Stormrage's Dreaming

Moving

2007-05-03T08:03:00.000-05:00

Gillir and the gang are taking up residence over at Wordpress. I hope you'll follow us over to

Stormrage's Dreaming: http://gillir.wordpress.com/

Critical Thinking and WoW

2007-05-02T08:36:00.000-05:00

Tobold said something, in the comments to his post on the nature of his blog, that struck a chord with me so I'm going to riff off it. Here's a snippet (be sure to read all of it):

"If I just wrote what happened to me, this blog would be pretty boring. The interesting thing is how what happens relates to game design, and the behavior of other people. Given how human behavior tends to follow certain paths, most notably that of least resistance, how would game design need to change to turn some bad game feature into a good one? It is not about what I do while playing, it is what I *think* while playing that makes people read this."

Another way to describe what Tobold is talking about is the term "critical thinking." Asking questions, connecting the dots, asking why and how, determining causal relationships; really just using your head and diving beneath the surface to understand how things work.

The reason this struck a chord with me is because I was considering writing a post on this very topic (so thanks to Tobold for the inspiration). See, I teach college English, and so I also teach first-year writing (I know, everyone hates freshman comp.), and one of the objectives of these courses is to teach critical thinking. So, how does this relate to WoW?

Does playing Warcraft teach or develop critical thinking?

I think so. Just take a basic transaction in the Auction House. You have to compare and contrast; you have to consider how the gear will enhance your stats. What build are you? Which will be more useful to you +spirit or +strength? Even grinding possesses the potential for analysis: Can I pull this mob without pulling 2 more on me? At what point do I down a healing pot? What's the best sequence for my casting? While you can go through all this without a second thought (and you can be successful, too, I would assume), that doesn't mean that there's no thinking involved.

Let's approach this from another direction. Take NASCAR for instance. I grew up in the South and so stock car racing was quite prevalent in my environment, but I never liked it. Like many people, I thought it was just cars driving fast in a circle. Then, a few years back, I actually watched a race, and lo and behold, there is strategy: tire pressure, aerodynamics, when to pit and when to stay out, drafting, and tons of other technical things that I still don't even know about. So, yes, you can watch NASCAR and not give second thought to it; but you can also consider the strategy and nuances of the sport, too; you know, think about it.

Thinking and Warcraft do go hand in hand; I mean, that's what theorycraft is all about, isn't it?

That doesn't mean that you have to critically analyze the game all the time. What's particularly attractive to me is that it possesses strategy and intellectually-challenging content and plain and simple bash and blast. Many times I play to not think, to get out of my head; but it is also nice to analyze and critique, too, so perhaps it's that combination of the intellectual and the visceral that keeps me coming back.

The Man Behind the Mask

2007-05-01T20:59:00.000-05:00

So in addition to travel form, another nice thing about hitting 30 is wearing a helm. Maybe there are some available before 30, but I've never seen one in the AH. Anyway, Gillir has shed his BElf Bandit mask for an Insignia Cap, as seen here:

I considered putting the BElf mask on the AH, but it has sentimental value (I got it the first night after getting BC) so it'll pass on to Gillir's sister-alt, Halja, since she'll look best in it (warlocks and red just go together).

I wonder if others hold on to equipment for sentimental value, like the first blue you got in an instance, or something you grinded away for until it dropped. I've got a ton of equipment in the bank I need to sort through and vendor, but can't seem to get myself to do it (not completely for sentimental reasons, though).

(On a technical note, I've been trying to figure out how to do the tooltip-mouseover trick with links but can't do it. Any suggestions?)

Ding! 30

2007-05-01T17:51:00.000-05:00

I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK...

2007-04-30T09:33:00.000-05:00

If you've been to the Eastvale Logging Camp in Elwynn Forest (and you're familiar with Monty Python) then you know exactly what the post title refers to:

I had seen references to this character before, so I had to play tourist and take a picture of him. (Worth noting, too, is that the name is a combination of Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam/Terry Jones).

Of course, here's the original:

Hey, while we're on the subject of Monty Python, here's one of my favorites:

"Archimedes out to Socrates, Socrates back to Archimedes, Archimedes out to Herakleitos, he beat Hegel, Herakleitos is a little flick, here comes on the bardboard Socrates, Socrates is there! It is in! The Greeks are going... the Greeks are going mad! The Greeks are going there, Socrates scores, beautiful----the Germans are disputing it! Hegel is arguing that reality is merely a ---- ethics, Kant by the categoric imperative is holding that ultimologically possessed only in the imagination and Marx is claiming it was off-side! But Confucius blows the final whistle...it's all over! "

Spirited Away

2007-04-29T20:51:00.000-05:00

Tsoai dinged 20 and got ghost wolf. Pretty fleet cruising down the road with 40% increase to speed.

Gillir's up to 29. Had it rough Friday night at Raven Hill, or Gank Central, probably about 6 times total. Luckily, it was quieter last night so he made some progress. Onward to 30 and travel form, but first should make some visits to the battlegrounds and get some PVP practice (boy, do I need it.)

Spammer?

2007-04-26T11:11:00.000-05:00

I was in the human starting area (rolled a lock) and happened to see this where you begin at level 1:
Notice the name? The garbled, nonsense letters that you see in those annoying gold whisper spams? This must be one. Strange to actually see it in the flesh (as it were).

And here's what Gillir would look like if he were undead:I did the Cursed Crew quests (and finished all of them, too!) and when you get hit with the curse you're turned undead. It's a little disorienting, especially for a druid because you can't automatically tell when you're in form. Although the bear or cat pops out when you perform a move. And then the underwater fighting, and aggro, and cramped spaces: not the easiest quest line to perform.

Oh yeah, Gillir dinged 28 last night. I'm focusing on getting him to 30 this coming week.

Saturday Morning Haiku

2007-04-21T07:33:00.000-05:00

Graceful in this flight,
Alighting in Astranaar;
Horde rogue reveals: gank.

Screenshots from 4/17 and 4/18

2007-04-19T18:38:00.000-05:00

Here are some screenshots to accompany the previous post.

Tsotoski and Waya

Bear-Gillir after first fight with Mosshides: 4 on 1

After the third fight of 4 on 1

In the last shot you can see my skeleton in the background. There was a second fight and I was winning, but got ganked, which then necessitated the third go-around. And I know, too, that the accomplishment may not be as thrilling as I think it is since the mobs were around 3-4 levels below me. Still, it's good tanking practice for the bear.

Recent News

2007-04-17T11:02:00.000-05:00

Things have been progressing along nicely the past few days. Here are some of the highlights:
Leveled Alchemy to 225. ~~Now to visit the trainer in Feralas.~~ Strike that: found out you have to be lvl 35 to train further, darn it.

Gillir dinged 26 on Saturday, with the help of a guildmate, Ondaragg, a shaman. As we were questing together, we were taking out raptors in Wetlands. We pulled one, but for some reason three more aggroed on us (not sure why because I thought they were out of range, but on second thought, raptors do that screech for help which may have pulled the others in). I switched from cat to bear to tank the raptors while Onda was hitting them and putting down totems. We came close to wiping but downed all the raptors; it's a moment like that when you realize the value of feral spec. Then last night I hit 27 and was able to equip Barbaric Bracers, courtesy of one of The Olde Guard's leatherworkers (thanks Yeahso!) Feral spec was in full force too with the mob aggro I was getting from Mosshide Gnolls and Mongrels; I'll post some screenshots later of the aftermath (4 on 1, NP).

Tsoai hit 16 and Jewelcrafting is going well, although he needs to do some farming for ore. He's got a long list of quests on Bloodmyst to knock out, so he needs to get to work on that.

And another alt has joined the crew: Tsotoski, a dwarf hunter. I rolled him to check out the class and was lukewarm to the hunter until lvl 10, when I got a pet. I tamed a wolf, named him Waya, and now I'm hooked on the hunter. There's something about having that pet, taking care of him, having a buddy on the road. And the pet does balance out the class. One of the reasons I was ambivalent about playing the hunter pre-pet was because he seemed so weak, but that all changes with the pet.

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Hello, my name is Gillir, and I'm an altaholic. You know you're hooked when you have enough characters to form your own guild. I rolled a Draenei to be my auction alt; figured it would be easier to mail him stuff; then my leveling toons can stay out in the wild and not have to run back to a capital city every night. I chose a Draenei, too, because: a) The Exodar is less crowded and b) the mailboxes, bank, and AH are close to each other.

So that's been the goings-on as of late.

2007-04-17T10:54:00.000-05:00

Tsoai Gets a Mount

2007-04-10T17:42:00.000-05:00

Well, for 15 minutes he had one. There's a quest on Bloodmyst called The Kessel Run (get it? Kessel Run) where you have to go warn the bigwigs on Azuremyst of a Blood Elf invasion and you get an elekk to ride. For a lowbie a long, long ways from getting a mount, it's a little taste of what's to come.

And this shot is from the end of Declaration of Power , where you kill Lord Xiz and drive the banner through his corpse. Makes for a nice victory pose.

Also here is the new UI with CT Mods instead of Bongos. There is a lift in performance so we'll see how this one goes.

Peter Lee Concept Art

2007-04-10T15:52:00.000-05:00

Via WoW Insider: Peter Lee's concept art for B.C.

Alchemy is Stuck

2007-04-10T14:57:00.000-05:00

Anyone ever had this happen? My alchemy has outleveled my character. My Alchemy is at 214, which means that all the orange-level pots--which will level me--require herbs from areas that are out of my range. For example, according to MapWoW.com, on Kalimdor, goldthorn is found in places like Azshara (48-55), Dustwallow Marsh (35-45), and Feralas (40-50). Same situation for the Eastern Kingdoms. So, what to do, what to do?

Weekend Goings-On

2007-04-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

The weekend produced a move up to 25 for Gillir. Quested in the Wetlands and took care of Gobbler and his Murloc minions, dug through some ooze, and took down a few raptors. Gillir got into a sticky situation with raptors, aggroing three on him at once. The old bear was holding against them just barely when a helpful Draenei priest jumped in and assisted this druid in extricating himself from his predicament. Also, while digging through the ooze, Gillir wandered over to Dun Modr and encountered two mounted Hordes on the path, they kept going and so did Gillir. No kill on sight there, luckily.

Tsoai started his professions: mining and jewelcrafting, a natural for the Draenei.

And a new alt joins the family: Tsotoski, a dwarf hunter.

Oh yeah, I fiddled with the UI (again) and changed out Bongos for CTMods. Been having problems with crashes during flights so I'm trimming the addons down as much as possible to conserve memory, although I'm not certain of the exact nature of this problem.

Introducing the New Alt

2007-04-07T14:16:00.000-05:00

Here he is, Tsoai, in the Vault of Light at Exodar. The name carries over from my original character, who has now gone into retirement.
He's a shaman and I've enjoyed playing this class so far. Like the druid, he is multifaceted and provides a variety of different skills and tactics. ~~He's doing skinning and leatherworking which provide a refreshing change from herbalism and alchemy.~~(Now doing mining/jewelcrafting.)

Some other thoughts about playing the expansion:
Some better design in The Exodar with the mailbox being located right outside of the auction house, no more running halfway across the city to pick up your stuff.

It seems that there are more quests that begin with a dropped item.

Some interesting maneuvers with the staff that I haven't seen before (like when he tosses it up, catches it, then hits).

And malachite is dropping like crazy.

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As for Gillir, he hit 24 yesterday, but now needs to figure out where to quest next: either the Wetlands or the Redridge Mountains. He's got a backlog of quests, some in instances, so he'll have to start PUGin' soon.

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Made a visit with the original Tsoai, talked about old times, the noobie days as they were. (Although Barrens chat has not been missed a bit.) He might still see some action in the battlegrounds, though, from some druid PVP practice.

Gone Feral

2007-04-03T12:19:00.000-05:00

After some deliberation and thought, I put down my 1G last night, respecced, and went feral. I had been resto ever since I first started playing the game, but decided that with the bulk of solo grinding I do, feral would be the best spec. So, I went to try it out and WOW, this is a heck of lot more fun than I realized it could be. Cat form is faster, Bear has the feral charge, and I know I'm going to have some fun with this spec.

Here's the new spec. Any constructive advice about where to go next with it would be most welcome.

I am nothing, who are you?

2007-04-02T20:09:00.000-05:00

Was disconnected and when I got back on, had this little graphics glitch. Kind of cool-looking, though.

Finally!

2007-04-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

So I finally got the expansion yesterday and can now enjoy some of the new content (although I'm nowhere near going to Outland since that requires lvl. 58). There were two things I wanted to do once I got the expansion. The first order of business was rolling a Draenei shaman and checking out those guys. Then the second order of business was to get a Blood Elf Bandit Mask. I had first read about it in this post by Tomas. So, Gillir sailed over to Azuremyst Isle and started the search. And guess what: the first bandit I found dropped it. The hard part was finding the guy, but even that wasn't so hard. I followed the coordinates found on Thottbot here and in the third spot I tried (at 51, 17), I was standing there, heard that whoosh, and could discern the faint outline of the bandit, standing ghost-like by the road.

Here's a post-kill shot:
And here's Gillir with his new accessory:
Alas, the evening's fun got interrupted by my being ganked on the boat to Menethil. Me and two other NE's were in the wrong place at the wrong time as we stepped on the boat in Auberdine to have not one, not two, but three Level ?? Hordes appear in front of us. Of course, as soon as we entered contested territory, we were dead. In fact, I was dead before the splash screen was gone; but, that's PVP for you.

Combat UI

2007-03-31T08:58:00.000-05:00

UI Screenshot

2007-03-29T21:31:00.000-05:00

Been meaning to do this for awhile now; here's my UI:

Create Your Sig

2007-03-29T18:05:00.000-05:00

Found this via BRK:
Profile generator from MMO-Champion

~~See mine in the header.~~
(Having problems at the moment with linking it.)

Of Interest

2007-03-28T10:11:00.000-05:00

You'll find below some links to recent posts from some of the blogs I visit. Not much has been happening these past few days; working on the Pelturas Whitemoon chain, and am on the final quest, Fallen Sky Lake, but it's lvl 30 so I'll have to come back to it later. Alchemy is clipping along, now at 198, but need to find some Wild Steelbloom for some of the upper-level potions. Otherwise, I've a hit a little lag; as with life, there are peaks and valleys, and so I'm in a valley at the moment. I rolled a NE warrior, too, to check that class out. I was seeing warriors do that cool charge and so wanted to see what that was like: and I like it. It's a nice change of pace, too, because you really get into the thick of things; a cool way to vent aggressive energy. He's to lvl 6. Eventually I hope to give each class a try, at least to better understand what I'm up against in the PvP context. I am finding, though, that, race-wise, I like Night Elves. Not sure why; I don't like the floppy ears, but in contrast to playing the other races, I feel much more at home with a NE. Anyway, as promised above, here are some interesting links:

Tobold continues the series of posts on Dream Features; this time it's Less-Random Loot Tables.

Tomas has a post on The Great Lynx Run. (I remember when I first made the run in the Wetlands. I was lvl 16 and working on the Sea Lion quest that requires you to go to Westfall. It was my first time in contested territory on a PvP realm so I just knew some 70 horde was going to pop up and gank me as soon as I set foot into yellow territory. Actually didn't see one horde and while I did get some crockolisk aggro, Nature's Grasp allowed me to root them and keep running; so wasn't bad at all.)

Big Red Kitty reminds us of the Naked Gnome Race to be held this Saturday. Sure to be a sight to behold.

And,
Amanna has an informative post on Potions, elixirs and scrolls. Have to say that I love using the potions I make with Alchemy.

Just Some Quick Comments

2007-03-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

Just some quick comments about the weekend. Saturday night went well: I dinged 21. A fellow O.G. got onto his lvl 20 Dranei warrior and we ran some quests together in Ashenvale. It's such a refreshing change to work with someone on quests. We got jumped by a lvl 25 Tauren druid at Zoram Strand but we took him down in a matter of seconds. Not sure why he was so crappy; I mean, it seems, that a 25 could put up a better fight than that against two 20s. He shifted to bear once late in the fight (which he should have done immediately, I think), shifted back to caster, then he was gone. I don't even think he hit us with any dps spells (unless he hit the warrior), which he could have done since he saw us before we saw him. Nonetheless, it was my first non-battleground kill, so that was cool. Didn't do much last night (graded papers all weekend, so I was exhausted); got on my alt mage and did some herb farming. Checked in on Gillir and got some $ from auctions, went to Ashenvale and logged.

Pictures

2007-03-25T07:59:00.000-05:00

The First Post of Gillir's Killer WoW Blog

2007-03-24T09:28:00.000-05:00

I started a blog on my guild's website, but it's bare bones and doesn't have a lot of design options so I'm starting one up on blogger. There are a couple of posts there, if you're interested.

I guess a few words in the way of an introduction: Gillir is a Night Elf druid on the Boulderfist server. He has the great fortune of being a member of The Olde Guard guild. He just dinged 20 last night. His professions are Herbalism and Alchemy. You can check out his Armory page here.