Picture Day!

Here's a random collection of screenshots I've taken of the last few months. Sorry about the uber-low-res preview versions. I didn't have time to use PS to actually make them, so I had to settle for Photobucket's editor...which liked to use low-res versions of my images for editing. Click any of them for full-size/hi-res.


Ran across this guy while questing through the new Stranglethorn. I lol'd.


This is my Ogre disguise. There are many a few none quite like it, but this one is mine.


I picked these gloves up while questing through Northrend. I just felt that they looked amazingly cool on a Worgen.


Our (Dwarf) tank wasn't feeling very pretty. A little makeup and some accessorization took care of that.


Bind Elemental might just be the coolest looking spell in the game right now.


Can you spot what's wrong with this picture? I'll give you a hint. Lightning Shield orbs and Flametongue Weapon trails are usually "attached" to something...


Wolf-head helms on Worgen just look...wrong.



Obligatory Guild-First Kill Section (in chronological order):

Argaloth


Magmaw


Conclave of the Winds


Halfus Wyrmbreaker


Omnitron Defense System


Maloriak

The best thing to happen to Druids in a long time

If the news coming from MMO-Champion this morning is any indication, 4.2 is finally going to give (Alliance) Druids the ability to do something that many of us have been wanting to do for 6 years:

Kill Fandral Staghelm.


AKA Fandral Douchehelm

Now I'm not going to say he doesn't have his reasons for being a giant jerk. He did watch his son get ripped in half by General Rajaxx. And in his despair, he did fall under the influence of Xavius and, presumably, the Old Gods.

But you know what? I don't care. A jerk is a jerk is a jerk. And "I'm under demonic influence" isn't really an excuse. In fact, all it really does is give me another reason to want to see you beaten to a pulp. Damn demons need to get off my planet.

Clearly, after 1,000 years, your chance at redemption has come and gone. I honestly felt worse for Illidan.

So you know what? I'm going to round up 9 of my friends, I'm going to march into Ragnaros' little home, find the playroom he's set up for you, and finally show you what became of that lowbie night-elf that you all but spit on.

Oh, and I'm bringing some Morrowgrain with me to shove down your throat once I'm done.

Heirlooms and Spirit Beasts

As I have most weekends as of late, I spent this past one (at least the days, nights are raid time) working on Grevioux.

I've started several Hunters of the course of my WoW time, but was never really able to get into the class. My last Hunter, Ultanan, was a fun diversion, but ultimately that's all he was. I still wasn't having enough fun with him to really work hard at leveling him. And once they announced Worgen as a playable race, I knew I'd be making a Worgen Hunter to see all the new content with. Any desire I had to work on Ultanan died at that point.

But while I'm finally having fun with a Hunter in general, and leveling through the new old world was an absolute blast, the moment I hit Outland, it turned back into a grind. Even moreso in Northrend.

About halfway through Dragonblight, I had an epiphany. Just because I had no intention of using heirloom gear to speed up 1-60 leveling doesn't mean I couldn't strap it on the second I hit Outland to help push through the next 20 levels.

I do have an inherent reason to get Grevioux to 85...he's the closest in the guild to reaching the requirements for the Classy achievement. But more than that, I really am having fun playing him.

Anyway, I sent him the heirloom gear that used to belong to Ultanan. I also purchased the (ugly, ugly) chest with some of my extra JP as well as the cloak.

The rest of Northrend just flew by. On Saturday, with the help a full helping of Rested XP bonus, I sped through 5 levels. Sunday I got 3.5 more. He's about 40% of the way through Vashj'ir (just did the first quests as the Battle Maiden) as it stands and halfway from 81 to 82.

The best part of the whole weekend, though, came Saturday night.

See, the reason for my renewed interest in trying the Hunter class came with the release of Wrath. Loque'nahak.

From the moment I saw the first screenshot of that pet, I said, "That's awesome. I want it."

This was before I ever quested through Zul'Drak and saw Har'koa. Readers of my blog should be well acquainted with my feelings towards her. Her presence only fueled my desire to have a Hunter with Loque'nahak at his beck and call.

While questing through Sholazar I would occasionally swing out of my way to check the nearby areas where Loque'nahak could be found, but had no luck.

Saturday night I was sitting around in the Dwarven District, waiting for some of my raiders to finish a Heroic run with one of our best healers who got late start in Cata and is still trying to gear up and learn the new style. I figured, just for the hell of it, I'd log over to Grev and fly around to see if I could get lucky.

It's funny, because I did a few things I don't usually do. I'd cleared my creature cache earlier that day so that NPCScan would have fresh data to work with. I figured that would be enough.

Just to be sure, though, before leaving Nesingwary's camp, I also turned on Track Beasts because I remember reading that it lets the spirit beasts (which are neutral) pop up as a yellow dot among a bunch of red ones. Makes them easier to spot.

So I mounted up and flew to the first potential spawn area, just south of the camp. Of course, that area is filled with Longneck Grazers, which are also neutral. My mini-map was a sea of yellow.

NPCScan hadn't gone off, so I started heading to the next spot. Right before I left--and I have no idea what compelled me to do this--I waved my mouse over my mini map. In the brief flash of creature names, I saw it.

Loque'nahak.

It took me about 30 seconds to find him on my mini-map again, go land near him, and tame him.


He's mine!

Seriously, I didn't stop smiling for about 40 minutes. I was way too excited about this.

Now there's just one problem. I have no idea what to name him.

I've considered sticking with his actual name. I do like it and it's better than anything I've been able to think of so far. But it just feels...unoriginal to keep it.

But for now, until I stumble on something I like, it's just Grevioux and Spirit Beast.


Spirit Beast: 100% more awesome looking in dark caves

What's his power at?

Back when Blizz announced achievements, I kinda rolled my eyes. "Oh boy...one more ruler in the giant epeen measuring contest," I thought. So not for me.

If history has taught me anything, it's that I'm very good at lying to myself. Especially when it comes to making myself feel like I'm somehow above something.

Actually, that's not accurate. In reality, I'm horrible at lying to myself. What I'm really good at doing is telling myself those lies. Which is different. Because they're horrible lies. They never hold up.

I remember when I told myself I was way above watching cartoons. This started when I was 12. I missed a lot of great cartoons throughout most of my teens.

I used to tell myself I was above playing an MMO...

Anyway, all it really took to get me to admit I was a big, fat liar was to get a few achievements accidentally. You know, the ones you inevitably get just by playing the game. The little fanfare and the flash as the achieve pops up on my screen...it's like a drug. Not quite as rich as the leveling ding but oh so much more frequent.

Then the worst part happened. One day I noticed I was in 3rd place in the guild for Achievement points. A cage door in my brain swung open. Turn-everything-into-a-competition Saniel came out to play.

The thing about TEIAC Saniel is that he's like a cat prowling around. You really have no idea he's there until he's on top of you, smiling a smile with way too much fang involved for your comfort. TEIAC Saniel doesn't like to make his presence known while he's on the hunt. What kind of cat would intentionally make his prey harder to catch?

TEIAC doesn't every really go back in the cage, either. He may lay low for a while every now and again, but once he's out, he's out. I did eventually claim first place in the guild, but I had to keep going. There was more I could do. Always more.

I hit a milestone (or a new low, depending on your viewpoint) last night. Two nights ago I got my 9000th achievement point. I was excited because I knew there was a Feat of Strength involved with that. But then it didn't come.


Egg on my face.

Wait, what? Why not?

Oh, the achievement is for having OVER 9000 points. Well...crud. What haven't I done that I can knock off quick?

I spent the next hour or so flying and teleporting all across Azeroth, spreading my love among way too many critters for me to be okay with it. But the Achievement! The rush! I needed that fix! (Getting creepy yet?)

Eventually I ended up in Uldum with just one critter left to love. But I couldn't do it. Not because of some kind of performance anxiety or the fear that accomplishing the big goal would somehow leave me feeling empty. No. It was because there were only four other guildies online by that time. And some things just deserve the proper audience.

Hey, why should I pretend I'm not some total bitchin' rock star from Mars?

*cough*

So I logged out, flying just above a Mac Frog. Then last night I logged in, still there, and still with a Mac Frog within sight. What's more, there were about 20 people online.


Perfect

10s vs 25s. How's it going?

I should have seen this coming...

Before Cata landed on us, the officers of The Dragons (myself included) decided that we wanted to try to be a 25-man raiding guild.

I'm not sure why we decided this. The most success we've ever really had as a 25-man raid group was downing Magtheridon before the 3.0 super-nerf. Of course, to do anything past Kara, you had to run 25s, so there was something to be said for that.

We went into Wrath with the intentions of being a 25-man raiding guild even though it was optional. We did manage to clear Naxx (a week) before Ulduar dropped. After that we had a huge exodus and couldn't even field enough people to try Ulduar on 25 most weeks. We never got past Auriaya.

ToC came and went much the same way. We did eventually clear it, but Anub took us a good while and we couldn't crank out the DPS to get him down before he enraged until a good portion of us were sporting a fair amount of ICC gear.

ICC at the beginning was rough. But at least by then we seemed to be able to regularly pull together the numbers to try. Festergut and Rotface were pretty regular challenges for us, though. We did down Putricide once and the Princes a couple times. But nothing beyond that.

Part of the problem was that 25s were actually tuned to be more difficult (beyond the obvious difficulty in wrangling 25 people instead of just 10). Often to fill all 25 spots we'd be taking people who just weren't as geared or able as the situation demanded. Often they would have struggled in 10s. So to ask them to perform in 25s was probably short-sighted and unfair.

Enter Cataclysm. Blizz expressed the design goal of making 10s and 25s equally difficult. If you could handle one, you should be able to handle the other. But the overall difficulty curve went up.

When ICC came out, our guild had somewhere between 12 and 15 raiders good enough to handle the kinds of fights you see in the ICC wing-chiefs (Putricide, Lana'thel, Sindragosa) and LK. In the year that followed we picked up a few random people here and there. We also absorbed two smaller guilds. So going into Cataclysm, that 12 or 15 jumped up to about 25. Maybe even pushing 30. It was the biggest pool we'd had heading into any expansion. Or even any new tier.

We figured with the gear reset and everyone starting over at the same time and being in the same place, we'd be in good shape to try the 25-man raid experiment again.

It just hasn't worked out that way.

We have started to put more stress on overall preparation due to the increased difficulty, but one thing we haven't changed at all is our "no required attendance" policy. That's just not in line with our stated goals as a guild.

The downside to this, as I've realized over the past few weeks, is to have a 25-man raiding guild with a "no required attendance" policy, you need about 35-40 geared and capable players. We're nowhere near that. I wonder if we ever will be.

At this point, I'd say we're hovering right around the 25 mark. We have yet to have a night where those exact 25 people are all online and able to go. So we've filled spots with the other people available just so we wouldn't have to tell 8-11 ready players, "sorry...we're going with 10 tonight," and subsequently spend two hours wiping before trash respawns and we call it. I don't want to say that we haven't seen good progress on those nights. Our later attempts are always better than our early ones. But I'm still watching enrage timers or other limiting factors and knowing we're just not going to make it.

Our 10-man runs have seen more success. We're not clearing places yet, but we're making progress. Magmaw, Omn(omnom)itron, Halfus, and the Conclave have all been downed. We made decent progress on our four attempts at the Double Dragons, as well.

It's obvious that the people involved in those feats are much more inclined to want to continue where we've seen success.

There's currently a 4-page long thread in our Officer section debating what we should do now. Persevere? Throw in the towel and run 10s? We have way more than 10 people who deserve raid spots.

Do we have enough for two 10s groups? We're a little light on tanks and healers.

Should we include alts? That would mean people might be in both groups and they couldn't run at the same time.

Should the separate groups be very succinctly defined, or mixed from week to week? What happens if one group starts seeing more progress than the other?

There's also the fact that I'm currently my guild's only regular raid leader. There are other people that probably could lead a second group, but no one that really wants to. That's fine for the occasional "fill in for San because he's off leading a ski trip instead of a raid" or whatever, but not for a regular second group.

In a way, I like the idea of two 10man groups. I think most of us in the officer corps do. It sucks trying to put together a 25-man group and looking at the guild list, only being able to pick out 18 people that can handle it. It sucks even more trying to put together a 10-man group and having to whittle down a list of 18 candidates.

For now I think two 10s is going to be the direction we head. We're gonna have to play around with it and make some adjustments on the fly. But hopefully we can make it work.

Troll love

From Zarhym:

We'll have more information to share on the return of Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub soon. But for now I'll say this: there is a center of troll civilization yet to be seen in World of Warcraft. There was once an ancient empire of troll tribes united. Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub becoming key points of interest in Cataclysm plays into this. Perhaps something has happened to once again call for the unity of the disaffected tribes. Perhaps a certain tribe with allegiances elsewhere sees this as a very bad thing. ;)

Honestly, I think I just peed a little.

It could be said that WoW is a game that's actually all about Night Elf lore. Pretty much everything we're doing in the game since it started (and even the RTS titles before it) is a result of the Night Elves' follies. You can debate about whether or not these follies were induced by the Old Gods (as they seem to be very adept at manipulating the mortal races of Azeroth, and even the not-so-mortal ones), but the fact remains that we're all trying to clean up the messes they've made.

That said, I've always loved the Troll lore most of all. Their history is all of Azeroth's history as far as we know. It's rich and expansive and full of politics and betrayal and war.

Not to mention the Loa. The Loa are where it's at. I'm still trying to figure out how I can make Har'koa adopt me and let me take her form. (It'll happen, dammit!)

Zul'Aman was my favorite BC instance by far. In every respect. Story, design, and content. I loved that the ZA Loa showed up to offer guidance while you were questing through Zul'Drak in Wrath. It was one of those small touches that tied together loose lore strands from across expansions.

Even though we've defeated Zul'Jin, I'm very interested to see where the story is going there. I haven't quested through the Ghostlands since BC. Has the story there changed any? Is there some indication while going through the zone of what's going on in ZA? If so, I might have to go roll a BElf just to see it.

Zul'Gurub looks to be very promising, too. If you've quested through Northern Stranglethorn since the Shattering, you know what I'm talking about. (And if you haven't, you should before 4.1 hits.) It was definitely my favorite zone as I leveled Grevioux through the new "old" content.

But, seriously. A central troll empire possibly reforming? And the Darkspear being very uncomfortable with this? Why? Given Vol'jin's current lack of enthusiasm about Garrosh's control of the Horde, what would be so bad about a re-united Troll empire that he'd rather stick it out than go rejoining with his brethren? Inquiring minds want to know!

Do you smell that? It smells kind of like a future raid. Zul'Ultimate!

The more I hear about 4.1 (3 second Swipe!) the more excited I get. Granted, I'm currently 4/12 in current raid content. So it's time to start busting by butt there.

I'm a bastard.

Is it bad that I really want to get Grevioux leveled, geared up and raid ready as a Beast Mastery Hunter just so I can get the smug satisfaction of out-dpsing some of the "leet" SV and MM Hunters I've played with while using a sub-optimal spec?