The (Halfway Through) October Challenge

All right, so I had my hiatus while everyone was starting Mists of Pandaria, and then it was extended as I jumped into the fray and found myself completely awash in things to do. I mean, geez, there are ALL THE THINGS and only one of me!

September Wrap-Up: Caught Being Good

We didn’t have a lot of response to the September Challenge; I’m hoping that’s because of the MoP release and not because there are just so few people caught being good. Here are the ones we did have, though; I found them very encouraging! I’ll add my own story, as well; I just had my own Caught Being Good experience a couple of days ago.

That Was An Accident! – After some encounters that left Mechalis feeling a little gunshy, there was a friendly–if very odd–mage that came along and managed to brighten the day.

Shards of Imagination – Rakuno shares an encounter in Lineage 2 that will stick with me for a while–when you play with people, sometimes it can’t be just a game. It is personal to me. 

The Daily Frostwolf – Navi busts out the super warm fuzzies with a shoutout to a bunch of the people who have made her happy for one reason or another along the way. I love it!

Pained from Dark Democracy Rocks, Period

My own Caught Being Good story happened a few days ago as I was doing Golden Lotus dailies in the Vale. I added NPCScan just out of curiosity a week ago, and it alerted me (it is completely unmistakable and will give you a heart attack if you aren’t expecting it) that there was a rare below me. I went and found him, a Pandaren in a cave with over 4 million health.

I pulled him and promptly died because I forgot about the spell Pandaren cast at range (Chi Burst, hurts for a lot). I managed to rush back before anyone else showed up and try again. I got started, and about that time I saw a horde shadow priest named Pained show up. I died by not running quickly enough out of crane kick. I knew when I got back that the priest would likely be killing it. I’d help, because I just think it’s a nice thing to do, but I was a little disappointed that I had let it slip away.

When I got back to my body, I was surprised to see the rare still sitting there in his cave. Pained stood outside, looking at him. I rezzed, healed up, and waited for a moment for the priest to pull, but it never came. So, cautiously, I approached the cave, realizing that I would have to pull him out into the open with a LoS this time.

Sure enough, I did that, and it worked. And then, to my surprise, I realized I no longer had aggro–Pained had the rare. In fact, Pained helped me through the entire fight, interrupting when my interrupts were down, ping ponging the aggro, and being repeatedly chased by Spinning Crane Kick until it was dead. When the encounter was over, Pained /bowed, mounted, and flew away–but not before I could get off a /hug.

I’m extremely appreciative, and even though my guild proceeded to call us Care Bears, well; I am A-Okay with that. These are the people and the moments I remember. Pained will always get a /salute or a /hug from me; this is the kind of people I want to share my server with, Care Bears or not.

Thank you, Pained, for being awesome.

October Challenge: Your Character’s Costume

This one’s easy (especially since I’m giving it to you with only a couple of weeks to go!): Halloween is right around the corner! Many games  have in-game events for the holiday, but rarely do we get the chance to fully dress up in costume.

The challenge is this: If your character were going Trick or Treating in Azeroth, Tyria, or wherever they call home, what would their costume be? Tell me all about the what and the why, and if you can find a picture of it or something similar, please post that with it–I’d love to see!

/cast Stealth

Here we are, Mists of Pandaria is about to be officially released and handed out to a bunch of very level-hungry World of Warcraft players. I don’t need to ask if you’re excited!

Unfortunately, for reasons beyond my control, I’m not able to get Mists of Pandaria on release. However, thanks to the very considerate intervention of some pretty awesome people, I’ll be getting it only a week late instead of having to wait until November.

Battlechicken Vlog #2: Let Me Make a Macro

Battlechicken Vlog #2! I told Navi earlier this week that I wasn’t sure I’d ever find something as awesome to vlog about as Navispam. I still haven’t, but you get this anyway!

I like to make made-up albums for my guild with song titles specific to our raid and members. I’ll show you the cover of the “album” from which this song comes, but the songs themselves are guild-related and will stay on our forums.

However, “Let Me Make a Macro” has been stewing in my head for a few months. Our raid leader/GM Boomslang says this phrase at least once every new fight. I felt like it needed to be written, so I wrote it. And that’s what vlog numero dos is: “Let Me Make a Macro.”

If it gets someone to smile tonight, I’m good with that.

September Challenge: Caught Being Good

August Recap

I found out a lot about you guys and your collections! Some of you are minimalists, and some of you…well, your bags are overwhelming! Here’s a look at all of the bloggers who answered the “I’m a Collector” challenge; thank you guys!

The MMO Compendium – Feliz is a seller! While bags get full from the effort of selling, the compulsion to keep things is not strong in this one.

Image Heavy – An organizer at heart, there’s still some inadvertent collecting that happens for this blogger–the kind that comes from leveling and preparing for an expansion!

Anka Huntress – Anka’s not into running out of bag space, but game changes have turned her into a collector, after all!

Healing Mains – This right here is your “Aww” moment, ladies and gentlemen. I’m not even going to tell you more than that.

Healing the Masses – Sometimes it’s just hard to say goodbye to things we love–and everything else, too!

Kamalia et alia – I have to be completely honest: I’m a little jealous of this wardrobe. Not the organizing part of it, mind you, just the fact that there are so many things available in a moment’s notice.

Bubbles of Mischief – Cymre has…well, a LOT of things! But I’m impressed that they all make sense, which is more than I could say for my bank when I wrote the challenge post.

Starshadow (and Part 2) – In a 2 part post, there’s first the adventure of the stuff in Skyrim, where an organizing system gone awry put gaming on pause, and then an awesome collection of bows and books!

Shards of Imagination – Rakuno’s EQ2 collection is impressive. I mean, just take a look at that huge sword–and everything else! Besides “Everhoarder” is such an apt title…

Arguing With Myself – Ainyan’s a packrat. I’ve seen this first hand in-game–do NOT get into a click-my-items showdown with her! She’s also got quite a thing for pets.

The Crimson Hammer – Someone’s feeling the space crunch…leaving enough room for auction house and looting? I completely relate!

Please check out all of these awesome bloggers!

Navispammed!

Subtitled: I got on video because Navi is that cool.

Edit to Add: Navi’s post about her visit! 

Navi’s blog: The Daily Frostwolf

5.0 Patch Day Mayhem

Best advice I have for pre-patch is read all the blogs. See the bottom of this post and the comments for resources, posts, and guides. If you have one, please link it!

Here’s the problem. In the past, I did patch days like everyone else does patch days in the blogosphere. I talked about my class, I wrote guides, I talked about all the changes. Here’s what I’ve decided: there are so many people doing that way better than I would.

So instead, we’re going to amble down the path of the many, many half-finished blog posts I’ve written about this patch and Mists and the game in general. We’re going to hit each point as succinctly as possible (which means this post will go on forever…) and, yeah. That’s the plan.

Point 1: Where I Stand on Mists of Pandaria

When MoP was announced at that fateful Blizzcon, I looked at my husband and said, “You have got to be kidding me. Pandas? They’re going to base our entire expansion on an April Fool’s joke?” Later came: “Who am I fighting? What will I be raiding? What is my purpose?”

I would never completely discount something without seeing it first, but my initial response was slightly more than reserved, slightly less than annoyed. Internally, I gave Blizzard this challenge: you’re going to have to sell me hard on this one.

For months, no matter how interesting the news came out, I dismissed it. Over and over again I brushed it off, sneered, or sighed at “monk” this and “pandaren” that and “Horde” this and “Alliance” that.

Then I played the beta. I wanted to play because it was beta, not because my mind had changed. I wanted to see it for myself. This was it–the moment Blizzard would have to sell me on Mists of Pandaria.

Thoughts on Star Wars: The Old Republic and Why We Quit

When SWTOR announced free-to-play this week, several sites used the phrase “hemorrhaging subscribers” to describe the huge decrease in subscriptions from launch until now. A lot of people are walking away, myself and my husband, Ultraking (UK for short) included.

As much as we’d like to sum it up with a blanket statement and say “Everyone’s quitting because of X,” that’s just not reality. Everyone is going to have their own reason for leaving, and while we’re likely to see trends, nailing down a definitive answer is, in my opinion, highly unlikely.

Recently, UK and I were discussing (again) why, exactly, we’re letting our SWTOR subscriptions run out. There was the overarching answer that we “just don’t enjoy it anymore,” but that’s a simple and incomplete. We got to talking about what exactly that means for each of us. We talked about things our friends have said, comments made on Twitter this week, things happening with our guild, and I think at the end of it, we have a pretty good idea of an actual answer.

The Expectation

The first reason isn’t actually anyone’s fault. The fact is, people had a lot of expectations for this game. It had one of the biggest, longest-lasting fandoms attached, before fandom came with Tumblr memes and Twitter lists. You attach “Star Wars” to something, and people suddenly get excited.

It’s understandable, isn’t it? Most of us love Star Wars on some level. Fans get instantly nostalgic thinking about it, and it’s not uncommon in any fan group to want to escape into that every once in a while. Some do it through books, others through websites. Some RP, and others–well, we play video games. People have very clear ideas about what the Star Wars universe actually is (although they don’t always match up), and the idea of an MMO–as close as you can virtually get to being a part of Star Wars–well, that’s exciting.

The game was hyped a lot. I don’t think it’s Bioware’s fault for hyping the game any more than I think it’s the players’ fault for having high expectations. Some people are pleased with the game the way it is. Some aren’t. It just is what it is, and that’s okay.