Alteriffic – Back to Healing

Well last night was alt night with a couple of friends, and although I was 1.5 hours late logging in I managed to squeeze in a 4 man WC run with Glaive (kit), Nayeli (mia), and Lenare (lin).  No deaths, and a couple of upgrades for mia and lin and we were done.  No one needed anything from Kresh so we let him live this time   (turtle genocide ftl) .  Bandaid also dinged 23 while in there, and has a full bar of rested Xp to burn through before next weeks alt instalment.  Bandaid’s also nearing the level cap for alchemy, sitting at around 223 now.  Getting Bandaid up to 35 to be able to train Artisan Alchemy is going to be the next (giant) step. 

I think I can push Bandaid up to 25 without too much trouble over the weekend and the start of next week, and I’ll try to aim for 5 levels a week which may mean I outlevel the rest of the alt group in the short term in order to get my alchemy to 300.  I do however have Chompi and App waiting at 29 and 31 respectively to join the group.  This would mean I step back from healing instances and go DPS (not something I want to do with this group) but I’m sure Nayeli could pick up the healing duties for a week or two while everyone catches up with Bandaid.  This is purely speculative at this stage, anyway, and I think I’ll drop herbalism on Bandaid and pick up tailoring.  Mainly this will be to provide Chompi with some of the mats to level enchanting, as the next stage for him is to drop mining and go enchanting, then level up to 35.

Instance wise for this alt group, next up is Black Fathom Depths (somewhere I’ve always liked for some reason) and Razorfen Kraul.  Probably not in the same night,  but who knows

Chunder’s had a few nights off, although I have managed to get his fishing up a bit, thanks to being in Ogrimmar to train my level 62 spells and abilities, I hopped across to XR to fish up a couple of stacks of Deviate Fish and managed to skill up fishing to 264. 

I’m really enjoying playing Chunder as Enchancement, and if I can find enough groups as melee dps I will probably not go Resto.  I’m unlikely to raid with him, as I’m not really able to have uninterruptible WoW time due to famliy constraints so 5 man & Heroics will probably be his limit.

Two new experiments are on the horizon (or have been started) . . .

Well I’ve started a free trial on EVE Online just to see what it’s like.  I will probably just create another trial once this one has finished and try a different playstyle\race etc.  If I find I really like it I may buy a gamecard, but I can’t see it taking over my WoW playing.   I want to just get a feel for the game (which is unlikely in 14 days considering the amount of free time I have at the moment), and I think a couple of trials will give me enough of an insight as to whether I’m going to enjoy it or not.

I was intrigued by reading the EVE ONLINE 0.0 EXPERIMENT and also the MMO trial experiment going on over at Sweetflags blog and thought that as it was free, and I could download the client (only 600mb or so for the mac version) so I wasn’t losing out on anything.  

The other (possible) experiment in the pipeline at the moment is to delve into the world of dual-boxing.  I’m planning on creating a trial account and see how far I can get a toon in 2 weeks using my lock to powerlevel them through instances.  Having been an avid reader of such blogs as Three Druid Noob, Twenty Totems, and Lightning Overload and greatly enjoyed their tales of multi boxing, I thought I’d go for the cheap and easy option .  WoW Insider also had a Multi Boxing segment (well whole show really) with Xzin and I have to say he came across very well.  Mike was constantly trying to push how unfair it was, but Xzin had reasoned answers for just about everything.  I’m only going to dual box\power level one toon to see how easy it is.  To be honest I think there’s very little chance that I’ll actually buy another copy of the game and pay for an additional sub, so it’s more just to try the experience out.

(not sure if this will be a regular blog feature, but it’s a slow day at work so I’m composing a mega post!)

Of course, at the end of next week GTA is out, and I can see this getting me back on my 360 (which has been played about twice this year so far) and being about the only thing to get me off WoW.  I loved GTA3, and it saved my sanity as I was recovering from an operation and was immobile for 6 weeks and my flatmate at the time kindly chipped my PS2 and got me tons of game backups.  Vice City was awesome, and I completed the story missions of that game but I couldn’t really get into San Andreas for some reason.  I think it was that I loved the setting of Vice City (grew up with Miami Vice) and although my teens were spent listening to the music that was in GTA:SA it just didn’t have same appeal.  I’m hoping that GTA:IV is a welcome return to form, and keeps me hooked.

I may also purchase an eee pc and put windoze on it and WoW to do a bit of AH’ing during the day over the unlocked wifi spots I can pick up from my desk   I know if I get one the wife will want to keep it at home, as she finds the macbook pro a little too large (she much preferred our old macbook, which she spilt a pint of water into).  I would probably end up having to buy two, but I could possibly pick up a cheap 2nd hand one for her from ebay (as our 2 year old son would have access to it).

Also this week in the UK the 8gb  iPhone had £100 chopped off it’s price tag, and this makes it super tempting.  Only problem is that my company pays for my Blackberry, and they probably wouldn’t do the same for my iPhone (even with possibility of exchange push email) .  I could always jailbreak it and put my own pay as you go sim in – but I really want to wait for the 3G one (which I will not be able to convince the wife we can afford).  I’ve got my iPod touch, so I dont really need one, but as with all gadgets I really want one lol.