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!

Rock, Paper, Dailies.

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

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

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

I really need to stop QQing online, this is getting silly.

I've spent most of the evening trying to organize my bank characters, and cleaning up the inventories and mailboxes of some low level alts, and I'm planning to open up another tab in the guildbank. I've also spent a little too much gold in the past few days, so I've done some dailies on the druid. I did the Oracle dailies, the cooking daily, the Kalu'ak ones, and the two I've found for Wyrmrest Accord, and unfortunately, my computer seems to enjoy the trips through Northrend less and less each time I move around a bit there. My fps in Dalaran rarely goes above 15 if I'm moving, and if I'm standing perfectly still it can get up to 35 - yay!

So, trying to make my future time away from WoW not seem so dreadful, I thought to myself how I'm not really seeing the new expansion from its best side anyway, because of my crappy computer. OK, fair enough. But then it hit me like a rotten egg on a bad clown (they all are, btw): If I'm ever going to be able to play the way I'd like to, not only will I have to get a real broadband connection, I'll have to buy a new computer too :´´´( Way to make myself depressed! Well, I guess that all this will make me even more determined to find a job (any job!) as quickly as possible after I graduate. Job -> apartment -> broadband -> computer -> ? -> profit!

I suppose most people don't consider playing WoW a human right, and that I should be happy about roof over my head and food on the table, especially now, with a financial crisis going on and all that, but they're wrong, oh so wrong. ;)

Sooner than expected.

Once again I've found a mail from my favourite online game store in my inbox, and today they're telling me that I'll be getting the expansion in the mail on Wednesday, i.e. tomorrow! I'm a grown up (no, really!), so I wasn't too bummed that I wouldn't be able to go through the whole "World Server down"-craze that is most certainly going to start a few moments past midnight, and go on well into the afternoon on Thursday (everyone and their mother is going to be online, so it's bound to happen), but now I'm actually a bit stoked about being able to at least try to get to Northrend early!

About the WotLK-preparation: I just spent about 400 gold on friggin' mithril bars and solid stone, to level blacksmithing on my level 39 pally, so I might have to try and make some more gold :D I believe tonight and tomorrow evening will be filled with as many dailies as I can stand, and since the druid has access to basically all of them (Ogri'la, Skyguard, Netherwing, Isle of Quel'danas and cooking&fishing), and has epic flying, she's going to be doing a lot of the dirty work. I'll probably get the rogue out too, for a bit. Epic flying really speeds things up.

Also, still have to try and find the original CD for the graphics card. The basement is not too tempting, though...

RL: I've found an actual idea for my big, final paper-thingie! At least I hope so, will have to do a bit of research, but it doesn't look too bad.

Changes.

I was endlessly excited about the 3.0.2 patch, and ever since it finally arrived I've been on a constant sugar high :D Now, when it's been with us for a while, I think I'm starting to get back to some kind of "normal" state. A few major, and many minor achievements have been completed:

• 50 mini pets -> Stinker
• 50 mounts -> Albino Drake
• Exalted with all 5 alliance factions -> Ambassador title
• Exploration of all pre-TBC and TBC zones (Which will lead to the Explorer title when Northrend has been fully... Well, explored.)
• Fallind 65 yards without dying (Scryer's tier in Shattrath is a hot tip, from the balcony to the left of the elevator, when facing the center of the city)
• And a whole bunch more...

Of course, I have to add a screenshot of my druid and her new, smelly friend:

(Yeah, yeah, it could be a lot more exciting, with fireworks and hordes of dancing gnomes, but this is what I have, OK? Also, skunks rock.)

It's been lots and lots of fun, and the general atmosphere on the server is all "SPRING BREAK!!! WOOOOOH!!!!", which is such a relief after the rather high strung era of be.imba-scores and general e-peen-ing that's been going on ever since the last batch of badge gear came out. Hardcore raiders spend their afternoons in Goldshire, putting out fires and dueling, while wearing RP-greys and pumpkins.

My druid is one (1!) silly achievement away from getting the "the Hallowed"-title - all she needs is a Sinister Squashling and a Hallowed Helm (and the upcoming removal of the 20 mask achievement from the requirement), but the few times she's killed the Horseman she's been outrolled on both helm and Squashling, and she's not having any luck at all with the trick-or-treating... I'll try to run a few pug's, though - hopefully a lot of people have those two items already, are only after the mount, and are willing to take me on just because I can summon the boss. Honestly, I'd be willing to pass on the mount just to be able to get the two drops I need for the title. It is a sweet mount though, and in a perfect gaming world I'd have all three :D

What bothers me the most is that three of my alts, low-level, seldom played ones, have gotten helm+pet through trick-or-treating, seven others (yes, I have *that* many characters) have gotten the pet, and five have the helm, while neither my main - my beloved druid - nor my planned primary alt - the mage - have either one. I bet the drop rates of these items are higher for lowbies :( If for nothing else, just to annoy high level casuals like myself.

Anyway, after a couple(?) of weeks with the new patch, I'm mighty pleased. The new achievement system really speaks to the old Pokémon-player in me (Charizard was cool), which is both a blessing and a curse - it leaves me with tons of stuff to "complete", but not getting certain things completed (such as the Squashling+Helm situation) drives me crazy.

I spent the weekend at my parent's house, with no internet (gasp!), and even though I had a number of other reasons for needing to get away for a bit, the time out from WoW was a welcome one. I still really, really want that title, but other than that, I'm going to take it easy for a while, i.e. no hardcore farming - buying enough mounts to get to 50 took quite a bit of dailies... The occasional daily, yes, but since one can't use flying mounts in Northrend in the beginning, I'm not really in a rush to get epic flying for the mage, and I don't think I have a lot more to spend cash on, except for raising profession skill caps, paying trainers, and buying fancy little things that may very well be available in the new continent. But that won't be until after the 13th of November!

So, my plans for the next couple of weeks include a lot more RL than WoW. Studies have been piling up at an alarming rate, and I have to do something about it. At the end of January next year, I'm hoping to start a new era in my life - one without studies! It's all I've ever done, so it scares the crap out of me, but finding a job, moving, and having a real income seems like heaven, and has done so for a long time. This does in no way mean I'm quitting WoW, though :) Just that there'll be a lot of RL-changes, which will lead to a much happier player!

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Ah, so much for getting around to posting each day! Anyway, it's the end of June, the weather is great, and even though I have no plan whatsoever to get a tan, I might just go for a walk this afternoon.

WoW-update:

I'm actually starting to get a hang of doing dailies on the hunter - it's fast, and - in spite of the fact that her gear is so much worse than the druid's - there's very little downtime. OK, there have been occasions where her kitty has gotten swarmed by four blood elves, and with all the mobs and people running around, all I could do was feign death and let kitty die. /cry But all in all - I don't think the epic flyer will take too long to get a hold of for this one. Guess I should be saving up to get the druid her's, but that'll come too, eventually.

Yesterday I decided to twink my alliance pally a tiny bit - got her a Gargoyle's Bite, and had the mage put +7 damage on it - and then I dragged her through Arathi up to Southshore, to get flightpaths, and do some bonfire quests. Almost died because of the presence of iron just a few steps off the road - the famous bubble saved her from evil spiders + raptors :)

Other than that - nothing much has happened, it's been a slow weekend, WoW-wise. Went shopping for shoes on Saturday - first time in ages - and found a pair:

These babies gave me chafes on both feet within five minutes after leaving the apartment. Went to the store for eggs and some stuff, and could barely walk on the way home :D They're pretty, though, and I think shoes and feet will adapt before too long.

I'll definitely go online tonight - there should be some quest rewards somewhere that could spice up my huntress - but for now I have to take a shower, make a phone call, and get some lunch.

Smoother, faster, but a bit weird...

Yesterday I did what one could consider a rather full set of dailies for the first time on my hunter. This includes all of the Shattered Sun Offensive ones, except A'tamal Armaments, the fishing and cooking dailies, and two of the three Midsummer Fire Festival ones (I really have a problem with the torchcatching). (Right now, the neighbour is going crazy, singing "Memories". Oh. My. GOD! That woman must have suffered some kind of brain damage at some point...)

Anyway, it went very smoothly, in spite of the fact that some of her gear is from the early 60's (/shame). Something that did bother me, though, was the feeling that people even more shamelessly than usual were trying to steal my mobs. I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to playing my hunter, especially after that time in the 40's when some rogue was convinced she was a bot, in spite of the fact that I used friggin' stings, had a named, rare-ish pet, and was pretty good at talking back, but I honestly think people get ticked off by just seeing a nelf hunter in nab gear. Like "oh, now I can get payback for that time in the Deadmines when a nelftard ninjaed my staff/mace/ring/whatever". If that is the case: Seriously, get over it. I'm a good person, a decent player, and I'm educated enough to know that Plasma Rat's Hyper-Scythe is crap for me. (I once saw a hunter with that one, with Mongoose on it. Another time it was Singing Crystal Axe, same enchant...)

IRL I'm waiting for a response to an e-mail I sent to my professor, regarding continuing the work on my final paper in the fall. Unfortunately he's on vacation, and he seems to be serious about it - i.e. not checking his inbox...