Ok tonight we were stuck on the red dragons. Why is Korialstraz smaller than his queen, how did he die, Why did he die.
She watched the video of Deathwing's defeat, and assumed on her own that the other dragons had lost there powers. She just wasn't sure as to why.
And it finally clicked with her that Arthas killed his father.
Yes I have a WoW lore nerd. She probably knows more about the lore than half the player base. She's 6.
Out of the blue tonight she asked about how Malfurion married Tyrande, "he looks like a goat guy". I explained his teacher Cenarious, and how Mal was big into nature too, so he developed horns like Cenarious. She thought the demigod looked freaky, but accepted it.
Reached page 5 of the War of the Ancients. One to two pages a night.
A place for the casual Warcraft hunter.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Ok, over a year gone, sorry
Have a new idea...
WoW for Kids....
stay with me here.
My now 6 year old has been play Warcraft with me a lot recently. Mom is 9 months pregnant, can't play with her as much, and getting ready for baby. So I'm the focus. hehehe, fine with me.
MJ, my daughter, has 4 characters on my server. 2 hunters a warlock and a druid.
The hunters:
Blood Elf female, with Snappy the Dragonhawk.
Drenie Female, with Daisy the Moth
The Warlock
Gnome Female
The Druid
Night Elf Female
We just started the Druid last night, she's been watching the cinematics and saw the Night Elf turn into a cat, and she wanted to do that. She's a girl that likes cats.
I can't kill bunnies or deer or anything cute in the game when she's on my lap, and she super inquisitive about who the people are, why are we collecting cat teeth? ("maybe to make sharp knives? she said, I was like, "Well yeah, that would be a good idea".
My wife initially got freaked out by the whole "Video games make kid violent" argument, I don't buy that though. I asked my daughter one day, "You know this is fake right? That in real life fighting like this isn't always good?" She gave me the "D'uh Dad, I know!" look and said "Well, yeah! I like playing games with my Daddy!" So I believe we are on good footing.
This leads me to last night, I was trying to explain the Illidan, Malfurion, Tyrande trist to her. She knows who Illidan is from watching the Burning Crusade video. It's funny hearing a 6 year old girl saying "You are not prepared!" in a gruff voice. Makes a geek dad proud. Anyway, I showed her the cover of the War of the Ancients book, the one with all 3 stories combined. It has the 3 night elves on the cover. She stole the book from me. Now I'm stuck ready Knaak to my 6 year old for bedtime stories. This is when I realized Knaak like to be wordy. We read 3 pages before bed. Got to the part about Krasus, and the red dragons. She started asking about the Dragons, so now I was trying to explain the Aspects to her.
She knows Deathwing, from the cinematics, the others I had to explain a little. But I think she gets them.
So with all this, it gave me, I think, a good idea. How do you explain Warcraft to a 6 year old in a way that they can understand, and appreciate, without focusing on the death and destruction all the time? I may try to figure this out.
WoW for Kids....
stay with me here.
My now 6 year old has been play Warcraft with me a lot recently. Mom is 9 months pregnant, can't play with her as much, and getting ready for baby. So I'm the focus. hehehe, fine with me.
MJ, my daughter, has 4 characters on my server. 2 hunters a warlock and a druid.
The hunters:
Blood Elf female, with Snappy the Dragonhawk.
Drenie Female, with Daisy the Moth
The Warlock
Gnome Female
The Druid
Night Elf Female
We just started the Druid last night, she's been watching the cinematics and saw the Night Elf turn into a cat, and she wanted to do that. She's a girl that likes cats.
I can't kill bunnies or deer or anything cute in the game when she's on my lap, and she super inquisitive about who the people are, why are we collecting cat teeth? ("maybe to make sharp knives? she said, I was like, "Well yeah, that would be a good idea".
My wife initially got freaked out by the whole "Video games make kid violent" argument, I don't buy that though. I asked my daughter one day, "You know this is fake right? That in real life fighting like this isn't always good?" She gave me the "D'uh Dad, I know!" look and said "Well, yeah! I like playing games with my Daddy!" So I believe we are on good footing.
This leads me to last night, I was trying to explain the Illidan, Malfurion, Tyrande trist to her. She knows who Illidan is from watching the Burning Crusade video. It's funny hearing a 6 year old girl saying "You are not prepared!" in a gruff voice. Makes a geek dad proud. Anyway, I showed her the cover of the War of the Ancients book, the one with all 3 stories combined. It has the 3 night elves on the cover. She stole the book from me. Now I'm stuck ready Knaak to my 6 year old for bedtime stories. This is when I realized Knaak like to be wordy. We read 3 pages before bed. Got to the part about Krasus, and the red dragons. She started asking about the Dragons, so now I was trying to explain the Aspects to her.
She knows Deathwing, from the cinematics, the others I had to explain a little. But I think she gets them.
So with all this, it gave me, I think, a good idea. How do you explain Warcraft to a 6 year old in a way that they can understand, and appreciate, without focusing on the death and destruction all the time? I may try to figure this out.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Queue times too long, do dailies
Last night finally got back in, worked out well. I did some Archeology while waiting for a LFD queue to pop. It never popped, The queue was 24 minutes, and it was 9:30 and the dungeon run would most likely be 45 minutes...this isn't going to work.
I did Fireland dailies again. I'm working on the second quest for 125 marks, right now I'm at 49. If I keep up with it I should have them all finished by 4.3...ugh
I will say though, as a casual player I do like the Firelands. Sure it's red, and you can't fly, but overall it's a unique experience. I get to do some skinning there on the spiders, the quests are easy to accomplish nearby to each other. Part of the fun I have is to see if I can get them all done around the same time. Kill 6 of this, heal 8 of them, plant 5 of those...how close can I get them done to each other? Multitasking. In this respect it's a fun minigame to me.
The one I don't care much for is the one where you have to destroy the 5 blue runes in the cave with those smoke elementals coming at you. They hit for 5-6K, unless you are standing on the rune, then it's 50-60 points total. 2 orders of magnitude difference. But you have to navigate through them, ride currents. sometimes I can do it quick, sometimes I die 2 or 3 times. But once you do it, you can do the other cave quest pretty easily, the "Find the Fire Druids gear". Nothing chases you after you destroy the runes.
I do think I was able to get most of the non-raiding Firelands achievements too;
I still have couple left to go. But they're were cool to go after. Broke up the monotony of the daily quests.
Time to go...I hope I gave you some insights into Firelands...even if you're already finished with it.
I did Fireland dailies again. I'm working on the second quest for 125 marks, right now I'm at 49. If I keep up with it I should have them all finished by 4.3...ugh
I will say though, as a casual player I do like the Firelands. Sure it's red, and you can't fly, but overall it's a unique experience. I get to do some skinning there on the spiders, the quests are easy to accomplish nearby to each other. Part of the fun I have is to see if I can get them all done around the same time. Kill 6 of this, heal 8 of them, plant 5 of those...how close can I get them done to each other? Multitasking. In this respect it's a fun minigame to me.
The one I don't care much for is the one where you have to destroy the 5 blue runes in the cave with those smoke elementals coming at you. They hit for 5-6K, unless you are standing on the rune, then it's 50-60 points total. 2 orders of magnitude difference. But you have to navigate through them, ride currents. sometimes I can do it quick, sometimes I die 2 or 3 times. But once you do it, you can do the other cave quest pretty easily, the "Find the Fire Druids gear". Nothing chases you after you destroy the runes.
I do think I was able to get most of the non-raiding Firelands achievements too;
- Fireside Chat
- Flawless Victory
- Have...Have We Met?
- King of Spider Hill
- And the Meek Shall Inherit Kalimdor
I still have couple left to go. But they're were cool to go after. Broke up the monotony of the daily quests.
Time to go...I hope I gave you some insights into Firelands...even if you're already finished with it.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Things getting back on track.
The damage to my man-cave, from a dead sump pump, has been fixed. Dang those guys worked quick.
2 guys, 5 days. They busted ass, and it's nice. Better than before.
My PC isn't quite yet hooked back up. Had a birthday to go through yesterday, I am now father to a vibrant 5 year old. Same attitude the day before, nothing magical changed overnight. But WAY better than the attitude of when she was 3.
Tonight, if all goes well, my bride is at ZUMBA, and the 5 year old and I will be in the basement getting things settled. My hunter is board out of his mind right now, he's stuck right outside the new in in Stormwind, hasn't moved since last Thursday morning.
As far as WoW news, Guild services are available now on all realms. Guild rename, moves, faction changes; they're all available for the right price.
Everything is kind of calming down now, MoP is settling in, the haters are slowly hating less. The build up to patch 4.3 is starting, as well as Diablo 3's release.
I start getting together all the 4.3 data, and let you, the crickets, know what's changing. Your chirp is deafening.
Lunch time posts are kind of restrictive...don't have time to post everything.
2 guys, 5 days. They busted ass, and it's nice. Better than before.
My PC isn't quite yet hooked back up. Had a birthday to go through yesterday, I am now father to a vibrant 5 year old. Same attitude the day before, nothing magical changed overnight. But WAY better than the attitude of when she was 3.
Tonight, if all goes well, my bride is at ZUMBA, and the 5 year old and I will be in the basement getting things settled. My hunter is board out of his mind right now, he's stuck right outside the new in in Stormwind, hasn't moved since last Thursday morning.
As far as WoW news, Guild services are available now on all realms. Guild rename, moves, faction changes; they're all available for the right price.
Everything is kind of calming down now, MoP is settling in, the haters are slowly hating less. The build up to patch 4.3 is starting, as well as Diablo 3's release.
I start getting together all the 4.3 data, and let you, the crickets, know what's changing. Your chirp is deafening.
Lunch time posts are kind of restrictive...don't have time to post everything.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Got in an argument on WoWinsider....hehhee
Wow, some people get themselves all in a tizzy.
I simply stated that if Blizz wanted to they could make Pandaren Death Knights in the game. The fact that they aren't allowing it for "lore" reasons is a cop-out. Whew...that set off some people.
Rehashing it here is kind of a waste, so I won't. People sure do get huffy though.
I post on WoWInsider under a different ID. just FYI....
Not much happening on the WoW front, waiting for 4.3 to drop. I am currently stuck using my old laptop to play. My man-cave was getting fixed up this weekend, (dang those guys work fast, they did in 3 days what it took me 3 months.) My main PC is offline until tonight hopefully.
It's kind of odd, my main toon, Meecham, I can't log into via the laptop. He's currently residing in Stormwind. Everytime I log in to him, the laptop freezes. I can log into other characters fine. I guess Stormwind is a little to processor heavy for the old laptop.
I've been playing a undead mage, that's an experience. Yes I went Arcane. I'm used to having a pet do my tanking, with the mage I'm kind of a glass cannon. I try to slow them with a frost bolt at about 40 yards then arcane something or other till they're dead. There's like 4 arcane spells; missles, blast, etc etc .... I'm a hunter....the only Arcane I'm really familiar with is Arcane shot.
Mages are weird. It's fun though, nice change of pace. Plus I finally saw the new undead story line. Arthas being dead, you're raised by Vy'krul, kind of these undead viking angels. You end up joining the assault on the worgen area of Gilneas. The worgen get screwed. Hillsbrad area is new as well. South Shore is toast. And there's a BIG yeti king wandering around, he's an Elite lvl 25 or so. my little mage couldn't take him alone.
I did sign up for the year-pass with Blizz, I was going to get Diablo anyway. Plus play wow. I will now get the new sparkle pony. ooh yay.
No other news on the world today. Just know...Pandas cannot be deathknights. don't ask about it. it's just the way it is.
I simply stated that if Blizz wanted to they could make Pandaren Death Knights in the game. The fact that they aren't allowing it for "lore" reasons is a cop-out. Whew...that set off some people.
Rehashing it here is kind of a waste, so I won't. People sure do get huffy though.
I post on WoWInsider under a different ID. just FYI....
Not much happening on the WoW front, waiting for 4.3 to drop. I am currently stuck using my old laptop to play. My man-cave was getting fixed up this weekend, (dang those guys work fast, they did in 3 days what it took me 3 months.) My main PC is offline until tonight hopefully.
It's kind of odd, my main toon, Meecham, I can't log into via the laptop. He's currently residing in Stormwind. Everytime I log in to him, the laptop freezes. I can log into other characters fine. I guess Stormwind is a little to processor heavy for the old laptop.
I've been playing a undead mage, that's an experience. Yes I went Arcane. I'm used to having a pet do my tanking, with the mage I'm kind of a glass cannon. I try to slow them with a frost bolt at about 40 yards then arcane something or other till they're dead. There's like 4 arcane spells; missles, blast, etc etc .... I'm a hunter....the only Arcane I'm really familiar with is Arcane shot.
Mages are weird. It's fun though, nice change of pace. Plus I finally saw the new undead story line. Arthas being dead, you're raised by Vy'krul, kind of these undead viking angels. You end up joining the assault on the worgen area of Gilneas. The worgen get screwed. Hillsbrad area is new as well. South Shore is toast. And there's a BIG yeti king wandering around, he's an Elite lvl 25 or so. my little mage couldn't take him alone.
I did sign up for the year-pass with Blizz, I was going to get Diablo anyway. Plus play wow. I will now get the new sparkle pony. ooh yay.
No other news on the world today. Just know...Pandas cannot be deathknights. don't ask about it. it's just the way it is.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Time Management
Ok, so you're a casual player. What does that mean? Casual?
You play:
1 night a week?
1 hour a day?
You don't raid?
Only raid 1 night a week?
What does "casual" mean in an MMO like WoW? Everybody has their own definition, I believe. So for this bog I'm going to define it as this: You like the game would love to play more, but are restricted to 5 to 15 hours a week, maybe you PUG-raid on the occasional weekend, but mostly you do 5-man instances, and solo content.
This is me. Plain and simple. It's what I know.
I get about 1-2 hours a night, after the little chitlin goes to bed, and my bride is relaxing with a book. So that leaves me with little time to waste.
It comes down to this schedule:
Log in.
Check mail for previous days auction results.
If there's a holiday event (like now) I do those first.
Then it's off to Hyjal and the Molten Front to do Daily quests.
If I'm still awake enough after those, I may do a 5-man Dungeon, Troll Heroics...But dang their long...
Or I may work on secondary professions...right now my main, only has First Aid done, need the others.
The Holliday events and Molten Front dailies can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a hour. right there it at least half of the evening done.
Raiding on a week night? Ha! you must be kidding. I need to get up in the morning for work, not at Taco Bell either. Career level work.
I remember trying to play till 1 or 2 in the morning...that ain't happening.
So I'm a casual player. Real Life > Game . Family > Work > Game.
If anybody read this, don't be afraid to post questions. I like discussing it.
You play:
1 night a week?
1 hour a day?
You don't raid?
Only raid 1 night a week?
What does "casual" mean in an MMO like WoW? Everybody has their own definition, I believe. So for this bog I'm going to define it as this: You like the game would love to play more, but are restricted to 5 to 15 hours a week, maybe you PUG-raid on the occasional weekend, but mostly you do 5-man instances, and solo content.
This is me. Plain and simple. It's what I know.
I get about 1-2 hours a night, after the little chitlin goes to bed, and my bride is relaxing with a book. So that leaves me with little time to waste.
It comes down to this schedule:
Log in.
Check mail for previous days auction results.
If there's a holiday event (like now) I do those first.
Then it's off to Hyjal and the Molten Front to do Daily quests.
If I'm still awake enough after those, I may do a 5-man Dungeon, Troll Heroics...But dang their long...
Or I may work on secondary professions...right now my main, only has First Aid done, need the others.
The Holliday events and Molten Front dailies can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a hour. right there it at least half of the evening done.
Raiding on a week night? Ha! you must be kidding. I need to get up in the morning for work, not at Taco Bell either. Career level work.
I remember trying to play till 1 or 2 in the morning...that ain't happening.
So I'm a casual player. Real Life > Game . Family > Work > Game.
If anybody read this, don't be afraid to post questions. I like discussing it.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Mists of Pandaria
Yeah, haven't been here in a while. been busy.
So BlizzCon 2011 has come and gone. Mists of Pandaria is official.
Both sides get a Pandarean, and the Monk class. Pokemon-style non-combat pet battles, (oxymoron, no?), new talent/perk system, a new continent, and 5 more levels to grind.
So the haters are going to hate....some think adding panda's is a downright affront to the game lore. Somehow, talking cows, walruses, panther/centaur people, etc etc is ok, but pandas aren't?
That group seems to bed calming down, some, I hope they do. It's a silly argument. The world of Azeroth is a silly place. anything really is possible.
Also Blizz announced the 12 month commitment contract, with it you get Diablo 3 (standard) for free. If you happen to acquire a copy of the Collector's edition, you can add that to your account and get 3 months free game time.
There is speculation that Blizz may actually throw other games into the the "free for contract" category. It does seem that Blizzard is a company, that is really competing with themselves. They need subscribers number to stay up, plus they want people to play Diablo (and possibly SC2 -HotS). And there's a strong possibility that they would start cannibalizing their WoW base as soon as Diablo is released in Q1 2012. By locking players into a 12 month contract, subscriber numbers will be less likely to drop before Mists of Pandaria is released. Then once it is released, numbers will probably grow again. It's actually a pretty brilliant plan. Another added bonus for WoW mount collectors is if you do the contract, you get a Ty'real's Charger, a luminescent pegasus. And, almost forgot this, by signing up, you get an auto-beta invite for MoP (Mists of Pandaria). I am really on the fence about signing up. Is there content in WoW for the next year? Maybe.... but Diablo 3! and the beta....but that's a whole year obligation. It's a contract, you can't back out.... Damn you Blizz!
Anyway, Blizz does have other competition besides themselves to a degree. Bioware, a game company of great reputation, is releasing Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWToR) on December 20th, 2011. It's another MMORPG much like WoW set in the Star Wars universe, about 3000 years before the movies. It's going to be a great game, played it in a beta weekend. It has a lot going for it, could possibly give Blizz a run for their money. I'm wondering now, how Bioware will compete with this 12 month contract from Blizz, Most people, I imagine, are like me, 1 MMO at time. I barely have time for WoW with Real-Life(tm) taking 23 hours a day. I may get an hour or two a night to play. What am I going to do?
So people may scoff and say, "bah video games!, grow up." But you really have to change your thinking and go, "Hmm there's a story I want to be a part of; is it WoW, finding a continent, starting a new character? Or is it SWToR, Being a bounty hunter out for himself in the world? It's a novel, a interactive novel, in which you can take part in the story. Whether it's taking down the Lich King or fighting a war in the orbit of Alderaan, it's a story. It's one that takes time and money to invest in. Just like any good book.
So BlizzCon 2011 has come and gone. Mists of Pandaria is official.
Both sides get a Pandarean, and the Monk class. Pokemon-style non-combat pet battles, (oxymoron, no?), new talent/perk system, a new continent, and 5 more levels to grind.
So the haters are going to hate....some think adding panda's is a downright affront to the game lore. Somehow, talking cows, walruses, panther/centaur people, etc etc is ok, but pandas aren't?
That group seems to bed calming down, some, I hope they do. It's a silly argument. The world of Azeroth is a silly place. anything really is possible.
Also Blizz announced the 12 month commitment contract, with it you get Diablo 3 (standard) for free. If you happen to acquire a copy of the Collector's edition, you can add that to your account and get 3 months free game time.
There is speculation that Blizz may actually throw other games into the the "free for contract" category. It does seem that Blizzard is a company, that is really competing with themselves. They need subscribers number to stay up, plus they want people to play Diablo (and possibly SC2 -HotS). And there's a strong possibility that they would start cannibalizing their WoW base as soon as Diablo is released in Q1 2012. By locking players into a 12 month contract, subscriber numbers will be less likely to drop before Mists of Pandaria is released. Then once it is released, numbers will probably grow again. It's actually a pretty brilliant plan. Another added bonus for WoW mount collectors is if you do the contract, you get a Ty'real's Charger, a luminescent pegasus. And, almost forgot this, by signing up, you get an auto-beta invite for MoP (Mists of Pandaria). I am really on the fence about signing up. Is there content in WoW for the next year? Maybe.... but Diablo 3! and the beta....but that's a whole year obligation. It's a contract, you can't back out.... Damn you Blizz!
Anyway, Blizz does have other competition besides themselves to a degree. Bioware, a game company of great reputation, is releasing Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWToR) on December 20th, 2011. It's another MMORPG much like WoW set in the Star Wars universe, about 3000 years before the movies. It's going to be a great game, played it in a beta weekend. It has a lot going for it, could possibly give Blizz a run for their money. I'm wondering now, how Bioware will compete with this 12 month contract from Blizz, Most people, I imagine, are like me, 1 MMO at time. I barely have time for WoW with Real-Life(tm) taking 23 hours a day. I may get an hour or two a night to play. What am I going to do?
So people may scoff and say, "bah video games!, grow up." But you really have to change your thinking and go, "Hmm there's a story I want to be a part of; is it WoW, finding a continent, starting a new character? Or is it SWToR, Being a bounty hunter out for himself in the world? It's a novel, a interactive novel, in which you can take part in the story. Whether it's taking down the Lich King or fighting a war in the orbit of Alderaan, it's a story. It's one that takes time and money to invest in. Just like any good book.
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