…so, anyone up for a game of Monopoly, followed by a Star Trek TNG marathon? Anyone?

Edit: Ten minutes later it’s jumped up to 38%. …still, first episode, anyone?

So, I love the new LFG. I think it’s one of the greatest things ever to hit WoW and I’m sure most of us can agree.

It has, however, led to a few interesting situations. My favorites thus far:

* Wound up in a group where everyone was speaking French. I’m not exaggerating. I couldn’t understand a word these people were saying. Oh wait, I understood one phrase. “Le boss”.

They were all from different servers, too, so it wasn’t like they’d all queued up as a group. Apparently I just managed to stumble onto the super-secret Québécois contingent of the North American WoW servers. I blame my Men Without Hats obsession.

I think they wanted to do more heroics afterward but I wasn’t sure, because I had no idea what they were talking about. So I said “thank you” and hearthed. Everyone understands “thank you” right? … hey, don’t look at me, I took Spanish in high school and Japanese in college, I have no idea how to say “thank you” in French.

I actually sent a ticket in to Blizzard asking if I’d somehow messed up my settings and was queuing up in another language without meaning to but apparently it’s a “known issue”. So. Now you know!

* Died about five seconds into Anub’arak in Azjol-Nerub (was one-shotted by the guy) and still got Gotta Go! Making it more impressive (and embarrassing)? I was the healer.

* Actually had to leave a Blackfathom Deeps group that I entered mid-run because I had no idea how to navigate the place and the group wasn’t coming back for me.

“But Pike, I thought you liked big epic sprawling instances!”

I do, when they meet at least one of the following criteria:

a.) are being led by somebody who knows where they are going
b.) are not being started in the middle with me stranded at the entrance portal
c.) are not a part of The Grand List of Instances Blizzard Designed Specifically to Annoy Pike.

The Grand List of Instances Blizzard Designed Specifically to Annoy Pike consist of the following:

Wailing Caverns
Sunken Temple
Blackfathom Deeps
Sunken Temple
Maraudon
Sunken Temple
Temple of Atal’Hakkar … oh wait.

(When BabyLock gets to the mid-40s, I think I’m just going to stop using LFG and quest until I hit BRD level.)

Ah, LFG. I do love thee, though.

In other news:

I think mine is going to be to level my warlock ^_^

And to make the following when Cataclysm hits:
* Gnome priest
* Goblin hunter

Sooo, I’m not gonna beat around the bush. I’ve kinda been on WoW hiatus lately. Hence the rather spartan blog post schedule.

It’s not that I decided WoW is boring or I don’t like it anymore, oh no. I love WoW. But I’ve simply found that writing and drawing is more fun at the moment. So other than logging on for a raid every so often, I’ve mostly been AWOL.

Then I realized something. Namely, today is the day my Recruit-a-Friend ends.

Dang. I wish I coulda somehow put that on pause through, ya know, ALL OF NOVEMBER when I was doing my NaNo. But ah well. It is what it is, right?

Sooo I promptly opened up two WoW windows, logged in, and ran around like an excited uromastyx (dontcha just love my similes?) trying to reach a little goal I had in mind with my main RaF project. The result:

Man I love Recruit-a-Friend. Yesterday these characters were like, level 55 and 56 respectively, and here they are all-growed-up and headin’ to Outlands after a mere three quests in Silithus. (To be fair, all Silithus quests are “Kill a billion of these, and another billion of these, and each time you kill one something else randomly spawns”, so that may have had something to do with it, but you know.)

Umm yeah so this is another hunter and another resto druid. SHUT UP >_>

Anyways, I managed to hit the big “five-eight” literally a minute or two before the battle.net Account Management page told me my RaF would end (they conveniently tell you not only the date, but also the exact time and time zone). This was followed by the pleasant surprise, though, that Blizzard is apparently not super accurate with this so I wound up heading to Hellfire and getting to 59 (or very close to it) and still having RaF active. I was also able to do that “Grant-a-Level” thing and distribute free levels to a bunch of lowbie alts of various classes I had hanging around. Dunno if these alts are ever gonna see any playtime, but hey, now I’ve got a veritable army of Hordies all sitting between levels 10 and 15, and it’s kind of neat. One of them is a shaman and one of them is a priest and I haven’t played either class past level 8 before. Hrmm.

I considered continuing to plug away at Hellfire and see how long my luck would last with the mysteriously-tenacious Recruit-a-Friend, but I got hungry so I logged out to eat and write this blog post. Exciting! …sorta. *shifty eyes*

…well, that’s all really. It was TL;DR, I know. NEXT TIME: Pike’s Five Most Epic WoW Moments That Do Not Involve Boss Fights.

But for now… *scoots away to write n’ stuff*

Yup.

She is also having a fantastic day, and she smells divine!

What about YOURS?

So, ladies and gentlemen. Underbog. Let’s talk about it.

Superfun Coilfang instance for level 63ish. Was great fun as a heroic back-in-the-day. Is still great fun as a level 63ish instance now.

And guys, if you’re like me, and a.) dailies got old and b.) playing the Auction House isn’t really your thing, then Underbog is the instance for you.

Here’s why:

• Half of the mobs are skinnable. They give you Knothide Leather. Which you can sell.
• The other half of the mobs are herb-able. Half of the time they give you junk, but there’s a ton of Ancient Lichen laying around to make up for it. Which you can sell.
• The place is a loot pinata. Greens are all over the place. Which you can sell. (or DE, or what-have-you.)
• Regardless of your professions, everybody can pick Sanguine Hibiscus. Sanguine Hibiscus is a Sporeggar rep item. Sporeggar rep gets you a minipet and is part of the “the Diplomat” title achievement. Depending on your server and how much of this tends to be on the AH, you can sell this stuff for 5g a piece, at least. Oh, did I mention that you can scoop up about 30 in 20 minutes?

My Mechanopeep brings all the flowers to the yard

How to do it:

Run in. Kill everything, including all trash. The trash has a good chance to drop aforementioned Sanguine Hibiscus. Not to mention, skinning/herb frenzy if you have one or both of those professions. Kill the first boss. Keep going until you get to that ramp with the Naga*. Twenty minutes tops. This is with a character that isn’t particularly geared; it would probably go even faster still on my main (I plan on trying it later today.)

This is the Naga Ramp. 19 minutes, 43 seconds.

Run back to the beginning. A bunch of the Sanguine Hibiscus has respawned; scoop it up on your way out. Then, reset the instance and do it again!

The best part is that this instance is easy. Thus, you don’t need to pull out a special solo-y spec or anything. I just pull out my crab and do it spec’d as Beast Master Raid. You could probably do it just as easily with Marksmanship or Survival, so long as you’ve got a Misdirect macro handy.

The other best part is that if you like solo’ing old stuff, this is super fun, and if you don’t like solo’ing old stuff, then it’s easy enough that you can do it while you have a movie on in the background or something.

The other, other best part is that I am pretty convinced this is a higher gold-per-minute ratio than dailies. If I run around and do all my Argent Tourney dailies, that’s 200ish gold in an hour. Meanwhile, 20 minutes in this instance will get you 200ish gold at least in stuff you can sell, assuming you have skinning and/or herbalism and are on a server that is into achievements. Compare an hour to 20 minutes. Hmm. (Sure, the Argent Tourney probably pulls ahead in the long run cause you can buy and sell minipets, but come on, do you really want to go do the Argent Tourney stuff again?)

Now you have to be careful, of course, because you don’t want to oversaturate the market, but if you’re patient, you can always find someone who will pay top dollar for this stuff.

So yeah. Underbog. Burning Crusade’s Best Kept Secret. Much love. <3

(Or, you can go nuts and solo EVERYTHING like Rilgon, but not all of us have the T5 bonus *grumbles*)

* Note: the reason why I advocate stopping at the Naga Ramp is it means for the next little while of the instance, there are no Sanguine Hibiscus, no herbs, and nothing to skin. You start getting some again towards the end of the instance, but I think it’s quicker just to do the first half and then reset.

Between a really big questline in Mulgore that ended up being available to Tauren-only, and a further long questline in Winterspring that used to give Thunder Bluff rep but no longer does because it was opened up to both factions, this one was a toughy and I resorted to buying about 40 stacks of Runecloth to slog through the final stretch.

But at long last, my inner RP geek is satisfied on yet another character!

I keep thinking “So, about that ‘of Thunder Bluff’ title that I can get at the Argent Tournament,” and then chastising myself with “WHOA THERE PIKE, one level at a time.”

Long-time readers can probably guess what this post is gonna be about. Newer readers, let me introduce you to a little raid called Karazhan:

Let’s start from the beginning: entering this place. Let’s see if I can properly do this justice.

You hit 70. You do a bunch of regular instances. You get all your rep up to Honored (or, for a little while, Revered) by doing said normal instances. You try a heroic but it kicks your butt so you do more regular instances for a while. Then you finally start doing heroics.

And then you start to think about Karazhan.

The questline for the Karazhan key– which at one point, everyone in the raid needed to have to get in– sent you flying all over the place, solving puzzles and mysteries about this mystical tower.

Then you have to do an instance. Shadow Labs. Not a huge deal, everyone is doing this instance.

Then you have to do a second instance. Steamvaults. A slightly more irritating instance (for me anyway), but still not bad.

Then you have to do a third instance, called Arcatraz. The catch is that you have to be keyed for Arcatraz, and to do so, you have to complete two other instances: Botanica and the Mechanar.

Done yet? Oh no. Then you get to go do Black Morass. Meaning you get to go back in time and help Medivh do bad things, like let the orcs into Azeroth.

Then, and only then, do you get the key.

Oh, and what an adventure awaits you then, and what further quests, because that’s right, the quests don’t stop with the key. They send you into the tower, and then they send you in again, and again, and again. They’re there to help you get keyed for the later dungeons and get you your Violet Eye rep ring, but in my mind, they were fantastically interesting in their own right.

Everything about this place is magical. Not only are the aesthetics and design beautiful, but the bosses are, as well. An undead horseman. A castellan entertaining his dinner guests, just a bit miffed that you barged in unannounced. An opera, featuring three completely boss fights of which one was chosen at random each time you did it. A chess game wherein you took control of the pieces. The ghost of Medivh’s own father, mad with grief and guilt. A giant arcane guardian, reminding you in painful fashion that you are not where you should be. And these are just a few.

And the fight mechanics themselves were, in my mind, unparalleled. I hadn’t seen any of this stuff before, and most of it I haven’t seen since. Moroes involved an ungodly amount of crowd control; priests shackling and hunters trapping, gloriously trapping.

Curator, a gear check if there ever was one, and the source of more in-jokes with my longtime WoW friends than pretty much anything else in the game.

No, really:

Shade of Aran was, without question, my favorite boss in the instance. Explaining it to somebody who had never done it before was always hilarious, because it took so freaking long and you knew the new person probably wasn’t going to live anyway. Flame Wreath jokes abounded, and the ceremonial “Playing of the Chant over Ventrilo” before the fight was held sacrosanct.

Prince Malchezaar, that infuriating fight that liked to drop infernals on your head, and quite arguably one of the most difficult raid bosses I’ve ever bumped up against for an appropriately geared group. Oh gosh. I remember the first time my guild downed him. At the end of the fight one person was still alive: the tank. We had a priest in Spirit of Redemption form, and the tank. That was it.

Sadly this promptly turned into massive quantities of loot drama and QQ regarding the T4 helm, but we won’t speak of that.

Have I mentioned though that Prince is still fiendishly difficult at 80 sometimes? Sheesh.

And chess, good ol’ chess, the one fight that actually gets harder as time goes on because you tend to bring fewer people into Kara these days so you have fewer people controlling the pieces. Chess, which once pooped me out into Curator’s room after the piece I was controlling died, and since I was the loot master and didn’t get back in time we couldn’t loot the chest. Everyone had their loot a few days of GM tag later, including a new pair of boots for me.

And the best part is that somehow, the magic of that place hasn’t disappeared. Oh supposedly Medivh sucked it all up at the end of “The Last Guardian” and all that’s left are specters of the past and some other bizarre creatures. I call shenanigans on this. Because somehow after all this time I go in there and Karazhan is just as magical as it was the first time. The mere music makes me teary-eyed.

A few of my sisters, who have actually played WoW for longer than I have, but considerably more casually, recently transferred servers to Silver Hand; one of the things that I think enticed them over the most was my promise of “I’LL TAKE YOU TO KARAZHAN. I WILL SO TAKE YOU TO KARAZHAN.” because they had never been. And the other day I did just that; took one of my sisters (the other isn’t quite a high enough level yet) through the entire place with the help of some buddies. She made out like a loot bandit, since she’s sitting at level 70 but WotLK-less, but even better, she got to go on a tour of My WoW Happy Place. (And no, Attumen didn’t drop it.)

(Yes, she’s in a guild called < Tawyn's Pet >. No, it was not my idea. I swear. Why are you looking at me like that??)

And after all this time, even when I am in my temporarly Tree disguise rather than my hunter one, I still stand by my man:

My oldest group of friends in WoW is about five- or six- people strong and we all met in some random Zul’farrak run a long time ago when we were all level 40ish. Burning Crusade was our fifteen minutes in the sun and Karazhan was our peak. Some of us have stopped playing WoW, or play it much less, but we all keep in touch outside of the game, and the near-mythical status that one raid– just one raid– has reached within our little group is undeniable. Scarcely a group AIM chat goes by where someone doesn’t bring it up, and one of my friends has started posting a weekly Karazhan “comic” (more like a graphic novel, really) starring our characters on a forum that we frequent; it’s quite amazing so far and has me awaiting each Friday the way a kid would await getting his comic books in the mail.

There are other really good raids.

But there is only one Karazhan.

P.S. What was your personal “ZOMGAWESOME” raid or instance? Comment about it here or post about it on your own blog– I’d love to hear! ^_^

Call on meeeeeeee, call on me…

I own them all now. The 100% speed ones, that is.

Who me? Obsessed with mechanical chickens? Balderdash and poppycock!

/shifty eyes

/presses spacebar for the “WHIRRR!” noise again, and giggles

…isn’t Ragnaros, and it isn’t C’thun, and it isn’t Algalon, and it isn’t Illidan, and it isn’t Hogger.

It isn’t Ganondorf.

It isn’t Psycho Mantis.

It isn’t Sephiroth or Kefka.

It isn’t the Elite Four.

It isn’t Bowser, or Dr. Robotnik, or Dr. Wily.

It isn’t the Z-shaped block in Tetris.

It isn’t Donkey Kong.

It isn’t the ghosts in Pac-Man.

…

…

…

It’s THAT STUPID MINE BOSS.

/blames Deathwing