I'm a slayer, ask me how.

When I first heard about Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard's new online collectible card game, I rolled my eyes. I had never played any CCGs in real life and I couldn't imagine myself playing one virtually.

Then my brother texted me about the open beta and asked if I was going to try it. So I found my old Battle.net account, logged in and downloaded the game to just give it a try. And now I'm sucked into it.

I'm sure veteran card gamers will probably feel the same way about Hearthstone as most hard-core MMORPG players feel about WoW - it is very accessible, easy for casual players to pick up. That's why I love it. You can launch this game and start playing through the tutorial and you'll have the basics down in minutes. You can stay in the "Practice" zone for as long as you like to work on strategy and earn cards for your main deck, but the real fun begins when you start to challenge actual players. Since it is all linked to your Battle.net account, all your WoW friends automatically populate your player list so it would be easy to suck friends into card battles, maybe while waiting for the rest of your guild to log online for game night.

The cards all have that great WoW art look and the sound effects and sayings from your favorite in-game characters are played with each card.

I gave up on WoW itself a long time ago, I couldn't justify the cost vs actual time I spent gaming. It was fun but my Xbox was gathering dust and it felt silly to keep paying for the same game over and over when I had brand new games to try. But Hearthstone is free! As far as I can tell, it's going to be free.

Now, you can **pay** to get extra special cards, and I haven't really experienced a game against someone of that level yet. Already you can give Blizzard real money and earn a limited edition card for when the game officially launches. I've only played the Casual matches and they have been lots of fun but I am thinking that the Ranked matches in the Arena will be a lot rougher and you will find the people willing to pay real money for virtual cards playing in that section.

But right now I'm having a hella lot of fun trying to complete my rogue deck and playing against random opponents. If you're looking for a fun way to kill 30 minutes, download the demo and play a few games (nice feature: there is a clock in the game so you can see what time it is).

Have you tried Hearthstone yet? What do you think?

The Verne "Mini Me" Troyer World of Warcraft TV spot was released today.

I still think the idea that destertale and I had at work would have been funnier. I mean, having the midget play a gnome, pfffft not very imaginative.

Having him pay a female blood elf. That would be hilarious. Or perhaps it was too true and they were afraid to scare people....

Katchoo worked on making friends with the Consortium today then went questing with simontrueheart for a bit. I dusted off poor Griddie and went for a quick run in the pirate cove with a guildmate. Warriors are so complicated! Especially after playing a totally OP Mage. ;-) And Griddie's gear is pretty crap because her blacksmithing is so low and nothing good has dropped for her. Except for her uber-purple shield. But it is hard to do damage with a shield. She looks cool though.

See...now I really want to make a male Blood Elf, if only to watch him DANCE!

Here's a video someone put together of the WoW characters' dances and their "source materials" side by side!

Uh oh - a new World of Warcraft expansion has been announced! Wrath of the Lich King

I just love that one of the new things is "NEW HAIRSTYLES!" hahaha.

"Yes, yes, this gameplay and new level cap is all well and good, but I am just sick of having last years hair!"

I still need to level Katchoo up to 70 and get Inara some fattie loots. Of course, if this expansion is like the last one, I could just wait around until it comes out and getting better green drops than anything purple I might find now. *snicker*

So, World of Warcraft has this new feature online called "The Armory", where you can look up your characters and check their stats out etc. I'm easily amused (as well you know) and thought I'd post my babies profiles (I figured spitefairy and destertale might be amused.).

Oh, and note, the avatars used on these pages do not represent what my characters actually look like. (You can see actual pics of a few of them on my Flickr page.)

Inara: Gnome Rogue
Katchoo : Gnome Mage
Griddie : Gnome Warrior
Tallywa : Draenei Paladin

My favorite thing is that there are a TON of Inara's out there, and a handful of Katchoos, but I have the one and only Griddie in all of WoWzor land! Huzzah! (special thanks to Peter Abrahams for writing 'Down the Rabbit Hole' and giving Ingrid such a great nickname...)

You'll also notice that I have a problem leveling anything that isn't a gnome. What can I say? They are just too cute. I really wanted to level Tallywa, I really did, but she's just so...not a gnome. I'm trying though! Griddie is sort of in limbo while she waits for Megalodon (one of jimithingy's alts) to come back into play. Because warriors have lots of armor, but they need a squishy caster around to do all the damage.

So, WoWz has taken over my after-work life yet again. yesterday, I took little Inara into the Dark Portal to face the first new tasks of the Burning Crusade. It was Lag-o-licious over there, but still very cool. I'll probably try to go back in tomorrow afternoon, maybe it will be a little bit quieter.

Tallywa hit level 11 today and did the "Kessel Run" quest (yes, nerd humor abounds) where she got to ride the new Dranaei mount for 15 minutes. So I took screencaps to commemorate her journey, since it's a LONG way to level 40...and $100 gold. (though I'm sure if she asks nice, Inara will hook her up.)

P.S. sorry about all the WoWz babble for all you non-addicts. I'll post something more interesting this week, I promise! Like the fact that Vox now lets you do personalized banners, which means I have yet another blog I can customise and then forget about! huzzah!

The Bullpen downed Vael for the very first time last night. Here's a pic of the victorious group. (You can see Inara right up front and center with her little green buns). jimithingy's character, Wezzles, is slightly to the right of Inara, in the back (with the dragon head hat on, by the tree-form druid).

That was a real fun fight. Crazy, but fun!

Just thought I'd share the good news with my other WoWz playing friends!

obligatory WoWz post to celebrate the fact that Inara finally got herself an epic mount. And since she's a gnome, it's a Mechnostrider. Or, as I prefer to call it, my giant robot chicken.

( it matches my hair )

I actually took this test awhile ago when dancingsalad posted it but forgot to post results. I took it again and got pretty much the same results as last time...though I have to admit, work really eats into your WoW time!

( How addicted to WoW am I? )