The Undead of the Necropolises...here comes the Lich King!

I really should take more screenshots of this!

Anyway...the Scourge Invasion is back! The last time this happened was June 2006 when Naxxramas was introduced. At that time I only had one character at max level(60), Kickingbird. My next highest was Wormtongue, he was about level 55 and not able to participate as easily.

Now I have 7 characters at the max level and they are taking their turns at fighting back the scourge each time they spawn. They have all equipped their Argent Dawn Commissions and are doing what they can to help win the battles!

The rewards for doing this? Gear of course! Yeah, not that gear really excites me...but since some of my characters have been wearing the same gear since they hit level 70(and most of it isn't that great) and since this is EPIC gear I can get SOLO...how can I NOT love this??! There is a four piece "Undead Cleansing/Slaying" set-chest, shoulders, legs and gloves. The legs drop from several rare Scourge that show up at each necroplis crystal(most of my characters have gotten these). The chest drops from the elite Shadow of Doom that spawns when the crystal is near death(they only spawn when someone spends the runes to summon them, but the summoners can't always bring them down leaving them open to anyone around who can tag them fast enough)-and so far only my Paladin has his chest piece. The gloves and shoulders are bought with the runes that drop from the mass of Scourge mobs around each crystal. Most of my characters have gotten these already too.

Another thing to buy with the runes, the Tabard of the Argent Dawn! Of course, I had this 2 years ago with my druid and was the one tabard I wore most of the time. Now, I could cry and moan, saying "whaaaa I felt special because I had one and NoOne else did and now EVERYONE will have one...waaaaaaaa". Sort of how those who already had the Sinister Squashling cried because it was changed to be available through trick or treat bags. But no, I'm not like that. Frankly because I don't really care what others have. I don't really care if everyone gets all the special minipets or tabard or whatever-it does not affect MY play in the slightest. And having something rare...does NOT make my feel 'uber' or 'special' or 'better than everyone else'.

And that brings me to the last thing that I do want to whine about...a new minipet that I would give nearly ALL of my minipets for but I simply won't be able to get it. It is a Vampire Batling(and I'm not even going to link it, because it is just that painful to me), and it only drops from a raid boss in Karazhan. Great. Thanks. Being vampire-obsessed makes this one really hurt to know that I simply don't know HOW ON EARTH I will be able to get into a group to get one of these awesome little guys. And it will be gone forever after next week and I will probably cry everytime I see someone with this little guy out. Sometimes I REALLY HATE YOU BLIZZARD! Damn you, Damn you all to HELL!!!!!

Another new pet, sort of...

Another new and interesting pet...sort of...can be found while fighting the undead that are sent from the necropolises around Azeroth. This is one that stays in your bags, called a Haunted Memento. It looks like a necklace, but once you have one you will have a Shade following you around! It is very cool! It does show up on Track or Sense Undead, but you can not target it in any way. Sometimes he goes away, but usually zoning or logging in/out brings him back. He also dissappears when you summon a regular minipet.

He is not soulbound and is an item that can be thrown to another player if they have bag space. They are unique though, so if someone already has one and you throw it to them, it will be gone forever.

One other interesting note...he makes bankers vanish! I put mine in the Scryers bank and then watched as I actually waved goodbye and saw the banker go poof right before my eyes! Yikes!

Zombies can be annoying

It started strangely enough. A few infected crates were in Booty Bay, and others had inspected them and then headed for Orgrimmar. After 10 minutes, they were transformed into zombies and began infecting others. Nobody was really sure what was going on.
But finally we caught on. And we learned that both Alliance and Horde zombies become a Unified Zombie faction! With that in mind, I grabbed my Human Mage, and my kid got her Undead Mage, and we headed to Booty Bay to see where it all began. (ok, we took the unique opportunity to do some cross-faction trading without needing the neutral auction house, which was most excellent for my human's pet collection!) And then we headed for Booty Bay proper to see if we could convince the guards there to join us...and then we went on to Shat'trath to take out some vengeance on those trainees who practice nonstop next to the flight path! It was fun for awhile, and then we died...
And while it was fun, it eventually had to come to an end. After 5 days, and the infection going from 10 minutes to zombification to 5 minutes and finally down to 60 seconds(which was almost instant when my Paladin fought a group in Thunder Bluff). And then it was over, with only the mass of the dead lying about as proof that anything had happened. Oh, but it is not over, so I've heard...

Wyl, the Beast Master

Another thing I've done after the last patch is put all of Wyl's points back into the Beastmaster talent tree and tame one of the exotic pets. I had logged him out on Azuremyst Isle before the patch and was ready to go after the servers stabilized. My kid also had her hunter there, a level 35 who wanted a moth.

After helping her get into the starter zone for the moth, I made my way to the cave to get my hands on the Kurken. I had to wait for two others who had come in to kill him for their quests and once they were gone I began taming. Being level 12, he was an easy tame of course. And then I was out of there. Once I was back in Shat, I gave my new big white puppy his new name-one that I had searched and thought hard over...Orthrus. Orthrus was a two headed dog of Greek Mythology and I knew this name was the one I had to choose. I've seen quite a few of the big white dogs running around, but not another one named Orthrus. And that's fine by me!

I haven't had the chance to level him up yet, but plan to grind on Ogres in Nagrand in order to do so. For the time being, when I need a level 70 pet around(such as fighting the Scourge invasion), I go back to my faithful piggy, Briarsting. But I see lots of Orthrus in Wyl's future!

Sinister Squashling

Ok, so maybe I was a little bummed that this totally cute pet was only rarely available to those who could get a group and kill the Headless Horseman. And then Blizzard threw those like me a bone...and he became available from trick or treating! Hallelujah! Eremit, my Paladin, was the first to be lucky enough to nab one-and was so happy he bent over and started crying! (ok not really...!)

So far the characters of mine that have been lucky to see this guy in their goody bag...Kickingbird, Rayak, Eremit, Tohopka, Wyl, Daneck, Windextor, Geocacher and Wyndampryce. My 'evil' themed characters, Wormtongue, Gediman and Hekubus have not been so lucky and that really bums me out! Also, my hunter, Billiejo has not been lucky either though her travelling partners, Daisyjo and Jojimbob have both gotten him.

Another item, the Hallowed Helm, a no-level cloth helm that looks like a pumpkin head, also drops from the goody bags but those have been rarer for me. So far only Tohopka, Windextor, Geocacher, Kimthescout, Taphophilia, and Rayak of Moonguard have gotten it. And with Tohopka, Geocacher and Windextor being extremely lucky to get both, they managed to get the Sinister Calling achievement.

And there is only until Friday to keep trying!

Stinker!!

Yes, I finally got around to feeling safe enough to learn all of my pets with my 2 mains and they both got their Stinker in the mail from Breanni!

I've posed Rayak here in Orgrimmar with Stinker. Rayak is on his favorite mount, the Swift Orange Raptor, and is showing off his Ambassador title.

Though he has many rare pets, like the Disgusting Oozeling, Hyacinth Macaw and Tiny Crimson Whelpling, Stinker remains the pet he calls to his side the most!



As for Kickingbird, she is posed in an amusing pose after being transformed by the innkeeper in Orgrimmar into a black cat! I thought it might make Stinker get a little too friendly, but he didn't seem very interested. Kick doesn't really have any of the rarer pets, but that's ok, because she loves having Stinker out all the time as well!

Update on Wyndampryce

So Wesley, er excuse me, Wyndampryce(sorry, I can't help but call him by the character on 'Angel's first name) reached level 10. This was back on October 16, but things have been crazy this past week what with the Halloween event and the sudden onslaught of zombies! So basically he has been idling his time in Darnassus, fairly safe, just trick or treating every hour or so. And yes, he was lucky enough to get a Sinister Squashling pet for a demon-fighting companion!

I am posting his achievements here to check his progress. Level 10, only one quest completed(rogue quest-and before he did a few candy buckets which count also). And on the second it notes that the only mob he has killed is demons! Ok, except for that one rat in the Deep Run Tram. Oops! As you can see, I've been using exploration for XP, and a few of the candy buckets from the Hallow's Eve event. I've almost considered adding Undead to the list of mobs he will seek out and destroy but I really do want to try to keep it to only demons! It is tough with the zombie invasion happening(and his subsequent death to them in Auberdine while trying to go for candy), but no, only demons!
Not sure when he will get more leveled up, for now he will become a bank alt except on the days that my main realm is down and Draenor is up!

The easiest PvP achievement for PvP haters

Make Love, Not Warcraft was one of those PvP achievements that I had almost overlooked. My kid made a macro and was trying so hard in AV to get it and got really excited when she finally did.

But I didn't have to PvP to get the achievement on either of my main characters!

My druid was sitting in Orgrimmar, minding her own business, when a level 70 Draenei Shaman comes Ghostwolf-ing through town. She was killed just as she hit the Drag. I ran to follow out of curiousity and when I noticed she hadn't released after dieing(Shammy, probably waiting for everyone to leave so she could Reincarnate), I went over and /hugged her! No having to do PvP, just an oppurtunity to grab it.

With my rogue, I was sitting in SM, near the portals, hoping for a Headless Horseman group(which never happened), when of COURSE PvP broke out. And to my luck and astonishment, one Night Elf hunter was not releasing after getting stomped. I remembered the achievement and quickly ran over to give him his /hug. Another perfect opportunity and I never had to enter a battleground to get that achievement!

Achievements-what I've done solo

Yeah, I should probably be talking about the Hallow's End achievements, since that is the holiday going on now. But I am not getting into any groups for the Headless Horseman(#1 crappy gear, #2 don't know anyone, and #3 fear of asking for groups...) so I won't be able to finish many of the achievements related to that.

Not to mention that nearly ALL of the Holiday achievements require some sort of PvP. Admittedly the cooking and fishing also sort of require PvP, but those will be much easier to do. I will explain later.

What I want to talk about now is the achievements I have already completed solo(many of these on both my druid and rogue). Many more are partially finished as the rest of the requirements include things from Wrath of the Lich King.

GENERAL:
Shop Smart, Shot Pet-gather 50 minipets, get Reeking Pet Carrer(pet skunk)
Going Down-falling 65 or more yards without dieing(safe fall on both made it easy)
Filling up the barn-25 or more mounts(my rogue is only a few from the next level that awards the Albino Drake)
and the easy ones such as reaching level 70, getting the different levels of riding and owning a tabard
Tastes like Chicken-eat 50 different kinds of food, rather easy, just buy each type of food and each level and sit and eat(I also had all of the Darkmoon Faire food saved too)

QUESTS:
Number of quests-both are somewhere close to 2000 done
5 Daily quests-that went pretty quick
still working on the Loremasters of each continent and zone of Outland

EXPLORATION:
Exploring each zone-these are completely done on both characters, except of course for Northrend

Player vs Player:
While I have a few left over from when my druid got to exalted with Frostwolf for the wolf, these are pretty much being ignored by me

Dungeons and Raids:
As above, these are largely being ignored except for what I can go back and do solo or just duo/trio with my hubby and kiddo(which isn't much)

PROFESSIONS:COOKING:
Chef de Partie-learn 75 cooking recipes(my druid is 1 away from the 100 level, rogue is about 10 away)
The Cake is not a lie-with my rogue, the Rokk won't give my druid the recipe-or the Storm Chops one either
Captain Rumsey's Lager-fishing and drinking? why yes please!
still working on doing each of the dailies and getting all Outland recipes cooked up

PROFESSIONS:FISHING:
Old Crafty-with my rogue, not so lucky on druid, not certain I will be able to get the Ironforge equivelant, we shall see
Old Gnome and the Sea-little too easy, just fish from a pool
Outland Angler-with druid, just waiting on realms to come up to finish rogue's
still in progress in Barlo's quest list, fishing from wreckage pools and still not sure I will attempt to fish in Stormwind or not

PROFESSIONS:FIRST AID:
Master in first aid, easy, the rest is for Northrend

REPUTATIONS:
Ambassador of the Horde-I actually have this on my 3 70 Blood Elves, as well as the Alliance version on my 70 human mage and 41 Gnome rogue(still need Silvermoon rep for other 70s)
The Diplomat-exalted with Sporeggar, Mag'har and Timbermaw-on my druid. But they buffed Timbermaw rep(grrrr) so maybe someday my rogue will have this too
They love me in that tunnel-exalted with Timbermaw, obviously with my druid
The Burning Crusade ones...my druid has SSO, Sporeggar, Mag'har, Netherwing and Skyguard, rogue has Sporeggar, Mag'har, Scryer, SSO and close on Skyguard. Most of the rest require lots of dungeons runs(ie, not gonna happen for me)

WORLD EVENTS:
Obviously Hallows End is going on now. So they both finished Check Your Head, Savior of Hallow's End, and all of the Trick of Treats of Azeroth. Most of the rest won't happen because they require PvP or fighting the Headless Horseman(noted above). Oh well.

FEATS OF STRENGTH:
Druid-both Brewfest steins, Clockwork Rocket Bot, Competitor's Tabard, Spirit of Competition, Sergeant rank, Tabard of the Argent Dawn and Tabard of the Protector
Rogue-both Brewfest steins, Clockwork Rocket Bot, Spirit of Competition and Competitor's Tabard and that's it.


So you can see that I have done quite a bit by myself. I know I probably don't have anywhere near as many points as most people-especially those who pvp and raid out the wazoo-but I don't care. I can still accomplish many things in this game without anyone else but myself. Nobody wants to play with me? Fine, I'll play by myself and be HAPPY DOING IT!!! >.<

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce

So if you have ever seen the television shows "Angel" or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" then you know the name. And after seeing his first episode on "Angel" I was inspired to create a "theme" character.

There are players who have leveled without killing a single mob, by only killing boars(South Park reference), and almost completely naked(the character, I don't even want to know about the real person!). And I wanted to attempt something different. I've had several ideas, but this is the first I have actually started.

His name is Wyndampryce, and he is a Rogue Demon Hunter.

Yes, I created a human rogue, and I intend to level him ONLY by killing demons. And I will update his progress here.

So far, he is level 10. I took him straight from level 1 in the Human starting zone all the way to the Night Elf starting zone to fight the Grells and Grellkin of Teldrassil. The Grells are levels 2 and 3. The Grellkin are levels 3 and 4. I stayed there until level 6 and moved on to Dolonar in Teldrassil where I fought the Sprites in the cave just north of the town. The different versions of Sprites are levels 5 to 7, with the named mob, Melenas, being level 8.

Once he reached level 10, I did the Night Elf version of the Rogue quest, which involved pickpocketing an item from a Demon.

I will be adding progress screencaps soon as well as links. As soon as he builds up a level and a half of rest he will move on to the level 12-13 Satyrs of Bloodmyst Isle as well as doing as much exploring as possible for the XP.

I have also decided to level him in inscription, only because it seems the most logical seeing as how Wesley was so into books! And picking herbs is probably the easiest gathering skill with the restriction I have placed on him in only killing Demons. Skinning obviously involves killing things for skinning and Mining tends to aggro any mob nearby. Herbalism and Inscription is perfect for him.

More to come...

Not a good first day...

So I waited for the realms to come up. Anxiously. A few realms popped up with some old random characters on them. Logged in just to check add-ons and whatnot. All add-ons were broken. No problem. Turn them off.

Finally Draenor comes up(and thank GOODNESS it was that one and NOT Kael'Thas first!), and I log in with my little Gnome Rogue, with his Ambassador title and all. Sitting there, in Stormwind on his Elekk...I throw my talent points in and talk to the trainer to learn the new disarm move. Cool. Now to learn the mounts, Black Stallion, Gray Elekk, Gray Ram and Spotted Frostsaber. Cool. Check them out on new character page. Cool. Run over to bank to see if I have any minipets to learn and work on my macro for summoning random mounts. And then BOOM...

Server crash..

No biggie, right? It's bound to happen a few times the first day. So I try and try again and finally manage to get back in. And I am back on my elekk in front of the rogue trainer. And my talent points are empty again. And I open my bags and I see the Black Stallion...and no other mounts. I check the character sheet and the 'pet tab' is not even there. BUT I AM ON MY ELEKK! And of course, as soon as I dismount to learn the Black Stallion I get the pet tab with ONLY the horse, and my other mounts are just GONE. Yeah. Poof.

So...that is why I am SOOO glad it was Draenor that came up and I logged in and did this with Hek. At least it was just a few level 30, 8gold mounts. It could have been my rogue, Rayak, and his 52 pets and however many mounts. That would have had me in hysterics.

Yeah.

So I wait to see if I will get my mounts back. And others hope they will get back much MUCH rarer things than I lost.

And I am still so glad it wasn't Rayak or Kick.

Patch Day! 3.0.2

So I've been sitting here-all day-reading the forums over and over, checking every blog, rereading the message boards...WAITING for the realms to come back up! It is 2:30pm, so they should be up in about 1 1/2 hours...SHOULD be....LOL! We shall see. I hate to sound like a loser, but I am so excited and anxious to log in today that I may be physically sick to my stomach today from it(or else dinner last night just isn't agreeing with me!).

But hey, I did some laundry-though I really should put another load in. And I really should do the dishes-though dinner tonight will have to be soup and sandwiches!

I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve...I even dreamt about the game last night...I was working on my Cenarion rep with my Druid(at least I think I was, I was in Silithus doing quests...gah, that is more like a nightmare than a dream!).

Sigh......

Stinker!

I am so looking forward to the patch tomorrow for one main reason...Stinker! He is acquired when your character has at least 50 of the mini pets learned. And my two main characters have more than that!!
Kickingbird has 54...

And Rayak has 52...

And I can't wait until I get my little pet Skunk tomorrow!
(assuming we are able to get on the realm on patch day!)

Add-ons and the patch

This next week I need to go through all of the add-ons I use and find new versions or keep my fingers crossed that they will still work.

The ones I use include:

Ackis Recipe List
Altoholic
Atlas
Atlas Loot Enhanced
Auctioneer
AutoDecline
Bagnon
Cartographer
CEnemyCastBar
ChatTimeStamp
ClearFont
Comix
DiggKarma
FloTotemBar
FuBar: Ammo, Bag, Clock, Duratek, Experience, FactionItems, Factions, Farmer, Guild, Innbound, Mail, Money, Professions, Quest,
Informant
Lightheaded/TomTom
Minipet
MobInfo2
Monkey Quest
Necrosis
NoDuel
OmniCC
Professions Book
SCT
XPerl


With adding Altoholic recently, I may get rid of Bagnon. I sort of miss having the old look of the bags and bank. I sort of miss the old look of the character portraits, but Xperl just adds so much more that I hate to lose(though I may see if I can deal without it). I hate that MobInfo takes up so much space too, I just love the info I get from it though. I don't even remember what Comix does anymore-I turned off the sound becuause it got so annoying! And DiggKarma I love, I hope it still works or I will have to find a replacement(it's nice to see who is a jerk months later from making notes on them that I see on mouseover!) And I will never be able to play without Autodecline/NoDuel!

Time to work on updating them all!

Testing Shadowstep

So I logged in to the Public Test Realm today with Rayak and see that my talent points have been wiped again. Cool, maybe it's time to try something different. So I specced up to Shadowstep in Sub. I miss Blade Flurry, but dang having ShadowStep along with Hemo and Ghostly Strike, plus Prep and Premed was incredible!

So I flew out to Isle of Quel'Danas and was killing those manaburners quite quickly! Yes, I know they aren't hard to kill, but Rayak is in crap gear and I've never been able to kill them consistantly without taking a single hit of damage before! Premed(adds 2 combo points), Shadowstep to get up behind them, Cheap shot to stun-and usually I now have 4-5 cp, Hemo, wait for CS to tick down and energy to build back up, boom Kidney Shot and then GS or Shiv or SS and either they were dead or a quick Evis took them out. Taking no damage at all, complete stunlock!

I'm sure this is the PvP set up, and I don't PvP at all, and I do miss Blade Flurry(and wouldn't be able to get it until at least level 71 depending on how I put points). Blade Flurry is a great way to fight two targets at once and really helps while solo grinding. But I think I may be trying out the Subtlety tree once the patch hits. If I can kill a single target quicker, maybe I can get to the second mob quicker. Should be fun to try out anyway!

I may go back to Combat after awhile if Sub doesn't work out in long time grinding though. I do LOVE that the new talents in the first tiers of Sub make the stealth cooldown down to 4 secs rather than the current 5! I like getting back to being stealthed much quicker. :)

Post Your Bank

So another blog out there challenged WoW bloggers to post their banks. This is Rayak's bank, since I just got a screenshot of it. Can you tell I am anxious for the next patch to get here?

I use the Bagnon inventory addon. This is what Rayak has in there:

Row 1: Halaa crystals and tokens(he already has the 18 slot bag, have nothing else to spend these on; Arcane Runes; Halaa Battle Tokens(2, big woop they will never be spent either); Winterfall Firewater; Lifelike Mechanical Toad; extra fishing line from daily; tabard(others listed below); pumkin heads from last year; Haliscan outfit; Blue Overalls; Blood Elf Bandit Mask; my big whopping 13 BoJ

Row 2: Necklace of the Deep; Charm of Alacrity; Ninja wand; Winterfall beads; Xmas cookies(lol); EoTS and AV tokens which will never be spent; Reindeer things; extra fishing hat(wearing one in picture); old belt; Spectracles(?); Felsteel neck; Scroll of?; old gloves; Darkmoon tix?

Row 3: several daggers I kept; Winterfall quest totem; Stormshroud shoulders, legs; Zombie Skin leggings; original shirt; Gold Wedding Band; tabards(Competitors, Scryer, Maghar, Sporeggar, guild, Scarlet)

Row 4: more old gear, can't recall what; Orb of the Whelpling; Candy Heart from my kid:) ; Nat Pagle's Guide to Extreme Anglin'; Red Rose; plain letter(about the orphan kid I think); Steamy Romance Novel; Rogue's Diary(I love being a rogue!); flash powder; Hallow's eve candy!?; Lucky Charm, Rabbits feet

Row 5: lots more old gear, especially hats and masks that I really liked; some old trinkets; Black Tabby; Blue Brewfest mug

Row 6: Sleepy Willy; more old hats; Green Wing Macaw; Mech Squirrel; various holiday outfits;

Row 7: Slow and swift Brewfest Rams; slow raptor, kodo, horse, wolf, wyvern; Snowman kit(dumb); Mech Chicken; Senegal; Cockatiel; Blue Dragonhawk; Manawyrm; Brown rabbit; Ancona Chicken;

Row 8: lots more pets

Row 9: and lots more pets! including my Disgusting Oozeling! If you are counting, there are 42 minpets in the picture, several more BoE ones are on an alt-oh and currently 13 mounts!

And you can see my actual bags too and how full they are! I will be SOOOOOO happy when the patch gets here! So much bagspace, I won't know what to do with it all!

The Pacifist

While reading another blog, The WoW Pacifist, I got to thinking about how another achievement would be an interesting idea. I suppose it doesn't really apply to the person writing that blog, as they spend time in battlegrounds in order to get experience-even if they don't actually do any of the killing. However, I have at least one character that has made it to level 70 with 0 Honorable Kills. I would love them to add an achievement for that and add the title "the Pacifist" to it. I would be proud to wear that! Or something similiar(though not derogatory!).

Wyl is my Pacifist. Yes, he is a hunter and has no problem killing mobs. But he has never once stepped foot inside a battleground nor ever even been flagged(except for that one quest in Hellfire Peninsula which force flags you when you talk/fight that guy on the chicken). I am very proud of that blank pvp page on his character sheet. I wish I had that on all my characters, frankly.

I hated the grind way back when for AV rep to get the Frostwolf with my druid-but that wolf was SO worth it back then. My rogue only did bg's recently in order to get the Spirit of Competition minipet. Actually managed to get that on about 6 or 7 characters, despite my loathing of pvp.

But Wyl, I think he deserves recognition for being a peaceful guy. Just saying...

More preparing...

Things I am doing while waiting for the patch and LK:

Exploring-my druid and rogue are fully explored, want to work on my human mage also being fully explored; don't really have time for the others. As soon as I hit Northrend-well as soon as possible-I will be stealth discovering as much as possible with my druid and rogue in order to get the achievement, title and tabard.

Collecting: mini-pets(to get the achievement and new mini-pet skunk for hitting 50 pets); mounts-to get to 50 for the Reins of the Albino Drake; and reputation. Need rep for Skyguard for more mounts, and rep for Silvermoon on my pre-BC characters(it isn't easy). Currently my rogue has access to 46 mounts-getting the Skyguard rep will put him over 50. My druid however cannot ride most mounts and will be stuck at 40 until LK comes out. That sucks. My mage is full Alliance exalted for 25 mounts, but does not have epic flying and isn't exalted with Kurenai yet so no Talbuks. It won't be happening for him for awhile.

Money: I was hoping to have all my characters at at least 2k gold each for LK, but I am thinking I will need to work on that. Oh, I'm already pretty much there, but buying mounts when the patch hits will put a big dent in that so it's time to start hitting up dailies again.

Herbs: to level inscription on my rogue. At least the glyphs are mailable to my alts AND it makes my enchanting more viable to my alts. I LOVE that. Fill up on some +7 weapon damage vellums and mail them to my rogue so he can pop one on any new weapon he gets instead of waiting for hubby to log in to his character for the enchant. Basically.

So what I am doing sitting here writing? I've got lots to do!

Mission Statement

I've wanted to do an updated one of these for awhile. I'm bored at the moment, so I will do it now. :)

Why I play World of Warcraft:
Well, duh, because it's fun! And addicting. It's another world(pun intended, I suppose) for me to go to. There are tons of reasons. I have no 'real life' friends(aside from hubby and daughter) as I basically have Social Anxiety Disorder. I have an intense fear of talking with people I don't already know and rarely talk with those I do know. And yes, it carries over into the game. More about that later.

When did I start playing?
October 2005. Way back when! To be honest, Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005-my mom's home in Mississippi was destroyed(as in gone completely) and she came to live with us for awhile here in Tennessee. A few weeks later we were introduced to the game by a former co-worker/friend. With not being able to do much at all and gas prices starting to rise, well it made since to play this fun game and stay at home. And still, as gas prices rise, it makes more sense to pay for this game than the amount of money we used to spend travelling each weekend like we used to.

What is a 'misanthrope'??
Someone who dislikes other people. And generally I very much do dislike other people with a very few exceptions. There is my mom, my husband and my daughter. I love them. I somewhat get along with my sister. The 'friend' we had that introduced us to the game no longer speaks to us in-game and only rarely speaks to hubby over the phone(we aren't 'leet' enough). I generally do not have a good attitude towards anyone else. DON'T GET ME WRONG...I am extremely nice person-very polite, never EVER rude, hold doors open for people, smile a lot-I just don't want to converse with anyone at all. With me, 'Silence is Golden'. I just don't do well in 1v1 conversations-which is why I am horrible at answering e-mails but can blog all day long or post on message boards(as long as it isn't in confrontational threads).

And this is why I play 99% of WoW SOLO
Yes. For example, this happened recently while playing my Night Elf Druid. In Wetlands, headed to do the quest to fight the Orc tank things and then the boss Orc. Easily soloable quest. But there was another person there who invited me to a group. I declined. They whispered asking if I was on the quest and instead of answering, joining group and getting the quest over quickly...I logged out. I cannot bring myself to group with random strangers. It's why I generally don't do instances.

So why play an MMO??
Because this is still a really fun game! It's just that the aspects of it that I find fun are quite different from most players. And I don't really care. So I can't spend weekends travelling all over Tennessee or going other places, but I can still log in and run around anywhere in the world I want to go! I like pets, I have lots and lots of the mini-pets. I like the different mounts. I like attempting to gain reputation with many different factions(but only the ones I can do solo!). I also *obviously* like to level up alts! Small goals are whats fun, getting a certain level or looking forward to the mounts and such. I don't need purple gear to make me happy, I'd rather show off the rare mini-pet that I farmed like crazy for! I also can't stand the PvP aspect of the game, but that's a whole other post!

And why blog about it?
Well, I like to blog. I have several others I work on too about different things. I basically like talking to myself. And this is an opportunity to talk about a different take on this very popular game. To show how much of this game can be played solo. I'll be talking more about my progression through WotLK when it comes out too. And it is fun to go back and read old threads and remember when or how things happened. :)

My Philosophy on PvP

Or "Why I don't like it at all"!

I played Diablo and Diablo II before WoW. And even then I never fought other players, only the monsters. I signed up to play WoW to fight the monsters, not other people sitting behind their computer.

Because that is what it is...another person sitting there at there computer. If I win a battle, is that other person sitting there fuming? Getting angry? Throwing things? Kicking their cat? For me, dieing over and over to other players makes me angry and feel foolish and generally all around horrible. It is NOT fun. And to think that someone else is cursing me out or getting angry because of something I did, does not sit well on my conscience.

Because while I may hate most people, I can NOT bring myself to hurt anyone in any way, shape or form. I don't call people names, I don't use the /slap or /spit emotes, I don't ninja items/chests/nodes. I'm an overly nice misanthope. Weird, I know.

And when someone else does these things to me it sends me over the edge. I honestly don't understand how someone can be 'out of the blue' RUDE to someone they do not know at all. And being /spat on in battlegrounds is about the farthest thing from fun I can think of-I'd rather listen to fingernails on a chalkboard. Just the thought of spending time in a battleground sends my heart racing, I break out in a cold sweat and get seroiusly sick to my stomach. Oh, and I've almost broken my foot from kicking a stack of boxes after a bad day, I have broken a keyboard, and have thrown more soda cans than I care to admit.

I just don't want to fight other players, just give me the good old computer generated monsters that fight the same way every time and I know aren't getting as ticked off as I get when they die.