Ok, maybe it’s not that simple but that’s a good start.  Raiding brought me some of the best times in game – it brought me encounters and teamwork and an ‘omg we finally beat it’ but it’s also brought me some of the worst – elitist attitudes, feeling like I have to stick to one main character all the time, having to get x or y buff for the raid, having to do stuff when I’m not in the mood and, of course, the stress over herding 25 cats around a raid instance.  I also dislike the tiny, incremental progress you get once you’re at the higher tiers of raiding – I can understand why they wouldn’t want you to upgrade by a tonne between tiers but I always loved the feeling of gear up, striving towards a goal of x mp5 or SP, etc. rather than worrying about 1% haste vs. 1% crit.  I’ve never been a hardcore raider at heart – I’ve always loved the encounters and the loot, too, if we’re being honest; but when you’ve seen an encounter 30 times it just gets boring.

I miss playing at that level, to be sure – I miss MH, BT and Sunwell where I actually felt, sometimes, like my shaman was literally gasping with effort at outputting as much healing as possible.  Even Ulduar, I miss, with it’s kooky fights and beautiful surroundings.  But, in the end, I don’t really miss raiding…

I’m levelling…

In fact, I’m levelling three or four characters as well as their professions.  It feels great.  What do I fancy playing today?  Druid? Cool, lets go blow through some rhinos in a storm of swiping; Paladork?  He needs to level his enchanting, off to get some mats! and so forth.  I think being in a raiding guild, with all the wonderfulness that it brought, made it too easy on me alts wise – there was always a guild bank full of random blues or levelling mats or the like, always someone to ask about specs, rotations etc. and always the goal of ‘get to 80 already’.

I’m dilly-dallying through the game again, enjoying quests I’ve not visited in a while (yay horde quests) and generally taking things slowly.  It’s a shame Spore is such a quiet server now, so instancing is not so easy, but I’m having fun levelling in a way I’ve not had for a long time.

I’m playing with RL™ friends…

Most of my real-life friends who play are way more casual – playing less or levelling slowly, and they give me a perspective that I often forget.  They’re brave in ways I never used to be – one of them, in particular, uses his own specs – never, as far as I know, looking up what’s ‘best’ whilst levelling – he picks what he uses for levelling carefully and with thought and enjoys the process of it.  It’s something I’ve always been ‘afraid’ to do, even whilst levelling.

We’re also able to do silly stuff like 3-manning instances and almost managed to three-man the Ring of Blood at level 66 – only beaten by the last boss after his self-resurrection!  It’s more fun when you do it with friends; you know each others thoughts better and we can chat about it before our weekly DnD game as well as organising fun stuff around tight schedules.  It’s also doubly fun for me as neither of them have been to Northrend yet – I’ll be able to tag along and see their reactions to the cool new stuff which often invigorates how I feel about things which seem, in some ways, ‘old’ to me.

I’m Horde…

To me the Horde has always been home – much as I love Dwarves and Space Squid, I cannot help hankering after the rugged, tribalistic Orc, Troll and Tauren architecture, the glimmering but sad spires of the blood elves and the dark, messy hovels of the forsaken.  There’s something about the ‘Barrens’ music which tugs at me, something about Orgrimmar at night which makes it feel like ‘home’.  Maybe it’s the crickets…

Also, as Pike said:

When I think of her, I don’t think of her as a character in WoW. I think of her as this living, breathing individual. She is of course, not real, but it sure feels that way sometimes.

(you can see how long it takes me to write posts by seeing what I link to /sigh!)

I can’t see my characters as generic, I enjoy playing them and I’ve gained a bond with them.  Though this means I miss my alliance ones, my horde ones have always been there wanting some love, too.  Mharai was my first max level character and, as such, has always held a certain something for me.  I might do a post to ‘introduce’  my hordies, so you’ll know who I’m talking to (especially since at least one of them shares a name with an alliance toon… for now).

I’m on an RP realm…(?)

Sporeggar is barely an RP realm any more (/sadface) but it’s enough of one that if you emote and talk in-character you don’t get too many odd stares.  You can also report people if they bug you about it.  The ‘idea’ of an RP realm appeals to me and RPPVP just makes sense in terms of an ‘always on’ war.  I don’t go around killing people, I’m a carebear, but I believe in the right to do so out-with ’safe’ areas.

Achievements…

Others may not think much of achievements -  they’re points for the sake of points… but it’s not the number of points I care about.  Loremaster is an achievement I always meant to get around to doing but never did.  A lack of love for dps/grinding on my shaman put me off – I can run around as a cat or bear for hours (how I got Ava to 80 I’ll never know…) Also, raiding took up a lot of my online time, and when not raiding, the peripherals of raiding (dailies, or fishing etc.) and so doing more quests just seemed like a chore, not fun.

Some which I’m not doing yet, but will do, such as Guardian of Cenarius, just didn’t seem right for my shaman – and since I was keeping most of my achievements to one character that meant a definite lack of willpower.  Mharai, on the other hand, will be going for that title as her next goal after Loremaster as it suits her and when it feels right, it’s more fun (for me, anyway).

Anyway…

This is a sort of ‘where I’m at’ post.  I know most of you will skip over it, and that’s fine – I use this blog partially as a journal so I don’t forget these thoughts and I can store good memories for when I need ‘em.  For those who have gone through it, you’ll know where my perspective is coming from in future posts!  Also, perhaps, it can help a little with those others who’re sitting and feeling in a bit of a rut at the moment - sometimes you need to step back and re-evaluate why you’re playing the game and what you actually enjoy.

Replayability has always been something which interested me, which drove me to look more critically at, particularly, the Holiday events.  It seemed, when I first started looking at them, that there was no reason to re-do them after the first time.  I did some of them multiple times because I enjoyed them but there was no drive to re-do them after the first couple of times unless they gave rep or XP and that meant sometimes you were the only, lonely person trying to save a Reindeer or suchlike.

Then along came achievements.  Huzzah! More people are doing the events, the whole server is aware that something is going on and the usual humdrum rhythms have been interrupted by ‘LFG HH!’ etc.  “But wait!” you cry, “it doesn’t count, they’re only doing it for shiny achievement points and epic lewts!”.  So what?  If it gets people out into the world, sampling the content made for them and trying something they otherwise might not then I’m for it.  Of course, it brings the usual drama when phat lewts are involved but, on the whole, more people are taking part in holiday events.  Wonderful.  There’s nothing more fun than doing silly things with friends (again).

Reruns?

So, right, more people are doing it, but where does replayability come into that?  Well, a good number of people have now ‘finished’ the ‘Long Strange Trip’ achievement and… aren’t bothering any more – unless they have an alt who wants epics, or a shot at a rare mount / pet.  Despite the fact that buckets were added to Northrend there was no achievement added for collecting them.  I was a little sad at this (if, partly, because it meant I had to check places which didn’t have buckets!) but also because I wonder if that’s going to be ‘it’ for the current holiday achievements.  Now, I’ve heard they have said they won’t add any more towards the Proto-Drake, which is all fine and sensible to me… but is there any reason to not add more frivolous achievements to the Holidays, just to keep people interested that bit longer?  Something for those to do who’ve ‘done it all before’ or to point people in the direction of the newly added content which is otherwise not necessarily noticeable (like the buckets)?  Now that we’re looking at an expansion being out by this time next year, there’s no reason for them to add any of the things they put into Northrend into the achievement system.  It’d be old already.

Is that ‘it‘ for holiday achievements?  Shall people begin to ignore any that they’ve done already?  I hope not.  Certainly a fair number of alts are seeing the content – but when achievements are account wide will that still happen? Now, I’m not totally blind, I don’t think there’s only doom and gloom and noone is doing achievements – there are still a fair number doing them this year but I’m wondering about next year.  Blizzard has put in place a nicely updatable system – they only need to upscale the level of the holiday boss and add the basic badge vendor rings / trinkets / cloaks etc. and whoop, updated event – that’s cool, that’s sensible – but I’d like to see one or two new holiday achievements per year – maybe an updated Long Strange Trip with some sort of silly title or somesuch.

Like the continued adding of pet achievements – something more to work on for those of us who love holidays as much as achievements!

How-and-ever…

The changes made to the holiday’s in wow within the last two-three years have been phenomenal, but some others could still use some work.  Whilst I’d love to see some holidays made bigger – speak like a pirate day or day of the dead celebrations – I can understand why you also would not want to pack too much in: sometimes when you’re raiding etc. holidays can feel like a bit of a burden (especially if they come with a boatload of achievements and you’re a completionist).  However, there are some big gaps in the holiday year where it’d be nice to have small events or added extras.

What else?

I know this will seem silly to most but it’d be nice if the ‘events’ dropped some form of neutral currency.  This past week I’ve seen a horrendous number of rings laying on the ground; the trinkets at Brewfest less so but once you’re on your 5th caster/ healer trinket in a group with three plate dps… It would be nice if, for instance, they dropped a BoA reputation commendation or a ‘current dailies’ badge i.e. Champion’s Seals – even if only one per day given when you hand in the quest.  This not only gives people an extra reason to go if their mains have ‘done it all last year’ or outgear the rewards, it also gives incentive to rerun it if you’ve already got ‘epic mount / pet’ and means that if the rewards aren’t diverse enough such as in the case of 5 of the same item, that people still get something for heading along there.

I know, I know ‘have my cake and eat it too’ but there you are.

Grouping

Also, for goodness sake Blizzard, make it easier to group for these things – trade spam goes up 100% at the start of these events as there is no ’seasonal’ setting for the LFG tool – I can only hope something in the new LFG tool will fix this, otherwise it’s an irritating side-effect of the current system.   I don’t mind running to Slave Pens, Blackrock or Scarlet Monastery, but trying to organise a group when everyone is looking in different places (general city, general tirisfal, trade and sometimes even in the LFG channel for this event).

Oh, and I’ve not even seen the Horseman’s mount drop once so far. Hmph.

This week, I’ve been playing my Death Knight – whilst I already have a max-level DK, and I have a tank-ish off-spec for her, she’s never actually tanked anything.  I never really wanted to tank on my death knight and she was my ‘dps toon’.  So, new Death Knight, all kitted out with a tank spec, not bad gear, etc.   I had two different pugs, both of which didn’t get past the first few pulls, but one was amiable, and had a good outcome, the other did not.

First pug, Utgarde Keep -  got invited by a guy (DK) who’d tanked a Coilfang instance I went to.  He’d respecced, though, and I guess saw me in LFG and invited away.  Off we set – my aggro was a bit clumsy and mobs were flying everywhere.  The DK, warrior and mage all gave me some tips, encouraged me and, when we broke up the group due to dying on a trash pack (not sure what was going on there)  they still gave me some encouraging words and we all figured we’d try another time.

Come today – I had grabbed myself some cobalt gear to boost my hp / def a bit and figured I’d try again – I was happy about the idea, looking forward to it.  This time, Nexus.  Paladin (level 75) didn’t want to come help summon, he was questing.  Fine, not unusual.  Got there, summoned, got in.  First pull, paladin pulls.  I take it off him, blah de blah.  Second pull,  paladin runs ahead when the healer’s not there, and pulls… I eventually get them all.  Third pull… I’m guessing you’ve got the pattern.   I asked him to please let me pull.  “If you want me not to pull then go faster”.  Off he runs and pulls… whilst the healer was low on mana.  “Pull again for me and you can find another tank”.  Next pull…  /leave group.

The first group made me feel a little more confidant, the second so annoyed I ended up logging off.  People talk about death noobs and suchlike, but how the hell is someone supposed to learn how to tank if the others in the group act like asshats?  And people wonder why they can’t get tanks for dailies, too…

/sigh

Don’t even get me started on ‘LFG VoA, link achieve’ stuff.

The biggest difference to my playtime is that I’m not raiding – it’s not that I don’t want to, I do miss it – but the stress wasn’t helping me feel better, the attitude of people had become terrible and I’d rather do ten-mans with a good, cheerful group than slog through 25-mans just to do normal modes and have some people whine all night that it’s not done exactly as they’d like.  Since I’ve been back I’ve been on a few 10-mans with Lightwalkers – much love to ‘em.  Some day I’d like to actually finish Ulduar – I hate the idea I’ve not seen the last two – especially since we were working on Vez when I stopped playing.

What to do, then?

Well, first off:  when I was telling a few lapsed WoW players about Cataclysm they decided they had stopped playing long enough and would start again.  We all used to play together on Sporeggar EU so they decided they’d come back to their characters there and we would make Death Knights so that the one person who hadn’t gotten past their 30s on that server could make it more swiftly to see Northrend.  However, me being me, I decided that I’d get my paladin up to speed – 3 DKs is awesome for chewing your way through quests but you’re still two short for an instance.  With two Death Knights and a Paladin, though…

I managed to die in a fire at the end there simply because I’m not used to paladin cooldowns yet (oops) but otherwise the run was pretty fun – it was challenging in a way a 5-man run of the same instance is not.  It actually felt rather epic – between me cooking food buffs and handing out enchants, Dreich making scrolls (and giving me some bloodthistle omnomnom) and Ieyasu making potions we were loaded up on buffs – Dreich is blood and Ieyasu is frost, so we had the buffs from both specs as well as my blessings.

Healing as a paladin is odd - I’d respecced not long before the run and only had one healing glyph in (I now have two, thanks to Dreich).  It really does feel a lot harder doing 5-mans as a paladin, but I found the same of discipline until I started to learn my ‘extra abilities’ better.  Also, I’m pretty sure I forgot to use Beacon like ever.  It’s like that Naxx run where I forgot to use tree form for the first 10 minutes.  Memory overload fail, oops.

As you can see – our lucky blood death knight got the polearm everyone and their aunt wants on his first run – lucky bum.  I also walked away with some additions to my clown suit – I need a tabard to cover that chest: running around an RP realm with an Alliance crest on my chest… Also, yes, cloth trousers:  yes, yes they have spirit.  However they also have three gem sockets and replaced str/stam ones I was wearing.

Hopefully next week we’ll make more of a push towards Northrend and get ourselves through a few more instances!

(forgive the screenshot width but my new laptop is very widescreen and cropping them looks odd!)

Well, wid ye look at that!  It’s almost Brewfest time again – Brilliant! Time tae get my mug and git ready fer some heavy boozin’ an’ eatin’!

My thoughts on last years update of Brewfest can be found here. Just a run-down of the achievements, as I can’t say much for certain about the other parts of the event yet!

Achievements

• Meta: Brewmaster(A), Brewmaster (H)

• Strange Brew (A), Strange Brew (H)
• Brew of the Month
• Direbrewfest
• Disturbing the Peace
• Does your Wolpertinger Linger?
• The Brewfest Diet
• Drunken Stupor
• Down With the Dark Iron
• Have Keg, Will Travel

• Brew of the Year

Quick-Reference Tips

Strange Brew / The Brewfest Diet – There are three sets of vendors in each Brewfest camp, each of whom will procure for you their own brands of liquor!  Make sure to visit them all, and have a jolly good time getting sloshed.  Similarly, various vendors in the encampment sell the foods needed for the Brewfest Diet – make sure you have plenty of bag-room when you head there!

Brew of the Month – The token to join this comes from the token redeemer – just grab one and then use the item and enjoy a year-round selection of drunken fun from your mailbox.

Direbrewfest – Apparently Coren Direbrew is being updated to level 80 with appropriate rewards.  I haven’t been able to find any more information on this, I’m afraid.  When you enter BRD, look to your right hand side – there should be some dwarves who you should kill and then use the tunnelling machine.  Last year people didn’t have to complete the small quest chain that’s available as a breadcrumb to him before going to BRD but it’s worth double checking.

Disturbing the Peace – This involves getting three pieces of Brewfest Regalia and doing a simple /dance in Dalaran.

Does your Wolpertinger Linger – These darling, odd little pets can be bought from Brewfest NPCs.  Wowhead lists them as being sold by Ray’ma(H), and Larkin Thunderbrew(A) in the Valley of Spirits near the portal and in Ironforge in the Inn near the entrance respectively.  Oddly, I was sure I bought mine from a vendor in the Brewfest camp last year so it might be worth checking those before making the trip into the cities!

Drunken Stupor -This is as simple as getting drunk and doing what you did to get Going Down.  For those who’ve never done that achievement or have a bad memory – using levitation effects (levitate, slowfall, parachute) or landing in water will not work, but damage reduction abilities (ice block, divine shield, passive rogue / kitty) will.

Down With the Dark Iron – Around every half-hour a whole pile of dark iron dwarves spawn in the brewfest camp – you can grab a brew from one of the tables (the type you’d normally drink), and throw it at a Dark Iron Dwarf to incapacitate them.  When you throw your mug, one of the npcs around the edge of the camp will throw another to you to use – so you can bring it to a key and spam away merrily.  You want to do this, as if they are defeated they will leave a cogwheel behind them which will give you the quest required for this achievement.

Brew of the year is not requires for the Brewmaster meta achievement – so no worries if you didn’t pick this up last year.  A big congratulations to all those who’ll be completing What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been – my break means I missed the Fire Festival so no shiny for me, but I expect to see a whole lot of people on bright, new pink proto-drakes!

_{(ps – no your eyes aren’t deceiving you, this is a /hug post.  I’m tentatively playing WoW very casually again and may be just as tentatively updating the blog again!  For more frequent updates, follow me on twitter @aurik)}

Since I can’t really write about WoW without playing it, that means the blog is going to go into hibernation – so for those who like to keep a well-updated list you can go ahead and remove /hug.

At the moment, I’m considering it an ‘extended hiatus’ from WoW until things have gotten sorted out and to see if I don’t go stir-crazy without it there to fill up the dull moments, so there may be light at the end of the tunnel but it’s a long and dark one.

Thanks to all who’ve read and commented, given support and helped me gain confidence and enjoyment in my writing. For those who don’t know me personally, I’ll likely drop off the radar as I’ve very much kept my online personal and wow things relatively separate, and I want to remove myself from sources of temptation (too much wow on twitter, for example…) but if you do want to keep up, I’ll still be answering emails coming to aurik at slashhug dot net.

I’m terrible at goodbyes so I’ll leave it with  a:

/hug

The recent patch notes, however, seems to have set the community all aflutter.  My viewpoint, as expressed via the linked post, hasn’t really changed since they big hoo-haa of 2.4 and all the high level raiders crying about people getting ‘their’ epics.

2.4 is Stealin’ Mah Epics!

Whilst I did like the idea of a tiered badge system the current one was, to my mind, too complex and the rewards not really ‘worth’ the badge cost given how slow it can be to accrue the marks if you’re not clearing Ulduar every week (we do not bad, but summer blues and a spate of bad luck have shaved our raiding days down at the moment).

But we did it the hard way!

The problem with saying that people should suck it up and go do it the ‘proper’ way is that they are limited – people who can’t be online a full 2-4 hours to do a raid, people who can only grab the odd heroic here and there, people who don’t want to leave family guilds just to get into a raiding guild and people who just can’t find a Naxx raiding guild who need or want them consistently.  Just because your situation allows for it, doesn’t mean everyone’s does.

What do they need the gear for? Well, they want their character to progress and grow just like anyone else.  They want to be able to do things easier and pump out bigger numbers – whether it be tps, hps, or dps.  Everyone wants their character to grow – consider how frustrating the last boss in Oculus and the biggest complaint which is levelled against it – ‘no matter what gear we’re in, that fight is always the same’.  Imagine not upgrading your gear for the whole ‘end-game’ period of the expansion just because you can’t play with the big boys.   You might not ‘need’ the upgrade, but it still sure feels good to get a shiny once in a while and progress your character.

And we don’t even need to go into why it would be good for rerolls or late starters…  If 2.4 hadn’t introduced the badge epics I wouldn’t be playing my shaman now as it was the only way I could get upgraded enough to go straight from Kara to MH / BT with my guild when I was tired of playing my rogue.

Old Content is Old

At the end of the day, when content becomes ‘old’ there is no reason it shouldn’t become ‘easy’ to get.  It’s not like they’re saying ‘here, take a full suit of epix for absolutely no time invested’ – you still need to go out, do Naxx, do Heroics, do Ulduar and work towards a goal.

Although clearing Naxx is not too hard for some – neither was clearing Kara by the time the 2.4 badges arrived – granted Naxx is still easier but it’s also still a limited number per week.  Heroics, whilst also easier, have become hard to get groups for and I can only hope that this change will mean an upsurge in groups for late-comers or people with alt-itis like me.

If you want to work through a tier at that tier’s level, that’s cool – but not everyone does and it’s not just because they’re loot-whores.  Sometimes when you’re working with a sub-skilled group you need the gear to make the difference.  ‘But the bads shouldn’t get to see content then’.  It’s a bloody game.  Grow up -  I learned to share my toys when I was a kid, didn’t you?  People play to have fun, not to have twitch-fingered little jerks who know how to play a damn video game better than they can laugh at them.

But but…

You want your epeen?  That what your achievements panel is for.  Gear is gear, people are people and this is a game in which most of what you have now will be obsolete within half a year.

…and jeez, it might not even happen.

The baby warrior gained a Project last week. Yes, all bolded and a capital letter to boot.

Project Alt

I, like many, often have high hopes and aspirations for my alts.  They will grow up to be ‘x’ or they shall blast through profession ‘y’ or suchlike.  My Dorfette, though, is slightly different – not a whole lot, but a subtle little thing.  I want her to be strong, independent and able to do many of the things she needs for herself – not having to log one of my mains to get her something she could easily do herself .  This, to me, means she will level all of her own secondaries – fishing, cooking, first aid.

This will also, thusly, mean taking my time – that’s good, it’s what I want from this alt – no mad dash to Outands and Northrend beyond – just a leisurely stroll through content I enjoy a some I might not have tried yet!

That’s not all, though, as I often decide upon many mini-projects along the way – my first one, on this character, was a little more ambitious!

Startup

Starting fishing and cooking, together, is wonderfully easy.  Buy a fishing-pole, sit in your capital city of choice and fish your little heart out.  I managed to get to about 180 cooking and just over 200 fishing and began to wonder.

Turtles!

Silly though it might be:  I decided, then and there, that I wanted to get my little alt a [Sea Turtle].  I know there’s not much benefit to having a turtle at low levels except that it’s sorta cool and it might make some water-based travel easier.  I liked the idea, though, of getting myself one before level 30 – so I could use  as soon as I’m able.  Impatient as I am, I decided that I’d go as soon as possible!

I would need, I figured, around 350+ fishing skill and preferably a [Weather-Beaten Fishing Journal].  The ability to track fish became rather invaluable so if you do plan on going to get one of these at low levels then I’d suggest grabbing one of these too. The lowest level area I could find to grab one was in Hinterlands – in the various pools by Southshore and all of the way up the river which runs through the zone as well as in the pond by Tarren Mill.  At level 18 I could manage to avoid most mobs by staying near or in the river and crossing where there were mobs near the river.

I even managed to run through the graveyard in Western Plaguelands – only dying once – and got myself the Chillwind flightpath when I ended up a little too far north in the river.  I think it took me several hours on-and-off and at least 30 watertight trunks before I got my journal.  Many people seem to get them a lot sooner, going by wowhead comments, but I wasn’t so lucky.

The plus side of all of the extra fishing here was getting to 351 skill!   I stayed and fished until I hit 375 skill and then decided it was time to go to Northrend.

Consumables

None of these were really necessary but, by lessening the number of grey items, they reduced the overall time spent turtle-catching.

• [Enchant Gloves: Fishing]
• [Captain Rumsey's Lager]
• [Sharpened Fish Hooks]
• [Swim Speed Potion]

Since Avarix is an alchemist and I had some Blackmouth Oil (made from fish I’d gotten whilst levelling fishing) I made a pile of Swim Speed Potions. I didn’t really need them but they were a nice extra for getting to the icebergs in the first place, then back again later.  You could easily go there with a lower fishing skill but even when I was over 400 skill, using Sharpened Fish Hooks and Captain Rumsey’s Lager I was still getting a fair number of grey items.

Travel

To get to the Icebergs quickly, with less chance of being ganked by the near-shore sharks, just jump off the boat as it goes in towards Valiance Keep – it takes a slightly different path on the way out and doesn’t go so close.  For the Hordies:  I’m afraid it’s a long run for you through Borean Tundra from Warsong Hold.

I went to Frozen Sea Icebergs off Borean Tundra (around 31, 67 on the Northrend map).  Although it’s not terribly easy to get up onto all of the icebergs, most can be scaled at one side / edge and then you are able to walk all the way around them to reach harder-to-get fishing nodes.

I just logged on and did 30 mins or so fishing every time I wanted to chill out or when I was watching tv – much better than the marathon sessions I did to get it on Avarix.  Now I just need to hit 30 so I can ride it!  Once patch 3.2 comes out, though, these will be available to ride at level 20!

For more information on various fishy things, go see El’s Anglin’ – A site which can give you a good number of tips for any fishing venture.

Another of my young characters has finally made their way through the Dark Portal!  Last week, my priestess Ahnara became the latest of my pile of alts to make her way through the dark portal.  The ritual screenshot, the walk through, the entry into another realm entirely: none of it has diminished in grandeur for me since the release of Burning Crusade – no matter how many times I do it.

As several of team-Ratshag have mentioned in the past: Outlands, aside from being a land of opportunity, killing gribbly things and being generally heroic,  is a place where female characters get the short end of the stick clothing wise.

Ahnara: Priestess, saver of souls and healer of the sick went from a rather respectable frock, to a somewhat more… interesting set of ‘garments’.

I had gotten used to wearing robes on my little priestess, so it feels odd to go back to a vest and erm… knickers.

Early Entry

Unlike many of my other alts, I actually headed to Outlands at level 58 – usually I wait until 60.  I am getting more and more tired of the old-world quests these days – especially those in the late 40’s through to the late 50’s – perhaps because many of the ones in that range are shared between factions and I’ve done them across alts on both sides.

Priestly Pontification

Playing a priest still feels odd – especially so when I’ve been asked to actually dps in pugs.  I feel, at this level, somewhat redundant as I can’t really do much before the other dpsers have already destroyed the mob.  Whereas I can see how shadow would be interesting over a slightly longer time frame, the big array of DoT’s and very little direct damage I have is so unusual to me as to be limiting.

However, I can’t say I’m having much more success with my offspec, either!  I had wanted to be disc, I love the idea of it and the concepts behind it, but I’m finding that at lower levels the efficiency isn’t there and neither does it seem ‘beefy’ enough to make up for said lack of efficacy.  I think I might, sorrowfully, spec to holy as my ‘levelling healer offspec’.

Ahnara is now 62 – well on her way towards Northrend… without even stepping outside of Hellfire!

]]> http://www.slashhug.net/alt-ernative-clothing/feed/ 3 http://www.slashhug.net/alt-ernative-clothing/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/slashhug/feedb/~3/jeuAIpItNNw/ http://www.slashhug.net/198-199-200/#comments Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:31:11 +0000 Aurik http://www.slashhug.net/?p=1631 Wid ye belive it?  200! An’ a thought ah wis gonnae be retired years ago.

When grinding some faction rep you usually end up watching the numbers slowly creep forward, inching towards your goal, hoping that it will come soon and you will never have to gather / kill / quest for another hoojermahflip again .  Writing this blog has, I can happily say, not been at all like that – whilst getting posts out is sometimes hard for me when I’m feeling uninspired; I know  I can always turn to my blog when I feel like a little writing therapy.  Thus:  it wasn’t until last week that I noticed I was so close to my second ‘ding’ blogwise – post 200.

I know there are those out there who fire out a post every day but for me, writing my blog is theraputic, either in a cathartic way or because it allows me to formulate and describe ideas or opinions which just won’t entirely come together in my had alone.  I don’t write because I feel I have to, I write here because I love it – I also love getting comments, I love the community that wow-blogging has given me and I enjoy making pretty pictures.

The all-pervasive twitterites, though, had to give me ideas for the content of this post – they came up with a retrospective on some of the posts which I’ve enjoyed, have seemed popular, have had a lot of feedback or simply are still relevant.  Of course, as the author, I find it hard to judge, so I enlisted Khi to sit and read through all 199 posts and help me choose some – for which I am truly grateful!

Of course, how do you pick just a few posts from 199? Well, it’s hard, and we ended up with quite a pile of posts which, whilst not all super-awesome, were ones which also might have meant something to me or that I really enjoyed writing.

The First Post

My first post, ‘What this isnae‘ is often one I refer back to – it describes my simply aim for this blog and, whilst I may have strayed a little into territories where I’d never thought I’d set foot, I still think I hold to the simple ideals therin.  So, a plethora of posts for you to peruse if you wish – chosen from a larger pile and whittled down into those which I feel are still relevant or fun to read.

Pile o’ Posts

Dual Specs – An Anti Rant – A recent post, and one I enjoyed writing even though it felt like it took an age.

Boostin’ Versus Old Skool – Written a long time ago, this post is still pretty relevant.

Rage-Management.  No, Not that Kind O’ Rage – Anger management, wow style.

What You Need to Know About… Dwarves – My silly take on a Blog Azeroth topic of the week.

Versatility or ‘Big Green Blob Syndrome’ – A post which I still feel is relevant – on how giving us similar buffs and abilities does not homogenise us.

Flyin’ Arrows an’ Chained Heals – The first blog post where my ‘baby’ shaman Avarix is mentioned on the blog.

The Burning Crusade – A retrospective on TBC.

Druid  – Epic Flight Form Questline: A Guide – This guide has continued to be my top-viewed post, week by week, since it was written, so I guess I did something right!

Flowery Writin’ – There have been multiple wow-ku memes, but this was the only one I participated in and I really liked how they turned out.

We’ve Come a Long, Long Way Together… - post 100

Thanks once again to those who still read and comment here – hopefully it won’t be that long before I’m hitting 300!