Of Dual-boxing and Death
Dual-boxing in World of Warcraft
Starting Milecount: 38.0
Goal Miles for Week 9: 7.00
Actual Miles for Week 9: 1.5
Total Miles Week 1-9: 39.5
…At least it wasn’t zero?
Leveling is getting a bit grindy and other things took precedent this week, so I had a feeling it was going to be bad. Not Week 3 bad, but close. (I actually paused to created a World of Treadcraft page, just to see what the miles have been like… not so shiny, alas.) Continue reading
Ah, Scenic Bird-butt
Starting Milecount : 34.4
Goal Miles for Week 8 : 7.0
Actual Miles for Week 8 : 3.6
Total Miles Week 1-8 : 38.0
Looks like I’m going to be rolling into the 30′s without having to change my walking/playing style much. I’m still pondering picking up a gaming mouse—but I’ll have to check the return policy in case it doesn’t work out. *ponders*
One thing I have noticed is that the more I walk the less I need shoes. Thick socks are fine and dandy for a half-hour leveling amble and fifteen minutes go by just fine with normal ones. With luck I’ll be able to hoof it solo in a few months and that makes it another bit easier to just hop on and play. Continue reading
For The-- err, Azeroth!
This week’s Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth was suggested by Akabeko of Red Cow Rise and is about showing our Nerd Pride. The shared topic runs from Jan 22-28, so come join the fun! 
How do you express your geekery? Do you own obvious paraphernalia like a Horde-symbol bumper sticker, in-joke t-shirts like the dps/ups pun, or less obviously related items like a gift from a guildie? Rather than physical indicators, do you mix nerd lingo into your everyday speech or talk/post about geekdom in non-nerd spaces? How do you advertise your nerd tendencies? Does it help you to attract new nerd friends?
You wouldn’t guess I’m a Warcraft player if you saw me in real life—unless you happened to see the screenshots in my screensaver at work. Continue reading
Playing With Fire
Now that I’m well out of the starter zones the time between new abilities is starting to drag out. Since I’m not changing things as much, I decided to go with my gut reaction from last post and start lumping more levels together.
While I was tempted to hold to my initial concept of doing every quest in a zone before moving on, I’ve found that I’m outleveling the content too quickly. I’m tired of doing green quests so I’m going to start pushing the envelope and see how good I really am at this.
My guess is ‘not so much’, but we’ll see.
…and YAY For Mounts! Continue reading
Time for a Clean Slate
Starting Milecount: 31.00
Goal Miles for Week 7: 9.00
Actual Miles for Week 7: 3.40
Total Miles Week 1-7: 34.40
I take small consolation in the fact that at least I did better than Week 3, but that’s not really much of a victory. *sighs*
I really need to find a guild so I can get back on track—WoW is meant to be a social game, if there’s no one to talk to the grind gets, well, grindy. Continue reading
Starting Milecount: 26.50
Goal Miles for Week 6: 10.25
Actual Miles for Week 6: 4.50
Total Miles Week 1-6: 31.00
Amusing tip of the week: if you are walking at 1.5mph you can get away with wearing thick socks on the treadmill instead of shoes. This is much more comfy than it sounds. *solemn nod*
Useful tip of the week: An easy way to check and see if you have the tilt right on your monitor is to step back on the treadmill and see if things get brighter. I was really annoyed at how dark WoW was in places, but I didn’t realize it was because of screen tilt. *sighs* Another layer of wooden shims fixed that, but I feel like a dork! :p Continue reading
Not a whole lot changes in these levels (just so you’re forewarned). In fact nothing much changes until level 28 when I get to pick up Devouring Plague, so I may end up lumping more levels together going forward. *pokes posts thoughtfully*
That’s the one bit that doesn’t change, no matter how many characters I’m playing– the grinding feeling kicks in around level 20 and never really leaves again.
All these 50% drop rates aren’t helping matters any. *mutter* Continue reading
Starting Milecount: 21.25
Goal Miles for Week 5: 19.25
Actual Miles for Week 5: 5.25
Total Miles Week 1-5: 26.50 (That’s a Marathon!)
It’s odd to say it, but I think I’ve gotten the hang on treadmill leveling down. The corner keybinds are working out well (although with more abilities that will change) and the only deaths I’ve had were from bad pulls that would have killed me without the treadmill.
I even managed to kick things up to 2.5mph while in town, which bodes well for future grinds. Continue reading
I’m a casual gamer and an altoholic, which is probably why I only wrote 39 posts last year and a good portion of them are me rambling about meaning to play more.
But as the year draws to a close I can’t say that I’m horribly disappointed—I got a lot done this year that I hadn’t intended to.
Not bad for 52 weeks of casual play– now I’m wondering where I’ll be if I put some real effort into it for 2013! Continue reading
Not Working As Intended
I’ve actually gotten quite a bit of questing done on Illysu and Illysa since last post (although the Tauren mask won’t go away), but I’m trying to keep things to two levels a post for sanity’s sake.
I’m hoping to move to an every other week posting with these two, but time shall tell. Resting XP is the best XP! *solemn nod* Continue reading
Failing Upwards
Starting Milecount: 14.25
Goal Miles for Week 4: 19.25
Actual Miles for Week 4: 3.0
Total Miles Week 1-4: 21.25
The miles may not have been as high as I would have liked, since I had to slow down whilst fiddling with all the keybindings, macros, and UI tweaks– but now that I have my two main dual-boxing pairs tweaked for treadmill play, things should roll on a bit smoother!
Or at least I won’t have as easy an excuse for puttering about instead of focused leveling… Continue reading
Starting Milecount: 13.75
Goal Miles for Week 3: 11.25
Actual Miles for Week 3: 0.5 (Q_Q)
Total Miles Week 1-3: 14.25
So this week was a bit of a backslide, I’ll admit it.
Okay, maybe alot of a backside, but until I finish my time machine what’s done is done.
After last week I had hoped I’d be a little more on the ball when it came to before and after work walks. I did try to rally a bit at the end of the week, it just didn’t work too well. Baby steps, baby steps… Continue reading
You would think that using a keyboard would be an instinctive skill at this point– for all the years of piano lessons and jobs where touch typing was required. But yeah, not so much.
To be fair, I am pretty decent WPM when I’m sitting at a desk, but once you add a treadmill into the mix things get a little crazy. Continue reading
Playtime Nao!
Miles from Week 1: 2.0
Goal Miles for Week 2: 15.75
Actual Miles for Week 2: 11.75
Total Miles Week 1 & 2: 13.75
Now that’s more like it!
I didn’t make the goal this week, but I came a darned sight closer to the mark than I did last time. I’m definitely getting into the swing of things now and hopefully I’ll continue failing upwards.
…And yes, the treadmill is turned off in the picture, because I might be able to walk and play, but walking and playing and taking pictures is a little much. *grin* Continue reading
Doom Chickens Redux
I met a few local WoW players during the recent NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) event in November and thus I now have a brand new pair of alts over on Dragonmaw. It’s my first time on a PVP server, but I have yet to see any opposing faction members, so it’s been pretty low stress so far.
The goal is to level up to 15 by this weekend so we can do guild-only dungeon runs, which should be a blast! But this does make things a little more complicated than just running about by myself, thus I’ve got a few macro tweaks to share. Continue reading
Treadmill Sleep Mode
This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but I had a very bad week last week and I’m still sorting myself back through the resulting chaos. But bad week or no, it’s time to check in and see what progress was made.
And due to serendipity I ran into the video 23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? over the weekend, which renewed my determination to get this habit going! Continue reading
World of Treadcraft!
Today is the first day of my official Warcraft Gym Membership!
For those of you who haven’t been playing along at home, this silliness is just my early New Year’s Resolution to spend more time on my treadmill computer. By the end of 2012, I’d like to be playing 1.5 hours a day on a regular basis, which equates to three miles walked at 2mph.
I lead a rather sedentary life and it’s time for that to change– What better way than to combine it with a hobby I love? Continue reading
MSPaint + Touchpad = FAILTurkey
In honor of the 2011 Blog Azeroth Thanksgiving event, I give you yet another reason why I should not be allowed to do anything creative when I’m away from my main computer.
And Paint Shop Pro.
(not an official entry– I want to play, but not the prizes! *grin*)
Avast my wide and worldly friends, all scattered ‘cross the web
Please take a momentary pause, all rested, fully fed
The turkey’s gone, the dishes washed, leftovers packed away
What better time than now to thank those friends from whom we’ve strayed? Continue reading
Want to win a Guardian Mount or a Gurky/Lurky Murlock plush, or a pet? Well then strap on your thinking caps and head on over to Amerence’ post about the Blog Azeroth Thanksgiving event! (Deadline is Nov 26!)
I’m not sure if I’ll get a chance to play due to NaNo and holiday madness, but I’m going to give it a shot. Not for the prizes, just for the fun! I’ve had a lot of fun wandering the BA blogs and it’s certainly the season to be grateful for friends online and off. … Even if I’m more of a lurker. … *lurks* Continue reading
Not My Best Idea Ever
And lo, the Perishing part of Perish Twice is now in full effect again. *sighs*
Ah well, I suppose my carefree days of gallivanting around and attacking everything that moves had to come to an end at some point. Nothing like wading into a fight with something eight levels higher to snap me out of my facerolling rut.
Sadly, I tried twice more before I gave up—just to see if it was possible to even hit the #@$! thing. (Note: it was not.) Continue reading
I’m a bit further up the treadmill learning curve and I’ve found I can get one to two levels done in a play session now, which lasts until I hit the end of my rested XP bar. With luck this should mean at least one leveling post a week if I can get my blogging speed up to match. (I expect this will change as I grind upwards, but it will be interesting to see how fast progression slows.)
Have I mentioned I’m not looking forward to Outlands? *sigh*
Things are getting easier as I go, thanks in part to the nice range of abilities these two now have. I had definitely underestimated the survivability of the pair when I first started them—even compared to the druids, dual-priests definitely feel over-powered at times. Continue reading
Evil, I Can Haz
Been a bit since I worked on these guys, most of the time has been spent fiddling with the UI and the addons instead of actually questing (ah the joys of treadmill gaming!). Those posts are still in the works, but I figured I’d better get content up that isn’t based on a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic for a change.
Thus Illysu and Illysa are back on the warpath and it’s time to burn up some of that yummy blue rested XP! Plus I’ll get a few more miles under my belt and hopefully hammer out the last of the bumpy treadmill learning curve.
I had no idea I spent so much time looking at my keys when I play… Doh. Continue reading
DremelDremelDremel
This week’s Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth was suggested by Essence of The Gamer Girl Confessions and is all about the World of Warcrafts!
Inspired by Kalixta’s WoW Recipe IRL topic and the “World of Warcrafts” column over at WoW Insider, I started wondering, how many people are into making WoW-like things in real life? Not just food, though food could count too. But how many people create pottery inspired by WoW? Or wigs, or costumes inspired by WoW? Or even knit or sew things relating to WoW? Or are you a fan artist with pen and paper or pastels or clay? How about Machinmas? Comics? Stories?
I’ve been leveling the Priests (Illysu and Illysa) at a glacial pace recently and it occurred to me whilst writing up the next leveling post that I may be overthinking things.
As was touched on in the last Blog Azeroth Shared Topic, leveling has gotten just a tad easier lately.
Where Tad = Extremely and Lately = since Cataclysm.
Right now, I’m stopping every time I hit a new ability or spell in order to research it and then integrate it into my macros and keybindings. In contrast, when I’m leveling a normal alt, I just faceroll my way through the process, stopping only when I start having problems—and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t lean more in that direction with my pairs. Continue reading
Starting Area Flashbacks
Worgens are finally getting racial mounts, which should be the cue to thundering applause from folks who were looking to chase down Mountain o’ Mounts.
‘Should’ being the operative word.
Instead of cheers, for the most part the reaction across the land seems to be: “Wait, seriously, horses? Seriously?”
Sorry Blizz, but you can’t blame us for expecting something a bit flashier. Look at the Goblin trikes, look at the concept art for the original Worgen mount, now look back at the horse.
It’s not holding diamonds. Continue reading
Quests + Friends = Fun?
It figures, the one week I suggest a something for the Blog Azeroth’s Shared Topic, I lose access to my main computer and WoW. Darnit Irene, bad hurricane, no biscuit!
Time for another Blog Azeroth Shared Topic! (Aug 29-Sept 4)
World of Warcraft has millions of players, hundreds (if not thousands) of which play on the same servers I do—but I couldn’t tell you any of their names. It wasn’t always like this, although I haven’t been playing WoW long enough to really pull a ‘back in my day’. Continue reading
Bank + Bags = OMG
Once again it’s time for a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic!
Bags and Bank Capacity (August 8-14) is a topic near and dear to my heart, no matter how many characters I’m playing at once.
Amerence from Amerence Love Wow brings us the following question:
Would it be worth a try to suggest to Blizzard to extend the capacity of our Bag and Bank item slots? Or do you think the cost of just tailored Bags (22-30slots) will do the work? Or is it just not worth the time to even be mentioning these nonsense about the Bag and Bank items capacity?
There are few things I’d spend real world money for in-game (Sparkle Ponies aside) and more bag space is one of them! Continue reading
Azeroth Walkabouts
It’s been a few weeks since I got my treadmill desktop up and running. Now that I’ve logged some hours I can successfully walk and type at the same time– but can I walk and WoW? Time to sit down—err, stand up and work things out.
I’m hardly the first person to try and combine World of Warcraft to some sort of physical activity. Saitenyo plays from a exercise bike, George Titswoth does a whole host of small things, Alastriona and Liala both amble through Azeroth on a treadmill.
I am, however, probably the only dual-boxer and the only one who is planning theorycrafting on calorie burn vs. dps. (And probably the only one who is going to be having Master of Arms flashbacks *shudder*)
