I ganked someone....SHOCK!!!

Yes. I did. I only play on PvE servers, but I have to say that this guy deserved it.

Realm: Norgannon
His name: no clue, started with a "G", Dwarf hunter, level 36ish

It started out early in the day, husband and I were playing our level 25 Blood Elf Paladins. We were finishing up some quests in Silverpine Forest and were heading to the Greymane Wall to get that guy's hand. We see Son of Arugal and decide to extract some revenge on him. About halfway through, while we are using the AoE Consecrate because I hadalso aggroed a worg in the area, both Arugal and the wolf die quickly as I THINK another wolf has run in. Turns out the "new" wolf had the name "Shadow" and I thought "that's not right?!" Well, yeah, it was this flagged numbnut Dwarf who must have thought either he'd flag us by running through our Consecrate or that we would accidently attack his flagged wolf and then he could kill 2 lowbies without them knowing what hit them.

I HATE JERKS LIKE THIS!!! (insert extremely mad face here)

It just so happens that a few hours later I am running around the Barrens on my level 60 Death Knight looking for copper and tin mines. I see the call on Local Defense that "Southern Gold Road is under attack!" Since I am near there, I thought I'd take a peek at who it was that killed poor Gann. And I get to him just before he gets to the Great Lift. And guess who? Yep, that same little Dwarf. He had been ?? to our Paladins, but I now see he is only level 36. I stop my DK in front of him before he gets to the Lift and give him a "/no" but this little sh*t goes right past me and sends his wolf on the first Horde guard at the Lift. And so I couldn't help myself-I ran over and with a couple of strokes he was dead. YOU DON'T ATTACK MY NPCs THAT YOU DON"T NEED TO!

Sidenote: I have taken at least 5 Alliance characters through this area. It is pretty much the only way to get to the flight path that Alliance have in western Thousand Needles. And NOT ONCE did I have to kill those guards! In fact, in four years of playing I have never killed a opposing factions NPC. Never.

Yeah, I'm a coward. I didn't know if this guy had a rogue running with him(most people don't run around flagged on PvE servers for no reason). So since I was now flagged I took off into the instance portal of RFK, which is pretty close. It automatically un-flags you. I came right back out only to find that poor guard at the Lift was now dead. So I took the Lift down into Thousand Needles. Me: Death Knight with the Unholy talent of "On a Pale Horse" vs a level 30 mount. Yeah, I caught up to him pretty quick. Death Grip, Icy Touch, Chains of Ice and another death for this SCHMO! I didn't stick around this time. I was sick to my stomach over this but I was PMSing and PISSED that people have NO REGARDS for other players and NO HONOR!

If it hadn't been the same JERK from the morning, I probably would have let him be, but he pushed a button and I was able to get some revenge on an IDIOT. It felt like Karma did its job. And I hated myself for having to teach some numbnut a lesson(not that it did, I'm sure he doesn't give a flying CRAP about anyone but HIMSELF). It just goes to prove the reason why I prefer to solo that to associate with what seems to me to be MOST of the wads that play this game.

Grrrrrrrr.

Geocacher turns 65

Had enough time to log in and get Geocacher, my moonkin, to level 65. Three more levels to flight form and Northrend!

Also working on getting my baby Priest, Deschanel, rep with Darnassus. Finished Teldrassil, one bar from level 23 and hit revered on last quest. Now need to go back and finish the Draenei areas(took her to Stormwind early) and then Darkshore. Hoping to ride a kitty at level 30!

Rolling restarts today

So it looks like I might get to play a bit today. I am still trying to spend more time working on my photo website, but at least when I need a "fix" I can get on today.

Yesterday, leveled Wyndampryce to 25. Wonder if there are different demons I can find other than those in southwest Ashenvale? Those guys suck-they barely drop anything and those felguards have a knockdown and ticks me off. The satyrs in eastern Ashenvale are still too high level I think-need to check.


Also, Wyl opened his 2nd Oracles egg and got a Tickbird Hatchling. Cool, he didn't have that. Bought a new egg and took Rayak down and bought him a new egg too(he only needs the mount I think).

Hubby sold a Savory Deviate Delight recipe that dropped for us on Sunday for 400g!! That was on our baby Paladins on Norgannon that were broker than broke at level 25 so what a bonus! YaY!

I love titles!

I recently went out and got the "Explorer" title for my level 71 Death Knight(he's 74 now). It got me to thinking exactly how many titles do I have across all of my characters? So here is what I have(in order of character creation per realm):


KICKINGBIRD, 80

1. Senior Sergeant
2. Ambassador
3. the Diplomat
4. Argent Champion
5. Chef
6. the Love Fool
7. the Explorer
8. the Seeker

WORMTONGUE, 73

1. Grunt
2. Ambassador
   

TOHOPKA, 72

1. Sergeant
   

EREMIT, 71

1. Ambassador

RAYAK, 80

1. Ambassador
2. the Explorer
3. of the Shattered Sun
   

DANECK, 73

1. Sergeant
2. Ambassador
   

WYL, 78

1. Ambassador
2. the Explorer
   

HEKUBUS, 43

1. Ambassador

BOREANAZ, 74

1. the Explorer
   

I think that's it for now. I'm working on others of course. I will try to list them when I get them.

Update after vacation!

My goodness how fast a week can go by! And the week after that....grumble, grumble. So 2 weeks ago we had vacation time-kiddo off from school and hubby gets the week off from work. We did spend a few days on the road in East Tennessee, and a day at the zoo-but the rest of the time, we were leveling fiends!

You see, I get all day, every day to play alone. Notice why I have so many characters listed over there---->
Hubby and kid don't get as much time. Kiddo has 1 level 80 and 2 level 70s(one is a Death Knight), the rest of her characters are no higher than about 30 with most being 10 or lower. Hubby tries to play but he works a lot. He has 1 level 80, and then a 74, 73, 72, a couple at 70 and a 60 and the rest are 20s or lower. So they wanted to spend their week off playing!

It went by so fast it really seemed a blur, (and I should have blogged about it sooner-other things on my mind) but I will try to recall who all we played...(the numbers tell whether the characters are a trio, duo or my solo)

3 Death Knights on Kael'Thas: level 65 to 70!
3 Hunters on Draenor: level 69 to 71
2 My mage/his hunter: level 72 to 73
2 Death Knights on Draenor: level 72 to 74
and when I had time alone I got...
Hunter on KT: level 76 to 78
Druid on KT: level 62 to 64

I think that's about it. It was a great week! And then last week was back to normal and it just flew by too. It wil be summer before we know it. Sigh...


Also of note...my Rogue Demon Hunter, Wyndampryce is now level 24!

Wyndampryce, level 22 Demon Hunter

Yes, that's right, I've gotten my 'Demon Hunter' to level 22, strictly by grinding on Demons!

Wyndampryce on the Armory

This screenshot was taken after leveling to 22 and heading back to Stormwind to train.
That's 1094 mobs killed, 1094 Demons! (and 1 Deep Run Rat!)


To update on Wesley(his first name), he is a human rogue. At level 1 I ran him to Teldrassil and leveled to 6 on the demons in the Night Elf newb area. Then to level 10 on the demons in the cave at Dolonar in Teldrassil. Much of level 11 was exploring XP. Then I moved him to the demons on Bloodmyst Isle, the ones that are level 12-15, southwest of the main town. At around level 15, I moved him to the higher level demons in the north of the island. Between this and XP from exploring has gotten him to 22. The next demons are in Ashenvale starting around levels 23-24.

He has fully explored most of the zones his level and lower(with the exception of the Blood Elf areas). His herbalism is 154 and inscription is 142. He has lucked out and managed to get both the Sinister Squashling from Hallow's End and the Peddlefeet from Love is in the Air!

I generally let him rest in an Inn for a week to build up rested experience until at least the end of the current level. So far each level then has taken about an hour to gain. I know this will take longer and longer as the levels get higher. And will also change depending on the difference in level of the character and the mobs. The first few levels at the 16-18 Satyrs in Bloodmyst took an hour, with stops every so often to bandage or eat. The last few levels there went very quickly to the point where I had almost cleaned out the whole camp and had to wait for respawns as all mobs were green levels. The next group in Ashenvale will go slowly again due needing to stealth more and stop between fights, but the higher xp/mob makes up the difference, so all in all it comes out about the same in time spent/xp gained.

Also, he has gained quite a lot of money for a character his level simply by getting money dropped by mobs, selling every gray/white item they drop to vendors, and selling stack after stack of linen and wool on the auction house. A few glyphs have sold decently as well. He already has the money for his mount when he hits level 30-as well as plenty left over for snapping up a few bargains on the AH for gear when I can find them.

This has been an interesting expirement so far, and I look forward to leveling him up higher-though there aren't many demons in Northrend should I get him that high. Things may have to change at that point. But I will cross that bridge if I ever get to it!

To Play or not to Play?

Yes. I am still playing. Yeah, playing so much that I don't have time to update this page. Recently I've...

My Warlock is level 70, making my 9th character to at least level 70
My Dwarf hunter is 1 bar from level 70-that will make #10
My BE DK is level 67. 5, at 68 he will be in Northrend and then he will be #11 at 70


I've also done some **shocking!!** PeeVeePee with Kick! It's only Wintergrasp and while I can't say I'm having fun(yeah, I am certain I really suck at it), at least I've gotten some gear that makes her look a little better and slice through those boring old dailies like warm butter. I'd link the gear, but if you are reading this then you know what I am talking about. The leather headgear for WG tokens-the one that looks like the mask Anthony Hopkins wore in "Silence of the Lambs", heh. And in the time it took to get those 40 tokens I got enough honor to buy the Hateful Gladiator wristguards and necklace. And I've helped level hubby's characters who are leatherworking and blacksmithing, so I am also now sporting the Ice Striker's Cloak and Titansteel Destroyer.

What does all that mean? It means that for the first time EVER my main character is wearing more purple than any other color. Yep, not counting my tabard(which is also epic-Explorer ftw), I have 10 out of 16 slots in epics. And only 2 of the others are green-1 is a trinket, which will be the next thing I upgrade from WG making epic #11; and my Idol-which I have no way of upgrading, there really isn't much to choose from and no way for me to get any of the better ones. :/ Oh well.

I've also gotten a few new titles on my druid...Chef, Ambassador, the Seeker(3k quests completed), and Argent Champion(AD and AC exalted).

Again I say, what does all this mean? It means my character looks a little better while running around Dalaran gathering items for the cooking quest. I guess I don't get laughed at as much. But it still hasn't brought my friends back-they still won't talk to me-too busy running off to Naxx to even stop and wave or anything. And it just makes me feel like I have to do more somehow...and I don't want to! But I can't stop.

Seriously, I just stumbled across a website this morning that made me ACHE for the times before WoW when we would take road trips every other weekend to so many random places around our state and the neighboring ones. Taking so many photos I didn't know what to do with them. From having thousands of photos to look at back from 2001-2005, each year after that the number decreases. Yeah sure, the gas problem was to blame too. And exploring Azeroth seemed an almost reasonable sidegrade to exploring Tennessee. But I'd much rather be posting photos I took than "screenshots" I took. My personal website is up for renewal next month. I was seriously considering letting it go, letting it drop and giving that up. After spending 3 hours looking through photos on this other website this morning, I've realized I can't do that-I want to get mine back and going again.

If only I can stop playing all day, every day. Ya know-the old, "ah only 3 more days of these dailies until I can buy such-and-such" and "a few more hours questing here with this character to level up again" and "I gotta farm for a few hours so all of our characters can afford to buy our flying mounts when we hit level 70". I've got to stop.

Maybe today is the day. Maybe.

Still plodding along

I don't know why, but I still play.

Recently got the following achievements with Kick-500 daily quests, Loot 1000 gold, Receive 10000 gold from quest rewards. Exalted with Argent Dawn(8kish to go with Argent Crusade). Only 5 points from 450 cooking(and then suffering through 5 pvp games to get that achievement) and getting the "Chef" title.

And on the other hand...I have officially put our 'former' friends on /ignore. Yeah, the one I talked about before. I thought maybe things weren't as bad as I was making them out to be. They are. ASIDE from the fact that I know he didn't level his own character all the way to 80. And then one day later is being taken to Naxxramas. ASIDE FROM THIS....my kid wants to get all of the Holiday achievements(at the end of the year you get a special mount for finishing all of them). She had the first 2 done. The one for Lunar Festival, these past 2 weeks, involves entering some Northrend instances. It just so happened that he was IN the hardest one to get last week. She whispered him and asked nicely if she could hop in there after they were done to get to the Elder. At first he said 'ok'. He and his JERK of a son invited her to the group after they left the instance. Then they proceeded to (1) Not provide any hint of how to get to the instance entrance-they just left it, how do they not know HOW to get there???? (2) Provide no help whatsoever in explaining how to get to the Elder-though I could see later from their achievements in the Armory that they did in fact GET this Elder, (3) then his son tells her basically to 'hurry the hell up and get out of their group because they were waiting for her to get OUT so they could go into their next instance'!!!

WELL EXCUSE THE F***K OUTA ME FOR ASKING FOR ONE MEASLY FAVOR! Oh no, for the past 3 years we have JUMPED at the chance to help YOU with anything you asked our help with...but ONE TIME we ask for a favor and we are treated like this! If I had a huge red mean face I'd post it right here. I had my kid place the two on /ignore. I then logged into most of my characters and also put them on /ignore. It wasn't until the next day, when I was on my mage(who hadn't ignored them yet), and I saw them standing around Dalaran that I get this whisper "hey kid hows it going I'm headed to Naxx 10" I didn't even answer, I /ignored him right to his face. WAY TO ACT LIKE NOTHING EVER HAPPENED! And way to be HANDED free epix that you didn't even work for. JERK.

So....since we only had the ONE friend in our whole world before, we OFFICIALLY(in my book anyway) now have NONE. And I hate this game even more. But I just can't stop playing it.

/cry

I just can't do it

Play well with others, that is. Okay, it's not the 'play well' part, just the 'play'.

I don't want to raid. Really, I don't. I've already stated many times that purple gear doesn't excite me at all. But that really isn't the reason. Let me list them for you...

• I can't use vent. Not that I don't want to, really. I really have a hard time hearing. I watch tv with the closed captioning on. I would need closed captioning for vent...guess what that is...CHAT LOG. But all guilds that I know of require you to use vent.
  
• Raids happen at night. I spend time with my family at night. We are either watching tv shows, playing other games or playing WoW together...but any way I look at it, family>WoW.
• I don't do well with other people telling me what to do. Especially if that person is 12 and continues to call me a loser. I'm not interested in putting up with that crap just for some GAME that I want to play for FUN.
• I just don't like crowds. I don't like them at big events, even such as football games, I don't like them at the mall, like right before Christmas, and I don't like them in a GAME.
  

Those are the main reasons, really. I think they are pretty good reasons. I can't really see anyone beating those in order to convince me TO raid. Nope.

I'll just keep to my little BoE blues, solo quests and daily rep grinding. Now please leave me alone.

New Year's Resolutions

What do I want to do with my characters this year? To be honest...play them less. Yes, it's true. I'm just not cut out for this game. I kept hoping that I would get better. But noone likes me, and the people who used to be my friends don't talk to me anymore unless THEY want something from me. It really seems like such a waste of time.

Yeah, it's fun. Sometimes. When we do some things. But doing the same stupid quests that I HATE, every day, in hopes of getting a cool reward makes me feel like a mouse who is running in a maze looking for cheese and just not finding it. I just keep hitting dead ends, I am not getting better gear playing the way I play, which means I am not getting better as a player, which means I am basically logging in every day only to just bang my head on a wall for hours. Seems pointless. So no, maybe it really isn't fun anymore.

To be honest, though, I don't WANT to be in a 'raid' guild. Because 'raiding' is too much like having a job. Look this way(spec), be here at THIS time, do exactly what we tell you, spend off time ONLY gathering items you need in order to do the job, and if you don't then you don't get the paycheck. Screw that. I will not have 12year olds ordering me around. Hell, I won't have 25 year olds ordering me around...I will not have ANYONE ordering me around! Not to play a G A M E that is supposed to be fun. Nah, they can keep that crap. I just want to go back to my life before WoW. :(


Oh yeah...resolutions...uhmmmm...get at least a few other characters to 80. That's about it. I don't really care if they get anything else. Not interested in getting the 'phat lewt', not interested in the 20k gold mount, not interested in the also expensive motorcycle mount, not interested in much anymore.

Playing Lord of the Rings today...

Because of extra long maintenance again. Not that I care. My rogue turned 76 last night. One of my Death Knights is 68. My druid is bored and doesn't want to do anything except for the cooking daily. What difference does it make? She doesn't do instances or pvp so I don't really need better gear, do I? No of course not, I mean that is what all the 'raiders' and 'pvpers' say anyway-losers like me don't deserve good gear because we don't do anything with it. Fine, so I will just sit in Dalaran and look like a loser while running around doing my cooking daily because I don't get better gear so NOONE wants anything to do with me. Thanks for making me not want to play this game at all. It's a vicious circle(and not just because that is the name of my human mage's guild). Can't get better gear because I have crap gear, but can't get better gear because I can't GET BETTER GEAR! WHAT??!!?? And I will not lower myself to pvp or arena just to have purples. I hate it and it won't happen. Man I hate this game.

Just messing around with something

I want to see if this updates at any point. I have tried adding it to the top but for some reason it won't accept the web address for the picture, so I have to save it. But then it doesn't update, soo...I'm just trying it here. Just to see. (because the one up there, Rayak, is now level 75-that is a saved version from when I was 70, joy).

edit...well, I tried to link my armory to it, but apparently I can only link to the sight that gives the signature picture. So I will try to log out in bear form later and see if it updates.

edited to remove the picture and link because it either doesn't update or I'm just not seeing it. Oh well, who really gives a flip.

Bored? Maybe, maybe not

Tuesday, maintenance. But wait, NO, not today! Hooray! Only rolling restarts. Which means I log in with my rogue and get him situated to grab the last 2 books for the Kirin Tor achievement/minipet. Except when the realm says it is up, all I get is "Logging in to game server". For an hour. Urgh.

Finally I log in on Draenor with my Death Knight. I get his skinning from 253 to 320 in Feralas and Winterspring on yetis. Then head to Zangarmarsh to finish off quests there. Then to Terrokar for a few more. Get to a few bars from 65. Almost ready for Nagrand.

And then I get bored and attempt to get back on Kael'Thas. Yep, it is actually up now. Who knows how long, really. I don't even bother with my rogue looking for the books. I take Kick to Stormpeaks for the dailies there. Blue chicks-more snowballs and cheese. woot. And then Sons of Hodir. Found an extra ice crystal thing today and am at 10200/12k. Maybe tomorrow, most likely Thursday, I will have my Wooly Mammoth mount. And then I won't go near there for quite awhile. I'd still like a Polar Bear mount from the Blue Chicks, but with my luck it ain't gonna happen. I will be happy with the Mammoth that I can flat out buy. Not that I use my mounts that often. If I am somewhere flyable, I am in bird form, and around Dalaran I prefer cheetah because the streets are busy enough as it is.

So then I rambled on up to Icecrown, where I hadn't even gone yet except to explore. Got started on a few of the Knights of the Ebon Blade quests, just enough to get friendly and open up the quartermaster so I could buy a tabard. It's dark, it looks cool. Look forward to getting my Death Knights there(yeah, sometime in the year 2010>.<). Then hopped over to do the first few for Argent Crusade, enough to get a blue trinket which frankly sucks for a feral druid as far as I can tell.

And then I got bored and logged out. And don't really know who to log in with now. Finish more quests with my druid, make lots of money, farm mats for all of the other characters? Or get another character leveled up? And if so, which one? My Blood Elf hunter or my Human mage or my Death Knight?

Bored. Hmmmm. Work on my website? Maybe...

More achievements...

See that blue up there? That is the Giant Sewer Rat! I finally fished him up! That also nabs an achievement! It also puts my druid at 61 mini pets. And yes, I was transformed into a cockroach at the time-I was just being disgusted at having eaten a Magicfish and turned into this, and BOOM blue catch and the pop-up box! I was not bummed about being a roach anymore. :)

But it was only the last of 9 achievements I managed to grab today.

In order that I got them...

1. To All the Squirrels I've Loved Before -I still needed ewe, sheep, cat, cow, fawn, gazelle, ram; so I went through the portal to Shat, got ewe, went through portal to Silvermoon and got cat; took transporter to Undercity, flew to Arathi, rode to Wetlands tunnels, got ram; rode to Badlands, flew to Grom'gal, rode north(did some other things here, shown later), got cow, sheep and fawn in Elwynn Forest. Later I went to Orgrimmar, flew to Crossroads and found a gazelle to finish the achievement.

2. Deadmines -while in Westfall, I stopped and stealthed quickly through Deadmines to kill Van Cleef and get this one.

3. Fishing Diplomat -had already fished in Orgrimmar many times, so now I needed Stormwind. After Deadmines and loving some animals in Elwynn, I swam up the coast to the Stormwind Harbor; as soon as I hit the zone, I popped a water walking potion and fished up one fish to get this achievement

4. Stormwind Stockade -since I was already here, I though what the heck. So I stealthed on up the harbor and into Stormwind. The only Alliance I saw was a Night Elf rogue(level 70+, I didn't check), on a War Ram(zoiks!) in some sort of Arena gear. He ran past me and obviously caught the stealth sound-YIKES! I quickly jumped into the water, still stealthed(and wearing my Kalu'ak fishing pole-underwater breathing ftw!), and LUCKILY he moved on! Whew! I then made it all the way to the Stockades with no trouble and went in and smacked down this Bazil dude!

5. Scavenger -I still needed the floating wreckage, so after hearthing out of Stockades, I went through the portal to Orgrimmar and flew up to Aszhara. Found a pool I needed right away, fished up one box, got that and headed on.

6. Critter Gitter -It was actually after the Scavenger that I went to Crossroads and loved the gazelle. Then I went back to Org and caught the zeppelin to Borean Tundra. Flew over to one of the nearby icebergs, found a huge group of penguins, and started throwing my Critter Bites to them until I had 10 quickly and got that achievement!

Since my hearthstone was still on cooldown, I took this time to log in to my rogue and gather a few things. I needed Mageroyal and Small Eggs for the Chocolate Cake, and one Zangarian Sporefish. So I went around to get those, mailed them and logged back into Kick, whose hearthstone was now up.

7. Outland Gourmet and the Cake Is Not A Lie -After hearthing to Dalaran, I grabbed the mats from the mailbox, cooked up the Blackened Sporefish(one of last 2 needed), and then ending with the Delicious Chocolate Cake which gave me both achievements at the same time!

Once I was done with all that, I was tired. So I thought I'd fish. Spent five minutes at the coin pool only to get goldfish on every cast. Bah. So I ran down to the sewers for the last 5 minutes on that lure. Started eating the magic fish I was catching, just for the heck of it. Started up a second lure after 5 minutes, ate more magic fish, turned into a roach and just then there was my Giant Sewer Rat!

What a day!

I also did some dailies this morning...

I am honored 9600/12k with Oracles. I love these guys so much, they are so sweet and cute! They tell me how strong I am and how I protect them. And their dailies are not annoying at all, they are actually pretty easy and fun.

Sons of Hodir on the other hand...I hate their dailies, but I am at around 3k/12k and I'd really like that Mammoth at revered. I won't be going higher than that any time soon though.

And those blue chicks with no affiliation-I hate their quests too, but I want that damn polar bear mount! As soon as I get it they can kiss me goodbye.

I've stopped doing the 2 Wyrmrest and Troll Patrol for Argent Crusade, frankly because I don't have the patience lately and I cannot stand that damn alchemist quest for AC. I don't really care if I get rep with them anyway. I am slowly but surely working on Kirin Tor the only way I can, from the daily cooking quest. I like that one at least.

Ding 80...so what

So what now? Yeah, my Druid turned 80 last Wednesday. And I've been doing dailies for rep and money...
Argent Crusade...loads more quests in Icecrown that I have not even touched

Kirin Tor...well I get 250 per day from the cooking quest-the staff at revered may be mine in a few months

Wyrmrest...2 dailies, 500 rep, so yeah, I might have that dragon mount in about 6 months

Oracles...finally managed to get a group for this and to start their dailies-at least this is easy and I only need revered to be able to sit and wait each week for the egg to hatch and hope I get something good(though with my druid's luck, not likely)

Yeah, they have this thing called "Championing" now-put on a tabard and do a level 80 dungeon and you get whatever rep you want. Only I don't do dungeons because I suck, so all the other 80s are running around in epics already(yeah, the game has been out, what 2 weeks?) and are exalted with all of the factions already and I sit in Dalaran and fish-and I even suck at that.

So I log in and play other characters. Yeah, my hunter is 71.5; my human mage is 71; my rogue is 2 bars from 73; my Undead mage is 70.5ish; and 2 Death Knights at 61 and 62. But I am tired. And I don't feel like playing. But I just can't stop. :(

Some of what I've done

Kick, posing next to a K3 Bruiser in Stormpeaks. I like his helm and shoulders. We sorta match. :)

Some of the things Kick has done so far...

Solo:
The Jig Is Up -Howling Fjord, fighting a bear with 28k hp at 72. He wasn't labeled as elite the day I did him. I noticed after a server restart and the next day he was suddenly elite and the quest was labeled group. It was most certainly NOT labeled group when I did it or I may not have attempted!
Harold Lane -Borean Tundra, went back and did this at 74, not too difficult being able to shift out of his traps and charge back at him. Completely forgot to use the Horn they give you.

Wrathgate series -I know this isn't meant to be group at all(except for one in BT), but the end of this chain was amazing!
Drak'uru -ended up at the top just after a NE hunter was starting the fight, I helped a little and got to see Arthas and loot the quest item. Anti-climatic, yes, but the whole series in Zul'Drak, being a Ghoul, was incredible.
Harrison Jones -escorting(or being escorted!) in the quest wasn't difficult(or a group quest), but it was one of the BEST things I've done in this game! Yes, I adore Harrison Ford. :)


Sucked it up and grouped for:
Breaking Through -Borean Tundra, final quest in Taunka village, duo'd with a warrior who asked for help in general. I really wanted it finished and took the chance.
Hour of the Worg -Grizzly Hills; fighting Arugal again was amazing! And a tough fight for someone who doesn't spend time doing tough fights in instances. Duo'd with a shaman who asked in general. Again, a tough fight for two but we managed and it was FUN!
Wanted: Ragemane's Flipper: I had thought about waiting to solo this, glad I didn't. I really, really wanted that staff and when a group was asking I jumped. 3 Death Knights, me and a rogue who showed up right at the end(Ragemane respawned quickly right on top of me). It was tough and I had to pop out and heal myself and a few others, but soo happy to get it done and get that staff!


MOST FRUSTRATING QUEST:
Storm King's Vengeance-Oh my gawd. It started out fine. You ride on top of a Storm Giant's head and control him. Fighting the dragon was easy. Having a hard time finding Scourge to kill(you need 100). Second boss spawns the third. You heal by finding these green clouds(which are few and far between). If you can't get away, well your giant is GIANT and running around and getting caught on trees and other crap was beyond frustrating.

And as soon as you kill the 2nd guy the third spawns. And the first time I wasn't ready. I ran away and he despawned. And then I got stuck on a branch and couldn't control my giant anymore. And I got surrounded by Scourge and he died. No problem, go back and restart him.

But now, for some reason, I had what seemed like MILLIONS of Scourge constantly around me! I make it back to fight boss #2 again, get it done but someone else takes the healing clouds before I can and there is no way I can fight the boss #3-other guy steals my spawn. I run away. There always seemed to be hundreds of Scourge around me, killing them did no good, more just came from everywhere! I can't remember how many times it took killing boss #2 before I finally managed to tag boss #3 with enough health and healing clouds nearby to FINALLY kill this guy.

I swear this one quest took me an hour to do. I was screaming at the screen. But damn that helmet was worth it!

The first two weeks...WoW...

So it's been almost 2 weeks since Wrath came out. And yeah, I've been busy. Maybe too busy. Maybe I need to take a break. No, no, I didn't play my druid non-stop in some sort of marathon. She still isn't even 80(just dinged 79 yesterday afternoon). But I have been doing a LOT.

Druid, Kickingbird

• Leveled to 79
• Mining 450, enchanting 390ish
• Kalu'ak-will be exalted today for epic fishing pole and penguin pet
• have done some tough quests and getting over my fear of grouping for some quests-will discuss later

Rogue, Rayak

• Leveled to almost 73(only grouping with hubby and kid)
• Herbalism 450, Inscription 370 or something-I don't even care

Death Knight, Krevsun

• Leveled to 60
• Mining 224

Death Knight, Boreanaz

• Leveled to 61, nearly 62
• Mining 156, skinning 151

Mage, Wormtongue

• Leveled to nearly 71
• Alchemy 406, discovered Elixir of Major Mageblood

So yeah, I've been playing a lot. Maybe I should take a break.

Well, some interesting observations, quests I soloed, and screenshots coming later.

Tomorrow...maybe

With the realms being down all day yesterday, and still not up today, I'm not sure I'm very confident that there will be much playing in the next few days.

That being said...I will likely be playing my Druid solo whenever I get the chance. I will be posting here anything of interest, such as progress with reputations and any group quests I manage to solo.

I am anxious to get into a Death Knight, but we are going to have our 3 together on Kael'Thas so I will have to wait for the others to do that. I know we also plan on starting one on Draenor, so I may do that if I get really bored and itchy to experience DK firsthand.

Is it tomorrow yet????????

It's almost here...

And so the Lich King is doing what he can to provoke us. If the Zombie event and the Scourge Invasion wasn't enough, now there are giant Abominations and massive Frost Wyrms attacking Orgrimmar and Stormwind! It's a very interesting event, especialy Horde side, seeing many of the big players from the Horde all here in one place. Thrall, Garrosh Hellscream, Saurfang, Sylvannas, all running about fighting the Scourge! At one point I was following Hellscream around assisting him on each of those Abominations that spawned. He didn't really need my help, but it felt almost like an honor to be fighting at his side! (Ok, call me a lore nerd or whatever, but this is awesome!)

And so, today, Tuesday, is maintanence. Is Arthas attacking while we sit idly perussing the forums? Will Orgrimmar be but a shell of itself when we are finally able to log back in? What more is in store for us today and tomorrow?

I guess more importantly, is will I really be able to get anything done in Northrend on Thursday or Friday? Heh.

Taking all characters to one new town or the other. Learn the new level of professions. Set hearthstone and head back to a main city to be near a mailbox/bank/auction house. Kickingbird, my druid, will be my first to level. And when she isn't rested it will be Daneck(mage, WANT to see Dalaran!). And when hubby is home, our duo of his Tauren hunter and my Undead mage? Or our two Shamans? And when our kid wants to play it will be Rayak with hubby's paladin and kid's mage.

I can't wait. Hurry up Thursday!

Patch day 3.0.3 and one week to go

What's left to do? Lots I suppose. So much that I can hardly bring myself to log in with any one character and do something because I am constantly thinking "I should be doing X with Y!". Gah.

What am I doing? Well, trying to make up a little money with Rayak. He blew it all last week on mounts so he could get the Albino Drake. So I suppose I will be a socialist-just like our country will soon be(sob, that is another story...)-and redistribute the wealth. I mean, my druid makes money hand over fist, but my shaman can't do dailies alone for squat. And Rayak blew all his money. So I will probably send out money from the ones who have lots of it, to those who don't have much. Do I think this if fair? Nope, I sure don't. And I suppose I could stick to my values and let each character make their OWN damn money. But really...it is all MY money. I guess I'm thinking like the government now. Ick....

The other thing I am doing is working on Loremaster with Kickingbird. She is realistically the only one I can do this with I think. She is only 15 away from Kalimdor and about 100 away on EK(but I know of TONS of areas I skipped there). She did the Tier 0.5 quests way back when, is exalted with Timbermaw, and has done loads of quest lines that I just can't imagine doing with any other character(the Scholo key, etc). She is the only one who will be able to finish all of Outland I think(eventually maybe). And once I get done doing this with her, I don't think I will want to do this with anyone else.

Oh, and one more thing...with this patch...my warlock FINALLY gets his Dreadsteed without having to do that annoyingly long quest chain! YAY!

Albino Drake!

Yes, last Friday I finally got exalted with Skyguard and was able to blow all of his money on every mount possible JUST so the achievement Gods would send me an Albino Drake! I have to admit, it was TOTALLY worth it! This is an awesome mount and it ticks me off that I can't use it in Azeroth. I'll just have to be content to /afk in Shat for another 2 weeks. Heh

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.

Public test realm -patch 3.0

So I've transferred a few of my characters over to the PTR. Basically I did it to test out the achievements and see what areas I had missed exploring. And to try out Inscription with my rogue who is picking it up. So far it looks very interesting-but a lot of work. I didn't have my cache of herbs with me when I transferred, so I've been running around and picking herbs while doing the leveling-but at least this gives me an idea of how much I will need of each herb before this goes live. A rough estimate anyway.

But I can't really comment on a lot of things from the PTR. Obviously because I don't raid, instance or pvp, so I don't know how those things are different. I'm to busy running around finding critters for the "For All The Squirrels I've Loved Before" achievement. And finding out how many cooking recipes I have/need.

Yes, I'm weird.

I'm not ready!

So the Patch 3.0.2 is on the PTR now meaning it is maybe 2 or 3 weeks away! This patch will do several things...

Good:
Add achievements, I LOVE this new addition!
Some really cool changes for my Druid, including using items in forms, Feral Kitty Charge!, and entangling roots and feral swiftness usable indoors
Inscription being added!
Hunter pet changes, plus being able to tame a Devilsaur or other exotic pets!

Not so good:
with achievements...lots of things I'm not done with yet in order to ACHIEVE some achievements!
need to farm LOTS more herbs for inscription that my Rogue is taking up
and the big ones...
Paladin class getting a HUGE change, I'm not sure I'll know how to play him anymore
Rogue changes that I'm not real thrilled with
Hunter changes that I'm not real sure about
ARGH!


So recently I went back and got my Pally and Hunter to exalted with Thunder Bluff, so they are both full exalted with Horde factions. In fact, all three of my Blood Elves are full exalted-and they will get the "Ambassador" title. Cool. Only I can't manage to do this with my 2 Taurens and Undead. Too many quests were done before rep changes and before Silvermoon was added. They are all exalted with Orgrimmar(and my Druid is also with Trolls), but the rest are proving tough. And I feel like I've done dern near every quest possible for rep with them. Will just have to hope for more rep from holiday quests and Lunar Festival.

Even more to do...finish exploring Kalimdor with my Druid(need the NElf and Draenei islands). Farming more rare pets. More more more.

Sigh....

Exalted with Timbermaw!

It took awhile and was amazingly boring most of the time-and annoying when others showed up in my grind spot and ruined my rep-per-hour formula...BUT I finally got it done with my druid, Kickingbird! Pretty cool seeing your name announced by Thrall throughout all of Orgrimmar. :) The trinket is cool, but the little Timbermaw guy doesn't last very long.

This brings me to todays topic of being Exalted. With the new achievements coming with Wrath, these just might mean something more than vendor discounts. For example, the aforementioned Kickingbird, being Exalted with Timbermaw as well as Sporeggar and The Mag'har in Outland, will recieve the title of "the Diplomat". I rather like the sound of that! It also looks like anyone Exalted with all 5 of your home factions, such as my rogue, Rayak, will get the title of "the Ambassador". That's cool too. I'm fairly close to being full exalted on several of my characters and will spend the time in the next few weeks getting them there.

I'm not certain I can get the "exalted with 25 or more factions" title, because many of the seemingly easy ones(the ones most people have exalted on it seems) are Outland factions that require continuous instance runs(Cenarion, Thrallmar, Shat'ar, Lower City, etc) and I am barely above honored on all of those simply because I do not do instances. Oh well. I hope there aren't too many of those in Northrend and that most factions will have a way to grind rep solo.

Also looking forward to the titles and tabards that go along with many achievements. Aside from those I mentioned above, I think my rogue may be able to get the "Chef" title at some point, as well as a title of "the Explorer" and an Explorer's tabard. I am also hoping for the title of "the Seeker" on at least one other character(preferably Wormtongue) by finishing 3000 total quests-but I need to get him back to every zone and make sure nothing has been missed!

Hmmm, WoW finally making this game fun for me. Which means I simply CANNOT quit the game EVER now! Argh.

More WotLK things-to-do

I am so looking forward to Wrath-and yet I feel like I'm nowhere near ready. I am currently working on getting Kickingbird to exalted with Timbermaw(7300/12k right now) as there is a title of "the Diplomat" for being Exalted with Mag'har, Sporeggar and Timbermaw. Kick is already exalted with the other two, and I think "Kickingbird the Diplomat" fits my style quite nicely. I'd prefer something like "the Loner" or "the Quiet", but not sure how those would fit in.

There is also a title, "the Explorer" for having your full map filled in. Kick is done with Outland and Eastern Kingdom, with just a few places in Kalimdor to grab(the NElf and Draenei areas-fun). Rayak is pretty much done except for one spot I missed on Bloodmyst Isle. I suppose it will also include the new zones, so I don't expect to get that one on launch day.

I like titles, that's one thing I like about LotRO. My Hobbit Hunter uses the title "Shire Brewmaster"-doesn't get much better than that!

Still need to farm more herbs. Need loads more mageroyal(as seen from early recipes on Wowhead, and need to work on middle of the pack and high end herbs.
Have gotten 2 points of the 7 needed for Kick to get 375 enchanting.
Helped hubby farm up some BoP BS recipes, but really need more Khorium and some other things for him to get those last 10 points.

The only other thing I've been doing is leveling up my NElf Druid. He is a level 42 Moonkin now and I am LOVING Moonkin! Not enough to switch Kick to it, but that is what Geocacher is for. Wouldn't mind getting him to 60 in the coming weeks, but not really rushing-more of other stuff to do.

One thought about JERKS...

Just wanted a little side post to talk about the JERKS I came across in quick succession yesterday in Eversong Forest.

I went to see if the Blood Elf low level quests give full rep now and YAY they do now, since the last patch! So off to Eversong with Wormy. Doing one of the first quests, the Dead Scar kill 8 skellies. I went away from a low level doing the quest, further out and tried to get it done quickly and get out. I even at one point SAVED this little punk from a group that was chasing her when she was almost dead. And what do I get? A whisper telling me to "STOP KILLING ALL THE QUEST MOBS!!" I explained I wasn't killing them ALL and that I got the ones I needed for the quest and had moved on. This jerk then proceeds to tell me I have NO reason to be doing this quest, I couldn't POSSIBLY get any rep from a low level quest and there was no point in getting the rep anyway. I tried to politely explain that I DID indeed get full rep and that I wanted to get to exalted with Silvermoon and that there are PLENTY OF MOBS!

Don't try to tell me where I can play the game! I wasn't stealing any mobs and I have every right to be there. These are times I wish I was playing in the game ALONE. >.<

THEN...not five minutes later this happens...

Picking up the armaments from the quest near the docks. I then head upstairs to get the named mob for that quest. I get near the top and two level 9s have just finished killing him. No problem, I sit down to wait. One of them comes over and just starts /slapping me! So I ask "did I do something to you?" and I get the response "no im just joking around". WhaWhaWhat?? Joking? So I reply with "oh sorry I don't joke around by being RUDE". I await the named repop and kill him and then head down to turn in the quest. This level 9 Troll rogue is now there also and begins the /slapping again! Do children NOT have any manners anymore??? Yes, I put them on /ignore. I am just SHOCKED(or maybe not really) how absolutely RUDE people can be to someone that don't even know at all.

Losers.
Another reason why I HATE this game!