How To Annoy People in MMOs, Part Whatever

There's a new sheriff mount in town.

The $30 Blizzard Cash Store Warforged Nightmare party mount.

This Guy.

You read that right: party mount. You can click on an item and get the mount for the duration of the instance/raid/BG/whatever.

But what they didn't tell you is that it combines the sparkle pony's ubiquity with the Lil' XT's mind boggling annoying sounds.

The noise was so bad from having about 13 of these at the starting gate in an Arathi Basin run that I turned my sound off.  There was no way in hell I was going to click on the totem/whatever-it-is to get my own mount, and neither was a Mage.

"Get with the program!" one of the fellow Alliance BGers said.

"No thanks," I replied. "Blizz gets enough of my money, and I don't want to encourage them."

I could only imagine the obnoxious sounds of 13 metallic mounts clanking and steam whistling away. This isn't the "clink clink clink" of a Gnomish mount, but something right out of the Molten Core.*

Gah.

I do have to hand it to Blizz in that they do give the people what they want --or at least they think they want-- but hearing this noise is almost too much.



*Not literally, but it sure does look like it could have come out of Blackrock.

Don't you mess wit' my people, or there might be an accident. Capiche?

I have found the new Hillsbrad, and it is called Hellfire Peninsula.

The past few weeks, I've been hanging out in Hellfire while groups of (primarily A-52) Horde invade Honor Hold and the Temple of Telhamat, ganking everyone and everything in sight. The cold war of the Stadium/Overlook/Broken Hill has turned hot ever since A-52 and its 10:1 Horde:Alliance imbalance was lumped in with Ysera.

There are times when I'm the lone L90 in Hellfire Peninsula and I have to simply grit my teeth and take it when a group of 6-8 Horde sweep down on Honor Hold, slaughtering everything in sight. If it were a bunch of Horde L60 toons doing this, I'd probably not care, because the fight would at least be a fair one. But when it's instead a bunch of L90s wearing Conquest badge gear doing the ganking, I really get annoyed.

Some people would leave, and others would try and tilt at windmills for a while, but that's not me.  I might not be able to stop the onslaught at Alliance bases, but I can skip over to Thrallmar or Falconwing, exacting an eye for an eye.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some lone juggernaut who is able to wipe out an entire settlement, and I do often get caught by the same Horde group rushing back to defend their own base, but I also don't gank their own lowbies. I don't sink completely to their level.

But all is not lost for the Alliance.

Eventually someone either calls their guildies or makes it to Shattrath and sends out a plea over Trade Chat, and the cavalry comes running. There was one time a few days ago when a pair of Hunters and a Shaman thought Honor Hold would be easy pickings, never guessing that myself, another Rogue, a Hunter, and a Feral Druid were waiting in ambush.

The results were messy. For them.

"AND STAY OUT!" I shouted when we'd dispatched the last of them.

Ramblings while in search of coffee on a Monday morning...

There's been some more fallout from the Rob Pardo incident.

Rades has unsubbed.

I'll miss his voice, but he insists that his decision will not impact From Draenor With Love.

Kurn, over at Kurn's Corner, has a very in-depth post talking about how social media impact the wider world. It's close in length to a Cynwise post, but very much worth the read. There's even a Ratters appearance in the comment section.

***

I don't often read Twitter, but it seems that more than a few bloggers I know have invaded Wildstar. I'm not sure how well that will go, but I wish them luck.

Also, given the whole explosion from WoW-space (see the first musing), I'm not sure how well Wildstar will hold up, either.

1927 screen icon or Wildstar character?
You decide.

***

This week is exam week at the kids' schools, so I don't really have a lot to talk about from that perspective. I will mention that two of them rolled up Smugglers and one a Trooper, and they're all loving the class stories so far. (Apparently Corso is "soooo cute". Who knew?)

***

I hope your Monday has been going better than mine has so far. I really need to go get some coffee now....


EtA: Apparently my issues with punctuation include the period. Corrected.