About the Bloggers: Krystalle Voecks
Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more About the Bloggers. This week features one of our "semi-alumni" bloggers, Krystalle. (She's the short one with the pink hair above -- the rest of the above folks would be some of her many guild-mates.)
What do you do for WoW Insider?
These days? Some back-end smacktalking helping out where you guys don't see it. I tend to float in and out giving a hand when things are quiet, and am bringing back both Reader UI and Reader WoWspace. Before I landed my current spot as one of the leads on Massively, I was a blogger here, Guild Leader & event coordinator for It Came from the Blog. I had a lot of great times with the WoW Insider readers both there and at Dragon*Con 2007, where I got to co-host several panels with Elizabeth Harper and several other great folks. (And for anyone curious, we're doing it again at Dragon*Con this year too!)
What's your main right now?
She's a L70 sword-specced Troll Rogue who I primarily just raid on these days. I also have a L42 Rogue that I'm bringing up, just to see how the other (dagger) side lives. Well, that and because I can't break away from the Rogues. I just love them too much.
For the Horde or Glory to the Alliance?
Personally? I tend to yell things like "For Pony!" or about my guild's raid "lemurs" more often than anything else, but I'm a Hordie through and through. If I had to play Alliance, I'd play a Gnome, if only because the sight of a wee teeny female Gnome Warrior tanking something enormous always makes me giggle.
Favorite thing to do in Azeroth?
It's a toss-up. I love raiding with my guild-mates, but for times when I'm just in the mood to kill things, I really enjoy trying to solo instances. It's a nice challenge. Also, if I'm needed out-of-game, I can just log out and it resets me back to the front of the instance where I'm safe the next time I log in.
What's the best instance in the game?
That's a hard one because I prefer instances overall. For sheer old-time's sake, I'll have to say that nothing has ever beaten the fun of running Tribute runs or the Baron 45 with friends for me. Black Morass comes close, though. I think I just like the frenetic pace. Get in, keep moving.
What's the number one thing Blizzard could do better?
On a sweeping scale, their customer service staffing needs to expand to meet the needs of the 10 million folks who shelled out for the game. Vivendi posted 1.51 billion dollars in revenue last year. Get a couple thousand folks in call centers at 35k a year and hook us up with more GMs & phone support. Speaking as an old-school MMOer who came from the days when Tigole loved to flame out on how we EQers were treated (and we loved him for being a snarky, outspoken bastard) I have to say this: remember your roots Tig. (link NSFW) There are people waiting hours for GMs in your game. Speaking as one of them, it still sucks just as much to wait around for a GM as it did back then. (Although I will say when you do finally get one, they're generally a heck of a lot cooler than the ones we got back then, so at least there's that.)
The best way to make money in-game is...
I'm a big fan of disenchanting. Not enchanting -- disenchanting. To me, Enchanting is a money sink unless you have a raiding guild and can put in the time to get the best patterns. Disenchanters, however, can recycle items made on alts that don't sell in the AH, can shard drops on raids, PUGs, guild groups, from farming, useless quest rewards, you name it. Couple it with another gathering skill, and you're good to go.
If you could add one touch of personal flair to your main, what would it be?
I want armor dyes so badly I can taste them. I mean, really. I love ya Blizz, but I really want some gear that doesn't make me look like absolutely every other Rogue in the game. Customization/personalization is where this game really gets beat down by others in the genre.
If you had 10 more hours to play every week, what would you spend them doing?
I'd be all over the test realms. Not only would it be fun to find new things and enjoy the fast pace of grinding through new content, but I'd get to come back here and share tips and tricks! It's a win-win.
Other games I enjoy are...
Heh, here's the laundry list of the games other than WoW installed on my gaming rig at the moment: LotRO, EQ, EQ2, PotBS, TR, DOMO, Mythos, DDO, EVE, SotNW, CoX, GW, MxO, Vanguard, (2 betas I can't name), Hellgate: London, and I know I'm forgetting a few... Well, those are the ones I've logged time in recently. When not MMOing, I'm fiendishly addicted to Rock Band, enjoying playing through Oblivion and Bioshock and cannot wait until Jonathan Coulton's Still Alive comes out as DLC on Xbox Live. (I just got a 360, cut me some slack.)
As the saying goes, "I'll sleep when I'm dead!"
