Farewell, and thanks for all the fish!

I haven't logged in since Christmas Day, when I logged in to pick up a few gifts for my alts under the Winter Veil tree. MIA were the many folks who've made the game fun for me. And thus I quickly logged off and went back to playing that other MMO.

I have 6 years of memories-- both amazingly awesome and incredibly disappointing-- behind me with this game. I don't think I can say the same for any previous game or online distraction.

And then there are those of you who are actually reading this post. The amazing online blogging and twitter community that has sprung up around this game over the years has been a prime motivator and instigator of so much of the fun I've had in game. I won't miss you guys b/c I am taking you along with me via twitter and the other blog.

:)

I may be back for the next expansion, becuase I really am excited about my 150 vanity pets becoming Pokemon.

In the interim, I will still write about MMO guild management topics here when the mood moves me to do so.

But for now, I'm shifting out of the purple shadow form and hanging up my Boomkin dancing shoes for a bit.

Catch you on the flipside...

What were you most excited about in the past year?

I managed to find time to level up some goblin ladies and found myself enjoying every minute of it. Well, other than a few really jerky LFD groups. Overall though, had a blast and highly recommend you roll one as they are just too darn adorable to miss out on. I also logged in to make the most of the various holiday activities and bosses, other than Winter Veil.

 What was the best thing you bought?

Buying myself and Wrenz each a Vial of the Sands was definitely my most well spent G of the year. A big Bank of Azeroth balance is nice and all, but being able to turn into a huge shadowy dragon, grab a friend in my claws and fly off-- that's priceless!

What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

I would like to have a new reason to log in and play. Right now, I am really not terribly motivated to do so. There have been little pockets of excitement like logging in to transmog my favorite ladies into the gear I most loved, but honestly, other than that and a few other things I've blogged about this past year, I haven't been super motivated above and beyond logging in to hang out and chat w/some of the folks I love playing with across my collection of servers.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Hitting the 125 pet mark for Anexxia and Psychocandy, with a little help from my friends. Thank you. :)

What was your biggest failure?

I tried to lobby Blizzard to add a tuxedo kitten to the assortment of vanity pets in game, but they didn't bite. Even though I served up the most adorable cat model for them, my much loved and missed kitty.

What do you wish you'd done less of?

Waiting around to see if I was going to actually be invited to a raid group.

What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2011 that you'd never done before?

I stopped raiding. And it was really really weird. I've been raiding consistently on one or two characters ever since my first character dinged 58 and we needed another healer for our MC raid alliance raid. Raiding didn't work out for me, despite being in both horde and alliance guilds that were raiding. As became all to clear to me once I gave up the ghost of raiding being a possibility, I didn't find myself having as much fun in Azeroth on an ongoing basis without it, and thus, spent significantly less time there.

What was your favorite new place that you visited?

The new Dark Moon Island. And of course, SWTOR, but shhh that's not in Azeroth.

What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?

I honestly can't pick one specific WoW blog this year, because I simply loved too many different posts from too many folks, thanks to the amazing WoW twitter community and folks like MMO Melting Pot and the WoW Insider Daily Quest that are always sharing links to posts that merit immediate reading/commenting. I will say I was really sad about so many of my fave peeps hanging up their WoW blogging hats, especially Reflections from the Pond.

Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2011.

Watch your back. The dwarves say this to me all the time. I should have heeded them! Also, actions speak louder than words. I have never heard as much malarkey from folks as I have this year. If you don't walk that talk, don't bother flapping your jaws about it! ;p

What was your Year in WoW like? Share a link to your year-in-review in the comments!

PS Haven't written yours yet? Steal my list of Qs and link back to this post!

1) What were you most excited about in the past year?

2) What was the best thing you bought?

3) What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

4) What was your biggest achievement of the year?

5) What was your biggest failure?

6) What do you wish you'd done less of?

7) What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2011 that you'd never done before?

8) What was your favorite new place that you visited?

9) What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?

10) Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2011.

I spent some time tooling around on Darkmoon Island this past Sunday, running errands for some carnies and fishing up a storm. the fishing is what netted me the Sea Pony vanity pet you see in the screenshot above. It too fewer than 50 casts off the coast (both in and outside of wreckage pools) to catch this guy. I obtained my second sea pony, on my Forsaken shadow priest, in a scant 12 casts. But in contrast, my gnomey shadow priest fished the coast off and on for several hours (while I baked cookies) and never saw a sea pony land in her bags.

The sea pony fishing wasn't the only excuse to bust out my mad professional skills on the island however-- there are quests you can complete for all flavors of professions, netting you some rep with the Faire, plus prize tickets and cash or XP depending upon your level. Some of the professional quests will require that you bring some supplies with you (or head out the portal to your staging area at the end of the dock to go grab some.) Thus I started bringing my stack of flour with me on all my chefs, and blue dye/red dye/simple thread on my tailors.

One of the more silly but fun aspects were the many new World event achievements the Faire brought with it, including the "I was Promised a Pony" achievement. As seen below, there are some ponies you can abscond with and ride around the island on for a bit. And who doesn't like ponies?? EVERYBODY likes ponies. But I digress.

The Faire also hands out some quests that involve incenting you to grind mobs complete Battlegrounds and Dugneons back on the continents. Thus, even though there is a little bit of a grind involved if you plan to save up your tickets to purchase some of the fabulous prizes (which include mounts and vanity pets, heirlooms, and replica tier gear) they actively aim to make it feel less grindy than Firelands for instance. Somehow I doubt I will return to the Faire to play the games very often, or complete the in game challenges to rack up the tickets for even one pet, but it was a nice day's excursion to bring out my favorite toons to go see.

My first order of business was my druid, Candy. At one point, all of her bank bags, plus two of her personal bags were stuffed full of old gear and vanity pets. Eventually, our pets went into the Companion tab, which meant she was able to hoard even more gear and tabards. I considered her full set of Tier 1, and the T2 recolored set from BC heroics, but settled on her full set of T2. In addition to loving its look, it was a minor miracle to have collected all 8 pieces at level (only 1 other druid on our team also got all 8 pieces, my friend El.). My vanilla WoW raiding days were definitely the high point for my druid, so I love that she is now able to forever memorialize that moment in time.

Next up: my gnome shaodw priest Snake. She was born a Draenei at the dawn of the Burning Crusade. And as soon as she hit max level, she was tapped by her friends and family guild to start coming to the weekly Karazhan raids. Everyone wanted her OP replenishment and healing powers. I still remember the night the Staff of Infinite Mysteries dropped for her. I couldn't stop grinning for a solid hour. It totally made the outfit. "...the Menagerie is for guests only..."

My beloved shadow priest Anexxia, however, did not have a similar happy transmogrification story to share. Her bank is somehow a mess of mismatched helms and shoulders, one dress, and a few other misc bits. But most importantly, her halo is missing. That's right-- my most favorite piece of her gear, which I have posed with in numerous costumes/dress up screenies-- POOF! To say that this deflated my transmogrification high would be accurate. I poked around, and settled on an outfit, but I am not happy with it. I wanted the halo. I've put in a ticket asking to have the item restored, but given my recent track record with GM requests, I won't hold my breath.

How about you -- how has your transmogrification been going?

1. Transmogrification. First and foremost I am thrilled I will get to wear my halo and wings always, and be my most angelic shadowy self all the time, not just for Hallow's End costume contests! Still undecided on felhunter on a stick or bat wing staff...
2. Northrend/Outlands leveling streamlinging. Yes I do still have a few newish alts I am pushing through the levels. I'm happy to hear that questgivers have been moved into Outland and Northrend dungeons, in addition to many of the group quests now being soloable, and a 33% decrease in XP needed to move through those areas on the way to level 80.
3. Holiday pets will no longer be soulbound. No more deleting duplicate pets your alt keeps winning while your poor main, the pet collector, never is able to beat the RNG...
4. New Darkmoon Fair pets. When am I not excited about more pets?
5. Bag Search. A search field has been added to allow players to search bag, bank, guild bank, and Void Storage inventories for specific items. This is a huge help for those messier than average guild banks that are out there.

What are YOU most looking forward to in Patch 4.3?

Sure, you can upgrade to the fastest flying speed, or buy epic flying for another alt, or finally build yourself a mechanohog. But other than a few bits and bobs in the forms of random raid BOEs, there really isn't a whole heck of a lot you can purchase with G in game that matters.

When I asked on twitter last night what those folks who'd purchased the cub for resale planned to do with their profits, no one replied with any big plans. Perhaps some were going to sell a couple of cubs to save up for something like the Spire of Scarlet Pain, or perhaps others might intend to blow their proceeds on purchasing other vanity pets for their pet collectors, but I suspect that many folks were just going to stash the cash away in their WoW bank accounts, and use it for the more mundane every day expenses that eat through your saving (i.e. repairs and enchants and gems etc.)

To me at least, it feels like the Real Money Transactions (RMT) tree fell in the Azeroth woods but no one heard it fall.

Personally, I am equally at home with my love of vanity pets and gnomes and kittens and being a face melting shadow priest! I challenge anyone who has played with me to honestly say "Oh that Anexxia is such a carebear gnome lover and kitten scratcher that it gets in the way of her being a good player; she really needs to L2play."

The entire style of WoW, to me, is somewhat cartooney, versus hyper realistic. It's not meant to be a very serious representation of modern life. I don't want to play a character that looks just like me in real life-- I play me in real life every day. Having a little fun with appearances doesn't change my ability to play in any way. Yes, sometimes we are going about very serious business, such as very important raid boss killing, but at the end of the day, we are playig a game, with a goal of having fun. And having a dancing gnome shadow priest in your raid is fun! Not as fun as a dancing boomkin perhaps, but FUN all the same!

You know what else is fun? Bouncing along as you run. I bounce on my night elf. I bounce on my Forsaken. I bounce on my gnomes. And the bounciness is contagious. Before you know it, you have other folks bouncing along in synchronization with you! And suddenly that long run back from that wipe isn't quite as annoying.

Frankly, it always puzzles me how much anti-gnome sentiment I'd hear while playing my beloved gnomey casters. Now, Pandaren have taken up the mantle of most heckled and despised race. I don't particularly like the hunchbacked, ever-sniffing worgen, but I don't go on Internet tirades about how they ruined Wow and are ridiculous insults to my gaming self. I just simply don't play one. Hopefully the anti-Pandaren uproar will die down and folks will find something else to deride. If not, at least all you pandas will have a nice thick furry skin to deflect the criticism. And hopefully you'll have an awesome beer-powered dance to dance those cares away with...

PS a big thank you to Cyn for suggesting I actually post about this.

1. Creepy Crate. Don't let its clumpity clump clumping behind you fool you-- there's a shadow priest trapped in there! Park yourself next to a critter and you'll see what I mean. Those are SHADOW ORBS you see before you...
2. Feline Familiar. A cute kitty with glowing green eyes and a witches hat, who pops out onto a broom to follow you as you fly around and about. My only compliant here, is the kitty doesn't really have as wide a range of animations/activities as some of our other pets. But it is adorable so I'll live with it.
3. Stink Bomb Runs. The fun of PvP without all that pesky danger! You hop on the back of a witch's broom (as per above, which I did while posing as one of those humans' ghostly ancestors) and are whisked away to your enemy faction's city where you are able to merrily toss stink bombs wherever you'd like. Now that's fun!
4. Tons of Guild Rep via the candy buckets. Due to having a number of high level characters, I've yet to max out my guild rep on any of them. I slapped on my Renowned Guild Tabard, got myself a wickerman buff, and then set off to collect enough tricky treats from candy buckets to buy the Feline Familiar, and earned a ton of guild rep along the way.
5. Hallow's End Vendors. Pet and toy vendors, wand vendors and mask vendors. Not only do tricky treats finally have a use, those folks who have been perpetually a few masks short of an achievement can take care of that at their leisure, no longer dependent upon RNG.

What's been your favorite Hallow's End change?

Hasten ye to Orgrimarr and Stormwind to embark upon a new adventure, which will eventually result in this creepy crate following you home. He will clatter behind you all clickety clackety, occasionally popping up an eye-- or a tongue-- for a quick look around. Get him too close to a critter and ZAP! purpley lightning will wrap around them and suck them into the crate.

Watch out tho-- I haven't found a way to get rid of the foul stench from his green gaseous emissions...

BREAKING NEWS: There seems to be a shadow priest lurking within the creepy crate! the shadow orbs do not lie!

1. One of your top performers in raids. These are the folks you want to give a shot at being a class or role leader, or helping to define raid strats. Yes, it could just be dumb luck, or the stars aligned against everyone else in the raid that has propelled them to the top, but more often, it's due to their taking the time to optimize what they're doing, often by poking around on blogs and forums and synthesizing a number of opinions and ideas until arriving at their own witch's brew of excellence. These are people you want to have as part of your leadership team.
2. One of your most friendly gchatters. Every guild has that member that says hello and makes newcomers feel welcome. In my past WoW life, that was Lady D. She made all our new recruits feel at home, while also being sure to give a warm welcome back to folks who hadn't logged in for a while. As a result, she was often the guild member people who were having a rough time confided in. You want your officer team to reflect the needs and concerns of your entire membership, which makes having at least one outgoing, friendly officer key.
3. The maintainer of your guild website or wiki or whatever medium you've chosen for your out of game community. It's not a cakewalk to administer an active forum, or to keep a complex guild website updated with the latest news and widgets. This guild member often gets little public recognition for what amounts to a part-time job behind the scenes keeping things going. But they are in fact, demonstrating daily how committed they are to the guild. This is the sort of participation that merits an officer slot.
4. The most prolific sharer of WoW-related news. This member has a direct link from MMO Champion to their brain, and spits out WoWhead links in their sleep. Or at least it seems that way. They are the first to interpret what all the Patch Notes really mean, and are often the instigators of lively (yet respectful) debate around those topics. These are the sort of folks that truly help keep a community going, and that should be a primary goal for your officer team.
5. The altaholic. Now, at first glance, the altaholic might not look like an obvious candidate for leadership. Some might see the full selection of character slots on a realm as a sign of being flighty and unable to focus their energies n completing a task. However, I see the altaholic as someone who has a true passion for exploring all the nooks and crannies and perspectives available to them in the game. And that sort of passion can be inspiring-- both to their fellow guildies, and to the leadership team.

What are some of the other guildie traits that you've found to make great officers?