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!

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.

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.

Books can lead to frustration. Ask me how!

Last night, and on and off since this morning, I've been camping books in Dalaran. My hunter is missing two books, my druid needs three, and since these girls are on two different accounts, they can camp the book they're both missing together. To make sure my PC doesn't commit suicide I've deactivated all addons on both characters, and have connected my laptop to the router, so I can browse teh internetz to pass the time. Because camping books is boring. Feel free to write that down.

On the other hand, I feel the reward is worth it, and even if the RNG factor is there, it's only a matter of time before you get it. Since I actually got the "Love Fool"-meta achievement done, and hence got all of the candies from the candy bags, I guess a lot of people (who didn't get said achievement) feel that I don't have the right to express my opinion on the Be Mine!-part, but I don't really think they read this blog :D So, here it goes:

If you ask me, it's just as it should be. What people really want out of completing these achievements is ultimately a 310% Violet Proto-drake, and yeah, I'd like that one too. The thing is, as far as I know, there are only three other ways to get a 310% mount (please, correct me if I'm wrong):

1. Arena. Be a part of a really, really great arena team, and get a super fast drake when the season is over.
2. PVE. Complete all of the WotLK heroic raid achievements, and get a super fast Black Proto-Drake.
3. Be incredibly lucky when rolling for an incredibly rare drop from a raid boss not too many people bother to kill these days, and get Ashes of Al'ar.

Piece of cake, eh? Honestly, when the 310% mount takes either a huge amount of skill, or a huge amount of luck on a loot roll to get your hands on, why do so many people seem to take for granted that they "deserve" this status symbol after having simply participated in seasonal events during one year? Reading discussions and arguments regarding this subject, it seems people want a gold medal for just showing up.

Now, some people say that you can't compare RNG with skill-based accomplishments, and while that is true, it isn't what I'm after. These are completely different races, and I believe the only thing they have, or should have in common, is the rarity of the "winners". Not a lot of people will get the Purple Proto within the first year, and I don't think a lot of people are going to get the PVE- or arena equivalents either. Unless you have the time+skill to be great at PVE/arena, it is, in some ways, a big lottery - get over it!

OK, rant-mode off. This book camping thing is leaving me a tiny bit frustrated and bored, which leads to walls of text.

RL-stuff, turtles and wings.

Today started out on a very efficient note: I got up at about 8.45 AM, and had to clean up the apartment by 11 AM, since I had arranged for a woman from my landlord's office to come here to perform an "inspection" of said apartment. Since I'm moving next week, I want to sign over my "half" of the lease to my flatmate, and to do that, the place has to undergo an "inspection". So, I managed to get in order a lot of the stuff we've managed to neglect during the past few months, and even take a shower, with about 5 minutes to spare!

The "inspector" arrived at 11 AM precisely, and she had brought with her a gadget (palm pilot, for easier "inspection" :D), and a colleague, who btw wore really nice heel boots (I want to call her Penny. Or Brain.). The whole thing took about 40 minutes, and there are two things which will have to be corrected, should my flatmate decide to move out aswell:
The wallpaper on one wall in the "den" didn't pass due to a minor flaw, and they didn't like the bright green colour we have applied on two walls in the living room.

So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed Mr. Flatmate will go "I'll take care of it, just as long as you get your ass out of here next Tuesday!", but we'll see what happens. Since even the smallest thing can get us on each other's throats these days, I doubt that painting walls in panic during the upcoming weekend would be a good idea.

Yeah, yeah, boring personal post.

WoW-side of life atm: Grinding cash for Bunnyhop's Artisan Riding skill, which feels really slow. And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that I bought this baby for 800g on the AH. My mage can now turtle stuff. Mainly critters in Dalaran, since I mostly take her out to do the cooking daily, but still. Anyway, about 1200g to go, I think. If I hadn't bought that tome I could've been done today, but then again, turtle!!!

Aftermath.

Valentine's Day has been over for almost 2 hours here in Sweden, and I celebrated it by going out to buy some sushi, cursing the cold weather on my way home, and finishing it all off by eating said fish dish in front of the TV, combined with a so-not-sushi-kosher Coke. Fish and soda - what more can one ask for? ;) But honestly, I've had a great day.

Friday night was a big one for Ms. Bunnyhop:

Her first title! And my first seasonal event-title! However, now that I've gotten it done on one char, I'm quite tired. I've been half-heartedly trying to get the achievements done on my moonkin, but I just don't have the energy... If the event had lasted for a few more days, then I might have been able to whip up a bit more spirit, but the way I feel at the moment she can wait until next year (provided I still play then, of course - a lot can happen in a year). Oh well, I might feel different in the morning, and try to rush the few parts she has left. (I do sound like a bundle of joy, don't I?)

Right, off to bed. Sleep is usually a good cure for grumpiness.

Unbreak My Heaaaaaaaart!!!

I've been very much into the current holiday event during past two days, and am right now hanging around in Stormwind to try and complete Be Mine!, so I can finally, finally get a season related title on one of my characters (missed out on the Elder-thingie, due to lack of time and general laziness)! It will, surprise, surprise, be Bunnyhop who gets it first, but I'll get around to the druid :)

Anyway, a friend found a pic that nicely illustrates this event:

(Picture from http://www.wasabineko.com/)

Edit: Seems it doesn't fit perfectly into this blog - it's horizontally challenged, it seems. Please click to get full image :D

Big, blue, and kickin' ass!

The patch is downloading, and even though it's fairly small - 56 MB - it sure is taking its time!

Yesterday was another draenei huntress day, and I got around to unlocking the Sons of Hodir, as a faction, and as a flightpath. During the questline leading up to this, one gets disguised as a frost vrykul female - it works basically the same way as the fel orc disguise one gets while grinding rep for Netherwing - and while in disguise, one can use mounts.

When my druid did this, she looked a bit silly while flying, since you don't switch to flightform visually - your frost vrykul just starts swimming through the air! My huntress, on the other hand, has a mount. A majestic Snowy Gryphon. Behold:

Not feeling so majestic anymore, are we?

A WoW-blog Moment.

I've been laying low during the last few days, doing dailies, checking up on lowbie alts - nothing special. I was just doing just that, turning my hunter's slow flyer into Sholazar Basin, thinking I might aswell do a couple of quests I had left in the northern parts, when I casually thought to myself: "There's always the chance I'll find Loque'nahak in here, I shouldn't pick up my gorilla for farming - I'd hate to ditch Fonz" followed by a "yeah, right, the spirit beast is RARE, I'll probably never even see one in the wild". But, wait a minute, what's that?

Right there, at 36,30, my adrenaline went up to insane levels - trap, tame, presto! No name yet, but I'll get there. Sadly, Raquel the devilsaur is no more, but to be honest, she always was a placeholder. Off to play with freaky cat-like super beast!

IRL, my character's place would smell really bad.

Yeah, it's been a few days since my last post, but that's life for ya.

Anyway, I saw Guild Mum/Sephrenia had found new info on how the requirement for the new mini pet achievement has been lowered to 75, down from 100 - yay! None of my characters will complete the achievement anytime soon - as I think I've said before, my druid is leading the race with 63 - but 75 is definitely a much friendlier amount.

Now we'll just have to wait and see if anything happens with the 100 mounts achievement :) I have no idea what amount is possible, or if lowering from 100 to 75 would be a good idea - note: I'm not saying anything will happen, just speculating and keeping half a finger crossed! 50, for my moonkin, was cake - basically a matter of finances. That, and having done the attunements and/or grinds for the home cities, Kurenai, Ogri'la and Netherwing.

Even though I'm more into mini pets than mounts, I've been playing with the thought of getting tailoring and engineering on a warlock, and simply get a shitload of mounts on one character. I guess a pally would be OK too, but tailoring on a paladin... It's been done, but if I'm playing a class without any ranged attack, I at least want to be hot in plate. No mount crazy lock right now, though - I have my WoW-hands full with druid and draenei huntress (78 last night - tamed the Sapphire Hive Queen, since huge pets rock, and had to put her in the stables after a while due to a growing fear of getting seizures from looking at the huge, fluttering orange thing that took up most of my screen), and that will most likely be the case for a while.

Rock, Paper, Dailies.

I've been laying low on the WoW-front today, so nothing much to blog about. But there's still a few things, some WoW, others not:

• Will have to organize the bank character I send all my mining materials to - she's had hundreds of metal bars and stone waiting in her inbox ever since I leveled mining on my nelf huntress before Christmas - simply by buying her a lot of new bags and bank space.
• I believe I'll be changing history a bit when I'm moving house in late February, since I actually packed my first box today. Whenever I've moved in the past, I've usually done all of my packing at the last minute, ending up shoving a lot of stuff into plastic bags, but my fancy wine glasses are now safely wrapped in old newspapers, and put in an actual box!
• Plackers are amazing! For a long time I've thought they were the most useless invention ever, and used regular floss, but my sister praised them when I saw her during Christmas, and I finally gave in to the Plackers craze. No more putting half of both hands in my mouth!
• There should be, and hopefully will be, less WoW-playing for a while, at least during the day. I really want and need to finish my final school work, and graduate before, you know, the four horsemen decide I've postponed things long enough. Go, tort law! But evenings are still dailies- and general silliness-time :)

Right, time to make some more tea, do a couple of dailies on Bunnyhop (dual-wielding the Fang of Truth has been presented as the shiznit for non-hit capped BM-hunters for a while, and since they look cool too, I have no choice but to try and get honored with the Wyrmrest Accord by 78), and then I'll be off to bed with Game Theory and the Law.

The Crazy Parade.

Today started out really good: I woke up all fresh from a night's good sleep, and had a quiet morning in front of the online papers, since my flatmate watched some alpine skiing event on TV in the other room.

Last night I got my draenei huntress a couple of new pets, since I realised a gorilla might be a bit annoying for everyone else if I use him for questing in Northrend, and quite stupid for general BM-hunter 101 activity in an instance. Not that I will ever give him up, though - I love him like crazy - but for precision work I'll probably be using another pet.

So, what's new in the stable?

First, I went to Winterspring, and picked up a Frostsaber Pride Watcher:

I really wanted to name him Sam Spandex, but that was a no go, so Spandex it is.

After that, I flew all the way down to Un'goro Crater (one would think I'd had enough of that place after camping for my gorilla, but no way!), to see if I could find another ferocious companion:

Lo and behold, the tamed version of that endlessly scary and annoying thing that squished you super dead around level 50 (the vanilla-WoW version of the Fel Reaver, I suppose) - a Devilsaur! This one doesn't have a name yet, but I'll get around to that.

A couple of days ago my huntress and her gorilla friend was in Zangarmarsh, kickin' some butt, and they stumbled upon Marshlight Bleeders, who give you a glowing debuff. The result?
Discorilla!!!

And yeah, he's got a name now - Fonzarelli. As in Fonzie, or The Fonz. If I ever find an even cooler pet gorilla, I guess I'm going to have to name him (or her) Arthur.

The dangers of working from home...

I just discovered it's Friday today. Whoops. Doesn't really make a difference in the long run, or the short run for that matter, but I was surprised, since I was convinced it was Thursday. I'm going to have to keep better track of things, so I won't miss the train on Tuesday :D

No, really, it would be dreadful to be stuck here - friggin' alone - during the holidays. Sure, I'd get my Winter Veil gifts, but that would be it...

Right now, I'm waiting for the oven to get warmed up, so I can make some dinner, and after eating, I plan to continue leveling my huntress. She's currently about half way into level 65, and I'm hoping to get her started in Northrend before the weekend is over. With the offline-time I have looming on the horizon (starting late Feb - early March, may go on for a while), it would be really nice to get her well on her way (maybe all the way) to 80 as soon as possible.

I'm still playing with the thought of trying out mobile broadband for a bit, once I've moved, to see if and how it works. If it does work, nothing much would change, WoW-wise. Time will tell.

My baby!

Guess who finally decided to show up?

I'm in love. Seriously. Haven't decided on a name yet, but the important part is done - in my opinion one of the coolest skins/colours in the game! <3

(For anyone interested: I started camping at about 1 AM this morning, then there was a break for weekly maintenance, and I logged on again at about 10.20 AM. Uhk'loc spawned at approximately 1 PM, I abandoned my old pet, cleared the three mobs that were in the way, did the trap->wait for cooldown->aggro->2nd trap->tame-routine, and there you go!)

Off to level my new pet, I guess :)

Not very exciting, no.

Guess what? I'm still camping the gorilla. No, I haven't camped constantly since last night - Wednesday is maintenance day in Europe, so the server went offline at 3 AM, and was back up when I decided to try and log in at about 10.20 AM. At that time, I was alone in Un'goro Crater, so I'm assuming no one has been here and snatched him away.

A lot of people suggest that one levels up fishing while camping in there, to fight the boredom, and that would have been great, if it hadn't been for the fact that my darling huntress hasn't fished a whole lot before. I think she's got about 52 in fishing... But I'll get it up, some day. So, instead of fishing, I melee down the handful of gorillas that spawn around the spot where I'm standing, slowly getting up the skill in 2-handed axes (and the defense skill, of course). I do kind of wish I had brought several different melee weapons, though. Also, this is a pretty good way to get rugged leather for the Winter Boots people should be wanting this season!

What's really important.

OK, so... I have a recently dinged level 80 moonkin, a bunch of level 70s just waiting to get moving in Northrend, the Feast of Winter Veil goin on, and what am I doing? I'm camping the spawn point of a rare gorilla on my level 64 huntress. Looking good, aren't we?



Sadly, my faithful Fonzie will be abandoned the moment Uhk'loc spawns, and I'm obviously keeping him on passive - it would be so dreadful seeing the blue-white beauty die from thunderstomp.

I'm hoping that a lot of hunters are either doing Winter Veil stuff, or are grinding to 78-ish to try and get Loque'nahak, so that no one comes along to steal my baby.

(Yeah, yeah, not the best screenshot, but the boring ss kind of illustrates how boring it actually is to camp one of these rare spawns. And he's only on a 5-8 hour timer! Luckily, I have a blog to mess around with.)

What's with the creepiness?

Today my baby huntress dinged 47 (and 46 - gorilla pet rocks!), and I've been doing selected quests in Tanaris. Weird thing happened when I landed in Gadgetzan, by the way. I got on my mount, decided to head down to the "escort the turtle"-quest, and notice someone is following me. Another draenei hunter, a male, on an elekk. And yes, he seems to have put me on /follow, since he copies every twist and turn I make. Half way to my goal, I get a whisper: "were are u goin?". I'm a bit annoyed, so I answer: "very special places". A minute later, the guy is gone. What I'm wondering is this: What was the point of that? Mmo-stalking of a complete stranger? Jeez.

Anyway, I've had a cup of tea, and just about to finish a few quests in Hinterlands. No druid today, it seems - maybe I'll log on her just to do today's inscription research, but the dailies will have to wait until tomorrow.

Boo-yah!!!

OK, so I didn't start a new hunter the other day, simply because I didn't feel like sorting out the stuff I kept on the character I would have deleted. Instead, I leveled up my draenei to 32, and got her a fancy gorilla! His name is Fonzie, and with him, leveling is even more of a breeze.



Seriously, I don't think I ever had this much fun while leveling my nelf huntress - around level 35-40 she started pulling aggro off her cat, and it got a bit boring holding back. With this one, with Fonzie, I can take down 3-4 mobs at a time, no problem. Also, all other potential pets have gotten little special twists, making them all that much more fun.

And now, back to Thunderstomping stuff! Weeeeee!!!

Flying, hunting, choosing.

I'm in the middle of trying to understand, and apply, the Learned Hand rule, and am getting a tiny bit frustrated, so it appears to be time for blogging.

Yesterday my druid regrew her wings by turning 77, and learning Cold Weather Flying, and I spent quite a bit of time exploring Northrend, until I got the World Explorer achievement - it comes with a title, and you get a tabard for exploring Northrend. The tabard is very meh, and I'll probably bank it as soon as I've made room for it (I save a LOT of junk), but the title's fun, even though it's quite easy to get. Not everyone feels like devoting a day's gameplay (roughly, and obviously not /played time :D) to traveling around all of Azeroth to find every little nook and cranny, and the completionist in me is mighty proud. Also, I'd love to get the Loremaster achievement done, but I need to do another 700 quests in Azeroth for that, a lot more Northrend, and some scattered quests in Outland, so that would definitely take a while. Also, I'd like to get her to 80 within the next few days, so I highly doubt that I'll be doing any quests that don't give me xp or cash anytime soon.

Also, yesterday I logged on to my draenei huntress, and did some easy going questing in Ashenvale. She's 28, and moving up fairly fast. She is a hunter, after all! Now, I do have a level 70 hunter - a female night elf - and she and I have had a bit of fun, but somehow I can't muster up any passion for her. A lot of people would say that a hunter is a hunter is a hunter, but that is so not the case. Not only does my draenei girl get extra hit rating and a HoT, but she also has a sleeker, cooler look, compared to her nelf sister. It's not that I have anything against female night elves as such - I wouldn't want my druid to be any other race (although, a gnome druid would be adorable) - but when it comes to hunters, they just don't cut it for me. The innate reclusiveness of nelfs works great for the druid, but I'd really like a hunter with a bit more "oomph!", and along comes Bunnyhop, and her fearsome boar Hurricane!

Of course, I wont be deleting my nelf huntress - I'll probably level up her engineering a bit, and maybe do some farming - but I wont be farming for Loque'nahak or Nuramoc with her - I'm saving that work for the draenei!

Back to the books, need to get this working in my brain before it's time for dinner.