The Interwebs Dislike Me

So, there have been a series of events that have led to my conclusion that my internet is out to get me.

First, it was going randomly offline every few minutes, only staying up for less than a minute on average.

Second, once we got it working again, the antenna on the roof broke. No internet.

Third, when THAT was fixed, there were heaps of thunderstorms that somehow messed up my wireless internet.

So, now that there have been three, hopefully it will stay up.

Please?

Day 04 – Your best WoW memory

I’ve been trying to think of my best WoW memory, and I’m having a lot of trouble trying to pick just one.

I remember playing with my old friends who taught me everything I needed to know, and it’s thanks to them that I’m a raider today. They patiently taught me what not to stand in, what to stand in, how to heal, how to tank, how to not pull aggro as a DPS, how to write macros, how to use Vent, how to PvP, and most importantly, how to be a considerate person that thinks of the people behind the keyboard.

But although those memories are special to me, those days are long gone, as my guild disbanded as the RL friends that founded it and taught me had an RL falling-out. I tried to keep in contact with them, but being on the other side of the world hindered things somewhat.

I remember dinging lvl 70 back in TBC, and running heroics and raids. But those were mostly with my at the time guild, who were a bunch of elitists that spent all day online and felt everyone else should too. =/ The guild has since disbanded and reformed, and when I was offered a ‘Council’ position when they asked me to rejoin I politely declined. I’m still friendly with several of them, but would never rejoin. Those memories are amazing and filled me with such power, but they were always accompanied by yelling over Vent, and Councilmembers getting pissy at those of us that weren’t in full purples.

I remember dinging 80, but that wasn’t nearly as big of a deal, even less when I got my second and eighth. Taking down the Lich King for the first time with my at-the-time-new guild, was incredible. I’m still wearing Kingslayer as my title, but it doesn’t seem like a hard fight at all, compared to the new raid fights, and that seems to lessen the glory.

Some of my fondest memories are of running friends, family, guildies, and random people I befriended through the old Deadmines. That was my favourite dungeon, but the revamp isn’t something I like.

Some of my favourite pastimes are going back for revenge killings; Hogger, Mor’Ladim, Fel Reaver, Durn, those guys in Dragonblight I can’t recall the names of…. I remember the first time I soloed Durn on my DK pre-nerf, I almost fainted. I only wish I’d Frapsed it.

I’ve always been envied by friends and family for my ability to strike up conversations with strangers anytime when online. Some of my closest WoW friends were met through a random conversation, and I’m as close to them as the internets allow. This isn’t always a good thing, as I’m usually to polite to tell them when to stop because they’re creeping me out. I’m the unofficial guild therapist, because people find me good to talk to, and I’d like to think they’ve gained something from our scheduled chats ;-). From strangers I’ve been told of many problems that can only be told to an anonymous person online, such as gory breakups, death, still-births, rejection, embarassment, and the general problems associated with life. For some reason, people open up to me, even IRL. But these aren’t best memories, but I think it’s where I’ve done the most good.

I remember getting my epic mounts, ground and flying, when it was still a big deal. I remember finally getting heroic purples in every slot (only to replace them with greens and blues in the next Xpac). I remember teaching new players how to act in dungeons (eg. don’t stand in crap, if you’re not the tank don’t pull crap, if you spank the sheep you tank the sheep, etc). I remember my first macro (a /roll one with a witty /e I can’t remember). I remember helping others with rotations and talent points (I still do this every patch for a cousin). I remember my first trip through ICC (We did up to the dragon, but decided to save her and LK for next time. I found out later most of them were in Heroic mode o.O). I remember dying in my first fire (Deadmines). I remember my first summons (From Teldrassil to Goldshire). I remember the first time a gold spammer put ME on HIS/HER ignore list (I am now up to 7. I feel accomplished). I remember when I first caused a group to wipe (Accidentally pulled the lumber goblins in VC because I got too close). I remember the first time I got really chewed out by a Raid Leader (Kara, by a Councilmember I never got along with, for a decent reason but taking it too far). I remember my first BG (WSG-We lost, 3-nil. Alliance sucks at BG). I remember endless gankings on a PvP realm. I remember the same guy doing it the next guy, and I remember telling guildies and having 9 lvl 70’s coming to my rescue(they camped him until he plug-pulled). I remember when I first started being known to guildies, friends and family as a verbal Thottbot/Wowhead/Wowwiki/Tankspot/EJ. I remember leading my first raid, and having it flop (Ulduar).

At the moment, it’s too hard for me to pick out a single moment as the best, because I know that my best memories and proudest moments are yet to come.

But with that being said, killing Mor’Ladim always makes me LOLIRL. I HATE that guy!

Crappy Internets FTL

So, I felt I needed to give you all a semi-decent reason as to why it’s taking me so long to post. Ideally, I want to post each day. My crappy internet, however, simply LOL’d and said ‘not gonna happen!’

I’m currently testing a new wireless internet system that’s never been used in this area before. Basically, I get it for free, and I simply report every time it throws the towel in. Dumb thing does it every other day though, so I’m not too impressed with it.

But hey, free internet.

Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW

My first time playing WoW……gee that was a long time ago.

It was back in Vanilla, and my cousin (8 years my senior), was showing me this new game that we should buy and play with him and other people we knew. My dad was skeptical. “So I buy the game, and then pay to keep playing it? Runescape is free.”

So, in order to convince us, he let me make a character on his account. I was eager to buy and play this game, as being a nerd and all, I had read the WoW manual and guide books my cousin had left unattended next to the computer. (Years later he told me that he had done so deliberately, because he knew I’d read them, so that I’d convince my dad to join.)

I loved the look of the Night Elves. Humans were too boring and super-modelly. Dwarves were kinda ugly. Gnomes creeped me out. But those elves were beautiful and exotic. I wanted one. I made a female one (because I didn’t like the male’s faces and also because ewww I’m a girl why would I play a boy?!?!?!), but I was confused as to what class to play. I mean, come on! There were so many! I liked the idea of turning into animals, but my cousin said that a warrior is the easiest to learn to play.

I tried a few different names, but they were all taken. Then, the final name I tried accepted. So Moondance the Nelf Warrior was born. I ran around on her, doing all the quests in the starting zone. My dad kicked me off after a while, because he wanted to try it too. When he gave it back to me, I had to take an antidote to this guy, and there was a timer! I failed that quest about five times, before I finally found the guy, because my dad had gotten the quest, not me. My cousin let me take his Paladin for a spin too, it was level 60! I remember thinking at the time, “Wow! It must have taken forever to get this high!” And it had. 18 months.

Eventually, a few months before BC came out, we caved and bought an account. Moondance was deleted from my cousin’s realm, she was only level 12. When I made my first character, I wondered if her name was available. It wasn’t. So instead I made a hunter, and I was ticked at my cousin. Hunters were MUCH easier than warriors. My first day on her was spent questing.

I can still remember all of this clearly, even though I haven’t tried to recall it for years.

Thanks Mum =)

Today is that glorious day when we thank our mothers for the years of strife and grief we’ve put them through, and acknowledge their strength of both body and mind in not strangling us years ago.

So, thanks Mum. Thanks for everything.

Thankyou for all those times you patiently waited for me at the dinner table when I just had to “finish this @#$%ing raid”, as well as all those pointless family events I skipped due to my raiding schedule. You knew that I would have found another excuse not to go, even if WoW wasn’t a factor in my life, so you never pressed the matter.

Thankyou for providing me with mid-raid snacks, to “keep [my] strength up so you can kill the zombie man”. Thanks for always calling Arthas “zombie man”. Thankyou for driving my char for a few minutes when I needed an urgent bio-break mid-raid. Thankyou for also clicking on the VuhDo bars of the raid members dying when the boss was pulled early. “They were turning red, and that’s usually a bad thing.” Thankyou for being intelligent and wise.

Thankyou for not insisting I should “act like more of a girl” like my friend’s mum. She was only allowed to play WoW for one hour on weekends. Thankyou for not doing that to me. Thankyou for saying “if you really want to play that silly game, I’m not going to stop you.” Thankyou for pretending to be interested when I tried to teach you how to play.

Thankyou for sitting next to me, and ‘helping’ me. “That bar’s going down! Heal him! Why aren’t you healing him?” “Because he’s the stupid rogue that decided to pull the entire room.” “…Let him die.” Thankyou for supporting me in ‘teaching’ DPS not to pull for the tank. Thankyou for laughing at my silly macros, even the ones that weren’t that funny. “It’s funny because he died!”

I love you Mum. Never change.

This post is in honour of my Mum, who recently celebrated her 55th birthday, but she’s still cool enough to watch me play my computer games. ❤

Arise, my champion!

At your side, milady!

Everyone has a favourite rez macro that they use, or that brings a smile or giggle when they see it on the screen. For many, they are the ones with an ‘answer’ that the rezzee (<—-is this a word?) can reply with to the rezzer. Some popular ones are:

“Arise, my champion!””At your side, milady” (From Whitemane and Mograine repectively, from SM:Cath)

“%t, dead?! Inconcievable!” “I do not believe that word means what you think it means.” (From the Princess Bride) (The %t is a placeholder for the target’s name. Used in macros.)

Many others make references to classic books, movies, songs, webcomics etc without the need for a reply, Such as:

“Arise, chicken. Arise.”

“It’s just a flesh wound.”

But my personal favourites aren’t the ever-popular ones with mildly subverted sexual references, nor the ones that are boring and/or overdone. The ones I love are the ones that get the message across, “Okay, I’m getting a rez, sweet”, but also being hilarious to a few people. My current one is a ST:TNG reference:

“Shaka, when the walls fell. Rezzing %t.”

The phrase – “Shaka, when the walls fell” – is used as a metaphor to ‘failure’, either on the behalf of the target, the rezzer, or someone/something else. But if you run with a TNG fan, they will often reply with “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”, another quote from the same episode meant as a metaphor to ‘fight a common enemy’, which is essentially what you are doing in a dungeon anyway.

Food for thought.

LFD WTF?

Today, little Lyrra ventured forth once more into the darkest of places in hope of bringing Light and justice to the oppressed, and swift vengance to the merciless scum that dwelt in such places.

In other words, I decided to try the LFD tool again.

Ah, LFD. Let me count the ways.

Firstly, you placed me into a beautiful Scarlet Monastry – Cathedral run. Beauty! I thought to myself. I know this place! This is awesome! But no, it was only to get my hopes up, wasn’t it? Because not only did the DPS decide I was ‘too slow’ and pulled ‘for me’, but then they swore at me when I didn’t taunt off them to let them die.

Secondly, our healer was very skilled, with great gear. But everytime she came under attack, she stopped healing me (the tank) to heal herself. I taunted off her within a few seconds, but until she was at 100% health, nobody else got any heals.

Thirdly, when we entered the actual cathedral part, there are mobs all down the sides, and the boss in the middle. Usually, once you clear the front, you head to the left and right of the platform before pulling Mograine. But no. As I ran to the right to continue clearing (and hoping the undead guy dropped my boots) I see the mage say in party chat: “Don’t pull the bo…” That is exactly what s/he typed. I then saw Mograine’s ohmigoshdidyouseriouslyjusthitmewtfnoob enter battle mode yell, and saw the mobs we hadn’t yet cleared run towards the kitty druid who had spent half the instance in bear form. Naturally it was a wipe.

But just to stick a little knife in and turn it, when I asked the stupid question, “Why did you pull the boss?” The answer I got? “i didnt pull u did”

…WHAT?!  “I pulled the boss? From the other side of the room? And somehow MD’d him so he’d smack you in the face instead of me?”

“lol yes”

The mage said, “I’m sorry guys, but this isn’t going to work out.” And dropped group. I did the same.

It was no use trying to finish, not only because I wanted to choke the druid through the internets Vader style, but also because an early pull+wipe combo almost always bugs out Mograine.

Sometimes PuG groups amaze me, but other times they make me want to cry/scream/kill. Why druid? Why go bear form? If you wanted to tank, why queue as dps? Tank queues are a shitload faster. And rogue, why did you also pull things? You don’t even have a tank mode.

Maybe I just don’t get people =/

Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog

I started this blog because I love reading WoW blogs in general.

Most people that write blogs don’t have to fake enthusiasm or knowledge to get their readers, they’re just themselves. If they’re pissed at someone, they’ll rant. If they’re happy about something, they’ll say so.

Because I like to read the achives first, I see how they started off: mostly just talking and ranting to themselves. Then, one day somebody comments on a post that struck a chord with them, and the author of the blog is all “ohmigosh the interwebs are reading this for reals?! squee”. And it’s all uphill from there.

I’ve played WoW for quite a while, and I’d consider myself a competant player and raider. So, I decided to play a character I’ve never seriously levelled before, and blog about her and her adventures. But I wanted a flexible name, in case I decided to use a druid, or a shaman, instead of a paladin, or in case I wanted to completely change my topic.

I know this is a day late, but because my wireless internet provider is awesome, I lost my connection for most of yesterday because the tower went down for unknown reasons.

Dear You, Love Me

Dear Life-Tapping Warlock,

When I’m healing in a PuG and you bleed your mana bar dry, please, feel free to Life Tap. Because, as a bubby healadin, I have the spare mana and GCDs to fill you back up when you tap your life dangerously low. Wait….no. Bubby healadins don’t have spare mana or GCDs, especially not on a gosh darned boss fight where I am wildly flailing at my buttons in the hope that I can at least keep the goddamned TANK alive!

Somehow, we all lived through that nightmare. And, as all party members were mana-users, we all sat to drink. Some kindly folk even nommed some food to speed up the process, which I both noticed and greatly appreciated. But not you. Never you.

Because you think you’re too good to sit and eat-slash-drink with us? You think you’re above all that? Do you look at the slowly filling blue bar under my name and for some reason believe that it is your bitch?!

There is one small thing I will say: you are brilliant at picking up subtleties. After the tankadin had gone and pulled the next group you asked loudly in /p, “y no healz?”.

“You Life Tapped down to nothing and I was healing the tank. I assumed that you would eat/drink with the rest of us.” I replied, seething slightly that they would dare question my healing abilities!

“lol i wont healz nxt time k?”

….what? I was silent for several moments, just staring at the screen in horror, too shocked to even attempt a reply. Then, when I needed it the most, that beautiful Vote To Kick box lit up on my screen with your name on it. The reason given to kick you? “Full mana-wanding it”

WHAT THE HELL?! I opened Recount up, and lo and behold. Over 90% of your damage was via the wand. You wanted to Life Tap so that you could……wand?! How can anyone explain this? My fury was well past boiling at this point, so I allowed my temper to get the better of me, and clicked the KICK option. It passed and you left, being forcively removed from our group.

And I know that I wasn’t the only person angry at you, and your rude actions and comments throughout the instance. After you left, our tankadin said “Thank god he’s gone.”

“Wanker.” Our Shammie agreed. We all shared a lol, and decided to attempt to four man the final boss, especially since we now knew that we had been mostly carrying you for the entire dungeon. It went down without any hassle, especially since we didn’t have your minion taunting off the tank and promptly losing aggro to my holy crits of healy goodness. We thanked each other, and disbanded the group.

So, if you ever come across me in another group, be warned my dear warlock. For you are rude, inconsiderate, and yes, even though it is your $15 per month to play, that does not in any way give you the right to be a complete and utter tit to everyone you come across.

Yours sincerely,

Lyrra of Khaz’goroth. Healadin.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself

Over at http://spellbound.nu/?p=829 , I saw the proposal for the 20 days of WoW Blogging Challenge. I figured it could help me start my own rolling.

These are the criteria for the days. I’ll hopefully add links once I finish each one.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog
Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW
Day 04 – Your best WoW memory
Day 05 – Favourite item(s) in game
Day 06 – Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)
Day 07 – The reason behind your blog’s name
Day 08 – 10 things we don’t know about you
Day 09 – Your first blog post
Day 10 – Blog/Website favourites
Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws
Day 12 – A usual day in your life/online time
Day 13 – People (players/bloggers) that you admire
Day 14 – This upsets you
Day 15 – Your desktop background (on your computer) and why you chose it
Day 16 – Things you miss (post Cataclysm)
Day 17 – Your favourite spot (in game or outside it)
Day 18 – Your favourite outfit
Day 19 – In your bags/bank
Day 20 – If this was your last day playing WoW, what would you do?

So, Day 01. Introduce myself.

So, my name is Laura. I’m an Australian female gamer. I’m a complete altoholic, with about 30 active characters that I use at least once a week. I have difficulties keeping my characters down, as when I start one, I think to myself ‘Wouldn’t a druid/hunter/pally be awesome! Then I’ll be able to do other things too!’ Then it continues to explode. I am proud that I’ve managed to keep my Khaz’goroth population down to a mere four, and two of those are name placeholders that I use as bank toons. Every time I feel like rolling another character, I play on a different realm for a while.

I’m also a complete achievement whore. I love acheivements, and I want to get them all. I collect companion pets and mounts, as well as novelty items that amuse me.

IRL, I’m not the social butterfly that I am online. I am partially deaf, so I find conversations difficult to maintain, and I have had one hip operation and am requiring another soon, so I cannot stand or walk for very long. Also, because I don’t care to discuss things like clothes, makeup, hot guys, and that slut over there (ohmigosh what IS she wearing?!) I am left out by my peers (18-24). This leaves me alone to be the nerdy, techie chick that is socially awkward. =)  But I really don’t mind. I rarely go anywhere without my laptop and graphics tablet, and as I have talent points in Improved Stealth I go virtually unnoticed by those around me, leaving me free to sketch them without their knowledge, giving me amazing reference material for my art course that I’m currently doing.

I love anime and manga, as well as most books in general. I’m not usually one for the movies, as I normally love the books they blatently ignore to make the movie ‘fresh’. I’m not a Twilight fan (although I own all the books, hypocrite that I am), and I do not think Rob Pattison is the hottest guy alive, although I will admit he appeals to me more when he talks in his British accent rather than his fake American one he uses for Edward Cullen. I’m not a fan of the Harry Potter movies, although I adore the books. I love action, sci-fi and fantasy movies, like Iron Man, Hulk, etc. I’m not a romancey person, nor a fan of tear-jerkers, as not only do they bore me but I always end up crying. Fun Fact: When I yawn, my eyes overflow. No clue why.

I’d love to be healthier by going on healthy food diets, but I love meat and unhealthy foods way too much.

I’m 4’11”, as I shrunk half an inch due to my hip surgery. Fun stuff. Clothes never fit me properly, as women’s sizes are too long in arms and legs, and kid’s sizes are too small around the bust and hips. I hate clothes shopping, but I’ll happily wander around window-shopping.

All of my computers have been Windows PCs. From my ancient desktp with Windows 95′ to my nippy laptop with Windows 7, I’ve never owned an Apple Mac, and am proud of that fact. At school, I was forced to use the Macs in the Art rooms for my Photoshopping. They’re so restrictive in what they let you do. Eventually I just bought a Windows-using laptop, and brought that to classes. I now combine my laptop with my Wacom Intuos 4 graphics tablet, for my digital art.

Well, I’d best stop here before I run out of things for the next 20 days.