Love for the Guild

To some who raid regularly this might not seem like a big thang. For anyone who's been there you may understand the pride I feel for my peeps.

We have been raiding randomly for years. For years we have tried to get enough people and time to put together a group that could go.

Without giving tons of back story we have had quite a roller coaster of no go's and fails over the long history of KG. At one time we were raiding regularly and stuck in Kara only to lose a significant portion of people due to egos and the want to raid too often. I know, its an oxymoron, but let me say our guild is casual. We have people of all levels and I expect as their leader that everyone gets time. I expect guild members to go out and help other lower level toons or new people. I refused to let a raid group trash that idea. They were not interested in the rest of the guild, they wanted to raid only and wanted to be treated better or different because of it. Now there is nothing wrong with that, it just doesn't fit who we are. So they took off. S'ok by me. 'Nuff said.

So anyway...here we are many years later and we have a system that works. We have finally found enough people that feel the same way. They want to be part of a family guild, they want to pvp, they want to run others through dungeons, they want to quest and stand around in Dal and chat, but they also want to raid at a higher level.  This means that we don't raid regularly. Sometimes for weeks on end we simply get the weekly done and that's it. The best thing is that we're all cool with that as long as we are still moving forward, albeit slowly, toward something more. Trying something new, even if we don't succeed at first.

So to quit blathering on. We are moving through ICC! Amazing but true! Completely awesome! Having a blast! We are moving slowly. We have a 10man and right now in the last 2 weeks we've made it to Sauerfang. Now mind you, this is raiding 1 maybe 2 nights a week if we can get everyone together.

It ain't the top but man it ain't shit either. We have enough people that have taken the time to get the gear needed. They have taken the time to gear, gem and enchant their hearts out. They have spent some time learning the fights. All this amongst kids, family, jobs, loss of jobs, and all the general RL bullshit that comes down the pipe we have managed to stick by each other and make it work.

You might ask why? Why spend all that time? Why not bail for a guild that is raiding instead of waiting? Well, simply put, I like the people I run with and I enjoy my guild. I have a deep seeded loyalty that some of you may think is crazy, but that's ok. I have RL friends in my guild and have met in person a handful of others. I consider them friends. You don't just take off on your friends because they have hit some hard times. So I guess in that respect it's more personal than anything to do with the game itself.

I am so proud of my guild. The wonderful and vast range of people that make it up, run it and stand by it. If I could, I'd give them all a /hug, and maybe a /kiss too.

This is a Test...

this is a test

Green Linen Shirt

Wow cool, I have now figured out how to add pop out mouse over tool tips into my blog.
Been working on that for a week to find the information and finally found someone who had actually written down enough steps for me to understand.

If you would like to do this too I will add it to my blogger help page but you can also follow this Blog Azeroth link here: Blogger How To  and read all of the posts...that was my first mistake, not reading all the way through.
Thanks to the contributors for their help :)

A Little Love

Hey guys,
So I've decided to spread the Zabby love and put myself out there a little, as well as dedicate some time to some other WoW areas of the community.

I have volunteered to be a wiki-brarian for Twisted Nether Blogcast which is a podcast about their blog site about, of course, WoW.

I have also added myself to their Big List of Blogs as well as submitted an introduction at Blog Azeroth.

Both links I have included. If you're interested in reading more than just me, check it out.

If you found me through them I welcome you to my world, and as everything else around here...take it with a grain of salt and know that I do not proclaim to be exceptionally knowledgeable about anything in particular. Just highly opinionated. :)

The Twisted Nether Blogcast
Blog Azeroth

Are You a Fanboy....er Girl....um, Person?

1) Fanboys play the game more than they actually work.
ME: not quite but close

2) Fanboys read every scrap of literature they find.
ME: almost, I don't read the comics and I only read a few blogs

3) Fanboys listen to every podcast ever made about WoW.
ME: I have 11 and growing...scary

4) Fanboys follow everyone on Twitter.
ME: yep!

5) Fanboys argue over gaming mechanics, specs, stats and anything else they feel strongly about.
ME: kinda...I will engage in light debate

6) Fanboys talk about WoW incessantly.
ME: whenever I can :P

7) Fanboys think their class is teh best, their guild is uber l33t, and all others are stupid.
ME: no never...well, hardly never...almost never??

8) Fanboys organize "game sessions".
ME: nope, unless you call "Pajama Sunday" organized

9) Fanboys troll the forums to point out how everyone else is a loser.
ME: not on your life...I'm usually one of the losers

10) Fanboys are geeks, nerds, freaks, dorks and generally crazy.
ME: yep totally, at least 4 out of 5

11) Fanboys go to conventions to meet other geeks, nerds, freaks, dorks and generally crazy people.
ME: would SO do this if I had more cash to splurge on that sort of thing

12) Fanboys know the devs by name.
ME: most of them yes, at least the key players

So what does this mean? I am very nearly totally a fanboy. Yea it's hard to admit but there it is. I just love this game!
So I am trying to look past the crappy lowlife hanger-on connotation of the word, and have decided that being a fanboy is ok in moderation. :)


**Disclaimer: This post was meant for fun. If I have insulted you in any way it was completely and utterly fabricated in your head.

Leveling the Old Fashioned Way.

I remember leveling my main. It was fun, interesting, always felt like there was something to do, and it was long.

It used to take 10 levels to get through a zone, and I'm talking vanilla WoW, and now BC.

You know what? I really liked it that way. I realize that I am probably in the minority these days. I hear a lot about how great it is to bring up alts really quickly, at least to 68.

But...

This is my dilemma; I am raising a new "main" so to speak, on a different server. My horde toon is 65 and I have stopped playing her over the last week because I've run into an issue or two.

I would like to move through the content progressively and be able to see all the story-lines and lore available. That is the main reason I created a horde toon to begin with. Right now I feel like I've skipped a great deal in Old World story and am now in BC and hitting the same problem. I have completed Hellfire Peninsula and have moved on into Zangarmarsh, but as I said I'm 65. At this rate I will not get to see all the BC content either before it's time to head to Northrend. I'm bummed about that.

Second is professions. My leather working skill is so low that I will be spending a huge chunk of time simply grinding out leather. I do hate farming.
I had decided to do the Venomhide mount quest for the Venomhide raptor mount and took that time in Un'Goro to get my leather working at least to 303 so I could begin in Outlands. What am I going to do but farm to get out of BC? I am not looking forward to that.
Cooking didn't seem to be much of a problem but my fishing is STILL around 27.

Third is gold. Being this is my main toon on a new server I have no other toons to give me a leg up. I do not have regular flying skill and am just reaching a point where I will be able to afford it soon. I do have to say though, that I distinctly remember there being a gold shortage the first time around. Azeroth it seems is broke, or at least very cheap when it comes to paying their heroes. But in WoW's defense, the first time around we didn't fly until we were 70. By that time you had the cash.

All these add up to a not so great experience with leveling. Had I started WoW now, during this expansion, I don't know if I would have enjoyed the leveling process as much as I did way back in the day. All my friends would be even further off in the distance than they were then. 80 seems really far away when you're 14 or 27 or even 52.
The experience of going through all the zones and seeing everything has been so decreased you can literally skip whole areas of content and still level. Whole story-lines and ideas are just missed completely.

So that leaves me with my question. What do I do? Do I just continue, level and say screw the story and the content I want to see so badly and "start over" in Wrath? Do I continue leveling through BC as normal? At that rate I will be 75 by the time I move on to Northrend. This dilemma has stopped me short and I have not been able to decide where to go from here. I understand there is a great story in Nagrand so should I skip the rest of Zangar? What about Terrokar and Shadowmoon Valley? All those quests in Shattrath? Aldor or Scryer?? OMG!!

Ok...take a breath...in with the good out with the bad...

For me a great portion of the game is about playing the entire game not just end-game content. I bring up alts to explore new areas or to re-explore old quest lines I enjoyed or had forgotten about. I do not bring up alts to do heroic dungeons at 80 or to help my guild down a boss in TOGC. I am a firm believer in playing a toon for it's own enjoyment and not necessarily how much you can contribute to a raid group. Don't get me wrong. I know that that certainly has a place in the game and I enjoy my raiding. It is just not all there is to the game for me.

I still don't know what to do, and my toon still sits in Swamprat Camp waiting for me to make up my mind. /sigh
Nothing is going to get done this way.

Random Stuff About Me and My Toons

So I was writing my about page...finally I know. And I kept having to hit the backspace. I found I had just a bunch of silly tidbits of info I wanted to include for some random reason. So here is the list of silly little things you may or may not want to know about me ingame.

1) Zab was the first toon I ever created and she remains my main to this day.

2) I have 4 level 80's, each has maxed main professions.

3) I WILL get a horde to level 80. Currently she is 65 :P

4) All my toons are female.

5) Most all my toons have a backstory. All my high-level ones definitely do.

6) I have at least one toon of every race and I have tried every class at least once. The only ones I found I didn't care for are rogue and mage. I think it's because I'm just not that quick on the trigger.

7) I have RP'd in game and in more ways than I care to disclose in this post.

8) I always play with the game sound and when possible with a headset. I love the music and the immersion. Only once have I listened to my own music while playing. I was farming at the time.

9) I would rather farm the mats for something than buy them, I have not figured out why I do this.

10) I love to complete things. Achievements are the bane of my existence as I now have a built in "to-do list", and I feel the need to check them off. lol

That's it for now. If I think of any more possibly interesting things I'll edit or post another.

Cataclysm - Some Stat Changes Announced

First and foremost, for the full blue post please go here Forum Post 

Read it once, read it twice and then lets talk about it.

My initial response on the first read through was;
"Well Hell! Let's just all get a shield, wear mail and call it a day." The stamina stat changes lead one to believe that we shall all be equal. Or equal-ish. And..."Crap, those poor elemental shammies and balanced druids will have to do the same thing my warlock does now with spirit to spell power conversion, except it will be spirit to hit. Haven't we just moved the problem to somewhere else then?" I disagree with the spirit to anything conversion, having had to do it for all of Wrath. I felt stupid looking for spirit at first but have now gotten used to it. Frankly, converting one stat to another is frustrating. There must be an inherent gearing problem here somewhere that no one is talking about. Perhaps spirit itself IS the problem? I thought we were eliminating those this time around?
Finally, after the first read through I find I am terribly disappointed. These changes seem somehow so much more homogenizing than I expected. They also seem, at first glance, to be just as confusing as the stats we're currently working with. Block rating?? I had to scroll back up and reread what the hell that was in the first place. It's 30% plus something??

Ok so now I'm going to take a break. Go have some lunch. Let the initial shock wear off of seeing not at all what I expected to see. Then I will be back and reread this and see if it makes a bit more sense.

And Poof! We're back!
I have taken the afternoon to think about all this and have reread the post. My initial reactions still hold pretty much true. I read this out loud to my husband and the questions he through out were very close to what I had rolling around in my cranium.
Rather than rehash the whole kit and kaboodle, there are brief areas I'd like to look at.

Stamina - Because of the way we will be assigning Strength, Agility, and Intellect, non-plate wearers will end up with more Stamina than before. Health pools will be much closer between plate-wearers and other classes. 

AND

  Armor - The way Armor mitigates damage is not changing, but the Armor stat has been rebalanced to mirror changes to the armor curve in Cataclysm. As a result, bonus Armor will go down slightly overall. We are also changing the mitigation difference among armor types so that plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth. 

Lead me to believe that I WILL be a tanking warlock! Now, where did I put that sword?

Block Rating - Block is being redesigned to scale better. Blocked attacks will simply hit for 30% less damage. Block rating will improve your chance to block, though overall block chances will be lower than they are today. 

What IS this? I guess I'm going to have to wait for EJ to find out what the formula is? Or how/what this means to me?

Being Removed from Items Attack Power - This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does. Spell Power - Spell Power is another stat that you'll no longer see present on most items. Instead, as mentioned above, Intellect will grant Spell Power. One exception is that caster weapons will still have Spell Power. This allows us to make weapons proportionately more powerful for casters in the same way they are for melee classes. Armor Penetration - This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities. Shield Block Value - This stat will no longer be present on items, since the amount blocked is always proportional to the amount of damage done. Talents and other effects might still modify the damage-reduction percentage from 30%, however.

OK, so either get rid of them or don't get rid of them. This "It doesn't exist but it does" shit, doesn't cut it for me.

Going Away Completely


MP5 - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Holy paladins and Restoration shaman will be redesigned to benefit from Spirit.

Defense - Defense is being removed from the game entirely. Tanking classes should expect to become uncrittable versus creatures just by shifting into Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, or by using Righteous Fury.

Spell Ranks - Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level. The levels at which you can learn certain spells are being changed in order to fill in some of the gaps, and we will be introducing some new spells to learn along the way as well.

Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.  

Happy with all of this but Weapon Skill. So I was just born knowing how to wield a mace?


If you are a Balance druid or Elemental shaman:

• You will still share gear with Restoration druids and shaman.
• Your gear will have Spirit on it. It won’t have Hit on it.
• You will have a talent that converts Spirit to Hit. We will adjust talents accordingly so that you want about as much Spirit as, say, a warlock wants Hit.
• Hit on rings and other such gear will still benefit you.
• Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs.

I can only say, "I'm sorry". Having had to put up with the spirit to spell power conversion throughout Wrath I can only wish you the best with this one. My opinion of the gear issues stated above still stands.
In my mind I see a big chart on a wall with diagrams and arrows and stats and gear all over the place. There, right on the bottom right edge is a hole. Oh? We'll give that to balanced and elemental. The warlocks got moved to this (pointing at chart) gear spot over here with intellect and cloth gear. we're going to lump them in with mages until we can get this crazy shard UI figured out. Now what do we do with mail again? <scratch scratch>

OK. Now that I'm done being Negative Nancy over here....I had an expectation of a very pared down system harkening back to the days of vanilla wow. Where the core stats modified everything and all this mumbo jumbo didn't exist so much. Or was that all in my mind? It's possible after all that I'm romanticizing the pre-BC days. I really didn't spend any time raiding in them so I could be way off base here.
This is what I pictured.
Stamina = HP, possible defensive additions
Strength = defensive of some sort, block, melee crit
Agility = attack power, melee haste (after all what does agile mean?)
Intellect = mana pool, spell power, spell crit?
Spirit = mana regen
That's it. That's all that resides in my little brain. Hit can go away along with haste. Make it all a base modifier such as the 2 Stam=1AP.
I understand the need to boost through gear and I'm not trying to be dumb. However, in some cases the current proposed changes seem dumbed down to me. Scaling armor differently is a prime example. So much of what I am, what I do, and where I stand in relation to my group and mobs/bosses is based on my clothie status, that I'm kinda left without words. (You can now stand in the stupid, stupid. Oh god, I didn't just say that did I?)
No, I'm being overdramatic here. I don't expect this to be that massive that we can all go tank. But it sure reads like that at first glance.

In the end I am relying on Blizzard to make the right choices, and in a way I trust them to. I fear that they may be heading down the long slow road to death and I pray that is not the case. Truly I do. I hope that this glimpse is just a small piece and that the puzzle it fits into is much greater than the sum of it's parts.
Ever the optimist in the end.


*All excerpts are from the original post by Eyonix on 03/01/2010 and are the property of Blizzard Entertainment. The post, in its entirety can be viewed through the link provided at the beginning of this post.