[Host]: Good evening once again, and welcome to our continuing series of interviews with some of the major and minor players of Azeroth. Tonight it is my great pleasure to welcome the renouned sorceresses, leader of Theramore Isle, and demon hater, Jaina Proudmore. Jaina, welcome to the show.

[Jaina]: It’s great to be here, Dale.

[Host]: So Jaina, you have a reputation as being a bit of an emo bitch. How do you respond to that?

[Jaina]: You watch your ex-boyfriend turn into the king of the undead and go live in the forzen wastes and see how well you can handle it.

[Host]: Fair enough. So, you rule in Theramore Isle … how is that?

[Jaina]: Just great.

[Host]: Really?

[Jaina]: Yeah.

[Host]: It says here in my notes that the people of Theramore Isle spend their days either fishing or collecting kelp. That’s not going to leave much mental stimulation for you to talk about in the evening, is it?

[Jaina]: Did you know that there are over 200 different species of kelp?

[Host]: I did not know that, no.

[Jaina]: There you go.

[Host]: Were you upset at not being included in the “For the Horde!” quest?

[Jaina]: It would have been nice, yes I do admit that. But I have other things like my kelp studies to keep me busy. Besides, I get enough Horde wannabes wandering by trying to take a shot at me anyway.

[Host]: So lets get to the question that everyone is waiting for: you and Thrall. Is there something going on there.

[Jaina]: Well, he does have a huge cock.

[Host]: Jaina Proudmore, thanks very much for coming on the show.

[Jaina]: My pleasure. Here’s a little packet of dried kelp as a gift. I made it myself.

[Host]: Oh … um, thanks very much.

[Host]: Good evening everyone, and welcome to the first in a series of interviews with the unsung background heroes of World of Warcraft. Tonight we have a very special guest, someone that I know a lot of you have met in the past, the Defias Traitor, better known to his friends and family as, Terry.

[Terry]: Thanks Dale, and it’s a real pleasure to be here.

[Host]: So, you’ve been a traitor to the Defias Brotherhood for quite some time now …

[Terry:] Over five years.

[Host]: … over five years, incredible. Tell me, how do you balance out being a traitor of this sort with your everyday life?

[Terry]: That’s a good question. I hide a lot, as you may imagine. I still live in Westfall but I’ve had to disguise myself somewhat and alter my life style.

[Host]: Can you give us any details of that?

[Terry]: Well, more or less I’ve disguised myself as a riverpaw gnoll. And I live with a tribe of riverpaws who don’t actually know that I’m not a gnoll. It’s a pretty good disguise, although it can get a bit hot and it’s a pain in the butt when the flies get into it. The life style isn’t that great, we sit around the fire a lot and keep a look out and that sort of thing. Thinking back I should have disguised myself as a shaman, cause they get the best cuts of raw meat, but I can’t cast spells so that would have been a bit of a problem I suppose.

[Host]: Fascinating. So what is the biggest challenge to your day to day life?

[Terry]: That would have to be the Patrolling Westfall quest from Captain Danuvin, man I hate that guy. What I do is try and keep a stack of gnoll paws handy that I surreptiously cut off of the other gnolls when they’re not looking. So if some paladin attacks me I just feign dead and throw a couple of paws on the ground and normally they’re really happy with that and they fuck off and leave me alone.

[Host]: So is that why gnolls sometimes don’t drop paws when you kill them?

[Terry]: Yeah, sorry about that.

[Host]: Okay, we have a question from a viewer at home who wants to know why you don’t take a circuitous route to show the Deadmine hideout, and why you walk so damn slowly? It’s a good question this one as I’ve been wondering this myself for a while.

[Terry]: Well you gotta understand that I’m not in this for the money, I’m in this for the thrills and a bit of revenge. Sure, I could just jog around the back of the village there, go by the graveyard and point out the entrance from a distance, but where would be the fun in that? And you can bet that any of those pussy Defias who cheated me in all those poker games wouldn’t get it from whomever is doing the quest. So I like to take them right through the middle of the village and take it nice and slow. That way I can be sure that at least some of my old partners in crime get what’s coming to them.

[Host]: Do you have any advice for people who are thinking of getting into the traitor game?

[Terry]: Being a traitor has a lot of scope to it, and a lot of future. I mean, look at that poor Defias Messenger guy. Apart from the fact that he has to run all the time, so you know he’s always tired out, it’s almost a certainty that he’s gonna get killed. Whereas I have a good chance to come out in front. Make sure you get a gnoll costume with good ventilation though. And make sure that the costume isn’t good looking either. Man, that was a big mistake.

[Host]: Terry, thanks very much for your time.

I got a drop. The other night, in ICC. It was just a little drop, a small thing, nothing to write home about by the name of …

Flesh Carving Scalpel, oh my god, holy bucket of snot!

Not that I’m excited or anything.

Regular readers of my blog, (all 7.3 of you), will know that I have had a dry run with regards to getting some daggers. So this baby dropped and there were two rogues in the raid – me, and some other rogue. Now normally this would be the cause of great angst to your truly as I can tell you right now that I do not have either achievement called needy or greedy or whatever they’re called. You know, the achievements for rolling 100 on something? Yeah, I don’t have those. Cause I don’t roll 100. My roll is closer to the 10 side of things. If there was an achievement for you suck at rolling then I would have had that a long time ago. That could be a good achievement line:

You suck at rolling – roll 1 on a need roll.

You still suck at rolling – roll under 10 on 20 need rolls.

You suck at rolling so much you should just stop rolling. – that would be me.

Anyway, there was no horrible random rolling problem here as this was a GDKP run. And you know I love those. So we start bidding. The rogue bids 100g, and I’m just about to bid when the hunter bids 250g. Now, I know this is a joke on her part but the other rogue immediately starts screaming and calling her a huntard. I’m assuming that he didn’t know that she is Gevlons girlfriend …

So I bid 500g, just to get things moving. He increases it to 600g which tells me that he is trying to keep the bid low. Awww … he’s trying to keep the bid low.

1000g from me.

1100g from the rogue.

1500g from me.

There is a long pause, then the rogue says; “Come on, just stop already.” Just stop already? I haven’t even got started. I’ll take this all the way to 10,000 if I have to. The rogue bids a measely 1600g. I top it off to 2000g. There is a looonnng wait. Is there a time limit on how long we can wait? Eventually the rogue says;

“Why are you even bidding, you won’t even use it!”

Ah, I see. You’re looking at my combat spec and thinking that I won’t even use it. Have you ever heard of dual fucking specs and that we are doing these raids to get drops for our little PvP mission that the guild was made for in the first place you moron??

I don’t say that of course. I just mention politely that I also have a mutilate spec. This rogue only joined the guild a week previously. He left his other guild on the realm because he wasn’t getting to raid ICC enough. Yes, you heard it right. The ganking guild is now getting recruits from the two major raiding guilds on the realm to do ICC. They were making fun of our raiding prowess a few weeks ago. We’re now 10/12 in ICC and last night we got Sindy down to, wait for it, 33,000 health before we all keeled over and died. No Alliance guild on the realm has got the Lich King down yet. It will be a source of wet dreams for us if our pvp guild can do it before the raiding guilds can. Because don’t forget that we have been concentrating on pvp gear. Some of our guildies have mega-awesome PvE setups, but a lot of us don’t. I have an ilvl 200 trinket, 213 wrists, 219 boots and 226 chest among my other crappy pieces. But still we’re 10 from 12.

So anyway, back to the bidding. His next bid is 1600g and 5 sets of leg armor, I can’t even remember what they’re called. This is amusing, I thought. Can I throw in a stack of abyss crystals? How about some fish feasts? But then Gevlon comes out with the news that his bid is now worth 2400g taking into account the AH value of the leg armor. What the fuck? It’s not valued at didley squat until he sells it. I thought this was gold bidding? Can I throw in my grandmother too? (I would have if it were possible).

So I bid 2500g. Gevlon just wanted to bump up the price as he loves weapon drop bidding wars. The dagger is mine. I hand over the gold and gaze at its icon with a tenderness bordering on madness. I will never disenchant you my beloved, never ever ever.

After the raid wraps I go and look up my new piece on wowhead. I love doing this as I get to read the long list of comments from people saying how much they love it and how they wish they could have one. But then … only 2 comments. And they’re saying how much the itemization sucks. What the fuck do they know anyway?

There has been an explosion of list posts in the blogosphere this week, with a lot of them being of the warm fuzzy variety. You know the type, stuff like;

10 ways to help people in your raid,
10 things you can do to make the life of people who play WoW with you to be better,
10 gifts you can give to the other faction to show you care,
10 ways to build a healing mentality … wait that’s real …

Anyway, I thought that I would jump on this bandwagon and give you, my fellow dps brethern, some tasty tricks to spice up your dull moments in the game and help you become the better players that I know you can be. So lets get right to it!

1. Stand in the Fire. Yes, I know all those pesky healers and raid leaders constantly tell you not to do this, but my question to them is this: if we don’t stand in the fire, what the fuck is the priest going to do anyway? It’s like we’re giving them a gift, the ability to actually do something for a change. And at the same time we get to kill the stuff that is hiding in that crummy fire, or goo or blue cold or purple death ring, whatever the hell it is. Your job is to kill shit, so get in there and do it. If the healers can’t pull you out then obviously it’s just because they suck.

2. Your cooldowns are YOUR cooldowns. You can hear them saying it in raid: “You need to give me this, give me this when I say, lets swap these, blah blah blah.” Lets pretend you had a precious new born baby. And someone else wants to hold the baby, YOUR baby. I suppose you could let them hold the baby, but then again, why should you? It’s your baby, right? So you hold the baby as much as you want. I think I have explained enough here.

3. You’re allowed to pull. Yeah, I know they tell you to let the tank pull, but lets be honest, if the tank is any good then they can get threat whenever they want. And if you pull you get to kill more stuff. So what you do is you pull and then throw your tricks on the one person in the raid who got the most upset about you standing in the fire. That’ll teach them.

4. Can you maybe use it? Then roll. No matter what anyone else says it is your gear that makes the difference. The better your gear the more you can kill shit. Now that awesome hunter bow might only be a tiny step up from your ilvl 264 throwing star, but if you add all those steps up together then it’s a pretty big step, you know what I’m saying? Also, if you win and equip it then the hunter who missed out on it might be upset and he will probably make some mistakes and die thus enabling you to kill more shit.

5. Prioritise. In some fights the raid leader likes to give a kill “order”. Taking orders is bad, who do these peeps think they are? Particularly when those same orders are designed to get his mates the best dps and kills. You make the order that you want. I recommend from left to right, it always works for me.

6. “Killing guards grants no honor”. But it’s fun.

7. Some other crap. Why are these lists always top 10? Top 6 would be much better, cause it’s easier to remember, right?

8. Rolls in a raid. Your raid leader might ask you to do something stupid like shoot orbs or something. What’s the point in shooting a crummy orb? I didn’t come all this way just to do that. He will then say that this is your “roll”. Well, that’s a load of crap. My preferred roll in a raid is a sausage roll. Failing that a cinnamon roll. What is your favorite raid roll?

9. Help new players. A new player is someone who wants to kill shit that you are supposed to kill. The best way then to help new players is to discourage them from the game so that they won’t be around to bother you. My next top 10 list will be top 10 ways to grief new players.

10. Finally. Finally we get to number fucking 10. You have to love killing stuff. I mean, really lllooooooooovvvvvvvee it. If you don’t really love it then that is fine cause then that’s more stuff for me to kill.

My night elf rogue, Elizzà, gets a lot of attention from the horde when she flounces around Dalaran. For some reason the people behind the horde pixels actually believe that the person behind Elizzà’s pixels really does in fact look like Elizzà. Of course I do! It doesn’t say much for what they look like but whatever, (I never get Blood Elves trying to come onto me interestingly enough).

So I do my Dalaran chores – go and get the JC daily, check my mailbox, fishing daily, a few other things, and all the time I get the wolf whistles and the lewd comments and man, I know how a gal feels when she’s walking around town just trying to do her thing and being bothered by all these horrible dudes. Ick, they’re so desperate!

Last night I tried a different tactic. When a horde toon started following me, (and they usually do), I played up to him. The first I noticed of him was when he was right at my elbow when I was checking my mailbox. Then when I went to get the JC daily he was right there once again.

‘Gronn thinks Elizzà is a sexy hawt thing.’

Oh, you do eh?

Onto the fishing daily and he is right on my tail. The fishing daily was the one in the sewers so I proceeded straight down there to get it done. I sat down in a little rowboat to fish. Gronn sat down next to me to fish too. Awwwww …. isn’t that sweet?

I got my piece of corroded jewelery and went to hand it in. Gronn began making kissy kissy noises to me. At this point I’ve had a gutfull of Gronn but there’s nothing that I can do about him. Or is there? What if I play the slut? What would happen then? So I began to respond to him, to make kissy kissy motions, and look sexy and stike poses and just look like Debbie McTavish from grade 10 who used to do things if you gave her $5. And then I had an inspiration. I motioned Gronn to follow me. He did. We got on our mounts and rode through Dalaran. He was right behind me and could barely control his excitement. Who said hanging around Dalaran was boring?? I led him to the flying mount hub, mounted my drake and told him to follow. He mounted his huge proto-drake proudly. I made coo-cooing noises at the size of his mount. I flew up into the air and circled my way down to a secluded wood below Dalaran where I landed. I waited there in the wooded glade looking all coy. He landed next to me. I blew him a kiss. He blew me a kiss and it was a beautiful moment.

And then I ganked him.

I tell ya, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

I don’t know if any of you knew but there is a pretty big fucking cathedral in Stormwind. I mean, that thing is huge and all done in the best possible taste. It’s chock full of holy people, there are paladins and priests galore standing around looking pious. Why there’s even a resident freakoid down in the catacombs, although heaven knows what he’s doing down there in the dark, (see what I did there??!).

These priests and paladins draw on their holy power and cast great spells, battle demons, bring people back from the dead, cook cranberry sauce hash browns and all other manner of awesome things. And I assume that all their mystical power comes from a God. You know, that’s the guy that they built the cathedral for apparently. He thinks it’s cool.

‘Oh look, a huge building made out of stone in my honor! That is the awesomeness. Now where’s my cupcake …’

So who is this God? What’s his name? Does he have any commandments? They’d probably have to be a tad different from the ones that we’re used to. And more importantly, why is there absolutely zero reference to him? You put up all the trappings of religion, you shove them in our face to be honest, but then … it’s a bit of a let down. I was hoping for some whacko religion, Scientologist style. Whatever religion it is it must be pretty damn tolerant, what with all the death knights and warlocks and demons and undead wandering around a block away in Stormwind. But if they’re not going to give us a religion then goddamit we better make one up.

Welcome to the religion of Adism.

The good people who follow Adism will be referred to from this point on as, Adists. There are a few rules, so lets get down to them shall we?

Rule 1: No gnome priests. Fuck that, man.
Rule 2: In order for Paladins to get their bubble spell they must actually pray in-game 5 times a day facing South by South West.
Rule 3: The bubble will however have a pretty piss poor chance to work against rogues.
Rule 4: Train sets are fucking banned.
Rule 5: Trade dealing on the Auction house is frowned upon and will only be available to night elves.
Rule 6: There’ll be a cool taberd.
Rule 7: Priests will be able to turn water into wine. Suck it up, mages!
Rule 8: Hunters will have to take a special month long course titled, “How to roll on loot.”
Rule 9: Tree form for druids!
Rule 10: Oh yeah, thou shall not steal, rape, blah blah blah.

So there you go. As this is a relatively new religion we have some positions open for saints, virgin mothers, that sort of thing. So drop me a line and let me know if you’re interested. I’m sure we can work something out.

Part 1
Awesome Adam logs in.

5 seconds later …

[nobhead1] hey mate, can you link me your enchanting?
[AA]: [enchanting]
[nobhead1] I just got this, [some weapon]. what would be a good enchant for it?
[AA]: I have no idea, I don’t play your class. Do your research and get back to me.
[nobhead1]: kk, lol.

I do a few things then log on to my bank alt, then log back to my main. 5 seconds later …

[nobhead1]: hey bro, can you link me your enchanting again?
[AA]: [enchanting]
[nobhead1]: I want [beserking]. Where are you?
[AA]: Dalaran. That will be 25 gold if you have the mats.
[nobhead1]: haha, lol, you’re sick for gold, you are, lol.
[AA]: It will be 50g if you keep that up.
[nobhead1]: Come on, 25g? I’ll give you 10, a good deal.
[AA]: I tell you what, you go and buy it off the AH for 650g, how does that sound?
[nobhead1]: Ok, well it’s just cause I give my stuff to people I know for free, cause that’s how i am, but if that’s what you want to do, then I suppose you can do what you want, lol, right.
[AA]: Does that mean you want the enchant or not?
[nobhead1]: yeah, getting mats, will get back to you.

Time passes …

[nobhead1]: lol, soz can u link enchanting again?
[AA]: [enchanting]
[nobhead1]: OK, i want the enchant and will pay your 20g fee.
[AA]: Nice try, it’s 25g.
[nobhead1]: kk, thx, see ya, bye.

[trade] Nobhead1: LF enchanter.
[AA]: /ignore.

Part 2

[Trade] NObhead 2: lfjc
(This goes on for about 15 minutes until he gets a bit frustrated,)
[Trade]Nobhead2: LFJC!!!
[AA]: [jewelcrafting] 25g a cut.

5 minutes go by with no response, then …

[nobhead2]: Can you link JC again?
[AA]: [jewelcrafting]
[nobhead2]: you don’t have the cut i want 😦
[AA]: Oh well, what a shame.

5 minutes go by …

[Nobhead2]: can you link jc?
[AA]: [jewelcrafting]
[Nobhead2]: Oh, you do have my cut i want [some fucking jewel like i give a shit]
[AA]: 25g for that cut.
[Nobhead2]: I’ll give you 15g
[AA]: You can keep your 15g and go back to spamming trade again.
[Nobhead2]: lol, come on bro, it’s free for you to do.
[AA]: I change my mind about spamming trade. Go level JC instead.
[NObhead2]: 16g
[AA]: I tell you what. I’m going to the AH to put one of these up at a really nice price, you can get it there.
[Nobhead2]: But i have mats!
[AA]: Oh well.

I go to AH and list it for 175g.

5 minutes go by …

[Nobhead2]: You piece of shit. ok I’ll give you 25g for the cut.

[AA]: /ignore.

“… The Entry Fee for the Tournament is $20.00 USD for the Qualification Round of the Tournament. Canadian residents are not required to pay an Entry Fee in order to enter. Instead, Canadian residents may enter by submitting a 250 word typewritten essay comparing tournament video gaming in Canada to tournament video gaming in the United States on 8 ½ x 11 inch paper …”

Comparing tournament video gaming between Canada and the United States is somewhat difficult seeing as I don’t live in either country, but I assume that most Canadians don’t live in the US either, so maybe in comparison I don’t have that much of a handicap.

The main difference is that it’s fucking cold in Canada and this can cause your fingers to freeze up, even drop off if you’re not careful. Entrants from Florida would have a real advantage, and lets not even talk about Las Vegas. We also have to wear big wooly mitts to cover our ears which means that you can’t hear a fucking thing your team-mate is saying. Also they look really stupid which hurts your chances with the hawt chicks. My own ear-muffs are bright red, as I am sponsored by a local car-washing company, so I have to wear their shit. I bet players in the US don’t have to stoop to such levels just to enter a video game competition.

People in Canada are very poor, which is why we write essays to enter stuff like this instead of paying a months wages to do so. It’s lucky that our government protects us in such matters. Being poor, our computers are not of the latest high-tech standards which can be somewhat of a handicap when playing arena pvp. Sometimes you can find that the match is over before you have even left the loading page due to lag. So please let me win.

Dear Blizzard,

Hopefully soon you are going to release Cataclysm. This will be good as it will give us something to do. I am sure that you are going to put off the release with various arenas/battlegrounds/crappy PvE content to keep us occupied because it isn’t ready yet. Seeing that it isn’t ready yet, may I request a few things for the expansion? If you don’t want to put these in I understand perfectly due to the fact that you are all very busy and are a bunch of fucktards. Now that we’ve got off on the right foot, let me make my humble requests;

1. Arenas – these make our lives and yours rather difficult due to balancing issues. I know that if you nuke them altogether then people will say that you failed before and 0.000001% of the player base will be upset, so this obviously isn’t feasible. Could we make some arena-only realms where the laws of physics and magic function somewhat differently there? That could then leave the other realms to be arena free and not have to suffer through all the balancing decisions made as a result of this tedious medium.

2. Outland – Is there any point to this place anymore? It was a rhetorical question. I know that you wish the levelling process to continue through Outland but you have to know that apart from Nagrand, we all fucking hate that place. I’m not saying get rid of it, leave it out there hanging in space like a pair of undies on the washing line that you forgot before going on holiday for three months to India and when you come back you haven’t the heart to touch them again. Just give us a few alternative zones on Azeroth to get from 60-68. I know, make old raid content as a levelling option. AQ40! Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhh!!!

3. Gnomeragon – Is that how you spell it? Whatever, please make this a city just so that I never have to run this as an instance again. While we’re on the subject I feel that Maraudon and Dire Maul should be turned into something else, such as theme parks or nudist colonies. To be fair, I shouldn’t comment on Dire Maul as I’ve barely done any of it, only due to the fact that I could never find a group to bare going with me at the appropriate level. It’s in my dungeon finder now though, so perhaps I can get back to you on this one.

4. The Weather effects – I like them a lot, please make more of them. How about some high and low tides in different parts of the world? And four seasons, would that be possible? Spring in the desert with flowers everywhere, that would be so lovely …

5. Vanish – Could you … ? Like … fix it?

6. Professions – Do something, anything, please, I like crafting but it is WoW’s weak point. Surely you could make these more interesting and not merely leveling time sinks.

If I think of any more I’ll throw them up. Thank you Blizzard for your oh so valuable time.

I’ve had good PuG’s all weekend, (even the one where the paladin told me to jump into the lava on a corpse run back to Blackrock Depths because it was a ‘short cut’ and I stupidly took him at his word), but then I had the usual horror PuG from hell that you know is just waiting around the corner when things start going well. This one was about levels of badness that leave me without anything to say, so I will just write instead. I leave it up to my readers to determine who was the fail member of the group.

Dear Tanking person, a few things that I wish to bring to your attention before we go into this instance run. I would not call this a formal contract as such, but it does require your signature at the bottom. If this is asking too much of you, a large X will suffice nicely. You, who will from now on be referred to as the ‘tank’, will do your best to follow these simple rules and requirements whilst tanking this quick run. Firstly, please be aware that even though technically you are running into every fight first, this does not make you the defacto ‘leader’ of the group. Often the best leading is done from the back, as you are more likely to stay alive, and seeing as anyone can put the funny symbols on the mobs now, we can handle that quite effectively thank you very much. You are simply required to run in first and gather ‘threat’. This means that the monsters want to hang around you, so feel free to use any of the awesome AoE abilities at your disposal. Please be aware that we are not impressed with how many mobs you can gather up. We are impressed with how many mobs that you can keep. If you subtract the second number from the first number and you get something greater than zero, then you are not doing your job properly. Please adjust accordingly by reducing the number of mobs that you gather up. We know that this hurts your ego, but it is necessary.
Please be aware that we don’t require you to tell us all what to do at every step of the run. We know that we need to buff people, we know that we need to use certain abiltities, we know to stay out of the fire. We also know that we need to run very fast in order to be able to keep up with you. You do know that when you’re running very fast that we can’t heal you if we can’t see you, don’t you? Perhaps you should take that into consideration. Please also take into account our drinking requirements as we get thirsty often and need to stock up on a little thing called mana. If a DPS takes threat off you it either means that they are doing awesome DPS or that your tanking sucks. Lets assume the latter until the former is proven, shall we? If we let you run in first, then give you ten seconds to gather as much threat as you can, and then at the first damage we do all the mobs run to us, something is not going right from your end, capisci? On that note, if the whole raid wipes but you manage to stay alive, this does not make you a great tank.
I realise that calling you the ‘tank’ is slightly off-putting, but until you begin to address us by our names then you will just have to live with it.
On DPS – yes, it’s great that you can do DPS too, we all feel full of warmth for you. But your job is to hold threat, not to try and beat the DPS players in a DPS race. So please concentrate on that instead of linking recount in the middle of every fight. When a boss goes down there is some stuff called, ‘loot’, which drops from said boss. This is not for you to dish out as you see fit, and if someone asks if it is okay for them to roll need they are not specifically waiting for your own approval. Also, try and control yourself and not roll need on cloth gear even if the stats are awesome for you. I know this sounds obvious, but hey, you’re not the brightest spark in the room, are you?