The One With Random Facts About Me

In the comments of my last blog post, the kind-hearted Anou from Diary of a Gnome Spy nominated me for a Liebster Award. I have not been blogging much lately at all but I have been reading Liebster Award posts all over my favorite blogs, so I was completely familiar with it but never expected to see myself nominated. Also very happy that I was introduced to a new blog in the process, as I had not read Diary of a Gnome Spy before but have now added it to my feed. Thanks, Anou.

So the rules are (in addition to my paragraph above) I’m supposed to answer the 11 questions Anou provided me with, provide 11 random facts about myself and then nominate 5 bloggers and write questions for them. Well, I hate to be that person, but I am choosing not to nominate 5 other blogs. I apologize. It’s just that I feel it’s been spread through the community really well by now and one of the reasons my blog posts have diminished is due to time constraints so I am selfishly choosing not to take the time to write 11 new questions and find 5 blogs that haven’t been nominated yet. It’s nothing personal.

My answer to Anou’s questions:

1. Which is your favorite in-game quest line? Like, one you don’t want to miss on any alts as you level up?
Hands down, it’s Gnomebliteration

2. Have you ever just spontaneously started to role play; for example, stood around some tables in an inn and offered to take peoples’ order?
I haven’t ever actually role played in a traditional sense, but I certainly try to avoid running into people or standing on top of people at all. Additionally, all of my different characters do have their own personalities and each dress a certain way and ride specific mounts, etc. That’s probably not typical of people who don’t rp at all, so it makes me think it’s a tiny bit of rp I do.

3. What music do you chose to listen to, to accompany you in your epic battles? Do you play with the game music on? Or do you mute music and play your own in the background?
Weirdly enough, I’m a huge music lover but I don’t play any music while gaming. When I’m at the computer I am usually gaming on one monitor and trying to keep up with Twitter on the other monitor as well as catch up on blogs and news.

4.Were you a gaming virgin before your adventures in WoW, like me? Or had you already played other games, or MMO’s previously?
I was not a gaming virgin as I had played years of console games and I had played a few pc games such as Myst and The Dagger of Amon Ra. WoW was my first ever mmo (because I’m not counting 2 weeks of Runescape).

5. In your opinion, should Worgens have been added to the Horde’s races, or are they suited to be Alliance?
Of course they’re suited for the Alliance… they’re werewolves which means they are humans who become / shape-shift into wolves. The legend of the werewolf is clearly what Blizzard based Worgens off of, further evident in the fact that you can choose to shift to your human form when not in combat. I never have understood why people think they should be Horde. They have to be the same faction as humans

6. If you were brave enough to display your colors publicly, what symbol or quote could someone see stuck to your car’s bumper?
I actually already have an Alliance symbol, a bumper sticker that says “My other car is an EPIC mount” and a bumper sticker that says “My ❤ belongs to Stormwind"

7. Say you were an über rogue and could stealth past anything, what would you do/where would you go first?
I’m not certain if this means in game or outside of game, but I’m going to answer it outside of game. I would say I’d use my stealth ability to sneak into Blizzcon because going last year was totally amazing and I’d love to be able to get back there again.

8. Do you have a favorite companion pet out at all times? If so, is it always the same one? How do you choose?
I switch my pets out quite often and each toon will use different pets because of different personalities. Some of my favorites are a sapphire cub given to me by a friend, the cynder kitty given to me by a friend, my sewer rat from Dalaran named Chewie, my Netherwhelp Hatchling because they’re rare, my vampiric batling named Vinnie from Prince Tenris MirkBlood in Karazan

9. What is your #1 in-game pass-time? Auction farming? Transmogs? Being trendy in Trade chat? Exploring old zones? (etc.)
Either herbing or mining while just enjoying chatting with my guildies and friends

10. Is there a piece of art somewhere in game, a sculpture, a painting, that caught your interest and opened your eyes to the tiny details of WoW?
I suppose it would have to be the Darnassus bank since Elfi was my first ever character and that’s the first major city she came to. Once the tree that contains the bank came into view and I noticed it was shaped as a bear and bird, I was totally awed.

11. What real life thing do you tend to set aside for WoW?
Housework

Now it’s time for 11 random facts about me:

1. I am left handed but I wear my watch on my left wrist (and I wear it with the watch face turned to the bottom of my wrist). For some reason people think this is weird. Apparently you’re supposed to wear your watch on the opposite hand because it gets in the way while writing. Even weirder that I wear my watch basically upside down. But here’s something you should know … when you’re left handed the fact that you live in a right handed world and you have to sit in school desks built to support your right hand and use a spiral notebook that’s spiraled on the left side already make it fucking difficult to write. My watch isn’t making it any harder.

I’m glad we could have this talk. Moving on.

2. I’ve been dragged from my house in my pajamas, handcuffed, read my rights, shoved into a cop car and hauled to jail. When I got there I was fingerprinted, mugshotted and actually handcuffed to a concrete bench. If you’re interested in finding out why, you can read the whole story HERE

3. I spent several years in my 20’s writing dark, twisted poetry. It’s probably stuff that everyone else would think is stupid, but I’ve kept them all and I still enjoy reading them.

4. While pregnant with me my mom craved watermelon and ate it constantly. While I do like watermelon flavoring in candy, I do not ever have any desire to eat watermelon

5. Had I been born a boy, my first and middle name were going to be John Denver because those were the first names of both grandfathers. Thankfully I am a girl.

6. In high school I was voted “Most Intelligent”. Hahahahaha. Not nearly as impressive when you learn my graduating class consisted of a whopping 33 people.

7. I cry more for pride than I do for sadness. I can see a dead rabbit on the road and forget about it in seconds but I cry like a baby every time the National Anthem is played or when I watch 1st graders sing a Christmas program, etc. And anything military related? Forget about it, I’m sobbing.

8. I tend to be overly wordy in written forms of communication (not that you guys could tell, right?) but in person I’m pretty quiet and don’t say much. Unless I’m zinging someone with some quick sarcasm.

9. My eyes have changed colors and still do sort of change colors. I was born with blue eyes and had bright blue eyes until my early 20’s when they changed to grey eyes with dark blue around the outside edges. In my 30’s they shifted from grey lined in blue to a sort of hazel. Except mine are flecked with green, gray and blue instead of green, gray and brown like typical hazel eyes. The dominant color seems to depend on what shirt I’m wearing.

10. I’ve never once solved a Rubik’s cube without taking it apart and rebuilding it solved

11. My favorite food is ice cream. Oh, and donuts. Also hamburgers.

The One Where I’ve Had A Bit Of Good Luck

The feeling of excitement from being able to attend Blizzcon may not wear off for a while, but things have returned to normal regardless. I’m back home, back to work, back to the Timeless Isle and working on using LFR to practice SoO in the hopes I might one day get a chance to go through there on flex.

The first step, however, was to actually finish the last stage of ToT which I had never completed. I really have no good excuse for that. It was combination of laziness, not having friends to queue up with, too busy standing idly in Stormwind chatting with my guildies, herbing.. you know, all the standard excuses. But I took care of the problem by queueing immediately and got that out of the way so I could head into SoO knowing I had done everything prior. I’m totally glad I decided to do it too because my Treasures of the Thunder King bag contained a Cracked Primal Egg and in 3 days I had myself a shiny new Red Primal Raptor mount. (Note: these things aren’t very red at all)

In between trying to actually earn valor on Elfi for the purpose of upgrading gear and finally being respectable and trying to get back into the habit of keeping up with my Tillers farm on all 3 of my level 90’s, I did manage to get some time in on the Timeless Isle and was super excited to have 2 pets drop for me this week. Hooray for good luck!

Still have a lot of pets and mounts on my wishlist but these are a fine start. Maybe my luck will stick with me a little longer. I’d love to get the Ruby Droplet so I don’t have to make my way up to Garnia anymore.

My Blizzcon Experience: Part 1.5

Blizzcon is quickly becoming old news and I still haven’t written my post about all the wonderful people I met, so I apologize in advance for the delay. I hope to have that one published no later than Tuesday so I can move on to talking about other things. Speaking of talking, this post requires very little talking. This is simply where I’m tossing up my cell phone photos that I had taken to update my Facebook page and a few that went out on Twitter. Some of these you’ve not seen before, some of them are almost exact dupes of pics I took with my Nikon.

Inside Hilton lobby on Thursday night

Accidentally meeting Draynee while checking out her awesome costume

Navispammed irl

Darkmoon Rabbit cosplay

Deluxe fries from food truck

Inside Hilton lobby on Saturday night

The One With The Polite (Hopefully) Rant

If I were a better player and had a quicker reaction time than I do, I’d likely enjoy PvP. Running around pwning the opposite faction is probably a lot of fun and the Bloodthirsty title would be an awesome one to have. I think it would be less fun to run around and gank your own faction, but that’s just my opinion and it’s certainly not based on experience. However, I can say for certain that not willfully participating in PvP and choosing to live life peacefully on a PvE server yet dying because you accidentally flagged yourself is not fun. Neither is it fun to die because a member of the opposite faction purposely stepped into your AoE to force you to be flagged. When these types of incidents happen I stubbornly just stand there until they kill me. I refuse to put up a fight because I want them to know they just killed someone who was not interested in their little games. I don’t want them to brag about how they owned me; I want them to know they killed someone who wasn’t even defending themselves. Do they actually see it that way or feel bad because of it? No. I’m quite certain they are laughing hysterically and hoping I’ll run back and rez before the 5 minute timer wears off so they can kill me again. Sometimes, because I foolishly believe every person has kindness buried somewhere within, I do rez and they do kill me again.

Sigh.

This subject is on my mind a lot these days thanks to Bloody Coins. I am still limited in my playtime currently, but in my few excursions to the Timeless Isle I have been killed while AoE’ing a rare and getting flagged. But hold on, I’m not actually going to complain about that (well, I complain out loud with obscenities at the time it happens but it fades). It’s inconvenient and I don’t love it, but I don’t begrudge anyone who’s interested in gathering the coins for doing what they have to do.

But hold on again, I am going to complain about 1 specific incident that happened to me a few days ago. See, the Neverending Spritewood is the purple crystal that spawns near the tree that has all the Nice Sprites dancing around it and clicking on the crystal triggers them to turn into Angry Sprites. Killing Angry Sprites triggers some Scary Sprites and killing those gives you a chance to receive the rare Dandelion Frolicker pet. Did you know the Neverending Spritewood is only clickable once per day by each character? It is. If you get lucky enough to spot it and click it you can’t click it again until the next day, even if you see it again.

So I am going to complain about the fact that the other day, during a rare 1 hour chance I had to login to the game, I was robbed of my chance to try and get the pet to drop by a Night Elf druid from my own server MY OWN FACTION. I happened to spot the crystal and saw no one near it. I ran over, clicked it and prepared myself to pull a group of the angry sprites. I approached them, targeted one and started my biggest AoE. A split second later, I saw a someone run up in cat form and the next thing I know I am dead. I had only gotten 2 of the sprites killed. Now someone flagging themselves and then wandering into the midst of my AoE while I’m helping bring down Houlon is annoying, but when I rez I still get to loot Houlon. Same with the rest of the rares on the Isle. But in this particular instance it’s not just you getting your Timeless Coin and me still getting credit for what I was doing. It was cruel, in my opinion. Days later I am still upset about it, which is silly and certainly won’t change anything, but it’s true. Maybe this person didn’t realize I wouldn’t be able to simply start the event over. Maybe she did and just didn’t give a fuck. I’ll never know. I passively, aggressively whispered her to tell her how disappointed I was but I got no reply, which is probably for the best. No need for me to turn into an asshole just because I perceived someone was being an asshole to me. I did immediately tweet her name out and I apologize for that. Twitter is so instant it makes it easy to try and name shame there. I’ve done it more than once, but I don’t like myself for doing it.

What is the purpose of all this rambling? I just wanted to get it off my chest so maybe I can stop being so pissed off about it. In a couple of weeks I will be able to start playing more again and there will be more chances to trigger the event and try to get the pet drop. It’s no big deal, right?

Grrrrr….

The One With The Fireflies

I am currently taking a class titled “Online Games: Literature, New Media and Narrative” where we’re comparing and contrasting how the various forms of media (books, film, games) tell a story. The class is centered around Lord Of The Rings not only because it is such a rich, epic story but also because it is a prime example of a story that has succeeded across multiple forms of media.

I won’t bore you with a lot of details about the class or my recent experiences as a first time player in the LotRO MMO, (though the game is beautiful and I am totally going to post some screenshots at the bottom of this entry) but I did want to share a bit about this week’s discussion question which Professor Clayton posted on our class forums. The question was basically asking us to describe our experiences exploring Middle Earth in-game and wanted our opinions on whether we enjoyed exploring and discovering the world slowly or if we preferred opening the maps, seeing all the locations and getting there as quickly as possible. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.

Now I haven’t yet spent much time exploring things in LotRO because the new Timeless Isle here in WoW keeps calling to me, but I do know my answer to this question because it’s the same answer I would give regarding any game, including WoW. I AM AN EXPLORER. Do I take quick flight paths? Sure. Do I use my hearthstone a lot and use special items in game to transport me to places instantly (Shroud of Cooperation, I am looking at you)? Sure. But I also spend way more time than most people skipping along through the nooks and crannies of the zones just to see what I can see. I may not do a completely thorough exploration my first 2, 15 or 35 times through a zone – after all I’m on a mission to level, gear up, find herbs, battle pets, etc. But at some point, I’m going to waste hours and hours just looking in every cave, checking out every house and trying to jump up every mountain as high as it will let me.

Is that the most efficient use of my time? Hell no. I am terrible at doing dailies, profession cooldowns, dungeons and the like on a daily or sometimes even weekly basis. I’m aware I don’t always prioritize my game time correctly and I’m also aware these things are why I will never be ahead of the curve. It’s easy to see that here on this blog where you will find me posting a screenshot about an achievement I just got that everyone else had 6 weeks ago. Some of you may shake your head and wonder why I don’t wander off and play something else, something that moves a little slower or is simply a fluff game instead of the srs bzns that is WoW. Well to those people I say … if it weren’t for me derping around and wasting time, how would you ever know that in Paoquan Hollow, inside Master Bruised Paw’s house, you can find a jar of fireflies sitting on the table?

What is your view on how important exploration is to your gaming experience. Do you like maps that are empty until you discover a new area of the zone or would you prefer everything be visible to you in all zones right away? Once you do discover an entire zone map, do you ever come back at any time to look at things slower and notice more details or is it just a terrain you move through simply to get to where you are going? Does it help with immersion? Do you even care about immersion? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments OR better yet, write up your own post about whether or not exploration is a part of your game.

And now I will sneak in a few of the LotRO screenshots I have taken so far. I promise this will not be a habit (unless the people demand it).

My New Favorite Thing

I’ve been mounting a lot of things lately but I have one more screenshot I just had to share. It’s no secret that red is my favorite color so of course I’ve been lusting after the Ruby Panther for the longest time now. Thanks to my dear friend, Grace, I now have one of my very own. The poor dear sent it to me from a toon she doesn’t even play anymore after farming all the mats and making it specifically for me. She doesn’t even own one herself. This is on top of the Sapphire Cub and Jade Owl pets she had previously sent me. All without taking any money or mats from me. Isn’t that ridiculous???? Seriously, she’s so freaking amazing; I don’t deserve her. But you better believe I’m keeping all the shit she sends me.

Thanks, Grace. For the pets, the mount and the friendship. And thanks also to our friend More, who entertains Grace and I in vent and in game. He actually spoiled me with a Cinder Kitty several months back. You guys rock! Your generosity and the fun we have ALMOST makes up for the fact that you’re filthy hordies. ALMOST.

The One Where A Gamble Paid Off

When I first started playing WoW, The Burning Crusades was already live so my first experience with an expansion launching was Wrath of the Lich King. By the time Wrath was ready to be launched, I had already fallen in love with the game and recognized that a new expansion was a big deal. I took the night off work and stood in line at a local Game Stop to purchase a copy of Wrath at midnight. Because I was one of the first 100 through the door (number 12, to be exact) I got a free poster of Arthas. Regrettably, I did not purchase the Collector’s Edition because I had not reserved one 8 months in advance and they had no extra copies available at that store at midnight. I blame this on my noobness. As soon as I realized how cool the Collector’s Editions are, how much this game means to me and how (at least it seemed at the time) uncommon the CE’s are, I vowed to never make that mistake again. I have the Collector’s Editions of both Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria because I was smart enough to put my name on a list well in advance for both of those launches, though it does seem now they are easier to come by.

Over the years, I have always stared longingly at Amazon and Ebay as Collector’s Editions of World of Warcraft (vanilla), The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King were listed for hundreds and hundreds of dollars each. Even though I could technically afford them, I just couldn’t allow myself to pay such large amounts of money for a game. Especially a copy of a game I already own a version of. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to never getting a chance to own the original game (vanilla) Collector’s Edition because of it’s extreme rarity, but I did decide to do a quick search for TBC and Wrath every few months just in case I found someone who didn’t realize what they had. Over the past year I had even allowed myself to consider buying a used copy with an already used game code as long as the box contained all of the other items that were originally included. But those would have to cost even less to justify purchasing them.

Cut to two weeks ago when I happened to think about doing a quick eBay search at work and found a deal that seemed too good to be true. A mint, unopened, factory sealed version of The Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition for a buy it now price of $165 and free shipping. Oh the agony. It’s a bit much to spend but it was an amazing price for that product IF the product was actually as described. To make matters even scarier, the seller had only 2 reviews… he was basically a noob seller, an unknown. Both of his reviews were positive, but still that’s a big risk. After a quick question posed to Twitter and a few hours of agonizing over it, I decided to take the risk. It’s tax return season so I had more extra money than usual and I knew PayPal offered a buyer’s protection for purchases that weren’t shipped or advertised correctly. I clicked the button and bought it.

I didn’t receive any type of confirmation from the seller himself, just the email from eBay letting me know my purchase was successful. It was several stressful days before I got an update the item had shipped and then a week of waiting for it to arrive. But finally, last Friday, The Burning Crusades Collector’s Edition was in my hands. Unfortunately, I was rushing out of town for 3 days and while I could have taken it with me, I decided to wait until I was back home to break it open and see if it was truly an unused game code.

I’m happy to report it was exactly as advertised. I am now the very proud owner of all the items included in the box (all still completely wrapped and unopened, as was the box itself) and I have a new Netherwhelp pet in my collection. I still don’t know that I’ll ever get this lucky with a copy of the vanilla CE, but after a few months have passed I will start watching again for a copy of Wrath. I just hope I get as lucky as I did this time around.

After attaching the code to my account last night, I knew that as soon as I opened the pet in the mail I would get the achievement. I positioned myself to capture the perfect screenshot but as you can see, at the moment I grabbed the pet from the mail, Elfi turned around and put her back to the camera. Grrr. Oh well, it’s not like I can get a redo, so it is what it is. I’m still super excited. And yes, the seller got excellent feedback from me.

The One Where I Wonder What’s Wrong With Me

This is nothing new, I wonder this all the time. But it’s back on my mind thanks to the news that patch 5.2 will be released in a couple of weeks and I am not prepared for it. Again. As usual. I would love to figure out why I stay so behind. I spend A LOT of hours logged into this game over the course of a week and still I’ve never capped Valor, don’t remember to tend my farm every day, have yet to step foot in LFR, only run an average of 2 heroics a week, still don’t have my Cloud Serpent mount, etc. etc. The list goes on and on.

I can’t blame it on transmogging because I only have 1 (recently completed) transmog outfit for 1 character. I can’t blame it on pet battles because I only have 1 team formed and they are at level 15ish. As far as dailies go, I hit exalted with the Tillers and got everyone to be my best friend very early on but since then the only other rep I’ve completed is Golden Lotus. I haven’t even started several of them. And this is my main, Elfindale, I’m talking about. I have a level 90 on the Horde side who’s accomplished nothing more than opening up all the farm plots. And no, I don’t tend my farm every day on that toon either, thanks for asking.

What the fuck do I do with my time in-game? It’s something I’ve been asking myself for the past 5 years. There is something about WoW that causes me to develop situational ADD, I swear (does not affect me when I do heroics or actual raiding). I log in with no sense of “first this, then this, then this” and I find myself mousing over other players in the area because I like what they’re wearing or to see the name of the mount they’re riding. Then I check my mail. Then I stare at Accountant for 5 minutes and wonder why I don’t make more gold than I do (psst.. it’s because I don’t do enough dailies or heroics or anything at all really).

Then I fuck around with all the stupid shit I carry in my bags that I have no use for but cannot bring myself to delete because OMG THE NOVELTY OF THIS THING (I’m looking at you, Ancient Amber). Then I go to the bank and organize it and look at all the stupid shit I have in there which I have no use for. I stand there several minutes and contemplate deleting things. Then I realize I should be doing something, so I head out to the Shrine’s patio and survey the vast land of opportunity before me. Then I pull up my bags again and wonder if I should store some of the useless crap in the bank with the other useless crap (volatile orbs, landsharks, ugh). I’m also chatting with the guild and/or real ID friends during all of this, which likely slows me down a hair but I will never stop doing. In fact, I would love to have more real ID friends for chatting. Battletag Elfi#1350. Hit me up.

Now where was I? Oh that’s right, standing around not accomplishing anything. I tab out to catch up on Twitter. Tab back in. Remember I wanted to look up how to get that cool object/mount/gear/pet, tab back out to google it. Read every comment on WoWhead just because they’re there. Tab back in. Catch up on guild chat. Scroll through last few minutes of general and trade for God knows what reason. Oh hey, I should fly out to the farm. Take flightpath, tab out to catch up on Twitter. Jump into a Twitter conversation and get ignored (off-subject, but it happens to me a lot). Tab back into game & forget why I flew to this spot. Hearth to Shrine. Immediately remember I was going to farm. /facepalm. Take flight path back. Decide I should gather some herbs while I’m in the area. Spend the next 30 minutes alternating between gathering herbs and tabbing back out to see if I’m actually going to get a reply on Twitter. Spoiler alert: I usually don’t.

Tab back into game, decide I’m tired of gathering herbs. Hearth back to Shrine. DAMMIT I WAS GOING TO FARM. Maybe I should actually run a heroic or do something useful. Queue for heroic, fly to farm. Decide I would be better off working on my DK alt because I really want her to be at 90 before patch 5.2 drops. Switch to DK alt without ever taking care of my farm. Quest on DK alt for a few minutes then decide to head to Stormwind to see if I can make money playing the AH. Stare at AH for 20 minutes and realize I don’t have enough starting capital to do much playing on the AH. Head back out to quest. Decide I should have looked for cool transmog stuff for my DK because everyone needs to be transmogged at level 70, right? Hearth back to Stormwind and look at AH some more. Reprimand myself for not leveling faster, head back out for questing.

By this time, I haven’t eaten dinner, haven’t done any exercising, need to get ready for work and once again, accomplished nothing. I mean, obviously I’m exaggerating this a bit (no, not really) and not every day is quite this ridiculous (but close). I’m seriously considering actually writing out a daily action plan. Something along the lines of:
1. login to Elfindale, immediately queue for heroic
2. while waiting on queue, immediately fly to farm and ACTUALLY TEND FARM
3. if still waiting on heroic queue, do Klaxxi dailies (I’m close to exalted with them, amazingly)
4. While flying to Dread Wastes, pick herbs
5. After heroic, login to Krisstalys (lvl 90 Horde) and tend farm
6. Login to Morrissa (DK alt I want to get to 90) and queue for random dungeon
7. while waiting for dungeon, complete quests

It seems silly that I would need to write down such simple things and I often wonder if I would even actually follow the plan if I did ever write it up. It’s not like I’m incapable of intelligent thought, I should be able to just do these things because I know they need to be done. Which is why I swear WoW triggers some sort of attention deficit for me. I just don’t seem to be able to resist getting distracted by all the shiny things.

I am curious if any others out there find they have a similar issue OR if any of you have some advice on how you manage to do more in 2 hours a night than I do in 4 hours a night. I’m not even kidding, I want to know. Because I’m really disappointed that I probably won’t have my DK to 90 before the patch and that a new raid will once again come out before I ever see the current raid. I need to figure out how to play more efficiently. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because both of my level 90 toons are Balance druids and as such, they are not exactly lean, mean killing machines. I’ve always sworn I hate melee and have no interest in bear or cat but since I’ve been working on my death knight so much recently, I’m starting to change my opinion about melee a bit. Maybe I should consider a bear off-spec for Elfi so that dailies and other general things would go quicker. I often wonder if the fact that everything – including killing vermin on my farm – takes so damn long and is so painful sort of subconsciously keeps me from running out there and doing what I need to do. Of course, I’m not in the best gear thanks to my lack of gathering Valor and my absence from heroics and LFR. And there’s a terrible cycle to be stuck in… without gear I suck, because I suck I don’t do the things that could get me gear. Awesome.

What do you guys do to maximize your efficiency in game? How many people think druids suck? What advice can you guys give me on overcoming this problem?