WOTLK Release Night

On Burning Crusade release night, close to two years ago, we waltzed into our local 24 hours Walmart around 10pm and found they had about 20 collectors editions and we were about 6 people deep in line. Even after an upsetting and disheartening experience trying to purchase Blizzcon tickets, we decided to not pre order based on our BC experience.

We knew our local Fry's had a lot of copies, but they would not be open until Thursday morning at 8 am, so that was our backup plan. As they day wore on we grew more excited, and a bit annoyed at the announcement that all realms would be playable at 9pm PST. Then why not just have it go on sale 9pm PST?, why make us on the West Coast wait while everyone gets a 3+ hour jump. We called around and our trusty Walmart had but a mere 6 copies of the CE, other calls yielded the same answer, 6 copies.

So we layed out our plan, go to dinner near the store, and then hit the store after the restraunt closed. We ended up in Walmart at 9:15pm, and they wonderfully had a sign up sheet. We were second and third for the six CE copies, score! The 100lbs soaking wet clerk instructed us to stand in line before the first guy(s?) in line and not wander to far from the electronics department.

After a quick side trip in store we returned to find the guy(s) missing and we are suddenly first in "line". We call our friend and tell her to get on over here and join us, get her copy tonight. So as we wait off to the side, the same place we waited two years earlier for BC, as it inches close to ten, the masses begin to stream into the store. Another guy gets 4 & 5 of the CE and finally a very large black man, who plays a Tauren Druid!?!? ...no ...??? He gets the last of the CE's and begins to bully on the very scared, very nervous, very non authorative employee, who already told us he would not be around for the midnight toll.

Also a line begins to form in front of the damn counter, huh? Line over here people. Our friend arrives bearing sodas for the wait ahead and I begin to obsess over the line forming not behind us but across the store from us, I am not going to the back of the line when my name is at the top. It's the principle of the matter. I confront, calmly, our bespecceled buddy, who is now frazzled beyond belief. He tells me, "I don't know why they are lining up, but your name is on the list." Guess this is the best I am getting at this point.

Once the night crew gets in and the manager steps in, things begin to calm a bit, the line grows. I am staying my ground and noticbly the other CE sign ups are staying clear of the line. After things are settled, the new cashier tells me, we will get called up first, those of us with the CE, they took our orders for one each regular edition as well. We also get posters! Cool beans, now things are falling into place.

Finally Midnight approaches, we line up on the CE end to get our copies, they hand out the posters, very cool. Buy up our copies, head outside, other parties have a smoke and we get ready to head home and install.

But one more thing, the drive by the other side of the parking lot, where there is a long line for copies at Gamestop. Also we hear word that their credit card machines are not working very well, in fact are down. First snap a few pictures of the line, then wave my copy of the CE out the window. At least one guy screams, we wave bye bye and head home to install and play some.

Pre WoTLK

As the week prior to release of WoTLK wore on and the Scourge Invasion began to fade, my last minute preperations changed drastically. Friday night prior to release we called into Kara for a run at the bottom half and a chance to kill Tenris Murkblood. Better late than never!

This was a pug a friend put together with different people she has instanced with before. I would not call it a Guild run with a few adds, more like a pug of four different small guilds, but most people had not played with one another. Though I had never been in Kara before, I was familiar with most of the fights having read and listened to many accounts and walk throughs of the instance.

The Attunement / Midnight fight went pretty well, a few people died, but we got them down on the first attempt. We moved onto to Tenris and the wiping commenced. Our raid leaders did not make it clear, perhaps they were not that aware of how his exploding blooddrops worked, but it was causing me a lot of problems. It was not until I quickly looked up the fight and began running in front of the tank that we were finally finding some success. After we had wiped on Tenris a few times we headed over to Maiden and took her down.

Before we quit for the evening, we went one last time after Tenris which is when we finally defeated him. The Arcanite Ripper dropped and the raid leader wanted only those that could use the axe to roll on it, myself, my gf's pally and another hunter. She rolled first with a whopping 34, I followed with my usual suckiness in rolls with a 32. At that point we assumed the other hunter would win, but he pulled up a 20 amazingly enough. After a long negotiation, I ended up with the Ripper, and it is wonderful.

The next day we headed back in for a few hours, we downed Moroes, wiped a lot but finally completed the Opera event of Romulo and Julianne, but had to leave after the first wipe on Curator. Still it was nice to see it pretty level 80 and get some decent time in there, and some soon to be useless badges of justice.

Sunday I got called into Heroic Underbog, Heroic Slave Pens and got to run through regular Magister's Terrace. Though no loot was to be found for me, the tank and I were the only ones left standing in MT. This was some slight compensation for me, since I was then removed from the group for someone else, and my BC instance weekend came to a bittersweet end.

Also finally got my epic Undeadslaying chest piece Monday night from the Scourge Ziggers. At least I got the set on one of my toons, never did get it on my shaman.

Scourge Invasion

By now everyone has lived through the Zombie portion of the Scourge Invasion and lived to tell the tale, so here goes mine.

Zombies, 10 minutes to find a healer, no problem, leave the Goldshire, ride up to the healer at the front of Stormwind. Next day, 5 minutes, ok no problem, 2 minutes, um heal, 1 minute, face the fact that you will become a zombie. It was taking my pally partner 3 or more dispels to remove the disease at that point.

On our server, Hydraxis, where we re rolled prior to the Burning Crusade launch, by the last day, the zombie pack was holed up in the mage tower. They were making claims of a world boss in Stormwind, trying to get people to port in from Shatt. Where of course they would promptly be attacked by 25-50 zombies, it was pretty crazy. I was one of the folks assaulting the tower from within Stormwind, it started to feel like Dawn of the Dead, you just keep shooting until you get turned.

New old rep to grind, welcome back to going from revered to exalted with the Argent Dawn. The last few nights have been filled with fighting undead in Winterspring and Tanaris, for the most part. Collecting necrotic runes, I have purchased the tabard, shoulders and gloves for both my Hunter and Shaman. Waiting for some mail to drop off the elites. The Silver rare spawns we are getting a 100% drop of an epic piece 3/3, the gold elites only maybe about 3/15 or so. We cannot two man them, but we usually find a helper to tank for us, last night a crazy druid while I healed.

Both my hunter and shaman began this grind being just ticked into revered, so I will have to see how close to exalted I can get before the invasion ends. Luckily the necropolis mobs drop scourgestones, which can add up quick so making some progress, but not as much as I would like.

Trick or treating has taken a back seat, but I got the sqaushling / hood achievement on my hunter, shammy got the squashling, so still a chance on her as well. Lots of masks for belfs and Draenei showing up now, there was a rumor they were not in the game, maybe hot fixed in the other day. I will need to spend the next couple nights trying to finish a few more Hallow's End achievements on my mains.

Blizzard is doing a great job of keeping everyone busy in these last few weeks leading up to Wrath. I have found my energy renewed and am logging a lot of time right now.

Hallows End

As if the new patch dropping this week was not enough, or many of being involved with the Refer A Friend (RAF) program, it is holiday time again. We are barely over our hangovers from Brewfest and suddenly it is time to gorge on candy for Hallows End.

I logged into my up and coming hunter on my RAF account this morning in the hallways of The Exodar entrance, to find Jack O Lanterns. The new, well maybe not new, but seemingly new tradition of holidays starting and ending on Saturdays brought us this awesome holiday.

Getting sidetracked now, a lot of folks were caught by suprise of Brewfest being gone Saturday morning of the final day, everyone thought through that day. I thought most holidays mainly, at least the long ones, started and ended around patch days. Not sure when this was phased out, probably around the time weekly downtime was phased out, will need to research that further.

Mainly I worked on my hunter, not really the holiday today, but new things to report include new quests, such as the "Handful Of Candy" quest. This requires you to visit every inn and get a handful of candy from a bucket in every inn. Nice for 70's as it garners 3+ gold, but a mere 550 XP for my wee 24 hunter. Hopefully that will grow with the levels, as I recall the XP varied in some of the Fire Festival quests, depending on level. Higher level = higher xp, for a change.

In the non holiday notes, from the patch, there were some awesome changes. Shelled clams now stack and they stack to 20! That is awesome, but clam meat still only stacks to 10. Also while questing on my hunter, Draenei btw, so I am in Darkshore now. This led to the discovery that the gnome fishing quests Gafferjacks and Electropropellers now seem to have a 100% drop rate. That was another great find, fishing quests are great, because fishing, cooking and first aid are all important skills to have. But making the quests unfun with hideous drop rates does not help encourage people to take up these skills.

Also on the topic of hunters, can we say OP? The first thing I did on patch drop was pull out my 70 hunter, head to Ungoro and pick out a Devilsaur. I continued to run around picking up some exploration achievements, letting my new pet run wild. Hell - o fun. But working my alt hunter from 16-24 in the past couple nights, it seems very OP. Hunter was my first class, and one I think is a lot of fun and fairly easy. I enjoy soloing, and pushing my hunters, but it just seems extra easy right now with the new hunter changes. But that may change as I continue to level this alt.

Last note for now, I just finished leveling my druid (feral) / priest (shadow) combo to near 60 with the RAF program. I have some 30ish alts on my main account I want to level up and some on the RAF account I am setting up to work with. I have about a month left on the RAF 90 days and about that much time until WOTLK launch. We are going hunter / druid, shaman / paladin and hunter / warlock. I would like to get them to 40ish before my time runs out and then I will distribute my gift levels as I see fit. I have a rogue sitting at 53 who will gifted up to 59 and the last hunter in the lock/hunter pair is likely to be deleted.

I have my two names picked out, one on each account for dual boxing Death Knights and when WOTLK launches I will work on my Shaman, Hunter, then DKs. Then when things settle I will see about working on my stable of 60's and getting them to 80. I have my worked cut out for me, no doubt.

Repgrind

Hello and welcome to Repgrind, my World Of Warcraft blog and hopefully one day podcast. I have been working on this concept for sometime time now, however it keeps getting delayed. At least the podcast portion of the project keeps getting delayed.

In the meantime, I at least want to get blogging on some WOW issues, especially with the new patch dropping on the realms yesterday. The concept of Repgrind is just day to day play, the grinding, the getting about to whatever goals you have in game. It is not hardcore, it is not raiding, it is not pvp, it is pve and casual.

While the word casual has a certain stigma attached to it, much like the word hunter, it does not mean that a lot of time and effort are not put into the game. It just means life does not revolve around the game, certainly, leisure time and work time and thought are put into the game, but I do other things as well. Heck just check out my other blogs to see what else goes on in my life.

While this is not a particularly strong time for MMO's, a lot of people are down on them, especially WOW, I continue to play. I will continue to play and listen to podcasts and read blogs and write about it myself.

If you are interested in hearing my opinions on WOW, my opinions about other people's opinions, then welcome aboard. If not, go play WAR.