Queue, Queue N00b!

Well, here we are. Nine hours away from the opening of the Dark Portal, and the launch of The Burning Crusade. It's weird to think that after all the hype, speculation, and stomach acid, it's finally here. (Not that my copy of the game will be, mind you. Mine ships tomorrow and for what I paid for shipping from Gamestop, it better fracking well be overnight. (A quick check on their website shows that yes, indeed, it will be overnighted. Bastards).

Over the weekend, many Pods foretold of gloom and doom, calling out the presence of login queues on a Sunday night, etc. (This isn't a rare occurrance). Christy was telling of strange people requesting water from her, in Orgrimmar. While that isn't unusual, they were *gasp* PAYING her for it. Formerly honorable players coming back to the fold after a long sabbatical, to be sure.

And so the wait is on, to see whether or not we have +1000 person queues, and whether or not the authentication servers curl up in the fetal position and softly sob to themselves in the corners. Blizzard ran afoul of the players yesterday by trying to edge out the 2.0.5 patch overnight Saturday and to be succinct about it, the servers flipped the fuck out. It will be interesting times, no doubt.

Because of the high population on Whisperwind, Blizz opened up free character moves to Ravencrest, a new PvE server. This invitation was to us and 4 other servers. Because I already had a few names reserved for TBC, I was maxed out at 10 chars, so I took this opportunity to move Gamorr, Elunatique, and Varice there. With Varice having been my very first character, and first 60, I couldn't bear to think of deleting him, whether I play him anymore, or not. I shared this idea of space saving with the Pods, and I believe that many are following suit. Renatta has even been kind enough to start a guild Hordeside over there, so our poor abandoned children don't feel so lonely.

As TBC strategy begins to become relevant, I finally settled on taking Echuta to 70 first. Given the sheer volume of experience that I have tanking, and the time investment on his gear, the guild as a whole will benefit the most that way. Let there be no doubt that we will likely be taking our alts thru the portal, too! I'm sure that once we get some of the HFC fights down, Amp will see some non-BG action VERY soon.

Damn You, Kenny Loggins!!!

***Warning: No Warcraft content in this post. You can go about your business. Move along***



Dear God, I loved Top Gun back in the day, but this? This is comedic genius.

Blood God Damned

So we go back into ZG, last Tuesday. Early shift suffered a bit from being over-warriored, an issue we've had before. We got Bat down, but had some issues, otherwise. We'd lead off on Panther, in an attempt to kick start a clear to Hakkar. Unfortunately, we weren't able to seal the deal on her. Late shift gave Spider and Venoxis their marching papers, and we left the two cats for Early shift Thursday to sort out.

The interesting thing about our new warlock "cage tank" approach to Panther, is that it really has proven to take a Destruction lock to wrap up the panthers that spawn from the cages. Unless you have a mage in lots of high AC, +Stam PvP gear. Where on earth would we find such a thing?

Hmmm...

Two attempts on Panther (one for learning that when AOE caster gets marked, somebody else needs to handle said Area of Effect) and she was toast. Despite our best efforts to prevent it, Mewgai was on his druid when the Will of Arlokk dropped. Crazy mad props to him for finally being able to land just the second one of those that have dropped! An additional attempt on Tiger, and the path to Hakkar was clear! And it hit right at the shift change. Late shift wanted to see about doing Bloodlord as a warmup. Mandokir crumpled like a limp dishrag.

Now, it's important to realize that there were less than half a dozen of us that were there for Sunday's takedown of Hakkar. The group was willing, and we had nothing to lose at that point. The clear of the pyramid was impeccable. As I told Zayd, in recap, when it came to clearing the Blood Priests and co., it was "a level of sheep veneration not seen since the Scottish Isle" :D

This was Hoof's run, but he'd requested that Zarjani and myself handle the explanation of the fight. Z gave the rundown of what to do with the Sons, and I dealt with Hakkar, himself. Luckily, some of the return Pods from Sunday, were myself, Zarjani, Hoof, and Yeovil. (Yeovil was responsible for the uber-hawt tanking and pulling of the Sons of Hakkar to position them for the kill).

I'd brought Amp for the clear of the whole instance, but again, I brought in Echuta to help do the heavy lifting on tanking Hakkar. Immaculata was kind enough to donate a Flask of the Titans to myself and Hoof, on Sunday. Since I logged off Echuta after downing Hakkar Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I still had 1h 25m left on my +1200 hp buff. Hotness.

In the interest of keeping it brief- A totally different group of Pods took this bastard down. Having a few of us who'd just done it earlier on in the week was just the feather for Dumbo to clutch onto. Well done Pods. Another fine victory!

PS- I got my Bloodsoaked Legplates. Only the Aegis and Mandokir's Sting left for me from the ZG gift shop.

Cut to the Chase

Dear Lord, this is so much faster!

Here, you can be clever too. Colbert Report On Notice Generator.

Auld Lang Sign Here, Please

Hakkar.

Dead.

New Year's Eve 2006.

Finally.

Picked up new Panther strategy, too. HoTted warlock Hellfiring the Bejesus out of the panthers sans cage tanks FTW. It was a beautiful two days for the Pod.