Happy Halloween

 

Afraid of the Dark

To celebrate the fact that it’s almost All Halllows Eve, I thought I’d write about the things which chill my blood and raise my heartbeat in-game. This list is by no means exclusive and perhaps my choices are a little strange at points but then think how boring life would be if we were all scared by the same things.

The Battle for Darrowshire.

I fully admit that this quest chain has always made me cry but at points it also has me looking over my shoulder. Turning on those you love, forced to slaughter those you swore to protect must be one of the cruelest fates ever devised and whilst the quest chain has changed since it’s epic vanilla proportions, it’s still a must do for all my leveling characters. The Cataclysm revamp also added an even creepier touch by allowing you to pick up a doll from the caravan once you’ve completed the Darrowshire quest chain. This gives you a buff whilst you’re in the Eastern Plaguelands which asks “Is somebody following you?”. The answer to that always sinister question is a yes, as every so often a small figure with plaits will slide into being beside you, follow for a while and then vanish into thin air.

Old Gods

The first time C’thun whispered me, I stopped healing (almost killing our GM in the process) and generally panicked. I knew it happened, I just wasn’t expecting it to happen to me. Madness runs through my family like contour lines across a map and thus any form of insanity, even when in a video game sends chills down my spine. Too many of my relatives have heard voices (with mixed results) for me to be comfortable receiving the WoW equivalent.

Impaled Orcs

After I terrified myself reading “The Vampire of Croglin Grange” whilst around seven years old, my Grandmamma told me all about Vlad the Impaler and his hobbies. Now whilst she managed to stop me waking screaming about long talons tapping on my bedroom window in the middle of the night, ever since then, I’ve looked at sharpened sticks in a whole new light.

The Whole of Hillsbrad Foothills

From the fauna

to the flora

Hillsbrad has scares aplenty. Whenever I’ve quested through there since Cataclysm, I can’t properly look at those bears whilst killing them. The whole idea of something using another living creature as a nursery has me fighting the urge to stand on a chair screaming my head off.

One touch I think is particularly nice (or nasty) is this crate of scourge grain left to rot in the middle of a little lake, it’s work already done.

The Jade Witch

There is something about living flesh being turned into unfeeling stone which leaves chills down my spine. That coupled with the fact that I love the darkness behind fairy stories draws me to this particular quest chain whenever I level through the Jade Forest.

Chased

Who doesn’t love the chase, being chased on the other hand.. well that’s a different story. There are two stand out moments for me where I am the hunted, not the hunter.

The first is perhaps one of my favourite quests in the entire game. One which when I encountered it the first time, I panicked, not expecting to be pursued across country by a pack of what are essentially werewolves. With hindsight it’s charm increases as you see the breadcrumbs leading up to this point for what they really are, proper signposts yelling “run away now!”. Every time I complete it though, my heart is in my mouth, expected that once.. just once, those worgen might be faster than the horse.

The other is the Halls of Reflection, where I find myself secretly half wishing that Arthas would catch us. My dark imagination playing all sorts of tricks in the half light.

Maybe it’s just me but doesn’t this read like a bad romance? I can just see the cover now, a half naked Arthas, wielding his sword (of course), clutching Jaina to his “manly” chest. I suspect all the ice she’s been throwing about would have melted, leaving her dress clinging to her and possibly some artistic beads of water would be dripping down her cleavage. That said, despite this “cheese” factor, it’s still one of my favourite scary dungeons.

Stitches (and the rest of Duskwood)

Duskwood has it all, betrayal, murdered families and things no longer whole brought back from the dead. From the eyes gleaming in the darkness to the sheer number of tombstones, everything in the zone is geared up to make you glance over your shoulder.

Rona Greenteeth

The shadow which lies behind the Faire. Another creature of fairy tale, like her name sake “Jenny Greenteeth” she pitches her camp not too far from open water and her goods… well, further proof that we should all be careful what we eat.

Queen Aszhara’s puppetry

Puppets like dolls are inherently creepy and being turned into one, even if it’s by  the “Light of a thousand Moons”, is not a pleasant prospect. Killing your group can be fun though.

The shadows of Gilneas

I love wandering around Gilneas which is why I tolerate making Worgen characters but every so often you’ll catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of your eye. These two screenshots are of the same house taken mere seconds apart so what with casement windows opening and closing, curtains fluttering in an invisible breeze and the ghosts of Gilneas watching from the window, how can you not feel a chill in the air.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the game though, is the fact that it highlights the darkness inside ourselves. We slaughter with impunity, we turn a blind eye to torture and mass murder. Genocide is embraced and we fight to the death for sport. Perhaps this is Sprout’s real face.

How Sprout got her Squash

The Wyvern’s Tail is hosting a lovely little Hallows End competition and it being my favourite time of the year and all, I couldn’t resist joining in. I know it’s meant to be all about the screenshots but Sprout is one of those gnomes incapable of using one word when 37 would do roughly the same job.

Duskwood always has dangers lurking in the restless dark but this is never more true than at Hallows End when the veil between worlds is at it’s weakest. So without further ado, I present Hallows End Sprout:

The old covered bridge, cobwebs hanging from it’s timbers lay directly in front of her. Parking her mechostrider, Sprout closed her eyes for a moment letting the warnings flood her mind. “Don’t ride through Duskwood after dark”, “Fly to Redridge… the path is shorter and safer”, “Stay another night and leave in the morning, don’t be foolish little Gnome” and then once they realised that her mind was made up, the raft of more practical suggestions. “Don’t leave the road whatever you do”, “Don’t stay on the path, who knows what monsters walk”, “Keep your eyes firmly fixed on the way ahead, never look back”. It had seemed as if every one in the Sentinel Hill hostelry had some opinion, from the Innkeeper herself to the workers fixing the roof. Whilst the details differed, everyone agreed on one particular point .. entering Duskwood in the twilight was suicide.

Dismounting, she swiftly checked the machine over, breaking down could be a dangerous disaster. Once Sprout felt secure in her ride, she double checked her bags. Melon juice, check; flask of hot bean soup, check; Dwarven Mild, check and finally a loaf of freshly baked bread. Whatever happened in those dark woods, she wasn’t going to starve. Starting her engine, she eyed the forests of Duskwood unhappily.

As the mechostrider leapt forward onto the bridge, for a moment Sprout feared that the planks couldn’t take the strain. That any second, she and her precious machine would be plunged into the cold dark water below. Despite their warped condition, perhaps a sign of lack of use, the bridge held and now she set foot in accursed Duskwood itself.

Sprout had heard many stories from passing drunks in the Inns about Necromancers, ghouls and other such monsters who lurked off the beaten path in the many boneyards and resting places of the forest but being a Gnome of reason and sense, she knew these were nothing but idle superstition and an blatant attempt to impress or at least she had known this whilst safe abed in Stormwind. However curiosity and pride got the better of her, how could she return to the University without at least having explored a corner of the map. Turning her headlamps on full, she steered away from the road and up a steep incline, coming to an abrupt stop overlooking a graveyard. A graveyard crawling with things which her rational brain couldn’t quite interpret.

The mad dash towards the path seemed to take forever and never had a Gnome seen a more welcome sight than cobbles, fences and lamps lighting the way. Promising herself to stay on the straight and narrow, Sprout set off once again for Darkshire.

The only way forward seemed to be to keep her eyes fixed firmly on the horizon, that way blinking eyes in the undergrowth, giant spiders and big black wolves could all be edited out of the picture before her brain fully processed it and indeed Sprout proceeded some way in this fashion.

It was at this point disaster struck, heralded by a noise which chilled the blood just around a bend in the road. A scream and then a rough munching sound as if something large with many teeth was gnawing on bone could be heard up ahead. Tightening her grip on the mechanostrider, Sprout considered her options. By the sound of it, there was nothing left to rescue and so riding towards that noise would be the equivalent of desert serving itself to whatever was snacking in the dark. That left the forest flanking either side of the path, both sides were dense with trees and no light  penetrated those black branches. Resorting to what might be called logic in a less dangerous situation, Sprout decided that going north hadn’t worked out previously so this time she would try south.

Pushing her way through the trees she found herself in a field full of what she quickly recognized as corpse weed although she had not seen such lively specimens before. Quickly picking her way through the open ground, out of the corner of her eye she spotted something glowing. Something which on closer inspection turned out to be a Jack o’lantern abandoned but yet still lit. Looking around she could see no movement in the clearing and taking a deep breath she turned away from the gruesome pumpkin and rode towards the road.

As she resumed riding along the road, a distinct silence lay blanketed over the wood. No longer could she hear the wolves howling or the shrill shrieks of the owls, instead it was just her own blood pumping and the rattle of her engine. Then from behind she though she heard a slither, a slippery sound of something unnatural sliding along the cobbles and with her heart in her mouth, Sprout looked behind her.

That accursed Jack o’lantern was following her on long legs of twisted roots, it’s unholy grin fixed on her. Closing her eyes, Sprout gunned her engine and rode as if the Devil himself in vegetable form pursued her.

It was only on reaching the outskirts of the town itself that Sprout dared to glance behind her and thankfully the road was clear. No glowing eyes, no long and twisted roots, no animated orange flesh, just an empty highway stretching out behind her. In her gratefulness to be safe and secure within the town, it never occurred to her to check the pumpkin patch which lay alongside the road but then who in similar circumstances can say they would have done different?

Parking her mechanostrider, Sprout made straight for the Scarlet Raven, trying hard to not look at the jack o’lanterns carved everywhere for Hallows End.

Once inside and parked on a stool by the fire with a hot toddy, she discovered that the locals were entertaining themselves by telling ghost stories. As the warmth seeped through her numb body, she found herself listening with interest to the tale of the Carved one. “Once upon a time”, the barmaid said, “there was a little boy who loved Hallows End more than any other time of the year. Every year he and his father would carve a Jack O’lantern for their field but then came the year of the Dark Riders and something horrible happened out at their farmstead. In the morning, a search party found only blood and that cursed pumpkin still lit even with the candle inside burnt down to dust. Ever since that night, on Hallows End a bewitched lantern appears in that field searching for souls to lure to their doom and every year it claims at least one victim”.

It was at this point, Sprout decided that she had heard enough and retreated to the safety of her room, upstairs and only accessibly by passing through the busy bar. As she readied herself for bed, she muttered about stupid superstition and ghost stories being just that, something parents told their children to frighten them onto the straight and narrow. Nothing something a Gnome would waste time partaking in.

After all… ghostly Jack O’lanterns… whoever has heard of such a thing.

My First Love was a Warlock

It’s Warlock week, one of my secret guilty pleasures along with haribo, cherry coke and running around in the rain. My ever first proper character back in those “innocent” days when battlegrounds were still a figment of the imagination was a Warlock and I loved it. I have many happy memories of hiding behind a wall in Crossroads soul firing people for silly amounts not to mention being accused of cheating in duels because I used “fear”…… Then there was the fun of having to take breaks from PvP every so often to go farm soul shards in a higher level area. That said I really did enjoy playing a Warlock even in the days when every Rogue worth their daggers rolled Undead for the dual bonus of Will of the Forsaken and being able to munch away at your fallen corpse whilst you consulted the combat log to see exactly what happened whilst you were stunned. However despite reaching Knight-Captain in about four weeks of the new PvP system and despite enjoying defending Southshore and attacking the Crossroads, I allowed myself to give in the to the siren lure of healing and rerolled Priest.

Instead of creating the character I thought most represented me, I picked that which I wanted to be (which with hindsight shows a disturbing glimpse into my psyche).

Yep, I really went through a phase of wishing to be blonde and slightly bovine looking.

Since then, I’ve had several attempts at playing a Warlock. This one is abandoned on Kazzak, quite possibly the last female Human Warlock on that server (yep, the Alliance really are that extinct there).

She also looks slightly more like the real me, although my eyes aren’t quite that colour and I have been known to smile.

Finally we have my baby Warlock who is also my first proper attempt at playing a Dwarf. She is a Wildhammer gone wrong complete with hair dye (to be like her hero Saripal Smolderbrew) and bags of attitude as befits someone who knows they are doing something which will really annoy their parents.

 

700

This much to my surprise this is my 700th post. When I started blogging back in 2008 I really didn’t expect it to last, mostly due to self esteem issues. I really thought it would be another thing that I picked up, played around with for a while, decided it was pointless and/or I sucked at it and quit. In this case though, I may have hit every other stage but the quitting, at least on a permanent basis just hasn’t happened.

Things have been pretty out of control recently what with moving house and my job which is terribly time consuming both physically and emotionally so I really haven’t felt much like writing anything at all. However with a new Guild, long cold dark nights and the fact that I have the Halloween week off work, I’m hoping to drag myself out of the rut and attack blogging and life with all the gusto of a zombie sensing brains for the first time.

There will be a to-do list (just because), there will be tears before bedtime (hopefully Goblin) and there might even be Turkish Delight vodka. I also want to go back to my roots so to speak and start blogging  about female characters, literary influences and things which involve Goblins going squish (this might not be limited to PvP). Also we can’t forget Theramore which appears to exist in a happy little bubble all of it’s own until you do that fateful scenario, hence the picture above which was taken this Hallows End by my Shaman.

Reaper

I’ve just upgraded my operating system to 8.1 and whilst I was flicking around to see what had changed, I discovered this little game. It’s frustrating in parts but adorable with quests, leveling and talents as well as a good little story line written with tongue firmly in cheek.

When I first encountered these mobs, they all looked like the two sat on the ground but my thoughts of “ooh cute” lasted approximately 10 seconds, the time it took for them to launch into the air all claws and fangs.

It’s been a while since I’ve bounced around in a 2d environment attempting to put all the flora and fauna I encounter to the sword and it’s been good to rediscover just how therapeutic this can be. Will I on reaching level 10 pull out my purse to upgrade the game to one of the three options available, right now I’m not sure but based on the 5 levels I’ve played so far, the answer is probably yes. I’ve always been one for anything which enables me to bounce around in the air spinning ever so slightly out of control slaughtering things.

A Wild Blueberry appears

This week is Shaman week and by some serendipitous coincidence that just happens to be the class I’m currently leveling.

This is Wildberri and her faithful balancing hound taking a moment out from a hard day’s questing and pvping to relax in the fresh Elwynn air. Named for a herbalist in one of my favourite books, so far she’s been great fun. It’s been a while since I played a Shaman and there have been a few “interesting” changes like being able to move whilst casting lightning bolt but most of all, I’m looking forward to being able to hex people into a compy (to the point that I bought the glyph when I was below level 10 in anticipation). The one thing which doesn’t seem to have changed at all though is people complaining that you didn’t heal them in low level battlegrounds. Yep, clearly I rolled an Elemental Shaman to heal low healthed random Rogues…. not run up to packs of Horde as a Ghostwolf and then punt them off the nearest cliff.. yep it was definitely to heal other people.

My previous Shaman experiences were all back in the Burning Crusade where I had a brief stint raiding as a Heroism and Brainheal botbuff, not I have to admit my most exciting raid role ever. Thus I’m looking forward to exploring the class all over again plus throwing as many Goblins, Orcs and other assorted Horde off cliffs, planets and whatever other edges the game presents. Remember Theramore!

A Brawling we will go

Entirely by accident I found myself in the Brawler’s guild yesterday. I wasn’t planning on doing anything as messy as stepping into the ring but then I realized that I was completely alone. The rest of the server were either running around on the Timeless Isle or busy hanging out at the Darkmoon Faire in search of Moonfang related goodies, therefore if I fell flat on my face with my silly Mistweaver DPS, no one would know. So with my heart racing, I spoke to that Worgen gentleman and waited. A mere heartbeat later I was in the ring, waiting for an oversized crocodile to eat me alive. Surprisingly he didn’t although I didn’t notice this until I was ported out because I was too busy staring at the chomp cast bar. Heart in my mouth, I queued up again and again and again, ticking off ranks 1 through 4.

So I’m now the proud owner of Clock’em, ok it’s months after everyone else but I did do it specced as a healer which has to count for something right? Can I get all the way to rank 10 as a Mistweaver? I suspect not, at least not without some major gear upgrades but I do intend to try. I also need to see if it’s doable on other classes as Sprout would love to be Brawler.

Moonfang and Modern Manners

At midnight server time last night I and quite a few others were loitering in Goldshire waiting for the stars to align and those pesky Darkmoon folks to hurry up and drag their island into position. Once the portal was up, it didn’t take us long to spawn Moonfang and slaughter her.

It was only afterwards whilst I was kiting around a pack of hungry wolves angry at their Den Mother being so horribly murdered in front of them, that I started to think of the implications of the way in which we’d zerged her down. No grouping up to kill means that many people are purely focused on themselves and their loot which is why during my dance of potential death I got sworn at by a “corpse” who wanted ressing NOW!!!1!. I didn’t really have the time nor the desire to point out that I’m not a Druid (even though I’m wearing Wildheart knock offs) and thus can’t res whilst wolves are trying to eat my toes. I know people have experienced issues on the Timeless Isle if they release during a kill but asking someone who is fighting not just one wolf but an entire pack is stretching it a bit. However my issue doesn’t just lie with him but with the twenty to thirty others who were quite happy to loot and either play with their new toys or mount away whilst I struggled to survive. It didn’t matter that I’d helped to keep them alive during the fight nor that my current predicament was purely down to class mechanics (this is one place where passive healing as you nuke is a pain in the neck), they got what they wanted and as we weren’t partied up, I might as well have been invisible to them. My second kill highlighted another issue with this new system. As I and a handful of others were busy fighting elite mobs, there were around fifteen other people sat on mounts at the spawn point demanding we hurry up and kill things because as one person put it he had “limited time”.

WoW is a multiplayer game and almost every aspect of it works best when we cooperate and play together. Yes there were a few exceptions, including a sub 90 Mage who almost died horribly trying to get that pack of wolves off me but it felt like we were a disparate bunch who would have been just have happy soloing wolves in Duskwood if they happened to drop decent rewards.   Yes, this system works great for people like me, whose anxiety and shyness makes grouping akin to stabbing myself repeatedly with a knitting needle but I feel that the game could ultimately suffer because of it. It feeds into that toxic behaviour we’re so fond of discussing because when you don’t “need” other people, for many there is no point in treating them fairly or decently.

That said, RNG has treated us rather well as you can see from our little wolf family screenshot below.

I also like the fact that there seems to be no limits on about the amount of loot you can potentially receive per day. Given that the Darkmoon Faire is such a temporary event I think restrictions would be annoying and from my experience at least, the drop chances seem quite high and I’m up to two pets and an item which turns me into a baby wolf for 10 minutes out of every hour and which more importantly doesn’t break on combat.

I love Moon Moon’s animations too and now I just need to find a better name for him.

#Alt Appreciation – Priest Week

This week is dedicated to one of my favourite classes, yep, it’s finally #Priest Week.

When I first started playing WoW, we spent a lot of time PvPing in the Barrens and in Hillsbrad and despite loving my Warlock, there were two Horde Shadow Priests who inspired me a lot (probably because beating them was hard). When we came to reroll on a PvP server a few months down the line because of the new battleground queues made PvPing impossible on our server, I decided that instead of making a new Warlock, I’d go for a Shadow Priest. We were leveling as a threesome and as two hybrids (Priest and Druid) and a pure dps class, we could run dungeons at the appropriate level with no problems at all without needing to find another 2 players. It varied on who tanked and who healed, for example on Princess Theradras in Maraudon my Shadow Priest tanked whilst Mr Harpy’s feral Druid healed me but it worked great. Then we hit level 54 and joined a guild who were planning on running Molten Core real soon. Next thing I knew, I was Holy/Disc to raid and haven’t really looked back.

Throughout the original game I played a Priest, only switching to a Paladin a few months into the Burning Crusade. It didn’t take me long to realize that for me at least, this was a mistake, one which I wanted to rectify as swiftly as possible and in fact started taking my Priest to more and more alt fun runs. By the time the Sunwell came out, I was tempted to go back to playing one as my main but all our Shamans quit at once siting school, drama or wanting to re-roll themselves and whilst the final choice was mine, I went for Heroism for over Circle of Healing.

When Wrath was released, I went Priest from the start and the same with Cataclysm and MoP. I might currently be flirting with a Monk but I suspect that eventually the call of the Priest will be too strong for me to ignore.

Sprout

Because everyone needs at least one Gnome Priest in their lives!

Erinys as she was originally

Erinys as she is today

At some point I would like to return to her to original state because she’ll always a Priestess of Elune to me but for the moment she’s sneaking around pretending to be a Blood Elf.

General Dornröschen

Named for one of my favorite fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty which just seemed appropriate for a Forsaken Priest. I farmed rank 12 on her during the original game and she wears her title with pride. There was no botting, afking in corners or using hard core premades to get there, just lots of pvp some with friends but the vast majority just with Mr Harpy’s warrior.

There are few more Priestly skeletons hiding away on my account but these are my three main trouble causers.