Whirly: good to go

We discovered how much is too much WoW. It’s exactly three times in four days. We played our regularly scheduled Friday, a pickup day on Saturday and again Monday night. Everybody was getting a bit snippy, in a friendly way. We had nothing to talk about. How could we when there had been hardly any time between. I ended up searching the web for jokes. That’s when things turned snippy. Is it my fault the internet isn’t funny?

Monday we hit Mana Tombs. That first boss, Pandemonius, is just terrible I tell ya. I’m not sure we’ll ever get through him. He puts out tremendous damage. Then a short visit to Sethekk Halls, a minor mistake, and then Auchenai Crypts, our intended target. We didn’t do well, that’s a polite way to put it. After an hour of failure, we popped over to Blood Furnace to do our old nemesis The Maker. He went down fairly easy. He dropped nothing we could use, as usual.

It was less than a winning evening. So much so we decided to play AoC on Friday. That’ll show em. We were all around 17 with our grouping toons in AoC. The plan is to meet up Friday at 20. I’m not sure I’ll make it. I’m not enjoying playing all that much. This gaming life is hard.

We’ve had a couple very productive sessions. Friday we entered Underbog expecting to end at Hungarfen as usual. Not so. The fight went very smoothly - surprisingly easy. He dropped leather, of course. It’s hard to believe we had trouble with him before. I think we could farm him if we wanted to, but looking at his loot table I see nothing we can use. We fought our way to, but did not succeed in taking Ghaz’an. We tried twice, once with no knowledge of what to expect, and once with a plan. I see discussions of his acid spit being a forward arc affair. We didn’t find that to be true as he was able to spit on Mike and me when we were well behind. Oh well.

Saturday we had an impromptu run at Hellfire Ramparts. We didn’t know how long we would be able to play so chose to do something easy. Watchkeeper Gargolmar went down easy, as always. Omor the Unscarred also melted to our onslaught. Vazruden, not so easy, though we got closer to taking him than before. I think, if we were able to try again, we’d of taken him out. Not to be. One try per customer. It’s hard to justify clearing the whole zone to try him again. It’s more a matter of pride now. His loot probably isn’t that useful.

We dinged 67 in WoW Monday, Slave Pens. I can almost smell 70. It feels like we should be pushing forward towards that goal. But once we hit 70 what? They say the new expansion will come out in November. We don’t want to be in the first wave of people in the new stuff. There are millions of level 70s. It will be crazy.

It seems we have hit the wall with what a three person group can accomplish in WoW. We are failing against the same bosses we’ve been fighting for, what seems like, forever. At 67 my Priest gets a new flash heal that is 60 hit points better than the one I was using. That’s not going to turn the tide of any fight. We aren’t uber because of our new 67 spell upgrades, that’s for sure. Burning Crusades has been a disappointment for our small group, something I keep bringing up, but we have no attractive alternative.

Mark came to his senses about EQ. It’s just too slow for our 60 Priest / Enchanter. Using the Enchanter’s pet anyway. So we decided to do something else. For the time being we will duo in WoW. We found two toons of relatively close level, my 48 Hunter, and his 52 Rogue. We took them out for a successful quick test. My pet is a great tank, which works out for the back-stabbing rogue. I’m happy because I’ve been trying to level this Hunter anyway. I’m now tasked with soloing him to get our levels a little closer. I can grind-solo a hunter in my sleep, or even write this at the same time.

Mike and I have a Pally / Druid combo which is a great team. The Hunter / Rogue may not be as flexible, with no healing capability between us. We’ll be putting out lots of damage though which may work as well. I don’t think it will change my Hunters fighting technique much. Maybe a little more over here instead of over there, but I switch between the two anyway. I’ll just consider the Rogue as a DOT, or as an automated second pet that I don’t need to feed.

We considered Age of Conan and Lord of the Rings Online, both great games, before settling on yet more WoW. I’m not sure why we chose WoW. I guess it was just easier. It doesn’t matter all that much. It’s not a life commitment. We don’t duo that often. Mike and I have a regular schedule. Mark and I, not. Unlike in the old days of EQ, where we met. It seemed like we played every night back then.

Well, EQ purgatory continues. One good thing, my enchanter finally dinged level 60, it’s been nearly seven years. I didn’t have a copy of Koadic’s Endless Intellect (KEI) having given my copy to a co-worker who played. That was years ago and he promised to replace it if I ever reached 60. Of course he no longer plays. It took me a couple of days to find the spell in the auction house at 3000 plat, a lot of money. A good deal? I don’t know. I have no idea what things cost, but I had the cash and did the deed. Woowee! So far, I’ve cast KEI on myself only. I didn’t feel any different.

I know nothing about Wordpress. Once again they’ve made it easy to update. This is some fine mojo.

I updated so that I could manage and post this blog from my iPhone. I’m not sure there is any good reason to do so. It makes me feel productive even when I’m just screwing around.

Since the release of iPhone 2 I’ve been trying to let this thing take over my life.

Oops. I see I messed up my categories. Hmm, I can’t seem to get them back. I suppose I could restore from backup. I’m going to think about it. I’m not sure categories added anything.

Mike was working late so Mark and I played EQ. What can I say? Mark has rediscovered his love for EQ. I think he’s a little bit crazy.

We played my 59 Enchanter and his 60 Priest for about an hour in some dungeon next to the Scarlet Desert. Using the Enchanter’s pet we were able to kill the mobs, slowly. Back in the day we used a charmed mob instead of the pet. That was when we were playing our ‘A’ game. It’s been a few years since then and I didn’t feel ready for that challenge yet. I think I was duel boxing at the time. I may have had a Druid along for snares and what not.

We then tried a 53 Druid and a 56 Beast Master. Much easier to work with, though the Druid’s part was to snare the incoming mob, throw a damage over time, and occasionally a heal. It was rather slow. That is what EQ is, as I remember.

The interesting thing was we didn’t have voice chat back then. The slow pace of EQ made that possible I guess. We also had short hand for messaging. “Look out,” ment you had a Hill Giant (or something appropriate to the zone) behind you - move now. Also, I didn’t know Mark was crazy back then.