It’s Shared Topica Time again. I’ve been promising to do these, despite them always being topics to which I really don’t relate well. This week’s is from Jaedia and her topic of Looking Back to the Start of Wrath.
I’ve never been “in the prime” of WoW, so my take is going to be a bit skewed. Let’s tell a story.
Once upon a time, there was a little Skip. Skip had friends who played WoW, but Skip did not play. Skip was too busy sleeping with super models and going out to fancy restaurants with wealthy executives, or whatever it is Skips do. When the hallucinations ended and Skip realized he was actually just sleeping with his fluffy (and very comfortable) pillow and eating overheated pot pies with his cat, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to socialize with his friends via Intrawebz Gaming. By this time, all of his friends were level 70 and running Zulnaxamon solo with rainbow epics and being followed by ultra-rare Mikhail Gorbachev mini-pets that drop off raiding heroic socialist governments. Or so I’m told. I never got to run them myself.
But some were nice enough to roll alts and play and talk to my newblet druid from time to time and I pranced around, ignorant of the world outside of starting zones. Then the 3.0 patch came out. Some fancy-smanchy new expansion was around the corner and I had to get involved! I bought Burning Crusades and… realized I was level 40, and started over from 1 with a Draenei Hunter and Shaman.
Oh yes, I remember all the new Hunter pet abilities and trees. I remember the class remakes. I remember all of Azeroth going from near empty to void of all human existence. Not to be dissuaded from my quest of doing whatever I felt like in what I was convinced to be a single-player game, it took me about a year to fumble from 40 to 58, where I was introduced to Outlands.
I was excited. I was finally getting into material I’d heard people talk about. And as the game quickly propelled me to 60 and handed me my flight form, it was as if it were saying “sorry Mario, but our princess is in another castle”. Again, no one was there. I tried to slowly enjoy it, convinced I’d never see 80, but it was as if I was leveling up by accident. Outlands was rejecting me. In little to no time, I was tossed to Northrend.
And we reach the topic of our post, I think. Was I excited? Kind of. Was I let down? A bit. What was I doing? Rapidly leveling in an environment mostly devoid of players. It seems I still hadn’t caught up. But, I wasn’t going to let Northrend be another Outlands. There are times when you have to let the princess go for a while and sleep with Toad instead. I’ve explored, done quests, PvPed, gone collecting odd achievements and done everything in my power to enjoy my progress however I felt at the time. I’ve enjoyed Northrend, and now as I grace the precipice of 80, I’ve only completed most of Borean Tundra, Dragon Blight, Zul’Drak and Grizzly Hills. I’m told this is good, as I’ll make gobs of money doing the other areas as an 80.
But, I’ve not “experienced” it yet. I’ve not been through a part of the game as the rest of the world is exploring and learning it. I’ve never experienced a new dungeon without a team of experts familiar with every level 1 critter running along its walls. Everything I touch has been documented and passed by for about a year. Cataclysm will have to be my “new” experience. Maybe I’ll finally get my princess.
Your fortune cookie:
You have died of dysentery.
It’s been a bit since I put a thingy on the whatsit, so I fall to the usual form of blog media: the meme shared topic fodder post. I don’t mean that to undermine the weight of the average meme shared topic post, but I’ll be honest, I use them to churn out buttery filler. They’re like baskets of free bread sticks that hide just how small your plate of pasta really is. So, feeding voraciously from Ophelie’s Thinking back on this blog post, which is in turn, a follow up to K’s pretentious blogging meme, I offer you this survey. I swear I promised I’d stop doing these. But they always go over so well. Do enjoy. Your soup will be out in a few moments.
1. How long have you been blogging? What made you start? Who inspired you?
It’s been a few years now. MBTY is young and innocent, but I’ve done the Internet bloggy thing to audiences of blind crickets for time long forgotten. Why’d I start? I just did. Self importance, maybe, though I’m a quiet and unimposing person, by nature. I just like writing. It doesn’t need a reader, though it helps the process. The knowledge that someone may one day randomly stumble your way gives incentive to write publicly, where it would normally just be in a spiral notebook under the bed. Still, I don’t feel much difference between the two. I always appreciate my readers, but they’re a secondary influence in the cause.
2. About how many hours a week would you estimate you spend on your blog?
A few. I dunno. The average post never goes over a couple hours, including the rapid refreshing of the stats page in hopes someone will instantly land upon it. (They never do.) I’m an “off the hip” writer, and always will be. I’m told by people that they’re jealous of my ability to write quality nonsense off the cuff, but that’s just how I write. When I put time and effort into posts, they come off forced. Nothing to be done for it. You don’t want forced, do you?
3. What kind of experience or background do you have with writing?
Bloggish sort aside, I’ve always been writing. It goes back as far as 5th grade, where we had to write an essay. Three of us were chosen out of the entire year’s class. Then everyone was gathered into the auditorium and the three of us had to read them aloud. When the traumatizing ordeal was over, they gave us teddy bears. Okay, that wasn’t really my start. In fact, I cuddled up with that bear and avoided all writing that wasn’t mandatory until the 9th grade. Public speaking sucks. But my 9th grade teacher teased back out of me the interest in assorted literature, and I returned to the world of random writing with a few anonymous poems. After that, “it was on”.
4. Talk about how you come up with blog topics. Where do you get your ideas? What or who inspires you? Where and/or how do your brainstorming?
UhruuUuh… Thought enter brain. Brain move fingers. It’s a “creative” process. By “creative” I mean it just sort of happens as mood strikes and can’t be helped when it does. When demanded, my brain produces nothing. When left to its own devices, things come out. I’ve even a few “stories” in the process of writing, and they follow the same lax schedule. It just is what it is.
5. Do you have any blogging rules or guidelines you follow? Is there anything you will not blog about?
It depends on the blog. Here, I try to be civil. As I realize that my few reader lack the boundaries I tend to assume of them they fall away, but it’s probably the nicer of the places I post. As a person with few hangups, I try to respect that which disturbs others. Admittedly, who this imaginary, easily offended person is is any body’s guess, because the people I meet in WoW are anything but sensitive and civil.
6. Do you have any sort of a publishing schedule in terms of day of week or topic? Where do you do your writing?
I write when I play. As of this exact moment, I’m 1.5 bars/bubbles away from level 80 on my Druid, and you’d think I’d be amped to finish it off, but I’m not. Aside from missing the in-game company I’d really like to be chatting with right now, I’m enjoying the 8-bit NES gaming I’m doing. I’ll hit 80 and blog more in a few days. It happens. Don’t rush it. My schedule is mood imposed.
7. How many drafts of potential blog posts do you have right now? In what medium do you draft your posts? How often do you completely scratch or delete drafts or blog post ideas?
There’s half a dozen right now, or so. I have a certain loose and playful style I use when I post here. There’s also a certain “mundane” style I recognize as my sort of “informative voice”. The informative voice is boring and drab and otherwise not fun to read (entirely via my opinion, of course), and so when I catch myself writing mostly in that fashion I’ll scrap the post and leave it as purely “topic salvage” for another day. This post is looking a bit mundane, actually. Best liven it up a bit. Chop chop. Wakey wakey.
8. If you had to leave your blog in your will to another blogger, who would you choose? To ask this in a slightly less morbid way, are there other blogs that you feel are similar to yours in content, style, or voice?
That’s kind of like leaving your dying dog with expensive medical bills to a friend. I’m sure they’d appreciate the incentive, but they’d be worse off for it. My writing is my writing, and if I felt someone else filled the bill so deeply as to absorb it quietly I’d probably have gone off to do something else by now. There will be drinks at the funeral. You’re all invited.
9. Has anything surprised you since you started blogging?
My monitor caught on fire once. No joke. Sparks, smoke, etc. This shortly after my previous CPU melted to the motherboard. Straight up melted. That was a weird computer. I was just trying to play Leisure Suit Larry 1. You can so pee on the homeless guy. Hehe. Digital karma is a b****.
10. What are your goals or plans for your blog going forward? Any specific goals or plans for your blog in 2010?
Yur lookin’ at it. Who knows, maybe I’ll have “useful” information, come the turn of the year and turn of the 80, but I’m not holding my breath. If you’ve put up with me this long I don’t have to change a thing, and if you’re gone, well, pike off and good riddance. Those people won’t be invited to the drinkin’ funeral.
And it’s time for another Fuzzy Addons! What? I’ve never done one before? Don’t take away my thunder.
I’m an addon addict. Tweaking the game gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Every now and then, I find one that’s actually useful too!
Today’s Addon is Bad Kitty, a monitoring tool for Feral Druids. It’s fairly customizable, and I suggest you do so. The default amount of info it puts out is somewhat overkill. Here’s mine:
I got to take this baby for a spin last night running a few Wrath instances for the first time. It’s been mentioned to me a couple times that Critty Kitty DPS rotations are some of the most complicated and difficult in the game. Let me let you in on a secret. Kitties don’t have “rotations”. We are creatures of opportunity. We maintain four debuffs and one buff, pop two other buffs when they’re needed/available, and stay behind our target using Shred whenever the other affairs are in order. For that task, an addon like Bad Kitty is useful beyond belief.
Bad Kitty gives info two ways, one in bar form and one in “idiot light” form. You can choose how much, if any, either offers, and can move them where ever you’ll look at them. The order of information can be adjusted and there’s a variety of orientations for the indicators (I like one vertical line, myself).
What do mine up there say? I have 73 Energy and 2 of 5 Combo Points. My Savage Roar buff has a duration of zero (is not up), Tiger’s Fury is not on cooldown, and I do not have the instant cast buff from Predatory Strikes. The idiot lights say my target does not have Fairy Fire or Mangle cast. The Rake debuff will end in 3 seconds. Rip and Savage Roar are not up. Tiger’s Fury is off cooldown and ready for use. I just serviced Critty Kitty, so her Check Engine light is off.
The idiot icons typically disappear when their conditions are met, but I have it set to appear with a count down if the effect/cooldown has less than 6 seconds left. This is optional, but I like to have a heads up if I’m going to have to refresh something in the next couple of attacks.
Notice that while Savage Roar and Tiger’s Fury are both buffs, they’re tracked differently. SR is a buff you typically want to keep going always and forever, so it tracks the buff duration. TF is a short buff with a long cooldown, so it tracks the cooldown, since you’re typically more interested in when it becomes available to use again. I haven’t added Berserk yet, but it is also tracked via cooldown. Handy stuff.
Bad Kitty works for Bear too, though they have less to watch. It’s still handy for watching Lacerate and Mangle. My only complaint is BK only tracks Mangle as a debuff duration, but as Bear you’re going to occasionally be concerned both with its duration and cooldown. If the rage is pouring in and I’m single-target tanking, I like to spam Mangle, (along side Lacerate, and Maul) as fast as it become available. Such a minor thing, though.
Fortune Cookie:
Is it so wrong that I sing the Meow Mix theme as I’m laying waste to hordes of baddies?
It feels good to get back behind the claws and tear off a few faces. Got a few BGs in and I feel great. After stretching my muscles and remembering how to attack with a scroll wheel again, I got looking at the holiday achievements. They make me happy, now that I can actually do the bulk of them. But one caught my attention:
With a Little Helper from My Friends. I’d seen the Wondervolt machines as I was meandering about and tried to interact with them without any research into the matter ahead of time. I’m a curious kitty, that’s what I do. They popped me with a beam of light and nothing happened, so I shrugged and went about my business. This time, I had a hunch, and wandered in in my underused human-person-type-form. Insta-gnome! O’tay, problem solved. I instinctively hit my kitty button and Gnome-B-Gone. Uh oh…
I have Immunity to Gnome!
Normally, this would make me happy. I have nightmares about random gnoming and now I can sleep easy. Unfortunately, to get said achievement, there’s really only one solution. Honor-mooching. I’ll have to head into a BG, all gnomed up, and be completely worthless. Alright, not completely useless. I have moonfarespam, of which I can muster five, if the mana wind blows in my favor. There’s a few of those green root plant things. And my crackling ball of death. And that star comet of doom. And I can throw a few heals.
Hey, that’s right, I’m a druid. I am good at everything! Casting may not be my forté. I’m a shredder. I slice open rear entries. But by the code of the druid, I will adapt! If worse comes to worse, I think I still have a picnic basket. I’ll bring food and booze. We’ll have a jolly AV gnome cookout. No, don’t eat the gno…
*sigh* Would you like a fortune cookie with that gnome?
fa-ra-ra-ra-ra–ra-ra-ra-ra!
I’m not Skip. I’m an intruder. I only have two bars. The shame. In the spirit of the Holidays, I wanted spread some love and what better place to do so than here on the blog of my favoritest, bestest best druid buddy. Why him? Well,
- He makes my buff bar look garnished.
- He’s always ready to take on mobs eating my poor failSpriest
- If something I want is hidden behind nasty monsters, he won’t think twice about stealthing to get it for me.
- When I’m about to die, he lands that perfectly timed heal that saves the day.
- When we were levelling characters together, before we had mounts, he’d always wait for me, even though he had travel form.
- He would agree that druids in travel form should be rideable.
- He remembers to bring water for me because I tend to forget.
- When I ran to another server, he stayed by my side.
And after all those nights of staying up with me until dawn chatting about everything and nothing, of making up stories and strange theories together, of gaming until our fingers hurt, I am proud to /hug my favourite druid. Have you hugged your druid today?
Happy Holidays to Skip/Calhi and to all the druids out there who are amazing friends.
With love,
Ophelie the Bossy Pally.
Ps. I wanted to include a screenshot of the two of us together, but I wasn’t able to get one in time for Christmas.
Skip Cocoa (so moved, he speaks in italics normally reserved for Out-of-Skip voice):
OMG! Yay! It’s so beautiful… *sniffle* You’re the bestest ever. Happy Holidays favi pali and everyone else. Skip is now feeling the holiday spirit. Thank you so much!P.S. failSpriest melted many a face and healed many a Critty Kitty. Were we running around now, after the Innervate changes, I bet we would’ve had far less mana trouble. You can mount me or drink me anytime you want. Wait, that didn’t come out like I meant at all…
