The Game Dame

Video of a very strange game glitch. Less than 20 seconds long.

Plus, you get to hear my voice!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/QtDHrCj9aA4]

Only one minute long.
With music by Big Time Operator.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/rm-miVrocn0]

I’m headed out to buy my flying mount right now! (Training can wait, I tells ya.)

Slig’s only 2 bars away from level 70! It’s going to happen this weekend — maybe tomorrow. I’m so excited! I’ve installed DingRecorder to make sure I get a screenshot for posterity. Now maybe some of the jerks who commented on WoW Insider will shut their pie holes. That is all.

Everyone’s heard me say this time and again: I suck at PvP. I don’t know if Elemental Shamans suck or if it’s, um, operator error, but whatever it is, I get pwned. A lot. Seriously, it’s not even funny. I still like playing battlegrounds because there are people around to help you. Plus, I am quite good at defense in Warsong Gulch. However, in Azeroth and Outland, I try to flag only when absolutely necessary because otherwise I’ll get sapped, stunned, feared, ice-blocked, or whatever, to death. I feel like a dope because afterwards I always have the “d’oh!” moments where I think of the tactics I could’ve employed but failed to think of in the heat of battle.

This makes me, as you’d imagine, quite the carebear. Whenever I come up against the opposing faction on my (non-PvP) server, I hug them, wave, kiss, dance, or do whatever I can to persuade them not to kill me on sight. Either that or I throw down an Earthbind Totem and just run the heck away. Yeah. That’s me: carebear or chicken. Pick one, you got a 50-50 chance. I also don’t play in the Arenas or any other PvP place where I’m not surrounded by many faction buddies to bail me out of bad situations.

So imagine my surprise last night when I got such a charge out of a random PvP encounter that I went bouncing around my apartment pumping my fist and doing my own personal victory dance (an amusing cross between a shimmy and the twist, with a dash of MC Hammer).

Let me set the scene for you. Slig is now an oink away from level 69. So I’m out in Blade’s Edge, minding my own business, trying to find some drakes to off, when I happen upon the Alliance Fire for the Midsummer Fire Festival. It called out to me with a tantalizing yellow exclamation point, begging me to take the quest and steal the Ally fire. I looked around. No one but low-level NPCs. Ha! It’s mine, I thought. I trot over, take the fire and gallop away on my trusty kodo, completely unmolested. I felt like I’d stolen the Hope Diamond.

Then I hear that sickening bah-DUM chord that plays when you’re flagged for PvP. I’m all, “oh MAN! Why didn’t I think that through??” But still, there seem to be no Allies around so I flag off and hope to survive for the 5 minutes it takes to clear.

More beating of drakes. (Handily, I might add.) I swing around to loot a corpse and there are two Level 65 Allies looking at me: a Warrior and a Druid. Oh crap. I wave. “Hey there nice Alliance peoples! I’m just a happy, goofy Tauren helping you clear out your drake problem here! Please don’t kill me!” Immediately the Warrior flags and starts wailing on me. It takes me a few seconds to realize that my fuzzy welcome didn’t appease them. I stand there while he whacks me. I shrug and say, “Oh well, another PvP death. I’ll just wait here till you’re finished.”

Then I noticed something. This guy was banging away on me and my green health bar was barely affected. I mean, almost like he wasn’t hitting me at all. His Druid friend hadn’t flagged yet either. So I thought, well, what the hell. I’d tried to be nice but he was still pounding on me. So I dropped my Fire Elemental Totem.

Oh the carnage was a beautiful thing to see. That fire elemental is a nasty bad-ass. I’ve taken down Level 68 elites with that thing. These guys did NOT know who they were messing with. I Frost Shocked him when he tried to run away from the totem and then it only took about 3 swings to kill him. I ran back to the fire elemental totem and Mr. Level 65 Druid was still standing there, looking at a level 68 with a Fire Elemental and the genius decides to flag and hits me with a Moonfire. I’m all, “What?? Dude! Did you just see what I did to that Warrior?” Maybe he thought I was out of mana. Maybe he thought the elemental would time out (it still had 2 more minutes of glorious DPS left in it). I have no idea what he thought because he never changed to bear form or run-away-form or anything. He had time to try to cast a heal (which of course I stopped with an Earth Shock), but his armor was no match for me and he went down very quickly.

The funniest part of this story is what happened after they rezzed. I had no intention of camping them, but I did need to get one more drake. As I finished it off, I saw them mount up and take a few steps toward me (I was unmounted). Flush from my 2-on-1 PvP massacre, I was damn cocky. I mounted and took two steps forward. They blasted off in the other direction so quickly that all I could see was dust. I was lmao.

Wow, what a charge I got out of winning that ambush! I got a serious rush from it. Now I understand why people like PvP so much. Who knows, maybe I could learn to like it. Eventually. Someday…

Hey, intarwebs, I got a favor to ask ya. Today I got my first Digg badge on one of my WoW Insider posts and I was hoping to drive that puppy up the link-love food chain! Can you help me out? If you have a Digg account, please go press the Digg button on my article. If you don’t have a Digg account, well, this is your perfect excuse to create one!

I am to be thanking you muchly! And I promise, more Game Dame content very soon!

Based on your advice from my last post, internets, I went out and got a new bike and some new hair! Click the image for a full size picture of my new Electra Coaster. I took it for a ride today and it is SWEET. As for my hair, well, I just got back from said bike ride so it’s sweaty and I have helmet hair, but the cut I got is the same as Ellen has in this commercial.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/5igdwjnyQjk&hl=en]

Thanks for your inspiration!

I’m not a sim player, but I thought I’d pass along this beta of a create-your-own Sims game, for those interested.

Sims Carnival

Also, here’s a puzzle game I got to try. It’s a logic game. I played a few levels but, frankly, I’m not very good at it. Still, I can see the appeal for those who play Sudoku and stuff like that.

Paradoxion

1. I’m tired of having insomnia. (Irony intended.)
2. I miss writing my thoughts on this blog.
3. I don’t know the difference between being compulsive and being disciplined. The things I want to do somehow I’m too “lazy” or “undisciplined” to do. Yet compulsive behaviors in opposite directions come easy. Why can’t I take my devotion to something negative and aim it at something positive?
4. I’m tired of taking anti-depressants and blood pressure meds because I’m so anxious all the time. I want off the meds.
5. I admire Hooved Shaman immensely. Most people will never understand what a courageous thing he’s trying to do.
6. I miss dancing the Lindy Hop with my husband.
7. I miss riding my bike.
8. I miss swimming.
9. I miss seeing sunrises and sunsets.
10. I miss the wind blowing through my hair.
11. I miss wearing short skirts.
12. I miss connecting with my friends and family.
13. I think TJ is one of the funniest things on the internet. She has also introduced me to some of the coolest things on the internet.
14. I’m bored with WoW. I’m not sure if I care to get over the boredom. I’m not sure Wrath will cure it. I think it is broken inside me.
15. I’m sick of my computers, the web, politicians, religious pushers of all stripes, politics, pundits, jerkfaces, phenoms, trolls, critics, asswipes, corporate lifestyles, humidity, materialism, advertising, the worship of sex, people who make sweeping generalizations, people who make lists, and television news people.
16. I need more hugs and kisses from people.
17. If I can learn how to be optimistic, anyone can. I wish more people would try.
18. I want to dedicate my life to something bigger than myself. How do you narrow it down to just one thing? And how do you eat & pay rent while you’re doing it?
19. I don’t believe in mid-life crises, except from a hormonal point of view. Everything else is just an excuse to avoid reality.
20. I wish I could adequately explain the difference between acceptance and giving up.
21. I want to wear a short, cute, fun hairstyle, even if it’s not right for my face.
22. I want to know why compassion is less valued than competition.
23. I think people are tribal animals. Emphasis on tribal. Emphasis on animals. Until we get that through our thick, “civilized” heads, we’re always going to fall short of anything resembling world peace.
24. Can you write for a blog about a game you’re falling out of love with — especially if they’re not all that interested in you writing about what interests you — just to get the experience to put on your resume for bigger things in the future? Should you even try?
25. I think atheism is not a lack of belief; it is a belief in something different.
26. I think science is as much a mythology as any religion. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But to think it is higher than other mythologies is to make an arbitrary exception.
27. Sometimes, when thinking about my gramma’s death hurts so bad that my chest hurts and my teeth grind, I try to remember that time is not necessarily linear just because we perceive it that way. When a wave crashes to the shore, does it cease to exist or does it just go back into the ocean? I try to remember that gramma and I are both in the ocean and we are waves, seeming to come and go but still part of the same thing.

I’m a bit late in finding this video — it’s about a year old — but it is way too cool not to share with you. This guy shows how easy it is to make any Wii game into a virtual reality game. It’s not even very difficult. I’m surprised some game makers haven’t already taken advantage of this opportunity. Thanks to my Dad for sending it to me!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw]