Naga Nuggets

Cataclysm Catharsis - Off Topic

2011-02-14T10:18:00.017-06:00

I know it’s been awhile. Not that I have that many readers, but to those that do, I’m sorry I haven’t as much as dropped a line to say I wouldn’t be dropping a line for a while. And for my guild mates, to explain my erratic “weirdness”. You guys are fantastic and I haven’t wanted to inflict real life drama in any of our gaming, even though I know you’d be there in a heartbeat. You’re the best!

Fact of the matter is, the timing of the Cataclysm release was quite extraordinary, if not backwards. I’ll explain.

In WoW there was “The Shattering” which was then followed by the “Cataclysm”. Well, in real life it doesn’t always work that way. IRL, there was a Cataclysm which is followed by a Shattering.

Btw, if you were looking for World of Warcraft exploits and opinions, you can skip this post. This is simply an explanation of why I have been absent, as well as a selfish therapy of sorts. My blog, my therapy, so /raspberry.

Crises happen. Some are natural events like a blizzard, some are caused by people. Either way, people get hurt and need help. Usually, when the crises is a natural event, they get hurt physically. If the crisis is caused by people, then people get emotionally hurt. Lately, there have been a whole lot of both. Affecting the home, work, church, family, friends, relatives, co-workers. Yeah.

There’s usually one or two people who realize that no one else is capable of “holding things together”, so they take on that responsibility. Be the strong one, be there for everyone else, even if they are hurt, as well. Real life tanking. Be forgiving, keep the meals made, be supportive with everyone else’s healing, maintain the income, ignore your own wounds, make the necessary calls, make sure the paperwork is done, be the one to handle incoming confrontations, keep the dogs fed, etc. May as well throw a blizzard into the mix, too. Yep, death in the family. Wouldn't be complete without a death in the family. Mitigate the damage, survive. Mitigate the damage, survive. Like I said, real life tanking. And don’t forget the third aspect of tanking: threat generation. It’s hard to be the group’s tank AND healer without throwing out some dps of your own. So ... yeah.

Priorities change during times like these. Hence no posts.

So WoW had a new expansion released, requiring more experience, everyone’s gear became “non-epic”, new frontiers to explore. Instances are back to “wipe, wipe, wipe … upgrade … wipe, wipe, wipe”.

My life just had an expansion released. It involves patching after the release. The emotional gear I was wearing was not as formidable as it was prior.

“Experience is what you get right after you really need it”.

I am gaining experience. So as I “wipe, wipe, wipe … upgrade … wipe, wipe, wipe”, there won’t be many posts. Maybe in the future. Maybe even sooner than later. The fact that I'm able to write this is a good sign.

There is no need for concern. Every toon in WoW has a keyboard behind it with a real live person at it. We all have our periods of crisis. Remember that, next time you think ganking an entire lowbie zone would be fun. One of them may be trying to relax with a bit of escapism from a serious crisis in their life.

I wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t gained many upgrades, and have several slots “epic-equipped”. I’ve been to the spirit healer, taken the rez-sickness, and it’s just about worn off. Repair costs? ROFLMAO, I’m a level-capped plate-wearing tank. You do the math.

Standing in the Doorway

2010-11-29T04:57:00.000-06:00

Here we are, in that short span of time between The Shattering and The Cataclysm. I feel as though I’m in a lobby foyer, behind me the door is shut to the “Old World” and in front is the shut door to the Cataclysm. There is much to be excited about with the coming Cataclysm and much to enjoy post-Shattering. This post, however is about the Old World. Fond memories, wincing reminders, and favorite haunts are what I shall dwell on here today.

I remember the first time I was in a raid. I was maybe level 45 and in a guild of several hundred named Body by WoW. There had been a guild meeting in Org, after which it was decided that the guild would take on a world dragon. The thrill of being in a group of about 40 other people, NOT computer characters, and galloping along down a road together with a common goal just blew me away! Mind you WoW is the first MMO I had ever played.

Thousand Needles. I know most people I’ve talked with hated it, but me? Loved it. Reminded me of the Grand Canyon, without the Colorado river. Can’t say that now, I guess. Side note: if you ever have a spare 12 days and want something to do, take a raft from Marble Canyon all the way through the Grand Canyon to Lake Meade. You’ll never be the same afterward. Anyway, most people hated it because of the distances you had to travel for every quest. I can’t argue that point, but I loved the terrain and, mind you, that was when your first mount was at 40, so I was hoofing it and loving every minute!

The road to Shadowfang Keep. Celanna (the first), Sithpaladin and Zaph meet and realize that Pallys have to stick together! That road has certainly changed! Bus rides on coffin haulers?! What was that? Two, two and a half years ago? Three maybe? Whoa. At that time, Zaph was my only toon. Now we have handfuls of level-capped toons in Slice and Dice Champions. I repeat: whoa.

Back to Thousand Needles. I used to grimace at the thought of how many times I died from falling off the lift at Freewind Post. Now it makes me smile.

Arenas. There once was a time when Zaph and Celanna had formed an Arena team. Oh, what naïve plateys we were then! In fact that’s how I met Aradia. Cel and Zaph would go into an arena, get our butts kicked, come out, and there would be Aradia cheering us on! Telling us “You can do it!”. We’d go back in and get our plate handed to us, and there would be Aradia when we came out, saying, “You’ll get them this time!”. Out of 40-50 matches we won …. 3 maybe? Didn’t matter really because it was such good fun, until the dying became monotonous that is!

I had a Tauren once. His name was Zedzul and he was a Druid. I, however, was a Druidiot. Couldn’t get past the starting level without giving up! Maybe a Troll Druid now …. Hmm, maybe after the furor dies down a bit.

The first time I went to Undercity was quite memorable! First of all just trying to figure out how to get down there was a trick. Then, having finally gotten down there, I see this abomination lumbering along! The only abominations I had seen up to this point were Luzran and Knucklerot, so you can imagine my … umm … apprehension. Oh, alright! I hit my hearthstone like a scared little school girl! Happy?

Scholazar Basin is a great mining farm area now, but back when 100 gold made people drool, I used to love farming the Charred Vale in The Stonetalon Mountains. Aggroeing the harpies, elementals (darned elementals!) and basilisks. There be mithril, iron, tin, and sometimes some gold in them thar hills! A good run through there would net a hefty 5-10 gold!

Catching Old Ironjaw. For days I was logging in to my little fishing corner, logging out after having fished and fished … and fished and fished … and fished! Reeling him in was a joy! And no, I did not just hearth out, I hopped on the hog and rode out aggroeing as many allys as I could, laughing all the way! “Catch me if you can! You’re short, smelly and I got your fish! Bwuhahahahaha!”

The Charger. As soon as I was able to, I started going for that Pally Charger. Solo attempt after solo attempt. I had the key to the city so I could sneak in the back door and EVER so carefully get into the chapel, only to die again and again. Finally a friendly rogue, Rucrazy, hopped continents and came to help with that extra little dps I needed. Thanks again, Rucrazy. It’s a shame that the Charger is trained for now, that was quite an experience and a great quest (costly, but great).

The Isle of Quel’Danas dailies. I remember the first time I completed all the dailies without dying once! I was on a roll that day because I also completed both bombing runs on the first pass! I still like going back there every so often, riding the hog and scooping up the free-for-the-taking adamantite and khorium. No mining competition there now!

There are more memories, but at some point you have to say goodbye to the past and hello to the future as you’re enjoying the present. It’s called the present for a reason. It is one.

The Shattering

2010-11-28T07:05:00.006-06:00

Zaph snorted and was startled awake. He sat at one of the feasting tables in front of the Orgrimmar gates. He rubbed his eyes and peered at the gates. “What in the … who in the ….”
He shrugged, chalking it up to the tryptophan in the turkey. He grabbed a turkey leg and asked the Rogue across from him, “Hey, can you sense your destiny?”, then bounced the leg off his head, roaring with laughter.
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Missuszaph opened her eyes and found herself on a sand bar, water lapping at her feet and Puddytat’s paws. Across a small bay was what was left of Grom’Gol Base camp. Scratching him behind his ear, she said, “Come on, boy, let’s go home.” And with that she took the hearthstone out of her backpack and thought of Silvermoon City.
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Cheekymonkey paid the vendor for the recipe book. Something made him pause. Something … was not quite right. Not wrong, just … different. With a strong sense of urgency to get home, he mounted up and rode for the Zeppelin tower outside of the Undercity. While waiting for the zeppelin, he chanced to look down. And there to his surprise were new buildings, much like New Agamand. He had to investigate. Jumping off the tower he ran over to the town center and found a statue of the Lady Sylvannas.
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That’s right folks the Shattering has come and gone. Deathwing LEVELLED 2/3 of the planet, tearing it asunder! 4 level 80’s and a level 39, and do you think at least one of them would have been awake for it? Oh nooooo. They slept through the whole thing! And kept right on sleeping until everything was re-built! Well that sort of laziness does not go un-punished! They’re going out and re-discovering this world, doing quest after quest after quest until they can quest no more!
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First to venture forth was Missuszaph. Zaph had always told her about Thousand Needles and she thought now was a good time to check it out. Standing at the edge of what was once The Great Lift, she decided to re-name it “The Great Diving Board”. That didn’t go as well as planned, yada-yada-yada, long story short, she winds up on this Bilgewater barge. It’s not what Zaph described but she really fell in with the locals and couldn’t do enough for them! She worked every quest she could find and wound up the Captain of her very own Steamboat! The good ship “Champion” is what she christened her.
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While exploring this new world we have been given, let us remember the words of our great ex-leader:

Gold … More is Better, I Say

2010-08-09T03:59:00.001-05:00

So if you read the previous post, you know how to find stuff on the cheap and you have stuffed your bags with … stuff. Well if it’s in your bags it’s not making you gold. Time to post on the AH.

In the last post you started using the searchers like Resale, Vendor and Snatch. Those are part of the Auctioneer add-on. Now it’s time to start using Auctionator. You’ll notice that after having installed these add-ons you have many more tabs at the bottom of the auction house window. Click the one called “Sell”. It’s pretty self-explanatory from here. Drag and drop the item you want to sell and it will scan the AH for that item and list the auctions currently up, with the lowest buyout price on top. It will automatically list yours for less, under-cutting all of the other sellers of that item. You can configure how much to under-cut, but I just go with the default. You can also choose the length of time your auction will go. I always choose 48 hours and have configured that to be my default.

Now sometimes you will drop an item on that window and will get no results because there are none being sold. You have a one-of-a-kind! Well, for the moment at least. Back to Auctioneer. Drag the item back into your bags and then click the tab on the bottom called “Appraiser”. Now drop the item in the square and it will appraise it and give a suggested bid and buyout pricing (which you can always change) then click post item(s).

You have now bought and posted. Time to go do other things now. Sip honeymint tea in Dal and watch the purdy sparkle ponies go by. Steal some britches. Spend the afternoon perfecting your gnome-punting. Or ….. go fishing in Wintergrasp. That’s right guys and Galadins! PvP with fishing poles! Actually, my gold comes in by some farming and crafting, as well as the AH flipping. So why Wintergrasp? All the mats for the Fish Feast are there (except the Northern spices) and fish feasts go for around 10-14 gold …. each. I sell them in stacks of 5. You could also check the AH for the cost of the mats and if they’re “on sale” then “buy / cook / sell”. The key with fish feasts though, is to post them Tuesday after maintenance because raiding folk will usually pay top dollar for them because their lock-outs have expired and they need them NOW! Many times I have bought fish feasts off the AH on the weekends and then sold them all for a profit come mid-week. Let’s see, sometimes 12-16 stacks of 5 at 70-75 gold per stack …. By my calculations that equates to a happy mailbox on Wednesday night!

So far I’ve described AH flipping (buying low/selling high), some crafting (feasts, drums, and of course Da Hog). There’s another method I use and that’s playing the market trends. Here’s an example: Titansteel bars. They range in price from 85 gold to 135 gold. So when they’re around 85-90, what do you think I do? That’s right, I buy. And when they’re around 120-135? Right again! I sell them! Unless I used them to make a bike, but that’s another whole source of income. The same with Arctic furs. They go from 50 gold to 85 gold. Buy low, sell high.

So let’s re-cap what we have so far:

Add-ons. Auctioneer and Auctionator. Check.

Scans. I scan once a day, but 4-5 times a week is good, just make sure that before you run any searches, scan first so it’s all current. Ok, check.

Searches. Play with them and get familiar with them, but take care and don’t get scammed because you were click-happy or greedy. Check.

Posting. Except for a few cases, keep your inventory on the AH. You’ll get a lot that “fall off”, aka didn’t sell. Just put them back on, they’ll sell eventually and if they don’t, and it’s gear, have them DE’d and the mats WILL sell. Roger.

Crafting. You know what you can make. Find a couple of things that sell reliably (mine are drums and hogs) and get the mats on the cheap. Then make them and sell them. Okey-Dokey.

So there you have it. Making gold has become a game within the game for me and has helped to relieve the “Pre-Cataclysm” doldrums. Besides, I want to be ready for the expenses coming up in Cataclysm. I don’t want to get there and have someone tell me, “You are not prepared!”

I mean c’mon. That’s been done.

Gold, It’s So ….. Golden!

2010-08-09T02:44:00.000-05:00

So how do I make gold? I’ve been asked that question many times, even though I’m no guru like say, Marko or Gevlon. I’ve never been gold-capped, in fact I’ve never had more than 35K at any given time. Questions arise though, when you can put up a Mechano Hog and 6K in gold for a guild party/contest, or buy a Battered Hilt, epic flying and make a Hog all in the same day. So this post is all about how I make my gold. But first a few testimonials!

“I read Zaph’s methods for making gold, and if I didn’t know better, it almost sounds like he knows what he’s talking about! But I do know better, so there you go.” – Goldie

“I used to beg for gold in Org, and then I read Zaph’s post on gold. Now? I’m still begging for gold because I enjoy pestering people who aren’t losers like me.” – Plzplzplz

“And I always thought he just sold all those pants he ninja’d! Go figure!” – Leggardless

So anyway ….

First things first, add-ons. Gots-to-have-da-add-ons. Auctioneer and/or Auctionator. Personally, I like using them both. They’re both at your favorite add-on portal, I use curse. After you have them installed here’s what you do:

Run a scan. Open up the AH window and on your browse tab, at the top of the window a little to the left will be a double arrow button in blue. Click that and you’ll get a warning message that you may crash your ‘puter, lose your connection and possibly lose all hope of ever becoming a Wal-Mart greeter. Click that message away and that double arrow has turned yellow. Click it again and you’re scanning! It takes a couple of minutes and there’s a progress bar at the top of the window. When it’s done, that’s when you:

Start searching! Click the tab at the bottom that says “Search”. Then click on “Searchers”, which gives you options on how to search. Let’s start with “Vendor”. First, input what profit margin you’re looking for. I use 50 silver. Then hit “search”. It will pull up for you all the items on the AH that are selling for LESS than what you can sell it to any vendor for. There aren’t a lot of items there at any given time, but when there is something, it’s just a walk to the mailbox and then to a vendor and you made a little something.

Now let’s try that searcher called “Resale”. Click that one and then input your minimum profit and maximum that you want to pay for any one listing. I use 25 gold profit and 9999 gold max price. Click search and a whole lot more items will be found than when you used Vendor. It’ll tell you the bid and buyout prices, if it’s stackable, how many in the stack, suggest to either bid or buy, and even tell you the expected profit. Now here is where care is needed. You’ll notice that as you mouse-over an item a good amount of info is provided. One of the things you want to see is “Sold by no known merchants”. Sometimes you’ll see “Sold by 3 merchants” or “Sold by 1574 merchants” and that is because someone bought it from a vendor and is trying to make some gold off of people who don’t know better. Another thing to look for is “Seen”. “Seen 51 times” or “Seen 4242 times”. The more times you scan, the more reliable that info is. If your scans have only seen something once, chances are good you don’t want it. Seen it 536 times? It’ll probably sell! Another thing to watch out for is …. Well here’s an example: You see a pair of pants (that Zaph hasn’t gotten to yet) and it says it should net you a profit of 546 gold. Looks attractive, but on closer inspection you see that it is sold by 3 vendors and only requires level 7. How can that be? Someone bought it and posted it at outrageous prices repeatedly, knowing it wouldn’t sell, but then later posts it a much lower price so that the resale flippers will see that huge profit number and buy it without thinking about it.

My advice is, in the beginning stick to what you know. For instance, is there a blacksmith in the house? Hey, Rax! As a blacksmith you know that the Savage Saronite gear is not vendor sold. You also know what it takes to produce it, hence can determine if it’s worth re-selling. And there are times when you’ll see a lot of them because someone was leveling up their blacksmith and didn’t have an enchanter to DE them, so they just threw them on the AH to re-coup something, even if it is just 25 gold. In that case I buy them all and post them 1 at a time. As time goes by you’ll get to know just how many different items there are in the game and which ones to pick up and sell.

The next type of searcher I use is “Snatch”. This is what you use when you want specific things and are always looking to pick them up on the cheap. For instance, my Leatherworker makes Drums of the Wild and Drums of Forgotten Kings. So to make those I need Heavy Borean Leather, Icy Dragonscale, and Jormungar Scales. I have all three of those items on my snatch list. I plug in what price I want to buy an item for, or at what percentage of market price and scan. I have most of my items set at 70% of market price. When I hit search it searches just for what’s on my list at the prices I set or lower. Then I either bid or buy. I also have titanium bars and eternal fire on my snatch list. That reminds me ….

Eternal fire. An eternal fire sells for less than 10 crystallized fire. Hmm. Buy eternal fires, convert them and sell the crystallized fire for profit. It works and they’re easy to store! There are other items in the game that work similarly, you’ll find them. There’s even a searcher called “Converter” that finds those sorts of thing for you. Remember the motes in Outland? There is a market for those, too. People are always leveling up toons, whether they’re new to the game of if they’re alts. Leveling professions from beginning to cap will always produce a market and that is why mats always sell faster than gear.

So I’ve rambled on enough now about how to go about building up an inventory of items to sell for profit. The next post will focus on how and when to sell, with a liberal dose of un-focused rambling for spice, I’m sure.

The Day Finally Comes

2010-02-25T22:33:00.004-06:00

Zaph stood next to the crackling fire in the main hall of the Filthy Animal, looking into the flames, lost in thought. A tap on his shoulder brought him out of his reverie.

“Nice pants. Grats.” Kreios said.

Zaph smiled and said, “Thanks! New, tougher than the last pair … and shiny! Goldie did real good.”

Just then Zaphodicus suddenly appeared right in front of Zaph, their noses a mere six inches apart.

“Light!” Zaph said, instinctively dodging. “That dang demonic portal really gets annoying, Z.”

“You stop calling me Goldie, I stop with the portals.” Zaphodicus said dryly.

“Alright, alright,” Zaph grumbled, “So, gentlemen, is everyone else on their way?”

‘They should be coming down the stairs from Krasus Landing about now.” Kreios said.

Zaph nodded. “Ok, Uda has reserved the upper loft for us all, she’ll send them up. Let’s go on up.”

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“So what’s going on, Zaph?” Raxius asked. “What’s with all the quests? Why all the secrecy? And by the way, glad to see you’re doing better, no wheelchair I see. And what was up with that? You’ve never been this secretive with the guild before.”

Everybody turned and stared at Rax. That was more than he had said in the last 6 months.

Rax looked around and said, “What?”

Zaph said, “Good and fair questions all, Rax, but there is still one chair empty and I won’t …”

Zaph was interrupted by the sound of Celanna calling up the stairs, “I’m here, I’m here!”

She trotted in saying, “Hi y’all!” and took the last vacant seat which was between Kreleicon and Aradia.

She tapped Krel on the shoulder and said, “Hey cutie!” He just grimaced and muttered something about not being cute. Cel then turned to Aradia, slowly nodded and said quite civilly, “Mage.”

Aradia nodded, smiled and pleasantly greeted her with, “Tart.”

They both stood up, chairs falling backwards. Van smiled, leaned back in his chair saying, “Meow! Hiss! Zaph you sure can throw a party!”

All of a sudden Zaph’s Avenger Shield clanged and rebounded off the ceiling, against the wall, bounced off the floor and landed securely on his back again. Plaster was falling from the ceiling as Zaph stepped to the railing and called down to Uda, “I’ll pay for that!”

“Uda replied, “I KNOW you will!”

Everyone was stunned to silence. “Ladies, please sit. Kreios? I think both of our games are coming to a conclusion this day. Would you please?”

“Um, Aradia?” Kreios started, “Celanna is my sister. I thought you knew, then I realized you didn’t, but it was kinda funny, so I just kinda .. didn’t .. fill you in … right away. You have to admit, it’s kinda funny when you think of it.”

Aradia looked at Kreios, turned and looked at Celanna, who smiled and shrugged at her, then looked at Kreios again.

Van nodded approvingly at Kreios, and smiling, reached over to high-five him, but Kreios wasn’t there. A sheep had taken his place in his chair.

With a smile of satisfaction Aradia turned to Zaph and said sweetly, “We may proceed now.”

Zaph looked at Kreios and asked, “Um, you want me to start, or wait for that to wear off?”

Kreios said, “Baaaaah.”

“I’ll take that to mean start.”

“Ok folks, it all started when I was in Sholozar, fishing. You know that little island with the hatch, the one with those numerals, but won’t open? Well I opened it and found some very interesting manuscripts which spoke of … different worlds.”

He paused for a sip of his Honeymint tea, then continued. “A lot of it was of no consequence, but I happened on an interesting fact about one of those worlds. You know how every Tuesday morning, all of Azeroth and Outlands goes to sleep for 8 hours. Like clockwork, everybody rests and then the whole world is back at it, taking care of business. Normal, logical, it’s how we live. But there are some worlds where people sleep … whenever they want. At different times. For different amounts of time.”

Melivastus spoke up and said, “That’s ludicrous! How do they get anything done? How can they coordinate anything that way? That’s chaos!”

“Somehow they do it. “ Zaph said. “The point being is, I got to thinking. What if Slice and Dice Champions …. Wait for it …. Stayed awake this Tuesday, which is,” Zaph looked at his pocketwatch, “a mere 15 minutes away?”

They all gaped. Slowly Odiefrom said,” That would be …. A realm first! No! A WORLD first! But how?”

Zaph held up a finger and called over the railing once again, “We’re ready if you are!” A moment later a troll brought up Zaph’s engineered vessel, a tear-drop shaped contraption, almost like an exclamation point. Steam was rising from the top.

“Here ‘ya go, mon.”

“Thank you, that’ll be all.” Zaph said.

Questions started flying but Zaph raised a hand for quiet as the troll left. Watching, waiting for him to go down the stairs and get back into his kitchen.

“Ok,” Zaph whispered, “Van, if you please, the final ingredient.”

Van opened his bag and pulled out a piece of meat and handed it to Zaph. Zaph held a finger to his lips and said, “Don’t tell the troll. He hates it when people cook with Gnome. Supposedly, it's "his" secret ingredient.”, and dropped it into the mixture.

He gave it a minute, then opened the valve above the orb on the bottom and let the liquid filter down into it. He un-screwed the orb from the bottom and capped it. “There!” he said proudly.

“Now what?” Krel asked.

“Why … we go to Wintergrasp, of course!”

Odie pointed out, “The Alliance have control at the moment … “

“Exactly! We haven’t much time, so let’s mount up!” Zaph started shooing them down the stairs.

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They all arrived and landed by the lake. Aradia and Celanna landed last, having ridden close to each other, talking all the way there.

“ …. So you hate gnomes, too! I think we’re going to get along just fine!” Aradia said as they dis-mounted.

“Quickly over here.” Zaph said.

“Now everyone take just one sip.” he said.

They passed it around, and one by one they each took a sip. They all smiled, feeling invigorated like they never had before.

“Now, to the Keep!”

“But Zaph, The Alliance have control.” Krel reminded him.

Zaph looked at his watch and said, “Not in … three… two … one … not anymore! Let’s ride!”

They rode in and looked around. Dwarfs, humans, space-goats, gnomes, and night elves all frozen in place. Some looked like they were checking out the quartermaster’s wares when sleep descended on Azeroth. Some were dueling, some looked like they had just been jumping in place.

Zaph spread his arms and said, “Let the Champions party begin! When the Alliance wake up, let them know we were here!”

It didn’t take long for everyone to get the idea. Krel started it off by hanging a Draenei from a cannon by tying his tentacles around the turret. Odie arranged a guard with a dwarf in his arms, as if he was cradling a baby. Celanna and Aradia ran around collecting gnomes and piling them up. When they had enough they arranged them in a triangle like bowling pins.

Kreios walked up and said, “Well, my two favorite ladies. Is all forgiven?”

Aradia smiled and said, “It is if you can find us a ball for our gnome-bowling.”

Kreios looked around and trotted off, and when he returned he was holding a dwarf by the belt. He held it up shoulder high and asked, “Will this do?” Aradia and Cel clapped their hands and said, “Yes!”, in unison.

Zaph went around stealing the pants off of every Alliance he could find.

Krel and Odie walked up to Zaph.

“Dad,” Odiefrom started, “We have to ask ‘cause it’s starting to get embarrassing …. What’s with this whole “pants” thing?”

“Well boys, there’s not much more I can teach you, you being as old as me now … can’t believe you two are 80, why it seems like just …. Anyway, I can teach you this: You can beat your opponent, you can kill your opponent, you can even take his lunch money, but he’ll always come back and say, ‘Yeah, but I would have won if ... yada yada yada.’ But, if you beat him AND take his pants? THEN everyone knows who owned who. Hard to be uber in nothing but your tightie-whities!”

The party went on for hours. Aradia and Mel both set out tables. Fish feasts and strong Shattrath coffee, were set out by Kreios and Zaph. Everyone ate until they were stuffed and buffed, laughing and thinking up more ideas for humiliating the Alliance.

Kreios took Zaph aside and asked, “What about that other ‘project’?”

“Soon, my friend, very soon. It’ll be on a Tuesday, of course.”

“Of course, it would have to be.” Kreios nodded.

And before they left, they gathered together all the Alliance and arranged them on the ground in the Keep.

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A Night elf hunter was flying over Wintergrasp Tuesday afternoon, just as the world woke up. He looked down and saw what looked like dozens of naked Alliance laying on the ground! And from up there they seemed to spell something, but he didn’t know any Horde languages. The symbols were:

FOR THE HORDE

To be continued ….

Zaph's Early Morning Stroll

2010-02-25T04:51:00.002-06:00

The streets of Dal were deserted, oddly enough, but Zaph pulled the hood of his cloak over his head anyway, just in case, the dimly glowing white question mark over his head tucked away nicely out of sight. The early morning air was calm and cool, with just a slight breeze coming in from the western side of Storm Peaks. He strolled over to the enchanted anvil and set to work.

A little tinker here, a lot of micro-adjusting there and two hours later .... it was ready! It resembled a three dimensional exclamation point that funneled down to a valve between the top and the orb at the bottom. All he needs now are the key ingredients and Slice and Dice Champions will never be the same. Soon. Very soon.

He smiled, thinking of how they each will react differently to his surprise.

He sauntered back to "First to Your Aid", snuck back in to his room, and started to drift off to sleep. And that's when his question mark lit up, illuminating the room with a yellow burst of light.

Zaph smiled and said to himself, "Never doubted Goldie for a minute."

He smiled even wider when he realized, "Pants are coming my way!" and he drifted off into peaceful dreams about closet after closet filled with britches, leggards, leggings and ... pants.

To be continued ...

The Crime Spree Continues

2010-02-22T03:38:00.001-06:00

Zaph’s Quest – continued ... still

2010-02-22T03:29:00.000-06:00

Zaph stood over the table in his room, poring over his notes. He could have sat at the table in one of the plush chairs, but he had spent too much time sitting in his wheel-chair and needed to stretch.

A knock on the door startled him out of his concentration and he jumped into his wheel-chair and assumed a grouchy scowl.

“Yeah, what?” he called.

“It’s me.” a familiar voice called through the door.

“Enter.”

Kreios opened the door, stepped through and quickly shut it behind him. Once the door was shut, Zaph stood up and said, “You gave me a start there, good sir! Thought you were the magistrate. Have you seen the posters they’ve put up?” and he smiled.

“Oh I’ve seen the posters, and I’ve seen half of Dalaran in their scivvies to boot!” he said laughing. “Now, I know the ‘Pink Pantser’ is retired, but the guild doesn’t know what to think. They know about your past but can’t figure out how you’re doing it from a wheel-chair in your room. Of course they are worried about your, umm, sanity. It’s getting harder and harder to not bust out laughing when they start talking about it.”

Zaph smiled, “Well everything will get back to normal soon enough. As soon as I have all of the components. You know, this acting grouchy and crazy is getting to be kind of fun. You should have seen Zaphodicus roll his eyes when I told him I wanted pants!”

Kreios asked, “How many more components until you’re ready to make a go of it?”

“Well once you guys come back from the Forge, I just need Van’s items and what I asked Aradia to pick up for me in the Halls of Reflection.”

“Halls of Reflection? I didn’t know you had tasked Aradia for this …”

Zaph winced, “Ouch! Kreios! You don’t TASK Aradia, you ASK Aradia. You of all people should know that.”

“You know what I mean, Zaph. I didn’t know she was involved in the acquisition of anything.”

“Well, Kreios, it’s like this. A greater project has arisen, but the one you know about has to happen first, as this new project hinges on it. Quite a while back I stumbled upon a manuscript in the library of the Scarlet Monastery but didn’t know what to make of it until I found this schematic, just recently.”

Zaph pulled a schematic out from his backpack and handed it to Kreios. “Here. Reading it will explain things better than I could. Glad you’re an engineer, too. Less explaining I have to do.”

Kreios took the sheaf and started reading. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He read it a second time, to make sure that he got it all straight. He had to sit down.

“How the … who came up … is this even …”

“Funny, that’s exactly what I said when I read it!” and he laughed.

“You do realize how much trouble this could cause if it were to become public?” Kreios asked.

“Of course, that’s why the project involving Little Z and Van has to be first.”

Kreios nodded, carefully putting the pieces of the puzzle together in his head. “Ok, well. Um, I think it will take a bit for all this to sink in. In the meantime, you do know that the guild is thinking of replacing you as Czar, because of your recent behavior? That’s another element that needs to be taken into consideration.”

“This will all come to a head before they have a chance to ship me off to the lol-lol farm. Besides, nobody else wants the job!”

To be continued …

Be On The Look-Out

2010-02-21T00:13:00.004-06:00

Authorities are distributing this poster throughout Dalaran, in an attempt to make the citizens aware of the public threat, still at large.

Zaph Van Cheekymonkey, a.k.a. the Pink Pantser, while not a suspect, has been named as a "person of interest". His location is currently unknown. He was last seen in Pantsylvania, visiting one Doctor Denton, for reasons unknown.

We will keep you posted on this terrible situation as more news develops.

What This Tank Would Like DPS To Know

2010-02-17T02:35:00.001-06:00

The rant in the previous post was directed to those who know better.

Now there are those DPS folk that don’t know better, and they shouldn’t be faulted for their behavior when they get frustrated out of a lack of understanding. To them I would like to offer a few basic guidelines for running dungeons, from a tank’s perspective.

1. Tanks get the mobs to focus their attacks on them through threat. Mobs have a threat table which mathematically calculates who in the party is the biggest “threat” to them. Threat can be generated by damage done or even healing. You know how your recount meter builds up to your top dps numbers? The threat table takes a few seconds to build up also. In fact, I recommend using the add-on called Omen, which is to threat what Recount is to damage. Anyway, if you start wailing away, nuking the bad guys before the tank has built his threat up, you will probably be determined to be the biggest threat to them, so they will attack you. That is not good, because they are supposed to attack the tank. Therefore: please give the tank a few seconds to get the mobs mad at him before you start attacking. In the case of a Paladin tank, I would suggest that when you see his consecration, wait 3 seconds. Some Pallys start with consecration, I personally do not. If there are casters in the pack, I prefer to pop an AoE silence to bring them in closer before consecrating. Sometimes the mobs need to be lead to a location other than where they are initially found, hence the term “pull”. Whether it’s a Judgement, a wrist-rocket, a Captain America shield toss, or whatever, there’s usually a few things that build the threat before consecration is dropped, so that’s your safest cue. The real point here is, regardless of whether your tank is a Pally, a Bear, a Warrior, or a Death Knight, it takes time to grab their aggro, so please give them the opportunity.

2. The “pull” is when the tank initially says, “Hey you! Over here! Come get some!” This is usually done in the form of hurting them, aka doing damage. Because of #1 above, this is to be done by the tank, unless he specifically asks for assistance in rare circumstances.

3. As dps, you are watching the mobs’ health, your recount meter, and working your rotation. The tank is watching his mana (or rage, or whatever), his healer’s health and mana, the position of the other party members in case he needs to do some extracurricular taunting, working his rotation and prioritizing change-ups based on the actions of the mobs and the party members, and of course his own health in case he has to hit one of his “Oh No!” buttons. So if the tank is not moving as fast as you think he could, please understand that he may be taking the time to assess the situation for a good reason.

4. The most important party member for the tank is the healer. They are a team within the team. The tank stays alive because of the healer, the party stays alive because of the tank and the healer. So if you notice that the healer let you die because he chose to heal the tank instead, don’t take it personally, it’s simply a matter of “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.” And if you see the tank slowing down, it may be that he is trying to take stress off of the healer.

5. On the flipside, you may notice that the tank is speeding up. In the case of a Paladin, being healed replenishes mana. Taking damage initiates healing from the healer. So constantly fighting and taking damage maintains a happy level of mana for him. In the case of a Bear, once rage is built up, keeping it there is a good thing, and that is done by continuing to attack. The point being, tanks move at different rates of speed for different reasons, which is why the tank sets the pace for the party. Admittedly, I am a slow tank, perhaps too slow, but I am a “look before leaping, and assess before acting” kind of person. Mostly. Or I may be rambling on in Skype and unwrapping my 42nd candy bar (mana comes in many forms).

6. And finally, if the floor beneath you is changing, it is rarely a good thing, so move. Away from it. Quickly. The less the healer has to focus on your health, the more he can focus on the tank’s.

So in summary:

Please let the tank get the aggro before you start attacking.
Please let the tank make the pulls.
Please let the tank move at his own pace.
Please be mindful of where you’re standing.

Thanks for listening. If just one more dps understands why tanks do what they do and stops griefing them, the World (of Warcraft) will be a better place. And who knows, maybe if tanks get less grief, more people will want to play them and everybody’s queue time will be the same! Wouldn’t that be sweet!

The Experiment Continues

2010-02-17T02:33:00.000-06:00

PFTW = 23
PFTF = 6
LHB = 4

Since the last update, Zaphodicus has run Azjol-Nerub, ToC, Utgarde Keep and Utgarde Pinnacle. All were PFTW. Van ran Old Kingdom, Azjol-Nerub, Utgrade Keep, The Culling of Strat, ToC, and Violet Hold. The ToC and the Violet Hold were the 2 PFTFs. In ToC we never even got to start the jousting because of the bickering between the tank and a dps. It was so ridiculous the others just started leaving and I joined them. The Violet Hold was interesting, in that we wiped on a boss about half-way through and one of the dps said they “didn’t have time for this” and left. After about 10 seconds of silence everyone else left too. What surprised me was that up to that point it was a smooth run. It wasn’t like there had been issues all along. Considering the concept that pugs are usually comprised of people that haven’t played together before, I would think that a wipe here and there is to be expected. One-Wipe-Wimps. Oh well.

Zaph ran one random: H Nexus with Kreios, Odie, Aradia and one pugger. As you can see, Van and Zaphodicus are getting the random action, more so than Zaph. There is a reason for this.

When I run as Vandalayinc or Zaphodicus, I am queued as DPS. No one pays any attention to me, regardless of low gear score, the low dps numbers, nothing. No nonsense at all. When I run as Zaph, obviously I am queued as tank. Which means that I am the focal point of any jerk that either wants to go faster, go slower, says I can’t hold agro (even though they open fire without giving me a chance to establish threat), or they just want to be the class clown for attention.

Whenever I run Van or Zaphodicus, I still see the nonsense, it’s just not directed towards me. Always the tank. Sometimes the healer, too, but the tank ALWAYS gets pulled into it. Unless I’ve grouped with my guild mates, because then people tend to keep quiet, not wanting to take on the whole group.

So is it any wonder that there are less tanks out there and that it takes longer to get one for a pug?

I think I speak for all tanks when I say:

We gear up and study our specs, optimize our enchants and gemming in order to take heat from the enemies. NOT FROM OUR PARTY MEMBERS.

If someone dies because they have no patience and can’t wait for the tank to gain the threat lead and grab the agro … guess what? IT’S YOUR FAULT YOU DIED.

And to all you murloc turd-ball hunters and dks out there that like to make an un-announced pull just to speed things up? Tanks do the pulling unless the tank says otherwise. Henceforth, if I’m tanking, you can bet that IF YOU GRAB IT, YOU STAB IT. I’ll just stand there and laugh at your sorry butt while it’s getting flattened.

Zaph’s Quest – continued

2010-02-09T10:24:00.000-06:00

Van and Zaphodicus stepped out onto the streets of Dalaran and made their way to the Legerdemain Lounge without speaking. What they had to say were not for the loiterers to overhear.

They stepped in and made their way to a table by the stove across from the bar.

“So,” Van started as he nonchalantly crossed his legs and folded his arms, “Zaph has a quest for you. Pants from the Forge of Souls. Got a plan?”

Zaphodicus nodded, “The start of one. I know it’ll take more than myself to pull this off.”

“May I offer some suggestions?” Van asked “ You’re going to need someone to tank, someone to heal, and a lot more damage than you can put out. No offense.”

“None taken. I take it your question was rhetorical and I’ll hear your suggestions whether I want to or not?” he asked, smiling.

“You take it right. The Forge is the domain of Arthas, and I know all too well the consequences of meeting death when he is involved in any way. I would not wish that on you.”

Zaphodicus rose a finger, “While we’re on that topic, I’ve been meaning to ask you some things. Like, did you ever have rigor mortis? Can you teach me that death grip thing you have? Or that army of the dead you raise? Now that’s a summoning I would think would be deep demonology, worthy of a warlock.”

Van sighed, shaking his head and patiently said, “Yes, it passed, but I still get some serious aches in my joints in Storm Peaks. No, you can’t learn the grip. I wouldn’t teach it to you if I could.” In a condescending tone he added, “I wear plate and pull things to me. You wear cloth and send them away. Remember? So far as the army of the dead goes … eat your heart out, Goldie!” and he started laughing and slapped the table.

“Don’t start with the Goldielock thing again, we’re not kids anymore. Fine, let’s get a plan together.”

“First of all, don’t take some strangers from any old realm that’ll probably have more attitude than skill. You’ll need the best. For tank, I would suggest Celanna. She can take what they’ll dish out, IF … you have Kreios healing. With her in front of you and him at your back, things will go as smooth as they possibly could. For that extra damage I would say Kreleicon and Odiefrom. They’ll make the kills clean and swift, including the rats.”

“Ok, but my question is why not Aradia and why not you?”

Van paused, looking as though he was trying to decide how to answer.

“Ever see Celanna and Aradia in the same room? Ever wonder why?”

“Now that you mention it …”

Van motioned him closer, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you’re family so this goes no further, ok?”

“Ok.”

“You know how Aradia really likes Kreios? Well so does Celanna, and Aradia knows it. And like every other guy in Azeroth, Kreios is oblivious to it all, so if the mage throws a little damage to the tank instead of the boss, who’s to notice? Dead tank means dead you, my friend.”

“Gotcha. Pallys. With all that magnetism I’m surprised their plate isn’t covered in paper clips every time they walk in an office! So what about you?”

Van shrugged and said, “The salmon are running in Grizzly Hills, and Zaph has me fishing so he can have his “feasts”. He also wants the naga from the Isle of Quel’Danas for his nuggets. ‘They taste better.’ he says. He is losing it big time.”

Zaphodicus nodded, “We’ll have to have a meeting of the guild to decide what to do with him. Right after this ‘Pants Quest’. But for now he is still the Czar.”

To be continued …

Current State of Affairs

2010-02-07T17:48:00.001-06:00

Let’s start with the pug update.

H Utgarde Pinnacle: Took Van in solo (sans guildies, no one else was on) and it was completed easily. Van was low man on the recount, but still higher, if only slightly, than the tank. No nasty comments, no dramas. Frost and Triumph emblems added to the tally.

Normal ToC: Took Van in for the Triumphs and this time was on top of the recount chart. That doesn’t happen often, not that it matters much, really. This was one great group. When Eadric showed up the healer was right by the door and pulled him early. We downed him without cracking a sweat, and afterwards the healer apologized and said it was his first time in ToC. The response from the group? “No biggie. Here’s what’s about to go down with the Black Knight ……you’ll be fine.” No insults, name-calling or anything, just an understanding that we all walked in there for the first time before. So cool, so refreshing.

So the score is now:

PFTW = 14
PFTF = 4
LHB = 4

Zaphodicus

Well the little lock is all growed up now, having reached 80. His skinning is maxed and leatherworking is @ 437. Skinning is not only appropriate for a warlock (let’s face it, if you’re ripping the soul out of beasts it’s a waste not to skin them while you’re at it), it’s relaxing and oh so profitable! Little Z is now sporting a shiny dagger courtesy of Rax plus a rad and rockin’ robe from Aloir! Thanks, you two! He’s been dueling with his brother in cloth, Melivastus, and that has been a learning experience! Every time he gets a rotation that takes Mel down, he adapts and comes back and flattens him! Reminds me of the Borg in First Contact. I put my phaser rifles on a rotating calibration, but I only have so many shots before he adapts!

Little Van

The business at the AH has been slow, primarily due to Little Z’s leveling and skinning. He’s also getting away from the gear flipping because the AH cut is starting to cut too far into the profits. Gear doesn’t turn around like it used to. So what doesn’t sell gets sent off to Big Van for dis-enchanting. Those mats always fly off the AH and there is no AH cut. He’s also got quite a stock of various meats and fish from Little Z’s skinning and Van’s fishing. When it comes to Glacial Salmon, Rhino meat, and Chunks of Mammoth I have 4 words: post on Monday night. Little Van has been tasked with a new financial project by Champions, the details of which I will not go into here, as we want to take advantage of the market before too many people get wind of it. Not that I have that many readers here, but just in case so we can make our move while we can. If and when the project loses it’s steam I’ll post about it and the lesson learned can be carried forward to future opportunities by readers.

Big Van

Emblems. He wants emblems. Fishing in Grizzly Hills while waiting in queue is getting his fishing skill up and bringing in some pricy Glacial Salmon. So he is pugging and loving the role of dps. Some say that tanking and healing are the roles with the most responsibility, but I say nay to that. Sure if the tank or healer dies, everyone else will usually become un-alive as well, but I have seen groups wipe because of the tank, the healer, and the dps all equally as much. The true responsibility in a group is to know YOUR role, know your abilities, and know your limitations. That holds true for everybody in a group. But I will say this about dps: I love the lack of decision-making. Just follow, give the tank a few seconds to grab aggro, then start wailing. Watch your threat and dance the Slice and Dice boogie!

Big Z – Zaph Van Cheekymonkey

While he’s ready to jump into the fray at the mere suggestion of a guild run, he’s been either cruising the Basin or relaxing in the Filthy Animal with some Honeymint tea and naga nuggets. Someone has to make sure there’s no gnome being dropped in the soup! The old man has been letting his little bros get some of the glory for a while, but it won’t be long before he needs to run into a dungeon, screaming, “I’m the one you want! Come and get some!”

A Change of Professions for Zaph

2010-02-07T17:27:00.001-06:00

Zaphodicus stood in the doorway looking at his older brother’s back. Zaph sat in his wheel-chair by the window overlooking the Antonidas Memorial, watching the people running to and fro around Dalaran. He coughed slightly, to announce his presence.

“What is it now, human?”, as he whirled his chair around. “Oh, it’s you. Good! Thought you were the nurse again.”

“Hello, brother. How are they treating you?” Zaphodicus asked.

“Like a newbie in Warsong Gulch! What do you expect? They’re all humans here. Bah!”

Zaphodicus rolled his eyes, ever so slightly and said,”Don’t work yourself up into another episode …”

“Episode?!” Zaph blurted, “I’m about ready for a full-blown expansion! This place is wearing my patience thinner than that cloth you like to wear.”

“Anyway … you “summoned” me like some sort of minion, this better be good. What is it?”

“Summoned you, called for you, asked that you stop by …. whatever. I may be your brother, but I’m still Czar of this guild so watch your tongue or I’ll have Aradia teach you a thing or two. For Thrall’s sake, boy, one of her girls could have you eating dust with a sneeze. Now sit down and have a listen.”

Zaphodicus stiffened at the threat and promptly sat.

“Notice anything different about me, Z? Anything out of the ordinary?”

“Besides that glowing exclamation mark over your head, you mean? What’d you do, give up engineering for quest-giving?”

“It wasn’t by choice, brother. Trust me. The danged thing keeps glowing, day and night! Can’t even sleep with it glowing all night! It’s not like I can cleanse it either! It just keeps glowing, taunting me. Taunting! ME! A tank being taunted … it’s demeaning I tell you! Anyway, you know the routine … I have a need that I can’t take care of myself so I need to send someone on a quest. That someone is you, brother. You’re the perfect elf for the job.”

“We may rarely see each other, but anything, brother. What can I do for you? Slay a mighty dragon? Deliver an insult? Kill twenty Quillboar?”

Zaph paused, then asked “Ever hear of the Forge of Souls?”

“Hear of it? I’ve been there.” Z nodded.

“Good,” Zaph said. “I need you to go there and get me something.” He motioned him to come closer so he could whisper confidentially.

Z leaned down and Zaph whispered in his ear “I need you to get me …. Pants.”

“Pants?!” Z exclaimed. “That’s it? Pants? What on Azeroth for?”

“That’s right, pants! Leggings, leggards, britches! Whatever you want to call them, I don’t care, but this “thing” they have me in …. Doggone drafty on the back-side! And plate. It’s gotta be plate. None of that Melmac garbage either. Shiny plate. Yeah, shiny ….”, and Zaph’s eyes got this dreamy, far away look.

“Okaaaay …. Pants. Plate. Got it. Anything else?”

“Yes, one other thing.” Zaph snapped out of his reverie. “When the Devourer of Souls is just about dead … drain his soul for a shard. Just for the irony of it all. I like irony. It’s almost platey, you know? Can you do this for me Little Z?”

“Yes. Just stop calling me “Little Z”. I hate that.”

Zaphodicus rose to leave and Zaph said “One last thing. Once you nab those pants, high-tail it back here, ‘cause this thing over my head is going to turn into a question mark and light up like a Winter Veil tree. And Zaphodicus … thanks.”

“No problem, brother.” And he stepped out of the room.

Van was waiting outside the door, leaning casually against the wall. “He’s losing it, isn’t he?”

“He’s sitting in a wheel-chair with his Crusader aura on. You do the math.”

And as they strode down the hallway they could here Zaph singing to himself

“I’m taking what they’re giving,
‘cause I’m tanking for a living …”

To be continued ….

The New TILT!

2010-02-06T10:02:00.004-06:00

Back in the day (you know, when someone said "spreadsheet" they were talking about making the bed), I once worked in a pinball arcade. Great job! I had the key and could flip credits whenever I wanted, and played a great deal after and before we opened. There were always some serious pinball players. They would come in after school and start pumping those quarters in. Hours they would play. And they were serious about their high scores, let me tell you! That was the first thing they checked when they came in. And if their high score was topped, they worked at it until they got it back. Many people would say "Get a life!", sometimes to their face, sometimes behind their backs. They didn't care. They played and played until they were "the best", then protected their title whenever it was lost.

Now sometimes, beating a high score could be frustrating, and after hours of playing and pumping in those quarters, some players would get so frustrated that they would go beyond the occassional nudge and tap of the machine and actually shake it to the TILT!.

Remember TILT!? That's when you shook the machine too much and it shut down. That's right, the lights would turn off, the flippers would die and the ball would drop. Gone. No more playing for you, mister Gotta-have-the-high-score.

Needless to say, this would anger some of the players to the point of obnoxious behavior. That was when it was my job to invite them to leave the establishment.

Nowadays, things are a little different. But not too, too much.

Today, TILT! is spelled T.O.A.

That's my take on the whole "Ensidia" drama going on now.

Sure the bug shouldn't have been there in the first place. But just because a car is unlocked doesn't mean you have the right to go for a joy ride. It's wrong and has consequences. Now for uber guild Ensidia to say, "We didn't know....."?

Come on. Get a grip.

Not My Mungar ... Jormungar!

2010-01-29T03:33:00.004-06:00

I'm really enjoying the skinning and leatherworking that Zaphodicus is doing. In fact, I think I'd have level capped him earlier if it wasn't for the professions. Even if I hadn't been working the profs, I think Melivastus would have beat me to 80 anyway. He's a levelling demon! And not even a warlock. Anyway, Little Z is 79 and will probably cap this weekend, barring any distractions. Speaking of which ...

The pug update:

H Halls of Stone: Rax and Van (DK bros) grouped and landed in Brann's latest digs. The instance was completed, emblems earned. So it was not a fail, but the healer was under the impression we were playing to the mechanics of the last boss, whereas the rest of the group assumed we were just burning through. This brought out the ugly LHB in a couple of them and the bickering began. Rax tried to interject some reason and was met with an unfounded insult. Bozos. What are you going to do?

H Underground Bug Joint on the Right (never get those names right): Next up was Aradia, Kreios and Van. Aside from my getting lost (and rescued more than once by Aradia - thanks Countess! Your Mage gps is as dependable as your Mage dps!) and me causing a wipe, it went well. Yes, I wiped us, and trust me, the the word QWERTY is still imprinted on my forehead. Most people /facepalm. Me? I /facekeyboard. After I wiped the group, the leader explained that that was the wrong thing to do, I apologized and explained it was my first time there. He, "lol"'d. No insults, beratement, swearing or LHB behavior. Just "lol". It was refreshing.

H Underground Bug Joint on the Left: Then Friday morning, I took Van in solo. Not solo in the way one solos an instance alone, but solo meaning using LFD without any friends along in group. DPS is great. I said nothing and nothing was said to me. Of course there was a "difference of opinion" between the tank and the healer, but ... it had nothing to do with me. My dps in recount was the lowest of the dps, but it was higher than the tank's. More emblems.

Normal Utgarde Pinnacle: So I queue up for a normal mode, since the gold reward is higher and the same 2 Emblems of Triumph. It was a whole different world. One, Van was the only 80, the rest were 79's. Two, Van was on top of the dps chart, not used to that! Three, the others were ... dis-oriented is the most accurate word for it. Anyway, the second pack of trash was a wipe. The entire party gives up and leaves. Nary a word, but at least there weren't insults flying back and forth.

So the score is now:

PFTW = 12
PFTF = 4
LHB = 4

Forgot One

2010-01-23T18:33:00.003-06:00

Yesterday's post is missing one other pug of note:

H Halls of Lightning:
Kreios, Celanna and Zaph grouped and brought in a healer and another dps. The run went normal enough and was completed. The funny thing was that the healer (Shammy I think) was in a hurry and Celanna had said "mana, hello" to which he responded "that sounded kinda girly". Kreios suggested he look at Celanna's name and he proceeded to not heal her through the next pack of mobs.

It must have taken him a bit for it to sink in, because then he said sorry for not healing her and after that he ... seemed to be rather taken with her! After the instance was over he went on about how he wanted to join Slice and Dice Champions. "Can I join Champs? Can I, huh? Can I?"!

Kreios and I both mentioned that we were not on his server (I was glad he wasn't in Baelgun). He said he'd transfer! Four words: Dude-Get-A-Grip!

So the current score is actually:

PFTW = 9
PFTF = 3
LHB = 2

Slowly but Surely

2010-01-23T00:56:00.006-06:00

Slowly but surely, that is how the LFD experiment is going. It seems when I pug solo, the LHBs come out more often than when I group with guildies first. Probably because if they see we're from the same server, they figure they're out-numbered on the vote-kick. Little do they know that as a group we have never initiated a vote-kick. So generally, in an attempt at sanity conservation, I do my LFD pugs with Kreios/Aradia/Odie. Anyways ... quick up-date:

H Old Kingdom: Kreios, Aradia and I group up and 2-3 seconds later we find ourselves in Old Kingdom with a Shammy healing and a Hunter for dps. I drop a fish feast, we feast on fish. And then we're off. I pull the first 2 mobs at the bottom, but that wasn't enough for the hunter and he pulled some more. Ok, I said, we'll deal with it. Then I pull a pack and he pulls even more. And more. That's when I start saying that maybe this is one group we ought to just leave. We see the Shammy bite it, then we went down and all that was left was the Hunter (must have been using some sort of threat re-direction to last that long) and this is what really blew me away: The healer is dead. The tank is dead. The other 2 dps are dead. And .... he's still pulling more! Needless to say, the healer left group, Kreios and Aradia left group, the hunter got the hint and left, and there I am thinking that was probably the most bone-headed, bozo-brained, goof-ball display of absolute insanity I have ever seen in WoW. In skype, we're just idly chatting away the time, waiting for the leave timer to wear off Kreios and Aradia (I didn't get the de-buff timer because everybody else left before I did) and when it did we queue'd up again and got:

H Nexus: The 3 of us, a Priest and a DK. Once, it appeared that the DK's ghoul was on aggressive, but aside from that it went smooth as silk. Now when I say smooth, I mean smooth. We're talking $5 milk shake smooth. When we got to Stoutbeard I typed in party chat, "I'm pulling Stoutbeard back here ... fair warning", and don't you know the Priest and the DK backed up. They actually read what I typed and responded with action. Never saw that in a pug before. I kid you not, I have never seen that before. The closest I've seen to that is when I ask the party "Ready?" and someone jumps up and down. That's it. And I don't even see that any more.

After all was said and done, Kreios, Aradia and I all said thanks (we always do, that's one of the things that makes us Champions and everyone else ... not) and the other 2 didn't leave right away, as if they were deciding whether to say anything back, but then they did leave without saying anything.

The coolest thing about that run though? Aradia got her pug pet! Grats to the Mage!

So the score is:

PFTW = 8
PFTF = 3
LHB = 2

The gap between wins and fails is closing, but the total is still a rather small sampling. We'll see what the ratio is when we get more runs in. Slowly, but surely. I think it may be time to start pugging with Van ... I guess it's only fair that I should experience the "dps queue time" as well! No Dalaran Roulette for Van!

In case you are not familiar with Dalaran Roulette, it's a game where tanks jump off of Dalaran (actually we jumped off the island floating next to Krasus Landing), THEN join the queue in the LFD. Zaph and Kreios grouped before trying it once and we were probably 10-20 feet from hitting the ground and doing the big splatter-roo, when we got the loading screen for the dungeon. And when the run was done we were transported right where we were when we left! 10-20 feet above the ground! Landed with nary a scratch! Try it some time ... with a Tank! It's a rush!

More PUGs, More Updates

2010-01-10T10:22:00.005-06:00

In trying to keep the score up-to-date:
(I really should take better notes!)

H Culling of Stratholme: Kreios and I went on this one together and it was definitely a PFTW. The bronze drake is mine! Oh yeah!

H Nexus: Pleasant enough group, got the job done. PFTW.

H Gundrak: We pulled a priest healer that was in a hurry and had a cynical attitude towards pugs. He stayed quiet most of the time and thanked us afterwards for not being jerks. Job done, swift and easy. PFTW.

H Utgarde Keep: I made the mistake of entering with Crusader Aura on which was pointed out by a LHB who immediately began calling me NOOB (his capitals). I apologized and put on Devo. And then he went on. And on. Using the terms NOOB, FAIL, LOSER. He wouldn't let it go. I said it was a mistake and it was corrected. He said,"We don't ALLOW mistakes!" So I said "ok" pulled an extra pack of trash, dragged them over to him and bubble-hearthed out. Yes, I was a bad, bad boy. So what. PFTF, while it may have gone ok, it was fail for me in that I did not finish due to an obnoxious LHB, or rather my impatience with ignorance.

So the score is:

PFTW = 7
PFTF = 1
LHB = 2

And so the experiment continues. So far the numbers are showing favorably for my experiences in pugging. Granted I still hate pugging solo. I much prefer running with the guildies and pugging whatever extras we need together.

After the Gundrak one, Celanna, Kreios, Odie and Zaph ran FoS twice. Odie, Cel, and Zaph got upgrades! Next time Kreios!

Zaphodicus hit 72 (got Seed of Corruption, love it!), capped skinning and is at 392 Leatherworking. Last night Odie helped him with some group quests (a lot of group quests) and boy is it appreciated! Thanks, Odie! Little Z is moving right along. Can't wait to duel Melivastus!

It's Tuesday, Time for Headlines!

2010-01-05T06:49:00.008-06:00

Well, the last two weeks have been sweet, with no major server downtime for maintenance. I guess it couldn't last forever. I just hope that this maintenance fixes the "Test at Sea" quest at Vengenance Landing. Zaphodicus (level 70 now) has not been able to do it because it won't let him throw the plagued vials. General chat saw several people with the same problem. I reported it, but hopefully others did too. That starts a whole chain that I really don't want my Warlock to miss!

Speaking of Sylvannas (somebody, somewhere must have said her name, this is a big world), she seems to be eyeing Celanna's wings rather intently. Maybe she wishes she had been a Paladin instead of a Ranger. Wouldn't Sylvannas make a great Pally-Pal!

To the PUG update! The score is:

PFTW = 4
PFTF = 0
LHB = 1

Another Halls of Lightning, we pugged a priest that worked out just fine, pleasant and efficient. We tanked, we spanked, we burned, we healed. We have more frost emblems. The way it should be. The only thing I found odd was that we were in the queue for between 10-15 seconds! That's the longest it's ever taken me to get in. Must be because it was a Saturday night.

Kreios and I pulled a Violet Hold, which went rather well, too. Hellos at the beginning, thanks at the end. That's all that was said, that's all that was needed.

There was one LHB, but I wasn't there, but I heard about it from everyone else, so I've included it in the score. Krel, Odie and Kreios pugged a group and the tank was trying to vote-kick Krel because the tanks dps was "too close" to his. No one else in the group would vote him out, even the other pugger. So the tank tries three times, each time the group says no. The tank leaves. Too bad, so sad, take your ball and go home. Bah! A tank should be a leader, and you don't lead by bullying, you lead by encouragement and suggesstions. Let's face it, if you're leading and there's no one behind you ... you're just going for a walk. That was no tank, that was a Leet-Head Bozo.

Onward. Here's a pic from Utgarde Pinnacle, the treasure room as you first walk in. An easter egg from the developers that was mentioned on the dvd in the WotLK collector's edition. Look familiar?

Ah the Terminator. Now THAT'S the ultimate tank! Yes, sir!

Fair Warning

2009-12-30T19:52:00.002-06:00

Dechion recently posted about a PFTF here.

At first while I'm reading his post, I'm thinking, "Hey was that us in The Culling with him?", realizing that it wasn't, we didn't make the timed event.

Then reading on, I am amazed at what happened. It never occured to me that someone would stoop so low, let alone a group. Let's face it, that had to be planned. How do people think of these things? And during the holidays! What did they get in their stocking? "How To Be A Complete Turd in 3 Easy Steps"? Sons of mis-begotten jackals, every last one of them.

Then it occurred to me. I wonder if this happens a lot? When we were in Culling, the first healer "d/c'd". Is it possible that he had had that happen to him/her before and saw that we were pre-grouped, so decided to bail?

I wonder.

At any rate, Dechion did the right thing and reported the issue. That is one "exploit" that definitely slipped past the Bliz devs and I hope they can correct it somehow soon.

Keeping the Score up to Date

2009-12-29T23:04:00.002-06:00

Monday night was interesting in a couple of ways. First of all, Kreleicon is back! He had taken a break from WoW, having become enamoured with Combat Arms. And I think the $15 a month was becoming old as well. Someone (can't imagine who!) had put a 2 month time card in his stocking this year, and he wasted no time in plugging it in to his account! Well, he's got some catching up to do, gear-wise, so he's been "pugging right along" and is doing a nice job of gearing and getting emblems. In fact, he's pugged more in the last couple of days than I have in the last 2 years! No joke. Speaking of pugs, the score is now:

PFTW = 2
PFTF = 0
LHBs = 0

Another pug, another win. To be honest, while it was a random pug, we only pulled in one more person, a healer. Aradia, Kreios, Odie and Zaph grouped and hit random, looking to add a healer. Took about 1 second, we had a Shammy, and there we were in the Culling of Stratholme. I was surprised that we got a healer that quick,and even more surprised when he d/c'd and we had to find another healer. The second healer (a priest) took only a minute, maybe two. Anyway, we plowed through and finished with no drama, in fact I dont think the priest said word one. Then again, he probably noticed that everyone else in the group were guildies, or least all from the same realm. We weren't able to get to the timed event for the drake though. In part because of the healer swap out, but I think mainly because of my lack of understanding the instance. I had only been in there 2 times before. Once months and months ago on a guild run, normal mode. Then again just recently with Odie just smacking away on baddies while he healed me, so I could get used to my rotation with the mouse.

At any rate, it was another pug, a couple more emblems and another achievement, but the best part was just hanging with the guild-mates. Night shifts really cut in to the guild time and it was good to just run with the guildies!

Happy Holidays! and a General Update

2009-12-28T00:02:00.003-06:00

Happy Holidays to everyone, from Slice and Dice, Slice and Dice Champions, the occassional curious reader, all the Horde out there, and even the Alliance. Regardless of what holiday you celebrate, if any, I genuinely hope it was a good one spent with loved ones. I know mine was!

So on with the general update ...

Zaphodicus, my demonic clothie warlock is now at level 66 and steadily questing along and skinning the beasties of Nagrand. Nagrand is one beautiful zone. I have enjoyed questing there with Zaph, big Van, and now little Z, and I still don't tire of it.

Big Van's plate is getting rusty, I do believe, as he's been somewhat benched with the attention that little Z has been given, not to mention that when the Champions run something it's Forge of Souls or Pit of Saron, and that means potential upgrades for Zaph. Speaking of Zaph ...

Zaph has been in training, in a way. More precisely, I have been in training. You see, I found a Steelseries Warcraft MMO mouse under a tree a few days ago! Yep, as my esteemed guild-mates say, "Mrs. Zaph rocks!" What this means is, having been one that clicks and keys while fighting, it is QUITE the change-up to have my rotation on the mouse. Takes some getting used to, let me tell you. Well worth it though! I found myself getting caught in a tunnel-vision, having to move the cursor around to click or look at the keyboard to make sure I keyed the right key at the right time. It got to the point where I was not aware of the whole situation at any given time, and if you're not aware of what is happening to the rest of your party, what are you doing tanking? At least that's how I see it. So now, I've got my whole rotation, and then some, literally in the palm of one hand during a fight. Two words. Way and Cool.

Zaph has also (better sit down for this) .... pugged! Sunday before work I had about 45 minutes and figured "Let's give this a shot." So I pulled up the random heroic interface, and having confirmed that I was prepared to take as much damage as possible in order to protect my fellow party members, I clicked. About 0.0005 seconds later I find myself in Halls of Lightning. As a tank, do I like the idea that tanks are in demand and need not wait in line? Darn tootin'. Anyways, I made sure that I had put my fishing rod away and didn't have crusader aura on, popped out a fish feast, asked, "ready?", got one "yep" and off we went. The entire time no more than 4 lines in party chat popped up. I pulled, we killed. I pulled, we killed. Less than 45 minutes later, all done. I typed a "ty" in party chat, no response, and the party was dis-banded.

All in all, it was a great run. I was not flawless, but I didn't pull any goofy gaffes either. The priest healing me died once and one dps'er died once as well, that was it. And the boss mechanics? It was like they were trash mobs. Didn't have to work around any mechanics simply because they were burned down so fast. Felt like we were running Ramps, to be honest. That's how uber-geared these folks were.

So I've decided to keep score: PFTW vs. PFTF (Pug for the win versus Pug for the fail). A running tally of LHBs (Leet-Head-Bozos) would be interesting to keep track of, too. The score stands @:

PFTW = 1
PFTF = 0
LHBs = 0

I will keep score until I have pugged enough to get the pug companion, then we'll see where we stand. At that point I'll either have a ton of emblems and a more relaxed attitude towards pugs, or I'll have a ton of emblems and a mouth guard for all the teeth grinding. Either way, I'll keep you posted.

3.3 … FTW!

2009-12-13T15:51:00.001-06:00

So I wait a day or two to update my add-ons, which was actually a good thing because I found that I really like Blizzard’s new quest/map combo. Carbonite is great for tracking friend’s and party members, so I may be keeping Carbonite on Zaph and Van, while sticking with Blizz’s for alts like little Z (63 btw! Flying in Outland is a beautiful thing).

Gatherer? All of the gathering nodes from mining in the Basin? Gone. Auctionator? Lost the tab for posting multiple auctions. Gone. Setting? One thing checked or unchecked that shouldn’t be? Don’t know, but I’m putting AH flipping on hold until I figure some things out. The inventory I have will be posted through the appraiser, but I have to figure this out. I think my AH routine became an almost OCD type thing that I find quite difficult to change. I’ll adapt though. That’s what tanks do. Adapt or die, taking your friends with you in the process.

So it’s Saturday night and Kreios, Aradia, Zaph, and Odiefrom are all on at the same time. Yeah! It had been too long. So what do we do? Head to the Forge of Souls of course! So we’re talking in skype about “do we want to use the new lfm for one more dps? Or one more healer? Or do you think we can 4-man it?” Hmm, brand new dungeon designed for 5. Brand new loot, too. Do we want to share? Do we want to experience this new dungeon with a stranger? Nay! And Nay! So we four-man it. Well, three-man and our Countess, pardon me, Aradia.

So we enter. Is it a big round room with walls and a couple of gates? Oh no, it’s far more than that. It’s a downright dungeon! Trash mobs! Patrollers! Floating skulls! Mood music, new age-ish, sometimes eerie, sometimes relaxing.

We worked our way to the Godfather of Soul and when all was said and done, he wasn’t singing “I Feel Good”, we were. That’s right, one-shot that bad-boy and Odie’s the one with a Brand New Bag now!

The second boss was a bit trickier, in that we wiped twice. But after each one we shared our observations, adjusted our strategy and on the third try …. Yep, chattin’ it up with Sylvannas, rubbing elbows with the Banshee lady. Now that boss was fun. There’s a whole lot of movement going on in that fight. There’s bobbin’, there’s weavin’. There’s “Stop! Wait for it …. Go!”. That’s one fun fight. That ain’t no standard tank and spank.

What a team. What a TEAM!

All in all I have to say I like this patch!

Oh, and the Core Hound Pup? Authenticator FTW! Yeah!

Birthday Wishes

2009-12-03T01:00:00.000-06:00

Today is someone’s birthday. Yep …. /target Kreios! Happy Birthday, good sir!

Originally, there was this super-double-secret plan for your birthday. I wanted to make bikes for all of us and Aradia was going to cook up a nice chocolate cake (with strudel on the side, I believe), and we were going to make quite the party of it. Alas, but there was gear to invest in, blacksmithing plans, orbs and titansteel to acquire, and well it comes down to this: the bikes never materialized, but there is a little something coming your way. Shhhhhhhh. It’s a secret.

So for right now, I was thinking of sharing a few of my “solo in-game thoughts” with you. You know, a lot of times we’ve got the Skype going and we may be doing dailies together, running an instance or even doing separate things, but we’re sharing our in-game thoughts at the moment. Well, when I’m in-game but not in Skype, the thoughts that meander through my mind are a little different. Here’s just a sampling …

I’m on Krasus Landing …
“Hmm, cats can land safely from several stories up, and heck mice have been known to have suffered no injuries after having been thrown out of airplanes ….. I wonder if Dwarves are the same way?” …… “Hey short-stuff! Gotta minute?”

Whenever I’m at the Filthy Animal, I think about Uda the Beast and her two pets there at the door. What if one of them glanced over one day and noticed her leather boots. Would it be offended? Or even worse, what would happen if it recognized the leather as being from a close relative? Hope I’m logged in on that day!

Leave it to the Alliance to produce a nasty bad guy like Arthas! Oh yeah sure, the Horde had Kael’Thas, but hey, at least he has a cool accent.

I bet Jaina Proudmore is a closet Hordie. Sure would be cool if she would defect over to our side. Imagine Jaina and Sylvannas hanging out together. Whoa! Thelma and Louise, step aside!

I wonder how many writers there actually are that create all the story lines and lore that go into Warcraft? And how many of them cried openly when they saw their first Mohawk hand-grenade?

Pants. Hmm, whats a jormungar doing, carrying around pants?

I bet Gnome tar-tar tastes like chicken.

What do you get when you cross a Murloc with a dungeon rat? I don’t know, but it’s SO short, SO smelly, and SO irritating, it MUST be Alliance.

Sometimes I actually have trade chat going, and I see the same names there every time. And you know what I think? I think they spend all their waking moments in WoW chats because no one in RL can stand listening to their crap without having the desire to beat the snot out of them.

You think someday Kul is going wake up and say, “Today we’re NOT going up that hill! We’re staying put today!” Naw, some people never learn.

Happy Birthday, Kreios. If you weren’t born, I’d die a lot more often and have a lot less fun when I do!

I don’t normally rant or complain, but….

2009-11-07T21:25:00.000-06:00

I know, no posts for weeks and then two at once. Sue me. There’s this issue flying around that is starting to burn my craw.

So there are now a couple cool non-combat pets for sale. For actual, real-world money. From what I’ve been reading this has created quite the uproar among quite a few people, and not just for one reason either. Let’s start with the first complaint.

“Real money, you’re charging real money! How could you Blizzard? You’re acting like a corporation or business or something!” And why do corporations exist? To make money. Go figure. Get over it. “But it’s all just digital fluff, people are paying for something that’s …. digital!” Oh, and I guess no one should pay for mp3s to load their Ipods with, either. If you believe that, then shame on you. If someone wants to spend their money on an in-game toy, then what’s the big deal? Who is affected, except for self-righteous purists? If someone is entertained by it, then that’s their entertainment … not your tragedy. Sheesh.

The second complaint, and this one is really sad, is that this MAY lead to *gasp* the selling of …. wait for it ….. EPIC GEAR! Let’s look at this.

The raider who has been grinding heroics, 10-mans, 25-mans, rolling and losing, rolling and eventually winning the gear says, “I have earned this gear. When someone inspects me and checks my gear (and oh, I hope they do!), they’ll know where I was, what I did to get it.”

The casual who has been grinding the 9-5, more often 9-9 at work, enjoys spending time with their family, but when it comes time to play can’t get into a pug because of elitist gear-checkers that don’t care if you know your class, they just know that if you don’t have BiS, you’re not one of “them” says, “I pay my subscription, I want to see Ulduar, or Naxx, or any of the end-game features of the GAME, and I can’t survive without the gear.” Sorry, did I put “game” in caps? Hmm, must have been something subliminal.

Ego isn’t the only thing here, either. There are those who feel it’s just not fair. They worked for their gear, and I don’t doubt that they did. And I don’t doubt it, because I don’t care enough to spend that much time thinking about them. Anyway, no one is lessening what they put into getting it. The proof is in the achievements (remember those? They can be inspected, too!) Well, not really. Whether I see your gear or your achievements, how do I know you weren’t just boosted through by 9 or 24 other people in your guild. When it comes right down to it, only you and your raiding friends know what you did to get the gear. So you’re not proving anything to anyone anyway, except maybe that you have issues.

The raider says, “It isn’t fair that I had to work so hard for this gear and they just get to pay for it.” I can almost see that point of view. Just kidding, no I can’t. I see these people as going to McDonalds on a Tuesday and buying a hamburger, then see someone on 49 cent Wednesday eating a hamburger of the same quality for less money, screaming foul and storming into McDonalds complaining to the manager, who is probably putting in a 16 hour shift and just wants to go home and kill a lot of Alliance toons.

So basically the elitist raider folk are saying that if they take the time to drive to a theater, stand in line for their ticket, stand in line for their pop-corn and sit through a movie with a room full of strangers and all of their cell phones and side conversations, then no one should have the right to buy the dvd later and pop it in at home. That wouldn't be fair. Waah, waah, waah. For crying out loud, change your diaper and get burped elsewhere.

I remember the whole hulla-baloo over mounts at level 30. “I had to wait until I hit level 40! Unfair!” Nobody cares about that anymore, because now their alts have an easier time of it.

I remember having to go into Stratholme and fight for my Paladin's Charger. It was snowing and back then and the Eastern Plaguelands were all uphill, no matter which direction you were going. Now it’s trained. Do I care? Come on, I have great memories of trying to solo that quest repeatedly, of doing it with friends and hearing of friends doing it. As I see it, I have gotten so much more entertainment out my Charger than someone that trained for it. And if someone just wants to train for it, fine. It’s an awesome mount and I enjoy seeing them around, regardless of how they were obtained.

I’m not saying I would pay money for gear. I certainly wouldn’t turn it down if Mrs. Zaph wanted to get me some plate for Christmas, but I spend enough on the game already. And that’s just my perspective, and other people have their perspective, and more power to them.

A lot of people have been playing since Vanilla. You know, back when tanks were real tanks, healers were real healers, and slimy little murlocs were REAL slimy little murlocs. I respect the adventures they had and the stories that I’ve read about those times are mostly awesome. It must be hard to see a game that you put so much into change. I understand, but there comes a time when you just have to accept change and WAKE UP! That was years ago! Do you see me wearing my Nehru jacket from ‘60s? No. Do you see me wearing my leisure suit from the seventies? No and I hope you didn’t see it then either. Am I wearing parachute pants now? I’m not telling, but you get the point.

I’ve read so many times, “If they start selling epic gear, I’m leaving the game!” Well …

Don’t let the logout screen hit you on the way out. Maybe Dal will have less lag and I can find some friendly pugs with less Leet-head Bozos struttin’ around.

Gratzaghetti and Meatballs!

2009-11-07T21:23:00.000-06:00

My apologies for the lateness of this post. The sun was in my eyes, aliens stole my keyboard, Brittney lost her dog, the Phillies lost the Stanley Cup, insert any usable excuse here.

Well Mr. Headless didn’t have the best of times this last Hallow’s End. We must have killed him at least 65-70 times. Not only did he lose his head, but he also dropped his Reins! That’s right, Headless fumbled the Reins and they were scooped up by Raxius! And shortly thereafter he won the roll for the magic broom and passed it to Van. A Death Knight with the heart of a Paladin and gentleman. Gratzaghetti and Meatballs, good sir! Or as Velanth would say, “Gratzaroni and Cheese”! Wait there’s more … Gratz a mighty fine mount you have there, Rax! (don’t stop me now, I’m on a roll) … Chili con Gratz! Ok I’m done. Almost.

Gratz must also be said for all the Hallowed titles gained this year. I’d mention everyone by name but I think it was just about everyone who cared to try.

The One

2009-10-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

Two very special people have found happiness in the form of each other. And that has led to marriage. All the best and congratulations to Kreios and Aradia! Of all the people that I have never met, these two are the coolest and I am happy for them both that they have found "The One". If they have half of what Mrs. Zaph and I have, they've got it made!

Now for the bad news: Seeing as I have been blissfully married to Mrs. Zaph for nearly nineteen years AND I'm old enough to give advice and opinions whether it's asked for or not, here it is:

1. It only gets better. You may think at this time, freshly wed and all, that this is heaven and it couldn't get any better. Well you're wrong! It does get better, trust me it does!

2. Arguments are not won, they are ended. Besides, arguments are just nature's way of giving you the opportunity to make up.

3. To Kreios: Aradia was your girlfriend before she was your wife. Never stop considering her your girlfriend, and she'll always be your wife. For instance: When she asks for a new dishwasher, your response should NOT be "I thought I married one."

4. To Aradia: Poly-morphing him while he's in the shower is NOT funny. Besides, you're the one that has to smell wet sheep all day afterwards.

The best to both of you! You're spending the rest of your life with your best friend! You both just rolled a 100 on the best loot drop there is in life!

/CHEER

Auction House Duel

2009-10-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

So it's early in the day and I log in Little Van, who starts his week with a scan of the AH. Done. I check the going price for Titansteel bars and see that they're going for around 165 gold each. OK, but there's a stack of 19 sitting there for 2550 gold. Hmm, I think to myself, that's about 135 gold per bar. Snatch! I then put 4 stacks of 1 each up at the going rate, just under someone else (I'll call him CL). And that's when it started.

CL cancells his auctions and re-posts under mine, I think with 8 stacks of 1 each. So I cancel/repost under him. And he does the same right back. I noticed that he was changing the amount he'd put up, but each time I matched his quantity, just so he'd know that I knew he was there and I knew he knew I was there.

Back and forth, forth and back. Finally we have 6 stacks (I think) on and my under-cut puts my price at 159+ gold. He buys them. Thank you, CL! So I figure thats his buy price and was working me down so he can stock up at a lower price. So I whisper him.

"I have more titansteel if you'd like to buy them as well."

No response. He posts some more at the going rate again, so I post the same amount just under him. I'm sure you know what happened next. We worked our stacks down to 159 gold each again, this time with 10 stacks of 1 each. As soon as mine hit 159 gold, he bought 6 of them. Thanks again CL! I repost 4, in the meantime the going rate had climbed to 177 gold. No sign of CL. They sell. I post another 4. They sell.

And that my dear friends is how a level 6 Rogue wins a duel with a level 19 Shammy. Could I do it again? To be honest, probably not against CL again simply because I've seen him playing the AH for quite a while and I think his resources may be more extensive than Little Van's. But Monday was Little Van's day.

Ah, the auction house ... and you thought duels only happened outside of the city walls.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

2009-10-04T08:20:00.000-05:00

Soon Brewfest will be over, along with all the carousing, noise and vomitting. I'm still not sure if the vomitting was induced by all of the drinking, or this guys purple leisure suit. Having survived the disco era, I think it was the leisure suit.

The best part of Brewfest is that it means that Hallow's Eve is just around the corner! Don't get me wrong. Thanks for the trinkets, thanks for the Tauren Chieftan shows, thanks for all the fish, but ..... move along now, there's some trick-or-treating to be done!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Listen up, Headless! You WILL drop that mount for me this year! Say it!

The Horseman would nod if he had a head, but instead shrugs slightly for the same effect and grudgingly says, "I will drop the mount for you this year, Zaph."

I'm glad we understand each other now. Now go throw some awesome specs on that new helm I'm going to take from you as well. I still have a ram to catch. Oh! And don't forget the rings, my man!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And yes, in case you were wondering, I did save those pumpkinheads from last year, just so I could be the first to pop one on Kreios' head when he least expects it! Where better to do it than in Stratholme? I ask you!

Right about now you're probably wondering, "Of all the WoW holidays, I wonder which is Zaph's favorite?" I'll let you guess, get back to me if you figure it out. Here's a hint though: I still wear my Horseman's Helm in the Basin so that when another miner tries to mine the Titanium that I already started on, I can laugh maniacally at him.

Another Big Welcome!

2009-09-28T12:38:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Slice and Dice Champions, Velanth! Velanth has been helping out with Slice and Dice by being the Assistant GM for a bit now, so we all thought it might be a good time to bring him into the Champions fold. Welcome and congratulations on going from Assistant GM to Jester!

Looks like we're going to need another guild group portrait soon!

And in other news, how about that 5 instances per hour, per account business? Have I been asleep and it's always been that way, or is this new? If it means that all I have to do is be careful in planning what I'm doing when, to be able to get into ANY instance I want, when I want, then GREAT!

Thank you Blizzard!

Welcome and Grats!

2009-09-25T03:31:00.002-05:00

A big welcome to Sevell into Slice and Dice Champions! And congratulations on dinging 80, young man!

Sevell is a Blood Elf Paladin, a miner, and an engineer. Thank goodness he's joined us because we certainly have been in need of one of those! And to top it off, he's a tank. As an ex-5 Star General of Slice and Dice, it may take some getting used to being a Jester in Champions!

Perhaps I should explain. In Slice and Dice the ranks were pretty standard:

Initiate
Member
Veteran
Officer
5 Star general
Guild Master

We took a different approach in Champions:

Grunt
Jester
Sultan
Prince
Countess
Count
Czar (GM)

Now, for anyone thinking about reaching the rank of Count or Countess: forget it. Those ranks are reserved specifically for Kreios, Aradia, and their alts. Want to be a Prince? Forget it. Odiefrom, Kreleicon and their alts. Sultan? Ok, but don't expect it to happen any time soon. And bring gold. Just kidding. But it might help. I'm above bribery like a brick is above gravity.

In closing: Welcome Sevell! and grats on your Direbrew Ram last night, way to go!

Realm First!

2009-09-24T05:14:00.000-05:00

Yes! A realm first! You've heard of and seen Huntards and Locktards, but have you ever heard of a Heal-tard? That's right, Zaph: tank, engineer, miner and Heal-tard.

Details will not be given, but it can be assumed that if I am your healer .... have your affairs in order.

I just had to get that off my chest. Now to move on.

Your irregularly scheduled programming will continue with the next post. Thank you for your patience.

It's Holiday Season!

2009-09-22T06:15:00.000-05:00

Saturday was Pirate Day and I couldn't resist the trip to Booty Bay to play Pirate for a while before going to work that night. Didn't even cost a Savory Deviate Delight! Reminds me of my all time favorite sit-com and the episode with a particular "soft-talker". I don't know, the shirt wasn't all THAT bad .....

And then a mere day later, Brewfest (hic!) began! Last night we went to the tavern and started throwing insults around to see who might give us a good fight. All the mains and all the 80 alts were brought in for the fight. Zaph picked up a sweet (I'm talking rot-your-teeth sweet!) trinket that threw a +170 stamina into the health pool. Thank you, Brewfest! In fact, just about all of us got something sweet last night, but Zaph, Cel, and Rax got a real treat when @ 08:00 p.m. the Tauren Chieftains performed. That's right! The Champions were rocking last night!

Trial of Champions: Well Named!

2009-09-08T11:51:00.000-05:00

ToC has been our guild's instance of choice lately. It is fun, it is challenging, and it is upgrading our gear. All good things!

To summarize recent accomplishments in SnD Champions:

Odie, Aradia, Kreios, and Zaph successfully 4-manned ToC all the way through! No small accomplishment, I must add. Granted, Colosos was not there for the first phase, and Eadric the Wimp (shameful for a Paladin to ask, "May I run away now?") was our second phase.

Zaph has acquired the Black Heart, which has put him (finally!) over 30K health, buffed. Hopefully making life a little easier on my personal physician, Kreios.

Last night Zaph sat out as Kreios, Celanna/Aradia, Kreleicon and Odiefrom "interviewed" Norainddra in ToC as a potential guild-mate. Kreleicon tanked, and tanked it well! (You are reading the words of a very proud father!) After several wipes, Kreios switching to ret, Odie switching to holy, both of them switching back, Celanna dropping out so Aradia could join, the instance was completed!

Norainddra was unaminously welcomed as a member of Slice and Dice Champions. Welcome, Norainddra!

Another member has joined our guild as well. You may remember her from a certain Paladin's past history of hormonal confusion. Celanna is back! /cheer, /bow And she is a member of Slice and Dice Champions. Welcome home Celanna!

That puts our roster @:

Four Paladins - You cannot have too many Paladins, the class just adds so much .... class. Celanna, Kreios, Odiefrom, and Zaph.

Four Death Knights - The more we have, the less Arthas has. That's a good thing. Kreleicon, Norainddra, Raxius, and Vandalayinc. Don't step on their blood worms, the squishy feeling between the toes is creepy.

One Mage (and her four girls who idolize her so much, they wear the same clothes and do their hair exactly the same way). Aradia. Follow the Mage, don't mess with the Mage, and you'll never lack for the best strudel this side of the Maelstrom.

I close with this thought: The system becomes less energetic when domains of opposite direction alternate. Think about it. But not for too long, life is too short.

The Future with a Tad of Now

2009-09-07T09:37:00.000-05:00

I materialize in front of the auction house in Org. It is a bright day and the city is busy this evening, with people running to and from the bank and mailboxes. I am Zaph, a proud member of the Horde.

A strong and proud voice booms in my ear, “Orgrimmar is under attack!”

I wait expectantly and the voice repeats itself, “Orgrimmar is under attack!”

The message is repeated a dozen times and I know it’s for real. The Alliance is here and they want an achievement. “Blood shall stain the streets today … again,” I think to myself.

I have slain the Alliance from the jungles of Stanglethorn Vale to the beautiful greens of Nagrand, from the caves in Un’Goro Crater to the war-torn fields in Icecrown. And I have been slain in just as many places. Today we will see who meets the Spirit Healer, as both have reason to want satisfaction. Ah, revenge is a dish best served with Naga nuggets for dessert!

There are 2 possibilities. They are either youngsters coming in through the front gate with a long run to Thrall, or they have come in over the bridge and in through the side gate for the shorter route.

I say “Charger!” and in moments I am mounted and galloping at full speed through the drag to position myself at the north end, preparing for the attack from either direction. I see other high level Horde members positioning themselves as well, at strategic points within the city. It’s a bad day to be Alliance!

I see them coming from the direction of the Hall of Legends. As I dismount, 4 Warriors, 3 Hunters, a handful of Mages and fellow Paladins run up and begin positioning for the battle that is but seconds away.

I calmly said, “Flag on, wings up, and Devotion aura.” I opened a flask of Stoneblood and drank heartily. Ah, Aradia does know how to whip up a tasty batch!

I laid down a circle of Consecration so the enemy would have to walk right into my circle of pain, then cast my Avenger’s Shield which smacked 3 of the attackers squarely in the chest. “Die Alliance scum!”, I shouted.

“For the Horde!”, rang out as many of my comrades shouted their allegiance.

The battle raged and I see to my left familiar faces. Kreleicon and Odiefrom are fighting right along with me and slaying just as many! Oh, a father’s pride is not a weak thing! My efforts are doubled and I fell 3 Alliance fighters with another “Captain America” toss of my Avenger’s shield!

To the right I shot my wrist-rocket, to the left I send a bolt of lightning, as I take hit after hit and feel my health sapping slowly from my being. But then a Shock, so Holy in nature hits me and I am filled with renewed strength and vitality. Now, I have been healed, and I have been healed, but when someone keeps you alive repeatedly, dedicatedly, you recognize the touch. I glance behind me quickly and there he is … Kreios! And there by his side, Aradia, casting bolts of power even Arthas would fear! I smile, narrow my eyes, and turn to face our common enemy again. “For the Horde!” I scream again.

The ground was consecrated, the air was raining fireballs, and bolts of blue power were being thrown everywhere. Groans and throes of death could be heard. The battle consumed all thought, all attention. And then there was silence.

As the dust settled bodies could be seen everywhere, both standing and prone on the ground. No Alliance stood, and Thrall was never even bothered within his Hold.

Cheers rose up and many of us jumped and hollered as our fallen comrades returned from the Spirit Healer. I look around and see even more familiar faces: Sevell, Velanth, Serrious, Norainddra, Groklon, Wildgraf, Hordemonger, Rucrazy, and even Stonesword. All smiling and cheering.

A good day, indeed.

A voice, a sweet familiar voice, speaks into my earpiece, “Dinner’s ready, Honey.”

I bow, then wave to my friends and comrades, de-materialize and sit up to remove my eye cups and earplugs. “Be right there, Sweetie!”, I say as I shed my VR suit and tap the boys’ shoulders. “Come on guys, dinner-time. Dis-engage. You guys fought well! Let’s eat!”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So what do you think? Virtual Reality and WoW, would it work? You bethcha, it would! And before anyone says it can’t be done, remember you’re speaking to someone who was there when Captain James Tiberius Kirk first flipped open his communicator to speak to the bridge. I remember saying, “Wouldn’t that be great to have one of those?” while others told me to get real. Now I have one on my hip, and it does more than his did.

And So The Cataclysm Debates Begin

2009-08-25T08:48:00.000-05:00

The announcements regarding Cataclysm has really sparked some interesting discussions. The most interesting, I find, being the changes to guilds and the impact on solo levelling.

There is the camp that believes solo levelling will be torturous, primarily because of the knowledge that being in a guild has more advantages. Then there is the camp that believes there will be no difference. Personally, I think that if you are in a guild now with people you enjoy playing with, the changes will be an enhancement to the fun you can have together. If one is new to the game when Cataclysm hits, as I was when TBC hit, it won't even be noticed. The seasoned players will have guilds already to bring their alts into.

When I started playing, I had no desire to be in a guild, but had enough curiousity to join one around level 10. Body by WoW was the guild and I eventually left, primarily because the guild chat became FILLED with rude talk and foul language. It wasn't that way for quite a while, though. The original guild leader was Hordemonger and he insisted on "keeping the green clean", and it was appreciated. He went MIA for many many weeks so Bliz was contacted and a new guild leader was appointed. It was then that it was decided that the guild would then become a "raiding guild" and of the 250+ members, any who weren't intersested had to bear with the chat being filled with complaints that no one was working towards someone else's goals. It got ugly and embarrassing, as my sons liked to watch me play. It was then that I told them they were not allowed to join a guild with their characters, unless we started our own, which we did.

With the new guild achievements and guild this and guild thats that are coming up, I foresee guilds being comprised more often of people who either know each other IRL, or have played extensively with each other in the past. The days of "invite everyone you can" will be over, simply because there will be more at stake within the guilds.

Zaph was levelled from 0-70 with no assistance at all. From 70-80 there were a few group quests that Celanna and Odie helped with. I do look forward to rolling a Worgen, primarily to see the lore attached to that race, and I am hoping that it can be done solo, but if not then we may just start a third guild, an Alliance one. Maybe we could call it "snoipmahC eciD dna ecilS". Imagine how many people would try to figure out how to pronounce that! "Is that Latin?"

I still maintain my belief that it will be what it will be. There will be changes, the changes will affect the game, some major, some minor. Debates will rage, discussions will continue up to and after the release, but the real questions I think people have to keep in mind is:

If World of Warcraft remained the same, how long would you keep playing?
Is it possible to always have changes that everyone likes?
Aren't Blood Elf Paladins intelligent, witty, and dashingly handsome?

Not long, no way, and you betcha!

Trial of Champions

2009-08-18T16:20:00.000-05:00

Third time is the charm, as they say.

First attempt: Never got past the first 3 bosses after the joust/melee transition. We were a team of four, Kreios, Aradia, Krel and Zaph. Krel did some outstanding off-tank work, though! Making his pop proud! The whole team did superb, for our numbers and our gear.

Second attempt: Downed the first 3, downed Eadric, and downed the Black Knight twice, but couldn’t get past the third phase when he’s in spirit form. We had pugged a warlock who had just turned 80. His DK had just joined the guild in fact, so he was not even a true pug. He’s not in the guild anymore, though. Tip #1: if you are asked if you could get on your DK to help the group out, the wrong answer is, “I don’t wanna.” Tip #2: Don’t tell our mage how to play her class. She knows. Trust me.

Third attempt: Before the run Kreleicon had dual-specc’d so he can dish the dps as well as tank. Did a fine job as both! Pugged a priest for healing, so Kreios was on dps. This priest must have had a depth perception issue and just couldn’t stay back. After two wipes he bugged out saying we can’t hold aggro. Kreios swapped back to healing and we proceeded to 4-man our way to the Black Knight. So to that little priest with an attitude: Look at yourself first before blaming a group. Seeing as 5 WITH you was fail and 4 WITHOUT you was win, you were obviously talking when you should have been listening. Second, if you can’t play nice with others, don’t play with others.

So we pugged a 78 Shammy and almost had the Big Bad BK, but we wiped. The Shammy said he’d get on his main, and voila! Black Knight down and done!

Big shout out to Darklol who helped us through that last bit! You are why pugs are CAN be enjoyable! There are cool folks out there!

After Trial, Kreios, Celanna (she’s back!), Odie and Zaph ran Nexus. Quick, clean, effective, and a whole lot of fun! Kreios was back in dps mode and Odie switched over to Holy. For the final dragon boss, though, Odie switched back to ret and we all just hopped and burned it down. And I realized something. It's going to be real hard to feel comfortable with anyone as much as I am with our core 5 folks. When Kreios or Odie are healing me, I know I’m in good hands. If they’re on dps, I know they’re targets are toast. If Aradia is burning down a bad guy, I know she’s doing it with optimum effectiveness AND she’s gonna keep us all in line! If Krel says “I got him.”, I know he does, whether it’s tanking or burning. So I'm thinking that the longer we go with just us 5, the harder it will get to accept new-comers into the guild. Maybe we should make a stronger effort to recruit? Maybe just stay the way we are and pug the rest?

Either way, we’ve got an awesome group. We can laugh and tease each other for blunders, but it’s all in fun and NO ONE is ever mean. Sure, there are many who out-gear us, but pity the fool that tries to out-cool us. Pity the fool.

I Just Had To

2009-08-09T15:13:00.001-05:00

What a Week!

2009-08-09T15:00:00.001-05:00

Well, it started a couple of weeks ago, actually. As a guild we completed Halls of Lightning Heroic, after pugging a healer and a hunter. No big deal to some folks, but when you consider that our guild is made up of 4 mains and 2 alts … yeah, it’s a big deal!

And of course 3.2 is here and hopefully de-bugged by now. I noticed a couple minor glitchy things, but nothing whatsoever to warrant a complaint. Especially considering how much fun this patch is. Come on! New mounts? A dragonhawk? Kreios has one and I’m here to tell you, it’s sweet! Gotta, just gotta get me one of those. OK, two, another for Van. And another mount that is Paladin specific! Way cool, too cool. And of course the new dailies mean more people will have more gold so they can buy my Mechano-Hogs.

Speaking of which, the first Hog has been on the AH now for 9 days. Last night I lowered the price to 25K, which is enough to buy the parts for two more bikes. Little Van has kept busy, continuing to play the AH so Zaph can make another bike whether this one sells or not. Shortly after Zaph made the first Hog, Little Van didn’t even have enough gold to post any auctions, so Zaph forwarded 100 gold to him on the 31st. Today is the 9th and Little Van has made >9000 gold, but re-invested 3000 of it. Another week and Zaph’ll make another bike unless this first one sells, then he’ll make 3. That’s right folks, soon Slice and Dice Champions won’t be a guild … we’ll be a biker gang! Oh yeah.

We went in as a guild and tried to take the 5-man ToC with 4. Aside from Odie having gone in solo to check it out, we did zero research. Yes we wiped. Repeatedly. But that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We entered, we were surprised, we wiped, we learned, we laughed, we growled, we spat here and there. We had fun. Good times! Especially now that we have an idea on how to take it. And once we do, that’s when we get the goodies! And from what I’ve seen so far the goodies are sweet!

In other guild news, Kreios and Aradia both got their Albino Drakes! Way to go guys! It’s a sweet ride, isn’t it? I’ll bet that dragonhawk is sweeter, though! Yep, gotta, just gotta …..

3.2 is Here .. and Where are We?

2009-08-04T09:06:00.000-05:00

Individually, the picture is quite different, I'm sure, but as a guild here are the dungeons we have completed:

Drak'Tharon Keep
The Violet Hold (hey, I didn't get lost!)
The Culling of Stratholme (very cool)
Gundrak
Halls of Lightning
Azjol-Nerub
Utgarde Keep
Utgarde Pinnacle
Nexus

Which leaves:

Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom
Halls of Stone
The Oculus
Naxxramas
Ulduar

Nax and Ulduar will require PUGs, obviously, but while PUG usually means Painfully Un Good, it isn't always the case. When we did Halls of Lightning heroic, we PUGged a druid healer and a hunter for it, and it wasn't torture! They were alright folks, just maybe not who we'd want to run with all the time.

So now 3.2 is upon us. I've been reading for weeks all the "wah, wah" qq, speculations and complaints and here we are. So let's all just re-spec, play with the new toys (raptors! cool) and move on, please. Next time you're in Utgarde Pinnacle or the Keep, look up. The architecture in there is fantastic! Bravo to whoever concieved that artwork.

More Status Ramblings

2009-07-21T08:37:00.000-05:00

Zaph - Has set foot inside Halls of Lightning at last. Kreios, Aradia, Odie and Zaph did an excellent job I think. We cleared all but the last boss, but we figured him out, so next time in we'll smack him down easily. Just a shame we had to end it before one last try. Sorry guys.

Vandalayinc - Still working on his Argent Crusade rep and questing his heart out in Northrend. Questing mainly for the gold, but also for the mining nodes being added to the gatherer database that either Zaph never found or got lost when we had puter deaths. He's also collecting those Champion Seals for the Tournament Vanity Pets. (Zaph just added the Tirisfal Batling to Little Van's wares. 2000 gold for a pet? Oh yeah.)

Vandalay - Slowly but surely he is building his AH business up. Hes up to >300 auctions at any given time, but his goal is to be at >1000 auctions. At that point he will be able to put the routine into a cruise control and spend less time at it. Little Van is concentrating primarily on the resale, vendor and converter auctions.

Zaphodicus - Level 46 and in Booty Bay. Little Z is having a blast doing all the pirate quests. There is a slight competetion with Celanna (remember the Paladin of ghosts past? She's back!) Well, it's really no competition, as Celanna is already levels ahead of him. Cel always was a fast leveller. She won the race to 80 without cracking a sweat!

Love That Enchanted Broom

2009-07-17T14:42:00.000-05:00

You know the one. That non-combat "pet" you can get at the Argent Tournament for 40 Champion's Seals. It's a really cool pet, just like the brooms that sweep Silvermoon. I just don't understand calling it a "pet". Now, if I could get a combat pet that was a chain-saw ... that would be fun to PvP with!

Anyways, I don't have one. Nope, none of my characters do. But Zaph bought one and got 950 gold for it, selling on the AH.

40 Seals = 950 gold? Excuse me, I have more dailies to do ....

Grats to Kreleicon!

2009-07-17T14:38:00.000-05:00

Well he did it with loads of time to spare! Kreleicon has reached level 79! Congratulations, Krel! On top of that, he also has mining and jewelcrafting max'ed out @ 450/450. Great job!

So Zaph has paid his wager, and then a little more. 100 gold to be exact, considering that Krel has forwarded mant eternals his way. Thanks!

Just one more level and it'll be time to become a Prince of Slice and Dice Champions!

Making the Move

2009-07-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

There are now 6 members of Slice and Dice Champions. Raxius and Vandalayinc have made the move from Slice and Dice to Champions. Before any whispers come my way in-game let me state unequivocally that I am not leaving Slice and Dice! Zaphodicus along with a couple of other alts, which few know as mine, are still there and are played regularly. Zaphodicus was the original Guild Leader and may be once again, depending on how long Lonegunman wants to hold the position. Or maybe another guildy wants to try their hand at it. We’ll have to see about that.

While Zaph may be the Czar (Guild Leader) by title, decisions affecting Champions are done by council. The original five (Zaph, Kreios, Aradia, Odiefrom, and Kreleicon by extension) will always have control and ultimate rights, collectively.

Much like the lesson learned in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Zaphod Beeblebrox was president of the Universe, which was perfect in that being the bozo he was, he drew attention away from the REAL power! Much like a tank does. Hmm. Wait ….

Anyway.

So now is the time, as decided by the collective, to grow our ranks. It is necessary if we are to get into the higher dungeons, acquire the nifty gear, and see as much of the content as we can. I’m also thinking of the upcoming Crusader tournament Bosses. We’ll need a group that works well together for those.

So we have options. Use PUGs to find like-minded people and watch them in instance situations to see how they’d fit in. Advertise and wait for the whispers. Go through our friends lists and do some whispering of our own. We’re looking at a couple of the upcoming 80’s of Slice and Dice, as well (remember, Champions is not meant to be the social guild that Slice and Dice is. The chat is not for random conversations and such.). The options are there.

The ultimate goal? To have enough people so that at any given time there are at least 10 people (or more) on that can run something together. Not too much to ask.

While I think numbers are more important than classes right now, here’s our current line-up:

Paladin – Prot/Holy
Paladin – Ret/Holy
Paladin – Ret/Holy
Mage – DPS/GPS
DK – Ret with a pet
DK – Ret with a pet
DK – multi-functional

So if you’re 80, in Baelgun and looking for a casual group to run with (and aren’t a goof-ball, a jerk, or a dwarf in disguise), give us a whisper or comment here and I’ll contact you. We’ll run something together and see how the chemistry works out.

Authenticating ... Still Authenticating …

2009-07-12T09:15:00.000-05:00

Last night (Saturday night) Kreios, Zaph, Krel, and Aradia were going to finish an instance. Kreios logged on, Zaph logged on … no problem. Krel tried to log on and got stuck at the Authenticating stage of the log on. Same with Aradia, stuck at the Authenticating stage of the log on. We sat there talking for about an hour with repeated tries by both of them, with no results. It gave Kreios and Zaph the opportunity to duel, though. Well, to be precise, it gave Kreios the opportunity to smack Zaph around. That’s ok, skill wins out, as it should be. So I nailed him with a snowball, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, back to the topic. This morning I log on to make my daily Titansteels and there’s an in-game mail from Kreios saying that after having merged Aradia’s account with a Battle.net account everything worked just fine. That was the only difference among us last night. The accounts that Kreios and Zaph used have both been merged with a Battle.net account and Aradia’s and Krel’s have not. Odiefrom’s account has been merged, but he has yet to try.

Now, I remember when I set up my beta account for Lich King they had mentioned that with the release all accounts would be linked/merged with Battle.net and that login names would be emails. My beta account was my email, but when beta ended it went back to normal. If you want that battle-bot from Mountain Dew, you have to create a Battle.net account, then you have to merge the accounts, which is why mine is merged now. I also seem to recall that on Friday there was a whole list of servers undergoing maintenance/fixes and I think there was some mention of authenticating in the message.

Could it be that we are at the point where Blizzard is making the merge with Battle.net a MUST? Or could it have just been a coincidental fluke?

Has anyone else had a similar problem or situation? Anyone out there have some information about all of this?

Just So You Know ...

2009-07-11T15:12:00.000-05:00

While I'm on the topic of keeping the record straight, I must mention something.

First it must be mentioned that when we run an instance we've never been in before, the GPS talents of the Mage are what we rely on most. Mage GPS is greatly appreciated. But .... last night in the second A'Nub instance, it was I, Zaph, Paladin, Crusader, and He Who Has Been Known to Fall From the Strangest Places, that found our way through a tunnel to make our way to the next boss.

That's right. Paladins play with intellect!

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

(Note to Guild: Stock up on snowballs! I'm coming for you!)

Oops!

2009-07-11T11:18:00.000-05:00

As it had been determined during the run through Nexus on Thursday night, the judgement of the court was final. The jury found Zaph guilty of having ninja’d his own son, Kreleicon, of loot. The punishment was to admit to it publicly as an entry to this blog. This I do freely, as I admit to having been, as Floyd Pinkus would put it: comfortably numb with a momentary lapse of reason. I also must say in my defense that Kreios, Aradia and I had ran Kara a couple of times this week prior to this run, and we all agreed to just greed everything and let the math work itself out. I was in that loot loop.

While a true ninja would have been to NEED the item, we had agreed that all of the loot would be Krel’s, so to have greeded it did, in fact, constitute a ninja. Oops.

To help make amends (though nothing can truly repay the damage I have inflicted) I have made a “wager”, if you will, with Krel, giving him 10 to 1 odds. That’s right 10-1. If he is able to level from 75 to 79 in 2 ½ weeks, I’ll give him 50 gold. If not, he owes me 5 gold. To add to that, after he reaches level 79, whenever we are both on at the same time, I will solely work with him to get to 80 ASAP. Zaph and Van will be at his disposal.

I hang my head in shame, having ninja’d one of my own. Something an Alliance person would do, I’m sure, but not Horde. Shameful. I apologise to Krel, our esteemed guilds, and the Horde in it’s entirety for having been so careless, thoughtless and despicable.

Oh yeah, I squished his blood worms, too!

All the Better to Own You With!

2009-07-11T11:17:00.000-05:00

Monday night we tried Kara with two Pallys and a Mage and it was cool. Of course it took 5-10 minutes to get an instance server, but we finally got in. I really enjoyed the ambiance in there. Of course it’s a Paladin’s dream in there, what with all the dead folk roaming around. Holy Wrath, Batman!

We wiped here and there, but where’s the fun if you’re not surprised and challenged? We finished the banquet halls and the stables, then we tackled Moroes, which allowed us to “go on stage”. This week’s show was Little Red Riding Hood.. Big Bad Wolf wiped us 3 times before we called it a night, but I know we can take him. Maybe a little extra DK dps courtesy of Krel, or maybe some extra pally punch power a’la Odie. Either way, I know we don’t need a full raid group.

So then Tuesday night we ran Kara again (the same 3 of us). Then Thursday night Krel, Kreios, and Zaph ran the Nexus. And on Friday night Aradia, Kreios, Krel, and Zaph ran the spidy dungeons in Dragonblight. Anub something or other. OK, I’m A’Noob but I get confused with all the A’nubs, A’naks, A’whatchamacallits. I use the age card and reserve the right to not remember all the different names. I remember playing Pong when it came out, I remember when I started playing WoW. Everything else is OW…. Officially Whatever.

So over the course of this last week we had 4, count ‘em FOUR guild runs! Oh yeah! This could get to be a routine, who knows? Maybe even a regular thing!

Status Ramblings

2009-07-03T13:09:00.000-05:00

Zaph - now has the complete Gladiator's Redemption (Season 5 Epic) set for his Holy spec. I am still learning the Holy way of life. I spent several days as Holy doing dailies and generally getting into scraps to learn it. I have some more to learn (always, huh?!) but I'm getting the hang of it. Man oh man is the mana management a lot easier in Holy than it is in Prot! Went into Tempest Keep with Odiefrom one night when no one else from either guild was on. Fun times and a quick clearing of the Botanica. Even finished the quest for the Arcatraz key without thinking about it. I'm enjoying back-peddalling the older dungeons that I never did when they were first out, never having been a PUG lover.

Vandalayinc - is wearing the complete Savage Saronite set and has copied Raxius' spec, talent for talent, tree for tree. Thanks Rax! Primarily it's Blood with just enough in Unholy to get the Perma-ghoul. Ret-with-a-Pet! Way cool! Especially when I FINALLY remembered to put on the Blood Prescence! Last night Van did his first Wintergrasp and had a blast. Died maybe 3 times and got 215 kills in with 5 achievements and >9000 honor points. I loved letting the Army of the Dead loose on all those Alliance! Oh, and Van is no longer the guild leader of Slice and Dice. That hat has been passed to Lonegunman. */salute!*

Zaphodicus (Little Z) - @ lvl 44, knocking on 45's door. Got a tan in Tanaris doing a few of the lower level quests, then went back to Dustwallow Marsh (arg). It's just one of those levelling periods when you have to do what you have to do to get over the hump.

Gold - Well over 3000 now with probably another 2000 waiting to be sold on the AH. Zaph made another Armored Plated Shotgun (haven't done that in a while) and surprisingly enough they've gone up in price from ~ 750-900 gold to >1200 gold! Oh yeah. Maybe it's time to make that run to the Choppa! and turn the Champions guild into a biker gang! Double oh yeah!! Got the gold up to this level without trying, imagine if I got into gold-making mode again! Bwuhahahaha!

Kara? - I was talking with a friend at work who says he 3-manned Kara with his 80, a 72 and a 73. Hmm, methinks perhaps we could give that a try? He may have been exaggerating his prowess, but who ever does that? */grin* What's the worst that could happen? Repair costs? Phhyt! It's on me.

I Tank, Therefore I am

2009-07-03T10:43:00.000-05:00

Zaph gets quite a lot of questions whispered to him in-game asking about what to gem, is this sword good to tank with, do you think I can tank Naxx? Well, I have to say that there are far more qualified people than me to give you all the "best in slots" and the mathematics behind it all. Maintankadin and Ardent Defender are two really good places to start. Ardent Defender has a lot of tanking links as well. I can, however, start you off with some very basic tips. Here goes.

First off, the most important stat you're looking to max is your defense. Let's face it, if you're the one in the group that runs up to the toughest mob nearby and slaps him in the face to get things going, you'd better know how to defend yourself. The cap is 540, currently, and that makes you "un-crittable", meaning there is nothing and no one in the game that can land a critical strike on you. "Cap" does not mean it stops there, you can go higher and improve your other mitigation stats, but at that point it's more beneficial to start concentrating on your BLOCK.

What you're looking to do is get your block rating to 102.4%. That's your dodge, parry, yada-yada adding up to 102.4% WITH Holy Shield up (it adds 30%, I believe). Once you're there you'll either dodge, parry or block anything that is thrown at you and that means only partial damage when you block. Makes life a lot easier on the healer that's keeping your health up!

I believe I got the concepts and numbers fairly correct, but please correct me if I'm wrong, as I'd hate to lead anyone astray.

Threat. You want to generate it. You want to pump it out and let every mob there know you're the one they want to attack. Your primary job, your most important job is to keep the bad guys from attacking the other folks in your group. Especially your healer! Healer dies = tank dies. Tank dies = group dies. Usually. I've seen Kreios pull off some amazing stunts after I kicked it, both as holy and as ret.

Pulling is in most cases up to the tank and it is important to get experience doing it. You can pull too many, too easily (ever here of a guy named Leroy?). Where you are in relation to the mob(s) and the architecture of your instance can be critical at times. And where your buddies are, when you pull is critical as well. It's a good practice to ask if folks are ready before you make a major pull.

A guildie in Slice and Dice and I went into Strat for a little tanking practice and I think it was some good experience for him. Once he pulled a little Jenkins, running around in a circle body-pulling somewhere around 15-200 mobs (ok, I exaggerate sometimes). Something everyone does when they're learning to tank. He fought bravely and valiantly, but perished in the fray because, well, I kinda sorta waited a bit before stepping in. What can I say? Death is a great teacher! Sorry, man, had to do it. He didn't do that again and I'll bet he takes more care when he's tanking for a group. You're gonna be a great tank! (Names not used in case of guild razzing, even though it would be un-called for.)

I'll get into the actual abilities and all the whats, wheres, and whens of using them in a later post.

Basics, start with basics then practice. Practice the basics, then tweak. Then you can always go deeper with research.

Faction Switch? Whaa?

2009-07-03T09:14:00.000-05:00

So I hear this rumor that Blizzard announced an upcoming service that will allow you to switch factions. Huh. Why in the world ...? Who would ever ...?

I can see (maybe) wanting to experience the storylines involved with other races. Fine, roll a lvl 1 and experience it all. Even rolling a low level to act as a spy, learning the layout of their major cities, listening to the general and trade chats for warning of city raids. Not that I would EVER do that! *chuckle* But to have levelled in the community of your faction for however long it took you, and then turn around and "switch sides"? Bah!

Let me see, switching from the aristocracy of the Blood Elves to the lifestyle of a dwarf which usually includes a complete lack of personal hygiene. Hmm, I don't think so. Or maybe an Orc becoming a gnome. That would be like turning The Rock into Steve Erkel. It's just wrong.

I think there should be one stipulation: If you leave the Horde to be Alliance, YOU CAN'T COME BACK!

If you're Alliance and want to come to the Horde? I can understand your desire to be one of the good guys, but it will take a bit to trust you if it ever became apparent where you came from. It would take time. So while you're waiting, there's quite a bit of plate around here that could be polished ... with your tongue, you back-stabbing, traitorous, faction-flipping dung beetle!

*deep breath* OK, now that I have that out of my system (too much Wintergrasp, I think) here's what I really think: cool. If it allows people to enjoy the game even more, then more power to them. That's what we're all here for isn't? Enjoyment? I certainly don't play because I want to get angry.

'Cause let's face it, "For the Horde!" is just another way of saying, "For the Fun!" At least for half of us. Or so this Pally ponders.

Of Late

2009-07-01T08:33:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been playing my warlock, Zaphodicus. He's a skinner/leatherworker and is keeping the proffs up as he levels, instead of power levelling later. Actually he was the original Guild Leader of Slice and Dice, until Zaph took over. Speaking of Guild Leaders, Lonegunman has taken the reins from a grateful Vandalayinc. *Salute!*

So here's Zaphodicus, sporting his heirloom shoulder piece, provided by his big brother Zaph:

That heirloom piece is mighty helpful, what with it's +10% XP buff on kills and quest turn-ins! Mighty helpful!

Zaph had gotten the flight points in Dustwallow Marsh but had never really quested there, so Zaphodicus has been doing some levelling in there. To be honest, while I like all the skinnables in there, I'm not really diggin' the Marsh. Time for Little Z to be moving on. Maybe Tanaris. Yeah, a nice dry heat would be good. Those goblins in Gadgetzan always have some quests that need doing, and Little Z can get a tan at the same time! Win-Win!

Here They Are

2009-06-28T07:35:00.000-05:00

Of all the people I've never met, these two are my favorites! Just a couple of honest to goodness good folk. Count Kreios and Countess Aradia!

But of course, Kreios wasn't always "geared" the way he is now!

And here is Krel, someday to be a Prince of Slice and Dice Champions.

And Odiefrom, Prince of Champions. No wonder his group needed some healing for Ahune, when Zaph arrived everyone was in their undies! Try that!

The Dew Battle-Bots

2009-06-22T09:05:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but I like this promo! And I'm here to tell you, my tokens are going for the Laptop!

Any Time Now ...

2009-06-21T09:27:00.000-05:00

So the entire guild was on last night, all four of us! So we decide to run Zul Aman. It's Satuday night, so of course and as usual, "There are no instance servers available. Please try again later."

So I have just one word for Blizzard:

Pleaseputyourhandintooneofthosepocketsthatreceivemorethantwobilliondollarsayearandbuysomemoreinstanceserversbecausetherearemorewowaccountsthanpeopleingreeceandmaybejustmaybealotofthemwanttorunadungeonatthesametime.

And you thought antidisestablishmentarianism was the longest word. Huhuh.

Come on Blizz .... you've got a great product, we love the game, but let's face it: going to a dungeon and being told try again later is like McDonalds saying they're out of Big Macs. It's like Taco Bell saying "Sorry no burritos today. How about a bagel?" Are you even kidding me?

Character buffs and nerfs, changing the mechanics of the game, who gets a mount when, all these things are a whole lot of whatever. But to promise a service, receive payment for that service, and then not provide that service? That's just wrong.

On the other hand, maybe the Alliance just broke the dungeon. They break everything else. We'll just go with that. The Alliance broke it. I know so. Aradia told me so. And now it's out and published on the internet, so it MUST be true!

LFG - Looking for Guild

2009-06-19T13:18:00.001-05:00

So Zaph, Vandalayinc, Kreios, Raxius, Odiefrom, Aradia … all at 80. We can do the old world dungeons and 5-mans, but the higher level instances are beyond our reach without full groups. That’s where the gear is that we want, of course. That brings us to the predicament. Most raids have gear requirements to get in to the raids where the gear is. So …. We’re looking for another guild to align ourselves with (not to join, just to have a working relationship with). There must be other guilds out there with mature members who find themselves in the same situation that we are in. 90% of the time PUGs are unpleasant and usually replace entertainment with frustration. We would rather not go that route.

So if anyone out there in Baelgun is reading this and can relate with our predicament, please pst us in game or comment here. We’re looking to align with other relaxed players that don’t want a demanding, militarized raid group. Our only requirement is that you’re 80 (or almost) and cool. Loot rules? We could either go with this:

One Rule: Be reasonable. If it’s for that particular character and an immediate upgrade: NEED. If it’s for future use, an alt, or income: GREED. PASS whenever you like.

Or this: One Rule: Everyone NEEDS everything and let the math work it all out. I am indifferent, either way. As long as everyone is on the same page.

Why I don't win lotteries

2009-06-19T13:16:00.001-05:00

It just might be that there is a finite amount of good fortune allocated to every individual. That would explain why I never win the lottery. I think all of my good fortune is wrapped up in one beautiful lady, affectionately known by guild-mates as Mrs. Zaph.

Saturday morning I wake up and find her on her laptop. She points at the screen and asks, “Will this do what you need it to do?” She had been searching for a puter and found one with exactly the same specs as my last ‘puter (the one with the fried green tomato for a motherboard). So she sends me and the boys out to get it. What a Sweetie!

In the words of Aradia: “Mrs. Zaph rocks!”

Amazingly enough, the install and patch downloads for WoW took 6 hours and 58 minutes. Last time it took about 17 hours, but I had installed from disc one then all the patches, then installed BC and all the patches, then Lich King and all the patches. This time I just installed from the three discs and then downloaded the patches all in one shot. I don’t know if that was it, but it sure didn’t take as long.

And then yesterday, Tuesday, the repaired puter arrived from HP. Install and patches, all done in about 4 hours. Oh yeah!

Effective Playing

2009-06-12T20:14:00.000-05:00

There are many things that are needed to play WoW effectively. Patience is one thing. Whether you're hitting the battlegrounds for marks because you want that war kodo, or if you are running dungeons for those sweet pieces of gear. Maybe you're grinding for rep, aiming at that Ambassador title. All these things require patience.

Focus is another thing that enhances effectiveness. If you want to reach level 80, collecting pets won't get you there. Getting that Bloodsail Admiral title might help, but it will be slow going indeed. Oh, and by the way, if you're complaining about your lack of gold? You won't find much in battlegrounds. Just a tip.

An open mind, willing to learn approach is of great help. There are a great many blogs, forums, newsletters and such out there that provide much direction. In-game friends are a great help as well. Just reading the tool-tips of your character's abilities would be the greatest of starts.

Some might say that you need uber gear to be effective. Some others might say you need a guild that will boost you through whatever instance you want. Naw, it's been proven many times that 0-80 is more than possible in greens and I'm here to tell you that Zaph went solo 0-70. He had help for the charger quest in Strat (a rogue friend that dropped what he was doing and lent that last bit of dps that I needed), but that was it. So when I hear "I need (fill in blank) or I'll never make the next level." I just can't buy into that. You might want help to finish a quest line, or just want company while you're doing it, or it's just more fun to hang with friends and accomplish things together (as our tight group does), but you don't NEED it.

I guess the point I'm getting at is that what is really needed for effective playing is not on the screen. Perspective, frame of mind, or attitude. Call it what you want, but if you want to play effectively, and by that I mean get the most enjoyment out of playing, then it is a matter of looking at your APPROACH to the game.

There is one thing that is absolutely necessary to playing effectively that is not of the mind, though. In fact it is necessary to playing at all. That is a computer. As of last Saturday, we had two computers on which we would play. Zaph/Van on one, the other shared by Odie and Krel. Well, Odie and Krel's is in the hands of the HP service department (again) and Zaph's puter? Impressive as a paperweight, but that's about it now. The muthaboard is toast. It is sleeping with the deviate fish. It is now pushing up daisies instead of pumping out data.

HP has emailed me with an estimated delivery time of June 18th for the puter. The other will take quite a bit longer to repair/replace. Mrs. Zaph just got a new car and I'm soon to go on forced furlough from work, due to the economy. Since my majors are in Engineering and Mining, I'll let you do the math.

And that brings me back full circle to the first thing I mentioned about playing effectively.

PATIENCE. I know about patience, I mean come on, I'm a Paladin for goodness sake! I can wait this out. There's no withdrawal here. (Why are there hundreds of creepy crawlies on my skin?) Really, I can do this! (My eyes won't stop twitching .... probably just need more coffee) I'll be fine. (I just know people are saying I'm paranoid .... behind my back!)

Well, gotta go, people are coming in now. Why are they locking the door? What is an "intervention" anyway? What are they talking about? Oh, this can't be good.

Army of the Dead

2009-06-10T04:40:00.000-05:00

So now Zaph's little brother is all grown up. The teen years were rough, but they're behind him now and he's an adult with a job. Van turned 80 last night. It wasn't the same as when Zaph turned 80. When Zaph hit 80 I stood up and said, "YES!", and paced around a bit, smiling in relief that I had made it! Let's face it, that first 80 is a LOT rougher than the rest. As Van turned 80, I just quietly smiled and thought to myself, "Now let's go see what this Army of the Dead is all about."

Army of the Dead. One word: cool. Alright two words: awesome. Oh, alright it's cool, awesome, fun, a blast, and an all-out trigger-tripping, boat-floating riot! OK, I'm easily amused. Immediately upon being trained for it I flew down to Light's Hope and rode over to Strat. Of course I did, it's what I do! Fun!

Oh Raxius! Come out, come out, wherever you are! Time to play!

An Idea for Regular World Events

2009-05-30T13:36:00.000-05:00

Remember those old swash-buckler movies, like maybe Robin Hood, when some of the good guys are being executed for being criminals of the State and their comrades are in the crowd of spectators, blending in? Then, at the last minute they throw off their cloaks, draw their swords and bows, and come to the rescue of their mates. Well Azeroth has it's criminals as well.

Whether they are buying/selling gold or breaking the TOA in any number of ways, they are essentially criminals of the State. When an account or player is banned, it might be fun to have a public banishment. No hangings or burnings at the stake, that would be a bit over the top and unnecessary, but maybe a simple event where characters are sent through, say, the "Portal of Shame" , never to return.

It would also be an opportunity for honor points and achievements. Let's say the characters being banished are Alliance. The banishment would happen in a Horde City and Alliance characters would be able to try to "rescue" their convicted mates, earning honor points for kills, achievements for whatever during the event, etc. Obviously, it would have to be scripted to some point, so that the convicted is not saved, but it could end in one of two ways. Either they are sent through the portal or, if the rescueing side accomplishes the rescue, the convicted can be killed in the ensuing brawl. Either way, the account would have to be banned, but it could create an atmosphere of unity for both sides. Perhaps even holding banishments in both Alliance and Horde cities simultaneously, making each faction decide whether to defend their banishment proceedings, or to try for a rescue. Different achievements could be set up for both scenarios.

Just one of those ideas that pop into the head at odd moments. What do you think?

Oh Yeah!

2009-05-30T13:08:00.000-05:00

Well I haven't posted for awhile because the short-term disability came to an end and I have returned to work. The shoulder is healing, but I can at least go to work with restricted abilities, so I am spending a lot less time in Azeroth than I have the last 6 weeks. So here is a short progress report:

Van has reached level 78 and is about 5 bubbles away from 79. Zaph's fishing is at 420. The guild bank has >1500 gold and among our group almost all toons have elite flying training. Zaph, Kreios, Aradia, Odiefrom, Kreleicon, Vandalayinc, and Raxius all fly elite now. Aloir and Lonegunman are below level 77 so we have plenty of time to build the bank back up.

And speaking of mounts, Zaph purchased all of the Horde land mounts from the Argent Tournament which brought him to 49. So with the purchase of the Armored Blue Wind Rider from Mel Francis in Dalaran, Mel sent me a letter asking if I could watch over a certain Albino Drake! OH YEAH! I can do that!

And don't you know, that very same day Kreios and Aradia asked Zaph if he'd like to tag along and run Strat. For I think the first time, I said no thanks to Strat. Well, let's just say the Baron has had better days, because Kreios and Aradia said "Drop it! Drop it, mister!" Knowing Kreios and Aradia as I do, obviously Baron Rivendare had no choice. Kreios is now in possession of the Baron's Death Charger! OH YEAH! That is so cool! Grats, Cap!

Hopefully soon, we'll get 3 or 4 of our Death Knights together and play some Gnome soccer by taking turns Death Gripping him! Looking forward to that! I think we'll be able to find a suitable victim trying to do his dailies at the Blue Sky Logging Grounds in Grizzly Hills. As Kreios said, it'll be a bad day to be a Gnome. Bwuhahahaha!

Progress

2009-05-19T08:02:00.000-05:00

Since I last mentioned it, the guild bank is back up to 4300 gold. That is after both Kreleicon and Raxius having received their elite flying training. Van is next, as he is half-way through 76, on his way to 77 (which will happen today, probably in the Scholazar Basin).

I believe it was last Friday that Van phased through the Kor'Kron Vanguard quests. I really enjoy that quest line, especially the battle to re-claim the Undercity. Fighting along-side Thrall and Lady Sylvannas is wild! It's elements to the game like this that people forget when they whine and whimper about how Blizzard has ruined their class or nerfed their spells, or any of the other complaints they have. Bah! I have no use for whiners.

But I digress ...

Yesterday Van's mining hit 450 and marked the making of his first Titansteel bar. Now I'm making 2 bars a day, which equates to about another 80-95 gold a day. And yes .... I am tempted to roll another miner!

Zaph is an exalted champion with all of the Horde, except Sen'Jin, which he will probably finish today as well. Zaph has been slightly ignored the last few days, but got a little action last night when he flew over to help Odie and Kreios with "Threat From Above". As I flew in to meet my guild brothers, I flew straight through Chillmaw and dragged his aggro right with me! The fight began before I even landed, but we prevailed (well Odie died, but his quest completed) amidst laughter and my apologies. What an entrance!

Van in the Nexus

2009-05-16T08:22:00.000-05:00

Last night while levelling Van (75 now, btw) Serrious asked if anyone was interested in a Nexus run. I said sure and he spent about another 10-15 minutes finding another three for the group. Serrious is another Death Knight in Slice and Dice. Good job Serrious! That's what I'm talking about when I say become self-sufficient! Anyway, we got the group together with a Druid tank and a priest healer. Not a single 80 in the group and it was a blast. Fast and efficient. To be honest, I've never watched someone else tank before because I was always the tank. And I'm here to tell you, it was fun being dps! The only responsibility was do as much damage as possible. No managing and maintaining threat. No worries about positioning in relation to the group. Just hit, hit hard, and go to town!

The healing and the tanking were both efficient. The tank/healer dynamic was right there. Kudos to Rufie and Peachz! I wonder if they were whispering each other, communicating like Kreios and Zaph do when running as healer/tank together, because they weren't in party chat.

The only time I died was at the end with the final dragon. And don't you know someone said keep jumping, keep jumping, and I asked "why?". He said he didn't know, just that everybody says to keep jumping during this boss fight. Okaaaaay....I've run Nexus plenty of times with Zaph and never saw the need to jump. Well it turns out that a def-capped levl 80 tank can withstand a little more than a level 75 Death Knight. Just a little! Guess who died just shortly after the boss? Oh yeah. Just after getting the achievement for the Nexus! Thanks for the rez, Peachz!

So for the record: the last boss in Nexus hits you with a de-buff which is cancelled with movement ... like jumping!

Good times!

It's Van's Turn

2009-05-10T20:16:00.000-05:00

Well, it's time for Vandalayinc to continue levelling. Van is my death Knight and is currently at level 72. He is Unholy and until now I've just sunk all the talents in Unholy. Having researched and experimented with specs before, I know that sinking all talent points into one tree isn't usually the optimal way to spec. So I'm starting with one of the popular unholy specs, the 0/10/61 (or at least once he hits 80). Having read various opinions and viewpoints, I dont think I'll stay that way for long, but it's a good place to start before I start tweaking it to my play-style.

I have to admit I like the Death Knight ALMOST as much as the pally. The ghoul pet, the power, even the sound effects, like the voice. It's all cool. Knowing the quests while levelling is also a very nice convenience. there are a few quests I didn't enjoy while levelling Zaph and it's nice to have the option to just skip them. I'm also looking forward to the cinematic phasing in Dragonblight. That still impresses me!

So Vandalayinc (named after George Costanza's fake company on Seinfeld) is a miner/enchanter. The mining because I like the idea of making 2 titansteel each day and enchanting because that will help Zaph with his becoming block capped. The only professions missing from our small group will be skinning and leatherworking, which eventually will be there with my warlock, Zaphodicus.

Another reason to get Van at max level? So Raxius and Van can duel! Raxius is Kreios' DK and our pally duels have always been fun, not to mention enlightening. Although I must admit that I think Kreios would sometimes let me win just to make the old man feel better, but he'll never admit that! LOL

So I will also be reporting on Van's progress here ... stay tuned!

Gold Sure Helps

2009-05-05T16:08:00.000-05:00

I had promised in an earlier post that I would describe my method for making gold. I have gotten a lot of whispers from Slice and Dice members asking how I make my gold, how the bank stays supplied so everyone can repair and/or take their daily allottment, etc. Since it is Torture Tuesday and the servers are down, I'll make more than one post today. So here it is, the secret to gold beyond your wildest dreams of avarice! OK not really, but at least a steady income.

I dont always do things in the same order, but these are my activities:

Dailies - Let's say 13 gold per dailie, plus an extra 10 in the purse for some and without even doing all 25 dailies I'm already making over 200 gold a day there.
(edit: 10 Tournament dailies + 5 Sons of Hodir dailies = 249 gold 45 silver)

Mining 450 - I mine. I like mining. If I spend 1-1.5 hour in the Basin I'll come up with at least 8 stacks of saronite bars (yes, 160 ores), which go for 30-39 gold per stack on our server. There's about 280 gold. I also extract crystallized fire, water, and air from clouds and get the earth and shadows from the mining nodes. 5-10 eternals of each within that same time frame. While I stock most of the eternals I farm, I sell some and that brings about 25-50 gold a day. And don't forget the daily sale of a Titansteel, there's another 90-110 gold right there. And I use Gatherer. A must add-on for any gathering profession.

Vendors - Mob trash will fill my bags at least once a day and vendors pay out anywhere from 10-25 gold when I empty them out.

Engineering 450 - Engineering is not a big money-maker because most things we make are for our use only. But the guns are nice! The Nesingwary 4000 goes for 900-1000 gold each and the Armor-Plated Shotgun goes for 650-750 gold each. In the last two weeks I've sold 2 Armor-Plated Shotguns and 1 Nesingwary 4000. I farm most of my mats so I probably netted 2000 gold from those three guns alone. Once we all have elite flyers, the investment into the Mechano-Hogs will begin. Once we all have one of those, then those sales will be ... dare I say it? ... Sweet!

Auction House - I usually have 45-90 auctions going at once on one or two of my characters. I use Auctioneer and Auctionator.

That's what I do. I know there are really snazzy ways to buy low/sell high on the AH. But that's more boring to me than filing taxes.

So for all you Slice and Dice guildies who want to be in Slice and Dice Champions, remember this: When Kreios and Aradia make a deposit into the guild bank it's to the tune of 1000-2000 gold at a time. When Zaph makes a deposit, it's like 250-1000 gold a day. When Odie makes a deposit it's in the hundreds as well. When I tell you that ONE of the criteria will be self-sufficiency, that means you had better be able to hold your own with group purchases. We don't carry or coddle in Champions. We don't all make the same amount, in fact I probably make the most, but I have a lot more time than anyone else. The point is we all put in large amounts, and the guild is funded by the guild, not the Guild Leader like you're used to in Slice and Dice.

I know that there will be those that have a million and one reasons why what I do won't work for them. And that's fine. To them I say, "Too bad, so sad. I have gold and you don't." This works for me, find what works for you.

Guild bank staus report: Over 4000 gold now, and that's after Odie got his elite flying training. Next!

Hail To The King, Baby!

2009-05-05T08:07:00.001-05:00

Oh yeah. Utgarde Pinnacle is our's! Last night we ventured into Utgarde Pinnacle again. Kreios, Aradia and Zaph invited Velanth along for several reasons. To begin with, before we (alright, IF we) bring anyone else into Slice and Dice Champions, we need to work with them A LOT in dungeon settings so we can be sure the chemistry is there. Secondly, we needed a little extra oomph. And finally, it's just cool to stay connected with Slice and Dice. Velanth is an 80 Death Knight, so Kreios flipped to holy and was our healer, Aradia and Velanth dps'd, and Zaph tanked.

Yes, we died a couple of times, but each wipe was learned from. All in all, it went very well, except that RL came into the picture about 3/4 of the way through and I had to be afk for about 15 minutes. Sorry, guys. This meant that Velanth ran out of time and had to take off. Sorry, Velanth, my fault, but had you hung around for just a few more minutes ..... that's right! Mobs? Trashed! King Ymiron? Down! Did we remember to let the kiddies watch? Yes! And what did it take? Two Pallys and a Mage, ladies and gentlemen. Two Pallys and a Mage.

But note, it did take the four of us to get to that point. Personnally, I think Skadi the Ruthless and Gortok Palehoof are tougher than King Ymiron. Velanth, you were a valuable asset while you were there.

Kreios was healing like Jonas Salk and Aradia was throwing more dps out than Lara Croft and Ellen Ripley put together! It was close, oh so very close! Lay on Hands, Blessing of Bubble, runic potions, you name it, it was used and on cool-down while we cheered.

Mana strudel never tasted so good!

Recovery

2009-05-04T16:12:00.000-05:00

Well, my fishing got up to 270 and my cooking got high enough to cook the Savory Deviate delight, which is all I wanted it for. Pirates and Ninjas! Good times! And there is over 3K gold in the guild bank (I didn't put it all in there, but a decent chunk was from farming) so I think being one-handed definitely had some advantages! Speaking of the guild bank, we are now working on Kreleicon's elite mount training. Then we'll work on our Death Knights I guess. Kreleicon is at 72, so it's not like he'll be flying in Northrend anytime soon, but neither will Vandalayinc (my DK), as he is only 71.

I'm back to using 2 hands now, so I can continue with the Tournament dailies. Whew! I have earned the "of Silvermoon" and "of the Undercity" titles, and now I am working on the "of Orgrimmar" title. It took a couple of jousting matches to get back in the swing, but it's all good now. Today there were a few server glitches and a couple of times I had my opponent down to almost nothing, then they'd either just disappear, or would turn friendly and become an invalid target. Arrg! The server went down and when it came back up, all was working normally again. Oh well, the trials and tribulations on a popular server, I guess.

The other night Zaph went with Kreios and Aradia into Utgarde Pinnacle and we did rather well, considering it was just the 3 of us! Just a little more dps and we would have cleared it. A word of advice to any Alliance folk who might be reading this: if you see 2 Pallys and a Mage coming, and they're Horde .... run or hide, cause chances are you're about to die. Bwuhahaha!

Speaking of which, the other night Kreios and Zaph went to the Blue Sky Logging camp in Grizzly Hills to see if there were any Alliance folk trying to do their dailies. There was one or 2 there, but they had just finished turning in their quests and for some reason would not accept our invitation to land! They flew off towards Venture Bay and of course we followed. One was a hunter and the other was ... not memorable, I guess. Anyway the hunter started taking shots at me and then it was on! And just as quick, it was off! The hunter was dead and his friend was making nice. He was emoting jokes, waving and such, obviously waiting for his friend to return with even more allies. Well his friend did return and they led us back to the logging camp where there was another Alliance guy, a rogue I believe. They landed, they taunted, we landed and killed the hunter again! I guess they assumed their Alliance brother would naturally step in and help. They were wrong. Ahh, good times!

Surgery - RL Slice and Dice

2009-04-28T09:18:00.000-05:00

On the 27th, yesterday, I had surgery done on my shoulder. So essentially, I am now with one hand. What does this mean for my WoW playing? Well for one thing, arena is out of the question and if I enter a battleground, I'm either meat at the mercy of the Alliance (and we know how merciful they are, ok we Horde aren't that merciful either, but that's the game), or I just hang out and hide for the honor. That's not honorable though, so that's out. So I have decided that it is time for Zaph to go on vacation. Fishing is a great vacation activity and it's time I levelled that up. Cooking, too. The Basin will be mined heavily and the Explorer title is in my sights! It will be fun to finish the Old World exploration on my newly acquired Ice Mammoth! Thank you Sons of Hodir!

This post is a short one today, as typing is much slower with one hand (ok, 2 fingers!). Thank goodness for Skype!

To my fellow arena mates, Kreios, Odie, and Aradia, thanks for your patience and please carry on! And while killing Alliance enemies, please feel free to get carried away!

The Argent Tournament

2009-04-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

What's not to love about the Argent Tournament? More dailies means more gold, more titles, another vehicle interface with the mounts, and more story line. Granted, the Black Knight line could have ended better, or at least been a bit more interesting, but at least the title was fun! /Nod to Monty Python.

The mounted jousting is fun, but I must admit it took me a while to get the hang of it. I got advice from Kreios and Odie but just couldn't get their advice to work for me. Then it hit me. They're both ret pallys and their technique was to do the most damage as quickly as possible. Finally I decided to think like the tank I'm supposed to be! Instead of being the one who does the most damage, I decided to be the one that lasts the longest. And it works for me. No charging, just buff, attack, shield-break as I chase them down, then rinse and repeat. So no one technique is best, just what works for each. Just like the rest of the game.

And yes, I am now Zaph of Silvermoon and will be working on getting all of the Horde titles. Being Ambassador means I don't need the commendations so the purses with 10 gold is nice. Pays for the donation as well.

While doing the dailies at the tournament, I am also doing the Sons of Hodir dailies. My name is Zaph and I am a mount-a-holic. Without a mammoth. That will change.

Duality

2009-04-21T09:59:00.000-05:00

First there was dual-wielding. Then there was dual-specc'ing. Now we have dual-guilding. Zaph is no longer the guild leader for Slice and Dice. That helm has been handed over to Kreleicon (Sithpaldin's new main). Since my DK, Vandalayinc, and my lock, Zaphodicus are both still members of Slice and Dice, I still intend to be an active member of our guild. Now we also have Slice and Dice Champions, our new guild with but 4 members currently: Kreios, Aradia, Odiefrom and Zaph. Kreleicon will be joining us once he hits 80 (and we are all looking forward to that!), at which point Vandalayinc will become the guild leader.

Why the extra guild?

1.) Well, while 99% of the guild-mates in Slice and Dice are good-natured and responsible, it becomes hard for the 80s in the guild to run an instance together when the lower levels want more converstion and less play. After all, we have always been a "social" guild, and I would never change that.

2.) The bulk of our 80s are adults/young adults. Sometimes adults need to converse with just adults. Think of it as "adult swim hour" at the community pool. There's just a lot less splashing in the pool with just us 80s there.

3.) Hey! Another bank! Oh yeah.

Don't get me wrong, the folks in our guild are GREAT! Funny, witty and great to chat with sometimes. Just not all the time. Like when we're running an instance, or only have so much time to get our dailies done.

So the four of us are in BOTH "Slice and Dice" and "Slice and Dice Champions". I could never leave Slice and Dice. It's a great guild with a great bunch of folks.

So to all the whispers I've gotten since the change:

I HAVEN'T LEFT THE GUILD!

Right on!

2009-04-18T10:01:00.000-05:00

I encourage my sons to play WoW, not too much mind you, there must be limitations. In the case of WoW, I think that there is much to be learned from it that can be applied to RL. Like, if you want something, you have to work for it and sometimes wait for it. Most times your experiences are based on your skill and decision-making, sometimes it's based on something outside yourself. How to conduct yourself with other people, etc.

Today I read a post by the famous Greedy Goblin himself, Gevlon. All I can say is you have to read it for yourself here.

I don't always agree with his "attitude", but his insight is hard to beat most times.

Who is this Zaph guy anyway?

2009-04-14T12:11:00.000-05:00

Thought I'd make another post describing Zaph's attributes.

Ambassador Zaph Jenkins of the Shattered Sun is a miner (450) and engineer (450). Fishing is at about 120 something (been itching to go fishing lately so that'll be coming up). Cooking? I don't cook, but someday I'll work on that. First aid is maxed. As Ambassador I of course have all of the racial mounts from the Horde plus all of the flyers from Shadowmoon, the armored brown bear, the swift zevrah, both flying machines, both pally mounts, totalling 43 mounts. Yes, I'm looking forward to that albino drake! Getting there. And of course the Mechano-Hog looms large in my mind, but the cost of the parts is prohibitive in that I would rather spend that gold helping friends get elite flying (makes it easier for everyone when we can all arrive together someplace). I know, I know. But I'll tell you this: we all put in to get one toon elite, then we all pool together for the next, and it's working! When a group pools together, everbody swims faster! Sometime soon I'll post on my gold making method, not that it's phenomenal or anything, but it is effective for what is needed/wanted.

Currently a tank, a little over def-capped at 542 working on getting block-capped. With the dual-spec, I'll be going Holy for my secondary, as prot has never really been that viable in PvP, we shall see with the patch, though. So the gear I've been collecting through Wintergrasp honor has been primarily spell-power oriented. Still deciding whether the stone shards will go towards heirlooms or the mount. Hmm, we'll see what mood strikes at what time!

We have 2 arena teams. "Death by Pally" is our 2v2 (for a good laugh look up our rating! Just bear in mind that it was our first season and with a prot pally). Our 3v3 team is "Naga Nuggets and Strudel" and we have only skirmished to get the feel of 3v3 mechanics.

See you next post. Happy downloading!

Yesterday was Christmas Eve

2009-04-14T11:58:00.000-05:00

Like I said earlier, I have been looking forward to 3.1, and it is here! Today is like a mid-year Christmas, and yesterday was like Christmas Eve. Why? Because it was one of those days when not only did we take Wintergrasp (usually easy enough), but the very next round we kept Wintergrasp. Always an awesome feeling!

And while to the hardcore raiders this may not seem like much, but we got the Nexus achievemnt last night as well. Me (prot pally), Kreios (ret pally), and Aradia (mage) ran it and ran it well. We are becoming an efficient team and as our group grows in size slowly, we will be taking on the harder content as well. Not on a schedule, no interviews involving minimum gear requirements, just folks who want to see the content and enjoy the accomplishments stress-free, with friends.

And now to check on the downloads!

Our Guild's Rules

2009-04-13T06:13:00.000-05:00

Our guild's name is Slice and Dice. I know, it's as original as Zaph, but we like it! Anyway, on our guild site we have posted the rules and I thought I'd share them here.

1. Foul language. None. Period. Anyone who can’t keep the green clean out of respect for their guild and guild mates will be swiftly removed from Slice and Dice.

2. Help with quests. There will be those who enjoy partnering with others for quests and leveling. There will be those who prefer to work alone. Asking for help is always encouraged, but begging and whining will not be tolerated. Remember, there are many ways to find help outside of the guild, if others are busy with their own toon’s goals. The best help you can get is advice from higher levels. They’ve probably been there and done that.

3. Gold. Everyone get’s their own so don’t even ask. As you get promoted, you’ll have more access to the guild’s account, but you have to prove that you can earn your own first.

4. Respect. Remember that all of our toons have real live people behind them. Adults and children, men and women, all of whom have feelings. We are all to be gentlemen and ladies. Inappropriate behavior will earn you a swift kick out of the guild.

5. Guild Bank. All items in the guild bank are there for guild member use only. They are not to be taken and sold on the AH. They are not to be taken and used for alts that are not in the guild. Don’t take an item unless you intend to use it on your character.

6. Problem resolution. Bring problems to a 5 Star general or myself in a whisper or a letter, NOT in guild chat. The problem will then be discussed among Officers and above, a resolution will then be decided, and that will be that. If the problem continues, refer to rule #7:

7. The Guild Master’s word is law.

Of course, at some point we had to make things even clearer on some points:

Post subject: Further Explanation of the Rules

1. The foul language rule. This includes”OMG”, as not everyone assumes that “gosh” is being used. This can be offensive to those with religious beliefs (including your Guild Leader).

2. The help with quests rule. This would include the asking for a run through an instance. First of all it must be understood that the 80s in our guild did NOT get “boosted” through dungeons. They actually ran them with a group. Whether it was with friends, a PUG, or a combination, they did them legitimately. Not only is it unfair to the 80s to be asked to stop what they’re doing to “boost” you through an instance, it is unfair to the guildy that gets boosted. Let me explain. When you get “boosted”, you lose the real experience (not XP) that is gained by running it legitimately. That means that when you get to 80 and/or get in a real group, you’re going to be 1. Ineffective, and 2. Embarrassed in front of people who know what they’re doing. That is why the following rule is now in place: There will be NO asking for instance runs from the 80s in the guild. People in their own level groups should work together. If folks in your own level range can’t, then get a PUG going.

3. Any problems with these new rules, refer to rule #7.

While our guild is somewhat young, only about 9 months old, believe it or not we have a good bunch of folks who are enjoying being in Slice and Dice and we rarely have any drama. I think that's because of two things. 1.) Water seeks it's own level and 2.) I really don't hesitate that much when it comes to /kick!

One of those good days

2009-04-07T11:42:00.000-05:00

I'm sure we all have both good days, bad days and so-so days in WoW. Some days I have no direction and cant figure out exactly what I want to do at the time. Other days are filled with excitement and achievements (not necessarily the ones that pop up in a banner on the screen). This post is about a good day that was back in early to mid 2008.

Zaph was 70 and was escorting Sithpaladin (my son) through Shadowfang Keep. Yeah, it was a "boost", and while I won't do that in general, this was father/son time. We were running along the Ruins of Lordaeron on our way there, when we spot another Paladin running towards us. Her name was Celanna and she stopped and asked if we were on our way to Shadowfang. She explained that she was just there and got totally owned. "Why yes we are, as a matter of fact, would you care to join us?" Her response was, "Sure! Thanks!" Sith was excited because we were now in "a group", while I thought it was cool that we were three Paladins.

Well, obviously we cruised right through it rather quickly. What I noticed was that even though they had an over-geared escort, they both fought aggressively. Nothing irritated me more than when helping a lower level through an instance and they'd just watch, wait, and loot. One of the reasons I don't do it anymore.

While we were winding up the dungeon, Sith asked if we could invite her to our guild. I said sure, and he said he noticed that she wasn't in a guild and would she like to be. She said sure, thanks and also made a point to express thanks for the run through Shadowfang.

I told her that if she needed anything to just ask, Paladins have to stick together. And that's what we've done. We've quested together and helped each other. Of course initially conversations were short and the matter at hand only, as I am married quite happily and didn't want any unnecessary conversations with a female online. Imagine my relief when I found out that the person behind Celanna was a guy! I thought "Cool! We can actually hang out and talk now!"

Time goes by and through Celanna we met Aradia, who is just as cool (and, by the way, makes a really good strudel!). So Zaph, Sith, Odie (my other son), Celanna and Aradia have become a rather strong group. Maybe not strong in the sense of uber-geared, dropping Sarth +3 in a blink, but strong in that if anyone needs anything, the others drop what they're doing and they are there.

So that day when Zaph and his son went to Shadowfang Keep? That was one of those really good days.

3.1

2009-04-05T03:44:00.000-05:00

If you nav'd your way here because of the title, thinking to get some info like class buffs/debuffs, when the release will be, etc., well I'm here to tell you I'm not here to tell you. There are far more insightful and in-the-know folk than me out there and I think you know who I'm talking about (hint: look to the left). What I will tell you is that I am looking forward to the patch. Yep, the add-on downloads and everything. You see I'm not of the camp that worries about what happens to my class, what changes in the game become more difficult or easier. I'll go to my favorite resources (again, to the left) and figure it all out. I look forward to the new "stuff". I'm a stuff kinda guy. Guess that's why I'm an engineer, toys and stuff! Sure, the Pally may get buffed, may get nerfed but really, is it worth stewing over? Naw. Now, I've seen the screams of "Blizz is killing (insert class)" ... "Blizz hates (insert class spec)." Come on. You know and I know that the folks at Blizzard work HARD to make WoW what it is. Do you think they'd take the chance of alienating a whole class of characters, risking the loss of their continued subscription? Don't think so. And beyond the money, look at the art, the lore, the mechanics of this game. The economy, the transportation systems, the variety of races and mobs, the different landscapes. I find it hard to believe that the folks at Blizz think of this as merely a job. There's passion behind the making and maintaining of WoW and logic would lend one to think that they are doing everything they possibly can to make every class as strong and playable as possible, keeping a balance with the other classes and making them viable choices as characters to roll.

It's like getting a Happy Meal when you were a kid (well, they didn't have Happy Meals when I was a kid, but I do have sons). You could stew and worry about what toy you'd get, but you got what you got. The important thing is, you got a Happy Meal ... and something new to play with.

Introduction

2009-04-05T01:05:00.000-05:00

Hello blogosphere! I am Zaph. While there are numerous Zaphs out there in WoW, I reside on the Baelgun realm. I am a protection specc'd Paladin (5/60/6). As for professions, I am an engineer/miner, 450/450. I have been ghosting many blogs and forums for quite awhile now and thought I'd try my hand at blogging.

Before I go any further, I must give thanks to the many resources I've used to get to where I am:

Paladin Schmaladin - Ferraro, thanks for your wit and intelligence. Your guides and observations have been a great source of useful information and entertainment.

Maintankadin - Thank you for all of your research and number-crunching! Invaluable!

BRK - What can I say about an insightful humorist who has his priorities set straight? You are missed, never forgotten, and nothing but well wishes for you and your family!

Greedy Goblin - Gevlon, while your attitude is one of abrasive contempt and arrogance, you do have a way of nailing down the truth at times. I don't always agree with you, but I always enjoy your posts.

Wowgrrl - I always go here first and after enjoying your posts you are my portal hub to other blogs. You are a great reminder that there are good people behind the pixels!

And many more that I will mention in future posts.

Speaking of future posts, they will most probably deal with our guild, Slice and Dice, guildies, comrades, raids, and observations of the game in general. Not much different than what's been blogged about already, but hopefully I'll be able to bring another perspective to the community table which has fed me well.