Such Strangeness in our Brave New Azeroth

I am back from yet another extended break…

I am not the player I was. When I started this blog, I dreamed of being on bleeding edge raiding, dabbled in theory-crafting and sought arena glory. I never got anywhere close to any of those things.

These days, I play “Animal Crossing: WoW Edition.” I go out, collect things, (pets, achievements  mounts, recipes  level alts, work on a crafting network and have a foursome of gnomes that I play with my wife and two daughters.  (We’re all around  level 15 at this point.) The world is a playground and whatever strikes my fancy I go and do.

I still have a bit of a running to-do list in the back of my head of things I want to accomplish. But I do as I see fit and am having fun doing so. Other than my wife and daughters, no one is depending on me to do a thing. I’m not a raid leader, heck, I haven’t set foot in a current content raid since the Firelands. I still do research, but a lot of it has to do with what is striking my fancy at the moment.

That research though is what is becoming weird.

WoW has a declining population, I get that. But as more info is added in the game itself and there are less people providing information outside of game/are playing the game, the information becomes less reliable, this past information includes my own memory too.

Take for example this incident during the Lunar Festival.

Me: Hey, I should go do the Lunar Festival on an alt, it will be easy XP and I can work on other things while in flight.

So, I pull up the great guide on WoWHead by Perculia start popping around from Elder to Elder.

Me: Hey, there’s an elder in Strat, it’s not too far from the back entrance, I’ll just head in, grab him and head out.

I walk into the back entrance. Start heading over to where the elder is and find myself stuck at some gates. That’s odd. I /tar the Elder.

Me: There he is!

I cannot get past the gates to get over to live side.

Finally, I give up and go over to the live side entrance to speak to the elder which requires a much longer walk. Not a horrible thing to do, but annoying since I knew how to get there.

Apparently, since Cata, live side and dead side of Strat have been split due to closed gates, so folks in dungeon finder can’t do both.  😦

I don’t blame the guide and all the new kids probably didn’t think to use the back entrance, if they knew even where it was. Although, the wonderful Perculia did update the guide once I let her know it was only accessible via live side.

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Here’s my example thought from today.

I’m changing one of the professions on one of my toons to engineering. The Animal Crossing Collector player wants to get as many schematics as I can. Well, apparently Mekgineer Thermaplugg drops a lot of engineering recipes.

My brain: Hey, I wonder if we can go in the back door to Gnomer, hurry to Thermaplugg, kill him, grab the schematic and hearth out and then reset over and do it all over again.

My brain: Wait, I know they took your key, does the back door even work anymore? Lets look online.

I cannot find it. There is information about the back door. Apparently the key drops again and disappears when you leave the dungeon. Is it permanently sealed? Can you use a blacksmith key or a seaformium charge to open in?

The comments from pre-WoW 4.0 are many, finding Cata and MoP comments are rare and it was an entirely different world post 4.0. The old information never dies and you have to filter through so much to find the valid info. People are hesitant to downrate old data as it was valid at the time it was posted, so it lingers and it becomes harder and harder to find good information, if anyone has even bothered to put it out there.

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It is just odd, how much of the world isn’t as I remember it or gone entirely. But then, so much of it is similar or the same.  But there is more information on the old world than the new.

Although, now that I write that I look at the player I am and was. It’s still me, I still have goals, the collect bug has always been there. (Most notably with achievements.) I am not the player I was, but I am very similar to that person, while still very different.

 

Ack! I must have gotten distracted by something again!

Because I’ve been a quiet Feral lately.  Of course the 80+ hours I worked last week might have been a contributing factor.

Unfortunately, I have some confessions to make to you all.  There are things horribly horribly wrong with me that you all need to know.

*I think the fact that I get to level cooking 6 different times in Panderia…is totally frigging awesome!  Look at all those boxes I get to check.  It’s stuff to do!  That’s cool!

*I ❤ Dalies!  My wife does not like all the Rep dailies available this expansion.  Whereas I’m trying to figure out how to level alts using dailies.  Again, maybe it’s that whole, I like checking boxes thing, because, I can do down my list of dailies and do this and that and then the next, etc.  Hmmm, maybe I should make a spreadsheet or a checklist by toon.  I mean like 1 – 60 using just cooking and fishing and holiday dailies will go slow, but I’ll get there eventually!

*I’m actually thinking of playing primarily ~gasp~ bear this expansion.  (Well, in PvE at least.)  Bear was always a secondary hobby.  I would dabble, but my passion has always been kitty.  It’s just to be honest, with my limited play time, I want the perqs that come with being a tank.

* I am an achievement escort!  Oh wait, everyone already knows that.

Actual content coming soon, I promise!  I just need a nap or something.  72 hours at work if it’s a slow week is hitting me pretty hard!

 

 

For the…

So I’ve been reading several of the articles over on wow.joystiq.com, about the Alliance dissatisfaction with the storyline.

I’ve been popping back and forth between sides lately.  But this is a small slice of that has always felt true to me:

“For the Horde!”

It feels gutteral and primal and motivational.  It inspires feeling and makes me want to take action.  It feels powerful!

“For the Alliance!”

It feels like a cheap imitation of “For the Horde!”  In my head, the accent I tend to associate with this, does not feel motivational or inspiring.  It seems to just not make me feel.  I almost want the Alliance to have their own phrase.

I think in the actions I tend to associate with the Horde, I see a grunt, who isn’t putting a lot of thought into it, “For the Horde!” is just a rallying cry, a simple unifying thought to spur to action.

Whereas on the Alliance side, the cry needs almost needs to be an equivilent of “Remember the Alamo.”  We are the sleeping giant.  So when we are the hero, there is a wrong to be righted.  “For our side!” isn’t enough, we must be reminded of the wrong we are putting right.  Remember the Wrathgate!  Remember Gilneas!  Remember Theramore!  Remember our heroes lost doing what’s right!

None of those seem to quite fit, but the idea is there.  The Alliance seems to need justification for Heroism, whereas the Horde can succumb to it’s Bloodlust!

Posts, posts, posts…

So, posts in the pipeline:

• The honor gearing of a PvP Feral from 31 – 59.
• To be followed by the honor gearing of a PvP Feral from 60 – 69, 70 -79 & 80 – 84.
• There’s more cute kid stuff, that is rattling around, but isn’t coming into words currently.
• I want to go see what I can solo at 90.  Granted, that means I have to get to 90 first…hmmm, mebbe I should grab FRAPs or something for that.
• How Mr. No-Alts is now up to 3 and is considering more.
• And now that I’m trying to get the ideas out, they are hiding from me.

This is a work in progress, will update as my brain lets me.  Feel free to splatter the comments with any ideas you might have that you think would be good to see in the blog, a brainstorming session, if you will.

But I leave you with this.  My wife and I are leveling two Panderan Monks.  I’m trying to learn to heal, so I’m playing Mistweaver and she’s going to attempt Tanking with a brewmaster.

She keeps telling me that I need to stop pulling.

But, Honey, I’m currently a bear!  That means I’m supposed to pull! 😉

 

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…

I have work to do…

So, my youngest, at the age of 10 has been fascinated by WoW for ages now.  Well, ages for a 10 year old that is.  It all started with my wife and I letting the kids play around with our account.  They thought it was fun, but it wasn’t huge…

…until Noblegarden, about 4 or 5 years ago.  We asked the kids if they wanted to help us gather Easter Eggs.  There are some huge things there for my youngest.

1. She loves helping grownups, it makes her feel important.
2. Video games are a win in general.
3. They love Easter Egg hunts, my girls will hide them for one another and go searching.
4. An Easter egg hunt in a video game that is helping grownups = HUGE WIN!

Fun with search terms…

So, in looking at my site stats I peruse the search terms from time to time to see what folks are interested in.  Usually they are normal enough, but lets see what interesting ones we got as well.

“how to go to lights hope chapel in a druid?”

In a druid?  As in inside???

Well, assuming that’s a typo, you can ride a druid in travel form who is using the Glyph of the Stag.  Hmmm.  Then there’s always Vial of the Sands and Heart of the Nightwing.

But in?  Well, the only way I know is to be an opposing faction when the druid is in bear form and hope he doesn’t end up in the woods first. 😉

The rest are mostly PvP searches, which makes sense, given my recent postings.

BTW, for the folks looking for low level PvP vendors:

More to come…

So, this week I am catching up on all the work I missed last week because I was on vacation.

And remember how I said over on my sub-30 Feral Druid PvP gear post, “I’ll probably break these up into smaller chunks going forward.”  Well, I just dinged 59 yesterday, so I’ll probably cover 31 – 59 in one chunk and then chunks of 60 – 69, 70 – 79, 80 – 84 and I’ll leave 85 to the experts.

Although, that said, anyone grinding rep for Cenarian Circle, I have discovered, thanks to cross-realm zones, Silithyst counts don’t seem to reset with realm reboots.   So, if you want to earn the bonus rep for mob kills in Silithus or AQ, hitting 200 turn ins is actually possible, although, it is a slow trudge across the desert with no movement speed buffs.  (Feral charge works though. 😉 )

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.

Just a quick word of advice…

Take it from me, if you migrate from a PvE to a PvP server, AFKing while on a flight path can lead to you coming back to a surprise…