2008-01-04 Five New Souls Are Born

The "play team" is a go. We really need to give ourselves a name. There are five members with one more possible. The sixth was initially turned down since only 5 can group together, but I corrected that and offered to bring him in. He hasn't responded back yet. We could use more than 5 of course, and can split into two groups if needed.

We will be playing on thursday night and sunday mornings. Our first group outing is this coming sunday. The server we decided on is The Scryers, which is an RP PVE server with a low population. "Decided on" is not exactly how that happened - someone offered up that suggestion and we just ran with it. I didn't know it was an RP server, but I don't think it will matter. Oh, and if you don't remember, RP stands for Role Playing. Players are supposed to talk and act like their characters on this server. Not going to happen with our little group, and my initial experience on the server is that it doesn't happen that much with other players, either. Although - there were two players talking in general last night about why a quest giver would give them such a quest, and trying to fit the task into some lore they were discussing.

Yes, I did make a character and I did some playing last night. The name is Phillyperdue, and she's an undead priest. (1) Philly is a play on fille. (2) fille perdue is french for "lost girl". (3) Our members seem to have a penchant for using foreign languages in their names. (4) My handle on the wowhead forums is alwayslost, hence the "lost girl" reference. (5) Yes, I'm playing another healer (with distant visions of shadow priesthood). (6) Yes, I'm playing another lady character, but she hasn't developed a personality yet.

Although we talked about centering the group on Kalimdor around Orgrimmar, when we actually created characters four of us ended up on the Eastern Continent. Philly is in Tirisfal Glades near the Undercity, and three others created blood elves up in the Silvermoon City (SC) area. I could have created a blood elf priest, but undead priests have slightly better racial and attribute characteristics that help the priest class. Plus I've levelled my last three alts in the blood elf starting area and just didn't feel like making yet another BE.

The other members are (names shortened because they are all very long): Brae (BE mage), Arq (BE pally), Kon (BE warlock), and Huldu (troll warrior). We've asked the 6th, if he accepts, to be a rogue or shaman for some additional melee help.

So we have dedicated healing (Philly) and tanking (Huldu) as well as the pally as backup for both.

Once we start playing and get comfortable with each other, we will likely take one of the suggestions we've gotten and open up one of our group periods to other players on the server that would be interested in this idea. That could help grow the membership through a try out like process. I still envision this staying a small group, though.

The idea is that we will all get to level 10 and then meet in SC for our first group adventure sunday morning. If we don't all make it to 10, our first order of business will be to get that done and then proceed from there.

Last night I created Phillyperdue and she began levelling. I've got a level 10 undead warlock that levelled in the same area so I am a little familiar with the starting zone, which helped. This is my first priest, though. I got through all of the starting zone quests, which got her to level 6, and made my way to Brill, a little town on the outskirts of the great Undercity (UC).

In Brill Philly picked up her two main professions, which I decided would be herbalism and alchemy, the same that JB has now. We are all picking one gathering profession so that all our bases are covered. I considered skinning - it would be just weird enough to be interesting if I could both skin animals and eat humanoids (undead have a racial ability to eat dead people to gain health). But I think making potions would be more useful, and you need herbs to make potions. I picked up first aid as well. Brill has a number of quests to do, but I was getting short on time so I decided to make a quick run to UC to pick up other professions like cooking (which I did) and train in staves and daggers, which are the only other weapons priests can use beside maces, which she started with. Philly had earned a magic staff from a quest, and I wanted to learn how to use it.

Visiting the weapon master in UC brought home something I had thought about, and then promptly forgot about. When I tried to acquire the dagger skill (I discovered I had to go to Org for the staff skill), I was denied. Not because Philly is only level 6, but because she didn't have the 9 silver it took to buy it. She only had 2 silver to her name. Philly has no sugar daddy sending her money to buy toys. Wild has gold, but Philly can't muster up 9 silver.

This is what I wanted when I planned this idea. That staff quest reward is meaningful because I didn't just go out and buy a better one on the AH. Getting those weapon skills have to be earned. Minor health potions, crafted out of the lowest level of herbs like peacebloom and silverleaf, are actually useful rather than just a way to level the professions. I both like it and know I will be frustrated with it at times. It remains to be seen how the other members will feel about it when it sinks in. For example, Philly has only her backback, but no bags. It fills quickly, and that's irritating. It was a simple matter for Wild to craft bags for all the alts, and in fact one of the alts still has a whole bag full of unused bags. But no way to get them to Philly.

Well, actually, there is a way, if I want to do it. I could transfer an existing character to the Scryers server. For a character level 30 and below, Blizz allows up to 300g to transfer with the character, as well as bringing along all of your worldy goods. 300g gold and a bag full of bags would go a long way for such low level characters. I haven't looked into whether Scryers is a server that is open to transfers, because although the idea is enticing, I am not going to do it. Philly, at least, is going to do this the old fashioned way with her new group of friends.

Once I get Philly to level 10 (and get enough silver to get my other weapon skills paid for), Philly will head to SC and I will pick up as many quests as I can find which are shareable with the other members. That should get us started questing more quickly. No one has brought up the idea of using the new in game voice chat feature yet, but my take is that we will likely at least try it out. Maybe Philly's personality will include a willingness to talk more - but I doubt it. :-)