Clever Clicks: New Title, Still Tasty

I've changed "Friday Linkday" to "Clever Clicks" for two reasons: 1) The title is way more awesome, and 2) this way I can post on any day of the week and not just Friday.

1. The discussion of the difficulty of raiding on Wrath continues by this post by guest blogger Thespius over at World of Matticus. I'd written a long comment that was deleted when Safari crashed.

While I agree with what has been said in the article, it is still difficult to find groups when you have recently hit 80 and everyone is running Uludar and TOtC--no one runs Naxx anymore, particularly not with a barely geared noob like myself. At least in BC there were plenty of people running Kara over and over to obtain gear. They keying process also gave people the perfect opportunity to obtain the gear necessary to run Kara. Now it's a lot more difficult to know what you're supposed to do next. It's a chaotic free-for-all of PUGs in TOC and Heroics.

2. Anna gives an excellent description of what RP actually is for those of you who might not know, or think we sit around saying "forsooth" all the time.

3. Immersiveness has been a popular topic lately, and it's tackled in this excellent post by Elnia. The particular focus is on how the story in WoW is broken up--by other quests, stopping and restarting of the game, etc. I remember this bothered me while leveling. I'd be on a fascinating quest chain, and then I'd be stopped by a bunch of lazy villagers asking for animal parts and the ears off enemies.

No Post-Weekend Update this week since my mother is in town and I've spent my entire weekend touring my city as opposed to touring Azeroth.

WoW is Too Hard - A Casual's Perspective

There has been quite a bit of talk since Wrath's launch regarding the content. Blizzard's goal was to make it more accessible to casual players, and in the end many hardcore players feel they are getting through the content too quickly and that it isn't as much of a fun challenge as in Burning Crusade.

Recently the topic was brought up again in a post in World of Matticus by a guest blogger Mimetir. Memetir's main point was that the ease of content meant that players could easily jump in once reaching 80 and not really know what they're doing. Larissa (sorry, hon, I don't do accents) told people to stop whining. She doesn't think it's too easy. It was Elleiras's response that elicited this post.

Blizzard's intention with Wrath was to make the raid game accessible to even the most casual of players...We knew that Naxxramas would be easy.

I'm not arguing what Elleiras is saying in the post. In fact, a hard mode and an easy mode of the same dungeon sounds, well, the same. The problem I have is that I may never get to experience it.

I am a casual player. I have to do this 50 hours a week:

Then I need 8 hours of sleep a night or I'm cranky and exhausted when trying to do the above. I also have social engagements, and other activities I'm involved in. I also like to do other things in game like events, RP, and alts. I'm busy.

I'd love to start doing Naxx, but anyone else who might be interested is already sick of it. The people complaining about how easy everything is mention how no one raids there anymore. If I can't do Naxx, I'll never be able to move on to Uludar and TotC, and even if I was able to gear up enough for one of those with Heroics, who would want me? I'm too green. I haven't raided enough.

WoW is too hard because no matter how accessible the content, if you get behind, you're stuck.

Post-Weekend Update: Big Naga Down!

The Death of Lady Vashj

Frijona, along with the Modan Co and some friends, were finally able to kill the great naga leader, Lady Vashj in Serpentshrine Cavern. Hopefully this will return balance to the Zangarmarsh ecology and the Sporelings will be able to live out the rest of their lives in peace.

Too Many Heinsoos

Our guild leader, Heinsoo, had to leave quickly following the raid. We missed him so much that a few of us created a mob of Heinsoo clones. (Mine is Heiny, second from the left.) We then proceeded to run around Ironforge and Stormwind as stereotypes of our fearless leader. In other words, yelling "Son of a..." and "I'm docking your pay" a lot with many /facepalm emotes.

This sort of craziness is why I love that guild so much!

Friday Linkday: October 2, 2009

For some reason I find Friday Linkday posts really difficult to write. It's not that I don't read at least 4 good posts during the week. It's that sometimes I get ready to write the post and the top thing on my mind is how I got a perfect score on the Helvetica vs. Arial quiz and I really want to brag about that.

That aside, here goes:

1. Love, love, loved Nibuca's post on Affliction spell rotation aptly titled So You Think You Can Dance. And people call being a warlock easy. She didn't even mention pets and trying to decide between Life Tap and Dark Pact.

2. Casual WoW Player is posting again! Since I will never roll a pally I don't care much about the most recent post, but more good things will come methinks.

3. So, You Wanna Raid? Now you can experience all the joys of raiding during server maintenance!

4. GameStop is Pre-selling Cataclysm. It says it's being shipped November 1, 2010. Note that it's over a year away. Even if it does come out by then.

Cataclysm is over a year away? That makes me sad all of a sudden. I want my Goblin!

Frijona and the Sporelings - Part 1

[This is the first part of an in-character account of Frijona's time spent in Sporeggar. Modan Co is doing an IC run of Serpentshrine Cavern this coming weekend. This should explain some of Fri's particular hatred for naga, and why I'm so excited about having her kill Lady Vashj!]

Frijona Spindrella arrived in Zangarmarsh with the intent of assisting the Cenarion Expedition, but the young Warlock found herself easily distracted. Since arriving in the Outlands, she'd been spending all of her time in the hot, harsh climate of Hellfire Penninsula. The swamps of Zangarmarsh were a welcome relief. The large tops of the giant mushrooms that populated the zone offered shade from the sun. Frijona was most impressed by the herbs in the area. With her herb sack ready, she began filling it with the anticipation of examining the herbs later on. Of most interest to her was the long white stalks of a herb which according to her book was called rageveil.

Frijona was working with a rather tricky stalk of rageveil, when suddenly she heard a hissing sound and behind her. She looked up. About seven green and blue serpent-like creatures were standing above her. They seemed to be laughing.
"Naga..." Frijona said, standing up and preparing to fight. This was not her first run-in with naga. There was the group in Feralas guarding the ruins, and the mob that tried to attack the ship she was on when she'd taken a job as a deckhand. Never friendly and always extremely annoying. Frijona was about to call on a demon to send the naga backwards when she realized that in all the excitement over herbs she'd forgotten to call on one.
"Thisss one is barely ssskin and bones," hissed a naga, apparently female. "Hardly enough for a sssnack!"
The naga laughed. Frijona thought they were going to perhaps let her be.
"Ssstill, we can't let her live." The naga laughed again and before she could cast an appropriate spell, began to close in on her. The last thing she saw was a particularly burly naga raise a pole-arm above her head.

The warlock awoke in what appeared to be a small, although oddly brightly lit, cave. "Naga..." she said, remembering. They must've taken her prisoner.
"You're awake!" said a strange, high pitched, gurgly sort of voice. Frijona looked to her left where it was coming from and her eyes widened in shock. The creature was very odd looking. It was short and purple with almost glowing yellow spots on its body, particularly on its very large forehead.
"You think I look strange, but to me you look strange. Even for a Human you look odd. But that is no matter. You are doing much better. Wait, no you cannot get up! You must rest. And eat!" The creature thrust out a round light green object that appeared to be a fruit in front of the woman's face.
"Erm, uh. I don't, I mean, no thanks?" Frijona tried to push back from the food, but her head throbbed with a sharp pain.
"Up to you. It's a sporepod. I will leave it here" the creature said. He set the fruit down next to her. Frijona tried to remember the last time she had something to eat. She couldn't, which was her signal that she needed to eat again. She picked up the fruit. She smelled it. No specific scent. Slowly she raised it to her lips and took a very tiny bite. It was soft like a fungus but did not taste like a mushroom. It was also near liquid on the inside. It was almost tasteless, like water, and as Frijona chewed and swallowed she noticed that she had not wanted to spit it out the moment she put it in her mouth. She realized that her body did not want to expell it the moment it entered her esophagus. She did not have to fight any spasms of her stomach.
She wasn't sure how she could tell, but the creature seemed to be smiling. Frijona smiled back. "Yum," she said.

Frijona had tried to get up again after finishing the sporepods, but the creature stopped her again. "You must rest more," he said. "The naga knocked you out hard."
"I am not sleepy," Frijona said. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"
"Yes. I am Fahssn, a Sporeling and you are in Sporeggar."
"Tell me more about Sporeggar. What do you Sporelings do?"
"Sporeggar is our home in Zangarmarsh. We Sporelings are simple people. We fish and do crafts and try to take care of our families. We do not have wars like you humans. We have not done so. But now we must fight. Things are changing and it is not good for Sporeggar."
"Why not? What is changing?" Frijona asked.
"I will find Mycah who can tell you more. Mycah asked to meet you when you awoke. You awoke so I will find Mycah."

Fahssn left and returned with another nearly identical Sporeling. "This is Mycah. This is: What is your name?"
"I am Frijona Spindrella. But you can call me Fri," Frijona said.
"Hello Fri," said Mycah. "I am glad you are awake. We were not sure you would live. Fahssn said that you had interest in Sporeling trouble. Why is that?"
Frijona smiled. "You helped me, so I would like to help you if possible."
"Humans are too busy with their other problems to help the Sporelings. But I will tell you what is going on. We have two problems. First is the fungal giants. There used to be few, but now there are many who try and eat our children. We try to fight but they are much bigger and stronger. We must go in very large groups to bring one down. But worse than the giants are the naga. They have not always been here. They are killing us because we make bad slaves."
Frijona's bony hands formed fists. "WHAT? They KILL you because you make bad SLAVES? That is the stupidest, most horrible thing I have ever heard!" Frijona winced and put her hands on her head.
"It is a bad time for Sporelings but you must be calm and rest," said Mycah. "Lie down now and sleep and we will talk more in the morning."

Sunwell Sunburn

It's strange to go into an instance that was once visited only by the hardest of core as an "oh why not?" thought while questing. It was an IC event setup by my guild and another, my guild was hired by another to do some investigating of the Sunwell.

Fri was one of the lower levels in the group--most being 80. There was a level 71 mage who popped in. There was less than 15 of us, I believe. As you can imagine, we had a difficult time. We wiped on trash several times before downing Kalecgos after three tries. At this point it had been over an hour and I had real life duties to attend to. The rest of the group ended up calling it on Brutallus. Still, it was fun actually getting a chance to see it!

The only drop I recieved was a Shadowsong Amethyst which I'm not sure what to do with. I went into the Auction House, but no one had any for sale. Perhaps it's bind on pickup and I'm just a moron? If not, I may just put it in the guild bank.

Trade: Shadowsong Amethyst, Moon Guard-Alliance side, 9999 Gold.