Coming up short

I missed it. With only 22% left to hit Lieutenant General, or Rank 11, I missed it by 2%. I knew I had my work cut out for me when Discovery Travel & Living sent me an e-mail last week and I had to spend four or five days working on my vlog. I tried to grind the last two days in a desperate attempt to make 250k honor (I had 41k on Wednesday, which was the last day I played) in two days which I felt would've pushed me to the next rank. I managed to grind out 91k on Monday, but fell short on Tuesday because... sigh. I don't know. I could've made it. I know I could've made it if I played two or three more hours. But I had to take breaks to avoid infuriating Niisha. Now I'm short by a mere 2%.

I can't explain how utterly depressing that is. Niisha says it's fine and that I'm assured of Lt.Gen. this week. But I already know that. I thought I was assured Lt.Gen. last week. Making rank is a very fulfilling way to keep on grinding. On the other hand, falling short is very, very, very disheartening. Finally getting my Black War Wolf would've made the grind worth it. That's why Centurion is such a crap rank. There's nothing to look forward to but a stupid battle standard. If I had known I wouldn't make it, I wouldn't have ground out the last two days and should've just taken it easy. It's my fault. I shouldn't have napped. I napped twice. Maybe I should've played while my video was rendering. I don't know. Two or three hours somewhere during the week would've done it. Now I have to grind again, and I won't even get to enjoy my epic mount with Niisha, who suspended her account temporarily until she gets employment.

Sigh. It's 4am in the morning and I can't sleep. I keep thinking about how I should've put in a few games throughout the week just to move forward by 2%. I don't want to log on to WoW, either, because seeing that 98% on my progress bar makes me absolutely sick. It's ironic because I know I have to log in and grind otherwise I'll drop rank, which will be even worse. I'm so angry and frustrated right now I can't explain it. Last Monday, I was at the INXS presscon and was supposed to be the next person in line when the organizers said they'd take only one more question. It was so frustrating considering some of the writers asked the dumbest, most useless questions. Sigh. It's like missing the train by a few seconds after stopping to tie your shoelaces going up the stairs. I can't begin to explain how absolutely frustrated I am. To anyone who's ever ground for rank, this is laughable. I'm only Rank 10, after all. Learn2grind. I just needed to let it out. Now, hopefully, maybe, I can sleep.

Strength and Honor

Anyone who knows me and WoW probably know of my PvP addiction. Back on Malygos, I had very little interest in raiding (much to the chagrin of some of my guildies) and put most of my efforts into PvP. Before we had to leave the server, I hit Rank 12, which was a lot of work because Malygos was a PvE server, and Battleground games were somewhat in short supply. I was happy to find that ranking up is much is easier on Stormscale than it was back on Malygos... the CP output of an entire faction is very high, so there's relatively good rank progression at lower levels even with little combat. I remember playing hours every day for a week just trying to hit Sergeant (Rank 3) before I hit level 50. In comparison, in Stormscale, hitting Sergeant is a breeze. A few hours in a week would do it.

Of course, it gets progressively harder at higher ranks, and solo or PUG can be real painful. This is where groups can help. Playing Battlegrounds with a pre-set group is probably the most efficient way to grind for honor if you're chasing rank. The twist is, some players take the grind so seriously that most have lost sight of what we're after: honor. Back on Malygos, I crossed paths with someone "in line" to become High Warlord when he removed my brother from a pre-set to make room for someone else who was higher ranked (and, according to his reasoning, needed the group more). It wasn't even a polite removal from group. The person just kicked my brother without warning. Even in war, I've always thought, there are manners. That same person would AFK out (before the deserter debuff was implemented) out of games that lasted more than 20 minutes, citing that it was "inefficient honor". The unfortunate thing is, there are many people like him, even in Stormscale. I thought I got lucky once, getting into a group with the "Warlord Group". They would ask for your class and rank, rarely allowing lower-ranked players to run with them. It was somewhat of a shock to me (no, not really) that, when faced with an Alliance pre-set (the "Marshal Group"), they would communicate with the opponents through Vent or IM and decide the outcome of a game. In games where the Alliance would win, the Horde would farm HKs and vice versa. It was cheap, unsportsmanlike, and was anything but honorable. I have to confess that I took advantage of it and just rolled with the games as they came. I had lost my perspective on things that time. Of course, as soon as one of their crew came on, I had to take the boot, which was perfectly fine by me and I pugged it the rest of that week.

It was an incredible thrill, then, that I found a group of people who actually believed in playing the decent game. People who didn't care what your rank was -- only that you play your best, and that you listen (and sometimes talk) on Vent. People who refused to fix matches and afk out of Battlegrounds. There was also a covenant which one could enter, which was to wear Herod's Shoulder until it was replaced by Rank 13 gear (clothies would wear Whitemane's Chapeau). The idea brought the fun back into PvP for me. It felt good. Crush Alliance, not cavort with them. I think, when the servers come back on after maintenance, I might pay Herod a little visit. If you play on Stormscale and would like to have some fun with PvP, join the 'hordepvp' channel. Good times.

best girlfriend... ever.

Niisha bought me a Totem of the Storm for a whopping 300g yesterday. Well, technically, I bought it myself from the Everlook auction house. But she gave me the money for it, even though I protested (half-heartedly, I confess) that it was too expensive. For the same amount, she could have bought herself a BoE Prophecy set piece from the guild bank. I can't say enough how much that girl takes care of me. Back on Malygos, she paid for my first mount, a blue skeletal horse. On my hunter, she bought me a Precisely Calibrated Boomstick as soon as I turned level 43 (it's how we met Babykoy, coincidentally a fellow Filipino on Malygos) and surprised me with a Dwarven Hand Cannon for my birthday, which she got for 500g on the AH. She had been looking to get a Core Marksman Rifle crafted, but Malygos has a relatively small population, and you couldn't find those things on the trade channel like you sometimes do on the bloated Stormscale. Now, as Stormanjin, she gave me Darkmoon Card: Twisting Nether for my PvP craze, and throws me the occasional 200-300g when she goes over her money threshold. Did I mention she plays World of Warcraft? Yeah, so there. My girlfriend, a real live Pussycat Doll, is better than yours.

Newsflash! Niisha just got her new blog, aptly titled Shirts by Niisha (where do you think she gets all that gold?). Check it out!

to become that which we hate the most...

Blizzard recently announced the most shocking news that will come with the release of the Burning Crusade: Horde Paladins and Alliance Shamans. Up until the announcement, those would have been something of an oxymoron, as the Paladin class was exclusive to the Alliance and the Shaman class was exclusive to the Horde. I felt it threw away a good measure of Warcraft lore (the backstory feels so contrived), and homogenized the factions. Blizzard has stated that it allows them to focus on developing the classes more fully, rather than as mere counterpoints to each other. It's a pretty good reason, but it doesn't mean it doesn't stink.

At any rate, I always thought the Judgment tier 2 armor was pimp (see concept art above). It has this whole Azrael thing going for it, and looks about as badass as the Ten Storms. I'd always thought that the only reason I'd make a paladin, other than to gaily bubble hearth, was to wear pimp Azrael armor. Well, now I actually can, without having to switch to the other side, and doing so will also likely preserve my raid spot. Either that, or I'll reroll an Orc Shaman.

the gathering storm

Welcome to my first blog entry detailing my adventures in Azeroth. I'm a huge fan of Blizzard's games, having been an avid fan of the award-winning Starcraft and the Warcraft III RTS games. I even bought one of the five Collector's Edition Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos boxes that arrived in the Philippines when it came out some years ago. When World of Warcraft was announced, I was determined to be one of the first to get the game locally, and had hopes of getting the Collector's Edition when it was released. Unfortunately, unlike Warcraft III, it didn't have simultaneous International release and I ended up having a friend who was working in the U.S. at the time buy a couple of regular ones for me at the local Best Buy. By that time, all Collector's Edition WoW were sold out.

Once I got my hands on it, though, me and my incomparable Niisha were hooked. World of Warcraft is an incredible MMORPG that has exploded into the gaming scene. With over six million users to date, it's Blizzard's most successful game ever and one of the most popular games in history. Over a year later, Aila and I have each had three level 60 (currently the highest level attainable in the game) characters. A couple of months ago, we moved from our original PvE server Malygos to the PvP server Stormscale, starting new toons from level 1. In this blog, I'll be talking about the travails and triumphs of my Troll Shaman character Stormanjin (pronounced as "Storm Engine", hence the blog name).