I Haven't Played WoW In Ten Days

See...

...we had family at the house over the entire Imperialism Day weekend, like Wed-Mon, so there was no World of Warcraft over the break. This alone is staggering to me: I mean, I was somehow willing to not be horrendously rude to our guests by ignoring them for four hours at a time. (I only ignored them for two hours at a time, when I would get distracted by my piles of Vampire cards. More on that later.)

I hadn't played since the previous Monday, so the extended break accumulated into a ten-day hiatus. And, I feel very, very strange.

I have no strong urge to play.

O.O

I do have an urge to meet my commitments to my guild, however, so I will be going in tonight, to raid Blackwing Lair. However, I thought this streak was worth mentioning, as it is completely unprecedented in the past nine months.

...

...

...

Okay, so I will admit that there was another factor that went into this that might be having an impact.

I mentioned recently that my infatuation with Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (a card game that myself and a whole two of my friends care, or even know, about) re-exploded when I was exposed to the contagion that is the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

My inflammation has only gotten worse. And, on Saturday, something bad happened. As in "make the Bad Man go away" bad.

(For those of you who are watching this blog with the fascinated horror that one lends to trainwrecks and movies like Trainspotting, seeking after some kind of comprehension of how human beings can be so blatantly self-destructive, I offer for your voyeuristic digestion this morsel: in these pre-confessional moments, just before I am about to explain something that both horrifies and excites me, I experience an intense anxiety, like a hand physically grasping my heart. Most times, when I sit and begin to write about something, the topic seems amusing, and hopefully interesting. But right here, just before I describe the actual thing itself and I'm unwrapping in my mind the whole chain of events... it often seems funny in the same way that Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was funny. Like, "ha ha ha ha, holy shit the way that guy is slashing people is hilarious, ha ha ha ha". Like, there's a part of you that is screaming under the laughter.)

[As an aside, Ft13thPt6 was pretty goddamn hilarious. If you haven't seen it, don't, but do understand that it's really funny. In addition to being incredibly gory.]

Anyway. Where was I. The other reason I might not be craving WoW...

Oh, yeah.

The Bad Man
On Saturday, I made the mistake of going to the games store. This store has been undergoing a strange conflagration of events of late, and these factors combined on that day into what can only be described as a Vortex O' Doom. Here are the principal facts for your consideration:

1. The owner of said store has been away with some kind of debilitating illness for what is going on months now. She has thus been forced to leave her store to the care and feeding of her employees.
2. Some of these employees disagree with the profit tactics of their Imperious Leader. One of them in particular (who was running the store on this day) wants to clear out some of the detritus, and is willing to negotiate to accomplish this goal. Even though it's not his store.
   
3. This fine fellow believes that Vampire: The Eternal Struggle is largely a dead game as far as his profits are concerned. He may be right on this, for reasons that have to do with online availability of cheap cards for those who look, which is pretty much everyone who actually plays.
   
4. Thus, the store's stock of leftover Vampire boosters is robust.
5. I have Superior Presence.
   

I knew we were sliding into a bad place when this fine fellow expressed to me that, in the spirit of simplifying our conversation and his stock in one swoop, he would be interested in figuring out what his current lowest price on Vampire card stuff was in the store, by weight, and then offering to let me take however much I wanted of all of it, at that rate.

You might think I'm making that up. I'm not. Turns out that the lowest price in his store by weight netted out a price of $1 per booster pack.

That's roughly 70% off. I could resell those boosters for twice that, on eBay.

After about fifteen minutes of calculation, I took half the stock right there. Went home. Stewed. Went to Safeway... and went back. Took the rest.

I bought roughly three hundred boosters.

[Those of you with sensitive constitutions may want to avert your eyes at this point: we're going to NERDCON 2 here.]

I ended up with 9 packs of Bloodlines, 22 packs of Anarchs, 19 packs of Black Hand, two boxes (36 boosters each) + 3 loose boosters of Kindred Most Wanted, two boxes minus three boosters of Legacies of Blood, 33 packs of Gehenna, a box of Nights of Reckoning, a box of Third Edition, and about ten starter decks.

[Okay, returning you to NERDCON 5. Close the silos and stuff.]

My good friend the druid wondered recently as to how I managed to engage in this lunacy without destroying my household. I assured him my wife's constitution was part of the alchemy. I can further assure him, and you: this event has tested that alchemy. She is a remarkable woman, as it turns out.

What Does That Have To Do With WoW?
You see... when I say that I haven't played WoW in ten days, I may have given you the impression that I was somehow temporarily cured of my insanity.

You may draw your own conclusions as to whether or not that is the case. Either way, I spent Saturday, Sunday, and a good portion of Monday and Tuesday opening, sorting, alphabetizing, recording in my Excel database, and filing, over three thousand new cards.

For a game that something like twenty people in the greater Bay Area play.

Does anyone know if there is a pill I could take? Some kind of supplement?

I Was Beginning To Think They Didn't Exist-or-8/8

I had quite a weekend. As I write this, I am shaking visibly with barely-constrained enthusiasm. I have had to hit the backspace key far more often than I normally do.

I have laid out in some detail the nature of my (and by "my" I mean my imaginary avatar, Allora's) excursions into the Molten Core of Azeroth. I have further laid out to you, here and there, the slow, arduous ascent I have been engaged in collecting together what is knows as the "Lawbringer Set" of armor.

I slowed the reporting on this recently. You have been experiencing a kind of "media blackout" on the progress, since I hit 7 of 8 pieces. The reason for this is that I have been at 7 of 8 pieces for three fucking months. The last piece I needed was the Lawbringer Legplates.

Note the use. Of past. Motherfucking. Tense.

Just so we all understand each other: in nearly a year of raiding Molten Core every weekend (yeah, that's right, I said it, I'm a nerd) I have seen these goddamn legplates once. According to the illustrious Thottbot, they have a 10% drop rate. Apparently, the rate is actually (10% - Allora_Special_Case_Magic_Number), because I've killed that stupid goddamn dog at least forty times, so you would THINK that they would do us all a favor and show the fuck up once in a while.

Well, last night, ladies and germs, I got my wish. One of my guildies was actually ahead of me in the DKP rankings, so technically he could have taken them, but he knew they would complete my set and so let them pass. Thank you, Gamon.

I must say. I look sexy.

You would think that that would be enough madness for one weekend. You would be emphatically wrong.

I think it is somehow fitting that the next topic dovetail in the same post with the previous one. It is as if they were fitted, by dwarven hands, to nestle together, one after the other.

The Molten Core is, of course (and the anxiety I am experiencing in bringing this topic to your attention is mammoth) only the first high-end raid dungeon in the World of Warcraft.

There are several more. A few of these we (the guild) have been already engaged with, but they are all roughly equivalent to the Core, both in power needed to tackle them, and in rewards that one receives for removing them of all living inhabitants, smearing their walls and floors with the blood of your victims. They are known as "tier 1" dungeons.

The first, and most significant, of the "tier 2" dungeons (I'm getting a chest cramp as I type) is a place known as Blackwing Lair. I'll save you the trouble of following that link and quote from it here:

The mighty fortress carved within the fiery bowels of Blackrock Mountain was designed by the master dwarf-mason, Franclorn Forgewright. Intended to be the symbol of Dark Iron power, the fortress was held by the sinister dwarves for centuries. However, Nefarian - the cunning son of the dragon, Deathwing - had other plans for the great keep. He and his draconic minions took control of the upper Spire and made war on the dwarves' holdings in the mountain's volcanic depths, which serve as the seat of power for Ragnaros the Firelord. Ragnaros has uncovered the secret to creating life from stone and plans to build an army of unstoppable golems to aid him in conquering the whole of Blackrock Mountain.

Blackwing Lair can be found at the very height of Blackrock Spire. It is there in the dark recesses of the mountain's peak that Nefarian has begun to unfold the final stages of his plan to destroy Ragnaros once and for all and lead his army to undisputed supremacy over all the races of Azeroth.

Yeah. I speak nerd.

Our guild has been banging it's collective head against the first boss fight in this new dungeon for some time. Months, in fact. It's a fight with a pleasant fellow known as Razorgore, and this fight is well-known for being a brutal introduction to methods required to take on the higher-level bosses in the game.

He's a fucking pain in the ass, pretty much.

I won't go into too much detail. It suffices to say, there's up to 40 elite mobs running around the room trying to kill us at any one time, one of us is controlling the crazy dragon guy with an orb thing and making him break eggs, if you let the boss die too soon he explodes and kills the whole party... lunacy.

It's been at least three months of brick wall time with this fight... until Saturday. Saturday, he went the fuck down.

It's funny how anti-climactic it was. We, I think, were all so focused on the fight, and have gotten so used to getting pwned by this guy that when he actually went down, we all kinda looked at the corpse in surprise. "Huh!" we said. "I guess we killed Razorgore!"

He dropped some warrior gear, and we went on to get our ass handed to us over and over by the second boss in the instance, a guy named Vaelastrasz the Corrupt (who, as it turns out, is actually a really nice guy... he's just got an "I'm possessed!! Flee before I kill you!!" sort of problem).

Now, you should be made aware...

um.

Yeah. You should be made aware that the Lawbringer gear I have shown you is what is considered "tier 1" gear, as it comes from "tier 1" dungeons. I... well...

So I have 1 item of the "tier 2" set: the Judgement Crown.

It's... 1 of 8.

The Same Side Of Two Coins

Here, for your perusal, rejection, and eventual acceptance, are two interesting post on my current favorite topic. (And by "favorite" I mean that which consumes 1 in 3 posts on this goddamn text experiment I call my semi-wheneverthefuckIfeellikeit webzine. You guessed it.)

First, a tale of woe from a World of Warcraft addict, who describes the depths of despair that drove him to (gasp) quit.

Now, as an addict myself, I feel obligated to chastise this person publicly, and tear apart his arguments with bitter invective, thus decreasing the impact of his message to my own person, and further rationalizing my own behavior.

...

Or, not. Here's the other side of the coin. Or, if you prefer, the same side of another coin: a response from a person (who the gender noun used in some of the responses seem to indicate is a woman) who is still playing, and in the same guild as the above gentleman.

I gotta say: to me, this second article so completely describes how I feel about my own participation in this game that I... very much want my wife to read it.

Of course, the "life killing soulwrecking madness" from the first article in no way reflects on me. I can quit any time.



p.s. There was an interesting follow-up to the first post: it includes a brief disclaimer by the blog site owner (who is not the post author), along with reprints of the comments from the first post he found the most interesting. Worth scanning.

What The Fuck?

Hrmm.

Let's start this by identifying that I'm fundamentally dissastified with where this blogging thing has gone of late. In that I haven't posted in over two weeks. That, I think, is the root of the dissatisfaction, radical as that may seem.

See, I miss all the fun interaction that happens between my readership (if I may use such a brazenly vast word for the modest collection of what are admittedly outstanding individuals who frequent this here site). But, fucking apparently I don't miss it enough to actually post.

But let's take a step back from self-flagellation here. I mean, I enjoy this process, it's something I do because I love it, so if I find myself in a spot where I take a break for a while, I suppose it's within bounds. Maybe right along the edge of within bounds, surely, but not enough to stop the play.

So, what the fuck? I mean, why?

Here's what I think is the fuck.

1) The first The Fuck is that I hit this spot in my life recently where the most important thing to me was staying out of the goddamn food, and re-developing my spirituality. Now, let's declare that this process is certainly of some interest to me amigos two whom I am speaking here on teh webz0rs... but... when I sit down and write about it...

Well, to be perfectly frank, it comes out really goddamn boring. I mean, fuck, it bores me to write it, and then when I read it I faint from the effort. Generally, when I return to consciousness, I find that I've filled the blogger text buffer with the letter "w", having collapsed during service to the keyboard.

All the same, it is the center of my fucking universe at the moment. Or...

I suppose I should say it has been the center of my fucking universe. Because of late, I've found that it's feeling a little more integrated into the normal scheme, maybe. Perhaps I've settled into a routine of sorts, perhaps I've gotten bored with the constant aggressive pursuit of insight, perhaps I want to play WoW more, whatever. The Fuck is that it's shifted around a little bit, and now...

...well, I'm playing WoW more.

2) The second The Fuck is that my work life expahfuckingsplode-ified a few weeks ago, and I went from "ahhhhhhhhhhh... some day I'll have to do work again..." to "holyfuckingshitIhavesevenpeoplewhoneeddesignsfrommebyyesterday!!!" literally overnight. So, for the past few weeks, I've been what is affectionately described as "cranking" on prototyping, rip-o-matic making, designin', pitchin', writin', and a whole bunch of other -in's that are necessary to take a project from zero to moving forward.

And god damn it takes some effort. But I'll tell ya: I'm on board. I'm willing. I'll get out and push, man. Have I mentioned that I love my work?

I'm down.

3) The third The Fuck (and long-time readers knew that this was coming) is that I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft.

Now, you must understand: I was playing a lot of World of Warcraft before, and I will (no doubt) continue to play a lot of World of Warcraft in the future (mmmmmmmm, Burning Crusade). So, we're not necessarily talking about an increase in the amount of time I've been putting into it.

No, friends, what we're talking about is more of a mental shift. A turning of the head, if you will. Something rather profound happened recently, and I've been... unable... to turn away...

To convey what this shift is, it's important to establish a few key facts. Ready?

FACT #1: Paladin Do Not Do Damage

This is well understood. Paladins are tough mombajimbas, it is true; in fact, many would say that they are well nigh un-killable, when stacked against the other classes. They wear plate, they heal, they have invulnerability options... yeah. Tough cookies. The do not, however, pose any kind of immediate threat to anything near them.

Oh, sure, they'll kill ya. It'll just take three minutes. Plenty of time for you to summon a bunch of friends. "Hey, I'm being attacked by a Paladin!!" "Okay, we'll just finish up this dungeon run, and head over and help ya! We should be there before your health gets to 30%!"

FACT #2: I Play A Paladin

I have proof. I'm just not going to show it to you.

FACT #3: Farming Gold With A Paladin Is Like Watching Paint Dry

Easy enough. The problem here is that the amount of time that it takes to bring a mob to yoke (which is to say, convert him from a damage-dealing threat into a loot-bearing corpse) as a paladin is significantly higher than the value derived from said corpse. Folks who haven't played as a Paladin have a tendency to poo-poo this: to them I say go try it. When you wake up from your stupor, you'll see what I mean.

FACT #4: Paladins Do A Lot Of Damage To The Undead.

This, I think, is not surprising.

Okay! Having established the facts, let's introduce some new data.

NEW DATA #1: Allora recently was convinced to respec into what is known as a "protection spec" pally (if you have a life, a "spec" is shorthand for how you have spend your "talent points", which is the way in which you can customize your character's abilities in this here "game").

Basically, I was running a holy spec before, which made me a Healadin. I enjoyed this immensely, but it badly exacerbates the lack-of-damage problem described above.

I... really had no idea by how much, however.

NEW DATA #2: Allora recently got herself some pretty handy f'ing equipment. Notice the amount of "I hurt you when you hurt me" stuff.

Suddenly...

Suddenly, Allora can run around in the Western Plaguelands, aggro something like ten level 52-54 undead baddies, and then let them simply destroy themselves against her.

...

I. Can. Farm.

I've killed, say, 1,000 undead in the last few weeks. Help help, I'm trapped in a MMORPG!!

Vs.

The following paragraphs will be written in the confessional style. You should assume that my tone is meek, conciliatory, and slightly embarassed.

It happened again, you see.

There I was, at the head of a marvelous three day weekend, ready to rock and rule the world. Ready to change. Three day weekends have this wonderful sense of possibility about them; during the Friday evening commencement period, one can believe that nearly anything is possible. You could wash your car. You could invent a new truth serum, and stop terrorism. You could open a new franchise of your business. You, of course, do not currently have a franchisable business, but damn, man, you've got that extra day in there, so who knows...

On this particular three day weekend, I was going to hang out with my family, maybe play some Vampire: The Requiem with my buddy(ies), maybe have a 40K game or two... clean the house...

And, then I turned on World of Warcraft.

Let me give you some idea of my headspace on this. Because, you see, it disturbs even me.

Some Idea Of My Headspace On This

You may be aware of what is affectionately known in the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Rationalized Payment for Gluttony) as my "main". My "main" is Allora, and I do so appreciate her efforts to become the very bestest Paladin on the block. Here she is.

I've made some progress with Allora. In fact, I made some progress on Friday. Those of you who still tune in to the darklord's blog every week, even though the show has clearly jumped the shark, will know that I have been collecting my Lawbringer gear; a set of plate armor that is so goddamn holy that the mere sight of it makes women chaste and men drop to their knees in repentance. It's quite a thing.

The reason you haven't heard anything about this lately is that I have been hovering... poised, and ready to pounce... at 7 of 8 pieces.

I have the Bracers. I have the Belt. I have the Gauntlets. I have the Spaulders. I did finally get the Chestplate. I out-rolled another paladin for the Helm, for which he will be eternally bitter. I got the Boots, even though they hadn't dropped for us in over a year. They did drop, and I did get them.

7/8.

And now, every week, we paladins gather around the shattered, destroyed form of Magmadar (the giant two-headed fire breathing hell hound), and pray silently as the master looter inspects our prizes... and, every week, the goddamn Lawbringer Legplates refuse to drop. It's been seventeen weeks running that we haven't seen them. And yes, we are counting. We all need them, you see.

I did get myself a little something this weekend, however. I've only seen it drop twice, and it is a thing of beauty.

So, there we have it: Allora in all her glory. One must put into this context that I am also working on Tyridane (my 42 hunter), and Crystalline (my 43 priest). It suffices to say that I have already spent way more time on this shit than I reasonably should.

Okay.

What I've Been Doing Up Until Now

So, see... [embarassed voice] I...

Well, I have this character that I've been using as a bank. I send her extra stuff that my other characters don't have room for (like the 25 stacks of Dark Iron Ore that I'm hand-delivering to the goddamn fascist con-artist Thorium Brotherhood on a weekly basis).

And, at some point, I decided it might be fun to make her an enchanter. Just, you know, to explore the mechanics. It's research, people.

My inclinations leaning the way they do, this rapidly converted itself into a game. She was level 6, you see, and I wanted to see how far I could push a level 6 character. How skilled could she be? Intriguing!! I want to know!! Hell, I bet everyone would want to know!!

Not very, as it turns out. But! If you get to level 10... so I did. And this is where the trouble started. I decided ("decided" in this context is meant to be interpreted in the same way that a cocaine addict "decides" to have another line... a really good line this time...) that I would let this character get to level 19, and see just how much experience, skill, and general ability I could stuff into her.

So, in short, I've been leveling her, get this, as slowly I as I possibly can. In order to maximize the other stuff I've been collecting along the way.

Which Brings Me To This Weekend

Does it fill you with horror? Perhaps if I were to list out the ways in which I have been extending my gameplay (for example, using this character as a way to fill in my Gatherer database of the location of every herb and ore vein in the low-level areas... while leveling her herbalism)? No?

Well, you're made of stronger stuff than I am.

And, then, Saturday rolled in, like a fog bank... and I noticed an un-filled bar. A measure of progress on my character sheet that had been hitherto untouched by me. And, not just on this character, on any of my characters.

The PvP faction bar. Specifically, the Silverwing Sentinels PvP faction bar.

In english, that sentence translates to "the bar that measures what the good guy armies who offer the quests for fighting in the Warsong Gulch player-versus-player battle map think of my exploits". It is a measure of how much time one has sunk into defeating other human players, who are not of my race, and are, thus, evil.

And who says games don't teach morality.

The bar was empty. Devoid. Vacant. "How hard could it be?" I asked myself.

The rest is kind of a blur. I know a few things about the weekend: I did drive my kids to a barbeque once, and I did interact with real humans on more than one occasion. I also know that my rhythm was as follows:

1. Put my character into the PvP queue for Warsong Gulch (waiting for the server to decide that there are enough interested and well-balanced characters to start a new match).
2. Park said character at some location that wouldn't generate "rest". (Because, see, that would mean that I would be getting more XP from my kills, which... yeah.)
3. Restart my audiobook version of George R.R. Martin's Feast For Crows.
4. Move to my Warhammer Geek painting station, and paint Squigs and Squig Herders.
5. Paint, listen to book, and wait for the HORNS OF BATTLE!!!! to sound, indicating that a new battle for Warsong Gulch was about to start.
6. Put down the paint, turn off the book, sit down at machine.
7. Kill virtual extensions of other human beings in a fantasy setting for between ten and twenty minutes.
8. Win. Like, 14 ot of 15 battles.
9. Rinse, and repeat.

I did that for...

...at least twenty hours over the weekend. Ten of those hours were on Monday.

In Conclusion

I have, at the end of my long weekend, achieved the following:

1. I have reached "Friendly" faction with the Silverwing Sentinels. The primary benefit of this is an aching need to go fight more.
2. I have a 95% of the way painted Squig herd. They look pretty goddamn cool, I must say.
3. I totally blew off my buddy that I was going to play Vampire with.

Which brings us to the point of this behemoth of a post:

Uh, sorry, Dave. Maybe we can play later or something.

That's all I've got for ya! Good night, and good luck!

The Late Ragnaros

Let me just get this out of the way, before we get too far into this discussion.

I KILLED RAGNAROS ON SATURDAY!!

(Well, actually, I and 39 of my online friends killed Ragnaros. But let's not split hairs.)

I have been coming to the Molten Core for...

Uh. If the records on this topic are complete and accurate, it appears that I have been doing this one dungeon for over six months.

...

Whereas that concept might be enough for mere mortals to shrivel up and die in shame and humiliation, I, as a member of the gamerus superiorus, take that as a boast! A sign of glory! My chest swells with the bravery that I have shown in the face of my foes!

...

Lies, actually. I'm rather shaken by the notion. Strangely, though, my gamer side shrugs that off with no hesitation whatsoever. Six months? Feh.

So, as you may (or may not, gods willing) know, Ragnaros is the tenth (tenth!) and last boss you fight in Molten Core. He is the ultimate. The Big Cahuna. He's the Man.

He's an extraordinary pain in the ass. Get this:

1. He has an area-of-effect explosion that knocks anyone that does not have at least 200 fire resist back something like 100 feet (and waaaaaaaaaaay up in the air). (For those of you not pouring your life into digital distractions, 200 fire resist means you have a full set of armor that you have collected just for this purpose. Certainly doable, but also certainly not trivial.)
2. If (this is the kicker) at any time he does not have someone actively beating on him in melee range (like 5' away), he does this thing where he explodes flame into the entire chamber, and does like 6000 points of damage to everyone in it.
   

So, if you can't prevent him from knocking your tanks back, he wipes the whole raid instantly.

And that's just the price of entry. From there, it gets hard.

We've been beating our heads against this guy for something like the last three months. It's hard. It's a complex fight, and all of the members of your 40-man raid party need to have a certain level of gear (fire resistance, mainly) that takes some time to get. Also, it's hard.

And, then, quite suddenly, I found myself standing there on the edge of the lava spiral that he stands in, healing my mages and priests, helping keep enough of the raid alive that we had a chance... and his health was at 20%... 15%... 12%... and it hit me.

We had 45 seconds left to kill him (before his Sons emerge, and we all die)... and that was enough time to do it.

I couldn't believe it. But, man, it was gonna be close. Over my headset, our raid leaders had started to say things like "Unload! Get in there! Hit him with everything you've got!" And, they were right.

Man, I got right in there. I jumped into the lava, hopped through it, and got right in there next to that big ol' towering column of flame and rage, and gave him everything I had.

Which, admittedly, isn't much. I am a paladin, after all.

The feeling of satisfaction when that titanic sonofabitch finally disintegrated into nothingness, leaving only his gigantic hammer behind as a reminder of his unearthly presence was nothing short of ecstatic. My shout of delight startled my children in the next room.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... the Ghosts of Retribution, and their really big hammer.

Check out the look of satistfaction on that avatar's face.

Uh, through the armor, I mean.

Fan Mail

Today, let us respond to two startling questions, from two different readers.

These are, quite possibly, 2 out of 3 readers that I have.

druid writes:

Congrats. First, on resisting the urge to ninja the helm (although, dammit, you are a Paladin, and there's a truly special level of hell reserved for Paladins that steal drops). And second, for finally getting it to drop.

My thanks. But what's your question?

So. Big picture time, here. How long do you expect to continue playing WoW? Until it's not "fun" anymore (I dare you to say that running Scholo 42 times is still "fun")? Until the expansion? Until you have full Lawbringer? Until you've experienced all the content (Ony, AQ40, soon Nax and the expansion)?

It's one of the issues that always gets to me with MMOs - there's no end. Hence, my experience with them almost always ends up being sour, because I play them until I can't stand playing them any more (otherwise, why quit)?

The answer to this question might terrify you. It certainly terrifies me.

I will be done with this game when:

1. I have a character (most likely Allora) that has experience every piece of geo in the game, and beaten every monster. Progress: 90%.
2. I have a character (horde and alliance) that has completed every quest in the game. Progress: 60% (alliance: 98%, horde: ~50%, there is a great deal of overlap at high levels)
   
3. I have a level 60 character of each class. Progress: 15% (Paladin: 60, Priest: 43, Hunter: 33, Warrior: 33, Shaman: 24, Rogue: 29, Mage: 8, Warlock: 3, Druid: 0)

...

I really think that speaks for itself.

Dave writes:

I command you to write an interesting, not WoW tinted, blog of epic proportions. Reading about the “Lizard’s Gizzard” for the 400^th time is uninteresting.

Hmmm. An interesting point. Let's take a moment and discuss.

1. See above converstaion for a rough idea of what your chances are of not seeing WoW-related posts on this site in the near-term.
2. By some coincidence, I have been building momentum towards a blog post of said epic proportions, as you describe, but have been unwilling to post it. It's intensely personal stuff, you see, this topic that I wish to blurt. I've been running a fucking gauntlet of emotional bullshit over the past two months, and...
3. I'm chicken, basically.
4. So, if the blog has been a little dry of late, this is why: much of the normal intense darklord crap has been happening offline.

So be it.

Prayer Works

I (meaning, my virtual avatar, Allora) hit 60 some time ago.

Uh, we're talking like nine months ago here. Just for perspective.

Those of you unfamiliar with the lay o' da land once you "max out" in the Warcraftian World may find it startling to understand that the journey has only really just begun. (I did some discussion on this topic a while ago, illustrating in some small way the level of insanity that is required to achieve pleasure from the game at this level.)

Let us say this: many of my more stable friends who did play this game stopped when they hit 60. Because, they reasoned, what would be the point?

I have for you a tale of the point. It is a tale of faith... of hope... and most importantly, how the power of prayer can help you. No, really.

Let's set the Wayback Machine to somewhere's around two weeks after Allora had hit 60.

These were hopeful, naive days. I was happily adjusting to the fact that I could (*gasp!*) log off anywhere I damn well pleased, because the rest I was accumulating by logging off at inns gave me extra experience points, and... I was all done with that!

I had me some green gear that I found quite fetching. ("Green" in the previous sentence refers to the color of the text of the item, which reflects its rarity... yeah. Nerds.)

(Come to think of it, I still find that fetching; Alabaster Plate is one of the best looking suits of plate in the game, IMHO. It looks... authentic. And, this was in Allora's "I'm a Holy Paladin, Don't Fuck With My Gods" phase, so it was very appropriate.)

Ahhhh, young I was. So young, in fact, that I was only just beginning to explore this whole new thing that I knew was to consume the rest of Allora's gameplay time: grouping. Specifically, grouping for instance dungeons.

I knew little about this, so I decided to go at it slow and easy, so as not to make vast, long-reaching mistakes that would haunt me for the next nine months of gaming.

...yeah.

You may or may not be aware of the various armor sets that exist for the collecting pleasure (ahem) of the upper-level character. It suffices to say that traditional XP-based leveling after level 60 is replaced by two things: faction (which we have discussed) and armor sets.

These armor sets contain within them the stat bonuses that would normally be granted by leveling up. See how that works? It's as if you had to go and kill a dragon (over and over... and over) until he decides to randomly drop your new level, as treasure. You equip it, and bang! You're 61!

Kinda. It's not quite as cut-and-dried as that, but that's the gist.

So, there I was, quite suddenly, in my first high-level instance group. It was, by chance, a run into Scholomance, a marvelous place with high stone ceilings, lots of books, and undead legions filling every hall who are happy to take your coat, hat, and soul, if you give them a chance. Very excited, I was polite to a fault. "Hi, hi, how are you, yes I have Blessing of Kings, no I haven't done this before, hi, hi..."

One of the members of this party of illustrious adventurers was a paladin as well. Shortly after we were under way, this fine fellow messages me, and asks if I have the Lightforge Helm. After all, the end boss of Scholomance is the only place it drops.

At the time, I genuinely had almost no idea what he was talking about. I mean, I knew there were these sets of armor, and I knew that I would be seeking them... but beyond that, I was still virginal in my approach.

"Nope!" I chirped.

His reply went something like this: "OKAY OMG LISTEN I'VE DONE THIS RUN 42 TIMES AND I'VE NEVER SEEN THE DAMN THING DROP EXCEPT ONCE AND I GOT OUT ROLLED AND I HAVE EVERYTHING ELSE I JUST NEED THE HELM SO IF IT DROPS CAN YOU PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NOT ROLL OMG OMG!!"

...

"uh... sure?" I said. Seemed reasonable.

Fast forward.

BRLLIRBILRIBLBLBRBLRLIRLIRIB--wiped on the goddamn spiders--LRIBLRILBRBRIRLBILRIRP--green gas sucks sucks sucks, and I died again--RLBPIBPLBIPLIBPRIBP--Ras Frostwhisper fell before our mighty swo--LRILRIPBPBIRLLIRBP--and Darkmaster Gandling collapsed on his goddamn face, YEAH BABY!!! We BAD!! We SLICER-DICERS!!

We loot... and, of course, there it is. Lightforge Helm. Ding ding ding.

I hesitated. I had, after all, promised this guy who I didn't know and would never see again that I would let him have it. But... holy crap! Look at those stats!

...

Nah, it'll drop again. Pass.

[ ASIDE: if you find yourself in a similar situation, and you have this thought? Destroy it. ]

Fast forward.

...actually, we need to skip forward through several of our vast archives. In fact, we need to run all the way up to last night.

Becuase, you see, I've run Scholo a lot since that day. It's a very Paladin-friendly place, what with it being populated almost entirely by the living dead. I have a way of exploding undead brains that makes for very fun gameplay. I can tank there too. If you don't know what that means, I envy you.

By "I've run Scholo a lot", I mean, like, 42 times. And the goddamn thing has never dropped again.

Those of you following my tales of woe will know that I am currently in Molten Core, and have been collecting my Lawbringer gear, which is, in fact, far superior to the Lightforge stuff. Lightforge is twiddly n00b stuff compared to the Lawbringer gloriousness.

But... man. It's a classic, you know? And I haven't gotten the Lawbringer helm yet. So, I keep going back.

[ ASIDE #2: You know where this is going, but I have a message I want to pass to you along the way, so hang in there. ... It won't be worth it, by the way, but hang in there anyway. I dunno, what else do you have to do, work?? ]

So, last night I did a Scholo run for a guild member: a warlock who is working on getting her Epic mount. We pulled a group of guildies together, and went down into the depths of this undead-riddled "school".

It was a lot of fun; good run, everyone was on the Vent server, so we could all talk to each other (which helps enormously). Our warlock complete her quest, we turned the immortal lich Ras Frostwhisper into a human and then hacked off his head, got good loot... a pleasant run.

...and Darkmaster Gandling collapsed on his goddamn face, YEAH BABY!!!

And suddenly, we are all standing around the fallen corpse. I breathe in fearfully (as I always do when we reach this point in the run), but this time, I say into the mic, "Ladies and gentlemen, let us all take a moment to pray, silently, for the Lightforge Helm to--" and then someone looted, and there it was.

I peed myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the press, assembled dignitaries, I give you...

...my Ronald McDonald hat.

You see? It's all clear to me now, and this is my message to you.

Prayer works.

...

Now, the fact that I prayed every single other time for the exact same thing to happen, to no avail, has no bearing on my conclusion. I am convinced. And so should you be. In the immortal words of George Michael, ya gotta have faith.

...and, if you think I'm gonna walk around with that horrendous thing showing on my head, then, in the immortal words of Judas Priest, you've got another thing comin'. That is why the WoW gods put "Show Helm" as an option.

W00t!

Onyxia the Dwagon!

I know, I know, I haven't been keeping you all up to date on my most recent WoW exploits. A day does not go by that I don't get a flood of emails in my inbox requesting more information about my progress through Molten Core... or how my alts are doing... people, I can only tell you so much about WoW. I have other topics that I need to address from time to time, okay?!?

...

But not today. Today is all about the fact that I finally (finally) got my Drakefire Amulet. Which is the thing that lets you into Onyxia's lair... so you can fight the dwagon.

But before we go into that, I must say something about this goddamn quest chain. Holy fucking shit, people. I mean, I've done some pretty ridiculous shit in my quest for Better Gear(tm) in this game, but this one...

I honestly have no idea how they expected anyone to be able to assemble forty people who had completed the whole thing. (Forty people, of course, being the number of people you kinda need to kill the Dwagon; more on that later.)

Let me sum up.

...

No, there is to much. Let me explain the whole goddamn thing, so that you may share in my pain. And, I gotta warn you in advance, a quick scrub of your browser's scroll bar will give you some idea of how comitted I am to inflicting on you the pain that was inflicted on me. (Also, the pretty pitchers are hanging out at the bottom of this post, so there's yer quick fix. Who loves ya.)

Consider yourself warned. You are now entering...

THE DARKLORD'S INSUFFERABLE GUIDE TO GETTING INTO ONYXIA'S LAIR (for Alliance, and yarbles to the Horde!)

Welcome, fair traveller! So, you seek the glorious drops that only can be had from the corpse-ification of the most notorious of all dwagons, Onyxia? Or, perhaps you simply want to see the great dwagon fall? Regardless of your motivations... son, you are in for a walk.

But do not be dissuaded! Difficult though your path may be, it is, in fact, not insurmountable. Evidence can be found hanging from the gates of Stormwind nearly every Friday and Saturday. Hey, man, if they can do it, you can do it.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

1. Get to the Burning Steppes.
2. Be 55+. Better, be 60.
3. Make sure you have friends. Or, at the very least, develop an ability to pretend like you like other people.
4. Prepare yourself to spend a lot of time in Blackrock Depths. You know, the least popular dungeon in the game? The 55+ dungeon with no drops whatsoever of interest to 60+ characters? The vast sprawling caverns of Dark Iron Dwarves and Fire Elementals with no XP and not much cash for anyone with their first tier gear? Yeah, that dungeon. The one you've been avoiding, because no one every puts together runs for it. That one. Go get all the Blackrock Depths quests you can find, 'cause you might as well.
   

Ahem. Let us begin (as so many things do) at the beginning.

1. Helendis Riverhorn hangs out in the Alliance outpost at the Burning Steppes, and she has your first quest. It's called "Dragonkin Menace", and it seems innocuous enough. Killing whelps, that kind of thing. It is not, in fact, innocuous. It is your doom, but you have no way of knowing that. Don't beat yourself up about it.
2. This leads you to a six stage introductory quest chain called The True Masters. It's a Fedex, so don't worry. All you need to do is not go crazy with all the goddamn running around.
3. The Marshal Windsor quest, however, is an entirely different story. Marshal Windsor is, in fact, where things start to come apart at the seams.

See, you have to find Marshal Windsor to complete that one. The brave Marshal is hanging out in a jail cell, in Blackrock Depths. So, to get to him, you need to get together four of your friends, and git him!

But don't forget to get the Prison Cell Key! You can't open the cell door without the key, you see, so you have to go kill High Interrogator Gerstahn (or, as of some patch, one of his flunkies). He's in the middle part of the jail section, so it's not far. No worries! No worries!

It just ain't easy. ;) Oh, and none of this is in the quest log, so you gotta figure it out. Get used to that.

Okay! So, Marshal Windsor, what's happnin'!! Good to see you, my man, lets get-- uh--

"Bolvar is a fool. I was gathering his precious 'proof' so that I could shove it down his throat.

"He is a blind buffoon. Proof stands two feet away from him and he does not see.

"As for my data, it's lost. Gone. Unrecoverable.

"Should I ever find Ironfoe and make it out of this labyrinth, my first stop will be Stormwind, to place my hammer in between that reptile's eyes.

"Leave me, Allora."

Uh.

Okay then! I'll just... leave you here in this dank cell to die. Sounds good!

4. Looks like we've Abandoned Hope. Return to Marshal Maxwell at the Burning Steppes, and give him the bad news. His response can be summarized as "Drat."
   

Now we come to the unbelievable part. At this point, the quest chain dies. It literally disappears. There is no follow quest, nothing. You're done, congratulations, take your XP and go about your business, thanks. Many people, I imagine, are on this step, and don't know it. Because, of course, the next step is to:

5. Fight in Blackrock Depths (you know, the least popular dungeon in the game?) with random mobs until A Crumpled Up Note drops. This gives you the quest... uh... A Crumpled Up Note. (I hear this can also drop off the slaves outside, but still. Whothefuck goes down there if they don't have to?)
   

Now, nowhere in the world is there a clue that tells you that fighting in the least popular dungeon in the game is the right thing to do. But it is what you must intuit. Or, at least, ask Thottbot about.

6. Take this note back to Marshal Windsor. He's still locked up in Blackrock Depths (BRD) where you left him (the... least popular dungeon in the game?) He will send you looking for A Shred of Hope.
7. Specifically, he wants you to get Marshal Windsor's Lost Information from General Angerforge, and Marshal Windsor's Lost Information from Golem Lord Argelmach. They are both in BRD. Yes, you have to run it again.
8. Bring these back to Windsor (in BRD). Finally!! He's willing to
leave this hellhole!
9. Now, run Jail Break!.

Ahhhhhh, Jail Break.

In Jailbreak, you get to escort this crazyman Marshal Windsor as he strolls around the Dark Iron prisons looking for his buddies. Remember: clear every mob group in the jail section before doing this. We're talking about something on the order of thirty groups of thirty groups of 4-6 55 elites. It's an hour's worth of clearing, easy. And, booooooooooooooo-ring.

Also, note! There will be no reward for this process. The only boss you fight is Rokkor, so good luck finding people to help you out with this part. I had to literally trick my rogue friend into coming along.

It's... not popular. Fortunately, it's not hard. The hardest part, honestly is getting a party together to do it.

Okay! So you've saved Windsor! He has proof that... um, well, we're not sure yet, but he's got proof of something, and he means to confront someone in Stormwind about it!! He tells you he'll meet you there, sends you back to Marshal Maxwell in Burning Steppes, and with a "hi-yo Silvah!", he's away.

So:

10. The Great Masquerade is underway. Meet Marshal Windsor at Stormwind.

Getting him to spawn at the front gate of Stormwind is actually quite a trick. (And, we are talking about the front gate, not the "portal" across the bridge. The big gate is where he dismounts from his horse.) My best guess on this is that he spawns something like 10 minutes after you start the quest. So, what I did was flew back to Marshal Maxwell, abandonded the quest, accepted it again, and flew right back to Stormwind. I call this "quest hax0ring". I am teh l33t qu3st h@x0r.

Of course, my skills were not awesome enough to prevent someone from stealing my first Windsor when I was trying to do this. Stay sharp: anyone with the quest can steal him from you. Yeah.

Windsor will walk to the throne room, say mean things to Lady Prestor... who, as it turns out, is not Lady Prestor but is instead Lady I'm Gonna Breath Fire On Your Raid Group Until You All Die, a.k.a. Onyxia the Dwagon. One would think that this would mean bad things for you, the player, but, instead... nah. Just watch admiringly as all the dialogue and combat scrolls by you.

Almost there!

11. Once the fight is over, Highlord Bolvor Fordragon (that's mister Highlord Bolvor Fordragon to you, son) will give you The Dragon's Eye. And... man. I gotta hand it to the designers on this.

    "You must search the world for a being capable of restoring the power to the Fragment of the Dragon's Eye. The only information you possess about such a being is that they exist."
    

12. So, someone needs to make this Eye thing whole for you. Someone. Somewhere. In the world. Stare at this quest. Then, give up. Ask Thottbot, or a friend what the deal is.
13. Yaaay for Thottbot! Find the crazy elf Haleh up in the Winterspring to show the Fragment of the Dragon's Eye to. Getting to her is a trick in itself; there are webpages dedicated to how to do this without having to fight every goddamn dragon in the cave over which she is standing. I recommend this route.
    
14. Haleh informs you that in order to get the Drakefire Amulet (oh my god, oh my god, oh my god), you must obtain "the blood of a black dragon champion". There's only one more fucking painful step left! You're so close! You're almost there! You can hear the dragon's snores, for cryin' out loud!
15. Get nine (9) of your closest friends together, and do an Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS) run, and go aaaaaaaaaallllllll the way to the end. There you will find General Drakkisath.
1. Kill him. This is, shall we say, easy to fuck up.
2. Know this: he will drop between 2-4
Blood of the Black Dragon Champion. Yes, this is a fact. If there are more people in your (10-man) group that need the blood than drop... well, you're gonna have to roll for it.
3. Fail the roll.
4. Repeat until you succeed. Try not to shout obscenities about unfair gods and please oh please end my suffering. Remember: you are paying for this game.
16. You got the blood! Return to Haleh (in Winterspring), turn in the blood, and get the amulet.

Bing-fucking-go. Rarely have I felt such a mixture of satisfaction and utter exhausted disgust than I did when I finally had this bad-boy in my inventory. Gotta tell ya, the urge to rant is high.

...

Like, say, for example, this blog post.

...

Anyway. Onyxia hangs out in Dustwallow Marsh, down in ye olde Wyrmbog. Yes she does. And, on Sunday, yours truly ventured into those hallowed halls, and got his/her/it's first live-and-in-real-time peek at the Onyxia, the Dwagon.

With great gusto, and a merciless battle cry of "WE ONLY HAVE ONE PREIST WTF!?!?!?", the battle was entered.

With... predictable results.

Someday... someday that dwagon is goin' DOWN. I'll letcha know.

o.O

People... are really freakin' funny.

You may (or may not) be familiar with the Elder God C'thun. He(/She/It) is the end boss of An'Qiraj... which, if you have a life also might need some explaining. It's a dungeon in World of Warcraft, of course, one of many.

Well, yesterday I hooked up with C'thun's MySpace. He's a swingin' fellow, as it turns out. He just wants some mortals to consume, is that so much to ask?

Turns out MySpace is becoming quite the popular hang out for the World of Warcraft named mobs. How these virtual entities are managing to reach across the interstellar void of existence itself (as, you know, they only exist in the most thin of interpretations of the word) to, you know, dink around with HTML and construct a homepage on a social networking site... well, perhaps it's something best left unexplored.

The complete roster, however, is certainly worth a look.

My apologies to those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about. This shit is way funnier if you've fought and killed these jerks 45 times. But, I think it might still be amusing (assuming you share my twisted perspective on humor) even if you haven't been farming these guys for drops.

Ahem.

Blackrock Mountain (various):

• Nefarian (who seems to take his job very seriously... I respect that)
• General Drakkisath

Ahn'Qiraj:

• C'thun
  
• Emperor Vek'nilash

Zul-Gurub:

• Hakkar (sometimes an Elder God just needs a hug)

Molten Core:

• Ragnaros has two pages, it seems. He seems to be experimenting.
  
• Majordomo Executus (coward)
• Magmadar (the cutest giant two-headed lava dog in the world, who'sagoodboy, who'sagoodboy!!)

Various other instances:

• Onyxia (the Black Dragon Queen)
• Baron Rivendare (who has chosen a tastefully framed pic for himself)
• Lord Kazzak
• Archmage Arugal
• Cookie (the ship's cook), who's taste in homepage music is nothing short of exquisite...

Folks who are Outside:

• Sylvanas (you know, the Banshee who freed the Undead from the shackles of their masters, giving them free will? Yeah. She sounds kinda confused about it though.)
• Prince Thunderaan, The Wind Seeker
• ...Auctioneer Wabang? God damn it, I knew that dude made a lot of money, but... WOW! How do I get that job!?!

And, my personal favorite:

• Hogger

...

The Internet... is the best thing ever.

It's Coming Back

I...

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm starting to get a little burnt out on WoW.

Maybe it's because for the last three weeks I've been averaging 4-10 hours of play per day. That might have something to do with it.

It's not that I don't want to play the game. Not by a long shot. Indeed, I'm signed up to go raiding in Molten Core this very weekend, last weekend my goddamn Lawbringer Spaulders dropped, and I got them.

That's right. 2/8. ZOMG.

But... still, I'm a little burnt. It manifests itself in a strange kind of naseous fatigue that begins the moment I see the logon screen. I'm assuming, for the time being, that this is a bad thing, and that it means that, at the least, I should see if the Real World is still there, alive, and intact. Perhaps take a census of still-living friends.

Of course, this extra time only allows room for other interests to invade.

For one, there is Tomb Raider, which a friend of mine has graciously loaned me a copy of.

...

[ ASIDE: Yeah, okay, so while collecting that link for you, this happened:

Normally, I hate desktop buddies. With a passion. But, I've gotta admit: having Lara Croft walking around my desktop scaling my windows seems perfectly reasonable. I'm a sick, sad little man. ]

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah!

Hell of a game. Tomb Raider: Legend is a true evolution of the franchise. Crystal Dynamics has succeeded where Core had failed: bringing Lara across the console generation gap. Core clearly leapt, missed, and let Lara fall to her death in a little crumpled heap (as she is want to do). Crystal reloaded their save game, made the same leap, and cleared it.

Although, barely. It's short. Too short for some, but not too short for me. Lara is nearly perfect, and the innovations in climbing gameplay that the game has to offer will certainly become standardized within a single product cycle.

It's also the first new game I've played in something approaching six months. And, get this: I've been busting out with some DDR action of late. I love that game.

Video games are not the only obsession re-emerging. Witness:

That's blood on the stairs there, coming from the blood gutters cut into the tile around the sacrificial altar. Yes... yes. Turned out pretty good. Still needs some grass and stuff, so that's next, but for a first "invented and built entirely from scratch with no plans or anything" effort, it doesn't suck. It's also extraordinarily heavy, being made entirely from plaster. I love my stone block molds. Yes I do.

I've been painting my Orkies, too. And, Dave & I had a rip-roarin' game of Warhammer 40k on Saturday. (Dave learned an important lesson: don't let the Genestealers get into your back rank. Ever.)

As a whole, not playing WoW constantly seems to be gently re-opening the doors to other pursuits, and I'm meeting this brave new world as any true hero would: cringing in fear, and blinking and wincing at the bright thing in the sky, my pasty skin and huge irises having been evolved for survival in a subterranean environment. I hope that with some integration therapy (and a little light surgery) I might be ready to be released into society at large within a few weeks.

I'll let you know when that's likely, so you can bar your doors at night.

It's Like Heroin

druid writes:

Congrats on your mount. BTW, is that...um...a fiery enchant on your sword? O_o

Have you gotten *any* of your MC gear yet, or have all drops really gone to other people? What's it like running MC (what's the time investment per week)?

Oh, and as a debuff class, it's painful to see you are running Decursive now. Nothing kills me (literally) more than having some Paladin hit a key and wipe away all my carefully placed DoTs :)

P.S. Lvl 53 now...

So good to hear from the youth of today's WoW players. The young, not-yet-60-but-been-playing-the-game-for-over-a-year crowd.

To wit:

Yes, that is a fiery enchant. My guildmaster gave it to me as a "welcome to being an officer" gift. I'm working on getting a Crusader enchant; almost have enough for it.

Nope, I have gotten no Molten Core gear yet. But, I've only been in the guild for two weeks. I didn't really expect to show up and be suddenly in the earn. Surprisingly, they don't have a DKP system yet, so it's a free-for-all. I just might get something soon. (Don't worry about it if "DKP" is meaningless to you; it's still mostly meaningless to me. We'll talk later.)

Molten Core is... it's quite a thing.

Completing Molten Core (which I've never done, and I'm not entirely sure my guild has done) takes two or three 4-6 hour runs. We generally go on Friday and Saturday nights.

...

Yep, it's 8+ hours of gameplay. And if you're lucky, you might get 1 piece of equipment out of it. Oh, and you get no money, and in fact need to pay for your repair bill.

Taken as a whole, it's quite possibly the most fun I've had yet. Let's talk.

Molten Core is a kind of initiation into the higher game echelons. One reason is obvious: you have to bring 39 of your closest level 60 friends to have the barest hope of succeeding in there. Less than that? Certain death. More than that? Not an option; there's a40-person limit on how many people can go in together.

The other reason was not so obvious. Here it is: after 15 months of sort of dancing around the lip of this high-level-content precipice, now, thanks to my upwardly mobile guildmaster, I find myself... Well, that's just the thing. I find myself in a completely different category of gameplay. And, more importantly, players.

Where before I was bumping along, enjoying the scenery, killing stuff and taking their treasure, and chatting away with great wit with my guildies, I now find myself being swept along at a pace that I can only describe as professional.

You don't chat in guild chat in my new guild. You state your business. We're here to play the game, people, not socialize.

...

The part that really startled me about this whole thing is this: I am, quite suddenly, surrounded by people who are more than willing to burn two hours grinding on random high-level monsters for an incremental gain in faction (or some other abstract goal).

See, before I hooked up with these ultra-nerds (who are, in actual fact, an elite squadron of nerds that are gathered together to handle high pressure situations that many strive for but few attain; nerd ninjas, in a word), I would generally be able to extract about 30 minutes of running around and just killing stuff from people I met before they got bored and wandered off. It was a constant struggle, finding new peope with which to endlessly repeat the same challenges.

In this new gaming world, I find that it is an unstated assumption on everyone's part that we are just going to quest for whatever is in front of us, forever, until work or some other real-life requirement extracts us from the task. It's not even discussed.

For example. The other day I was in Silithus, and I saw a guildie ride by. I sent him a tell ("Hey, by any chance could I interest you in grinding a few mobs? :) :) :)"). No response.

Then, an invite. He's got another guy with him, and with a curt "hey there", we are off. We spent the next two and a half hours killing Twilight Cultists, summoning their Elemental Lords, and killing them. Maybe ten sentences were spoken during the entire duration of the run. None of these sentences even mentioned any awareness of how long we were spending at this task. And then, after summoning one of the big ones, we were quite suddenly done. Everyone left, and I ran off to go turn in the 10 Twilight Texts I had collected during the massacree, much to my joy (and personal reward: I can now make Darkrune Helms).

This happens all the time now. I don't even know who these people are. Sometimes I hear them talking on the guild chat server, but I have no clue who is who. I have a suspicion that they don't either, and, further, that no one really cares. We're all just happy to have gotten rid of the players who get bored with our special kind of gameplay, and don't want to rock the boat.

They don't even joke about it. You know that kind of light embarassment you (WoW players) feel when the topic of how long you've played comes up? It's gone. Utterly absent. Every now and then someone mentions WoW being a life-destroyer, but that's it. I'm in the darkest back corner of the opium den, surrounded by my comrades, who have also all accepted that they will die in the embrace of their drug, and are simply pleased to have the pleasure of my company.

So, in short, it's nothing like the game that you've been playing. Nothing at all. And, once you start down the path, you'll never look back.

Quit now, before it's too late.

Epic Loot

A couple of things have happened.

For one, there is this:


Some of you may recognize that immediately. And, of course, turn green with envy. Or, at least I'd like to imagine that you would.

For the rest of you (those with lives), that is the Paladin Epic Mount.

Mounts in World of Warcraft turn out to be a really big deal. Since you spend a huge amount of time walking from place to place (just like in real life!), getting yourself a more efficient mode of transportation makes things much more pleasant. It reminds us of what it must have been like for our distant ancestors, before the invention of alternative forms of locomotion. Yes, it's true: playing World of Warcraft reminds you of history. Yep.

...

Not really. But it does suck to not have a horse. Which is the case until level 40, where you are able to purchase your mount, and suddenly your world becomes 60% faster. Yaaaay!

But, of course, this is an MMORPG, and so that 200+ hour investment is just the beginning.

[ Quick aside: I'm playing as I type this, and out of curiosty, I typed "/played", which tells you how long you have spent playing as the current character. Mine says "32 days, 21 hours, 25 minutes, 37 seconds". Help me. ]

There is a second mount available to you at level 60. The Epic Mount. For most players, this is just extremely expensive (1000g, or the equivalent of most of your free time for a month). For Paladins, however, it's extremely expensive (~600g) and time consuming: you have to quest for it.

Or, I should say, you get to quest for it. It's really fun. :)

So, after months of procrastinating and struggling and hewing my way through various challenges, it's over. I have my horsie. My world is now 100% faster.

So, that's cool. But that's just bragging.

...

Let's brag some more. Let's brag about Molten Core.

Several months ago I landed in this really cool guild. Nice people, kinda chill. So, just recently, my (rather ambitious) guildmaster got our whole guild merged into another, larger guild, that is doing Molten Core runs.

Again, it is rude of me to assume that any of you know what the fuck I am talking about. "Molten what??" you are saying to yourself. Let me es'plain.

...

No. There is too much. Let me sum up.






Molten Core is just that: a lava-filled hole in the ground. It also happens to be full of nasty, monstrous, and very angry boss monsters. Boss monsters that kill me, over and over. Boss monsters that also drop loot. Epic loot. By which I mean rare and powerful armor and weapons. All of which end up going to other people in the group. Sigh.

I have more to say on this topic, but it suffices to say that I am no longer playing this game. No, friends. I am now engaged in a pursuit.

Flintlocke. Yes, Really.

I love the Internet. Let me just set that straight. I've heard these "the Darklord hates the Interweb" rumors, and I'm saying it here for the record: it's a dirty, damn lie. And I've paid good money to have it squelched, so let's just let it end here. Cool?

I specifically love web comics.

I grewed up reading the funny pages every damn day. I remember this one time, I brought a bunch of Peanuts collections to keep me entertained during some religious meeting my father was was attending at a friend's house, and ended up embarassing him horribly because I was giggling away in the bedroom to Snoopy while the adults were trying to commune with the big "G" or something.

I really haven't changed much since then. I still loves me a good comic strip. Yes I do.

And, for those of you who don't know, the goddamn Internet has changed the entire face of this delightful medium. Yes it has. For you see, it had long been understood that there were only twenty-seven or so comic strips in existence (only enough to fill a page and a half in your local newspaper), and it was further understood that these strips had to be bland, banal, and pretty fucking stupid, generally, or else the editors of said papers would cut them.

I like to think of this as the "Dark Ages" of comic-ery. Comicary. Comic... itude?

Then, lo, one day I was browsin' me some interweb, and I stumbled upon the best online comic strip story of all time. Sluggy Freelance is not so much a comic as it is an epic exertion of hilarity and drama, exerted out of its creator apparently by sheer force of will. It's outstanding.

If you haven't read it, start at the fucking beginning. Don't think you can just drop right in or something. Because you can't.

For me, see, this was a bit of an eye opener. "What's this??" said me befuddled noggin, "A comic strip, written for adults, that is funny, serious, witty, disturbing, and clever?? Whaaaaaaaa?"

Such a thing did not exist, as far as I knew, outside of Calvin and Hobbes (defunct) and Bloom County (also defunct). But, as it turns out, there are many, many more of these available for your viewing pleasure.

Flintlocke is not one of those.

No, friends. No.

Flintlocke is one of those things that can only exist inside the web. It is a horrid, awful abomination, a merging of ideas so foul that it should only be tasted in two's and three's.

...

I'm almost all the way through the archives. Oh. My. God.

Episode 1: Guide to Maiming Meat that Walks is... pretty much required reading. If you are a geek. Which I know you are.

And, anyone who has dumped more of their life than they should have into WoW pretty much needs to read Episode 2: Ogre Killing in 56 Easy Steps.

Beyond that, you have no one but yourself to blame.

Today is WoW Movie Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=Yhm1ClW5uAY

Frost shoooooock!!

The Internet Is For Porn

http://www.break.com/index/wowporn.html

It's true.

No Time!

No time to blog! Must play WoW!

I'll blog during the scheduled server downtime tomorrow. See if I don't.

You'd Think It Would Have Been Easier

So, I started playing Warcraft in August of last year, when a friend of mine got into the first beta test. I played in the next beta test as well, and the one after that.

I hold down a job and a family, and something that resembles a life, so I can't claim to be among those who count their achievements in the number of level 60 characters they have; alas, I only have 1.

Even so, I have something of a fetish for armor sets. Many of us do; Blizzard, and many other game developers (including myself) in fact depend on the existence of this fetish to drive players forward, lemming-style, into the black abyss of the Collection Mechanic.

I have a fairly bad case of this mind disease. I've filled several Playstation memory cards with 100% completed saves from the likes of Crash Banidicoot, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, and many other platform-y excuses to collect shiny things.

So, you would imagine that, upon hitting the vast arid tracts of land that is Westfall, and discovering the earliest armor set in the game (that would be the Blackened Defias Armor set of leathers), that I would have quickly gotten myself a set of those.

Yeah... no. Was playing a Paladin, you see, and Paladins wear mail, not el-flimso leather. Feh.

Actually, truth be told, what actually happened was this: it turned out that the drive to collect experience points was in fact stronger than the set collection urge, in my case. I blew right past that experience with a longing glance over my shoulder, like a kid riding in his parents car who drives by an amusement park. I pressed my nose against the glass and stared longingly at the full set of Defias armor, and then *poof*, it was gone.

Fast forward. As I may have mentioned, I'm crazily making new characters. Don't ask why; just accept it, and move on. I have, and I'm much happier for it.

There are five items in the Defias Armor set (boots, gloves, pants, belt, and chest). The first four pieces you can buy from the Auction House. I know; this is what I did to get them. Some may rail against this. I, however, just wanted the goddamn set.

The last piece, however (the chest piece), you can only get by killing one Edwin VanCleef, head of the Defias Brotherhood, who lurks deep in the Deadmines. At the end, in fact. He's a pain to get to: it takes a minimum of an hour to do a run, and you need to bring a bunch of friends (or 1 very high level friend). Once you kill him, the armor only drops every so often.

I started my runs at level 20. At level 24, the armor set really starts to become useless, as much more powerful gear starts showing up. Thus, this project had a half-life.

• 1st run: the armor dropped, but this jackass punk kid Hunter (who turned out to not even have been fightingduring the run, thus earning him the title of jackass punk kid Hunter) out-rolled me on it. Seething.
• 2nd run: Cloth armor dropped. Made level 21.
• 3rd run: Cloth armor dropped. Made level 22.
• 4th run: Cloth armor dropped. Despair began to clutch at my heart.
• 5th run: Oh yes. I love everyone. I love the world. I love the birds and the rocks, and even this lovely corpse of Edwin VanCleef. Love love love.

That, my friend(s), is what a full set of Blackened Defias Armor looks like.

In case there is any doubt, here is verification.


I am happy. I am a bit collector. I collect 1's, and I collect 0's.

I Hate Myself

I...

Okay, so here's the thing, okay? Listen, it was just...

So, see, what happened was that my buddy calls me Saturday night, and he's all, "Hey, man, I was just thinking about going and helping out the poor and the defenseless in Westfall." And I'm all, "Hey, wow, this might just be perfect timing, man!" 'Cause, see, we've totally been trying to hook up (in Azeroth) for months now, but I've been busy, and...

Yeah.

So then, we're playing, right, and he's like, "Hey, let's play with my buddy!" Only he's level 10, and I'm level 24, so I switched characters.

That was the big mistake, I think.

Have I mentioned that World of Warcraft is a really fun game? Have I? I don't know that I've managed to get it fully across. Of course, those of you who understand are already consumed by the muse, so I don't need to convince you. And those of you who don't understand... well, you probably don't want to. Which I respect. And admire.

Sunday, yeah. Sunday was a total blur. I spent 12 hours straight leveling my stupid hunter from 13 to 18. I have a pet spider, I learned all kinds of skills... goddamn it.

I thought I had escaped from this stupid game.

See, at this point, I have very little preventing me from indulging my every obsession. You see the portrait at the right there? That's my hunter character (Tyridane, if you must know). Notice that miss 'Dane is decked out in a full set of inscribed leather armor.

Is inscribed leather armor more powerful in a set? No. Is it particularly collectible? No. Is it even all that interesting to look at? No.

No, the sad truth is that since I have a level 60 paladin (Allora; yes, all my characters are female) who is saving up for her epic mount, I am, as the wise men say, awash in cash. Couple that with the idea that low-level gear is very inexpensive (at the auction house), and you get... yeah. I bought my 18th level night elf avatar a full set of matching gear, just so that she'd look bad-ass. It didn't even really hurt at the time.

It's only looking back on the weekend that I shudder in fear.

See, I had escaped. My kids found the game several months ago, and had so completely filled their free time with World of Warcraft-ification that I was able to just go, "Well, I should just let them play, and I'll play later." This is how the addict escapes the clutches of the beast, you see. By convincing himself he's not actually quitting; he's just letting someone else have the glory (for now).

Yeah. Send help.

I Am Going To Bitch

It's Tuesday again.

During the months school is "in", my morning routine goes something like this:

1. get up
2. pull kids out of bed onto floor
3. bathroom stuff, best left undefined
4. eat
5. let dog experience brief, illusory freedom, then tear away, crushing hope
6. drive kids to school
7. be at work earlier than everyone else in my entire industry (8am)

At this point, see, I have 90 minutes to kill before anyone else shows up. I am, for example, writing this very post during such a window.

...

The reason I am not playing World of Warcraft during this window is that it's fucking Tuesday. And, on Tuesday, the goddamn servers are down while they install new software, buff the cable connections, eat nachos while laughing at their enormous power, and generally prevent me from having access to my narcotic.

This... has to stop.

...

Upon typing that, I realized that it is literally true. Not the "them taking their servers down on Tuesday morning to fuck with me" thing, because that's not going to stop; I understand that. What I mean is, this whole "filling in every free 90 minutes of my life with a WoW session" thing.

I am, on the whole, philosophical about this.

Take, for example, this lovely notion. The basic idea here is that World of Warcraft is so successful that it is negatively impacting the rest of the game industry, as it's such a huge time sink many gamers aren't buying new games.

What does this mean to me? Well, it means a couple of things: one, it means that I'm not alone. I take solace in that, during the wee hours of the night, when I'm hunched in front of the amberglow of my monitor, imagining that I am a (female) paladin on a noble quest for more powerful magical war gear, certain that I will be returning to my family... in just a sec... just one more drop, honey...

Two, and more interestingly, it means that something is afoot. This... this whole thing... this WoW release and huge taking over of the whole world thing... seems to me like one of those events that won't be soon forgotten, and may, in fact, have a wider impact than any of us are able to understand right now.

It reminds me, in fact, of the seminal imagination bomb that was dropped on the mind of geeks everywhere that was Dungeons & Dragons. Do you remember the world before D&D? I barely do; I had my hands full with figuring out how to walk and stuff, but my understanding is that prior to D&D gamers mostly kept themselves occupied with war simulations of varying complexity. One's menu of choices ranged from Risk to Really Complicated Risk, which was great and everything, but it apparently left some kind of an itch unscratched, because some guy and this other guy created this thing that pretty much destroyed every geek in the known universe (and took out a goodly number of curious, open-minded friends-of-geeks as well).

Where were you when you first played D&D?

I was in the seventh grade. I remember it vividly; it was at school, I played a goddamn illusionist that someone else rolled up for me, and my "friends" were all terrible at it. I cast wall of fog, and the hill giant still killed me, and it was horrible and embarassing, and I left in utter disgust, hating those ex-friends of mine, and went out and bought the game that very day. I devoured it, over and over, in the weeks that followed. I never looked back. It was fifteen years and a full family later before I shook the roleplaying habit, and it still lingers, wanting to come back and play with me again.

(In fact, if you know anyone who's running a good group, have them call me.)

See, and now...

Well, I'm not really one to make broad predictive statements. But let me just say this: I would not draw a breath in surprise if in fifteen years we were remembering where we were when World of Warcraft showed up and changed everything. They haven't done anything we didn't already kindof know could be done, and in fact have done almost nothing new. That said, it has a hold on the minds of human beings like nothing else that has come before it, and... I just wonder what the world will look like in ten years, changed by the impact of this meteoric idea system they have devised.

...

Damn them. Do you understand what I have just done?

...

I have taken my morning 90 minutes of solitude and spent it writing about their stupid fucking game, because it's Tuesday, and their servers are down. I sure hope it's the new patch they are putting up there.

Quick! 60!

I don't have much time, so I'll try to be brief. See, the World of Warcraft login server is down, and that means that my primary impulse is momentarily unable to be satisfied. I may have to sign off at any moment.

Hang on, I need to check if it's back on yet.

...

Nope. Okay.

How to describe it? I hit 60. Actually, I hit 60 over a week ago. And, much to my surprise...

Well, let's just say that they may have done it to me again.

See, the game so completely fails to stop at level 60 that it makes one wonder why they even bothered to stop the levels there. I mean, the main difference seems to be that my XP bar has turned off. Other than that...

Actually, I exaggerate some. Let me offer this: the first few hours of gameplay after hitting 60 were like walking around in a newly purchased house. I walked from room to room, ecstatic at the accomplishment the mere existence of the place indicated, and, slowly, realizing that I had signed myself up for a whole new, uncharted realm of challenge and... work.

It took only two hours for the desire for experience points to disappear entirely, leaving behind it only the urge to claim treasures. This was well-televised before I got here, and thus was not particularly surprising, but it's sometimes stranger to experience something that you've seen hundreds of other people experience before you, and to find that it's something that you have to come to on your own terms.

Does that make sense? What I mean is, I had to decide to keep playing after 60. It feels like I poked around and found this other game they want me to play, on my own. But... well, so did everyone else, and clearly it was designed for this... but...

A tad quirky, that. Hang on.

...

Nope, still down. Okay.

I have several friends who have completely rejected the post-60 gameplay. And, I must say, I'm still on the fence about it.

But...

Well, see, I found Scholomance. It's this wizard school, right? Like, but it's been corrupted? And it's all full of undead, and dark warlocks, and stuff? And it's designed for beginner level 60s to go poke around in and get used to this new, entirely equipment-based game that they've built? And... and...

I gotta go.

56... 57...

All goddamn weekend, what did I do. What. I ask you.

I mean, did I clean the house? No. Did I save the known universe from a Farkithxyian attack? No. Did I, say, leave the house?

No. In fact, here is what my weekend contained:
Friday:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Sleep

Saturday:

1. World of Warcraft
2. 2 Warhammer Fantasy games
3. World of Warcraft
4. Sleep

Sunday:

1. Take child to airport, wave goodbye nervously
2. World of Warcraft
3. Sleep
4. World of Warcraft (new character! Warlock! woohoo!)
5. Put flock (fake grass) on my wargaming trees (yaay! trees are done!)
6. World of Warcraft
7. Sleep

Notice anything? It's subtle, so I'll give you a second to go back and look again.

There, you see it?

Goddamn game is destroying my ability to think. And the really sick part is that this is the seventh time it's done this to me. SAME GAME. Same game. Same!

I have actually entered the end game now, and, contrary to the experience I was expecting, there is in fact more content in this game for the level 60 folks than there is for the other kin. It's strange, realizing that for the past several months you've been playing the little game. The baby game, the one they have for the wittle kids who just want to goof around. But when you get all growed up there's this whole other thing waiting for you.

It's called "Dungeons".

In the past two levels of play, I have come across and been pointed to no less than four completely new dungeons (huge, monstrous things) that you have absolutely no business presenting yourself to if you are less than58th level. I am aware of at least two more out there that I haven't been pointed to yet, and both of these are what I understand to be the hardest dungeons in the game.

Now, for those of you who, perhaps, have been wise enough to not dump your entire life into the exploration of virtual crawly monster holes, let me give you some idea of the scope of the experience we are talking about here.

The very first dungeon one is introduced to (in Alliance lands, anyway) is the Deadmines. In the deadmines, you must:

1. Fight your way through a sprawling mine, battling at least twenty miners, overseers, and wizards, on your way to the entrance to the dungeon.
2. Once inside, you have another large mine section to pass through, containing a plethora of miners(say, 30) , but the problems here are the elite fire wizards. Fight them. Many of them.
3. You come to a large door, guarded by a VERY fat Ogre. He is a badass. He kills everyone who fights him the first time, as they are completely unprepared for the challenge level.
4. Okay, he's dead. Open the door. You've got another (shorter) section of mine to fight through.
5. Be advised that a patrol has spawned behind you, and is about to come waltzing up on your rear quarters.
6. Next: door that opens into a square room; Sneed is here, with his goblin miners, piloting his giant mining robot. Defeat it. Open the door.
7. Another (short) mine section. Kill fifteen hapless miners.
8. Door opens into the Forge. This is a long, circular ramp that winds down to the bottom of this cylindrical chamber. Here, you must fight goblin inventors, who summon little helper robots, who are not, in fact, very little. Don't die.
9. At the bottom, fight Gilnid, the head goblin. Other than having a large head, he's not that interesting.
10. Open the door, another small mine section. More innocent miners meet their demise.
11. Get the keg o' gunpowder, us it to BLOW OPEN THE DOOR! BOOM! What I want to know is, who put that cannon in front of that door, who aimed it at the (closed, locked, and sealed) door, and who left the keg o' gunpowder lying around. That's what I want to know.
12. Okay, big... check that, huge chamber. This chamber contains a pirate Battleship. I know how that sounds, but trust me. Planked docks wind over an underground lake, taking you to the three-story high pirate ship with no sails and very large guns. It's a battleship, and it's underground.
13. Fight more pirates than you can really handle. There's a lot of them. By a lot I mean like 50.
14. Get to the top. Kill Mr. Smite, the second in command. He'll probably kill you the first time you get up here, because he's a badass.
15. Okay, you're at the top of the ship. Step forward, and Edwin Van Cleef comes out, bringing his elite bodyguard with him. Fight, fight and try not to die.
16. Got him? Good; hop down the other side of the boat, kill the ship's cook (a Murloc, ewwwwww), pick off one or ten more pirates along the way, find the back tunnel, sprint out, and you're free!

*whew* I went through this excercise to make a point, and here it is: this Deadmines that I speak of is actually one of the smaller dungeons in the game. Remember way up there when I was talking about extra content for the high-level crowd?

Six more. That I know of. And, I can't realistically set foot inside these places for another three levels.

The scale of this game boggles me. Game designers, take note: Blizzard has done it right, and it was a lot of fucking work.

World of OhMyGodCraft

I thought I had escaped. I really did.

I hit level 52 with my Paladin, see, and it all kinda petered out. My Warcraft buddy & I started playing other games again, my kids got all into it (so, see, I couldn't be on the account as much), and my life generally returned to focus.

Well... I'm level 54 now, and I'm a mere 1.5 bubbles from 55. I'm so close to the peak, the end, that glorious pillar known as Level 60, that I can taste it.

(For those of you with little or no World of Warcraft knowledge, level 60 is the highest level you can reach. A "bubble" is a piece of your experience bar, for reasons that become clear when you see the interface. And know that the internal counter they provide for you to track the level of your addiction reports my time logged on this one character as nearing 400 hours of gameplay.)

So I want to talk about two things today. 1) Yetis, and 2) Being level 54.

1) Yetis

I can now speak with some authority on the topic of Yetis. In particular, the Yetis that make their home (or, made, anyway) in the snowy Winterspring hills near Everlook are of some passing familiarity to me.

See, there's this goblin woman in Everlook, who (get this) wants to make a Yeti Robot of some kind. It's a hair-brained scheme at best, but heck, she's payin' for Yeti pelts & horns, so off we go.

See, though, it's the horns. She wants "Pristine Yeti Horns". Not "Dented Yeti Horns", or even "Roughly Handled Yeti Horns". Nope. "Pristine".

Which is all good! I mean, I'm all for hiring my sword out to the utter decimation of an entire species for the recovery of a few pelts & horns. (The fact that they respawn like mad alleviates my guilt some.) But, MAN!

We two, Paladins both, killed, oh, I don't know... 400 Yetis? Something like that. That might be an exaggeration (I wasn't exactly keeping track). We got into this zone where the Yetis were falling left and right, one after the other, with hardly a pause between fights, so it is all rather blurry in my mind... all white ice, fur, horns, and snow.

We didn't get our horns. We're going back, I fear.

2) Being Level 54

The game has opened, in some funny way. I went to the Eastern Plaguelands on a whim last night, and had this strange sort of feeling come over me. Understand that the Eastern Plaguelands are, in many ways, the End of the Game. It's pretty much where the game stops adding new map sections to explore. All the monsters are 50th-60th level, there's this HUGE dungeon at the far end of it... so I came in, and pretty much everything I saw I could reasonably fight. Or, would be able to in like 2 levels.

Contrast this to the experience of going into every other new section of land. Which is: you walk in, enjoy the scenery, and then immediately start seeing creatures that you have no business fighting. "Ahhh," you say, "I'll be fighting those in a few levels." You chuckle, and, sure enough, are soon stomping them into the ground with abandon.

I feel as though I've come around a corner, and quite suddenly can see the end. It's exactly 6 levels ahead, and has lots and lots of dungeons in it. After so many hours of gameplay, it was a moment I wasn't quite expecting. I suppose one imagines that the end of a great road will be filled with fanfare. It seems that this one is more filled with a gentle familiarity.