Uninstalled

I’ve uninstalled WoW. Finally. I got to reclaim 20+ GB on my hard drive. This was important as I had a grand total of about 5GB free on my whole computer. Pretty sad, in the day of $50 terabyte hard drives, but that’s how it goes.

The last day on my WoW subscription was yesterday. The last time I played was a week before that. Though I joined Bucket List with the hopes of completing my list of things to do in WoW, I didn’t complete a single one of them, not on Myze anyway. My hunter, Catrìona, has defeated the Lich King, several ICC hard modes, and had a mildly successful arena team.

Bucket List was a good idea, plagued by disorganization and overrecruitment. I won’t get any more specific, as I really like Euripides and don’t want to damage my relationship with him any further. I will mention that a large majority of folks were pretty easy to get along with, including all the officers, and the core of the guild was filled with some talented players.

Bucket List wasn’t the place for me, and sadly, I regret moving my character over to that server to play. I couldn’t have remained on Sisters of Elune, though, the Alliance on that server doesn’t do any challenging content. I’m not sure if they’ve even beaten the Lich King yet. The remainder of Drenden consisted of some decent guilds, but that server overall is too concerned with GearScore. It’s by far the worst I’ve seen.

When I got my Druid to 70 in TBC, my philosophy behind her was to create a raiding environment that I would enjoy, even if I wasn’t the person running it. To that end, I created a successful 10-man guild that lasted until the first few weeks of ICC, and split, mostly because of the stresses my absences caused due to RL concerns. Additionally, the way Blizzard punished 10-man guilds really hurt it, and made it hard to recruit players.

My hunter’s philosophy, however, was to simply hit the cap, then work to get the gear needed for endgame raiding and go for it. In TBC, her first Karazhan raid was the day before WotLK came out, but in WotLK, I was able to raise her to 80 (my third 80, about when Ulduar was finishing up,) then quickly climb guilds until I got to be in the top guild on the server. All in all, it took me about a month to get to the top guild on the server. By mercilessly dropping guilds to get to better ones, I was able to get to the top and be successful in a short amount of time. And I met some really cool folks up at the top.

If I were ever to come back to the game, this is the philosophy I would have to employ. However, right now, I’m too busy enjoying all the extra free space on my hard drive.

A thought on RealID

It’s the hot topic for now, so let me just say this:

Yes, Blizzard, using RealID on the forums will reduce trolling, but that’s only because it will greatly reduce posting. While I don’t post on the WoW forums, a lot of smart, competent people do, and the forums are already a much better place than they might otherwise be given the size of the player base.

So yes, you will achieve your stated goal in this case. Good job, Blizzard.

Kicking the Bucket

 

I’ve regemmed my gear for cat and I’ve joined Bucket List, the guild that also houses Euripides and Darkbrew, two of the heavyweights of the hunter blogging community.

The guild is named and based on the idea of a “Bucket List,” or a list of things to do before you die. Since I plan to leave WoW at the turning of Cataclysm, there are some things that I would like to do before that happens.

First off, I’d like to kill the Lich King on my Druid. I’ve already done so on my hunter, but as we all know, hunters are much better as alts than as mains. As they say, everyone has a hunter alt. Even Darkbrew has a hunter alt. Doing so on my “main” character would definitely be a good cap off to the expansion, and was one of my goals going in, since I didn’t get very far raiding in the Burning Crusade.

Second, I’d like to get a 310% mount. Any 310% mount would do, but I think the way I’d like to do it is through Ulduar. Ulduar is one of the best raid instances ever designed, and I’d like to power through it as a melee DPS, a role I have yet to fulfill in that zone. Note to self, don’t Feral Charge (Cat) Kologarn!

Third, I want to be on another podcast again. I’ve been doing some other projects with my voice and I’m thinking about picking up a little more decent recording equipment for voice and instrument work, and I’m rather enjoying it. I’m working on a Let’s Play (a narrated playthrough) of a Super Nintendo game, which will eventually be posted on YouTube, but I’d really like to get into a sort of a roundtable discussion, preferably about raiding, Druids, or even hunters. I've bugged Euripides in the past about getting on his show, but I think they’re constantly packed with the best interviews hunters have to offer, meanwhile I’m just on a guild doing 8/12 hard modes on my hunter alt with a slightly nonstandard Marksman spec. But either way, I would like another shot as a podcast guest to make up for my somewhat awkward appearance on the Twisted Nether Blogcast.

I’m fairly confident in the first one occurring at some point, though the other two are definitely in question. It’s good to have my goals written down, though. I can come back later and cross them off my list.