The Best News a Dwarf can Get!

Gnomes…. GO HOME!! Or, in the spirit of the scene from Shrek when the dwarves (no relation) had Snow White up on the table (you know… “Oh no no no, dead broad OFF THE TABLE!!“)…

Gnomes…. OUT of Ironforge!

Now, don’t get me wrong I have (I think) at least one or two guildies that are gnomes. I just want them to stop blowing stuff up in Ironforge! That, and I’ve never really been comfortable that gold old Ironforge wouldn’t end up the same way as Gnomeregan eventually. Well… That, and my original Horde upbringing. Did you know, that of all the alliance races… the horde hates gnomes the most? Well, and Blood Elves. Nobody really likes them though. (Okay, Okay! I’ll stop being the offense dwarf at the end of the bar now!)

Actually,  I think Operation Gnomeregan and the corresponding Echo Isles event for Trolls are very cool. The underlying theme of course? Cataclysm is inching closer.

I have to admit I’m surprised to be seeing it though. While I’ve still been of the opinion that Cataclysm is coming out in 2010, I figured it was still a ways off (Yes, I know there isn’t nearly as much of 2010 left as I make it sound). I was thinking late November, even early December. I base that on nothing but, well…. nothing. I just really didn’t expect to see any pre-expansion events coming in the 1st part of September I guess.

Still, all-in-all probably a good thing. The pre-expansion blahs have been creeping in on my server. You can tell everyone is sort of settling in and waiting for the expansion. Me? I’m waiting on Brewfest! Go figure!

Until next time, take care folks!

Fighting the doldrums…

Well, that’ll snap you right out of the doldrums.

Now don’t get me wrong, they’re still right around the corner, but last weekend was a blast. Our little guild took advantage of having a decent amount of people on and into ICC 10 we went last Saturday.

I tagged along on my shadow priest and had a ball. I also had a few massive upgrades fall to me (Heck, when you’re in mostly heroic gear just about everything in ICC will be an upgrade for you). I forget where exactly we stopped off. It may have been Putricide. It had gotten late by that point and so we happily called it a night there.

The next day saw a blitz of heroics with a few other guildies as we all joked around in vent. The highlight of the day (or at least the funniest moment) came from a dps Death Knight in a PuG. He kept taunting and dropping Death and Decay, then offered up complaint to the tank “Please hold aggro or I’ll leave”. He was told to go ahead and leave.

A note to all DPS players out there running random dungeons. If the tank and healer are from the same guild, your threats to leave mean nothing to them. They have an instant queue. They can get another DPS to replace you faster than you can zone back into Dalaran.

All in all it was a fun weekend made possible by actually being able to be a) home to play instead of off somewhere else (Although that’s fun, too) and b) a lot of friendly guildies being around to chat with.

Being able to chat reminds me of something that our former GM (who graciously not only joined us for ICC, but helped keep us all alive by healing it!) used to have on her blog. I can’t remember it exactly but the general message was “Get in vent! You don’t have to necessarily talk, but log your butt in so you can hear (and be part of) the fun that’s going on”.

Naturally, I followed up all of the fun from the weekend by hardly being able to log in a Monday because I was busy around the house. Oh well.

More fun to follow, I’m sure.

Later folks!

This is always good for a laugh…

I check my email this morning, and there are some emails in my “Spam” folder. I take a peek, and I start to laugh.

So, I guess I owe the account thieves that always try to steal World of Warcraft accounts a tank you for being so comically bad.

Depending on which (would it be scammer, or spammer?) you believe, I’m either banned for life or possibly eligible for the Beta.

I have to admit, at least the folks trying to steal my account info with the beta opt in use an official looking form from Blizzard. I think it’s from the opt in page on the site. I’d go look, but I’m websensed at work so my ability to goof off is limited. And a blackberry just doesn’t cut it for viewing Warcraft sites. The link they provide for you to visit is COMICALLY BAD, however. I’m really sorry, but if you fall for that one you almost deserve what you’re getting. I’d post it here, but I don’t want to inadvertently help them steal anyone’s account.

The account ban looks like it probably *used* to be an official email, but it’s been cut and pasted into an incoherent mess. The link in that one was disabled so I can’t tell what it used to be, but it looks like they at least tried to spoof the real battle.net log in page. Hey, at least they tried. If only it hadn’t come from a hotmail.com address.

Of course, I might be just the slightest bit concerned should one of these emails ever arrive on the account that I actually registered with Battle.net. The one that gets all the spam however… not that email. Heck, I’ve apparently even been banned from Aion for selling currency in game. And I’ve never even played that game!

I love Spam! (and any reason to dig this up)
- This was supposed to be an embedded video from YouTube. It was the Spam skit by Monty Python. Why it’s not working, I do not know -

And for the record? My name is Ponykeg, and I have an authenticator.

Sometimes you never see it coming….

And no, I’m not talking about rogues or stealthed druids either. I’m talking about something far more dangerous, even deadly. Burnout.

It hit me again. I never even saw it coming. There was no real warning. I just logged in the other day and… didn’t really have any motivation to do anything.

So I have burnout, again. I’ve spent a day or two thinking about it, and I think it’s just a matter of getting into too much of a routine. After getting my priest to 80, things sort of fell into a “Log on, get a group and run a dungeon with Ponykeg, then log onto the priest, get a dungeon for gear and emblems on the priest” type of cycle.

So I’m taking a step back, and rethinking a few things. Maybe it’s time for the rise of another alt, or to go get the explorer title. That, and a busy weekend ahead with little playtime available should make for a quick end to this round of burnout.

That, and some fun on the Xbox.

Sometimes I wonder…

I read a lot of wow blogs and forums. It comes from (I think) equal parts wanting do be halfway decent at what I’m doing, looking for entertainment, and the industry I work in having notorious boom and bust cycles. Which leaves me time to break out the Blackberry and surf said sites. Stupid Websense on the work PC.

Running a random for my measly little 2 Emblems of Frost yesterday, something made me wonder though. Where are all these people who complain on forums, blogs, in game, etc. when someone does something right?

I lay no claim to being one of wow’s great hunters, but I have asked questions, sought out advice, and generally made an effort to be competent. I’m good with where I’m at. I like to think I’m usually not the cause of problems in an instance, but I’m definitely not the best.

So when I see people talking about how “They never see a single misdirect, and there were 3 huntards in there”, it makes me wonder. Do they say anything about, or better yet *to* the folks who do things right? Last night I was lucky to get a Bear tank who did a stellar job. They probably outgeared the instance by a long way, and probably would have freaked a new healer out with the speed and size of pulls but they never lost threat. During the instance, as is my habit (and was one of the things I learned from the hunters I talked to while leveling up), I used Misdirect nearly every single time it was up. Did that help with the no lost threat? I really don’t know. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe the tank was geared enough not to need help. Omen wasn’t working for me so I honestly can’t say. I wasn’t really looking for a pat on the back anyways, so it isn’t a big deal at all.

No, what I’m wondering is why there isn’t the occasional voice chiming in about all the “bads” that are out there to say “Hey, I ran with someone who really tried to do the right thing”. I find it hard to believe that *none* of the people who never see a hunter use misdirect, which is apparently as rare as Haley’s Comet according to what I’ve seen online, ever say “well, there was that one hunter that one time…”. If it’s really as rare as people make it sound, wouldn’t it actually happening be worth commenting on? If not on a blog or forum, even in game? A quick whisper saying “Wow, you just misdirected more than I usually ever see in a run, thanks”? Is everyone too busy trying to loot and drop party to even try to compliment someone? That’s what I wonder.

Positive reinforcement goes a long way after all. And not every class is terrible, despite their reputations. No one ever seems to want to mention that. Although I guess it does make for pretty boring blog fodder, doesn’t it?

Ah well, maybe I’ll just MD onto one of the other DPS next time. That should get someone’s attention.

Later folks!

Now Websense Disapproved!

Well this is an interesting turn of events. I come in this morning try to look at the blog after adding some links in the blogroll to see how it looks and I get the nasty warning on screen that I have “attempted to access an unauthorized site” or some such corporate babble. Guess I’ve hit the big time!

Odd thing is, the dashboard still works so I get to put this post up at least.

Take care everyone

How much is enough?

I’m talking about the game overall here, not just the armor your character wears in the game. It’s more or less the nature of the game that there’s always something newer and shinier. It’s the carrot on a stick routine. This is the game that actually HAS a carrot on a stick as an in game trinket, remember? So what drives people? For a lot of people, it’s the challenge. The challenge to be the best, to have the best gear, or to simply get better (or more interesting/amusing) stuff than you have now. For others, it’s to see the game. To experience everything that the World of Warcraft can offer. Let’s start with me and we’ll see where this goes.

Now, I make no bones about it. Ponykeg could use better gear. As in, “I personally would like my hunter to have better gear”. I can’t get a decent 2 handed weapon to drop to save my life. That being said, I don’t really raid, so it limits my options a bit. I mostly run heroics, and Pony’s in heroic (ilvl 200) or better gear, so that begs the question… How much is enough?

Thanks to the emblems I get from running heroic dungeons, Ponykeg qualifies for the “welfare epics” that the vendors in Dalaran (and at the Argent Tournament grounds) offer. The goodies are there for the taking so it’s silly not to take advantage of them, right? For me, that’s probably enough. For others, it isn’t even close.

I guess it all comes down to what each individual player wants out of the game. We all spend our money to play. The tools to succeed in the game are more or less all there. What it seems (to me) to come down to in the end is “what do you want out of the game”?

Do you want to be a bleeding edge raider, competing for world first kills and such? You can do that.

Do you want to raid a bit, so you can see all of the content and sort of experience the story? Yep, you can do that.

Heck, do you want to sit on a shore with a fishing pole and just fish? Yep, you can do that too.

Me? I covered it up above. I enjoy seeing the heroics, but I don’t really raid. Part of it is the time commitment (To attend the raids spread across several nights). I’m also not in a guild that actively organizes raids. We could though, we have the people. We have the gear for the most part, and I think that’s again one of those points where you determine just “How much is enough?”.

Anyone who’s been involved in organizations (school, volunteer, or otherwise) will probably understand this occurrence: You come up with something that seems like a really good/fun idea. So one day you pipe up and say “I think it would be really good/fun to do thing ‘X’”. And boom… just like that *you* are now in charge of organizing and running your idea.

That’s where I arrive at my theory of just how much is enough. To take my situation – I can continue to happily chat away with friends in the guild channel, run heroics, do dailies, and so on. If I want to raid, all I need to do is pipe up. I can put it on the calendar. In short, I need to organize my own damned raid (Not necessarily be raid leader mind you, but organize it and schedule it). In other words… I need to put more (time/effort) into the game.

Imagine that, a life lesson applying to World of Warcraft. Take a look..

The bleeding edge raider? They *do* the research on everything. They sink a lot of time in. Not just “in game”, but on theory sites. They’re on the test realms when they’re available. They spend thousands of gold on gems/enchants/etc. just looking for an edge.

The casual raider? They read the research (for the most part). They put in the time and/or gold to get the gear needed to get into the raids. They’re sometimes on the test realms. They take the time to learn the fights, but they didn’t have to write the strategies, only learn them. It still takes time though.

The fisherman? They had to take the time and effort to be able to learn fishing and get a fishing pole. As they advance at fishing, they may put in more effort to find different fish, but they don’t have to. They can fish happily away in a capital city if it’s just the act of fishing that they enjoy.

Hopefully by now you can see the point that I’m trying to get at here. When I started typing this it really was about the armor/gear in the game, but it sort of opened up on me (scope wise) as I started writing. Do some people sink too much into what is still, no matter what, a video game? Sure they do. People can do it with Madden football on their Xbox, too. In the end though, when you get rid of the outliers (those on the absolute fringe) I think you get to the group of wow’s player base. And each and every one of them decides, somewhere along the way, how much is too much for them. How much do I want to put into this game? Or to look at it from another angle… “How much can I put into this game before it stops being fun or interesting for me”. You go up to that point, usually a bit past it actually, and then realize the “sweet spot” of the game for your tastes. It may change over time of course. In the end though, for all the content in the game, each player decides exactly how much is just enough for them to have fun.

And isn’t that what a game is all about when you get right down to it?

Have fun folks!

A good friend is gone….

Not for real, but in the virtual world… gone. No the *person* isn’t gone, even from the virtual world, so I guess a bit of an explanation is in order.

Once upon a time (back before Wrath), Ponykeg and a bunch of other assorted alts were on another server. I was in a guild with some great people but the difference in time zones (I was eastern time, most of them were at least central – most pacific) meant there usually weren’t a lot of people online when I was. In the end, I got frustrated and considered leaving the game. Around this time, I was surfing the assorted WoW blogs that were out there. Big Red Kitty, Need More Rage, Big Bear Butt, WoW.com (Back then it was still WoW Insider), you get the point. That’s when it happened. I went to one of the other blogs I had found and had been reading. There was a new post, the writer’s guild was recruiting. They raided, but they were casual. Everything in what they said they wanted sounded like what I wanted. So I clicked on the link to the application and filled it out on the forums. I would have to start from scratch, no server transfer (I was Horde, they were Alliance. Faction change wasn’t around yet), but I applied. They approved, I had a new guild. And so the race to 80 was on.

A little bit later, the blog itself went quiet. It was still there though, and the author was doing well, maintaining the blog on top of everything else was just excessive. I can completely understand and appreciate that. Only so many hours in a day.

Yesterday I log into twitter though and I see a post (I refuse to call them tweets). Well, here’s the text:

I pressed the red button without meaning to yesterday and much like Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli, I spent most almost 24 hours trying to shift through the rubble.

This was in regards to a personal blog, but as soon as I read it I knew what it meant since it was on the wow blog’s domain. The wow blog was gone. Gun Loving Dwarf Chick had gone offline (It’s predecessor at Blogger lives on though, I checked).

So Breana, in case I never properly told you… Thanks for making WoW fun for me again. Thanks for bringing me into AUO, and thank you for introducing me to people like Krys, Fem, Rorik, Millie, and Fitz. Even though I’m a bit of a dwarf in hiding at the moment (I *can’t* show my face in Ironforge, I’m a dwarf with a crossbow for cryin’ out loud! They don’t *care* how nice it is, it isn’t a GUN! And I know you know that story.), I’m still having fun with the game.

See you on the blogs!
Signed:
Ponykeg,
Beermaker,
and the rest of the army of alts on Bleeding Hollow

Flame Warden (Holy cow, err maybe that should be shadow, he did it!)

See that shadow over there in the corner? The one sewing something? That’s a dwarf shadow priest. He’s in his 78th season, as they like to say. With a few hours to spare on Sunday he reached his 78th season and accomplished what he had set out to. He’s a Flame Warden now.

Getting to 78 was the key. Once he did, he got himself to Ironforge and trained. Can’t have Rankwatch whispering that your spells aren’t current, you know? Then it was a quick hop into the Looking For Dungeon function. A few minutes later and the queue for the Frost Lord came up. By the time the fight was over (fairly quickly, too) our little friend the shadow priest left the Slave Pens with a new cloak, a new tabard, 2 Emblems of Frost and a new enchanting recipe. A pretty good haul. Most importantly to him though, he left with a title next to his name.

So what’s next for him after leveling at a frenzied pace for the past week or so? Back to the quiet life for a bit. The grind took it’s toll and wiped out the rested XP he had. It’s also time to get the professions leveled up so they’re ready when he reaches his 80th season.

In the meantime, the hunter may get a chance to make a comeback finally. Maybe now he’ll be able to ditch the heroic level staff from Violet Hold.

I’ll admit it, I’ve been ignoring my hunter.

Poor Ponykeg.

I’m not entirely sure how it happened. I’ve gone back and tanked a bit on my warrior, managing to get the Frost Lord to drop his cloak. The thing that shocks me about that is I generally have horrible luck with regards to things like that.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that I’ve stopped enjoying playing the little guy. He’s gotten in and gotten his frost lord kill as well. There’s just not really anything other than the 2 frost emblems that he can use from downing Ahune again.

I’m pretty sure it’s a function of trying to get the summer meta achievement on my priest. I had leveled him into the low 70s and was goofing around with him in Northrend when I came across one of the summer flames. “Hey, this is decent gold and XP, let’s see how many I can get”. Next thing I know, I have them all. Alliance and Horde. I even hit the ones in Northrend. Then there’s the dailies. Then i find myself sneaking (Ok, more like making a mad dash) into Horde cities to steal the flames. Undercity was by far the easiest. Thunder Bluff was my favorite though. Grab fire, jump off the bluff and….. levitate! Land softly, hearth the heck out of there.

Now there’s only one thing left to do. The priest needs to get credit for downing Ahune, the Frost Lord. Then I’ll have the meta. Problem is, I’m running out of time. So I’ve been leveling him furiously. He’s now up to level 75. Thank goodness for heirlooms and the 10% xp bonus for spinning at the fire pole.

Once I get that, who knows. Maybe the hunter will draw me back in. Maybe I’ll grind the priest all the way to 80 and learn to heal. Or there is that long neglected mage sitting in Stormwind…..   Decisions, decisions…