Elder Lonashani

Well as you all know I've been excited about the Lunar Festival coming up. It sure was a fun two days. I got to stealth around some Northrend instances, powerman Vanilla content, go Mission: Darnassus style. The Lunar Festival was a huge success in my book.

It also made me get over my fear of pugging. After my (newly joined) guild's 2nd Naxx group was canceled I said screw it and jumped in some heroics. 14 badges, 2 pewpewlootz, and some new unit frames later... I'm hooked. Originally I grouped up for a Heroic Gundrak to ninja the Elder, but after dowing Moorabi with only 4 people nearly completing [Less-rabi] I got a new confidence in random grouping. After that I offered to tag along on a Heroic Nexus run. The run went so smooth we decided to go for a Heroic Drak'Tharon before disbanding. We managed to knock everything out without a hitch, including the special boss achievements.

I think I can go through this game a little less angrier than I usually am now. In 2 days I went from guildless Lonashani to Elder Lonashani with a bagful of pewpewlootz.

Being decidedly lazy isn't as easy as you think...

I apologize for any of you checking in for an update these past couple of days, I've had a pretty crammed schedule in and outside of WoW. Don't worry, I won't bore you with my real life business. I'd much rather try and make you interested in my life in Azeroth.

So, in that perspective:

I've come to realize that although I have done a lot in this game, I still missed out on a lot. For instance, I'm just now pursuing professions with the intent of consistently using them for monetary gain. In spare time to cure boredom I've been collecting reputation never earned, keys never gotten (which really disappointed me since I was unaware they'd be pointless after 3.0.8). Doing these things made me feel rewarded though. Rewarded for the fact that I'm able to do things my laziness prevented me to do before.

Achievements are probably the biggest factor for this second wind. I love the achievement system, it gives a reason to do all the stupid stuff you've done before. Never before did I have a reason to level cooking, but at the same time I also had no reason to do the annual events. Pre-TBC I could tell you the majority of my time was spent sitting in Orgrimmar talking to people before raid time. Gold was only earned through raids and instances, mana pots were farmed for an hour a day, and I never had a problem with it.

People enjoy challenges for different reasons. At the same time, people enjoy different types of challenges for the same reason... it's challenging. Maybe I'm just a sadist, but I enjoy the difficulty of surviving with little resources. One: I've never been so scrutinizing on what I do with my play time now, but when something's finished and out of the way it's a great feeling. Two: Given my extreme distaste for pugged groups and wasted time, it's more than difficult getting gear. Again, making that much needed upgrade feel amazing. In the mean time before that upgrade, you question why you even bother logging in. The road less travelled by is less travelled because it's a long fucking road.

Orb of Deception

A local business establishment is setting up a World of Warcraft LAN. LAN's are cool. I've been to a few myself, but mixing WoW and the LAN does not seem right.

Imagine. You show up at the LAN hauling in your custom PC that only has minimum drivers, the simplest software, and WoW installed. You've done everything to allow any response you have to the game virtually (in the literal sense) instantaneous. As you're putting on your headset you hear that voice. You know, the voice always screaming whenever he casts a Shadowbolt, laughs everytime his DoTs tick away a percentage of a mob's health. The volume on your toolbar is muted, and you turn to the door to see your guild's best DPS. He gets dropped off by his grandmother and can only stay until he needs to return the laptop to his older brother.

An absolute nightmare. 12 years old and he's the one who is always given priority over your drops. Can't you just imagine the anger you would feel? Hell, I remember participating in a Smash Bros Tournament a couple years ago, and all the hype was about this "Keith" guy. So, naturally the final round is Marth and Fox vs... Peach and Dr. Mario? Me and my buddy were awestruck. In fact, we were so amazed at the composition that we almost lost due to the amazement of the situation.

I digress, WoW is built on anonymity. At any moment you can become a new legend, the channel troll, that annoying 19 twink who wants to duel your level 40 toon. We feed off of this fact that your WC group could be with your resident High Warlord leveling his next pvp monstrosity. There's the unprecedented phenomenon of gathering 5 days out of the week to kill sophisticated pixels under the command of more sophisticated pixels. Defeating the power of being unknown to everyone is a game killer to me. I remember coming across pictures of my guildmaster and his wife once. Never could take them seriously afterwards. There are just some things you shouldn't know when it comes to WoW, and that's the physical appearance of everyone you know.

pull, clear, pull, clear, drink, death grip, wipe

It was a slow day today logging in Azeroth. I've mostly been PvPing for gear lately. I haven't gotten into a groove of doing dailies, leveling my herbalism, or even running instances. I'm touchy when it comes to grouping up. After I quickly levelled my druid from 60 to 80, I tried my hand in a couple of them. Each one was a bust. [Insert Death Knight noob comment] But just in general, not a single person knew what to do in any situation. Although I haven't PvE'd in literally years, I at least looked up the strategies before walking in the instance. (No Ruby Dragon in The Oculus?! How are you clearing Naxx?) Needless to say, I have little-to-no badges, and little pre-raid gear outside of AH-buys.

Again, looking back at the way I used to play my druid back in the Vanilla days, it was always clear that it is nice to speed through things. It just feels like the mechanics of the game now has turned every player into thinking they're a demigod. As much as I love the versatility each class now has, people are turning into these bad players who just want to nuke and leave. It's almost disrespectful to how much time I've ever spent reading and memorizing any strategy for Vanilla and WotLK. I would love it if I could enter a pug and everyone knew how to make the run as smooth as possible for once, it just makes everyone better off.

Oh, and I didn't miss the Lunar Festival! Looks like I can RP all I want.

What to say, what to say...

What inspires one to blog? Even more, what inspires that first, defining post that makes or break your identity in the blogging community; let alone the devoted community of WoW? Well for me, you can thank the new expansion. [/endobviousanswer] Well listen for a second now, you don't need to hear the success of Blizzard's marketing department, I'm sure you know of that. Rather, why don't I put you in my shoes for a couple of paragraphs.

I started a druid 3 years ago after I bought my copy of Vanilla-WoW and heard some friends of mine talking about it in Biology one morning. They both were coincidentally rolled on the same server and started leveling and questing together. It was almost amazing to listen to these conversations of summoning, questing, gathering, jumping, walking, and swimming. Just every word uttered sound awesome in the context of WoW.

So after the game's installed I ask them "What class should I be?" The one was/is a complete noob and had no idea, but the other had a nice understanding of the game and told me about druids. We could heal, turn into cats, turn into bears, turn into cheetahs, and we have an awesome dance. After he was done talking, he made it sound like I could do anything! I was hooked, I made a dopey looking Tauren and clicked on that name generator a couple of times and decided to go with Lonash. For some reason I pictured an epic Han Solo kind of character, but then that image stopped immediately when it said "Name Unavailable." So I added "-ani" to the group and created Lonashani, Level 1 Tauren Druid of Dalaran.

I leveled without any huge knowledge of the game, never understood dps, grinding, anything, but I didn't care. I liked my heavy-resto, light-balance, random-feral build up until level 60. It took me a while to realize to enjoy the endgame grinding I'd have to make some changes. So I did, I joined a raid guild and walked into MC and ZG with my [Zum'rah's Vexing Cane].

However I proved myself, soon the original Druid Officer quit and I was quickly appointed the position, and I stood tall with my new power accompanied still by my Vexing Cane. In not even a handful of epics I quickly learned how to manage mana, decurse efficiently, and never failing to fall short of my appointed tasks in any raid. Believe me, it was a task in the gear I was in. (Is that a [Whiteout Staff]?)

I never cared that people mocked my gear, my income, my talents, my UI, my (lack of) hot keys -- I guess just me. I wanted Feral Charge because it was cool! I made sure I only used my [Mechanical Yeti] when it mattered! Sure, eventually I was in full Tier 1, sparse Tier 2, and I was cool enough to swap out items for regen purposes during fights. To anyone that argues, I did roll that 100 for my Arlokk I constantly ran ZG for, despite my HWL weapons.

It was always the little things that made the game awesome for me. Wanting to run Nefarian just so I can go cat form for once. Saving my aforementioned Yeti only for the right moments. Respeccing Moonkin for the dance, just because only then my dance will be more awesome than yours. WotLK brings all of those little things back for me. After seeing the Achievement listings only then I would I have ever thought I could share the title of my Druid Hierarchy... "Elder Lonashani." Thanks to Holidays and family though, I think I missed my shot at the title this year, epic qq. But that's job security for Blizzard because I won't quit until I'm able to RP as much as possible with actually joining an RP-Server.