Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The newest mini-pets

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the lack of images with posts lately. New computer, no photoshop, old computer isn't hooked up to a monitor yet. Man it sucks.


Anyway, this morning I logged into my Druid and FINALLY the elusive Jadefang was there for me! I've been sitting in that nook for 4 days, logging in and out, hoping beyond hope. Jadefang drops the Tiny Shale Spider pet. Cute little thing. I'd thought I'd list the new mini-pets and how hard they are for someone like me to get them. I won't go into great details, Warcraftpets.com is great for that!

From the Shattering and before Cataclysm:

Withers-fairly easy, For Alliance, do quest line from the starting town in Darkshore up to fighting the boss in the Troll Village; for Horde simply make your way to the cave above the huge whirlpool in Darkshore and buy it from the Undead vendor in the bottom of the cave.
Brazie's Sunflower-quest reward in Hillsbrad from doing the Peaceblooms vs Ghouls mini game thing. Somewhat easy once you get the hang of it.
Mr Grubbs-Doing the first few quests in Eastern Plaguelands can get you a "Lucky" buff that will make some mobs drop and extra loot bag. It can contain this little guy. My druid got it on the 5th bag, my Shaman grinded a whole level out, dozens of bags, no Grub.
Tiny Flamefly-quest reward in Burning Steppes. Fairly easy, though lengthy, level 50-55ish.

There are of course the 2 from the Blizz store, I got the Moonkin Hatchling, but not Ragnaros.

With Cataclysm:

Tiny Shale Spider-drops from spider, Jadefang, a rare in Deepholm. She spawns on a special ledge that isn't easy to get to. There are guides on Warcraftpets and Wowhead.
Rustberg Seagull-Somewhat easy. Honored from the Tol Barad faction, plus 50 tokens. Doing the dailies, no pvp required. If your faction controls TB, you get quite a few more dailies(though some are challenging due to mega instant repops). Level 85 only. I've been slacking, but I'm fairly close to getting this one.
Personalized World Destroyer/De-Weaponized Mechanical Companion-Buy from Auction House or have an engineer-one if for Goblin, one is for Gnomish. Engineering 475(mine isn't that high yet).
Enchanted Lantern/Magic Lamp-Buy from Auction House or Enchanters made. I've yet to see one on the AH, and my enchanter isn't high enough. One is Alliance, one is Horde.
Blue/Gold Mini-Jouster-quest reward from Mt Hyjal. Annoying quest, but still fairly easy. Near the end of longish quest line. Can only get one color on each character.
Elementium Geode-Rare drop from an Elementium Node, can be bought on AH. I need to mine more...
Fox Kit-Rare drop from Foxes on Tol Barad upper island. BoP, and no luck for me here yet either.
Pebble-Cute little rock guy, achievement reward for finishing the daily quest to rescue him 10 times. I'm at 2.

Fossilized Raptor-Archaeology reward. Two of my characters got it early on, two others have yet to see it(grr)
Clockwork Gnome-Archaeology Reward. Dwarf Rare, higher level than Fossil. I have it on my Druid, but not on my others. A bit rarer than the Fossil.
Crawling Claw-Archaeology Reward. Tol'Vir rare. At least level 425 Arch, and Tol'Vir sites are quite rare themselves.


Armadillo Pup-Guild achievement reward, kill 50,000 critters. Ugh. I'm at 5,000 so far, and this is so boring. Maybe someday I will dedicate a few hours to finishing it off. ***UPDATE-You have to be exalted with the guild in order to buy it. At the rate my Druid is going, that might happen in the year 2015. Lovely.
Dark Phoenix Hatchling-Guild achievement reward, United Nations(55 exalteds). Yeah, not gonna happen with us.
Guild Pages/Heralds-More guild achievements. I'm not sure what they are, but I am pretty sure someone in such a small guild as myself doesn't stand a chance at these.


So there we go. Most of them are somewhat easy, though at the very least time consuming. And that I don't mind, as long as they ARE obtainable by someone like me. Right now my Druid is at 114 companions. I love them. :)

Sunday, December 26, 2010

So many new alts

And I don't know who to play!

Aside from the 14 level 80+ that I have(only 1 to 85 so far), I have started a new army of alts, thanks to the new races and race/class combos. At this point, I have:

63 Troll Druid(got to 62 before Cataclysm came out, stuck there)
50 Dwarf Shaman
25 Undead Hunter
23 Goblin Rogue
12 Tauren Paladin
11 Gnome Priest
14 Worgen Rogue
13 Worgen Druid
17 Worgen Warlock
13 Worgen Druid(yes, another one, different realm)
16 Human Hunter
12 Goblin Hunter(mainly just a bank alt)

Sometimes I log in and just work to get one level or hit the rest pin and then log out. Right now I am determined to get my Goblin Rogue to exalted with Orgrimmar(5k to go)-I haaaaate the Goblin Trike(I don't have a Chopper on any of my characters either, don't want to spend the money and I just hate how it looks and sounds).

Part of me wants to level the Troll Druid, but Outlands is just so...ugh. I also have a 49 Human Rogue and 43 Undead Rogue that I have had forever and would like to level also. But when I play these, I feel guilty for not leveling my 80s up to 85. And then I just get this urge to log in with someone and do Archaeology!

And to top it all off, Santa brought my kid a Wii for Christmas and I'm either playing Wii Sports(tennis ftw, at least I'm getting some exercise now!) or she wants to me to play some other game with her.

So much to do, so little time.

Archaeology 315

...and still no Baby Raptor. /sad

My now level 50 Dwarf Shaman has managed to find one rare, the Chalice of the Mountain Kings, so I do have the title of Assistant Professor.

Headed to Un'Goro and Kalimdor in hopes of opening up some more fossil sites. Getting lots of duplicate common fossils. Getting very, very frustrated. Grrrr.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Archaeology thoughts

Archaeology is the one thing I was looking forward to in this expansion. It is fairly interesting. It satisfies my love of travel and exploring. But it is extremely frustrating-as it is in real life, of course. But in real life, I wouldn't go looking for raptor fossils in the Valley of the Kings, nor would I look for mummies in Utah. But I'll get to that in a moment.

My main, my Druid, is level 85, and most of those levels were gotten from Archaeology. At 525, with 10 rares solved, I am burnt out on it with her. No level 85 epics, but I don't really care about those. Got the Raptor and Gnome mini-pets, Raptor mount-those are what I wanted.

Then I started up with my Dwarf Paladin, level 80. Got to level 81, somewhere around 200 in archaeology. Got the raptor mini-pet. And I'm done there for now because I am really into my Dwarf Shaman right now...

My Dwarf Shaman is level 42. I named him for famed archaeologist Dr Zahi Hawass. I have leveled him from about 30 almost exclusively on Archaeology. I don't mind all the travel. What is driving me crazy is the number of Troll digsites I keep getting! He is at 255 and hasn't seen a single rare project pop yet. From the numbers and the levels of zones that dig sites are in, the Eastern Kingdoms should have Dwarf and Fossil about 50/50 with Troll(there might be more fossil on Kalimdor, but they are in Un'Goro and higher than my current level). There are 7 Dwarf sites, 9 fossil sites, and 19 Troll sites. But 95% of the sites I get at any time, for hours, are Troll. It is a rare thing to actually get a dig site that ISN'T Troll. I've solved 13 common Troll things and I've decided to just stop solving them. I've got 6 Dwarf and 8 Fossil solved. Oh if only the stupid Troll ones would stop showing!

The same goes on my Druid, who is at 525. I'm looking for Troll now, and all I get are fossil! I have solved everything possible for fossil, but those are the only sites that keep popping! Argh!

At least the "outside the boundaries" bug has sort of been fixed. I went back to the Orc area in Shadowmoon Valley 3 times and finally the placing changed to a completely random other place so I could get that site finished.

As for just storming into Aerie Peak on my Horde character to get those digs-I just don't do that. I've been playing for over 5 years and I have never, ever, not once killed an opposing faction NPC(outside of battlegrounds). Never done it, not going to start now. But at least the placements do change, so if it is in town, I can always come back later.

Now if I could just get that "Assistant Professor" title for my Shaman-I would be much happier! Hey it's almost Christmas, C'mon!!!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Cataclysmic mess

Cataclysm is a week old now. I'm sure most people are already 85 and decked out in their epics and whatnot. And I'm not sure I want to play much more.

I knew, from reading about beta, that the game was going to be very different. For a soloer, it is.

First of all, the mobs are tough, really really tough. I wasn't having too much trouble with my Druid, but some of my others are barely getting through most fights. We went from fighting level 80s in Northrend with 12k HP, to level 80s with 30k+ HP. And obviously they hit much harder-and the many instant respawns are horrible. But I'm sure these mobs are tuned to someone in their ICC epix, and not to some noob with barely iLvl 200 gear.

My Druid is level 84. And the only quests I've done have been finishing Mount Hyjal. The rest has been from mining and Archaeology.

Archaeology can be fun, but it is extremely annoying at times. Running in circles while the green light points in a different direction 5 different times is ridiculous. And yes, I know all about triangulation. I spend quite a lot of time with a GPS and I study maps as one of my main hobbies-like USGS maps, not just street maps. This profession is right up my alley. The only other problem is the bugs. Right now, at level 42o, I have 2 sites I can't finish which means I'm down to looking for 14 sites at a time rather than 16. One in Dragonmaw Village in Shadowmoon points to a spot outside the zone, so you get "you can't use that here" when you try to step closer to where the green light is pointing. The second is smack dab in the middle of Aerie Peak-and I'm Horde. I'm not going INTO an Alliance town to get an artifact. Screw that. Otherwise, it's sort of fun-I have the Raptor and Gnome pets, and the Raptor mount-they are pretty cool.

My biggest beef is with the guild leveling nerf that hit yesterday. My main realm has the guild with most of my 80s, my husband and kid's characters. The first few days we never got near the cap, but we were making progress. I thought we might actually hit level 2 next weekend. Then the cut back to 25% of XP and the progress has grinded to a halt. I don't want to hit level 25 in a month like most guilds, I'm not asking for the SAME THINGS AS HUGE GUILDS, I was just hoping that maybe we could actually hit freaking level 2!! in a few weeks! Is that REALLY too much to ask?? I suppose it is, judging by comments made by so many in the forums. It's either "join a huge guild or GTFO or STFU".

Don't get me wrong-I really honestly don't give two shits about the guild perks. I have 80s on 3 other realms that are guildless and I don't really care if they ever join a guild. I don't need the "perks" and I don't need other people. But I was really hoping our little family could at least make a LITTLE progress. At this rate, we probably won't hit level 3 until the next expansion hits-if we are still playing by then.


At least with Wrath I had something to look forward to when I hit the max level-there were tons of dailies with lots if interesting rewards. I worked towards the Hodirs to get the Mammoth(that I never rode). I even did those 3 measly dailies for Wyrmrest to get exalted and the Red Drake-it took me months and months, but it was worth it! What dailies are there now? I'm not 85 yet and haven't opened any, so I don't know for sure, but I think it's just Therazane(with no reward worth bothering for) and Tol Barad(which will require your realm to have control if you want to get the extra dailies). Oh and one little daily for Tolvir, for 150 rep-it's not like I really wanted that camel anyway. There might be a few in Twilight Highlands(haven't been there yet), but no interesting rewards there either. No dailies for Earthen Ring or Gaurdians of Hyjal-disappointing. I crave another Argent Tournament!!

I know, it's stupid of me to want to get exalted with a faction just for a mount or something cosmetic-even if it's something I'll never use(Mammoth and Red Drake)-but I have no real use for the end-game gear. Even the little achievement for being exalted is a nice thing to strive for. I see now that they are trying to reinforce that the BIG GUILDS and RAID/HEROICS/ARENA or GTFO. I guess it is time for me to move back to the Sims or some other shit like that. Can't really kill anyone to get your frustration out in the Sims-unless you place them in a building with no doors and no food. They will die eventually. It's torture and just not as satisfying as bashing in some big ugly Ogre skulls.


Worgens/Goblins-I just can't get into them. Haven't gotten one past level 13. The Goblin areas-ugh. I'm sure I'm the only person playing the game who drove their little hot rod around as carefully as possible, never using the speed boost, looking for the talk radio station, and avoiding the people like crazy. I drove it like I drive my real car. Can't help it. And then I get to Lost Isles, and the leader guy yells out every few minutes how EVERYTHING IS YOUR FAULT! Naming YOU by name! Great, for someone with self-esteem issues, who has thought everything was my fault ever since I was a kid, it makes me want to take my character to the water and drown it, just get it over with and end it all. Thanks game.

The Worgen I just find boring so far. The architecture is AMAZING. I could run around Gilneas all day. But I can do that with any of my 80s, without the annoying mobs. I'm not sure why I just don't really like the actual characters so far. It could also be the absolute massive amount of others in the zones that turns me off. Perhaps if I was running around alone, I'd be more into it. Right now I'm either AFKing or rushing through to avoid the random jerk who wants to spam duels or group invites or just talk about stupid shit. Go away!

So a week in and I'm not having fun. Not to mention I get absolutely hounded and ridiculed on the one message board that I used to frequent. So this will be my only vent portal. If ANYTHING positive happens for soloers, I'll post about it. If not, well I might just not be playing much longer. Doesn't seem like they want my kind around here anymore.