Not Much.... You?

I'd like to say that there's something important or earth shattering that prodded me to post, but... not really.

Oh, I don't have the summer doldrums or anything, but there's not much to report.  I'm still grinding through Loremaster, I'm still getting comfortable having an Alliance alt, I'm still prepping for migrating some more toons over to Ysera.  Even the random "Join Guild" requests I get on my alts seem to be dying down.

So there's a whole lot of "not much" going on.

However, there are a few tidbits I've discovered over the past week that I want to share:

• I don't know about your server, but on the Area 52 Auction House, the Moss Agates and Jade are going for more than Dream Shards and Infinite Dust.  A matter of supply and demand at its best; nobody is mining/prospecting the low level stuff, and it shows.  When you've got 5+ pages of Dream Shards, there's too much supply.
• For the PuGs I was in, Amber Void was harder to achieve than Ruby Void.  Admittedly, I don't ask if anyone wants to go for the achievements; that's almost a guarantee for someone to drop, especially in the early-morning-before-work runs.  But when someone else is interested -and I have the spare time- I'm happy to accommodate them.  I finally got some people interested in trying for Ruby Void in The Oculus, so we did it in near record time.
• I have bad luck in getting those rare drops.  Here's a running total of drops that I haven't seen since, oh, January or February:  Reins of the White Polar Bear, Tiny Emerald Whelping, Azure Whelping, Dark Whelping, Reins of the Blue Drake, and Battered Hilt (only once, the second time I went through Pit of Saron, and haven't seen it drop since).  Perhaps I was spoiled in getting that Tiny Crimson Whelping to drop in 45 minutes worth of grinding...
• I really enjoy the Draenei starting zones.  Of the starting areas I've played in so far, I like the Draenei starting zones better than all save for the Blood Elf starting zone.  I still find it fascinating that the Blood Elf starting zone makes absolutely no mention of Draenei at all; in fact, if you hang around the Bazar enough you'll find some commoners debating whether or not the Sin'dorei should abandon the Alliance and align with the Horde.  (Wouldn't that have been entertaining, the Draenei go to Azeroth to find the Alliance only to discover that the hated Blood Elves are in the Alliance?)
• I'd forgotten how funny the BE representatives at the various Horde locations are.  There's the Magistrix in Tarren Mill is in trying to keep her obvious disgust over the Forsaken from showing:  "It's our duty to help these... these... people."  The Advisor in Stonebreaker Hold:  "I must have made a misstep somewhere to be assigned here."  The Magistrix at Freewind Post in Thousand Needles:  "What’s a sin'dorei doing standing on the top of a windswept butte in Thousand Needles instead of the halls of Silvermoon?"
• I saw something I'd never thought I'd see:  A Hordie attacking the Goblin Flight Engineer at Ratchet.  My guess is that he was going for the Exalted with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, but no guarantees there.
• I was under the impression that the people in my guild had forgotten that I came along with Souldat and Millalyn in transferring from Stormscale.  Nobody said anything, and I didn't feel like pouring lemon juice in people's wounds in reminding them about how things ended up.  Well, I was surprised on Friday when a couple of guildies asked me how Soul was doing, and whether I still hook up with him or not.  From the discussion that ensued, I was under the impression that they still liked ol' Soul; I guess he still has that charmer in him. ;-)
• Speaking of guildies, I've gotten used to being the only one on early in the morning when I do most of my WoW activities.  However, these past few weeks there has been quite a few new people logging in and playing before work.  I don't think I started a trend, but they all seem to be IT people as well; for them, the odd hours aren't that big a surprise.

Anyway, there you have it. 

So.....  Whatcha been up to that hasn't made it into a blog post?

PVP Changes in Cataclysm

This topic is rather old, but I think it's interesting.

"■Honor points: These are the lower-tier PvP points, and will be gained from most PvP activities. There will be a maximum amount a player can have, but no cap on how quickly they can be earned.
■Conquest points: These are the higher-tier PvP points, and will be awarded from rated battlegrounds and arenas. There will be a cap on both the amount owned as well as how quickly they can be earned."

So what does this mean exactly? It means pretty much the same system as now, with the exception of rated battlegrounds giving you conquest points.

This brings up one major concern for me now.  Rated battlegrounds will more than likely increase the number of battleground AFKers, because who wouldn't want to earn free arena points?  Even though I'm sure you'll either get MORE points if you win, or none at all, people will still do it.

Additionaly, seeing as I'm Alliance now, I'm screwed on rated battlegrounds. /facepalm  Why are all of you content to just hand a victory over to the Horde?  Because they win more and you automatically assume we're done for the moment you zone in? 

I did a number of random battlegrounds on my warrior last night and EVERY time, one group of 3 people to mage tower, one group of 3 people to the dranei ruins, and THE REST OF THE TEAM ON THE FLAG..ZOMG GET THE FLAG!!!  This strategy is stupid and guarantees a loss, because as the horde will typically do, take their two points, leave the flag alone, and launch an attack party at a third base.  Which, myself being one of the three people at said control point, start swearing up a storm because the rest of the Alliance is still content to get the ZOMG SHINY FLAG, MUST GET!!!  Well hey, that's great.  You've got the flag, and nowhere to capture it.

There is some good that will come of the changes to the pvp system though...

"Most PvP items will have their personal rating requirement removed."

This opens the previously unattainable high end pvp gear to players who may not like arena, or may not perform well in arenas.  Also, and most importantly, this opens weapons to those players who do not have access to higher end raid content weapons due to either not raiding or the position you fill in the raid not affording you the chace to aquire the weapons you need (i.e. sword and board tank wanting a sweet two hander..well assuming the weapons have the ratings removed).

Source

Back on the topic of rated battle ground for a parting note:  If there's going to be rated battlegrounds, I want an R rated one.  A panty raid on silvermoon.  Well, actually, that's more than likely a BAD idea.  Who knows what the male butt elfs wear.  *shudder*

Good bye Area 52. I'm going old school.

So I was going to try to keep from writing about this, but writing is a good catharsis for me...

The first thing I will say is that I really believe now that 90% of people aren't who they seem to be. When you play this game, you form friendships with people... whether its intentional or not. It just happens because of the social aspect of this game. You spend hours each night with these people so that you can kill a douchelord who likes to spit up ooze on you, throw beach balls into your face, or bombs all over the room and blow you off the platform.

Maybe its a personality flaw of mine... I hate to think its a flaw, but maybe it really is... I have faith in people - regardless of all the shit I've been through in my life. I placed faith in a group of people and thought of them as friends. I did a lot for the guild and these people... yet a couple of them found it to be fun to pin something all on me and then portray me as the bad guy.

I found out that these people were saying that I did nothing at all for the guild - I only did what I did because I was told to do it which is the complete opposite of what actually happened. Everything I did was done on my own time at my own will. I also found out that they said they only kept me in the guild because I was just a "hot voice in vent".

Just to give you an idea of what I did for this guild - I created the banner for the guild website, I created the guild application, I kept tabs on the guild bank - I could recite to you from memory what was in that bank and who took out what or deposited what, not to mention I sank about 3k gold to help start that guild bank. I also talked to recruits because a couple of officers didn't want to saying that "they aren't a people person". Whenever someone had a problem they came to me. If someone got GKicked, that person messaged me and I had to play Public Relations. I've even had other officers/GMs of other guilds come to me with a complaint. Not to mention that if the GM/Raid leader wasn't online at raid time, I started the raid group and had to make the decision on who to take to raid and who to sit out... and I did my absolute best while in raid.

Thankfully, a few people stuck up for me and had my back - regardless of their personal feelings for me, they found it childish and ridiculous. To those few, I thank and will always be grateful.

Because of the drama and amount of hurt they caused me, I'm leaving Area 52. Now, I know that regardless of where you go, drama happens... It will always happen because of the number of people who come in contact with each other... but I just can't stay on Area 52 because of transpired... what this drama entailed (I didn't go into the "meat" of this drama), and the people involved... Unfortunately, I'll never be able to escape what happened because of these people.

I'm going to Tichondrius. I'm going old school. Tichondrius is a PVP server that has been around since the first day. I'll be joining my brother's guild, Blur. They are the #3 guild on the server and are currently working on killing Lich King Hardmode in 25man. Right now, I'm not geared to join in on their Hardmode runs, but I am able to run with their alts (who are nearly as geared as my priest) to get gear and clear content I have yet to see.

Well, anyway... I guess my only advice is to keep your eyes open... It doesn't matter how comfortable you get with a group of people or how good of friends they seem, there is always the possibility that they'll turn on you whenever they feel convenient or even funny.

To my friends staying on Area 52 - I wish you all good luck and I'll see you around.

To the people who talked shit about me - I hope you grow up and see the error of your ways. You lost a friend - the kind of friend that is rare. Its sad that you got your jollies off by listening to my voice in vent... its sad that you disregarded the fact that I'm a real person... a person who would have done anything for you as a friend and anything for the guild.

Mixing RP and Other Servers

Okay, before I get to the main topic, one thing needs to be said:

Me and my big mouth.

I'd written yesterday about how I only tank in emergencies when LFD spewed me into Violet Hold.  (What, you were expecting that I'd be watching Lost?  Nah, that's my wife's addiction, but it did allow me some play time.)  Well, it was a strange grouping, to say the least.  Two mages, a Tree, a DK tank, and Quint.  The first three looked like new 80's judging by their gear, while the tank and I were a bit more on the purple side.  The first bunch of pulls went okay if slow; I had to really dial back on my hits to keep from pulling aggro, and the mages didn't have a lot of firepower.  We got the Void Demon boss, and about 4-5 minutes later we knocked him out.

Then, a couple of pulls into the next phase, the DK tank stops moving.  "I'll BRB; have to go move clothes to the laundry room," he says.  "Pally, you tank."

While I was trying to formulate a response, the next portal opened.

"Use Righteous Fury," was his parting shot.

I know that, I thought.  I just want people to keep me upright.

Luckily, the trash mob was just a Portal Guardian, so that wasn't so bad.  I could see my health bouncing around like a ping-pong ball, and at one point I dumped Lay on Hands on myself, but I survived.

Then DBM announced "Boss Incoming."

Oh.

Crap.

About the only good thing I could say then was that it was the Water Elemental boss.  "Tank?" one of the mages called.  "You back?"

No reply.

"Joy," I said, and pulled aggro.  I almost immediately dropped to 1K, and had to do something to preserve myself.  Lay on Hands was on cooldown, so I had no choice but to bubble and then chase after the boss before she turned the Tree into so much splintered wood.

Finally, the tank returned from doing his laundry and pulled aggro.  Everything returned to normal, sort of.  "Hey, you did fine," he said.

"Dude, if you look up 'tank' in the dictionary, you won't find my name there."

That's what I get for displeasing the WoW gods.

Now, on to other business.  I was perusing the Battlegroups listings yesterday when I noticed that the roleplaying realms were grouped in with the PvE and PvP realms.  Since both the Arenas and the LFG tools use those listings, I wondered why the RP servers were set up that way.  You'd think that the RP servers would be grouped together, so that there's not a lot of metagame talk going on, but I guess that's not the case.

For those of you who play on RP realms, do you simply suspend your RP for the duration of those instance and BG runs?  From the perspective of a long time PnP roleplayer, it would be very hard to remain in character while everybody else is talking about other stuff.  (Yes, I know, that assumes people are talking at all, but still...)  What do you do?  Do you try to remain in character?  Do you even bother?  Should the RP realms be grouped into their own separate Battlegroup to preserve their identity?

One last item (I swear) and then I'm done for the day.  The last couple of runs through Halls of Stone, I've noticed a couple of interesting things:  DBM no longer provides a countdown in the Protect Bran encounter, and there's an AoE that happens after the archive voice says that things are fine.  For the former, it's an add-on, so I'm not surprised too much about that.  As for the latter, at first I thought it was a debuff that someone had not paid any attention to, but during yesterday's run the healer exclaimed "WTH is that?!" and he immediately died.

"Did anyone see anything?" he demanded.  "I was at full health, the encounter was over, and then BAM!"

"I didn't," I replied while I rezzed him.

"I wasn't even close to the beam, either," he added.

Interesting.

Tanks and Tanks Once More

Who, me?

No thanks.  I only tank in emergencies.

However, I'm thinking about the tanking writer of this blog.  The one who loves his DK Tank and has some old fashioned love for his long suffering Warrior Tank.  The same one who isn't sure what to do with creating a toon to run through low level instances with.

Yeah, I know, he could do a Pally tank, but he has one of those, and he's not thrilled with him.

He already has a Warrior.

So why not be a Big Bear Butt tank?

Okay, I know one reason he'd have issues:  the Night Elf in general.  Aside from that, however, Druid Tanks hold their aggro quite well, thank you very much, and I have to admit I've got a lot of respect for the Druid Tanks I've pugged with.  No, I'm not suggesting he hang out as a Tree --that's not his style-- but a Bear?  Yeah, I can see that.

It Needed to be Said

93 Quests down, only 2907 to go.

Not sure if I'm going to bear listening to "Good Health, Long Life!" for the next several months, however.  (Obviously these Draenei quest givers have never set foot in an instance.)

Just in Case you Don't Read It

Go now.

Go to Achtung Panzercow and read Linedan's Top Ten Predictions for Cataclysm.