The Wayward Hunter is temporarily on hold while I deal with a deadline crunch at work.  It’s annoying to have to step away even before this blog has gotten on its feet, but I haven’t really had the time to game, much less write about it.  Life will clear up after Feb. 1 – expect bloggery and many new in-game missteps to follow!

Have jumped into the free-to-play twilight of Tabula Rasa, and I’m surprised and impressed.  The game has made huge leaps from the clunky beta that I played – I’m having a great time playing through the early levels.  Beau Turkey predicted that someone will step up and save TR from closing, and I hope he’s right – there’s a lot of unexplored potential in this world.

Speaking of worlds refusing to die, the third time may prove to be the charm for Myst Online as Cyan Worlds prepares to release the project into the wild as an open source project.  I can’t wait to see the cavern alive again.  Last week, I fired up the offline version of URU, and got a little choked up just loading up the Cleft.  There’s not a lot of information at the moment, but the community is already making plans, and I’ll be watching the developments closely.

The open beta for the City of Heroes Mac version has gone live.  I’ve done some poking as a trial member, and am really torn whether to subscribe or not.  The Cider-powered client is behaving very well – much better than EVE’s when it first shipped – and anything that adds to the Mac MMO world, I entirely support.  On the other hand, the game itself is not doing too much for me.  It’s pretty but empty, and I’m running into a lot of repetitive mobs and not much direction – feels very similar to the opening areas of Matrix Online.  That said, I’m playing on the test server – is there anything I should be looking for, or trying to do?

That’s all for this evening, I think – look for this week’s Progress Bar on Friday, and in the meantime, Merry Christmas!

Outside of her snazzy new haircut, Deyna has been spending most of her time on the PTR, stalking the wild shot rotation.  If there’s time before 3.0.8 goes live, she’s considering looking into this whole Survivalist thing, just for the heck of it.

Mikkela, as you can see, has been throwing herself into the Winter Veil festivities!  She’s also been getting the lion’s share of play time this week, and is now sitting one bubble short of 38.  She can see Holy Shield getting close and closer on the talent tree, and she wants.

Mykella has also been spending quite a while on the PTR’s, and remains quite happy with the Frost tree and all its toys.  It’s possible she may try a little bit of Blood if there’s time, but would miss Frost Strike if it went away.

What’s distracting me: Work, Guitar Hero III, trying not to resubscribe to EVE Online.

Mikkela after a visit to the PX-238 Winter Wondervolt!

Speaking of which – saw a new change mentioned at MMO Champion:

Arcane Shot: Mana cost lowered to match the cost of Steady Shot.

I knew one of the points of the nerf was to make us mix up our shot rotations a little more, and this makes it even a litte more interesting.  More experimentation to follow, once I get Recount and Omen installed on the PTR client.

Growl— threat generation increased by 20%

I’ve been having some serious aggro management issues since Wrath went live.  Part of it is my own fault – I’m using a turtle pet, which are a little slow at building hate, and I’m trying out Marksmanship, which is proving to do excellent and rather burst-y damage.  Put those together, and I’m yanking aggro off my pet quickly and often, even when pulling with Misdirection.  Buffing Growl should make a big difference in my ability to solo with any sort of consistency, and maybe even let me enjoy the big damage numbers instead of automatically diving for Feign Death.  (Fixing the Cower bug would also be nice.)

Anyone else out there having pet problems?  Or do I just need to bite the bullet and drop the turtle?

There’s a longer post of all the whys and wherefores in the pipeline, but for the moment I’m just going to say that I’m sad to not want to continue – Warhammer has a heck of a lot of potential, and I look forward to seeing what the game looks like a year from now.  As it stands, though, it’s just not enough to pull my interest away from WoW.

Deyna, here, is my main.  She’s my only raiding character, and as such has a fair chunk of Kara purples, with a few left-over Outland blues and greens.  (The helm is hidden to show off her new haircut…and because the Earthwarden’s Coif makes her look like a bird landed on her head!)  I know the night elf hunter is a fairly stereotypical choice, but there’s a reason for that – they’re fantastic for soloing, exploring, and just geting your feet wet.

Dey is currently level 71, Marksman-spec, and rolling with a (so far) unnamed pet turtle.  Because of time constraints, she’s been leveling slowly, but after seeing the Kalu’ak rep rewards, I think she may step entirely off the leveling treadmill and focus on the penguin pet!

Mikkela is the baby of the group, a level 32 blood elf paladin that I started just for the heck of it, and am now entirely addicted to playing.  Can’t help it – I love the Seal/Judgement mechanic, and the feeling of self-sufficiency and semi-invulnerability (except when not quite getting the AoE griding thing right).  No real goal in mind for her, just want to keep playing and see what I see.  The initial plan was to grow her into a tankadin, but I’d kind of like to learn to heal on her as well.  Who knows, maybe she can go both ways?

Entirely entertained by this picture of her, but not entirely sure why.  I think it’s the “What are you, and how do I get you out of my way?  Oh look – I have a hammer!” tilt to her head.

And the newest addition, though not the lowest level, is Mykella, my night elf death knight.  (I feel like this is turning into an elf fetish blog.  I promise it’s not intentional!)  Not a whole lot to say about her yet, as she’s just barely out of the starting area and into Hellfire Peninsula.  At the moment, she’s leveling as Frost – both because I eventually intend to tank with her, and because I’m obstinate and like doing things my way.

Mykella is not named after Mikkela – instead, she’s named after a character from the book I had been reading right before Wrath shipped. Not an original idea either – there are several more Mykellas on the Armory, including another DK!

So that’s a quick introduction to the major players – there will surely be more from time to time, as I’m a stress-induced altaholic, but these are the three I’m focusing on.