That Thing.

I was about to publish a post on the subject of healers getting the blame for everything that goes wrong in every group situation, ever, but then I got annoyed with myself and the amount of QQ I can pull together in a long and boring text, so I won't.

However, I do wish some of the dps-ers I've played with in the past few weeks could get into their lovely, adorable heads that sometimes higher dps is the solution, and maybe they should go read up and gear up (properly - enchant your stuff, and no 71/0/0 specs -.-) before they start nagging about wanting to try Halls of Reflection again. Bite me.

OK, off to level my shaman for a bit - strangest thing, once I specced her back into elemental, she was suddenly fun again! (Enhancement smells, and should never bother my sweet draenei again.)

(And ooh, I had to disable Altoholic after a while - it was too heavy for my dear old PC after all, and using portals and entering instances started taking forever - but I'm pretty sure I'll survive :P)

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 :)

Hi Number 4!

Late last night, at about 00.56 local time, my baby druid hit 80! Since she was put on ice for a while, there was a lot of rested XP, and after reaching 77 (and hence being able to fly again) things sped up considerably. As I've once again managed to get a character to 80 almost exclusively by questing (though she did run through both UK and Nexus a little while ago), I now have a bit of gearing up to look forward to. And yeah, a bit of L2P as well :D

Healing on her is something I've enjoyed so far, and I'm looking forward to doing more of that - healing, in general, has turned out to be more fun than I expected back when I decided to make my priest my new "main". Having (and playing) a level 80 tree was my original plan with this particular character, and while a newly dinged 80 isn't exactly all that, it's a damn good start!

Now I just have to try and get her into some dungeons, and maybe she'll be cool enough to get a spot in one of the Naxx 10-runs for alts and new level 80s I've heard talk about in guild chat :)

Branching Out... (heehee)

The snow that fell before Christmas is still here, and even more has fallen since. I don't think we've had a winter like this in "my" part of Sweden for atleast twenty years, and while it's very pretty...
...after more than a month of car doors frozen shut, a runny nose, and way too much snow, I want to pick up and move to Hawai'i.

While I haven't been able to go swimming or go out for a run lately, I've had plenty of time to play WoW. I've worked a lot on my priest - gearwise and skillwise - and I've found myself in instances more often than not in the past few weeks. In fact, I've started to feel confident enough in my healing abilities (and finally found the inspiration) to level that healer alt! That's right, my young druid is finally getting some attention!

She happens to be on an account with no level 80 characters, so last night, when she hit 77, was a big one. I've really missed flight form - on her, since she came to Northrend, and on all the non-druid characters I play - and as soon as I'd bought her Cold Weather Flying, I took her out for almost half an hour of just soaring. She doesn't have her epic flying skill yet, but it's definitely in the cards. Partly because I've had her pick up herbalism instead of tailoring (Having someone steal my herbs simply because they fly faster? We can't have that!), and partly because the epic flight form is sooo gorgeous :)

I've spent a bit of gold in the AH during the past week, picking up a few pieces of caster leather. While I'm fairly prepared for the difference in play style between my priest and my druid - reactive vs preventive, looking all saintly vs being a funky tree - I think the difference in gear level might be a bit overwhelming. Not that I've been doing any kind of hard core raiding on my priest, but given a bit of time, you can put together a pretty good outfit these days, simply by running heroics and doing the occasional weekly raid quest. This also means, of course, that gearing up a new level 80 can be a lot smoother than it used to be. Still, though - I'm trying to get my hands on as many iLevel 187-200 pieces as I can, and I'm hoping to get some lucky drops in normal dungeons - I'm definitely not prepared to start doing level 80 dungeons in the level 70-75 quested greens she's wearing now!

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to giving druid healing another try. Now, however, I'm off to go through my in game finances - it's quite possible there'll be some swift flying 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.

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.

"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!

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.

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.

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...

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.