Whirly: good to go

What a crappy night. Half an hour into our 2 hour evening and we’ve died twice and killed nothing.

I was a little pooped of Uldaman so suggested Zul’Farrak. The first three mobs were all 45 with two healers. We wiped the first try and failed the second. We tried to sheep one of the Shaman and kill the other. We are 41 and the 45 Shaman wouldn’t stay sheeped. We just couldn’t get through the other shamans self healing. There is only so much three people can do.

Mark suggested Razorfen Downs as an alternative; we’ve not tried it with this group. Inside you can go left, level 35s no challenge, or right, 40 caster with four friends. We chose right and died. What a crappy night.

What to do? We were there, so had to try again. Success, success, success. We killed Glutton and marched on up the ‘Spiral of Thorns’. Our system was to shackle the caster and tank the other four. It worked great until the group right before the boss. It was a tight space, we lost control and died. It was past our camp time when we got back. I think Mark was in a killing frenzy and wanted to press on so we did.

I didn’t see much of our fight with Amnennar the Coldbringer. I saw he spawned reinforcements. I was completely focused on keeping everybody alive including me. It was a surprise when it ended. The boss went down and his friends poofed. I don’t think we could have lasted much longer.

Mark got a sword, not better than he has already, and we all finished a quest. What a great night.

My bard dinged 27 in the Lake of Ill Omen, fear kiting worked beautifully. Often, the fights ended with me at full health. Twisting bard songs is a one button process now. No longer is playing bard only for 13 year olds on speed. I ran to zone once, but, with the drum and the run-fast song, I left the mobs way behind. The 27 song is a charm. Something new to learn. It sounds dangerous.

I moved the 59 enchanter to Ocean of Tears and sure enough the seafuries are still there. They are light blue and good practice. I did four of them with no trouble, but my skills are very rusty. I don’t remember what the emergency procedure there is. I think you just run far away and camp. The enchanter has Jboots.

I’m enjoying EQ is small doses. For some reason soloing in EQ is ok where in WoW I’m finding it impossible. I’m sure it won’t last.

I moved the 26 bard to Lake of Ill Omen where I discovered the joys of fear kiting. You need a bit of room to pull it off, but it is just slick. It feels like they’ve increased the experience on the test server as well. I’ve played less than an hour and the bard is half-way to 27. Life as a bard is sweet.

I came up with a great idea to get my 59 enchanter started again. He has way too many spells, that I don’t remember, and I thought something easy would be best. How about a Hill Giant hunt? I was surprised to find a book to The Arena, sweet. A short run to Rathe Mountains and the Hill Giant area. Hey! Where are all the HG? They’ve been replaced by some flying bugs, green to me. Ok, HG would be green to me anyway, maybe those bugs are harder than they look, nope, they be punks.

I wonder if there are still giants in Ocean of Tears? Who would have guessed I was bound in Grieg’s End. That’s where I ended up after gate. Hmm, I didn’t remember where Grieg’s End was. Some guy jumped me. My Hill Giant stragedy wasn’t working on him, at all. I zoned into Scarlet Desert. I remember that place. The Grey – ick, Mons Letalis – ick, Marus Seru – ick, Netherbian Lair and back to good old Nexus. Whew, I was too tired to continue. I camped.

Another great thing about playing in a small group of friends is how we can enjoy even a wipeout. Even if somebody screws up, it’s funny. We were back in Uldaman Monday and had plenty of opportunity for funny, lots of leather drops we can’t wear and a nice belt upgrade for the priest.

We did only one boss, the one with a basilisk and two friends. We had to take a graveyard break in the middle. I think we had to do him in two waves last year as well. Then one day we could take all four. It’s probably a level thing.

Mark was having teamspeak problems so Mike and I were able to talk about him behind his back. We slowly went back to text messaging which I still feel is more stately. Voice chat is just easier though. Plus, everybody can here when you lol.

I’ve been playing EQ. I leveled my new bard to 4 at the wood elf city. On the test server they have a /testbuff command that raises you to level 25 with not bad equipment and all your skills and spells. The level 25 players are called buffys. I became one and figured a run across the world was in order.

I miss the boats, but I hated waiting for the boats. I hear they are talking about bringing them back. Freeport is completely new. It’s been EQ2’d. I was just passing through. I would be there still if it weren’t for the in game map. Everything else between Freeport and Qeynos seemed about the same. I made the trip without incident. A bard with a drum is hard to catch.

While passing, I notice the Craig spiders in East Karana were blue and good candidates for a little experience grinding. I forgot what down time was like. A complete wipeout can be shorter in WoW than recovering from a simple fight in EQ. It did give time to study how to play a bard. At least, a solo, spider killing, bard. I remember reading books while soloing in EQ.

So, I’ve killed a few spiders. I’m healing, in a spot I’ve sat a million times, when a dwarf named Drevelon Knackngbbe runs up and hits me for 609 damage which just happened to be all the hit points I had left. While running back naked from Rivervale, thank goodness I thought to bind there, I had an opportunity to reflect on my lost experience and one of the things I hated about EQ – random deaths. The kind that just happened for no particular reason. Something bad pops and kills everything in sight.

I moved my location a little and am busy killing spiders. I’ve got the system down fairly well. They have improved bard life considerably with the /melody command. I may ding 26 tonight. 26 is still considered a buffy. I guess it continues as long as you wear buff equipment. I wonder if there is a market for these spider silks on test these days.

I hear the Over There is a hot spot for extra experience at my level. Without boats I’m not sure how to get there unless you wanted to run from Firiona Vie. I spose a bard could make it through Frontier Mountains. Oh, hey, the book from Plane of Knowledge of course. Forgot about that. There is so much to remember.

Call me crazy, well, you don’t have to call me crazy, but I did a crazy thing last night. I’ve been thinking about it for some time. I don’t know why. I installed, patched and played EQ. It’s as close to Vanguard beta as I’m likely to get.

What a hard game. I had one hell of a time figuring out how to do anything. I tried some old characters, it didn’t work out. If there is a way to tell what spells do, I couldn’t find it. I found the interface almost completely alien. Five years I played this game. All that knowledge gone.

I created a new bard thinking it would be easier with fewer choices. I died to a bat. Then an orc camped my corpse and I died again. I pulled the orc to the newbie guards, but at level 1 you don’t need to loot your corpse. I dinged level 2 and didn’t have the cash for the next song. I seem to recall it was an AE thing that only got newbie bards into trouble anyway.

I had some graphics problems. Initially it was working fine, but I couldn’t leave well enough alone and ended up with no scenery, only me. It worked when I switched to windowed mode but not full screen. I never did solve that. The graphics are dated, of course. You can turn on shadows thought and that’s kind of cool.

I played on test, back in the day, so that’s where I poked around. I saw not one other player. Maybe this weekend I’ll try to patch to a production server and see what it’s like with people.

I didn’t have to activate my old account. I just logged in. It must be some welcome back thing. It was like playing a whole new, not very plesent, game.

I’ve discovered something that helps with those boring long grinds, books on CD. I often listen to music, using iTunes, while playing. I was given a book on CD for my birthday, ‘The Poisonwood Bible’, and found listening while soloing made it easier. After finishing that book I picked up another and now another at the public library.

There is a downside though. Just as you can stay up too late reading, you can do the same listening. I’ve gotten my 24 druid to 28. It would have been a complete bore without the books. Well, it was a bore, but the books helped.

I couldn’t stay long last night so we popped into Scarlet Monastery to give Scarlet Commander Mograine another shot. We took him down last time, on our third try of the night, and I was wondering if it was a fluke. It wasn’t.

We worked through him and his girl friend with little trouble. No healing or mana potions were required. I think we were all surprised how easy it was. It seems that once we’ve killed a boss it becomes trivial. Just knowing that we can, makes it easy.

I think we could farm him now easy enough, plus the experience is still good for us there, but I’m looking at a list of his regular drops and I don’t think we need any of that stuff now. Since Mark’s warrior hit 40, and is using plate, we don’t want his mail armor drops. Grinding through stuff with no challenge is a bore anyway. We’ll probably not go back.

I did get one of Whitemane’s Chapeau - the red hat. The stats are good: 52 Armor, 14 Spirit, 14 Intellect, 9 Stamina. I guess I’ll have to put up with it for a while.

I replaced my 2.4 gig Intel processor with a 3 gig. It wasn’t problem free.

My logic board has the 478 processor socket which is getting a bit old. The only processor available, from my supplier of choice, was the 3 gig. I’m thinking the 578 socket is near end-of-life and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to get replacements. I could buy a new logic board, processor and faster memory, but probably not for the $107 the processor cost. Anyway, that was my thinking. I’m hoping this will extend the life of my system by a year or two.

I installed the processor and a new Zalman cooling system on my Asus P4P800 Deluxe logic board – nothing, it’s dead. I put the old processor back in – runs great. Hmm, I put the new processor back in – nothing. A lot of research on the internet led me to believe I needed to flash my bios. That wasn’t pretty either, but eventually I was able to update my bios from version 1005 to 1019 and the new processor worked wonderfully.

Does the extra 600 MHz make a big difference? Naa. It’s a little faster booting and everything is a bit snappier and that’s it. It didn’t seem slow to me before. It’s a little more not-slow now.

The new Zalman cooling system wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped. It was supposed to be very quiet. I guess my old Intel fan wasn’t all that noisy after all because it’s not quieter now. I’ve turned down the Zalman fan speed and it’s fine, though I can still hear it.

This processor runs hot they say. It’s idling at about 37c and at load is in the mid 40s. I’m keeping my eye on it. They say the top end is 86c. If it gets more than 47 I’ll turn the fan speed up. Wish me luck.

We visited our old friend, Commander Mograine, in Scarlet Monastery Friday. Turns out, we were tackling him all wrong. After Mograine is resurrected, you’ve got to kill him again, then the healer. It seemed crazy, but we tried doing the healer first, twice, and died both times. We switched to Mograine out of frustration and no other option available.

Mike got one of those red hats as loot. It looks good, he’s a troll, and we all finished the kill-all-the-SM-bosses quest. I got an off hand stick with nice stats out of the quest, but I use a 2 handed staff that cost me a lot of money; I’m not giving it up just yet. I suppose we’ll go back in for more loot. I don’t really want one of the hats though. It just don’t suite me, if you know what I mean.

We were getting close to 40, new mounts, new spells, so decided to solo for it. Mike and I didn’t actually solo, we duoed on Saturday. We did the same thing with a pally/druid recently. I think it was easier with mage/priest. We had a run-away situation, but there were 4 or 5 mobs on us at the time. It ended with us at full mana, ready to go. There was very little down time. We shielded up and used wands. The hard part was walking over and looting.

At 40, we hearthstoned back to Orgrimmar and wandered around looking for the place to buy mounts. Mike figured it out, Sen’jin Village, over by the newbie zone. I picked emerald, they all look about the same, except emerald, who looked,,, special.