My to do list hasn’t changed now for 2 days, not a sausage, infact all I have managed to do was solo LBRS for the ring to get into UBRS then solo that, no reason what so ever but the break to rep grinding, followed by proffession dailies, followed by food/pot grinding for raids has been a pretty welcome break, it made me think as well, when I left my Paladin and made a mage first time round I use to “raid” UBRS with 10 people  we would wipe at the same points -> ledge above whelps ->1st pull after rend -> Beast 1st Pull -> hit and miss on Drakk.

Anyway, quiet couple of days now before the first all guild 10 man naxx on wednesday.

So, just what the hell is everyone talking about these days?

I don’t think I will ever forget the day I was finally bold enough to ask over Trade Channel “Just what do LBRS and UBRS mean anyhow?” For anyone new to WoW, the burden of learning not only internet slang like ‘omw’ and ‘brb’ and ‘afk’ but all of the in-game abbreviations can be a formidable task. New ones crop up all the time, too. It was only a few months ago I had to ask someone what ‘iirc’ stood for and I’m certainly no noob.

It’s well known that jargon, lingo and acronyms are a way of defining the ‘in-group.’ If you know what we’re talking about, you’re one of us. If you don’t, well then you’re not worth talking to anyhow. Scientists are one of the worst groups of people for using and overusing lingo, and I know that when I head to the office or to the lab, my day with be filled with talk of CBM, TFX, the MRM and a vertiable kegger’s worth of greek letters. (For the record: Coal Bed Methane, Mixed Tidal Flats, Muskeg River Mine)

So what are we going to call all this new stuff? When Patch 2.4 came down, and we were introduced to the Sunwell content, I recall a day or two where there was discussion over various guild and chat channels about just what we were going to call all this stuff. “SWP” was an easy enough assignation, but we already had an “MT”. Two, in fact, though it was pretty easy to guess from the context if you were talking about dead draenei or … well actually I guess a Main Tank could be dead draenei, too. Hmm. I digress. I know on Thorium Brotherhood we eventually settled on “MagT” for the new 5-man, though I much preferred the runner-up, “MrT.”

But when I came online yesterday and said over guild chat “WTB group for AN” I was met with more than a few “wha?” I decided it was time that we sat down and figured out what exactly we were going to cal all this new crap so that we could understand each other.

I’ve already coined one new term, by the way, which is “ninja ghouls” for the little geist creatures in Utgarde Keep and Azjol-Nerub. And so I was happy to see people using the delightful “AKTOK” for the Old Kingdom instance. It’s fun to shout. I don’t think it will catch on in the server at large, though.

WoWwiki lists all the instances and some acronyms for them, not all of which I have seen in popular use on our server yet. It will be interesting to me to see which shake out as popular, especially with the tortuous spelling of some of the new names.

As an intersting aside, it’s also odd that people have different tolerances for what acronyms are allowable to be pronounced as-is and what should be spelled out. My own personal preferences range from thinking it perfectly acceptable, and even fun to say “ooo-burrs” or “luhr-burrs” (especially with a slightly german pronunciation on the latter) to tolerating “lawl” as long as it is meant sarcastically to kicking people off vent for coming on and asking how “wattle-kay” is treating everyone.

So talk to me, tell me about your acronoymic gaffes, what sort of abbreviations do you allow or disallow, do you have any specific to your guild and how many people spent the first few days stumbling over ‘Utgarde Keep’ or quested all day in the “Howling Forge”?

Well, I got a start on a LBRS run…didn’t finish, but did ding 58! I’ll be headed out to Outland soon, looking forward to it–probably venture through the Dark Portal tomorrow afternoon, just to see what it’s like out there. It’ll certainly be an interesting experience. Also, I found out just how easy it is to solo RFC at 58. Downed all bosses in <15 minutes, probably <10, max 2-shot on a boss. (Got [Chanting Blade] and [Subterranean Cape]…and a bunch of green drops. At least I’ll be able to do low level enchanting when I switch professions.) Maybe I’ll set myself the goal of soloing up through instances in my spare time when I’m not in a leveling mood. Planning to do a little grinding in Winterspring/EPL/WPL/LBRS before I head to Outland, but I’m really excited now that I can sensibly go out there. Leaving the comfortable familiarity of Azeroth and moving out to Outland is a big step for me, and I’m thrilled to be taking it. Hope to see everyone out there.

Gonna break 1000 HKs tomorrow too! I’ve been at 999 ever since 49, so excited to hit quad digits. Also, thinking about picking up the new AB belt/boots as well as the WSG bracers to replace my old equips, all of which are about 10 levels old.

After looking at the stats for Dungeon Set 1/2, I decided it really wasn’t worth it to go for them; if anything, I wouldn’t mind the Set 2 bracers, which shouldn’t be too hard to pick up. They’re much better than the ones I have now.

BIG shoutout to Dkm tonight for respeccing Holy for one instance. See ya tomorrow!

You may note my new theme–I was thinking about using the “Contempt” theme but eventually went with this one. I will probably continue to experiment in the coming days.

I just quit my job–my last day was yesterday, the same day I renewed my WoW subscription Contrary to the stereotype of WoW players, I didn’t quit so I could play the game more-that’s just a fringe benefit. Truth be told, my manager had cut me down to ungodly low hours. I do plan on getting another job, but not ’til mid-May–I should have hit 70 by then, too, so that’ll be nice!

New sig…yeah, Vel’s a BAMF. I usually end up topping DamageMeters charts…unfortunately DM is not working with 2.4 yet…Only thing I’m sad about is the obscenely low mana pool. I’ve played with mages at about the same level that have a 5k+ mana pool, something that I can only dream about. Any gear tips would be appreciated!

I’ve been playing some Diablo II again recently–Sorceress is a great class IMHO, frost + static owns most stuff quick. Probably gonna head to a friend’s pretty soon, play some D2 over his LAN…should be good times!

“Still Alive” is coming out for free for Rock Band in a couple weeks on PS3…really wish Sony would have waited till next month to redesign their store so I could get it now. It’s a great song from one of the best games I’ve ever played.

The instance group decided to put off any Outlands content for the time being and head into Lower Blackrock Spire for our next instance. We want to finish off the old instance content before delving into the new.

Plus, the experience rewards for pre-level 60 quests are pretty huge as I mentioned yesterday.

So in we went with the following lineup:

61 Warrior – Earlthecat
61 Warlock – Bungholio
61 Mage – Ula
61 Priest – Skronk
62 Paladin – Vikund

After last week Vikund was close enough to 62 that I had to run out and grab that level.

When accused of being a factionalist splitter and violating the principles of democratic centralism, I pointed out that I got Crusader Aura at 62, which gives a 20% speed boost to mounted travel for the whole group. Deemed an appropriate collectivist goal, we rode quickly together to Blackrock Spire.

Blackrock Spire itself? Very 3D, with some interesting decor choices.

Most instances tend to be, if not on a single plane, then at least on a fairly regular set of levels. Scholomance has stairs and such all over, but it is nice and regular, so you are unlikely to get lost.

Blackrock Spire is all sorts of platforms, stairs, ramps, and gaping holes in the floor. Seriously, it is like a Super Mario Brothers level at some points.

Not that being complex is bad, but it made for some “how do we get there?” moments.

And how did we do?

Sloppy.

We were very sloppy. As Ula pointed out early on in the evening, it is very hard to put on your best game when so many fights are walk-overs.

With our levels and equipment, we were a bit over powered for the zone.

Unlike Stratholme, where we were a tight, disciplined group, here were, sometimes literally, all over the map.

We were taking groups of four or five elites and AOE’ing them like they were normal mobs. We were rushing ahead without much care. We set off quest events without thinking. And, at one point I swear we were all running around looking for a ramp we could not find, and managed to get completely out of sight of one another.

And we got away with it. There were no full wipes

We started off by making sure we all had the full boat load of quests for Blackrock Spire. Then, once inside the instance, we picked up a few more. For some of us, this meant having to delete a quest every time there was a new one to share or pick up.

But once in, we ended up in the hunt for Urok Doomhowl. It was actually trying to find a ramp to get to him that got us all split up at one point. But we found it, fought our way through to the right location and, without thinking about it, kicked off the quest event that summons him.

And we nearly wiped.

We were there, with Highlord Omokk’s head and a pole to stick it on, and unsure as to what would happen when we stuck it Urok’s pathetic tribute pile. (Seriously, I thought it was his trash pile.)

Doing this sent wave after wave of ogre guards after us, which we went after in a very haphazard way. We were holding out for a while, then Urok finally showed up. Earl went down, then Skronk, then Bung.

The fight ended up being just Vikund and Ula at the end, though I did not even see Ula amongst all the ogre corpses on the floor. I thought for a moment that Vikund was just doing awesome DPS until the battle was over and I had to start ressing.

After cleaning up that mess, we had we had to plow through spiders, which was not so bad, except that we had to linger to finish off a quest. The spiders have an annoying AOE attack that sticks everybody in the group in place, no matter how far away from the group you are. (And, as usual for this instance, we got spread out again.)

Then we managed to set off another quest event, the wolves, without planning. Only a quick reminder from Skronk allowed most of us to finish off the Worg Pup quest. Ula missed out, which is a shame, because she is the pet collector in our group. We might have to go back for that. But we won, even after facing Gizrul, possibly the biggest wolf I’ve seen in WoW. The greenest too, in this picture.

The wolf fight was also a bit galling because my hunter, Tistann, who has a wolf pet, needs to tame one of the worgs in LBRS to learn furious howl 4. However, to get in to this point and tame a wolf he has to find a group that will take him, sans pet, this far into the instance. An unlikely scenario. But the only alternative is to wait until he is at least level 62, when he can find a wolf with furious howl in the Outlands. At least I now know where they live in Blackrock Spire.

After a few more encounters, we managed to work out way around to the end fight, the encounter with Overlord Wyrmthalak, the big boss. Given our carelessness with events, we did this fight in a manner more in our usual mode. Of course, it is mostly a stand-up fight, with a couple of minions coming in mid-battle, so there was not much to mess up. We just ran in and started beating on him.

Wyrmthalak’s only special ability is a knock-back that sends you flying surprisingly high. You can see Vikund sailing through the air:

It is a good thing that the place has high ceilings. While aloft, I was reminded of a verse from the song “Drill Ye Tarriers Drill,” a railroad song my grandfather used to sing:

And when next payday came around
Jim Gough a dollar short was found
When he asked, “What for?” came this reply
“You were docked for the time you were up in the sky”

Scenes from “A Hard Days Night” also came to mind.

You can see, down below Vik, one of Wyrmthalak’s minions coming to try to rescue him.

In the end though, Wyrmthalak was no match for us and we stood in his spot for our victory picture.

And so we were through Lower Blackrock Spire. We had Ula open a portal to Ironforge and we all flew out to Morgan’s Vigil in the Burning Steppes to turn in some of the quests, then road across the zone to turn in the rest.

Among the things that most of us ended up with were a pet spider from the quest En-Ay-Es-Tee-Why and a pet worg from Kibler’s Exotic Pets.

Still, some Blackrock Spire mysteries remain, such as what this inscription means:

And now we again have to decide what to do next. As overpowered as we were for LBRS, I do not think we can just blaze our way into the 10 man raid that is UBRS. With that off the list, the only instances we have not been in yet are Dire Maul East and North. Those may be our next target.

But after that, I think we are cleared for the Hellfire Ramparts in the Outlands.

Unless we have to go get Ula her Worg pup.