Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Blog Spam and Blizzard's version of HeavyVest

I got my first bits of blog comment spam yesterday - duly removed. I guess I'm lucky no-one reads this normally so I don't get much. At a rate of 2 spams per 2 years - I don't think I'll bother with the captcha yet - as it annoys me!

On a more sinister note, Mr. De Berg introduced me to World of Warcraft at the weekend, so far I'm not feeling any urges towards soiling my laundry or undergoing sexchange surgery - which no doubt M will be relieved about.

It's quite good fun - so far I've made a Night Elf Hunter (for soloing) and a Blood Elf Mage (to partner with SDB's Paladin) - the mage has impressively brutal damage output, and seems to work well with the Paladin excellent tanking abilities. I've tinkered with tradeskills too - the mage has got herbalism and tailoring. Herbalism seems a nice way to get some extra cash in the initial game - which is helpful as you never seem to have enough left after buying your spells. The hunter has gone with skinning (hides, not joints!) and leatherworking - which work very well in combination. The game limits the number of tradeskills you can do - unlike vest which just limited the number you could raise above a certain skillrank. Also the auction service (unlike vest's bazaar) charges deposit fees. (It's like ebay - and at a low level if you don't sell something you could end up losing a couple of silver - a bit annoying really - they should take a % of sale price instead.)

The Hunter seems to be quite good at soloing - at level 10 you get a pet (I went with an Owl ;-) which levels with you and you can train it with skills as it gains xp (and it becomes more loyal overtime) You can change pet if you wish - but you would lose out in the short term. The Owl's wingflapping is slightly annoying. You can name your pet too - I called mine Mushroom. The diet is authentic - you have to feed your pet and the owl only eats meat (which can be hard to find).

The one thing that keeps tripping me up is that /p (party) is used for group chat - and I played Vest for so long I tend to hit /g automatically.

Only slightly disappointed there is no monk class. The game seems very slick, nice graphics and much less buggy than Vest. (Though I guess that's because its been around a while.) The quest system is much better than HeavyVest, with interesting themes, and decent xp.

I've made a pledge that I won't join a guild, or do any raiding as I don't trust myself not to get too involved/hooked and become a bit antisocial. Also once M is back from her trip, I'll either cancel the account until her next trip is due, or agree only to play it on the rare occasions that she is out for an evening and I'm home alone.

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