Gitr Knows WoW

I put up a long update on Friday, since most of you checked back in on Wednesday and Thursday. Nothing much happened since Friday because Gitr’s creator became an old fogey.

Friday was a big surprise with going to Circe du Soleil! I took the day off and relaxed, spent 2 hours doing the blog, did laundry, and then was amazed by the sights, sounds, and humor of the show. I have no idea what was really going on with the story line because we didn’t spend $13 for the program. I’ll have to look it up later. Somehow I gathered that the guy and girl got married in the last 20 minutes. Why? I haven’t got a clue. I have to find out what was up with the lightbulb helmet dude.

Anyhooo… Saturday was more relaxing and getting ready for the Company Christmas Dinner/Dance. I had to go into town (drive into Tampa from the ‘burbs) to pick up my shirt from the tailor shop. I had the sleeves shortened and the sides brought in so it didn’t look like I was wearing a tent. Then I got a bright red silk tie at Wal-Mart, a new undershirt, and took my girlfriend her new 18K white gold necklace to go with her black dress for that evening. The dinner was great, kind of lonely, though. I was representing my department because no one else wanted to go, and I’ve only been her 5 months. I recognized people, but didn’t really have anyone to talk to, so we did a lot of people watching. 🙂

Sunday was rather cool for December and was rainy half the day, but I didn’t mind. My best bud got me a Barnes & Noble gift card (w00t!) and my parents a Circuit City gift card (double w00t). My girlfriend broke our birthday rule and got me something anyway. We made arrangements our first year that birthdays are for a special activity and dinner, no gifts allowed. We’ve broken that EVERY birthday so far. Well, when you love someone that much, I guess you should go the extra mile on their birthday. *grin* She got me the belt I wanted from Old Navy and ’24 Declassified’ and Grisham’s ‘The Broker’ novels. I’m in hour three already of ’24.’

With all of that going on, Gitr is still level 45 and may level tonight. My girlfriend is opening today, and closing the rest of the week because she took the whole weekend off. Normally she’d get one day off in there. So, I’ll have plenty of evening time to grind and quest for numerous updates to write on this boring, boring week.

Whew, what a fight to get from 44 to 45 in one night! I did it. 107,000xp in one night, with only the rest from the night before. The night started with a freaky suprise of what the Winter Veil looks like. Christmas lights everywhere and a queue formed leading up to Father Winter. Quite funny. I did a couple of quests within IF while I was tending to my auctions. One of them brought up a quest for “The Reason for the Season.” I was initially put out that Blizzard might attempt to poke fun at such an important religious celebration, but I decided to follow it through to the end to see what they made of it, much like watching the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, one of the greatest Hollywood Christmas risks ever.

While I wasn’t offended by the quest, my hope of a good message that the first screen from Karnik was quickly dashed with his second screen. Oh well. It’s a game, like I say. On to killing, I also say. LOL.

My charge last night from Tox was to go to Tanaris and head West to an island for some quests killing beasts and ogres. I had quite the adventure in my travels when I started to run through a skull-level orc camp and had to jump 200 feet down into a lake. After I made my way back to the road, I saw where the big island was and headed left off the road, down at least a 100 foot drop. It took 80% of my life. I bandaged up and looked around to get my bearings again. I saw level 49 water elementals that Tox warned me about. Crap. I’m in the wrong area. Looking at the map again, I can see the dock, 1/4 mile northwest. I made a run for it and made it. The swim was as advertised, “doable,” and I got my quests to kill ogres. I never did get ones for beasts. Next time, I guess.

I died a few times from drawing adds while I was fighting 2 levels above me, which is usually a recipe for disaster for a warrior. At least after the only Retaliation for 30 minutes, that is. Soon Inebriate joined me to kill Shamans. I had just wiped out the only 2 I saw, so we slaughtered everything else. He had to leave within 5 minutes of us joining up with another warrior, a level 46 named Hooahdooah. The two of us needed several Shaman, so we stuck with it and killed about 25 ogres and went to turn in. I never got a screenshot of our ogre fights, so we did a photo session South of the village.

After all that, I was ready for a change of scenery, so I got on a couple of gryph points to get to Tanaris again. I saw about 5 quests in Gadgetzan that I hadn’t seen before. I had a lot of humanoids to kill in the flats before the cove of pirates that I went to level for 44. I killed all of them, and got the water bottles, but still needed to find Caliph. I found out where he was supposed to be, but he wasn’t there. I figured he was another one of those wandering types. So I waited. Then he showed up and was only a 46. GREAT. I charged and 2 lvl 46 rogues unstealthed from beside him. I (stupidly) forgot to take a health potion in time and died. By the time I got back, he was gone and no where close. Probably finished off by someone else, I figured. So I waited again. After a while, a N.E. rogue asked if I was killing assassins and mages. I told him I was only killing Caliph and moving on to other things. We grouped and finally decided to mount up and ride toward one of the mountains to look for him. You can see he was no match when we did find him. We actually killed him 3 times. I went to turn in the quests and the one for the assassins and mages became available, along with another for 5 more water bottles. I went back and we grouped again for about 20 minutes.

I still had a long way to go for 45, so I just started killing 44-47 beasts everywhere I saw a good density. I hit 300 skinning in all that *fun! I had my biggest crit hit ever. I’ve hit 600s before with really big heroic strikes with buffs and Booming Voice, but this one takes my cake. Eventually even that got boring, so I headed to the cove again. Along the way, I discovered the instance that will be added later with the level 50 elite dragon guarding the entrance. I went along to coast to try to swim straight into the fort, but danger pushed me back the way I came. There were level 50 turtles and two of these level 49 elite dudes.

I killed in the cove for a while, but there was too much competition to get a groove on. It was just too much running. I hearthed to IF to unload and get more healing potions and some runecloth for bandages. I knew what I had to do: go to Badlands and kill as fast as possible. I wasn’t even skinning (no point now except $$) the carcasses, but I was looting them if there were any lowbies around looking to get skill points for skinning them. I finally dinged, hearthed, and went to bed.

We have a winner!! Winner of what, I have no idea.

At 10:43:56 am Intoxication was the 1,000th visitor, earning the coveted spot in Gitr’s WoW Blog history.

What is it that makes people play so much? The list is probably as long as the code for what makes the warriors do what they do, but why do YOU play?

For me, it’s simple. I like to play computer games. Before WoW, my favorite genre was Real-time Strategy (RTS for n00bs out there). The top of my list in order of longetivity is Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3, Age of Empires, and some C&C Red Alert back in the day. I probably have more playing time under my belt than most 30 year-old pilots have in the cockpit, but would not say that I’m a great player at any of them.

I eventually beat nearly every game I get. I love a good First Person Shooter (FPS), beginning with Castle Wolfenstein, then Doom, Doom 2, Quake, Unreal, Quake 2, Quake 3, UT, Half-Life, and the list goes on. I like racing, flying, and yes, even text games. I don’t break any records, but I enjoy them to the fullest.

What has been true with all the games I’ve ever played is that they end. Some even have a “The End” screen.

Sure, there’s multi-player or mods, or custom scenarios that add unlimited replay value. Notice the problem with that sentence though: “replay.” Playing it over and over again.

Let’s contemplate WoW’s setup for a bit. First, you have 60 levels to get to what they call “end game instances.” That entails over 12 24-hour days of play time, many people even more. Gitr is up to about 7 1/2 days for level 43. Once you hit 60, you can play for months before you’re ready to take on the biggest, baddest bosses and use an unlimited number of group compositions to take them down. Let’s say you do all of that. THEN you can try to do it with another class or race. It’s too much work to calculate the combinations now because only certain races can be certain classes, but it comes out to about 30 different combinations of gameplay. Multiply that by an average of 30 days each for beating every boss.

Wait. There’s more. Then you can move to another server, say get some RP/PvP action where you get ganked every 10 minutes. Now we’re talking 50 days per toon.

I also play because I can choose between competing against the computer or human players at any time. I need to work with humans, which adds a huge attraction of uncertainty of the outcome. If I trip my PvP flag, I can suddenly be faced with the danger of encountering a flesh-and-blood adversary 17 levels higher than me.

Since I still live at home, the question has been posed, “Is there a 12-step program for getting off that game?” It really isn’t a matter of addiction for me, but that I’ve always switched to a new game by now because it ends. I would normally be on my third game by now. I haven’t even finished the Age of Empires 3 demo yet, nor Doom 3, and haven’t even gotten around to downloading the Call of Duty 2 demo (although I did ask for it for Christmas). If they really want me to stop playing WoW for a while, it’ll come. LOL

I’m not giving away any trade secrets on my blog, but I have had a great 2 days in the AH. With some incredible tools and seemingly providential discernment on what to do, Gitr’s investor got all the money back from Saturday night’s 65g loan, plus a sizable amount of interest for the trust to make good on it. Of course, with a whole week to pay him back, there must be some good stuff going on to give back that much purchasing power so soon. Oh, there is.

I am really excited about my new nich, which will allow me to get the ‘latest and greatest’ instance AND soloing gear. I do have a big suprise up my sleeves for 4 guildies, but it will probably take a week or two for that to happen. Just in time for Christmas.

As some of you know, I still live at home [ 🙁 ]so even though my playing doesn’t keep me away from my girlfriend, missing appointments, or missing work, my play time is at least observed by those who think my time can be better spent. What is my point here? I can play the AH in 20-30 minute intervals and call it a half-day, log back in, and shout for joy as Gitr brought in 3-5 times more than he spent. Last night I logged out with over 380g posted for sale.

A very nice bonus of this new activity is that I have lots of rest xp to use tonight. My biggest problem will be avoiding the temptation to stop what I’m doing to go back to IF to put more inventory up for sale. My goal today is to level to 44 and get 700g in currency and inventory.

I wish I had a great philosophical topic today, but I don’t…they kind of just come to me. Hopefully the other blogs manage to take up my slack so you aren’t left wanting.

I hit 43 some time Saturday around lunch, I guess. I was invited into a like-level run with an all in-house group to Uldaman. It was my second time in there, so it wasn’t completely new, but we had some quests and no healer. Right. 5 toons, no healer.

The group consisted of me on the verge of 43; Inebriate, 39 mage; Homerjay, 47 warlock; Foashin, 44 mage; and Whitekalen, 46 warrior. It was touch and go as we went on and faced more and more difficult mobs, but it was really our fault, and likely mine, being the n00best of the group. The rest of them all have 60s, or even multiple 60s and run all the time. Now their alts are actually high enough to fun with me and help me out.

The problem that around that I KNOW was my fault was quite simple and easily remedied. I saw that White often looked like she was going to shoot her crossbow to pull, but didn’t. She must have been walking around with it pulled out from shooting a runner or something. Well, one time we were in a room with a bunch of mid-40 elites and she pulled 3-4 from the left and I pulled 4 from the right. I was the only to die, but that was fitting. I have no idea how everyone else survived, but that was none of my concern.

Just before that, I’d experienced my first epic drop ever. BoE to boot, too. Gloves of Holy Might dropped from a miner boss near the back door to Uldaman. He was in a room with an Archaeologist, Geologist, and 2 body guards that I’m not sure what they were. We took the last 3 down in good form in under a minute to our great gladness of his loot. We all passed to do a greed roll. Because my memory is so bad, I can’t remember exactly why, but White got them and gave them to me to sell on AH. When I went to put them up, there were 2 already up. One was for 150g and the other 100g. I told ‘Neb’s alt, Intoxicated, to grab them up so I had a chance to sell the ones we got and put them up for 2g higher than mine. We are still waiting for them to sell.

I have started up my AH business and am making out quite well. I started with 12g of my own and worked up to 30-something and bought all I could and posted them. Things were going along nicely and noticed how nice things could be “if only” I could buy just this one thing that I saw. I asked a guildie for a 65g starting capital loan due Saturday. They agreed to that. My guess is that they will have their return today or tomorrow after the patch (please let it be tomorrow). I have great plans for the money, to which my guild will get great honor, much in the same way if I ever get large sums of money. 🙂 I will prove to be an excellent steward of what I am given and bring in great returns on investment.

Sorry for the lack of screenshots today. The runs were so busy and cramped that a good shot never really popped up when I was thinking, “blog.” I am going to ask around, but if you read this and have a solution, please post a comment. Is there a mod or other program for free that lets you store screenshots sequentially? I really hate ALT-Tabbing to Photoshop to paste a shot before continuing on with gameplay. Some of your blogs have so many shots, I can’t imagine that you all take that many breaks during raids to dump the clipboard to be able to take another shot. If that is the case, gratz, because I can’t do it. Heheh.