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.

My Flaming Friend

I finally (ooh, it was a pain, took from 8-ish last night until about an hour ago... I did get a good night's sleep, though ;) ) got my Captured Flame! Behold:
Yes, it's that orange-pink-thingie next to my sexy huntress. Nvm the quested greens, I'm only hardcore when it comes to small pets ;) Also, she's 67, dammit! All that running all over the world, honouring or putting out fires got her well on the way to 68, though. About 70 % of a level, I believe. And I'm going to keep doing the Midsummer dailies - not only do they give gold, you also get xp - a bit more than 11000 a quest! And with three quests a day, it's not bad at all! Dailies before 70 ftw!

Pre-pizza post

Still having a cold, yes, but took a shower earlier, and even if my throat is still painful, I'm dressed, and planning to go to the store for something edible.

Today is the first day of the Midsummer Fire Festival, and I'm planning to complete as many quests as possible, so I can get at least one character a Captured Flame. And no, I can't ever get enough small pets. 350 Burning Blossoms is a lot, though, and they're soulbound.

Anyway, off to get some food.