A prayer for Nkm

Dear God of WOW drops,

Its been a long time since I last wrote you. I hope you are doing well... doing whatever godly things Gods do.

The Left Claw has been doing well. I think loot drop issues have gotten better, though if you would be so generous and kind to allow a weapon to drop for our pally healer Nico, we would be all so grateful. Even the dagger mace from 5 man TOC would be awesome! Nico is the best pally healer I've ever seen, and really deserves a new weapon. Seriously, how many times can a pally run TOC without seeing that dagger mace drop? You must have a funny sense of humor, oh great one. Try to be less funny.

Secondly, I'd like to introduce you to Nkm:

He is our cute little gnome mage. When he's not busy doing magey things, he can be found drinking brewery beer (I think lagers?), while chewing gum, all while hanging out in Rapunzel's papoose. My good friend Rapunzel and I are quite enamored with Nkm, and if anyone tries to punt him, we will kick their freakin' ass. No joke. Anyways, Nkm is a huge huge huge pet and mount collector. He went through the entire Hallow's End event last year in hopes of picking up the Headless Horsemen mount. Unfortunately, you chose to disappoint.

Nkm is back this year, trying yet again, but still to no avail. Oh, dear merciful God of WOW drops, the holiday is coming to a close. There's not much time left. Could you please please please let the mount drop for Nkm? He's really a good little gnome mage. I especially love Nkm because not only is he cute, but he is a mage that manages his threat and aggro. /virtual headpat for Nkm

Please consider helping us out. Are you looking for something in return maybe? Prayers? Exaltations of your power and glory? Sacrifices? Maybe we could sacrifice a hunter for this cause. Please please please don't make him wait another year.

As always, with great humility and praise of your wisdom and power and greatness and mercy and magnificence and blah blah blah,
K

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Social networking meets WOW?

Are you on Facebook? Did you know there is a WOW Facebook page? I finally joined Facebook about a year ago after multiple friends cajoled me to join. I was on there somewhat regularly for the first six months maybe? But I've since kind of fallen off from it and am hardly on there anymore. I don't know, it was nice at first, but then I kinda started to wonder whether I needed to know what these people I went to high school with (who I wasn't really good friends with, and don't really care to keep up with, but I couldn't be a bitch enough to reject their friendship request) are doing every hour of the day.

Facebook has been nice to get back in touch with old friends you've lost contact with, but after the initial couple of emails, its not like I'm talking to them all the time again. Its not like the friendship has been re-invigorated. The friends in my daily life are friends I choose to have in my life, and I don't think Facebook has had much effect on it. Damn, I sound like an anti-social bee-yotch.

How about Twitter? Did you know Blizz has a twitter site here? I know that a lot of fellow bloggers are on Twitters these days, but I have just never gotten into it. I don't follow anyone on Twitter and I have no plans whatsoever to start it myself.

Are you on Linkedin? I joined Linkedin in business school. Did you know you can see Blizz employees and what kind of jobs Blizz has on Linkedin here? Kinda interesting to see the range of jobs they have.

So why am I talking about this today? Well I came across this article that says that the power of social networking could create an MMO to challenge our little game here. The article itself gives no real specifics, and I do not believe its claim that a MMO within Facebook could challenge WOW.

But I think the article brings up some interesting points. How can WOW keep itself at the forefront of the MMO world? How can they keep the massive multi-player piece of their game fresh and relevant? Is there any part of social networking that could be integrated into the game itself?

I know a lot of WOW players tweet about what they are doing in game. But how about if this was somehow integrated into your friends list? I don't know... could you somehow see the status of folks on your friends list? Here is a couple of what mine would say from the past week:

Hahahaha.

Hmmm how about the reconnecting piece... would you want to connect back with folks from the first guild you ever joined? That random person you pugged with back when you were Level 20? I personally would probably say no, but then again I am an anti-social beeyotch remember? Ok, ok I jest. I'm really not. Sorta. ;)

Or how about our guilds? Guilds seem like the perfect place to look at incorporating social networking ideas. Oh yeah, they're doing those guild achievements in the next expansion... is there any component of social networking there? What else could they do for guilds? Could guilds somehow share pictures aka first kill screenshots? Could they expand the guild message of the day feature somehow?

I'm sure those of you who are heavier Facebook and Twitter users than I am have much better insights than I. So what aspects of the whole social networking craze could you see incorporated within the game?

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Did I miss something?

I'm going about my afternoon habit of "lets take a break from work and check out my google reader with a great cup of coffee" when I come across this post by Too Many Annas about honesty in blogging. She mentions this blogger from a while ago who got caught in some drama. Well, Anna is much too classy to name names, but heck, we all know that I'm not.

Remember this whole incident from back in May? Well, reading Anna's post, made me wonder, "Yeah, what the heck ever happened to Ferarro of Paladin Schmaladin?

So out of curiosity, I pop on over to this blog that caused such a frenzy this summer. And here is what I find:

A post saying the blog is looking for writers. Some quotes from the post:

* "With my employment to Blizzard being upgraded soon, I might be looking for someone to help take over a little, too."

* "In fact, during the whole WoW.com/Jago debacle, Paladin Schmaladin made over $5,300 in that one month alone. Not the best way to make a profit, but it was what it was."

Then another update regarding the status of this writer search, Ferarro apologizes "to the ninety-three apps I had to cut off."

Um, has it been accepted again somehow that this person (persons? singular? plural?) does in fact work for Blizzard? Did everyone just forget the debacle from earlier this year? So much so that people are clamoring to be writers on this blog? I don't know if I am more amused/confused by what continues to be claimed on the blog, or the fact that the blog's readers seem to be accepting it.

Huh? I'm confused. I want to take what I read at face value. But I'll be honest, it's a little hard to on this blog. Do you think this person really works for Blizzard? Did I totally miss something? Was there some E! True Hollywood Story on this somewhere that I missed?

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Arena Update

It's been a bit since I've updated our arena progress.

1. 65 matches in a row:

What's interesting about our arena experiences is that our team changes. I had been running a lot of 3v3 with Wutsie and T-baby (do not let these cute names fool you, we are deadly!). So that is a ret pally and then alternatively with a rogue or elemental shammy as our third. One day the three of us crazily ran 65 3v3 matches in a row. It was madness. Flat out.

On one of our matches it had gone down to Wut and I against 2 of the opposing team members. It was going on for a while, when wtf? The rogue on their side that we had killed came back up somehow! Again I ask WTF?!?! Did he get rezzed? Ooooh, Shat was hot when we then lost that match. I had no clue you could rez in arena matches. Or was it just a bug or cheat of some sort?

2. Priest on other side = bad. Priest on your side = good.

But I also ran a number of 3v3s with Shat (the elemental shammy) and Heidilux (who needs a cute nickname... I'm still thinking) who is a disc priest. It was a totally different experience running these 3s with two healers. I think Shat liked that he didn't have to coordinate focus firing and could just do whatever the heck he wanted to do while Heid and I worked on healing (duh) and CCing. With a second healer I could really work on rooting and cycloning more.

Let me just say that when Wut, T, and I would come up against priests, I hate them! Damn those priests with their mana burns and fears! But when a priest is on our side... damn I love those mana burns and fears! Perspective is everything, eh?

What was so interesting about this makeup was that our matches were long. Damn long. Even when we were up against teams rated much higher than us, we made them work for it. We had a couple matches that were in the 12 minute range. This team makeup is definitely not a flashy burst team, we are all about survivability baby! As Shat said (and yes, he provides a number of funny quotes), "This team puts on the Marvin Gaye and takes it slow". I just bet that a number of our opponents who eventually lost to us were cursing us. I would have been annoyed.

3. "Don't worry guys, my bracers got this"

Something perhaps a bit different that I am playing with currently is equipping The Black Heart as my second trinket. What are other resto druids using as their second trinket after their removing movement impairment trinket? At 867 resilience, should I still be stacking resilience?

Secondly, I haz relentless gear! I am wearing Relentless Gladiator's Armwraps of Salvation and Relentless Gladiator's Belt of Salvation which is pretty exciting for a noob arena person like me. When Shat got his relentless bracers, he informed Wut and I that we could just hang back cuz his bracers got this. :)

4. Arena names

One thing that I do always take note of is the teams that we come across. It seems that a number of arena teams somehow get past the Blizz rule of inoffensive names. However a number of teams seriously crack me up. (So you guys know you can go to WOW armory and get summary and detailed info on your arena matches, right?)

Checking out our WOW armory information reminds me of some amusing team names we came up against: Teldrassil Sproutlings (which broke my heart a little to beat them), Everyone Run Taco is OOM, Double Bubble Trouble, plz not in the face, and Keyboard Turn is Good.

5. Do arenas make you mean?

Well I definitely am not shy about admitting that I curse a whole lot more in arenas than I do while raiding. My commentary while losing is in the lines of "F'in ay" and "For F sake". But do you think folks get angrier or meaner in arenas as opposed to raiding because you are going up against real people?

I know that a lot of arena matches include taunting and emoting between teams. Now I typically won't do any of this except for maybe when there are three of us taking down one final person on the other team who runs around basically prolonging an inevitable death. In these situations, I may throw in a /sigh here and there. But I do not do any mean taunting ... unless I am provoked. Let's examine:

Keredria laughs at Princess
Keredria laughs at Princess
Keredria laughs at Princess
Wut: K! You're mean!
Shat: Aw K, cold.
Keredria: What? She laughed at me when they beat us the last match. Payback's a bitch ain't it?

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Guild rumors

Do you ever really think about how much time you spend with your guildies? I probably chat with my guildies more than I do with many RL friends of mine. Its an interesting dynamic though, since most guildies don't know each other in real life.... but there is a lot that comes across in terms of individual personalities. Do you ever wonder how you are perceived by your guildies as opposed to how you really are or how your RL friends perceive you?

Over time I've shared and learned the RL names of a number of guildies. That's always interesting. Reactions range from:

* Oh, yeah she is so (Name X).
* What? No way. (Name Y) is way too nice a name for her.
* Hmmm yeah, (Name Z) totally fits him.

I probably fall in the second category, in that my RL name is seemingly too old fashioned and nice and sweet for how I really am. :)

Now onto the subject related to the Dilbert cartoon above. Now once a group of folks starts hanging out a lot, its inevitable that rumors start, isn't it? Any good rumors from your guild?

For my guildies, some rumors from The Left Claw:

1. Chachi/Brboo makes his poor innocent young sons farm gold for him while he sits back cracking a whip and eating salad (though I would argue this as truth).
2. Wut is kept locked and chained in the basement and yelled at whenever he somehow escapes. However he is allowed out to make scrumptious meals and panettone.
3. Terrondris could be a woman in RL since we've never heard him on vent. Though he is a big fan of T bagging so I do think he is male... but this rumor cannot be dispelled until we hear him on vent (and no, unfortunately Heidi's word is not enough).
4. Nkm's last name has already been guessed by Chachi but Nkm doesn't want to admit it for fear that Chachi will start stalking him (perfectly reasonable fear).
5. Vel really wanted to become a vet, which explains her obsession with pets and mounts.
6. Buns is part owner of a vineyard, which explains where all the red wine during raiding comes from.
7. Nico is away living 'in the mountains' somewhere, doing lord knows what.
8. Chachi and Kalthan are long lost soulmates (clearly obvious to everyone who hears how they speak to each other on vent), which explains why they both play hunters and have identical pets.
9. Jess doesn't really know what words like mitigate or multiplicative really mean, but just throws them around sporadically during raid explanations to create an aura of raid leader-ness.

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Random WOW news

Two little bits of interesting WOW information. First of all, the creator of Tetris is playing a druid in WOW! How crazy would that be for this level 74 druid in your guild or random pug run to actually be guy who created Tetris?

Secondly, there has been more news about the new Warcraft movie. Latest news is that they have the screenwriter from Saving Private Ryan writing the script (old news is that Sam Raimi is directing). Some basic information on the movie so far here. Oh and turns out Brandon Routh, who was in Superman Returns, plays WOW and says he wants to be in the movie here. Check out the shirt he was wearing at Comic-Con:

Who could he play?

***Edited 10/22/09: Here is a pic of Varian Wrynn, River's spot on suggestion for who Brandon Routh could play:

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Byesies to Ratters

Ratshag at Need More Rage is moving on from blogging to... whatever it is that green orc warriors do. Aww. He was one of the earliest commenters on my blog over two years ago, and back in the day when he was on Drenden, Ratters actually used to dork around with Jess and I in Kara and some BC 25 mans as well.

We're definitely losing one of the unique voices in the WOW blogosphere. Thanks Ratters, we'll miss you!

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Consolidating triumph badge vendors and Regrowth?

Ok, so I readily recognize that I am more forgetful than most, but tell me this: Why the heck are there several vendors selling Badge of Triumph gear? I remember way back when TOC came out, taking a look at the Tier 9 gear sold by Aspirant Forudir up in Icecrown. However that was way back when?

Well, since then my brain has been taken up a bunch of stuff (I guess I have limited space) so I forgot about Aspirant Forudir and his Tier 9 goodies. I only remembered the vendor who sells Badge of Triumph gear in Dalaran. Not to mention that when I go to see what is buyable with Badge of Triumph gear in my Atlas loot addon, it does not include Tier 9 gear (separate category in atlas loot).

Long story short, I have had a lot of triumph badges that I hadn't spent. So when I had this a-ha moment the other day, I went and bought two pieces of Tier 9 gear so now I am rocking the 2 piece Tier 9 bonus along with the 2 piece Tier 8 bonus. But seriously, why isn't all Badge of Triumph gear sold by the vendors in Dal? Please Blizz, consider consolidating them... think of forgetful folks like me! /sigh

Anyways, I haven't raided yet with the 2 piece Tier 9 bonus, so I have yet to see what it can do. On another resto druid note though, are there any other trees who actually use Regrowth? Am I the only one? I actually played with trying out Glyph of Regrowth when we raided 10 man TOC the other night. I may have to do some more comparisons, but I seriously think that the glyph gave me some crazy healing numbers... 4000-5000 hps on certain fights.

I know Nourish is the newer sexier spell, but I don't know, I definitely don't use it as much as I think other trees do. Currently I think my top heals are Rejuv, Lifebloom, Regrowth, then Nourish. On 10 man fights where there is significant raid damage, I really like Regrowth's big initial heal, then the long hot on the spell. Plus I wonder if the 20% increased healing if I time a second Regrowth near the end of the first one is better than the 6% from Glyph of Nourish?

Are folks using nourish because its more mana friendly? If I'm not running out of mana, is it ok for me to be regrowth-ing so much? Am I just a noob?

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Blogging commentary and milestones

Some comments on blogging. First, clearly:

Now that we've established that, let's move on to blog milestones. Now there are a number of milestones that bloggers typically take note of, such as the age of the blog and number of posts, subscribers, comments, hits. But here are some different types of blog milestones that I personally have taken note of for this blog.

1. Trolls

You know you've become a "real blog" (whatever that means) when you get trolls on your blog. For the most part I find them a bit amusing and irritating at the first time.

The funniest story around trolls on this blog is when I did a post once about a certain asshat I encountered in game. I clearly called out this person and the guild in the post and via a screenshot. Well somehow this asshat found this post, and commented with a lame excuse for his asshattery, which I chose not to respond to. But it gets worse. This asshat went to his guild forums and put up a post declaring "I'm famous!" and linked it back to my post.

/sigh. They should know better than to mess with she-bloggers:

Hahahahaha.

2. Your mom reads your blog

You know you've achieved some sort of blog milestone when you have your mom reading your blog. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I should be nicer or not swear or something. Though just because I wonder it, doesn't mean it happens.

3. RL vs Blog Identity

Once you've started blogging a while, I think you start to think about your blog self and your real self. Does my real life personality come across on the blog? Am I different in real life vs blog/WOW life? Hmmm...

4. You spend as much time thinking about the blog as you do blogging

Two cartoons to depict this...

Enough said.

5. You wonder if you are saying anything worthwhile

With so many great WOW blogs out there, I think you often come across wondering if you are saying anything worthwhile... what exactly you are contributing into the WOW blog world.

In closing:

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Sproutling goes to Kara

It's been a while since we've checked in with my adorable yet impossible to train as a healer sproutling, hasn't it? What has she been up to? Well, we were taking a couple of guildies through Kara (yes, you read that right, Kara) to get them some of the enchants that drop in there. Now the little sproutling has never been to Kara. I wanted to show her how we do it, old school style.

If you were wondering whether the narcolepsy has improved at all, Exhibit A at Moroes' table:

Now the little one did stay awake long enough for me to introduce her to Shade. "This is Shade, my little one, an evil evil man":

Now my addons were being all funky, plus I was distracted by showing the sproutling around. Thus, I think I moved during Flame Wreath. Oops. No one died though. :) Here I am showing the little one how to kick someone when they are down. I know, I know, I'm so mean. But seriously Shade deserves it.

As we were running around in there, I had to introduce the little one to some tough facts of tree life. Specifically the harsh reality that we could be used to make books. Apparently she is not too concerned because she started dancing.

Next, I took her to the chess event, where I think we got confused for a chess piece and someone tried to jump on us and control us.

Finally, I took her to see the big bad man upstairs, Prince. Apparently the little one was not so impressed:

While my little sproutling is dozing away in sleepy land, Jess' Strand Crawler (whose left claw is bigger.. get it? get it?) is at perfect attention, pinching his claws, ready to jump in the fight at any time. /sigh

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If only I could cyclone your ass in RL...

I actually haven't been able to play WOW for a bit. Why? Well I started the process of buying a condo back in July. Long story short, I was supposed to close on this condo in mid to late September, but for a multitude of reasons on the seller and bank's side (including dishonesty, shadyness, and straight-up ineptitude), I still haven't closed. However, I have been kicked out of the place I was renting, thus I've been a wandering vagrant for about a week now. And since my internet connection has been spotty as I crash with friends, I haven't been able to play.

So I am flying back to my hometown, Chapel Hill NC, for the next five days so hopefully I'll be able to play and raid a bit again. Can I just say one thing? The entire real estate world... agents, attorneys, mortgage bankers... um shady? Especially my experience with my mortgage bankers... who are arrogant idiot assholes who weren't smart enough to get a real banking job, a personal sentiment which I have not been shy about sharing with them. Trust me, my feistiness extends its arm long beyond the game. :)

Anyways, hopefully I'll have more game related stuff to blog about again soon.

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Heal like a tank?

I believe that I’ve previously mentioned on this blog that I would categorize myself as a healer with a tank’s mentality. What do I mean when I say I heal like a tank? No, this has nothing to do with healing mechanics or strategy or anything like that. When I say heal like a tank, I’m talking more about having a more aggressive attitude or state of mind, and then consequently acting on it.

Now I recognize that some of this attitude or state of mind will come only with experience and confidence. Also yes, of course I can probably speak my mind a bit more because I run in a close knit guild with folks I’ve run with for a long long time.

On a quick side note, I’m curious as to how many of you have come across asshole healers. Think of the last horrible pug you were in. Who drove you crazy? I’m almost willing to bet it was a dps or tank, but not a healer. If you have come across asshole healers, tell me your stories! (p.s. Left Claw folks not allowed to tell stories)

Anyways, I’m not sure if it stems from this whole stereotype that a lot of the females playing this game tend to be females or that perhaps somehow the role you play in game affects how you act in game, but do you think healers don’t speak up enough? Are we too nice? Do healers quietly just sit in a quiet corner wearing some variation of a sissy robe and just heal?

A couple of suggestions:

1. Speak up:

If you find that a run’s success is often followed by a linking of the damage meters with no mention of healing, take note of how K may act:

Random person:Links damage meters or talks about dps
K: “What because the healers did nothing? Because we were what, just twiddling our thumbs?”

Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it gets annoying sometimes (just ask my guildies), but I don’t know, I just find it important to speak up for all us healers. I think its often easy to place successes on the dps’ doorsteps and failures on the healers'. I’m sure this is even more so in pugs. Don’t let folks forget the awesomeness that is us healers.

2. Participate more:

But on the other side of speaking up, I think its important that us healers take an active part in discussing raid strategy. Make sure you speak up as to what you need as a healer, or how you are seeing the fight from your point of view. It is well known in our guild that all good ideas that Jess suggests in our raids really come from yours truly. Hee hee, just kidding. Jess has some good ideas from time to time. :)

3. Apologize less:

This is something that even I still fail to do at times. Even if a naughty dps grabs aggro and gets one shot, I still sometimes find myself trying to save them, then apologizing if I can’t. Realize that we are healers, not miracle workers, so don’t apologize for someone else’s mistake... we can’t be expected to keep everyone up no matter what.

I think next time something like this happens, I will resist the impulse to apologize and instead /point and /laugh. Ok, ok, maybe I won’t go quite that far. :)

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PVP and Olympics talk

As we like to say in the business:

Booyah!!!

That be a lot of Hordie killin'! Here's K below in the current pvp getup. Though I don't go around pvping chewing gum and blowing bubbles. :)

On a totally different note, everyone here in Chicago is all about the announcement of the 2016 summer Olympics host city, to be announced tomorrow from Copenhagen. Who knows if I will still be living here 7 years from now, but it'd be pretty crazy to be living here in the city when the Olympics are going on! Go Chicago!

Now I remember during the 2008 Beijing Olympics last summer that we got a spirit of competition pet for doing something... a battleground was it? But given how successful WOW's holidays and corresponding achievements have been, Blizz should totally create olympic type competition holidays when the winter or summer olympics are on. For the summer olympics we could totally do a decathlon event... for the winter olympics I'm thinking events like bobsledding and ski jumping. :)

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