Not A Happy Camper

My latest foray into achievements in WoW has me camping out in The Storm Peaks which is snowy enough to make me feel cold just by going there.  What am I camping for, you might ask?  The Time-Lost Proto Drake.  This is an extremely rare dragonkin who flies around just asking to be killed because he drops reins that let you get him as a riding mount.  The frustrating part of camping for him is that there is no pattern to his spawning.  He could spawn three times in one day or not spawn at all for three weeks.  Yesterday I camped for 14 hours with WoW in the background and listened for my SilverDragon to go off while I worked on homework.  As I was on my last question for my discussion board, I was concentrating so much on my answer that I didn't hear SilverDragon.  I finished my answer and posted it then flipped back to WoW and found the Time-Lost plate up on my screen and realized I had just missed him flying by.  I swooped down the mountain only to find that a douche on the server named Nish, who had seen me camping, had stolen the kill out from under me by about 30 seconds.  It's not that Nish needs this mount by the way, he's killed it at least three times.  The first time he did he stole the kill from a guildie of mine who had also been camping him and had him marked already.  No, Nish killed it just to be an ass because he knew I was tabbed out.  He even said so to another guildie of mine who was online at the time.  I'm not ashamed to say that I was extremely put-out, frustrated and very unhappy.  So now I sit here and camp some more because Seph loves green mounts and TLPD is olive green.

Oh, and Nish, if you read this, thanks for proving everyone on the server right about your character.

Lemarchand's Box

 

I've previously mentioned my penchant for getting achievements in WoW, and as you can see by the little indicator bars on my achievement screen I have over 75% completion in all areas...except one.  Player vs. Player (hence forth to be known as PvP).  This category makes me cry and it shows in my abysmal numbers; 32% completed.

I just don't PvP well.  I usually die 20+ times in any given battleground...even when I'm in full PvP gear with a good PvP spec.  Yet, I still torture myself every once and a while and throw my poor shaman into them.  But arena?  Don't even get me started:

  

Arenas are where you form a team with either 2, 3 or 5 players and then proceed to beat the shit out of other teams of 2, 3, or 5 players.  I have one, just one, achievement in arena.  I was delusional enough over two years ago to create two teams (2v2 called Sadistic Ponies and 3v3 called Not Illegal In Denmark) and then actually go into arenas with a couple of brave souls...and we won one of those arenas, for which I got an achievement.  I haven't been back since then.  Why?  Because it took 50+ arena matches to win that one.  Now you know why I cry.

Unfortunately this is the area where I will next need to concentrate my efforts if I am to maintain my achievement desires.  I wonder if drug addicts feel this way, willing to substitute their drug of choice with something they know isn't good for them just so they can satisfy their habit. 

Keyser Söze

 

It's been a while since I posted anything about WoW, but since I got the Insane title, everything else seemed kinda low key.  Until now.

You're probably wondering what the post title has to do with what I'm working on in game.  Well let me tell you:  in The Usual Suspects, Verbal says "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."  And that applies to the WoW achievement Frostbitten.  This achievement has you trying to kill every silver rare in Northrend.  These guys only spawn a couple of times, sometimes only once, a day.  You have to fly around hoping to spot them and then gank them.  As you see below, I'm pretty well on my way to getting that.

What you don't really know yet is that the name at the top of the list, Loque'nahak, is a silver rare that is also tamable by hunters to use as their dpsing pet.  It's also the most desired by hunters of all the tamable silver rares out there.  

Now, I run and addon called SilverDragon that spams a macro to target silver rares for any given "country" I happen to by moseying along in.  Whether on foot or in the sky, I know if a silver rare is present, even if it's just its corpse.  My screen edge starts flashing red, a name plate pops up on my screen allowing me to target the rare, and I'm pretty sure there are sounds as well (not heard them myself since I play with my in-game sounds off...I like to listen to music, what can I say).  The information on which rares I've seen, how often and how long ago gets logged so I can cry over the times I missed a rare that I've needed because I was on a taxi, or the rare was already dead, or in the process of becoming dead due to the actions of another player.  I've run the addon for the past two years.  Want to know how many times I've seen Loque'nahak?

  

Yeah, you're seeing properly, 0.  Never.  Not once.  Not even as a rotting carcass.  You know why?  Because every hunter on the server camps the hell out of every spawn point for that damn cat.  Which brings me back to my comparison.  I think that the greatest trick Blizzard ever pulled was convincing players outside of hunters that Loque'nahak ever existed.  Seriously, just look at that.  I haven't even seen the other two rares in Sholazar.  Why?  Because as these hunters camp for Loque'nahak, they kill dead the other rares out of frustration.

I'm going to go and cry in a corner now.