Michelle Slee's Blog, page 5

Pocket WoW

So as you’ll all have heard by now at Pax West it was announced that:-

A Wow Companion Phone app is coming out on Tuesday;


This will be for order hall missions;


We will be able to use it to upgrade our order halls,  manage recruit gear and send our loyal followers off on missions;

Oh and see what World Quests are available.

Excellent stuff. Of course (and not to sound too ungrateful) the mobile app I really want is Pet Battles. But if I had that not sure I’d ever move off the sofa to actually log onto WoW!  It would be like Hearthstone with super pet cuteness.  This Pax announcement isn’t about that unfortunately but it is a step in that direction (maybe).

In terms of what we will have on Tuesday – I think it will be great to be able to sort out Order Hall stuff while lounging on the sofa.  Never used the remote armory or guild chat I’ll admit but Order Halls – yes – can see me doing that. The World Quest scheduler though- less certain about it. I’m concerned it’ll end up being too tempting to drop everything to answer its call. Quick Bravetank, this thing is happening RIGHT NOW, better get up, log on and to do it right away.  And while normally I would say that’s just not me in WoW (I’m usually never the one on top of anything that’s happening – far from it, I’m normally in the catch up team, sauntering along and taking my own sweet time), invasions revealed a different side of myself. For a week or two in August I could not rest in one zone if I knew an invasion was happening in another.  And I don’t wont to be (no – I won’t be) like that with World Quests. These will be going on forever (or at least until the next expansion). If one is happening and I’m busy then so be it, it’ll keep, it will have to (even if the loot is all cool and shiny – remember it’s just pixels girl, just pixels). So restraint will need to be the order (hall) of the day (geddit?). I can do restraint. Yes it failed me in August but that was a only a blip. Just a little unprecedented and never to be repeated blip.

I think.

 

Keep Azeroth Tidy

Just a quick post this morning to let you know I have recently re released Keep Azeroth Tidy on Smashwords. Totally free. It used to be on Amazon but you can’t go 100% free there, lowest is 99p I think. I took it down some time ago partly due to that and partly due to a crisis in confidence about my writing in general. It’s a collection of some of my earlier WoW posts – mostly parodies spoofs, that kind of thing, and I had some lovely reviews when it was on Amazon (sometimes I reread them just to make me feel better about myself).  Anyway it’s here  if anyone wants to take a look.

I totally meant to do that

Don’t read this if you don’t want to be spoiled about the Retribution Paladin artifact quest. Please don’t. I beg you.

…

Ok let’s give it another inch (cue inappropriate innuendo … nope I’ve restrained myself).

…

Helloooo. Is anyone still here?

 

Ok good – I’ll start.

 

As you know Terema my Retribution Paladin was my first ever WoW character back in BC days when I first started playing. I played her fairly solidly up to MoP (although did have a brief dalliance with a Shaman – another story)  but then the lure of the Mage became too strong. I was lonely. I wanted mirror image. I was lazy. I wanted portals. I was hungry. I wanted mana cakes. So Mage it was. I put Terema to one side to dance with my mirror images, teleport at will and gorge myself on cakes.

But you can’t live like that forever. It’s not the 60s. I started to miss Terema but baulked at the thought of levelling her through the rest of Pandaria and Draenor. And then by the Light’s blessing the Legion invaded and gave me a ridiculously quick way to level her to 100. “I will never abandon you again Terema,” I whispered crazily to my laptop screen one dark August night.

Then Legion properly launched last week and I immediately switched to my Priest. In fairness this was because she had actually done the Broken Shore Varian stuff whereas Terema had gone straight into invasions like the crazy Pally she is. In her world Varian was still alive and kicking. And more to the point she thought Tirion was fit and well, although his unusual silence meant he was possibly living it up in Tahiti with Agent Coulson.

But this morning I remembered my sacred vow and logged on with Terema. It’s time for her to take on the well deserved mantle of Bravetank’s WoW Main, she needs to complete the Broken Shore scenario and start her Retribution Pally Legion journey.

Having completed the opening scenario this morning I’m actually glad I delayed doing it with Terema. There were only 4 real people doing it today so I was able to properly see what was going. I also put on my gigantic headphones (size does matter … oh dear the innuendo got me in the end) and finally listened to the music and dialogue – both of which added considerably to the experience. And it was only to get better.

After Varian died (still sad) I ended up with Lord Tyrosus  in Dalaran where I was informed we needed to try to speak to Uther to find out how we could get the Ashbringer. This turned out to be a powerful and emotional experience – my companion’s feelings at seeing and talking to his beloved Uther had me weeping at the keyboard (kind of). And when we were told Tirion was still alive although fading fast – then wow – I actually felt a real sense of urgency to get to Broken Shore to save him. I mean – it’s Tirion. Off we flew, the music changing gear, this was serious, this was dangerous, but we had to do it and I knew no fear. On arriving we found him trapped  and tortured. A fight ensued with the “jailer whatshisname” – I won, thank the light for Justicar’s Vengeance. Then I ran off to fight “demon something beginning with a B”. I won again,  thank the light for Justicar’s Vengeance, Flash of Light and Lay on Hands (the fight went on forever). Then I ran back to Tirion with his Ashbringer only to watch him die after giving me his blessing to wield it. I’ll admit I had a tear in my eye.

I travelled back to Lights Dawn Chapel to see him laid to rest. As I ran in oh my goodness the floor opened and I discovered the Sanctum of Light, the wonderful cathedral-like class hall hidden beneath that small unassuming building. People knelt to me as I strode down the hall (in real life eating a slice of toast and spilling crumbs down my top) where I was advised to inscribe my name in a Libram, restart the Order of the Silver Hand and basically defeat every last demon in the name of the Light. I was also called Highlord. Highlord! And they said I’d never amount to anything. I was then ushered by my right hand man to the scouting map where after careful consideration I decided to go and help the Taurens in Highmountain.

Feeling all important – I’m now the Highlord after all – I flew to Thunder Totem posthaste and started making my way to Mayla  who was (according to my map) somewhere in the middle.  I ran round in a circle looking for the entrance and noticed an area where the floor looked “different.”  I ran onto that piece of floor with the courage only a Highlord can possess and promptly fell to my death as it was of course a lift shaft with the lift at the bottom.

An ignominious start to my career.  Hoping that neither the spirit of Uther or Tirion were looking on I quickly ressed and reclaimed my body and announced to all that I had of course intended to do it and it was a test of their faith in the Light.

I think they bought it. My Pally’s Legion journey has well and truly begun.

 

Mum can I fly please?

Ok so what’s the plan for flying? I’m running into rocks and falling off cliffs far too much for someone of my delicate disposition. Something needs to be done. There’s a post on Blizzard Watch  (re-post actually as it was previously published  back in April) that gives some information.

BW starts by saying, “You may have noticed Broken Isles Pathfinder, Part One in your achievement panel.”

Um nope – I never open my Achievement Panel but ok I’ll take a peek.

Right seems like I’ll have to complete lots of achievements. Sigh – of course. Remember when you could just save gold and buy flying. That was hard enough for a WoW pauper like me (some of my alts still can’t afford to fly in Northrend) but so much easier than this.

Basically I’ll need to explore the Broken Isles, complete world quests, complete a class hall order campaign, complete Loremaster of Legion, and reach revered with six different Legion factions.

The reward for that is …duh duh duh … increased ground mount.

Um what? That’s no good. Just letting me move more quickly on the ground is a recipe for disaster. I’ll just run into stuff more quickly.

And what else does BW say on this? Well nothing. That’s all they know. They do go onto say that the forum posts were in arms about all this when it first appeared in the Alpha & Blizzard’s response was basically at least we are letting you know up front this time and all this will cover the lions share and yada yada yada. I suppose it’s good that at least we know some of what we need to do to eventually get flying but we don’t know the full detail and more fundamentally I just don’t get it.

Why do we need to jump through hoops to get flying? If Blizzard don’t want us to miss all the pretty ground stuff (which I rarely see this as I’m usually stuck in a crevasse) why not just withhold it until level cap? And then let us buy it with good old fashioned gold like the good consumers we are.  And I know that some of what’s required will be done naturally as part of the levelling journey and so no harm no foul, but will all the quests really get that rep raised or will I still need to bow and scrape like some feudal peasant. I refuse to do so. There’s still some communist principles in these tired old bones (ok I’m only in my 40s and I’ve never been a communist but I could have been, oh yes, I could have been).

And why have these particular requirements? If the quests were at least related to proving flying competence that would be something. I could probably do with a refresher. Perhaps you could be required to reach a certain level first (aka age) and then take some lessons, then do a few quests to show you can fly in a straight line, reverse fly around a corner and parallel park your gryphon. Could even have some serious consequences – take to the skies after too many at Brewmaster and you’re banned for two weeks. C’mon Blizz – this is the sort of creative thinking we need. But raising rep so I can get on my mount and take to the skies. The one thing has nothing to do with the other. Feels like Blizzard just wants to keep us busy (i.e. out of their hair) and withhold treats until we prove we deserve them by meeting some spurious standard autocratically set by Blizzard and … – oh god just realised something …  Blizzard is my mother.

 

Bye Bye Blaugust

Well I did it. 31 posts. Blaugust 2016 (my first ever Blaugust) all done and dusted. It’s been a fun month. At times it’s been hard getting on here to write a post (ok I lie – at times it’s been hard breaking away from WoW to write a post) but it has been worth it (for me anyway, readers may disagree of course). It’s been a wonderful way to chart the month of August on WoW – so much has happened. From starting off with Beanie my low level hunter almost resenting the fact Legion was going to get in the way of my levelling journey, to ending the month a Legion fangirl (sort of – too middle aged a woman to fully embrace this title) posting on Facebook about how excited she is (cue some lovingly sarcastic comments from some family  members but lots of positive likes too- half of my family are tattooed to an inch of their life with characters from Marvel (Dad), a rubiks cube, a dancing M&M and other random things (brother), tiny elephants, flowers and owls (sister and step mum) so none of them can really judge – we all have our passions). Anyway I’m now getting well and truly into Legion, loving the new content so far (although only seen a bit of it), and massively grateful to the expansions along the way that let me level to 100 characters I thought were doomed to live in Draenor or Pandaria forever (bless). Even Seashell the mage was able to blitz from 96 to 100 just before launch. I did feel a pang of nostalgia when I saw the invasions had ended. Felt like the end of an era (if an era counts as 2 and a half weeks in August). But excited now about the journey from 100-110 (almost 101 as we speak – yes the new transmogged snail form is working well). Continuing to explore Aszuna but keep getting sidetracked by jewelcrafting (loved cutting my gem in one of the quests- very satisfying). To summarise: been a great month for me as a blogger and a WoW player. Cheers to Blaugust, Belghast and Blizzard. It’s been fun.

 

 

Breath of Fresh Air

Well it’s here and I’ve already played a good hour. Yes I’m that hard core. For the first time ever I logged on two hours ahead of time in order to be there for the launch. I surprised myself by how excited I was. I joined the crowd standing by Khadgar in Dalaran, not really knowing what was going to happen. And nothing did for awhile. So I busied myself levelling my jewelcrafting from 1 to 15 by making copper rings, trying to ignore all the Hordies yelling goodness knows what around me (probably “Why’s that idiot making copper rings?”). Then someone said, “Oh I have an XP bar”.  And yes holy moly (although I’m a shadow priest so this should be unholy moly) so did I. Then about 10 mins later my first quest appeared. It had started.

Husband’s quest took about ten minutes longer to pop. They must have figured I needed the head start. He complained and moaned of course – indeed we almost had a mini freak out as the minutes ticked by (though he’ll deny it now – watch for something in the comments).  I hmmed and tutted with about 1% of my attention, and tried not to let his howls of protest distract me too much. Eventually his quest appeared and we could all breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy it properly.

I am now the proud owner of Xal’atath blade (and I’m never trying to spell that again). I have a nice class home at Netherlight Temple and have started doing quests at Aszuna. I already love the look of Aszuna – so far reminds me a bit of Terrokar Forest with all its crunchy brown colours. Can almost feel the cool breeze on my face. Indeed the expansion so far seems like a breath of fresh air. Time will tell if this remains the case of course. All I know is right now I like it and I missed it today in work. My gaming time never seemed so precious.

 

Singalong Time …Legion Eve is Here …

Let’s all sing the following to the tune of Jingle Bells…

Legion Eve is here

And we say no to bed

As we pour a drink

Shake our crazy heads

Put our Twitter on

Post a thing or two

Then log into dear old WoW

And get to 102

Oh

Illidan’s back

Varian’s dead

Jaina has the huff

Sylvanas has

To lead the Horde

And she hasn’t even got a tusk

Oh

Khadgar says

We have to fight

And win another day

And all I know is

Legion’s here

And it’s better than Christmas Day!

The Medivh Files

With Medivh featuring prominently in the Warcraft movie, hosting a fantabulous Hearthstone party at disco central Karazhan and with Karazhan also reappearing in Legion – well it’s time to reveal a few unknown facts about the world’s favourite Guardian.

Fact 1: Although usually rather serious, circumspect and secretive (indeed his name means “keeper of secrets” in the high elven language) Medivh would gossip like a fishwife/husband (yes no un-pc jokes here) with garden slugs and snails. However, he would immediately stamp on them if caught in the act and then claim Sargeras  made him do it.

Fact 2: Would laugh like a drain at any joke involving a three legged cow, a blind cat and a dead fish. Would weep for hours if the joke involved a blind cow, a three legged fish and a dead cat as this was a bitter reminder of the childhood pets he never had but always wanted.

Fact 3: Was not possessed against his will by Sargeras. Sargeras tried to leave several times finding Medivh’s penchant for gossiping with slugs and snails disturbing. Medivh regularly convinced Sargeras to stay by remarking that it was raining outside and wasn’t it a pity Sargeras hadn’t brought an umbrella.

Fact 4: Pretended to be in a coma for 20 years during which time he was trying to figure out the door puzzle from Labyrinth. Still doesn’t get it.

Fact 5: After being killed by Khadgar Medivh was resurrected by his mother’s spirit. This was only to continue their longstanding argument about the correct way to fold a bath towel. Aegwynn insisted on folding from left to right, Medivh insisted on rolling it up in a ball and urinating on it. Sadly this argument was never resolved.

Fact 6: Medivh only invited the orcs to Azeroth for Sunday tea. Was surprised they wanted to stay longer. While in public he continued to be the welcoming host privately he criticised their bad manners to his favourite snail.

Fact 7: Medivh is a big Thrall and Jaina shipper and coined the name Thipper. It never caught on due to its spittle inducing effects which Khadgar found hilarious.

Fact 8: Never intended to turn into a black raven. The spell was meant to transmogrify him into a dancing penguin. However, something went very wrong and the penguin now only appears very occasionally. However, if you spend a lot of time in Karazhan drinking heavily there is a 1% chance to will see the penguin dancing with the horses in the stable. If so you should report this on twitter using the hashtag  #IFoundtheDancingPenguininKarazhan. Blizzard developers need to know.

Homecoming

Healed the Underbog today. Another straightforward dungeon. Starting to get to grips with my monk healing spells & knowing which ones to use in which situation. Also now using Chi Torpedo with abandon. This means I’m likely to roll right off a ledge at some point but sometimes you have to live dangerously. I need to download the add on that shows me in which direction someone is hiding when they are out of range. I always panic when the frame goes grey and I’m not sure where they are (particularly if I can see their health disappearing). It’s amazing how responsible you feel as a healer. I get stressed out at the thought of anyone dying. But really what does it matter? You should be able to just laugh about the mishap, regroup and start again. But that is only true if everyone is friendly, mature and polite. No blame culture etc. But WoW, life, the universe is unfortunately not like that in most cases – a depressing thought for a Saturday morning.

Samsara is now 68. There’s no way she’s going to be 100 before Legion. I just haven’t got it in me to do what I need to do i.e. the invasions. I am officially invasioned out. The Burning Legion can take all six towns for all I care. It seems like a fool’s errand anyway. We clear them out and they come again. Over and over and over. They can’t be reasoned with. They hate order, fairness and justice and want only for hatred and chaos to reign. WoW and the real world = both perfect for them.  They would enjoy the chaos of the pug and LFR and could have a blast on forums & Twitter. No wonder the invasions are so relentless. They are excited to be home.

 

 

No one Died

After yesterday’s post I plucked up the courage to go into a 5 man as a healer. Went for Hellfire Ramparts – a straightforward dungeon with less risk of me getting lost. Completed it twice and both times no one died. Yay. Main challenge was keeping up with the group. My Chi Torpedo is on the left hand side of my 2nd bottom action bar. You would think it was lost at sea the way my mouse hand struggles to find it. I also had no time to loot – a problem I remember from earlier days trying to heal. Luckily everyone left the dungeon at the end so I could run around in peace, loot most of what I needed and actually complete some quests. But one of the mobs with a severed hand I needed (nice) must have despawned. So I went in and did it all again. If someone wants me to get them a severed hand I get them a severed hand. Both times the groups were fine – quiet, business like, just the way I like it. Both times I pulled a group of mobs right at the start by running too enthusiastically towards the quest giver. So I probably didn’t make the best of first impressions. But I kept them alive. Overhealed like crazy of course. Panic does that to me. But it all made a nice change from invasions which I am heartily sick of (even though I love the experience and so can’t stop doing them, or at least flying to the invasion spot and tabbing out to write this blog post).

But going back to the dungeon – one thing I noticed is that the default UI and what I’ve done with my raid frames is a mess. I need to sort things out. Every time a loot roll came up it blocked my raid frame which I had placed too close to my action bar. What is the best add on to sort out your UI and make it exactly as you want including moving action bars around? And can you sort out raid frames when you’re not actually in a raid? I find I only see what it all looks like when I’m actually in there and already feeling the pressure. Finding out that this or that doesn’t work does not help with the situation. I really want to be able to customise my UI when not in battle & get it all laid out exactly as I want it. What does everyone else use?