My World of Whoa

Rough Month

2013-04-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

April is always a rough month for us. My boyfriend works in the casino industry, and people in April are more concerned with paying taxes than tipping dealers. So I've spent most of this month without my WoW subscription while we play catch-up.

Never fear, because I have a trial account! And why on earth would I have a trial account, when I have so many characters I don't play already?

For exactly times like these. And for times I don't feel social.

Seriously, I love my friends and wouldn't trade them for any others in the world. I love the new friends in-game I keep making.

But there are times, especially as a bi-polar woman, when it's better for me to, shall we say, quarantine myself? Just ask Drakontis. He'll tell you. Poor guy, and still a good friend in-game. But I nearly took his head off one night before a raid right after Cata came out, back when everyone was stressing over the new talent system and I had someone reporting to our GM that I had no clue how to play my druid. I missed one important change, but I people helped me with it. And I was still pissed that the person had whispered behind my back instead of coming to me with it.

See my point? Once I get going, I don't always stop. So there are definitely times when I really want to play, but should not be allowed around other people, especially friends that I want to keep as friends.

I actually like playing the trial version from time to time. I haven't played it much since I've been so busy with my new project, Old Mother Tucker (on tumblr, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest). But it's kind of neat to start over from scratch without gold or heirlooms. It's not really like starting from Vanilla, since that content is almost all gone, but we can't keep living in the past, now, can we? Besides, I started playing in BC just before Wrath, so I don't know what it was like in the beginning anyway. *sigh* Damn I miss Cenarion Refuge in Zangarmarsh when the Horde would kill our mage friend, and we'd retaliate, and the guards would kill all of us and it would end up looking like a boneyard. Good Times!

Again I digress. My point is that sometimes it's good to just enjoy the game without distractions.

Happy Gaming!

A Moment of Sadness

2013-03-26T23:36:00.002-07:00

I've been meaning to post this for some time. I actually did it last week. But it just depresses me.

With one drake up.

Solo.

I never thought I was one of those that clung to the past, at least not in World of Warcraft. But after all of those horrible pugs where someone pulled and left, or 8 out of 10 raid members stood in the fire wall, this just made it all seem so sad and pointless.

Of course, I was kinda proud, too.

Happy Achievement Whoring!

Mountain O'Frustration

2013-02-27T03:54:00.001-08:00

I already have my mount achievements and the blue kite to prove it. That doesn't stop me from wanting more mounts, now, does it.

So lately I've been running Sethekk Halls and Utgarde Pinnacle, trying to get the Reins of the Raven Lord and the Reins of the Blue Proto-Drake. I still don't have the mounts from Stratholme, Zul'Gurub, Zul'Aman or Karazhan, either.

I was running my Horde monk and druid and my Alliance druid through each, not every night, but over several nights here lately. And all to no avail.

So tonight I got ambitious. I have 5 Alliance 90's and 2 Horde 90's. And yep, you guessed it, ran each one.

The Raven Lord was unforgiving. But on my 6th run through UP:

Now if I can just get online when my friends are still awake and don't mind being in a raid group...or teaming up in the Zul's...

Happy Achievement Whoring!

Arcade Video Game Sticks?

August Celestials!

2013-01-13T02:08:00.002-08:00

I got my horde monk, Diralin, exalted with the August Celestials yesterday. And spent 7k gold on this:

There, a couple of different shots so you can see the lightning.

(Voice of Darnell) Really, Blizz? Really?

I mean, I paid that much gold for the golden cloud serpent with a lightning overlay?

Now I just need to get her exalted with the Huojin Pandaren to get the kite.

Happy Rep Grinding!

Sigh One More 90

2013-01-10T22:14:00.000-08:00

I got my priest, Lycette, to 90 yesterday. And just before I hit, I went and had an early celebration:

And yeah, after I uploaded it, I thought, 'Why didn't you walk her off, THEN hit levitate?'

My roots are brown, believe it or not.

Happy Falling Without Dying!

Quick Question

2013-01-09T23:44:00.000-08:00

If I'm dead, how can I have life?

WTB flying corpse runs. And rares that don't chain blade flurry.

Ok, I'm done whining. For now.

Happy leveling!

Happy New Year! Pics of Halfhill

2013-01-02T04:42:00.000-08:00

From Terenas:

And from Korgath:

Can you guess which is the pvp server?

Happy Ganking and Happy New Year!

Lorewalker Shorts

2012-12-29T02:44:00.001-08:00

I have no idea why (maybe just because I was bored and felt like making movies), but I decided to make movies of each of the Lorewalker stories as told by Lorewalker Cho when you turn in each scroll.

Maybe you're a lore buff; maybe your subscription expired and you want to still feel connected somehow until you can afford to renew it; maybe you're trying to convince your friend, significant other, little brother, whatever, that they need to start playing so they can quest with you; whichever the case may be, I give you the following World of Warcraft shorts:

Hozen In The Mist

Ballad of Liu Lang

Dark Heart of the Mogu

Between a Saurok and a Hard Place

Heart of the Mantid Swarm

Fish Tales

Seven Burdens of Shaohao

Song of the Yaungol

What is Worth Fighting For?

Happy Storytelling!

Addons for Dark Soil, Onyx Eggs

2012-12-22T04:41:00.000-08:00

I had someone comment on my +YouTube video Dark Soil that they use an addon to find the little dirt mounds, and I've had several people ask about the addons recently. So yesterday I did a search from my +Curse client and downloaded the addons for Dark Soil, Onyx Eggs, and Lorewalkers. In fact, I accidentally downloaded the Loremaster addon first, and now I have a tool for finishing Hearthyn's progress on that achievement.

But I digress. The addon for Dark Soil is named Dark Soil (go figure). I also downloaded it's companion, DarkSoilAutoAccept, which allows you to autoaccept the loot from Dark Soil--NICE! (I've lost sooo many items from getting raped by virmen while someone else swoops in. NO MORE!)

The addon for the Onyx Eggs is called Cloud Serpent, and the addon for Lorewalker scroll/statue finding is called Lorewalkers. All three addons require the use of Tomtom. They make use of its crazy arrow.

I decided to show you how it's affecting my Tiller rep. Here is my rogue Ravyyn's rep before starting:

Now, as you can see (click on the pictures to see them larger), she has barely begun getting Tiller rep. Also, I had one Marsh Lily, Ruby Shard, and Blue Feather in her bags. I'm not sure if there was anything else, but if there was, it wasn't much.

The way all of these addons work is simple. As soon as you enter a new zone, the crazy arrow will start pointing and underneath it will be a description and the distance.

Notice at the top to the right of the arrow there's a picture of a scroll? That's for the Lorewalkers rep items. It's a picture of the scroll or statue and the immediate surroundings, so you can see what you should be looking for. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

And after an hour, this is the progress I made:

I don't have only one Tiller's rep higher because each item retrieved from the Dark Soil is value specific to two of the Tillers. For instance, Farmer Fung and Gina Mudclaw both like Marsh Lilies. When I give them anything else, I only get 540 rep, but if I give them a Marsh Lily, I get 945 rep (may vary due to guild perks, etc.). For this reason, I only give a Tiller someone else's gift if I've already maxed out my rep with the Tillers who usually prefer that gift.

Or when I screw up and don't double check beforehand.

To use the addons you just follow the arrow once you enter a zone. You can reset them by typing /reload, you can toggle Dark Soil's waypoints on and off by typing /ds or /darksoil, or you can enable/disable them from your addons menu at the character start screen. Each addon has more instructions and commands available from the "Description" button on +Curse .

As you can see in the picture above, I had no trouble following the arrow to the target location and finding Dark Soil. The only problem I DID have was trying to use all three. When I would right click on crazy arrow to remove a waypoint after I found a Lorewalker's item, the Lorewalkers addon tended to quit working for that zone until I left and came back or typed /reload. They also seemed to start you in random places, sometimes on the other end of the zone, which meant a lot of flying. But once I got to the starting point, the waypoints came in a mostly convenient and logical sequence. Once I started at the initial location, hopping from Dark Soil to Dark Soil, or even from Dark Soill to Onyx Egg to Lorewalker scroll or statue was easy.

TLDR: I would rate Dark Soil and Cloud Serpent a 7 out of 10, Lorewalkers a 6 out of 10, and DarkSoilAutoAccept a 10 out of 10. They work, for the most part. You may want to turn Lorewalkers off when you are only looking for the eggs or Dark Soil They are fairly easy to reset when they quit working. They do speed up your search for these items.

I hope this helps your hunt.

Happy Rep Grinding!

I Did It All For The Nookie

2012-12-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, actually for the fun, mounts, and loot. And now, that part of my WoW playing is over.

I let my guild know last night that I'm done with raiding, at least for now. I have been trying to work up enthusiasm for it, but I have gotten to the point that I dread raid night.

Oh, the guild I'm in on Terenas is fine. We were starting to get a smooth flow going, learning each others play styles and adapting so we could finally down bosses and move on to the next raid.

And we only raid once per week, so it wasn't even a horrendous raiding schedule.

I'm just at a point in WoW where I want to enjoy the rest of the game. I don't want to HAVE to play or feel like I'm letting people down if I don't play. And I don't want a laundry list of things I have to get done before raid night.

Maybe it's because I spent the last year before joining The Lurkers solo. Maybe I just got too used to playing on my own time and at my own pace.

Maybe I just got burned out raiding in WotLK and early Cata.

I think it's more than that, though. I think the shock I felt when Cata hit, and all my hard work getting Hearthyn pretty well geared in WotLK was for nothing, well, it made me realize that it was all pointless.

It was fun, but it WAS pointless. And after that guild fell apart, well, there went the fun, too.

I still love the game. I still want to play. I want to explore pet battles and farm and fish and finish the story lines that have been fascinating and downright hysterical. I want to get more achievements.

And if I do get an urge to raid, I offered to sub once in awhile. Plus, there's always LFR. Lesser gear, yes, but not really by that much.

Besides, by the time I spend hours studying fights and reading up on monk healing techniques, whispers of the next expansion will have started. And when it drops, the process of gearing, etc., will begin all over again.

Maybe by then I'll want to raid.

Happy Gaming! (Whatever part you like best)

Jade Lungfish

2012-12-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

I got my rogue, Ravyyn, to 90 early this morning.

We also got 2 new boss kills in Mogushan Vaults Monday night: Gara'jal the Spiritbinder and The Spirit Kings. We got The Spirit Kings down in 2 shots, which tells me A. that our group is coming together and B. that most of us do LFR and our homework before the raid. I had actually been considering quitting the raiding aspect of WoW, but Monday night was fun. I love getting 10 or more people together from all walks of life and all over the country/world to kill pixels. To me it's a testament to how far we've come as humans. And when things finally mesh like they did Monday night, it's pure gold.

After the raid, I decided to finish up the cooking quest "To Be A Master", and for that, I needed redbelly mandarin fish. I usually find them in the Jade Forest, so I headed over there. And of course, I found no pools.

However, I made a discovery: if you need jade lungfish, and you're having trouble finding pools along the Slicky Stream, head north to the tip of The Jade Forest. North of Lake Kittitata even. Unless someone else is farming them, Serenity Falls is loaded with pools. You might call it the jade lungfish "sweet spot".

I even took a picture, with "Find Fish" being the only farm node I was tracking:

There were actually at least 9 spots just in Serenity Falls when I took this (this was taken as I wrote this at 10:34am pacific standard time), but this shot shows them on the map and below me.

And before you holler at me because your Cloud Serpent rep, Tiller rep, and cooking needs are all met now, go check the auction house and see how much these are worth.

You're welcome. :-)

Happy Fishing!

155 Mounts!

2012-11-29T00:54:00.000-08:00

Patch 5.1 is here with new quest hubs and new achievements. I got the new achievement "We're Going To Need More Saddles" Tuesday. I really love the kite:

*It mounts quicker than most, too. That is always nice. Especially when running from mobs and pvp'ers, or trying to beat someone to that mining node or herb.

Then, after I got that, I got exalted with the Anglers and got the Azure Water Strider mount:

Runs across water! Awesome!

With 155 mounts now, I started using an addon so I mount a different one almost every time. There are several on Curse Client, and a guild member recommended GoGoMount. It usually uses the best mount depending on zone and terrain, etc. For instance, until I got the Strider, it put me on my Sea Turtle mount when in water. It's one of the few non-raid oriented addons I use now.

I still keep a couple of individual mounts on my bars just in case I'm in a situation where I need to be sure what mount comes out.

What addons do you use? Got any favorites? I would love to know what you love to use.

Happy Questing!

*NOTE: It must have been a bug. The jade kite takes the same amount of time to mount as any other mount now.

Four 90's

2012-11-24T07:23:00.000-08:00

I got my warlock to 90 yesterday. I quit queuing for dungeons and just leveled him on Klaxxi quests for the rep. I have to say, a Gnome looks adorable on the quest "Fear Takes Root" when he gets the size debuff:

He has a little, tiny horse, lmao!

I also got Terrific Trio:

I now have a warlock, 2 druids, and my monk at level 90.

For this expansion, my main is Diralin, my horde monk. And my main characters are on Terenas, not Korgath. I like playing on Terenas, since I'm not into pvp and it's a normal server. And I don't mind playing horde. I like my new guild.

But I have 11 characters on Korgath. And I've mostly played Alliance for the last 4 years.

I started leveling Hearthyn because she's always been my main until now, and I am NOT going to leave her behind just because she's no longer my main. I started leveling the others on Korgath with a specific purpose in mind: I want as many as possible able to do LFR so I can learn the fights in every aspect (except possibly tank). I realize not all the mechanics will be there, but the basics are there.

I have to admit, playing my characters on Korgath feels like coming home after being away on a long trip.

Happy Raiding!

A Few Tips

2012-11-16T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've been playing both Horde and Alliance level 90's now, trying to at least keep the gardens up on my 3 max characters. And during my play time I've noticed some interesting things:

1. I have caught three Flying Tiger Gourami's to turn in for rep with Nat Pagle down at Anglers Wharf. I caught these on Hearthyn, my night elf druid. She was using the Master Kalu'ak Fishing Pole, which increases fishing by 30, and the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat, which increases fishing by 5 and adds a lure that increases fishing by 75 for 10 minutes. She also is an herbalist and had picked a golden lotus just prior to fishing. I tried to reproduce the results on my troll druid, Dirathyn. She has max fishing, the Kalu'ak pole, is an herbalist, but doesn't have the fishing hat. I was NOT able to catch a special fish, even though she picked 2 golden lotus just prior to fishing. Either I was very lucky on Hearthyn 2 days in a row, the powers that be have granted my first main special treatment (yeah, right!), or now that Thrall got married and became a shaman there is a mass polarity shift in Blizzard headquarters, with the majority now favoring the Alliance, appalled to see their beloved former leader wearing a dress, ball and chain, and are expressing this by giving Alliance characters more perks than Horde. I prefer to believe the 2nd theory. Hearthyn is pretty special. At any rate, maybe this will help you herbalists out there get Nat Pagle rep.

2. If you are close to being exalted with the Golden Lotus and you decide to try to farm keys to Guo-lai caches, be warned: I farmed for an hour and a half with no luck before reset last night. I was only 100 rep away from exalted. I couldn't get one key. However, the other night I farmed for 2 hours again and found 3 or 4 keys. All I can say is, good luck to those of you who try to increase rep this way. I hope you have something you can farm to break up the monotony in between kills.

3. When you do get Golden Lotus rep, and you go to kill the last boss in their final chain, when the Crane grants you the wind power? It lifts you up, way up, and gives you wings. (Red Crane gives you wiiiings!) You have some control on how high you go and where you land. Use this to avoid the one-shot lightning (yeah, 3 corpse runs later...) that stretches across the platform. Also, pick up the lightning spears and throw them at him. As long as you don't have to jump in the middle of the lightning to get the spear.

And my final tip of the day:

Take the quest to get 1000 arcane dust from Moshu the Arcane in the cave in Shan'ze Dao, Townlong Steppes. The elite Shan'ze Illusionists seem to drop the most. When you turn the quest in, you get a portal between Shan'ze Dao and Shado Pan Garrison. Saves you a LOT of time flying.

Happy Rep Grinding!

Ruby Friday

2012-11-03T19:09:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the mats for the new mounts? I guess they expect everyone to have several hundred thousand gold built up by now.

Diralin, pictured below, has 600 engineering, mainly so I could make the Mechano-Hog for my Horde characters. I have the Mekgineer's Chopper for my Alliance toons already, and was very disappointed when it didn't translate to the hog. In fact, I ran Wrath heroics the past couple of nights and got her exalted with the Horde Expedition. I ran to the quartermaster, paid the 300 gold for the pattern...

And it keeps telling me I don't meet the requirements to learn the pattern. I logged out, logged in, restarted the game, double checked to make sure I'm exalted, disabled my addons: all to no avail. Needless to say, I have a ticket in.

But I digress. Where were we?

Oh, yes, MoP's expensive mats for crafted mounts.

Engineers can make two mounts at max level engineering: Depleted-Kyparium Rocket and Geosynchronous World Spinner. Both are similar in mats, the only differences being the need for 200 kyparite and high explosive gunpowder for the Rocket and 12 trillium bars for the Spinner. Other than that, they both take 12 living steel, 12 Spirit of Harmony, 20 ghost iron bolts, and 3 Orb of Mystery.

Now, it takes a little bit of time to make the living steel if you have an alchemist, and it takes some time to gather the Spirits of Harmony. You just need a little patience for the Spirits especially.

But the Orbs of Mystery are 18,000 gold each. 20,000 gold if you don't have the guild vendor discount.

EACH! 54,000-60,000 gold just to make one vehicle? No, wait, that's JUST FOR ONE PART!

I wanted to see how that compared to the JC mounts. They only require one orb, but a stack of gems and a few other items. Here's the pattern for the Ruby Panther. Expensive, but a little more reasonable.

Once again engineer's get no love. Okay, the dragonling is adorable! Even if the Ghost Iron Dragonling gets replaced almost immediately. But still...

I decided to keep farming, and selling, until I build up enough gold to make one of the engineering mounts.

And in the meantime, I bought this on the auction:

It made me feel a little better.

On a side note, there are crop circles in Kun-Lai Summit:

Happy Gold Farming!

P.S.S.P. (Post Script Shameless Plug) Christmas is right around the corner. If you don't have a tree, are sick of vacuuming pine needles, and want a great deal, check out the link at the top right.

A Strange Thing Happened While I Was Soaring...

2012-10-31T16:57:00.001-07:00

I decided to get busy last night and make videos of the onyx eggs and dark soil mounds I told you about yesterday. And I made them. And they are below:

Onyx Eggs

Dark Soil

And then I noticed that dailies had reset, so I decided to head to my farm.

Now, as you gain rep to exalted, you get to choose more than just the red kite for the quest Water, Water Everywhere. And Diralin had the choice to take the blue high altitude kite.

And as I soared above The Heartlands I started noticing little brown circles, and I don't mean the ones that need the water. I mean little mounds of Dark Soil. The higher I climbed, the clearer some were to see.

Don't get me wrong, the Jade Temple Grounds is still a great place to farm on days when the August Celestials quest doesn't phase it out. Especially if you are doing your Order of the Cloud Serpent rep. It's the perfect spot to stop off on your way in and out of the Arboretum.

And I'm sure on more crowded servers you may need to find other areas to farm Dark Soil in. I just can't believe I never noticed how many are actually in The Heartlands. In a couple of hours, because WoW is my life now and I'm just crazy enough to spend that kind of time, I managed to get 3 or 4 more reps up. Each were already at varying degrees of friendship, so I'm not sure exactly what it equals out to, but at least one was still at the acquaintance level.

At least now you know you have other options if The Heartlands is too crowded.

Happy Farming!

Onyx Eggs And Dirt Mounds

2012-10-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Remember Netherwing dailies? And remember the strangely glowing eggs you could turn in repeatedly, no matter how many dailies you did that day?

And yes, I realize the daily cap has been removed and we can quest to our heart's content. Probably because there are soooooooo many of them in this expansion.

Want to cut down on the grind? (This is for those of you who don't know yet. Obviously!)

To make a long story shorter, you can farm onyx eggs for Order of the Cloud Serpent rep. They are only found on the tall spires on the Windward Isle, as well as the rock outcroppings and ledges, and even around the egg nests guarded by the cloud serpents (NOT the ones guarded by the sauroks). They look like this:

They can be hard to see at first, but once you've found a couple you should have no problem. You turn them in to Elder Anli, and she will ONLY have a blue question mark above her head if you have an egg in your bags. Once you run out, the question mark goes away. How cool is that?

As for The Tillers, well you can build rep with the individual tillers faster by finding dirt piles, called Dark Soil, like the one below:

Each dirt pile will contain one of the following:

What you may not realize about these dirt mounds is that, while you can find them from time to time at each of the daily quest hubs (Klaxxi, Golden Lotus, Cloud Serpent, Tillers, Anglers, August Celestials), they are prevalent at the Temple of the Jade Serpent grounds, the area surrounding the entrance to the instance. They can be found in each of the training circles as well as the surrounding grassy areas.

That is, unless the Sha are attacking. If the August Celestials quest Behind the Masks is the daily, then the whole area will be phased and the dirt mounds disappear. I am not sure if they reappear after you turn the quest in, as I'm not that far in my rep grinding and can't do the quest yet.

I can tell you that I flew over the Jade Temple grounds today after quests were reset, and I found 3 mounds on my way to do the Cloud Serpent dailies, and 3 mounds on my way back.

I hope these tips help you shorten your daily grind.

Happy questing!

Dark Moon Faire MOUNTS! Yeah, Baby!

2012-10-08T01:45:00.001-07:00

So, I got my horde druid to level 90, have her revered with the Tillers and Klaxxi, am working on Anglers, Lorekeepers, etc. And the Dark Moon Faire hits.

So I took her to the Faire. After all, I've been eyeing those mounts for months. And lo and behold, she had just over 180 tickets finally! I could get one! Which, of course, I did:

Alas, I could afford the Darkmoon Dancing Bear, but not the Swift Forest Strider.

And then it hit me. I've been doing the quests and dailies on Hearthyn, too! And now all the mounts that aren't faction specific are shared! Squeeeeeee!

And so:

Now to work on the pets.

Happy Carnivale!

90 Tips

2012-09-30T15:56:00.001-07:00

So, I hit level 90 early Friday morning. And the first thing I did was make The Temple of the Two Moons my home and hit the hot tub.

Then, I started on dailies. Specifically all of them.

So I thought I'd share a few tips for those of you who prefer not to spend precious minutes or hours trying to figure out quests.

1. If you can't find any/many dailies in Halfhill for the Tillers, level your cooking up.

2. The hole for the the Klaxxi quest "The Scale Lord" can be found near the edge of the Lake of Stars and looks like this:

3. I don't have a complete list yet, or coordinates, but if you fly around Valley of the Four Winds, particularly up at The Heartland, you'll find the individual Tillers that give you rep. These individuals offer rep for specific dishes prepared, dishes you learn from the trainers in Halfhill.

4. If you don't want to pay my prices for them at the auction house, Golden Carp can be found in abundance in Whitepetal Lake or even the waters in front of Mogushan Palace, along with Jewel Danio, Krasarang Paddlefish, and Emperor Salmon. If you want to make some gold along the way, 12 Golden Carp are required to build rep, so sell them in stacks of 12.

5. Nat Pagle rep is only achieved by presenting him rare fish. For a decent guide, click here. I must have his hat. MUST!

Okay, so it isn't 90 tips, but I hope this helps you enjoy the game once you hit 90. I'm finding 90 is just the beginning of fun in Mists of Pandaria!

Happy Fishing!

MoPped Up.

2012-09-26T00:55:00.000-07:00

What did you do for the opening of Mists of Pandaria? Did you pre-order the digital, pre-order the hard copy from GameStop or another retailer? Are you going to play the new expansion at all?

I pre-ordered the digital and have been waiting rather anxiously. I have always been fascinated by Asian culture, so this expansion has kept me playing the game for now.

And I wanted to see if I heard Jack Black's voice for any of the new characters. I thought it would have been hilarious.

So, I prepared for last night eagerly:

The colored water is energy mix. I have grapes, sugar free cookies, Ritz crackers, water, coke zero, and the baggie in the back has tortillas with peanut butter and either craisins or golden raisins wrapped up in them. I was PREPARED!

I logged in around 8pm pst, did one last DS with the guild, then went and lined up 25 quests so I could get a head start on XP as soon as MoP went live.

Just before midnight, the quest to go see Garrosh Hellscream (for Horde) popped up on my screen. SQUEEEEEE! I grouped up with Krumble from my guild, and we spent the next 12 hours plowing through the new content, skipping most of the cut scenes (which I will see later as I level my Pandaren), and trying to stay ahead of the crowds that kept stealing key mobs from us early on.

It was a BLAST! Krumble, you are an excellent guide. He had played the beta some and knew where things are and where we should go next.

It.

Was.

AWESOME!

I keep forgetting I'm not 20. Actually, I keep hoping to manipulate my manic episodes (yep, finally figured out I'm bipolar--it explains sooooo much!) so that they happen when I want them to, and not just at random.

By noon I was trying not to fall asleep at the keyboard.

A warlock got Realm First 90 about 4 hours in anyway.

Overall, this expansion is absolutely beautiful. I've only seen parts of 3 realms and no dungeons yet, nor have I tried pet battles, so I'll reserve final judgment for then. But so far, well done, Blizzard. Beautiful landscapes, interesting creatures, and new past times await--in the Mists of Pandaria.

Limbo

2012-09-07T08:14:00.002-07:00

It seems the 2 or 3 months before an expansion arrives is limbo for MMO's. I didn't notice the impact during the anticipation of Wrath, since I was still leveling my first character, Hearthyn, and anxiously awaiting the new death knight.

I noticed people were trying other games, etc., in the lull between Wrath and Cataclysm, but I found plenty to do in game, leveling a horde character with a guildie and farming in anticipation of the new content.

I'm not a fan of Cataclysm, if you couldn't tell. There are parts of it I love, such as Uldum, but I haven't been satisfied overall. Maybe it's, in part, because I was guildless through most of it and not raiding. Maybe it's because I didn't have the time to spend on the content, although I did find the time to level 8 characters to 85 and explore every raid and dungeon.

So this limbo period, instead of playing through, I'm playing Diablo. Now, I did raid with my new guild Monday. We went back through old content, specifically Burning Crusades content. We visited Sunwell and Kara again, and it was fun.

But outside of the guild runs, I'm not logging in like I used to. I'm playing Diablo III, which of course is a Blizzard product. So I'm "keeping it in the family", so to speak.

I finally got to inferno on my witch doctor, Maremba. I hit Act III yesterday, and suddenly the game got REAL. And I'm recording the main fights.

So, without further ado, here are the Zoltun Kulle and Belial fights, solo, Inferno level:

Happy Limbo!

Diablo III Hardcore!

2012-08-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

One of my guildmates found out I play DIII last week, and he got me to try hardcore mode. In hardcore, for those of you who may not know, if you die, there is no resurrection. Your character and everything on him/her and in their bags is gone forever.

I have a new addiction.

WoW,. I love you, but you are in limbo for the next few weeks. When the Pandarians arrive, I'll gladly explore their world.

I love to challenge myself. The harder the challenge the better.

I'm loving hardcore mode. I've had one character die so far, one I was soloing. Of course, my highest level character is only in Act II in normal mode. We'll see how I like it when one of my level 60 characters dies.

I am kind of anticipating and readying myself for that eventuality. I even named my characters appropriately:

And:

Happy Dying!

We Pause Now for Diablo...

2012-08-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

I have been playing Diablo III a LOT lately. And since Blizzard makes both Diablo and WoW, I figured I'd post about it here.

Anyway, I have one of every character, but my highest character is only level 40. Probably because I have one of each character (monk, wizard, barbarian, demon hunter, witch doctor).

I made one of each character so I could fill you in on how play is on each and which one I like best.

Here, let me show you instead:

Now, since my highest level character (monk) is only level 40, this very well may change by the time I reach end game with each.

But how can you NOT love gargantuan zombies?

And acid puke?

Happy Gaming!

Getting Back To Raiding

2012-08-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

I raided with my new guild on Terenas Wednesday, and I have to say, I felt like a fish out of water.

This was my second guild raid, and 3rd raid since last August. That's right, after raiding almost every week for 2 years, I went down to 3 raids in one year.

I didn't realize how much I need practice. And how much I need to review fights.

When I was raiding regularly, I almost always researched the fights. I went to Tankspot, did searches on Youtube, watched videos and read strategies so I would at least know my role in the fight. And I would do this for heroic modes, too, in case we tried them.

Well, we tried them last week. A lot of them. And I kept dying. And I kept standing where I shouldn't. Once or twice, I caused a wipe.

I felt like a noob.

And so, I decided I had better not show up again without a clue.

Which is why I did the raids on Hearthyn.

In LFR.

That counts as research, right?

Okay. FINE. I'll study up on them. It just seems kinda pointless this close to Mists. Or maybe I really hate Cata this much. But if that's the case, wouldn't I be GLAD we're finally killing Deathwing?

Am I the only one that thinks it's sad that you can do a whole end game raid in about 45 minutes in LFR? A PUG RAID? Why the hell should I study for a raid if it's that easy?

There, that is my problem. THAT is why I hate Cataclysm. I love your game, Blizzard, it's still beautiful, has a rich story, and so much to do, but for the love of Elune, why are you dumbing it down to mind-numbing stupidity? If a MONKEY can do it, why the hell should I??? For purples???!!?? That I can now transmog to look like anything I want? I feel like I now have a nelf Barbie doll, playing dress up, and while that is FUN, this isn't a ZYNGA game!

You know, it's funny. I had no idea all of this was going to come out when I sat down to write today.

I miss WoW. I miss boss fights that took a good leader, good playing, and common sense TEAMWORK! I miss not being handed everything and actually having to WORK for achievements, gear, levels, etc.

I miss when this actually was a challenge.

Don't get me wrong. I am happy that more people are getting to experience the raiding portion of WoW.

I just think Blizzard could give us a little more credit. I don't think people would just quit and not continue to use LFR if they had to work a little harder at it. Yes, people quit it all the time, now. But I see a lot more learning, helping and using teamwork, too. I see a lot of people waiting patiently for the last spots to fill. I see some name calling, but it so far has been minimal or when someone really failed over and over.

And for 25 people who have never worked together before, and who come from different servers, different countries, and different backgrounds, that is a beautiful thing.

Happy Raiding!

Sandstone Drake-Vial of the Sands!!!

2012-08-11T01:01:00.000-07:00

I finally looted the Vial of the Sands recipe on Hearthyn a few days ago. And of course, I didn't have enough gold to make the drake.

So I've spent the last few days farming in between making sure Dirathyn was ready to raid with her guild this week. And I was getting closer, but still about 10 grand short.

And then, it happened: I was farming Azshara's Veil in the Abyssal Depths. When I port to Vash'jir, I port into Darkbreak Cove.

As soon as I ported in, Silver Dragon alerted me that Ghostcrawler was out. I've never seen him, so I headed up over Darkbreak Cove, past Korthun's End and toward Underlight Canyon. As I neared the edge, Silver Dragon went off again. Confused, I looked at the alert, and lo and behold! It was Poseidus. And he was still alive!

Here he is:

Now, he drops, of course, the Reins of Poseidus.

And Hearthyn already has Mountain o'Mounts.

So I put that beauty on the auction. It sold within the first hour.

Now, I made mats and had a lot saved for the rest of the mats for Vial of the Sands. But people are really ignorant sometimes, and there were several up for auction with a buyout price of 23,399 gold. Since the Sands of Time alone would cost me 24,000 gold as I'm not in a level 25 guild on Hearthyn, I went ahead and bought Vial of the Sands on the auction.

I am a Sandstone Drake. I can give a friend a ride.

I love this game!

Happy Farming!