Archive for the “Beta” Category

Okay no idea where that title came from, other than me thinking of missing time, and memories of The Muppet Show. >.>

I managed to go poof for a while. Blame it on trying to not get sick, the weather, allergies, and plain ol’ blahs. I started thinking about everything that I “needed” to do to prep for Wrath and, well, came to a screeching halt. Granted, I still went on Friday’s Kara run with the other guild on my mage and had a blast.

Saturday’s guild ZA didn’t happen, as 4 of the 10 people weren’t able to make it at the last minute. Two had their power go out as they were prepping and the other two were dealing with a injury from laying a wood floor that involved bleeding and nausea. We all made mutters about our ZA runs getting cursed lately, as we’ve had more trouble with them in the past few weeks than anything else. Phone calls were made and we rescheduled the run for Sunday.

Sunday rolled around and I was tired and admittedly grumpy. I had a lovely headache that wouldn’t die (see allergy comments above) and jsut wanted to sleep. The other hunter was in a similar state. Apparently, so was most of the raid. What happened? Pure carnage. We actually got 3 timers for the first time. Another 6 minutes and we would have made the last timer. The last two bosses were cake after that and we sailed right on through them. Okay, we wiped on Eagle phase of Zul’jin, but we were all so giddy still from the timers we didn’t mind that much.

I’ve played around more in beta, but my heart’s just not in it this time for whatever reason. Granted, Northrend is stunning, what I’ve seen of it. They’ve pulled out all the stops in their art department, cos the landscapes are are some of the prettiest environments I’ve seen in a long while. The detail that’s in some of the models is impressive as all hell. And Sylvanus? Damn… Siana covets her gear and wants to look that badass when she grows up. >.>

But the actual quests? Not so much this time. I don’t know why. I guess with Outland, there was this storyline that took you up to it. There was the quest that happened right before the gate opening, with tons of mobs pouring out of the gate and people questing to kill them to get a special tabard. It was fun insane chaos and on a PvE realm, there were a bunch of people that accidentally flagged PvP from shooting/attacking/nuking an opposing faction player who stepped in the wrong spot at the wrong time. I know I got killed a couple of times and leapt right back into the fray giggling the whole time as a Tauren kept apologizing to me through emotes. And I did the same to the Undead that I shot by accident. Good times, good times.

This time, I guess I missed any quest that was the impetus to go to Northrend. I’ve not seen anything that looked like a call to arms for people to go. It’s just been boom there’s the boat, have fun kids. So it leads me to this: WHY?! Seriously, from a story line, my character’s sitting nice and happy in Shattrath in Outlands, farming away at dailies. Suddenly, there’s no one in Shatt anymore. She asks where everyone went to and they all say “Northrend! Wooo!” She asks why and they all say “No clue! Northrend! Woooo!” Yes there’s leveling, new areas, and new things to kill. But WHY? Is there a quest or going to be a quest where Arthas sends a memo to all the major cities saying “Nyahhhhh! You can’t get meeeee! Mwahahhaha! /fart” that gets everyone riled up to build ports to go visit Northrend? Maybe the Red Dragonflight landing in the middle of Stormwind and knocking on the castle gates? “Excuse me, we have a neighbor up north that’s making life difficult for us. Seems to be a relation of yours. Can you come take care of him pls kthxbai.” On the Horde side, did Sylvanus get a postcard from Arthas saying “Hai! Wish u were here! Mmmmmmwah! ::kissyface::” and got ticked he was trying to take liberties with her undead self again?

Inquiring minds want to know!

To Doom List:
1. Farm $$ on hunter and mage to be 1k gold on each. (GD dailies… /mutter)
2. Level Lockette to 70
3. Get Lockette into at least 1 Kara run before expansion
4. Try to not go (any more) insane FAIL EPIC FAIL

Beta, you are a cruel, cruel mistress. You taunt us, teasing us with promises of new content to test, new skills to try, and unlimited 1 copper respecs. You show us pictures of new lands, filled with new animals to tame for our very own. Whispering into our ears of shiny new loot to be gotten, new lore to see, and new dragons to meet. And right when you know you have us in the palm of your hands, quivering in anticipation of weekends with free time to explore and destroy new environments, then… then you laugh in our faces as you deny us, leaving nothing behind but shattered hearts, dreams, and “World Server Down” notices.

/grump. I’m on to you, biatch!

(Soliloquy brought to you by the letters G, D, I and T, along with the Representatives of Bloggers Needing Therapy from Crashing Servers.)

Wait a sec… ANOTHER POST?! Frack, call the cops, she’s gone MAD!

Yep, another post. I went ahead and wandered into the beta tonight. I couldn’t help it. New shiny content was calling to me. I played around with the Death Knight a little bit more, but I have to admit my heart’s not in it. Maybe someday, but right now, I’m just playing it to give feedback and see the pretty pretty lore. And the lore is pretty, there’s no doubt about that.

Right as I was starting to get hungry and thinking supper might be a good idea, I logged to the character list (it’s habit, those last few things to toss onto the AH before fulling logging for the night, even tho I have no banker right now). Oooo there’s my mains! Woot! One fast name change for my hunter later (oh look I changed it to Nightravyn, how original for me), and I was zipping around in Stormwind, heading for the new Stormwind docks.

My god, the docks are huge. Huge and awesome. The boats that take you to Northrend are another boat style, just like the separation between the Kalimdor and Eastern boats. Quite frankly, sometimes after a long day of questing/raiding/instances/etc., the brains a bit too fogged and seeing a giant boat that looks like something out of Final Fantasy Meets Giant Walrus might just prod the brain to say “Hmm, I don’t think this is going to Darnassus. Lemme get off now.”

There’s some boat changes: It’s now Stormwind <-->Auberdine, not Auberdine <--> Menethil. I’m okay with that actually. To actually GET to Northrend, tho, it’s take the other boat in Stormwind to the Borean Tundra. It felt like 90% of the Alliance was there. I wandered around a bit, looked into places, checked out the Frozen Tundra outside the gates, then hearthed back to Shatt to try out the other entrance into Northrend: Howling Fjord. To get to HF, you can either hop a turtle in the Borean Tundra (yeah I learned that after I left, but that’s okay), or take what USED to be the Menethil <--> Auberdine boat and is now Menethil <--> HF.

The two boatrides are pretty danged similar. Northern lights, sweeping skies, lots of icebergs. But going into HF, and it’s Alliance base of Valgarde, seemed a bit more… well, it seemed more epic-y to me. You had a sense of you’re going someplace where Very Bad Things are going on. It felt more rustic to me, whereas Valiance Keep, the Alliance base for Borean Tundra felt more… settled I guess. And then there’s the boat actually gliding into port in Valgarde: slipping in between high high cliffs, boats over your head burning, and then rounding the corner to see this massive keep and a huge waterfall, all with (to me) a Lord of the Rings movie feeling, but not so much that you were distracted. Just a nod to it, that’s all. I sat there going “Wooooooooowwwwwww” at the screen. These are VERY nicely detailed textures and amazing models, and whoever set the boat’s path in place did it perfectly. It shows the harbor off in the best way possible.

So tomorrow I have a day off. I’ll be getting up early and playing around and doing more exploring. With betas, I’m fearless: I’ll stick my nose in just about anywhere. It doesn’t matter. It’s not money I’m REALLY losing from all those repairs. And the little bit that I did play around with in fighting with an admittedly “yeah whatever” spec for both me and Mirya, we did quite nicely. Do have have hard numbers? Hell no. We’ll see what happens upon release. As it was, you could spot me and Mir in a sea of brown and grey rhinos and devilsaurs. That blue splotch in all that mess? Yeah, that was me.

So yeah as I said in the earlier post (my god, woman, two posts in ONE DAY?! ARE YOU MAD?!), I’m in beta, and since my mains are in the process of being copied, I rolled a Death Knight to see the area and the server. It was a rather amusing experience, seeing as how I’m half asleep at the time (woke up early to patch and log in).

“Ooo pretty screen. Hello frozen undead dragon thin::yawwwwn::gie.”

::typitytypity Enter:: “Frack, no mains. Ah well.” ::createcreate::

Boyfriend: “Huh, DK?”

“Yep! I wanna see what it’s like. I’m still prolly gonna leave the DKing up to you tho.” ::Enter, loading screen, in-game movie::

“Woot I can move again. Hmm…” ::looks around:: “Eh whatever, oh, quest giver.” ::click then sigh over slooooooow teeeeeext, then accept fast and turn to walk off.

“Um… wait a sec…” ::goes back to quest giver and looks… way…. up::

“GAH!”

Boyfriend now looking over my shoulder: “What is yer problem? And why is yer toon backing up?”

“Arthas. Big. Big. Big. Arthas. GAH! Pleasedon’teatmeohmyfrickengawd.”

Boyfriend: ::point and laugh at me::

“…” ::smacks forehead:: “He’s friendly. You dork.” ::sigh:: “At least I’m awake now.”

Conclusion: I’m the worst Death Knight ever.

First, I apologize for the long time between posts. I’m still trying to get this whole juggling act of new store + WoW + home handled. The store is coming along swimmingly and we’ve gotten mostly rave reviews. How do you know your store’s doing well? You get complaints that you don’t have everything, just most stuff. ::grin::

And then there’s the fact there wasn’t too much to chat about from my end. I’ve essentially stopped doing 25-man raids. I was getting way too much stress and didn’t like yelling at my computer screen 4 nights of the week. Instead, I’m focusing on 10-man raids in Kara and ZA with my guild and another friend’s guild two nights a week. As a result, I’m spending far more time laughing my ass off and teasing friends. Am I somewhat disappointed that I’m not seeing current “end-game” content? Sure. But I’m having fun and that’s what counts.

And then there’s my lock. She’s coming along swimmingly, and was level 35 when I logged Saturday night. However, she’s still level 35. I kinda got distracted. >.>

Yep, I bought Spore on Sunday. The Boyfriend and I have been merrily creating and giggling our way through everything. Well, him more so than me. I got in a good two days then work ate me alive for a while. But I did log into my lock last night to try and get her some levels. She’s almost 36 now and looking forward to being played more again.

But WILL I? Yep I’m one of the lucky people in the latest round of beta invites. I’m still waiting on my main to be copied over to the test servers but I did play around with a death knight this morning before work. It was… interesting. I kinda want to finish the starting DK quests just to see how they go, with the story and the lore, but not too sure if I’ll ever roll a DK to keep. So tonight I get to log in, see if my mains are switched over, and if not, back to leveling the lock. I think. I kinda want to try out the DK stuff in the morning when hardly anyone is on. We’ll see what happens. ::grin::