Monday, January 21, 2008

World Raid!

I'm writing to you instead of driving to work right now because it's about -10 degrees Fahrenheit where I am, which really wouldn't be too bad except my car is refusing to start. So here I am writing up a post inbetween trying-to-get-my-car-to-work.

Basically, yesterday, apparently a few pretty sizable raid groups of level 60+ Alliance on Silver Hand got together and successfully raided Orgrimmar and downed Thrall.

Sadly, I wasn't here for that, I only heard about it.

I was there, however, for the resulting Horde counter-raid on Stormwind. It was chaotic and very, very laggy. Now the sort of semi-lag that results from some of the more epic battles in Alterac Valley, I can handle. But about 50 Horde clashing with 75+ Alliance at the entrance of Stormwind was ridiculous. I was trying my best to get in on the action but it was like... I'd fire my bow and nothing would happen for several seconds... and then I'd send in my pet on something and again, nothing would happen... and then everybody would just be running in place for a long time... yeah. Apparently everybody was having the same lag issues though; I just don't think the server was prepared for it.

Somehow... no idea how... but somehow I managed to get 4 honor kills out of it, despite the lag. And because the Horde were just too hopelessly outnumbered despite their own numbers, the majority of their counterraid was defeated right at the entrance. There were some who managed to get back to Stormwind Keep, but there were more Alliance waiting for them.

Then we heard that apparently a lot of them had managed to get to the Deeprun Tram and were headed to Ironforge. So away we went-- probably 60 or 70 Alliance all dancing on the Deeprun Tram and then making a mad dash for King Bronzebeard's throne room, where we apparently had just missed all the action because a bunch of dead Horde were there alongside the still-intact-Bronzebeard.

Now it was at this point that the Alliance decided to launch a counter-counter-raid and try to take Undercity. Visions of screenshots of downing Sylvanas danced in my head and me and quite a few of my guildies decided to go. So off we went!

Unfortunately, this Undercity raid was not nearly as coordinated as the Orgrimmar one had apparently been... I really only saw about 6 or 7 fellow Allies there (despite the fact that a /who Undercity revealed over 50 of us) and I was killed a few minutes into the thing because I jumped off a high ledge bringing me down to about 100 HP, at which point a mage came up behind me and one-shotted me. Most of my Undercity-raid-time was spent bouncing around my corpse in wisp form, waiting for the orc hunter with jealousy-inducing gear to go away. Finally he did and I managed to rez, run around frantically for a few minutes while being chased by guards, feign death, and then hearthstone out to Shatt and safety.

And so our counter-counter-raid had apparently failed (or maybe they'd succeeded without me? I'm not sure) but it was still fun to be able to participate in my first real "worldwide PvP" event and I hope I can participate in more of it in the future.

Other things of note that happened yesterday included our guild's first ever attempt at a Heroic instance, namely Heroic Mech (we couldn't get past the first mini-boss, which we were kind of expecting anyway, so we just did it on Normal mode instead); and some fantastically intense roleplay between our guild and a Scarlet-Crusade-esque guild. The downside to roleplaying in Stormwind on a Sunday afternoon is that you will always attract the mockers; honestly I have no idea why they decide to roll on an RP server if they have a problem with roleplaying. It will forever be a mystery.

Hmm. My car still won't start and the soonest I can hitch a ride off of somebody isn't for another hour or so. At least I've called work and updated them of the situation. In the meantime, there is always WoW to be played or my story to write (have I mentioned I'm working on a story? I'll be posting it here for you guys!)

Oh and apparently I now have an authority of 50 on Technorati which really just blows my mind. Thank you all so much.

7 comments:

MCDent said...

World raids are excellent fun. Not been involved in many big ones myself but what I have were great!
GL with the heroics!
Dirky

Jim S. said...

Now you know how wow in the red feels. Hehe.

Viktel said...

Sweet! Sounds like you had fun. I haven't been in a world Raid in a couple of months.

I kinda miss it.

And my new RP Hunter is still working his way up to 20 so I still haven't had the chance to do any roll play. Looking forward to it though.

Good luck with the car.

Anonymous said...

I've been in a world raid once but it didn't go over well. We got to the boss Lady Sylvanas Windrunner but people kept aggroing her before we cleared the surrounding mobs. By the time everyone got back we had a slew of horde camping us all.

Anonymous said...

Grats on the Big 5-Oh! I hit the same number over the weekend: On Friday it was at 45, then when I looked at the site yesterday, Boom! 50 :)

I think you're going to beat me to 100 though. ;)

Nialla said...

Oooh a story! I'm looking forward to it Pike!

Anonymous said...

For future reference, you have tools with which you can deal with the mockers -- as a matter of fact, even having a character whose name is nonconducive to roleplay on an RP server -- naming a rogue Ibakstabu or some such nonsense -- is apparently against the rules, and you can open GM tickets on them as such. In fact, if you get mocked at all for roleplaying openly, that constitutes physical harassment, for which there's an entire ticket category!

I really feel for you, as I'm a fan of the RP scene myself, and those damned mockers are annoying as all hell. Can't say I've ever roleplayed on Warcraft before, though... maybe I should roll on one of your characters' realms sometime.