Hallow's End Ball

So each year our guild, Veritas, throws a party in Raven Hill, Duskwood where the whole server is invited and we have a costume contest and ghost stories and just general role playing. We held this year's last night, and the turn out was incredible.



Lal and I came dressed as Malfurion Stormrage and Tyrande Whisperwind. Yeah, I know, Sal is a druid and Malfurion is an Archdruid so it's not like I had to stretch it much. I found as many pieces of armor that looked like the in game Malfurion as I could, including a helm that had antlers. Then throughout the night I kept falling asleep at random moments, then muttering, "I'm awake, I'm awake," as I got up. It was a lot of fun. Lal looked just like Tyrande in her gorgeous Mooncloth Robe and riding a white tiger like Tyrande does in Mt. Hyjal. We each got our hair changed to match the respective characters too. I say we looked the part rather well. We won for best couple's costume, but to be fair, there was only one other couple competing as such, and they had a hilarious Pirate vs. Ninja routine.



There were lots of other good costume there, from Veritas and from other guilds. At the end of this post is a link to a slide show of the Veritas costumes I screen shotted. We even had some horde visitors, a Blood Elf "Druid" and a Tauren, who helped us to do a skit in which a person dressed as High Inquisitor Whitemane raised up her champion. (The Tauren helped kill the champion so Whitemane could rez her.)

Someone came dressed as Cairne Bloodhoof, wearing a Tauren mask. He and I had some fun role play interaction. He was trying to keep me awake, and I was having a hard time of it. It was a pretty fun event, and a nice break from raiding, although I'm looking forward to taking not one, but two teams into Trial of the Crusader on Sunday. We've got a great group of raiders now, and I expect to have a fun time and finish the raid with each team.

Enjoy this slide show, and Happy Halloween!

Fun with Loot

Loot drops are a funny thing. Some people are driven by them. They raid for the gear because it's the best, or because it will make them the fastest or strongest. They get the most pleasure out of seeing that shiny purple drop and then winning the roll. Lal can be like this at times. We have sort of an inside joke about whenever she gets a piece of loot she's been hoping and waiting for, she squeals. It's cute. She squeals when she finds titanium nodes while farming with her Laladin, I mean Yelyena. She enjoys finding and acquiring those hard to get items. And there's nothing wrong with that. I love getting loot too, I mean, who doesn't? But there's a fine line between being excited (like Lal) and being fanatic.

There is the opposite side of the spectrum too. People who couldn't care less about loot. They'll take it when it drops if no one else wants it because everyone who raids knows they have to have better gear to keep progressing. But they don't mind letting people gear up ahead of them. They take the gear and they equip it and use it, but they don't squeal when they get it. They go by the mantra, "It will drop again," and it usually does. Their main goal in raiding is to perform well and see the content. As long as they are doing that, the gear is just a tool.

And you've got people like me, and I would assume most raiders, that are in between. I love getting new gear. I love planning out what I need and what's best in slot, etc. But if I lose a roll, or if I don't get a drop, I'm not all that upset about it. It will drop again, and if it doesn't, I'll probably pick up something better in the next patch or whatever. I'm still doing my best to raid, and get us through each boss.

The reason I'm thinking about all this is because I recently acquired enough Emblems of Triumph to get the Helm of the Brooding Dragon for Elionene. This is significant because it was the last piece or armor I needed to use triumph emblems for. There are no other up grades from emblems which are sort of the loot equalizer. Everyone gets emblems for raiding and can eventually get loot when they have enough. The only thing left with emblems for Elionene would be upgraded iLevel 245 tier gear (I'm currently sporting three pieces of the iLevel 232 set). And I don't intend to be farming the trophies needed to get those items, nor running pug 25s for the tokens.

There's only one piece of gear left for me that's a drop from the Coliseum, and that's the Planestalker Signet that drops of Lord Jaraxxus. Jar Jar has been very stingy in his loot drops though. He has not yet dropped the ring in about 10 weeks of killing him. There are a few other people who might want that ring too, but I haven't even had the pleasure of rolling against them for it because it has never dropped. There are two levels to loot. The randomness of you actually seeing it, and then the randomness of rolling and winning it.

Some of you are confused about that second roll. We don't use DKP in our runs. It's seems to draw out the drama in our guild when we talk about organizing a gear system other than, main specs get to roll for it first. I attribute that to us being a friendly RP guild first, and a raid guild second, even though we're pretty intent on staying at the top of the curve when it comes to 10 person raid progression. So anyway, we do random rolls for the people that could use an item. And my only point in saying that is how much randomness is involved in our loot distribution. As a counter example, the Binding Light trinket has dropped EVERY WEEK that we've defeated the Faction Champions. There are some pretty awesome trinkets that other people in our raids could use, but thanks to the RNG, anyone who is a healer or has a healer off spec has a nice trinket.

I've been lucky in that I've gotten everything I needed save for the ring, and most things were uncontested so I didn't have to beat anyone. Other people are starving for upgrades and it may be preventing them from moving up to heroic coliseum. I don't think we'll be unable to go to Icecrown when it is released, but it still sucks to see some people go week after week with nothing to show for it while others are gearing up their off spec because no one else can use the gear. It's just one of those things.

And every week we go back to see if the big bads decide to give us what we want. At least coliseum is short and sweet (when you don't wipe on stuff) so you don't have to invest a lot of time to see if what you want is in there this week. A lot of our interest in Ulduar (but not all) has dropped because the rewards are spread out and the fights more challenging. Although I do have to give props to our raid team last weekend. Several members were in there for their first or second time, or the first time with Veritas, and we two shot Freya and Hodir in the same night. That was exciting.

So this wasn't a rant, or a complaint. Just a comment on the randomness of loot, the different approaches some people have to it, and how it may or may not be what drives you to go back to those bosses week in and week out. I wonder if I would feel more strongly about the loot if I was struggling to obtain it like some people are. I recall going through Naxx for a long time without an upgrade, and part of Ulduar. I did squeal when I got a bow finally. I love bows. I'm back to a cross bow which is not really a bow, but close enough that I don't mind using it. And I have made an exception to use a gun when it's an upgrade, even though I can't stand the sound it makes. Not playing a Night Elf anyway.

So does loot drive you to raid? Or do you raid for the experience and pick up loot as an afterthought? Or maybe you're like me and it's a mix of both.

Getting Ready for Icecrown

Patch 3.3 is on the PTR. I'm really looking forward to it all once it hits the live servers. I don't have time to play around on the test realm, but I do keep up with the reports coming from the various data mining sites and people that actually do spend time on there. It's exciting!

Veritas is at a place right now where we're farming normal Coliseum runs for emblems and gear, and still trying to take people through Ulduar as well. I led a team of newer people through last Friday and we got all the way to Thorim and knocked him down. Tonight we're going back for Iron Council, and the rest of the keepers. We may even get to Vezax if we have the time, but I'm not sure if we'll get hung up on Mimiron or not. We'll see!

Eventually we're going to tackle some more hard mode Ulduar and heroic coliseum, but it's tough to fit that into the schedule alongside normal runs of both raids. It's my job to organize everyone, and it's getting a lot harder with more people getting up to raid ready status, but somehow I'm managing, and I think most people are satisfied so far.

So with current content pretty well in hand, we should be ready to step into Icecrown on the first weekend of it's release! I'm especially looking forward to the three new dungeons with the epic quest line. I've stayed more or less spoiler free, but I have seen a few things that look like they'll be very cool. I'm ready to see the culmination of our efforts and quests in Northrend, let alone everything from way back in Warcraft III.

I read a blog called Lorecrafted, and the blogger over there has some really cool ideas about what we could be seeing as we face off against the Lich King himself. I'm in agreement that the Burning Legion, specifically Mal'ganis, has to play a role in it somehow. There's been a lot of hints in the quests in Icecrown that he's not gone for good, and it makes sense that we would need some sort of outside help to take down the Lich King.

Even though I'm excited about everything to come, I'm still hoping for a month or more of time to get more people in the guild geared and ready for Icecrown. There's a good possibility we could have two teams ready for Icecrown soon after it's release. I'll have to see how quickly we can get our second team into regular Ulduar.

Character Updates

I really enjoy the lore of the game, thus all of the lessons posts of late, but I think it's time to get into more of a general writing mood and discuss what's going on with the characters!

Elionene
Elio is still leading raids in the Coliseum and Ulduar. We started working on Ulduar hard modes a couple weeks ago. Couldn't get Flame Leviathan with four towers up, so we back tracked and took him down with two. For some reason we just couldn't pull it together, but it might have been an off night. We then took out XT on hard mode and got the Heartbreaker achievement! By then we didn't have much time left so we took out Ignis for a specific drop for Lal, the off hand item, and it didn't drop. Sigh.

We took a break last weekend while a lot of the officers and a few members gathered in Maryland for the Renaissance Maryland Festival and the second annual guild meet up. We didn't go last year, but we had a blast this year. You can see pictures and the like at my personal blog.

Once back, one of our two guild leaders (the wife of a husband-wife team) decided she needed to take a break and stepped down from officer hood. It's kind of sad because she's poured more into this guild than anyone else by far, and I know it's hard for her since the guild means so much to her. But I also hope that the break has the desired effect of lessening her stress and letting the game be a game again instead of a second job. With her stepping down, the remaining GM has asked the rest of the officers to step up, so we'll have our work cut out for us.

One of the first things I'm doing is revamping our raid schedule, and trying to fit things in that more people can do. Take last night for example. We attempted an Onyxia-25 run. It didn't go so well, and we weren't able to get her down. Aside from the constant disconnection issues (is anyone else experiencing disconnects during the second phase?) we were light on DPS and couldn't get through the adds. But I learned some valuable lessons about the limits of our guild in raiding, and what I'll be planning for future raids.

Salthier
Sal is patiently hanging out in Dalaran, diligently transmuting epic gems for Lal each day. I've been trying to get him a few gear upgrades by running the odd heroic now and then, but the truth is I don't play him all that much. That will change this week as our guild starts up (again) it's second team in Ulduar which Salthier will be leading. And yes, I realize it's all "me" leading these raids, but these are the respective characters I'm doing it with, thus the distinction.

I'm keeping him as a main spec tank because that's what he is to me, even though I think I prefer healing more than tanking. I like tanking, but I don't feel as confident in it, so I tend to gravitate towards things I'm more proficient in. Not that I'm an excellent healer. In fact, the DPS thing is the only thing I'm really confident in, and then only with the hunter so far. Could be that's just what I'm used to.

The one thing that Sal has done is finished What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been. I did this pretty early on in the Brewfest holiday, though I had to work up the tokens to get the outfit to dance in Dalaran. For my year of achievements, I got the Violet Proto-Drake! But Salthier doesn't fly on mounts because he has the still awesome swift flight form. But the kicker is that this mount is 310% speed. Faster than most swift flying mounts, and it in turn has made my flight form speed faster. So win win.

Khristin
The poor shaman has seen almost no play since 3.2 and the new set of daily heroics that reward emblems. I barely have time to run Elio through them, much less my third 80. I killed Coren Direbrew with her a few times to get the nifty level 80 trinkets, but other than that, she sits, and she waits.

Of my various other alts out there, Frelon and Bogdan saw some brief playtime. Maybe more will happen with them in the future.

Lal is running strong as our main raid healer. She's also been focusing on her druid alt that she's leveling, somewhere in the 40s now I think. She's leveling feral and I think she likes it. She also got the world event achievement and the proto drake. Before me too, because she had the outfit from last year! But, I came to the rescue on her alts by racing rams for her so she could get enough tokens on Driya and Yelyena to buy the brew of the year membership. My best run was 40 tokens. I averaged 36 or so.

So that's where we're at! Current goals include starting Heroic Coliseum, and obtaining a key to go fight Algalon. Getting Salthier some decent gear from Ulduar and getting our second raid team up to Coliseum levels. I also have to figure out something more inclusive than a 10 person raid that we can run after meetings on Wednesdays... or not, because I can't stay up so late anymore with the current job. We'll see!

Lessons in Lore - Yogg-Saron

The Lucid Dream. The Monster in your Nightmares. The Fiend with a Thousand Faces.

The Old God of Death.

That's him in all his tentacled glory. Yogg-Saron is indeed an Old God and one of the ancient beings responsible for the curse of flesh which afflicted the Titan creations and gives us the races we know today. The Titans themselves could not destroy the old gods without destroying the world of Azeroth, so instead, they imprisoned them. Ulduar is the prison of Yogg-Saron. That is it's purpose, and that's why we've come here to begin with. Because the prisoner has gotten loose.

That's really about all of the history we have for old Yoggy. Of course, we know there's lots of stuff currently going on. For one, Yogg-Saron is free, but has not physically moved himself out of Ulduar. I'm not really sure how he could without legs... although I guess he could move around on his tentacles. He's been doing a lot of work through the watchers that he's corrupted however. I started with Loken, who was the chief jailer. Loken then was used as a pawn to capture and corrupt the remaining keepers, and even uses us, the players, in his scheme to get Thorim. What he needs all of the keepers for is unclear, other than to get rid of the people that could prevent him from completely breaking free.

By the time we get to Ulduar, we've already encountered much of the old god throughout Northrend. In the Grizzly Hills we see Vordrassil, the world tree of Northrend is destroyed and laying in pieces. Thousands of years ago the ancient druids planted this tree to be the first world tree, but the roots went to deep and entered the domain of Yogg-Saron, corrupting the tree, and prompting the Druids to destroy it. This tells me that Yogg-Saron has some domain over the deep places of the earth and this is further reinforced by the whispers you can here when entering the mines of Icecrown.

The faceless ones seem to be at the command of Yogg-Saron, and also come from the deep places of the earth as seen in the dialogue with the Nerubians. And then to top it all off, we have SARONite. The Tuskarr call it the Black Blood of Yogg-Saron, and it is believe that it is an actual by-product produced by the old god. Saronite, the metal has very magic resistant properties, especially holy magic, and thus was chosen specifically by Arthas, the Lich King, to construct the many gates and towers throughout Icecrown, and the armor and weapons that are used by the Scourge. But prolonged exposure to Saronite has maddening effects. Miners forced to excavate Saronite in Icecrown can be seen leaping to their deaths and mumbling in an insane matter. Who knows what effect all the Saronite will have on the scourge?

The only other confirmed old god was C'thun, who was locked up inside An-Qiraj until relatively recently. He was killed, but there are rumors that while his body was destroyed, his presence remained, and now the Twilight Cultists have descended up on the ruins in an attempt to resurrect him. So now, even though Yogg-Saron has been defeated, and the keepers of Ulduar liberated, can we be sure that he is completely dead? Or will his presence somehow remain, manifested throughout Icecrown via the saronite deposits. And just what is the connection between the Old God of Death, and the Lich King?

During the fight with Yogg-Saron, some people must enter his mind and witness three different visions. These seem to be visions of events that Yogg-Saron was present at. Or at least it makes sense that he would have been if he has the memories of the events.

The first event is the creation of the Demon Soul by the five dragon flights during the War of the Ancients. Ultimately, this was done by Neltharion and was a catalyst for his corruption into Deathwing. So was Yogg-Saron the old god behind Deathwing's creation? Perhaps the death of Yogg-Saron is a precursor to the reemergence of Deathwing coming in the Cataclysm.

The next event is Garona Halforcen's assassination of King Llane. This was ultimately the reason that the humans lost the war against the invading orcish hordes during the first war. Without their leader to guide them, the humans fell apart. We know now that Garona was being controlled by the Twilight Cultists when the assassination occurred. And the cultists are worshipers of the old gods. So again, Yogg-Saron is telling us of his involvements of these events.

The final scene is not one that we are familiar with from history, and seems as if it may have occurred much more recently. The Lich King stands before an immolated champion and a prisoner, torturing the champion and trying to break him to his will. Who is the champion, and who the prisoner? Some say it may be Bolvar and Saurfang the younger. Others speculate the Lich King refers to Arthas, whom he broke when he joined with the Lich King. Yogg-Saron's involvement in this vision is more vague. Is he in league with the Lich-King? Or opposed to him. As Yogg states, "He will learn... no King lives forever, only death is eternal!"

There's still a lot of mystery surrounding Yogg-Saron, and I hope that we get a few more insights into what happened at Ulduar down the road. Perhaps a connection will be made when we go to Icecrown. Or during the cataclysm with Deathwing.

Lessons in Lore - General Vezax

There's not a lot we know about this guy. The one thing we do know is that he's a General, and he is a Faceless One. The fact that he is a general seems irrelevant, however it may be worth mentioning that another General served an old god as well. That was General Rajaax who served C'thun in Ahn'Qiraj. The names are actually very similar as well.

Faceless ones are ancient evil beings in the service of Yogg-Saron. They were first encountered in Azjol-Nerub by the Nerubians, who dug too deep while fighting the scourge, and contributed to the near extinction of the nerubianswhen they were confronted from two sides by the enemy. There are many locales around Icecrown where we find evidence of the faceless ones, including in the mines and underneath Icecrown citadel. The name faceless one comes from the indistinguishable looks of the monsters. Though they resemble elephants, there's really know evidence of eyes or ears or mouths. Just a lot of appendages.

General Vezax looks more bug like than elephant like and has massive claws for hands, as well as a somewhat discernible face. There is no explanation for this, but he does seem to command the faceless ones that surround him.

The only other tidbit of information is more recent, and comes from a blue post in the forums, which is kind of abnormal from a lore standpoint. However, it has been suggested that General Vezax is in reality the corrupted form of the Watcher Tyr, who we have no current knowledge of his whereabouts. All of the other watchers showed up in Ulduar, so it would make sense that Tyr would as well. But there is a difference noted in that all of the temples of the watchers were destroyed or violated, except for Tyr's Temple of Order, which is simply vacated.

So is General Vezax the corrupted form of the Watcher Tyr? Being that close to Yogg-Saron's prison is bound to have it's consequences. But there is another room that isn't explored on the Ulduar map, opposite of Hodir's room. We may never know. What do you think?



Just one more boss left to do. The old god himself. Stay tuned!

Yogg-Saron. Finally Defeated.

We did it! We finally killed that over weight sack of brains. Using a raid lock out from over four weeks ago, we went inside Ulduar and after nearly an hour and a half, brought the big bad brain down. I'm so proud of everyone in my guild. We all had to pull together to get him down and we did it! Much screaming and rejoicing was had. Then we went and cleared out Iron Council, Razorscale, and Ignis just for kicks. So much fun to have it finally put behind us.

Now we're going to take it easy and do some Ulduar hard modes. It will probably be some time before we come back for Yogg again. And I'm okay with that. Before Ulduar, we completed a Trial of the Crusader run normal and netted the Upper Back Pain and 360 Pain Spike achievements in the process. As far as I know, we may be the first on our server to get that back pain one, but that's only going on what Guild Ox says.

Kind of on a gaming high right now.