Thursday, July 16, 2009

July 16, 2009

Introspection -- Read At Your Own Risk
Sometimes I love sitting back and analyzing my own behavior to try to understand myself better. Now is one of those times. I just re-read my blog to recall all the things that have happened in the past several months. Put that together with my online playing decisions lately and I see an interesting path that I've taken.

When I started this blog I was playing my priest exclusively and was excited about the experience of raiding in Northrend. As time went by I experienced guild drama, resulting in the dissolution of two guilds. I also saw focus switching from my priest (which I still consider my "main") to my mage.

But lately I've veered away from the mage and have been almost exclusively focusing on my warlock. I hadn't realized how much I had been neglecting my main until I ran out of buff food for my warlock. At that point it dawned on me that my routine had changed so drastically that it had been weeks since the last time I had done dailies on my priest.

So what's behind this focus? Is it alt-oholism? Maybe there's a little of that there, and there's nothing at all wrong with that. I definitely enjoy playing alts.

But I don't think that's the real deep down reason I've been playing my warlock. I've been doing it to hide. I realized this last night when I launched WoW and my husband asked me, "Are you campaigning or hiding?" Over the last several weeks it has become our little joke. It started when the recent guild drama broke out. I had already been leveling my warlock, but I still had been spending a fair amount of time on my mage. Leveling my warlock has been my escape.

It's now to the point that escaping/hiding is my default. Granted, on Tuesday I did log onto my mage to do our weekly Naxx run. But, as soon as it was over, I logged onto my warlock to continue playing but to be hidden. It's not so much that I enjoy the warlock -- I really do enjoy it -- but, it's the only toon (other than my rogue - yuck!) that I can truly hide on.

Several weeks ago I made it clearly known that my goal was to raid raid raid. When I said that, I meant it. Or at least I thought I did. I was going to focus again on my priest and go forth and raid! But I didn't.

In fact, I've kept my priest in the last guild that dissolved. Why have I done that? Why haven't I found another guild to join to get that raiding experience in? I've been telling myself it's because of guild #2. I feel like I owe it to them to join, since I've spent so much time with them and they helped me gear up so much. But, I don't want to for various reasons. They have an odd set of rules. They are all guys (I prefer at least one other woman in a guild). They are small and would never be able to organize their own 25-man runs. They're really only interested in 10-man content. (Nothing's wrong with that -- but on my priest, I'd rather be in Ulduar or 25-man content.)

Oh and there's Ulduar. Why have I avoided it? I only went a few times, downing the first boss but dying horribly on the 2nd. Am I afraid of the rest? Or am I disinterested in the challenge? Would I be more interested in Ulduar if I joined a progression guild? Or am I just truly not interested?

The game is still fun to me, so I'm not trying to say it isn't. No matter which toon I'm on, I enjoy myself. So all this introspection isn't going anywhere. I'm not analyzing myself to try to determine if I'm still interested in the game.

I'll go back to Naxx tonight on my mage. I'll then switch to my warlock afterward. My priest will sit on a shelf until I'm motivated to play her again.

So why all this introspection? Because I love to analyze my actions. And I'm still fascinated that at this age I still don't understand myself and what's going on in my mind.

Warlock Leveling
My warlock reached 74 last night. I played until later than normal, determined to ding! before going to bed. It paid off. I ran two instances - AN and DTK. Both runs went well. I got no drops, but I got good xp and had a lot of fun -- I do love instances.

The Armory
The darned Armory has still not updated for my toons. I reported the problem to Blizzard the other day but got no response, which isn't all that surprising. But, it's so annoying to look at my toons' armory pages and to see they haven't been updated in almost a month. Grrr...how am I supposed to marvel at their progress??? :-)

Friday, July 10, 2009

July 10, 2009

Naxxramas
Last night we returned to Naxx and had a fun time. I especially enjoyed it because I got three new pieces! Darned Armory hasn't updated my toon's info in over a week. But, if I remember correctly, I got the following items: Perceptors Bindings, Miasma Mantle and the tier token for chest. Unfortunately, tier chest lowers my +hit far too much from what the Ebonweave Robe. I did a lot of equipment switching and it seems that it's in my best interests to not wear the tier robe. The loss of hit would impact me too much.

Darn...I was so excited about getting that.

/rant
Though it does make me wonder what the designers were thinking. Why in the world would the T7 pieces for mages, when worn together, not give a substantial amount of +hit? I'm not suggesting they max +hit, but to not have hit on them at all? What's that about? Looking at the list of T7 gear for mages, I see a total of 75 hit (33 gloves, 36 pants, 6 chest when gemmed properly). That's not even close to the hit cap. Why in the world didn't each of the pieces have some hit? It's not as if there's an optional spec for mages that doesn't rely on hit, like for priests (heal = no hit, dps = hit).
/rant

OK...anyway...we had fun. And we finished up to Thaddius before calling it a night. I'm so glad to be with this guild, especially since there are a number of East coasters like me. So they agree with me that 8pm server is "late". :)

Old Guild Stuff
So, last night while I was in Naxx my two main ex-guild mates logged in. We exchanged hellos then they happily pointed out that they were going to Ulduar. One had already gotten a T8 drop this week and the other was hoping to get something. After listening to him (the latter) complain that he hasn't been able to run Ulduar until now (welcome to a big raiding guild, IDIOT!), he finally said something that totally pissed me off. It was something like, "How's it going in Naxx? As fail as usual?"

What an asshole. I was elated to be able to respond, "Not at all. We've already got three quarters down and will probably finish the fourth by the end of the night."

His response, "I'm honestly surprised."

Dear Reader, you probably don't understand the impact of what he said. But, trust me, those were mean comments. I didn't respond to him after that. I had nothing to say.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

July 9, 2009

Last night there were horrible server issues. I had logged on with my warlock and found an AN group right away. We had just started on the second boss when everything went strange. I could hear myself casting, but I couldn't see the action on my screen. Then I started taking tons of damage over and over and over again. It was actually quite funny to see. Nothing was moving on my screen, but the damage numbers kept flying across. I felt invincible. :)

Another funny thing was that Party chat worked perfectly fine. So we were all discussing what we were seeing. After a few minutes of the pain, we all agreed to log.

I watched So You Think You Can Dance -- Jason is soooooo hot! -- then afterward logged back in. All server problems were resolved. I found a Nexus group and did a couple bosses, but didn't finish. It was an odd experience. Only one other person in the group was familiar with the instance. The other three had never been there before. At this point I'm not used to people being completely new to things. It took me by surprise

Another odd thing was that the tank, having never been there before, chose to start on the right corridor, instead of going around clockwise. I hate to admit it, but I was disoriented the entire time. According to PuG Checker, I have completed Nexus 34 times. Out of all those times, I have never gone to the right. Every group I've been with before last night went clockwise. What is more odd? The fact that last night we went right? Or the fact that everyone else goes left, as if it were a rule?

Anyway...we didn't finish because the healer disconnected and never came back. It was very late for me anyway, so I just called it a night.

I missed my weekly multi-raid run because of the server outage.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

July 8, 2009

The past week has been a busy one, with the 4th of July holiday and all. I didn't play much, though I got to 71 on my Warlock (despite what the Armory says -- it still has me listed as lvl 65!)

Warlock
He's 71 now, as mentioned above. Groups have been fairly difficult to find, though I haven't actually played much at all, so my timing might just be off. I did have one interesting group experience, though. It was a Nexus run and one of my old guild mates was invited to join on one of his alts. Of course, he didn't know that that tiny warlock in the group was me. It was very interesting to interact with him without letting on that I knew him. And what did I observe? He's a jerk no matter where he is. He spent the entire time bickering with the other players about loot rules (one guy rolled Need on a green -- as if it's the worst sin in the world!). At one point during the run our "tank" bailed and another one of my ex guild mates joined. He was just as much an asshole as the other. Elitist snobs. Why did I ever hang out with them?

That's pretty much it for updates. This week should be more interesting since the holiday is past.