Old Habits, New Addons.

It's usually during the in game holidays that I seriously start questioning my own sanity. The meta achievements are rarely difficult, but usually quite time consuming - RNG and travel comes to mind - and I'm pretty sure I vowed to only do the seasonal metas on my main character a while ago. But then I ran UK on my druid alt, and won this. I can't just not complete the rest, now can I? So yeah, I did the whole thing twice - my priest finished first, and my druid pitied her last fool late last night. Needless to say, I'm a bit fed up with the drop rate of Lovely Charms...

The other day MMO Champion posted a review of the addon Altoholic. I've heard about it before, and have considered trying it out, but haven't - until yesterday. I've been worried that it would take up a lot of memory, that it would be buggy, and have a lot of stuff I don't really need, but yeah, now I'm trying it out.

So far it's really good - it saves a lot of logging in and out if I want to see whether a profession cooldown has run out, if a certain character knows a particular pattern, or if that character owns a certain mini pet. While it does take up a bit of memory, it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and I haven't experienced any bugs so far. The only thing I have to complain about, is that I'd like a better explanation of how to use the addon with multiple accounts. I've kind of gotten it to work, but both a more in-depth walkthrough of the whole process, and information on whether any future maintenance is needed, would be much appreciated.

OK, I'm off to get some food, and then I'm signed up for some fun in Ulduar :)

No You're Not!

Last night I and three guildies decided to do random heroics, and as we were short a tank, we got PuG ones. My expectations were probably a bit low, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good the two tanks I got to play with were. I also got a bit of proof for something I had already suspected for some time: A lot of the people who sport the "the Patient"-title really should reconsider!

The second tank - a gnome death knight in Ahn'kahet - was obviously skilled and geared, but spent the entire run about 20 yards ahead of the healer (me), and wouldn't answer to questions in party chat. It went quite smooth - I didn't have any mana issues, could keep everyone up without trouble, and mobs went down fast enough - but the run was very much an x emblems/hour type of affair for the tank. It's not that I expect a PuG to sit down for tea and biscuits after every boss (although that could be nice too :D) - a fast, efficient run is often great - but I was quite amazed by the blazing speed at which we got to the last boss.

I still wonder whether the tank choosing to call her-/himself "the Patient" was an act of irony.

Happy New Year! (Better Late than Never, Right?)

Like many others, I've been quite absorbed by the holidays lately - there's been (and still is) a lot of snow, and the temperatures have dipped down to -24 Celsius a couple of times, so we're having a "proper" winter this time around! I hope you've had a nice Christmas and a lovely New Year's, and that 2010 will be a good one for all of us!

I've had time to continue enjoying the features of patch 3.3 - I'm still in love with the dungeon finder, in spite of the occasional bad PuG, and every now and then we've grouped up within the guild, and done chain-runs of random heroics. I have yet to make it through Halls of Reflection on heroic - those waves before and between the first two bosses are just incredibly frustrating - but I'm getting closer to completing my Northrend Dungeon Hero achievement, nice loot has come my way, and I've actually managed to get enough emblems of triumph to buy a few pieces of gear.

I've really gotten into the healing thing lately, and I'm getting more confident while doing it - a great feeling - but yesterday had its ups and downs. When I logged on for the evening, around 9pm, a full guild group was already heading off into a random heroic, and as people were busy leveling alts, pvp-ing or doing something else, I signed up for PuG-ing normal Pit of Saron. I'm very interested in replacing my priest's bracers with the ones that drop from Ick, since it would mean I can hold off on buying the really good and really expensinve ones a little while longer.

Anyway. The PuG went well, but after the last boss was down I started thinking (oh yeah), and after checking on Wowhead I found out that while me continuing to heal with the Overlord's Brand on me doesn't hurt any of my fellow party members, it does in fact heal the boss. The thing is, I use the Deadly Boss Mods addon to keep track of special debuffs, who's got mark of death/doom/boogies on them and all that, and DBM just says "Stop DPS" when the brand is on me, so I've drawn the conclusion that me throwing shiny light on the tank isn't included there. Well, I guess this shows that you shouldn't rely blindly on your addons, and that it might be a good idea to look up what certain spells actually do. The problem is, it seems to me that the boss insists on casting Forceful Smash almost immediately after casting the Brand, and that's when I really, really want to heal the tank... I suppose I'll just have to keep that PoM on cooldown, and my fingers crossed.

A little bit later in the evening I got into a guild run for a random heroic, and after picking up our emblems in VH, our lovely guildmaster organised us in a quick run to complete this week's raid quest. I've participated in killing Noth the Plaguebringer once before, but that was a couple of months ago, and at the time I was mostly having trouble keeping myself alive, so last night's encounter was almost a first :D After getting him down, we went upstairs and killed Sapphiron, and getting a fancy achievement at the same time. So, we were on a roll, and continued onward, into Kel'Thuzad's room. OK, I've never even read about this guy, and I was getting really tired, so when the other healer, a significantly more experienced druid, told me I didn't have to heal ****i, that he would handle that, I said "OK :)", and didn't think too much about it. Well, I did think it was a bit weird, a hunter having his own healer - I mean, while explaining the fight no-one had said anything about focus being on anyone except tank and offtank - but who am I to question these things? We didn't down Kel'Thuzad last night, for several reasons: People were there on slightly lesser geared alts, due to being saved on their mains; some people didn't have a range checking addon, so the frost blast-thingie was chained; we were only two healers, and while we're both overgeared for Naxxramas, I'm not familiar with the place, and I still have a lot to learn.

And yeah, I'm quite sure our lovely druid said **i, the name of the main tank, instead of ****i, the name of our chatty hunter, but my tired mind was easily convinced, and the rather similar names got mixed up. I do hope the hunter doesn't think I hate him, and I hope the druid doesn't think I'm amazingly stupid >.<

After having had a rather long break from druiding, the thoughts of branches, feathers and claws are starting to find their way back into the WoW-part of my mind again, and I've started playing my younger night elf druid a bit. Nothing serious - just a few quests here, some seasonal stuff there - but she might end up being my healing alt. I healed on my old druid for a while, but back then it was all about having lots of spellpower and keeping three stacks of lifebloom rolling, and it would be fun and interesting to learn to heal as a druid, after having gotten some experience as a priest. Anyway, I'll see what happens - either way, I'm planning to re-level herbalism on said younger druid, and thereby removing her tailoring skill. I don't like farming, but she's an alchemist, the prices on herbs have gone crazy, and I already have 450 in tailoring on my priest.

OK, I think I'll be off to see a guild officer about getting yet another alt guilded :)

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 :)

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.

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...

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

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.

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

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.

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

Due to renting a couple of movies last night, while I was out for sushi, I didn't find enough time to get my druid started in Icecrown. I did, however, do a few dailies, and open the Mysterious Egg she's had hatching in her bags since before Christmas. In my last egg I got the stupid Aged Yolk, but yesterday I looted an über cool Proto-Drake Whelp! It has the special ability of following your character up in the air while you're out flying, and that's very nice. However, it can't keep up with epic flying speed, and I guess it ends up getting dismissed if you get too far away from it. It's a nice special effect, though, since all the old "flying" pets - parrots, whelps and so on - can't really fly.

The druid now has 63 mini pets, and I'm getting a bit curious as to how many people will be able to complete the Lil' Game Hunter achievement I've read about over at MMO-Champion (scroll down a bit, it's under "Achievements", right above the pics of the blue dragonhawk mounts).

I really don't feel like spending a lot of RL cash on in game-stuff, so all of the TCG-loot and pets from old Collector's Editions are out of bounds. New CE's are of course OK, since I already got the WotLK one :D But no ebay for me.

In total, I think I'll only be able to round up about 84 pets, not counting Mojo, Phoenix Hatchling and the two engineering specialization pets, so getting those 100 mini pets together will certainly be an achievement! I'm assuming they'll add a few extra pets, attainable in game, to make the achievement possible to complete without going on ebay, since I'm not sure it's even possible to get 100 at the moment (without buying TCG-cards, I mean).

Through a bit of, you know, looking around on the interwebz, I stumbled upon myself in Lady Jess's blog roll! As stated earlier, I'm in no way after getting linked, but still: Cool! and /wave!

A bit of catching up to do.

I got back from spending Christmas and New Year's at my parents' a couple of days ago, and am trying to get over the fact that I don't have a dishwasher :D

As I left here on the 23rd, and didn't get back until the 2nd, I totally missed out on the Winter Veil gifts, and couldn't really get the Merrymaker-title this time around. I do hope they'll change the achievement to include something other than Crashin' & Thrashin' next Christmas, though, since I'm quite sure I'll be able to take part in the festivities then. Who knows, in a few years one of my characters might even be flying around on a Violet Proto-Drake! But yeah, a few years, if ever. My druid's only missing the Hallowed Helmet for Hallowed Be Thy Name, though, and she's in the Brew of the Month club, so she's off to a good start, for a casual player!

The title of this blog is (as you can see) Druid in Denial, but the subtitle is quite important: I'm a casual player, but I have more alts than would be considered healthy by a lot of people. Also, I don't really have an ambition to change the history of WoW-playing with this blog. It's a trivial little thing I spend a bit of time on every now and then, and of course it's great if other people enjoy it too.
However, I just wanted to point out that I'm leaving all the "serious" stuff to others, who do it better. It's not that I don't read up on specs, gear, rotations and tactics when I need to, it's more about me loving the silly parts of the game, smelling the roses and whatnot :) And, RL changes recently and in the near future have left me with a lack of motivation for instancing and raiding. That may very well change in the future, when things stabilize, 'cause it's so much fun, but for now my play time is more or less a solo spring break.

My moonkin has been on something of a vacation lately, since I've been working on the new huntress for a while, but I think I'll take her out for a spin tonight - there ought to be some cool balance gear in Icecrown!

And ooh! A /wave to Negathle, who put me on her blogroll! Seriously, if you want the dish on MM hunters, and general opinions from a far more seasoned hunter than myself, her blog is, you know, it. I've read her blog (and Pike's and BRK's blogs) for quite a while, learning and laughing a lot, and while I'm not really after getting linked, it left me a bit excited, in a terrified sort of way.

OK, long, slightly incoherent post ends here. I'm off to find out if my favourite sushi place is open.

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.