Is World of Warcraft your dirty little secret?

I was at a New Year’s Party last night where I saw a number of very old friends, many of which I hadn’t seen since high school.  During the general milieu someone mentioned that he and his wife play World of Warcraft.  It wasn’t a big thing, and the conversation didn’t dwell on it, but I noticed myself making a conscious choice to not share the fact that I also play World of Warcraft.  Well, actually the choice I made was to not tell them (and also the whole group) that my girlfriend and I both play, mostly so as not to embarrass her because I know she sill blushes a little when people find out she plays.

But it got me wondering though, how many of you play World of Warcraft keep it as their dirty little secret?  Are their certain people you tell and others that you don’t?  Do you hide your game play from people?  And, I don’t mean do you hide the /played time from your significant other, but do you keep it a total and complete secret from everyone?  On the other hand, do you make a point to tell everyone you know?  Do you include it in your CV, your facebook profile, wear WoW shirts/hats/etc, have a WoW related bumper sticker, and dress up like a Tauren for Halloween?  Or are you somewhere in the middle–you don’t offer up the info on your own, but will bring it up if someone else does?

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]“

~Fizz

PS: For those of you wondering, once the group had dispersed a little, I did happen to mention to my friend that I play WoW, and even that I run a blog.  But I did manage to refrain from mentioning my girlfriend plays as well.

Gnome racials are underpowered, just like everyone elses.

The Stoppable Force had an article today about racial abilities.  Rather than take up enormous space in his comments section (I already did that is his post about instances), I’m gonna cheat a little and just do my own post about what I think would make cool racial abilities.

Over all I would like a few things to change things across the board.  First of all, I would like to see a change to any profession bonuses.  Either I would like there to be recipes/schematics/whatever that are only available above the level cap (thus actually providing some benefit to having 465 engineering as opposed to having 450), or I would people without the profession (but have the racial bonus) to be able to access one or two of the cool high-end things.

Secondly, get rid of weapon racials.  I hate them. They are stupid. Sorry, I don’t actually have clever reasoning to give.  I just don’t like them.

The other thing I would like to see is the racials being more helpful to each class that race can be.  For example, having an “Expansive Mind” (plus 5% Intellect) is useless as a warrior, or a rogue..  Sure that’s great for mages, warlocks, and eventually priests, but not the other two.  Yes, you could say that Escape Artist makes up for it, but really that’s beneficial for all the gnome classes.  If there’s something for casters, I would like to see something for the melee.  It doesn’t even need to be as specific as something for heals, something for ranged dps, something for tanks, something for melee dps.  Just something caster & something for melee.  But maybe that’s too much wishful thinking.

Anyway, let’s get to the heart of the matter.  I’ve kept most of the good ones, just with a couple changes.  Also, I’m aware that some of these are probably waaaaaay overpowered.  But that’s the fun part right?  Oh and by the way, as I only really play a gnome and a troll, those are the only two I’m going to do this for.  Because doing it for all the races would take way to long and way more energy than I have.

Gnome:

Tutelage of the High Tinker: 15 point bonus skill to engineering.  Allows limited access to certain engineering-only devices regardless of skill level/profession. (e.g. Dalaran AH, enchants)

You Can’t Hit What You Can’t See: Instant, increase dodge/block/parry by 10% by 6 sec. 3 min. cooldown. (something for the warrior tanks out there!)

Expansive Mind: (passive) Increase Intellect by 5%. Also increases hit rating by 3%.

Arcane Resistance: (passive) Increase arcane resistance by 3%.

Escape Artist: Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed effects, and makes you immune to them for the next 10 seconds. Instant cast. 1 min, 30 sec cooldown.

For Gnomeregan!: Opens a wormhole to the center of the newly retaken Gnomeregan.  3 sec cast. 30 minute cooldown. (not shared with hearthstone)

Troll:

Regeneration: (passive) Increase healing regen by 10% in and out of combat.

Da Voodoo Shuffle: (passive) Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%

Berserking: Instant. Increases melee speed/spell haste by 20% for 10 seconds.  (No longer related to health level because I think that’s stupid. Again, nothing clever, just stupid.)

Beast Mastery: Affinity towards beasts.  Taming pets is easier/faster.  Also grants the ability to purchase and ride any faction mount regardless of reputation.

Jungle Beat: (passive) Nature resistance increased by 3%.

The “I Win” Totem: Only available to troll shamans.  Instant cast. 6 month cooldown.  Drops a totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. Grants 100% to all stats of all members in the raid.  Kills any enemy within 200 yards, regardless of level.  Includes raid bosses.  Lasts 5 minutes.  Consumes all mana available as well as 15% of your total gold across all characters.

Ok I totally lied.  I thought of a few good ones for some of the other races.

Dwarf:

Cartography: (passive) Skill with maps increased.  Grants ability to track treasure, ore, and herbs simultaneously.

Strength of the Explorer: (passive) Increased stamina/strength by 5%.

I’ve been here before: (passive) Allows dwarf access to old maps, books, and word of mouth which grants them every flight path in Azeroth (including Northrend) and Outlands. Reduced travel cost.

Skill of the Titans: (passive) Increased blacksmithing skill by 15.  Allows access to blacksmith only enchants regardless of skill level or profession.  Also reduces material costs for smelting certain items.

Runed Iron Form: (formerly Stoneform)  Instant. Removes all disease, poison, magic, charm, curse, or any other damage over time effect.  Reduces movement speed by 50%. 5 min cooldown.

Human:

Diplomacy: Increases the rate at which reputation is gained by 10%.  Also, starts off all reputations with at least 50% neutral.

Human Spirit: Increase spirit by 5%.  Increase resilience by 15.

Loyalty to the King!: Instant.  Calls on the will of the Alliance increasing total health by 20%

Dude, I see you: Increases stealth detection on PVE targets.  Able to completely see through PvP target’s stealth when activated.

Skilled hands: Increases tailoring skill by 15.  Increases the effectiveness of cloth scavenging.  Allows access to tailoring only enhancements regardless of skill level/profession.

Draenei:

Blessing of the Naaru: Instant cast. Heals target by x amount over 15 seconds.  Based on spell power/attack power whichever is higher.  If activated when at full health, increases total health by 20% for 30 seconds.  5 minute cooldown.

Gemmcutting: Increases jewelcrafting by 5.  Increases the effectiveness of prospecting skill. Allows access to jewelcrafting only enhancements regardless of skill level/profession.

Heroic Presence: Aura.  Increases chance to hit with spells and abilities by 2% for all party and raid members.  40 yard range.

Shadow Resistance: Reduces the chance to be hit with shadow spells by 3%

E.T. Phone Home!: Instant.  Reconnects with the mother ship, completly eliminating rez sickness and reducing durability loss from spirit rez to 20% (down from 75%).  Only effects equipped items.  5 hour cooldown.

Night Elf:

I’m a dirty hippie: Whines and moans about a bunch of nonsense about saving the sick gazelle in the Barrens.  Increases whining by 10% and judgmental nosiness by 100%.

Shadowmeld Run Away!: Steps into the shadows, reduces enemies ability to detect you.  Drops threat.  Allows you to watch the rest of your party die while you hide in the shadows.

Summon Very Big Bad Guy: Call down the forces of some evil villain thinking that you will be able to exploit them for your own gain, only to have them turn against you.  Again.  (Burning Legion anyone?)

 

 

I’ll leave the rest of the Horde to someone who knows those races better.  Besides that, I think my creativity is all tapped out, as you can tell by the boring ones for the Draenei.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]“

~Fizz

Customer Service

From time to time I will encounter something in game that will necessitate me petitioning Blizzard for help via there in-game help system.  I would say out of the 20 or so times I’ve had to submit a ticket that I’ve only actually been contacted by a GM four or five times.  I don’t remember the specifics of each incident so I can’t say if one issue gets a response more often or quicker than another.  I do know that any response I’ve received has come hours and hours later.  But that’s not really what this post is about.  While it may be obnoxious that replies come eons after submitting the ticket, I really appreciate that the GMs are always nice, professional, and at least in my experience, have a really great sense of humor.

The first few times I submitted a ticket it was all business.  They asked me what the issue was, I told them, they did what they could to resolve it, we moved on with our lives.  But on one particular occasion I was in a very strange mood when the GM finally contacted me; I talked to them entirely in Ebonics.  I really appreciated that the GM I was talking to was willing to play along a little.  She didn’t ask me to stop acting like an idiot or anything and was fully capable of understanding what I was saying.  But the best part was at the end where the following exchange took place (note, this has been paraphrased):

Me:  Yo yo word! Thank y’all fo’ hepin me get this wack shiz dealt wit yo!

GM: You are more than welcome. It was my pleasure.

Me: Word, yo.

GM: Yes. *ahem* Word.

Maybe I’m the only one who finds this amusing, but I thought it was hilarious.  Recently I had another exchange with a GM after reporting an account scammer, and I found it amusing enough to take a screen shot of so I could share it with you lovely folks.  Behold my terrible picnik photo editing skills!

 

I just really appreciated that they were willing to play along.  So, say what you will, but in my opinion and experience, Blizzard’s customer service has been really good.  They seem to take a genuine interest in their customers and their issues, and for the most part do a great job of responding to feedback about problems or unbalanced features in the game.  I’m sure there are plenty of people that haven’t had such great experiences with them, and you are more than welcome to tell me about it in the comments section, just keep things civil.  If you’ve had good experiences, I would love hearing those too!

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]“

~Fizz

The Argent Tournaments missing piece

(Update: Now that I have run 10-man ToC, the tournament makes even less sense without some specific instructions from Tirion.  Also, now I know why everyone has been railing against Tirion, Varian, and Garrosh lately.)

I was doing the Argent Tournament dailies today and I was thinking about how stupid the AT is in general.  I mean, here we are, practially on the Lich King’s doorstep and what have we spent our time doing?  Jousting.  Not just jousting each other, but jousting the Lich Kings commanders.  Oh, and fighting gladiators and beasts Roman Coliseum style.  I know I’m not the first to post about this quasi renaissance fair spectacle, but we’ll pretend because I need to talk about the sillyness of the AT before I can make my point make sense.

By the way, even though these events have been in the game for almost a year now, they are technically ‘spoilerific’ if you haven’t ever done the Wrathgate questline.  So if you haven’t, and don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading here.

How did I miss this?

So, leveling up my mage in Howling Fjord I came across something I had no idea was there.  While doing the quest, “The Echo of Ymiron” I discovered, while in the spirit world via the incense’s influence, the Lich King, standing there in front of Utgarde Keep.  Since my mouse icon changed to a sword when I moused over him, I figured I’d see what happened if I attacked him.  Well, he snatched me over, stunned me, went into some diatribe about me bowing to his power, but I wasn’t yet worthy or powerful enough or some nonsense.  And then he killed me.  Killed me dead.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting that I had completely missed this when leveling Thistlefizz through the Fjord oh so many months ago.  There’s been a few things I’ve noticed recently that I hadn’t before.  Like the mage in Dalaran that randomly sheeps people.  And the other (I assume mage) who goes around lighting the lamps in the town at night, and then sells a wand you can use to light the lamps he missed.  Makes me wonder how many other things I just totally walked by without giving a second notice.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]“

~Fizz

The New LFG

So wow.com has recently posted info about the new LFG interface. I’m at once filled with deep apprehension and cautious optimism.

Before you continue on past the cut I must leave a disclaimer.  Yes.  I KNOW this is all still on the PTR and is subject to change.  So don’t tell me that.  I’m not an idiot.  I’m still going to voice my opinions about it.

What a Long Strange Trip it Will Be

So tomorrow is the start of the Hallow’s End event.  By the end of it I will have my What a Long Strange Trip it’s Been achievement done and my Violet Proto-Drake.  It will technically be my second Proto-Drake mount, as my shaman got one from Culling of Stratholme.  But it will be the first one I can actually ride (cause my shaman still doesn’t have his epic flying).  I’m really looking forward to finally getting around to riding on a dragon.

I would have gotten the mount during Brewfest like most people, but last year during the Hallow’s End event I didn’t know about the Violet Proto-Drake, and that I would have to do all the achievements in the world events to get one.  And the reason I didn’t do the Hallow’s End achievements is because I absolutely hate Halloween.  I hate everything about it.  And so an in-game event related to it is the last thing I want to be a part of.  So it actually kills me a little inside knowing that I’m going to have to get my drake via Hallow’s End.

But that’s not what I’m talking about.

I hate you Arthas.

So last night I was running Heroic Culling of Stratholme with my guild.  As luck would have it CoS was both the regular and heroic daily.  We had a solid group together, although one of the dps had never been in there before.  I suggested that we try for the timed achievement as I still haven’t managed to get that darn drake on my main.  Our healer was a little nervous about it, but she’s way to hard on herself.  She’s actually a freaking fantastic healer.  But, I didn’t want to add extra stress to her life, so I suggested that we just give it a shot, as a practice effort, but not as our primary goal.

For the benefit of the dps who hadn’t been in I made a very thorough run down of what would happen (maybe it was a little too thorough, I have a tendency to go into a little too much detail).  Everyone knew what was going on, and I was fairly confident we could do it.

I started the first pull and everything was great! We flew through the instance.  I don’t think I’ve ever gone through it that fast.  We also got really lucky in that all the mobs spawned right there in that first area, so we just bounced back and forth between them.  We got the 2nd boss down and still had 10 whole minutes to get to the boss.  Well we headed for the inn and waited for Arthas to show up.  And waited.  And waited.  After about 3 minutes I was about to go find him when I saw him running down the road.  Well, 7 minutes..it’s gonna be tight, but we can still do it.

We get to the 3rd set of dragonkin when, Arthas decided he was going to tank theses mobs and I could go to hell.  I don’t know if it was a bug, or if I was just getting really unlucky taunt resists, but I could not pull the mobs off him.  So of course, he gets himself killed.  And then he just refuses to respawn.  By the time he does, the time is down to 4 minutes.  And despite our best efforts, we just didn’t make it in time.

So in the end, what should have been a flawless and easily accomplished drake run ended up being a disaster because Arthas is a jackass.

Oh well.  There’s always tomorrow.

But as a side note to my complaining about Arthas, I want to compliment my guild mates on doing a fantastic job.  Especially our healer.  She rocked the hell out of that instance.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]“

~Fizz

Higher Education

Within 30 seconds of my entering the game world a message popped up on my screen. “Thepiper invites you to join the guild: Higher Education.  Accept. Decline.”  I looked at the message and then over at my roommate.

“Um…what the heck is this?” I asked him.

“That’s a guild invitation. Just hit accept,” he replied.

“I’m not just gonna accept some random message on my screen until I know what’s going on!” I snapped back.

He looked at me, reached over, hit accept for me and said, “quit being a baby.”

…And they called him Thistlefizz

I ran out of time last night before I could finish this post due to my weekly raid schedule.  I knew it was coming, but I got distracted by that ‘new blog smell’ and kept tweaking this theme or that format.

Anyway, to continue my story from yesterday…ah yes, fate having other plans and all that.

I had been so determined to become the most annoying Gnome in all of Azeroth.  But I quickly discovered that I couldn’t even whisper people with a trial account.  To be honest, I’m still not really sure what ultimately made me decide that it would be totally fine to buy a regular account just to annoy people.  I’d like to think though that by that point the annoyance factor was really just more of a justification.  In truth, I was already completely hooked.