Whirly: good to go

I’ve recently started a Tauren Druid on a low population server because of the long queue on my regular server. The first quest that wowed me back in stress-test was the Tauren vision quest. I even emailed Mike and Mark about it, trying to capture how much it blew me away.

I’ve done the quest a few times now and again last night. Since a patch or two ago it’s broke. You can do the quest but the vision kitty doesn’t appear. It’s not quite as magical without the kitty. No other quest has impressed me quite the same. Too bad it’s gone.

Too bad about the half-hour queue as well. I don’t know what to do about it, quit?

We’ve been having some trouble finding time to play lately because of work and what not. Mike and I both can’t make it next Tuesday. Me, because I’ve got to work a school board meeting, Mike, because he has to work the state of the union address. That Mike is a very competitive guy. He had to one-up me even on this. Not really

Being level 58 isn’t the dream I thought it would be. I figured our last spell level before 60 would make us uber. It hasn’t. My major upgrade is Sunder Armor which I use all the time. It now reduces the target’s armor by 450. Stack that 5 times and you’ve got a total of 2250 less armor on the target; everybody in the group is able to do him more damage. Mobs hate Sunder Armor which gives me sweet, sweet, aggro.

I also get an upgrade to Thunder Clap which I use when I charge. It’s the reason I charge, and slows 4 targets attack-speed by 10% for 30 sec. I use it as an opener when we have a large group to break. 10% less damage when you’ve got a group is a good thing. Plus, the sweet, sweet, aggro.

I don’t know much about Mage or Priest, but it looks like their 58 spell upgrades are designed to get the Warrior killed. We’ll never be uber I guess.

I messed up big time, but before I found that out, Blizzard messed up big time. Tuesday, one of our normal fight nights, we spent the first half hour trying to connect. Blizzard was blaming their internet provider, what ever, we couldn’t get in. Well, Mike and I couldn’t. Mark was in-game wondering where we were. He logged out , joined us in voice chat and we all waited, trying to get in, discussing our options.

We don’t have any. Although Blizzard is making WoW almost unplayable, with their queue and what not, what else is there? We’ve tried everything remotely interesting and all believe WoW is best. We played for years on EQ test so our tolerance for server kookiness might be higher than most. 5.5 million WoW subscribers can’t be wrong.

So how’d I mess up big time? I spent the weekend raising my Engineering skills high enough to make a bomb that might blow the door in Blackrock Depths. I collected all the ingredients, but forgot to make any of the bombs. I thought about blowing that door all day. That would have been sweet.

I have a very good reason why my Mining and Engineering aren’t as high as they should be. We do instances, see. And, I’m the puller, don’t you know. I’ve got other things to think about than Mining when we are working. Without Mining, my Engineering isn’t up to snuff. That sounds resonable doesn’t it?

Sure I could mine solo, what fun would that be? I’m doing it so let me tell you. It is soooo boring, not fun at all. I raised my Mining from 225 to 236 today, woo hoo. My Engineering is even lower so I can’t use any of the Mithril I’ve collected.

I wouldn’t spend any time at this, but I’d like to make jumper cables some day. There have been a couple times when they probably wouldn’t have helped at all. What a waste. This mining has put me in a bad mood I guess.

I’ve been playing my, now 21, Rogue all wrong. He’s not a melee toe-to-toe kind of guy. He has to stealth/ambush, stun/backstab the mobs. It seems obvious you’d play a Rogue that way now. When done properly, he takes very little damage. The mobs fall too fast for that.

Rogue may be too twitchy for my liking. I’ve always preferred fighting in a more gentlemanly manner when soloing. You stand over there and die; I’ll come over and loot your corpse after. I’ve got a 60 Hunter in WoW by sending the pet, over there, and tossing arrows in that general direction.

I may switch back to my Warlock. He’s a send the pet, over there, kind of guy.

My Rogue dinged 20 quicker than I expected. I’m struck with how much damage he takes each fight. I was forced to fight mobs no higher than 19 to survive. If I picked up an add I had to run immediately or die. I thought Rogues were famous for how easy they are to play. He seems too soft, easy to kill, dependent on bandages and healing potions.

When I returned to Ironforge I checked the auction house for gear and although his stuff is a bit dated it isn’t all that bad. I must be doing something wrong. I did a little research and I guess you want a big-damage, slow weapon in your primary hand for the special moves and a fast weapon in your off hand. OK I can do that. Guess there’ll be more twinking going on.

I moved my 57 Warrior into position to make a mining run, something I understand.

Mike and I have known each other for decades and, although we haven’t seen each other in 15 years, we’ve been playing online with voice chat for years. It’s a pleasant addition to our game play.

Mark and I have been playing together online for 5ish years. I’ve never met or talked with him. Last night, for the first time, he heard the sound of my voice via voice chat. He, as yet, has no microphone so it was one way communication. I was a bit self-conscious. We’ve had a great online friendship. How will this new twist change that?

We tried some new content in Blackrock Depths last night with great success. How much was our play improved by voice chat? Maybe none. We did establish that Mike has a cure for a curse the mobs have been putting on me. Without voice, we never arrived at that solution. Play with text chat, only, seems more formal. You can edit or delete your thoughts before sending. You share less of yourself. With voice we can discuss complex issues easily. I’m optimistic.

My Priest dinged 28 in Thousand Needles. I purchased my new spells that included an upgrade to my hello nuke, heal (3 sec? ouch), and I can now fear 3 mobs for 8 seconds (something I rarely use). I parked the Priest in Ironforge to gain zzz rest and moved my 19 Rogue into position to reach 20 this week.

Mike and I joined WoW early. We stood around IronForge talking, using Roger Wilco, and waiting for Mark. I thought I saw a message saying Mark had connected, but we were disconnected to the “Loading Characters” select screen, which took a good while. It was even longer getting back into game. It looked like everybody got booted. Mark showed up and we decided on Blackrock Depths.

There was a large group of players around the Griffon Master. Too many to find him until we realized why the large group, the Griffon Master wasn’t there. No NPCs were in IronForge. Eventualy, we decided to run to Blackrock Depths for something to do. There were no mobs in the zones we passed until we reached the instance, which was fully populated.

Just as we entered the instance, they messaged the server was going to be restarted in 15 minutes. We worked for 13 then camped inside. It was 10 minutes before we could get back. We found ourselves in different instances, solved by exiting and re-entering.

Nothing special to report with the instance except I thought Mike and I using voice-chat helped. Hopefully, we’ll have Mark using soon.

I updated this place to WordPress 2 this weekend with little effort or understanding. They craft fine documentation. It doesn’t look any different other than the admin functions, that I can tell.

I read today, a website visitor decides in just 50 milliseconds if they like it or not. I wish I could think of something funny to say about that, but 50 milliseconds don’t give much time for a punch line. I guess it just has to look funny. Oh, maybe a smiley face

Mike and I, and hopefully Mark, are setting up to try Roger Wilco (voice chat) while playing WoW. Mike and I used it years back for our Saturday gaming before he got unlimited minutes and we switched to telephone. I think voice communications could give us an extra edge in our play. It does on Saturday.