No time for a full entry today, so instead, I present...
Tales for the L33t: Romeo + Juliet
The date says 1999, and I think that's approximately when I first saw this. Too funny. I was in graduate school at the time, and had been away from chatrooms for a couple years. (I was active in our university wide chat when I was an undergrad, but I don't remember folks using any of the abbreviations common today. I do remember when people started using emoticons though. :-o )
Chatspeak had evolved quite a bit when I wasn't looking. I wasn't familiar with some of the words (rox0r and similar variants, for example), but I got the gist of it from random folks I ran into playing Diablo II. All the general chats in WoW are still sprinkled with this stuff...
Anyway, enjoy!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Magic Word
Last night, our paladin/shaman duo was running through The Barrens and as we passed by a Tauren standing on the road, I buffed him. "Wait," he said, and started chasing after us. "Wait up," he said. So, we stopped. "U want 2 do rapor horns." Hm. "And stolen sliver." "get lots xp." My husband responded, kind of pretending he didn't know what quests he was talking about at first, hoping that if the guy thought we were idiots, he wouldn't want to group with us. Turns out that this Tauren was not that discriminating (in addition to being illiterate), so he kept describing the quests to us in his broken chatspeak. We weren't thrilled about the idea of joining up with this guy, but finally relented after a few minutes since we needed the quests anyway. I invited him to the group and started heading toward the quest area. "Folo" he said.
We followed him a bit, but he was meandering so much that husband decided to take the lead instead, since he definitely knew where we were supposed to go. He said that if we went to the bridge and then followed the dry riverbed east, it would take us right to the raptors. The Tauren followed until we got to an area for a different quest, the one where you have to put the feathers in the different colored nests. He ran off the road and started attacking the raptors. "Come" he said over and over. Wrong quest, dude. Then, "help." He was level 13, and the raptor was level 17, I think, and he was getting his ass handed to him in a major way. We helped kill the raptor, but he died anyway. I resurrected him, and told him that this was not the quest we agreed on before, and that neither of us had this quest. "Help" he said, and charged in to get another raptor. Gah.
As my husband helped him with the kill, I nicely explained that this was the last raptor in this spot that we would help him kill. If he cared to join us for the raptor horns and stolen silver in the other area, he could follow, but if he stayed and attacked another one here, we were leaving him behind. Almost immediately, he went after another raptor. I removed him from the group. "Help." "Come help." I don't think so. Good luck. We made our way toward the nearest oasis to kill some centaurs and take care of the seed quest.
He did manage to get away from it, but then something else started attacking him. We disappeared into the oasis, and lost him.
Ok, a few problems...
1) I'm starting to get used to this type of person's inability to spell, but I hate it when people order me around. "Come." I don't think so. I am not a dog. Say "please" and I will be much more receptive. (This was one of the same issues I had with the paladin I described in my previous post.) Even "plz" would show good intent.
2) We agreed to help with specific quests. These quests were orange for us, and he was several levels below us, so I can only imagine they were red for him. What the hell was he doing running off and initiating a totally different quest of an even higher level? I suppose it's possible he just wanted to collect the horns of these raptors, but there'd be plenty more in the other area where the stolen silver was.
3) He told us to follow, and he had no idea where he was going. Maybe this is our fault for feigning cluelessness when he first approached us, but come on...
4) He was not listening. Not that someone in a group with me has to do what I say, but if you disagree, perhaps do so verbally? Acknowledge me? Seems like most problems in pugs would be solved if people spent more time listening to each other. Some of the biggest frustrations I've had in pugs were with my priest, when I needed to stop for mana. "Please wait while I drink -- I'm out of mana," I'd have to repeat myself over and over, as I watched the tank go run into another group of mobs. Very annoying.
5) We are associated with a guild. This isn't a problem, except for in a situation like this where we find ourselves having to hold back quite a bit. I don't think this particular kid would remember our names, much less the name of our guild (nor could he probably spell any of this), but I'm ever conscious of how I am representing my guild when I encounter other players. It means that I don't tell people off when they're being jerky or a pest or whatever. I really want to call people out when they're barking out orders like that though. If we're in the middle of a fight and there's no time for please, then fine, but when you approach me for help in a non-combat situation, politeness will get you further.
All of this probably makes me sound like a cranky old lady. Maybe this is how kids out there in the Barrens interact with each other all day long, and I'm just from a different generation. I think there's still room for pleases and thank-yous in the virtual world; just because we're not sitting face to face doesn't mean we shouldn't show each other some respect.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sit on the front porch with the hose and threaten to spray kids who run through my yard. *creaks her bones* "Please get off my lawn." *squiiiirt*
We followed him a bit, but he was meandering so much that husband decided to take the lead instead, since he definitely knew where we were supposed to go. He said that if we went to the bridge and then followed the dry riverbed east, it would take us right to the raptors. The Tauren followed until we got to an area for a different quest, the one where you have to put the feathers in the different colored nests. He ran off the road and started attacking the raptors. "Come" he said over and over. Wrong quest, dude. Then, "help." He was level 13, and the raptor was level 17, I think, and he was getting his ass handed to him in a major way. We helped kill the raptor, but he died anyway. I resurrected him, and told him that this was not the quest we agreed on before, and that neither of us had this quest. "Help" he said, and charged in to get another raptor. Gah.
As my husband helped him with the kill, I nicely explained that this was the last raptor in this spot that we would help him kill. If he cared to join us for the raptor horns and stolen silver in the other area, he could follow, but if he stayed and attacked another one here, we were leaving him behind. Almost immediately, he went after another raptor. I removed him from the group. "Help." "Come help." I don't think so. Good luck. We made our way toward the nearest oasis to kill some centaurs and take care of the seed quest.
He did manage to get away from it, but then something else started attacking him. We disappeared into the oasis, and lost him.
Ok, a few problems...
1) I'm starting to get used to this type of person's inability to spell, but I hate it when people order me around. "Come." I don't think so. I am not a dog. Say "please" and I will be much more receptive. (This was one of the same issues I had with the paladin I described in my previous post.) Even "plz" would show good intent.
2) We agreed to help with specific quests. These quests were orange for us, and he was several levels below us, so I can only imagine they were red for him. What the hell was he doing running off and initiating a totally different quest of an even higher level? I suppose it's possible he just wanted to collect the horns of these raptors, but there'd be plenty more in the other area where the stolen silver was.
3) He told us to follow, and he had no idea where he was going. Maybe this is our fault for feigning cluelessness when he first approached us, but come on...
4) He was not listening. Not that someone in a group with me has to do what I say, but if you disagree, perhaps do so verbally? Acknowledge me? Seems like most problems in pugs would be solved if people spent more time listening to each other. Some of the biggest frustrations I've had in pugs were with my priest, when I needed to stop for mana. "Please wait while I drink -- I'm out of mana," I'd have to repeat myself over and over, as I watched the tank go run into another group of mobs. Very annoying.
5) We are associated with a guild. This isn't a problem, except for in a situation like this where we find ourselves having to hold back quite a bit. I don't think this particular kid would remember our names, much less the name of our guild (nor could he probably spell any of this), but I'm ever conscious of how I am representing my guild when I encounter other players. It means that I don't tell people off when they're being jerky or a pest or whatever. I really want to call people out when they're barking out orders like that though. If we're in the middle of a fight and there's no time for please, then fine, but when you approach me for help in a non-combat situation, politeness will get you further.
All of this probably makes me sound like a cranky old lady. Maybe this is how kids out there in the Barrens interact with each other all day long, and I'm just from a different generation. I think there's still room for pleases and thank-yous in the virtual world; just because we're not sitting face to face doesn't mean we shouldn't show each other some respect.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sit on the front porch with the hose and threaten to spray kids who run through my yard. *creaks her bones* "Please get off my lawn." *squiiiirt*
Monday, October 29, 2007
WoWeekend
I had one of those glorious weekends that didn't require that I go to work, so I essentially did nothing but play WoW. I mostly played my priest (who is now at 30), hunter (now at 44), and our paladin/shaman duo has shuffled along to The Barrens, now in the early teens.
Early on Saturday, I started looking for a BFD group for my priest. I was available on the LFG list for most of the morning while I popped around, questing in Ashenvale and Thousand Needles, and finally got a note from someone just after lunchtime. It was a name I sort of recognized, but he wasn't on my list of people to avoid, so I joined his group. Long story short, is paladin is on the list now. He screamed at people the entire time in all caps, calling them idiots and so forth. To be fair, we did have at least one person in the group who didn't know what they were doing. It was a hunter (I think people use the term "huntard" too liberally, but I think that in this case, it may have applied). Her pet ran all over the place, attacking things willy nilly. Instead of screaming, I asked her nicely to please turn off growl, put her pet on passive, etc, etc, etc, but she never responded in any way (not a verbal acknowledgment of the request even). When we got to the bit where we all had to jump across the platforms in the water, she did so without dismissing her pet, and so the cat ran all the way around, bringing a trail of murlocs behind it. Greaaaat. After this, one guy left the group, and I really wanted to leave, but it had taken so long to get a group together, I was determined to stay on.
We got a fifth person to join, and so the jerky paladin ordered me to come help him summon them and ordered everyone else to stay put. The hunter, of course, followed. Again, a rollicking all caps berating, but it did not deter the hunter. So, he told me to stay behind since this hunter was so insistent upon coming with him. Soooo... hunter got yelled at for the entire run back to the stone. The person they were going to summon must have taken this as a warning sign and dropped out of the group, as did the other guy who was waiting in the instance with me. So, I dropped out of the group and decided to try for another later on. (Oh, and why I recognized the name in the first place -- turns out he'd hassled my husband before about joining his group for an instance, though my husband declined and was spared the experience I had just had.)
An hour or so later (after this paladin had logged off), I put myself on the lists for SFK and BFD. I got a bite for SFK first, and it was easily the highlight of my weekend (pug-wise). I was a mid-instance replacement and I was the second priest in the party. They asked what my spec was, and I said shadow, but that I'd mostly been healing in instances so far. I said I'd be fine with either role. The other priest was lower level, and she suggested that she heal since I could deal out a lot more damage. "You'll probably end up tanking, too," joked the rogue in the party. Heh... anyway, it was a total blast playing in a group as a shadow priest, and I'm actually questioning now whether I'll respec her to holy later. Still plenty of time to decide...
After that lovely group finished, someone asked if anyone would like to stay on for BFD. (Hey, sounds like a story I told before!). I agreed to stay on, since BFD was the instance I'd hoped to do in the first place. Again, one person had to leave, so I crossed my fingers for an equally nice/competent replacement. While we were waiting at the summoning stone by BFD for folks to finish their training and repairs, one of the other remaining people left and were immediately replaced by another person from the rogue's guild. I wondered why they weren't added as a fifth. It came out shortly after that this new person was the one I'd replaced in SFK. Huh. And then, a level 70 joined the group. Grr...
I fired a quick message to the group leader, the rogue, saying, "Oh, so we're getting a walkthrough?"
"Yeah!" she said. "[Her Guild]is so AWESOME." Um, perhaps. What is not awesome is not asking everyone in the group if this is how they'd like to proceed. I actually like to play through instances. I want the experience points, I want the practice. But, I decided not to be a baby about it. I'd just do a real run later. (When you turn in one of the quests, they ask you to go back in again anyway, so, no big deal.)
Somehow, even though we had a full group now, it was taking forever for us to get started. The rogue was waiting for her dad to call her (for "just two minutes"), and so we were left to sit by the stone watching the new arrival (level 25 or so) duel the level 70. It was funny for about the first 10 minutes, and then I just started to get bored. Again, knowing that the instance itself would be quick, I tried to control my impatience. We finally got going and the level 70 totally blew the doors off the place.
Seemed unlikely I'd be able to get another BFD group together right away, and my priest had gotten to the point where all her regular quests were group quests, or quests she wasn't strong enough to complete alone (yellow quests can be tough when you're squishy), so I set her aside to play my hunter a bit.
The first thing my hunter did was trick-or-treat and get turned into a frog. I hopped my little froggy body out of the inn in Grom'gol and ran to the mailbox. As I passed by the bonfire, someone cast a buff on me and my giant cat, who was running behind me. They said the sight of the two of us cracked them up, that it was the funniest thing they'd seen all day. I said I was just grateful that my cat still recognized me...
I'm still a bit nervous about doing instances with my hunter, because I'm still not comfortable doing much beyond letting my pet tank for me. I know how to let the cat hold aggro and so forth, but I haven't played around much with traps or anything like that. BRK's videos have been eye opening. It's clear that there's a lot more to being a hunter than siccing my pet on a mob, waiting a few seconds, and shooting at it.
But anyway, I did run Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) with my hunter, and everything went fine. (Well, except that everyone else in the pug thought it was fine for people to roll greed on BoP items, even if they couldn't use them. I can't wait until I get to a point where I can run more instances with my guildmates...)
Early on Saturday, I started looking for a BFD group for my priest. I was available on the LFG list for most of the morning while I popped around, questing in Ashenvale and Thousand Needles, and finally got a note from someone just after lunchtime. It was a name I sort of recognized, but he wasn't on my list of people to avoid, so I joined his group. Long story short, is paladin is on the list now. He screamed at people the entire time in all caps, calling them idiots and so forth. To be fair, we did have at least one person in the group who didn't know what they were doing. It was a hunter (I think people use the term "huntard" too liberally, but I think that in this case, it may have applied). Her pet ran all over the place, attacking things willy nilly. Instead of screaming, I asked her nicely to please turn off growl, put her pet on passive, etc, etc, etc, but she never responded in any way (not a verbal acknowledgment of the request even). When we got to the bit where we all had to jump across the platforms in the water, she did so without dismissing her pet, and so the cat ran all the way around, bringing a trail of murlocs behind it. Greaaaat. After this, one guy left the group, and I really wanted to leave, but it had taken so long to get a group together, I was determined to stay on.
We got a fifth person to join, and so the jerky paladin ordered me to come help him summon them and ordered everyone else to stay put. The hunter, of course, followed. Again, a rollicking all caps berating, but it did not deter the hunter. So, he told me to stay behind since this hunter was so insistent upon coming with him. Soooo... hunter got yelled at for the entire run back to the stone. The person they were going to summon must have taken this as a warning sign and dropped out of the group, as did the other guy who was waiting in the instance with me. So, I dropped out of the group and decided to try for another later on. (Oh, and why I recognized the name in the first place -- turns out he'd hassled my husband before about joining his group for an instance, though my husband declined and was spared the experience I had just had.)
An hour or so later (after this paladin had logged off), I put myself on the lists for SFK and BFD. I got a bite for SFK first, and it was easily the highlight of my weekend (pug-wise). I was a mid-instance replacement and I was the second priest in the party. They asked what my spec was, and I said shadow, but that I'd mostly been healing in instances so far. I said I'd be fine with either role. The other priest was lower level, and she suggested that she heal since I could deal out a lot more damage. "You'll probably end up tanking, too," joked the rogue in the party. Heh... anyway, it was a total blast playing in a group as a shadow priest, and I'm actually questioning now whether I'll respec her to holy later. Still plenty of time to decide...
After that lovely group finished, someone asked if anyone would like to stay on for BFD. (Hey, sounds like a story I told before!). I agreed to stay on, since BFD was the instance I'd hoped to do in the first place. Again, one person had to leave, so I crossed my fingers for an equally nice/competent replacement. While we were waiting at the summoning stone by BFD for folks to finish their training and repairs, one of the other remaining people left and were immediately replaced by another person from the rogue's guild. I wondered why they weren't added as a fifth. It came out shortly after that this new person was the one I'd replaced in SFK. Huh. And then, a level 70 joined the group. Grr...
I fired a quick message to the group leader, the rogue, saying, "Oh, so we're getting a walkthrough?"
"Yeah!" she said. "[Her Guild]
Somehow, even though we had a full group now, it was taking forever for us to get started. The rogue was waiting for her dad to call her (for "just two minutes"), and so we were left to sit by the stone watching the new arrival (level 25 or so) duel the level 70. It was funny for about the first 10 minutes, and then I just started to get bored. Again, knowing that the instance itself would be quick, I tried to control my impatience. We finally got going and the level 70 totally blew the doors off the place.
The first thing my hunter did was trick-or-treat and get turned into a frog. I hopped my little froggy body out of the inn in Grom'gol and ran to the mailbox. As I passed by the bonfire, someone cast a buff on me and my giant cat, who was running behind me. They said the sight of the two of us cracked them up, that it was the funniest thing they'd seen all day. I said I was just grateful that my cat still recognized me...
I'm still a bit nervous about doing instances with my hunter, because I'm still not comfortable doing much beyond letting my pet tank for me. I know how to let the cat hold aggro and so forth, but I haven't played around much with traps or anything like that. BRK's videos have been eye opening. It's clear that there's a lot more to being a hunter than siccing my pet on a mob, waiting a few seconds, and shooting at it.
But anyway, I did run Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) with my hunter, and everything went fine. (Well, except that everyone else in the pug thought it was fine for people to roll greed on BoP items, even if they couldn't use them. I can't wait until I get to a point where I can run more instances with my guildmates...)
Friday, October 26, 2007
Cycle of Obsession
Yesterday, WoW Insider linked to this very interesting article over at The Daedalus Project about the life cycle of an MMO player. Here's their summary:
It's quite interesting... I can see this progression applied to just about any hobby or obsession, really. With my most recent hobby, which had kept me occupied for a few years now, I was falling into the Burnout stage. That's one of the reasons I started playing WoW in the first place. It's fun to be in the Practice stage of a hobby again.
It's quite interesting... I can see this progression applied to just about any hobby or obsession, really. With my most recent hobby, which had kept me occupied for a few years now, I was falling into the Burnout stage. That's one of the reasons I started playing WoW in the first place. It's fun to be in the Practice stage of a hobby again.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Oi, Ninja!
I was quite familiar with ninja behavior long before I learned the term for it. My first encounter with it was during questing. I was in Thousand Needles collecting plants in a water elemental infested area, and there was another guy in the area working through the very same quest. Twice, I cleared the elementals from around a plant, and he ran over and grabbed it as I was finishing the killing. Grr... I relocated to another part of the lake to get away from him, but he was back in my view before long. I remembered there were a few plants on shore, and I only needed a couple more, so I headed toward them. As I collected one, I saw him swimming toward the other, so I ran over and grabbed it before he had a chance. Take that!
Last night our paladin/shaman duo was collecting boxes from around the docks in Eversong Woods, and there were enough people doing the quest at the same time that the competition for them was pretty fierce. We were getting tired of looking for them, and were tempted at one point when we saw a guy fighting right next to a box... "Should we ninja this guy?" "Nah..." We didn't. This guy didn't hesitate to take boxes near where we were killing though. Oh well... We did finally collect them all and turn them in, and then a subsequent quest asked to kill a dude at the top of a building. We'd seen him when we were up there looking for boxes, it looked easy, so we started running up there. The box ninja, who'd just gotten the same quest, was running right behind us...
What ensued was a game of leapfrog. You think we'd just party up and help each other, but somehow, it just wasn't happening here. We'd run and kill stuff and he'd pass us. Then, we'd pass him on the way up the ramp as he was stuck killing something. Boing, boing, boing, all the way up the top. He did beat us up there by a few seconds, and there was already a dude standing up there, too. At first I thought he was waiting for the respawn, so we'd have to wait in line a bit, but when our box ninja friend drew a mob, the waiting guy jumped over the edge. Well, ok.
I wasn't paying much attention to what the box ninja was fighting, whether it was the quest target or not -- I just decided to help him with the kill to speed things up. I dropped a judgement on his head, and the next thing I knew, I was being attacked by the dude we'd been sent up to kill. Ooops... so, my husband and I went ahead and killed him. To my surprise, his head dropped for us and not the box ninja, so I guess we ended up beating him to the punch. I guess we were the ninjas that time.
Anyway, the whole thing kind of sucked. I guess any time an area is crowded, and you're competing for quest items like that, this kind of thing is bound to happen. I think we're going to move to the Barrens soon.
We've both hit 11 now, and I'll have my paladin quest to do soon. I need to read up a bit on the mechanics of playing a paladin correctly. Right now, we're wildly overpowering the enemy in almost every battle, so if I'm not laying down the smartest series of moves, it really doesn't matter. I don't want to get into bad habits though.
Last night our paladin/shaman duo was collecting boxes from around the docks in Eversong Woods, and there were enough people doing the quest at the same time that the competition for them was pretty fierce. We were getting tired of looking for them, and were tempted at one point when we saw a guy fighting right next to a box... "Should we ninja this guy?" "Nah..." We didn't. This guy didn't hesitate to take boxes near where we were killing though. Oh well... We did finally collect them all and turn them in, and then a subsequent quest asked to kill a dude at the top of a building. We'd seen him when we were up there looking for boxes, it looked easy, so we started running up there. The box ninja, who'd just gotten the same quest, was running right behind us...
What ensued was a game of leapfrog. You think we'd just party up and help each other, but somehow, it just wasn't happening here. We'd run and kill stuff and he'd pass us. Then, we'd pass him on the way up the ramp as he was stuck killing something. Boing, boing, boing, all the way up the top. He did beat us up there by a few seconds, and there was already a dude standing up there, too. At first I thought he was waiting for the respawn, so we'd have to wait in line a bit, but when our box ninja friend drew a mob, the waiting guy jumped over the edge. Well, ok.
I wasn't paying much attention to what the box ninja was fighting, whether it was the quest target or not -- I just decided to help him with the kill to speed things up. I dropped a judgement on his head, and the next thing I knew, I was being attacked by the dude we'd been sent up to kill. Ooops... so, my husband and I went ahead and killed him. To my surprise, his head dropped for us and not the box ninja, so I guess we ended up beating him to the punch. I guess we were the ninjas that time.
Anyway, the whole thing kind of sucked. I guess any time an area is crowded, and you're competing for quest items like that, this kind of thing is bound to happen. I think we're going to move to the Barrens soon.
We've both hit 11 now, and I'll have my paladin quest to do soon. I need to read up a bit on the mechanics of playing a paladin correctly. Right now, we're wildly overpowering the enemy in almost every battle, so if I'm not laying down the smartest series of moves, it really doesn't matter. I don't want to get into bad habits though.
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