WoWGrrl's World » questing

Cranking The Shaman Up To 80

Valdesta — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:11:18 +0000

My Resto/Elemental (dual spec) Shaman has been lounging around in Dalaran in the low 70s for far too long, I've decided.

Not that I want to raid with her or anything much (although I have some friends brand new to raiding that I could join on this toon with, for sure), but just that I want to get her to 80 and have that part be done with.

I want to have her be one of the ones ready at the gate for the release of Cataclysm and its new 80-85 instances.

And who knows, she could be my next "main" raiding toon - depending on what the team I'm in currently values the most at the time.

Bear Won't Drop His Fish!

I know that sounds like I'm letting others decide what toon to play, but that's only partially true - if a toon makes it to 80, that means I have gotten significant joy out of playing it, and not just for a short period of time, either. When WoTLK was rolling in, I made a similar decision between my Mage and Priest and it was largely influenced by the fact that the guild I was aiming to get into for WoTLK (the one I'm in now) had lots of Mages and very few Priests.

Burning Off Rest Bonus

Since my toon has been largely only doing occasional dungeon PUGs (and none in the past 3 weeks at all), she hasn't advanced very quickly from level 70 when I first started into the Northrend PUGs. And of course, she's fully rested, and has a couple pieces of Bind On Account gear as well.

All this adds together to the fact that she has a billion quests that she can do - and many of them that are so fast to whip through because they're a level or so below her - and a lot of rest bonus to burn up.

I spent a couple of hours recently just questing with her, flitting from place to place, delighting in the fact that the last 3 toons that went through these quest series did it when flying could only be obtained in Northrend at level 77.

But then again, with all the flitting around, I'm not getting the incidental experience the others got just by having to battle their way through to the quest object, and then battle their way back out. Thank goodness for lots of quests, and rest bonus ;)

Right now she's at 74, soon to be 75. I only play her once or at most twice a week, however, so it'll take a while to get to that 80 point.

But she's on her way, instead of sitting around in Dalaran twiddling her Troll Toes.

What Toon Will You Play In Cataclysm?

Are you someone who's called the same toon "your main" since you started playing the game, or have you swapped around between characters?

Do you see yourself keeping your current "main" for Cataclysm, or do you think you might take the opportunity to switch to something new?

Flying Through The Lowbie Levels With BoA Gear

Valdesta — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:41:08 +0000

I have to say, I'm loving this Bind on Account gear that has been released into the game with this expansion pack.

Not only is it ugly as anything I've ever seen before in some cases (and yes, that's of value to me), but it goes a long, long way towards reducing the pain of hunting out gear upgrades every 10 levels like I used to do.

I know it's been out a while, but the fact that the weapon, both trinkets, plus the chest and shoulder pieces that I slapped on this character before she hit level 20 will last me all the way to level 80, and possibly even 85 when Cataclysm comes out.

That's a huge load off of an alt-o-holic leveler's mind. There are, after all, at least six other children in this online toon family I'm maintaining, and therefore anything that can cut out a lot of worry for a lot of levels is deemed "good" - nay, "Excellent".

Lowbie Locklier Looking Lovely

Orc Warlock Mid Cast

Orc females are great, aren't they?

I mean, they all look so alluringly innocent and pure! And their dance is so delicate and again - alluringly innocent! (*wipes sarcasm from chin*)

I've got two Orc toons now, but this one is the only one I'm actively playing. The other one is currently Guildmaster of my Guild of One and I only log into her to perform gem transmutes and to move large quantities of money around (ie: anything over 1000g or so).

Since I played my Orc Rogue up to the level 65 that she's at, not much has changed about Orcs - other than the fact that the racial ability is much more use-friendly in group situations. Didn't the old ability increase damage taken and dealt but then reduce healing taken? Now the racial increases my spellpower by a certain degree for 15 seconds instead.

And yes, I use my racial ability all the time on this toon - in fact, on my Trolls and on this Orc I have the racial ability stacked with one of my commonly-cast spells so I'm using the racial whenever it comes off of cooldown.

A 30 Warlock's Dream Of Summoning...er, Raiding

My Wee Warlock recently hit level 30, thanks to some renewed vigor towards getting a Warlock up to raiding levels.

You see, I'm not sure what your realm is like, but our realm's raid PUGs (and even our own guild group) face a pretty regular lack of two classes: Warlocks and Shaman. I don't know why, but if there's a Warlock or Shaman available in a 25 player PUG raid, there's usually only one or at the most two, and a lot of time the Raid Leader has to search specifically for those classes in order to get them in-raid.

Druids and Mages seem pretty scarce as well, but not to the same degree. (Good, because I'm waiting until I can be a Goblin Druid, nice and small)

Of course, with my Warlock only at level 30, I know there's a long ways to go before I could ever think about raiding with her. In fact, with the way I level characters (mostly using rest bonus) it's unlikely she'll even raid during this expansion at all.

Yet I still look forward to the future of being a big strong Warlock able to solo things 15 times my size just like some of the other Warlock WoW Bloggers out there :)

Feeling The 30s Crunch

Right now I'm kind of struggling in my advancement, however - the quests I pick up tend to be 5 levels lower than I am, or to spread out way beyond belief, or 4-5 levels above where I am.

Locklier And Her Blueberry

I've done a lot of questing in Hillsbrad Foothills and Thousand Needles, but have admittedly avoided Stonetalon Mountains (deeming it too spread out) and Desolace (very spread out and boring!). I'm looking at quests from Booty Bay and Hammerfall but they're still mostly red in my quest log, with so few yellow or orange ones to make the journey out worth it.

I'm thinking it might be time to trade some dungeon run-through favors with my friends... so I paid it forward the other day by helping out one of my regular dungeon-trade friends with his 36 Warlock - running him through Razorfen Downs and then all four wings of the Scarlet Monestary using my 70 Death Knight.

I might also jump into some regular dungeon PUGs soon with this character - I did a few at the RFC/Wailing Caverns level but then have been just questing since then.

My Warlock Leveling Spec Questions

Right now I'm stacking my points seriously into Demonology to support my Voidwalker's uberness as a blueberry tank, and that works great for solo questing, but my actual DPS when I don't have my Voidwalker doing damage is quite pathetic.

At what point should I think about switching some of my points more towards a different spec?

And if I were to dual spec at 40 (which is the earliest level one can dual spec I believe) to have a solo spec and a dungeoning spec, would I be better to go with Affliction or Destruction at a low level?

Farming Wailing Caverns, Flailing Around in Blackrock Depths

Valdesta — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 05:57:47 +0000

Sometimes when I play, I don't want to worry about making sure my buffs are active every 10-15 minutes, nor whether I have enough healing potions to save my life in a bind. Sometimes I just want to kill stuff, get loot, and sell it on the Auction House and get the joy of the cash that comes as a result of that.

I hopped on my 44 Warrior toon and thought about picking up quests for Razorfen Kraul, but when I was wandering around in Thunder Bluff I found the Lord of the Fangs (?) quest for Wailing Caverns and decided to go into there instead.

What a haul! I got two of the four quest Gems but didn't even finish half of the dungeon before my bags were overflowing with non-grey items. I ended up listing 15 green items for Auction, generally with a buy out of over 75s each item. Perhaps it was too early in the week to be listing for maximum sales, but I'm sure they'll sell just fine.

Warrior Equipment: Tanking vs Soloing

In anticipation of hitting dungeons more challenging for my level, I'm starting to build a "tanking" equipment set which is seperate from my "soloing" gear with this toon as well.

My talent spec is mostly towards Protection (11/7/17), but has a jumble of other things too. I seem to be doing well in my PvE soloing of quests with this build, however I don't do instances or party up very often to need to "tank", and still want to be decent at it. So far so good, but carrying the +str and +attack items into the dungeon isn't as good as the high-AC, +sta and +def items I'm beginning to pick up now.

So far my DPS/soloing set looks like this:

[Warbringer's Crown] of the Bear
[Tyrant's Epaulets]
[Truesilver Breastplate]
[Jouster's Girdle]
[Saltstone Legplates] of the Tiger
[Obsidian Greaves]
[Bloodforged Bindings] of Power
[Truesilver Gauntlets]
[Phantom Blade]
[Ebon Scimitar] of the Bear

And here's my Tanking set:

[Overlord's Crown] of Defense
(no tanking shoulder piece)
[Truesilver Breastplate]
(no tanking belt)
[Heavy Mithril Pants]
(no tanking boots)
(no tanking wrist pieces)
(no tanking gloves)
[Champion's Wall Shield] of Stamina
[Phantom Blade]

I've found some folks I advanced my first toon to 60 with who have alts near the 40s levels, so perhaps we'll hit Zul'Farrak or something soon and I'll see how my tanking equipment holds up.

BRD With Guildies

A bunch of us who have known each other for about a year got together last night and headed into Blackrock Depths for some killing and questing. While we'd all been in there a number of times with one toon or another, nobody really knew how to venture towards the "Summoner" that the miner in our group needed for learning how to smelt Dark Iron Ore. Since I had started the party and we're all pretty relaxed folk, I took the lead and we blundered our way through things.

It's been a few months since I was in BRD, so I forgot almost all I knew... like, oh yah! Medics! Get them first. And oh yah, those Emissaries are healers too, and those Summoners or whatever - they fire off a lot of arcane missiles and need to be downed quickly as well!

We had a couple complete wipes, but a couple of times where the priest and one hunter would survive as well. Each of us also took our turns at aggroing more mobs or the wrong mobs or something, so when by the time we came out a few hours later, everyone was happy with the run and looking forward to the next time we'd get together to try it or one of the 58+ dungeons like LBRS, Strat and Scholo.

In the mean time I need to look up that Dark Iron Ore training route, since my 44 Warrior is also a miner/blacksmith and will be dealing with Dark Iron stuff as soon as she's within level to survive in the areas it's found in.

Begging? Or Asking For Help?

Valdesta — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:30:08 +0000

"No begging" is probably one of the most common guild rules in World of Warcraft, implemented as a necessary way to keep leveling guilds a fun place to be for players of all levels, from the lowest level members under 20, to those already taking part in the End Game.

It's true, however, that the term "begging" merits some explanation so everyone is more aware of the boundaries surrounding this topic.

Introduction

Many guilds are considered to be "leveling guilds" - social, helpful, casual, and focused mainly on players who are still "developing". There might be a solid group of senior members at 70+ and many intermediate members in the 40's and 50's, but the focus on advanced dungeons as a guild whole is limited at this point because the core membership is predominantly under level 60.

Short Version:

The more you annoy Guildmates, the less helpful they'll be when you REALLY need it, so it's important to know what is deemed "annoying".

Asking to "borrow" cash is annoying (support yourself, stranger).

Repeatedly asking for advice on class or equipment issues is annoying (look it up online, there are a billion sites - and don't complain about having to alt+tab out for the 25 questions you have each hour, it's not your guild's fault you have a slow computer).

Repeatedly asking for a "run" through dungeons is annoying (If you want to go, put together a team yourself and if there aren't enough guildmates, use the LookingForGroup tool).

Using the Guild line for what should be over Private Chats (whispers) is annoying (you've already asked 15 times in the last hour for dungeon party members, take it to private chats for that ONE person who just logged in).

Over-using exclamation marks or question marks is annoying (using more than one makes you look panicked and it's a game - NOT worthy of panic).

WHY are these annoying? Because we're all virtual strangers, here to advance our own characters and enjoy the game ourselves. Fellow guild members who depend too much on Guildmates drain "helping energy" to a point where the energy isn't there for when Guildmates REALLY need it.

What now? Read and understand this post. Ask questions on your Guild Forums and Guild chat line to get clarity. Plan on doing it before fellow guildmates start to ignore you or the Officers /gkick you without a word.

And now, the longer version...

Having said that, guild members, while helpful, are all here playing for themselves with their own goals in mind, and thus every player who joins a guild needs to have a certain amount of independancy when it comes to advancing or getting what they want.

Asking for help on occasion is something we all do as Guildies, and that's definitely what the guild line is for. However, repeatedly asking for help on the same topic or subject gets tiring for Guildies to answer for you, and as time moves forward you may find your repeated questions go unanswered for the most part. Wouldn't that be frustrating?
For our purposes, let's define BEGGING:

Asking for something without offering anything back.

Regarding "Borrowing" Cash for Skills, Repairs or Equipment

Surrounding the topic of cash for equipment, repairs or skills, even if you intend to "pay someone back", you're still begging, even though you'd like to call it "borrowing". Why? Because unless you've been active and regular within the guild for many months, you're a complete stranger to us, even if you're a Guildie.

Just being in the same guild together doesn't mean much in terms of sharing hard-earned cash and equipment. Find some friends you've been playing with for months or who know in real life who can lend you cash, because too often, guildies end up not getting their money back from the plethora of new guild recruits (strangers) who wish to "borrow".

A BETTER QUESTION TO ASK the guild would be "how do I generate enough money for myself that I can afford [insert something you want here]?" And then USE that advice to improve your financial situation even if it seems a little "boring" to do!

Regarding Dungeon Activities

Occasionally, high level members of the guild will offer to take lower level folks through dungeons such as Wailing Caverns, Van Cleef, Razorfen Kraul, Scarlet Monestary, etc. If you get into one of these runs, consider yourself lucky. If your guild schedules runs with an addon like GroupCalendar or Guild Event Manager, download the software and get it working, or log into your guild website to sign up. When I do this in guilds that support Guild Event Manager and the likes, all my parties are booked full through the calendar, a day or two in advance.

Most of the time you are looking to go into a dungeon, you're going to be needing to build your own party because high levels are working on their own high level things and won't come along. In this case, you'd probably do better to look at the guild who list (/groster) and send whispers to specific people who are within the correct level range to ask them if they'd like to join you in the dungeon party, instead of asking over and over on the guild line every time someone logs in.

It's the act of asking over and over every time someone new logs in that is labelled "begging" in this dungeon context. If the 15 people online on the guild for the last hour aren't responding to join your dungeon group, sending another message to the guild line when one new person logs in (instead of sending a whisper to the person who logged in) will only serve to annoy them and reduce your chances of them partying with you in the future.

Regarding Asking For Advice on Equipment

Asking questions on the guild line surrounding the topic of "which is better" in terms of equipment is fine on occasion for someone who is low level and new to their class. However, I'd like to make a statment on this topic as well.

In short, LEARN from what advice you're being offered by guildies when you ask for it. It's okay to ask for that advice once or twice a day, but you should be striving to be able to review equipment yourself without needing anyone else's advice, in time. If you don't learn what stats are best for your class, for example, you may find that less and less people answer your inquiries on the guild line about equipment, specifically because you've drained them of their helpfulness towards you through regular questions.

Why The Concern About "Begging"?

Why? Because the forms of begging I mentioned above all do one thing within a guild: Drain the energy members use to help others. The result is apathetic guild members who don't help each other because they've spent all of their energy helping overly NEEDY people.

But I Need Help!! What Do I Do Now??

Use websites outside the game (like Thottbot.com to help answer your questions more often and don't rely so heavily on guildmates specifically. Become a member of one of the many active World of Warcraft discussion forums online, read what other people ask about, what answers they get, and ask your own questions as well. Here are a couple of good forums I've found:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com - the Official World of Warcraft forums managed by Blizzard

http://forums.worldofwar.net - with over 100,000 registered forum members!

You'll learn an AMAZING amount about your class, the game, and many other things, while also allowing folks outside of our guild to share their "helping energy" with you and letting our guildmates use their "helping energy" for more productive things like quests, dungeons, bosses, etc.

Moving Forward... In Summary

Now that this post is here, you're welcome to point guildmates towards it and you're welcome to ask questions to clarify any concerns or confusions. Needy guild members who cannot get the hang of relying on other sources in addition to guildmates may be removed or asked to leave.

I know this sounds extreme, but it only takes a handful of overly needy guild members to have a strong impact on attitudes of usually helpful members, and in the developing levels (ie: under 60), many guilds value independance in its members over dependance or even interdependance.

Thanks for reading this article, please do post notes if you have any questions or concerns.

PS: Regarding Words I Use

If you don't know what a word means that I use in my posts, look them up in www.m-w.com - please don't drain my "helping energy" until you've read the definition, thought on it for a few minutes to understand it and can start to see how it applies in the gulid situations above. THEN we can talk.

Obtaining and Repairing WoW equipment

Valdesta — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 16:40:32 +0000

World of Warcraft starts all new characters with a tiny bit of equipment, which generally means you'll start out with a shirt and a weapon of some type, but ZERO cash to buy new things.

If you're like me, you'll jump on the quests because it's the best way to advance at this level, without regular boring grinding of whatever monsters you find running around.

As you progress through the quests, it's likely you're going to die a few times while you figure out how everything works, how close you can get to aggressives and exactly how many mobs you can take on, successfully, at one time.

Death's Durability Detriment

Every time you die, your equipped items degrade in quality by 10% of their full quality. This means that after 10 deaths, your equipment will be at 0 durability and won't be usable anymore.

The first time I saw the full impact of this durability thing was after I had died a number of times - one time when I went to attack a Boar of some sort in Durotar, I didn't attack with my weapon and instead was PUNCHING my opponent! Sure, my unarmed combat skill was improving with every punch, but what happened to my weapon??

After finishing the boar off, I looked in my 'c' Combat screen and saw that my weapon was still in the main hand slot, so I hovered my mouse over it and noticed the durability was at zero. I had fought my weapon down to a nub!

Visit Armorers and Weaponists

I really don't recall how I figured it out - maybe I looked it up on the World of Warcraft website, maybe I merely used Google - but it's the various Shopkeeps that can repair your equipment while also selling you new stuff.

Only certain types of shopkeeps can repair your equipment, but really, it makes sense when you look at their job descriptions. The Bread Vendor in Thunder Bluff, for example, cannot repair your equipment. Neither can the Fishing Supplies civilian. But, the Light Armor Merchant and the Weaponsmith and those types of civilians can help you out.

By default, the "repair" button at the bottom of the shopkeep window only repairs equipped items and doesn't repair those in your bags that also need repair (for example, if you let the Spirit Healer bring you back to life, your equipped AND inventory items lose 25% durability), but one of the WoW UI Mods I have in place is Always Repair All that I found on Curse Gaming's website. If you install this Interface Addon, it changes that repair option so it repairs all in your inventory as well as your equipped items.

Other Affects of Reduced Durability

From what I can see, there are no other adverse affects to having the durability of your equipment reduced. I have not seen that the armor or weapon class ratings have dwindled with the lower quality, but I could be wrong, so watch out.

I make it a regular habit to visit someone who can repair my equipment every time I visit a town. Normally it's easy to do because I'm visiting those shopkeeps anyway, for selling and buying purposes. You can easily make it a regular part of your adventuring days, knowing the information!

Finding A WoW Guild That Fits

Valdesta — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 02:49:38 +0000

Many MMORPGs that offer Player-vs-Player action also offer some type of cross-race, cross-class grouping to occur, usually in the name of Clans, or in World of Warcraft’s case, Guilds.

What Is A Guild For?

Guilds are meant to give an individual a “family” to socialize, quest and adventure with. Guilds have chat lines that all Guild members can see and participate on, and it’s a great place to meet others who play at the same time as you do regularly.

Guilds are not all benefit for the member, however - at times Guilds or Clans can be deemed to be “at war” with one another and it is your duty as a member of the Guild to avenge Guildmate’s deaths to other Guilds or participate in other retalitory actions determined by the Guild leader.

Some guilds will require you to make financial donations, or equipment offerings. Beware, as this is not a standard expectation in all guilds.

Unfortunately, Guilds don’t have guild halls, fellow guild members aren’t easy to make out when they walk past you on the street, and there’s no real “common hanging out area” for guildmates. Your connection to your guild mates is primarily through chat.

How Can I Tell It’s A Good Guild?

Even if you’re a solo player, you need access to people who can team up with you to go through particularly difficult quests or dungeon instances, etc. Guilds are a great way to find these people, as you get to know your guildmates over time and therefore your parties are more reliable and you’ll have less “people problems”.

You can’t tell if a guild is a good one from the outside, really. The only way is to join and give it a whirl yourself.

“Trying Out” A Guild

Be prepared to stay with this guild for a couple of weeks to really get a feel for whether it’s for you or not. It won’t hurt you to stay in the guild… there’s no restrictions for leaving and joining other guilds and there are plenty to join at any time.

Chat on the guild line. Ask questions, answer questions. Read what others write, and think about it. Offer yourself when someone asks for volunteers to do specific quests or dungeon instances and you’re within 5-10 lvls of them. Get involved in “team” things now and then.

After a couple of weeks, you can easily decide whether this Guild fits your needs and personality or not.

Where To Get Guild Invites

There are a couple places you can get invited into guilds from.

Friends are a great place to start - if you have someone you’ve already teamed up with and have on your friends list, ask them if they’re in a guild and if you can get invited.

Listen to the General chatline that you’re subscribed to automatically when you first login. Regularly there are people starting new guilds and looking for the first round of members.

I’m sure you could also sit in some town and talk to each person who comes around who’s in a guild and ask them if you could get an invite to their guild as well. Not my choice really, but hey, I’m sure it would work if you said it right and found the right person.

Leaving A Guild

Just so you know, if you go into your /who menu and then into guild, and right-click your name on the list, you can “Leave Guild”. I had a bit of trouble finding that myself when I was leaving my first guild.

You can also use the text command /gquit to leave your guild.

It’s not a big deal to leave guilds. If you met some people you want to keep in touch with, put them on your friends list and make an effort. Otherwise, leave the guild and go on your way, and find another guild if you left because of a “bad fit” with the last one.

If anyone harasses you about it, the /ignore command works really well :)

World of Warcraft: Logged In, Now What?

Valdesta — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 16:02:49 +0000

This entry is aimed towards folks who are logging into WoW for the first time. If you're already familiar with how the game works and you feel I missed some important info, please do leave a comment so I can improve the info given to new players :)

If you haven't read my entry on the topic of Character Death in World of Warcraft and you're squeamish about your character dying, please take the time to read back :)

Now that you've configured your first character - selected a name, race, class and the physical attributes for what you look like on the game - it's time to log in and get started playing World of Warcraft.

Role Playing Game Training exercises

Computerized role playing games have many different ways of introducing new users to how to move around and manipulate things. Some games force new characters to go through a "newbie training area", while others just plop you right into the action and give no clues at all. I find World of Warcraft to be more towards the latter example, but with some helpful exceptions.

Of course, there's the manual you get with the game, but if you're like me and started with the 10 day free trial that came with a friend's full copy, I didn't have the manual right at the beginning because the game owner rightly didn't want to give it up yet.

The World of Warcraft website is a good place to start to learn some of the this-RPG-specific information, including information about the History of Warcraft. There are even Warcraft novels!

Manuals!? Bah.

But if you're like me, you just like to dive in without reading, so here's the one piece of information I needed when I logged in the first time:

The guy with the yellow exclamation mark over his head has an assignment/a quest for you to do.

From there, through the quest system, you're slowly introduced to the many aspects of the game and its interface and how you can use your character. You may need to ask for help now and then [I'll write an entry on communication and guilds and parties soon] but I found the quest system to be a great teacher, inspiring me to learn about specific things about the game in order to complete the quests and get more.

Why Do Quests At All?

Why am I talking about doing quests anyway?

Simply because, aside from the interface-education aspect, World of Warcraft is geared towards questing at low levels.

It's designed to inspire you to explore in safe directions and bring you into contact with enemies who will offer good experience but not overwhelm you. Then to further reward you, since completing quests gives great experience, there are equipment and money rewards.

And of course, since you're dealing with a geographically huge MMORPG, quests give you something specific to do that forces you to learn where things are in the towns and cities you visit, and the roads or travel routes that connect cities up.

So, what are you waiting for? Go start your first quest!

Character Death on WoW compared to other Online RPGs

Valdesta — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 18:56:41 +0000

If you're new to the online role playing game World of Warcraft, the best thing you can do for yourself is let go of your fear, and try things just to see what happens when you do, without worrying about the concequences.

Of course, use your intelligence - there's a vast difference between practicing on Non Player Characters (NPCs or monsters) and practicing on other players. Continuing on...

The Importance (or lack thereof) of Death

One of the best things, I find, about World of Warcraft specifically is that Character Death means very little. I mean, it is a little inconvenient, but compared to other RPGs I've played, in WoW, death is nothing to fear, nothing to worry about avoiding really.

You see, when your character gets killed in World of Warcraft, the punishments are that your worn equipment degrades by 10% in durability and you are turned into a ghost who needs to find its corpse to return to a living state.

Recovering Your Corpse

Finding your corpse isn't even that bad, because your long range map points the way, and when its within long view range, you can see the cross and gravestone that represents your corpse's location. The only challenging part in coming back to life is selecting a safe spot to do it so you won't be attacked again while your health is low.

Leaving Your Corpse Behind

If you don't want to run all the way back to your corpse or you were killed in an area that is way too strong for you, you can even make the choice not to run back to your corpse, and instead take a 25% hit on your worn equipment and be brought back to life immediately from where you're brought to after you die.

[Stay tuned for my upcoming entry on repairing your equipment as it degrades]

Keeping Your Inventory

The big thing about dying on WoW compared to other RPGs I've played throughout my life (online and off) is that on World of Warcraft, you don't drop any of your inventory when you die. There's nothing for other players to loot, nothing for you to have to make a mad dash back to so you can recover what you had already attained.

I haven't ever found that death discourages me on World of Warcraft has it has on other games like MUDs and even RuneScape - on both the latter games/game types, I could have lost equipment that I worked months to attain and had spent hundreds of thousands of coins on, and I'd generally have to log out for a few hours to quell my discouragement. And this is supposed to be fun! I think Blizzard got it right.

I'll probably write some more articles on how this one aspect of the game (not losing your inventory when you die) influences other parts of it compared to other online role playing games, because it changes a lot of things.

Until later, ta ta, and feel free to post questions or ideas for me to write about here :) I'm just flying by the seat of my chainmail pants! ;)

Life as a Troll in WoW realm Zul'jin

Valdesta — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 11:33:35 +0000

Zul'jin was the first Realm I was assigned to when I logged into World of Warcraft the very first time, and that's where my highest level character is.

I haven't decided if she's my PRIMARY character or not, even though she is my first and highest level character. I may find another character I like more, and then that one becomes my primary, no matter what level I am.

But I'm the kind of girl who's got lots of love for her different characters anyway, and those labels of "primary" and "secondary" can be so hurtful already... I'll just talk about each of my characters as though they are important to me, because in an internety kind of way, each of them are.

At any rate, I've already posted a picture of that avatar, but I'll have to post an updated one at some point.

Troll Hunter Valdesta in Zul'jin is currently level 18, and I'm in a guild called "Sight". I don't know anyone in my guild, really... I was just guildless and someone invited me to join their guild and I said yes. Since then the guild has grown by another 30-40 members, so there's always some chatter going on there, and things I could get involved with if only I knew what they were talking about.

There are so many areas on World of Warcraft that a big long list of acronyms has been made so folks can say "ultra-extraneous statements" like UES instead, and save their and everyone else's time when it comes to slow typers. I've seen the list but I haven't saved it anywhere I can refer to it quickly. Perhaps I'll post it to this blog at some point.

At any rate, that's mainly what my problem is - folks are spewing these acronyms, asking if anyone wants to "go there" and I don't have a clue if it's good for my level or not, so I don't tend to respond. One of these days I'll start jumping into whatever is being offered, whether i get killed or not in trying. It'll be fun and an adventure, and maybe I'll get promoted past Initiate in my guild.

These days I've mainly been working on quests. I'm hanging out at The Crossroads in Horde territory, and just recently headed over to Ratchet to clear off a few quests sitting in my quest book from there as well.

I've found myself a friend and battle buddy over the past week, whose name I cannot remember right now (J...oll), but we've done a few quests together and done some fighting together over a few different days and it's gone well, we seem to fight at about the same pace, neither one of us was really lagging behind most of the time, and certainly our chat patterns matched - bursts of chatter followed by quite a bit longer silences while we killed everything we came across. He was helping me find the supplies for the Crossroads, and we were killing off every Quillboar that we came across.

I find I'm enjoying the quests here on World of Warcraft, because they're educational and varied in what needs to be done, and they're a great way to encourage exploring. Simply slaying beasts is fun, but it's more fun when there's a goal at the end that everyone is working towards.

I'm generally a solo player, so finding someone to party with who doesn't annoy me is a blessing. I hope to find a few more like that, maybe we can all go hunting together :)

WoW MMORPG acronyms

Valdesta — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 10:28:28 +0000

Thanks to Blizzard Support for this info!

Add: Will usually refer to any additional monsters that have started fighting your group after you are already engaged in combat. For example, if you are fighting a bear and half way through the battle a wolf comes along and begins attacking you, this would be considered an "add".

AFK: Is short for "Away From Keyboard". You can active the AFK flag on your character by typing /afk in the chat line. It also automatically activates if your character is idle for an extended period of time

Aggro: This refers to aggressive actions against a player. If a monster turns and attacks you, you have gained aggro.

AH: Is short for "Auction House". This is where you can sell and buy items from other players of your same faction (and opposite factions at Gadgetzan).

AOE: Is short for "Area of Effect". This is when a spell can affect all targets in an area instead of being directed at a single target. Blizzard, Frost Nova, and Hellfire are all examples of AOE spells.

BB: Is short for "Booty Bay".

BFD: Is short for "Blackfathom Deeps".

BOE: Is short for "Bind On Equip". This means that when you equip the item, it will no longer be tradable to another player and can only be sold to a vedor.

BOP: Is short for "Bind On Pickup". This means that when you loot the item from the monster, it will no longer be tradable to another player and can only be sold to a vedor.

BRD: Is short for "Blackrock Depths".

BRS: Is short for "Blackrock Spire".

Buff: A spell cast on a player, pet, or mob which enhances a specific statistic for a set time period. Spells such as "Mark of the Wild" and "Power Word: Fortitude" are examples of buffs.

De-Buff: A spell cast on a player, pet, or mob which places a negative effect on a specific statistic for a set time period. Spells such as "Demoralizing Shout" and "Curse of Weakness" are examples of de-buffs.

DOT: Is short for "Damage Over Time". This refers to a spell or effect that slowly deals damage over an extended period of time, rather than all at once.

DM: Is short for "Dire Maul".

DS: Is short for "Darkshore" and or "Darkshire".

GG: Is short for both "Good Game" and "Good Going" depending on the context in which it is used. If you happen to save a party member, someone might say "GG" meaning good going. If you beat some one in a duel, the other person might say "GG" meaning good game.

GZ: Is short for "Gadgetzan".

HOT: Is short for "Heal Over Time". This refers to a spell or effect that slowly heals damage over an extended period of time, rather than all at once.

IF: Is short for "Ironforge".

KS: Is short for "Kill Stealing". This occurs in games when another player or group attacks a mob that you are already fighting in order to get the experience or items from it.

LBRS: Is short for "Lower Blackrock Spire".

LFG: Is short for "Looking For Group".

LFM: Is short for "Looking For More".

LS: Is short for "Lakeshire".

Mara: Is short for "Maraudon".

MC: Is short for "Molten Core".

MH: Is short for "Menethil Harbor".

MMORPG: Stands for "Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game". In an MMORPG, thousands of players exist in the same game world at the same time. This creates an incredibly rich and active environment in which interesting things are constantly taking place. MMORPGs provide thousands of hours of game play, with a nearly infinite variety of goals to achieve across a vast world covering miles of land and sea. For the World of Warcraft, we will also be adding new content on a regular basis, thus ensuring that there will always be new adventures, new locations, new creatures, and new items to discover.

Mob: Is short for "Monster" and is a word used to describe creatures that you kill in the game aside from other players.

NPC: Is short for "Non-Player Character". These are computer-controlled characters. Quest givers, merchants, inn keepers, etc.

OG: Is short for "Orgrimmar".

Proc: A term used to denote when a special effect of an item randomly triggers or what the special effect of said item does. Proc only refers to a randomly triggered effect that arises from attacking or being hit. If your item has an ability to click it to make it cast a spell 100% on demand, that is not considered a Proc.

RFC: Is short for "Ragefire Chasm".

RFD: Is short for "Razorfen Downs".

RFK: Is short for "Razorfen Kraul".

RR: Is short for "Redridge".

Scholo: Is short for "Scholomance".

SFK: Is short for "Shadowfang Keep".

SM: Is short for "Scarlet Monastery".

Strat: Is short for "Stratholme".

TB: Is short for "Thunderbluff".

Temple: Is short for "The Temple of Atal'Hakkar."

Train: Train or training is when someone pulls a group of monsters past another player, causing them to get attacked. Please do not confuse this acronym with the training you do at your own class trainer.

UBRS: Is short for "Upper Blackrock Spire".

UC: Is short for "Undercity".

Uld: Is short for "Uldaman".

VC: Stands for Van Cleff and is used to refer to "The Deadmines".

WC: Is short for "Wailing Caverns".

WTB: Is short for "Want To Buy". Usually used on the Auction channel. Example: "WTB stack of 10 light leather"

WTS: Is short for "Want To Sell".

WTT: Is short for "Want To Trade".

XP: Is short for "Experience Points".

ZF: Is short for "Zul'Farrak".