WoW

The Other Side

I’d love to say I’ve finally settled down with one character, or even two character. Those who know me, know better though. I’ve constantly got alts on the go. I think the only game where I didn’t have a plethora of alts, was Vanguard where I limited myself to three, and EQ1, where I also only had three (a rogue, enchanter, and cleric. Sitting at level 72 last I checked). So it really came as no surprise last night when I brought up making alts to Zokor and Gozad.

Safe Haven’s “official” branch is on the Uther server, which is a PvE server. They have both an alliance guild and a horde guild. So we decided to make alliance characters there, since we already had horde on our PvP server of Ravenholdt. I wanted to be able to give Zokor a break from tanking some times, as I’m sure he can tired of it. Anyone can tired of anything if they play it enough I’m sure. I only know one person who has never had an alt in all the time he’s gamed and that would be my other half who plays a Shadowknight in EQ2, and has since release. A monk in EQ1 before that. A paladin in WoW when he dips in for maybe an hour or two a year. In any case, Zokor jumped at the chance, and thus our Uther characters were formed. A warrior (me), mage (Zokor), and hunter (Gozad). We didn’t play much, managed to get to level 6 before calling it a night. The lands were pretty though, and it was a nice change from playing horde. I miss having bags of a proper size, that’s for sure, and by ‘proper’ I mean.. well, even 8 slot bags would do. I’m pretty sure in every game I’ve ever played, the bag size is never quite enough. Especially not for beginner players. Not for pack rats either. I have items I don’t even know what to do with any more. That’s a whole other story though…

The whole ‘less game more life’ has been going great so far. It’s been very odd going from 17+ hours of gaming to 2-3. I’ve found myself with a whole lot of free time, but with great friends am managing to find plenty to do between writing, reading, artwork, going out. I’m glad I stuck with a ‘casual’ game, and I live vicariously through the Shadowknight on EQ2 as he does his Veeshan’s Peek raids (among others) nightly. With my birthday just around the corner I was going to ask for a new hard drive and video card, but I’m finding myself without a real reason to get them (quite yet, until WAR comes out). My trusty 7600 will do until then. My mom just upgraded her machine, and has been eagerly telling me about how well it runs now *chuckles* gotta love family.

Shadowfang Keep, Wailing Caverns, and lots of Fun

This weekend, between that real life stuff we all have, Unsafe Haven (the Ravenholdt branch) headed to a few instances, and wow did we have fun. Zokor had a paladin quest at level 20 that sent him to a few instances (Ragefire Chasm, Shadowfang Keep, and outside of that instance in Ashenvale that I can’t quite remember the name of right now) and we pinged those off easily enough. We only went far enough to get his update, and then moved on to the next area. By the end of it he had a shiny new polearm. I decided to get rid of my level 20 warlock, since I really wasn’t enjoying her, and started up a troll warrior. Why warrior? Well some times it’s nice to have a break from the general ‘mains’ that we’re all playing, and no doubt the tank would like to do something other then tanking some times. I wanted a little character to do that with.

Surprisingly enough Mayadhros from Vanguard came to say hello in World of Warcraft! It was a pleasant surprise when he joined the guild as his 25 rogue Skeletorn (yes, before you even ask, he is Forsaken). Since Gozad, Zokor, Skeletorn, and myself were all around last night we decided to do a full run of Shadowfang keep, which went off pretty well (aside from one mishap where Gozad’s pet decided to run ramped and train everyone — everyone except me) and everyone walked away with some experience, quest updates, and new gear. We had a lot of blues drop which was nice to see, and everyone got a level or two (even with reduced experience as I was there with my level 33). As people gain more levels that gap between experience will lesson, and I’m looking forward to it. If there’s anyone else out there who wants to join the (very small) group, please feel free! It’s never too late.

I decided to drop enchanting too, I know it’s a wonderful craft and very handy, but I just didn’t want to spend so much of my time disenchanting items in order to get mats. I figured I’d switch over to engineering. Is that a mistake? Should I just tough it out with enchanting? Tailoring is my other craft, though I’m only slightly into silk right now. World of Warcraft crafting is.. well, it’s all auto combines that never fail so long as you have the materials (at least, so far for me it is. Maybe this changes later on, I’m not quite sure). I don’t mind it though, it adds to the whole ‘casual’ thing that I have going on.

I’m sitting at 120gold or so now, and contemplating donating 100 of that towards the first tab of the guild bank. We don’t exactly NEED a guild bank, but it would be nice. Not sure, I’ll have to keep pondering it.

P.S. For more information about my plight with the pigeons, be sure to jump on over to this post here… it’s been interesting to say the least.

Ding, Level 20!

Ding, level 20! Which meant of course it was time for Tashia (the warlock pictured above of course) to quest for her new succubus pet. Call me weird, but I love the whip cracking sound that this pet makes. It’s just amusing to me. Zokor hit 19, and we’re making pretty good progress (for us at least) about a level an evening (we play for roughly 2-3 hours a night if that) a little more on weekends. Gozad and Zevad hit 15 and 19, and decided to do an instance last night. The name escapes me but it’s that one in Ogrimmar. RFK I believe (which stands for something that I’m not even sure of). They both had a good time (from what I know) even though they had to do it without my uberness. This weekend I want to try to get a wailing caverns group going, we’ll see how that goes.

One thing I like about World of Warcraft (but it also adds to the ‘ease’ of the game) is that my level 33 can group up with lower members just fine, and help them do their quests. They’ll also still get experience, granted it’s reduced due to the higher level member in the group. It’s still nice. Especially since (until people reach the levels of my priest) we have no healers in guild. Not that I’m complaining, I’m just ticking down time until I play mine. Itching for it, actually.

I’d originally gotten the succubus pet from Silvermoon City, however after checking Thottbot, it was apparent that if I was looking for the easiest one (and hey, lets face it, who isn’t) that I’d be better off to head to Orgimmar and do the one offered there. The quest was easy enough, a chain of 8 quests, mostly running around the Barrens and Stonetalon. Stonetalon was Zokor and my first time into contested territory since we’d started playing the game, and I gave him a few tips and pointers that I use for world pvp (which there is not enough of, I love pvp, I hate battle grounds though. I’d much rather world pvp constantly.. STV anyone?) not that we ran into anyone. We kept close to the Barrens area anyhow, as my quest wasn’t leading us too far.

An hour or so later, and I managed to get my new pet, as well as a 12 slot gem bag, which will be hugely appreciated. I was using an 8 slot bag and trying to keep at least 10 gems on me at all time. I got a summon spell, which will be nice when instances are running and if a member is further away (though there’s always those port stones I suppose, their names escape me). I love soul stones, that let me put a revive spell on people. Comes in handy for Zokor, so he can revive himself and then (good ‘ol paladins with rez) can revive me afterwards (If I’ve happened to die.. which does happen!)

Other then that, it was a quiet evening. I’m still loving the relaxed atmosphere and low pressure gaming. Tomorrow at 6EST I’ll be in Vanguard running my scavenger hunt event which should be fun. Lots of prizes for people and a good opportunity for Safe Haven to get to know their fellow guild mates even better.

Safe travels no matter which realm you find yourself in!

Unsafe Haven – Ravenholdt

Last night Gozad managed to convince some Safe Haven folks from the PvE server to help us sign our charter on the PvP server – and within a few moments, we were members of “Unsafe Haven” the rp / pvp branch. We don’t expect to be a large guild, but while there are 5 of us (give or take) all playing on the same server, it’s nice to have guild options available. I paid 10g to have a tabard  made up, and Gozad picked out a design that I think is pretty nice. The white tower representing a ‘safe haven’ of sorts. I bought everyone a round of the shirts for 90s each, and then went to figure out how much guild banking would cost.

100g each tab of banks, and there are 6 tabs. Ok. I think not. I’m not THAT rich in game, sure I’ve played on the server off and on for a little while now, but I’ve barely gathered together 70g (less now that I’ve spent some to get things done) and that was mostly going towards my mount when I hit level 40. So the banks will have to wait for now. A nice money sink on Blizzards part, it’s not an impossible task (I know money comes easily at later levels) and we’ll get it eventually.

Last night I managed to get 19 on the warlock, Zokor got 18. I was a little disappointed to hear that one of the guild members has a friend / family member leveling for them since they “just don’t have the time” to play. Come on now, it’s world of warcraft, how much time do you actually need in order to get anywhere in the game. So that was one let down. Then two members proceeded to have a conversation about how they would run money transfer services (for real life money of course) and power leveling (for real life coin, of course) and numerous other ‘iffy’ issues that revolved around mmos and made me sort of frown. I don’t mean to seem all high and mighty, but conversations like that just rub me the wrong way. I asked the two members if they could take the conversation to tells, but in typical male format, they decided to question me about why it bothered me, and continued on for a bit longer while I decided to just keep quiet. I don’t want to control anyones conversations, it’s just a few things get me riled up. So yeah, it was probably best that I just step away.

I helped Zokor get his shiny new sword from the ‘final’ ghostlands quest with my 33 priest, there was a line up of people all waiting to get their weapons as well. A 57 warlock made short work  of the named before a 70 rogue wandered in to take their guild mate through. Zokor and I finally got our chance at the named and he walked away with a nice new two handed sword (blue). My warlock doesn’t really need hers, since I will be switching, probably to my hunter around 23, and to the priest of course at 33. I am excited about this whole ‘casual’ gaming. It’s a lot of fun.

I’m also excited about the scavenger hunt I’ll be running in Vanguard on the 5th. There are about 20 people signed up and I hope everyone can make it. I have some good prizes for folks (since my account expires on the 9th) and I think they’ll get to know their fellow Vanguard Safe Haven guild mates, which is never a bad thing.

A huge congratulations to Siege on Najena in EQ2 as well, they finally defeated the Veeshan’s Peak encounter that gave 6 people their mythical last night – assassin, troubador, and wizard. Very well done, and hard earned.

It’s all about the troll juju

 

Warlock hit level 18 last night before I decided that I really didn’t want to play a dps class. WoW is one of those games where I know what I want to play. It’s always the same classes. A priest, a hunter, and a druid. In that order. Unfortunately the only druid I can make is a tauren, and I didn’t want to make another priest since mine is simply waiting for people to catch up in levels (I’ve had her a good while now). So I created Qutey, the moo cow druid. Now I need to catch her up to the rest of my friends on my limited play schedule. Ugh, pressure.

Well, not really pressure. My friends have been told about my limited play time schedule, and have been exceptionally supportive. I typically play in a group from 7pm-10pm and for the next night or two instead of playing in my usual group I’ll try to catch my druid up. Right now she’s sitting at level 5. It shouldn’t take too long at all to get to level 10, and then level 15. We’ll see how it goes.

So last night Zokor and I traveled to some tombs and had to collect troll juju. We also did a nice escort quest which is something I miss in other mmos. It seems like a majority of quests are Kill X number of Y mobs, and it’s nice to have a different type thrown in there. Though the npc was VERY slow as she meandered her way through the dusty setting, unaware that Zokor and I were fighting tooth and claw just in front of her to make sure her next step would be safe.

  • Her: Lala, isn’t it such a lovely day for a walk through this dank and musty tomb…
  • Us: *grunts and sounds of battle* Yes, yes, whatever you say Miss, could you PLEASE hurry it along just a LITTLE? *more sounds of troll guts hitting the wall*
  • Her: Ohh, LOOK! A zombie! *Squeels of excitement*
  • Us: *sounds of troll heads hitting the floor as we groan*

That’s basically how the night went. I still had fun none the less. Gozad has worked a branch of the Safe Haven guild onto Ravenholdt (there is another branch on Uther, but that server is PvE, and we wanted a PvP alternative) so members can keep in touch, and it was nice to chatter to Tazikor and Zevad last night. We should have a nice little group set up (pretty much all of us are waiting on WAR) with a warrior, paladin, priest, hunter, and either a mage or a shaman depending on what Tazikor decides to play. There’s always room for more, too, if anyone wants to stop by. I’m certainly not there as often as I was (that’s a GOOD thing, remember?) but the company is always nice, and we’re still low enough that no one should feel like they have to ‘catch up’.

It’s nice to feel so relaxed, I admit.

Nomadic Gamer