Smores over Felfire

After the recent damage-nerf to Faction Champions damage, I have to admit I felt hopeful. This was the one problem (outside of Yogg) that had been a thorn in our side for about a month now. Maybe… just maybe… we would be able to beat them now.

The raid started out rockily… as the raid leader was in the middle of a power outage, thus he couldn’t get online. I had to pick up the raid, throw in a few pugs, and hope for the best. Northrend Beasts and Jaraxxas were both 1-shot, though there were casualties. It definitely wasn’t the cleanest run we had to our name, but we were winning.

I could almost taste the trepidation the raid was feeling as our 6 least-favorite people jumped down from the balcony. Would this be the week we can finally get through this gods-forsaken encounter?

Our first attempt was a failure, partially because a priest’s early demise and partially because we didn’t have any skinners and icehowl was hiding a few NPCs. But we killed both healers, which is more than we’ve been able to say in recent memory. Our second attempt saw us victorious. The rogue was the last one to die and I was tempted to tell the mage in our party to polymorph the rogue when he hit 10%, just so we could burn him down again out of spite. But after a minute or so, the last Horde Champion died, and loot was ours.

It was an odd experience, having finally dropped this 1-month-long roadblock. It was kinda like the General in Ulduar a few months back honestly. But unlike General, ToC still had 2 bosses before it was “over.”

And unlike Yogg, the Twins and Anub’arak were pushovers. Two bosses, two 2-shots, and we walked out of there with a bunch of shiny new loot. Additionally, it was done with an hour left for raid-time.

Not wanting to jinx a good thing, we did a few “just ’cause we can” attempts at heroic ToC, which didn’t turn out so hot. We walked out of there after two attempts, still happy about the night, and many of us with a bunch of major upgrades.

For a casual guild (ie: we do think of stuff outside of WoW on occasion), I was surprised at how quickly the mood switched from “this sucks” to “this is awesome!” after faction champs were dropped. The “can do” attitude was all of a sudden very prominent and people were paying attention to their surroundings. While I appreciate the change, I find it odd that for fights that we have tried for the first time (Twins and Anub), there were a comparable number of mess-ups as compared to Beasts and Jaraxxas. One wipe to see the fight, then a kill.

Regardless, I’m very proud of the progress and very pleased that the Faction Champs finally were burned to the ground. Here’s to hoping for another productive week of raiding!

I know you all come here for WoW-related stuff… but it looks like you’re getting a little non-WoW stuff today.

I’ve been waiting 4 months for the Video Games Live concert in Augusta, GA. It did not disappoint. There were a number of pieces that I hadn’t heard before (Mass Effect, Chrono-Trigger) as well as a few that I was happy to hear again (Kingdom Hearts, One-winged Angel). The 2.5-hour drive, even with the hellish driving conditions, was totally worth the wait. Heck, after I woke up the next day, I immediately went online and checked when the next nearby concert would be (There’s one in Nashville and another in Charlotte on the tour-date list, but no actual dates yet).

What was the best part? I would have to say the Blizzard music.

Let me set the stage for you: I’ve been to VGL once before last Friday’s adventure. I heard the awesome that was the WoW medley and nearly lost a lung cheering on the orchestra. If you happen to like the more epic WoW musical pieces, I would suggest getting on iTunes, Amazon, or whatever and downloading at least the WoW piece. And given that WoW has over 11 million players, I was fairly certain that I would be hearing the piece again at Augusta.

I was right… and then some.

The MC, Tommy Tallarico, told us early in the show that there were a few guests that were going to be making appearances tonight. One was the YouTube-named Flute Link (who was awesome). The other was Russell Brower.

Yes… that Russell Brower… one of the music composers for WoW.

Three of my musical heroes: Jack Wall, Tommy T, and Russell Brower, were all on the same stage.

If Jason Hayes walked on stage, my world would have imploded.

ANYway, after my initial nerd-outing, I started to pay attention to what he was saying. He announced that not only would we be hearing music from WoW, but pieces from Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.

And before I could cheer again, he dropped another bomb on us: he would be telling us the release date for Starcraft 2.

My jaw hit the floor. My hand immediately went to my cell phone to start telling all my friends when this much-anticipated game would hit the shelves.

Widely smiling, Brower told us that the game would be released:

“Soon. When it’s Ready. And When it’s Done” (Trademark Blizzard Entertainment)

Yeah… I was annoyed at him for trolling us like that (and me for falling for it).

But even after that, the music for the 3 games was simply gorgeous. If any of you have the extra time (and a few extra bucks for the tickets and gas), I would highly recommend going to see a show or three. If you, like me, have spent most of your childhood on these games, it’s worth the cash.

I went into Onyxia’s Lair for the first time last night (since her upgrade that is) and, by the end of it, proceeded to be both disappointed and satisfied.

The verbiage the Blue’s used suggested that it would be a level 80 retelling of the old Onyxia fight. I was expecting the swipe to be an agg drop, the whelp groups to be more difficult, and Onyxia herself to be a bit harder-hitting. The whelp groups were rough, sure, but it was the new mechanics that caused the most trouble. Specifically, the “elite” that has an uninterruptable fire nova that, on a bad day, will 1-shot our mage and priest healer. Additionally, there were a number of stupid mistakes made (including one from me) that made a 2-shot boss into a 6-shot.

The up-side is that we did, in fact, kill Onyxia and received a bit of loot for our troubles. Yes, it wasn’t the same fight (with upped damages) from vanilla wow, but I guess this wasn’t supposed to be a raid that was for “progression,” but more an “earned nostalgia” fight. Old Onyxia could get 1-shot by a determined paladin, so it was time to mix things up a bit. Make the new one a 10/25 man raid as oppose to the old 40man one so more people could see the dragon that caused so much trouble for level-60 raids (which, incidentally, is the same reason they revamped Naxx).

Though it wasn’t a “progression” victory like TotC would be, I think this will help a lot of guilds who are having the same Faction Champs problem we’re having (and the nerf to their damage will help out a bit too methinks). Even though we all know this is just a game, it’s surprising how much a role morale plays in mmos. For single player RPGs or multiplayer shooters, if something goes wrong, you just take it upon yourself to fix the problem. RTS, FPS, whatever, each player has the ability to turn the tables singlehandedly (though for RTS it may be a bit more difficult than FPS), but for stuff like raids in WoW, if even one person screws up, the entire group suffers.

Maybe it’s just my server, but the amount of people who have blitzed through to Alagon and Anub’arak don’t number too highly. We’ve got maybe 4 guilds who dropped Yogg, and about that many who farm Anub’arak. Say what you will about WoW going to easy mode, but personally I think the game has just been changed to require a lower amount of dedication, but that level is an absolute requirement. Take MC for example: you could go in there with 25 good players and 15 bad and still make it out OK. If you brought in 15 good players and 10 bad to TotC, you’d never make it past Northrend Beasts.

So what’s the point? The point is that while some hardcore guilds HAVE the time, effort, and inclination to clear through all the raid content, it is more difficult to have that same fervor when you are on a 2-day-a-week schedule. I think Onyxia is a welcome addition because it IS a 1-day clear. Run in, run out, get that nice morale boost, and hopefully go in and clear some other areas (like VoA and TotC).

I’m generally a good guy when playing the game. If someone has a question, I usually do my best to answer it quickly, clearly, and accurately. There are, however, times where I have to deal with the less-than-considerate denizens of the game and, as such, I tend to get vindictive. Oh sure, I can just ignore them (and most get ignored anyway), but from time to time… I feel like I just need to have a good troll.

The difference between a good troll and a bad troll is the difference between pun and a typo: both are technically incorrect in the sentence, but the pun is funny… the typo is just obnoxious.

Here’s a good example: I was rolling through Scholomance for the “Well Read” achievement, when all of a sudden I get some random level 50-something telling me to run him through Scholo.

50-something: Run me through scholo
Me: Um… what?
50: Don’t be a bitch, just do it! Let me in!

Now… if the conversation went a little differently… like say this:

50: can you run me through scholo
Me: I’m afraid I’m not doing a full clear, just getting some books
50: Oh, can you at least open the door for me? I don’t have the key :)

The story would have a much nicer ending for him… instead, he gets this.

Me: I’m nearly done with the instance, use the back door.
50: What back door?
Me: If you kite Araj into the Andorhol town hall, then kill him, the bookcase disappears and there is an instance portal behind it.

He ceased to bug me. I, of course, immeadiately told the rest of my guildies on vent of what I did and got a chorus of “lol” and “that was mean” from the various members, but it wasn’t until about 15 minutes later that I truly felt rewarded.

After I had picked up the books and hearthed out, a guildmate started laughing in vent and asked me what the 50-something’s name was. I told him. He informed me that the boy was trying to kite Araj into the town hall and continually getting one-shot.

Was it juvenile of me? No way! It took a lot of thought for a mildly-believable lie like that!

Was it mean spirited? Oh yes.

In that vein, my guildies and I began to create a few “good trolls” just to mess around with the players of the game. None of them are intended to be taken seriously, but they have been fun to pull up every now and again

Project: Thongbear
Project Thongbear requires a little planning, but I think it’s worth the effort. A Warlock is required for this particular troll (or, if you want, you can use an instance summoning stone).
1) Get the 2-minute summon going for all the participants.
2) Pick a random PC in Dalaran, Shattrath, wherever
3) Get inside of a building (so you are out of sight) and put on your furbolg costumes
4) Swarm out of the building, jumping on, around, and near the PC
5) After about 15-20 seconds, everyone uses their summon.

What is left is one very confused PC who thinks the game just glitched like a sumbitch.

Other trolls include speaking in foreign accents (I nearly killed a guildie with laughter as I faked an Australian accent for some pug Naxx run) and claiming to know the only way to get the “farming” skill. What about you? Have you ever had the opportunity to troll someone… but do so classify?

Brewfest is here, and once again I find myself running around Ironforge like a madman in the hopes that I, like all the other PCs, can scream “Buy X family’s beer!” enough times in enough places to get my precious Brewfest tokens. Brewfest is one of the rare events that I simultaneously love and loathe. The Crusader’s Tournament was neat for the first month or so when I (and everyone else) had a few new dailies, some new loot, etc. and we didn’t mind doing a few more dailies to get them. After about a month, however, the monotony starts to get to you. Chillmaw is still just out of reach for soloing, the champions are still a pain to joust, and the damned walrus-people still need to be released by the light (despite not being believers of the light).

This is the same basic model for Brewfest: every daily quest except Direbrew can be soloed and you have to do them all several times in order to get the maximum benefit (ie: the achievements for the Violet Proto-drake). Granted, this grind is available for only a few weeks as oppose to the coliseum which is available in perpetuity, but much like the new crusader dailies the new content will get old after a few days.

I think the reason Brewfest is going to special this year is because of the Violet Proto-drakes that we’ll be seeing. The year-long wait (and pitched forum battle to get “brew of the year” removed from the meta-achievement) will add a degree of uniqueness to this year as compared to previous years.

And, of course, we’ll be inundated with QQ from those who don’t have the drake yet.

All in all, I think the changes to Brewfest (to keep it up to date) is an interesting concept for the game. The Darkmoon Faire is a great example of what happens to an event that’s left alone and updated only with each new expansion’s release. By taking the seasonal events and updating them every year, WoW keeps bored players interested in the game for just a little while longer (as we’re all waiting for the next big patch… then Cataclysm). These are a lot like mini-patches really… and as they occur every year, by now we’ve got most of the bugs ironed out.

Hopefully the ice stone won’t melt…