Some major changes for Gurl IRL are underway! I don’t want to reveal all my ideas yet because frankly, not all of them will make the cut. The page will definitely be going under a major overhaul though. I have no estimated time of completion; it’s more or less whenever I feel like it. But don’t fret! I will be back and better than ever!

Some hints of what’s to come:

-Daily updates (maybe themed, maybe not. I haven’t gotten that far.)

-I will still talk about WoW, but Gurl IRL will no longer be a “WoW fan site”. It will cover all sorts of games and other hot geeky topics.

-Possibility of hosting my blog. DUN DUN DUN!!

Well, those are just a couple of the ideas I have right now. You’ll notice the changes as they come since I can’t really deactivate the site or anything.

I’ll start chatting it up again when this all is over with, you’ll see me promoting it on Twitter, etc. I just hope you all will enjoy the final product!

Cheers,

Astrella

This isn’t a good-bye. Not in the least. Since the end of Bad Mojo WoW hasn’t been the same for me.

A handful of us from Bad Mojo transfered to Horde last week to just do some 10mans for a bit, then we were going to start applying to guilds on Mal’Ganis. As soon as we transfered to Horde we had an offer from the top Horde guild to possibly join up with them and give them a bit of a boost in raiding. That was total failure. Half their raid can’t stay focused or take what they’re doing seriously. We were attempting ToC Heroic 25man Northrend Beasts Sunday and the group of us left early because there was just too much bullshit going on for us. We told them as we were leaving, “Let us know when you’re ready to get serious about raiding.” From there we went on to do ToC normal/heroic 10man.

After some talk on the forums we all pretty much agreed that the game hasn’t been the same since the end of our hardcore raiding days in BM, and that we’re all interested in looking at different options right now.

Basically, we came to the decision to have 1-2 scheduled 10man nights in WoW. We all want to continue to play WoW and experience raiding, but we want to do it on a more personal, casual level. We’ll be raiding with just friends, and extremely talented players. What about the other nights of the week that we’d normally be doing 25mans? Well, a bunch of us bought Aion! We’re in no rush to level or do end game (if we even become interested in end game there), but we’re making it more about the experience of leveling and grouping with our friends. This also gives us time to do more stuff outside of MMOs with friends if we want to. Also, don’t forget about console games! I know I just bought a DSi that I’m itching to play, and I have like three console games waiting for me!

I think overall I’ll like the more casual side of WoW. I’m just afraid of “purple jealousy” and boredom. If I get too bored I might want to start filling time with 25mans or the fact that I won’t be able to get THE BEST gear available in the game may really, really start to bother me. My friends and I are just testing the waters, getting our feet wet. We’ll see how it all turns out!

Last week I started AV leveling my rogue who was 72 at the time. Let me tell you, this is the way to level after you hit 71 on an alt. I will always suggest going through the actual leveling content at least once the way it’s meant to be just for the experience. I’m an lolore nerd, what can I say. Seeing that this is going to be my 3rd level 80, I think it’s time to take a sort of cheap way out.

The toon that I’m leveling through AV is a horde rogue; it’s also my only horde toon. I’ve neglected her somewhat. I’ve had her for about a year and a half, and only leveled her in small spurts here and there. I never got her to 70 before WotLK came out. After patch 3.2, and the introduction to leveling through BGs many people in my main Alliance guild started talking about how crazy the XP is in AV in the 71-80 bracket. And so it is pretty damn crazy! Over 18k XP per cap, and I haven’t taken notice, but I read on a site that each win is about 43k XP.

Next part, some of you may not like so much. I AFK in AV. Yes, I’m “that guy”. I’m a rogue so I’ll stealth on our base and pretend to defend, but I’m really not paying attention to the BG. What’s my excuse? I use that time to get other stuff done. Example: Right  now. I’m stealthed in Drek’s room on my PC, and I’m typing this on my lap top. I can get XP and honor while I’m being productive in other areas of my life. I know, I’m a horrible person. If I’m going to be in a BG I should participate, yadda yadda. Who cares. I hate PvP. I want to level easily on my 3rd toon.

A couple downsides of this is that I’m not leveling my weapon skills, I’m not getting any gear via questing/dungeons, and I’m not making gold. I usually wait until I hit max level before doing any crafting, so I’m discounting that (I’m even still in the 200s for lock picking). It’s not that big of a deal to me though. After I hit 80 I’ll just go back to do the “green” quests. I’ll blow through them while leveling my weapons and making more gold from them then I would have below 80. With the gold I make from quests/dailies I’ll be able to buy mats for crafted gear. I also don’t think it will be a huge issue finding some normal dungeon groups for gear and rep before I start doing heroics.

I’m definitely making out with the greater end of the deal. I’m sorry to everyone else in my AVs. I also don’t condone AFKing in BGs. I’m ashamed of it, but not afraid to admit it. Don’t fret. I’m almost done leveling, and you won’t have to deal with me in your BGs anymore.

Inc PvP flames.

OK. I’m a WoW player. I’m a blogger (sometimes). I’m also a person. I don’t like to sugar coat something if I don’t have to. Some people may like me, others may not. Now, I would like to repeat the title of this article, I’m an entitled bitch.

I don’t agree with the badge changes. Hell, even casuals I’m friends with don’t like it. They tell me they feel somewhat guilty or shameful just getting handed Conquest/Triumph badges for practically nothing.

“Oh, Astrella! It takes so long to do enough heroic dailies to get a Triumph item. I should be rewarded for my time.”

NO YOU SHOULDN’T! I don’t care if it takes you a year to get that one piece of Triumph loot. What you’re doing for it is considerably easier than what I had to go through to get it. Going to a Naxx pug with my alt and seeing some horrible, terrible tank with his T8.5 helm and a mix of poorly  gemmed blues/heroic epics enfuriates me to no end.

I do think though, and this might sound hypocritical, that my alts deserve the Triumph/Conquest badges. I did my time. I trekked through the ahlls of Ulduar wipe after wipe. I bested the Champions in the Trial of the Crusader. I think I’m still pretty damn deserving no matter what toon I’m on because I already worked painstakingly hard at it before.

Yes, again, I’m an entitled bitch. Take it as you will, but let me reiterate something I said in my “Ins and Outs” page about this blog: I’m not a casual hater, I’m a “downie” hater.

/rant

I was having a discussion with my fiancé earlier today about the “good ‘ol days of raiding,” and we realized one of the many things that WotLK raids lack. There aren’t any raiding reputation grinds. Remember the days of Hydraxian Waterlords, Zandalar Tribe, Thorium Brotherhood? Even in Burning Crusade, though easier, had rewarding raid reputations such as The Violet Eye and Scale of Sands. We haven’t seen anything like this yet in Wrath, and, frankly, I’m upset about it.

Issuing reputation for kills, and turn-ins for raiding made running the dungeon doubly rewarding. The more you ran the instance and got the necessary items, your guild would stand itself apart from guilds just starting out, as well as the gear that gradually opened up for you as your rep increased. You were regarded as a seasoned veteran of raiding if you had all three Cenarian Circle rep pieces, or the Brood of Nozdormu ring. Even in Burning Crusade, having the exalted Scale of Sands ring, or the Ashtongue Deathsworn trinket made you a cut above the rest (even if the Ashtongue trinket sucked for the most part). This is not to mention all the useful crafting patterns these raiding reputations would give you so you didn’t have to look out of the guild for a rare enchant.

The total lack of anything like this with the WotLK raids really does make raiding feel like and in and out process of getting your epics and calling it a day. It all seems very…empty to me. Just think back, for anyone who raided in Vanilla WoW or Burning Crusade. Remember the excitement you felt when you finally got exalted with The Violet Eye for your uber ring? Remember how satisfied you felt, jewelcrafters, when you got exalted with Scale of Sands and had access to all the epic gem patterns exclusive to Mount Hyjal raiders (I do realize they changed this, don’t worry)? Working towards an additional goal while raiding a particular dungeon made running it a million times over all that more fruitful in the end.

I want to do a smallish article on a mod that isn’t well known at all in the WoW community.  A lot of people use inventory mods.  Some of the more popular are Bagnon and ArkInventory.  Some of the downfalls of these two mods are that Bagnon is just essentially a “one bag” mod with a search function to find what you’re looking for, and ArkInventory you have to manually create categories to organize your items.  With my ideal bag mod I should be able to quickly and easily find what I am looking for.

This is why TBag-Shefki was suggested to me a long time ago by my fiancé.  One word of warning though, it is a bit resource heavy.  I don’t personally mind this because of how much the mod has to offer.  The best thing about this mod is not that’s just a “one bag”, but it also automatically categorizes your items for you so they’re very neat and simple to find.

(Please follow the image link to see it full size.  I had to make them small to fit the page.)

As you can see in the picture below my bags are all sorted.  You can also view your bank any time, anywhere!

There are other visible features right from the get-go.  There is the “Lock” button which will lock the window in place.  There are also the “Highlight New”, “Edit Mode”, “Toggle Bank”, and “Reload” options.

“Highlight New” is pretty self explanatory.  “Toggle Bank” is in the first picture.  “Reload” reorganizes your bags for you while they’re still open, otherwise you can just close your bag and reopen it to find everything in place.  “Edit Mode” (see below) is a customization mode that lets you dictate where you want the categories of items to go, how you want to sort them.

Another cool feature is having the ability to view any character’s bank or bags on your account from the character you are on.  Just select the drop down menu in the top left!

There are also different slash commands for TBag using /tinv followed by what you want to do.

I think the most important command is the configuration command.  In there you will see alot of slide bars to set up columns, scaling, spacing, etc.  You will also see options to “Assign Cats” (or category) and “Add New Cat”.  So you can manually go into this configuration mode and tell TBag the name of categories, what it will hold, and where in the bag it will be (determined by the number of the category that can be seen in the “Edit Mode” image).

I will say that I have never had the need to open the configuration and change anything.  I like it as is, but the option is always there.

Last, but not least, I made a short video demonstrating some of the features of TBag that I just talked about.  Enjoy!

I, like most raiders, are hoping that the Crusader Coliseum bosses will be buffed while they are being tested.  Sadly though, I don’t think they will be.  On the topic of the Emblem changes, I believe that Blizz will use this new raid instance to “bridge the gap” of raiders so more people can experience Icecrown.  At least this is what Blizz is hoping.

Am I pissed about the bosses apparently being too easy?  Of course!  Blizz has strayed from following a path of linear progression, how raids SHOULD be.  Granted, Heroic versions have yet to be tested, and I hope they’ll be more challenging.  I’m doubting that the bosses will get little more than an HP and damage dealing boost.  You know, not much to nerf on the bosses later on when people cry that they’re too hard.

Even if a guild completes the Heroic versions, what is there really to set them apart from from the people that have done the other versions of the raid?  There are four different sets of Tier gear for each class now (this alone is a bad idea, causes too much confusion, and I’ll be upset if Blizz goes this route for Icecrown).  The Heroic 25man version is just BARELY an upgrade from the Normal 25man.  The achievements really don’t seem like achievements at all.  I feel like Blizz really put no time into this raid at all and are really using this as a way to create a bridge for players so they can get closer together as far as quality of gear goes.

Another reason I believe that Blizz is using the T9 content to help casuals and bads get better gear is because they’re actually testing Anub’arak on PTR.  Unless there’s something else hidden in the new raid that no one will find until the patch is released, this is just out right dumb.  And what’s worse is that people were killing him 25man Normal mode on their 2nd and 3rd attempts!  I’m not going to get into the fact that Anub was resurrected for us to fight again.  I don’t have an issue with that for lore reasons.  Anyone who does have a problem with it doesn’t know/doesn’t care about the lore.

Back on topic here.  Blizz seems to really wanting to let EVERYONE see their top tier content.  Can’t blame them for this.  They want to make money so of course they’re going to want to cater to the majority of the playerbase.  Blizz also is, hopefully, making Icecrown an epic raid as it deserves to be.  We, the players, will be pitted against Arthas for crying out loud!  I’m starting to think that Icecrown might be epic in the size and complexity of the instance, but with Blizz’s mindset and wanting everyone to experience the place it might turn out to be pretty lackluster.

Is this all enough to make me quit the game like it is for some people?  No, it will be a long time before I leave WoW.  I don’t even think the upcoming game Aion can take me away from WoW.  I’ll continue to chug along in this expansion with high hopes that the next one will be better.   What I really want from the next expansion is WotLK questing/lore/art style with BC raiding.  Now THAT would be epic!

I’ve been thinking alot lately about the new tier sets.  Mostly because of the fact that they’ve grown on me, and I can see the reasoning behind Blizzard doing what they did with them.

At first the revealing of the T9 had me in an uproar just like alot of raiders.  I bitched and moaned about how ugly they are, and how all the plate sets are the same, the cloth sets, etc.  After whining for some time about it (mind you not publicly on the forums, but to my fiancé lol), I started to wonder why?  Why would Blizzard make these ugly ass sets that all look the same?  I’m sure they knew that this would displease the general fanbase!

I immediately thought about the AQ40 raid sets from Vanilla WoW.  These sets were sometimes referred to as T2.5.  AQ40 was that really odd in between raids raid.  The raid sets were an upgrade from T2 in some ways, but they appealed to off specs more than anything.  This is my general feeling on the Crusader’s Coliseum.  I think that the Crusader’s Coliseum is meant to be a “filler” raid, despite there being four seperate lock outs.  Four seperate lock outs to me means that the raid will be exceptionally short.  Blizz just did their huge raid, Ulduar, now they need to balance it with a somewhat smaller one until Icecrown Citadel.  I know also that there will be a difference in difficulty between the two 10mans and the two 25mans, but they did have to go the way of four seperate lock outs instead of incorporating the hardmodes into the 10mans and 25mans. (I want to add that I don’t think Blizz will continue to do four seperate lock outs from here on out.  I think this is a one time deal because of the type of instance it is.  That is another discussion for a different time though.)  I think we are meant to be running Ulduar and Crusader’s Coliseum at the same time.  It’s bridging the gap between Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel.  Very similarly to AQ40 between BWL and old Naxx.

“Filler” is exactly how I view the T9 too.  Yes, it’s an upgrade from T8 for the most part, but the fact that Crusader’s Coliseum is a smaller raid, will take less time, and ultimately have less loot, we will still benefit alot from Ulduar items.  The legendary mace will still be useful I’m sure, and with loot from Crusader’s Coliseum to help more guilds will be doing Ulduar hardmodes and eventually kill Algalon (whose loot will most likely still be useful).  Most of the arguing is about the skins of the tier gear though.  All the cloth models are the same, all the plate is the same, all the leather is the same, so on… They are different, however, depending if you’re Alliance or Horde.  Most people think, “Big whoop!  I want my class to have a unique model for T9!”  You still are special, not in that your class is differentiated, but your affiliation.  Think in the terms of the PvP sets, this is similar to that.  If you think on an even bigger scale, Crusader’s Coliseum is essentially an arena!  So PvP type models differing between factions makes total sense.

Alot of people are calling Blizz “lazy” and whining and crying about it, but I say, “Good job, Blizz!”  T9 and the Crusader’s Coliseum is actually unique in its own right.  People just need to think outside the box and think of the Coliseum as being that time filler for one or two nights before or after the week’s Ulduar clear.  We, the raiders, have raided multiple instances in one raid week in the past.  This is no different.  The T9 sets go along with the arena theme that the Crusader’s Coliseum is portraying, and that’s all there is to it.  Except the fact that they’re pretty ugly, but weren’t all the PvP sets?

(If you haven’t seen the sets yet here’s a link:  http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=70805.0)

Yep, I did.  I FINALLY signed up for a Battle.net account.  I haven’t for the longest time because of all the authentication issues I’ve been reading about, as well as the fact that I don’t have another game to merge it with.  I just wanted my damn Battle Bot really.  I’m still worried about having login issues everytime there’s a patch, but it seems like it gets resolved rather quickly.  Hopefully they have all the bugs worked out.

I do see now the advantages of having the Battle.net account.  It will come in handy for the release of Diablo3 and the “secret project” MMO that Blizzard is working on.

So was the pet worth it?  Maybe once I get some fuel in it.