Uncategorized

Just a Bit More on WoW Gender-Bending

5 Comments

I got a lot of great comments in my previous post about this subject, and I’ve seen some more articles too. What’s great is that it’s shown me there are a lot of valid reasons to play the opposite gender in WoW– more reasons than I’d even thought of before.

Maebius says that he plays the opposite gender in order to specifically avoid making just an “avatar of himself”.

Matticus says female characters let you see more of the screen.

Mirsh just recently wrote up a great article about how he’s been able to discover and express new aspects of himself through playing the opposite gender in WoW.

Anyways, I just wanted to thank everybody for their comments and responses; I’ve really discovered a new appreciation for playing the opposite gender… like I said before, it was never that I had a problem with it, so much as I was a bit mystified by how widespread it was. But it turns out there are a lot of very good reasons for it that hadn’t occurred to me.

And now I’m inspired; I want to go make a male gnome rogue, I’ve got some great character ideas floating around in my head for him… and yes, I know I’ve said before that I can’t stand playing melee classes, especially rogues, but I dunno, it seems like I’ve had an unusually high number of people recently telling me how fun rogues are, I think maybe something’s trying to tell me to give it another shot. It’s so hard for me to play other classes, because to me… WoW = hunter, for the most part. But sometimes, it’s nice to wander off and do something completely different. Hence why my mage will randomly get sudden spurts of playtime.

I have way too many blog post ideas, I should really start writing them down…

instances, memes

Wipes. Not the Baby Kind.

6 Comments

I have been tagged by Bremm to share my five “worst wipes”. Unfortunately I fear that, largely because I have only been playing for seven months… well, I don’t have two years’ worth of wipes to draw on. So some of these are rather less than exciting, but are more… “You had to be there” types of moments.

Five Worst Wipes Meme
-invented by Pelides

1. Dire Maul: We were near the end of this instance, in some gigantic room and we had to get to a little circular area in the middle to fight a boss. The other four members of the party got there just fine, but I was loitering around for some reason. Finally they informed me that I should join them, so I headed towards them… and ran into a patrolling mob. Okay, one patrolling mob, I can handle it, especially since my fellow group members can help me… oh wait, there’s another mob… and another… and another…

…and we wiped, thanks to me not listening and following my groupmates fast enough.

(Actually now that I think about it this may have only been a semi-wipe; I think me and a couple other people died but not everyone.)

2. Sunken Temple: So… that room where you have to summon the dragon god and there’s all those mobs trying to stop you, as you gather items from them to put out the four fires? The first time I did this room, nobody in our group knew you were supposed to do that. The putting-out-the-fires thing, that is. We fought wave after wave of nonstop mobs for ten or fifteen minutes and died a very slow and painful death thanks mostly to eventually running out of mana and having all our good stuff on cooldown. I still shudder just thinking about that room, despite the fact that I’ve done it successfully since then.

3. Underbog: There’s a sort of dragon-type boss whose name I can’t remember; he’s standing on a big ledge, really high above some water. The first time my group ran this, it didn’t occur to us that the boss could push you off the edge. So there we were, starting the boss, expecting your typical tank’n’spank and suddenly the tank was gone. One minute he was there, the next… *poof*… no more tank. The “Uh…”‘s in party chat were met with the tank’s reply, “He pushed me off into the water” about a second before the rest of us turned into dragon food, still with silly looks of mystification on our faces I’m sure.

Now whenever we fight this boss, we pull him to the wall first. No more disappearing tanks for us!

4. Dire Maul, Again: I mentioned this a couple posts back. Basically I jumped off a ledge, forgetting a little minor detail: my pet. A few minutes later, in the midst of minding our own business, Locke runs up with more elite mobs than I’ve seen in my life hot on his tail. Our whole party was squashed basically before I could blink. It was embarassing but oh-so-hilarious.

5. Zul’Farrak: We aggro’d one of the scarabs. Enough said.

So, there ya go! I tag… whoever wants to do it! (I’m not very good at this tagging thing.)

Oh, and ding 67… yes, ignore my Armory profile and the banners on my blog that are dependent on my Armory profile. The Armory hasn’t updated my character in a week now, and I’ve no idea why (especially since my guildies are getting updated just fine…)

blogs, rp

Roleplay & Character Choices – Combining my Comments into a Post

7 Comments

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts around lately that seem to be hitting on sort of the same note; that is to say, the idea of playing a gender different than your own (the subject may or may not involve roleplaying).

I’ve been responding to a lot of these posts and I noticed that a lot of my responses were coming out pretty much the same so I figured I would turn it into a full-fledged blog post.

On Roleplaying: Roleplaying and things related to roleplaying (coming up with new characters, giving them stories and backgrounds, imaging their life in Azeroth, etc.) is pretty much 90% of what draws me to WoW. The other 10% or so is the mechanics of playing my hunter. And I’m sure you all know how much I love playing my hunter, so you can definitely see just how important roleplaying is to me. That’s just my personality and how I am– I like imagining things. I definitely understand why roleplaying isn’t everyone’s thing, in fact, I don’t think it’s most people’s thing. But, it is my thing. It is a huge, huge part of what makes WoW interesting to me. (Yes, I’m a geek, I know. =D) If you were to take away Tawyn, Night Elf Hunter who I’ve invented this huge story for… and replace her with an equally-leveled but different character that I did not invent, it would be very, very hard for me to keep playing the game.

And where is this leading to?

This:

On Playing as a Character That is the Opposite Gender:

For a long time, I’ve been just a little confused on why so many people play as the opposite gender. It wasn’t that I had a problem with it, it was just hard for me to understand why someone would play as a character that they couldn’t identify with on that base level. Yes, you could make the argument that the opposite gender looks more attractive to you, but for me that wasn’t nearly as important as being able to play as a character that you could really identify with. (And I say this as a very, very tomboyish female. My characters are tomboys, but they are still female. Like me.)

And then, thanks largely to an excellent article at Big Bear Butt Blogger, it hit me. I’m looking at the game a lot differently than most people are.

That is to say, I am a roleplayer and a daydreamer and I imagine my characters as extensions of myself, and… avatars of myself in a parallel universe, so to speak.

The majority of you guys, I imagine, are a bit more normal than me, heehee =P And you play the game as just a game, or as a movie. Big Bear Butt said that he liked playing female characters because he likes watching female characters kick butt, like in a movie or TV show, for example. It has nothing to do with creating a character that is an expression of yourself. And that’s a very normal thing, and it makes a lot of sense. I had just sort of forgotten that, and assumed that everybody was like me and into the whole roleplaying thing.

So, thanks Big Bear Butt for hitting me back into reality for a few minutes and helping me understand a lot of my fellow WoW players better. I’ll try not to dig myself so deep into the RP-hole next time. (Even if it is a lot of fun down here!)

P.S. A lot of roleplayers actually play the opposite gender too… because good character ideas are not limited by gender. So it’s not a roleplayer thing, I think, so much as it’s a “Pike” thing. =P

guild, stories

The People of WoW

4 Comments

One of the neat things about our guild is that it has a very large number of people that are in their 50s and 60s, level-wise. These are all people who are either playing for the first time, like myself, or have largely abandoned previous high-level characters and are now leveling alts almost exclusively. It’s quite handy because you almost always have some people to quest with or run instances with, and I’m excited because so many of us are coming up on 70 now so it’s like we’re already going to be pretty much set for doing all those big 70 instances that are coming up (including our little guild’s pipe dream… it starts with a K and ends with an -arazhan.)

The other day, our guild’s current main tank, a 64 prot warrior who is fantastic to work with, whispered me and told me that I had to meet him in Blasted Lands, and that it was urgent. I was mystified, but quite intrigued, and hightailed it out of Nagrand and back to the old world so I could meet him there. Once we met up, he had me unequip my bow and quiver, toss all my arrows, and then he opened trade and gave me a present: [The Gunblade], complete with a +10 damage scope, a 16-slot ammo pouch and the bullets to go with it. It turns out he and my boyfriend had both pooled their extra gold and bought this present just for me. I was informed in a sort of semi-roleplaying-fashion (I love RP servers) that the gift was a thank-you to me for providing quality DPS and CC in instances, and in general “being good at your class”.

Then… you know those guys in Blasted Lands whose HP falls down to about 1% and then they don’t die? Yeah, best guys to grind your weapon skill on ever (because I’ve actually never used a gun before, even though I had the skill trained).

Anyways, the reason that I’m sharing this story isn’t just to show off my new weapon (even though it is very shiny), but because it really showed me that even though WoW “is just a game”… it also “isn’t just a game”. The reason it isn’t just a game is because of the people that you meet. These are people that you might not have met otherwise if you hadn’t played the game, and yes they might be people that you never do get to meet in person. But just because you don’t get to see them in person, doesn’t mean that they are any less important or any less capable of doing kind deeds or being good friends. I was really touched by the present that I got and what it meant, and I hope that I, too, can perform similar acts of kindness and gratitude to the people that I hang out with in-game.

I’ve met a lot of great people in this game and I can’t wait to meet others. And that’s my little feel-good story of the day. ^^

memes

Five Things Gaming Has Taught Me

4 Comments

I’ve been tagged by Girl Meets WoW:

Five Things Video Gaming Has Taught Me:

1. Supply and demand. Thank you, online game economies!
2. Playing the same games as your friends and family members can be both very fun and somewhat difficult, at the same time. (I actually feel a full-fledged post coming on about this.) And when playing online games with friends not having a fast internet connection can really make you rage. So better click here to see how you can avail of a high-speed internet connection. A gaming wifi extender is now also essential if you’re an online gamer. 
3. We humans have a surprising ability to memorize a large amount of information which we feel to be important, regardless of whether it will be useful later down the road or not. I could probably still name all 151 original Pokemon and tell you their strengths and weaknesses if I sat down and tried. Gaming also taught me the importance of great sound design in video games. A gaming headset also offers superior, crisp, and clear sound over traditional speakers, which is essential to really enjoy your gaming experience. You can visit sites like https://scufgaming.com/h1-wired-gaming-headset to find the right gaming headset for you.
4. The Super Nintendo is still the best video game system of all time.
5. There is a real person behind each of those characters in online games. Treat them accordingly (even if they don’t always treat you as such).

I could probably continue the list pretty easily; I once wrote up an essay (and posted it on my personal-life journal, actually) about how video games have effected me and helped shape me into the person I am today– geeky but true. I might have to repost that here sometime. I actually have a lot of ideas for future posts; I must apologize for not writing so much recently, but I’ve come down with a horrible cold and it’s got me rather “out of it”.


source nhà cái https://thabet.fun/

Tawyn is now halfway through level 66. She has been doing a lot of instance-running and that has really been bringing in the XP, so I’ve been leveling pretty quickly. It’s hard to believe I’m getting this close to level 70. I’ve been loving all this stuff I’ve learned in the past few levels… first Steady Shot, then Aspect of the Viper, then Kill Command… it’s changing my playstyle (for the better!), making my character even deeper to play and requiring more concentration, and it’s making me feel like a “Real Hunter”. People weren’t kidding, the game really does change once you hit Outlands.

So exciting. ^_^

duels, instances, stories

Bad Hunter, Good Hunter

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Some of my adventures around Azeroth…

Bad Hunter:

-I jumped off a high ledge in Dire Maul. Guess who I forgot to dismiss? Mmyep. About three minutes later, in the middle of discussing strategy, my pet comes running up followed by basically every single mob in the instance. Admittedly those last two seconds before we died were pretty funny (I’ve never seen that many mobs), and the group I was with was very forgiving and reminded me that it was sort of a hunter rite-of-passage… but I still was pretty embarrassed.

-I helped out a group in Scholo so one of the group members could get his pally mount, and another could progress in her warlock mount chain. Not too long into the instance I made a terrible mistake, clicked on the wrong mob, and without noticing, hit my “Hunter’s Mark/Pet Attack” macro key. This proceeded to pull basically the entire room. We managed to survive somehow, but I was beating myself up for it and making it worse was the fact that the PuG-members of the group assumed I was a huntard and started telling me to dismiss my pet. I apologized, told them it was my fault and not the pet’s, and that it wouldn’t happen again and that my pet was staying out whether they liked it or not. I’m hoping they noticed that my pet was very well-controlled for the rest of the instance and that I topped the damage meters pretty squarely. Normally I don’t like to flaunt the DPS meters but I really wanted to prove to them that I actually was competent and had just made a bad mistake. (And no I didn’t actually post the damage meters, but I’m hoping they noticed =P)

Good Hunter:

-This story takes place during another Scholo run (I help lower-level guildies in lower-level instances a lot). We were doing one of the boss rooms, the pull hadn’t turned out as we’d liked, and to make a long story short the entire room was on top of us.

It was pretty obvious that a wipe was imminent as I watched the group members fall one by one, so I took out as many mobs as I could before I was alone and overwhelmed. I ran out of the room, put my pet on defensive instead of passive (so he at least wouldn’t go down without a fight) and feigned death.

Poor Locke, I thought, I’m going to be sitting here playing dead while he dies…

But wait, what’s this?

Hey, Locke is doing pretty good against those three mobs (one of which was an elite) that are on him. He wouldn’t live without heals and help, but still…

I got up, bandaged up, popped Mend Pet, took out one of the mobs, trapped another, and then proceeded to solo the 60 elite.

So there we were, my pet and I standing triumphant in the face of what was otherwise a wipe. It was here that I noticed party chat was filled with people saying things like “Okay, wait for the mobs to be reset… whoa, what the heck, Tawyn’s not dead yet?” “Tawyn’s still not dead?”

And then I said “Hey guys, I killed an elite for ya”, not really thinking much of it, but then party chat proceeded to say “…um, Tawyn killed the boss.”

…I did?

Apparently I did!

He was a few levels lower than me yes. But he was an elite, and he had buddies with him, and I took him down.

And that made me feel really awesome.

-I defeated an equal-level marks-spec’d hunter in a duel. I still had about half of my hit points left by the end of it, too. Looking back on it I can think of some things he did wrong, for example, not sending his pet in to attack me (granted I would have trapped it anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing, ya know?) But it’s funny because I always had this notion in my head that marks-hunters did a lot better in duels. So this was another one of those “feel-good” moments.

The Morals of the Stories:

– Dismiss your pet before you jump off a ledge.

– Be absolutely sure you know who you are targeting before you send your pet in.

– Don’t assume you’ve lost when you’re staring in the face of an instance wipe or a duel against a differently-spec’d hunter. You never know when things will conspire to give you the edge you need.

Oh, and lastly…

– Don’t tell a good hunter what to do with their pet. Suggestions, okay. But “I hate your pet, please dismiss him”… no. Not a good idea. We have a thing called Huntery Pride and it comes out in full-force sometimes, and you probably don’t want to mess with it. *nods*

instances

Good Instance Runs: Chicken Soup for the WoW-playing Soul

9 Comments

I have to admit I don’t do a lot of instances. It’s not because I don’t want to do them, so much as because I often don’t have the time for them. I tend to be the busiest or the most likely to frequently AFK during the prime instance-running hours: the evening. So oftentimes I opt out of doing instances because I don’t want to bother the others with any potential frequent BRBs.

Today, however, was Thanksgiving, so I had a lot of wonderful uninterrupted spare time. (And don’t worry, I spent a lot of time with my family as well! =P My mom is a great cook.)

So, I ran Hellfire Ramparts. Twice. The group consisted of guildies and friends, mostly at level 60 (though I was at level 64), and included a warrior tank, a tree druid healer, a feral druid, and two BM hunters.

And I had an absolutely fantastic time, both times. The warrior had never done much tanking before and was very nervous about the whole thing, but he wound up doing a very impressive job. The healer was a great healer. The feral druid was one dangerous kitty. The other hunter was one of the best hunters I have worked with so far, and I’d like to think that I’m not too shabby either.

My job was DPS + CC, and it was one of the first times that I was really asked to provide consistent CC throughout the duration of a dungeon rather than just a few times. The other hunter and I actually played off of each other really well here; sometimes my trap would be resisted and she would be right there with a backup trap, or vice-versa. But what I really felt proud about were the times I had to chain trap. Sure, I’d practiced with the raptors in Arathi a la BRK, but here I was being asked to do it in a much more crucial setting. I guess I shouldn’t have worried because I seemed to do pretty good job, and that culminated in my sudden development of a severe case of “I’m-turning-into-a-real-hunter-itis”, a horrible disease that causes one to gesture frantically at the screen and tell one’s significant other “I’m chain trapping! I’M CHAIN TRAPPING! Are you watching??”

Heehee.

I also got to pull, at the warrior’s request. Oh, and the healer healed my pet whenever he was offtanking (or saving the healer). Both these people actually have level 70 hunters already so that may have helped.

Overall it was a fantastic experience. I feel like I learned a lot, and it felt really good to exit the instance knowing we’d done so well and handled the problems we’d came across. I got myself some new gear, and then because I was feeling particularly giddy I threw down a bunch of gold on an agility enchant for my polearm. At level 64, my agility is now over 400 and my crit chance is now over 15%, and I am one happy little hunterling.

I’m going to start trying to do more instances.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States!

battlegrounds, pvp

I couldn't help myself.

6 Comments

I got my tauren hunter to level 29 today, and as is the typical case with me when I get to the end of a “bracket”, I’m taking some time out to go play in the battlegrounds.

So there I was, guarding Blacksmith by myself in Arathi Basin, feeling a bit awkward about not having Flare or other helpful higher-level skills and dreaming of the trinket I’m saving up honor for. We’re winning this particular game and it’s nearing the end, but I’ve still got a freezing trap sitting at the flag waiting for anybody who wanted to try something at the last minute.

Suddenly I heard a familiar noise. I turned around and, what do you know, a rogue is caught in my trap.

Now I try to be a friendly person and honorable fighter in PvP, and throughout the whole game, really. I thank players for their heals or buffs and in general I think I’m a pretty nice person.

But at this point all I could do was be amused at the hapless rogue as my mind cycled back through all the dozens of times I’ve fallen prey to the stealthed hand of this particular class…

/target rogue
/laugh

And then I sic’d my kitty on her and she went down like a fly, and it felt pretty darn good.

Dear rogue, wherever you are… I’m sorry for laughing at you when you were stuck in my trap. But you have to realize how funny it looked and how nice it felt to be the one catching you by surprise for once. I was laughing with you, not at you. I promise. ^^

My tauren also tamed a new pet today; the windserpent Arikara. He apparently makes quite an entrance when you summon him. And I’ve never had a windserpent before, so it’ll be fun to try him out. I named him Ivan to go with the kitty Alyosha, and yes the third pet is going to be Dmitri. Cookie for anybody who gets the reference to my favorite book. *cough* =D

blogs, screenshots

Desktops & Blogs

4 Comments

This is a screenshot I took today of my current computer desktop:


The wallpaper was made by the extraordinarily talented artists over at The Bronze Kettle, which is a very good WoW blog that I would recommend looking into if you haven’t already.

Speaking of blogs, I’ve finally updated my sidebar’s blogroll; in fact, thanks to Google Reader and some code, it should actually self-update now every time I find a new blog to read. (Thanks to Mania for originally pointing out that you could do this!)

My blogroll has gotten very big in such a short amount of time, if it gets much bigger I might have to make a dedicated “page” for it. But I like having all the links on the blog itself.

Ding 63 and I got my [Survivalist’s Pike]! It even has my nickname in it, so you know it’s gotta be a good weapon. =P

lists

Ten Random Thoughts

8 Comments

I sort of have a lot to talk about, but most of them aren’t things I want to make full-blown posts about. However, here is a random sampling of what has been on my mind and in my WoW lately:

1. The Dead Zone is gone and I still unconsciously back up to “get range” even if I don’t have to. I can’t help myself. It’s months and months of hunter training that I don’t know if I can undo. Heehee.

2. The Hellfire Peninsula music really has a very Holst-like feel to it. It feels right out of the Planets Suite to me. It makes me wonder if that’s where the game’s composers got some inspiration, or if I’m just being a geek. My money is on the latter.

3. I got my Epic Mount!


4. What’s with all the shaman-inspired Outlands gear? I keep finding myself choosing the leather rogue quest rewards over the mail shammy ones. Yes, my armor is taking a bit of a hit, and yeah I like Intellect, but come on… if you give me a choice between a +30 agi, +30 stam, +attack power leather piece, and a +12 agi +12 stam +12 int +magical damage/healing mail piece… I’m gonna take the former. I’ve heard other people say that shamans have an unusually high amount of Outlands stuff, but wow, I had no idea they were this prevalent.

5. I have been challenged! Namely, my guild has put forth a bit of a friendly challenge for those among us who are in our early-60s: to get to 70 by Christmas. A few people have even taken it farther and have a 100g bet on the line for whoever gets there first. I’ve agreed to participate in the challenge but at the same time, I don’t want that to be the sole reason I’m leveling. I’m playing the game for fun, afterall, not to see if I can beat my guildies to 70. So I’m going to maybe kick up my leveling just a notch, and then not worry about it after that. I’ll get to 70 when I get there.

6. Speaking of my guild, I really like it a lot. When I first started this blog we were this tiny little guild of about 20 people; somehow we seem to have exploded recently to nearly 100 characters and almost as many accounts. Some people have their tiffs, as you will see in all guilds, but other than that our guild is full of friendly and intelligent people who willingly donate money to others’ mount funds and run newbies through instances on a daily basis– seriously, we seem to have an abnormal number of high-level members who love running lowbie instances. It’s kinda funny really… watching the guild’s higher-levels all scrambling to be the chosen one who gets to help someone through Deadmines, which once culminated in a Grand Deadmines Race which involved people pairing off and seeing who could run through the fastest. Yes, I do love my guild.

7. I have transferred my tauren hunter to a new realm: The Venture Co. It’s an RP-PvP realm. See, I know I often mention how I find PvP realms to be irritating because of all the ganking that goes on. However, I recently got this little dream in my head of being able to say I’ve leveled to 70 on a PvP server, and being able to experience that and broaden my knowledge that way. But being on a regular PvP server, I really missed the RP, so I’ve compromised and moved to an RP-PvP server. I’m really happy with my new server so far, though admittedly I’ve only just transferred– but it makes me so dorkily giddy to see real roleplay going on, and it’s already made my little tauren about ten times more fun to play.

8. Right after the transfer took place and I hopped onto my tauren alt, I noticed something unusual… track humanoids not only shows humanoids on the minimap, but beasts as well! Has anyone else experienced that? I sent a ticket into Blizzard and a GM had me do the whole “disable-all-your-addons” dance, but it didn’t change anything so I have been informed that it’s being looked into as a bug. In the meantime… it’s, um, very handy for contested zones, so it’s staying up… *hangs head guiltily*

9. My main is now a Scryer. Aldors had a decent ring, but Scryers had an alchemy recipe, and I’m a bit OCD when it comes to my professions. Gotta catch ’em all!

10. I’d completely forgotten how difficult it is to keep two pets leveled up with you simultaneously, especially since I seem to be perpetually rested these days so I’m always getting double XP while my pets aren’t. I fear I may have to soon make a decision and have one pet stay with me to 70 and then come back and grind the other one later. On the other hand, at least leveling a pet that is 7 or 8 levels lower than you shouldn’t be quite as bad as leveling one that is several dozen levels lower than you… hopefully that’s the case, anyway.

*glances over list*

Hmm. I think I write too much.

Everyday I'm Huntering