And we're back...

Lessons for those starting back up their main after a year or more away.

Lesson 1: Remember when you had a hard time getting the first move from Valor to Justice points straight? It happened again. Now there's there's some new schmoe selling your Stormrider Leggings as a novelty item for transmogs. And yes, for Justice Points.

Lesson 2: No, you don't have any Valor Points any more. They've all converted.

Lesson 3: Yes, there's a brand new set of Justice Point tiered gear.

Lesson 4: ALL THE DAGGUM WIKI SITES ARE OUT OF DATE. It's like 4.3 hasn't happened on wowwiki or wowpedia minus a few notes about 4.3 at the bottom of pages. Obviously there's some new great place to learn about armor sets, but I don't know what it is. ARGH. Okay. Calmer now.

Lesson 5: This will make getting Flaming Treants lots easier. That's really the take-home, and makes Jal very happy. You can see him smilin'. @ As I mentioned the last time currency swapped, my Justice Points essentially just became Valor Points. I've already got enough for the chestpiece. Wow. Sometimes, deflation is a good thing.


Seriously, I'm much happier that I've only got to run dailies to get my irrational prize. When Mists comes out, you'll be replacing all your purples with greens anyway. I'm kinda happy I didn't spend my time grabbing Valors, but then I haven't gotten a year's use out of them either.

And a very special thank you to the readers that offered to send me a scroll, and an especially big thanks to the two who did -- I'm afraid I caused a mix-up on the email (sent from the "blog" email, but needed the scroll at the account email), so I ended up with two. I haven't claimed an 80 yet. That's proving a tougher decision than I thought. It will be Horde, just so I can play over there a bit. It won't be a Death Knight. I can level from 55-80, but there's almost zero chance outside of Sandy of me going from 1-80. But I can't tell if it should be another druid -- let's face it, Sandy's taught me I really can't play another class without serious study -- or not. Maybe I could spec resto? Out of the box, indeed. You know, I like that idea.

Thanks again, readers, and it's fun to have Jal back, even though I just jumped in for a few minutes this evening.

Ding! Rogue 10, and a whole new set of talent trees

Welp, Sandy's the big ONE-OH. So the Recruit-a-Friend bonus has me thinking about WoW enough that I'm slumming with an under 20 toon on free play while I try to figure out if it's worth $30 to come back for a couple of months -- and worth the hours of my time I'll almost certainly, um, donate to the game.

Playing freeplay without looking up any pals first really is pretty lonely. There's no real social aspect at all. I saw a guy jumping in a fire today and /chuckled. I think that's the most "interaction" Sandy's had since she left the starting zone. Not really Blizzard's best pitch, if you ask me. How can you know you like WoW if F2P is essentially a one-player game?

I'd briefly considered firing up Star Trek Online, but IGN's fairly negative review talked me out of it. Spinks can't stop talking about The Old Republic, which is free this weekend. I might give that a roll briefly. I'd like to try Look For Raid, as it would seem to pitch in perfectly with the sort of soloer player I am, one who isn't quite up for the regular rigors of a raiding guild, and, well, one who still wants him some FLAMING TREANTS, you know? But it's not quite enough to trick me into resubbing.



Oh well. I'm not sure how much more Sandy I can take. With level 10, she's threatening to go from a pretty relaxing break full of "smackdown x of y" and "gear-click 8 z's" to something I have to research/theorycraft, if only a little, to really enjoy. I really don't want to learn the difference between Assassination, Combat, and Subtlety, though I'll probably google it a bit as soon as I hit "publish post". /sigh (Yep, did it sure enough.)

I really miss the way I played Jalindrine. I started him up expecting to delete him once I knew I'd "screwed up". Took the randomly generated name. Picked druid because I played elves in AD&D and it sounded like a good way to try out a few playstyles. Chose balance because it seemed to most closely match the playstyle I'd already adopted. Theorycrafting came later, well, just because that's what it took to go from soloing to pitching in with PUGs. But I'm not sure each of those milestones is possible to "luck" into a second time. The first run with Jal was one of discovery. Every alt is repetition.

That said, I'm still looking forward to the pandas. Inner peace, you know?

Ooops -- WoW's Free To Play to 20

Boy, I really missed something when I applauded Blizzard's move to open BC to vanilla-only owners.

From Blizzard Support:

The World of Warcraft Starter Edition allows players to access World of Warcraft for free -- all you need is a Battle.net account and an Internet connection. Starter Edition players can play up to a maximum character level of 20 and are able to upgrade to a full, paid account at any time, allowing them to continue their adventures where they left off.

Okay, I'm less happy. It turns out the free BC was just to pacify that I'd paid to level to 20. Matlocker, as you can see, is just barely over level 20. Matlocker's buddy in Recruit-a-Friend is just barely 20. Now of course one bud probably should be in a paid account. If nobody is, they can't play together in a group (if neither can start a group -- and FTP characters can't -- they're just fighting near each other), have one use heirlooms, or get the RaF bonus, but the $15-$5+$30 we paid for Matlocker to get WoW vanilla and a 30 day time card seems a lot stoopider [sic] now.

Oh well, Blizzard robbed me of another $40. What else is new?

I think the real take home for me is that I've got something to do the next time I suspend my account. I still don't have a Horde alt worth a rip. I also planned on checking out the Worgen starting zone at some point. Now I can do both off the clock while Jal's fishing, and that's a good thing.

A week of rest...

I'm taking a quick week off of WoW to finish some work and get my proverbial ducks into their rows. These ducks include the pre-Heroic level 85 gearing guide and a Flickr account for Jal. I compulsively snap screenshots, and figure I'll put them up, starting with the oldest ones I can find. He's made his way through a number of computers... I'll selfishly take this time to try and remember them.

iBook G4
Rented tower at a gaming bar (2-days)
PowerMac G4 (on campus)
iMac G4
Rented tower at Gamefrog (1 day)
Mac Mini G4
Black self-built Windows tower, incarnation 1
Vostro laptop
Intel Mac Mini
Intel MacBook
Black self-built Windows tower, incarnation 2 (Quad-core)

That's a lot of places for pictures. Can you tell I program for cash and am a little computer crazy? Wonder if I can pick out most of the pictures' sources by resolution. It has been five years, in my defense.

It'll probably only be a week, since my alt account (with just a prot warrior) is only paid up through the 12th, and I'd like to run with my buddy another time or two before that expires. I'd been considering running my alt-account alt through Duskwood during my "time off" as while I wait for my account to come back, as Duskwood was one of my favorite zones for Jal when he was low. I also remembered the Morgan Laidmore/Acheus questline down to being upset I couldn't wield that powerful sword since I was a druid.

Well, turns out my prot warrior can't wield it either. Acheus, and about half of what made Duskwood k3wl, is gone. Goodbye, Real Stitches.

Oh well. It has been fun to run back through the lowbie elf zones, though I miss Gubber.

EDIT: Got the first few/oldest pictures up at http://www.flickr.com/thisisyourwowlife.

Hey, I'm famous! Sorta. In April of 2009

Look, I was quoted on WoW Insider... [1.Local]: Patch week patter:

Some readers ranted that $15 a month should provide smooth, uninterrupted service. Others felt that at something like 50 cents a day, they were getting a reasonable value.

'Interesting comments on the worth of WoW,' observed Jalindrine. 'The 50-cents-a-day logic, though, is obviously flawed. The question isn't 'Can I afford to spend 50 cents a day on a product?', but 'How many products/services can I afford to buy at 50 cents (more or less) a day?' Every so often, WoW's the one not worth it, which is much harder to realize when you're literally addicted.'

I think I got the tone right on that one. Post is here, followed by a perplexingly incoherent response. I often wish I didn't feel compelled to post on message boards, blogs, and websites, but finally realized back in my Slashdot days that it wasn't going to stop. ;^)

Eclipse and reconfiguring action bars

As any astute/obsessive screenshot studier can tell, after years of 2 is Starfire, 3 is Wrath, 4 is Healing Touch, and 5 is Moonfire, I've finally given in and changed. I've slowly been moving stuff around, adding Starfall, Insect Swarm, and Forces of Nature to the main action bar, and occasionally now swapping Travel Form (great for PvE escapes) with Moonbeam or whatever it is that silences folk. The new Eclipse dynamic plus the addition of Hurricane, Innervate, and Moonbeam to my situational rotation finally required an Action Bar rethink.

The Main action bar now has Starsurge at 2. Though the mouseover doesn't say what the dmg is, it's a lot. I haven't bothered with mathes, but I use Starsurge whenever it hits cooldown. It's my lead pulling shot the way Starfire used to be. Starfire used to be the choice because it had greater range than Wrath and because its slow casting speed didn't matter for the first shot. Now Starsurge's cooldown plus insane damage says it's the new "2".

3 stays Wrath. I wish I could force Eclipse to start off going Lunar, as I still want to smash 3 after 2, but for me, Starsurge seems to always give me 15 towards Lunar the first time through. Perhaps I should swap Starfire and Wrath so that 3 is Starfire, but I also like knowing 3 represents Wrath's speed. Anyhow....

Note: Actually 3 and 5 are macros that proc my spellpower trinkets and then cast Wrath or Starfire. This is an absolute must, folks. Macro-ing trinkets is the easiest dps upgrade there is.

4 is now Moonfire, which throws me off a little. I accidentally hit 5 off and on for a few hours. The muscle memory is scary. But the move down makes it easier to think of [towards] Solar at 5, [towards] Lunar at 3, with both dancing around 4 as it fades.

5 is, duh, Starfire. I hate having three keys spent where I used to have two for the same purposes, but I'm getting used to it. It has pushed me to reconfigure more keys, however (see below).

I'm debating permanently swapping 8 from travel form to moonbeam (?), and have tried it out a few times, as silencing folk looks cool and has its practical side. I just use travel form so often -- running from the bank to AH, eg -- that it's hard to take off of the main bar.

Before now I, admittedly, moused everything else. I had a few more bars set up, like Shift-4 for when I needed to go healz for an extended period of time (see? Healing touch was 4 on my main bar, originally, and Shift-4 is a bar full o' healing), but I've broken down and set up my Num Pad for the left action bar above the main. It's mostly in order of the picture, above. Heals are 4-6 to keep with the 4 theme. 1-3 are aggressive. 0 is to pop Tranquility in a 5-man emergency, which happens more than I'd like. (Anyone notice that they were doing more off-healing right before Cat? I'm thinking lots of Priests were alts.) + is to take a healing pot.

I'm eying the Razer Naga to make this all even easier, moving those num pad selections to the right hand, keeping the movement, esp strafing, easier to reach with the left. I might eventually end up swapping the main action bar to the mouse instead. Can't tell what would be best.

So my only "heady" point here is to say to people who think real-world cash doesn't influence virtual world performance, even beyond the ability to buy the game and expansions, beyond buying net access, and beyond the computer's hardware so that you can see more than 14 fps, we can drill all the way down to a $70 mouse allowing you to access more spells quickly and efficiently. It's a one-dollar one-vote system for everything past Angband, I think.

... and we're back

Dropped back into WoW. As a guildie said, there's something about it that calls to you, even if I resisted 10 months.

Finally got The Right Stuff after running a few quests. I only have about 100g now, but wow, can I fly fast. Why didn't I do this earlier, again? It did help that running some elemental quests got me to Revered with Stormwind, which cut the price to 4250.

I also cleaned out the bank, selling stuff I'd been holding onto just in case I wanted to panzer/up haste/max gearscore, etc. Now I'm down to one set of gear, boomkin. If BC was any indication, the quest rewards for 81-85 will quickly outstrip the stats of the stuff I've got now.

Also lucked into a Prince Sarsarun run. Strangely, the screengrabs I took of the battle didn't come out. They're black. No kidding. I did need roll a Cloak of Mocking Winds. I always feel badly when I need, but this thing was such an upgrade on what I was wearing, it immediately hit my back. I figured everyone had 2 hours to complain if they needed it, and was happy I won.


Was embarrassed to see I'd used a graphite fishing pole during the fight. I'm rusty. In related news, that photo of my Cloak and fishing pole also has someone in SW milking a tiger. Must be tough to get supplies during the invasions. The kids are still running around the town like clockwork, however.

Show me your papers was another one of those painful ethics-on-rails quest. I think it's possible that the cultists are "venting" elements, and stopping them might speed up the Cataclysm. Arresting everyone at the gates is also painful, both in that I don't know that I'd do it, myself, and that it's a pretty transparent attempt at commentary on the TSA.

But ain't those the happiest cultists you've ever seen? I'm also impressed that they can find and mount horses even when handcuffed. (start around 1:12)



Anyhow, I'm playing now for the world events. I suppose I'll expansion up when it comes out. Right now, there's not much to do that's too exciting.

$4 Day Passes, please?!

As a part-timer, I've let my subscription lapse again. The productivity drops I see when I'm playing WoW are insane. Insane. Sometimes, I've been working hard enough during even my discretionary time that WoW for a week or two is the perfect break. It's certainly like a drug in that respect -- once I start playing, I can't help but relax. But I relax too much, and have to come back up for air by putting the game away.

Part of the issue is needing to be more disciplined about how I play. If I only raided two nights a week or, more realistically, capped play at two or three hours twice or thrice a week, things wouldn't be so bad. But I can't do it. I go in to run a few rep runs, and before I know it I've run Dalaran Dailies, two factions of rep, and normal and heroic random PUGs for emblems.

In any event, both to help me keep playing to manageable and to put a few bucks into Blizzard's pocket, I'd suggest day passes. I don't even play every other month now, so they're already getting less than $10/mth from me. Why not let me supplement the months where I break down completely with a $4 day pass every week or two? I don't think I'd play fewer full months, and I know that having a strict 24-hr window when I don't have the time to veg for weeks would help me out IRL as well. And seriously, $4x4 Saturdays is nearly a month's worth of income for Blizzard anyhow. What's the worst that could happen from their perspective? I play 24 hours and buy another? I break down and buy a full month?

Cash on the table, G. They're leaving cash on the table.

Favorite zones & quests -- quick post

A few of the quests and zones in WoW have been much better than the rest -- more memorable. In a game where memorable stories are, for me, few and far between, I figure I should, at some point, blog in earnest about the ones I've enjoyed.

So far, the Archeus sword questline in Duskwood, along with the zone itself (with Stitches running through town) has far and away been one of my favorites. I wish I could have used the sword, and I'm pretty sure my hunter alt will head to Duskwood as soon as she's high enough level (if that ever happens), but I also remember thinking, "Wow, that's a lot of cash," when I sold it!

Obviously, the BT attunement questline that gives the Illadari-Bane (sp!) blade is a favorite, that I just recently finished with the help of a 74 pally.

I enjoyed the Blackrock Depths dungeon, if only because I was able to solo Lord Roccor and grab a druid-specific idol for loot (also the first easy source of gold for me, iirc).

I enjoyed farming frostsaber hides and leather from Everlook (?) for some strange reason. Good XP, few other players there to compete for mats, and good returns on the farming. Also helped that the sabers were rootable (no ranged dmg) and that spawned pretty quickly.

The Cenarian Circle area in BC grew on me, but it's not exactly a favorite.

Nessingwary is a favorite character, and Nagraand a great zone in general for farming, dailies, and sheer good-looking graphics. I don't believe I'll be helping the PETA group find and kill him, though his effigy is hilarious.

You know, other than the sort of awed feeling I got seeing Darn and then IF for the first time, that might be it. Sneaking into a Horde city as a cat was fun. I guess STV was a nice farming zone, though not full of great quests. I think SM was the first instance I ever ran, so it has some lasting impression. The quests on the Isle aren't bad, and were good dailies for a while, with about four that didn't get too old. /shrug I think that's it.

What did I miss?

Dalaran at 71

It's not exactly a great use of time, but the trick...



... works.



I don't feel too badly for slicking my way in. Once I died swimming away from the folk on the ships in the Isle dailies and ended up in a graveyard back in the Blood Elf starting zone. Had to spirit healer out, and then run for what seemed like hours to get back to the Isle. That was not cool. You suffer from poor playtesting and you gain. It's karmic.

The graphics in Dalaran really took a toll on the new Mac Mini, nvidia graphics or no. Scaled back a number of settings to get things happy again. Still, pretty neat place. Not the same awe that Darn or IF gave me the first time I saw them, but a neat place, with plenty to buy, at least. Ran the Sewer Stew cooking daily, and the level 78 wolves weren't fun. Couldn't get 'em, but was close enough running was np.

Btw: Thanks to Icedragon, I'm now much surer the glyph of moonfire isn't for me. /sigh

From the joys of PUGing

I'll backfill the 71 ding in a bit, but this shot captured what it's like to wait hours to PUG what you need only to, well, be thwarted later. We were supposed to run Dark Portal next, and had run Durnholde just to qualify the healz. /sigh About an hour later, still no full replacements, and I went to Nexus instead for a full run.

Fighting terrorism with WoW

Thought others might get a kick out of my payment schedule. Looks like, if you add in a few bucks for the initial buy and the BC expansion, I'm averaging about $7.70 per month on WoW since I bought in. Though I'm tempted to be happy with all that I've "saved" by not keeping my subscription current for 48 months (48/6 * $77.94 = $623.52 + $40 (WoW) + $40 (BC) = 703.52!), it's still painful to think I pay that much for a game I only play half the time. Month by month, that's only about a $5 savings monthly to have turned WoW off. *sigh*

	Date:  Amount:  Billing Plan:  Status: 2/27/09 N/A 10 day Wrath Trial Expired 5/13/08 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 5/12/08 N/A One Day Credit Expired 4/12/08 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 8/9/07 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 7/8/07 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 6/6/07 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 4/28/07 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 3/26/07 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 2/19/07 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 1/17/07 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 5/10/06 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 3/6/06 N/A Three Day Credit Expired 2/19/06 N/A One Day Credit Expired 11/19/05 $41.97 USD Three Months Recurring ($13.99 per month) Expired 11/17/05 N/A One Day Credit Expired 8/17/05 $41.97 USD Three Months Recurring ($13.99 per month) Expired 5/16/05 $41.97 USD Three Months Recurring ($13.99 per month) Expired 5/13/05 N/A One Day Credit Expired 4/13/05 $14.99 USD One Month Recurring Expired 4/10/05 N/A Three Day Credit Expired 4/5/05 N/A Five Day Credit Expired 3/5/05 N/A Free Month Expired

Not exactly a victory. Wonder how much I've thrown into UO?

In any event, I've been wondering if I should postpone buying LK until after a few more months of leveling in BC. There's lots of XP back on the table [EDIT: Idiot. You ob have to have LK to get levels over 70. Dolt.], and a few more instance runs should do Jal proud. Still plenty of good gear to grab too compared to quest rewards, if I can find enough folk to instance. I'm hoping there are enough Death Knights flopping through BC.



By the way, somebody grab me one of these, okay? Figurines of your "little dude," as we like to call Jal around here, for just $130. If they get the Druidic Helm of Second Sight right, I'm interested. I think I'd have to equip the Illidari-Bane too, just because it's the most impressive looking hardware I've got right now, maybe with my very old skull off-hand from Darkshire. Man, I'm a geek. ;^)

LK is the same WoW

Gosh, I'm glad we've stopped calling LK "WotLK".

So the WoW, Casually blog (a blog stunningly started by a moonkin shortly after I pitched "Confessions" to wowinsider.com. Hrm) answers a reader mail titled, "Returning to WoW as a casual". The letter writer asks for some direction when s/he comes back. The answer he gets is horrible. Horrible. Essentially all of the advice is nonspecific. I want to know, eg, the best quest line for my level 70.99999 druid, not that I should be in a guild, or that I should randomly change servers (TWF?), make a death knight (not too exciting aside from meeting the LK), or to create alts. Give me a freaking break. Seriously, I know the guy asks, "how to start over in WoW for a returning casual player. Or starting WoW for the first time for that matter," but this was supposed to be a LK specific answer, right? I should buy the expansion to make alts? If they're not a Death Knight, there's nothing about the expansion that changes my toon experience. Great advice. $40 for nothing. And for now, I'll excuse the self-serving suggestion to "read in your spare time". Look, I barely have time to play as it is. The last thing I want to do is spend more time reading Thott, WoWHead, wowinsider, and WoWWiki.

Probably the worst part of "Casually's" answer reveals more about the issue with LK than the blog, however. Here's another "helpful" point for those returning.

Northrend is awesome

If you do have a level 68, even if you don't end up staying on that realm or with that character, you are going to want to experience the Northrend content as soon as possible. There are new and varied quest types, the lore is rich and compelling and the scenery is breathtaking. And don't avoid instances as you level up. They now take less than an hour, making it feasible even for casuals to find a group and complete.

Issues with "WoW, Casually" again are not providing specifics -- What in particular is breaktaking about the scenery? Which instances should I take in? For BC, I could say that Nagraad was particularly good looking, or that Shadow Labs was one instance I found especially enjoyable. The points in "Casually's" answer aren't invalid -- Howling Fjords looks pretty good (the burning boat in the sky is a neat touch, and Utgarde updates the traditional WoW architecture in an enjoyable way) and the instances are enjoyable so far. Utagrde's blast furnance and the Nexus' Matrix stylings are pretty kewl. This is why I prefer the style of this blog. When I'm playing, it's what one casual gamer is doing to make his game interesting. Maybe it'll work for you.

So on to the LK issues revealed in the answer. What specifically about about the LK lore is rich and compelling? This is where LK lets us down. I want there to be an obvious reason to play the game, and this lack isn't "Casually's" fault. I want to feel like my questing is part of something larger. I want to stumble into an artifact that gets me sucked into the storyline, like the Illidari-Bane Mageblade quests, but on a much larger scale.

(I'll talk more about a potential answer later, but as a hint, Braben and Bell do a very good job of fleshing out a world with a random number generator.)

Both expansions to WoW start in exactly the same way. You're in some fortress that's under attack. In LK, there are not one, but TWO fortresses where you can relive this awesome experience! One is attacked by demon-like mobs, the other by wacky lumberjacking giants with dogs who spawn quicker than you can skin them. No, literally; about half the time, the worg corpse has vanished before I could skin them. And my goal is to kill 'em. Kill the giants. Kill the fools in the mine below the land near the fortress (BC and LK). Sprinkle bombs on hotspots on your map. Fuuuuuuhn stuff.

This unimaginative, bare bones storyline style questing doesn't engage me. Kill x of y does not engage me, and hardly makes for "varied quest types". Convert x of y scarecrows back to happy threshers does not engage me. Taking the Clefthoof model, changing the horn a bit, and putting them back into herds where only the alpha male aggros so that you can slap the same content with slight variation back into the game does not engage me.

Blizzard needs to stop sitting on their laurels and remake the WoW experience. There should be direction and obvious arguments for an old player to come back, and answers obvious enough for someone who specializes in getting casual gamers to play to name specifics for why those players should come back and stick around. With LK, I don't see those, and neither does Robin. I appreciated the free 10-day hit of heroin, and it might be plenty to make my jonesing strong enough me to play a few more months, but LK is the same WoW.

I'm going to remain disappointed until WoW brings back story (I'd probably be more accurate to say brings it and stop at that). Nothing's stopping them but themselves.

Finally, some dual-speccing

In general I don't like making the game easier just to increase play, but at endgame/max level, there really is a need to be able to go with more than one spec. Panzerkin is a great solo spec, but not as conventionally useful in instances. There, I'd rather be feral. OKAY, I SAID IT. It's so much easier to find a group if you're a bear, or at least it was the last time I played, or even, dare I say it, spec'd resto. And let's face it, filling the heal slot as a panzer in healing gear is no fun whatsoever. (If you can find a group that lets you tank as 'kin, however, it's nothing but fun...)

So this, from Inside Mac Games, makes me once again want to start back up my char...

Nethaera: Why are we allowing players to dual spec after all this time?
Ghostcrawler: We really felt like this was a great way to increase the flexibility available to players and encourage them to take part in more aspects of the game. To use just one example, some players like to participate in both raids and Arenas, which is awesome behavior that we want to promote. But, there are some talents which are more useful in one part of the game than another.

That and some texts from an old guildie, that is. Man, I wish real life wasn't so time consuming. *sigh*

Hello, hardware

WoW on my iBook doesn't look quite this good (see screenshots). I've retired my Windows tower in the interest of space and in the interest of stealing one stick of its RAM for the Mac Mini, but this kind of detail is making me think about firing it back up. I miss it. My Vostro (with a slightly upgraded video chip) is choppy at times for no good reason, which also stink0rz. Argh, I miss good hardware. It makes WoW a different game.

Triviawizard is for real

Today while running around IF with my bank toon, I stumbled over a good-sized gathering at the Proudmoore IF mailbox. Up on the wall was Triviawizard, a level one gnome in fancy clothes spouting out random, well, trivia questions. I noticed a lot of people guessing, and started making smart-alecky remarks of my own for laffs and cetera. Once I heard from the 'gnome that there were prizes, however, I starting whispering to see if he was for real.

He was! For every question, the first person with the correct answer got 25g. No joke. I answered two before he took a break and got 50g cash money. Not bad! Even without the prizes, it was a fun diversion. With, it's a pretty cool and very memorable little addition to the game o' WoW. Thanks Triviawizard!

Off the wagon

Well, fire up the WoW Insider blogroll, because I'm finally off the wagon. Not the most panzer-ific shot, but it looked cool dropping the hurricane on some Zaxxis-ites. Took a while to remember how to play, I'm afraid. I forgot about my treants for about an hour or so, and, having rearranged my action bars so that I could have a bear/cat soloing bar and a separate panzerkin PUG bar, I forgot where my healing spells had been placed. "4" no longer threw in a healing touch, which is how I'd had it since I'd first learned the spell.

Not real sure what's next. I accidentally did a Scryer rep quest forgetting I needed to save them until *after* I'd passed Honored. *doh* Right now I'm running Griftah's quest to see what's happening at Zul'Aman. Resting in the Eastern Plaguelands chapel for the time being.

Hopefully more fun Panzerkin info to follow.

Panzerkin Introductions

As this is a first post, introductions are in order. This blog will focus on one type of World of Warcraft gamer, but will hopefully be interesting -- at times! -- for anyone that overlaps at all with the following description:

I'm a casual WoW gamer, trying to ramp my balance druid up from mostly soloing quests to a diet rich in instancing and raiding.

That's it -- the Confessions of a Part-Time Panzerkin.

Confessions: Not the most experienced player here. Solid, but not a know-it-all. Heck, I just main-tanked for the first time in a level-appropriate instance last night. TONS of solo questing, I do have. A good deal of Scarlet Monastry experience and a time share in Blackrock Depths? Got 'em. Key to Scholomance? Yeah boy. But I'll be confessing a lot of naivety here.

Part-time: I don't play ten hours a week. In fact, I've been playing the same main for just over two years, if you'll excuse (but count) the six-month layoff to "get some work done." Over those 18 months to 60, I averaged less than an hour's play a day. My gear has almost always been made up of greens with a few blues. I didn't buy the expansion the month it was released, and waited until March to join in. I've been in two guilds, both social. Until now, I've played for structureless fun. How do you move from casual gamer to raider? Aside from a ton of play time, I don't know. Let's find out.

Panzerkin: I'll relate some of the best, easily found balance gear that has quickly moved me from a decent level 58 to a much more powerful 62; boy, the Burning Crusade has great stuff. If I think I've learned a trick for casual druid moonkins (in that order) I'll share. (They're rare, but if you're below 60 and haven't soloed Lord Roccor, or if you're a balance druid and haven't purchased something "of Nature's Wrath" from the Auction House, you're missing out.)

Critical Thought?
Occasionally, I'll also wax nearly academic, I'm afraid, like when I discuss how Blizzard's incredible political correctness means that half the humanoid mobs are female, that there's no difference between the powers of males and females, and that this means that half the time Blizzard's got you beating the crap out of a woman before taking her money. Luckily, the blogger "key words" should make those "academic" posts pretty obvious.

So that's about it. The only people reading this post, since nobody but me will know about the blog when I post it, will likely be those interested enough to know its quick history. That either means the blog's a partial success, or one heck of a joke. Either way, thanks for dropping by and reading. I hope a few of the posts will be useful, and am eager to hear your replies.