A Thanksgiving Evening at Fannon's

The sun was still peeking over the mountains of Dun Morogh as the day waned, the dying light glistening off the freshly fallen snow surrounding the little home cut into the rock. A warm glow was coming from its frost covered windows, wafts of smoke floated out of the little chimney. The scent of the nearby pine trees mingled with the tantalizing aroma of cooking. Inside, a crackling fire was burning merrily in the hearth, warming the small room, in the center of which stood a table filled with bowls and trays and platters filled with steaming food of all sorts. In the center of the table was a conspicuously empty space.

Around the table were seated an eclectic mix of people. At the head of the table sat a tall, dark-skinned man, powerfully built and dressed in a simple tunic of silver and gold. He was sitting on a cushion on the floor so as to be at the right height for the table. Next to him was seated a ferociously red-haired Dwarf wearing a festive red dress, trimmed with an intricate gold pattern that set off her pale, freckled complexion. She was chuckling at the gnome seated across from her.

The gnome, whose head and shoulders barely rose above the table height, peeked around the large, foaming mug of ale that she had placed in front of him that completely blocked his view and grinned, "Now that is a proper sized drink, Thallie."

"Aye," she smiled, "Tis nearly as large as yer head. But wha ye’d expect from a dwarven draught?"

Thosif gave a hearty laugh and shifted on his cushions to get more comfortable. "I’ve always wondered where you managed to store all the ale that you drink, Krupel," he said as he took a drink from his own glass. "Truly, it is a marvel that such a tiny little creature can put back such a quantity!"

"It's an ancient gnomish secret; very hush-hush," Krupel laughed in his squeaky, yet oddly gruff voice as he wiped the foam from his white moustache.

"Indeed," said Thosif seriously. "And where is that husband of yours, Thallie? He's been sequestered away in that kitchen for hours, it seems. One must wonder if he plans to feed his guests in a timely manner or merely let us waste away!"

Krupel placed his mug on the table with a loud and empty thud. "I don't blame you for being impatient, Thosif," he said cheerfully. "I image that you're sick of eating those severed fish heads and greasy whale milk that you Paladins do. Ick!" The Paladin scowled at the gnome as he continued, "Getting some hearty Dwarven food into your belly will be good for you. But I've gotta agree; Fannon sure is taking his time!"

A string of dwarvish swear-words, uttered by a deep, gruff voice with a thick Dun Morogh accent came from the kitchen doorway, "Magni's beard! A little patience, a'ready! Th' food'll be done when it's done!" 

From the opposite corner of the room a piercing cry interrupted the laughter of the guests. Sitting in a comfortable armchair was a young, fetching woman holding a tiny baby who had just begun to cry. She had a startled look on her face, as if she was unsure what to do.  She stood up, bouncing the baby to try and calm her down, whispering, "It's alright, little dwarfling. Shhhh."

After a moment, the crying subsided. "She likes yeh, Ophelie," Thallie said, "Ye're a natur'l."

"Thanks," Ophelie said, smiling. "She's adorable! And thanks so much for inviting me over to share in the holiday feast." 

"Nae mention it," Thallie winked. "Consider yersel' part o' the family."

Between sips Krupel chuckled, "That means you have to do the dishes, Ophelie. It's not as great a deal as it seems like at first."

"You don't seem to complain too much as long as there's plenty of food and drink, Krupel," said Thosif.

Thallie gave Krupel a playful slap, "Quiet, you. Ophelie, find yersel' a place t' sit 'round the table, the rest o' th' guests should be here any minute. An' Fannon should be done w' th' food soon. I hope, a' least." She gave a skeptical glance towards the kitchen, where a great deal of worrysome noise and the occasional curse could be heard. "I should go check on 'im, make sure he's -"

Just then a knock on the door resounded through the house. Thallie moved to open it, and from outside heard, "Vidyala, my love, I do not think I can fit though this door."

Opening the stout, wooden door revealed a large, blue-skinned Draenei crouching low so that his head would clear the top of the it. "Greetings, my dear Thallie. We are so glad to join you on this auspicious occasion," Vosskah said as he twisted and contorted his huge frame through the diminutive, dwarf-sized opening. His wife, Vidyala, followed him through with considerably more grace. She was nearly as tall, with pale, almost translucent skin, her long brown hair styled smartly around her horns. "That's how it's done, Voss. You just need a little more dexterity," she laughed.

"We warriors are built for power, not dancing, my darling," Vosskah said gently, smiling. "Hear hear! Built for power!" slurred Krupel in the background, who raised his tankard in salute before guzzling it back.

"Welcome an' welcome again t' our home, both o' ye!" Thallie beamed, "Fannon an' mesel' are s'glad t' have ye!" The distinct sound of something breaking came from the kitchen. "Errr, dinner'll be in a trice; Fannon's just finishin' up sae details," she continued, a slight flutter of concern in her voice.

The newcomers found a seat at the table and got comfortable. After a moment, Ophelie began animatedly telling a story of her many travels to exotic lands, while Thallie busied herself getting drinks for the new arrivals as well as Krupel - who was now starting on his third gigantic stein of beer and showed no signs of slowing down.

Suddenly, the door flew open and a man burst in. Clad from head to toe in simple black leather, he quickly shut the door and sprinted for the fireplace and began to warm himself up, shivering. "Winter in the mountains!" he said mockingly. "I'm not sure why on Azeroth we couldn't have met at my place where it's warm!"

The company laughed. Thallie hugged the latest guest, "Good tae see you too, ElBne," she laughed. "Th' weather would nae be s'bad if only you'd dress for it!"

ElBne smiled at Thallie, "Do you know how hard it is to move around stealthily when you're wearing six layers of bear skins?" he asked. "My professionalism wouldn't allow that!"

"I would think the clinking of the wine bottles in your cloak would tend to give you away more than the bulkiness of a winter jacket," joked Vidyala.

ElBne grinned and pulled out two bottles of wine from his cloak pockets, "I come prepared for anything!"

"Welcome, laddie," Thallie said warmly, "Now we're just waitin' for our last guest. ElBne, did ye chance tae spot Corath out there a' all?"

"As it happens, I did. I think it's alright to start without him, though," ElBne said. "When I saw him last he had accidentally attracted the attention of a few of the guards of Ironforge and they were chasing him through the hills towards Gnomeregan. I think it will be a while before he loses them and makes it back here."

Thallie sighed, "It's a pity tha th' guards dunnae know him as we do. I know he's a Tauren an' technically the enemy, but he's such a sweet little cow. I hope he escapes."

"I'm not certain there would be room in here for both of us," said Vosskah. He was sitting on a cushion on the floor next to the table, his head bent at an odd angle to keep it from hitting the wooden beam of the roof.

A long series of alarming sounds suddenly burst forth from the kitchen, accompanied by a loud hooting and more than a little smoke. The dwarfling, whom Ophelie had rocked to sleep and put in a fur-lined basket near the fire, began crying again. Thallie picked her daughter up, sat down on the hearth and began softly singing an old Wildhammer lullaby to calm her down.

Thosif stood up at the table suddenly, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the ceiling, and pulled everyone's attention away from the drama that was happening in the kitchen. "Please friends, find a place to sit around this magnificent table," he said formally. "Whilst our host is, uh, otherwise occupied with the preparations for our repast,  I would take this opportunity to offer a toast.

"I would like to thank you all for coming tonight, on this most excellent holiday," he began solemnly. "Each one of us have, at one point, stood up against the worst evils that Azeroth has to offer and has come out victorious. But not one of us could have achieved these victories without the help and support of the people around us. Friendship is what allows us to endure the unimaginable hardships and succeed when we feel that the Light has abandoned us, for we know that our comrades will stay true and show us the path through the darkness."

He raised his glass, "To you, my friends. To Vidyala and Vosskah, who came from so very far away to see us tonight. To ElBne and, yes, even our "enemy" Corath. And especially to you, Ophelie. All of you, your friendship means so much to me that it is truly impossible to properly describe. I salute you."

The room was silent as each person raised their glass and took a sip. The dwarfling gurgled in her basket.

"Brilliant!" Fannon exclaimed, appearing at the kitchen entrance holding a large, red cooking pot. "Finished a' last!" He was a mess. His elegant white robes - made of a shimmering material and trimmed with black and gold - were covered with stains and several rips. The hem of both sleeves bore the unmistakable scorch marks of being recently set on fire. His white beard - pulled into a thick braid in the front and tied with an ornate silver band - was frizzy and disheveled, with a still-wriggling fish tail protruding out of it. "Tuck in!"

With a flourish, Fannon placed the feast in the middle of the table. The room was suddenly quiet for a long, awkward moment. The guests glanced at each other nervously.

Krupel broke the silence, "Umm, isn't that lobster supposed to be dead?"

This post is part of the Blog Azeroth Thanksgiving Event hosted by Amerence, in which we are to give thanks to those bloggers who have inspired us in some way this year. I chose to thank those people whom have come out of the digital ether to become real life friends. I salute you all:

Vidyala from Manalicious
Vosskah from Sword & Board
Corath from Corath's Blog
ElBne (No blog, but we're working on him. Follow him on twitter in the meantime)
And the lovely Ophelie from Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon


Have a Happy Thanksgiving, despite the fact that it's a month and a half late.

Guest Post: Ode to Healers

Nymphy is an arcane mage in the US guild Eff the Ineffable and co-writer for the blog D/E the Tank. She has wandered over here to Fannon's healing blog to set him straight about a couple things by volunteering to write about the most important job in a group/raid: DPS! Err...healing. Yeah, healing.


ODE TO HEALERS
In Which Team Heals and the Healer Tyranny Receive Their Due

First off, DOWN WITH HEALER TYRANNY!!! They think they are so special just because they can battle rez and bubble and have healing circles that sparkle and make pretty leaves and flowers bloom on the floor. Bah! That ain't special! I will go one more step and say that healers are my worst enemy! Ever since I joined Eff the Ineffable I hardly get to visit my beauteous Spirit Healer anymore! My time is consumed with trying to find more and more creative ways to die because those stupid healers persist in keeping my health above zero. Why, the mere thought of it is... wait? What? You mean this is supposed to be a healer appreciation post? Oh. Right. Ahem. That was for a different post. On to the real post then.

For most of my WoW career I have played a ranged DPS; mainly, a mage. I have dabbled with a healer on and off but always return to what I know best: Raining sweet arcane destruction down on my enemies. I have regarded the species known as healer with a mixture of awe and resentment. Awe because they seem to effortlessly keep groups of up to 40 people alive with just a click of a mouse button. Now I realize a 40 man group would have more than one healer, but the principle is the same. Resentment because they stand in the back clicking away just like me, but everyone values them SO much more than the DPS. In some of the guilds I was in (names are not mentioned to protect the not so innocent) healers were outright favored for gear and raid spots. It seemed so unfair! I thought for sure that healers had the easiest job ever. Just stand in the back and play whack-a-mole with healbot or grid or whatever fancy-pants add on they were using that week, but everyone acted like they were SO special.

It is rather like being picked last in gym class when you are a DPS trying to find a raid group. So I decided that I wasn’t going to stand for this anymore, and started leveling a discipline priest. I was going to sprout wings and join the exalted ranks of the appreciated! I was going to be a valued member of every dungeon or raid group!

Ilona: Level 58 Discipline Priest

Although now that my priest, Ilona, is up to level 58, I realize that maybe, just maybe, they don’t have it quite so easy. In my priest's cloth shoes I realized that healers have a horrible, thankless job. The blame for wipes is on their shoulders alone, unless of course the group blames the tank. Their presence and the fact that they are keeping you alive is taken for granted. The attitude of "Oh we can pull ALL the things because we got a healer" is prevalent, especially at the lower-to-mid levels. It seems that the healer is responsible for making sure EVERYONE ELSE gets to feel invincible. ESPECIALLY those mages! Oh, how they stand in the back and spam arcane blast at ANYTHING but what the tank is targeting. Then there’s always some huntard with his pet who decides he can tank too, so I have to pay attention to HIS health as well as the tank's! Don’t even get me started on the ones who want their pets healed. And whatever happened to MOVING OUT OF A WHIRLWIND?!? Every class of melee DPS under the sun just stands there and eats it, and then they whine to me when I can’t heal ALL the things because of the stupid things they’re doing. I’ve had enough! I’m going back to my mage. I’ll go take the longer queue times because the Outland Dungeons are about to start for Ilona, and I’m already having nightmares about dungeons full of DK’s, their sheer stupidity, their death-gripping in every direction. Oh, it makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

There is a saying that says that you can never truly understand another person’s experiences unless you walk across the Barrens in their slippers. For me, I found that to be very true. Playing a healer isn’t just clicking some buttons on an add-on. It is stressful and a huge amount of responsibility. If healers are favored, they deserve to be! I will happily go back and play my mage and from now on give them my utmost respect and gratitude. I don’t know how they shoulder that load and keep their freaking sanity through leveling AND raiding! Go Team Heals! This mage will forever be your personal cheerleader!
 
 

Finally!

I logged in late Monday night to grab a couple of screenshots for a post I am working on, and as I am flying through the Western Plaguelands I see this:

He's comin' right for us!

All I can say is: FINALLY! I have been waiting for that stupid dragon to kill me for months now! I think he's been avoiding me, frankly. Our relationship has been a little bit strained ever since that party a couple of years ago where we both got completely drunk and he kept bragging on about how he was going to destroy the world - and when I told him he was full of shit he stormed around the room, flailing his arms and breaking furniture and saying how he was the freakin' Aspect of Death and how he'd show us all. Nobody really took him all that seriously due to his spotty, teen-age moustache and the purple Kylie Minogue T-Shirt he was wearing, but eventually he passed out and his girlfriend Sheila dragged him by the ankle to her mom's Buick.

OK, that actually didn't happen.

But, yay! Achievement!
 
 

The Great Blog Noblegarden Egg Hunt is On!

It's almost time for my favourite Azeroth holiday that doesn't involve beer, racing rams, and Dwarven fart jokes: Nobelgarden! And that means that it's time for the Second Annual Great Blog Noblegarden Egg Hunt, this year hosted and organized by Kamalia and Angelya!

This is not the Egg you're looking for.
Seriously, I  wouldn't make it that easy.
This is a Red Herring.

All around the intertubes, authors have used every bit of their cunning and guile to hide an egg somewhere on their blog, and it is up to you to find them all!

The event will be starting Sunday, April 24th and going until Thursday, April 28th. Go to Kamalia's blog on Sunday for a complete list of the participating blogs, rules and a list of the fabulous prizes for the person who finds them all first!

Now, if only they could figure out a way to get some Thunderbrew Stout inside these eggs it would be the perfect holiday! Good luck, egg hunters!

edit: Please feel free to leave a comment on this post if you find my egg!

UPDATE: If you still haven't found my egg, I offer the following clue:

Searching the grey places,
opaque as blank ink;
A pinpoint of light,
in bright, vibrant pink!

Just as your mind becomes
lost and delirious;
There hovers an EGG,
all strange and mysterious.
  

Favourite Weapon

This post is part of a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic "What is your Favorite Weapon" as suggested by Dangfool.


Throughout the course of levelling and raiding in World of Warcraft, it's safe to say that each character goes through enough weapons and gear to arm two small armies.  From ridiculously oversized maces, sexy swords, daggers, or gigantic, hideously dangerous looking axes, there are a plethora of awesome weapons.

And there is nothing more satisfying than bashing your enemies face with your favourite one.

I gave this topic a lot of thought.  I get emotionally attached to my characters, and especially to their appearance.  In thinking about it I realized that I did have a favourite weapon, and even though it is one that you can't put Crusader on it's great fun to bash people in the face with it.

Shields.

I was really disappointed when Blizzard took Shield of the Righteous away from Holy Paladins and made it only for those silly Protection Pallys.  During Wrath of the Lich King I tried to heal every heroic boss in melee range so that I could whack him in the bum with my giant, spiky piece of arm candy once in a while.  It was very satisfying.

I learned that I had a fondness for shields when I got to Northrend with my Warrior and decided to try out tanking.  I loved the way that Protection played, even during questing. The noise that Shield Slam made was the sound of distilled awesome.  I bashed and devastated my way all the way to level 80.

I turned out to be a lousy tank, but my warrior is still Protection, simply because I enjoy the playstyle and the fact that I get to wear a shield.  There is nothing cooler looking than a two-and-a-half foot Gnome carrying a six foot tall chunk of wood.

Equipping this shield gives +100 Awesome

My all-time favourite shield is the Grand Marshal's Aegis.  It is, by far, the best looking shield in the game.  The model is used by a lot of NPCs, but is only available for a player through PVP rewards at level 60 and again at level 70 as the Grand Marshal's Barricade.

I have this shield on my Paladin main, Thosif.  I levelled Thosif as a Retribution Paladin, but I armed him with the Battleworn Thrash Blade and a shield. In terms of levelling efficiency, spec synergy or common sense it didn't really work, and frankly I'm not sure why I didn't just pick up a Protection spec and go to town on 10 mobs at once.

But damn, Thosif looked cool.

In order to get this shield I spent the vast majority of levels 50-60 in Arathi Basin, farming Honor points.  I hate PVP with a passion, but I really wanted this shield so I sucked it up and spent a lot of time watching the Resurrection timer in The Stable graveyard.  I finally got it, and I kept it equipped for most of Outlands until I finally switched to Holy.  It is still in my bank, and it's one of the few items that I keep purely for sentimental reasons.

Luckily, Holy also gets to have a shield.  Probably my most thrilling drop of WotLK was when the Lost Pavise of the Blue Flight dropped off of Sindragosa, and one of the weirdest moment of Cataclysm so far was when I replaced it with a rather boring looking off-hand healing sceptre.

I'm now using the Elementium Stormshield, which has awesome stats but doesn't look anywhere near as cool as the Grand Marshal's Aegis or the Lost Pavise.

But I just wish I could bash someone in the face with it.

Light of Fizzle Update: Stealth Nerf Stealthily Unnerfed.

As I'm sure most of my readers have already discovered from far more reliable sources (Kurn, Ophelie), it seems that Blizzard has decided to unnerf (de-nerf? Antinerf?) Light of Dawn just as sneakily as they nerfed it before.

As others have I have confirmed that Light of Dawn is, in fact, still transferring through Beacon of Light.  It seems that this change has been reverted.  This doesn't really make a lot of sense, especially considering how quickly things were turned around.

I have a theory, however.

It's one of two things:

It's possible that Blizzard heard the outcry from the community and reversed the change.  This would mean that the WoW developers are listening to their players and as much as they are trying to balance the classes, they are willing to reverse a change that the player base can make a legitimate argument against.  In this case, the idea that this change might cause Paladins to lose a lot of their versatility may have been persuasive enough to cause Blizzard to change it back.  Or, perhaps they are just sick of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth; we paladins are a boisterous, vocal lot, after all, and are willing to rise up in armed revolt over the least little nerf.

Either way, the idea that Blizzard listens to the concerns of their player base and is responsive to their feedback is so optimistic that it almost borders on silly.  There is no way that we have things that good, is there?

The other option is that Blizzard has taken the idea of beta testing to a whole other level.  All developers will beta test new features or changes to the game before they are released to ensure that they work before they make the change.  This way they can prevent mistakes and improve quality.

I think that Blizzard, on the other hand,  is pioneering something different:  Blizzard has started beta testing patch notes.  Yes, in order to ensure that they produce the best patch notes possible, they are releasing potential changes to the notes before they release the actual notes.  By releasing a beta patch note they can see how it looks, play with the fonts and colours to ensure that their notes are the absolute best in the industry.

It's a brave new world.

On Archaeology and the Trials of Surveying

This post is a response to a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic suggested by Ringo Flinthammer, "Digging Archaeology".  We'll overlook the pun just this once, Ringo. 

Back when I was in first-year University, I took an Archaeology class.  It was an introduction to the subject, painting it in very broad strokes, but I managed to learn a couple of things between naps:

1) Archaeology is very pain-staking and methodical.  It is a science where the context of where you find something is every bit as important as what you find.

2) Fedoras are not required and bull whips are actively discouraged.  This point was stressed on the first day.

3) There are rarely Nazis involved.

4) Archaeology is not nearly as exciting as you want to believe it to be.

5) Running around willy-nilly digging random holes and taking the stuff you find to the nearest shady, back-alley antiquities dealer to sell for lots of money is a good way to get yourself arrested.  This is particularly true in some countries like Greece or Egypt which are rather sensitive about these sorts of things.  And it invariably ends in a dark room, sitting at a table with a single bare light bulb above it and getting some rather severe looks from gentlemen who think that their priceless cultural artifacts do, in fact, belong in their country and would like nothing better than to arrange for you a first-hand experience of what it would be like to be stuck in a tomb for four thousand years.

Sorry, where was I?

Oh, yes, Archaeology!  The new secondary profession in World of Warcraft where you run around willy-nilly and ... dig random... uhh.... and ... err... priceless cultural artifacts... umm... sold to any vendor who happens to be standing near you... err... Oh dear.

I was very excited about the idea of Archaeology when Blizzard announced that it was going to be added with the Cataclysm expansion.  I am a bit of a lorehound, and I loved the idea of a secondary profession that added to the story of the game in an interactive way.

I have been playing with Archaeology very casually since it was released.  Very casually indeed, actually, since before this Shared Topic popped up my main character's Archaeology skill was a mere 6.  I decided that it was a good idea to actually play around with the profession a little before writing a post on it, so rather than running a heroic or doing Tol Barad dailies, I popped up my in-game map, and headed to the nearest dig site.

I'll say up front that I'm not really a fan of the main mechanic of Archaeology, Survey.  Running around following a big arrow that Blizzard dressed up as a surveying instrument isn't really my idea of fun.  It's somewhat diverting for the first little bit, but gets old very quickly.  The concept that there is no competition and that each person's digsite is their own is fabulous, however, and well implemented.

The problem is that it's not fun.  There are benefits to the profession, like a wonderful epic trinket, vanity pet and a mount, but getting them is an exercise in tedium.  It's much like fishing, really, and there aren't many people who find fishing a fascinating and engaging thing to level up, either.  I am spending rare and valuable leisure time playing this game and I want to be entertained while I'm doing it.  If I wanted to be bored doing a repetitive task I could do the household chores I've been desperately trying to avoid and make my wife happy, while at the same time saving fifteen bucks a month.

As well, the profession also disappoints in an area that was supposed to be it's core strength:  Lore.  The idea behind the profession is that each artifact that you complete tells you a little tidbit of the overall story of Azeroth.  The Archaeology interface has a huge area for the detailed lore that is supposed to make this profession irresistible to Warcraft lore nerds and completionists.  Except that it doesn't.  As Windsoar pointed out, the information that is given on most of the items is nothing more than a blurb.  Not really much more than what you would expect to get from a fortune cookie, if the Smithsonian Institute delivered Chinese food.

Where is the story?  Where is the lore?  Where is the context?   Some of the flavour text is interesting or funny, but there is so much more they could have done.  Why not tell a story of past Dwarven or Troll cultures through these artifacts?  Why not add some mystery, or an interlocking story that is told through the discovery of these different objects?  Blizzard has always had story-telling as their most important competitive advantage, and I feel that they have missed an extraordinary opportunity to offer a unique and engaging way to interact with the overall world history.  At least for now.  The nice thing about this profession is that Blizzard can add more to it any time they choose to tell whatever story they want.  Here's hoping that they decide to tell a tale that's more important than a bed-time story in the future.

The other issue I have with the Archaeology profession is that it really isn't archaeology.  Let me explain. Actual, real-world archaeologists attempt to discover information about past societies by studying the physical remains that they leave behind.  A digsite is excavated layer by layer, carefully extricating each artifact and then placing it within the proper context so that conclusions can be drawn from what you find and where it was found.

OK, fine, but this is a game, right?  Yes, I'd agree with that.  But this thought struck me as I was staring at this digsite:

"Ummm, aren't these Trolls still using the stuff that I'm finding?"

The study of a living culture and the artifacts that they are using is, in fact, Anthropology.  But more importantly, when you then take those artifacts of a living culture to a museum or, say, a shady back-alley antiquities dealer, that process then becomes what is known in the scientific community as stealing.  I find it very odd to wander into a Troll village and start digging up and taking their historical artifacts.  It would be like someone coming into your house, lifting up the stack of newspapers that you carelessly left on the coffee table, yelling "Eureka" as they pick up the TV remote that you forgot was under there, and then selling it at the nearest pawn shop as a historical treasure.

So Blizzard has implemented a new profession that more accurately should have been called Thievery with Shovels.  But that's OK, really, since the entire game is based on getting stuff from other people who are currently using said stuff.  At least with Archaeology we don't have to bring nine friends and kill anybody to get it.

Philosophical and semantic arguments aside and getting back to the World of Warcraft for a minute, Archaeology is an interesting profession, and I'm intrigued to see what Blizzard does with it in the future.  The implementation is solid, the potential for advancing lore through the flavour text is there, and while the actual game play is very grindy and repetitive at least there are some rewards at the end that are worth getting.  In contrast, the only thing you get by leveling fishing is more fish.

An Intimate Conversation with my Level 1 Self

There was an interesting Breakfast Topic posted over at wowinsider a while ago.  The questions was, "What Would You Tell Your Level 1 Self?"  I posted this in my guild forums, but I thought I would share it with the blogosphere as well.

Personally, I would take my new and shiny level 1 and take him into Anvilmar, sit him in front of the fire and have a long talk with him.  The Thunderbrew Ale would flow freely and the conversation would touch on many things, lasting far into the night.  We'd cover such topics as…

- “Youngling, log out and delete your hunter.  Just… just do it.  Having a dwarf with a gun is not nearly as cool as you think it’s going to be. You are really going to enjoy healing.  Seriously, DPS is for suckers.  Go get yourself a Priest or a Pally and thank me later”

- “Same thing goes for a Gnome Warrior.  The thought of a Gnome in 2 tons of armor is funny, but it’s gonna get old.  Oh, and Tailoring seriously is a stupid idea for a warrior. Really.  You can buy all the bags you want on the auction house.”

- “Don’t be scared of dungeons and groups.  Yes you’re new and have no idea what you’re doing, but everyone else was there at one point.  You’re going to make mistakes and you’ll embarrass yourself occasionally, but you’ll learn faster and there are lots of people who will be willing to help you out.  This ain’t a single player game, buddy”

- “Kill any horde rogue on sight. Kill the Alliance ones too if you can figure out how.  You will learn that there is an extra-burny place in hell for rogues.”

- “WOW is fun when you play it drunk.  Do this often.”

- “Oh, that thing you told your wife about not letting yourself get addicted to this game… yaaaaah… you’re wrong.  You might as well apologize to her now and get it over with.  And she will never play it with you, so don’t bother trying.”

I’m sure it would end up with both of us drunk, singing Dwarven drinking songs in front of the fire.  I would not want to be either of me the next morning.

What would you tell your Level 1 self if you could go back?

The First Annual Peevie Awards

This is a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic as suggested by Amaranth of Specced for Drama

Hello, and welcome to the 2010 Azeroth Peevie Awards, where we recognize excellence in the art of irritation and annoyance!  Your host for this year is, as always, the single most annoying character in all of Azeroth and the Outlands, CORKI!

[pause]

Wait, I’m sorry, I’m told that he’s been kidnapped again; this time by a hostile coalition of squirrels from Elwynn Forest.  Oh well, we now present the 2010 Peevie Awards after the jump!