Casual Huntering

Someone found me with these keywords above (the words in the title?). I get a variation of this every once in awhile. I think there must be an on-going battle between kids and parents in regards to World of Warcraft (a skirmish in the larger videogame wars).

Before we start to think of how to get your parents to let you “keep World of Warcraft”, first let’s think of the reasons your parents might not want to let you play it.

1. You play too much.
2. You’re playing WoW instead of getting some wholesome exercise outside like decent kids do.
3. You’re grades are suffering because you play WoW too much.
4. You’re falling asleep at school because you play WoW too late at night.
5. You aren’t getting quality family time in because you are busy raiding.
6. Your parents have watched or read something about game addiction and the evils of games such as World of Warcraft.
7. You’re religion preaches against the occult and your parents heard about the Arthas and his followers and feel that he’s a bad influence on you (yeah, I thought that one was stretching it a bit too).
8. … hmm… your parents are jealous of your uber gear and want you to stop so they can surpass your gear score.
9. Your parents are concerned about your social life, that you don’t hang out with your friends anymore.
10. Your parents don’t speak Azerothian and thus are sick of wondering what the heck you are saying when you open your mouth these days.
11. Your parents think playing WoW is about the geekiest thing you could be doing besides table top RPG games and are embarrassed to talk to their friends now.
12. Frankly, you play too much (at least in your parents’ think so).

I think to the most part that parents want to make sure that you have a well balanced life. They don’t want to see things like grades, family interaction, sleep, or oral hygiene fall to the wayside. Can you blame them? I mean seriously, when is the last time you’ve brushed your teeth?

Well, if you’re parents are good loving parents, or at least they try, then most likely they have your best interest in mind. No seriously, I bet they do. I have kids of my own, and we really aren’t out there to try to spoil fun and bring death and misery everywhere we walk… well, there are days… but not most of the time.

I would suggest that you first identify why your parents want you to give up playing WoW. It might be one of the items listed above. It might be something else. Figure that out. Mostly likely they have a legitimate concern.

Next, get a game plan; figure out some kind of compromise. Think something out. Weather it be you cutting your playing time, having you earn WoW time by doing chores, or having you do your homework before you play. Maybe you can show them how to use the parental controls, or limit yourself to one night a week. Whatever, just think something through that would fix your parents concerns while still letting you play. Remember, restricted time playing WoW is better than it being banned altogether. And if you’re parents concerns really is the fact that they consider WoW the geekiest thing, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Okay, propose your plan to your parents. (example: “I will only play WoW after I finish my homework on Monday and Wednesday nights as well as Saturday mornings” or maybe “I’ll limit myself to only playing X amount of hours per week, if I get a 4.0 you’ll let me play X hours.”). Parents appreciate you being up front with them. They also like to see good problem solving skill (problem solving skills working with your parents, not against them). They might not understand why you play, but they’ll see you being willing to compromise and make a deal. Parents would much rather make a deal with you on good terms than take the game away from you and have there be negative feelings. I don’t really like making my kids cry (even if they do bring it on themselves sometimes).

If you’re parents agree to some kind of arrangement, then the next thing you need to do is to live up to your end of the bargain. Nothing will get WoW taken from you quicker than to do something you said that you wouldn’t do. In your parents’ eyes, they view this as lying. Yup, they see that you duped them and parents do not like to be duped.

Yes, this means you have to show some self-control. You won’t be able to play as much as you’d like. You might struggle a little bit keeping up with your guild. That’s okay. You really shouldn’t be playing too much WoW anyways. I hate to tell you this, but you’re parents are right, you do play too much WoW.

Of course if your parents don’t go for it, then I don’t know what to tell you. I will tell you this. It’s not worth it to go behind your parents back. Your relationship with your parents is far more important than this silly MMO. Oh man, there I go sounding like a parent again. Well, I guess I am a parent after all. But I’m the parent who plays WoW. Now if you can recruit your parents to playing WoW, that would solve all of your problems (and bring up a host of new ones).

And always remember, someday you’ll be an adult and you can ruin your life all you want by playing too much WoW.

Who said you wouldn’t be able to use your WoW skills in real life?? This website recently reported a boy who used his WoW skills in order to save his sisters life. Do I know anything about the validity of the site… um, no. But I love the concept so I don’t care.

Apparently a 12 year old kid in Norway and his sister ran into a not so happy Moose in the woods near their home. The moose was a little upset and this kid knew exactly what to do. To get the attention off of his sister he “taunted” the aggro away (not that hunter’s have a taunt other than their distracting shot – maybe he growled at the moose), then once his sister was safe he used his hunter skill “feign death” clearing all aggro at that point. Luckily the moose didn’t resist his spell thus preventing a wipe.

Makes me wonder what other skills we could use in real life. Man, I want to go tame some wild beast, or shoot a fireball with my hands. I think I’m going to go work on that for my Friday project…. hmm…. how could I blink like a mage? ……/lost in thought

[Nettavisen via Wired Blogs]

I’ve been meaning to write a post about some of the random keywords people have used to find my blog. Many of which aren’t addressed. So, I here I am addressing them.

“what level do you have to be to tame skoll”

Level 80

“any benefit to taming rare pets”

Yeah, they’re cool looking! What kind of hunter would have to ask this question anyways??

“at what age is it nerdy to play wow”

Depends on who you talk to, some would say it is always too nerdy to play WoW, but in my humble opinion you are never too old to be too nerdy. Oh wait, did that come out right? I actually think wow is a geeky thing, not a nerdy thing.

“can $30 internet handle world of warcraft”

When I started playing I was on a dial-up. So, it’s possible to play with slow internet, but you’re lag will be pretty bad. I don’t suggest it. Go buy yourself a WiFi card and play on your neighbor’s internet.

“can my kids use the same world of warcraft account as me?”

If you don’t ever want to play with your kid, yes. If you want to play alongside him, then no. Of course you’d then need another computer as well.

Mostly you’ll have to fight for game time, but you’re the parent, you can kick them off.

“can’t play wow at worl, how can i pas the restrictions”

Yes, Worl restrictions can be quite severe. You’ll have to jail break your worl in order to add a proxy WoW server in order to be able to bypass all of the restrictions.

“how many pets can a hunter have”

5

“how long will it take me to get to level 80 from level 40?”

However long you would like, that depends on how much you’d like to neglect real life, but its takes me way too long to do that kind of leveling.

“how to change your personal cultural bias”

Identify, examine, educate yourself, follow through. I don’t know if that really fits the scope of this blog.

“how to manage wow and real life”

Prioritize

“how to teach a child to play wow”

Throw them at a computer and let them have at it.

“i want to get my mom to play wow, what should she play as?”

A hunter

“i was in the snow for long time got fever”

Get out of the snow then.

“i wiped the raid hunter pet aggressive”

Take your pet off of aggressive /facepalm.

“ways death knights can make money”

The same way any other class makes money.

“what age kid plays mafia wars”

This depends if you are taking about the facebook app or real life mafia wars.

“what is rp & rl on twitter”

Well, for me rp=roleplay rl=real life, but I don’t know what other people are doing.

“where are the best place in nothend for hunters pets”

Well, I assume you meant northrend. And you’d be surprised to find animals to tame in every area. No really, it’s true. Depends on the pet you want.

“why teenagers shouldnt play wow”

Well, I don’t see why not, unless they are letting their play time destroy their grades. I say you should teach balance and moderation instead of complete abstinence. Now I’m referring to WoW and not other things teenagers do. Keep that in mind.

“why can’t i buy hourly game time in wow”

No, but sometimes I wish you could, cause it kills me that I pay the same amount for my 8 hours a week as my brother-in-law does for his 30+ hours. You can in Asia though.

“will expanded stables be released before cataclysm?”

I don’t think so.

So, there you have it, some of the random questions I’ve gotten in the last month. Of course since these were google searches, they probably just went to another website that did have the answers. But whatever.

So, I’ve taken a break from everything else to level toons (well not everything else because honestly I’m not playing that much). Like I said before, I figure this is the best time to level, in the shadow of a looming expansion. Then again, this expansion is going to make leveling more fun, so maybe I have my priorities mixed up.

meh. Gotta take advantage of RAF leveling bonuses. Now I have an army of 20-40 something level toons. Don’t tell Brigwyn, but I’m really enjoying playing my warlock. I like soloing my rogue (not so much playing in groups), and the unholy priest is so bad.

Anyway, its been a little while since I’ve written anything. I just thought I’d drop a line. I would have blogged on Tuesday, but my server was never down for the normal Tuesday maintenance, so I played all morning instead.

Anyway, nothing much to write about right now. We’ll just keep plugging along.

Well, I think I’m finally figuring out how to play a warlock properly (for leveling at least – I wouldn’t dream of claiming to know the class in and out). I’ve been playing my warlock like a mage (try to kill it before it even gets to you), which hasn’t been working to badly when playing with the mage who is doing the exact same thing. But I got fooled by the pajama wearing clothiness of warlocks. I was basically going around with an imp and a human mage pretending to be an imp (without the stamina bonus). It dawned on me now that I have a Void Walker that I can start pretending to be a hunter. Sit back, let my pet beat stuff up and shoot at things. This is actually making my clothies survive a lot longer. Who would have thought??

I still stink at the rogue. He’s fun to play solo, but with a hunter its a been a challenge, especially when he shoots things before I can sneak behind them. I think once my RAF buddy and I hit level 30 I’ll swap out for my shadow priest. Those are very fun to level by yourself anyway. I’ll level the rogue sometime solo.

Can I tell you? Recruit a Friend the only way to level alts. Even for someone like me who hardly ever plays and someone like my friend who hardly ever plays. I can’t believe I got him waking up at 5:30am to play with me. We played 5 days in a row, and he says he’s starting to get use to waking up early. If only I could get to bed before 12:30pm these days. There has just been too much to watch on my DVR with all that’s going on TV. Anyway, for us we’re having fun leveling our hunter/rogue combo, and we’re doing it very quickly for the likes of us. My mage/warlock combo isn’t far behind, but since I’m doing them on my own they’re priority is a bit lower, depending if my friend is online or not.

I had pretty much turned the game into a single player console game until recently. I rarely get on at night anymore, too much to do with the family and such. I’ve stopped raiding till the expansion, and I rarely socialize with the guild (because they don’t get on early – well most of them don’t anyway). I gotta tell ya, its nice having someone to talk to when I play in the wee hours of the morning.

Okay, so look here, we have a maintenance tuesday, that means I’m going to actually attempt to write a blog post for once in my life. I’m apparently having issues with simple grammar as shown on my speech therapy twitter feed. So, hopefully this will be readable.

Oh wow, there has been so much news lately for one thing or another. Cataclysm is on the brink of beta testing, RAF has a new mount, there is a new patch around the corner, starcraft 2 is coming out this summer, and so on and so on…

Well, when news of the new 2-seated Recruit-a-Friend rocket mount came out, I was flabbergasted. I had to get my hands on that mount. So, I started thinking about all the people I knew that I might be able to recruit. I realized that it was going to be a tough sell if they didn’t already play WoW. So, I then started thinking about the people I could help out by sponsoring an account for a couple of months. One of my neighbors who also happens to be my brother’s best friend from high school came to mind. I knew that he had played before, but had stopped because he didn’t want to pay a monthly fee.

So, I bought him an account and paid for two months right away. Yeah, I totally went there. But now I’m the proud owner of a nice 2-seated rocket! (a little more expensive than the star pony I bought. I know I know, a food is soon parted from his money.)

Well, now that I got my rocket I decided that I should get as much benefit from the RAF linked accounts as possible, but my friend hardly plays, and then when he does he only plays after midnight (which is when I’m dead to the world). So, I talked him into letting my dual box his account in the morning. I figured I could level a toon on his account to 60 to get the benefit of the granting 29 levels to one of my toons and then I could level 3 times as fast, leveling another one of my toons.

So, I rolled a mage (not sure why, but I was in a pyro mood at the time) and my lowest toon was a warlock. I made several /follow and /assist macros and away we go. Since I started about 8 days ago I’ve been able to level the two characters to level 23. And that’s with me playing 1-2 hours each morning before I go to work (sometimes less time). So, this is very speedy leveling for the likes of me. No, I won’t get as much out of my RAF time as other people would, but I just don’t have the time to spend. I do believe I’ll at least be able to get a couple of my toons leveled much quicker than I would have done this way.

The sad thing is that I’ve only been able to play with my friend once in the last 2 1/2 weeks. He keeps saying that he’s going to attempt to get up at 5:30am to play with me. I think he’s crazy to even consider it. He doesn’t start work till noon, and rarely (I’m guessing) goes to bed before 2am. I don’t know if its going to happen. Which is sad because he’s not getting any of the xp benefits of leveling. My dual box mage I rolled on his account has surpassed his hunter by 5 levels already. We’ll just have to play something out. (he has 3 little kids like I do… and his wife is pregnant, so he stays pretty busy. But I know he loves the game).

So, ever since I got finished with Children’s week with my Hunter and my wife’s mage I’ve been dual boxing to two clothies. (Did I mention I actually got the School of Hard Knocks achievement for me and my wife?? – Yeah that was a huge deal, but I already wrote about that, so I’ll shut up).

I’m still wanting to go hunting mounts, but I have limited time on the RAF deal, so I’ll probably stick with that till my time runs out. (I’m really wanting that undead mount in Stratholme before it disappears with the expansion, but what do you do???)

Apparently I don’t have any screen shots and I can’t take any because the server is down. I was going to add a picture of Aoirselvar on his rocket, but it’ll have to wait. I have having a big post with no pictures, but what do you do. At least my attention span is short enough that the post isn’t too long.

I have like 5 minutes to write something. I should have written this morning, but instead I spent the morning before work transcribing Leyenda (classical guitar piece) from sheet music to tablature.

So, as you may have already known, I have been very nervous about this week, Children’s Week, and the PvP achievement “The School of Hard Knocks” I’ve been doing more BGs lately to get myself prepared for it, and it paid off!!!!

Yesterday I finished up the achievement relatively quickly. It took 5 Eye of the Storms, 2 Warsang Gluches, 2 Alterac Valleys, and 1 Arathi Basin. It helped that I paid money to get a run boost enchant, and I already had a 10% bonus to my mount speed because I was playing as a beast master, and it also helps that I’ve had some dumb luck as of late (see previous post about the spirit beast).

So, now I get to learn how to PvP as a mage, and a DK.  I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not, we’ll see how it goes. I’ll give a report.

Anyway, I hungry, and that school lunch food is calling to me.

Maybe if their lucky. I wasn’t sure if I would ever get one. But man, if you are hunting the spiritbeast, you should be prepared, at least somewhat prepared.

Could I have possibly do everything wrong? Just how many chances could one hunter get???

So, today I’m doing my dailies, and when I have to go get the snobolds in Stormpeaks. I’ve made a habit of going by Skoll’s spawn points, but I don’t expect anything. So, I’m not ready at all. But then my nifty little NPC scan dings with a nice little picture of the blue wolf in the middle of my screen.

Well, I guess I was at least in my BM spec, so that was good. But I totally already had a pet out. I dismiss my turtle. I get down and throw down a frost trap. YES, A FROST TRAP. Oh my gosh, hello?? What do I want to do slow him down? So, I start stumbling around for my tame beast spell. Oh course it isn’t out! Finally start taming him and I’m already half dead. /facepalm.

So, I feign death and start over. This time with the right trap. Everything is going fine and dandy, tame pet spell almost over. It ends with a “you have full pets” or some junk. Ha! I didn’t even have a pet slot available!!! I quickly do a call pet spell, and hit some button, I don’t know which. My mind was completely blank as to how to get rid of an unwanted pet. Then I remembered that you have to abandon it. Seeing how I messed around with the call pet spell, I was stuck with whatever pet I had for the next 5 minutes. It was my turtle, sad I know. I love my turtle! But he’s a whole hell of a lot easier to find than the spirit beast. So, I said goodbye to the turtle (well I didn’t really, I’ll go find him again once I get a chance).

Attempt 3 went smoothly, I was able to tame skoll. Yay!! My goodness how many attempts could I have had, thank heavens nobody else was round about! I honestly didn’t think I’d ever get a spirit beast.

The funny thing was I kind of had a weird feeling about flying around Stormpeaks, like I would actually find either Skoll or the Timelost proto drake. Strange. I knew where two of skoll’s spawn points were. I was debating about pulling them up before I even came out here.

Well, I’m feeling all sorts of jittery now. I’ve always heard the stories of those who have found spiritbeasts, how you get the shakes, I didn’t know how true it really was.

Okay, now I’m going to get back to my dailies. Happy Huntering!

Oh blog, how I have neglected you. I’m still here, really. And some day you’ll get a nice shiny header too! But only if you’re good.

And now I’m not going to fall for the temptation to write/discuss the ethics of blizzard selling star ponies (all I have to say is that they’re freakin’ brilliant – it’s like they’re printing their own money). And it’s too late in the game to discuss the “semi-recent” class previews for cataclysm.

So, somewhat recently I decided to stop attempting to raid till the expansion came out. I wasn’t really doing a whole lot of raiding anyhow. So, my focus has returned to my alts, but I’m not going as crazy as I was back in December and January. Instead I’m just focusing on my druid and my priest. Right now the druid is sitting at level 41 and the priest is level 31. I’ve also started up my mount hunting again. I’ve managed to bring the collection up to 81. Nothing horribly impressive with many people out there, but I try. Right now I’m working on Argent Crusade mounts (I have 6 more than I can get from doing those dailies) and PvP mounts (which I still have 4 more to collect).

Working towards the PvP mounts has reintroduced me to the joys of battlegrounds. I’m enjoying this immensely. I might actually start working on some PvP gear. I know, I know, you’ve heard me grip about PvP in the past, but let me set the record straight.

I don’t hate PvP, just world PvP (which makes playing on a PvP server a little annoying at times).

I’ve always like running BGs, well most of the time. I never much enjoyed losing in Arathi Basin. Very painful indeed. Speaking of which I’m very glad that they have done away with the BG marks. I most likely would have to have run AB 30 times for my PvP mounts, something I wasn’t looking forward to. Now I can just run whatever the hell I want. I’m enjoying this new random BG, instead of the PvP daily. If you don’t win just try another random BG till you get it. Luckily it doesn’t have to be the same thing.  I kind of need to be reacquainted with BG strategy. Cynwise has a great blog just for this entitled Cynwise’s Battlefield Manual. I’ve found some great battleground info here.

The nice thing about BGs is that they are perfect for the casual player. You don’t have to get a big group together or stay to a raid schedule. You can play BGs whenever you want (even at 5am). Blizzard has made BGs shorter so they don’t drag on for hours like some of them did in the day. You can sit down kill some horde then run off to work, that’s what I did this morning. Very fun.

So, I learned a lesson in WoW today, gratitude still exists. Who would have thought?

My wife and I were just finishing up the Nobel Garden achievements. We were on the Hard Boiled achievement, the one where you need to go out to Un’Goro Crater and lay an egg in by some hot springs.

Well, obviously Aoirselvar is not going to be doing any egg laying in his current form. You have to do it while you are a pink bunny. There are two different ways you can do this achievement, one way you can do by yourself and another way you need a buddy. If you are by yourself, then you’ll just have to get turned into a bunny when you randomly open an egg in one of the beginning areas and it explodes with little bunnies. Then you’ll be a little bunny for the next hour. You can still hearthstone and use ports as a bunny, but you can not use flight paths. So, your best option is to hearthstone to Dalaran (assuming you like most others keep your hearthstone there) then you use the port to the Caverns of time in Tanaris. At which point you hop on over to Un’Goro crater for a bit of a walk. This is doable, but not very practical.

Now if you have a buddy, then hopefully one of you have the branch that has 5 charges to turn people into bunnies. You fly over to Un’goro Crater then jump on your mount and ride over to the right spot, then turn each other into bunnies, tada! It’s a cinch this way. Very easy.

So, we get to Un’goro and we see someone in general chat ask if anybody could turn them into a bunny, I replied that I could, then added the guy into our group and met him at the designated spot. Then we all turned each other into little bunnies and viola, achievement done. I realized right before I turned this person into a bunny. OH MY GOSH, I FINALLY FOUND A FEMALE DWARF!!!! I asked to make sure (hard to tell the gender of those turned into animals. Had a heck of a time with druid night elves and Tauren). Then I promptly put bunny ears and got that achievement as well. Lots of “ty”s and “tyvm”s proceed our little bunny exchange.

Then we headed out to plant some flowers to finish that achievement (Desert Rose, I believe). We got all the way to Desolace, when we happened on someone asking us if we had the branch to turn people into bunnies. I replied that I could. Then we added him to our group and I flew back to Un’goro, hopped on to my motor bike and rode with the guy back to the spot and turned him into a bunny. It took awhile, seeing how Nijal’s point was almost on the other side of Kalimador.

Well, the guy finally laid his egg and got his achievement. Then I was about to go when he startled me by opening a trade chat. I didn’t expect that, and I wasn’t asking for any payment. Then he proceeded to give me 50 gold! I really would have been happy with a thank you, which he also gave. We then parted our ways.

I was really impressed by the gratitude shown by this individual and it changed my perspective of the game. I’ll admit, I often turn down people when they ask me to help them with this quest, or with that quest. I definitely ignore people when they beg for gold. But sometimes I help people here and there, not often enough. I realized that you can demonstrate a degree of unselfishness in the game like you can in real life. Unselfishness affects everybody around us for good, making them a little bit more unselfish.

But this wasn’t meant to be a sermon or anything. I was just completely floored when that guy gave me 50 gold. Have you ever had an experience like that before, where you helped out a stranger or they helped you out in some way?