Chips and Salsa!

Welcome back to Monday folks! Look on the bright side, this week, if you reside in the U.S., you have the day off for Labor day. If you live elsewhere, sorry, welcome back to work. On Saturday, 3/4theHorde Got together while pie traveled south to visits family. Nimrock and I met up with him at one of the local Mexican establishments for dinner. Good food, good friends, and talking yours truly into playing D&D over the Internet makes for a great evening. It just sucks our other 1/4theHorde (Fikkle) is not just all the way north in Canada,  he’s even FURTHER north than usual. Who knows, if all goes as planned, we’ll be traveling to Northland next summer for a true Cana-Shenanicon meetup.

Back to WoW. As I stated in last weeks post, I am in love with the gold sink/time sink that is transmogrification. Seriously, I have multiple “outfits” for each character that I play/bank with ,and usually switch them up at least weekly… Sad I know. I wanted to take a minute and show off some of the great looks I’ve achieved over the past few months since transmoging became a thing.

First off we’ll start with my main Gozz. I’m a fan of red on my hunter, so I have a few red sets, one my self titled dragon hunter. I love the shiny red plate look with the dragon gun from BRD. My only regret is finishing the quest in SMV that gives the all red dragon head helmet years ago, before transmoging… So I can’t fully complete the look I want. Oh well.

Next is his take on the deadly gladiator set. The shoulders and helmet are the defining pieces of this set, and then throw in the org tabard and the horde bow…. S. I. C. K. Not to mention his rare Hydra pet, that can now be my tank solo pet!

Next is my two banker toons, Vos and Jesuit. Vos has spent some gold on his outfit, but with the cash he’s brought in, I’m okay with it! Here is his Silvermoon Vigilante look.

Next is his Templar Set, complete with Blade of Wizardry and His Tome of Auctionhouseing.

Next up, my bag man. He’s the guy that puts together all of the raw materials I find into bags. Bags=gold atm for me. Anyway, here is his Silver Thread set.

Finally, the character that has been through the most changes over my years of wow. He’s been an undead rogue, a gnome rogue (sad but true), a female orc rogue, a female bloodelf rogue, and now finally, has come full circle, an undead rogue. Just typing that makes me hate myself and the amount of money that has went into just race changes with this toon… not to mention server changes, and faction changes… I should quit while I’m really behind… Anwyay, here is Sylus in his newly minted Guild Colors PVP Sickle Set.

As you can see, I’m pretty sold on Transmoging. I want my gear to look how I choose, not how some dev thinks my “high end” armor should look. Some of my favorite pieces are random drops and quest loot. Those daggers Sy is sporting come from rep… from the walrus people.. I forget their name off the top of my head. What I’m saying is, they are sick, and easy to get, not heroic-hardmode-haters-gonna-hate-mode-82-man-raid content.

I really want to see some of your transmog sets. Leave us some links to your armory pages. Who knows, I might come up with something nice for my favorites.

It’s past my bedtime,

OldManSy

Random Email Chain of the Day:Character Lineup

Pie Writes:

Since Sy and Nim and Roz have become “dirty alliance scum” a lot…and left Fikkle and I to our own devices (which usually involve pwning noobs in bgs) and Jaarka is busy being a school bum.  Oh and Slig and Grubs are cheating on WOW with some “other” game….

I thought I would let you all know my proposed Cataclysm lineup.

For the Horde:
Halke — Orc Hunter with Red Drake (the bestest flying mount of all time(TM) )
Naciasto — Tauren Druid (some drood is black with grey main cat (cat is 4 fite) and black and grey bear (bare is 4 tank)  also sumtimes is owl.
Forpaj — soon to be Tauren Priest because sometimes Cow is for heals and for lots bubbles (oh and the current Forpaj can haz prayer of Fort..rawr)
Tombreaver — Undead Rogue because Lady S needs her some good Deathstalkers

I currently have a Orc lock, and two placeholder characters on Dawnbringer, I may go Goblin Mage and then I’ll probably roll an orc warrior, or switch my current Tauren Warrior to an Orc.  One of my new characters will be a Tauren paladin.  I actually got in the entire NPC conversation in TB the other day, so I am really stoked about them.  Depending on what I do with my orc shaman (see below) may be a goblin shaman in the mix.

Dirty Alliance Scum:
Piepal — Soon to be Draenei Paladin because face it male Draenei look awesome in plate.  Also, I can bring +hit for joo
Xorak — currently orc shaman will become Dwarf Shaman when it opens…dwarf + shaman…nuff said.  Or may stay with the orc shaman and roll new dwarf.
Peperic — Dwarf Hunter like Halk, can never change, plus Dwarf plus bear for tankage…
Unamed Worgen Druid — Drood and not night elf, this is all win and you know it.
Bratwurst — Human DK — Because nothing says rep grind is easier than a human…

I am probably going to go with a gnome lock and mage and I really think I am going Worgen Rogue because that stealth animation is all win.

I am almost at the point where my bank alt will be just that, a bank alt.  Nothing more than a level 1 character etc.  Too long have my bank alts ended up being something I want to play and then wham, the end up stuck in a city.

What do you all think of my lineup?  Feel free to include your own lineup or not, no pressure.

LinzieBug AKA Grubs Writes:

like it!!! Tauren priest is all win in my book (well tauren anything really!)

I’ve actually been thinking of deleting everyone except Oz and Grubs, getting all the others gold, mats and stuff in 1 place and starting over when the xpan hit. I can’t make up my mind though…I’d be really sad for sure.

Uncle Sy Writes:

FYI, I was Horde-Core all morning(servers were back up before 10 central time?) I got the bronze drake(bringing mount total to 70), pwned the black knight, and once again lost the roll for the brewfest ram…oh, and destroyed H-An (the daily) in the process. I was in a pwn things mood, and got into an amazing pug of people I had pugged with before, I logged in and they were like, hey guy, long time no see, now come pwn stuff. Then I ate lunch, watched two episodes of Sanctuary on netflix, did some homework, then battlegrounds till work. Now I work. Tonight, put together shelves with manly powertools, then battlegrounds!

Uncle Sy follows up with this one:

Okay, lineup time.
Gozz 1.0-80 Orc Hunter on DB, 70 mounts, working on 100.
Gozz 2.0-28 Dwarf Hunter on WH, Hunters are all win, and he is tearing up the BG’s
Sylus-80 Undead Rogue on DB, stabbing is for fun.
Abadon- 80 Belf(will be an orc) Death Ka-nig-it(Montey Python spelling, sound it out) on DB.
Kohen-72 Belf(barf)priest on DB, if I decide to keep playing him, he will be a cow.
Boldrid-69 Dranei pally on WH, he brought all the heirloom gear over, his purpose os fulfilled.
Impios-53 Undead lock on DB, if I ever play him, he will be an orc evetually.
Gozra-55 Orc Shammaness on DB, she’s like 55, so I may get her to outlands and tear on.
Kovari-40ish Troll Slave, I mean banker, yeah, banker on DB
Redux- 29 Rogue twink(without gear atm…I stole the rogue gear to go to WH…I’m replacing it, sheesh!)
Bg-12 Cow Druid with heirloom gear, may keep, may try a /shudder….troll druid.
 
NEW CATACLYSM TOONS!!!
Cow Priest, replacing Kohen.
Cow Pally, replacing Errebus who went to the WH side.
Worgen Beast Mastery Hunter
Worgen Assassination Rogue
Worgen Affliction Warlock
Worgen Unholy Death Knight
Worgen Frost Mage
Worgen Holy Paladin
Worgen Feral Druid
Worgen Holy Priest
Worgen Enhancement Shamman
Worgen Protection Warrior
Worgen marksman Hunter
Worgen Combat Rogue
Worgen Destruction Warlock
Worgen Blood Death Knight
Worgen Fire Mage
Worgen Retribution Paladin
Worgen Balance Druid
Worgen Unholy Priest
Worgen Elemental Shamman
Worgen Arms Warrior
Worgen Survival Hunter
Worgen Subtlty Rogue
Worgen Demonology Warlock
Worgen Frost Death Knight
Worgen Arcane Mage
Worgen Protection Paladin
Worgen Resto Druid
Worgen Disc Priest
Worgen Resto Shamman
Worgen Fury Warrior
Worgen Bard
Worgen Banker
Worgen War Priest
Worgen Berserker
Worgen Fighter
Worgen Shadow Dancer
Worgen Thief
Worgen Monk
Worgen Center Fielder
Worgen Plumber
Worgen Professional Bull Rider
Worgen Wide Reciever
Worgen Tight End
Worgen Center
Worgen Warchief
Worgen PSU graduate
Worgen Baby
Worgen Teenageer
Worgen Mother
Worgen Boss
Worgen Employees
Worgen Telemarketer
Worgen Rock Band
Worgen Guitar Hero
Worgen Dance Partner
Worgen General
Worgen Canadian Air Force Captian
Worgen Zoo employee
Worgen Student
Worgen Sam Jack(wait, we already have him)
Worgen Pie
Worgen Brother
Worgen Sister-in-law
Worgen Reeses Peanut Butter Lovers Peanut Butter Cup
Worgen Soap Opera Star
Worgen Used Car Salesman
Worgen Mechanic
Worgen Barista
Worgen Bartender
Worgen Space Fighter
Worgen Zergling
Worgen Marine
Worgen Terren
Worgen whatever else I can think of! Yeah, I’m a bit osessed with the worgen, and there is no way to tell how many of these puppies I’ll have…get it, see what I did there? puppies, worgen?!? FUNNY! Slap your knees!

Rozjin Writes:

Sy … you are paying for my hernia that I got from laughing so hard. Seriously dude, you crack me up sooo much.
 
Lineup? Oh geez.
 
DB
Rozjin, 80 troll mage, he ain’t going nowhere, Fiak needs his pew pew partner
Junahu, 80 tauren hunter, being as she was my first toon and has the most achievements/mounts/pets .. she’s the collector/achievement whore
will anything else get leveled? I dunno. The alts are:
DItzul, 76 troll DK
Galor, 27 belf paladin (no, he’s not turning tauren)
Zerbrez, 24 troll priest
Cruljin, 23 troll warrior
then there are the twinks
Maldrice, 18 undead rogue
Kubrez, 16 troll hunter
and a bank alt, Zalazku, 8 troll shaman
I have one slot left, which will be a goblin something or other to see the starting zone, and then be a troll druid
 
WH
Karius, 77 (or will be in two bars) human mage – if I had to name which toon is my main, it would be him
Katia, 70 draenei DK – ya know, I won’t ever reroll her because she has the Flame Warden title, but … a race change isn’t out of the question
Sanbec, 48 human warrior
Ragle, 41 human priest
Kaladis, 16 nelf druid, he’s really cute
Kyrandre, 16 draenei paladin, may become a bank alt
Kerick, 9 (I think) human paladin, because Kyrandre just isn’t my type
hmm…I missed someone. I know I have 9 slots filled.
Oh, Kardios, 7 nelf hunter, I just want to be able to hear a nelf die every time I FD. Maybe I’ll delete him and transfer Valleris over.
And Keodd, 2 human rogue, teh banker for now.
My worgen I think will be a warlock. Picture a human, who turns into a worgen, who turns into a demon at the bottom of the demonology tree. Yeah. Awesome!

Fikkle Finally chimes in:

you’re such a noob…. I am so not counting that… did you hit your character limit or will you need to pay blizz another 15 greenbacks a month?

Sy’s one liner follow up:

I’d have to pay up I think!

Roz follows up with this:

Hm I think I noobed it up and only replied to Sy instead of the list.

 

(I think they’ll all see it now! Shenanigans have been made public knowledge!!!)

~Uncle Sy

Group Dynamics

/Wall of Text On:

Over the course of the last expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard has made a point to focus on simplifying content to the extent that you don’t have to have x amount of paladins, y amount of druids, etc to down boss z. This is a huge positive! This mens that casual guilds can do alot of the content they couldn’t reach in previous iterations of the game.  Beyond this, the thought of group dynamics hasn’t gotten much attention.

I want to step back and take a look at the people I game with. I’m not going to lie, this thought pattern I am having right now stems from a post I did at World of Sylus, my other personal blog(I’m not purposely pimping this one all the time, I swear!!!). That post was about a personality test I had to take for a class. I asked some of my guildies in Ashes of Tirisfal to take this test, and a few followed through. Some were close to my personality type, others the exact opposite. That’s fine, it takes all kinds of people to make the world run smooth and such. I then began thinking about how this affects us as a collective of diverse and dynamic personalities. What makes us click as a group? What is the driving force to make me want to log into a virtual world and play with people who in most cases, I have never met(and most likely won’t meet most of them)?

As I was driving home today, listening to the final episode of How I Wow with Shawn Basic and Patric Beja, they were talking about how this show spun out from their friendships and ties to The Instance podcast. The episode was interesting from the standpoint that their guest, Scott Johnson, went into the make up of the guild Alea Iacta Est. It’s the largest guild in North America, and very rarely has problems. How is this? Yes, they get the occasional idiot, and that idiot gets dealt with. As a whole however, the guild attracts like minded individuals that share common goals, thus avoiding the problems in the first place.

Back to Ashes of Tirisfal. Lets face it, the majority of the guildies, and friends I have run around with online have either A, come from real life: Nimrock, Spiffie, Rayha, Thorarin , or B, come from contacts through world of warcraft or the community of bloggers and internet persons: Fikkle, Thibor, Slig, Grubs, Pie, Rozjin, Jaarka, and most recently the gang at Crits and Giggles. If you know several of the listed people, you know we are a very eclectic bunch. Our personalities can be far from compatable at times, and even hostile at times. We know that there are times when we just need our space. We know some people can’t handle PVP, and so when they are on vent you avoid them if you don’t want to hear the F-bomb! (I’m looking at you Fik and Roz!) Yet, in the end, this group somehow manages to work well together on many levels. We may never be a top end raiding guild, heck, we may never be a raiding guild! One thing has always held through to the end, we have fun together. One week we may be gearing up twinks we may never play, the next talking about trying to get ten people together on any given night to try out nax. We,  for the most part, live  lives filled to the brim with jobs, family, hobbies, school, even other games, and yet we can all log into vent, even if for twenty minutes and exchange a quick story and move on. The majority of our daily interaction rarely takes place in game, but rather in our daily emails, or as we prefer to call them, “daily Shenanigans.” They are awesome little distractions throughout our crazy days.

Looking back through this post, I’m trying to find a way to sum it all up, give you, the loyal readers, a point to this madness. I guess if I had to say one thing it would be directed at you, the guildies and internet people I have come to think of as a family at times, and as royal pains in my butt at others. That point would be this: I don’t care what personality type you are, I don’t care that you’ve had a bad day and want to yell at someone on vent, or had a great day and want to share it with others! Know that Uncle Sy is always here for you. I know we goof around alot, I know we shenanigans around, that is great, but lets not forget that we are here to have fun and play a game. If someone wants to run around naked for twenty levels, fine, but remember to not ride that other guy for doing less.  We have an effect on those around us, virtually, or in real life. You guys are great.

/Wall of Text Off:

Shenanigans and tomfoolery,
~Uncle Sy

Where I play the Bad Kitteh

Updated! Added text link to movie for RSS readers.

Nimrock let it be known through our daily shenanigans email thread that he has standards. Cue Homer prancing around like a pixie elf using a sing-song voice: OOoooOOOooo, “STANDARDS!”

So today I intend to mock him for it.

He has thusly declared the following topics to be off-limits when one of us swaps blog days with him, and I quote:

1. loot posts
2. what boss we killed
3. blogrolls
4. anything with the word tard in it
5. a review of what all your characters are doing

Just so y’all know. I guess that means he doesn’t read WoW Insider any more. (HA!)

So what does that leave me to write about? Well, he didn’t expressly forbid me from pimping my own blog, on which I wrote an eloquent essay about Blizzard’s missteps in the marketing of WoW. But that would be crass and shallow of me, wouldn’t it? Maybe we should add “cross-blog link-baiting” to Nim’s list. (Sorry, Sy.)

Oh, and what about…

• the ubiquitous how-to post,
• the long-page-loading screen-shots post,
• the omg, isn’t our guild chat hilarious! post,
• the my humble opinion of the patch notes post,
• the gratuitous back-links post (does this really need an example??),
• and finally, the standard blog anniversary post?

I mean, it’s wayyyyyy too boring to post about any of those things, so I shan’t. They must all go on The List.

Instead I have decided to offer you a precious, precious gift. Here is the first part of my semi-autobiographical in-process movie. The song is “The Long Way Around” by the Dixie Chicks. (Buy it!)

Lastly, I want to add one more banned topic to The List. We should probably kill posts in which the blogger rambles and whines about what to write. Those kinds of posts are clearly the most annoying.

Sometimes email might as well be guild chat

SUBJECT: Nexus Tonight

Fikkle: Okay, so me Nim and sy are going to be doing arenas on the tournament realm later tonight around 9ish, so I just wanted to see who was going to be around for the standard nexus run.  Since Slig hasn’t been able to get in over the last couple of days, I’m willing to tank with Juris to get her through fairly quickly and then if we want to get a second run going with Nim tanking, I’ll be there to heal. Just wondering what a good time for Slig is.  Let me know. By the way, great posts guys, glad to see some new stuff up over the last couple of days

Slig: I can be on by 6 server time.

Fikkle: Sounds good, I’ll be ready and Pie will also likely be available (I am the boss of him).  If we need to pick up a few PUGs for dps we can.

Nim: i’ll be around but i’m not really itching to run anything unless i’m needed, artoo and renfield need some levelling love.

Pie: Fikkle you are not the boss of me!  But I do need some upgrades for Pie and some emblems for the Halk. I also has characters that need leveling love too.

Just give up this arena thing, you don’t no stupid murloc!

Fikkle: “You don’t no stupid murloc!”  – Did you hire OM(*) Sy as your secretary?

Slig: “You don’t no stupid murloc!” Is this like “You don’t know Jack”? I’m lost…

Pie: English sometimes phails me….or I phail it.  One way or the other. Truthfully I was going to take a shot at one of you three goofs about your lack of PvP skills but realized you all could probably kick my butt in PvP…. 

So I picked on the murloc.

And got roflstomped.

Fikkle: Lol… for sure. Btw, You don’t know Jack was a great game when it first came out.  As for our pvp skills… Well lets just say the only time I’ve ever had an arena rating at 1500 is when we’ve started a new team… so ya…

Nim: SHUT UP NOOB!!! I PVP SO HARD U DON”T EVEN NO!!!

oh, sorry, been on the forums too much lately…

Fikkle: We all need to be in game together more often… guild chat is going to be epic tonight!  Although, I think its pretty hilarious that Sy is going to have about 30 emails to read through when he gets outta class.

Pie: We still have not called for the vote on calling him OM.

(Gavel-Swinger) Nim: I vote we table the motion to a later meeting.

Fikkle: We could go with Particularly Old Sy… as the double entendre acronym is much more suiting

(Old Man) Sylus: I just caught up…18. You guys are failing me! Sent from my iPhone

Nim: I move we ammend the motion on the table to POS posthaste and with prejudice!

Fikkle: Seconded!

Nim: any discussion?

Sylus: I move YOU CAN ALL SUCK IT! Sent from my iPhone

Fikkle: nay from I

Nim: I rise to a point of order. Current discussion must be dealt with before new motions.

Fikkle: Here, here.

Pie: No discussion for me, and once this is voted on or tabled, I move we censure POS.

Slig: Rofl in Target!!! Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Pie: Anyone else see Sy right now as Achmed the Dead Terrorist?  Silence! I Keel You!!

Fikkle: Point of order, Mr. Gavel-Swinger.  Now that all parties have been heard from, we should move to a vote.

Nim: I call for a vote on the resolution to change Sylus P. Deadrogue’s name to Particularly Old Sylus.

Fikkle: Aye

Pie: Aye, But seriously his name was Sylus P. Deadrogue?

(POS) Sylus: I  Vote shinanigans! Now get off my lawn you snot-nosed brats! Sent from my iPhone

Nim: *gavel* Motion carries.

Slig: Just to prove I’m an Ornery cuss, I vote with Sy. Whippersnappers! Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Slig: Shoot. Too slow on email machine. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Nim: that’s ok slug, the vote is still

3 aye’s

2…shenanigans…

————————

(*) OM = Old Man