Travel for sub 40

I decided to take a small break from trying to get groups for things on my 70 and spend time on my lower level alts.

One thing I forgot but was quickly reminded of is what a pain getting around is!

I chose 2 alts to play and I spent at least 20-30 minutes on each of them getting from a main city, to a spot where I could pick up quests, then travel to do them. In one case, I found the area I chose to still be a bit tough for me, so I spent another 15 minutes trying to get someplace else only to do one quest and get bored with it.

My one alt is a mage so I used blink, and the other is a shaman so I used ghost wolf, but it still was a huge step back from traveling at epic flight speed.

I told a friend, only half-jokingly, that I would pay for someone to get my alts to 40.

The first time through having to take time to travel made the world seem big. It made you feel you had a lot to explore. The fifth or sixth time through makes you feel like you are literally watching minutes of your life tick away for nothing.

Should I find a barrow den?

I've hit a small wall that has me a bit discouraged.

I got geared up for heroics and Karazhan just as 2.4 was released.

As you can imagine, not many heroics are being run that aren't Magister's Terrace. I can't seem to find a Karazhan group either. Because what Kara group is running without a tank already?

There are several posts about why tanks are hard to find, and I'm now experiencing one of the reasons why.

If you decide to embrace tanking you are nothing without a group. And since groups aren't really going to exist without having a tank, that position is filled.

That leaves me to start my own groups, and I've been pugging for that reason. But the headaches that sometimes come along with pugs are starting to wear on me.

I'm hoping Karazhan will become more popular again as excitement over new instances and the removal of attunements to old instances die down.

I forgot how good I had it with 25-mans. And I don't mean the loot. I mean having a group to do things with that you knew would do something every week. But having to do so much every week was part of the reasons why I left.

I'm not really ready to hibernate, but I'm not finding reasons to log on much.

750

750 badges.

That's how many badges of justice I would have to get to purchase upgrades for my alt.

Seems a bit insurmountable at the moment....

Let me cross off the things that maybe I'll have a chance of getting close (not as good) alternatives for elsewhere.

It drops me down to 615.

Still seems as unreachable as 750, given I've managed to get 45 badges so far in the past months or so.

Hmmm let's mark off the 2.4 items for now, those are the highest costing...

Now I'm down to 70. That's much more reasonable!

The question becomes do I really want to spend 35 badges when I could use them toward a 150 badge item?

I'm interested in keeping track of how long it will take me to get 750 badges total. Will it keep me busy until WotLK? Yes.

But will it keep me entertained?

"Can" versus "have to"

Nice post on Blessing of Kings, pointing out that dps doesn't necessarily have to group with people while for the most part healers and tanks do.

No, please don't nitpick that tanks and healers can do things on their own. Of course they can. But the overhead of tanking and healing is an extra price many players aren't willing to play.

Someone makes a post on the official forums every once in a while to allow free respecs or a choice between two specs that you can choose from for a nominal fee. Those supporting this the loudest are tanks, then healers. Prot tanks, namely warriors respec completely to have fun in pvp or to farm a little bit faster.

DPS can leave a group and just about do anything in the game without the feeling they need to group up for something.

Sure they can, but they don't have to.

I remember on my healer whenever I complained on the forums about farming, someone would inevitably say "take a friend!"

I group with friends when I want too! How many of your friends want to group up to farm something for you, let alone themselves?

The dailies and adding damage to healing has helped tremendously. But I still look forward to doing dailies on my dps character which is much more fun and easier.

What is it called

...when an individual goes after his best self-interests but in the end it benefits the group?

A discussion came up in guild about loot (what?!!? no way!!!). While passing on loot so others can have it sounds like a good idea. I'm leaning on the side of the fence that ultimately it works out for the worser.

My reasoning is due to why a player needs loot deferred to him or her in the first place.

Is it a new alt? Then the other people shouldn't have to bear the brunt of getting them gear.

Is it a new role? If the guild has asked them to play it then maybe I can see deferring to them so they can fulfill it properly.

Is it a new player? Once again, should other players have to bear the burden of getting them geared?

If a player themselves isn't working hard to gear themselves in all of the myriad of ways you can currently do now, I don't feel gear should be defaulted to them as a result. If a player has the ambition to get things crafted, pvp, earn badges etc vs. showing up for a raid and hoping everything gets defaulted to them which is the one you'd rather have in your raid?

Armorying PUGs

On my new alt, I run with pugs 95% of the time. It's a choice some of my guild refuses to make. And I admit it can be very trying sometimes. But I like the idea of grouping with people who want to do the instance. And I assume if you are in LFG you want to do the instance.

I never go in with the attitude I'm going to bail if the group sucks. We all can't be geared to the teeth and know the instance inside-out. But I have started making a 2-hour rule. Which I think is very generous. I stop at 2 hours. I can't think of any instance that should take longer than that. So regardless of how close we are to the end, I tell them before hand, at hour 2 I'm leaving. I'm potentially penalizing myself because that last boss could drop something I need. But I'm willing to take that risk.

Even with my pug-friendly attitude I have found myself getting more and more annoyed with players who come to instances they have no business being in yet. There are so many ways to get geared up now. There really is no excuse to show up clad in "of the bandit". I could have saved myself of that headache had I armoryed the player first.

I really don't want to head down that road. Of being choosy in the land of misfits. If any of us were so uber that we didn't need to pug we wouldn't be there in the first place.

Atari 2600

A more innocent age

As a commenter pointed out, I stand corrected.

The new Molten Core game will be available for the Atari 2600 platform first.

Although, I don't think they'll use old-guy-plays-video-games-with-neighborhood-boys advertisements this time around.

WoW's April Fool's

If the lols all over the officials forums didn't make you take game issues less seriously I don't know what could.

And I'm sure we'll all flock to play the new bard class! :)

My favorite was the ascii version of Molten Core, with the unlocked bear level.

PvP to be added to Hello Kitty Online

Disgruntled with World of Warcraft's pvp system and irate with the arena changes, people were dismayed by the announcement Warhammer Online was being pushed back to the fall.

As a result, resounding cheers and befuddlement welcomed the news that Hello Kitty Online will be released with a PvP version for only and additional $10.00USD per month. The mod will simply be known as Hello Kitty PvP.

Due to the age of the population Hello Kitty attracts, an age restriction is in effect for the PvP version. Not surprisingly it has been rated M and the label is slapped on the PvP box that will only be sold from behind the counter. The original version Rated G of course can still be picked up off the shelves.

I've splashed my page with pink in honor of Hello Kitty lovers everywhere.

Do you agree or disagree with the change?