Last Night’s Escapades
So there’s a lot of ground that I want to cover but I don’t think I should do it in one post, I don’t want to wear out the eyes of the faithful that come to read what I write…Thank you for that, by the way.
In any event, let me start with the Anti-PUG Project. Some of you probably read the post I made yesterday looking for more Bloggers to join this little adventure. How I stumbled upon this is that I was reading the usual blog roll and noted that the Game Dame was seeking out more Bloggers to join a little group of people that had decided, you know we read each others thoughts why not play together and see what happens. Currently we have 13 players, with more threatening to join us with each passing half hour.
The basis of the project is simple. We all make new toons on a server that we have no affiliation with, so no high levels or buddies hanging around. We create a character within a class that we have no or very little knowledge of and then continue to level the toons together. This means that no one’s getting to 20 while everyone is still at level 13. The purpose is to try and get as much content done together as possible. There is no rush to this, no timeline as to when we’ll think we’ll be done or when we want these toons to get to 70.
Last night was the first meeting of these players on the server; I have to say it was very fun. We are a group of fun loving people and made each other laugh quiet a bit. I rolled a mage, Incendio (Fire, in Spanish), which is not a class that I know well. Yes I have a Moonkin but obviously it’s different since this is a clothie and they rely SOLELY on casting, they can’t just morph to bear if they run into trouble. We’re all within about 3 levels of each other, from 7 to 10 and are supposed to meet up again next Wednesday and work on them some more as well as sign the guild charter.
This has the potential to be an incredible experience if you think about it. A group of people LITERALLY leveling together and going through content together. Imagine if we do reach 70 and get attuned for Kara, we would know our rolls together so well that we could potentially be unstoppable. How many times have you wished that people you play with knew your style? Well, this is the chance to make that happen. I am thoroughly excited for this and I hope that it’s not just a flash in the pan.
We’re trying to figure out a way to continue to keep all our readers informed on our exploits, even might go as far as having a blog we can all share. In any event, if that doesn’t happen I will post on here every Thursday our exploits, the good and the bad so that you can see first hand this communal environment we’re trying to get to flourish.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Anti-PUG!
Quickie
I will be posting something longer today but for now I wanted to introduce you to a new blogger.
Soul Fire is the first blog endeavour by this player. He's just talking about his experiences and sharing it with the reading public. Make sure you swing by and let him know that the Hooved Shaman sent you.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
LF Bloggers...
So I'm reading my usual blogs and I see that Game Dame is looking for Bloggers...for a different kind of project.
The project is simple. Roll an Alt, we've decided Horde, and from there you are working as a group to level and to run instances with. What was supposed to be something small (a group of 5) is currently evolving into something else (we have 3 groups going) but we need a couple more people interested in playing.
If you want to read all about the hulabbaloo you can go here:
http://outlandbound.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/wow-blogger-lfg-for-quests-and-instance/
So, leave a comment if you're a blogger and interested!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Runs Last Night....
Yes I know that I’m still making you wait on the next installment on the Feral tree and yes I’m sorry that I’m doing that to you I promise to get cracking on it today.
For now though….
Last night I went home with the thought that I wanted to get some leveling done on my toon. More importantly, that I was going to STRIVE to hit 70 this weekend so that I could focus on doing dailies, BGs, end game stuff and just general screw around with the rest of the 70s in my guild as we wait for more new content and of course the new expansion that’s just around the bend.
Now I want you guys to understand that I’m not a 70 snob. I’m not one that just hit 70 and forgets that there are lower levels to be had. On the contrary I spend a lot of time running people through lower level instances when I get the chance. Deadmines, Scarlet Monastery, Stockades, I’ve been to them all dragging some low level through making sure that they don’t die one too many times. Which I have to admit is fun if you have the right character to do it with. (That should be an AOE Paladin, for the record.)
The one thing that I noticed as I was running through some quests over in Nagrad is that there really aren’t very many people running around doing regular instances anymore. Most people are running through Heroics, Karazan and of course the higher level 25 man content. The rest of the time my server seems to be set on doing Battlegrounds in which we sorely stink and Arenas which are a crap shot at best. Since I’m 67 now the only instances that I’m really interested in are Crypts, Tombs and Shadow Lab. I’ve managed to get the Heroic key to all of the other instances up to this point and I’m already past friendly with lower city. Add to that the fact that I can get some nice upgrades and I’m there.
Within twenty minutes of logging in I got a nibble for Cavern of Time: Old Hills. Now, I’ve done Old Hills before, mainly with both my shamans and I know that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re in for some heartache. The group that I found though already had a healer AND a tank, both 70s. It’s not my favorite instance but my thought process was two fold. First, experience, at 67 I’ve already burned through just about all of the Nagrad quests and halfway through most of the ones in Burning Blade Mountains. I want to be 69 when I hit Shadow Moon Valley because I know that I can just do the Cipher of Damnation quest line and it’ll take me to 70. Unfortunately I’ve hit a brain fart as to where I’m supposed to go between 68 and 69 at this point. I haven’t been doing many of the dungeons in this go around because no one is at my level in my guild. So I’m finding myself just grinding away at quests and mobs. I need a break; I need something more feeding into my experience. So Old Hills fits that bill just perfect.
The second thing that hits me is that I really need to get Old Hills done to be able to work to Black Morass for my key into Kara. While I know that I’ve said on this blog several times that my overall intent is NOT Kara or any other ‘end level’ content, it would be nice to have him keyed regardless. Recently my guild Divine Forsaken has been running Kara with Celestial Storm, a sister guild on our server as we are both short on players that are able to take on the task of a ten man. That being said, it would be nice to do Kara with just our guild at some point again. I know that I have at least 4 or 5 other players that need to get it done as well, so the time is coming for it.
I got a nice chunk of experience for Old Hills and the two quests that go with it. I got a nice set of caster gloves. Yes they are cloth BUT the stats were too good to pass up. So I went ahead and took them as the quest reward and then went ahead and put in + Spell Damage and + Stamina gems to make it more viable. Currently I’m sitting at about 6700 HP and 7000 mana, not too shabby.
With it being so early in the evening I decided to try one more time for an instance run. I got a bite for Crypts, a 70 hunter. Now the hunter did her job well but I have to admit that after about 20 minutes of running with her I had the feeling that not only was this the players first toon but probably one of the few instances they’d done. While this doesn’t really bother me, I’m a firm believer that if you want someone to get good an being part of an instance you have to teach them, I did get upset with some of the questions that were being asked that are normally commonly unspoken rules.
I managed to get one of the best tanks in our guild to join my group as well as a well trusted Mage. I was thrilled and honestly, we made VERY short work of the instance in general. It was a fun run and we all had a good laugh and enjoyed ourselves immensely. My only hope is that we’re able to do that again rather soon.
So at the beginning of the night I only had about 5% done for the level and by the time I was done with the two instances, the quest turn ins and turning in some War beads and Halaa research material, I was at 47% completed. You got to love when a good plan comes together.
What do you guys do to try and hit that next level? Do you run into several instances? Do you find yourself living in places like Tombs or Labs for long stretches of time?
For now though….
Last night I went home with the thought that I wanted to get some leveling done on my toon. More importantly, that I was going to STRIVE to hit 70 this weekend so that I could focus on doing dailies, BGs, end game stuff and just general screw around with the rest of the 70s in my guild as we wait for more new content and of course the new expansion that’s just around the bend.
Now I want you guys to understand that I’m not a 70 snob. I’m not one that just hit 70 and forgets that there are lower levels to be had. On the contrary I spend a lot of time running people through lower level instances when I get the chance. Deadmines, Scarlet Monastery, Stockades, I’ve been to them all dragging some low level through making sure that they don’t die one too many times. Which I have to admit is fun if you have the right character to do it with. (That should be an AOE Paladin, for the record.)
The one thing that I noticed as I was running through some quests over in Nagrad is that there really aren’t very many people running around doing regular instances anymore. Most people are running through Heroics, Karazan and of course the higher level 25 man content. The rest of the time my server seems to be set on doing Battlegrounds in which we sorely stink and Arenas which are a crap shot at best. Since I’m 67 now the only instances that I’m really interested in are Crypts, Tombs and Shadow Lab. I’ve managed to get the Heroic key to all of the other instances up to this point and I’m already past friendly with lower city. Add to that the fact that I can get some nice upgrades and I’m there.
Within twenty minutes of logging in I got a nibble for Cavern of Time: Old Hills. Now, I’ve done Old Hills before, mainly with both my shamans and I know that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re in for some heartache. The group that I found though already had a healer AND a tank, both 70s. It’s not my favorite instance but my thought process was two fold. First, experience, at 67 I’ve already burned through just about all of the Nagrad quests and halfway through most of the ones in Burning Blade Mountains. I want to be 69 when I hit Shadow Moon Valley because I know that I can just do the Cipher of Damnation quest line and it’ll take me to 70. Unfortunately I’ve hit a brain fart as to where I’m supposed to go between 68 and 69 at this point. I haven’t been doing many of the dungeons in this go around because no one is at my level in my guild. So I’m finding myself just grinding away at quests and mobs. I need a break; I need something more feeding into my experience. So Old Hills fits that bill just perfect.
The second thing that hits me is that I really need to get Old Hills done to be able to work to Black Morass for my key into Kara. While I know that I’ve said on this blog several times that my overall intent is NOT Kara or any other ‘end level’ content, it would be nice to have him keyed regardless. Recently my guild Divine Forsaken has been running Kara with Celestial Storm, a sister guild on our server as we are both short on players that are able to take on the task of a ten man. That being said, it would be nice to do Kara with just our guild at some point again. I know that I have at least 4 or 5 other players that need to get it done as well, so the time is coming for it.
I got a nice chunk of experience for Old Hills and the two quests that go with it. I got a nice set of caster gloves. Yes they are cloth BUT the stats were too good to pass up. So I went ahead and took them as the quest reward and then went ahead and put in + Spell Damage and + Stamina gems to make it more viable. Currently I’m sitting at about 6700 HP and 7000 mana, not too shabby.
With it being so early in the evening I decided to try one more time for an instance run. I got a bite for Crypts, a 70 hunter. Now the hunter did her job well but I have to admit that after about 20 minutes of running with her I had the feeling that not only was this the players first toon but probably one of the few instances they’d done. While this doesn’t really bother me, I’m a firm believer that if you want someone to get good an being part of an instance you have to teach them, I did get upset with some of the questions that were being asked that are normally commonly unspoken rules.
I managed to get one of the best tanks in our guild to join my group as well as a well trusted Mage. I was thrilled and honestly, we made VERY short work of the instance in general. It was a fun run and we all had a good laugh and enjoyed ourselves immensely. My only hope is that we’re able to do that again rather soon.
So at the beginning of the night I only had about 5% done for the level and by the time I was done with the two instances, the quest turn ins and turning in some War beads and Halaa research material, I was at 47% completed. You got to love when a good plan comes together.
What do you guys do to try and hit that next level? Do you run into several instances? Do you find yourself living in places like Tombs or Labs for long stretches of time?
Monday, February 11, 2008
Upcoming Releases
I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I try to keep the stuff that I discuss with you guys fresh. I know there’s already a group of websites dedicated to ‘news’ from WoW and I KNOW there’s enough bloggers out there dissecting every single piece of WoW information under the sun. I try not to follow the trend because I want you guys to come here for something else. Be it looking at build trees, me rambling on about leveling or my guild or even the movie of the week.
I’m going to break this trend today because there are two things that have me really excited about the upcoming future of WoW.
The First: WoW Miniatures.
I came late into the WoW mania. I would say that Comics was my gateway drug. I’ve been collecting comics for close to sixteen years. In that time my collection has been destroyed twice and rebuilt twice. I don’t like to think about the amount of money that would be overall. I do enjoy reading the books that I collect though. A few years ago there was a small business owner that was opening a shop; the shop was going to be games and comics. During my time of hanging out, reading comics and talking shop I got into card games. I’ve never been one for Magic. I know that it’s a HUGE thing in some places but I didn’t like the mechanics of the game and just walked right on past it. When the Versus Game System came out, I got caught up. They were using Marvel and DC characters in the cards and the mechanics seemed simple enough. I even went to a few of those card game tournaments. It was fun. Unfortunately the VS gaming system didn’t really catch fire in the great Northwest like it did in the East coast, so I never was able to really get good games going.
Then came the miniatures. I didn’t get heavy into it. It’s been around for a while if you following gaming. There’s table top for just about anything you can think of. Warhammer is a table top that’s making the jump over to a MMO later this year. WoW is going to be invading tabletops by year’s end. While I’m not much into going out and finding a group of people to play against, I love collecting figures that I think have a cool look to them.
Blizzard is really snatching up two different type of players by putting out this little marvel. First, obviously, is the table top players. It’s a bit of a coup as they are trying to steal away some Warhammer veterans and add them to a new stable, it’s something that will more than likely happen considering the number of players that are currently paying a monthly fee to visit Azeroth whenever they feel like it. The second demographic is the collector. I know that Fingerprints or whatever is making a figure that is supposed to look like your in game character for 100 smackers, this is a luxury that many of us will not be able to pay for (Or will want to pay for) this is a nice way of getting something similar. I know that I may not buy the unopened packs but I’ll search through the singles for the ones that strike my fancy once they are available.
The Second: Patch 2.4
Bosque is sitting pretty at 67 and my hope is to get him to 70 before week’s end. This means a lot of questing and killing and hopefully, instance runs. I will be honest and tell you that the last instance I ran I believe I was level 64. It was Slave Pens and since then I haven’t had a nibble at the instance apple. Of course most of the reason for that isn’t because I’m not looking, it’s because you’re either a real lowbie or you’re a 70 on my server. While I have the other 70s at my disposal I’m tunnel visioned to get to 70 with Bosque, he’s pretty much become my main and besides, I want FLIGHT FORM damnit!
With 2.4 there are no changes to Moonkins at this time. That may change, you never know, what I am excited about is being able to hang out in BT or MH without having to do that insane amount of running around to get attuned. While I understand the reasoning for making someone become attuned, I have to say that it’s pretty ridiculous. I don’t want to have to do twenty five steps to be part of a twenty five man that isn’t always going to run and where I have as little as a 1:25 chance of receiving a drop that’s going to be worth wild for me. That’s just me!
The other thing that excites me is that with 2.4 we’re going to have a new region to work on for money, reputation and nice upgrades. I’m hoping that Moonkins aren’t forgotten too much in this situation.
Now while Gamgam and Luciel will ALWAYS have a spot in my heart, looking at some of the things that are changing for the class really don’t make me want to RUN onto them and get them geared. Likewise for McGregor, tanking is fun but expensive and get one bad run under your belt and suddenly you’re the WORST tank in the world to the rest of the server. That’s not something that I’m looking to doing. You think about it, healing and tanking are the two things that are either congratulated or blamed for the success of a run. DPS is always needed and honestly, to stress yourself over a game is not what I’m looking to do, hopefully neither are you.
So while both still exist, they will be seeing the light of day a little less as time goes on.
2.4 does promise to change some things but I’m looking forward to being able to run some new five mans and see some nice new upgrades. While PVP has been very good to Bosque, I’m not wanting to spend the rest of my months between now and WotLK in Battlegrounds grinding away honor.
What about you guys? What are you looking forward to in 2.4? Are you leveling alts or are you working on something more? Have you considered how many of your toons you’re going to level up to 80 when the expansion comes out? I wanna know!
I’m going to break this trend today because there are two things that have me really excited about the upcoming future of WoW.
The First: WoW Miniatures.
I came late into the WoW mania. I would say that Comics was my gateway drug. I’ve been collecting comics for close to sixteen years. In that time my collection has been destroyed twice and rebuilt twice. I don’t like to think about the amount of money that would be overall. I do enjoy reading the books that I collect though. A few years ago there was a small business owner that was opening a shop; the shop was going to be games and comics. During my time of hanging out, reading comics and talking shop I got into card games. I’ve never been one for Magic. I know that it’s a HUGE thing in some places but I didn’t like the mechanics of the game and just walked right on past it. When the Versus Game System came out, I got caught up. They were using Marvel and DC characters in the cards and the mechanics seemed simple enough. I even went to a few of those card game tournaments. It was fun. Unfortunately the VS gaming system didn’t really catch fire in the great Northwest like it did in the East coast, so I never was able to really get good games going.
Then came the miniatures. I didn’t get heavy into it. It’s been around for a while if you following gaming. There’s table top for just about anything you can think of. Warhammer is a table top that’s making the jump over to a MMO later this year. WoW is going to be invading tabletops by year’s end. While I’m not much into going out and finding a group of people to play against, I love collecting figures that I think have a cool look to them.
Blizzard is really snatching up two different type of players by putting out this little marvel. First, obviously, is the table top players. It’s a bit of a coup as they are trying to steal away some Warhammer veterans and add them to a new stable, it’s something that will more than likely happen considering the number of players that are currently paying a monthly fee to visit Azeroth whenever they feel like it. The second demographic is the collector. I know that Fingerprints or whatever is making a figure that is supposed to look like your in game character for 100 smackers, this is a luxury that many of us will not be able to pay for (Or will want to pay for) this is a nice way of getting something similar. I know that I may not buy the unopened packs but I’ll search through the singles for the ones that strike my fancy once they are available.
The Second: Patch 2.4
Bosque is sitting pretty at 67 and my hope is to get him to 70 before week’s end. This means a lot of questing and killing and hopefully, instance runs. I will be honest and tell you that the last instance I ran I believe I was level 64. It was Slave Pens and since then I haven’t had a nibble at the instance apple. Of course most of the reason for that isn’t because I’m not looking, it’s because you’re either a real lowbie or you’re a 70 on my server. While I have the other 70s at my disposal I’m tunnel visioned to get to 70 with Bosque, he’s pretty much become my main and besides, I want FLIGHT FORM damnit!
With 2.4 there are no changes to Moonkins at this time. That may change, you never know, what I am excited about is being able to hang out in BT or MH without having to do that insane amount of running around to get attuned. While I understand the reasoning for making someone become attuned, I have to say that it’s pretty ridiculous. I don’t want to have to do twenty five steps to be part of a twenty five man that isn’t always going to run and where I have as little as a 1:25 chance of receiving a drop that’s going to be worth wild for me. That’s just me!
The other thing that excites me is that with 2.4 we’re going to have a new region to work on for money, reputation and nice upgrades. I’m hoping that Moonkins aren’t forgotten too much in this situation.
Now while Gamgam and Luciel will ALWAYS have a spot in my heart, looking at some of the things that are changing for the class really don’t make me want to RUN onto them and get them geared. Likewise for McGregor, tanking is fun but expensive and get one bad run under your belt and suddenly you’re the WORST tank in the world to the rest of the server. That’s not something that I’m looking to doing. You think about it, healing and tanking are the two things that are either congratulated or blamed for the success of a run. DPS is always needed and honestly, to stress yourself over a game is not what I’m looking to do, hopefully neither are you.
So while both still exist, they will be seeing the light of day a little less as time goes on.
2.4 does promise to change some things but I’m looking forward to being able to run some new five mans and see some nice new upgrades. While PVP has been very good to Bosque, I’m not wanting to spend the rest of my months between now and WotLK in Battlegrounds grinding away honor.
What about you guys? What are you looking forward to in 2.4? Are you leveling alts or are you working on something more? Have you considered how many of your toons you’re going to level up to 80 when the expansion comes out? I wanna know!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Toons
