Checking out Heart of Fear

Yes, this is close to a week old. Holidays, ya know?

Anywho, we went last Tuesday and cleared our way to Elegon with no real hiccups, and spent some time working on him again. Then Wednesday, Arv was out, so rather than making Zug tank and banging our heads again, we headed to Heart of Fear instead and spent the better part of the night working on Imperial Vizier Zor’lok. It’s a fun, crazy fight with different abilities on each of 3 separate platforms, then all of the abilities at once in the final phase.

There was one pull where Bocat and I were the last two to be killed. Unfortunately, the actual kill turned out more like Bocat’s typical screenshots.

Oh well, at least we got him! The discs are a pain in that last phase combined with everything else, and some people were having bad lag that night which of course doesn’t help at all. And yes, if you look at that screenshot, you will see two interesting things … the actual Sorak (although he’s gone from Tauren to Goblin and now to Panda) and ZARM.

I’m kinda pissed at those two though. Bitches keep talking about their damn McRibs so I went to McDonald’s on Saturday and guess what? THEY DON’T HAVE THEM HERE. /rage

Joining the 400,000

Wait! Don’t panic yet. I’m not the one who is leaving.

Logged on last night, got Arelin to 45, having a good time slicing up some Gormak on Voss. Raid time is approaching, so I log over to Van. There are three of us online … me, Slice, and Sorak. Ado is in vent, Arv is on Wow … that doesn’t add up to 8. Some discussion goes around about raiding in WoW instead while Sorak is busy making calls to his ToR buddies to figure out what’s going on. We determine that we can probably get 9 logged in on WoW. Then Sorak comes back with the official word … ToR is dead. Half the people are ready to call it quits, the other half are all rerolling to a couple of other servers. Mutha …

Ok. It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming. They’ve all been talking about D3 for months. And ToR was never actually supposed to be a permanent move for the SR group; it was just filler content to get us through the final months of Cata. But .. I don’t play that way. If I’m in, I’m in. I get attached. I want to see it all, try it all, get all of the codex entries, and datacrons, and … sigh. This is *exactly* why I resisted in the first place and had to practically be dragged kicking and screaming into the game after months of protest.

So, the raid (and game) is called. Arv and Zari want to work on some more achievements but I just can’t, not at that moment. I ask Sorak for the names of the servers again. The Fatman for Imperial side. Wait. That sounds familiar. Yes. It’s Burek’s server. Well, at least I would know someone else there. I look it up in the server list. Oh boy. Not only is it PvP, but it is full and there is a 10 minute queue to log on. I go ahead and wait in queue while I listen to the chatter in vent. I recreate Arelin and zone in to Korriban. Holy … 84 people on the planet. I remember what my lag is like on Darth Bandan with 100 people on the fleet, and imagine what it must be like on THIS server if there are 84 on Korriban alone. Um, yeah … any other bright ideas? owait … I think I DO have one!

I email Pieman. Dude, what’s your imp server and your character name there so I can find you? He tells me and I repeat the process of recreating Arelin. This server is RP-PvE and the population is listed as standard. There are 34 on Korriban here. Still sounds high to me but I realize why later on when I make it far enough in my questing to enter the Academy. It only makes sense that the Sith Academy itself would be a popular location for RP. And if you’re thinking Goldshire, don’t. I saw nothing strange or unseemly in the RP that I observed there. Well, ok, there was one person looking for a master in general chat, but they were quickly and gently steered towards other avenues besides general chat to find others to RP with.

Pie was actually on, so I whispered him. He got one of the officers from his guild to whisper me. He asked me a few questions, discussed the guild rules (omg a guild that actually HAS rules!) and the website (WRITTEN RULES!! <3), recommended getting Mumble, and extended an invite. There were TEN people online. So now I have a new Arelin with a new guild on a new server.

I don’t *want* to abandon my toons on DB. Van has Containment Officer, they all have Rakling pets, then there’s the legacy-bound Tauntaun Ram pet … but I don’t want to play by myself, either. Even if I never raid again, I want to at least have a community to belong to while I dink around. This guild seems like it will be a good fit, and I’m certainly not averse to a little RP now and again. And I can always hold out hope that server transfers will happen soon. Not sure what that might mean for original Arelin since I’ve stolen his name and face for this replacement. But I’ll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.

So, I guess this is goodbye, Agent Van. I love you …

(dammit now I’m crying again. See what your 7-day trial caused, Sorak! *shakes fist*)

Meet Kruppe

Awhile back … like, before I decided to level Van … I started a goblin shaman so I could see the new starting zone. She made it to level 4 before I deleted her. I hated the zone, I hated their accents, I hated their capitalistic money-grubbing culture. I guess being in SR has had an influence on me. I used to avoid the AH like the plague, unless I had some unusual drop to sell or I needed to buy something. Now I have a couple of small businesses going. And, after raiding with Sorak and Vysh, the little green dudes kinda grew on me a bit. So I decided to give it another shot.

Sunday evening, after I’d finished up with dailies and other regular business, I deleted my level 6 troll shaman. (Sorry Zari!) I went to the character creation screen and spent a good 15 minutes designing my new gobby. He popped into the world, got a guild invite, and promptly spammed the guild with his pet achievements. (I get enough pets in the mail with each new toon to get Plenty of Pets right off the bat.) Picked up some quests, killed like two trolls (sorry again Zari!), and said … this stuff isn’t dying fast enough. So I hopped on Van for a minute and bought him some heirlooms … agility cloak and leather helm with gold, and leather shoulders with JP that was supposed to be turned into honor for PvP gear. (sorry Fiak) Why leather? Because I also have a druid and a rogue, so they are all going to share.

I don’t have any screenshots from Kezan itself. I’m still not into the shantytown and ugly roads, although I did have fun running people over in my hot rod. Finish gathering moolah, get to the yacht … and OMG. Without spoiling anything for the 10 people out there that haven’t ever done the zone, the cut scene after leaving the island BLEW.MY.MIND. All those poor little gobs stuck in the hold … *cry*  (waitwut? I hate goblins! How did this happen? Why do I love them now? What have you done to me?!? I blame Sorak.)

So now we’re survivors on the Lost Isles. One of the first things I see after swimming to shore is this.

Squee!!!!! Baby turtles!!!!!!!!!!! Mylune would approve.

Oh but turtles aren’t the only babies out there. One quest has you gather some naga hatchlings. Here is little Kruppe with his new brood.

Pretty sweet. Blizz … I can haz naga minipets please??

Travel from quest hub to quest hub is filled with the usual goblin rockets and rocket boots and runaway mine carts.

But the orcs are present as well and they have their own means of sending you around the islands.

If you can survive the first 4-5 levels and get off Kezan, the rest of the zone is well worth it. Not that the first part isn’t well done, it’s just not my cup of tea. But it sets the stage for the story. The Isles have everything … from raptors and naga and pygmies and zombie gobs to Town-In-A-Box and an oversized rocket chicken and a dogfight with Gnomish pilots and a mechanical shark-killing shark. Two thumbs up! Plus you get lots of opportunities to hear that sound goblins make when they die. ^.^