WoW Journal - Day 10

Day 10, a Sunday, I'm playing all day, but I'm doing the census at 4 pm, where I think most people will be on. 599 players on Horde side, highest level 48. I've been asked how I do the census. I'm using the Cosmos UI mod, and that has a census module. It is basically a script that runs a series of /who commands and tallies the result. As I always do a purge of the data before the census, the result is an instant picture of the population at the moment the census is taken. If I wouldn't do the purge, I would get a cummulative result, which is the sort of thing reported on WoWCensus. The cummulative census is counting every secondary character and mule, so it risks to distort the result over time. The instant census at least counts every player only once.

And whatever Blizzard is saying about census numbers being wrong, by having a look at the series of instant pictures, without the distortion by cummulation, you get some indisputable facts. For example that priest is the least popular class, or that significantly more people play Alliance than Horde. It also tells you that in spite of all the warrior protests, warrior is a popular class. One of the most popular classes on the Horde side, together with hunter. And only slightly inferior in numbers to paladin on the Alliance side. They can't be that bad. I quite enjoy playing my troll warrior Raslebol on Runetotem.

Anyway, what did I do all Sunday long? Glad you asked. I started the day with a quest that led me to Tarren Mill in the Hillsbrad Foothills. I had to kill Syndicate shadow mages in a keep there. While doing so, I see an orc prisoner I can't interact with. I conclude that he is a quest target, look up the quest on Thottbot, and get "The Rescue" quest from Tarren Mill. Turns out that it is more difficult than I thought. My second raid on the keep is a lot less smooth than the first one, and I die three times before finishing the quest. Getting rooted by an archer character with a web is bad news for a warrior. Good that the penalty for dying in WoW is so minimal. At least I ding 24 on the occasion.

Having had enough of Hillsbrad, I move to Stonetalon and do some quests there. I remember a fun quest in Windshear Crag, where you get to play James Bond, distracting the enemy with a huge explosion, then grabbing his secret plans. I was under the impression that it was a neutral quest from Ratchet, but unfortunately it turns out that quest is for Alliance only, and I can't get it. So I have lunch instead.

In the afternoon someone on guild chat is looking for people to do Wailing Caverns. I have finished all the quests there, but I still think I missed something: The disciple of Nevrax, who stands right at the entrance, and tells you to talk to him once you have killed all the fanglords. So I join the guild group, we kill everything in the caverns, and then I talk to the disciple. That starts a special event. Not really a quest, the guy doesn't have an exclamation mark over his head. But when you talk to him, he tells you that he needs to awaken the sleeping Nevrax, whose bad dreams are causing all the monsters in these caves. So you need to escort him to the sleeper, defending him from all the monsters on the way. Then while he does the ritual to awaken the sleeper, you get attacked by several waves of monsters from all sides. And finally the awakening causes a huge murloc to rise from the waters. We kill the murloc, and I get a lucky roll and win a very nice blue ring. Plus everybody gets the glowing shard, which trapped the bad dreams of Nevrax, which starts another quest. Easy quest, just visit three people in Ratchet, the Barrens, and Thunders Bluff, to get over 5k xp and a quest reward I can't use. Fun event, well worth doing, and I ding 25.

I really like the WoW instanced dungeons. Remembering the Blackfathom Deep instance my Alliance druid had so much trouble getting his staff from, I head over there to see what Horde quests are available for there. I take the back exit from Ogrimmar, which leads directly into the Barrens, but then turn right and walk upriver into Ashenvale. While that is certainly the quickest way to reach Ashenvale, it ends me up at exactly the opposite end from BFD. And with my level 25 in a corner which is inhabited by level 28 to 30 mobs, not safe. But a warlock is shouting that he is looking for more group members, I get an invite, and warlocks can summon a party member to them, so I don't have to walk all the way through the zone. I get summoned to the Zoram Strand, where there is a flight path I can tag, so next time I can fly there from Crossroads. Great.

Unfortunately the group I'm in is not so great. Group leader wants to set loot to "need before greed", which would prevent people to roll on loot items they can't use. Somebody protests, and we have to use the normal group loot, where everybody can roll on all green and blue items. We agree to pass on stuff we can't use. Ha ha! The first blue drop we get is the Tortoise Armor from the big named turtle, mail armor with an extremely high armor class. I roll higher than the other warrior in the group and think I'll get it. Then the druid rolls on it too and wins the mail armor he can't wear. And he can't even sell it to other players, because it is "binds when picked up". Worth only 16 silver to a NPC vendor, while it would have been a good armor for me. Damn. What an idiot.

Next thing that happens is that we get swarmed by too many monsters, and the druid dies. He is the only healer, only one with rez. And the warlock, who can protect somebody with a soulstone, which would allow a dead person to resurrect himself, had put that soulstone on himself, instead of on the rezzer. The druid is angry and logs off. God, sometimes I hate pickup groups. You meet far too many idiots. Fighting our way out to get another healer, we get hit by a strange lag spike in the middle of a fight, and we all die. The group splits up, and I'm not unhappy to be rid of them.

To make up for the bad group, I join another guild group. Much better. We are heading for Shadowfang Keep in Silverpine Forest. Never been there. This turns out to be a very stylish haunted castle. Lots of atmosphere, great fun. And good loot and great xp for my level, so I ding 26 there. The keep is densely populated, but we are doing well by me pulling with my bow and avoiding to get swarmed. Until I try to pull the wolfmaster, and he decides to bring his 6 wolves with him. Ouch! We get wiped, and try again, this time first pulling the wolves. Much better.

Finally we arrive at the chambers of the evil archmage Arugal, whose head we are supposed to collect. The tricky bastard has spells to transform group members into monsters, which makes them attack their friends. Then he teleports into different corners of the room, and pelts us with shadow magic bolts doing lots of damage. We get wiped out twice before we learn how to handle him. Very exciting, but finally we manage to kill him. I pass on the blue loot he drops, as it is cloth armor. Loot distribution is a lot more hassle free in a guild group.

The end of the day finds me happy, having dinged three times today, from 23 to 26. So I end the day by deliberately doing something very stupid. I have already won the auction for one iridescent pearl during the day, not cheap at over 1 gold. There is a second one in the AH, but somebody keeps outbidding me. So I take the buyout option and pay 3 gold for the pearl, which is *far* too much. But it allows me to finally smith that blue Shining Silver Breastplate. Less armor class than the Tortoise Armor I missed, but a +14 bonus on strength and +6 on stamina more than make up for that. I think that stat boni are more important than pure armor class anyway. I'm broke now, having trouble paying for the level 26 warrior skills, but being able to do irresponsible stupid things is one of the advantages of a game over real life.
- posted by Tobold @ 11:59 PM Permanent Link