wanted - dead or alive

i hit 42 last night, and i'm pleased to say i'm really not far off 43. all it's going to take is a bit of grinding in tanaris, and i think i'll be great.

i'm coping fairly well and i'm quite happy with the way i'm going. i seem to survive things i possibly shouldn't, and manage to get through some rather tough spots without too much bother. i get a bit annoyed, actually, when people barge in and try to lend a hand without asking just because they assume i can't handle myself.

brah had an issue where someone was bagging him for not being decked out in purples and blues the other day. but i'm not decked out, either, and quite frankly i haven't felt too much of a need to be. maybe in the endgame levels it's important but why bother at this point in time? i'm not dying without them. the colour of your equipment means nothing when you're not 60, i think. otherwise it's just a bit excessive. nice, to be sure, but a bit excessive. hardly important. and i think looking at brah, who hit 50 and is about to ding 51, to know he's done so completely legit with little help from above and absolutely no one to hold his hand and give him some purples and blues on a plate, then he should be pretty damn proud of the fact he's gotten to where he has on his own steam. i know i am.

oh, and here's forty-two's poem:

deep thought knew it and i do, too
some things you just know - and you know them true
i have wolf - will travel
to any old battle;
like life, the universe and everything, i'm forty-two.

grimloch of arabia

i found some dragons in the badlands. level 44+ elites (well, mini dragons). they looked fun, so when i walked talhe down to show her the flight path in the badlands, we thought we'd swing by and have a go at one of their necks. shull, my favouritest questing buddy, joined us - ever eager to slice big chunks out of stuff.

we had a go at them and killed a couple before thinking that the big group in the middle gathered about a pillar would possibly be just a tad more than we could chew...

nonetheless, we'll be going back in a few levels and see what we can do.

my next adventure came when shull and i were walked to tanaris by azzaa - resident iron fist legend. flying overhead, brah the magnificent chuckled and decided to meet us there.

the landscape around these parts is magnificent, and the salt lake is quite amusing - especially the little gnome camp where they build little rocket-powered carts as though breaking speed records. quite amusing. oh, and they sell strawberry icecream there...

the actual little goblin town you come across is gadgetzan, looks something cut and pasted from mad max - it's brilliant. there's even an arena there to fight in and i kept looking for guys with chainsaws.

the desert area here is kind of cool. i totally love it. the white sand, the cool yet parched look. it's brilliant. and then there's this place just south west where these big bugs are and they die so nice it's just awesome. they twitch like real bugs. so amazing and funny. azz and brah took me and shull through that part as there pretty much wasn't anything we could hit considering our levels were too small.

today, though, i found a nice spot east of gadgetzan, which looks like it was cut out of the bahamas. with a bit of a tear in my eye at the land which would no doubt soon be turned into a tropical resort, i hastned south to beat up some pirates and steal their hats. truly - i was asked to steal their hats.

which i did.

gleefully, and with attention to stitching.

i was annoyed through much of the killing as every time i was killing something, some twerpy alliance nob kept throwing up a challenge to me to duel. so i'm having to click the decline in the middle of my fight. i'm sure he was doing it just to irritate me and get me killed which i consider to be the grossest form of rudeness. i'm totally disappointed and would have grabbed a pic of his toon, but i don't want people thinking i put photos of little 12-yr olds on my site...

in any case, i did my bit and strolled out without a scratch.

hooray for the horde, for the orc and for the iron fist!

of guilds and guildies

had an awesome last few days. actually, so did shull, who levelled today while i was at work - finally making it to the coveted 40. she gleefully announced it and managed to find the generosity of some amounted to a new mount.

amounted.

mount.

get it?

anyway.

she's thrilled to bits, no doubt but i won't be hearing about it tonight thanks to the tuesday night shutdown. very annoying.

in any case, we journeyed all over the place, and finally made it to the badlands - which means we can frolic with the bad stuff and kill dragons soon! yay! i really can't wait...

i've found that touring with my guildies has been immense fun, and it's always nice to benefit from their assistance and positivity as much as it is to help generate the same. it is then with great sadness i was informed today of the abandoning of the guild of another of our level 60 guys. it seems sad to me that you can join with a bunch of guys like the iron fist, and benefit so much from the near-family feel only to jump ship as soon as you've gotten all you think you can benefit from. perhaps that's not the case to them, but that's what it looks like to me.

i'm totally saddened by it, as it just seems absurd to me that you would prefer to spend your time chained to a bunch of comically over-achieving accumulators than spend your time with a bunch of hellishly generous and supportive guys and girls. how the lure of more money (or more gold and purple items) can just infect even gameplay is just astounding to me.

surely a little escapism's not a bad thing. so let's escape the pressures of living up to the expectations of the joneses and the smithses and just enjoy the game and the people who love to play it.

in a way i'm kind of glad when the 60s who leave have done so. i figure if they feel so little a connection to the guild which sustained, supported and encouraged them to grow, then good riddance. personally, i don't care if it means i can't do any raids. if any guild says to me i have to swap guilds to raid with them - then they can go and do something both unprintable and biologically near-impossible to themselves because i'm just not interested. i don't see these guilds stopping me in the street and asking if i need a hand, or even saying hello to me in passing.

they can chew on my axe-handle. they're not fit to polish my keyboard.

helping out my guildies

here i am, helping out three of my guildies by going on a wc run. it was quite entertaining, but i was running on limited time, so we just pushed in to get one of the bosses and left it at that.

mickle was after something, and the others were seemingly along for quest fulfillment. all seemed pretty smooth, and then we had dal call in and ask to join us, which we did because the belief of the iron fist is that we pretty much help each other out! and why not?

i'm going to make a small little rant here, and i hope it gets read in the spirit in which it's intended. basically, it was put forward very clearly by mickle that we expected rolls on chests, and the basic politeness as relating to needing and greeding. all fairly standard - but something i was puzzled in hearing. i mean, in all the runs i've done, i've never had to say that. i guess i've been spoilt in brah, azzaa, shaniqua and shull - who've been my regular questing buddies. we've never ever felt the need to say that.

we just do it and there's never even been a slight moment of hesitation or anything but the most positive of feelings. when there's a need, it's been a blatant case of being an item specific to that person and that person only so there was never a need for anyone else to worry about it.

that's how it should be.

so i was confused as to why mickle felt need to say such a thing.

dal, however, had a few problems along the way. he said he didn't know how to roll, so just took a chest anyway. he had a problem with remembering which button was need and which was green, and managed to need a blue item which was soulbound to him and thus not able to be given to someone who actually needed it - and then decided to need something someone else actually needed more. all in all a confusing series of events and i'm really hoping they were a single case of a series of unfortunate accidents. i really do.

because that kind of thing can be taken the wrong way, and you can find yourself left out, or in a position where it might be difficult for someone to think about helping you. it's a sad thing, i think, and requires a lot of care. it can really frustrate your friends and fellow questing buddies.

anyway. that's enough of that. the whole needing thing irritates me, i know that. but i'm prepared to think this was a one off. i brought it up because i've been thinking about it for a while.

otherwise, it was a fine run. i just hope i didn't ruin the fun for anyone because of my size. sometimes i get a bit enthusiastic in the killing, and i'm hoping they didn't think i was just running in and taking all the fun. that's the only bit that really worries me.

christmas comes to the horde

i've never been too much into mounts. i didn't see the point. and, being primarily a soloer, i never really felt the need to keep up with the joneses. unfortunately, since questing with my guildies, i've had to run to keep up with them gleefully swagging along on their various kodos and lizards. to make me feel guilty they sometimes ditch their mount and jog along beside me.

so, at 39, i decided to give in and do the decent thing - for the iron fist. not for myself. i want that understood. not for me. for the iron fist. hehe.

anyway, i started saving and grinding as much as possible and managed to make myself up to around 30 gold on my own - quite an achievement when i'm not a farmer or anything and i had completely ignored my professions in favour of killing stuff. so, hitting 40, i was unable to afford a mount - much to the distress and bewilderment of most of my guildies - especially shaniqua, who groaned at my technique and promptly tossed me the gold to buy a wolf, along with 10 gold i was gifted by ex-iron fist guildie, rahzell.

slightly embarassed, i accepted the gift and showed off my new timberwolf - which you can see here. i was going to choose the dire wolf, but you know... everyone does.

another surprise was the sudden and abrupt appearance of christmas decorations all over the world and i have really enjoyed running around collecting eggs and things to get my little christmas quests done. and getting the funky thing which changes my mount into rudolf the red-nosed reindeer was also well worth it.

absolute genius. and that's the thing i love about this game. the small changes which sweeten the experience. and, speaking of sweetening the experience, you can see me there showing off to shull.

it's now my goal to try and get her to 40 so we can go grinding in the badlands together. kill some of those elite dragons that fly around there! brilliant!

speaking of grinding, i was also running solo through sfk just for the hell of it, and for a few extra pieces to sell, and have started doing these small things as these items sell quite well even though the auction houses seem a tad depleted as of late. why, i don't know. shan has a theory it's related to the imminent release of the expansion.

brah was also a king among men (or tauren?) and gifted me with a siamese!!! a siamese!!! look at her there in the picture beside my worg and she's not even slightly afraid. personally i think the worg better look out!
anyway. basically i really want to thank all my guildies of the greatest guild ever, the iron fist, and i'm even more dedicated now to trying to help out everyone as i've been helped. it's an amazing thing to do and despite the sacrifice in time and xp, it's well worth it i think to know someone feels how i felt when i got help. brilliant stuff.

the iron fist

those who know me, know i'm usually an extremely reclusive person - especially in online games.

i'm not one for socialising or joining guilds and groups no matter what game i play. i remember playing ultima online for months without hardly talking to anyone. i made one or two friends on it, but nothing worth gaming for. it just felt like everyone was maybe twelve years old or had completely different goals to me. they were always more concerned with the numbers than the gameplay, if you know what i mean.

and then there were the other gamers more interested in mutual masturbation sessions - and that just creeps me out. i mean, i'm trying to kill stuff here, and that kind of thing is just so totally sad. amazing how many there are, though.

anyway, i still remember how i was recruited and how nervous i was about the whole thing. by the end of the first adventure i was already considering finding how to quit the guild. however, by the next day i was hooked. i had accidently fallen in with a rather unique crowd.

you see, the thing i've enjoyed most about the iron fist is that they're not like other guilds i've met, touched with, and encountered briefly. my experience with guilds is that they're often focussed on acquisition and levelling. twinking and raiding seem the norm and there's a big push for getting what you can get. an extreme version of capitalism i find repugnant.

fortunately, the iron fist is something more positive. they have a more humorous attitude to levelling, and when someone dings we cheer and encourage without focussing on it as the prime motivation for playing. often you'll find everyone just trying to lend each other a hand. we admit freely there's less guild questing than normal, but we've been remedying that and so far i've truly enjoyed all my guild activities as they're very loose and easy-going. i find with very few exceptions that everyone's just totally happy to get in there and get their fists wet with blood and die if they have to without getting all pointy and angry and abusive about it - yelling at someone else to do their job, or something retarded like that. and i haven't had to worry about anyone needing for something they don't need or anything like that. it's all extremely uncaring in relation to that kind of thing. often we're all just there so one person can get one thing and everything else is just secondary junk which we all acknowledge as. we may not run in with set tactics and following the rulebook on how to do stuff, but we go in there with enthusiasm and a greater respect for our companions, i think, than anyone else in the game that i've ever seen.

whereas on the few occaisions i've had to quest with other guilds/randoms, they often go with their own agenda and once they've completed that, they hearth out without a word. extremely annoying.

we may not have a fistful of 60s. we may not have the best euqipment - most of us are totally self-funded and lacking in twinks. we may do things in a completely unprofessional way. but i know that, to some, our guild may seem a little less than one of the others, but there's no way you could pursuade me to leave for another - not for all the gold in the game or all the armour in naxx. not even for a big shiny whirling green axe.

razorfen downs

guess what? i turned forty!!! that's right. the big four-o! brilliant stuff. i was laying down the law to some trolls in stranglethorn vale when i suddenly exploded up a level. excited, i zoomed on over to org to zap myself up to wearing my plate armour - and wow, don't i just look so sexy right now?

check out those shoulders! spikey and delicous, aren't they?

sure, they're not the greatest armour level, but they're the spikiest i could find and that's all that counts.

so, tonight i decided to celebrate my newfound fortiness by visiting razorfen downs which i haven't yet visited, in search of some plate armour. why not?

we began with a quiet callout among the guildies - a casual fling wondering who'd be interested and got a few interested, including azzaa the golden and brah the eternally magnificent. oix soon jumped on board and led the way to razorfen downs, where he promptly summoned us in - except for brah who was a bit tied up at the time.

oix soon roped in a friend of his, and we were a bit intrigued to find ourselves with a shammy who seemed both unable to utter a hello and who seemed defiantly eager to just zoom right in - at the expense of the rather concrete presence of brah.

oix's friend (whose name totally and utterly escapes me at present), zoomed in, smashed some guys to get his quest, promptly needed a pretty cool item and then hearthed out, abandoning both party and friends in his quest for self-satisfaction. brilliant. fantastic. such an admirable sense of fairness, honour, and gameplay. i was moved by the respect he had for us.

oix remedied this by pulling in a priest of all things (i've never yet quested with one, so this was a first), and we were amazed to find this one too pretty much refused to say hello and seemed to belong to the same guild as the first (the outland raiders, i believe). i was a bit concerned about the dedication of this particular individual, and totally unconcerned with my guildies.

i was proven wrong as oix promptly disappeared and our new friend, laws, stayed for the long haul despite once uttering one of only three or four sentences (well, words), in "tired."

we found ourselves gleefully entering the instance, and though laws once questioned a need for a mage, he offered no further details as to how we might remedy the situation to his satisfaction. he was a bit shy, i think and perhaps struggling with his english, but what he lacked in communication skills he made up for in healing.

the only glitch in the program was when we encountered a large mound of heavy metal skeletons who seemed engaged in a mosh session. while they weren't particularly tough, they were present in numbers and unfortunately cottoned to the fact that laws was a priest and promptly went him. i did my best to fend them off, but was a little late and laws fell under their bony claws. as a token of my regret for this incident, i pretty much volunteered him to receive the benefits of the big skeleton. it seemed fair to me.

it was at this stage we were joined by fellow guildy and all-round merlin, flunk the not-so-flunky.

our good friend and mage jumped straight in, punishing those around us so fast i really thought something had gone wrong with my video card.

we tried a few times to communicate with laws at this stage, but had a few problems. however, he seemed cheerful enough and quite content to follow along and heal us, so i didn't want to appear ungrateful. concerned as to whether or not he was struggling, happy, or just plain weirded out, i asked if he was ok, and with typical undead priestness, he responded with a curt, yet positive, "ok."

what a guy.

we rounded a bend, slapped the big bad guy with our axes until he grovelled, and then received our booty. gleefully looting all in sight, we stood around for a happy snap then hearthed out of there.

i'm not sure if laws was pleased or disappointed, but i'm glad he came along and would like to offer my thanks to him/her if he/she ever gets to read this. it was an odd, yet comfortable pleasure.

in any case, it was another victory for the horde and for the iron fist. we battled spiders (ick), and one of those green things which guard undercity which i've always wanted to fight (yay!) and lots of piggies (oink). i really enjoyed it. it was one of the easiest fights i've had in a long time despite a few hairy moments as i struggled to keep fighting. however, led along by brah's determined persistence and azzaa's bounding enthusiasm, i trundled along behind taking credit for the kills while being kept alive by the ever-vigilant laws - until flunk came along and made me look bad by killing stuff before i'd even had a chance to swing at it and reminding me of my nickname when i used to play baseball as a pitcher - snailball...

anyway. i'd like to thank everyone of the iron fist, especially brah, flunk, azzaa, shaniqua, talhe and the ever-delightful shull (last but never least as she's my consistent questing buddy!). also thanks to hyacia, for the potions. woot! i've almost drunk them all... i'd also like to thank rahzell for the gold he put toward my upcoming wolf mount. thank you all, guys. you're a bunch of gods.

finally, for those of you who enjoy such things, here's my poem for my forties.

i'm big and i'm green and i'm orky
these trolls are so lean and quite warty
i leave tracks in their blood
scream "naxx here we come
- so look out, cuz i just turned forty!"

turning 39

i turned 39 the other day, and we celebrated shull and i by going to stranglethorn vale and killing trolls. brilliant. she's a troll after my orcy heart.

she managed to level up to 37 too, so that was good!

tonight we were going to do the scarlet monastery, but we ended up doing strom instead.

we started out with the iron fist gang of guildies in myself, azzaa, brah, shull and talhe. we went in and whipped the humies with relish and splattered their armour all over the place. brilliant. then we did it again as we each kind of splintered off at different parts of the quest.

we had a feeble nightelf player come along and start leading enemies into our group and then giggling himself silly as we had to fight them to bits. mind you, he didn't manage to get us killed and i think this bored him and he ran off. in any case, i think he's a complete moron.

we then proceeded to slaughter everything in the place, quietly avoiding more nightelf morons, and then shull had to leave for bed. poor lady's been living on near-zero sleep.

lucky for us, shaniqua was around and decided to lend a hand. which happened with typical efficiency on shan's part.

we continued with our efficent loosing of axes, cats and magic. talhe did a brilliant job along with shaniqua at keeping our backs covered and we just pretty much slid through the boss guy with barely a sweat.

all in all it was a great way to kind of stretch my fingers on the mouse and do some tappy tappy to get rid of some excess unsettlement. brilliant.

my level 39 poem

all level 60s think they're so damn fine
but even decree ain't seen moves like mine
i'm on a roll
just killed a troll
now look at me, guys, i'm thirty-nine!

losers of the week

i just want to point out that these guys ruined my night. they invaded my kill with absolutely no respect for my fun and killed off an elite i was happily chewing into with no over-exertion on my part and gleefully getting ready for happy snaps when these guys zoomed in and finished up my kill!

i was trying to work out some issues in my head with wholesale slaughter and these guys came in, giggled at me, and killed my guy. i'm so mad about that. it was the rudest interruption i've ever faced.

in any case - GRRRRRRRRRRRR!

fire and steel

i've been working off some of the disappointment i have in regard to my life in general by randomly slaughtering anything in my path.

and, although i primarily grind along, now and again i seem to meet up with some of my guildies and go from there. i'm not into questing with randoms, and actually find many of them irritating. i get too many people wanting me to babysit them through a quest that's about five levels too high for them. i just have no respect for anyone who won't at least play a bit more sensibly and with a little more honour. i worked hard to get where i am and i'm not about to give anyone a cheating hand.

my guildies, however, seem to share my opinion, so i've gotten along famously with everyone there. as we go on a push to raise ourselves to level 60 and try to keep our commitment to stay iron fist and not slip over to one of the level 60 guilds (which i find highly irritating as they're an absolute pain in the ass to talk to with their god complexes firmly in place), it's becoming a very tight knit group which i like. it's small, sure, but it's tight and dedicated. all very pleasing to me.

today i went for a bit of a jaunt to kill some ogres near grom'gol, and then did a small quest which got me drowned as i tried to recover some piece of some tomb in an undersea ruin off the coast. pathetic quest that because i had to do it without trying to kill anything because the water was so deep that if i tried to kill anything it wasted my breath and i'd die. rather annoying, but i did the quest anyway. being forced to leave all those elites unkilled really did annoy me, though.

anyway. off to eat and then get back into the killing frenzy. i'm working off a lot of disappointment today as i learn the simple basic rule of life as it relates to me - all i'm good for is games.

just wish i could be the player and not the played...

new fashions from the dressing room

the new patch came in the other day, and everyone was scurrying about trying to get things settled back to normal. one telling example of this is the horrendous price of some things on the auction house. i don't care how many times i might die - i am NOT paying 3g for some healing potions. damn you all to hell.

zuh - resident demigod of the iron fist - then showed me an axe i might be able to buy one day. and have a look at it! it's all skully and big and double-bladed and stuff! oh, i weep with delight at its mesmerising gorgeousness! only the girl of my dreams has such an effect on me. could this, too, be love?

later in the night, however, i was shown the green axe! i apologise deeply but it was 2am and i was about to ding, so i just can't recall who showed it to me, but i thank them anyway because LOOK AT IT!!! it's so GREEN!

i think i love this dressing room thing more than anything else about WOW. it keeps you interested. you can SEE what you MIGHT look like one day as you grow up and that's a marvellous thing indeed.

it keeps me paying my monthly fee, anyway.

man oh man, look at those axes...

instances and incidents

never can get the hang of if i'm doing an instance or an incident. it's a blindspot term for me. i don't know why. in any case, everyone knew what i meant when i climbed aboard iron fist legend brah's excursion into uldaman.

we started out fine after a long and arduous journey to get to there thanks to my not having been there before. with the new patch in place this kind of journey should be pretty much obsolete which is fantastic. this night however, brah was kind enough to walk me there so i wasn't splatted by the locals - a distinct possibility considering where i was and my current level.

in the end, though, we made it, and we slid past the minor irritants guarding the entry and into the instance proper.

brilliant.

we had with us some guy called squawk, and he was the biggest of us warriors (of which i think there were three), so he strapped on a shield with great reluctance - although i don't know why as i figure if you survive does it really matter what you're wearing? in any case he ditched the board after a while anyway.

we did the first place and it was brilliant. just killed everything in sight with a great rending of splashy effects and sounds. just graceful. brought an honest tear to my eye. however, the second part where we needed to go to get mak's enchanting skills upped was just a trifle harder...

see, there were these scorpion mobs coming at us in what seemed a horde. they just ploughed into us - usually aiming at me for some reason and went totally berserk all over us. we survived well, with only myself struggling like a loon to keep swinging at the little terrors.

unfortunately, after this part we found a lot of level 40 something elites and i became obsolete - unable to score a strike. so, as we killed the goblin hugging machine (see photo), i pretty much only hung out round the edges picking off the lower level 38 elites instead. greatly disappointing.

then we were led out through a backdoor much to our confusion, by squawk, who then hopped his kodo and just rode off into the sunset with some obscure reference to meeting up with some iron fist reinforcements who had arrived at the front door to uldaman. why he decided to do that is a mystery but not nearly as mysterious as why he seemed to think the front door to uldaman was in orgrimmar...

in any case, i enjoyed the hacking (the little we had), and tried to meet up with shaniqua and shull who had arrived at the front, but i got lost, then cornered by a couple of elites and just couldn't break through as they began respawning all around me. i ended up hearthing and just getting grumpy at stuff instead.

then last night we went to the scarlet monastery. with brah, mak, shull and zuri it was an iron fist event, and as such a mostly successful one. we went down the first arm and just blew through it with ease, picking up some delightful stuff and then deciding to go right on in and doing the cathedral.

we destroyed everything in our path and had an absolute ball doing so in even some of the most hairy moments i've ever seen while playing the game, and my new skill sweeping strikes is just bloody well saving my life.

shull pulled masterfully at the cathedral proper and we learnt a lot through the experience, i think, and only died a few times when mobbed or caught by a respawn from behind. the killing of the bosses went fairly smoothly, but was definitely helped by mak doing a masterful job on the crazy lady at the end.

all in all, a genius night made poor only by my having to talk with the girl of my dreams as i struggle in my life to make sense of the world around me and the whole unfairness of it in relation to me, myself, and the happiness i should have had at her side but which seems terribly unlikely. well. it wasn't poor because of her, because she always makes me smile. but, poor because i spent a long time with her and everyone got tired of waiting for me and left. i'm really sorry, guys, but it's a sad time of my life for me.

a sad story made less sad only by the fact that it inspired me to run off into the wilderness and in a frenzy of speed and alarm to kill everything that moved with such dedication and focus that, somewhere around 2am, i exploded with that joyful mix of light and sound to become a level 38 orc warrior of DOOM!

brilliant stuff.

all in all a successful and highly entertaining evening.

so, as i leave you now, let me leave you with my last two poetic dedications from my levelling to 37 and then 38:

a whirlwind axe is a mighty weapon
designed by hell and built in heaven
see my axe - i'll swing it
see my level - i'll ding it
just like this second i turned thirty-seven!

and

i was bred to fight and raised to rage
for my axe and i had a war to wage
and though it's come late
i think it's worth the wait
cuz it ain't every day you turn thirty-eight!

hamming it up in razorfen kraul

so i was approached last night in a vague manner by a few iron fist guildies to join up on an excursion into razorfen kraul. considering i'm now a level 36 warrior orc of doom, i felt reasonably comfortable with the crawl through the kraul, and so hastened to climb aboard our five-man party toward furthering the reputation of the iron fist.

brahmabull and azzaa were in charge, eagerly recruiting myself and shaniqua into the mix before kicking a random to make room for oix (the twink - and i'm still a bit dubious about the whole twinking thing but i'll tell you about it at the bottom of this post) and getting underway in a most professional manner.

we slipped easily into the mix, downing boars by the meattruckload, and pretty much glud fairly comfortably through thanks to brahamabull's stoic leadership and supreme efforts to maintain his position as prime tank.

with azzaa prowling the herd and shaniqua obliterating everything in the way, i was greatly enjoying myself. oix bopped heads and stabbed in the back, and everything was brilliant.

i took these gorgeous pictures of our time with the boars, as we downed the big boar thing that got in our way with barely a scratch to our armour.

a few tense moments involving a bit of confusion - oix was in a bit of a hurry while the rest of us were just more concerned with sticking together - managed to stifle the caves for a little while, but it worked out in the end.

unfortunately, azzaa didn't get his axe which he'd been hoping for, but we're a determined bunch and will no doubt give it another try quite soon.

now to my concern regarding twinks. see, i haven't given it much thought until this past few days and it all began while i was enjoying an immensely fantastic and thoroughly rewarding session in stranglethorn vale with shull.

we were cruising through the area punching up trolls when a twink came running up to us (level 30 - vastly smaller than he should have been considering he was playing in an area of level 38 creatures), and he said hello via "invite me."

my first response was "why should i? and hello to you, too."

he seemed to find that amusing, and promptly responded with "come on! invite me plz."

as he died three times in front of us, i still refused to invite him. i did send an invite only because shull felt sorry for him, but he didn't seem to respond to that. perhaps he missed it. in any case, he repeated his demand and i finally gave up as he died yet again and said, "dude, you really might want to think about going to tarren mill for a while."

to which he responded, "and you should consider inviting people more often!"

should i?

i fail to understand why i should babysit twinks, aiding them to leech off my back while they reap the rewards of my efforts. i figure if they're so impressed by their collection of items far beyond what their character needs, then they can bloody well fight on their own two feet - not on mine. their equipment is beyond mine but they still want to stand behind me.

we had another twink in an instance with us the other night, and he seemed more intent on needing items than actually doing anything remotely useful and it got to the point where we just had to hearth out and leave him to his own devices despite the whining pleas following us out.

i guess what i'm saying is i really don't care if people want to create twinks for themselves. i guess it's a brainless way of starting a character and involves less hard work, but at the same time i really don't feel like being imposed upon to make their lives even more easy in the same way i wouldn't lend money to paris hilton.

on a positive note, i'm glad that at the moment in our guild, as some of the higher level guys run away and join other guilds, there's a bunch of us around the same level who are determined to stay together. i'm very comfortable with these guys, and think it's been simply brilliant lately.

grimloch turns 36

i've had an enjoyable rise from 34 to 36, and have been helped greatly by some of my favouritest ever people in the world - the guildies of iron fist. they're an amazing bunch of guys and girls, and the general feeling of this guild is second to none. i've yet to be involved with any gaming group so totally dedicated to just relaxing and being friendly as these guys are.

i had help from zuhimmi to get my fantastic new axe - whirlwind. and brahmabull was there to show me the way to my alltime favouritest bestest ever landscape of the game today in desolace which is truly one of the most spectacular places ever designed with pixels.

and then there are my regular questing partners, shaniqua and shull the troll twins, who just make questing a pure delight with their easygoing grinding natures slotting in just fine with my 2h-axe technique. it's been brilliant, and i've had a lot of fun with them both.

i've been killing giants and centaurs lately, and even went to kill some demons and their gateguarding demons of doom who all died with the greatest of ease beneath my new furious axe of doom.

you can also see my constant companion, my tabby cat, in this photo of me in desolace as i consider which of the many centaurs to slash to ribbons first.

i've started two little alts. one of them is a priest (soon to be shadowpriest and pvper of my trio), and the other is a warlock - who is an immense killing machine just splatting everything in sight for weeks. in fact, i can't wash the blood out of her shirt.

my only problem so far is a constant lack of cash, but i'm working on that. i have my priest learning the art of enchanting and my warlock the art of alchemy. grimloch needs potions, you see. and i'm sick of paying for them.

in any case, i've enjoyed this past week as you can tell by the way i'm chopping into that demon there who seemed to be of the opinion that a good set of pants makes up for the fact he's not wearing any chest armour. the silly fool. i put a few good thwacks through his sternum and that ended that silly idea.

so, before i go, here's my new ode to my latest levellings:

from the heart of winds, this axe is mine
it whirls through stuff and makes them die
so ooh and aah
and drool and gasp
for this axe just hacked me up to thirty-five!

and:

in desolace i got my kicks
and found a giant whose skull i split.
with my whirlwind axe
i kill all in my path
and here's your proof - i'm thirty-six!