Category Archives: BA Shared Topic

The lovely Amerence of Amerence Love WoW is hosting the Blog Azeroth Thanksgiving Event this year. The event is a way for bloggers to share some link love and give thanks to those who they feel have inspired them or helped them throughout the year.

And so, without further ado, I’d like to hand out my own thank yous.

Thank You, Alas for writing about the kinds of things we all think about but don’t always dare to. I always enjoyed reading about the troubles you had with your guild in the past (and could chime in having had similar problems in the past myself). Lately I’ve followed the journey of your officer-less guild with interest.

Thank You, Liala for being the pillar of the community that I feel you are. Your comics and artwork bring joy to many (even if some would apparently like to steal it!), and it allowed me to dare to make my own (even if not nearly as well!).

Thank You, Kimzowy for allowing me to be a crappy Paladin healer in your guild once a week. And even more so, thank you for being my sounding board and someone I can vent to about all things WoW (and other things).

A special Thank You to my blog readers, as well as all of the blog writers out there. The community is what makes it worth writing and keeping a blog.

To finish it all off, here’s my Warlock’s very own attempts at trying to give thanks during Pilgrim’s Bounty. (Click for full size.)

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This week’s Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth was suggested by yours truly!

The WoW in-game music is awesome, but there are times (at least for me) when I’m listening to my own music instead. Are there any specific songs that you connect with WoW? Whether it’s tied to your own characters in some way or simply because it reminds you of WoW. Please share!

There are a few songs out there that make me think of WoW anytime that I hear them. Usually because I heard them while levelling a specific character or when fighting a certain boss. Or perhaps it was part of a machinima that I really liked.

A lot of the music I have/listen to are things that either happened to play on the radio (or in my case, more often the Top List on Spotify) or a friend sent me to listen to.

Song 1: Sugar We’re Going Down by Fall Out Boy

When I first started playing WoW my sister had just sent me a few songs to listen to, and since I’m lazy they just kept going on repeat on my media player. Since then, whenever I hear this song I think of my first Undead Priest, Braithe, when she was running around in Silverpine Forest.

Song 2: Shut Your Mouth by Pain

When I gave up on the Priest I started playing an Undead Rogue (ironically named Saint), and I always considered this song to be the Rogue song. I believe it also appeared on many rogue PvP videos of the era, which probably contributed to the feeling.

Song 3: Big Blue Dress by Cranius

This isn’t an “actual” song from a proper band of course, but you have no idea how many times I’ve had this song going in the background when playing WoW. It made me want to roll a Mage! And I’m a Warlock! Why would I ever want to be a Mage??

Other songs that make me think of WoW are ones that I myself have used for my guild’s boss kill videos. Below is a list of some of them.

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring
Toreador II – Apocalyptica
Almost Easy – Avenged Sevenfold (I used quite a few of their songs to be fair)
Ghost Opera – Kamelot
Ice Queen – Within Temptation
Fleurs du Mal – Sarah Brightman
The Quiet Place – In Flames
This is War – 30 Seconds to Mars

This is my current Spotify playlist (very seldom updated!)

What is your WoW Soundtrack?

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This week’s Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth was suggested to us by Essence over at Gamer Girl Confessions.

Inspired by Kalixta’s WoW Recipe IRL topic and the “World of Warcrafts” column over at WoW Insider, I started wondering, how many people are into making WoW-like things in real life? Not just food, though food could count too. But how many people create pottery inspired by WoW? Or wigs, or costumes inspired by WoW? Or even knit or sew things relating to WoW? Or are you a fan artist with pen and paper or pastels or clay? How about Machinmas? Comics? Stories?

Is there WoW inspiration in your life? Do you wear it proudly? Do you make it? Are you interested in it? This could go lots of ways–share what you make, or link to creations you’re fond of!

I dabble in quite a few things, not because I’m really any good at either of them, but because I enjoy it. I strongly believe that if you enjoy something, you should do it – whether you’re good at it or not – because it’s all about having fun and doing what you like.

It’s been quite some time since I did anything new though, which is sad. There just haven’t been neither time nor energy, but I hope that I can start again because I have several things I’d like to do.

Without further ado, here are the warcrafts that I dabble in.

Drawing

I really enjoy drawing even if I’m not very good at it. This is definitely one of those things I’d like to get back to. I have a whole series of drawings that I started, but haven’t finished, of some of my characters in a similar style.

This is an old drawing I did of a friend’s draenei. The scanner removed a lot of the shadowing unfortunately (I seriously abuse the little smudge things when I draw).

Draenei

Movies

I also played around a bit with Fraps and recorded quite a few of my guild’s kills in TBC and some in Wrath. I haven’t done any in Cataclysm though, but I’m considering starting again because it’s a lot of fun to go back and look at those videos a few years down the line.

My movies are very basic though, and the quality is horrible because I couldn’t record at a very high setting. Not to mention that Youtube likes to strip them of any music I put on there!

The only thing I have on Youtube that seems to work in most (not all, but most) countries is this silly movie I made to tease a friend. She stopped playing WoW and since we’d been levelling together I wanted to show her how very lonely and sad my new Hunter was without her. And how much she died in PvP without her…

It’s bad quality, and fairly boring – but oh well.. I’m mainly proud of the old quality “flashbacks”, since that was something new I learned. The rest is just my Hunter walking around being sad in some of my favourite landscapes (so lots and lots of Nagrand!).

Comics

There’s also my little comic Curse of Fail, which I’ve failed to continue. I really should try to get back to it.

Gnomes are SCARY

Writing

There’s obviously this blog which I guess one could say is a craft thing.

I started a fanfiction starring my Warlock at one point, but it’s not finished (probably because I’m not writing on it.. hmm..). I do have a finished story about my Warlock’s origins, but I’ve not put it up anywhere since I was thinking to let her background show in flashbacks in the new story.

Then again, since the new story doesn’t seem to be happening, maybe I should just post her origins story here one day. I’m not sure it’d really be any point to it though, since I’m not an RP-er and this blog generally doesn’t hold any fiction writing.

I do find it interesting in a way that my Warlock has such a pronounced story and personality in my head, despite me never having Role-Player with her.

So, that was my failing warcrafts. Do you do anything crafty when it comes to WoW? (And with crafty I don’t mean hiding in a bush, and jumping out to backstab unsuspecting Warlocks. You hear me Rogues?!)

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This week’s Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth was suggested to us by Martha over at Perish Twice.

While there are some quests that specifically call for grouping, most don’t… but do you group anyway? How many of you pick up a friend or guildie to quest with and how many grind the lonely roads alone?

I find that these days you can do most of the group quests alone, except for maybe one or two while levelling. It depends a little bit on your class, but most classes seem able to solo the group quest by now (I suspect thanks to heirlooms).

A lot of times I end up leveling alone, because others may either not be leveling anything at the moment or they’re at a different level to me. I’m in raiding guilds on both my Horde characters and Alliance characters – and while people do level new toons now and then, I suspect it’s not something you see as often as in a pure levelling guild.

That being said though, I actually really enjoy levelling together with someone! Maybe not all the time, but I like sometimes having a character or two that I level with a friend. It makes for a nice change in pace to the normally lonely levelling that I do.

The rare occasions when several people are levelling at the same time are one of my favourites. When you can go with three or more people and do dungeons at lower levels. You’ll still get a few random players – but not a full group of them.

And isn’t it always more fun to play together?

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This week’s Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth was suggested to us by Dragonray over at Azerothian Life.

What kind of guild environment do you like?

From this I am referring to whether you like a quiet guild or a chatty guild – is there a happy medium? I have noticed that the guild I have joined never says anything in guild chat and you really have to push them to chat?

See, for me being in a guild is an important part of my WoW experience. I realise that there are players out there who are happy to play solo and not raid, and I think everyone should play the way that works for them.

For me, I need to be in a guild because I hate pugging and I enjoy being able to grab people and do a Heroic.

So, what kind of guild do I want?

I want a raiding guild of course, but I also like the guild to be somewhat friendly and chatty. If I’m just hanging around in Stormwind or farming herbs/ores it’s nice to be able to chat to other people in the guild.

Other times I’ll admit that I focus on what I’m doing and I may not be so chatty. I spend quite a bit of time on Ventrilo and so I sometimes chat even while doing things that may not allow me to keep trach of the guild chat in game.

I like to be able to have fun with my guildies, but buckle up and play properly when we need to during raids. It’s important to me that it’s a mixture of fun and serious raiding – I don’t think I could deal with being too serious or too relaxed.

What kind of guild suits you best?

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Spinks over at BlogAzeroth suggested the following Shared Topic for this week.

Cataclysm is coming! The old world is going to be destroyed and remade.
Which town, quest, NPC, or zone really needs to be purged with fire, in your opinion? Will you enjoy dancing on the ashes of a particularly hated quest giver? Or is there some zone you avoid like the plague (plaguelands excluded) where being nuked from orbit could only improve the experience? And why do you hate it/them so much?

Personally, I nominate Gnomeregan (the instance). I know we’re having this whole re-capturing (and losing it again?) of Gnomeregan soon, but as far as I’m concerned we could just as well drop some bombs on the place and watch as it lights up in flames. Has anyone heard what will become of Gnomeregan in Cataclysm? Will it still be this horrible instance or will the gnomes get it back (so we can kick them out of Ironforge for good!) and it will become an actual hometown?

Burn Burn BURN

In any case – I absolutely loathe this instance. You’d think I’d love it for the sake of getting to kill gnomes – but not even that makes it an enjoyable experience for me. (One day I will explain my gnome-hatred, I promise.) It is too long. Too cluttered. And too friggin confusing.

Seriously, has anyone been in there and not gotten lost? At least once. I know I haven’t. I’m always having to check my map and double-check that I didn’t miss a boss or something.

A lot of instances are long, and annoying – but I think none of them are quite as annoying as Gnomeregan. At least not to me. So by all means – let Gnomeregan burn. If you want me to take part in its recapture – don’t trust me not to bring my matches! If we fail (and I suspect we do, at least for the time being – maybe I’m the reason *maniac laughter*).

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I’m a new member over at Blog Azeroth and I discovered this really neat thing they do of having a Shared Topic. This week it was suggested by Guthammer to write about Levelling from 1-10, and I wanted to give it a try. Especially since I’ve never done the Shared Topic before.

A while ago Blizzard came out with the stat that 70% of its accounts don’t ever make it past level 10. While I am sure that Blizzard can put in some great analysis of their game, I am also sure that they would love to hear more player feedback on the new level experience.

I can very well imagine someone who is completely fresh to the game logging on and not quite understanding what to do. I know when I first started playing (seems like ages ago now) I felt lucky that I had my brother there to poke and ask questions. Previously I’d never really played anything since Baldur’s Gate, so this was quite different.

WoW has gotten easier since I first started though, and I think some of the changes for low level characters are really good. The help tips were always there of course, and I think they need to be there for the new player. (If you’re not a new player or you think you can do without them, you can always disable them). I even think they may have been somewhat improved too.

The lack of low level skills for certain classes I don’t believe is as big of a problem to newbies as it is for someone who has been around the block a few times. If you’re used to being a level 80 with a multitude of skills to juggle, suddenly having 2 or god forbid(!) only 1 seems like much too few. In fact I’d be curious to find out if the new changes to lower levels have made people stick to the characters longer.

However, while the levelling experience from 1-5 (or possibly 6 depending on when you leave your first area) is much better than before.. Like how they removed aggressive mobs in the very first start zone. I think a lot of people run into trouble in the next few levels. If we take Elwynn Forest as an example.. once you leave your starting area and head to Goldshire you are suddenly sent on quests far and wide across the zone – something which seems daunting to a lower level for sure.

While you have the new quest helper to show you where to go, you have to actually run all the way there – spending precious new playtime just running instead of doing something useful – like questing! I also find that some of the quests from level 5-10 are quite difficult. Simply because of the fact that there are too many aggressive mobs close to each other and they all aggro.

Take the Goldmines for example. How many times do you manage to pull 1 tunnel rat? In the hallways it’s usually okay, but the rooms are simply flooded with them. Not to mention the murlocs. Oh dear god, I swear I die at least once every single time I have to do the quest where you find the guard’s corpse. Murlocs seem to assist each other more and have a larger aggro range than any other mob in the entire Elwynn Forest!

I think that if Blizzard wants to keep people playing to level 10 (and beyond) – they need to improve the gamplay a bit more past level 5 as well. Because anyone who is not a healer will not survive multiple mobs at that level, no dps class has yet received their survival cooldowns and you’re pretty much toast if too many murlocs come running at you.

Obviously I don’t want it to be too easy, but I think new players need more than just 5 levels to ease into the game. Don’t remove aggressive mobs – just make slightly fewer of them so that you don’t get ganged up on by 4 angry murlocs.

Aaah! They hurt! Get them off me!

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