Aww...blame the game

Hmmm...as usual, I 'm a bit slow with posting here. Blame it on the game. :) No, really! It does seem that the game is a rather central point of my attention span more often than not. So let's just realize now that if I'm not here, I'm there. We good on that? LoL

Both Khrox and the little spriest have been engaged in some new aspects of the game, at least new to them. Khrox finally got his first taste of arena battles, courtesy of his guild leader. More on his initiation to arena's in a bit. The little spriest isn't so little anymore. At level 63, he's romping through Outland spreading disease, pain, messing with your mind stuff and death. He's also strong on alliance presense in each zone's pvp dailys. Just loves taking all those towers and fortifacations away from the Horde. This little gnome has got some serious ankle-biting going on!

Let's talk a bit about Cle first. If you're new here, he's a gnome shadow priest who favors battlegrounds over dungeons. In fact, he hasn't seen the inside of his first dungeon...yet. Always a possibility it could happen. At level 61, he finally gave up skinning and took up engineering for the fun of it. Mining had been his other gathering profession all along, so he had plenty of metal bars and ore banked. He practically raced through all the early skill ups, and now sits at 353 skill. He made mostly all pieces and parts to get there, with exception to some later level bombs and his first flying machine. Engineering is not a big gold maker, so far. In fact, most everything you make is useful only to yourself. It is though, a FUN profession. Neat little things that go BOOM! , and little personal items that create/add some very interesting effects. Looking over his trainers list of things to come, well, I can see that battlegrounds just might become incidental playgrounds. And, no telling what might happen with those world pvp encounters.

And then there is Khrox. Once again, if you're new here, Khrox is a dwarf hunter. He leveled to cap as a Beast Master, loves battlegrounds, and you'll most likely find him running about in his MM spec these days. He is decked out in the best honor point Vicious pvp gear and quite thirsty for the conquest point upgrades. The Horde nation has this intense hatred for him, so all seems rather good for now. At least on the surface.

TBH at this point, on a personal level I have this fear thing of trying new things in the game. First it was dungeons, "omg! I'll get the group wiped." Then it was battlegrounds, "I'm such a noob Huntard! I keep dieing all the time." And we won't talk about all the early BG chat tossed at me. LOL, the end result is total procrastination.

This effect carried over with me when I changed guild membership. Part of the reason for changing guilds was so that I could progress my pvp into arena and maybe even rated bg's. It's been over a month now and I still had'nt gone forth with arena entry, until this past Saturday.

I was sitting around in the Dwarven District in SW, self-debating which bg to do. Along came one of the co-gm's of the guild, the one who recruited me, and we started chatting. Next thing I know, she's created a 2's team for us, and now the nervous fear sets in. She says we can try some practice games first if I wish, which sounded really good to me.

Well, I guess the season is old enough now and no practice games were available. The entry que pops up again, I accept it, saying oh good, we got one! Wrong. lol, she tells me no. It's the real thing, go all out. Needless to say, I died in like 15 seconds. By the fourth round of losing, I was lasting closer to 30 seconds. btw, she's a disc priest and wound up fighting several long minutes on her own until she suffered some horribus death. Again, and again.

This kind-hearted gm kept telling me everything's okay. She had a great attitude and mindset. Even pointed out her own mistakes as she thought them to be. Then something happened. On the next game, even though we lost again, we actually had a good 5-6 minute fight on our hands. This was rather encouraging for me. By this time, I was entering the arena stealthed, and tossing out several traps in what I hoped would be the main fighting area. Seemed like a good plan, and to some extent it was working.

A stroke of luck on the next game, the other team did'nt que, we won our first by default. Yea! The very next game.....well, we actually WON! It's like "OMG, we beat them!" We que'd a couple more times, although we still kept losing. Then I suffered a disconnect that lasted a bit. By the time I got back in, the co-gm had gone on with her regular arena teams. I whisper'd her generous thank you's and appreciations. We ended our arena outing with a 2 win--10 loss record.

I really have a lot of respect and admiration for this gm. She's a very accomplished pvp player in her own rights, yet she took the time and had the patience to get me started, in spite of my inner fears and obvious failings. And about that win/loss record? She said the losing and points didn't matter for her, it was all about getting me the conquest points I needed. In my mind, she is an "Epic" player. I think I'm going to be with this guild for a long time now. It "feels" like "home."

Saturday update:

Saturday update: guilds--Khrox had been guildless for several days, 4 or 5 I guess. During that time the usual, expected surge of guild invites materialized.


Now, over time I've developed something of a standard practice with guild invites. Those that pop up in my face out of nowhere, with not so much as even a hello attached: DECLINED! Not even a second wasted to think about it. Then there's those kind of invites with some courtesy of an attached whisper. Usually along the lines of, "Join us if you like bacon", "Join us, don't be a jerk" (questionable as to meaning), and so on. Anyway they range from kinda dumb to smartass lines. Result: DECLINED.

Out of the dozen or so invites that came by, only one held any sort of decency/respect in the approach. This guy whispers me and politely asks if I'm looking for a guild. No pop up invite, just a respective whisper. Now, this surely deserved a respectful answer in return. So I kindly informed him that I was waiting for a response from another guild atm, but would certainly keep him in mind. He seemed agreeable to that answer, and did not try to push for anything more. I actually wrote down the guild name for memory sake.

I spent the next 10 minutes watching trade chat. Although a dispicable channel, one can really learn a lot about people who do use it. Low and behold! That same nice person who showed respect in their invite approach, was rageing through the channel in all his true glory. No respect, no honor, demeaning folks left and right, language from the bottom of the gutter, the whole shot. For the two possible good points he gained during his invite whisper, he lost a hundred points in chat. Scratch that guild.

Before all this, I had been casually chatting with a prospective guild. First, the co-gm's. Then over a few days time I chatted with various members I came across. This guild seemed to fit what I was looking for in a guild. Friendly, pvp orientated, and plenty of active members on anytime I logged in. The gm's had taken a couple of days off for real life work, so I was waiting for their return to ask about joining. Wasn't a long wait really. When the main gm did come on, I sent a /wave to her. A few seconds later, she had obviously noticed I had left my guild and there was an immediate invite up for me, which I gladly accepted. I've been spending my time since just kind of getting to know people. Things are going well so far, and I think Khrox has found a new home.

Upon the gm's suggestion, I did end up installing an add-on mod, called preformav. I guess this allows for the group leaders to do a one button mass invite for raid groups. This guild does a lot of arena and rbg's. That went easily enough. Later though, I did have some difficulty with the vent set up, and ended up missing my first opportunity for an arena match. I did get to listen in on a couple of matches though. LOL, they sounded like some vicious battles. I'm looking forward to attempting some of these even more now.

I did discover something about myself today though. Another guild member asked me along on some dungeon runs. Over like what seemed two hours worth, ending up in the Black Temple. My discovery during this? I don't think I'll be persueing much pve. In fact, imho, I did not do well at all. Died like four times. Almost 30g in repairs afterward. Yes, that bad. :( Heck, my bg repairs are seldom higher than 2g.

All in all, it's been an interesting week in Azeroth. This ol' dog is learning some new tricks to play with, and life in WoW is once again enjoyable.

"Go with honor, friends."

Off Day Post?

The Blizzard loading screen tooltip says something like, "Take everything in moderation, including World of Warcraft!" Hence, the creation of Tuesday maintenance days. Also known as: "You WILL give our servers a much needed break!!" I hear that even Ragnaros is complaining about the constant flow of raiders maiming, beating and killing their way towards his sanctum already.


In other news today. Sol has officially announced his retirement to his guild leader, and passed the family reins on to that fiesty dwarf hunter, Khrox. This didn't come as a surpirse to the guild, whom long expected the transition. There were a few laughs to go around, but overall there was a strong sense of understanding and support. Just some of the many things which make DUT such a great guild.

Khrox has boldly stepped up to the tasks at hand. He's proven to be a work-horse. A strong supporter of and leading contributor to the guild. He makes his rounds with a form of calculated precision and swiftness, while still hungering for more. Hmmm, 25 dailys? Is that all? He could easily double that without even breaking a sweat. Soloing and farming dungeons, hrumphhh. A walk in the park. Why just yesterday, a rather typical day for this BM hunter, 25/25 dailys, 90 achievement points, 30 honorable kills, 7 soloed dungeons, several hundred thousand points contributed towards guild level advancement, a good sized batch of DE fodder gathered for one guild mate and plans to assist another with some dungeon runs to gear and help level him. And this somewhat crazy dwarf was still looking for more to do?

A good part of this has to do with the class and spec, or so I think. BM dwarf hunters are just awesome, and only get better the more you learn how to play them. True though, any class/spec you play well seems and is awesome. It's finding that class/spec that "clicks" for you which can be a long journey constantly in progess.

When Khrox first came into the family, his intended roles were simply to provide some additional bank space, and dabble in the collection of rare pets. Those roles were his mainstay untill level 60, when he suddenly burst into maturity and started to really show his strengths. Before lvl 60, it was all fun and games. Outland and Northrend though were viewed as horrible grinds to run out of necessity. The straw that broke the camel's back though. Khrox hit up only those zones which were above level for him and stormed his way through them to reach 80. He left many things behind in his wake, undone. 80-85 was fun and challenging again. Four of the five zones were completed to achievement level, two of them were completely drained of quests. Along the way, mastering the class/spec was priority bound.

Well, I should think that I've babbled on enough for now. There is no real point to this post, nor is there any earth-shattering useful information to be had. If anything could possibly be considered useful here, it's that underlying thought about finding a class/spec that fits YOU, then don't forget to have fun mastering said class/spec. There are soooo many possibilities. And, don't be afraid of "Change." It is a constant entity, always around you.

Now get out there and reek havoc throughout Azeroth.......and beyond!

Khrox, the BeastMaster!

Khrox, the Beast Master


I'm going to take a few moments here to talk about Khrox. Why, you wonder? He's just another alt from a long history of alts. Well, there is a slight differance. Khrox is a Dwarf Hunter, specced into beast mastery. Simply because I have this undeniable urge to collect rare and exotic pets, his sole reason for existance. The plan is just as simple. Tame a rare, exotic or unusual pet from every zone he quests in. And he is throughly questing his way through each zone in his leveling chain. In this manner, each zone is fully explored, and the required number of quests for loremaster are completed in unison. Not to mention that running all those quests provides ample time to come across those rare spawns.

Khrox is just as layed back in nature. He likes keeping life basic. Explore, quest, hunt, skin, fish and cook. And let us not forget the after dinner ale or brew as we lay back and star gaze. He spends his evenings by the campfire cooking up a fresh kill or catch, sharing stories of the days adventures with his bear, Popcorn. Questing has been good to him. Already at a tender middle age of 50, and with the Easter Kingdoms at his fingertips. He has made a sufficient amount of gold along the way just by selling off all the cloth he steals from his kills, along with the occassional level appropriate and useful BoE weapons. With skinning as his only profession (primary), he has quite the stockpile of various leathers in the bank.

We'll get on with the collection of rare pets thus far in another minute or two, maybe three. Khrox has shared some stories about Popcorn though that are, "rather interesting," one could say. (have you ever known Dwarves not tell stories?)

Life with Popcorn began at age 1. Just a wee bit of a cub he was, barely tall enough to reach my knee. As we made our way through Dun Morogh and Loch Modan, he grew quickly in both size and strength. His rather strange behavior began about the time we were departing from the homeland for the Loch. Every so often after a kill, Popcorn would crazy run off after some small creature or bug. It was kinda cute in the beginning. I figured that he was just fired up from the kill and got anixous for the next. By the time we entered the Wetlands though, his little crazy-ness began to cross the border into being slightly insane. He'd run off some 40, 50 yards or so just to kill off a marsh bug, and return with a couple of baddies he aggro'd long the way.

We made our way through those Arathi Highlands, into the Hinterlands, on to the Plaguelands and rocketed down to the Badlands. All the while, Popcorn kept straying off further and further for some insane senseless kill, and bringing back more creatures or baddies each time. I remember, in the Eastern Plaguelands we had to go through this cave with some rather over-grown spiders, stepping on all their newly hatched young in the process. Now, two and three of those crazy spiders, no problem. Then that insane bear of mine decides to clear out all the spider babies, in several tunnels! He came back with 7 of the meanest, largest, pissed off spiders to show for his galavanting. I put up one heck of a fight that day, took down four of them before there was no place else to go. It was a bitter death I tell ya'. Bitter I say, cause that insane bear lived through it!

Well then, there's no hope for Popcorn. He's completely insane and un-manageable now. And nearly twice as tall, wide and long as me. But what a brute. We can jump into the middle of a twilight or dark iron camp and clear out 7 to 10 of 'em now, no problems. As for his wacky jaunts, well, I just sit back, sip a brew and watch for his return. Take aim and fire one off on the first thing close enough to hit. With luck, ol' Popcorn will turn on his heels and stop the pack before it gets to me now.

Okay, enough rambling on. The only thing about taming those rare, unusual or exotic beasts that popped into my head was finding a way to keep a history of them. The answer I came up with seemed simple enough, at least for now. I am Khrox, beast master. So I keep the tamed beasts original name, and just add Rox to the end spelling. Such as:

Nix, a rare wasp from Loch Modan. Now called NixRox. Kind of a shame creatures shrink once tamed, but I suppose it's for the good of the overall plan of things. Nix was rather large and colorful.

From the Wetlands came a package deal. The Razormaw Matriarch. Now called RazormawRox. I also looted through her nest and came up with one of her hatchlings for a companion. The three of us looked quite merry skipping through the rest of the Wetlands.

The Hinterlands brung to the family Gammerita, a giant quest turtle. Well, someone else's quest turtle. Those tree-huggin Night Elfs I think. She is now known as GammeritaRox. I may return to the Hinters some time just to see if 'ol Cliff Jumper' is still around.

Rocket ride to Fuselight by the sea, Badlands. When I first started the Badlands adventures out of Fuselight, I bumped into this amazing rare white buzzard called Zericotl. Beautiful, I say. No questions or second thoughts. Just jumped right in and started beating him down to tameable size. Popped tame beast. Nothing. Hit it again, nothing. A little concerned now, this buzzard was hitting pretty hard. Once more, tame beast. Finally noticed the little red letters across the top of the screen: "...too high a level for you to tame...". Oops! Death was imminate at that point. I was a young 45, Zericotl was a 48 rare elite. To add insult to injury/death, was some bright orange text in the chat box, and I quote:

"Zaricotl seems to feel much better now that it has eaten the remains of Khrox."

Needless to say, when I later became 48, Zaricotl became ZaricotiRox. Right then and there. And yes, I got my i's and l's fingers mixed up at the time.

Searing Gorge: Here we finally found Rekk'tilac, a rather overgrown lava spider. Nothing really special about this spawn, and for the next three levels after taming, he ate constantly. So he sits on-call patiently while Popcorn again adventures forth.

On the agenda, a couple of zones still un-decided, although quested: *Western Plaguelands: ??, *Eastern Plaguelands: ??, and the *Burning Steppes: ?? Questing these areas began to require much more focus on the mobs, and there were no obvious rares sighted while doing so. I'll have to research for possibilities and back track a bit for them. Khroz, now 53, is currently in the Swamp of Sorrows with the Blasted Lands following.

That about sums up this wall of text and Khroxs' adventures thus far. Now, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who rolled a hunter just for the sake of collecting rare pets. Or for that matter, any other class rolled for some obscure reason. Care to share your secret indulgence here? It's okay. Really. Enjoy the screenies.

Popcorn-the Insane Bear

Originally called Zericotl




Have fun, we'll see 'ya next time around!