Enjoying 80

Well, I did move here because I knew there would be action.

I got my first look inside Ulduar. IHS had the Flame Leviathan down pretty well & all I had to do was not fuck up too bad, & being assigned to a gunner post worked out well.

When I got here I'd had one piece of t7 courtesy of Kanack Attack (thanks guys.), & with the relatively more active schedule on Staghelm further pretties followed. I can't even keep track. But thanks guys.

There was still pvp, of course. A bunch of Alliance launched a raid on Horde cities; I'd chased them to Sivermoon City & Thunder Bluff, but finally got to Undercity in time with a couple of my new guildies. We formed a raid, starting out with only a few Horde, & waited around the throne room area, with Sylvanas.

Who is a bad ass, btw.


I've raided Undercity. You enter through the sewers. It's not hard. The idea was to ambush the Alliance as they entered the corridor to the throne room. The guards along the corridor are spaced sufficiently far apart that they can be pulled quite manageably, 2 at a time. They would be able to make their way in a comfortable, controlled fashion to Sylvanas & the badasses hanging out with her. And us. lol

Marc kept watch on them from the sewers & warned us when they began moving in. Unflagged, we hung around various portions of the corridor; I shielded & then flagged & started AEing just as the main body of the raid moved over me toward the first pair of guards. I was waiting for a DoT.

Naturally it was a hunter who hit me first. It's always the hunters. I guess because they are ranged so they can get a good look at the little bit of red in the midst of their peers. As soon as I saw the Serpent Sting I flipped around & booked it back to Sylvanas. Guards aggroed as I passed them, ticking. I blinked. I hung a left once in the throne room, LOSing (I had more than a Serpent Sting on me at that point) & attempting to brush against every NPC I could glimpse as I ran madly to Sylvanas.


And so 8 of us wiped out a 26man raid. With the help of Sylvanas & her henchmen, of course.

Sylvanas operates similarly to that other archer chick in Howling Fjord (who is also a bad ass). She runs around in the fray, pausing to shoot someone down, killing him, & then jogs over to another spot, pausing to knock another enemy's dick in the dirt. She does this until everyone is dead. No special magic or anything as far as I could tell, although frankly I was running around like a madwoman so who knows what I missed. But anyway, as far as I can tell Sylvanas is fairly straightforward. She just shoots them dead & then goes back to her dais & strikes the unconcerned sexy pose.

The second time the Alliance raid attacked they didn't bother to pause at the front of the corridor. They did give us sufficient time to unflag, which was nice of them. A few more Horde had joined our raid after seeing how badass we were that the Alliance's initial attempt had failed miserably. They charged straight in to the throne room & were denied in a much quicker, probably less painful manner than on their initial charge.

Well, that was fun.






I finally got to see the Construct Quarter. Where I got some shinies.



Simple travel through Naxxramas also had its own quirks & comedies. Well, mainly it was the time that Pugs died 3 times just going to, if I recall correctly, Grobbulus' room. All the love in our raid came out during that time.

A lot of people don't make it through the "Frogger" portion of the instance, which is the 3 lines of slimes moving in uniform speed across the path in Patchwerk's area. I don't have a problem with it but certain folks just die every time; maybe it's a latency problem.

Pugs didn't make it through the slimes, & then was rezzed in a bad spot where he immediately died again. And then as he made his way to the rest of the raid, Aspect of the Pack was turned off just at the perfect time to cause him to misjudge a step & fall to his death.

lol



I also got to see The Military Quarter for the first time.

I don't think I've been as nervous about a raid as I was on the Military Quarter since BWL. Frankly, Razorgore as a hunter is pretty intimidating when it's your first (or in my case, second or third or fourth) time.

On entering the Military Quarter I realized that the only fight I had really boned up on was the Four Horsemen, at the end. There were two other boss encounters leading up to it. As in other unfamiliar instances, I informed the raid that I would be sticking to Glen like fucking glue. As Chad & Derek worked the MC details out on the Instructor dude, I whispered to Glen, "I have never done this before." He whispered back, "Melee has all the hard stuff."

Awesomeness.

Upon completing the Military Quarter I decided that it was my favorite quarter of Naxx, although actually I think Plague is actually my favorite. I just enjoy Heigan too much.



I got to see Sapphiron. Actually, it wasn't that bad. Ok, Sapph wasn't that bad. Kel'thuzad kicked our asses the first time around. Both of our priests got ice blocked, & being unable to heal each other through the ice block, died. And then all the adds came out. Yeah, it wasn't pretty at all.



I haven't been blogging a lot because I seem to be playing more WoW now than ever in my WoW career; in fact, I think I am MMOing now more than ever in my MMO career. Ok, except maybe for when I was playing Darkness Falls.

Shank. I wonder what happened to him.

It's not really because of the raid schedule. I think it's important to find a group of people that you feel comfortable with. In the past I've felt less than, more than, left out, or just not interested. I've "recruited" (I understand it's been said in FTM guildchat that I am "recruiting.") friends that are important to me & more friends that I really enjoy have decided to hang out as well. Chad & Rylan have done a great job of building a fun, friendly guild & I'm glad that a lot of us are feeling at home here.


Now we just need Seki to join the guild.



Heh.

GM Tamastara

So, one day I was a GM.

I think I was probably a GM all day. But I didn't realize it until I had finished up my dailies & decided it was time to play some BGs. After several unsuccessful attempts at queuing, I thought perhaps BGs were bugged & wondered if anyone else was having difficulties.

Apparently it was only me.

Immediately I was contacted --- no, not by Blizzard --- by various players asking if I was really a GM. OF COURSE I WAS NOT A GM. For kicks I whispered myself... & a yellow message explaining that a GM wished to speak with me appeared. When I clicked it, a separate dialog box popped up. It was like... like a petition actually getting a response. Completely unfamiliar.


Of course I decided to have a little fun with it. When I say "fun," though, I don't mean tricking people out with t8 or giving myself a panda. If I knew how I would have. At least the panda. I mean, that's what's important. Panda. No. I couldn't do anything even vaguely important. In truth, all I had was this blue thing in front of my name in chat.

If I just never said I word I wasn't even a GM! My GMness existed solely in chat! I was a Chat GM!

A couple of other players contacted me with suggestions regarding various GM-type commands I could try using, but none of these worked. Frankly if I couldn't get myself a panda I wasn't particularly interested in this GM stuff. I was serious about the Tauren dance though. Really. They should get something better. Poor things.

And I still couldn't get into any BGs.

Naturally no one in IHS was on at the time. I called Chad & told him, "Dude. You need to log in now. I'm a fucking GM." Once Chad got in, we staged a GM-player conversation regarding swine flu & Dick In A Box under the tree at Winter Veil. Frankly, in retrospect I could have thought of a lot funnier things to say, but the two of us were just laughing SO HARD on the phone it was tough to even type.

Everywhere I went in Dalaran other players found me & made a dance party around me. I couldn't really do anything since I was so busy typing & laughing at the same time, so they'd always find me no matter where I tried to hide.

In the end logging out & in removed the GM bug from me, although by that time I had to start getting ready for work already. Chad & I had our gag screenshot, & I was just glad that I could queue for BGs again.

I got a 48 hour suspension for this afterward due to some player reporting me for impersonating a GM. When I got the email from Blizzard somehow it wasn't upsetting; it only seemed to validate the experience. One could argue that it was Blizzard's fault for the bug, but frankly I didn't have to drag it on quite as far as I did. Since the WoW player base is predictably teeming with all kinds of repressed nerd rage, I should have known I'd be an easy target for a million other players' random malice.

Still, it was fun. =)