January 31, 2006

World of Warcraft - Nefarion Defeated!


My guild downed Nefarion last night, two weeks after we first got to him. With him down, we have now beaten all the main content (still haven't killed a couple of the outdoor dragons) the game has to offer. Oh, make that had as literally today on our server a new set of major raid dungeons open.

First kills of all the main guys has been my primary goal in the game for a very long time. With the main part of it done, I'm not sure whether or not my interest will stay at the same level - will partly depend on how AQ is. For some gearing up is a major goal but not so much for me as Mages are just not that gear dependent and it just won't make that big a difference. If I were a Warrior (and do have a 60 Warrior who I am trying to play more but he has only blues), I'd want gear much more as for them it makes a MUCH larger differnce in their effectiveness. A blue'd 60 Mage is probably like 60% as effective as a Mage with almost all Epics but a similar Warrior (MainTanking a 40 man raid) is probably only like 25% as effective and against top-end content just won't be able to cut it.

Interestingly, although this was only our first Nef kill, I expect that he will now be going down every week. Except for a week over the holidays maybe (when I wasn't playing so am not really sure), I believe every single week our guild has always gotten at least as far as we did the previous week, which I actually find kind of amazing and a real accomplishment - once we have beaten a guy once people start really believing it can be done and it is.

Now that I've fought all the main bosses, I do think Vael is the toughest. Not really at all sure what is second. Razorgore took forever to learn but now we beat him easily. Broodlord also took a while until we learned a trick that made him much easier. Ragnaros was always pretty much all about gear and fire resist (gear and potions) so was quite hard for a while but once we were geared up enough was not a problem. Majordomo is a tricky encounter too which I actually learned with my old guild and then brought over our strategy to this guild and thus really helped them along. Chromagnus has been a chump so far but we haven't yet had a bad set of breaths.

I think my first Onyxia kill remains my raiding highlight in the game and that fight I still really love, followed by Broodlord's Gauntlet and now the Nefarion fight.

Posted by aarondf at 01:01 PM | Games | Comments (5)

January 18, 2006

Mystery Hunt 2006

Eric Berlin from my team posted a nice wrapup report.

Huge congratulations to Random Hall for their incredibly well-done hunt (and add me to the people who were amazingly pleasantly surprised by how good it was) which was probably even better than Setec's great hunt last year and of course congratulations to the Bombers for winning.

I was still kind of sick so wasn't at the Hunt quite as much as I would have liked or as effective as I would have hoped. Still, the Hunt did seem to manage to knock me out of my illness and the puzzles were just great. The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern skit (which was redone at the wrapup luckily) really was hillarious and huge kudos to the writers and performers.

Posted by aarondf at 01:23 PM | Events | Comments (5)

January 04, 2006

Back From the Dead

Despite not posting for a month, I'm still around. I got Bronchitis and was totally out of it for two weeks and largely out of it for a third. I am actually STILL not feeling great but well enough for work and all at this point. Netflix, TiVo and World of Warcraft were all great during my sickness, making it at least bearable.

Christmas week was really wonderful with my brother and his family here for the whole week from Christmas to New Years. Isaac is now five and a joy and so much more articulate and everything than a year ago. Highlights of the week included seeing the wonderful Ansel Adams exhibit at the MFA, a fun trip to Portsmouth, NH and First Night celebrations downtown. I was sorry that my gifts were a bit lacking due to being sick for so long - almost every real gift I gave had been ordered before I got sick, including a nice 30" LCD TV my brother and I got for my mom to replace her very lame old tv. The most siginificant gift I got will probably turn out to be a cellphone.

Watched tons of movies but will probably not bother commenting on most of them but The Polar Express deserves a mention. The animation was ok but it remains true that the state-of-the-art is still really not up to doing realistic human beings and trying is a bad idea as the differences are painful (at least for me) to watch. I did like the Elf North Pole city and huge sack of presents but most of the movie felt like filler and incredibly predictable. **

Posted by aarondf at 04:24 PM | Miscellaneous | Comments (2)