Loremaster! 10/11

Somehow, in the midst of being super busy with that other thing called life, I didn't update this blog with a screenshot commemorating my Loremaster title last week! Anyway, I'm happy to bring it here now, after post-patch mania. In a strange twist of events, Mitter logged out on Monday with 31k mana unbuffed, and now with the mysticism etc, she has 42k unbuffed. This is a bit ridiculous. :)

The Seeker

And so finally, after many long nights of questing, Mitternacht has earned the title the Seeker! Yay! I am about to go to bed, but I wanted to post this quick thing...

I have 21 quests in Icecrown and 197 quests in Kalimdor, bringing a total of 114 left to be completed for Loremaster. Omg, I can't wait to be done. This is totally not something I will do twice. May I never, ever switch mains.

I've Toured the Fjord...

...and never seen quite such a unique (read: ugly) human female model before. This is Olga; why is she so different from the other female models in the game? Why does she have awkward tan lines in Northrend, of all places? I am perplexed, ladies and gentlemen. Perplexed.

Goodbye, Raiding

Just a little look at my UI during Marrowgar 25 Hard mode. I've been working on cleaning it up a bit. For instance, kg panels broke, but I think it looks a lot cleaner without it. I like writing on screenshots for some reason. Makes me feel like Perez Hilton.

I'm approaching my last week raiding with Ruinous. With classes coming up, I don't know how much time I'll have to raid and I do have class during the 25m raids...We shall see what happens, but here is to the good times I had this summer.

Nothing like Sindragosa enraging. Notice how Mitter is just serenely glancing over at the iceblock? She doesn't even look worried...

I've never noticed another guild practice the way this one does. Here we are, practicing the orbs for Halion pre-pull.

Ta da!

When Nerds Have Sleepovers

Kumako and I took the time on Saturday to get together for a sleepover. We haven't done something like that in a long time and it reminded me just how much we've grown up: we've streamlined what we have to pack to just our computers and now play WoW and make margaritas.

We also dance naked for the Lich King.

Recently, Kumako transferred over to Kil'Jaeden and joined up in Ruinous. We haven't raided together since Saboten and Cucchiaio in Naxxramas.

We've also been working on our blood elves, both of whom are level 27.

Here they are in Razorfen Kraul (Downs? whichever one is the lower level one.) Danaë is rocking an Alliance shield and a mace that constantly sounds like she's a cavewoman clobbering herself a man to drag back to her cave. Kumako is finally dressing conservatively. I like this shot.

I've found that as a healer I'm a nice person. I'm understanding. As a tank, I hate everyone. My faith in humanity is gone; you all suck, you bastards. People mess up my pulls and I hate pets. I think I would quit if Kumako wasn't healing. Frankly, this is why I don't play Vigdís as much as some of my other alts. I have to be in a solid mood to try random tanking. At the very least with this set up I only have to worry about DPS being dumb; Kumako is a smart healer.

Belf Project, Take 3

It seems like I'm always trying to level a belf with someone. Saboten and I tried it out long ago, with her paladin and my rogue. We made it to level 13 together, and I eventually got my rogue to level 20. I then tried with Mouse and Ith with my priest and their warlocks. We made it to 26. This go-around, Saboten and I are at it again, with her priest and my paladin. We're set up to tank and heal dungeons like no other. We've been a bit broke, lately, so we're angling for some quests. But they are just so boring compared to dungeons...

I'm actually afraid to tank on anything other than a paladin. My other prot paladin is level 35 and I have to say I am really missing heirloom gear on this one. She cannot keep up threat with mages in full heirloom gear. It's ridiculous. I don't have that fancy gear that you have, so knock it off. -_-

Sabo seems pretty excited about these two, as am I. It's just hard to work out time for them between our jobs and raid schedules. Le sigh.

Happy Tree Firm For Me!

So, I got this yesterday. I'm pretty excited.

The Mana Goal

I had a party when I reached 30k mana buffed in raids. It was early in ICC10, as I remember. The other day was the long-awaited 30k mana unbuffed. Grats to me and my 35k buffed mana. :D

Other than that, I've been spending a lot of time each week wiping on the Lich King. I've gotten used to the way this guild and group runs (both for 10 and 25) and it feels less and less like a pug every time. The first night I had actually forgotten that it WASN'T a pug. Heh.

With work and my commute and raiding, it seems I have little time to do anything else (including my laundry), I haven't had much time for Loremaster or alts. Only Ravindra is getting any extra time right now. He's level 48 and he's acquired a tank spec, although I'm too nervous to actually try it. We're hurrying to tree form before it's gone in Cataclysm.

Frost Tomb!

A True Companion

For some reason, I find it cute that my little robot was in the frost tomb with me.

The Lich King: Please don't slip on the defile.

Ruinous has moved on from Sindragosa to the Lich King (surprisingly enough we cleared Marrowgar to Sindragosa in three hours last night). I don't know about you, but Sindragosa was the bane of my existence. I'd rather wipe for hours on the Lich King than have to do Sindragosa for twenty minutes. Ugh.

Anyway, as a discipline priest, my job is OMGBUBBLENAO. And I finally decided to take some of these addons and really  make something of them, so pictured above is the VuhDo PW:S only health bars. There's only a percentage health display, with colored durations for PW:S and Weakened Soul. Orange is Weakened Soul, blue is PW:S. On the one hand, it's a LOT faster to see who needs a bubble. The flip side is that I'm trained to see those low bars and panic, so I bubble the whole fight in a frantic fit of nervousness. It's a work in progress, although I'm a bit pissy about Vuhdo not letting me assign profiles to mouse binds. When I heal, I want my left click to flash heal, but with this set up, I want it to bubble. And I just have to change everything each time, rather than having set profiles. I'm a bit annoyed by it, actually.

O.o

Here's something you don't see every day...

Server Transfer: Apartment Hunting

When Mouse and Ith told me they were quitting WoW last weekend a lot of what I had been debating for the couple weeks leading up to it resolved itself. No need to worry about not getting to raid with my best RL friends, no need to stay on the server that wasn't progressing fast enough. Frankly, I would normally not ever have considered changing servers. But when the boys were raiding with Mimic and I was with them, I met a very nice gentleman and so, 9 months later when he transfers servers, I decide to go with. I didn't know much more than what I'd been told: more progression, better server, PVP.

Maybe it's not the "right" reason to transfer servers...for a guy, but I am pretty impressed with what I've gotten out of it so far. The achievements above are a testament to Kil'Jaeden compared to Silvermoon. I'm pretty happy so far with the decision to change. Additionally, the real ID feature makes it more than convenient to keep in touch with my other friends.

There's a definite excitement to a new server, particularly when you're going with someone new. There's this fresh air of romance and flirtation with the added bonus of this entirely new server where you don't know anyone. The world is yours. Everything exists for your pleasure.

It has a lot to do with how I'm feeling outside of the game, too. With this internship at an advertising agency, I'm getting this hunger for more. I'm an art director. A designer. This job makes me want it even more and want success. I feel like the world is opening up to me and I want to just take it. Leave behind the old, dreary common areas. Like where I grew up and Silvermoon and the boys, for this fresh place where the people are more successful and desirable.

Interesting how life and WoW run parallel to each other.

The War Goddess

The name Vigdís is "derived from the Old Norse elements víg 'war' and dís 'goddess'." (behindthename.com) I'm not one for paladins. In fact, were it up to me, they'd never heal again. Tank healing is severely unbalanced right now and paladin healing is just ridiculous. But that's just my opinion as a Discipline Priest. Anyway, I rolled a paladin purely for tanking. And finding tanking jobs is a LOT easier now with the LFG system. I remember being so excited for level 20 because I was waiting for all those tanking goodies before actually setting foot in Deadmines. A few weeks later, the LFG system appeared and getting groups was SO much easier.

I've done a LOT of dungeons in the 30s. With the level range of my current alts, I think you can all believe me when I say I'm sick and tired of the Scarlet Monastery. I've tanked it, DPS'd it, healed it. Over and over and over. But in all my level 30 dungeons, I have yet to find a tank that looks quite as badass as Vigdís here. She's rocking heirloom shoulders and chest, plenty of LFG random rewards, a Hulking Shield, and Blade of the Basilisk. I admit to paying 60g for the sword on the Auction House. It's justified because Vig's coolness rating needs to be so high and because the axe she's been using is from the Deadmines. I don't really quest, I just do dungeons with her. She'll have it a decently long time. And it's just so cool.

30 Questions about WoW

By chance, I went down my pitiful blogroll and checked out Anea's "Oh, Look an Alt!" only to find out that she'd moved. The first thing I really see when I get to her new home is a bright new layout, new host, and...a meme. I stole it from here.

1. Raider, farmer, PvPer, or altoholic?
I've never gotten into 25m content (seems more impersonal) so I don't like to call myself a raider...I'd say an altoholic, but I have a definite main. An altoholic who achievement-whores on a main? I think so.

2. Favorite raid or dungeon?
Deadmines. I think. Or Naxxramas. Or...I find that I like the ones I did when I first began playing, so Zul'Farrak. I like the Scarlet Monastery now only because it's short. However, with four different chambers, it becomes repetitive to a point where I'm just spamming Scorch/Auto-shot/Melee until everything goes away. However, having done Mauradon, I can appreciate the simplicity of the short dungeon.

3. Number one choice for a new playable race?
 Dryad. I'm a typical girl; I like the pretty races.

4. Class you suck the most at?
I can't tank on a warrior, which I understand to be difficult anyway (a lot of people claim to not be good at it), but I can get the hang of it after a long time. Mages are the ones that no matter how long I play I still can't balance it right. I die easily and began to hate myself. Nadejda is really just a shrewd businesswoman who became a mage to make it easier to get around Azeroth.

5. Original UI or modded UI?
Mitternacht's UI is modded to hell. It's built off of Aliena's UI, with some additional addons. The font is reskinned to Insomiax. Everything is purple/light blue/pink. It's a delicate healing UI which I've tried to use on my alts, but it just isn't good for DPS.

6. Profession you’ve never levelled past 200?
I'm trying to remember if Vigdís's blacksmithing is over 200 yet or not. That'd be the lowest one...

7. Favorite flying mount?
 I just got the pink proto drake a few days ago, so I'm pretty excited about that. I could never really choose a favorite. My answer is "everything but the gryphons."

8. Nozdormu — friend or foe, you figure?
No comment!

9. Useless item you have in your bank that you’ll never get rid of?
I need some sort of in-game housing, so that I might have a closet and subsequently be able to properly house all of my past tier gear and holiday items, along with pretty or sexy dresses I find along the way. I just don't have the space for everything when I'm only living out of some bags. Mitternacht is one of those women who travels with everything she owns, especially her bunny ears.

10. Most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?
The mats for the 245 healing bracers and 226 healing boots for Mitternacht. It was sad when she had so little gold left after that.

11. Favorite starting area?
Elwynn Forest, most like. I haven't played too many humans and the area just works well. I level more Draenei and Night Elves though. Azuremyst just tends to remind me why I shouldn't like it and I really hate Teldrassil.


12. Inane goal you worked hardest to achieve?
I'm guessing an inane goal is one where you don't get loot or something to better your ability to heal, dps, or tank. So, I'd have to say all the holiday quests, particularly for Cucchiaio, since Mitter has now completed all of them and now as the drake, where as Cucchi started holidays two years ago and has only actually completed two. Hers seem the most pointless.

13. Darion Mograine VS Tirion Fordring, gloves off — winner is?
...I couldn't say, but my gut is Tirion. No idea why.

14. Game music or your own playlist?
Almost without fail my own music, but then I very rarely just play straight WoW, without doing something else in the middle (I count chatting via WoW not really *playing* WoW). For instance, I'm trying to get Ravi to Tabetha in Dustwallow Marsh, but yet I am drawn to finish up these questions. Run a bit, answer a question, run a bit, answer a question. So, I really like to have my own music to chill to.

15. Particular option or setting that you always toggle on a new alt/server?
I have to turn off most addons, otherwise I get this.

16. Highest amount of levels gained in one play session?
Four or five in the 40s. In Mitter's last days of leveling, she was doing two levels a day through the 70s. Her last day of leveling was this chant of getting through 78, through 79, and onto 80. I remember hitting it at 4 in the morning and immediately going to heal Violet Hold.

17. Thing you’d most like to experience or see in-game?
*All* of Ulduar. I've done the Keepers several times, but I really want to see Yogg-Saron.

18. Worst PuG moment?
I have the Curse of Fail Pugs, so I try not to pug much anymore. Most of the funniest experiences have actually been in lowbie dungeons with the dungeon finder. Paladins who said they were healing in prot because it meant protection, which is what healing is. Druids who queue to tank, dps, and heal and try to tank in kitty form because they didn't realize they were the tank (this happens more than I'd like to think about).

19. Best dungeon/raid moment?
I've always raided regularly with people that are actually my friends. Daze was never a big raiding guild, but we knew everyone really well and almost everyone was tied to someone in RL for some reason. Near the end, though, we got more and more people we didn't know personally, but that's because the content was harder. So, even now that's still important to me. Best raid moment is probably the night we downed Putricide and then put in a couple tries in Lana'Thel and downed her. Those moments are just fantastic. And it's great to see how far everyone has come since they started (particularly me).

20. Worst quest ever that you totally hate doing?
I have a ton of these and I won't bring them up for fear of bad memories.

21. First thing you do when you hit 80?
Mitternacht put on her Naxx25 BOE boots from Hiryuu, then she queue'd for Violet Hold and had a helluva time. After Cucchi hit 80, I went to bed. I had no idea what to do with my first 80, whereas with my second I had notebooks of gear that I wanted from heroics and how many badges it would take for the best emblem stuff. Mitter had notebooks when she was only level 65.

22. Character (of yours) you would RP as if you had to?
Mitternacht, of course. She's peaceful and a bit maternal, most akin to myself I think. Way more than my other characters...I just love her so much. Cucchiaio always reminds me of how stupid I was about WoW when I first started...

23. Keyboard, mouse, or both for using abilities?
I heal via VuhDo, so I'm a clicker. I started with HealBot and tried Vuhdo twice before disregarding Healbot. I have an iMac, so I have the Apple keyboard and the response time on it is great, however I notice that the keys are starting to stick, so I don't like to spam on it. There are almost no gaming keyboards for Macs anyway and I really love the one I have. It's why I bought a Razer Naga mouse, so that I could reliably toss my spam heals on my mouse. I don't use the number pad on the side for anything more than DPS. My dots are 1 and 2, casted spells 3, 4, and 5. I do use both, though, for healing. Button5 is target for all of my healing characters, which allows for me to use the keyboard for a lot of my other heals, like PoM, Penance, Pain Suppression. The things I wouldn't spam. I think it's a good system, and one that makes me feel that Grid can't compete. I don't have to go far down my action bar to access everything I need regularly. I admit to being a keyboard turner though, but I also run compulsively while I heal.

24. Thottbot or WoWhead?
Wowhead. Thottbot's layout makes me cry.

25. Acronym you’ve seen in chat but don’t understand?
If there's one I don't know, I usually check it at urbandictionary.com or something. One I still don't get is 'imba.' I guess it's imbalanced, but that just feels silly. Another thing I'm not getting is the "r?" for ready along with its reply of "y." What, you couldn't just say "yes"??

26. Plot point you’d like to see resolved someday?
I'd like to see Jaina not be such a typical, crying girl and I'm a bit curious about the dwarven princess in BRD and her Dark Iron lovechild. I'd like to know more about the races in societal terms, how they breed, raise their children, marry...Regards to parents, etc etc....Another big question, how will the Goblins being Horde affect Alliance transportation in Ratchet, Booty Bay, and Gadgetzan?

27. Biggest thing you’re looking forward to in Cataclysm?
Everything, save for the disappearance of mp5. I want to fly in old world, see the new zones, new races. All of it is very exciting.

28. Guild event you’d like to see?
Not quite sure what this question is looking for, but I'd like to see guild runs for vanilla and BC content.

29. Level range you hate being in?
I'm leveling a lot of characters in the same leveling range, so I'm getting sick of a LOT of the dungeons and zones very quickly. I really hate the twenties. I love the 40s right now. I only play Alliance, though.

30. Favorite map to quest in?
Duskwood, I suppose. It always me of the Nightmare Before Christmas. I also love Sholazar, Zangarmarsh, Tanaris, and Nagrand. I kinda like Shadowmoon Valley, though. I can find reasons to hate all of them, though....

I've been thinking a lot about the changes to restoration in Cataclysm, where tree form because more like a paladin's wings than an actual form they stay in. I've always liked tree form, particularly the idea of playing it myself. My motivation to get Ravindra to level 50-ish for tree form has skyrocketed.

Despite its feminine sound, Ravindra "means 'lord of the sun' from Sanskrit रवि (ravi) 'sun' combined with the name of the Hindu god INDRA, used here to mean 'lord'." (from behindthename.com). I don't quite remember why I gave him this name, but I do like the nickname Ravi. He's often thought to be a girl, but his maleness makes the likelihood that I'm a girl slimmer, which intrigues me. I was very interested in feral and cat form, but with the LFG tool being as awesome as it is and kitty DPS being as bad as it is around where I'm at, I've taken to healing. Like Mitternacht, Ravindra dual specialized at level 40, convinced that he would need to protect himself while adventuring. He hasn't really looked back though. I only ever play him with the intention of healing, so his kittyspec is mostly useless.

Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but Ravindra has found comfort in relaxing activities. It's why he's turned away from bear and cat form to the subtle art of healing. Ravi is relatively private with his personality. He keeps to himself, and says little in groups. His overwhelming personality factor is that he's a bit flamboyant and gay. I'm not entirely sure why, but as a young druid he took a liking to leather harnesses and never looked back.

I'm really liking druid healing in the sense that it's easy to chill out while I do it. I like priest healing more, but this isn't too bad. :D

On Edge

I really hate the Blade's Edge Mountains. I have five more quests and I can't seem to find any that do not require 35 Apexis Shards. I also seem to be killing a ridiculously large amount of ogres that, really, are all neutral to me.

I feel like there's some plot afoot. These seemingly peaceful ogres are being treated like the bloodthirsty savages. Really, it's a bit unfair...

I feel like a backstabber but...

Mitternacht just wasn't really thinking when she got to Shattrath. She was in the crazed, shadow phase and was a bit rebellious. So, she turned her back on her own people and joined the Scryers. Ten months later, I'm standing in Shattrath with a bunch of Arcane Tomes in my bags, wondering why on earth I'm a Scryer. It's actually rather embarrassing to be walking around the other draenei, knowing they hate me.

Anyway, I was greatly ashamed as I turned in over a hundred Arcane Tomes and a bunch of signets. Then I hurried bought my tabard and proceeded to wear it everywhere.

Because it's not yet hot enough....

You can take that as you will, but it's Midsummer once again. It always brings me back to when I was just starting WoW (two years ago, can you imagine?), running Cucchiaio through Sentinel Hill and seeing the little red huts and the festival pole. Back then, there were no achievements and I really didn't know anything about holidays, so I just did the ones I came across while leveling (in Redridge and Duskwood) and that was about it.

This year is very much the opposite. I was poised and ready for Midsummer because it's my last holiday for the meta. Mouse has been asking, "So, you're done forever then? Like no more holidays ever, right?" There are some Brewfest costumes I want, etc etc. But, the point is that when I logged in on Monday this week I was all about honoring and desecrating flames. Rabidly so. Which is exactly why this is the week that a tornado comes, uprooting my power for a whole night (I was lucky, some people still don't have power).

I did this holiday last year on Cucchiaio. Like, all of it. Save for the torching tossing because, for the life of me, I couldn't do it. Anything that requires being coordinated I fail at (starting to get why I don't like first person shooters?).

Anyway, after a ridiculously long time and a lot of grief, plus some frantic whispering to Nevarcien about how to toss and catch and why-isn't-it-working, I got it. I finally got it.

Also, don't let Blizzard fool you; that's a pink proto drake.

Proudmoore Pride 6

World of Warcraft is a community-based game (this, I know, is a "duh" statement), and so a lot of its success has to do with the people that play it. For instance, I probably wouldn't play nearly as much if I didn't have the people I played with. It also mirrors our society and the things we find important, such as holidays like Winter Veil, Hallow's End, and that Love Fool one. Most of these things come from Blizzard to show that our characters have lives similar to our own, that even in a fantasy environment these things are still important to the life of the community and that, regardless of race or faction (and whatever differences we think we see), we still value the same ideals. World of Warcraft isn't as much a sandbox or as community-controlled as, say, Eve Online, but it does have its moments. For instance, June is Gay Pride Month, and what better way to celebrate it but to have a gay pride parade in World of Warcraft. This is a player-created holiday and the first time I'd ever heard of it.

It's called Proudmoore Pride, taking place on Proudmoore-US for both factions. When I read about it on wow.com I was floored. Although it is after the fact, here is the website if you care to take a look. It was for the entire player base on Proudmoore, hosted by Taint (Horde) and The Stonewall Family (Alliance). Horde characters met in Camp Turajo and Alliance in Theramore and they marched up to Crossroads to meet up, and then to Ratchet for the boat to Booty Bay for a night of dancing, flirting, and general merriment. Getting to the event was easy, with warlocks at each place summoning. Each guild had a sister guild for everyone coming with alts from other servers, which I joined on a tauren hunter I created for the event. She became a Tainter Tot.

The parade marched up to Crossroads, with a few different kinds of floats. There were guild that were represented in pink shirts and tabards, along with a bear mount float, a sparkle pony float, and a lumberjack float.

The Lumberjack one was funny, with tree druids and lots of plaid shirts. In Ratchet, it took a few boat rides to get everyone over to Booty Bay. I was there for one of the first ones, but waited behind to see more people. The Alliance were behind the Horde, and I was curious to see what they had. Truthfully, I wish I had stayed for more of the parade to see what floats the Alliance had, although I'm sure it'll be posted on the Pridemoore website soon enough.

All in all, the experience was amazing. The community was fantastic and it was very well planned, with a radio streaming dance music from the website and just this great collective of people celebrating the idea of just...loving who love and are proud of who they are. It's also a really impressive look at the World of Warcraft community as a whole and exactly what it means to the players. This is, regardless, a place where you can be exactly who you want to be, without limitations. There were no nay-sayers, just friendly players and a good time.

It makes me proud of be a WoW player. :D

The Return, along with a new UI

I've been around, doing mostly real life things, like finishing up school for the semester, doing seasonal work at Disney World, and starting my new internship at a ad agency. So, I went to log on today and discovered something really strange. My Blogger AND my Youtube accounts are both being moved over to associate with my Google account. So I had a helluva time getting back into this, so much so that I was contemplating just moving it and reposting everything somewhere else! Anyway, I'm here now.

Been working on Loremaster of Outland, did Zangarmarsh and Hellfire Peninsula yesterday. Working on Nagrand and something else today. Pretty standard stuff there.

A couple weeks ago I got fed up with my crazy old UI and started looking for something else. What encouraged me to do this was actually watching TankSpot's 10m Sindragosa strategy video with Mouse and he kept commenting how he really liked the girl's UI, which got me on the hunt to actually try to do it. With the help of Google, I actually found this addon pack at WoWInterface that contained everything you'd need to replicate Aliena's UI.

I spent about four hours just that night trying to make it look right, almost losing my WTF folder in the process. The next day weird shit wouldn't work. I couldn't get invited to groups, and my BGs wouldn't proc for me. I still can't Need/Greed/DE loot, which I just haven't had the energy to fix, although it looks great. There are a few things that need to be tidied up, like the Cooldowns v. DBM's warnings, all of which I will get to....eventually.

Why are images not working the way they did before? *sigh*

Loremaster

I've been quiet on the WoW front for the past couple weeks with all the final projects I'm working on for school. Not that I haven't, however, been playing WoW. In fact, I've been working on Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms, crawling through the 700 quests. I'm currently sitting in the Grim Guzzler, waiting for my hearthstone to be up, with 675 quests down (not including those I have completed in my questlog). I got all the way to the door two rooms outside the end boss for BRD and realized I needed the key. I will be skipping the rest of these unless I absolutely have to. I have a few left for the Lower and Upper Spires, which will be for tomorrow. I hope to coerce Ith into helping me. He owes me.

I haven't been logging very much on this, although I've spent a lot of time in the Plaguelands, which is an area I really like for the story. Very dark and sad.

I'm not sure I can take anymore Blackrock Depths quests.

Random Screenshot: The First Day of Epic Gems

On another note, I think I broke my blog. I have the organization set up to have comments, tags, etc at the bottom, and no matter how hard I try or how many times I redo it, the blog won't change. Wtf.

Moral of this story: Don't fuck around with your blog's settings. You will break it.

Children's Week, Or Why You're Not Allowed to Adopt a Child of Your Own

I like the message behind World of Warcraft's Children's Week: show the orphans and refugees from war around Azeroth to inspire them and help them in their dreams to become great adventurers like you or their parents (who coincidentally died adventuring). So, you take your little orphan to all the things they want to see, a spooky lighthouse, the Dark Portal, Jaina Proudmoore..(What I truly think is precious is that when you get to your orphan's idol, they're usually too shy to ask for an autograph themselves. Really sweet.)

When I got little Dornaa in Shattrath, all I wanted was to keep her. She was so cute, she had sweet little curious things to say. Being a Draenei also made Mitter want to keep her all the more. She even began to question her life as an adventurer, and wonder if, perhaps, she too should settle down soon. But then, here is this little Draenei child, without a family. Rather than procreate, shouldn't Mitter adopt this little girl? And raise her to be a priest? Or a hunter? (Anything but a paladin, really.)

It turns out that as geared-out max-level characters, we're not equipped to handle the rigors of raising a child. Certain things, like eating a ton of sweet in front of them, is just poor manners, where as things like the Hard Knocks achievement, are downright dangerous and negligent. (Although, I happen to think that out of all the classes, a priest is probably the safest one to leave a child with, except for a shadow priest. That's just scary right there.) Were I one of the matrons, I wouldn't lend out one of my charges to a death knight, for instance. Sworn to the Alliance or not, you still worked for the Lich King for a time. You deal out plagues and diseases, not exactly the kind of environment I see fit for a child.

Overall, I think the achievements for this holiday are far easier than most, with the exception of School of Hard Knocks, the PVP one. It's also the one that questions Mitter's parental potential the most. In order to get School of Hard Knocks, you must:

1. Capture the flag in Eye of the Storm
2. Assault a flag in Arathi Basin
3. Assault a tower in Alterac Valley
4. Return fallen flag in Warsong Gulch.

I made the mistake of doing these on the first day. So, Eye of the Storm was by far the hardest. I always avoid assaulting/capturing in BGs, so I really don't know even where to turn most of this stuff in at. When EoS started, all of the Alliance booked it to the flag. One person would get it, and half of the Alliance team would loiter around the flag spawn until the Horde capped everything. I did this with Mouse and a couple other guildies. Mouse hates achievements, and he hated this one far more than the others. I actually can't believe I finally got it, during the third EoS.

Arathi was easy, just needed to be fast, which I am when doing these achievements, like my own personal Crusader Aura. I anticipated Warsong Gulch being hard, too, with half the team loitering around the Alliance flag spawn. A Horde rogue entered and NO ONE touched her. Kindly, she picked up and dropped the flag repeatedly. I hadn't even thought of it! So, I went over to Horde side, waved, and did the same. This is truly the funniest thing I've ever seen.

It took two tries in Alterac Valley, but I finally got it. :D

Saturday Raid

This is my little guild's raid group for ICC10. It's our only raid, once a week, so we have to really churn it out to get through bosses. Our group is made up of a lot of RL friends, although a couple we've met along the way. I'm so proud of how far this little guild has come. I don't ever want to raid with anyone else.

It raises the question about the difference between 25m and 10m raids. 10 mans always seem easier, more like an alt run, whereas 25 mans are where the "good" players are, the hardcore players, and the better loot. It might be considered by some to be ridiculous that I put up screenshots for a ten man group. I like ten mans more. Each person is 2-3x more important. I like the intimacy, particularly as a GM that likes to really know my guildmates and the people I raid with. (And I always feel like just a number in a 25man.) I don't lead raids, that's Mouse's job. Anything outside the raid is my responsibility, but when we zone in it's up to Mouse.

Recently, Blizzard posted this about Cataclysm's raiding change.

"The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.

We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today."

 I...don't mind this. At all. In a way, I'm going to miss the option to do both raids each week. However, I want 10m groups to have access to the same gear. This will put better, more serious emphasis (I think and hope) on 10 mans.

I know a lot of people are a bit upset about this. What do you think?

Modern Marvels - Video Games: Behind the Fun

I found this documentary on Netflix a while back, but I never bothered to watch it until today. I guess I reached that level of boredom after finishing up Guarding Tess. Anyway, it was very long just, just a mere 50 minutes. It was like a very quick overview of the history of video games, nothing in depth. It only went up to 2000 so nothing was truly relevant. If it detailed how games are now, that would be a bit more interesting, particularly since games (and computers) have come so far.

I'd like to see, in an updated version, the show cover World of Warcraft and the Sims, at least. World of Warcraft is legendary in popularity. 

And the Sims I'd like to see just because the game engine is so cool. When I made Sims for my friends in the Sims 3, I tried to give them true to life personalities. So, when I put Mouse, Ith, and myself into a house and saw how they interacted, I was floored. The first thing Ith's Sim did was go and scare mine (he's like this in real life, taunting me the way a tank taunts a boss, etc.). When my Sim was bored, she paused and then thought, "I will go yell at Ith," and she did! It blew my mind.