Yes, Blizzcon 2013 isn’t until November but I was just reminded of it today because they announced that tickets ($175 each, limit 4) would go on sale April 24th and 27th. Because of this, I started looking at flights and rental cars, etc. I already booked my hotel room when they announced the dates, of course. We’ve also started the initial planning of the TNB Meet-up. If you are planning on being at Blizzcon, come hang with us on Friday night. All the information will be in that link eventually.

Blizzcon is a really fun time and if you are on the fence on whether you should go, I strongly recommend you do. Even if you don’t get a ticket to the show itself and just come to hang out at all the before/after events and maybe get the stream to watch on your laptop in the hotel room.  I know we are all wondering what kind of new and exciting things they have in store for us but even just hanging out with everyone is probably the best fun you can have there.

If you want to join us in all of our Blizzcon wanderings, just let us know. We’re going to try to be more proactive in our plans so we can get groups together for meals, etc. without the difficulties that have arisen in past years.

Alright, I’m outta here. If you are interested, you can check out the photos from our past Blizzcon adventures.

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

So Far Yet…

Hey all. I’m really sorry that I’ve kinda been AFB (away from blog). In the past, I wasn’t all that much of a blogger anyway but I appreciate that for some reason you are still hanging around here.. It’s been 6 years since I started this blog.. All the way back on March 7, 2007 I posted my first post here.

Well, it wasn’t really here.. I’ve moved around a bit since then. I started on WordPress.com and moved to self hosting at some point (there is a post on here about that somewhere). I then have most hosts a couple times I think. So, yeah, it’s generally the same blog (although I did change the name from Asleep at the Wheel to Asleep at the WoW at some point). I’ve changed a bit over those 6 years, of course. My play style has changed. Lots of things have changed.

Having the podcast has definitely taken time away from the blog, but it really isn’t an excuse. Mainly it’s just that I don’t really have any stories to tell. I guess I could go back to what I used to do but if I don’t even find that interesting, why would anyone else. Given there have been all these expansions and patches and changes and such, you would think I would have stuff to write about too. And I guess I do. It’s just more about finding time to sit and write it down. Not that it really takes me much time, I’m not much for editing or research (what’s that?). I even write in a conversational style that generally doesn’t take a lot of effort to do.

I really don’t know what keeps me from writing. I just don’t do it. I’m glad I remembered my Bloggiversary though (spell checker doesn’t like that word). Having something like this be around for 6 years, even if I haven’t updated all that much in the last 3 or so of those is pretty interesting to me. I hope you guys have been entertained over that time.

I’ll take this opportunity to ask those of you that listen to TNB a favor. Twisted Nether is about to have it’s 5 year anniversary (crazy!) and hit 200 episodes right around the same time. If you could please email or call or whatever and let us know what TNB means to you or just say hi or something we would really appreciate it. We’d love to have an episode that was just your emails and voicemails and clips and segments. The 5 year is in May and 200 episodes is 9 away. It’s getting close, so as soon as you can get those in, the better. Thanks again.. Email info@twistednether.net or go over to http://www.twistednether.net for information on how to get your stuff submitted.

Thanks once again to everyone that has stuck with me all these years. I know I haven’t been one of the most informative blogs out there but I try to be at least a little entertaining. If there is ever a question you have for me or just something you want to discuss, don’t hesitate to email me at fimlys@gmail.com or post a comment here. Now, I have to go eat my cake.. It’s not a lie after all…

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Feeling A Little Six

We’ve been raiding MGV for a few weeks now and just got the 4th boss down (Four Kings) for the first time last night. I won a new neck piece from him. We struggled with them for a bit but I wouldn’t call it a hard fight. We decided to move over to HoF instead of Boss #5 and took a look at the first boss there. This is the one with the 3 platforms. We got to the final phase once but really only gave it about 4 tries before calling it a night.

I’m sorry I’ve been pretty busy with real life (I know, what is that?!?) for quite a while now and the Blog has suffered for it. Unfortunately, I can’t say it’s going to get any better. I haven’t had as much time as I like to even play the game. For a few weeks now it’s been just logging in to raid. We’ll have to see where this goes, but I don’t see myself quitting WoW any time soon, so don’t worry about that.

I’m around. You can always find me on TNB, of course.

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Finally Four

Lots of stuff I’ve been working on is finally getting somewhere (well, some of them). I finished getting my Order of the Cloud Serpent reputation to exalted and was given my Cloud Serpent (which made me happy). I flew around (on said dragon) and finished up all the Lorewalker “books” locations and got the Exalted achievement there too.

I’ve continued to work on the Tillers every day and I should hit Exalted either today or tomorrow (I’m thinking today) and I have 7/10 “Best Friends” so far with one more that might hit there today. Working still on Golden Lotus rep and I finally hit Revered which unlocks the Aspects and Shado-pan dailies.

In addition to all of this, I have run the LFR twice. Once (just the first half) on Monday night and then both parts on Tuesday. I think the fights all seem pretty interesting as far as I am concerned. I picked up a new neck piece but otherwise just gold and a couple Sigils for the Black Prince quest. I’m also working on finishing up Dread Wastes as well as working on my Druid here or there.

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Honoring and Revering the Exalted

Lots of stuff going on. I talked about hitting 90 in my last post and since then I’ve been going full force on the dailies (I know, right). I did the Anglers until I got my Tiny Goldfish. There are a few other things I might want from them, but I’ve put them on the back burner for now. The primary dailies I’ve been doing are the Tillers, Golden Lotus and Cloud Serpent. I’ve also been doing random heroics here and there.

For the Tillers, I’ve been getting really good at finding Dark Soil. I’ve got 2 “Best Friends” and the others are coming along nicely. I also try to get their food since that’s a nice chunk of rep. I then head over to do the Golden Lotus dailies. I’ve hit Honored, so now I get 3 hubs of quests. I’m inching closer to Revered which unlocks some other reps to work on. The Cloud Serpent is the last set of dailies I do and I’m really getting close to Exalted finally. This one is purely cosmetic in that I want the mount! I have found 2 Onyx Eggs so far but the dailies generally give you a decent amount of rep, so it’s not really as necessary as you might think.

I’ve also been doing a pretty good job leveling my professions. Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, Alchemy, Leatherworking, Skinning, Fishing, First Aid and Inscription are at max level now and the rest are being worked on. It’s going to be tough to use alts to craft that you aren’t leveling because of the use of Spirit of Harmony in many recipes and given that those are Soulbound.

I also finally hit average iLevel of 460 so I can check out LFR. I’ll probably do that tonight if I have time. I’d like to get it in before the reset!

Anyway, that’s all I have for you now. Do you have a favorite Daily quest chain? Any that you hate?

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Cap’n Valor

I made it to level 90 on my Hunter in a little over a week since MoP was released. I did not rush, I just had a decent amount of time to spend playing. I wish I had kept track of exactly how many hours “played” it took me (I’ll have to see if I can find out). I even picked up my Quilien pet on the way. I still prefer my Water Strider (or whatever it is called) named Bugzz. The water walking exotic skill is pretty great. Especially for fishing.

The Quilien pet is important because it has a battle rez. I ended up joining a couple guildies in a non-heroic run of Shado-Pan Monastery. I was the only level 90 and we had a few “complications” along the way including one wipe, but I did use my battle rez twice while we were in there. A druid was also with us, but I guess I was quicker on the draw! I really enjoyed the instance and look forward to doing it in heroic some time soon. I also, prior to running the instance, picked up 3 Justice Point items. I had 4000 JP just sitting there and it made sense to go ahead and pick up these upgrades. Unfortunately, the one upgrade I REALLY needed, new shoulders, do not have a version that you can buy from the JP vendor.

I also started on some of the dailies. I know.. You heard me.. I WORKED ON DAILIES. I found the tillers ones to be pretty interesting and I started on the Cloud Serpent so I can get my mount sooner or later. I’ve been really enjoying MoP so far and look forward to all the other things I can do now that I am level 90 including leveling another toon or 2 or 3.

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Piercing the Vale

Of course, you all know that MoP is here. I’m just a master at restating the obvious and I figured why not continue here, right? So, anyway, I had purchased the Digital Deluxe, or whatever it was called, version and so my account was already upgraded and ready to go at launch. I stayed up until 3am (yes, US Eastern Time.. ugh) and watched the Live release party in Irvine on Youtube. It looked like a blast. So 3am rolls around and I am already login and I get the new quest (actually, it was about 5 minutes early..). Instead of rushing over (maybe I should have), I went to update my professions, etc. Once that was done, I headed over and got stuck in the wall of crazy trying to blow up the boat..

So, I went to bed, of course. I did not take a day off to play Mists like some other people did, unfortunately. I went to work, had all the normal things I need to do and the finally I got back into Pandaria. Finishing the quest was easy now, of course. Mists is great so far. I really like the setting and the art is amazing. The story is really getting pretty good too. Since then I’ve gotten my hunter to level 86 1/3 and finished up the first zone, Jade Forest. There were a couple areas I didn’t uncover on the map, but I’ll come back later, I’m sure. I did finish all my quests and got the achievement for the area too. I like how the sub-achievements work and give you a bit more granularity into finishing an area.

My leveling of Skinning and Leatherworking are going well too. Skinning has been pretty quick so far as so many people are killing mobs, all I have to do is wait until they are done (hopefully looting!) and when they leave I can “Skin All The Things!”. For LW, I was able to make a bunch of gear that both my Rogue and Druid can use as upgrades. I’m really excited that this is the case. It will help immensely when they get off their butts and venture into Pandaria too.

I have to say, so far so good. I like the setting. It is really immersive and so far the story is interesting. I’ll hopefully keep you updated on what is going on with my first adventure here into MoP. Thanks for reading!

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Into the Mists

Hello again! I’m sure you’ve now gotten used to the sporadic and infrequent words that get posted here.. Not that the words themselves are sporadic or infrequent it’s just that the posting thereof is quite. (Yes, I am aware that that last sentence was stretching the bounds of correct grammar if not coloring outside of the lines completely). So, here I am again. I’ve been playing two games lately, Guild Wars 2 and WoW.

Yes, I have been playing quite a bit more Guild Wars 2 than WoW. I have been logging in to check out the 5.0.4 patch and setup my talents and glyphs and combine up all my achievements, mounts and pets. We’ve even tried to get the raid together last week to check out the recent changes. I’ve also been doing the addon dance to remove the ones that are broken and then wait for them to get updated and proceed to re-enable them. I’ve actually got my UI pretty much exactly the same as it was pre-5.0.4. I’m definitely looking forward to trying out the changes more but for now I’ve been concentrating on GW2.

So I have been playing Guild Wars 2 (GW2) since the early start because I pre-ordered the game. I really love the look of the game. I think they did a great job with a very stylized approach that combines a graphic novel feel with some more “realistically” rendered environments. Furthermore, I love how the game encourages exploration. The downleveling system makes it possible and possibly even encouraged to go to the lower level areas of the other starting zones and get your skill challenges and map completion achievements done.

The questing system is, while not “revolutionary”, a very good way to make the “kill 8 phobots” and “collect 5 cogsmageders” quests feel new and different. There is a MAIN questline that is your personal quest. This story based quest is based on your race and the answers you gave to certain questions during the character creation phase. It’s this that pulls you THROUGH the game and the individual stories of the sub-zones within each area are the filler. As you get to different areas you find tasks to do to help out the people of that spot. You are given the standard quest tasks to do however in a more natural way and with much more choice as to which activities you wish to participate in. Sometimes you can finish an area’s “heart” quests by just running around a non-hostile environment. There was one area I did where I could just take a bucket of water and walk around waking up drunk people. I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited to have that in a game (ok, maybe not).  I just find that while in the end, this is just the same idea as other quest hub things, the feeling is very different.

Another thing that stands out that reminded me, at first, of rift is the random events. Every area has a pre-setup selection of random world events that occur. These can be anywhere from escort quests to “defend the keep” events to “collect 5 fribbits to rebuild our submarine” events. There are many combinations and models in each event and many of these events have consequences in the world, if only temporary. There is one “defend a bridge” event that if you fail, the bridge is broken and you then get an event to defend the rebuilders so it can be recreated.

I’m also really enjoying the idea of a weapon type as being the vehicle to decide on your main abilities. Class/WeaponType are the main factors in which skills/spells you will have. 2H weapons get 5 skills that can be unlocked with use and 1H have 3. Offhands which are used with the 1H weapons have 2 that are unlocked after the 3 of the primary weapon have been unlocked. Additionally there are class level talents/spells that are unlocked using Skill Points that you receive leveling up and completing skill challenges. Some of the higher level skills are pretty sweet. Once of my “elite” skills is to summon a huge mechanical golem to help me fight.

The combat is much more chaotic than games like WoW. You don’t tend to move only because you are standing in the fire. You move because you can stay away from the mobs attacks. You have a way to manually dodge incoming attacks and general kiting is a skill that you’ll find very helpful in these battles. Of course, that depends on your class, doesn’t it. I chose, for my main, a Mesmer (which is like an illusionist). Fizh (Fizz was taken) is an Asura which is a race that vaguely resembles a cross between a gnome and a goblin. My mesmer has the ability to create illusionary copies of himself to fight mobs with. They can have up to 3 illusions up at once and they hit the target just the same as if they were real. There are many different types of “phantasms” ranging from some that shoot guns and even defend you by taking 1/2 the damage you would have received. Mesmers also get the ability to “shatter” their phantasms and cause different status ailments or just damage to your foe.

I’ve gone on for quite a while about the game and I’m sure there is even more to talk about that I’ve missed. I’m having a lot of fun with it and while I’m playing solo mostly, I’ve found that everyone seems to love being helpful as you are tooling around. Anyone who damages an opponent has the opportunity to receive a drop and get xp from the kill. There is no kill stealing because everyone shares in the eventual result. So that’s it so far. Let me know what you think if you are playing GW2 or have been messing with the 5.0.4 changes for WoW. What are your plans for MoP? Has 5.0.4 made you more excited or has it soured your enthusiasm?

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Guilt Wars the Second

Only a month and a few weeks until Mists of Pandaria is released unto the world (well, some of it). Our raiding group is still slogging through DS. We’ve almost got Hagara heroic down now. I think the only thing that kept it from us this last week is that we didn’t even try because we were missing one of our main raiders and our replacement wasn’t really geared up for that fight. We were able to successfully do the other heroics that we had already done and are on “farm” at this point. I finally picked up a second Heroic tier piece, my Legs. Best part about the legs is I can self-enchant them (since I’m a leatherworker). I started using up those Queen’s Garnets that I have lying around too. Three for this piece…

I believe that our Raid Leader would really like us to finish DS Heroic before MoP comes out. I would be really surprised if we did so, but only because of attendance issues. This coming week, I think we’re all around but then the week after we won’t all be available. Possibly the last couple weeks before the release we might have the time to really make the push.

I played around a bit more with the Pet Battles in MoP Beta but I started getting odd errors some times where I had to logout to clear the error. The pet battles are a little simplistic generally but I’m sure they might get a little more interesting at the higher levels. My pets are still around level 7-8 or so for the highest one. I’ve decided for now to hold off on doing too much more with it because I don’t want to burn out and get bored with them before the game comes out. One thing that would have been pretty cool if they could have put it in would be some visual indication of the level of your pet. Maybe 5 different “skins” per pet based on it’s level. Almost like a “evolution” in Pokémon.

Well, maybe they can work on that in a future patch. I’m sure the resources to build that many skins for all the pets has to be enormous. It would be cool to just have some other benefit other than just a higher leveled pet.

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Winding Down and Winding Up

No, I’m not dead. Most of you probably know that already given that TNB is still up and running. Well, we seem to be doing more of an “every other week” thing with that too. Summer can do that to you I hear. Anyway, similar to the podcast, we’re having issues with our raid too. Summer has caused some raiders to be unavailable for some weeks, unfortunately not overlapping, of course. This means cancelled raids. One nice thing is that we HAVE been able to get a little more progression going. We’re 4/8 with Morchok, Zon’ozz, Yor’sahj, and Ultraxion down. Hagara has been attempted many times but we don’t last too long and we haven’t tried the others yet. We’d probably be a little further along if we hadn’t missed a few weeks. I think the buff has been increased or it will be increased so maybe we’ll last a little longer…

Other than the WoW stuff, I’ve been playing Diablo 3 quite a bit still. My Demon Hunter is in Inferno but I haven’t really spent TOO much time farming. I’m still stuck farming Act I unfortunately. I’ve made it about 1/2 way through Act II but it just gets pretty crazy at that point. I’ve been spending more time leveling my Barbarian, Monk and Wizard with the Witch Doctor trailing behind quite a bit. The Barbarian is on Hell and is level 53. The Monk and Wizard are both level 43 and in Nightmare Act III. The Witch Doctor is level 18..

I’ve been playing lots of other games too. Steam is having a sale, so I’ve picked up a couple of cheap games on that and I’ve even played a couple! I also found a really fun RPG on PSN called Rainbow Moon that I’ve been playing quite a bit and also I’ve gone back to playing a bit of Civilization V with it’s new “expansion” Gods and Kings and even Might & Magic Heroes VI a little.

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Not Quite Almost Dead