Posted on April 18, 2012 by admin

April 18, 2012 in Diablo III, World of Warcraft

Well, I was feeling guilty about not testing MoP because Diablo III was so much fun, so I went back to the MoP Beta and tried out more quests.

I think I found a couple of bugs/anomalies but I’m not sure how to report them – have to check the website to see how I report.

I got through the starter zone but died a couple of times on quests simply because the mobs respawned so fast I would have 3 or 4 on me before I could roll away.

Yes, I love roll! Not only a quick little movement boost but also an excellent defensive move to get away from mobs!

I picked the Healer option – not sure if I will actually get a chance to heal anything but I’m interested in how the healing mechanics work – maybe I can heal again when MoP is released!

I also picked Alliance, took the balloon ride to SW then learned a few professions. The Hero’s board directed me to Westfall so I’m assuming leveling from now on is “regular.”

I was starting to get Diablo III withdrawal symptoms, so I fired it up and decided to try a Barbarian.

OMG – a large, “robust” lady who sounds like the Terminator tossing the Undead around like bugs while still in her “underwear.”

Yup, definitely fun!

Then I got disconnected and there was some patch update and everything was wiped so I lost all my characters and progress, but that’s what a Beta is for so I’ll just start again.

I haven’t found anything that could be considered a bug, but I believe this is more a “stress test” than a bug hunt.

I think I’ll start with the Barbarian next time. I had just picked up some Stomp ability that looked very promising.

How many more weeks until this is released? Can’t wait!

Oh, and one more thing…no matter how many times I go through the mazes I always get lost…

4 comments

Posted on April 18, 2012 by admin

April 17, 2012 in Diablo III, World of Warcraft

I’ve been playing this more than WoW the past couple days so…

I finally figured out a couple of things. I found out how to create a new character with a different class (duh) so I tried a Demon Hunter.

Yeah, she’s really, really squishy. At some point I got a trap but I can’t tell if it actually does anything because I’m usually dead fairly quickly.

I still have no idea what “stats” I should be looking at when loot drops.

On the bright side, I accidentally found the panel where my stats are so I suppose I can have extra fun looking at the numbers and wondering what are best for my class.

It didn’t take very long for me to get tired of dying on my Demon Hunter, so I went back to my Wizard.

Stash

I wondered if there was somewhere to store stuff the first time I played, and lo and behold, I discovered the “stash” yesterday (yeah, I’m slow.)

10,000 gold to open up 14 more slots? I don’t think so.

Not that I need to store much as I’ve just been Salvaging most of it, which brings me to the Blacksmith.

I got enough materials to train the Blacksmith and craft some nifty armor to fill empty slots. Training costs are substantially increased each time but the “rewards” are less than stellar.

I coughed up about another 4000 gold for training and got nothing interesting for my Wizard.

It didn’t take long to find out that I can’t pick up every crappy piece of gear that drops, and I also found that I can “drop” stuff in my inventory if it’s full of junk to make room for a nice Magic piece.

Follower

Somewhere along the way I picked up a Templar companion who has been hanging around with me.

I actually like this a lot. Sure, he’s not much of a fighter but I don’t need to micro-manage him and he’s someone to talk with while running to the next quest.

He also levels up, has a few skill choices and I discovered I can “upgrade” his weapons.

Yeah, I found that *after* I had salvaged some really snappy one-handed weapons and a couple of smoking good shields.

/facepalm

Maybe I’ll try a Monk tonight and see how that plays although I’m pretty sure I’ll be starting with a Wizard when the game goes live.

Posted on April 16, 2012 by admin

April 16, 2012 in World of Warcraft

Yup, I’m doing two posts today since this deserves it’s own post.

I finally got my MoP beta invite and I also got a Diablo III beta at the same time.

I tried MoP first and created a lovely Red Panda female Monk. I really like the new character creation screen and all the hairstyle options, but come on Blizz! We need a lot more face options for the females!

Anyway, I took my new Monk out into the world to try the starter quests – me and about half a million other people – and all us females looked like cloning experiments. Did I mention we need more face options?

I got caught up in the rush to get quests completed but after fighting with a ton of other players to get stuff I decided to slow down and just look around.

The scenery and graphics are beautiful. There were a few minor problems with the quests but I didn’t find anything that wasn’t in the known issues notes.

One thing I did notice – the chat channels were just as full of stupid, raging idiots as regular WoW so it made me feel right at home.

So many people trying to do the same thing at the same time started to lag me out so I quit and downloaded the Diable III beta.

Now, keep in mind I’d never even heard of the Diablo games before WoW, and it’s something I probably wouldn’t go out and purchase.

But with the AP I get a free copy of Diablo III so no reason not to test it out with the Beta.

It difficult not to compare it with WoW although they are completely different in their implementation and mechanics.

The graphics are beautiful but very dark. I had to crank up the gamma to see where I was going.

I started with a female Wizard and after getting used to the fixed camera angle and interface I actually enjoyed playing through it.

I have no idea what my “stats” should be, or what armor/weapons I should be using (some are class specific so that was easy.)

At one point my Wizard was running around with a sword and shield. I could also equip daggers, staves, clubs and a variety of off-hands so I just picked what seemed to be an upgrade whenever something “magic” dropped.

Spells and talents weren’t much of an issue because I was limited to one at a time with little to no choices, and at one point I got to apply a rune to something – again, there wasn’t much of a choice at low levels.

Although the story and graphics were interesting, the game play got boring really fast. It reminded me a lot of console games – the ones where you just run around and spam keys to kill stuff – no rhyme, reason or complexity.

Difficulty seemed a little thin. Sure, you come across more monsters with more hit points but then you just spam your keys faster. Not so much “difficult” as “twitch” game – and I hate twitch games.

I enjoyed the exploring part – knocking over bookcases, loose stones, barrels, etc. to find gold and hidden treasures but again, it was a lot like a console game and when you’ve seen one maze, you’ve seen them all.

I died a couple of times and got sent back to my last checkpoint. That wasn’t too bad and didn’t set me back too far which is a good thing for me because I hate “punishing” games even more than “twitch” games.

I think Diablo III has an “if you die it’s over” level. I know some people enjoy that but I always thought it wasn’t so much “challenging” as simply dumb, so I’ll never play at that level.

Most of the game play was quite intuitive. I didn’t have to go searching the forums or third party sites to figure out what was going on.

I did have to look up information about crafting, and I never did find anything about what my Wizard stats should be from the forums or anywhere else.

I believe the Beta lets you play up to the Skeleton King. I tried a few times but I couldn’t kill him alone so I gave up.

The next day I tried joining a group with 4 other players on the quest and it was a lot more fun and we defeated the boss.

Guess I’m “spoiled” now with the social aspect of WoW. Single player games just don’t hold my attention very long any more (I’m looking at you, Skyrim!)

From what I understand the Beta lets you try different classes in the campaign and I’d like to try a different class but I really don’t know how to start a new character.

Some basic information on how to do that with a little info on class stats, armor and weapons in the game would be helpful.

Overall, I enjoyed playing Diablo III (didn’t find anything too buggy except I couldn’t log in a few times.)

I’m guessing that the full game might be a bit more interesting but if it still screams “console” game I probably won’t work too hard at playing it when it goes live.

Posted on April 16, 2012 by admin

April 16, 2012 in World of Warcraft

I love this Word Event!

Camping out eggs for hours, running around as a little pink bunny, and when is Blizzard going to let us transmog those rabbit ears?

Noblegarden

A few new items this year – black and pink bunny ears and a new mount!

So…who got the mount to drop and who had to pay 500 chocolates for it?

500 chocolates for the mount, 50 each for the two new bunny ears and 100 more to purchase the rabbit pet if that didn’t drop adds up to a heck of a lot of chocolates.

I usually only worry about getting the new stuff on my main Priest, so it took more than a few hours to get 500 chocolates to buy the mount.

After I bought it, I decided to get a 100 more chocolates to purchase the Black and Pink bunny ears so of course the BoP mount dropped at about 26 chocolates.

Yeah, I was banging my head on the keyboard for a while…

Fortunately the rabbit pet is now BoE and I had a few of those drop (my main already had one, all the achieves and title last year) so I have extras for alts.

I didn’t bother trying to get the mount on my other Alliance alts but I thought I’d try with my baby Horde priest.

Actually, I just wanted the rabbit pet for her but chasing eggs was fun so before I knew it I had 500 chocolates for the mount.

The pet never dropped, so I figured I’d try another 100 and get the bunny ears, and then an extra 100 for the pet.

Luckily a kind guildie had extra rabbit pets and sent me one so that saved me a lot of running around!

I did get plenty of Spring Robes, Tuxedos and Branches. In fact, I had more Branches than I could shake a stick at – get it? Ha! Ha!

I should have quit right there, but I had made a little Troll Druid as a buddy for my BE Priest at level 16, so I took her out for some egg hunting, got 500 chocolates for the mount and then found out I couldn’t buy it until she was level 20.

I knew she wouldn’t be able to learn it but I thought I could at least buy it. Apparently not.

So…I had to run her around doing quests with 600 chocolates in my bags to get her to level 20 and finally purchase the mount.

At least she had the rabbit pet drop so I used my extra chocolates for the Black and Pink bunny ears.

I don’t think I ever want to see another chocolate for a very long time.

Next up – Children’s Week. I only have two achievements left on my main for the title – the dreaded School of Hard Knocks – Assault a tower in Alterac Valley, and Hail to the King, Baby.

Yeah, that’s going to be fun.

I tried to solo Hail to the King, Baby last year and failed miserably but I have better gear this year so I hope I can get it done.

As far as the Battleground achievement…who knows? At least I think I have about a week to get it done.

If I can get these two done, that leaves only two left for the Midsummer event to get my Violet drake.

It’s going to be a long summer…

5 comments

Posted on March 30, 2012 by admin

March 30, 2012 in World of Warcraft

A big thank you to khizzara for the guild invite for my baby Horde Priest and the omg Netherweave Bags! Squeee!

I’m leveling Catniptoy the Second as Disc in hopes that it will help me re-learn healing.

Usually it’s not too bad even if stuff dies a little slow.

Except for some quests I tried to do in Northern Barrens at Nozzlepot’s Outpost…

I’m not sure what level I was – maybe around level 14 or 15. The level 16 mobs were yellow to me and level 17s were red.

I ran into a rare mob underwater looking for some sludge – a big, nasty red level 19 mob but I managed to kill it and was feeling quite proud of myself.

Rare Sludge Anomaly

I thought since I could kill the level 19 rare the red level 17s wouldn’t be a problem.

Yeah, that went well.

I could kill one at a time but apparently the red mobs could spot me from miles around and they would all come running to the party.

There was also rare mob Foreman Grills patting around the area I needed to get to for a quest mob at the top of a platform.

Sure, I could kill the regular mobs one at a time along the way but I was killing them so slow Foreman Grills would have plenty of time to walk all the way back to where I was fighting one mob and kill me very efficiently.

I also discovered a second rare mob – Engineer Whirleygig – who apparently also had an issue with me trying to get to the platform and didn’t have a problem helping Foreman Grills stomp me into the ground.

After dying four or five times I finally came up with a brilliant plan – I would rez at the top of the platform right beside the quest mob.

Yes, it was risky because I’d rez with half health/mana and be immediately in combat with no chance to drink but with my PWS and a couple of wimpy heal spells I estimated I would survive long enough to kill him before running OOM.

It was actually working. I was beating the guy down and even whapping him with my staff a few times to conserve mana for my big Mind Blast finish.

What I didn’t count on was him fleeing in terror just before my final death blow and bringing the entire platform of mobs back with him – including my good buddy Foreman Grills.

Rinse and repeat. I tried it again and got him the second time before he ran away. I was stuck at the top of the platform surrounded by mobs but didn’t feel like fighting my way back down again, so I just jumped off the platform and made a run for it.

Of course I aggroed every mob in the entire region and died but at least I got the quests finished and limped back to Nozzlepot’s Outpost to turn them in.

That’s when I realized there was one quest I hadn’t turned in back at the platform. Yeah, like I’m going back there again for another kill fest.

I’ll just keep the quest and turn it in when I’m about level 50 or so.

Dungeon Finder Fun

I went back to Orgrimmar and debated whether or not to queue as healer since the Dungeon Finder was now available for me.

No heirlooms, very little green gear, lots of empty gear slots and I still was wearing a couple of “white” item quest rewards with zero stats.

There still wasn’t very much green gear available at the Auction House I could wear (and afford) but I found a couple of cheap upgrades so I didn’t look like a total failure.

Anyway, isn’t the point of running dungeons to get better gear?

I was tempted to queue as dps but I thought what the heck – might as well just jump in and see what happens. Worst case scenario I get kicked.

So…I queued as healer and zoned into an “in progress” Deadmines.

I almost quit right there but I thought I’ll hang around and see what happens.

I’m glad I did. The tank and a dps warlock were from the same guild and server. No problems at all even if the tank died a couple times (yeah, ran out of my LoS and I wasn’t fast enough with a couple of heals) but no raging or blaming – rezzed him up and we kept going.

Deadmines

I won the Lavishly Jeweled Ring and Corsair’s Overshirt that was not only a huge upgrade for me but sexy to boot!

We chain-queued a few more dungeons after that and I got a couple of nice gear upgrades.

The last dungeon we got was Wailing Caverns and oh my! Lots of juicy intellect/spirit gear!

Wailing Caverns

Unfortunately, we had picked up a Mage along the way and she won all my nice spirit gear including those shoulders but at least I won the “green” boots that replaced my “white” boots.

After the group called it a night I was just a little short of level 20, so I queued for one more dungeon and got Shadowfang Keep.

Yeah, I forgot about the class quest to get the weapon before I queued but I don’t know if it would have been available before level 20 anyway.

This was a lot tougher to heal and I had to really keep on my toes. I was also more painfully aware of how slow my spells were casting and people died a few times.

I don’t know if it was because of over-geared heirlooms and me severely under-geared, player/healer errors or just a tougher dungeon but it was a good learning experience for me.

I made it to level 20 then took the long trip back to Silvermoon City to get my ride!

Finally a Ride!

I didn’t get a chance to do much gathering but I sold a few more auctions and made up the gold I spent on my upgrades so I ended the night with about 99 gold – not too bad at all!

Posted on March 29, 2012 by admin

March 29, 2012 in World of Warcraft

On a suggestion from my last Another Priest post, I rolled Catniptoy the Second on the Kargath server – a lovely Blood Elf.

I think I spent more time at the Character Creation Screen finding the right hairstyle than I did getting her to level 10.

Yeah, I’m such a girl.

But it’s – you know – a Blood Elf and they just won’t tolerate sloppy hairstyles and heaven forbid you pick the wrong earrings.

Once I got the “important” stuff settled, I pretty much raced through the starter quests to get to Silvermoon City to pick up Mining and Herbalism – gotta start making some gold!

Catniptoy Level 10

I picked flowers and mined ore while questing to level 10 and then had to make the big decision – set my hearthstone to Silvermoon City and keep questing in Eastern Kingdoms, or just head over to Orgrimmar?

I actually prefer Eastern Kingdoms quests for the Horde. If I remember correctly (it’s been a while) EK zones have more lore-type story quests while Kalimdor seems to be more “military/war” based.

Is there any quest chain in Kalimdor that could possibly compete with Kingslayer Orkus and Kasha in Hillsbrad Foothills?

There probably is, but that is the one quest chain I remember the best.

Unfortunately, when you’re a level 10 with no “support”, economics has to factor into the equation and Silvermoon City just isn’t very friendly for a baby character leveling up professions and selling stuff at the Auction House.

It’s just too darn big and inefficient to get around when you haven’t got any transportation until level 20.

Yes, I’m fully aware that all the cities are specifically designed to slow you down but some appear more punishing to low levels than others (I’m looking at you, Undercity!!) so…

Off I went to Orgrimmar. I wanted to start the Cooking/Fishing dailies anyway, and there a few inns that are more convenient to facilities and trainers.

Once I hit level 20 and get my ride, I’ll go back to Eastern Kingdoms for quests. There are just too many great quest chains there I don’t want to miss if I’m leveling a Horde character.

I got to Orgrimmar (almost forgot about the Elevator Boss) posted all my ore/herbs, vendored my trash (no, I didn’t sell my staff again) and noticed that all my ore had sold by the time I finished the dailies.

Apparently Copper Bars sell for a very good price on this server so that’s encouraging. I decided to kill some time until I got my gold so I queued for a Battleground.

No helm, no shoulders, no necklace, no rings, no trinkets and I couldn’t purchase any “temporary” cheap gear from the Auction House because all I had in my pocket was 50 silver.

Yeah, my ilvl is 2.

An Honorable Kill

But it’s Warsong Gulch so I went and got a little disoriented starting on the Horde side instead of the Alliance.

I didn’t have to worry about going the wrong way because well, I never left the graveyard. As soon as I rezzed I was killed. I would throw up a shield on myself and whoever else happened to rez at the same time but it was a slaughter.

Interestingly enough, when it was over (Alliance won) I was actually third on healing – go figure.

Not So Fast

I got the usual achievements but didn’t bother queuing for another one. I leveled up my fishing until my Auction gold showed up in my mail.

I finished up the evening at level 12, about 47 gold and I see I have 19 gold waiting for me tonight – not bad for a new baby Blood Elf and a few hours work!

Catniptoy the Second

3 comments

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

March 28, 2012 in World of Warcraft

Tuesday is always a Big Night – lots of guidies and friends join up for the weekly Looking for Loot fest!

I don’t really need any gear or anything, it’s just a lot of fun and a chance to see if I can out-dps a certain Paladin (I can’t, but it’s fun to try!)

And what Priest wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to play Shaman pong with Leap of Faith?

Just for the record, no – it wasn’t me who LoF’d a certain Shaman into the ice wall. Okay, I admit I thought about it but I’d never do it during a fight.

Well, almost never…

So we had a great time and I even won a token I passed to someone who really needed it. I usually don’t win much (if anything) but if I do I’m happy to pass it along and for stuff I can’t roll need on I just pass.

Apparently there was another Shadow Priest in LFR, and when the raid was over and we rolled on the Deathwing loot, she /sighed at me.

I didn’t catch was it was about at first until I looked in my bags and saw that I had won the dagger – Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind.

Now, for a Shadow Priest, this is BiS at any raid level – LFR, Normal and Heroic – with the offhand Ledger of Revolting Rituals.

Of course, neither of those stupid Dragons (Ultraxion and Deathwing) *ever* drops the offhand or the dagger <insert /rage /crying /wrists here>

I don’t have the offhand (see above /rage) but I do have the Lightning Rod staff which is nothing to sneeze at (and doesn’t drop at all in LFR) until the BiS weapons decide to make an appearance.

So…although it would be great to try out the LFR version of the dagger and offhand, I really don’t need them.

I had already gone back to Stormwind but hadn’t left the raid group when I saw the /sigh, so I went back to the instance and clicked on her name to ask her if she wanted the dagger.

Before I finished typing she had left the raid group and disappeared back to another server.

Ugh.

I felt really bad. If there was some way to send it to her I would – but I don’t think there is so now I’m sure she assumes I’m “that” LFR person.

So…Shadow Priest from another server, sorry I wasn’t quite fast enough to give you the dagger. Just so you know I’m really not “that” LFR person, just a little slow on draw.

1 comment