For the Horde!

Sunday morning.. a good time to do something peaceful?  Nah! 😉
We joined a nice big group to try and grab the “For the Horde!” achievement.. the challenge being to get into the Alliance cities and kill their leaders!

Aside from Wintergrasp, where I tend to run around after a friend, this was my first proper attempt at dealing with a large group and I was a bit worried about what to expect.  I think I’m good enough in a group of five now, but keeping track of this many?

I’ve also only just got the raid frames out, so that’s another thing to get used to.  I dragged the raid leader and my friend, both tanks, out separately from the groups so I could see them more easily.  I figured that if I can’t keep up with the whole raid, at least I can keep on top of those two..

The first thing I learned was that a big group means disorganisation and complaining.  Some wanted to hold out for a massive group of 40 and others wanted to have already set off.. then there was some discussion about which Alliance leader to go for first, and more complaining about how long things were taking.

The eventual attack order decided on was: Darnassus, the Exodar, Stormwind City and then Ironforge.  We flew from Orgrimmar, with some of us getting split up as we didn’t have the required flight path.  There was then more complaining from the impatient types in the group, but a few summons later and we were running down the road to the first enemy city..

Darnassus was a lot easier to get into than I expected, and we killed High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind very quickly.. one down, three to go!  This kill got us the “Immortal No More” achievement.. one per Alliance leader and “For the Horde!” for getting all four.

We all headed to the boat, where I decided to stay rather more still than usual for fear of falling off and getting yelled at.. I shouldn’t have worried though, because somebody did manage to fall off.. and then repeat the trick on the next boat trip too.

The Exodar was almost as quiet as Darnassus, but there still really wasn’t any time to sight-see..
There wasn’t a lot of resistance with just guards and NPCs present, but a few of us got feared over a low wall and found ourselves stuck, unable to jump back over the wall!  After Prophet Velen went down, somebody found the way out for us.  “Putting Out the Light” was the second achievement in the set.. so far so good!

Back to the boats..

Stormwind City was next on the list, to kill King Varian Wrynn and grab “Storming Stormwind”.

This wasn’t as easy as the first two stops.  I got stuck in combat as we got off the boat, along with a couple of others, while the main pack shot off to find the King.
Killing the guards so we could mount up would have taken far too long, if it was even possible, so we had to run and hope for the best.  I chased after a guy who seemed to know where he was going, while bubbling us both and throwing out a few Psychic Screams for the guards.. and we arrived to the main fight just in time to see the King go down!

The tram was our next form of transport 🙂
I vaguely remember being taken for a tour around all the cities when I had my trial week all those months ago, and the tram is the only one I’ve not seen since.

I’d passed a couple of Alliance players along my run through Stormwind and had been relieved when they didn’t jump the two of us who were on foot.

With the raid having taken three leaders down, the Alliance players knew exactly where we were headed..

The group went down, and the whinging started up again..questioning the decision to leave Ironforge till last, and more disagreement over whether to res and try again.. how long to wait for, and whether it was worth trying at all as the Alliance players were now alert and waiting for us to come back.

In the end we went for a second try, but the remaining Alliance players were too strong and we couldn’t beat them back let alone take down the dwarven King.

So.. another day, Ironforge, King Magni Bronzebeard, and the achievement”Death to the King!”.. *shakes fist* 😉

I will be going back, and not only for the fun and the achievement.. there’s a Black War Bear to be had!

A Pink Elephant and a Skunk

Brewfest is nearly at an end and I won’t quite be able to make enough tokens to buy the last item of clothing required to disturb the peace in Dalaran.. ie, get smashed and dance while wearing Brewfest clothes.  I did manage to get my 50th pet, though.. the Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm.. a little pink elephant 😉

This meant another achievement (Shop Smart, Shop Pet…Smart) and another pet, from the Reeking Pet Carrier.

He’s called Stinker.. maybe best not to get too close..

I’ve been a little bit lucky..

Earlier this week, I noticed somebody talking about a competition on Twitter, to win a copy of Civilization V.  I thought it worth a shot, and went for the competition myself.. and won!

So I have a copy of Civ V arriving early next week, and might well end up having a few days off Warcraft 😉

I then wondered what else was out there.. and came across a competition for Dead Rising 2.  I wasn’t quite lucky enough to win that.. winning two games in a week would be pushing things a bit.. but I did win this pretty neat Zombrex Immunisation pen 🙂

I quite like the blue liquid swishing around in the barrel 🙂

Brewfest Rams

So it’s Brewfest..time to get drunk!

This event involves lots of drinks, some fun quests involving drinking, racing rams, and taking on a disgruntled rival brewer, Coren Direbrew.

I was lucky enough to get the Swift Brewfest Ram, as were a few other guildmates but sadly not all. Yet.  Keeping my fingers crossed there..

Raiding and stuff

Normally there are just two or three of us running around, but this week we’ve actually managed to get enough guildmates on to make up a group, so instead of grouping up with a few stray randoms, we’ve been with friends and having a bit more fun 🙂

We went to see The Tauren Chieftains perform in Blackrock Depths..

Back on our level 60 alts, we tried taking on Arazzius the Cruel as part of a quest.. but he minced our mage and priest 🙁

It feels like a rather large step down from my level 80 character.. I know I could take this guy all by myself even though I’m only specced to heal, but here with my fire mage? Not enough firepower..

Fortunately another friend was able to join us, and we took him down 🙂

We’ve also been seeing some old raids, which I’ve found to be ridiculously good fun.

I especially wanted to get through Zul’Gurub, as it’s going to be removed in Cataclysm.  We were unable to manage with just two of us – as a squishy little healer I couldn’t stand up to a mind-controlled Vorlak.  With our group, though, we managed to take him down 🙂

We also took on Zul’Aman, which was a little harder but only meant a greater sense of achievement when we took down the boss.

After this, and very late at night, we took on Molten Core.  Fire.. awesome stuff 🙂

The end boss here was rather more difficult, and I really didn’t think we’d manage him because he kept sending us flying.  Several tries later and we eventually killed him.. just in time to get away to bed to avoid sleeping on my keyboard.  I discovered that you can hearth while doing the sleep emote, which was rather amusing.

I managed to grab a screen the following night, after another very late session!  I’ll catch up on sleep eventually, right?

Pirates’ Day

So, it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day.. yarrrr!

My attempt to join a multiplayer game in Saints Row 2 failed spectacularly, as I couldn’t actually join a game 🙁

Instead I went to Booty Bay and joined the Dread Captain DeMeza as a pirate 🙂

Getting my hands dirty..

Through updating our PCs over time, we’ve ended up with a collection of junk parts.  Rather than take them to the skip, we’ve decided to put some of these parts to use: by making a PC for a friend who will likely never do more than Facebook and Skype, and making a PC to run old games..

Three cases with bits to remove and bits to add.  I wasn’t quite prepared for the amount of dust inside, though..

This whole thing was far easier than expected.. no components were harmed although I did end up pushing the reset buttons and LEDs back inside the case by accident 😉

Next up is installing Windows on these, and then several rounds of updates.

I also found an interesting item in one of the cases, which I’m going to use to make something cool for the next i-event.. and that’s all the clues I’m giving for now!

The Explorer

During my alone time on WoW, I’ve been exploring the map, aiming for the ‘The Explorer’ title.
I now have a companion for this, so instead of just seeing the world, I can meet interesting new creatures.. and kill them!  Well, some of them.  Unless they get us first..

Last weekend, I went to see some dragons.. including Emeriss, who was just minding his own business, guarding a portal to the Emerald Dream when we came along.  My character is only the same size as one of his talons, so naturally I wanted to take him on!
However, he put us to sleep rather quickly with a nasty gas cloud, and killed us.

Following the Retaking the Echo Isles quest line, and Zalazane’s Fall (which I finally got round to posting about), three of us took a quick trip to a secret island.. and I got to ride in the sidecar 🙂

Getting to the island required water-walking and a speed buff.. watching the Fatigue appear and yet carrying on was a bit weird, but we were past the dark water before that ran out.  Yay, secret.. ok, not-so-secret island! 🙂

Last night’s exploration was back to normal running and flying around in Outland.  As I wandered through Terrokar Forest I saw something red moving around near the edge of the mountains, which turned out to be a massive spider!  After my recent encounters with spiders in Limbo, this one wasn’t going to be spared..

My oh-so-lovely friend told me he’d laugh if I died, but the spider was no trouble and I even ended up killing him too quickly.. I was still fiddling with screenshots!

Next up was a trip to Shadowmoon Valley.. as well as the exploration, there’s also a bunch of quests and some rep to earn here, so I can have a Netherwing Drake as a mount.

On the way there, we came across a lil doggy, who I was challenged to kill for 100 gold.  Ok, so the doggy isn’t small.. he also has two heads, and breathes fire.  I found the fire was hard to really escape from.. except for when he used an ability to send me running away then breathed fire!

He was fun to fight, but I also enjoyed taking a guildmate’s gold 😉

I wanted to take a nice screenshot of Uvuros after I took him out, but another spawned almost right on top of me before I was done.  My friend dealt with this one.. flames 😀

Retaking the Echo Isles

In preparation for Cataclysm, a nice new quest line opened up: help the Darkspear Trolls retake their homeland!

It started simple.. collecting frogs, which we then threw at markers on the islands.. all completed a bit too easily because of the low level and being in a group.  Trollin’ for Volunteers was more fun.. despite us quickly getting the required five Troll volunteers, we were able to carry on recruiting until we each had five followers!

This nice little army followed us all the way back to Sen’jin Village.. 🙂

After consulting with the spirits and receiving our rewards, I was amused by the Darkspear Pride item, which allows me to transform into a Darkspear Warrior..

We had to wait to do the last stage though, as there was already somebody doing it.  They took rather a long time, and due to this, my transformation wore off before we actually got to fight. 🙁

The fighting itself was rather hectic.. lots of enemies meant lots of Mind Sear 🙂

I now only wish I’d levelled something on the Alliance side, so I could play through the Gnomeregan quest line too.  Ah well.. can’t have it all..

Limbo, part 1

We had the office pup for a few nights while the boss was away.. and since the pup has taken a liking to chewing live power leads recently, I decided I needed to stay in the lounge, away from my PC and all the lovely wires underneath..

I picked up Limbo for the 360 some time back, but due to moving house, and with the requirement to play alone to avoid accidentally revealing solutions to Tim, the game had stayed untouched.  Limbo is a side-scrolling puzzle platform game, brilliantly atmospheric with a shadowy black and white world and creepy ambient sounds..

This post is rather spoiler-ish, and I’ve not used tags for the simple reason I’d be hiding more of the text than I’d be leaving visible.
There are also spiders in this post.. though there are no pictures of them, as I can’t grab from the 360 at the moment 😉

A post of this length wouldn’t feel right without screenshots, so until I can add my own, I’ve used some from the gallery on their website..

After waking up.. glowing white eyes opening, and the little boy sitting up in the near-silence.. I immediately did the usual check of the space to the left, in the opposite direction to where convention says to go.  There, I picked up my first achievement, “Wrong Way”! 🙂

Going the right way, I eventually came across a massive spider which seemed to be waiting for something..  I had a horrible idea that ‘something’ was me getting closer.. of course, it was.  The closest leg raised, pointed, then pulled back.. and slammed into the ground with a thud.  I tried to run under the legs only to hit something in the shadows, and was flung back and then stabbed through by the first leg before I could even get to my feet.  Awesomely gruesome.. but there was more to come!

The solution to this first spider involves a trap, which is sitting on a branch before you arrive at the spider, but is flung to the ground after the spider stabs the ground twice.   Revolted by the solution in mind, I took the trap to the spider, and caught his leg as he tried to impale me.  There was a recoil, but the spider stayed where he was.

Eww.  One was bad.. but I have to snip off all the legs?

Three turned out to be all I needed to get past, but I then had the thought of an angry five-legged spider pursuing me.. so when I found myself trapped in some webbing on the ground I assumed it was time for another death animation.  Instead, the five-legged spider wrapped me in a cocoon to save for later.  He then wandered off, and I made my escape.. hopping along in a cocoon! 🙂

One of the earliest things I’d seen about Limbo was a video playthrough involving a different spider chase, and I came to this section a little further on.  Easy, after seeing the walkthrough, though.  I wouldn’t have watched the video if I’d known I was going to get the game.. but I’d probably not have bought the game if I’d not seen the video and got some interest in it.

There was another spider to come, though this one was less threat and more revulsion.

Two boys appeared on the far side of a spike trap, fired at me, then ran away.  The ground blew up behind me, and I went to look.. to see a twitching spider carcass, which tried to stab at me with his one remaining leg before he died!

I said revulsion, right?

Just as the solution to the first spider of the game had given me a sick feeling, so did my initial idea of the solution to this one.  The spike trap awaited.. and here was something which could make a nice path over the spikes.

The carcass wouldn’t move when pushed, so I went to pull the thing by the leg.. and the leg came off with a little splash and sticky, wet sound.
The leg then dropped to the floor, and I was unable to pick it up.. leaving me with just the spider’s body..

A spider’s body, and a spike-trap.. and I must have whimpered, because the pup came running over to see what was going on!

I played a little further on before taking the pup for a walk, and have no idea how far through I am.
I’m hoping to get something sorted for screen capture, for the next time I play, though maybe I’ll resist screenshots of the spiders 😉