Results tagged “Argent Dawn” from From the Abbey to Outlands

So a lot has been said lately in the blog world about the Wrath lead up events surrounding the plague and the zombies found all around the world. There seem to be two sides in this debate, the Infected and the Defending. The defenders are annoyed with the infected cause they keep turning the NPCs needed for training, quests, and bartering into Zombies. They recruit the classes who can cure the plague to their side, begging them to eliminate the threat to their game play. Some on RP servers like my own Argent dawn use the reason/excuse 'I am RPing, don't break my RP'. I think that like, while normally acceptable, is being abused and by some who don't use it sincerely.

The Infected are out to convert. Some convert everyone they see, some convert those interested, and some just convert NPCs. The plague can overwhelm any single player or NPC easily, and enough converts to the undead in your group, you can quite quickly overtake a small town, then a bigger town, and perhaps eventually the cities. These players alledge that many of the so called 'defenders' are griefing their attempts to RP the spread of the plague and can often get very vocal in their anger when cleansed or killed mid campaign.

So we have two sides, both angry and hostile toward one another. Some say this world event is poorly timed, a distruption to their game, and claim the right to seek penalties for their goals being hindered by Zombies, plague, and players. So many opinions, so many aggravations, and add to that the fact that we still have Hallow's End going on for a full week, and you have a really volatile mix of opinions, aggravations, and stress. So who is right? Well, All and none. To those who say Blizzard should not have World Events, I say 'there's the door'. Players love world events like Hallow's End, Winter Veil, and more. They also love the lead up events.

The Burning Crusade lead up event was.. a little boring. There was a big boss, but he rarely spawned. There was stuff at the portal, but it got so bad it killed most servers and made the quest from there nearly impossible to complete. The Defenders and the Infected should both get along, with neither playing God Mode. Even the Paladins of the Silver Hand could not cure all of those plague ridden, or Lordaeron would not have fallen. Not all of the Cult of the Damned got their way, got their wish, and died to be risen as undead. A well played out RP would have a win some, lose some basis, and I think that anyone looking to play either role needs to see that, and accept that in their story. What do you think?

The Lich King, enemy of all who live, has begun the invasion that has long been feared, with all major cities under attack by waves of zombies. The worst news, brought to us be those brave souls, is that these zombies are infecting other citizens of Azeroth and Outlands with a plague that, if not cured, turns the infected into a Zombie within 10 minutes or less! Be warned, there are reports also of citizens of the Horde and Alliance grouping up to become infected, simply to infect their fellow people.

What you can do, if you are a Priest, Paladin, or Shaman, you can cleanse this poison from the bodies of those you find infected, but be warned, if they are a Zombie already, they will need to be killed to be cleansed of this poison. If you take this job in your hands, you may put yourself at risk of being infected yourself. If you do, head to your nearest Argent Dawn Healer for a quick heal, removing the poison from yourself. If you are faced with an agitated infected citizen, unhappy with their cleansing, just know the person is not in their right mind, and likely needs to be taken to the healer, or perhaps to the Stockades.

-Medros

The last time I recall getting the Queue box on login to Argent Dawn was about 18 months ago, shortly after Burning Crusade hit. It began, interestingly, around when the pre expansion patch hit, and got as bad as to have 1000+ person queues on some nights. Blizzard did some free transfers, some players re rolled, and in the end they went away. Well, Folks, they are back. Oh, no, not 1000 person, not yet, we only have a few hundred so far, but that is how it began last time, too. Will we see thousand person queues again? Probably, but I hope Blizzard will respond quicker this time, especially since AD has always been a High population realm as far back as I can recall.

Another side of the patch is what I have come to call, not at all affectionatly, Wrath-flation. With the patch came the Inscription profession, and all those folks who didn't have the foresight to farm their own herbs are now running around trying to pick them, and when they find they have been picked clean, likely by Auction House profiteers, they go to those very same Auction Houses, and pay exhorbitant rates for their herbs. I have heard numbers as high as 70g for a stack of herbs that haven't been in demand in 3 years. Sadly, this will only continue as we reach November 13th and beyond, because simply put, there is nothing more attractive to the greedy than a bit of increased demand, and the chance to choke off the supply.

I figured, since I am on an RP server, and RP servers are one of the most misunderstood beasts in the World of Warcraft, I would give you my top 5 tips. Let's start off with...

1. Naming - Yes, folks, the #1 part about being valued on an RP server is choosing the right name. No, Legolass, Legoass, Gymli, Gundalf, or Bobssexykitten are not appropriate names. The naming rules on an RP server are significantly more strict, and while it may take 65 levels for someone to report your name, it is still wrong naming for the entire 65 levels.
2. Understand - Life on an RP server is not the same as the other 2 styles of server, counting RP and RP PvP under the same banner. RP servers are often more laid back, but can be fun if you are into RP.
3. Try - Give it a shot. What will it hurt? No, you don't need to study up on Middle English. No, you do not speak like the King James Bible. You do not, though, use lol, afk, brb or the many other net acronyms that are in common use in the channels deemed In Character. These are Say and Yell primarily, though some do RP in party and whispers. Don't talk about tanking, DPS, hit rating, and all the other mechanics of the game in these channels. This is why you have parties and whispers. If there's a bunch of you, join a raid. If only two, take it to whispers. Hit R to reply, which is just as easy as Enter to open a new chat line. Addons like WIM(Warcraft Instant Messenger) are helpful in these situations as well.
4. Compromise - Ok, so you tried to RP and just couldn't get into the swing of it. You have no desire or interest in PvPing. Gotcha, I won't ask again. This is where compromise comes in. You don't like the RP, and I won't force you to. This is still and RP server, and I assume you have friends here, so let's agree that you will keep your game talk from breaking my RP, and I won't have to report you for every infraction. If someone tries to RP with you, just respond with ((I am not interested in RP, but thank you)). The (( and )) and pretty universal indicators you are talking OOC(Out of Character). The other person will either respond with thanks, or move on to more willing folks.
5. Maturity - This is a big one. If it weren't for the importance of Naming, this would be at the top of the list. RP does not mean cyber. RP servers aren't a playground for PvP server kidlets to come to and wreak havoc. GMs will suspend your account and may even ban you for harassing RPers on their server. If you have nothing better to do when your realm goes down, guess what! There's these things called books, sports, and friends. Go find some and make use of them until your playground comes back online.
   

I hope that these tips have helped you, or maybe someone you know, in knowing how to become a valuable member of an RP server's community. There were a lot of others I could have chosen, like Respect, Honor, and so on, but these 5 were a good start. What are yours? We do not demand you RP, we just demand you respect the rules. 

I asked the other day about what race I should make my Death Knight on my main realm, Argent Dawn. While I am still divided, there is a great deal more to work out between now and the expansion's launch, so let's move on to the next topic: Name this Death Knight!

To me, the name is important. Perhaps not in the 'what should I name this' sense, but in a 'will I love this name at 70/80 and beyond?' When thinking of a name I naturally wonder if I should make the Death Knight a natural extension of one of my current characters. The main problem with this is that I cannot just name my Death Knight Medros, or Arita, or Ameland, or even Telaan or Traluun, not without deleting their base characters.

With all the time, effort, and thought that has gone into each of my played characters, I am honestly not sure I could just delete one. Perhaps I can make them a slight alteration of the current one. Medrode, or Arista. What do you think about making a character a near copy of one you already have? Do you prefer a little diversity in the look and feel of your toons?

The problem with making a Death Knight and extension of the RP story of your character is the temporal paradox. This is when the two exists in the same timeline. How could Arista be the evolution of Arita when Arita still exists? You must destroy one to make the other, right? I guess all of that goes into a area of science and philosophy that I am not as yet qualified to talk about.

A closer examination of my available played characters shows me there are only two I would get rid of if I had to. These are my Hunters. I guess part of the reason for this is because I find that there are a lot of hunters in the game, and the world doesn't really want or need my two. This is of course ignoring the fact that everyone and their uncle will have a Death Knight on day 1 of Wrath of the Lich King, so I would be essentially dropping one unpopular but over played class for another.

As for slots, since we know we will not be getting the Blizzcon mentioned Hero slot, I already have a slot I cleared up by transferring my nephew's rarely played Warrior to some other realm, though I can't recall which one now. Even if I hadn't, I have 2 mules I emptied out back when the Guild Bank feature came in, Alterrodd and Cuisinier, who can be deleted anytime. I was thinking of doing just that and making a Shaman, but I decided that the guild has just enough of those.

What are your thoughts on whether to progress your character into a Death Knight or if you should just make a new one? What will you do for the first Hero Class in world of Warcraft? What will you name your Death Knight? Are you even going to make one? I know a lot of people who have no desire to wear plate, and will instead wait for a caster or healer hero class. Don't forget that I still want your thoughts on what race I should make my Death Knight, be it one of my current races or a new one. 

Perhaps my brush with fame had gone to my head, but I am calling here and now for a few things. I am offline for a couple more days, so this does impact me a lot. First, reading this post from WoW Insider's Eliah Hecht saying his server is at 59% done on Phase 1, has me concerned. I would love a chance like we had for the AQ opening, to see out of game the progress being made. This is a new kind of war effort, isn't it? Let us call for a new war effort status page!

Second, I worry that the Isle is opening too fast. Half a phase in 1 day? Completely open in a week? I can only hope that 2, 3, and 4 are harder, requiring more time and effort to get them opened up. At this rate, assuming Argent Dawn is about the same rate as Eliah's realm, when I get in sometime Friday, the Isle will be nearing the end of phase 2. That's missing pretty much half of this epic world event.

Lastly, I am not sure how much I like the idea of some dailies not being able to be done after some phases. What if I have that, completed, in my logs? Will I still be able to turn it in for rep? In another post on WoW Insider a staff writer posted a link to this timeline of dailies for the Isle, and it shows that we have a lot of dailies, twenty of them, and I worry that some will vanish before I even get a chance to break glass, destroy portals, or many of them.

[Update: And this post tells me that after about 24 hours of stable servers, Argent Dawn has reached second phase of the Isle of Quel'Danas. Maybe I can get in for phase 3 and 4...]