In Absentia June 23, 2011
Posted by Ben in General Whinging, Guild Stuff, Leveling.trackback
So…We suddenly became very bad at updating the wall…I’d like to blame a busy schedule or some exciting real life event, but in truth, it’s just been a combination of laziness and lack of ideas on my part. (As for Stormy, well, he’s actually got good reason)
So…what have I been up to?
After years, I’ve finally found the joy in playing a rogue again. A human rogue was my main from Vanilla and into Burning Crusade. But when he got to level 70 and in the absence of a guild to run dungeons or raids with, he slid to the back burner while I leveled other alts. Then Wrath came and my druid had become my main and Rushoir never made it past level 71. A server change, faction change and a new expansion later, Rushoir has been reborn as a member of the Forsaken and grown to level 43. I still struggle with the energy system and how it cramps my playstyle compared to mana, but since Subtlety at this level is pretty much Ambush->Eviscerate->Loot, I don’t have to worry about it too much.
My undead hunter (the first of my Cataclysm alts) has finally pushed her way out of Northrend and into the post-80 world, and I’m loving it. She won’t take the place of my two co-mains (Shadow Priest and Resto/Ele Shaman), but she’ll probably get her share of play at max level.
My pocket healer was gone for a week, so my Tankadin didn’t get any notable leveling. There’s something that makes running chains of low-level dungeons more fun when you have at least one (and sometimes two) allies in the group. And it doesn’t hurt that these runs can qualify for guild challenges, and the 300,000 guild xp a pop.
Psst. There’s some kind of bug with the Midsummer Festival that occasionally guild groups killing Ahune can earn double credit for guild challenges. Our guild racked up over 2,000,000 guild xp yesterday in large part due to this. Nice.
As for my co-mains, they’ve been in a holding pattern. Earning JP for gear that will be even less attractive once 4.2 drops hasn’t held my interest. I’m sure once I can start collecting some T11 gear, I’ll get more interested. Plus, I’m super-stoked for the new daily quest hub. That is content that is right up my alley.
So…what have you been up to?
*And I promise to get Silverpine, Part Two written and posted soon*
Scribblings on the Asylum Wall 
WoW is like smoking. Stay with me here…
When my parents were hardcore smokers back in the day, my mom often remaed that smoking wasn’t so much an addiction as just a routine. You get up in the morning and pour your first cup of coffee, you light up a cigarette. You get in the car to go to work and you light up a cigarette. It just becomes a Thing You Do.
WoW, apparently, is the same way. I was away from it for almost a week when I was in Minneapolis (although I did log in long enough to do the JC daily and Northrend Inscription Research every day), and now that I’m back at home but out of the habit of WoW, I’m just kinda…done.
Back in September I actually bought a new laptop with the intention of mainly using it to play WoW. I installed WoW and got everything set up, but it just wasn’t right. I can’t make the new laptop work with my hands and my muscle memory in the same way as my MacBook, so my play suffers pretty badly. I kinda threw the laptop in a corner and just…left it there.
This weekend when I got back from Minneapolis I dragged it out, spent an entire day downloading new Windows updates and installing Cataclysm, and intended to rock and roll. But I just can’t. The trackpad on the new laptop is so stiff that it’s nearly impossible to use as an input device, and I just can’t get my hands to work together to use a mouse and keybinds at the same time. I tried tanking Ahune a couple times and I just can’t do it. I suffered through it a couple days ago when I had a sympathetic shaman and druid with me, but today when I tried pugging it I just suffered. My tanking was terrible, I knew it, and I got called out on it. ‘
I’m going to force myself to do a couple randoms with Rush’s tankadin and Suzanne’s hunter this weekend because playing WoW with them is fun enough to be worth it, but today is my day off and I’ve been in WoW less than an hour. I just can’t do it anymore.
Seems to be happening to a lot of people. I denied it before it happened to me.