Stand By Your Man

Since I really lack anything interesting to say today and I was reminded of this historical moment in my gaming life, I thought I would take some time out to share.

This little video was made back in 2002 when Keste and I were still just dating. We were both playing Dark Age of Camelot and the expansion Shrouded Isles had just launched. We took the day to just run around like ninnies and explore the new areas.

Keste was a multi-boxer back in the day so you'll see 4 characters in the video but it's only just us two. I'm the little human looking one. Keste's character was a "Hero" (think WoW warrior) and his little followers were both healers. I was a bard and could also heal.

Keste saw these purple conned trees (think WoW elites) and wanted to attack them for fun. I really preferred to keep running around but he pulled them anyway. Now what the video does not show is me in the back healing like a mad woman trying to keep him alive. The camera spins around just in time to see me call the encounter a wash and run away so I could come back and rez his stupid butt. He of coursed added the music for comedic effect which if you ask me is timed perfectly.

It was a long time ago but it's a fun old memory. The jokes of my "running away" skills still comes up every so often when we hang out with our old DAoC friends.

WoW Player Calendar

Our guild used to use Group Calendar like I think many guilds did. I was really excited for the new calendar. I realize that some people are still hooked on Group Calendar and while I liked some of the features I'm more excited about having a built in system to control it.

WoW Calendar Pros:

• Everyone has it by default. We had some people who just refused to use add ons and made organizing raids, dungeons or anything scheduled a pain in the tookas. The main excuse being they didn't know when a raid was or when it started. Now there's no excuses.
• They added it to the armory! I can view our schedule and accept events while not in game!
• It isn't limited to the guild. We can invite our friends guilded or not to join in our events. We tried using a shared channel in the past on Group Calendar and our calendar just got flooded with stupidness by RP haters. We were forced to keep it to ourselves.

WoW Calendar Cons:

• You can only invite 100 people. What the heck! If I'm doing some roleplay event I am not going to say "sorry we have 100 people here, please leave". Or what about guild meetings where we want everyone to attend? This limit needs to be adjusted. We're not even a large guild and I can see this being an issue.
• Setting the event owner able to confirm or decline an accepted invitee would be nice. If we're doing a dungeon and 9 mages show up, someone is going to get the axe. Right now it just accepts anyone who clicks yes.
• Standby option would be nice. If I notice they have enough mages I'd like the chance to put myself on standby in case one of them doesn't show.

I've only made a few events since this new feature was added so I'm sure I could be missing pros and cons but this is my personal experience. It's had a few glitches especially since the last patch but overall I'm happy to have this in game.

Group Calendar was good but it took long to update sometimes and other times it wouldn't display events on everyone's calendar. It was sort of hit and miss sometimes but it was all we had so we were happy to have it! I think for the most part a lot of the issues were user problems and not the mod's fault. Thank you developers of Group Calendar! Your great idea is now being distributed to everyone!

The calendar has been the voice of some confusion of late and I am putting here a call for help. If anyone has a post or a link to a description of how to use the calendar properly that I can share with the guild I would appreciate it immensely! Anyway to get people better accustomed to using this feature would be helpful.

The Hallowed

All my persistence at doing the Hallow's End achievements have paid off. With the new patch yesterday I was able to receive my new title: "Desdarii the Hallowed". I'm glad they removed the mask achievement. I was trying like heck and I did get 10 of the 20 required masks but there was no way I was going to be able to complete that.

The hardest part was probably my squashling. I was getting quite worried I wasn't going to get that and only did acquire it a day or two before the event ended. What was irritating was right after getting my squashling from the horseman an innkeeper gave me one for trick or treat.

Second hardest was the Rotten Hollow achievement since it depended on Horde coming to Southshore so I could complete the task. I spent quite a bit of time hanging around Southshore before I was lucky enough to clean up a stink bomb. I never even saw the Hordie who threw it but I love you little Hordie!

The thing that stinks about it was the inability to share items. Keste didn't get any toothpicks the entire time. I got stacks of the darn things but they were soulbound and I couldn't share them so he missed out on that piece.

From what I heard what most people missed out on was the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement. A lot of my friends don't spend any time with PvP. I know I had to force myself into battlegrounds to finish it. Funny enough I found it easier to get a bunch of G.N.E.R.D. kills in Warsong Gulch than any other BG. Luckily I enjoy WSG! I know. I'm weird.

Setting Aside Desdarii?

It is tempting with the expansion to switch mains and move forward with a different character. I have to say it's an idea I've tossed around more and more since the 3.0.x patches came out. I have re-specced several times and I'm doing ok damage but I'm just not really having a whole lot of fun lately.

I've considered the reasons this may be:

1. The dungeons are quite a bit easier.

Our raid has moved on to ZA but we still do Karazhan and we can get the dungeons completed in one night a piece. We used to spend at least 2 days to knock out everything in Karazhan alone and were still kind of scared of ZA. We blast through Karazhan just AoE tanking everything.

I will admit this was SUPER fun at first. Getting through a raid dungeon in one night was very satisfying. But just flying through without much of a worry has gotten a bit old. We were able to finish a Heroic yesterday with 4 people when someone crashed last night.

I think a challenge is needed to keep things fun.

2. I really can't find a spec I enjoy.

I've re-specced several times now and like I already mentioned I'm doing fine, just not what I feel a pure DPS class should do. This could all completely be user error and I could be doing it all wrong. I don't claim to be any mage expert. I mostly like to dress up and dance around. When called upon I can smash buttons to make pretty effects that hurt monsters.

I'm currently trying a fire spec with a splash of arcane in for support. It was sort of hard to gauge how well it performed in Karazhan since all we did was AoE our way through it and I had some sort of issue with living during boss fights. I only died during two, but it was irritating.

I have some pretty darn good gear for my play style and still I'm just feel like I'm lacking in performance. When I died early on in a fight yesterday the boss still died very quickly. My contribution wasn't missed at all. This could all because of #1 and the dungeons being too easy but it's not really a good feeling to not be needed.

3. I'm just bleh and tired in RL

Seriously all I want to do all day is sleep. Keste's little bear cub is sucking all my energy and making me want to hibernate. I'm grumpy and whiny when tired and it could be contributing to my being so bored and annoyed with my mage. I think, "Sheesh I'm barely helping kill these things. Maybe my time would of been better spent sleeping since they wouldn't miss me."

I continue to show up because I like my team quite a bit and don't want them scrounging around for a replacement at the last minute. They are a fun team and worth the company.

So what would I play if I did shelf Desdarii?

I haven't decided really. I may fall in love with Desdarii all over again when Wrath does get here. I do have other possibilities I am kicking around though.

I have Goldy, my priestess, and I had planned to respec her to shadow for leveling in Wrath. I do love to melt faces with shadow priests. It could be good fun to be DPS but able to switch to a healing spec when required. Makes me feel a little more versatile than "Shall I hit the monster with a blue bolt or a red bolt?"

I also have my secret druid that is only a few levels shy of 70 at this point that I could move forward with. I was thinking a Balance/Resto hybrid so I could possibly take on a healing roll in the new dungeons if required. And talk about versatile! Druids can do everything! I have always been really horrible at melee range fighting though. /blush

I know I'm not the only one kicking around this idea either. The new expansion is the perfect opportunity to swap characters and play one you really enjoy. Everyone will be on similar leveling playing field and you won't feel like you have all this catching up to do. Keste has considered switching to his little warrior though I don't think it is likely. He loves his druid. He may be just experiencing the same "waiting for expansion" lulls I am.

It's not a done deal. Just something I'm kicking around in the back of my mind. Only things that would be a big snag for me is 1) I love teleporting all over the world in seconds and 2) Dang it I've done a lot of achievements on Desdarii already!

The Secret Druid Project

Alright it's not soooo top secret. My husband knows about it and I've sent trade goods to guildees I know could use it from the druid. Oh, and I've done a little roleplaying with guildees with her although I don't always announce it's me.

Apart from those little discrepancies, my druid is a secret character I've kept unguilded for me time play. She doesn't group with anyone. Mostly just leveling herself through the world isolated from others. This leveling has gotten much easier with the 3.0.2 patch. I don't have to spend a lot of time playing her and can feel like I'm getting somewhere. It's very satisfying.

This is an old character. The first character I created, actually. This character was an old world champion battling in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. Destroying Onyxia in her lair and defeating world dragons in her spare time. She was nicely decked out in mostly Tier 1 gear when I logged her in which was amusing to browse through.

I transferred her from my old PvP server as I do not foresee me ever wanting to return to PvP server play. I had to rename her and picked a nice elfy name for her. No, I'm not going to tell you what it is. I will give you a hint. Its translation means "Golden Dancer". See if you can figure it out.

What I had forgotten is how much fun this character was. I used to be down right obsessed with my druid and how awesome she was. I'm totally in love with her again. She's only 65 right now but the levels are coming quick. I've found playing her to be an excellent diversion while waiting for Wrath.