More Amnesia

I didn’t complete Amnesia at the recent i-event, despite the previous plan to play it with a friend and scare ourselves silly with it late at night.
It turned out that there were usually too many people around that I wanted to talk to, and when I did start the game, attempts by a couple of friends to make me jump while playing actually made me less scared by the game as I wasn’t so focused on it.

I loaded up my last save to find I had obviously run on without looking where I was going.. I was in a dark room with absolutely no clue where I was.  Not only did I have no idea where I was, my lantern was out of oil.. I tried to find a torch or candle to light, when I heard something behind me..

I turned and was confronted with this.

I’m only slightly ashamed to admit I screamed out loud..

Having no weapons (I believe there are none, anywhere in the game) I attempted to run away, a whimpering wreck trying to find somewhere to get away to, but still being hopelessly lost.  This hideous thing caught up with me and smacked me to death, and I realised I should probably load up an earlier save so that I at least knew where I was to start with.

This was much nicer looking.. but I know what’s coming! :'(

More PvP and our new 2v2 team!

Over on the Tol Barad peninula, I found the last two critters for ‘To All the Squirrels Who Cared for Me’!  The plan for the night had been to make our new 2v2 Arena team, but first we went for Tol Barad.. the Horde won the round so I picked up Tol Barad Victory as well as a nice haul of points, and some more PvP gear. 🙂

On to the Arena then, with 2v2 team ‘The Twisted Lockbox’..

We went for matching Mechano-Hogs and pets, but had a string of defeats as expected 😉

Towards the end we started to get easier opponents, and I was learning to stick to healing instead of trying to hit enemies with my rather ineffectual attacks.  I find PvP in the Arena to be a totally different game again from the PvP in Battlegrounds.. or maybe I’ve been doing it wrong in there as well..

Getting a Taste for PvP Blood!

We ended up going for some PvP this evening, with some new Battlegrounds for me: Eye of the Storm and Battle for Gilneas, which I loved!  It helped that we were fairly successful in defending ourselves, and held onto the capture points 🙂

At the moment I prefer capture points to capturing flags, and much prefer a nice open playing field where I don’t have any line of sight issues.  After a couple of battlegrounds, I had enough Honor Points to get the Bloodthirsty Gladiator’s Mooncloth Robe, which gives resilience so I don’t die quiet as easily 😉

There were a lot of people in our run of Alterac Valley..

Even with so many players, it felt like there was more waiting around with little action.. we burned down a tower though!

Playing Around in Mount Hyjal

As I have a shiny new phone, I’ve added the free Mobile Authenticator.. which… got me the Core Hound Pup! 🙂

I spent most of today watching episodes of CSI while completing quests in Mount Hyjal.. ending up with Exalted status at long last!

The quests for infiltrating the Twilight’s Hammer cult were good, with some rather funny ones thrown in such as Agility Training: Run Like Hell! which had me run away from a Blazing Trainer for a minute, or the not-quite-polished Speaking the Truth to Power Quest, which asked me twice if vinegar was sour..

Impersonating an Ogre was funny, especially when I tried out the /dance emote to see this large fat character dancing and jiggling his belly!

One little fail..
I was sent to kill some Failed Supplicants, and made the mistake of expecting them to be somewhat resigned to their fate.. I jumped in the middle of the group and they all started fighting back. Oops.

The last part of this had me giving a Graduation Speech where I was to incite the Initiates to riot..
I was given a new set of abilities: Inspire, Incite and Pander.. and found it rather hit and miss as to whether I was using the right one at the right time. Eventually I had wound them up enough that they started rioting, leaving me free to rescue Jarod Shadowsong.

I added more pets to my collection.. picking up the Gold Mini Jouster from the Egg Wave quest in the Flamewake..

..and from Everlook’s Pet Collector, Michelle De Rum, the Winterspring Cub for 50 gold.

Tanking!

As Tim has only a little time left on his trial, I thought we should him to see a dungeon.  As we were using lower level charactershis also meant having a go at tanking for a group!

I’d not touched my druid in ages, and the talents had all been reset by this point.  I had actually planned to delete her and start again with the hopes of learning it properly, but I had some brief instruction from friends beforehand.

Our first dungeon was Blackfathom Deeps, and though I found the low ceilings a bit of a pain, the run started off ok 🙂

We were doing well enough until the summoning chamber, anyway, and after killing Twilight Lord Kelris, we lit the candles.. all of them.  This brought us a few too many mobs, and we died.. Blackfathom Durps, maybe? 😉

Last night we went for another dungeon and got Gnomeregan, which pleased one friend at least!

I found this dungeon a bit more tricky in terms of where to go, but the tanking itself started to feel a bit easier 🙂

One confusing thing though.. we found a box of parachutes early on in the dungeon, but there was nowhere we could use them.  When we came here a long time ago, I remember jumping down to the boss (and dying), and we thought the parachutes would be for this.. but there is now an invisible wall to prevent that.  So I now have a parachute.. 🙂

We also got Guild Achievements for completing these dungeons.. we’re getting a good stack of these lately!

Trying out the PvP again!

A while back, we made the 3v3 Arena team “Norfolk n Chance”, and attempted to try out some PvP.  We weren’t very successful, with me getting wiped out not long after the fight starting each time.. too squishy!

We tried again tonight..

Putting on an organised front didn’t help us much, but it looked good 😉

We managed to get our first win when we arrived into one Arena for our opposition to randomly disappear.
This won us the Step Into The Arena achievement and the Call of Battle achievement for the guild.. I wouldn’t have been happy about this really, as we hadn’t earnt it, but then we were matched against the same opponents for our next Arena match, and won! 😀

After we’d completed our allowed 10 matches, we headed on to some Battlegrounds.. Strand of the Ancients, where I managed to get a good few kills in, and Arathi Basin, which seemed so much easier this time round.

This ended up being rather a late night.. just as well it’s the weekend!

Children’s Week

Children’s Week is another World Event, running during the first week of May.  I was told there were a few pets available during this event, so barely needed any encouragement to check it out.

My first child was the Orcish Orphan, picked up in Orgrimmar.

He had a couple of quests for me.. he wanted to go and ride the Rocketway in Azshara, go and meet Sylvanas in Undercity, and see the Fallen Chieftain, Cairne Bloodhoof, over at Red Rocks where there was a little ceremony led by Bairne.

After that there was icecream, kite flying, and toy swords bought for the other orphans..

I got a choice of pets and picked up Whiskers the Rat 🙂

Over in Shattrath, my adopted child was a Blood Elf Orphan, who also wanted to travel.. to Sporeggar in Zangarmarsh, to the Throne of Elements in Nagrand, where she got herself burned when she went too near to Incineratus, the Fury of Fire, and off to the impressive-looking Dark Portal in Hellfire Peninsula.

Her next quests had us travel to Silvermoon to see the Elite Tauren Cheiftain, which I had only seen in Blackrock Depths before, and over to the Caverns of Time, where I got her a Toy Dragon.  Nothing for the other orphans back in Shattrath this time, but a second pet for me.

I picked up Sleepy Willy, who is a non-combat pet like the rest, but he can also attack and kill critters..

He is fairly ugly though.. my “pity pet” as another friend dubbed him. 😉

The last Orphan was to be found over in Dalaran, and I picked Roo, the Oracle Orphan, rather than the Wolvar.. next time, puppy-man!

Sightseeing this time took in the Biggest Tree Ever, a massive tree housing furbolgs in Grizzly Hills, the Bronze Dragonshrine in Dragonblight, and off to Winterfin Retreat in the Borean Tundra, where I vaguely remember questing a long time back!  After those, it was over to the Shaper’s Terrace in Un’Goro Crater, where I ended up collecting Dinosaur Meat for my Venomhide Hatchling, before taking my Orphan to meet the massive Etymidian..

..and then on to meet Alexstrasza, and then back to Dalaran for more toy buying at the Wonderworks.

After taking Roo back to the orphanage, I got the Curious Oracle Hatchling in the mail 🙂

Two more pets came along this day: the De-Weaponized Mechanical Companion, from Vorlak..

..and the Panther Cub from the Zandalari missions around Stranglethorn Vale 🙂

Proto-Drake Whelp

My 80th pet was a good one, from a friend.. the Proto-Drake Whelp!

He has the same model as the Red Proto-Drake 🙂

This pet came from the Mysterious Egg, which can be bought from the Oracles in Sholazar Basin once you have Revered Reputation.
This egg drops other pets as well as a mount.. so I should get myself over there 😉

Archmage Xylem’s Random Tasks

A while ago, a friend directed me towards the Image of Archmage Xylem, and a series of quests involving some rather random puzzles.  It seems that he’s meant for mages only, so I had to pretend to be a mage by approaching him wearing a dingy Wizard’s Hat.  After the errands he and his apprentices set me, he took me off to Arcane Pinnacle for the interesting quests..

Watch Your Step was the first of these, which had me being propelled up the ledges by magical jump pads while tagging conduits and trying to avoid detonations that would send me flying off the edge and into the water.  This was more tricky than expected and I got thrown into the water a few times!

I could have flown up instead, but that would have been cheating 😉

Once at the top, there were three more trials: the Trial of Fire, the Trial of Frost and the Trial of Shadow.
The Trial of Fire required hopping around over runes while avoiding the fire..

As there was a little bolt of fire travelling to each rune that would be on fire next, it was easy to see which were clear, and therefore safe to stand on for the next round of fire.

The Trial of Frost was next, and more difficult than the Trial of Fire.  This was set on a plateau which had three spheres which put out a frost burn affect, and frost runes on the ground which you could stand on to be propelled upwards.  The challenge was in collecting 20 stacks of Essense of Ice, which could be collected from Frost Orbs which appeared around the hazards.

I found the rotating frost burn effects hard to avoid, especially as I couldn’t out-run them.. fortunately they only removed one stack of Essence of Ice per hit.  The frost runes were mostly beneficial, though I did get thrown when I didn’t want to a few times, landing in the path of the frost burn.
Eventually I picked up enough stacks to complete the challenge 🙂

After that, I expected the Trial of Shadow to be more difficult, but it was surprisingly easy.  Once a Weeping Soul was summoned, it came straight for me in a nice predictable line.. this made them very easy to lead over rune traps!

Homefront Multiplayer

I’ve played a few hours on Homefront’s multiplayer tonight, using the Ground Control playlist.  Ground Control is about taking control of three areas on the map and holding onto them.. after a short while the fight moves along the map with another three spots to fight over.

As none of my friends own the game, this meant playing with randoms.. and well.. there really wasn’t much team-work to be found.  Many players seemed to either find themselves a nice camping spot or just run straight into trouble, ignoring enemy drones which really need to be taken out if they’re not going to be used to mark up the whole team.

After some unsuccessful runs with the basic Assault loadout, I switched to the Sniper.
When playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with friends a while ago, I found sniping to be fairly successful on larger maps.. and Homefront’s maps are all a decent size.  The risk of sniping, of course, is that you get accused of camping if you sit around for longer than a few kills.. add that to my general impatience for sitting still, and I found myself best off taking a few kills and creeping forward.. hoping the enemy weren’t able to just run around the back of me.

My favourite map is possibly Suburbs, as there are plenty of buildings to hide in, although it does mean plenty of routes for the enemy to sneak along too.  I just wish I had friends in the game, so we could do more damage!  After this weekend I suspect I won’t be returning to Homefront, instead going to Battlefield because my friends are there.