Snapshots

When I first started to play WoW I took screenshots pretty much everywhere I went, initially I intended to set up a blog from the point of view of the character taking them.  Alas, this never came to be as I was simply too engrossed in playing the actual game to do anything relatively productive.  So, with me levelling my first Horde character through Northrend just now I’ve started to stop and take in the atmosphere.  Look for those perfect angles where the light is just perfect.  Now I’m not going to do my original idea of posting in these in the form of a story, but I will post some of my favourites over the next few days.

Enjoy!

Raiding and the annoyances that come with it

Last time I raided was a couple of months after the RP-PvP servers came out.  Originally me and a few friends were in a tiny guild run by ourselves and thanks to our connections to other people we got the chance to merge and form what would become one of the server’s better raiding guilds.  It was immense fun.  I had no idea such a thing would be as enjoyable as it was.  Months passed.  People left.  New people joined but gradually the guild lost what it once was.  We’d picked up a few idiots along the way.  Slackers.  Loot whores.  The type of people that just aren’t fun to raid with.  So with this the guild split up and most went their seperate ways.

Ever since then I turned into an Altaholic.  I’d change class and server often, just to to try and find something that’d make me stay, but nothing did.  I basically felt like I needed to play new characters.  That was until I decided to go back to my very first server and join my second ever guild.  It was great seeing some of the old players still around, and after a few weeks I joined them in their casual Naxxramas run, and I’d found what I was looking for.  A friendly, functional but most of all fun little raid group.  That was until tiny little things started annoying the shit out of me.

Firstly.  People coming to places like Ulduar and expecting a free ride.  Seriously.  An Arms Warrior and a Hunter getting out DPS’d by the tank?  Pull your fucking shit together.  Aforementioned Arms Warrior couldn’t get it into his head that he needed to run away when Mimiron started to shit out HUGE lightning bolts.  I’m not a hardcore raider by any means, I hate that shit, but I do expect people to at least put the slightest bit of effort in.  It just stinks of laziness and disrespect for the others in the raid really.  Of course, because we’re a casual and friendly guild nothing gets said. Bleh.

Secondly. People who don’t sign for progress raids.  Then as soon as the place is clear we’re oversigned.  Like fuck am I going to rotate so some Priest (who had 2 weeks earlier transferred off the server without saying a word to anyone to join a ‘Pro PvP’ guild named <eHEROES> (I’m /facepalm’ing here). Just urgh.

They both seem pretty trivial reading them back, but annoying none the less!  It’s like, “if they don’t put effort into this, then why should I?”.  More disheartening than anything else.  Oh well, if this future plan works out, hopefully this’ll all be sorted.  Time will tell.

A Paladin, Finally.

Finally got round to making one.  A proper one this time, not just one that got to level 11 then left behind.  She has the Bind on Account Valor chest and shoulders along with the BoA Lava Dredger.  For a level 21, I look rather spiffy!

Main reason for making her was to give the new experience in Battlegrounds a try, which is worlds apart from the old ones which were full of twinks.  Thankfully now they’re in battlegrounds of their own, which makes sense seeing how ’special’ they are.  Not in a good way.  The experience in battlegrounds isn’t a huge amount, at least not in the 10-19 bracket, but it’s a nice boost for a break inbetween questing.

On my Shaman… I finally got the ‘Champion of the Frozen Wastes’ title, which is nice.  I really enjoyed Eye of Eternity, quite possibly my favourite WoW boss fight.  Most definitely the best in Wrath.  Oh, and my egg hatched into the mount.  Result!  Only took several months!  All that progress aside, I’m not sure where I’m going with my Shaman, I actually converted 80 Emblems of Conquest into Heroism ones so I could buy some BoA things for the Paladin mentioned earlier.  I could of got some really nice upgrades with those.  Ah well.  Right now I’m enjoying the Paladin a whole lot.

More to support additional Druid Race options?

In the new 3.2 patch on the PTR realms there’s a new quest by the Dalaran portals which lead nowhere, yet.  In it, Aponi Brightmane, a wounded warrior who wishes to return the front lines in Northrend, and Tahu Sagewind, a Druid, speak together about the history of Druidism, the moon, and the sun.  This got people over at Scrolls of Lore talking about what it all could mean.  Could it be some form of change for Druids?  Quite possibly.  My idea, as posted earlier, is each faction will get an additional race that can choose Druid.  Horde being the Blood Ef and Alliance, quite possibly Worgen.  On top of this, I think we’ll see further race diversion for both Shaman on Alliance and Paladin on Horde.

We’ll see soon.

Druids to get extra race options?

From the recent Druid Class Q+A;
It’s also worth mentioning that druids can be only one race each on the Horde and Alliance side. They have the least racial diversity of any class in the game.

Now with the rumours of Alliance getting Worgens as a playable race, I got to thinking of what classes they could be.  I’d say Warrior, Rogue and Hunter are amongst the most likely candidates.  I just can’t see them having many casters, at least not any dedicated ones.  Shamans and Druids?  That’s quite possible.  Would Blizzard let Alliance have more choice of Druid race than Horde though?  Probably not.  Most likely choice for a second Druid race Horde side?  Blood Elf.
Guess we’ll find out for sure in just over a month!

Argh, Worgens!

Recently, we (my fiancée and friends we play with) decided to go back to Horde.  Fast forward a few weeks and the leak that Worgens could quite possibly become the latest Alliance race comes out.  Rumours say they’ll be Alliance anyway, other rumours say they could be neutral, leaving it up to the player to decide which faction they’ll go along with.  I don’t think the latter will happen personally.  It’s too much of a bold move for Blizzard.

Guess what?  I want to play a Worgen!  Which would mean going back to Alliance…again.  Sometimes, I hate having Altoholism.

When did it happen?

The first MMO I played was Final Fantasy XI and despite its now obvious flaws I really enjoyed the experience.  It didn’t really allow for altaholism in the same way WoW does.  You could change classes in towns, but the character was still an Elf, or Galka.  You could have totally different characters, but you had to pay for that privilege.  So back then, I had my one character and stuck with it.

Then WoW came around and initially I had just the one character.  I’d plumped for a Night Elf Rogue and played through a lot of the game with him on Earthen Ring but me and some friends craved more PvP, yet didn’t want to leave behind the RP side completely, so as soon as the RP-PvP realms came out we moved over, to Horde side and went through the whole levelling process again, this time with added danger.  I’d chosen an Undead Warlock and still to this day, she probably has the most /played time on her.  To cut a long story short we merged with another guild and over time we became the servers leading Horde raid guild.  Here began my altaholism.

After trouncing through Molten Core, Zul’Gurub and Ahn’Qiraj for months I needed a change of pace somewhat.  So I started levelling a Druid, not with the intention of switching main characters.  It just sort of happened.  Ever since then I’ve always been levelling different characters.

Just recently we went back to Alliance after spending a couple of years on the Horde side of things and I levelled a Warrior.  Can you guess what happened?  I hit 80, did a few heroics and got bored (this wasn’t helped by the fact nobody on the server seemed to need a tank. *mumble* Bloody Death Knights *mumble*  So I then levelled a Shaman, first time I’ve played one surprisingly, despite playing since launch.  I really enjoy playing him, and still do, but I need to face facts.  I’m a confirmed altaholic.  I can’t stay with one character, no matter how much I enjoy playing them.  I’m pretty sure I’ve called each and every class “the best class ever” at some point.

I just enjoy variety.  I like questing, and the levelling process.  I love the unexpected world PvP (when it’s a fair fight of course).  So, with a level 80 Warrior and Shaman, a level 70 Druid, Rogue and Warlock and my newly made Troll Priest chomping at their heels, I guess you can call me The Altaholic.

The Altaholic

You all know one.  You may even be one yourself.  I’ll admit to being one.  I never used to be, but somewhere along the line I changed, and I think I enjoy it more than I did when I was a one character guy.