What I've Been Doing - October 2011 Edition

Hi!  It's been a while, hasn't it?  Still hanging around this old dump? Well, I cannot promise that the view will change much here, or that the furniture will get moved any, but I can tell you what has been up.  Pull up a chair!

World of Warcraft has not lost its shine, yet.  I will admit to letting my subscription lapse for a week or more at a time, just because I really don't have time for this time hog of a game.  Still, I have friends and I enjoy tooling around on a new alt or three.  It's the way I am.  I had to delete a few neglected alts that weren't being played to make a new one on Proudmoore to play with one of my guildmates on the Alliance side of things.   Another draenei hunter named Minya joined my full stable of alts.  She is at level 20, and I keep forgetting to get her mount.  Oh well, I am enjoying the story through Westfall and Redridge without it, so what is the rush?

On the Horde side of things, I had transferred Delgada, who I consider my main, to the Eredar server a while back to play with a real life friend.  Well, he never promised to stick around, and Delgada has been all alone in this huge guild for a while.  Back when he was still playing and I had a little time to raid, I had allowed the guild to use KNR's server temporarily, until they found one of their own.  Well, here it is the middle of October, and hubby went shopping for a new Ventrilo server.  We let the other lapse, because a)we were broke and it was coming of our bank account, and 2) noone from that guild had even offered to contribute.  A few from KNR pony up on a regular basis, so when the coffer runs out and I need to add in a month or so, it just evens things out, you know?  I wonder if they have found a new host to leech off of.  If any of you on that server read this, well, there it is.  I cannot support two guilds.  We shrunk our server from a 50 to a 25 and moved it to Typefrag.

Hallow's Eve has started, right on the heels of Brewfest.  Delgada already had the achievements for both, so she entered the queue for Direbrew and got her trinket, then gave up on the holiday.  I don't like where it moved to. It's too far from the town.  But I love the holiday.  Maybe if I am around for Brewfest number 5 (is it that many already?) I'll celebrate with the Dwarves.  They know how to do it right.  As for Hallow's Eve, Delgada has her ring, and now she just queues in hope of getting a firey pony. I have her trick or treating, but the innkeepers won't speak to her, they just point at the big pumpkin full of goodies and go back to standing there doing nothing.  Trick or treating and the new dailies are a must, so that Delgada can get her new pets, the Feline Familiar and the Little Wickerman.  There was also a quest chain to get a Creepy Crate, which Delgada happily did.  This puts her just a little closer to the Littlest Pet Shop achievement.  She really wants that Celestial Dragon.  As for other in game things, I am leveling a few alts, and when I do drag Delgada out, it is for holiday stuff or to mindlessly fly over the face of Azeroth, looking for dig sites.

Wizard 101 has been on a side burner. I did recently, at the request of the game and because I would have anyway if I had known about it, vote for it to win the audience award for an online games award thingy.  Well, they won, and as a result I got a new pet, which as of last night was still in its shell. It's a yellow elf pet with a pedigree of 30.  When I have logged into the game, I have spent my time on my garden, which is full of pink dandelions, with a few king parsley, fickle pickle, bell peppers, snap dragons, baby carrots, and laugh o dils.  Rowan Trollstalker is currently questing in Dragonspyre.  I think she is about halfway through it.  When she has the energy, she likes to run her sea dragon through the hedge maze, but usually her garden takes most of the energy, so the poor dragon sits at teen.

Real life has taken the bulk of my time lately.  My father in law was in town a lot longer than expected, which meant a lot of running around.  He bought me a season pass for Disneyland, with parking, so I have been working toward getting each of my kids there with me, one a month.  So far, I have taken my oldest my youngest, and one of the middle ones, with plans to take two of the others close to their birthdays in November.  I keep telling myself I am going to run away and go just once by myself, but really, who am I kidding?  I barely have time to play my games at home.  What makes me think I can drive an hour away to spend a day on my own?  I think this will happen, just not really soon.  Maybe during Christmas break.

One of my step daughters wanted to audition for a musical, and I drove her there.  Next thing I know, I am being pushed on stage to audition as well.  She got the part of Zaneeta, the mayor's teen daughter, while I got the part of Ethel Toffelmeier, the pianola girl.  Bonus points if you can tell me what musical they are from, without Google's help!  We are waiting impatiently for our next practice session, as our leader said she would email us when we would start up again, after the start date had changed from "omg not the end of this month!" to "phew January sounds lots better".

My eldest daughter is sitting on her nest, and will have her little chick near the end of December.  I have to start finding silly baby shower games and start planning the party really soon.  I'm just having a hard time fitting all that in and trying to make myself a steampunk costume to wear at whatever convention I find myself at.  The only convention I have been to besides my one time at Blizzcon was a school food service convention, and as much fun as that was, the cosplay was limited to a few booth fruits (hehe). There is a new convention happening in November in Los Angeles that I am hoping to get to, just to see what one is like.  It looks to have a lot of neat personalities booked, and the price is right at about 12 bucks presale per day.  Hopefully my costume is ready by then!

Well, as for screenshots, I have been bad and not taken any recently.  So, this post will have no pretty picture at the top :(  If you are looking for pretty pictures, I invite you to go look at The Ancient Gaming Noob's site, as he is having a travel poster contest.  Maybe you can even make one of your own!  Thanks for stopping by.  Try not to let the dust bunnies out when you leave...

Ironman

I saw this challenge somewhere in my feed reader, forgive me if I don;t give credit to my original find!  Psynister has it all mapped out in this post on his blog, but the original idea started with Vrykerion in a tweet.  So you don't have to leave this post to go to the info, I'll paste the basic rules here.  You really should go to Psynister's post on it, though, as there are clarifications and comments from others that have decided to try this out. Starting at level 1...

The Rules
1. Use only white/grey items.
2. No spending talent points. No specialization at level 10. (Regular skill training is fine.)
2. No Primary or Secondary Professions other than First Aid.
3. No means of XP boosting (No Recruit-A-Friend, No Guild, and obviously no Heirlooms)
4. No consumable bonuses (food, potions, elixirs, etc) – Rogue Poisons allowed
5. No enchants.
6. No Groups. (Since clarification was requested: That means no dungeons, no Dungeon Finder, no battlegrounds, no anything that puts you in a group and no grouping up with people to quest or anything.)
7. No Death Knights.
8. No Glyphs


Seems I chose the easiest class to do this with, and hunter really is my go to alt class, even if my main is a priest.  I am still thinking about starting up a priest and leveling her this way on a different server, but for now, meet Ferrolina, my undead hunter.

Not feeling the pinch...yet.

I have died a few times to stupid, I will admit.  Ferrolina is too young to have any slowing traps, but Concussive Shot and Scatter Shot are helpful when the mobs get too close, and next session she should have a tank pet that maybe she won't be able to pull off of.  I thought I had been following the rules, but questing in the new Forsaken areas sometimes finds you in a ready made group of npcs, and I think that may have been cheating.  I meant to do it right, I swear!  The plan from here forward is to not do quests like these,  so I will have to check WoWhead to be sure. Of course, there is always the tell tale sign of somebody other than Kitkat following me, but I am not always paying attention closely, distracted forever as I am by the 3 bazillion kids running around this house.


So far, up until today I have not had any group or guild requests. Today, I was hounded by one guild, and asked nicely by two others.  Urtank, no, I do not want to join your guild.  Please, stop spamming guild invitations and whispers, please?  


Other than the nuisance of guild invitation spam, leveling has been much like regular leveling. At 20 I made a trip to Brill and sighed as I looked into her coin purse and found her with only half of the funds for a mount. To make the trip worthwhile, she traveled to the Undercity and bought a few new pieces of equipment.  She then returned to finish out her Silverpine quests and go to the next area.  I love the quest you start with in Hillsbrad, where you hand out quests.  I could do that quest daily, and still laugh. 


I know it isn't much, but hopefully from here on out this will give me some blog fodder.  I leave you with some "baby" pictures of Ferrolina. Later!

Will I ever see Darnell again?

The Dark Lady.

They followed me home, can I keep them?

Another unintended grouping mishap.

Midnight: Silvermoon City

Not many people wandering the streets of Silvermoon at any time of day, especially near midnight.  Still, the Chamber of Commerce tries hard to entertain those who happen to be there on a holiday.  The fireworks spectacular began right on the stroke of midnight, and ended twelve minutes later.  Here you can see a lonely shopkeeper watching part of the finale.

Cerisse Watching Fireworks.

Thank you, warriors, for fighting the fight that keeps us free.  Happy Fourth of July, America!

Moo.

Danger To All Who Pass These Signs!

My time has been pretty much filled with kids who need stuff, parents who need stuff, trips to exotic locations, and family trips to fun places like Knott's Berry Farm and the movies.  So, Lulubelle is all I have really had time for.  Well, her and a few shots at Ahune on Delgada (trip #2 got the Ice Chip), and several hours, afk and not, in  Minecraft.  I thought I would have more time for some end game raiding over the summer, but it looks as if that is a thing of the past for me.  As much as I would love to, and hubby would let me, it just takes too much time.  So, here is Lulubelle, fresh from Outlands in matching (shockingly!) armor, ready to take on Northrend.

Goodbye Nagrand!

Lulubelle has been running around Northrend for a while now, and is just into her 78th level.  I got a fishing bug, and decided she needed to level her secondary skills a little, so today all she did were the  three fishing dailies and one cooking daily. She's been a good little dungeon healer, healing all the regular dungeons she can, and got to run a few with her guild master's alt death knight tank, who helped knock out most of 77 with his fast queues.

At Home In Dalaran.

As for Minecraft, I know someone latched onto that and wants to know what I am up to.  KNR has a server, and I have managed to dig in pretty deep, found a big bit of redstone, a small amount of iron, gold, lapis, and diamond, and enough cobblestone to build skyscrapers. Here are some recent (I opened up the game to grab them just now!) screenshots of my corner of the KNR Minecraft Server.  The other guys are far more talented than I, and have huge greenhouses and above ground pleasure palaces.  I'll settle for my little Barbie Dream Bunker.

Kitchen And Den.

Mining Operation AKA Back Yard.

Chateau Shawndra.

Shawndra's Greenhouse.

That's all I have for now, as I am being whisked away to Sizzler.  More later, hopefully sooner than later!

Sorry!

I have been gone far too long.  I'm still playing games, just not as seriously.  Delgada got out to finally finish School of Hard Knocks, which resulted in finally finishing What a Long Strange Trip It's Been.  (digging through screenshots) Sorry, didn't even think to catch her on her pretty new violet protodrake. You'll just have to trust me on that one.

I do, however, have pictures of the gal who has stolen me away from playing Delgada.  Meet Lulubelle, seer of An'she.

Bunny Ears?

Alright, so the ears don't quite convey how seriously she takes herself.  Here is a better picture.

Bad Dog!

So now we know who really burnt Stratholme down.  She really isn't as bad as that, though.  Here's another picture.

Consorting with goblins...

Kind of a necessary means to the end of getting the skills to pay bills, though.  Tell me you haven't done something for a goblin at one time or another, go ahead, I'm waiting.  While we wait, here is another picture of the highly photogenic Lulu.

She even heals hunter pets!

She is so very kind!  Right after that, she traveled to Silithus, killed a few large worms and Twilight Cultists, and stepped through the handy portal to the Blasted Lands, to report for duty past the Dark Portal into Outlands first horde installation, Thrallmar.  There may be fewer pictures for a while as she is rather keen on looking her best and the clothes that can be had there are well, outlandish.  See, I made a joke...haha!

Lulu is being leveled from scratch with no heirlooms or big sister characters on a new server to me. She is a discipline priest, which I haven't ever tried before, and I am really enjoying it.  I grabbed dual specializations to have a shadow spec, but haven't needed to use it yet, and doubt I'll even change over save to add points every several levels or so.  She is a tailor and enchanter, leveled well past where she should be thanks to the generosity of her guild mates in Integrity. Her leveling has been easy, as the healer queue is rather short.  A few quests here, a few dungeons there, and she is out of a zone not too long after barely wetting her hooves in the shallow end of it.  She is now in Zangarmarsh, looking forward to hitting Terokkar before the week is up. 

Sorry I have been rather absent.  I am thinking about changing the name of the blog here soon, as when I started it I had no idea there was a large site called the Escapist.  that, and some people, seeing my URL, think it is Escapists Crawl.  No, I'm not crawling like a baby, I am scrawling like a teenager who is late for turning in their homework.  Barely legible, but hopefully good enough for a passing grade.  I'll keep the URL until it expires, which is next year, but I may find another to direct here, or just move over to my other blog that I'm not using yet, Seven Kids - One Bathroom, which is much more like me right now.  Either way, I'll post something here when the change is made.  Thanks for stopping by!

Too Busy!

I wonder sometimes if anyone is still reading this oft neglected blog.  Life has thrown me a curve ball, and I'm dealing with it the best I can, which means something had to give.  As I am unwilling to give up my fantasy world I escape to daily, the blog has suffered.  I'm not going to quit, but I thought you all should know that updates are going to be rather scarce.

Into the Bastion of Twilight

If you have visited the main page, you'll have noticed my character feed for Delgada is broken.  Yipes!  This is not horrible, and I will fix it shortly. I ran up against the problem of too many priests and not enough tanks in my main guild, KNR, so I server transferred Delgada to Eredar to hang out with an old flame.  The new guild, Wrath and Redemption, is a great one, and have whisked me into raiding, despite my low gear score.  Last night we downed Halfus in the Bastion of Twilight and got in several good attempts on Valiona and Theralion.  I'm sure that we'll get it tonight.  Just before our last two attempts my client disconnected, and when I logged back in, all my key bindings were gone.  I healed our last two attempts from the spell page!  Still, I think we got them down to 80%, so I am looking forward to another fun night tonight. I am more prepared than I was last night (who knew they would drag my lowly butt into a raid so soon!) as I now have Deadly Boss Mods installed and my other mods updated.  Tell me, any raiders reading this, is it still necessary to be running Omen? I have it installed, but I find I'm not using it. 

Delgada has been spending the rest of her time on the server doing dailies and digging for artifacts.  She has found quite a few interesting things, even if they are mostly toys.  She has uncovered a dig in Uldum, however, that is bringing up pieces of a ring!  I might be a little more excited about this if it had some spirit on it. Still, at this point in the game, Delgada is behind the gear curve and ahead of the raiding curve.  I don't think I have ever raided so early in an expansion!

While doing dailies, Delgada has managed to make friends with a few other people in other guilds, who seem to have the same altaholic tendencies as I do.  Eredar is shaping up to be a friendly and more evenly balanced server than Smolderthorn could ever hope to be.  I'm a little sad that KNR has to be there.  Thank goodness for Real ID.  I'd probably never have even thought of transferring had I not a way to chat with them after the move.

My Favorite Pet Spell, Ever!

In other news, My wizard Rowan Trollstalker is closing in on the old level cap of 50, and has finished Mooshu!  She spends most of her days in her garden, since I haven't got any crowns to unlock Dragonspyre yet.  I may finish out Grizzleheim before I head out there, just because I have some areas unlocked there that I haven't touched. 

Starting Fresh? Some Tips To Make It Easier.

Totally Unrelated Homage To Sylvanas.

 As I have said before, I am trying out new class/race combinations, and I am making them on servers where I haven't played before.  What does this mean for my new little toons?  It means they are responsible for their own finances, their own professions, everything.

Starting out fresh isn't as hard as it used to be.  Most areas have given you an 8 slot and a 6 slot bag for quest rewards by the time you are level 10. I believe every level 10+ area has a multiple profession trainer just waiting to load you up on every possible profession you could want. Mobs are dropping less garbage than they used to.  This all adds up to making it that much easier to follow my first tip:

1. Make a buddy for your intended main character.  Level it to 10, get professions that you are likely to use or that complement your main's, and send it to a major city.  Even if you are a mage and are able to port yourself to a main city, bag space will always be an issue.  This way, you can use mailbox space as storage, as well as the little bit of bank and bag space of your buddy toon. Make sure this buddy has your favorite auction house add on loaded when you log them in, and use them at least once a week.  Many will tell you that Friday before the kids come home from school is the best time to put up auctions.  I believe that so long as you post before you crash Friday night, you will grab a good portion of the weekend crowd, who spend more on the auction house.
2. Sell everything!  Being new to a server, it is best to grab two gathering professions. Now that you are able to track more than one item while you are in the world, you are no longer limited to having one tracked and adding skinning. During the lower levels, I am finding that herbs sell better than ore, probably due to the high cost of converting Cataclysm herbs down to usable low level inks.  There are lots of people out there leveling alts now, so no gathering profession is a loser.  By selling everything, I mean everything.  If you must level your cooking, do it, but try and send raw meats to your buddy when they are no longer a guaranteed skill up.  Gear, even if you think it has good stats, I would send away, too, and live off the quest reward gear.  Don't discount the value of a grey item!  If you are a rogue and pickpocket items with flavor text or that you can read, send them to auction!  If you are on a role playing server, even the grey clothing items could sell.  Sometimes even the starter clothes are worth selling. If you don't want to bother with auctioning grey items, that is fine, but make sure you at least get vendor price for them.  Nothing is sadder than throwing away money when you are scraping together money to train.
3. Buy bigger bags, ASAP.  Nothing hampers questing, and money making, quite like small bags.  You should be revered rather quickly with your home faction.  Near the flight master in each major city is a quartermaster that will sell you a 16 slot bag for 2 gold when you are revered.  This is a large upgrade for a small amount of change.  When you can, upgrade all your bags to netherweave bags (or, if you find them at a good price, traveler's backpacks).  These right now are running as low as 6 gold all the way to as high as 20 gold per server. Look for good deals, and replace when you can. If you hit revered with a second faction before you can afford to fill all your bag slot with 16 slot bags, go to that faction's quartermaster and grab their bag, too. Oh, and don't forget your buddy.  Throwing him a bag every once in a while won't hurt, and will make selling you mountain of loot faster.
4. Be prepared.  If you are starting the day, the dungeon queue, or a long quest chain, empty your bags.  Make sure you have the food, drink, and other items you must have, and repair. Running out of water, bandages, food, and bag space all just slow down your momentum, which slows down your money making.
5. Take a break.  I roll up a buddy character not only for banking, but to level.  Their main base is a main city, but they quest while the main is gaining rested experience.  It helps me keep from tiring of the main character, which is a big help.

That is all I do. Doing this, I have been able to upgrade to 16 slot bags on my hubby's toon, my main toon, my bank toon, and send 100 gold to the guild bank, buy glyphs for both my main and my bank,  train them both in professions and skills, buy mounts for my two toons, and even buy a few materials for my bank toon (who is an engineer), to make a few items she could not gather for herself.

I didn't follow my rule completely on my new server, and I am sure I lost a lot of profit by using the herbs the priest has been gathering to level her alchemy.  I also have lost quite a bit by not selling all the raw ore my engineer is using.  Nevertheless, I am not feeling the pinch, with 16 gold in my bank's pocket and all mounts and bags taken care of with only glyph purchases in the near future, and several auctions waiting to be sold. If you count the bags, glyphs, guild bank gift, and mounts, I have made almost 500 gold on this server, with one toon at 33 and the other at 26. Imagine if I had followed the rules and not decided to level crafting professions?

Must...Write...Post.

Will we see this paintings outside Gilneas?

Hey everyone!  I know it has been forever.  I really don't have much to say these days that everyone else out there isn't already saying.  Cataclysm, and before that the Shattering of Azeroth, have pretty near blown me away.  All the new content that I am slowly digesting (Delgada is at an anemic level 82) gets to be a little overwhelming sometimes.


I have plans.  I really want to roll one of every race up, except for the Draenei and Blood Elf, to experience the new starter zones.  So far the only ones I have done are the worgen and troll, and last night I started out the goblin area. Like many bloggers out there are saying, I, too, find the beginning questing so involving that the levels just fly by.  The stories are engaging, and immersive.  Yeah, I get that I am not really the chosen one, but does it hurt to believe it for just as long as it takes to get the hell outta Dodge?

The ruins of Quel'Dormir.

As for my eighties, I have hardly touched them.  Delgada is almost done with Vash'jir.  As soon as she could get back to the mainland, she did, because I stupidly threw her onto the boat without training her professions so she could level them. Thankfully, she is not a gatherer, so all the items she needed to level were already in her bag when she did eventually train, and her tailoring and enchanting are now being worked on.  While in the Undercity, Delgada picked up archaeology, and she hasn't gone back to questing.  She found her first rare last night, piecing together bits of Elven relics.  The Highborne Soul Mirror is a neat toy (and if you have been reading at all on this blog, you know how Del loves her toys) that puts out a ghostly duplicate of the user next to them.  The image turns and watches you as you move, but doesn't leave the place it was cast.  I was surprised to get such a neat thing so early in the leveling, as Delgada is only about 165 skill points in.

My horde guild, KNR, has progressed to level 4.  There are about 12 people at 85 already.  Last night one of our guild mates linked their latest piece of gear in chat,and I about died laughing.  The Emberstone Staff, complete with the same old graphics, dropped for him off a boss in Heroic Deadmines!  I know, this is all old news to anyone paying any attention to the kajillion WoW bloggers out there, but I still find it silly (which is really one of the reason I play, for the silly stuff!) that someone would want to go back to an old instance and get the gear they leveled out of by level 25.

If it's far, we give you a car...riage.

I mentioned earlier I had tried out the Worgen starting zones.  I have more than tried them out.  I now have 3 worgen out of there. I don't have any plans to level more, yet, as I think a druid, mage, and rogue are plenty.  The rogue replaced my night elf druid who was the replacement my now level 63 draenei hunter as a bank alt.  Not that I don't plan to level her, just that she is kinda low on the totem pole.  I really want to have a druid at max level, and the last of the three worgen is the one I am leveling.  Her name is Dearbre, and I am leveling her as a restoration druid.  Dearbre is Catalan for of the tree.  Talk about forcing myself to stay a healer!  She is closing in on level 30 pretty quickly. 

My husband, his best friend and I started out together as worgen.  We joined my alliance guild, Illuminati Order, which is also a level 4 guild, and grabbing achievements left and right.  Here is a picture of the three of us, fresh level one characters in our cool starter clothes.

A priest, a mage, and a warlock looking for adventure!

Then, several quests later, in our top hats and wedding dresses...

Yes, this was a candid shot.

Here's my mage, on a horse.  Why, because she looks so good on it!

Black Beauty.

Last night I started leveling a goblin. I got in trouble, because hubby wanted to level one with me, but I didn't want to wait anymore.  Here is Bittsee, who is sure to be the next Trade Princess, in her hot rod.

Rolling with my homies.

Bittsee's coming out party...

Smog, palm trees and swimming pools.  Kezan, or So Cal?

That is all I have for now.  I am itching to get Dearbre out of Ashenvale, and into mining something she can level her engineering with.  How is Cataclysm treating you?  I'd love to hear from you (pokes blog with a stick to see if it is still alive).

Last Minute Preparations

As the sun sets off the coast of Azshara...

Midnight Tuesday morning is coming up awfully fast.  Instead of doing what I should be doing to get ready for Cataclysm launch, I'm leveling a troll druid.  What should I be doing to get ready?  Here's a list of things I should have started over a month ago to be ready for what is coming in less than 28 hours.

1. Cleaning and bag space.  All my characters need to be gone through and cleaned up. There should be no extra pieces of gear hanging around for just in case, no leftover garbage like old arrows and vials, nothing that will not be used. There should be food, drink, a hearth stone, the necessary profession tools and supplies, and maybe some potions and flasks. Upgrade your bags to something bigger, if you can.
2. Talents and Glyphs should be set, with glyphs learned and maybe a small stack of powder to wipe out the old in favor of what new glyphs come.  
3. Get the hell out of Dalaran.  Seriously, what good will that town do for you?  Park yourself in a nice, quiet, centrally located main city to wait out the last hours. Oh, and don;t forget to set your hearthstone!
4. Professions.  If they are not at max level, get them as close as possible.  Gathering professions will be crucial at the start out of Cataclysm. The materials for older recipes will become pricier as less people will be leveling (and gathering) through this past expansion.  Professions that aren't up to your level make you no money, so skill them up quick.
5. Clean out your alt closet.  Take a good look at any character below 40, and even some above, and decide whether they will be sticking around.  Exceptions being current projects like that Tauren paladin you've fallen in like with, or that twink/bank alt that would cost too much to replace.  Chances are you have a few alts whose professions aren't up to snuff, whose quest logs are old and dusty, who weren't even worthy of adding with your main guild.  Clean 'em out, strip em down, send the profits to the leveling character of your choice, and delete them. If you are as avid an alt-aholic as I am, you will need the space.
6. Clean out your quest log.  If you have no plans on finishing it, abandon it.  You can always come back to the area and pick it up later, especially if it was an Outlands or Northrend quest. Abandoning these quests should delete any quest items you might have, but go through and check just in case.  Keep the furbolg transformation stick, toss the garbage. 

That's all I have.  I'm not one to stockpile low level materials to level a new profession on a new character, since I think that they can probably gather all they need as they go.  I won't buy bags for them either, since I usually make them earn their own. They end up with enough money on their own as well, if they keep only their quest rewards and sell the rest. I'm so stingy I won't even buy them heirlooms.

As for my level 80 characters, I think they are ready.  Delgada, Carlotta, and Maura have all their professions leveled. Shawndra is a little behind on her enchanting, so she will probably be leveled after I start a goblin.  They may still have some odd garbage in their bags, and old quests in their logs, and be without of any helpful food or drink. I'm pretty sure I even checked their talents and glyphs.  Really, though, I just can't be bothered to finish out the preparations for Cataclysm.

Yeah, sorry, I gotta go.  There's a troll named Niranjani who seems to be tapping her foot in the graveyard near the Southsea Pirate Stronghold.  I let her think she had me wrapped around her little finger, and I had to leave her in spirit form to think on this post.

They're cute, and dangerous!

No, really, I have to go.  She won't like me being away for so long! You should see what she can do with a pride of baby wyvern. It's rather scary...

A Few Thousand Words...

Okay, I'll keep this one. Don't be so scared!

Redeemed from Felwood's filth.

Arko'narin

A lone warrior's grave in Un'Goro Crater.

Dwarven Delight!

You are now leaving Ashenvale. Oooh! Azshara!

The new leveling sets will never be so colorful...or mismatched.

This is only missing a blanket and some tanning oil...and you.

Poor Jim.  If he was himself, these would be from him.

A girl and her wolf.

Feeding a teen is hard work.

Trolling with my homies.

Crawling Out From Under My Rock.

Those who are still following me have noticed I have been blogging less and less.  Summer is stressful, and even though it  usually makes me bury myself deeper into my escapes, it doesn't produce any useful or entertaining blog fodder.  For example, I logged into Wizard 101 the last several times and ran my pets through the maze game over and over, pausing to level my Fizzle Queen just for the extra pet energy. Nothing is more boring than farming for pet food, which has been Rowan's favorite pass time, or running mazes over and over and over again.

The armor is pretty, too!

I haven't progressed further than the 48 I attained earlier in the summer with my cleric Eromee on Perfect World.  I dusted her off and took her for a spin yesterday, between pet leveling runs, and got half a level under her belt.  I just cannot bring myself to level further when the guild I am in is in end game content and finding a group is daunting.  I haven't healed for a real group yet, so I am afraid to do it for a random group.  I guess this will be my game I turn to on random maintenance days.

Wizard 101 is at a standstill, still waiting for hubby to catch up, and for money so I can buy a one month subscription to enable over 18 chat.  I was only able to unlock Hametsu village with my crowns in Mooshu, so I am a ninja pig farming fool, when I am not busy leveling one of my many alts.  That, right there, is my whole reason for being a crowns player.  When I am not subscribed, I always have something to do. Ninja pig farming has bought me a couple of pet hatchings, and will probably fund my next house.  I love the storm house, and am happy I can work toward it with gold, but I am also leaning toward buying the mansion in Mooshu, because there are dragonflies buzzing around the place, and it is more suited to Rowan's nature.

We love you long time. 1k gold only 5 dolla!

World of Warcraft is about to take over my time again.  The summer is a bad time for me where any gaming that requires more than 50% of my brain is concerned (Perfect World would most certainly fit into that category, if I pursued instancing), but now that the kids are almost back to school, and I am back to work, WoW can command more of my attention.  In celebration of this, I took Delgada out to complete her Loremaster of Kalimdor questing.  I was so lost before I got the WoWhead client.  After uploading my data, and opening up Delgada's progress on their site, it was easy as pie to find the last 15 quests she needed.  I was so sure I was going to have to do the An'Qiraj quest chain to finish it, but it turned out I missed half of the quests in Zoram'gar and a few in Dustwallow, and that was all I needed. Now, any other quests I encounter will be done for the pleasure and the lore, and not the achievement. All that stands between Delgada and the Loremaster meta achievement are several group quests in Icecrown. She only needs 11 more quests, and a good questing buddy or three. Anyone in Smolderthorn want to knock out some old quests in their log? I'm your gal.

Guild progress on Icecrown Citadel has effectively stopped. Unless some players come back, I may pug around as a terribad holy priest. The last "guild" run was last week, in which three members were guild members, and the rest were trade chat hopefuls. Because of this, I was able to get the heroic version of the gunship, and got a pretty new dagger out of it.  Throughout the run, people were complaining to me about one of my guild mates gear scores.  I know, you know, everyone and their mother knows that 4500 gear score is a little low, but when we have Kingslayers in the group, we can afford one lowbie dps, just so he can experience a smidgen of the content before the whole of his guild loses interest.  I stuck it out until after gunship, having stated before the fight that I would be leaving after. Can't get me for ninja looting and quitting!

How was your summer? Did you vacation from WoW at all?  I'd love to hear about it in the comments! 

What I Am Up To: Mid July Edition

Aside from being slightly jealous that hubby managed to get into a Blizzard beta test while I have been hungrily watching my junk and in mail box for anything that resembles an invite, I have actually been rather busy in other games.  Maybe that is why Blizzard hasn't invited me.  I'm too busy vacationing in the Spiral and in Pan Gu's Perfect World to merit vacationing on the beaches of Azshara or Sen Jin.  Please, if you know a Blizzard employee that has any pull, have them read this heartfelt apology.  I would rather vacation in a beta version of Azeroth than any other digital paradise.  Please, I promise I'll even write letters of my travels to them, complete with reports of nasty bugs that need extermination.  Delgada and her girlfriends are dying (or undying) to see something new!

Her armor beautiful, isn't it?

Since I mentioned my holiday escapes, I should at least tell you what I have been doing.  Eromee, my main vacationing character, is nearing level 50 in Perfect World.  I broke down early and bought an inventory stone and an outfit, which led to another 10 dollar outlay for more clothes and some random dyes to make a skirt and shirt fit better into Eromee's wardrobe.  The game world is beautiful, and the game play is easy to figure out.  Unfortunately, it is more click friendly, and remapping keys is a formidable task. I was playing it rather exclusively with a splinter group off a faction split of HVND called Wanted, who are a great bunch of people.  I am taking a small break, though, and back playing Wizard 101.

Disregard the blue pig-tailed mismatched character to the left.  She belongs to my daughter.

My main character in my vacation in the Spiral is Rowan Trollstalker, who rounded the midway mark of the thirties and is rapidly approaching level 40.  Hubby has joined me, and is working on catching me.  We are buying areas instead of subscribing, which will afford me hours of entertainment when Rowan is too old to get any benefit from them.  Rowan is currently working her way up the tower of Big Ben in Marleybone, trying to get to Meowiarty.  It is a tough climb, and Rowan is being very cheap, not buying new gear, though there is a nice fire/life robe on the auction house that she'd love to have.  See, she is saving her gold so she can buy the Thunder house.  It will cost her 60,000 gold pieces, and she is determined to only spend crowns on unlocking areas.  She's more than a third of the way to her goal closing in on halfway. If Rowan is really good this coming week, she could be standing (cruel KingsIsle, providing lovely couches and chairs, but not letting the characters sit on them!) in the middle of an unending storm.
 

Brew, anyone?

So, Rowan is more active than Eromee this last part of July for that reason.  Eromee cannot hope to get a drop of fashion items or wings or even a wedding set in the Perfect World, because those items are only available through the cash shop or through enterprising players who have more real money to throw at the game that sell these items for millions of coin in their cat shops. Millions of coins are hard to come by, since I am not a game economist.  Rowan, on the other hand, has the chance to get a mount to drop or crown shop gear off higher end bosses, and can purchase certain mounts and houses with in game currency if she works hard enough. There are no ways to make more than anyone else that puts their spell book to the grindstone, since you don't price your items in the auction house, and cannot trade anything but treasure cards to other players.  So, Rowan lives the high life, or can aspire to it, while Eromee wanders her Perfect World broke, but with some fashion sense.

Cute, but expensive.  To think I paid fifteen bucks for all those pixels.

That's what I have been up to.  Exciting?  Probably not, but the desert area I live in has been extremely hot (as expected) and really humid (not expected), so aside from trips to Walmart and the Playplace at McDonalds, virtual worlds have been my vacation.  I leave you with a video of the storm house, as taken by Youtuber wizard101extreme. Who wouldn't want this steam punk dream house?