Last night, I did a heroic Underbog run in my continuing effort to get my Earthwarden. Our group makeup was okay. We had myself (feral druid tank), a druid healer, two BM hunters and a warlock. The CC was interesting, especially since one of the hunters had just respecced BM and lost Clever Traps. We managed it with two wipes and a few deaths. That particular hunter, a good RL friend of mine, summed it up… well, I’m not sure how to describe it.
[Edit]: I told you I would, Blaze!
This week’s Weekly WoW Bash is a submission from yours truly. My character’s name was Allania at the time.
Clicky the small to make big.
So the Worldwide Invitational has come and gone, and information was handed out like candy–small, short-lived pieces of candy in high demand. There were some new spells and abilities, but mostly a good look at the vision Blizzard has for WoW and the classes therein. I’m not going to put information here, you can find that anywhere. Instead, I’ll point you to the WWI category at WOW Insider.
Edit: Check out WOW Insider’s WWI Paris Roundup for links to the most relevant articles.
Most of last week, I was away at the annual CHUGADUG conference, and did not post very much. Things are still up and kicking around here, though, and the new theme to go with the new domain is well underway (almost finished, in fact), and I’m eager to unveil it (it’s better, in my opinion, than the current theme, and is also original, unlike the current one, which was downloaded from a template site).
Until then, happy WoWing!
The Part Time Druid posted an excellent post entitled “Why do We WoW?” over on his site. I’ve talked with my wife about this quite a bit, as when you think about it, it really is a good question.
PTD brings up a few possible reasons we WoW, from searching for meaning in life or being competitive, down to accomplishing goals or socializing. But, he argues, these things don’t really exist. There’s no arguing that the drops you get or the items you craft aren’t really real. You don’t get any “thing” in real life that shows that you downed Illidan. Even the more abstract WoW-reasons, such as achievement-reaching or socializing (aside from the people aspect) aren’t real. They’re just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s, which, when you get down to it, are just electrons flowing on wire from my house to Blizzard’s place. No matter how much I do in WoW, I haven’t really done anything.
Or have I?
The rewards may not be tangable, but the chemicals in your brain that make you feel good are the same as the ones you get when winning a sports game, or passing a difficult test, or any other exciting accomplishment. I’m not saying that you should seek WoW as an escape from real life; there’s no replacing experiences in the mortal plane, especially when it comes to family and loved ones. I’m just saying that just because the physical thing you get isn’t real, it doesn’t mean the accomplishment’s not. The first time I went to Kara, I was excited. My wife doesn’t WoW, but she shared in that excitement with me. It was real, most definitely real.
That’s not even counting the social/people aspects of WoW. I invited a shy friend of mine that I met in WoW to a guild, and she ended up in a romantic relationship with a member of that guild. They even told me to come to IF one day and thanked me for “introducing” them. That’s as real as it gets, folks. Look at Second Skin–they were able to make an entire documentary of just the “people part” of MMOs.
But, aside from all that, Part Time Druid hits the nail on the head–it’s entertainment. I pay my $15 a month to enjoy myself, the same reasy I pay money to get cable TV or go play raquetball at the “Y” or do anything else I do that costs money. I guess, in the end, that’s what it all comes down to.
What are your thoughts? Why do you WoW? Or do you even think about that? Do you look for reason in your WoW, or are you happy to just enjoy your entertainment?
Welcome to the first episode of Weekly WoW Bash, where I link a favorite or particulary funny (in my strange and twisted opinion) post from WoW Bash.
Today’s entry is “Girls Have More Mana.”
With sincere apologies (honest) to those trying to link to me and keep up with my domain name fickleness, I am rechanging the domain name of this blog to TheAltoholic.com. The feed will update automatically (assuming you’re using the FeedBurner one), and the old domain names (wow.binarymuse.net and wowonthemind.com) will continue to automatically forward visitors to the correct place.
Thanks to Nibuca of Mystic Chicanery for the awesome joke, I knew this had to be made when I heard it.
This is in response to the Shared Topic from Blog Azeroth entitled 10 Best Memories in World of Warcraft.
The first time I logged in to WoW, I created Celidur, my mage. Finally logging in and seeing what all the hubub was all about, being able to control my own character and explore this massive virtual world with all my friends, was a great experience. This is by far not number 10 in the list of best memories, but it was the first, so it goes here.
Read more… »
Jun 19
A few days ago I posted in “The Shallow End of the Big Kids’ Pool” about my random invitation into the middle of a very well geared Kara group, it being my first time in there, not knowing what to do, and getting my T4 helm. Well, my guild found out that I did Kara and was thus obviously geared enough to do Kara and invited me yesterday to the weekly run. Okay, I can offtank some stuff and throw out some Kitty DPS. These guys aren’t as geared as the folks I ran with last time, so I won’t be quite so far behind.
One of the best things about this guild is that three of my closest friends, who are related and live together about 30 minutes away, are in it. Two of them I used to work with at the Geek Squad (I refuse to link to them) and one of them goes to school where I now work in IT. So, it’s really fun to run with people you know and respect and have a good time with on a daily basis.
Anyway, when we went in it was me (Kara n00b) off-tanking and a warrior main tanking. We got as far as Attumen when the warrior had to go. So, a priest logged his feral druid, and a druid who had just logged in respecced resto and headed in. It didn’t take long to do the math.
“Well, Mr. Tilley, guess you’re main tank.”
Um, what? Oh wow. Do I have to? I don’t know the pulls. The other feral druid (one of the three friends) was a bit more well geared in some areas (one thing I noticed is he had his Earthwarden) but I had the T4 helm and my pruple PvP shoulders. Honestly either of us could have performed the roll, but it fell to me.
Okay, dag nab it, let’s do this shiz-nit. Or whatever.
Brandon Tilley (aka Binary Muse) is a 22-year-old-geek from Hanford, CA. Naturally, he is a World of Warcraft addict. Besides playing WoW, in his free time, Brandon enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife, spending time in the great outdoors, and eating delicious food.
