Where’s my Warhammer, I’ve got things to smash…

So I’m patiently waiting for warhammer to come out so I can get to playing some games again! In the meantime, I’m finishing up a few projects that need to be done by the end of the week and hopefully i’ll be able to have a considerable amount of free time at that point.

I gave my paladin all my money this week, bought his skills, and have been killing things over in outlands just here and there, getting used to the retribution life style. I’ll report back on that later.

I also have been playing a bit of Spore keeping myself entertained and dominating the world.

Just a quick post to keep things updated!

Chaos Fyurae

Just wanted to post really quickly about another interesting blogger that seems to be in the same kind of place I am as far as blogs are concerned. It’s a rather interesting interest blog and the design of the blog far surpasses my “word-press default!”

Definitely worth checking out – Stop by here!

Hiatus, it seems…

It’s been a pretty… off end of the week. I picked up Spore just yesterday on, sort of on a whim. I’ll give a decent review of the game when I’ve gotten a bit more into it, but I can say that Spore is a game that is a bit more for the casual player, something I’d see myself playing during off times when I’m done playing World of Warcraft.

On that note, I haven’t played World of Warcraft… much this end of the week. I’ve logged on here and there just to log off within an hour sort of bored and in a kind of slump. I think I’m in a short breaking point where I’m taking a temporary break from the game for a little bit, catching up with studies, becoming more of the musician I should be than the musician I was in high school.

I’m also working on a number of creative projects that are interesting and time consuming. I’ve been speaking to a member of my university game-development sector and they’ve been planning a music-based game. I’m writing the music for that, so much of this weekend was spent doing that and alternating a an hour or two playing a bit of spore (I’ve started over twice but so far I’m doing pretty good… too bad I’m on easy!)

That along with setting up my music blog sometime in the future (thinking… maybe this week?) would lead to a lot of side projects that are rather time consuming. But I’ll see if I can hope back up on my rogue sometime this week.

Hell… I’ll even log on right now just for a few minutes…

Slow Game Days

Well my rogue, Klashed, is finally in Outlands. I’m glad to say that he has been a great deal of fun and I can’t wait to get him to 70!

One thing I noticed in outlands is the huge gear necessity that my rogue needs to be successful. I’m barely doing reasonable, effective damage and quest completion due to the amount of downtime required after every few fights to eat. It’s not that I want to just solo straight up with no problem, but damn, I should be doing at least a decent amount of damage to each mob. I should at least be able to take down one or two mobs without having to eat!

I guess this is partially my fault. I’m specced subtlety because I am in love with Shadowstep and Hemo. I love just popping out of nowhere on mobs and alliance alike. It’s a great way to open up the fight instead of the usual stealth behind them slowly and open up with that cheapshot. And the increased stealth speed is beautiful.

But I think this may be gimping my damage. I’ve been questing with my boomkin, and I’m barely able to kill a  mob by myself. The boomkin is owning on damage, popping 1k crits on mobs dropping them down to half health on the pull, just crazy, crazy damage. I basically am just a stun-muffin, making sure my boomkin pal takes minimal damage while he just blasts away.

I’m respeccing combat today (hopefully if I get time). The first few upgrades I’ve gotten from outlands have been daggers, which doesn’t exactly fit with combat in my mind, but I’ll give it a try anyway. I’m trying to decide whether to put my remaining points into subtlety or into assassination. I think having the improved stealth and speed would be a nice thing to have, so I may put points into subtlety to get that, and then start heading into assassination.

Komish hasn’t gotten much play time since my rogue hit outlands. I was doing dailies.. well daily to get money for Klashed and his spell needs, but since I bought everything I needed and He’s getting his own money, I’ve since stopped. I’ll have to get back into that cycle, but then again, an hour spent doing dailies is an hour I could have spent leveling myself to get to 70 faster. I’m already going slow thanks to this college schedule (not that I’m complaining, but it is slow as it is).

On a side note, Komish is working on grabbing his spell-strike set. He’s still guildless, but I’m definitiely interested in grabbing myself the spellstrike head and pants due to the fact that I think they will most likely get his spell hit to cap while he’s in his raiding/destro set.

My Dual Boxing and Recruit a Friend Experience

The Podcast, Ctrl Alt WoW, is a great podcast hosted by Aprillian and Ashayo talking about alts, and people who love making alts. They have been having a few discussions about the Recruit a Friend system and it’s benefits to dual boxers everywhere, and in the most recent episode, they asked for people to send in their opinions and thoughts on the system as well as their experience. Here is my submission.

I was an early adopter of the R-A-F system. I recruited myself within a week of the release of the system.

I am a person who finds fun in this game in learning class mechanics. However, as many people who play the game, my time is limited. I am rarely able to play my main to the extent that many people do, so alts are always kind of a shot in the dark as to whether or not I’ll ever get them to the cap.

I am not a person who had a maxed out character Pre-BC. While I did play Pre-BC a considerable amount of time, I did not max out a character until the release of Burning Crusade.

Moving this back to the Recruit a Friend system, I was an early adopter, and I did it solely for the purpose of being able to play other classes to the extent that I wanted. The system is amazing, almost to the point where I feel I’m hacking

The experience gains are amazing of course. Triple Experience seems almost as if it is too much, but in my opinion, it is the perfect amount.

The Zhevra mount is… meh. I have it on my warlock because I love mounts in the game, but the Zebra just seems to be a bit out of place in the World of Warcraft. Maybe it is the fact that I am a warlock, but it just doesn’t seem to click with the rest of the world. It would have fit better if they had given us a modified version of one of the mounts in the game, or say, maybe an option to have a tiger for the horde or a kodo for the alliance.

Now as to my experience, here is what I Did :  I started off trying a few things. I try first, a combination of paladin and rogue, and shaman and rogue, both of which I did not like. I wanted a rogue, but I couldn’t get the hang of questing as those combinations. The shaman would always die, or the rogue would die, or something would happen that would always slow me down. After those two trials, I decided to try something ranged, and came up with Mage and Paladin.

Now I started this combination with full intention of duo questing my way to 60 just like every other recruit a friend adopter plans on doing. However, out of the blue, I thought about instances. Instances give decent experience in groups, but if you add the 70, it nerfs the experience you get. Hence, “power-leveling” is impossible to do in this game. Well Recruit a Friend changed all of that.

When someone is getting a run through an instance by a 70, the experience gain is essentially a fraction of what one would get. So lets put it this way, if someone is running Scarlet Monastary with a group, lets say they are averaging about 300 Experience per kill.

Now lets say only two of those characters are running scarlet monastery, but this time with a level 70 running them through it quickly (3 people in the party, 2 lowbies, 1 70). Now this person is only getting 150 XP per kill. Half the experience for half the speed of a normal run.

Now lets say the same thing is happening, only this time, theres a RAF pair with the 70. Now, instead of getting 150 XP per kill, they are getting 450 XP per kill. So now, the pair are getting more XP in a shorter amount of time.

Now here’s the kicker. You can do this all the way up to 60 if you wish. I normally stop around 45-50, but up to 60 is definitiely possible.

Here was my order :

Quest 1-8

Ragefire Chasm 8-16

Shadowfang Keep 16-25

Scarlet Monastery (Arms) 25-32

Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) 32-40

Zul’Farrak 40-45 or 40-50

Sunken Temple 45-50

After that, you can move on to Dire Maul, the Black Rocks, things like that, but I normally quest from 50 on.

I did this pattern with my first grouping and it worked like a charm. Keep in mind, doing so gets a bit repetitive, but it is definitely an easy, easy, GAURENTEED way to get there.

Now for those of you who like dual boxing and follow questing and such, this system will be just as good without the instance runs. However, I would suggest you hit each instance at least once with all the quests for it. Why? That’s about 1-2 levels free for having someone run you through the instance. Can’t beat that.

Now the 30 free levels I gave to my Paladin… I know… you’re probably thinking “wait a sec… didn’t he say he leveled a paladin and mage duo??” and My answer is yes. I did. However, at about 37, I was really tired of instance runs (mind you… this was my first group… so yes it gets very boring) and tried to do some quests, but the paladin was so slow that I decided to grant 4 levels to my 33 hunter to catch him up to my mage, and then did my hunter/mage combination. The funny thing is, a day later, I went right back to instance grinding… go figure!

So anyways, my first grouping reached the cap, a Blood elf Paladin, a Troll Mage, and an Orc Hunter. Originally I was rather happy with the group and started working my hunter up to 70.

Well… in my semi-altalholic nature, I started getting really bored of my hunter and lost interest in my mage (female trolls… I don’t like their appearance anymore) and my paladin. And I realized… “I dont’ have an undead or a tauren”

Thus my rogue and my warrior were born. For this pair I did instances up till about 45, and since then I follow quested to about 50, and I have been questing with a friend since then (without my warrior following). The only reason I multibox for this group now is when I’m turning in quests for the 3x turn in boost.

I must say, I respect you, Aprillian and Ashayo, very much. After two pairs of characters being multiboxed (and often triple-boxing my friends mage to run myself through the instance), I can honestly say that I am so tired of triple boxing that I dont’ want to do any major multiboxing anymore while I continue to play world of warcraft! For me it was really a draining experience! I really enjoy my classes, but I don’t think I’d want to play them together anymore. For this reason, I am transfering my warrior off my second account to my first, leaving my mage on the second account ( I have… ZERO interest… in playing her at all) and letting my second account just run out of time. I plan on granting my last 24 or so levels to a possible twink, and that will be the end of my RAF experience.

I’m near that end soon. My rogue is 56, and my friend and I will be hitting 58 today and heading off into outlands in which case I am done with this system. Farewell Recruit a Friend, and thanks for all you have done.

Ctrl Alt Wow, I hope this helps you guys, and thanks for a great podcast.

The Multibox Drag, finishing up Recruit a Friend, and “bam! I’m behind you!”

So I must say that multiboxing is a draining experience, or at least it was so for me. After my first toon going so quickly up to the cap of the recruit-a-friend system, my second pair took a considerable amount of time more, and I can only wait start questing in outlands, knowing that the experience will go from moderate to almost nothing.

I decided yesterday that I was done multiboxing and follow questing. I granted my rogue a as many levels as my mage could grant him, and he and my warrior (komsmash) are no longer a unit.

What I’m doing is this, however. I have the recruit a friend bonus, so I’m taking advantage of it in another way. Instead of follow questing and instance runs, all I do now is quest stack on my rogue (that is, I do a bunch of quests before returning to turn them in) then when it is turn in time, I summon my warrior and boom, 25k+ experience per quest without the hassle of not being able to stealth because I have a huge tauren on my tail all the time.

Let me just say, I’ve fallen in love. My rogue is the most fun thing I have done in WoW thus far. I can’t wait to get him to 70 and get him some season two and kara gear.

When I decided that I would no longer be follow questing, I decided to make sure that I liked my playstyle on my rogue, so I went ahead and tossed him a respec. I respecced into shadowstep and, man, is it amazing. I see the lack of damage that is present in the Combat spec for rogues, but wow do I see so much utility, and it’s so fun jumping through time and space and landing behind a mob… or an alliance…

Oh alright… so I did gank a crap-ton of alliance since I’ve been soloing. But what I can say? It’s not my fault that all Alliance are kill on sight as far as I’m concerned. My normal behavior towards alliance would be to pass by, or even help them. This even is when I’m on my main and I pass by a lowbie alliance toon. But the ridiculous behavior of certain groups of people on the Isle of Quel’Danas on my server… they just pushed me to my limit. Now any alliance I see are Kill on Sight. I see it, It dies. Hell, If I’m questing in the area, then it even dies… multiple times.

I was in Tanaris just yesterday (by the way, I went 48-54 yesterday), doing the wastewanderer pouches for the few quests that are around that area in Gadgetzan. I come across a cute little gnome warlock that asked me to punt him, so I went ahead and granted his wish. I gave the warlock a little bit of warning by showing myself and then vanishing a few seconds later so that he could prepare himself. Hell, I even waited for him to finish combat and regenerate, put his soulstone up, and create a healthstone. Then I proceeded to… well… rip him to shreds.

A few seconds later, said warlock comes back and resurrects, this time, I don’t give him any time to prepare, and I just take him out, then continue questing around the area.

I run off, do a bit more questing, then come back to see if he decided to stick around. Of course, he did, and I proceeded to take him out once more. This was planned to be the last time as I was nearing the end of my quest here and would take my leave after a few more kills.

Shortly after, I see the warlock again, I run up to him except this time I have no intention of killing him. I unstealth, do a quick /wave, /bow, and then attempt to run off. With my back turned, I see my health going down only to realize that this warlock has decided to pursue me and DoT me a few times and attempt to take me out… A sad mistake. I decided… to DEFEND myself , and finish off the warlock.

You just have to ask yourself… If someone is killing you repeatedly… doesn’t it seem smart to just avoid them? If they’re leaving, shouldn’t you just go the other way? Well this warlock thought not, so I made sure he understood.

He died approximately 10 times within that 20 minutes…

Now I ask myself, “Self, why are you a jerk? You would be pissed off if someone would do this to you”… and then I think about all those people who won’t let me do my dailies before my next class, or won’t let me finish off my primal farming before It’s time to head to bed. These people are my justification. Two wrongs don’t make anything right, but about 2589 do.

Recruit a Friend Update

So I was an early adopter of this recruit-a-friend system that Blizzard put in place to encourage people to play together and reach the later game content. I saw it as a way to finally be able to explore the other classes in the game to a fuller extent than just level 19. It really was a frustrating point to me that I couldnt really explore the class without dedicating days of in game play time. While I’ve been looking for a way to replace my main (specifically for WotLK), I’ve never been able to really put it together.

Recruit-A-Friend was my way to do it. I recruited myself, and started dual boxing away. Ive already completed my first grouping (Kalade the Paladin, and Genysis the mage) and granted my free levels to Ky the Hunter. While I must say each of these three have been an enjoyable experience, I decided that I wanted a tauren and an undead, and hence my warrior and rogue were born (check my character sheet – Klashed and Komsmash). They have been considerably more enjoyable than my paladin and my mage, and as of right now I am looking for my rogue to be my second 70.

Ive gone back and forth about which I want to take up to 70. Id take them all if I could, but thats not a reasonable time sink for me (especially with Warhammer online just around the corner). My original intentions were to spend the time and money to get all my characters (except for my mage) to playability level (that is all ready with outlands greens and leveling specs ready to start in the outlands) and give them all the old college try for at least one level and see how I enjoy the class in a semi-difficult setting. that idea has since deteriorated. That is to say, I have decided that my paladin is not considered a reasonable gold investment (37-57 spells, and the gear I have to buy for him) as well as my not having ANY interest in my mage. I’ve already tried my hunter and while it was easy, it wasnt that interesting to me. So the only person I’m truly doing this for would be my pally, my rogue, and my warrior. So what’s the problem? Well… The problem is that I like doing damage. A Paladin, in comparison to a warrior and a rogue, does considerably less damage. So Immediately I will be drawn away from him.

I’m still on the fence, I kinda feel bad about neglecting my pally. I think all 3 of my alts just look amazing and badass. So I just have to justify trying it. If anyone reads this, lemme know what you think. Should I, or not?

Reviving a blog

It’s been quite a while since I’ve kept my blogs updated. I should have been doing it more frequently, but with time constraints, playing World of Warcraft itself, and just general college life, posting has becoming something that just tends to drop off on my priority list.

Ive since decided to reload my blog and recreate it, now at this website (previously at www.gamersynthetic.wordpress.com) and make another attempt at constant updates and such. So anyways, here it is, and lets see how I do.