Minecraft

After watching friends playing at i40, I was tempted to give Minecraft another go.

I wasn’t too keen on buying a game which might only add to the pile of unplayed games here..  however, if I spent a full weekend playing, then it would have covered the fairly low cost.  While I was debating whether to get it or not, Minecraft had become rather popular.. too popular for their servers, which fell over!  In a fairly brilliant move, Notch, creator of the game, decided to give Minecraft a free weekend.

Can’t argue with free.. and if the game was still interesting after playing, then it’d get a sale.

So during the free weekend, I spent rather a lot of time on a multiplayer server with friends.. after lots of messing around with the teleport command, I was exiled from the mainland and so began building my own base out of sand.
Of course, I teleported my friends away when they came to look.. the whole point of exile is that you’re on your own 😉

My base was eventually dubbed “The Kitchen”, with somebody placing a little wooden sign on an outside wall.

Multiplayer, like the rest of the game, is still a work in progress.. for instance, health hasn’t been fully implemented.  This means you can’t die, but also means you can’t kill zombies.
Damn.. just as I figured out how to create weapons too!

The server also became prone to crashes.. I don’t think it’ll be too long before an update fixes this though, as updates are frequent.

As we’ve not been able to get on the multiplayer server, I started another world at work.
Here, health is implemented, and I’ve been blown up by Creepers a good few times but also killed a good few zombies with my wooden sword 🙂

I also made a dodgy sandcastle, right next to my spawn point.  I’m building a bigger, better base, and have linked the buildings up with ‘safe’ fenced off, well-lit areas.  Monsters only spawn where it’s dark 🙂

I’m standing on what will eventually be my main building.

Yes, there are a lot of torches.  I like my light! 🙂

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..