Gitr

NOTE: To any officers of the Fellowhip of Azeroth – I will do my best to just tell a story here. I am no longer upset and accept your offer to make last night right. This is for journalistic purposes.

Got your attention now? Good. Last night was quite possibly the worst experience I could have had in-game. It was only the second time the game really affected my personal being. The only reason I was so affected was because it was so clear that it was real people in a trusting environment not trusting me.

As we made our way toward Lucifron, I started to get back into the groove, never drawing aggro and not dying. I thought things were going pretty good. Things were about to get even better… for a bit.

We dropped Luci on the first attempt without even breaking a sweat, and it was the first MC boss fight that I was still standing at the end of. Luci dropped the Gauntlets of Might, which I of course wanted. I sent the /t to the DKP tracker and waited, pretty sure I had a 50-50 chance of having more points than anyone left in my class. Shoot, I’m still positive in our null-zero system. I got a whisper asking which run this was for me. I was pretty darn sure it was my 5th, but I guaranteed that it was my 4th. A reply came stating that the DKP sheet said this was my third run. It didn’t. I said it was wrong if it did. I have this blog recording my runs. I counted 3. I told them dates. It didn’t matter. Some considerable time passed and it went to another warrior. No really big deal, because I might have been lower. Actually I haven’t checked because of what happened later.

Next was Magmadar, and he went down like a little schoolboy trying to play tackle football with the home town pros. Once again, I was still standing, and grinning about that. And then IT dropped. IT, you know. OEB. The Obsidian Edged Blade was going to be mine. I was sooo sure I had more points than anyone now, because more people had just used their points on Luci. I sent the /t again, said how many runs I’d been on, how many points I had, and that I really needed that sword. Almost a full 15 minutes later, the blade went to a paladin with negative points. The story was the same, the sheet said I had 2 runs and that the officers weren’t going to argue about it mid-raid. The speed with which the announcement was made and the blade just handed off really set me into a fit.

BoPs are undoable. It’s like capital punishment. You can’t undo it. You can’t just say “Ooops, lemme get that back for you. We made a mistake.” I was telling them the truth, and my situation was voted upon, not having the facts checked again. A decision was made on bad information from one glance at a VERY wide sheet. You actually have to line up my name with the bottom of the window to be sure I have been there 3 times, but it was there. To top it off, 10 minutes before the Ghennas fight, the pally logged off, saying, “I’ve really got to go.” I don’t think he was talking bio, because he never came back.

I was really hoping the Brutality Blade would drop from Garr or the Legplates of Might from Ghennas, but no. So, I was left with nothing, knowing I was robbed. After the loot from Garr was passed out, I got into a private channel with the leader on TeamSpeak. I gave him my view of what happened, and was informed that the forums had it posted that you are loot ineligible until after your third run. It sure wasn’t a sticky, so I never saw it. Had I known that AND it really had been my third run, this whole thing would have been fine. Then I asked him to do me a favor and line up my name at the bottom of the screen and scroll across to count 1, 2, 3. Then the apology came. He went into officer channel and WoW officer chat.

As I was lamenting in IF, the whispers started coming in from officers apologizing. They really do feel bad, but there isn’t any way for me to get it back. Anyway, to end the story, they have made me an offer to try to make up for the mistake, and it’s the best we can do. Hopefully I get to play in the 2pm, all-day run on MC to get something this time around.

Now for the loot:

Lucifron:
Cenarion Boots
Gauntlets of Might
Magmadar:
Obsidian Edged Blade
Nightslayer Pants
Medallion of Steadfast Might
Ghennas:
Lawbringer Gauntlets
Lawbringer Bracers
Wristguards of Stability
Garr:
Cenarion Helm
Nightslayer Cover
Talisman of Ephemeral Power

If the servers are in agreement, tonight is one of our first mid-week MC runs. If I get enough school paper research done by 8pm, I shall be joining in for some mad loot. I’m looking forward to equipping the ring today.

This is, sadly true, but what makes it sad is that she was never up to begin with. Yesterday, we all logged in to discover that druids and mages couldn’t portal to Kalimdor. If you got on a ship, everything stopped, you fell through Azeroth, and the ship reappeared at port and you got off. Even THAT was after it stopped disconnecting those who got on ships.

30 minutes after the raid was supposed to start, we all went to ZG. Gitr got a coin and an armsplint. I’ll have to look them up at home, because the names are weird. To top the night off, Tox opened a trade window with me after we took down Mandokir and gave me Myrmidon’s Signet. He hadn’t equipped it yet. When we got back to IF, we found out it goes for 600g. I was free to use it, or sell it, but he wanted 50% if I sold it. Afterward, he came into my room and said he doesn’t want to hear anything about not having good gear for at least a day. 😛

So, I still haven’t seen Onyxia, but I’ll be sure to let you know when we DO get another shot.

While waiting to see where we were going, Gitr dropped 300 Skinning to pick up mining. I want to be able to get Arcane Crystals without having to pay 20-30g a pop for them. That’s maximum profit for making Arcanite Bars. I can’t skin most of the stuff in the instances we run, anyway. It was nice money-making for leveling, but now that I’m 60, skinning doesn’t have that much profit for me.

Fellowship of Azeroth is about to make our first attempt at Onyxia tonight at 8pm server time. I’ll be logging in by 7 to start farming for herbs outside until the invites begin. Gitr’s got 5 Greater Fire Protection potions in his bags, which were purchased ahead of time for a great price.

Time to go watch some Onyxia videos again, as I’ve only seen videos, watched it once on Inebriate’s computer, and read about strategy. Two things are for sure: I won’t be ripping aggro and I won’t be feared into the whelp caves.

Wish me luck at getting good screenshots for what will be my greatest post EVER!!!

What would my life without WoW be like? I asked myself this when considering uninstalling WoW last week. I was making my budget, and my girlfriend found out that WoW costs $15/month. She was like, “You’ve paid over $120 to play that game?” “Yeah.”

At the time, she was thinking that I could do better things with my money, like get an edge on my cell phone bill or buy nearly a week’s worth of gas. Two days later, I suggested uninstalling the game and cancelling my account. She had changed her mind and said that it IS the only form of paid entertainment I have. When I’m not spending time with her, I’m not going to the movies or golfing or anything that costs money, aside from the occassional action flick that she wouldn’t want to go to :). If I want to spend the same amount per month that we spend on a lunch break at Boston Market or Quiznos, then that is fine by her now.

But really. What would I do with that time? Grimr has about 12 days, Gitr has about 19, and all my others probably total 4 or 5 days. That’s a month and a half sitting in front of my computer, not spending time with family or friends. Granted… how much of that time WOULD have been spent with them? When my girlfriend is working? No, but I might have been hanging out with my best bud. Or going to a movie with my parents (or even that funeral I skipped because playing WoW sounded sooooo much better).

I don’t think that I would chalk it up as a complete waste of time. I played Warcraft 3 a long time, as with Warcraft 2, the Doom, Quake, and Unreal series. I have been playing games as long as I can remember. I used to play this came that was called something like “something of the Beast” about this guy that turns in to a wolf or something and was a great looking side-scroller of the day. It took 30 minutes to load off a cassette tape for the Commodore 64 or 128. Then there was Batman and Boulderdash and the Commander Keen series on IBM PC.

What makes WoW different? There is no end. Never. You can’t “beat” it. No one is ever going to get ALL the best gear for every slot for every situation. IF, and that is a big IF, they did, you can just start a new toon.

If I stopped playing, the one thing that would make me sad is not having a topic to blog on. Obviously I have a niche of readers here. How many of you would have come to my blog to read what I have to say and to give a rip about the few instances I wrote about my life if my blog’s topic wasn’t WoW? That is what draws most people here. Google searches, other WoW blogs, WoW blog lists. They all generate traffic here. I don’t want to give that up. This is fun. It’s a place to be heard outside of the game, even if it is about a game. I like to use it as a resource for playing a warrior, and a place to discuss the human condition made visible in a virtual world. I wouldn’t be sad about not playing, but not blogging.

I’d want to come up with a blog about my ideas, my beliefs, and my observations of life and crazy people at work. I’ve almost got enough stuff to keep up with Scott Adams by working here. The test would be if I could keep the topics coming? Would I get traffic and where would it come from? Without those things figured out, I’m not sure I’d want to quit, so WoW is here to stay.

I went on an UBRS run on Saturday. Mind you, it was the UBRS run from hell, but I went anyway. I know I’ve gone off on PuGs a lot before, but this one was of another nature. It was actually a good group.

To say I didn’t have any warning as to the nature of the group would be a lie. Krace, a fellow FoA member, also needs to finish his tier 0.5 set, so whenever he gets in a group, he tries to get me in. I just don’t have the patience any more to wait around while people try to get a group of 5, let alone 10, together. His warning to me while I was still in IF was, “the leader seems… a bit dim.” THAT’S not a good sign, but it can be overcome.

We went in there and had good speed all the way to Gyph. We dropped him and his handler in good form. So far, no one has died. I had just complemented the priest in my group for good healing. We got to the room before The Beast and wiped 6 times. I’m not kidding. On the stairs, in the room, all over. We took down The Beast with 9 guys, but it took forever to get to him and never really got past him.

After three pulls on the bridge, we wiped for the last time because EVERYTHING had repopped. We fought our way back to the hall above the eggs when half of my armor and both of my axes turned red at the same time. I said that was it for me because I didn’t get a single good drop because I was holding out for the Valor piece at the end. I passed by 2 upgrades and left with a 4g repair bill and had popped 7 major health potions.

Well, that just sucks.