I love Strand Of The Ancients...

Me and my Stormpike Ram have been running around the Strand of The Ancients a lot lately (Rams feel like they go quicker if you name them, incidentally, so mine is called Kenny Wilkins) . I've run through a lot of Alterac Valley, but now I have easily outdone myself in terms of gametime spent in one area, chasing a certain goal. I have all the achievements you will get if you aren't chasing achievements, and I'm proud of my abilities with a turret cannon. I got the "artillery expert" (100 vehicles destroyed with a cannon) in less than 20 games, which I feel is right on the money.

To begin a match, you are dropped on a boat on the open sea, with a Paladin and a Death knight for company. then, invariably a shaman will arrive, and it is brought home to you how much PVP relies on the awkward classes to make up the numbers. I thrive in PVP because of things that don't matter in PVE. A Holy paladin who's got more armour than the other healers, and a big Hammer of Justice shaped interrupt I'd never otherwise use.
my regular (or dayjob) spec of protection paladin is probably the most useless class in the battlegrounds, because our high end PVE game relies on a certain rotation heavy finger style, and a lot of static fighting, moving the camera and shuffling to find the inch perfect position in any given room, temple, glacier field, et cetera. Having a gazillion HP doesnt really help either, because people focus fire upon you any way, and theres no Resillience on anything you might choose to wear, (there used to be an odd prot pvp selection at 70, but now there really isn't one).

I'd like to digress here and say that the best class for the battlegrounds hands down is Druid, and I don't think that will ever change. I love it when we get a good alliance druid on the side, spamming moonfire, or doing that shapeshifting, healing-running-away thing. They make fantastic lynchpins in any protracted melee. I often have to remind myself that druids are all one class. Having defended a mine (for what felt like days) in Arathi with a stealthed, impossibly fast cat, and rolled in open combat with boomkins who only shapeshift in desperation, and been killed by a Tauren High Warlord who shifted through everything while he tore massive chunks out of me at a leisurely pace(I have a lot of respect for Mukharn, who defines a Horde Druid with too much time on his hands for me). Also, a lot of people don't like Tauren catform for the way it looks, but I personally feel that is the best graphics for feeling humiliated, like you're just a squeaky toy played with a bored animal, Its something about the dull facial expression.

So, you're on the boat. and it gets into dock, and if youve got a DK on board, you're off across the water with Path of Frost (wheee!), and into a tank and off up the slope. The Horde, if they are organised at this point, will destroy your vehicle before you've even started driving (I didnt even know this was possible for my first 30 games). If they are not organised, or have all gone to one side of the map, then there is no reason not to get through the first wall, and probably through the second, in that first tank. I feel, personally, if youre a DPS, you shouldn't be driving. You almost definitely shouldn't take a cannon when you're on defence. the dps output of the gun, and the offensive throughput of the vehicle, is much lower than what you should be capable of as a dps character. The exception being one of the mediocre Death Knights rolling Strand these days. You guys need to have more than Death Grip hotkeyed, and you're probably better off in the designated driver seat. Better yet finish levelling you're Hunter main, and go back to that.

Getting through the walls is easy. Provided you make it past the bends after walls 2 and 3, and across the long stretch of open ground that is the Courtyard of the Ancients, getting the walls down is straightforward. It should also be noted that once the final door is down, you have won, as the click on the titan relic is not like Wintergrasp, where you have to channel it, and any cooldown you've got - even if your vehicle is taken out - will get your hands on the prize.
The trick to getting round the bends is to keep driving, and if you aren't in the first vehicle straight off the beach, to roll through with a buddy vehicle as two targets will split their focus. If you're feeling chatty, or like handing out orders to the anonymous fourteen helpers you theoretically have, people defending the tank are worth their weight in S5 gear, getting in the way of any arcane Mages for example, or slowing down any BE Paladins chasing the tank. The tanks dont really stand up to a lot of punishment, but they will brazen through the cannon fire, if its only the cannons they have to worry about. Personally, I think this is one of the best planned bits of "balance" that Blizzard came up with in Northrend. Tanks are easily beaten if you work as a team, but not so if you take the more familiar path of solo engagement, merely hoping that the rest of your team joins in the same melee as you.

The most successful thing to do, research is telling me, is to drive through one side of the map with all the vehicles. This can feel a bit dull for anyone who disembarks on the side thats being ignored, but it is guaranteed to get the first gate down, and make good time on the second gate. If the Horde have split their forces, then their time will be lost regrouping, and your tanks with the longest journey can defend the first two tanks, and keep the demolition going as the first two fall apart like clown cars.
Typically, once the first gate is down in this manner, you then have a large melee in front of gate two, and people become despondent and go and take the first level gate that was deliberately ignored, as if this might somehow help. It doesnt help, and it is not economical to do this. there may be a small honor gain (unsure whether gates destroyed count towards anything so far) but you are far better off taking graveyards on level 2, and keeping up the pressure on the second gate. If you had halfway decent drivers in the first 4 cars, then gate 2 should go down very quickly. A decent driver is one who doesnt stop, and doesn't weave about trying to fire at pedestrians. I had a go at this, because I think my aim and timing are quite good, but have grown out of it now. Tanks are for walls, and are useless if not driving straight at the wall. Also note that the siege weapon has no effect on pedestrians, even the ones stood right in front of you. This again differs from Wintergrasp, where the siege weapon on the big Humvee will thump people and cause a knockback (although even this has strict criteria for enemy position in order to make contact).

You can have two passengers in each vehicle, and these guys need to be ranged DPS, because they can fire from the vehicle and usefully clear a path. I've only managed to get a mage in the chair for this once or twice, but it was utterly brilliant, and we cained it through 3 walls and took the relic like we were popping to the shops. If its developed into a big, slow moving melee in front of gate two, I like to jump into a passenger seat sometimes, and heal DPS from that temporarily secure position. If I'm in a passenger seat, I also like to be carrying a seaforium charge, as occasionally I will get to the drop off point even if the vehicle does not. Even more occasionally, you get 15 horde players who don't know that the seaforium exists, and don't bother to defuse it. On the whole, seaforium is one of those things that 90% of the player base can ignore, like the mines in Alterac Valley, and it will really have no effect on play. In abstract, for instance when they were developing the ideas before release, they could be game changing. I find it interesting that there are 3 achievements relating to extensive use of seaforium, but I don't think anyone apart from anally retentive rogues are going to get anywhere near achieving them. Unless nobody sees you dropping it until the last second, that seaforium isn't going off, and you probably arent going to get close enough on foot to do the dirty any way...

"I say Trevor, whats that guy still on his bear doing?... why, he must be lost, or indulging in some horseplay! hahaha get him someone!... no, wait, hes dropped off a small item, I wonder what that is?" is not how its going to go. Nope, the guy in the turret leading you with the scope is actively looking for you, and he or his mate will take you down, or simply jump out and hit defuse in the leisurely 10 seconds they have to do it in. I like to think that the Horde are all on the CB going "Charlie charlie delta, we have a breaker on a welfare bear at gate two, proceeeding to the hard deck to put him in neutral" as calm as you like.

The only thing to remember is that the quicker we get to the relic, the less time the opposition have to get to the relic. As Alliance always go first, we have the natural advantage here, as we will always have twelve minutes, and the Horde will have whatever time we give them. This is great news!
In the first round, they are fighting to give themselves time, and we are fighting for the relic. If we get to the relic with seven minutes on the clock, they have only five minutes to do it in. It takes five minutes without any opposition whatsoever, and if you can take out their first two vehicles, then they aren't getting to the relic. I really like this maths. These, as a proud alliance player, are good odds. If you do restrict them to five minutes, it is merely a duckshoot, and we all go home with another 1000 honour. 38 like this and I've got my Hateful Gladiators faux crystal tumblers, or bathtowel set.

I would recommend Strand of The Ancients to anyone, Its quick, there are explosions, and I rarely walk away with less than 600 honor for my twenty minutes. Furthermore, come Patch 3.08 I think we are going to get things to spend the marks on, and there will be even more seaforium available to get through the last two gates. Jump right in and kill a Death Knight today.

The Top of the World

Things have changed for the better since I wrote the bulk of the articles that started this blog. We now have Wrath of the Lich King, and the continent of Northrend, where everything is dealt with on a massive scale, my armour has been better quality right from the word go (I have mainly blues and an epic tank shield, only a month after release), and every action feels like it will have an impact on events. This last feeling is down to "phasing" where parts of the world change for you after the completion of certain quests. Its truly awesome to be swept along by a story, and quest chains don't feel like such a drag any more.

Being a paladin is still a huge draw for me, and I still haven't managed to spend more than a week with an alt or achieve an alt higher than level 29. I have also taken on the challenges of mass PVP in the battlegrounds, and for such activities I have respecced to healer. I am now regularly changing specs to either be a Tank or a PVP Healer, and I have built a wardrobe which has a full outfit for both occasions.
Northrend has assisted me greatly in this. Not only did I keep everything which might have been of use as I went along, so I could study it in leisure at 80, but the Blacksmith craftable gear is wonderfully diverse compared to how it used to be. you can now make a decent starter Tank set, a plate PVE Healer set and a resillience heavy plate healer set. Hurrah! I can now craft myself 200 resillience? excellent. this means I might survive the first ten seconds of a rogue or warlock encounter and therefore live to bubble, cleanse or otherwise find assistance.

On the PVE front, I have had some success tanking in Northrend, and hope to get stuck into Heroics and Naxx as the time allows. I have the gear, and I think that on a good day, I have the fingers and awareness for it too. This aspect of the game i would most like to enjoy with friends and associates from my guild, and as many are still in the late 70s, and have rep grinds and levelling to preoccupy them, I am happy to go heal strangers and fish up Dragonfin in the mean time. I am less keen to tank pugs, as my gear is going to take more damage, and it is harder to analyse what may be going wrong when you're knee deep in mobs or keeping a boss turning.

Professional...

I have had to slow my levelling rate quite dramatically lately. I am halfway through 64, but that its been two months since I turned 58.
I have had a lot of work to do, which is really nice, and has made me up my RL game considerably, after the lazy start to the year. I have also been trying to level my professions - chiefly cooking and fishing. This seems to involve flying round and round Kalimdor, and running out of bagspace all the time. My Fishing is now over 300, and my cooking has plateaued at 285, critically short of the 300 required to cook the ton of meat I have discovered in Outland.
I have tried to be efficient during this process. El's angling has all the info you need to achieve 375 fishing and cooking, so I have returned to it to discover that yet again I have to portal back to Darnassus, Fly to Feralas, Buy two recipes at Feathermoon stronghold, Fly up to Azshara, ride for half an hour, Fish for at least half an hour, Gaining Lobster and Salmon, which I can cook to achieve the next 15 points.
Cool. So, my next evening's session I'll have this nailed.
The relief, and sense of satisfaction will be immense.
And I can empty my meat bank.

Truths and Hammers

There are some strange truths in WoW. There are distinct architectural truths for example. My Favourite is that Trolls just love stairs, and will make you run up and down stairs like John Cleese in Faulty Towers for absolutely no reason. I defy anyone not to thrash a mini in depair trying to heal in Sunken Temple, which demonstrates Troll staircase madness much better than Zul Farrak and is more like trying to heal your way round screwball scramble. Although, I am finding that keeping my heal game on in unbalanced Pickups, every instance is starting to look like this. "please don't chain pull, neither me nor the mage have the mana" "OMG wtf" etc. Yes. Quite, and it was me who told the comedy hunter it was fine to not bring any bullets too...

Another truth is that very rarely do you meet people carrying large hammers who will give you a large hammer, even if they are seeking to reward you. This is frustrating if you're from the large hammer carrying classes - Take this example of me meeting Arthas in the Plaguelands for example, or any number of Ogre fights. I loved this bit in the whole 50something Argent Dawn fandango, Arthas is so terribly gratreful to you for hitting the same bunch of undead over and over again that its like you'll always be best mates. However, 2 levels later and youre in Outland, and he's really not returning your calls, and your wondering why you wanted to hang out with the Argent Dawn anyway. "Really Abandon Tedious global circumnavigation for 1badge reward Quest"? Yes, I'm tripping over Quartermasters everywhere more interesting than you now.

Digression aside, The exception that proved the Hammer rule for me is the Deadwood Sledge, which dropped for me from a Crushridge Ogre right on cue, not 4 levels too late. This beauty did me til I puffed right to the top of that Troll city in the Hinterlands, waved goodbye to a Griffon and then got my Griffon Startling Hammer, which Procc'ed Nature Damage just occasionally enough to make me jump and wonder that noise was. Like when you are fishing and somebody fights murlocs/ nagas/ wolves behind you. ZZZaapp! FsshWang! Oh. You're fish got away. Cheers, Lolferal or whatever your name probably is.

I am the Tank

Last night I tanked Deadmines. First time out as a warrior tank, First time out with my new buddies on a new (to me) seriously high-population server. Although I have left Krakenoah languishing in hellfire peninsula, newly 60 but awestruck and lost in the vast harshness of outland, I have jumped to EU-Eonar to start out as a tank.

And Deadmines went pretty well, from my perspective. I tanked the boss fights really well, and we worked as a team on these, and most of the trash fights went okay, with me trying to keep aggro off some particularly feisty individuals, and some very out of control pets. I had been building up to this run for weeks, since my new WoW (and RL) buddy Si started his first gnome. But unfortunately, because of RL commitments, Si and his mate Alf were lvl 27 by the time we got in there to run it. So I'm a 20 tank, 1 lvl under being truly effective, and they’re a 27 warlock and a 27 priest, 2 or 3 levels above finding this a real challenge.
It balanced out quite well though, as we brought a comedy hunter, who didn’t bring any bullets, and liked running about getting in the way.

It was serious fun.

NOT Out and About in Azeroth

Stuck at work for days. Its not overly complicated being a technical supervisor on an opera for children, but it is draining. A 65 hour week, with no prep beforehand, and where most of the creative protagonists haven't met each other.
One of the things that keeps my mind working is the machinations of Wow insider. I love it, I like its very positive american tone, and its happily universal approach, from theorycrafting about their high end 70 raiders, respeccing for Karathons every night, or high fiving the the uber guilds with their multiple 10 and 25man raid teams; to talking people through the newbie levels, from every angle, for every season.
And because of this, I really want to get back online. I really want to get my Paladin through to 50 and beyond. Krakenoah is my solo champion, with whom I'll go everywhere first, but his brother, Krakenspawn, will be a raid demon, A social animal who will get his experience almost always through instances. He's going to do the DPS thing, unless the world suddenly needs more tanks. But my brother is going to be the tank, with his newly 70'ed Arms warrior, Trailor.
I need to get online to celebrate Trai's 70 in guild, and see how my dysfunctional family are doing. See who's got Kara attuned now, because I know there's been a flurry recently. Maybe the Lords have got a second team together? I can't wait to find out now.

part one: the Kraken awoke...

Krakenoah has been out in the fields slapping things for about six weeks in total. I love this character, and I love this game. I have always enjoyed RPG's (Might and Magic Five, anyone?) and the amount of quality time I have wasted playing every one I could get my hands on is difficult to comprehend now. WoW is such a ridiculously addictive game it is tough to know where to start, but I'll write a little today to try and summarise the joy of the internet world of Warcraft, or "how geeks will beat you, and why you have to hand it to them".

I mostly stopped myself from reading about it. I downloaded the trial version of the game and just went for it. from Setup Wizard to the human/alliance starting zones, I just followed the onscreen instructions and (certainly for the first half an hour) ran into things, tapping my keyboard frantically and deselecting/opening panes at random. It's just great, starting on a new game. controversially, I never played more than an hour of Baldurs Gate. I kind of enjoyed the opening bit, then the layout and the way NPCs spoke just got on my nerves. Contrarily, I still have the copy that my ex-girlfriend's brother lent me. He's probably never going to get it back.

I didn't sleep so well over the next few days. Computer games seem to step right into my frontal lobe and grab me. I can still picture every last pixel of the Hangar level on Tony Hawk's 2. Now there is a game more arresting than a speedball of heroin and Ben and Jerry Fish Food, and easily as arresting as the priceless classic Speedball 2, which is where the trouble all started on my first atari (somewhere between that and Sabre Team). More on this another time.

Over those first few halting days, interspersed around the lazy christmas family visits and the girlfriend time, I leveled through 1-10 in what seems now like a particularly grueling way. Running backwards and forwards across lots of the same targets, fiddling endlessly with rather pointless things and generally riding the learning transition. I then paid to transfer my character to my brothers server, or realm, not fully understanding that i could just start a new character on his realm, and do the 1-10 fandango all over again (in probably two thirds the time). I think it is this rather naieve move that has made Krakenoah important to me. He has jumped the inter server hyperspace, and therefore is the most kickass hybrid Paladin to ever smelt ore.

And thats what he does best. Aside from the regular run of questing (chiefly solo) and badguy smacking; Mining is my true love. You can tell he's a welsh paladin, because he's down holes, finding the ore. And in that, Warcraft has done it for me, because of the intense variety of sideshow activity, your characters gain an erzatz personality. And Krakenoah is me:- Welsh, a poor team player who doesn't like to cook for himself, armed with a hammer and a meticulously researched sartorial look. This last point is more of a metaphorical translation of Real Life. Buying plate armour isn't really the same as knowing the diamonds from the rough in a TK Maxx skateshoe department.

Work calls at this point. To be continued.

0245 GMT

This morning, at around 1am, I messed up a handshake. There are several reasons this is a problem. The main reason that this is a problem is that I have virtually nothing else of a work nature to occupy my mind.
If this were any other well paid technical gig of the regular small-hours kind: taking a set down, loading a truck, putting truss together or driving across country; I'd have plenty to occupy my mind. And everybody else here has got plenty of that. Tonight, I am a unique indivual. Tonight Matthew, I am the House Technician.

I am here to make sure nobody hurts themselves, and that people can find their way into the building. I am here to make sure the nice electricians can find the plugs, and that the plugs are full of sparkly goodness when their powerful modern looking items are turned on. I am here to talk to our inhouse security team in a codified language, to make sure some large doors stay open for short periods of time, and a few small doors stay open for long periods of time. Mostly I am here to be the face of the venue at two in the morning, say hello and shake hands in a cheeky, cockney way by way of welcome.

And thats where messing up a handshake becomes a problem. It was easily done, The uber-carpenter I was greeting, and am on friendly terms with from previous occasions, was sat in a van, and thus higher up than me. For this reason I thought I'd give him the "Bro" upward handshake, the foundation of technical handshakes throughout the western world. However, in the darkness, my intentions were a little less than obvious, and we almost did a kind of wristgrip, The kind of things Warriors in romanticed medieval films do. I did manage to swerve out of this, and we blustered the right (Bro) handshake quickly, but the situation was lost and he thinks I'm a loser for that very brief second before his mind returned to the job.

And this is where its all good. Because he won't think about it again, as he's got a high-profile fashion showfloor to lay, and as I haven't, it gave me something to think about while on my sustenance and caffeine break.

Five to Three. A good "venue staff visibility" walkabout time, with high likelihood of cheeky comments on the slowness of their progress.

A Tull Interlude

A note. The next paragraph is one I wrote a while back, but what goes around, comes around, and as I am presently sat recuperating from a heavy-lifting night shift, awaiting the next one (which should be 'light duties only', but could become very dull) I thought I would post it to add context to my journal in these early days.

I like it here. I like it here in my flat, with my girlfriend. On my street. I like it when I've had a few days to get it together, and put my thoughts in good order, and have fresh thoughts. I like not thinking about work so much, even if I am still thinking about work 15 to 20% of the time, its not the 75% of the time which occurs at work, just before or just after work. I also don't think about drinking, "the stupid choices I have made" or any of the other notions that muddy the water on my lesser days.

"And it was a new day yesterday, but its an old day now".

The words below are the words I found to a Jethro Tull song I've never heard.

Tearing down in double quick time to get the "A" truck shifted 'bout midnight.
The locker rooms are empty but the strobo tuners still spin with their pitching lights.
And Someone with a yellow pass gives out precise directions as to where and when.
And earmarked with a drumstick, young girls set to rendezvous, and be recognized again.
Tomorrow is an off-day, be in Baltimore by Thursday is the only law.
There's a suite down at the hotel reserved for making merry with connecting doors.
The lighting man's already improvised a bar and printed invitations to the ball.
Off-duty cops line corridors wearing tour T-shirts proudly and the band may even call.

Crew nights, no flashlights or folding knives,
Best boots and road suits and nine lives.

Feeling that it might be wrong to temporarily belong to the P.A. man.
Some angel from the midwest is regretting being undressed with no suntan.
His polaroid a-snapping, the head carpenter is rapping on the gates of dawn.
Sitting lonely with a warm beer the girl with dental braces wishes that she hadn't gone.

Crew nights, no bar fights or 'Reader's Wives',
Thin walls and late calls and nine lives.
Crew nights, no flashlights or folding knives,
Best boots and road suits and nine lives.

And that does it for me. These are great lyrics, and I've done enough Rock and Roll to smile at this, from the comfort of my drug free, pasta-eating corner sofa. I can hear Ian Anderson's laughter in his voice. I found these words by accident on a Tull website. I really must track the actual song down.

A Note on the Name

I am a stagehand and scenic carpenter with a fascination for the Internet. I like the popular social networking sites, and have made use of them. I like things like Deviantart, because the world is full of surprises, and seeing what ridiculously enthusiatic Americans have spent their evenings drawing is curiously life affirming.
My name is Tom Arnold, and I have come a long way in the last decade in terms of my career progression. I used to earn £100 p/w here, and now Gasquillions p/w here for more or less the same thing. I have my health, and I have a nice place to live.
The name krakenoah is the name of another internet engendered Avatar, another useful means of killing my spare time and meeting people, and strangely the best thing to have brought me closer to my family in the last year. It is the name of my main character in World ofWarcraft, the phenomenally successly and french owned online RPG.
I started playing at the end of 2007, mainly on the recommendation of my brother. He had been playing for years and we share an enthusiasm for complex PC supported computer games. However, I rarely speak to my brother, and this new frequency of interaction has been an added boon over the last few months.

This Journal will cover both my experiences in World of Warcraft and in the world at large. It is not intended for any particular audience, it is merely a product of my combined desires to use Html, and talk about myself when nobody is listening, liks some in-Starbucks-on-my-power book-playlisting-electro social casualty, but with instant coffee and NWOBHM.