Adventures in Azeroth

This was such a fun weekend for me on Emerald Dream, I just had to share. First, there was leveling -- Seya hit level 88! I'm not sure if that happened on the weekend or shortly before, but whatever, my first weekend at level 88! \o/ Two more levels to go....

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So, I keep hearing that the Moon Guard server is really awesome for RP and also to stay the hell out of Goldshire -- for the love of God, stay out of Goldshire -- and I was curious about both these things, so naturally I made a new toon there and went straight to Goldshire.

Y'all, THE RUMORS ARE TRUE. O____O

But wow, talk about a busy server. I've never seen so many people! So I'mma keep leveling (Nelf rogue) and maybe make a hunter as well, and see if I can find some good RP. NOT ERP. Nothing against it, I just...JUST NO. NOT FOR ME.

I mean, I've got toons on Ravenholt and Feathermoon, but it seems like on a server as busy as Moon Guard, surely even a shy person like me can manage a little RP. Or if not, at least I'll get to see what it's like on a server that's sooooo busy.

Is anyone else finding that the prices on their auction house seem really inflated lately? Like, low-level armor and weapons being auctioned for upwards of 300GP, that kind of thing? I'm seeing this from a handful of sellers who are flooding the market with stuff that's so wildly overpriced, I can't imagine what they're doing. At first I thought it was all for the transmog market, but that doesn't explain things like the super-low level stuff that doesn't even have stats, so it can't be transmogrified, selling for very inflated prices. I'm not distressed about it, though it must be frustrating for a lot of lowbies who see gear they could equip but can't possibly afford, but it's puzzling to me, and I wondered if this was happening on other servers besides Shadowsong.

Finally, I've made screenshots!

( Cut, though they're not very big )

It isn’t flashy at all, but I love it. It looks to me like something a hunter — who’s also fighting for her people and for the Alliance and for the world of Azeroth — might actually wear. It’s mostly the Fortified set, but here’s the whole thing:

Fortified Spaulders, Nether Cloak, Val’Kyr Vestments, Fortified Bracers, Veteran Gloves, Fortified Leggings, Fortified Boots, Silenced Blunderbuss. The polearm is transmogged to the Bleak Scythe, but the agility enchant adds a lime green glow to it that just looks bad, so I unequipped it for the screenshot.

I’m especially pleased with the legs and chest. It took me forEVER to find a chest piece that looked right — this one actually looks like leather to me, but it’s mail. It makes me really happy, because I can’t get past this “hunters wear mail now” thing. It seems like they just ought to wear leather.

And the leggings look like they have pockets! Pouches for her to keep stuff in! So practical!

I love it lots. :)

This post is brought to you by the kind of boring, tedious, irritating workday where you (or at least I) think, more than once, "fuck, I wish I lived in WoW." (This kind of day also sometimes leaves me daydreaming of zombie apocalypses, because then at least things would be interesting, if only briefly, and most of my problems would be new ones. I think that wishing to live in a video game might be a step up from wishing for a zombie apocalypse.)

I also happened (not coincidentally) to be perusing Blizzard's artwork, and I got to wondering. If I could live in Azeroth, where would I want to live? And I kind of think I'd want to live in Darnassus. It's beautiful, quiet, it's got a flight path to Darkshore and boats to the Exodar and Stormwind, from which I can get a portal or tram to just about anywhere I'd like to go, the climate is temperate, there's good fishing, it's clean, and I like the architecture. Also, saber cats!

Northrend is also compelling, but so dangerous! Stranglethorn could be a close second, though. Booty Bay is kind of down-scale but you do meet a wider type of people there, and that's appealing.

Idk, it's hard to decide!

What about y'all? If you were moving to Azeroth -- I'm assuming I'd be a sufficiently high-level character not to get killed by wandering bears, but it's up to you -- where would you want to set up housekeeping?

I was up way too late last night because a level 10 hunter in the forests of Teldrassil on the Eldre'Thalas server asked my newly-minted level 12 hunter where I got my awesome new coyote, which I got in Westfall. So I told him, and he was like, "can you take me there?" and I'm like, "um, it's kind of a long ways, but I can tell you how to get there!" So I told him about flying to Darnassus and taking the boat to Stormwind and then either flying or hoofing it to Westfall, and he was like, "cool, except I can't fly," and then he was gone, and didn't answer my whisper. And I thought, "does he know about Griffon Masters? or whispers? How newb is he?"

So later I saw him in Darnassus, and since I was about to go to Stormwind anyway, I pinged him to see if he still needed to get to Westfall for a coyote, and I could show him the way. I figured it'd take a few minutes.

And it was only after we were in Stormwind Harbor that I thought to ask him whether he'd trained Beast Mastery yet.

So, then there was getting him to the SW trainers and discovering that apparently they don't train anyone under level 12, and then showing him the Trade District and where to find the Griffon Master and the gates of Stormwind, and then hoofing it to Goldshire, and showing him the trainer there, and then hoofing it to Westfall, at which point he leveled to 11, thank goodness, because the coyotes are all 11 and it would have sucked to come all that way only to find he couldn't tame them.

And he tamed his coyote, yay! They really are much prettier in person than they look on Wowhead. And then I said I had to go, and he was super appreciative that I'd helped him, and I said np! and hearthed, and logged off, and only then wondered, "omg, does he even know how to hearth?"

I really hope I didn't leave him stranded in Westfall with no way home.

Very newb. When I asked him if he'd trained before, he said, "I think so", and then "I'm only level 10." /o\

I sent him in-game mail this morning with links to Wowhead and Warcraft Hunter's Union and a couple of newbie guides, so hopefully that'll help. He said he'd only been playing about a week.

I kind of think that a lot of new players -- maybe most of them -- see "New players" beside a server name and think "that's for people who are new to the game! Sign me up!" Because there are a LOT of newbies on Eldre'Thalas. So cute! And sometimes annoying. But so far, mostly cute. :)

The Hour Of Twilight patch is out!! I'mma rush home after work and start it installing, before I go to dinner-and-Leverage with a friend, which I would have scheduled for a different night if I had realized! (Which would have resulted in the awesomeness of me sitting around checking the patch progress every thirty seconds for three hours and going "Now? Now? I can has nao? HOW ABOUT NOW?"



And why am I so excited? Is it the buffs to Beast Mastery and Survival hunters? The new dungeons? The buff to Trueshot Aura? Nope! Two things: Bag search, and TRANSMOGRIFICATION. OMG. I am going to waste HOURS trying to figure out what to wear!! *dances*




It's the little things, dudes. The little things.

One of my coworkers typically starts her phone conversations with "Hi, how are you?" Which is fine, but also secretly makes me giggle because she uses the exact intonation of the female Gnome NPCs, "Hi, how are you?" A little helium and she'd sound exactly like them.

Just out of curiosity, do y'all have any favorite NPCs? NPCs you'd like to go back and do their quests again because you just liked them a lot? or NPCs you wish you'd gotten to interact with more?

I finished the "rescue Thrall" quest in one of the Caverns Of Time things the other day, and I really wish I'd gotten to talk with him more. (I also wish escort quests gave you more time for looting and skinning.) I'd also like to know what ever happened between Maybell Maclure and Tommy Joe Stonefield, if they got to live happily ever after, if their families reconciled, or what.

And what about the thing where you're supposed to kill Princess the hog, but then if you pick up the quest to kill James Clark you find out that he supposedly killed Princess? Is this miscarriage of justice ever addressed?

Do you ever wish you could punch a friendly NPC in the face? About half the Nessingwary Expedition NPCs make me just want to kick them. But I really enjoy pretty much all the Gnomes, they're just so chipper!

I am excite!

4.3 Preview - Transmogrification: "Visiting a Transmogrifier will present players with a new interface that will allow them to change the appearance of an item while retaining its original stats. This means that you can raid in your paladin tier 12 Immolation set, but look like you’re wearing Lightbringer, while priests can bring Benediction back -- at least in spirit. Hunters can once again roam the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale in their tier 2 Dragonstalker set. You could even slip into the saucy tailored Black Mageweave set for that matter. You know, with the thigh highs, and the little gloves, and the cute little... ahem."

ALSO! And even better, at least in practical terms, they're introducing bag and bank search, so you'll FINALLY be able to search your own bags and banked items by item name.

So, if you have friends who've been waffling about whether to try the game, check this out: "With the launch of Rage of the Firelands (patch 4.2), we introduced the World of Warcraft Starter Edition, a replacement for the previously available free trial. The Starter Edition allows anyone to play for free up to level 20 without the time restrictions placed on trial accounts -- all you need is a Battle.net account and Internet connection. The Starter Edition also opens up some new features that weren't available in the old time-limited trial" -- like being able to roll Blood Elf and Draenei characters.

AND! "With the launch of the Starter Edition, all existing trial accounts, including expired ones, have been reactivated. That means if you've tried WoW in the past, your trial-account characters are now accessible once more." And once you hit level 20, you aren't required to either quit or purchase, you just stop getting XP points (also, there's a 10GP cap, so you can buy a mount, but you can't get rich). You can roll a whole new character if you want to.

So I mean, I can see some downsides to this, potentially, but if you know someone who you think would love the game, now's a great time to prod them about trying it. :)

( Well, I quit my guild tonight. )

But my rat is still awesome! I think I'm going to call him Templeton. :)