Fine.

Now I can’t escape him.  He’s all over television.  Radio stations are playing non-stop tributes.  Even WoW bloggers are posting about it.

Look, he was good.  But he wasn’t a musical genius.

I will admit he was a genius at dancing and showmanship.  But he wasn’t a musician.

For the 80′s and 90′s: Prince was a musical genius.

Prince was such a musical genius that Michael’s first son was nicknamed Prince, and his second son was actually named Prince.  Michael Jackson named BOTH of his sons Prince.  That’s how fucking awesome Prince was.

And at least Prince was a sex freak out in the open.

……………….

To Farrah:

You were a beautiful, strong, courageous woman.  I am so sad that you are gone and that your passing is being overshadowed.

You fought a terrible disease.  And despite destroying your energy, your hair, your appearance (all the things that everybody thought made you who you were); the cancer could not destroy the one thing that truly made you so beautiful: Your Spirit.

My prayers are with you and your family.  You will be missed.

And I did something to my computer that causes me to always lag.  I need to fix that before I go back to questing.  I am on a PvP server after all.

World of Warcraft is a video game.  You can buy it at the store.  And that’s the problem.

Madden 2009, Grand Theft Auto IV, Metal Gear Solid 4, Fallout 2 are also video games.  You can buy them at the store as well.

But if I want to play Madden 2009, I don’t have to buy Madden 1863 through 2008.  I don’t have to buy GTA 1 thru 3 just to play part 4.  I buy the one I want and play.  But if I do choose to buy GTA III or Madden 1734, I get the full version, not just a watered down game to get me through to the current game.

But to play WoW, you have to buy World of Warcraft.  Then you have to buy The Burning Crusade, and then you can finally buy Wrath of the Lich King.

And now WoW and TBC are shadows of what they used to be.  Blizzard is forcing new players to buy half games at regular price.

The new players will never be able to experience the adventure of leveling a character from the beginning.  They will just be rushed through content to level 68 when they can finally go to Northrend.  Players looking for an RP experience will feel as though they are missing all the stoylines as they are pushed through Old Azeroth.  They won’t be attached to their toons.  They won’t have friends that they’ve made along the way.

Blizzard is watering down content to grab new players.  But the new players won’t be loyal players.  And that can become a problem in the future.

Or, maybe I think too far into things.

Yeah, I didn't hit the screenshot button fast enough on Exploring. Fine, whatever.

So I am now done with that psychopath Hemet Nessingwary and his slaughter-happy friends.  At least until the next patch.

I liked some of the Sholazar quests.  Especially the one with the Un’Goro Crater tie-in.  But seriously, all the goblins in their zepellins, and no one has seen that thing standing there for the past seven centuries?

This would have been nice to have 40 levels ago.

But now I am done here.

Except for the damn Frenzyheart/Oracle rep grind.

Desparation is an ugly Debuff

Looking for FOUR more?  Here’s a tip: when you are the only one in the group, you aren’t LFM you are LFG.

Even though he had “Death” in his name, it wasn’t a DK.  It was a Shammy.

Shy at WoW has some good points.  Are we going too fast?  I’m starting to think so.

I’ve been 80 for a while now.  I have yet to go into Naxx.  Why?  Because I don’t feel like it.  I want to play the game at my pace.  I liked leveling.  I enjoy questing.  I enjoy the storylines.  On my way up, I ran very few instances.  I got bored with constantly re-running the same dungeon.  I did the quests for XP, and the quest rewards were enough to get me equipped.  I had fun.  And for every quest I did, there were always more out there.

There is a kid in my failed excuse of a guild who just spams chat all day.  “Can someon run me VC plz?”  “ned VC run plz pst”  I’ve ran him a couple times out of pity.  He just stands there.  He collects the loot then says “run 1 more plz, need rest of defias armor set k?”  If he spent half the time questing as he does spamming, he’d be 80.  I don’t think he’s ever done a quest on his own.

Play the game!  It’s a good game!  It’s interactive, engaging, and engrossing!  It’s fun!  There is a reason that 15 million people subscribe to it.  There are multiple, huge, globe spanning quests available at all levels.  Get out there and quest.  (Maybe I need to be on an RP server?)

But now, Old Azeroth is becoming worthless.  It’s just something to get through before you finally get to Northrend.  That’s where the action is.
But the name bothers me.  NorthrEND.  I don’t want to be at the end.  I dont want to farm Naxx or Sarth any more than I want to farm Hogger or VC.  I want to enjoy the game, not farm it.

Now, by allowing everyone to press fast forward throught the first 70 levels of content it may cause a flood at the end.  Already I see PUGs in chat “LF3M 10Naxx, 2 DPS 1 Heal, better know fights or will be kicked”  Seriously?  Are we there already?  If you’re not already an endgame raider you can’t join a raid?  This is what noobs have to look forward to?

A spell can be nerfed in a patch, only to be boosted later.  But once Blizzard speeds things up, it will be impossible to reverse.  Soon I will see the Endgame.  I wonder, will I also soon be seeing the End of the Game?

It's June, and you still have the Winter Veil costume buff

Yeah, she hasn’t seen much action.

So, back onto my main and I knock out Heroic Utgarde Keep for the daily.  Pally tank, and a warrior, rogue, and mage for DPS.

Everyone immediately started heading to the instance.  The mage and I made it there first and we started the summons.  Within 7 minutes of joining the group we were headed in.

The tank was good.  But a little impatient.  It was pull after pull, immediately followed by another pull.  I barely had time to drink between fights.  But the mage’s conjured mana streudels from the feast were nom.  I ated lots of them.

I had a few tense moments when I thought they had taken on too much.  But my group haelz got us through.

And we cleared it, the warrior and rogue each died once on different bosses from AoE bursts, but no wipes and we cleared it.  I even got some nice compliments on my mad l33t healz.I don’t expect eveyone to kiss my ass for keeping them alive, but the thanks were nice.  I returned the compliment.  Good tank, good DPS, and apparently a good healer.  It was a good PUG.

So I turned in the quest and got the achievement for 200 daily quests complete.  I was feeling good and I saw a call from a previous tank I’ve run with:  Need 2 more for H Oc.  At last boss.  Need heals and dps.

Ok, this is the drake one.  I’ve never done this fight before.  I tell him I’ve never done it before but I’ll learn fast.  He sends the invite.

We get another noob like me.  At that moment a DPS quits.  Ok.  We get another.  But then he had to go.

I want to make sure I know the fight so I ask everyone.  I type the question right as we get a new join.  So the first thing he sees in party chat is:

“Ok, so is this drake thing like the daily outside Nex?  Cuz I’ve flown them a few times already.”  (Truthfully?  I’ve flown that drake seven times.  It took me that long to finish the first quest, and I never went back when it became available to me as a daily.)

So upon seeing that, he leaves too.  I need to work on my timing.  Or learn to whisper.

So we get a new guy.  A pally.  He immediately starts blasting me with questions like: “How long have you been an 80?”, “Did you take a long break after dinging 80?”  He was an absolute ass-hat.  ”You’re going to have a noob on the healing drake?”  Seriously, the Green Dragon has three abilities.  How hard can it be?

The thing that burned me was that he left the other noob alone.  The other was a dwarf male, my toon is a human female.  This fuckhead was sexist towards noobs!  (But IRL I’m a male.)  He finally went afk, and then must’ve had internet trouble because he suddenly disconnected.

So we got yet another member.  We went in.  Wiped once on Eregos.  And downed him.  And as a reward for the noob, I got a Purple!

Sometimes it pays to tolerate an ass-hat.

Yup, I has no life.

So now I am that much closer to the next mark of geekiness:

If you're gonna be a WoW geek, you may as well get a title.

I’ve been in Outland a lot recently.  I’m trying to snag the “Loremaster” title.  I previously wrote about why I hate Outland, so I won’t go into it again.

But I began getting the burnout that seems to be going around now.  Is it because school is letting out?  Anyway, I decided I needed a change of pace so I dusted off an alt that has been sitting at the Bloodmyst Isle inn patiently waiting.  I started playing my Space Goat Sham-WoW.

I only had three quests left in the zone.  First I took on Razormaw, then I teamed up with a priest for Clearing the Way and the last Quest where you follow Legoso as he blows the Blood Elves to hell.  (I’m glad the priest had that quest because he was the only other player in the zone.  The Draenei starting area is dead.)

It was fun.  And the best part was at the end when everyone you had saved camed to cheer you on as the island’s savior.  It was a reminder of all of the quests I had done so long ago.

Nice of them to remember after 9 months.

It was nice.  It made me feel like I had accomplished something.  As if my fights mattered.  Then, as I was grabbing the screenshots, they all despawned and went back to their spots so some other adventurer could rescue them. Ugh.

Oh well, on to Ashenvale!

As the patch downloads, I scroll through the changes.

Death Knights: Don’t care.

Druids get tweaked a little bit, ok.

Hunter’s Mark gets a nice buff.

Yada, yada.  Scroll, scroll.

Hmm, Warlocks then Warriors.  I must have passed “Priest”.  I scroll back up.

Nothing.  Not a damn thing for Priests.

And then when I log in, my realm is down for extended maintenance.

Well, at least Shadow didn’t get nerfed.  And I has time to write this happy post.

I was on vacation in Chicago last weekend.  But I had access to a computer.  So, it is noon on a Saturday and my wife is forced to sit and watch as I spam the “Refresh” button on Internet Explorer as the clock slowly ticks towards 10am p.s.t.

Boom.  10am.  Refresh.  Tickets are available.  I only want one ticket, so I instantly click “Proceed to checkout.”  I am happy.

And then I see that I am already number 7400 in line.

I will not be attending BlizzCon this year.