Lethal Shots

Last week Anea over at Holy Discipline wrote about the guilt she feels when she doesn’t get certain daily quests done. Larisa wrote a response to Anea about how one shouldn’t feel guilty about avoiding in-game activities that they obviously don’t enjoy, and I couldn’t agree more.

There are only three that I (reluctantly) try to do every day: the daily cooking and fishing on my Hunter (only the Northrend ones) and the daily jewelcrafting one on my Shaman. Other than those three, I haven’t done dailies in almost 2 months. And the three I attempt to do don’t get done every day. Hell, the only reason I do them is because they are the only source of certain rewards. I do the cooking daily to buy recipes and spices, the fishing daily offers a shot at some epic gems (also to level of my fishing a little bit every day), and the jewelcrafting daily is the only way to buy more gem cuts.

And to be perfectly honest, there will be a point when I will stop doing even these dailies. Once I have a sufficient stockpile of spices, there will be no reason to do the cooking daily anymore. I might continue to do the fishing daily simply for the easy gold while I fish up mats for buff food, but it will be far from an everyday occurrence. There will also come a time when I won’t need to buy anymore recipes, meaning no more reason to do the jewelcrafting daily. Sure, I will need to do it once in a while to keep myself supplied with Dragon’s Eyes, but at most this will be a once a week thing.

You may be wondering why I have an aversion to daily quests. It is really a simple reason:

They are boring. Completely, totally, utterly, mind-numbingly boring.

I used to do 15-25 a day. Hell, that is how I made enough money for my Hunter’s epic flying back in TBC. I even got him a Nether Ray and a Nether Drake. But now? I can’t stomach doing more than a few. I choose to make my money elsewhere. Sure I ground to exalted with the walrus guys, but it was only 3 dailies a day, and as with the dailies i still do, it was the only way to get the best fishing pole in the game. And once i got it, I never did those quests again. Argent Tournament? I’ve been there a total of one time, did the dailies once, and never went back. Even the announcement of more content up there in 3.2 is not enough to make me go back. I’m not even exalted with the Sons of Hodir yet. I just can’t bring myself to go up there every day.

But unlike Anea, I don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt. I am having fun, and after all isn’t that what a game is for? Go level an alt, go for achievements, run instances, or even just sit in Dalaran talking to your friends. Don’t let a game you love turn into a job you hate.

For those wondering about where I make my money now, no I do not buy gold. I use the AH to keep myself supplied with gold. Buy mats, craft, and sell. Simple, yet I enjoy it and it takes very little of my in-game time.

Man, it’s been over a month since i last posted anything. And to be honest I have missed it. Real life has been keeping me real busy lately. Between work, chores around the house, and taking care of the pregnant wife (more on that later) my free time has been pretty limited. But I think I have finally caught up and should be able to devote some much needed attention to the blog.

But anyway, what have I been up to the last month? A lot. Previously mentioned work and chores around the house mostly, but you guys don’t care about that. In WoW though I have been raiding (a little), leveling alts, working the AH (more on that later), and adjusting to new officer’s duties in my “alt guild” (a lot more on that later).

Also, you’ll likely see some changes in the blog over time. Not only looks, but in content. Part of what has kept me from posting for an extended period is that I have not been focusing solely on my Hunter. Since my Shaman has hit 80, he has been getting tons of play time. That, coupled with the huge interest I have taken in the AH lately, means that the focus of this blog will change to encompass everything I am doing in the game.

While I hope these changes don’t alienate any of my readers, ultimately I blog for my own enjoyment. So while I hope everyone decides to stick around, I will understand if some of you who want straight Hunter info move on.

The following exchange is what I imagined happening between the gnolls in the Wetlands yesterday when I strolled into the middle of their camp on my Shaman to pick some Briarthorn while leveling his Herbalism. I was giggling to myself so much I decided it might be worth sharing.

Gnoll 1: Hey, look over there. Some guy just walked into our camp.

Gnoll 2: Huh? Where?

Cnoll 1: Over there, right next to Carl.

Gnoll 2: Oh yeah, I see him now.

Gnoll 1: He looks awful familiar…..

Gnoll 2: That’s the same guy that keeps riding by on an elephant.

Gnoll 1: What’s he doing?

Gnoll 2: Um, it looks like he’s picking a flower.

Gnoll 1: Why isn’t Carl hitting him with a club or something?

Gnoll 2: Well, I think Carl is doing his best to pretend the guy doesn’t exist.

Gnoll 1: Come on, lets beat the guy up.

Gnoll 2: Um, I think Carl has the right idea. The guy is minding his own business, so lets just leave him alone.

Gnoll 1: Leave him alone? But we always beat up people who come in our camp.

Gnoll 2: Look, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.

Gnoll 1: Why not?

Gnoll 2: Cause this guy is not the typical adventurer we see around here. I mean look at him. He’s huge. And one of his daggers is encased in fire! I mean do you really think its smart to mess with a guy walking around with a dagger encased in fire?

Gnoll 1: Well, granted it might be a tougher fight than usual doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Gnoll 2: Try? Sure, go ahead and try. You can end up like that crocolisk over there. He copped a bad attitude with the guy and now I now you can’t even count the pieces.

Gnoll 1: Yeah, but we’re a lot tougher than a crocolisk.

Gnoll 2: Did you not see what happened to Steve when he accidentally bumped into the guy yesterday? The guy’s dagger cut poor Steve in half, and it was just hanging on the guys belt!

Gnoll 1: So why don’t we go get even?

Gnoll 2: Nope. I’m going to do just like Carl and pretend the guy doesn’t even exist.

Gnoll 1: Come on, we can’t do that. Everyone will laugh at us if we don’t try and take him.

Gnoll 2: Fuck that. Let everyone laugh, at least we’ll still be alive. Just let the god damn hippie pick his fucking flower and get out of here. If you really feel like beating some one up after he leaves we’ll just gank that level 20 mage wandering around over there.

I don’t like heroic raids. I absolutely love running 10-man raids, but I just don’t like 25-mans. Don’t get me wrong, I have fun in them, but I would much rather be in a 10-man. Why you might ask? Well, the first reason may stem from the terrible FPS I get in them. I get good performance in 10-mans, but throw another 15 people in there and it kills my PC.

But even if that wasn’t an issue I still wouldn’t like them. There is just too many people. With a 10-man, runs start close to on time, while it can take up to an hour to get all 25 people together for a heroic. Vent becomes unbearable. Too many people talking at once means you can’t understand a soul. Wipes can take ages to recover from. All this because of the number of people.

Yet I will most likely continue to run them. Heroic raids are what a large number of my guildies are interested in, which means that is what my guild will strive to run, and I want to run with my friends. Also there is the matter of loot. I want a shot at the best loot in the game, and that means I must run heroic raids (I also think this a motivating factor behind many of my guildies). While I find this to be a bad decision on Blizzards part, there is little to be done about it.

So what does this mean? I will continue to run heroic raids, and hope people want to run some 10-mans too.

Well, due to the fact that Blizzard really doesn’t care about my schedule, I haven’t been able to play much WoW since 3.1 went live. In fact, today was the first time I have been able to play for more than 15 minutes.  So far, I like what I see.

I bought dual specs for both my Hunter and Shaman. I don’t have any complaints about it so far. The talent preview option is great. And the action bar switching when you change specs is beyond awesome.

The new fishing dailies in Northrend are fun, with fairly lucrative rewards. A nice change I noticed while doing them was that fishing nodes now sparkle quite noticeably, which is great for those of us who have the graphics effects turned way down.

I haven’t messed with the Argent Tournament too much yet. I don’t know if I will spend too much time with it though. I just have too many other things I am trying to get done right now.

And Ulduar. Don’t get me started on this one. The odds of me being able to even step foot in there before next month are between slim and none. I wish everyone luck n there, but I am severly jealous.

Well, I don’t have much else to say about the patch right now, but rest assured I will post about it as I work my way through it.