Goodbye WoW

Well after about 2 years, I have finally stopped my addiction.  My subscription just renewed this past Friday, so for the next 30 days I will pop in and say hi to everyone and what not, but officially I am done with WoW.  I’m burned out on it, tired of the same ole routine.  I mean I was paying 15 bucks for what amounted to a 3D Virtual IM Enviroment with something to do when your friends aren’t around.

I leave behind a great group of people, one of which I consider a great friend.  I’ll miss them all, but after 15 years of being in the military gaining and losing friends comes pretty easy for me, I know that sounds bad and sad.  Some I will never forget, others I would only remember if I saw their toon name someplace.

So whats next?  Age of Conan for the time being.  Afterwards, I’m either going to move over to the new Star Trek Online or the new Star Wars MMO.  I’m a huge fan of both genres so either will be fine with me.  I know there is a bit of time before either releases, but hey it took me forever to just level one toon in WoW to 61, so I figure I have plenty of time.

So that is what is going on.  For those that play WoW I hope that your adventures continue to be wonderful ones, for those looking for adventure, I hope you find what you are looking for.

Until next time-
Happy Hunting

All About Me

So recently, I have recieved quite a few new followers on Twitter (www.twitter.com/misstria), all due to one little thing..WoWGrrl.  Yes she’s at fault and I’m thankful to her for it.  Of course new people sometimes want to know things about the people they are reading random stuff from so I decided to blog about myself.

So who is Misstria?  Well Misstria is an avatar name that I have used in several different MMOs.  My more popular avatar name would be Kraevac, which I recently learned from a friend that if you Google it, it would make me appear to be addicted to video games….and I am….:P.  I’ve been playing WoW for the past two years or so, before that I played Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies Online, Everquest 1 and 2, Vanguard, and Planetside.  All of those were active and played subscriptions.  The upside is that they all only cost me like 35 a month to play.  Additionally I played Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars, City of Heroes/Villians, and Tabla Rosa, as well as participated in beta on most of the mentioned games.My favorite of those was SWG until November of ’05 when the Nerf heard round the world happened.  That was when SOE completely remade in the game into something that was nothing like the original.

From SWG I stayed with the other games until ’07 when I decided to give WoW a try.  Started on a 10 day trial, 10 minutes later it was a full version.  I played many many toons until settling on a Rogue.  Played the rogue to 61 and then got invited to Lich King Beta.  Did that until it closed for release and took a break until the end of Dec ’08.  When I returned, I did what everyone else did in November, I started a DK.  Played around with it and decided that I liked the class. 

In January Blizzard opened a new server, Borean Tundra, where I started a new toon..or rather many new toons.  Got in on a guild early on and /gquit 2 or 3 days later because the GL had left or went MIA, and half the guild left and split into 2 other guilds.  I would have probably stayed where I was except for 2 things, one was the new GL, who was annoying and the other was because of a friend.  So I left and joined Apocalypse.

Outside of WoW, I’m a husband and a father.  My wife plays WoW and my daughter likes to play as well, although kindergarten keeps her pretty busy so she has little time to play…lol.  I’m a member of the US Navy and am currently stationed in Washingtom State.  I have done 4 deployments 2 to Irag and 2 to random areas of the Pacific Ocean.  Prior to the Navy I was in the Army and did a deployment to Bosnia.  I’m currently in my 14th year of service and hopefully I’ll make it to 20.

Other than that, I’m just an all around typical guy who leads an all around typical life in a typical state doing a typical job.  So how did I get into blogging?  I haven’t yet, but who knows one day it might happen, just keep reading.

Until next time -
Happy Hunting

Burned Out

Ever just get burned out with doing something over and over again?  Yeah?  Well me too.  In my case, I’m burned out over WoW.  I’m so tired of the daily grinds of dailies, tring to get into heroics, which isn’t always a problem, but gettting the drops you need can be…lol.  I’m just burned out with it all, same game, same people, same guilds, same quests, same objectives, same everything.  Everyday the same.  Hell sometimes the conversations don’t even change, especially in Trade chat.

So Saturday was my birthday and I decided to treat myself a little.  I went in search of a new MMO.  Of course, right now there are only to viable options for me.  One is Age of Conan, the other Warhammer Online.  I did beta on AoC and man was it rough, never made it into live, it had alot of things wrong with it, even at release.  Warhammer, I have no experience with, but it has some good reviews.  The only thing that I don’t care for in WO is the fact that its all PvP, or RvR, either way the results are the same, you have to always fight other players.  I like PvP, I just like it on my time and my terms.  So I went for AoC.

I have to say I was surprised when I logged in.  The game was still as stunning as I remember it from beta, character creation was nice and the classes aren’t the same as WoW’s which is a bonus.  Of course the classes share elements with WoW classes, but they are altogether different.  So I started with a Assassin…aka a Rogue.  Now I know that you are thinking, Bah Rogue…well in some ways yes, but in others no.  In AoC, Assassins aren’t the only rogue class.  You also have barbarians and rangers who have rogue abilities, the assassin just so happens to have the strongest use of the shared abilities.  Think Rogue vs Druid in cat form.  Both can stealth, but the rogue does it better.

So, the starting portion of the game is really easy, so easy in fact that after 1 NPC kill, I was level 2.  A few more kills I was level 3, within an hour level 10.  Then it slows down.  The questing system in AoC is different than any other MMO, in that it is split into 2 types of quests.  The first are your garden variety quests like you see in WoW.  You pick a quest, you can share it, group with others..etc.  The second type are the Destiny quests.  These are quest that you HAVE to solo.  No one can help you with them.  The Destiny quests are your class quests.  Its a whole storyline involving just you and the world around you.  A pretty neat system, but it does have its pin prick.  You train while doing your destiny quests, so you typically complete a section of quest before you can train again.  In my case my assassin is level 12 and can’t train again until level 15.  So I can’t get anymore destiny quests until I hit 15.  This forces you to do the other quests in the game.

The starter city is the same for every player in the game and you can go from level 1 to about 22-23.  Some quest are easy to solo, some, not so much.  But the quest, alot of them, are story driven quests.  The quest givers all speak, so there is voice acting in the game, which is much nicer than reading a quest dialog, if you ask me.  The terrain, the water, the sjy, weather, sunrise and sunset, everything in this game is dynamic.  Its all very beautiful and well crafted, perhaps one the most well crafted games outside of Guild Wars.

Now for my favorite part of the game.  So I was looking through my inventory at some of the loot that I had aquired to see if I had gotten any descent armor/weapon drops.  So I was moving it all around into the appropriate armor slots when I noticed that when the top was off my paperdoll, she was topless.  Now I don’t mean topless in the sense that she had a little bra on under her bra, I mean as in topless dancer topless.  Ta-Ta’s in the wind topless.  So yes curiosity got the better of me.  I had to know, if the paperdoll was topless, was my avatar?  So I left click on the trusty mouse button, and move the camera around……yes she was, and I might add that just like the enviroment of the game my avatars breast were beautiful….:P

Yeah, I know you’re thinking sicko right?  Big deal they aren’t real like probably 30% of all breast these days, but just like the real fake ones, the virtual ones can be nice too….lol.  You’re asking yourself though, do they wiggle?  How about below the belt, if you take off the pants is anything shown?  If you are a guy asking these questions, ask yourself this, if a female avatar can be completely nude, would it make sense that a male avatar could be?  I should think so.  Now ask yourself,  would you want some 13 year old kid playing AoC and you having to see swinging Penis’ everywhere you went?  I should think not.  At least I wouldn’t.  However, the men avatars can be topless so all is fair.  No avatar is completely nude.  Thank goodess.

So whats next for me in the world of AoC?  Well I’m gonna take my new found breast and become a topless dancer in the land of Hyboria and make alot of money…:P.

Until Next Time-
Happy Hunting….no matter where you are hunting at.

My Side

Hello everyone.  So it’s been a while since I last posted anything and I know I should be posting something raiding and what have you, but some recent events have promoted me to post this instead.

So last night, I left the guild I was because I want to do some end game content.  Now mind you, there is nothing wrong with the guild, the people are great and all that, but being one of only two 80′s in the guild can make doing heroics kinda difficult.  If you are like me you don’t really care to pug out that often either.

So anyways, the GL and myself had been talking about the going ons in the guild for a few days now, ways to make it better and what not.  So last night, I said in /o chat that I felt the guild was at a stand still and wasn’t really moving forward.  Not long afterwards I started thinking about leaving.   Well sometime around 1 or 2 in the morning, I decided to leave the guild and try to find a guild that offered something better in terms of end game.

So I sent the GL an in game mail explaining that I was leaving, why I was leaving, and offered to pug with the guild if they needed someone.  So I wake up this morning, log into the game and I have this nasty mail from her.  So I’m like wtf and log into the guild website and ask wtf. 

Without drawing out every word of that was said, it basically boiled down to her making a post in the officer’s forum directed at me.  I admit, I got a little pissy about that and responded harshly to it.  Of course she has to make it all personal and basically says she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore and such.   I have no idea why this had to be personal but it was.

Then I log into my Twitter, and I see this pretty little post between the GL, her mother, and someone else about how I emoquit because….well I don’t know.  The jist of the post was that you can pug out 10 man Naxx and what not.  The point is I don’t want to pug out Naxx or anything else.  I mean honestly, I have a DK tank.  Almost impossible to pug with a DK, because most people want a warrior or pally for tanking.

Now here is my thing, its my $15 right?  I should be able to spend it however I choose to spend it without being harrassed over it.  The GL was upset a lot over the way I left the guild I guess.  It may have been shady or whatever, but at least I said something to her.  I could have just left without a word.

So that is my side in general terms.  I mean I didn’t go all out and spill every word.  But at the end of the day, emotions ran high, people got mad, and perhaps even got hurt a little.  But really, is it worth all the drama to tell everyone about how ONE person left your guild?  IDK, I think its bullshit, but hey, I’m still alive, the earth is still rotating, sun is shining, and so far it looks like tomorrow is going to come, so screw it.

Until Next Time….

Happy Hunting

Update:  Well it would seem that I was wrong about something.  The GL wasn’t the one making the emoquit comments, it was her naughty, she has no idea wtf is going on, nosey mother.

So I retract my previous statement about the GL and offer my apologies.

The Problem With Rogues

So this here is going to be my first real rant.  So today myself and Jadeskye from Apocalypse were discussing the dynamics of being a terrible player.  One of the things that I noted to her was that there are several rogue players that apparently have absolutely no idea how to play their class.   I have a rogue and granted I haven’t played him since Lich King went live, I still know the dynamics.  So lets talk rogues.

First off, imo rogues are one of the best classes in the game. They are dynamic, if you know how to make them that way.  However, time and time again I see two things happen.  Either the party/raid leader asks a rogue to do something they weren’t designed to do, or the rogue decides to do something that they weren’t designed to do.  Rogues, as far as instances/raids go, are huge dps’ers and as such can do tons of damage in a short amount of time.  However, rogues were designed to do this damage on clothies casters.  How many times have you seen the tank or off tank start taking mass damage because no one got the casters?  I have seem it several times myself.  The rogue should be on the casters as soon as they are seen.

No party/raid leader should be asking the rogue to take down some plate wearing holy pally NPC.  At least not until the casters are down.  I’m not saying rogues can’t take down plate wearers, they can and effectively, but rogues should be taking the easy kills first cause they can do it in quick succession.  Then the rogue can move on to the other NPCs.  but sure enough, there you have it, a rogue beating up on a plate wearing npc while casters are cleaning away the group.  Is that to say that mages or priest can’t do the same job, not at all, but in general a good rogue can do it faster.

BG however, is different.  While the human element of BGs can make things kinda hairy for a rogue, you can almost always best at least one warrior has no idea how to play their class, easy pickings for any self respecting rogue.  In fact for myself, I generally find that taking down a warrior or pally is easier than say a Mage or Lock.  You get a Mage and Lock teamed up together and they can create chaos for a lot of classes.

The point is, the next time you have a rogue in your group, make sure that you are using him/her effectively or they are playing their class effectively.  mark those casters and have the rogue sap one, beat the hell out of the other, then come back to the sapped one.  This will give the tanks and off tanks time to draw the rest of the aggro and do the job that they are made for.  It also frees up the healers.  The fewer casters that are pelting your tanks, the less mana they have to burn to try to keep that tank alive.  This in turn frees up your group to lay down some serious damage on the aggro’d mobs while not having to worry about taking it in the backside from some stray caster.

Until next time, happy hunting.

Format Change

So I decided to change the format here at Random Rants a bit.  Mainly because everyone does random rants about everyday stuff.  I however, don’t want to do everyday.  I want to do special.  With that said, the new format here at Random Rants will be about WoW, World of Warcraft to you noobs.

Additionally, random authors who have rants about WoW, whether good or bad, are welcome to send me their rants and if they are appropriate I’ll post them here.  This isn’t going to be some class specific type blog.  I want variety.  It can be about classes, nerfs, patches, instances/raids, or PvP.  If you have something to share, then this is the place for you.  Also, other bloggers are welcome as well.  I know alot of you have specific blog that you write and may not want your blog cluttered with just random rants about general things, if that is the case, make it known here.

Will have something up soon for you guys.   Until then, happy hunting.