Archive for February, 2008

Going off my usual “once we can kill the boss twice in a row, we’ve got it” basis, I can now say that yes, Leo is now marked off on the list of bosses for my guild. So now we’re 4/6 on SSC, and deciding what to do next. Personally, I’m hoping we get to go to Tempest Keep next and take a few shots at the Void Reaver and start working on those bosses. I know that Vashj is going to be rough and we have some new people to the guild that still need a bit of gearing. Not to mention, I think we’d like to take more shots at Mags and see about getting him down. We’ve just not had the right people to do him. :;sigh::

Last night was a great night for the guild. We went into SSC, downed Hydross in one shot, two-shotted Lurker (a bad “whoops” moment early on), and then went charging for Tidewalker. Considering that the guild only does two hours of raid on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, 3 bosses in that amount of time is great. First time we’ve done that and everyone was happy.

At least I think they were. Right in the last 10% of Tidewalker, my internet connection, which had been a little flaky all night, suddenly went boom. I checked to see if it was the router, but nope, it was the actual connection. I kept my fingers crossed that it would come up fast, but 5 minutes later, it was still out and I figured that Tidewalker was down and the loot was being divided up. Some shoulders dropped that I can’t remember if I needed (I have a list at home), but ah well.

Tonight is Leo and hopefully downing him in less than 3 tries. After that, it’s off to Fathom Lord Karathress for the start of learning on him. Eep.

It came up in discussion that everyone’s got a different guild tag. Whether it’s to the point or “omg WHO CHANGED IT?! /blush”, everyone’s got a different style for how they use the guild tags.

In my guild, the alts are all designated by two things: their guild rank (we have a separate guild ranking) and then the name of their main as part of the guild tag for the alt. The main character guild tags are all different. Some say who they are (Joe’s RL friend), and some say -who- they are. For me, for the longest time I had ” (Hunter Class Leader)’s Instigator” as my guild tag. Why? Cos she’s say something to me along the lines of “Hmm, wonder if I could pull all 3 of those packs and if the raid could handle it?” or “man it’d be funny to MD onto the healer…” and I’d say “Do it!” Granted, it never took much more than that to get her to actually do it. It was more of a “oh good, someone else will find this funny! sweet!” thing.

What is it now? “NOT (Hunter Class Leader)!!!” She used to have one that said “NOT Siana!!!” Why? Cos The Boyfriend runs with names off on his screen and made the mistake of running up to HCL and /e spanks %t with her targeted. See there’s a small “problem” that she and I look almost exactly alike: same gear, same mounts, same weapons, same hair, same pets. Why yes, we did have fun with him for weeks about that.

So, what’s your guild tag, and why?

Ugh. Okay this “away/here/away/here/away” crap has got to stop! It’s seriously impeding my WoW Time! /cry

At least I’m back for the next couple of weeks…

Over on Blog Azeroth, the Shared Question of the week is “How did you come up with your character name?”

Just about all of my characters have had names pulled from different locations. My mage came from a book, but the name itself is Gaelic in origin. My pally is Japanese name in origin. My banker character is named for a cat that I had at the time, who has since passed away. My baby priest is yet another Japanese derivative but I’d used it for another character in another MMO. I have a placeholder that’s named for my first MMO character, and that was derived from wanting a “raven” without it being “Raven”.

And then there’s Siana and Mirya, her pet. Siana came from another method I have of creating names: taking a word, chopping it apart, and rearranging it, usually with another word that’s also been chopped. In this case, however, Siana came from “LouiSIANA”. No, seriously. That’s where it came from. I was looking around the house for anything to start building a name from, saw a Louisiana state map I was about to throw away (since I don’t live there anymore and haven’t for years), and used the state name. That was for a banker character in another MMO, and when I was surprising The Boyfriend on WoW’s Opening Day (cos I hadn’t told him I was getting WoW), I knew he didn’t know that banker character, and having some person named “Siana” sending him a tell would confuse him. It worked. Mwhaha…

Mirya was an easy choice for my teal kitty. I told the story of how I got her over at Survival Hunters Anonymous. I’ve known the real life “Mirya” (not her real name) for over 12 years now. I’d sucked her and her husband into MMOs and they’ve been merrily committing carnage over in FF11 for a few years now. She’s also a vet and a huge kitty lover, and dang it, I missed having a flurry of teal and steel running around me from back when we played EQOA and she was a bard while I played cleric. So asking her if I could name a rare teal cat pet after her wasn’t that far a stretch for me, and her reaction of bouncing in glee and demanding pics of her namesake wasn’t that far a stretch for her.

Ah character creation. Ain’t it grand!

Photoshop bug struck again…

So the past couple of days I’ve been off taking more time off than I thought I was going to. I actually wandered back into WoW on Tuesday night for the first of our raid nights in SSC. It was an odd night, little slips here and there, but we got the job done. 2 bosses down (Lurker and Hydross), and hit a stopping point for the night. Last night, instead of heading for Tidewalker first, the raid leaders decided to hit Leo. I quietly cheered since I’m going to be out of town on business and would have missed being in on a guild first kill. Wipe 1, wipe 2, wipe 3…. then he’s out!

So the guild now has 2 members with T5 gear (no not me, but two other highly deserving guildies). Woot go team!

The biggest pain in the butt for me that fight is reconfiguring my action bars for easy access in the inner demon fight. Wing Clip, Serpent Sting, Snake Trap - they all get moved into one of the first 6 slots for easy access. Since the demons are vulnerable to Nature damage and you have to kill it within 30 seconds, I wanted to make sure I could get as much damage out there as I could. Add in having to get the killing shot instead of your pet and things get, erm, interesting.

Just in time for me coming back to blogging, I get to leave town tomorrow. Be back Monday!

Love is in the air, and I’m taking a break. Not a long break, but after a spectacularly “off” day (mucked up things, snarled at some people) on Saturday, I decided I needed to have a “time out”. So yesterday, I slept in late, watched some TV, then played some Katamari on the PS2, one of my all-time fav games. Tonight? More of the same, only with Final Fantasy 12.

I find that every so often, I just need to “reset” my head when it comes to WoW. Take a night or two off, not log in for a weekend, or tell everyone “Vanishing for a week, back later!” During that time, I go play other games, read 3 books at a time, cook insane amounts of food, or do various things to the house. When my time is up, I walk back into WoW and find my drive is in place again. Once again, I’m ready (and happy!) to spend the next 5 hours in Nagrand destroying the ecosystem all for the sake of leather, dying to various bosses 4-6 nights a week, etc.

On the good side of things, after having a couple of “%#$#%” moments in SSC on the Leo fight, I did manage to kill my own demon twice. Considering how out of it I was, I’m putting it firmly in the “Win” column.

Well I did go to Naxx on a “fun run” with the guild Friday night. 19 of us took out the Instructor, then we headed over to the Abomination wing to smack around Patchwerk. Unfortuantely I was so tired I was falling asleep at the computer, and the 5 minute break that got called really hit me hard. I can count on one hand the nuber of times that I’ve actually dozed off while gaming, and last night was one of them. So I left before Patchwerk, and missed the Tier 3 shoulder drop. Oh boo. Heheh.

Night’s Leo night, and our first attempt on him got him down to the 20s. Each try from there’s been better and better, with us finally getting him just now to 3%. Looks like we’re taking one more shot at him and I think we’re done after this. Whee. /dies.

Edit: Last attempt of the night, once again 3%. At least we’re consistent.

ZA was good last night, with us getting our second kill of the 4 animal bosses in one sitting and a couple shots at Malacrass before having to call it a night. I was very pleased when the Bear boss took pity on me and dropped the Pauldrons of Primal Fury finally. The Hunter Class Lead already had them, so it was my turn to snap them up. When I log in tonight, I’ll be frantically trying to get some daily quests done so I can afford to get them gemmed and glyphed. Yep, I’m that broke. -.- And since the usual MA was out last night, I got selected for MA target duties. I don’t normally MA. I think I can count on one hand the times that I’ve MA’d. I can say two things tho: 1. I don’t think I did too badly except for once or twice having trouble targeting the next mob (%@$#%#$ camera and trees) and 2. it certainly took my mind off the upset stomach from dinner.

The other thing going on tonight (other than me trying to farm desperately needed money) is doing something I never had the chance to do before TBC came out: step into Naxxramas. Yep, that’s right. The guild is going to Naxx to check things out before the next expansion changes it. A good chunk of the guild had been there before the expansion, but there’s quite a few of us that haven’t been, whether from not getting attuned, to not being of a level, or like in my case, just simply not having the time to raid at that point. I’m looking forward to it, and it should be interesting to see it now and then see it post expansion. Fun fun!