My Week(s) in Pictures

So I've been dabbling in various aspects of the game over the past few weeks. My obsession with Pet Battles has dwindled to a healthy "Oh that's a nice break" rather than the mega "I must tame them all!" mantra. I can get a little manic when it comes to this game, and I was pretty into the whole pet battle thing -- so much so I burned myself out.

Enter the "it's a new fiscal year and my IT department has money again" in January and work has been nice and busy lately. The double combination of faffing in game and not having much game time has made for some interesting sessions.

Consider my paladin questing in Townlong, and I'm told:

How does it KNOW?

Luckily, my skin's a bit on the thick side, so I was able to shrug that one off. Not too long after, I got my dynamic duo 'chiever:

Ta Da!

Now that the pally was at 90, it was time to experiment with some solo raiding. I have gotten out the the grind for mounts, and I've started clearing Kara again in hopes that the horse drops. No such luck.  After running a few scenarios and getting some halfway decent blue drops (and getting rid of my mostly quest greens), I've been able to solo AQ and not get stuck at the Twin Emperors. I tell ya, that was a heavy feeling of impotence to not be able to pass those two.  But now, I've gained exalted rep with AQ and picked up a nice set of flying purple people eater mail mogs, as well as gotten lucky in AQ with each of the pets needed for Raiding With Leashes.

Same with Molten Core, though I *still* need to slog that one out for rep for a few more months thanks to the brilliant decision to only award rep from boss kills!  Ugh! But, that and Black Wing Lair have been generous with pet drops, and all I've got left is Naxx. And the bosses in Naxx are not being pet friendly with me.  I need all Naxx pets.  /sigh

Speaking of Naxx.... It's a bit irrelevant, but it's still an achievement:

Only 2 Expansions Late!

The funny thing was no matter how I tried, the only way I could get Shocking! was by soloing and not having anyone else there to muck it up.  Hmmmm. =)

Then, I figured let's actually do some new - current - content.  So I checked in with the Shieldwall and started that. All I can say is "Whoa!" I'm liking the story line bunches and I'm looking forward to getting in and doing the dailies (in my case the bi-dailies) to advance the story line.  I had seen Navi mention about this cool achievement from the Shieldwall (once I actually got caught up in some blog reading, but that's a different story) so I had to try my hand.  I got lucky, and on my second day I got my Dudes achievement!

The Achievement Name is cooler than the Achievement itself

I'm currently swapping back and forth between my Alliance Warlock and my Horde Druid to see which one will get the 3rd and 4th level 90 achievements on my account. After playing primarily Alliance characters, the Jade Forest from the Horde side is pretty cool. Plus, those ookin' Hozen make me laugh with the stuff they say.  As I was exploring the clickies in a base, for example, I uncovered this literary gem:

Those ookin' Monkeys can pen a hai-ku!

Oh, and the inn-keeper at the hozen staging area?  He's called a Hozen Bed-Haver.   Epic!

Wall of Shame: Premier Post

I fail to understand how it's fun to act like a complete and total ass in a video game. Does it make you feel cool? Superior? Somehow better than everyone else?

Enter a new "series": The Wall of Shame.  When someone acts like a jerk to me (or around me) in the game, I'm gonna screen cap it and post it here.

And, I've been literally sitting here staring at my screen for the last three hours wondering whether or not to protect this individual's identity. And I've come to the conclusion: Screw it. It's my blog, and I'll post what I want.

Allow me to set the stage... I'm in Stormwind checking on how auctions have fared, and I catch this in tradechat:

First mistake? Asking a question in /tradechat

How do you get valor points?

There was a time when I didn't know the answer to this question. So, I'm figuring "Iwillwinat" is a newer character and perhaps doesn't understand about valor points. And rather than respond in trade and running the risk of feeding the trolls, I shoot a whisper to the person briefly answering their question.

I'm greeted with this little gem of evilness:

umm... WTF?

So I'm"helping" by answering a question and I'm assaulted with this bullshit?  I love /ignore.  I just wish I didn't have to use it all the time.

There's a whole other element to this snapshot. How in the hell have we come to a place in our culture where it is acceptable to threaten anyone verbally? I have never in my life experienced as much abuse as I have in WoW. In the real world, it helps that I'm 6' 5". Most bullies started to leave me alone after I began looking down on them in junior high school. So physically, in the real world, you had better be Jackie Chan or Hulk Hogan before you talk smack to me. But in the virtual world? There's no consequence. All I can do is 'report' this dipshit and pray Blizzard does something about it.

But is that truly doing anything? They might get banned for a bit... But knowing them, they'd brag to their friends and make fun of me for being a do-gooder for reporting them.

I simply don't understand it.

I'm not trying to offer a solution, or anything prophetic about this issue -- I'm just expressing my personal exasperation and frustration that gamers can be stereotyped as masochistic closet freaks only because some of them act like one.  Please -- Don't perpetuate the stereotype.

I'm gonna crawl back into my middle-aged man cave now.  Football games are on!