Breaking up (with WoW) is hard to do

I've said before that one of the reasons I started Kentucky Geek Girl was to talk about gaming. Back in 2010, when I started the blog, I was a pretty hardcore World of Warcraft player. When I use that term, I'm not necessarily saying that I was in a raiding guild with top tier gear and advanced progression. No, I mean that I played the game as often as I could and had since 2007.

My main, Katryona.

Mists of Pandaria Press Tour Announced

 World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria was officially announced at Blizzcon 2011 and the introduction of the Pandaren as a playable race, a new continent, and over-arching focus on "war" as the main theme and villain of has been met with mixed reactions. There has been little information released since the October event, but today MMO-Champion posted a blue post which announced a Mists of Pandaria Press Tour.

A Break in the Mists: Alert the Press!

Since the announcement of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria at BlizzCon 2011, we’ve been hard at work on all of the new game features, environments, dungeons, and other content that awaits adventurers. Today, we’re inviting members of the press worldwide to get an updated sneak peek and some hands-on time with the latest version of World of Warcraft’s fourth expansion at an event taking place March 13 - 15.

Source: MMO-Champion

If you want to know more about what lies hidden within the mists of Pandaria, wait for the season’s end….  
MMO-Champion said that the Cataclysm Friend & Family Alpha started on the first week of May and the actual Cataclysm press tour happened a month later. So, could we be seeing the Alpha starting in the next couple of weeks? Blizzard has said that they wanted to increase the frequency of expansion releases. Cataclysm has been out for nearly 14 months so hopefully we'll be hearing something soon!

What are you thoughts on the new World of Warcraft expansion? Leave a message in the comments!

Second Day of Christmas: WoW vs SWTOR Holiday Singoff

Apologies, I am certainly behind in my 12 Days of Christmas postings. That just means we get Christmas cheer well past Christmas!

With World of Warcraft's patch 4.3 coming out just in time for the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, there has been some heavy debate (and friendly banter) and comparison of the two games. Some are calling SWTOR a WoW-killer while others say that TOR will crash and burn.

Mike B aka Fony of Gamebreaker.tv and ZAM.com's BFF Report has created 42 episodes of  the World of Warcraft machinima show Blizz Blues for Gamebreaker including this video "12 Days of Smack Talkin'." It features Darnell, the host of Blizz Blues, singing about his "rogue only legendary" that was released with patch 4.3. However, his holiday fun was interrupted by a visitor from a galaxy far, far away.

I think that Blizz Blues gets better with every episode. I've always been a huge fan of machinima and Mike's doing an awesome job!





Be sure to check out the other episodes of Blizz Blues!
Question: Are you a WoW player? Do you think that the game is on death's door? Leave a comment below!

First Day of Christmas: boogie2988

It's coming on Christmas around here at Kentucky Geek Girl and I wanted to kick off the season with my own special 12 Days of Christmas. It'll be 12 days of awesome things that I love or that are particularly cool this time of year. Today, it's boogie2988. I'm sure most of you have seen his videos on Youtube where he plays a character named Francis. I must admit that I thought that this wasn't just a character at first. Turns out, though, that boogie is really awesome! He has a lot of great things to say about life, gaming, and everything in between. His Francis videos are hilarious. I'm including two special Christmas-themed Francis videos after the break!

Gamebreaker to team with WoWInsider and Wowhead for epic Blizzcon party

Okay, I'm not going to Blizzcon. That would be pretty sweet, but it doesn't make much sense because I'm not playing WoW right now. To satisfy my need for all things World of Warcraft, I follow posts from WoWInsider, WoWhead/Zam and of course watch Legendary on Gamebreaker.tv. Those three entities of awesomeness are teaming up to host a reader meetup at Blizzcon that sounds like it's going to be pretty sweet.

You do not need to have a ticket to Blizzcon to attend the party, which will be held at the Anabella Hotel on October 20. There will be awesome swag, a chance to meet your favorite personalities from Gamebreaker, WoWInsider, and sites like Tankspot and Zam. It sounds like it is going to be a ton of fun and if you're not in California, like me, you can watch a live stream of the party on Gamebreaker.tv! 

There's even a Facebook event page for the party. So, if you'll be in the Anaheim area on October 20, even if you're not going to Blizzcon, check out the party, starting at 5pm PDT.

Blizzard has cross-realm dungeoning in the works for World of Warcraft

Last summer, I gave my response to the World of Warcraft Real ID system. Earlier today, World of Warcraft Community Manager Nethaera posted an announcement on the WoW forums that unveiled Blizzard's plan to introduce functionality within the game that would allow players on different servers to group for dungeons. There has been some speculation within the community for awhile that Blizzard may roll out with this at some point. It is certainly something that players have wanted and hoped for. While all of my friends (when we consistently played) were on Shadow Council, I do have many friends from another guild on Durotan that I would love to have played with at some point. This feature, which would be available as part of the Real ID functionality, would allow a group leader to initiate invitations to players on other servers and go through dungeons.

As this is a fairly complex service to develop, we don’t have a release date to share quite yet. It’s important to note that as with some of the other convenience- and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service. We'll have more details to share with you as development progresses -- in the meantime, you may begin to see elements of the feature appear on the World of Warcraft PTR.

~Nethaera

This is all of the information that has been released about this so far. Nethaera did say that only the player initiating the invitations would need to have the paid service, but do we really need to pay for this? Will they bundle it in with our normal subscriptions? Hopefully we'll get some more news soon. I have the PTR downloaded so I may check it out at some point. Thankfully, you do not have to have an active World of Warcraft subscription to play on the PTR. Many players were gifted 7 free days of play time last week and I used that so now my account is frozen again. While I do not have plans to resubscribe any time soon, I'll keep everyone up to date on the news.

Other World of Warcraft news:

• Patch 4.2 on the PTR now - Wow Insider


• Blizz-Con tickets on sale this Saturday - Blizzard.com

Check back with Kentucky Geek Girl for more World of Warcraft news!

Would you pay a premium for cross-realm play in World of Warcraft? Leave a comment below!

Is Blizzard to blame for Gary Gannon's disappearance?

I've been following Gamebreaker.tv for a few months now and I enjoy watching their web shows This Week in MMO and Legendary, which covers World of Warcraft.

Even though I'm not playing Warcraft right now, I like to keep up on the news and events. Legendary's hosts Gary Gannon, Mikeb aka Fony from Zam.com's BFF Report, and Josh Allen aka Lore from Tankspot's Weekly Marmot and PST, represent three major demographics in WoW today, casual player, PvPer and hardcore raider, respectively. On Legendary, the guys cover topics such as upcoming patches, class changes, and sometimes even their own speculation as to the future of World of Warcraft and Blizzard in general. But has this speculation finally raised the ire of Blizzard Entertainment? Is Bashiok, Community Manager for the World of Warcraft forums, responsible for Gary Gannon's disappearance? Before we get into that, let's talk about what happened during the Legendary live broadcast on Tuesday night.

Legendary, the World of Warcraft show, tapes live on Justin.tv weekly at 9:30 PM Pacific Time. Gary, Mike and Lore broadcast from their respective locations, but in particular Gary is live from the brand new Gamebreaker.tv studio. On May 3, at around 45 minutes into the broadcast, the live feed suddenly went dead following Gary's statement that World of Warcraft was growing too "fat." This came after the trio discussed the Bashiok's claim that there is a lack of resources for new raid content and that Patch 4.2 will only bring the 7 bosses of the Firelands raid.

Just about half way into the show, the feed cut out. I was thinking, Well, maybe I should just reload the page. No dice. The chatroom was going crazy. Jasmine was trying to calm everyone down as they figured out where Gary was. Then, the speculation began. Blizzard didn't like Gary's comments and decided to take him out. Just two days after the announcement of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, many folks in the chatroom said that Blizzard staged an invasion of the Gamebreaker.tv studio. It turns out that Gary's internet was cut, but then later it was announced that the power was out too.

Mike and Lore were eventually able to bring the feed back up briefly and they were donning their tinfoil hats, the significance of which is so Blizzard can't read their minds. Groups of players went in game and staged rallies in Garrosh's room on server Arthas. Since I'm not in game right now, I couldn't attend, but I followed along in the chat room for awhile.

A #FreeGaryGannon campaign has been set up to urge Blizzard to release Gary from their clutches. There's a tumblr page and you can follow along on twitter by searching #FreeGaryGannon. Also check out the feeds of @akamikeb, @devolore, @irljasmine, @gamebreakertv.

As a witness to the atrocities of 5/3, I can just say that I am scared for Gary's safety. I'm not sure what kind of dungeon Blizzard has Gary in, but if it's anything like Halls of Stone, he's in for a lifetime of pain and misery.

Legendary 27: Free Gannon

***UPDATE***

Shortly after I posted the link to twitter, user @Rhonyzul tweeted me this: "@bardicmelody http://tinyurl.com/6z6r8dc I think we've found Gary."

The link contained within the tweet is to a youtube video. This youtube video:



I will keep everyone up to date on the events surrounding Gary's disappearance.

Latest Battle.net forums post: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2483748474?page=1

And the wait begins...

Blizzard Entertainment has been working on Cataclysm the third expansion for World of Warcraft even before Wrath of the Lich King was released in 2008. The details were unveiled at Blizzcon 2009 and since we found out that there would be two new races, Goblin and Worgen, we've been shivering with antici...pation.


Get it? We're shivering cause it's Blizzard and not just because it's a Rocky Horror Picture Show reference. Gosh, if I have to explain it to you, half the fun is lost.

Um, I digress. New races, new race-class combinations, new lands and flying in the entirety of Azeroth?! The Cataclysm is sure to change everything that we've come to know and love. Deathwing is back and with a vengeance and everyone in the World of Warcraft isn't going to know what hit him.

But for now, we wait. Of course, Blizzard hasn't released a definitive release date as of yet, but have gone on record saying that it's on track for 2010. That being said, they also told us that it wouldn't be released until they were happy with it, meaning that it was a finished, polished product.

According to new information by MMO Champion (via Wow Insider) a new release date for Cataclysm floating around is November 2. This is the first "official" date that has been mentioned in the year since the details of Cataclysm emerged at Blizzcon 2009.

From MMO-Champion a few days ago

Keep in mind that Blizzard didn't announce it because the release can still be postponed, but as far as I know the target release date for Cataclysm is the first week of November (that would be November 2, if you like numbers). The first part of the Cataclysm prologue started exactly 8 weeks before that and the next part of the pre-Cataclysm event will probably happen in 2 or 4 weeks depending on their schedule. 

So nothing is set in stone yet, but they do make a great point about the timeline. Patch 4.0.1 just hit the Player Test Realms and I know that Tarinae over at A Healdin's Tear has downloaded it and is waiting on her character copy. (That's taking up to 4 days, btw.) I do not look for the last patch before Cataclysm to drop for another month or so in live play.

I believe that the last patch before Wrath of the Lich King dropped one month to the day before the expansion came out. That patch brought us the attunement taken out of Onyxia as well as ramped up the Scourge invasion. It also brought us the barber shops, if memory serves.

But here's the real question. Do you buy the Collector's Edition. In 2008, Tarinae stood in line for hours to get our hands on the coveted items. Granted she stood in line much longer, because I didn't skip class, but it was still a lot of fun. However, money's a bit tight this year so I don't think I'll be dropping the $80 on it, unless my mom decides that it can be an early Christmas present.

It's black... like Deathwing's soul

Granted, I really want the mousepad and the Mini Deathwing, but I don't know. As soon as we get a release date, I think I'll make up my mind.

If you take a look at the bottom, you'll see that the release date on Walmart.com was once 11/30/2010. This was Wednesday, September 1 and not 2 weeks later the news broke about a Nov 2 release. It now says 12/31/2010.

For now, we'll just wait for more news. I'm going to sift through all of the warrior and protection paladin news to bring you the latest information. I am also super excited about Archaeology, so I'll update everyone that as well.

How about a little tank and spank?

As I've referenced before, I play World of Warcraft. Not having my regular computer for the last few months has made me want to read a lot more about the game, about my class, and about other game related issues. One thing I have found: the lack of Warrior blogs. So one thing I might do from time to time is discuss the Warrior class. Unfortunately, I do not feel I can devote an entire blog to the class, but I feel it'll be a nice addition to KY Geek Girl.

My beloved Aleksondra is a Forsaken Fury Warrior on Shadow Council-Horde-RP-US. She belongs to the guild , of whom the lovely Tarinae is guild master. To be perfectly honest, Sondra was an alliance before she was a horde. Highly misguided, I played for 2 years as an alli. But, on Septemer 3, 2009, I made one of the best World of Warcraft Decisions ever: Faction change.

I've really enjoyed playing Fury, though when I decided to go dual-specialization, the secondary spec was Protection. Once I realized I liked Paladin tanking better than Warrior tanking, I unlearned the Protection talents in favor of Arms. I primarily use the Arms spec for Player-Vs-Player. It's all a learning process. I don't play to theorycraft or to raid hardcore. I play for myself and to have fun.

Now that we have introductions out of the way, I'll say that I am incredibly excited for Cataclysm. I came into WoW during Burning Crusade and Vanilla content was barely talked about.  With Cataclysm, we will see Azeroth changed forever. I'm shooting for Loremaster before the expansion comes. I was nearly done on Aleksondra before I switched factions. Sadly, your quest count gets wiped. I'm going to have to do all of the faction specific quests over. Can I do it? I'll update on my progress.

For now, I'll leave you with a few of my favorite World of Warcraft related sites:

• A Healadin's Tear -- Tarinae has been playing World of Warcraft as long as I have. She's a master at the art of the Holy Paladin and offers up a great deal of information and insight into the class. She has two other 80s, an Arcane Mage and a BeastMastery Hunter.


• Cynwise's Battlefield Manual -- Cynwise, a Warlock on Durotan-US, loves long fishing trips in Wintergrasp. (As do I.) Need some Warlock info, have a question about battlegrounds? The Battlefield Manual answers those and more.


• Warcraftpets -- I don't know about you, but I'm a vanity pet whore. I love them. I'm even going to get the Authenticator (which I recommend everyone do anyway!) so I can get the Corehound pup. I'm curious to see how vanity pets will change come Cataclysm and I'm sure Breanni over at Warcraft Pets will have all of the information you need. Ever notice Breanni in Dalaran, the vanity pet dealer? That's her! She was added to the game as an homage to the Warcraft Pet database!


• El's Extreme Anglin' -- Want to get started with fishing in World of Warcraft? You've come to the right place. El wrote her own Extreme Anglin' guide... Nat Pagle just can't compare. She outlines equipment, locations, the Salty title, etc. Find all of the information you want about Fishing.


• Wow Insider -- One of my favorite columns is The Overachiever which details our favorite Achievements in World of Warcraft. After Loremaster, I want to go for Insane in the Membrane.

Do you have a favorite site? I'll create a comprehensive list, just let me know your favorite!

I hope you've liked this addition to the blog. If you're a WoW player, give me a shoutout. I love rolling lowbies on new servers!

Initial response to Blizzard's Real-ID function

This is my < 1000 character response to Blizzard's new policy of publishing user's real names on their forums. I will have a longer response and blue posts up here soon, but that's a tad hard to do on the POS computer. For now, here is what I wrote on the World of Warcraft page.

I am on Facebook and I've become a fan of Warcraft because I enjoy the updates. Other Facebook users can see what I've written here, but my privacy settings are such than no one can add me as a friend or find me in search. However, you have taken away all privacy when it comes to World of Warcraft. People play ...games to escape, to become someone else, not put their names out for all the world to see. If I wanted to play myself, I would roll a character named Natasha, but I don't want to do that. We also take comfort in the fact that we can post as those characters on the forums. That encourages role play even on the forums. Have you not taken that into account? No one is going to role play on the forums if they have to have their name out there. I believe that this has gone way beyond the privacy for your users and straight to your bottom line. Like Facebook, like so many other companies, Blizzard is starting to care more about profit and sales than the end-user.

For shame, Blizzard.



*** 7/9 Update ***
Less than 24 hours after I wrote my response to Blizzard regarding my feelings about Real ID on the forums, it is decided that no one's full name will be displayed. I, along with so many, breathed a sigh of relief. The news broke on 7/6 that there would be the new Real ID implementation on the forums which angered a great deal of players. Some immediately deleted their characters, some threatened to never post on the forums again.

Here is Wow Insider's coverage of Blizzard's response to the Real ID issue which contains blue posts. Everyone's had an opinion on the subject since Real ID was announced several months ago. I'm not participating in it and neither is my guild master and best friend Tarinae. We both agreed that we know how to contact each other if neither of us are on characters we play together. Bottom line on why I am anti-Real ID in game: there are people who are playing currently who wish to do nothing more than fuck with me. I ended up changing my character name.

That being said, I would prefer people not know my full name. I have very high privacy settings on my Facebook account and I am pretty sure that my Linked In account is invite-only. So, I wish to hold that same privacy to what I do in game. Going on the forums is a fun way to immerse yourself in the WoW experience while not playing. On my realm, Shadow Council, I really enjoy the big PVP-ers of Alliance and Horde talking smack and planning large PVP events. It's entertaining and it's anonymous.

Because our realm is RP, there is a lot of text based RP on the forums. You can't very well RP as your in-game character if your name is up there for the world to see. It just doesn't make any sense.

But, for now, we have a reprieve. And I, for one, appreciate that Blizzard has changed its mind.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

I started playing world of warcraft in late 2007. Back then I was a dirty alliance scum. Last September, they opened up faction transfers so I made my main character, a night elf warrior, into an undead warrior. Gave her a new rp story that she'd fallen in battle at the priest Azazoth, my friend's character, was able to resurrect her.

I had started to feel the burnout with wow last summer when I was trying to hold my alliance guild together after having been made guild leader. I had been trying to raid and was getting no where and just got pretty fed up. So, I took about a month break. Then, when I came back I started focusing on other characters. I started to level a blood elf paladin with my bff and her boyfriend and had a lot of fun.

Fast forward to March of this year. Our horde guild had been started to raid and was doing well. Very casual and my bff and I were doing some higher end stuff on the side, but I was proud of the way everyone was coming along. Well, various things happen and the raid group falls apart. Then, the ultimate happens: my computer goes kapoot.

I thought it'd be a fairly easy fix, and it would have been had I taken it to a different company. I went with a local computer repair shop because it's just down from my apartment and I'm trying to support local business. But they've had it since early March and I miss my computer a lot. I miss using Vista (not sure I'd ever utter those words) and I miss the freedom of my HP. More than that, though, I miss World of Warcraft.

I went through a withdrawl period. Then I went through the acceptance that I wouldn't be able to pull it up whenever I wanted and jump on a random character. Now, I just miss it. I play whenever I'm over at my bff Lila's house, but it's not the same. Those instances are few and far between. I wanted to do some heavy character work before the expansion came out.

Several of my friends are taking pre-expansion breaks. And I mean, I'm mostly glad I broke my habit if at least for a few months. I just hope the computer store has my poor sweet laptop back soon. For now, though, I'll just live vicariously through those who blog about wow and wait for my time to come again.