Lich King + Buff = People Going Bananas

Having watched the population on the Wrath Classic servers swell from pre-patch through the launch to now, I can safely confirm that the old saying "a rising tide lifts all boats" applies to WoW. 

It's a shame, really, that people abandoned the smaller population servers to create these megaservers, because I've found enough people out and about in Azeroth on Myzrael-US that are looking to have fun that there was really no need to leave. 

But here we are, and all the wishing in the world can't change what happened.

***

So...

This post isn't about that, but rather this video:

You see, I wasn't the only person who noticed that there were more people out in the Classic environment. The title of this post references a line that All-Trades Jack made in the video:

"I also just wanted to point out how easy it was for Blizzard to make Classic a bit more popular and bring people back to the game. All they have to do is say 'Wrath' and give a 50% XP buff and people go fucking nuts."

--All-Trades Jack, from Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves World of Warcraft.. For Now

And another thing I noticed while watching the video was, well...

I circled it in yellow so you could
see the guild name.
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

"Hey," I blurted out. "That's Variance." My first thought was that this was an old video clip, in the pre-exodus days, and I was looking at an instance from Myzrael-US.

Then I noticed...

Again, highlighted for ease of observation.
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

The Anti-Drama Society is an Atiesh-US guild, so All-Trades Jack must be on Atiesh-US.

This was confirmed by this last one:

You can't really tell, but that's because
his quest lists kept getting in the way
when I'd do screen caps.
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

That's Rage Against the Murlocs, another Atiesh-US guild, and one that I've a couple of acquaintances in. (They're more my questing buddy's friends than my own, which is why I said acquaintances.)

So I was amused by All-Trades Jack's utilization of the Atiesh-US server for his videos.

Still, that does color my perception a bit. I don't think he's aware of the "Great Myzrael Mass Migration Event", which is why a lot of newer toons showed up on the server. Admittedly most of those are max level, but still an influx of about 1000 raiders will have an impact on server populations.

And there's a very real connection between that YouTube video and my own activities, one that had me combing the background to see if Deuce showed up somewhere.

(Narrator: She didn't.)

***

Overall, I thought it a good video, although I disagreed with his characterization of Classic Era as dead. Compared to, say, Grobbulous-US, Atiesh-US, or Pyrewood Village-EU Classic Era appears dead, but as Shintar's numerous posts on the matter confirm Classic Era still has an active population that is simply not that concerned with what a lot of Wrath Classic's population is into.

I was kind of nonplussed about All-Trades Jack's suggestion about having more wacky servers from the WoW Classic team as one-off events, although to be honest I could get behind some of the ideas he had, such as having Hogger as an end boss. Sure it sounds funny at first, but wouldn't it be just how some of these stories would end up? That it turns out the evil mastermind wasn't Kel'Thuzad at all, but rather Hogger, someone you bypassed and ignored after you left Elwynn Forest?

Speaking of ignoring things, there's
Kira, oblivious to the fight surrounding
her. Somewhere, Card and Linna
are facepalming right now.
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

But I will say that I suspect that All-Trades Jack is a Jaina Proudmoore fan. Why would I believe that?

Look at all the hearts...
Oh, don't give me that, you can see the
hearts as plain as day. I sure can, just like
how I can see that Jaina's eyes are blue. :-P
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

Oh, no reason....

EtA: Corrected some grammar by removing a few commas.

Meme Monday: Great White North Thanksgiving Edition

Yes, today is Canadian Thanksgiving, or as Canadians call it, Thanksgiving.

If you know people from Canada --Hi, Vid and Voss!!-- make sure to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving today!

When my first Jedi character in SWTOR
--a Shadow-- reached Coruscant, my thoughts
were along these lines. From Pinterest.

"the gods of interesting decree
you should check that out."
--My ex-DM, probably
From Pinterest.

"Those Were The Days."
Sometimes, I just want to hear
The Fifth Dimension's version of this
song. From demotivational.

Maybe I ought to cover the
Traveller RPG, but you could
put any RPG map in there.
And yes, those are star systems.
Hope your crew isn't being chased
by the Zhodani or the Sword Worlds.
From Pinterest.

EtA: Corrected a grammatical issue.

An Homage of Sorts

When I first started poking around on Atiesh-US, I thought about resurrecting the old guild name I was a member of on Ysera-US, Is Up To No Good. Instead, I created that guild on Myzrael-US as a home for some of my alts, such as Az and Linna. 

Something about Linna's Mona Lisa-esque
smile fits that guild name perfectly.

But if nothing else, I wanted to put a guild together on Atiesh-US for Deuce. I'd discovered the joy of having an entire guild bank to yourself, and I figured that if I was going to have an alt over on Atiesh it'd be nice to have a mammoth amount of space for oddball junk as well.

I try not to be a packrat, but with WoW
you never quite know when some of this
stuff might come in handy.

My questing buddy and I got to talking about this blog, and I mentioned about how the MMO blogging landscape had changed over the years. 

"There's a lot of blogs that were watering holes for the community, and they're no longer around. Places like Tam and Chas' Righteous Orbs, Rades' Orcish Army Knife, and Larísa's The Pink Pigtail Inn were the places to go, not to mention WoW Insider."

"What was that?"

"What? WoW Insider?"

"No, The Pink Pigtail Inn."

"Oh, Larísa ran that. She stopped blogging long ago, 2014 maybe?"

My questing buddy began gushing about what a great name PPI was, and then she mentioned something I hadn't considered. "That would be a great guild name!" she added. "Hold on."

"Okay..."

"There!" she said a few moments later. "I reserved it. Want to sign the charter?"

"Sure!"

Alas, that charter then proceeded to languish for some months, as we moved on to other things. 

Fast forward to this past week, and I logged in on Deuce to find this:

"Yes, Mistress Elsharin. I like it too."

So Larísa's blog now lives on in game.

Larísa, I know that you've moved on and don't play any more, and I'm pretty sure you've put your gaming days behind you, but in case you come across PC again I wanted to let you know that you were an inspiration to me and a lot of other bloggers over the years. This small thing, a guild name for a few people, is just one way of saying thanks for your writing and community way back when. It still means a lot to me, and I hope I'm not the only blogger who thinks so.

EtA: I had "gushed" in there twice. That looked weird, so I fixed it. No more gushers here.

What Goes on in My Head, Yet Again

After my post last week, Shintar and Bhagpuss collectively kicked me in the ass to get me out of my funk. They might disagree about how I characterized their comments, but that's how I took it. And it was greatly needed.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about that last post, and referencing a few other posts, such as this one from this past July (or during Blaugust), or even why I shun the spotlight to my detriment, as I've opined on several occasions here over the years.

Those brooding, often melancholy moments, remind me that in the Nature vs Nurture debate I'm far more on the side of Nurture. We are the products of our experiences, whether we like them or not, and it takes a lot of effort to overcome deep seated tendencies that stem from those experiences. When people talk of the term "reverting to form" I imagine this face in the Wikipedia article:

This ol' pic is getting up there
in age.

***

I've had a hard time of thinking of anything more to say than what I've already said about this, other than I used to not be this way when I was much younger. I used to not be the sort of person who hid from others, who put up impenetrable barriers in gameplay designed more to keep myself separate than preserving a sense of "authenticity" or some other bullshit excuse I can think up. No, I learned to do this as a reaction to my own life experiences.

And really, I don't want to rehash more life stories any more than I have to. I mean, if you've read the blog you know about some of them already, and I'm hardly unique in that I was bullied or forgotten in my youth. 

But I will say that I had become introverted enough by the time I reached college that after I took the psychological exam that all incoming students at UD took back then*, I was summoned to the Health Center for a discussion with the shrinks there. My responses were such that they were concerned I would be able to function in a collegiate environment, but as I told them, I hid it well. 

You'd think that over the years at work that I'd gradually outgrown this sort of reticence, but that has most definitely not been the case. I've learned to tolerate it, that's all. It's only when I can relax and let my guard down that my introversion comes rushing back to the forefront, such as when I'm gaming. 

Someone mentioned in a YouTube video I was watching last week about how the automated dungeon finder in WoW was a godsend for introverts and the shy people who have a hard time reaching out and forming groups on their own, which gave me pause. WoW's well known toxicity kept me from enjoying dungeon runs in Cataclysm and later, but I do have to admit that selecting a role and waiting for a dungeon to pop was a lot easier than trying to reach out and do it yourself. While some people complained that it encouraged passivity, I'd argue that for the shy it was a godsend.

There were times --even in WoW Classic-- that I wanted to get into an instance to finish a quest or three, and I'd get a whisper that I shouldn't be looking for that instance because I'd outleveled it. That sort of behavior encouraged me to shut up and be passive when watching for groups, because people couldn't just keep their opinions to themselves.

***

Still, I need to be more responsive to my friends. They know me well enough, and in spite of my foibles they do appreciate me. That's where the kick in the ass came in handy.

"I might have deserved that..."
From Pirates of the Caribbean:
Curse of the Black Pearl.

*I have no idea if they still take those exams today; I don't recall any of my kids having to take psych exams for their Freshman year. For me, the exams took about 5 hours on a Saturday, and the guy I drove up with had psych problems of his own, namely that of his very overprotective mother. If there was a mom who fit the classic Italian-American stereotypical mom, it was her. She even called the university to check on him while he was taking the exams. This was in an era before cell phones, mind you, and he was totally embarrassed when they summoned him out of the exam room because his mom called.

EtA: Added a link.

Meme Monday: Meme-tober!

Okay, that doesn't make any real sense, but it certainly sounds good.

Anyhoo, I've been working on another post as a follow-up to my last one, but in the meantime, have a few snorts/chuckles/whatever:

Before Gorak's Guide, there was
this. From memedroid.com and
batvader9001.

Thankfully the healers I know aren't
like this. From memedroid.com
and ghostwolf901.

Guilty!!!
From J!nx on Pinterest.

There's a ton of variations on 
this meme out there, but
I really liked this one.
From Gametiptip.com.

You Could Call it My Preseason

Back when Cataclysm first dropped, I was in the middle of leveling a Draenei Paladin and the original Nevelanthana. Both were in Outland at that point, so I decided to rechristen their leveling process the Convoy to L85. Complete with a song from 1975 filled with CB radio lingo:

Doing both toons, it took me from December 7, 2010 to January 19, 2011 for them both to ding L80 and then head for Cataclysm zones. Getting to L85 took a bit longer, the first week of March, but still that was also not going totally gangbusters either.

Mists was a bit different. I decided on Azshandra as my new main not too long before Mists was released, and I leveled her all the way straight to L90, mixing up Battlegrounds with questing out in the field. That misadventure took from August 2012 until June 2013 to complete. Of course, I was also heavily playing SWTOR and LOTRO at the time, so that also contributed to the slowness in leveling.

Why do I mention these things? Because I have a history of not rushing out and heading straight into the new expac. That contributed to my thought process in deciding to start from scratch in Mists with a new toon --Az, in this case-- because I figured there'd be no way I'd enjoy the chaos up in Pandaria. 

Looking back on it, I think the only time I logged in for a brand new experience and actually followed through on it was the release of WoW Classic itself.

The scene in Teldrassil on Myzrael-US,
August 2019. I wonder how many of
those toons are still being actively played?

I logged in, looked around, got a few screenshots, and then logged for a couple of hours, figuring that there'd be no way in hell I could complete any quests with that crowd around. (Plus it was dinner time.)

Hmmm... I do recall checking out the Cataclysm pre-patch on the night it went live, but I also recall making a ton of gold on Neve porting people back to Orgrimmar from Dalaran.

So imagine my surprise when I was heading to Zul'Farrak to farm some greens there to disenchant* and my questing buddy --who I was grouped up with-- said "we're kidnapping you".

***

Now, you have to also understand that allergies have been killing me all week, and I finally gave in last night and took some Benadryl, so I wasn't exactly in a very lucid state. Still, my brain completely fizzled out when suddenly two more people popped into our group and they decided on running Utgarde Keep.

"Uh... I was actually feeling tired, because I took some Benadryl."

I believe somewhere in the responses to my declaration was my questing buddy saying she was having none of that, and since she'd already joined me in Zul'Farrak I began waking up because I had a hard time keeping up with her and killing things.

So, away to Northrend I went.

I told my questing buddy on the ship to Valiance Keep that "this doesn't count" as far as me going to Northrend. I only collected a flight point --force of habit-- and then we did the same for Howling Fjord and away we went.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this I completely woke up and briefly thought about fleeing --the old fight or flight response to a surprise-- but I suppressed it. My questing buddy was looking out for me, and I'd be a pretty damn poor friend if I went and hid.

Although I'll be completely honest in that when I switched my Details meters from Threat to Damage, I wanted to hide from embarrassment: Deuce was barely doing more damage than my questing buddy, who was healing on her Disco Priest. 

The warlock, who was also a good friend, was doing about 80-85% of the damage in every single fight.

And it's not like Deuce is totally undergeared, as she has the full Brutal set from running Alterac Valley, plus the PvP Staff. None of those pieces are terrible, and they fit in roughly with a range from T4 through Zul'Aman to T5 gear from TBC. So, roughly middle of the pack epic gear but with Resilience, that classic PvP stat that keeps a body from being one shot in Battlegrounds. The difference was that the warlock had at least T5 --and in some cases T6-- gear, so he was running with easily some of the best stuff out of raids in TBC Classic. You know, stuff I would have had a shot at getting if I'd not had to drop progression raiding back in January.

Which then reminded me that I was once again on the outside looking in, and that I was essentially being carried through this instance.

So in the span of an hour, I went from surprised/stunned to reluctant to grateful to happy to embarrassed/humiliated. 

***

Oh, how was Utgarde Keep itself?

Like riding a bike, really. After a few minutes you remember the cadence. 

Although to be fair, I know more about interrupts and how things tick for a Frost Mage than I did back in 2010-2011, and that probably cost me a bit on the damage meters. I would interrupt and use Spell Steal to keep the additional damage off of the tank, who, being a Bear tank with a lot of T5-6 gear himself, didn't really need the help.**

I'd have completely enjoyed myself if it weren't for that constant reminder that I was not pulling my weight. Even the mage table is totally useless for Northrend, since the mana and health pools are so much larger than those found in Outland.

Someone shared a couple of quests along the way, and I accepted the first one strictly from muscle memory and then I realized what I was doing. I then refused the second quest and deleted that first quest from my log. Not until I officially go to Northrend will I do any quests up there.

And that concluded the first night in my "preseason" before I officially head to Northrend. 

I was extremely happy to be back in Outland by myself this morning.

*Long story, but in order to progress in Tailoring, after a certain point you need items such as Imbued Netherweave. To make THAT, you need Arcane Dust, which is found by disenchanting TBC Classic greens. But in order to get to the Enchanting level to disenchant THAT, I need to get to 275 in Enchanting. Deuce, being 230-ish, needed to get up to 275, which meant targeting green gear for disenchanting so I could then turn around and use FOR enchants to raise my skill level. And to find the green gear that would disenchant properly, the best places to look are in Uldaman and Zul'Farrak.

See? Clear as mud.

**It's still good practice, though, like using Frost Nova and then Deep Freeze to keep a caster in a mob from healing/casting.

Where'd the TIme Go, Part Whatever

PC began on September 29, 2009. 

The blog is now a teenager.

Saints preserve us.