One Week Into Warlords...

  This place is beautiful. Overall I am having a really good time. I am however feeling a little overwhelmed at times. Logging in each morning to deal with garrisons on 16(at this point in time) characters can be taxing. I'm already kind of tired of seeing that mine. I will probably figure out some sort of system, but right now I feel like I need to do everything!

  One week in and I have 1 level 100. A level 94, 8 more at 92 and 6 still at 91. And another 20whatever that haven't made it through the Jungle. And today begins the Anniversary event. My level 100, my main if you will, still hasn't really done any quests in Nagrand and has an ilvl of 601. And you need 615 to get into the Molten Core LFR. Oh I will probably hit that with crafted gear and rare drops/quest upgrades and maybe some pvp gear. But do I really want to attempt the LFR? Still not sure yet.

  So what have I managed to accomplish in one week outside of leveling?

• PROFESSIONS: Aside from mining, they aren't really going anywhere. A few points here and there, but nowhere near 700. Fishing and cooking(as a byproduct of fishing) are high 600s, but regular professions, forget it. I can't wait for Darkmoon Faire. 
• BATTLE PETS: Yep, went out and gathered up all the battle pets available for that achievement. Frostwolf Ghostpup was my 2nd archaeology find. Crafted the Elekk Plushie and Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar. And I have most of the pets found out and about from rares and treasures. And hit that 600 mark on the last captured battle pet to get that achievement for the Stormwing. Doing good in this catagory. And can I say, that level 2 of the menagerie with all your little fave pets running around the garrison makes me smile to no end!
• MOUNTS: I chickened out and bought Garn Nighthowl off the auction house. It wasn't too expensive though, I've definitely spent waaaay more on other mounts. Working on the Garrison Stables mounts, looking forward to those. Have not managed to find any of the rare drops yet. Ain't got time for camping, haven't been lucky to be right place right time.
• GARRISONS: Got the achievement for level 3 mines easily. Halfway to herb garden achievement, pretty close on lumberyard. The rest are going to take a very long time. 
• ANYTHING ELSE? I pretty much haven't seen any place other than Draenor for the first week. And I found out that 12 hours a day really is my limit to playing. I used to stop around 5pm to make dinner, watch tv with family. Now I play 5am to 5pm and hit a wall, even if I'm not spending loads of time on dinners(lots of pre-made meals still available). And lots of server maintenance(like today) helps with getting up and getting other things done around the house! So I'm not complaining. 

  Overall impressions? I love the quests, I won't get sick of that while leveling many characters. The random upgrades are really exciting, though frustrating when it comes on from a rare that drops something you can't use. The garrisons are fun though still overwhelming, but I'll figure that out eventually. The landscape is beautiful, though Gorgrond still scares the hell out of me. Lack of flying? Not too bad, though I sure wouldn't mind having it in Spire of Arak, that place is confusing! 

  One other note, I have yet to set my hearthstone on any character in the Ashran cities. I just can't bring myself to do it and I don't really know why yet. Maybe it's a protest because of the adjacent pvp zone. I'd just rather go back to the shrine or Orgrimmar/Stormwind than spend any more time than necessary in those new towns. 

Yes, Illidan, I will be prepared!

  As we wait to join the masses headed into the 'new' Dark Portal, we should take the time to make sure we are ready. Really ready. I mean prepared in-game, in body, in spirit, in mind. In refrigerator. What garrison buildings will I make? What will I drink to keep me awake? What snacks won't stain my keyboard? So I made checklists...

In Game

• Bags: Made sure I had the biggest possible without breaking the bank. That means "free" bags from Onyxia(22 slot), Mannoroth(20), Forge of Souls 1st boss(20 or 22), Grummie Pack(24). And cleaning them out. Get rid of Timeless Isle buff things, old food(still had Northrend food on a few characters!)  And being consistent among characters-hearthstone always in same place, etc. Opening up a good 70 or so bag spaces means less time spent using vendor or bank. Done.
• Banks: Clean out as much as possible in bank, make use of reagent bank and void storage. Not all my characters have loads of bank space, but with the toy box and extra void storage, it is certainly better than it was!
• Action Bars: Consistency is the key. Making sure things are set just the way I want them, favorite mounts chosen, any macros set, similar spells on the same keybind, etc. The great spell purge made room on the bars for things like toys and more mounts/pets!
• Glyphs: Many glyphs changed in patch 6.0.2. Make sure you have all the ones you want and have them installed. Some glyphs even changed to be "exclusive" with others(such as no 'Glyph of Mend Pet' and 'Glyph of Mending' at the same time). Time to find new ones to use. My 4 scribes(1 for each of my main realms I use) were able to use the new research method to learn all those hard to find glyphs(Unbound Elemental for example) and made glyphs for all of my alts. 
• Transmog set: I know this seems trivial, but gotta look good while crushing the Iron Horde. Oh and I still need to go buy that yak for transmog on the go!
• Buffs: On the last day of Hallows End, I made sure all of my characters got the bonfire buff that last 2 hours( Unburdened for Alliance/Grim Visage for Horde) for a 10%experience boost, as well as the Darkmoon Faire xp buff available this week. I'm not really sure how much these will increase the leveling in the first couple of hours but any little bit helps I suppose. 

Preparing my mind

  Everything should be just right when you plan to play for extended periods of time. The Dark Portal will open(or however we get there) for me at 2am. That means going to bed early, setting the alarm, and attempting to wake up and be ready at that time. Not to mention I will have to take the kiddo to school at 7am. Preparing my mind means making sure that I can be in the right state of mind for the first few days. As I write this, it is T-minus 12 days until launch. I won't be playing much in the next 12 days. Some pet battles with lower level alts and that's about it. For someone with 44 level 90s, I probably don't get 'burnt out' like others do. But I do get that need to get away when I spend too much time in-game. And with the amount of game time incoming, I want to clear my mind before launch day.

  This also means preparing my work zone. In the next week and a half, I will do lots of cleaning. All laundry possible(so nobody asks for ANYTHING while I'm trying to play!), completely cleaning off and disinfecting my desk, and then making sure the kiddo and hubby prepare their work zones! Any yard work or house work or anything that might need to be done, I'll be doing it double this week just to be sure I'm not interrupted.
 
Preparing my body

   One of the best things you can do on a gaming binge is to attempt to snack healthy and take the time to get UP from the desk and move around. I'm not really the healthiest eater, but I'm making a checklist for groceries with better choices and easy make-ahead meals for at least a week.

• Drinks: Gatorade, water(flavored), some soda(but not excessive), ice coffee drink things(I'm not a huge coffee drinker), frozen smoothies. I don't do energy drinks, but if that's your choice what can I say?
• Healthier snacks: pre-packaged apple slices w/caramel, carrot sticks w/ranch, granola/power bars, popcorn, hard boiled eggs, nuts like peanuts or almonds. And gum.
• Easy and make-ahead meals: Sure, there will be hot pockets and frozen pizzas, but I also intend to pre-cook some of ground pork, keilbasa and chicken; maybe do a slow cooker pulled pork shoulder; get tortillas and whole grain bread; and my all-time go-to mac&cheese. 

  I am lucky in that my hubby and kiddo also play, so we will all be in this together. Kiddo of course has to go to school during the week. And hubby works nights so he won't even be home when the launch happens.

  Another habit I have is to browse the internet when on flight paths. And constantly checking Twitter. Those will be put on hold of course, though I might just keep one Twitter page open just for updates and to keep track of notices from BlizzardCS. During flight paths: GET UP AND MOVE! I've never been one to update this blog daily, but I will try to keep anyone who still reads this at least once a week(Tuesdays during maintenance?) how things are going with my many, many alts.

Last but not least

  I will be spending the time I am not playing these next 12 days doing research. I was in beta, but things changed so much from day to day. I will research garrisons, new stats, rares, toys, minipets, and more. And then make write what I need to know in a notebook so I don't have to alt-tab out to Wowhead all the time. And then make more cheatsheets for hubby so he doesn't ask me every 5 minutes "what extra stat do hunters need again?".


  And hopefully then I will be prepared for Warlords of Draenor on November 13, 2014!

Patch Tomorrow! What's in it for Soloers?

  Patch 6.0.2, the advance patch for Warlords of Draenor, arrives on our computers tomorrow, Tuesday the 14th. (I don't expect to play until Wednesday of course, isn't that typical?) So what is in it for soloers and altoholics? Quite a lot!

• New Character Models-this change is purely subjective. I'm not wild about the changes and might revert mine to the old models for awhile. It might also be better for my computer to be on the old, lower pixel, models. I was in beta and honestly wasn't really thrilled with the new look or movements. But they might grow on me.
• Class Changes- so many things here. As an altoholic, and as someone with at least 2 of each class at level 90(one each Horde and Alliance), it's going to take time to get used to all of the changed. There is a lot of ability pruning, which in some cases is a good thing. There is one change that really grinds my gears at this point-taking away my Druid cheetah form when I choose to use it! What that means it "travel form" is one button-aquatic, land and flight. So that means if I am in an area with flight enabled such as anywhere on Azeroth, I can't just run around in cheetah(I HATE stag form), can't run back and forth from mailbox to auction house, can't do archaeology in cheetah, can't just run around where ever I want in my beautiful, beloved little cheetah! My first main was a Druid, and I ran that little cheetah until nearly level 60 because I couldn't afford a mount way back then. I LOVE MY CHEETAH! DON'T TAKE IT AWAY! (sorry for the rant)
• Guild Levels Gone- as a soloer, this one doesn't affect me as much, or it doesn't matter as much-and it's ultimately a good thing. Yes on my 4 main realms, 3 have personal guilds. One has managed to get to 25, the other two are at around 15. This change means all guilded characters get all of the benefits that level 25 guilds used to have. And all of my unguilded characters? The perks aren't worth it for me to attempt to find some place with strangers to hang around. 
• Blasted Lands Quests- the new expansion event, sending us to the Dark Portal to fight off the Iron Horde invasion. Looks rather easy to do. At this point I am pretty sure that the achievement title, ...the Iron Vanguard, is account wide, so I won't have to do the quests 43 times! I hope that is the case. However, the mini pet that comes with it apparently comes in different breeds-and if you are into pet battles, that could mean doing the quests numerous times in order to get the "right ones". Plus, there is a Bronze Whelpling that drops from the mobs in the area, so I am expecting much farming in the weeks to come.
• Stat Squish-this might be one that throws the casual player off if they haven't bothered to read anything at all in the last few months. On beta I barely noticed the number difference. BONUS thing here is there will be a new mechanic added to older raids/dungeons(lower than 85-?-)that will make them basically a steam roll for those at level 90 or higher. I really hope that means I can send all alts to Zul'Gurub to farm those mounts each day!
• Stat Changes- reforging is gone. For someone who didn't raid, I never bothered with reforging, so I really don't care. The stats "hit, expertise, dodge and parry" are gone. Since I never bothered to do the whole min/max thing, these don't mean much. But this means the annoying part of mobs dodging you hits is gone! Excellent!
• Auction House Merger- Horde and Alliance auction houses as one, dogs and cats living together. Not really sure how this will be. Glut of resources to compete with though more buyers. But no more sneaky selling things to your cross faction alts. Hoping for cross faction mail in the future. 
• Justice and Valor Points gone- never gathered many of these, so just send me the money from all the valor I gained doing dailies in Pandaria!
• Toy Box -might be biggest change of all! All those fun items taking up valuable bank and bag space moved to toy box! Account wide so ALL my characters can use the Orb of Deception or other fun things! I can't wait for this!
• Reagent Bank -a whole other bank page JUST for reagents. Costs 100g, which is pittance. Auto-upload all mats to that page, goodbye inscription, engineering, mining bags. For characters without access to a personal guild bank, this is very helpful. Not to mention most mats changing from 20 per stack to 200 per stack. Oh yes.
• Void Storage- a whole 'nother page for Void Storage. Hoarders and transmog collectors rejoice!

  So those are the main changes. There are other minor UI changes, such as adding a number to cooldowns(goodbye OmniCC), more info on Mount page plus a "favorite mount" option with button, quest log and map merger, change to some older dungeons-RFC, RFK and BFD, and all those nasty Kor'Kron guards are gone from Orgrimmar and Undercity. There are quite a few other changes to current raids and a new level 90 dungeon, but as a soloer those do not affect me.

  Now let's see how soon we actually get to play!

Holy Crap, I'm Back!

   HEY! HI!! Yes, it's been over a year since my last post. I could say that I lost my password or make up some other excuse. There are many reasons I haven't written in so long. One is that I've been too focused on playing World of Warcraft. Yeah, I have 43 level 90s. Yes you read that right, FORTY-THREE. And another at 86 that I want to get to 90 before patch 6.0 comes out. It seems like all I ever do is play WoW. I also wasn't sure anyone really cared about this blog. There don't seem to be too many 100% soloers out there anymore, especially with LFR and whatnot. I'm still nearly 100%. I don't really count grouping with my kiddo or hubby as "grouping" since they are sitting right beside me-they count as "me", just "more me". Does that make sense?

  Getting ready for Warlords of Draenor. The more I read, the more I hate, to be honest. I think garrisons are going to take up so much time that I won't have enough time to level alts. I also do not like that it seems so many of the perks from the different buildings require drops from dungeons. I'll never get the "inn" complete, because that is basically for dungeon dailies and requires them all being done to upgrade to level 3. Not ever going to happen for me. And that goes for all the mounts and pets that come from those quests. I won't be getting them. But I will deal with that.

  I've been on beta, leveled to 98 through many changes. I HATE the change to Druid travel form. I want to be my little cheetah whenever I want, not when they decide I can be a cheetah. I am not going to have fun with my Druids anymore, I can already feel it. The rest of the classes-and I do have at least 2 of every class at 90, one each on Horde and Alliance-have changed, but I haven't really tried them out too much on beta. The like/hate for them remains to be seen.

  Another thing pushing me farther into my shell...Twitter. I joined and found lots of other WoW players. But it seems like anywhere else you go, there are cliques. I was hoping Twitter would be the place I could go and ask any question and get some sort of answer if I couldn't find the answer elsewhere. But I get nothing but crickets. Maybe I'm not asking right. Maybe people follow me out of pity and then immediately put me on mute. I'm not really sure the answer to THAT question either. Ask a simple question "what should I do with extra justice points before they go away? Convert to honor or just wait for the money conversion?" Crickets. Yeah maybe I thought I might find some sort of friend by blogging or using Twitter, someone out there who has a similar interest to mine, but I am thinking I am the only lonely old woman who has nothing else but her cats and WoW to keep her company and nobody wants to be friends with someone like THAT.

  So back into my hole I will crawl. Well, not completely. I figured out my password, and the new expansion is coming. And there are solo things to talk about. Even if nobody cares what the shut-in has to say, I'm gonna say it.