2009 in hindsight

Yeah, I know, I was given a Christmas present by Tam and should perhaps work on that subject since she was so nice and all, but the servers just went down as I was levelling my priest and I don't have any good angles of attack yet. Without further ado, here's a meme I stole:

What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you’d never done before?

I pugged raids, tons of them. This brough upon me some severe sanity loss and I don't think I've recovered yet. I realized that the task of leading PuG's is a very thankless one. I tried going the hard line, cause we all know that dictatorships and slavery gets shit done, and I'd seen too many wishy-washy PuG's with no proper leadershi(t)p to want to be like it. We all also know that dictators may make a few people happy, and pull the effort in the right direction, but they are still despotic bastards that do what they like, and generally end up dead. So yeah I've fallen out with a lot of people and I'm beginning to suspect it will always be like this. Much as I like there are fundamentals to my personality that I can't change and the friends that see through it are very good friends, and the people who can't stand it (they shouldn't have to stand stuff in the first place) distance themselves with good reason. I'm a very honest, outspoken and superlative person (stuff doesn't plain suck, they suck with the power of the biggest black hole in the universe with me) and sometimes that leads to me being an ass.

Oh and I also tanked, and did elemental DPS on my shammie. Both were fun. I think 2009 can be seen as the year when I started healing on him seriously as well, and that was also very fun.

What was your favorite new place that you visited?

This has to be Ulduar. The boss fights are very fresh and unique, the instance itself is enigmatic, beautiful and hard enough for the level of me and my guild. Karazhan, Ulduar and Icecrown citadel shows that Blizzard have some really good game designers. Trial of the Crusader was a bit of a letdown, although the mechanics are sort of interesting still. Granted, we haven't tried many hardmodes and they change things for the better, so I guess the interesting stuff is there, but well hidden (hardmodes are HARD).

What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

Proper raiding progress - Trial was, as I said, very uninteresting and we killed all the bosses the weeks they came out except for Champions (took us a while to figure out the style of the encounter) who took us a week extra. Ulduar was halted by the summer - our guild went from 25 mans to 10 mans and we've kind of stuck to it lately. We lost a lot of raiders and recruited mostly people with gearing needs and the summer was spent farming Ulduar and making progress there - I famously posted our first Mimiron kill here, and we did some tries at Vezax and ultimately Yogg before getting sick of it. With the advent of raid lockout extensions, we have new hopes of killing Yogg. Of course, it won't be the same since we will be in at least partial ICC gear when we do it, but the damn thing has to die. It's a matter of skill, not gear (some nutcases killed him wearing only blues) so I still think it's something we need to do.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Killing General Vezax pre-nerf, probably. I mean sure, we were a lot later than most guilds, but we did it on our own terms and proved that we are a force to be reckoned with. I can't take credit for it, but I was the raid leader both for the first Mimiron and the first Vezax kills and that felt very good as well. After this, we haven't really had any bosses that have offered us any problems (except, again, Yogg, who we have a total of not more than ten proper tries at, and by proper I mean with people who's seen the fight before and made it into phase 2 a couple of times - the other nights have just been accustoming new people to the fight) but I look forward to the new wings of ICC when they are released, because the first one was pretty damn awesome and I hope it will still feel challenging cause the fights are pretty dynamic.

What was your biggest failure?

Well, I'd like to say failing to kill Yogg, but I think my failure lies at a more personal level. I've gone from bad to worse when it comes to handling social interactions and it's probably going to take me a while to be the person I want to be, especially with the arrival of the new PuG system that you are forced to use every day on all characters (yeah I know, nobody's holding a knife to my throat but still). Jerks, chiefly from other servers, really bring out the bad in me. No good reason to brood on this though, I'm gonna level alts through Outland and hopefully that will bring back some of the fun this game lost recently.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I can't really remember anything in particular except our first wipenights in Ulduar-25. Progress raiding is what makes this game great, and wiping and practising and wiping and then finally getting that kill is hard to beat. The downside of this of course is that we went from steady 25 mans to farming Ulduar-10 over the summer, which seriously burnt me out on the game and made me a bit of a jerk towards people I like.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

I think that's pretty established by now...

What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?

Tam and Chas over at Righteous orbs always write interesting and witty things. It, together with my friends' WoW blogs, are the only ones I really read except news from like wow.com and the likes.

Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2009.

Paladin tanking is fucking boring.

Why Vorla doesn't blog more

I don't want to write inane incorehent boring stuff about how I just got my new epic whatever.

I want to write about serious stuff and important thoughts and shit.

And I simply have not had time, nor arsedness, lately to do so.

However, I got caught up in some shit over at Righteous Orbs again, so there'll be post(s) incoming, be sure of it!

Tanking meme thing

So yeah, some dude at that other blog did a tanking meme, so I decided to be no worse. Only problem is I have no friends to tag or anything, so I'm a dead end when it comes to memes. Without further ado:

What is your primary tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

As with my healing, I tend to jump in to fill spots in raid 10 mans or play the lead part in PuG's led by me.

What is your favorite tanking spell for your class and why?

Avenger's shield. Ranged, tons of damage, slows, silences, AND bounces to two targets after the first one? Sign. Me. THE. FUCK. UP!

What tanking spell do you use least for your class and why?

I'm tempted to say taunts, since people rarely rip aggro off me, but that's true for most tanks (I hope) so I'd have to say... Hands. They are so situational and there's usually an easier solution than retargeting to cast (I don't think I've ever saved a raid by using a hand, to be honest, so that includes simply ignoring the situation).

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your tanking class and why?

Right now, we have extremely good survivability and Effective Health coupled with good DPS (and threat, as paladin threat largely is our DPS * Righteous Fury modifier), all in one easily played package.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your tanking class and why?

We are not as flexible as a warrior tank or druid but this is largely a quality of life issue. We rely on mana which sometimes is scarce (fight transitions will make Divine Plea wear off coupled with no healing to take advantage of Spiritual Attunement) and we can get silenced, but as long as we have mana for one ability (even our lowest threat moves) our snap threat is good enough that it won't be a problem.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?

Tanking a big-ass sucker of a boss that hits hard.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?

I'm well complimented by a druid or warrior that can fill the gaps in my toolbox. For the other meaning of this question, I enjoy tanking on my warrior a lot more than I enjoy it on my paladin, because of the aformentioned flexibility.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?

My paladin, easily. Stuck in a rotation, just one stun with a long CD, pretty lame debuffs and the fact that it's flavour of the month.

What is your worst habit as a tank?

Letting people die. Sure, they may deserve it, but there's nothing stopping me from being nice. I also tend to be pretty reckless, but I prefer wiping every now and then to meticolously planning each pull before going ahead and pressing that Hand of Reckoning + Avenger's shield macro. Also, surviving a big oshit pull after using a few tricks is a pretty neat feeling.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?

Slow people. I prefer things quick, and as we say in Swedish, "snappy". People at 60% who demand a mana break in a heroic will tick me the fuck off big time. If the healer is good to go, so is the rest of the group.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks?

Nope. We are actually way too good. Simplicity of play and huge EH are too big advantages, and I hope Blizzard fixes these in Icecrown without either making all tanks bland copies of each other or simply nerfing us.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?

I mostly just use Recount to watch my DPS contribution. I've never been in a situation where survivability analysis has been important.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?

Paladins are not off tanks! We may AoE tank pretty well and easily (our normal rotation contains two abilities that affect 3/all targets around us, and one that affects all targets that are hitting at us) but our largest advantage is our silly threat and survivability against the ilks of hard hitting bosses like Steelbreaker.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?

Exactly how everything fits together. Divine Plea, the 9696 rotation and in what order to use abilities when grabbing multiple mobs just to name a few. Paladin tanking is easy though, almost way too easy.

Effective Health or Avoidance and why?

EH if I had to choose. The stuff that will kill you at current gear and content levels is big, unavoidable hits (either through stuns or magic damage) and there is only one solution to handling those situations better: More stamina.

What tanking class do you feel you understand least?

Death Knights. I have a general antipathy against the class so I haven't rolled one, even though I said I might one day if only for the lore things in the starting area. Their resource managment and different strikes are alien to me, but I know they can move stuff with Death Grip and that's what's important.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in tanking?

Aloft and Tidy Plates for keeping track of mobs and who they are targeting. Omen obviously, and Satrina's buff frames to help me track when Divine Plea has run out and similar things. Grid setup mostly to display who has aggro so that I can use my Righteous defence macro.

I have a Righteous defence mouseover macro, and a pulling macro (Hand of Reckoning + Avenger's shield) but that's pretty much it.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

A healthy mix currently. I'm not tanking any bleeding edge content so I'm entertaining myself juggling dodge and parry and activating socket bonuses (almost regardless) rather than straight HP stacking, mostly because simply going for Stam feels boring. I don't practise what I preach in this regard, but I can tank anything my guild currently can see without any trouble what so ever, so I don't see a reason to go even further up Health Pool Lane.

The art of Shaman healing

No, not really. This is some kind of non-meme (OR IS IT DUNDUN) I'm doing so I don't have to type a proper post.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Togtok, restoration shaman.

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
I tend to jump in the occasional guild ten man raid every now and then. I also run VoA from time to time.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Riptide - it's instant, it's a HoT, and it triggers Tidal waves which is something I simply want to have up at all times. If I'm not rolling on the tank, I'm using it to snipe heal the raid. Yes, when I see incoming Prayers of Healing too. Just to smack some overhealing on that pesky Holy priest who thinks he's all that.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Used to be Healing wave tied with Chain heal but has probably been turned into Chain heal. I KNOW, it's the signature spell and everything, but I only ever use it on the likes of fights like Kologarn and Loatheb, cause people will be sufficiently grouped up for it to be really awesome. Raid healing is better done with Lesser Healing wave (boosted by Tidal waves of course) cause you have a chance to reevaluate the raid after each cast to see if something else has happened. 2.5 seconds minus haste is a long time to wait for a heal that may or may not be completely wasted or bounce the wrong way or be overwritten by those pesky Holy priests and their Prayers of Healing. Coupled with Nature's swiftness on fights with heavy, randomly incoming damage it makes for a good emergency heal for people in the danger zone.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Totems, Tidal waves and Bloodlust. We have similar throughput and longetivity compared to other classes, and we are versatile enough to work raid or tank healing as well as a druid or priest - we all need to spec differently to fully fill the two roles, but we can if we want to and have tools to do it with. What sets us apart is the totems that can be used to boost whatever setup, changed on the fly combined with the flexibility of Tidal Wave charges, and the overall überness of being able to give everyone a shitload of haste for 40 seconds.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
I'd say more healing tools, but the only one I can think of that I miss is a healing version of the mana tide totem. The normal one, even glyphed, is a bit weak to really make a difference, but a big AoE pulsing heal every two minutes or something would be awesome for XT style fights or to get the raid up to full while letting the rest of the healers relax.

That being said, having an array of a few more abilities that are marginally or situationally useful would be more fun, but we have all the tools we need to do the job well.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Out of pure habit I will answer main tank healing. I know, take me out behind the chemical sheds and shoot me. It's dead boring, but man, do we do an awesome job of it. Our on-crit effect, Earth shield (which adds oomph to glyphed LHW's), critting Lessers and hasted Healings waves respectively from Tidal waves which is triggered by Riptide all make us really good tank healers - damage reduction, a HoT that heals when it's needed, a HoT that smooths damage, good mana preservation by using the different heals depending on what happens - normal damage, use Tidal waves charges for critting LHW's, spikey damage, use the charges for hasted, big healing bombs. The Riptide consumption aspect of Chain heal serves well in some fights as well, with the raid close to the tank. You basically refresh it on the tank most cooldowns anyway so it will always be there for you, replacing a normal tank heal with a critting CH with the benefit of added raid healing. Shammies have been pigeon holed into raid healing for too long. Half our arsenal isn't used while raid healing damnit!

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
A healing druid really shines with a shaman. I don't have to waste a Lesser wave on people who are only marginally hurt, and I can bring low raid members up with hasted Healing waves while a druid is off HoT:ing everyone up.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
I reckon Holy priests, because they are so like us, with big vs small heals, a damage-smoothing HoT and damage reduction. We simply don't complete each other in the same way, but rather fill a lot of the same utility and versatility.

What is your worst habit as a healer?
I snipe heals. I'm horrible, I know, but I tend to be one of those healers that is the third or sixth healer (not necessarily in order) and watching five people doing the job you're supposed to help with just as well without you just isn't fun (not cause I'm not needed, but becuase I don't like standing around), so I snipe heals to keep myself interested.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
People who snipe heals, I mean seriously.

No, okay, I really don't know. People who stand in the fire piss me off regardless, but that's the closest I get as far as healing habits go.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Yeah. We may lack a huge toolbox, bubble damage mitigation, everlasting mana or massive throughput, but we can do any healing job without trouble. If someone dies, in our most die-hard raid healing spec we still have powerful abilities to keep the tank up.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
I flip Skada over to healing done (to roughly monitor the other healer's performance) and when the fight is over, I check overhealing, compare my ratio to the others (I usually rank high, very rarely highest, on healing done and very low, often lowest, on overhealing done) and feel smugly superior.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That we are to be pigeonholed into healing the raid. Knee jerk reaction pigeonholing is disc priests and holydins for tank healing, holy priests, druids and shamans for raid healing, but I do not hesitate to stick a shaman on tank healing.


What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
Shamans are not only about Chain Heal. This in itself has a few implications, such as using Tidal Wave charges, when and where to use Riptide and the everlasting dilemma of using big or small heals. Keeping track of Tidal wave charges, Riptide tick time, Water and Earth shield charges and totem timers can be daunting but they're all alleviated through use of properly configured addons.


If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
I sort of answered this already. I generally have a good throughput in healing done (I'm an old DPS:er, if I finish a fight with more than 0 mana I have not used all my resources - I've had raid leaders ask if I'm DPS or healer after fights cause I'll be cruising at some 1.2-1.5k DPS from shooting lightning while bored) coupled with low overhealing.

Haste or Crit and why?
I prefer haste while raid healing and crit for tank healing, but I maintain a healthy mix in my "standard" gearset.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?
I think I have a fairly good grasp of all the healers, and if someone would lend me a healer of any class and point to all the important buttons I'd probably do a pretty good job with either of them, but I tend to raid lead and that takes understanding of all aspects of the game and good knowledge of what abilities each class has.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I have Healing wave and Chain heal macroed with Nature's swiftness for oshit-style healing moments, and I have a Earth shield refresh macro, but some patch broke one of my addons and I haven't been arsed to fix it yet so for now, I'm refreshing manually. Pretty easy still seeing as I keep Riptides on the tank even while raid healing.

I use Grid for raid frames, and mainly look there while raid healing. While tank healing I use my large target frames but keep an eye on the raid every now and then (when I'm bored) and snipe heals. I use Satrina's buff frames to keep track of my Water shield and use my unit frame addon for tracking Earth shield on my focus target.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
I'm not spoilt with many gear choices but I do have a few replacements pieces I can switch in if I want extra MP5, crit or haste depending on the fight or healing assignment. My overall set is pretty well balanced as regards to throughput and longetivity, however.

The art of paladin tanking

6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...

Is that really the truth to it? Not quite. The 9696 rotation is the staple of any paladin tanking, but to think that there isn't anything else is to be severely mistaken. First off there is a constant consideration about where to start your rotation depending on what type of pull it is, and where to start it off again after say, a stun. Then there's the consideration of which parts to drop to interweave Hammer of Wrath in execute range, and while I can answer such questions when it's calm, it's another piece of gum when you're in the middle of a boss fight. Luckily the 9696 rotation fits together quite seamlessly even when you introduce another 6-second cooldown, or even when you need to start weaving in interrupts (there's three, though only two use the GCD) every now and then. It's pretty much failsafe and idiotsafe - even if you just mash everything as soon as it comes off cooldown, you'll be looking at decent survivability and threat still.

This is a reason for what irks me the most about paladin tanks. They are currently the Flavour of the Month because of their advantage in simplicity in play and greater effective health compared to other tanks (oooh, and built in Guardian Spirit). We have a slightly smaller toolbox (maybe not smaller, but a hell of a lot more situational and therefor it rarely sees use), but if you get along just fine with or without a protection warrior (who, arguably, has the bigger toolbox) then what's the problem? Sure, it may be easier to bring someone who has two two-minute cooldowns to cycle for Vezax's Surges, but 1. They nerfed him to the ground 2. External cooldowns, on-use trinkets and AD work just fine as substitutions for own on-use. Plus, you can glyph to get a 20% damage reduction cooldown as well if you want to. 3. That doesn't mean it's an insurmountable hurdle to pass by bringing something else.

Another area where paladin tanks shine is utility. We have it coming out of our ears, with Kings buffs, extra crit and the splendid Divine Sacrifice just to mention a few. The previously mentioned smaller toolbox consists mainly of our Hands, with Hand of Sanctuary most probably being the most useful one (very helpful for warlocks, who put out ridiculous amounts of DPS and only have one threat reduction cooldown), but Hand of Protection on the other tank to clear stacks of Impale after Gormokk is dead to ease the healers' load during the first bit of the Jormungar duo is not to be sneezed at.

It may well be a case of grass being greener on the other side of the fence syndrome, but I sometimes regret not going with my warrior for my tanking alt. I may well level him to 80 before Cataclysm comes (but make no effort in gearing) so that I may reach my goal of 5 level 80's by the time Cata drops (it used to be 6, then Blizzard announced that they would make troll druids a reality, which just makes me all giddy inside - trolls are after all the epitome of shapeshifting and animal worship - ZG, ZF, and ZA all attest to this together with Gundrak. Also, trolls are my favorite race of the Warcraft universe and has been since Warcraft II). For now, I will use my paladin and have fun while doing it. She may lack the mobility and lockdown capabilities of warriors, but when it comes to eating those big hits, she's just incredible.

New posts incoming

Yeah. So I kinda fucking neglected this place. I've also lately been on a huge-ass guilt trip for being an arse to a lot of people in-game lately, both random people not important to me and people I consider friends and important. Frantically grinding the daily even when you don't need any gear sort of fucks you up, apperantly. PuG:ing week in and week out also took it's toll and frankly, it wasn't beautiful in any way - I hope the person I told to "stfu and heal" will accept my apology and that the person from whom I ninja'd (yes, I bullied the raid leader into giving me stuff, that counts as ninjaing) the Anub caster shield will come around, even though the ticket didn't go through. What I'd become turned me off the game for a bit. A break was long overdue and we counted the amount of raids I'd done that lockout in /o and reached a two-figure number. While I can honestly say that doing 12 of 14 raids in a week isn't so horrible because you can easily reach eight by doing both versions of VoA, Onyxia-10 and Coliseum on two characters for a total time of maybe four or five hours, the amount of energy poured into drudging the daily heroic on two characters combined with the incredibly frustrating task of leading some 2-4 PuG's a week (I'd typically be the leader of the VoA PuG's and the guild CC-10 runs, and organised one or two 25 man Coliseum PuG's on top of that) for weeks on end will utterly and completely fuck you up. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't, and now I pay for that. It'd been worse if I'd kept it up with three characters.

Sorry for the language, but I can't think of anything else than "fucked up" to describe my current WoW-situation. Instead, I've been catching up on some reading (re-read some Pratchett stuff. Not constructive and it kept me from reading school stuff, but it's a 'not WoW' activity), getting back onto the university volleyball practises and generally trying to find my normal social life. I missed the first 'almost guild only' Onyxia 25 kill ('almost guild only' enough to make the guild front page) and I don't regret it one second - not only because I'd already downed the broodmother several times, but because I took a very good friend to the student's pub, where I had a burger and we had a few beers and caught up on stuff.

I went to the Coliseum ten man run yesterday, if only to keep in touch a bit and fill a spot. I got a new caster dagger for my mage, which makes me able to relax even more as that was one of few upgrades I have left. Overall gear stress really went away - this is what made me into a bully about the shield - the prospect of not having to care about gear for a bit was more interesting than the shield itself. I got on today (technically yesterday) to fill a spot in an Ulduar ten man run continuation. Background: We decided to give some new folks (hi Tam! Hi Iust!) a classic Absolution welcome introduction by dragging them through a horrible horrible scary raid, where they were sure to shit their pants and die, while the rest of us cruised through and were liek "lol we just totally sixteen manned XT". We've done this so many times, I think we should start using it in our advertisements.

Absolution! We throw you in at the Deep End™. Bring clean underpants.

Anyway, as a token of friendship we made an Ulduar ten for those people a couple days after the 25 man shock, where they could enjoy the more social atmosphere of Absolution and relax and learn the fights. Sure, ten-man is more individual responsibility, but it's so much easier to teach and learn in that environment, and wipe-recovery is faster, and with some rocket DPS, the bosses go down real quick and easy as well.

My trail of thought is fucked up. I was supposed to fill a spot in an Ulduar ten man today, remember? Well, said raid didn't happen. I got on a short while a couple of hours after giving up on that endeavour cause I had some auctions that expired (that totally sold, woop woop) and then went off again. I don't intend to get on until the raid wednesday, if even that. I know I have my cloth cooldowns coming off tuesday that I may or may not log in to craft. I'm at 60+ Ebonweave, 20+ Moonshroud (after handing 12 to a guildie) and 20+ Spellweave and don't need neither cash nor materials for any crafted stuff, so I don't see why I keep doing it, and as part of my 'reform' I intend to not hunt that cooldown. Not cause I in any way was obligated to do it before, just to prove to myself that I didn't keep doing them cause I had to, only because there was no good reason to not do it. I know I am not addicted in any way, but sometimes you may have to prove it to yourself and others - said others are probably the thing I am addicted to, if any - not game mechanics.

I was just gonna get on and tell you guys that eventually are reading that there will be posts, stemming from my extra time and energy, and the fact that I have tanked all bosses the game has to offer (except heroic Coliseum beyond Beasts plus Vezax and Yogg) on my incredibly pimped paladin tank (her gear, and Vorla's, came at a terrible price, as mentioned), so there's plenty of experience to pour from. Instead, here I sit pouring my heart out. Maybe I needed this more than I thought. More subjects include the noob (we brought him to Ulduar 25 man as his first raid as well, much sadistic fun was had), my thoughts on the gear system and the 'new' raid bosses in the Coliseum[sic!] and their fun and replayability in game design values, and maybe some thoughts about what has been known about Icecrown. Icecrown feels so much smaller now that Blizzard has already announced Cataclysm (which contains the most retarded shit I've ever heard of - they are truly destroying their intellectual property not only in the metaphorical sense but also in the literal).

With reassurance,

Vorla, Audacity and Togtok

Project Noob - The update

I haven't updated in a while, mainly cause of being busy at work but also from having a short break from WoW and raiding. At this very moment I'm on the last leg of this weeks marathon to reach level 80 on my paladin. My noob is level 52 now, and have been playing the auction house while having troubles finding good places to level. 50-60 is a drudge and I was blessed to do it with Recruit-a-Friend this time around.

I also haven't updated cause the noob expressed some interest in writing a piece of his own and I was kinda holding out on that. I also have made contact with another noob friend who is doing WoW tourism and asked if she would be interested. Apart from not quite knowing what to write about she sounded interested, so you might want to keep an eye out.