Standard disclaimer: Leave your loathing of meta, World of Warcraft, or community diaries outside. If you think we should be playing your MMO instead, start a guild and write a recruitment diary. Don't leave a comment here and then get all hurtful when it isn't received with flowers and candy. This goes double for people coming in to attack guildies over other diaries or comments - STAY OUT! Link to your recruitment diary is OK though.
Standard advertisement: Wreck List is the Daily Kos World of Warcraft guild. We are Horde-side on the Garrosh server. To join, read this diary ,visit the Guild web site, roll up a character on Garrosh and when you log in type
/who wreck list
and contact (via in-game mail or /whisper) any of our members - who can direct you to someone with /ginvite privileges and get you a guild invite. Yes, you have to be Horde. No, you don't have to be hardcore - casuals, PvPers, and people that just want to hang out on guild chat are all welcome.
More below the fold:
Well, we've certainly started off with a bang. For those of us (like me, dammit) who missed the Naked Al'Qiraj Run, here's what happened thanks to Taymatt and Nina:
Well, 2011 has come and gone, and apparently we are nearing the end up new Cataclysm content. Welcome 2012!
Here are Wreck List, we have a New Year's Eve tradition (doing something two times constitutes a "tradition", doesn't it?) called a "naked run". This year, we went to AQ. From Nina's forum post on the topic:
Two years ago, Tamalli organized Naked Molten Core on New Year’s Eve. We had a blast. I’d like to somewhat replicate that experience, only with a new group of people and perhaps a different venue. It needs to be a large enough place to take over 25 people if we have a lot of signups, it needs to be easy enough that we can get through at least part of it without equipping our uber tier 13 armor, it needs to be interesting and a bit alien… how about Ahn’Qiraj?
I know, I know, you probably all have questions. Here is my stab at answering them.
Can I at least wear underwear?
Your character has to start the encounter without any gear on. Your CHARACTER. You can be dressed up in fur coat and mukluks or you can be nekkid as a jaybird for all I care. Just don’t send pictures.
Is everyone invited?
Everyone who has a character high level enough to walk through the door.
Does this mean kids?
I’ll be bringing along my 11-year-old. Other kids may join in as well.
Uh oh. I’ll be drinking, and I might swear on vent.
That’s OK. My daughter can handle naughty language. She can’t handle people being mean, however, so don’t be mean. If your kid can’t handle the occasional f-bomb, this might not be the venue for them. If you can't drink without drifting into graphic sexual conversation, this might not be the venue for you.
What about loot?
I’m not going to set up Master Looter. It’ll be free roll for everything. Anyone who makes loot drama is voted off the island. It will be nice if folks are generous and donate nice loot to twinkish characters for whom this is a big upgrade, but if you want to save the carnivorous shoulders for some deranged transmogrification, that’s perfectly fine.
There are special mounts that drop in the instance that are only usable inside Ahn’Qiraj. These will be free-rolled too. Everyone wants the red one.
It’s so nice that you’re loaning your expertise to this instance…
Uhhh, what expertise? I’ve blasted through this instance behind people who know what they’re doing, precisely twice. I’m a Wrath baby. I intend to bumble along and probably will wipe the raid completely by accident at least once.
So, what precisely do you mean by ‘naked’?
No visible armor or weapons allowed, at first. Exceptions are festival clothing, fishing poles and chef’s hats. Lovely dresses and tuxes especially welcomed, since this is New Year’s after all. Especially if they’re worn by toons of nontraditional gender.
I also welcome transformational stuff. Halloween wands and bunny branches cluttering up your bank? Bring ‘em along! Haul out those extra ogre suits and deviate fish and noggenfoggers and archeology toys. We’ll probably have a number of bio breaks along the way while the adults go open fresh beers, so there will be chances to let our group creativity run wild. It’d be nice to return from bio break to a pile of skeletons and NOT have it be because someone pulled by accident…
Sometime over the course of the evening the little ones will be getting tired and we’ll want to hurry an encounter along. Any loot that drops in the instance is available to equip, of course, since you must show off new shinies and AQ stuff can sear the eyes. Somewhere before we reach C’Thun I’ll probably get tired of going so slowly and ask everyone to equip their uberawesome gear. Then we’ll finish the night by mowing down things like the vengeance of an angry mob.
Apparently everything went swimmingly, as least as far as the participants remember. :P Here is Nina's report:
We died gloriously multiple times to the bug trio boss, until I told everyone to put on their real weapons and we slaughtered them. And I told the mages it was OK if they cast spells...
The rest of the raid was fairly smooth. We wiped once or twice to the twin emps, then decided that if we wanted to get this done before the ball drop we ought to put on our real clothes. At which point things started dying left and right, and C'Thun was barely a hiccup.
I think Sedita got some really amazing-looking red-and-gold leg armor, and everyone got as many scarabs as they could stand. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all these scarabs and insignia and so forth...
Happy 2012!
Speaking of the New Year, it's time to show off those awesome Transmogrification outfits by entering in the Awesomeness Pageant. More info thanks to Yukitaro:
I would like to hold an awesomeness pageant. It's like a beauty pageant, except that we're using a very different definition of beauty. This definition would make Goblins, Trolls and Forsaken equal in awesomeness to Blood Elves, and males equal to females. To enter, submit a screen shot (link to youtube video capture?) of your character in (most likely) transmogged gear, with an awesome background, and maybe a paragraph or five (short story? poem? song lyrics?) describing what's going on. One grand prize of 5000 gold (or Valor boots/bracers), two prizes of 1000 gold, and not fewer than 3 prizes of 500g will be awarded (assuming at least 6 entries). Only one entry per toon and two entries per person will be accepted.
Entries must be submitted by January 8 at 11:59 p.m. server time. Judges decisions are final -- the judges will be announced on [the guild site forum's Awesomeness Pageant] thread soon.
Be creative, be awesome!
Raiding is getting back together - here are raid reports from Team Kaels and Team PamRubi:
Team Kaels raid report:
Team Kaels is (mostly) back from holidays, trips out of town, family obligations and so forth. So of course we’re all coming down with various illnesses, not all of which are Star Wars related. We took a few pokes at heroic Morchok last night, and reached my personal favorite point in learning a new fight. That’s right, that point when Tay says, “wait a minute, I have no idea how to heal this!” We decided to save heroics for next week, and proceeded to (theoretically) steamroll through the first four bosses. Well, OK, the pingpong boss is still a pain in the tuckus.
Team PamRubi raid report:
Well, raid team 2 has been stuck on the Pong boss in Dragon Soul for several tries now - a certain discipline priest has perhaps not been getting job done as well as she should have in tank and melee healing. But Rubidium and I chatted with Chanta/Aislan the other night about how I could improve what I'm doing, and we got some ideas for different healing strats that may help us. So, I hope Team PamRubi will maybe get to Hegara Friday night at last - I personally think she'll be easier than Mr. Pong guy. Fingers crossed.
And here's the Tab Eight Report from Mahuae:
Tab 8 Report:
Bloodthirsty Fireweave Bracers, lvl 85 cloth
Chestguard of the Caring Ursine, lvl 84 leather (two of these)
Darkbrand Leggings of the Wavecrest, lvl 83 leather
Elementium Dragonling, lvl 80 trinket, engineering req.
Glowworm Cavern Bindings, lvl 73 mail
Golgarok's Tenderized Treads, lvl 83 cloth
Knotted Handwraps, lvl 85 leather
Lord Rottington's Pressed Wisp Book, lvl 81 off-hand (two of these)
Mindbender Bloom, lvl 82 relic
Ornate Pyrium Shoulders, lvl 85 plate
Revenant's Treads, lvl 80 mail
Roffle's Ruffly Gloves, lvl 85 cloth
Runed Dragonscale, lvl 81 relic (two of these)
Safecracker's Gloves, lvl 84 leather (two of these)
Silver Inlaid Leaf, lvl 85 relic
Stormforged Gauntlets, lvl 80 plate
Stormforged Helm, lvl 83 plate (two of these)
Stormforged Legguards, lvl 82 plate (three of these)
Thartuk's Inimitable Gauntlets, lvl 84 leather
The Perforator, lvl 83 fist
Thousand Bandage Drape, lvl 84 cloak
Vicious Leather Shoulders, lvl 85 leather (two of these)
Vicious Wyrmhide Chest, lvl 85 leather (two of these)
Waistguard of New Days, lvl 80 plate (two of these)
That's alll that I have this week. For the Horde!