Acetaminophen and Caffeine: inc

I'm at the World of Warcraft: MLG Orlando Championship at the Gaylord Palms. I shit you not. Neilyo is here (not playing), Orangemarmalade, Snutz, Flexx, and some other rocking characters. Got to talk to Snutz yesterday about warlocking. Twas cool. Will talk with more of them today and even have photos.

So incoming update tonight or tomorrow, provided I get shit done at the hotel today.

GotFrag.com has all the action streaming live, and perhaps you'll see yours truly wandering in the background. Check out full rosters of players on the website as well.

So far:
Best healer - Toes of Complexity Black
Best CC: Snutz or Venruki of Complexity Red
Best DPS: Snutz

My gold's on either Complexity Red or Button Bashers. Snutz is my hero. Orangemarmalade intimidates me.

Also, just for the giggle factor, watch the stream for commentary at the very least, because hearing the announcers go, "The Koreans are unstoppable," makes me laugh.

Acetaminophen and Caffeine: Avatar vs. WoW Photodump

Saw Avatar twice over the winter holidays, great movie, enjoyed it both times, and while watching, I couldn't help but notice severe similarities to WoW.

Rather than regale you with my verbose monstrosities, here's some pics!












(The Na'vi remind me of the Night Elves. There's no Azshara counterpart in the movie.)

Sorry for the short post. My sleep schedule is effed the junk up and I need to balance out before work starts up again tomorrow.

Acetaminophen and Caffeine: Effing Zhevra

Two A&C's in a row? Bad Oathy. I'll be sure to get a flogging for it later. The sexy kind of flogging. Mhmm.

So Loremaster is becoming more of a reality for me as I have been working on it quite diligently in the last few days. Things I've noticed:

Escort quests in Vanilla WoW can go on for a LONG DAMN TIME.

The Grimtotem Tribe are assholes.

The in game quest helper is really really helpful to an extent (I've never used a quest helper before, I just look stuff up on wowhead or wowwiki). I found mobs I needed on a different part of the map that the quest helper did not indicate. Save for a few snags, it's a really well done system integrated into the game.

The Venture Company are assholes.

The Horde, generally as a whole, really just want to get on their feet. They're not wholly concerned with extremely large concepts of bureaucracy and the balancing of power like the Alliance are with most of their quests. All they really want is just the chance to survive.

The Alliance are really bored on my realm. I'll be questing in a low level area and then I'll hear of a town being attacked. I head over and there's a level 80, poorly geared, wasting away at level 40 guards. Really? That's how you get your rocks off? K, buddy. I'll be in Astranaar bending over your night elf women. Eye for an eye, biatch. Oh, is that you, silly warrior, showing up on the horizon? The same warrior who thought he was a badass, killing my quest givers that I needed to give this oil and rope to? Well I've oiled up this purple-haired vixen, tied her down, and she don't sound like she wants me to stop. She's got so many dots on her face she's gonna go blind!

Ahem.

The Alliance are assholes.

I especially hate drop rates on body parts. You know and hate those fucking quests (if you love them, you are NOT my friend). “Gather up these intestines for me, I want to make a pie.” “It'd really give this potion a kick if I had these snouts.” “I need eyes, lots of motherfucking eyes.”

Blizzard ought to make mobs and creatures reflect the body parts they're missing. If I'm hunting wyverns for ears, make the ones who don't have ears look like they haven't got ears, so I know to skip them.

I go out there, I find the mob the guy wants, let's say a zhevra, and I cast a shadowbolt. The damn thing goes flying, end over end, skipping on the grown every so often like a pebble on a calm lake, only to slam into a tree off in the distance. I take a look at the body, needing one of its hooves, seeing that I've obliterated all of them. Okay, note for later, don't use shadowbolt.

I find another zhevra. I cast death coil; the lights in its eyes go out. I can see, feel, and hear the sheer terror rending through the animal's mind, as it screams and bucks in fitful convulsions, only to crumple to the ground in a mass of horror-filled flesh. I walk up to it, it's face contorted like a bad Japanese fright flick, and as I look at its feet, it seems the hooves have recessed into the legs. The damn zhevra was so scared its hooves when up into the ankles. Shit. Fucking. Asshole. Second note: death coil doesn't work. Third time's a charm.

Zhevra. Corruption. The animal feels something is amiss, and angered by my presence, charges. Before it even has a chance to retaliate, it falls to the grown, heaving its chest fitfully, and then suddenly expires, breathing its last. I go for the hooves, plainly visible on its legs. I attempt to pry one off with my dagger, but no give. I don't stack strength. This is bullshit. I aim my hand down and begin casting incinerate. Wait, no, best not to cook the damn thing. I start hacking away at the knee, and after about fifteen minutes of work, I get ONE hoof. Fuck the other three, I'll just look for a zhevra with a limp.

Acetaminophen and Caffeine: I Don't Want You, [Input Race Here]

I got to thinking about the new races we're going to be getting in Cataclysm, the Worgen and Goblins, and while I'm really excited to try out both, I want to openly thank Blizzard for not putting in the following races as playable characters.

Kobolds
Their underground city would be made of melted wax. Speech would be slightly understandable, as they lack the use of proper grammatical syntax and verb conjugation. Their epic tier shoulders would be made from a wrought-iron candelabra. I'd hate to see their women. Probably the Alliance would take them as manual labor, as we all know they don't appreciate their workforce.

Quilboar
Again, I'd hate to see their women. Their /laugh would be dreadful, and imagine how much more dreadful it'd be if they roll'd DK. Mount: diminutive boars. They look like the kind of elitist assholes to ride the dumb versions of themselves, like a Tauren on a cow.

Vrykul
You know how many metalheads would jump at naming their Vrykul warrior some Norse god, or permutation with stupid foreign characters? I've had my fill of umlauts, I really don't want anymore in my WoW life. Thõrödînløkï is neither clever nor awesome, and I will make fun of you for it. You can be the greatest player in Azeroth, but you'll still look like a tattoo parlor stalker with the German name no one can pronounce.

Makrura
CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK

Faceless One
Their speaking emotes would be the lamest shit ever. All telepathy, you'd have to read your chat window. You could customize the number of tentacles in the character creation screen, like the Draenei, only worse. Their orphanage in their major city would have slugs.

Tiny post, yeah. I left out a few because some would actually be cool. Leave in the comments what you think would be a stupid race to make playable, or one you'd think would be awesome. For my awesome vote: Sporelings.

Acetaminophen and Caffeine: Ears are ringing, pugging, and my new house

Sonamabitch, I haven't been to a club in a while. I need to get out more. My ears are still ringing, my lower back feels like puddy, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing my left eye. Shit, that music was awesome.

So who's loving the new LFG system? Cassandri kind of does, but not entirely.

I fucking love it. I've been fairly slutty with it. Oath has gotten two new T9 pieces through it, Oneironaut got one new piece of T9 a few days ago as well, and hell, I've been leveling Qi with it and it's been working out really well.

In Emberstorm battlegroup, seems that most tanks are DKs and paladins, and they all have over 40k health. The average DPS runs about 3k, the most I've seen without AOE was 5.8k, single target, from a warrior. Healing is a yawnfest, and Oneironaut has felt it too, as the tanks are ridiculously well to do. Only in the new instances have I, or any other healer I've been with, had some trouble. I have had only ONE bad group. Seriously. I'm so amazed at the knowledge in a general scope of players in my battlegroup. The one bad run was Occulus, naturally, and there were three people in the group who'd never been there. It was the first time with the new system that I have had to give instructions. Most of the time its “hey, hi, hello,” then a silent and ridiculously fast run. When everything is dead, everyone says “thanks for group, great job, see ya,” and that's it. The system is up for nigh on a week, it's sound and efficient, and I am severely impressed.

Another thing I noticed is an armor proficiency spectrum. I'm not sure if this was implemented in the game deliberately, but I've not been in a group that hasn't had at least a cloth wearer, a plate, and either a leather or mail user. Hypothetically, this would be me, as my warlock, a paladin tank, a DK DPS, a hunter, and a druid healing. Next pug is a priest healing, my warlock, rogue, elemental shaman, warrior tanking. The diversity in each group is really amazing and is implemented well. I'm drinking less in the afternoon because of it.

Enchanting mats come out of these things like a smashed-in vending machine. While suckers are buying my infinite dust at 5-7g a piece, the dust stock continues to rain down from the heavens in the pug groups. I have so many dream shards, I built a house outside of Orgrimmar.



Blogs to write in the week:
~ Kosei meets someone new
~ 3.3 lock gear, update epic gear list
~ Fresh 80's do what now?
~ Alignment, damn, wish we had it

Stay safe, drink lots, and remember, if she doesn't drop the pants today, just wait until the instance unlocks and try again tomorrow.

Acetaminophen and Caffeine: TNB, screenshots of gnome-lovin', and Dwarf RP

Let's start a new regular. Each week, early Sunday morning, I'm going to force my lazy ass to get up and write. As a result you get a particular type of Oath, different in the sense that, usually, I have a bad hangover and feel like I need to barf. From now on, you'll get a weekly dose of my morning breath. I'll call it Acetaminophen and Caffeine, because there's no better breakfast.

Remember a while back I presented the hypothetical idea of RPing?



Hypothetical my ass. Meet Kosei, and her awesome bear, Curtis. Sorry Jaedia, I already have a pally, didn't really want a repeat, so I went with a class I knew the least about.

I have a few rules for myself when playing Kosei. I want to adhere to them as best I can, so as not to muddle anything about the character experience I'm attempting to have.

No General Chat, Trade Chat, or Whispers. I want an authentic experience, where face-to-face interaction is the only interaction I'll have. I'll treat LocalDefense as kind of a warning call, should the Horde try to attack. If I join a guild in the future, Guild Chat will only be for functionality and general communication, but not for RPing. Party or Raid Chat, like Guild, will be reserved to working cohesively as a group. It's all going to be in Say and emotes for me.

No Battlegrounds. She's purely meant to tell stories. I don't intend to take her into any organized battle, but if I feel I can make a difference in world PvP, I'll participate. So maybe Wintergrasp, Halaa, and the like.

No AH. The only kind of gear I can get is from quests, vendors, and any dungeons I may do. Getting gear at the AH doesn't lead to an adventurous person, just someone who can buy rather than quest for it. I also can't sell on the AH. I have to earn money from just quests, drops, and selling to vendors.

Perhaps I'll institute more rules later, if anything happens to come up that might inhibit me or enable something I didn't foresee.

I joined Moon Guard realm, hearing it was the heaviest in RP, and almost immediately I saw this apparent fact.



I was in the starter area, finishing The Troll Cave, when a fellow dwarf hunter named Ysmir passed by and greeted me. I jumped right into character.



What a friendly gentleman! Our parting was short, to say the least. Returning to Anvilmar to give Felix Whindlebolt his shit back, I found Ysmir slowly walking through the entrance as I was leaving.



The fact that he was walking, rather than just running, really strengthened the fact that I had gotten myself into something by joining this server. I had never rightly thought that I would ever actively RP. It seems fitting, though, being a writer by practice. I also enjoy the lore of the game thoroughly, playing within the franchise of Warcraft since the first RTS came out. Deep down, this was an inescapable inevitability, but I guess it took a bit of personal debating to actually try it. RP tends to have this stigma: RPing a character, WoW or otherwise, is nerdy. It's not cool. I don't necessarily agree, but I can say I've thought that at one time. It is a level of nerdiness I never thought I'd ever get to, but honestly, I quite like being nerdy.

Though he yawned first, I initiated the conversation this time.



I felt kind of bad about my RPing thus far. I had been the one to cut off conversations each time I had one. I was trying my best to level as fast as possible; my goal was to get to 10-ish so I could get a pet, then questing could go by more smoothly once I got a buddy, and then, inherently, RPing would be easier because I'd be able to obtain the resources I needed to do so. I bolted through quests to Kharanos, and after I got a few more in town, I ran into Ysmir, yet again, on the path.



Yeah, I was getting into it. I was channeling my inner Scottish. Afterward, I didn't see much of Ysmir, but I grinded through to 11, then made my stand to get that silly bear. Died a lot, had to get the timing just right with the Concussive Shot and the tame, as Mangeclaw has that insufferable interrupt. Got him, though. Huzzah!

More about Kosei in the future, she'll be getting her own section, and I'll try to update her weekly as well. Now on to something else!

I was running around Dalaran when I saw the familiar triple ponytails of my favorite little gnome, Hydra.



I was in a group for the Daily Heroic, so while I waited for the leader to find a few more members, I flirted.



Seemed Hydra was AFK, so I waited a bit, eventually she came to.



Oh, okay. I should be expecting Iridium soon, then.



Orly?! I checked out TNB, and to my surprise, I was mentioned in the latest episode! At about 1:29:42, they start talking about yours truly, particularly my post on Ezthree. I mean, maybe they talked about me mostly because it was a slow week for posts, being Thanksgiving, but I got mentioned! YAY! Thanks to Nibs and Fim for being uber sweet, and to Hydra for the sexy heads up!

Finally, got a slight sucker on the AH:



Inspired by Greedy Goblin's Moron of the Week, I couldn't help but try it myself. I say "slight sucker" because there were ten auctions, and he only bought two. Rather than the current price for a stack of bullets (that's a thousand bullets) at 3g70s, I sold just ONE bullet for 2g. Sorry Tamu. Should have watched the quantity.