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.))

Chasing Chickens in the Desert.

It took me a couple of days, but I eventually managed to find all the cables and stuff needed to get my PC up and running again! So far, moving has worked wonders for my workplace - apart from the mouse, keyboard, monitor and speakers, the only thing on my desk is a glass of water. I'm feeling very... Something. Spartan? Minimalistic? Organized? I'm afraid it only applies to my desk, though, since I, as usual when I move, in the end just started emptying my drawers into bags and boxes, thinking I can get all these things sorted later. Hmm. We'll see about that.

I've been reading a bit about the new seasonal event they're testing on the PTR, and it might be exhaustion or old age, but I don't really understand how it works, or what it's about. Is it a pvp event? How do you get those token thingies? I think I might just get on the PTR myself, to check things out. Those mini pets are looking mighty fine, and so are the mounts...

This afternoon I've been running my hunter around Feralas and Tanaris, doing two out of three escort quests needed to get a Mechanical Chicken! It took a while, since these chickens are slow, and I had the time to come to a few conclusions:

• I'm really glad I saved the two beacons she found while leveling, since it'll probably take a while to get the one in Hinterlands to drop.
• Yay - I'm not on a pvp-server, and hence won't get ganked when doing lengthy escort quests.
• I kind of wish I had a third conclusion, since it would look good, but no.
  

Ooh, by the way, I did get the last book needed for Higher Learning - Enchantment - and I believe it took almost three days of camping for up to an hour, with three hours in between. Seriously, I started to believe it was bugged, and that the "real" book would never spawn, but then there was a magical moment in the afternoon the Saturday before last. I'm a bad blogger, though, since I forgot to screenshot the event - me and my fellow camper, a nice paladin, went bananas when we got our final book, and we were both just so relieved to get off of that stupid balcony.

OK, enough rambling (I'm going to have to make a "real" post one of these days, organized and insightful and all that), it's time to do something about that PTR-plan before the evening gets too late.