My Alternate Reality

With Heavy Heart...

"With my heart just a little bit sad. I say my farewell to you. I'm hoping the times we've had will help to carry you through.

So farewell for now, I'll be missing you but wishing you the best. For I know somehow no matter what, you'll pass every test.

To your new destiny, I raise a toast. To all the fates will allow. From I who loves you the most, I bid you farewell for now..."

Today is a sad day.

I just received word that my guild is transferring to another realm. I honestly can't say I blame them. A progression guild like Summit has a very difficult time recruiting viable members/raiders from the rank and file there. Moving to a more PvE centric realm will probably be a good move in the long run.

It is with heavy heart however that I will most likely be parting ways with my beloved guild. Moving to a new realm right now is just not in the cards for me. I see retirement in my future actually. Aurendar's future will be one of farming and the occasional dungeon run if she is so inclined.

I will take away many fond memories of my time in Summit and I can honestly say that because of Summit, the World of Warcraft has become more than just a game. It truly has become an 'Alternate Reality'. I have met some the the most wonderful people due to my affiliation with Summit.

Loveth. The Guild Master of this band
Back in my early days, I would farm motes out in Shadowmoon Valley. It never failed, I would run into this strange, unassuming Priest named Loveth out there. Over time, we developed an understanding on "mote farming etiquette" and we never got in each others way. With a silent 'nod' to each other, we would go about our business. Soon, I would look forward to seeing my farming buddy again. When I found myself without a guild, a quick in game mail to Loveth got me on track. Summit took me under it's wing and all was right with the world.

Maeleigh. Summit's Master Mage
I've probably become closer to Mae more than anyone else in the guild or the entire game for that matter. We think alike and I have found her company grounds me and keeps me at peace. I will always treasure the times we've spent running together and I have no intent on severing our friendship. Love ya Mae!

Suntzu
In my opinion, the rock that holds Summit together. Suntzu's level head and wisdom helps bind Summit. Whenever things went astray, you could count on Suntzu injecting some kind of "sense" into a chaotic situation. It was an honor to be in his presence.

Dunari & Raugturi
Truly pleasant people. Dunari, hands down the best Druid tank in the realm and Raug, Warlock extraordinaire. A team no guild should be without! Miss those old days Dun! You've been a friend probably longer than anyone on my friends list! We go Waaaaaaay back!

Well, I am sad now. I think I will log off for a bit and ponder my future in the World of Warcraft. I honestly don't know where I am going to go from here. I will leave my fate in the hands of destiny.

We'll just have to see what happens. Farewell Summit, I will miss you dearly.

~Aur

The Burning Crusade Eternal Question

So. Here I am.

My Death Knight Aurenaei has finally reached the coveted level 60. I am now faced with one of the questions that has caused many an adventurer to shuffle around Shattrath City for hours randomly asking this question in General Chat:

Who should I align with? Aldor or Scryer?

This is where I am now. I'll be honest, I'm leaning toward Aldor. There is one main reason that I usually run with the goats. SUPER easy access to Nagrand. Aurendar, my hunter is Aldor and I've always wondered how those poor Scryer have to deal with getting to Nagrand.

Yea, I know "Just run down to the Flight Master!" Seriously though? Every single time you want to run to Nagrand, you have to go all the way over to the FP and fly there? Seem a bit ludicrous to me! I'm trying to find a real good viable reason to go Scryer. If I were to compare the asthetics of the areas, the Scryers win hands down. The Aldor have a couple of huts, an Inn and a temple. The Scryers however are chillin' wit da BLING up on that Tier! They are pretty hooked up over there. Vendors, cool fountains and floating plant baskets everywhere. It looks really good. But is that enough to get me to go Scryer? Ummmm, not so much.

Now I have been over on Wowwiki and there really isn't much information. What information there is on that site, leads me to believe that there really isn't a big difference in choosing between the two. I'll do a bit more research on the question regarding Aldor vs. Scryer but in all honesty, you'll more than likely find me farming Marks of Sargeras and Fel Armaments for the Aldor.

Time will tell!

Nightelves, Tigers & Bears OH MY!

In the wonderful World of Warcraft, I play a level 80 Nightelf Hunter. Ever since first rolling her back in 2006, I have loved running with Aurendar. She is literally my alter ego. Heck if I ever decided to have a daughter (NOT) I'd be half tempted to name her Aurendar. But that is another post entirely.

Anyway, about two weeks ago, I began to really loathe even logging on to run her. I've ran with the hunter class for so long that it's just become boring to me. There are a couple of things that I believe led to the proverbial "rock and a hard place" that I find my situation in.

1. I'm going to say it and I hope I don't get blasted for saying it - I HATE THE SURVIVAL TREE! With the latest WoW patch, if you are a raider (which I am) and you want to get the most benefit out of your hunter not only for you but your raid, you BETTER be survival! When the patch dropped, I ran to the nearest trainer and respecced. Now, it's not really that bad to play, it's just BORING! My shot rotations got all screwed up and I've never really been able to adjust. Going back to Beast Mastery really isn't an option when you do endgame raiding.

2. Recently, in my guild, we brought on some additional hunters. If you don't play WoW, I'll tell you right now, hunters are probably one of the most played classes second to probably Death Knights. Not 100% sure about that as I haven't run any hard numbers but I'd bet I'm pretty close. Does a guild really need that many hunters? I have no idea but one thing I can say is that successful runs rely on over-the-top DPS which is something that hunters do very well. Aurendar isn't going anywhere but on the back end, I'd like to explore other possibilities to avoid quitting this game all together. With the additional hunters on board, I started thinking about this a bit more.

Can you tell I'm frustrated?

Anyway, in order to garner interest again in one of my favorite past times, I rolled a Druid March 15th, 2009. I named her Wynari in homage to one of the best Druid's I've had the pleasure of knowing, our main tank Dunari. I can only hope that one day, I'm a quarter the Druid she is. Over the past week, I've had an absolute BLAST running her! Last night I dinged level 30 with her and got my traveling form as well as her first mount! The World of Warcraft is getting that spark again. A spark that I hope never dies. But now I'm on the "other side". I miss my guildies. I miss running with my friends. I wish I could magically snap my fingers and Wynari would ding 80 with some nice gear so I can run with Summit again. I'm just going to be patient and level her.

Who knows, maybe Summit can form a 'guild within a guild' and fill it with alts so we can all run together. I've been playing WoW for so long and have run with many guilds. There just isn't anything quite like running with Summit. I honestly have no interest in running with any other.

What to do, what to do...

How DARE you have an opinion!!

So-
A really good friend of mine hosts (or hosted I should say) a blog about her trials and tribulations within the World of Warcraft. I always got excited when a new post would show up as I really enjoyed her perspective on the "in's and out's" of life in Azeroth. Recently, she came under fire of sorts about her opinion regarding her class being, as she so eloquently put it "diluted down to nearly nothing" after the last major patch to hit the realms. Soon after expressing her opinion, she came under fire from those that believe EVERYONE is wrong and their opinion was the ONLY opinion that should be even remotely considered. You gotta love these trolls. I must admit, I take great pleasure in chewing them up and spitting them out like the cudd they are.

I'll be honest, I don't always agree with some of her opinions but with that said, I respect her opinion all the same. After all, it is HER opinion and last I checked, one's own opinion is theirs and theirs alone. Take it how you want. If you agree, all is good in the world. If you disagree, have a constructive debate about it. That is after all, why we do these types of blogs in the first place- To encourage debate and have meaningful conversation, not to be besmirched by trollish criticism. Yes, the Internet is a bit of a lonelier place without Mae.

Please come back Krystin! Don't let the Trolls beat ya down!

My blog gets nowhere near the readership that Electronic Escape did but that whole fiasco has motivated me to start blogging a bit more about my own OOC (out of character for you nubbins) experiences in WoW. Just need to find more time in my day! Between early morning farming for mats & repair gold, RL work & family and nightly raiding, I don't have tons of time but I is gonna try!

Well, I'm off! I have some rep grinding to do in Sholazar Basin!

Take care and see ya around the Meeting Stone!
~SjN

Naxx, Stones & Asshats

 Okay...

First off, welcome to the first installment of of My Alternate Reality. This is where I'll chat about one of my favorite past times in life - The World of Warcraft.

My name is Shawn and I play a hunter on the Blackwater Raiders realm named Aurendar. I usually blog 'in character' with her but decided I needed a place to air out various in game incidents, situations and other out of character junk. To start off, I thought I'd vent a bit on a common "WTF" moment for raiders. The now infamous Naxxramas summoning stone.

For those not familiar with it, it resides at the base of the necropolis itself on a small platform accessed via flying mounts. Not a big problem, you fly there, summon your team and head through one of the various portals to begin your raid. That's an explanation of a Naxx raid in a perfect world. Let's talk reality for a minute. A typical Naxx run starts out with a few of your members flying to the stone. At the stone you are then faced with anywhere from 20 to 40 other peeps gathered on the platform. Some are trying to summon their own respective team mates but a majority are there to do nothing but be, for lack of a better term - Asshats.

It seems that some players get their rocks off by making everybody's life miserable. A favorite past time of said asshats is to get to the platform and flag PvP. An innocent bystander trying to click the stone to begin summoning will then accidentally attack this moron thus flagging themselves for PvP and ensuing an ugly fight that usually sends you back down to the ground in spirit form amid roars of laughter from the offending idiots. So much for being all ready for the raid. But that scenario compares very little to the bane of all raiders at Naxx. The dreaded 'mass mount'. You see, these asshats like to get to the stone curiously at around 6:00 server (raid time for most guilds) and then search through their various mounts for the largest, fattest, most obnoxious mount they have (usually something like a giant proto-drake or a travelers tundra mount), they mount up and merrily relax right next to the stone. While one mount may not be such a problem, it quickly becomes an issue when you're dealing with 5 or 6 mounted idiots around the stone. All the while laughing it up. Damned attention whores.

Well, I've read a lot on this subject as much has been written about the problem. It seems that the general consensus is that Blizzard designed the raid wrong in that they should have placed the stone on the ground. While this may be true, the problem isn't in the design, it's in the mental ineptitude of the idiots that like to pleasure themselves by making everybody's life miserable. While I don't think it's Blizzard's responsibility to redesign a working method of entering Naxxramas, they may not have a choice if the QQ'ing keeps up. One solution I like is to have the area immediately surrounding the stone a "no mount" zone. The ledges at the edge of each entry way would be the only places where you could mount and fly in or out. That might work but I can only imagine those ledges quickly becoming clogged with mammoths and drakes. I say no to the no mount zone.

The one solution that I really like is to have the Scourge commission the Dark Irons to dismantle the pyramid portal left dormant in the Eastern Plaguelands, have it crated up, placed on a ship and reassembled in Dragonblight. Now, when you want to head to Naxx, you make your way to the portal on the ground underneath the necropolis and teleport up. Much like the original design had intended. This portal should either require an attunement of some kind or base the requirement on your flying skill. That would solve the problem of the dreaded "Naxx Mass Mount".

I don't know, it's just an idea that I like. You have an idea that would make your Naxxramas experience better?
Sound off!

Till Next Time,
See around the Meeting Stone!
Shawn