So awful, it was awesome

Everybody’s got pick-up group (“PUG”) horror stories.  If you’ve played WoW for any length of time, and grouped with total strangers to try and get a quest or instance or raid completed, you’ll quickly start building a list of tales of woe.  If nothing else, PUGs should make you feel much better about yourself, I think…after all, since you’re smart enough to be reading this fine blog, obviously you are a top-notch human being in general and WoW player in particular, and do not deserve to group with people so stupid that they have to put a sticky note on their monitor to remind themselves to breathe.

But even the best of us–and I–sometimes have to PUG.  And last night, I ran across a doozy.

I was on my hunter alt, and wanted to run the daily heroic, which was Gundrak.  Now Gundrak isn’t the easiest WotLK heroic out there, in my opinion.  Slad’ran (the poison snake boss) has wiped me more times than I care to think about; even with excellent players and a top healer in T7/T8 raid gear, his Poison Nova can throw out more damage than we can power through.  The Drakkari Colossus is a pain-in-the-ass pray-your-and-your-healer’s-latency-is-low movement fight.  Even Gal’darah, who’s pretty straightforward, will gib a strong tank if the tank has a brain fart and doesn’t get out of whirlwinds.  (Don’t ask me how I know this.  Please.)

But, against my better judgement, I joined the LFG queue for it anyway.  And a couple of minutes later, I got a whisper–”h gun?”

Let’s see.  No complete words, all lowercase, and this on an RP server.  I feel a winner of a run coming on.  Eh, toujours de l’audace, dude, what the hell…”Sure!”, I replied.  I immediately found myself in a group with the group leader (a boomchicken), a warlock, and a male human paladin–obviously the tank, since he had over 40,000 health–named…Hotbox.

Ohhhhh yeah.  The stench of quality is overpowering with this one.

I flew for Gundrak while the leader druid rustled up a healer (another druid), and the five of us headed inside.  I was immediately greeted with Blizzard’s lovely new feature…the “ZOMG are you sure you want to save to this instance??!?!?11?” dialog box.  Hmm.  That’s not supposed to happen.  Well, we were all a bit confused by this, but all of us accepted and thus saved ourselves to that heroic Gundrak instance.  And down the stairs we went toward Slad’ran’s area.

We got to the entrance, ate a Fish Feast, and the paladin “Hotbox” pulled.  Without warning.  Two groups.  Hoo boy.  A frenetic and confused fight ensued in which the warlock and tree died, but we got both the trash groups.  The resto druid popped (yay soulstones) and started rezzing the warlock…as the paladin pulled more trash without saying anything.  Ugh.  We four-manned the trash, got the warlock back in…and then the tree said, “no boss.”

We looked.  Slad’ran wasn’t in his alcove.  We walked over to the alcove and saw that the alcove bridge gizmo had been activated.  In fact, all the gizmos had been activated, the bridge to Gal’darah’s ramp was aligned, and had the trolls and rhinos in position.  That meant that Slad’ran, the Colossus, and Moorabi were all dead.

Now people started getting pissed.  The critchicken who had the “hat” denied vehemently that he’d been in Gundrak that day, as did the rest of us.  And yet somehow, we were looking at an instance where the trash was up, but the bosses weren’t, the worst possible combination.

So the rest of the party started jumping off the ledge into the water.  I was last because, of course, I had to dismiss my pet.  In that period of time, people started getting eaten by the fish.  A clusterfuck ensued, resulting eventually in us getting to the ramp with two more deaths, to which the group leader said, and I quote exactly, “lol.”

Yeeeeah.

We formed back up, buffed, and fought our way up the ramp to Gal’darah’s area…

…and he wasn’t there.  His bodyguards and their rhinos were.  But he wasn’t.

The paladin pulled the rhinos (without saying anything) anyway, and nearly died because we were all too busy going “wtf?!?” in party chat, but we got them.  A ferocious argument ensued where the boomkin protested his innocence and swore he hadn’t been in Gundrak for at least a week.  Hotbox also said he hadn’t been in Gundrak for at least a week.  The other two said it had been longer than that, and I hadn’t had my dwarf in there for literally a couple of months.

So there our tale ends.  Hotbox (!) the male paladin, plus the other four of us, all hearthed our separate ways, probably to never see each other again except amidst the bustling crowds of Dalaran…or in the LFG tool someday, God forbid.  I had a pittance of silver and a locked instance with no way to score the two Triumph badges I wanted.  Either somebody was lying their ass off, or had gotten tricked, or we had a bugged instance.  And it was 25 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

I balmed my wounded soul by wandering off to the Pig and Whistle in Old Town Stormwind for four hours of the best RP I’ve had in many a month…culminating in a raid by the Stormwind Guard, two near-arrests, three strained marriages, a couple of damaged friendships, and one of the Wildfire Riders’ red-haired paladins telling another of the Wildfire Riders’ red-haired paladins to go fuck themselves, while the third of the Wildfire Riders’ red-haired paladins stood there and shook her head in disbelief.

What’s two Triumph badges in comparison to that?

Redemption (Beltar’s backstory)

Linedan is my main–he always has been and barring catastrophe, he always will be.  But my “Alliance main,” the dwarf hunter Beltar Forgebreaker, is probably my most fun character to roleplay.

On the surface, he looks like your typical fantasy dwarf…irascible, sarcastic, a bit on the greedy side, inordinately in love with his guns.  But dig deeper and you’ll find that Beltar’s not exactly a stout-hearted dwarven hero in the Gimli mode.  For over a hundred years, he’s wandered the Eastern Kingdoms as a gun for hire, on both sides of the law (sometimes simultaneously), not settling in any one place for long.  He’s been a mercenary, an assassin, a guard, a hitman, a bodyguard, and more.  His idea of a fair fight has always been one where he shoots his opponent in the head without ever being seen.  And now, late in his life, he’s found his calling as an adventurer and general ne’er-do-well with the Wildfire Riders.

But even anti-heroes have to start somewhere.  And in a fashion typical of the accidental nature of his wanderings, Beltar’s first steps on his wandering path didn’t happen the way you’d envision they might.

“Redemption” was a story that I wrote in late 2005, a few months after Beltar’s creation in August.  I don’t remember how this backstory came to me, really  It just popped into my head and I had to take some time out and write it right now dammit…so I did.  I always knew Beltar was oldish, and a wanderer, but until this story body-checked me out of nowhere, I had no clue as to what started him on his lifelong odyssey of the gun.

It’s below a cut, because it’s hella long–4400 words.  In case you haven’t noticed, I do tend to run on a bit.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

Alone (Linedan RP circa 2005)

This is a story that I wrote in August of 2005, back when Linedan had not quite reached level 60 yet and was still struggling along as an arms warrior.  I had originally given him the last name “Granitehoof,” because the original Linedan, my warrior in Everquest, had taken the last name “Granite.”  And, y’know, Lin’s a Tauren, so, yeah, “Granite…hoof.”  Get it?

Yeah, I hated it too after a while.  So I decided to ditch the last name…and this story was what I came up with to do it.  The story of the “curse” and the slow decline of the Granitehoof clan had been part of Lin’s background since I created him, this was just the culmination of it.  To this day, four years later, Linedan has no last name.  I wanted to get Exalted with all of the other Horde factions before getting it with Thunder Bluff, but things didn’t work out that way; nevertheless, Lin doesn’t use his “of Thunder Bluff” title and I pretend like it doesn’t exist.  He is, in my mind, still “one-named,” somewhat dishonored before Tauren society, and will remain so until something happens that would allow him to join another clan, or even (should he marry) found one.

I put the story below a cut because it’s long, about 2600 words.  So without any further exposition, here it is…”Alone.”  I hope you like it.

Patch 3.2: All Argents, all the time

Random Friday afternoon thoughts as I try to make it through my last hour and a half at work this week, laying low with the Robert Earl Keen turned up to 11…

So this week, the WoWosphere exploded with the release of the first round of release 3.2 PTR patch notes.  Now I’m not going to go over them bit by bit by bit here; everybody’s already dissected those notes like a frog in biology class.  I don’t get too bent about class changes in preliminary PTR notes like these, because they always get tweaked, at least a little, based on testing on the test realm.  I’m not even going to go into the mount changes except to say “woot!”, or the badge changes except to say “boy, the Blizzard general forums are full of tardburgers.”

No, my thoughts today are about everybody’s favorite Scourge-slaying, scrupulously-neutral, joust-loving party animals, the Argent Crusade.  More specifically, about the little place that they’ve put up on the ass end of Northrend…yup, the Argent Tournament, or as I call it sometimes, the Icecrown County Fair.

When I read the 3.1 patch description talking about the Argent Tournament, I’ll admit it, my WTFometer pegged.  Not because of anything to do with the actual game itself, mind you–even though jousting could, IMO, be done better, and I despise the “before the gate” dailies, especially the Champion version.  No, the mechanics were fine.  My bogglement at the Argent Tournament was strictly, I assure you, rooted in roleplay and lore.

Think about it.  The Argent Crusade, Horde, and Alliance are standing before the seat of the Lich King’s power.  Icecrown requires a massive cleansing that will require an immense amount of effort and the blood, sweat, and lives of thousands of heroes.  The Crusade’s job is made more complicated by escalating tensions between the Horde and Alliance in the wake of the Wrathgate (thanks ever so much, Putress and Varian), forcing the Crusade to rely more and more on the death knights of the Ebon Blade, their own smaller armies, and free agents–that’d be us, kids–and less on the elite forces of Thrall and Varian.  The financial and logistical strain is immense…the personal one, even more so.

So with this incredibly daunting task ahead of them, the leadership of the Argent Crusade decides to take their precious, limited resources…

…and build a fucking jousting tournament.  On the wrong end of the glacier from both their own base, and from Arthas’ doorstep.  Sweet jumping holy goblin Jesus on a friggin’ pogo stick, are you kidding me?

Excuse me, folks, but exactly how is this going to kick Arthas’ undead ass?  “Oh, but we’re seeing who the greatest champions of the Horde and Alliance are!”, you might respond.  Riiiiight.  Sitting on the back of a wolf or kodo or chicken, beating each other over the head with a blunt lance (that does 0.3 dps, by the way), is going to show you who’s capable of leading the charge against the Lich King.  Boy howdy, I know I’d be scared of seeing a line of Argent Jousters, pennants flying, riding their mighty war chickens toward the gates of Icecrown Citadel.

Actually, no.  I’d be laughing my ass off right before Scourge Happened and I’d have both new ghoul soldiers for my army and Kentucky Fried Hawkstrider for dinner.

OK, I’m exaggerating a bit, but not much.  Do you see why I thought (and think) the concept of the Argent Tournament made no sense?  It’s jarring to me to put this thing in Icecrown given everything else that’s going on.  It doesn’t fit.  You’re engaged in, literally, a life and death struggle for the future of the entire world against Azeroth’s biggest home-grown evil Big Bad and his endless armies, and you’re taking time out to freaking joust?  Do you seriously think that Thrall wouldn’t take one look at this and laugh himself silly?  Tirion Fordring is really going to buy into this fluff?

(Now this hasn’t stopped me from getting Linedan involved, because hey, excellence in combat–any kind–is what the Panzercow is about, so he’s a Champion of Thunder Bluff and is currently working on Silvermoon.  If I ever ratchet up any more interest in the daily grind-a-thon, he’ll eventually be an Exalted Champion or whatever the title is for five Champions and all factions exalted.)

Enter patch 3.2.  The Icecrown County Fairgrounds expand with a new big arena, and I somehow think it’s not going to be used to hold L70ETC concerts.  All the new content in this patch centers around the Tournament.  A new 5-man instance.  A new raid instance involving the Colosseum–or as Anna called it, “Onyxia v4.0.”  New dailies.  A Cult of the Damned camp attacking the Tournament (took ‘em long enough).  The return of the Black Knight!  (Uh…woo.)  Other than defensive operations against the Cult of the Damned, I haven’t yet seen anything to indicate that any of this content actually involves…wait for it…a substantive fight against the Scourge.

Please note that as far as we know, the war against the Lich King hasn’t moved forward much at all.  Arthas sits inviolate in the Citadel.  He’s still holding us off at Corp’rethar.  The forges at Malykriss are still producing.  The Vrykul still hold Ymirheim and new slaves trickle into the saronite mines, no matter how many we free.  The only real success you see as you proceed through Icecrown’s questlines, after the establishment of Crusader’s Pinnacle, are the opening of the Shadow Vault and the destruction of the Fleshwerks…and both of those were courtesy of the Ebon Blade, who seem to be out doing the actual dirty work while the Argent Crusade goes into the fourth month of their little Ren Faire on the north coast.

Maybe it’s me.  I dunno.  But from a lore standpoint, the whole Argent Tournament concept just doesn’t fit, and dumping all this extra content into it for patch 3.2 makes it even worse.  It may well be because I only have one character who, from a roleplay standpoint, gives a damn about the Tournament.  Beltar, my dwarf, has not done a single AT quest and may never; he’s old, he’s crotchety, and he would much prefer blowing a jouster’s head off at thirty paces than running the risk of getting unseated from a ram.  Illithanis would be offended that they won’t let her use her wasp pet, and Moktor’s never met a fair fight in her entire life and subsequent unlife.

Maybe my sense of lore and roleplay is offended.  Or it could be that it’s 4:30 on a Friday afternoon and DAMMIT I WANT HOMETIEMS NAO.  I dunno.

Discuss among yourselves.  Peace out.

Anna’s RP Friday Five: Parts of The Whole

(Sorry I’m late on this.  I was flying solo with Nublet over the weekend while my wife was selling her jewelry at the North Carolina Renaissance Faire, so I didn’t have time to blog.)

Slightly delayed by her foray into homeownership, Anna at Too Many Annas has gotten her RP Friday Five up.  This one’s called Parts of the Whole.  I’ll answer for Linedan, though I really should give the dwarf and the belf a little more love in these things…

• What color are your character’s eyes?

Linedan’s eyes are a light ice blue, both in his character model and in his RP background.  I’ve seen very few other Taurens use that eye color, it’s pretty distinctive.

• What is your character’s skin like?  Does he or she have freckles, tattoos, or other noticeable markings?

Lin’s fur is actually very uniformly colored.  It’s gray, all over, lighter in the front and snout and darkening on the mane.

• How does your character smile?

Rarely.  Very rarely.  When he does, it’s small, unless it’s one of those very uncommon occasions where something makes him laugh.

• How does your character carry himself or herself when walking around?  What is his or her posture like?

Very erect, as much as a Tauren can be.  Lin walks tall and proud (and often slowly) but without arrogance.  He doesn’t strut or preen, he just…walks.

• Describe your character’s hands.

Big and three-fingered.  (Tauren touch-typing would be interesting.)  They’re heavily calloused from years of wielding weapons and blacksmithing, and always have a little bit of dirt around the nails–do Tauren even have fingernails?–no matter how he cleans them.

WTT: RP

Some friends of mine from the awesomeness that is the Feathermoon server have started a new blog dealing specifically with roleplay and roleplay-related topics in WoW.  Knowing the people involved, the insightfulness will be epic and the posts will be legendary.  So, put on your RP clothes and head over to WTT:  RP.  Now.  You won’t regret it.

(Full disclosure:  I wasn’t in on the ground floor of the idea, but I’m hoping to do some writing over there.)

Anna’s (Guest) RP Friday Five: Items of Significance

Guest post by Avonar over at Too Many Annas today, with another Friday Five set of questions.  I’ll do these for Linedan only today since I’m a little pushed for time:

Does your character have any specific jewelry that they constantly wear?

Lin doesn’t.  He does have a pink mageweave shirt that’s a bit of a constant though (see below).

Does your character have items that they always carry with them have that personal significance?

The aforementioned pink mageweave shirt.  See, our raid main tank, Gorebash, has worn a pink shirt for years now.  It’s part of one of his RP outfits–pink shirt, denim overalls, a straw hat, and a Thunderstrike.  (No, I’m not kidding.  On a male orc.  It looks like he just stepped out of bizarre through-the-Dark-Portal version of Iowa.  It’s awesome.)  One raid night he couldn’t make it and I had to stand in as MT, and did a creditable if not particularly noteworthy job in Tempest Keep.  The next day, Gore mailed Linedan a pink mageweave shirt.  To this day, Lin takes good care of it, keeping it mended and clean, and wears it on every raid as a good luck talisman.

Does your character’s weapon have a name? A personality?

I used to name Linedan’s weapons early on.  One of his first sabres was called Truecleaver.  His self-crafted Masterwork Stormhammer was named Cloudcaller (because it cast Chain Lightning).  But soon he was switching weapons so fast that I got out of the habit.

Are there any items in the world your character would defend/fight to the death over?

Maybe the pink shirt, but probably not even that.  Lin’s got a fairly que sera sera attitude about possessions.

Is your character a pack rat or do they just carry the bare essentials?

Most of my characters pack-rat.  So did Lin for the longest time.  Eventually I got sick of my wife’s little friendly jabs about never having any bag space and I got ruthless.  Now on average Lin’s got 40 open slots, sometimes more.  Of course, this just means his bank is full to bursting…

(EDIT:  Welcome to the folks from WoW Insider!  Thank you very much!  Hang around, browse the blog, I hope you find something you like!)

Meme time: Seven Questions

This one comes from Anea at Holy Discipline, a simple little meme:  Answer these seven questions about your character.  I’ll use Linedan and Beltar.

1. What is your name and where did it come from?
   OOC, Linedan was courtesy of the random name generator in Everquest, where the original Linedan existed as a barbarian warrior.  There’s no roleplay reason for it otherwise.  Beltar has a long and complicated story behind his name, detailed in this story.
2. How old are you and what is your birthday?
   Linedan is 23, Beltar is 126.  I haven’t assigned an exact birthday for either of them, although Beltar’s is in the summer sometime.
3. Are you in love and with whom?
   Nope.  Linedan is totally clueless about romantic relationships, and Beltar, being not terribly attractive and middle-aged, doesn’t get many opportunities and is more of a love-’em-and-leave-’em dwarf anyway.
4. What is your favorite mount and why?
   Linedan’s is Soh’kata, his barded kodo.  (A story about the acquisition of said kodo is here.)  Beltar’s is his sturdy, placid gray-white Loch Modan ram named Mountain.
5. Do you prefer a certain type of Azerothian meal and where do you get it from?
   Lin’s not picky about food, but he absolutely loves talbuk venison and crusty Northrend flatbread.  Beltar’s rather carnivorous, but in his time hanging out with the Kaluak, he’s taken to enjoying their orca stew.  Unfortunately, neither one of them can cook a lick.
6. You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be and why are they so huge?
   Linedan figures it was the bounty of the Earthmother for giving Zangarmarsh such rich soil and ample moisture.  Beltar would just sniff and say, “Nah, ’s prolly all’a bullshit ’bout th’Light ‘em squids up Telredor are throwin’ out.”
7. If you saw the Lich King walking toward you, what would you do?
   Beltar would run like hell.  Linedan would draw his mace and shield, give a final battle cry in Taurahe, and charge forward to die gloriously.

OK, let’s tag it forward a little bit.  Anna, Stop, Arrens, and Varenna, your turn!

Good and evil

Some really interesting thoughts about Alliance vs. Horde and “good” vs. evil over at Going Bearfoot.  It’ll make you stop and think about just who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are in WoW.

(Hat Tip:  Varenna over at Binary Colors.  Enjoy that new T8 paladin belly-shirt armor!)

Dramatis Personae: Illithanis

It’s time for another installment of “Dramatis Personae,” where I introduce my various characters that I occasionally mention here on Panzercow.  Today, meet my blood elf hunter Illithanis.

• Full name:  Illithanis Jadehawk
• Created:  November 2007
• Level/race/class:  Level 76 blood elf hunter
• Spec:  Beastmastery (currently 53/14/0)
• Age:  119 (human equivalent 20)

“Illy,” as I call her (and she does not call herself), grew up in Quel’thalas, where her family, the Jadehawks, had considerable land and holdings south of Silvermoon in what is currently the central portion of Eversong Woods, on the western edge of the Dead Scar.  Many generations of Jadehawks before Illithanis served proudly as Farstriders, the ranger corps of the quel’dorei, dating back three thousand years to the Troll Wars.  Skill with bow and sword, and a great affinity with taming and training winged animals such as dragonhawks, ran in the family.

All that changed when Arthas showed up seven years ago and led his assault on the Sunwell.  Illithanis and her fraternal-twin brother Althoris were sent to Sunstrider Isle in a last-ditch effort to preserve the family line–both were very indignant at this fact, as they wished to fight the Scourge.  In the end, they were two of the few survivors of the quel’dorei, renamed the sin’dorei–blood elves.  (Miraculously, both Illithanis’ parents also survived, though their landholdings were all but destroyed and the elder Jadehawks were forced to abandon the rest, and now live inside the rebuilt city of Silvermoon in moderate circumstances.)

Illithanis attempted to follow in her family tradition and join the Farstriders.  But with the ascension of the Blood Knights and the Magisters, the Farstriders found themselves greatly diminished in power, prestige, and size.  In addition, Illithanis’ rather negative opinions of Lor’themar Theron and the post-Kael’thas administration of Quel’thalas rendered her politically “unfit” for service.  She became the first Jadehawk in three thousand years not to serve Silvermoon as a Farstrider, and made her own way out into the world as a free agent.  Her brother Althoris, on the other hand, became an eager young Blood Knight.

Physically, Illy is fairly unexceptional; attractive, but not memorably beautiful, with regular features, something of a long face, pointy chin, and thinner lips than she’d like.  She’s of a normal blood elven build and height, perhaps a bit more athletic than a caster-type but by no means muscular (“wiry” would be a good word).  She has jet-black hair of just over shoulder-length, held back of her ears with a jade-encrusted clasp.  She’s got the complexion of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors.  She hardly ever wears makeup, and her only jewelry besides her hairband, rings, and trinkets is a small jade hawk earring in her right ear.  That doesn’t mean she’s slovenly; far from it, she bathes as regularly as she can, and her clothing and equipment are always repaired and as neat as she can possibly keep them.

I’m still working on Illy’s personality.  Some things I know about her, and some things she’s steadfastly refused to reveal.  I know she’s a generally decent sort, especially for a blood elf (which fits in with what lore says about Farstriders in general).  She can be arrogant and doesn’t suffer fools well.  She despises what she sees as the lazy, indolent, corrupt culture of the “elite” in Silvermoon and fumes at what’s been done to her beloved Farstriders, especially by the Blood Knights–and yet, up until patch 2.4, she was an unrepentant Kael’thas fangirl.  We’re talking poster-on-the-ceiling levels of squee here.  She saw him as the savior of Quel’thalas in the Third War (such as was saved), and constantly wished he would return from Outland, sweep aside Theron and the Blood Knights, and reset the sin’dorei on the path toward greatness yet again.

Then came patch 2.4.  Whoopsie.  Come to find out that Kael really is a bastard who stole his own people’s naaru and left them starving for magic.  Illy’s still getting over the betrayal.  It’s left her with a huge distrust of kings and magisters in general, and deepened her hatred for her native Silvermoon even more.  She only comes there now to occasionally visit her parents and sometimes to train with the Farstriders.

I do know that Illy has taken to the Horde more than a lot of blood elves.  She respects the warrior tradition of orcs even as she’s repulsed by some of their bloodier aspects.  Tauren culture fascinates her, but it’s in sort of a patronizing Jane-Goodall-and-her-chimps kind of way.  She stays well away from trolls–hey, 3000 years of conditioning is hard to break–and Forsaken squick her, even though her #2 idol, Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner, is one.  She’s neutral on dwarves, gnomes, and Draenei.  Humans infuriate her for what she sees as Garithos’ betrayal, and she really looks down her nose at night elves, thinking them stupid redneck country-bumpkin tree-humping idiots.  If she calls you a night elf, she just insulted the hell out of you.

The other hook I’m trying to hang onto with her (but may not be able to) is that she only tames and works with flying animals.  She started with a dragonhawk, then switched to a Thousand Needles venomous cloud serpent at level 28.  At level 44, I found her a beautiful red Feralas rogue vale screecher, named it Bloodwing, and she’s used it until now.  (And yes, I admit it, I tamed it because at the time, her armor was all red, and they matched.)  Bloodwing may get honorable retirement, though.  Yesterday I tamed an Emerald Skytalon from the Emerald Dragonshrine and named it…Emerald.  C’mon, her last name’s Jadehawk, how could I not tame a bright green bird of prey?

And for slogging through this wall of text, you get a bonus…my tribute to one of the greatest scenes in movie history, Ursula Andress’ famous entrance as Honey Rider in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, done WoW style: