I Heart Seki

Staghelm: Cleaning out the folder

2010-09-09T03:39:00.010-10:00

IHS had a scheduled 25man every Thursday, & every Thursday no one would show up. I couldn't even imagine how FTM had once done 40man raids. Even though the raid was supposed to start around 8:30, at 8:30 there would be fewer than 10 on, & I'd have to start texting people. It was very frustrating.

But that's just me. I LIKED raiding with my guildies. From here, looking back, I don't know if the crappy attendance was due to passive-aggressive drama amongst the boys or if people were just getting weary of WoW. It was probably both.

Our Tuesday night 10mans were even hard to assemble in the last days. Where previously I had sometimes not gotten in to the 10man because they already had 10 people, now I was texting people on freaking Tuesday nights.

I'll be honest. It's hard for me not to feel bitter about this. I didn't have issues with anyone in IHS, not then. If I did, I'd say something about it, rather than make the guild suffer for it. To me, that's fair. I always make the mistake of assuming that other people want to be fair, too, & that if they had a problem with someone they would either say something, or harbor the issue without affecting other uninvolved parties. You know... like grown ups. Yeah, I'm so naive.

Even in retrospect I don't really know what was going on. All I knew was that guild morale was crappy. I've grumbled about it to one of my friends & his take on it is that there was a rift between the more progressive players & the "squatters," & this tension killed everyone's morale. It's true that many of the IHS players who had been active & online almost daily completely or almost completely vanished shortly after the influx of FTM players. I've been informed of many of the reasons for specific IHS players disappearing, & I don't think I've been lied to, but it's just such a big coincidence. They all left at the same time. And they came back at the same time - after we moved to Thaurissan. So I don't know what to think. I don't think there was animosity directed toward me specifically, but I still feel betrayed.

Men. Men can be such vaginas.

So currently I have still not killed Lich King, & I have not even tried since moving to Thaurissan. I don't really care about Lich King. I don't care about raiding right now. I like Thaurissan a lot, but when it comes to progression I just don't want to think about it for awhile. If the day comes when I have a guild again - & that means a group of friends who are all getting along & being nice to each other - & they all want to raid, then I'll want to raid again too. It's not because I'm a follower but simply because raiding isn't fun for me without everyone else having fun too.

I have a lot of hope for Cataclysm - Phil & Kelson said they're going to start playing again, & although the Oregon crew said they are quitting WoW to play FFxiv, I'm fairly certain they'll be back by November or shortly thereafter. A number of FTM guys I haven't played with since Minionette days (Jahni, Fique, Aaron) have moved to Thaurissan as well. There are a few still in IHS that I wish would come to Thaurissan (frankly, I wish almost everyone would... about as effectively as I wish everyone would grow the fuck up, but I still wish it) but I know they're not coming, & that's ok. With the new Real ID feature, we can still keep in touch cross server.

If the "squatters" theory is true, then I guess this couldn't have been helped. People just want different things - some want to move & others want to sit still. Ultimately one can't remain with the other. I'm trying to let it go. I'm trying to stop feeling bitter about it. It might take a little longer. Or maybe all will be well in November.

There are certainly things I miss about Staghelm. Meh, those situations wouldn't be coming up again now anyway. I still have my alts there, but I'm so spoilt from the ping on Thaurissan that I run into problems with my global cooldowns or even running away before I'm done looting on Stag. I'm just leveling alts until Cataclysm. It's actually kind of fun. A little lonely sometimes, maybe.
Occasionally I think to myself it might be time to quit WoW. I think I have to delete my Facebook before I quit WoW. I hate Facebook a lot more than WoW. And the last time I quit WoW it cost me a LOT of money, although I tend to think it would be better this time around. However, with Cataclysm coming there's just no point in that. I'd be back if only out of curiosity. So I've just got to hold on a little longer.

It's no picnic, let me tell you.

Moving to Thaurissan.

2010-06-22T02:56:00.008-10:00

Well, it didn't go as planned.

There had been casual talk about moving from Staghelm, a Dallas based server (average Dalaran ping for me 350) to an LA based server where the ping would be a lot lower. Every time it came up, usually over drinks, I always said I'd be willing to go if everyone wanted to go.

When the discussion became more serious & a few of us started trying out LA servers, I made it a point to mention it to people. Everyone I mentioned it to said they would move. I even called a guildie, who had been mostly absent for several months, to personally discuss the talk about moving with him, & he was amenable. At least, if a response of "Ok, let me know then" is considered amenable, which at the time I took it to be.

The 3 or 4 of us who were testing out ping had narrowed it down to 2 servers, & then sat on it for a week. Every day someone asked which server we were going to move to, but no one would take the plunge & choose. Everyone was waiting for someone else to do it. Finally when one person said he would like to know which server to start leveling his rogue alt on, I sent out an email to everyone, asking for a vote.

It was at the END of the vote that a couple of people, the person I had called on the phone & his friend who originally voted for a server, announced they would not be moving. But it turned out to be more than just a couple of people; hardly anyone moved: from IHS, only 7. People who said they would move seemed to just forget what they had said.

I thought we were all going, & I did my best to communicate with people about what I pictured to be a good thing, & if there had been even some discussion about not wanting to move, I would have stopped to rethink this, because I would choose my friends over better ping.

People talk so much bullshit. They say, "Yeah, I will" without meaning it. I used to do that. At some point I made a conscious effort to not be full of shit. So I know how to say "no" just as easily as "yes." Whatever it is, I tell the truth. If I fuck up, I say something about it. I don't skulk around & pretend nothing happened.

I know that it's unfair of me to expect that from other people. Apparently for most people this is really fucking hard. Today someone blatantly lied to me about his friend's reason for not transferring. I didn't point it out. Maybe his friend lied to him. It doesn't matter. I don't care.

So now I'm just alone all the time. When I log into WoW, most of the time it's pretty much just me. It's like Bloodscalp again, except this time instead of everyone leaving it's because people SAID they would meet me there & then they just let me go. It's like that time in 9th grade when my POS girlfriends (Heidi Tengan, Shelby Shigaki - yeah FUCK YOU bitches) thought it would be funny to tell me to meet them outside the football game at 5:30 & instead met at 5:15 & went inside without me. And I waited, & waited, & waited, because I would never have thought they would have lied about it.

I know. I expect too much of other people; I can't help it. I wish I could stop. I'm so sick of being let down, but the only way to stop is to just not have friends any more. Although that's starting to look like it wouldn't be much lonelier than things already are.

Loyalty. Honesty. Kindness. Conscientiousness. WoW is just a game. You don't expect those things from a game.

Just futting around

2010-05-17T23:06:00.006-10:00

I actually don't have a whole lot of screenshots to post since the last blog, but since I can't seem to get past the loading screen tonight I might as well blog what I've got.

With UH Commencement this month we did skip a Thursday ICC25, & with my gig coming up this week I think we may have to skip another Thursday (sorry guys; please come to my gig though!). Also, Kelson & Sherrie are in the Bahamas so we're missing a DK. How many trips do you guys take per year, anyway? I swear this is like the 3rd one in the last 6 months.

We're hoping to finally get the Lich King at least on 10 man some time soon; since our 10mans are usually on Tuesdays tomorrow's Beers Of The World at Kanpai may set us back a little bit, but maybe we can do half tomorrow & finish it up on Wednesday. Jahni & Aaron may be faction transferring some time soon. Maybe Kruse too! Mud shall be pushed! Oh yes!!

The only thing is that I wish we were on a server with better ping. But I guess we can't exactly ask people to move now. I myself have ridiculous amounts of toons on this server.

I've been slowly leveling my hunter alt. It's going quite slowly but I'm enjoying Northrend. I'm more of a journey than destination type. Yes, I've been leveling Fishing & Cooking. This Jewelcrafting is going to take forever too. Actually, I think the crappiest part of Jewelcrafting is the damn Mining. Omg I hate Mining. I think that's my biggest problem right now.

A lot of people won't bother to level professions until they're 80 & that's probably a good idea. I like Fishing & Cooking just because I like playing with food stats. As a hunter who cares, but it's just nice.

Once my hunter is 80 I have no idea what I'm going to do with her other than buy heirloom items for the other toons (druid, priest, paladin) on that account. I decided to level the hunter because I figured it would be quickest. And, as slow as this is going, it probably is. lol

I'm not falling asleep leveling Beast Mastery like I was on Khaz Modan; I attribute this to leveling Horde. The NPCs have more personality, the quests aren't gay sounding, & overall it's just so much more pleasantly unpleasant. I think I'll always be an Undead girl at heart & playing on the Alliance side just hurts me after awhile.
Kevin & I decided to do a little mage/priest 2v2. It was pretty fun; we just did 10 matches just to get a few points. Our 10th match ended up being Kelson & Phil. We entered the map, & I saw a wolvar DK with the name "Kadonei" over his head jump up & look at us, & I just started laughing.

We lost. I couldn't do enough damage to Phil or keep Kelson sheeped. Bleh. Maybe we'll try this again another day. Was still funny as hell.
And then, some more pvp while we waited outside Ulduar to do the weekly. No, I have not maxed out my Unarmed yet.

Still Hearting Seki, 2010

2010-05-01T21:00:00.024-10:00

If you see text overlapping images, refresh the page. Dunno why it's doing that.
I actually don't have a lot of pictures of Seki himself in this blog; I think these from the Gulch might be the only ones. He kind of disappeared in the last month or so. He does that.

The first half of 2010 has been mostly about Ice Crown Citadel. We've BG'd, but not a whole lot. Although Tako, Kelson & I had some decent progress in 3v3s we haven't really pursued that, I think mostly due to scheduling issues. Tako's hardly been on in the last month because of work. I have a lot of fun listening to Kelson & Phil on vent doing their 2v2 though. Their druid/DK combo seems to be working out well. It's even more entertaining when they use their spiffy new headsets to speak to each other in Female Gnome or Mal'Ganis voices.

My attitude toward pvp has changed somewhat since Tichondrius days. I'm so lazy now. I can't even imagine leveling up on a pvp server. And I think that's sad.

Of course, leveling up on a pvp server now wouldn't be anywhere near as fun as it was 5 years ago. Now everyone is 80. If you're leveling up an alt in STV you might see another player in the zone once in awhile, & half the time they will be accompanied by their level 80 friend or level 80 other account to speed it up, since they're someone's alt.

So the only pvp I really see is in Battlegrounds.

I got my pally/shammy duo to level 60. Finally. That was torture. I was so sick of dual boxing that leveling Mining looked like fun.

Mining got really tired after the first few hours. I ended up working on less miserable professions. Drunk Kato kept me company.

Logan took me joyriding on his bike:

And then there was Kelson's mammoth. And Birdy's mammoth. I didn't realize how handy these things are in BGs. They're like a clown car. You still take damage as a passenger though, & not just to your crotch.

More goofing around in Dalaran.

And some goofing around in Wintergrasp.

In April there was Easter & Keegan's birthday. I'm still trying to think of some kind of witty statement about what they have in common, but nothing is coming to mind.

One day Keegan was running around on his level 63 hunter, & since I have always liked Keegan (I'm a bartender. He's an alcoholic. There's an affinity there.) I asked him if he needed help with anything. Did he need Ramparts? Did he have any elite or group quests I could help with? He hadn't done Ramparts yet but didn't need to right now. No, he didn't really have any pressing quests he needed help with. Oh ok. So I switched to my pally/shammy duo (oh, the DRUDGERY) & began chatting him up.

"The nice thing about playing an alt is that I don't have to deal with anybody," he whispered me.

Doh!! "Oh ok, I understand," I replied. If this had been IRL I think I would be crying. Holy shit, I had no idea he didn't want to be bothered! I mean, I just ASSUME people like talking to me. Well, except for Nasai maybe. But you know, I have days when I don't really want to do a lot of chatting. Those days when I'm feeling the Zen of WoW. That's why I have unguilded alts. Of course, I end up messaging Tako or Phil or Todd anyway. Meh.

"Not that I don't like talking to you," Keegan whispered. But I knew what he meant. He liked talking to me. He really did. Just not right now. It was just mortifying because I had just thoughtlessly chatted him up in the last several minutes. How could I be so oblivious? "It's ok!" I assured him. I made a happy face to show I wasn't a sobbing mass of wounded rejection.

"It's an honor to talk to you," he said.

lol

When Fique told me on a Sunday night at the bar about Keegan's impending birthday get together at Kanpai the following Monday night I made it a point to go. I never get invited to anything. This is partly because I don't go out much & partly because everyone else grew up together. I grew up with all these people that I have no idea where the hell they are today. I didn't really like most of the people in my high school. No, I was not a goth chick.

The get together at Kanpai was really nice, & Keegan did talk to me (since he was not on his alt, obviously). I skipped out around midnight but I understand that Keegan did not even deign to lean over when he vomited all over the mens room at Evergreen. He just geysered, in a practically horizontal arc. When we did Festergut a few days later I made sure I was within screenshotting distance.

By the time my birthday came around at the end of April we still had not killed Professor Putricide. Having reached the age where shots are no longer necessary to prove that I am a year older (I think it's just called "Old."), we had a nice, tame dinner at Ruth's Chris. In the last several years that we've planned birthday dinners for myself or others, everyone at the dinner chips in to pay for the birthday person's dinner. Since we were inviting a pretty large group of people, we figured I could get away with Ruth's Chris this year. =)

It's always been hard getting 25 people together to do ICC25 on Thursdays. The days of Raid Sign Ups on message boards & 40 people repairing, buying reagents, & traveling to the outside of the instance PRIOR to the raid start time are long gone. When I first transferred over here Chad folks were doing 10man Ulduars but only sporadically. When FTM guys started transferring over a lot of the 2nd Gen IHS guys seemed to disappear, but of course this was the time of faction transfers so a lot of things were changing for a lot of people. But at any rate we've never seemed to have a solid, consistent 25 raiders. It always looks like it, & then someone gets married or gets a girlfriend or whatever (fools) & then we are short people again.

Because of bad experiences picking up random, if geared, players we've had to make some rather stringent loot rules. It just hurt too much when some PUG who was coming along with us for the first time, & was bobbing around on the bottom of the DM, won the roll on an item that one of our faithfuls had been waiting weeks for to drop. So now we tell any 1st timers that they will be unable to roll on weapons or trinkets if we have one of the faithful along who needs that trinket. If they do a good job they may get invited back next time. And next time they will have roll privileges. It may sound mean, but hey --- it's our raid.

One such faithful was our friend Ryan1 (since there were 2 Ryans when we were playing on Onyxia, I gave them numbers). His hunter is one of our top DPS & had lost the roll on a rather important bow to another hunter who was there for the first time, & who rarely showed up to other raids later on. This burned.

Ryan1 still hasn't gotten that bow, but now this is somewhat his own fault, because he has been absent from raids for several weeks. Every Thursday we'd be calling & texting people because we were trying to get everyone on to raid, & we'd hear, from whoever was at Ryan1's house at the time (I think he & Logs are renting together, & their other friends, also guildies, are often at their place), that he couldn't raid because someone named "Courtney" was there.

"Where's Ryan1?" we'd ask on vent.

"Courtney's here," would be the answer, & we'd know he wasn't going to be logging on.

Naturally this led to feelings of resentment. Ditching us for a girl?? Something like this would be relatively understandable if she was his wife or even just girlfriend... but she wasn't. She wasn't even his sex partner. She was his Bubble Bobble opponent. Group discussion (over drinks, of course) on a Sunday night led to the conclusion that if Ryan1 wasn't boning her but he wasn't showing up to raids either then he was a FAG.

That's right, Ryan1. A fag. No offense to any gay people. We know you'd be right there in ICC25 with us if you were in IHS. I mean, there's Brent. And Craig. Anyway.

At Ruth's Chris Ryan1, faced with a room full of middle fingers, agreed that he would join us on our Thursday raid, & true to his word, he did. Possibly because he had shown up, a lot of other people showed up as well, & we only had to bring along 2 non-IHS. He also blew me away on the DM. And, we finally killed Professor Putricide, for the first time. A guild first. So let me say it in this blog:

Ryan1 is no longer a fag.

At least not this week.

Anyway, I am having fun. When I first started playing WoW, I had no concept of playing in a guild. I'd been in a guild in EQ - a raiding guild, even - but I had never leveled high enough to go on raids. I got to go on a Naggy raid once, back when Nagafen was a big deal, but all I was allowed to do was conjure mod rods for the healers. In From Chaos I was among friends but I never really did much raiding, & even in FTM I was always so terrified of screwing up that any time they needed someone to drop so they could being in another healer I would volunteer. It's nice here in IHS. We're not hardcore so I have plenty of time to do all my little OCD things, but twice a week I get to see raid content, & learn how to raid (still learning!), & in great company with people I trust & genuinely like. So thanks guys. Also, I think my Bloodmage shiet looks pretty hawt.

And I still have time for fishing.

IHS: Finishing up 2009

2010-03-23T01:05:00.018-10:00

I haven't been posting because I've been PLAYING. Currently I Heart Seki is doing weekly ICC25 & we are on the Plagueworks. I've been killed by Festergut but not been there yet when the raid has had the pleasure of returning the favor. Actually, I don't think we've done it yet on 25man. I think only on 10man mode, which is run on Tuesday nights, when I am slaving away at the Korean bar.

In 2009 Blizzard brought back Onyxia, making the fight harder & the rewards better. I never really cared for the Onyxia fight. It might have been because I'd only ever done it as Alliance & we'd all swim over the bay from Theramore, & then if I wasn't following someone I couldn't find the damn spot in the rocks where I could climb out of the damn water. It was embarrassing. And I played a Hunter, so it's not like I could have any dignity about not being able to figure out how to do something. It could also have been the little how-to video we had to watch that made me motionsick.

Anyway, I didn't go on a lot of 2009 Onyxia runs, but I did take a couple of pictures.

Most of the time I think we were running Trial of the Champion (5) & Trial of the Crusader (10 & 25). Initially we got the hang of ToC5 quickly, & then rather flippantly stepped into ToC10 & got our asses handed to us. We decided that we would need to get everyone into 232 gear & try again later.

I think my favorite encounter in ToC10/25 is definitely the Faction Champions, not just because I enjoy PvP but because it's always exciting. Most PvE fights are just the same routine; once you figure out the correct routine, which is the hard part, then it's just rinse & repeat. PvP fights, of course, are always relatively different, barring predictable class actions. To be able to have a PvP style PvE encounter is really fun; it still does come down to a fairly routine strat, but somehow it's more challenging & exciting.

We did a fair amount of ToC10 & did joint ToC25s with a guild called Frost Shock, made up primarily of a group of our guildie Owinfrey's friends who followed him to Staghelm after he had transferred here & joined IHS, guilded with us, & then split to make their own guild. I understand this is because Owinfrey's friend Sweetmeat needed to have his own guild in order to raid at an earlier time. Naturally he quit the game shortly after forming Frost Shock.

I do have an opinion about this: it sucked. I met Owinfrey on Facebook via Mafia Wars; he was one of FTM member Carey's friends & when he inquired about IHS I of course said that any friend of Carey's was welcome to join us. And of course, he was & is a really cool guy & a skilled player. Guilding his friends wasn't part of the deal, although no one was going to bitch about it so long as they had someone to vouch for them. The first few who transferred over & were guilded were fairly cool, but they didn't know they were going to ditch us & make their own guild yet. The later transfers, when guilded, pretty much kept to themselves. Conceivably they already knew this was just a stopover & they didn't consider the friendly ginvite a privilege nor did they have any respect for the people who unquestioningly took them in.

Because IHS is a guild of RL friends, there is a certain familial feeling. Even gay sometimes. But there's a niceness & a kindness & a really pleasant lack of drama because most of us are fairly intelligent & mature. This is what we were allowing these people into, & in retrospect I guess we shouldn't have. Just because they knew someone in our guild didn't automatically buy them membership, & I didn't feel comfortable guilding some of these folks but there was no tangible reason, then, not to. And then they saved us a bunch of grief by vacating anyway, & they didn't even bother to say bye or thanks before they typed /gquit or even after I whispered some of them "bye." Just no response. Whatever.

Since then (in 2010) Frost Shock fell apart & we've taken some of them back but except for Owinfrey I haven't seen much of them. If Sweetmeat ever reinstates his account I don't want him in our guild. I like my guildies. They're my family. He's not welcome in my family.

In other news, I finally killed Terry.

Seki also started playing with us again, transferring his rogue from Bloodscalp & began going on runs to get himself geared up to par. Two items dropped for him, & as I ran around doing my cooking daily I could hear Tako & Baron gloating about how they were rolling Need because they didn't intend to just let him have it just because it dropped.

No. Seki was going to have to quest for it.

"Fucking bastards," he said.

Baron required Bryan to gather various vanilla WoW items found in areas all over the old continents, including one zone that Horde didn't even have a flight point in. I was impressed with Baron's creativity. Bottle of firewater. lol

Anyway, Baron later changed the Goblin Rocket Fuel requirement to Volatile Rum, which is easier to get in that it is a fairly common drop rather than something that drops only off of 3 mobs, one of them Rare & the other an Elite in a rather huge instance or has to be crafted by an Alchemist, with ingredients that are so old that no one stocks them any more & they would have to be farmed.

He did run into a little difficulty with the Hops. I seem to recall that they didn't drop all that much when I was doing the Thunderbrew Lager quest as Alliance, & that I had had to go after those little gray robots in the fields that were never good for much except dropping Hops, & then not very good at that either. Anyway, it took him awhile.

Did I mention Seki's birthday is in November?

In 2009 a new 5man & 10/25man instance called Ice Crown Citadel opened & we were all over that. Blizzard also made cross-server LFG available, so if we needed to fill a spot in our group we could queue & fill it fairly quickly. We began doing ICC25s with Frost Shock, & now are running it ourselves, although we still have to pick up players to fill a few spots. We do have a couple of regular PUGs & Kelson suggested we just guild them but I'm glad we're not because I still see this as a friends & family guild; we don't ginvite people just for the sake of raiding. I hope we never do.

ICC5 is pretty fun; it hasn't gotten that commonplace for me yet, but that could also be because I don't get to run a lot of 5mans with everyone. You'd think with my schedule I'd be racking up those Frost Emblems, but no. I have DOGS. One of those dogs is an American Bulldog puppy. I actually spent like 3 hours watching Dog Whisperer episodes. Seriously. When you have a big dog, you also have big responsibility, because if she kills someone... & people find out about it... you could get into a lot of trouble & you'd probably lose your dog. We also want to keep Breed Specific Legislation from coming to Hawaii, although imho the locals aren't doing that great of a job with pit bulls here. Freaking Bloodline. It just gives the breed, & Waimanalo, a bad name.

But to be totally honest, if my dogs killed an intruder on my property (well, technically it's my dad's, & I just live here) & no one heard the screams, I'd chop that fucker up & put him in freezer bags in my freezer. A 30 lb bag of premium kibble costs me $50! I was doing 50/50 kibble/raw for awhile, & learned that it takes longer than half a day to defrost a whole turkey. Was definitely fun cutting it up though. But it's so hard to keep a supply of raw food, & so at this time they're just eating kibble. Imagine 150 lbs of fresh meat. Omg, that's dogfood for a month. I know that some of you may think that's gross, but just remember that the next time you have a body you need to dispose of.

Enjoying 80

2009-08-25T03:06:00.018-10:00

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

2009-05-12T00:27:00.003-10:00

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. =)

A Return To IHS.

2009-04-28T02:19:00.011-10:00

Ok, I'll be honest about it. I wasn't very happy on Uldum. There were a number of people I loved, mainly Stef, but most days no one was ever on. Being with KA on Uldum was still better than being completely alone in FTM on Bloodscalp... but only a little better. After a while, I noticed that I was so blah. I lost any motivation to do anything. I didn't even feel like fishing. Frankly it was more interesting to log on to my Alliance mage on Khaz Modan.

Whoa.

When we finally scheduled some Naxx10s, I was excited & I signed up right away. On the first scheduled day I logged on an hour before the start time (7:30) & made sure I had reagents, was repaired, & on vent.

My enthusiasm was rewarded by an actual raid start at around 9. There seemed to be a certain level of ambivalence. Like certain folks didn't even really want to go.

And my morale did a nose dive, again.

I thought that maybe if we had more people to raid - people who would care about being on time & prepared - that it would be better. I remembered that Chad, Rylan & Chad's girlfriend were still holding up the I Heart Seki fort on Staghelm. I emailed Chad, & he came back with a willingness to move but a need for help moving their gbank.

Finding that I had no level 10+ Horde toons left on Stag, I rolled a level 1, planning to level her to 10 so she could mule for IHS. I rolled it on Audrey's account too, since I knew she'd undoubtedly score, bagwise.

Once guilded with IHS, I noticed something that didn't quite jive. There were more than 3 people there. I registered with their website, saw their forums & their raid schedule. Not only were there 16 raiding mains here, but they were already doing Naxx/Ulduar10 4x a week. As I realized all this there were 9 guys on, & vent chat was lively. Well fuck.

"Ok. Nevermind about moving to Uldum. We should move here," I said.

Chad's gf Tammy invited me to a get-together that Friday, which was my birthday. Turned out it was also Chad's birthday. Wow! "So Chad," I said on vent. "Your birthday is this Friday?"

There was silence.

Eventually Chad said, "You didn't have to say it on vent." Oops, turns out his buddies didn't know. My bad.

"So Chad," I then said. "Does Bryan happen to know that it's your birthday this Friday when you are going to be in his bar?"

"Please don't tell him," Chad said immediately.

"I need bags," I said.

BGs in this battle group are a little different from what I'm used to. Horde sucks, for one thing. I swear I never saw so many idiots standing around doing nothing. The other thing is that late night BGs are best. This is the complete opposite of what I'm used to. But actually it's kind of cool, because it's mostly late at night that I feel like BGing. Having sworn off casual sex, the closest thing I can get to it is pvp. Just joking. No really, I'm just joking. Really.

The Alliance guys seem significantly better geared than what I'm used to. At this point I just find the guy who's not geared & I look hopefully for him all the time. Those bastards must win so many more BGs than Horde that they're all tricked out in the latest fashions. Bitches. I shall persevere.

I've also been having some weird bug where after I switch specs I find that all but 16 of my talent points have become unspent, & in the middle of a flag run I'm trying to find my Ice Barrier & it's not there.

Slightly inconvenient, there.

VoA went really well, though.

I'm a little sad about all the times I've jumped servers. The truth is, though, that I always jumped to something that was fun & exciting & better for me, at least for awhile. Kind of like my lovelife. Hm, bad analogy there. Next picture please.

Hey, just so you know.

2008-10-29T04:44:00.002-10:00

The Bunnies blog is no more. I left that server kind of a long time ago. I didn't realize anyone still came here. Sorry.

For current World of Warcrack posts, go here.

Packaged.

2007-11-04T03:32:00.000-10:00

Bye now. =)

More Bunnies of Summer

2007-10-02T06:09:00.000-10:00

Ok. I'm not going to post up all the screenshots I have. I tried, & I simply don't have adequate descriptions for them. Perhaps it's the week I'm having, perhaps it's my overall attitude about WoW right now. Perhaps I should be doing this when I feel better. Oh, fuck it.

Let's talk about fun stuff.

There's this elite NPC that wanders along the area South of Thrallmar in Hellfire Peninsula. This fucker has kicked my ass on SH as well as Tich. But I have figured out a way to kick him back.

I still get xp for it.

And of course, there is still PvP. Here's my first encounter with Plutto, the druid who Ferocious bit me for some ridiculous crit that he posted on the forums - 3200? Something like that. I have a healthy respect for him, although not that day. He & 2 other druids were stealthing around Hellfire gangbanging solo players. Not nice. Not fair. They died while running away though. So all good.

Ooh, & my first socketed item! I had to learn how sockets work!

This quest had me chuckling the entire time.

Blood Furnace.

I really like Outland. I've liked every zone I've been in. Terokkar Forest was completely different from Hellfire, & had quite a variety of terrain even within itself. This is the area around Auchindon, probably the least attractive area in Terokkar, but still home of those wacky sand gnomes.

At 70 Tamastara still has a quest in Ramparts. Way back when 4 of us, including my instance buddy Odenlee, decided to try 4-manning Ramparts without a tank & even a level 59. We got all the way to the last boss, due to people playing their classes & constant strat discussion (that's right, friends --- science.). But that last boss was just too much without a tank. Still, it was quite the adventure. I think I must have used every freaking cooldown I had on the 2nd boss.

And then there was the MC pug. I think we started with 16 players & got to Gehennas with 11. Probably half the starting raid had never been to Molten Core, & initially we couldn't get past the first fire pack.

Once people learned that pacing their damage in order to allow the tanks to get aggro (is that such a foreign concept now? Maybe just on our server.) things went much smoother.

It also seems that people no longer have to run BRS in order to get keyed for MC; they can just zone right in.

I was sad to look through my bags, & not find an Onyxia scale cloak. I can't remember if Tamastara is keyed for Onyxia, but I understand that that long quest line has also been eliminated from the game. It's like the introduction of Plane of Knowledge in Everquest. Later players couldn't understand about travel on foot --- everything was a port.

I got 2 guildinvites out of this PUG, one of which led to a guild merger proposal.

My my, how I missed those doggies.

Ah, I feel so old.

Fishing continues. After Terokkar, I traveled to Nagrand, which is breathtakingly beautiful.

Phil gave me a pleasant excuse to re-visit my favorite zone of yore. Yore. lol. Anyway, a couple of higher level Night Elf Men (how gay) were running around picking on younguns in STV. Ah, it's nice to be in the 60s. And it's nice to be back in my old stomping grounds, where one's travel path is fairly predictable.

And here was one of those days I just wasn't in the mood for that passive-aggressive bullshit. Nothing personal.

And Whut has left me. Dammit.

Anyway, back to pvp.

And then there's dear Elysia. How I miss her. Although... have you seen her gear? Fuggedaboutit! I would be dead instantly. Ok, so I don't miss her that much then.

So one day I'm riding around Nagrand. It's a beautiful day, but something makes me look up at the sky behind me. And what do I see --- a level 70 warrior coming down on me from the air. He Charges me but I manage to /lol before I run away.

I found a 63 Priest & went back looking for him. It was an exciting fight until the patrol came by. Damn killstealers.

More instancing, thanks for my buddy Odenlee. I still need to finish Ramparts though.

And then I took this picture just for Reid:

And then it was back to Hellfire for a little more fun.

Nagrand is probably my favorite Outlands zone. It's big, green, & you can imagine the wind through the leaves of the trees. And, there's a trampoline.

There's also a pvp area smack dab in the middle of the zone. God Bless Blizzard. God Bless them.

And then Scholomance, revisited. This is my favorite instance in the game. Every time I'm here I think to myself - no, not "what a wonderful world" - I think "If they had an internet connection here, functional plumbing, & a well-stocked kitchen, this would be my dream home."

3 level 60s & I got a little carried away just AEing the crap out of everything. I had to apologize to the priest a few times for stressing him out. He said it was a treat to work with a mage who wasn't a pussy.

Ah, flattery. =)

center>

After Nagrand, I moved to this other zone... I can't remember what it's called now. I like it, but I don't like it, you know? I'm not sure how to explain that. I thought thepiggies were really pretty. But the terrain was jsut a little monotonous for me. I guess I didn't like every area of the Outlands. That 2nd pic is for Reid.

I played around a lot through 69. Something about hitting 70. I felt like I should have accomplished more. Like I should have more friends or something. Oh well. I ran Odenlee & Windbreaker's alts through RFK & WC. I got friends. I also answered calls for help wherever I was.

Wasn't long before I was back on some of my alts. One day I was riding through STV & a dwarf hunter came out behind me. I targeted him, & saw that he had targeted me, but figured that since he could see that I had him targeted (because only an idiot wouldn't be using the Target of Target option, right?), he would know that I wasn't going to attack him. But he still dismounted & shot at me. So I killed him. The end.

Phil transferred his mage over from Tich, & so I started playing Dunizel again. One day I will have a 70 priest. Oh yes. One day. We ran around Arathi for a bit until I got invited to an SM run. Phil came along with me & was distraught by the poor playing on the parts of the lock & the rogue. But you know, it didn't bother me at all. I've played with much worse.

And then I discovered BGs with my priest. All over, my friends. I may never level now. I have friends on other servers!

And that's about it. Tamastara is 70 but I haven't logged on in a long time. Actually, the month of September was pretty crazy for me & I didn't have a lot of time to play. Hopefully October will be kinder to me.

Bunnies Update: Summer 2007

2007-09-07T00:42:00.001-10:00

I've been slacking. I haven't even really been playing a whole lot & I still don't have any characters that are 70. Yeah, sue me.

On July 16th inbound character transfers became available & so I brought Tamastara over. Whut informed me that Deep Frost was the 60+ leveling choice, which was nice, since Tamastara has only ever been Frost. Well, except for one of the times Brad had broken up with me; I got mad enough to respec. But that only lasted a week or so.

So I ventured into Outland, trying to remember how to play a mage, unable to Vanish when I got into trouble.

Remember Balderon? That pally Emy described as being "picky." And apparently Elysia considers him a "class act." Well, I have my own ideas about things. I think he's just stupid. Sorry.

On my way to Dalaran, I saw the silly human coming my way. He stopped, having spotted me. I pointedly ignored him in favor of a tin vein on the side of the hill. I had scrapped with him in Arathi maybe a week before while on Dunizel & would have thought that after the spanking he received (4 of them, 2 of us. Oh come now.) he'd be a little more circumspect. I mean, I obviously wasn't offering him any threat. Oh well.

I started mining, he ran over & whacked me. Sausage bit him, & I wing clipped & strafed into a mountain lion (situational awareness, that's me). Between Scatter Shot, Concussive Shot, & Charge, Balderon didn't get very far off that tin vein before he died. Humans look so dumb when they die. I guess we all do.

I then killed the mountain lion & finished mining my precious tin.

I should be thankful for guys like Balderon, whether he be picky or whatever you want to call it. I'm glad that he picked me to pick a fight with. Twice. It brightened my day.

As my sister has gone back to Tichondrius & Krissy's life is only getting fuller, we are left with no priest. I've tried to spend some time on Dunizel to contribute to guild runs, but gave up after awhile. Bunnies has never been much of a group activity guild, anyway. We are all a bunch of loner bunnies, or maybe it's just me.

Story of my life, eh?

I still got some kicks with my priest though. All was not lost. I don't particularly enjoy PvE on a priest, not after playing mage & hunter. But I would like to learn more about pvp on a priest.

Everyone is always talking about how deadly shadow priests are in pvp, & with Vampiric Embrace & Improved Psychic Scream I guess I can guess how that works. I'm sure I've only just touched the tip of the iceberg, though. I'll have to consult my sister. I know she's crafty like that. Oh wait. She's always been Holy. Hmph. Well, she still seems to have no problems in pvp.

I was running around STV when I was actually wtfpwned (so, that's how it feels!) & then emoted on by a little gnome warlock, who was, according to subsequent General chat, running around the jungle ganking various loners like myself. I teamed up with another Hordie --- it's been so long I forget his class; was he a shaman? --- & red was dead for a little while. We ran through STV looking for the gnome, killing whatever we came across. Personally I would have just wanted the gnome, but I was a little anxious.

Other Alliance joined in, & Phil brought his 28 Druid all the way over into Young Stranglethorn Tiger land to get some of the action. And the reds delivered! Much fun occurred at Nesingwary, although we did run out of Alliance.

All in all, it was boring after awhile. The gnome warlock died many times. That's also not how you spell pwned. Dickhead. As if the name "Lolpwned" was already taken.

And now I'm getting tired, so perhaps I'll pick this up later. I haven't even made a dent in all the screenshots. lol

Happy Birthday Emy

2007-07-08T04:50:00.000-10:00

Hope you get good mileage out of your new PvP Machine. Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible.

I also took a bunch of video clips, but can't seem to upload anything larger than 12mb to MySpace. I should probably use my Photobucket account but... it's the principle of the thing, you know?

Darick's ID

Hi.

Seating the RAM

Assemblage

The silliness continues...

2007-06-12T19:51:00.000-10:00

Bunnies Nonsense

2007-06-12T16:24:00.000-10:00

A lot of silliness goes on in the Bunnies guild, and that's just how I like it. My first guild only made rude comments about girls who play WoW, and the rest was strategy-only talk. Otherwise, you'd get ignored the rest of the time you played. yeah, crappy. But now, look!
Sometimes the silliness is not really silliness. It's just, strange.

Easter to Summer: Bunnies!

2007-06-05T03:19:00.000-10:00

Warning: I've been slacking, & so this is probably going to be a long blog. Isep is now 56, & that's not saying much. I've been playing alts a lot lately, thinking maybe I will get to run around with my fellow bunnies. Run some instances, finish some quests, maybe even get into a little trouble. You know.

I think we've probably got the most experience guild running Wailing Caverns. And it's not a bad instance at all. How I wish Dave was here. I miss him.

Darick got his first shot at AEing in Wailing Caverns. Of CS & Ragnarok experience, Darick caught on quickly, albeit with a few extra hops.

Fishing, naturally, continues.

PvP also continues. I saw Omnisoul again in Hillsbrad. I confess I lost my cool just a little & kamikaze'd on him. And his fucking bubble. And his several other guildmates. Ah, it was futile. But it woulda been cool if it worked. =)

Oh well. Next time.

And then came the day Monica needed to go to Badlands, so we decided to run around & grab all the FPs. Yay, a Bunny effort! Darick joined us in Arathi, & we spent the next hour or so playing around with his aggro range- er, I mean, picking up FPs.

Arathi to Wetlands, Wetlands to Loch Modan, Loch Modan to Badlands.

I definitely know way more WoW geography than US or even Earth geography.

We headed back to Kalimdor & met up at Ratchet to catch the boat to Booty Bay, then run North through Stranglethorn, into Duskwood, Deadwind Pass, to Stonard. Might as well connect all the dots.

And there was still some PvP, although somewhat slim pickings. In Hillsbrad there was a rogue who had a thing for Dunizel. Reid would kill him every time he killed me, until he was joined by a ?? Draenei Priest named Healnei. Well, that wasn't fun any more.

I think on the same day we ran into Sgtjack, whose acquaintence I had made previously in Stonetalon. Nice to see you again, Sgtjack. We had actually run past him, meaning to leave him alone since there were 2 of us & only 1 of him, but he wanted to play. All good!

I hear p3ons4hir3 is being sued by Blizzard. Good for those assholes.

Believe it or not, I'm not even halfway through the screenshots. Yeah, I've been slacking. Blame it on Puppy. Blame it on Missing Dave. Blame it on Lovechile. Blame it on Miller Lite.

Isep made it to Un'Goro. I had been putting it off because I'm always so short of freaking bag space, & I recall quests in Un'Goro requiring a lot of collecting. I also got the Morrowgrain quest in Thunder Bluff, for which I had to collect a plethora of Un'Goro soil to turn in for all kinds of goodies. Repeatable, too.

I've been spending more time on Dunizel, as I mentioned earlier, in the hopes of getting to run around with other Bunnies. Krissy was on one night; it's always fun to run around with her. And we're both so pretty! While soloing later, I encroached upon a Draenei Priest's hunting area. As I normally do, I pointedly ignored him, leaving him an opening, & he didn't take it. We ended up sharing the area quite companiably. I skinned all his kills too.

Isep traveled to Azshara, but it was hard to get anything done there. Just too much good fishing. It's my downfall.

Then there was the last patch. I had to update all my mods. Fishing got bugged, Group Loot got bugged. Wolves & pigs got John Carpenterish.

Then there was the Three Man Gnomeregan Run. Reid (34 warlock), Phil (27 Druid) & I (34 Priest) got all the way to the boss. And then the bombs wiped us. But what a fun run! We came up with more combinations of CC & DPS than the bar has brands of beer. Good shit!! And damn good tanking! I can see why Phil is in such demand on 2 other servers.

I've decided that I like pvp on Dunizel better than on Isep, Minionette, or even Tamastara. A few days in the Witherbark Village in Arathi, Dunizel saw an orc lock being jumped by 3 Alliance. Thinking to even it out a little, I ran over, throwing SW:Ps & Vampiric Embraces. Psychic Scream is a thing of beauty.

We dispatched the paladin & the mage, & I helped the warrior finish off the mob that was beating on him, & he turned around & rushed me. I love an aggressive man!

The lock went off on his own; presently the 3 Alliance rezzed & came back to see me. I dispatched 1 but was beaten by the mage. Poor use of Silence &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Arcane Torrent on my part; one learns a lot from dying.

Running back to my body, I invited the lock to group as the Alliance were moving on to him. I hopped across the lake just in time to get a few hits in before they died. Affliction spec, Reid. It's the way to go. That lock was lethal.

Inspired by the lock in Arathi, I logged Sovaz (17) on & was immediately challenged to duel by a mage a couple of levels higher. I summoned my imp & we had at it.

With the imp blasting away, I took some damage as I cast Fear, but was able to lay DoTs on as Netherlord ran around Tranquillien. He ran pretty far, too, with the DoTs continuing to cook as he ran back. The first duel was won fairly easily.

The 2nd time around, he changed his strat. He would immediately sheep me, then Arcane Missile my imp to death. Then he would hit me, I would take damage while casting Fear, lay Agony & Corruption on him, then re-summon my imp. He'd come back, sheep me, kill the imp, & then the cycle would start again. However, sheep heals & Fear doesn't. I think I ended up re-summoning the imp 4 times.

I've never really been into dueling a whole lot; there was always so much else to do. But maybe it's worthwhile. I should probably accept that next duel challenge that comes along.

And that's all for now! The good news is that Alliance : Horde ratio is now something like 1 : 2.7. It's getting better! Soon there will be PvP for one & all! God Bless Alliance!

I leave you with a quote from Twin Peaks.

Albert Rosenfield: Now you listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. I love you Sheriff Truman.

Dance Dance Revolucion...BUNNIES STYLE!

2007-05-26T16:24:00.000-10:00

Taking a break from running around Tanaris, Kiyoshi and I meet up by the mailbox for a little R&R...or should I say, DANCE-OFF!

We decided to move it to the doorway for stage effect. I know, dorky, we are. Peeps were passing by and stopping to watch the two nutzos shake their thang. Well. they couldn't really see me, thanks to my giant blueberry blocking my way. So it ended up looking like Kiyoshi was spanking my blueberry. eek.

Damn blueberry decapitated me, it seems.Marvel in our quickstep and Cha-Cha-Cha! Dancing with the Stars, here we come!

We have an audience! Vote for team #2!! No, my voidwalker is not smokin' a stogie. I dunno. He's just a freakin' HAM.

Welcome!

2007-05-02T13:49:00.000-10:00

We have a few new peeps in our guild...WELCOME!

We are Bunnies! Woo hoo! Yeah, Seki started it...he got me in a "festive" mood.

And btw, I had a great dinner with ya'll. I think we should scope out sammich places once a month. whaddya say? LOL.

The Artisan Fisherbunny.

2007-03-31T03:47:00.000-10:00

Weekends are a great time to go fishing. With the Alliance population so low on our server, it's not really because I'm worried about gankage. Ok, so maybe any time is a great time to go fishing.

I started off in Steamwheedle Port, my most comfortable fishing spot. With a skill of 210 I wasn't catching every fish, but the pleasant atmosphere in itself is fulfilling.

I wanted to catch Yellowtails so I could turn them in for the AQ War Effort at Orgrimmar, so I traveled around a bit looking for a good spot until my Fishing skill reached 225. Then I headed over to see Nat.

After that, it was a pilgrimage to various spots on the 2 continents to catch some prize fish.

I was lucky; the only fish that took more than 3-10 casts was the Blue Sailfin in Stranglethorn. This quest is quite convenient for Horde to do, since 2 of the 4 fishing sites, in Stranglethorn & Desolace, are located right outside Horde towns. Of course, I would never attack an Alliance if he was fishing. Well, unless he was on my KOS list.

A great start to my weekend. I'm going to bed now.

Bunnies: still hopping!

2007-03-27T01:59:00.000-10:00

Isep is now 48, with Forex right behind at 47. In 3rd place, Emy, at 38. That was an inspired catch up there. At 46 I moved Isep to Tanaris; how I missed that place! I still have to make forays to Hillsbrad, though, where high level Alliance are still trying to level up on lowbies.

One day. One day, I'll be big too. Until then, I am still willing to come help out if I happen to be in the area.

Lately everyone's been getting plagued by gold spammers. You know, I buy gold. I patronize gold sellers. However, receiving ingame tells about it is annoying. I report every one. Once I even received spam while talking to a GM. Two birds with one stone. Yayeah.

Keith says that reporting gold spammers like that is going to make gold more expensive for everyone. Well, maybe it will, but it will only be more expensive from the company of assholes who took the liberty of badgering me. Fuck them. Don't buy from these guys; you'll be paying for their banned spam accounts. No sympathy!

And then, I'd like to talk about Amaranth's pants.

lol

Now I must tell you about this asshole Priest I grouped with in Razorfen Downs. Only a week or so earlier, I had come to his aid in STV; he had asked the zone for help with a couple of Alliance who were griefing him. I headed over & killed them for him, & he didn't even stop to say a word to me; not "thanks" or even "hi." I shrugged, headed over to Zul'kunda, & then later when he ended up berating the zone for not helping him with the Alliance that had returned, I shrugged again & went on with my quest.

So I ended up in an RFD group with this guy, Soze, as the Priest. I made the connection, but said nothing. I even complimented him on his healing. Any time I don't die, I'm happy.

We had a competent warrior, & when our mage (Cexi) abandoned us a ways in, we knew we would be ok 4-manning it. Soze had made snide comments at everyone at one point or another (when my Sap failed, he said, "Nice pull."), but after awhile he was clearly picking on our warlock, Valithas. Everyone just tolerated him, since, after all, he was our healer.

Once we reached the point where there were only Undead, we asked Soze to Shackle. Initially he said he hadn't gotten Shackle yet, then made some lame excuse when our warrior told him what level he would have gotten it at. "And no, the Priest is not pulling," he said. So our tank would pull & Soze would Shackle once he was sure he had aggro.

When Valithas' imp broke a Shackle, Soze had a fit. He demanded that Valithas just not have a pet at all, & when Valithas apologetically said, "I had it on whatever (our tank) was attacking," Soze nastily said, "So I was imagining it? I'm making this up?"

At this point I asked him to stop. We were a few packs before the boss, & we just wanted to move on. Immediately Soze lit into me. Here are a few screenshots from that noise:

I left group when he started threatening not to heal me. Priests with a God complex are just not my cup of tea.

Anyway, I went & cried to Copycat about it. And it just so happened that Chris was on his way to RFD with a guildie, so I got to tag along with them. HAHA SOZE. Kiss my ass; I completed my shit in spite of you, & with a lot less grief.

And afterward, since the Crossroads were under attack, Copycat, Kostchtchie & I headed North where everyone had fun. =)

Luminate asked for a duel, to which Chris was reluctant, but gave him his duels. And then afterward dueled me. I won, btw. lol

Then one night Shattered Halls went down, & we didn't know what to do with ourselves. Upon hearing that Rich had a toon on Ysondre, we rolled some level 1s there. You know, I really love Deathknell. I never get to hang out there, but there's just something so nostalgic about it.

I spent a little time on my hunter, running around with Krissy a lot of times. I guess I miss ranged dps. Or maybe I just miss Easy mode.

One Monday night the servers went down just for 15 minutes instead of the usual 8 hours, & so I came back & took advantage of the low server population: pet talents to be gathered in Duskwood & Redridge. Oink!!

Dunizel is my Priest. You know, I have no problem healing in a group with her, but soloing her is just... it's just torture. So when I had an opportunity to run around with the guildies, I took it. Thanks for all the help in Hillsbrad. =)

I did run around Arathi a bit with Shane; we both had "group" quests in Stromgarde so we teamed up for it. When we arrived, there was an Alliance pair standing around. To show them we were uninterested in them, I ran up & pulled a mob. But... they were interested in us. That's ok.

Our 2 new friends rezzed on the bridge, & Shane played LOS with them for awhile until I mentioned that there were 2 of them, one of them a healer. We then stood around for several minutes in a rather boring standoff. Until I decided to go up there.

A couple more Alliance showed up, & it occurred to us that we would be outnumbered if they decided to join up, which they did. We ended up constructing a truce without any further blood shed. Alliance account ftw. Forex, Emy & I then went on to quest, although we did run into them (peaceably) again.

And, there were rats. I took come pictures for Taryn.

And on my way back out I stopped to help some Horde on the road. After all, someone's got to level them, right? This fight ended up somewhat crappily since a level 70 rogue named Brilliant showed up. Damn you, Manifest Destiny!

Remember Omnisoul? I think this is his friend. Or it's at least his guildie. It's nice to know when you have a pretty firm guarantee that someone is an asshole. I didn't even bother to hit this guy; he got mobbed by everyone else at Nasingwary.

And then I was running around on my little gnome, when a big old Tauren shows up. But I mooed at him, & I think he understood what I said! "Help me with Frostmane Hold," I said.

I did hit him by accident. Sorry. He still helped me with everything.

People would call that guy a Carebear. But frankly, helping out a little level 9 is kinda sweet. Isep sent him some gold & a thank you note. "Thank you for helping our little Talula!"

A few nights ago I was killing pirates in Tanaris. Once I finished my quests, I headed out, mounted. There was a 51 Druid fighting a pirate; I rode past him, feeling benevolent to the minority on the server, & the fool rooted & Moonfired me. I sighed at him, waited for the root to come off, & then I ran over & kicked his ass. And then I logged on the other account & talked mean to him.

Four levels don't mean nuttin', honey, if you don't know how to fight.

And then there was Mancake! You know, the little shit had tried to sneak up on me in STV & we ended up stealthing around eachother for a long time until he left. Anyway, I was grouped with a Priest & Druid in Hinterlands, & I don't know what Mancake was thinking, but apparently his Sprint wasn't up. Mine was though.

I'm getting a little better at taking screenshots. =)

Free advertising...?

2007-03-21T15:10:00.000-10:00

This seems to be an ongoing thing with Esphixiation. He must love us...

Further Adventures of Bunnies.

2007-03-06T01:33:00.000-10:00

Bunnies. We wear the guildtag with pride.

Leveling continues, but at a very slow pace. Monica is still slaving away & has reached the grand old age of 29; Audrey rolled a hunter with the name of one of our favorite kanji, & I have no picture of Rich here because I can't keep track of which toon he is playing currently. You're too fleet for me, Rich.

Isep is going to milk STV for all she can wring out of it. I love that place; I've always loved that place. It's like a vacation resort area, within a recreational game no less. Who could ask for more?

One day a warlock was asking the zone for help, so I trotted over. It's nice to be able to help someone else out. I provided the lock an opening to rezz, then hung out a little while for the hunter's rezz. And then after that the hunter found other things to do.

That was fun.

Here's a picture taken in Desolace, at Shadowprey Village. The water is so pretty. I really like Shadowprey Village; it's very relaxed feeling. Good fishing, too.

But back to STV. While I was working on the Singing Blue Shards quest, I spied a human pally nearby. Choosing to mind my own business, I engaged a basilisk in plain view. I was disappointed when he immediately ran up & attacked me. But that's ok.

I came back, rezzed & jumped him, but failed miserably because I really hadn't thought anything through. I don't know shit about meleeing Paladins; I've only ever killed them on my mage. So I died, & then I asked my friend with a 60 rogue for advice. Then I came back, climbed on a hill, & waited for awhile. My moment came shortly.

That was fun.

In other news, fishing continues.

Sometimes a break from Isep is necessary. I rolled a hunter. I know I don't need any more alts, but I had some lowbie hunter gear saved up, & besides... I miss it. Getting her from 1 to 10 was a snap, & then I got the pet quest; always an exciting time.

Pet quest completed, I then embarked on a pilgrimage to Mulgore to tame the 1.0 attack speed lion, The Rake. I didn't want to wait until I was a little higher level. The Rake is level 10. I wished to acquire The Rake at level 10. The acquisition was exciting. But the prize itself was disappointing. Guess I should pay more attention to patch notes.

So if all pets now had a 2.0 attack speed, & I couldn't Shadowmeld, then the advantages to having a cat pet were greatly diminished in my mind. I visited Petopia & perused pets. As a Blood Elf I have no hitpoints to speak of. Although it occurred to me that a high DPS/low armor pet might kill attackers off of me faster in pvp, where players completely ignore the pets, in truth we all know that a pet isn't going to kill anyone. So I figured at least one of us should have high armor. I liked the Charge & Gore abilities the piggies had, & when I found that there were sleek black ones in Durotar, I went & got myself one.

Sausage is a hit. Everyone loves him. We even got a little love from a 28 & 29 Shammy/Warrior duo in Zoram Strand. It was good times with Sausage, & of course always good times with Audrey. Let me know if you would like a copy of the Fraps.

That was fun.

PvPLog is still a bit buggy. Looks like we will have to resort to the old-fasioned way of keeping track of our KOS harem: paper & pencil. Oh well.

A few days ago I was trotting out of Tarren Mill on my way to Alterac. I passed by a level 21 warlock & level 23 hunter killing spiders & bears, & then I stumbled over a 36 human rogue. Yeah, he looked just like Bryan.

That was fun.

Anyway, today I was determined to hit level 40. I flew into Dustwallow Marsh &, after completing the 2 quests that were near my level, took a little run along the coast. I figured I would go & grind on murlocs for that last 20% or whatever it was. While I was killing a spider (it was in the way!), I saw red approaching, & as it got nearer, I Vanished, bequeathing my spider friend to none other than... the warrior & shaman from Zoram Strand.

They were both now 33. Retribution & Elysia. When I saw them, even though my buggy PvPLog didn't sound the audible ding, a warm fuzzy feeling of recognition went through me. It was almost romantic. They dispatched the spider then ran around looking for me before heading back toward Theramore. I waited a little while, then continued North up the coast toward the murlocs.

No sooner had I engaged a murloc on one of the islands than I saw my old friends swimming out toward me in the water. Tenacious, these 2! I Vanished again a the last moment, but this time they were smart enough not to aggro my murloc... although a totem the shammy threw out apprently aggroed one of the nearby level 37 Mudrock turtles. I unfortunately was not close enough to help the turtle out, having fled, stealthed, toward the center of the murlocs. I know, I wasn't thinking.

So I gave up grinding & spent the next 15-20 minutes just following Retribution & Elysia. It took them awhile to relax, but finally Retribution pulled a murloc while Elysia was still medding, a bit out of range.

I died, though. With Elysia one blow away from death, & trying to cast her heal, my Kick wouldn't execute. I realized that I had accidentally hit my R key, & was composing a message to Copycat saying, "11111222111111waaaddd4441111111." Foolishly, not wanting to send gibberish to Chris, I hit my backspace key to erase it. During this time Elysia healed herself, & Retribution knocked me the fuck out.

I spirit rezzed & flew out. I was done with my quests there anyway.

I completed a few more quests in other areas & flew to Hillsbrad to deliver a Strong Troll's Blood potion to Monica for her quest since Alliance had killed the bat handler & no one could fly out. As I flew, I logged in my other account & did a /who Hillsbrad, just to see what there was.

There was Retribution & Elysia. =)

Once in Hillsbrad, I told the zone "WTB human warrior & draenei shammy, name of Retribution & Elysia," & in no time at all I heard that they were in the yeti caves. Monica & I headed over there. A 27 warrior asked for a revenge shot at them as well & so he came along too. He & Monica simply stood at the front of the cave, & when Retribution & Elysia saw them, they came running up like ardent lovers that had been parted for centuries.

It was great fun. Sorry for the crappy shots, but I need a 3rd hand to take any decent screenshots. Fraps of 2 out of 5 skirmishes are available though.

When the time came that Retribution stopped rezzing & Elysia made a run for it, we killed her one last time & then we left. No sense in overkill. lol

Anyway, I got my mount. =)

Anyway, now it's the Monday night patch, & I have to say that overall, I had fun.

2007-02-14T17:35:00.000-10:00

Monica found this old movie ad & said it reminded her of us ingame. I couldn't resist fucking with it a little.

Blood Elf Adventures Continue: Hillsbrad & STV

2007-02-13T01:39:00.000-10:00

Well, it's Monday night, or Tuesday morning for you technical folks, & I just got kicked off the server. It won't be an especially long blog, but I got enough screenshots & I'm not sleepy yet, so why not?

As I write, Isep is now 34. I took a week off to level Dunizel in the hopes of getting into a Frost AE duo with Shane or Audrey. However, Isep had a fairly busy time in Hillsbrad when she got there, in her 20s. There were a decent amount of Alliance players, in the same level range, who wanted to come out & play.

Not a lot of action in Ashenvale. Astranaar is a pain in the ass to get to & there are 2 Horde FPs in Ashenvale, so the zone is mostly ruled by Horde. I saw a few reds here & there, but they minded their own business so I minded mine. I'm not lucky like Audrey.

How funny that Audrey & I should both make our Priests white. I guess it matches the healing spell effects. lol

Here, our Draenei Hunter taking a break. Audrey & I decided to use my other account to level up an Alliance toon, just because of all the pricks we've met on the Horde side. I know, we'll never have time to level her up, even with both of us contributing. But, you know.

The server seems to have reached the point where there are sufficient high level players slumming around in the lowbie contested zones. At this point Isep had reached her 30s & was out of Hillsbrad, but came back for a brief visit & to keep Monica company.

As I have said before, WoW is an MMO that was created to be so easy that a moron could play it, which fact is demonstrated in General chat every day.

Dunizel is currently 20. Shane & Audrey are both around 27, just about ready to respec to Frost, & it's very exciting. I moved Dunizal to the Barrens; I just couldn't take Ghostlands any more. All that running. I needed to run around somewhere else.

Today I decided to play Isep for awhile; I don't want her to fall too far behind. Besides, she had 70% rested xp, which is a treat. In addition, Isep had just moved to Stranglethorn Vale. Ah, STV: the home of many fond memories. How I loved this place as Tamastara.

As soon as I got to Nesingwary's there was trouble. A rogue & druid were terrorizing the singletons who needed to turn their quests in. I think I stealthed as soon as the place was in sight. There wasn't much wait.

And that's all for now.

Blood Elf Adventures.

2007-01-23T04:03:00.000-10:00

It started off as a little curiosity between Audrey & me. What was this new Horde race, Blood Elf? Would they be sufficiently evil? Would they be better than Undead? Would they have good jokes?

So late at night we rolled our Blood Elves on one of the new PvP servers, just to see. And to maybe get into some Contested zones. Yeah, we remember what that is.

Silvermoon City slays me. I can't figure out which gave me more vertigo & motionsickness, CS or SC. Seriously. The place is gorgeous, but it's just really freaking big & it takes forever to get anywhere.

Eversong Woods is gorgeous. In fact, the entire new lowbie area is beautiful. I took several large-sized screenshots because so many different spots during my travels just seemed eloquent.

Krissy, Monica & Rich joined us with Blood Elves of their own. All I had to do was say the word "peeveepee."

The level 10+ area, Ghostlands, is dark, gloomy & still quite beautiful. I found myself wondering if this place could be closer to my heart than Tirisfal. But no, no... Tirisfal is my home.

And then, of course, I tried out the fishing.

I decided to level my rogue Isep, since in these early server days gankage, & especially high level griefing of lowbies, would be less frequent since most players would be racing to level. A high level rogue is a great boon to lower level members in a guild. Just ask Mark or Phil. =)

I moved Isep to Tirisfal & then on to The Barrens, for faster levelling through familiar quests. I was loving the quests in Ghostlands, but decided I could level faster by familiar routes. Later when Isep is done I can go back & explore Ghostlands at my leisure.

Unfortunately, Blood Elves are consistent with Elves in that our /dance sucks.

And yet... some of the men are kinda... hot. Maybe I have a problem.

Finally we formed a guild. Thanks to Phil & Mark for providing extra signatures. For the name, we originally wanted ¤¥, but apparently symbols are not allowed in guildnames. So we chose a name that we would be proud to PvP under. One that would be easy to remember by the foes we vanquish.

Female Blood Elf Faces.

2007-01-17T05:56:00.000-10:00

Hello, my name is Lauren & I have way too much time on my hands.

There appear to be a total of 10 different faces. I started with the "Makeup Face," & navigated by the right arrow. Enjoy. Yes, I know there's something wrong with me.

Adventures in Wailing Caverns

2007-01-02T11:57:00.000-10:00

I'm really just wanting to test out this Blogger thing. I have had a blog on Blogger for a few years now but I kind of abadoned it for MySpace - - and now I'm back again. This new Google crap is weird, so I need to do a little orientation here...

Anyhoo, to continue off of Lauren's post, here's some screenshots of us running around in WC. Rich hasn't played his Tauren guy much since this run. He was busy playing his mage for a bit, and now I think he's back to the Tauren. Maybe. I can't remember. It's been too long.

One time we ran WC with a group comprised of casters. That was crazy and quite fun.

Rich is still learning a lot about playing Warrior class toons. We were running around with our alliance toons last night and he seems to have gotten the hang of keeping aggro on him and using sunder a lot. But, it's difficult for him to follow us around, it seems. Things are different on a Mac, unfortunately, so when people tell him to do certain things using his keyboard, it doesn't work and then he gets all stressed out. I think he needs a PC just for WoW. He can't even use any addons, and that really sucks. Po'ting.

Back to Deathknell.

2006-12-01T14:42:00.000-10:00

After an eternity playing Alliance, a few of us couldn't take it any more & we needed to be Horde again.

There's something about the tooltip of Silverleaf when you can still get a skillup from it in the shade of Tirisfal. Naturally, to make it easier to collect Doomweed, I went to see Fairuza for Herbalism, & then I ran around enjoying the gloom.

Reid joined me; I made a warlock so I could run around Deathknell with him.

So we all worked our evil butts off, & we levelled. Well, so it's not epic levelling, but while we are raiding BWL on the Alliance side, on the Horde side it's just a joy to be able to /laugh or /cheer & not feel like a complete gayball loser. Let me tell you; it's a great feeling.

I should probably explain our guildname. Our Alliance guild, FTM, gets together every Monday for drinks & drunken dorkiness. Imagine a bunch of guys, not necessarily all dorky in appearance, but still raising shots to the air & saying things like "Untamed Blade" or calling eachother out with some vehemence & using "Deathcoil" somewhere in their sentence. Yeah, we're dorks & I love us. But anyway, the owner of the bar is this guy named Bryan, nickname of Seki. Reid above went to high school with him, & Monica below also knows him from college days. I know him from post-college drinking days. Anyway, Bryan is a cranky bastard, although he has a good heart, & he recruited a couple of his frat brothers, Chad & Rylen, to join FTM. Chad & Rylen then approached me with the concept of "I Heart Seki," & since I had Bryan's account info & 2 accounts of my own in addition to access to 2 other accounts, I only needed 5 more signatures for the I Heart Seki guildcharter, created in Undercity. And yes, Bryan was pissed the next time he logged on. He apparently deguilded immediately. lol

At right, a photo of Bryan bitching about something. Yeah, that's why we heart him.

So anyway, we're all, oh, in our 30s now. But everyone's got like 5 alts, so cumulatively we're all 150.

We've done RFC & WC together at least twice to get everyone's alts taken care of, & it's been nice operating without a plow. So we actually wipe every so often. Some days we wipe a lot. One night Krissy had to go to bed, so I played her Priest & my Warlock at the same time, on one computer. I hat to alt+tab for everything. And then Rich had to go to bed as well, so Monica was double boxing as well, although she had the luxury of a 2nd computer. Still, it was hard. But fun. =)

One of the really annoying things about playing Alliance is the prevalence of idiots. Come on, say you're a little 12-year-old, & you're choosing which race you want to be. Would you pick anything on the Horde side? No! 'Cuz it's not pretty! So then we get these stupid emo kids crying in every BG, & a vast majority of players who can't spell (what's going on with the schools today?). I've never seen so many beggars as I've seen on the Alliance side. It seems like every day in Ironforge there's some poor idiot whose mommy bought him the game but he can't figure out how to play it so he needs someone else to give him money.

The other FTM players all transferred their level 60 Horde toons from our old server. I personally will not do that, since our old server is a PvP server & damned if I am going to bring my hard knocks mage over to a pussy server. That's right, we are on a PvE server. Faghelm. I don't know whose idea it was to move here but I don't spend a single day not wishing he had chosen better. Anyway, the Horde level 60 guild is called FTA, or "Fuck The Alliance." But none of them ever log on.

Wailing Caverns has been fun. I think we've run it at least 5 times with different group makeups so we could get everyone. It's a pain in the ass collecting all the Serpentbloom & Deviate Parts. But I think we've gotten everybody. =) In Wailing Caverns our tanks learned an important technique: pull the mob away from the other mnobs, so that they won't all come running when it screams for help. Ahha, Serial Killer 101 is in session!!

All in all, I Heart Seki is made up of a small group of friends, & I like that. FTM is fun in that there are a lot of us, & so it's not hard to assemble ("Warriors of the night!!") a group for Scholo, & we do a lot of fun things, like BWL & ZG. I have a bunch of purple shit. But we're just not Horde. We're... just not Horde.

Anyway, we went running around Stonetalon for a bit. Ah, I have good memories of this place, albeit with my ex, who had an Orc Hunter. He doesn't play any more. Yeah, he's not the same person any more. Screw him. lol But... I still have good memories. After all, Stonetalon was my first Contested zone. Of course, there's no such thing on this server.

I needed a Deadly Blunderbuss to complete the Warsong Supplies quest in Ashenvale, but when I checked AH the cheapest one was 7g. That's bullshit. I don't even have 7g. For 7g I raised up a rogue who undertook Engineering to make the damn gun. Here she is --- or here her corpse is --- apparently buttfucking Captain Perrine. Yeah, it's nice to kill humans.

And then there's Undercity. I remember my first visit to Undercity; I hated it. I couldn't find anything; the whole place confused me & I even got motionsick from running around after awhile. But now I love Undercity. I sure like it a lot better than Ironforge or Stormwind.

Anyway, thank you for reading my first I Heart Seki blog on Blogger.com. Since we all only play Horde side part time, there aren't even a quarter as many screenshots as I have for FTM (see the blogs on my MySpace.). You know, it sounds dick, but maybe we should have rolled our Horde on a PvP server. Dammit.