WoW Journal - 8-Jun-2005

Still playing Raslebol, as I'm still sitting on a pile of rest bonus xp. I started the evening by doing two travel quests, the first leading me to Ratchet, and the second being handing in stuff from the Sunken Temple in the Swamp of Sorrows. There I suddenly realized that Raslebol has never visited the Blasted Lands, south of the Swamp. I first do a simple quest, getting orders to the orc hero ghost standing at the zone border. Then I move in.

The main attraction in the Blasted Lands are two guys giving out 5 repeatable quests. Each of these quests gives you a 60 minutes buff, increasing one of your stats by 50, plus a kind of potion which gives the same buff. The potion with the strength buff is called R.O.I.D.S. :). The only thing you have to do for these quests is to kill the hyenas, vultures, scorpions, and basilisk in the zone, which range from 45 to 53 in level. Easy enough for a level 57, and except for the level 45 everything still gives xp to me. The only problem is that the quests are popular, and it is sometimes hard to find something to kill.

So while I'm hunting various monsters in the Blasted Lands, I get a tell from somebody I don't know at all. He has a group of 4 already, and is missing a tank, to go to Dire Maul. You've come to the right address, man, I'm always up for a single group dungeon crawl. Traveling there takes some time, a hearthstone plus two flight routes, but then we head into Dire Maul.

We avoid most of the ogres standing in the non-instanced part, but it quickly becomes clear that none of us has ever been here, and we don't really know what to do. We go to the western part first, then to the northern part, but both are locked, and we don't have a key. I search for a map on my laptop which is standing right next to my regular computer, and find that the key is found in the eastern part, so we head there. The fights aren't easy, but as long as we manage to pull only single mobs, everything is fine.

The only problem is the hunter, the guy who invited me. One of the level 60 is doing a good job of giving directions as to what to do, trying to organize the group. And he wants me, the tank, to pull. Which has certain advantages, especially when pulling small groups of monsters that are linked together, as I get the initial aggro. But the hunter thinks that due to his long-range attack skills, it should be him who is pulling. We often end up pulling simultaneously, but things are still going well. Then the group leader asks me in group chat to pull the lasher on the right side of us, which I do. But simultaneously the hunter pulls the mob on the left side of us, plus the roaming patrol standing next to that mob. We all die, and we don't have a shaman or warlock for a self-rez, so we have to run back as ghosts. Except for the hunter, who is frustrated, hearthstones away and leaves the group. Doh! So we decide to give up and hearthstone out as well. The loot I found doesn't even pay for the repair cost, so my first Dire Maul expedition isn't a success.

<*Rant*> I really do appreciate games giving me the ability to solo. But I *do* see that the biggest idiots in the games are usually playing the best solo classes. In Everquest these guys were called dr00ds, because they usually played druids, and they gave all druids a bad name. It was hard to convince other people that my druid knew very well what to do in a group. In WoW the idiots are usually playing hunters, and it has come so far that I instinctively cringe when I see a hunter in my group. My excuses to those hunters who do know how to play in groups, but there are far too many hunters out there that don't. Hunters in a group are belonging in the damage-dealer category, the guys with the low armor who have to take care not to draw too much aggro on themselves. Them pulling doesn't help, and I've died more than once because they didn't keep their pet close to them, and the pet trained half the dungeon on the group. <*End Rant*>

Starting from today it will be difficult for a while to find any group for a high-level instance: Battlegrounds are going live today on the European servers (yesterday in the US), and every high level in the game will be playing there for the next couple of days, until they get bored of it. There will be two types of battlegrounds, each in several copies. One is a battle of 40 Horde players against 40 Alliance players, and is level 41-60. Which basically means level 55-60 only, everybody below that will be considered as dragging down his side. The other battleground type is accessible from level 21 on, and will be split in slices of 10 levels, so all level 21-30 will be together, and the level 31-40 will be in another copy, and so on. This type of battleground offers smaller, 10 vs. 10 battles, of a capture the flag type.

You enter the battleground by stepping through a red swirling portal, similar to the blue portals of the instances. Then you are in a waiting queue. If you are Horde, the queue should be short enough, as there are twice as many Alliance players as Horde players on each server. If you are Alliance, you will need to wait for some time, and only do 1 battleground for every 2 battlegrounds a Horde player does. But it seems you can continue hunting and questing outside, and you'll get a message when there is a place for you.

So this evening I will spend some time patching. I have 4 copies of WoW running, on 3 computers, with 2 accounts. The main computer has a UK and French version, and the laptop and my wife's computer only have the UK version. I think I'll download the patch from Fileplanet, which should be faster, at least for the UK patch which goes on 3 machines.
- posted by Tobold @ 7:55 AM Permanent Link