Cross Faction Conversations

Warning: Bad Language ahead.

The other night I was minding my own business popping on and off different characters when I noticed I had a pending battle net friend request.

Now previous to logging my latest lowbie Druid I had helped Mr Harpy once in a 2 v 2 against a Mage and Death Knight, both of whom out geared his little Fire Mage and both of whom were in Dun Morogh. I then logged onto another character to continue faffing around with my alt collection.

My issue with this is as follows. Blizzard doesn’t allow us to speak the same languages in an attempt to cut angry communications between the factions and yet this rather upset player just had to click on my character to whisper me this  abusive message. I know I’m especially sensitive at the moment as my depression is staging a rather determined coup d’etat but why should I have to read the rantings of a complete stranger who apparently wished to engage in world pvp and than decided that they didn’t without them having to go through the hassle of making a lv 1 character on my server, logging in, escaping the start video, putting me on ignore to stop any return comments I may wish to make and then typing out an essay on why I suck. Now I know that plenty of pvp heroes do exactly that as illustrated by exhibit A below:

This charming missive was sent to Mr Harpy by a Lv 90 Deathknight who he encountered killing level 12s in Westfall but why make it easier for everyone to throw their toys out of the pram.

I would much rather that you could indicate that you wished to become “friends” with someone and then they had to accept either out of curiosity or because they knew who you were before chatting was allowed. I’m sure there are lots of friendly messages passed back and forwards this way but it only takes a few people spewing hatred (this is one of the “nicer”messages the two of us have received) to ruin what was meant to be fun pvp and your night playing WoW.

Failing that, let us learn other languages properly. I would imagine a proper epic quest chain with lots of random wandering around Azeroth, collecting of weird ingredients, single person scenarios and much reading of dusty tomes (probably the sort which spawn angry ghosts) before you mysteriously understood what the other faction was saying.

A Vexation of Vermlings

I’m a big fan of Woop’s collective noun posters and thanks to a passing comment Tome left I found myself playing around.

I wonder what collective nouns would apply to the rest of Azeroth’s fauna?

What the future holds for Vereesa and Jaina: Idle Speculation time

So Aggra isn’t getting to go on the big time traveling adventure but what about Jaina and Vereesa Windrunner?

Garrosh effectively took everything from them. You can’t be a ruler with no one to rule, when your citadel lies in broken ruins and your people are nothing more than dust on the wind. Without a husband, you are no longer a wife.

Wouldn’t it make sense then for them to lead the Alliance efforts on Draenor. Not only would they balance out the War”lords” of the Horde but they might even manage to find a sort of peace or at least resolution under Draenor’s sun. After all, what exactly do they have at home other than empty memories? The Night Elves have been hit hard by Orcish incursions into Ashenvale and Tyrande’s place therefore should be at home helping her people recover. Ditto for Varian, campaigns abroad have hurt the local populace badly and surely allowing the future heir to the throne to be bouncing around in a different time is asking for disaster (after all Pandaria showed he doesn’t have a great deal of self preservation). I can’t imagine any of the Council of the three Hammers volunteering because their absence would create a vacuum and the Gnome King doesn’t appear to count. Velen should be around but he seems more of a back seat driver than someone who wishes to be out on the front lines so there would definitely be space for them to take a leading role.

At the heart of it when guilt is so absolute, there is little difference between Justice’s stone sword and heavy scales and Revenge’s blade in the back, her parting shot laced with poison. Sisters under the skin those two and you don’t need to be a Frost Mage to understand that revenge (or justice) is a dish best served cold. Surely nothing on Azeroth would be able to stop them going in pursuit of Garrosh to stop him causing any further mischief.

It would also allow Blizzard to tie in Alleria’s return. Perhaps the reason we never found her and Turalyon when we went to Outland was because somehow they were pulled back into the past and another time line. The Windrunner Sisters versus Garrosh could be a headline event that even some of the most jaded WoW players would be queuing up to see. Plus in an Orc-centric expansion, an Orc hater like Alleria surely belongs on the front line boosting morale.

From a story perspective this would make sense and allow for interesting developments and potential confrontations. Would Alleria and Vereesa fall into each others arms? How would Sylvanas feel about her missing sister being alive and well? Could a family reunion be on the cards? Would it bring further change to the dynamic of the Horde? It would more than likely change Jaina’s feelings towards Vereesa if she expressed an interest in starting a relationship with Sylvanas again with Alleria as a cataclyst and right now, Jaina seems to need all the friends she can get. Once again she is walking down a fine and dangerous line and perhaps this is the change she needs. A line from the Benediction quest has remained firmly stuck in my mind, one which would apply so well in this situation:

I never stated that you were here to redeem yourself, priestess. You are here to redeem me and the innocents murdered while trying to escape Stratholme. My spirit and the spirit of those lost are bound here, cursed to endlessly relive our own tragic deaths.

It’s too late for her to do anything about the people of Theramore but maybe in each Draenei life she saves, she could find some redemption and passing peace. Hopefully this would also stop Blizzard having to write a “possessed by the ghost of Arthas, random angry Dragon, Old God or other evil creature” story line in the future to explain her actions and Jaina could return to relative normality, possibly by falling into another doomed relationship.

A Screenshot A Day: Days 10 through 16

I’ve failed so far this month with the A Screenshot A Day January Challenge but I thought I’d have a little go at playing catch up (with a few skipped prompts).

Day 10 – Man Made

Day 11 – Looking Down

Day 12 – Colourful

Day 13 – Makes me Smile

Day 14 – Three Things

Day 15 – Black and White

Day 16 – Sun (God)

MoP Bucket List – One Month Later

All in all the Christmas Holidays and the very act of making a list proved quite productive.

(Everything in red, blue or black was already on the list. Items in green are new additions).

Non-character specific

• Reach 14000 achievement points. I’m currently at 13215 so that’s quite a bit to go but I have plenty of options to tick off. I’m now sitting at 13485 so whilst there is still quite a long way to go, at least I made some headway.
• Get a Magical pet to 25. Done. Basil the Twilight Fiendling has reached his 25th season.
• Get an Elemental pet to 25. Done. The annoying Audreytwo otherwise known as the Singing Sunflower also reached the level cap.
• Defeat Garrosh and my stupid lack of self confidence at the same time.
• Make a decent amount of gold to enter the expansion with. I hate being broke even more than I hate farming.
• Explore Vashj’ir properly. This is the only exploring achievement I still haven’t completed. Done by my Gnome rogue so now I never need return unless I want to!

Dulcamara

• Make friends with everyone on the farm. Done and as it turned out, it was surprising easy. I just spent a few minutes flying around in between doing the cooking daily as well as heading to the Valley for some between battlegrounds buried treasure pick ups.

• Get Cooking to 6oo, do the Master of the Ways and pick up the Cooking School Bell
• Farm the other 8000 Dinosaur Bones I require for the mount
• Complete rank 6 in the Brawler’s Guild as a Mistweaver. Done. I’m now working my way through rank 7.
• Get Endless Healer on the Proving Grounds.
• Master of Alterac Valley, only 33 graveyards to go.

Snowflower

• 35 reputations ticked off. One more to go and I’m currently farming it as this goes to press.
• Exalted with the Oracles
• Collect Oracle Eggs until one miraculously turns into a Dragon. Hah…. I can’t give the pets away at the moment.
• Fish up the remaining coins I need from the Dalaran fountain.
• Argent Tournament goodies. I need more tokens to be able to buy the mounts I still have outstanding. Still quite a long way to go here although I did score myself a Unicorn Mount.
• Finish up Frostbitten

Briarrose

• Briarrose is my long forgotten original Druid currently rusting on a massively imbalanced (not in her favour) PvP server, stuck at lv 73 she needs some love mostly because she has awesome bits and bobs in her bank and can rightfully wield the original vanilla PvP set. Sure the Druid version isn’t my cup of tea but I am rather partial to the staves so she needs to find herself some Boomkin gear and get slaughtering.

Calantha

• Finish farming the Oshu’gun Crystal Powder I need (in the region of 300ish) to grab the two Halaa mounts. I already have the tokens you get from pvp, it’s just the grind I’ve been putting off.

Anann

• Level so that I can tame one of these beauties. Very much a work in progress.

Shared Topic Mountable Mounts

This week the Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth is:

So what are your top 5 mounts – or just the ones you go to all the time because you like the way they ride? What are the ones you really dislike and can never bring yourself to use – does it rub against your collecting nature (if you have one) to buy all the mounts even though you know you will never use them?

Suggested by Dragonray.

In no particular order, these are my favourites:

Jade Pandaren Kite – This is a winner as far as I’m concerned partly because of the colours but also because I’m surfing across the sky on a giant kite. It’s fairly hard to beat that as a thrill ride.

Ironbound Proto-drake – Otherwise known as Spike. I’ve loved this mount ever since my then guild completed the meta achievement for him way back in Wrath. Sure it’s questionable whether Brann should be mailing people dragons but I’ve been a mostly responsible owner ever since. I even let him eat the odd Troll.

Azure Water Strider –  What’s not to like. It walks on water and is a giant salmon coloured bug. Bow down to our aquatic overlords!

The Headless Horseman’s Mount – Anyone who knows me will know that I’ve been in love with a certain legend of Sleepy Hollow for a very long time. I’ve seen pretty much every movie or tv show based around the story, I even have the talking book on my phone and am seriously tempted to buy this. Therefore how could I not covert this mount. The fact that it’s a flying horse definitely adds to it’s appeal.

Amber Scorpion – It’s a giant evil Scorpion, just the perfect mount to charge into battle on.

As for those I actively dislike, the jewel-crafting mounts that everyone else seems so fond of definitely make the list. They are followed by this:

The decidedly creepy Albino Drake with  all the Elekks bringing up the rear.

I try and vary the mounts my alts use although the Headless Horseman’s reins does feature quite heavily mostly because there aren’t any wings flapping around annoying me whilst I travel. In fact I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of my 157 mounts never see the light of day now that mounts are shared across the account.

20 Days of Blogging: Your workplace/desk

Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog
Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW
Day 04 – Your best WoW memory
Day 05 – Favourite item(s) in game
Day 06 – Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)
Day 07 – The reason behind your blog’s name
Day 08 – 10 things we don’t know about you
Day 09 – Your first blog post
Day 10 – Blog/Website favourites
Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws
Day 12 – A usual day in your life/online time
Day 13 – People (players/bloggers) that you admire
Day 14 – This upsets you
Day 15 – Your desktop background (on your computer) and why you chose it
Day 16 – Things you miss (post Cataclysm)
Day 17 – Your favourite spot (in game or outside it)
Day 18 – Your favourite outfit
Day 19 – In your bags/bank
Day 20 – If this was your last day playing WoW, what would you do?

I started Saga’s challenge back in March 2012 and as you can see from the list above, still haven’t come anywhere close to completing it.  Hopefully 2014 will be the year which brings closure to a number of things, this list of prompts included.

This is the chaos which passes for my desk area these days. I have a bad habit of sticking anything and everything which takes my fancy to the wall, sketches of my own, postcards, printouts of graffiti, poems and a tooth fairy bag containing one of my four wisdom teeth. Yes my keyboard could probably do with a clean and I have a tendency to harbor all my junk around my monitor. The little witch sitting on the right hand side is Vera from Veracruz, a Halloween gift who was carried across Mexico and then the Atlantic from her home town, squished in amongst books, clothes and a giant wooden skeleton. The silhouette postcard of the witches flying before a full moon attached to the pink pinboard I’ve had since I was a little girl. It’s traveled across Europe and survived surprisingly well. There are homages to many of my favourite things, Moomins (long story), spaniels, Dracula and Klimt as well as a few random wild cards thrown in. In fact, it’s the story of my life give or take a few bits and pieces.

Here we have  a little close up of said “junk”, including my plush windrider cub, my wind-up glow in the dark skeleton and a pin cushion (always handy for a spot of poppet stabbing should other players annoy).

 

Days 1 through 5: A Screenshot a Day

I was flicking through my blogroll and when I came across Tycertank’s January Screenshot Challenge. Now I can think of at least five good reasons why I should have carried on going without giving a second glance but always a sucker for screenshots, I found myself “oohing” over the prompts. Given that I’m back to work tomorrow, it’s highly unlikely my prompts will be posted promptly but I will try to make it to the end of the month one way or another.

Day 1 – Lunch

The Draenei have the best food.

Day 2 – Begins with G

Day 3 – My Town

It had to be Darnassus.

Day 4 – Words to Live By

I’ve loved this quote ever since I first encountered it on the Wrath Beta. It’s partly why I like defending in Isle of Conquest, got to keep my hero alive.

Day 5 –  Found

This storeroom was a recent discovery for me and I’m glad I’ve found it. In fact it might be my secret hideout whenever I’m in the Valley.

Resolute

Every year I make resolutions and every year I break them all, usually before January has bleed into February. In fact like many traditions observed in our house, it’s a pointless exercise but as the musical says ….. it’s all about balance.

This year though, my focus will be slightly different. We know there is a new expansion coming and I want to focus more on “spring cleaning” than anything else.

Warcraft

• Gear up my 90s properly so that they are all ready for a spot of time travel.
• Sort out their Transmogrifications. Too many of my characters are still wearing a mishmash of items even though I have so many outfits made up in MogIt. It’s time to start farming them rather than just playing with the addon.
• Clear out the banks. At the moment, especially on the characters I play regularly, my banks are full of junk. Does Snowflower really need enough preserved holly to kit out an entire 40 man raid in Reindeer? Probably not. Neither does she need 12 Frayed Abomination Stitchings or various volumes of Draconic for Beginners.
• Sort out the alt situation. I have a bad habit of making alts all over place and never doing anything with them. I need to go through them all carefully and decide who I should keep out of my 50 characters and who I’m never ever going to play and might as well slide off to the twisted nether.

Crafting

• I still haven’t made the grown up version of my tree of life, which I’ve been talking about doing for around 3 years.
• I want to try and make a papier mache Harpy.

Blogging

• Go through my drafts folder and finish all those half written posts and random ideas scrawled on bits of paper.
• Update my blog list to reflect all the stuff I read.

Personal

• I need to cook more. I have a brand new kitchen plus a whole bookcase full of cookery books which I haven’t made anything out of yet.
• Try and find away of dealing with my biggest issue at the moment which is anxiety in group situations both in game and out. I focus too much on my own performance, analyzing it in real time, searching out flaws which in turn hurts my ability to play properly. It’s hard to avoid always standing in bad when you’re desperately comparing your performance with other people in the raid. Gear seems to count for more than ever, Snowflower hit 90 and has around half the spell power of my Monk who in turn has considerably less spell power than most people, the ones who manage to do LFR and wear legendary cloaks that is. I know that invalidates straight forward comparisons but I can’t help but make them. I suppose it’s made worse by the fact that I feel I should have farmed better gear myself but the thought of doing content with strangers makes me sick to my stomach before I even queue up. PvP I can mostly manage simply because as long as you’re actually playing, you won’t get kicked and you can always turn off the chat log  if people start bitching too much. Although I haven’t logged my level 20 Paladin since she was told by a suicidal rogue who ran into the entire enemy team that she was the worse healer ever.  I don’t know if this lack of self-esteem is fixable or whether I’ve got too many years of my Mother telling me how useless I am under my belt but if I don’t try, I might as well just parcel up my stuff and cancel my subscription.
• Get fitter. It’s hard to believe I was once the terror of our hockey team (yes, the “enemy” players would sometimes just get out of the way to avoid my runs on goal) or that I ran for fun and peace of mind. I like hill walking and love riding, both of which have been massively neglected.

Here’s hoping that 2014 is a good year.