Righteous Orbs

I will be sorting out the Amazing Vanishing Post later today. I thought sanity required I leave it for a while first. Also I just realised I had an “awesome links” post still sitting in drafts from last week so this will be a special bumper edition. Wooteth!

Over the weekend, I went on my first, proper semi-pugged 25-man to TotC. I’ve been on a couple of Onxyia-25 runs but I reckon that doesn’t really count. I mean, you’re in and out of there so quickly, you don’t really get the full experience. And, of course, there was the guild Baptism of Fire but I don’t think that counts either on account of being, y’know, pleasant. I’m not quite sure what to say about the whole business, to be honest. It was, uh, an experience. It wasn’t that it was un-fun or anything, it was more that it was a kind of, hmm, bring your own fun party, if that makes sense. The guild was in the majority, which kept things at least moderately sensible, and we had Strong Leadership TM but even so the dither capacity of 25 people was incredible.

You know what a 25-man semi-pug is like? It’s like a shite nightclub, the sort you go to semi-ironically with a group of your mates in the hope that the company will make up for, well, everything else about it. This isn’t helped by TotC being one room. It even has a dance floor in the middle. And, of course, DJ Fordring spinning the discs. So there you are, pretty much stuck because you paid the entrance fee, and you can’t get to the bar (aka fish feast) because of the crowds. And you and your friends are lined up by the back well, trying to have some kind of conversation that makes it look like you’re Above All This, while various losers, freaks and other social malcontents try to kill you, pull you or worse. And there’s one guy doing the WoW equivalent of dancing on E – i.e. yelling completely weird and random stuff while the rest of the raid looks on in silent horror And another guy who is serial jumping. Not just jumping a bit, you know, like the rest of us (because who can resist jumping when you have the option) but continuously, repeatedly jumping as if he’s hitting his forehead on the spacebar over and over and over again. And a few guys have just passed out in the corner, afk with no sign of life, and you’re wondering if you should be phoning an ambulance.

But the truly weird thing is that, after a while, it does become a peculiar, semi-masochistic kind of fun. I’m not a big one for emotes, especially because I think Tam thinks it’s beneath his dignity to go around poking cows, but after ten minutes of standing around in a 25-man semi-PUG, suddenly a guildie can’t take two steps towards me without being, tickled, hugged or somethinged. And conversation on Vent devolved into a long discussion about whether Barrett Ramsey was any relation to Gordon Ramsay and had he come to critique the food being served at the Argent Tournament, and maybe get the whole place shut down for breaching health and safety regulations. Well. We can only hope.

Needless to say, Team Shite Disco did not actually down TotC-25. We got as far as the twins but by now we’d played the game for about half an hour and stood around waiting and poking each other for about three so the RL – very sensibly – called it. And actually once we were actually, y’know, raiding – we did okay. There was usually one teething wipe followed by a win per boss, which I reckon is pretty good going for a semi-PUG. Especially considering the MH, a disc priest we’d scraped drooling out of a gutter somewhere, didn’t seem to be casting PW:S. Am I going mad here? But surely that’s not a good plan. Isn’t that kind of the equivalent of a holy priest who doesn’t cast CoH?

Anyway, by the time we got to the Faction Champs, pretty much the entire healing team had turned over, leaving only myself and the Bubbleless Wonder. You can imagine my mortal terror on receiving a whisper from the RL asking me to sort out the team and make sure everyone knew what they were doing. AIEEEE. But, I don’t know what I’m doing! But, hey, I gave it a go, although I was terrified of basically enacting that scene from that episode of Red Dwarf in which Rimmer gets himself stranded on a planet of warring waxworks and decides to (ineptly) whip the good guys into a fighting force. My overtures, which were very brief (we’ll be mass dispelling, everybody else do what you can, try to stay alive and let’s watch out for each other) were met with utter silence which was genuinely disconcerting – since I, at least, always answer healing assignments with a “you got it” or “Yes, I am alive and functional and capable of understanding your words.” I kept expecting someone at the back of the class to throw a paper airline, or a broken bottle, at me or something. As the readycheck went out, I sent a “good luck, see you on the other side” message and … weirdly … at that moment, the healer party erupted into life, good lucking each other like crazy, hugging, you name it, like this was WWI and we were going over the top. I guess it was some kind of activational code word.

It’s at times like this that I am reminded how oblique WoW can be as a medium for communication. I mean, I literally had no idea what the other guys were thinking. None. And I’d interpreted the grumpy silence as resentment that I’d dared, even very lightly, to take control of the healing team. But in the few seconds before the fight it suddenly seemed that everyone was feeling extremely positive and teamy and, even, gave every indication of liking me, although all I’d said to them “hello” and “does anybody have any thoughts” and “maybe we should just do this then” and “good luck.” Curious and curioser.

Which reminds me. I must confess. Where is Paltress? It has been, well, literally a lifetime since my last confession. Forgive me good taste for I have sinned. I, uh, I’m actually starting to enjoy the Faction Champs. I normally hate PVP-style fights but I think I’m beginning to get the hang of this one, and all the moving around, desperately casting instant heals and dispelling like crazy, is, well, it’s a bit frenetic but it’s fun. And between psychic scream, fade, desperate prayer and PW:S I’m not as fragile as I thought I was. Usually I’ve got 2 of those off CD by the time somebody has got his beady eye on me – well, his beady eye and, more worryingly, his big axe. Okay, I’d probably be better off disc but for the wipe before success I was the last healer standing – I don’t know if that means I was doing something very wrong, or very right, but there it was.

Anyway, here are 2 weeks worth of links:

First off, I am sad because Feldeeds Awake is putting out the hellfire and dismissing the imp. It’s been a bit of a rocky blogging road for Kahleena and I have this terrible urge to leave a comment along the lines of “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” but I’d much rather celebrate than lament, and you can’t go around making people for giving up blogging. Kahleena’s, along with Shay, Misneach and Beru, was one of the first blogs I started reading, and definitely part of the reason I have stuck around here for as long as I have. I’ll always have a great deal of respect and affection for the blogging community as a whole but I think it’s only natural that you’ll always keep a special place for the first blogs who first drew you into it. I’ve been thinking to myself recently why I started WoW blogging – I thought at the time it was merely one of my whims but I’ve lately realised, especially now that I have a guild to play with, that I began blogging about WoW because, once all my friends stopped playing and I lost touch with some of the friends I made in the game, I was lonely in WoW. And Kahleen’s blog, which was witty, whimsical, and always insightful, used to make me feel less lonely. Anyway, here by way of a tribute are some fantastic posts from the Feldeeds archive: on Enchanting (and why it sucks), on PVP, on sexism, on boosting, on alting. And finally because it cannot be overlinked, the infamous ‘Seperated at Birth’ series on Warlock T9 gear: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.

Anyway, enough of these goodbyes. You’ll have me snivelling into my sissy-robe clad sleeve. Let us not say farewell, merely au revoir and, as any good warlock should, mwahahahaa.

In happier news:

Failpug of, well, probably the decade from Panzercow.

A huge can of worms from Keredria which I probably shouldn’t revive but I found it genuinely appalling and mind-boggling. Thankfully, though, we had Snotty to save the day. And connected to / inspired by said worms, a post from Beru on respect. *takes notes* Ahem.

Spinks on the Keristrazsa plot, one of the wrath questlines that bugged me for ages. Remember folks: if a girl says she doesn’t want to go out with you, imprison her in ice. It never fails.

Happy WoWnaversary to Sprinks. Wahoo!

I must say I’ve experienced a certain amount of (harmless) schadenfreude as a consequence of these posts from Pike and Melfina. It’s weirdly affirming to watch other people struggling with the sort of things most healers take for granted – like the guilt, oh yes the guilt.

Amusing silliness from Darraxus about WoW behaviour in the real world.

Shintar on Aszhara – which has always been one of my favourite zones, despite the fact it has irritatingly impassable cliffs and nothing in it.

Millea triumphing on the HeignanHeigan (I can type honest) Dance – how well I remember how sweet it felt the first time I managed not to make an utter arse of myself on Heignan’sHeigan’s Dancefloor of Doom.

Cass and Lath (and friends) on their Top Ten Thank God Changes over 5 years of WoW.