Birdie & WoW Cards

Sorry for running this update a little later than usual. Been busy.

I'm helping The Blave with a Musical that is adorable, fun, and really good. I'm not saying it will change your life, but it IS good fun theatre. Go SEE IT! LIMITED ENGAGEMENT!

And also, I've been playing Magic The Gathering a little with T1nk, and playing WoW The TCG A LOT with some of my old guildies.
Just like in ACTUAL WoW we like running instances and raids, so we invest in the "Event Decks" quite a bit. We ran Black Temple recently,

 and it was fairly cool. Managed to handle it but it was a real good challenge as we kept things moving but it never felt like we were just murdering the event.
I am really stoked to try the "self run" event decks such as the Instances (Classics like Scarlet Monastary, Shadowfang Keep & Deadmines) and the newest, Caverns of Time!
"Self Run" meaning no One Player has to play as the event so all players can get in on the action.
I have a "raid spec'd" Shammy deck that I've been running since the card game came out (with tweaks of course) and now I've been designated the group Druid, so I will be looking into synergies and fun mechanics for that.
Not to mention, the bug is catching a bit at Legends and I hope to be hosting events within a few months, so stay tuned!

Know Your Role In WoW . . . But do It "Wrong."

Shammy Tank, Mage tank, Melee Lock, Regen beasts.
These are some terms that you may or may not be familiar with if you've been playing WoW for any length of time. I know a lot of people like finding ways to work outside a paradigm and succeed. sometimes that's the whole thrill is the attempt. That ability to be outside the box and try and find a unique way to use "set" rules.
Finding like minded mavericks might be fun, but they often don't have the research and knowledge to inform the strategies. This is frustrating, as well as most others who follow the "norm" roles don't have the patience or care to listen to an alternative.
Specifically, in WoW, there are one of three "roles" that a player falls into if they choose to group. Tank, which is the heavy damage taker, the guy the big baddy wails on while the rest of the group does other things. Heals, guess what he does . . . makes sure the guy Tanking stays up and also heals the other guys. DPS, literally "Damage Per Second" but has become a catchall term for any player who is not performing the first two roles.

From THIS SOURCE

As I'm sure most of you know, depending on what class you choose to play they have the ability to ONLY fill certain roles as defined by their talent specializations. Example: Paladin's can tank, heal or dps because their specializations are named "Holy" for healing, "Protection" for tanking, and "Retribution" for dps. Warriors can only Tank or dps, their Specs include "Protection," "Fury," & "Arms."
HOWEVER! There are some of us that wish to try the weird and wonderful. I'm sure many of you have heard me call my own toon "Termenus, The Incredible Tanking Mage" and my ol' buddy Necrus, who was once a Fury Spec'd-Titan's Grasp Tank, and our even OLDER comrade from the Cutthroats who was our Shammy Off-tank( the backup/secondary/tank who picks up any additional enemies). There was even this warlock who I once met that told me he was a melee lock. These are of course just actual players I have met. Many times there's a conversation about other alternatives, like Hunter Tanks (when Survival spec was heavy into the hunter's . . . survivability), Priest Tanks who stack stam, armor enhancements, mitigation specs as well as heavy heals. OR even the idea of stacking spirit on any character in such a way that your regen is ridiculous. Is it possible to give yourself such regen that your bar ticks right back every time you get hit? No idea, haven't looked it up. But the IDEA . . isn't it worth wondering? I mean, I get giddy whenever I start casting so fast the Global Cool Down stops me from casting any faster, I couldn't imagine being able to walk through combats like I was MuthaFuckin Wolverine!

Can it be done at hi end? I don't think so due to the fierce pigeon holing done by specs, gear, and the fights of instances-and-higher content. But I always have hope for leveling, especially with all the nerfs that have been done over the years, maybe even in max level instances/Heroics due to access to better gear.
One last thing though, this only applies to "at level" instanceing/partying. I consider it a "run through" or even "Cheating" if your more than 5 levels out of the encounter's suggested level or have gear that is more than like 50ish higher a gear score than the average blue/starter epic at that level range. To me, it's not only the idea of "alternative role filling" it should not be a cakewalk either.

I'm sure there are countless more "alt specs" out there. Maybe you've tried some of them? I know I would love to have enough time to not only play WoW as much as I used to but find other crazy people who play about the same time I do to try and gear up and ATTEMPT some of these crazy things. ah well. Later H47ites!

Vanilla Fun

As in "Vanilla World of Warcraft" no, not like . . .in the bedroom, although that is where my computer is . . . not for that, specifically . . .
But on to Wow.
As most of us know, on Tuesday Sep. 25th, The one race EVERYONE thought should have been in WoW, whether they wanted it or not FINALLY came to Azzeroth, after four expansions. I was on "the wows" that day and was delighted to discover SO MUCH of the content was available without the expansion proper, such as being able to roll Panderan (not as a monk though, that required the Xpac), and the new Pet Battle system.

So, of course, having never seriously played or owned a copy of Pokemon, or Digimon, Or Monster Rancher, I was instantly addicted to the Pet Battle system. (I also weakly justified it because of the vague potential to acquire a geode pet which, T1nk expressed that she wanted. although now I think you can't trade that one so I will have to farm it off Elementium, but, anyway). My buddy Moose was also on and was chatting with me a bit about the PokeWow, as I realized I had dinged the "Big City Pet Brawlin' - Horde" I saw the Alliance Version as well as the "Multicity" version and knew I had to do them!
So I told Moose to meet me and we flew off to Darnassus on our Horde Toons, ready for sneaky cross faction Capitol Poke-WoW. It was a blast, flying up into Darnassus, forgetting how to get to Exodar and then dying repeatedly because all the guards are 90 now, escaping a hunter in The Deeprun Tram by just hopping on the Tram even though I guess he thought he could take a raid spec'ed Tank & a PvP geared Frost Mage by himself, corpse dropping through IF where we REALIZED the guards had been buffed, and then corpse dropping through SW, avoiding ALL THE WARLOCKS ON THE SERVER (Ally side) and watching allies who DEFINITLY COULD(crazy, most recent season PvPgear) take me and moose not even realize we were only a few miles above them, waiting for the boat to Darn, then Exodar.
 It wasn't until the next day till Moose texted me while I was at work "Dude, we could have just done the battles on Alliance toons and gotten the achievement." To which I replied along the lines of, "yeah, that sounds right, but FUCK THAT! That would have been cheating"
Wich reminds me of a anecdote I often recite:
"Back in my day, we used to grind 15 hours in Winterspring, Uphill! With a 40% speed mount and a .05% drop rate. And we were happy for it! None of your silly cross-realm auto Queues. We had to WAIT for BG's & FIND PUG's and then you had to LIVE with the consequences of your actions and those of the idiots you grouped with CAUSE THEY WERE THERE! EVERYDAY, in Orgrimmar, on top of the bank, yelling about how they were the savior of the Horde and would lead us into victory against the disgusting alliance with their more attractive females, even though they weren't even max level and never really left the capitol city, nor was part of a Guild."
(For more, "ol' Man Ribeye" Rants . . . Hang out with me.)

Ol' RibeyeJack has hunted above his weight class on numerous occasions . . . Back when hunters had mana.

It was shortly after that text I realized a certain TYPE or feel of fun had left WoW, or had to be found, instead of an integral part of it. I have lamented certain changes in the past HERE, and there are a number of posts discussing other aspects of the game. Funny enough, I read a couple old posts and realized some of the information was no longer relevant due to many changes with different patches & expansions.
But here I talk about the power slip and the drop of the challenge curve.

Neutering of pets, where you don't have to go train others and then learn their abilities, no feeding, normalization where all pets are created equal, even more so NOW that you can spec whatevr pet you like the way you like. WHich I think is cool, but I like the idea of "hunting" and "tameing" and THEN if you like "re-training." Having played a hunter with a LOT of RP during Vanilla, and even on into today, these are small things I miss.
Bigger things it seems really began with what I've heard dubbed, and what I call, EZ-Patch, a few months before Lich King came out, when many things in Wow changed numerically. NPC's and mobs were nerfed and the amount of XP to get to 60 (cap was 70 at the time) was reduced at each level. At the time, the raiding guild I was with, was having serious issues pushing past certain content in a couple different Raids, but as soon as that patch hit, I was able to see a LARGE amount of content I thought we would spend a month or so on. And although it was very cool, it felt a bit cheapened, because I had hard won 2 peices of raiding gear and then with a couple nights of  rushed wipes, I had half a dozen more pieces of various tiers.
More recently with the achievements, titles, pets & mounts going cross-account. Once again, I like it in so far that certain things I want to be able to access no matter what toon I'm on, like ultra rare pets & mounts such as the Lil' T.K. & my Blizzard Blizzcon Bear mount. But with OTHER super-rare items, like Time-Lost Proto Drakes & Emerald Whelplings, a player puts in serious time and energy on one character, I think that's sort of a unique vanity that the character you accomplished it on should be able to sport, not just having a level 12 run around with a critter who's the same level as him.

We came out of the sea and strode through town, desolation in our wake. They killed one of our own attempting a quest that came too near their border, there mightiest(read: lvl 70's) then ran raids into our settlement. Our retribution was swift and sure.

It sort of feels like WoW evolved a lot like consoles did. I mean like how, when some of us were younger we played games on the NES or Sega, I'll even include PS1, and at those tween/adolescent years, those games were HARD. Then you go back to them almost a decade later, and realize, yeah! they were difficult. That's why there were cheats & bugs & game genies. But now, as consoles & the games have evolved, they are still hard, but it's no more "you need a lantern to get through there or you die because that should make sense to you. There is no sign post or multiple ways to light up the area" now the challenge is the AI, other players, more complex styles of play than just the inherent game itself in the form of achievements & awards.
The traditional way to do huge things in WoW was to get a 40 person raid together, and if you didn't have a massive guild, you had to find alternate ways to do things. Sometimes just for the shiggles of having done it. For example, I STILL need to get a 5 man together of level 20 somethings, corpse drop through SW and do Stockades, cause that's not cheating.

"Back in my day, Tarren Mill didn't even have ground! And we were thankful for that lack of floor!" Yay rendering bugs!

Well, I think I've made my point, but then again, I am really looking forward to this expansion because of the story promised by devs & designers, maybe some of that old flavor will creep back in. Time will tell.

Relevance!?

Quite frankly, I don't care, and I'm sure none of you do.
So, you ever have one of those really nice long vacations/weekends off, and don't seem to be able to get anything done? Yeah, I'm there. So, Imma talk about WoW.

Ribeye loves all the animals . . . ALL of them. Especially ones that have the proper animation for attacking flying mobs.

There are STILL very WIERD things going on in the hills north of Thunder Bluff on the way to Stonetalon. I can't find the screenshots right now, but if anyone cares, let me know, I'll find it. Last I checked, the rabbits were carrying axes in their mouths, most of them the size of gnomes, and they were one-shotting prairie dogs. Oh, and before that, the prarie dogs had on kaiser hats and were wielding rifles. And now that I look at the pic from that old link . . WHEN WE GONNA GET DUAL WIELD GUNS BLIZZ!?!?!?! Or, back int he day, Necrus & I would wax philosophical on how one would design a pole-arm/rifle and just have it fill up all three weapon slots, cool, right? Ah well.

It appears Mists will be one "small" expansion with numerous patches that are the "sequels/continuing storyline that the player will be taken through as war ravages Azzeroth once more, the War between it's peoples once more, not a "greater" enemy like in the past. I'm down, sounds immersive, and I'm fairly sure the rumor that there will be a Battle For Ogrimmar will result in Hellscreams dethroning, I am DOWN!
I'm always tempted to join a new beta, but I think I'll sit this one out as well.

Grue equips Mini Thor! It is super effective! Two ranged attacks FTW!

I've started heavy archeology, Pvping again and Moose has dragged me into some of the LFraids for some QUICK raids. Fun times, actually, gotta get that welfare gear! I am very scared at how well I am doing in PVP and raids. My dps is decent to good and as I continue to reforge/gem/chant my gear into fine tuning my dps can only improve.

As for PvP, I hadnt really gone into a BG since a few months after Cata hit. I think, two patches agoe? But, the bug up and bit me and I found myself in some BG's. AND I WAS OWNING EVERYTHING. I really cant explain it, and I'm not entirely bragging, I'm mostly sharing my amazement.

Manslayer goes for a swim . . . through the air . . . through Ogrimmar. Like ya do!

And of course, gettin mah raid  on has been good, flexing that teamwork muscle. Im actually looking to level a bunch of ttons all at the same time with Tink & other RL friends. Just ALL KINDS of WoW, all the time. Lets see if I have any fun WoW links . . . . I like this one and am working through the backlogs of the blog.

Hope that holds some of you over for now, more next week, maybe even a memorable if I get some time.

Place Holder

Sorry No HEAVY post this week so far. I Do in fact have a couple with content in them, I just don't have them finished to the extent I would like them. Just so I don't leave you totally hanging,

One of the reasons this post is so late. Yes, that is me in my "Mogged" Guardian of Tirisfal set. BOO YAH!

Later H47ites, I promise to post SOMETHING else before next Tuesday. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Seven Years Waiting for Style

I be waitin for Transmogrification! Fuck Deathwing, I mean, it all looks cool, I wouldnt mind that legendary staff even though I'm a Snick&Stick mage. But I want to get some snazy drapes.

"SnickNStick" meaning a main hand & an off hand.

Blues Be calling it "Mogging." I'mma Mog my gear to look like tier 5. hell yeah.

I could only find a "Mogger" in Ogr across from the cooking dailies guys. (currently under construction, the building will be finished after the patch to house the etherals. its the construction hut where you kill one of the food theives. The one thats NOT near the Tauren area, if that helps. I've parked a few of my toons there.) And of course, one in Stormwind, not sure where . . . lemme check . . . canal side of cathedral square. between Mage section & trade section heading towards docks. Most likely visible due to the cool void warp banners etheral's usually have (remember man tombs & the encampment in Nagrand? yeah, those.) )

Found these creepy critters north of Thunder Bluff between Stonetalon. True story. A herd of them live up there.

Hook it up to my homie Necrus who WAS a Forsaken War, we we're trying to outfit with Lightforge so he could run around in front of stormwind popping his defiler trinket bubble. Check it!

But I'm siked about FINALLY cureing the "skittles puke" issue, PLUS, being able to pick my own style, not look like every other dude.

True story though: Figureprints. Ribeyejack, my FIRST toon who I still have, I had to go buy cheap greens & farm LOW gear that had cool looks because I DID NOT have any that looked cool.

 I'm sure other sites will be doing guides and what-not, but I like Wowhead for all my "cheat" needs and am always surprised by how lite the troll community is on there, I can actually read conversations 9 times out of 10
Get your sets by "sets"
Part 1: How to get em
Part 2: Nifty items & more sets
Part 3: "look alike" tiers
Part 4: Green quality "sets"

As I dig through all the options and choices and try to reason with myself as to whether or not I'm going to compile any of these outfits, I realize how much MORE this is going to suck my life away. GJ Blizz, I wish it was sooner, but now its one less thing haters can complain about.

MemeOrable: Epic Sax Meme-sical Interlude

Epic SAX guy!
A musical phenomenon that I can't get enough of. Apparently, like many things our hive minds hook onto, this guys awesome grooves really rocked allot of people and has maintained a consistent power. 

Yes, Yes that IS a ten hour video of the ONE bit of music. Yes, some people on the internet are WEIRD and there are whole communities who have sent screen shots back and forth proving HOW LONG they were able to endure/enjoy the musical stylings. As Nerdcore Luminary YTCracker mentioned on this FANTASTIC REMIX, apparently his raiding companions on WoW would play it over vent while they engaged in end game activities.

While at Anime Expo this last year there was a wandering band of troubadors, one of which had a sexyphone, and the oh-so familiar tones wafted through the convention halls. It was glorious, and I can only imagine what type of rediculousness my own band associates might have gotten up to had we all been in school just a few years later. ah well, I'm old. heh.

But wait, There's MORE

 Yes, that just happened . . . Oh yeah. Does the song sound familiar but you've never seen this video before? Do you enjoy the audio exploits of Loveline? Well Guess what?! You're not crazy, well, at least not hallucinating . . .



AND, just for posterity sake, and becuase I beleive in aknowledging source material, The origional video.

You know, I kinda like the jam session at the end a little better. Enjoy!

Memeorable: "Meme memee me"

This weeks MemeOrable is a 1 & 1/3 deal. Lets jump in, shall we?

An internet phenomenon from the ancient days of Flash, HOMESTAR RUNNER!!!!

My fiance loves it and used to follow it much more back in college. I like it but some of the humor falls short for me. I do love certain selections though, like . . .

Speaking of Trogdors, I used to know one in WoW, I know there is an actual mob named Trogdor, but this was a RL guy we would run dungeons with on occasion. (back in my day before them new fangled randoms) and I'm sad I no longer remember exactly what race or class he was as it was THAT LONG AGO (old timey wow player is old).

Another amusing anecdote is when I was playing some PvP in wow, and there was a player with a character named "Thecheat." I took note, was vaguely amused and went along trying to defend the farm (Arathi Basin). He helped save the zone a few times, but then, he did something infuriating, started fighting enemies out in the middle of the battleground as far away from any flag as you could possibly be. So, I called him on it:
"No thecheat, we had these flags installed so you can fight on and off the node, not so you can honor farm." And he replied: "meh mehh mememe meh." I then offered: "Come on, lets pour that into homestar's mt dew. I hear they have to pump your stomach if you drink that stuff." And several OTHER people in the raid were amused by the exchange.

Nerd Levels

Nerdy:You partake in Nerdy activities like D&D or Anime or Excessive Gaming

Nerdgasmic: Fusions of Nerdery that would be acknowledged by other geeks, or excelling in your obscure pop culture niche. Perhaps, say, STARTING YOUR OWN CON?
and finally,

Triple Nerd Score:

Achieve a multi-fecta that is only comprehensible on a case by case basis. Example;

PC Games - E3 2011 - Dragon Age II

MOM! The Game Wont Let Me Play the Way I Want

Imma talk about some bullshit!

World of Warcraft: wait, don't get ahead of me, let me tell you.

Oh yeah, spoilers, yadda yadda, duh, get over it.

In Hyjal, at least twice, I was seriously annoyed. You're supposed to talk to this satyr who's been chained up for a few centuries and be like "nice Mr. evil man, I know your evil, but the twilight dudes gonna destroy the world, help please?" Im okay with that, sure, redeem people whateva. Then he's like "get me this stuff noob for no good reason." and my bullshit alarm goes off in my head, but fine, I gather this crap for him, and what happens?! exactly what you'd expect, the mats set him free and he cackles, now there's another boss in the new raid, I don't know this for sure, but that's the impression I get.

Then! I encounter this ancient who's on fire, he's all emo and shit cause he's a tree . . . on fire, I understand, but I kill the mobs attacking him an d I'm also a FROST MAGE!!! Fire? I fuck fire for breakfast. Yes, I said that. I'm standing there like, "Dude, Mr. McBranchhands, i got this," but NOOOOO, he's like, "take this seed it is the life giver," or some druidic shit like that, and I'm all bummed now. Thanks.

Fable III:

This is some bullshit in this game. At least in two everyone died in a way you had no control over, and the only complaint I had was the inability to kill reaver even though he totally deserved it. In three, everyone dies right in front of you and you cant stop it because its stupid cutscene bullshit. First there's that stupid choice between the citizens and your girlfriend and I'm all like "where's the option to stab my brother and become king?" but no. Then, I accidentally hit the fat noble trying to restore the bridge to the gypsy camp form two. I was down, I made the donation, accidentally had safe off and hit him, guard stopped me, I paid the fine, and then I tried to interact with tubby to play patty-cake with him, maybe dance, make him fell better, but no. no interaction option with Sir Lardo Funnybritches. THEN, the reaver event pissed me off to no end, but I'm like "my character doesn't know, whatever."

Then! They kill Mr. Mustache. My favorite character in the whole game except for Jasper (who they better not kill cause he's John Cleese and in the Sanctuary) gets fuckin shot in the head right in front of me public execution style, no attempts to rescue, stop or even acknowledge that this is not something my character would suffer easily. LAME!

And of course, shortly thereafter. Walter in the pit of stupid shadow doom where magic is not acknowledged except for the stupid shadow pit thing. I would NEVER have left Walter there, I would have fireman carried his chubby ass all the way across that desert, corpse or not.

So there.

LEEROY Vs. Freak Out

Why I think Jenkins is brilliant but the kid shoving a remote in his hole is not, yet knowing full well, both are fakes.

I'm sorry if I have shattered all of your illusions, but yes, both were revealed as fakes.
Leeroy, by any wow player who was playing hardcore in vanilla.
Freak out, by Tosh.0

Just to refresh your memory



Lemme think about this for a second,
I'm willing to argue, that the Leeroy video is from a much more honest place than the kid was. L. Jenkin's is obviously a video of WoW players, playing WoW, and displaying a common occurrence in Azzeroth and it's denizens one interacts with. I guess it's a bit of self sado-masochism, watching the thing that happens all the time and you can't avoid it, and for SOME REASON you keep raiding/pvping with this guy. Also, I think it has something to do with the fact that we've all been this guy at some point, or desperately want to be. I know I have often yelled "(CLASS) ROULETTE!" and ran straight into a pat of elites or a boss and hit my aggro drop button (FD. Vanish, whatev.) It's a thrill to scream a battle cry and rush into mobs, its exhilarating.

The freak out kid, nah. I don't like the idea of a kids who get sooooo worked up that they have break downs. Especially when two kids set up a scenario where they fake it in order to gain internet fame. I've seen/heard actual freak outs over WoW, it's very, very sad to me on many levels.

WOA! WOAH! woa. Wow.

Less than two and a half hours I was on WoW after the new big patch and I have already had my mind blown by the changes, gotten two achievements and started my Forsaken Hunter out of Deathknell and into level 6-8 territory.

And as I have said and will continue to say, "I'm FREAKIN out, man!"

So, ever since the first mutters of the huge changes to Azzeroth I have been cautious and vaguely ignorant and resentful of many of the changes.

BUT, I will have to concede that this is an excellent change in order to want me to play WoW again.
It almost feels like an alternate universe and I guess it kind of is considering the World is "new" but still very familiar.
I am VERY anxious to learn all the new nooks and crannies that have been placed. I also resolve to play ally side more in order to get "my full experience." More and more it dawns on me that I have been jipped half a game experience because of my "horde only" mentality. and while I will remain Horde Loyal in all disputes, I will make a conscious effort to experience as much ally side content as Horde.

However, being who I am, I will also shed a tear, raise a glass, pour out a drop from the bottle, for vanilla WoW. I will miss lvl 12 Gamon, painfully trekking across barrens with no mount or speed increase, getting ganked by a world dragon in azshara trying to get a stupid quest done, getting lost in 1k needles cause you cant find your way in all that brown/gray with nothing but pillars and walls around you. I will miss much, much more, and I honestly feel strange about the idea no one will ever experience that again.

What's In a Character Name!? Forsaken

How do you name your characters?

This segment will deal with naming conventions in various gaming situations.

This installment will go over WoW, Forsaken characters specifically.So, over the last sixish years I've named several undead Forsaken characters, as well as "justified" character names for others I know when using them in fan-fic situations.

My main guideline involves, when the corpse re-animates, or gains sentient will, the first utterance from its lips is it's name. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, many Forsaken keep the names they had in life, but many of them never left the lands of their pre-unliving experience, where many "adventuring" undead have much more obscure and unique monikers. EXAMPLES!

Rah'Tin: My Forsaken Forest Troll from the d20 system table-top RPG. Our DM at the time was my buddy Jubblea sand he allowed me to be very creative with this particular creation. My idea was that it would be a nice joke to have his name sound like "rotten" but when the "corpsetenders" dug him up, his lifeless lips breathed the sound and his first friend in unlife agreed "yes, you really are, aren't you?" So the name stuck.

Termenus: my mage main, you might have met him in the past. It comes from a weak push of breath with the tongue pressed to the upper teeth with the air moving the tongue out of the way and the mouth closing "Term." Then air through the nostrils (he was moving his new undead peices about, having been a caster in life, this was his focus) and continuing, produced a hissing sound (vital for many incantations and spells [draconic languages, D&D nerds anyone?] ) which gave him "en" and "oos."

Doohoohoohoom: A warlock name I have saved on a few servers should I ever decide to stack dots & more dots. This one is actually a result of his loss of lower jaw (at least on the original avatar I used) and because he has less verbal control expels more air than necessary when speaking.


You might have also noticed by know, a second, and even more important element of naming Forsaken WoW characters, a cool, dark, multi-level-meaning, name. My friend Jubble's character was named Necrus, an obvious allusion to "necro" or death. Termenus was derived from "terminal" or "terminus" meaning "the end." As well as with Doohoohoohoom, I have often taken a long breath to pronounce DOOOOOOOooooommmmm!!!! upon enemies in other gaming situations. This leads me to another example of names used, perhaps allusions to HOW these characters came into their un-living state.

Bellamuerte: My fiance's mage, obviously a romance language is great for unique and provocative names, but in RP terms, in one of the stories I have not yet confirmed with her (so it's not 'canon' so to speak) is that her character's cousin, Termenus, saw her in her newly returned state and proclaimed, "beautiful death, my cousin." And her freshly re-awakened mind took a liking to it and used an obscure language she knew to keep the moniker.

Gruetouched & Gruette: Warriors, this is an obvious nod to RPG's of old, where wandering about in the dark without a light source meant certain death. And so is the case with this name. The story is that these two were wandering about in the dark and SOMETHING, killed them to allow The Plague to take over OR even affected their change. So when asked of their origins by other undead, they chose to keep the honorific as their identifiers.



Finally: Something I haven't been able to do too much in "normal WoW" that I miss, is the REAL RP. Most Likely in the future I will bore you all with the Most elaborate RP never RP'ed in World of Warcraft. A glimpse of it is actually one Rogue and one Hunter Pet.

BillyBones: my Rogue who is under 40 and GM of my family guild, partly named for the "old Captain" from Treasure Island, but also, in life his name was William Schreckwind, brother to Asthemus (who would die and return as Necrus) and Twin to Maxwell (who would also die and become BlackMax, a rogue that Jubbles rolled).
also,
Blackmax: my hunter Ribeyejack's pet cat (Humar the Pridelord) named after the fore mentioned rogue.


And so, yet another peak into my H47, with RP, WoW, and The Forsaken in mind. I would also say these similar rules might be applied to some DeathKnights, but even as I type, I think there would be other factors to consider, so don't quote me.
as always, see you around Thw Warcrafting World, and Dark Lady Watch Over You!

Dieing to See Stockades

How to get anywhere in WoW. The art of the corpse drop!

Today's segment comes to you, thanks to the mind of my good friend Jubbles, who suggested I write about something we know a lot about, Dieing, and how to use it to your advantage in the Wide World of Azeroth.

Now, this is being written Pre-Cataclysm, but most of these guidelines are universal and I have not heard any major rumblings about if Blizzard will change death once Deathwing hits.

One thing I have always wanted to do in WoW (among, other things ) was to assemble a group and do the opposing factions lowbie instance. Thanks to dungeon finder, this is super easy and ally have done RFC and Hordies have rolled all over in Stockades. BUT, I would love to get a crew together of about level tewnty-ish, run down to STV, swim up the coast, and drop into Stockades, run it, and hearth out. Legit like.

Also, I had another companion, a "melee Lock," who ninjad an epic sword in ST long ago, who would bother me from time to time. I was out in Zangamarsh, finishing up the last quest there, that's about 66 right? And this kid, still not even 55, invites me to group and comes and finds me in the middle of a bunch of naga I had just cleared. He tells me that he has corpse drop explored, almost all of Outland before even hitting upper 50's. That he got a port around 50, and hasn't actually done a quest for two months.

So, the tips.

(Optional, because these feel a bit like cheating) Scout the target
Hit Wowhead , Thottbot , or even the excellent Wowwiki. Search it up, check the terrain, what kind of mobs are there, is it deep in enemy pvp territory (not that this is a deterrent, just good to have the info)? Then hop on your closest flight path.
Stock Up
Get yourself some pots (speed/health/stealth/water walk/water breathing) food, water for regen, make sure your hearth/ port mats are stocked and off cool down for when you achieve your target.

Do!:
Get Naked!

As many of us know, dieing means our gear takes a hit in durability, this is solved by taking it off as you are not killing anything (usually) your the one getting killed! Although do wear non-durability items, like off hand frills & tabards, and many of us like cloth hats, low repair bill, but the right combo means you die in style!

RUN!
Move out, your not going to get there standing naked at the FP, dive into the danger zone!

The 5 "D"s; Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive & Dodge!
This takes some practice but when you perfect the art it can prevent quite a few deaths, if you want to be VERY fastidious, practice in progressively higher level zones until you have it down. Basically, learn where aggro ranges on mobs are relative to your level and their level. This in turn feeds to scoping out clear areas between mobs. I love high mounds as that will often be enough to take you out of a threat range, or even along the side of a hill can keep you away from angry pats and gives you the distance from the large cat chomping on your tabard tails. Which actually leads into my next tip.

Location! Find a Good Plot.
So, you have a small army of kobolds behind you thumping away and you just ran into 30 more, your HP is dropping below 20% and at the rate they are hitting you, you have 2 more seconds of "aspect of the dazed" before your "feign death" becomes "method acting death." Find a good spot to die. You will need to run back to this spot and when you rez, take just as much time to check pats around you and which mobs are about, before you hit that "resurrect" button.

(warning: Crotchety old WoW player Rant)
Back in my day, we didn't have no, new fangled graveyards around every corner, or some zippidy do-da speed increase as ghost form. If that was your problem, you rolled Nelf, and many did. When we died, we had to walk all the way back across the zone, get back to our corpse, and by the time we'd walked back to our poor, outstretched forms all the mobs wed takin 2 minutes a piece to kill, had respawned. Whats the point of this rant? Well, dont complain about not having a graveyard close enough (except for BRM, that one is still silly) and suck it up and get walking, that's part of this seminar, your going to be walking around in that crazy gray-white world with that whooshing noise of "spirit wind" or whateverthehell it is (unless of course, you turn it off in the interface, but, well, that's no fun, unless of course, you're like me and are dead all the time).

Also Optional; Take a friend!
Nothing is more fun in WoW, than doing it grouped. Like many things in life and game-life, having a companion, even if that person isn't actually doing the crazy drops with you, maybe just some guildies in g-chat, can keep you company, share your triumphs, or, deride you for being silly and not asking for a high level escort.

Finally, but not cumulatively, take pictures! Pics or it didn't happen!















Happy Dropping!

Allies, WTF Mate?

A letter to Alliance concerning XR raids:

Why?

This is a question I ask a lot in life, but especially in WoW.

Ever since the early years of vanilla and definitely since I can remember, Crossroads, in northern Barrens is constantly set upon by max level Alliance players.

This makes no sense to me in any conceivable way other than to be a raging dick. And that might be reason enough, but it doesn't make me less upset.

If no one has guessed yet, I LOATHE PvP servers. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy PvP, mostly BG's and worthwhile world objectives (killing faction leaders) I even totally understand Arena (even though I don't play). BUT!! Incorrectly, I was led to believe there was some sort of etiquette that if you / wave to an enemy player, they will probably leave you alone if you are both questing out in the world. Nope, red = dead for you or the other player. I had a warrior on a pvp server for, two years? I BARELY got him to 64 over that time because every 7 levels, I would get ganked, repeatedly, rage quit and not return to that server for 3 months, like an Alzheimer patient. No level difference is too great nor bag not douche enough that another player will attack you in flagged areas. I had toons 3 levels lower than me openly try to gank me on that server. What about that makes sense? "gee that 52 war who is clearing 3 mobs at a time is flagged. I'm running to somewhere across the zone and he's ignoring me, and I'm not even 49 yet . . I ! MUST! ATTACK!"

So, once again, why? Boredom? I have several high end toons. Even if you ONLY do PvP, do you have this stash of unlimited gold that you cant be farming for mats for enchants or gold to buy mounts or whatever? Have you "beat the game" so completely that you must resort to decimating a town that has guards 20+ levels below you? Even back in vanilla the biggest threat was the 60 elite hunter who is there. Now, 4 years later you can probably solo her at 60 with some nice outland greens. How is this any sort of challenge or even noteworthy achievement?Go to northrend and clear out Agmar's Hammer or if you wanna be a real beast, Warsong Hold with two RP bosses. Just Soloing? Try an outland city where no one will bother you. Want people to bother you? Try hanging out outside Ogrimmar gates, someone will humor you. Too many people humoring you? well . . . Fuck off then.
I can maybe understand the enjoyment of being able to clear something out that is established and integral, that sounds fun, but not when it is so easy.

Crossroads is just a central example, and I've seen hordies attempt to do the same to Westfall, as well as the constant war between Southshore & Terran Mill (which actually makes sense on occasion as levels 25 through 45 travel through there, this is okay since the guards are about that level) but when you're character has no reason to be in that area or can solo 5 of any mob in the zone or more, it becomes silly.

Am I the only person who thinks this? Am I a crotchety noob QQing into the wind because I am not l337 enough to understand how fun running into Northshire Abbey as a full PvP geared frost mage and killing every NPC AND mobs for a good half hour until someone informs another 80 in Stormwind and then running off, is?

I may be preaching to the choir, but this has been rattling around in my brain for a while, thank you for humoring me.

Meme-Orable: WoWmemeomatic

Holy Tauren are you gonna get a Legendary size dose of nerd & WoW. Ready? Okay, PULL!

First mob includes a treat from those crazy cats over at College Humor. As we know I am devotee of hip hop in its geekier forms so I often belt out to this.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Next "trash" includes numerous nerdgasmic samples combining three awesome things. Machinima, WoW, & Nerdy Music ( JoCo, Paul & Storm, rap covers). HERE ARE LINKS to appropriate YouTube Channels. BUT, below are a few of my favorites.

Now for THE BOSS, Illegal Danish! Myndflame (after a few years) has completed the Azzerothean Opus. You can watch all of it here, also, avail yourself of his other works, they are tasty. And below, I give you MC Raiders, the end credits to Super Snacks.

W007! EPIC L3WtZ!

Red, Black and Blue

Hello again Azzerothians, Termenus here, Lord of the Frost, Penguin King, Disciple of Vargoth, Incredible Tanking Mage, Of Stonard, and now . . . . Raid Leader!

You heard right, I too am a coordinator of increased repair bills as of last night night. I led half a dozen Lords and a few great Pick Ups into the Ruby Sanctum 10man Regular and we were almost victorious.

Yes, almost. And I am very proud of that. It is new content, It was my first real raid lead and it is equiv difficulty as 1st/2nd wing of ICC, clearing everything except the last boss is nothing to sneeze at.
True, had it been a raid full of Lords who are currently well into the final wing of 25 man ICC we would almost definitely have finished the whole thing in much quicker time, but . . . those guildies were IN 25 man ICC with our cousin guild. I had to find 2 PUG tanks and 2 PUG dps.
Then we had to tweak and refine our coordination together as a raid. Like I said, Pride.

On top of all this, I LOVE the new content. Its small, short and smart, like I like my women! All of the encounters have unique mechanics and skill checks are even more necessary than gear.

The first mini-boss gave us some serious issues as our initial OT was under geared, as well as I have heard from other players that it is a difficult fight on its own. After about 6 wipes (I know, I know) the OT aggreed to hop over to his raid healer, we found another OT and one of our dps PUGs who was of weak constitution dropped and was replaced by another Lord. The last pull, our OT dropped AGAIN, BUT our MT grabbed both "bosses" and we downed him.

"Second" mini-boss, has a fun aerial phase and a debuff dynamic that keeps things interesting, one shot her.

Even the trash kept us on our toes in RS10reg, as there are two large 5-mob pulls between the first two and 3rd mini-bosses. They have a "captain" 2 melee bruisers, and two caster mobs, we ended up having to separate them than single target dps switching from each tank's group. very clean, old school pull style. Great fun.

TANGENT!!
I have been noticing allot of other players commenting on my old school style of play. When I tank on my warrior I use alot of LOS (Line of Sight) pulls and I really want to use CC even though allot of dps nowadays just AoE and attacks whatever they want. I would mark mobs, but in Heroics and such, so many people know the fights so well and expect the tank to be flawless that it doesn't give one time to do these things. When I'm on Term I find myself wondering if we should CC on pulls that give us problems, but once more, everyone expects the tanks to be able to AOE tank and hold it while everyone else goes apeshit. For more on my thoughts about the ROLE of DPS, go HERE!

Back to the Raid:
3rd mini-boss is a bit of a trick and we got a little sloppy, but managed to one shot it. The communication was very good and everyone was on their toes on heals & damage focus.

Halion, the actual boss. After 5 minutes of attempting to explain the fight, which is a bit intricate, there are 3 phases but the third one combines the first two at the same time and you ALSO have to coordinate dps. We wiped twice, we had been at it for about 3 hours with no gear, only 3 badges. After the second wipe, I asked fro a ready check to see who wanted to call it a night and a fewe people voted out so we stopped there.

Here it is, Ruby Sanctum, all cleared except last boss.

If you end up in a lame group, this Raid could REALLY suck, I'm sure, but I know I will want to be running this instance every chance I get.

See you around the Worlds of Warcraft.
-Termenus

3rd 4 T3h NRRD: June '10

Yay for Nerdcore groups who break up after a few hits and are never heard from again! /sarcasm.

Need some truly dirty, undersexed, jerk, uncaring, X-Box masses mentality, nerd rap? Well here you go, I'm attempting to earn my content warning with this group.

Futuristic Sex Robotz! A geek super group with superb production and very professional end product. I rarely had issues with the artists being flat, off key or off tempo with the beats.

Apparently formed around questionable exploits involving a case of Keystone Ice, the group produced a few singles and a full album called Hotel Coral Essex and then disappeared into obscurity and I have not seen hind nor hair of them in a long time.

A lot of their content is abrasive, foul and unsavory. In general I enjoy it, but the cussing can be excessive and the situations obscene.
If your looking to blast this in the privacy of your own home, in your earphones, in your car wiht the windows rolled up, go for it. But they're NSFW and if your trying to spread the perception of nerds that we're groovy, awesome, non-overly violent, non-rapeing, non-murdering angst bags, then you might fail.
Otherwise, I do enjoy this music and can relate to it as an artistic outlet. It is very "born of" the gamer/deep internet culture.

For the parting salvo I will leave you with the first song I heard from them.

Know Your Role . . . in WoW: DPS

L2DPS, when your tank is not cookie cutter spec, when your healer isn't geared, why dps SHOULDN'T be a dime a dozen!

Hello again WoW enthusiasts. Termenus, your friendly neighborhood frostie mage-tank, here once more. Today I come to talk to you about something other than my love of frost, my hatred of A-holes, nor how there should be an "of Stonard" title for the number of times my raid members took my port without looking where they're clicking.

No. Today is for people who suck at dps. No, not people who have low damage or slow "deeps" as the kids have been using colloquially. T3h sk1llz, if you will. I have been dps from day one and although I am making forays into tanking and healing, my first toon was a hunter. You want to talk about managing aggroe, talk to a hunter player from pre-BC/post -mob stats- wow. (in early WoW your pet had the same stats as the mob you tamed, effectively having an equiv level mob for help, they fixed that later) You had to pay attention to your pets aggroe and how fast you were shooting, what crits you would hit. Have you ever heard of the "two growl/sunder rule" ? I sure have.

My entire "High End/Hard Core" career has been as a frost mage and for good reason. When I first rolled a mage (early/pre-BC) I recognized them as a fun nuke with a low aggroe rotation. This was a bonus to me as I had been an aggroe magnet on my hunter numerous times in old 5-mans. I had heard numerous horror stories of dps over-aggroeing and pulling the mob, getting mass healed by the healer, getting squished because you're not the friggin tank, then getting the healer killed . . . WIPE! I felt, as a vital part of a combat unit, that this was part of the job and managment of this sort of thing was necessary.

ITS NOT THAT HARD PEOPLE!!!

When I first started raiding we had the 3 second dps lag. As soon as the tank would pull, heals would keep em up, they would get aggroe (back when 25-mans meant 3+ tanks), then after 3 full seconds raid leaders would call for dps, and they would start in. Many of us who new each other very well, and were fairly high crit dps, would even start out slow before really laying into the boss. Personally, I would wand 3 times, frostbolt 3 times THEN I would pop CD's and roll on up the damage meter.

This was during BC when tanking was a bit different mechanic and too many crits meant aggro for you and your closest friends. Sylvanis forbid you got a string of 3 or more crits, the boss would turn, stomp you down and then move on to your closest relatives and ask them "why, dear Arthas, why would you crit that much in a raid situation, did he think he was in PvP? How did you raise this child?!" And then stomp them into a gooey pulp.

Now I will be the first to admit (when asked directly, no need to tip my hand) that my dps is not as high as other equivalently geared mages (fire & arcane are still higher output) BUT! I have been doing high end content with my guild for almost something like two years now and I am always a welcome raider, from fellow dps up to our GM. Why? Cause I know my class, I know my spec, I know the fights, I listen, and I know how to manage my aggroe. Whenever I mage tank, it's by choice, or someone else missed something.
More so now then ever before any idiot can power level to 80, farm gear for raiding up to the highest content, and go apeshit when the boss is pulled.
Most dps I encounter lately don't have any indication of letting the tank get aggroe. Due to the changes made by blizzard all the the new tank specs allow mediocre tanks to hold mobs while high damage output goes crazy.
That's nice and all, but dps needs to go go the other way. Many of us like to play in weird and different ways we should strive to excel in our roles, regardless of spec. When tanks and healers don't follow the standard specs groups bemoan them and drop them, if dps is poor they just let the other Dps pick up the slack. Ooh, sure, there are 2 more in the party and there are hundreds more waiting to get in. I call bullshit.
No, what I just said was true, but good dps know how to wait to let a tank gain threat before attacking. This allows the healer some time to get the rhythm of the pull and hopefully the dps wont take any excess damage. Or if the healer is the weak role, same. So many of us are so concerned with damage output optimization, proper rotation, and jumping to the top of the recount meter. That's nice and all, to have a huge epeen/wow-wang and to watch those crit numbers roll up the screen. BUT, to me these Are the sings of someone who has gear and a spec. Woohoo, you found Elitist Jerks and made it to 80.

Now really impress me. Play your role with class. Help your tank and heals. I like to use the joke "healbot" and "shieldbot/meatshield." But most of these digs are in jest and with comradeship. Lets stop being dpsbots and start being excellent damage roles. Enrage timers make us necessary but strategy fights require us to be superb, and very few fights are Patchwerk.


Sincerely,
Termenus; Lord Of Ancient Sin - Cenarius, Mage of the Grave Chill, Frost Imp, Mage Tank Extraordinare, Crusader, Ambassador, "of Stonard," Shadoweave Tailor, Goblin Engineer

Memeorables - MemeWoW 1

World of Warcraft: I am seriously addicted. If you didn't already know.

So, while I am STILL Working on S.G.I.S.Con IV postings, Here are just a few of the Video's that have influenced my Wow, Gaming, geek state of existence.

LEEEEEERROOYYY!!!!! JENKINS!

The battle cry heard over teamspeak for almost half a decade now. There is debate over how staged this was and "Leeroy" has become a pseudo-star-nerd but we've all been in this group, sometimes we're even Leeroy himself, and any time you inspire a CCG card and an achievement in the game itself, I'm sure you've cemented your place in WoW History.

WHAT!!??! TEH ! FAAHHHKK!!!???!?!?!?

Another video that gave me my first glimpse of high end content, Onyxia Raid Wipe on Vent. I have since been in many raidsand killed Ony a few times, and although I've never had a raid leader on vent melt down like this one, I think all WoWers can understand the frustration and rage. We may laugh, but a little part of our souls feel pain and anguish for this accented raider. Lets listen in, shall we?

WOOOO!!!! YEAAAHHH!!! IMMA WAND YOUUUU!!!

Lastly, a more recent video, I have since adapted this as my go to any time I have questions about rotation, technique or proper obscenities to use in vent.