An Odd Thing To Make Me Reflect

I have not yet wandered away!  I was soooo sick last week.  I never got around to writing my first post, but this Friday my first feature column goes up and I’ve got some plans and some notes already ready to go already!  But in the mean time, I give you something I posted to my guild forums a few weeks back because it made me think quite a bit.  I thought a wider audience might appreciate it!

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So I was out fishing on my druid the other night when I fished up a Ephemeral Fishing Pole. I looked at it in my inventory and realized this would be the first new pole I would use on my main in a long long time. My trusty Mastercraft Kalu’ak Fishing Pole with the +30 fishing has been my go to fishing pole for quite a while. (I never have been able to quite get my hands on Arcanite Fishing Pole, so other poles have shown up, but I never saw a reason to switch because they were just as good.) I went to my achievement tab and looked up Tuskarrmageddon, it was dated 12/9/08. I’m sure I bought that pole as soon as I hit exalted, so that pole has spent most of it’s time in my backpack for over six years.

This lead me to another odd thought. That fishing pole has probably seen more use and been through more things with my character than any other single in game item. It’s a hassle to fetch it out of the bank every time I want to fish, so I keep it on me. Its been whacked against countless mobs heads when I forgot to unequip it. (It’s hard to tell you have the wrong weapon when you’re in bear or kitty!)  Granted, I don’t know if that’s quiet whacking, the mechanics of druid weapons are funky. It was probably was in my bag for the fall of the Lich King and when my guild got Realm First Level 25. It has been there for countless battlegrounds, quests, (Including most of pre-Cata Loremaster) and dungeons, basically all the usual WoW things I’ve done over the years.  It has been with this toon when she was a Tauren, a Night Elf, and now as a Troll.

Academically, I knew the Ephemeral Fishing Pole was waaay better, but there was a degree of the familiar to my trusty fishing companion with its High Test Eternium Fishing Line, even if it is just a bunch of pixels, which are ephemeral in their own way.  I was going to be a little sad to retire it.

Then I looked up to see if maybe I had missed a better pole along the way, other than the Arcanite, since the Ephemeral was sooo much better than any other pole I had seen, and in my research I realized the Ephemeral Fishing Pole, really is ephemeral and after 24 hours logged into game it would be gone.  Well good thing I didn’t hasty with the sell button!

It’s odd to think, that in all that has come and gone, in a game with gear that we know will obsolete every few months, a fishing pole is something that’s been stable. One day, I’ll have a better fishing pole, and like so many other pieces of gear with memories, my Mastercraft Kalu’ak will be tucked away in the bank or void storage. But I’m kinda glad the Ephemeral is going to disappear, but glad it appeared as well.

This is a weird world we play in.

An Awkward Conversation

I find it fitting that awkward is awkward to spell, a word with the letters wkw in succession, I mean really?  Oh, right, the post.  Moving right along.

So after making my last post, my head decides to scramble explaining the Horde/Alliance split, with THE TALK!

Click for the talk…

Maintenance is for Storytime!

So, while leveling up, I am hearthed in EK.  Why?  Because I am a druid and as such always have an insta-port to Kalimdor in Teleport: Moonglade.  However, I am a druid on the go.  I like to travel a lot and was frustrated by the fact that my Silvermoon down through the Ghostlands flight points didn’t connect with my network attached to UC.  I know they give you appropriate level flight points at this point and I could always use the teleporter, but meh, I wanted them to connect.  So I go over to WoWWiki to see what I’m up against in connecting the networks.  There is apparently only one FP connecting the BC content to the old world and that is…Light’s Hope Chapel.  And that makes me laugh.

Let me take you back to the ages long ago.  (Like 2008)  My wife, who had played since Vanilla (and wasn’t yet my wife at the time) had me join her in this strange world called Azeroth.  I was no n00b to online gaming, I had played Everquest during it’s hey-day.  Heh, I still have fond memories of the hard as nails, wait 20 mins for a boat, stare at a spellbook to regain mana, corpse run to get your gear, map printed out sitting on my desk, version of EQ.  But I am tangenting.

So, while we had the refer-a-friend bonuses going on, my wife would pop me from place to place, getting me flight points and whatnot with one of her high level toons and then I would summon her character who was same level as mine to me to get the FP too and then we’d fly off to whatever we were doing.  (Since you can only summon once an hour.)  That way we had the FPs when we needed them later.  Well, one day before I was level 20 she summoned me to Light’s Hope Chapel to get the flight point there.  Before I have time to react, I see a very red ghoul running my way.  Before I have time to say anything, I am squished ded.

Young druid is his favorite Snack!

I always envisioned in my head the ghoul sensing the lowbie from halfway across the zone and rushing to grab his easy prey.  For ages in my mind, the Plaguelands were the *elite* zone of Vanilla.  And whenever I think of the Plaguelands, I see a very red ghoul coming to get a tasty cow-druid snack.  It went fine this time.  A little stealth and the reduced level of the zone and I got the FP easy this time around.  But to me EP will always be the home of the hungry ghoul running half-way across the zone to eat the lowbie cow druid.