Which one next?

With quite a few alts it's often hard to decide which one to play/level next. I had loads of fun with my Shaman last two weeks for example but now she's 30 (the dreaded STV level) i'm slowly losing interest.

I'm not planning to start a new toon but there are enough options open for me. My druid is level 63 and is exploring Zangermarsh, could be fun. My Horde lock is 37 but that pvp server is really a pain in my ass as various moments, mostly during daytime.

I got a level 70 warrior which i would like to get attuned for Karazhan aswell as my guilds plans some alt runs soon and looking at an instance in a different way can be very refreshing.

At the moment i'd say my warrior is going to get some overdue attention.. but he's arms at the moment which was helpfull in getting some PvP gear just before BG hit us.

So i can either find someone who wants to team up for some arena's (which class would combine best?) or respec to a more PvE build... Fury seems to be the PvE damage dealing spec and i could posibly take a touch of Protection for some tanking. (which i'll have to do most likely in 5mans and Kara)

My current spec was used for tanking aswell so i might aswell keep it the same for now.
Ah well.. i guess i'll see where my moodswing leads me.

Bigger Addict

This blog is about being a WoW addict as the title might give away. While i was a bigger addict in my earlier WoW carreer (i've called in sick quite a few times too many i must confess /blush) i got it pretty much under control at the moment, or at least that is what i keep telling myself.
That i play less often is a fact eventho i'd like to pick up the pase again soon to get back into the raidinggame.

However... it is always good to see people who are addicted more then you are. You know that person who is ALWAYS online, wether you log in during your lunchbreak or in the middle of the night... that person who has at least 2 accounts and duo-box's (or rather triple or quadruple..you get the idea) and has at least 3 level 70 alts and various rising.
We have a person like that in the guild aswell, i think he's gonna propose to his computer instead of his GF any time soon :P
Sure we have more people in our guild who play quite a bit more then i do but i'd say this is our winner! Truth told this guy does alot for the guild, naming him shouldnt be needed as every Guildmember will know who i'm talking about here ;)
There is quite some stuff going on backscreen on the Council and Classleader forums and he's always ready to bring new insight on topics, or further complicate things actually. Out in the open he runs most of out raids and is never too busy to help someone if they need kit from a certain instance which would improve the raid.
The only thing that keeps him away is what he calls Girlfriend-Aggro... which does come at akward times now and then. Even funnier when being able to listen in on Teamspeak, which mistake he hasnt had in quite awhile sadly enough.

In my case i don't need to be very afraid of GF-aggro as she plays herself aswell, i'm still not sure if this is a good thing or not as she could have been the one thing what limited my Wow-time...
Often my crooked willpower has to convince myself to convince her we should take a night off and do something on the needed household tasks, how weird is that?

Getting Hacked

Okay, grab a cup of hot coco and come sit closer to the fire... it's time for a Horror story! MWOEHAHAHAHAhaha.. ha..
It happened about a year ago, i could slap myself for not taking care and keeping my firewall up and running.. keeping my scanners up to date and stuff like that.
I came home from work and decided to log on, my password wasnt changed so there was no problem as of yet so the game loaded and WHAM! there was my characterscreen and my Tier2 filled Hunter was totaly nakid! It felt like a knive went to my heart and i entered the game.
While the game was loading i knew what was going on but i still hoped someone was pulling a prank and just removed all the gear into my bags.
But when i entered the game it was obvious: i got Hacked :((
When writing this i still feel sad as i still feel i lost something there.. not just some materials i can never get back but i felt violated aswell.

I shared it with the guild which were very helpfull again and offered me all sort of help and money, i wasn't the first one in the guild that got hacked which made the pain easier to share for some reason. A ticket was made and the waiting began. While my guild raided BWL i was hiding somewhere outside IF as i felt ashamed running around naked.. Hours went by and still no answer, the next day i found a post in my ingame mailbox they were looking into it... so more waiting was to be expected.
Another long day went by of waiting and again i got some ingame mail.. good news this time: i would get my gear back. At least this would get me back into the raiding game.
The bad news was they only gave me gear back for my two level 60 characters.. not for my level 56 warrior which i planned to get 60 five days laters, i even had him some Epic gear already. My level 29 semi-twink Rogue didnt get any stuff back either and some items were unreplaceable as they were questrewards.

My guild loaned me plenty of gold and helped my with getting my gear enchanted again, i felt warm and fuzzy inside and again ashame for being so dependend.
Altho i lost loads of stuff, Blizz did gave me all my gear back.. not just my T2 but also T1 and other banked gear. (no tradeskill items, just gear) For some reason the BOE epics i wore earlier weren't soulbound anymore and with pain in my heart i placed most of them on AH (even tho i didnt wear most of them anymore,.. except for the gear on my Moonkin which i sacrificed for the good of my main) so i was able to repay everyone within a week.
I even had some money left, not anywhere close to the 2k i saved up (was already saving up for the flying mount) but still a nice amount to start tBC with.

The funny thing is.. this hacker almost helped me getting of my WoW addiction. I was already looking for a different game to play, City of Heroes for example.
I guess this blog would have been less WoW related then, if i still would be able to call myself an addict? Who knows.

No blog all weekend!

As a true Wow addict i try to spend every free moment on WoW and wouldnt dare "wasting" any time on something which doesnt gain XP or give me a slight chance on virtual gain. So no blogging all weekend :)
I still need to redo the titlebar in something a bit less simplistic as it is now but my characterviewer keeps crashing, probably the same problem as my WoW-client itsself has. Hopefully i can adress that later.

In my Lunchbreak i went home for a bite (and to escape that ringing phone) and i couldnt restrain myself of logging in WoW for a couple of minutes. My Shaman was parked somewhere out in the bush as i got unexpected visitors and my Heartstone was on cooldown, to get as much rested bonus as possible i wanted to park it at the local inn.. while in between getting that last 2k xp and ding 29. Yay!
I was thinking how each 10th level gives you some of the coolest skills; A pet at level 10, Aspect of the Cheetah at 20 for a Hunter... Travelform at 30 for a druid, a mount at 40. Every class has this and it's kind of the motivator of leveling, getting to that next cool skill! On the other hand it's kind of frustrating when you just passed a point like that and know you will need 10 levels worth of XP again before getting the new good stuff... it's this craving what keeps me going i guess.

This week i decided to do some more chours around the house as there is plenty to do (and kind of a Deadline with my GF's Birthday next weekend). So there is a huge internal fight brewing between my willpower and my wow addiction, which will win? When i was about to move house i decided to cancel my internet a month early which helped both me and my GF to get some work done. (did i mention her and mine /played are probably not thát far apart? :P )

My addiction was causing trouble at work today aswell, i got a Elek shitload of work and still i try to reward myself for completing something and check out the net for some Wow related reading. It's like i'm posessed actually, spontanious my hand moves my mouse to the lower left corner of my desktop and starts internet explorer.. ready for some browsing. At that point it's up to my willpower again to close it before my hands actually start typing one of the regular URLs.. i can tell you it's like my willpower is Hogger and my Wow addiction is a 40man raid of level 1 gnomes (Pink haired if you please).

As you can see.. the gnomes won in the end ;)

Another Alt day

You know that feeling when you're sick of playing your main and want to try a different class for a bit? Maybe that fun alt that your trying to level until you get those cool new spells, talents or into that fun instance?
Well i feel like that now and then but this time i'm forced to.

I spend last night (after i came home late) copying my GF's WoW to my PC using an USB-stick (1.1 speed) while in meanwhile i played on my Alt Shaman which dóes work for some reason.
My time yesterday was spend in Duskwood which i've done with 6 characters already and this time it went amazingly smooth. Remembering quests is not the problem and if i do forget wowhead is my friend.

Besides my Hunter this Shaman is most likely one of the easiest to level sofar... on my Rogue i managed to die quite a bit, but perhaps my level was lower so maybe comparison is a bit off.

I do start to realize why i dreaded Horde Shaman in BG's so much when i did them on my 29 Rogue, they seem to have some nice burst damage and those totems add more then just looks.
The downside is you go oom pretty fast if you play like this but in a BG thats not much of a problem anyway when you come back after your date with the spirithealer.

In just 2 hours i gained 2 levels so i'm level 25 now... for the first time in my WoW-carreer i actually long for the next "kill X Murloc" quest as i need some fishscales for underwather breathing :)
A pretty useless skill most of the time, but you've got to set goals for yourself... even when they are actually stupid ones.

The fork in the Road

Time for some more WoW related material.. i guess it's time by now.

What i was thinking about is that switch of ingame carreer, not talking about the carreer where you climb the rank of a guild... No, i'm talking about switching jobs, going for a mainswitch.
I myself have been a Hunter since retail and i had no doubt about that this Hunter would be my main. I'd see people all around me mainswitching and my head just hurts trying to match those new names to the names i got to know while leveling.

But then the Burning Crusade arrived and rumours of the Hunter Class being ass-raped frightend me more then the thought of getting hacked yet again (but thats a different story).
I was even considering making my Warrior my new main but Druids were the new tanks so that didnt seem too appealing either once i heard about that.
Luckily i got a beta-key from a ingame friend and i could browse ahead of the rest so i logged in and did a /who hunter 70.
This Hunter was kind enough to answer my spam of questions and i was relieved that things didnt look as grim as was presented to me.

A month later BC arrived and i was happy to bring my Hunter to 70 and tho i liked playing all my other toons, my Hunter was without a doubt my main. (brought my warrior to 70 quite rapidly tho)

Now i'm playing my alt Shaman and having quite some fun which made me think; Would i ever encounter a class which would make me mainswitch?

Perhaps one of the new Hero classes?

Hands... shaking.. need.. my.. fix..

So my PC is still messed up.. or WoW is, i have no idea.

For some reason i can play my low levels without a problem and even IF is no Lag-forge at all.

It's just that Shattrah is shutting me out, didnt even try to kill any of those Aldor bastards lately >.> Ow and my warrior alt (70) is éven Aldor. (maybe they found out i was a double-agent? o.O )

While i play my Dranei Shaman from WoW on my E-drive, i'm trying to repair the version installed on C using the Blizz repairtool. A guildy gave me the tip it could be a memory problem which did remind me of a memory problem a year ago with 2 not matching simms. (not to be mistaken with sims)

I ran a memoryscan tool later but after 2 hours it was still busy. To get my WoW fix i aborted it and played my alt for a bit who made it to 23 by now. My brother in law (who plays a 70 Paly) boosted me through Stockades and Gnomeregan.. i was hoping to experience these dungeons with a party (i actually had some good pugs in my days) but the low level zones are pretty deserted, except for the weekends but the pug quality is alot lower during the day.

Just before i went to bed i ran the memoryscan again so i could see the results next morning, but when i looked this morning: no errors!! Not sure if i should be happy or not, i'd glady buy some new ram if that would solve my problems. (i'm one of those penny-wise, pound-foolish kind of people).

Onward to different methods... may my raidingdays be back soon!

Respeccing

A point everyone comes to somewhere in his WoW carreer i suppose: A Respec.

I'm revering to the time where you choose to drasticly alter your talentbuild so you gain/lose certain skills and possible gain a different playstyle aswell.

When you are a Holy Priest and respec to Shadow Priest that greatly effects your role in a raid or at least your solo play.

A respec also often affects your gear.. do you even have the correct gear to change your build?

Maybe you saved up a second kit so it is alot easier.

Why am i mentioning this? I just recently respecced from the Marksman Tree (for Hunters in case you don't know) to the Beastmaster tree.

Marksman was always thé nr. 1 Damage tree and Hunters being Beastmaster were laughed at and not taken seriously and for good reason i might add.

So Blizz decided to solve that and give BM Hunters a huge boost and all of the sudden théy are the nr. 1 dps tree.. .WTF?

Due to my active playstyle i managed to keep in the top charts even as a MM Hunter but now my gear is of poorer quality compared to the rest (was AFK for 2 months) the difference is more noticeable. So i had no choice to respec in effort to keep up with the rest.

Truth told i love the damage i do now and it is without doubt thé damage tree (studied loads of forums before i decided to "switch" ofcourse) but i still kinda miss being a MM Hunter and certain skills in the tree. (mostly Scattershot)

Hunters are ofcourse not the only class having such "problems", surely other classes had to respec out of their favorite tree to stay up with the rest or to get a raidspot.

At least one addict feels your pain. ;)

A nice Guild makes an Addict

A theory i came up with today: is my addiction partialy my Guild's faulth?
My brother in law is Guildless and has none (as far as i know) ingame friends, i think this helps him limit his WoW time.
I on the other hand know quite some people (altho i not consider them all friends) and can always have a nice chat ingame or find someone to team up with to do something.
It's this social thing that pull people deeper into the game and forms strong bonds with it.

Now i don't want to blame my Guild anything ofcourse.. as it's a amazing bunch of people and i like (almost) each and everyone of them. Now i think of it, my guild is just like one of those Teen series.... not that much drama but full of different (stereo)types;
We have a number cruncher, a foreign guy who talks in riddles, a tough guy, a shoe-addicted girl (not a fettisch), the wanna-be (dps in this case), the serious guy, the clumsy noom, well i'm sure you know what i mean by now.
There are plenty of funny happenings which baptizes a certain zone in "Fred's Corner", (except we have no Fred) certainly most social Guilds have things like this.
Darn you Guild.. i wish you weren't that much fun to be in!

What's on an addicts mind?

Alot actually... having finally moved and done most of the chours i can forget about the new house for a bit again and everything that had to be arranged.
Time for a little bit of wow attention after not being able to play for nearly two months. (!)

So some WoW things on my mind:
- What to do with this blog
- How to improve our guilds raidefforts
- How the hell can i fix wow so i can log in on my main again (shatt seems to be the problem)

The last one on the list is what pains me the most... i have above average computer knowledge but i'm just tired of needing to patch my PC all the time. And now i can finally help my Guild in instances again i can't log on my main anymore. (or any other character parked in or near Shattrah) Been alting yesterday while the guild went to Tempest Keep and i was running patches on an other copy of WoW on my disk. While i had fun with my shammy in the Deadmines (was hoping for a full my level party, we got a level 59 in the group... nice for XP but the funfactor could have been higher i suppose.)
So i'm copying files from my GF's PC hoping something will result in WoW working again as it should.

About me

I found this would have been a bit too much for my initial post so i'm devoting a second post to it: the "about-me" topic. (i promise... more WoW related material soon ;) )

I'm 31 atm and not a bit worried about it (or so i keep telling myself), i live in the middle of the Netherlands and i recently bought myself a House (and my Girlfriend, she pays half of it ofcourse). Got 2 cats and i work as a Technical Engineer which is not that much fun actually.

To tell my virtual life and get back onto blog-topic: My first MMORPG was WoW which i played for a couple of weeks in the open beta, my first character was a NE Druid which i managed to get to level 15 back then. (as i was a huge noob, didnt found out i could heal myself besides others untill i was level 10)
When WoW went live i bought my GF an account aswell who only played cards on her PC up until then, she is now one of the tanks in our raidingguild.
I started my WoW carreer as a Hunter and joined a all Dutch guild on Aszune-EU where i became an officer after about a year when i lost the majority of my noobness.
After a while i switched guilds to Utopía which was a mixed guild, which was more to my liking at that time and to take a break from being an officer.
I was dumb enough to accept an officer position later on again which i still am, only with the arrival of the Burning Crusade we had to dismantle the guild and restart with about 80% of our members into a more raid orientated guild; Elysium was born.
Thus far we managed to clear Karazhan, Gruul and working at SSC and The Eye (where we killed The Lurker and the Voidreaver sofar)

Besides this im maintaining various alts: A 70 NE warrior (arms atm), a 60 something NE Moonkin Druid, a 30 something NE Priest (sense a trend? :P ), A 30 something Human Rogue (my attempt at a twink), a 30 something BE Lock (my most serious horde-toon), a 20 something Dranei Shaman and a bunch of lesser toons.
I'll post my /played later if i have the guts.

Thats actually me in the picture btw.. my Phone's background ever since the Open Beta :)

More time lost

So there... i've done it! I managed yet again to find another way to spend valuable time on World of Warcraft. Don't get me wrong, i have plenty of other things to do but i was always a bit overenthousiastic with things.

When i was younger i used to play loads of Adventures (Monkey Island, Space quest, u name it) and would wake up in the middle of the night and try out how i could get past that damned obstacle. During the lessons at school i'd make various notes on what i could try later.
After a while i was done with Adventures and moved to shooters: Doom was the first real one and i spend many weekend playing Deathmatch against friends. Again during schooldays i would sketch whole books full with designs of levels i would make later to try out in the next weekend.


My obsession with WoW aint that weird then, there is loads and loads of things to do or to plan ahead, calculate on, read up on... this could last me a lifetime.
Not even mentioning the community which can keep you entertained aswell.

So instead of trying to focus on something more usefull for a change i made a blog.. to spend more WoW time on, how stupid is that? ;)
Anyways, i hope someone who is at least such an addict as i am and got nowhere else to go decides to read some more WoWstuff and is enjoying some of my blogging.