on this blog and myself

When I first started World of Warcraft I didnt know what to expect. I had basically shunned it for its first 2 years in college, when I saw the devestating effects it had on my roommate, and at the time I felt it was inappropriate to play a game that incurred a monthly fee when I didnt have a steady source of income. I also realized it was basically a gigantic time sink, and that as a sophomore and junior, if I had time to play WoW, I probably should have been studying.

Senior year though, things were different. I finished most of the hard classes I needed to take, and even hard classes were easy for me to sleep through. So I figured I might as well try it one day at a friends house while drunk.

After killing a few kobolds I was immediatly hooked.
There was something about how the combat worked that just seemed so right.

After a trial account I realized that playing a Warlock was my true calling in the game and bought a boxed copy to have fun with after finals were finished that semester.

My initial observations painted it as some sort of inferior bastardization of the worst aspects of Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2, blocky and confusing in the heat of battle and a clickfest with an unappealing endgame grind. In reality it had a much leasurely pace, and unlike in the information overload in Warcraft 3 -- where it was vital to understand every detail in the battlefield -- the mass of information the game throws at you is tuneable and most of it is ignorable.

Currently I am in a "casually serious" (or is it "seriously casual"?) raiding guild. Our current progression as of this post:

• Karazhan, Gruuls Lair on farm.
• Magtheridon down twice.
• Working on Lurker Below.
• Doing Zul'Aman runs when we dont have enough to do a 25 man and no new recruits need gear from Karazhan. (ie: never)

Not a very impressive list of bosses down, but Magtheridon is quite an accomplishment in my opinion, and I really dont think Lurker or Void Reaver will take that long for us to get on farm status.

I started this blog partly as a desire to share information and opinions about the "state of the game (tm)". I dont expect anyone to read or follow this advice, but I do expect to get in trouble with my guild leader when somone links a post where I complain about the Shitty-DPSer-of-the-week-who-keeps-wiping-us-on-learning-content-because-they-cant-pay-attention-and-arent-cautious-enough. (please dont do this)

Its also so I can post speculative stuff in hopes that some blizz designer will see it and think "hey thats a good idea to put in the game, we should work that angle" (this is purely fantasy and will never happen).