onetimesilence

When Portal came out, I heard about it. I had friends tell me about the storyline, the humor, the weirdness, the cake. But I didn’t ever see the game until I purchased the game through Steam in 2010.

I played through Portal’s storyline quickly as I stated before. There were a few areas that gave me some trouble. But nothing too difficult. But I had a great time with the puzzle and storyline.

Well, earlier this year as Portal 2 was getting close to release, I pre-ordered it through Steam. And on April 19, 2011, it was released for play. But I didn’t. I didn’t have an opportunity. I knew it was there waiting on me. I knew it was going to be great… but I just couldn’t make the time.

Until today.

The first day World of Warcraft: Cataclysm released, I created my Goblin Shaman and then logged out.  I didn’t talk to anyone, I accepted no quests,I didn’t check my mailbox for all of the companion pets that are instantly mailed to me upon new-character-creation, I did not even set up my user interface.  I chose not to move her at all.

Weeks later…

I finally decided to pull my Goblin out of the workshop.

The Goblin storyline is very interesting. And it gives an insight to their culture, relationship to the other races, and the specific story of how the Bilgewater Cartel came to Azshara.

If you haven’t seen their story.  Do it now.

As possible I’ve been picking up older games that I missed when they were first released.

Portal, by Valve, is one that I’ve wanted for a long time. Through Steam, I finally made the purchase.

Get Steam. Get the Orange Box Collection. Add me to your Steam Community.

Steam always has great deals.

Ok. So here’s the deal. This is going to be worth all the time I forsee myself putting into it. It’s decided.

After getting logged in and, personally, getting leveled to 15, we hit the Random Dungeon Finder. We knew there was only one possible option, but with the RDF we get a bag at the end with an armor piece tailored to your class.

So we enter Ragefire Chasm with a Paladin, Warrior, Druid, Mage, and Priest. We took our time at first, not knowing how we would handle this encounter. It took us about an hour to get to Taragaman the Hungerer. But once we gained a little confidence, running it 17 4 times in row was no big deal at all.

By the way, how hungry is Taragaman the Hungerer?

Our first death came in Deadmines, but at the very end while boarding the ship. Up to this point the dungeon was butter. We had a few close calls, but were learning that our group diversity gave us an edge. And it was noticeable that players were learning the tricks of their class. But a bad pull and not stepping back allowed aggro and lack of crowd control to take us down. Luckily Night Elf Shadowmeld kept us from all from having to run back.

Clearing some more, and picking us some nice culinary items from Cookie, we were close to the next boss.

Note: still waiting on the apron to complete the set.

Speaking of sets, it’s safe to say that we need no more Parrot Cage (Green Wing Macaw). This bird is just ridiculous. I’ve ran this dungeon plenty of times and on plenty of characters, and not once have I seen so many birds drop. Usually happy to see him drop at all.

Well, what happens when a bear pulls a boss where no boss should be pulled?

A wipe. Right?

Well, that is unless you have a priest that defies the very fabric of game mechanics and jumps on a big paddle wheel that is unreachable by melee pirates.

That was save number two.

Well, the odds seem good. Nothing can stop us now. We avoid all catastrophes with grace and wit. There’s no looking back. All is perfect.

Steps to reverse perfection:

1. Attack boss.
2. Kick fellow player from group in hopes to win desired item.
3. Watch as said player is booted from instance.
4. Re-add player to party.
5. Watch player run back through the instance to meet group.
6. Watch him aggro every PAT on the way.
7. Wipe.

Luckily, we picked ourselves up and dusted off… and finished the instance.

Then we started on Wailing Caverns. Long instance, but full of leather for me.

Stopped about halfway.

Overall: A+

I finally raised the funds to purchase the Guild Tabard. It costs 10g to purchase. To buy one for yourself to wear, you’ll have to dish out 95s. Wear it with pride.

And no kicking kittens while you have it on.

You have been warned.

I slaved over the tabard designer for hours and hours switching between sad icons and some that weren’t so bad.

The colors that I had to choose from was vast. Or at least were the combination of background, icon, and border.

My work will never be truly known. It will be forgotten. But I’m mostly to blame as I am slightly a perfectionist… even in a game… online… and even though it’s sort of unreachable.

Our DisOwned WoW group got together on our Alliance characters this evening.

Tonight was a warm-up. That’s my take on it.

After the group individually leveling to ten and meeting in Goldshire, we sought out to take on objectives together.

It went well at first. Nuking everything in our path. Watching the Kobold’s scatter at our presence while shouting “You no take candle!”, the gnolls run in circles as the swords were drawn, and even Hogger was no match for our skillful ambush.

We eventually found ourselves heightened and cursed at the event of some profession work. A good group-killer is to run in separate directions and do completely separate individual tasks. We are probably going to avoid this in the future.

But in general, it was a good first run. We’ll see how things pick up next week while running Deadmines.