WoW in Retrospect (The Burning Crusade)

The Burning Crusade was the only expansion I actually went to a midnight release to pick up. Collectors Edition of course.

I started The Burning Crusade a few minutes after launch.  I was still on Scilla in my guild Aint Neva Scared.  I spent the first few hours dying to the Fel Reaver that patted around Hellfire Peninsula.  This was when I started playing WoW with sound.  Seriously, I died roughly thirty times by him.  I still kill them when I see them in revenge.

I was at 70 pretty early on so I spent a lot of time waiting for guildies to catch up.  I wasn’t a fan of alts back then.

Once we had enough members at 70 we started raiding.  We had a lot of guild members, but we couldn’t fill a 10 man Karazhan raid.  Myself and the “hardcore” raiders decided to move to a bigger server, so Aint Neva Scared moved over to Burning Blade.  Within a few weeks the guild broke up and myself and a few raiders went to a 25 man guild.  This was the only expansion when I considered myself a hardcore raider, racing against another guild to clear Black Temple first.

Sadly, that guild broke up near the end of the expansion and I ended up going back to Scilla and playing casually for the rest of the expansion, while rebuilding my old guild under different names.  I still own most of the guild names as banks.

Jump Up Skellies

is made of candy

Dreadpony Express

The Lament Configuration

Biscuit Inferno

and I finally got Aint Neva Scared back going into Wrath of the Lich King

WoW in retrospect (Vanilla)

I’ve been playing WoW since release. I was 27 years old when I got into the beta. Prior to WoW, Everquest Online Adventures was my first foray into an mmo territory. I never hit max level in that game.

WoW came along and I played it mostly solo on my very first toon. I didn’t know about quests really, and I didn’t know about Thottbot (No Wowhead back then!) so I mostly ground out levels by killing mobs. I hit level 60 and didn’t do anything. There was nothing to do. I was WoW shy. That poor character still lives on the Blackhand server as a level 60 in farmed greens.

My wife left me, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Two pretty harsh things to happen at the same time. I knew my mom didn’t have much time left so I took a leave of absence from work so I’d have no regrets of not spending time with her. It was at this time my friend wanted to quit playing Silk Road and try WoW, so I let him use my second account (shhhh!) and I resubbed my first. We both rolled Warlocks. This is when Doobjanka was born on the Scilla server.

The game was different playing it with another person. It was fun. Suddenly there was someone to laugh at me when I pulled a Son of Arugal in Silverpine and died suddenly. Someone helped me quest and find mobs. It wasn’t as boring as the first time around. We met other people playing, a Shaman and Priest whose names escape me and a Warrior named Viiking. We could take on the world. We joined a guild called beta house and went on fun dungeon ing adventures.

This was all before level 60.

I dinged level 60 before my friends and got recruited to a bigger guild. Just my luck, the day I dinged was the day we opened the gates of Ahn Qiraj. It was a terrible time on a PvP server, undergearing everyone else and having giant Anubisath killing everyone. I died a lot. I don’t remember the event that well anymore, but it was epic.

Next came raiding. My first experience was in Zul Gurub. There was so much stuff going on and 20 people to coordinate. I’m glad I wasn’t the raid leader. We also went into Molten Core. I didn’t really understand the loot rules, but I was made an officer of the guild. As time went on, I didn’t like the way the other officers treated members. People asking for simple advice were completely ignored while they chatted in officer chat. I found a few friends that were willing to faction off with me and we staged a coup, taking the raiders we considered the best. Our new guild was called Aint Neva Scared and that was our motto. We attacked anything and anyone and to hell with the consequences. You couldn’t fly back then. Took forever for reinforcements to arrive.

We had upwards of 300 people in the guild but couldn’t field a 40 man for MC so we teamed up with another guild. Fun was had by all, until an officer snafu reset the other guilds dkp and we parted bitterly.

We spent the rest of Vanilla raiding ZG and killing the first boss in AQ20. The second boss was always bugged. I went into BC with the full ZG and AQ set, minus the trinket.

To be continued…

Darkmoon Rabbit, the new rarity

Anyone who was available during the opening of the Darkmoon Faire noticed quite a few other people waiting. The DMF is now a Crz zone so expect the Darkmoon Rabbit to jump up in rarity now that there is no guarantee the winner will be on your server. He’s up maybe three or four times during the week and with many other realms out to get him, expect his rarity to increase.

Brutal Pet Battler

I went into patch 5.3 not really looking forward to the PVP aspect. At least there is a quest to do 10 PVP battles so any really trepidations person will ideally be able to get the pet in 25 weeks. I had to mix up my team just so it wouldn’t get boring and I’ve still had a really harsh loss ratio. Good luck to everybody else.

5.2

It seems like every patch send Mists came out is just better and better for pet collectors. 5.2 added the fable daily, which most people agreed stunk, but 5.3 will be splitting them into three quests.

5.3 Raiding with Leashes

 

Raiding with Leashes II: Attunement Edition

10 Points

Progress on this achievement is shared account wide.

Collect all of the battle pets listed below from Karazhan, Serpentshrine Cavern, and Tempest Keep.

Reward

Reward: Tito

Criteria

  • Lil’ Bad Wolf – Opera Event
  • Menagerie Custodian – The Curator
  • Netherspace Abyssal
  • Fiendish Imp – Terestian Illhoof
  • Tideskipper – Morogrim Tidewalker
  • Tainted Waveling – Lady Vashj
  • Coilfang Stalker – Fathom-Lord Karathress
  • Pocket Reaver – Void Reaver
  • Lesser Voidcaller – Lady Solarius
  • Phoenix Hawk Hatchling – Al’ar

5.1

5.1 has been out for three days now and it’s amazing. I’ve had a blast going back through all the old raids and finding the new wild pets.

I hope 5.2 brings us just as much pet content!

Power leveling lower level pets

Odds are you’ll have a favorite early. Pick a beast of some kind, or any pet with a Critter power ability. Once you get out to Valley of the Four Winds have your high level critter killer in slot two and whatever low level in one. Circle Halfhill and attack everything. The Bandicoons are critters and rarely will you run across an Otter, which is Aqua.

Get the first attack with the low level and switch it out for the rest of the fight. Easy XP.