Hi guys,
I've been devising a strat 4 pure pwnage (hehe) on any map. What you do is start off buying 2 TURNIP SEEDS + 2 STRAWBERRY SEEDS (sorry this is EXTREMELY important and cannot be ignored) and buy 1 GHOUL, JUST ONE to water them while you creep offbase.
The focus of this strat is:
1.) Good economy/gold gain
2.) Delaying enemy tactics until you can get GS to pwn them ;)
3.) Playing defensively and smartly.
TRY AND AVOID ENEMY ENGAGEMENTS AT ALL COSTS. I know that enemies to provide XP and gold, but you can get all that through creeping and from my experience, it's best to avoid the enemy because they will usually win initial engagements.
MID GAME:
Ok you should be making about 200 gold/day by the time you get the ghoul to water your crops. I'd reccomend teching up to raspberries, as those sell better, but if you wish you can tech to more practical things to compliment the metagame (such as elixeroots/etc.) that is fine. What you do want to end up buying is a SHORT SWORD (the cheapest) and continue to upgrade it. I calculated all the costs out and found that IT IS ACTUALLY CHEAPER TO UPGRADE A SS TO A GS THAN TO BUY A GS OUT OF THE BOX. On top of that, it takes about the same amount of time to get there. Check this out:
Gold Sword: 8000 G
Short Sword: 600 G
Upgrade 1 for short sword: 1400 G
Uprade 2 for short sword: 1600 G
Upgrade 3 for short sword: 3000 G
Which gives us the total of 6600 G, 1400 less than the GS. Note that it will just be called Short Sword upgrade 3, but will have the same offensive and defensive bonuses as the GS.
Late Game:
You should have map control and resource dominance by the time you get your GS. The best way to secure this is to spam Raspberry crop which should get you to around 700-800 G a day. A lot of ppl have complained to me that they don't know what to do when they get to this stage, I just say keep spamming Raspberries and decking our ur char with the gold. An uber harvest moon/married/GS toting warrior will be able to pwn any late game obstacle your opponent may throw at you, and requires very little micro. That'll usually make him quit.
Good luck, and let me know what you think!
-KayabuzaElite
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
KE's 2 Turnip + 2 Strawb opening strat
I thought this was funny. My brother went onto Harvest Moon forums and posted this. He plays a lot of RTS, and Harvest Moon is not an RTS whatsoever. I don't think Chris has ever even played it. It's a farming game, you walk around your farm and... farm shit. If you can understand the humor of it you get l33t points. Here it goes:
Epic Punch to My Brother's Gut
Vampire Wars was a MUD, which stands for Multi-User Dungeon. It was one of the first ever mediums for owning face 1v1 PVP online. Role players could finally come together in a place online and own eachother up in a murderous, dark environment full of Vampires, sorcery, and intreague.
Unfortunately, it also had no graphical interface. It was a 100% text only game.
This didn't stop my friends and I from enjoying it. This stuff came out pre-Everquest, so it gave us that full-on MMORPG experience before the real contenders even came out. We would cruise around on our Vampires and wreak mayhem and destruction onto the internet world, and then later we could meet up in real life and talk about how awesome it was. We would pour hours into it pumping up our characters and decapitating noobs. We would suck the strength out of other vampires and test it against eachother. We would quest and we would create internet friendships. It was basically everything you could hope for when trying to achieve the MMORPG experience that everybody talks about these days.
A lot of people my generation and younger have trouble imagining why I would have fun spending hours a day with this game. A lot of people who actually looked at the client while I played had little to no idea what was even happening, and were generally unimpressed. I got a lot of flak over the years for playing such a boring looking game, but I loved it and still know people that would recognize me upon login. This was a long time ago, that's saying a lot.
The bulk of the time I was playing this game we had a very slow dsl connection. It was hip at the time, but was still buggy and sluggish compared to what we're used to today. My major problem with it was that it would disconnect the internet for a little while every time somebody messed with the phone. In Vampire Wars, if I was disconnected from the internet, my control over the character would suddenly stop while in game my character would sit still and do nothing. This would leave me vulnerable and easy to kill. With all the time and energy it takes into building my character, taking a hit like getting killed while DC would have caused me ridiculous amounts of angst.
Which explains why I punched my brother.
It's not a valid excuse, which I completely understand now, but I was young and silly. I had been chasing around another player for a couple hours when the incident happened. This player had been coy and cunning, but he was no match against my Vampire's brute strength. It would only be a matter of time before I had claimed his head.
He had been running back and forth from the castle to his guild hall, and I had finally cornered him into a no-escape room. I closed all the doors and turned out the lights and threw myself into combat with him. I watched my Vampire pummel his for round after round as he frantically tried to escape. I knew that he wouldn't get out of it, and I watched it dawn on him as he stopped focusing his efforts on getting away and started to focus on the tiny chance that he might beat me in this encounter.
Futile. I deflected his blows and finally got through the last round of the battle. He was lying there, mortally wounded and completely at my mercy.
I didn't want it to end there. I had been chasing him for hours, he had to pay. Nobody messed with me or any of my crew like that and got away with it. I tied him up and prepared to give him the torso of his life.
That's right, nobody outside of the Godwars community knows what a torso is. Well, a torso is where, when you have an enemy lying mortally wounded in front of you, you tie him, blindfold him, gag him, cut off his arms and legs, break all his ribs, cut out his eyes, snap his spine, and shove a stake through his heart. Doing this doesn't help you whatsoever, but it hinders the crap out of your enemy, who can't get up, can't move, can't even see for hours.
So I torsoed him. Brutally. I laughed as he tried to get away. He was in a no-escape room, there was no getting away. I was midway through the torso when the internet suddenly died.
You know the internet dies because none of the commands you send get through. Suddenly there's just a big red flashing light and a black screen. Well, that and the sinking feeling that something is going to happen to you before you get back online.
I started shaking a little bit. My enemy was about to get up and walk away, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I ran to the office to try to get the internet back up, and upon entering I saw my little brother dicking around with his friend. I made the judgment as soon as I walked in. He had messed with the phone, killed the internet, and allowed my prey to escape.
I was deep in game mode still, and so my adrenalin filled body basically flew across the room, fist first, into my little brother's stomach.
He was still pretty small at the time, and I feel bad about it now. He doubled over and started crying, and I restarted the router and flew back to my room.
I logged in and prepared for the worst. The worst was presented to me. My enemy had escaped the full torso. He had survived with one arm and one leg, gotten back up, beaten my character within an inch of his life, then cut his head off. It had taken work, determination, and gallons of sweat to get the kills it took me to get there and it had just been stolen from me.
He had logged off already of course. He knew that I would just beat what he had taken from me back out of him. Every time he logged in from that day forward, he checked first to make sure I wasn't online. I wanted retribution. Sadly, I never got it. Instead, I just punched my brother. I don't think he ever even picked up the phone in the first place.
Unfortunately, it also had no graphical interface. It was a 100% text only game.
This didn't stop my friends and I from enjoying it. This stuff came out pre-Everquest, so it gave us that full-on MMORPG experience before the real contenders even came out. We would cruise around on our Vampires and wreak mayhem and destruction onto the internet world, and then later we could meet up in real life and talk about how awesome it was. We would pour hours into it pumping up our characters and decapitating noobs. We would suck the strength out of other vampires and test it against eachother. We would quest and we would create internet friendships. It was basically everything you could hope for when trying to achieve the MMORPG experience that everybody talks about these days.
A lot of people my generation and younger have trouble imagining why I would have fun spending hours a day with this game. A lot of people who actually looked at the client while I played had little to no idea what was even happening, and were generally unimpressed. I got a lot of flak over the years for playing such a boring looking game, but I loved it and still know people that would recognize me upon login. This was a long time ago, that's saying a lot.
The bulk of the time I was playing this game we had a very slow dsl connection. It was hip at the time, but was still buggy and sluggish compared to what we're used to today. My major problem with it was that it would disconnect the internet for a little while every time somebody messed with the phone. In Vampire Wars, if I was disconnected from the internet, my control over the character would suddenly stop while in game my character would sit still and do nothing. This would leave me vulnerable and easy to kill. With all the time and energy it takes into building my character, taking a hit like getting killed while DC would have caused me ridiculous amounts of angst.
Which explains why I punched my brother.
It's not a valid excuse, which I completely understand now, but I was young and silly. I had been chasing around another player for a couple hours when the incident happened. This player had been coy and cunning, but he was no match against my Vampire's brute strength. It would only be a matter of time before I had claimed his head.
He had been running back and forth from the castle to his guild hall, and I had finally cornered him into a no-escape room. I closed all the doors and turned out the lights and threw myself into combat with him. I watched my Vampire pummel his for round after round as he frantically tried to escape. I knew that he wouldn't get out of it, and I watched it dawn on him as he stopped focusing his efforts on getting away and started to focus on the tiny chance that he might beat me in this encounter.
Futile. I deflected his blows and finally got through the last round of the battle. He was lying there, mortally wounded and completely at my mercy.
I didn't want it to end there. I had been chasing him for hours, he had to pay. Nobody messed with me or any of my crew like that and got away with it. I tied him up and prepared to give him the torso of his life.
That's right, nobody outside of the Godwars community knows what a torso is. Well, a torso is where, when you have an enemy lying mortally wounded in front of you, you tie him, blindfold him, gag him, cut off his arms and legs, break all his ribs, cut out his eyes, snap his spine, and shove a stake through his heart. Doing this doesn't help you whatsoever, but it hinders the crap out of your enemy, who can't get up, can't move, can't even see for hours.
So I torsoed him. Brutally. I laughed as he tried to get away. He was in a no-escape room, there was no getting away. I was midway through the torso when the internet suddenly died.
You know the internet dies because none of the commands you send get through. Suddenly there's just a big red flashing light and a black screen. Well, that and the sinking feeling that something is going to happen to you before you get back online.
I started shaking a little bit. My enemy was about to get up and walk away, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I ran to the office to try to get the internet back up, and upon entering I saw my little brother dicking around with his friend. I made the judgment as soon as I walked in. He had messed with the phone, killed the internet, and allowed my prey to escape.
I was deep in game mode still, and so my adrenalin filled body basically flew across the room, fist first, into my little brother's stomach.
He was still pretty small at the time, and I feel bad about it now. He doubled over and started crying, and I restarted the router and flew back to my room.
I logged in and prepared for the worst. The worst was presented to me. My enemy had escaped the full torso. He had survived with one arm and one leg, gotten back up, beaten my character within an inch of his life, then cut his head off. It had taken work, determination, and gallons of sweat to get the kills it took me to get there and it had just been stolen from me.
He had logged off already of course. He knew that I would just beat what he had taken from me back out of him. Every time he logged in from that day forward, he checked first to make sure I wasn't online. I wanted retribution. Sadly, I never got it. Instead, I just punched my brother. I don't think he ever even picked up the phone in the first place.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Drama of Christmas
It is Christmas Eve, I guess I should write down a Christmas story.
I played WoW back in 2005, and I finally achieved my High Warlord status on December 26th, the day after Christmas. Anybody who played World of Warcraft back in 2005 knows what getting High Warlord means, and how achieving it on the 26th means I should have given up my Christmas.
I didn't give up my Christmas. I just made myself a huge vat of drama to drink with it.
At the beginning of the Christmas week I knew that I would have to PvP through Christmas. It was my last week, my saga was finishing. I could feel the rewards that were coming for me at the end already. It had been a long battle, and it was almost finally over. All I had to do was beat the rest of the server one more week and I would be the High Warlord.
But that was the problem. This was Christmas week. I had already flaked on my family for Thanksgiving because of my WoW habit, and they weren't going to let me pull a repeat offence. Plans had been made, and I was obligated to visit my mom's house for Christmas. We lived in the same city, so I didn't have to leave behind my PvP for days or anything, but it was still gonna put a big 8 hour dent into my gaming.
So I tried to figure out some way that my character could continue PvPing whilst I hammed it up with the family on Christmas. Eventually I decided to ask a girl I met online to play Ayedee for me. She lived in Australia, and said it would be no problem as it wasn't even Christmas there. I was stoked, I had it all planned out.
I got a good 5 hour sleep that night, which was just about average considering the PvP hours I was holding. I gave the girl all my info so that she could take care of me while I was out, and I headed to a very akward Christmas. Remember, this was about 98% through my 3 months without a shower, I smelled a bit gamey. Still, it was a fun Christmas, I got a couple gifts, we had dinner, and I headed back to home base.
I took off my shoes, got comfy in my chair, and logged in.
This is going to sound maybe a tad bit sexist, but I just need to be real about this here. This is the problem with making plans with Australian chicks that play online games. You can't count on them to do any important shit in any important game when they're supposed to. Sure it's nice to have them around. They sound cute when they talk on the mic, they make female characters and flirt with the sea of nerdy dudes around them; useful purposes in their own right. If they're the ones that 39 other people are counting on for healing, or have to defend themselves against swathes of player enemies, or are supposed to play somebody's character on christmas, they suddenly choke and everyone suffers.
This was reiterated to me in a most brutal fashion, as when I logged in I discovered that nothing whatsoever had been done to my character while I had been away. There had been no PvP, there hadn't even been any logging in. It had been hours of prime PvP time, and I had been idle the entire time.
If I didn't need to get rank 1 on the server that week I wouldn't have worried, but this was my last week. If I didn't get rank 1 that week, it would have become harder and harder to convince people that I'd be finished soon. It would never happen. I needed to get more kills than anybody else on my side of the server, and I was 8 hours behind.
I started PvPing. Hard. The people that I had arranged PvP deals with on my side were furious about my disappearance. They couldn't slow down for me, I had to speed past them. There is no negotiating with PvPers. No matter how long they've faught with you, no matter how many times you epic'ly saved them impending doom, they will leave you behind. There is no room for slowing down, the rest of the server could breeze by you without you even knowing. Not to mention that my PvP group at the time had very little trust for eachother.
And so, Christmas night, when peace and love was supposed to sweep across the land with a soft breeze, I was pleading with my stubborn ass PvP mates who wouldn't slow a pace for me on Ventrilo, while murdering player after player in the game.
It was an Alterac Valley weekend, meaning that winning or losing in the Alterac Valley battleground gave extra honor points. I made it into a few good winning games, but I wasn't catching up kill-wise. Not by a long shot. I begged the leaders of the two opposing groups of PvPers to just let me have this. I didn't have the time in my life to keep PvPing, and physically I didn't think I could take any more of it anyways.
I forget the names of the two leaders of the opposing PvP groups, I shall call them BB and WW. BB had a long standing relationship with me as he had been raised in the same PvP group that I was. WW was normally opposing our group as we had started out, but I had a lot of friends in his crew and held some sway with what his group did. I knew that I would need the two of them to sleep for a couple hours or I would never be able to catch up, so I called for all of us to meet on Vent.
BB and WW hated eachother, and were both extremely suspicious. Neither wanted to sleep for fear that the other one would stay awake and take their spot, and it took a good deal of convincing, but I finally got them both to agree to sleep for about 4 hours. My chance had come.
WW logged off, and I waited for BB to log off too. I kept waiting. He didn't leave. I asked him what was up, and he said that he didn't want to sleep. He wanted to beat WW. He wanted to be done too.
I almost started crying. I explained to him again that if he didn't leave, I'd never be able to catch up. It didn't matter to him. He wanted, almost as badly as I did, to just finish this PvP mess forever. It was halfway through a pissy sounding plea that WW logged back in and saw BB still around PvPing.
Now there was no trust. Neither of them were going to stop. Not for me, not for anyone.
That night was one of the worst nights in my life. I begged, I screamed, and there was nothing that I could do. I wasn't going to make it. Still, I kept at it. I never once stopped PvPing from the minute I got back. It was into-a-game, out-of-a-game, and back again until the sun came up the next day. My roomates wished me good luck and went to work. Good luck wasn't going to help me. Nothing could help me. I was fucked.
That afternoon, 3 or so, BB and WW came to me together. I was surprised, wary... but I hoped beyond hopes that they did exactly what they did. They both agreed to sleep for a couple hours. In the middle of the day. For me. This time, they both left.
I tore the shit out of some players for the next 4 hours. I must have killed more people in those 4 hours than in the rest of the previous night. I knew I was tired, I knew I was hungry, and I knew that this was it. My only chance. I was dotting and shadowbolting and generally the biggest bad ass warlock in any AV I had ever taken part of in my life. I wish I had frapsed some of it, it was truly epic.
BB and WW came back, as prescribed, at exactly 7. We checked our honor together. I had caught up. I felt a weight that had buried down into my spine suddenly lift. I was removed from the world for a second in what can only be described as unmitigated bliss. I knew that finally, finally, without a doubt, it was almost over.
I couldn't stop, of course. I had to wait until 3am the next day for the honor of the week to tally, and if I stopped PvPing before then I'd fall behind again. So I kept at it, not even realizing that I had been awake since 9am the previous day. I just kept fighting and fighting, and then someone let me free with two words on vent: "honor's reset." It checked it, it had.
I quit the game that I was in. I hearthed my way to Kargath, mounted up, rode my warlock to the Ironforge gates, and passed out in my chair. The next day, I woke up refreshed, rejuvinated, and a High Warlord.
I think that night was the most stressful Christmas I'll ever have.
I played WoW back in 2005, and I finally achieved my High Warlord status on December 26th, the day after Christmas. Anybody who played World of Warcraft back in 2005 knows what getting High Warlord means, and how achieving it on the 26th means I should have given up my Christmas.
I didn't give up my Christmas. I just made myself a huge vat of drama to drink with it.
At the beginning of the Christmas week I knew that I would have to PvP through Christmas. It was my last week, my saga was finishing. I could feel the rewards that were coming for me at the end already. It had been a long battle, and it was almost finally over. All I had to do was beat the rest of the server one more week and I would be the High Warlord.
But that was the problem. This was Christmas week. I had already flaked on my family for Thanksgiving because of my WoW habit, and they weren't going to let me pull a repeat offence. Plans had been made, and I was obligated to visit my mom's house for Christmas. We lived in the same city, so I didn't have to leave behind my PvP for days or anything, but it was still gonna put a big 8 hour dent into my gaming.
So I tried to figure out some way that my character could continue PvPing whilst I hammed it up with the family on Christmas. Eventually I decided to ask a girl I met online to play Ayedee for me. She lived in Australia, and said it would be no problem as it wasn't even Christmas there. I was stoked, I had it all planned out.
I got a good 5 hour sleep that night, which was just about average considering the PvP hours I was holding. I gave the girl all my info so that she could take care of me while I was out, and I headed to a very akward Christmas. Remember, this was about 98% through my 3 months without a shower, I smelled a bit gamey. Still, it was a fun Christmas, I got a couple gifts, we had dinner, and I headed back to home base.
I took off my shoes, got comfy in my chair, and logged in.
This is going to sound maybe a tad bit sexist, but I just need to be real about this here. This is the problem with making plans with Australian chicks that play online games. You can't count on them to do any important shit in any important game when they're supposed to. Sure it's nice to have them around. They sound cute when they talk on the mic, they make female characters and flirt with the sea of nerdy dudes around them; useful purposes in their own right. If they're the ones that 39 other people are counting on for healing, or have to defend themselves against swathes of player enemies, or are supposed to play somebody's character on christmas, they suddenly choke and everyone suffers.
This was reiterated to me in a most brutal fashion, as when I logged in I discovered that nothing whatsoever had been done to my character while I had been away. There had been no PvP, there hadn't even been any logging in. It had been hours of prime PvP time, and I had been idle the entire time.
If I didn't need to get rank 1 on the server that week I wouldn't have worried, but this was my last week. If I didn't get rank 1 that week, it would have become harder and harder to convince people that I'd be finished soon. It would never happen. I needed to get more kills than anybody else on my side of the server, and I was 8 hours behind.
I started PvPing. Hard. The people that I had arranged PvP deals with on my side were furious about my disappearance. They couldn't slow down for me, I had to speed past them. There is no negotiating with PvPers. No matter how long they've faught with you, no matter how many times you epic'ly saved them impending doom, they will leave you behind. There is no room for slowing down, the rest of the server could breeze by you without you even knowing. Not to mention that my PvP group at the time had very little trust for eachother.
And so, Christmas night, when peace and love was supposed to sweep across the land with a soft breeze, I was pleading with my stubborn ass PvP mates who wouldn't slow a pace for me on Ventrilo, while murdering player after player in the game.
It was an Alterac Valley weekend, meaning that winning or losing in the Alterac Valley battleground gave extra honor points. I made it into a few good winning games, but I wasn't catching up kill-wise. Not by a long shot. I begged the leaders of the two opposing groups of PvPers to just let me have this. I didn't have the time in my life to keep PvPing, and physically I didn't think I could take any more of it anyways.
I forget the names of the two leaders of the opposing PvP groups, I shall call them BB and WW. BB had a long standing relationship with me as he had been raised in the same PvP group that I was. WW was normally opposing our group as we had started out, but I had a lot of friends in his crew and held some sway with what his group did. I knew that I would need the two of them to sleep for a couple hours or I would never be able to catch up, so I called for all of us to meet on Vent.
BB and WW hated eachother, and were both extremely suspicious. Neither wanted to sleep for fear that the other one would stay awake and take their spot, and it took a good deal of convincing, but I finally got them both to agree to sleep for about 4 hours. My chance had come.
WW logged off, and I waited for BB to log off too. I kept waiting. He didn't leave. I asked him what was up, and he said that he didn't want to sleep. He wanted to beat WW. He wanted to be done too.
I almost started crying. I explained to him again that if he didn't leave, I'd never be able to catch up. It didn't matter to him. He wanted, almost as badly as I did, to just finish this PvP mess forever. It was halfway through a pissy sounding plea that WW logged back in and saw BB still around PvPing.
Now there was no trust. Neither of them were going to stop. Not for me, not for anyone.
That night was one of the worst nights in my life. I begged, I screamed, and there was nothing that I could do. I wasn't going to make it. Still, I kept at it. I never once stopped PvPing from the minute I got back. It was into-a-game, out-of-a-game, and back again until the sun came up the next day. My roomates wished me good luck and went to work. Good luck wasn't going to help me. Nothing could help me. I was fucked.
That afternoon, 3 or so, BB and WW came to me together. I was surprised, wary... but I hoped beyond hopes that they did exactly what they did. They both agreed to sleep for a couple hours. In the middle of the day. For me. This time, they both left.
I tore the shit out of some players for the next 4 hours. I must have killed more people in those 4 hours than in the rest of the previous night. I knew I was tired, I knew I was hungry, and I knew that this was it. My only chance. I was dotting and shadowbolting and generally the biggest bad ass warlock in any AV I had ever taken part of in my life. I wish I had frapsed some of it, it was truly epic.
BB and WW came back, as prescribed, at exactly 7. We checked our honor together. I had caught up. I felt a weight that had buried down into my spine suddenly lift. I was removed from the world for a second in what can only be described as unmitigated bliss. I knew that finally, finally, without a doubt, it was almost over.
I couldn't stop, of course. I had to wait until 3am the next day for the honor of the week to tally, and if I stopped PvPing before then I'd fall behind again. So I kept at it, not even realizing that I had been awake since 9am the previous day. I just kept fighting and fighting, and then someone let me free with two words on vent: "honor's reset." It checked it, it had.
I quit the game that I was in. I hearthed my way to Kargath, mounted up, rode my warlock to the Ironforge gates, and passed out in my chair. The next day, I woke up refreshed, rejuvinated, and a High Warlord.
I think that night was the most stressful Christmas I'll ever have.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
how many months?
I guess I should explain why I call this blog "Months Without a Shower."
For a time, I was deep into the realm we call World of Warcraft. I played as an Undead Warlock, a class known back in early 2005 for being extremely squishy, weak, and easy to destroy 1v1 PvP ImO. I had waited a long, long time for this game. I remember the excitement I felt the day I found out it had been released. I took an extra long break from work to drive into the city and pick up my pre-ordered copy, and I stayed up all night leveling what I knew would turn out to become a God amongst men.
Ayedee, my warlock, was my main. My alts never made it past level 20. I had no patience for leveling another character, I simply wanted to make my warlock godly. The race to level 60, the maximum level at the time, was little more than a slight challenge for me, and I was elated to finally begin trying out the end-game dungeons to try and get my Dreadmist equipment. My character had incredible luck, it turned out. Most characters will attempt to beat dungeons many, many times before they win a roll on their class equipment. I got 7 of the 8 pieces of the set within 3 days. This was not from me trying to do it over and over again, this was because for some reason every time I went into a dungeon, I came out with a piece of my set. Old-school WoW players know what I'm talking about, and why this was lucky for me. Fuckin Scholo.
My new gear, my destruction build, and my warlock class that nobody wanted to play were the reasons I got into my guild. It was one of the top three raiding guilds on my server, ended up becoming one of the top horde raiding guilds in the US of A. I applied on a whim, and was accepted almost instantly. This became my entrance into the world of true end-game World of Warcraft.
It began with Molten Core every night for weeks, then evolved into Blackwing Lair. Player versus Environment action had its perks: badass equipment, a running crew, and most importantly for me, opportunities for other things to do in the game. This was how I got into Player versus Player (PvP).
Again, old-school WoW players know scores upon scores of info about the way PvP used to be. I was at a disadvantage simply because I was a warlock. Weak, squishy, and easy to read. All warlocks from my day knew to do was cast fear and spam shadowbolt, which was simply not a viable thing to do in anything besides large scale PvP. The second disadvantage was that I was a caster. In 2005 WoW PvP, casters were often frowned upon as the ultimate goal of PvP was to become High Warlord and get a crazy weapon. The caster weapons were crap. In comparison to a lot of the weapons my guild was finding in the end-game instances, about equal and not worth the effort.
So why did I take the PvP plunge and decide to shoot for High Warlord? Dunno. I was bored. I had a lot of free time on my hands as I had just gotten fired and still had a buttload of money saved from my 401k. So I did it.
In 2005, to achieve the desired rank of High Warlord, you had to PvP every single day of the week for 18 hours a day. There was no room for slacking off because you weren't fighting against a goal, you were fighting to beat every single player on the server. If you didn't get within the top ranks of the server for that week, it was basically like tacking on another two weeks of PvP to the end of your already busy schedule.
All in all, getting top ranks every week, High Warlord is achievable after about 3 months.
So that's what I did. I PvP'd every day of every week for three months straight. Not once did I shower. And in the end, I achieved my goal of becoming High Warlord on December 26, 2005. A week after that I quit playing wow, and haven't played seriously since. So what was the point?
The memories of those three months still make me smile to this day. For a while, I was a god. Forget the fact that I was playing a caster, or an underpowered class. People looked up to me, they saw my skills and it gave them hope that maybe they could win too, damn class restrictions to hell. They saw what I was doing and thought that maybe one day, they could do it too. They watched me play and it gave them hope.
I completely changed my life after World of Warcraft. I moved to a different city, started going back to school, and started getting my life back on track. An old friend of mine who had played WoW with me came to visit me one night and we went out for drinks. I'll never forget what he told me.
It had been months after I had quit playing. He was in Ogrimmar, the main city for the horde. One person asked in general chat who the best warlock on the server was.
Ayedee, was the reply.
For a time, I was deep into the realm we call World of Warcraft. I played as an Undead Warlock, a class known back in early 2005 for being extremely squishy, weak, and easy to destroy 1v1 PvP ImO. I had waited a long, long time for this game. I remember the excitement I felt the day I found out it had been released. I took an extra long break from work to drive into the city and pick up my pre-ordered copy, and I stayed up all night leveling what I knew would turn out to become a God amongst men.
Ayedee, my warlock, was my main. My alts never made it past level 20. I had no patience for leveling another character, I simply wanted to make my warlock godly. The race to level 60, the maximum level at the time, was little more than a slight challenge for me, and I was elated to finally begin trying out the end-game dungeons to try and get my Dreadmist equipment. My character had incredible luck, it turned out. Most characters will attempt to beat dungeons many, many times before they win a roll on their class equipment. I got 7 of the 8 pieces of the set within 3 days. This was not from me trying to do it over and over again, this was because for some reason every time I went into a dungeon, I came out with a piece of my set. Old-school WoW players know what I'm talking about, and why this was lucky for me. Fuckin Scholo.
My new gear, my destruction build, and my warlock class that nobody wanted to play were the reasons I got into my guild. It was one of the top three raiding guilds on my server, ended up becoming one of the top horde raiding guilds in the US of A. I applied on a whim, and was accepted almost instantly. This became my entrance into the world of true end-game World of Warcraft.
It began with Molten Core every night for weeks, then evolved into Blackwing Lair. Player versus Environment action had its perks: badass equipment, a running crew, and most importantly for me, opportunities for other things to do in the game. This was how I got into Player versus Player (PvP).
Again, old-school WoW players know scores upon scores of info about the way PvP used to be. I was at a disadvantage simply because I was a warlock. Weak, squishy, and easy to read. All warlocks from my day knew to do was cast fear and spam shadowbolt, which was simply not a viable thing to do in anything besides large scale PvP. The second disadvantage was that I was a caster. In 2005 WoW PvP, casters were often frowned upon as the ultimate goal of PvP was to become High Warlord and get a crazy weapon. The caster weapons were crap. In comparison to a lot of the weapons my guild was finding in the end-game instances, about equal and not worth the effort.
So why did I take the PvP plunge and decide to shoot for High Warlord? Dunno. I was bored. I had a lot of free time on my hands as I had just gotten fired and still had a buttload of money saved from my 401k. So I did it.
In 2005, to achieve the desired rank of High Warlord, you had to PvP every single day of the week for 18 hours a day. There was no room for slacking off because you weren't fighting against a goal, you were fighting to beat every single player on the server. If you didn't get within the top ranks of the server for that week, it was basically like tacking on another two weeks of PvP to the end of your already busy schedule.
All in all, getting top ranks every week, High Warlord is achievable after about 3 months.
So that's what I did. I PvP'd every day of every week for three months straight. Not once did I shower. And in the end, I achieved my goal of becoming High Warlord on December 26, 2005. A week after that I quit playing wow, and haven't played seriously since. So what was the point?
The memories of those three months still make me smile to this day. For a while, I was a god. Forget the fact that I was playing a caster, or an underpowered class. People looked up to me, they saw my skills and it gave them hope that maybe they could win too, damn class restrictions to hell. They saw what I was doing and thought that maybe one day, they could do it too. They watched me play and it gave them hope.
I completely changed my life after World of Warcraft. I moved to a different city, started going back to school, and started getting my life back on track. An old friend of mine who had played WoW with me came to visit me one night and we went out for drinks. I'll never forget what he told me.
It had been months after I had quit playing. He was in Ogrimmar, the main city for the horde. One person asked in general chat who the best warlock on the server was.
Ayedee, was the reply.
Game On
My name is ayedee, and I'm a gamer.
("hello ayedee")
I'm part of "that generation." One of the first Christmas presents I can remember was a Nintendo Entertainment System. Even as a small child I remember blowing frantically into the ends of my cartriges for the few minutes of Duck Hunt that my parents would let me enjoy before dinner. I would dust out the tip of my grey and red stock Nintendo blaster and feel the power that came with pulling a trigger that made a satisfying 'clang.' Then I would sit about 2 inches from the screen and still miss.
I've never been able to let go of the gaming world. The elation that plowed through my whole body upon recieving a Sega Genesis swathed in gift-wrap still gives me chills. Sonic spun through hoops for me, Tails would fly that extra inch... and Knuckles ruined it all by being able to simply climb up any wall in any Sonic game. In hindsight, I consider the boundryless Knuckles extremely overpowered.
The Playstation 1 and the Internet hit me at around the same time. Being part of a divorcee family, I had to keep the Playstation at Dad's house while Mom's house served as the Internet/Computer Game base. They both hold different, but fond, memories of my past. Final Fantasy 7 was a wonderful, epic, EPIC saga that I could never bring myself to finish. Similarly, I began plunging myself into the world of MUD's (Multi-User Dungeon): text-based online multiplayer RPG's that, while they failed to deliver the graphics, delivered the godly feel associated with killing another real person.
I could go deeply into detail describing every single facet of my gaming life, but that's why I created this blog. I wanted to have a place where I could share the epic wins and losses that have made up my life. Sure I have a real life, but sometimes I just need to retreat. The gaming world is where I retreat to, and it has never turned me away.
("hello ayedee")
I'm part of "that generation." One of the first Christmas presents I can remember was a Nintendo Entertainment System. Even as a small child I remember blowing frantically into the ends of my cartriges for the few minutes of Duck Hunt that my parents would let me enjoy before dinner. I would dust out the tip of my grey and red stock Nintendo blaster and feel the power that came with pulling a trigger that made a satisfying 'clang.' Then I would sit about 2 inches from the screen and still miss.
I've never been able to let go of the gaming world. The elation that plowed through my whole body upon recieving a Sega Genesis swathed in gift-wrap still gives me chills. Sonic spun through hoops for me, Tails would fly that extra inch... and Knuckles ruined it all by being able to simply climb up any wall in any Sonic game. In hindsight, I consider the boundryless Knuckles extremely overpowered.
The Playstation 1 and the Internet hit me at around the same time. Being part of a divorcee family, I had to keep the Playstation at Dad's house while Mom's house served as the Internet/Computer Game base. They both hold different, but fond, memories of my past. Final Fantasy 7 was a wonderful, epic, EPIC saga that I could never bring myself to finish. Similarly, I began plunging myself into the world of MUD's (Multi-User Dungeon): text-based online multiplayer RPG's that, while they failed to deliver the graphics, delivered the godly feel associated with killing another real person.
I could go deeply into detail describing every single facet of my gaming life, but that's why I created this blog. I wanted to have a place where I could share the epic wins and losses that have made up my life. Sure I have a real life, but sometimes I just need to retreat. The gaming world is where I retreat to, and it has never turned me away.
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