- Can you please introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about who you are
and what you do (blog about) - in terms of WoW?
I'm Angelya and I play a Resto/Balance Druid, so I mostly blog about tree-druidy and lazer-chicken things over at Revive and Rejuvenate. I also blog about my alts and other fun stuff that's going on in Azeroth. I try to be helpful and informative, and attempt to be entertaining!
- How would you describe yourself as a WoW player? Hardcore, casual (and what you mean by those if you choose to use them), raider, PvPer etc
At the moment I'm pretty casual - I love raiding but I don't do it every night, and I'm not chaining heroics like crazy to get all the best gear possible, just enough to tick along. I read a lot of blogs and try to apply what I learn, but I'm not a theorycrafter. When I was looking for a guild to join I wanted one without the 4 nights a week attendance requirement, because I want to play the game in my spare time when I want to, rather than the game dictating to me when I must play. I guess that's how I define the difference between hardcore and casual.
- What does a typical week of WoW playing look like?
Well, I play most nights when I'm at home. My guild raids ICC 10 on Wednesday and Monday nights and the weekly raid on Thursdays. Outside of that I can usually be found in a heroic (although I'm slowing down with that now) or levelling one of my alts. When I get a chance I log into my SAN characters on Argent Dawn to say hi to the nice people there.
- You've recently started afresh on the US (Oceanic) servers as you've moved from the EU servers - have you noticed many differences between the US/EU sides? Has it been a positive change?
It's been positive and negative... Negative in that I really miss the guild I was in on the EU server, but positive in that now I have a new guild who are very friendly and I'm getting to see the content rather than sitting around in Dalaran at 8am server time wondering why it's so quiet! For the most part I haven't noticed that many differences, apart from hearing Aussie and Kiwi voices on vent instead of European accents. The difference I noticed first was that on the US servers people always put "pst" after their requests on trade, like "LF ench pst". On the EU servers it would just be "LF ench" or "LF ench /w me" or something. Apart from that, everything is pretty much the same. Same spam and lingo on trade, same amazing players, same idiots, same greed on orbs in guild groups and need in pugs! I've been amazed actually that it's been so similar, but I guess a lot of the WoW culture and language comes from outside the game rather than individual servers.
Actually one thing that I have noticed about the Oceanic servers is that there is, as in real life, some gentle ribbing between the Aussies and Kiwis. As far as I can remember, I never saw anything like that between European nationalities. Well, there was the occasional referring to a guy in our guild as the "crazy Italian" but he loved that. I hope he did anyway :)
- You also switched from the Alliance side to Horde side in the process? How would you compare the two? Does your heart still beat for the Alliance?
We decided to roll Horde this time since neither of us had played a max level Horde character before. I'm so glad we chose to switch, not because the people who play Horde are any different, but because the levelling experiences are quite different, especially in the starting areas and in Outland and Northrend. Seeing the Wrathgate questline from the other side is so worth it, I would really recommend it to anyone who has the time to get a toon of the opposite faction up there. Also the ICC 5-mans are worth seeing from both sides - Jaina and Sylvanas put on quite a different show!
I'm not missing the Alliance that much so far, I'm happy to be For the Horde! The Horde seem to have a great sense of honour and loyalty, plus interesting politics. The Alliance just have leaders who like to give long-winded motivational speeches. I'm looking at you, Tirion.
- You levelled with the Recruit-A-Friend program with your husband - how did that compare to normal? Did you feel like you levelled too quickly considering you were changing factions?
Wow, amazingly ridiculously quickly. Our first pair were at level 60 in 45 hours /played, over about 2 weeks. We used a special version of TourGuide that is tuned for refer-a-friend, so it directs you to group quests and those with good rewards, and leaves out a lot of the "bring me 10 goretusk livers" type of quest. We would pick up a few quests at a village, go do them, come back and both ding. In some areas like Ashenvale and later in the Hinterlands, we'd ding twice if we had a few to turn in. We were constantly finding that we had unspent talent points. For our purposes it was perfect - we'd already seen all the content before, so we just needed to rush through. And rush we did! For a new player - I really feel they would be missing some of the best parts of the game.
The RAF bonus ends at level 60, so it's back to the normal grind after that. It took me about a month to get Leesah from 60 to 80, but it was worth taking it a little slower because the Outland and Northrend stories are where the differences between the factions lie.
Our three months is just about to end actually, so the race is on this weekend to get as many levels in our Shaman/Warrior pair as we can before it all ends and we have to go back to normal levelling speed!
- Who got the RAF mount?
He is supposed to have got it but he hasn't yet! Maybe after I pay my next subscription he might get it, but if not we'll be on the bell to a GM! Another perk that the person doing the referring gets is that you can be granted a certain number of free levels from the referee. Once Leesah was over level 60 and Aefa was almost there herself, my husband started up a Mage and I granted it 60 free levels. I was so annoyed that I had just levelled up a mage the hard way and here he was with a free level 60 one! Only problem was, it was in level 10 gear, so he had to buy a truckload of cloth and level up tailoring just so he didn't get creamed as soon as he set foot in Outland! At least the first quests there give great rewards so if you can survive them, you're okay.
- Having just (re)levelled you have now joined a raiding guild and jumped straight into ICC (as a restochicken - can I use that term) - how does it feel to jump straight into the highest tier of raiding without having to do the lower level raids? Has the emblem change been a good thing?
The guild I joined are very casual - they raid ICC-10 twice a week and don't really have a set team. The first time they invited me to go along I was like, "Are you sure? My gear is still pretty bad!" But I did alright and didn't disgrace myself, and I think they were mainly after the Moonkin buff. Since then I've been going regularly for a few weeks and my gear is a lot better, but I'm still not sure a pug would take me along :)
For my purposes, being able to grind Triumph badges has been brilliant. I got myself 4 pieces of tier 9 in about 3 weeks, and I wasn't chaining heroics that much. I got the Frost badge idol in 2 weeks of doing daily random heroics, before I'd even set foot in a raid that dropped them. For the game in general, I think it allows a greater number of people to get enough gear to be able to pull their weight in the top content. Whether they do pull their weight is another question.
- You also missed out on Ulduar and ToC while travelling and re-levelling - do you wish to go back and do some raiding there?
Oh yes. We left the UK just before Ulduar came out. After I started playing my EU account in Australia, my guild took me on an alt run into Ulduar as far as Hodir, and it was awesome! But it was only once and I'm dying to go in there and see it again. They also took me to TotC-10, this was before ICC was released. I've been to TotC-10 a few times now, and I can see the difference in gear ICC and Triumph/Frost badges have brought - it's just so much easier now. I can take or leave TotC (although the gear in there is still very good), but I'd love to see Ulduar again. My current guild has been talking about going back in there in to do a few more of the hardmodes, but there's been no action yet.
- Is there anything (in WoW) that you wished you could get into but just don't have the time (or for some other reason)?
I'd really like to be able to make money easily! Mr Angelya buys loads of stuff on the AH and sells it for profits, but I can never recognise the good deals. I also don't often have the patience for dailies anymore. The first time I ground out 5000g was when the Quel'Danas Dailies were a quick run each day. These days, as soon as I get cash I have to spend it on something for a new piece of gear! It's going to be a while before Leesah sees her swift birdy!
- If you had only an hour to play WoW in any given session how would you fill your time?
Well, if I could only log in for an hour today, I'd probably do a random heroic for my Frosties, perhaps followed by another one if it was a guild group. Or I might do a few quests on my mage. She's in Northrend now so there's a light at the end of the tunnel (a very small light, but it's there)!
- If you could only ever play for an hour at a time - would you? If yes, then how would you see your in game activities change? If no - why not?
Hmm, interesting question. I probably still would play, but I wouldn't be able to raid with my current guild. I'd probably still do the same other things though - heroics, levelling alts, festival stuff, the usual.
- Would you be willing to be part of a raiding crew/guild that only raided for an hour at a time? Do you think it's feasible?
Yes, I think it would work, as long as you could start exactly on time and everyone knew the fights so there was no stopping to explain. Often the most time-consuming part of raids is the setup beforehand!
- Do you have any tips/advice for making the most of your WoW play time?
It's important to have goals when you're trying to make the most of your time with anything. Decide what you're working towards on each character and then do that, while being prepared for unexpected raid invites!
- Why is map making so cool?
Maps are just awesome! They are works of art - I can look at a map for hours, especially historical maps. I'm a visual person so diagrams and pictures are important to me, and maps just fit right in with that - I get really lost in places unless I know which direction North is so that I can make a map in my head. Okay now I've made myself sound like a complete geek :)
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences Angelya - especially about going to the dark side and coming to the bright and sunny lands too! I should point out that Angelya also has the dubious honour of being the first person (that wasn't me) to make use of my armoury lookup tags so she had to deal with my back documentation!
As usual, if you have any questions I'm sure Angelya will take the time out to answer them - so throw her a nice and difficult one!
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