Thursday, September 6, 2012

Shared Topic: What spell would you most want?

Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. This week’s topic was proposed by Arvash.
In the new Mist of Pandaria expansion, Druids will be getting a new spell called Symbiosis, which will allow them to “trade” a spell with another player, based on the player’s class and combat role and the Druid’s specialization.
So my question is, if you could have any spell you want from any other class, current spells or new ones in MoP, what would it be? How would you work it into your rotation, gameplay, etc.?
This one's easy.

 Bladestorm

 It doesn't bother me that my favorite Warrior blog recommends Dragon Roar for Arms Warriors in 5.0.4; I was most excited when the new talents dropped because I could choose to Bladestorm in any Warrior spec. Maybe,I thought, I'd enjoy playing my Prot off-spec more if I could Bladestorm as well (Warrior tanking lacks the visceral satisfaction for me that Paladin tanking has. I'm easily entertained by clangy shield noises).

I even feel sort of compelled to type Bladestorm in bold the same way I like to write silly macros to go along with it. I know that /say or /yelling kind of corny and potentially irritating, so I keep a seperate button for the macro'd ability to bring out only when it's going to be entertaining. My gnome warrior, Lexifrazz, has some things like

"Wheeee, I'm spinning!"
"Help, I think I'm going to be sick!"

And, with all apologies and royalties paid to this guy:


STICK AROUND

GNOOOMEEESTOOORM

 Yeah, I know. And I'm not sorry, either.

What if other classes could steal or borrow the magnificence that is Bladestorm? If my mage could whirl around in a fit of Arcane fury, I'd give her a MH weapon and offhand book, always. Just so she could /yell things like "I TOLD you to be quiet in the library!" If I could Warlockstorm, I'd be sad if I couldn't have Fel Reaver Approaching warning klaxons when I did.

(Warlocks are already pretty cool; I'm not sure they need to be cooler ;) )

Priest-storm? I think it'd be best in Holy, if the animations involved pitching Lightwells at people with pinball machine effects. Pingpingping.

Death Knight Runeblade-storm? Cool and appropriate. First person to macro /yell AAAAPOOCALYYPSE gets a noogie.

Oh heck, who am I kidding? That person would be me.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Alice's Adventures at Dracon*Con!

I opened up my old Twitter last week for two reasons: to see what the WoW Twitter/blog community had to say about Patch 5.0.4, as well as to see who else in the Twitter verse might be attending Dragon*Con in Atlanta. I'd blocked out a few MMO track activities on my schedule, and was curious to see who I might run into.

Then, I made the best mistake. I peeked at my old DMs. Inside, I found several of the nicest compliments about this old blog. To everyone who ever tookt he time to send me a note about it - thank you, you've inspired me again. I promise to try and not have to start every entry with an apology for being away for so long.

As I mentioned above, I was at Dragon*Con this weekend. Being an hour away from Atlanta means a pile of my good RL buddies go, and occasionally I run into them during the weekend. This year was special, however. After I learned one of my RealID pals, Saphina, has been doing the con for ten years, I was super excited. Super, duper excited. She wanted to go to some MMO events, including, Sunday's WoW Meet and Greet but didn't want to go alone. I had such a blast the previous year that I agreed to go with her.

(I may or may have not have gone to last year's meetup dressed as the World's Tallest Gnome. Pink hair and all. If there are pictures on the internet, I'm sure they're just hiding from me)

Our first stop was Friday evening's WoW costume contest. We decided that a 'WoW Costume Contest Drinking Game' was an excellent idea. The rules were simple - 1 drink for a Sylvanas, 1 drink for a Dragon Aspect (two if Kalec, because mmm, Kalec). Our friends warned us that we might die from playing this. Regretably, we found chairs behind a bulkhead, and my camera phone had no zoom, so the pictures I took didn't do anything justice. But there were amazing things - an orc shaman who built his own water totem, A kick-ass Troll Warrior, a pair of adorable Dwarf hunters. Before the end, we decided that the lady dressed as Katrana Prestor should count for one drink because we hadn't seen anything on our short list. Thankfully, at the end, we were shown a Sylvanas and an Alexstrasza who had missed the pre-qualifications, and didn't have to leave without anything on our checklist.

I'd really wanted to make the Lessons in Lore panel on Sunday morning, but it was a little difficult to get up that early after being up til stupid hours the previous evening (I wound up staying up until 4 AM chatting with my roommates). I was only a couple of minutes late, but there was a long line of people waiting to see Gillian Anderson in front of the door, and I was a little too tired to navigate through them.

Instead, I went to give blood! The convention sponsors a blood drive through LifeSouth every year, and they were very short on donations this year. The free t-shirt had the Avengers rendered as drops of blood on the front. Too adorable to pass up.

The WoW Meet-and-Greet/Trivia was Sunday night. The Lessons in Lore people were back to host it, and man, did my team get schooled.At the end,we bet all our points in a double-or-nothing question and wound up with zero. So we didn't get to have our picture taken with the humiliating trophy, or name potential new items for MoP, but it was a great time. I even connected with a couple of people at my table and swapped contact information. BattleTags make this so much more convienent.

I thought I knew a lot about WoW lore, but it turns out I can't keep all my orcs apart. Pro tip: just answer Grom Hellscream for everything. Especially when none of the answers involve Grom Hellscream.

If that doesn't work, say something funny.


Friday, November 11, 2011

Veteran's Day on Draenor

(With many thanks to the Flavor Text ladies, for the inspiration here)

The singed letter is preserved in the Aldor archives in Shattrath City alongside several other small written effects.

dear vindikater braam

mama said i should write you a letter so ill get better at writing and to Thank you for helping me find her and papa on the ship. Thank you because they would be sad if i was lost and also because i was verry scared. im not scared anymore though so i Hope your out helping lots of other kids now

Is being a vindikater vindicater hard? i bet you have to be reely strong and brave and you need a big hammer, too. my papa just has an old sword, but he's strong too! He builded out new house, and some of our whole new town too. i like it here, its verry pretty with lots of big fields. Mama said she even saw some other peoples here but i shouldnt worry because they didnt look like mean peoples. She said they had brown skin and big teeth. isnt that funny?

Maybe you can visit me some time but i bet your still busy helping other people. Anyway thank you for everything you do for the Drani Draenei and also to the naru  Naaru. when I grow up I want to be a vindikator vindicater vindicator just like you

(I had a hard time with spelling so I made my mama help me)

Arkanon poros!
Vida

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Art: Peanuts Death Knights


Art is a big thing on RP servers. Maybe it's a big thing on non-RP servers, too, but since i transferred to Wyrmrest Accord in April, I've seen so much amazing WoW-related fanart. So. Much. People do character drawings for friends, or comission them for in-game gold and items (and sometimes a little real dollars as well). 

One of my buddies on the server does Livestream art sessions just about every Friday. Usually, she winds up doing lots of little doodles based on whatever funny things are getting bandied around in the livestream chat. I don't even know how this topic came about, but I am so delighted by it :D

This is my and Tankthulhu's Death Knight duo, Aellais and Calida, redesigned as a pair of beloved copywrited characters

Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Hallow's End!

From Gnome Deathwing!




(Lexifrazz-Wyrmrest Accord went to a Hallow's End party dressed like this. I won the costume contest!)

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Baby's first GM encounter

I've sent GM tickets before, but today was the first time I've actually been online with the right character to be addressed. Thanks to the internet, I knew in advance that you should always, always ask them to tell you a joke at the end. I can only imagine it's the best question some of these guys get asked all day:)

Here was the ticket I sent!





Here was the response.

Sunday, May 15, 2011