The Sky is Falling… On My Head
Somehow, amidst all the hoopla of rebuilding shelves in the basement and hauling giant sheets of wood up and down stairs more times than I care to admit, we dinged 75.
To celebrate this festive milestone, I decided it was time to go to Sholazar Basin and knock the bottom out of the Mining profession. This had a twofold purpose: One, epic flying is just around the corner, and the greatest Death Knight this side of a server crash doesn’t have the muffins to pay for it. Mining will help to do that.
Okay, there’s not much of another reason. Rokk needs moolah. Mining makes moolah, either by itself or through Blacksmithing. Hooray.
Did you know the southern part of the Basin is filled with neutral animals? Yeah, so did I. That’s why I went there. I did a number of laps, scraping the bottom of the Basin (see what I did there?) and picked up a few stacks of Saronite Ore.
This is more difficult than you might imagine.
I have bitched about this before, but when I get my WoW on during the week, I’m doing it away from the Fortress of Rokk-itude. I’m forced to play on an internet connection that bounces off a satellite dish. That’s right, I use the Internets from Outer Space.
Consequently my latency tends to jump up into the 6k range, with a Framerate of 1. Not 1 frame per second, one frame. Had I the power to grab the Internet, I would have thrown it out the window. But since it was beaming in THROUGH the window from the SKY (disliking the sky now), I’d just be sending it home while I lay on the floor in the fetal position with fudge in my shorts and foam in my mouth.
I know what you’re asking. “Rokk! How could things possibly get any better!?”
The fun came in the form of every Billy badass from the Alliance side deciding to kick me in the left testicle. Why only the left? I’d blown the other one watching Rokk stutter along at Warp Factor Geriatric for almost an hour.
Oh sure, it was different people. Different guilds. But like clockwork, an ore would pop up on my mini-map and just as I rode up to it, a Human or Nelf or Space Goat would swoop out of the SKY (see a trend?) and snatch the ore from betwix my fingers. Even in the screenshot for this post, you can see a damn helicopter flying away because I won an ore race by having the thing pop under my feet during one of the freeze frames.
Somehow, through a zen-like patience built through a technique of deep breathing (beer, not air), Rokk not only capped his Mining but he managed to round up enough ore to get to his next level of recipes in Blacksmithing.
Where do I go to get the new recipes?
Dalaran.
I Hate The Sky.
Whose Side Are You On?
A Blue post came down the tubes a few days ago from Nethaera, and in it he/she discussed their upcoming money-grab service.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/18031079410-factionchange-service-in-the-works.html
We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.
As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.
Updated* 7/1- Due to the many questions that have come up with the announcement of this new service, we wanted to take the time to answer the ones we can at this point in time.
Q. Will we be able to switch between the races on our own faction?
A.. No. Players will only be able to switch to a race of the opposite faction.Q. Will I be able to choose the race on the opposite faction that I want to change to?
A.. Yes, but you will only be able to switch to a race that has your class type available to it. So if you play a human paladin, you’d only be able to change to a blood elf paladin.Q.How much will it cost?
A.. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.Q.Will I be able to switch back to my original faction but a different race?
A.. No. You will only be able to switch back to your originally chosen race.Q.. How will the switch between reputation, gear, mounts, etc be handled?
A.. We’ll have more details for you at a later point in time, though we plan to keep these as close to a reflection of the other faction as much as possible.Q.How often can you change your faction?
A..We do not have any information to share on this at this point in time, however we will have restrictions on the frequency by which players can change their faction.Q. How will this affect the balance of Horde and Alliance on the realms?
A.. We are taking great care in how we implement this new service in order to maintain balance between the factions on the realms but do not have any further details to share.
Didn’t Blizzard say this would never happen? Oh wait, it doesn’t matter. After all, people went to their cesspool-like forum and cried (or QQ as the kids say these days). What else could they do? Game too hard? Cry and Blizz will nerf it. Think a class is more powerful than your own? It isn’t that you’re a terrible player. Heavens no! You’re a precious little snowflake! Just bitch and complain and Blizz will take care of it.
*urgle*
Sorry, had to choke back a rant there.
Actually, maybe there is a benefit to being a switcher. After all, it’s a great way to lose weight!
