Just Like Starting Over

Post soundtrack: what else?

Almost three years? You’d think I’d been busy or something… So many games, birthdays, the discovery of an entire genre of music, more games, coffee, weight lost and regained, still more games, health issues, coffee, old love lost and new love found, and – to top it all off – yet more games. Oh, and coffee.

I’ve been contemplating getting back into writing for some time now, but I’ve just had my original WoW account unlocked (after some credit card annoyances at the time of the annual pass, which left me locked out unless I jumped through hoops which I refused to do at the time), which has brought me full circle, with Ringle, Pringle, Dingle and all my other alts playable yet again. And I’m looking at slowly easing my way back into my writing on here.

I still dabble – currently MMO-wise I have WoW, WildStar and STO installed on my just-upgraded pc, along with some single-player games from Steam and a handful of games on my mostly-wonderful iPad. I ran into some fairly crippling performance issues with WildStar after upgrading my pc (which left me unable to play enjoyably for the second half of my free 30 days – something I’m still feeling a little bitter about, as the game has a lot of potential), and reinstalled Neverwinter out of curiosity (it runs much better than it previously did - unlike WildStar).

Last week I finished a marathon paragon play through of Mass Effect 1 and 2, now I just have to finally buy #3 (and all the DLC) so I can put the series behind me. (I’m not sorry that I missed all the kerfuffle about the truncated ending, and hey, now I’ll be able to experience the complete DLC-inclusive experience!). I tried to start a second renegade play through, but I just couldn’t do it – I’d like to think it’s just that I’m that nice. Feel free not to disillusion me.

I’ve also playing through Fallout 3, with Skyrim and BioShock 1+2 installed and waiting for me to give them some time after I’m bored exploring the wastelands. Briefly dabbling in Landmark, but I’ve never been much of a builder – maybe when they add combat? Might give Rift a little play as well, as it should look a little better now I’ve upgraded.

But at least for now I think I’ll be spending the next few days updating addons and getting re-acclimatised to my much-loved old WoW characters, and making a start on levelling somebody up to 90. I actually invested in another copy of WoW after my old account was locked, and have levelled a few characters up to 90 horde-side, but I just haven’t had the emotional investment with them that I have with my dwarven family. Hmmm, with two active accounts I can even transfer all my old characters into my vanity guild – Lobsters, Ho!

It may be good to be the king, but it’s even better to be the dwarf. Again. Finally. (But ooooooh, that horrible gear…)

Glyphmas Comes But Once An Expansion

Post soundtrack: “They Say It’s Spring” by Blossom Dearie (in honour of some glorious spring days of late)

Hmmm, has it really been so long? (Considering my last post was over three weeks ago, signs point to “Yes”)

I haven’t fallen off the edge of Azeroth, at least not all the way down.  I’ve been taking a breather, and enjoying things outside of WoW, not least of which is a change of diet (tried buckwheat noodles for dinner tonight, and it was particularly yummy) and getting some exercise into my day (inspired by Xeonio’s progress).  I’ve also been reading about Stoicism, after coming across a link to a book review on the subject on Boing Boing a couple of months back.

In-game, I’ve been reaping the profits of being a Scribe; Glyphmas has been and gone, and I’ve made over 200k in sales (only 150k of that being profit, as I hadn’t prepared for it with anything remotely resembling diligence, and I missed the first couple of days).  I’ve also been spending some of my collected Justice Points to gear up Ringle and Mingle (Isn’t the new community site nifty? I’ll admit to a “They wouldn’t dare” moment when I saw my RL name displayed above my selected main character, but it appears to only show up for you when you’re logged in), despite the fact the gear will be replaced by quest rewards in under a month (and I definitely won’t be keeping it, especially that truly awful rogue T10).

I’ve also been farming crusader seals with Ringle (although not from jousting) in order to purchase the third hippogryph mount for her enjoyment (probably my favourite mount in the game); tomorrow will put her over the magic 150, which leaves me in search of a new goal.

And I’ve been roped into joining a guild which a friend is an officer in(ostentionably to help with guild leveling, but probably really because they just don’t have enough gorgeous dwarven women).  I’m keeping Pringle in OOTA as my banker (I really wish we had goblins on Alli side for that), but Dingle, Ringle and Mingle have all jumped ship.

I’ve been doing a little bit of writing for my arty project, but it’s still early days and I’m trying to decided what format to take it in.  (My inability to write accents doesn’t help, especially with the dwarf-heavy cast. Actually, writing dialogue at all is a challenge.)

For now, it’s time for more writing (although no NaNoWriMo for me, unlike other more talented writers), the occasional daily LFD, and the tail-end of Glyphmas.  Oh, and sleep.  [3AM Crits you for 100k]

/wave

WoW: Guess What’s Hiding In 4.0.1

Post soundtrack: “Moondance” by Van Morrison

I noticed something interesting while 4.0.1 was installing, and now I’ve found a working version of WoWModelViewer (the ‘DEV WORK’ version, so you should be surprised if it works) I found something veeeeeeery nice.

Isn’t Miss Goblin cute?  And she has company.

Meet Mister Goblin.  Some great little touches in his animations – I particularly love the way his ears sag when he cries, it’s quite touching.

Mr Worgan.   Pretty much what you’d expect.  And last, but not least…

And Ms Worgen.  While she’s still prone to lycanthropic Chihuahua-ism when viewed from certain angles (and some of her animations have clipping issues with her armour that you wouldn’t believe), she’s not as poorly modeled as the initial screenshots of her from the char select screen would suggest.

She does seem to need a good few layers of polish, though.

Roll on 4.0.3!

/wave

WoW: Vanity Thy Name Is…

Post soundtrack: “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon

I decided to do something about my unguilded state, and the easiest route was a vanity guild for myself.  I purchased the guild bank slots while I was at it, so there’s a lot of space for me to fill with bits and pieces while I wait for Cata.

I’m not planning on making the guild a ‘real’ one (I’ve been a GL before, and it turns out I’m pretty dire at it), but it gives me somewhere to put my alts while I fail to get around to finding a raiding guild for Cata.

Now to go fishing for Mr Pinchy.

/wave

Shared Topic: What’s In A Name?

Post soundtrack: “Who? Where? Why?” by Jesus Jones

I’m usually not motivated enough to take part in the shared topics on Blog Azeroth, but this one caught me at a time when I’m reassessing my naming habits in preparation for adding new characters to my roster, come 4.0.1 and Cataclysm.  (Warning: incoming stream of consciousness!)

I initially touched on my naming habits a looooooong time ago, but for those new here it can all be traced back to a mouse.  I love the name Dinglemouse, a character from Spike Milligan’s book Badjelly the Witch (which I really need to buy a copy of).  When I initially considered using the name for one of my characters, I decided to save it and try a variation first, which was Pringlerouse.  Variations begat variations, and soon I had seven dwarves to play with (although Fingle has since moved servers, leaving me with an open spot in the roster, and there’s still no Snow White to keep them in line).

My current assortment on Dath’Remar, nominally my home server, is Pringlerouse (80 rogue), Kringlelouse (80 hunter), Dinglemouse (80 warrior, and star of my last few blog posts), Ringleprouse (80 rogue), Mingledouse (80 priest), Binglerouse (80 pally), Tingleflouse (35 druid and the only non-dwarf) and Ninglethouse (very disposable 58 DK and AH mule).  On other servers my highest level characters are server transferee Finglethouse, an 80 dwarf priest and Pringle, an 80 gnome rogue on Argent Dawn (home of SAN-US), and Dinglemouse, a 70 troll rogue on Aman’Thul.

While Pringle, Dingle, Mingle and Ringle are pretty much guaranteed to stay around on Dath, I’m looking at re-rolling (and probably renaming) Kringle and Bingle with 4.0.1, and replacing (and definitely renaming) Tingle with a Worgen druid come Cataclysm.  My quandary now is how best to name these new characters -  it’s been hard to come up with names that fitted the system I’d been using yet sounded as good as the original ones (Kringlelouse never really rang true, and Binglerouse sounds more like a gnome), and I’ve been resistant to the idea of breaking tradition (at least, until now).

Incidentally, one little exercise which has helped me firm up the identities behind the names of my characters was a collection of little thumbnail descriptions I did of each of the main characters when I entered the Cataclysm Comic Contest a few weeks back on Disciplinary Action.  (The winners’ prizes were really quite delightful, by the way)

Mingledouse, the pathologically pessimistic priest.
Dinglemouse, the timid tank.
Kringlelouse, the hunter who’s allergic to pets.
Binglerouse, the paladin atheist.
Ringleprouse, the clumsy yet ridiculously lucky rogue.
Pringlerouse, not a serial killer, honest.

Needless to say, while I’m definitely not a roleplayer it was fun to come up with simple hooks upon which I can hang the identities of my characters (even if they are just currently purely cosmetic hooks – although the behind-the-webcomic-scenes post on DA today has left me… a little contemplative of possibilities).

But I digress.  (Like usual)

As I said above, for my dwarves my current system hasn’t really scaled beyond four of the first five, which means it’s as good a time as any to come up with something new (and probably more individual this time round), which means time to hit some online name generators to see what I can find which sounds good (probably my only criteria).

As far as other characters go, well, they’ve pretty much inherited dwarven names out of habit.  My troll desperately needs a unique name of his own, and I’ll have to get creative if I roll some more horde-side characters (including a goblin, of course).  As names are pretty much forever (or until you spend some cold, hard cash), they’re not something I want to come to regret.  Time to cogitate.

After all, the Cataclysm is coming, so what better time to make some sweeping changes.  Not just to how you play, but also to who.

/wave

WoW: More D1 Farming

Post soundtrack: “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” by The Moody Blues

Now I’m busy farming for Dingle’s pieces of D1 (as opposed to planning for it), I’ve come across some useful tips (and things that would have saved me some time, had I thought of them earlier).

First, of course, is WoW Insider, who’ve put together a list of all the Dungeon One pieces for all 9 classes who have a set.  Have a look here.

Scholomance:

Guess who forgot that the place needs a key? You’ll want to make sure you’ve unlocked the quest chain by doing Clear the Way and All Along the Watchtowers, at which stage you can pick up Scholomance (and get ready to go to Gadgetzan and Un’goro Crater).

Kirtonos the Herald?  Well, turns out he needs an item to be summoned, Blood of Innocents.  Quest time again!  You’ll want to talk to Eva Sarkhoff, who stands just outside Scholomance.  After several pages of dialogue, you’re offered the first quest in her chain, Doctor Theolen Krostinov, the Butcher.

In the followup quest, Krastinov’s Bag of Horrors, you’ll be called upon to kill Janice Barov, who’s tricky to find (especially if you don’t know your way around the place, as was the case for me).  Once you’ve completed and turned in this quest you’re given your first Blood, and future kills of the Blood Steward of Kirtonos (an NPC in the library), Doctor Krastinov and Jandice usually drop additional bloods.

To summon Darkmaster Gandling, who drops the Helm, you need to kill the six mini-bosses around his study, along with all the mobs in Instructor Malicia’s room.  This can be tricky for a strictly physical damage class like a warrior, as the Scholomance Occultists have a nasty habit of turning into ghosts who are immune to physical damage when their health reaches around 40%.  This is a good time to be an engineer for the Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket (Stratholme Holy Water is a useful alternative for a non-engineer).  The best way I found was to use devastate until the occultist reached around 60% health, then Shield Slam (or Revenge, although that can cause problems if you’re specced into Improved Revenge as the damage to a second occultist can cause it to transform) to kill it before it could transform.

Blackrock Spire:

Lost much? (Well, yes actually.)  I was surprised to realise that the dungeons referred to as Lower Blackrock Spire and Upper Blackrock Spire (LBRS and UBRS respectively) are actually two areas of the same instance.  While you’ll likely to learn your way around after some time, expect to get lost a lot.  The Atlas addon is highly recommended in here (and looking for walkthrough videos on youtube is probably a good idea as well).

For warriors I’d recommend working through UBRS first (as two bosses drop D1 pieces) and then clearing out LBRS for the small chance that your Bracers drop (and bear in mind when they say those are a rare drop, they’re not kidding). 

I’ve managed to accumulate seven pieces now, with only the Breastplate eluding me (and let me say now, I really dislike Drakkisath’s conflagration attack).  Time to take a break and upgrade the pieces I have into their D2 equivalents.  Queue “Farming D2” post!

Which leads to the eternal question: how best to accessorise?

/wave

WoW: Boredom And Dungeon 1 Sets

Post soundtrack: “Maniac” by Michael Sembello

In my quest to make my characters look like my characters (as opposed to your average I-pug-for-badges tier-wearer), I discovered a new self-evident truth: when you’re feeling bored and are looking for something to farm, there’s always your class’s Dungeon 1 set.  (Ok, in this instance ‘your class’ doesn’t include death knights as they don’t have any item sets in vanilla or TBC content, but who plays a DK anyway?)

Now that I’ve a comfortable quantity of gold under my belt, the lull between dull, dreary old content and ZOMG exciting new content is subject to a little nagging temptation: “Hey, why don’t you spend some of that gold on your alts, with prices for mats and gear getting so low?”  Needless to say, it wouldn’t take long to turn that comfortable quantity into a very small pile, regardless of low prices.  (Plus with Cata coming Soon™, why spend gold on something soon to be replaced with questing greens?)

The character who’s been tempting me the most has been my warrior tank, Dinglemouse. This is fortunate as she’s not only capable of grinding through old Azeroth content (although pretty much any characters can manage it at level 80 with half-decent gear), but is also an engineer which offers some time-saving abilities when out in the field with Scrapbots to vendor trash (quite inexpensively as well, at a cost of only 2 saronite bars per bot) and Moll-E and Jeeves for extra ways to empty my bags of more valuable items if needed.

First, though, you need to work out where the set pieces drop.  Cue this handy table for the warrior items:

Item	Dropped By	Found In
Helm of Valor	Darkmaster Gandling	Scholomance
Spaulders of Valor	Warchief Rend Blackhand	Upper Blackrock Spire
Breastplate of Valor	General Drakkisath	Upper Blackrock Spire
Bracers of Valor (BoE)	Trash mobs, Quartermaster Zigris	Lower Blackrock Spire
Gauntlets of Valor (BoE)	Ramstein the Gorger	Stratholme
Legplates of Valor	Baron Rivendare	Stratholme
Belt of Valor (BoE)	Trash mobs	Stratholme, Lower Blackrock Spire
Boots of Valor	Kirtonos the Herald	Scholomance

Now, three of these pieces are BoE and can be picked up in the AH (usually for a song).  However, the gauntlets and belt are easy to pick up in Stratholme while farming Rivendare for the legplates, so purchasing them is likely unnecessary.  The bracers on the other hand are worth purchasing if you come across them, as they’re the only item (once you have the belt) that requires running LBRS.

For convenience I started at the north of the continent, running Stratholme until I had the belt and gauntlets – I’m currently waiting for Rivendare to cough up the legplates (although if his mount drops, it might convince me to forgive him).  Next will be Scholomance for the Helm and Boots.  If I haven’t found the bracers by this stage, LBRS will follow on.  And last (but not least) is UBRS for the spaulders and breastplate.

Once I’ve accumulated them all, maybe I’ll look at upgrading them to their Dungeon Set 2 equivalent.  We’ll see how it goes, though.

For now?  Stratholme awaits!

/wave

Catching My Breath

Post soundtrack: “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House

I’m not going to say anything about RealID other than it’s reassuring that they’ve withdrawn the real name requirement – at least, for the time being.  Considering it’s still being implemented (sans the contentious bit), I’m calling it a draw.  Personally, I’m taking the opportunity to have a break from WoW – I haven’t logged in since just after the fireworks started, due to some rapid-onset disinterest in the game, and with the complete lack of new non-raiding content I have no reason to re-sub.

Anyway, my (over?-)reaction to the RID debacle suggests that this is actually a pretty good time to give some of those other MMOs still around a try.  I’m working on Star Wars Galaxies currently, with Fallen Earth and Ever Quest 2 at some later stage.  And I’m going to re-sub to LotRO for 3-months, so I’ve got a good selection of games to play – and that’s not including my purchases from the last Steam sale (including Guild Wars, which I haven’t given much time so far).

I think I’m going to keep a low profile for a while – I wouldn’t want my tin-foil hat to come off, after all.  Maybe some thoughts on SW:G and the others, we’ll see.

/wave

PolyMMOgamy: LotRO

Post soundtrack: “Feelin’ Good” by Nina Simone

My ears perked up when I heard about the f2p changes coming for Lord of the Rings Online (hereafter LotRO), and I decided to give it a try in that special way I have.  Namely, I bought a copy and started paying for it.

I know, I know, I could have picked it up for free if I’d only waited…  But this way I’ll have access to all the content come launch day – and get a stipend of turbine points on top of that, for the subscription paid until f2p launch.  And, I get to play it now.  (To top it all off, I was able to pick up the Mines of Moria collectors edition for only slightly more than purchasing the digital edition, and I loves me my boxes)

What about the game itself?  It’s actually pretty fun (and on the whole, less dependent on outside help while you level than Warhammer was).  There are some differences in mechanics that I’m still getting my head around (such as the tiered levelling system for crafting, and the way you choose a pre-set vocation (essentially a trio of professions) instead of WoW’s à la carte selection, and don’t get me started on the lack of bag space), but on the whole it’s proving familiar enough that the transition has been pretty easy.

For the time-being I’m focussing on my first character, Opalinna, a hobbit hunter (who hit level 30 this evening, incidentally).  As far as professions go she is an Explorer, which means she has access to Forester (harvesting and processing animal hides and logs into leather and planks respectively), Prospecting (mining and smelting) and Tailoring (crafting light and medium armour).

Hunters in LotRO are primarily ranged damage-dealers, but without the support of pets that we’ve come to know and love in WoW – incidentally, there are two pet classes, the Lore-master (who has a pet bear or raven) and Captain (who has a buff-bot in the form of a herald, like an adult version of the squire you get from the Argent Tournament in WoW), but I haven’t had experience with either one at this stage.  It’s a pretty simple class to play, but very satisfying when you can kill your target before it gets to you.

I’m also still dabbling in both Wizard101 and DDO.  With the expectation that with LotRO to distract me enough that I wouldn’t spend enough time playing Wizard101 to justify a subscription (an accurate forecast, it turns out), I put the money into crowns instead.  At least this way what I pay for, I keep.

I also bought some turbine points for DDO, and have bought my first Adventure Pack for the game, The Sharn Syndicate.  It’s only a short series of dungeons, but entertaining (especially the one where you get conned into taking the fall for a bank robbery).  I’m playing a dual-class Barbarian/Rogue, and the combination of stealth and backstab-with-great-axe is quite… visceral.  It’s handy to be able to hire an npc (usually a cleric, for me) to help out in some tougher instances – I guess my antisocial nature is shining through.

Last but not least, WoW.  I’m barely bothering to log on to do transmutes and post cut gems (and crafted ICC cloth gear) on the AH.  My enthusiasm for the game is at an all-time low, and the Ruby Sanctum isn’t even making a ripple.  I doubt I’ll be picking up another game-time card before the Cataclysm pre-launch event at this rate. 

WoW is in an odd space for me; I tend to solo-play my MMOs (although I’ve joined a guild for LotRO), but I’m finding WoW is something that I get a lot more pleasure out of when I’m in a guild of people I know (and, ideally, like).  But I just don’t have the energy to put into finding a guild that has that just-right vibe to it, possibly because I’ve run out of ‘new’ things to do in the game at the moment, and it’s easier to just fade away (at least until something new is introduced – and a new raid doesn’t count, when I’m not raiding).

I did briefly considering trying to put some cosmetic gear sets together – about the only thing I was able to think of that caught my interest.  (The rogue T7.5 set is actually pretty appealing, especially when teamed up with the Shattered Sun Offensive tabard.  And for priests, you really can’t go past the T5 set from SSC/TK.)  The downside, of course, is that as these only drop from raid content, which means they can’t be solo-farmed.  Well, four items of the T7 can also be purchased with (lots!) of down-ranked emblems of triumph, but it’s all too easy to get sick to death of re-running random heroics.

So where does that leave me?  Pretty much in the same space I’ve been for the last couple of months: playing less and less WoW, and more and more of everything else.  Fortunately there’s no shortage of not-WoW to keep me amused.

/wave

Discovering Dragon Age And eBook Readers

Post soundtrack: “My Favourite Waste of Time” by Owen Paul

Fortunately I didn’t rush into looking for a guild, as I discovered Dragon Age: Origins this week.  Needless to say, it’s taken a noticeable bite out of my WoW playing time.

Warhammer Online has been and gone (I’ve cancelled my sub), and while it was polished and fairly entertaining it was just too empty outside the free-to-play starting zones.  I only got to the first zone after the free-to-play trial areas on one character, and there was usually no-one else levelling, leaving the big-reward group quests impossible to do.  In other words, it’s a fun game but not fun for PvE-focussed players (such as myself) with the games’ current population.

Dragon Age, however, has proven much more appealing (and more importantly, less reliant on other players for progress –  although that is kind to be expected from a single-player rpg).  The combat, although the multiple-character micromanagement really isn’t my preference, is a little entertaining (although I’ve dropped the difficulty down to ‘easy’ after having my party repeatedly stomped into the ground too many times), but the real appeal of the game (at least for me) is in the plot and characters (most notably in the interactions of your party members).

I’m enjoying my first character (a dwarf commoner rogue), and if the other origin choices are as well put together I’ll likely have more play-throughs after I complete the game.  It won’t probably be for a while, however, as even with all the time I’ve invested in the game so far, I’m told I’m only 10% of the way through.

As far as WoW goes, I’m currently just logging in to do gem transmutes at the moment.  However, I’m beginning to consider the possibility of levelling up either a shaman or a mage in order to get a feel for the classes pre-cataclysm (because guess what classes dwarves will be able to roll then?).  I’m also tempted to put together more gear-lists along the lines of my Disc Priest PvP guide – I guess it will depend on whether or not the spirit moves me (or if I’m given encouragement).

In unrelated news, I was briefly really interested in the dedicated ebook reader (I quite enjoy a good book, and BBB’s recent book posts here and here have given me a great deal of new suggestions) being launched here in NZ, the Kobo.  However, it’s finally been unveiled at the annoyingly high price-point of NZ$295, which is especially irritating compared to the same product being available to our friends over the ditch for AU$199, which works out to be about NZ$248.  For further comparison/irritation, consider the upcoming US release of the Kobo, where it’s priced at US$150, or NZ$225.  Bah.

I guess that’s the downside of there not being an ebook reader market in NZ currently – it’s the first product to hit the market, so they can name their price.  However, I’m not impressed (or planning on buying one, now) – maybe there will be a new ipod touch to go with the new iphone expected in June.  But for the time being, I guess I’ll be sticking with my ipod touch and copy of Stanza.

Ah well, those darkspawn won’t kill themselves.

/wave

Rumours Of My Demise

…have been greatly mistaken.  Rumours of my laziness, however, have been right on target.

Post soundtrack: “Still Alive” from Portal

It was nice taking a break from writing and just levelling up my shiny new gnome rogue, but I guess enough is enough, time to get back to it.  So hello again, I’m back and…  well, still lazy.  But I’ve managed to level a character to 80 who isn’t a dwarf, which is something of an accomplishment.

Meet Pringle, mutilate rogue.  Although still under-geared (she’s only been 80 for a couple of days, after all), she’s well up to the task of taking names and kicking errant posteriors.  (Incidentally, I discovered this wonderful collection of rogue levelling tips after Pringle hit 80 – my timing is, as always, superb)

Today she managed to finagle her way into both VoA-10 and VoA-25, and performed to an admirable standard for someone who was (at the time) still wearing 7/8 pieces of crafted blue PvP gear.  In fact she managed 3.2k dps in 25-man, and 3.3k in 10-man.  Sure she was only in 16th place in the meters for the 25-man, but for such low-level gear I’d say she’s right on track to definitely not suck.  (On a side note, it’s the first time I’ve been in there since before Toravon joined the throng in there – that would have to be the most underwhelming boss fight I’ve seen)

I’ve also been doing a few battlegrounds (in between LFD heroics) and a couple of Wintergrasps, and Pringle’s now not only wearing two pieces of T9 (shoulders and gloves) but also has the relentless PvP boots (saving for a PvP cloak next).  It’s proving pleasantly fast to earn badges, and the honor from running random battleground is also not bad (apart from Strand of the Ancients, which I find to be even less fun than I remember WSG ever being – oddly enough, I’ve yet to have WSG come up so far).

I’m undecided about what to do next – continue gearing Pringle up as an intellectual exercise (with no idea of whether there any raids in her future), or move on to levelling my other priest or my shaman.  However, after the length of time I spent with Pringle, it’s a lot more tempting to put together the badges to buy heirloom gear before much levelling is likely to occur.

I’ve also been pleasantly surprised by the lack of drama in the LFD dungeons I’ve run through – no loot drama, and players who are new to a dungeon have been open to explanations of fights and suggestions on how best to get to the end.  But then thanks to the way LFD assembles groups I suspect I’m the notional under-geared nub who’s supposed to get carried by the other, much better equipped and more experienced players.

I’m tempted to start looking for a guild to join, as I’ve been feeling nostalgic about raiding after remembering back to my old Tempest days after writing my previous post about the changes coming to Cataclysm raids, but the difficulty in finding a suitable guild along with the possible (probable?) cost of character transfers if it requires moving server are quite discouraging. 

But I guess at the root of it, I’m just afraid that Tempest was a case of the right group of people at the right time, and isn’t something that is likely to reoccur.  (Hopefully that’s just me being pessimistic)

On the off-chance that one of my readers know of a mature (I’m not looking for drama) yet easy-going guild (ideally professional in their approach to raiding) which is either looking for a disc priest (I’m only average as Shadow, and was pretty dire at holy for the brief period I was an involuntary holy priest in early ICC) or a rogue (currently Mutilate, but raided as combat-swords back in TBC from TK/SSC into early Sunwell) on Dath’Remar-US (where most of my older characters are) or Argent Dawn-US (where I’ve been lately), drop me an email.

For now, though, I’m just taking it easy.  Gearing up is (still) kind of fun, but I can’t help but wonder if somewhere out there is a group of people who need me but just don’t know it yet.

/wave

SAN: New Things, New Dungeons

Post soundtrack: “One O’clock Jump” by the Count Basie Orchestra

So this is what low-level rogue play is like?  It’s been so long I’d almost forgotten.  No poisons until level 20, no Vanish or Distract until 22, even Sap isn’t available until level 10…  But on the plus side, they’ve changed things so you start with Dual-Wield, so it’s all good (or good enough).  Pringle has endured, and at level 34 she’s slowly turning into a real rogue.

There’s one thing that’s really caught me by surprise, and that’s the ease of running these low-level dungeons via the LFD tool.  Since I started leveling Pringle I’ve completed Razorfen Kraul (for the first time in my 5 years of playing), Shadowfang Keep, Stockades, Gnomeregan, Scarlet Monastery Graveyard (which came up 11 times in a row – is that proof the LFD is really random?) and Scarlet Monastery Library.  Having them available on tap (without the need to traverse the world the way they used to) is proving to be a handy way to take a break from questing while still gaining experience.

One useful tip, if you plan on running these, is to keep track of what dungeons you’re eligible for and to go out of your way to pick up the quests for them before you run them.  This can lead to a bit of running back-and-forth for some dungeon quests (such as Stockades or Gnomer) but the rewards can be well worth the effort.

I’m considering getting Pringle to 40, buying her epic mount, and then putting time into Mingle so I can try my hand at healing some dungeons.  The idea of playing a tanking class is appealing, as that would get me into them faster, but I just don’t trust my sense of direction in there (at least at this stage) – running around some of those dungeons, you get the feeling they were designed by Escher.

For now though, time to go exploring Kalimdor (as I’m feeling the pinch of being between zones, questing-wise).

/wave

STO: Thoughts Following Beta

Post soundtrack: “Captain Bacardi” by Antonio Carlos Jobim

Well, the beta has finished (albeit with more than a little mass spawn-camping – I’d describe the end-of-beta event as more whimper than bang) which means it’s time to start girding my loins for the head-start in a few days.

I did manage to complete the primary goal I set myself; namely to reach Captain rank (level 21).  The questions now:  What class will I level as?  What class of ship will I specialise in?  What haven’t Cryptic shown us yet?  And most importantly, why do they insist that this severely instanced game is massively multiplayer when (if the beta was anything to go by) you’re unlikely to see more than a dozen people at any given non-mission location?

The last is probably the single thing I noticed most from the beta – hopefully it’s just a side-effect of it being beta, and numbers will be higher after launch.  But the game seems to lack the equivalent social spaces that capital cities in WoW are – the STO starbases are surprisingly tiny (like the opposite of the Doctor’s TARDIS, much smaller on the inside).  Again, though, I’ve yet to see how this server setup (fragmented though it may be) works with the numbers that the launch might (should?) bring – it’s the opposite of WoW’s setup, with one server which is divided into multiple shards for each location; all the shards for a location seem to share a single chat channel, however, and it’s simple to switch between shards.

The chat system is also irritating, especially after I’ve had time to get used to chatting with the WIM addon.  There appears to be a single chat window, but it’s possible to create additional tabs within in which you can filter different entries into (such as combat messages, team or fleet massages, specific channels and the like).

I didn’t play around with it that much, though, so I’m not sure just how configurable it is – I was mostly just solo-leveling, so didn’t miss it much.  (There’s a “Report Spam” right-click action available, which also sets that player as ignored – a positive sign, given the spamming I’ve grown accustomed to in WoW.)

There are group-PvE instances called Fleet Actions which have the potential to be fun, but the reward structure for completing them is currently completely broken; the highest dps participants are eligible for rare equipment as loot, which is quite blatant in its bias against cruiser and science vessel captains.

Plus this is the first game I’ve encountered that allows players to be spawn-camped by PvE mobs, thanks to a perfect storm of upwardly-adjusting mob level and numbers (the more players joining an instance, the more higher-level mobs spawn to match the players, but if players leave the high-level mobs remain there) and a single spawn location which has a PvE mob spawn adjacent to it (once I zoned in with my T2 escort and was flattened in seconds by 4 escorts and 3 frigates).  Spawn-camping also occurred in ground PvP matches – hopefully there will be some fixes coming for that.

Balance (especially in space combat) seems to be a work-in-progress, when I went from the ease of T1 ships, to challenge in my T2 escort, and then hitting something of a wall while working towards my T2 escort.  Perhaps my choice of captain skills, bridge officer skills and equipment is at fault - which brings me to my biggest complaint:

Cryptic seems to be not only the name of the developer, but also their documentation philosophy.  Seriously, if you want to work out a levelling strategy for your captain that won’t gimp you at higher levels, you’re going to need to rely on the forums.

The tooltips for your skills (even with the added information they now have, although it’s hard to believe they could have displayed less) offer minimal information about what they do and which abilities they affect, and the numbers they do offer are pretty useless without a baseline to compare it to:  “+5 to Photonics” means very little when they don’t say what Photonics actually is. 

Apparently, however, this is by design – if you’re a theorycrafter, the designers are going out of their way to frustrate you.  Fortunately I’ve picked up some useful information from skill discussions on the forums that I’m hoping will keep me from being the STO equivalent of a hunter wearing spellpower gear with +spirit gems.

Hopefully the servers will at least pretend to be stable, and the bugs won’t be too overpowering – I’d like to at least get my 30 days out of the game, as I’m not certain at this stage that the game will hold my attention long enough to get any subs out of me.  It’s entirely possible that there’s more content in the release version that wasn’t in the beta, and indeed I’m hoping that is the case.

Plus, release means people seriously starting to create fleets, along with a larger pool people to level with – that was probably the thing I missed most, people (ideally who I know, but I guess that comes with time) to talk with.

My plan?  So far, to level an Engineering captain in a cruiser, with a view to being a damage-sponge at higher level.  I might roll an escort captain (for the pew pew) as well, depending on how long-winded the leveling process is, but it’d depend on my enthusiasm.  Plus there’s always the option of rolling a Klingon captain as well, but with no quests and only PvP it would really depend on how entertaining post-release PvP turns out.

Of course, hopefully my copy of Mass Effect 2 will be delivered soon as well, so STO may face some stiff competition for my time.  We’ll see (but I suspect ME2 will win, at least briefly).

One last query of my handful of readers – are any WoW bloggers giving STO a try, who would be interested in forming a fleet?  “Azeroth’s Pride” has a certain appealing ring to it…

/wave

A Break From WoW Means More STO

Post Soundtrack: “Star Trekkin’” by The Firm.

Gosh, it’s been a while since I posted…  I guess I should explain.  My enjoyment of WoW has been in sharp decline (again – sorry Blizzard, but Icecrown just hasn’t done it for me, and chain-running 5-mans was never an particularly appealing alternative), so in my attempts to cast around for a distraction I decided to invest some bandwidth in the Star Trek Online open beta.

Meet my latest time-waster, Lt. Commander Nuobe, my Federation-side character in the Star Trek Online open beta.

I’ve leveling Nuobe to L15 and a Horde, I mean Klingon, captain to L13 so far, and I think (despite having run into some quite amusing bugs so far, most of which will hopefully be getting patched pretty soon) I’d likely get my money’s worth from picking it up when it launches.

I’ve stopped raiding for the time being (I let the healing officer know of my decision – fortunately they have sufficient healers that they’ve been able to continue in IC without me), and basically just log on to do transmutes and make cloth while I take my break.  Needless to say, I suspect my WoW posts will be few and far between while said break transpires.

However I’ll probably post a little about my STO experiences, as it’s proving to be an entertaining little timewaster (and there’s room to get into the game mechanics a little bit, from what I’ve seen so far – the documentation is pretty awful from my experiences so far, hopefully something else that’ll be improving when the game goes live).  It’s certainly a change after so much time spent with WoW, but with my dissastisfaction with my dwarven horde it’s come at a good time to have a solid chance.

Between the PvE-focussed Federation missions, the PvP-focussed Klingon equivalent, and of course the possibility of PvP between the Feds and Klingons there appears to be enough content (and with enough variety) to keep me busy for a while, and it might even be fun.

I’ve also been spending a good few hours playing Defender Chronicles on my ipod touch, and it’s a blast – well worth giving it a try, if you’re a fan of RPGs or tower defense games.

I’ve not forgotten about WoW, however – I’m planning on doing an update to my Disc Priest PvP gear guide after the next arena season starts, and I’ll probably also update my disc priest levelling series once I…  well…  do some more levelling of her.

So be patient, stay tuned, and live long and prosper.

/vulcan salute

If This Is The Future, Where Is My Flying Car?

Post soundtrack: “Almost” by The Rongetz Foundation

I suspect a “Happy New Year” is in order, it being January 1st.  But this whole lack of a flying car thing really is bugging me – I wonder if my future is faulty?

I’ve been making the most of the non-raiding holiday lull, and aside from doing the Tournament dailies on Ringle (to get enough champions marks to buy the other two hippogryph mounts – about 185 to go)…  And doing the random daily dungeon for frost emblems on Ringle and Mingle…  And more random dungeons to get Pringle geared up…  Oh, and playing the AH to get enough Primordial Saronite to purchase the pattern for the Sandals of Consecration and and make a pair for Mingle (which I did yesterday – yay!)..  And OldDingle has a shiny new Ravasaur.  (Grats Mr. Troll)

Um…  Ok, so I haven’t been quite as idle as I thought.  But aside from those, I’ve been kicking back a little and trying to enjoy what looks to be a pleasant summer down here in my little corner of the antipodes.

Now that Pringle is getting fairly well-geared (after gearing Ringle up to Icecrown level), I’m tempted to either bring prot warrior Dingle out of semi-retirement, or perhaps try either tanking or healing on nubpally Bingle (although a lot of research would be needed before I’d try any dungeons on Bingle – and her healing gear is pretty awful).  I could also try my hand at huntering on Kringle, but I’m kind of ambivalent about using him for anything more than farming old reagents and doing daily gem transmutes.

Another possible goal (admittedly a long-term one, and purely cosmetic) would be to get Mingle her tier 5 set as around-town gear – while Mingle now has her first piece of T10 (the shoulders), I’m rather…  underwhelmed with their appearance, especially the colour of the entry-level set (seriously, green?).  I managed to finagle my way into a Lady Vashj kill last week, but had to pass on the helm token that dropped in favour of a lower-level character who was going to use it for leveling – it was a little disappointing, but at least it was going to be put to good use.

As an aside, I’m finding that while the LFD tool has been great for farming badges, it’s actually proving quite isolating.  I mean, it’s rare to have people saying more than “Hi” and “Thanks, bye” and the start and end of a run (something I’m prone to, to be honest, but then I’m usually not the most loquacious individual).  But on the plus side, it’s just so incredibly convenient…

I wonder what the long-term effect of this change will be?  Will 5-mans become a lottery you do with strangers for badges for non-raiding characters and gearing up new alts, and raid content become the majority of content you do with people you know?  It’ll actually be interesting to see how Cataclysm goes, with the new 5-mans you’ll be able to access as you’re leveling.

For now, though, it’s time to make another coffee and get those dailies done on Ringle – hippogryphs don’t purchase themselves, after all.  Oh, and WoWModelViewer has been updated again (hence the image of a well-dressed Mingle above, now that the program is working with the new 3.3 data) – it might just be time to update my banner.

/wave

Mostly Painless

Something different for today’s post soundtrack:  “I am the very model of a singularitarian” by Charlie Kam.

Well, 3.3 has been mostly successful so far.  All my characters and addons worked fine, except for an ERROR #132 on raiding toon Mingle.  Turns out it’s something to do with the Wowhead looter (determined after a great deal of enabling/disabling/restarting/crashing), but it only effects Mingle – all my other characters work fine with it enabled.

The new authenticator pet was an unexpected (yet nice) touch, for us authenticator users.  Anyway, it’s a bit early to have formed much of a reasoned and experienced opinion about the patch, so I’ll just get ready for an raiding tonight – yay for not-ToC!

Actually, one thing I’ve noticed – I don’t think I’ve had mail open so quickly and smoothly in a long time.  (Maybe it’s a result of maintenance, but it feels substantially better than I’m used to)

Oh, and they’ve changed the login background for dwarves – it has a distance-fade thing going on.  Curious little cosmetic change there.

/wave

Passing Time While Waiting Impatiently

My playing has slowed down a little lately, which I think in part is due to the pre-patch anticipation starting to make itself known – it’s hard to think of a reason to spend time running heroics now, knowing that if I wait a week or two* I’ll be getting something useful in the shape of Emblems of Conquest instead of just sharding or vendoring everything that drops and stockpiling Heroism badges.

It’s kind of telling that, apart from time spent with glyphs and scheduled 25-man raids, I’m probably spending more time helping a guildmate out with farming heavy junkboxes for Ravenholdt rep (for the achievement, Insane in the Membrane) than anything else.  I’ve been exploring Lower Blackrock Spire, and I have to say, that’s a nightmare of an instance to navigate if you’re used to the almost-linear designs from Burning Crusade and Wrath – still, for all its faults, it’s not as bad as Maraudon.  Anyway, it makes a change to get out and about on Ringle – it’s been too long since I’ve spent much time being rogue-ish.

On a mostly unrelated topic, it’s easy to tell when Darkmoon Faire is coming, as the cost of herbs goes through the roof due to people who hadn’t planned ahead and are frantically trying to get enough inks and eternal lifes to make their cards (as has been happening over the weekend).  Oddly enough, Lichbloom has stayed around the same price (starting at roughly 26g per stack), but Adder’s Tongue and Icethorn have both rocketed up to 30g per stack and higher.  For a change, it’s substantially cheaper to just buy Ink of the Sea instead of buying and milling – sure, I miss the free Snowfall inks, but it’s easier (and cheaper) to start re-stocking those after prices return to more sane levels.

I’ve been letting my dailies slide a little as well – the rewards from fishing are pretty ridiculous when the RNG doesn’t like you, and I’m getting tired of travelling half-way across Northrend to get a handful of useless glass as a reward.  I’m still doing the JC quests with Pringle, though, as the tokens are well worth stocking up on in preparation for the 3.2 landrush.  I’m also trying to get Mingle and Fingle caught-up with the Tournament dailies, but it’s proving to be something of an an uphill battle; as far as irritating grinds go, the tournament is (from my perspective) one of the more tiresome (especially jousting, now I’ve done it as much as I have).

For now, though, it’s time to do dailies and mill herbs and craft glyphs.

/wave

* – My money’s on 3.2 going live this week, with next week being my backup guess.  When do you think we’re getting it?

So, What’s New With You?

It’s been a quiet few days, with just the usual raids and a couple of nifty new toys for Dingle to play with.

Yup, this is 3 Tournament pets worth of chopper.  And I have to say, the appeal of the tournament dailies wears off quick when you have multiple characters doing them – Fingle, Mingle and Dingle are all champions now, with Mingle and Dingle champions of four of the five alliance factions.

Dingle has also ventured into Ulduar at last, downing Flame Leviathan and tanking Razorscale.  The zone has been nerfed substantially since I first ventured in there – I suspect it’s actually within my ability to tank it now, provided the raid is geared enough (and 10-man Naxx gear may be good enough, if the players know what they’re doing).  Sadly, she didn’t get any gear from those bosses, but hopefully next time will be more profitable.

Anyway, I’ve cut down my playing time lately because it’s currently just so unsatisfying; Mingle is doing 25-man Ulduar, Dingle will be tanking 10-mans (whenever we can scratch up enough players (which has been once since 3.1 went live), and what’s left is basically just the fishing dailies plus whatever other dailies I can be bothered doing.

I’m deliberating whether or not to put together some gear lists from Ulduar – a list of tanking gear from 10-man Ulduar is appealing, albeit mostly out of curiousity about what there is in there for Dingle to work towards.  I’ve also roughed out a quick guide to setting up Power Auras to display on-screen when Mingle’s flask has worn off while I’m raiding. (it’s happened so often that it got quite annoying).

But for now, I have a little fishing to do (and maybe a handful more dailies) before I head out this afternoon for my second viewing of Star Trek.

/wave

I Blame Hollywood.

Justification for not posting recently:  Went to see Wolverine, and left oddly disappointed that it wasn’t overtly disappointing.  The time spent seeing Wolverine (and related socialising) meant less time in WoW.  Expect me to catch up in a day or two.

While I get started on my dailies, here’s a picture to distract you.

/wave