Reputation Grinding...

I finally understood the point of the Silithus rep grinding nonsense that was Cenarion Circle... It's to prepare us for TBC...

I started grinding Cenarion Expedition rep last night. It felt so familiar. Running around, tagging mobs before someone else does. Anyway, it's stupid... I'm Exalted with the HQ, but then go down to Base become Neutral again... Oh well, can't be helped. At least I see little reason to grind to Exalted, just Revered should be enough to drive me insane.

But while researching this, I realised there are so many reps to grind now. Lower City, Thrallmar and Cenarion Expedition are critical for the keys to heroic modes. The others you could probably skip unless you require a receipe for your crafter professions. The gear you could get are nice but I think there are (possibly) less painful ways to get them. We shall see...

First Impressions...

As with everyone else, I rolled my Blood Elf pally and ran around to see the 452342603461065 other BE pallys running around the starting area. It still wasn't so bad since some people haven't gotten their xpac yet or are too busy grinding the post-60 content. But, the 'queue' for quest mobs is just odd...

But, the most amazing thing was to be Horde and finally look nice, no, gorgeous. Even something as plain as Brown Linen Robe looked amazing. If only I had this option when I first started playing...

Finally, it's great that the BE racial compensated (at a certain extent) one of the worst part of playing a paladin, the lack of a pulling ability. Now, the mana burn ability means that I can pull anything that has a mana bar, rather than the body pull I had used as a human pally... Guess ally are all going to get upset now...

Of course, I had to send my lock through the Portal. After spending a ridiculous amount of time looking for the Tailoring trainer, I started exploring around. There's apparently some algo now that compensates for lots of toons in the same area by increasing the spawn rate of mobs. It made for some pretty hairy encounters as you see mobs respawning as fast as you can kill them! Some of the quest rewards are amazing, replacing some long standing blues with greens. Wonder how long this will last...

Well, there goes sleep...

Christmas PvP - a story

A friend linked this story to me from the European WoW forums... So... Touching... :)

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I often play PUGs, and I encounter a lot of bad players on the opposite team. But, I just can't take it when they're female gnomes. I have a heart, and it just feels so bad killing those small buggers, especially around christmas times.

My story begins with me playing my shaman. I run up to a female gnome mage and slay her without her being able to do anything. Now I do this another 5-6 times and that poor female gnome mage is like the only alliance who dares to step outside their flagroom (EVERYONE DEFEND FTW!)

It is a really bad player, I don't even have to try very hard and could just autoattack kill the poor female gnome. She tries to channel fireballs, I ES and she wont even channel another fireball before my ES is ready again. She never silences and overall she's like one of the worst players I ever seen. (but at least she tries to move out from the flagroom and WIN the game!)

So, I just can't take it anymore. I see that gnome mage running up to me for like the 7-8th time and I look at the scoreboard, the mage got like 0 HKs and 10 deaths. She starts channeling a fireball and I just let it hit me. And let another fireball hit me. She doesn't have very good gear, it's noticable - still decent gear though. I hit her 2-3 times, with windfury deactivated to not get some lucky instant killing WF crits.

And I die after a time. I don't know why. Somehow in my mind I see this dad, who actually plays the character, who sits with his kid and lets him play. Because it was really THAT bad play, slow reactions and everything.

And that female gnome.. I just couldn't.

I respawn again, the score is 2-0 at this time and we're really dominating the game. The female gnome, who still is the only alliance stepping out of the flagroom, is now in our base, running VERY slowly and stopping on every corner. Which only makes me believe even more it's a someone showing a small kid the game. Move around the corner, standing still for a few seconds, move a bit further.
The only reason she managed to get this far, was because all other 9 hordes are killing the defenders in their flagroom.

I follow the gnome (looking at the female gnome around the corners by rotating my camera) slowly into our flagroom. She entered our base from the ramp, and from entering it took probably 1 minute to get into our flagroom - which for a "normal" player takes a few seconds tops.

Now she stands in front of our flag, totally still. Nothing happening for 10 seconds, and in my mind I'm so sure that it's the dad saying "Good kid, now rightclick on this flag and run fast back to our base!". I'm so sure of it, I can't believe anyone who's level 60 can play this badly and move around so slow if they level hours & days by themselves.

She picks up the flag, and I run in. Hey, can't have them capture without having to fight for it. The female gnome mage stops, looks at me for a bit and after 4-5 seconds starts channeling a fireball. After a epic battle of attempting to make it look like a epic battle, she brings me down. She slowly moves closer to my corpse, then a bit closer and then loots my corpse. She turns around, stands there 3-4 seconds before she runs the 10 yards to reach the tunnel in our flagroom. Stands still another 4 seconds then she turns facing the tunnel and after another 3 seconds she starts running forward.

I'm so sure now, but no matter - a player that bad and who's the only one who actually is trying to win the game needs to be rewarded for the fighting spirit.

"/bg Hey guys, the one who picked up our flag is a friend of mine, it's his little kid playing. He loves this game and is it ok if we let him score 1 time to make a little kid happy? It's christmas week after all."

Ok, it's a lie. I don't know the guy, and I don't know if it's a kid. It can just as well be a really bad player. But believe it or not, the brutal hordes all show a great heart. The female gnome runs through the middle to their tunnel, which takes probably a 3 minutes. The hordes are all ganking people who's defending their flagroom now, it's actually quite a slaughter. All of the hordes, including me, are in their flagroom killing everyone trying to get in there.

Then our favorite gnome comes running into the room, she almost hits the glasswindow straight ahead before he stop. Waits 3 seconds, turns 90 degrees to 3 seconds later walk straight into the middle of the room. He walks a bit to far to the west, so it takes another 3 seconds and he moves backwards a few steps with all the hordes watching. She turns around facing their flag. Moves forward, stops for a second, then moves forward again and the female gnome mage captures the horde flag!

Horde picks up the respawning flag and runs back to the base with a female gnome mage untouched shooting fireballs after them. Some people stops to /wave and /dance with the female gnome mage, and let her kill them - as she don't have the speed to keep up with the flag carrier.

Horde wins 3-1, but one little happy mage ended 4th in killing blows (among alliance) with her 8 KBs and 17 deaths.
Maybe it wasn't a kid playing, maybe it was a handicapped person, maybe it was a regular person watching TV while playing, or maybe someone who just opened a ebay account. I have no clue.

But I had a merry christmas.

TBC Launch

OK, so I was crazy but I went down to the launch event for TBC at Suntec... What a madhouse...

It was hilarious to see Glenn Ong trying to get all the people hyped up when no one is interested in the event & just wanted to get their game, go home, install & roll blood elves...

The 'magic show' was pretty funny too... The mage with the 'Azuresong Mageblade' & the warlock in the bad costume...

The most champion person is the one who queued since 10pm THE NITE BEFORE just to be 1st in line to get his game... Of course, he gets to go on national TV & probably cop a ribbing from his family. Frankly, I think his time would have been better spent grinding the last few hours pre-TBC getting more money set aside for his epic flying mount.

Now, I'm just waiting for the game to finish installing/patching and I can get to serious grinding...

What the...

Is there a point to this blog?

Not really... But I need somewhere to organise my thoughts about the various things happening around my WoW toons... I don't expect anyone to ever read the contents, but if you do, leave a 'Hi' or something... Besides, it's the night before the expansion and I'm bored...

Anyway, it's Tank in Cloth because my main is a lvl 60 undead Warlock (if you don't get the reference, then obviously you're never played a warlock). I've got 3 alts, a lvl 60 troll Hunter, a lvl 54 orc Warrior and a (retired) lvl 60 Tauren Shaman. I've wanted to level a Druid but it's been put on hold for awhile. Maybe I'll do it in concurrent with the Blood Elf Pally I intend to roll when the expansion hits the shelves.