I sat in Org waiting for other guild members I had become friends with come on and looking at my options another dear friend suggested that I start a new guild. And that is exactly what I did.
Kamikaze Runners was started in the middle of the night by a group of my closest friends. Over the last few days more and more guildies from the other guild decided to join me. It is a great feeling but at the same time its a bit overwhelming. I spent most of last week setting up a guild website, organizing guild ranks, working with my officers to come up with recruitment posts and interview questions. I must say I have some pretty great officers and guild mates and they have been such a great help to me. Now we sit and try to figure out how exactly we get back to raiding. I’ve never been a part of a true progression guild let alone one where I was part of the inner workings of the guild. So this is all new to me. By the time Saturday hit I was exhausted, mentally and physically but when we hit Guild Rank 2 on Sunday I knew it was all worth it. I knew that every person in this guild is here to work as a team and get things done. I know we will achieve great things because we won’t give up. I can’t wait to see what the rest of Cataclysm brings because so far its truly living up to its name.
Cataclysmic
Jan 5th
About a month ago a slightly popular game got a slightly popular update and well I’ve been busy. Busy doing what you might ask. Well busy actually playing the game. Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere or you just aren’t a gamer (what the hell are you here for) then you know I’m talking about the expansion Cataclysm for World of Warcraft. As always the best laid plans don’t turn out the way I had hoped. This post is long over due. I had planned on doing it one week after but then got side tracked by hitting 85. So here it is now 3 weeks late. Enjoy!
Random Musings of a Slightly Addicted Warlock Blood Elf
-WoW is fun again. I can’t remember having so much fun actually questing before. Don’t get me wrong I’ve always loved to quest but there is something about the changes made in Cataclysm that has brought questing to a whole new level. Sliverpine! ’nuff said.
-Some crackhead got to 85 between the time of the EU release and the NA release. I guess whatever floats your boat. It took me about a week and a half and I still feel like I went to fast.
-People are already raiding. Again whatever floats your boat. I do enjoy raiding but I find there is so much more to do in game. Besides I’m casual and damn proud of it.
-Since hitting 85 I’ve managed to step foot inside 2 Heroics. One failed on the 3rd pull which I had walked in on the tail end of so who knows how many times they had failed before that. The second was with a majority of guild members and went far more smoothly. Bottom line sitting in a que for 40 minutes as DPS sucks ass doubly so when groups won’t even attempt to hold it together after they fail.
-I’ve contemplated tanking on my DK far more than I ever have before. This goes back to the que thing. I just don’t have the time to sit around and wait. When you have limited play time it gets frustrating. However switching to tanking means I’d be worrying about shit I don’t want to worry about. Like maintaining 2 specs and 2 sets of gear and all that mess. Plus I love my lock.
-I LOVVVVVVE MY Warlock. She is fucking awesome.
-I’m a far better player than I thought I was. I need to stop doubting myself.
-Volatiles are the bane of my existence! ‘shake fists
-Archaeology needs to be renamed “Profession we threw into the game to give DPS something to do while they wait in the long ass que because there are about 5 tanks and 2 healers for all of North America”.
-Stop fucking complaining and get with the program. I’m sick and tired of hearing people complain. “My dps is to low” “It’s to hard” blah blah fucking blah. Grow a damn pair. And for the love of god spend some damn time looking around. You can find the answers to all your questions if you took the time READ. I’m looking at you the majority of fucktards posting on Warlocks Den.
-Boomchicken in my pocket!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Oh hey did I mention I looooooooooooooooove my warlock.
-The goblin starting area is full of WIN! I wanted to keep my hot rod. That should have been the race mount.
-The worgen starting area is well just ok to me. It’s full of juicy bits of lore goodness but it didn’t have the same kinda fun. I guess because it was so sad.
-The quests, game mechanics, additions have been great but damn this expansion has been bugged out to high fucking heaven. I honestly don’t remember this many bugs with the other 2 expansions. Maybe my memory is just bad.
-Obviously I’m doing something wrong but I am not making a dime off my enchanting but that’s always been the case. ‘shrug
-When you say things like “back when Cataclysm 1st came out” 4 weeks after the expansion launched you sound like an idiot and I’m not listening to you anymore.
-My guild is full of awesome.
Well that’s all for now. This post has been brought to you by the letters W for War Council (my super awesome guild), Warlock (my super awesome main) and Wyrmsfire (for pointing out I haven’t posted in awhile in guild chat) and also by the letter B for BOOMCHICKEN IN MY POCKET!!!!!!!
Kingslayer!
Nov 14th
Words can not express how happy I am right now so please bare with me as I try and pull thoughts together. At the end of Burning Crusade I never stepped foot inside a raid. I was resigned to the fact that I was too “casual” to raid. When information came out about 10 and 25 man raiding for Wrath I was excited. Finally I’d be able to see the end game and I was stoked. When I got to 80, initially on my DK, and went into Naxx for the 1st time I wanted more. I’d had my first taste of raiding and I was determined to see it all. Unfortunately there were bumps along the way. I switched back to my warlock which meant leveling all over again. I went to a hardcore guild and got intimidated far to easily. I left WoW and came back then left again. Once again I was sitting at the end of an expansion and not seeing everything there was to offer. I figured I’d might as well make the best of it and geared out via heroics and a few pug ICC groups. I spent a little over a month trying to find a new guild. This of and in itself was a very hard thing for me. I’ve never played without my friends and the prospect of finding a group of people who shared my same thoughts about WoW seemed daunting. Thanks to help from some peeps on twitter I narrowed down a realm and after some research I found a guild. At best I hopped to find some place that I could call home. That had what I like to call the “Cheers” affect, when you log in everybody knows your name and you feel welcome. I got extremely lucky and found that with my guild.
Yet I was still faced with not seeing all the content at the end of the expansion but then tonight happened. The majority of the raid, including myself, had never even attempted Lich King. I’ve seen the fight before many times thanks to Tank Spot. I was ready and so was the raid. I just want to go on record now as saying our Raid Leaders and my fellow raiders tonight were awesome. By sheer determination alone we burned through the phases. We had him at 23% but lost to many and had to wipe. That didn’t stop us. We kept pushing. Finally it happened. Everything fell into place and as those last few hit points ticked down I held my breath. This was it, the moment I waited a whole expansion for. Then he was dead!
It was by far one of my greatest gaming experiences ever. I don’t raid for loot or shiny epics. I raid to see content. To experience the game and everything it has to offer. Tonight I had the pleasure of killing the Lich King with an amazing group of people. I’ll go into the next expansion knowing that I’ve finally accomplished what I set out to do when Burning Crusade ended. I’m a motherfucking KINGSLAYER!!!
The Unsung Heroes
Oct 31st
One class change that hasn’t been talked about much with the latest patch is the doing away of class specific quests. It’s been touched on here or there and I’m sure some people are sad to see them go, myself among them. I think the Blood Elf Paladin class quests were all pretty awesome. Now granted I didn’t get to do them all since I haven’t leveled a paladin pass level 30 but the ones I did have were always fun and fit so well into the Blood Elf story line of Burning Crusade. Alas they are all gone, at least to my knowledge and while I understand we Blood Knights will still be able to get their tabard I’m still going to miss them. What I find the most interesting is that the remnants of these quests still remain. Take Blood Knight Stillblade for instance. He is still upstairs at the inn in Silvermoon. He was part of the paladin quests to get your rez skill. You were tasked by Knight Lord Bloodvalor with going into Ghostlands and slaying him. If you failed then you weren’t meant to be in the order. If you passed the test you were then giving the opportunity and the skill to bring him back to life. Which in and of itself was amazing because at the start of Burning Crusade the Blood Elves had managed to capture M’uru and had to capture his light in order to complete the quest. Now however, poor Blood Knight Stillblade will forever remain unrezzable.
It’s a real shame these are gone. Some of my fondest memories come from doing the class quest on my warlock. I understand that the developers don’t have time to focus on content that only a handful of players will experience. With Deathwing blowing up the whole world a lot of the locations where these quests took place will change all together. However I can’t help but feel let down. I remember getting my Dreadsteed at 60 on my warlock. I worked so hard to get all the mats together. I went with a group of my friends to actually do the ritual. It was a proud moment when I succeeded and got my mount. Or the fun I had trying to get my damn succubus. Class quests made each class feel unique and different. You shared a badge of honor among the fellow members of your class. There will be some dungeon quests in Cataclysm that will net you an item but I just don’t think its the same.
So today I say thank you to all the unsung heroes. The class specific quest NPCs where ever you may be. Thank you for whatever its worth. You’re memory will live on with some of us and of course we’ll always get to say, “you youngins have it easy back in my day we had to EARN that skill, mount, etc”
There’s Just Something About Aly…
Oct 19th
With National Novel Writing Month fast approaching I’m once again digging around at all my unfinished works. You see I dabble in writing and when I say dabble I mean I start something and never finish it. Sure I’ve written poetry but those are quick blurbs that seem to spill forth pretty easily. Novels or short stories however I start and they just sit there collecting dust in their various notebooks never to be seen again. However this story that I’m about to share with you has never quite gone away. You see it is the story of my warlock in WoW and my various alts. I started it a few months after the release of Burning Crusade. I’ve made many attempts to finish it but just never got around to it. When the Lich King expansion rolled around I even tried to bring in my Death Knight some how. In my mind the story played out but on paper it never got finished.
When I left WoW to go play Aion and I felt lack of connection between my characters there I think a lot of it has to do with this story. I’ve grown so attached to my warlock. So much so that when I transferred servers and couldn’t keep her original name I tried very hard to make sure it stayed the same. It’s that connection to something I created 3 long years ago when I sat at that creation screen and waited with baited breath in que to log in for the very first time that keeps me coming back to Aly. I say all that because I’ve had a few conversations recently about which character I’ll be taking to 85 when Cataclysm rolls around. I know I’ll get distracted by something but I will always come back to my warlock.
(story under the cut for those interested)
The 1st….
Oct 9th
I was digging around my computer and found a folder of old WoW screenshots. According to the properties this screenshot was taken on 8/23/06. Four years ago is a damn long time. This night elf is my 1st ever WoW character. I remember wanting to be an elf because I was an elf in Lineage 2. The name came from one of my characters in Guild Wars or was it from the elf I had in the L2 beta. I also wanted to be a mage of some kind but found out pretty quickly that Night Elves could not be mages and I was very disappointed. So I thought to myself well I’ll be a druid whatever the hell that is. I hated it. I think I spent a lot of time whacking things with that stick. I got as far as getting bear form, with the help of some kind stranger in the area of the quest, and totally gave up on her.
I eventually went on to make a night elf hunter, night elf rogue, and a human warlock. Here are a few pictures of them. It’s funny in the one of my rogue, in the center, she said “oh shit a boat” because just a few seconds before there wasn’t one there. I don’t know why that just brought a smile to my face. I guess because its those little things you tend to forget that amazed you at level 1 when you first started WoW. Look at me I’m getting all sentimental and shit. Eventually I went Horde when Burning Crusade came out and the rest as they say is history. I’m just amazed I still had Lyista’s picture, stashed away and pretty much untouched for so long. It’s crazy how far I’ve come in WoW. You can even see me starting to mess around with add-ons in the picture of my 1st hunter. I am now a total add on junkie now. The lock of course is long gone because I’m just not that fond of humans. But at the time I never would have thought a warlock would become my main. I had a totally different purpose when I went digging around in my files. I was looking for a picture that represents where I am today in WoW but I think I’ll leave that for another time. For now I think I’ll go take a look back at where I’ve been before the world gets torn asunder.
A slight flaw in the plan…
Oct 8th
So yeah, the 30 sim thing never did pan out. I ran out of stuff to see and at the time my PC was on its last leg and just couldn’t handle Second Life. Since then I’ve gotten a new PC (YAY!), not playing SL much (technical issues), and back in WoW (kinda yay). I do have posts planned, at least in my head they are, but the question remains when will I actually get around to making them. Hmmm….I just had an idea. /wanders off
Hidden Treasures…
Feb 19th
All thanks to Maiyya for tonight’s stop on the 30 sim tour. I found Omega Point after going through some of her pics on KoinUp. There are no words to describe the beauty of this sim. The amount of details in the textures and prim work is amazing. It was very hard for me to narrow down the amount of pics for tonight’s post and I am sure there are a few places in the sim that I missed. I will definitely be going back soon and if you are following along I -highly- recommend checking it out for yourself.
Into the night…
Feb 17th
Tonight’s sim hoping adventure brought me to InSilico, a role play sim set in the year 2479. Honestly there wasn’t anything outstanding in their search description that brought me here but what made me stick around and take pics was the information available on their wiki page. I can appreciate a well planned out story. Here is an expert from the wiki page.
It is the year 2479. The planet lies broken and dying. Wars and environmental neglect have rendered the surface uninhabitable. Scattered amongst the shattered remnants of the old nations, surrounded by the flooded, irradiated, polluted regions, the last of our planet-dwellers live a harsh and brutal existence.
With that said let’s get on to the pics.
Twilight Zone…
Feb 17th
When I was a kid I would stay up late with my grandmother and watch the twilight zone. It was one of my fondest memories of my grandmother. I grew to love the show as much as the time I spent with her. On tonight’s stop of the 30 sims in 30 days tour I went to Immersiva and it instantly reminded me of the show. The feeling of being alone in someones strange nightmare or daydream was overwhelming. It’s a good thing I wasn’t playing in the dark. A few things, while these shots are not photoshopped I did have to fiddle with the in game environment settings to get this look to the sky. I remember when they introduced environment settings they talked about allowing residents to easily share saved pre-sets. That has not yet happened and its been over 2 years give or take since it was introduced into the viewer. So if you do plan on visiting this sim you’ll have to adjust your settings which can take some time, thankfully the owner of the sim provides a notecard with details. Okay on with the pics!
