Tuesday (28 Mar) - A Funny Thing (Redux)

Tuesday (28 Mar) - A Funny Thing (Redux)

A funny thing happened while I was engrossed in clearing out the clutter of files in my Outlook Deleted Folder. There were, of course, thousands of files, 99% of which I really didn't need but hadn't gotten around to permanently deleting. Yes, I can be a packrat, but even packrats eventually throw stuff away. I cleared away the truly old stuff, and then sorted the remaining stack and cleared away the endless Amazon, Land's End, Wal-Mart, Broderbund, and other advertising junk I'd let bulge the folder. The very last file in that long list was an email in Chinese, which of course got the death click. The second to last email, though, was a surprise.

The email title was WoWMoPBeta. 

Hmm, I never saw this email. My junk filter must have decided that I didn't really need to see this email and sent it directly into the Deleted Folder. The email was dated 12 March, 2012.

I bet that what this email says has been figured out by now. Yes, I have received a Mists of Pandaria Beta Test invitation.

My first attempt at installing it failed this morning. I will keep everyone apprised on any further progress (or lack of).

Update #1: I had to uninstall the failed Beta, which had not gotten very far, anyway. I got ready to try a second install, and then had a thought. WoW was undergoing it's Tuesday maintenance, and that could mean that the MoP Beta might also be offline. I decided to wait until maintenance was finished before trying again.

Update #2: Blizzard maintenance ended at around 11am. Happy was able to login and get his AH checks done. I then attempted to install the MoP Beta. Just like the last time, the install quickly went to 10% and then hung. Fifteen minutes later, and still at 10%, I shut it down.

Update #3: I decided to try a different strategy. I'd just upgraded my ZoneAlarm firewall and I wondered if it was unhappy with the MoP install. So I powered up the backup computer to try installing it there (without the ZA upgrade). First, I had to load two patches in order to be at the current WoW level. I then ran the setup and install programs for MoP Beta. It's working. It's taken more than half an hour to get to 15%, but I don't care if it takes all day, as long as it gets there.

Update #4: It did take all day, and then finally timed out at 38%. I'll start it up again on Wednesday and see how it goes.

Update #5: The Wednesday attempt took me backwards. Now the program simply hangs on "Updating" and dies there. This is what Mists of Pandaria is going to be like on the day this expansion goes live.

Wednesday Night - Meanwhile, There's This Thing Called a Raid

It was "roast the rogue" night in our RG2 raid. Ooh, I want to make that the name of a guild! There's this saying that I know has been mentioned before, but it's funny anyway. Rule #1 of our raid is "The rogue dies first." We took this to some distant extreme on Wednesday night, and it just got funnier and sillier as the evening wore on. The rogue is of course well liked by the guild, and probably loved all the attention. Our lady priest of the evening made it a point to talk about all the times she "didn't" heal him. And on the Warlord fight where the raid is divided into two groups, the rogue was intentionally moved by the raid leader to the group being healed by the priest, so that she would be able to "not" heal him. Calls of "Wait, the rogue didn't die!?" were normal when we finished off a boss without any deaths. Tanks would call for the pull and then wait to see if the rogue would jump the gun. It was that kind of night.

We had our regular raid leader back, he of the computer problems, and various and sundry illnesses and other real life issues. I'm glad I'm not living his life at the moment, the poor guy is just beset with issues. He's always upbeat, though, and this night was no different. Wild never knows whether he is handling the healing assignments or not. No problem, if it looks like the raid leader is occupied Wild sets up the assignments, but if they start to do it that's fine as well. There are only so many ways to set things up, and most of the time it's not how perfect the assignments are, just that there ARE assignments. We had a third healer, a druid, who was somewhat undergeared, but the nerf stick had hit Dragon Soul again this week, so perhaps it wouldn't be that big a deal.

Morchok went down easily, and Yor'sahj soon followed. Great disappointment was expressed when the rogue failed to die on either boss. No healer claimed to have healed him, but rogues are so sneaky it was more likely he just stole the heals from us. Wild was happy, though. The i397 version of the [Petrified Fungal Heart] dropped. It was the second time Wild had seen it drop. The first time he won it, Wild passed it to another raider who needed it more than Wild did. This time Wild won it again, and decided it was time to keep it.

The Warlord has become our own personal nemesis, and this night was not so different than others. Well, it was a little different. On our third attempt we were getting very close. Wild had already used our one battle rez and had blown all his healing cooldowns keeping the raid alive. We hung in there a very long time, and as raiders died things got truly hairy. Our healers really laid themselves out, but one by one they called out Out Of Mana! and then died. Wild was still in the game as the last healer standing, with a tank and one DPS left. Too many hits and the tank went down, and the one DPSer left took Warlord on a merry chase, Wild in tow trying to keep the DPS up. That last DPS was the rogue. He died, and Warlord quickly finished off Wild. We wiped with Warlord at 4.1% health.

On our fourth attempt Warlord went down. Wild did over 21k hps and over 40% of all healing, with the priest at 17k and our learning druid at 10k. And the rogue didn't die.

Somehow the song "Ring of Fire" became the topic of conversation, with one player claiming it was a Garth Brooks song while others, Wild included, claimed it was a Johnny Cash song. Of course it was both, but the lively argument went on until one raider added his own unique perspective. "You know," he said, "I sing Ring of Fire in the bathroom every time after  enchilada night!" No one could top that, so we killed the fourth boss, Hagara, on our first try and with no deaths. Ok, Wild died during the trash. The rogue beat that out of me. Wild is going to stop sneaking heals to him.

We had only five minutes left of our raid time, and our expensive casket (uh, cauldron) of flasks had expired. We had a vote to see if we would stay long enough to clear the skies of all those dragons that precede the Ultraxion fight. Despite the fact that it usually takes us darn near forever to clear those dragons, everyone wanted to take one shot at them. After all, the rogue would surely die.

We were quite stunned when we actually DID clear the trash on our one and only attempt. In fact, we cleared them so fast the counter bugged on us and Ultraxion showed up, armed and ready for battle, well before he was supposed to. The raid leader told everyone to tread carefully as we set up, as Ultraxion had a large hit box and it would not take much to aggro the beast.

The rogue would get his revenge. With the raid in place and the raid leader wrapping up some final advice, the rogue hit Fan of Knives, aggroing Ultraxion. He died, of course, as did the tank short seconds later. Wild got him battle rezzed, and we made a pretty spirited fight out of it, but eventually we wiped.

Yes, the pull was accidental, and the rogue was seriously mortified. But then again ... it's not a good idea to mess with those rogues.