Clever use of game mechanics?
September 30, 2009 § 2 Comments
On Monday night I was working on leveling my tauren druid.
(Just a quick little back story on him: when I first created my troll shaman, I needed a bank alt, much like I had on the Alliance side. I had tried a night elf druid, but just couldn’t get past the fact that I hate night elves so much. But my hatred of Night Elves is best left for another post. Anyway–I needed a bank alt, and my roommate convinced me that I should try a druid; he suggested that the reason I never got my old one past level 10 and why I eventually deleted him was not because of the class but the elves. So I created him, and he stayed low level for a long long time. But once I got my shaman to 80 and started healing I discovered I really enjoy being a healer. And I also really enjoy being a tank. So the possibility of playing a class capable of playing both really intrigues me. So I’m now trying to level him to 80. And for those wondering, yes, I also have a paladin I’m working on.)
Anyway, I was working on a quest in Desolace which required me to go to the north-east corner and kill a bunch of Hatefury Satyrs. One quest simply required me to kill a certain number of various types of the Hatefuries. But one of them required me to get a scalp from a Shadowstalker. First I had a hard time finding Shadowstalkers. Then the ones I did find just wouldn’t drop the scalp. It was getting rather frustrating. But then I had an epiphany.
Thistlefizz to the rescue!
I switched to my little warrior and made my way to Desolace. As I recall I took my Ultrasafe Transporter: Gadgetzan, and was turned into a kobol, and then a trogg. So much for ultrasafe. Then I flew up to Nijel’s Point, and headed over to the Hatefury area. My plan was to kill every Hatefury that wasn’t a Shadowstalker (so the rogues, betrayers, tricksters, etc). I killed satyr after satyr. At first I was just going to kill enough to get 20 or so Shadowstalkers to leave for my druid. But after a while it sort of became an obsession. I wanted to get every mob in the area to turn into a Shadowstalker. I thought I was getting close until I discovered a secondary area with more Satyrs. *sigh* Ok, well, it shouldn’t take too much longer…after all I was only…two hours in. It became a pattern. Mount up, ride to a non-Shadowstalker, charge then shield slam, revenge, shockwave, or thunderclap. Then mount up and do it again.
It was sort of hypnotic. And I was lucky in that no-one else wanted to have anything to do with the area so I didn’t have to worry about the Shadowstalkers I was spawning getting killed. Everything was going great. I had finally converted some of the most stubborn ones in the area. There only remained 10 or so (out of 50-ish?), and I was ready to kill them good. But then this message flashed in my chat box.
Server restart in [15:00].
I…but…you just…they can’t….*urk*
I immediately switched over to my druid, which of course due to lag too me 12 minutes. Ok maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not much. I started killing shadowstalkers left and right with the clock running down. But no scalp. I was starting to panic. [10:00] Keep going! [5:00] It’ll drop off the next one! [1:00] Crap I need mana! [:45] Now I need energy! [:30] Ok I can get this [:15] last mob! Hey! There it is! Let me just click on the…[You Have Been Disconnected From the Server]
Dammit.
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”
~Fizz
Ghostcrawler vs the trolls
September 29, 2009 § Leave a comment
The first time I visited the forums was during one of Blizzard’s April Fools’ jokes. Every forum post had been changed to include the most awful, ridiculous, painful to read, internet speak I’ve ever encountered. I would give you an example, but I’m a firm believer that things like that lower the collective IQ of the human race, so I refuse to take part in it. But I digress. Having heard about how awful the forums were, I actually didn’t realize that a joke was being played. I really believed that everyone who posted on the forums was just that stupid. And because of that, it was a long time before I came back. The sad thing is that the joke isn’t that far off; there are so many posts on the forums that are just as bad, or worse.
The Plaguelands
September 25, 2009 § 3 Comments
When I was leveling Thistlefizz I tried to avoid all the zones with the undead. I’m not a big fan the horror genre, so by extension zombies and undead. So when I reached the 50-60 ranged I headed for Ungo’ro Crater and then Winterspring. But while I was there I got a quest from one, Jessica Redpath. She informed me that she had been living in Lordearon just before the Scourge Invasion. For some reason that isn’t really given, she wasn’t actually in her homeland when the Scourge swept through the land. Ms. Redpath told me that she was concerned that the other members of her family hadn’t survived and asked if I would help her find out their fate.
Well, even though I didn’t really enjoy the thought of fighting zombies, I was touched by Jessica’s plight. Here she was, stuck in Winterspring, trying her best to help fight back the Burning Legion, and she had no idea what had come of her family. And so since she wasn’t able to do it herself, I agreed to take up her cause. I seem to recall one of the soldiers in the area asked me to go to Chillwind Camp in the Western Plaguelands–and since I was headed there anyway….
I’m really glad I accepted those quests.
The Western and Eastern Plaguelands became two of my favorite areas in the game. It’s not because the quests are particularly fun or the land is pretty. It’s because of the lore. The story lines that interweave in the Plaguelands are some of the most heart wrenching in the game (like the one about little Pamela Redpath). And it kind of makes me sad that so many people just blaze right through the two zones, if they bother going through them at all.
Warning–beyond the cut are what might be considered ‘spoilers.’ I say that in quotes because what follows is a mixture of actual in game lore and personal extrapolations, and interpretations of stories and events.
Resource bars
September 25, 2009 § Leave a comment
You know what bothers me? When you target an enemy mob, the only resource that is ever displayed is mana. No rage, no energy, no runic power (and eventually for hunters, no focus). I never really thought about it until the Trial of the Champion. I’ve run that thing quite a few times on both my Horde and my Alliance characters. I’ve faced each of the different champions. I’m good at remembering which ones are the shamans, and the warriors, and the mages, but for the life of me, I just can’t keep track of who is the rogue and who is the hunter. I should probably make a sticky note and put it on my monitor, but that’s neither here nor there. Every time the champions come out I wish that I could click on the rogue and see an energy bar. Cause then I wouldn’t have to sheepishly ask every time, “um…remind me again which one the rogue is?”
I know it’s not a huge thing. And maybe it’s too much of a hassle to program every mob in the game to have a resource bar. But it bugs me. There’s already a huge amount of things I feel like I have to remember when I tank and am in charge of marking mobs. And if other mobs had energy bars I feel like it would be a lot faster to asses which mob needs to die first without having to memorize the difference between Stormforge Ambushers and Stormforged Runeshapers.
What do you think?
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”
~Fizz
Addons Part 2 (Installation and Maintenance)
September 23, 2009 § Leave a comment
One thing that can be a confusing and scary experience is actually installing and maintaining addons. And when I first started playing wow no-one really told me how to install and maintain addons; the only other person I knew who played was my roommate and he has this slightly ridiculous hatred for every addon ever made. I’m still not exactly sure why. I think it’s because all technology everywhere hates him. Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone who is so technologically unlucky. It’s not that he’s even all that un-savvy. He just has horrible tech-luck. He’s managed to fry more than one piece of electronics via his massive static charges. And he’s accidentally deleted vital files for the running of his computer on more than one occasion. So I guess he’d just rather not bother. But I digress. When I started I wished that someone had told me how to deal with all the addons out there, so I’m hoping that I can help guide those who are dipping their toes in the magical well of AddOns.
The Cranky Old Gnome 