Azshara is full of hate

Yes, hate. And birds. Hateful birds.
Well, not really birds, those thunderhead hippogryphs (or as I thought of them: Blue Lightning Death(tm))
So hate, and Death(tm), and rock giants, and angry furbolgs, and ridiculously strong deer, and angry Naga, and and and...

Dreamfoil!

Let's see, that's...1 for 7. That means Azshara is scoring a 14% on my scorecard. Last I checked that isn't passing.

Honestly, Rasaiel and I were out there for a hunter quest she picked up at level 50 (we're leveling way too fast it seems...more on that later) and both remembered quite quickly why we hated the zone so much. Blizzard did a great job in creating a "boonies, middle of nowhere, ends of civilization" type area with Azshara, because you fly into the area about 10 seconds from the border to Ashenvale, and that's your ONLY CONTACT WITH CIVILIZATION, for miii~les and miles.

...of painful dragons, and hippogryphs, and elementals, and giants, and naga, and insurance salesmen, and the kids in the shopping mall that whine at parents who have long since tuned it out, and cell-phone hawkers, and tupperware parties. Yes, they're all evil.

If I were to make some kind of "top ten things I learned from Azshara," I think the first 2 would be nice comments on the herbs and scenery ("oo, perpetual autumn!"), and 3-10 would all be "run! get away! fly in to take a picture and then flee!!!"

On Leveling (and dungeons)

The one thing that's stood out to Rasa and I this time around is just how fast we're flying through the levels. Granted, we have an awesome 2-person makeup working, it's let us handle plenty of dungeon runs at or close-to our level, and up to 5 par-level nonelites at a time. But we both distinctly remember our last play-through taking much longer (even without the 2.3 experience change) and focusing on a lot more dungeon play. I think I've only picked up one dungeon loot item so far, and that was a ring off of Thermaplugg back in Gnomer. With simple AH greens we've been flying along just fine, and with 60 coming up I think we're really starting to see the changes that BC has brought.

Last time around, 60 was it. When you landed at 60 you started gearing for the big and bad, so the 40's was when you started gathering your blues early. ZF and Mara, Sunken Temple, BRD, and so on. At least... that's how we rolled.

This time, knowing that at 58 you can hop through the door to a magical world of epic-level quest rewards that take 10 minutes to accomplish...it kind of makes you ask "what's the point?". Why gather up a team of 5 and bust our humps on Sunken Temple and Black Rock when we can get more than enough xp from quests to push through to 58 and hit The New Content?

Which, again, makes us both pine for the earlier days, when we learned just how easy BRD became on it's 17th run, when we'd charge in with our 3 closest WoW buddies and grind the arena event, when DM was a near nightly run for a while...the full effect of the new 60+ quest rewards is definitely striking us. I just hope the BC endgame areas are as full of level-cap non-raid fun as the old world was. Things we'll miss:

-Rasa's old hunter would team with a mage friend and clear Scholomance for the challenge.
-Druid teams stealthing to the spider boss in LBRS for our purple boots of awesome.
-Knowing how to weave through the first chamber of dwarves in BRD to reach the arena with no combat.
-Teaching novices how to lava-hop to the Molten Core attunement stone, as well as how to weave and wall-walk to the DM library.
-"I have no idea what to do until the raid starts, wanna run Inner Mara?" *Waterfall dive!*
-Kiting Drakk
-Getting mind controlled in Strat by the Banshee boss, or killing the squishies accidentally with DoT's when they got MC'ed.
-Never being able to complete the timed Strat challenge for the Tier0.5 set.

I think the thought that there wasn't more world to go find, that this was where all the biggest challenges were, put a lot more focus on the instances at the top. With the shift that BC has made, I wonder if Outland will be a pretty sparse place come WotLK, save those grinding up to 68.

10 Things I learned in Tanaris

From the journal of Pathos, which is currently being written on the back of a pirate hat:

1. Never try to steal some water from the spring fields. There's some kind of membership due to be able to drink that stuff, and when you approach without a member's ID, the locals get really hostile. Note to self: look into membership, they were all pretty lean and tan.

2. Squid is a food. I was trying to catch a pile of floating debris when I reeled in a big purple tentacled mess, which I quickly beat into submission with my staff. The cook in Steamwheedle Port said it would actually taste good fried up with some seasoning. I wasn't a huge fan, but it put some extra spring into Rasaiel's step, so I gave the leftovers to her to have later.

3. Ogres + 90 degree weather + 0% humidity + obesity = don't take any cloth they might have had on them. You don't want to know what it's been used for. I don't care if I could "boil it and make it into bandages, silly", I'll stick to open-air wound healing if that's my only alternative.

4. They're called "dew" collectors, regardless of how the goblin pronounced it. Also, even though they collect shiny morning cactus droplets, that doesn't make them any less of a bad-ass elemental pile of pain.

5. Just because the hyenas are laughing doesn't make them friendly. Note to self: keep taking those purification potions until the bites heal, someone mentioned rabies.

6. And you thought the bugs were big in the Wetlands!

7. Pirates are decent interior decorators, and love collecting portraits. If I ever visit that nice camp town again, I'll be sure to bring the painting of my dad to add to their collection. And they have plenty of hats. TOO many hats. I think one of the doors in their moored ship just said "hats" on it.

8. There's thorium here. It's bright blue, sticks out of the ground, and is not in fact a "giant Otter Pop." Note to self: bring more water next time I venture that far south. Hallucinations are embarrassing.

9. Wear. Sunscreen.

10. Plan the next vacation somewhere nicer. Winterspring perhaps.

I'm Spamming my Blog

Took this picture a while back. A nice glitch in the system occasionally renders the ground texture invisible. It's a known bug that's been around for a while, only pops up every other month or so, and a reboot fixes it. Anyway:

"What do you need?"
"Clutter. Lots of clutter."

2 = 5?

Rasaiel and I decided to have some fun after a series of errand quests, and poked our heads into Razorfen Downs the other night. The goal was to "see how far we could get" and possibly get a piece of loot. However, what we didn't expect was a complete clear of the undead portion. Complete to the end lich boss.

With just the two of us. Well, and her kitty.

This was rather surprising to me, seeing as how she and I were 42/41, and the quest to kill said lich was rated as a level 42 group task. In dungeons, I assume "group" means 5 people. I know everything in the instance was around level 35-38 elites, so we had some leverage with our levels (levelage? That just sounds like bad ESL), but I was truly surprised that we cleared the whole way there. I wonder if the levels used to go higher before 2.3.

Regardless, I love my Shackle. I think next on the list of suicide dungeon runs is Uldaman, which could prove hairier since I won't be able to convince a trogg to stand still. Guess I could always play with mind control again...

No! BAD Pathos! That never ends well. Something about becoming some blue alien's battle puppet reeeeeeally ticks off the local humanoid populations.

Hardcore something-or-other.

I bet that title pulls up a host of search engine hits that have nothing to do with WoW.

Anyhow, in the times I'm not in-game, I sift through a lot of blogs and forums online that have touched on (at some point or another) the whole hardcore vs casual debate, the various flamewars that occur, and it always seeds a desire to talk about this scene, giving my current WoW mentality.

Like I've mentioned in a post a while back, my wife and I used to be in a raiding guild in WoW. When the game stopped at 60 (or as some would say, "started" at 60), the raid scene seemed somehow more epic to me than it does now. Molten Core was daunting, and getting 40 people together made you feel like an army, marching forth to victory. Or repeated wipes, that happened a lot too.

"Yes Mr. President, we're making some headway in Iraq, but the 3rd division keeps wiping on trash near the Saudi Border. We're going to replace two of their tanks with some more support units and try some different tactics."

The point is that I've been witness to the 'hardcore' raid game: following the plans, reading the strategies, signing up on calendars, farming for gold and raid materials (we stocked up on a LOT of fire protection potions for Onyxia), and so on. So I understand the existence of that camp. I also completely grok the casual game: log on, play for an hour, none of your friends have logged on, so you log off and find something else to do.

At least, that seems to be the general idea of how hardcore and casual are divided: length of play sessions. I've been online strictly for an Ony run that lasted a mere half hour, then logged back off. I've played for 8 hours straight on a Saturday where, along with my wife and a couple friends, we completed nothing more than a quest or two and wasted more than half the time simply talking with eachother. And yet there seems to be a strict dichotomy for argument's sake: if you're not a hardcore, you're a casual.

Hardcore "what," is what I'm asking. I think there needs to be a set of sliders that identify the individual (and that aren't static, to boot) on a number of topics. I envision the categories falling as such (and granted, the majority of your playerbase will fall in the middle of most):

1. Min-maxer: How close do you watch your numbers? Do you get a new weapon because it increases your overall DPS by 0.5, or because it's shiny? A casual (0%) min-maxer gets new stuff when he realizes it's been 20 levels since he last upgraded his bland-looking chest-piece, while a hardcore (100%) min-maxer hunts WoWwiki and the Armory for every possible upgrade, and gathers a group if he needs to in pursuit of that new dungeon-drop axe that adds 1 extra agility. I suppose die-hard theorycrafters would fall on the 100% end.
   
2. Economist: On the casual end, she doesn't care about the cash so long as there's enough to buy what she wants. The hardcore economist hunts the AH for all the best deals, makes sure to fine tune her sale prices, keeps an eye on the trade channel whenever possible (and uses it for it's intended purpose) and can't see a high enough number next to her gold icon.
3. Roleplayer: It is an RPG after all, despite the genre making the move to drop letters 4 and 5 from the acronym. This is pretty self explanatory: a casual RP-er leaves well enough alone, might even make fun of the hardcores. They more than likely picked their race/class combo based on best racial abilities. A hardcore RP-er can not only be found writing character bios and comparing with lore for accuracy, but LARPing warcraft wherever they can get away with it. Their character choice had everything to do with geography and backstory, which they'd be happy to share with you.
4. Loot Luster: 0%: "Why is this item's name in blue? Oh, neat. Hey, where's the next quest go?" 100%: "God, I haven't gotten any loot in a whole week! We need to raid more frequently."
5. Achiever: The OCD must-complete-all-quests-in-this-area, get-on-thottbot-I-think-there-were-more-last-time-I-played-here player? Yea, hardcore. If quests and collections are simply a means to more xp or a nice side-effect of playing? Muy casual. This would also include your desire or lack thereof to max tradeskills (*cough*fishing*cough) and fill in maps.
   
6. Socializer: At 0%, you play the solo game. The rest of the player base is there to buy up your auctions and give you someone to show off to at the mailbox. PuGs are an evil necessity since you can't afford to 5-box through dungeons to finish your questing. At 100%, you wouldn't play if your friends left, or you'd quickly make new ones. Joy in the game for a hardcore socializer comes from helping out new players, collecting mats for a friend's enchant, guildchat sessions, and so on.
7. PvPer: This one's pretty straightforward. The top-rated arena teams and the honor-capped are at the hardcore end, the casual pvp'er might never fight another player, or pops into the occasional battleground because it sounds like fun that night.

This list could go on and on and delve into all the niches of such a wide-reaching game (I've already thought of some smaller aspects of the game that people get wrapped up in) but I feel most elements can be wrapped up in these seven points. This might be a better system of categorizing yourself than the boiled down hardcore vs casual system. For example, I know I'm a hardcore S, a huge portion of the fun for me in the game comes from being able to play it with my wife. However, having previously been through raids, I'd say I've lost a lot of my loot lust, so would rate as a casual L. If you capitalize anything you'd put yourself over 50% in, you can play with the acronym like so:

MErlASp

I play with numbers to a good degree, figuring out mana efficiency and such (M). I love playing the Auctionhouse game and enjoy being a "wealthy" character (E). I don't really roleplay, though I try to pick a decent name at character creation (r). I've lost a lot of my loot lust, knowing good gear will come with questing and dungeons whether I pine after it or not (l). I love checking quests off the list, maxing out skills, and feeling "complete" (A). The social game is huge for me, I wouldn't play this game if it were single-player (S). I've pvp'ed, and enjoyed it, but I take it in small doses (p).

The beauty of this system is that it isn't specific to available play time in a day, which seems to dictate the current casual/hardcore definition. I've known great raiders that barely had an hour out of the day to log on due to life constraints, and people with nothing happening in their world but WoW that lived in questing greens and had never seen the raid group interface before (nor had the desire to).

What's also nice is the ability to apply this system to the stereotyped hardcores and casuals. As most conversations would put it, the hardcores are MErLasP types, while the casuals are meRlASp, completely opposite. Obviously a flawed system, but it seems to be the grounds for most flame wars.

And now is that time when my brain drifts off and I'd lose points on this if I handed it in to a lit. professor for lacking a solid conclusion. Ah well, the glory of writing my own blog entries: I can just decide "it's done enough" and post it.

A public letter

To the poor level 5 shaman I trampled earlier today on the entry ramp to The Exodar:I apologize. I was having entirely too much fun moving at 160% run speed and didn't notice you until I felt that slight bump in an otherwise pleasantly smooth (and rapid) ride into town.

Don't worry, I have full coverage on my elephant mastodon mammoth pimpmobile Elekk, and though my rates might go up, all your medical bills will be on me...since I'm a priest, after all. In fact, I can probably fix that thing that's going on with the hump on your back. ...what do you mean, 'what hump?' ?

P.S.: Bonus points if you got that reference.

P.P.S.: Ding!

I'm grinding blogger rep! (1400/6000 Friendly)

Just wanted to give a big thank you to Kestrel for linking me in their Blogroll, it's the first time (to my knowledge) that I've been added as a link on the wide world of WoW blogs, and definitely made my day. :)

Changes

It's been a while, now. I always seems to fluctuate between posting every 5 minutes and posting every 5 months, as far as these blog things go. Many changes, and when I remember to ftp some screenshots to my office, where I usually think to update this blog, I'll have a little "snapshot day."


So! What's new...

Rasaiel and I are currently sitting at 40/38 respectively, and yes, she did get her mount. A cute purple elephant Elekk. I'm eagerly awaiting that ding to 40 so that I can join her at the new "top speed" which--having been literally hoofing it around as a priest for 38 levels--would be a VERY welcome change. She also managed to pick up the group runspeed buff Aspect of the Pack, so our pains are somewhat lessened, but I'm trying to grab every little piece of experience I can to assemble that nice shiny "40" next to my picture.

The biggest changes of course have been related to the 2.3 patch, which was QUITE a drastic difference, both in experience to level (my required total for 38 dropped some 10k xp I believe) and in the world around us. As an ironic gesture from fate, Ras and I had been questing in Arathi, teaming up on the Stromgarde Syndicate to try and convince Otto and Falconcrest that-- really--they didn't need their heads to function, and we would be paid handsomely for them, so why not make it a win/win situation?

They didn't like that idea, though.

It was a weird shift. Monday night, we were fighting on the edge of our skill and capabilities (at 37 and 38/9, Ras levelled in there), blowing cooldowns and potions and generally having a BALL, because it was an awesome challenge and we felt like we really knew what we were doing. Yes, Falconcrest mananged to remove my torso while I was still standing, and we weren't able to make a convincing argument on the whole "head =/= necessary" debate that night, but we were getting elite xp and feeling rather "uber." Tuesday night...well, we had a parade through the streets of Stromgarde, throwing out ticker-tape death to anyone that would come watch. And not only did we win that debate, but Otto gift wrapped both heads (see, it WASN'T necessary) and Falconcrest made us some dinner before we left. It was almost pathetic. Something that not every two-person team could accomplish at our level became a trivial fedex quest. We then completed all other stromgarde quests that we had in the next 15 minutes and had them all turned in before anything respawned. Well, ok, I exaggerate there. I think a Syndicate caster or two were missed due to their hiding in the basement, praying that we wouldn't open the door.

I feel slightly insulted.

Ah well, all other changes were good. Rasaiel can't stop raving about how much she loves being able to twang arrows into her targets from 5 feet away, I greatly enjoy Chastising casters 2/3rds of the way through their spells (but really, a 0.5 second cast time? What was the point...), there are a RIDICULOUS number of quests in Dustwallow now, I can get my artisan alchemy spells in IRONFORGE (no offense Feathermoon Isle, you're pretty...you're also nowhere near my hearthstone target), and seeing as how my PC is a dual-core, WoW is running even more flawlessly than before. Which, I have to guess at. Since I was already stuck at the framerate cap before the multithreading efficiency upgrade. But hey! I can display a TON of ground debris. That was cute.

Oh!! OH!! BOAT CREWS!! I'm a sucker for environmental details like that. I can make boat trips that much more efficient now. (But gone are the days of taking the obligatory "look, I'm steering the boat!" screenshots)

And that money thing I mentioned last time? Yea...after buying her mount, and new mail armor, between my wife and I we have some 300 gold. I'm of the firm belief now that the economy is just inflated from Outlands cash. No harm no foul, as this time around I'm definitely not waiting on the wallet to get to level 40 for my mount...

Woo! Halfway to ...oh wait, the level cap is 70 now.

8 days since the last post. Given the posting frequency of a lot of my frequented blogs, I might as well have just stopped posting altogether. :)

The game is really starting to pick up for us on several areas. Rasaiel is 32 and I've reached 30 (we ended up doing some impromptu grinding on ogres in Duskwood trying to find an alchemy pattern, which never came about, but definitely helped my experience bar). I feel like I'm really coming into my own as a priest now. I've almost filled out my 24 actionbar slots (that are hotkey mapped, anyway) with all manner of skills, so I feel less like the patient "I have three heals" robot, and more like a standalone (albeit very empathic) caster. Most importantly of all:

I have Mind Control now.

*insert evil grin here*

I've never played a class nor an engineer that could mind control before, and ever since picking up that skill last night I've tried to MC any humanoid add that came into the picture. After a couple attempts taught me that the Bongos UI I was using still had the pet bar hidden, I started playing with innate skills of humanoid mobs (I've never been a murloc before...) and generally causing havoc in other critters' brains. It's the most fun I think I've had in this game. Pure chaotic-good bliss.

Other "I'm a big priest now" skills have been fear, which has been getting me in trouble since I picked it up some 20ish levels ago; Prayer of Healing, which finally lets me top off everyone at once (screw the mana efficiency, full speed ahead!), and shackle undead, which I mentioned last time. I still love having some manner of crowd control, I really never bothered with my druid's sleep spell until the later stages of the game our first time through (somewhere around the late 40's, I think I was schooled in the spell on a run through Maraudon). Learning to use them efficiently and effectively (since Rasaiel has the pet-dot/pet-tank and freeze traps, which we've been relying on for the majority of our leveling) is up on the top of my list of "things to do" during play.

Also up there has been "make money," which I've actually been very successful on compared to my previous experiences in WoW. I don't know if I've gotten lucky, if the game economy is just richer, or what, but I don't recall sitting on ~50 gold at level 30 before. Granted, we've had one or two blue drops that sold decently, but almost all that money went back into gathering skills/pet skills/bo skills/nunchuk skills...you get the idea (and the reference, I'm horrible). What's really set me up is the potion-making, more specifically the Swiftness Potion market. I understand almost all of these are going to PvP battlegrounds folks, and I've actually sent some freebies to my most frequent buyers (one character claims 75% of all my sales). Still, it's got me eyeing every briarthorn and mageroyal in sight, and my herbalism skill passed those nodes a looooooooong time ago (I've already picked up Artisan Herbalist).

Rasaiel has been equally guilty of "rolling in it", as her mining skill (which is up to Mithril nodes by now) has proven worth it's weight in...well, tin and copper. Stacks of both of those have been selling completely out for her, and she's not too far behind me in wallet contents. I don't think we'll be having a problem affording our initial mounts at level 40 at this rate.

I almost find that the auction house is a significant part of the fun of the game for me, actually. I check it every morning when I get up--partially as an attempt to wake up more before work, as it requires I interact with something and engage my brain past "shower on, soap go here, clothes where?--to see if there are any materials or recipes for sale below their "value threshold" for me. The materials (primarily swiftthistle) values are easy to calculate, since I know that at a set price, my potions will ALWAYS sell, so I look for any stacks that are an an acceptable distance below the potion sell value. (Acceptable distance, because making less than a net gold on the whole operation just isn't worth the time). Recipes are just a shot in the dark to find popular ones that are on sale for way below the "still worth it to buy" price. I.E. I buy it for 10 silver and sell it for several gold. The original vendor makes their money, and I spend little on a chance at a lot.

I've also been guilty of snooping for ridiculously-low priced bags. I've managed to pay only 2 gold for a netherweave bag due to a short auction. I feel like I'm eBay sniping. Thank god I never got into THAT.

Post the fourth, or "Pathos stops titling things this way"

Our quest continues, with the focus shifting out of Ashenvale for a while and homing in on Duskwood (as we thought it would be more "in the spirit" of the holiday). Handily enough, I've recently come into my "Shackle Undead" toy, so we have no end of aggro management between hunter dps, pet tanking/growling, and shackles. We can really clean up in the graveyards.

Not much else to report for the time being, though. We're sitting at 26 and 24 (I'm always the lower, as Rasaiel has time in her day to plink around the countryside at various critters while mining, all during my workday). We maintain a pretty steady 2.5 level difference, but given that I'm a dedicated healer (with random dps thrown in) my spells are guaranteed to land. Though I really need to start using "Fade" more often...

Post three; or "Land, Ho!"

Finally made it to the 20's and out of the x-myst isles, which were a bit of a let down overall in terms of greediness. Having previously played the first two Blood Elf starting zones, and walked away with a blue ring and blue weapon, (plus reputation rewards including blue back piece) the rewards for the major storyline quest of the Draenei felt a little...lacking. I would have thought that a fanfare reception of the "heroes of the Draenei" would come with something a little better than a couple rings our leader fished out of a gumball machine. Rasaiel is a jewel crafter and had both her and myself in better rings and amulets at level 20 than that quest could offer.

Well, at least we got saluted by an Elekk. *yay*

interruption: this conquest was halted for several days due to my PC deciding it didn't like to power up any more. A new processor and motherboard later, I'm now playing the game on a dual-core PC and can't manage to get the framerate to dip below 60 fps. This game is gorgeous.

So last night saw our escape from the ridiculously red island (with quite a flashy story-driven quest to wrap it all up, I really hope more quests are like that in Outland as well) and a return to familiar territory, Ashenvale. For grins (and my final level 20 xp) we poked our heads into the Black Fathom Deeps entry cave and killed several elites, proving to ourselves that we can handle 2 same-level elites at a time. With my current skillset I feel well-equipped to heal a dungeon run, having tested this on a leather-wearing tank and her furry pet :) My only concern would be whether I had enough mana for longer-length fights, but I feel it's all a bit trivial anyway as I haven't seen enough people in the zone to ever have enough for a dungeon run. Unless I wanted to be the sole healer for a 4-hunter attack party...

On the general subject of "how the game plays for a lowbie," I wonder if the level 70 playerbase isn't taking some of the fun out of the game for any new players that might happen to wander into this giant machine of a game. Specifically, I've noticed the AH prices of fairly low level (10-14) items being set ridiculously high (in the 2-3 gold range), which I presume is priced for alts of level 70's with plenty of gold to burn. As Rasaiel and Pathos have no level 70 mains to fund their adventures, almost all gear upgrades have to come from quests or random world drops (or crafting, my cute little jewel crafter is awesome), as it's not very feasible to be spending 3g on a weapon you'll ultimately upgrade again in 2 days' time.

As other players and bloggers have done before me, I generally lament the state of old-world low level dungeon runs. I see posts (both offering and requesting) for 2-man dungeon runs with a level 40-60 and an appropriate-for-the-zone level character. This feels like such a bastardization of the enjoyment my wife and I used to have as we leveled through the game. Back in the day, I remember having two or three different groups queuing up for Deadmines and BFD, Stormwind was always abuzz with people looking for more Stockades members, and soda only cost 5 cents. Also, there wasn't any sound on the movies, they put the speech in separate frames they would flash you after any dialog happened.

I'm secretly hoping that we'll see more and more people per zone as we level higher, given that there's more of a time requirement at each subsequent level before you can move on. The peace and quiet is very helpful for gather and kill quests, but if we never see anyone else, nor run any dungeons with surprisingly decent players, it'll be hard to ever make any new friends in the world of Azeroth.

Posting, the second; or "How I no longer work in Silvermoon"

RADICAL CHANGES! OMG!

I started this blog last week under a different name, as you'll note in the blog previous to this, because the original intent of my wife and I was to play some Blood Elves and generally check out the Horde. What we found, eventually, were two key points.

• The Horde suffers from crazy inflation, which means you have to sell items at inflated prices to be able to afford anything, and
• The Horde is full of zombies, orcs, trolls, cows, and generally can't be counted on for decent interior decorating tips.

...second point getting to the less sarcastic realization that when we rolled Alliance back in the day, it was because that felt more innately natural to us, and still does.

After a weekend of powerlevelling my BE priest to 20, hemming and hawing, and rerolling some Dranei characters, the current husband/wife pair is now sporting a 17 hunter and a 13 priest: Rasaiel and Pathos respectively. Which makes life ever-so-much easier, due to now having furry pocket-tanks at our disposal that work for fish. We have the triumvirate of MMO's in a 2-person band: tank/dps/healer (factored down into (DPS + tank)(Healer - 2x) with some rounding involved and a couple imaginary numbers divided by the square root of Pi ... but I haven't taken a math class since 2001, so that could all be completely off. Damn you algebra!!!)

Oh, also, I am bald, and lack any and all chin-tentacles. It just makes the rest of me look HUGE.

Up next: Pathos and Rasaiel level past 20 and venture out into the wider world of Azeroth, also known as "Get Us the Hell Off of This Island, It's Full of Aliens From Starship Troopers and They Ate My Last Moongraze Tenderloin"

Posting, the first; or "Why, oh gods why, I'm on fire, why."

I love these blog thingies, you kids and your interweb-tubes are an amazing tool. No, I don't mean you're tools, and no, I'm not serious. Seriously. Not serious.

Wasn't that fun? Maybe I should start making sense.

I've been reading a lot of MMO blogs lately, more specifically some WoW blogs in the last couple of days, and my penchant for writing about things no one should really concern themselves with has led me to chronicle my own (and my wife's) trek through the lovely world of Azeroth and beyond. But first, a flashback to a happier time~

The year: 2006. The day: Valentine's Day. The salmon? A bit overdone, but still tasty. The bill? Yes, I'll take the bill now. No thank you, we don't want any dessert, just some coffee.

Where was I? Oh yes, my wife and I started playing the good ol' WoW as a jointly purchased valentine's day gift last year, rolling up a Night Elf Hunter (her) and Druid (me, but who else was left anyway?) and proceeding to churn through the 1-60 content in roughly 5 months. We made plenty of friends in the game, joined a guild or two, and eventually transitioned into the raiding endgame with a fairly energetic guild of 200. Then we (for lack of knowing any better) wrung the game dry of any enjoyment through the raid machine known as Molten Core, conquering Ragnaros and Onyxia and then allowing BWL to run amock with our entrails while we handed in money to repair armor. We left in October, before The Burning Crusade ever showed up.

Skip ahead to two weeks ago, when I, for lack of anything better to do at that particular moment, installed the BC client that was sneakily mailed to me in a DVD case from Blizzard with a note attached: "Dude, you want a hit? I'll give you a free 10 day, no holds barred trial...where you can actually trade, auction, and party (not like that weak original trial crap, that guy gets his stuff from a dumpster)." When the long-winded metaphor cleared, the wife and I were tooling around in Eversong Wood; I a paladin with longings for the priesthood, and she a fire-wielding beautiful pyromaniac that could set you ablaze at 500 yards. At least, it seems that way, the range on her fireballs appears to extend further than I can see sometimes.

"What mob? All I saw was you throwing molten pain off into the nether"
*Rattlecage Skeleton dies, you gain 47 experience points*
"...oh yea? Well...I get a free horse...later..."

So long story told, the short version (haha, you had to read this far to find it) is that I've got a level 20 Blood Elf Paladin, a level 8 BE Priest, and she has a 20 BE mage, and we're tackling the game again from the horde side. What follows will basically chronicle our adventures in a slightly sarcastic tone, with a lot of parenthetical (and pathetic...al) remarks to make me feel like I'm amusing. I'm sure some element of all this will turn out to be an analysis of the game in its current state, and I might use the term "the good old days" once or twice. What I'm really interested in is whether or not a pairing of mage and priest is at all viable as a levelling duo, seeing as how I've already played tank with my paladin in more than one occasion. Though it's still a trial to pull aggro away from the mobile flamethrower. My DPS is jealous.