Peter's Blog

Learn from my mistakes. I'm playing World of Warcraft as a dwarf paladin:

• when offered the choice of a big axe and a two-handed hammer, if you already have a two handed hammer, get the axe. The axe is a one handed weapon and can be combined with a shield in the other hand. A hammer is a two handed weapon and apart from two taking two inventory slots with two similar hammers you cannot use it in combination with an axe (I naively looked at the damage the weapons offered would make and chose the most effective, without considering what I had already and without studying the two handed thing).
• it seems you can interact with any of the NPC's that stand around. I experimentally clicked on a gunsmith and was offered some guns to buy. Don't just talk to the ones with big yellow exclamation marks over their head.
• a right click buys a gun. Two right clicks (while fumbling) buys two guns. Once you buy two guns you can only sell one back at a vast loss.
• make sure your character can use a gun before spending all your cash on one.
• when attacked by four trolls at once RUN AWAY
• when waiting for a fight to be resolved do not look away at the TV. The enemy might move around you and your player will stop fighting because it is not facing the enemy.

Fighting seems rather dull (when there are < four trolls). You right click on an enemy and watch your character fight it to the death. There doesn't seem to be any point in trying to duck away from their blows as it makes no difference (they can appear to be standing about 8 feet apart and still manage to hit each other). I guess this may be by design of the game, it means there's less network traffic involved in fighting, a fight becomes more like playing out a script.

I have yet to successfully use a spell during a fight. They only seem to do anything when I am not fighting and fiddling around. I did use a 'jump back home' rune (?) that you can only use once an hour. This seems to be real world time as when I logged back in later I could use it again.

I was in the troll cave when some little guy asked me to join a group. I accepted and we did some troll fighting together. The group members get to share the troll loot. Is was cool except the little guy seemed to be waiting for me make the decisions and I didn't know what I was doing. A big yellow cross had appeared in the middle of my display and I was trying to figure out what it was. If the little guy is reading this (Myk?) then sorry for my ineptitude. Once I found the quest item I was looking for I ran off and left him behind. So much for group loyalty.

There was a big bear thing in the cave so I attacked it. Turns out it was another real world player. The game engine slapped my wrist, don't think I did him any damage. It's not a PvP realm so I can't just go around starting fights. When people challenge me I decline. Why don't they go to a PvP realm if they want trouble?