A thoroughly enjoyable session in World of Warcraft last night, largely consisting of two halves.

First was a fling in Alterac Valley. I quite enjoy it actually, being something of an RPG Planetside map of sorts. Having been in there a few more times, I begin to see what Blizzard were trying to do there, which is basically create a game of Warcraft III, but with players as individual units. A fun idea, but of course, without a Big Hand In The Sky telling each of us what to do, where to go and what abilites to use, the thing can’t possibly work as intended. Imagine playing a rousing game of WCIII, where each unit does whatever the hell it wants, hates pretty much all the other friendly units and have wildly random - and largely unknown - statistics and capabilities. Well, you don’t have to – just go to AV and watch the map for a bit! Throne of Chaos, indeed...

We (the Horde) lost again. I’ve been reading up and have seen many explanations for this, ranging from simple terrain and structure lay-out differences, through ‘Paladins 4TW!’, right up to complex psychological breakdowns of typical player mentalities and back to ‘h0rde suxx0rz!1’. Personally, I think the main problem is that we need a Big Hand In The Sky.

The match seemed to be won or lost on the quality and persuasiveness of three main schools of thought shouting in /bg chat – the Attackers, who want everyone to just charge at the enemy General, the Defenders, who want everyone to stay near our own General and try to keep him alive, and the Summoners, who want everyone to do the rather complicated blood hand-in/escort/summoning-circle thing, to unleash some kind of giant Ice Monster, which presumably, will win the match for us.

I guess any one of of those is a sound plan, although the optimal route would be simply to ignore the other team and rush the general, and hope that our elite team of crack raiders is more organised than theirs. Even my nublet self can see that what won’t work, is arguing venomously in /bg chat and then the team splitting off three ways to carry out three different objectives, with assorted other loners off exploring, killing Rams, fishing, etc, which seems to be the commonly chosen plan for the matches I’ve seen. We at Van Hemlock do not condone Democracy in a time of war, particularly as a substitute for a Chain of Command! Cross server battlegrounds can't help, although saying that, I know virtually no-one on my own server, let alone famous Strategists from the 'Twistey Burning Flamemoon Shattered Brotherhood Zul'Arathor Cartel' server. (A server made up almost entirely of players from the island of Gurnsey - crazy place, although there are no AH taxes there!)

I don’t particularly mind though, because – like pretty much everyone else in there, I suspect – I’m mostly there because Frostbite looks like a pretty decent axe upgrade for me. Yes, I admit it, I’m just a reputation and honor-kill whore. Not having (or wanting) a Guild DKP network to call on, and having developed a quite worrying facial tic whenever I even see a blue swirley Instance Entrance or Meeting Stone now, I’m basically down to the bottom of the food chain for gear – scrabbling on the AH for surplus shineys. The various reputation and PvP rewards look like a pretty alluring shortcut compared to that.

I do try to fight mind you – and quite enjoy the hectic chaos of the Valley, but to be honest, I don’t really mind that much if we win or lose – a attitude I’ve learnt long ago from Planetside, I think.

So we lost (I came third from the bottom again – a consistent ranking it seems), got my losers medal and bounced back out to the Hall of the Brave, smiled and shrugged, and then got on with the main event of the night: [57] The Stones That Bind Us

Scattered throughout the Blasted Lands, are the imprisoned bodies of a lost Horde regiment, enslaved by various demonic powers in dishonourable torment. The shade of the unit’s commander cannot rest until these poor souls have been freed, and had previously requested my help to end their suffering. I’d pencilled him in for last night, and true to my word, headed out that way to take on the Badguys!

It went very well. Blasted Lands is interesting, suitably challenging, fairly quiet, had herbs I can skill-up on growing there, and the quest itself took just the right amount of time, being a little self-contained adventure that fit neatly into one session of gaming. It was quite tricky in some places, and required some exploration, a little thought regarding patrols and mob spacing, and some nifty timing with destroying the stones, but was comfortably soloable as a L57 Warrior. I found four green items during the foray, including some blacksmithing plans I can auction, and the little story that went with it was interesting enough without becoming laborious. The final reward was the Shard of Afrasa (which will go nicely with my innate Troll Regeneration and my Trolls Blood Potions to give me a hefty regeneration rate), and a significant bundle of XP.

These are the sessions that keep me playing – the ones where you can make a little plan, and be able to follow it, without having to haul yourself across the world on a moments notice, just to get wiped repeatedly, smacktalked and shouted at, and end up logging off exhausted and drained, and having not really got anything useful out of it all – materially, or spiritually.

All in all, one of those rare times when you can log-out feeling like you’ve got something useful done, and have enjoyed doing it.