Ald Demo

Today was the day i waited for the entire week. Ever since it was revealed that the new Star Wars trailer would be released today, i'd been as giddy as a ten year old on Christmas Eve. Any other kid that grew up in the late 70's and early 80's probably feels the same way. It was the defining movie going experience for a lot of us and for our generation. It carried on into adulthood. Then the prequels happened.

I wish i could just forget they ever existed. That wouldn't be fair though. Sometimes we need tragic mistakes and miscalculations to veer us back on course and recapture the magic and excitement we once felt. To go back to great story telling with characters we actually care about. This time around hopefully with a decent script and non terrible casting decisions. One can only hope anyway. With Lucas removed, i do have that hope.

Ah, it's nice having a redo and learning some lessons from previous experiences. In this particular case i'm referring to making it easier on myself as far as my garrison goes. Combined with a little, or a lot in this case, luck as well. Had i planned ahead, i could have saved myself some headaches and avoided growing pains. That's never been my style of course as i much rather wing it and see what happens.

The first order of business, once i began leveling my Shaman, was to remove the initial Barracks everyone got first. Placing a War Mill in that plot assured me of some pretty nice blue and epic quest reward upgrades at a relatively decent proc rate. In turn, it got me to the required heroic dungeon ilvl much quicker than my DK.

The second decision i made was to go with a Lumber Mill for my medium plot instead of the Trading Post. Oh if i only knew how annoying and expensive it was going to be to gather all the necessary pieces for my Trading Post on my DK, i would have never put one up first. I'm going to be working on that bugger for a long damn time with no completion date in sight.

Chances are the Trading Post is going to be the long term solution anyway, but the resource gathering that a Lumber Mill provided was too good to pass up. Nothing like dinging 100 and immediately being able to upgrade my garrison to level 3. My DK dinged 100 with less than a dozen resources saved and gathering the required 2000 took me an extra week.

I feel like i got hosed, as far as followers goes, my first time around. Out of the 20 i managed to gather through my normal questing, only one decided to proc epic quality. The abilities it also acquired were pretty lackluster as well and not what i was hoping for. Certainly nothing compared to what my Shaman would get lucky with.

Once again the RNG gods were much nicer to my followers my second time through. Out of the 16 i gathered this time, three decided to proc epic. Not only that but the the traits they came with were phenomenal. I managed to hit pay dirt with Shadow Hunter Rala acquiring both the Scavenger trait as well as an epic mount. Not a single follower for my DK had either and boy do both of those make a huge difference in resource acquisition. My DK is sulking in the corner as i type this.

My first Molten Core experience comes as part of the 10-year anniversary event. I'd heard all the horror stories from friends that played back then but i wasn't prepared for what was to come.  Not even two steps into the zone and a pile of corpses already building up. I knew i was in for a long afternoon. I could also see why 40-man content went the way of the dodo. It's a huge pain in the butt.

My group spent the first hour of the raid just getting through the first trash pack. Apparently i wasn't the only one that had never done the raid or knew the mechanics. It was hilarious watching everyone screaming at everyone else and not really knowing why. We had a few "leaders" telling everyone that AoE was bad on the trash because it would just spawn more adds. No one seemed to know they were time based and so more and more adds spawned. Eventually we just became overrun. This continued for a while.

Thus the never ending zone in and die cycle began. Trying to get 40 people in a random group to all pay attention is virtually impossible. The words "don't zone in until they reset" reminded me of old school FFXI trains to zone lines that could take upwards of an hour or more. Of course along with this came the random jackass that's only there to ruin everyone else's day by prolonging the mess. It brought back so many memories of nonsense i don't miss.

Eventually we overcame the initial terrible start once more experienced players took the spots of rage quitters and complainers. The trash pulls seemed far worse than any of the bosses except one or two. I believe we wiped on only two bosses total compared to numerous wipes on trash. The entire run took about 3 hours if i remember correctly but i may be blocking some of it from memory. We did get a new mount for our troubles which always seems to make everything alright. I'm not too sure this event works or can be considered fun by the majority of players but i certainly enjoyed some of it.

My first profession to 700 and it's mining of course. I mean it's ridiculously easy to get since everyone basically has their own mine now. That fact does worry me a bit since i made decent gold prior to this expansion just running around and tapping every node i could find. With the daily limit of ore from the garrison mines, i'm hoping it isn't too bad and the market isn't flooded. Now my next task is getting my engineering to 700, which is going to take a bit longer with the daily limit on crafts that give skill-ups.

I finally won the battle of the queue boss and managed to ding my DK. After consistent 6k queues all week, it finally returned to normal today. It's amazing how quickly the final levels went by when i'm actually able to log on. Boy did they go by quickly. Before i realized it, i was a few bars from 100 and wondering where the time went.

The questing in Draenor was infinitely more interesting and fun than it ever was in Pandaria. I'm not sure if the flow was better or if getting ten levels felt more rewarding than five, but it just seemed to surpass MoP in every way imaginable. I'm sure the garrisons had a lot to do with it. I'm quite enjoying that as well despite their lack of customization. The resource hunt continues as i push on to level three.

The Battle for Shattrath was amazing and that's all i'm going to say.

Well it's been a few days now since WoD went live and I've managed a total of three hours of playtime. Much like everyone else, I've been playing the queue game, as i am right now. Currently sitting at over 5000 and not getting anywhere fast. This being my first expansion, i have no point of reference as far as how bad it is compared to previous expansions. All i can say is it's pretty bad compared to previous MMO's I've played. At the same time, all the MMO's I've played combined never had a player base as large as WoW. I fully expected a mess trying to log in but i understand why people are upset.

Find the NPC!

My "launch" time consisted of waiting around a huge pile of players for an NPC to spawn. The second 3 am rolled around, my game crashed and the queue game began. Despite telling myself not to stay up, i did it anyway. Well i wasn't able to get back on until a day later and then Blizz took the servers down just as i did.They knew. They specifically waited for me! That's what i'll tell myself.

The only thing i actually managed to get done while actually in game was hit 91 and get by garrison built. Speaking of which, why are Horde garrisons so ugly? Does the Horde not have any stone masons? You'd think with all their emphasis on war and fighting, someone would realize stones make for better defenses than huts and animal husks. Step up your architecture game.


That's pretty much where I've been for two days now. I'm hoping they fix this nonsense so i can get back to leveling. The little I've seen, I've actually enjoyed. Aha! I'm on to your schemes Blizzard. You've planned this mess so people want to play more. Joking aside, hopefully this next reset fixes all the issues and everyone can get back and enjoying the expansion.

I can stop the mount posts right now with this one. It's mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned. Oh who am i kidding, i still want the green one since it's the reason i started this journey. Pureblood Fire Hawk will have to tide me over until i actually manage to get the green version as some point way in the future.

It really is a beautiful looking mount and i like it much better than the purple version but i think that has more to do with rarity than anything else. I've had an incredible few weeks as far as rare mounts go but i fear I've used up all my luck for a while. Nothing i can do but keep pushing towards my 250 goal with only 200 more to go. Ugh!

I'm happy to say i no longer have to make the trek out to Malygos anymore. A couple weeks after getting the Azure Drake mount to drop, i was lucky enough to get the Blue Drake as well. I hadn't planned on even going for it until i took quick glance and noticed i was missing the 25-man achievement for this fight. Well as the RNG Gods have stated, drops will occur when one is either not really looking for them or barely paying attention to them. I was there just to grab a quick achievement and was super surprised when i checked the loot pool. MountQuest continues.

It's been almost five years since I've played a tank in any capacity in an MMO. I used to tank on my Ninja and Paladin all the time in FFXI. Many times, much to the dismay of my other tanks, i enjoyed tanking on my dps Warrior as well. FFXI had to be the only MMO in the world where Warrior wasn't a dedicated tank class despite having the only taunt in the game. Everyone used it as a subclass and left the real tanking to the other two classes.

Once i finally said goodbye to that game, i tried tanking in Aion and it was terrible. The concept of threat as an entire group mechanic was foreign to the players i grouped with. So much so that it put me off to ever tanking again once i moved on to Rift, The Old Republic, and then GW2. I pretty much switched to a dps only mindset since i have not and will not ever play a healer. I like seeing the action and not staring at health bars. The dedicated healers out there have my respect but that play style is just not in my make up.

As i began playing WoW almost a year ago now, i realized just how bad most tanks were. I'm not talking about the ones that main tank for their guilds and have experience. I'm talking about the ones that decide to level a tank just to level one. Those instant queues are pretty enticing so understand why they do it but how they do it is just downright painful to me.

I've had tanks in dungeons that were not even in the correct tanking stance and preceded to yell at the healer and the dps for either taking threat or not keeping them alive. Then there are the ones that did't know the basics such as turning the mobs away from the group. While i understand there's no need to while leveling in dungeons, it forms bad habits for later on. I've witnessed these same habits wipe groups in LFR and even normals.

The overwhelming theme of most tanks i group with seems to be a lack of situational and group awareness. They think that as long as they stay alive, their job is done. They never question whether they're positioned in line of sight of the healer or if mobs are in a good spot for dps to do their thing. They never look at the group make up to see if it would be better to slow down so casters can actually get a cast off before pulling mobs out of range. I'm not even going to get into the holier than thou attitude most tanks seem to have. Those instant queues really inflate their heads.

Since i decided to level a Warrior alt, i figured i'd stop complaining about tanks and actually play one again. I couldn't stomach spamming dungeons with ego maniacs or knucklehead tanks again so i went Protection. I'm not going to lie, i was pretty rusty the first few dungeons but i think that was more due to playing a new class than anything. The basics haven't left me as far as i could tell. It can only get easier right?

The first dungeon i had pop up once i hit 15 was Ragefire Chasm, which i had never run before. The only issue i did run into was something that i imagine is pretty common. Of course i mean Hunters and their damn taunt happy pets. Well i say go right ahead and taunt away! I don't mind at all. My newbie tank journey is on its way. Hopefully i don't embarrass myself.

For the past few months, I've been farming Firelands in hopes that Rangaros drops his amazing mount. It's by far my favorite flying mount and it's not even close. Well i suppose i shouldn't say that since the 250 mount achievement drops a green fire version of the same mount and i love me some green fire. Regardless, it's an amazing looking mount and I've been after if for a short bit.

I wasn't really contemplating doing the achievements in Firelands until i realized the reward was a purple version of basically the same mount. I'm a dummy for not realizing sooner i suppose but whatever. I saw it and i had to have it. The only achievement holding me back was the one i couldn't solo. Only the Penitent... required six players and since i'm in a guild of one basically, it proved to be tougher than imagined.

Well good thing the new group finder is absolutely amazing. Finding five other players needing the same achievement was easy peasy and we were on our way. The only semi annoying aspect was finding players on the same boss so there was no instance/phasing issue but that went pretty quickly as well. After a few trial runs to get our timing down, we all had a fancy new mount. Rangaros, you're next.

Pretty fun little achievement at the Darkmoon Faire for a toy box item that gives you fiery wings that lasts an hour with an hour cooldown.  It involved flying through 50 rings laid out all over and above the camp grounds, much like the Alysrazor fight in Firelands. The trick was to make it to the next ring before the flight buff you get for flying through them runs out. Sounded simple enough.

Well there was a bug earlier in the week that made the rings shared by every player attempting to get the achievement.  I of course had no idea this was going on and was pulling my hair out in frustration over failing at what seemed like a simple and fun event.  Once the servers restarted and fixed the problem i managed to get a pretty good number of attempts in before finally getting it done.  A few runs that had me sitting at 49 with no rings in sight drove me bonkers though.  Now i can say i'm on fire.

It's amazing all the stuff one can learn when they're a relative newbie to WoW.  Just as the Halloween event ended, and it ended with me coming up 10 candies short of the Lich King outfit, a new one began that i had never heard of before.  A freaking carnival event with rides and games?  Sign me up.

While carnivals/fairs sort of freak me out now at my age,  when i was a kid i absolutely loved them.  They had a creepy Halloween vibe to them which i loved since it's always been my favorite time of year. Darkmoon Faire is no different.  Time to buy a pocket full of tickets and see what kind of trouble i can get into.

The next task on my agenda was to level a Warrior.  I'd been putting it off for a bit mostly due to my reluctance to play one because of my DK.  They don't get along with each other, much like Dark Knights and Dragoons didn't like each other during my FFXI days.  One was always trying to outdo the other and take their spot in the group/raid.  My fear was that once i finished it, my DK would become obsolete since Warrior brings more to the table so to speak.

I said screw it and rolled a Protection Warrior.  This time though it's on the Alliance side.  My first character not Horde since my first ever character still sitting at 55.  I'd been contemplating switching factions for a while now since i really missed being human, so i figured i may as well level my next alt from scratch on that side.  Let me tell you, Protection Warrior is infinitely more fun than Blood DK since the ability pruning occurred.  Everything about it feels better to me.  Not to say Blood DK is bad but it's just lacking that something.

Previous Shield

Now, one does not level as a non DK tank without a good looking shield transmog.  What better shield for low levels than the amazing Hulking Shield of course.  I call it the mini Bulwark of Azzinoth, which everyone and their mother uses at max level for their skin.  Ironically i plan to change that once level capped, but that's another story.  Now on the auction house it would have cost me 1700 gold which was 1700 more than i had! It was time to farm myself a dungeon.

Awesome Tabard Credit Goes to Montee's Daughter!

According to multiple sources, my shield of choice had the best drop chance within Blackfathom Deeps.  It was a dungeon i was leveling in anyway so i figured i'd just spam it for as long as it took to acquire.  Well after a dozen or so runs i grew quite bored and decided to attempt to solo the run to save some time.  This was accomplished by skipping a few bosses and going straight for all the mobs known to drop the shield.  Obviously i didn't want to do this in an exp party as that would inevitably annoy everyone.

I wasn't even sure if i could solo the dungeon since i was at that point only level 30 and still withing ten levels of the actual mobs.  Then i was reminded how ridiculously easy all the heirloom gear and enchants made most content.  I breezed through the dungeon while only really being on the verge of death on one particular situation where i got lazy and decided not to move from an ability.  Other than that it went pretty smooth.

New Shield

Well after six entire level i managed to ding 36 and still had no drop.  The mobs stopped giving me exp at that point so it was time to bail.  While it seemed i wasted my time, i managed to get myself to the proper level to do a quest to obtain Spiritual Barrier, which had the exact same model as the shield i was farming.  Perhaps i should have done that all along, but then i'd have never attempted to solo, which turned out to be a lot of fun. I even recorded the fun in glorious 60 fps.  So buttery smooth.