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

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

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

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

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

*sneaks back in*

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

...

Well, in spirit, atleast!

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

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

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

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

"Waiting for patch"-randomness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plans, and how not to stick to them.

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



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

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

BRB, cake.

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


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

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

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

The how and why, and ooh! Shiny lights!

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

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

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