I’d Rather Be Wowing!

I’m a shadow priest…isn’t it obvious ?

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the scourge invasion event getting started (if you haven’t, read here for more info). A couple guildies and I went to BB. That corrupted crates are mighty attractive. So what if touching it caused you to be infected? And so what if I actually have a “cure disease” button placed so conveniently on my spell bar? Being a zombie is definitely more fun than being an boring ol draenei :).

But, who knows that Zombies lead such a hard life?

1. We are frequently misunderstood. Everybody out to get us. The fact that everything we said ended up being a gibberish to other healthy people doesn’t help either. We don’t try to eat you because we are bad (some do), we try to eat you because we are lonely.
2. And also because we try to survive. Every second spent not eating brain sucks the living out of us.  We are always hungry.
3. I wish I exercised more before I was zombified, because I can feel all the muscle pains when I walk now. I only have the strength to run every 30 sec. So give us zombies a favor and stop running away from us.
4. Where did my brain go (oh yeah someone ate it), because every healthy person knows that you need to run away from a ret pally, not to chase em to eat their brain, especially the zealous ones who made it their life goal to eradicate the infected.

In all seriousness, it does take an effort to stay a zombie for a long time. We made a mistake of hanging round in the city when we turn and the guards made an easy target of us. Even when you think you are in the place where there weren’t any guard around, if you are in the city, it seems like a guard can always find you. Before you turn to zombie, run out to a safe area (watch out for the argent healers, you can usually out-range them so they couldn’t heal you). Generally, avoid a large gathering because you’ll never know if someone would attempt to cure you. If you are a warlock, you can kill yourself with hellfire and turn yourself into zombie in much shorter time. It is definitely better to travel in group. If you have to die, do it in style. Also, I read about durability damage if you are killed as a zombie. I was killed many times yesterday, but it only cost me 4g to repair, so I’m not sure if that’s really the case.

Warning: This is a long ranty post!

When I first read about achievements, I was excited. It was truly a challenge for the completist side of me. The achievements system makes it easy to keep track what are the things that I’ve done, but more importantly, the things that I haven’t done. Fast forward to now, although I still appreciates the achievement system (mostly for its tracking functionality), I have to admit that I am starting to dislike what the system made me feel. (And no, I don’t really mind the constant spamming of achievement in the guild chat, which I just learnt today can be turned off :)).

If you are reading the forum these couple of days, you would find many posts requesting the removal of the Sinister Calling from being in the requirement of obtaining the Hallowed title. While I understand and appreciate Blizzard’s decision and thinking, being one of those poeple who can’t seem to get a break in RNG even if their lives depend on it, I have to be in many posters’ side. You may argue that it is too soon to even criticize the drop rate of such items, and I agree with that. The issue is really the reliance on some of the achievements on RNG, not just limited in this particular achievement (or title). For myself, I dread the RNG type achievement because no matter how hard or how long I spent the time working on it, I know that I am not guaranteed in getting it. It takes away something that is supposed to be fun and surprising, like opening the treat bag that you get from your innkeeper, especially when you are getting lollipop for the 3rd time in the row :).

Another example of how achievement managed to suck the fun out from the event is with the Halloween’s wand. It is becoming rare the case where people would turn other people just for giggle and laugh, now some people would hoard the wands just so that they can sell it to other people trying to complete their achievements. Or they will only use theirs in exchange with other people’s wands. It is a valid business opportunity, and I don’t blame them for it, but I missed the days where people do things really just because they can.

More importantly, however, I feel that these achievements manage to bring greediness and nastiness in people. I was running AQ40 for achievement yesterday, and we have agreed that whenever that crystal to summon the mount drop, unless you already have one, you are allowed to roll need on it. If you don’t know, this drop (which has a variety of colors) counts toward your mount achievement. Soon enough, this simple concept and courtesy got thrown out of the window. People who already got one just kept rolling need on the item. People start pointing fingers to other people who they think have already got one, and yet still rolling for another one. And I am in on one unpleasant ride. Another example of this is the people who pretends that they have summon, when they actually don’t, or ones that do not bother to state the fact before asking you to join the group (I know that this is partially my fault for not asking, but you would think people have enough courtesy to do it).

I know that all the examples I pointed out are probably still there regardless if there are achievements or not. But I do think that their frequencies are aggravated by the existence of achievements.

Our server was one of the last ones that went online yesterday. Ironically, the time when I stopped trying (10:30 PST) time was the time when it was finally letting people in :). But apparently I didn’t miss much since I heard rumor about people being stucked in the portals.

I woke up in the morning and fortunately the server works. There were a bunch of hiccups with “world server is down”, but they were pretty minor incovenience. The weird thing was that every time the server crashed, I kept being moved back near the inscription trainer. I spent much time taking care of the addons and on to power level the inscription. 4 hour later…I still haven’t break 300 in inscription :).My first minor glyph: Glyph of Drain Soul!

A note regarding to that, I really like the way the discovery works in inscription. Since people will get different minor glyphs (and minor glyph can only be found through discovery), at least for the first month or so there are variations on what minor glyphs that people have, creating a good market demand. I just hope that I can get Glyph of the Penguin soon :).

Anyhow, I like the new excitements that the patch brought. Our server has been pretty quiet lately, and I hope we’ll see people starting to get back into the game.

As of this morning, I have completed my herb collection target to power level inscription on my shammies. I use Kalliope’s list as my guide (it actually requires a substantial more herbs than Banana Shoulder’s one, but Kalliope’s assume for “worst case” situation, which I have to admit is usually what happened with me in WoW universe). I so not want to see Western Plagueland, Wetlands, and Arathi Highland for a while.

I have to admit that I am very excited with Path 3.0, mostly for the inscription, and not so much for the new talents/skills, which is probably not a good thing to hear at this point.

Another chapter of my WoWing experience closed yesterday. Our raid alliance was officially suspended until after the expansion (most likely until people are starting to hit 80). It has been a while that our attendance has been severely lacking. We had subsequent raiding days where only 15-20 people showed up, and consequently the raiding got called off. This started a slippery slope of more people not showing up, until recently where we are lucky if we even have 10 people in attendance.

I’ve seen the decision coming, though I wish it can be postponed longer as there are more contents that I still want to see. I am a bit sad because for me, raiding is so much more than about gears, but about spending time with people that I truly like being with, joking around while busting our butt for the same goal. It’s almost like a team sport, but without the sweat and all the icky thing :). So yeah, by December (which is the month foreseen as the raid leader to when we are going to pick things up again), who knows who will stick around. All I know, I am going to miss it terribly.