WoW

When Did Your AC Break?! (Adventures in Failed Pick Up Lines) #WoW

stargrace May 15, 2011 3Comments

How on earth is my warrior tanking in THOSE?! Good grief!

Last night was.. interesting, to say the least. I received a random tell from a random player that I’ve never seen or heard of before (and I believe they logged off right after, so I couldn’t comment further). The tell consisted of nothing more then ‘Wow, when did your AC (air conditioning) break, because you’re looking hotter than hell!” – thanks strange weird person. I am typically of two minds when I receive these sorts of tells in game (and I have a few times now). First of all, they have no idea if I am really a female or a male, or my age. So I tend to reply to them in one of a few ways:

• I pretend I’m male, and answer with “Thanks, my wife thinks I’m a pretty hot guy too!”
• Pretend I’m a lot older then I am. “Thanks, my grandchildren never mention that their Nana is hot!”
• Simply let them know I’m not available or interested in whatever conversation it is they think they’re starting. “Thanks! My husband thinks so too.”

Honestly, why you would send some stranger those sorts of tells to begin with is beyond me. So that was the beginning of my interesting evening. On the plus side, my warrior did manage to inch her way to level 40. The entire time I’ve been leveling up (so far) I’ve done it through tanking random pick up groups. There’s a few reasons for this but my main one is that I’ll never actually learn to tank if I don’t spend a significant portion of my time actually tanking. Plus instances are fairly quick to queue as a tank (understatement, they’re instant, always). I am now into the level range that I don’t exactly enjoy, and a large portion of that is because I simply don’t know my way around the dungeons. Dire Maul (a portion of it at least) was on my list of zones last night, and there’s backtracking that always annoys me. Mauradon is another zone that I don’t know my way around that well although it’s been split into sections and it’s not quite as bad as it once was. If I don’t feel confident in my knowledge of the zones, it’s more difficult for me to tank.

Lets not forget the fact that everyone still thinks they’re invincible and tend to do all the pulling for me. I do my best to regain aggro and so far I don’t think I’m horrible at it, but I only have so many methods of doing this. I also only have one AoE (thunderclap) which means that holding aggro on groups of mobs when everyone is trying to do as much dps as they can possibly do (and not assisting) is becoming more and more of an issue. My job is to hold all of the mobs, and when I can’t do my job I get frustrated. I’ve also decided I really dislike ranged mobs. And I dislike melee characters, because it’s difficult for me to target the mobs that have pulled off to other players that I need to regain. Actually the entire targeting method that WoW uses is difficult for me to maneuver, which is probably why everyone ends up targeting random_mob_101 instead of the mob that I’m actually on. With all these complaints you may think why wouldn’t I simple give up on tanking all together – but I’m determined. Everyone that I know claims that WoW is the easiest game in the world to play, that it is a game for children. I wonder if any of them have played a tank to 85 before, because there’s really nothing easy about it. It’s a challenge, and that’s why I’ll stick with it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Earning Guild Reputation #WoW #WorldofWarcraft

stargrace May 13, 2011 0Comment

I’ve been trying to max out my weekly cap of guild experience on my 85 priest, which is not exactly difficult to do when you actually work on it, but the fact that I’m always drifting off to alts seems to hinder me (a lot). I feel a little bad for people who are not level 80+ because working on guild faction is incredibly slow and boring for lower levels. You barely gain any experience unless you have a higher level helping you out – as an example my 85 priest has purchased the tabard that increases your gains by 50% and by the end of next week I’ll be able to purchase the 100% bonus tabard as well as the heirloom helm and cloak which I can then pass down to my alts. I’m very excited about this, heirloom takes out the need for me to actually purchase / loot any gear (aside from a few slots) for the duration of my leveling, and it’s some really nice gear.

The warrior is almost level 32, I didn’t play her much yesterday as I was concentrating on completing that guild faction with the priest. Dragon Flight (Alliance guild that I run on Argent Dawn) completed their 7th (and final for this week) guild run which ended up being Gnomeregan (again). This time the instance went flawlessly – except two members dropped right at the beginning. Before we had even started. Well, that’s not true. See, one hunter (I’m so sorry to pick at this class but it just ended up being them) jumped down to the bottom floor with the oozes while the group was making their way to the first named down the hallway. Upstairs. See, this is why it’s important to follow the tank, because they may not complete the zone in the same method that you’re used to and they may take a different rout. Before we got going I asked the group if they wanted to complete the entire zone, or if they wanted to skip portions of it by jumping. Guild mates decided it would be best if we simply completed the zone without any mario brother jumping competitions, and I agreed. I think the zone took about the same amount of time to complete, we had no deaths, everyone leveled a few times and it was a really nice comfortable run. I want more dungeons like that one.

I’m eager to continue leveling the warrior, but I want to work on obtaining guild faction for heirloom gear too. Hopefully I can reach my new weekly cap today, and then I can play the warrior this weekend. We’ll just have to see I suppose!

Surprisingly enough I’ve been having a lot of fun this time around in WoW. I do miss my housing (sigh) and I look forward to SOE coming back up (when ever that will be) but I’m not longing for the games as much as I thought I would be. I do still have an active subscription to Rift, but for some reason the game just doesn’t appeal to me. I think that it’s because I find it difficult to find ‘stuff to do’ when I’m not questing and slaughtering mobs. In WoW I have taken to working on archeology, which is a great waste of time and it keeps me in game. I have so many different characters to play, and the world is incredibly vast with so many dungeons that I rarely end up doing the exact same thing on any of my characters.

In the end so long as players are having fun it doesn’t matter what game they are playing. You should absolutely enjoy whatever you choose to do with that spare time that comes between real life responsibilities and sleep. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, and don’t think too hard about the fact that today is Friday the 13th!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

The Art of Patience #WoW #WorldofWarcraft

stargrace May 11, 2011 6Comments

My guild may be incredibly small with only three active members, but we’ve not let that hold us back (so far). We’ve been doing our weekly guild runs to gain some experience and obtain the achievements. Thankfully we only need 3/5 group mates to be guild mates in order for it to count. For some reason earlier this week I had thought we needed 4/5 which we simply don’t have. Blizzards new guild level system is not very ‘small casual guild’ friendly, and encourages guilds to gain as many members as they possibly can in order to reach the achievements and weekly goals that they implemented. I know we’ll get there (“there” being anywhere above level 1 in this case) eventually, and it’s mostly due to our class levels (we’re currently 20-40 for the most part) that restricts how much guild experience we gain. I wish Blizzard took into consideration the number of accounts in a guild rather then assuming or encouraging everyone to belong to a giant one.

In that respect I am learning patience. Another area where patience has become a sore spot is in dungeons, specifically when I am tanking them. My number one issue at this level (currently 25) is that no one has patience to let me actually pull. Even if we’re moving at a steady pace, the hunter or the shaman or the mage frequently decide that they’re the tank and they will pull for me. Kind of them to take this upon themselves, but annoying for me, as I learn to tank. I’ve spoken up about this a few times and every single time it’s been met with “this is a lowbie dungeon, stop QQ’ing” – when I’m simply trying to learn how to play my class properly, as it’s the first time I’ve tanked. I’ve done the dungeons countless times just like everyone else, but playing a tank is a different dynamic, and I don’t like to feel as though I must rush my way through. Keep in mind I’m also not moving at a snails pace, it’s pretty steady.

Since I do play in a guild group we’ve come to a decision about these ‘helpful’ pullers. If they do it once no big deal, but once I ask them to stop if they refuse then I refuse to tank, because they obviously wish to tank more than I do. The healer refuses to heal, because they can obviously handle the entire zone on their own, and the mage refuses to dps. It might seem like I am being unnecessarily cruel – after all, it IS just a lower level dungeon. But I firmly believe that there’s no excuse for a lack of respect towards other players and it doesn’t matter WHAT level the dungeon is. Let the tank do their job, let the healer do their job, and let the dps do theirs. It may be a dungeon that everyone has done countless times but that doesn’t mean that everyone has played that particular role countless times and I think it’s important that we allow players to ‘discover’ themselves and their role as they level up.

In higher level dungeons I rarely have such problems. As an example myself playing my discipline priest and Toargo (formerly the guild shaman) an 85 warrior queued up for a level 85 dungeon (non heroic). Everyone by that time knew their roles, and no one attempted to pull when they shouldn’t (unless it was by accident) and the dungeon went so smoothly that both myself and Toargo were complimented numerous times by the rest of the group for the healing and tanking abilities. It was a good feeling, especially since I constantly doubt my capabilities. Well, it’s not so much as I doubt my capabilities, but cataclysm is incredibly hard on my mana pool. I have a difficult time managing it, and have to drink after every fight in most cases. I keep hoping that eventually this problem balances out, but it hasn’t yet. I was debating switching to a holy spec last night to see if it was any easier on mana consumption (I’m currently sporting a discipline / shadow spec) but as of yet have not decided if that’s the rout I want to go or not.

In any case I really wish players had more patience. By the end of my tanking episodes yesterday my own patience was also pretty thin although it was said that I had far more patience for the groups shenanigans then most would have had. We (guild mates) decided to leave the dungeon part way through and move on to something a little less frustrating. It was the first time we left a dungeon like that, and not something I want to repeat that often.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!