To Many Quests

I'm on vacation this week.
For years I coveted this week because at the office is a ghost town & I I was always part of the skeleton crew that kept the light on.
But at long last I've earned enough rep to have this week off.
And my wife who is an absoulute goddess let me have yesterday to just play WOW. I had done all the RL quests that she had asked of me. It was really a rare treat for me ^u^

So I played a lot. But I will say that I really don't understand people who can do that all the time.
I mean the world is so very complex & to put all your effort in somthing virtual seems well rather escapist.

For me, yesterday was a virtual to-do day. I set a goal (reach level 76, complete zones HF\BT\DB) and got nearly all of that done.

I also scored the dalaren sewer rat (FINALLY)

All I can say is that blizzard has packed the new expansion with an incredible amount of quests & they all link together. I'm really enjoying the flow through. Blizzard has outdone themselves this time.

Why Wrath Of The Lich King Kicks A$$

A Couple of days ago Game Life on Wired.com posted a review of WOTLK. One of the comments the blogger made was that he knew people were going to flame his review as being a PR piece for Activision\Blizzard.

But the blogger is right WOTLK does kick ass. Yes you can level to 80 in a couple days if you do nothing else but grind & run dungeons. At the same time though you can just smell the flowers and enjoy the sights sounds & quests of northrend.

Like I am. How else could I get a screenshot like the one above?! It was such an awesome moment!!!

Until Later

The Musing Moonkin

Thoughts on the launch

Alright now that a couple of days have passed I have my thoughts straight on the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.



First off. Congrats to Blizzard on the successful launch on Thursday. It was a bit laggy but on Fenris but still playable



Item #2: Fenris FULL?!?! yeah I got that message a couple of times. It was bizzare, but my server was full. Delay wasn't too bad but as it stands the newest zones are just overrun with 70's



Item #3: Old Friends, New Annoyances: The launch brought back many old friends + chat trolls of the nth degree. Sometimes I just want to turn off general chat but then some old comrade pops up and I'm glad I didn't



which leads me to item #4

Going home: This one is a little bit difficult to post & maybe it's the most honest I've been while blogging.

If you've seen boogie nights, there's a part @ the end where mark whalberg just show's up in front of Burt Renyolds after falling down hard. And he just starts crying and saying he's sorry and asking to come home. And I had a moment like that Sunday night. But before I go there let me explain how I got to that point.

Guildwise since the early summer I've been lost at sea.

After Utopia disbanded memorial day weekend. I fled alliance & went hoard, joined Defenders of Slyvannas. Leveled, kept to myself. Didn't talk much etc.

And it was good, for a while. It was a mental break from the stresses that people layer onto wow.

The mindset required to see end game content removes the fun aspect of wow. You need to be to have a focused, serious, and commited mindset. Otherwise you can wipe the raid which in wow is bad (see time = money from previous posts)

But it was also hiding. Hiding from myself, from the sorrow of seeing something I had put so much time in fall apart. Hiding from the rejection of the major raiding guilds on Fenris. Utopia for all it's faults offered me a home. I knew it's members & they knew me. I wasn't a committed raider, I don't have, nor do I want a life that lets me raid four nights a week. But when I did raid The guild leadership understood I came in with the required raid gear, required buffs, & required mindset. So it was win win, I could see end game content when I had the time, they had a guild member who could fill in at the right moment.

Eventually though you have to come home.

So I came back to the alliance side using the pretense of the wintersaber mount as my excuse.


And for a month I just stayed in Winterspring rep grinding.
Sending gear to my shamen to sell.
It was Tetris Like I followed a path, did the quest, repeat.



When that was done I was like "Well what's next" so I started rep grinding timbermaw for the title.


Then I joined a couple of guilds hopping from one after another.
Leaving when the drama got to much.



But really I still was just lost at sea.
I mean I play a MMO & I avoid people.
The whole point of a MMO is to socialize, to work with people to attain goals
but whenever the commitments got to tight I pushed away.

Which leads me to sunday.
Starting thursday I realized I needed to rejoin a guild.

I couldn't be a free agent anymore.

I wanted to join a raiding guild again, esp since LK changes raiding radically (search google about 25thNovember and their comments regarding Naxx) Raiding is no longer just for people who can sit on the PC all day.

I also was mulling forming my own guild & taking on the responsibilites of being a guild leader. I even have the email that I was going to post on the Fenris forum page ready & sitting in my gmail inbox.

By Sunday though I had joined up with some old friends who were in The Knights who say Ni. It wasn't big but it was alright I wasn't guildless anymore

Then I saw Sno, Who was old school when I was just a noob player.

Sno: who had given me the best advice I ever recieved about marriage. I got it from him the day I proposed to my wife. I remember it well.

Sno: who had lead runs into ZG after BC released so that the lowbies like me could learn raid mechanics.

Sno: my former guild's 2nd in command

& I knelt before him, he cheered, & I just wanted to go home again.

Now I'm just waiting to hear back if I'll be back in House of Paratus. I know it won't be the same but it's where I need to go.

Way to much WOTLK..seriously put down the mouse & step away from the computer

Alright, there's just something sick about reaching the level cap in under 4 days. We already have two players on fenris that I know off that have hit level 80 already. Did these people at least use the bathroom?!?! I mean come on there's more to life than WOW.

Also I have to give a shout out to my lovely wife, who I miss very very much (as do our fluffy sons) since she braved going to Best Buy & Pre-Ordering WOTLK for me. She only took a lil geek aggro but it was quickly flushed by flashing her ring of marriage and her debuff of
"It's for my husband" Alas lil best buy pally. Did you really think there were any single women who played WOW???

I'll have more concise thoughts on LK launch later this week
until then
The Musing Moonkin

Wrath of the Lich King is Out

WooHoo!!!
Upgrading...fun fun fun!

A moment of thanks & a howl of victory

Sunday night I ran AQ40 & saw how a god is killed.

But before I go into that experience I wanted to give a moment of thanks

First to my wife, who did not gripe once on Sunday Night that the raid started at 9pm & wasn't completed until 12:30am. You are far more patient than I sometimes give you credit for.

Second to my raid party, who apart from a single bad apple that we had to kick from the raid
took the goal as both fun & a serious endeavour. Many of you I knew from younger days & a few were new faces but I enjoyed all of your company.

With that said, one thing that is a constant throughout my life is that I tend to be at the right place at the right time. While this doesn't apply to me winning the lottery, no matter how much I'd like it to. When it comes to other events in my life I tend to just be there when it matters. At the office when no one makes it in due to a storm I'm there, when I did martial arts visiting instructors found me to be a great assistant.

How this applies to WOW leans towards rare events or items. Over the years I've collected a acquired many rare drops that other players farm for but somehow land in my lap. Such was the case on Sunday when I won this skittering beauty which also earns your this feat of strength.

Now onto my thoughts about AQ40

1.) I think it's important in an MMO to have Very Difficult if not impossible End Game Bosses. You need a sense of accomplishment. Even at level 70 the end bosses of AQ40 give you this.

2.) 40 man raids. I can argue for and against them. But I think that it would be good to have them in future content in a similar fashion to how blizzard is making raids in 10/25 man versions.

And finally here are some selected screenshots

1.) A full 40 man raid

Raid Wipe #1: a full group of level 70's in Tier 5\6 gear taken down in under a minute

After the 2nd wipe due to an overeager hunter. We got in a faced C'thun. This was taken after I got tagged for about 3millon in nature damage. Luckily I resisted 1.5 million but still I fell =P

And finally our raid triumphant. I guess third times a charm

Until Later
The Musing Moonkin

A Place I thought I'd Never See..Molten Core

I want to say thank you to shrapnel & the rest of the crew in classicraiders (no space because it's a channel) for inviting me to last nights raid of ... Molten Core!

The Raid took two hours due to the cooldowns on the Aqual Quintessence (we only had 4 amongst 35 people.)

Still it was awesome. It was just great to be with old friends and ally's from my younger days. People may transfer or stop playing but still some remain, & remember a different time when WOW was a different game. I'm not saying it was better game, just different. I encourage any new players who never have seen the old content to run it. Yes the gear is weak, yes you could be getting badges or arena points. But if you want to see why the raids are the way they are now, you need to see how they used to be

Here are two screenshots:

I look forward to tonight's raid of AQ40. I want to see how a god is killed...