Reflections From The Pond

Archive for the ‘Silly’ Category

…you’re staying here.

Jones, cat, survivor of the Nostromo, last seen on the Weyland-Yutani space station.

Location nowadays: unknown.

Or is it?

Look what I found in the Legerdemain Lounge in Dalaran:

I just hope the aliens won’t be lurking somewhere too…

Gnomes are rather small, you know, and for some weird reason they have the largest mounts in all of WoW. Maybe they feel a subconscious need to compensate for something, but the fact remains, all gnomes manage to choose the largest of the flocks for their mounts so they can look down on the lesser races from their high saddle perches.

And the largest of all mounts is the mammoth. So a gnome on a mammoth must be pure win, right?

Paynne, the fearsome gnome warlock, recently found to her pleasant surprise that amongst her ambling meandering dungeon runs she had actually managed to scrape together a total of 317 Stone Keeper Shards.

And of course you all know what you can buy for a mere 300 such shards? That’s right, the Wintergrasp people sell a Black War Mammoth for that measly sum.

If you look closely you can see the blue-clad black-haired gnome in the saddle, and for those who can’t I will handily provide a close-up:

…and yet another one:

Who are you calling small?!?

Cuddling, the Draenei hunter with the most beautiful pet in the world, is growing and recently she finished off a quest in Borean Tundra which awarded her a Gun!

Now, Cuddling is not a fan of guns really because of the loud sound they make, scaring every prey within a kilometer off once she presses that trigger. No, much to the annoyance of the resident hunters of her guild, she’ll take a silent deadly bow or possibly crossbow over a gun any day.

But this was a blue gun, and she was toting an old green crossbow which she had found lying in a ditch somewhere in Outland, so she set her doubts aside and woved to get a silencer asap, donned a pair of ear protectors, grabbed the gun from Thassarian’s clutches and threw her old crossbow out.

Only to find out that her Gun skill was the amazing 1/360.

So what’s a girl to do?

Well, she travelled to Ironforge, entered the Deeprun Tram and set about to single-handedly exterminate the entire rat population there.

Armed with her gun and cheap bullets she made a macro to speed up her shoot-out:

/target Deeprun Rat
/cast Autoattack

And the shooting started. As the rat kills numbered in tens and then hundreds, passengers arriving or leaving on the Tram had to detour around the rat corpses piling up, and some even stopped to admire her dedication to keep the rat infestation of the Deeprun Tram at bay, or possibly question her sanity.

“You really have a problem with rats, don’t you?”

It didn’t take her long to kill the 400+ rats needed to max her gun skill, and get a few Sword skillups as well from a ferocious rat or two coming to close.

But it is a bit too noisy for her liking, and she will keep her eyes out for a new bow or crossbow.

One of my side projects lately have been exploring the DK starter area and the quest lines on my new DK Tessy (yes that is Tessy the Rogue, chief and undisputed leader of all my WoW chars, reborn as a Death Knight).

While many of the quests are of a repulsive nature there is one where you have to gather five ghouls and return them to Gothik the Harvester. You aquire the ghouls by unleashing a device on the poor miners inside the Havenshire mine, which turns them into ghouls.

But somehow, they don’t seem too upset about it.

Just look at that ghoul, just transformed from a living hard-working Scarlet miner into an undead abomination, and he looks at me with the happiest face ever and exclaims Mama!

Isn’t he the cutest ghoul ever?

I recently took a flight from Fizzcrank Airstrip in Borean Tundra to Coldarra, going to clear out some very old quests from my quest log.

And you know what flight it was? It was an airplane.

Well, of course you know this.

Fizzcrank Airstrip has been in operation for a long time, and us immigrating Azerothians have been taking flights from there for almost a year now, and I think at least six of my flock of alts have been flying around in this area.

So it should not have been a surprise for me that flying out of Fizzcrank required you to be qualified to fly your own airplane!

Daissy, the gnome engineer, she knows how to do this, she even has her own noisy mechanical contraption she flies around in, but how anyone seriously can trust Jools, the daydreaming priest, to pilot a flying machine on her own is beyond me.

Granted, she usually has her head up in the clouds but having her whole corporeal head with attached body up there without anyone else being in charge of monitoring vital things like directions, altitude, wind speed and other aviatrixy stuff seems a bit hazardous to say the least.

And for those who think that there actually is someone else controlling the plane, let me ask you: Do you see anyone else in there? The cockpit’s barely large enough for Jools.

And for final evidence: Look who is steering!

Yes, that is Jools steering, hands firmly on the wheel! She is in control!

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(You don’t think it is anything similar to Maggie Simpson’s steering wheel do you? No, of course not!)

Or possibly quadruple spec.

Remember how I fiddled about trying out druid healing specs but avoiding the overcooked broccoli form because, well, eh, for no other reason actually than the slightly withered look of it. No, I tell a lie, I actually avoided it partly because every time I see a tree I think aha there’s Zetter (our resident tree!), and the one time I actually specced into this brassicaceous form (for a Masquerade Party!) I couldn’t find myself on my screen, must have been that damned Zetter blocking me all the time! Oh, wait…

Anyway, I suddenly felt kind of extremely silly trying so hard to heal as a druid and not take advantage of their imba 51 point spell, Wild Growth, so I decided to rectify the situation by karaoke! doing the one thing a poor dual specced druid should do. I specced lazer chicken, of course!

Fast forward a few days to a Naxx run, which I entered as my beloved prime time spec, feral, but for the very first time I was in there as a full-time kittycat – miaow! – instead of the tough tank-with-my-face slim and well-muscled pretty bear, and I promptly discovered why meleeing the in Naxx is hell.

Especially for a class with a pathetic aoe (well, not pathetic maybe but not a fast one in my tank-oriented bear spec due to the 50 Energy required). So maybe especially for a druid that refuses to realise that cat and bear have slightly differently oriented specs nowadays. And especially if you don’t want to switch to bear for the much more powerful bear swipe because you don’t want there to be any confusion as to who the tanks are in this run, m’kay.

The trash pulls was a pain (single-target ftl in the crackling aoe fireworks), and Anub’Rekhan was even worse.

Run to boss, open up the can of whoopass, claw that boss til he bleeeeds, uh-oh, he calls on his little friends so run away, little girl, run run after the big friends instead and scratch and claw and bite them to death, and then scoot across the room to refresh all your bleeding nasties on the big ugly arachnid, only to run out again when his little friends came back for seconds. Lather, rinse and repeat.

I spent more time running back and forth than I did dealing out pain! Well, maybe not, but it was an awful lot of running around, and only one dash.

So, since a druid is all about shapeshifting, I promptly switched talents and moved over to the feathered caster variety. Granted, I had no hit rating whatsoever in my former leafless healing set, and of course I had forgotten to change my glyphs from the resto to the whoopass variety, but I still did an imba amount of damage compared to my poor kitty! Yellow numbers popping out ftw!

And in this form I did something, never recorded once in over 200 surveyed worlds (bonus if you recognize the quote) 50 Naxx runs, I snagged me a Safety Dance achievement!

Fast forward a few days again, when the meandering wit and erratic whims of my druid made her ditch her feral spec and actually go for a fully fledged leafed resto build. Yes, one including the flaxen walking brassica.

Happy as a kid in a candy shop she ran around in Stormwind trying to talk to her stationary kin (who were not responding btw) and was going to take a quick peek at her resto glyphs that she luckily still hadn’t gotten around to swapping for pew-pew ones when I realised that her primary spec, the one that’s always been feral, you know, the one that now had a brand new decidous branch (/giggle) instead, this spec was not decked out in resto glyphs but was, in fact, still sporting heavy duty bear tank glyphs. The resto glyphs were, naturally, still safely attached to her moonkin spec.

/facepalm.

So shall I get me new glyphs? Or shall I swap my specs? Or, given that I probably will feel the urge to reclaim my furriness real soon, and it’s not entirely improbable that I will actually get me two feral specs, one for the in-your-face tankmaestro and one for the sleek death-on-paws, shall I just turn a blind eye to the glyph department for the time being?

Or shall I just avoid the entire mess and go level my priest instead?

I guess you all have written things in the wrong channel occasionally.

You know, someone logs in and you write /g hiho <insert name here>.

And then you’re gonna say something in partychat but forget to type /p first so you end up saying get out of the fire please in guildchat. Ooops, wc!

Generally it’s pretty innocent things you see spouted out in the wrong chat and as such no big deal.

It’s not often you find yourself invited to a late night pug to Arcatraz where you click the accept button and join, just in time to see one of the two other people already in the group describe – rather graphically – what he plans to do to the other party member, involving body parts usually not mentioned in everyday conversation and how much she is going to like it, only to see her say ehrm, honey, this is party chat and we are not alone anymore.

(Two more joined and the run went fast and smooth, so whatever the two original party members were doing at their respective keyboards, it didn’t impede their playing skills at least.)

Whispers are also tricky ones.

Since you automatically reply to the one who sent you a whisper last when you press r, it happens you send a whisper to the wrong person, especially if you are carrying on multiple conversations at the same time.

Imagine that you are in Nagrand, whispering someone asking for directions. You get the directions, whisper thanks back, and a minute or two later you get a rather explicit whisper from the kind direction-giving person, also involving body parts and words usually reserved for intimate encounters of the rather advanced connoisseurs. You whisper back what? and you immediately get omg I’m sorry that was not for you!!

Added him to my friends list of course.

And what about when this sweet friend of yours starts whispering you during raids with some cute and rather innocent role-playing  lines of flirting and passionate love held in check, about as X-rated as a 19th century romance novel for young ladies. You are a bit surprised but get with the role-playing and reply with /blush and /shy and /flirt and similar lines.

And then he whispers you with a line like so I hold you tight and tell you, priest, my love for you has no bounds.

Only you play your druid.

But a quick look-around reveals that there is indeed another priest in the raid, and the priest just happens to be played by a nice nubile real-life female.

Two-timing bastard, eh! But that’s when you fall out of the role-playing and instead of /wrath you can do nothing but /giggle.

Last night, we were going for Sartharion in normal Obsidian Sanctum. Nothing fancy, all three drakes to be killed before we attempted the big one himself, just some fun with the guild.

However, due to a slight lack of signups this merry Sunday evening and some unforeseen RL stuff we were a few raiders short. Some of our guildies jumped in and we filled the last two spots with two pugs, a death knight and a protadin.

It started out so-so, the pugs didn’t really listen to our RL and on the first pull the rain of fire took a heavy toll on our group.

Ressed, buffed up, went at it again with no problems.

As we approach the first blue dragon, our RL clearly says in /raidchat that we will not enter the portal, we will all stay out by the miniboss and kill it.

Dragon is engaged, he spawns a portal, the protadin jumps in and promptly dies.

“There was no healer with me in the portal!!”

No, of course there was not. The RL clearly stated before the pull that no one goes into the portal.

The rest of us kill of the dragon and his adds, not effortlessly but still without too much of a hassle.

Ressed, buffed up, going to the next dragon.

RL says again that we will not enter the portal, we will all stay out and deal with the adds when they appear outside.

Both of our pugs, the DK and the protadin actually reads the raidchat this time and protests!

“We must enter the portal! We will surely wipe if we do not enter the portal and kill the adds there!”

And I timidly ask in raidchat “Wipe? You mean, like we did not do just now? =)”

Silence. Silence. Silence.

Dragon is engaged, portal spawns. No one goes in. Dragon and adds die. Raiders are alive.

The rest of the run our pugged raid members have no trouble listening to and following the raid leaders instructions, and don’t even blow up too much when he disconnects in mid-fight and wipe us all.

And it seems Providence rewarded them for actually shaping up after those initial mishaps because the DK walked away with a new hat and a pair of offspec gloves and the protadin got a new big bag.

So to all ye puggers out there – listen to the RL, do as he sayeth and thy may be rewarded handsomely!

Have you heard? The Ice Stone has melted.

(In case you doubt this, go visit hastheicestonemelted.com)

So what is the Ice Stone? At first, I had no idea, so I had to resolve to the universal method of mystery-solving: when in doubt, google it!

Theory 1

All desks and work areas in the Blizzard company are made of IceStone (c),

a “durable surface made from 100% recycled glass and cement to create a high performance concrete material”.

This has now melted, leaving the Blizz employeses with no place to put their coffee mugs and coke cans, thus resulting in a lack of caffeine and an encroaching panic as the caffeine-withdrawal symptoms start to emerge.

Despite their weakened condition, they have managed to post their distress in-game, hoping against hope that someone will understand their plea for help and figure out how to freeze their desktops solid again so work can resume as intended.

Theory 2

Cryolite, also known as ice stone (name derived from the greek cryo (frost) and lithos (stone) in an allusion to its appearance) is a rare white-ish mineral.

The melting point for Cryolite is approximately 1010°C, which is only slightly above the average room temperature of a small room crammed with teenagers having a WoW LAN party.

By cramming in one more in an already steaming room the melting temperature was achieved, and every one of the participants is now shouting out their joy of having achieved this Achievement in-game.

Theory 3

Lazy programmers reuse code. Also many good theories in the comments.

Theory 4

Not a theory per se, more an insightful article about how the ice stone really permeats (or maybe I shall say melt into) our modern culture.

You know the warlocks’ Ritual of Summoning, used to gather people from afar so you all can be one happy family together.

The summoning can be used for other purposes as well, like  to pick up people who have fallen into waters and can’t get up or to summon stuck people (roots in the underwater passage to the Coilfang instances, anyone?)

This below is a screenshot of Larue, ze resto shaman, being summoned from the platform of Feugen to the platform of Thaddius in Naxxramas.

The distance between those two platforms is only a couple of meters and should be easy to jump across.

Well, “should be” does not always equal “is”.

The trick here is that when you have killed Feugen and his counterpart Stalagg  who resides on a third platform, Thaddius will be released and you will have to get down to him and fight him asap.

So, you need to jump. Fast. And the raiders jumped. And the raiders landed on Thaddius’ platform. All the raiders except one. One raider landed on one of the round thingies below the platform (you can see them in the screenshot) and were out of line of sight from the whole raid.

To be out of line of sight is a bad thing for a healer.

I legged it back through the green slime goo on the floor and ran up on Feugen’s platform for another daring attempt to cross the abyss. And I landed in the very same spot again.

Venting my frustration on Vent, running back trough the slime and up again, thinking I would spend this bloody fight running back and forth here and not doing much else, I realised that I could actually reach my compadres from Feugen’s platform with my heals – I didn’t have to jump! Our other healer, a tree, cleverly positioned himself on the other side of the raid to cover those who happened to get out of range from me.

Standing on the edge, accompanied by a white cat (our hunter’s pet was wiser than me and didn’t even attempt to jump the gap), I managed to pull my weight on the boss fight and help keep everyone alive.

Of course I couldn’t switch sides when Thaddius did his polarity shift, but then again it didn’t really matter that much because I was way more than ten yards away from anyone else, so the only one I could damage was myself.

 Fight went splendidly, I got myself a brand new achievement, and everyone was happy.

Then I realised, staying in my cosy comfortable position up here on the platform also meant that I was too far away from the boss to be able to loot him!

And that, my friends, was where our friendly neighbourhood warlock really earned himself a big hug from me :-D

Larue’s Note To Self: Don’t enter the Construct Quarter of Naxxramas without a friendly warlock along.

Sadly, though, this is not the first place Larue’s been having problems with jumps.

Remember Azjol-Nerub, that loong drop from Hadronox’  lair to the bottom of the pit? Remember the water below that you land in?

Well, most people seem to have no trouble with this, and their only concern is to get out of the water on to terra firma again.

Now, Larue, she follows the lemming train going over the cliff, faaaaaalling all the way down. And then she dies. Poof, not a shred of life left.

No, I didn’t accidentally have Water Walking on. No, there were no DK’s who put up a Path of Frost. No, I didn’t hit anything going down, I was at full health all the way down, and then when I landed in the water I had no health at all so I died.

I was in a run there once with three warriors and a rogue and I died (I kid you not!) 8 times in that fall! One of the warriors had a pair of  jumper cables on him, which he successfully used to ress me twice, and I used my own self-ress twice ( we had a bit of trouble getting Anub’arak to roll over and be dead, so we had to run in a few times).

In my subsequent runs I have tried jumping off (or running off without jumping at all) from about every possible place around the hole’s rim and I have actually survived some of the falls! But I can never be sure, so…

Larue’s Note To Self: Don’t enter Azjol-Nerub unless you have another resser along to pick you up.

After this run I ticketed a GM to report that constant dying as a bug.

Huh, what did you say? Of course it’s a bug!

Well, anyways, the GM’s suggestion was that the warriors, being plate wearers, had more damage mitigation than I did as a mail-wearing shammy and thus they took less damage from the fall.

News-flash for you, mr GM, damage taken from falling is a percentage of your health and not mitigated in any way by what kind of armor you have! (I think it is like this anyways, how would achievements like Going Down? work?) And how can anyone working as a GM not know that the fall in Azjol-Nerub lands you in water and you are not supposed to die when landing in water that is deep enough?

So my theory was that somehow the tall draeneis were too big to safely jump from any spot whatsoever around the rim, that they sometime would hit the eggs on the bottom and die instantaneously.

This theory was falsified though when I was there with my gnome warlock Paynne for the first time.

 That place just seems to hate me…