WoW Weekend Review.

I almost woke up everyone in the house when I saw this...

I GOT HIM!!

 Here is the rest of my weekend, in screen shots because I want to go to bed.  I'll write a better post tomorrow, I promise!

New Mount

Number 2 of 4.

Fishing for a rare fish, or a turtle.

500 down, no telling how many more to go!

I'm gonna love him, and hug him, and squeeze him, and call him George!

Blacklisted

A couple of days ago, I logged in Delgada, and my favorite paladin tank ever is playing around on his hunter, so I whisper,”Wanna kill Coren Direbrew?” He’s holding a trinket of mine.” He replies,” Sure. Let me log in Graham.” I tease my hubby into joining us, so that we only need 2 dps. Since this is my first day of Brew Fest, I take the portal from Dalaran to Orgrimmar and start doing the Brew Fest dailies. Our server is one of the many plagued with a targeting bug, so I waste about 10 minutes chucking mugs at a robot that won’t be hit. I finally learn that if you stand next to it and chug, you will most likely chuck your mug at him. Two minutes later I am on my way to get my third Brew Fest stein. (I really want a house or a guild hall where I can put my trophies, instead of them gathering dust where only I can see them in the bank.) I get my stein, run the barrel run twice, and then decide it is high time we found more party members. I advertise, and find one. I keep advertising to no avail. I decide to run into the gates of Orgrimmar and advertise there. This requires some fumbling on my part as I turn on Trade chat (I loathe and despise trade chat, so it was turned off). Once it is on, I advertise for one dps. Someone replies, says he would like to bring his warrior. Fine! I wait until he logs in and he whispers for an invite. We are on our way. Hubby portals the group to Stonard, and we make our way to the instance.

Now, I am not one to study loot tables before an instance run. I only know Coren has trinkets because he dropped trinkets last holiday. I have no clue what they are called, let alone what they do. I have a vague clue that he drops mounts and some remote control for a mole machine. So, we get into the instance, take the mole machines to the bar, and begin our piñata breaking. It really isn’t fair to piñata breaking to compare it to the Coren Direbrew fight. When you play with a piñata, you are at least wearing a blindfold. This fight is much like cheating and beating the piñata to smithereens while able to see it. For those that may be new to 80, I imagine this fight is a little harder. Once you have taken the daily from the spy around the corner, you talk to Coren and insult him. This makes him angry, and he has two friends with him. The best way to handle this fight, in my opinion, is to focus down the boss, because when he dies, the additional mobs disappear. During the fight, more mobs (non-elite) will come out of the ground in mole machines, tossing you in the air if you are over them when they begin to surface. Please know, if you are the one to insult, make sure no one else is trying to insult him at the same time. It will use both, and that will leave the group with one last chance to summon him. Anyhow, we only had four attempts, as Graham had done his the night before after reset. I forgot to tell our two pick up members this, slightly upsetting the warrior, but at the time it was late, and tanks with summons were all but unheard of.

The fight begins, and ends, and begins, and ends, until all four insults have been used. Stamina trinkets dropped three times, and on the fourth time, a critical strike rating trinket drops. I only saw the critical rating on it and rolled need. My husband followed my lead and rolled as well. Graham is so over geared I’m sure he didn’t even care. I don’t think I have ever seen him use his Retribution spec. He is the ultimate Paladin tank. The warrior won it, accused us of trying to ninja the trinket for the guild, told us we were blacklisted, and left party and used his hearthstone. I was stupefied. He had won 2 of the three stamina trinkets, and the critical strike trinket, and I could not see what this guy’s problem was. We stood there in the tavern for a good five minutes or so. Then I looked up his character in the armory. This warrior had only one low level trinket. So, he obviously needed them. I wasn’t mad about that. So I scroll back to the trinket and bring the item description up. The second part reads that it increases melee or ranged attack power. Alright, I goofed. I saw critical chance and started drooling and didn’t care about the chance on hit wording below it. My husband says, “I just do what you tell me to do. It’s all your fault.” I try to whisper the guy, but he is already offline. So I look up his guild. No guild master on. I then remember the name of the character he whispered me on, and I whisper him. I apologize for not having read the rest of the description. He goes on to tell me I’m a noob. I told him it was an honest mistake, and that I am glad he got the trinkets, since he obviously needed them. No response. Whatever!

So, I’m on someone’s blacklist. I can’t read. I’m a noob. But I am NOT a ninja. I don’t roll need on something in an instance that would not benefit my character, unless I am instructed to disenchant it. Even then I usually wait until the end of the instance to shard anything, just in case someone decides later on it’s something they need. I hope he never has trouble finding a healer. He made my “I don’t like to play with“list. It’s not a black list. It’s a list of people that need to redeem themselves before I heal for them. I mean really. Take the game a little too seriously?

Catch Up Gear For Shadow Priests

So, you are behind your guild by leaps and bounds. Your gear is pre-heroic, and theirs is post Ulduar. You feel left behind, but you don't want to burden them by asking for runs in Naxxramas when they really don't even care to dance another round with Heigen. What can you do?

Well, with the new Trial of the Champion instance, you can bag some i-level 200 epic pieces to help flesh out a good heroic ready set of gear. Everyone is running it, and if you are lucky, you'll find a group that is running it multiple times. Once you're in, stick with it. Here is a list of the gear that a shadow priest can use in this instance.

Belt of the Churning Blaze
Bindings of the Wicked
Handwraps of Surrendered Hope -yes it's a healer piece, but we like the spirit, and the red socket!
Leggings of the Haggard Apprentice -another healer piece, gemmed with a hit gem if you need hit, and a spirit gem, why not?
Mantle of Inconsolable Fear -this piece works well for healing as well.
The Confessor's Binding -this is a healing belt. If you get this one and not the other, it's not so bad, is it?
Signet of Purity -a nice ring for healing and dps
Brilliant Hailstone Amulet
Abyssal Rune
Tears of the Vanquished -I know it isn't a dps trinket, but if the healer doesn't want it, who would laugh at you for wanting all that intellect?(I believe that all my spells are helpful. I boycott the exception of my spells from Blizzard's idea of helpful. Phooey!)

These items don't cover all your gear slots. That's okay though. This is where you use the best item from Shadowpriest.com's beginning raid gear list. Let me throw up an example here. HolyNova, who is kicking herself for her bad choice in naming right now, has been building her shadow set, in hopes that one day she can be as dangerous and beautiful as that fire mage over there (we'll call him Larry). She was able to get the wrists, hit belt, hit neck, and the dps trinket from a few runs in Trial of the Champion. She is thrilled. She gems the hit neck with hit, enchants her bracers with more spellpower, adds a socket to her belt to put another hit gem in it, and puts on only these items. She has 107 hit rating now, and some other nice stats. Right now, we need to make sure her hit rating gets closer to cap. I have found for heroics, cap is not necessarily the same as it is for raiding. Still, we should aim for as close to that magic 289 as possible (assuming you have all points spent in misery and shadow focus). She found The Argent Skullcap kicking around in her bank, getting her to 168 hit rating. She healed a heroic Violet Hold and was lucky enough to get Mark of the War Prisoner, which boosted her hit rating to 241. At this point, some people might just run off without a robe and happily be able to complete Utgarde Keep on heroic mode, but we like well dressed priests. It's cold in Northrend! Speaking of cold, Nova has been working with the Ebon Blade (probably where she got her affinity for the dark side), and they liked her enough to sell her a Dark Soldier Cape. Her hit rating, now at 270, is looking more worthy of heroics. Now, our gal has been cooking and fishing and doing her regular daily dungeon quests without fail, and the Kirin Tor love her. They let her buy Robes of Crackling Flame, which make her think of Larry. Another item the Ebon Blade let her buy are Sterile Flesh-Handling Gloves. Her boots and pants have been hard to replace. She's just using her healing rings now, nothing special about them. They have haste and intellect and critical strike chance and stuff like that.

Now, we were talking about farming heroics for gear to catch up with, weren't we? With the set we have assembled, Nova should be able to hold her own any about any heroic. This is where the fun begins. You see, everyone, and I mean everyone, is farming heroics for the new badges right now. How does this impact Nova? As a healer or as a damage dealer, she will find more groups as she is flexible. More groups = more badges, and more chances at upgrades. Should she still run regular instances? Probably not, unless she is uncomfortable walking into a heroic not having done the regular version. Badges are the key, because the items that can be purchased are i-level 213 and 226, which is fine to jump into Ulduar with. Here is a list of items a priest can use, purchased with Badges of Conquest. Pair that with items you can get from heroics (here are some nice i-level 219's from ToC), and Nova can dazzle Larry with her new role as a damage dealer. Fireball? That is so yesterday. Eat a few of these dots and tell me how you feel in the morning. :)

I hope this is helpful for people, like me, who are trying hard to catch up as a new level 80 to people much further progressed. Comment if you found something fun that I missed. I love shopping for new gear!

Pinata Party, Blindfold Not Included.

Trial of the Champion, a new instance at the Argent Tournament grounds, is quite fun. You walk in, grab a stick, and start beating the loot pinata. Seriously. Well, in the first groups I had been fortunate to be in, it was easy. Let's describe my horde party. We had two tanks, a paladin and a death knight. For damage, we had a shadow priest (not me) and a 79 moonkin. Delgada was in her holy form, being generous and healing. We beat down the instance a couple of times on regular mode. Easy Peasy. Now, we are all pretty well geared, with some Naxxramas gear, and a stray piece of Ulduar gear in the mix. I think the reason it was so easy was the two tank set up, and the aoe healing holy specialty provides. I was also fortunate to be in a group with mostly Ulduar geared raiders when Halinka got to go a few times. Much fun, and many upgrades were added to her closet.

Now, last night, Delgada agreed to heal, yet again, as the boys got ready to do their heroic beatdown of the night. Our group for regular Trial of the Champion? Death Knight tank from the evening before, an enhancement shaman, a level 79 death knight, and an arcane mage. This group was painful. The other death knight was not a tank. We got the job done, but we died a few times. Semi satisfied that we were doing alright, we changed out the dps death knight for that same guy's hunter, and we started off. Oh, the pain. We had such a time trying to stay alive. I let the mage and the hunter die off, and kept the shaman and the death knight up to finish round one. Resurecctions were performed, loot was handed out, and round two commenced. It was the paladin, and I showed off my healing prowess by standing backwards to heal the whole fight. Go me! That boss gave us less problems, and we handed out loot, refreshed buffs, and went for round three, the Black Knight. Well, Delgada was not being smart this fight, and stood too close when he exploded his minion. Thanks to my glyph of "you fail so you can have this healer for a little longer", I was able to stay in Spirit form long enough to see phase three of this fight, but it was a losing battle. As soon as he popped into spirit form, he pretty much two shot everyone. So, back into the instance, buff up, and start from square one. The details from here get foggy, it was late, and it was frustrating. I seem to remember it taking at least one more wipe before we decided enough was enough and pounded him into the ground. He dropped a nice healing trinket and pair of pants for Delgada, though. Yay. Just what Delgada wanted. More healing gear.

So, to examine what went wrong on the second time around. In the first part, jousting happens. We were all facing up with different targets. This, just like a regular fight, should have a kill order. Mark them up if you can when they come out the gate. Healer goes down first, the rogue second, then deal with the caster or hunter third. When jousting, keep this kill order just for convenience. It will help everyone stay focused. Keep your shields up. I alternated throwing shield breaks and refreshing my shield ( I had a mob chasing me throughout one joust). Charge if you can and whack them with the melee hit when your charge brings you into range, then ride away, refresh shield, and throw shield breaks again. If you see your mount getting low on health and you aren't being pursued, ride to to the edge, dismount, and grab a new mount. This should help you get through phase one of this fight.

The second phase of this fight knocks you off your mount. Make sure you have replaced your lance with your main or two hand weapon. Our paladin tank forgot to, and although he is the best tank ever, he felt the difference. The tank, or tanks, should round up the three mobs and the group dps should proceed to kill the targets in order. The healer goes down first, then the rogue (those nasty poison vials really suck the life out of you if you aren't paying attention), then the ranged mob. This should go down easily, so long as a kill order is followed and the tank(s) can hold aggro on the mobs.

Fight number two is different all the time. At the beginning, you have a paladin or a priest. After taking down the trash mobs (make sure to take down healers first,who also mind control, and to kill lightwells), the tank will pick up the boss and dps will take it down. Somewhere between 25 and 35%, the boss will force everyone to wait while it summons another boss, this time a "nightmare" from a past experience. If you have a way to break fear, do it, and be ready to kill as quickly as possible, as this mob is healed by the other boss(a renew which can be dispelled), and fears frequently. Once that boss is done, the other will need to be taken down. This is where the fights start to differ. If you have the paladin, he does a holy attack that does a bit of damage that can be avoided if you turn around when it is announced(hence, the healing backwards) and does a hefty hit called Hammer of the Righteous to a player causing 14000 damage. If your dispeller is quick and can get Hammer of Justice off that player, the next hefty attack can be caught and thrown at the boss. I was not able to do this yet, so I will be trying again. With the priest, I don't remember any special attacks, though during the heroic I believe I was being mind controlled (kept getting the message, "Target is friendly" when trying to dps down the nightmare).

Third fight is the Black Knight. He will kill the master of ceremonies, and resurrect him as his ghoul. In the first phase of the fight, stay out of his desecration, and watch out for his exploding ghoul. This phase is pretty simple. Second phase, he will summon an army. Kill his adds one at a time, as they explode at low health. I have heard Area of Effect spells are a no go on this phase, probably because you would have many exploding ghouls at the same time. Take down the boss, and you'll be on the next phase. Phase three, he turns into a ghost. This part is very healing intensive, as he throws shadow damage all over. Use all your cool downs and trinkets and kill him quick, and you will have your prize!

Once you have this down, you are on your way to gearing up yourself and friends. Here is a link to the gear that drops from the dungeon, on both modes (second comment on the page). They gave you a stick, now go beat your pinata!

What To Do, What To Do?

I took the normal road while leveling my first characters to maximum level. No sidetracking to build reputation, no stopping in one place to farm for a certain item, no trying to finish out an area after the quests became less than yellow in difficulty.

Then came the Burning Crusade. Shawndra got to 70 behind most everyone else, for no other reason than she was just slow to level. Carlotta was second to 70, but she hit that mark in Zangarmarsh, killing fireflies for the Captured Firefly. It wasn't for her, she was just the person dedicated to the task. Shawndra wanted it, so Carlotta spent a long time in Zangarmarsh.

Northrend hit, and normal paths to normal leveling happened. Delgada was first to 80 this time, followed by Carlotta. Noone has pursued unusual farming practices, but experiments have been launched on the other side of the conflict, on a non PvP realm.

Is it because, having been playing for so long, that I finally know what I want out of a character? Is that why I have been leveling Halinka this way? She finished out her Gnomeregan Exiles reputation grind today, hitting Gnomeregan for a few easy quests, then doing 17 runecloth turn ins. This amount of turn in did not happen for the other reputations. Why did she stoop to do this? Impatience. I had in my mind that she would have all the Alliance factions in Vanilla WoW at exalted before she hit 60. Today, at 62, Halinka was able to purchase her mechanostriders. She is still happy about it, but I had hoped to have had this finished already.


I logged Halinka out in her favorite inn-by-the-sewer with a drink in her hand. It was a rough day for her, mostly spent in Gnomeregan trying to find her way around. She didn't find Mekgineer Thermaplugg, but she was able to find a radioactive slime sample, save Techbot's brain, and gather some essential artifacts. Not as helpful as she wanted to be, but she was in enemy territory without a guide, and found the entrance more frequently than she found anything else. So, sitting on the edge of the dock with her hooves in the strangely refreshing magical waters of the sewer, she sips a fruity cocktail while she waits for her next adventure.

I started the Wintersaber Trainers reputation grind with her, and she is just into friendly with them. She had also been working on Timbermaw reputation, as they work well hand in hand. I had thought to finish out those reputations with her before she crossed through the portal into Outland, but a guild mate is urging me to hasten my leveling to 80.

So, I sit here trying to figure out how to get what I want and still be able to give what they want. In Winterspring, it is pretty solitary. I run into the rare person as I make my trips back and forth between Winterfall Village and Frostaber Rock. My quests are done rather easily, and I am able to harvest a large amount of herbs and high level skins while I am questing, not to mention the cloth and gear I loot. When I was working out there, I was making about 250 gold a day. Now that I am in Outland, it seems that every Tom, Dick, and DKFluffy is skinning and herbalizing too. The prices I get for the Outland herbs are roughly a third what I was getting for Icecap and Mountain Silversage. Same with the leathers. The gear that drops? I have relisted the same few items now twice. I sure hope they don't come back tomorrow. I haven't tried selling the cloth yet, as Halinka is stll leveling her first aid. On the economic side, Outland is not looking very bright.

On the experience side, it looks far brighter. The only experience I was getting on my reputation grind in Winterspring was from the kills. After the first turn in, the quests only give reputation. The amount of time I was traveling between quest mobs and turn in in Winterspring made my time spent seem wasteful. If only they would allow the collection of the items needed (the meats) to be done much like the beads and feathers for Timbermaw rep, the grind would be more inviting. In Hellfire, at least all my questing is giving me experience for both kills and completing the quests. And, I am cashing in most of the gear rewards, so I get a few gold from them. It's not nearly enough to make up for the loss of income from the items I was picking up in Winterspring, but it helps. After purchasing all her epic mounts, Halinka sits on about 100g (down from about 1700 she had at 60), and still needs to purchase the last epic mount from Steelgrill's Depot. This means that she needs to save roughly 2100g to buy her flying training, all three flying mounts, and her dual specialty by 70. She will then need to start saving roughly 6800 gold for her epic flying skill and cold weather flying. This is not even counting any reputations she fancies grinding out in Outlands (She will be trying for Netherwing and Skyguard reputation, and possibly Cenarion Expedition for their flying mounts, and Sporeggar for their pet). Staying in Outlands really doesn't make sense financially, but it does on a leveling perspective.

In the end, I guess I have made my mind up to stick it out in Outland. I have rolled a new character on Shadowsong, Ellence, a rogue. She will accompany my husband when he decides to play on the server with me. He is taking my normal go to combination of herbalism and skinning, so I will be taking mining and the freebies of fishing, cooking, and first aid. I would welcome any suggestions for a second profession. I'd love the skinning on the rogue for the extra critical chance, but trying to grab a target to skin before the hubby does will be quite difficult! I would prefer an easy money maker, so that I can regain some of the sales I lost moving on in the world.

As always, comments are encouraged!

Be Good At ONE Thing.

Today, while chatting with some of my new guild mates in the Illuminati Order on Shadowsong, one of them asked for help. "How can I make 60 gold fast?" One of the more seasoned crew spoke up, offering up the dailies on Quel'danas, or really questing in general. Then the question was asked,"Do you have any professions?". Go ahead, friends, guess the answer.

You guessed he said no? You were right. The necessity of having at least one highly skilled profession at 80 was extolled upon. Quests don't last forever, daily quests get monotonous, you don't have the attention span for the intricacies of certain dailies, whatever the reason, you need something to fall back on. Pick flowers, reel in fish, skin the dead animals left behind by someone. You have to do something. I thought about this for some time as I mindlessly cast spells at mountain lions, directed children in needed chores, slathered on calamine lotion, and cried during the end bits of "Beauty and the Beast". You don't necessarily have to be good at any profession that is tracked on your character sheet. You could make some seed money questing, send it to a bank alt of your choice, and make your money buying low and selling high on the auction house, stashing away good deals for opportune moments (small eggs at Christmas, snowballs for year round pet and costum use). You could become the expert wheedler, able to get money out of anyone and make them feel you were doing them the favor. You could charge for your healing or tanking skills (sorry DPS, you are expendable, a dime a dozen, and worth about that to any group) . You could charge lowbies for instance runs. You could run dungeons alone and grab twink level bind on equip gear to sell. You could even run a travel service, complete with in flight meals (yes, mages, that was a poke in your direction). Whatever the case, in order to get into any decent end game, you have to be good at SOMETHING!

So, what are you good at?

Lookit! Delgada Has Wings!

They invited me over to play with Loatheb tonight, and they even let me roll! Heroes' Mantle of Faith and Handbook of Obscure Remedies are my upgrades for tonight. How exciting! I even hit second place on our final attempt in damage done. No screen shot, sorry everyone, my UI is skunky and I don't wanna share it!

Another day, another 500 gold...

I found that if I spend a good hour to hour and a half doing all the quests I have missed, I can grab a significant amount of gold. I know, this is not surprising in the slightest to anyone but me. I am actually enjoying the quests I have done. Yesterday, I was questing in the corner of Storm Peaks and the adjacent corner of Icecrown. I really enjoyed unlocking the Argent Crusade area, and made some nice cash and got a new trinket, too!

Toward the beginning of my time out there, as I was depending on the aid of some death knight or another, I found that, if I clicked on their portal as they left, they returned me to the quest hub. It was quite by accident that I stumbled upon this. Maybe not entirely by accident.

"Look, a gear, I wonder what will happen if I right click on that", says Delgada's operator.

Delgada shakes her head and just waits for her inevitable demise.

It was especially encouraging later on, as I got lost looking for Tirion Fordring, who was not in the place I left him, hearing the cheering below me as I flew to the Pinnacle to get my reward. I had (almost) single handedly pushed back the Scourge onslaught. Go me!

So, after flitting between K3, the Argent Vanguard, and Crusader's Pinnacle, I had amassed a small fortune. I decided at around 540 gold, that I would go to the auction house and see if anyone had dropped some inexpensive green 75+ gear on the auction block. I spent quite a bit, then realized I probably had the means to buy the materials needed for my Moonshroud Robe. I purchased enough cloth and eternal life to finish the project, emptied my mailbox and disenchanted all my armor purchases, and transferred a couple enchants onto vellum for easy sale. I milled all my cloth into bolts, turned the regular bolts into imbued bolts, and organized my materials for the next day.

After begging a few friends for their Moonshroud cooldowns, I was asked by a few guild mates to run Utgarde Pinnacle on heroic. Most anyone outside my guild would not know that I did not instance my way to 80, even though I was specced mostly into Holy and Discipline from 70 to 80. So, I discovered the Pinnacle tonight. I took the two quests available, was given the daily quest for the instance, and we went on our merry way. We died a few times, mostly because we were trying to do some of the achievements as well. We weren't able to finish the first one, but we did get the second after a few wipes (healer lagging, healer out of mana, healer dead and reset, darn that priest anyway!). I replaced my robe from the Kalu'ak with the quest reward after one wipe, and all the bosses persisted in dropping leather, even though none of us used it. Even Ymiron dropped an epic pair of leather gloves. Well, instance finished, we all went off on our own. I caught a bat to the Emerald Dragonshrine, and made my last bit of Moonshroud cloth. One more upgrade for Delgada!

Twiddling away my time...

I really didn't feel like questing. I didn't feel like doing much of anything in game at all. I had frittered away my day playing Rock Band, Fallout 3, reading blogs, and napping. But, I just had to see my friends. So Rowena, my bank alt, comes out to sell and buy. But nothing sold, so there was no money to buy more Frostweave Cloth for Delgada to spin into magical garb that she would seconds later turn into a bit of Infinite Dust or Greater Cosmic Essence. Rowena danced with a guildmate, then was asked if she would let Delgada come out to enchant a pair of gloves. Rowena vanished, and Delgada came onto the scene, hopping a bat to Dalaran.

There is no better place in Azeroth, or anywhere else, to spend tonnes of time doing nothing than Dalaran. After Manji's gloves were imbued with exceptional spellpower, Delgada started wandering. She quite accidentally ran into the pet shop and spent a few silver there on fetch toys and pet treats. Then, while looking into a well, fell into it, ending up in the underbelly of Dalaran. There, she saw a meeting of turtles headed by a rat, a sewer croc, a few questionable vendors, and a few riff raff. One of the vendors sold her a pet skull. Not far from the vendors someone had left a flask. Being undead, Delgada drank it down with gusto; What was there to lose? She turned into a Tuskarr. Already in a place with water, Delgada the Tuskarr put a hook on her line and started fishing. She pulled some sewer carp and some magic eaters out of the sludge, as well as an empty vial. Thrilled, she tried to dance, but found that the Tuskarr don't dance, so, transformation undone, she found another vial. This time, the city of mages was full of...only mages! She decided to look at the other shops, but the mage in every store got old very quick, so she put out her romantic picnic basket, sat down and logged out.

2 hours down the tubes! Those magic eaters better sell well!

Look! I got a jar of Zerg Creep!

I didn't go to Blizzcon last time, so I went in expecting...a ticket, a code for a mount, and a blow up Frostmourne replica. I am surprised at the wealth of fun this goodie bag is stuffed with, and the bit of helpful items they included. Some of my favorite fun items in the bag are the starter deck of World of Warcraft Trading Cards, the bubble hearthing paladin ball, and the paper undead mask. As for practical, the hand sanitizer does nothing for me (I'm a firm believer in exposing myself to the icky germ ridden world...it strengthens my immune system!), but the tissue box with the so apt little phrase "QQ n00b" had me and my daughter giggling. Other neat stuff? A special edition authenticator, Diablo 'sin'amints (so your fellow con attendees have one less smell to complain of), a neat button for your bag strap or fave jacket from DC Unlimited, and a mousepad/picture frame from SwagDog.

There were other really cool items in there, but, unless pressured, I'll leave those to others to describe. All I have to say is...WOOT! Tomorrow we get to meet all sorts of people who enjoy what we do, and get to see all sorts of neat stuff, and maybe even get a stuffed Murloc! More later....

To what length...

...would you go to get an item available in game? Let's just suppose there is this wonderful, incredible Swift Zhevra mount, available only to people who get a friend to try the game, buy the game, and sign up for two months of service. Now, let's suppose that you are a shut-in, with no friends other than the ones you know in game. Would you be your own friend?

How about those neat-o vanity items you get from the WoW trading card game? How would you go about getting those? Would you buy the booster packs until you got it? Dangerously expensive, that one. Or would you buy a box of booster packs, and be content with whatever loot cards you got? Perhaps a bit less expensive in the long run, but you may not get what you were hoping for. Or would you go to E-bay? Oh, a friend in need, finds friends with deeds...to your D.I.S.C.O. ball. Do you bid, or buy it now? Or, do you hope that some random person in game offers to trade their code for a large sum of gold coin? Infrequent, but you could get lucky.

Well, I'll tell you to what lengths my family has gone. My hubby loves me sooo much, he bought an account, in his father's name, and put time on it. Maybe his dad will play, who knows? Delgada will be very happy with her new pet! As for trading card fun, my hubby usually buys me a booster box with every expansion set. To date, I have a picnic basket, a goblin gumbo kettle, pet biscuits and flaming treads, not to mention many, many UDE points to spend...firework trinkets, tabards, ogre disguises....I'm a happy girl! Oh, and he makes out well too. I gave him a rocket mount, and the ethereal trader. If he never scratches the card, I may have to do it for him....