Zombies Ate My Inn Keeper

General, Roleplaying 2 comments.

A number of months ago I lamented about the emotional tug that recent prior world events seemed to lack.  In “Enemy at the Gates: The Scourge Invasion,” I spoke about how the original Scourge Invasion that heralded the new dungeon Naxxramas in Path 1.11 was my favorite world event ever implemented by Blizzard.  I wrote:

In the months before the first expansion was released, the world of Azeroth came under attack by Scourge forces under the command of Kel’Thuzad. Giant necropoleis hovered overhead as waves of undead assaulted the lands⁵ below. Some of these creatures would manage to find their way into capital cities, harassing the local populace and implacably moving forward in an effort to take out the city’s leader in a single blow.

The Scourge Invasion was finally repelled by the combined forces of the Horde, Alliance, and Argent Dawn.

The world event was beautifully enacted in such a way that completely blows my mind away. First off, it was clearly a world event of epic proportions. While the Ahn’Qiraj War Effort attempted to allow everyone to get involved by turning in needed supplies, most of the action was far away in Silithus, not easily accessible by most inexperienced players. The Scourge Invasion, however, was everywhere you turned; whether outside of Stormwind, inside the Undercity, or leveling in the Plaguelands, the Scourge was certain to have a presence. Questing for the invasion began as low as level 6, though most of the content was limited to those near to the then-current level cap.

I stand by those words.  The Scourge invasions — both before and its current incarnation — exemplify characteristics of the game I find so appealing.  I’ve had so much fun within the last week, even as others have railed against Blizzard and their zombie infestation.

I’m enamored.

I may have mentioned before that I used to be a staff member of one of the larger Ultima Online free servers.  While I focused primarily on answering pages and beautifying the world, I did help organize a number of world events during my tenure.  The current incarnation of the Scourge Invasion is exactly like something I would have loved to plan, organize, and implement.  Whether players like it or loathe it, they’re involved and they’re vocal about it.  People are reacting in a way that is very appealing — I was getting tired of hearing cries to further nerf paladins.¹

I love the disarray caused by the world event.  From what I can discern, it’s intentional. The invading Scourge should be disrupting people’s lives; it underlines the concern that the Lich King has turned his focus back to Kalimdor and Azeroth, and that his efforts could have lasting effects on the world.  Everyone is involved in this fight, whether it’s by participating in defending his home or by being swept up by the undead and mindlessly following other converted individuals.  People can’t avoid this because Arthas’s reach is just that far.

I found that the people who had the most fun in this event were the ones who were willing to adapt, temporarily shelve their goals, and get involved rather than lament how Blizzard has ruined their game.  Honestly, it’s an event that won’t persist beyond a week — does it warrant people claiming that they’re going to cancel their accounts or that Blizzard

In general, I had fun this week playing the perky priestess and allowing her to interact with others during the Scourge Invasion.  At the time of the first invasion she was still dutifully training and focusing on other goals; this time, she’s thrown herself headlong into the fray and is helping as she can in true Csilla fashion.  Last night a friend and I were stoically defending Stormwind from attack, clearing the Trade and Cathedral Districts of zombie infestations and curing people of their diseases.  It was ridiculously fun and people either joined us or threw themselves at our defenses.

Csilla eventually faltered when a wave of nearly twenty zombies overwhelmed her and I finally got to experience my first taste as a zombie.²  At that point, I went onto the offensive and gleefully slaughtered the very people that I had hoped to protect.  I focused on players at the current level cap since I didn’t want to disrupt people who were unable to defend themselves, but my friend and I³ cleared the area that we had until that moment been defending.  Once we died, however, we returned to our posts and cleaned up the mess that we had created.

The evening was especially overwhelming for poor miss Csilla, who kept hearing the insidious whispers of a malignant spirit as she fought the Scourge infestation.  Much like the letters that were lootable from the Scourge both now and then, this little effort really is wonderful.  For a young woman not yet confident in her abilities⁴, the whispers of an unfriendly spirit can be rather disheartening.

This Week on Airee.Net

I have a few projects that I’ve been working on since Friday.  There was a post regarding how to tackle the Scourge Invasion as a roleplayer, but with the final wave of zombies supposedly ending today that might be a bit moot now.  I may post it regardless.  I also acquired The Eye of Shadow which, coupled with The Eye of Divinity, will allow me to complete the pre-The Burning Crusade priest quest Balance of Light and Shadow.  I plan on recording this and eventually posting the final movie on this site, but I may put that off until after the world event ends.  It’ll be a wonderful precursor to Wrath of the Lich.  Expect the movie to be chock full of mindless Cynra commentary and effusive babble.

I’ve been told that I’m good at providing that.

Finally, I’ve been working on a series of articles regarding the post-Patch 3.0.2 Discipline tree and what I’ve learned since adopting a new spec for raiding.  In particular, I’ll look at the spells, implementation, builds, and gearing, but I’m still trying to get everything written down — especially before November arrives and I hopefully begin NaNoWriMo.  However, I am curious to hear what other people would like to see in a guide: what do you wish to learn about the Discipline tree?

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Lord Illidan Stormrage Vanquished!

Raiding 6 comments.

After mentioning in “Single-Target Priestly Healing in ‘Echoes of Doom’” some of the troubles that the we’d had last week while fighting against the Illidari Council, the Drunken Badgers returned to the Black Temple this evening with amazing results.  Not only were we able to defeat the Council, we took the opportunity to go head to head with The Betrayer and emerged victorious!  Despite the recent nerfs that have plagued mobs since Patch 3.0.2. and the fact that we’re significantly behind other trend-setting guilds, we’re extremely pleased to have managed to scratch Illidan from our list.

Though I’ve been raiding with the Badgers for about a year now, I’ve only been a member for perhaps a third of that time.  I joined with them shortly after they organized raids for Gruul’s Lair, originally on my kal’dorei and more recently on the perky priestess.  Our performance has been nothing less than stellar: within a handful of month we’d managed to place Gruul on farm status, enter Serpentshrine Cavern, slay Lady Vashj, battle Kael’thas, and clear Hyjal Summit.  I’m extremely proud that I’m a member of my guild and look forward to our future success in the Sunwell and beyond when we take on the forces of the Scourge in Wrath of the Lich King.

Even more surprising, however, has been our casual stance towards raiding.  While we don’t consider ourselves casual raiders, we do maintain a rather casual raiding schedule.  Beyond extranneous raids such as Zul’Aman and the occasional Karazhan badge run, we raid just one evening a night for five hours.  Guilds that have been raiding simultaneously with us — or even longer — have failed to make as much progress as we have even given a more rigorous raiding schedule.  To me, that indicates that we have some damned fine players in our raid and that our leadership has been extremely effective.

Of course, we Badgers do have our quirks.

Regarding the actual raid itself, I was quite impressed with my performance this evening.  Despite the lack of a raid-wide heal like Chain Heal or Circle of Healing, I was third overall on the healing meters.  This is in addition to all of the additional benefits of the Discipline tree, such as damage mitigation and absorption as well as buffs to spell damage.  I would have expected my standings on the meter to be much lower due to the decreased healing power of the tree.  Coupled with what I feel is an exceedingly low overheal value given my tendency to heal regardless of health missing in order to acquire both a full stack of Grace and Divine Aegis, I’m pretty proud of myself and how I’ve handled the transition from Holy-Discipline hybrid to full Discipline.

The spell of the evening was clearly Penance, which comprised of nearly 30% of my effective healing.  This is definitely a good thing since I think it’s the spell in my arsenal that has the highest Health Per Mana ratio.  I’m still trying to decide if Flash Heal is the way to go — contrary to pre-Patch 2.0.3 downranking of other spells — or if I should be using it less.  I was also extremely shocked to see that I somehow managed to get a Greater Heal this evening that hit for 14,925; with Divine Aegis, that meant that my target was instantly encased in a bubble that would have absorbed nearly 5,000 points worth of damage!

Furthermore, I clearly excelled in situations where single-target healing was needed while those fights that involved extensive splash damage I tended to falter.  And falter a lot.  In particular, I think that I’ll need to try to see if my healing assignments can be changed in future weeks.  There were a number of fights where I was assigned to raid heal which seemed rather silly.¹  With the lack of a raid-wide heal, I was forced to heal each raid member individually while the individuals tanking were not benefiting from my damage reduction buffs.

I think that I still need further practice with my build in order to be even more effective!  In particular, I’m having to reconsider how I gear myself and what spells are most beneficial.

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Tackling NaNoWriMo

General, Roleplaying 1 comment.

One of the more recent topics to flood the World of Warcraft blogosphere has been the impending arrival of the National Novel Writing Month.   Otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, this yearly event invites peoples to embrace literary abandon and write a 50,000 word novel within the course of thirty days.  Whole communities have embraced this annual event, while other individuals are left scratching their heads in confusion.

While the novels can entail any universe — even one of your own devising! — many fellow bloggers have contemplated writing stories specific to the World of Warcraft environment.  Others have elected to write, but not about World of Warcraft.  Vonya at The Egotistical Priest wrote in “NaNoWriMo” claiming that she’d managed to drag both Hannelore and Bre of Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick into the project.  She went one step further to create a World of Warcraft community on the official site called World of Wordcraft.  Matticus of World of Matticus wrote “7 Cliche’d Ideas to Jump Start Your WoW Related NaNoWriMo.”  At Bringin’ the Wood, Jive explains more about NaNoWriMo in “We interrupt this WoW-ing for RL!“  And this morning Megan of Out of Mana announced her interest in writing this year in “Readers, Riters.”¹

I’m sincerely considering attempting to do NaNoWriMo this year.  I have tried so once before, but a family emergency halfway through the month made it difficult to complete.  Like many other bloggers, I’m interested in penning a story regarding World of Warcraft, specifically about one of my many characters.  As an amateur writer and a roleplayer, the idea of finally getting my stories written down² appeals to me a lot.  In particular, there are two ideas in my head that would work admirably for NaNoWriMo:

• The story of the undead mage Cili, but before she was Forsaken.  The novel would follow the final adventure of Mariska Stormborne as she meets an eclectic group of characters, attempts to reconcile her devotion to the Alliance with the “new” Alliance that has evolved following the fight at Hyjal Summit, and crashes headlong into a new amorous pursuit that may be a bit more serious than she had originally hoped.
• Or, I could follow the adventures of independent contractor and blade for hire Tzigane Thistledown³, a young gnome rogue.  Unfortunately, Tzigane’s prowess with lockpicking leaves something to be desired and she’s captured while performing a task for one of her occasional employers.  This technophobe and her dwarven ally — a man with more muscles than grey matter between his ears — are coerced into performing a task for the Stormwind guards that leads them into the heart of Horde territory and might cost them their lives.

At the moment, despite the appeal of roleplaying Tzigane again after disregarding her for so many years, I’m leaning more towards writing Cili’s story.  The story is more or less complete, in that the main body of events occurred during a tabletop roleplaying sessions almost three years ago.  On the other hand, I know how Tzigane’s story would start and how it ends, but everything in between is fluff for now.  A whole lot of things occur, but at the moment I have no clue.  Furthermore, Tzigane’s story revolves around her quick wit and occasional brash attitude to progress, while I feel that Cili’s is a little more deeper.  At least that’s how I’ve always visualized it in my head — it may be an entirely different matter when if I were to start penning it.

My only concern is that I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to pursuing any type of creative endeavor.  I reread constantly, correct, change, and rarely progress as much as I’d like due to my obsession with getting everything just right.  In this, the definite deadline of NaNoWriMo could be both a blessing and a curse: while I’d be forced to write regardless of its unpolished nature due to the impending conclusion of the month, I very well might explode before then.

I think that I’ll get together my notes from that roleplaying session and plan things out.  I might also post a short story or two just to get the creative juices flowing a bit before November.  Any preparation that I can get done ahead of time to help ease the process would make success that much more likeky!

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We Interrupt This Evening’s Presentation

Raiding 10 comments.

I had a post ready for tonight, but then something happened that was infinitely more important.

The Eye of Divinity.  I have it.  My epic quest — an ordeal that has persisted for almost four years now — will soon come to its natural conclusion.  Benediction shall be mine!

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Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

General 4 comments.

Last night we must have fought the Headless Horseman some forty times within an hour.  Perhaps more — I lost count due to all of the characters that we rotated in and some had two summons as opposed to just the one.  While we saw The Horseman’s Blade twice and a handful of Hallowed Helms, there wasn’t a single Sinister Squashling nor The Horseman’s Reins.  Balaa — who coincidentally came up with the title for this post — was very disappointed.

Hopefully he’ll be more excited to learn that both the Hallowed Helm and Sinister Squashling can be acquired by Trick or Treating!

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