Tag: blog azeroth shared topic

BA Shared Topic: What spell would I most want?

Boomkins on dragons forever!

This week’s blog Azeroth shared topic asks: “What spell would you most want?” It was inspired by the fact that in the upcoming Mist of Pandaria expansion, Druids will be getting a new spell
called Symbiosis, which will allow them to “trade” a spell with another
player, based on the player’s class and combat role and the Druid’s
specialization.

This one was a no brainer for me– I’ll be crossing my fingers that I always have a shadow priest in my party so I can borrow their Mind Sear. Now, its tooltip doesn’t make it sound like all that: “Causes an explosion of shadow magic around the target, causing 152 to 163 (+ 15% of SpellPower) Shadow damage every 1 sec for 5 sec to all enemies within 10 yards around the target.” But what it DOESN’T MENTION is that you do, in fact, create a shadowy purple explosion of damage in a large circle around your intended victim. Purpley bolts of doom for everyone!

When I play my boomkin, it’s always the mind sear button I try to reach for, from the many hours of shadow priesting and the joy that spell has brought me in so many dungeons and raids and city leader strikes. If my druid had it in her arsenal, it would be her go-to AOE spell. And her targets would never see it coming…

What about you? What spell would you seek out?

Autoblogography

I snuck in just under the wire for this week’s Blog Azeroth Shared topic: writing your blog’s autobiography. The results can be seen in the shiny new About Me page now part of the site header. Thanks to Ophelie at Bossy Pally for suggesting the topic!

It’s pretty funny that it took me over two years to finally get that written. I blame all the vanity pets in need of acquiring and profession lists that needed to be created for waylaying me. Wouldn’t you?

Nothing more to see here. Logging back in to WoW to earn some more fabulously cheap and easy cooking achievements on my alts thanks to the Pilgrim’s Bounty holiday.

What WoW Has Taught Me

Thank you Blog Azeroth for this shared topic, as suggested by Six-Inch Heals. I've been turning this over in my mind for a while now trying to figure out how to tackle it, and somehow ended up a day late. My bad. But here goes.

First and Foremost, I've Learned a Lot About People

First, the good:

  • I've seen how people can come together and really make things happen, due to a shared passion (the game)
  • I've seen people come up with creative solutions to a variety of in-game and meta-game issues
  • I've seen people put aside their RL political and socioeconomic differences and get things done together
  • I've met people from across the country (and this continent) whom I would have had almost no chance of meeting through any other means
  • I've forged casual acquaintances with some amazing people that I spoke to almost daily for years, talking not just about what I was up to in game, but also about the things that mattered to me IRL

But there has also been the bad:

  • I've had to listen to boorish political arguments set forth by those who are unaffected by the issue and thus have no stakes in them (see especially gender politics)
  • I've had what I thought were friendships that extended outside of the game crumble like sugar eggs the week after Easter
  • I've seen hard work for naught, when poor leadership has allowed bad apples to ruin the guild cart
  • I have seen some of the absolutely worst, nasty, back-stabbing behavior I've ever seen outside of daytime dramas, over pixels and in-game power

I've Learned How to Better Deal with People IRL

  • I've learned how to motivate performance long-distance
  • I've learned how to detect all manner of non-visual cues as to something being up with persons I work on projects with virtually
  • I've learned how to work towards a common goal, even when paired with people I don't personally like
  • I've learned more about what motivates achievement for a variety of folks whose situation and motivation are outside of my personal frame of reference.
  • I've gotten much experience in teamwork — both in assembling and managing teams

I've Also Learned a Lot About Myself

  • I've learned what my deal breakers are for friendships and for collaborations
  • I'm better able to articulate my concerns with people/situations
  • I've built upon my teamwork and collaboration skills, without burning any social currency at work to do so
  • I've learned that I truly thrive and am happiest when I am in a functional, thriving collaborative team of some sort, regardless of if I am leading it, or just one of the team

People may think of World of Warcraft as just another video game, but due to the intrinsic social collaboration model it employs, it really is so much more than that. Overall, not a bad investment of time to have gotten so much more out of it than just some sparkly pixels.

Friday Five: 5 Things That Need to Die in a Fire in Cataclysm

Another Friday, another Friday Five inspired by the creative folks at blog azeroth's shared topics. Thanks to Spinks for this one!

  1. I hope the flooding in Hillsbrad drowns those headless murlocs. I curse you oh headless murlocs!!
  2. I'd like to rid all of Azeroth of grouped mobs in teams of 3 or more. They are the bane of the lowbie experience.I swear my voidwalker found every such group as he dragged his to-be-attacked mob as far away from me as possible throughout my travels in Westfall.
  3. Stonetalon Mountains, one of the most annoying zones to traverse, you will happily be dying in a fire!
  4. That goes double for you Desolace! Poorly placed flightpaths, and annoyingly spaced out quests. This zone has long needed a makeover.
  5. Barrens Chat. Please let Cataclysm kill Barrens chat, and please let it not just slide on over to Orgrimarr!

On the flipside of this though, I have 5 Things I Hope DON'T Get Wiped Out by Cataclysm:

  1. Deep Ocean, Vast Sea. Every single time I've done this quest, I sing the Peter Murphy song after which it's named. And then I have myself a fabulously moody time wandering the coastline.
  2. All my horde characters have gone to help Ahab Wheathoof find his dog. Read up if you don't know the story behind his quest. It's one of the sweetest in-game tributes Blizzard has done for a (now deceased) player. Adding in Elder Ezra Wheathoof for the Lunar Fest this past year totally teared me up.
  3. Nat Pagle better not lose his little fishing spot. Because that would be a bummer for all us fisherpeople.
  4. I only completed the In Dreams quest once or twice (now we level so fast I don't even scratch the surface of that quest chain), but it was one of my favorites, and I will be bummed to see it lost.
  5. I often feel like I am one of the few folks who loves to quest through the Plaguelands. One of my most favorite quest chains there starts when you enter a creepy old house and encounter the ghost of Janice Felstone. I love the stories of the quest chains out there, and how they tie in to the Scholomance and Stratholme instances as well. I will miss them terribly.

Who or what would YOU nominate to die in a Cataclysm fire?

Friday Five: 5 Ways I’m Getting Ready for Cataclysm

Today's Friday Five inspired by the Blog Azeroth Shared Topic suggested by Nexdominus.

  1. With the help of guildies and some awesome WoW tweeps, I made myself a fancy bank alt guild. It also doubles as a place my Alliance friends can come hang out on new lowbie hordlings. We've got candy! And cobra pets in the bank! You know you want to reroll!
  2. I'm making myself some bags for my goblin hunter. And trying to decide what profession she'll have. I still lack a Blacksmith so that's tempting. 
  3. I've been looking into friendly places to make my worgens since I'm not sure how active my Alliance server/guild will be in the expansion. Right now it seems my entire Alliance guild (those that are left here) are on hiatus. And the server as a whole doesn't seem to be as active as my horde server is. WTB Alliance server!
  4. I cleaned out my bags across all my characters. Even the ones I don't play on my old horde server. Leveling=need moar room in bags! 
  5. Last and most expensively, I am working on maxing out all of my professions. Yes, if history is repeated, they will add some easier skill up recipes in the expansion to get folks past the last 25 or so points of their profession. But that will cost new materials that I know I will want to be spending on learning shiny new skill points above 450!

BONUS: As previously noted herein, I completed my motorbike tour of Azeroth, thus earning the World Explorer achievement. Those screenshots will get to go in the scrapbook of memories once things are torn asunder.

How about you? What're you doing to get prepared for Cataclysm?

Old World Motorcycle Road Trip

Inspired by this week’s Blog Azeroth shared topic, suggested by Jaedia, I went on a bit of a road trip this week.

shadow priest on motorcycle, Tanaris

I headed out from Gadgetzan, following a rumor that there had been some old God activity in the Uldum area.

Continue reading “Old World Motorcycle Road Trip”

Would you post a link to your blog on your main’s armory profile?

@Anea, from Oh Look, an Alt posed this question in Blog Azeroth's Shared Topics this week: "If you were given the option, would you post a link to your blog on your
main's armory profile?"

To me, this is closely related to how widely do you disclose to your guild that you have a blog. If you're someone like Matt from World of Matticus, there's no way to get around it. You run the guild, and everyone knows about your blog. In fact, many of your members may have even joined because of it.

But Matt's case is an outlier I'd guess. Most of us folks who blog about WoW are not Internet famous. We're just folks who play WoW and love to write, and share screenshots or fiction or what have you with other like-minded folks via our blogs.

Some of my guildies know that I have a blog, as do all my Officer colleagues. Ditto for my twitter account. I don't have a link to my blog in my signature file, because I like to point to our raid logs instead, since that is something I want more folks to go peek at. I maintain my craftables lists on my blog, linked out to from our forums, and on a couple of occasions, other guildies have mentioned my blog and tossed out a link to it.

But it just doesn't feel right to promote my blog or specific blog posts in our forums. I feel that those who are interested in what I have to say will make their way here. Similarly, in answer to Anea, no, I don't think I'd include a link to my blog from my armory profile were that option available.

I would be concerned that were I to have a link to my blog in my armory, my SPAM comment load would increase. I would expect gold farm spammers to harvest those links and post malicious links more often. I'd also expect crazy comments from fail PUG members, or from declined guild applicants to be on the uptick for folks. Mostly though, I don't see that it would cause an increase in good conversation on the blog due to the reasons folks look you up in armory (from grouping with you or inspecting your gear) don't seem to usually match up with why folks make their way to my blog (because they are interested in raid topics or shadow priesting.)

All this said, I am hoping that the new Battlenet allows for creating a user profile, that you can control privacy levels on, so that you can share your contact information, including blog links, IM clients, twitter IDs, toon names across forums, etc.) with friends who you choose to grant that access to. I miss some of my Alliance buddies that I almost never get to see and would love to have an easy way to drop them a note or keep up with what they're doing. A facebook style update feed for those folks, that I could comment on, would rock!