Tales of the Yellow Pox

I have some stories to share: Yellow Pox made another showing in the Barrens last Saturday.

My Saturday morning watching cartoons in your jammies version

Lazz's Sunday Morning New York Times with coffee version (please note that my sheeping skills are praised. Yup I'm bragging. Give me a moon and I'll sheep it.

Old Man Fuller? He is a man of talent and wisdom.

Blackmyst gives us a wave.

and the Tail? TJ couldn't join us 'cause she is battling her own Hungerer: "office paperwork and drudgery" (cue forboding music)

Pox Arcanum: LFM

EDIT 03/06/08: Hey folks, GameDame has created a great sign-up sheet if you want to join Pox Arcanum: here's the LINK


LFM for Pox Arcanum

Posted by Ess on March 5, 2008

Pox Arcanum is looking for a few more good folks to join our merry band of adventurers. We’re an alt guild for bloggers (and a few non-bloggers, spouses, and such) who are looking to hang out and play together each week. To get started, all you need to do is roll a brand new toon on Anvilmar, level them to 10, wait for your group to fill out, and then begin your questing. The original idea was that from this point on, your toon never levels without the rest of your group present. (Some teams are more flexible about this than others, so in the end, it’s between you and your other four teammates.) You do all quests, instances, and leveling together — this is the anti-pug! The idea here is not to level efficiently, get to the end game quickly, or maximize … well, anything but fun. The idea is to play together and have a good time.

We decided that we’d be self-sufficient (in other words, no transferring a sugardaddy character with boatloads of money to your lil level 10 toon). At first this was tough, but some of the Poxers have managed to play the Anvilmar AH very successfully, and now not only do we have tabards for everyone, we have two (yes two!) guild bank tabs, one completely full of items that Poxers want to share with each other. Everyone has equal access to the bank tabs, so if you see something in there that will upgrade your gear or benefit your profession, it’s yours. It seems like every time I visit the bank there’s more gold, more greens, more goodies. Folks have really embraced the communal spirit. (Hey, that sounds like a druid quest!)

We currently have three full teams of five, a few “visiting” guild members, and a team that has some open spots. These really are intended to be alts, so teams typically meet once, maybe twice, a week for a play session. This could be a regular weekly time decided by the team, or they could have a more fluid arrangement and just schedule week to week based on team availability. We have a common blog, an e-mail group, and some really nifty spreadsheets. There’s also room for you to try your own experimental grouping tactics within these teams. The Purple Poxer team, for example, is talking about leveling almost exclusively in instances. Want to try working exclusively as a group of three, and form the ultimate tank/healer/dps trinity? Go for it. Want to rally for an all druid group? Rock it! I will make you all matching leather outfits. And maybe soooomeday, we’ll have a team in Kara. Can you imagine? We shall put a pox on it!

Anyway, if you are interested, please post here or in the shared blog I linked above, and we’ll get you set up. If you have more questions, post those, too, or send me an e-mail at the address in the side bar to the right.

/pox contagious!

You can do better than spamming trade chat

Pox Arcanum, aka the Grand Experiment or the Anti-Pug, had a few starting rules:

1. we all leveled a new alt on a server we didn't have other alts on.
2. we leveled as a group.

How has this worked out in practice? We divided ourselves up into smaller groups: Purple Poxers, Green Poxed, Black Pox, and YELLOW POXLESS (no bias, girl scout's honor). Five poxers grouped together to take on instances/quests. If the rest of your group has dinged oh let's say 12...ya can't go out and merrily level yourself to 15 on your own. Gotta stay right at or below 12.

So new server, no cash and no leveling/xp farming? Whaddya do when you log on as your lonesome and not part of your group? You find a way to make some money and to level up your professions (hmmm...I guess technically you could also goof around, spam trade chat, make up Chuck Norris jokes, or dance on a mailbox...but that ain't DeadRabbits style).

We want to get some change in our pockets and some cheddar in our wallets!

This has meant that a number of Poxers have become quite proficient on flipping items on the AH, fishing for cash, leveling their profession and creating items that will sell, etc. I figured I'd pass along some of the ways I've come up with getting a pretty good chunk o' change as a level 12 with no backer.

Let's start with fishing!! Thoreau said, "Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." You can say "ha! and double ha!!" to Thoreau...you know what you are after. Fishing that will bring you some solid cash. I have a suggestion for a low-level World of Warcarft alt: fish for Deviate Fish.

First, make your way to Ratchet (easy-peasy if you are Horde, a bit harder if you are low-level Alliance but you can do it). From Ratchet, make your way to the Forgotten Pools (don't bother with the two other pools that the Deviate Fish hang out in....there be mean, nasty turtles in those pools that don't play nice). Here' s a map with the route I took from Ratchet to the Forgotten Pools. (DeadRabbit wrote the directions...her handwriting is plain awful...but when you are decomposing, handwriting is the least of your concerns).

Oh sure, pre-level 12, I had to do some ducking and weaving. There's lions and raptors and centaurs...but they can be avoided. The Forgotten Pool has NO turtles acting like piranhas. And usually there are "pools of deviate fish" which yield a higher rate of deviate fish than just fishing open water.

Why all this trouble to get a particular fish? The detailed explanation is here. But let's cut to the chase, I've been selling stacks of 20 Deviate fish for about five gold. Boo-ya!!

For more complete information on the sport of drowning worms in WoW, check out El's Extreme Anglin'

Till then, I'll be zenning out with the fishies.

The Yellow Pox Brings the Pox Down on the Pox-worthy

Hey, Yellow Pox of the Grand Experiment pug'd for the first time last night. I have posted a re-cap at the Pox Arcanum blog. So check it out. Scoot! .............................................................................................................................................................
are you still here? Aw come on, you can come back. Go read the re-cap.

EDIT: As Daxe has pointed out in the comments, the Yellow Pox "anti-pug'd" (/a slap to the head by an English major who *knows* that she should use terms correctly)

An undead mage....boo ya!!

I'd like to introduce my alt for Pox Arcanum: Dead Rabbit.

Here she is just coming out of the crypt. Frankly, she's looking a little dazed but who can blame her? Waking up in a crypt. Waking up un-dead. Finding bits and pieces of yourself missing.

Dead Rabbit: "Don't forget to mention finding bits and pieces of yourself that you haven't seen before"

Oh...ewwwww

Dead Rabbit: "Thanks a lot. Actually my liver is kinda brown and healthy looking....nice to know"

Um...but you're undead. How could it be brown and healthy looking?

Dead Rabbit: "Oops! my bad....that was just a squirrel that had nestled in my insides. He must have found his way in through that rotting hole in my rib cage."

Ewwwwwww

Dead Rabbit: "hehehehhehe"

Here's our heroine taking on her first serious mob: the Night Web Matriarch. It's a different sort of job than what she use to do when she was amongst the living.

Dead Rabbit: "Yup, this is much better than being an administrative assistant. I spent my days in front of a computer or....ooooh the excitement....filing. Here I am undead and a mage"

How'd you become a mage?

Dead Rabbit: "No clue. Looks like the hand out job assignments here without interviews and such"

Cool! Interviews suck.

Dead Rabbit: "I'm wondering though. Is there a dental plan? What are the employee benefits? What's my retirement look like?"

Well, since you're undead, I think you are already "retired"

Dead Rabbit: "You think your funny, dontcha?"

And as far as a dental plan, I'm pretty sure you can just scavenge whatever parts you need from the local graveyard.

Dead Rabbit: "Management always finds a way to be cheap, huh?"

And as far as employee benefits, you get to be a mage. And wreak some serious havoc. You are definitely a bad ass.

Dead Rabbit: "ooh, ok well that's just cool"

Speaking of employee benefits, you did that Matriarch in.

Dead Rabbit: "I kicked her spider ass. And, you know, she was a good loser. She gave me a nifty webbed cloak as a present. Made out of spider webs."

Spider webs.....oh....um....that's nice.

Dead Rabbit: "Yeah they make the cape kinda soft. I think it's pretty."

Hey, I'm wondering. Where did the Matriarch have that cape hidden? I mean I don't see her carrying a bag or anything?

Dead Rabbit: "Oh she's got a squirrel like I do. She put the little rodent to work. He knits these capes up for her. I'm thinking of getting my squirrel a profession too. I mean it could be like rent for resting in my insides."

Mangement is always cheap, ain't it?

Dead Rabbit: "hardy har har har"