My new friend Foreluney wants me to write about him.  This is sort of challenging since I’ve known him for all of 3 days.  But I like the guy, and I like challenges, so… what to say about Foreluney?   There’s something about the way that we met that seems important to me, so let’s talk about that.

I knew OF Foreluney for a month or two before I knew Foreluney.  I think the first time I became aware of him was when I was helping out with guild recruitment for my guild and ran across this post on the Khadgar forum, which asked people to list who they thought was the best alliance player on the realm for each class.  More than one person tossed out Foreluney’s name as the best alliance resto druid on Khadgar, a topic which piqued my interest.  Apparently, I filed his name away in my head, because a week or so later I took a look at WOW-heroes and ran across this:

I immediately remembered having seen Foreluney mentioned as “da best” on the Khadgar forum thread, and registered in my head that he was certainly the best geared of us.  /nod nod.

And so, as will happen with me from time to time, I began to develop a touch of reverence for Foreluney, whoever he may be.  Mind you, I had no idea what kind of person he was, had never seen him play, did not remember ever seeing him chatting in trade, etc.  The only things I knew about him were that he was very geared, was in the most progressed alliance guild on my server, and that many people agreed that he was a very good restoration druid.  But still… these things are enough to impress me on some level, although I’m squirming a bit when it comes down to admitting it.

See… I’ve never been much good at video games.  That makes me laugh to write it, but it’s true.  I’ve always been interested in them to some degree, and I’ve always liked to play them, but I’m not the type who picks up the controller and instinctually maneuvers through games like they are an extension of myself.  Most games I’ve played, unless they were pretty basic, I’ve either not been able to finish, or have remained a pretty average player despite hours of practice.  I’m ok with this, generally speaking.  I leave the XBox to the good players in my house, like my husband and my 4 year old daughter.  Never touch the thing.  But I’ve always had this sort of envious awe of the people who can just step into games and master them.

Now, I would argue, albeit humbly, that for the most part I have risen above my innate luddite tendencies when it comes to World of Warcraft.  I may not set the world on fire, but I can hold my own as a raid healer.  I’ve helped my guild to defeat a lot of content, including some hard modes (although we’re not at ICC hard modes yet), and I do a pretty good job most of the time.  But I’m much stronger after I’m comfortable in an encounter, and will never be a cutting edge raider in progressive content.  I do ok, but I’m usually flustered to some extent and not at the top of my healing game until I’ve worked through the encounter several times.   And so for those players who excel at progression, who are at the top of the raiding game, I still feel that twinge of impressed respect.  And that feeling pretty much sums up how I felt about Foreluney when we met. (Why do I get the feeling he’s going to tease me about this mercilessly?)

I also should add here that I’ve only been on my server for nine months, so I’m still learning about the communities there.  And Foreluney’s guild has something of a harsh reputation from what I’ve picked up.  What I’ve heard about them is that they are “hard core” raiders with a punishing raid schedule and rather large egos.  This image of them, which may or may not be true, has been reinforced for me on a couple of occassions when I have pugged with members of the guild who have been merciless in vent to people who made mistakes or were not the strongest of players.  Now, I get as frustrated as the next person by outright stupidity, but I tend to be pretty forgiving of ignorance and never like to hear people being called out in a cruel or callous manner, which is one of the many reasons I truly love my current guild.  We will do everything we can to help people raise up their raiding game, and we will try to handle it behind the scenes without embarrassing anyone.  Does our tolerance hold us back from server first epic awesomeness?  Of course it does.  But we are sympatico, we are peaceful, we are family.  So, in addition to having this touch of awe in regard to all things Foretluney, I also had an idea that he might, in fact, be a total dick.  lol…

Anyway!  I finally got my hunter, Harmonie, geared enough that she wouldn’t be insta-kicked from an ICC pug, and joined one this week to get her a bit more geared up and experienced.  We had 9 people and were short a healer, when someone said that they knew a resto shammy who had healed up through hard modes on his druid and could come.  The shaman’s name was Forey.  “Hmm…” says I, “Forey… Foreluney?  Could it be the same person?”  So I asked in raid chat if this was, indeed, Foreluney, and my guess was confirmed.  Forey/Foreluney joined the raid.

And I had a conundrum.  Did I want to out myself as a semi- fan girl and meet this person, or did I want to melt from their memory as soon as the raid ended (if, indeed, I ever registered on his consciousness as more than a health bar?  I think the fact that I have actually made a couple acquaintances in his guild that were actually fun to talk to tipped the scales.  Don’t get me wrong here… I didn’t agonize over whether to introduce myself or consciously weigh out any of what I’ve written here.  But the idea of whispering came to me, and in a second or two I decided that of course I wanted to say hello.  I adore making Resto Druid friends to chat with, and this was a person that, should he respond positively to my whisper, might be able to teach me more about the game and the class that I love. 

So, I whispered to him that my main was a resto druid and that I had heard of his druid on the forums.  He responded very warmly to me and we chatted back and forth all the way through the raid.  I put him on my friends list, he put me on his, and we’ve chatted a couple of times since.  I find him to be warm, friendly, charming, and very funny.  And so there it is.  I have a new friend. 

Is he the best resto druid on the server?  I don’t know.  I suppose that the answer to that question depends very much on how you, personally, define “the best.”  But he strikes me as being very down to earth, which I did not expect.  I like him.  I’m convinced he must put his pants on one leg at a time.  We have chatted a bit about our class, and I look forward to many more discussions on the topic. And any friend who makes me laugh as much as he has in 3 days is a good friend to have, no doubt about it.  It has been a good lesson for me about making assumptions, and a good reward to me for reaching out and hoping for the best.  Not the best player, the best possible result for taking a chance on someone as a person and being rewarded with something worthwhile and good.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=esmNMhnnmmU

My server has been down for hours, so I thought I’d roll a little toon on another server to show you all the new Lil’ K.T. vanity pet that was made available by Blizzard today.  He’s a mean little thing!!!  He’ll randomly kill critters when he gets extra hornery.  I love his laugh!  mwahahahaha!!!!

p.s. why do all my fraps videos seem to end up with my toons in tears?

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you know, how much experience you have, how skilled or talented or team oriented or fan-freakin-tastic.  There are times when you just do something so goofy that no one can save you from yourself.  /sigh.  So let me tell you about my day.

Today in WOW was a day much like any other for me.  I had hopped on to do a couple dailies during a break from some other things that needed done around my house, etc.  I was working through the Argent Tournament dailies when I got a whisper from a guildie. 

“Hey there!  What’s shakin’?” says I.

“Has anyone talked to you about Wild Growth?” he asked.

Alarm Bells.

“Nope.”

“Do you use a macro to cast Wild Growth?”

More alarm bells

“Nope.”

Here comes the embarrassing part… brace yourselves for me.  It isn’t pretty.

He says to me, “Well, I think you are using Rank 2 instead of 4.  Could you check?”

I, in a fit of brilliant eloquence replied, “lol shut up.”

“Not kidding,” says my guildmate.

“That’s just embarrassing,” was my next response, “hold on, gotta respec.  I only have two ranks.  Period.  /facepalm.  I don’t know how or why.”

“Uh,” says the poor guildie charged with approaching the idiot tree with her lolfail, “that’s easy to fix.”

“What an ass I am,” I replied.

/sigh.

I can tell you with perfect certainty that I HAD trained all levels of Wild Growth at one point.  I still do not know how or when I lost two of them.  I don’t know if it happened during one of the patches when we had our talent trees wiped over and over again, or whether (dear God I hope not) I’ve been casting this spell at half level since the last time I specc’ed boomkin and went back to resto before dual specs became available, but it could be that I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time and had no idea.

/long, protracted, wilting, defeated sigh.

I sure wish I would have noticed.  Then I could have a) spared myself the embarrassment of having my guildies know and discuss my stupidity (they’re totally sweet and supportive, but GAWD how embarrassing!), and b) not been gimping my raid for… who knows how long?  That’s the worst part.  We’ve been knocking our heads against the same encounter for a couple weeks looking for any edge and here am I… doo de doo de doo strolling along oblivious to the fact that I could be doing a hell of a lot more healing than I am.

It does, however, explain a lot.  lol.  You betcha.  I could NOT figure out how the other druid I heal with was outperforming me so consistently when my gear is actually a bit better than his.  mmhmm.  Now I have an idea why that was.  It was because every time I cast my group heal HOT it was healing at about half of what it should have been healing… on six people at a time.

I think I may have to retire and go play Hello Kitty Online.  I might be more prepared for that one.  lol!

On the other hand, at least the Innkeeper in Dalaran coughed up a toothpick for me today.  Sylly the Hallowed at your service.  Also, Sylly the Jackass.  /facepalm

I’ve got a bunch of things floating around in my head that aren’t meaty enough to qualify for a full post, but I wanted to throw out there, just the same.  So, welcome to the jumbled up hodge podge of the junk drawer.  Tidy up around here before you go, would you?

Hallows End Is All About the Droods

Hallows End is here, and hooray for it!  I think this holiday has to rate near the top of the list for most WOW players I know, as far as world events go.  Personally, I’m a huge fan.  I love the light hearted silliness of this holiday.  The events are fun, even the /gasp PVP.  Yesterday I worked out my G.N.E.R.D. Rage in Arathi Basin and got so cocky I was blowing kisses to the rogue who couldn’t quite gank me because of my awesome chain CC skillz woot!  The trappings of the holiday are loads of fun, too, in game and IRL.  I did my trick or treating with my four year old daughter on my lap yesterday.  She did the right clicking on the pumpkins and collecting of the fat candy loots and every time we landed in a new place she required that I get out the Sinister Squashling so that she could watch it’s crazy, silly movements and laugh with unabashed delight.  It was golden.  As fun as the holiday is for everyone regardless of spec, I definitely believe that, regardless of what the warriors might say on the subject (pfft!), Hallows End is, on some level, a celebration of Druids.  That’s right, I said it!  When all those warlocks are out there looking for a shape shift into bat form, they’re just using the permissiveness and traditional trappings of the holiday to live out some subconscious druid envy driven personal fantasy.  /snicker!

Arctic Fur for Sale on PTR!!!

So one of the leatherworking dudes in Dalaran has Arctic Fur for Sale for 10 Heavy Borean Leathers.  Jeez is that a nice change!  I’ve spent literally hours farming these stupid things to no avail.  Now at least I can turn 60 skins into one if needed.  Therefore, I’d advise the following to any other leatherworkers/skinners out there… if you’re saving up some armor kit mats to sell some kits down the road, you might want to make them now, as the price may drop once arctic furs are more available.  Also, start saving up your leather if you generally sell it off.  Finally, if you see any Borean or Heavy Borean Leather on your AH for cheap in the next couple of weeks, snatch it up!  I imagine it will be increasing in value, or you can trade it in for Arctic Fur.  It’s about time for this change, and should be a big help Leatherworkers and classes that use our kits.

B Rez 20 to 10

Man, that cooldown reduction time of the battle rez to 10 minutes that’s on the PTR can’t get here soon enough!  We’ve been working on progression hard mode 25 man TOC in my guild and it would be SOOOO helpful if our druids had Rebirth available twice as often.  I think the change makes all kinds of sense.  Instances are no longer the multiple hour slogs that they used to be, and Blizz is on record saying that they envision the right time frame to bring down a raid boss being in the five minute range, so having to wait four times as long to bring this ability to the table can be agonizing.  Bring it, baby, bring it!!!!

Suck It, Innkeepers!

The Innkeepers of Azeroth are cruel, cynical sots with a penchant for torture and a sick enjoyment of the misery of others.  I don’t know if it’s a club thing, or if they go to school for it, or if it just develops slowly over time as their inns fall into disrepair and ill repute around them while they dream of a vacation on the pristine shores of Stranglethorn Vale, but they are just rotten bastards, all.  They have taken particular delight, of late, in the irony that, although Sylly is made of wood, she is unable to produce a toothpick on her own to complete the Hallows End achievements, and they refuse to give her one.  To her plaintive requests they turn a cold shoulder and offer endless useless crap.  They think it’s particularly funny to give her soulbound things that she already has such as the Hallowed Helm and the Sinister Squashling, only to deny THESE items to other players who desperately want them.  I think they should not be surprised that I refuse from here on out for any reason whatsoever to help put out fires burning their inns to the ground until they, for the love of all things good and for the satisfaction of my own personal nerd rage, supply me with at least ONE STINKING TOOTHPICK!!!

Out of Date

My blogroll is hopelessly out of date and I’m feeling pretty guilty about that.  There are lots of blogs that are linked that are no longer active, and others that should be linked, but aren’t.  Therefore, I would looooove if you all would take a second in the comments here to let me know what other blogs you are reading out there.  If your blog isn’t linked and you’re a reader, for heaven’s sake, let me know so I can add you.  I need to do some housekeeping around here.  Thanks in advance!

I have this little hunter alt.   Although it’s hard to admit this here,  it’s true, I’m not a druid through and through.  Sometimes I get my huntard on.  I’ve actually twinked her out with heirlooms, which is something I’ve never done for any of my alts.  I’m having a grreat time playing her because it’s new and the quests send her all over the place doing different things, plus she’s always learning new abilities that shakes up the rotation.  This is a great contrast to playing Sylly, who I know like the back of my hand.  She’s also fun because she’s all tricked out and such, but she does the same things all the time.  It’s all dailies and raiding for her. 

Anywho, the biggest drawback to playing the hunter vs. playing Sylly is that Sylly has a huge group of friends and guildies at her level to do things with, whereas the hunter is almost always a solo act (with the exception of Baloo, who’s been her bear companion since whatever level it was that she was able to tame a pet).  There are only a handful of alts in my guild at level 40ish in any case, and the chances of people being on them to do things with me are generally slim.  Add to this the fact that the lower zones are often eerily similar to ghost towns, and you basically have a one man show.  This is generally quite alright with me.  Often the reason I opt to play the hunter is because I actually want to get into that zone of solo questing, setting and meeting little personal goals, exploring new zones at whatever pace I feel like setting. 

But there are times when I need a little help, you know?  One orange quest is not the same level of difficulty as another, as I’m sure you all are aware.  Sometimes a quest that would be a breeze for a warlock is desperately frustrating for a hunter.  Etc. etc. etc.

So today I was in Tanaris and I had all those quests having to do with the pirates on the shore there.  Kill 10 each of assorted piratical baddies, collect their fabulous hats, recover the booze they swiped, and take down their leader while you’re at it, kthxbai.  These are not easily soloable quests.  The respawn rate is high, especially with those dock workers, and there are groups that pull all at once rather than in manageable ones or twos.  Also, I was 3 levels lower than the pirates, so I was at a bit of a disadvantage.  I went on general to see if anyone was needing the quests, but got nothing.  I decided to head out there anyway.  Even if I just picked of pirates outside of the enclosed encampment, eventually I’d get enough hats for that quest, and I’d gain XP along the way.  So that’s what I started doing, when something awesome happened.

As I hunted down these rapscallion pirates, I noticed there was an undead shadow priest out there doing the same thing.  I watched his progress with the same interested detachment that I always have when something similar happens.  I wait to gauge where they range on the dick meter, from totally benign to humongous, pull camping, dual challenging, aggro dumping king dick of the universe.  But this guy, he seemed pretty cool.  After about five minutes of harmonious tangential pirate slaughter, I saw him get ganged up on by 3 pirates at once, and decided to help him get them down.  Because it was more fun at the moment than working solo, the next pirate he pulled, this one a single, I again stuck it full of arrows while Baloo ripped its face off.  Then I pulled one of my own and the shadow priest nodded at me and helped me kill it.  Synergy!  =)

It ended up that with no communication at all other than emotes, we moved through all of the quests in the area together, trading off pulls so that the other would get the same amount of drops and XP.  We had some crazy moments when my pet pulled about 6 pirates at once (see?  huntard), but neither of us ever died and when these moments of crisis passed there was much celebration and cheering each other on.  I have to tell you, I had SO much fun not quite questing with my cross faction friend.  I had a huge smile on my face as we figured out how to communicate without communicating and helped one another through. 

I have to say that it was with deep regret that I had to log off to make dinner, knowing that I wouldn’t have any way in game of contacting this new friend again.  I made sure to /hug /love /wave aplenty before I left, and I hope that my exuberance communicated to this mystery player just how much I enjoyed the experience of playing with them.  As much as I benefit from the help and companionship of my many friends in the game (and I do benefit, greatly from this), that old-comfy-shoe-ness of running in my pack is an altogether different kind of experience from this random meeting of two like minded people who had no access to most of the normal means of communication used in an MMO, but found a way to let good will and companionship ascend, regardless.  And although I never got to express to him how enjoyable I found his company today, I send out my thanks to him for the affirmation of goodwill anyway.  For him, for the first time, perhaps the last, I say it loud, say it proud… For the Horde!

=P

Although I played around a bit on the PTR for patch 3.2, the short time I spent there checking out the new Argent Tourney content was the only PTR experience I’ve ever had.  That PTR did not offer the option of rolling a “premade” character, so I just brought Sylly over to have a looksie and that was that.  For the current PTR, however, premade characters are available.  I’ve been aware in the past of an underlying excitement in the PTR testing community about premade characters, but I never took much interest in the PTR at all until recently, so these whisperings of excitement and glee over premade characters, while registering with me in a general way, never really filtered through to the front of my consciousness enough to pique my interest.  Until now.  My guild may be doing a little raiding on the PTR, so I decided to give it a roll with them on a premade character.  Enter, stage left, Milkshake, the Tauren Druid sensation of epic wonder…

I rolled this beauty on the PTR last night and when I looked in her bags…. oh…my…. GAWD!!!!!

But that’s jumping ahead just a little bit.  The first thing that amused me greatly about Lady Milkshake was that there were dozens of tauren druids standing around who looked exactly like her, making me feel as though I had just walked straight off of some sheep farm in Scottland.  Here, just look at us all standing around in the bank!

Heh.  Just kidding.  That pic is from the after party.  Here’s the pic of the bank….

If you can’t tell, there’s a whole herd… er… group of about 5 of us clustered together in a big druidic bovine clump of new car smell.  I was heading to the bank to see what my benefactors at Blizzard had packed in my portmanteau to prepare me for epic adventure and ultimate triumphant defeat of Arthas the Drama Queen.  Well, it turns out that along with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a week’s worth of clean underwear, Blizzard had sent me off to camp with the best of  every freakin thing my heart could desire should I ever want to raid or pvp in any druid spec.  No, really. Want to see?

First of all, Milkshake was born wearing full Relentless Gladiator gear.  I forget what spec that initial gear set was for because… pvplolz who cares?  I couldn’t pvp my way out of a paper bag.  But I did, in going through all the goodies, make note that I had available to me full Relentless Gladiator gear for all 3 druid specs.  Full gear.  Every slot.

In addition to that, I also had in my bags full T9.5 Runetotem gear for all 3 specs, along with the best trinkets, rings, cloaks, necklaces, weapons, bracers, and boots for all 3 specs.  My eyes grew wide, my cheeks flushed, and small goosebumps raised on my skin as I surveyed this complete array of epic uber awesome toys that Blizzard gave me to play with.

I couldn’t bring myself to delete any of that shiny, gleamy gear, even the feral gear.  Not even the rofl feral pvp gear.  So I put it all in the bank except the resto raiding gear.  The best in slot resto raiding gear.  All of it.  Here’s the list:

I have worked hard indeed over the past weeks to get 2 of these items and I’m pretty close to a third (alliance equivalent, of course!).  It was a shock to the system to have it all for the price of nothing.  Still… no enchants, no gems… what’s that, Blizzard?  No Problem!!!

Milkshake was able to gem and enchant her own gear as easily as filing her fingernails… or hooves… or whatever.  Plus, oh lookie lookie!

PTR premade toons have a bank stuffed full of the highest quality enchanting and jewelcrafting mats to customize their gear however they want.  What they cannot do with the enchanting and jewelcrafting professions is provided for, as well.  One of their bags is bulging with armor kits, spellthreads, head slot and shoulder slot enchants.  Blizz didn’t even forget to throw in some belt buckles.

Also provided were flasks, pots, and bandaids…

In addition, Blizzard made sure that Milkshake had all of the flightpoints, as well as a couple of mounts to play with.

Wheeee!!!

By the time I had sorted through all these goodies and made all these screenshots for the blog, it was time for me to log off and go on Sylly to get ready for last night’s raid (shout out to mah guildies on the 3/5 heroic TOC run woot! =) ).  I did notice a couple of missing items that would be needed to hit the ground raiding, such as glyphs, mana pots (these might have been there and I just forgot to screenshot them) and raid food.  However, I suspect that these items are also readily available, and Milkshake came with 5000 gold to pick up anything else she might need.

I have to admit that I felt like nothing more than a kid in a candy store with all these goodies to oooh and aaaaah over.  I can see how it’s to Blizzard’s advantage for people to be able to pick up these fully decked out toons to go play around with on the test content.  But I am telling you, it is a freakin BLAST to walk into this plethora of playthings.  In spite of the instability, the big download process, and other irritations of the PTR, having this much gear available to you makes for an excessively fun time. 

Lucky me, I get to do it twice.  It turns out my guild is rolling alliance on the PTR.  LOL silly Sylly!  Here we go again… =)

I try hard to be an upstanding member of the WOW community, I really do.  My sense of communal responsibility absolutely extends to being a solid, reliable, helpful player within any group in which I find myself.  I try to give advice or strategies when they are asked for or seem vital to group success.  I try hard not to go afk, and if I do I try to wait until we are between pulls and I can tell the group I’ll be away for a moment.  If I do not know the strategy for a boss or instance I try to make that very clear up front and let the group know that neglecting to supply me with said strategy will be a risk.  I “need” on loot only when I truly need it, and either “greed” or “pass” when I don’t.  I don’t face pull, nerd rage, ninja loot, chain afk, or break cc, and I have always run back on a wipe, even when druids weren’t the ones who were doing the rezzing.  But every once in a while, when my patience is stretched to its limit, I admit that I will bail on fail.

Yesterday evening I logged on and was coaxed pretty willingly into a 10 man TOC/Ony run with some guildies that was very enjoyable, but was a distraction from the dailies I had planned to do.  When our run finished up, I decided to fit in some of those dailies, and picked up a healing spot in a pug for the daily heroic.  Unfortunately I had no idea what the daily was and found myself in a pug for heroic Oculus.  Oh dear!  I’ve had many and many a failed group in that instance and am loathe to run it under the best of circumstances.  As much as I wanted to jump ship immediately when I found out what the daily was, the good citizen in me bowed to obligation and I trudged out to Borean Tundra, head hung low.

The tone was set for the run when, after two pulls, the warlock went AFK for five minutes.  As we worked through trash without her the DK vied with the tank for aggro on nearly every pull, causing me to split heals between them.  Once we got the dragons we had multiple deaths as people flew off wherever their fancy took them, regardless if said flight of fancy pathed them through various and sundry easily aggroing dragons.  Each death was followed by a long wait as people had to run back in, call their dragons or get new ones, then fly to wherever the group was.  At least twice people died yet again trying this maneuver.  The DK went AFK for 10 minutes.  Two people admitted, well into the instance and after I had already died once, that they had never been there before and didn’t know what they were doing.  Then, as we were clearing trash before even getting to the second boss, the pally tank was in some way incapable of generating enough AOE threat to keep trash off the healer and I died once more.

So I bailed.

/sigh.

I’m not proud of my actions.  I didn’t give them notice.  I didn’t give them a chance at that point to do anything at all.  Instead of completing my corpse run I said, “Sorry guys, that’s enough fun for one night for me, ” dropped group, logged off and watched an episode of Mad Men.  Done and done.  This did not make me feel like a good citizen.  In fact, it has needled at me ever since.  Will they remember me in the future and refuse to group with me?  Will my actions reflect badly on my guild?  Did I make what was already probably a pretty crappy experience for them just that much more crappy?  I suppose there is a good chance for all of these things.  But, you know, I run with a very talented, adept, and well geared group of people the vast majority of the time and my patience for incompetence and nonsense only stretches so far.  When push comes to shove I will just walk away and let the chips fall.  How about you?  Do you bail on fail?

On an official forum post that had quickly disintegrated into a big, whiny bitchfest about Ghostcrawler a few days ago, the Blizzard developer posted the following:

I always said that when my posting was doing more harm than good that maybe it was time to stop. I think I’ll at least chill it out a little. I will continue to read the forums though. If you want to make sure the WoW developer see your feedback, this is still a good place to post.

Unlike some, although I’ve not always been happy with developer decisions about my class, or agreed with their explanations and perspective about certain features of my class, I was never anywhere near being angry with the developers for their decisions, their application, their approach.  I always found the vitriolic sniping at the developers and at Blizzard on the forums to be distasteful, immature, ineffective, and repugnant, and quickly turned away from reading it with a feeling of empathy for the developers who do take the time to read through the forums every day and try to address player concerns.  While the developers were never the subject of my anger, I must admit that I’m pretty pissed off right now.  No, I’m not miffed at Ghostcrawler for turning away from the forums.  Not at all.  I’m disgusted by the asshat player trolls who can’t control their emotions any better than my four year old daughter, who hide behind the anonymity of the interwebs to launch personal attacks at various Blizzard staff, who hang over Ghostcrawler’s every word with a scalpel so that they can carve tidbits right out of their context to “prove” some idiotic point or another for their own self gratification and wound licking ecstasy.

I do understand that people have a strong personal attachment to World of Warcraft, a significant investment in their characters, and a well developed point of view on the mechanics and environments that would best promote their most optimal personal gaming experience.  I also recognize that achieving balance is like catching a greased pig in a rainstorm, and that in some cases for shorter or longer periods of time certain classes or specs remain out of balance, and that this imbalance can be a cause of considerable frustration for people.  The frustration of one class being fiddled with in every patch serves as a counter point to the frustration when the deficiencies or perceived problems of another class go seemingly unnoticed by developers for months on end.  I GET this.  I’ve been there a time or two myself.  However, when did frustration over a situation translate into license for unbridled nerd rage, embarrassingly public fits of immature wound licking, and aggressive personal attack?  For God’s sake, if you are that unhappy, find something else to do.  Go plant a flower, punch a pillow, climb a mountain, get a little nookie, cure cancer. 

This is not to say that I think people should not disagree with the developers, or that they should not get angry, or that they should not post on the forums.  By all means… the floor is yours.  Speak up.  But if you cannot handle yourself with a modicum of maturity, a mote of eloquence, a pinch of grace, a pittance of civic responsibility, then I do beg you to just STFU.  I have seen time and again examples of the developers pointing out solid, reasoned posting from perspectives in clear opposition to their own as great examples of how players can approach posting about their frustrations in a positive way, bringing information and arguments to the attention of Blizzard in a manner which is conducive to productive discussion.  I have also witnessed a plethora of examples of developers pointing out the wrong way to bring your concerns to the table.  Generally these remarks from the Blizzard team are reserved for the most egregiously trollish of posts, wherein posters make no effort to frame their concerns with reasoned arguments, relevant proofs, or civil discourse, but instead choose to spew dark vitriol and derision. 

While I have not always had the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart about the state of my class or spec within the content I was currently playing, I understand that there is a larger picture that, much as I may  know about my own class and corner of the universe, I do not fully grasp.  There are many changes that appear to hamstring one or another of my abilities in a raid setting which I am certain, for example, are balanced around a PVP universe that I understand not at all.  I also recognize that even if I knew or understood all the intricacies that factor into the decisions made that affect my gameplay, I might not agree with the priorities set by the game developers in relation to this complex web, and I might be disappointed by changes they felt were necessary or important, while I did not.  However, the basketball hoop is in Blizzard’s driveway, people.  It’s their home court.  Sure, I give them $15 a month to come and play, but they certainly aren’t taxing my paycheck for it.  I have a choice in the matter.  And although me and my mommy know that I am a unique snowflake and perfect in my singularity, there are millions and millions of snowflakes playing World of Warcraft.  There is never going to be a single game change that will make every one of them happy.  Someone will always be left out in the cold.  If this poor little soul is you, I’m terribly sorry.  Now suck it up, Buttercup.  You have choices.  Say nothing and suffer in silence.  Reserve judgment until you’ve tested the waters a bit.  Quit playing WOW and try out one of the dozens of other MMOs out there.  Or speak up, by all means.  Start a blog, chat with your guildies, post on the Warcraft forums in order to highlight your views and concerns.  But if you cannot speak out in a public forum without attacking and QQing to the freakin stars and back about your poor, poor, pitiful, persecuted self, I don’t care in the least what you have to say. 

I have very much enjoyed and benefited from having Ghostcrawler on the forums, discussing Blizzard’s reasoning and thought processes behind various changes or mechanics or decisions which have affected me.  I have learned a great deal about the game from these posts, and understand my class, spec, and role much more thanks to his efforts.  I have marveled at his seemingly teflon skin over time as he has deflected so much abuse and nastiness with a professional and humane demeanor which I find to be admirable.  I do not always agree with him.  I do not always understand his decisions.  But I always appreciate his effort.  I am saddened a great deal that he will not be posting and hope that it is a temporary decision.  As for the asshats who reveled in having a target for their vicious, puerile witchhunts, I hope that in the large vacuum left behind by Ghostcrawler that these bottom feeders turn on each other and do us all a favor.

Just a heads up that Tristan at The Elitists Podcast has generously invited me to appear on the podcast this week, along with Bellwether from the wonderful Resto Druid blog, 4Haelz.  I’m so excited to chat with everyone! I’ve been a fan of Bell’s blog since long before I took up the blogging flag myself.  If you don’t know her site, run, don’t walk to the link above when you finish this post, get comfy, and start reading.  Don’t tell her, but I’m secretly hoping she’ll get all worked up about something.  I always love when she goes into a good rant on her blog and am secretly enamored of the idea of bearing witness to one going down live =P.  There is NOTHING that beats Bell when she’s rolling out a rant.  /love Bellwether!!!

We’re recording the show tonight, and Tristan has put out the call on his site for any questions that listeners may have that are resto druid or blogging related that you’d like to hear me and/or Bell hold forth on.  So if you’d like to have a hand in steering the discussion, visit this link and add a question to the comments, or send in questions for us to Elitistpodcast AT gmail DOT com by 7:00 EST tonight.

If you are interested in hearing the podcast, The Elitists have an RSS feed on their site that you can sign up for, or you can find their podcast on Itunes.  You can find the links to the RSS feed and to Itunes on their website homepage.

Wish me luck!

I am vain about Sylly.  I’m not proud of it.  Or maybe I am… vanity being kissing cousins with pride and all.  Perhaps the distinction is that I’m proud of her, but not proud of myself for feeling all prideful.  Or perhaps I am proud of her, proud of myself for the work that’s gone into her and the results, while simultaneously somewhat embarrassed and guilty to be attached to the pixels that are Sylly to the point that they inspire pride and vanity in me.  I should call a therapist.  It’s complex. 

The point is… I really am vain about Sylly.  I LIKE her.  I like the way she looks and the things that she can do.  I like her forms and dances and emotes (mostly… there’s a reason that night elf never claps!). I like her stuff and go far out of my way to collect things for her… vanity pets for one.  Oy, vanity pets.  See the theme here?  And things… she’s got a crap ton of  ’em.  She actually has a 22 slot bag that’s devoted to nothing but toys.  Race cars, bunny ears, a haunted memento lurking around the dust and gum wrappers in the very bottom of the bag.  Sylly’s cup runneth over.  (Oh, and by the way… Gluttony, anyone? Avarice perhaps?) 

While I am an enthusiastic fan of World of Warcraft generally, the fact is that my alts rarely see the light of day.  Sometimes I play them, but largely they are dust catchers on a high shelf.  They have their good points.  My mage was a ton of fun to level to 71, but there she sits almost since Wrath released.  I roll them, I play them for a while, I shelve them, I forget how to play them, and they become largely unappealing to me for the most part.  I’m lazy about them, Slothful.  I actually just dug my level 20 hunter out of the attic, washed her down, combed her hair, fixed her woefully scattered UI, syphoned money off of Sylly to help level up her alchemy, first aid, and cooking (guilt tax, no doubt about it).  And I’ll play her some.  I’ll level her some.  She’s fun in her own right.  Maybe someday I’ll have a second max level toon.  Maybe it will be the mage.  Or the hunter.  Or one of the other baby alts (I think there’s a pally in there somewhere, weighted down to the bottom of my memory by all that plate).  The alts are fun distractions from time to time. Sylly, however, shines.  My game is mostly about her.

So there are the very innocuous, NOT vain things about Sylly that I love that make up a huge chunk of my affinity for her.  I love playing a druid, of course, and healing on one feels graceful and finessed to me, even to some degree when I’m locked into a 5 Rejuv 1 Wild Growth heal bot extravaganza.  Sure, the CASTING may get monotonous, but there’s still this idea for me of the HOTs themselves being lovely, powerful, subtle expressions of nurturing nature.  The healer role suits me very well generally.  I love playing end game and raiding and the group work involved, and it empowers my love of Sylly tremendously that she’s locked and loaded for this type of play.  She’s got the right spec, the right gear, the right guild (Apatheia ftw!); all the hard work is done.  I like that I understand how she works, how she accomplishes what she does, how I even get the maths to my small befuddled capacity.  She’s that proverbial old pair of slippers, that flannel shirt with the threadbare elbows that makes you so damn happy to wear.  So there is all of that, and all of that is not a small measure.

But make no mistake, the vanity is there, too.  I have suspected this in the past.  After all… Sylly used to look like this:

Woot!  don’t you miss that T4 set?  =P  Loved the look of that gear…  ahem!  More on this anon.

Anyway, coughing up $15 for a gender reassignment for my toon… yea.  Gotta be some vanity in there somewhere.  I mean, I rolled her as a male toon to ward off as much of the flirtaciousness that is hoisted upon female MMO players as I possibly could long before Blizz added voice chat to the game or I knew a thing about Ventrilo.  But then… so what?  Why care?  If my attachment to the toon was solely based upon the factors above, playing a druid, getting to heal, getting to raid, then obviously I wouldn’t have given a fiddler’s fart how the toon looked or its gender.  But Vent had long since been a part of my game experience when the gender change became available, everyone knew I was a chick anyway, so I made the largely vain decision to trade Sylly’s outie for an innie within, I believe 48 hours of that service going live.  I wanted her to be a HER and I wanted her to look GOOD.  /blush!

This whole vanity issue has really come into focus for me since Sylly gained her full T8 set.  Let’s have a look at her now, shall we? 

I LOVE the look of this tier set.  I have coveted the shoulders for months now (ah, Envy, there you are!).  I am tickled beyond tickled to have it, and I fully intend to skip over T9 unless dragged into it kicking and screaming.  First, the set bonuses don’t stack up to 4pc T8.  But also, and I have to admit that this part is important to me, it looks just god awful!  My vanity about this T8 set that looks so damn GOOD has actually trumped my normally practical and utilitarian nature.  I actually took the time to set up an “around town” outfit option in Outfitter so that I can put on my lovely gear even when I’m in Boomkin spec if I should happen to be running errands in Dalaran.  I blush as I admit this, but it is true.  I wear my T8 set around town.  I don’t want to replace it.  Vanity, thy name is Sylly.

So, readers of mine, have you ever been vain about your personal collections of druidic pixels?  Have you ever indulged in such shenanigans?  Do you turn the camera around to look at “yourself” when flying on a bird taxi?  Do you change shirts to match your current armor?  Tell me, what are your own vanities when it comes to your toons?  Do tell… the devil’s voice is sweet to hear.  =P

p.s. I managed to make it through the post without indulging Wrath or Lust.  5/7… I’m nearly as pure as the driven snow!  mwahahaha!!!!