Shared Topic: My last five hours…

Seems that some of us bloggers are answering the question “What if WoW servers were going to shut down for good in 5 hours time?” What makes this question so very difficult is that the most truthful answer requires each person to determine what is their deepest reason for playing. I have a number of answers that occur to me and I will let each item speak for itself about the underlying reason for doing what I would do.

0. Absolutely first would be to share my contact information with the other Sidhe Devils. This assumes that the guild forum and other WoW related means we have of staying in touch would also disappear. In essence, I would endeavor to ensure the human relationships had at least a fighting chance of surviving a permanent server shutdown.

1. I would check in with Mom to see if there was anything she wanted to do in-game before the shutdown and go do that, however long it took.

2. I would want to help as many people as I could hit some of the milestones they may be within 5 hours of hitting. A fellow guildie comes to mind: Nighthawque. He’s (as of July 8th) about two-thirds of the way to 70. I would group with him to help him 70 before the shutdown. This assumes he would want to spend his last 5 hours working towards that goal.

3. I would post in trade channel for those that had never had a mount that I will buy it for them.

4. I would take at least one lowbie group through Deadmines.

5. I would go to Eye of The Storm for one last epic battle with worthy opponents.

6. I would roll low level toons on other servers to whisper /bye to players I know through the bogglesphere. Basically, if you have a blog about WoW you’d be on my list of people I’d want to whisper.

7. I would take screen shots of all my favorite toons from my login screen.

8. Finally, I would gather with my guild in a capital city and after helping the warlocks summon everyone I would /hug, /cry, /cheer, /bow, /salute and /dance with all of them as the final seconds ticked away…

Epic Flight? Check!

This past week, due to some awesome daddy / eldest son camping and the 4th of July holiday and all its accompanying RL stuff, anything game related necessarily took a back seat. But, on the 6th we were back on in the early AM and passed another milestone with a huge boost from our buddy, Doodlebug. Thank you so much!

Trainer? Check!

Vendor? check!

280% Flight Speed? Check!

Next stop… Swift Flight Form!

-eust

Special Durid Project!

Greetings!

Doodlebug, of HoTs ‘n’ DoTs, and Eustashius have embarked on a special durid project.

Visit our joint LOLWut creative venture at RoadToBlizzCon.blogspot.com for details!

-eust

On The Bandwagon

’nuff said.

Kitty needs a name

Laddies and lassies,

This here is Cat. Cat has decided nae to be a rebellious beastie and so needs a name. Imma hopin’ the blogglesphere on the webbie-tubes might help.

/pssst. Don’t tell beastie but when I found ‘im he were roamin’ about Winterspring thinkin’ he were Rak’Shiri.

Gotta check my aquarium

Outside of Allerian Stronghold, after blowing up Monstrous Kaliri eggs, I saw a school of “Mixed Brackish Fish” so I pulled out Seth’s Graphite Fishing pole, threw on a sharp hook and cast.

That’s the first gray fish I’ve ever seen. Hmm. Goldenscale Vendorfish. Bet I sell this to, well, a vendor.

Yep. That’s what you do.

Eustashius does Haiku

Hi All,

Seems I’ve won the Haiku Contest!  ZOMG!  So jazzed .  Thanks to Runy for putting it on.

-e

Shared Topic: Preparing for WoTLK

Wrath of the Lich King. How am I preparing for it? Hmmmm.

First, I expect that it will be whole lot like the California Gold Rush; the sheer anticipation of WoTLK will drive people bat-guano insane with all the nifty stuff it seems to promise. I have two 70s that need to prepare (the co-hosts here) and there is SO much to do right now that an expansion pack just breaks my head. Some of the issues/questions I deal with now are:

• Do I complete the Karazhan key quest because I want “Hand of Adal” next to my name?
• What about the Shattered Sun Offensive dailies?
• Shall I farm Clefthoof Leather to complete my Strength of the Clefthoof set?
• How about the former Rak’Shiri who was tamed long ago by the hunter and needs to level but only yesterday got brought out of the stable in over three months?
• What about running groups and instances with other Sidhe Devils? I love EoTS and Arathi Basin but have just blown off battlegrounds for almost half a year. Get back into those?
• I really want the pattern to Stylin’ Purple Hat from Blackheart and to hit 375 in leather working.

The point I am driving at here is that there are SO many things to do, right now, that I’m happy with how it is.

That said, I am hoping that we discuss this as a guild (note to self: post about this in guild forum). I’d absolutely LOVE to explore and level and quest with Sidhe Devils. I am not interested in being the first to 80; I want to level fishing, cooking, first aid, leather working and skinning while I level my ‘toons. In other words I want a deeper, richer experience of Northrend that requires a slower pace.

I especially hope this expansion does not cause the kind of rift that BC did. There was the race to 70 and Karazhan and many many players were left behind. I found that after three days off line that I was no longer a viable member in the group of guildies that I had been grouping with. That’s how frenetic the race to 70 was. As I write this I think it’s too much to ask that the race to 80 not occur; there are too many that want to climb the mountain because they can and it’s there. But what do they miss along the way? Perhaps what I’m really trying to say is that in some things it doesn’t matter when you arrive but how you arrive and the manner in which you conducted yourself on the way.

I submit the following and would welcome being disproved: I submit that even in top end raiding guilds there are several members that do not even have all secondary skills trained (especially fishing and cooking), let alone maxed out. I use the example of top end raiding guilds to point out that although raiding is a huge part of the game it is not exclusively about raiding.

If one charges straight to the top of the mountain in the form of leveling, one misses many many things that are not as sweet to experience when you come back down. Gnoshing on Ravager Dogs and Warp burgers you made at level 65 is a sweet experience because of the effort required to do so; I worked hard to kill the ravagers and warping critters when I was leveling and I really appreciated the well-fed bonus. Coming “down” the hill when level 70 to level cooking to learn how to cook Ravager dogs seems to me would be more of a task rather than a pleasure.

So how am I preparing? I am spending as much time as I can in the metaphorical field of red and purple wildflowers running hither and yon, splashing in the frigid mountain brook, gazing off to the horizon, contemplating the rocks, smelling the earth and listening to the wind rustle the leaves because all too soon begins another part of the journey. A part I hope to savor and enjoy as much as this.

Recipe: Two Durids Is 4 Fun

Take two durids, one resto and one feral. Put into group. Place in Netherstorm with at least three shared quests. Turn them loose for one hour. See results below.

Wish I’d thought of that name

Hi all,

Ok, my mom has started the blogging thing.  It’s got a name I wish I had thought of and her first post is near and dear to my heart as I have to deal with the consequences of it while we work to get her to level 70 before BlizzCon ‘08.  It’s at Late To The Raid. Enjoy!

Old Hillsbrad with New Friends

You may have already read about five of we Sidhe Devils dropping in on Thrall last night. We had a few rough spots which are hardly worth mentioning. I suppose they were rough only in comparison to the ease of much of the rest of the instance. First, a big giant thank you goes to my four companions on that adventure. In alphabetical order they were Doodle, Ishvi, Rysterranch (Dax) and Wulfa. Thanks to them for going past the agreed upon ending time by almost half an hour to wrap it up.

It is not an easy thing to forge a team from five individuals without those five being willing to become a team. Two hours is not a long time and Dax correctly pointed out that this instance was largely unfamiliar to us, in fact, it was the first time for three of us. The one thing we all brought to the party was good will toward each other. There was an abundance of willingness to forgive mistakes and learn from them as well as humor and respect. I think we did very well as an ad hoc group and could become a very good team.

One thing I would do differently: On one attempt at Epoch Hunter Ishvi died and then Doodle. (BTW, feel free to correct my facts here team, I’m going off memory). I battle-rez’d Doodle, took a health pot, popped barkskin and tranquility, but then was out of mana to go to Dire Bear. If I had it to do over again I would do barkskin, battle rez and innervate on doodle, Tranquility, Rejuvenation Pot, Dire bear. I can’t help but think that might have saved a wipe.

Anyway, on the photos!
Here we are about to take the Dragon taxi into the Caverns.

Here Wulfa and I (BFF) managed to get ourselves dead as we went to summon Doodle.

Apparently, no Night Elves are allowed in Hillsbrad so we had to wear disguises.

Flying to Durnholde the second time

Ish gets another nifty shiny.

Lord High Muckity Muck Captain Skar-whatever down.

Epoch Hunter arrives and says means things about Thrall.

A modicum of healing threat.

That was that last wipe. Next go around, Epoch Hunter went down and there was much rejoicing.

Wantz it!

There’s an add-on I can’t seem to find. What I’m thinking of is one where, when auto-loot is enabled, a user-determined loot threshold must be met before anything goes in the bag. Say I set my loot threshold to Uncommon then anything that is white or gray doesn’t get looted. This would allow the convenience of auto-loot while minimizing junk in the bags. BTW, white quest items would/should not be subject to any filters.

Does it exist?  If not, I want this book so we can maybe I could write it on my own.  However, as Bartleby intones, “I would prefer not to.”

Into Scarlet Monastery (a BlizzCon08 adventure)

Last night mom and I went to Scarlet Monastery to do the Kill-The-4-Baddies-In-There quest and to help get her leveled to 70 before BlizzCon. We were really burning through the instance quickly, in fact, sometimes too quickly for mom but we got that handled . Since we were going so fast I didn’t get many screensnaps but, of the ones I did get, this is my fav.

Karazhan Run, Part II of II

Ok everybody, I’ve had my cathartic moment and now here are some of the details about Eust’s first Kara run.

So here we are outside, ready to go in.

Inside the stable.

We had some connection issues so I did the Midnight Tanking thing, died …

and can’t get back in after releasing.

Attumen is down and dropped the Worgen Claw Necklace…

for which I rolled, well, a low number.

On our way to Moroes, Egbert was rude.

Dammerung kept our spirits up as we wiped a few times.

Moroes goes down. yay!

We wanted these but Ashift got them. Grats to Ashift !

Wait! Group photo…

Overall assessment of our time in Kara

Until next time!

-eust

Karazhan Run, Part I of II

I thought this post was going to be about Karazhan, the raid Sidhe Devil’s did on the 31st of May. Instead it is becoming the final chapter of one part of my World of Warcraft experience.

Original Beginning of Post:

Last month Sidhe Devil’s ran Kara. It was my first time evah! So here are some snaps and a bit on my take of the time we/I had. I know it was over a week ago but better later than never. ‘Sides, my blog so it’s not late .

Revised Beginning of Post

I suppose I really needed that time to think about some things that happened and how I felt about them and so forth. Bell says it really well when she describes her audition with Sunder.

I no longer PUG instances; that ended long ago with a rogue posting damage meters in party chat telling me I’m not carrying my weight. I replied, “Tanks aren’t supposed to top damage meters; they’re supposed to keep the mobs attention so YOU can top damage meters. If you would let me get a little bit of aggro we wouldn’t wipe!” It went downhill from there so I left the party and never looked back.

I would, occasionally, and I mean OCCASIONALLY, pug for a quest or two but only if another toon was in the area and clearly doing the same stuff. And so began a vicious cycle; not willing to pug means not finding others with whom I would group which means very few online friends, means no Outland instances, means no GInvites, means no raids, means more and more end-game isolation.

I knew that if I weren’t in a guild I wouldn’t be going to Karazhan. Not one itty bitty chance of that. I thought about starting my own guild; in fact the hunter still has the charter in his bag. Trident was going to be it’s name. However, I really didn’t have the time to do it right. /sigh.

So one day BBB starts writing about guild issues that ultimately result in his leaving it for Sidhe Devil’s. He needed a step down and I wanted a step up. I wanted to be in a guild with like minded folks that could give what they could but would disconnect in a New York second if some RL thing came up. I wanted a place I could help out those who are leveling and still still some end game content. I wanted a place that understands I can’t commit to any kind of regular schedule whatsoever without sacrificing my children, my marriage, my career or me.

I can’t help but think that the guild charter was tested with me there. I am confident I caused at least one wipe on Moroes, maybe more. I suppose, though, that the karma all worked out because the time we took him down was when Cassie suggested I tank one of the mobs that had been running amok. Or maybe it wasn’t running amok. All I really remember is that when I tanked that mob, that was the time we downed Moroes.

So, there it is: on the 31st, after a guild application, a server transfer and a little bit of time for the roster to fill out, I finally went to Karazhan. And even though the server and guild is new to me, I feel like I’ve come home.