Lessons in Lore - The Four Horsemen

I've been doing a few forums posts in my guild forums on the backgrounds of the bosses we fight. It's a lot of fun to know why you're killing some of the things you're killing in game, besides the phat purples. Our guild leader asked me to do some research on the four horsemen, and so I posted this today on our forums, and I'm cross posting it here.

The Four Horsemen

Quote:
"The most powerful death knights within Naxxramas are the four horsemen. They represent the pinnacle of Kel'Thuzad's guard. The first, Thane Korth'azz, holds the power of flame. The next, Lady Blaumeux, calls forth the power of shadows, drawing the souls of the living into the voracious embrace. Sir Zeliek, a paladin in life, so strong in his faith, that even in undeath, the power of the light still heeds his call, smiting his foes in battle. The final death knight, Lord Mograine, was the finest warrior that the death knights had ever seen. However, after the events of Azeroth, he vanished without a trace. Kel'Thuzad has appointed Baron Rivendare in his place."
—Commander Eligor Dawnbringer


If you go to Wintergarde Keep, there's a guy walking around in one of the buildings talking about the bosses in Naxxramas. That's Commander Eligor Dawnbringer, and that's what he has to say about the four horsemen. He was previously at Light's Hope Chapel, mediating between the Argent Dawn and Scarlet Crusade, but enough about Eligor. You wanted to know about the four horsemen.

Well, for those that may not know, there are actually five horsemen. One of the original Horsemen, from pre-Wrath Naxxramas, was replaced with Baron Rivendare when Naxxramas moved to Northrend. That horsemen was Alexandros Mograine. There's a lot of lore around Mograine, and surprisingly, there's fair amount about Rivendare as well. There's less so about the other horsemen, but we can make some assumptions based on what we know about them. Here they are, one at at time.

Alexandros Mograine


There's a lot of lore behind Mograine, and his story is even current in the game through his son Darion. I wrote a blog post about him some time ago, you can read that here if you like. Here is the short version. Mograine was a Paladin of the Silver Hand, one of Uther's men, and an outstanding guy. On the battle field in front of Blackrock mountain he finds an orb of dark power, and takes if from an orc warlock. Then he and several followers of the light use their holy power on the orb, turning it from black to a glowing white. Then he makes a sword out of it and calls it the Ashbringer. Turns out this sword does a good job of killing scourge. Mograine actually founds the Scarlet Crusade, but unbeknownst to him, the Burning Legion possesses one of the commanders of the Scarlet Crusade and plots against Mograine so that they can turn the Crusade to their own purposes. They do this by possessing one of Mograine's two sons, Renault. In front of Stratholme, after a horrific battle in which Mograine slays thousands of scourge with the Ashbringer, Renault appears and murders his own father. Renault is then made a High Commander in the Scarlet Crusade and is the High Commander Mograine within the Scarlet Monastery.

Mograine, now dead, is raised as Death Knight and placed in the service of Kel'thuzad as one of the four horsemen in Naxxramas. This next part is a little screwy due to game mechanics. When Mograine was a horsemen in old Naxxramas, he would sometimes drop the Corrupted Ashbringer. If a player then equipped it and went to the Scarlet Monastery, the NPCs would recognize the sword and bow to you. And when you got to Highlord Mograine, Renault, Alexandros Mograine's spirit would rise from the sword and slay his son for murdering him. Pretty cool, huh? Well, lore-wise, the person who did this was Darion Mograine, Alexandros' second son, who went to Naxxramas to find out what happend to his father, killed him, took the sword, and then went to find his brother and tell him what happened, only to have his dead dad's spirit rise up and kill his brother in front of Darion's eyes. Trippy.

This last part is a bit of a spoiler, but it helps explain where Darion is currently. After the events in Naxxramas and the Scarlet Monastery, Darion returns to Light's Hope Chapel where the Argent Dawn is preparing for war against an innumerable amount of Scourge. The war is nearly lost until Darion realized that in order for his father's spirit to truly rest, Darion must make a sacrifice of love. In the middle of the fight Darion kills himself with the Corrupted Ashbringer. His sacrifice causes a holy light to obliterate the entire scourge army, but at a huge loss. Kel'thuzad then raises Darion as a Death Knight. Anyone who has played through the Death Knight area will know who Darion is, as he plays a huge role there. And he can be seen later in Icecrown as the leader of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

Baron Rivendare


We all know Baron Rivendare as the last boss in the dead side of Stratholme. While there's really not a lot else known about him, it's actually a bit more than we know of the other horsemen. Rivendare was a wealthy land owner and a friend of Kel'thuzad before Kel'thuzad was lured by the then Lich King, Ner'zhul. When Kel'thuzad came back and created the Cult of the Damned, Rivendare gladly joined his friend and helped to spread the plague that consumed Lordaeron. For his loyalty and eagerness to destroy the Argent Dawn, Rivendare was made a Death Knight and placed in charge of the Scourge forces in Stratholme. From above, we know that Darion put his father's soul to rest (at the cost of his own), and thus when Naxxramas moved to Northrend, he had to be replaced, and Rivendare is that replacement.

Sir Zeleik


Now we get to horsemen that have a little less background. Zeleik was a paladin, and thus most likely of the Order of the Silver Hand before he was killed and subsequently risen as a Death Knight. What's unique and interesting about him is that while his body is now ruled by the Lich King, his mind is not. Thus when you hear the horsemen shouting in Naxxramas, they will all make threats and say taunting phrases, but Zeleik tries to warn you away. This could be seen as a mark of his power and devotion to the light when he was alive, that he can retain his sanity in death.

Thane Korthazz


He's a dwarf. And quite possibly has the most entertaining taunt when he calls your raid "slack-jawed daffodils." Other than that, we don't know much. Again, he was probably a paladin. In the Ashbringer Comics, he is called one of Uther's Men, so he was also once a member of the Silver Hand. The scourge seem to have a knack for turning the best paladins into our worst enemies.

Lady Blaumeux


And of the Lady Death Knight, we know practically nothing. She uses shadow magic, and is wholly submissive to the Lich King's will. She was probably a former Paladin or Priest in life, and probably also with the Silver Hand as that seems to be a trend among the other horsemen, but beyond that, I haven't found any other information.

So there you have it. Several of the pictures come from the Ashbringer comic put out by Wildstorm Comics, a division of DC. I cannot recommend the series enough, it's great. All of the pictures were taken from Wowwiki.com That's about as much as I could turn up on them all. Thanks for reading and have a good morning.

What We've Been Up To

So I'm glad I put a handy guide to the right of the page that tells me what I'm supposed to blog about each day.  I'm not left scrambling for an idea.  Actually, since it is Character Day, it's a great opportunity for me to post some screenshots and talk about some of the things that have kept Lal and I busy over the past two months.  

First, one of my proudest accomplishments.  For those that may not know, I'm a raid leader in the guild Veritas on the Moon Guard realm.  It's a role playing realm, and the founders of our guild set out to do something they were told was impossible.  Create a guild that is both active in role playing and progressive in raiding.  Before Wrath we had completed Kara and were working our way through Zul'aman, with the occasional 25 person raid when we were invited by another guild.

With the advent of Wrath and 10 person raid content available for all raids, we as a guild decided to focus on the 10 person content.  I was in charge of organizing and leading our first raid into Naxxramas.  Our first week, we cleared three of the wings, and got to Thaddius, the last boss of the fourth wing we did, the Abomination wing.  The week after that we had a rough start, but we came back for a second night and cleared all the way through Sapphiron! Kel'thuzad would have to wait because we ran out of time.  We got him the next week though. Our most recent raid was done in just four and a half hours, so I'm pretty proud of our guild and our raiders for doing so well.  We've started a second team led by another raid leader to accommodate everyone who wants to go.  Here's a shot of us on Ket'thuzad's throne after we took him down.  I think this was our second time.

That's Elionene on the left, and Lal is to her right.  That's a pretty big thrown for a guy that doesn't even have any legs...

Salthier has been hanging out around Dalaran mostly. He's got a few epic pieces of gear and is always available to tank for someone if needed.  He used to be an Enchanter/Alchemist, but recently Jewel crafting became a very desirable profession for a lot of people and Lal decided to drop herbalism to take up JC.  Since that meant Sal's supply of herbs was gone, I dropped Enchanting and took up Herbalism for him.  He's up at 450 now after several days of crawling through lowbie zones.  Lal's already up to 440 in Jewel crafting too.  What about Enchanting? Well, Driya has that covered now.  So, yeah, Sal sits around Dalaran and makes Titanium out of Saronite bars once a day and brews up some flasks for Elionene and Lal when they go raiding.

Where Salthier gets a lot of play is during the holidays.  So far, since October, I've been able to complete each of the holiday meta achievements and get him that holiday's title.  The shot up above is from the Lunar Festival.  Sal spends a lot of time in that bank.

Lal is also getting the holiday titles.  She's actually better at it than me, but she doesn't like the achievements that involve battlegrounds.  PvP is not her thing.  It's not mine either, but I don't mind it much if I have a goal in mind.  Here's a nice shot of Lal after getting the Merrymaker achievement during Christmas.

I'll say one thing.  These holiday title achievements sure get people to go to the old world cities. I've spent a lot of time in Ironforge.

It's easy to see we've been busy in game, even though I haven't had time to blog about it.  There aren't any holidays in March which is good.  We need a break!  I'll have time to focus on getting our raid to beat Malygos and Sartharion with two drakes up.  I also plan to write more character stories for Elionene's Journal and more lore for our guild site and for this site.  I think I remember that Lore Thursday was one of people's favorite parts of this blog, so look forward to that tomorrow!

In closing, here's a shot of Salthier in cat form during a trip to the Crystal Song forest.  I really hope they do more with this zone in the future.  Elionene would love to get rep with the Silver Covenant.

Hello? Is this thing on?

Wow, that was an extended hiatus, wasn't it?  We've moved, we're in a new state, and I've got a lot of free time since I've yet to find steady employment.  I've also been missing this blog and writing in general.  You would think without a job, I would have plenty of time to write, but it's taken a back seat to job searching, taking care of errands, and I've actually gotten a fair amount of play time in.  In fact, here's an update.

- Both Elionene and Salthier now level 80, and decked out in raid and heroic gear.  

- Lal is also 80, but even more shocking than that, is her Shadow Priest, Driya, is also 80.  Yes, my wife who once said she would never play this game, now has two level 80 priests.  She's wonderful.

- I respecced Elionene to Survival when they nerfed BM hunters.  Even after Bm got a buff, I stayed SV because of the replenishment ability.  I'm currently the only member of our Naxx-10 team that has that buff, and I enjoy bringing both great DPS and mana utility to the raid.  Not to mention Explosive shot is the bomb.  (okay, pun intended)

- Veritas has cleared Naxxramas-10.  I would even say we have it on farm.  Our last two runs, we've cleared it in less than 5 hours. We're starting a second team to get more people involved, and we're weighing options for doing Naxxramas-25

- Veritas has also taken down Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctum with one drake up.  

- We're currently working on Malygos.  Our first try was last night.  We took about 6 or so tries at him in a 2 hour window.  We got better each time.  Our final attempt had him down to 13% or so.  We need to work on our DPS in the first phase, and our dragon riding in the third phase, but I think we can get him next week.

- I've also recently rekindled interest in my lowbie Shaman who I planned to make a healer.  She's up to level 30 now.  I'm going to start using Jame's leveling guide from wow-pro to get her up to speed!

I plan on returning to blogging regularly so keep an eye on this site for more Veritas raid news, character stories, lore, and other random wow stuff.  I apologize for the absence! 

Moving

No, not the blog, and not realms or guilds or anything either. Lal and I are physically moving out of Boston and closer to family in North Carolina. The posts have been very sporadic lately, and a lot of that is due to the holiday and spending more time in game experiencing Northrend. But some of it is due to preparing for our move. As such, you can probably expect to only see sporadic posts throughout the rest of December as I'll need to focus most of my time online looking for a apartments and jobs.

With that out of the way, Lal got to level 80! Woot! She worked hard for it and reached level 80 in Icecrown doing quests and exploring and got the killing blow on some Vrykul mob somewhere. Nice job Lal! Salthier is nearly there. I only have 3 bubbles left which I will get tonight. Unfortunately, Lal's playtime will be severely lessened until after Christmats due to some real world stuff she's involved in that will take up most of her evenings and weekends for the rest of the month. I'll use this time to level Elionene and gear up for Naxxramas, so it's good that she got to 80 before her time really got used up. And she's rocking over 1700 spell power in her new healing gear which is some drops, some quest items, and some crafted things.

Speaking of Naxxramas, I've tentatively slated the guild's first run of Naxx on January 3rd. If all goes according to plan, we'll make our foray into the citadel of Kel'thuzzad and making as much progress as we can. It will be my first raid as a leader where I haven't been to the instance before with someone else, so I'm nervous and excited. We've got a lot of great people though, and it's fun seeing our raid come together as more people hit that 80 mark.

That's all I have for now. I won't be posting regularly for a month or so, but I'll throw up tidbits and screenshots every now and then. Thanks for reading, and have a good morning.

Thoughts on the Wrathgate and Undercity Experience

Spoilers abound below for those of you who have not completed the Wrathgate quest chain in the Dragonblight (or watched it online).

Yesterday, Lal and Salthier completed the Wrathgate quest chain. First of all, I was really excited about it, and I had avoided seeing it or reading much about it online before actually doing it so it would be that much more epic when we did see it. It was impressive, and there are a lot of things I liked about it, but there were some things that didn't sit well with me either, and they were mostly related to lore. First the good stuff.

I love this phasing technology that actually makes the world change as if I affected it. I suppose it can be weird that you and the person next to you are seeing different things depending on what quests you have completed, but it works really well to develop the story of your character. I've noticed that the quest givers in Northrend will often call you a hero, or talk about how they've heard of your activities in Azeroth and Outland. We are the new heroes of the world, and we are the driving force in the war against the Lich King. That's pretty cool.

The cinematic at the Wrathgate was really cool. I wish (and hope) that they will use these more to tell the story of the game or give us a reward for a hard earned quest chain (besides a green item to disenchant). And because I had avoided the spoilers, I was actually surprised to see Putress show up and dump his plague on everybody. There are a couple things I would like to key in on. First, Putress shouts out that he wants to destroy the Scourge AND the Living. Which means basically everybody but the Forsaken. Now just before he did this, Bolvar and Saurfang Jr. were fighting side by side against the Lich King. Horde and Alliance united against a common enemy, which has sort of been a staple of the game for awhile. Then we have Putress, an agent of Sylvanas and the Forsaken, who basically turns on everyone. And after he dumps his plague, you hear the Lich King whisper "Sylvanas!" as if he's surprised to see that his old banshee has come back to haunt him. So it's pretty intense. The Alliance feels like the horde betrayed them; the Horde are saying the Forsaken are the only one's responsible; and even Arthas is surprised at Sylvanas' action, and it causes it him to retreat.

Our poor characters are tasked with telling the newly returned king of Stormwind what happened. And this is where I feel like things got messed up with the lore. We talk to Varian, and Jaina is right next to him (again, phasing ftw). She encourages us to go talk with Thrall. Varian seems cool with this. It's a diplomatic mission. So we portal off to Orgrimmar and Thrall and Sylvanas are right there to talk with. Apparently, they were both betrayed by Varimathras, who was the co-leader of the Forsaken in the Undercity with Sylvanas. Varimathras was a Dread Lord who had supposedly turned his back on the Burning Legion and the Lich King to assist the newly freed Forsaken. Turns out it was a big lie and his real goal was to wipe out all life. The Undercity is now controlled by Putress and Varimathras. So we take this information back to the king. He decides that now is the time to attack the Undercity, to destroy the traitor Putress, and take it back for the Alliance. So far, it's all pretty plausible. The Horde have a slightly different quest line that involves going with Thrall to the Undercity to kill Varimathras.

In an incredibly fun filled adventure, you basically go with the King to Undercity and receive a buff that makes you nearly invincible. You work your way through the sewers and kill Putress for his deception and his crimes. Then things go down hill. Varian, apparently thirsty for revenge and mad at how Thrall's acceptance of the Forsaken into the Horde lead to this event, goes crazy and decides that he's not satisfied with the death of Putress. He wants to end the Horde too. So when he hears Thrall yelling, he makes a bee line for the Orc and basically tells Thrall that all bets are off, the Horde ends now. Thrall really has not choice and they fight. Jaina, protesting, frost novas everyone and ports us all back to where we belong, in Stormwind.

So here's where I have trouble. If all we know is the lore that is in the game, we know that Varian was lost for a long time, and then found and forced to fight in gladiator arenas by the orcs, but he made his way back, and now is the king again. Bolvar was a good friend of his and had taken pretty good care of things in the king's absence. Well, except for that whole Onyxia thing, but that's another story. So anyway, with the Forsaken being part of the Horde, you might think Varian is justified in being angry at Thrall, once for the whole forced to be a gladiator thing, and twice for their acceptance of an evil that caused the death of Bolvar. But the problem for me is that we've already done the diplomatic thing for Varian and talked to Thrall who explained what happened. Putress didn't just attack the Alliance, he attacked the LIVING, which means Orcs and Humans and all the rest. If Varian was going to declare all out war with the Horde, then why did we even have to go talk to Thrall in the first place? It looks like Varian is blaming Thrall for Bolvar, and for his time as a gladiator because Thrall created the atmosphere for the tragedy to happen. Sylvanas says she's innocent too, which I think is a bit more circumspect, but it makes sense to give the forsaken players an out for being involved in the treachery.

If you've read the blog a bit, you know I've been reading the WoW comics involving the king, and it makes things a little more complicated as well, since Varian didn't have such a bad time in the gladiator arena's as he makes it out to be in the game. On top of that, when he made his escape, his orc captor basically let him go because of some sort of respect. So in conclusion, I'm a little miffed at how vengeful and and warmongerish Varian is. Yeah, he's had it rough, but shouldn't he be more concerned about the threat from Arthas instead of f vengeful war with the Horde right now? And what happened to thinking and reasoning? It's more like he just got too excited after the battle in Undercity and decided to take it out on the rest of the Horde. Maybe I'm a little to sympathetic of the Orcs because I've read the novels that show them to be somewhat honorable and a noble people that got a bad reputation for being bloodthirsty because of the involvement of the Burning Legion. Maybe Thrall or Sylvanas should have seen this plague thing coming, but they seem more level headed about it than our blood thirsty king. I guess I'll just have to see how it all plays out in the coming patches. Maybe by the time we assault Icecrown again, things will have changed.

Impressions

So we've had some time to let the expansion sink in. I really love it. Blizzard has gone above and beyond with regards to making your character feel like a hero and a major part of the machinations that are moving this war with the Lich King. They've also kept their typical humor and light heartedness that makes the game a lot of fun. Read on for some impressions of the zones, the story, and the leveling process. There will be spoilers for those of you who have not seen some of the content yet, so be aware.

Salthier and Lal started their journey in Northrend at Valliance Keep in the Borean Tundra. My main reason for this was because Salthier is somewhat a part of the politics in Stormwind and it made sense for him to take the boat from there. Lal came along because she wasn't too concerned where to go, and we did want to level together. The questing started in earnest as we began fighting back undead, right outside the front walls of the first city. One of Lal's first objectives was to start leveling her professions. She was particularly happy with the ability to gather more cloth than others thanks to being a tailor and getting a special skill. Salthier started learning new enchanting and alchemy recipes, but the levelign of the professions is going somewhat slowly.

We finished out the Tundra quests over the weekend. I really liked the quests on the farm, where you rally all of the farmers to take up weapons and fight the scourge. It's one of those "feel like you're making a difference" moments. We did all of the D.E.H.T.A. (Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals) quests. It was obviously meant in fun, but I can't help but feel a little upset about it, being a druid in the game. The Cenarion Expedition members of the DEHTA are a bunch of bloodthirsty hate mongering animal lovers. Granted they were after some pretty bad dudes who were trapping baby mammoths and transporting animal parts. But at the same time, I had never thought of Nesingwary as a bloodthirsty animal parts trafficer. More of just an old dwarf who like the thrill of the hunt.(Or perhaps the thrill of making other people hunt for him...)

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the quests involving the Blue Dragonflight in Coldarra, and how again you feel like a major player in the Nexus war. And the way they are intigrating the Death Knight lore is pretty cool as well, as they do in the area called Death's Hand. It only gets better as you move on to Dragonblight.

Lore explodes all over the place in this next zone. You've got the Alliance and Bolvar fighting the Scourge on one front, the dragon aspects fighting their own war, and you even get to witness past events through a scrying orb with Arthas. It's a rush. One thing Lal and I have noticed are the shear amount of quests there are to do. We pick up several from one area, and while going to complete them, find another small hub. Then just when we think we've completed all the quests in an area, we get a new chain that sends us to a new place with quests along the way. Sometimes you have to be a bit patient and realize that all of the quests are helping you advance, and some of the rewards are really nice. Salthier is continually changing his gear, and Lal has replaced quite a few of her Tier 4 and badge items already. We're currently 74 and on one of the last chians in the Dragonblight that takes us through Wyrmrest Temple. It will culminate in the Wrathgate Cinematic which I haven't watched and know minimal details about. I can't wait to see it.

As for dungeons, we have done all of them at our level, starting in Utgarde Keep, moving to The Nexus, then Azjol-Nerub, and just last night we did Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. Each one has been a lot of fun, and somehow seems to top the previous one. Utgarde was huge, with a lot of new lore and exciting imagery that made it seem more epic than just a regular 5 person dungeon. And the exit from the Keep where you jump down into the water was a blast. The Nexus had some really cool boss fights, and the story line with the red dragon is sad, but still epic. Azjol-Nerub was a very quick three boss instance with hardly any trash, but the boss fights were intense. I do wish that Anu'burak had a little more presence in the game though. I seem to recall he had a bigger role in Warcraft III. The Old Kingdom was fascinating. Anoter visual achievement for dungeons. And the last boss fight in there is quite different from anything I've ever done before. A lot of people say it's the best boss fight they've ever done. There are several screen shots below from The Old Kingdom.

Elionene has taken some time off and is sitting in the Howling Fjord still. I'll be able to spend more time on her after Thanksgiving, hopefully having Salthier at 80 by then. Then I'll have two level 80 raiding toons. I haven't yet played through the Death Knight Experience, but that will be one of my goals for the coming weeks as well, and I might even do up a little story for my knight, to try and differentiate him from all of the other stories of DK redemption out there.

Here are some shots of our recent activities. Enjoy!

Elionene met Mr. Lich King himself while searching the spirit realm for information on the history of the Vry-kul.

Salthier and Lal learned a little more about what really happened when Arthas took up the cursed blade, Frostmourne.

We ascend the Nexus to try and lure Malygos out. Not all went according to plan however.

One of the famed turtle ferries that take people between starter zones.

Lal showed off her cooking abilities by making a feast that the whole party could enjoy. Not only did we get to sit around and have a good meal, we got a well fed buff to go with it. +60 AP, +35 Spell Power, and +30 STA. Mmm Mmm Good.

One of the areas under The Old Kingdom.

Another shot of the Old Kingdom, one of the more visually stunning dungeons. They're all unique and interesting in their own right.

Northrend is Beautiful...

Well, you know, except for all of the undead, and the wars going on, and Arthas showing up to laugh at you every now and then. But all in all, the new zones are amazing, the music is extensive and fitting, and Lal and I are having a great time.

I took time off work for Thursday and Friday so we could play our eyes out over the weekend, and we did. Lal is currently at 73, and Salthier is on his last bubble of 72. We are playing at a quick pace, but still trying to take the time to read the quest text and enjoy the experience. We started in the Borean Tundra and are working on the quests in the Dragonblight at the moment.

Elionene went to the Howling Fjord and is somewhere in the middle of level 71. I had time to play her when Lal was out and about on Thursday and then Sunday. Overall, I like the Fjord zone better in terms of things to see and the lore of the Vrykul. The quests everywhere are intelligent and different. Yes, there are a lot of kill this, and collect that type quests. But interspersed throughout are quests where you get to pilot planes, surf on harpoons, fly on dragons, and trample hordes of undead while bubbled.

And then there are the excrement quests. Seriously, what is up with all of these? It started in Outland where we had to find some water breathing cherries in Talbuk poo, but in Northrend I've encountered at least two and heard of a third quest all involving somebody's... left overs. I suppose it could be funny, but this might be overkill.

Moving on. The guild as a whole is set to start raiding Naxx sometime in January. I'm hopeful we can be clearing the place in February. This might be complicated by some real life activity for Lal and I that will interfere with our gaming time in December and January, but I'll adjust when we get to that point.

Other than the queues, the servers have been stable and the lag not unreasonable. It's a lot of fun to be doing new things and seeing new places instead of the same raid week after week. I've taken a lot of picturs and will throw up a post when I can. In the mean time, posting will probably be a bit irregular while I spend time leveling Salthier and Elionene with Lal.

The Plan

Yesterday I had the day off. I knew there was going to be maintenance, but I was expecting to be able to play in the early afternoon. Much earlier than I normally log on during the week. While waiting for the maintenance, I played some Twilight Princess on the Nintendo Wii. It was a lot of fun, I need to make a note to do that more often.

I logged on at around 11:45 Server, and played for 15 minutes before the server came down. And then the waiting began. Needless to say, didn't get back on until 10 hours later, and then I just checked my non existent mail and went to bed. /sigh

But that is the past. The future is now, and today, I have a plan.

1) Get off work and go home.

2) Eat dinner

3) Grind the last of the reputation on Salthier for Cenarion Circle and grab that "Guardian of Cenarius" title. Stylin'.

4) Go to guild meeting. (sporting new title)

5) Participate in guild RP event. (Guild Master is doing a pilgrimage from Ironforge to Uther's tomb. He's a dwarf pally.)

6) Get ready to go to mall around 10 PMish

7) Wait at Gamestop, see if anyone is in costume (I will NOT be), purchase game and beat it at 12:01 AM

8) Return home, install one copy on each computer (2) and hope that the lag and server death doesn't prevent me from playing until the sun comes up. My hopes are not high based on recent activity.

That's the plan. Let's hope all goes according.

Week in Review

I've been busy doing a lot of things in and out of game, so I haven't had as much time to post. Here are some highlights from the last week. As well as some pictures, since I haven't posted many recently.

We ran Karazhan last Friday. Our quickest run ever at three and a half hours. These patch changes have made a huge difference, but we also know the fights really well now. But more than anything, I'm the most proud that I finally got us to line up to get our Chess badges. It's so much more efficient! Oh, but Gnomes get a pass, I mean, they're Gnomes. They need time to dance on the box.


While the Zombie invasion had its up and downs, I think it was generally implemented pretty well, and if anything, it was at least realistic in that an invasion of zombies really would interrupt your normal plans and daily activities. I didn't spend much time as a zombie, but I did tool around Shattrath with another guilde for a little while searching for brains. We took our search to the World's End Tavern right before Perry Gatner was to perform. We unknowingly infected Shattrath Saul as he was about to introduce him and he turned into a Zombie. I guess Perry got scared because he never showed.

And here's an interesting Zombie fact. Tinkerbell, Haris Pilton's pet in the tavern, is immune to the Zombies. But the Zombies don't know that. Here's a picture of the dog tanking about 20 of the undead.


I think I mentioned that I got the Leeeeeeroy achievement. If I didn't, here's a shot of our group after we got our new Jenkins titles.


Both Lal and Salthier have completed all of the Hallowe's Eve achievements, save for that dubious mask one. Thankfully we should still qualify for "The Hallowed" title when the next patch hits. We haven't been after the Headless Horseman much since we got everything we wanted, but one time while we were waiting for a few people, we had a little fun with some wands.


Another time while waiting for people to come do the Headless Horseman, I took Salthier into the Scarlet Cathedral solo and tried to down Highlord Mograin and his girlfriend. Sadly, I was unable to do it since about 100 Scarlets rush you if you don't kill them all on the way in. I was able to get Mograine down, and then Whitemane when she came out, but didn't have enough time to kill Mograine a second time. I was really close, might try it again and pop a few more special abilities.


We also went back to Zul'aman and managed to get the 4 animal bosses down. Hex Lord was still too tough for us, even with the changes. I think our tanks and healers might just need a little bit more gear to handle it, but we gave it a valiant effort and did really well. We also managed two of the timed chests.

The expansion will be soon upon us. I've been working slowly on my Shaman alt, and doing random things with guild members. Tonight we're having a bit of a Hallowe's Eve ball with a costume contest. Hopefully it will be a fun time for some role play without being draining. There's so much to do lately, that it's hard to do anything!

Azeroth. Population: Lots of Zombies

They're everywhere! Well, at least in the places I've been. It appears that some mysterious crates showed up in Booty Bay, leaking a strange substance that when touched turns you into a ghoul after 10 minutes or so. Looks like Arthas is sending a calling card. The Lich King is on the move.

Thankfully, the Argent Dawn has already responded to the threat and placed healers at vital points near Alliance towns. (And maybe Horde too, but I don't know what they're doing.) If you get infected, you just need to find a healer and they'll be able to cleanse. Paladins, Priests, and Restoration Shaman can also purify your diseases if they are so inclined.

We'll have to watch for the increasing threat from the Lich King. It seems the disease is already growing stronger against the ability to cure it. What will happen when we cannot cure the disease at all?

So what's really going on? Well, this new in game event is heralding the coming expansion. It's a lot of fun, but it's also causing a lot of grief. Especially, my guess is, on role play servers. If we play this straight, no one should want to be a zombie. And if you do get infected, you should be relieved when a friendly Paladin or Priest cures you. We should be trying to push back on this new Scourge and seek information on doing it in a more permanent way. Unfortunately, even on Moon Guard, and other realms, a lot of people want to be zombies, and throw fits when someone cures them.

Add to this that since NPCs can be affected, many quest givers seem to be zombies or dead. For some reason people that become zombies like to flock to the early zones. I know that Auberdine was totally infected last night, and I can only imagine what the scene looked like in Goldshire. These days are not going to be pretty for people doing early questing. It's also been found that you can go to Shattrath where no one can attack you because of the neutral flag of the city. So you can run around turning people into zombies without fear of repercussion. Even Khadgar becomes a zombie.

So the mechanics of this new world event have caused the griefers to rise to the surface, people purposefully becoming zombies so they can kill quest givers and turn unsuspecting people into zombies. Again, role play would dictate that you try and avoid being a zombie at all costs. But IF you do become a zombie, then you should act like a zombie. But even then, you can have some respect for the player base and not run to a lowbie zone on purpose to cause problems for people.

I'm wondering how long this even will last. I've heard that it will gradually change as we get closer to the Lich King, but I wonder if the potential for griefing will continue. It's going to make the current holiday events and leveling a little harder to accomplish if I have to avoid zombie attacks all the time. But that's actually pretty realistic. If a zombie break out actually did happen, it would probably interrupt a lot of day to day activities.