Thursday, January 13, 2011

Relative difficulty of heroics and creepy scary archaeology voices

A couple topics today.

1. Relative difficulty of heroics

I was curious as to whether there was some listing of the relative difficulty of them. I came across this from wowwiki:

Sure relative difficulty, is well, uh... relative. Of course its going to depend on your gear, or perhaps your group composition. I've only been in Deadmines once and that was a long time ago when the group was very very undergeared. So maybe I think its hard, but wouldn't be hard for us now.

But uh really? Lost City and Blackrock Caverns at 4 stars? Harder than Deadmines or Throne of the Tides? Though I guess some my questioning of these ratings may only be specific to certain bosses... like having enough dps for the last boss in Throne of the Tides or Commander Springvale in Shadowfang.

But on general, my vote for the relative difficulty from easiest to hardest would be more like this:
- Vortex Pinnacle and Lost City
- Halls of Origination and Blackrock Caverns
- Deadmines, Throne of the Tides, and Shadowfang
- Grim Batol and Stonecore

2. New guildies

Surprisingly enough we have gotten a decent amount of interest in our little guild. We've added a warrior to the guild, which decreased the average guild IQ quite dramatically. But we also added a shammy healer, so our IQ is back up to where we were before. I am hopeful that we will be able to raid by the end of this month.

3. Scary creepy archaeology voices

So yes, I am archaeologizing (I love making up verbs!) like a mad woman to try to get Tyrande's Favorite Doll. The RNG aspect of it all is yes, creating some outbursts when I continue to get crap nightelf commons or rares. There might have been an outburst last night that went something like this:

"The nightelf rare I get is the windchimes? Really? Really? F U ARCHAEOLOGY! F U!!!!

Anyways, I'm archaeologizing the other night while Jess and Sam are on vent with me. Now I've had this happen a couple times before, but I brought up the fact that sometimes I get creepy scary voices when I pick up a keystone. I think the first time I got "You... will... die" whispered in my ear when picking up a troll keystone, I about fell out of my chair. I've also gotten voices from picking up nightelf keystones, though they are sometimes unrecognizable to me in terms of what they're saying.

So I ask Jess and Sam if they've heard these voices. And we asked Nkm on guild chat if he's heard these voices. None of them have! So I go and try to look up some evidence that I'm not going crazy. While Sam insists that I found "this evidence" on wowschizo.com, I found some validation on the comments for Troll Tablet on Wowhead. Some quotes from the comments:

"The voice you're hearing is the whispers of old gods. More specifically, I believe the ones we're hearing are a combination of the sounds you'd hear inside AQ40 (C'Thun) and Ulduar (Yogg'Saron)".

Accumulated quotes from picking up various keystones.
- "It was your fault."
- "Your friends will abandon you."
- "You will die."
- "Kill them all before they kill you."
- "They have turned against you. Now take your revenge."
- "Trust is your weakness."
- "You will betray your friends."
- "Hope is an illusion."

I swear, the voices are creepy as hell. I'm not sure why my guildies haven't heard them. But see, I'm not the only one! I'm not crazy! I'm not this guy!

12 comments:

  1. I've never heard those sounds. Maybe my ambient needs to be even higher. Or I'm too focused on figuring out what the red marker is trying to tell me.

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  2. Those voices are probably why I havent been more dedicated to my archeology skill... they scare me and I stop until the siren song of both Tyrande's Doll and the Vial of the Sands recipe tempt me to return...

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  3. Tyrande's Doll is driving me mad I think I have had about two weeks straight now with only the doll left in Nelfs as a rare.
    I think you can go mad trying to get specific items the RNG is amazing.

    On heroic difficulty oddly enough I really like Stone Core and find it quite easy to heal where as Throne of tides can be a real challenge.

    Zetter

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  4. I've been doing a troll solve a day since 525 trying to get Zin'roc.
    I'm dooooomed!
    And I'm sure I will die, I'd just rather it be later than sooner.

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  5. @Klep: From the informal polling I've done so far in my guild, it seems that you are more the norm not having heard these voices yet.

    Next time you are doing archaeology, just make sure your ambient sounds are up, and try it with headphones.

    @Kayeri: I know! Its really quite creepy when its late at night and all of a sudden you get this creepy whisper in your ear. But yes, I keep doing it for the doll and the mount as well.

    @Zetter: As I told my guildie Nkm a while back (he is going for the epic caster staff), the RNG nature of archaeology is going to be the death of us! The death!

    Really?!?! Stonecore easier than Throne of Tides? The only real difficulty I've had in Throne of Tides was having enough AOE heals to last for the last boss. I found the trash in stonecore much tougher.

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  6. @Hinenuitepo: I'm telling you... this is going to be the death of us!

    Hmmm maybe just the troll and nightelf keystones have the voices? I am mostly sticking to Kalimdor for the nightelf dig sites.

    I wonder if the Dwarf keystones don't have a scary creepy voice.

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  7. ahahaha...so there IS a voice!! oh thank youuuuu, thank youuoooou!! x)
    I was thinking I'm going mad! and I was indeed digging at the time lol - I even thought for a moment that Deathwing was in the zone!

    and don't you dare complaining about sucky rares - I have an awesome amount of zero rares dug up so far, and i'm approaching the 400 now. at this rate i'll get my pets next expansion come. :((

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  8. Some warlock may or may not have macro'd those creepy voices to his spells along with "fear, so exhilarating". Just what you want to hear in pvp.

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  9. @Syl: Yay! I'm so glad others can be rest assured that no, they are not going crazy. I knew I was hearing things while digging... I just needed the proof!

    Here's the hoping your RNG turns around soon... and that you get a bunch of rares in a row!!!

    @Anon: OH... MY... GAWD... you give my cute little gnome lock an unprecedented level of evil to look up to.

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  10. Voices...when you are alone...and you web-browse to find substantiation...interesting... ;-)

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  11. Oddly enough on Stonecore I healed it through in my offspec (I was main spec boomer at the time). Also the tank was one of our pally healers in his tank offspec.
    First time in Throne of Tides I really got a shock at the last boss (though I had not done it on normal before we went to heroic).

    Heroics tend to be down to individual perspective a lot I find.

    Zetter

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  12. The voices are caused by deadly boss mods, theres an option that is on by default, called "make archaeology more interesting" or something like that. And yes, it terrified me the first time (ok every time) it happened to me :)

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