A Tale of Ten Toons

Archive for the ‘rambling’ Category

The Story of Skwanky Furrytoe, or How I Lost the Hair On the Other Nine.

The city of <cool city name> lies in the shadow of <scary sounding mountain/range name>. Buried in the <something> forest, with ready access to the mountain roads, <city> is home to a thriving crafting community. <more city blah, blah, blah>

I don’t how the bards do it. Anyway, it’s my story, so I can tell it as I please. My earliest memories are of me and my many siblings (really, I couldn’t tell you how many) running around the city. The food, the trinkets, so many things to get your little hands on.  It was the life.  I have vague memories of my mother, mostly making meals, and little recollection of my father at all. Around the age of 4 I began life with a new family.  Why this happened, to this day I still do not know. My new mother, Thora Firebane, chose to name me after her grandfather, Skwanky. Like him, she was a master blacksmith and was teaching her twins, Frax and Prina, the family trade.  For a while, I too was allowed to learn this fine trade. It was true work. Sore muscles, soot and sweat, if you went to bed without these three things, you didn’t have a good day. At least that’s the way I was brought up until that fateful day. Testing the newly cooled swords, sparring with the much stronger Frax, I accidentally (really, like I’d do it on purpose!) knocked over a recently poured mold, setting a fair portion of the smithy aflame. While no one was hurt, and the damage contained quite quickly, I was never allowed to play (or work) in the area of the (rebuilt) smithy again. Oh, I also managed to permanently burn all the hair off of my feet, the lone exception being my left big toe.

Seeing the sadness in my eyes at not being allowed to work, Prina took to setting up the training dummies for me to target with a sling. Now even I knew that allowing me to chuck rocks towards the smithy from across the yard probably wasn’t the best idea, it did allow me to pretend to still be part of their day. This was swell…until I clipped Frax in the head, leaving him bedridden for a few days while the wound healed. It was in his altered state that he deemed me a “furrytoe” and not a Firebane. Well, now I wasn’t even allowed to play with my sling. At least not while anyone was around. My mom worked hard to convince me that while the twins were supposed to dirty, my job was to stay as clean as possible. That’s how I was to help her. Bah, this wasn’t fun at all. For a while it was entertaining to see just how much trouble I could get into without getting dirty, but even that got old. I think at some point she brainwashed me because one morning I woke up and not only understood her new thinking but agreed with it! I was allowed to wear the fine weapons and armor coming out of the smithy, under the condition I kept them pristine. Boy did I. I never looked better!

As soon as hit the adventuring age, I began to hunger. A lot. While I often would out eat the others at any given meal, it wasn’t anything too obnoxious. That changed as I got older. Unwilling to eat Thora and the twins out of house and smithy, I decided it was time to find my own road. But first, there was something I had to do.  How does one repay the lady that raised him? Well, I heard a rare smithing book could be found in Caladan. Packing up my hefty supply of armor polish and as many rolls as I could carry, I headed out.

What’s this??  This isn’t about WoW! No, indeed it is not.  You see, I have another character now.  One who rolls dice.  Last week I was lucky enough to get into a coworkers Swords and Wizardry game. It’s old school D&D. Apparently retro-gaming is in.  Spread the word.  Anyway, this is my first attempt at a little back story.  My character is a halfling fighter type who hates to get his armor dirty.  He chooses to stand back away from the fight and throw rocks. We’ll see how long this flies. The DM has the adventure logs up for anyone interested in reading them.  I love this new wave of new school meets old school. So yeah, I think I’ll post some stories here regarding this adventure as well as my WoW ones.  I’ll see where this direction takes me…

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I was sitting down at my computer the other day, staring at the login screen, and I began to wonder, why do I play WoW?  While I initially started playing because a friend suggested it to me, over the past 4, almost 5, years I’d say 90% (if not higher) of what I do is solo play.  I do enjoy the occasional raid, when time allows it, but that is such a rare part of my playtime it hardly counts.  So, in this realm of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, what is it about WoW that keeps me, an essentially solo player, coming back?  Well, I thought about that.  Part of it is the ease at which I can come and go.  I can come on a fish for a bit, or do a daily or two.  I can run an alt around.  Many, many, many things that you can do in what amounts to a pretty sporadic playtime.  But that wasn’t it.  At least not entirely.  I continued down this path a bit more.  I think at the most basic level, it’s the guild interaction.  I’m playing with friends…even when I’m off in some other zone by myself.  For me, most times WoW is a single-player RPG with an integrated chat client.  And I like it like that.  I’ve tried just about every other MMO out there at one time or another.  I come back to WoW because that’s where my friends are.

This introduces another problem, though.  My friends are all over the place.  While my home is Area 52, I have friends on Sen’Jin, Thrall, Cenarion Circle, Llane, etc.  I tried playing on multiple servers once.  It cost me a lot of money.  I ended up moving all my toons to the new server…then back again.  Don’t want to do that again.  So I swore off multi-server living.  Yesterday I created a toon on Thrall to harass a friend.  I plan on doing this for some other servers too.  Giving it another go.  While I don’t see any of them taking me away from my home on Area 52, I do have to admit some concern.  So I ask you multi-server folk.  How do you do it?

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So a couple of things have happened recently in game…

A years worth of events there. I’m quite pleased with that reward. That bastard is fast! And, while we’re talking mounts, this little guy dropped for me:

I’ve loved the kodo mounts since day one. I still hope one day to be able to tame one as a pet. But the Brewfest Kodo? By far the best looking one in my book. Didn’t see any mounts drop last year and this is the only one I’ve seen drop this year. And I won it. Not sure what I did right, but damn…so happy.

On the Project 800 front, Farmerdeath hit 65 making all 4 Outland toons at that level. Got Halfrack to 75 giving me 5 Brewfest summons. Hoping to have 6 for Hallow’s End. Schwa is sitting just this side of 71. If I can get some distraction free time on him, it’s shouldn’t be a problem….but I’m not betting on it just yet.

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That’s right, 2 posts in as many days. I’m going crazy! Yesterday I worked up a list of armor heirlooms. Some nice stuff there, especially the stacking exp buff. But what good is pretty armor if you don’t have any pointy sticks to kill things with? Today I’ll show you what they have for weapons and trinkets.

For 40 Emblems of Heroism or 60 Champion’s Seals, you can get a dagger, sword or mace:

Balanced Heartseeker
Venerable Dal’Rend’s Sacred Charge
Venerable Mass of McGowan

For 50/75, another mace and two trinkets:

Devout Aurastone Hammer
Discerning Eye of the Beast
Swift Hand of Justice

2-handers and a bow will run 65/95:

Bloodied Arcanite Reaper
Charmed Ancient Bone Bow
Dignified Headmaster’s Charge
Repurposed Lava Dredger

You can grab a few items with your Stone Keeper’s Shards as well. Again, the difference is the trading out of other stats for resilience. For 200, a dagger and sword:

Sharpened Scarlet Kris
Battleworn Thrash Blade

A trinket and mace for 250:

Inherited Insignia of the Horde
The Blessed Hammer of Grace

Gun, Staff, and 2-handed sword top out at 325:

Upgraded Dwarven Hand Cannon
Grand Staff of Jordan
Reforged Truesilver Champion

That will wrap up the heirloom overview. If you guys have any idea for my next undertaking, by all means share!

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Let’s talk about heirlooms. Introduced in Wrath, heirlooms are a lovely way of spreading the love among your alts. These account-bound items are roughly blue-quality gear that you can send to other chars (on the same server/faction) to use. The shoulder pieces all sport a nice 10% bonus to experience gains which takes a bit of the edge of leveling. Want a bit more taken off? In 3.2, chest pieces where introduced that added another 10%. 4 free bubbles of exp per level? Yes, please!

Heirlooms come in two flavors, PvE and PvP. Basically this means the PvP version trades some of its bonuses for Resilience. The PvE gear can be bought with two types of currency, Emblems of Heroism or Champion’s Seals. The PvP items are bought with Stone Keeper’s Shards. The chest pieces are only available in the PvE group. So, what are these items, you say? Let’s take a look…

Plate:
Polished Breastplate of Valor
Polished Spaulders of Valor
Pristine Lightforge Spaulders
Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons

Mail:
Champion Herod’s Shoulder
Champion Deathdealer Breastplate
Mystical Pauldrons of Elements
Mystical Vest of Elements
Prized Beastmaster’s Mantle
Aged Pauldrons of The Five Thunders

Leather:
Preened Ironfeather Breastplate
Preened Ironfeather Shoulders
Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders
Stained Shadowcraft Tunic
Lasting Feralheart Spaulders
Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders

Cloth:
Tattered Dreadmist Mantle
Tattered Dreadmist Robe
Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle

The PvE armor can be purchased in Dalaran or the Argent Tournament grounds for 40 Emblems or 60 Seals respectively. The PvP armor can be purchased in Wintergrasp for 200 shards.

Well, that wraps up the offerings for armor. Next post we’ll see what they have for weapons and trinkets.

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This month brings us to another Brewfest and for many people that will wrap up the “What a Long, Strange Trip it’s been” achievement and give them a lovely Violet Proto-drake mount. Of my pocketful of characters, I’m only getting this on one. I have some guildies who drag numerous alts through each world event achievement (and many other achievement categories). For me, that seems like a huge undertaking as far as time is concerned. I have enough trouble just doing on the one. For those of you with alts (or many mains) how do you handle the achievement whoring?

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Errun is back.  This is a good thing.  That’s what people know me as.  You build an identity in game over the years.  People call you this name in chat, tells, IRC, emails.  Hell, they call you it in real life. It didn’t feel right not playing someone by this name.  Not amongst these people.  So, over to the official name change page.  All is right again in the world. Glad I got that taken care of.

Got a couple more vanity pets.  Can’t have enough of those.  Love the “Marine Marine” and finally a world-drop whelpling.  Bought the bastard as I grew tired of farming him in Azshara.

Think that puts me at 85 on him now.  For you collector types, WarcraftPets.com is a GREAT site.  My collection is here.

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Cataclysm is going to be earth shattering.  Literally.  The face of Azeroth is changing.  How much?  Time will tell, but we know of a few things like the flooding of Desolace and the splitting of the Barrens.  With this massive overhaul, what ripples can we expect to see on new or leveling alts?  Well, I’d imagine a lot.  Blizzard isn’t afraid to pull classic quests lines (e.g., Ony attunement, Atiesh, Corrupted Ashbringer) so assume the worst.  If there is anything you’ve been putting off, I’d say now is the time to do it.  For me, I have to get off my ass and hunt those damn whelplings.  With Azshara becoming a starting zone, I’m assuming the Azure Whelps will no longer be dropping there.  I could be wrong, but I don’t want to take my chances…it tends to bite me in the butt when I do.

So, let’s say Cataclysm is here.  What do us poor, alt-ridden saps do about all the new low level stuff?  All my alts are in Outlands and Northrend.  All my character slots are full.  Do I delete the Priest (again) to make room for a Goblin?  No, not going to happen.  Do I fire up another account to play with?  Great scheme on Blizzard’s parts.  Mo’ money for them.  Well, what I’m really, really, really hoping for is more slots.  Yes, I already have one of every class, so I can’t use that as a complaining point.  But really, we know there will be more.  I can’t see them stopping at just one hero class.  I say open the floodgates!  Give us 5 more slots! …or at least 1 more.

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I am now officially off of the Wordpress.com site and onto a big boy hosted server.  I’m hoping to take advantage of the flexibility provided by this.  Let the fun begin!

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I’ll keep this short as you are sure to get reviews of much greater quality and detail elsewhere.  This will just be a couple of things that jumped out at me.

1. No more mana for hunters.  YAY!  Focus makes a lot more sense to me.  I can’t wait to see how this pans out.

2. Cross-server instances.  Hmm.  Okay, I see this as a mixed blessing.  On the one hand, it increases the chance that you’ll be able to find a group for whatever you may be doing.  This is handy.  I spent days trying to find people to run Outland heroics for the achievements a few weeks back.  On the other hand, it also greatly increases the pool of “we give pugs a bad name” players.  I wonder if they’ll increase the size of one’s ignore list with this and cross-server (game, maybe?) communication.

3. Worgen.  This is a toughy.  I LOVE the idea of a wolf based character.  Love it.  So much so, it was the reason I tried Vanguard.  Still can’t shake that mistake…  Anyway, they downside for me is this, the Worgen is an Alliance race.  And while I, unlike many guildies, don’t have a seething hatred for the Alliance (Hell, my second 60 was an Alliance hunter in vanilla), I don’t like the idea of leveling him without access to my Horde friends.  The social aspect of the game is important to me.  This is like putting on blinders and earplugs.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, but for the entire life of a character?  Not my bag.  I’d love to see the addition of cross-faction communication for people on your friends list.

4. Deathwing.  Wreaking havoc on good ol’ Azeroth?  Sign me up!  I can’t wait to see what the devs do with some of the old zones.  I have a lot of good memories from old Azeroth, leveling sooooo many characters there.  It will be nice to be able to play there again, for the first time, essentially.

There were many, many, MANY more things mentioned, but these are the ones on my mind this morning.  Hit up WoW.com or something for some some in depth content.  It’s going to be one hell of an expansion.

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