karazhan, screenshots, stories

And so it begins…

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Finally got around to doing Black Morass and nabbing the vaunted key to Karazhan. We sort of waited around until we had a good-sized group of us in the guild who needed it, and today was one of the rare days lately where schedules didn’t clash and we had four of us who needed the key, so we grabbed a fifth person and off we went to what was overall a very smooth run of BM, free of any deaths or major problems. I was on “adds duty” and I got a lot of praise for my job as such, so I must’ve done better than I thought I would, which is always a plus!

Afterwards we all rushed off to Shattrath and then all the way back to Azeroth and Deadwind Pass to finally nab ourselves [The Master’s Key].

Now, you gotta understand something here. Of the five of us, three of us, myself included, had never once set foot inside Karazhan. The fourth had only been inside once and only for one boss, and the fifth had been inside multiple times but never before on this character or even character type (his two other characters are a warlock and a mage; this character is a holy pally.)

So what did we do?

We converted the group to a raid and went inside, of course.

(Insert screenshot here that I should have taken but completely forgot to! =P)

There were some level 71 elite horses that we decided to have some fun with because we were feeling a bit giddy. So that’s exactly what we did. Pulled some horses and disposed of them. I even chain-trapped one, which normally isn’t a big deal because I do that all the time but this is Kara, after all.

After a couple pulls we were sort of discussing it and came to the conclusion that the mobs so far seemed to be of a comparable difficulty level to the mobs in a Heroic. And as a guild, we’ve got a few Heroics under our collective belt.

So that’s when somebody said “Hey, let’s see if we can grab five other people and take the first boss.”

So there we were, with that carrot dangling in our faces, and it was as four of the five of us were drooling over the carrot when my boyfriend, who also happens to be the guild leader, spoke up. He said that he had made this guild and leveled up with this guild and become good friends with the people in this guild and he wanted his first Karazhan run to be a guild/good-friends-of-the-guild run. And at the time we certainly did not have enough people in the guild who would be ready to jump into Kara with us.

And we all sort of agreed and reluctantly pushed that tasty carrot aside and left Karazhan. For now.

See, lemme talk about my guild for a bit. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before in the past, but I’m gonna say it again. We have a pretty large guild, 120-something characters and 70+ accounts, and we are largely comprised of people who are newer to the game or who are at least new to getting a character to 70. These are people I leveled with. People who learned the game with me. People who have never done this end-game stuff before… just like me. We’re all in this together.

I know of a lot of people who are in some big huge guild and they get ushered through Karazhan by the big boys the day after they hit 70 and come out of the other end all shiny and geared. I’m not trying to say that’s a bad way to do it, but that’s not how I would want to do it. I like the fact that my guild and I are doing it the old fashioned way. A year behind, yes. But that’s not the point. We worked our way through the 50s and 60s doing instances together. We learned how to work together as a very unified team. We started doing some heroics and we have done very well on them, if I might say so myself, largely because we have that unity and experience with each other.

Most of us have never been in Karazhan before (except for today’s little tour of the entryway). We haven’t done end-game before. We don’t know what we’re doing. This is a big first for us. And it’s going to be hard and we’re going to get dirty and there is a lot of work ahead of us. And we are going to learn so much. And I can’t wait.

We have a lot of people in the guild who are in their 50s or 60s or who are 70 and still need to get geared/keyed. And we agreed that we are going to start concentrating on helping those people get ready. It might take a few weeks. It might take more than that. But we will do it, and then we will have more than enough people for a ten-man raid and we’ll trust each other and be able to work as a team because that’s how we’ve been doing it all along.

It sometimes amazes me how much of a role WoW has had in teaching me how to be a team player. We’re allowed to say this in job interviews, right? You know, when they ask you the inevitable “Tell me a story of when you had to work as a group” question. I can talk about WoW, right? I might get some funny looks, but hey…

guides

Puttin' Your Shoulder to the Wheel

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So I’m sure most of us have been there: ahead of you, for as far as the eye can see, are approximately a million and a half elementals, ogres, or blood elves, and you’re there to destroy every last one of them (unless someone else gets to them first) as a way to grind rep, motes, cloth, or what-have-you.

Now I imagine different hunters have different approaches to this. There are a lot of people, I’m sure, who will send their pet in to a mob, pop Mend Pet and Autoshot, and then alt+tab to play Desktop Tower Defense or go make lunch or something. This is one of the beauties of being a hunter, and also one of the aspects of it that I have this tendency to avoid– not because it’s wrong, but because it’s just not exciting enough. So then you have hunters like yours truly who run up to every mob as though it were some raid boss that I’m trying to solo and go all out. Intimidate, Bestial Wrath, full-on Steady Shots and Kill Commands, trinkets, and… OHCRAPIGOTSAGGROAGAIN and OHCRAPI’MOUTOFMANAAGAIN.

This, friends, seems to happen to me more frequently than I’d like when I’m trying to grind. I’m not a very good learner apparently.

My co-host Illidan has a few words to say on this as well. Illy?

Yes, I know. /cry

Fortunately there is a way to strike a balance between auto-shot grinding and hardcore-hunter-mode grinding. Here’s how I do it:

Basically I focus on two things here: keeping aggro on the pet, and keeping your mana up. This ensures that you will hardly have any downtime and you will be able to get a lot done in a short amount of time.

– Aspect of the Viper. I’ll be honest; this one hurts and stings. Because I loooove me my Aspect of the Hawk. I love it much. But let’s face it: Viper is handy. It helps us regen mana, and it helps us so we don’t overpower the pet and grab aggro from him. It is my Aspect of Choice when grinding.

– [Power Infused Mushroom]. This is obtainable from an Underbog quest and it’s a very lovely grinding trinket. Basically it means that whenever you kill something that would yield experience or honor, you get 200 mana. 200 mana may not sound like much, but it adds up. I’ll usually swap out [Abacus of Violent Odds] for this thing, this further nerfs my attack power just a little bit which also helps to keep aggro on my pet, as Viper does.

– [Blackflight Arrows] are a lot cheaper than some of the better ammo which I usually like to carry around with me. They don’t do quite as much damage but again, that’s fine: your DPS does not matter when you are merely grinding for cash or rep. And again, aggro on the pet is good.

– [Sporeling Snacks]: Whether or not you want to use these is probably sort of dependent on how easy they are for you to make or obtain. For me, they pop up in the guild bank pretty frequently thanks to some of our crazy cooking fanatics so I usually have a nice supply. (And I do toss 10g or so into the bank anytime I take some– a tip, if you will.) More stamina and spirit on the pet means less downtime between mobs. You may opt for [Kibler’s Bits] instead if you have a pet that has a lot of armor/stam but needs a damage and threat boost.

– Using Intimidation and Bestial Wrath when they are available. I usually only use one at a time, per mob.

Well, that’s how I do it. That’s how I typically manage to maintain minimal downtime between mobs or aggro issues, while still being able to at least do some huntery stuff: Steady Shot + Kill Command is a very close friend of mine and I could never bring myself to shrug it off for Autoshot spam, even if it’s just grinding.

There are some things I’ll do to make the grind more fun or interesting; these include taking on more than one mob at once so I can practice chain trapping one while still focusing on the other, working on leveling a pet, using [Noggenfogger Elixirs] or [Dartol’s Rod of Transformation] (if you manually weave your shots as I do, it’s a heck of a fun challenge to try and do it without animations, as you will in furbolg form), and putting on music. I have no musical taste so I usually end up grinding to cheesy 90s electropop, and I love it. But do what works best for you.

…Hmm. I am feeling the urge to go play Desktop Tower Defense now. I used to be really good at that game, but then they changed it and added a bunch of new stuff and I turned into a jaded oldschooler who refuses to get with the program. Young whippersnappers!

…*goes to play it*

raiding, screenshots

Roleplayers Gone Wild

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So what happens when a rather motley crew of roleplayers shows up in Moonglade to have an in-character Guild Lunar Festival Party… and then somebody randomly announces that a certain boss has been summoned?

Yep. We downed him.

To fully appreciate this you have to realize that about half of our little raid group consisted of people from levels 40-60. The other half were people in their 60s and a smattering of 70s. None of our healers was a higher level than 60, and that level 60 healer was spec’d Boomkin at the time.

We were completely and thoroughly unorganized, because we had no idea we were going to be doing this; people had been thrown into random groups without regard to party buffs, in fact nobody had any buffs of any kind really. There was conveniently a graveyard very close by, so the typical strategy was to do as much damage as you could before the AoE inevitably caught you off guard and killed you, at which point you would wait two minutes to rez and then rinse and repeat. It wasn’t long before everyone’s armor started getting shot so we started taking shifts running to the nearest repair guy and running back.

And yet somehow, after what I swear took no less than a half hour, our scraggly little group of roleplayers pulled it off. It helped that we had our ever-so-amazing pre-Kara-geared tank, who did not even die a single time, thanks to our ridiculously talented sub-level-60 healers.

We failed to get the quest beforehand, but honestly, I couldn’t care less about that. Being on Ventrilo with the whole group, cheering and squealing at the end and congratulating and complimenting everybody and simply being so giddy and high on our guild’s first little “raid victory”, was worth far more than any possible quest reward.

I cannot wait to start raiding.

(Oh, did I mention Tux didn’t die a single time? I musta died 5 or 6 times; Tux never once hit the bucket before I did though, Omen’s Starfall be darned. I’m proud of my boy. *ruffles his headfeathers*)

operation hug, rp, screenshots

Just A Little Personal Victory

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If you are Alliance, and I am Horde, and we run across each other on an RP-PvP server…

If we are about the same level, or if you are a higher level, I will fight you.

If you are blatantly attacking a fellow Hordie or a horde NPC or town, I will fight you. (About ten minutes prior to this I went and took care of a level 50 night elf hunter who was harassing Crossroads.)

If you make rude gestures at me or are otherwise acting annoying I’ll probably fight you.

But if I am level ?? to you, and you are all alone, and you are being polite… I will hug you. And then mount up and continue on my way.


Because you never know when you might run across someone who just might be a real bone-fide roleplayer, and those are scarce, even on roleplaying realms.

I like to think I had a really neat little in-character moment today. And those are some of my favorite moments in WoW.

I am a geek, and a carebear, and I like it that way.

meta-wow

It's All About the Balance

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The current topic flying around the WoW blogosphere is “How do you balance WoW and real life?” I’ve seen this issue addressed in a few places; I know Trackhoof has covered it, as has Softthistle and Alda. (I keep seeing that last name there as “ALSA” which is a Linux sound thing. Forgive my geekism! /beg) And in the time it’s taken me to write this article, another one has popped up at She Rolls Horde. Apologies if I’m missing anyone!

Anyways my own answer to this topic has been stewing in my head for a little while now, largely because, to be honest, I often have no idea how I manage to pull off maintaining a balance. How the heck am I juggling the dozen or so characters I have that I consider “active” and my job and my family and my friends and housechores and so much else?

Okay, let’s break this down.

A Day In The Life of Pike:

Work Day:

4:45am: Up and out of bed. Feed my guinea pigs, get ready for work and grab some breakfast. While eating breakfast I’ll typically check my e-mail, catch up with my Livejournal friends, and read a WoW blog or two (or three, or four… I’m a fast reader)

5:45am: Out the door and in my car.

6:00am – 2:00pm: Work!

2:30pm: Arrive home after work. Take a nice, long shower. When you work at a pet store, specifically in the pet care department, you will come home covered in cricket guts, fish guano, hamster fur, and bird poop. It’s just unavoidable. The shower is a must. (My parents’ dog thinks my work pants are a tasty delicacy, however.)

3:00pm – 4:00pm: Checking the e-mail, the Livejournal friends list, the personal online forum my friends and I hang out at, the news headlines to see if there is anything going on that is marginally interesting to me (my definition of “marginally interesting” ensures I really only see the oddball or geek news, like the new Star Wars animated movie), and of course, checking Google Reader for updates on my ever-expanding blogroll. Sometimes I’ll work on a blog entry here.

4:00pm: This is typically when I log onto WoW. It used to be I would log into Tawyn and hang out on her for basically the rest of the night. These days– within this past month or so– I am much more apt to log into one of my alts at this point. Occasionally I will still log into Tawyn first to see if the guild has anything going on, if not, I’m off to play my lowbies. What can I say– I love leveling lowbies. Yes, I know I’m insane.

6:00-ish, give or take an hour: Dinnertime. Unless there is something crucial going on (like me being mid-instance) I generally take my sweet time with dinner and sort of take a half-hour or hour-long break here.

6:30-7:00ish: This is usually when I switch over to my Windows partition (it pains me every time!) and get onto Ventrilo. Originally I was only going to save Ventrilo for things like instances, but I’ve decided I like hanging out and chatting with the guildies so I try to get on for a little bit every day or almost every day. This is also usually when I log into Tawyn (unless I’m really into one of my alts at the moment) and if we’re doing an instance, this is usually when I do the instance. Otherwise I’m typically doing PvP or working on bringing rep or skills up.

8:30-9:00pm depending on how tired I am and what’s going on: Say goodnight, log off, in bed no later than 9:30pm (and being in bed by 9:00pm is preferable).

And that is how a typical work day goes for me. As you can see, my work schedule has me waking up early and going to bed early so I don’t have a whole lot of time for “social activities” even if I wanted to (and I’m so shy… I really don’t! =P) because I’d have to be back home before 8pm. Also, this schedule is of course subject to changing: somedays I am on WoW a lot less. Somedays I’m multitasking and doing my laundry while I play. Somedays… about once a month or so… work pulls a switcheroo on me and I work a 1pm-9pm shift instead of my typical 6am-2pm. In that case, I pretty much just flip the day: Try and get some WoW in during the morning.

Now let’s talk about my days off:

Non-Work Day:

Between 5:00-6:00am: Wake up. Yes, this is my definition of sleeping in. I try not to allow myself to sleep in very much, actually, because it throws off my circadian rhythm and gives me a headache.

Until about 6:00 or 6:30am: The general morning routine: feeding the pets, feeding myself, checking up on my e-mail and that fun stuff.

And then: Early morning WoW. I love early morning WoW. There’s something so serene and calm about playing so early in the morning. I love watching the skies turn from pink to blue. I love the fact that there’s hardly anyone else around and that sometimes I’ll be the only person in a given zone. Usually I really like playing my alts this early in the morning, but sometimes I’ll log on Tawyn too. Because lemme tell ya, 5am server time is the best time to go farming for motes at the Elemental Plateau. There will be like one or two other people there, and plenty of elementals for everyone. One time I was the only person hanging out with the water elementals for over an hour.

After a few hours of WoW I’ll generally log off and then this is where my schedule cycling kicks in– typically on days off I have a lot to do so I try to make the most of it. I’ll do blog stuff for an hour, then I’ll do housework for an hour, then I’ll maybe read or play another video game for an hour, back to WoW for an hour or two, back off to try and get more work done… etc. A lot of times on my days off, my family will go out to eat and I’ll accompany them. I’ll also try to do something decently social for a little while if I’m feeling up to it (yaaaaay being shy!)

As evening settles in I’ll sit down and get on Ventrilo and have some “serious WoW time” reserved for instances, hardcore-PvP-marathons or grinding. Those last two are actually often more fun than they sound.

And I’m in bed by about 9:00 or 9:30 again. If I don’t work the following day either, I’ll sometimes stretch it to 10:00.

Well, there you have it. That’s how most of my days go and I suppose you can say that my key for balance is a lot of variety and a lot of breaks. Way back when I first started playing, my initial addiction was pretty bad. Not to mention that was when I had a job that had a lot of problems giving me all the hours I’d ask for. So I’d be working 18 hours a week, and the rest of the time I was either eating, sleeping, or playing WoW. No joke. I’d be on from morning ’til night and eat while in flight from one zone to another.

Since then, I’ve made a big improvement in terms of striking that balance. I am not in game nearly as much, I’m rarely on for more than a couple hours at a tim

e (exceptions will be made for things like big instance runs), and my full-time job keeps me busy. In order to save time, I also often “consolidate” things; for example, if I need to go shopping, I just run over to the Target right next to where I work after my shift is done and grab stuff. The gas station and post office are on the drive home so I can stop for gas and stamps too. Things like laundry, as I’ve mentioned, can be done while playing. And of course, the constant switching between WoW and other things that need to be done, is something that I think helps a lot.

At this point you may or may not be asking “Hey Pike, what about that boyfriend of yours? When do you guys ever see each other?” Okay, well I will admit that it’s hard for a few reasons. Firstly he’s a notorious night owl and I, well, my schedule has got me turned into an early bird. Secondly he’s going to college full time and he’s also one of those motivated people (unlike I ever was) who studies and does homework and stuff. But we still somehow manage to be able to talk to each other throughout the day. I’ll send him a cheery text message on my phone during my lunch break or something, and somehow, no idea how, we still sometimes even manage to play WoW together. Oh, and to be completely honest with you guys, we’ve been dating for over three years and have successfully dealt with all sorts of weird scheduling conflicts in the past, so it sorta doesn’t phase us anymore. =P (That probably sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Hehe.)

I know a lot of you guys are far more busy than I am; you’ve got kids and school and all sorts of stuff going on that I currently don’t have to deal with. How you guys successfully manage to pull off a WoW/real life balance I don’t know, but I /salute you all. I hope I can be as balanced when life catches up to me and I leave the post-college doldrums. (Probably not gonna be anytime soon, but hey!)

alts, survival, the alt project

Lovin' that New Hunter Smell

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Not too long ago I mentioned how I pulled out an old troll hunter alt that I’d had lying around and wanted to retool her into a Survival hunter.

Well, she has been rerolled. There are a few reasons for this:

1.) She already had talent points in Beast Mastery and was too broke to respec.
2.) I did a lot of hard work getting her to Dun Morogh and taming a snow leopard pet. However, I decided that using a boar would be a much better idea. But I didn’t want to put that adorable snow leopard in the stable and never take him out again.
3.) Starting 12 levels into the game already sort of feels like “cheating”.

So I decided to make a completely fresh start and reroll her! I had a few issues at first deciding what server to put her on. All 10 of my Silver Hand character slots are filled up, and to be honest I really only play Alliance on Silver Hand anyway. I really like Venture Co. a lot, and RP-PvP servers are starting to grow on me, but I don’t know if I want to level two PvP hunters simultaneously– it’ll be good to have one to play on a regular ol’ RP server I think, if I ever don’t feel like the PvP. So finally I picked a new RP server which I’ve never played on before. It’s called Shadow Council and I know absolutely nobody there and that’s fine with me. Sometimes anonymity is fun ya know? It’s also the first server I’ve played on that is actually in the same timezone as me; I am an hour ahead of both Silver Hand and Venture Co. Not that it really makes a big difference, but it’s kinda neat.

And so we have Shantizar the Troll Hunter and her trusty pet Niels (first person to “get” the name, gets a cookie!)


Niels is cute and charismatic in a way I had no idea boars could be. And oh boy is he an aggro monster. I love it.

Anyways, I’ve been having a blast on this character so far. Right from level one I’ve been practicing my kiting and my jump shots (I consider both of those to be, by far, my biggest hunter Achilles’ heels. I really shouldn’t even call myself a hunter sometimes. /hangs head and blushes) and I sort of feel like I’m getting into the Survival mindset, which is kind of silly considering the fact that my first two points have gone into the Marksman tree, Lethal Shots specifically. The reason for this is because I’m a troll and get a 1% crit bonus when I’m using bows, and I totally am going to take advantage of this fact. MOAR CRITS. I will move into Survival after 5/5 Lethal Shots.

I wound up on the zeppelin to Undercity with one other passenger: a fellow female troll hunter who also had a boar. She was level 35 or so, and we both waved at each other and /patted each other’s boars and stuff. I glanced at her spec (I am super voyeuristic when it comes to other hunters and their specs… I can’t help it) and was somewhat surprised to see… a fellow leveling survival hunter! Woot. This is fun already. I can’t wait until I can put some points into that tree. It’s going to be so fun and different.

I went to Silvermoon City because I randomly decided I want a chicken mount so I figure I’d best start leveling there. And who should I run into but…


Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain!

The Fab Five, propelled into superstardom by their hit single I Am Murloc!

…I was too shy to ask for an autograph. =/

So yeah, The Alt Project is sadly being more neglected than it should be, simply because I am playing not one, not two, but three* hunters simultaneously. And I absolutely love it.

* Shantizar is actually guildless; she signed somebody’s guild charter for a gold and then left— er, was booted actually– after. Armory is just slow. I don’t know if she’s going to find a guild or fly solo– still thinkin’!

arrowed, guides, weapons

Arrowed!: A Guide to Ranged Ammunition Part 1

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First off, the title “Arrowed!” is a reference to a particularly amusing Homestar Runner cartoon.

*coughs*

Anyways!

One of the neat things about ranged weapons in WoW, is that we aren’t just keeping track of our bow or gun, but we’re also keeping track of the ammunition for it. There is a staggering variety of it; Wowhead tells me that there are 21 types of arrows and 26 types of bullets in the game. Seem intimidating? I’m not surprised! Furthermore, each type of arrow or bullet adds damage to your shots. Now in general, the higher you get in level, the bigger your ammo selection will be, so you will slowly be able to work your way up to the higher DPS shots.

Let’s take a closer look here:

Normal Buyable Ammo:

This is the stuff that you can buy around Azeroth at any Bowyer or Gunsmith. You can typically find them at major cities and in some towns:

[Rough Arrow] / [Light Shot] (1.5 DPS)
[Sharp Arrow] / [Heavy Shot] (3.5 DPS) (Requires level 10 to use.)
[Razor Arrow] / [Solid Shot] (7.5 DPS) (Requires level 25 to use.)
[Jagged Arrow] / [Accurate Slugs] (13 DPS) (Requires level 40 to use.)
[Wicked Arrow] / [Impact Shot] (22 DPS) (Requires level 55 to use.)

Now you get into the Outland, and added to the basic selection are:

[Blackflight Arrow] / [Ironbite Shell] (32 DPS) (Requires level 65 to use.)

So those are your basic, buy-at-any-vendor arrows and bullets.

But wait… there’s more!

Special Buyable Ammo:

Here is the ammunition that is buyable from a vendor, but only if you meet certain requirements, aside from the normal level ones:

[Scout’s Arrow] (26 DPS) (Requires level 61 to use and requires a Friendly reputation with the Cenarion Expedition.)

[Halaani Razorshaft] / [Halaani Grimshot] (34 DPS) (Requires level 66 to use and can only be bought if your faction is controlling Halaa.)

[Warden’s Arrow] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with the Cenarion Expedition.)

[Felbane Slugs] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with Honor Hold. Alliance only.)

[Hellfire Shot] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with Thrallmar. Horde only.)

[Mysterious Arrow] / [Mysterious Shell] (46.5 DPS) (Requires level 70 to use and requires a Revered reputation with The Violet Eye.)

[Timeless Arrow] / [Timeless Shell] (53 DPS) (Requires level 70 to use and requires an Honored reputation with The Scale of the Sands.)

Each of these special arrows and bullets, with the exception of the Halaani ones (you have to physically go to Halaa if you want those), can be purchased from the Speciality Ammunition Vendors in Shattrath City. You don’t have to do anything special; if you meet the requirements for a certain type of arrow or bullet, it will show it as being available to you.

One of the interesting things about these reputation-based projectiles is that you might have to grind different rep depending on if you have a bow or a gun. For example, currently I use a crossbow and am Revered with the Cenarion Expedition, so I use [Warden’s Arrow], which gives me an increase of 37 DPS. If I were to start using a gun, and I wanted to gain the same DPS bonus of 37, I would have to become Revered with Honor Hold so I could use [Felbane Slugs]. And if I was Horde, I would have to get Revered with Thrallmar so I could get [Hellfire Shot].

However, for the most part, all the arrows have a bullet equivalent with similar requirements, and vice versa. (A noticeable exception would be [Scout’s Arrow], for which there is no bullet equivalent.)

Wow… that’s a lot of ammunition. And we’ve only scratched the surface! I’ve yet to cover craftable ammo and ammo that you get as quest rewards, and other such special types. However, in the interest of preventing my readers’ brains from exploding, I’m going to save all of those for another post.

I’ll see you next time for the next installment of “Arrowed!”


Level 29 Tawyn shows off her [Quiver of the Night Watch] and [Razor Arrows]. (I love the fact that I’ve taken billions of screenshots throughout my WoW career. Although poor Tawyn must feel like I’m the mom pulling out all the embarassing baby pictures. =P)

alliance, factions, horde, thoughts

For the… well, nobody says Alliance, do they?

22 Comments

One of the things that has always intrigued me about the World of Warcraft faction division, is that most of the people who play Horde are very, very firmly and patriotically “For the Horde!” Whereas a lot of Alliance are rather less enthusiastic about it– they like Alliance, yes, but they don’t go around posting “FOR THE ALLIANCE” as every other comment in a WoW YouTube movie or proudly proclaiming it on their website, whereas a lot of Hordies, well, do. (Note: I know this isn’t everybody… just the majority, in my experience.)

As somebody who really, truly, honestly enjoys playing both factions equally and is actually fond of *gasp* all of the races (even gnomes… actually I have a secret here: I adore gnomes. If gnomes could be hunters I’d never play another race), I’ve always found it interesting that there is that distinct difference there, and that Horde players get so much more excited about simply being Horde than most Alliance players ever do about being Alliance.

Now, I’ve heard all the out-of-character and out-of-lore reasons. I’ve heard people say that they simply like the aesthetics of one over the other, whether it be the look of the races or the look of the places. (Somebody once gave me “Elwynn Forest is a lot prettier than Durotar” as their main reason.)

And yes, I’ve heard the ever popular “People are more mature/friendly on [insert faction here].” Honestly my views on that last one is that it really comes down to what server you are on, what server type you are playing on, and the people that you encounter, as I have had both very positive and very negative social experiences on both sides of the faction fence. When I worked at a video game store for a few months this past summer, one of my coworkers told me “Alliance has the immature little kids, and Horde has the immature adults, it’s just a matter of which ones you’d rather put up with.” Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I agree with him (I tend to assume the positive about people anyway), but I am saying that he sort of has a point in that you are going to find immaturity and negativity anywhere in the game– just as you are going to find some very amazing and friendly people anywhere in the game.

So as you can see, my views have long been very neutral and unbiased regarding this issue. So it sort of took me by surprise when I realized over the past few days playing a lot of Horde alts, that Horde does indeed seem to have a homier, cozier feel to it. And I think I may have pinned it down (for me anyway):

I think it’s the NPCs and how they react to you, and the things that they say. The Horde NPCs have a very “fatherly” sort of quality to them. Taurens will tell you “be careful” when they put you on a windrider, and they sound so genuine when they say it. Same with the orcs when they tell you to “be safe”. Even trolls, when they say “You relax, mon”… yeah, it sounds so funny, but it also really is strangely relaxing. The Horde sounds like they are concerned for you.

The Alliance NPCs are more distant. Friendly, yes, but in a very formal way, especially with the humans and night elves. Dwarves are up-front and happy and tell you to “Keep your feet on the ground!” but it seems more… like a “best buddy” type of thing instead of a warmer familial thing. Really I think the closest the Alliance comes is with the Draenei, which is fitting since an unusually high amount of die-hard Horde players that I’ve come across admit that they quite like the Draenei. I think that maybe it’s because the Draenei has that same caring “aura” that you get with the Horde.

When it comes down to it, it just seems to me that the Horde is really about being “a family” and as this is sort of subconsciously represented throughout the game, it rubs off on the players and the players become a family as well, and this leads to a healthy amount of hometown pride. Alliance isn’t so much a family, it’s much more independent. I’m not saying that’s bad… I’m just saying, the Alliance’s faction allegiance is not going to manifest itself quite the same way the Horde’s does.

I think I am always going to be a Stormwind girl at heart; it’s where I was raised on the game, it’s where I’ve met my best in-game friends, and I simply love the aesthetics of the Alliance locations. And I know it’s seeped into my blood, whether I like it or not, because the other day when I saw some guy at work wearing a big Horde emblem on his coat, the very first thought that came into my mind was not “Oh cool, a fellow WoW player”, but “Oh crap, it’s the enemy!”

But I’ll be darned if it doesn’t feel good sometimes to log into my hordies and come “home” to the family in Thunder Bluff.*

* I have never really liked Orgrimmar for some reason. When I play Horde, I hang out in Thunder Bluff.

fun

The Hunter Song

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A few weeks ago somebody told me that when I talk about WoW, it sounds something like this: “Hunter hunter hunter hunter hunter…”

Anyways that sort of reminded me of a popular flash animation (no not “Badgers”, although that fits too)… so I sat down and wrote this:

“The Hunter Song”
(Based on The Llama Song)

Here’s a hunter
There’s a hunter
And a little dwarven hunter
BM Hunter
Marksman Hunter
Hunter hunter priest

Hunter hunter
Furbolg hunter
Shadowmelding Night Elf hunter
Hunter hunter
Murloc hunter
Hunter hunter priest

I was once a newbie
I made some mistakes
But I did my pet research
So I could tame The Rake

I was only level ten
Couldn’t yet wear mail
Best time for a furry friend
Or feathery or scaled

Did you ever see a hunter
Kiss a hunter
Roll a hunter
Newbie hunter
Expert hunter
Hunter hunter priest

Instance hunter
Raiding hunter
Trapping feigning kiting hunter
Hunter on a mount
Hunting a
Hunter hunter priest

I just love my kitty
And I love my boar
Now I’m out of stable slots
Oh why can’t there be more?

I think that it’s just so fun
To have a big red beast
Maybe I should retire now
And reroll a priest

arena, battlegrounds, blogs, pvp

My First Ever Arena…

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…was a 2v2, me (BM hunter) and a warlock vs. a warrior and a priest.

I really didn’t know a lot about what I was doing because I’d never even been inside an arena before. Somebody told me I should “run up the ramp” so I did. The warrior started pounding on the warlock first which gave me ample time to pop Beast Within, Abacus of Violent Odds, and Rapid Fire, and start devouring the warrior.

I actually got his health down quite a ways, but, ya know… he had a priest. So it was all to no avail. (In retrospect we probably should’ve attacked the priest first, but I didn’t see him for a while.) I eventually died, which I expected– I am so geared for PvE right now that it’s not even funny how gimped my stamina and resilience are– but to be honest I did better than I thought I’d do. I guess having 7000+ lifetime honor kills gives me a wee bit of an advantage despite my lack of gear.

I also played ten Arathi Basin games yesterday; I figured “why not” because it was still the holiday weekend for it and also because I had this sudden idea to record the results of the ten games, just for some fun statistics to look at.

Of the ten games I played, all PuGs, seven were against premades and were thus losses. (Though funnily enough, only two of those premades wound up actually five-capping us, the other five were all long grueling battles that lasted just as long as if it hadn’t been a premade anyway. One comes to mind where we constantly had two nodes capped and the premade only managed to keep three… they kept trying to take our other nodes, and they kept failing.)

So only three of the games were good ol’ fashioned PuG vs. PuG matchups. Of those three games, Alliance won two and Horde won once. For the first Alliance win, the Horde seemed to be off the ball right from the start, Alliance was ahead the entire way and won about 2000-1200. The second Alliance win was actually a very very close race for about 75% of the game, at which point Alliance somehow pulled off some crazy epic 5-cap maneuever and clinched us the victory. The one Horde victory was a pretty resounding Horde victory, they were ahead basically the entire game and it culminated in a 5-cap for them.

All and all I was satisfied; it showed me that despite all the premades you still get the occasional really fun matchups. I’ve been taking a break from PvP for a while but yesterday may have given me “the bug” again. I need to get some gear, afterall, if I’m going to be doing arena!

And now for something completely different: more and more WoW blogs are being hosted on WordPress, and that’s fine and all except that for some reason, blogs hosted on WordPress seem to have a lot of issues loading for me. I think it has something to do with “Google Analytics” because that’s always what shows up at the bottom of my browser, by the loading bar: “Waiting for Google Analytics”. Seriously though, I had a WordPress blog open in a Firefox tab just now and it took no less than ten minutes to load. They’re all like that for me. And it takes me forever to leave a comment at those blogs, for the same reason. =/ Does anybody happen to know what’s going on? So many good blogs are hosted on WordPress and I’d like to make them easier to access.

Everyday I'm Huntering