Operation: Gnomeregan

There's a lot of different aspects of World of Warcraft. If you break it down, it really is made up of a ton of different mini games. There's a mini-game where you go and kill 15 rabbits; another one where you have to collect poop (okay... there seems like there's a few of those); another one where you craft items; and another where you kill bosses, etc. I enjoy a lot of these mini-games, but what really draws me in is a good story.

Yes, I know... since the introduction of QuestHelper and the like, most of us have gotten quite used to ignoring quest text, clicking accept, and simply following the arrow. I'm sure it's something that Blizzard is very well aware of. But Blizzard has been pretty creative about telling a story even if you don't read the text. Take the newer starting areas of either the Death Knight, Dranei, or Blood Elf. Even if you don't read a single word besides "Accept" they still tell the story.

At some points, they even did a good job in the old world.. the job of sucking you in. Back in vanilla, we had a small guild, so we didn't raid much. I think we all had a great investment in the quest chain to upgrade our dungeon armor to the Tier 0.5 armor. It was a huge investment in time, and to get those 45-minute Baron runs down was a Feat of Strength in and of itself... with appropriately geared toons.

Blizzard has even started refocusing on the ambiance, realizing that the whole story is also told while listening to other things. Look at how they did the ambient music in Karazhan? Sure, it's annoying the 1000th time you listen, but there's a certain ambiance that pulls you in to the story of Karazhan as well.

Case and point to all of this is the new quest line that was introduced yesterday. I can't talk to the horde side with the Trolls, but I do know that the Gnome side attempting to regain Gnomeregan is just wonderful. Engaging quests, fun stuff to do... none of them feel like a time sink. A story that pulls you in. And also, some music that simply has an epic feel to it... like you're about to retake a city that has been lost for years.

Bottom line: I'm looking forward to all the changes in Cataclysm. I'm also looking forward to all the new quests... and every other mini game as well. From what I saw in the Operation: Gnomergan questline, and what I've heard from Beta testers... we won't be grinding to 85; we'll be enjoying a wonderful story that will take us to lvl 85.

Breaking 3k GS with 10-man Content - Resto Shaman

I'm sure most of the raiding community that reads this post will roll their eyes; but nonetheless, it's an accomplishment for me. I FINALLY broke 3k gear score on wow-heroes on my resto Shaman.

Now a lot of the delay has been from my laziness to regularly run my daily random dungeon. I've been pretty good about running the weekly raid quest, but haven't always. And then there's the fact that there just aren't a lot of options out there for a Resto Shaman on gear if you're only running 10-man content. Couple that with the fact that I was hesitant to lose my Tier-9 2-piece set bonus until I could buy two Tier-10 items to kind of catapult to that set bonus.

One of the issues is with the shield. See, we haven't quite gotten to Sindragosa, yet so haven't been able to have the shield drop there. And I've only killed Lord Marrowgar on 25-man a couple of times (I just don't enjoy the waiting around for 25-man raids anymore), so haven't seen that shield drop either.

But two nights ago, I finally bought my last 2 pieces of Tier-10 to drop my Tier-9 set bonus and now have the 4-piece bonus from Tier 10. None of my friends that are enchanters were on when I bought it, so I didn't enchant anything. I cut the gems I knew and fitted those. I still had one empty gem slot. When I logged out and checked, I was at 2999 Gear Score! No joke. I should have taken a screen shot. lol. So, last night when I got the 2 enchants, gem, and even slightly upgraded a ring, I finally broke 3k. I'm now at 3046.

Does it make my healing that much more stellar? No. Do I really feel more powerful? Nope. It's just an arbitrary number that somehow made me feel good.

School of Worst Achievement Ever

Subtitle: Why Horde and Alliance have to Work Together.

I vaguely remember the last couple of years that people complained about a certain achievement during Children's Week. There's probably a few reasons why this achievement is so horrible.

First, the achievement itself. I'm, of course, talking about the achievement School of Hard Knocks. This is one of those holiday achievements, so you have only one week to complete it. It's a requirement to prove that you've done the achievements for Children's week, and of course that's a requirement to get one of the really fast mounts in the game. And that's the main reason I'm doing it.

I'm sure all the PVP'ers have gone on vacation this week. Or they've made sure that they only queue while in full group, and it's probably the easiest BGs in the world if they do it that way. Because you have a bunch of noobs in PVE or crap gear trying to get this achievement. (Yes, I'd probably consider myself one of those noobs.) Furthermore, you force everyone to do something that they probably wouldn't do normally such as (1) Capture the Flag in Eye of the Storm. Umm.. okay. I play a healer. And as well as I can generally keep myself alive, it's usually easier to keep somebody else alive since they generally blast the flag carrier and not the healer. So, now I'm forced to camp by the flag with my orphan out (any orphan will do, just make sure that it's out, and you have to bring him back each time you die) in hopes that I can be the first one to click the flag once it respawns. Not to mention that most of the people are grouped up on the flag, so having a controlled tower to return the flag makes it even more challenging.

(2) Assault a flag in Arathi Basin. Okay... this one is still pretty normal. I had to actually fight for this one. Flags tend to trade control a number of times in a game, and you generally have to clear out all the enemy before you can cap the flag. So, probably a normal BG, but with a ton of noobs in it.

Then here's where you pretty much have to start a giant love fest with the opposite faction. (3) Return a Fallen Flag in Warsong Gulch. Now maybe it's just me and the server I play on. But I zoned in to an already in progress WSG to find EVERYONE on my team sitting in the flag room. Eventually a smart hordie came over to our room, picked up the flag, and then immediately dropped it. Somebody returned it; achievement complete. He picked it up and dropped it again... you get the idea. After I got my achievement, I walked on over to the horde flag room and did the same thing. With both sides trying for the achievement, it's basically a standoff unless somebody decides to work together.

Then in AV, it gets even worse. You have to (4) Assault a tower in Alterec Valley. Let's just look at the numbers here. 40 people. 4 towers. Most of the AV games I've been in, it's pretty much a mad rush to cap the towers and then kill Drek/Van. Sometimes there's a force that helps in defense, but nobody wants a long, drawn out turtle game. So, you have a 1 in 10 chance to actually assault a tower. So, I had a few games, where again, the enemy would help out. But the problem is that you'll have a few enemies helping, and then you'll have a few idiots that start to kill said enemy. So, enemy gives up and goes to try to actually win AV. It's just... well... it's just horrible.

In a way, it's kind of a cool idea that it makes people do things in BGs that they might not normally do, but it also turns the BG into a selfish fight. The teamwork has been reduced even further. It's just plain ugly. Want to increase the popularity of BGs, Blizzard? I have hopes for Cataclysm and rated BGs, but forcing noobs to go into BGs to selfishly complete an achievement is the wrong way to go about it. How about something like Help Assault a Tower (that you have to be in the general vicinity), or Help Capture a Flag (in WSG).

*sigh* I have 3 of the 4 done. If I can just assault a tower in AV tonight, then I never have to go in a BG during Children's Week ever again.

Lovely Charms for Healers

I was again lamenting last night at the fact that while I was keeping everyone alive in a random heroic, I wasn't getting any Lovely Charms as everyone else was. I even tried to get in the killing blows with a last-second shock spell to increase my chances, but it had very little effect. But then one of my guildies told me that we could collect them in Ulduar. So, 4 of us traipsed off to Ulduar to jump in some vehicles, kill a bunch of trash mobs and collect Lovely Charms.

If you don't kill the towers, the guys keep pouring out and you can kill until your bags are full. It's incredibly easy. I got the 120 that I needed for for Charming. And technically speaking, that should be all the Lovely Charms / Love Tokens that you need. You'll need 4 of those Lovely Charm Braclets to turn in to the 4 different faction leaders for Nation of Adoration. That will net you 20 Love Tokens. With those, you can buy a Lovely Dress Box for Lovely Luck Is On Your Side.

And technically speaking, that's all the Love Tokens you need. All of the other items can be bought off the AH, or borrowed from a friend. So all my complaining about missing my Aoe spells really wasn't necessary.

On a side note: we 4-manned Flame Leviathon. Shouldn't that be an achievement or something?

Mages are for Boom

Recently, I've almost 100% given myself over to the resto Shaman in Zanderfin. I have a decent Enhancement set that I've been building as nobody else wanted the item. But then arena season 8 hit, and one of my guildies had the idea to start doing arenas. I put my Enhancement gear in the bank, respec'ed my other spec to pvp resto, and started running WG and Battlegrounds like crazy. Knowing we had no gear for it, we weren't surprised when we lost our first 10 games last week. We'll get better as (A) we get better gear, and (B) we play against horribly ranked players like us.

But then Love is in the Air hit on Sunday. And I kind of committed myself to doing the holiday events now that I have the time. And for the first time in months, I actually miss playing my mage.

I really noticed this when doing the Crushing the Crown quest. The quest itself isn't bad... just kill 5 people. Sure it's a little slow, but it's doable. But since the respawn rate is pretty much insane with so many people also killing these guys, it's a great place to gather Lovely Charms for the daily quest to give a Bracelet to your local Faction Leader. And since you can also turn the Bracelets in for Love Tokens, you could conceivably finish this entire event in a short time... and one day... if you could only kill fast enough.

Well part of killing fast enough is tagging fast enough. I mean... you want to get credit for the kill, right? If only mages had a spell to be able to cast Aoe instantly, and maybe some good Aoe from a distance, and even a targeted spell with some instant delivery or one for quick tags. Maybe I don't know how to play my Shaman as a damage dealer, but I don't see a lot of the same options here. I see they have a shock spells with a 6 second cooldown. They have Fire Nova with a 10-second cooldown that will instantly agro a bunch of mobs to the totem, quickly killing it unless Stoneclaw Totem is up, and that's on a 30-second cooldown. Sure, I have white damage, and Stormstrike and Lava Lash, all being single-target and requiring close range... not to mention all being enhancement. While I'm on that, there's my dogs that I'll still need to hit the target it in order to get credit. There's also Thunderstorm for the Elemental side of the house... 45-second cooldown.

So, while I could easily take on elites in the outdoor world with the Enhancement shaman, I keep fixating on the fact that Love is in the Air would probably be a heck of a lot easier if I was trying to do it with my Glass Cannon.

On an unrelated point... maybe quest items should be BoA. lol.

The Toothpick of Winter's Veil

I know this is actually old news. In fact, this news is technically about 1 year old. The majority of people that care are completely over the fact there is a Winter's Veil achievement. They've done it. Heck, the probably did it a year ago. But for me, and all the other people that haven't gotten around to it yet, there is an achievement, and I'm working on it.

But, just like Hallow's End, there's a completely crappy random part of the achievement that you have to complete. It's the Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho's achievement. Nevermind the fact that Horde has to find 3 brothers while Alliance has to find 9. No, that's not my issue. Also ignore the fact that we have to go to 5 different locations, where again, the Horde has to go to only 3. No, that's not what I care about either.

The issue is, just like the Tooth Pick, it's completely random what you get... you know... from the person you can get stuff once every hour. In Hallow's End, it was the Inn Keepers. In Winter's Veil, it's the Mistletoe. Yep, once per hour you can /kiss one of the Holiday people in the Inns and they either give you Snowflakes, Fresh Holly, or Mistletoe.

Want to take a guess who's gotten a ton of Fresh Holly and Snowflakes but no Misteltoe? Yep... there's the random part of the game again that's completely against me. /sigh. Well... at least I have until January 2nd. Maybe I'll log in once per hour tomorrow. Of course, I still won't have any, but still...

At any rate, hope everyone has a very, merry Christmas. And may all your loot drop and you win the rolls.

Hallow's End: Sounds Like Rear End

For whatever reason, I have the holiday bug. I just feel like I actually want to eventually get the Long Strange Trip Achievement. Brewfest wasn't bad. And the trinkets were useful (save me a few emblems here and there). But then we came to October and Hallow's End.

Just like Coren from Brewfest, the Headless Horseman in Scrarlet Monastery is a pushover. If you stay out of the way of the whirlwind when the head is away from the body, your group will take little to no damage. So, you need 1 tank and 4 dps. Each time he dies, you get a ring which is ilvl 200 and epic. They're decent rings. And for what it takes to kill him, they're actually great rings.

But the issue with this meta achievement is two fold, namely: Sinister Calling and That Sparkling Smile. The smile one isn't too terribly bad, I just don't seem to have the luck doing it. Every hour, you go trick or treating at one of the Inn Keepers and there's an 11% chance that you'll get a Tooth Pick. Use it, and that achievement is done. However, there's also an 89% chance that you won't get it. And I seem to get that, every single time I get the Treat Bag.

So, if that isn't frustrating, you then have to go kill the Headless Horseman. Just like Coren Direbrew, each person can summon him. So, in a typical 5-man group, you can summon him 5 times. If you have people bringing in their alts, you can have even more chances. From him, you need to get a Sinister Squashling and the Hallowed Helm. 7% chance drop rate for each of those. And if it does drop, you may be fighting 4 other people, so your chance could now be as bad as 1.4%. Now, both of these items will also drop from the Treat Bag, with a 1.3% chance drop rate.

Call me a pessimist, but those numbers are awfully low. And by laws of statistics, each chance you take at getting those drops, you still have a 1.4% and 1.3% chance. (Well... 7% if you're the only one that needs it.) That just sucks. You have to rely on 3 random drops in order to get your achievement. One of my buddies tried and tried to do it last year, but never got the squashling, so he had to wait until this year to finish the meta achievement.

The one thing they have done is that there's The Horseman's Reins. So, you could pretty easily be in a group with 4 people that are only going for the mount and not the achievement items. And that one? Oh yeah... it's a huge 0.4% drop rate. At least Coren with his Ram and Kodo had a 3.3% chance to drop one of the mounts.

So yes, for the record: I am not a fan of Hallow's End. I've been fortunate enough to get the two achievement drops from Headless Horseman, but have yet to get the Tooth Pick. But still... not a fan.

Accomplishments

For some reason, ever since Nibuca and Fimlys asked me about my accomplishments related to Wow, I've been thinking about that. What have I done? Or have I simply played a game for my own personal enjoyment?

I think it's peculiar that the words "achievement" and "accomplishment" sound similar. And because of the new Achievement System in Wow, that word has an entirely different meaning to me now. Some accomplishments are considered Wow achievements, but most of the Wow achievements are not accomplishments. And me? I like the accomplishments. Let me give you an example.

I've been having some car issues lately. Luckily, they all seem to be in the past now, but I just got my care back from the mechanic two days ago. Before everything bad started, I knew that I had one headlight out. It was on my radar to get that in the next couple of days. Yesterday, I started my car, turned on my headlights (it's still dark when I leave), and after literally 2 seconds, the other one goes out. I drove to work with only my fog lights on, which acted as headlights. That, I would consider an achievement such as the achievement to explore the entire world in Warcraft. It's not hard. Anyone can do it. You may not have thought about it before, but once you were aware of it, it's pretty easily done.

On my way home from work, I stopped off at the parts store and picked up two new bulbs. (Achievement for figuring out what type? You decide.) I get home and figure I'll take a few minutes to install the bulbs really quick. I've done it before with other cars. It's fairly simple. After I unscrewed a few bolts, I realized that nothing was coming out, so I turned to the Owner's Manual (yeah, like I really thought that was gonna help me... it's as good as the Wow Owner's Manual), and then to the Internet. The Owner's Manual told me to consult an Authorized Mazda Service Center. (Oh, come on! It's a light bulb!) The first few sites on the Internet told me I needed to remove the entire front bumper. (Don't believe me? Go check on a 2003 Mazda 6.) I finally found a site that described how to replace the driver's side headlight, but it still sounded like it would be major mechanical work to replace the passenger side one, and that I should take it to a mechanic.

The reason that this task is so difficult is the limited amount of space you have to deal with. You have to unscrew a cap to gain access, open a spring to release the bulb, take the bulb out, replace the bulb, and then reverse the process to install the new one. But because of the space issue, you have to do the majority of it by feel. Sure, you can kind of see down in there without your hand there, but once you put your hand down there, your vision is completely blocked. And even the view you have without your hand, it's not exactly a clear view. So, I got the driver's side headlight after about an hour of when I first started my project.

And the passenger side? That was even more of a pain. Yeah, I knew exactly what I was supposed to do at this point; but the space was so tight, I had trouble taking the cap out so I could gain access. After about 30 minutes though, I had replaced that bulb as well.

Now this, I would consider an Accomplishment. It was a challenge. Many people would have probably given up before I had. Many people might have taken it to a mechanic right away. I'd even venture to say that not everybody could have done it. It wasn't a simple time sink of flying around the entire kingdom, but it took thought and some persistent work.

In Wow, my Accomplishments aren't exclusively things that nobody else has done, or only a select few. They're things that required thought, and probably some persistent work as well. Sarth +2 (never got around to doing +3) was a challenge. It took some work and coordination before Ulduar gear came out. But it doesn't have to be hard modes. It took some work for us to down Iron Council. That was probably a minor accomplishment. Heck... some of the PUGs I've been in, it may be considered a major Accomplishment just to take down Hogger. lol.

Completing X number of quests is probably an achievement, yet having the patience to figure out all the quests you need and having enough for Loremaster, is something that I'd consider an Accomplishment.

Bringing it back to a point, personally, I'm not one to go after achievements, especially not for the sake of achievement points. I am, however, very interested in accomplishments. And what's an accomplishment? Whatever you have fun doing. So, I have played the game for my own personal enjoyment, but I've also accomplished a lot of things both by myself and with others.

What about you? What are some of your accomplishments?

Twisted Nether Blogcast Details

As I mentioned the other day, this Thursday, October 1, 2009, I am going to be on the Twisted Nether Blogcast. You can listen live starting at 8 pm PST. (See the link for all the details.)

In case you're not familiar with their format, they do have a live chat room that you can log in to to ask questions, or just kind of "hang out" with us as we do the show. You can log in as a guest to be in the chat room, or you can register to ask questions, and then we can see your name as well. It will screw up my raid time this week, but it should be a lot of fun. And the world can't always conform to me. (See? I can be a giver sometimes.)

If you can't make it on Thursday, they usually post the podcast sometime next week. I think it's on a Tuesday, but I could be wrong. You can also subscribe to them via iTunes or Zune.

Hope to see everyone on Thursday on the chat room. Remember... you can't participate and ask questions if you're not there live. :)

The Loremaster

In case any of you aren't aware, Loremaster is the title you get for completed a ton of quests. To be specific, you have to do 2,843 quests. That's 700 in Kalimdor, 700 in Eastern Kingdoms, 528 in Outlands, and then 875 in Northrend. That's a lot of quests. I've been playing Leiandra for years, and granted, I've taken a lot of time to raid, but I'm sitting at 2,280 quests. Just under 600 shy. Yeah... I don't think I'll ever bring myself to do the 300 or so that I need in Kalimdor.

But on Saturday, I went to go help out my best friend to finish the last few group quests he needed in Icecrown to get this achievement done. His brother also came along, and the 3 of us busted out these last few quests. So, we had my shaman (healing), a warrior, and a hunter. The annoying part was that I couldn't help with all of the quests. Since Zanderfin has done roughly 35 quests in Icecrown, I had very little phased. So, the more difficult places where they needed a healer, I couldn't help them out. But he had enough other quests done where we could complete the achievement. Cool, right? I mean, you get this cool title... and then... well... you get the following tabard:

Umm... okay. I mean, I guess it makes sense. But let's look at the letter you get:

From: Tyrande Whisperwind
Subject: Greetings from Darnassus

Your accomplishments have been profound and far-reaching. Azeroth, with all of the recent turmoil, benefits greatly from those who seek to rid the land of evil.

Only those who take the time to know our lands understand the sacrifices of the fallen and the valor of our heroes. You are one such hero. Hopefully, you will recant the tales of your adventures for years to come.

On behalf of the Alliance, I thank you, Loremaster.

Okay... so, really cool title, awesome letter... and then they go and design an exclamation mark? Just seems a bit cheesy. I mean, sure... you didn't slay the biggest, badest bossess, but for "profound and far-reaching" accomplishments, you'd think they would have made something you'd want to actually wear. After doing that many quests, do you really want do see another "!"?

Asleep at the WoW

First off, I am totally stealing the name of Fim's blog for my post title today. It just seemed fitting. But it has nothing to do with him or his blog, other than the name. Maybe he's just on my mind since I'll be hanging out with him (and Nibuca) for the Twisted Nether Podcast later this week. But more on that tomorrow.

Last night, I logged on to Wow simply so I could do the dailies for Brewfest and then be done with this holiday. That's how close I am. In the portal trip from Dalaraan to Iron Forge, the guild asked if I had time to run an instance because their pally had DC'ed on them. It was the daily heroic, they had already taken a boss down, so I figured, why not. UP went smoothly. Since we were out there, we decided to roll that group (less the one guildie since my wife wanted to play) into Utgarde Keep.

Somewhere in this instance is where the sleepiness started to set in. I generally go to sleep before I get as tired as I used to. But it just kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. We made it through UK easily, and I was ready to log off. So was my wife for that matter.

"Gonna go hand in the quest, you guys want to do VH really quick?" came the question from one of the guildies in the group. I really, really should have listened to my sleepiness and said no, but since my wife really needs the +hit trinket from there, I said we'd go. Now keep in mind, this is the trinket that I tell her she needs, not that she desperately wants or anything. She's started to hate VH, but she's really, really not a fan of doing instance over and over again. Been there, done that, that's her motto.

Nevertheless, we entered VH. Sleep was still creeping up on me and starting to take over. The first boss was Zuramat the Obliterator. It was easy enough. We even did the achievement for it. Then came Xevozz. This is the guy you have to kite all over the room. I'm not sure if it was the tank's fault, or if I actually fell asleep, or if it was some random bug, but I vaguely remember the tank's health go from full to 1/2 to dead. I'm sure I tried to cast a heal, but to be honest, I'm also not 100% sure.

And the worst thing about that instance (as well as the in TBC Black Morass), is that if you screw up, you have to start all over. So, you have to kill Zuramat (or whichever boss you had the first time), and you get no loot from him. Nothing.

Finished the instance the second time with no problems. Quickly bid the guild goodnight, and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep just as soon as my head hit the pillow. Lucky I remembered to turn on my alarm or I know I would have way overslept.

So, yes... that "just 1 more" mentality is still alive and well with me. Even if it's at like 9:30 and I'm falling asleep. (Not the normal bed time, but was just way wiped out.)

Starting Brewfest Due Date

Like many of the holidays, Brewfest is one of those holidays where you need to start relatively early and miss few days in order to get all the achievements possible, and get the meta-achievement. I generally stay away from these types of holidays in Wow, but this one really don't seem too horrible, so for some reason, I'm trying it. But then you do the math, and it's really not that hard. Here's the breakdown:

For those that may be reading this a couple days late, you'll most likely have to start no later than September 29th. That will get you to 350 Tokens. You'll need 350 for the outfit so you can complete Disturbing the Peace. As Brajana points out, if you save up and buy all 3 clothes pieces (350 tokens), you can return them for full value in 2 hours.

This schedule assumes that you do all of the dailies each day. You'll get 40 tokens the first time you kill Coren, 40 when you take out all the pink elephants, 10 when you do the first brew delivery quest, and 10 when you throw beer at S.T.O.U.T. Other than that, you have the daily to ride through IF or Org to bark the beer (15 tokens) and the daily that occurs every 1/2 hour to get the Dark Iron Dwarves drunk (10 tokens). Then finally, this assumes that you can deliver the kegs of beer 15 times in 4 minutes (2 tokens for each delivery).

So... 55 tokens per day, with the first day netting an additional 100 from quests. At 5 days, you'll have 375.

If you want to walk away with Hops and/or the pets, you may have to spend a few more days gathering tokens. But strictly speaking on achievements, that is what you'll need. Remember, this is based on being able to do the keg run 15 times in 4 minutes. If your lag means that's just not possible for you, you may need to figure out other math. But even if you only do it 13 times, you can still get the 350 in 5 days.

Edit: Had inadvertently missed the Elephant quest which gives you 40 tokens. I updated the remaining numbers and pushed back the Due Date accordingly.

Midsummer Festival Flop

I'm not really big on the whole holidays achievements. I think it's really cool that there are holidays in Wow that change the game up a bit, but they're simply not my cup of tea. And every time a new holiday comes out, I forget that for a bit, get all excited to get the achievements for that holiday.

Midsummer Festival was no different. I was all excited about getting this achievement done. With our truly more casual raid schedule, I knew I'd have plenty of time to get it all done. I got the Tabard for both Leiandra and also for Zanderfin. And I even set out to extinguish all of the fires. The key word there being "set out". I got the one in Orgimmar. And then the ones outside of Exodar and Darnassus. There was even going to be the bonus that I could finally finish the Explorer Achievement... which I've never gotten around to doing.

There's a reason I've never done the Explorer Achievement. Because running around the world for these meaningless points is boring. And unless it's a really cool title like "Leiandra, Slayer of all that is Evil"... I'm probably not too interested either.

So, once again, I didn't get the achievement for the holiday. And I'm okay with that. A lot of people enjoy those, and that's fine. It's just not a part of the game that I'm particulary into. I do like however, that you can go back and see when you did certain things. I can tell you when my toons hit 80, for example. Or when I first cleared a certain dungeon. Very cool. But the points for the sake of points... I'm just not that into it.

Noblegarden Tirade

First off: I am not really a fan of the Blizzard Seasonal Holiday quests. I think that it's neat that they've put holidays in the game, that they go to great lengths to make them attractive to people; that part is cool. There's just something about being "forced" to complete all of these things in a specific amount of time that frustrates me personally.

Keep in mind that I'm not suggesting that Blizzard should change anything about them; they're simply not something that I'm normally interested in. I am NOT suggesting that they should keep the holidays and quests around year-round. That would just be stupid. So, I normally just steer clear and everything is fine.

This week, however, is Noblegarden. It's full of fun, brightly-colored eggs, fluffy bunnies, and chocolate. What's not to love, right? And this year, they even gave some love to mages by providing a new polymorph: rabbit.

So, since I had some down time due to coming down with a flu/head cold (no, not swine flu), I decided to try to go collect some eggs. "Sure," I thought, "just go collect a few eggs." Then once I felt sucked in, I figured out just how many I'd need to collect.

I guess I got lucky with opening some of the eggs since I got the pet and all of the clothes (except the Spring Robes). But I still had to collect 255 eggs. And that's including the 100 chocolates for the polymorph. Still... I didn't find it fun. In fact, I kept thinking of something along the lines of this:
And this song kept going through my head as well.

I started seeing red as these innocent-looking, but evil-to-the-core bunnies hopped around greedily gathering up all the eggs they could. While sitting still they'd poop out these small eggs, that should be lootable, right? I mean... they are eggs. But no, that would have made things too simple. You'd be able to hide in a corner and collect your own eggs, but alas, that didn't work.

The hate started to consume me. And I found that I wanted to finish this achievement simply so that I wouldn't have to see any more bunnies. So that there would be no temptation whatsoever to think, "Oh, I could just go grab a couple to get a little closer." No, the hate drove me to finish.

And I was further enraged by these little bunnies hopping around that had names like Legolas the Noble. YOU ALREADY HAVE YOUR TITLE! LEAVE THE EGGS ALONE FOR THE REST OF US!!!

I even snapped a little when I got turned into a rabbit last night during trash pulls. I fully expected that this owuld happen at the beginning of the raid (and it did), but thought it wouldn't continue once we started figthing. When I asked the raid to stop (not calling out anyone in particular), my wife called me a "fun sucker".

Okay... maybe I was just a little groucy from being sick. But still. I am SO glad I'm done with that, and I really don't want to do it ever again. I'd much rather wipe on one boss for a month of raiding. That's how bad it was for me. So, thank you, Blizzard. Thank you for helping me completely waste even more of my life on these achievements. *sigh*

Increase your Total Damage Now!

Tired of Class Officers riding you about your low DPS? Want to be at the top of your damage meters? Now you too can learn the secret of how I top the meters.

That's right... Critters.

Clear the damage meters right before a pack of these babies, smack them down with a sweet spell such as Arcane Explosion and then link away! I'm sure none of your officers will notice you're the only one on the charts. But hey! At least you're DPS will be pretty high when you attack a pack of these critters.

There's also an achievement to support this habit.

But on a bit more serious of a note: Are you a Critter Killer? Are you the one always hunting down rats, maggots, or turkeys? How far will you go? Does this madness never end??!!??

Me? I'm a CCK (Casual Critter Killer). If I see an untouched pack of critters sitting around, I'll Aoe them, just to teach them a lesson. I'll even melee ones as I'm walking by. But to actually target one... (besides a turkey... and only that one time)... nope... not me. Too much effort.

Going Down?

Alright, alright. Get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about the Achievement of Going Down? Yeah, see? Nothing bad at all. At any rate...

I hadn't really made a big effort to try to get this achievement yet. Just haven't taken the time to "almost die" as many times as need to be able to fall 65 feet.

When I first heard about this achievement, I thought, "No problem... I have Slow Fall." Then my friends told me that you can't use this spell... nor can you use Levitate (Priest) or other spells akin. But now Spicy Tuna is pointing out that you can use Ice Block to negate the damage, but still fall as far as you like.

So, anyone want to guess what the first thing is I'll be going tonight when I get online? Yep.. that's right... taking my bird really high and dismounting. I'm guessing that this works for Paladin's Bop as well. So all you pallies and mages out there? It's time for some free falling.

City Defenses

With the new Black War Bear mount from the achievement of killing the opposite side's Faction Leaders, I started thinking about the cities themselves. Why is it that the Horde have such horrible lay outs for city defenses?

I mean... take the old world cities first. Stormwind, Iron Forge, and Darnassus all have exactly 1 entrance from which the Horde can attack. Sure, you can argue that Stormwind and Iron Forge have a tram that runs between them which is technically another entrance, but since you'd still have to run through an enemy city to get into that, it's not really the same. And you could also argue that you can get into Darnassus from Teldrassil. But how do you get to Teldrassil unless you go through Darnassus, so that doesn't really count either.

And Iron Forge has to be one of the best strongholds in the game. Especially since there's now spells that will knock you back, a frontal assault to Iron Forge would never be successful with a mage or two (and appropriate healers) that have Blast Wave.

In contrast, there's two ways to get into Thunder Bluff, Orgimmar, and the Undercity. Now, granted that the elevators in Thunder Bluff are a bit more predictable as far as when you'll get attackers, but there's still two choke points for direct attacks. Again, the mage and healer thing could apply here, but you'd still have to have double the defenders.

The two cities that were added in the expansion may have been the attempt to even this up. Exodar has two entrances, while Silvermoon actually has 1. (I don't remember being able to get in another way. Please correct me if I'm wrong.) But one pair of cities doesn't really add up to the 3 pairs.

I guess I was really just trying to figure out why the imbalance. Is it because the Horde racials are generally better than Alliance for PvP, and therefore they should have an easier time killing Alliance attackers? That certainly can't be the case or else the battlegrounds would need to be always more favored towards the Alliance as well, and I know they've gone to great lenghts to make sure things are equal.

Nothing game breaking here, I suppose. Just one of those things that make you think a bit. If you've never entertained the idea of getting a Black War Bear or doing World PvP type of things like this, then just move along... I'll have another post on Monday. But can anyone think of any other reasons?

First Thoughts: Achievements

I think that there’s already a love/hate relationship that I'm feeling towards Achievements. Like most of my guild, I seem to be scurrying around trying to complete achievements. Who knows... maybe it's something that feels substantial while we're all waiting for Wrath to come out. It's kind of that checklist of things we want to have done, or in the case of many of the dungeons, it's the checklist of things we've already done, but didn't get credit for since they weren't tracking it at the time. (/phew... that was a mouthful)

But that's just it: it has the feeling of something substantial. It's new. It's something to do. But you don't really get anything for it. Oh sure... there a lot of new titles, and I think those are a great addition to the game. And I could be wrong here, but I don't think that all achievements track to a given title. And some of them involve so many steps, that the only reward is really just the fact that you got 10 points (or whatever) from that achievement.

I know there was a lessons learned from Blizzard as far as World PvP. They've incorporated many of those things in to the new Lake Wintergrasp PvP zone in Northrend. One of the big things they learned was that you had to have meaningful rewards from a World PvP zone. One of the reasons that people didn't really care about Eastern Plaguelands or Silithus was because the reward was just dumb. Very little honor, and that's about it. It's not like guilds had 40 people in Naxx while there were 20 outside making sure they had the damage buff in Eastern Plaguelands. (well... maybe they were, but still.)

So, what do you get from Achievements? Again, the titles are cool. Good job there. Other than that? Nothing. That's why I'm officially going to boycott getting any achievements... for now... well... at least until I get on and play tonight.

See? I hate these addictive Achievements. It's the curse of "just one more" that always sucks me in for WoW, but now it's even more trackable. I have to get just one more Honor Kill before I run out of G.N.E.R.D.S. before the Halloween event is over. Or run the Headless Horseman one more time to hope a little pet drops. (It's only for the achievement.. I'm still semi-anti pets.) Yep... once again, there's only one true way to win the game, and that's to quit.

Yep, that's right. So, I'm going to quit playing Wow... just after this last quest. Oh.. and I need another achievement. And I should probably hit 80 first. Oh and... :)

p.s. Anyone else have a high skill in fishing, but yet didn't get credit for even 25 fish caught?