Casual WoW

Hi everyone. It’s been about 2 months now since I last updated the site, and given that my last post said I would be offering a regular podcast, I feel like I owe you guys an explanation. Simply put, I now log into WoW about once a week, and it’s mostly just to chat with friends. The only thing that I’ve been putting any work into is my 39 Shaman twink, which I will of course be creating a guide for when I finish. The game was taking up too much of my time, and too much of my thoughts, and I wasn’t enjoying it any more. Spending my time at work on the official forums, logging into the game constantly to check auctions, attempting to level multiple characters so that my buddies and I could have some chance in the “counter-comping = skill” ridiculousness that is the arena.

I could go on for pages about the numerous things that have pushed me away from the game, but what it comes down to in the end is that my love of WoW has simply dwindled. I will continue doing the two things that I still enjoy doing, twinking and finding creative ways to make gold, and I will update this blog when I feel I have something worth saying, but regular updates right now would only consist of my frustrations with the direction the devs are taking the game in. I will most likely end up using this site as more of a personal gaming blog, so those of you who play games other than WoW will have something else to look forward to.

On that note, I mentioned in my last post that I picked up an Xbox 360 and Rock Band, and I’m now drumming on hard, with the first few songs completed on expert mode. I’m stuck at the most common sticking point for hard drummers, Vasoline by Stone Temple Pilots, and I think at this point my main problem is that I’m looking to legitimately play it, as simply passing the song by exploiting game mechanics isn’t enough for me. I’m sure a couple of runs in practice mode will give me a solid enough feel for it that I’ll be able to take it on decently. I’m also one of the scores of people that realized after playing drums on Rock Band that, well, playing drums is REALLY fun. I’ve played guitar for eight years now, and I am really wishing that I had taken up drums instead, so I’ll be remedying that situation shortly. I’m planning on picking up a Roland TD-3 in the near future, and the bonus is that with a little bit of garage engineering, I can use it as a replacement for the decidedly cheap and fragile Rock Band kit. Any non-drumming musicians out there who have ever tried to start a band know how few drummers there are out there, so any game that helps to address that issue is a game worth buying. Who knows, maybe your best friend who’s never picked up an instrument in his life is the next Keith Moon…

Anyway, just to make sure I’m being absolutely clear on this, the podcast series is effectively cancelled until further notice. I MAY end up doing it at some point, or not. I was on the path to completing it fairly easily, and I will most likely do a writeup on common items that are easy to make gold off of on the AH, but for now, I simply have no drive or desire to do it. I still strongly suggest listening to my primer, as it will give you a leg up on about 80% of the game’s population as far as AH transactions, and it is only 4 minutes long. Again, my apologies for not following through on my promise, but I don’t want to turn a video game into a second job. After all, at the end of the day this is CASUAL-wow.com, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

- Stray