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This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a spoiler warning.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
In Her Own Words: A Brief Interlude with Ms. Sparkshard
Of every single reagent on this planet that this stupid human could need for this stupid explosive for this stupid Venture Company setup. Urgh.
Westfall. Westfall! I've yet to hear a convincing argument from anybody as to why Westfall even exists. The most miserable patch of dirt, and more dirt, and corn, and dirt, ever to -- and there's a freaking dust devil and I kill the thing and it doesn't have any of this stuff he needs.
Collin, I told him, dear esteemed colleague of mine, I swear to you, I will go march through the Dark Portal right now and bring you back the tusks of a Fel Orc if it means not chasing dust devils through Westfall. All I'm saying is there have been generations upon generations of quel'dorei and gnomish mages who've completely ignored the existence of this place and I'm sure one of them somewhere could figure out how to blow something up at a large range.
And I can't even find any more of the forsaken things. Ten more minutes, Collin, and then the goblins can have Stonetalon.
Friday, October 9, 2009
For the Love of Small Victories
So the glut of information from the 3.3 PTR has already started rolling in. I do already have toons there (Jezriyah and Detusked on Horde, Tuskless on Alliance -- hit a sister up, I'm horrible at finding people to actually test stuff with) but I hadn't done much so far. Last night I grabbed hold of my boyfriend and demanded he copy something over so we could nose around the new content.
We suited up our shiny new premade toons and plunged into the Forge of Souls. The group was abysmal -- a resto shaman who kept yelling at me for being too far away so his chain heals on me weren't hitting the tank, a pally tank who didn't understand the word 'kite', and another ret pally who was wearing holy gear ("For the duration increase"... duration of what, I didn't bother asking). But we were all premades in full T9 and it was the non-heroic instance, so we kind of steamrolled it anyway. I'll be getting together a semi-competent group and going in on heroic soon to get a better feel for it.
The lorey bits in the beginning are awesome, at least Hordeside. Sylvanas has heard of how uber you are and is glad to have you along. She gives you a rundown on the mission should you ask for it, and sends you on your merry way. (Yes, I did run in and do the lorey bits on Jez before giving up and making a premade.)
I won't go into the fight mechanics and the like, since the group comp didn't allow for much study of it. The one thing I noticed most was... well, this.
We have made some changes to the way creature and character nameplates display in the game and would like to get feedback from those of you on the public test realms. There are three significant changes you should notice:
• The range at which you can see the nameplates is now much longer.
• You can no longer see the nameplates through objects which block line of sight.
• Instead of the nameplates trying to sort themselves, they just overlap. We think this makes them more useful for very large groups (example: Onyxia whelps).
That comes straight from Zarhym -- who is, officially, my new best friend.
The overlap, granted, can be a bit questionable depending on the size of the mobs and whether you're single-targeting or AoEing them. But the improved range is completely. Fucking. Awesome.
I'm a marksman, in the strictest sense of the word. I am ranged. I am at my most comfortable when I'm as far away from my target as I can possibly be while still sticking to the boss strategy. Unfortunately, the range on nameplates is much shorter than my maximum pew-pew range, so I usually end up either coming in closer than I'm comfortable, or frantically tab-targeting (I know, I know) to pick out my next target.
On the 3.3 PTR, I can stay back as far as I want from a group of four mobs, and their nameplates are not only visible and easily clicked, but also do not take up more screen real estate than the mobs themselves. It was glorious.
It's funny. Of all the awesome things coming through in this patch, all the stuff I should be foaming at the tusks for -- this is what sticks out and makes me squee.
So how about you crazy cats? What's been your favorite tiny, "inconsequential" change that either hugely helped your gameplay or just plain made you super happy?
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Late To The Party
It's been over a month since my last blog post and I still have nothing to say.
I've been active on Twitter still. I attended BlizzCon last month. I played through the first half of the Goblin 5-10 zone, but didn't get to finish it (the third quest took FOREVER because of the number of us killing the mobs, and I never caught up before time got called). I met many fellow WoW tweeters and bloggers. Shenanigans were had. A drunken zombie passed out in my room. I came home with a small army of baby Murlocs and an angry black dragon on a t-shirt.
I was flattered by an invitation to guest on the Blueberry Workshop Podcast over at SES, in which I expound upon my most recent in-game adventures. Short version: the guild has cleared the Trial of the Crusader twice now. I'll hopefully be able to drag a boss-by-boss breakdown of the place out of my ass soon here (like the one I never finished for Ulduar). We tried some hard modes in Ulduar and only managed one of them, but did decently at others. I apparently missed the "understanding armor pen and why it's cool" meeting that all of hunterdom held, and I'm just now starting to grasp it now that it's about to get nerfed. Fun times.
I've kicked around PvP some, but I'm just now reaching the steep bit of the learning curve -- I'm "alright" now, but in order to progress to "decent" I have to start putting a lot more effort into it. Some of my best-beloved guildies (DK, rogue and tree) have put together a quite accomplished little 3s team, and I get a little jealous listening to them do matches on Vent. I'm just not sure if I feel like putting in the work required to make me a decent teammate. Basically, I can either do some intense study and build a PvP technique/spec/gearset, or just continue to tab-target-serpent-silence my way through Wintergrasp and the occasional BG spree, patching together a set with enough resilience to keep me from being eaten alive. Decisions, decisions.
On the personal front... a lot has changed. I'm no longer at my previous job -- which, as I told Rilgon on the BWS podcast, is where I did most of my blog writing. And I'm at that sort of fuzzy young adult stage where I'm still not certain what I want to be when I grow up, and I'm completely out of ideas for what kind of job to look for. So I'm at a loss.
ETA: Also, I have a pet retadin now. Who was sad that he wasn't mentioned in the "personal life" part of the blog post, so here he is. I went to visit him right after BlizzCon, and I miss him and the beach terribly. *blows kisses*
WoW is pretty much the only thing I occupy my time with nowadays, and some part of me instinctively says the answer is to get away from it, to regroup and refocus my energy and build the rest of my life.
Buuuuuut I know that wouldn't work.
So I'm considering doing the next best thing: try and get deeper into the game. Right now it's just what I do by default, because it's where my friends are. Maybe I'll feel better about it if I make it into a legitimate hobby. I've been missing school lately, the whole studying and learning thing -- maybe I can turn Warcraft into that. We'll see. Either way, I hope to be kicking my ass into gear soon and making something more out of this blog. Stay tuned.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Patch 3.2, Summarized
WHAT.
THE FUCK.
NOW.
(My guild leader did every single level 80 heroic today. I know he's not the only one, but I wanted to reassure those of us who need to know we're not that bad.)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
So one of my favorite fellow hunter bloggers, Klin at Slow Wolf, is hanging up his bow. His last post before announcing his retirement was the beginning of the Hellfire Ramparts Speed Run Meme.
Rules and Guidelines:
• Start the timer the second you walk inside.
• You have to kill everything inside.
• You have to loot everything inside. Skinning is optional.
• Stop the timer the second you walk outside.
• To keep costs down, no raid foods and flasks. Health and Mana potions included.
• Bandages and plain food/drink (Mana Strudel works
well!) are fine though, to help with the speedy recovery of a bad pull.
So here are Jezriyah and Micropterus, victorious, at 20 minutes, 4 seconds.
Klinderas himself hit 18:22, and Rilgon (being both 1. a bitch and 2. hax) hit 13:14. So I'm lagging behind the crowd, but I probably could have moved faster. I'm always a little gun-shy when it comes to Mikey's AOE tanking abilities, and I've always been more comfortable doing single-target damage than flailing volleys at stuff. I'd have beaten 20 minutes if I didn't have to sit down and eat before the giant demon boss dude.
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