Craigs Blog - world of warcraft

the boy went to sleep for a while so took a timeout

2008-03-01T13:26:00Z

I haven’t linked to the photos from here yet so there you are.

A friend of mine was kind enough to give me another chance on world of warcraft for free for ten days so I logged in to see what was what. Some changes in there and I couldn’t remember how to play but a few friends were on – was good. FYI I’d have to recommend Wow Ace Updater to any players out there – darn handy especially if you’ve been away a while.

tipping points observed of late

2008-01-26T17:15:00Z

Reading tipping point at the minute and must say it’s very interesting – enjoying it. Whilst reading it I was musing that the adoption of facebook is a clear epidemic style occurance – as is the now 10 million subscribers to world of warcraft. It’s very interesting that these events are marked by a massive rise, plateau and just as swift a decline.

Very interesting book though.

leaning tower of computer games

2007-08-29T17:04:00Z

Occasionally I buy a game. Lately I’ve been playing bioshock in my spare minutes but still have company of heroes, zelda, mercury and a number of other games to play that I’ve bought. If I were to pile games I have on my ‘not finished’ yet list there’d be a real risk of a very heavy pile falling my way.

I like games, enjoy playing them and view them as a piece of entertainment akin to a movie telling a story that you interact with. Guess I’ll finish them at retirement or need to slow down purchases.

Bioshock is looking to be a nice game by the way. I started out on hard, gone to medium and have to say I’m not good at the game – but it is fun. good style and story to it. As I say – an interactive story telling style of entertainment.

Oh, and sometimes still fancy a potter around in WOW although the days of hours spent raiding seem far behind me.

life with the wife away

2007-07-17T16:06:00Z

This was actually quite a surprising shift for me. The addition of a new cat in the house and a cat outside who’s gotten more needy lately (little pumpkin) feeding three cats morning and night is actually fairly time consuming. Particularly as both the in-house cats inform me very vocally that they are much unloved and require attention or the world will end.

I’m actually playing on the computer far less now than I was when sammy was here but working at the pub too. last night for instance would at one time have been a regular raid night and involved 4 or so hours of world of warcraft – instead I fed cats, unpacked a little, hoovered, cleaned fish tank and fed snails n’ stuff before going to bed. Hopefully tonight will be more sedate but if I hope to get away on time tomorrow to see family down south I’ll be working this evening.

hmm.. whiny post this one. still life’s pretty good – keeping busy and missing sam as she’s up visiting her family. This weekend was good with yasemin’s christening and seeing everyone. tomorrow is a visit to eastbourne to see my dad’s side of the family for a bit. should be cool.

on the up side I’m getting through my to do list. Oh – last night I cancelled my repeating payment for world of warcraft. My subs will run to october but as I haven’t played in some time I’m expecting to just let that run out – we’ll see.

so some changes then...

2007-06-01T19:48:00Z

Over the past few years my jobs gone in cycles. Big projects come, lots of work involved and I stop doing some life stuff to accomodate it and then things settle back down again. This year seems to have been a little different – I’ve rolled from one big project into another and it’s starting to have something of an impact. What brought it home for me was this time last week. This time last week I was still at work. I’d had a call from my wife sammy saying that misty wasn’t well and she was taking her to the vets. I knew sammy was worried but left it till about seven to go join her, knowing I still had things to do and planning to head back to the office. I saw misty and she seemed fine even though the vets wanted to keep her in. I wished her good night and left sammy with friends at the pub and trotted back to work. I got home about 9pm, 9.30 or so. The call came in at 10 that this wee thing whose home I cleaned out once or twice a week for the past five years, who I’d seen to it she was fed, paid for her vet bills and such, that she had gotten worse and died. Just like that. It struck me a little while later what would it have been like if I’d not been there for sammy, shortly after I wondered what it would’ve felt like to not have taken the time to see her before she passed.

So works not looking like it’s changing and right now my priorities are messed up. I was running around trying to do stuff for work, make time for sammy, apologise to guildies in wow for not turning up on organised events, occasionally talk to my family and check the menagerie was ok. I have/had no time to take time to change things so I would have time – if that makes sense. There’s a thing in t’ai chi that seems to fit. There’s this idea of being locked up, or pinned, when you can no longer move your limbs because of the other players actions. The way to free yourself is to yield, open up some space by sacrificing a little ground. So, this is what I have done. I have taken myself off my guilds raid roster to find a little space to sort stuff out. In truth the options were my job (pays the bills), my career development (ensures more expensive bills in future will be paid), WoW time or my marriage (not an option ;o) ). So no real choice. I’ve all but sacrificed time I used to play with t’ai chi.

Stepping back I see that I’ve packed on some more weight this year – travelling all over and slowly taking away any sort of exercise from my routine has affected my health in truth. So now I just gotta use the time, work out how to change things. I’m already yielding some of my workload to colleagues whom I likely ought to have handed over to months ago.

So whilst I’ve not quit wow and sharded all my goods and stuff I am toning it down. I hope to use the time to hone some of the skills I’ve picked up in recent training. This should in time allow me to produce more, get more done in less time – perhaps I can get back to it all.

Oddly tough decision though – seems like I went through / am going through the phases of accepting change (shock, denial, anger, bargaining, etc.).

Still, already knocked some stuff off my todo list that had been there too long.

I am still planning to play this weekend – want to finish my leatherworking and make me some windhawk armor :D

no more raiding

2007-05-31T23:38:00Z

taken myself off raiding list in guild for at least a while - reasons to follow...

World of warcraft

2007-05-12T17:19:00Z

Still playing, not posting much and frankly not playing as much as I’d planned. In fact life’s taking me away so far that I’m wondering what to do with my guild membership. Currently i’m a member of dawnraiders and we’re largely raiding Kharazan and Gruul’s layer with some success. The objective of all this is to complete the serpentshrine quest which needs a kill of a firey undead dragon in kharazan and the big man Gruul. Of the four organised raids a week I’m currently getting to about one or so. Real lifes keeping me away and I’m working a great deal at the moment too. I must admit it’s leading to some wierd personal conflicts. A pass time that I would do when sammy was working to keep me occupied has become something with organised times and obligations – ones I’m aware I’m neglecting.

Still I’m doing well when I can – the windhawk set is still on my todo list. Got some way to go yet – 11 points in leatherworking and then the mats. Have a look here to see what gear is going on with craghewn and cragmist (who’s feeling rather neglected).

quest for more moonkin gear

2007-02-10T17:39:00Z

So in the general theme of looking around for moonkin gear:

Living Crystal Breastplate definately want this and fortunately I have the skill – just a case of finishing the tribal leather working quests. the only tricky bit here will be the crystal infused leather what with me not being a skinner. I guess I should start saving the scales and such that I need for the windhawk gear now too.

in other news I’m now the proud owner of :

shoulders	Twin Moon Shoulderguards	Crush the Bloodmaul Camp!
feet	Uvuros Hide Boots	Uvuros must die

Not gone for the off-hand yet and it turns out the quest for the mana-infused bracers has a bit of a quest chain attached. I would also say that uvuros is a non-trivial 5 man. Tried him with three and a pet tanking, then 5 with a warrior tanking and priest healing – wiped both times. Needs a priest + secondary healer for the kill.

Still on the to get list then:

wrists	mana infused wrists	A Fate Worse Than Death
offhand	The saga of terokk	Terokk’s legacy
chest	Living Crystal Breastplate	pattern
waist	Eighty Silver Links	Ortor My Old Friend…

moonkin gear!

2007-02-07T17:10:00Z

some target gear:

wrists	mana infused wrists	A Fate Worse Than Death
offhand	The saga of terokk	Terokk’s legacy
shoulders	Twin Moon Shoulderguards	Crush the Bloodmaul Camp!
feet	Uvuros Hide Boots	Uvuros must die

Warcraft journal 5 Feb

2007-02-05T19:08:00Z

Seems the caverns of time open up for you at 66, was lucky enough to have a go at freeing thrall last night which was fun – 3 druids, priest and hunter. was a bit barmy. I’m very nearly 67 (like 0.1 of a bar away). I’ve done a fair bit of nagrand now having largely skipped terrokar. I strongly advise you do the 5 man ring of trials in the north – the end of the quest line is tough but gives you a good healing hammer – you can look at my allakhazam profile for it, but its 160 healing and 5 mana/5s – nice. leatherworkings up to 244 but I ran out of thick leather – when I hit 250 I get the rugged leather stuff and will be home clear to 300 but waiting on thick leather to appear on the AH again now.

Telaar is actually very cool – mucho quests there and lots of things to collect and hand in. The flight point is on top of the inn, which is at the highest point in the town. Gives a lovely view of the world. You also have the opportunity of more safari type quests with kill 30 X and 30 Y type quests. I’ve left the consortium quests for now though – thinking I’ll do some more auchindoun quests to get my rep up and then start their quests out of aeris.

The caverns of time quest was fun, some interesting new mechanics in there but things were going so quick it was hard to track. fun tho.

I’ll go back to terrokar once I’ve got my lower city rep up in the crypt instances or similar. All good fun :D

Windhawk Armour Set

2007-01-30T18:54:00Z

Assuming I don’t get better stuff in between I’ll be looking to deck my moonkin out in The windhawk gear which looks like I just buy it from a trainer once I hit 375. Trick is to get there in short order of course.

progress and such

2007-01-30T18:31:00Z

I must admit – I’ll have to congratulate blizzard on what is essentially a whole new game for me on top of what World of Warcraft. Level wise I’m half way through being 65, but clearly there’s a bucket load of end game out there so I far less than half way through in game time.

I’m experiencing the same wonder I had when I started out in Darnassus many moons ago (oo! a pun there since I’m a Night Elf). So I started out with herbing and skinning I think, get some cash and what have you, switching to enchanting and herbing at some point (yup – odd mix) and then to tailoring and enchanting making gear to sell and disenchant. So now I’m a leather worker and enchanter, 181 in one and about 320 in the other as I recall, I’ve got 25 quests and still loads to do in zangermarsh and terrokar forest and I’ve not even. A little research reveals its probably the kurenai guys I’m keenly interested in for my leather working as they have the recipe’s for the Netherfury set which looks well suited to my moonkin build. I must admit, at this time I’ll be hard pressed to let my current build go – my mana regen is awesome, I’m a capable healer (not quite the same output as my previous raid build but..) and actually my dps is starting to show some real promise.

Gotta admit – tempted to skip terrokar and go straight to nagrand for the kuernai rep but we shall see.

This kilt is of interest too.

bah – just noticed netherfury is mail gear :o( – doh! It’s windfury I want!

next!

Still – lots of content, new things and stuff. all good :D

world of warcraft identity crisis

2007-01-29T01:18:00Z

As previously reported I had had issues finding a talent build that suited me. As it turns out the moonkin/nature’s swiftness build is working out great so no expensive re-talenting lately. In addition given some of the cool moonkin leatherworking recipe’s around at the moment and the requirement to actually do leatherworking to wear them had me concerned about my choice of professions – then tailoring (328) and enchanting (320). I’ve switched to leatherworking and thus far got my skill to 150 at very little cost. I’ve kept enchanting as getting that skill was expensive and hard work.

I will write up stuff about the rest of my life at some point but right now, my spare time is focussed on levelling my character to catch up / keep up with my guild.

Moonkin build with natures swiftness

2007-01-22T22:13:00Z

So, my previous mostly resto and a little balance build really didn’t cut the mustard. Compared to the full balance moonkin dps build the difference in dps output was absurd. With the full balance build I was regularly hitting for 2.2k (crit + bonuses) and with this new build I’m lucky if I get over 900 with a starfire hit. Gotta admit though my survivability is much much improved. So, I die more and I’m not too useful in instances with a full balance build, but I can’t dps to save my life in the mostly resto build. Not only that but I’m starting to get mana issues due to missing out on some of the lovely regen abilities later down the talent trees. What’s a druid to do?

Well wowwiki has a nice druid builds section, in particular some lvl 70 balance builds which are nice. There’s a nice swiftmend/balance build that I may actually use when I get back to raiding but I’m feeling that I would like a moonkin build at the minute. Something like a 31/0/21 natures swiftness build appeals to me, although being level 62 I now have a few more points to play with.

So – what are my goals. I rather fancy trying to be a dps machine but still able to heal groups. The point of the balance spec was I felt that a caster focussed build would leave me as a reasonably effectively healer and I fancied being a mage for a while. Whilst I was getting some pretty neat dps out (mage like) I found the build wasn’t reliable for healing a 5 man as there were no emergency heals available. As it stands the swiftmend build left me able to heal (although most of the groups I went in had a priest and wanted me to tank – go figure) but I sacrificed more than I was happy to with the dps side of things. FYI – natures grace is only useful if you’re going to crit alot and frankly the build I had and my gear didn’t do that (go go moonkin form).

So, probably on Wednesday and most likely still level 62 I’ll be getting the moonkin talent back, but this time with natures swiftness (possibly with a macro to drop moonkin form and insta-heal meself to improve survivability). So, I’ll be going from my current resto swiftmend balance nature’s grace build to this moonkin natures swiftness not quite so resto build . All this testing different builds is getting a little expensive so this is likely my last for another week. I think the weekly drop in talent reset happens every wednesday so may wait till then to actually do it.

Tweaking my build some more...

2007-01-21T01:07:00Z

As posted here I’ve been using full balance so far in burning crusade and solo wise it’s served me very well. It’s not served me so well in the instances though, where my group abandoned a Furnace run because I couldn’t keep the healing up with the suicidal dudes I was with. Still, it did demonstrate that great healing gear isn’t enough in a 5-man group when I don’t have talents for a quick response heal.

So, I’m now looking at a 21/0/31 build . So I get omen of clarity back (love that), natures swiftness for instant heal and swiftmend – giving me back my quick heals. I also get the the bonus damage and natures grace abilities from the balance tree.

I figure that the ability to heal outside moonkin form will actually up my survivability and losing the treants will be a shame – but I’ll die less and be more effective in instances – will report back.