Mists of Pandaria Wishlist

As we reach the midpoint of the expansion, there are some interesting changes on the horizon. 5.3 is already in the works and has a lot of quality of life changes. After that should be the Orgrimmar raid patch. On top of all of this, the game changing feature that Ghostcrawler had mentioned a while ago still hasn’t been announced. I’m wondering if the latest changes to allow certain scenarios cross faction are a hint at what is to come.

Speculation aside, there are a few loose ends that I’m hoping they tie up before the expansion ends. These are generally minor plot related things, so I’m hoping they don’t get swept by the wayside as bigger content, like the overthrowing of Garrosh, take center stage. Anywho, here’s my wishlist!

1) Resolution to Chen Stormstout’s family reunion

If you quest through dread wastes you get to see Chen finding out what happened to his family, or what is left of them. The ending of Stormstout Brewery also leaves what happens with Uncle Gao fairly ambiguous….peppers! What a lot of people may not know is that if you get your rep with the tiller Ella up, she sends you on a quest to have Chen try one of her brews. He ends up enjoying it so much he invites her to come live in the brewery and join the Stormstouts. This is especially touching because both of Ella’s parents had passed away.

So! I want to see what happens! I want some REAL resolution for Chen and his family! I have no doubt he’ll be appearing in future patches to help with the siege but considering the situation with the brewery and the ambiguous ending for some of his family (the guy in Amber is clearly still alive!) it would be great to have a final questline to see his full dreams realized and his family reunited.

2) Let’s have a wedding!

Throughout the tillers questlines and raising the friendship rep, it’s clear that a couple of the tillers ladies start to develop small crushes on ol’Yoonie. It would be great if there were a questline to culminate the friendship storyline and help one of the pandaren women and Yoon find true love.

The entire Tillers questline was eerily reminiscent of the Harvest Moon games. One of the biggest parts of that series was finding a wife/husband to woo. So it’d be nice if you could speak with one of the tillers ladies at max friendship and find out that she has a big’ol crush on farmer Yoon. Then, following some more questlines to help them talk to each other more, start planning and gathering items for a wedding in Halfhill!

3) Continue the farming traditions.

We’re not going to be staying in Pandaria forever. As the next expansion launches, I wonder just how many people will still venture to another continent to use their farms. It would be great if there were an expansion ending quest from the tillers where they invite you to continue their farming traditions in other lands as an official representative.

This opens up the possibility of giving players a run down, empty area of land on whatever new planet *coughArgus* we end up at and working hard to build it into a new farm. So say you find this patch of relatively safe land. You start clearing the rocks, gathering materials, and building a small farmhouse. It still follows the original farming theme but allows more customization. As for seeds? Surely there could be a questline to broker with the area’s population to gain access to new planting materials.

I LOVED the addition of farming in MoP. I would like to see it become a feature of the game itself rather than just an expansion.

4) A pet battle daily hub.

I discussed this in an earlier post but as people move out of Pandaria it would be super to have an area in Azeroth that featured a pet battle daily hub. Putting it in Azeroth would also allow for lower level alts to complete the dailies as well.

5) A Klaxxi pet.

Okay, maybe not a Klaxxi since they’re sentient humanoids. (Even  though we get the hopling, sporeling sprout, etc.) but maybe our big Kunchong buddy from the daily quests could leave us a baby kunchong pet as a thank you gift for essentially saving the Mantid race from extinction.

6) Make Taran Zhu shut up.

This one is pretty self explanatory. Seriously, make the guy shut up. I’m tired of his smarmy lectures all the time. One of the biggest positives to MoP ending will be not having to see this guy anymore.

7) No Med’an ever.

Please, please, PLEASE do not ever put this kid in the game. PLEASE.

8) If they’re going to bring Illidan back to life, bring Aegwynn back too.

Seriously. If the limits of death do not matter in the Warcraft universe then pleasing the playerbase by bringing Aegwynn back should be a trifle. Aegwynn died so that Med’an could live on as a terrible character and that’s a damned shame.

9) Bring the Lorewalkers to the main continents.

Given Cho’s thirst for knowledge and love of spreading history, I fail to see why he wouldn’t open up a branch of the lorewalkers on the other continents and even invite other races to be founding members. Think about all the great lore areas in EK, Kalimdor, and Northrend there are. This would be especially cool if they added small lore items that played the cinematic movies from the original warcraft games.

A lot of newer players are not sure where to start when it comes to the history of the game. Solution to this? Put the game’s history IN THE GAME for them to find. A tossed aside crown item inside the throne room of Lordaeron that, when clicked on, plays the cinematic of when Arthas returned would just be amazing.

10) A FREAKIN’ CORGI PET COME ON NOW WHY IS THIS NOT IN GAME YET?

PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE KNOWS I WANT ONE IN GAME SO I’M STARTING TO TAKE IT AS A PERSONAL INSULT THAT THERE’S NOT ONE AVAILABLE YET.

Whew! So that’s my wishlist! What would you all like to see?

The Issue with Alliance Lore

Okay, before I get into this I want to preface – I do NOT believe there are any intrinsic biases against the alliance in this game. I do NOT believe in horde favoritism. However, I do believe there is a difference in the types of lore both sides get that contributes to an overall lacking feeling of depth of the allianceside questing. This is strongly opinion based, and people are sure to feel differently than I do but please do not take this as me attacking either side.

ANYWHOZZLE. I’ve been taking a vacation from my alliance main and have spent some time in Pandaria on my troll druid. I’ve leveled several characters allianceside through Pandaland and I used to consider myself a player of both sides, but I hadn’t quested enough to back this up in the recent expansion. There is so much that goes on between both sides during the questing experience and you never get the full story unless you do everything. This was especially true of the new cataclysm lowbie leveling quests.

Certain areas of Pandaria are largely the same regardless of the faction you play. But other zones, specifically Jade Forest and Krasarang, are strikingly different both in tone and content. The quests are mostly the same (“I want you to kill 10 mogu”) but the overall tone is vastly different.

I’ve had an issue with alliance lore that I couldn’t quite put my finger on for the longest time. It was as I was questing through Jade Forest on my horde alt that my grievances began to take shape. What was previously intangible to me started fading into view until finally I had it – a fleshed out gripe about my alliance lore issues. I was consulting with a friend of mine at the time and worked out these issues as I was talking to her. (Yes, Bells, it was you!)

When I think of the horde I think of passion, strength, fervor, and character depth. This is the faction that brings such great characters as Sylvanas, Baine, and Vol’jin. When I think of the alliance I think of honor, compassion, pride, and unity. One this side we have people like Jaina, Tyrande, and Magni Bronzebeard.

Now here’s the thing – both sides have done terrible things in their past. There’s absolutely no doubt about it. For all the sanctimonious preaching of the alliance – there is a dark history lurking there. But here’s the difference between the two factions – the horde acknowledges their moral grey area and runs with it. The alliance does not. The alliance does absolutely everything it can to appear as the justified, morally righteous cause in an otherwise war-torn world. Honor above all!

And there, my friends, is the issue. Honor is fascinating for a while but um, being the good guy all the time? It’s boring. It’s really, really, REALLY boring. People tend to wonder why the horde faction leaders get more in depth storylines?

For example, Vol’jin – the guy has always had a morally grey compass. He does what he feels is best for his people and isn’t afraid to tell someone to expect a dagger in their back. Sometimes he doesn’t even warn them. Another example is Baine – who is the most noble of the horde leaders but rightly encourages the slaughter of the Grimtotem.

Now let’s compare this to an alliance faction leader like, oh, say, Velen? Remember that guy? He’s the draenei prophet that sits on his butt in the Exodar all day. They have built Velen in such a way (even to the point of retconning previous lore) that he is a pinnacle of all that is good and pure in the world. He’s so good and in with the light that he and his people are the most ambiguous when it comes to open hostilities with the horde. They fight, to be sure, but it’s been made clear that it’s not their battle and rather one of the alliance they made when the night elves saved them.

So they have built Velen to be this champion of righteousness and good. And because of that – they can’t do ANYTHING with him except trot him out every now and then to give nebulous “prophecies” during the gatherings of the alliance leaders. His horde counterpart would likely be Lor’themar Theron – leader of the blood elves. A leader who has had to fight off the legacy Kael’thas left for his embattled people and is now taking center stage in the alliance/horde conflicts in Pandaria.

Velen just sits in the Exodar forever. Because he’s a force for good. He CAN’T be used in a way that would tarnish that reputation. Who else has had this treatment? Starts with an “M” ends with an owlbearcat outfit. Yep, Malfurion. Now he’s a force for neutral good, so he’s off the map as well.

This is the essence of the alliance. They are the faction force for good. Because of this, there is rarely a moral grey area for them to engage in during their storylines. The quests in Jade Forest force feed you the narrative that the alliance is in Pandaria for the greater good. We’re there to stop the horde. The horde is evil and enslaving Pandaren children! THEY’RE JUST SO DAMNED EVIL, AND YOU’RE JUST SO DAMNED GOOD YOU GOOD DO-GOODER GUY! You should feel great for being such a good person!

Meanwhile during the horde quests you are actively engaged in the faction war. It makes no qualms implying that the horde will wipe out the alliance and is willing to use any means, Pandarian locals included, necessary. A couple of the horde scouting party actively express their dislike of the Hozen but claim they are tools for the horde war machine. That right there? That’s messed up. But it makes for a hella good story and character development.

Meanwhile the alliance encounter the Jinyu and something something saving a race from being wiped out by the hozen. Yes, that’s the storyline for your character. Your character has appeared with the alliance in the nick of time to save these fish people who are otherwise going to be purged by the hozen. Conveniently, the hozen are also allied with the horde so it serves both purposes. You get to save a people AND staunch the horde war effort in Pandaria! You get to fight a bloody battle and still feel sanctimonious about it, yippee!

There was a big hullaballoo when the alliance Jade Forest starting area was revamped because at one point a swarm of fleeing, drowning orcs is shot to death by the Lady alliance general. People on both factions flipped. their. shit over it. “The alliance doesn’t do things like this!” Even General Rell comments that, “It isn’t right. This isn’t the alliance’s way.” Well, for pete’s sakes, it’s WAR! And you are BORING!

And maybe if they did things like that more often, the storyline would be more engaging. The jade forest alliance questline is a snooze up to and including the part where Lorewalker Cho makes you do his daily chores so that you can find Prince Anduin. (By the by, hordeside you get to do a quest where you actually CAPTURE Anduin. But no such allianceside rescue mission to get him back. Cool.) In my humble opinion, Cho seems to connect more deeply with horde players. Exploring the linage of their races and making many comments along the lines of, “We have a lot in common.” Meanwhile the alliance feeds his birds and gets a karate kid meditation lesson.

Hordeside there is an alliance fortification and several bases that must be secured and destroyed. There is a camp with overworked Pandarian laborers but the alliance is so evil that they’re keeping the laborers there by uh…umm. Nothing. They aren’t keeping the laborers there. And when you free them, all they do is complain about being tired or hungry. Well gosh gee willickers, how frightfully rude!

Meanwhile allianceside the horde fortification is a nest of orc and undead warlocks. Said warlocks have enslaved Pandaren Children using demonic magic. Not even adults and children, just the children. .So children are enslaved helping fortify an area teeming with demons and sha corruption. That’s uh, that’s pretty darned mean right there. Are you starting to see the difference yet?

If you’re horde in that scenario you’re going in to kill alliance with the afterthought of helping the Pandaren. If you’re alliance you’re going in because DAMN the horde is evil and you’re just so GOOD to be saving those children!! GOOD FOR YOU, PAL! Pats on the back all around!

This air of sanctimonious crap infiltrates almost every aspect of alliance questing, right down to daily quests in operation shieldwall. Oh yeah, we’re there to stop the goblins and orcs from polluting the area and killing off the wildlife. It also, ONCE AGAIN, conveniently helps the war cause. The war is a convenient afterthought instead of the main focus because I guess they don’t want us to feel like we’re being too mean or maybe for once not doing something for the greater good.

Instead of a scenario like Dagger in the Dark we end up with a Little Patience which is basically a 20 minute exercise to show alliance players that, relax, our High King is pretty smart and even tempered. So there’s no air of worry here because we’re in good, patient, strong hands. Oh and some orcs die too, I guess. The best character in that scenario is Tyrande, and that is a stretch.

The horde can see a little taste of this by being exposed to Anduin throughout their questing, as well. The kid is just so naive and dumb. He should have been killed at least 8 times during his stay in Pandaria, up to and including the point where he was captured initially by the horde. Anduin, in a way, is representative of the entire alliance. His chance at being an interesting, engaging character was robbed from him for the sake of the greater good. He NEEDS to be practically neutral to both sides because he’s the prince of stormwind and has a higher calling. Meanwhile: Zzzzzzzz.

It’s funny, because Wrathion is another neutral character and yet he is heads and tails more interesting than Anduin. Tortured backstory, doesn’t make qualms about who he is. Compare the two characters and consider which one would make for a more interesting character in a novel. Which one, if you were in Azeroth, would you want to spend more time with?

Now, Krasarang is the other major area that has vastly differing storylines between the alliance and horde. Hordeside you get the awesomeness of Sunwalker Dezco and his plight as his wife and best friend pass away in a strange land.

Allianceside you get some doddering old Night elf looking for the fountain of youth and his patient, but fierce, daughter who leads a team of sentinels. His daughter, the more interesting of the two, spends half the time in a coma and awakens in time to die at the same time as Kor. At this point the old night elf decides to sacrifice himself for his daughter. Abloobloobloo. Except – there’s no real feeling of attachment to the characters.

The old fart was a selfish git who wanted to renew his immortality and lost his daughter in the process. And instead of DEALING WITH THESE ISSUES he sacrifices himself so she can come back to life. Everything gets wrapped up with a neat little bow because the smarter of the two, his daughter, gets to come back to life. No real consequences except the loss of some old guy you probably didn’t care much about anyway, seeing as he was more concerned about sending you to find the waters of youth while his daughter languished in a coma. Again, don’t worry about heartbreak or tough issues, alliance, because you came out for the greater good once again!

Meanwhile Dezco loses his wife and best friend in the same damned day. Yet he presses on, and so does your horde character. You muse about the unfairness of it all but marvel at his strength as he totes his two newborns further through the mysterious new land of Pandaria. He also names one after you and that is pretty rad. There is no super happy morally good resolution. And that’s the way it should be.

So I have to ask – alliance, why are you afraid of powerful, but uncomfortable, lore developments? Why does EVERYTHING have to be for the greater good? Why do we have to feel great about everything we do? WHY? It’s BORING!

They tried something new with Jaina and completely flipped her on her alliance-do-gooder head. Once again, people lost their shit. Even the bombing of her home wasn’t enough to justify her actions in Dalaran, apparently? Are you kidding? Come on people. If you want good lore allianceside, you need to start accepting these difficult moral situations.

I am absolutely tired of do-gooder sanctimonious and paper thin alliance lore. Tired of it. The few instances where the alliance does something morally ambiguous and grey are situations where they use a dummy character like John Keeshan so that you get the feel of a cool battle without all the negativity of a non-joke alliance character getting involved. You won’t catch Varian Wrynn wiping out a settlement like Sylvanas did to Southshore or Garrosh did to Theramore. Nope, nope. He’s too good of a person. He’d never resort to that. And because of that, he leaves no lasting effect on the plot.

I love the alliance and a lot of what it stands for. I love a lot of the alliance characters as well but I cannot ignore how I feel about this anymore. Now that I’ve pinpointed my major issue it’s hard for me to look at the alliance the same way I used to. My main will always stay alliance, but I won’t lie and say I’m not enjoying my horde characters a metric ton more. It just feels better because there is more weight to the lore, more conflict behind the decisions, and no quest designers patting me on the head and reassuring me that I’m doing the right thing all the time. That might be what some folks like, but not me.

Put Down That Pedestal Please!

Have you, perchance, heard the term “fake gamer girl” recently? I imagine you have, since it’s all over the interbutts at large. It’s especially prevalent in WoW where the stereotype of bloodsucking lady widow spiders joining guilds for the sole purpose of loots and breaking the officers apart is a favorite topic on the forums.

At this point I am going to explain something and it may make some folks mad, it may change some people’s opinion of me, and it may make others uncomfortable. But I have to do this for myself as both a woman and a gamer. I cannot expect things to get better unless I actually do stand up and point this out.

There is a concept in feminism and psychology called the Madonna-whore complex. To sum it up in non-Freudian terms, it basically means that women are seen one of two ways: Wholesome Madonnas who are to be worshiped and valued; Or whores that are to be used and looked down upon. As a society we have made great strides to move away from this complex. In gaming circles, however, we are woefully behind the times as it’s still ALL over the place.

The gaming community is one that prides itself on supposed inclusiveness. How many of us were bullied in school and claim that has made us stronger? More inclusive? Less apt to judge? Ask yourself – is that really true? IS the gaming community more inclusive?

Gaming culture tends to fall into a trapping cycle when it comes to dealing with lady gamers. Men get tingly in their pants when they see an attractive woman that happens to enjoy killing demons on the PC. Why wouldn’t they? The very nature of sexual attraction is attractiveness + personality = I want to bump uglies with you.

Meanwhile, the women who are not attractive or who may not flaunt their appearance get filed away in the “seldom thought about” folder. They’re just a gamer like everybody else. Gosh, doesn’t this sound just like high school? But I thought we’d moved away from that!

Here it is – the much storied “pedestal” I refer to in my title. Though I have mainly been addressing the situation with lady gamers in this article, the pedestal applies to both genders. So men, I am not attacking you. This issue goes both ways it’s just more prone to happening with ladies.

So these people that may not do much besides look nice and sometimes pick up a video game controller get turned into the Madonnas and set very high atop this nerd pedestal where they can no longer be reached by the regular mortal! People clamor for attention from these Gods/Goddesses! And when they don’t get it – that love and admiration turns sour. To bitterness and resentment.

Suddenly these pedestal deities are assholes! They know nothing about their fanbase! Also, they actually hardly play video games or contribute to the gaming community at all! Those..those..FAKE GAMERS! How dare they!

But whose fault is that? They haven’t changed anything about themselves. I’ll tell you who is at fault – the people that put them on that pedestal. If you create unrealistic expectations for someone and they fail to meet them, why are you surprised?

If you are worshiping someone purely for their looks and the fact that maybe one time they streamed a world of warcraft arena match, why are you surprised when there is no other substance deeper below the surface? You, as a player, may visit numerous WoW related blogs and sites daily. WoWhead, WoWinsider, MMO Champion, etc. And you check those sites for information and strategies without considering who may be behind the screen putting them up.

You check someone else’s livestream for pure eyecandy. And you’re surprised if they’re not getting into the finer points of rogue PVP theorycrafting? Why are you surprised? Why are you ANGRY?

Now let’s bring this vicious cycle back around to how it effects lady gamers. You have two ladies in your guild at the moment, okay? For the purposes of this anecdote. One is a girl who has maybe talked a few times on mumble but otherwise keeps to herself. The other is a boisterous woman who loves showing pictures of herself and flirting. Both of these women play on about the same level.

WAIT. You think you know where I’m going with this? Do you assume I’m going to say, “Yeah the one who flaunts pics is a bitch/whore who is probably going to trade nudes to the officers for loot amirite?”

That right there? That’s sexism. That’s the trap. Did you fall for it? Which one of those women would you assume was being treated like the Madonna while the other was treated like the whore? In this case the Madonna aspect can be roughly translated to being “one of the guys.” as some folks like to put it.

Neither one of these women are doing anything wrong because they do not exist in the guild for the pleasure of the male guildmates. They exist solely as people with their own personalities and whether or not their personalities effect anything has to do with the OTHER people around them. One is quiet, one is more social. Who gives a rat’s ass if the important thing is whether or not they play well and you enjoy their company.

Shitty, manipulative people exist. This is a fact. But it has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with that person. The reason stories about thieving ladies ripping off guild banks are popular is because they’re scandalous. They allow people to have something to commiserate over.

Now here comes the pedestal again. Do you see it? We’re coming full circle. Women who get caught in these scandals get so much focus because of the magical pedestal. “Wow that girl was so attractive and sneaky I’m not surprised this happened!” Why are you not surprised? Because she was a shitty person or because she was a WoW player with ladyparts you wanted to touch and as such you placed her in high regard for no other reason besides that and when that backfired and the pedestal came crumbling down you were UPSET?! *inhales deep breath after run on sentence*

This is a constant cycle in the gaming world. It’s absolutely everywhere. It’s the reason the fake gamer girl meme exists, it’s the reason so many HAWHAW GET IN THE KITCHEN memes exist. This is the root of the issue. Let’s all start trying to identify it and stop putting people on pedestals and maybe, JUST MAYBE things will start to get better for everyone.

At the very least as WoW players can we please start trying to move away from this? There is no reason to go gaga over someone because they are generally attractive and play a video game. These are superficial reasons, at best, and if you start looking deeper at people you will start to build deeper connections. This means that your connections will be better placed and you’ll be less likely to feel that sting of disappointment when someone doesn’t turn out to be what you expected them to be.

Whew. Okay. That felt good to get out. Sorry it’s so off topic from what I usually post but hey.

Farming: From Citypaw to Tillers Expert!

Hey guys! So, one of my favorite new features in Mists is the addition of farming. Contrary to popular belief – the farming in game has nothing in common with farmville and is more based on the old school Harvest Moon games. That’s part of the reason I love it so much!

Farming is a great way to get food to level cooking or make feasts or even to get mats for your crafting professions. Barring any of that, you can always sell the stuff you farm up as well. The excellent thing is that for a minimum amount of time every day you can easily get enough crafting or food materials to get any transmutes or whatever that you need done.

Below is an illustrated guide to farming. I’m going to go through the basics of running your farm and then move on to tips to really help you make the most of your farming experience. If you need to get to a certain section, feel free to search for the section title/number.

Contents:

Step 1: The basics!

Step 2: Harvesting for fun and profit!

Step 3: Bonus crops!

Step 4: And you get a gift, and you get a gift, and you get a gift!

Step 5: Expanding!

Step 6: Making the most out of your farm!

Step 1: The basics!

To unlock your farm you first need to go to Halfhill in the valley of the four winds and start the questline at Farmer Yoon. You’ll watch some cutscenes and run some errands and then be able to start working your 4 soil plot. If you are under level 90 the most you will be able to do is these starting quests and plant/harvest veggies from your plots. You CANNOT gain rep to expand your farm OR find dark soil to give gifts until you are level 90. But in the meantime at least you can farm yourself some cooking mats.

First you need to familiarize yourself with your farming tools.

When you grab one of the items it’ll automatically go into your bags. After you’re through using it you can delete it from your bags and it will be placed back into the spot from the above picture. So don’t worry about cluttered bagspace – just use the items to do your daily farming and then delete them.

The bug sprayer is to clear off your infested crops, the watering can is to water your parched crops, the shovel is to dig up any unwanted crops, and the plow allows you to til several plots at a time. You will receive the plow upon reaching exalted with the tillers and purchasing it from Gina Mudclaw.

Now that you’ve got your tools, it’s time to get to work! You cannot plant seeds in your plots until you til the soil. Hold your mouse cursor over the soil and click and your character will automatically til the soil for you.

Occasionally you will see dust flying out of your untilled soil

This means that before you can til that plot you will need to click on it to clear out a nasty vermin that’s squatting under your plots! Click it, kill the pest, and then click again to til your soil.

Sometimes after harvesting a weed will also grow in the plot. You’ll need to click on the weed and use the pull command that comes up on a new actionbar several times to get it out before you can til it again!

Now that your soil is ready for planting, you’ll need to go buy some seeds! Initially you will only be able to purchase basic food seeds to plant, which is fine because you’ll most likely need the ingredients to level your cooking. Additionally, every day farmer Yoon will give you a daily to plant a specific veggie. This is probably the EASIEST daily currently in the game, so don’t pass up your practically free charms.

Head on out to the seed vendor just a short distance away in Halfhill to stock up.

Once you hit higher rep levels with the tillers some special seeds will unlock!

This is when farming starts to really pay off. You can plant seeds that will generate a random herb, drop leather or ore, enchanting mats, and even motes of harmony!

The sapling seeds that you see here will yield a usable tree item that can be planted one time. It’s a neat vanity item if you’re into that kind of thing, but TBH your farm plots are better saved for mats that you can use or sell.

So now you’ve got your seeds. Time to plant them! Head back to your farm and open your bags. Click on one of your plots of tilled soil and then right click on the seed in your bag to plant it.

Rinse and repeat throughout your available land plots.

As you plant you’ll notice that your crops just…don’t look right! You still have some work to do with them before they’ll be growing properly!

Each plant will have a different problem that you’ll need to resolve before it can grow.

Parched plants will look dusty and dried out. This is simple! Grab your watering can and give’em a drink! They’ll be back to normal in no time.

Alluring plants will have a sunbeam shining down on them. This means that they’re extra appealing to flying pests. Click on your plant and fight off the nasty plainshawk that swoops down and tries to steal it.

Infested plants will turn green and have gross bugs flying all around them. Grab your bug sprayer and get rid of the bugs and your plant will be good as new!

The poor runty plants are stuck and can’t grow properly! Click on it and wait for the command to jump to appear. Once it does, jump and you’ll pop it right out of the ground so it can grow fully!

Tangled plants are just absolutely covered in weeds. You’ll need to click on them and then run forward -

to pull all the weeds off!

Wiggling plants squirm and move around. Why, you ask? Virmen, of course. Click on the plant and then kill off the pest when it pops out. No remorse for veggie stealers!

Sometimes when you plant two types of weeds will also spring up. The regular type is the same kind that tends to appear after you harvest your crops. Grab it and hit the pull button repeatedly to pull it out.

The other type is a nasty weed that looks a bit like a tentacle. You’ll need to grab onto the weed and when the new actionbar pops up – spam the 1 button to flex at it…I guess to show superiority…because weeds are intimidated by that somehow. Every few seconds the weed will cast a ground slam on you. Use the 2 button to use your bite attack to interrupt it, then go back to spamming one. You need to get up to 50 stacks of the flexing buff to get the weed to go away.

After all that hard work your plants will be happy and start growing! They’ll be ready to harvest the next day!

Step 2: Harvesting for fun and profit!

Upon returning to your farm after a day you’ll surely be thrilled to see a field of fresh crops just waiting to be picked!

This is the fun and really easy part. Just go up to your crops and click on them to harvest! For each crop you harvest at level 90 you will receive 55 tillers rep.

You’ll notice as you go that once you pick the crops the soil will return to its untilled state. Yep! That means you get to repeat the whole tilling and planting cycle again. But hey, it beats the heck out of fishing.

Step 3: Bonus crops!

Sometimes when you plant you will get lucky and immediately receive a bursting crop after planting. A bursting crop can be harvested immediately and will net you 3 extra crops. The added bonus to this is that you can immediately re-till the soil and replant a new crop without waiting a day.

Additionally, in the picture I showed above you can see that I have a plump green cabbage. Plump crops also yield extra crops for you. They’re slightly more common than bursting crops, and as you can see they’re a lot larger than your regular crops so you’ll be able to tell when you have one. Plump crops DO require the full day to grow, unlike the bursting crops that grow immediately.

Another way to get more yield from your crops is to find out what that day’s special crop is. To find out you’ll need to go into Halfhill and speak to Jogu the drunk, who lives in the pond.

He will predict which crops will have a larger yield the next day. Please note that this ONLY applies to the veggie crops and not any of the special crops. If you plant the crop he tells you to, you’ll usually get an extra 2-3 veggies from that crop the next day.

Some days Jogu is “foggy” (aka hungover) and won’t be able to give you a prediction.

Step 4: And you get a gift, and you get a gift, and you get a gift!

The fun thing about the tillers is that besides the regular tillers rep that you get from doing your dailies and harvesting plants, several characters around the valley have buddy reputations you can raise. You can raise them from stranger, to acquaintance, to buddy, to friend, to good friend and then finally – best friend.

When you reach best friends with a person they will send you a gift for your farm. Once you’re exalted with the tillers they’ll also be willing to come hang out on your farm as well. They won’t actually do anything, but it’s nice to give farmer Yoon some company.

When you are harvesting crops you may sometimes receive a blue item like this marsh lily:

These are the items that you can gift to the tillers folks to raise their friendship level. The item will tell you which of the 2 tillers favors it. If you give a favored gift to someone it will net you 900 (990 w/guild perk) rep. A non-favored gift will still get you 540 (550 w/guild perk) rep.

The tillers members will also accept their favorite food once per day. WoWpedia has a great list of which foods/mats are needed for this. Click here to view it!

Some days certain tillers members will also visit Halfhill market and offer a daily quest. Andi, the cub that hangs out by your farm, will also offer a daily quest to give a gift to someone. These quests will get you both tillers rep AND friend rep with that specific person.

The nice thing about buddy rep is that unlike honored/revered with regular rep, the amount of rep you need to reach the next level does NOT go up as their friendship level increases. It stays at a flat rate. This means you only need to do a set amount of turnins rather than worrying about the required rep amount doubling or tripling as you get their friendship up!

The friendship bar will show next to their portrait when you talk to them. You can also view your current rep in your rep character tab as well.

If you’re trying to raise your friend rep as quickly as possible the best way to do it is to look for dark soil patches throughout Pandaria.

When you are level 90 you can loot these soil patches to receive one of the blue gift items. These patches spawn all over Pandaria but the area they pop in the most is around the Heartland. If you’re trying to grind rep you’ll want to keep in mind that sometimes the soil patches can be a little hard to see as they tend to blend into the ground a bit.

If you cycle around the heartland a couple of times a day you can usually find 7-10 soil patches easily – depending on how many other people are out there looking.

The BEST way to do it is to pick one set of tillers from each blue item and raise your rep with them first. So for example, if I find a ruby shard I decide that for now I want to raise my rep with Tina Mudclaw instead of bothering with Haohan. I take all my ruby shards to her. Then, once she is at best friend status, I start taking them to Haohan instead.

Once you start getting all the characters to best friend, you can start tossing the gifts at any old person. Non-favored gifts still give 500+ rep.

Your new best friends will usually send you a seed pack and some cool vanity items for your farm. Jogu will also stop charging you for his crop predictions as well.

Now if you are trying to find Sho please use the following marker:

As the marker Gina gives you is completely off.

Step 5: Expanding!

So you want more than 4 farm plots eh? Well you gotta work for it!

As you gain rep with the tillers from harvesting and doing daily quests, Farmer Yoon will give you quests to speak to various tillers to increase the size of the farm.

Your first expansion should come at honored, which is fairly easy to get. You’ll need to gather some weed killer and then have the weeds cleared off your farm.

The next expansion comes at revered and you’ll get that pesky wagon removed and unlock 4 more soil patches. The final expansion comes at exalted AFTER you have finished the tillers questline. I won’t spoil that story for you, but you will want to make sure you are doing ALL the quests to gain the specific tillers’ votes. if you do NOT have all the tillers’ votes you will NOT get the last expansion.

As your farm expands you can talk to Gina Mudclaw to buy some tool upgrades. The first of which are the Jinyu princess irrigation spouts. You can click on them and they will automatically water all your parched plants!

The second is a pest killer. Clicking on it will automatically kill off any bugs/clear out your infested plants. Note that it does NOT clear out weeds, virmen, or plainshawks!

The last upgrade is the swanky plot I had pictured way above. If you use the plow in a straight line across your untilled plots, it will automatically til them for you! Out of all the upgrades, this one will definitely save you the most time. To get it you need to be exalted and have all 16 of your farm plots unlocked.

After much farming and reputation gaining you’ll soon have a beautiful farm to call your own!

With a yak! Woo!

Step 6: Making the most out of your farm!

Okay so now you’re practically a farming pro, right? Got your yak, got your 16 soil plots? Good!

The best part about your farm is the fact that it is a guaranteed daily source of crafting mats AND motes of harmony depending on what you plant. With 16 planting spots available there are many, many combinations you can use to try and get a good yield.

It’s important to note that your current professions have no bearing on what you can and can’t plant. This means that as a tailor and an enchanter I can still plant the seeds that grant a random herb or the seeds that grant random ore. For raiders this means that you can help get mats for flasks, feasts, enchants, etc. For non-raiders it means you can sell said items to the raiders for their flasks, feasts, enchants, etc. Haha!

Personally I usually reserve the back 8 land plots for songbell seeds/motes of harmony. This means that I get 8 motes baseline daily, and I usually get the other 2 as I do my other daily quests. Bam, guaranteed spirit of harmony every single day. This also allows you to use your other 8 plots for other things.

One of your plots is usually going to be used up by Farmer Yoon’s random daily veggie quest. Personally, I let that veggie grow and stick it in the guild bank for other folks leveling cooking. I usually plant either windshear cactus (cloth) or magebulb(enchanting mats) around the veggie since I’m a tailor/enchanter.I don’t usually need that much cloth but I usually plant it every other day so I can keep doing my cloth transmute daily.

I also usually use four plots for enigma seeds. Enigma seeds are the ones that grow into a random Pandaria herb. The bonus to harvesting these seeds is that not only do you get the herb, but you also have a shot at getting spirits.

Spirits are items that herbalists usually get when they loot plants in the wild. Now you, as a farmer, can get them too! There’s one that restores HP and one that restores mana. These items DO share a cooldown with potions BUT if you don’t have a good source of potions and don’t want to buy them off the AH, here’s a good alternative for you!

Depending on what sells for more on your server you can base your daily seed selection on whatever is priciest at the same. Or you can just keep yourself covered in mats that you may need!

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And so that’s it! I hope this guide was helpful to all the novice farmers out there! Farming has truly been a GREAT addition to this game, and anyone that doesn’t take advantage of it is ridiculous. Let’s all cross our fingers that Blizzard adds more fun and useful content like this in the future!

The Evolution of a Raider

With another expansion knocking on our door I wanted to pause for a moment and reflect on my last -8 years- of playing World of Warcraft. Some would boggle at the fact that I’ve been playing this game for so long, but remember that playing an MMO isn’t like constantly replaying a console game. MMOs need to stay new and introduce content in order to stay afloat. There are older MMOs than WoW, and people who have no doubt played them consistently since their launch.

My feelings towards WoW have changed over the years. I’ve built a persona for myself that is mainly goofy, light-hearted, and sassy when the time comes for it. A lot of people may not take me seriously but let me just say that I’ve been there. I’ve seen things. I’ve played this game for longer than some of the developers have. I would never presume that I know all there is to know about WoW, but I know what I’ve seen and experienced.

I knew when I started playing  vanilla and saw the people in their t1 and t2 sets (other raids weren’t released at the time) that I wanted to be like them. I also wanted to be a badass at PVP like the high warlord videos I was seeing on youtube all over the place. I played a shaman, and I was terrible at it. But the fact of the matter was that in vanilla if you could spec resto, drop totems regularly, and use your healing wave button, you could make it in a raid.

I’ve always been predisposed to healing classes – ever since I started playing RPGs and would always – ALWAYS build at least one or two white mages to buffer my parties. The same was true when I started playing MUDs – always a cleric. Healing comes easily and naturally to me, both active and reactive. Maybe that predisposition is what carried me through being a 40-man healer and onward, despite being so terrible that I actually kept my auto attack button bound on my bars.

By sheer happenstance I was invited into an MC raid with my first guild. In the 40man days it didn’t really matter what the player was like as long as they were a warm body. Because of this, I started getting invited to more raids until finally I was invited to the guild and put on the roster. Vanilla raiding was a flurry of 5 hour raid nights and DKP.. It would, quite literally, take weeks for someone to get an upgrade. Between the RNG loot system (which originally didn’t differentiate between alliance and horde so horde would get paladin loot and vice versa.) and the fact that you had 40 people, up to 5 other people of your class playing in the same raid, it took absolutely ages to get a full set of gear. And when you did, the next raid tier was usually out anyway.

Vanilla was probably the most meaningful raid experience for me because it was my first. You ALWAYS remember your first, whether you want to or not. I make no qualms about the difficulty of the encounters or the hardships of organizing a 40man raiding guild.

In vanilla we cleared MC, BWL, the world dragons, ZG, AQ20, some of AQ40, and some of Naxx. I’m probably forgetting some encounters. I can look back upon these days with rose-tinted glasses but the truth of the matter is that it took a lot of time. A lot of time and dedication to do what we did. At that point in my life I was a college student so I had pretty much all the time in the world. No job, freshman in college so I wasn’t doing the harder classes yet – yeah I was pretty much open to sitting there for hours or farming dukes in Silithus in my off time.

Then The Burning Crusade was released and everything changed when the fire nation attacked. At this point the first real TBC dungeon was Kara, and 40man raiding guilds utterly panicked.The whole system was changed – like the rug was pulled out from under us. The start of TBC was a rocky time for most guilds with drama and splintering all over the place on every server. My guild was one such casualty of this, and so I took a long break after raiding through Kara and Gruul’s lair.

I came back and leveled a mage allianceside and picked up where I left off. I raided through SSC, TK, BT, and Hyjal – quitting just before Sunwell was released.

Mechanics started to change – as if the developers were coming into their own and breaking free of the Everquest style raid traditions of time spent + damage done + damage taken = loot. Instead of standing in one place decursing, now people had to run around a platform or throw an item to each other. To those of us from vanilla, this was huge. It was a huge change. “But my tears were broken!”

At this time I was still in college messing around. Still had time on my hands, still could sit around and farm rep until I had a Netherdrake when they were current. I had Blue Suede Shoes and I loved them.

Then came the Wrath. The Wrath of the Lich King. To its credit, WoTLK continued the idea of revolutionizing game mechanics at their core. Suddenly vehicle quests were a reality. Gone were the days of collecting 28 bear asses for Grogg Orctooth in the barrens. Now we rode on harpoons and horses escaping from worgen and vrykul.

I continued raiding in WoTLK on my mage. I got through the original Naxx, Malygos, and Sarth before taking a break. I came back around the tail end of Ulduar and the introduction to Trial of the Grand Crusader.

Now mechanics were getting weirder. Shoot down frost patches, run around catching light and dark orbs, pilot tanks through a warzone. All of this was a strange new world, but it was fun!

It was around this time that I was on my own looking for a job. Suddenly I had less time than I used to and way less of a drive to keep playing at the level I was before. In the grand scheme of things, WoW and raiding got bumped a tier lower on my hierarchy of needs. I played through most of ICC, but their arbitrary gating of content dragged the dungeon out far longer than it needed to be. Once the frostwing halls opened I had already been raiding ICC for a good while and I was sick of it, even without seeing the last few bosses. It was at that point that I quit playing until the release of Cataclysm.

With the news of Cataclysm, I was totally pumped for what it would bring. I think at the first glimpses of the expansion we all had ideas in our heads of what would change and how much we would enjoy the new content. I wouldn’t say that Cataclysm was a failed expansion – but I would say that the resources for it were placed in areas that most players didn’t fully experience. I enjoyed the new questing and revamped zones, but I will openly admit there was very little for my level 85 character to do after getting to 85. It was at this point that I decided to go back to my roots and start playing a healer again – and Gloriia the worgen priest was created.

I picked up my raiding pants and tried to be serious again with the T11 content. Anyone who played T11 content when people were still working for world firsts can tell you that it was brutal. In a misguided attempt to harken back to vanilla raiding/dungeon difficulty (which was an arbitrary difficulty made from gear checks and resistance fights) they had destroyed many of the things that made playing fun. Suddenly being a healer was a weird sort of punishment. I logged in daily and hated playing my own class. It just…wasn’t fun!

One day when we were attempting the Nef/Ony fight I realized that I was no longer having fun wiping over and over again to progression fights. Gone were the days of being in MC when I would happily sit there and run back after wiping to lava packs. That sense of pride I had at being the best had all but deteriorated as well. So here I was  – not having fun and to me not having a reason to continue punishing myself by playing something I wasn’t enjoying.

When I was younger I probably would have just slogged through the feelings and kept going. But now that I was older – on my own, working, having played WoW for about 6-7 years, I knew that there was no point in making myself miserable on my own dime when there were plenty of other things I could be doing. If there is such a thing as a transition to being a casual player – this is when I went through it.

Unfortunately without raiding at that point in Cataclysm, there was very little to do. And I quit for a good while before ultimately coming back at the tail end of Firelands to play with the guild I am in now. At some point after dragon soul came out a group of us decided to try our hand at raiding again, and thankfully Blizzard added in Looking for Raid and the buff to DS. This made it possible for us to go in a very limited schedule and still be able to briefly experience the hayday glory of killing raid bosses again.

The large majority of the raid I run now is made up of former hardcore raiders that at this point have hit the raiding retirement home. We want to go in and see content but not deal with whippersnappers and hoozawhatsits.

I think that on the whole there are a lot of players exactly like me and Blizzard acknowledges that – that is why they put in some of the changes like the buffs/nerfs as content gets older. The raiding scene is a cycle. People constantly enter it with fresh faces gunning for world firsts because they’re like me when I first started. They have the time, the drive, and the pride. Eventually time drags on and people get to the point I’m at now, but by then there’s even more newer raiders lining up to take their places in the server first guilds.

So here is the challenge that comes with raid balancing. On the one hand you have the raider me from 7 years ago looking for content to constantly devour while wanting to be the absolute best. On the other hand you have the raider me from now that just wants to go in, kill a boss, then go to IHOP for the early bird special.

Striking a balance between the two is difficult, but I think most players understand the benefit of changes like Looking For Raid and slow, gradual nerfs to content that people have already downed. Do I think the DS debuff went in too quickly? Yes. But overall I think it was a good addition.

The only thing I can say with 100% certainty that I hate involving raiding is arbitrary content blocks. I touched on this in my WoWInsider interview but the blocking of ICC by wing was what caused me to quit for MONTHS in WoTLK. If I want to go in and down the content – let me do so. If an encounter is difficult it will prevent me from progressing in the natural way. Content blocks serve no purpose outside of frustrating the raiders that genuinely want to go in and down content while it is interesting to them. If you push them away by blocking it off, the chances are VERY LIKELY that they will get bored before even getting through it. At least if they blow through it quickly and start to get bored they can set up things like achievement runs or alt runs to keep themselves occupied.

That said…

At this point in my raiding career I do not presume to know how upper tier guilds run because I don’t want to. Because of that I rarely argue on the forums involving bleeding edge content. All I can do is argue from my perspective as a lower end raider for the things that would be enjoyable for me while not detracting from what OTHERS enjoy. It would be nice if everyone shared this philosophy, but such is the way of the forums.

In my 8 years playing I’ve seen and done a lot. Rarely do I look back on my time spent playing with such clarity but I feel like people deserve to know who I am as a WoW player and where I come from when I discuss certain things. It frustrates me to no end to not be listened to either by the developers, community managers, or my peers because of my goofy exterior persona. Maybe, just maybe, I know what I’m talking about when I say the things I do.

Looking at WoW from Another Angle

First and foremost this is not an image heavy post, so sorry in advance for the lack of lols. Also as a second warning, this post is heavy in the metaphors. Run while you can.

So anyway. Knowledge is like legos. If you stick to only one thing in life, your legos form this gigantic tower that goes straight up. If you broaden your interests and learn more about other things, your legos form a pyramid. Both structures work, but one is far more solid than the other. Maybe a little harder to build though.

Ever since Greg Street/Ghostcrawler was hired as a lead designer people wondered how and why a dude with a PhD in marine science could become a lead developer on one of the largest MMORPGs in history. They, of course, conveniently ignore the fact that he was a developer for other major game titles – but let’s look at the other thing here. Why WOULDN’T they hire someone with interests and experience outside of the gaming field?

If I looked at WoW as just a WoW player, I would be severely limiting my experience with it. I am such a broad compilation of opinions and experiences that to consider myself only a “WoW player” would be doing a disservice. If you look at yourself as only a WoW player while you play the game, I challenge your perception of that.

When I experience and parse this game I do so as:

A working woman, an artist, a writer, a skeptic, a fantasy buff, a fan of corgis, a fan of pop culture, a bear enthusiast, etc.

All of these things and all of these experiences play into how and why I play the game the way I do. This allows me to understand and enjoy changes like LFR, for example. It also allows me to see certain things that happen and say, “I am not okay with this.”

If you’ve only played one class for 7 years, you probably know a lot about it. You may think you know what does and does not work, and how it could be better. But you’re coming from an extremely limited perspective. I wouldn’t tell people how to heal on their priests if I didn’t have a lot of experience with it, but at the same time I chose to broaden my horizons and level one of every type of healer so I could use that knowledge to make myself better overall.

I realized I needed to do this when I first got the Maw of the Dragonlord from Deathwing. I was used to standing super far away from the group and just chaining my heals as priests typically do. I noticed that my mace proc (the extra healing to people nearby) wasn’t hitting as many people as I wanted it to. I mentioned this in guild and someone said, “Oh yeah, you have to learn to heal like a paladin and be in closer range.”

At first I was perplexed, but then it resonated with me. I DIDN’T know how to heal like a paladin. Or a druid. Or a shaman. And because of that I had never thought of that as a solution and learning how to be more like another class would have never occurred to me unless the obvious was pointed out. That was when I knew that I was clearly missing out on something that would ultimately make me a better player and a more knowledgeable person.

If you’ve only played one faction, you probably know a lot about that faction. But the game isn’t about one faction and you’re missing out by not seeing the other side of the hill.

People fear not being good at something they are genuinely trying at. Somewhere along the way being a jack of all trades but master of none became some kind of negative thing. I disagree. You don’t have to be a master of something or know everything about it to bring some genuinely good ideas to the table for it. It’s not even so much about thinking out of the box as it is bringing an unexpected perspective that could end up being a game changer.

The more experiences and perspectives you have as a person and a player, the better. One of the lead designers has a PhD in marine science instead of computer programming and spent years in that field before turning to video games. I’d be willing to bet those different perspectives were exactly what Blizzard was looking for when they brought him aboard. Obviously you want someone who still has the knowledge of the field to get the job done, but more of the same never gets anything done.

So I guess what I’m trying to say here is that you need to stop looking at yourself as JUST a WoW player or a gamer. That is a single part of a larger whole, and the more perspectives and experience you can bring to the table – the better. You are a whole person, and the reasons you like and play this game are because of that. Embrace it.

This also doesn’t just apply to WoW, either. It applies to every facet of your life.

Things To Do Before Mists

With Mists of Pandaria right around the corner I’ve been struggling to get certain things done before it releases. I hit my “end of expansion” lull and just stopped logging in except to raid and occasionally run for transmog gear. I doubt I’m alone in this. After watching the beta forums and blue posts it’s become clear that MoP is on its way sooner than people might think. In the past I’ve usually been woefully under-prepared for new expansion launches, so this time I’m being proactive and trying to get certain things done before launch.

I figured I would share my goals here to help people who may have also fallen into the lull get motivated to start prepping for the expansion. The things I’m doing to prepare are:

1) Level my fishing skill to max.

Okay, have you ever tried leveling fishing? It’s awful. It’s almost as bad as archaeology except there’s less flying all over the continents. But that’s partially the point. As someone who previously raided fairly frequently and never leveled fishing, I usually found myself having to shell out the money for food/fish I was too lazy to farm up myself.

Bingo. Goldmine.

So my goal is to cash in on people who were like me and fish, fish, FISH come mists. Oh you need buff food? Gold first, eats later. Mahahaha!

Given the cyclical nature of expansions, the first few months where people are struggling to level themselves and their crafting skills up are the best time to make money if you’re on top of things.Since fishing is absolutely abysmally slow and tedious to level, very few people worry with it first. And that’s what I’m counting on.

2) Farm up any remaining vanity pets I want.

With pet battles and a new pet capture/training mechanic on the horizon, I’m doing my best to farm up pets the only way I know how. I’m not good with change, so the longer I can get pets the way I’m used to – the better.

It’s even better if you farm up multiple pets, because I’m guessing that once the expansion has a release date there will be a scramble for people to try and buy/farm the pets they want. Pets like the red, blue, and green whelplings have always been popular and high priced, so if you can stand the tedium of farming it might be worthwhile to get out there and get some.

3) Level cooking to max

This one goes along the same lines as the fishing leveling. If something is tedious to do, the bets are good that some will be too lazy to do it. And those people are the ones you make money off of with buff foods.

4) Farm up some rare mounts.

Gonna just let the picture speak for itself on this one.

5) Level my alts.

Leveling alts before an expansion is always a great idea because it helps you access more tradeskills. With mounts and pets going accountbound in MOP now is a really great time to get started on leveling your new fun projects. Especially since most people don’t have anything left to spend their points on. Heirlooms are awesome, and you can always grab a few for any potential monks or pandas you’re thinking of leveling!

Welp, that’s it from me for now. What are you guys doing to prepare for Mists?

Exercise While Raiding? Can It Be Done?

One of the newest exercise fads going around involves tying some basic exercise moves to mundane tasks. For example, my workplace has started encouraging us to do things like squats, pushups, and situps every time we finish with a phone call. Now clearly they’re looking for ways to lower our insurance premiums, but the idea at its heart is a good one. People in general tend to forget to exercise during the day, and even a small amount can go a long way towards living a healthier lifestyle.

I don’t believe in the stigma of unhealthy gamers, because I find that a hobby is a hobby and it’s the people who live the lifestyle. So I don’t want anyone to assume this post is based on that stereotype. With Summer right around the corner I’ve taken a look at myself and realized just how many bad habits I’ve gotten into. I do try to exercise daily, but “trying” and “doing” are two completely different things.

So the other night as we were raiding Dragon Soul, I noticed that my guild has – well – particular quirks that we do on a semi-regular basis. Then I wondered if, maybe, the idea of combining the workplace exercise plans with raiding would work out at all. With the new raid style Blizzard has introduced, most people are clearing DS in a night or less without long pauses in between. What if we took some basic exercises and applied them to things we do in the raid? Obviously this isn’t going to help people shed 50 lbs in a week, but maybe if we all make an effort to group up and get off our collective butts during the time we spend together, we can segue back into a slightly more active lifestyle.

Everyone’s guild is different, but I know that almost all of them have their own inside jokes. I’d encourage everyone to tailor these plans to their guild’s eccentricities to make it a little more fun. For example, my guild has a sweet little gnome lady that tends to say the most innocent, yet abstractly hilarious things I’ve ever heard. At least once a raid she’ll say something that has me rolling. I could easily tie a quick set of jumping jacks to her funny comments, and that way I get to laugh AND exercise.

So here’s a quick rundown of a plan I thought of. I don’t expect anyone to follow it to the letter, and I’d hope that people would take ownership of their own plans and maybe help their guilds get started with it as well. If you are unsure of how to do some of these exercises, please head here or try searching for them!

1) Down a raid boss – 30 seconds of marching in place. (Believe it or not, marching briskly in place can really get your blood pumping. Try it if you don’t believe me!)

2) Win loot off a boss – 3-5 quick squats.

3) Die during a boss fight – 3 push-ups. (if you are unable to do push-ups on the floor, you can try doing them against a wall!)

4) A complete raid wipe – 5 push-ups for everybody in the raid.

5) Thrall says something – 3 lunges while he finishes rambling.

6) Finish the final raid encounter – 5 lunges after loot has been distributed.

7) Sky Captain Swayze says, “Our engines are damaged! We’re sitting ducks up here.” – 2 very quick jumping jacks.

8) Count the number of times Warmaster Blackhorn does disrupting shout – when the fight is finished, do that amount of situps.

9) Yorsahj absorbs red and green slimes – 10 situps when the boss fight is finished.

10) A useful trinket actually drops – 15 jumping jacks for whoever wins it.

Remember that before exercising it usually helps to stretch, but these short bursts of movement shouldn’t be too bad as long as you’re not going overboard with over-exertion.

Once you get the feel of an exercise plan, maybe also start considering other things during your day that can help you get off your feet a little more. Walking around the block, taking the stairs, etc. The general recommendation is at least an hour of a decent workout a day to stay at top physical alertness. I’ve incredibly guilty of falling short of that recommendation, so I’m going to make an effort to change that.

I’d love to see people tailor these towards their specific raid groups, or even post more ideas in the comments!

Also, I apologize for not updating as much lately and for this not being a beta post. Life has just been a bit hectic for the last month or so!

Pet Battle Teams – The Wit Behind the Warfare

One of the features of Mists of Pandaria that I’m most excited about is the pet battling system. I’ve been a fan of games like Pokemon, Monster Rancher, DragonQuest Monsters, etc. for EVER. I am not ashamed to admit it, either. As someone who wasn’t allowed to have pets as a kid (besides a horrible parrot and a fish tank – but that’s a story for a later time) I grew to love playing with my littlest pet shops, tamagotchis, etc. as a substitute. Thankfully I never had a Furby. Those things were creepy.

Anyway – games like pokemon catered to my love of pets and also turn based RPGs. Monster Rancher took it a step further and allowed me to actually train and cultivate the monsters I loved in a more detailed way. I think that for all the people who dislike the new pet battle feature as they think it’s too childish, there are multitudes of people like me out there who are really looking forward to it.

To help pass the time while I wait for the MoP beta and my chance to hands-on test the pet battling system, I’ve been coming up with different teams of pets. From the Blizzcon pics and the preview page it looks like, for now, characters will have 3 pet slots available on their pet battling teams. Hopefully characters will be able to have more than one team at a given time, but we’ll see what happens.

Besides the obvious themed teams like: “Meow I’m angry.” with 3 cat pets, I’m going to list a few that I’ve come up with here.

Twitterpated:
Snowshoe Rabbit
Stinker
Little Fawn

Spawn of the Old Gods:
Willy
Disgusting Oozling
Creepy Crate

Now We’re Meta:
Pandaren Monk
Moonkin Hatchling
Winter’s Little Helper

SILLY HATS AHEAD:
Darkmoon Monkey
Feline Familiar
Ghostly Skull
(get it? It’s a pun. Har har.)

BRO WE GOT SEAGULLS:
Seagull
Seagull
Seagull

Margaritaville:
Senegal
Strand Crawler
Firefly

Revenge of the Food!:
Sinister Squashling
Plump Turkey
Magical Crawdad

These are just a few I  came up with. I’m really excited to see what others think of when building their battle teams. Obviously most people are going to go with their favorites and there’s nothing wrong with that. Ultimately I view the pet battles as both another source of enjoyment and an outlet for creativity.

As a small aside, I’m looking for more blogs to add to my blogroll. If you have already linked me or would like to be linked, leave a comment!

Cross Faction RealID? Why not Zoidberg?

I know what you’re thinking and the title was to prep you by having you read it in Zoidberg’s voice. Hopefully you won’t read the rest of the article like that, but if you do. Not bad.

World of Warcraft has single-handedly made me hate the idea of factions in MMORPGS. At any given time in this game almost 50% of the content is roped off – inaccessible to you due to your faction. Even if you have a horde and an alliance character, you can’t be both at once. Along with that, a decent chunk of the playerbase is roped off to you as well.

At first this didn’t seem so bad – until the population started going down and they added realID. At this point when you’re trying to organize realID raid runs you have to make sure that the personal friends you trusted enough with your realID email have a character on the faction you want to raid on. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Sucks when they don’t.

I’m a fan of putting in Cross Faction RealID, clearly, though I can understand why they wouldn’t add it. Factions are so deeply ingrained in World of WARcraft that it’s almost  impossible to go back now. The thing is though – this isn’t the RTS game. It’s an MMORPG. MMORPGS thrive by having the community interact with each other.

It would be one thing if War were still the basis of this game. Let’s face it – World PVP is dead. There is no more Tarren Mill vs. Southshore…partially because they nuked Southshore off the face of the planet and there are no alliance hubs out there anymore. PVP is mainly relegated to battlegrounds and arenas. Maybe they’ll add something to MoP but isn’t it too little too late anyway?

WoW has made millions off its faction branding. Look at Blizzcon and how easy it is for Samwise to rile up the crowd by just shouting “FOR THE HORDE!” You set this basis of differences in people and that their side (Alliance and horde are both guilty of this, mind.) is inherently better than the other through subtle actions and its a perfect marketing recipe. Hatred sells. The reason they don’t denounce faction hatred or come out and say that one side is preferred over the other is because the players eat it up.

You think I’m joking about the “hatred sells” thing? Look at politics. People walk into traps with that all the time because they see bright lights and big words and get confused. Look at brand warfare. Pepsi and coke will never come out and purposely insult the other brand, but they’re there  in the background quietly enforcing your loyalty because even if you don’t choose their soda, you’re still putting money into the industry.

Because of this, the greatest challenge Blizzard would face with implementing cross faction RealID is the players themselves. Some aren’t going to want to give up that faction specialness for the sake of gameplay. Which means that both sides will continue to be segregated, and great potential for grouping and uses of the cross faction raiding function will be lost.

I hate faction limitations in game. I’m hoping its something the MMO industry as a whole will move away from as more next gen MMOs come out. I hate to hold other games on pedestals but this is one thing Guild Wars 2 is going to do properly. Guild wars is arguably one of the better PVP MMOs out there, and GW2 is shaping up well in the PVP area as well. There are no factions at all, but the PVP is still there in the form of World vs World and battlegrounds. This means that those who prefer dungeoning with friends can and when they want to PVP welp, off they go.

Soon games are going to have to choose to either bank on the short term – guaranteed faction branding loyalty; or the long term – replayability and accessibility.

Me, personally? I’m tired of having 50% of my friends totally unavailable to play with unless they want to roll an entirely new character. I can shout “FOR THE ALLIANCE!” til the cows come home, but that’s not going to fill up my firelands achievement runs, is it?