Children’s Week

There’s been a lot of commentary regarding the Children’s Week achievements, and I don’t have much to add. I didn’t complete the meta-achievement, and the one achievement that prevented me from doing so was “School of Hard Knocks”. Unlike a lot of people, I already have incomplete World Event achievements, so that Proto-Drake is never going to be mine. Thus I didn’t even try to complete this one.

This particular PVP requirement was always going to bring out the worst in people. There are stories of people co-operating to get it done, and other stories of people deliberately setting out to kill anyone with an orphan out on the Battlegrounds. Personally, I have no idea how the Battlegrounds work, I don’t know where to go or what to do to “cap” or return a flag, and I wasn’t going to start now. One very kind Guildie who knows more about PVP than I do did very kindly offer to run me through the Battlegrounds and “show me the ropes”, but now that my playtime is more limited I have far more things I’d rather be doing with my online time. But the offer was very much appreciated

Perhaps my lack of Merrymaker title allowed me to be a little more relaxed about this one. I felt hugely frustrated at Christmas-time when I did fail to achieve the title. The main cause of frustration was the PVP element, which I did try for. So I do sympathise with all those who tried and failed for this one.

I do think, however, that if Blizzard were to remove the requirement for School of Hard Knocks it would make this World Event achievement trivially easy. Nothing else in here was difficult or time consuming, unlike the others. It could all be completed within a few hours. I suppose I am lucky in that I am a member of a guild that runs instances quite a lot, and I managed to join an Utgarde Pinnacle group that blasted through on Normal mode just to get the achievement. I’m sure some people found that one as difficult as I find the PVP.

I will still like Blizzard to find some way of making some of these achievements not require PVP. I’ll reiterate again the suggestion made by Renata on the World of Warcast podcast – how about making it a requirement to complete all but one of the achievements, allowing those who don’t want to PVP to skip the PVP one, and those who can’t PVE to skip the instance one? It seems that Blizzard are trying to make the World Event achievements span the whole range of WoW content, and there are a lot of players who do not want to experience that whole range!

Is this the end for WoWMatrix?

In other news, Curse and WoWInterface have finally done what they’ve been threatening to do for ages, and blocked WoWMatrix from accessing any of their hosted files.

I use and love WoWMatrix. I love the “one click” updating of all my mods. I love that I don’t have to configure it in any way – it just works. It spotted all my installed mods, and needed no “fussing with”. I use it to search for new mods – after all, I’d rather have mods that update through WoWMatrix than not. There are only a very few mods that I update manually, and that’s because I don’t want to live without them, and they don’t update through WoWMatrix. It’s fair to say that I only internittantly check for updates of those mods.

So this morning I downloaded the Curse and WoWInterface updaters. I haven’t had much time to play with them yet, but my first impressions are that I will not find them as easy to use as WoWMatrix. And quite frankly, the fact that I will now have to use three different programs to update my UI mods, when up until yesterday I just used one, is a real inconvenience.

Both are limited by only providing updates for the Addons that they host. This means that there are a number of addons that they can’t identify when they initially scan your Addons folder, and both required some manual intervention from me to confirm which addons they should be able to update. To add to the confusion, there are some mods I have installed which are available on both sites, so I think I’ll need to go through and decide which site does the updates. To add even further to the confusion, the WoWInterface updater download page states that the product is no longer being updated, and a new one is being developed, and a quick search on the WoWInterface forums finds people being advised to use the Curse installer instead until the new one is ready, on the grounds that most mods on WoWI are also available on Curse! So why do I need both?

I think my best bet from here is to backup my existing addons, and remove them all. I’ll then use the Curse or WoWInterface updaters to re-install each one that I need. As there’s a new patch out I’ll drop down to the bare minimum that I need to survive for a short time, and gradually re-introduce the others. According to WoWMatrix I currently run 143 addons, so this might take some time! As long as I can get Clique working, I’ll be happy

I am concerned that both Curse and WoWInterface are talking about introducing a “Premium” service to use their updaters. I don’t want to be forced to pay to use a service that is a less pleasant user experience than the free WoWMatrix. I have read the arguments on both sides, and I sympathise with Curse and WoWInterface, but at the end of the day I want an easy to use product that works without intervention, and only WoWMatrix has delivered that so far.

Why can’t Curse and WoWInterface come together to provide a rival to WoWMatrix that people will use because it is better, not because they feel forced to? Not to produce two products, both of which do less than half the job, but one single product that works as easily as WoWMatrix. That is the true spirit of competition.

I am prepared to pay for products and services that I find useful. I paid for the full Carbonite before Blizzard changed the rules on UI mod authors not being allowed to charge for premium content. I have sent donations to UI mod writers of those mods I find useful. I would pay for a single product to update all my WoW addons easily as well. But I wouldn’t pay for either the Curse updater or the WoWInterface updater in their current state.

It’s time for 3.1

I think quite a few of us were caught by surprise by patch 3.1 arriving this week. I certainly don’t feel like I’ve done enough reading into my final talent spec for my dual spec, and I haven’t made any glyphs yet in order to make a killing on the AH as people frantically stock up. Somehow I don’t think I’ll ever become a WoW millionaire! And I haven’t read as much as I could have about the changes to druid healing, and in particular the big changes to Lifebloom.

Whilst I read blogs and listen to podcasts that talk about upcoming changes, I don’t go out of my way to test things. I have not set foot on the PTR, and I like it that way. Oftentimes a change will be reported as a nerf, and then not have as big an impact on the game as expected when it goes live. Things change so much on the PTR that I’d rather focus on playing the real game, and cope with the changes when they happen.

There’s a nice write-up on the Rolling HoTs blog with some testing that Sylly has done by changing her rotation before the patch hit. This gives me hope that my healing style will not need to change too dramatically, and will remain a primarily pro-active style. I’m at work today, so I hope that the servers will be back up and operational by the time I get home. I won’t be raiding tonight. I’ll be sorting out my main and dual specs, and making sure all my UI mods work.

For any other druids out there, like me, who don’t feel prepared for the 3.1 patch, I’d like to recommend the excellent Restokin list of resources for all druids in 3.1 – I’m going to be finding that very useful I think

The Leaves are Back

We had a Naxx 25 run last night, so it was the end of my brief flirtation with Moonkin dps, and a very welcome return to the comfort and familiarity of my branches and leaves

I’ve thought a bit more about what made me uncomfortable with the whole moonkin thing, and I think it’s the competitive nature of dps. I know it doesn’t have to be competitive, but I have a very strong competitive streak (my husband won’t let me play Monopoly any more!), and I found myself quite disappointed that I wasn’t putting out more damage.

As a healer it’s easy to keep my competitiveness at bay. Everyone knows healing meters are fundamentally flawed and not to be relied upon, and as long as people are staying alive, and my performance in the meters is comparable with the other healers I am quite happy.

For some reason I felt differently about dps. I felt I should be doing better. I felt that I ought to contribute more. Some of it is obviously gear shortages, as I’m still mostly wearing my healing gear for Moonkin form. Some of it is just inexperience showing (one boss fight it took me half the fight to get in range to cast my little tree friends, which will have lost a lot of valuable dps time). I’m sure it will come with practice, and as I still intend to has a dual spec of Moonkin with patch 3.1 eventually hits, I’m sure I’ll get more practice. I think I need to lower my expectations a little of how much I can contribute as a Moonkin, at least in the short term, but I still feel much more valuable as a healer.

I’m sure when dual specs are implemented there will be some people who find themselves happy in either of their selected specs, and able to switch whenever needed. For me, I suspect I’ll be a tree as much as possible, keeping the moonkin option for solo farming or for those times when I want to do something with friends who already have enough healing.

The Dark Side of the Moonkin

I’ve been running a few 5-man instances with a group of friends from my guild recently, and it’s been great fun. I think I enjoy 5-man instances more than 10 or 25. They’re just that bit more “intimate”. I love to be able to joke around in TS, and not take things too seriously.

One of the chaps in the group also plays a healer as his main. We’ve done some runs with him playing his dps Paladin so that I could heal, but he really enjoys healing and would like to play his healer more. So I said I’d have a go at playing dps instead, and for me that meant Moonkin!

With the help of another guildie I installed the Talented UI mod to make it easier to switch my specs around (I still plan to raid Resto), selected new Glyphs, dug a few pieces of gear with +hit on them out of the bank, and headed over to Moonglade to have a little chat with my trainer. Some gold changed hands, and I was suddenly a level 80 n00b!

My first impressions were that it wasn’t so bad. I still need to learn a bit more about spell rotations, and I needed to be a bit more aware of the strats than when I play healer. Healer is easy – I just need to know where to stand and who to heal. DPS is a bit more complicated as I need to know where to stand and who needs to die first. I don’t have a great memory for strats, so I’m sure I did loads of things wrong, but we got through Heroic HoL and a CoT timed run. I was pleased to be out-dpsing the tank, according to Recount, but I think I need to tweak my gear and my technique if I want to produce more dps.

I warned my friends that they might not want me to play Moonkin too much, as I might love it and decide not to heal on raids any more. I didn’t enjoy it *that* much, but it’s certainly something I’d do again in order to be able to group with friends. Providing they’ll put up with me, of course!

Oh the Irony!

I was noodling around in the game during my daughter’s nap a few days ago, and decided it was about time I completed my Explore Northrend achievement. So I headed on up to Icecrown and the Storm Peaks and flew around until this happened:

(Yes, I’ve still got that funny “fading” problem with my screenshots.)

When I returned to Dalaran I noticed that I had new mail, and when I looked in the nearest mailbox I found this:

Look at the title of this blog! Read about why I am a permanently lost Druid! And see why I rolled around laughing when I read this mail.

My friends already know who to ask for directions. And it’s not me!

It’s a pretty tabard though

Lil Game Hunter

I’ve managed to have a few evenings to myself recently, and as I was fairly close to having the 75 non-combat pets required for the Lil Game Hunter achievement I thought I would get on and farm for a few of the rarer pets. I’ve been very lucky with drops, and not needed to spend more than a couple of evenings farming in any particular area for the drop. And I’ve managed to bag myself a Captured Firefly, a Crimson Whelpling, and the Disgusting Oozling. Yay! So that got me to 74 pets.

As I’m not a great farmer of rep, I’d never bothered with Sporeggar reputation. A guildie advised me that at 80 I ought to be able to stealth through the Underbog and collect Sanguine Hibiscus, and I was pleased to discover he was right! I could stealth through the ground floor of the Underbog, picking up any Hibiscus I saw, and usually got 5 or 6 each time. Stealth back out, reset the instance and start again. Five times per hour.

My guildies were a little surprised when this happened:

(I did say I’m not good at farming reputations, didn’t I? The 10 Exalted achievement was an unexpected bonus!)

Then, after hastily gathering the 30 glowcaps (why didn’t I pick these up whilst I was camping the firefly?!), this happened:

And my guildies understood why I had suddently felt the urge to work on an obscure reputation from the last expansion

(Don’t know why the achievement is so faded in that screenshot, by the way, sometimes my UI mod just doesn’t capture the moment accurately. Must be lag or something /shrug)

And here’s my cute little fawn. I really love the way she bounds around after me

I understand there are loads of new pets coming in with the 3.1 update and the Argent Tournament. I wonder if there’ll be a new achievement for 100 pets!

How do you balance WoW and parenthood?

I’ve just read Phaelia’s announcement over at Resto4Life that she is expecting her first child, and thus withdrawing from the blogging community.  It’s quite a shock, and she will be greatly missed. Her site has provided a fantastic resource to all Resto druids, with guides and advice aplenty. I’ve spent a lot of time over there, learning how to play my druid even better. I’m even the proud owner of two Resto4Life T-shirts

Phae’s post made me cast my mind back to Summer 2007, when I was expecting my first child, and my husband and I had no idea what was ahead of us. At the time we were playing WoW on the US servers, where we had a regular 10-man group working towards clearing Karazhan. All my husband and I knew was that once the baby was born, we’d probably lose out on our evenings for quite some time, and we didn’t know if we’d be able to raid again. So we warned our raiding partners to count us out of all plans after the baby arrived.

My memory is still quite fuzzy when it comes to our baby girl’s newborn days, but I do remember we shared to night-time duties for some time. I would go to be about 8pm, leaving my husband in charge as late as he could stay awake (usually 1 or 2am). He’d then come to bed, and whenever the baby next needed a feed would be when I would get up for the day. Thankfully our little one was pretty good at night sleeping from quite early on, and I could usually feed her at some hour in the morning (usually 4am ish), and get her back to bed for a few hours more sleep. I, of course, was then wide awake. Prime WoW playing time! I used this time to level my new EU druid all the way to 70.

My husband and I were both keen to get our evenings back as soon as possible. I wish I knew whether anything we did actually contributed to the way things are now, but we did manage to get a good strong bedtime routine in place from quite early on. I think by the time our baby girl was 6 months old we were in  a position to play WoW in the evenings again, and potentially raid.

Fast forward to today, and our baby girl has blossomed into an active toddler. Thankfully she is still a great sleeper. She’s in bed about 6.30pm, and then my husband and I can eat our main meal and have the evening to ourselves. I try to get all my chores done during the day, where possible with baby girl “helping” me, as she loves being involved in the stuff that I do. This means that when evening rolls around, all the work is done, and I can relax. It’s important for all parents to get some “you” time, and for, that’s my WoW time.

I certainly play a lot less WoW than I used to. Those all-day all-night weekend sessions are most certainly a thing of the past. But on the plus side, I can still play more WoW than I expected to. The great thing about WoW is that there is plenty of content for solo play, so those times when I was online at ungodly times in the morning I could still feel that I was progressing in the game. And now we’re settled into a great routine I can attend my guild raids, and play in the evenings when other people are online.

So how do I balance WoW and parenthood? My first rule is that I never play WoW during the day in front of my daughter. I manage this pretty well, with the only exception so far being the “Love is in the Air” event where I did log on every hour to give a guard a love token. That doesn’t really count as “playing” in my book! I also have a rule that all my household chores must be finished before I log in in the evenings. Work first, then play, that’s the way it works. And finally, I am blessed to be in a really understanding guild. Whilst I haven’t had to do it yet, I know there may be a time that I need to AFK during a raid or even leave to deal with a small person. My guild is made up of many parents, and I know all I would need to do is tell them I had to deal with my daughter, and there would be no hard feelings.

How do you balance WoW and parenthood?

Fool for Love

The “Love is in the Air” world event was active for just under a week, and I managed to complete all the required elements to gain my “the Love Fool” title on Sunday afternoon, one day before it all finished. I didn’t manage to get my Perma-Peddle pet, but I managed to get everything else (including four black dresses and four picnic baskets!).

My thoughts on this world event:

I managed to do all of it solo, apart from the Bouquet of Ebon Roses, which I managed to duo with my husband’s level 80 Warlock. I liked that there was nothing required that needed a full group, or more. I enjoy logging on and just noodling around on my own for a bit

The PVP element was entirely achieveable, although I doubt people liked me joining an Arathi Basin fight, running for the Blacksmith, pitying my Fool and then AFK-ing out. I still don’t like that there is a mandatory PVP element to all these meta-achievements, and I think it breeds bad PVP behaviour, like mine.

Everything was very random – I spent the whole weekend logging in once every hour to see if I could get the items I needed. Thankfully I did (well, apart from the pet), but I’m sure there are frustrated people out there that didn’t.

It needed a lot of bag space, and I ended up with a whole load of leftover stuff. I did think about leaving it in the bank for next year, but last night I came to my senses and just deleted it all!

On the whole I enjoyed the event. Children’t Week next, and having had a peek ahead at the achievements for that I am not looking forward to it. It’ll be the PVP requirements that I don’t do, I’m sure.

An Achieving Night

Logged on last night with just two Elders to visit to complete all the requirements for my Elder title. And according to the most excellent DruidKitty guide to Elders, I was hopeful I could stealth my way to both of them. In the end a guildie came along to help show me the way (my ability to get lost is pretty well known in my guild now, and they try to look after me as best they can!). We managed to sneak our way to both the Utgarde Keep and the Nexus Elders, and I earnt my “Elder” title. Yay

Following the “Merrymaker” disappointment, I’m trying not to get too obsessed with completing all the World Event achievements, but I do feel that the Lunar festival is a very druid-oriented festival, and I think it’s appropriate that I, as a druid, bear the Elder title. I also think it plays to our strengths, with a lot of the achievements being made a lot easier by our ability to sneak. I hate PvP, but will quite happily sneak in and out of the Horde capital cities when the need arises

By the time I’d finished, it was almost bedtime, so I thought I’d head down into the Dalaran sewers and waste one lure trying to fish for the rat pet down there. I’ve been levelling my fishing in the sewers – I find it helps to have another goal, as well as trying to the pet. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve spent down there, but I’ve managed to get my fishing up to 440 so far, so it’s been quite a while. Anyway, with only 48s left on my lure I was amazed to see the thing I’ve been chasing for so long – yes, my very own giant rat pet.

I went to bed a happy druid last night