A new time card

I have the unopened box in front of my keyboard as I speak, and will be entering the code momentarily. While some are sadly closing their doors, and others have already left the game, although to a degree I am diversifying my interests, WoW is still going to be part of my life, although possibly not as exclusively as it once was.

So I'll still be trolling the forums, active on Twitter, and swearing at people in Trade with my bank alt about the state of the server economy on Saurfang. ;)

What that also means, however, is that as I've said, while people are still going to get an Orc named Mirshalak, I'm tearing down the fourth wall. Being Mirsh has been beneficial for me, but I feel that it's also time to take some of the benefits that I've derived from that and apply them in a few other areas as well. I've never been content, as you know, to write purely about WoW here, because in keeping with the belief that, "all is Maya," I feel that WoW can have consequences on people's lives that are just as real as any in offline life, and that has certainly been true in my own case.

For now, though, to install the time card. I need to buy a RAF account for someone at some point, I think...I want to finish levelling my alts on Pike's and Rilgon's servers at some point, and maybe one on the servers of a couple of my other readers as well, depending on where you are. It'd be good to play with some of the people I talk to on Twitter!

A baby Hunter on Nagrand

One of the alts I have on the go at the moment is a Hunter on Nagrand. The reason why I am levelling there is because I have a friend on that server, who was playing on Saurfang, (where my main is) and then transferred. I don't have either the money or a credit card in order to transfer right now, and I wanted to be able to play low level Warsong Gulch for a bit anyway, so I decided I'd make a new toon.

I'm still only level 13 with it, and have about 10 hours /played...I'm very slow, as I've admitted elsewhere. I tend to be extremely particular about things which some other people would yell at me for, such as making sure I am at max range before starting to fire, etc. Even at the cap, I still tend to time kills on the basis of my trap or Feign Death cooldowns, and also use throwing axes for pulling as well. So it is very slow, but I do love how passive and honestly effortless it feels.

I'm levelling Survival as usual though (*grin*) and in order to do that, am being very obsessive about my stats, as early as possible. I can usually get 100 Agility by level 20, and have 50 now at 13, so I don't think that is too bad.

To be able to level in any decent space of time with Surv at all, though, you really do need to twink your head off, at least before 60, although I also do it because of how much I love battlegrounds. We don't get the first rank Immolation Trap until 20, and Trap Mastery is 41 point now. It used to be 10 point, to coincide with Immolation Trap. The new devs have ruined so much of the synchronicity that this game used to have.

The single reason why levelling with Mirsh back in the day, I never had mount money, is because literally every spare cent went to the Auction House on gear. I've been known to buy new greens every three levels or so, and will do so for an increase of as little as 3-5 Ag, if I can get it; like I said, I'm obsessive. Other than Imp Tracking though, (and Hunter Vs Wild, at about level 25) there really isn't much in Surv for damage, early on.

I'm also using a boar as a pet, currently, which is working fine. They eat anything, they're awesome tanks, the extra health keeps them alive against adds, and if I'm trapping, they usually don't have any problem holding threat, although at level 13, that isn't an issue either.

A brief hiatus

I haven't logged into WoW since probably the night before I made my last post, a week ago.

I've had a lot of stuff going on in real life recently, and I've found another interest as well at the moment, which is taking up a fair amount of my time. I won't specifically name what said interest is, other than to say that it isn't atheistic in focus, and I have enough trolls who read this blog who are atheists that I don't particularly want the heckling that I would get from them if I mentioned it.

I'm also planning on installing Wubi and getting back into UNIX programming at some point, but I haven't done that yet.

Truthfully, I'm pretty much burned out on being a Hunter at the level cap at this point. I could level up my Druid or Mage, since I do find tanking or Druid healing fun, and the Mage can be periodically good too. The only way I could see still playing a Hunter though, would be as a 29 or so twink, at this point.

So I guess that's the question; are you guys still willing to hang around if this becomes an alt blog, as opposed to a pure Hunter blog? I'm not saying I will never play Mirsh again, at all...but truthfully, Ghostcrawler has just done too much damage to my class; he is going to need to more or less revert Survival back to the way it was at 2.1 for me to become interested again at this point; and I think we all know that that is unlikely to happen.

I will still be playing alts, and if there is some interest in hearing about my adventures with them, I will record them here; but I can't promise how much more I'm going to be playing as a Hunter, at this point.

I'm also thinking of starting a non-WoW related blog as well; I could mention my activities with UNIX programming there, without getting trolled by people who only want to read about WoW. I'd like to maybe collaborate with Rilgon or Pike on some Linux stuff to at least a minor degree, perhaps.
Give me some suggestions. :)

A walk on the wild side

Given that I'm slowly becoming more bored with my main, recently, (especially considering that I can no longer viably play in Warsong Gulch at 80, due to the overpowered state of the Paladin and Death Knight) last night I continued dusting off my very oldest alt.



Meet Cloudwalker. He is the single oldest character I have; made less than 24 hours before the character that was previously my main, a Mage. This was back in April, 2006, just after the patching in of Ahn'Qiraj. I always knew Cloud wasn't going to be my main, even at the start, but I was very curious about the Druid as a class back then, and still consider them interesting, if overly fragile.

Despite his overall age, Cloud wouldn't have more than 10 days /played, while Mirsh has more than 70, and probably more than 80 now...I haven't checked recently. The main reason for that is because during TBC in particular, I began to find his lack of survivability at low levels (he's level 30 now) to be very annoying.

I ended up doing two instance runs with him last night; one to the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard, and the other to Razorfen Kraul. On both occasions I was Restoration spec, but I'd earlier tanked the SM Graveyard with him as well, a week or two ago. In RFK, although I was still Resto, we had a Priest as well, and when the tank complained that the run was going slowly because of a lack of DPS, I went into Cat form, while putting Renew and Regrowth on my Cat actionbar, and exploiting Natural Shapeshifter to rapidly shift out at times, stack HoTs on the tank when the Priest was getting overloaded, and going back to Cat.

I'm starting to realise that where hybrids are concerned, the Druid is actually a better overall fit for me than the Paladin, as well. The reason why I say this is because with Cloud, I'm willing to be genuinely role agnostic; I will join a group, ask whether they need a tank or healer, and then spec/gear accordingly. With my alt Paladin, on the other hand, if I don't tank, I don't go; healing with that class is basically a one button affair, and I can't stand it.

The other thing I appreciate whenever I play either hybrid, truthfully, which I don't get to experience with my Hunter, is being a member of a class/role that people actually have respect for, and want to have around. The Hunter has been at the very bottom of WoW's social food chain for longer than I can remember, and as much as I love the Hunter as a class, it occasionally feels good not to be a pariah all of the time.

I'm also in the process of levelling another Hunter on Nagrand. I probably won't go to 80 with her; I am thinking of probably a 29 or so twink, so I can enjoy some WSG and AB again, because I am sorely missing those. I've realised, somewhat sadly and regretfully, that the Conqueror title may never happen for me now, but c'est la vie.

BM has been fixed (slightly)

So although the Steady Shot nerf is still in place, Serpents' Swiftness has had its' pet damage coefficient raised back up to 20% in the latest patch, as reported by BRK and presumably other people. This should hopefully mean that BM is once more considered viable by the leaders of raids and pugs. ;-)

It also possibly means that it could be more viable again for a temp respec for Borean Tundra AoE leather farming for me, as well; in terms of hopefully increased pet threat generation. AoE farming with Volley used to be my main incentive for temp respeccing with BM, before 3.0.8.

To Garrandor

I had this as a comment on my last post, from Garrandor.

"It would be awesome if you did quit and took your poison elsewhere. No Doubt comparing yourself to Ghandi or Mandela or Jesus and complaining about... everything!! makes you feel better in some way, but I'm sure the internet would be a better place if you just stopped."

I probably shouldn't be giving him this degree of validation by devoting a blog post to him, but I've had him as a moderately persistent troll for a while now, and it's becoming a little tedious.

Garrandor, let me try and put this in as simple terms for you as I can, and this goes for all of my other periodic trolls, as well.

Presumably anyway, nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read this blog. Thus, if you don't like me, or reading what I write, quite simply, go away. Nobody is forcing you to be here whatsoever; I certainly am not. I do, however, have as much right to exist and to express an opinion as you do.

Forcing yourself to continue to be exposed to someone online who you dislike, and then insisting that rather than simply no longer exposing yourself to them, that they themselves should be silent, is senseless, hypocritical, and futile. You will not silence me, and while that may not have been true on the forum, here, you have no way of forcibly silencing me whatsoever.

I also, truthfully, find myself wondering what it is about my writing, that causes certain people to so adamantly and persistently demand that I be silent. If my writing is as worthless and inconsequential as you claim, how does it have the ability to cause you such anger? There is a paradox of logic, there.

I do not, by the way, compare myself with Gandhi, Mandela, or Christ; some of the content of my quotes section might have given you that impression, and if so, let me be the first to correct it. Apart from anything else, at least two of those individuals were avowed pacifists, and I most assuredly am not. I have often expressed that I am aware of the fact that I am a deeply flawed human being; I see so much evidence of that fact on a daily basis, that it would be virtually impossible for me not to be aware of it.

If, as I suspect, you are a native of that particularly saddening, lifeless breed of trolls who feel that silencing me is a justifiable moral crusade, then rest assured, upon your next comment attached to any of my posts, your IP address will be blocked.

I apologise to my other readers, and wish to assure you that I will now at least attempt to return to some marginally more positive content.

Removal of ammunition from the game

Gundersson told me about this last night.

I'm trying to figure out how to explain why I think this is a bad thing, in a way people will actually understand. I wrote a rant about it on the forum, and predictably got called a moron for it.

I guess I just feel, primarily, as though it is an immersion issue, more than anything else. I can't remember the last computer game I played, of any kind, where I had a ranged weapon of whatever type, and ammunition wasn't an issue. In most of the first person shooter games I've played, having to keep track of, and ration, various types of ammunition is usually one of the primary challenges inherent in the game.

Not only that, but having to keep track of food, water, and ammo in WoW actually felt like a defining aspect of playing the class. In real life, logistical management is one of the things Hunters have to do. I also prided myself on always having enough, when I saw a number of other Hunters running around without it. I would try and tell new Hunters to always make sure they had enough, as well...whereas Blizzard's answer to the issue apparently isn't to demand that people are more mentally active, but simply to remove things and make it easier.

It is things like this, however, which honestly make me wonder how much longer I'm going to be playing this game. Gundersson said he was giving up, but I think that was a statement made in anger in his post; I'm not sure if he really meant it or not.

I'm going to still be here, but...the game is falling apart.