The Green Dot is Your Friend.

Like many others, I've been more or less swept away by patch 3.3. Most of the time during the past couple of years I've stayed away from pugs (leading to a lot of alone-time while unguilded, yes), probably for the same reasons as many others - I don't like surprises along the lines of "the tank is a cloth wearing moonkin" or "fireball is great for pulling lulz", and I don't like spending two hours trying to get a group together, only to have it fall apart before it even gets to the instance.
But now, now we have the dungeon finder.

On Wednesday, when the patch hit European servers, I put on my holy scrubs, opened the dungeon finder, and signed up for healing Forge of Souls. Within 10 seconds I was standing next to four other players, all from different servers, and none of us had been through the place before. It went very smooth - we ended up doing all three dungeons - and I got several nice upgrades :) An annoying detail was, of course, the (now fixed) bug at the end of Halls of Reflection. Me and the tankadin disconnected when trying to run up the ramp, and then we fell down below :( Luckily, we had a warlock in the group, and she and the two other dps managed to summon us back up, and as someone had heard of Levitate fixing the bug temporarily, we finally managed to get our loot.

My guild has three raid nights every other week, and as last Thursday was one of them, the evening was a pug-free one for me. The objective of the very first weekly raid quest was to kill Razorscale, and that was what we had our sight set on. Up until then, I had never seen her killed - only wiped to her over and over - but we were on something of a roll, and our lovely team cleared The Siege area, and also took down Kologarn. Most of this had been done before by the guild, but Ignis was a first. Quite a few nice achievements that evening!

After that night, however, it seemed we didn't have a whole lot of spirit left, and that, combined with a few people not feeling too hot, led to us wiping repeatedly on Malygos on Friday. We decided on doing a one-boss, no trash encounter, but a lot of us weren't really feeling up for it, and in the end we simply lacked the coordination. Next time, though, next time!

Now, back to the dungeon finder: Yesterday I decided to try and get Lockdown!, and hence I queued up for Violet Hold heroic. Now, it wasn't exactly hard finding a group for that place before 3.3, but if the new dungeons had been launched without the dungeon finder having been implemented at the same time, I'm sure it would've been almost impossible to find a decent group for VH hc. Well, I could have talked some guildies into running it with me - three emblems for very little work and all that - but sometimes that's not an option - people can be busy, not online and so on. Anyway, it wasn't as fast as trying to get into one of the new instances, but within a couple of minutes, I was in a group, and three bosses later I was back in Stormwind AH. The point here is, all of the others had ended up in VH by choosing to do a random heroic, meaning that as long as people use the random dungeon option, even the least popular dungeons will end up being played. Maybe I'll even give Oculus a try one of these days :)

I don't think the dungeon finder tool by some kind of magic has made players nicer, but I'm positive that less waiting makes people behave a little bit better, leaves them with a little more patience. My experiences have so far been pleasant, and the horror stories I've heard from guildies haven't been that horrible. Time will tell if things stay good, I suppose.

Zuramat the Obliterator is still keeping me from getting the achievement, though - I never thought I'd say this, but I think I'll be pugging again tonight :)

If I don't get to ride in a van, it's simply not worth it.

Azeroth is a crazy place this week - turkey fever all over - and we're all running around looking like night elf mohawks:


Hmm. Yeah, yeah, Mr T is awesome, and of course I pity the fool, but I'm going to be incredibly relieved when this event is over. Seriously.

The night elf mohawk is just a minor thing, though, at least compared to the ongoing Pilgrim's Bounty holiday. I stayed up late last Saturday, after getting the adorable new pet, to check out the new, Thanksgiving-themed event. As I was really, really tired, I couldn't figure out how the tables worked, and neither could anyone else, so I ended up logging off to get some sleep.

After checking out a guide on Sunday, things went smoothly. A bit of traveling was involved, but nothing like during the Lunar Festival or the Midsummer Fire Festival, and the PvP achievement very much agreed with me - it's basically just about being there - no skill, gear, or understanding premades is required (I'm giving this one another try next year, though - that proto-drake is too pretty to give up on!).

I don't think it's a big surprise that the hardest thing was finding un-turkeyed rogues, but people have been bringing a lot of level 1 alts to Dalaran during the past couple of days, so even that one was fairly easy. Anyway, yesterday I got the title and the pet, which is all kinds of win! :)

I've been working on having only one main character during the fall - Delinda, my priest - and I think I'm making progress! Treating several characters as mains takes a lot of time and energy, and trying to complete holiday achievements on four or five characters was doing my head in, so I try to do things differently these days. If an event consists of "log on to get a pet + achievement" - you can count on me to do it on every alt - but if it takes more than five minutes, I'm only doing it on Delinda. Crazy as it sounds, this rule has been (and still is) hard to remember, and to live by, and I've had to mentally slap myself several times for starting to do holiday achievements on an alt.

So, this Christmas I'll be logging on to every single alt, just to get as many mini pets as possible, but only one will be a Merrymaker :P

Tonight I intend to continue to take advantage of the nice holiday buff: Spirit of Sharing. In case you've missed it, you get it from eating 5 of each dish at any bountiful table. Everyone gets 1 hour of the human racial, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the buff actually stacks with said racial! If you need me, I'll be in Nagrand, killing ogres.

Building A New Main.

I've spent the past few weeks doing a lot of new things, but also a lot of old things. It's been roughly a month since I first participated in a raid on Naxxramas - clearing the Arachnind Quarter - and about two and a half weeks later we cleared the Plague Quarter. Yes, a lot of the others had done the whole thing a zillion times before; no, I didn't survive the dance on Heigan, but ooooh, it was fun, and I learned a lot. And got some nice loot :)

However, when the guild advertised the regular Ulduar raid on the forums, I felt like too much of a scrub to sign up, and since those runs have seemed to fill up quickly in the past, I didn't feel obligated to do so. Then raid night came, they were lacking a healer, and since I was there, and actually had read up on the first few bosses, I got to go to Ulduar! Now, this isn't really news to anyone, but that place is huge!!! And there are shiny things, and a boss who does a bit of stretching while you're fighting trash, and a dragon (who one of the officers kept calling Moroes o.O) who kicked our butt all night long last Friday (the 13th - need I say more? Eh? Eh?). They cleared the bosses up to and including Kologarn on Saturday, though, while I had some real life to catch up on: TV and pizza is not to be underestimated :)

As I said, I've been doing a lot of new things, and the trips to Naxx and Ulduar are just that, along with a few trips into 5-mans, but there have been old things as well. One issue I'm having with the "new main"-thing is the fact that I've done a lot of things on my druid that I haven't (yet) on my priest. Some things I don't really plan to do again - Outland dungeons is one example, even though I wouldn't say no if the opportunity presented itself - some things I simply can't do again (Spirit of Competition and Clockwork Rocket Bot - I'm looking at you!) and then there are things I very much want to do.

The Outland "mount factions" is one major project I'm working on - still only honored with Kurenai, friendly with Sha'tari Skyguard, and only just started working on the Netherwing attunement questline. When looking up Ogri'la on WoWhead I was pleasantly surprised: Apparently you no longer have to go through the pain of killing all those sons of Gruul in order to get to do dailies for Ogri'la. You just fly up there and talk to them. Of course, if you want to become Queen or King of the Ogres, and neutral with all the other ogres in Blade's Edge, you still need to do the questline. I'm mainly interested in speeding up the rep grind to get Del access to more mounts and an awesome little pet, though, so making her Queen of the Ogres can wait a while.

There are a few things I'm planning, that I haven't done before, on any character. The big one is *drumroll* getting the Loremaster achievement! I've probably done most of the quests before, Alliance-side, but not all on the same character. There are also quests I haven't done at all, and with Cataclysm changing everything sometime next year(?), I really want to see things before they're gone.

As I've written earlier in this post, I've been doing a bit of healing. It's a lot of fun, and I have fallen hard for the priest class - my only problem is the game's lack of triple-spec :D Holy is lovely - Circle of Healing makes me all warm and fuzzy inside - and questing as shadow is the breeziest of breezes. But a couple of weeks ago I switched my shadow spec for discipline, and ooooh, do I want to learn it! Shiny, shiny bubbles and lazers? Yes, please! The problem is, I want to keep my holy spec, since it's awesome, and since I've so far only managed to grasp about 1% of it's versatility, and at the same time I still have a lot of the "harder" quests left to do in Northrend (and Outland), so getting rid of the shadow spec doesn't really work either. Hence, my plan is to do the high-level parts of Loremaster first, then trade in my face melting-skills for some bubbly ones.

OK, off to check some auctions, and then I'll try and get to work on that questing-project :)

Another Time, Another Place.

Fall is definitely here - the leaves are turning, it's getting colder, and people who have been on a break are returning to Azeroth. Well, not all of them. Some are waiting for Cataclysm, some have decided that they're done with WoW. One thing's for certain, though: I'm not done.

I'm madly in love with my new guild, I'm enjoying the (for me) rather new concept of focusing on one character at a time, and I'm quite pleased that I still have a whole lot of Northrend left to conquer before Cataclysm hits the stores (I just started running dungeons again, haven't really done that since TBC - not really an active choice, I just haven't gotten around to it until now).

Some guildies have lured me into normal and heroic dungeons over the past week, both as dps and as a healer, and I'm amazed at how easy it has been. OK, the others outgear the instances by a whole lot, and one might argue that I've been carried (I'll smite your a** if you do, though!), but still: I seem to have learned something during all those Botanica-runs two years ago, because I know how to "do it", even when playing another class. OK, it's not that hard, but I like the feeling of familiarity.

I had a real Kodak-moment with one of the guild officers - also a priest - after finishing heroic Violet Hold last week. He presented me with a new robe and a pair of gloves (I was still wearing the Primal Mooncloth Robe I had used while leveling), and when asked if I could pay him anything, he simply encouraged me to show people how great priests can be. Did I mention how much I love my guild?

It's been a bit quiet on the druid front lately - there's been a lot of priesty activity - but I'll always be a druid at heart, and I always seem to return to my shape-shifting origins. At the moment I'm loving my cloth-wearing, less hybrid-y, less "I can solo anything" priest girl, though. It can be rather nice to be dependant on others.

Yaaarrrrrr!

I'm currently waiting for my tea to cool off a bit, down to a drinkable temperature. Meanwhile, I'm going through my possible "plans" in WoW. (Aren't I always, though? Well, anyway.)

As you probably know, I just joined a guild, and I'm loving it. OK, I'm still "the new one", but that's not too bad - whenever someone I haven't met yet logs on, they welcome me to the guild, and ask me how I like it so far - everyone's really sweet, and I'm starting to get a grip on which alts go with which mains. Also, the other night, I helped a couple of guildies with a heroic Sethekk-run. They're both druids, and after the mount, and since my priest isn't honored with Lower City, I too chose to play a druid. My old nelf girl was briefly taken out of retirement, prowled past trash mobs paw to paw with her newfound druid friends, and finally got the achievement for heroic Sethekk Halls. The mount didn't drop, but we had a good time, and I got to know my guildies a little bit better.

Yesterday I did the Tournament dailies on Bunnyhop - she's currently working on becoming a champion of Stormwind, the last one she needs apart from Argent Crusade rep - and since I haven't really bought anything with her Champion's Seals, I'm considering saving up for some heirloom gear. It'll still be a little while before I dare to venture into a level 80 heroic with any of my characters, and when I do, I'll probably want to spend my first emblems on gear for the toon who looted said emblems. But with Champion's Seals - there are a few nice pieces to get, but they're quite cheap, and seals are easy to come by - and eventually with badgers... Sorry, emblems - I can haz female gnome warrior with super fancy gear?

Yes, I want a tiny, female juggernaut :D

First of all, though, I hope to get my priest to 80, and get some more experience playing her.

After that? Well, only time will tell. I'm sure I'll be able to find another character to level up, if the mood strikes me (which it probably will). ;)

Also: Happy Pirate's Day!

Delayed wall of text.

A bit late, yeah. The plan was to post during the weekend, but then I was all exhausted from my friday (which included a funeral for a very old relative - her death was expected, but funerals are never exactly fun), and so, I'm blogging on a tuesday.

Yesterday I took a longshot, and applied to a guild. I think it's one of the oldest guilds on my server (the server opened in late january 2007, so not ancient, but still), and it's also one of those guilds you only hear positive things about - no drama to speak of, no serious idiots are seen with their guildtag above their heads, and its members come off as nice, smart, levelheaded and fun. They call themselves a "mature, relaxed guild of casual players", and that, along with the fact that one needs to write an application to be considered for membership, adds up to basically what I'm looking for. I got accepted as a trial member within an hour, and my priest was invited last night. In my application I hinted about having alts, and there's a possibility my younger druid will join their ranks in a bit. I just want to see how I fit in first :)

As I was exhausted last night, from studying, and from a bit of workout (my lower back has suffered a bit lately - too much time spent reading, too little exercise - something had to be done), I had to turn down an invite to Drak'Tharon Keep, and instead go to bed, I have yet to "physically" meet any of my new guildies in-game. On the other hand, I got to take part in the guild chat for a couple of hours, and that was fun - everyone seemed really sweet, and I'm looking forward to logging on later this afternoon.

It feels a lot like being the new kid in school, though, or what I imagine that it must feel like - everyone else know each other better, they have odd nick names, and you don't really know how things "work" yet. Yes, I'm horribly nervous, but aiming at laying low, being helpful, and trying to whip up the courage to maybe join in on some mid-70's instance run. It'll probably be fine, I just have to get past that initial period where I don't know anyone. And the nausea :D

____________________________________________

Now, about druids: When Cataclysm was announced, a lot of us were a bit shocked by the news that Kalimdor (and Eastern Kingdoms? I've no clue :S) is going to change a lot, that Darkshore will be flooded and the Barrens will be ripped apart. Now, I have quite a few alliance characters, and almost all of them have quested their way through both Darkshore and Ashenvale - I took my first character through those areas, and I've grown quite attached to them, in spite of the fact that all the running before the recent changes to mounts was mind-numbing.

My experience horde-side is very limited - I think I have a level 26 belf pally on some server, and about 20 lowbie trolls, tauren, undead, orcs and other belves scattered across different servers, so it's basically the same, short experience, over and over again. And now to the druid-part: I finally started my "real" tauren druid, a couple of weeks ago. She's level 23 and feral specced - oddly enough I've never leveled feral before, atleast not all the way - which is partly because of the awesome new kitty look. I've been talking about getting myself a (female) tauren druid for a long time, but with my comfortable network of alts and friends on the alliance side, the horde alts tend to not get the attention they need in order to actually reach some kind of respectable level.

I guess I could have said all this in a lot fewer words, i.e. something like: I've started a tauren druid, and I'm actually leveling her, so that I can see all the stuff on the horde side before Cataclysm rips the world apart, and leaves us with pools of lava. That would've worked too, yeah.

Anyway, I'm really excited about my new guild, and also about having my tauren girl work her way through the Barrens and beyond - it's a bit like starting to play all over again, mostly with the tauren project, but also with the guild - in short, it's all quite a thrill.

*sneaks back in*

What's that? Absence from the blog? I have no idea what you're talking about. None whatsoever. I've been here aaaall along...

...

Well, in spirit, atleast!

The truth is, I've been busier lately than I had expected, and most of it hasn't been connected to the internet or WoW, and the online time I've managed to scrape together has more or less been dedicated solely to the game. And right now, I'm on a break for tea, and just logging in here to write something of a "I'm still alive!!"-post.

I'm hoping and intending to get back into some kind of regular posting soon, probably during the weekend, provided - of course - that nothing unexpected occurs. I know it's not like my blog is revolutionary for the WoW-community in any way, but one of my primary goals here is to keep a kind of "gaming diary", and that's something I'd like to continue doing.

So, new nonsense-post fairly soon, it might even be druid-related!

*props up Annie-shaped dummy to make people think I'm always here*
(not a creepy one, though, promise)

"Waiting for patch"-randomness.

Waiting for the servers to come back up again, I'm feeling a bit too unfocused to write a "real" post, so I'll just list a few things that have been going on:

• Went (semi-)oldschool the other night, and farmed adamantite ore and Kurenai rep in Nagrand. Adamantite is way too expensive to buy in my server's AH, and I really miss the talbuk mounts my old druid has. Paladin is halfway through revered - should be able to get her all the way to exalted in a few more hours of killing ogres, and doing the two group quests I have left there (Durn and Corki's Ransom).

• On a sunny evening last week my sister took me out on their boat. Sister: "It handles like a dream"= me holding on for dear life, making sure my lifejacket's strapped on tight enough. Yes, I know how to swim, I grew up by a lake, and I'm fairly used to boats, but on a windy day, in the middle of the lake, I want to make sure I can stay afloat under all circumstances. She was quite amused.

• I've started re-reading The Sandman, and I've just gotten started on Season of Mists. Such an amazing story, and so, so pretty. I really should try and pick up the final three volumes, though. >.<

• I still haven't gotten around to doing something about the whole "guild thing". I'll get there, I just need to take my time. Or, I just need to do it, and not think so much.

• This morning I had so much fun reading the paper: One of their summer temps is so mindnumbingly bad, and her articles are hilarious. Did I mention I'm a major nitpicker? Whenever she's written a new article it's like Christmas. (Edit: I know my english isn't exactly flawless, and I don't mock just anyone for their bad writing, but being swedish, reading swedish newspapers, I consider myself free to laugh out loud at rubbish written by a paid writer.)
  

• I spent the last few minutes before server shutdown last night (well, 3AM this morning) on my druid, in catform - me and a whole bunch of others were dancing on the steps to the alliance bank in Dalaran, to celebrate the new patch!

• The first character I log on when my server goes online again will probably be a druid. Even though I don't do feral, I'm very, very excited about the new kitty and bear, especially on behalf of feral tauren druids everywhere - the nelf cat was OK, but the orange Richard Simmons-form was... Bad, to say the the least.

• One of my more neglected alts is a level 69 shaman, and one reason for said neglect is the totems. I love totems, and when I play her I want to use totems, but they have been stealing my global cooldowns, and since I haven't gotten along with any of the totem addons I've found, they've been hogging space on my hotbars, and I've had trouble organising the whole thing. Now shamans are getting a major UI boost, and the ability to drop four totems in one GCD, so... Time for shaman action?
  

That's all I can think of at the moment - I know there's a whole lot more, but if I go on, I'll just end up quoting the patchnotes :D I might as well do some laundry and have lunch, since the servers aren't planned to come online until about 3PM (i.e. in about an hour) - then it's time for "ooh" and "aah", and "wth happened to Seal of the Martyr?".

Plans, and how not to stick to them.

I really, really wanted to write a post with the title "Pallies and druids and priests! Oh my!", partly because I love The Wizard of OZ, but mostly because it would mean I had stuck to my unofficial plan to spend fairly equal amounts of time playing those three characters. That, however, has not happened, and it's not that big a deal, after all. So, which character have I been playing? Perhaps not a big surprise, considering what I've been blogging about lately:



There it is - last night my paladin dinged 67, and while she is dual specced ret and prot, I have yet to use her prot spec. Retribution is ridiculously powerful while leveling, and she's gaining XP so fast by questing I have found myself rushing past the whole instance thing in Outland. It's not that I don't like instances - I love dungeons - but I've been soloing so much for so long, the questing/grinding/leveling process is almost running on autopilot, and I don't realise until four levels later that "ooh, maybe I should've done Ramparts", and by that time Northrend feels so close, I just keep on going. The fun I've had in dungeons in the past has been with friends/guildies, and when I'm on a roll with leveling I can't really find the motivation to do a pug.

Anyway, new plan: Getting pally+priest to 70(-ish), and giving the whole "find a casual guild"-project another try. But then again, every now and then the nice weather lures me outside, and I end up reading a book in the shade instead of hanging out online, so we'll see what happens. Summer seems to be having that effect on a lot of people, and it's probably good with a bit of a vacation, even from fun :)

BRB, cake.

Annoyingly enough, I haven't had a lot of play-time during the past week. Instead of being a druid/paladin/priest/hunter, I have been a manic amateur confectioner. The result:


It's a Dobos torte. Nowhere near as pretty as the ones you might find in a so-called "upscale" hotel/restaurant/pastry shop, but oooh, it satisfies any chocolaty needs you might have. Mine is a tiny bit different, since it has seven layers, and chocolate buttercream on the sides, but it's really the same thing. Apparently it's a Hungarian torte, so a big thanks to Hungary!

The reason for this cake? I turn 29 for the second year in a row tomorrow. Well, OK, I turn 30. No big deal, really, but I like having a Cake for my birthday, not just, you know, cake. Well, actually it's a Torte. Anyway: Omnomnomnom...

So, I started this post off with the word "annoyingly", and then there was chocolate. The thing is, I've just gotten my paladin to Outland, and she's just so much fun, and I really want to get my druiding going again, and the priest too, and the hunter needs to be taken out for a spin, and... There aren't enough hours in the day. Annoying. But yeah, I have chocolate.

The how and why, and ooh! Shiny lights!

I finally chose to take my alt out of that guild a couple of days ago. Even though it was nice having a guildchat again, it was actually worse than how the trade channel gets past midnight on weekends. Also, I found myself getting whiny about the whole thing, and that's never good, so I left.

Instead, I'm continuing to look into a few of the "casual, mature and relaxed" guilds on my server - the only thing left to do would be to pick 1-3 characters to apply with (I couldn't possibly - and wouldn't want to - bring all my alts into a new guild, but just one... That'd feel like a betrayal to the ones left behind!), and hope for the best. I do think the odds for a good guild/player-match improve a lot if the guild has its own website, and requires an application to join. Even though the kind of guild I'm after wouldn't be a very "professional" one, chances are you spend as much time with your guildies as you would with your colleagues at a part-time job, and most jobs require you to apply - not only to see that you're qualified, but also to make sure you fit in personality-wise. I very much doubt that the friendliest workplaces recruit random, unemployed people off the street, figuring that they can always give them the boot, if and when they're caught stealing from the cash register.

Right now, though, I'm going to be a lolret for a tiny bit, before it's time for lunch. Leveling is more than fast these days, even without heirlooms, and with a retribution specced paladin it's just crazy! You're wearing plate, you have the bestest bubble in all the world, and if you play your cards right, you never have any downtime! She's almost level 54 - the highest I've managed to get a plate wearer so far - and becoming more fun every time she dings. Leveling is easy, though - I'm quite convinced I'll have my work cut out for me if I am to try and play her in a more organized environment (like, you know, in dungeons and all that). I have, however, managed to keybind - and use - nifty stuff like Righteous Defense, so I'm not entirely clueless :D

Nerf paladins! Or no, wait a minute...

I've been checking out paladin stuff a bit - the reason being a new-ish alt, was featured in the screenshot of the Alliance tauren - and as Outland comes quicker than one might expect while leveling an alt these days, I wanted to check out what librams will be available through quests and the like. The three "classic" relic wearing classes - paladins, druids and shamans - all get one BoE relic each, and every now and then one might find them on the AH. Druids get Idol of the Moon, shamans get Totem of the Storm, and paladins get... Wait for it, wait for it... Libram of Fervor.

OK, so maybe the spellpower bonus on Moonfire isn't mindblowing, and neither is the bonus to Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, but still, it's a small (teeny, tiny) bonus every time you use a certain spell, and since the spells in question are used quite often, as part of rotations and all that, the difference is there. You'll have to look really, really hard to see it, but it's there.

Then we have the pally relic. There used to be a time when a paladin's seal was consumed by her/his judgement, and he had to reapply the seal all the time in combat, in order to be able to judge his foe. The seal cost mana - it still does - and hence this libram must have been a buff for the paladin who got her/his hands on it back in the day. Now, however, times have changed, and so has the whole seal-judgement business. Seals last for 30 minutes, and are not consumed by judgements. Hence, you usually cast a seal every 30 minutes, and huzzah! You save a mighty 22 mana every time if you're carrying this baby! Well, I think it's safe to say that I won't be buying it.

While reading the comments regarding this item over at Wowhead, I found this and this as examples of amazingly useless epics, and a small part of me wants to make a "posing-by-the-bank"-set, including those two trinkets, the fabulous libram, and some other outdated/useless from the start (vanilla) high-level items.

Now I'm about to log on to my guilded alt, to try and gain a few levels. I've played her a bit lately, and I've seen a bit more of the guild, mostly through the gchat, though, since most of the active players are level 80, doing level 80-stuff. There does seem to be a steady stream of players coming in, and a fairly steady stream - albeit a smaller one - of players leaving. The guild has grown from about 360 members (when I joined) to about 390 in a week. Haven't logged in yet today, though, so it may have changed. Am I the only one who thinks it's a questionable idea for running a guild? Invite everyone you can find, let them stay until they misbehave? The "misbehave"-part has so far been the cause of a slightly uncomfortable gchat, and frankly, I have a rather forgiving sense of humour, even when it comes to what people say/do on the internet. Then again, several people seem really nice and intelligent, so I'm giving it a few more days, and I'll see how it goes.

Fancy weather and its consequences; new acquaintances.

Sooo, anyway. The Midsummer Fire Festival ended really early Sunday morning (i.e. yesterday morning), and as much as I love in-game holidays, that was something of a relief. Between the great weather we had here during the past two weeks, and me having a bunch of RL obligations, I gave up on getting the Flame Warden-title on hunter+druid. Instead, I got the Captured Flame on both of them, and on a couple of other characters, and got them about half-way through the meta by visiting a lot (but far from all) of the fires. Barbecue and a glass of wine in the evening sun won the race against stealing/putting out/honouring flames all across Azeroth more often than not during this holiday. But next year, next year!

And yeah, I've finally joined a "real" guild with one of my characters. It's not exactly what I had planned, but I'll see how it goes. There's a pinch of scepticism in there, though. Here's how it is:

I was playing one of my 40-something alts, one of the few I haven't bothered putting into my bank-guild, and was browsing the AH in Stormwind for possible upgrades. Suddenly, I get a whisper about joining a guild, and since I recognize the guild name, and haven't heard anything bad about them, I join on a whim. I get a warm welcome - lots of people saying hi and all that - and that's nice, but what bothers me is that within one minute of joining I get whispered by another member "Can you boost me in Stockade, please?". I was a bit surprised, but I figured that since I was the "new" one, and didn't have anything special planned, I'd do it to show some good will. Also, I haven't been in a "real" guild for quite some time, and maybe boosting is what people do in guilds these days. So I ran this guy through the Stockade.

Now, after doing said boosting, I started to check out the guild info, and I was, again, a bit surprised. There are two major... Rules?

• The guild in question has "boost night" on early Friday nights, which I'm assuming means that high level characters are required to drag guildie alts through low level dungeons. Hmm.
• The guild seems to put a lot of energy into recruiting, and promotions are partly based on how many new members you have recruited. "Recruit as much as you can!" Even more hmm.

The thing is, the people I've come in contact with in gchat have all been nice, and it seems people put effort into their characters, but the whole "quantity before quality"-tendencies bother me.

Now, I know what you're thinking: I shouldn't expect too much from a guild who recruits the random level 40-something character standing around in SW AH. And frankly, I'm not. The sad part is, I'm expecting to get needy whispers from people who prefer getting boosted instead of questing, and actually playing the game themselves.

I have never led a guild myself, but I still believe what many guildleaders say: A casual guild often has a greater need of strong leadership than a hardcore guild, (I feel a bit like Monica Geller here: "rules help control the fun!") and I honestly have difficulties seeing myself sticking to a guild that rests on the two principles mentioned above: Boosting, and "recruit as much as you can!". I am, however, going to give it an honest try.

Today it started raining, a lot, so WoW is looking a bit more attractive at the moment. Having some tea first, but later I'm off to Azeroth!

The things some guys do to pick up girls.

The real summer came to Sweden, finally! I've been seriously distracted by the great weather, and have not been playing as much as I usually do. Still, I'm slowly working on the "Flame Warden"-title with druid+hunter, and I've also seized the opportunity to gain some "free" XP and cash with a few of my alts. While doing that last thing, I noticed something in Desolace:



Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't tauren, you know, Horde? Yet, here we have Mr. Thunder Bluff, Alliance flag up, chatting up draenei ladies.

A couple of nights ago I had my druid run into Orgrimmar to steal their flame, and oh, holy repair bill did she die a lot. Yeah, yeah, I should've taken her equipment off, but she didn't have the bag space, it was late, and I simply wanted to get it done. For some reason a leather-/clothwearing level 71 druid has a hard time living through being hit by 12 level 75 guards - who knew? ;) Only Undercity and Silvermoon left with her - Bunnyhop still hasn't stolen any flames, but since she has both more armor and levels, it should be less painful.

Speaking of painful - I spent a couple of hours on the beach yesterday, and realised afterwards it might be a good idea to buy a new bottle of sunscreen. Blonde scandinavians tend to get overly excited by sunshine, and I'm no different (dark winters FTL). I also like pickled herring, with some akvavit on the side.

Summer leads to...

...laziness? Well, even a non-raiding player, such as myself, can see a change in the playing schedule when summer arrives. It's mostly been a rainy one in Sweden, so far, but there's something about the season that seems to distract me a bit, both when it comes to playing and blogging. I've been following the news regarding the next major patch, though, and I'm excited about most of it. I think we've already established that I adore the new tauren kitty :D

Then there's the whole "mount overhaul"-business. On one hand, I love it. Cheaper + earlier = win for altoholics like me! On the other hand, there are still people who are new to the game. A lot of other bloggers have covered this subject, and I don't really want to go over it in detail as well, but the bottom line is: We do end up with players who have rushed through great content, without grouping, and without learning any of the basic instance "rules" (kill order, don't pull aggro, hug your healer, and so on). So, I've come to two conclusions: My lowbie alts are getting cool rides - w00t! and I'm thinking about actually getting one or more of my higher level characters into a "real" guild. Soloing is flexible, but it gets lonely at times, and being guilded can save you from some of the worse PUGs :) Also, I miss having a guild chat. Nothing is decided yet, though, but there are some nice guilds on my server, with, you know, non-Dirge-spammers in them.

And hey, Negathle has graduated (congrats again!), and is adding a pinch of druid to her playing! More druids to the people!

Also, a while ago Lady Jess mentioned the screenshot addon she's using - Multishot (and of course I can't find the specific post in which she mentioned it, oh well) - and it's lovely. Before downloading this one, I used AchievementSnap, and I was mighty annoyed by how it included a /played in every screenshot. Multishot does exactly what I want: It takes a screenshot whenever I get an achievement, kill a boss, or gain a level. Nothing more, nothing less. And Multishot has a configuration menu - always a bonus! Thanks, Lady J. for the tip!

You mean, like a dog-cat? That's fantastic!

So, I'm back in business. The computer is working again, after a lot of swearing, and thanking nature for my fairly small hands and long fingers (making stuff like replacing parts in my PC a lot easier, than if I had big giant man hands), and now I'm getting back into reading blogs, and back into the game.

I've spent quite a bit of time ooh-ing and aah-ing over the new skins for cat- and beardruids, and if it wasn't for the whole "tanking as a bear turns me into a nervous wreck"-thing, I'd have my Rahamra moonlight as feral, and run around as a super cool kitty all the time. Maybe I'll be running around as a kitty anyway, as resto... I have to say this, though: Tauren kitties are the winners here. The nelf cat has always been fine, if you ask me - sneaky, panthery, with a nice colour - while the tauren cat has been... Well, you know. Open-mouthed, yellow thing, with horns. Like the really, really ugly cousin of those cool lions in the Barrens. But now, now they're just beautifully sleek and cool. I mean, the black one with a grey mane? How cool is that?



Most of all, I love the new face. Like Allison Robert pointed out over at WoW.com, the new tauren cat looks a lot like a Bull Terrier, and I love it. Even though I haven't played horde past level 25 (yet!), this seems to be a Thunder Bluff-worthy cat, and I can't wait to see what it looks like in motion. The new nelf cat skins look great, too - softer edges, nice colours and all that - but it's just not as cool as the new horde kitty.

Being more of a caster druid, I'm of course waiting for new skins for the moonkin, and the tree, I guess. I haven't used my tree form a whole lot, so I haven't really had a chance to grow sick of it the way many raiders seem to have done. So far, I've considered it quite funky, with the best dance in game <3 The moonkin form, on the other hand... I like the fact that you can see the weapon you have equipped, but since my old druid was a moonkin most of the time, and since Rahamra is using balance for questing, I've spent a lot of time during the past two and a half years staring at a nelf moonkin. Yes, it's a thousand times better than the (old) tauren cat. Yes, it's cute and cuddly. But. It's a fat bear-owl. With horns. I'm not asking for anything huge, but having the colour of the feathers change when I take my girl to the barber shop would be sweet. And I guess that's what it's going to be about, whenever they're ready to release new moonkin and trees.

Well, as much as I love playing a druid, and being able to shift into different forms, I also love playing other classes, where a piece of armor can change their look entirely (which means my priest is still running around Outland in what looks like underwear and Pretty Woman-boots). OK, I'm off to get something to eat, and then I'll be doing some druiding :)

Absence

Playing/serious posting is annoyingly enough a no-go at the moment, since my computer's CPU fan is acting up :( Ordered a new fan, though, and it should arrive on Monday or Tuesday. Keeping fingers and toes crossed that my PC will remain with the "living"!

What to learn from rejection.

Just added a tag cloud, to the right, below the blogroll. Found the code, and an excellent guide, here. My labels-list got a bit out of hand, and didn't really fill any purpose, so it was removed a while ago. I much prefer the look of the cloud - I like to think it neatly organises the disorganised structure of this blog.

Today hasn't been a very WoW-ish day - logged in before lunch, did some Argent Tournament dailies - since I've mostly been doing laundry, and finally managed to get a hold of the person responsible for a job I've applied for. Apparently there are still people who think checking their inbox is "optional", even when they've published their e-mail adress in the paper, below words along the lines of "send questions about the job/apply for the job here".

"Ooh, I see you mailed me last Tuesday[i.e. more than a week ago]! Yeah, maybe I should read it - I'll get back to ya!"

Not exactly what you'd like to hear, especially when you suspect he's already given the available spots to the first people who happened to stumble into his office. -.-

WoW-wise, I've come to the conclusion that my priest will probably have to get dual-specced, and that shadow - in spite of the boredom that creeps up on me whenever I think about it - will be her secondary spec. At 80 I'd love to have disc as secondary spec - for pvp-utility, and tank healing advantages - but while leveling I think being able to both heal and dps will get me more pugs. And no, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get into that pug by flaunting my awesome smite-crits :´( But I still have to say this: I'm amazed by how easy it's been so far, leveling with a smite-spec! Holy Fire + smitex3 = dead mob, and zero down-time as a result of points in Spirit Tap and Meditation, and it's still nice for healing! I think you need to be able to spec into the mana-regen and damage/crit increasing talents before it runs smoothly, though.

OK, I've got a cookie, and a glass of water. Time to check up on a couple of my characters, and then I'm off to bed.

I long for Northrend fashion.

A while back I logged on to Delinda, the priest who recently had jewelcrafting power leveled, and I noted how her outfit made her look like a street walker. Well, after the jewelcrafting adventure, I kind of got into leveling her a bit - it's probably surprising to some, and not to others, but leveling as holy dps is a breeze! (I developed a severe shadow-allergy when I leveled her to 50, so that was not an option..) She's now level 60, and has done a few of the earliest quests in Hellfire Peninsula. And this is what she looked like before hearthed and logged out:

"Hi, I'm Delinda - just your average, holy priest. And yeah, I like going out in public, wearing nothing but my underwear."

Hmm. I'm hoping for an upgrade. Soon. Preferably some kind of robe.

What really matters.

Off topic:

I just drew a huge sigh of relief - the power adapter for my Gameboy Advance SP didn't get lost when I moved house! Rechargeable batteries are divine, as long as you have a means of charging them. It was hiding in a plastic bag, along with an old cell phone and my TI-89 - we can call that my "nerd-bag". (The bigger bag next to it, containing a PS2, a pile of old computer games, and various camera accessories, is, of course, not a "nerd-bag".)

Fever + wealthy bank alt = win!

Oooh, it's been a while since I posted. Why that is? Well, it all started with a birthday dinner. Someone in my family turned 60 recently, and I had volunteered to help out with the preparations for said dinner. I didn't do a whole lot of cooking, but I did do quite a bit of cleaning. Anyway, the dinner thing went smoothly. There was, however, someone at this dinner who carried with them an evil, sneaky virus. So yeah, I've had (and am still having) a major cold. A fever of about 38, 4 °C, and all the fancy stuff that comes with it. I'm recovering, though, and today the fever is gone.

Yesterday I was a bit too tired for actual play, ie didn't have the patience required for the jousting dailies up at the Argent Tournament grounds, so instead, I put a crazy plan into work:

I have a lovely priest, a level 51 human, named Delinda. She's been a tailor/enchanter since... Always? Out of habit, almost every mage or priest I start, more often sooner than later, end up with tailoring and enchanting for professions. In Burning Crusade, being and enchanter was a BIG DEAL, due to the fact that you could enchant your own rings - a bonus regardless of the level of your gear, something that most other professions couldn't provide. Jewelcrafting was good in a similar way, but enchanting isn't dependant on sockets. Come WotLK, every crafting profession has a bonus like that (I think?) - leatherworkers have great wrist enchants, scribes have the shoulder enchants, blacksmiths have extra sockets and so on.

So, long story short: I realised I had three characters (one level 72, one 60, and one 51) sporting the tailor/enchanter-combo, and no active jewelcrafter, so I checked some online guides, mailed a whole lot of ore, bars and gems I had on a bank alt to the priest, along with a couple of hundred gold, and at about 11 pm last night she hit 350 in jewelcrafting. I haven't taken her skill beyond that yet, though, since the cost would be way bigger than her budget at the moment.

Now, all I have to do is level her up! Most people would have started in that end, but my bored, feverish mind didn't work like that. Oh well, I've heard tailor/jewelcrafter is nice for priests.

Turtles, rats, weird, floating eye-balls..?

I wish I could be all sage and grown-up about it, but this will bug me. I've decided to not go for the For the Children-achievement this year, mainly because I can't make myself do School of Hard Knocks. My PvP-skills as a huntress are basically non-existant, and I can't work up enough energy to find a premade that would be OK with my nab-ishness.

While I know it's the best I can do in order to keep my sanity, the little OCD-part of me is going "WTF GO FOR IT!!! COMPLETE THE ACHIEVEMENT!!! KILL!!! KILL!!!", and well, I suppose I could complete it. But I wouldn't have fun, and that's ultimately what I'm after when playing the game.

Maybe I'll have had the opportunity to improve my hunter PvP-ing in time for next year's Children's Week, but for now, I'm happy with the pets. I'm a bit bummed we didn't get a Northrend version of the event, though :/

Anyway, a big, giant congrats to all the players who have gotten their Matron/Patron title, and a big, warm hug of encouragement to those still working towards theirs :)

OK, I'm off to get some lunch, and then my retired druid will be getting her Willy, and with him Veteran Nanny <3 (It might be just me, but that sounds awfully wrong. Still, leaving it as it is :P)

Sanity FTW.

It's time to stop the madness!

Neither my senior druid, nor my mage will be getting the Noblegarden-meta, in spite of what I planned the other day. I've realized I'd rather do other things with my playing time, than get every single achievement on every single alt. I'm very much a sucker for achievements, and it makes me cringe to see incomplete ones, but with the number of seasonal events we're getting I have to limit my achievement hunting to Bunnyhop and Rahamra. And, since you have to be at least level 75 to try and get the Children's Week meta, Rahamra will be like the other ones on this one too - only baby sitting to get a pet.

It's the obvious way to go, really - the reason for me having a variety of characters of different classes and races, is not to do the exact same thing over and over again in a short period of time. Hunting eggs is easy, and sort of fun, but it really made my head spin when I did it for the fourth time.

Now for something completely different:

I was having tea out in the garden earlier, when I notice something tiny and black on my left knee. Thinking it's just a tea leaf, I try to brush it off, but it's stuck! The plot thickens, eh? Turns out it's a... Tick! Before thinking, I pulled it out, and luckily it hadn't had time to get a very good grip. Let's hope I don't have Lyme disease or meningitis waiting for me down the line...

Someone to watch over me.

Ever since patch 3.1 and it's features was announced, I've been pondering the question of tenacity pets. Bunnyhop has been sporting a gorilla since level 32 - she started out with Fonzie, a Mistvale Gorilla from Stranglethorn Vale, and traded him in for Fonzarelli at level 64 - initially because of Thunderstomp, an ability which used to be gorilla-exclusive. Fonzarelli has been with Bunnyhop through thick and thin, and even though he's that kind of "special looking" pet everyone has, I don't think I could ever give him up.

However, nowadays any tenacity pet can learn Thunderstomp, while Fonzarelli has gotten a new ability: Pummel. I haven't tried it out yet, and even though it should have situational uses in PVE (interrupting mobs healing themselves or something similar), it feels very much like a PVP-move. So, I'm looking into other tanking pets, trying to find one with a more "all-round" family ability. With three "permanent" pets in her stable (Juno the spirit beast, Leah the wasp, and said gorilla) Bunnyhop is left with two slots for testing.

As I've just started this little project, and since I've been leveling a new druid, I'm still on my first two "contestants":

Judy the turtle - can use Shell Shield when things get hairy. This should be useful when soloing old world raids, and hopefully when trying to solo the sons of Gruul (to unlock the Ogri'la faction).

Butter the crab - uses Pin. OK, this feels like a PVP-ability - keeping rogues in place and such - but it might come in handy when you need to keep a runner from pulling an extra pack. But most of all, I'm attracted by the idea of having a red crab. If only he sang - then he'd be my new tank for sure!

It'll probably take me a while, since I want to level them up to 80 for testing, but I'm not really in a hurry. Doing the Argent Tournament- and Ebon Blade dailies, and going for the occasional farming run in Sholazar should have them both leveled within a week or two.

OK, I'm off for a walk in the evening sun - I'll be taking the turtle out for a spin later, and have Rahamra finish up Zangarmarsh (level 64 - w00t!)!

More bunnies, please. No, really!

Noblegarden, from an achievement point of view the "easiest" world event" has been up and running for a bit more than a day and a half now. It's one of the easiest titles one can get - it seems to be possible for a level 1 to do it (with a bodyguard and portals, of course, and yeah, the character would level up from exploring and such) - and I bet everyone who wants it will have it by the end of the event, ie Sunday (I'm guessing it ends at 00.01, when Sunday starts, so Saturday will be the last day to do stuff). So far I haven't actually gotten the title on any character, but Bunnyhop and Rahamra have gathered all the Noblegarden Chocolates and merchandise they need to complete the meta. I'll probably try and do the whole thing on my mage and the semi-retired druid as well.

Now, the next world event will be quite a bit harder, achievement-wise. Children's Week starts on May 1st(?), and the meta associated with it requires you to complete School of Hard Knocks. I don't like it. Sephrenia feels that this is what stands between her and the Violet Proto, and I have to say it feels the same way for me. OK, the characters on which I'll be trying to get this achievement done are a hunter and a druid - not very squishy at all - and I bet a lot of people would go "QQ moar" if they heard me complain, but I still think this achievement is unnecessarily hard. A lot of people will be trying to do the exact same thing at the same time, and, well, BG:s often seem to bring out the worst in people as it is.

Once an Orphan (kill 10 players with their orphan out) was removed completely, due to it being politically incorrect, and that's something I can definitely sympathize with. However, I'd rather have an achievement along the lines of "win one of each BG:s with your orphan out", or a better version of School of Hard Knocks: Make someone's capture/return/assault count for everyone of the same faction within 15 yards or so from the "acting" player. That way, better battleground pvp would be promoted, we wouldn't have 30 people camping the flag in EotS, and healy clothies would be able to get Violet Proto's.

However, with the situation being as it is, I'm hoping for good, achievement orientated pre-mades, much like the "hey, let's kill the boss in normal Utgarde Keep enough times for everyone in the group to get the flowers"-pugs. Let's keep our fingers crossed there will be many patient, achievement-hungry non-regular-pvp:ers who can help each other out with this one! "Matron Bunnyhop", that'd be something.

Back to Noblegarden, though: I'd love love love to have a mini pet like the bunny you sometimes get turned into when opening the hidden eggs! Pink bunnies ftw :D

Click, click, click... Yay! It's true!

Just remembered one of my favourite aspects of the new patch:

Clam meat stacks again!

They made clams stack when WotLK came, I think, but for some reason this buff caused clam meat to not auto-stack anymore (I think it did before, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Seriously, I celebrated the new patch by logging on to my young druid and open the two stacks of clams I had saved in her inventory ever since I heard of the buff to clams! Of course, I'd like a title for having played pre-clam nerf: The Clam Opener, but this stacking craziness is quite amazing in itself.

When I come to think of it, I really should have taken a screenshot of this exciting event, or even made a little movie!

A bit like Christmas, and things the trade-crowd doesn't get.

Easter has been over for a few days now, but then The Patch came, and I've been totally engulfed by it! OK, I'm not part of the Ulduar-going crowd (never say never, though - I'm leveling a healer, and I want to heal people, dammit!), but there are so many new features that just warm my casual WoW-heart:

• New fishing features: Fishing anywhere! New dailies! Cool turtle mount! New fishing rod rewarded by my favourite fisherman!
• The Argent Tournament is like a new and improved Shattered Sun Offensive-thingie - fun for a casual solo-player like myself, and you get quite a bit of gold from the quests.
• Dual spec! As I haven't bothered grinding cash for a while, I've only been able to get it on two of my characters so far - Bunnyhop, BM-huntress extraordinaire, and Rahamra, my baby tree (52 and counting) - but ooh, I love it! I was a bit annoyed before I realized I had to dismiss my pet before switching specs - if I didn't, the pet had its talents wiped, and I'd have to do them all over again... Dismiss first, then switch. Bunnyhop is sporting two different BM-specs atm, but I'm looking into MM and Survival as well, planning to explore those talent trees soon. Rahamra is a tree and a moonkin, as planned, and I love it. Being able to have a "real" healing spec, and still having an efficient solo-spec, all while leveling - its just so sweet.
• Improved quest tracking! By looking at the tooltip of a quest related mob, you can see the name of the quest, and your progress. Also, if you got a "use"-item when you picked up the quest, there'll be a little clickable icon next to the quest in the tracker by the mini map. Now, I've used addons that did these things, but 95% of the time I've gotten along fine without it, so it's really not necessary. But at the same time - why not? It's really annoying when you're grinding a certain type of mob for a quest drop, end up with nothing, and you check on Wowhead only to discover you should have killed the other type of mob. However, if Blizzard puts something like QuestHelper in the default UI, the game will be too casual even for me... I like reading the quests, taking in the stories behind them - if I want arrows showing me in what direction to go next, I'll go to IKEA.
• Lots of more stuff, probably - I just haven't taken it all in yet.

Now, a new patch isn't all hugs and puppies. The servers have been shaky, to say the least, and it usually takes a couple of weeks before things run smoothly again. Also, addons tend to get messed up by patches, and as a lot of addons are made by pure enthusiasts, not all of your favourites will get updated immediately, if ever. Yesterday I had to turn off Spammenot, since it caused my chat to malfunction, and sadly it seems like it won't be updated anymore :´( I do hope there's another way to filter out all the goldsellers and Dirge-spammers...

So, what to do if something in your UI isn't working correctly? You can't see whispers, your unit frames are weird in some way, your character keeps pulling bunnies out of hats for no reason (yeah, I made that up, aren't I crafty?) and so on?

First of all, try turning off all of your addons, just to make sure the problem is addon related.

Secondly, turn on half of your addons. If the problem appears again, you know it's caused by one of the addons you've activated, and you move onto the next step: Turn off half of the activated addons, check for the issue, and by doing this over and over, you rule out the innocent ones in chunks, until you've found the one causing you trouble.

I hope I'm making sense here :D It's a really simple, basic thing to do, but a lot of people in trade and general chat have been endlessly clueless and frustrated during the past few days - low fps, not being able to click links in chat, bunny issues - and they simply don't seem to understand the concept of the addons they are using every day: They are not an official part of the game, and it's not Blizzard's fault if they don't work.

If something doesn't work, turn it off for the time being, and wait for an upgrade. Or, if you're able and willing, write your own addons! But something tells me the people complaining in trade and general aren't equipped to do that :D

OK, I'll be spending my evening doing Argent Tournament-dailies on Bunnyhop, and on my old druid (temporarily pulled out of retirement, to check out the Icecrown-action), and hopefully I'll be able to get a level with Rahamra - I'm very much looking forward to taking her to Outland.

Not yet a tree, but we're getting there!

So, Easter is upon us, and hanging out with the family and such things obviously leads to less posting. Good food, candies and sunny weather - it's all good :)

There has been some druid leveling action, though - level 46 has been reached, and it may be because of the "first character ever"-clumsiness I suffered from with my first druid, but a healthy amount of points in the resto tree seems to make leveling a whole lot smoother. OK, so I've invested a few gold in a fairly nice staff with a decent enchant - 70 extra spell power is a nice boost at this level, and I'm counting on it to last until she gets to Outland - but seriously, I was able to solo this rare elite I found in Swamp of Sorrows, by alternating rooting, nuking, and throwing HoTs on myself, even though he was one level higher than Rahamra at the time!

I'm sure my first druid would've gotten her feathery ass handed to her, had she encountered this mob at level 44.

OK, she does need a respec - I'd rather take the two points from Naturalist, and put them into Master Shapeshifter, but still, as she doesn't yet have her Tree-form, the latter wouldn't be of much use to her anyway. There's at least a tiny chance one might get to benefit from the cast time-reduction on Healing Touch while leveling. But yeah, I'd like to get those "mandatory" points, so I'm looking forward to the promised free respec in the upcoming patch. Every time I've taken a new character to Hellfire Peninsula, I've been shocked by how much harder the mobs seem to hit, and I doubt this time'll be any different, so being able to switch between leaves and feathers (almost) whenever will be yummy. It changes the rules by a huge amount - suddenly one might be able to find quite a few characters with an actual healing- or tanking spec even at lower levels!

The Basics.

After something of a hiatus from druiding, I'm getting back into it, and slowly I'm finding druid blogs to read. I've already put The Daily Druid and Resto4life on my list, and that's a good start, but now I'm adding a new one, simply because it has exactly what I'm looking for at the moment: Druid Main is starting a basic, straightforward tree 101-guide, to help people prepare for dual-speccing!

I love it! We get to know about the healing spells, and when to use them, talents, glyphs and all that - really basic stuff, knowledge many healers seem to take for granted.

I've been looking for guides like this one so many times, and not only for resto druids, but for mages, moonkins, priests and whatnot, but a lot of the time Google just gives me 15 different discussions on how to heal some rather complicated 25-man raid. "But how do you do it in a 5-man, then? Oh, that's easy, you just roll your face on the keyboard." Yeah, right.

OK, I might be exaggerating a tiny bit there, but still, a lot of people who run something like 2 heroics and 1 raid every night have been through it all a zillion times, and the whole "do x when y if z" is simply a reflex to them. To me, a guide like this makes all the difference - a bit like learning which pedal is which in a car when learning how to drive.

Aww, you're gonna make me cry!

TJ has put together, and posted, a movie dedicated to our favourite dwarf hunter!

She advertised for people to contact her regarding a "top secret project" (stupid me, didn't do so, blaming RL), and it apparently consisted of people sending her pics/screenshots/video clips of themselves/their chars celebrating the awesomeness of BRK. She has put a whole bunch of these things together in a beautiful little movie, added music, and the whole thing brings tears to my eyes! Serious WoW-blog community love! I think I'll have to go play my dwarf hunter alt for comfort...

The List.

I'm not the most consequent blogger - sometimes weeks and months pass between my posts, for a number of reasons - but I tend to come back. I have so far, at least. However, a lot of blogs fade away, and this sadly seems to be the case of Incompetent Warrior. I've kept him on my blogroll for quite a long time, but now it's been 3 months since he last posted, and since I feel the list should be limited to active blogs, he's out until he starts posting again.

While I'm on the sudject of removing inactive blogs: BRK stays until he gets too outdated, even though it won't be updated anymore - his blog is still a great resource of information (and silliness). And oddly enough, I'm adding Resto4Life to the list, in spite of the fact that it's closed - it will get outdated eventually, come new patches and changes, but it still is a great read for druids. In short, I'm kind of breaking a rule I just made up. Simply because I can.

Want to see my slides from 30-40?

I've had the opportunity to experience the addon AchievementSnap in action - no biggies, but screenshots were made at the right moment. There's one thing that bugs me a bit, though. Well, it doesn't really bug me, but I'd like to be without it. For some reason, when ASnap screenshots my achievements, my /played shows up in the chat, posted immediately after "[charactername] has just earned the achievement [achievement]". Not that it really matters, but it's not a feature I'm after, and I'll try and find out if I can do anything about it.

(Browsing WoWInterface.com)

Hmm. Can't seem to find anything. Considering I have an array of addons installed, this may, of course, be caused by something other than AchievementSnap, but since it is the kind of feature I suppose a lot of people might be interested in, I'm assuming ASnap is doing it. The hunt for a solution continues...

Loving the addon in every other way, though - it really opens up for the possibility of having a long, boring post, comparable to those evenings when you're visiting your friend/aunt/colleague, and they insist on showing and commenting every single picture they took on their trip to Thailand/Mallorca/Turkey. But instead of "here's me and hotel plant no. 53", you'll get golden moments such as "here's my lock, getting her first tabard"! Sounds like a treat, right?

1. Put on Shoes 2. Go for Walk 3. ??? 4. Profit!

The background downloader is up, and due to my relatively slow broadband connection I'm very interested in downloading the patch in advance - 3-4 hours on patch day simply isn't fun - so right now I'm at 73%. Will probably take a break from downloading in a bit, to actually play, and then leave the computer running over night to get the rest of the file.

Today has been a nice, warm and sunny one, and I'm aiming towards at least getting a healthy beige tone this year. I've never been the kind of person who spends her summers frying on the beach, but I do prefer the slightly tanned situation, where people don't have to avert their eyes because my bikini-clad bod is a blinding shade of white. However, I haven't spent the day trying to get a tan, but I went for a walk in the sun - mens sana in corpore sano, and all that.

I'm hoping to get the opportunity to try out a newly downloaded addon soon: AchievementSnap. I found it via this WoWInsider article, and since I often find myself without a screenshot after having completed some achievement, even though I'd love to have one (for posting, or for sentimental reasons), it sounds like a nifty little thing. So, I hope it works.

Lunch FTW + my little friend

Just finished my lunch, so comfortably full. I've been doing some cleaning up in my Firefox bookmark list, reading up on blogs I haven't visited for a while, and browsing iTunes. The snow we had last week is way gone now, and yay, one can go outside without putting on the whole hat-scarf-mittens-mega moonboots of doom-extravaganza! Jeans, hoodie and sneakers is perfect - my kind of weather.

The state of my new druid:

Half-way through level 28,
half-way through the quests in Ashenvale,
in love with the idea of getting her a mount in less than two levels :) Spotted Frostsaber on the horizon!
A bit of a weird spec, but I refuse to respec her before 3.1, since talents will be reset when said patch arrives. I'm hoping to get her to 40 by then, so that I can kick off the tree/moonkin plan as soon as possible. So, keeping fingers crossed the "dual spec at 40"-thing makes it to the live servers - can't see any reason why it shouldn't, though.

Been poking around a bit on the PTR version of wowhead, and am very much looking forward to getting this cutie! Being the pet collector that I am, I'll be going for all of them, of course (a bit bummed I don't have a high level horde character, so I could really get all of the pets easily), but the thought of a tree druid with a tiny tree companion is almost too good to be true. Moonkin baby companion, that, on the other hand, would be too good to be true.

And finally, I'd love for the Frostsaber mentioned above to sport some nifty exhaust pipes and awesome flamez!

No more Brain? Or all Brain from now on?

I've been trying to load BRK for a while this evening, to read his farewell-post, but the server keeps timing out on me... :( When I first saw the title of the post in my RSS-feeder-thingy I thought it was just TJ saying bye and thanks after having done some guest posting, but then WoW Insider told me the harsh truth.

Oh well. Reading BRK's blog has been great for me as a new hunter-player, as a WoW-player in general, and in the end he's one of the funniest WoW-bloggers around - I'm most grateful, and will miss him! I hope he gets his RL-stuff back in order, and that maybe we'll hear from him again, sometime in the future.

Anyway, I guess the traffic is quite heavy on his site because of the "taking a break"-thing, or maybe he's simply shut it down? That would be weird, though, doing that so soon after the final post. Will have to check again tomorrow.

While we're on the subject of bloggers leaving the game, and shutting down their blogs: I'm a bit bummed I didn't read Resto4Life before Phaelia decided to stop posting. On the other hand, I wasn't really in the mood for resto druids before, so I probably wouldn't have been able to do anything constructive with it anyway, and since she's going to leave the blog up until further notice, I can read it now instead.

OK, I'm off to do some late evening questing in Duskwood and Ashenvale, and then it's bed time. A good night's sleep really helps in that thing one refers to as "real life".

Quick Like a... Well, Cat.

During the last few days I've done some dailies on Bunnyhop, but most of my play time has been spent on my baby druid. She reached level 26 earlier today, and finally got Dash! Even though you may not be feral specced, it's really nice to be able to prowl around every now and then. Thing is, though, that prowling is slow, mind-numbingly slow, and that's when you love the fact that you've reached level 26, and are able to get a speed boost without breaking prowl! It's wonderful for whenever you want to sneak past patrolling mobs.

Prowl and dash were around when I leveled my first druid, but the "new" Shadowmeld wasn't. I found the old one useful too - it was nice to be able to eat/drink while being hidden from nearby mobs, and it was obviously good for pvp - but since my moonkin could be a serious aggro monkey at times, I'm very grateful for the change. It's saved Rahamra's bum more than once, and even though I haven't had the chance to try it out, it must be great for healers/dps in instances and raids, wipe-preventing, even. I do miss being able to snack while hidden, though :D

New Dark Legacy Comic - demonstrates very nicely why I never go into Stormpeaks on the PTR.

I saw a funny thing on my way to 80...

"My" part of Sweden has gotten a fair amount of snow today - hence, haven't set foot outside the door - and most of mid-morning was spent cleaning the house, replacing the ink cartridges in my printer, and a number of other little boring things.

Rahamra, the new druid alt, has reached level 22, and is so far specced 8/0/5 - not raiding material just yet :D - and she's moving along quite fast, partly because I know the spells and the quests, partly because I've run her through both the night elf zone and the draenei zone. And yeah, I've realised I may have to budge a tiny bit when it comes to my "more resto than balance, even before 40!!!"-plan - with the lack of caster leather at lower levels, she's a bit squishy, and I don't think I can (comfortably) get out of investing a bunch of points in extra damage and crit. But, come dual spec, she'll be heavy resto and a viable dps/solo-spec! Probably moonkin, but being a kitty can be fun too... We'll see.

The situation might have been different, had I started her on a fairly new server, where there's usually a bit more healthy activity in lower-level dungeons. The server on which I have my primary characters opened in January 2007, and during the first 6 months or so, people were putting together serious groups to go through Deadmines, Sunken Temple, Scholomance and so on, but two years later the activity there seems to be limited to boosts. And of course, I too like it when I get to higher levels - you can do a lot more, travel more freely, and the chances that you'll run into people who actually know what they're doing seem to increase, the closer to 80 you get - but there are a lot of things along the way that I don't want to miss:

• Duskwood questlines. I love the "haunted" atmosphere in there, and the storylines are good.
• Ashenvale. I like the quests, and "wild forest"-feeling. The same goes for Feralas.
  
• Un'Goro Crater. A lot of people hate this place, but I love it - it's like Nintendo-paradise, quest- and lookwise.
• Gathering materials for, and leveling my professions of choice, without having the main pay for it. (Rahamra is a herbalist/tailor (flying carpet? I'm so in! Also, nice leg enchant for healer/caster.))
• Silly little traditions, like swimming from Theramore to Tanaris instead of taking the Great Lift, or if you're playing a hunter - at level 10 insisting on running to the other end of the map to get a "special" pet, such as a Strigid Hunter if you're horde, or a Springpaw Lynx if you're alliance.
• In general, getting a feel for the character while leveling - I'm not an RP:er, my characters don't really have a well thought out story attached to them, but I tend to bond with them a lot, and I think I'd lose a lot of that if a friend/someone I paid 20 gold would run me through Scarlet Monastery for three levels and gear.
  

I could go on and on, but I think my point is already quite clear: I like leveling. I often complain about it somewhere around the 40s, when it seems like nothing is happening, and you feel like you're never going to catch up with everyone else, but in the end, it's nice putting the pieces together, finding out what works and what doesn't, discovering the advantages - and disadvantages - of different classes and builds.

So, even though leveling is mostly a solo-project on a server like mine, it's nothing I would like to fast-forward through. Well, there are always areas and questlines that bore me to bits (Read: Desolace. What has anyone ever done to deserve it?), but in the end, I'm always glad I've been through it, and hopefully it'll make me a better player.

"Yeah why *do* you have a cat?"

I found this linked on WoW Insider - loving it! I always knew Sargeras had to be "that" guy.

It's a Girl!

The druid action in my life, and in this blog, has been quite sparse lately, to say the least. My first character - my first main - was my druid. I'm writing it in past tense, since the status of "main character" has gradually drifted over to Ms. Bunnyhop, a certain huntress :) Am I retiring my moonkin? To some extent, yes. I could never delete her, and I'll keep logging on to her to do the Mysterious Egg-thingie, and maybe some seasonal stuff, but when it comes to actually playing her - she's on an official break.

Now, this doesn't mean I'm done with druids - oh no! You see, I have a new alt:

Meet Rahamra. So far, she's put points into the Balance tree, but I see Restoration in her future. The whole dual spec-thing in patch 3.1 is something I'm really looking forward to: Bunnyhop can rock both a BM-soloing spec, and a spec for, you know, playing with others, if and when my schedule allows it. My mage will be even more fun to level if I can switch between her regular frost-spec and something more spectacular, and it will finally be possible to be a tree or a moonkin whenever I want while leveling a druid!

I'm going to try and put most talent points into the resto tree, even before level 40 (and the upcoming patch), but let's face it: Resto isn't the most comfortable solo-questing spec. She'll probably be a moonkin on the side, but I'd really love to give healing another try.

The last time I "healed", I kind of got thrown into the (for me) deep end, when trying to be a raid healer in a semi-pugged Kara-group. I didn't know my heals, I didn't know my gear, I didn't know anything, really, and, most importantly - I hadn't really healed before. The group stuck together for a couple of months, but after it fell apart, I decided that if I'm ever going to try healing again, I'll have to start doing it while leveling.

And that's why I'm not just respeccing my level 80. Might seem a bit crazy, but provided I get Rahamra that far, I might be able to get some of that "LF healer Ramparts"-action I've heard so much about :D

Now, off to get a bit more Exodar-rep, and to see if those sassy draenei have any good druid gear for me :)

Unexpected error -> Rediscovering... Working girl?

My play-time has been quite scattered and limited lately, and hence I haven't really had anything to blog about, but today I think something slightly blog-relevant actually happened!

As stated in this blog's subtitle, I'm a serious altoholic, and every now and then I start yet another priest/hunter/mage/hunter/warrior/hunter/druid... Well, you know, just to check out looks and animations, to get that great feeling of a fresh character on a "new" server, or to hog a specific name on a newly opened server. The result of that has been a lot of level 1-10 characters, of which a majority have been deleted. Anyway, I haven't reached the character limit (50 across all servers) on either of my accounts, yet, for some reason, when I wanted to make a baby belf pally today, it was a no-go!

"You already have the maximum number of characters allowed on this account"

lolwut?

OK, so I may have 31 characters in total on the account in question, but that's obviously less than 50! So, what to do? Clearing the cache, renaming the WTF-folder, restarting - nothing has worked, and googling the problem pointed towards opening an in-game ticket. Still, I decided to try a slightly less impatient approach, and wait until tomorrow - if nothing has improved by then, ticket-time it is.

What did I do instead of opening a ticket, then? No fresh belf pally available - how would I survive? Well, I suddenly remembered my old dream of having an incredibly self righteous holy priest, and decided to log on to Delinda, a shadow priest safely parked at level 50, and I'm playing with the thought of leveling her as holy. I'll have to do some research in order to come up with a decent spec, and then I'll have to try and find something less skanky to wear:

A bit Pretty Woman, isn't it?

Late Night Fishing.

I was up late last night, flying around Northrend to get all the fish and meat I needed to get 450 in cooking, and after learning and cooking the Fish Feast recipe, I went to Outland to do a couple of BC-dailies before heading off to bed. I'm slowly grinding Sha'tari Skyguard rep on Bunnyhop, so I headed up to Skettis, and on my way there, I fished out all of the Highland Mixed schools I could find, 'cause that's what I usually do when I'm in those parts. After finishing the Skettis quests, I see a yellow dot on the minimap as I head back down towards Alliance Stronghold, so I land, cast, and this happens:

Woot! As I have never caught one of those before, I could hardly believe it, but there it was! Then, after getting over the initial shock, I use my first wish:
Double woot!!! I've been trying to get one ever since I first heard about them, when my druid learned to fly back in 2007, and you could make some cash from Furious Crawdad. If it hadn't been so late, I would have gone looking for the Time-Lost Proto Drake, gold at the end of the rainbow or something like that :D

About the TLPD, I do keep my eyes open, and my finger scrolling the target macro whenever I'm in the supposed spawn/patrol area in Stormpeaks, but since virtually the whole server wants that fancy mount, my chances of getting the kill while casually looking for it are pretty slim. I have been thinking a bit about camping for it, but camping the books for the Kirin Tor Familiar for several days really got to me, and some people speculate that the TLPD shares it's spawn with Vyragosa, and that 9 times out of 10 Vyragosa spawns instead of the more sought-after, mount dropping TLPD, so it could end up being a ridiculously long camp. Also, some say the Vyragosa/TLPD spawn is on a 6-24 hour timer, so until further notice, I'm just hoping to get incredibly lucky. It worked with Loque - could work again ;) (Yeah, yeah, I'll get that mount when hell freezes over and Elvis kicks off the event by selling popcorn. (And no, I'm not insinuating that Elvis ended up in one place or the other.))