Thursday, February 20, 2014

Plaguelands - RAF Leveling - Steep Learning Curve - Quitting WoW - Kind Strangers

It's been a roller-coaster week in WoW-land for me.  I was ready to quit, had a great "we're all in this together" phased quest with a stranger, RAF-leveled an alt of Vier's, had our first mother-daughter spat in WoW, got my higher level tricked-out Elekk, filed my first help ticket after a hotfix rendered all sorts of "Your video device is not compatible" alarms, updated my drivers, rode floating clouds courtesy of Molim's abilities as a Priest, fought with a one-handed sword for the first time, gained some new spells and abilities, learned to work better as a same-level team with Molim, and, for kicks and giggles, watched Molim and her Dragon Mount switch in and out of shadow mode.

This post is about what I remember and screenshots from February 15 and 18 in WoW.  As usual, my memory is foggy and these are probably out of order, but, to the best of my recollection .... ... ...

The Battle for Andorhal
For the first time, I was ready to quit WoW and walk away.  It was these guys, Stickbone Berserker, [scroll down to look at the screenshots Red Bear] that pretty much did me in. They came in waves of 25 to 30 and once you figured you'd finished a group of them, turn around and there would be another wave.  I just wanted the waves of skeletons to stop, get to a safe place, log out, and never come back. I was completely and utterly overwhelmed.

Entering the Plaguelands
We had joined up with Fiona's Caravan and stopped at the Chillwind Camp.  First a visit to Uther's Tomb to pay our respects to the First Paladin.

High Priest Theldanis sent me to an abandoned crypt to collect some weapons.  This was a phased instance and Vier was unable to enter with me and assist so I was on my own.

On my own until I happened upon a level 37 Dwarf named Jormot fighting with some undead something-or-other, who had stolen the weapons we were to collect.  I helped Jormot kill the undead whatever, and backed away immediately to let Jormot know that I wasn't trying to steal his loot, just helping him out.

In the midst of my own battle with the undead, suddenly I had help.  After the kill, it was Jormot who backed away quickly to indicate his willingness to help and not steal my loot.  This was really, really, very cool. With no communication, either in vent or in the chat window, we were able to establish that we'd help each other.

I was very touched.  I think Jormot was a little surprised on one occasion when I noticed his health was way down, I cast a healing spell and brought him up to full health.  The one thing I ever wanted to do in WoW, be able to help someone else! Mission Accomplished.

Jormot ended up staying in the crypt to help me kill my last two whatever-they-were.  We had been joined by a third player who actually did steal one of my loots/quest objectives.  When Jormot saw that, even though I suspect he was finished himself, as he had been headed up the stairs to leave, he turned around and came back to me.  We went to the opposite end of the crypt away from the thief and finished my quest.  At the top of the stairs we waved to each other as he set off and I went back to join Vier.

At our stop at the Thondoril River, we ended up chasing after one of Fiona's boys, Gidwin Goldbraids, who was trapped in a spider web.  UGH more spiders!  [The white blob is Gidwin, encased in a spider web.  Read the text of the quest!]



After the cave with the spiders, I was to gather some plant things along the river.  I was fishing while waiting between 2 re-spawn points of the plants.  Vier had a notion that we should retreat to Goldshire, RAF level her Priest and carry on as a same-level team.  I fished while I waited for Vier to log out and then log back in as Molim.  We went to a quiet spot by a pond and used my "grant level" ability to bring Molim up to my level 39.  Back to the Plaquelands we went.

We were killing mobs of various kinds, gathering feathers, bear meat to feed someone or other and then the Opengut Behemoth.  

Around this time is when we had our first WoW spat.  Molim was frustrated that I kept wandering off in the wrong direction, more often than not right into a crowd of red-labeled bad guys.  I was frustrated because I kept looking around for Molim after a fight of mobs for a quest objective and I couldn't find her.

Molim, "I'm waiting over here where we have to go next."
Noritam, "But I don't know where we're going next".

When we finished venting our frustrations, I noticed that I was above level 40 and asked if I had to back to the Exodar to get my next higher level mount.  The answer was yes and off we went.

I thought my choice of mount would be easy, between blue, purple or grey, purple is the obvious choice.  BUT ... there was also a green option!

uh oh ... 

Much pondering until I noticed that the colour label referred to the colour of the Elekk's gear, not the Elekk itself.  The "purple" one was actually a sickly green coloured elekk with purple saddle and accoutrements. The "Green Great Elekk" was a purple elekk with green gear!  YaY!  I have my faster mount now!

Here we are with our new mounts and I'm trying to grab a screenshot with both of them rearing and trumpeting/whinnying at the same time.  No dice!  It's too quick of an interval between getting my elekk to trumpet and then hit the "screen capture" button at the same time as Molim got her horse to whinny!



Your video device is not compatible.


Molim can give us clouds to stand on so we can jump off the top of a tower [behind us in the screenshot below] and float to the ground instead of winding our way back down the spiral staircase.  That really comes in handy!  I think I hate spiral staircases as much as spiders in this game.


Catalysm Quest from the Opengut Behemoth called a Stitched Horror.  Swimming in Lake Mereldar to obtain 8 Active Liquid Plague Agents from water elementals.  The flask was cool, it shrank the water elementals so they were easier to kill after getting the sample.  Some of them also dropped some good loot.  We also swam around the bottom of the lake clicking on the fish, snails and crabs for the "Frederick's Fish Fancy" quest.


Level 42, new spell, increased reputation!


At the Light's Shield Tower with a one-hand sword and shield.  Look ma!  No red gloves! 


Ladybug Shoulders!


While I was sorting through my bags and getting on my new sword and shield, Molim was playing with some shadow spell and her mounts.  Here is a shot of her and her dragon mount in shadow mode.


Molim and Dragon mount out of shadow.

Yesterday, in real life, I took a "day off" and spent it colouring.  I was waffling between feeling good [remembering Jormot, Great Green Elekk] and feeling very low [spat with Molim, not being able to remember anything, learning with a cognitive impairment after living a life with an above-average intellect].

This foray into World of Warcraft effectively nullified my annual Seasonal Affective Disorder "January Blues", but I think they're catching up to me in February.  I absolutely hate not being able to remember things, constantly being disoriented, having a very narrow field of view and lacking any kind of situational awareness in game.

My daughter gave me a pep talk last night.  She advised me to go back and read the first post of this blog and realize how far I had come.  She told me that on the first day when I was RP walking, she had thought that maybe bringing me into WoW wasn't such a great idea if we were going to have to walk to level ninety!  That it took the better part of a year for her to level her first toon to max level and Noritam and Molim are half-way there after two and a half months.

This game is huge, the lore and back stories are almost twenty years old, I am not only learning to play this game, I'm learning to play computer games period.

So, once I get this posted and Molim gets her new fridge delivered, it's back at it.

What's going to happen first?  Molim and Noritam get to level 90? or Warlords of Draenor and free boost to 90 is dropped?

However we get there, after level 90 we can work on professions and get me some alts!  Maybe even get a new game ready computer, mouse and keyboard!!

Nor.

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