First raid, or at least first gathering of 10 people ostensibly working for a common goal...

Logged on last night just in time for a spontaneous Archavon 10-man in Wintergrasp.

It was pretty awesome, seeing as how this was our first guild raid at level 80. There’ve been some semantics over whether Vault is actually a raid, seeing as how it’s made up of like 5 trash mobs and one boss, but I’m of the mind that if you have to coordinate more than 5 people in a raid group and concentrate on a unique boss that takes more than a few minutes to defeat, then it’s a raid.

A pretty basic and easy raid, but a raid nonetheless. I liked the falling rocks and the stacks of damage we took when Archavon shot out the stone spikes. We’ll return for the 25-man version once we get enough 80s, but for now that’s difficult to plan since access is dependant on whether we hold zone.

Following that, we split into two groups and hit heroic Nexus for some easy emblems. My DPS remains among the highest in the guild these days, but I’m starting to get nervous about the coming Beast Master nerf. Along that line of thought, I was thinking yesterday about experimenting with Marksman or Survivalist specs, and lo and behold, today we get a nice discussion of some (apparently flawed) experimentation with the Survivalist tree over at Big Red Kitty. Good food for thought.

And finally, my Xbox 360 finally came home yesterday! The invoice didn’t provide an explanation of what went wrong or how they fixed it, just a brief, “Here’s your system. Sorry about that. Here’s a free month of Live.” Who knows how long the fix will last?

It was funny, too, since I was in the middle of Archavon when the UPS guy showed up. I’ve been in full bachelor pad mode while the girlfriend is busy, so I’ve got my desk parked in front of my 37” LCD TV, and the computer hooked up to it. WoW looks gorgeous, and the UPS guy looked over my shoulder actually said, “Wow, I wish I could play World of Warcraft on a TV like that.” I think I mumbled something like, “Yeah, it’s pretty sweet,” and signed his electronic pad.

I wish I’d been more congenial, seeing as how it was an opportunity to meet a random WoW player in RL, but it was in the middle of my hallway, and I felt self-conscious about my apartment manager’s thin door being three feet away. Plus, the guy was probably busy and I was in the middle of a raid. Still, funny how it happened.

So after the raid and heroic last night, I logged off and fired up the White Beast. Had to download a few updates, reconfigure my avatar and reset my account with Live, but on the whole my 360 appears to be in working order. Popped in Gears 2 and oh my fucking god, what a beautiful game. Everything is a massive step forward from what was already the best action shooter I’d ever played (and yes I rate the first Gears over CoD4). The dialogue, the training, the opening sequence, the spectacular fucking visuals. GAAAH! Love it. Started on hardcore mode, and got to the 3rd part of what I assume is chapter one (if this installment follows the same storytelling style as the last) before I died. It was bitch death, too, seeing as how I tried to chainsaw a locust and the gun wouldn’t engage fast enough. Hope to be playing a lot more of it in between WoW heroics and preparing for our first Naxxramas run in two weeks.

Other games I need to get my hands on: Left 4 Dead, possibly the 360 version of Fallout 3, and LoTR: Conquest.

Penny Arcade did not seem impressed by Conquest, and called Pandemic’s previous Star Wars: Battlefront series “pierced tins of rotting meat, swollen with the byproducts of their putrefaction.” Harsh. I loved ‘em to death. But then, I’m a mostly die-hard Star Wars fan who enjoyed The Force Unleashed. Many people also didn’t like that game. I’m an apologist for many things Star Wars. I will not, however, back the new “Clone Wars” TV show. There’s some rotting meat for ya.